Highway Ulysses
New at the ART, the world premiere of Rinde Eckert's Highway Ulysses. A production that proves that actor Thomas Derrah can do anything, this stunning, operatic Odyssey is the tale of a Vietnam Vet who hits the road because he has to get his son. The road is a weird place. He meets a coffee shop waitress (Karen MacDonald) who is worried that he looks like he might be getting ready to kill himself and she really hopes he won't -- at least not today -- because the last time someone did that the police kept everyone tied up for hours and today she has to take the kids up to summer camp where they'll be for two long weeks -- imagine two weeks without the kids! -- though really it reminds her how nice it used to be, bathing in the river out there, naked, numb,
Floating on the water,
Like Ophelia, only smarter.
Even better is Michael Potts as the one-eyed, obsessive, shotgun-wielding defender of a branch public library which no one, understandably, every visits