Woolly Mammoth's Hir and Rick Foucheux's possibly-career-capping Avant Bard King Lear, reviewed.

Emily Townley and Joseph J. Parks in Hir. (Scott Suchman)

My review of Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company's "rich and fervent" production of Taylor Mac's family tragicomedy Hir is in this week's Washington City Paper, along with a shorter one of WSC Avant Bard's latest King Lear — which just might be the swan song of one of DC's most venerable actors, the great Rick Foucheux. Pick up a paper copy for old time's sake.

2 Midsummer 2 Dreamz

Daven Ralston as Puck with Alex Vernon's shadow puppets of Titania and Oberon in WSC Avant Bard's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

I spent a midwinter day and evening taking in two, two, two big productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream, from WSC Avant Bard and the Folger Theatre. I reviewed the experience for this week's unusually me-heavy Washington City Paper.

Faking and Baking: Stage Kiss and Holiday Memories, reviewed.

They can't all be winners, not even shows from playwrights, directors, and actors whose work you often love. Round House Theatre's new production of Sarah Ruhl's Stage Kiss was a bigger disappointment to me given its pedigree than was WSC Avant Bard's Holiday Memories, but I can't say either one blew my Christmas stockings off. As ever, your mileage may vary.

When In Glam: Nero/Pseudo, reviewed.

Bradley Foster Smith in Richard Byrne's Nero/Pseudo. (C. Stanley Photography)

Richard Byrne's original glam musical Nero / Pseudo, featuring songs by Jon Langford and Jim Elkington, needs a little more Caligula, I conclude in my Washington City Paper review. Still, it's a project worth following -- and I've been following it for a couple of years. 

Langford was one of my first opportunities to interview an artist I'd long admired. I talked to him for DCist in 2007 in advance of a mekons show and again the following year before his other great band, the Waco Brothers, came to town.

Fear of a Dwarf Planet: Forum's Pluto and WSC's Orlando, reviewed.

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David Zimmerman, Jennifer Mendendall, and Kimberly Gilbert in Forum Theatre's Pluto.

NOTICE: My reviews of Steve Yockey's "rolling world premiere" Pluto for Forum Theatre and Sarah Ruhl's adaptation of Virginia Woolf's 1928 novel Orlando at WSC Avant Bard are in today's Washington City Paper, available wherever finer alt-weeklies are given away yadda yadda yadda.

Poor Me, Pour Me Another: WSC Avant Bard's No Man's Land, reviewed.

Christopher Henley and Brian Hemmingsen as Spooner and Hirst.​

Allow myself to quote myself: Harold Pinter’s No Man’s Land is a 38-year-old Rubik’s Cube covered in Rorschach blots, a confounding examination of memory and masculinity that resists easy interpretation like an Aikido master shrugging off an unwanted bear hug. I wrestle with that bear -- er, WSC Avant Bard's production of that bear-hug-avoiding Aikido master of a play, that is -- in this week's Washington City Paper.