Los Angeles

DOOM DOOM DOOM In the Boom Boom Room is a David Rabe play that did not win a Tony in 1974.   In it, Rabe demonstrates no particular affinity yet for female characters, of whom there are many.   It is not subtle or quiet, but few Rabe plays are.   In angry, long-winded street poetry, inarticulate folk…

GODDAMN CHEKHOV, AGAIN I suspect nobody really likes The Seagull except theater people.   It established for the modern age some of the essential playwriting untouchables:   a play about actors and writers, and plays, in which the value of art is a major theme?   In which not only is acting used as a metaphor for human…

SOBER CANNIBALS, DRUNKEN CHRISTIANS This show made me wish I had chosen to sit through Lost Moon Radio’s Million Dollar Hair again. If this sounds like faint praise, it is; I did not enjoy Million Dollar Hair.   But Moby Alpha, as conceived and performed by Seattle sketch comics Chuck Armstrong and Charlie Stockman, is unfunny…

DARK SUBJECT MATTER LEAVES US IN THE DARK Inspired by Theater of the Absurd, Cuban expatriate Marí­a Irene Fornés (b. 1930) cut her teeth during the Off-Off-Broadway avant-garde movement. She may have nine Obie Awards to her credit, but this feminist playwright’s deliberately dark and opaque style willfully obfuscates her narrative, which keeps the meaning…

CAVE-IN The press release refers to The Cave as being inspired by Beauty and the Beast and Persephone. In Greek mythology, Persephone was abducted by Hades, the god-king of the Underworld. But this Fringe entry takes place not in Hell but an imagined abode of souls who have departed life as we know it: The…

A WORLD APART FROM TYPICAL FRINGE FARE Like a breath of fresh air, Jason Robert Brown’s Songs for a New World far exceeded my expectations of both the Fringe and Brown’s uneven song cycle. This is an early work from the Tony-winner for Parade and Bridges of Madison County. “It’s about one moment,” Brown said….

FAR FROM FABULOUS A young gay man named Charlie has had a breakup. Feeling despondent, he enters an empty theater and performs a ritual aided by a copy of Witchcraft for Dummies. He conjures an erstwhile college professor, Armand, to be his guide to the other world. Armand summons five older archetypal gay men (the…

LINDEN HOPS Based on the lyrics of Van Morrison’s “Linden Arden Stole the Highlights,” Colin Mitchell’s one-man play of the same name may have a sketchy narrative, but a combination of genuine acting by the author and Christian Levatino’s knowing and unobtrusive direction make this 1-hour first-person account of a San-Francisco-drug-dealer-turned-Scotland-recluse a persuasive event. It’s…

CANDY MAN Yes, this is a superficial “And then I…” retelling of Anthony Newley’s life, but Jon Peterson’s one-man outing at the Hollywood Fringe Festival is fun, escapist fare. In addition, audiences unfamiliar with the composer, actor, and one-time husband of Joan Collins should be flabbergasted by the gorgeous standards Newley left us (especially the…

ITHACA John Perrin Flynn and Brenda Davidson’s production of Penelope is so vivid that it’s hard for me to imagine the play in any other presentation – even though I’ve recently seen another  that had its own strengths.   Flynn’s direction is unequivocal, authoritative.   He finds the excitement and narrative drive carefully laid underneath Enda Walsh’s impossibly…

A BUTTERFLY WITHOUT WINGS Madama Butterfly (1904) is understandably one of the most popular operas in the world. Not only does it boast a tragic story that is incredibly moving, but the drama at its core is heightened and given beauty by Giacomo Puccini’s score. However, Center Stage Opera’s production fails to do the opera…

COMFORT CANCER Steven Dierkes has written the play one thinks of writing after a friend gets a brain tumor.   Like a character in Land Line, I once was a guy who talked long-distance day after day to a sick friend who’d had to move back into his parents’ house; if you live long enough, you’re…

IMPORTANCE AND FRIVOLITY Radically altering the circumstances of a revered text is the prerogative of any new production.   It’s one of the methods theater reserves to drag fusty old plays into the present.   And if you look at the Queer Classics version of The Importance of Being Earnest as taking place in a Sartre-esque vacuum,…

LOST Lost Moon Radio’s new Hollywood Fringe Festival show is by far the least impressive Lost Moon outing I’ve seen.   A departure from their usual late-night free-form radio show format, Million Dollar Hair has a fine enough conceit: it more or less purports to be a piece of musical theater (book: Frank Smith, Ryan Harrison…

PERHAPS THE POPE WAS BORED TO DEATH The Ahmanson stage is awash with white-haired old men in long sweeping gowns.   No, it’s not the old folks’ home production of Priscilla Queen of the Desert.   Rather, the touring production of The Last Confession crackles and blusters with Cardinals, Archbishops, and Popes; these are the characters inhabiting…

FANTASTICKS ON THE FRINGE With the original opening in 1959 and running an astounding 42 years, The Fantasticks is a veritable classic amongst the repertoire of musical theater.   By way of the Hollywood Fringe Festival at the quaint Lillian Theatre, Good People Theater Company is taking a crack at capturing the essence of this historical…

WHEN A BELT DOESN’T HOLD UP AN ACT There was a time when American cabaret singers simply sang songs’”no social commentary, no motifs, and no directors were necessary because the audience was accustomed to great songs treated with unique vocal stylings by distinctive entertainers. Even when cabaret began to decline in the 1960s, headline singers’”whether…

THE RISE AND FALL OF A TRANSFERRED PRODUCTION When it was originally presented at Sacred Fools, Vanessa Claire Stewart’s play had a subtitle (The Rise and Fall and Rise of Buster Keaton), but Stoneface Productions and the Pasadena Playhouse have dispensed with that (along with a few scenes), which is good because Stoneface is a…