Arts & Entertainment
Marriage of convenience?
Lunt-Fontanne hit farce revived in darker translation
Finn Wittrock and Sarah Wayne Callies in ‘The Guardsman,’ in production now at the Kennedy Center. (Photo by Scott Suchman; courtesy Kennedy Center)
‘The Guardsman’
Through June 23
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
$54-$95
202-467-4600
kennedy-center.org
For more than 50 years, legendary husband/wife acting team Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne charmed audiences with their onstage sophistication and offstage happy marriage. But little did fans know that the English-speaking world’s most famous theatrical couple was a union sprung more from ambition than passion. Theirs was one of the all-time, great lavender cover-ups.
Lunt and Fontanne began their post-nuptial collaboration on Broadway in 1924 with a hit production of Hungarian playwright Ferenc Molnár’s 1910 play, “The Guardsman.” It’s the story of an actor who disguises himself as the Emperor’s dashing guardsman to test the fidelity of his actress wife. The ’24 adaptation was light and breezy, well suited to the stars’ comedic style.
Now playwright Richard Nelson’s new and more discerning translation of Molnár’s original darker version is playing at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater. Nelson’s script successfully blends the humor and pathos of its source, balancing the best of farce and drama. There’s the funniness of the handsome Actor (Finn Wittrock) hiding behind a Van Dyke beard, wild wig and nonspecific Mitteleuropa accent as he woos his own wife. But there’s also the frustration felt by the Actress (Sarah Wayne Callies) at being caught in a disappointing marriage, and the Actor’s insane jealousy that even extends to the noble guardsman he’s invented.
Set in early 20th century Budapest, the play is deceptively simple. Not long married, the young couple is already quarreling. Prior to marriage, she had a string of six-month-long affairs prompting the Actor to fear that their once passionate relationship has reached its expiration date. His solution is to tempt her with a new man of his own creation. Whether or not she goes for the forbidden fruit in counterfeit officer’s duds, the Actor reasons, he’ll know exactly where he stands.
Callies (best known as ill-fated Lori Grimes from TV’s “The Walking Dead”) is perfectly cast as the inscrutable thespian beauty and Wittrock is equally effective as her hot-blooded, tortured mate.
Witnessing the charade are the Actress’ longtime companion Mother played by the terrific Julie Halston who cut her acting teeth in downtown Manhattan performing in gay playwright Charles Busch’s campy classics. Curmudgeonly Mother despises her employer’s husband almost as much as her recent demotion to glorified housekeeper. Also on hand is the Critic (the wonderfully low key Shuler Hensley), the couple’s trusted friend who carries a long unreciprocated torch for the Actress.
Rounding out the excellent cast is Annie Funke as the green chamber maid, John Ahlin’s stage-struck bill collector and local favorite Naomi Jacobson as a tip-hungry opera usher.
Skillfully staged by Broadway’s Gregory Mosher, the action unfolds lucidly in just two days. The Actor claims he’s leaving town for work, but instead is using his makeup and acting skills right at home where he’ll pay a visit to wife at their home and later meet her at the opera. Even if farce isn’t your cup, it’s done incredibly well here.
And it’s a gorgeously designed production. John Beatty has created surroundings befitting a rich, young golden couple — their apartment is an Ottoman-influenced art nouveau bijou with strewn pillows, dark red walls, a secret door, low seating and hanging lamps. He’s also created a sumptuous opera box. Jane Greenwood has supplied the tall and slender Callies with a wardrobe of chic dressing gowns and a scene-stealing silvery number for the Actress’ evening out.
Could she seriously be fooled by a wig and phony accent? Or does she know it’s her husband all along? He’ll never know, nor shall we. But that’s all part of the fun and it makes for good post-show chatter.
The Petal Release Party and Drag Show was held at Spark Social on Friday, July 31. Performers included Tiara-Missou, Labianna and Darcy de la Cuadra.
(Washington Blade photos by Landon Shackelford)
Celebrity News
Madonna headlines World Pride Music Festival in Amsterdam
Kylie Minogue made surprise appearance alongside gay icon
AMSTERDAM — Madonna on Sunday headlined the final night of the World Pride Music Festival in Amsterdam.
The gay icon took the stage shortly before 2:30 a.m. local time (8:30 p.m. ET on Saturday) during Club Confessions, a set that MISTR, a telehealth platform that offers free access to PrEP, Doxy PEP, STI testing, and long-term HIV care, organized.
“Mother is here and this is gay heaven,” said Madonna when she took the stage inside Amsterdam’s AFAS Live concert hall that can hold up to 6,000 people.
Stuart Price, who produced Madonna’s 2005 “Confessions on a Dance Floor” album and “Confessions II,” which debuted on July 2, DJed the set.
Kylie Minogue made a surprise appearance. She and Madonna performed a new remix of “Love Sensation” from “Confessions II.”
(Washington Blade video by Michael K. Lavers)
“Throughout my career, I’ve always supported efforts to fight HIV and AIDS, and that fight begins with education and access,” said Madonna in a MISTR press release. “With MISTR, (CEO) Tristan (Schukraft) is expanding access to HIV prevention and sexual healthcare for everyone. Through this work, he’s helping preserve and strengthen LGBTQ+ spaces while investing in the communities and culture that have long sustained us.”
Minogue in an Instagram post thanked Madonna, Price, Schukraft, and MISTR.
Madonna appeared at The Abbey in West Hollywood, Calif., in April. Madonna in June celebrated Pride month with a pop-up performance in New York’s Times Square.
Jake Resnicow and Insomniac produced the World Pride Music Festival that also featured Bebe Rexha and Paris Hilton, among others.
“Pride has always been about bringing our community together,” said Resnicow. “At a moment when too many people are being told to hide or make themselves smaller, gathering openly, joyfully, and without apology matters more than ever. I couldn’t be prouder of what this festival brought to life in Amsterdam — one dance floor, completely free.”
Theater
Reggie White relishing first season as artistic director of Woolly Mammoth
First five shows a reminder that ‘pressure is a privilege’
Madly talented and preternaturally energetic, Reggie D. White, 38, is about to launch his first season as artistic director of D.C.’s boundary-pushing Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company.
White brings a lot to the job. As actor, playwright, and director, his varied resume includes a 2019 Broadway acting debut in Matthew López’s Tony Award–winning play “The Inheritance,” his semi-autobiographic play “Fremont Ave.” that opened to acclaim last season at Arena Stage, and a number of exciting regional directing credits.
A longtime admirer of Woolly, the out theater-maker was selected from a pool of candidates before receiving the offer last November and starting work in January. His season of five world premieres kicks off with gay playwright Steve Yockey’s “Venus” (Sept. 9-Oct. 4), a darkly funny study of modern relationships told through two lesbians looking back on their first encounter.
White was introduced to Woolly Mammoth as a pre-law student at Cal State Hayward in the San Francisco Bay Area, long before he foresaw a life in the arts. “As part of a random theater history course, I was assigned to write a paper on a counterculture company called Woolly Mammoth,” he recalls “Strange name. I was like what the hell is that?”
Nineteen-year-old White was intrigued. Research acquainted him with Howard Shalwitz who co-founded Woolly in 1980, and the company’s commitment to living playwrights and new work. He also learned how theater could be used as a tool for difficult conversations and shape the way people thought about social issues by employing imagination and rigor.
“Never in a million years did young me envision that one day I’d be Woolly’s third artistic director in its 46-year history,” says White. “It’s kind of serendipitously insane.”
WASHINGTON BLADE: Was there a moment when the enormity of the job hit you?
REGGIE D. WHITE: After I’d signed my contract and finished all the paperwork, I got my keys and sat in the theater by myself in the dark and thought about what an incredible honor it is to be trusted with what happens in this beautiful space [in D.C.’s Penn Quarter]. I might have cried. Sometimes I have to pinch myself to remember it’s real.
BLADE: Are you curating the upcoming 2026–2027 season?
WHITE: Yes, I am. It’s very rare that an incoming artistic director gets to program their first season, but I was lucky in terms of time. After being hired late last year, I asked Woolly’s managing director Kimberly E. Douglas, if she thought it would be crazy if I programmed the season. She warned me it would be hard.
I invoked tennis legend Billie Jean King’s maxim “pressure is a privilege” and got to work.
These plays [dubbed White’s “first five”] represent both the kind of theater that Woolly can do really well and speak directly to my voice as curator and how I want to contribute to the larger theatrical conversation in the DMV.
Getting here has meant a lot of late nights. But I knew the juice would be worth the squeeze.
BLADE: As a queer artistic director, what makes you unique?
WHITE: When I was playing in “Inheritance” on Broadway, after a performance, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sotomayer came backstage to meet the cast. She spoke about how her lens on the world as a Puerto Rican woman shapes her decisions. Similarly, because I’m a queer Black man I see through a lens that shapes my work.
I know I’m not the only queer artistic director in town. For me, it influences how I make editorial decisions. Out of this season’s five plays there are explicitly queer characters in four [“Venus,” “Chanukkah Spectacular,” “Ten Grand,” and “Love I Awethu Further”] and I’m directing two [“Venus,” “Ten Grand”].
BLADE: Will we see familiar faces?
WHITE: Every show this season will feature a Woolly Mammoth company member in its cast. Our company also includes designers and directors who we’ll include. I’m invested in continuing to provide a showcase for their work.
BLADE: How do you think queer audiences will receive the season?
WHITE: Very well, I think. For queer people who’ve had to navigate the world subversively and solve problems in unique ways, I think it will be especially interesting. I find theater a potent place for questions.
Like all artistic directors. I’ll show up for the job in my own way. I’m just excited that I’ve been invited to bring the fullness of myself to the role.
PHOTOS: Petal Release Party
Madonna headlines World Pride Music Festival in Amsterdam
Reggie White relishing first season as artistic director of Woolly Mammoth
PHOTOS: Amsterdam Pride Canal Parade
Amsterdam Pride Canal Parade draws hundreds of thousands
BLADE ENDORSEMENT: Susan Stewart for mayor of Rehoboth Beach
PHOTOS: Lambda Legal in the Pines
Calendar: July 31-August 6
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