Performing Arts

By Jakob Cansler

This article was originally published in DC Theater Arts, here.

To note that Pride and Prejudice is well-known is perhaps a truism, so obviously accurate that it need not be said. Jane Austen’s 1813 novel is a classic for a reason ⁠— its deceptively simple story has aged well, or maybe even not aged at all. Today, it is so oft-referenced that non-readers will recognize at least the main characters.

Still, obvious as it may be, the fame of Pride and Prejudice is important to remember for a theater company staging an adaptation of it. After all, it means that theater-goers will have an idea of what this show is, an expectation for their theater-going experience.

That can be both a gift and a curse. Expectations create a million different options for bringing a story to life, ranging from staying true to the original source material to straying far away from it. No option is wrong, but all come with their own challenges.

In the case of Silver Spring Stage’s production of Pride and Prejudice, now in performances through May 14, the former option has been chosen. In a production faithful to its source, the community theater company has brought Austen’s classic to life and, for the most part, overcomes the challenges associated with doing so.

It should be noted, too, that this production also overcame several challenges unrelated to the source material. Just two weeks into rehearsal, a global pandemic delayed the show. Three years later, with much of the same cast and crew finally ready to complete the process, unexpected construction at Silver Spring Stage’s home theater forced the company to stage the production at The Writer’s Center in Bethesda, a city that is notably not Silver Spring.

Now, as directed by Madeleine Smith, Austen’s story has finally made it to the stage. At the center of that story is Elizabeth Bennet (Katherine Leiden), the second-eldest of five daughters in the Bennet family. Mrs. Bennet (Andrea Spitz) is desperate, for inheritance purposes, to marry off at least one of her daughters to a wealthy man.

The main prospect for the eldest, Jane (Stephanie Dorius), is Mr. Bingley (Judah Hoobler), a bachelor who has just moved to town with his best friend, Mr. Darcy (Nicholas Temple). Jane and Mr. Bingley immediately like each other. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy immediately hate each other. Everyone around them is immediately intrigued.

This specific adaptation, by Christina Calvit, stays true to all the essential plot points of the original novel and pulls much of the dialogue from Austen’s work. Where Calvit does stray is in how the plot is conveyed. Most importantly, Elizabeth serves as a narrator, speaking directly to the audience to reveal important information and confide her feelings. Townspeople, as well, gossip about the relationships forming and unforming.

Smith, for her part, has made the specific decision to keep this production true to the cultural context of the era ⁠— that is, the Regency era in the early 19th century ⁠— in which the story takes place.

Aesthetically, detailed attention has been given to the scenic design (by Brigid Kelly Burge), hair and makeup designs (Maureen Roult), and costumes ⁠— for which the team of Nathaniel Cavin, Nora Galil, and James Carey created over 50 individual garments. So too do the mannerisms, accents, music, and dancing (choreography by Stefan Sittig) fit the Regency era.

The choice for historical authenticity makes Silver Spring Stage’s Pride and Prejudice as close to a true period piece as is possible for a community theater company. Of course, period pieces come with obstacles ⁠— most notably the linguistic and cultural disconnect that can make a work less engaging for modern audiences.

Those obstacles can be overcome, though, and there are many instances in this production in which they are. Some sections of the script purposefully move the story along quickly, and Smith’s staging emphasizes snappy transitions, sometimes even overlapping scenes. During those sections, the pace keeps the show engaging. Some of the actors ⁠— in particular Leiden as Elizabeth and Spitz as Mrs. Bennet ⁠— are also skilled in delivering old-fashioned dialogue with enough variation to keep it accessible.

There are, however, other parts of this production in which the obstacles of a period piece are not overcome, particularly in the second act. Sections that can’t utilize quick pacing struggle to stay compelling, in particular longer scenes in which the emotional tension gets bogged down in the language. In those cases, more dynamic staging and line delivery could give the tension the boost it needs.

Overall, though, theater-goers expecting a three-dimensionalized version of Austen’s classic novel will not be disappointed by Silver Spring Stage’s production. This is Pride and Prejudice, as it was written in 1813, brought to life.

By Jakob Cansler

This article was originally published in DC Theater Arts here.

There is perhaps nothing with a more transportive effect than music. It has the power to conjure memories long forgotten, to blend the past with the present, to transcend reality. For those seeking asylum ⁠— people who have been forced to leave their old lives, but whose new lives have not officially begun ⁠— that effect can be particularly powerful. It is not only transportive but humanizing.

That effect is central to Theatre Prometheus’ production of The Cassette Shop, a new play devised by Asif Majid and the Storytellers, a group of local asylum seekers. Now in performances at Anacostia Arts Center through May 20, The Cassette Shop is better in concept than in execution, but nevertheless reveals the humanity of people who are so often dehumanized.

The Cassette Shop centers on two asylum seekers, Alé (Shan Khan) and Luciar (Kartika Hanani). Set entirely in Alé’s vintage Cassette Shop in Montana, the two quickly form a connection over their shared experience and love for music. The play follows their present friendship along with their past lives, which are revealed through monologues between scenes, in which they are transported through music into their memories.

Those monologues are taken verbatim from interviews with real people seeking asylum in the DC area. For this production, Theatre Prometheus partnered with AsylumWorks, a nonprofit that helps asylum seekers in the area rebuild their lives here. Majid and dramaturg Sarah Priddy interviewed asylum seekers, after which Majid used the transcripts from those interviews as the basis for this play. As a result, The Cassette Shop serves as both a form of community-building and as a megaphone for people whose stories are often not heard.

Most important, many of the stories featured in The Cassette Shop are not about the process of seeking asylum but instead focus on memories from home countries, defining people by the lives they have lived and are living, rather than by the legal status they are seeking. Majid’s script does an effective job of blending those interviews with the story of Alé and Luciar, communicating the experience of feeling stuck between lives via embodied memories.

As a concept and as words on paper, the potential for The Cassette Shop to be a unique storytelling experience is high. As a performance, Theatre Prometheus’ production, directed by Lauren Patton Villegas, unfortunately never reaches that potential.

Specifically, sluggish pacing holds The Cassette Shop back from communicating the emotional tension and personal conflict that builds throughout the play. One particularly climactic moment toward the end of the play never feels quite like a peak, leaving what could be the most heartrending moment of the play unrealized.

Shan Khan as Alé and Kartika Hanani as Luciar in ‘The Cassette Shop.’ Photo by Barbara Fluegeman.

Conservative staging choices, as well, mean that the performers spend virtually the entire play standing still. That could be an effective choice with highly skilled actors. In this case, though, more dynamic movement ⁠— or even abandonment of realistic movement entirely, during some sections ⁠— could give the performances the boost they need to be compelling.

The Cassette Shop does get a boost from some design choices. Specifically, Nitsan Scharf’s stunning projection design translates the transportive effect of music into a visual format, creating an all-encompassing world for the performers to share memories with the audience. Hailey LaRoe’s evocative lighting design, too, helps to differentiate the realism of the main story from the emotive world of memory.

It is in that emotive world, the moments in which the characters are transported back to their old lives through music, that this production gets the closest to the poignancy it seeks. Those moments also serve as a reminder of what this show could potentially be, and given its political and social weight, I look forward to seeing The Cassette Shop reach that potential in the future.

By Jakob Cansler

This article was originally published in DC Theater Arts here.

It has been said that Anything Goes lives and dies by its Reno Sweeney.

She is not technically the musical’s main character, nor is her romance the central plotline, but she is its star, the center around which everything else orbits. There is a reason that, over the course of the show’s nearly 90-year history, virtually every review of major productions leads with Reno ⁠— if the actress in that role is worth seeing, the show likely is as well.

Catholic University, then, is lucky to have Emma Mangiacotti in the role for its production of Cole Porter’s 1934 classic, now performing at the Hartke Theater until April 23. At its best, Catholic University’s Anything Goes is captivating, largely because it plays to its strengths, including, yes, its Reno.

Set on the London-bound SS America, Anything Goes is built around a number of romantic, comedic, and romantic-comedic plotlines. At the center of the conflict is Billy Crocker (Ethan Turbyfill), a young Wall Street broker who is supposed to be selling stocks for his boss but instead sneaks onto the ship to follow Hope Harcourt (Brooke Daigle), with whom he fell in love after spending one night together, much to the chagrin of Reno, who loves Billy herself.

Also onboard is Hope’s wealthy English fiancé Lord Evelyn Oakleigh (Patrick Payne), Hope’s mother (Alexis Griess), Public Enemy #13 Moonface Martin (Jimmy Bartlebaugh), and a whole slew of other kookie characters. Chaos, of course, ensues.

If the script seems messy, that’s because it is. No fewer than six people are credited with writing the book ⁠— for the original script: P.G. Woodhouse, Guy Bolton, Howard Lindsay, and Russel Crouse; for the revised script: Timothy Crouse and John Weidman. It wouldn’t be unfair to say that, as funny as it may be, the plot of Anything Goes is largely a vessel for a plethora of Cole Porter classics.

The glue holding it all together, of course, is Reno. On a ship full of zany characters, she is seemingly the only one that is normal ⁠— a calm, cool, and confident presence. In order for Anything Goes to work on an artistic level, Reno needs to have an almost inhuman level of effortless charm and swagger, captivating the audience’s attention anytime she is onstage.

That assignment, it appears, has been understood by Mangiacotti. As Reno, she embodies a level of coolness that is magnetic, helped along by a set of chic period pieces (costume design by Ashlynne Ludwig) that make the other character’s garb seem drab.

Mangiacotti also has the singing and dancing chops to carry many of the musical’s best songs, which is good news, considering that of the six or so famous numbers in Anything Goes, Reno leads five.

The show-stopping title track is indeed show-stopping ⁠— especially in front of J.D. Madsen’s simplistic yet striking set ⁠— as is the crowd-pleasing “Blow, Gabriel, Blow,” both featuring impressive, if indebted heavily to the show’s 2011 Broadway revival, choreography by Kimberly Schafer. For both, an orchestra that somehow features only seven musicians brings a pack of energy.

“Friendship,” a number much more comedic than enthralling, also stood out, largely because of Bartlebaugh’s performance as Moonface. Both in that number and throughout the rest of the show, he displayed a particular knack for comedic timing and physical comedy. His partner in crime, Carolyn Tachoir as Erma, has the same skill, even as that character doesn’t get nearly the same spotlight.

Still, Bartlebaugh and Tachoir’s ability to toe the line between caricature and character also stood out because some other actors struggled to do the same. Some went overboard with comedy, making the jokes too obvious, while others didn’t quite go far enough, leaving potentially hilarious lines untapped of their energy. (It certainly didn’t help that microphone issues meant that the sound of breathing distracted from the dialogue in many scenes.)

Luckily, though, Director Jay D. Brock seems to know how to play the cards he’s dealt, and in the case of this production brings the cast’s strengths to the forefront. In this case, that would be the musical performances, especially by Mangiacotti and Turbyfill’s Billy, and the aforementioned comedy duo of Bartlebaugh and Tachoir.

That’s a smart move on Brock’s part and is particularly fitting for a musical like this one, which is, at its best, spellbinding enough for its weaknesses to become forgettable. As a result, even with those weaknesses, Catholic University’s Anything Goes makes for a commendable night of entertainment.

By Jakob Cansler

This article was originally published in DC Theater Arts here.

It was only ten or so minutes into On the Far End when I heard the first “wow” from an audience member. It was whispered, sounding almost of disbelief. Just before, we had heard the story of a man who had walked the Trail of Tears as a child, one of only 50 to survive in a group that originally totaled around 500.

His story made it to the stage at Round House Theatre indirectly. In that moment of the play, Mary Kathryn Nagle, writer and performer of the one-woman show, is embodying her mother-in-law, Jean Hill Chaudhuri, who is in turn re-enacting her grandfather telling the story.

The direct and indirect embodiment of memories is an important aspect of On the Far End, now playing as part of Round House’s National Capital New Play Festival through May 7. Equal parts heart-rending and inspiring, Nagle’s play is powerful, even if its straightforward structure holds the play back from reaching its full potential impact.

On the Far End is, essentially, the life of Jean Hill Chaudhuri, a Muscogee leader. Nagle performs as Jean, walking us through her mother-in-law’s history in the first person. Jean recounts growing up on a reservation in Oklahoma, being forcibly taken to a Native boarding school, running away from that school, encountering constant racism and discrimination, and becoming an activist and advocate for Indigenous rights.

The title, it should be noted, comes from a Supreme Court ⁠— “your Supreme Court,” as Jean says ⁠— decision. “On the far end of the Trail of Tears was a promise,” reads the opening line of the majority opinion of McGirt v. Oklahoma (2020). The Court rarely kept its promises to Indigenous people, Jean reminds us, but this case reversed that trend, with the Court ruling that the Muscogee Nation had jurisdiction over its own reservation and that the state of Oklahoma did not.

If the promise on the far end of the Trail of Tears wasn’t truly fulfilled until 2020, then Jean’s story is of someone who fought her whole life to inch closer to fulfilling that promise. Indeed, she refers back to that theme as she moves, chronologically, from story to story throughout her life.

To be frank, though, Nagle could actually stand to hammer in those themes even more. On the Far End’s straightforward, chronological nature means that what is missing in the play is connective tissue⁠, something to tie the play’s individual moments together and connect Jean’s stories to broader issues. We certainly get a strong sense of who Jean was and what made her so extraordinary, but less of a sense of the insight these stories could bring.

Still, despite the structural issues, On the Far End is compelling from start to finish, mostly thanks to Nagle’s writing and performance. She tells Jean’s story with a unique blend of embodiment, storytelling, and oration. Nagle never fully becomes Jean, but that choice feels purposeful, like a constant reminder that this is a story being passed down as much as it is a performance. 

As directed by Margot Bordelon, Nagle also exhibits a particular knack for cadence, which keeps the play engaging, and evocative delivery, which makes Jean’s story come to life in the audience’s head. I could visualize Jean as she ran away from school, and that image was even more powerful than a recreation would have been.

The design elements assist in those particular tricks. Emma Deane’s lighting design utilizes subtle, barely noticeable shifts to enhance the tone of each story, while sound design by Emily Duncan Wilson is deployed in specific times to add to the most evocative moments. Paige Hathaway’s scenic design, meanwhile, gives Nagle plenty of variable space to move but can fade into the background when the story’s weight is enough in its own right.

The weight of the play, it is worth noting, is never lost on anyone. At one point, Jean tells the story of her own turn as a playwright. She worked with other Indigenous artists to create a performance in Oklahoma about the Trail of Tears, in hopes that confronting the experience through art would help the community to put it behind them. 

In many ways, On the Far End has, understandably, the opposite goal.  Here, Jean’s story is told with the goal of remembering her experiences, not to put the past behind, but to use it to drive forward. This is a story that demands to be heard and passed on.

Indeed, that demand permeated the audience on opening night ⁠— an audience that included many members of Muscogee Nation, including Principal Chief David Hill, and Justice Neil Gorsuch, who wrote the majority opinion in McGirt v. Oklahoma (2020).McGirt, after all, inspired Nagle to write On the Far End, and although that opinion was in many ways a promise fulfilled, this play serves as a reminder that the story of how Muscogee Nation got there isn’t done being told.

By Daarel Burnette II 

This article was originally published in DC Theater Arts here.

In the opening beats of Consecrated Ground, directed by Lorraine Brooks and showing at the Laurel Mill Playhouse, we’re introduced via a black-and-white slideshow to Africville, a century-old Canadian fishing village made up of 600 Black descendants of enslaved Americans.

Lopsided wooden shacks seemingly slide down the hills they sit on, litter is strewn about in the streets, and luminous signs hang from lamp posts: Boil the water before drinking.

In the next beats, we’re brought into the tidy home of the Lyle clan, shushing a crying baby, gossipping about the latest goings-on in town and navigating the latest explicit and implicit acts of racism that punctuate their lives, the most glaring of which is the Canadian government’s plot to demolish Africville.

Laurel Mill serves up an appetizing, historically informative version of this 1999 play, written by Black Canadian George Boyd and making its U.S. debut. Despite costume and set inconsistencies throughout and a few poor directional choices (more on that later), its plot is gripping, its characters are relatable, and its theme — Black Americans’ cross-continental 1960s fight for a safe home in Nova Scotia, Canada — is worth telling.

Actress Jacqueline Youm radiates as Clarice Lyle, the strong-willed mother, wife, sister, and niece, fastened to her family legacy, and determined to fight back against the local government, despite threats of violence and her husband’s moral ineptitude. It’s hard to look away from Youm’s stage presence and intimacy with her castmates. She’s out of her league.

Africville is one of hundreds of communities established in the decades after the abolishment of American slavery when millions of Black Americans fled the South’s brutal labor conditions and apartheid government for better-paying jobs, land, and agency.

The problem, as Consecrated Ground explores, is that Black Americans found in these newfound homes some of the same racist ideas and policies that severely restricted their movement in the South.  For the white residents, Black people represented cheap labor, competition for jobs, and the potential devaluing of their homes. And they lashed out.

They refused to educate Black people’s children.  They harassed and lynched. And they passed a series of housing policies that squeezed Black people into increasingly destitute corners of the cities.

More than 10,000 American municipalities up until the 1960s passed sundown laws, which made Black settlement illegal.

Black people who boarded ships to head to majority Black Caribbean nations like Haiti, or West African colonies like Liberia, faced armed resistance, disease, and starvation.

Canada is not excluded from this phenomenon. The Great White North, as Director Brooks pointed out during a poignant introduction to her play, has long enjoyed a reputation as a refuge for Black American slaves, but has not yet reconciled with its own anti-Black history.

“Racism is worse in Canada,” she said she was told by her mother, who was Black Canadian and made the counterintuitive decision to move back to America.

“Africville matters,” she said. “Their story matters.”

In the play, Africville is plagued by government neglect: there’s no plumbing or electricity, and “life-sucking” rats scamper through the homes. This has resulted in a cynical, distrustful relationship the Black residents have with the Halifax officials.

Clarice is smitten with her newfound husband, Willem Lyle, a crooning carpenter, played by Brock Brown, and signs over the deed to the home. That’s a move she comes to regret when Tom Clancy, played by Nik Henle, knocks on their door with an offer of $5,000 to sell the home.

The city is looking to build a park, bridge, and more harbor space, and Africville is in the way.  Midway through the play, the family experiences a death and Clarice is determined to use the nearby cemetery, though the city says there’s no consecrated ground.

Throughout, we’re confronted with the variety of ways Black people have responded to acts of discrimination: rage, passivity, compromise, and courage.

In between a creative split-screen set designed by Lorraine Brooks, characters’ unique personalities shine (unusual for plays about racism): Jimmy “Double Speak” Willis, played by Martin Young, copes with a stutter and what to do with the unusual wealth he’s built; Groovy Peters, played by JoAn Monplaisir, searches for true love; and Clancy struggles with alcoholism, and his own internalized racist ideas about the community he says he’s trying to save.

I was distracted, though, by some of the director’s historically inaccurate choices: the majority of the characters had deep Southern Black American accents, though, according to the script, they’ve been residing in Canada since 1812; Clancy’s cigarette never lights up or puffs out smoke; and several of the characters donned African print, though that style of clothing didn’t become popular until the Black Power movement of the 1970s (the play takes place in the 1960s). The Ankara hand fans the characters cooled themselves off with in one church scene didn’t become popular until the last decade, in fact.

Brown has a lack of commitment during particularly devastating moments: he coldly pats Groovey’s back when she relays a story of being beaten by white men in the street, soberly holds Jacqueline up when she mourns the loss of their child, and awkwardly walks off stage when his wife decides to leave him.

Never mind. Youm, who also served as assistant director, makes this play crackle with energy. She prods with exacting focus when she suspects her family’s livelihood is in danger, yelps with conviction when she spots a rat scampering beneath the table, and grieves with heft when she loses her child.Brooks punches up with Consecrated Ground and, through a powerful epilogue, gives  Americans much to reflect on.

By Gaelyn Smith

This article was produced within the New Theater Critics project, a component of Day Eight’s 2023 arts journalism conference.

This article was originally published in DC Theater Arts here.

While physical newspapers have become a thing of the past, Sunday morning cartoons can make even the most serious adult become a kid again. In a few words scribbled beside colorful pictures, comic book artists and writers make astute and comical observations about the world around us.

This is the world of Drew Anderson and Dwayne Lawson-Brown’s new hip-hop musical, Push the Button, directed by Duane Richards II. A product of the Keegan Theatre’s Boiler Room Series, the show is a hilarious social commentary on power dynamics and the appearance of good versus evil in a world driven by spectacle.

The plot is simple. A button (yes, a large red button) gets pushed in a town that is very likely Washington, DC. Because of Villain’s history of pranking the town, he becomes the prime suspect. Of course, it does not help that Hero, whom everyone loves, says that he saw Villain commit the crime. But Journalist, a young woman with a unique relationship with the criminal justice system, sets out to find the truth. The themes in the show are reminiscent of Jordan Peele’s Nope, another post-pandemic look at our society’s obsession with sensationalism instead of seeking truth and understanding.

The show comes in at just about 55 minutes. The fast-paced and exciting performance will have children and adults alike wanting to know who pushed the button!

Push the Button is a different kind of musical. The show takes popular songs from the last two years and satirizes/parodies them to create new pieces that narrate the show’s plot. For example, “Villain Song” utilizes “XO Tour Llif3” by Lil Uzi Vert and “Bad Guy” by Billie Eilish to allow Villian, played brilliantly by Tre’mon Kentrell Mills, to tell us about his history with crime and plead his innocence to Journalist (and us). In the “Trial Song,” Hero (played by the charming and funny Quincy Vicks) and Villain go back and forth about the events surrounding the pushing of the button over the Silk Sonic hit “Leave the Door Open.” The show was at its strongest in the moments when Vicks and Mills were on stage, separately and together.

Matthew J Keenan’s set design is perfect for a show that teeters on the edge of children’s theater. Different characters move the large button and other furniture on and off the stage when needed. As a result, the choreography by Ashanti Symone Branch, who also plays Journalist, shines. Projections, by Zavier Augustus Lee Taylor, give this story of good versus evil a cartoonish edge.

Because of the energy of the music and strong performances from Hero and Villain, it was easy to forgive specific technical and narrative issues. At moments, the music was louder than the microphones, making it difficult to hear the actors. When Hero and Villain were off stage, the show felt stagnant, and the songs seemed to summarize the dialogue rather than keep the story moving. However, if you are taking young children to see the show, that repetition will likely create a greater understanding of what they have just seen.

But the minor issues did not take the show down. The fun is infectious. The actors were having fun even when the story was not moving along. This show reminds me of what it was like to see theater as a young child for the first time. The lights, colors, costumes, and music were so much fun. Even for the hip-hop averse, it is difficult to avoid getting drawn into the story.

Push the Button invites us to consider how we can all be heroes. At the end of the show, Journalist lists things like “helping your mother with the groceries” as examples of small ways we can all be heroes. In a world where critical thinking skills seem to be dwindling, Push the Button is a hero, reminding us to think critically about how we feed into harmful power dynamics and about the information we consume daily.