If one needed an “excuse” not to be home watching the Tony Awards, nothing could serve better than a near-perfect production of Noel Coward’s comedy of unmannerly manners, Private Lives, at Shakespeare Theatre Company.

There isn’t a false note in the direction of Maria Aitkin, an acclaimed Coward actor and teacher, or in the performances of James Waterston and Bianca Amato as Elyot and Amanda. The couple had divorced five years previously and re-meet while on their honeymoons with new spouses, only to find their passions quickly rekindled. Autumn Hurlbert and Jeremy Webb, playing those spouses, the hysterical Sybil and the well-meaning but rigid Victor, ably match the leads. Even in her small role, Jane Ridley grabs and holds the stage for as long as the playwright allows her to.

It doesn’t hurt that this may be Coward’s funniest play — certainly the wit never takes a break and the barbs fly fast and furious, especially between Elyot and Amanda. They’re hopelessly in love and equally hopelessly unable to live together for very long without objects and insults being thrown. Later Sybil and Victor get drawn into the fray, but they are mere amateurs learning from the masters…

From the minute Waterston steps out on the balcony of his and Sybil’s hotel suite, you know he’s in command. Of a perfect English accent, the wit, the right look, and the bits of physical comedy later on.

Plus the actor’s chemistry with Amato’s alternatively sexy, playful, forbidding, and defiant (almost feminist) — not to mention mercurial–Amanda sizzles. From Act II, although not much of a plot is advanced, we seem to learn every nuance of romantic attraction, happy, passionate, frustrated, and miserable.

You might say Private Lives is a master class in love, so much so that we forgive Elyot and Amanda for outrageous and insensitive behavior and overlook the fact that we know nothing about them other than what we see — violations both of morality and theatrical conventions up to that point.

The play is light-hearted; you’ll likely find yourself laughing at almost every line, especially in a production as on target as this one. But you’ll also feel the reality of two people who may be more elegant and devil-may-care than we are but are still looking, underneath their acerbic, callous statements, for a true connection.

In short, Elyot and Amanda are too lovable to judge. And the more-upright Sybil and Victor come across as tedious, even as a part of us feels sorry for the awful way they’re being treated.

Beyond the underlying serious side, Private Lives is hilarious, and this production gives you plenty of cause to laugh. I’m certain many audience members would have sat through a repeat performance right away.

It is fitting that Allen Moyer’s sets — elegant in Act I, and bohemian tossed into disarray in the next two — move forward slightly as each Act begins. Like the text itself, they beckon us to enter the chaotic but endearing world of Elyot and Amanda.

This production is debuting at STC, but cut its teeth in the spring of 2012 at the Huntington Theatre Company in Boston, with the same cast and director.

Cast

• Amanda: Bianca Amato
• Sibyl: Autumn Hurlbert
• Louise: Jane Ridley
• Elyot: James Waterston
• Victor: Jeremy Webb

Direction and Design

• Director: Maria Aitken
• Set Designer: Allen Moyer
• Costume Designer: Candice Donnelly
• Lighting Designer: Philip S. Rosenberg
• Sound Design & Music Arrangements: Rob Milburn and Michael Bodeen
• Music Director: Barbara Irvine
• Choreographer: Daniel Pelzig
• Fight Choreographer: Ted Hewlett
• Head of Voice and Text (for STC): Ellen O’Brien
• Original Casting Director: Alaine Alldaffer
• Additional Casting, of Binder Casting: Jack Bowdan
• Literary Associate: Drew Lichtenberg
• Assistant Director: Gus Heagerty
• Production Stage Manager: Leslie Sears
• Assistant Stage Manager: Elizabeth Clewley

Disclaimer: Shakespeare Theatre Company provided two complimentary media tickets to ShowBizRadio for this review.

Joshua Redford likes to joke that he only does shows with roller-skating.

He’s directing the upcoming musical, Xanadu, for the Reston Community Players. Two seasons back, he directed The Drowsy Chaperone for them.

Luckily, the 292-seat theater offers a nice-size stage and a lot of fly space for (partially) on-wheel productions. That’s in spite of the fact that Xanadu calls for a four-piece combo band on stage.

But the truth is, Redford’s directorial stints have not been limited to shows with roller skates. Last year he staged Legally Blonde: The Musical. Earlier this season he directed and produced a tribute to Rodgers and Hammerstein and to Andrew Lloyd Webber in concert.

What was the appeal for the Reston theater of Xanadu, which is based on the 1980 movie by the same name? Starring Olivia Newton-John and Gene Kelly in his last film role, the movie became a cult classic, despite being critically panned. (A Rita Hayworth vehicle, the 1947 film “Down to Earth,” in turn, inspired the movie.)

“With musicals, I’m always drawn first to the music,” said Redford. “Every number in the show is infectious, catchy, upbeat, and happy. There are no down points.”

Among the popular songs are “I’m Alive,” “Magic,” “Suddenly,” “Evil Woman,” “Suspended in Time,” and the title song. Xanadu‘s name is drawn from a poem called “Kubla Khan” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and is a reference to a Chinese province.

The musical follows the journey of a magical and beautiful Greek muse, Kira, who descends from the heavens on a quest to inspire a struggling artist, Sonny, to achieve the greatest artistic creation of all time — the first Roller Disco! But when Kira falls into forbidden love with the mortal, her jealous sisters take advantage of the situation, with chaotic results.

Xanadu the musical is a tongue-in-cheek, affectionate spoof of the movie and one of the cases, Redford asserted, in which “the second incarnation of an art form is better than the first.”

The show uses the same score as the movie and essentially the same structure. Kira and Sonny receive help that is at first reluctant from Danny Maguire (the Gene Kelly role), a former big-band clarinetist who gave up his muse to become a real estate mogul.

More dramatic conflict has been added to the original plot in the guise of Kira’s evil sisters. “The musical uses the fact that the movie it’s based on was a flop,” the director added.

The characters sometimes do “preposterous” thing — or maybe, “fantastical” ones might be a better word — but are essentially “believable.” The musical is at heart a love story, Redford added. “The characters do what they do for love.”

An appearance by the Andrew Sisters and ‘80s rockers add to the humor.

But coming back to the roller skating… Russell Silber, who stars as Sonny Malone and also Zeus, had some skating experience. Evie Korovesis, who plays Kira and Clio, did not.

But Redford arranged for a skating workshop and played off the fact that Korovesis, despite having the needed comic touch and the right look for the part, was not the most adept on wheels.

“After all,” he laughed, “the script never said that Kira is a fabulous skater. We poke fun at that.”

Xanadu, which opened on Broadway in 2007, earned an Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Musical and a Drama Desk Award for Best Book. It was also nominated for two Tony Awards. The book is by Douglas Carter Beane, with music and lyrics by Jeff Lynne and John Farrar.

Xanadu runs March 7-29 at the Reston Community Center, 2310 Colts Neck Road, Reston, Virginia. Generally, the community theater presents two musicals and two plays a season. But when the rights to Les Miserables became available, the Players grabbed the opportunity and presented the mega-hit in January. Next on the schedule is Neil Simon’s Chapter Two.

Photo Gallery

Alexa Yarboro, Emil Jonas, Sam Nystrom, Evie Korovesis, Richard Durkin, Russell Silber, Sean Cator, Katie Cheek, Megan Hubbell	Emily Jonas, Evie Korovesis, Russell Silber, Katie Cheek
Sean Cator (Young Danny) taps while Richard Durkin (Danny) and Evie Korovesis (Kira) look on

Photos by Traci J. Brooks Studios

Disclaimer: RCP purchased banner advertising on the ShowBizRadio web site for this show.

Expectations run high for any production of The Importance of Being Earnest, arguably Oscar Wilde’s greatest play (in any case, his last and best known) and maybe one of the cleverest, period.

In this “trivial comedy for serious people,” Wilde demands that his characters be inane as well as witty and insightful, while never realizing they are any of these things. Not to mention they are ephemeral in their moods and opinions and self-contradictory, as when Gwendolyn Fairfax, declares, “I never change, except in my affections.”

While poking fun at social conventions and etiquette — and inversely, the lack of them — Wilde has created stage people who take themselves deadly seriously, while he refuses to. Mistaken identities (à la Shakespeare) are at the heart of the play, but we never see the two male leads in those other guises. We only know that John Worthing is “Ernest” in the city, and Algernon pretends to be his brother.

The Shakespeare Theatre Company’s production of Earnest meets many of the hurdles, though it takes a bit of time to warm up to them.

Anthony Roach (Moncrief) and Gregory Wooddell (Worthing) at first seem tentative in both the silliness and wit, although the delicious dialogue between Moncrief and his butler, Lane (an admirably low-key Todd Scofield) is sharply focused. The arrival of other characters later in the act and even more surely in Act II seem to ignite the liveliness. Roach and Wooddell then fall right in their portrayal of two men who have deep rapport, when they’re not ribbing or “blackmailing” one another.

The energy is helped along by the chemistry between Vanessa Morosco (Gwendolyn) Fairfax) and Katie Fabel (Cecily Cardew) as the two men’s love interests who are not quite as different from one another as they think.

It’s a delight to see Sian Phillips, newly an octogenarian, on stage, since she is best known in this country for her Emmy-winning role as the murderous Livia in the BBC-TV series “I, Claudius.” Phillips is a slimmer, more fashionable Lady Bracknell — who is every bit as self-made as Worthing — than usual and decidedly a woman. (Director Keith Baxter has broken with the tradition of casting males.)

Yet, she is also a little less imperious and more self-aware of the effect she has on others than might be expected.

More than other Gwendolyn I’ve seen, Morosco gives us a glimpse of what she might become if her romantic happiness falls flat — her mother, Lady Bracknell.

Patricia Conolly, in the smaller but pivotal role of Miss Prism, invests the role with a little more dignity and less silliness than it is often given — fortuitously.

As her late-in-life love interest, Dr. Chausable, Floyd King is even more human (although, of course, in Wilde’s hands, still a bit silly).

Logan DalBello (footman), John O’Creagh (Merriman) and Lee McKenna (Irish maid) round out the cast.

Of course, the star in Earnest is the language, and director Baxter gives Wilde’s wit its due. But he also reminds us that the play is a farce, adding several touches of physical comedy that may not be seen in other Earnests.

From the exaggerated muffin fight to Moncrief’s emphatic piano playing that opens the play, from Worthing’s collapse on the couch to his throwing the handbag out the window rather than handing it to Miss Prism in a gentler manner, Baker emphasizes (without hitting anyone on the head with it) that verbal witticisms need not be the only repertory of these memorable characters.

Other distinctive touches include the incidental music that opens each act — by Richard Addinsell. The set design by Simon Higlett drew ahs’s from the audience, especially for the lovely and evocative (you could practically smell the flowers) in the Worthing Manor House.

Photo Gallery

Vanessa Morosco as Gwendolen and Gregory Wooddell as Jack	Gregory Wooddell as Jack and Anthony Roach as Algernon
Katie Fabel as Cecily and Anthony Roach as Algernon	Katie Fabel as Cecily and Sian Phillips as Lady Bracknell

Photos by Scott Suchman

Cast

• Algernon Moncrieff: Anthony Roach
• Lane: Todd Scofield
• Footman: Logan DalBello
• John Worthing: Gregory Wooddell
• Lady Bracknell: Siân Phillips
• Gwendolen Fairfax: Vanessa Morosco
• Miss Prism: Patricia Conolly
• Cecily Cardew: Katie Fabel
• Dr. Chasuble: Floyd King
• Merriman: John O’Creagh
• Irish Maid: Lee McKenna

Direction And Design

• Director: Keith Baxter
• Set Designer: Simon Higlett
• Costume Designer: Robert Perdziola
• Lighting Designer: Peter West
• Sound Designer: Jason Tratta
• Composer/Arranger: Kim D. Sherman
• Wig Designer: Paul Huntley
• New York Casting: Stuart Howard and Paul Hardt
• Resident Casting Director: Daniel Neville-Rehbehn
• Voice and Text Coach: Gary Logan
• Literary Associate: Drew Lichtenberg
• Assistant Director: Samip Raval
• Production Stage Manager: James FitzSimmons
• Assistant Stage Manager: Elizabeth Clewley

Disclaimer: Shakespeare Theatre Company provided two complimentary media tickets to ShowBizRadio for this review.

Oliver (Daddy) Warbucks, the steely billionaire industrialist turned adoptive father to the lovable orphan of the same name in the musical Annie, was not a role Ric Stroup expected to play.

Generally the North Virginia actor has been cast as the “comic relief” in a number of classic musicals, including Nicely Nicely in Guys and Dolls and Luther Billis in South Pacific. (He also played the occasional romantic supporting role — Charley in Brigadoon and Freddy in My Fair Lady — but those were less typical.)

Moreover, Stroup is a tenor, a lyric one at that. Aside from the dramatic considerations, he hesitated to audition for Main Street Theater’s production of the Tony Award-winning musical because the part really calls for a baritone.

But Stroup did take the plunge — and he’s glad he did. He even didn’t mind shaving his head for the part. (That was a tradition practiced by George Hearn, who starred in one of the show’s many revivals, and by Albert Finney and Victor Garber, who appeared in the musical film and TV movie, respectively.)

Stroup considers it serendipitous that he and his family happened to relocate to the area near Purcellville, where Karlah and Arthur Louis established the community theater in 2012. He was glad after a long hiatus — during which he and his wife raised four children, and he headed his own software company, traveling a lot — to be back in theater taking on roles he likes.

Daddy Warbucks fits the bill.

“I like the character,” Stroup said. “He transitions from a gruff businessman — who declares: ‘The only thing I cared about was money’ — to a guy infatuated with Annie. He changes his personality onstage.”

This was a challenge the actor took on willingly — ensuring that the transition in Warbucks’ character, voice, even the way he walks. be visible to the audience.

Stroup feels he’s accomplished what he set out to do. He is also gratified to have made, at least for this role, the transition to a more “straight-guy” persona.

“Plus,” Stroup added, “I’m a singer by trade, and I have a nice solo.” Oh, and yes, the songs in the musical turned out to be in his comfortable range.

While changing as Warbucks, the actor also realized something he hadn’t noticed before when viewing productions of Annie as an audience member. “Warbucks is a stoic, gruff man,” he pointed out. “But his staff really like him and are very loyal. That must mean something. He’s glad to be home.”

Except, initially, for finding a female orphan he hadn’t anticipated.

Part of the fun of doing Annie, of course, is sharing the stage not only with the canine Sandy but with colorful human characters, lovable and not. He calls sixth grader Teryn Cuocco, in the title role, “unbelievable, and doing a fantastic job.”

Karlah Louis directs and also stars as Miss Hannigan. A Helen Hayes Award Winner and Equity member, she toured with seven Broadway productions. Justin Mohay is her malevolent brother, Rooster. Alie Campbell, a 2013 CAPPIES Award Winner for Best Comedic Actress in a Musical and Best Make-Up, plays his ditzy girlfriend, Lily St. Regis. Tammy Lanham, a middle-school choral teacher, is Grace, Warbucks’ assistant and eventual love interest.

One challenge not unique to Stroup or to inhabiting the role of Daddy Warbucks is taking a very well-known show and injecting it with a sense of freshness.

“Nothing to it,” the actor claimed. “Do your research and watch other performers do the role,” he suggested. Then do your job and have fun. The audience will enjoy the show, even if they’ve seen it 20 times.”

His next gig is in the next Main Street Theater offering. Take Two… Say I Do is a humorous musical look at love and marriage. “I get to sing ‘Do You Love Me?’ (Fiddler on the Roof) with Karlah,” he smiled.

True horror lies in the human psyche.

Molotov Theatre Group is devoted to preserving and reviving the traditions of Grand Guignol–the classic shock theater popular from the end of the 19th century through the middle of the 20th that presented short, gruesome plays with a particular acting style and vivid special effects.

In fact, the professional 501(c)(3) theater has presented many of the original scripts shown at the Paris theater of that name. But Molotov (named for the cocktail) is also pursuing contemporary works.

These include the theatre’s current production of William Mastrosimone’s Extremities, an intense psychological drama about the aftermath of an attempted rape when the intended victim turns the tables on her attacker.

What links such modern works to the older ones is that they focus on “human monsters,” rather than supernatural ones, said Alex Zavistovich, co-artistic director and founding member of Molotov.

Even the original Grand Guignol theatre in Paris never dealt with the stuff of Victorian nightmares–such as Dracula and Frankenstein.

“The plays, often ripped from the headlines–were about misanthropy, psychological aberration, and criminal elements,” he pointed out. “In that sense, Extremities is perfect for us.”

The play raises difficult questions about acts of violence and the justifiable rage they inspire, especially in what has been called “the rape culture” in America.

“The main characters are pushed to extremes,” said Zavistovich. “It’s an interesting study of what happens to two personalities, hinging on the failed sexual attack.”

Extremities is more of a psychological thriller than the theatre’s usual productions. But it does reflect the four principles of Grand Guignol: fourth-wall ambiguity, moments of horrors, distortion of time, and a red herring.

“We’re not using a lot of blood in this show, but we are prolonging the moments of horror and the mind games, so there’s more tension,” he explained.

Every part of the theatre space is being used, including the audience, to draw viewers into the play’s constricted world.

True to the human monster element, the would-be rapist Ray (called Raul in the original) is not a stereotypically hulking, brooding villain. He insinuates his way into the house of Marjorie, his intended victim, with innocuous questions–then seems to turn on a dime.

“If you can find the human element in the character and present it that way, its much scarier,” said Zavistovich, who plays Ray.

Sherry Berg is Marjorie. Jennifer Osborn and special guest star Alexia Poe are her friends, Terry and Patricia.

Co-artistic director Michael Wright directed.

What people also may not realize about Grand Guignol is that it often took a Hot and Cold Shower approach to the way plays were put together: Comedy or sexual farce was introduced in between suspense dramas or horrific plays to give the audiences a little bit of relief, or “palate cleanser.”

“We’re looking at farces and comedies down the road in the same vein,” Zavistovich explained. “The perfect show would be Arsenic and Old Lace, which is fast, zany, has humor but also horror elements.”

Musicals suitable for Molotov’s black box space are also considered. Three years ago the theatre, founded in 2007, presented sold-out performances of The Horrors of Online Dating by a local playwright.

Extremities is Molotov’s first production after a yearlong hiatus to overhaul the company, DC’s only horror- and suspense-related theatre.

The co-artistic director admitted that even in an era when horror and slash films are popular, the theatre has experienced some flak about its choice of fare.

“It’s been labeled ‘gratuitous,’ and I suppose that’s true,” Zavistovich said. “Molotov’s co-founders had an alternative mind-set, and wanted to point to the human condition–head on. So for us, Grand Guignol made perfect sense.”

After all, the theatre’s new tagline is “Art imitates death.”