by Hannah Berk

This article was first published by DC Theatre Scene and can be read on their site here.

“How to translate [Antigone]?”, Anne Carson self-reflexes in her translator’s note to the Sophokles classic. “I take inspiration from John Cage who, when asked / how he composed 4’33”, answered / ‘I built it up gradually out of many small pieces of silence.’” I begin with the translator because Taffety Punk’s double feature of Antigonick and The Fragments of Sappho is very much a Carson showcase, replete with her stark lyricism and weird maneuverings among epochs and tones to shape an otherworld of her own.

The two texts both center defiantly femme energies and ancient Greek authors born a century or two apart. To move from Sappho to Antigonick is to move from motifs of silence to those of silencings. In dance, music, and language, these productions explore capacious absences, fashioning from them an always provocative space.

First up is The Fragments of Sappho, a hybrid performance of poetry through dance, music, and recitation, the brainchild of choreographer Katie C. Sopoci Drake and director Marcus Kyd. Sappho was a Greek lyric poet born in the 6th century BCE whose influence has loomed large across time. Only one poem survives in full—it kickstarts the show—and the rest in degrees of fragmentation, printed on weathered papyrus scrolls without line breaks. In Carson’s If Not, Winter, the inspiration text for this piece, she presents the complete remnants of Sappho’s work, including stand-alone words, and uses single brackets to denote missing or illegible text.

In Sopoci Drake’s choreography, a troupe of dancers arch into parentheses and bend into brackets, leaping and contorting around what’s left unsaid. One of the piece’s greatest contributions is its embodiment of translation’s labor, so often rendered invisible. As the dancers lift and carry one another across the stage, we see the work of arranging, supplanting, and conveying language—from thought to page and from one language to another—made manifest. Using only drums, a bass, and a singer’s voice, the original music composed by Dan Crane, Marcus Kyd, and Kelsey Mesa echoes the simultaneous spareness and throbbing fullness of the fragments.

In exploring absence, space, and process, the piece is deft and beautiful. In portraying the poetry’s content, it is somewhat less nuanced. Sappho is most famous for her love poems, often written to other women. All femme-presenting, the dancers’ movements portray the longing and sensuousness of the poems with outstretched limbs and fleeting intertwinings. Sappho’s desire is present, but the intimacy and gratification much of her poetry manifests is missing; the dancers never make eye contact, and the recitations tend to affect a mournful tone. While effective on the terms of this choice, there is a missed opportunity for celebration and queer joy.

Antigonick, too, is interested in excavating its own creation process. This production begins when Antigone (Lilian Oben) steps out from behind a translucent red curtain as she responds to a voiceover of Carson’s translator’s note. Silently, she struts, scoffs, and eyerolls at the interpretations her translator catalogues, aware from the beginning that her signification is historical and up for debate. While the play is an update to the classic, its goal is not modernization or accessibility so much as it is a marrow-ward winnowing; its primary concern is in embodying the experience of grief, loss, and power relations.

The narrative bones are all in place in this retelling. Antigone and her sister, Ismene, are mourning the loss of their two brothers, killed in a battle against each other over legitimate rule of the kingdom. Kreon, their uncle, has just assumed the throne and decreed that the body of Polyneikes, the brother he blames for the bloodshed, will be left to decay in the desert without burial rites. Declaring that justice must supercede the law, Antigone buries her brother anyway and is caught. Kreon, enraged at her defiance of his newly minted authority, orders her buried alive, and tragedy begets tragedy as Kreon’s son and wife unravel, their suicides leaving him alone to suffer the consequences of his folly.

In Carson’s raw translation, the wounds of the play open up. The Chorus (comprising Danny Puente Cackley, Louis E. Davis, Rachel Felstein, and Teresa Spencer, and led by Esther Williamson) sings out, “[ruin] comes rolling the black night salt up from the ocean floor / and all your thrashed coasts groan.” The poetry is reason enough to see the play. But far from locked into one note, the production teases out comedy, too. Dan Crane plays Kreon as an absurdist, grandiose and pedantic. He announces his own entrance on stage and, when Antigone requests an expedited punishment, retorts, “no let’s split hairs a while longer.” Eurydike (Teresa Spencer), who delivers a show-stopping monologue conspicuously absent from Sophokles’ original, is at once madcap and tragic as she relates her niece’s troubled youth: “try to unclench / we said to her / she never did / we got her the bike / we got a therapist…”

Lilian Oben’s Antigone is complex and wildly compelling, mad with grief and yet grounded in a logic of love and justice on her own terms. Oben allows Antigone to be young, vulnerable, and afraid without wavering in her strength and conviction. Her casting as one of only two black actors in the production forefronts the unequal distribution of punishment in the play. Ismene (Teresa Spencer) also confesses to Antigone’s crime in supposed solidarity, but goes free; Kreon is concerned only with silencing “the loud one” between the two sisters.

And then there’s Nick (Katie Murphy), who never leaves the stage and, in accordance with the text’s only stage directions for the character, “measures things.” Without spoiling the surprising effects of this presence, suffice it to say that Murphy’s realization of the ambiguous figure is smart and evocative, and reminds us always that Antigonick, Antigone, and Antigone exist within a function of time—however we may define or experience it.

The Fragments of Sappho and Antigonick both study silence and all its possibilities. They lead us elsewhere, toward a voice, but what it says is ultimately up to us; we’re the latest in a centuries-long line of audiences interpreting these women. Taffety Punk is doing us a service in inviting us into these beautifully (re)imagined translations to inhabit and reshape the spaces they create.

by John Bavoso

This article was first published by DC Theatre Scene and can be found on their site here.

When asked about how she comes up with ideas for her plays (which, let me tell you from personal experience, is every writer’s favorite interview question), playwright, director, and filmmaker Young Jean Lee has said that she focuses in on what scares her the most to write about at that particular moment in her life and then dives in head-first. Sometimes this results in a show that’s about a very specific topic—privilege, for example, in the case of her hit play Straight White Men, which made history by being the first work by an Asian-American woman playwright produced on Broadway… in 2018.

But in the aptly named We’re Gonna Die, Lee tackles what is perhaps the most universally frightening subject of all—our own mortality—through an irreverent combination of storytelling and song. In a new production ably directed by Josh Sobel and featuring the captivating Farrell Parker, Flying V has created what is easily one of the most hilarious, harrowing, and exhilarating experiences I’ve ever had in a Washington theater.

Review: Young Jean Lee’s We’re Gonna Die from Flying V

May 28, 2019 by John Bavoso Leave a Comment

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When asked about how she comes up with ideas for her plays (which, let me tell you from personal experience, is every writer’s favorite interview question), playwright, director, and filmmaker Young Jean Lee has said that she focuses in on what scares her the most to write about at that particular moment in her life and then dives in head-first. Sometimes this results in a show that’s about a very specific topic—privilege, for example, in the case of her hit play Straight White Men, which made history by being the first work by an Asian-American woman playwright produced on Broadway… in 2018.

But in the aptly named We’re Gonna Die, Lee tackles what is perhaps the most universally frightening subject of all—our own mortality—through an irreverent combination of storytelling and song. In a new production ably directed by Josh Sobel and featuring the captivating Farrell Parker, Flying V has created what is easily one of the most hilarious, harrowing, and exhilarating experiences I’ve ever had in a Washington theater.

Before I get too far, a warning of sorts: this is a review that I’ve been both excited and terrified to write. Excited, frankly, because it’s an easy rave for a show I think everyone should see. But also terrifying, because in order to explain why I found We’re Gonna Die so profoundly moving, I have to get a little personal—and in doing so, reveal why Lee’s writing and Parker’s performance are so universally relevant. It’s a bit of vulnerability that I hope you’ll indulge me in.

But before we get to the show itself, we should start with the opening act. Flying V has enlisted local artists to go on before each performance. In the case of the first weekend of the run, Zia Hassan, a local singer-songwriter, kicked us off. With just an acoustic guitar and a voice that, to me, is akin to the bands that remind me of my college years—Dashboard Confessional and Jack’s Mannequin come to mind—I was instantly transported to a simpler, more innocent time in my life.

Many of the songs Hassan performed were about the recent birth of his son, which provided a poignant counterpoint to the examination of death and deterioration to follow. I don’t know if this pairing of subject matter was intentional on Flying V’s part, but it created a beautiful full-circle experience. I can’t vouch for the acts preceding the rest of the performances, but I hope they’re as appropriate and heartfelt as Hassan’s.

Following a brief, pre-show intermission, it was time to get downright rock ‘n’ roll existential! Lee developed and staged We’re Gonna Die with the since-dissolved self-producing playwrights’ collective 13 Playwrights Inc., a company not unlike DC’s own The Welders. The show featured Lee herself in the 2011 premiere at Joe’s Pub in New York, singing and speaking about her own (presumably heightened-just-a-touch) life experiences.

Parker, a Flying V company member, takes on the potentially daunting task of relaying a set of deeply personal moments that do not belong to her and making the audience forget that fact. She not only accomplishes this, but does so with a belting swagger and enthralling plaintiveness. From the moment she steps on stage, the audience is firmly in her tough-yet-tender grasp, thanks in no small part to a killer backing band comprised of Alex Green on guitar, David Hutchins on drums, Jason Wilson on bass, and Marika Countouris (who also provided musical direction) on the keyboard.

From her position on stage, Parker leads the audience through stories from her character’s life—from her sad, isolated Uncle John, to her first romance and breakup, and finally through the heart-rending death of her father. Interspersed between these tales are rollicking rock songs and soulful ballads. Early on, she clarifies that the purpose of the evening is not merely to wallow in emotional torture porn: “I have always wished that there was some sort of comfort available to us so that when we’re in that isolated place of pain, there would be something to make us feel better and not so alone.”

The contrast between the emotionally lacerating stories, darkly comic banter, and up-tempo ditties keeps the audience on the edge of its seats and a little off-kilter—which is one of the hallmarks of a Young Jean Lee show. These painful moments are offered not as a form of self-flagellation but as a source of comfort in the universality of human suffering and a celebration that, in fact, we’re all going to die one day and our suffering will end.

A good bit of the enjoyment of attending We’re Gonna Die comes from watching your fellow audience members watching what’s happening on stage. Every single person brings a different perspective and frame of reference into the theater and these clearly inform their processing of the material. My guest saw the original production years ago and, for him, one of the most profound parts of seeing it again was how differently it washed over him now that he has a bit more life experience—and, frankly, trauma—under his belt. (By the way, said guest made the bold pronouncement that Flying V’s production is better than the Joe’s Pub version.)

At certain moments, the direct parallels to the past year of my own life and what was happening on stage took my breath away. Within the span of less than a year my older sister died suddenly and without warning, my father had a heart attack and emergency double coronary bypass (while I was home for Thanksgiving), and my family endured a number of other health scares and small sorrows. So, when Parker relayed the story of her father, with a breathing tube down his throat, awakening panicked and confused several times the night before he died of lung cancer, I felt a small moan escape my lips in recognition of what my own father experienced coming out of the anesthesia following his surgery. (And, let me assure you, I am not a person who involuntarily makes noises during a show.)

When our protagonist’s friend Beth writes her a letter imparting wisdom gained from her own personal struggles and says, “Horrible things, they happen all the time. What makes you so special that you should go unscathed?” I was brought back to so many moments during the past year when I genuinely wondered whether my family had been cursed—and in addition to feeling sorrow, I felt seen.

And yet, that experience wasn’t necessarily shared equally by all. You could feel palpable discomfort in the ranks as the show swung from a tear-filled monologue into the final number in which the audience is encouraged to exuberantly chant “we’re gonna die!” while beach balls and bubbles bounce overheard. The enthusiasm with which my fellow audience members fist pumped along to lyrics like “I’m gonna die, gonna die some day… and I will be okay!” varied tremendously. We were all in our own individual worlds reflecting on our personal losses, but we were also bonded together in celebration in a way that I wouldn’t have thought possible a mere two hours before. Afterward, my guest referred to We’re Gonna Die as a “contemporary requiem” and we both agreed that it would make a fitting memorial service when we do eventually shuffle off this mortal coil.

The term “catharsis” gets tossed around a lot when it comes to art, but I can honestly say that I’ve never stood in front of a painting and felt so ripped open and then put back together again as when leaving We’re Gonna Die. I not only would enthusiastically attend this show again, but I’d want to bring everyone I know with me—and that’s about the best compliment as I can pay Parker, Sobel, and the entire Flying V team.

by John Bavoso

This article was first published by DC Theatre Scene and can be found on their site here.

“In the end, we’re all just taller children,” croons Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter Elizabeth Ziman on her band, Elizabeth & The Catapult’s, aptly title 2009 song, “Taller Children.” This is the lyric that immediately sprang to mind as I watched Yasmina Reza’s God of Carnage unspool in front of me at the Keegan Theatre—a finely designed and executed production about the failings of human nature that is occasionally hampered by a somewhat stilted translation of the original text.

Originally written in Reza’s native French, Christopher Hampton’s English translation of God of Carnage was first produced in London in 2008 and on Broadway in 2009, earning the play critical acclaim and Laurence Olivier and Tony awards in the process.

Typical of Reza’s biting humor at the expense of the middle class, God of Carnage centers on two couples (in the original version, they’re Parisians; here, they’ve become Brooklynites) who have come together to make peace after a violent incident between their children on a playground in Cobble Hill Park. What begins as an agreeable enough detente over apple-pear clafoutis and espresso quickly devolves into something much nastier, as you may have guessed from the ominous title of the play. As one character wistfully asks early on in a moment of foreshadowing, “How many parents standing up for their children become infantile themselves?”

The meeting has been convened by Veronica Novak (Lolita Marie), a social justice warrior and writer who is finishing up a book on the genocide in Darfur, and her husband, Michael Novak (DeJeannette Horne), who owns a home goods wholesale business. They’re joined by Annette Raleigh (Susan Marie Rhea), who works in the nonspecific “wealth management” field, and her husband, Alan Raleigh (Vishwas), a high-powered lawyer currently representing a shady pharmaceutical company who’s physically incapable of separating himself from his cell phone.

The topic of their tête-à-tête is a recent playground incident during which the Raleighs’ son hit the Novak’s son in the face with a tree branch, knocking out two of his teeth. Things start out with an air of civility, but as the evening goes on and the Raleighs are unable to extricate themselves from the apartment, human nature, power, and marital dynamics all get called into question.

Director Shirley Serotsky has a deft hand with keeping her actors moving around the space in a way that feels natural and often hilarious. She also does an excellent job building tension and then releasing it—with such a high-pitched, mannered comedy, the tendency to go too big too soon can be tempting, but Serotsky employs the right amount of restraint to allow the show-stopping moments to truly land. The shifting allegiances laid out in the text are made delightfully physical by the actors’ movements around the set.

Similarly, the actors get high marks for how well they embody their characters. Particularly of note is Rhea, whose physicality telegraphs a woman who’s barely containing all the stress and frustration inside her before she even says a word, so that by the time her explosive relief comes, it’s nearly as welcome as it is off-putting. Vishwas plays Alan in the opposite way—he’s cool as a cucumber and a snakelike charmer who gleefully refers to his own son as a savage and lists Spartacus as his role model. Marie, as the high-strung, woke Veronica excellently portrays a woman who’s been holding onto a mask of serenity and politeness and may be ready to tear it all down in spectacular fashion.

Unfortunately, the one thing working against the performances and the direction is the text itself. Hampton—a British playwright, screenwriter, translator and film director—initially translated Reza’s dialog for the West End production and then further tweaked it for American audiences, and was no doubt true to the original. Still, for a casual evening between two couples in a Brooklyn apartment, the language is distractingly heightened. The idea that Michael would refer to himself as a “fucking Neanderthal” just after going on at length about toilet parts to undercut Alan’s snootiness, and then, in the very next breath, refer to his treatment as “intolerable,” “incomprehensible,” and “detestable” strains the audience’s credibility. The audience can easily be taken out of the action as we watch the actors wrestle with making the language sound natural.

To return to a high note, all this madness takes place on a gorgeous set designed by Matthew J. Keenan. What could have been a typical, bland living room set is made more interesting by setting things off at odd angles and not making them match up perfectly—the setting prepares the audience for a schism and plays with multiple perspectives before a single character even enters the space. Liz Gossens Eide’s costumes complement the characters perfectly and offer the director and cast opportunities to create moments of comedy around the taking off and putting on of overcoats and briefcases. Niusha Nawab’s sound design and Katie McCreary’s lighting design are subtle but provide the perfect realistic backdrop upon which some over-the-top bad behavior can unfold.

Even though the play was written more than a decade ago in another country, God of Carnage proves to be a timely and relevant piece of dark comedy that speaks expertly to the present American moment, and Keegan Theatre should be applauded for its thoughtfulness in programming it into this season. When Annette exclaims toward the of the play, “To my mind, there are wrongs on both sides. That’s it. Wrongs on both sides,” and Veronica lectures the room on polite society and the need for vigilance, it’s hard not to draw parallels to our present attempts to live in an increasingly fractured world. God of Carnage may not offer any answers as to how to better coexist as human beings, but it does give us an opportunity to laugh at outsized versions of ourselves… even if it’s mostly to keep ourselves from crying.

by Hannah Berk

This article was first published by DC Theatre Scene and can be found on their site here.

Tradition Be Damned (TBD) Immersive, DC’s first large-scale immersive theater company, isn’t interested in designing shows for audiences to watch. They want to create worlds for participants to explore, with the stated goal of generating “new opportunities for empathy and engagement.” Immersive theater offers exciting avenues for blurring the lines between reality and fiction, between creator and consumer.

Risk is also inherent. It is easy for experiments to turn into gimmicks, and such shows walk a tremulous line in providing sufficient guidance for participants to understand and embrace the world they are entering while still allowing us to freely interact with and alter that world. The Dupont Under(World), TBD Immersive’s most recent venture, is an entertaining introduction to this innovative genre, but leaves something to be desired at its emotional core.

Under(World) shows are limited to 10 participants at a time, 5 of whom are assigned to travel from life to death, while the others travel from death to life. (I traveled from death to life, and so this review will focus on that half of the experience.) The setting is the Dupont Underground, a tunnel-turned-art space that lends itself to the show’s construction as a journey. Participant souls are met at the underground entrances by a guide who leads them through a series of rooms in which participants complete tasks or engage in experiences that theoretically prepare them for their transition into life or death.

Although the graphic murals and association with gallery openings and trendy shows makes the Dupont Underground seem a little too cool to be a purgatory, TBD Immersive works impressively within the space. Highlights include an ethereal soundscape crafted by Rikki Fromahder, the regal presence of the life guide (Keenan Gibson), and imaginative costumes designed by Deborah Lash and Colleen Parker.

At every turn, Under(World) is interactive; actors ask questions of the souls, guide them through small activities, and offer up elements of the set to be touched and manipulated. It is important to enter the show ready to suspend disbelief and be a willing participant. Nonetheless, interactivity is not the same as immersion. I felt some uncertainty surrounding participants’ roles on the life journey, which kept one of my feet planted firmly outside the underworld throughout. As spirits traveling out from a collective unconsciousness, we are told that we may have only fuzzy memories of the world above and of our previous incarnations. Are we supposed to be playing memory-washed characters, or should we bring our real experiences to bear? Unfortunately, this question goes almost entirely unexplored. While the experience feels somewhat personalized through conversational elements, the choices participants are asked to make are limited and appear to have no substantive effect on the development of the show.

By taking on the weighty subject of life and death, Under(World) establishes an expectation of conceptual experimentation and emotional gravity. The tone of the play is serious, but not reflective. Most welcome, there is no pontification about the meaning of life and death. Producing Artistic Director Strother Gaines explains that the show tries “to guide audience members to use their own lives and experiences to fill in moments of meaning that are important to them rather than us tell them ‘this is how you should feel about life!’” I am always grateful to have unanswered questions at the end of a show, but I wished that this one had raised more of them in the first place.

Most of the experiences participants engage in along the journey feel perfunctory or playful to the point of slight. Even the show’s climax of sorts, in which the life and death tracks cross and souls on opposite paths meet, has an air of empty ceremony rather than sacred ritual. Only the final room along the journey (which, for those traveling the alternate track, constitutes the first) resonated with me. I won’t spoil its surprise, but its success lies in making space for a private moment that grapples with grief, fear, and uncertainty. This room is a glimpse into what Under(World), devised with greater space for silence and mystery, could be.

TBD Immersive clearly comprises a talented, dedicated team. Working in Dupont Underground with its spatial restrictions and electrical oddities must be a major challenge; the sets are smartly designed and visually appealing; the actors are skilled improvisers. Immersive theater is a great way to involve audiences in the artistic and interpretive leaps a play requires, and to democratize the world-making function of theater. I am a newcomer to their productions, though they’ve been at work for the past three years; I can’t wait to see what they do next. I only wish that Under(World) took fuller advantage of the resources at its disposal and the formal possibilities. A show that takes us deep into the belly of the city should also guide us beyond the surface of its subject matter.

by John Bavoso

This article was first published by DC Theatre Scene and can be found on their site here.

There’s a notion these days in theatrical circles that the hallmark of a great play is that it can only be a play; that the story being told wouldn’t work in any other medium. As I was watching Rorschach Theatre’s production of Reina Hardy’s Annie Jump and the Library of Heaven, I was struck by what a good TV show, animated film, or podcast it also would make.

This is in no way intended to be a slight; Hardy and Rorschach have once again joined forces to create a stellar evening of theatre that takes the best elements of contemporary cultural references, social media, and pop science and turns them into something more than the sum of those parts—an out-of-this-world, all-ages celebration of nerdiness, empowerment, and love.

Rorschach and Hardy previously collaborated in 2014 on Glassheart, an off-beat, mature riff on Beauty and the Beast. They return to a similar format in Annie Jump, tackling science and the mysteries of the universe in an irreverent way that will appeal to pre-teens and more… well, let’s say seasoned theatre-goers, alike. Under Medha Marsten’s capable direction, the play approaches its teenaged characters with respect and reverence rather than the condescension that can often come from adult playwrights writing about similar topics.

Our eponymous protagonist is Annie Jump (an irrepressible Vanessa Chapoy), a 13-years-old science prodigy living with her single father in the tiny town of Strawberry, KS. Annie is wise beyond her years, which, in the world of middle of high school, might as well be a social death sentence—she feels lucky that she’s mostly ignore rather than actively bullied by her peers. Her aforementioned father, Dr. Jump (an earnestly bumbling Zach Brewster-Geisz), isn’t so lucky—his history of mental illness and all-consuming drive to establish contact with and prove the existence of extraterrestrial life make him an easy target for their more narrow-minded neighbors.

As the play begins, the instigator of one of these pranks on Dr. Jump and new kid in town, KJ Urbanik (Aron Spellane, alternately awash in awkwardness and bravado), upon realizing that Annie is his target’s daughter, explains that he just wanted to make a good impression on the other teenaged boys in town—an excuse that Annie meekly accepts. Despite the best efforts of her favorite teacher, Mrs. Gomez (a Ms. Frizzle-esque Robin Covington), Annie feels alone and misunderstood, driving her to head to the outskirts of town to watch the Perseid meteor shower on her own.

While she’s taking in Mother Nature’s fireworks, a billiard ball suddenly crashes into the ground, marking the arrival of Althea (a hysterical Emily Whitworth), an intergalactic AI who assumes the form of geeky Annie’s worst nightmare—a Kylie Jenner-adjacent Instagram influencer complete with loudly dyed hair, a crop top, and a popped hip. She brings with her the unexpected news that small-town Annie is in fact the Chosen One who can be granted access to the Library of Heaven, a repository of all the knowledge in the universe. What ensues is the kind of unexpected friendship that is the foundation upon which many a great teen movie has been built.

There is a lot that will be familiar to audiences in Annie Jump, but each aspect is rescued from cliché by a clever or emotionally grounded twist. This is due in no small part to the way Marsten has coaxed some fantastic performances out of her cast. Whitworth, in particular, brings impressive specificity and physicality to her role—she has the challenge of playing not a robot and not a popular teen girl, but an intergalactic supercomputer’s interpretation of what a popular teen girl is like. The platonic chemistry between her and Chapoy is palpable, as the opposites attract and impart life lessons to one another. Similarly, Spellane, as the clueless teenage boy trying, and often failing, to do the right thing, evoke empathy from the audience. One particularly memorable moment is when, at Althea’s insistence, Annie stands up herself and rebukes KJ—but takes it perhaps too far, obviously wounding him deeply. That an observer can feel both proud for Annie and sad for KJ is the mark of a nuanced narrative.

One of the strengths of Hardy’s script is the willingness to engage with serious subject matter in between the moments of levity. These topics include the death of Annie’s mother when she was a small child, the ensuing custody battles between her father and her maternal grandparents, and her need to take care of a parent struggling with taking care of his mental health. These moments are woven  into the magical realism and comedy naturally and without melodrama. It’s a credit to the writer, director, and cast that the audience isn’t left with emotional whiplash and the tone is kept believable throughout. Even when the plot and the rules of the (literal) universe get kind of muddled (wait, what does Annie have to do to get into the library again?), the emotional beats remain true.

It wouldn’t be a Rorschach show without some outstanding design work, and Annie Jump doesn’t disappoint in that regard. The highlight of this particular show is the combination of Katie McCreary’s lighting design, Kylos Brannon’s video design, and Veronica J. Lancaster’s sound design to create an awe-inspiring multimedia journey. At several points, while sitting in the Atlas Performing Arts Center’s Lab II, it almost felt more like being in an alternate version of the Space Mountain ride—in the best way possible. Matt Wolfe’s set design is clever is in versatility if occasionally cumbersome in its execution (although the evening I saw the show, a falling bit of set dressing provided Chapoy and Whitworth the opportunity to ad lib in character in a way that elicited a round of applause of its own).

Annie Jump and the Library of Heaven pulls off the rare trick of being appealing to audiences of all ages, boasting laugh-out-loud and more tender moments. As Nietzsche once wrote, “you need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.” And with a little theatrical magic mixed in, you can create a fun and exuberant evening that brings you closer to your fellow Earthlings.

by John Bavoso

This article was first published by DC Theatre Scene and can be found on their site here.

In his note in the program of Rainbow Theatre Project’s new production of Tennessee Williams’ lesser-known play Clothes for a Summer Hotel—his last to be produced on Broadway in his lifetime—director Greg Stevens notes that the piece was a critical and commercial flop that drove the playwright further down the path of dejection and substance abuse. Now, I’m all for challenging oneself, but that seems like an inauspicious starting point when it comes to season planning. Indeed, the result is an admirably designed and executed production of an unfortunately flawed and not particularly engaging play.

The subject of Clothes for a Summer Hotel is the denouement of the infamously turbulent relationship between Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald. The story unfolds over the course of one day, during which Scott, at this point living in Hollywood with another woman and suffering from cardiac episodes, visits Zelda at the Highland Mental Hospital in Asheville, NC, where she has been committed and has returned to her love of ballet. During this visit, the couple’s past is explored through conversation, memory, and fantasy.

Williams resented that the play was panned by detractors as a straightforward biography of the celebrity couple that got its facts wrong. He—and Stevens—insisted that the Fitzgeralds are merely a jumping off point for exploring his relationship with his own mentally ill sister, Rose, and his internal grappling with the end of his writing career (the play premiered in 1980; Williams died in 1983). However, as loaded down as the script is with references, allusions, and exposition about real-life figures, I can’t really fault the play’s original critics for viewing it more as a work of edification than entertainment.

One of the more intriguing parts of the play is its framing device. Billed as a ghost story, the characters are aware, to a certain extent, that they’re long-dead apparitions who have been conscripted into a work of theatre. This idea is reinforced by the character of The Writer (Matty Griffiths), who sits to the side of the stage, typing, drinking, smoking, announcing the beginning of each new scene, and reading stage directions. Griffiths does an excellent job staying in character while not actively part of the scene, and Stevens has created some clever moments for him to interact with the other characters.

Given a heavier load to carry are Aidan Hughes and Sara Barker as Scott and Zelda, respectively. The ways in which Williams has structured the script—jumping between times and locations—and his use of heightened language makes it somewhat challenging to establish an authentic-feeling relationship between the two leads, and in turn for the audience to become invested. Given Zelda’s volatility, Baker has more frequent opportunities to display an emotional range; Hughes’ Scott, however, falls a bit flat. They have some interesting moments together—particularly when discussing how Scott used Zelda’s life for his novels while also preventing her from pursuing a writing career of her own—but I never truly bought them as a couple simultaneously desperately in love and passionately at odds with one another.

A play with eight actors—most of whom play two roles—and multiple locations would be a logistical challenge for any playing space, but the compact nature of the black box at the DC Arts Center only heightens that complexity. Big kudos go out to Greg Stevens and his design team for maximizing the performance area and creating moments of separation and intimacy on a crowded stage—particularly for scenes between Zelda and her lover, Edouard (Brian J. Shaw), and snippets of levity featuring the nuns at the asylum (Mary May and Barbara Papendorp).

Pulling double duty as director and scenic designer, Stevens deftly creates five or six different areas on the tight stage, while Elliott Shugoll’s lighting design and Cresent Haynes’ sound design are a constant presence that add to the story and aid in differentiation rather than pull focus.

Overall, I left the theatre impressed with the artistry and professionalism of those involved, but not very fond of the piece itself. I am still rather puzzled as to why this particular company would choose this particular play at this particular time. Stevens mentions in his note that his goal with this production is to resurrect and give new life to Clothes for a Summer Hotel; unfortunately, I think it may better serve as proof that some ghosts from our theatrical past are better left to rest.