Cheks Mix: Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike & Uncle Vanya, reviewed.

We've got an An-ton of Chekhov in DC just now, what with Arena Stage doing Christopher Durang's Tony Award-winning, Chekhov-inflected Sonia and Masha and Vanya and Spike, while Round House Theatre has put together a sublime new Uncle Vanya, working from Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Baker's recent translation of the play.

I review both of those in today's Washington City Paper. I have seen Live Art DC's staged-in-a-bar Drunkle Vanya yet, but it's stumbling distance from my apartment so I should find the time.

FURTHER READING: My 2010 review of Baker's Circle Mirror Transformation. My 2011 review of Sydney Theatre Company's Liv Ullmann-directed, Cate Blanchett and Hugo Weaving-starring Uncle Vanya. My 2012 review of Baker's The Aliens. My 2013 review of Aaron Posner's Stupid Fucking Bird, and its follow-up, from earlier, this year, Life Sucks, or the Present Ridiculous. Surely that's more than enough.

The Feminine Critique: Rapture, Blister, Burn, reviewed.

Maggie Erwin & Michelle Six represent two different generations (Danisha Crosby/Round House).

When I saw Round House Theatre's production of Becky Shaw two years ago, I found in Gina Gionfriddo a playwright whose humor and unpredictability made me want to read everything she'd written. I got the scripts for After Ashley and U.S. Drag, and I read them both during the same flight. My review of Round House's new production of her latest – 2012's Rapture, Blister, Burn – is 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.

It Takes Brass Balls to Direct This Play: Round House’s Glengarry Glen Ross, reviewed

This is why I never wanted a real job. Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross: The Motion Picture.​

No stage production of Glengarry Glen Ross feels complete to me without the speech David Mamet added for the movie version, eight years after his play won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1984.  But Round House Theatre’s Mitchell Hebert-directed version is solid if not revelatory. Reviewed in today’s City Paper.