Los Angeles

IN FULL MEASURE In A Noise Within’s production of Measure for Measure, there is no doubt that laws which dictate morality are a reality, and The Duke (Robertson Dean) is concerned that he is too lax regarding the licentiousness of Vienna; he goes undercover as a Friar so that he may secretly observe his Deputy,…

CREATIVE TEAM SWIMS BEAUTIFULLY, BUT SCRIPT TAKES A DIVE SPOILER ALERT: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS INFORMATION THAT MAY SPOIL YOUR EXPERIENCE IF YOU PLAN TO SEE IT After a particularly challenging conversation with my theatre companion, it became clear that neither one of us could figure out why a play with so much potential could leave…

EVERYTHING IS DISTURBING AND FUNNY Acned, awkward, ambitious, angry, alienated, angst-ridden adolescent Charlotte (a must-see performance by Alana Dietze) is having a bad go at it (more so than the normal discomfiture of pubescence): her beautiful mother has recently passed on, and her father Harry (a moribund Christopher Fields) is drinking and lashing out at…

AMIABLE PARODY AMBLES AND RAMBLES I agree with director Paul Stroili that the mythical regard for John Steinbeck, Nobel Prize-winner for literature, makes his novels ripe for parody. Of Grapes and Nuts (the melding of The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men) was written 20 years ago by Doug Armstrong, Keith Cooper and…

ALBEE SEEING YOU IN ANAHEIM HILLS [Reviewer calls his mom:] “Hey, Mom! I just saw Edward Albee’s The Goat at The Chance Theater in Anaheim Hills. The body of work this company has produced in the last year is seminal to the small theatre scene in Los Angeles. OK, Ma, Los Angeles adjacent. “What is it about?…

MILK AND SYMPATHY Dear Harvey Milk: After you were assassinated in 1978 (along with San Francisco’s Mayor Moscone) the gay community responded with a peaceful candlelight march instead of a violent demonstration. It spoke to a population’s ability to deal with grief in an elegant, eloquent, and loving style – not unlike the current production…

“ANOTHER THING I LIKE IS THE HOME-RUN TROT†It is not so much that time has been unkind to Richard Greenberg’s Take Me Out but that we were perhaps too kind to it in the first place. Now, stripped of its self-importance and with enough time having elapsed since it won all its prizes and…

ALTHOUGH BUMPY, MERRILY DOES INDEED ROLL ALONG Because Actors Co-op’s production of Stephen Sondheim’s musical Merrily We Roll Along whirls along like a carnival ride, you would think the centrifugal force of Richard Israel’s staging would have actors flying from the stage. The opening number, “That Frank†has players smoothly whipping around at just the…

REMEMBERING TOM If revivals are to be the mainstay of our national theater – thereby turning our theaters into museums – then interpretative artists are going to have to find ways to guarantee that theater continues to be a living, breathing organism. One way is to rediscover the elements that define a classic and unify…

THE TALE OF THE JOURNALIST’S STRIFE Some playwrights have all the luck: Charles Busch wrote a series of theatrical cult hits in the 1980’s, such as Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, that were concurrently a send up and homage to classic movie genres; the main reason they were so damn funny is that Mr. Busch donned…

PERFORMANCE POWER Question: Why revive They’re Playing Our Song? Answer: Stephanie J. Block. Question: Why create a musical like Leap of Faith? Answer: Raul Esparza. Suggestion: Why not write a good musical for Stephanie J. Block and Raul Esparza? Reason: They would send a good song soaring into the stratosphere. Question: How can you be…

THERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD Playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins wants you to think about what you think about race in America. His agitprop play,  Neighbors, is intentionally provocative, knowingly provocative, and (wisely so) humorously provocative. His intention is to stir up the debate regarding race in America (specifically black versus white). His setting is a suburban neighborhood where…