Theater
Mama mia
Gritty new Woolly production gives inner-city spin on Greek classic
‘Oedipus el Rey’
Through March 6
Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company
641 D Street, NW
$30-$65
202-393-3939
A scene from ‘Oedipus el Rey,’ on the boards now at Woolly Mammoth. (Photo by Stan Barouh; courtesy of Woolly)
There’s a moment in Woolly Mammoth’s never-boring production of “Oedipus el Rey” when the recently widowed Jocasta and the younger title character are heatedly – and nakedly — going at it on the floor of the company’s brightly lit stage and the audience wants to yell “Stop!” Not because we’re prudes or because the pair is bad to look at (they’re not). It’s because we already know something that the characters have yet to discover – they’re mother and son.
Gay playwright Luis Alfaro’s modern take on Sophocles’ classic tragedy puts the focus on the intense romantic relationship between lonely Jocasta (Romi Dias) and her long lost only child Oedipus (Andres Munar). The ill-fated couple’s lengthy, nude sex scene – boldly staged by director Michael John Garcés – is especially intense given that their immediate love and openly displayed passion will ultimately result in further pain for the already damaged pair.
Equally effective, Alfaro sets his version in California’s North Kern State Prison and Pico Union, a rough district in downtown Los Angeles. Surrounded by an informal chorus of hardcore Chicano inmates and (later) gangbangers clad in wife beaters and sagging pants, Oedipus struggles to defy prophesy, but despite all attempts to rise about the gods, he succumbs to his destiny. With its enduring themes of fate, pride and free will, Sophocles’ Greek tragedy works well in the confines of a contemporary prison and the mean streets of the barrio.
Even with the new L.A. setting, all the ancient plot points are there: After learning from local seers that his newborn is destined to be his rival, Laius (David Anzuelo), king of the barrio, instructs crony Tiresias (Gerard Ender) to kill baby Oedipus. Crony spares the child. Years later (after spending many years in reform school and a stint in big house in Alfaro’s account), Oedipus kills his father and marries his mother.
Though unaware of his bloodlines, Oedipus feels entitled to rule. Like other tragic heroes, his hubris is his downfall. When Jocasta queen of the barrio first meets the appealing young man who is in fact her son, she’s impressed and rapidly raises her new lover to royal status. Her brother Creon (a convincing and very fit Jose Joaquin Perez) urges his sister to reconsider, but it’s too late.
Unlike Sophocles’ more honorable Oedipus, Alfaro’s young tragic hero is a straight-up thug operating outside of the law, but at the same time he reeks of innocence like a sort of convict fledgling recently bumped from the prison nest. Munar superbly captures the duality of the role. The remainder of the seven-person cast is similarly committed.
Designer Misha Kachman’s set is appropriately raw, doubling as a prison yard and the barrio streets. Its centerpiece is a massive sliding door book-ended by two iron ladders. Kachman also designed the actors’ outsized black and white, press on tattoos Inspired by gangland designs, the tattoos are purposely not too reality based — that could potentially create problems for the actors with real gangs outside of the theater.
Alfaro knows from what he writes. According to program notes, the playwright is Chicano (or a U.S. citizen of Mexican descent) and was born and raised in downtown L.A. Over the years he’s worked in California’s Juvenile Detention System as a poet and a writer. He adeptly infuses his work with barrio culture like its blend of Catholic and indigenous religious beliefs, and peppers his already authentic, often humorous dialogue with a little Spanglish.
While a lot of Alfaro’s prior plays have dealt with lesbian and gay themes, “Oedipus el Rey” does not, but Woolly’s production nonetheless remains a great opportunity to get (or become further) acquainted with the celebrated playwright’s work.
Theater
‘Acting their asses off’ in ‘Exception to the Rule’
Studio production takes place during after-school detention
‘Exception to the Rule’
Through Sunday, October 27
Studio Theatre
1501 14th St. NW, Washington, D.C.
$40-$95
Studiotheatre.org
After-school detention is a bore, but it’s especially tiresome on the last day of classes before a holiday.
In Dave Harris’s provocative new play “Exception to the Rule” (now at Studio Theatre) that’s just the case.
It’s Friday, and the usual suspects are reporting to room 111 for detention before enjoying the long MLK weekend. First on the scene are blaring “bad girl” Mikayla (Khalia Muhammad) and nerdy stoner Tommy (Stephen Taylor Jr.), followed by mercurial player Dayrin (Jacques Jean-Mary), kind Dasani (Shana Lee Hill), and unreadable Abdul (Khouri St.Surin).
The familiar is jaw-droppingly altered by the entrance of “College Bound Erika” (Sabrina Lynne Sawyer), a detention first timer whose bookworm presence elicits jokes from the others: What happened? You fail a test?
Dasani (who’s teased for being named for designer water) dubs Erika “Sweet Pea” and welcomes her to the rule-breaking fold. Together the regulars explain how detention works: The moderator, Mr. Bernie, shows up, signs their slips, and then they go. But today the teacher is tardy.
As they wait, the kids pass the time laughing, trash talking, flirting, and yelling. When not bouncing around the classroom, Dayrin is grooming his hair, while Dasani endlessly reapplies blush and lip gloss. At one point two boys almost come to blows, nearly repeating the cafeteria brawl that landed them in detention in the first place.
It’s loud. It’s confrontational. And it’s funny.
Erika is naively perplexed: “I thought detention was quiet. A place where everyone remembers the mistakes that got them here and then learns how to not make the same mistakes again.”
For room 111, the only connection to the outside world is an increasingly glitchy and creepy intercom system. Announcements (bus passes, the school’s dismal ranking, the impending weekend lockdown, etc.) are spoken by the unseen but unmistakably stentorian-voiced Craig Wallace.
Dave Harris first conceived “Exception to the Rule” in 2014 during his junior year at Yale University. In the program notes, the Black playwright describes “Exception to the Rule” as “a single set / six actors on a stage, just acting their asses off.” It’s true, and they do it well.
Miranda Haymon is reprising their role as director (they finely helmed the play’s 2022 off-Broadway debut at Roundabout Theatre Company in New York). Haymon orchestrates a natural feel to movement in the classroom, and without entirely stilling the action on stage (makeup applying, scribbling, etc.), the out director gives each member of the terrific cast their revelatory moment. In a busy room, we learn that Tommy’s goofiness belies trauma, that Mikayla is admirably resourceful, and most startling, why Erika, the school’s top student, is in detention.
Mr. Bernie is clearly a no-show. And despite his absence, the regulars are bizarrely loath to leave the confines of 111 for fear of catching yet another detention. Of course, it’s emblematic of something bigger. Still, things happen within the room.
While initially treated as a sort of mascot, awkwardly quiet Erika becomes rather direct in her questions and observations. Suddenly, she’s rather stiffly doling out unsolicited advice.
It’s as if an entirely new person has been thrown into the mix.
Not all of her guidance goes unheeded. Take fighting for instance. At Erika’s suggestion, St.Surin’s Abdul refrains from kicking Dayrin’s ass. (Just feet from the audience gathered for a recent matinee in Studio’s intimate Mead Theatre, Abdul’s frustration resulting from anger while yearning for a world of principled order is palpable as evidenced when a single tear rolled down the actor’s right cheek)
Set designer Tony Cisek renders a no-frills classroom with cinder block walls, a high and horizontal row of frosted fixed windows that become eerily prison like when overhead fluorescent lighting is threateningly dimmed.
Still, no matter how dark, beyond the classroom door, a light remains aglow, encouraging the kids to ponder an exit plan.
Theater
Broadening space for gender nonconforming singers
Robin McGinness, a transfemme baritone, featured in ‘Cradle Will Rock’
‘The Cradle Will Rock’
Goldman Theater DCJCC (10/5-13) and
Baltimore Theatre Project (10/18-20)
Inseries.org
Robin McGinness, an accomplished Baltimore-based transfemme baritone, knows a lot about music. Also, as a gender nonconforming performer she’s learned how to navigate and carve out a career in opera.
Currently, she is playing Mr. Mister in the IN Series production of “The Cradle Will Rock,” a 1937 Brechtian allegory of corporate greed written and composed by Marc Blitzstein who was openly gay when that wasn’t an easy thing to be.
IN Series, D.C.’s innovative opera theater, which happens to rank high among McGinness’s favorite companies, infuses its take on a seldom seen classic with new energy, humor, melody, and a thirst for justice. The production features a cast of some the area’s best young vocalists and is helmed by Shanara Gabrielle (stage direction) and Emily Baltzer (musical direction).
Growing up in southern New Hampshire, McGinness started off performing in Waldorf school, followed by Vermont’s progressive Putney boarding school, and then Oberlin College where she focused in vocal performance after having been singled out as a well-rounded baritone.
WASHINGTON BLADE: What drew you to IN Series?
ROBIN MCGINNESS: They [out artistic director Timothy Nelson and other company members] were doing work that didn’t take opera too preciously. No kid gloves. The theater world has large productions collapsed down to smaller audiences. That’s a mode that opera might follow. IN Series was doing things that excited me.
My first show with them was two years ago. I’d just moved back from being a young artist with an opera company in Arizona when IN Series needed someone for “Nightsong of Orpheus.” Truly a wild piece of theater that I loved. Since then, I’ve been talking them up with everyone I meet, and enthusiastically engaging with them when I can.
BLADE: How is it to be transfemme in the opera world?
MCGINNESS: Performing hasn’t always been easy for me. There was a time when my self-image and identity aligned with composing, to produce beautiful complex music behind the scenes and not have to be center of attention.
Coming into my undergrad years, my intention was to pursue music and divorce myself from certain parts of identity including my gender identity that I didn’t think would help my career. But that would change.
I had awareness and had for years but made a choice that being a musician was the most important part of my identity. As I got to the end of undergrad my picture of what success meant had changed and I couldn’t live with this absolutist way of living my life.
BLADE: And how has that worked out?
MCGINNESS: I’ve been trying to break down barriers between the personal and professional sides and try to combine that into something more functional. It can feel dangerous.
Early on when trying to figure out how to present as a female baritone in the opera, the question I got most was won’t that effect your voice? People are more understanding now. And I’m grateful to those who have broadened this space for gender nonconforming singers.
BLADE: Does it take courage?
MCGINNESS: Yes, but I’m not pursuing the same career that I was. I’m interested in performing with IN Series now. I’m not trying to pursue a full-time touring opera career.
It seems that either opera companies wouldn’t want to hire because they feel they couldn’t bring you out to donors or companies would want to hire but for the identity politics of it. Both would be anathema to me.
It’s a ridiculously competitive industry. But I’m building a career in the area where I am now, and it’s going well. With people who know my work and hire me for the work.
BLADE: What can we expect from “The Cradle Will Rock”?
MCGINNESS: If you’re expecting Puccini, it won’t be that. It’s gritty. A lot of spoken dialogue. Closer to spoken theater with some music thrown in than it is an opera.
It pokes out power and dynamics that queer audiences might enjoy seeing be deconstructed, particularly when it’s done in a really smart way.
BLADE: What’s ahead for you?
MCGINNESS: I’m 33. Musically, I’m just hitting my prime so I have some good years of singing ahead of me.
I like my work to be complex, interwoven and layered. In addition to performing, I teach career courses and work in the career office mentoring students at Peabody Institute in Baltimore. All of us who do that here are practicing performers. As long as I have performance work coming in and have money to put bread on the table, I’m happy — way too busy — but happy.
“Something for everyone.” It’s a tired tagline, but in the case of this fall’s DMV theater season, it happens to be pretty much true. And a lot of the work is queer, directly or tangentially. Here’s a sliver of what’s already opened and what’s in store.
Theater J jumps into the new season with “How to Be a Korean Woman” (through Sept. 22), Sun Mee Chomet’s comic and heartfelt telling of searching for her birth family in Seoul, South Korea. edcjcc.org
Woolly Mammoth Theatre opens with “The Comeuppance” (through Oct. 6), the latest work from Tony-winning out playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins.
“On the night of their 20th high school reunion, the self-proclaimed “Multi-Ethnic Reject Group” reconnects while they pregame in Prince George’s County, Md. But amid the flow of reminiscing, an otherworldly presence forces these former classmates to face the past head-on and reckon with an unknowable future.” Woollymammoth.net
Signature Theatre kicks off with the D.C. premiere of Eboni Booth’s Pulitzer-winning play “Primary Trust” (through Oct. 20). Booth’s contemporary humor-filled tender tale of self-discovery and connection is followed by Signature’s big musical “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” (Oct. 29-Jan. 12), Stephen Sondheim’s classic Roman-set musical comedy staged by Signature’s out artistic director Matthew Gardiner. Sigtheatre.org
GALA Hispanic Theatre’s season opener, Gustavo Ott’s “The 22+ Weddings of Hugo” (through Sept. 29), is based on a true story. Performed in Spanish with easy-to-follow English surtitles, Ott’s raucous tale seeks to cover the various scenarios immigrants experience through many weddings. The cast features out actors Carlos Castillo as Hugo, a quiet postal clerk, and Victor Salinas who plays Elmar, a gay writer seeking refuge. José Zayas directs. Galatheatre.org.
Mosaic Theater Company at Atlas Performing Arts Center presents “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill” (through Oct. 6), a play with music about jazz legend/queer icon Billie Holiday starring Roz White. Mosaic’s out artistic director Reginald L. Douglas directs. Mosaictheater.org
Ford’s Theatre presents “Mister Lincoln” (Sept. 20-Oct. 13), a “witty and revelatory” one-man show starring Scott Bakula (stage and screen actor famous for TV’s “Quantum Leap”). Fords.org
ExPats Theatre (also housed at Atlas) opens with “Marlene” (Sept. 28 through Oct. 20) featuring Karin Rosnizeck as the legendary Dietrich, a great star who famously defied social and gender conventions while dazzling the world with her glamorous career. Expatstheate.com
There’s a lot on offer at George Mason University’s Center for Arts this autumn, not least of all “An Evening with Lea Salonga” (Saturday, Sept. 28).
Tony-winning singer and actress Lea Salonga headlines the 2024 ARTS by George! benefit concert, performing songs from a four-decade career on Broadway and in animated movie hits. Born in the Philippines, Salonga originated the lead role of Kim in Miss Saigon, and she was the first Asian cast member to perform the role of Eponine in Les Misérables on Broadway.
Other promising one-day-only GMU entertainments include Ballet Hispánico (Oct. 5) and Mark Morris Dance Group and Music Ensemble (Oct. 19). cfa.gmu.edu
Creative Cauldron in Falls Church presents “Sondheim Tribute Revue” (Oct. 3-27) a celebratory salute to musical giant Stephen Sondheim with eight performers singing 20 titles from the gay composer’s brilliant songbook including “Company,” “Follies,” “Into the Woods,” “A Little Night Music,” “Sweeney Todd,” and the recent Tony Award Winner, “Merrily We Roll Along,” and more. Creativecauldron.org
Olney Theatre explores what makes a president great with “Eisenhower: This Piece of Ground,” Sept. 27-Oct. 20. And for Disney fans, don’t miss “Frozen,” Oct. 24-Jan. 5. Olneytheatre.org
The Kennedy Center offers laughs and nostalgia with “Clue” (Sept.17 through Oct. 6), a whodunit based on the fan-favorite 1985 Paramount movie and inspired by the classic Hasbro board game. Next up is “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” (Oct. 11 – 20).
Other Kennedy Center treats include “An Evening with David Sedaris” (Oct. 15). The gay humorist is slated to share his inimitable brand of satire and hilarious observations, and then it’s out sound healing artist Davin Youngs with “The Reset” (Oct. 28), his take on a “sound bath” including improvisational singing, looping devices, and healing instruments. Kennedy-center.org
Fall is the best time at the beach, so plan a weekend in Rehoboth and visit the phenomenal Clear Space Theatre. “Venus in Fur” runs Sept. 19-29 followed by “Sweeney Todd” Oct. 11-27; and “Shrek” runs Nov. 8-10. Clearspacetheatre.org
Fall cabaret will be in full swing at the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, D.C., as soloists share heart-warming stories and songs about their travel adventures (Oct. 19 at 2, 5, and 8 p.m.). And, of course, no holiday season is complete without the Chorus’s annual holiday celebration set for Dec. 7, 14, and 15. Gmcw.org
Folger Theatre presents Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” (Oct. 1-Nov. 10) staged by inspiring out director Raymond O. Caldwell. A large, versatile cast features Cole Taylor and Caro Rayes Rivera as the star-crossed lovers, and a host of familiar local faces including Luz Nicolas, Deirdra LaWan Starnes, and out actor Fran Tapia as Lady Capulet. folger.edu
Studio Theatre serves up “Summer, 1976,” (opening Nov. 13), a memory play by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Auburn (“Proof”). Directed by Vivienne Benesch, the two-hander features longtime D.C. favorites Kate Eastwood Norris and out actor Holly Twyford playing disparate women whose unlikely friendship and ensuing connection changes the course of their lives. Studiotheatre.org
And on Wednesday, Dec. 4, Strathmore in North Bethesda presents “A Swingin’ Little Christmas,” a fun takeoff on kitschy, classic ‘50s and ‘60s holiday specials, featuring out TV star Jane Lynch (“Glee,” “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”) alongside Kate Flannery (“The Office”), Tim Davis (“Glee’s” vocal arranger), and The Tony Guerrero Quintet. Strathmore.org
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