The Life Despotic with Drew Cortese

Cortese and Alyssa Wilmoth Keegan as Lady Anne (Jeff Malet/Folger)

Richard Sheridan Willis as Lord Stanley (Jeff Malet/Folger)

I didn't know Drew Cortese until I saw him in The Motherfucker with the Hat at Studio Theatre this time last year, but the performance made a powerful impression. He's in Richard III at the Folger Theatre now. We talked about roads not taken and being the bad guy for a piece in today's Washington City Paper.

All photos by Jeff Malet, courtesy Folger Theatre.

The Motherfucker with the Limp: Folger's Richard III, reviewed.

Drew Cortese is a supervillain for the ages. (Jeff Malet)

No one was more excited than I was when the Folger Theatre announced that Drew Cortese -- a standout player from Studio's The Motherfucker with the Hat last year -- would play Richard III. The show is good, but not the radical reinvention I'd hoped it might be.  Read all about it in today’s Washington City Paper.

Our Pottymouthed Year: 2013 on the DC Stage, Assessed.

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Drew Cortese and Quentin Maré in Studio's The Motherfucker with the Hat. (Teddy Wolff)

We're wrapping up a highly rewarding and admirably trend-resistant year on DC's stages, as I aver in this week's Washington City Paper.

Yippie kai yay, Motherfucker with the Hat: Studio's trash-talking triumph. Plus, Kafka on the Shore

Unhappy motherfuckes: Drew Cortese and Quentin Maré. (Photo: Teddy Wolff / Studio Theatre)
 

Embarrassing admission: I didn't realize until after I'd filed my review of Studio's superb production of The Motherfucker with the Hat that its playwright, Stephen Adly Guirgis, is the selfsame motherfucker who wrote The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, the best thing I saw on a DC stage in 2008.

Also reviewed: Spooky Action's Kafka on the Shore, DC's second Frank Galati-scripted stage adaptation of a Haruki Murakami story or novel in four months.  This one is looser and more wobbly than the last one. Your mileage may vary.

Today's Washington City Paper is, as always, available wherever fine newspaper are given away for free.