So, better late than never:
PeterM liked the seats at Signature's Into the Woods, but liked the acoustics a bit less. Tboy had the same reservations about the way the new house sounds, but he imagines they'll fix it.
He can't imagine, however, what Marks was smoking when he suggested that Eleasha Gamble would've been better suited for Little Red than for the Witch. It's true that Tboy liked Gamble's performance better than Marks did, but even if he hadn't, a less likely Little Red he can hardly imagine; the voice is all wrong.
Speaking of Gamble, and apropos of that photo over there on the right: This is the first time Tboy has seen that image. He sat, believe it or not, in a spot from which the staging made it impossible to see the Witch's transformation. And her disappearing act.
Which, if you've never seen Into the Woods, are kinda two of the big moments. You'll want to steer clear of the seats at the very back of the section that's straight ahead of you as you walk into The Max.
Random other opinions: DCist is here, Potomac Stages here.
Meanwhile, down at the Lansburgh ... Richard III gets a qualified rave from BMon in this week's City Paper: "Slow patches plague a second half that really ought to be building to a flashy finish," he warns, but "the finish is there"-- and "Kahn helps the actors run with the text to places nearly as unfamiliar as the strangely angled stage they’re ricocheting around."
Where Mondello riffed (interestingly, Tboy thought) on the off-kilter set and what it says about the play's skewed world, Marks led with Geraint Wyn Davies' singularly scarred Richard: "Add a half-mask," says the WashPo, and he'd be the Phantom of the Plantagenets."
(Nothing yet from DCist, alas, nor from DC Theatre Reviews, but the reliable Brad Hathaway has of course weighed in.)
N.B.: Nobody said much about the gloriously ripe Queen Elizabeth of Margot Dionne. Your mileage will vary, and she's certainly not always in the same play with the others. But Tboy and Dr. H both decided they liked it -- and not just a little -- for two reasons:
- She's flinging a lot of fur around up there, and the grandness of the portrayal goes rather nicely with that. In a way that approaches camp, but then stops just short.
- Elizabeth, née Woodville, is essentially a commoner, remember--a commoner who's been elevated to royalty by a marriage some claimed she bewitched Edward IV into. (One of the kinder summarys Tboy can find online says only that her folks were "not entirely parvenus.") So of course she's a little over-the-top.
All in all, Tboy thought Dionne's Liz was rather delicious.
Other things what got themselves reviewed this week:
- Bricktop at MetroStage (photo, right). Celia Wren sez it's "infectious, if somewhat scattered," but CP's Glen Weldon went "Eh, the characters could stand a little more arc." (Tboy paraphrases).
- Keegan's The Tempest. Underwhelming, sez me. (Second item.)
- The Folger's King Lear, by a not-amused Mondello: "A director less intent on illuminating the script than on managing showy acrobatics ... Preisser’s staging is not helped by a certain unevenness in the cast. " (Second item.)
And that, sez Tboy with an exhausted sigh, was the week that was.
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