Washington Post
- Recommended
"...Director Michael Kahn, best known in these parts as artistic director of the Shakespeare Theatre Company, is moonlighting for the occasion at Studio Theatre, where his “Torch Song” finds a most comfortable and invigorating home. Resistant audience members may experience Arnold’s heart-on-his-sleeve dramatizing as too much self-ennobling opera. (For more of the same, see Fierstein’s books for the Broadway musicals “La Cage aux Folles” and the current hit “Kinky Boots.”) My heart, however, went out to Arnold. It’s the ferocity of his conviction that sustains Fierstein’s main character, that raises him to a level of courageousness and the play to more profound status than that of “Will and Grace”-like situation comedy."
DC Theater Arts
- Highly Recommended
"...Some plays don’t age well; they get dated but dusted off anyway. Some time-travel okay, and get mounted in modern dress. But rare is the work that—while still set in the period years ago when it was written—only now can be seen thriving in the very prime of its life. Such a play is Torch Song Trilogy, which has been given an immensely entertaining and compassionate new production directed by Michael Kahn at The Studio Theatre. There is no ‘Best Stroke of Genius Award’ in theater, but if there were, Kahn’s inspired choice to reignite Torch Song Trilogy would win in a walk."
MetroWeekly
- Highly Recommended
"...Torch Song Trilogy is as hysterically funny as it is tearfully sad, and Act 3 packs a wallop on both fronts, as Arnold repeatedly argues with Ma, as well as interacting with his former lover, Ed (Todd Lawson), and the gay foster kid, David (Michael Lee Brown), he’s in the process of adopting. But it is Act 2, “Fugue in a Nursery,” that really makes this production sing. The entire act takes place in a giant bed as Ed, his wife Laurel (a charming Sarah Grace Wilson), Arnold and his new lover, Alan (a game Alex Mills), interact in various combinations and in every corner of the mattress. The actors work together with a sense of perfect timing and harmony, like players in a sharp jazz band riffing on some of your favorite torch song standards. And somehow, even after hours of play, it still ends too soon."
Washington City Paper
- Recommended
".. We can hope, anyway—and that’s what Torch Song Trilogy leaves you feeling. Against all the odds, given his era and how it’s served him, Arnold hopes. He hopes for love, and peace, and domesticity, and the steadying embrace of family. He’s got a big heart, and the play that holds him does too, and together they may just leave you with yours brim-full of feeling."
Washingtonian
- Highly Recommended
"...The show lives and breathes with Uranovitz, whose nervy charisma carries the show from his dressing room to his ex-lover’s country house upstate to his apartment, beautifully decorated with rabbit stencils in a continuation of the “nursery” theme (the sets are by James Noone). In the opening scene, punctuated with torch songs delivered by the Billie Holiday-esque Ashleigh King, we first see Arnold fully made up, delivering pearls of wisdom to the audience like the following: “A drag queen is like an oil painting—you’ve got to take a step back to get the full effect.”"
Washington Diplomat
- Recommended
"...The Studio Theatre has effectively accomplished the difficult feat of dusting off and reviving "Torch Song Trilogy," one of the gay community's signature artistic landmarks. Michael Kahn, the Shakespeare Theatre Company's artistic director, makes his Studio debut as director."
MD Theatre Guide
- Highly Recommended
"...Some plays after a while date to the point of asking, “Why would you want to produce that?” Torch Song Trilogy is not one of those plays. It is still as important as it was when it first premiered and won the Tony Award for best play. It is a wake-up call for those who need a little nudge accepting others who are not like them. In fact, we are all the same and Torch Song Trilogy points out that gay, straight or bi-sexual we all want the same things out of life. We all want someone to love and to be accepted as part of society. Do yourselves a huge favor and get to Studio Theatre for what I daresay might be one of my favorite pieces of theatre for this season."
DCTheatreScene
- Highly Recommended
In the first moments of his performance as of the iconic drag queen Arnold Beckoff, Brandon Uranowitz snatches away all disbelief and refuses to give it back. He renders an incorruptible reality for his audience, making the three-and-a-half hours of Torch Song disappear in an eruption of candor and charisma.
