Los Angeles

A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE OF ACTING Last August, Time’s cover story, “A World Without Bees,” brought to light a frightening occurrence: In recent years, there have been mass deaths of honeybees around the globe, known as “Colony Collapse Disorder.” Scientists are surmising the reasons – agricultural pesticides, parasitic mites, bacterial and HIV-like diseases – but they’ve…

A CLOSED-MOUTH KISS There are so many sexual allusions and situations in Cole Porter’s Kiss Me, Kate that it is remarkable the musical came out in 1948. I surmise the reason that Porter got away with such startling and blatant innuendos was his ability to wrap them up in sophisticated, witty lyrics. The musical is…

SEEING WHAT’S INVISIBLE In describing Invisible Cities, allow me to paraphrase Gore Vidal’s critique of Italo Calvino’s 1972 novel of the same name on which this production is based: Of all tasks in reviewing director Yuval Sharon’s marvelously inventive theater event in Union Station, recounting Christopher Cerrone’s opera is the most difficult and perfectly irrelevant….

COMPRESSED CRUELTY IN A SMALL STRINDBERG SHOCKER August Strindberg, the “father of modern psychological drama,” told his publisher that Creditors, a drama that he prized as much as he did his masterpiece Miss Julie (also written in 1888) was “humorous, loveable, all of its characters sympathetic.” Nothing could be further from the truth – as…

A LASTING IMPRESSION Fab Fin Esa-Pekka Salonen returned to the hall where he established the reputation of LA Phil, educated audiences to challenging new music, and garnered adulation for his graceful manner and acute interpretation of various works, classical and contemporary. The program this past weekend set the stage for Salonen to do as he…

AN EASY PILL TO SWALLOW Thrillers are always a tough act to pull off in the theater which is why they are so rarely produced. When the show is a revival (or reworking as it is here) and it has been turned into a widely seen motion picture the ability to involve, surprise and shock…

A DIFFERENT TYPE OF SOCRATIC PROBLEM Perhaps one of the reasons Socrates has become a god-like figure in the world of philosophy is that we know very little about the actual man who existed during the dawn of writing. He kept no diaries and wrote no treatises, yet philosophies attributed to the classical Greek thinker’”Socratic…

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…