We Love Weekends

We Love Weekends – December 2-4

Photo courtesy of
‘Circular Stamps’
courtesy of ‘lorigoldberg’

Rachel: I don’t know about you but that whole vacation I took for Thanksgiving left me needing a vacation to catch up on sleep from my vacation. (If that sentence didn’t make any sense then I at least hope it’s apparent that I’m still exhausted from Thanksgiving.) In any case, I’ll likely catch up on sleep this weekend and then head to Friendship Heights to see The Muppets (fingers crossed it’s playing at Mazza Gallerie) and grab a bagel at Booeymonger. Then, I’ve gotta head to Utrecht for some art supplies since I’m hand-crafting all my holiday gifts this year. Other than that, sleep is the name of the game. Sorry to be lame, D.C., but a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.

Photo courtesy of
‘Wet block in Congress’
courtesy of ‘dewarsrepealday’

Fedward: You might already be aware that I’ll be at the Repeal Day Ball on Saturday night. Sunday afternoon, if the room stops spinning in time, I’ll head over to Jack Rose for Speed Rack DC (although I might have to look away from the bar backs if Derek Brown’s twitter feed is any indication). Sunday evening I’ve got a rehearsal for the caroling group Brittany wrote about (tenors are still in demand!). And since that rehearsal is probably going to be at the Passenger, you know where I’ll be after that.

Photo courtesy of
‘The Elephant is Sad the Party is Ending’
courtesy of ‘Karon’

Mosley: It’s a family weekend for me; half my family is born in June and the other half is born in December (I’m the odd one, being born in January), so the Mosley clan will be getting together for that.  Other than that, I’m hoping to get down to the Mall and walk through some museums.  I haven’t been through the Natural History or the American History museums in ages.  And with it being December, and there being no tourists around, this is the time of year when locals can enjoy the museums!  I may even try to catch a showing of To Fly! at the Air and Space Museum; I haven’t seen that movie since the early 90s.  Nothing better than vertigo inducing IMAX movies!

Photo courtesy of
‘awesome-mabelline-billboard-4’
courtesy of ‘dandeluca’

Don: I’m all about the out-of-doors this weekend. Capital Weather says mostly sunny and mild and I say outside I go! Precisely WHERE I don’t know. Maybe a little Bikeshare, perhaps some Roosevelt Island. I’d thought my indoor activities might include a Rocky Horror outing  – so I could see how much the shout-along lines have changed with the distance of 20 years and 1000 miles – but I was mistaken about it being the first weekend of the month. Local organizers the Sonic Transducers list next weekend as the next Rocky show. Dammit, Janet!

Entertainment, The Features, We Love Arts

We Love Arts: Equivocation

Anthony Heald as Shag, Gregory Linington as Armin and Richard Elmore as Richard in the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s 2009 production of Equivocation, directed by Bill Rauch. Photo by Jenny Graham

A lawyer in love with a Shakespearean scholar might find the perfect date night with Equivocation. Or a politician whose best friend is a Jesuit. Bill Cain’s play is a thicket of ideas about theater, politics and morality. His language manages to be natural, almost casual, despite the rich quotations of Shakespearean text and the monumental characters debating the difficult question of how to remain true to your ideals, and the truth itself, in dangerous times.

Equivocation has received accolades since its 2009 world premiere by Oregon Shakespeare Festival, one of the country’s pre-eminent theater companies, and it’s now in performance by that company at Arena Stage. Cain wrote the play in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, when he started noticing a rise of disturbing doublespeak. He went back further in time to hold the mirror up, exploring what happens when a playwright is induced to produce propaganda about current events – in this case, being asked to dramatize the 1605 Gunpowder Plot to glorify King James I’s role. It’s fascinating how references to the Gunpowder Plot has resurfaced recently – V for Vendetta and Occupy Wall Street – as the mirror of history is turned back on itself again and again. Cain is interested in the propaganda of words, so he uses the ultimate wordweaver as the unlucky protagonist – Shakespeare himself. Continue reading