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Reviewed December 14
Running time 1:55 - one intermission
A troubling test of parental responsibility
Performed at The Warehouse on 7th Street NW
Click here to buy the script

Storyline: The grown son of a married couple who already have enough problems on their plate comes home to seek refuge from a terrible predicament: he's an art teacher in an elementary school and he's been discovered sexually active with one of his students -- an eight year old boy.

Silver was on something of a roll when this latest piece opened Off-Broadway last year. It was his eighth play in just over a decade to receive substantial productions with solid casts and crews. This time out it was Penny Fuller and George Grizzard as the oh-so-troubled couple who trade barbs and excel in finding ways of inflicting pain on each other. Their skill, and that of a praised supporting cast, could not overcome the problems with the play, however, and neither can the work of the earnest troupe at Didactic who try mightily to give life to some fairly lifeless characters.

Cecil Baldwin does the best of the cast of five, bringing a solid sense of reality to the challenging character of the thirty-something gay son who simply doesn't see anything wrong with his obsession with -  and abuse of - his eight year old student. His performance is so strong, in fact, that you can believe in his character's utter cluelessness when he insists it isn't abuse, it is "love." Just as "Martin" in Edward Albee's The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? can't see his obsession as an aberration, Baldwin's character's view is the rock around which the entire play revolves.

Steve Beal and Glee Murray are less successful in bringing the parents to life. Beal seems to substitute habitual handling of his eyeglasses for clearer displays of emotional conflict, and while Murray captures the pain of the wife's world in her sad eyes, she can't quite build to the emotional heights demanded. Neither Karen Novak as the husband's pregnant mistress (told you this was a dysfunctional family) nor Maya Lynne Robinson, strangely doubling as the mother of the victim and a psychiatrist with her own problems, can focus the attention where it needs to be. As an ensemble they work hard with Silver's strange script, but can't quite raise to the level of either humor or pathos that would make it either funny or profound.

Written by Nicky Silver. Directed by Kristen Cornwall. Design: Katie Keogh (set) Thomas Campbell (lights) Elaine Brown and Paul Ring (stage managers). Cast: Cecil Baldwin, Steve Beall, Karen Novak, Glee Murray, Maya Lynne Robinson.

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Reviewed April 2
Running time 2:00 - one intermission
General Admission seating
t A Potomac Stages Pick for fascinating performances 

Storyline: In Port Elizabeth, South Africa in 1963, a young man has been caring for his crippled father for many years while his sister has been working as a prostitute in Johannesburg. She returns believing their father is on his deathbed and hopes to get her share of whatever wealth he may have left.

Fugard is best known for his plays which examine personal relationships under South African Apartheid. This two-character play deals with two Afrikaners -- racial relations are extraneous to this play. Here it is sibling relationships that interest him and the opportunity to present a view of two worlds in his native land, the one lived by the brother who stayed behind in the coastal city of Port Elizabeth and the other lived by the sister who worked the streets of the capitol city nearly a thousand miles inland.

Carroll has been seen before in the Potomac Region at the Theatre on the Run in Firebelly Productions' Of Mice and Men and Butterflies are Free. Here is a breakout role for him which will impress theatergoers fortunate enough to catch it during its short run. Novak has had wider exposure throughout the region at Horizons, Studio, Studio 2nd Stage, Cherry Red and elsewhere. Together, they create a sibling pair to be remembered.

Director Jewel Orem (last seen in the Potomac Region in Round House Theatre's The Diary of Anne Frank) treats the story in the straight forward, naturalistic manner of Fugard's script. Given the intimate confines of the theater, this creates the impression of eavesdropping on reality rather than witnessing a theatrical production. The feeling is intensified by Dan Schrader's sound design, which, in addition to the constant drip, drip, drip of the leaking ceiling, features the hint of the storm outside and even an occasional dog howl so faint it becomes mere atmosphere. All the design elements make significant contributions to the overall effect.

Written by Athol Fugard. Directed by Jewell S. Orem. Design: Sean Doyle (set and lights) Nina Mahi Zadronzny (costumes) Dan Schrader (sound) Monalisa Arias (fight choreography) John Mulcahy (photography) Elaine Brown (stage manager). Cast: Chris Carroll, Karen Novack.

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Reviewed November 11
Running time 2:00 - one intermission
Performances at the Warehouse
Click here to buy the script

The two young women are Dana Edwards and Lauren DeKosky, both of whom are believable in their roles. Their friendship builds slowly in a natural manner with bumps along the road as when DeKosky's character shows up late for and dressed casually for an evening that Edwards, as the traffic reporter, hoped would be something a bit more formal and important. They let their characters emerge from the episodes over the course of the evening without pushing toward the message too quickly. Edwards is particularly effective in her character's tirade against people who own cars in a city served by a massive subway system. The tirade is effective, of course, because she's a traffic reporter whose job depends on those drivers' need for her reports.

Supporting characters include Stephen Alexander and Leo Goodman as men in the women's lives, Stephen T. Varol as the detective investigating the hate crime as well as Karen Beriss in dual roles to speed the story along.

Using the smaller "Warehouse Next Door" facility, the company has constructed a suitable set of the reporter's cramped rent-controlled New York apartment and used blackouts effectively to keep the passage of time clear. The confines of the space, however, make the transition to a hospital room a bit of a stretch, using the futon as a hospital bed.

Written by Diana Son. Directed by Chris Carroll. Design: Katie Keogh (set) Nina Mahi Zadronzny (costumes), Jason Cowperthwaite (lights) Kristen Cornwall (sound) John Mulcahy (photography) Kat Gannon (stage manager). Cast: Stephen Alexander, Karen Beriss, Dana Edwards, Lauren DeKosky, Leo Goodman, Stephen T. Varol.