Los Angeles

TAIKO TAKES LOS ANGELES BY STORM Ever since man could bang a stick on a rock, percussion has been a way for humans to express themselves. From the battlefield to the theater to your teenager’s bedroom, percussion has evolved from communicative and ritualistic purposes into an art form. We take for granted the use of…

HELLO, GORGEOUS Jonathan Tolin’s keen and tremendously funny new show Buyer & Cellar, performed by Michael Urie, imagines what it would be like for Alex More, a young gay man struggling to make it as an actor in Hollywood, to find himself working in the artificial mall Barbara Streisand built in the basement of her…

A BLOODY BUT WORTHWHILE MESS When Kenneth Clark asked of William Shakespeare, “who else has felt so strongly the absolute meaninglessness of life,” he illustrated the point with this speech of Macbeth’s: Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time, And all…

I DREAM’D A DREAM TO-NIGHT The National Ballet of Canada (TNBC), which presented its thrilling rendition of Christopher Wheeldon’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in 2012, returned to the Music Center last night with a gloriously Technicolor production of Romeo and Juliet, commissioned by TNBC’s artistic director, Karen Kain (the world…

BELL OF THE BOWL Violinist Joshua Bell has been known to hold old-fashion salon-type concerts in a performance space on the second floor of his renovated apartment in New York City. It had long been his desire to invite different kinds of artists and various friends and have an eclectic mix of people playing in…

A HOT AUGUST CAST Having witnessed many Broadway hits at the beginning and end of their runs (and the touring companies they spawned), it is fair for me to say that the magic and crackling electricity accompanying subsequent casts is rarely the same. And so it has been for Tracy Letts’ August: Osage County, a…

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…