57 stories by "Alexander C. Kafka"
A country divided, tensions running high. That was Tuesday evening in America on midterm election night. It was also mid-1980s England in Signature Theatre's production of Billy Elliot. Work…
Pour Disney princess movies, Nicholas and Alexandra, Dr. Zhivago, Annie, My Fair Lady, and An American in Paris in a mixer, hit blend, and you'll end up with Anastasia, a historically and na…
A meditation on the arc of a lifetime. A message piece about soul-eroding communication technology. A frenetic exploration of Jung's notion of male and female psychic elements. Such was the …
Giuseppe Verdi revered Shakespeare and wrote a Macbeth, an Otello, and a Falstaff. He longed to write a King Lear as well and even worked with two librettists toward that goal. But although …
Was ever a message musical wrapped in such a luxurious bounty of romance? Those love songs! Seventy years later, Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific still floors us with its lyricism.…
"These violent delights have violent ends / And in their triumph die, like fire and powder / Which, as they kiss, consume." Friar Lawrence's words ring pulse-quickeningly true in Shakespeare…
I am generally not a forced gaiety and audience-participation kind of guy. And yet Saturday night, there I was some 20 minutes before show time for H.M.S. Pinafore, in Olney Theatre's Mulitz…
The painter Jacob Lawrence's 60-panel Migration Series chronicles the exodus of more than six million African-Americans from the South to the North starting around 1916. The WPA-funded proje…
It was 40 years ago that the Ballet Nacional de Cuba made its U.S. debut at the Kennedy Center and 30 years ago that it premiered its production of Don Quixote. It was 70 years ago that Alic…
Brevity is not the soul of Saint Joan's wit. Even at three and a half hours' running time, however, the George Bernard Shaw classic never flags in Bedlam's funky, spunky, stripped down versi…
"I always think of our audience," says Meg Booth, director of dance programming for the Kennedy Center. "There are always some attending their first performances, and subscribers of 20 and 3…
Justin Peck's "Pulcinella Variations," an ecstatic circus of the soul, made its sensational D.C. debut Tuesday in an altogether winning evening of mixed repertory by the New York City Ballet…
"With any new endeavor," said Washington Ballet's Artistic Director Julie Kent before Friday night's performance, "there is an element of risk " and excitement." The risk was in presenting T…
"'Deru kugi wa utareru.' Dad first said it to me. 'The nail that sticks out is the one that gets hit.' It's an old Japanese proverb. To stay out of danger or harm's way, one must conform. On…
The Nunes memo, election tampering by Russia, the refugee crisis, mass shootings, harassment and molestation, Olympic doping, North Korean nukes, climate change, fascism, nationalism, racism…
“I hear you’re a son of a bitch," said Jerome Kern, introducing himself to a producer. "So am I.”  But he was one productive son of a bitch, composing more than 700 s…
"Life is not like your American movies," says Lise, a ballerina who has captured the hearts of three men. "Why not?" asks one of those men, Jerry, an American soldier turned painter in Paris…
Parting really is sweet sorrow as the Suzanne Farrell Ballet, after 17 years, offers its final performances this week. Its budget and company size have been unsteady, but you'd never know it…
There is finally something happening on Pennsylvania Avenue to bring Washington some bipartisan joy. No, not there. A couple blocks away, at the Warner Theatre, where Clara and her prince va…
Peter Pan and Captain Hook should see a therapist together. How can they not realize by now that their commonalities are greater than their differences? Both are childish, boastful, and untr…
Love is tragic and sumptuous in the Mariinsky Ballet's La Bayadère. At the Kennedy Center this week, under director Valery Gergiev and acting ballet director Yuri Fateev, the production " i…
America may be in a new cold war with Putin, but the Washington Ballet this week takes Russia into a white-hot embrace. In her first season last year as artistic director, former American Ba…
Your mission: Venture to the land of Adams Morgan until you see a temple at 16th and Fuller. From Fuller turn right at Mozart Place, past the construction, into the auto-gated parking lot. T…
The Kennedy Center Thursday night featured Teutonic offerings across a wide spectrum. In the Concert Hall, the National Symphony Orchestra was performing Beethoven's Ninth. Next door at the …
In a formidable and diverse program Tuesday night, the New York City Ballet juxtaposed affable athleticism with social and romantic tensions. The former was represented by two Balanchine cla…
