Who's Got the Pain?

As it turns out, the powers that be at Arena Stage simply do not want to say.

All told it wasn’t a terrible innings for the just-closed production of Damn Yankees down there at the Palace on the Potomac (Channel) — er, at Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater, which I’m reminded is the proper name for Bing Thom’s giant swirly vitrine of an arthouse at 6th and M Streets SW.

The reviews were polite if not rave-y, and headliner Jordan Donica (HBO’s Gilded Age) had damn sure been singing the bejesus out of Young Joe Boyd’s heartfelt ballads. No shade to Quentin Earl Darlington, who played the older Joe, but when Donica made his initial entrance to take over the soaring “Goodbye, Old Girl” in its closing bars, I sat back in my seat like somebody had smacked me. As he’s demonstrated in Broadway productions of My Fair Lady, Sunset Boulevard, and even Phantom of the Opera, Donica’s is legit a hair-raising voice — a round, rich Brian Stokes Mitchell/Norm Lewis baritone with just enough tenor-ish ping on the top end to add some thrill.

Plus, “Jimmy Nederlan…