Theater
New theater: ‘Pretty Woman’ and it’s Britney, bitch
Two musicals to check out on D.C. stages
After publication of this story, the theater announced that all performances of “Pretty Woman” have been canceled due to COVID.
Tony Award-winning choreographer/director Jerry Mitchell has had a long and loving relationship with the film “Pretty Woman.”
In a recent phone call, he recalls, “When I first saw the movie, I was dancing in ‘The Will Rogers Follies’ in the early 90s. It was the perfect Cinderella story, and I fell in love.”
From the start, Mitchell harbored the idea that “Pretty Woman” would make a good musical. And 30 years later, after successfully directing and/or choreographing movies to Broadway musicals (“Hairspray,” “Kinky Boots,” “Legally Blonde,” and “La Cage,” to name a few), Mitchell met “Pretty Woman’s” director, Gary Marshall, who asked him to tackle an adaptation of the popular flick that made Julia Roberts a star.
It wasn’t a hard choice for Mitchell, 61. “Pretty Woman” is essentially a two hander about unlikely couple Edward Lewis and Vivian Ward, a wealthy businessman and free-spirited prostitute, who find happiness together against the odds. Despite the trite aspects of the story, Mitchell sees more to it than that. “She’s in the ashes but gets herself out by finding some self-worth. It’s a good female empowerment story that I’d like to tell my own nieces. And we amplify that aspect in the musical.”
Helmed by Mitchell, “Pretty Woman: The Musical” premiered in Chicago before opening on Broadway in 2018, and closing over a year later after a successful run. And in just a few days, the touring production is coming to Washington’s National Theatre.
Mitchell sort of fell into directing movies to musicals. He has an explanation: “I don’t think most people read books like they used to. They watch movies and it’s a faster turnaround. A producer might think ‘this is great source material for a good musical.’ And that’s why I think so many movies are thrown at creative types rather than books.”
Born with a natural athleticism that compliments his dance ability, Mitchell began acting and dancing as a kid in community in theater in his hometown of Paw Paw, Mich. Once in college at Webster University in St. Louis, he immersed himself further in dance and acting, and, says Mitchell, “came out the minute [he] stepped on campus.” He left school early to pursue a professional dance career.
Moving from dancer to choreographer to director isn’t an easy task, he attests. “By 23, I knew that I wanted to be on the other side but I also knew that through dance I’d get to work with some of the great choreographers. And that came true in spades for me: Dancing allowed me to work with people like Agnes de Mille, Michael Bennett, and Jerome Robbins.”
Mitchell, who lives in New York with his fiancé actor Ricky Schroeder (“Not to be confused with Schroder the movie actor – my Ricky is younger and better looking,” says Mitchell), is an integral part of the national tour. He fills the production with people he admires and whose company he enjoys.
“We change up tours, and I like to get in there and do the changes. Also, I’ve had a ball with cast. Adam Pascal who plays Edward sings the shit out of the show. I wanted to give him the time he deserves. And the new Vivian, Olivia Valli (Frankie Valli’s granddaughter), is terrific. She’s brought a sense of humor to the show. The two are sensational together.”
There’s also some empowerment happening at Shakespeare Theatre Company where Broadway bound “Once Upon a One More Time” is making its world premiere. Penned by gay playwright Jon Hartmere, the musical employs familiar fairytale princesses and almost equally familiar Britney Spears’ tunes in telling a story about equality and elusive happiness.
The plot’s premise is promising. A group of fairytale heroines kill time backstage until they’re called on to act out their part when a child somewhere in the world is reading their story. Not surprisingly, Cinderella is the busiest of the storybook stars. She’s also the most dissatisfied. Overworked, underpaid, and not secure in her relationship with Prince Charming, she yearns for more.
Then enters Notorious OFG (Original Fairy Godmother) with a gift in tow – a copy of Betty Friedan’s 1963 bestseller “The Feminist Mystique.” Just what the princesses need to guide them from a life of obedience and dulcet tones to something better. Labor strikes, change, and bold moves ensue.
As Cinderella, standout Briga Heelan boldly leads the large cast as a burgeoning new woman. Justin Guarini makes for a nicely naughty Prince Charming. And amusingly turned out in a sequined mother-of-the-bride dress and sparkly running shoes, Brooke Dillman is more Hollywood’s aw-shucks Jane Withers than the famously abrasive Freidan.
When one of Spears’ more than 20 songs (“Lucky,” “Stronger,” “Toxic,” etc.) drop into the story, fans in the audience ‘ooh and ah’ in recognition and delight. Some fun instances include the Prince’s admission of infidelity with “Oops, I Did It Again,” and Cinderella’s stepmother and stepsisters’ “Work, Bitch.”
Sometimes glittery and loud and other times subdued, the production boasts colorful, witty costumes and artful, first rate projections. But despite good design, stellar voices, and a terrific band, something’s amiss.
And ultimately, as we knew they would, each of the princesses finds their own voice – including the mute Little Mermaid. But despite the occasional cleverness, it’s a tale that never lands. Like the old stories the musical wishes to rewrite, it’s all too predictable.
Theater
Minimal version of ‘Streetcar Named Desire’ heading to Dupont Underground
Director Nick Westrate on this traveling take on Williams’s masterwork
‘A Streetcar Named Desire’
Produced by The Streetcar Project
April 20-May 4
Dupont Underground
19 Dupont Circle, N.W.
Tickets start at $85.
Dupontunderground.org
An aggressively minimal version of Tennessee Williams’s “A Streetcar Named Desire” is poised to run at Dupont Underground (April 20-May 4), the nonprofit cultural space located in a repurposed, abandoned 1949 streetcar station beneath Dupont Circle.
The Streetcar Project’s production performs in site-specific spaces. It’s almost entirely without design elements. There is no steamy, cramped Vieux Carré apartment. You won’t see Blanche’s battered trunk exploding with cheap finery, faded love letters, and demands for back property taxes, or the familiar costumes.
Co-created by Lucy Owen (who stars as Blanche DuBois) and out director Nick Westrate in 2023, this traveling spare take on Williams’s masterwork about a fragile woman on the margins in conflict with her brutish brother-in-law seems a reaction to necessity. It’s also an exploration of whether, like Shakespeare’s “Henry V,” it can subsist on language alone.
With little distractions (even Blanche’s cultivated southern belle accent has been daringly stripped away), the spotlight shines almost solely on text. “This play holds that,” says Westrate, 42. “I remind the actors that the while there is plenty of movement, language is really the only game in town.”
New York-based Westrate, who’s best known as an esteemed actor with New York and regional credits including Prior Walter in János Szász’s production of “Angels in America” at Arena Stage, describes “Streetcar” as “the most perfect play on earth” but not one he thinks of acting in (“I’m not right for Stanley Kowalski or Mitch”) though he agreed to direct.
“These days if you’re not a not a movie star or an established director, you’re not likely to do “Streetcar.” So, for us, we have to be able to do it with almost nothing, on the New York subway if necessary. And that’s kind of how we built it.”
Westrate first experienced Dupont Underground while attending a staged reading. He was so obsessed with the space as a prospective place to take the production, he found it hard to concentrate. He says, “With its long, curved track and tunnel, Dupont Underground is a terrifying, beautiful room that carries so much metaphorical weight, so much possibility for our production.”
WASHINGTON BLADE: Is finding the right space for this “Streetcar” part of the thrill?
NICK WESTRATE: Whenever I enter a weird room or pass by an abandoned CVS, I try to figure out how we might do the show there, especially places that are dilapidated, architecturally odd, or possibly haunted. And each space we use, lends something to the production. The Rachel Comey store in Soho was a very Blanche coded space. And an artist’s workshop on Venice Beach in California with its huge saws and metal hooks lent raw imagery. The scenes between Blanche and Stanley near the end were absolutely terrifying.
BLADE: More recently that same bare bones production has played in more traditional spaces like the Wheeler Opera House in Aspen and San Francisco’s A.C.T. Is it hard to now go to Dupont Underground?
WESTRATE: Each time we do this we have to crack open the play again because the staging is entirely new, but we’re used to performing in unusual spaces and Dupont Underground rather takes us back to form. As a former streetcar station, it’s the most appropriate space we’ve had yet.
The cast will literally act on streetcar tracks and go without dressing rooms but they’re game, and because they have history and authorship over the work, the sacrifice is more meaningful than if they were just some hired guns.
BLADE: Audiences have an expectation, especially with a work they’re likely to know. How do they react seeing such an unadorned take on Williams’s American classic?
WESTRATE: For the first 10 or 15 minutes, they’re unsure. Then, you can pretty much see the audience members’ brains click in and their imaginations turn on. It’s like they’re scratching an itch that they didn’t even know they had.
BLADE: Did you and Lucy foresee gaining this kind of momentum behind your vision?
WESTRATE: Absolutely not. Lucy had a philosophy that we’ll just walk through open doors. Early on, we were given spaces and artists filled the seats, and increasingly we’ve begun to rent some spaces and attract more regular theatergoers.
We basically sell tickets in order to pay a living wage to artists involved. There isn’t some big institution or commercial producer who’s getting a lot of money from this. Audiences of all types seem to respond to this mode of making theater.
BLADE: In presenting “Streetcar” intermittently, usually with the same cast over three years in wildly varying venues, have you learned more about a piece that you already loved?
WESTRATE: Mostly I’ve come to realize that Blanche is the smartest character I’ve ever read in a play. She’s like Hamlet – tormented by dreams and terrified of death. She’s skilled at wordplay and always ahead of everyone else in the room. Also like Hamlet, people think she’s insane and she uses that to her advantage.
Blanche is certainly the Everest of roles for actresses and watching Lucy sort of break it apart in a different way than you’ve ever seen, and knowing that I’ve helped to facilitate this performance has been one of the great joys of my career.
Theater
Iconic Eddie Izzard takes on 23 characters in ‘Hamlet’
Energized take on role offers accessible way to enjoy Shakespeare
‘The Tragedy of Hamlet’
Through April 11
Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Klein Theatre
450 7th St., N.W.
Tickets start at $90
Shakespearetheatre.org
Eddie Izzard is an icon.
Best known for her innovative standup and film roles, the famed British performer is also a queer activist who over the years has good-naturedly shared details from her decades long trans journey. What’s more, Izzard has remarkably run 43 marathons in 51 days for charity.
And now, Izzard finds a towering new challenge with the worldwide tour of “The Tragedy of Hamlet” (at Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Klein Theatre through April 11), in which she plays 23 characters (Hamlet, King Claudius, Queen Gertrude, the ghost, etc.) in a solo performance running just over two hours.
At a recent performance, Izzard, before slipping into character, appeared on the unadorned stage to say that though infused with comedy, “Hamlet” is definitely a tragedy, a story of a family and country both tearing themselves apart. She also warns that there’ll be a lot of breaking the fourth wall. After all, it didn’t exist in 1600 around the time when “Hamlet” was written.
The play unfolds in flurry of movement and scandal as the Danish prince begins to plot revenge after learning that his father, the old king was conspired against and murdered.
While some of Izzard’s character shifts are shown only by a subtle change in stance or modulation of voice, others are more obviously displayed like court sycophant Polonius walking with a stiff leg and mimed cane, or his ill-fated daughter Ophelia trotting girlishly across the upstage platform.
Delivered downstage at the intimate Klein venue, Izzard’s Hamlet soliloquies are performed with striking clarity. The one actor play is adapted and edited by Mark Izzard (the star’s older brother) and directed by Selina Cadell who successfully fosters the visceral connection between the actor and the house. Directly addressing an audience is something Izzard does exceedingly well. You feel as if she’s looking at/speaking to only you.
Cuts and choices are made that might not please traditionalists. The stabbing of eavesdropping Polonius might prove disappointingly underplayed to some. Whereas, the subsequent satisfying dual/death scene is long and precisely choreographed. Fear not, Izzard doesn’t flag a bit, not even when battling a cough (as was the case on the night of No Kings Day).
Not surprisingly, Izzard leans into the comedy. Her deliciously placed pauses, lines read ironically, and double takes, all gifts of comedy sharpened to perfection over a long career that kicked off as a street performer in the early eighties in London’s Covent Garden.
The play within a play scene finds Hamlet slyly rattling the conscience of King Claudius. As played by Izzard, it’s wickedly delightful and especially good. And the back and forth between the grave diggers done as a clever Cockney and his green assistant is a master class in how to play a Shakespearean clown.
Kitted out in a black peplum jacket over leather leggings and boots, Izzard gives gender fluid shades of contemporary diehard scenester and a Renaissance courtier. (Design and styling by Tom Piper and Libby DaCosta)
Attention has been paid to the blonde high ponytail, crimson lips and matching lacquered nails. The hands are important. Whether balled into fists or fingers fluttering, they’re in use, especially when playing Hamlet’s ex-friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (a clever surprise that can’t be spoiled).
Tom Piper’s set is wonderfully minimal. It’s an empty white walled space with three narrow windows that appear cut deeply into stone like those of a castle. These white flats serve as the ideal canvas for lighting designer Tyler Elich’s looming shadows, ghostly green light, and other unexpected flourishes of drama.
Izzard fills the stage. Her presence is huge, and her acting first-rate. At times, you forget it’s a one-person show.
I’d like to say, prior knowledge of the Bard’s best tragedy isn’t necessary to enjoy this fast-paced production. Despite a halved runtime and obscure words replaced with modern equivalents (“tedious old git” Hamlet says of Polonius), familiarity with the play is helpful.
With “The Tragedy of Hamlet,” Izzard secures a place among fellow queer Brits like Miriam Margolyes (“Dickens’ Women”), Sir Ian Mckellan (“Ian McKellen on Stage”), and more recently Andrew Scott (“Vanya”) in the solo players’ pantheon.
Izzard’s energized take on Hamlet is terrific. The way her powerful public persona bleeds into the work without taking over is exciting, and a uniquely accessible way to enjoy Shakespeare.
Theater
‘Jonah’ an undeniably compelling but unusual memory play
Studio production draws on scenes from the past, present, and from imagination
‘Jonah’
Through April 19
Studio Theatre
1504 14th St., N.W.
$55-$95 (discounts available)
Studiotheatre.org
Written by Rachel Bonds, “Jonah” is an undeniably compelling but unusual memory play with scenes pulled from the past, some present, and others seemingly imagined. Despite its title, the play is about Ana, a complicated young woman processing past trauma from the fragile safety of her usually quiet bedroom.
Studio Theatre’s subtly powerful production (through April 19) is finely realized. Director Taylor Reynolds smartly helms an especially strong cast and an inspired design team.
As Ana, out actor Ismenia Mendes radiates a quiet magnetism. She nails the intelligent woman with a hard exterior that sometimes melts away to reveal a warm curiosity and sense of humor despite a history of loss.
When we first meet Ana, she’s a scholarship student at a boarding school where she’s very much on the radar of Jonah, a sensitive day student (charmingly played by Rohan Maletira). Initially reluctant to know him, Ana soon breaks the ice by playfully lifting her shirt and flashing him. It’s a budding romance oozing with inexperience. And just like that, there’s a blast of white light and woosh, Jonah’s gone. Literally sucked out of an upstage door.
Clearly romanticized, the scenes between Ana and Jonah are a perfect memory captured in time that surely must be too good to be entirely true.
“Jonah,” a well-made nonlinear work, is pleasing to follow. Each of Bond’s scenes end with a promise that more will be revealed. And over its almost two hours, Ana’s story deftly unfolds in some satisfying ways, ultimately piecing together like a puzzle.
Next, Ana is a college writing student. She’s alone in her dorm room when volatile stepbrother Danny (Quinn M. Johnson) visits the campus. Growing up in Detroit, Danny was Ana’s protector taking the brunt of her stepfather’s abuse after the untimely death Ana’s mother. Now, he’s sort of a clinging nuisance; nonetheless, they maintain a trauma rooted relationship.
And finally, 40ish and still guarded, Ana is a published writer. While working in her bedroom at a rural writer’s retreat, she’s joined by a nerdy stranger, Steven (Louis Reyes McWilliams). At first annoyed by this fellow writer’s presence, Ana is ultimately won over by his dogged devotion, sincerity, and kind words. What’s more, he’s not unacquainted with abuse, and he’s willing to delve into discussions of intimacy. Again, is it too good to be true?
Chronology be damned, these three male characters come and go, dismissed and recalled. It’s through them that Ana’s emotional journey is reflected. They pursue, but she allows them into her life in different ways for different reasons.
Bonds, whose plays have been produced at Studio in the past (world premiere of “The Wolfe Twins” and “Curve of Departure”), and Reynolds who scored a huge success directing Studio’s production of “Fat Ham” in 2023, are well matched. Reynolds’s successful intimate staging and obvious respect for the script’s serious themes without losing its lighter moments are testimony to that.
Essential to the play is Ana’s bedroom created by set designer Sibyl Wickersheimer. It’s a traditional kind of bedroom, all wooden furniture with a neat and tidy kind of farmhouse feel to it. There are two large window frames with views of darkness. It could be anywhere. The only personal items are writing devices and maybe the lived-in bedding, but other than that, not a lot indicates home.
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