Los Angeles

PAST TO THE FUTURE To be honest, I was not a fan of Rogue Artist Ensemble’s Hyperbole at [inside] The Ford last year. Their current work, D Is for Dog, clearly elucidates what was lacking in that production (and, indeed, much of American Theatre): compelling storytelling. When the venerable company’s use of modern technology (digital…

ENTERTAINING, BUT HARDLY INTRUSIVE When Ralph Waldo Emerson referred to an “interloper” in his writings, it was most assuredly with a negative connotation, for in the 1800s an interloper was one who selfishly intruded on others for the purposes of rank, privilege or money. The interlopers of Gary Lennon’s world premiere play at the Bootleg…

THERE’S LIFE IN THE OLD BOY YET I couldn’t think of a better way to pop my Hollywood Fringe Festival cherry than with Steve Ochs and his solo outing, Life in the Middle Ages, which has rightfully extended its run. This show is a perfect example of why the Fringe is so important: in the…

WHO’S CHEATING WHOM? The spookiest image of Death (with a capital “D”) is that of a tall, hooded, scythe-carrying figure. It merely points with bony finger towards that ultimate location to which we are all headed: the end of life. The aspect that makes this sinister figure all the more terrifying is that it doesn’t…

THE BEGINNING AND THE END Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years is contextually brilliant: it is a two-character musical that starts at the end of a five year relationship for the woman, but at the beginning for the man. Her songs go backward in time and his forward. In the middle of the 85…

TOO MUCH SUGAR ON THE DONUTS If Superior Donuts had come to us as a new American play by an unknown writer, we might have said that, despite a certain soft-headedness and the feeling that it was the pilot for a socially-conscious situation comedy, it was the work of a promising young writer who has…

THE SCHEHERAZADE OF POP CULTURE There are a thousand and one ways to tell a story. In Margo Veil, Len Jenkin, one of our most intriguing and often exasperating playwrights, becomes a modern Scheherazade, weaving elements of contemporary pop culture into the ancient art of fable-making. And, in one of those rare moments when a…

FLEUR ELISE NOBLE: 2 DIMENSIONAL LIFE OF HER This is to installation art what NEVA is to theater: a sublime illustration of the form. Noble’s collage (of projected images, cut-outs, drawings, puppets, paper, and Ms. Elise herself in constant movement somewhere in the space) creates a crisp black-and-white world, with more shades of grey in…

When a festival opens on as brilliantly shattering a note as the RADAR L.A. FESTIVAL did on Tuesday night with Neva, expectations for the rest of the festival run very high indeed. From Chile’s Teatro en El Blanco, vividly written and directed by Guillermo Calderón, who is the company’s leader, Neva brings a jolt of…

Editor’s note:   Brewsie and Willie is currently running as part of the Radar L.A. Theater Festival.   This review is reprinted from an earlier production of the show in July 2010. We are printing the text only.   To see the review as it originally appeared, visit http://old.stageandcinema.com/brewsie_and_willie.html The current production ends June 26, 2011.   For   tickets,…