Trying

Playwright Joanna McClelland Glass based Trying on her real-life experience as a young aide to Judge Francis Biddle, best known as attorney general under FDR and chief justice of the Nuremberg war crimes trials. This area premiere, directed by Warren Bowles, features Richard Ooms as the elderly judge staring down his own mortality after a lifetime of prominence and achievement, along with Emily Gunyou Halaas as the secretary hired to help Biddle compose his memoirs. It's a potentially fine pairing, with Ooms's capacity for gravitas (as well as the little gestures that subvert his characters' seriousness) and Halaas's emerging range making for intriguing possibilities.
Thursdays-Saturdays, 7:30 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m. Starts: Sept. 14. Continues through Oct. 7, 2007