Mary Lincer

The world première of November 4 has opened just after the 30th anniversary of the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on November 4, 1995. It is a mitzvah that there are now no longer Israeli hostages and a shande that, as the script of November 4 pointedly notes, Israel now has a Prime Minister who thinks he's the Messiah.

Lizzie: The Musical, more a rock concert than a musical theatre piece, includes quantities of facts and plenty of unproven notions about Lizzie Borden, whose acquittal of the murder of her parents in 1892 up in Massachusetts has remained in the national consciousness ever since.

ExPats Theatre has assembled an excellent troupe of actors for Cold Country by contemporary Swiss playwright, Reto Finger. Director (and translator) Karin Rosnizeck ably guides them through an engrossing but difficult script which tries to integrate ancient rural Swiss myths with modern situations. The writer's efforts may be labored, but the acting is wonderful, as are the scenic projections. Cold Country does take an audience away from today; strong distractions help.

According to an interview Richard Thomas gave to DC Theater Arts, Hal Holbrook's estate asked him to consider playing Mark Twain in the one-man show that Holbrook compiled for himself back in 1954 when he was 29. Their idea was a good one; after a brief stop in DC, this excellent production has moved on to North Carolina.

What did our critic think of DAMN YANKEES at Fichandler Stage?

Nu Sass, an excellent part of DC's “off Broadway” since 2009, opens its season in a new space: it's accessible! it's clean! (and its entrance is actually on 11th St., around the corner from its given address, 1100 H St. NW—super close to a Metro Center entrance).

The Kiss of the Spider Woman, a 2-hour show presented in Spanish with English surtitles, runs through September 28. See here for more details!

In two clicks of a mouse, a theatregoer can find a summary of Leo Frank's story; Parade, which tells it, isn't merely based on a true story, it IS a true story. So outlining the plot would be, by definition, a spoiler.

Homesick for Charlot and Marcel Marceau? Fringe has a show for that--go to Go and watch an hour of nearly word-free 'teatro' by Rodin Alcerro and Pablo Guillén, two drifters, off to see the world.

What did our critic think of A GUIDE TO MODERN POSSESSION at District Fringe? Dial or text 988 if you or someone you know are having suicidal thoughts. Act One of A Guide to Modern Possession by Caro Dubberly concludes with a suicide attempt. Inaugurating a new Fringe in an un-airconditioned 'space' (a classroom at UDC with the acoustics of a soundproof room) makes for an inauspicious reconstitution of the late Capital Fringe.

Andrea Stolowitz's 90-minute autobiographical play, The Berlin Diaries, challenges her two actors, and Dina Thomas and Lawrence Redmond meet the heck out of all the challenges; they play multiple roles readily and skillfully.

Andy Warhol really did go to Iran. In 1976, the Shah's wife, Farah Pahlavi, arranged to sit for Polaroid photos which Warhol would then use as a basecoat for a series of prints, and Andrew Cohen reproduces Warhol's image of her as a permanently present part of his set design. Warhol also could really order reasonably priced caviar from his hotel's room service

Late in Julia Izumi's play, Akira Kurosawa Explains His Movies and Yogurt (with live and active cultures!), one of the characters asks, 'Is that what the whole yogurt thing is about because I'm not getting it?' It's one of several goofball/meta moments in this very theatrical play and marks the spot where Izumi acknowledges that her chosen title may not make sense. But the play itself very much makes sense.

A superb troupe of five actors and a great trumpet player (Michael A. Thomas) do everything in their toolkit to realize Dominique Morisseau's significant play, Paradise Blue, about a Detroit jazz club caught in the post-World War II 'urban renewal' which tampered with Black neighborhoods and lifestyles in American cities nationwide.

What did our critic think of ON YOUR FEET! at St. Mark's Players?The absence of melody underneath them frequently gets these singers into intonation trouble, especially given the opening night technical problems with the sound.

Experience a compelling take on censorship with Round House Theatre's Bad Books, exploring free speech's pitfalls during National Library Week.

What did our critic think of YOUR NAME MEANS DREAM at Theater J?

Edith Wharton's novel The Age of Innocence was published about a week before she was able to vote for the first time in 1920.  The following year, she became the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize.  Now, playwright Karen Zacarías has adapted Wharton's complex tragedy of manners into Arena's elegant, 3 hour production ably directed by Hana S. Sharif.  Set mostly in New York in the 1870s, Wharton, Zacarías, and Sharif recognize the ways in which the old fashioned social constructs of a still-young country could entrap individuals and crush their inner lives in contrast to the apparent success and prosperity of their day to day.  Wharton's title, ironic a century ago, remains that way today.  If this sounds dour, be reassured that it's often lightened by SNL-worthy Staten Island barbs and hoot-inducing stabs at Washington, DC, where a character briefly resides to avoid a husband in Europe and a clan in New York.