“Phone rings, door chimes, in comes… Company?” That refrain is one of Stephen Sondheim’s greatest earworms (second only perhaps to “Bobby, Bobby baby, Bobby bubi, Robby,” etc. in the same song). And, in the shaky touring production of Marianne Elliott’s inventive reimagining of the beloved musical, playing at the Kennedy Center through March 31, it presents more like a cautious question than a confident declaration.
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If Bravo had been spinning off franchises in the 12th century BC, one can only imagine that Penelope would be the wine-soaked breakout star of the Real Housewives of Ithaca. Known to classicists as Odysseus’ faithful, languishing queen in Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey, Penelope takes on a darker edge in a new musical bearing her name by composer and lyricist Alex Bechtel and co-book writers Bechtel, Grace McLean, and Eva Steinmetz. A pseudo-cabaret that asks audiences to consider the story from her point of view, Penelope runs at Arlington’s Signature Theatre through April 21.
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