Los Angeles

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…

COUNT THIS SHEEP AND FALL ASLEEP As dull as its premise is exciting, Jaime Robledo’s production of Edward Einhorn’s 2010 play, adapted from Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, could not be further divorced from its source. The novel is a philosophical visit to the defining boundaries of human nature, and…

A VOYAGE YOU HAVE TO TAKE Have you ever been to a Chamber Concert of virtuosic musicians in a grand venue such as Walt Disney Hall or Carnegie Hall but wished you could experience the program in an intimate setting? Do you wish that you could be just a few feet from the musicians? Have…

YON METHINKS SHE STANDS Over the last year or so, some of my best time in an audience has been spent watching Paige Lindsey White.   Twice in collaboration with director Jessica Kubzansky at Boston Court, once with Debbie Devine at 24th Street, this actor has embodied the reasons I revere artists.   Sometimes portraying children, sometimes…

SHAFTED! There’s a story to be mined in “them thar” hills of West Ver-ginny but unfortunately The Burnt Part Boys, making its west coast premiere at the Third Street Theatre, doesn’t dig deep enough to unearth it. The West Coast Ensemble Theater has ventured below ground before with their award-winning production of Floyd Collins back…