One Flea Spare at Silver Spring Black Box Theater

One Flea Spare

Silver Spring Black Box Theater
8641 Colesville Road Silver Spring

As the streets of 1665 London pile up with bodies, a rough-spoken sailor and a precocious young girl steal indoors, only to discover themselves quarantined for a month with the wealthy master and mistress of the house. One Flea Spare is a searing and bawdy Black Plague comedy that explores the limits of compassion in a tale about sex, class and disease. Winner of the 1997 Obie Award for Best Play. From the MacArthur Fellowship “Genius Award” winning writer, Naomi Wallace.

Thru - Mar 12, 2011

Price: $25

Show Type: Drama

Running Time: 2hrs; 15 mins with 1 intermission

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One Flea Spare Reviews

Average Rating based on 4 reviews

Highly Recommended
Recommended
Somewhat Recommended
Not Recommended

Washington Post - Somewhat Recommended

"...The actors themselves may struggle at times with their London accents - some of them seem to fade away after intermission - but their commitment to the story is unassailable. Ingvarsson is always a pleasure to watch, and here she invests Darcy with an affecting humility. Brownstein adds to callous Snelgrave the proper dashes of entitlement and oafishness. Transporting us back to the 17th century is not the easiest leap for an actor, and under Strain's guidance, the entire ensemble manages pretty well to fend off the encroachment of contemporary mannerisms."

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- Peter Marks

DCist - Somewhat Recommended

"...One Flea Spare bills itself as a black comedy, but it's hard to find the humor in the work -- a shady guard, Kabe (David Winkler), is occasionally around to offer a bawdy song or an absurd interaction, such as when he trades Morse fruits and treats for kisses and, well, foot sucking. It's not the first time a plague-focused work, locally, has had trouble finding its tone -- years ago, WSC's Red Noses struggled to find laughs when lives and limbs were on the line. But One Flea Spare's lack of humor could be dismissed if the dramatic payoff was there. Instead, the audience merely transitions from feeling nervous to feeling numb."

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- Missy Frederick

Washington City Paper - Somewhat Recommended

"...Alexander Strain’s thoughtfully conceived production puts design hard to work, with lighting and sound schemes that comment on Wallace’s alternately blunt and poetic dialogue. The sets and costumes, caked in the most convincing sort of filth, certainly convey the play’s grimy sense of place. It’s all very effective—up to the point where it begins to feel like Wallace has said what she came to say about class and money and power and passion, and hasn’t quite turned her thoughts yet to how she’ll get her characters off the stage. There are indelible images aplenty here, on the stage and in the actors’ mouths. It’s just there are maybe one or two to spare."

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- Trey Graham

DCTheatreScene - Recommended

If Angels in America, given magnificent voice by Forum Theatre last year, showed us what love in the age of plague was like, Naomi Wallace’s One Flea Spare shows us plague spread out on a loveless plain, where pain thrives in the absence of mercy.

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- Tim Treanor

One Flea Spare at Silver Spring Black Box Theater

One Flea Spare

One Flea Spare Reviews

Washington Post - Somewhat Recommended

DCist - Somewhat Recommended

Washington City Paper - Somewhat Recommended

DCTheatreScene - Recommended

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