Skip to main content
SUMMERLAND 
AT WASHINGTON STAGE GUILD

Washington Stage Guild’s fall season opener of Summerland  won’t answer all your questions about whether the dead come back to have their pictures taken with the living.  But  the DC premier of Arlitia Jones’ true life tale will please along the way as it teases with questions about the belief in spiritualism that found its match in the photography medium during the most tragic post Civil War era.
Yury Lomakin plays William H. Mumler, a famous “spirit photographer” best remembered for his photograph of Mary Todd Lincoln with her husband Abe’s spirit appearing behind her.   Steven Carpenter is Inspector Joseph Tooker who will investigate and bring Mumler to trial, but not without some of his own secret past emerging through a photograph.   Rachel Felstein is Mrs. Mumbler, who reveals multiple characters from the wife receptionist, a medium and in her former life as a double agent in the Civil War.  She is a woman of mystery who pulls out of the secrets of others through seduction or scorn, and like the secret of the dead, she disappears. 
Kudos to director Kasi Campbell and  to WSG’s fine design team: Pancharee Sangkaeo for  stage setting and Sigrid Johannesdottir for costumes, Marianne Meadows for shadowy lighting design and Matthew M. Nielson’s spooky sound design. 
The play does not resolve the mystery.  If you want to know more about the case, or Mumler’s inventions, or of an unexplained image of spirits caught by a security camera in 2003….
If you want to see a superb production that recreates the past now, Washington Stage Guild, through Oct. 21, 900 Mass Ave, NW, Washington DC.  at  https://stageguild.org

Popular posts from this blog

  Once is here again!   The Brooklyn Gallery Players reach into the treasure chest of great musicals to bring Once alive and on stage in Brooklyn (until to December 17, 2023). Director Mark Gallagher , and Music Directors David Fletcher and Brendon McCray have crafted a vibrant production, seamlessly integrating the 15 member cast in roles  as both actors and musicians. Set in Dublin, the  formula for the poignant love triangle  is simple. Patrick Newhart  plays Guy, an Irish musician who has given up  on love as he sings the award winning classic  Falling.  Newhart mastered the bombastic busking guitar style and performed each of his songs with intensity and passion Sophie Smith-Brody  is Girl,  a Czech woman  who will inspire him to try again both in  love and with music. Smith-Brody performed each of her disparate songs with aplomb,  from the opening classical piece to her plaintive solos – If You Want...
Read more
  Sarah Ruhl’s Orlando — sparkling wit and ageless wisdom —   at   Constellation Theatre — gone but not forgotten In Virginia Woolf’s Orlando A Biography ,  the eponymous hero undergoes many changes over the centuries— from roles in society and relationships to sex change.  Since the time travel gender bending work was published in 1928, this his/her story has continued to undergone adaptions to its original form, from analytical scholarly critiques to crowd pleasing  movies and stage plays.  Constellation Theatre Company continued  the tradition with its amazing presentation of Sarah Ruhl’s narrative play Orlando .    Five actors  take on dozens of roles as characters or in the  chorus to keep the story at its rapid pace,  condensing events spanning almost five centuries into 100 minutes.   Orlando (Mary Myers) is  ever the aristocrat whether as a page in the court of  Queen Elizabeth I (Alan Naylor)...
Read more
From EUGENE ONEGIN  to  DER ROSENKAVALIER  (Or Everything you want to know about love is at the MET OPERA) Great music and great literature meet on a great stage at the Met Opera’s production of Eugene Onegin on the big screen on April 25, 2017.  The words are Pushkin’s from his  Russian novel-poem.  The music is by Tchaikovsky  for what he termed “lyrical scenes.” Tchaikovsky’s music is forever embedded in our consciousness  with his fantasy ballets like  Nutcracker   and Swan Lake .   Pushkin’s work has provided the inspiration for dozens of musical works, including another famous Russian opera, Boris Godunov.     This team of Tchaikovsky and Pushkin is a sure thing but while there are many scholarly interpretations of Pushkin’s work, there is none that so gets it at its core as this opera. Using the very words from Pushkin’s poem,  Tchaikovsky built the opera through a series of powerful co...
Read more