Sharpenicity

TIMON OF ATHENS Timon of Athens is one of those longtime “underrated”   plays by Shakespeare and Thomas Middleton, one that everyone comments they have never seen before. Simon Godwin’s directs this stunning production of a tale worth telling, most befitting of our money driven time. There are two sides to every coin, and in this parable that revolves around money there are two sides to Timon, the main character.   In a dream world, Timon lavishes gold and gifts to buy friendships and fun.   One day the money’s gone and so are all the friends that money can buy.   Trading her golden bejeweled costumes, Timon dons rags, retreating from bright lights, to living in a dark cave.   Kathryn Hunter (the first British woman to play King Lear, as  well as other classical male roles)   stars as Timon. Hunter brings out the humanity in this strong yet vulnerable character who goes from happy party girl to crazed homeless misanthrope. Having seen T...

THE AMEN CORNER Mia Ellis has many roles to fill in Shakespeare Theatre’s production of James Baldwin’s  The Amen Corner.   She is Reverend Margaret, the inspired pastor of a struggling congregation in Harlem. She is the wife of Luke (Chike Johnson), a shabby musician husband who re-enters her life ten years later as he is dying.  She is mother to David (Antonio Michael Woodard),  their teenage son who is struggling with how to live his own life. There are moments when Margaret is like Greek tragic figure with her entrenched flaw of her righteousness that she has been set apart by God.As one so chosen   who does God’s will in all circumstances. she looms like an Old Testament prophet, her message flowing   in   her passionate sermons from her pulpit through the congregation, inspiring spectacular singing and dancing.   She maintains her position in divisive meetings with the church elders in her kitchen on how they should conduct their ...

THE 39 STEPS A  production of The 39 Steps calls for a cast of 150.  While this is way beyond what would fit on Constellation Theatre’s stage, four actors  take it on. Drew Kopas is the exciting, handsome, unflappable Richard Hannay,   the quintessential Hitchcock male hero. Patricia Hurley takes on several seductive roles —Annabella, Margaret and Pamela—all of whom Richard will fall madly for.   Christorpher Walker and Gwen Grastorf are all the rest of dozens of roles too numerous to list, leaving no job unfilled— from milkman, train conductor,vaudeville performers, lingerie salesmen, innkeepers, police officers, airplane pilots,—and never missing a change of wig or mustache to be somebody else. Together they move the story and the scenery as quick as you  can blink in this fast paced thriller. A classic is always a classic, whether it is the original beloved 1935 film  or the updated comic composite of   Hitchcock films in this sta...

EXQUISITE AGONY  Exquisita Agonía  Nilo Cruz’s operatic play   at GALA, Exquisite Agony, starts with questions that Cruz had about heart transplant patients. “Does a recipient inherit traits of the donor? Does their taste and other senses change? How does a body react when a new element becomes a part of it?”   Inspired by musicians, Cruz created a story about an opera singer who wants to meet the transplant patient who received the heart of her dead husband, a famous conductor.   Luz Nicolás is glamorous and dramatic, as Millie swirling between reality and fantasy. Through the intercession of Doctor Castillo played by Ariel Texidó she meets the recipient, Amér played by Joel Hernández Lara.   The first thing she wants to do is hug him so she can be near “the heart” of her deceased husband.   The line between what is possibly real and what is her imaginary life is fragile.   At a dinner for Amér to meet her two children   Tommy p...

SILENT SKY The number of stars is often used in reviews to rank shows.   Silent Sky at Fords Theatre is worth a sky full.   Like the stars in the sky,  this wonderful show is truly filled with wonder. Wonder  -  for the history of Henrietta Leavitt and the Harvard “computers” who mapped the universe using glass plates taken of the night sky. Wonder -  for this star filled production.  Laura C. Harris is Henrietta, brilliant and dedicated as an astronomer, who made her star shattering discoveries when  women were not allowed to peer through nighttime telescopes.   Nora Achrati is Annie Cannon and Holly Twyford is Willama Fleming, both who set records in their observations on which   later astronomical discoveries have been based.   Henrietta is determined to follow her passion despite the pleadings of  her sister Margaret Leavitt, played by Emily Kester.  Jonathan David Marin is Peter Shaw, a  composit...