Paul Birchall

WHAT WON’T YOU DO  FOR A CHELSEA SUBLET? Ambiguity and nuance are qualities in a play to be greatly desired and lauded – and yet, if you do not go “ick” at least four times while watching playwright Ruth Folwer’s increasingly disturbing drama, I’m not sure what can be done with you. This is a play…

DAMAGED GOODS Playwright Phillip Kan Gotanda’s elegiac drama is a powerful piece that encompasses many themes in a surprisingly tight and concise package; it’s about aging, it’s about the complexity of marriage, and, above all, it’s about a divide between cultures that may or may not be reconciled through love. It’s a drama about the…

A FINE PRODUCTION OF A MINOR  ORGAN Midway through playwright Julia Lederer’s feather-light, yet rather droning romantic comedy, a character literally reaches into her own chest and pulls out her heart, which thumps and pumps and leaks blood into the padded envelope she shoves it into. The lovesick woman then leaves it in a New York…

UNBOUND FOR GLORY It takes talent to juggle political activism, sexual tension, and a highly suspenseful thriller plot, but playwright D.G. Watson has done it. His compelling drama hits an almost astonishing number of dynamic points with a deceptive ease that belies nuances of philosophy and morality. Unbound  charts how idealism quickly rots into corruption–and how…

ANYTHING BUT DISGRACEFUL Sometimes plays that win the Pulitzer Prize do so less for their content and more for the ideas they embody and the zeitgeist of their time. It’s just an added bonus when the work turns out to be a good play as well as a snapshot of a certain era or time…

A FRIEND OF DOROTHY’S What makes this boisterous jukebox musical about the life of late music and stage legend Peter Allen (whose songs make up the show’s core) so winning, is the combination of larger-than-life excess and the piquant whiff of melancholy – all of which are frankly irresistible to a wide swath of showtune-loving…

TMI AOK I’m a librarian during the day, and one thing I remember from back in Library School (because you have to go to Library School to become a librarian, you know) is that there are many discussions about the nature of information. Oh, librarians are fascinated about information. To a specialist in such things,…

HOME AND HEART When you go to Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice, one of the great pleasures is seeing performers Orson Bean and his wife Alley Mills hanging out in the lobby either manning the concession stand or assisting in helping folks to their seats (that is, if they aren’t actually in the show). Both…

FINDING JUST A BIT In his solo show, playwright Nicholas Guest describes his life and travels around the world.   He’s accompanied by Hillary Smith on the cello and by Tony Carafone on the guitar (in the play, not his travels) – and they turn out to be a helpful pair, too, because Guest intersperses his…

UNTO US A CHILD  IS MADE This fascinating drama by playwright Zayd Dohrn is set in the bizarre subculture of women who buy dolls that eerily resemble actual babies. Can this possibly be enough material here for a play?   There are many reasons for buying super-realistic baby dolls, one supposes – you could collect them, or…