17 Mini AVENUE Q At the Lansburgh Theatre through Sunday
This show, a sendup of the vicissitudes of young adulthood in the form of a “Sesame Street” parody, revels to a certain degree in shabbiness and the erratic fortunes of the post-collegiate set. Please be advised: This is not a family musical. The intermingled puppets and flesh-and-blood characters say things that will scandalize sensitive ears. The production is visually identical to all the other “Avenue Qs” I’ve seen; the story of aimless, bright-eyed Princeton (an appealing Brent Michael DiRoma) falling in with the various denizens of a blighted New York City block. But for some reason, trims have been made in some songs that prove irksome to a returning customer. The puppeteering here is solid, particularly by DiRoma. If his voice is not the powerhouse instrument you might desire, it will — like other elements of this almost-there touring version — just about do.
Friday at 8, Saturday at 2 and 8, and Sunday at 2 and 7:30. 450 Seventh St. NW. 202-547-1122. 877-487-8849. www.
shakespearetheatre.org. $86-$101.
B EIGHT At the D.C. Arts Center through Saturday
You get to decide which of eight monologues you will see, based on excerpts in the ballot. Each showing of “Eight” features four sketches. So the “Eight” you see may be different from the one reviewed here. All of these monologues, written by Ella Hickson, feature young, crumbling lives in an economically devastated society. Herself young, Hickson sketches with confidence and power a generation of struggling Brits. Barely employed Bobby (Dawn Collet) just wants to make a decent Christmas for her kids. Astrid cheats on, but can’t leave, her disappointing husband. The weakest link is Jude (Kevin M. Costello), a teenager who falls for a much older woman. Only Millie (Rachel Manteuffel), a prostitute catering to the dying British elite, can thrive in this world. She’s a reluctant vulture, feeding off what’s left.
JIM COATES/KEEGAN THEATRE
Kerry Waters Lucas stars in Keegan Theatre’s “Stella Morgan,” which closes Wednesday.
COMINGS AND GOINGS Last chance
Closing Saturday: “Eight” at the D.C. Arts Center (202-462-7833); “How I Became a Pirate” at Imagination Stage (301-280-1660). Closing Sunday: “Avenue Q” at the Lansburgh Theatre (877-487-8849); “Macbeth” at 1st Stage (800-838-3006); “Pirates! A Boy at Sea” at Imagination Stage (301-280-1660). Closing Wednesday: “Stella Morgan” at Church Street Theater (703-892-0202).
On sale now — Rachel Weiner
Friday at 7:30 and Saturday at 7:30 and 10. 2438 18th St. NW. 202-462-7833. www.
dcartscenter.org. $15, $10 for any patron wearing a 2010 Fringe Button.
B HOW I BECAME A PIRATE At Imagination Stage through Saturday
This play is a funny, sweet-tempered musical designed for the 3-and-older set. With folk song- and sea chantey-inflected songs by Steve Goers, a book and lyrics by Alyn Cardarelli and lively direction by Paul Bosco McEneaney, the production is one part cozy adventure and three parts kooky shiver-me-timbers atmospherics. Captain Braid and his crew need a new recruit for treasure-burying duties, so they enlist a young boy named Jeremy after spotting him with a toy spade on a beach. Lessons in exotic pirate customs and a spell of homesickness ultimately lead to a happy ending. When Braid and his corsairs are singing in deep, growly voices, Cardarelli’s lyrics can be hard to discern. This flaw notwithstanding, “How I Became a Pirate” should amuse adult audiences while entertaining youngsters, who may go around saying, “Ahoy, matey!” for days.
Friday at 10:30 and Saturday at 11, 1:30 and 4. 4908 Auburn Ave., Bethesda. 301-280-1660.
www.imaginationstage.org. $10-$21.
B MACBETH At 1st Stage through Sunday
Before Push/Pull Theater Company concludes its run of “Macbeth,” an audience member may be impaled upon a bamboo pole. This is no cloak-and-dagger Scottish play; this is the condensed capoeira version. Capoeira (pronounced cap-o-WHERE-a) is an Afro-Brazilian hybrid of music, dance and martial arts. Before formally starting rehearsals, the “Macbeth” cast spent several evenings in director Jessica Aimone’s back yard, practicing acrobatic kicks. What the
Set in the 1880s, Sarah Ruhl’s comedy “In the Next Room, or
the Vibrator Play” deals with a new-fangled machine used to treat women’s “hysteria.” Aug. 23 through Sept. 19 at Woolly Mammoth Theatre. 202-393-3939.
www.woollymammoth.net. $30-$65. . . . Two couples examine their marriage and middle age in Donald Margulies’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Dinner With Friends,” Aug. 25 through Sept. 26 at Olney Theatre Center. 301-924-3400. www.
olneytheatre.org. $26-$54. . . . Four actors portray 25 characters in “Travels With My Aunt” Aug. 25 through Sept. 12 at Rep Stage. 410-772-4900.
www.repstage.org. $16-$30.
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actors do in the show isn’t quite authentic, but it makes for great physical theater. “Macbeth” is already the shortest of Shakespeare’s tragedies, and this 65-minute version weathers the cuts and juxtapositions well.
Friday and Saturday at 8, Sunday at 7. 1524 Spring Hill Rd., McLean. 800-838-3006.
www.1ststagespringhill.org. $15.
— Celia Wren
MARY POPPINS At the Kennedy Center through Aug. 22
Rumor has it that it’s always a jolly holiday with Mary, but during much of Disney’s bland, unaffecting stage version, the occasion feels more like the sort you’re required to spend with relatives you don’t particularly care for. Virtually all the tinkerings to the production represent downshifts in the story’s impact. Even if the goal is something closer to P.L. Travers’s original tales, an added attempt at psychological realism becomes burdensome. The Banks children, Jane and Michael, are a lot more ornery than their cinematic forebears, owing, of course, to the fact that their father is emotionally absent and their mother a dishrag. The magical main character who comes to the rescue of this dreary family is so self-satisfied that she actually
— Rebecca J. Ritzel
becomes hard to like. The Banks children have massive roles in the show, and the young actors playing Jane and Michael prove themselves worthy of their large assignments. The adult imagineers of “Mary Poppins” aren’t quite as successful with the homework they’ve turned in.
— P SOUTH CAROLINA
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Friday at 7:30, Saturday-Sunday at 1:30 and 7:30, Tuesday at 7:30, Wednesday at 1:30 and 7:30, and Thursday at 7:30. 2700 F St. NW. 202-467-4600. 800-444-1324. www.
kennedy-center.org. $67-$135.
B PASSING STRANGE At Studio Theatre through Aug. 22
The rocking songwriter known professionally as Stewwas the chief ingredient in the strong critical response to this autobiographical musical. Now, Studio Theatre’s 2ndStage has taken Stew’s voluble personality out of the mix, handing over the duties of the evening’s touchstone narrator to Jahi A. Kearse. The musical charts the progress of a character called Youth (Aaron Reeder) from a restless adolescence in south-central Los Angeles to a wing-spreading young adulthood in Europe. Kearse’s omniscient narrator, it turns out, is the older incarnation of this young man. If Stew tended to spin across
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Reviews CONTINUING
the evening like a strengthening twister, Kearse offers a more measured meteorological force. This alters the atmosphere of “Passing Strange” just enough to let us fully enjoy a wider range of Stew’s vivacious landscape.
— P
Friday-Saturday at 8:30, Sunday at 7:30 and Wednesday-Thursday at 8:30. 1501 14th St. NW. 202-332-3300. www.
studiotheatre.org. $38-$43.
PIRATES! A BOY AT SEA At Imagination Stage through Sunday
— Peter Marks
Jim, an 8-year-old contemporary kid, lands on the ship the Horizon in 1718 thanks to the time-traveling properties of a magic treasure chest. Bonding with Horizon’s Captain Freely, who helps him work through his parents’ divorce, Jim is swept up in a conflict with the British navy. Sporting exotic corsair garb, Colleen Delany’s Freely is a highlight of this world-premiere production. Co-commissioned by England’s Polka Theatre and Imagination Stage, “Pirates! A Boy at Sea” is a thematically tidy play. Jim’s interactions with Freely and naval leader Captain McGovern echo his relationships with his parents; the motifs of obedience and rebellion crop up conspicuously. Adults may find that this schematic quality renders the play a little less charming than “How I Became a Pirate,” also playing at Imagination Stage. But young audiences at a recent matinee seemed wholly spellbound by Charles Way’s adventure tale, with its seafaring derring-do, enchanted treasure and glamorous female marauder.
Sunday at 1:30 and 4. 4908 Auburn Ave., Bethesda. 301-280-1660. www.
imaginationstage.org. $12-$21.
B THE SAVANNAH DISPUTATION At Olney Theatre Center through Aug. 22
A minor-sect evangelical Christian named Melissa has come a-knocking to save the souls of two aging gals. Mary, the tart-tongued sister, wants the missionary out. Margaret, the kind but dimmer sibling, is just addled enough that she wants to hear more about the alleged fallacies lurking within Roman Catholic
.M.
doctrine. Mary then ropes the handsome, vaguely lonesome Father Murphy into the picture, and everyone’s flipping through various editions of the Bible to nail down arguments. Credit director John Going with keeping all this from feeling antic and silly, and praise Brigid Cleary for knowing exactly how much depth Mary has. The show typically glides along agreeably, leavening its weighty themes with foibles and funny bits. Occasionally it even seems that playwright Evan Smith might have fashioned a much bigger play from this contentious material, but it’s not bad that he settled for a bit of devilment.
— Nelson Pressley
Friday at 8, Saturday at 2 and 8, Sunday at 2 and 7:30, Wednesday at 2 and 8, and Thursday at 8. 2001 Olney-Sandy Spring Rd., Olney. 301-924-3400. www.
olneytheatre.org. $26-$54.
STELLA MORGAN
At the Church Street Theater through Wednesday
— C.W.
The title character of Eric Lucas’s world-premiere production for Keegan Theatre is a blowsy fortuneteller whose intense faith in her psychic ability sounds rational. Her opposite number onstage is her son, Thomas, a young man inevitably caught up in a swirl of drug dealing and violence. Chris Aldrich isn’t quite convincing in the role of Thomas. Kerry Waters Lucas is convincing, though, as Stella, handling everything from lurching gestures as she describes a bad cab ride to the maternal bits as Stella worries about Thomas. You feel Stella’s deep fatigue. Playwright Rosemary Jenkinson seems destined to be this season’s Irish find in Washington. “Stella Morgan” suggests that Jenkinson, who adroitly follows the fashionable dramaturgical template here, will hold the stage without breaking the mold.
Saturday at 3 and Sunday-Wednesday at 8. 1742 Church St. NW. 703-892-0202. www.
keegantheatre.com. $25, $20 seniors and students.
continued on next page
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THE WASHINGTON POST • FRIDAY, AUGUST 13, 2010
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