Los Angeles

A RARELY HEARD SYMPHONY TRUMPS AN OFT-HEARD RHAPSODY It never makes sense to me why Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 3 is still not in the popular orchestral repertoire. Yes, it is approximately 20 minutes shorter than his other Symphonies – No. 1 (1896) and No. 2 (1908) – containing three instead of four movements. It was…

IN THE SHADOW OF STARS David Wiener’s ten-year-old, never-before-produced play Cassiopeia needs work.   As usual at Boston Court, this experimental piece has received a production so grand that it more than warrants seeing.   Also typical of Boston Court, this challenging show is so sharp that it highlights the weaknesses of its script, such that Mr….

WALKING THE TIGHTROPE STRIKES A PERFECT BALANCE AND SOARS TO THEATRICAL PERFECTION Lab24, the resident experimental theater company of the 24th STreet Theatre [sic], has scored a stupendous success with their debut production Walking the Tightrope. Based on a lyric poem by Mike Kenny, director Debbie Devine has transformed the ode into a highly stylized…

GOTH MEETS GIRL During the first five minutes of Lovesick I was beginning to think I had ended up at a school play. The acting was highly exaggerated, the props looked like elementary school paper-mache and the dialogue was doggerel verse. Fortunately, it got better. I wish I could say it got a lot better….

A RAUCHNY REUNION FOR THE PEANUTS GANG Set at Charlie Brown’s funeral in modern-day Los Angeles, Brendan Hunt’s raunchy parody, Absolutely Filthy, is an admirably smutty comedy which imagines a dysfunctional reunion of the Peanuts gang, now all grown-up, cocksure, and full of middle-age disgruntlement. Under the fluid comedic direction of Jeremy Aldridge at Sacred…

OPEN THIS SNAKE CAN AND ALL THAT POPS OUT IS WHINE AND CHEESE Three BFFs get together to commiserate over their fates in the world premiere of The Snake Can, Kathryn Grant’s (Hermetically Sealed) shallow and unfulfilling salute to middle age angst. Devoid of subtext and any semblance of substance the show struggles unsuccessfully to…

A UNIQUELY ENTERTAINING MISSED OPPORTUNITY The concept of Happy Face Sad Face is an intriguing one that consists of two one act plays; the first a drama, the second a comedy. Now before you go all “been there, seen that” on me, consider this twist. The program teases that both one acts are “:the same…

THE SLIPPERY SIGNIFICANCE OF GREAT AND GOOD A person’s true character is revealed in crisis. The road to triumph is filled with battles lost and sacrifices made, but overall it is worth the pain and perseverance. Tracey Scott Wilson’s The Good Negro follows Reverend James Lawrence, who leads the civil rights movement in Birmingham, Alabama…

AVOIDABLE MADNESS There’s a show running right now at a smaller venue of a state-of-the-art West Side arts complex.   It’s a foreign import, a one-woman show that, in a different format as Ruby Wax: Losing It, has spent years touring asylums with its garbled message of exculpatory hope for those suffering mental illness.   Because the…

A LOT OF HOLES IN THIS CONCERT, AND A LOT OF PROBLEMS ARE BURIED IN THOSE HOLES Mean Streets, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Last Temptation of Christ, Goodfellas, Cape Fear, The Age of Innocence, Casino, Gangs of New York, The Aviator, The Departed, and Hugo. This list of iconic movies…

DOSTOEVSKY’S NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground at Zombie Joe’s Underground Theatre in North Hollywood ought not to surface. This willfully banal production of the Russian classic refrains from connecting with the audience and instead, serves only their self-absorbed conceits. More concerned with making a joke about Lankershim Boulevardland than it is with both  relating…

A REQUIEM IN FLOWER The Los Angeles Master Chorale captures the shared human experience with a pairing of Brahms’ sublime Ein Deutsches Requiem and the West Coast premiere of The World in Flower, Peter Lieberson’s lyrical and moving message of tolerance written in memory of his wife and muse, famed mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, with…

TALKING HEADS Mark St. Germain’s commercially successful two-hander Freud’s Last Session, suggested by The Question of God by Dr. Armand M. Nicoli, Jr., is about a speculative meeting between the titular founder of Psychoanalysis and Christian author/Oxford professor C. S. Lewis.   Having cut its teeth at The Barrington Stage Company followed by a long run…

IN PRAISE OF MOZART’S REQUIEM I’ll never forget the first time I heard Mozart’s Requiem. I was wandering through the streets of Paris on a warm summer evening and I happened to stop at the magnificent Madeleine Church on the Place de la Concorde. Inside was a full orchestra with choir and soloists rehearsing the…

EXOTICISM INCARNATE Renée Fleming and Susan Graham, two of the ecosphere’s leading superstars of opera, have crisscrossed the globe accumulating legions of fans. While they have on occasion appeared in the same opera together, rare is the opportunity to see these two songstresses sing for you in a salon-styled concert. Well, pop the cork on…