Vagabond

Peter Shaffer's "Equus" is just about to prance away from the Olney Theatre Center, where director Jim Petosa's powerful production closes Sunday. Meanwhile, another production opens in Baltimore tomorrow at the Vagabond Players.Directed by Barry Feinstein, the Vagabonds' version stars Christopher D. Carver as the troubled adolescent who blinds six horses and Joseph Moore as the psychiatrist who treats him. Although Olney chose to feature only one horse on stage, the Vagabonds' production will include the full complement of horses called for in the script.

Not long ago it would have been difficult to imagine a musical tackling the challenging subjects of homosexuality and AIDS. It would have been even more difficult to imagine it on Broadway -- or even Baltimore's Broadway, where the Vagabond Players have mounted a thoroughly respectable production of the small-scale 1992 surprise hit "Falsettos."One thing that helped boost this unconventional musical's popularity was a New York Times article by then-critic Frank Rich in which he described it as a family show and bolstered his opinion with comments from his two young sons.

The Vagabond Players has launched its 75th season with a revival of Ruth and Augustus Goetz's "The Heiress." It's a fitting choice for several reasons.For starters, the theater's anniversary season consists entirely of favorites from past years. "The Heiress" has had two previous productions, in the 36th and 61st seasons. And, though it's a bit of stretch, there's a Baltimore angle as well. Mrs. Goetz's father was one of H. L. Mencken's publishers, and Mencken wrote the first play the Vags produced.

In the National Football League, as in life, what goes around comes around. Vagabond Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis, who has moved his team twice in the past 12 years against stiff resistance from the league, has choice words for one of his most passionate opponents -- Browns' owner Art Modell."

Like life and death, comedy and tragedy are inseparably related -- a situation the late British playwright Joe Orton exploited to dramatic and comic effect in "Loot," his 1966 farce about death, detective stories and organized religion.As the inaugural production in the Vagabonds' renovated theater, "Loot" might seem a rather offbeat choice. In fact, the musical revue, "Cole," a more mainstream selection, was to have re-opened the theater in November, but was postponed due to construction delays.

"Nine," making its area premiere at the Vagabond Theatre through Dec. 15, is a different kind of musical.Not quite in the revue genre (it has a story line and believable characters), the Tony-Award winning work depends on smart, sophisticated execution of the 23 numbers that serve as plot exposition.With singing by the capable 13-woman chorus and central male character, the Vagabonds do an admirable job in carrying off this difficult piece. Professional choreographer and director Todd Pearthree has created some exceptional choreography so that everyone moves smoothly and suavely about the limited stage.

By now, 60 long years after Agatha Christie's “The Mousetrap” opened in London, the whodunit is more of a fixture than a stage show. It apparently cannot ever be stopped on that side of The Pond, where it has surpassed the 25,000th performance mark and still holds firmly onto the record as the world's longest-running play. On our shores, the work never became such an institution, but it still continues to attract attention now and then, particularly from community theater groups.

Vagabond Players may save money on its utility bill this month, because much of "Wait Until Dark" actually takes place in the dark. Although Frederick Knott's 1966 Broadway thriller tends to be slow and creaky, it's still capable of making you nervous. The Vagabond production likewise knows how to make you feel uneasy. Knott's play is best-remembered for its 1967 movie version starring Audrey Hepburn. It would be unreasonable to expect any actor to match up to Hepburn's delicately beautiful aura, but April Rejman is persuasive as a blind woman, Susy Hendrix, who is terrorized by thugs in a Greenwich Village apartment.

According to an old song, there's a broken heart for every light on Broadway. There's also a lot of humor to be mined from all that disappointment, all those shattered dreams littering the theater industry, where producers scramble for backers, playwrights dream way too big, and aspiring actors will leap at any opportunity. Whether “Room Service,” the 1937 farce by John Murray and Allen Boretz, is the best comedy to be inspired by this volatile milieu can be debated. The work, which has been given a welcome, if spotty, revival by Vagabond Players, certainly creaks in places.

By now, 60 long years after Agatha Christie's “The Mousetrap” opened in London, the whodunit is more of a fixture than a stage show. It apparently cannot ever be stopped on that side of The Pond, where it has surpassed the 25,000th performance mark and still holds firmly onto the record as the world's longest-running play. On our shores, the work never became such an institution, but it still continues to attract attention now and then, particularly from community theater groups.