82 stories by "Brett Steven Abelman"
The time may have come around when we need anti-art bombs like Ubu again. Regardless of your political leanings, you must admit that reality has once again become too strange and ridiculous …
A major transition or two could be given more time to breathe, an actor occasionally misses a subtlety, a light cue is rarely a little obtrusive in Perisphere Theater's production of Mich…
Sexism, and the responses women make to it, do not seem to have evolved in any simple or linear way, if Anne of the Thousand Days is any indication. Written in 1948 by Maxwell Anderson, …
The standard take on Perestroika, the second part of Tony Kushner's Angels in America, is that it is not of equal quality to the masterful first. Perhaps this is why there's a slight sense o…
You might be forgiven for wondering how Brave Spirits will pull off a sea battle, given the extremely minimalist aesthetic they've assembled for Antony and Cleopatra. The play begins with th…
Recent reports of the death of relevance for Angels in America'are greatly exaggerated. If anything, the recession of the AIDS crisis in America (or, at least, in the mainstream American …
It can be fun reaching into a mixed bag " not knowing whether you'll get something good or something so-so is a kind of entertainment in itself. Whether you find that the bag of littl…
Apologies to the one Trump fan who goes to DC theatre and is reading this, but there is perhaps too much wrong, unbelievable, or historically unprecedented about The Donald's candidacy to fi…
Some people who talk about Fringe offer a warning: it's uncurated. Anything could get produced. The implication, of course, is that curation is needed to prevent bad art from getting through…
What is your personal silliness threshold? Your tolerance level for fourth-wall breaking? Your preferred amount of Tang to get sprayed all over your face? Your answers to these questions wil…
The only way to make a Fringe show lower budget than this would be to do it without a stage manager. There are no light changes, no sound, nothing but the plain black costume on performer St…
Before Orlando, this show meant something different. Before that tragedy, a mere two weeks ago " just two days after Rainbow Theatre Project opened Get Used To It! – it would have been…
You already know what kind of time you'll have at Toby Dinner Theatre's Peter Pan. If the show's of-its-era difficulties portraying Native Americans would bother you, this production wil…
The desires and dilemmas The Nether explores are as dark as they come, so the question for the potential audience member is: are you afraid of the dark? Or do you find it contemplative?Å
The title of this play is also its purpose " to show us what the ancient Greek tragedy of Antigone would look like in modern times, and locate its deeper meaning across the centuries. Wh…
What's changed in the thirty-five years since Beth Henley wrote Crimes of the Heart that makes it feel outdated? It's hard to pinpoint any obvious factors, since the story is a very pers…
The most fun you can have at a three-hour epic about slavery. A huge, sprawling play (with six more parts still coming!) that boils down to a few simple conversations. A story that i…
A fascinating conversation about the fascinating story of an all-too-ordinary man, Conor McPherson's St. Nicholas, at Washington Stage Guild, is theatre for people who like to laugh at, and …
The most outstanding thing about Marcus Gardley's The Gospel of Lovingkindness is that it wrestles full-body with the most troubling issues of our times yet still is a joy and a treat to par…
Perhaps the best kind of political play is the one that has no message at all. With One in the Chamber, Marja-Lewis Ryan is not at all interested in making points, picking sides, or influenc…
What a way for a theatre company to say farewell. Returning, twenty years later, to the play that first brought them into the world, American Century Theater sets the example for bowing out …
I sincerely feel rather awful sticking a rating of “2” on this work, because I in no way disagree with any of its points. War is certainly bad, and is often particularly cruel to…
Everyone’s got a story to tell, but some are more engaging for their wild and woolly details, and others more for the way they are told; Cara Foran’s story falls into the second …
I wouldn’t want to meet a Jacobean if The Bloody Banquet was their idea of drama. At the same time, I’m glad we have Brave Spirits Theatre to interpret and serve up this centurie…
What fluff does Hollywood stick into the other 30 to 60 minutes of its big screen rom-coms? The Wedding Party, a new play by writing team Megan Dominy and Mimsi Janis, proves that a complete…
