Corner Theatre

Actors tend to love plays in which they get to portray actors, so it follows that theater critics would enjoy reviewing plays about theater critics reviewing plays. Not that critics get this opportunity often, but one of those opportunities is on stage at Fell's Point Corner Theatre. Tom Stoppard's 1968 comedy The Real Inspector Hound is about two British critics who become way too involved in the murder mystery they are reviewing. Director Alex Willis has paired this short play with an even shorter murder-mystery spoof - David Ives' 1999 The Mystery of Twicknam Vicarage.

In 1936, Clare Booth Luce surprised theatergoers with “The Women,” a snappy - and snapping - play about catty New York socialities and wannabes, performed by an all-female cast. Three decades later, Canadian playwright Michel Tremblay delivered a kind of flip side. Tremblay's “Les Belles Soeurs” (“The Sisters-in-Law”), which has been given an intriguing production at Fells Point Corner Theatre, consists solely of female characters. These Montreal ladies are on a much lower socio-economic level than Luce's rhymes-with-”itchy” types, but just as prone to gossip, prejudgments and back-stabbing - and likewise capable of being awfully amusing.

The cruel machinations of a decadent aristocracy months before the bloody French Revolution took place is the focus of Christopher Hampton's stage play, "Les Liaisons Dangereuses," which is having its Baltimore premiere at the Fell's Point Corner Theatre.A worthwhile production it is directed with intensity and high style by Barry Feinstein. This intriguing period piece complete with costumes of the time is based on the 200-year-old French classic novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. (Hampton's adaptation became a very successful motion picture featuring Glenn Close and John Malkovich)

Overturning norms The Lowdown: Artists push beyond the ordinary in To Overthrow or Overturn: The Art of Accident, Disaster and Catastrophe. They examine how calamities and their outcomes are multifaceted, not just cause-and-effect events. The exhibition explores different forms and genres in approaching the explanations for events. If You Go: The exhibition opens today, with a reception from 5 p.m.-7 p.m. It runs until Aug. 9 at the School 33 Art Center, 1427 Light St. Free. The Artscape reception for the exhibit is 2 p.m.-5 p.m. July 12. Call 410-396-4641 or go to school33.

The Spotlighters production of Barbara Lebow's drama "A Shayna Maidel" is opening tomorrow night. The opening of the show was incorrect in the Accent Plus section Jan 24. The play, which deals with the effects of the Holocaust on one family, will run through March 3.Loud sensual sighs, moans and intimate laughter can bheard from a bed on a darkened stage during the opening scene in Terrence McNally's "Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune," currently on...

As its first entry in this year's Baltimore Playwrights Festival, Fell's Point Corner Theatre is presenting two one-act plays about searching for, or re-defining, family.Steve Schutzman's "Ghosts Play One" is the more unusual and complex of the two. It's also risky and highly theatrical, and though the text meanders, director Robert Clingan does his best to keep up the level of tension.Samuel Beckett would feel at home on designer Kirsten Hansen's bleak set, with its bare trees and trash can. He'd also recognize the tattered costumes worn by the actors, whose roles are listed simply as "Younger Man, Older Man, Woman and Man."

There's a song in the second act of William Finn and James Lapine's musical Falsettos called "Year of the Child," and the title applies to more than the sole child in the show. Director Bill Kamberger's strong production at Fell's Point Corner Theatre presents a topsy-turvy world in which adults often behave like children, and vice versa. In the end, it's not only Jason - a little boy caught in the middle of his parents' complicated relationship - who grows up, but also his troubled dad. Falsettos is actually a knitting together of two one-act musicals about the same characters - Jason, adorably and maturely played by Benjamin Miller; his earnest mom, Trina, beautifully sung by Shelly Work; and his angry, complex dad, Marvin, powerfully portrayed by Larry Munsey in one of the best performances I've seen on a small stage in some time.

Some time in the next two months, artist Cinder Hypki will install a piece of mosaic with the logo FPCT -- for Fell's Point Corner Theatre -- into the sidewalk outside a three-story converted firehouse on South Ann Street. The marker will represent the newest phase in the company's life, which began a few weeks ago when it officially purchased the building it has occupied for more than two decades, and into which it has poured more than $500,000 in improvements. Talk about a concrete symbol of success.

David Mamet's grim play, "The Cryptogram," should be the dark, flip side of all those cheery 1950s sitcoms. But Fell's Point Corner Theatre's production is almost as bland as 1950s cuisine.Theatergoers familiar with Mamet will notice two unusual things about this 1995 play. First, the virtual absence of profanity, and second, a central character who is a child.Perhaps the most unusual element, however, is that this play about the impact of divorce on a child is the most personal statement yet by the playwright, whose own parents divorced in when he was 10.That's one of the few obvious comments that can be made about this cryptic "Cryptogram."

Yasmina Reza's Life x 3 is a play that owes a debt to Copenhagen, Rashomon and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Like Michael Frayn's Copenhagen and Akira Kurosawa's movie Rashomon, it re-examines a central event from varying angles. And like Edward Albee's Virginia Woolf, the setup is an evening with two academic couples. Yet Reza's play (translated from the French by Christopher Hampton) defaults on the debt it owes its strong forebears. The central problem is that if a story is going to be retold several times, it is especially important that it be interesting the first time.

Some time in the next two months, artist Cinder Hypki will install a piece of mosaic with the logo FPCT -- for Fell's Point Corner Theatre -- into the sidewalk outside a three-story converted firehouse on South Ann Street. The marker will represent the newest phase in the company's life, which began a few weeks ago when it officially purchased the building it has occupied for more than two decades, and into which it has poured more than $500,000 in improvements. Talk about a concrete symbol of success.

There's a song in the second act of William Finn and James Lapine's musical Falsettos called "Year of the Child," and the title applies to more than the sole child in the show. Director Bill Kamberger's strong production at Fell's Point Corner Theatre presents a topsy-turvy world in which adults often behave like children, and vice versa. In the end, it's not only Jason - a little boy caught in the middle of his parents' complicated relationship - who grows up, but also his troubled dad. Falsettos is actually a knitting together of two one-act musicals about the same characters - Jason, adorably and maturely played by Benjamin Miller; his earnest mom, Trina, beautifully sung by Shelly Work; and his angry, complex dad, Marvin, powerfully portrayed by Larry Munsey in one of the best performances I've seen on a small stage in some time.

Yasmina Reza's Life x 3 is a play that owes a debt to Copenhagen, Rashomon and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Like Michael Frayn's Copenhagen and Akira Kurosawa's movie Rashomon, it re-examines a central event from varying angles. And like Edward Albee's Virginia Woolf, the setup is an evening with two academic couples. Yet Reza's play (translated from the French by Christopher Hampton) defaults on the debt it owes its strong forebears. The central problem is that if a story is going to be retold several times, it is especially important that it be interesting the first time.

The lowdown -- Before there was West Side Story or even Kiss Me, Kate, there was The Boys From Syracuse, which blazed the trail as the first Broadway musical adapted from Shakespeare. George Abbott based the script on The Comedy of Errors, and Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart added a score. The tale of two pairs of separated twins begins performances tomorrow at Center Stage, directed by Baltimore native David Schweizer. If you go -- Showtimes vary at Center Stage, 700 N. Calvert St. Tickets are $15-$50.

In Sight Unseen, Donald Margulies' 1991 play about a superstar painter, the artist admits that his paintings deal with "unspeakable things." Many unspeakable things get spoken - hostilities, jealousies, heartbreak - in the course of Margulies' examination of modern art, modern life and modern angst, which is receiving an intense production at Fell's Point Corner Theatre. Director Barry Feinstein stages the play with the eye of an artist. The first image could be called "Still Life with Four Figures."

You might say it started in a restaurant a decade ago. Or you could say it started in a Honda CR-V. Or perhaps it started with Shakespeare. Any way you look at it, Willie Baby -- a one-act play making its world premiere at Fell's Point Corner Theatre as part of the 25th annual Baltimore Playwrights Festival -- had an unusual genesis. THE PAST IS PRESENT / / Four one-acts, including Willie Baby / / Through July 23 / / Fell's Point Corner Theatre, 251 S. Ann St. / / Tickets $14 / / 410-276-7837

The Baltimore Playwrights Festival is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a strong pair of one-act plays by festival veteran Jim Cary. Produced by Fell's Point Corner Theatre under the joint title "Seasons of Love," each one-act examines a couple grappling with issues of love, companionship, dependency, support, inadequacy, despondency and hope. "Goodnight" focuses on a pair of long-married senior citizens. "In Smoke" is about two high school seniors. Both pieces display well-drawn characters, dialogue and commendable performances, but perhaps partly due to the forceful acting of Joe Cimino, "Goodnight" is ultimately more compelling.

When it comes to the plays of Jean Genet, the one thing that's certain is that nothing's certain.In "The Maids" -- currently receiving a skillful production at Fell's Point Corner Theatre -- the maid and mistress in the first scene turn out to be two maids acting out a favorite ritual. In the "game," as they call it, one plays Madame and the other, a maid, as they unleash all their anger, resentment and murderous schemes.Initially, however, we don't realize they're playing a game. We take them at face value as mistress and servant.