Bitches tend to go for the sweet things in life (pina colada mimosa, anyone?), but sometimes we need a bite of something bitter. So, if you’re in the mood for dark theater with a cosmic twist—or just into weird shit—check out Woolly Mammoth’s “Civilization (all you can eat).” It’s creepy and thought-provoking, with enough humanity seeping through to be funny—although it’s more funny/ironic than funny/ha-ha.
Photo by: Stan Barouh
Set in 2008 at the brink of the recession, the play follows the intertwining story lines of several sellouts, including a white trash waitress (Naomi Jacobson) whose daughter turns to porn to save their house, and her PhD-toting brother (Sean Meehan) who bases his motivational speeches on an interpretation of chaos theory that he knows is wrong.
The actors who play these two characters stand out for their depth and timing, but Big Hog (Sarah Marshall) steals the show as the play’s anthropomorphic pig. No “Charlotte’s Web” cutsie crap here. This pig is out to escape from his wretched factory farm to taste the buffet of life experiences that he lists maniacally between squeal spasms.
“Civilization (all you can eat)” continues to ask the two questions running through all of Woolly’s 32nd season: Does our civilization have an expiration date? And what comes next? In this world, civilization—in the sense of connection and compassion—is dying out as characters sacrifice themselves to feed the beast of their ambition. And what comes next might be a mechanical wasteland run by Capitalist pigs, albeit with a touch of nostalgia for more meaningful times.
Photo by: Stan Barouh
Don’t get it? Don’t worry. It’s just a dog-eat-dog world out there. Or perhaps a human-eat-hog and hog-eat-human world. Still don’t get it? Then see “Civilization,” running through March 11. Prepare to be tested on how much of yourself you’ll compromise to get what you want, both in the theater and out—the lobby even presents opportunities to embarrass yourself for a free drink.
Tickets are a bit pricey ($40-$67.50), but you can get in for just $20 if you’re 30 or younger. If you like discussions, check out the post-show conversations on Feb. 22, Feb. 26 and March 1. And to bone up before the show, check out Woolly’s blog posts and podcasts on topics like what your community’s eating habits say about you, Occupy DC, and civilization’s best accomplishments.
It was a Sunday night, and as I nestled in to my seat at Woolly Mammoth Theater, still slightly buzzed off of an afternoon of mimosas, I wasn’t ready to confront my feelings on God and the meaning of faith. As someone who’s deathly afraid of natural disasters, global warming and doomsday, I certainly wasn’t prepared to have my buzz killed by thoughts of the Rapture.
Turns out, as Woolly’s newest play, A Bright New Boise, began, I wasn’t going to have much of a choice.
Woolly Mammoth’s plays are meant to make you think, as they throw difficult, taboo topics in your face, with hopes of making us all more aware and introspective citizens. At least, I hope that’s the outcome.
One of the main characters in Bright New Boise, Leroy, dons t-shirts emblazoned with “FUCK,” “YOU WILL EAT YOUR CHILDREN,” and a host of other offensive, confrontational words and statements that, he says, are meant to throw uncomfortable topics in the faces of the shoppers at Hobby Lobby, a big box retailer where the play is set, as they pick up their art supplies.
Photo credit: Stan Barouh
Leroy’s t-shirts are a metaphor for Bright New Boise and the other plays at Woolly—they force viewers—whether prepared or not—to reflect on contentious, multi-dimensional societal concerns as they go about their day-to-day lives.
Woolly’s last two plays centered on race and sexuality. And now, we get religion. The employees of Hobby Lobby—a control-freak manager with a foul mouth; a confused orphan with a passion for poetry; his artistic renegade foster brother; a sad, awkward 20-something female, and a former religious cult member with a terrible secret—go about their day-to-day lives stocking cloth flowers, Styrofoam balls, doll heads, and crayons hoping there’s something more meaningful out there. The entire play is set in the back room and in the parking lot of this retail store.
Photo credit: Stan Barouh
The characters’ situations are further affected by the economic recession—one character lives in his car and another worries about paying for college. Meanwhile, the company executives, who are ever-present in a big brother-esque video playing non-stop in the office, focus solely on profit margins at the expense of employee well-being. (Sound familiar?)
A Bright New Boise was thought-provoking and often humorous—and will resonate with each and every person in the audience in some way. It’s showing through November 6, and tickets are a recession-friendly $30. We highly recommend it.
I’m not a big Andy Warhol fan. Frankly, I think there’s just too much of it, and inevitably some of it is crap. But I have seen some of his amazing stuff, like the exhibit at the Edinburgh Festival a few years ago, where they wrapped the columns of the National Gallery of Scotland in Campbell’s Soup cans. Or the few pieces in Berlin’s Hamburger Bahnhof museum. Those were pretty grand.
That's my brother in Berlin, with Mao
For some reason, the Warhol stuff that’s brought to this area isn’t the best of his best. Last year, I visited the “The Last Decade” exhibit in Baltimore’s Gallery of Art. It was a strange collection of his work, mostly his camo pieces and a couple monster paintings, which looked rather like he was on some sort of psychedelic drugs, slapping paint on the walls and occasionally pissing on them (seriously).
So, being the European art snob I am, my expectations weren’t that high for the two new Warhol exhibits that just opened up in D.C. I left it until last Saturday to visit them, tottering through the drizzling rain to the museums after brunch with some girlfriends.
First we stopped in the National Gallery of Art’s East Building for the “Headlines” exhibit. Centered around Warhol’s obsession with the tabloids, the exhibit opens up with his paintings of newspaper covers, including “A Boy For Meg.” To me, it looked as if he was copying newspapers as an art exercise, and that some of these, especially the half-finished ones, shouldn’t have been let out of his studio. And I think I’m onto something: Of the 80 pieces, about 40 percent of them have not been shown publicly.
Warhol "A Boy For Meg"
The exhibit then continues on to his wacky TV programming and collaborations with Jean Michel-Basquiat. And it’s sort of interesting to see how he cropped into newspaper covers to juxtapose sad headlines to happy headlines (smart, I guess, but not really).
The best pieces are at the very end of the two-level exhibit, the ones where he turned over his newspaper paintings to friend Keith Haring, who manipulates them, Haring-style, into bright, intricate pieces that you just want to stare at (they were wedding gifts to Madonna for her marriage to Sean Penn. That lucky bitch).
Afterwards, I trudged across the muddy National Mall to the Hirshhorn, where another Warhol exhibit just opened. This one is the polar opposite of the frenetic media studies happening over in the NGA. It is so vastly different, in fact, that it calmed me down from my Warhol loathing.
The Hirshhorn exhibit is simply this: a series of 102 paintings of a shadow, one next to another, lining 450 feet of the outer wall of the second floor of the museum.
Because the museum is cylindrical, you can start at one end and slowly walk past the entire spectrum of shadows. The walls, floors, and ceilings are white, per usual, so the focus is on the art, and it’s quite a calming, panoramic experience. Even if he did use a mop to paint them.
Besides this series, and Warhol’s self portrait at the very beginning of the exhibit, there is nothing else to the exhibit, and that is rather refreshing. (Well, there is a film festival and a series of talks being held, see all the “Warhol on the Mall” details here).
You can nip in and out and see it quickly, and I recommend you do that—it’s the first and only time all of the shadows have been on display together.
“Headlines” is at the National Gallery of Art through January 2.
“Shadows” is at the Hirshhorn Museum through January 15.
My boyfriend and I are a study in opposites. Nowhere are our differences more apparent than when we’re looking at art. He favors contemporary art; I find myself drawn to traditional landscapes. Finding a middle ground in that contemporary landscape has proven to be a challenge.
Andrew Zimmerman’s “Contrasts” show, currently at the Artisphere in Rosslyn through November 12, may be it. If you look to art for style and substance, this show is for you. If you look to art for an escape from your daily life, this show is for you. If you look to art for a discussion of important issues, this is show is for you. This is a show for everyone.
Zimmerman’s show consists of photography taken over the course of eight months spent on Colorado’s Front Range. There are 42 photographs split between summer and winter shots. He shoots with a large camera; the negatives and prints are the same size, a process and style he learned at school in Arizona.
Developing his negatives—a long and labor-intensive process—follows the same style as Ansel Adams. Due to this development process, each photograph remains unique, and Zimmerman develops no more than three prints from each negative.
The show’s title, “Contrasts,” is far from random. Zimmerman aimed to explore the way we as observers judge landscapes—particularly how much our opinions are informed by our first glances. He saw how this translates to our daily lives in the way we form our opinions of people, places and things based on first impressions. Zimmerman’s work shows how contrasts allow us to know a place, thing or person much better than any first impression. By showing the changes and differences in the same place across a period of time, this show brings the viewer beyond the simple mountain peaks and snowy ridges we typically associate with the Rocky Mountains.
This show challenges the archetypal view of Colorado with its tall mountains and ski slopes. Zimmerman juxtaposes the changes between summer and winter. Highlighting the motion and light of summer and the stillness of grace of Colorado’s winter (assisted by fantastic lighting and arrangement), we’re given a nuanced and intricate view of Colorado’s gorgeous landscape. His work takes the viewer from winter’s frozen lakes and rivers to summer’s flowering trees and hidden cabins, managing to turn what could be a study of opposites instead to a more complete study of the landscape around him.
If you haven’t found the time to get to Rosslyn’s still-new Artisphere, let this show be your reason. For the aspiring art collector, all of the photographs displayed are available for $300 each. This is a steal, considering each photograph is, at most, part of a limited series of three prints. Not only would Zimmerman’s work look beautiful in any setting, his style, approach and dedication (have you ever lugged a 40-pound camera through the snow in a Colorado winter?) makes each photograph a conversation piece as well.
While you’re there, be sure to stop by the bar, with its great happy hour drink and food specials, on the way up to or down from the show. It’s a large open space with lots of seating and art surrounding you. Perfect date spot, perfect exhibit, even for total art opposites.
As you may know, the Bitches are fans and supporters of the arts. Of course, we have our favorites: Becca loves great DJs, modern art, and never misses an Art Basel Miami Beach (I tag along for the sunshine). I love Broadway shows, salsa dancing, more traditional styles of art, and, of course, fashion.
But we both love the Woolly Mammoth Theatre, which Becca discovered upon her arrival to Washington, as the theater happened to be right next door to her utmost favorite restaurant, Rasika.
We’re now privileged to be able to attend Woolly’s media previews. This season has had its highs and lows for the theater: I had a hard time stomaching the full-frontal nudity in Oedipus El Rey; Guest Bitch Josh giggled his way through Booty Candy; and both the Bitches loved the uproarious A Girl’s Guide to DC Politics.
A scene from "Clybourne Park." Photo credit: Woolly Mammoth
Woolly’s current show, Clybourne Park, is in its second season at the theater and is one of the theater’s best yet. The short play (it’s only an hour) has won three notable accolades: a Pulitzer Prize, a Helen Hayes Outstanding Resident Play and a Helen Hayes Outstanding Director.
The play is set in a white neighborhood in 1950s Chicago, and centers around a couple, their black housekeeper, and their neighbors dealing with taboo issues of the time—race, gentrification, and the Vietnam War.
The eccentric cast of characters—a ditzy, goofy housewife, an overbearing minister, a bombastic neighbor without any sense of self awareness—makes the play. The acting is remarkably skilled and the show covers difficult, emotion-rendering topics in a hilarious manner.
You’ll laugh uncontrollably, feel uncomfortably awkward, and leave having learned something—three key components of a typical Woolly experience. Get your tickets, as they’re in hot demand. Shows have been extended through August 14.
A Note from the Bitches: We are regularly invited to media night at our most favorite theater, Woolly Mammoth. Woolly has put on some great plays this season, most notably The Agony and The Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, and A Girl’s Guide to Washington Politics. Last week, we were unable to attend media night so we sent Josh, our resident gay-about-town, who opines on wine, food, theater and all things classy.
A theater regular I am not. A title like “Booty Candy,” however, is more than enough to drive this lazy bum off his Netflix and out into the world of the stage. Showing at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre (in Penn Quarter) through July 3 (extended!), this play is a shock-your-mama must-see. Not for the faint of heart or the overly politically correct, Robert O’Hara pulls you through ten sketches ranging from five to 15 minutes each touching on a different aspect of race, sexuality and the labels that define us. Did I mention this is a comedy?
We dined at the meatalicious Hill Country BBQ across the street before the show. Had we not, we would definitely have hit the theater’s concessions, which offers reasonable prices for wine, beer, nonalcoholic beverages and snacks. All of which, I might add, can be brought into this intimate theater. Intimate in that the front row is about two feet from the stage and the actors. During the intermission, we were able to check out the alphabet wall on the second floor where guests had written in taboo words from their childhood. This interactive piece proved both amusing and insightful.
Photo credit: Stan Barouh
The play itself seems designed to make you laugh, squirm, laugh again then ask yourself if it’s okay to be laughing. That quickly passes, thanks in part to an early sketch that reassigns the title “genitalia” in a way you definitely won’t see coming and had most of the theater nearly falling out of their seats. O’Hara’s script, loosely based on his own experiences, holds a mirror up to the experience of being black and gay. Then he puts another mirror behind him, another in front and so on breaking up the pieces of his story before he pulls them all back together.
Odds are you won’t be allowed to rest in your comfort zone for long, though O’Hara and his cast thankfully are equally skilled at bringing the audience back to that comfort zone as they are at yanking them out. The intimacy of the set and the actors combined with the sometimes meta- nature of the story assist in that push and pull with the audience. You won’t feel comfortable, but you will be entertained. This might be Mr. O’Hara’s endgame—if so, it is masterfully achieved.
It’s not very often I venture up to Baltimore. But a little Warhol and some cajoling from the new beau did the trick. Besides, I’ve seen so much Warhol already, what does it hurt to see just a little more?
The Warhol exhibit at the Baltimore Museum of Art is 50 pieces all from the artist’s last decade. It’s the experimental stuff he produced post-pop art, pre-MTV. It’s what he put on canvas when he was supremely famous, and perhaps bored, simply because he could.
The exhibit makes the argument that his final decade was, in fact, his best.
Baltimore is the last stop on the national tour, and it’s a worthy one to venture out of D.C. for. I know it’s a good exhibit when I learn something about the art or the artist. And I learned three things from this one:
1. He pissed on his paintings.
“Um, it says he used ‘urine’ on that one,” said beau. It’s true. His oxidation paintings are crazy golds and greens, created from having people pee on metallic copper paint.
2. He circled back to painting.
Post-assassination attempt, he started collaborating with artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, who encouraged him to step away from the silk screening. The result? Brush paintings that still pop.
3. He got bigger and better
I’ve seen massive Warhols (Mao in Berlin, for example), but the two enormous “blot” paintings, both of which are more than 11 or 12 feet tall, took it to another level. He must have had a team to create these, and the result is something not unlike what you would see in your psychologist’s hands circa 1960. These might be my favorite Warhols ever.
Warhol: The Last Decade is on display until Jan. 9.
The weather was so nice on Saturday, I decided to go inside to look at fake clouds.
I went to the Corcoran for the inaugural exhibit of its “NOW” series: Spencer Finch’s “My Business, With the Cloud.” It just opened on Saturday and will remain there until January.
The tiny exhibit is in two parts. First, the centerpiece, “Passing Cloud,” a huge installation of a sky puff, was made with some sort of blue plastic and wooden clothespins. Apparently it’s supposed to be the cloud that hung over Washington, D.C., the day poet Walt Whitman stopped to watch Abraham Lincoln pass by on his way to the White House. Huh?
Photo credit: Corcoran Gallery
If you read a little deeper, it turns out Finch did scientific studies to replicate the exact levels of light that would have—maybe—been in D.C. on that corner on that day almost 150 years ago. But if you don’t care, it looks like a giant, clear, smashed up Slip n’ Slide. I wanted to jump in it.
The second part of the exhibit is a single room full of clouds, and art inspired by clouds, made up of photographs, sketches, mosaics, paintings … even Scotch tape. The Scotch tape clouds were, in my opinion, the best pieces. Finch actually managed to capture the translucent nature of clouds with the tape. It’s a surprise when you realize what the pictures are made out of.
From what I’ve read about him, the Brooklyn-based artist seems very inspired and experimental. And I applaud the thought that went into bringing the “NOW” concept (of linking new art to D.C. and the Corcoran) to life through this cumulus theme. Though, I wasn’t blown away. (Call me a bitch. It’s what I do.) I can take photos of clouds in puddles. I can cut squares out of white construction paper and paste them on black construction paper. I can hire a contractor to mosaic my kitchen back splash just like his triptych of weather mosaics.
No, I am more drawn to artists like Chuck Close. Which, thankfully, was still on display just across the atrium. That exhibit shows raw artistic talent—portraiture that makes an imprint in your mind. Then it goes into the intricacies of how other artists and print-makers have taken his work and experimented with different forms of art: screen making, print making, woodcuts. Pulp? Rugs?
Photo credit: Corcoran Gallery
The process becomes an art form to be marveled at. And soon you forget to look at the actual portraits, which are, quite simply, stunning. You’re trying to figure out how the material went through those intricate metal frames, and how on earth, through hundreds of layers, it all formed such a realistic picture. The most engaging part is a video at the very end of the exhibit that shows his portrait of Roy Lichenstein being created in time-lapse. You can’t step away.
Make sure you see Chuck Close before it leaves next week (on the 26th). And while you’re there, go find shapes in the clouds by Spencer Finch.
All I knew of Yves Klein was his electric ultramarine-blue canvases. Is it the blue of the sky? The ocean? How long can I stare at a blue rectangle and ponder what it means? The International Klein Blue, which I first saw at MoMa, is meant to capture the immaterial—“the spirit and sensibility that the color of the sky and the sea alone can produce.” And it was this—capturing the conceptual, the thought, not the material object—that made Yves Klein’s crazy blue rectangle a turning point in modern art.
Photo credit: Hirshhorn Museum
But, beyond that, I didn’t know much about the French artist or his work. So the new exhibit at the Hirshhorn opened up the rest of his short (only seven years), but intense, artistic career to me. Wind, rain, weeds … you name it, Klein dragged it, imprinted it, or scorched it onto a canvas. He experimented with fire and gold, and he famously used “living brushes,” nude women who smeared themselves in the Klein Blue and made imprints onto huge canvases.
Photo credit: Hirshhorn Museum
The Hirshhorn exhibit is like an acid trip in conceptualism. Just when you’re getting deep into the blue, you step into a room of scorched cardboard that can make you think of sexy nudes, or the Hiroshima blast, depending on where, or how, you’re looking. The best part of the exhibit? The art totally comes alive in the artist’s process, showcased in documentaries playing in each of the rooms.
Photo credit: Hirshhorn Museum
“With the Void, Full Powers” is the first major retrospective of Klein’s work in nearly three decades, and it’s such a treat that it’s right here at the Hirshhorn. I’m also kind of giddy for the upcoming “In Conversation” event, where Klein’s widow, Rotraut Klein-Moquay, visits the Hirsshorn to discuss his life and works. That happens on Wednesday, June 9, at 7 p.m.
Right now, tucked away in two rooms in the basement of the National Gallery of Art, there is a small exhibit of black-and-white photographs taken by famed poet Allen Ginsberg. “Beat Memories” captured moments in the 1950s and ‘60s with an infamous motley crew of writers and intellectuals: William S. Burroughs, Neal Cassady, and Jack Kerouac, among others.
In the 1980s, when Ginsberg rediscovered the photographs he took, he set to work traveling around and capturing these same writers again, in all their aging glory. The juxtaposition of this literary set, in different decades and different locales, is incredible.
At the bottom of each of the photographs, Ginsberg had scrawled his thoughts on each of the scenes. It takes some time to decipher the handwriting, but it’s totally worth it. Ginsberg’s reflections add layers to each still that I wouldn’t have noticed otherwise. In fact, I enjoyed the writing more than the actual photographs.
The exhibit is in the NGA through the summer, until September 6. The Washington Post published an article that gives great insight into Ginsberg’s life and work. I’d recommend reading it before you visit.
Where Am I?
You are currently browsing the Arty Pants category at
Bitches Who Brunch.
Becca and Cori Sue are brunching their way around Washington, D.C.
