Articles Tagged With: Holly Trout

12 Angry Women at The Rude Mechanicals

Reviews September 2, 2022 Amanda N. Gunther

What is a reasonable doubt? Google + Merriam-Webster says, “A reasonable doubt exists when a factfinder cannot say with moral certainty that a person is guilty or a particular fact exists. It must be more than an imaginary doubt, and it is often defined judicially as such doubt as would cause a reasonable person to hesitate before acting in a matter of importance.” Perhaps we’re not asking the right question. Perhaps the question should be “what causes someone to have reasonable doubt?” If you want the answer to that,

The Country Wife at The Rude Mechanicals

Reviews August 14, 2019 Amanda N. Gunther

For my part, I will have only those glorious, womanly
pleasures of being very verbose and very favorable to The Rude Mechanical’s
production of William Wycherley’s The Country Wife. A far cry from very
slovenly, though indeed ‘tis very drunk, this quirky Restoration comedy
(apparently there was humor in the restoration era) under the direction of Alan
Duda, finds its footing not in its original setting but rather in the posh and
swanky New York City of the 1950’s.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at The Rude Mechanicals

Reviews June 14, 2019 Amanda N. Gunther

Mendacity is the system we live in. Death is one way out.
Liquor is the other. Unless of course the crystal decanter top fuses into the
bottle-neck and prevents you from your liquor. (Try the screw-top.) Feeling a
little uncomfortable yet? A little like a Cat
on a Hot Tin Roof? Then you’ve found your way to The Rude Mechanical’s
production of Tennessee Williams’ other play, or his other, other play. Not the
one with the street-screaming for Stella or the one with all the little glass
animals and the jonquils and gentlemen callers,

The Merchant of Venice at The Rude Mechanicals

Reviews June 18, 2018 Amanda N. Gunther

Neither a borrower nor a lender be. While The Rude Mechanicals aren’t currently producing Hamlet, there’s logic in that quote that could and should be readily applied to The Merchant of Venice, which The Rude Mechanicals are currently producing. Said advice would go far for both Antonio and Shylock and save everyone the trouble of their various plights fraught with woe and unfortunate circumstances. But alas, Shakespeare didn’t pen it that way,

Arden Now at The Rude Mechanicals

Reviews August 30, 2017 Amanda N. Gunther

A collaborative adaptation of As You Like It by William Shakespeare; this is the marketing tag for The Rude Mechanical’s latest production— Arden Now— which debuted earlier this summer at the 2017 Capital Fringe Festival. Now playing at the Greenbelt Arts Center for a two-weekend engagement, the doors have been opened to those unwilling or unable to attend the chaotic frenzy that is CapFringe, and the stage is a veritable carnival of concepts that don’t quite come together as Director Melissa Schick intends in her director’s note.

Review: The Life and Death of King John at The Rude Mechanicals

Reviews August 25, 2015 Amanda N. Gunther

Ne’er so bethump’d with words has this critic found herself when staring down an amalgamation of a Shakespearean remount dipped in Pythonian humor and sprayed liberally with truncation across the Greenbelt Arts Center’s intimate black box stage, than she has in this very moment in attempting to report upon The Life and Death of King John as presented by The Rude Mechanicals. A history most boring upended ass over tea-kettle by Director Alan Duda,

Review: Julius Caesar at The Rude Mechanicals

Reviews January 8, 2015 Amanda N. Gunther

Friends! Romans! Washingtonians! The time has come to take a stand against the inconstant shifting nature of theatre in Washington DC! Hail The Rude Mechanicals and their rebellious production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Directed by company founder Jaki Demarest, this scandalous production takes the great Roman Empire to 1920’s soviet occupied Russia. Stalin, proletariat, rebellion; all encompassed in Demarest’s revolutionary vision of one of the Bard’s milder tragedies.

With honor in one eye and death in the other,

Review: Macbeth- The Instruments of Darkness at The Rude Mechanicals

Reviews August 18, 2014 Amanda N. Gunther

Light and darkness make fools both of the eyes. But it is oft better to live in the bliss of darkness than in the harsh intelligence of the light for once a thing is known and learned it can never be unknown. The Rude Mechanicals illustrate this concept with exception as their bring their 2014 Capital Fringe Festival production of Shakespeare’s Macbeth: The Instruments of Darkness to the Greenbelt Arts Center for a limited five show engagement.