STC's 'Othello' on the Jersey Shore

Ben Turner (Iago) and Wendell Pierce (Othello) in Othello, Shakespeare Theatre Company. Photo: Teresa Castracane

In Simon Godwin's new production of Othello, mounted by Shakespeare Theatre Company at the Harman Center and seen last week, the action has been updated to "a modern capital" and "the time is now." The Moor and his soldiers are not Venetian guards and sailors, but a general and his men in an American military unit. Clearly members of a lower class, they serve at the pleasure of their wealthy betters. Wendell Pierce, familiar from his television roles in The Wire and Treme, sports a blue beret and military uniforms. He woos and marries Desdemona (Olivia Cygan), the daughter of a wealthy family, and serves a Duke of Venice (Todd Scofield) wearing a suit like an American president. The war scenes, with explosions and warships firing, seemed to evoke the Iran conflict, although it is timed with that war only coincidentally.

Ben Turner, who had an affecting turn as Macduff in Godwin's Macbeth two years ago, makes a cagey, street-wise Iago. The backwards baseball cap and gangster attitude implied the Jersey Shore more than his clipped American accent, not particularly specific to any part of the country. Melanie Field reinforces the idea as his smart-talking wife, Emilia, costumed in somewhat trashy outfits (costumes by Susan Hilferty and Sarita P. Fellows). By the end of the play, she becomes the fierce defender of truth in a world of lies. Daniel Velez's Roderigo and an ensemble of misfit grunt soldiers break into hip-hop dances (choreography by Jonathan Goddard) and have a rowdy kegger in the drinking scene that disgraces Lucas Iverson's forthright, even goofy Cassio, who was a very funny drunk.

Melanie Field as Emilia in Othello, Shakespeare Theatre Company. Photo: Teresa Castracane
Turner had the strongest handle on the rhythm of Shakespeare's language, shifting effortlessly from prose to poetry and back again, in what is the play's longest role. He made savvy use of a soldier's barking tone at times, especially to show deference, real or ironic, to a superior. Pierce tended to roll too quickly through his lines, choosing words to punch and eliding others, but his transformation from loving husband to jealous murderer moved in a believable arc. Cygan's Desdemona, beautiful and heart-breaking though she was, felt overshadowed by Field's more raucous Emilia and Giovanna Drummond's bubblegum-smacking Bianca. Although Shakespeare's songs are cut from the drinking scene, the modernized rendition of Desdemona's Willow Song, with a sort of background vocal by Emilia (music by Shiloh Coke), worked remarkably well.

Othello runs through June 28. shakespearetheatre.org

RSC's "Hamnet" is the thing at Shakespeare Theatre Company

Kemi-Bo Jacobs (Agnes Hathaway) and Rory Alexander (William Shakespeare) in Hamnet, Royal Shakespeare Company, at Shakespeare Theatre Company. Photo: Kyle Flubacker

For the first time in Shakespeare Theatre Company's history, the company is hosting a production and cast from Royal Shakespeare Company. The British troupe's intriguing staging of Hamnet, Lolita Chakrabarti's adaptation of the recent novel by Maggie O'Farrell, opened this week at Harman Hall, seen Friday evening. Those who have seen the recent film adaptation of this story about William Shakespeare and his family, directed by Chloé Zhao, know that Shakespeare's wife, named Agnes Hathaway in the story (a version of her name found in some official documents), is depicted as a mystical figure adept at herbal cures and second sight. Chakrabarti adds the additional twist that she is black, and her children with Shakespeare bi-racial. (A program essay by Farah Karim-Cooper, recently appointed director of the Folger Shakespeare Library, examines the historical evidence of such multiculturalism in Tudor England.)

Though not historically accurate in terms of Shakespeare's family, neither is O'Farrell's basic premise, that Shakespeare wrote his play Hamlet as a way to mourn the death of his son with Hathaway, the twin named Hamnet. Shakespeare did have twins named Judith and Hamnet, and the latter died at age 11 during an outbreak of the bubonic plague. (Shakespeare scholar Jonathan Bate, who sees no connection between Shakespeare's son and his most famous play, has speculated instead that Twelfth Night, with its story of fraternal twins reunited after a tragic separation, has a more plausible resonance with the story of Shakespeare and his children.)

The cast in this production is uniformly excellent, beginning with the believable chemistry between Kemi-Bo Jacobs's proud Agnes and Rory Alexander's writing-obsessed William. The children, played by Ajani Cabey (Hamnet), Saffron Dey (Judith), and Ava Hinds-Jones (the elder sister, Susanna), add poignant and sometimes mysterious touches to the play. Some of the strongest performances came in the supporting cast, beginning with the fierce, even horrifying mothers of Penny Layden (Mary Arden, Shakespeare's mother) and Nicky Hobday (Joan, Agnes's stepmother). Nigel Barrett is imposing as Shakespeare's abusive father, John, but equally humorous as Will Kempe, one of the players in Shakespeare's company.

Appropriately this theatrical adaptation draws more connections to other Shakespeare plays than the movie. Another twin-centered play, The Comedy of Errors, made a hilarious appearance, as did a touching reference to the grief of Laertes, who crawls into the grave with the coffin of his sister, Ophelia, in Hamlet: Alexander's Shakespeare did something similar when Hamnet was buried in the play. A number of references to the horrors of acting indoors, with a crowd of people all on top of one another, got some solid laughs. The bare set of wooden beams, ladders, and upper levels (sets and costumes by Tom Piper) suggests both the various homes in Stratford and the structure of the Globe. Music and sound (designed by Simon Baker) and atmospheric lighting (Prema Mehta) helped create some of the story's more mysterious moments.

Hamnet runs through April 12 at Harman Hall. shakespearetheatre.org

Shakespeare Theatre hunts down rarely performed "Wild Duck"

(L to R) Alexander Hurt (Gregers Werle) and Nick Westrate (Hjalmar Ekdal) in Ibsen's The Wild Duck at Shakespeare Theatre.
Photo: Gerry Goodstein

When a production of Henrik Ibsen's dark play The Wild Duck comes to a theater near you, you should go see it. Ibsen mined some of the complex relationships of his own family to explore the concept of the "life-lie," as it is described in the play. These personal illusions, which make life bearable for the people who hold them, are torn away repeatedly due to the self-righteous interference of a vengeful character named Gregers Werle. Shakespeare Theatre Company's production, directed by artistic director Simon Godwin and seen earlier this fall at Brooklyn's Theatre for a New Audience, made for a compelling evening in the theater at a viewing on Wednesday evening at the Klein Theatre. Fair warning: as the regular groans and sounds of outrage from the audience witnessed, this play, as adapted by David Eldridge, is not for the faint of heart.

The family at the heart of the play, the Ekdals, has a number of skeletons in the closet. Old Ekdal, played with eccentric mannerisms by David Patrick Kelly, was cheated by his former business partner, Håkon Werle, the head of a prosperous family among whom Ekdal's son, Hjalmar Ekdal, was raised. To expiate his sense of guilt, Håkon has given Old Ekdal a regular pension and supported Hjalmar financially so that he could start a career as a photographer and marry and have a family. He has even put a potential wife in Hjalmar's path, his one-time maid Gina, but to cover up his own indiscetion instead of being solely for Hjalmar's good. Håkon's son, Gregers, who has long resented his father and is now determined to rip away Håkon's pious falsehoods, destroys the lives of everyone in the process.

Alexander Hurt brought a steady, almost maniacally calm pacing to the disruptive character of Gregers, whose case of "virtue-fever," as one translation put it, drives him to all of his misguided honesty. (The cadence of Hurt's voice and his still stage presence did bring to mind at times the acting style of his famous father, William Hurt, a connection that is not mentioned in the program.) Nick Westrate's Hjalmar, a bundle of enthusiasm and self-delusion, impressed more than his Victor Frankenstein last season, while Melanie Field brought the same sort of long-suffering steadfastness to his wife, Gina, as she did with Sonya in Uncle Vanya. Robert Stanton made a tall, quite insufferable Håkon, realizing him as a man who cannot accept that his attempts to make things right, without really accepting fault, convince no one around him.

Maaike Laanstra-Corn gave Hedvig, Hjalmar and Gina's daughter, a convincing teenage awkwardness, although her emotional excesses in the play's tragic ending rang false at times. The versatile Matthew Saldivar proved an exemplary foil to the wrong-headed Gregers as Relling, the doctor who befriends Hjalmar and tries to see him through these troubles, while Mahira Kakkar's Mrs. Sørby (the housekeeper who will marry her employer) and Katie Broad's Petterson filled out the Werle household with self-serving smugness.

The scenic design (Andrew Boyce) and costumes (Heather C. Freedman) anchor the action in the play's original late 19th century of candles and oil lamps. An interesting aspect of Eldridge's adaptation is the character of Jensen, the hired waiter at the (truncated) opening dinner scene at the Werle household: Alexander Sovronsky, music director of the production, plays him as a violist who then strolls in and out between scenes to link the play together with musical excerpts, including pieces by Norwegian violinist Ole Bull, for atmospheric effect.

The Wild Duck runs through November 16. shakespearetheatre.org

STC's Merry Wives of Harlem

Nick Rashad Burroughs (center), Felicia Curry, Jordan Barbour, Sekou Laidlow, and JaBen Early in The Merry Wives of Windsor at Shakespeare Theatre Company. Photo: Teresa Castracane

No one is likely to claim that Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor is sacrosanct. Few would complain about updating the play's action to our era; in fact, freshening up this somewhat homely farce could be an improvement. Playwright Jocelyn Bioh has moved the action from the town of Windsor, outside London, to 116th Street in the midst of Harlem, with the Fords running a laundromat and the Pages a hair-braiding salon. Bioh, who grew up in Washington Heights as the daughter of immigrants from Ghana, jettisons much of the original text in favor of authentic evocation of various black dialects. Shakespeare Theatre Company has brought this version to Washington, seen Friday evening.

Leading a cast of mostly company debuts, Oneika Phillips and Felicia Curry play Madam Ekua Page and Madam Nkechi Ford, respectively, the former of Ghanaian origin and the latter of Nigerian descent. Like Shakespeare's wives, they rule the roost, but Bioh has soft-pedaled or eliminated most of the original sexist language. While the women proved consistently funny and entertaining, Nick Rashad Burroughs's over-the-top jealousy as Mister Nduka Ford, stole the show with his antic bluster. His alter-ego as Brook, costumed as a dreadlocked Rastafari with an outlandish Jamaican accent, was a highlight. JaBen Early’s more sedate Mister Kwame Page receded into the background as a result.

Last week, STC announced that the originally cast Falstaff, Lance Coadie Williams, had to withdraw from the production for personal reasons. Happily, Jacob Ming-Trent, who created the role in the New York premiere, recorded and broadcast on PBS's Great Performances, and is familiar from Watchmen and other television shows, stepped in. A sort of Fat Albert with a propensity for crooning like Barry White, his Falstaff seemed more absurd than abhorrent, which helped to lighten the often mean-spirited vengeance of Shakespeare’s play. Bioh reduced the fat knight’s trio of henchmen to just one, Pistol, played with confidence by Bru Aju, a strong contradiction to his dual role as the cowardly Slender.

The Welsh parody of Sir Hugh Evans becomes a Liberian pastor (the genial Sekou Laidlow), while the foppish Doctor Caius, given to self-important French affectations, is ingeniously transformed into an eccentric doctor of Senegalese origin. As strongly hinted at through the fey characterization of Jordan Barbour, he is only too happy to end up married to a man in the final scene in Windsor (Morningside?) Park.

Kelli Blackwell’s fast-talking Mama Quickly did her best to advance the causes of all three suitors for the hand of the Pages’ daughter, Anne (Peyton Rowe). Fenton, cross-dressed as a woman and played earnestly by Latoya Edwards, won this competition only by subterfuge but was welcomed into the family. Howard University-trained Rebecca Celeste earned the evening’s broadest laughs as the laundry worker who had to push the cart of foul clothes in which Falstaff escaped Ford’s jealous rage.

Anchoring the musical part of the ensemble was Shaka Zu, who led some call-and-response improvisations with the audience, aided by a conga drum. The Windsor Park fairy scene was memorably transformed into an African masquerade, complete with colorful masks and raffia skirts (choreography by Ashleigh King). The sets, designed cleverly by Lawrence E. Moten III, evoked a row of Harlem shopfronts, with colorful African-inspired costumes designed by Ivania Stack to divert the eyes even more.

The Merry Wives of Windsor runs through October 5. shakespearetheatre.org

Forget if Frankenstein was the scientist or the monster - it's all about Elizabeth

Rebecca S'manga Frank as Elizabeth in Frankenstein, Shakespeare Theatre Company.
Photo: DJ Corey Photography

Emily Burns is familiar to theater-goers lucky enough to experience last spring's Macbeth, starring Ralph Fiennes. After adapting Shakespeare's text for that production, the London-based playwright has updated Mary Shelley's Gothic novel for her own direction at Shakespeare Theatre Company, seen Saturday evening at the Klein Theatre. Adaptations of Frankenstein abound, as recently as last year's uneven film version, Poor Things. Burns has also pursued a feminist reading of the work, not by feminizing the monster but by viewing the entire story through the character of Elizabeth, given "the agency of a contemporary woman," as the program note put it.

If it's been a while since you read the novel, Elizabeth is the girl adopted by Victor Frankenstein's parents. Mary Shelley made changes to the character as she revised the book: in the original version, Elizabeth and Victor were cousins, but in later versions she was an unrelated foster daughter. In both cases she is betrothed to her step-brother, but their wedding night turns bloody when the monster that Victor brought into the world, in a fit of jealousy, murders Elizabeth. (The character, who never knows her biological mother, has much in common with Mary Shelley herself, raised by a stepmother not as kindly disposed to her at all.)

(Spoilers ahead) Burns centers the action in the Frankenstein family home, near the end of the novel. Victor Frankenstein has returned from his studies in Ingolstadt, but he is not being at all truthful about what happened there or why his father had to nurse him back to health. Disaster strikes when Victor's younger brother, whom Elizabeth raised almost like a child, is murderered, and the family maid, Justine, is arrested and executed for the crime. Burns alters the ending significantly: rather than the monster murdering Elizabeth, there is a somewhat nonsensical story about her and Victor's child, left to an orphanage and somehow raised by the monster.

Rebecca S'manga Frank made a striking STC debut as Elizabeth, a 19th-century waif transformed by a modern sense of independence and frankness. As the downtrodden Justine, Anna Takayo made an equally worthy debut, bringing a remarkable range of emotion to the role, from outrage to tragic resolve. As a fast-talking Victor with a malleable sense of the truth, Nick Westrate never quite convinced, although Burns's adaptation was perhaps more to blame for making him a far less sympathetic character. With his entrance delayed to the final scenes, Lucas Iverson had even less of a chance to make an impression as the Monster, frightening only in a few flashbacks and voice-overs.

The decidedly 21st-century idiom of Burns's language in the adaptation is off-putting, given the 19th-century setting established by the shadow-filled Gothic set (scenic design by Andrew Boyce, lighting by Neil Austin) and romantic-period costumes (Kate Voyce). Music and sound, designed and composed by André Pluess, are responsible for most of the chills, such as they are. The most faithful parts of the novel to be reproduced are the voice-overs, mostly taken verbatim from Shelley's text.

Frankenstein has been extended through June 29. shakespearetheatre.org.

STC gives "Uncle Vanya" contemporary feel, swearing included

Hugh Bonneville in Uncle Vanya, Shakespeare Theatre Company.
Photo: DJ Corey Photography

Any of Anton Chekhov's plays can make for an engaging night in the theater, but Uncle Vanya is a perennial favorite. For his latest production at Shakespeare Theatre Company, where he is artistic director, Simon Godwin has reworked this classic play--equal parts tragedy, comedy, and melodrama--in a grittier, updated coproduction with Berkeley Repertory Theatre, where it played in February. The new translation by Irish playwright Conor McPherson stays close to the original in most ways, with a few unexpected twists and a lot more vulgarity.

English actor Hugh Bonneville, likely most familiar to American viewers for his starring role in Downton Abbey, works a sort of miracle with the title character, tempering Vanya's bitterness and cynicism, which can be overpowering, with drunken charm and plenty of humor. The comic timing of the whole evening, not just from Bonneville, moderated what can be a severe experience. Disheveled, unshaven, slovenly, Bonneville's Vanya is a mess, but he endears himself to his family and to the audience in other ways.

Vanya's world is thrown into chaos when Professor Serebryakov, played with wooden pomposity by Tom Nelis, moves into the country estate with his young second wife, Elena. Vanya and Serebryakov's daughter with his first wife, Sonya (a sincere and affecting Melanie Field), have faithfully run the estate for years since the death of Serebryakov's first wife, sending most of the profit to support Serebryakov's career. Now retired and seeking more money, the professor upsets the equilibrium of the place, setting all the family's accustomed routines off-kilter. Gone are Chekhov's sonic touches of the Russian countryside, like the rap of the watchman's rattle, the tinkle of sleigh bells, and the sung and strummed folk songs, but a subtle background soundtrack of crickets and other rural sounds gives the impression of a rundown house in a forest somewhere.

Ito Aghayere proved the element out of place in an otherwise well-suited cast: her Elena felt too rooted in the 21st century and seemed to have no connection to Serebryakov. John Benjamin Hickey, another television actor making his STC debut, made a self-deprecating, charismatic Astrov. Two veteran actresses, STC favorite Nancy Robinette and California-based Sharon Lockwood, delighted as Nana (Marina) and Mariya, respectively. Craig Wallis, himself an STC regular, entertained as a bumbling, forgetful Telegin ("Waffles"). An understudy for two of the roles, Kina Kantor, provided moving transitions playing solo pieces on the cello, adding an intense, atmospheric touch to the evening.

Uncle Vanya runs through April 20 at Harman Hall. shakespearetheatre.org

"His face was boyish, despite his wrinkles": STC's cheeky "Babbitt"

Mara Devi and Matthew Broderick (center) in Babbitt, Shakespeare Theatre Company. Photo: Teresa Castracane Photography

This month's production from Shakespeare Theatre Company is a stage adaption of Babbitt, Sinclair Lewis's critique of middle-aged Midwestern conservativism from 1922. Joe DiPietro converted the novel for an ensemble cast starring Matthew Broderick at La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego, imported to Washington with a few new cast members, seen Friday night at Sidney Harman Hall downtown.

Broderick dives into the plain, empty-headed everyman role of George F. Babbitt, real estate broker, with understated relish. His characterization, two parts "Aw, shucks" to one part "apple pie," reads as if his iconic character Ferris Bueller had grown up into a small-town Republican. "He seemed prosperous, extremely married and unromantic," as Lewis put it in the novel. Broderick's biggest laughs came from his hilarious, very slow attempts to sit on the floor in a younger woman's apartment, as well as dancing with her. The political ideas, representing both liberal and conservative sides as Babbitt rebels from his staid existence, echo today's divides with surprisingly few textual changes (the novel's forays into racist language are happily omitted).

The adaptation is essentially a one-man show, with seven "story-tellers," as they are called, both narrating the story, with text lifted more or less directly from the book, and also becoming characters in dialogue with Broderick. Ann Herada reprises the role of Myra Babbitt, the long-suffering wife, with pathetic patience, while Mara Davi plays the younger woman, Tanis, who enchants Babbitt. Lewis's slightly twee commentary does not exactly convert easily to the stage, undermining the play's dramatic potential. The main appeal of the production remains the chance to see Broderick in his STC debut.

Christopher Ashley's production, made for La Jolla Playhouse, revolves around a somewhat pedestrian concept: it is set in a sterilely lit library, complete with shelf stacks, book carts, desks and chairs (scenic design by Walt Spangler). The action remains in Lewis's 1920s, although some character changes do not quite fit that setting. The justification for the library setting comes from a tiny alteration to the story: Babbitt's wife goes to stay with her sister when they have fallen out and is comforted by reading books in the local library. To make up with her, after her life-threatening illness that forces Babbitt to see reason, he atones by handing her a new library card.

Babbitt runs through November 3 at Sidney Harman Hall. shakespearetheatre.org

STC recasts "Comedy of Errors" as even goofier musical

Alex Brightman and David Fynn as the Dromios in The Comedy of Errors, Shakespeare Theatre Company. Photo: Teresa Castracane Photography

The Comedy of Errors is the slenderest of Shakespeare plays, and it is generally a good idea to give its convoluted plot and mostly physical jokes a boost. Simon Godwin, artistic director of Shakespeare Theatre Company, has turned to popular music again for his new production of this early play, an approach tried before, at least since the 18th century. Scottish composer Michael Bruce has supplied music, complete with some antic full-cast dance numbers, this in a script that originally, unlike last season's As You Like It, actually has no songs in it. A note to those who like to dash out of shows early -- this staging is like Mamma Mia, which came back to the Kennedy Center this summer, with one more groovy dance bit tacked on to the end of the play that you won't want to miss.

The action takes place in Ephesus, where an aged man from Siracusa in Sicily has run afoul of the local police. He explains to the Duke that he lost two of his four children -- two twin sons, both named Antipholus, and two twin orphan boys he adopted as their servants, both named Dromio -- years ago in a shipwreck and seeks them in Ephesus. The son and his servant from Siracusa have just arrived separately to search for their lost siblings, but little do they know that the other Antipholus and Dromio are living in Ephesus. In a long and rather improbable series of mishaps, they happen to cross paths with their doppelgangers and, since neither servant can tell the master from his twin and vice-versa, hilarity ensues.

Godwin's decision to cast Alex Brightman and David Fynn as the two Dromios made it hard even for the audience to distinguish them from one another. Both men played Dewey Finn (the role created by Jack Black in the film version of School of Rock) in Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical adaptation of the movie, one on Broadway and the other in London's West End. Both men brought some of that character's nerdy zaniness to their roles, often adding off-the-cuff spoken or sung lines. The two Antipholi, Ralph Adriel Johnson and Christian Thompson, did not resemble one another in the same uncanny way, but the play does not suffer for this lack of realism.

The other high point was the lead actresses, Shayvawn Webster as the sharp-tongued Adriana, wife of Antipholus of Ephesus, and Cloteal L. Horne as her sister Luciana, who brought a modern edge to the disappointment of the women in the behavior of the men around them. Amanda Naughton made an over-the-top Abbess in the closing scenes, and Eric Hissom had his best moments as the absurd Doctor Pinch (he was also Duke Solinus). The supporting cast had some roles changed slightly, like the goldsmith Angela (Pearl Rhein) instead of Angelo, and the Courtesan of Kimberly Dodson now named Thaisa. Most of these actors doubled as a walking pit band, led by music director Paige Rammelkamp and associate music director Jacob Brandt.

Sets and costumes (designed by Ceci Calf and Alejo Vietti, respectively) evoke the updated setting of a Mediterranean city in the 1990s, "before the invention of the cell phone," as the program synopsis notes -- something like a mix of Miami Vice and Clueless. The manic pace of the show is amplified by its physicality: several dance numbers (choreography by Nancy Renee Braun) and one hilarious sword fight (fight choreography by Robb Hunter) keep things fairly breathless.

The Comedy of Errors has been extended through October 20, at the Klein Theatre. shakespearetheatre.org

Cast in The Comedy of Errors, Shakespeare Theatre Company. Photo: Teresa Castracane Photography

Downsized Mozart in Mary Zimmerman's 'Matchbox Magic Flute' at STC

Russell Mernagh (Monostatos), Dave Belden (violinist), and Emily Rohm (Queen of the Night) in The Matchbox Magic Flute.
Photo: Liz Lauren

Mary Zimmerman is known for her adaptations of classic works, like her transformation of Ovid's Metamorphoses currently showing in a new production at Folger Theatre. This year the American director took on Mozart's late Singspiel masterpiece, which she titled The Matchbox Magic Flute, premiered in February at Chicago's Goodman Theatre, where she is resident director. This charming but decidedly non-operatic production closes out the season at Shakespeare Theatre Company, seen Saturday night at the Klein Theatre in downtown Washington.

Listeners hoping to see Mozart's classic as it is staged in an opera theater will likely be disappointed. Zimmerman has cut the work down to theatrical size, an approach implied by the word added to its title, an allusion to the tiny toy cars. Everything about the production is "miniaturized," as the director put it in her program note. The set is a theater within the theater, an evocation of the small but ornate theaters of the European nobility, with a constricted stage, antique footlights, and tiny jewel-like loges. Mozart's silhouette fills a coat of arms at the top of the proscenium arch (set design by Todd Rosenthal). The fairytale costumes, props, and stage effects (costumes by Ana Kuzmanić) are reminiscent of Ingmar Bergman's movie adaptation, Trollflöjten, filmed in a sound stage replica of the Drottningholms Slottsteater outside Stockholm.

Zimmerman adapted the libretto in her own English translation, deleting a lot of spoken dialogue and updating and shortening most of what remains. She has also excised about an hour's worth of Mozart's score, including the entire overture and most of the music for the priests in Act II, like the chorus "O Isis und Osiris." Of Mozart's colorful orchestration, only a flute, a violin, a cello, and a percussionist remain (marimba, timpani, tambourine, other drums), with the rest absorbed into the piano played by Laura Bergquist (music adapted and directed by Amanda Dehnert and Andre Pluess). Some of the most striking musical effects remain, with Bergquist turning to play the celesta for Papageno's magic bells. The birdcatcher played his characteristic whistle on stage, and at one point an accordion was added to the mix. The pit musicians also wear costumes, gowns and black fezzes, and flutist, cellist, and violinist all take the stage for certain major solos.

Reese Parish (the Spirit, center) and Cast in The Matchbox Magic Flute. Photo: Liz Lauren

Zimmerman has cast mostly singing actors, who do their best with Mozart's sometimes daunting vocal writing, aided by the small instrumental accompaniment and generous amplification. What this approach lost in vocal thrill, it gained in liveliness of action and comic timing. Soprano Emily Rohm got most of the Queen of the Night's notes off the top of the staff, her scenery-chewing acting style suiting the dramatic lighting and costuming for the character. (Her entrance for the Act II showpiece, "Der Hölle Rache," spinning while suspended over the stage, took the cake.) Marlene Fernandez nailed Pamina's high notes with a light tone, adding a music theater belt to the low range. Likewise, Billy Rude's tall and handsome Tamino took advantage of a pretty head voice as much as possible. Bass Keanon Kyles felt light in the bottom register for Sarastro, but he gave the role considerable dignity otherwise.

One delightful addition was the character of the Spirit, played and sung by Reese Parish. Her airy soprano suited the top part of the Three Spirits, but her balletic movements throughout the evening added a whimsical air to the proceedings, especially as she carried humorous signs at moments of transition to guide the audience. Reducing the cast to ten roles meant some double-casting, with the trio of the Queen's ladies (Tina Muñoz Pandya, Lauren Molina, and Monica West) among the several actors who took on more than one part (the two other Boys, the speakers in the temple, the animals summoned by the magic flute). Particularly charming were the nerdy Papageno of Shawn Pfautsch, played with improvisatory flourish and decent singing, matched by the manic Papagena of Lauren Molina, in one of those double-castings.

The Matchbox Magic Flute runs through June 16. shakespearetheatre.org

Trans-Continental Myths in Folger's African-centered "Metamorphoses"

Miss Kitty as the Water Nymph in Metamorphoses, Folger Theatre. Photo: Brittany Diliberto

Mythology may be rooted in national or ethnic identity, but the virtues or foibles of human nature it references make it universal. Folger Theatre's new production of Mary Zimmerman's Metamorphoses, seen Thursday evening at the newly renovated and reopened Folger Shakespeare Library, brought this point home. Director Psalmayene 24 has adapted the play, a selection of stories from Ovid's epic-like poem of the same name premiered in 2001, for an all-black cast. The latter is a first for the Folger, a fitting way to rebaptize the Elizabethan theater at the end of the company's first season since the lengthy renovation of the building began in 2020.

While the stories remain the familiar Greco-Roman ones, the production refracts the frame of telling through the experience of African-Americans. Zimmerman anchored her play on stories connected to the theme of water, with stage directions referring to an on-stage pool of water. Psalmayene 24 did without the on-stage water, initially for practical reasons in the newly reopened theater, transforming the pool into a remarkable character called the Water Nymph. Played with chimerical grace by Miss Kitty, the character opens the play in a costume recalling the tradition of African masquerade, the ritualized evocation of an ancestor or other powerful spirit (costumes designed by Mika Eubanks). Rattles on her wrists recall the rustle of water, and her movements in colored light or with aquatic-hued fabric suggest the ocean or a pool at different times. The presence of her unmasked face, covered with makeup calling to mind scarification practices or religious designs, is a perennial reminder of African origins.

Psalmayene 24 has a strong background in dance, which has a powerful role in the story-telling of this production (choreography by Tony Thomas). The opening sequence is a dumbshow, with the rest of the cast costumed in colorful outfits and vocalizing without words: they dance joyfully, seem to be captured and transported over the sea, sold into slavery, and then killed one by one. (The director writes of the brutal beating and subsequent death of Tyre Nichols, by five black police officers in Memphis in 2023, as a motivating factor in creating the production.) Against this backdrop, the Ovid stories take on new meanings.

Photo: Brittany Diliberto

The adaptation, enlivened with dance and music, is an ensemble affair: the program bills the actors equally, listing them in alphabetical order and not even identifying all of the roles they play. Jon Hudson Odom had hilarious turns as Midas, a clueless billionaire cursed for his unchecked greed (one of many parts of the play that resonated in our age); Orpheus, a strutting James Brown-like figure; and Apollo, the absent father to Edwin Brown's impetuous Phaeton. Zimmerman enhances Ovid's version of the Orpheus tale by quoting Rainer Maria Rilke's poem "Orpheus. Eurydice. Hermes." in Stephen Mitchell's translation: the poem added depth to the Eurydice of Billie Krishawn. As so often in Greek mythology, the gods are like people but even more bratty and irresponsible, ready to punish mortals for the sins they themselves commit with impunity: Gerrad Alex Taylor gave Bacchus the breezy air of a player, while Yesenia Iglesias brought animal terror to the character of Hunger.

The performance also offered a first glance of the renovated Folger Library. You now enter by ramps leading downward on the east and west sides, rather than through the old doorway on East Capitol Street. These new paths lead through garden spaces to the interior, an expansion opening up new exhibit and public spaces below ground. Although that means that patrons now have to go down a level, only then to have to up again to the Elizabethan theater, which has not been altered, the redesign does alleviate the crowding in the small room leading into the theater. The Folger Library will open completely to the public on June 21.

Metamorphoses runs through June 16. folger.edu

Simon Godwin's modern-dress 'Macbeth' comes to Washington

Indira Varma and Ralph Fiennes in Macbeth, Shakespeare Theatre Company.
Photo: Marc Brenner

The demand for the Shakespeare Theatre Company's new production of Macbeth has reportedly been off the charts. Simon Godwin, artistic director of STC since 2019, directed this staging in Liverpool, Edinburgh, and London, and it makes its final stop here. In each city, the venue has not been a traditional theater, but a larger building like a warehouse, adapted to the purpose. In Washington, theater-goers must make their way to the former campus of Black Entertainment Television headquarters in the Brentwood neighborhood of Northeast. The cast, starring Ralph Fiennes and Indira Varma, has remained the same in each location.

To reach the stage, viewers pass through a room made to look like a modern war zone, with the wreck of a bombed-out car and the glow of fires. Even before the show begins, actors costumed like soldiers patrol the space. The action unfolds not in medieval Scotland, but in a 21st-century location torn apart by warfare. Through the sometimes overwhelming sound system, which surrounds the audience, the sonic boom of jet fighters and explosions punctuates the evening (sound design by Christopher Shutt). Macbeth and the other thanes and soldiers wore military fatigues, tactical vests, and helmets while in the field. In the court scenes, they wore elegant gowns, suits, and dress military uniforms with a faintly fascist edge, at times reminiscent of the updated Richard III starring Ian McKellen from over twenty years ago.

The technical bells and whistles are impressive, but other than the battle scenes at the opening and close, the Scottish play is really about private ambitions: it hardly matters where or when the war is happening. The adaptation by Emily Burns streamlines some parts of the play without removing most of the best parts. The three witches (Lucy Mangan, Danielle Fiamanya, and Lola Shalam) appear out of one of several loud explosions, looking like victims of an urban bombing mission who have narrowly escaped death and bear the psychic trauma of it. Bright lights often assist their covert entrances and exits, as Godwin's staging walks a fine line between the witches being supernatural powers or just shell-shocked ghosts.

Photo: Marc Brenner

Ralph Fiennes plays the title role older and a little more seasoned and wise. His Macbeth has been worn down by age, as well as by the demanding nature of his wife, played with vehement force by Indira Varma. Younger than her husband, Lady Macbeth drives him where his ambition might not have taken him. She spurs him beyond the life of a sort of dutiful also-ran in the service of Duncan to grasp at the throne after hearing the strange prophecies of the women harmed by his own military exploits.

If the supernatural business is downplayed a bit (no Hecate appears in the final prophecy scene), the physical elements of violence are amplified: much blood from the murder of Duncan, and even more from the onstage killing of Banquo, among the most graphic stagings in recent memory. Steffan Rhodri's Banquo proved a highlight, an older veteran of many battles by Macbeth's side, with the grim humor to show for it. Ben Turner had the most affecting moments of the evening, drawing out the paternal grief of Macduff as he learned of the murder of his family.

Macbeth runs through May 5. A filmed version will be released in theaters starting on May 2.

Shakespeare Theatre's Age of Aquarius Beatles Musical ('As You Like It')

Jennifer Lines (center) and cast in As You Like It, Shakespeare Theatre Company. Photo: Teresa Castracane Photography

Shakespeare Theatre Company is offering its own cheery December production, in answer to all the Nutcrackers and Messiahs and carol sing-alongs, to drive away the winter doldrums. It has revived an updating of Shakespeare's As You Like It, set in the 1960s and first conceived by Daryl Cloran for Vancouver's Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival. Seen Wednesday evening at Harman Hall, this antic, technicolor production weaves together a critical mass of Beatles songs, often just salient excerpts, with the Shakespeare text. The grafting process required some heavy cuts to the play, which could be a plus or a minus, depending on your disposition.

The updating works best in the Forest of Arden, where the exiled Duke's lines about life in the woods do sound convincingly like something a hippie might say: "And this our life, exempt from public haunt, / Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, / Sermons in stones, and good in everything." Life is groovy, man, and nature is our university. The tie-dye brightness of a VW bus as backdrop and the band's costumes bring Woodstock to mind. The Dukes, the older usurped in rule by the younger, become Dames, both played convincingly by Jennifer Lines: the usurper as an establishment figure, costumed like Jackie Kennedy, and the elder a long-haired flower child. The decision to amp up the wrestling bit in Act I into a WWE extravaganza, expanded into a preshow entertainment, while fun (with exciting fight direction by Jonathan Hawley Purvis, complete with believable piledrivers), tired long before it was over.

Various 60s types are evoked in the costuming of the characters (colorful costume design by Carmen Alatorre): Orlando, turned into a loveable spaz by Jeff Irving, channels Elvis in his dance numbers; Kayvon Khoshkam's Touchstone wears glittery sunglasses and elevator shoes, a combination of Elton John and Austin Powers; Chelsea Rose's Rosalind and Naomi Ngebulana's Celia sport beehive hairstyles like Natalie Wood; Andrew Cownden's downer Jaques seems like a mash-up of a beat poet and Andy Warhol. The whole affair, kept at a jumpy tempo by Cloran's direction, has the attention span you might expect from an episode of Laugh-In.

If your idea of fun is sitting through two and a half hours of Beatles karaoke, you will surely enjoy the evening. The Forest of Arden has a cover band, made up also of cast members, under the musical direction of Ben Elliott, who plays the country rube Silvius with adorable backwardness. The singing is of varied quality, with the best song of the twenty-three (!) songs turning out to be "Let It Be," sung beautifully by Evan Rein as Amiens and with soft harmony from others in the cast. Audience participation is encouraged, with the cast pausing just long enough mid-lyric for someone in the house to supply a word that everyone knew should be next. Shakespeare included a number of celebrated songs in As You Like It, set by numerous composers over the centuries. This perhaps helps to justify turning it into a musical pastiche, but it is a shame to lose all the Shakespeare songs in the process.

Few would argue that As You Like It is one of the bard's best plays, but if you are expecting to hear all of your favorite scenes, you may be disappointed. The most famous speech, Jacques's "All the World's a Stage," survives the cuts, a rare sober moment as recited by the grumpy Andrew Cownden in what is otherwise a noisy performance continually undercut by pop song interruptions. In the scene in which characters roast Orlando's painfully sophomoric poetry ("If a hart do lack a hind, / Let him seek out Rosalind"), the doggerel is switched out for some of the more insipid lines from Beatles songs. That this works, more or less, is not exactly a strong argument for replacing so many of Shakespeare's words with Beatles songs.

As You Like It runs through January 7. shakespearetheatre.org

Aaron Sorkin's adaptation of "Mockingbird" returns to the KC

Maeve Moynihan and Richard Thomas in To Kill a Mockingbird
at the Kennedy Center. Photo: Julieta Cervantes

Harper Lee published one novel in the first half-century of her career, To Kill a Mockingbird. Most Americans read the book in middle school, but the most popular movie adaptation, starring Gregory Peck, likely has the upper hand in people's memory. Aaron Sorkin adapted the play for Broadway in 2018, where it had enormous success, leading to a national touring production that came to the Kennedy Center Opera House last year, a venue critiqued as too large for it. The staging has returned to the arts center on the Potomac, with most of the same cast members, but this time in the much more appropriately scaled Eisenhower Theater, seen on Thursday evening.

The movie version shifted the story's focus from young Scout Finch, Lee's alter-ego, to Atticus Finch, played by Peck, as a sort of white savior figure in his legal defense of a black man accused of raping a white woman in Alabama. Sorkin followed the movie's lead, putting a few monologues of eloquent progressive pieties into the mouths of Atticus, Scout, and other characters, West Wing-style. The play's alterations to the role of Atticus were so profound that a legal battle with the Lee estate ensued. Following in the footsteps of Jeff Daniels and other actors, television actor Richard Thomas gave Atticus a lachrymose, supercilious quality that did not always seem the most fitting. On the other hand, this Atticus at least acknowledged his own shortcomings and racist assumptions. Lee's father, on whom the character was based, was related to Robert E. Lee, after all.

Other Reviews: Peter Marks, A resonant ‘Mockingbird’ recalls American racism then — and now (Washington Post, June 23, 2022)

Sorkin intentionally emphasized the two black roles, Tom Robinson (a dignified Yaegel T. Welch) and the Finches' maid and cook, Calpurnia (played by Jacqueline Williams with caustic wit that almost stole the show), giving them more of a voice. This is undercut in some ways by having the Ewells, Joey Collins's cartoonish Bob and Mariah Lee's fragile Mayella, become caricatures. The truest portrayal of a southerner, equal parts polish and hate, was the vicious Mrs. Dubose of Mary Badham. Few are likely to recognize her as the same 10-year-old actress who played young Scout across from Gregory Peck in the movie. It was a stretch to cast adults in the three child roles, but Maeve Moynihan (Scout), Justin Mark (Gem), and especially Steven Lee Johnson's Dill used physical elements to appear more awkward and young. In his vocal and physical choices, Johnson seemed to point up the idea that Lee based the character of Dill on her real-life childhood friendship with Truman Capote.

Sorkin's main conceit, that the three children narrate the action, which shifts back and forth between the trial and other scenes, made theatrical sense. The repeated breaking of the fourth wall wearied before the evening was over, especially when Thomas's Atticus directed some of his final summation from the trial pointedly at the audience rather than the jury box (drawing attention, perhaps, to the reason why there were no jurors seated in it). The change to the final scene, where the now-dead Tom Robinson appears and points a line in a Bible out to Atticus, remains in the production.

The elephant in the room for this play is Harper Lee's second book, Go Set a Watchman, published rightly or wrongly in 2015, a few years before the play was adapted. It is Lee's first draft of the book that became Mockingbird, and in it the 26-year-old version of Scout returns from New York to her home town in Alabama to visit Atticus. She is disappointed to realize that Atticus is not the saint he seems in Mockingbird, that he is trying to slow down racial progress in the county, even working against the NAACP. Lee's first take on the material makes Atticus a more human, fallible character than how he is often interpreted. He is a more realistic version of a white man living in the Jim Crow south, rather than the version encouraged by Lee's northern editor, when as Lee herself put it, she was young and did as she was told.

To Kill a Mockingbird runs through August 27. kennedy-center.org

Scottish Ballet's Gothic 'Crucible' lands at the Kennedy Center

Scottish Ballet's production of Helen Pickett's The Crucible. Photo: Andy Ross

Helen Pickett created her choreographed adaptation of Arthur Miller's play The Crucible for the Edinburgh Festival in 2019. The troupe that premiered it, the Scottish Ballet, is finally touring it in the United States. (The work's planned premiere at the Kennedy Center, in May 2020, was canceled for obvious reasons.) After its run at the Kennedy Center, which opened on Wednesday, the production will go to the Spoleto Festival in Charleston. The play's setting, the Salem Witch Trials, and the subtext of its premiere, the Red Scare led by Senator Joseph McCarthy, are both eras of American history we should not be wanting to repeat but may be doomed to do. Pickett's grim and grimy version, with its techno- and electronica-infused score by Peter Salem, seemed more timely than ever at the second performance, Thursday night, in the Eisenhower Theater.

Pickett's adaptation both telescopes the action of the play and fleshes out some of the characters by examining their motives. Act I opens with Abigail, the orphan girl whom the Proctor family has hired as a servant, dreaming of a happy family life. Elizabeth Proctor, burdened with a baby and perhaps suffering from post-partum depression, learns that her husband, John Proctor, has had an affair with the girl. Discovered dancing naked together in the forest, Abigail and a group of local girls accuse Tituba, an enslaved woman, of leading them into witchcraft. A council of churchmen, determined to root out the devil in their midst, solicit more accusations from the girls, leading to the eventual downfall of the Proctors.

Other Articles: Kyra Laubacher, Scottish Ballet Tours Helen Pickett’s The Crucible to the U.S., Bringing Miller’s Tale to Its Home Soil (Pointe, May 15) Elliot Lanes, Interview: Theatre Life with Peter Salem (Broadway World, May 25)

The Crucible is a mixture of theater and ballet, which deprives itself of the greatest strengths of both art forms. The accusing shrieks of the girls and even talking by some characters shatters the idea of a story told exclusively by movement, but the use of ballet like periodic arias partially undermines the potential realism of theater. The set pieces, designed by Emma Kingsbury and David Finn, float and tilt into different shapes, with occasional hanging pieces of fabric, all creating the sense of a drab industrial environment.

The most effective use of dance was in the church scenes, where unified movement became a metaphor for the group-think of religious conformity: the gray-swathed congregants moving in lockstep and imitating faithfully the movements of their pastors. The Men of God, whom the work's creators reportedly thought of "as a menacing flock of birds," leapt and spun with bravado and more than the occasional hint of Merce Cunningham's Preacher in Appalachian Spring. The duet between Kayla-Maree Tarantolo's needy Abigail and Bruno Micchiardi's conflicted John Proctor is striking for its overt sexuality, balanced by the latter's tender scenes with Bethany Kingsley-Garner's Elizabeth Proctor.

Salem's score is austere, with a bass-heavy string ensemble (two violins, one on a part, against three violas, three cellos, and two basses) providing drones and keening melodies, conducted by Daniel Parkinson. The instruments in the pit are all miked, and Salem has added reverb for atmospheric effect at times. In addition to live oboe, flute, bassoon, and trombone, two keyboards and electronic sample pads mix in other sounds. The score leaned most to the electronic side in the forest scene, with over-amplified thudding rhythm giving the nude dancing scene the air of a night club. Salem's next collaboration with Pickett is reportedly a new ballet based on Flaubert's Madame Bovary, planned for this November at the National Ballet of Canada.

The Crucible runs through May 28. kennedy-center.org

Kennedy Center revives clownish "Spamalot"

Cast of Spamalot in the Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater. Photo: Jeremy Daniel
Monty Python nerds and opera fans, rejoice: this month the Kennedy Center has righted the backwards state of things at the arts venue on the Potomac. The city's leading presenter is mounting an opera in its Opera House and a musical in the Eisenhower Theater, the way things are supposed to be. Your choices are devastating tragedy, in a fine production of Puccini's La Bohème, or inane comedy with a hilarious revival of Eric Idle and John Du Prez's 2005 Broadway hit, Spamalot, seen on Sunday evening. Or one can have both, as it should be.

The best musicals of recent years have tested the boundaries of vulgarity and inappropriate humor: Avenue Q, The Book of Mormon, and Matilda come to mind. Likewise, the Pythons have been grandfathered into the present age with their politically incorrect wit intact. Most of the scenes we all quote from Monty Python and the Holy Grail are transformed into stage action, often in ways that are transparently low-tech, which only makes them funnier: the killer Rabbit of Caerbannog, the Black Knight ("It's only a flesh wound"), the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, the cow-catapulting French soldiers who spout absurd insults. Other jokes, like the troll's three questions ending on a stumper about the air velocity of an unladen swallow, are worked into the show in other ways. For good measure, other great Python musical numbers, including "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" from Monty Python's Life of Brian and the fish-slapping scene from The Flying Circus, also make an appearance.

Other Reviews: Peter Marks, ‘Spamalot’ might be retro, but it’s still a riot (Washington Post, May 15)

Josh Rhodes directs this zany Broadway Center Stage production, which features not a weak link in its very strong ensemble cast, including many faces Broadway fans will recognize. James Monroe Iglehart makes an amusingly clueless King Arthur, who gathers together the Knights of the Round Table from the misfits he meets in his travels, assisted by the true-hearted Matthew Saldivar as his sidekick, Patsy. Alex Brightman's vain Sir Lancelot, in a 21st-century twist, learns something about himself thanks to his rescue of Rob McClure's fey Prince Herbert, the young man who only wants to sing and not marry the woman with the large tracts of land coveted by his father.
Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer. Photo: Jeremy Daniel
Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer camps it up as the Lady of the Lake, with a classic Liza Minnelli send-up in the Vegas as Camelot scene and an acidic parody of a Broadway prima donna in "Whatever Happened to My Part" in the second act. Michael Urie's cowardly Sir Robin gets the best number in the show, "You Won't Succeed on Broadway," which prompts King Arthur to search for that quintessential element for the success of any musical, Jews. In the list of the Chosen People projected on the screen (Barbra Streisand, Steven Spielberg...) is the name of a certain "Jew-ish" freshman congressman from New York. John Bell conducts members of the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra, seated out of view on a high platform at the back of the stage. The amplification makes them sound like pre-recorded tracks at times, but they really are live.

Spamalot runs through May 21. kennedy-center.org

'Dear Evan Hansen' is back at the Kennedy Center

Anthony Norman, John Hemphill, Lili Thomas, and Alaina Anderson in Dear Evan Hansen (photo: Evan Zimmerman)
The extensive offering of Broadway musicals at the Kennedy Center this season may feel a bit like Groundhog Day. Touring productions of Hamilton and Dear Evan Hansen, both repeats from a few years ago, are running simultaneously at the venue on the Potomac this month. The latter returns with a new cast after its KC debut in 2019 and opening run at Arena Stage in 2015, seen Thursday evening in the Eisenhower Theater.

Dear Evan Hansen is an oddly effective and moving show, edging mostly into tragedy like most of the musicals that appeal to people like me. The story involves a teenage title character who struggles with being friendless at school, burdened by anxiety after his father abandoned him and his mother. Evan's accidental encounter with an even more troubled classmate, who ends up committing suicide, leads to an enormous deception Evan perpetrates on the other boy's sister and parents. As this lie snowballs out of Evan's control, he is powerless to stop it, actually enjoying the notoriety, the new friends, and especially the new family to which he now belongs, replete with wealth and emotional warmth.

The different cast brought out different strengths of the score this time around. The sweet intensity of Alaina Anderson, in a striking professional debut, made the role of Zoe Murphy, the embittered sister of Evan's "friend" Connor, much more appealing, especially in "Requiem," the trio with her parents, a stoic John Hemphill and Lili Thomas. Coleen Sexton's turn as Evan's mom, Cynthia, went from unsympathetic in Act I to devastating in her big piece that ends Act II, "So Big/So Small." Nikhil Saboo provided a violent burst of energy as Connor, especially as he doubled as Evan's alter-ego after his suicide, brought back to life by the fabrications concocted by Evan and his cousin Jared, played with hilarious bite by Pablo David Laucerica.

The show's music and lyrics (Benj Pasek and Justin Paul) remain simple but effective, improved considerably by the pit band orchestration by Alex Lacamoire, who provided the same service to Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton. The poignant string lines often tug at the heartstrings, played with quiet plangency by violinist Ko Sugiyama, violist Elizabeth Pulju-Owen, and cellist Danielle Cho, all members of the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra, and others.

Dear Evan Hansen runs through September 25. Lots of tickets remain.

'Hadestown' tour opens at the Kennedy Center

(from top left, clockwise) Kevyn Morrow, Kimberly Marable, Nicholas Barsch, Levi Kreis, and Morgan Siobhan Green in the Hadestown North American Tour. Photo: T. Charles Erickson

Months before the coronavirus pandemic unraveled the world of theater, Hadestown received fourteen nominations at the 2019 Tony Awards and won eight awards including Best Musical and Best Original Score. It was the debut musical for Anaïs Mitchell, the American folk singer-songwriter and musician who had converted her album project into the music, lyrics, and book for a Broadway show that opened in 2019. A new production touring the U.S. and Canada was announced for 2020, obviously made impossible by Covid-19. The tour has finally begun with a maiden run at the Kennedy Center Opera House, which opened Friday evening.

The story modernizes the ancient tale of Orpheus, who uses his musical gifts to charm his way into the underworld to rescue his dead wife, Eurydice. Mitchell comes to this sort of literary material quite naturally. Her father is a novelist and college professor who named her after author Anaïs Nin, and she has described herself as a voracious reader. The genesis of Hadestown came as part of a larger project to reimagine Greek myths.

Other Reviews: Peter Marks, ‘Hadestown’ ushers Broadway back to the Kennedy Center in style (Washington Post, October 15) Thomas Floyd, As ‘Hadestown’ comes to the Kennedy Center, the show’s creators explain the magic behind one great song (Washington Post, October 13) D. Kevin McNeir, Actress Kimberly Marable Embraces Her ‘Dream Role’ in ‘Hadestown’ (Washington Informer, October 13)

Although Mitchell is primarily a folk singer and guitarist, the musical style of the score is heavy with 1930s jazz influences, once described as "the story of Orpheus and Eurydice set in post-apocalyptic Depression-era America." In an interview Mitchell said of the vintage ideas she took from the 1930s, “It’s a time that is very evocative for me, I think for the whole folk world, the Dust Bowl and the Depression, and the obviousness of the corruption and exploitation of workers. I think it still goes on now, but it’s less obvious, it’s more globally oriented.” Her regular musical collaborators, Michael Chorney and Todd Sickafoose, provided the arrangements and orchestrations. There are echoes of both Monteverdi's L'Orfeo and Weill's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny.

The cast is led in vocal beauty by the suave and resonant bass Kevyn Morrow as Hades, recast as a ruthless oil magnate crushing the souls of his damned workforce. His rhythmically propelled, bassline-thudding showpiece with the company at the end of Act I, "Why We Build the Wall," was the most memorable part of the evening. Kimberly Marable's Persephone hit her stride in the second act, in her big song "Our Lady of the Underground" and the moving duet with Hades, "How Long?" (Marable is the only cast member who was in the Broadway production, which is still running after it reopened last month.)

Monteverdi used a high voice, a tenor, to capture the strange beauty of Orpheus's semi-divine voice, and Mitchell did something similar by using a very high tenor extended out with falsetto. Marked on stage by his red hair, 23-year-old Nicholas Barasch crooned angelically and with charming naivete, especially in "Epic III," sung to remind jaded Hades of his forgotten love for Persephone. In earlier versions of Hadestown, Mitchell herself sang the role of Eurydice, and the role seemed not to sit as easily for Morgan Siobhan Green, especially in its lower ranges, where she sometimes could not be heard clearly.

The role of Hermes was created on Broadway by André De Shields, a Baltimore-raised actor and dancer in his 70s who is a hard act to follow. Levi Kreis channeled his inner Harry Connick, Jr. in this new interpretation, combining a clarion tenor and an easy comfort with dance and movement. The most complex vocal harmony came from the Three Fates - Belén Montayo, Bex Odorisio, and Shea Renne - a sharp-talking, menacing trio reminiscent of the Boswell Sisters, especially in their acidic number "When the Chips Are Down."

Rachel Chavkin's production is snappy and engaging, with mostly grim set design (Rachel Hauck) and costumes, except for the bright colors given to Persephone when she breaks out of hell to bring back spring (Michael Krass). A company of five singers plays both honky-tonk extras and the condemned souls, accompanied by an onstage 7-piece band, led by pianist Cody Owen Stine (percussionist Anthony Johnson is offstage). Audrey Ochoa on the trombone gets the most dynamic instrumental solos of the show. One word to the wise: don't duck out after what seems like the final number (and is so listed in the program). After the reprise of "Road to Hell," there is a company encore piece, the affecting toast "Goodnight, my brothers, goodnight."

Hadestown runs through October 31 at the Kennedy Center Opera House.

Caustic 'Amadeus' opens at Folger

Antonio Salieri (Ian Merrill Peakes) pleads with God in Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus. Photo: Courtesy of Folger Theater
The lead ingredient in Peter Shaffer's Amadeus is vitriol, from the character of Antonio Salieri and directed not at Mozart, his supposed rival, but at the God who created him. In the brilliant film adaptation directed by Milos Forman, a few years after the play was premiered, Shaffer's screenplay version softened this element somewhat. The script's caustic hatred is again in the spotlight in the new production of the play, directed by Richard Clifford at Folger Theater, seen on Monday evening.

Wielding the words in a tour de force performance is Folger regular Ian Merrill Peakes, who commands attention at all times on stage as the obsessed Salieri. Peakes navigated the emotional shifts of the character masterfully, veering among Salieri's worshipful devotion to music (even Mozart's), his courtly polish, his wry humor, and above all his spiteful resentment toward the God who gave him the gift to recognize sublime music but never to compose it.

Other Reviews: Peter Marks, ‘Amadeus’ at the Folger will be music to your ears (Washington Post, November 12)

It is worth noting that Schaffer drew the lines of his fictional Salieri before the remarkable resuscitation of the real composer's music. In particular, the recordings of the operas made by Christophe Rousset with Les Talens Lyriques reveal a creative force, someone whose musical expertise, especially in vocal writing and counterpoint, made him among the most sought-after teachers in his day.

The remaining performances in the cast do not feel quite in the same class. Samuel Adams grapples with the unpleasant qualities of Schaffer's characterization of Mozart, the outsized ego, the vulgar humor, and the inane laugh all based on the composer's biographical traits. He did not quite manage to find the sympathetic core of the part. Nor did Lilli Hokama's Constanze, Mozart's wife, get far beyond the angry outer shell: her anger at Salieri's sexual harassment when she seeks his help was an emotional high point. The two whispering, gossipy Venticelli are a somewhat irksome plot device, given a biting edge more by Louis Butelli than his partner Amanda Bailey.

Clifford's direction keeps the play moving forward, an asset in a work that covers a lot of terrain, and the lavish costumes designed by Mariah Anzaldo Hale provide most of the show's 18th-century opulence. The single set, designed by Tony Cisek, evokes the strings and scrolled necks of the violin family, a pleasing gesture to the aura of music that fills the play. The crucial musical parts are integrated seamlessly by sound designer Sharath Patel. What remains at the end, though, is the righteous outrage of the Enlightenment mind of Salieri, an accusing finger raised to God.

Amadeus runs through December 22.

"Dear Evan Hansen" comes home to Washington

Ben Levi Ross (Evan Hansen) and Jessica Phillips (Heidi Hansen) in Dear Evan Hansen. Photo: Matthew Murphy.
Four years ago, the Dear Evan Hansen phenomenon was born at Arena Stage right here in Washington. Washington Post theater critic Peter Marks recognized it as a winner early on and continued to report on this compelling new musical's meteoric success on Broadway. Last year the show went on its first North American tour, which landed at the Kennedy Center's Eisenhower Theater Thursday night.

The story (book by Steven Levenson) lies at the nexus of many issues facing young people today: social alienation, anxiety, and the social media sites that can make them worse. Evan Hansen is an intensely awkward high-school student being raised by a singer single mother. As part of his therapy, he writes a support letter to himself (thus the title of the musical), trying to improve his mood and ease his worries about the new school year.

Through a series of accidents, without spoiling most of the details, the letter involves him with the family of a classmate of his, a troubled, rage-inclined student named Connor, who takes his own life. Although Evan and Connor did not really know one another, Evan pretends to be his friend, feeding a series of lies to Connor's parents and sister, a ruse fueled by Evan's intense longing for a friend and for a family more present than his mother can be.

Other Reviews: Peter Marks, Welcome home, ‘Dear Evan Hansen.’ You’re back where you belong. (Washington Post, August 8)

For readers like me, the corny plotlines and sappy endings of most musicals are a non-starter. Only those rare tragic musicals are tolerable: someone getting shot (West Side Story), the grim reality of the Holocaust (Fiddler on the Roof), or separation by the war in Algeria (Les Parapluies de Cherbourg). This musical follows a crushingly sad story, especially because just about all the characters need something happy in their lives so desperately that they eagerly accept Evan's rather implausible tale. In a sense, the fake happiness on display every hour of every day on social media filters into reality.

Ben Levi Ross was aloof and even unlikeable in the title role, handling reasonably well the role's vocal demands but without the grain and intensity of Ben Platt, the first Evan. Strongest in singing were the moving performances of Jessica Phillips as Evan's exasperated mother and the vulnerable but emotionally armored Maggie McKenna as Connor's sister, Zoe. Dear Evan Hansen has its laughs, particularly from the comic foil of Evan's friend Jared, who is complicit in the deception, played with biting edge by Jared Goldsmith.

The music and lyrics, by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul are snappy, in an easy rock style with a few moments of ensemble harmony. The song that ends the first act, "You Will Be Found," is the major hit of the show, with lesser contenders in "Waving Through a Window" and "For Forever," but not much else left an impression. The small band, elevated on a platform at the rear left of the stage, mixes two guitars, drums, keyboard, and bass with three string players from the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra, led capably from the keyboard by Alex Harrington.

The scenic design by David Korins is ingenious, with video projections constantly embodying the flashing, beeping notifications of social media that invade the characters' lives. (It was probably what Santa Fe Opera's production of The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs wanted to be but was not.) There were some technical details not quite worked out: Ross's microphone came on late at one point, microphone levels were not optimally adjusted here and there, and Aaron Lazar seemed to have a couple minor memory slips as Connor's father.

Dear Evan Hansen runs through September 8 at the Kennedy Center.