Ernest Kearney

KAFKA IN AMERICA— AND LOST AT SEA Striking visuals adrift in an overlong adaptation Who isn’t familiar with Franz Kafka (1883–1924), the tormented Czech writer? Or The Metamorphosis, Kafka’s most notable tale chronicling Gregor Samsa’s angst when he wakes one morning to discover he’s transformed into a “monstrous vermin”? While Kafka wrote a good deal…

LOST IN TRANSLATION— AND INTENTION Pulitzer winner that provokes, puzzles, and occasionally frustrates. Is it a scream into a void or a play? English, by Sanaz Toossi, won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for drama. It racked up five Tony nominations. Critics nationwide tout it. Yet, in spite of Atlantic and Roundabout’s handsome co-production, now on…

FOUNDING FATHERS, FOUND WANTING A promising historical premise undone by uneven writing What Price Freedom, by Tony Blake, having its world premiere at Moving Arts Theatre, recounts one of the more unusual moments in the course of the American Revolution: when John Adams (destined to be the second president of the United States) and Benjamin…

SUPERSTAR STILL RISES Nocturne Theatre’s high-concept staging proves that even a familiar rock opera can still feel fresh, fierce, and electrifying First, a Biblical passage…“Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever.” — Hebrews 13:8 It is confounding when you learn that Jesus Christ Superstar, with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Tim…

CIVILITY ON THE BRINK OF CHAOS Jack Heller’s polished production reveals Pinter’s menace, even if it could use a bit more disorder First, a joke: “How many Harold Pinters does it take to change a light bulb?” Answer: “Change?”(pause)“A light bulb? Into what?(pause)“Ah, asparagus.” In many ways, Harold Pinter (1930–2008) was a literary assault on…

MY WINNER WITH LAWRENCE As part of the 30 Minutes or Less Festival presented by Matthew V. Quinn and Bertha Rodriguez at the Stephanie Feury Studio Theatre in Hollywood, writer-performer Lawrence Meyers manages to fill every nanosecond on stage with his Against All Odds: Coincidence, Chaos, and Everyday Miracles. Clever and witty to a fault,…

ZANDER RAPHAEL SPINS PUPPETRY INTO GOLD Gilded Spindle offers Shannon L. Reagan’s retelling of the Rumpelstiltskin tale with a slight #MeToo twist. While the talents and artistry of Reagan, the Wyndwolf Players and Wyndwolf Puppets are present on the stage of the Stephanie Feury Studio Theatre, the roughness of the production itself is unable to…

Kind Stranger … A Memory Play, conceived and performed by Rick Simone-Friedland is successful as a historical rendering of Playwright Tennessee Williams’ life. It is also successful as a reconstruction of Williams’ public persona–that calm, lackadaisical soul who answers questions in a slow Southern drawl between lingering puffs on the black ivory cigarette holder. But…

A MURDEROUSLY FUN MUSICAL SEND-UP OF KIDS-TV STARDOM Nathan Wang and Matthew Leavitt turn wholesome childhood icons into gleeful chaos— fast, filthy, and ridiculously entertaining. Sets are declarative. I have walked into theatres, taken one glance at the set occupying the stage, and could have written my whole review then and there. Anthony Lucca, Will…

A HOLIDAY PANTO THAT KNOWS WHAT IT’S DOING The Actors’ Gang offers a family-friendly fairy tale with teeth Children of the Winter Kingdom – The Bonkers Adventures of Holly and Spruce, now frolicking at The Actors’ Gang in Culver City, is reminiscent of the beloved British Christmas pantomimes. The family-friendly show is festive and song-filled,…

THE PAST IS NEVER DEAD — IT RINGS THE DOORBELL Priestley’s prophetic 1945 masterpiece glows with fierce clarity at Theatre 40 Masquerading as one of those staid drawing room mysteries Agatha Christie would knock off during Afternoon Tea while nibbling on scones with clotted cream and crustless cucumber sandwiches, An Inspector Calls by British playwright…

Bluebeard’s Castle, A Medieval Musical Thriller by Russian director and playwright Sofia Streisand, making her U.S. debut at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, displays immense ambition that achieves only partial realization. Streisand took her inspiration from La Barbe Bleue, the French fairy tale of a serial killer whose preferred victims are the women wed to him….

SUPER ZEROES UNITE! Aging heroes, flat jokes, and laughs that need life support Golden Age by Thomas J. Nisuraca is the roughest of rough theatre. Staged by Force of Nature Productions and directed by Aurora Culver at North Hollywood’s Sawyer’s Playhouse, Golden Age kicks off with a premise worthy of a Saturday Night Live skit:…

THANKS TO ANTAEUS, CYMBELINE RIDES AGAIN Who knew Cymbeline could gallop? Director Nike Doukas’s new staging at Antaeus Theatre Company turns one of Shakespeare’s most notoriously unwieldy plays into something brisk, lucid, and surprisingly delightful. Though often dismissed as a late-period jumble, this Cymbeline proves that with intelligence and judicious trimming, even Shakespeare’s strangest hybrids…

A MILD CASE OF THE CREEPS Ah, Halloween — All Hallows’ Day, Allhallowtide, Jack-o’-lanterns, the madcap lads of West Hollywood, the troops of pint-sized witches, Iron Men and Disney princesses marauding the city’s better neighborhoods lugging trick-or-treat bags bulging with Gummy Bears, Bit-O-Honeys, and Bazooka Gum, and of course the edgy saturnalia that infests Hollywood…

OH, WHAT A NIGHT Tennessee Williams’ The Night of the Iguana (1961) may be viewed as the finish of a journey the playwright began twenty years earlier with The Glass Menagerie (1944). The one was his first critical and commercial success, the other his last. After Iguana, Williams would continue to write plays and one-acts…