Theater
Theater potpourri
Last weekend to catch several worthy productions in the D.C. area
‘A Shadow of Honor’
by Peter Coy
8 p.m. tonight and Saturday
closes 3 p.m. Sunday
The Keegan Theater
at Church Street
1742 Church Street
Dupont Circle
703-892-0202 or keegantheatre.com‘Genesis’
by Evan Crump
8 p.m. tonight and Saturday
closes 3 p.m. Sunday
The Warehouse Theater
1021 7th St. N.W.
(back room at the Passenger)
202-213-2474 or cityartisticpartnerships.org‘Twilight of the Golds’
by Jonathan Tolins
8 p.m. tonight and Saturday
2:30 p.m. Sunday
through Feb. 5
Reston Community Players
Center Stage Theater
Reston Community Center
2310 Colts Neck road
Reston, Va.
703-476-4500 or rcp-tix.com
or box office‘Return to Haifa’
adapted by Boaz Gaon
from the novella by Ghassan Kanafani
11 a.m. today; 8 p.m. Saturday
3 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday
closes Sunday
Theater J
Goldman Theater
D.C. Jewish Community Center
1529 16th St., N.W.
800-494-TIXS or theaterj.org
From left, Mark A Rhea, Jon Townson and Michael Innocenti in 'A Shadow of Honor. It closes Sunday at the Keegan Theatre. (Photo by Jim Coates; courtesy of Keegan)
Good and evil, theology and science, past and present — these polarities loom large in four plays now on stage in Washington.
Closing on Sunday, a Keegan Theatre production at the Church Street Theater is the world premiere of Peter Coy’s multi-layered melodrama about history, “A Shadow of Honor,” the story of two families, each haunted by the ghosts of two wars — the Civil War and the Vietnam War — and the dead who gave the last full measure of devotion with their bloodshed.
“It is those I killed who are truly damned by God” thunders the alcoholic William Ruffin (ably played by Mark A. Rhea, Keegan’s founder and producing artistic director), author of the cold-blooded murder that happened in Nelson County, in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley in 1907, an incident discovered by Hamner Theater co-artistic director and playwright Coe in what he calls “a murder motivated by honor.”
The scene is set in the same house, with two troubled families in two places in time, 1907 and 2007. When past and present collide, something must give. And in each case, the smoking gun is murder, one committed by an 11-year-old boy when begged to pull the trigger by his father, damaged goods from Vietnam where he had earned, at great cost, a Silver Star. Another shadow falls with the gunfire in 1907, when Ruffin decides he must kill the man who deflowered his daughter and swears that “I’m a hero in the eyes of all true Southerners.” He tells his daughter, “I’ve taken my stand,” and later, “I love the South even though it exists no more!”
Michael Innocenti stars in a stand-out role as high school history teacher Tyler McNeill, the boy now grown to manhood yet shadowed still by his complicity in his father’s death. Watch him in his motor-mouth rush of words about the stress he feels, his voice a strangled cry of pain held inside, and attention must be paid when he pesters his wife Kathy, asking, “Didn’t you know that the South is the most violent part of the country?” As always, Anton Chekhov was right to say that when a gun is seen on stage it will surely be fired before the last act ends. The fear shown by his pregnant wife, in a riveting portrayal by Shannon Listol, is palpable as her voice shakes and her body quakes in abject terror.
Also closing this weekend, unless there’s a last minute rescue in the Warehouse Theater schedule that permits an extended run for two more weeks, is another play by a playwright from this region, D.C. resident Evan Crump, whose two-act drama “Genesis” about a mental patient who believes himself to be a fallen angel won the 2010 Capital Fringe Festival award for Best Drama. Retooled since last summer by Crump and especially by director John C. Bailey, a gay actor who is literary curator for D.C.’s Ganymede GLBT Arts Company, this play, which is a meditation on “the human condition,” astounds with its passion and crackles with electricity from mystery-shrouded start to ambiguous finish.
Actor Derek Jones, with glistening bald pate and his sinewy sleek ebony physique much on display, for he is shirtless much of the time, inhabits the role of the eponymous “Genesis” like he was alive in the role, not acting it. As his performance unspools, inside an asylum for the criminally insane, where he has been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic (his doctor calls it “some form of delusional psychosis”), his beautifully dangerous mind always seem rational and his story becomes increasingly credible of being literally a fallen angel. But the question of whether he is sane or insane, convict or saint, human or angel, is never fully answered.
Worth a trip out to Reston’s Community Center Stage Theater in Fairfax County is a play about the “gay gene” (assuming one is ever located in the human genome) and the ethical dilemma of whether parents might abort such a child as eugenic prophylaxis. Written by gay playwright Jonathan Tolins and helmed by gay director Andrew J.M. Regiec, “The Twilight of the Golds” tests the limits of love and acceptance in a drama that ran briefly on Broadway in 1993. Then, the actress Jennifer Grey (best known for playing Frances “Baby” Houseman in the 1987 hit film “Dirty Dancing”) played Suzanne (in Reston the role is played by Jennifer Cambert) who is pregnant and whose husband, a genetic researcher, discovers irregularities in the unborn child’s genetic makeup. Though completely healthy, the baby will likely be born gay, like Suzanne’s younger brother David, an opera set designer.
David (played in the Reston production by Andy Izquierdo) appears to have it all: a loving partner, a supportive family, but now he is drawn into the family debate over the fate of the child. Harvard graduate Tolins, a former writer and co-producer of “Queer as Folk” during its first season on Showtime in 2001 and also an actor who played the gay quarterback in the 2003 film “Totally Sexy Loser,” adapted “Twilight of the Golds” for a Showtime movie in 1997, featuring actors Brendan Fraser as David and Jennifer Beals (of “Flashdance” fame) as Suzanne. It was nominated for a GLAAD media award for outstanding made-for-TV movie that year.
Tolins, who has written for Bette Midler’s road-show tours and her current Las Vegas extravaganza, “The Showgirl Must Go On,” also spent time for two years writing for the Academy Awards show and the 2003 Tony Awards program. He now lives in Connecticut with his husband Robert Cary and their two children. His newest play “Glad Tidings,” is nominated for a GLAAD media award for outstanding New York City play, to be announced March 19.
Finally, there’s “Return to Haifa,” from Israel’s premier flagship theater company, Cameri Theater, now resident through this Sunday only at Theater J, at the D.C. Jewish Community Center’s Goldman Theater. The play, adapted by an Israeli Jew, Boaz Gaon, from the short novella by Palestinian Arab writer Ghassan Kanafani, brings to life the heart-rending saga of two couples — one Palestinian and the other Jewish-Israeli — who must face complex questions of loss and identity when the Palestinian couple returns to the home they fled in 1948 to learn the fate of the baby son they left behind. Now a soldier in the Israeli army, Dov meets his birth parents who had named him Khaldun, as he clings to his mother, a Holocaust survivor who raised him from infancy.
The play — performed in Hebrew and Arabic, with English surtitles — is a meditation on trauma and how to move beyond such wounds. Kanafani himself, assassinated in a 1972 car-bomb, probably by the israeli Mossad, was a spokesman for the militant Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, viewed by Israel and Western governments at the time as a terrorist group. Yet in his novella, he acknowledged that Jews in Israel had also suffered, not just Arabs, and his empathy for such suffering marked his work as an unusual document to help build bridges. But even so, in Israel, most theater companies turned down the chance to produce “Return to Haifa” until the Cameri Theater stepped forward, and the production itself was dogged by protestors from Israel’s anti-Arab far-right.
The play is gripping for its look into the heart of anger and the soul of reconciliation. You will not soon forget the feelings it can stir. But Theater J has sought ways to go beyond these feelings, however, with a companion series of other plays and discussions it calls “Voices from a Changing Middle East: Portraits of Home,” including on Sunday night the play by Ben Brown, “The Promise,” set in London in 1917 when the future president of Israel, Chaim Weitzman maneuvered with British notables to support the right of Jews to return to a Zionist Israel. For more information on this series, see theaterj.org.
Theater
Theatre Prometheus spreads queer joy with ‘Galatea’
Two girls dressed as boys who find love despite the odds
‘Galatea’
Through May 10
Theatre Prometheus
Montgomery College Cultural Arts Center
7995 Georgia Ave, Silver Spring, Md.
$27
Theatreprometheus.org
In a timely move, Theatre Prometheus thought it would be a beneficial thing to spread a little queer joy. And since the company’s mission includes engaging audiences and artists in queer and feminist art, there was nothing to stop them.
Co-artistic directors Tracey Erbacher and Lauren Patton Villegas, both queer, agree they’ve found that joy in John Lyly’s “Galatea,” an Elizabethan-era comedy about Galatea and Phillida, two girls dressed as boys who find love despite some rather slim odds.
Now playing at Montgomery College Cultural Arts Center on the Takoma Park/Silver Spring campus, the upbeat offering is a mix of contemporary and period, and strives to make audiences happy. Galatea’s cast includes Amber Coleman and Cate Ginsberg as the besotted pair.
Erbacher, also the production’s director, adds “queer joy is something that I prioritized in casting actors and interviewing production people. I asked them what it means to them, and resoundingly the reply — from both them and the play — is that queer joy is the freedom to be yourself without having to think about it.
“Galatea” was first brought to Prometheus’s attention by Caitlin Partridge, the company’s literary director. Erbacher recalls, “she strongly suggested I read this very queer play. I read it and fell absolutely in love. And because it’s a comedy — I really like directing comedy — I knew that I could lean into that while not neglecting its universal themes of young love.”
Villegas, who’s not ordinarily drawn to the classics, was also instantly smitten with Galatea.
“Usually with classics, the language doesn’t jump out at me the way modern works do,” she says. “But not so with ‘Galatea.’ The first time I heard it read aloud, I found it easy to follow and entirely accessible in the best way.”
Whether Lyly deliberately wrote a queer play isn’t known. What’s definitely known is the play was written with an all-boy performing troupe in mind; that’s partly why there are so many young female roles, the parts 10-year-old boys were playing at the time.
There’s not a lot known about Lyly’s personal life, mostly because he wasn’t wildly famous. What’s known about the times is that there wasn’t a concept of “gay,” but there were sodomy laws regarding homosexual activity in England geared toward men having sex with men; it was all very phallocentric, Erbacher says.
She categorically adds, “Women’s sexuality wasn’t considered in the equation. In fact, it was often asked whether women were even capable of having sex with other women. It just was not part of the conversation. If there wasn’t a dick involved it didn’t count.
“Perhaps that’s how the playwright got around it. If there were two male characters in the play he could not have done it.”
Prometheus has done adaptations of ancient myths and some classics, but in this case it’s very faithful to the original text. Other than some cuts winnowing the work down to 90 minutes, “Galatea” is pretty much exactly as Lyly wrote it.
And that includes, “girls dressed as boys who fall in love thinking girls are boys,” says Erbacher. “And then they start to clock things: ‘I think he is as I am.’ And then they don’t care if the object of their affection is a boy or a girl, the quintessential bisexual iconic line.”
And without spoiling a thing, the director teases, “the ending is even queerer than the rest of the play.”
Erbacher and Villegas have worked together since Prometheus’s inception 11 years ago. More recently, they became co-artistic directors, splitting the work in myriad ways. It’s a good fit: They share values but not identical artistic sensibilities allow them to exchange objective feedback.
In past seasons, the collaborative pair have produced an all-women production of “Macbeth” and a queered take on [gay] “Cymbeline,” recreating it as a lesbian love story. And when roles aren’t specifically defined male or female, they take the best actor for the part.
With Galatea, Prometheus lightens the current mood. Erbacher says, “the hard stuff is important but exhausting. We deserve a queer rom-com, a romantic sweeping story that’s not focused on how hard it is to be queer, but rather the joy of it.”
Theater
Timely comedy ‘Fake It’ focuses on Native American themes
Arena Stage production features two out actors
‘Fake It Until You Make It’
Through May 4
Arena Stage, 1101 Sixth St., S.W.
Tickets start at $59
Arenastage.org
A farce requires teamwork. And Larissa FastHorse’s “Fake It Until You Make It” now at Arena Stage is no exception.
The timely comedy focuses on Native American nonprofits fractiously housed in a shared space. Friction rises when rivals River (Amy Brenneman), a white woman operating in the Indigenous world, goes up against the more authentic Wynona (Shyla Lefner) to win a lucrative Native-funded grant.
While Brenneman (best known for TV’s Judging Amy) is undeniably a big draw, it takes a group collaboration to hit marks, land jokes, and pull off the well-executed physical comedy including all those carefully timed door slams.
As members of the six-person “Fake It” cast, Brandon Delsid and Eric Stanton Betts, both out actors of partly indigenous ancestry, contribute to the mayhem. Respectively, Delsid and Betts play Krys and Mark, a pair of two-spirited Native Americans who meet farcically cute and enjoy one of the play’s more satisfying arcs.
For Krys, every attractive man is a potential next fling, but when Mark, handsome and relatively reserved, arrives on the scene, it’s something entirely different.
Both onstage and sometimes off, Betts plays the straight man to Delsid’s waggishness. But when it comes down to real life business, the friends are on the same page: not only are the L.A.-based, up-and-coming actors intensely serious about their film and stage careers, but they’re also particularly engaged in the themes of Indigenous People found in “Fake It.”
On a recent Wednesday following a matinee and an audience talkback, they were ready for a phone interview.
In establishing whose voice was whose, Delsid clarified with “I’m the one who sounds a little like a Valley girl.”
WASHINGTON BLADE: Brandon, you’ve been with the show since its early work-shopping days in 2022 and through its debut in Los Angeles and now Washington. Have things evolved?
BRANDON DELSID: Definitely. I’ve grown up in the last couple of years and so has my character; it’s hard to know where I end and Kry begins. There’s been a real melding.
Eric and I are both queer, and to get to play these roles that are so human, imperfect, sexy, and interesting is really joyful.
As queer artists you don’t always get the chance to do work like this. So many stories are queer trauma, which is incredibly important, but it’s liberating to feel joy and ride it off into the sunset, which, without revealing too much, is kind of what we get to do.
BLADE: There’s some race shifting in “Fake It” particularly with regard to “pretendian” (a pejorative term describing a person who has falsely claimed Indigenous status).
ERIC STANTON BETTS: The last few years I’ve been on a journey with my cultural identity and place in the world. I’m a mixed BIPOC artist, my dad is Black and Native American by way of the Cherokee tribe and my mom is white.
Since 2020, I’ve tried to figure out where I belong in this cultural history that I haven’t had a tie to throughout my life; it’s gratifying to find my way back to my indigeneity and be welcomed.
In the play, race shifting is introduced through farce. But it’s never in a disrespectful way; it’s never mocked or done in a way to take away from others. The playwright parallels race shifting with gender fluidity.
DELSID: But in life, there are people posing as Indigenous, actively taking grants, and the play goes there, we don’t hold back. Larissa, our playwright, has made it clear that she’s not trying to figure it out for us. With that in mind, we hope people leave the theater interested and curious to learn more.
BLADE: Mark arrives kind of the middle of some crazy drama, bringing along a jolt of romance.
BETTS: Yeah, when I show up, we’re all sort of shot out of a cannon, struggling to keep up with the initial lie.
DESLID: A very gay cannon.
BLADE: What’s up next for you two?
BETTS: Both Brandon and I are up for the same part in a TV pilot, so one of us may be getting some very good news. I also have a Tyler Perry film coming out soon [he plays a model, not an unfamiliar gig for Betts].
DELSID: Coming up, I have a recurring part on HBO’s “The Rehearsal,” and a supporting part in “June and John,” a Luc Besson film. But doing “Fake It Until You Make It” in L.A. and now D.C. has been a special time in our lives. It’s 23/7 togetherness. There’s that hour for sleep.
Theater
‘Bad Books’ a timely look at censorship in local library
Influencer vs. conservative parent in Round House production
‘Bad Books’
Through May 4
Round House Theatre
4545 East-West Highway
Bethesda, Md.
Tickets start at $43
Roundhousetheatre.org
While a library might seem an unlikely place for a heated contretemps, it’s exactly the spot where adults go when they’re itching to battle out what books minors might be allowed to read.
In Sharyn Rothstein’s “Bad Books,” two women, The Mother (out actor Holly Twyford) and The Librarian (Kate Eastwood Norris), swiftly become mired in a quarrel that comes with some weighty repercussions.
The Mother is a popular conservative influencer on a mission. She’s furious that the local library has overstepped its bounds and she blames The Librarian, a woman who adheres to the “it takes a village” method of child rearing and is dedicated to the young people who approach her reference desk.
There’s some background. It seems The Librarian who dresses young (tight jackets and Doc Martens) and curses a blue streak, forged a friendship with Jeremy, a teenage library regular.
While the details are a bit hazy, it seems the troubled Jeremy confided in The Librarian regarding some personal issues. In return, she suggested a helpful book – Boob Juice.
Unsurprisingly, based solely on its title, the book has thrown The Mother into a pique of outrage. After finding Boob Juice in her son’s bedroom, she made a beeline to the library; and not incidentally, The Mother hasn’t read the recommended work and has no plans to do so.
Set in a suburb with lax gun laws, the story explores facets of division and conciliation. The Mother insists she isn’t so much about banning books as she is keeping some books away from young people until they’ve obtained parental approval.
“Bad Books” is performed in the round. Built on a rotating stage, Meghan Raham’s set is simple, pleasingly serviceable, and easily transforms from the library into a small corporate office, and later the assembly room of a church. Overhead floats a circular glass shelf filled with a cache of banned books. Things like a rolling book cart and a goldfish bowl add some flavor to the different locations.
The Mother wasn’t always a popular conservative warrior with an enthusiastic horde of followers.
Her past includes penning a book that later filled her with guilt and regret. She refers to that early questionable literary accomplishment as her bad book. And while over the years, she has persevered to find and destroy each and every printed copy, she hasn’t entirely succeeded.
Norris plays three women who figure meaningfully into the arc of Twyford’s mother character. In addition to The Librarian, Norris is The Manager, a broadly played piece of comic relief, and The Editor, a warm woman who reveals things about Jeremy that his own mother never knew.
Smartly staged by Ryan Rilette, the production is part of a National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere. While Rothstein’s script offers two strong roles (skillfully performed by celebrated actors Twyford and Norris), its ending feels too neatly resolved.
In the past, Twyford and Norris have successfully joined forces for numerous DMV productions including Studio Theatre’s production of David Auburn’s two-hander “Summer, 1976,” the story of a longtime and unlikely friendship between two women who meet as young mothers during the Bicentennial summer.
Though different, both The Librarian and The Mother share a strong and ultimately hopeful relationship with words.
There’s a quote from E.B. White’s classic “Charlotte’s Web” that pops up a couple of times in the briskly paced 80-minute play. Charlotte, the wise spider, says, “with just the right words you can change the world.”
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