Los Angeles

BIG HOGS AND HOT POCKETS We buy products because they consume us.   Ultimately our products replace us, because if you are what you eat, it follows that what you eat also is you.   And at that point, does the food chain even need you anymore?   Supernumerary to your own plans, it’s easy to end up…

HOLY HORROR It’s that that time of year again when everyone and their brother is looking to scare the crap out of you. To that end, The Original Interactive Horror Theatre Company is back to terrorize their patrons with Delusion: Masque of Mortality. Last year they presented the highly successful  Delusion: The Blood Rite at a…

LA PHIL FIRST IN PREMIERES Having presented exceptionally successful premieres this year, the Los Angeles Philharmonic is on a roll. From the West Coast premiere of Adam Schoenberg’s Bounce  to the U. S. Premiere of Tan Dun’s The Tears of Nature  to the posthumous World Premiere of Peter Lieberson’s percussion-rich composition Shing Kham,  the LA Phil has proven…

SAY WATT? While it is probably safe to assume that the NoHo Arts Center Ensemble’s “playwright in residence,” Joshua Ravetch, had some bright idea in mind when writing The Light Bulb, I must admit that after sitting through the uninterrupted 90 minutes I was left totally in the dark.   Try though I did, I simply…

BE ON YOUR GUARDSMAN Nationwide, nearly half the couples that get married today end up divorced. The aphorism about the difference between the way relationships are handled by this generation and the so-called greatest generation is “back then when something was broke, we tried to fix it, not buy a new one.” Since the 1911…

WORDS FAIL TO EXPRESS THE TRIUMPH When one of the finest chorales in the world offers a musical compendium from their last five decades, one expects a sterling program. Yet the Los Angeles Master Chorale’s 50th Season Celebration at Disney Hall went beyond mere expectation. LAMC cleverly compiled signature works heard under the leadership of…

MORE THAN A CELEBRATION The Walt Disney Concert Hall celebrates its 10th anniversary this week, but the program last night was more of a celebration of The Los Angeles Philharmonic. Do Angelinos truly understand that one of the finest orchestras in the world is in their own backyard? Even with Gustavo Dudamel at the helm,…

RELATIVITY,  STAGED A trusty theater friend witnessed Einstein on the Beach at BAM in New York last year, and she told me it was not just one of the greatest theatrical experiences of her life, but one of the greatest experiences she had ever had, period. I have consistently heard that the 1976 opera by Philip…

MOUSE TRAP Flowers for Algernon has had many incarnations since it was first published as a short story in 1959 in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction: a novel, a telecast, a film (which won an Oscar for actor Cliff Robertson) and a Broadway musical. At its heart, the story is a moving account…

A THREE-RING ONE-MAN SHOW Start with a true story about a family circus that shot to prominence even though it eschewed big-business-conglomerate backing, ran in a single ring without exotic animals, and interacted with and embraced the communities where it performed. Spice it up with superbly executed acrobatics. Top it off by having it performed…

HEAVENLY SAINTS PRESERVE US Ten days after opening night, Luis Alfaro still wasn’t off-book for his one-man confessional work-in-progress.   This matters because the moment when he leaves his lightly comic, heavily clichéd script, and whirls himself into performance-art dervish, it is transporting and beautiful; but there is only one such occasion in an hour and…

SAFETY IN NUMBERS The production of Carmen that opened this week at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion has been seen before. Emilio Sagi’s production originated at Madrid’s Teatro Real and was previously seen in Los Angeles in 2004 and 2008. To put it mildly, this seems like a safe choice for the season opener: With music…

STARRY STARRY NIGHT David Roussève’s full-length dance piece that opened at REDCAT last night is something of a miracle. Choreographed, written, and directed by Roussève, Stardust effectively amalgamates so many elements of multi-disciplinary performing arts–theater, story, dance, multi-media–that it should be a template for any dance company that desires to move, touch and inspire their…

THE HEART OF THE MATTER Larry Kramer’s blistering condemnation that chronicles the early years of the AIDS epidemic has arrived with an intimate production that highlights the urgency of the play but produces mixed results in casting and direction. A brilliant juxtaposition of love story and agit prop, The Normal Heart follows activist and unruly…