Los Angeles

AWAKENING TO THE FACT THAT IT’S A POORLY WRITTEN MUSICAL I feel sorry for the cast and crew of Over the Moon Productions (OTM). The hard-working Broadway-caliber talent in Spring Awakening on the Egyptian Arena Stage is phenomenal, (especially the standout of the night Payson Lewis in a minor role); the technical design is superior…

YOUR OLD-AGE HOME FOR THE CLASSICS Julia Rodriguez-Elliott’s production of Moliere’s The Bungler reminds me of nothing so much as the last two shows I’ve seen at A Noise Within this season.   It’s not bad.   It respects (not to say reveres, puts on a pedastal, suffocates with solicitude) its text, and presents it in an…

WELCOME TO THE CITY OF ANKLES At the age of 34, dancer and choreographer Benjamin Millepied is poised to become a household name; an extraordinary feat considering that the best-known figures in dance are those trailblazers who came to emblemize originality and invention in ballet and on Broadway long ago – names such as Cunningham,…

JACKPOT Attending a huge array of theater and concerts is akin to a slot machine: the entertainment equivalent to three cherries does exist out there, but a huge amount of time, money and effort can be spent with little guarantee of a return on your investment – the amount of blanks and lemons out there…

KILLER HUNK, KILLER SET, AND KILLER STORY MAKE UP FOR BLOODLESS PERFORMANCES As evidenced by his astoundingly beautiful production of Ira Levin’s 1978 comedy-thriller Deathtrap, Jon Imperato is a paradigm of producing and most assuredly knows how to take a tiny, black box theater and transform it into a Broadway-caliber showcase of technical and directorial…

NOT AS MIGHTY AS EXPECTED The Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles (GMCLA) has performed everywhere from the Alex Theatre to Avalon Hollywood and the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, but never has the world-class chorus been in a venue as dramatic and spectacular as the First Congregational Church. Their latest concert, Mighty Pipes, under the spirited…

IT’S JUST IT’S JUST SEX Cole Porter wrote sex comedies; Richard Brinsley Sheridan and William Shakespeare wrote them.   Michael Frayn wrote them.   Georges Feydeau and Arthur Schnitzler wrote them.   There’s nothing wrong with sex comedies.   A sex comedy can be very funny and therapeutic when it’s done right, and even when it’s done wrong, it…

FEEDBACK: THE BIG TEASE Everything that works and doesn’t work about Jane Miller’s new play Feedback turns on one thing: Nudity. In terms of talking the talk, the whole exercise is about getting naked’”literally at first, then emotionally. Yet when it comes time to walk the walk, bra and panties stay firmly in place. And…

BORN-AGAIN PORN STAR? Nudity can have a sacred character to it, depending on one’s motives. There are Christian nudist colonies, for example, whose goal is to return humankind to its prelapsarian state, that is, to be as naked and innocent as Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. In The Dream Team (1989), Christopher…

THE DISNEYFICATION OF LINCOLN’S DEATH In many ways, Hershey Felder is a theater machine. In his four previous self-crafted one-man shows, the earnest and multi-talented actor/pianist/composer brought to life Gershwin, Bernstein, Chopin, and Beethoven. The man has created a fervent and dedicated fan base around the world, engaging audiences with his intensely dazzling musical interpretations:…

MEMORIES OF SEAGULLS PAST If you have never seen  The Seagull –   though I can’t imagine a seasoned theatergoer who hasn’t, can you? –   you just might possibly get an inkling of what Anton Chekhov’s masterpiece should be in the Antaeus Company’s otherwise listless and tone-deaf production, which stubbornly refuses to illuminate the quirkiness of human…

ONE VERY, VERY SMALL STEP FOR DAMON CHUA Tony Gatto gets an A for effort, having mounted a colorful if unnecessarily literal production of a Damon Chua script that defies dramaturgy and good sense even as it embraces bad and even offensive conventions.   1969, billed as “a fantastical odyssey through the American mindscape,” feels more…

PASSION GUARANTEED Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) wrote the St. John Passion for the Good Friday Service in Leipzig, Germany in 1724, just 3 months into his new job as “Cantor” of Leipzig.   The passion, a form which traces its origins to the 4th Century AD, is the story of the trial, torture, crucifixion and death…

“IF I AM DEAD TO LIFE, WHAT AM I ALIVE TO?” In The Woman in the Wall, Overtone Industries reinvents a tradition of medieval mystery plays in a stunning new chamber opera about a 14th  century Anchoress, voluntarily confined for a life of solitary religious study. This entrancing performance takes the audience on a spiritual journey…