Los Angeles

THE TROUBLE WITH BHUTAN I am not advocating that bad directors should face a firing squad in the town square in full view of the entire community. But I have seen three plays now that were directed by Elina de Santos and, in baseball parlance, three strikes and you’re out. In none of the plays…

A BIGGER NOISE NEEDS TO BE MADE WITHIN A Noise Within (ANW), one of the nation’s leading classical repertory theatre companies, has done the unimaginable: after 19 seasons in a Masonic building in Glendale, they not only amassed enough donations to build a permanent home in Pasadena, but they started their 20th season without a…

WHAT’S COOKING IN HER KITCHEN? In the bracingly intelligent and potentially powerful Hermetically Sealed, playwright Kathryn Graf has set out to explore the ways in which families deceive themselves and how, in order to protect each other, they somehow manage to effectively destroy their own lives. Since each secret is revealed as it might be…

TENNESSEE W’S MASTER CLASS FOR ACTORS The New American Theatre production of Five Beauties (or, as it turned out to be at the performance I attended, Four Beauties) is not like going to the theater at all: it’s like attending an acting class in which each scene is beautifully executed and is unified by the…

DANCE MACABRE Although there are only two performances left of the Zombie Joe’s Underground production of The Cask of Amontillado, this is a piece that should be extended; if it is given a chance to find its audience, it could run as long as ZJU’s Urban Death. This is art in its purest form; Zombie…

AN ANACHRONISTIC LOOK AT RACE IN AMERICA There’s no doubt that Arthur Miller’s 1947 play All My Sons is an astonishing piece of theatre. Not only is the writing brilliant, but the themes addressed are timeless and important. It’s difficult to imagine how the play could possibly be improved. Yet that is exactly what the…

A COWARD IN PEACETIME [Undelivered letter to Noël Coward discovered in North Hollywood:] My Darling Noël: Sir Anthony here, writing to you from the palm-drenched regions of Los Angeles, where I am taking a much-needed holiday from the horrors of war. (Let me know, Dear Boy, if I could peddle some of your film scripts…

THIS FAIR IS JUST THAT: FAIR Science Fairs are an opportunity for students to apply scientific methods to an experiment and present them at a competition. The best way to take first prize from the judges is to make a genuine breakthrough or invent something new. Judges admire creativity and innovation, and look for novel…

THE REALLY BIGGIE TITTY COMMITTEE What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you’re told that you’re going to see a show with two women (Emma Powell and Mandi Lodge) who are going to display their tits on stage in amusing ways that are calculated to make us laugh?   You probably don’t even have…

A BRIDEGROOM ROBBED OF ITS CHARM Anxiously anticipating The Robber Bridegroom at International City Theatre (ICT), I felt like an excited bride who had already slept with her soon-to-be husband, but found on the wedding night that her bridegroom was cold, unimaginative, and flaccid.   If every bridegroom on the planet had the qualities of Todd…

ACCESS YOUR INNER DINOSAUR The Dinosaur Within digs up some curious storylines, but these fragments fail to cohere into a compelling narrative. In its West Coast premiere at Boston Court, John Walch’s play flounders in a fossil-filled fiasco. Walch aims to cut across the densely-sedimented layers of time in a drama of mourning and loss,…

A WILD WEST PARTY IN CULVER CITY The Rude Mechs’ I’ve Never Been So Happy works overtime to please. This Western extravaganza spills into the Kirk Douglas Theater’s lobby for an interactive romp before and after the show, as well as during an extended intermission. Audience members who embrace the Frito pies and margaritas, the…

FAUSTIAN PHANTASMAGORIA “There is nothing new under the sun,” said a Jewish writer more than two thousand years ago. While such a sentiment may not have been intended to discourage creativity, it can’t help but betray a certain weariness with the world. And such seems to be the present mood in Hollywood, where the big…

GOIN’ A’COURTIN’ IN THE BACKWOODS OF GLENDALE Glendale Centre Theatre continues its 64th season with a rambunctious production of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, the highly successful MGM musical from 1954. Although the stage version was a flop on Broadway, it has nonetheless become a popular staple for musical theatre companies. Written in a sexist…

ON ONE’S VERY BEST POOR BEHAVIOR Ian is a monster. Oh, not your fire-eating dragon sort of monster. Quite possibly you’ve met this kind of monster yourself. He’s British; he’s smart; he’s opinionated; he’s articulate; he is, more often than not, an alcoholic, although the kind of alcoholic who, you are bound to admit, can…

IDENTITY CRISIS In a Mumbai flat, Deepa Kirpalani (Lina Patel), who lost her husband two years earlier, lives under the strict Hindu rules of widowhood. She never leaves her home, wears all white, goes without jewelry or make-up, and spends her days praying for moksha – liberation from the endless cycle of death and rebirth….