Spellbinding is an insufficient word for Justin Weaks. He has long been lauded as one of the area’s finest actors (one of “10 of DC’s Biggest Theater Stars,” as Washingtonian magazine put it seven years ago). He is an artistic force to be reckoned with, riveting in every role I’ve seen him play; and now, as creator, sole performer, and host of A Fine Madness — a multi-genre participatory/immersive theater experience that debuted at Woolly Mammoth Theatre last weekend — Weaks brings a shamanistic charisma into our midst that is as mind-blowing as it is soul-baring.
The venue for this debut was the unassuming Rehearsal Room at Woolly (where Weaks is a company member). The walls are raw concrete, the space feels unfinished, and the stage lighting is minimal; it was the perfect location for launching an unconventional creation that is now touring DC through June.
As a work of live performing art, A Fine Madness is uncategorizable. It is an all-over-the-place assemblage of fable-like storytelling, audience games, pre-recorded music, stand-up comedy, stunts with props, sound and light effects, movement, parody roleplay, trippy poetry, scientific explication, and lots more — a hodgepodge, non-sequitur-ish happening in which beats an open heart that hopes to touch ours.
This mad multiplicity of forms — overseen and steadied by director Raymond O. Caldwell and dramaturg Otis Cortez Ramsey-Zöe — can feel both enthralling and perplexing. But what must be acknowledged with admiration and wonderment is that coursing through the adventurously varied 90 minutes of A Fine Madness is a brilliantly original theme having to do with every body in the room.
The inciting backstory of the work is Weaks’ personal experience of the titular existential discombobulation — what he characterizes as “being sucked into a black hole” from which he tries to escape but can’t:
Make no mistake, these are dangerous times.
These are mad times.
But, lucky for us, mad times call for gathering together.
Thus, what propels the work’s singular purpose is a vision of communal connection in real time and space through playing with time and space. And what Weaks has conceived for us to reflect on and relate to is a stunning synthesis or coalescence of our collective experience living through COVID six years ago and Weaks’ own experience living with HIV for a decade:
We like to call this time a post-pandemic time, but pandemics don’t really end, do they? They echo.
Scattered about the carpeted playing area on small tables lit by antique lamps are such props as a long-play turntable, a miniature sun and planets, a metronome, together with a sound board and retro mic stand that Weaks employs. Operating an overhead projector from the floor, Weaks points us to the Voyager spacecraft launched in the 1970s and now flung far off in space. Scientists at the time, with a hubris unique to humans, created a golden record on which was etched an archive of then-current culture on the chance that alien beings in the distant future could decode and comprehend it. Weaks then embarks on symbolically gathering an archive of us. Dramaturgically, we are invited to join in this leap of imagination, and whether we lift off along is up to us.
There will be excellent stagecraft support from a crew in the corner executing sound and light cues that punctuate and underscore Weaks’ words with expressive precision. (In line with the show’s homage to Voyager, Weaks refers to them as “mission control.”) Throughout, like a master mimic, he embodies and voices a cast of male and female supporting characters. And Weaks so thoroughly inhabits each story he tells that we cannot help but feel drawn to do so, too. Implicit is what comes to seem the work’s article of faith:
A virus can unite us.
Believe it or not, as if an antidote to disconnection, Justin Weaks’ A Fine Madness makes that concept seem true.
Running Time: A little under 90 minutes, with no intermission.
A Fine Madness played May 30 and 31, 2026, in the Rehearsal Hall at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company. The schedule of future performances is below. All tickets are Pay-What-You-Will (recommended price is $25) and are available online, by phone at (202) 393-3939, and via email at tickets@woollymammoth.net.
Dupont Underground: June 5 at 8 pm, June 6 at 8 pm, June 7 at 2 pm
Hamiltonian Artists: June 11 at 8 pm, June 12 at 8 pm, June 13 at 8 pm, June 14 at 2 pm
The Nicholson Project: June 25 at 8 pm, June 26 at 8 pm, June 27 at 8 pm, June 28 at 2 pm
Accompanying the production of A Fine Madness is a series of free Constellation Events featuring Justin Weaks and other special guests. These gatherings are designed to amplify the big ideas and themes around A Fine Madness. For information and to RSVP, click here.
A Fine Madness
Created and performed by Justin Weaks
Directed by Raymond O. Caldwell
Choreographer: Tony Thomas
Dramaturg: Otis Cortez Ramsey-Zöe
Sound Designer/Original Music: Matthew M. Nielson
Altar Designer: Orilonise C.D. Yarborough
Stage Manager: Jazzy Davis
PRODUCTION TEAM
Dramaturgical Producer: Sonia Fernandez
Associate Sound Designer: Ian Vespermann
Lighting Supervisor and Lighting Design Consultant: Eli Golding
Props Supervisor: Fe Miranda
Sound Lead: Sebastian Hernández
Line Producer: Aysha Zackria
Line Producer: Quincy Jones
Staff Carpenter: Lily Anglin
Staff Carpenter: Mickey Cappiello
Carpenter: Caiya Hargis
SEE ALSO:
Woolly Mammoth to premiere ‘A Fine Madness’ on tour across DC (news story, May 6, 2026)
Woolly Mammoth presents Justin Weaks’ workshop of ‘A Fine Madness’ (news story, March 5, 2024)
