Review: DOROTHY'S DICTIONARY at Washington Stage Guild

Somewhere in the middle of Dorothy's Dictionary, the title character tells young Zan that a librarian's role is to put people together with the books they're supposed to read. Theatregoers who think 'yesssss!' when they read that have met such a librarian and will relish Dorothy's Dictionary; and theatregoers who haven't yet been fostered by those unsung professionals: what are you waiting for?! Just ATA (ask them anything). Librarians live to answer questions, and, by the way, Dorothy's Dictionary will be time well spent for you too.

During the course of E. M. Lewis' 75 minute play, librarian Dorothy Ross and high school student Zan Hardt get to know each other. There's so much more to it than that. They get together in her well-appointed room in a convalescent home where she's been recovering from an undisclosed illness. (Lovely set design by Megan Holden; the colorful afghans and quilts ameliorate Mrs. Ross' hospital bed.) The strength of Lewis' script is her detailed charting of their growth from total strangers to really good friends. From Mrs. Ross, Zan finds out why dictionaries are so much better than looking up the definition of a word on a cellphone (obviously!). After you find out what "equivocal" means, you get to visit all the other words in the neighborhood ("equivalent" and "equity" and "equinox". . . ); it's a beautiful day in the dictionary where every page is a neighborhood. And from Zan, Mrs. Ross learns that it's really important for teenagers to have someone close to them seriously listen to them. And there is still more to Dorothy's Dictionary than all of that.

Helen Hayes Award-winning Deidra LaWan Starnes' nuanced and lively performance ought to earn her another one. And how fortunate for newcomer Alexander Kim to work with a master in his sturdy, DMV debut. He's good; she's sensational. And Director Laura Giannarelli craftily uses the substantial width of the stage as a visual graph of the relationship between Zan and Mrs. Ross--distant for a while, plenty of back and forth during, and side by side eventually.

Playwright Lewis and Director Giannarelli both express in their program notes their affection and concern for libraries and books in this "day and age." Amen, but here be some affection and concern for The Small Theatre Companies of DC and neighborhood. This is the 38th season for Washington Stage Guild which consistently and regularly produces interesting, stimulating, classic, worthy, and in this case, charming and affecting plays. What are you waiting for?

(Photo by DJ Corey Photography)

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