Ernest Kearney

FIRE AND BRIMSTONE FATIGUE One must admire Antony Zioni for his aspirations with Tales of the Ancient East, which, regrettably, makes the failure of this production all the more lamentable. Tales of the Ancient East is a tribal experience. Entering the Hudson Guild Theatre one is confronted by an environment cloaked in a primitivism that…

A GAME OF HEARTS PLAYED FACE DOWN There is no question that Ann Noble is one of the most talented actresses gracing the stages of Los Angeles. There are moments in her bitter-sweet, two-person clown show 52 Pick-Up at the Broadwater Studio, where this shines through. However, the show itself does not work. At the…

ALL IN ONE AND ONE IN ALL With Except Myself at the Broadwater Black Box, playwright Drew Petriello has achieved a clever, slick, and absolutely entertaining deconstruction of the solo show concept. Using the template of the classic absurdist play Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello, Petriello has fashioned his own “five…

THE GOOD ANDREW BYRON CREATES A LONG AND WINDING RUSSIAN Andrew Byron frames his one man show The Good Russian within the historical context of 2018, when Sergei Skripal, a Russian expatriate who had worked as a double agent for MI6, the British Intelligence Agency, was found poisoned along with his daughter in his home in…

PULP FRICTION Reservoir Dolls is a witty, sharp satire of several sociological concerns currently occupying center stage in the cultural consciousness of both “tinsel town” and the nation: the exploitation of women in films and their limited access to roles in an image-driven industry; the institutional gender inequality and barriers facing women in the studio…

SHAKESPEARE GOES BRAT PACK The trouble with tribute plays is that not all audiences are necessarily as knowledgeable about the subject of the homage as the creators are.  In the case of Phil S. Gould’s faux Shakespearian The Club of Broken Fasts, the object of his retooling is the 1985 coming-of-age teen comedy-drama The Breakfast…

THE BIG SLEEP MEETS BIG QUESTIONS IN MR. BIG “Mr. Big” is the final entry in Woody Allen’s Getting Even (1971), his first published collection of 17 tales and essays, most of which originally appeared in The New Yorker. The main character in “Mr. Big” reflects a recurring motif for Allen: Sam Spade. Kaiser Lupowitz,…

NOT ENOUGH HEAT The Second Coming of Joan of Arc is the best-known work of American playwright, author, and lesbian feminist Carolyn Gage. Loosely based, scholars will tell you, “very loosely,” on the history of the teenage “Maid of Orléans,” who led the French armies to a series of victories over those of the English…

SEA WORTHY Wilds of Sea is an undersea adventure that will leave little ones wide-eyed and utterly captivated. But make no mistake—this all-ages puppet spectacle is as enchanting for the grown-ups as it is for the kids. Directed by Shannon Reagan, who also built the stunning life-sized puppets, Wilds of Sea follows a mischievous seal…

THIS SHOW NEEDS A LOTTA LENYA I always look forward to the shows of Shelley Cooper at the Hollywood Fringe. They are musical biographies of women who made history not only with their presence but with their voices as well; La Divina: The Last Interview of Maria Callas and Jenny Lind Presents P.T. Barnum were…

SQUEEZABLE THEATER Those dark days all seem so long ago. The face masks, drive-thru testing, fear of crowded indoor spaces, and some idiot assuring us, “It’s going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear.” Yes, I’m talking COVID-19, which in 2020 spread worldwide, causing global shortages in ventilators, vaccines,…

Unlike his previous shows at The Hollywood Fringe — Spank the Monkey and Shagadelic: The Origins of Slang Words for Doing It — Michael Blaha has shed his stage persona of Professor Richard Fondler and presents himself in the aptly named Mike Blaha: International Joke. In taking this step, Blaha has proven what was already obvious:…

FEMINIST CLOWNS COLLIDE WITH CAPITOLISM Clownish perfection poses a unique problem for reviewers in that the blend of Da-Da slapstick and rib-tickling existentialism tends to defy easy description, in that they tell stories that go beyond language. I’ve always suspected the reason for this is that in our evolution, “clowning†preceded language. Holy, Holy: The…

TITANIC SINKS AGAIN Mallie McCown‘s madcap reimagining of Titanic, James Cameron’s $220 million epic, is ambitious beyond words, which is the source for most of the problems that plague this production. Issues aside, however, Oh, Fuck! An Iceberg remains staggeringly clever and more fun than a barrel of monkeys in a lifeboat. I am in…

GRINNING FROM LEAR TO LEAR Redux, adjective From the Latin, returning, from reducere to lead back To be brought back or returned, especially in a new way. When it comes to repackaging Shakespeare, nothing’s off-limits. Indian director Vishal Bhardwaj’s noir-flavored trilogy (Maqbool, Omkara, Haidar [or Macbeth, Othello, and Hamlet]) turned the plays into modern crime sagas. for…

EXIT, PURSUED BY A PRODUCTION In taking on a production of William Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, Play On Shakespeare at Skylight Theatre is to be commended. The last of the Bard’s plays-–Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale, portions of Pericles, and The Tempest—present substantial difficulties in staging. But, for my money, The Winter’s Tale sits at the…

HARE FORCE ONE With White Rabbit Red Rabbit by Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour currently at the Fountain Theatre, what you encounter is an interesting and provocative theatrical game, a hybrid of “Story Theatre” and immersive Role Playing Game (RPG). On stage is a sparse set that displays the sharp divisions of red and white conveying…

THIS BIRD AIN’T SO STUPID There is a strange little niche tucked away in the theatre world which, for lack of a better term, could be called “Travesty Theatrics.” It’s when a classic drama is taken and reworked as a caricature, parody, or mockery of itself. (More on that later.) A new, actor driven company,…