Sharpenicity

A BRONX TALE at National Theater Name any of the top awards in American entertainment—Academy Award, Grammy, Oscar and Tony—and someone who was involved with creating   the story, music & lyrics and movie version for A Bronx Tale has won it.     The musical version at the National Theatre was all high energy dancing and doo wop music, making this streetwise coming of age story great fun.   Set in the Bronx in the 1960s, the message is universal —that what is important in life is what we share as a family and love.   The   opening night cast   at National Theatre   was super special   because —most unusual for a touring show—it features 11 alumni from the Broadway production. Joe Barbara (Sonny), Richard H. Blake (Lorenzo), Joey Barreiro (Calogero), Michelle Aravena (Rosina), Brianna-Marie Bell (Jane), Antonio Beverly (Tyrone), Frankie Leoni (Young Calogero), and Shane Pry (Young Calogero Alternate). At The National Theatre, W...

RESOLVING HEDDA at WASHINGTON STAGE GUILD SPECIAL ALERT  As a double treat, WSG will host  Reading Hedda Gabler  on Wed., April 10, at 7 pm.  with he same cast in their  corresponding roles in the Ibsen classic. Hedda Gabler is hilarious.    If you never thought of Ibsen’s heroine like that, Hedda herself in John Klein’s very hip  Resolving Hedda  will  explain it all to you --what is really going on in a way that Spark notes have missed all these years.   Being one of the most important characters in modern drama is not enough if it means dying every night.    Kelly Karcher as Hedda is determined to have her life go on after the show.    The audience is rooting for her all the way as she leads a cast of zanies starting with her hapless husband, George ( Jamie Smithson),    who is more concerned with Eilert    (Matthew Castleman) as an academic rival rather than his role as Hedda’s...

FAUST at WASHINGTON NATIONAL OPERA The Washington National Opera’s Faust is a triple header treat: Goethe’s literary classic set to Gounod’s lush operatic music, performed with Houston Grand Opera’s lavish sets reminiscent of masterpieces from art museums. The red and black scrim gives the first hint that there is something of the devil to come. In the opening scene, Faust (tenor Marcelo Puente) resembles the Philosopher in Meditation in a dark portrait attributed to Rembrandt .     Mephistopheles (bass Raymond Aceto) appears with the magic portion for him to drink for youthful fun filled life and a contract to sign for his eternal damnation.   What follows are festive scenes of villagers which remind of   Bruegel’s detailed busy depictions of peasant life.   There is even included in the background a morality play of Adam and Eve and the devil in the Garden of Eden being staged at the rural festivities along with the big heads carried by parading rev...

QUEEN OF BASEL Queen of Basel at Studio Theatre is a powerful searing work that cuts to the core of the emotional underpinnings that destroy both an individual and society. While playwright Hilary Bettis owes some structure and story points to the August Strindberg’s Miss Julie— such as the the three characters and the setting in a kitchen of a lavish establishment—this is a throughly modern piece  which goes beyond class and desire of his 1888 classic   to adds race and ethnicity, skin color and immigration status to the mix. Julie (Christy Escobar) is the smart seductive socialite daughter of real estate developer of   the luxury South Beach hotel.   She is hushed off to the small industrial kitchen after an accidental encounter of alcohol spilt on her dress.   Christine (Dalia Davi) is a struggling cocktail waitress who has recently escaped   violence in Venezuela.   She has been tasked by Julie’s father, along with promis...

EUGENE ONEGIN Can Washington National Opera’s production of  Eugene Onegin lives up to Tchaikovsky’s great  “lyrical scenes” based on the great Russian classic Pushkin’s  novel-poem? This fatalistic fairy tale, wrapped up in lush music, Eugene Onegin , is built on a series of powerful contrasts, not only of    its character but also reflecting two Russias, that of peasants and that of nobles. There is the idealistic rural Tatiana sung by Anna Nechaeva, who falls in love with the bored elitist Onegin, sung by   Igor Golovatenko.   In contrast   there is   Olga (Lindsay Ammann) her flighty sister and her long time beloved Lensky (Alexey Dolgov).   Their lives will be ever changed by the heart break  the condescending Onegin sets forth. By the final act, Tatiana, a mature sophisticated woman, married to Gremin (the superb bass Eric Halfvarson).   He is an old man who has been elevated to be a prince because of his hero...