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Jason Grote is certainly charming his way through the Washington theater scene.
The young playwright first dazzled audiences this summer with his poignant, thought-provoking, sexy and even scary This Storm Is What We Call Progress. And while his Maria/Stuart, now being staged at Woolly Mammoth, doesn't have quite the grandeur of Storm, it still offers a tale of family dysfunction where the stakes are high, the words hit close to home, and there's still enough creepy mystery to keep it all original.
That main touch of distinctiveness comes from the Changeling, the ghost that is haunting the family at Maria/Stuart's center. Grote plays with the mythological roots of the creature - its stifled gait, its insatiable appetite - and adapts them in entirely modern and delightfully quirky ways - this being loves to guzzle soda and shout "Hep! Hep! Hep!" upon each entrance - when it's not sputtering German babble, that is. The creature's a shape-shifter, and takes on the faces of the various family members, causing much confusion and apprehension in this dark family tale.
Maria/Stuart's story takes unexpectedly dark turns, which nicely contrasts with its sometimes uproarious, biting humor. Grote again expertly ties up seemingly loose ends into a thoughtful, yet disquieting conclusion. It all happens with the backdrop of a set by James Kronzer that masterfully blends fantasy and reality, as the cabinets from two mirroring kitchens reach up into the ceiling, separating and almost floating in an arch towards the sky.
Director Pam MacKinnon has put together an unassailable cast, from D.C. newcomer Eli James as the flummoxed comic book artist Stuart to the devilish Naomi Jacobson as Sylvia, whose hands are hooks due to a freak accident in a suicide attempt, which makes for frequent guilty-pleasure mockery opportunities. And Sarah Marshall, playing above than her age as a gleefully antagonistic old woman (not to mention making for the most gruesome of the Changelings), constantly surprises us in the new ways she demonstrates the diversity a great character actress brings to any piece.
Maria/Stuart runs through Sept. 14 at Woolly Mammoth Theater. Tickets are available online.
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