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KLMNO THE RELIABLE SOURCE Roxanne Roberts and Amy Argetsinger


THIS JUST IN  Snoop Dogg has been told he’s


not welcome in The Hague, forcing the cancellation of his outdoor concert set for next week, reports Agence France-Presse. City officials, along with prosecutors and the police department, called on the annual Parkpop festival to drop the rapper “to preserve the free, open and friendly nature” of the event. A marijuana charge got him barred from Britain and Australia, but we’re assuming that’s not the issue here because, hello, the Netherlands? Officials did not elaborate on their beef with Snoop.


Snoop’s in the doghouse with officials in The Hague.


HEY ISN’T THAT . . . ?  Rahm Emanuel and Karl Rove


dining at Bistro Bis on Wednesday — no, not together, but in the same room at the same time, and you would have thought every other diner’s head was about to explode. Also in the Capitol Hill eatery, causing a little less fuss: Sen. Dick Durbin and the Illinois Democrat hoping to become his junior partner in the Senate, 34-year-old candidate Alexi Giannoulias.


LOVE, ETC.  Married: Calista Flockhart,


Costner, man on a mission


So, how exactly did Kevin


Costner end up testifying before the Senate about ocean-cleansing centrifuges? This was no average celebvocacy thing — this was business. Since the mid-’90s (yes, circa “Waterworld”), the actor has partnered with his scientist brother in an eco-tech firm, investing millions in machines that separate oil from water; BP is using 32 of them in the Gulf of Mexico cleanup. In the hearing Thursday, Costner vented about the hurdles small businesses face finding a role in the process — “like a video game no one can master.” On the way out, reports our colleague Paul Kane, he chatted with now-lobbyist Trent Lott, who chided him for not wearing seersucker (as Lott was for “Seersucker Day” at the Capitol) and briefed him on Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour’s latest report on the oil slick. Where was he headed next? “This is a meeting town,” Costner lamented. “Man, this is a meeting town.”


thing, as when Congress subpoenaed them after the White House state-dinner-crashing. Now that they’re about to be TV stars — on Bravo’s “The Real Housewives of D.C.” — it’s a no-spoilers thing. What did producers know about the


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crashing, and when did they know it? Why does Bravo PR describe the Salahis’ shuttered winery as a thriving business? And other questions were dodged as the Salahis played featured guests Thursday at a “Q&A Cafe” luncheon at the Georgetown Ritz-Carlton. “There are some things in the show, in upcoming episodes, we can’t talk about,” Tareq told the sold-out crowd. Said his wife: “You have to watch and see what happens.” Walking into the luncheon was like stepping into a reality show — not just


AMY ARGETSINGER/THE WASHINGTON POST Tareq and Michaele Salahi’s lunchtime interview with Carol Joynt got a bit heated on Thursday. One hot ‘Cafe’ klatch


areq and Michaele Salahi have a new reason for ducking questions. Not merely a pleading-the-Fifth


because of all the cameras (none of them Bravo’s, actually), but the tension between the Salahis and host Carol Joynt, the feeling a table could get flipped at any moment, and that all were enjoying the drama. Joynt, in recent days, had conducted a


reality show of her own on her blog, airing her hesitations and confusions over whether the Salahis would show up. PR folks were whispering that, oooh, the other Housewives had bypassed this event for another party we should check out a mile away. And much of the ladies-who-lunch audience seemed gripped by the illusion that they were watching a TV show from home, their wisecracks just a little too loud. It started off friendly. Joynt asked if the Salahis needed Bravo’s permission to speak: “Bravo needs you more than you need them,” she cooed. Michaele said they’d accepted Joynt’s invitation because “there’s no better person in the


community more respected than you.” Producers first approached her, she said, in March 2009. “They said, ‘You always look very stylish, and you’re out on the charity scene in D.C., and you’re very well known,’ ” she said. “I was the first casted.” The smiles quickly turned brittle —


Joynt noting she’d never heard of the Salahis before last year, and Michaele insisting that Joynt had recalled seeing them at a Wolf Trap gala, and Joynt retorting she’d never been to one. Would the “Housewives” money get the Salahis out of debt? They declined to say. Joynt noted the couple still could be charged in the White House incident: “How would you like to spend time in the D.C. prison system?” “There doesn’t need to be this


hostility!” Michaele exclaimed, the smile growing tighter. “You’re like, grrrrr!” A few more questions, then Joynt said,


“We’re all out of time!” There was no applause.


45, and Harrison Ford, 67, on Tuesday— and you’re forgiven if you thought they were already married; they’ve been dating for only eight years, engaged for 16 months. (And they made a very domestic scene last spring in D.C., taking her son Liam, 9, around to the zoo and museums.) The actors pledged their troths before a judge in Santa Fe at the official residence of New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and wife Barbara, who served as witnesses, reports People.


The happy couple in January; the newlyweds have been dating for eight years.


FRIDAY, JUNE 18, 2010


GOT A TIP ? E-MAIL U S A T RELIABLESOURCE@WASHP OST . COM. FOR THE LA TEST SCOOPS, VISIT WASHINGTONP OST . COM/RELIABLESOUR CE


THEATER REVIEW ‘Trumpery’ probes Darwin’s big ideas by Nelson Pressley


A large, mysterious slab hovers above the stage at Olney Theatre Center, a lit- tle like the monolith in “2001: A Space Odyssey,” and the stage itself rests on a foundation of overturned chairs. An orb in the background glows and seems to have a turgid, swirling atmosphere, and a tall bookcase off to the side rises like a tower, with loose papers suspended around it in midair. This grand cosmic set by Jeremy W.


Foil and James Kronzer suggests a world blowing apart, which is more or less the theme of Peter Parnell’s “Trum- pery.” This 2007 drama probes the con- science of Charles Darwin as he wran- gles with his theory of natural selection — or dithers with it, rather, until he learns he has a rival in Alfred Russel Wallace, a scientist also on the scent of this radical new idea. If you think you sniff an underhand- ed plot about the survival of the fittest (we know, after all, that Darwin wins history’s duel for credit), you’re partly right. But Parnell is also interested in professional ethics, and even in the fate of the soul. Those concerns, admirable as they are, lead to introspective speech- es, mountainous climbs that aren’t al- ways as gripping as the bold scenic vista cooked up by director Jim Petosa and his team. For long stretches, “Trumpery” comes across as a hard play to act with any de- gree of nuance or reserve, what with the fate of God in the balance and all that. As Darwin, Ian LeValley plumbs the depths of anguish; the character’s not merely racked about his career, but his wife is a devout Christian and his daughter is on death’s door, so there is plenty to question in the Grand Scheme


DANCE REVIEW


Ambassadors of stepping go far with freshness, energy


by Rebecca J. Ritzel South Africa may have lost at home in


World Cup action on Wednesday, but Step Afrika! won big — very big — at home in Washington. The local dance troupe opened its annual home series with a high-decibel night of dancing at the Lansburgh Theatre. For 15 years, Step Afrika!, which per-


STAN BAROUH NATURAL SELECTION: Ian LeValley, center, plays Darwin in “Trumpery.”


of Things. LeValley is an appealing ac- tor — he has a powerful body, moves with a dancer’s grace and generally cuts a fine tormented figure — but the sten- torian approach to these end-of-the- world matters is sometimes hard to sus- tain. This Darwin has a surprising foil, though, in Wallace, played with boyish wonder by Jeffries Thaiss. Wallace has a broad spiritualist streak that would seem at odds with the ruthless empir- icism of the theory he shares with Dar- win, and this makes him oddly noncom- petitive, not much of a Darwinian sur- vivalist. The juxtaposition of personalities is fascinating. The blasted land’s end of this sci-fi set establishes an aggressively nonrealistic approach to Parnell’s script, which con- templates a range of positions on sci- ence and faith. At heart, the play is a parlor debate, with characters batting sophisticated notions back and forth.


DOONESBURY by Garry Trudeau


But Petosa sets those conversations against a vast eternal void, and for better and for worse that tactic pushes the actors beyond conversation and toward ecstatic heights. It’s not a perfect solution to the play’s windiness, but it’s gutsy, and the implica- tions of the vivid theatrics stay with you well after the show is done. style@washpost.com


Pressley is a freelance writer. Trumpery


by Peter Parnell. Directed by Jim Petosa. Costumes, Nicole V. Moody; lights, Daniel MacLean Wagner; sound design, Elisheba Ittoop. With Shelley Bolman, James Chatham, Nick DePinto, Hannah Lane Farrell, Ari Goldbloom-Helzner, Christine Hamel, James Slaughter. About 2 hours 15 minutes. Through July 4 at Olney Theatre Center, 2001 Olney-Sandy Spring Rd., Olney. Call 301-924-3400 or visit www.olneytheatre.org.


forms every year in Johannesburg, has built its reputation as an ambassador for stepping, a percussive dance tradi- tion that has long been popular at his- torically black colleges. As dancer Ma- keda Abraham told the packed house, the troupe now spends its 10-month season on the road, performing in schools and, thanks to some State De- partment funding, touring overseas. The atmosphere at these spring shows is like a ticker-tape parade, with an enthusiastic crowd cheering on the dancers by name. It’s fun, but it can also feel like a random night of greatest hits. Not this year. The program lists just five dance numbers, but the highlights may have been the segues. The show opened with an electric vio- linist serenading the crowd while a sli- deshow of the troupe’s recent travels flashed behind him. Local turntablist DJ RBI soon followed, and finally, the dancers. The opening number, “X-town Chicago,” was a premiere re-creating a Windy City streetscape. Each dancer who crosses the stage steps to a differ- ent rhythm: a businesswoman in clack- ing heels, a street preacher, a jogger, a frustrated Bulls fan. Put them all on- stage together and it’s not an urban ca- cophony but a step symphony.


CUL DE SAC by Richard Thompson


STEP AFRIKA!


MOVE IT: Step Afrika! performs during the troupe’s 2009 series.


Artistic Director Jakari Sherman can


create works like this because he at- tracts young performers who do more than just step. Recent recruits include virtuosic tapper Ryan Johnson and Suit- land High School grad Michael Alford II, who apparently went off to the Ailey School and came home able to transi- tion from a Zulu high-leg kick to an ara- besque penchée, balancing on the ball of his left foot while his right leg extends straight up into the air. Ballet moves by Step Afrika!? Oh, yes. Makes you won- der what the company will try next. style@washpost.com


Ritzel is a freelance writer. Step Afrika!


Through Sunday at the Lansburgh Theatre, 450 Seventh St. NW. Call 202-547-1122 or visit www.stepafrika.org.


ROBYN BECK/AFP/GETTY IMAGES


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