I have never started a review with a rave about bathrooms — but, wow, the newly renovated 1st Stage now has four beautiful ones, plus an airy, artful, stylish, and expanded lobby. It was all lovely, making the experience of discovering this theater and its expansive offerings feel fresh and new.
Now, on to the business of reviewing the plays in the annual Logan Festival of Solo Performance, which began on September 18 and continues through September 28.
George – Don’t Do That! is a bonhomie of song, sketches, anecdotes, and narration on the life and work of the beloved British entertainer Grenfell from the 1940s to the 1970s. I learned something I didn’t know about this charming, witty, upper-crust Brit (granddaughter of an American railway magnate) who entertained British troops in World War II in Italy and the Middle East, who earned one of the highest honors from the British Crown for her war work, and who in 1954 starred in her own hit one-woman West End show, Joyce Grenfell Requests the Pleasure, then brought it to Broadway, where it was also a hit. After a career as one of Britain’s most beloved performers, Grenfell passed away on November 30, 1979.
I also learned that Catherine Flye, performer and deviser of this show, is an absolute delight on stage. Flye has a deep résumé with extensive acting and directing credits throughout the DC area and numerous honors for excellence, and I might be one of the few in the audience learning this for the first time.
In fact, she has been playing Joyce Grenfell in productions throughout the United States, British Isles, and South Africa since 2003. She channeled all Grenfell’s charm into this production. While George – Don’t Do That! leaned heavily into nostalgia, with a voice, especially a singing voice, scratchy like old-time radio, and with a script that held little introspection, Flye’s performance was still splendid. I yearned for a cup of tea and a crumpet afterward.
A much different look at the past followed in The Jewish Dog. In a breathtaking performance of 28 characters by Adam Meir, including the central point of view of a dog, Cyrus, the devastation of European Jews from the 1930s through the founding of the state of Israel in 1948 comes alive in the heartbreaking insight and simplicity of man’s best friend.
The play is adapted by Yonatan Esterkin from the acclaimed 2007 novel of the same name by Asher Kravitz. Estherkin also directs the play with such meticulousness that as Meir inhabits the characters, moving rapidly through horrific events from freedom to imprisonment, to transport to the concentration camp Treblinka, to fighting in the forest with partisans, to hiding out the last weeks of war on a farm, the audience knows exactly who is talking and where we are — in unexpectedly tender and funny moments — and in moments of despair. It is a brilliant feat of directing a solo performance that delineates a range of friends and foes, as well as a brilliant acting performance.
The cast of characters includes the dog’s first owners, a German Jewish family, notably a young boy, who must give up his puppy as the Nuremberg Laws in Hitler’s Germany tighten around them, to the sympathetic Nazi who trains the dog to hunt down Jews, to the much less sympathetic, and historically accurate, commandant of Treblinka. The most touching scenes are those of a young man who reunites with his dog while a prisoner in Treblinka and escapes with him.
Ultimately, we are rooting for Cyrus to find food, safety, and love, though first food, as he notes wryly — he is a dog. As Cyrus shares, “Food. Food. Food. The most important thing in life — especially if you have experienced starvation.”
Of course, a dog may not be able to think or feel as fully as the one portrayed on stage. However, through his dedication to physical acting and the clever use of a versatile trapper hat and a drab bathrobe as costume, Meir becomes Cyrus, and in doing so, offers us another perspective on history. Even more so, I do believe that dogs show us how we should care for one another — how we should be better humans — and The Jewish Dog certainly does that and so much more.
Spadura is the third play in this year’s Logan Festival, written and performed by Dahéli Hall, an acclaimed Los Angeles–based performer, writer, and producer who performs a show that has been touring nationally and was recently adapted into a docu-comedy special. I wish I had seen this — as someone who fought infertility in my early 40s for several years, I am sure I could have related. I am confident that I would have appreciated the mix of comedy and tragedy that goes into a show, which, as the notes share, is about “fertility, aging, and the baby industrial complex.” I am also sure that I would have wanted nothing less than to call my daughter immediately afterward.
This year, I could carve out enough time for a double-header of theater, but next year, I will plan better. Though in sharing some of my fertility travails, one might guess that I am not a planner. Be one. Go see all three plays in the Logan Festival of Solo Performances.
Running Times
George Don’t Do That!: Two hours with a 15-minute intermission.
The Jewish Dog: 75 minutes, no intermission.
Spadura: 75 minutes, no intermission.on.
The Logan Festival of Solo Performances plays through September 28, 2025, at 1st Stage, 1524 Spring Hill Road, Tysons, VA. Purchase tickets ($10-$20 for individual seats; special Logan pass for all three shows $36) online.
SEE ALSO:
1st Stage announces 2025 Logan Festival for Solo Performances lineup (news story, August 1, 2025)
