Mary Lincer

Caden Brauch makes a sturdy Marty. He's a fine comic actor and triple threat who should just keep fine-tuning his duckwalk in order to make it really goode, if you know what I'm sayin'. Don Stephenson's Doc is sensational. He underplays like an old vaudevillian, and he has mastered the very hard art of throwing lines and bits away. (Best one: When Marty asks him who the girls are who suddenly arrive to sing and dance behind their number, Doc shrugs, "They just show up when I start singing.") He's got the three best songs in the show (Music and Lyrics by Alan Silvestri, who wrote the scores for all three BTTF films, and Glen Ballard): "It Works," (the DeLorean, of course), "21st Century," in which Doc dreams what he might see in the future--The Doctor would like that Doc dreams of The Tardis, and a lovely ballad "For the Dreamers," sung with mostly solo piano which provides some Act II auditory respite from the onslaught of the overly loud rest of the show. And Stephenson never never never pretends that he's Christopher Lloyd; Doc belongs to him, and a good time is had by all.

McClure sings, acts, dances (duh); he plays two characters at the same time; he does voices (e.g. Gollum, ET, Miss Piggy, Agent Orange [that's what Spike Lee calls the 45th POTUS, who shall not be named]); he can beatbox, work puppets, and Rob McClure can change costumes, very frequently--yeah, sure, in the wings with dressers--but also in full view of the audience sometimes with the help of other characters and sometimes alone. So frequently! But you know what else? He can give focus, because this is not a one-man show, and several other performers help tell Mrs. Doubtfire's story. So Rob McClure shares the spotlight: talented, generous, and only seven more performances in DC.

In the first act of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's 1987 musical Into the Woods, numerous characters from familiar fairy tales go through the familiar events of their tales with a narrator (in this production, the energetic David Patrick Kelly) narrating and a with a few interpolated characters along for the ride. In act two, all the familiar happy endings go south, and the characters must actually figure out to to team up and learn how to live in the real world with its uncertainties, unpredictabilities, and mixtures of joy and sorrow. This touring revival, which recently left Broadway, runs about 2¾ hours, but time flies. The genius of the show is the turning of each character inside out and the seeing of how they tick, what they choose, why they act, and how they feel. Sondheim's songs reveal nearly everything a sentient being can come up with, and Lapine's book completes him. The singer-actors in this production do both creators proud.