Jesse David Corti

A LOT OF HOLES IN THIS CONCERT, AND A LOT OF PROBLEMS ARE BURIED IN THOSE HOLES Mean Streets, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Last Temptation of Christ, Goodfellas, Cape Fear, The Age of Innocence, Casino, Gangs of New York, The Aviator, The Departed, and Hugo. This list of iconic movies…

DOSTOEVSKY’S NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground at Zombie Joe’s Underground Theatre in North Hollywood ought not to surface. This willfully banal production of the Russian classic refrains from connecting with the audience and instead, serves only their self-absorbed conceits. More concerned with making a joke about Lankershim Boulevardland than it is with both  relating…

AN IMPERSONAL  CHRISTMAS CAROL What has become of Christmas since Dickens’ A Christmas Carol was published in 1843? In spite of the fact that technology has afforded us numerous opportunities including the ability to connect with one another more immediately than ever, improving our quality of life, and allowing us to select the exact product we…

SOME THINGS GO, SOME THINGS DON’T While it is refreshing that Cole Porter is experiencing a revival, it is unfortunate that the timeless brilliance of his music is attached to musicals whose books are mediocre at best and dated, most certainly. The challenge for the director handling a Porter musical is to manage these disparate…

BENJAMIN WALLFISCH DEBUTS HIS FIRST VIOLIN CONCERTO WITH LACO Benjamin Wallfisch, a burgeoning conductor and composer known primarily for his work on film and television scores, made his Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO)  debut conducting the world premiere of his own Violin Concerto. Guest conductor Wallfisch towered over the podium at UCLA’s Royce Hall, and led…

LIKE ADDING MILK  TO GREEN TEA, A GREAT PLAY IS SPOILED BY ADDING MUSIC. Post World War II Era in America isn’t a red, white, and blue haven with a backyard and a Buick waiting for everyone who wants to work. While the newsreels spun wildly about the success of the Marshall Plan, the development of…

SILK-SCREEN DEEP Even though icon Andy Warhol passed away twenty-five years ago, his legacy remains elastically strong in all its plastic nature; a man very “American” for being of the culture, by the culture, and for the culture. Many imitate the illustrious imitator hoping to acquire fame for a little longer than just fifteen minutes….

FLEET FEET, HOLLOW HEART When notes jostled in and out of the written score during the overture of Musical Theatre West’s 42nd Street, it portended a production that doesn’t have all the ingredients in place for a fully satisfying experience. The opening, that has the curtain raise just a bit to let us meet a…

JOPLIN TRIBUTE NEEDS TO TRY, NOT A LITTLE BIT, BUT A LOT HARDER 42 years ago, Janis Joplin joined fellow rock visionaries Jimi Hendrix and The Rolling Stones’ Brian Jones in the “27 Club,” a term  reserved  for popular musicians who died tragically at 27 years of age’”typically by way of drug-related overdose (Kurt Cobain and Amy…

GIVE UP THE GHOST AND GIVE US WHAT’S REAL The multi-hyphenate J.B. Priestley (Author-Novelist-Playwright-Critic-Essayist-Political Commentator) commented, “Comedy, we may say, is society protecting itself – with a smile.” Priestley’s murder-mystery Dangerous Corner revolves around the late Martin Chatfield and the unraveling effect his death has on the intertwined lives of the six people closest to…

SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL HAS ARRIVED Daniel Serrano’s Roma al final de la Ví­a (Rome at the End of the Line) is a highly recommended diamond-in-the-rough, and the 24th Street Theatre presents its US premiere. Julieta Ortiz and   Norma Angélica are outstanding in their portrayal of women growing up together through life; bonded by their love for…

THE PLAYWRIGHT MUST HAVE EATEN A PILLOW, BECAUSE THIS PLAY IS DOWN IN THE MOUTH Andy Bloch’s The Bellflower Sessions is a bleak, black comedy about Jack Calvin, a victim of “The Great Recession,” and his unorthodox, vulgar, yet purportedly effective shrink, Dr. Wendy Bellflower. In spite of its timeliness and readily relatable subject matter,…

IT’S THE PERFECT YEAR FOR THIS POWERFUL STORY, BUT FOR THIS PRODUCTION..? It must be an election year, as artistic directors all around the nation are presenting Adrian Hall’s meaty 1987 adaptation of Robert Penn Warren’s Pulitzer-Prize winning classic, All The King’s Men. It is a tale of two journeys: Willie Stark, a gubernatorial candidate…