Arts & Entertainment
Laughing all the way
Westenhoefer on her divorce, Birchmere return and Jodie Foster
Suzanne Westenhoefer (Photo by Adam Bouska)
For one of her first shows this year, comedian Suzanne Westenhoefer cannot assure her audience she will stick to a certain theme or what kind of jokes she will make. She doesn’t even have a name for her current tour.
However, she does promise that straight or gay, boy or girl, attendees will laugh.
Westenhoefer comes to the Birchmere (3701 Mount Vernon Ave., Alexandria) Friday night, bringing with her personal stories that audiences can relate to and laugh about.
“Because the act I do is very truthful, very personal, my show is changing hourly,” she says. “If something changes in my life that makes the story not true, the show changes. It’s not like a written script.”
The blend of honesty and often self-deprecating humor is what brings audiences back year after year, says Michael Jaworek, Birchmere promoter, who has been booking Westenhoefer for more than 15 years.
“Her audience is very devoted and follows her,” he says. “She is funny. Her humor is insightful. A lot of her material deals with gay life, or rather lesbian life. She speaks to and for the majority of her audience.”
Suzanne Westenhoefer
February 1
The Birchmere
3701 Mount Vernon Ave.
Alexandria, Va
Tickets are $54.50
Westenhoefer does know that a bulk of her show will deal with recovering from divorce and entering the dating world for the first time in years. Through this process, she’s learned a few new things about herself.
“I suck at dating,” she says. “I don’t date, I don’t know how.”
A little less than a year ago, Westenhoefer divorced long-term partner Jennifer Houston, whom she married in 2008 before Proposition 8 was voted on in California. Through the transition, she’s learned a lot of new things about herself.
“I thought I would be fine, apparently not,” she says. “I didn’t know how to feed myself. I hadn’t cooked for myself since I moved in with my first partner when I was 21.”
But she says despite the bumps and challenges in her new life, there are so many great and new people to meet and that everyone should “go out, be nice, buy someone a cocktail and meet somebody.” She’s currently exclusively seeing a woman whom she calls “tall girl” in order to respect her privacy.
The stage to Westenhoefer is an open diary, and even when the story is tragic in nature, she always tries to make it comedic.
“I see what everybody is thinking, what needs to be said,” she says. “I’m getting everybody off the hook by saying it. I’m giving them a chance to laugh at tragedy that befalls them all.”
Growing up in the heart of Amish country in Pennsylvania, and coming out right when the AIDS crisis was starting in 1981, Westenhoefer has had plenty of stories to tell. But the act of sharing her personal narrative has its roots in something deeper and older.
“My grandfather was the same way,” she says. “He was that kind of person who goes to the store to get milk and bread, come back and have a fantastic funny story about it.”
On stage, Westenhoefer is not afraid to say whatever is on her mind.
“Once my sister told me she thinks she might be gay, but asked me not to tell anybody,” she says. “What did I do? I went right on stage and said ‘So, my sister thinks she’s gay.’”
This has not gotten her in trouble with her family so far, she claims, because they know it is “out of love.”
Westenhoefer began her stand-up career at the end of 1990, when a friend dared her to go on stage while she was working as a New York bartender. However, she did not need anyone to dare her to be honest and talk about gay life.
“My opening line was I am the only gay comedian you’re going to see tonight,” she says.
Though her first time on stage didn’t go well (by her own admission), her career took off through the ‘90s. In 1991, she became the first lesbian comic to appear on television, when she was on an episode of “Sally Jessy Raphael” called “Breaking the Lesbian Stereotype: Lesbians Who Don’t Look Like Lesbians,” and then went on to be the first openly gay comic to host an HBO Comedy Special in 1994.
Being on television created an opportunity to start a conversation, she says.
“It was a way to tell people not to panic, we aren’t killing babies,” Westenhoefer says. “This has always been and always will be.”
This is not the first time Westenhoefer has been a force for change. She says in high school she formed a group to ban dodge ball. She says activism is in her blood and that she and her family always were political
While still blunt and honest with her audience, Westenhoefer says things have certainly changed since she began. Westenhoefer no longer uses her original opening line.
“I used to do shows in straight clubs and I literally would say I was lesbian in the beginning of every show,” she says. “It’s definitely gotten to be a different show. It doesn’t have to be gay gay gay gay.”
Recent events, such as Jodie Foster’s speech at the Golden Globes and Barack Obama’s speech at his second inauguration, she says mark the change in attitudes toward the LGBT community.
When she came out at 19, Westenhoefer says it was a scarier time period. There was more violence against the community. However, most of her friends and family were supportive.
Now she finds it amazing that people like Foster can go on international television and discuss their sexuality with the world.
“I am very excited for her,” Westenhoefer, who’s met Foster three times, says. “She is a very shy, very private woman. I am very proud of her. To get up in front of an international audience and tell this, it’s amazing.”
Despite leaving the much warmer West Coast to do so, Westenhoefer says she’s always glad to return to the D.C. area.
“I love D.C. for several reasons,” she says. “First of all people will come out for a show even if there is an ice storm. They have southern hospitality, they are political and they want to be entertained. It is the perfect storm for comedy.”
Jaworek is happy to have her back because, “Suzanne is a very funny woman period.”
Even though she shares the experiences of a lesbian, Westenhoefer insists that, “the boys are welcome. It is not just for girls. It’s a show for straights, for gays, and if they wanna come, I promise they’ll laugh.”
Theater
Swing actor Thomas Netter covers five principal parts in ‘Clue’
Unique role in National Theatre production requires lots of memorization
‘Clue: On Stage’
Jan. 27-Feb. 1
The National Theatre
1321 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W.
thenationaldc.com
Out actor Thomas Netter has been touring with “Clue” since it opened in Rochester, New York, in late October, and he’s soon settling into a week-long run at D.C.’s National Theatre.
Adapted by Sandy Rustin from the same-titled 1985 campy cult film, which in turn took its inspiration from the popular board game, “Clue” brings all the murder mystery mayhem to stage.
It’s 1954, the height of the Red Scare, and a half dozen shady characters are summoned to an isolated mansion by a blackmailer named Mr. Boddy where things go awry fairly fast. A fast-moving homage to the drawing room whodunit genre with lots of wordplay, slapstick, and farce, “Clue” gives the comedic actors a lot to do and the audience much to laugh at.
When Netter tells friends that he’s touring in “Clue,” they inevitably ask “Who are you playing and when can we see you in it?” His reply isn’t straightforward.
The New York-based actor explains, “In this production, I’m a swing. I never know who’ll I play or when I’ll go on. Almost at any time I can be called on to play a different part. I cover five roles, almost all of the men in the show.”
Unlike an understudy who typically learns one principal or supporting role and performs in the ensemble nightly, a swing learns any number of parts and waits quietly offstage throughout every performance just in case.
With 80 minutes of uninterrupted quick, clipped talk “Clue” can be tough for a swing. Still, Netter, 28, adds, “I’m loving it, and I’m working with a great cast. There’s no sort of “All About Eve” dynamic going on here.”
WASHINGTON BLADE: Learning multiple tracks has got to be terrifying.
THOMAS NETTER: Well, there certainly was a learning curve for me. I’ve understudied roles in musicals but I’ve never covered five principal parts in a play, and the sheer amount of memorization was daunting.
As soon as I got the script, I started learning lines character by character. I transformed my living room into the mansion’s study and hallway, and got on my feet as much as I could and began to get the parts into my body.
BLADE: During the tour, have you been called on to perform much?
NETTER: Luckily, everyone has been healthy. But I was called on in Pittsburgh where I did Wadsworth, the butler, and the following day did the cop speaking to the character that I was playing the day before.
BLADE: Do you dread getting that call?
NETTER: Can’t say I dread it, but there is that little bit of stage fright involved. Coming in, my goal was to know the tracks. After I’d done my homework and released myself from nervous energy, I could go out and perform and have fun. After all, I love to act.
“Clue” is an opportunity for me to live in the heads of five totally different archetype characters. As an actor that part is very exciting. In this comedy, depending on the part, some nights it’s kill and other nights be killed.
BLADE: Aside from the occasional nerves, would you swing again?
NETTER: Oh yeah, I feel I’m living out the dream of the little gay boy I once was. Traveling around getting a beat on different communities. If there’s a gay bar, I’m stopping by and meeting interesting and cool people.
BLADE: Speaking of that little gay boy, what drew him to theater?
NETTER: Grandma and mom were big movie musical fans, show likes “Singing in the Rain,” “Meet Me in St. Louis.” I have memories of my grandma dancing me around the house to “Shall We Dance?” from the “King and I” She put me in tap class at age four.
BLADE: What are your career highlights to date?
NETTER: Studying the Meisner techniqueat New York’sNeighborhood Playhouse for two years was definitely a highlight. Favorite parts would include the D’Ysquith family [all eight murder victims] in “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder,” and the monstrous Miss Trunchbull in “Matilda.”
BLADE: And looking forward?
NETTER: I’d really like the chance to play Finch or Frump in Frank Loesser’s musical comedy “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.”
BLADE: In the meantime, you can find Netter backstage at the National waiting to hear those exhilarating words “You’re on!”
Movies
A ‘Battle’ we can’t avoid
Critical darling is part action thriller, part political allegory, part satire
When Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” debuted on American movie screens last September, it had a lot of things going for it: an acclaimed Hollywood auteur working with a cast that included three Oscar-winning actors, on an ambitious blockbuster with his biggest budget to date, and a $70 million advertising campaign to draw in the crowds. It was even released in IMAX.
It was still a box office disappointment, failing to achieve its “break-even” threshold before making the jump from big screen to small via VOD rentals and streaming on HBO Max. Whatever the reason – an ambivalence toward its stars, a lack of clarity around what it was about, divisive pushback from both progressive and conservative camps over perceived messaging, or a general sense of fatigue over real-world events that had pushed potential moviegoers to their saturation point for politically charged material – audiences failed to show up for it.
The story did not end there, of course; most critics, unconcerned with box office receipts, embraced Anderson’s grand-scale opus, and it’s now a top contender in this year’s awards race, already securing top prizes at the Golden Globe and Critics’ Choice Awards, nominated for a record number of SAG’s Actor Awards, and almost certain to be a front runner in multiple categories at the Academy Awards on March 15.
For cinema buffs who care about such things, that means the time has come: get over all those misgivings and hesitations, whatever reasons might be behind them, and see for yourself why it’s at the top of so many “Best Of” lists.
Adapted by Anderson from the 1990 Thomas Pynchon novel “Vineland,” “One Battle” is part action thriller, part political allegory, part jet-black satire, and – as the first feature film shot primarily in the “VistaVision” format since the early 1960s – all gloriously cinematic. It unspools a near-mythic saga of oppression, resistance, and family bonds, set in an authoritarian America of unspecified date, in which a former revolutionary (Leonardo DiCaprio) is attempting to raise his teenage daughter (Chase Infiniti) under the radar after her mother (Teyana Taylor) betrayed the movement and fled the country. Now living under a fake identity and consumed by paranoia and a weed habit, he has grown soft and unprepared when a corrupt military officer (Sean Penn) – who may be his daughter’s real biological father – tracks them down and apprehends her. Determined to rescue her, he reconnects with his old revolutionary network and enlists the aid of her karate teacher (Benicio Del Toro), embarking on a desperate rescue mission while her captor plots to erase all traces of his former “indiscretion” with her mother.
It’s a plot straight out of a mainstream action melodrama, top-heavy with opportunities for old-school action, sensationalistic violence, and epic car chases (all of which it delivers), but in the hands of Anderson – whose sensibilities always strike a provocative balance between introspection, nostalgia, and a sense of apt-but-irreverent destiny – it becomes much more intriguing than the generic tropes with which he invokes to cover his own absurdist leanings.
Indeed, it’s that absurdity which infuses “One Battle” with a bemusedly observational tone and emerges to distinguish it from the “action movie” format it uses to relay its narrative. From DiCaprio (whose performance highlights his subtle comedic gifts as much as his “serious” acting chops) as a bathrobe-clad underdog hero with shades of The Dude from the Coen Brothers’ “The Big Liebowski,” to the uncomfortably hilarious creepy secret society of financially elite white supremacists that lurks in the margins of the action, Anderson gives us plenty of satirical fodder to chuckle about, even if we cringe as we do it; like that masterpiece of too-close-to-home political comedy, Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 nuclear holocaust farce “Dr. Strangelove,” it offers us ridiculousness and buffoonery which rings so perfectly true in a terrifying reality that we can’t really laugh at it.
That, perhaps, is why Anderson’s film has had a hard time drawing viewers; though it’s based on a book from nearly four decades ago and it was conceived, written, and created well before our current political reality, the world it creates hits a little too close to home. It imagines a roughly contemporary America ruled by a draconian regime, where immigration enforcement, police, and the military all seem wrapped into one oppressive force, and where unapologetic racism dictates an entire ideology that works in the shadows to impose its twisted values on the world. When it was conceived and written, it must have felt like an exaggeration; now, watching the final product in 2026, it feels almost like an inevitability. Let’s face it, none of us wants to accept the reality of fascism imposing itself on our daily lives; a movie that forces us to confront it is, unfortunately, bound to feel like a downer. We get enough “doomscrolling” on social media; we can’t be faulted for not wanting more of it when we sit down to watch a movie.
In truth, however, “One Battle” is anything but a downer. Full of comedic flourish, it maintains a rigorous distance that makes it impossible to make snap judgments about its characters, and that makes all the difference – especially with characters like DiCaprio’s protective dad, whose behavior sometimes feels toxic from a certain point of view. And though it’s a movie which has no qualms about showing us terrifying things we would rather not see, it somehow comes off better in the end than it might have done by making everything feel safe.
“Safe” is something we are never allowed to feel in Anderson’s outlandish action adventure, even at an intellectual level; even if we can laugh at some of its over-the-top flourishes or find emotional (or ideological) satisfaction in the way things ultimately play out, we can’t walk away from it without feeling the dread that comes from recognizing the ugly truths behind its satirical absurdities. In the end, it’s all too real, too familiar, too dire for us not to be unsettled. After all, it’s only a movie, but the things it shows us are not far removed from the world outside our doors. Indeed, they’re getting closer every day.
Visually masterful, superbly performed, and flawlessly delivered by a cinematic master, it’s a movie that, like it or not, confronts us with the discomforting reality we face, and there’s nobody to save it from us but ourselves.
Sports
‘Heated Rivalry’ stars to participate in Olympic torch relay
Games to take place next month in Italy
“Heated Rivalry” stars Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie will participate in the Olympic torch relay ahead of the 2026 Winter Olympics that will take place next month in Italy.
HBO Max, which distributes “Heated Rivalry” in the U.S., made the announcement on Thursday in a press release.
The games will take place in Milan and Cortina from Feb. 6-22. The HBO Max announcement did not specifically say when Williams and Storrie will participate in the torch relay.
Convert rent check into an automatic investment, Marjorie!
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A ‘Battle’ we can’t avoid
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