March is when things have really picked back up for D.C.-area theater — there were nearly three dozen shows starting this month. Want to see what else is playing? Check out our monthly preview.

Clyde’s
Review by Missy Frederick

I can’t remember the last time I wanted a sandwich as much as I did after seeing Clyde’s at Studio Theatre.

For sandwiches are nearly a religion in Lynn Nottage’s exceptional play. The line cooks, prep cooks, and self-described “sous chefs” at the titular greasy spoon dream about them, obsess over them, and craft them with tender care.

Their favorite ritual: each naming an unexpected combination of bread, filling, and spread (think peach chutney and thinly sliced steak, sauteed in butter, atop a cheddar biscuit), only to be bested by whatever pairing their inspirational sandwich guru and head cook Montrellous (a sage, steady Lamont Thompson) has dreamed up.

More than a love of breads and meats unites the four back-of-house workers at Clyde’s — each are formerly incarcerated individuals with storied pasts who’ve struggled to be hired elsewhere. But owner Clyde (a formidable, fashionable Dee Dee Batteast), who’s done time herself, isn’t bringing them on out of the goodness of her heart. She holds them under her thumb in a terrifying, cynical way (meanwhile, she has her own shady group of investors to satisfy), often robbing them of hope and dignity.

Nottage has assembled a vivid, realistic cast of characters who are sympathetic in their struggles and impressive in their gumption. She teases glimpses of their back stories until we begin to better understand their journeys and the shells that protect them — Rafael’s (Brandon Ocasio) bravado, Letitia’s (Kashayna Johnson) underestimation of what she deserves romantically, Jason’s (Quinn M. Johnson) disturbing tattoos he got inside to survive.

Clyde’s is a safe haven for these men and women the world hasn’t been kind to. But while we can understand how it offers their only protection, we root desperately for them to break free from it — and from Clyde herself.

Clyde’s runs through April 9 at Studio Theatre; running time is about 95 minutes without an intermission. Tickets ($75-$95) are available online.

Julius Caesar
Review by Nicole Hertvik

Julius Caesar at Avant Bard Review, by Nicole Hertvik

Avant Bard Theatre’s latest production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, adapted and directed by Kathleen Akerly — artistic director of absurdist D.C. theater company Longacre Lea — mixes Shakespeare’s text with contemporary scenes that both reflect on and interact with the original. The result is a cerebral but often confusing piece of theater that pushes the boundaries of what stagecraft can do and asks audiences to jump through perhaps too many intellectual hoops.

Akerly’s adaptation includes the basics: Brutus, Cassius, and other members of the Roman Senate assassinate Caesar. But the multiple ways Akerly attempts to interrogate this familiar story gives the play an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink feel, as if the creators had too many ideas and couldn’t pare them down enough to get their point across.

First, there is the inclusion of pre-recorded video performances broadcast across large flat screens hung at the back of the stage. This is where the play gets very meta, another hallmark of Akerly’s work. While we watch the actors performing Caesar onstage, the actors on the screens are watching too, and inserting modern-day commentary that both influences how we perceive what we are seeing and in some cases impacts what happens onstage. (The actors on the screens are equipped with a remote control that can “change” the live performers’ gender and race.)

Then there are the scenes involving a standup comic, a museum curator, and a bureaucrat, all played by Akerly’s longtime collaborator Séamus Miller, who also designed the videos for the play. No doubt, Miller slips between these roles with chameleon-like dexterity — but their inclusion propels Akerly’s script truly into the realm of the bizarre and esoteric. There are references to the Austrian-Israeli Philosopher Martin Buber and “Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey walk into a bar” jokes, sometimes told in English sprinkled with Latin.

The seven cast members each take on multiple roles, adding further to the audience’s mental load. Most give strong Shakespearean performances. Highlights include Lizzi Albert and Kiana Johnson’s turns as Cassius and Casca and Miller’s delivery of Antony’s famous “Friends, Romans, Countrymen” speech.

All of this to say that Avant Bard’s Julius Caesar is… a lot. Fans of absurdist theater (Akerly cut her teeth directing plays by Tom Stoppard, Eugène Ionesco and Harold Pinter before writing her own brainy scripts) will perhaps find the play a satisfying examination of our contemporary insistence on revisiting Shakespeare over and over again. As for me, I’m still scratching my head.

Julius Caesar runs at Avant Bard Theatre through April 1st. Tickets are $20-40. Run time is approximately 100 minutes with no intermission.