ABCDE METRO sunday, june 13, 2010 LOCAL HOME PAGE 81, 9 a.m. 89, noon 93, 5 p.m. 84, 9 p.m.


Obituaries German artist Sigmar Polke, 69, crossed boundaries of medium and taste in his paintings, photos and 3-D installations. C8


Students recast ‘Our Town’ for big city


Writing program at D.C. school updates another stage classic


by Bill Turque


Mortality casts long shadows over Grover’s Corners, the setting for “Our Town,” Thornton Wild- er’s 1938 stage classic about life and love in a New Hampshire vil- lage. In the last act, the narrator, known only as the “Stage Manag- er,” lists the newest occupants of the cemetery, some buried before their time: Mrs. Gibbs, swept away by pneumonia; Mr. Stim- son, a suicide; and Wally Webb, the child whose appendix burst on a Boy Scout trip. In “R Town,” adapted to South-


east Washington by students and alumni of Hart Middle School, the cemetery scene includes a real and much longer list of those who died young in their commu- nity, with nicknames such as J- Rock, Popcorn, Butta Rocks, Sin- quan, Lip, L’il Ed, Brandon, Swag and Tank.


“Out here, it doesn’t matter


what kind of shoes you wore or car you drove, but there’s some- thing about everyone that does matter,” says Crystal Bullock in the play. Bullock, a Hart graduate and a junior at Friendship Colle- giate Academy, a public charter school, is one of several who shared the Stage Manager role. “That’s the part that stays with us forever. How we remember them tells us who they were.” For the past 15 years, under the guidance of Nancy Schwalb, exec- utive director of the D.C. Creative Writing Workshop, students at the Congress Heights middle school have taken a classic play and rewritten it line by line for their world. Most of the produc- tions have been re-imagined Greek dramas, including “Lysis- trata: Sistas on Strike,” and “The Persians: Tragedy in the Hood.” Schwalb loved the scripts her students produced, but she found that the one-time live perform- ances in Hart’s sweltering audito- rium were usually frustrating. Kids had trouble remembering lines and projecting their voices. This year, she arranged to have it videotaped by a local director, Tom Mallan, who shot it in bits over eight weeks. “This way, their voices were heard. It makes all the difference in the world,” she said. The stu-


hart continued on C5 PHOTOS BY MARVIN JOSEPH/THE WASHINGTON POST


World Cup fans turn out for a Soccer in the Circle viewing party in the District. It has been 60 years since teams from the United States and the United Kingdom last met at the World Cup, which is taking place in South Africa this year.


Kickin’ it in Dupont Circle


Soccer fans descend to watch World Cup action on big screens


by Tara Bahrampour Some arrived at dawn to lay


blankets in front of one of the giant screens and plant them- selves for three games. Later arrivals stood on tiptoe or shimmied up trees for a view. By 2:30 p.m., when the United States kicked off against Eng- land in their first game of the World Cup, Dupont Circle was a sea of sweaty bodies, face paint, flags and plastic noise- makers tooting like hyperac- tive foghorns. As part of the event, Soccer in the Circle, organizers had set up two giant screens to show the day’s games. By mid- day, hundreds of fans filled ev- ery available patch of grass, waving flags from the United States, England, Greece, South Africa and other countries. Shouts of “USA!” rang through the trees. The crowd was largely young and reflected the Wash- ington area’s international mix. Jean-Claude Tounkara, 29, a Malinese American who


The soccer crowd, including Davis Hake, from left, Ben Partington and Tyler Savoy, gives a vibrant show of support.


on washingtonpost.com World Cup coverage


Get the latest updates from Washington Post reporters at washingtonpost.com/soccerinsider


 World Cup interactive map with news, schedules, rosters and standings for 32 teams.  Searchable World Cup historical database dating from 1930.  Biographical and professional background of all 23 U.S. team members, with photos and video interviews. For final scores of every game, text “SOCCER” to 98999.


lives in Silver Spring, argued with a friend who was support- ing England as they waited for the match to start. “This is un-


precedented — people milling in here in Dupont Circle” for soccer, he said, adding that Americans’ interest in the


game and the quality of the team had “really picked up.” “There is a shift,” Tounkara said. “It’s not about South America anymore, it’s not about Europe anymore. It’s about Africa and the U.S.” Elina Teplinsky, 29, of Rus- sia and Salvador Rivas, 28, of El Salvador arrived at 6:30 a.m. to root for Greece, which lost to Korea, and for Argenti- na, which beat Nigeria. “We get to enjoy this every four years, so we’ve got to take advantage,” said Rivas, who was wearing a Liverpool T- shirt and supporting England. Teplinsky, wearing a Greece tank top and waving an Amer- ican flag, was not put off. “That’s the great part about the World Cup,” she said. “Everyone can root for a differ- ent team — and all the con- flicts in the world are forgot- ten.” Joseph Lichterman, 19, a Capitol Hill intern from De- troit, said he was glad to see so much enthusiasm for the sport he grew up playing but which has taken Americans a while to warm up to. “I feel like I’m in a different country because everyone’s so excited for a soc- cer game.”


soccer continued on C7


Marriage-law victory energizes agenda


by Tim Craig


Fresh off their recent victory to legalize same-sex marriage, gay activists in the District are re- grouping to try to remain a po- tent political force by proving they can still influence the out- come of city elections even as they gain more rights. Following the D.C. Council’s votes on same-sex unions, ad- vocates have been extracting promises from candidates to en- gage in civil disobedience if Con- gress overturns the same-sex marriage law and are pushing for additional services for transgen- der residents, increased funding for HIV prevention, and new anti-bullying and hate-crime laws. “The community is clearly very


elated over its most recent victo- ry,” said Kurt Vorndran, a District gay rights activist since the late 1970s. “But there is still work to be done. . . . I don’t believe in uni- lateral political disarmament.” Although same-sex marriage opponents threatened to make the council vote a major issue in this year’s


election, candidates


and strategists said there is little evidence so far that the issue is resonating with voters in a sig- nificant way. Five gay candidates — including two Republicans — are running for the council this year, and both leading candidates for council chairman have en- dorsed same-sex nuptials. Gay rights leaders, many of whom are celebrating at Capital Pride events this weekend, said their immediate focus will be the mayor’s race between incumbent Adrian M. Fenty and Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray, two Democrats who played pivotal role in approving same-sex mar- riage and who marched in Satur- day’s parade. In what’s expected to be a tight mayoral contest, whoever succeeds in locking in the support of the gay and lesbian community may have the advan- tage on primary day. Because Fenty and Gray have similar posi-


gay continued on C4


Dr. Gridlock With festivals and road and Metro work, there are plenty of trouble travel spots. Find out where to avoid. Go to postlocal.com.


THE REGION


Metro’s new safety tracker The electronic monitoring system, to be unveiled next month, will help officials detect hazardous trends in real time better than its old paper record-keeping method could. A pilot program is underway for Metrobus. C3


JOHN KELLY’S WASHINGTON


Best of intentions Lustron homes arrived in 1948 with much fanfare, an answer to a housing shortage. So what happened? C3


Gays aim to retain political power


ACTIVISTS EYE D.C. ELECTIONS


C DC MD VA S


For an artsy couple,


the vine inspiration Ecological threat acts as their muse


by J. Freedom du Lac S


ome artists go to their local supplies store to gather materials. Sculp- tors Paula Stone and Seth Goldstein go over the hills and through the subur- ban woods to get theirs. Coated with bug spray and


carrying pole saws, handsaws, backpacking saws, loppers and clippers, the married Bethesda couple hike over slippery rocks and around thickets of poison ivy before descending into a ra- vine somewhere in Cabin John Regional Park. There, Stone and Goldstein find a mother lode of their favorite sculpting material: the insidious Oriental bitter- sweet vine. “Look at all of this,” Goldstein says, coming upon a stand of syc-


amores. Oriental bittersweet coils up and around the trees, ef- fectively choking them to death. Goldstein admires the geometry of the woody vines when a par- ticular plant catches his eye. “Oh, this is fabulous,” he says, propping himself up on a rock and working the pole saw on a seven-foot section of the invasive assassin. “That’s a really nice piece,” Stone says. “And we’re saving a tree to get it.” Just a few years ago, the couple had no idea what Oriental bittersweet was, let alone any notion of turning it into sculptures. Then, a friend gave them some vines he’d cut. “He didn’t know what they were, either,” Stone says. “But we fell in love with them. They just looked so interesting.”


Stone had a dream about the vines in which, she says, “the


ALEXANDRA GARCIA/THE WASHINGTON POST


Husband-and-wife “weed warriors” Seth Goldstein and Paula Stone labor over a work they’ve named “Serpentvine.” “Normal sculptors would just go to the store, I think,” Goldstein says.


pieces put themselves together.” The retired engineers, who


met while swing dancing and who got married in their front yard, had their own artistic hob- bies (she writes plays, and he works on kinetic sculptures), but they decided to start making vine sculptures, too. The first was a shark. Only later, when they showed it to a friend at the


National Park Service, did they learn that their material was as deadly as the beast in “Jaws.” “It’s the stuff she has nightmares about,” Stone says. Now, Stone and Goldstein use their sculptures to spread the word about the nefarious nature of Oriental bittersweet, which


weeds continued on C4


Salahis’ polo event again mired in muddy claims


Show goes on although socialites lose sponsors after dinner scandal


by Neely Tucker


The America’s Polo Cup fea- tured a match between the Unit- ed States and India Saturday on the Mall, although neither gov- ernment participated in the event. The event’s Web site listed its key sponsor as Kingfisher Beer, whose chief executive said the company was not a sponsor. The advertising for the event promised sponsors that it was the “best sporting experience . . . in the United States and considered the best in the world by the high- est standards of polo.” It seemed controversial busi- ness as usual for the event’s pro- moters, Tareq and Michaele Sala- hi. On federally owned turf, be- neath a Washington sky, eight


months after they crashed the Obamas’ first White House state dinner, the embattled Virginia socialites found a way to put on what has become their signature event. They remain under federal in-


vestigation for their November White House visit, and Virginia is investigating America’s Polo Cup for past claims to have been a charitable fundraiser. But on Saturday, the sun shone, the ponies ran, and the wine and beer flowed — for a crowd of perhaps 250. The event’s advertising put admission at $95 per person. “I saw an ad for it on a bus, so I brought my friend for his birth- day present,” said D.C. resident Blaire Jones, sitting at a table un- der the big white tent near the polo field and fanning away the afternoon heat. Her 27-year-old companion declined to give his name. “I don’t know anything about polo, but it’s nice,” she said.


polo continued on C5


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