Pamela Roberts - Page 4

Shakespeare's iambic pentameter, the rhythm of his words, echo the human heartbeat: ba-BUM, ba-BUM. But Synetic Theater gets to the beating heart of ROMEO AND JULIET without a single utterance of any of the Bard's famed words. In its innovative merging of drama and movement, Synetic's silent exploration of the classic work is an extraordinary vision of wonder and passion.

Signature Theatre's WEST SIDE STORY brings freshness and exuberance to the classic work. The exceptional production in an intimate space allows us to consider anew the songs and scenes that have been part of our lives for half a century.

PERICLES, on stage at the Folger Theatre, is a gorgeous and focused production - this from a work that travels through decades and around the Mediterranean in a plot that layers incest, mistaken death, pirates, murder plots and selling a woman into prostitution. But in director Joseph Haj's capable hands the lighter moments bring balance and relief so in the end PERICLES reminds us of both the deep challenges and moments of beauty and light in the human experience.

AVENUE Q is an irreverent and big-hearted look at life once you've graduated from Sesame Street and from college but Real Life hasn't quite kicked in quite the way you'd envisioned. Constellation Theatre Company's production is full of fun, featuring a magnificent ensemble of talented and appealing actors.

SALOME is a visually stunning world premiere that brings us deeply complex characters struggling for command and dignity in one of history's most highly contested strips of land. Yael Farber, the award-winning adaptor-director, returns to the Shakespeare Theatre Company. With SALOME she has shaped a compelling work of power and contradiction. This production upends the traditional view of Salome, considering her as principled and calculated rather than a monstrous harlot. Here, Salome uses the tools she has - access, sensuality, brains - to effect change. Even within the limitations society placed on her, Salome sees opportunity.

UPRISING, premiering at MetroStage, is a powerful and engaging work that asks what choices we make to ensure freedom and for what would we sacrifice it.

As the wheel spins and two sisters clomp around the board with their plastic cars playing the game of LIFE, we recognize Renee's own life has much higher stakes ... and she is not necessarily winning at her attempt. She has recently lost custody of her young son and has had to face her ex- at a school disciplinary meeting. The tumblers of whiskey clue us in to deeper problems. Yet Renee herself is oblivious to how pain has marked her, how relationships shaped her, and how opportunities eluded her.

Happenstance Theater's IMPOSSIBLE! is impossibly inventive, whimsical, and tender. The tribute to classic Depression-era circus life uses period music, a clever costume choice or the arch of an eyebrow to convey far more than mere words are able. IMPOSSIBLE! is a family-friendly production that hits just the right tone - funny not ridiculous, kindhearted not cloying, smart not pretentious. The original piece of physical theater was devised by the Happenstance ensemble. We venture both under the big top and behind the scenes to witness the camaraderie, loneliness, frustrations and foibles of the band of performers.

Summer in DC brings great opportunities to celebrate and discover new plays, the first of which is CulturalDC's Source Festival, which opened June 5 and runs through June 28 with varied offerings of full-length plays, 10-minute plays and artistic blind dates. Based on Love & Botany, a collection of six 10-minute plays, the Source Festival gives audiences a refreshing range of voices riffing on the intersection of relationships and plant life with plays taking us from a backyard garden to across the universe.

Dontrell, Who Kissed the Sea beautifully balances a heightened sense of wonder and allegory with humor and earthy practicality. Theater Alliance's production is a winning combination of Nathan Alan Davis' compelling script, beautiful design elements, and an expert cast giving us appealing and convincing characters which renders theatrical storytelling at its best.

Why let the boring old truth stand in the way of a compelling story? Lettice Douffet lives her life by a code her flamboyant actress mother taught her: 'Enlarge! Enliven! Enlighten!' She eschews "the mere" - the regular, tedious, mundane, or mediocre in life. Lettice and Lovage contrasts dreamer and free spirit Lettice Douffet with bureaucrat Lotte Schoen, a rigid realist. Despite their differences the two find commonality and camaraderie. Quotidian Theatre - theatre dedicated to the poetry of everyday life, no-frills storytelling, and realistic situations and dialogue - brings us Peter Shaffer's witty clash of opposites ultimately finding solidarity.

Laugh, making its world premiere at Studio Theatre, is the latest from Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Beth Henley. With its designations of "slapstick" and as an homage to silent movies we expect movement and pace to be at the forefront, yet Laugh is far more rooted in language. But why box Laugh into a genre? There is little else like it. It is with her heightened language and quirkiness that playwright Beth Henley is at her best. Though flawed and in need of a trim from its current 2:15 running time, the comedy has some fine moments particularly in the final scenes that highlight Henley's unique style and unexpected choices.

Shakespeare may not have known Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in his time, but Director Tom Prewitt sees all the classic symptoms in Othello. With this lens of PTSD, WSC Avant Bard's current production becomes an examination of civilian vs. military life, generational differences, differing life experiences and, at its core, the terrible ravages of war. Race, the central feature in so many interpretations of Othello, is almost incidental here.

Dunsinane, presented by The Shakespeare Theatre Company through February 21, shows us that the precarious balance among victor, vanquished, and peace-keeper is a timeless dilemma stretching from Macbeth's heaths to the Iraqi dessert. Dunsinane picks up where Shakespeare's Macbeth leaves off, when the English army, camouflaged as forest trees, kills the tyrant and takes the seat of power. But in the confusion of the skirmish a critical and messy mistake is made: the Queen of Scotland, Lady Macbeth, remains alive. With the queen living and with a claim to the throne, many in the country will refuse to accept a newly-installed king.

In Love and Warcraft, a new play by Madhuri Shekar at No Rules Theatre Compan,y is full of heart, overflowing with warmth and good humor to balance the challenges of intimacy in a world that does not respond logically to strategy and commands. The production, directed by No Rules Theatre Company Artistic Director Joshua Morgan, features a strong and engaging new script by award-winning playwright Madhuri Shekar. But it is the cast that makes the play so memorable. There is a connection and warmth among them that draws us in despite the characters' quirky foibles that make them so human and relatable.

Hip hop is the beating heart of Forum Theatre's tender coming-of-age story of three suburban teens honing their talents and searching for acceptance and authenticity. How We Got On brings us back to the late 80s hip hop scene when Yo! MTV Raps was the authority of what was cutting edge in music and a rap battle could settle a score. The teens balance their growing friendship and mutual respect with the threat each poses to the others' authority and skill.

In a visually stunning production, Constellation Theatre Company's Absolutely! {perhaps} explores questions of privacy, reality and truth. Gossip and insinuation run rampant in a small town when the new government official, his wife and his mother-in-law move to town and upset the cultural norms. Set gloriously in the mid-century, the production elements are a delight.

Toast playfully explores innovation, technology, crowd-sourcing and the very roots of inspiration. You don't 'see' a show at dog & pony dc, you become part of it. Dog & pony is committed to "Audience Integration" or participatory theatre - that means when you attend a show you are intimately knit into all that is unfolding. Dog & pony takes great delight in shattering the fourth wall that supposedly separates actors and audience. The Toast ensemble actively engages everyone in the room - questioning, touching, nudging, mumbling, seeking a reaction.

Words are indeed the star of this production as much as the Devil himself in Marcus Kyd's ambitious The Devil in His Own Words stitched together from more than 30 literary works ranging from the Quran to the Book of Revelations, from Twain to Bulgakov to C.S. Lewis. Like a patchwork, the pieces contrast vividly in tone, pace and intensity, highlighting Kyd's artistic range and strength.