Seven Methods for Killing Kylie Jenner
Review by Missy Frederick

People in glass houses shouldn’t throw…Twitter bombs? That’s one of the thematic warnings of Jasmine Lee-Jones’ intriguing Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner, a production from London’s Royal Court Theatre currently being hosted by Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company.

The play tells the story of Kara (Tia Bannon) and Cleo (Leanne Henlon), two fiery friends unafraid to challenge each other, even when things get uncomfortable. The pair spend much of their time in the Twitterverse (designer Rajha Shakiry’s intricate, abstract set, almost a cross between a lacy web and a cave, paired with striking lighting from Jessica Hung Han Yun, allows the action to move quickly between that more ethereal space and reality), where Cleo has made a name for herself with the truth bomb-throwing, anonymous handle @Incognegro.

When the titular Kylie Jenner gets named the world’s youngest “self-made” billionaire, Cleo can’t handle the moniker, which blindly ignores all of the reality star’s institutional advantages. Her series of satirically murderous Tweets strike a chord and go viral — but it doesn’t take long for the virtual world to start tearing the messenger apart, as Kara rightly predicts.

Kylie is at its strongest when showcasing Lee-Jones’ frank humor (Cleo complains she’s “craving dick” at one point, to the audience’s amusement), and when capturing the precarious friendship between the pair, with Kara’s queer identity surfacing as one point of historical tension between the two. Another: Cleo’s experiences walking through life as a darker-skinned Black woman than Kara. These confrontations eventually push Cleo towards a brave online moment of humility.

Bannon and Henlon have a powerful repartee, and are almost gleefully playful when taking on the various voices of the virtual world, throwing barbs, RTs, and memes @Incognegro’s way. The play has a cathartic climax, but ends abruptly on a puzzling, fourth-wall-breaking final note.

Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner runs through March 5 at Woolly Mammoth; running time is approximately 90 minutes without an intermission. Tickets ($55-$76) are available online. 

Bars and Measures
Review by Nathan Pugh

For the majority of Mosaic Theatre Company’s production of Bars and Measures, there’s an upright bass on stage. A musician plays the instrument before the show starts, and it later becomes a symbol for the play’s main character. The tension of whether this character will be incarcerated (and if we’ll hear live music again) is embodied through the bass. It’s a metaphor that, like the entire show, may be obvious but is still heartbreaking.

Bars and Measures, by Idris Goodwin, follows two brothers: Eric (Joel Ashur) and Bilal (Louis E. Davis), a jazz musician and devout Muslim who is in prison awaiting trial. The duo meet under supervision to scat and harmonize. But brotherly affection becomes strained as the details of Bilal’s arrest come to light.

Goodwin creates a delicate portrait of Black masculinity, showing the creative ways Black men find solidarity despite societal pushback. Most scenes are straightforward, but there are dramatic riffs including monologues and flashbacks. There are also scenes with actors Afsheen Misaghi and Lynette Rathnam, who are great in all-too-brief roles (Rathnam delivers a show-stopping aria that sadly doesn’t connect much to the plot).

Bars and Measures is tense but never surprising. Despite being inspired by jazz, the drama never becomes a true fugue of emotion. Reginald L. Douglas’ direction does excel when staging the slow accumulation of familial resentment. Douglas draws out expert, indelible performances from Ashur and Davis, especially in a scene where the two confront the painful consequences of their actions.

For many people of color (myself included), Bars and Measures might be narratively intuitive. We’ve seen this story in real life so many times that we know how we got here and where we’re going. Great recent films like Time and Saint Omer understand that the incarceration of Black people is inevitable right now, and have shifted focus away from verdicts and into the dense psychological worlds of their subjects. Bars and Measures is too plot-driven to match these innovations. The play is still a trenchant reminder that in the absence of real justice, art can offer forgiveness.

Bars and Measures runs at Mosaic Theater Company through February 26. Tickets are $50-64. Run time is 80 minutes with no intermission.

The Lifespan of a Fact
Review by Missy Frederick

As a journalist, it’s hard not to have a vested interest in the outcome of The Lifespan of a Fact, by Jeremy Kareken, David Murrell, and Gordon Farrell, now at Keegan Theatre.

Directed with a sleek look and crisp pacing by Susan Marie Rhea, the playwrights are setting up a dichotomy between “truth” and “fact.” Prestigious author John D’Agata (Colin Smith, dismissive and passionate) has filed an impressive article (or “essay,” as he’d be quick to correct) about a teenager’s suicide from the top of Las Vegas’ Stratosphere Tower.

Editor Emily Penrose (Sheri S. Herren, cool and captivating as the only adult in the room) is on a tight deadline. Her magazine’s fact-checking department (realistically) slashed, she’s enlisted an eager Harvard-graduate intern (who instantly name-drops The Crimson), Jim Fingal, for a quick read (Ivan Carlo, bringing humanity to a character easy to dislike). He finds some issues: 138 pages worth, to be precise.

Lifespan (incredibly based on a true story) has interesting things to say about which details are most important. The snippets of prose from the problematic essay are lovely and moving, and some things Fingal questions are aggressively pedantic. But it suffers from the bothsidesism many accuse journalists of becoming prey to. The authors further stack the deck by wrapping Fingal in a host of “kids these days”-type cliches: he asks for espresso (by now, it should probably be oat milk) when offered coffee, and craft IPA (should probably be High Noon) when offered booze.

Fingal’s gen Z-quirks aside, D’Agata’s piece isn’t just a little embellished: He doesn’t move through a single sentence without taking multiple liberties. And as exhausting as Fingal is pointing them out (the fact-checker even shows up from New York at the author’s Vegas apartment), the piece is clearly a liability, even as Penrose works towards a compromise. In this era of truthiness, though, the audience may care less than the journalists among us — which ultimately points to the timeliness of Lifespan. 

The Lifespan of a Fact runs through Feb. 25 at Keegan; running time is 85 minutes without an intermission. Tickets ($50) are available online. 

Ghost/Writer
Review by Nathan Pugh

Early in Ghost/Writer, Ms. Ruby, a Black woman, recalls her mother asking what she was willing to die for. Ms. Ruby’s response was to ask, “What are white folk willing to kill for?” This potent question proves key to understanding Dane Figueroa Edidi’s play, which is making its world premiere at Bowie’s Rep Stage this month. However, this ambitious work’s framing lessens the question’s impact.

Ghost/Writer is a bifurcated story, each part including two characters played by Edidi and Chris Stinson. In the first half, Ms. Ruby is a spiritual guide in 1920s Tulsa who takes in the Irish immigrant Patrick. The second half takes place in 2019, where the nerdy Rebecca serves as a ghostwriter for the wealthy author Charles. In both storylines, the duos must contend with whether violence is needed for justice.

Edidi writes herself a full meal and feasts while acting every part of it. Her roles have wildly different personalities, so it’s exciting to see the characters united through history and performance. Stinson has less layered characters but is a game scene partner.

Unfortunately, the play struggles to be dramatically compelling. Both storylines focus on a Black woman showing a cocky white man how the world really works. Thus Edidi (as a playwright and actor) must always respond to an exhausting white gaze. Any person of color I know would get tired of explaining themselves and try to shut down the discussions staged here — yet Ghost/Writer’s characters frustratingly keep talking, held captive by the two-hander play.

Edidi’s voice comes through the most when exploring if violence is a necessary retribution for Black Americans, be it the eye-for-an-eye rationality of revenge against white supremacists, or the tragic sacrifices of waging such a battle. However it’s hard not to think of playwrights who approached the same topic with more daring narratives and images. Aleshea Harris’ fable of family vengeance Is God Is comes to mind; as does Robert O’Hara’s Insurrection: Holding History, in which a Black man time-travels to Nat Turner’s rebellion.

Ghost/Writer doesn’t swing for the fences in the same way, instead adopting a measured, conversational approach that’s tedious until last-minute revelations. Still, there are moments of ritual in Edidi’s play, like when poetry and Sarah Tunderman’s colorful lighting create a surreal consciousness. It’s here where Edidi creates a new world for her Black protagonists. It’s a world full of violence, yes, but one also full of haunting beauty.

Ghost/Writer runs at Rep Stage through Feb. 26. Tickets are $15-40. Run time is approximately two hours with one intermission.