Los Angeles

WHAT DIDN’T HE Joe Orton was a loudly subversive English playwright who, before his murder in 1967, helped rip out the loud, inefficient plumbing of kitchen sink social drama and replace it with something really dangerous: comedy. In a series of black farces, Orton substituted the Socialist Rape Victim for John Osborne’s Angry Young Man….

COME BE IMPRESSED BY WHAT’S EXPRESSED For the third concert of Le Salon de Musiques’ fifth season, Masters Rediscovered, French-American Pianist/Melodist and Artistic Director François Chouchan has selected the works of four composers, three of whom are mostly unknown but not because they lack genius. Chouchan’s carefully selected programs have proved time and again that…

KANDER & EBB’S DANCE MARATHON MUSICAL FINALLY ARRIVES IN LOS ANGELES I can understand why you hear about a “Staged Reading” and want to bolt in the opposite direction. Don’t let that title fool you. Indeed, in the last year, some of the best nights in the theater can be found at these events. Especially…

A NOCTURNE BY ANY OTHER NAME To those of you who don’t know (or think that everything hip is only happening now), Piano Spheres has for nearly twenty years been one of the country’s few serious and consistent concert series focusing on new piano repertoire. Its Satellite Series offers recitals by four emerging L.A. pianists,…

AWAKENED AND REFRESHED Music was an essential part of civic, religious, and courtly life in the Renaissance. The rich interchange of ideas in Europe, as well as political, economic, and religious events in the period 1400–1600 led to major changes in styles of composing, methods of disseminating music, new musical genres, and the development of…

SILVER DOESN’T EVEN GET A BRONZE It took fifteen actors, two writers, two directors, and three designers to create a Working Theater’s one-hour interactive theatrical experience, a Silver Lining (Matt Soson is co-director, co-writer, actor, and composer, so I assume it’s his baby somehow). With mannered acting, poor narrative-free writing, cheap-looking design elements, and bemusing…

THE LASERIUM OF THE 21ST CENTURY While the result of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s first in/SIGHT offering last weekend was mixed, the experimentation itself was a resounding success. Visual Artist Refik Anadol’s brand new multi-media fantasia accompanied Esa-Pekka Salonen’s vigorous and explosive rendition of Edgard Varèse’s Amériques, the final piece of an eclectic program titled…

COMPLETELY SMART The exciting and insightful writer  Itamar Moses may be one of our brightest playwrights, yet he has astoundingly been given short shrift by the L.A. theater community. With over 10 produced plays (Bach at Leipzig) and musicals (Nobody Loves You and the upcoming The Fortress of Solitude with Michael Friedman at The Public), Moses…

GREEN IRELAND, HANDSOME HANSON, AND A BRIDGE TOO FAR Le Salon de Musiques, the most cultivated, accessible, pleasant, exciting and educational chamber concert outfit in, well, anywhere I have been, opened its fifth season with a concert of its usual riches: contextual insight, perfect performances, rarely heard but astounding selections, hobnobbing, and gourmandizing. The three…

RUSSIAN AVANT-GARDE AS SURREAL BURLESQUE Delightful wouldn’t be a word I’d expect to use when describing a Robert Wilson show. But The Old Woman, adapted by Darryl Pinckney from an absurdist story by Daniil Kharms, and performed by Mikhail Baryshnikov and Willem Dafoe, is just that. Whimsical, darkly funny, and disquieting throughout, Wilson’s striking spectacle…

THE HEART OF THE MATER Decca just released a 6-CD box set by the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra (CPO) of the complete symphonies and concertos of Antoní­n Dvořák, and I don’t remember when I’ve been quite so taken with any  interpretation of Dvořák’s work. Not only is the recording quality impeccable, but Maestro Jiří­ BÄ›lohlávek clearly has…

SLIDING BORES A or B? The question of Ken Levine’s title refers to the choice between two parallel universes set forth in his two-act two-hour two-hander. Played out simultaneously with flip-flopping scenes that last anywhere from 30 seconds to a few minutes or longer, this seriously regrettable dumbed-down rom-com concerns a comely woman who interviews…

COOL AS A CUCUMBER BUT NOT AS REFRESHING In Boys in the Band, the character of Harold states: “Although I’ve never seen my soul, I understand from my mother’s Rabbi that it’s a knock-out. I, however, cannot seem to locate it for a gander. And if I could, I’d sell it in a flash, for…

WHAT INDEED The title of Marí­a Irene Fornés’ 1989 quartet of one-acts recalls a two-verse Old Testament passage in Isaiah. The wandering Jews cry out from the midst of war, famine, every calamity: “What of the night?”, i.e. “What are our prospects?” The prophet returns: “The morning cometh, and also the night” – things will…