Tom Chaits

BEHOLD THE BREATHTAKING BEAUTY OF CAVALIA’S ODYSSEO In 2003, Normand Latourelle, one of the co-founders of Cirque du Soleil, was ready to up the entertainment ante when he introduced his equine extravaganza Cavalia to the world. The show was a smash right out of the gate and has been galloping around the globe ever since….

A COMPLETE WASTE OF WORDS If you hold a doctorate in linguistics then you might (and that’s a very questionable “might”) find some interesting banter in Complete, the alleged comedy written by Andrea Kuchlewska currently making its West Coast premiere at the Matrix Theatre. If, on the other hand, the scientific study of syntax and…

BRAWL IN THE FAMILY It’s a funny thing about families. We didn’t choose them, but they form the most important relationships in our lives. It’s the luck of the draw and some of us get dealt the aces and some the deuces. In A Family Thing, Gary Lennon’s brutal black comedy of familial misfortune, the…

BENCHED SHOULD HAVE BEEN BENCHED A cantankerous senior gets his dander up when he discovers a stranger occupying his favorite Central Park bench in the L.A. premiere of Richard Broadhurst’s Benched. Five minutes into the show I began wishing that the squatter would simply get up and leave so I could as well. No such…

WALKING THE TIGHTROPE STRIKES A PERFECT BALANCE AND SOARS TO THEATRICAL PERFECTION Lab24, the resident experimental theater company of the 24th STreet Theatre [sic], has scored a stupendous success with their debut production Walking the Tightrope. Based on a lyric poem by Mike Kenny, director Debbie Devine has transformed the ode into a highly stylized…

OPEN THIS SNAKE CAN AND ALL THAT POPS OUT IS WHINE AND CHEESE Three BFFs get together to commiserate over their fates in the world premiere of The Snake Can, Kathryn Grant’s (Hermetically Sealed) shallow and unfulfilling salute to middle age angst. Devoid of subtext and any semblance of substance the show struggles unsuccessfully to…

A UNIQUELY ENTERTAINING MISSED OPPORTUNITY The concept of Happy Face Sad Face is an intriguing one that consists of two one act plays; the first a drama, the second a comedy. Now before you go all “been there, seen that” on me, consider this twist. The program teases that both one acts are “:the same…

SLIPPED DISC NEEDS A STRONGER SPINE The mission of Green Card Theatre is to expose Los Angeles audiences to plays and playwrights from around the world. Their inaugural production entitled Slipped Disc: A Study of the Upright Walk by renowned German scribe Ingrid Lausund with translation by Henning Bochert is a mixed bag of workplace…

I OUGHT TO BE IN PICTURES OUGHT TO BE BETTER You would be hard-pressed to find anyone proclaiming I Ought To Be In Pictures to be Neil Simon’s finest hour, but even with its shortcomings it deserves much better treatment that it is currently receiving at the Falcon Theatre in Burbank.   Unlike his mid-60’s smashes…

THEY’RE DROPPING LIKE FLIES AT ACTORS CO-OP Since it was first published in1939,   Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None (originally titled Ten Little Niggers and quickly renamed for the 2nd printing) has sold over 100 million copies, making it the best-selling mystery novel of all time. In 1943 Dame Aggie adapted the novel for…

SASSY SENIORS PROVE THE BEAT GOES ON FOR THE YOUNG AT HEART At 80 years young,  Jackie Goldberg, a.k.a. The Pink Lady, is on a mission. After becoming a widow at 70 she created a series of seminars entitled “Get Up, Get Out, & Get A   Life” to encourage baby boomers and seniors to follow new…

COLLECTED STORIES: A SNOOZE INDUCING   “WRITE” OF PASSAGE As a critic I hope for one of two things: either a production is fantastic or, to be blunt, it sucks. For me at least, a review of a great show or an awful show practically writes itself: it’s the critiques of the so-so ones that take…

A WHOLE NEW WORLD Musical revues are a tricky business. While highly enjoyable and entertaining, even high profile compilations like Side By Side By Sondheim and the Fats Waller song book Ain’t Misbehavin’ amount to little more than glorified cabaret shows. Jukebox musicals—a la Smokey Joe’s Cafe (Leiber and Stoller) and the long running Broadway…

A BROOKLYN LOVE STORY – FUHGEDDABOUDIT! Originally produced as Emergency Used Candles for NYC’s Emerging Artists Theatre One Woman Standing Festival and then followed by a run at the famed Cherry Lane Theatre Off-Broadway, the newly titled A Brooklyn Love Story is making its L. A. premiere at Theatre 68.   For those of you who…

MAGIC TRICKS OR TRAGIC MIX? Every once in a while a show comes along that defies classification. Elephant Room, making its West Coast Premiere at the Kirk Douglas Theatre is one such show. It’s sort of a comedy, it’s sort of a magic show, it’s sort of a bloated SNL skit, it’s sort of an…

FISHING FOR LAUGHS If you are now or were at some point a wannabe entertainment professional, chances are you’re no stranger to slinging hash in a greasy spoon to make ends meet.   Playwright David J. Duman spent his formative years dishing up organic eats to some of San Francisco’s “most particular, demanding, and ridiculous diners.”  …