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Music with a local flavor
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D.C. eats in quick bites
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Style and error
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Sports talk with attitude
D.C. STAGE PRODUCTIONS are steeped in complexity this spring, exploring prejudice, family discord and societal fault lines; even the musicals are murky, even murderous. Thankfully, there's a frothy French farce to lighten the mood. But those who like their comedies dark will find much to enjoy.
'HIGH FIDELITY': LISTMANIA
Composer Tom Kitt's musical version of "High Fidelity" — based on the Nick Hornby novel — may have bombed on Broadway, but supposedly, it was meant to be performed in an intimate setting ... like the D.C. Arts Center in Adams Morgan. Stephen Gregory Smith stars as Rob, the list-making record shop owner, in Landless Theatre's production.
» D.C. Arts Center, 2438 18th St. NW; Feb. 18-March 14, $25. (Woodley Park-Adams Morgan)
'THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA': AN AMERICAN IN FLORENCE
Molly Smith directs Arena Stage's production of "Light in the Piazza," the 2005 musical based on Elizabeth Spencer's novella and the 1962 film. The story centers on a naïve young American named Clara who is wooed by a charming, handsome Italian (Fabrizio, naturally), but dark family secrets and questions about Clara's true nature threaten to derail the romance.
» Arena Stage, 1800 S. Bell St., Arlington; March 5-April 11, $55-$74; 202-488-3300. (Crystal City)
SINCE "ALTERNATIVE" MEANS "mainstream" and "indie" means nothing, we feel comfortable using the heading "Pop" to describe the stellar slate of sound hitting D.C. this spring.
Death metal, hair metal, black metal; London teens, hip-hop mainstays, African legends, cool electronica, blazing guitar rock, Scottish indie rockers holding foil balloons — if you least expect it, expect it.
BESIDES THE MANY festivals we in the Washington area are blessed with, our local silver screens will be bristling with individual gems. Sobering times, apparently, call for nonfiction, so expect a passel of earnest documentaries. But there's also action, animation and fictional crime to take us into the warm weather.
'NORTH FACE': CLIMB EVERY MOUNTAIN, OR ELSE
Mountains and Nazis? While it's based on a true story, this ain't "The Sound of Music." Two German climbers are "persuaded" by Nazi propagandists in 1936 to scale the impassable north face of the Eiger (of "Eiger Sanction" fame). It doesn't go well.
» Avalon, 5612 Connecticut Ave., NW; opens Feb. 26, $10.50; 202-966-6000.
'THE RED SHOES': ARCHERS AND ARCHES
Brit auteurs the Archers (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger) were already on the mark (sorry) with "Black Narcissus" when they hit the bull's-eye (sorry!) with this 1948 ballet-within-a-ballet tale. UCLA archivists spent three years restoring it with funding from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Nice to know the Golden Globes are good for something.
» National Gallery of Art, 4th Street & Constitution Avenue NW; March 14, 4:30 p.m., free; 202-842-6799. (Archives-Navy Memorial)
THIS SPRING, THE past seems to be alive and well as several museums are offering shows with a historical slant. Galleries are keeping things more current, with artists exploring generic spaces of the contemporary world and the impact of the natural one. Taken together, this art season promises to be one of reflection and inspiration.
MATTHEW SUTTON: IT'S ART, BUT IS IT TMI?
At Conner Contemporary Art right now, Matthew Sutton plays with sound in "Sounds a Grown Man Shouldn't Make." An artist with Conner independent venture Gogo Emerging Art Projects Sutton offers a selection of sounds he makes on a regular basis that meet with disapproval from friends, family members and co-workers.
» Conner Contemporary Art, 1358 Florida Ave. NE, through March 6, free; 202-588-8750.
LOOKING FOR FOOD for thought? Why, the metro area will be a veritable banquet of brainy ideas and brilliant words this season. Old books and concepts get a fresh look, environmentalism gets a hearing, and new novels get a boost. Plus, we threw in some bugs. You're welcome.
PETER MATTHIESSEN: COLD CASES
In the travel journal "The Snow Leopard" and the novel "Shadow Country," Peter Matthiessen has turned his keen eye and prodigious writing talent to urgent and controversial issues. In March, he appears at National Geographic Live to discuss the effects of climate change on the people at the top of the Earth, where the way of life that indigenous cultures have carved out of hostile land is threatened by warmer temperatures. His lecture is part of the Environmental Film Festival.
» March 18, 7:30 p.m., $25 general public, $20 members.
POP PICKS: We shudder to think how old Joanne Germanatta was when she first heard the music of Morrissey or Bruce Springsteen. Nevertheless, the disco diva who calls herself Lady Gaga time-shares this spring's stages with luminaries from back in the day, as well as with contemporary pop icons such as Katy Perry and Britney Spears. Meanwhile, in scruffier locales, hipster stars Neko Case, A.C. Newman, and Peter Bjorn and John are due to enchant the Converse-wearing masses.
The biggest name on this season's slate comes with tons of baggage. But whatever your musical taste, you can't deny the towering tabloid-luring talents of Miss Britney Spears. She takes her "Circus" act to Verizon Center on March 24, so expect energetic dancing, convincing lip-syncing and "Womanizer."
On the indie beat, expect fewer backup dancers and more angst. Things heat up in May with a 9:30 Club performance by everybody's favorite Swedish whistlers (and Kanye West's favorite band), Peter Bjorn and John, on May 2. The band tries to prove it can get past "Young Folks" with new album, "Living Things," out March 31. On May 11, the same venue gets weird with a visit from Animal Collective. The band released "Merriweather Post Pavilion" in January, a pop-minded change of tune for the noise-prone Baltimoreans.
ROBERTO SAVIANO IS a writer on the run. The Italian author of "Gomorrah: Italy's Other Mafia" as received numerous death threats for his riveting exploration of the Camorra, the Neopolitan mafia with strands in virtually every aspect of Southern Italian society and commerce, and has gone into hiding.
The release of "Gomorrah," the equally riveting - and bloody, heartbreaking and enraging - film based on Saviano's book won't help lower the man's profile. Matteo Garrone worked with Saviano and other writers on distilling the tale into five stories that demonstrate with maximum hopelessness how deeply embedded the Camorra is the lifeblood of communities around Naples.
The setting itself is a character, the ugliest and meanest. The landscape is scarred and charred, bleak as the veldt, with hideous housing projects, crater-like quarries and a leaden sea. It is among these unprepossessing sites that our main players are buffeted by fate.
Continue Reading "Spring Arts Preview: Scene of the Crimes" »
RICHARD LLOYD HAS LIVED has lived the rock star life. Not only as the guitarist in seminal post-punk band Television, but years before as a Greenwich Village youth.
Lloyd's teenage years changed when he met Velvert Turner at 14 or 15 (he's unsure exactly). Turner wasn't just some ordinary kid from Brooklyn — he was Jimi Hendrix's one-and-only protege.
Well, technically.
At the time, Hendrix lived a few blocks from Lloyd, so after getting a lesson from Hendrix, Turner would head over to Lloyd's and teach him what Hendrix just taught.
Continue Reading "Spring Arts Preview: Tuning In to Hendrix" »
THIS SEASON'S SIGHTS ARE as diverse as the artists who created them. No unifying themes emerge from studying the lineup as a whole, but we did unearth one clue: This year, politics have been put aside in exchange for aesthetics, history and experimentation. In other words, there's a whole lotta stuff to look at.
Big names: Maya Lin, the designer of the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial is still exploring landscape and geology in her art, nearly three decades later. The Corcoran presents "Systematic Landscapes" (March 14-July 12) three of Lin's large-scale installations for viewers to walk around, under and through. In addition, Lin will create a topographic representation of the Chesapeake Bay — made entirely of pins.
There's more to Marcel Duchamp than that oft-cited urinal, and the National Portrait Gallery is inviting Washington to see another side of the man. One hundred other sides, to be exact. "Inventing Marcel Duchamp: The Dynamics of Portraiture" (March 27-Aug. 2) showcases self-portraits of Duchamp as well as portraits by Richard Avedon, Joseph Cornell, Jasper Johns, Man Ray, Alfred Stieglitz and Andy Warhol.
POLITICS & PROSE IS a community resource without peer. With the disheartening demise of the Olsson's book and record stores and the general vanishing of independent bookstores, the Connecticut Avenue mainstay is one of D.C.'s only bulwarks against the big boxification of the written word, and a terrific place to hear authors read from their works just about every night. Best of all, after the readings, the writers are expected to take audience questions and give autographs.
Among the most noteworthy writers visiting P&P this spring are Rashid Khalidi (March 5), the distinguished scholar and focus of a minor 2008 campaign kerfuffle, Baltimore's own Laura Lippman (March 24), author of the Tess Monaghan mystery series; and the food critic, guru and memoirist Ruth Reichel (April 7).
Politics & Prose is, of course, challenged in its bookish supremacy by competitors like restaurant/bookstore Busboys & Poets, presenting Derek Hyra, author of"The New Urban Renewal: The Economic Transformation of Harlem and Bronzeville" (Feb. 26), and Randy Shaw, author of "Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW, and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century" (March 31), among others.
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