This at Round House Theatre

This

Round House Theatre
4545 East-West Highway Bethesda

Jane is a poet-without-a-muse, a single mother trying to reignite her life after she suddenly loses her husband. Her supportive friends try to help but only make things more complicated while a sexy, French Doctor-Without-Borders incites temptation - and perspective. This un-romantic comedy with music is a sharp, superbly crafted portrait of a group of friends as they navigate their way into the choppy waters of middle age. An Off-Broadway hit by Obie-winning playwright Melissa James Gibson, it points out with wit and searing grace the absurdities of modern life.

Thru - Nov 3, 2013

Tuesdays: 7:30pm

Wednesdays: 7:30pm

Thursdays: 7:30pm

Fridays: 8:00pm

Saturdays: 3:00pm & 8:00pm

Sundays: 3:00pm

Price: $50

Show Type: Comedy

Running Time: 1 hour, 30 minutes with 1 intermission

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Round House Theatre Seating Chart

This Reviews

Average Rating based on 7 reviews

Highly Recommended
Recommended
Somewhat Recommended
Not Recommended

Washington Post - Recommended

"...The playwright’s fascination with what goes missing in contemporary life continues in “This,” her smart, urbane, deceptively slim comedy about loss and the unintended consequences of premature death. Courtesy of five engaging actors assembled on Round House Theatre’s main stage in Bethesda, director Ryan Rilette finds a gently accommodating tone for Gibson’s exploration of the ironic, wide-ranging and unforeseeable aftershocks of a traumatic event, months after it has occurred."

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- Peter Marks

DC Theater Arts - Highly Recommended

"...This is hardly an all-encompassing title to accurately convey the many, myriad machinations at work in Melissa Jane Gilbert’s thought-provoking and complex play-now an outstanding and stimulating production at Round House Theatre in Bethesda. The serious issues dealt with in this play are presented underneath layers of wit and language wordplay that convey how the everyday humdrum rhythms of everyday life serve only to obscure the real pain of life individuals must contend with."

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- David Friscic

MetroWeekly - Recommended

"...Gibson has a dazzling way with language and wordplay, and as directed by Round House's Ryan Rilette her play is further peppered with light jazz music written by Eric Shimelonis and performed by Curry, who both sings and plays piano. At times both the words and music border on becoming indulgent exercises, but the show always remains entertaining. That is particularly the case as performed on James Kronzer's signature carousel set, spinning us from one scene to the next with its many moving parts as if This is a kind of theatrical amusement-park ride. And, ultimately, at Round House it is."

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- Doug Rule

Washington City Paper - Highly Recommended

"...Ryan Rilette, the newish head honcho at the long-aimless Round House, steers This efficiently, intelligently, and mostly with a light touch; the one or two forced moments at Sunday’s matinee may have had more to do with an oddly uneven spectrum of audience response, which could easily have put his cast off stride, than with any directorial overemphasis. What I like most about Rilette’s involvement with this antic hay of a play is simply that he’s involved with it, period; Gibson’s lively, witty, unpretentiously intellectual drama is exactly the sort of thing that’ll get me to Bethesda more often."

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- Trey Graham

Washingtonian - Recommended

"...Bruneau is adept at communicating the utter despair Jane finds herself eventually succumbing to as she confronts the reality of her grief. The meaty characters give each of Round House’s actors layers to work with, as Curry balances her character’s new-mother tension and frigidity with the warm, mournful persona of her jazz singer identity. As Tom, Scofield is saddled with perhaps the least sympathetic character, but he paints his choices as understandable and, in a sense, uneasily self-aware. This manages an interesting feat: It makes the audience care about each individual’s struggles while driving home the point that in the big picture, they may not really matter."

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- Missy Frederick

MD Theatre Guide - Recommended

"...This, which is now playing at Round House Theatre, has a cast of five top notch actors with its production helmed by Round House’s Producing Artistic Director Ryan Rilette. Sometimes with the amount of talent on a production it is easy to hide the predictabilty found in a script. Unfortunately, at least for me, you can’t hide it in Melissa James Gibson’s play."

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- Elliot Lanes

DCTheatreScene - Highly Recommended

Gibson’s aptly-named 2009 play This is both blunt and cutting (if such a thing is possible ) as it examines friendship, adultery and the re-evaluation of life in general, and just funny enough to make the whole experience feel friendly and inviting.

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- Jon Boughtin