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Los Angeles
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Theater Review: THE CHINESE LADY (Greenway Court Theatre in Los Angeles)
DECORATIVE CHINA I saw this beautifully sad, poignant, dark play last Saturday evening and I’m still thinking about it. Thanks to the wonderful writing, acting and directing this two-person outing based on a true story is that memorable. In 1834 a 14-year-old Chinese girl, Afong Moy (the excellent Amy Shu), arrived in New York from…
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Concert Review: BARRY MANILOW (Hollywood Bowl)
BARRY ME BACK TO THE SEVENTIES You know when glowsticks have been placed on each seat of the Hollywood Bowl prior to Barry Manilow’s extremely well-sold concert that there would be heart-wrenching numbers ahead. And there obviously were. Easy-listening, high-charting, orchestral pop tunes “Even Now,” “Weekend in New England,” and “Mandy” among them, backed up…
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Theater Review: LATIN HISTORY FOR MORONS (Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles)
MORON THAT NOW One-man stage phenom John Leguizamo, who has popularized the stories of his Columbian/Puerto Rican/Bronx Ghetto peeps and their culture in semi-autobiographical shows Mambo Mouth, Freak, Spic-O-Rama, and Ghetto Klown, returns with lefty, sobering, highly entertaining monologue that brings home the tragic 3000-year history of Latino Americans. While the show is titled Latin History for…
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Theater Preview: SKINTIGHT (Geffen Playhouse)
GET SKINNED Joshua Harmon’s new play Skintight assays the nature of love, the power of attraction, and the ways in which a superficial culture persists in teaching its children that all that matters is what’s on the inside. This dramedy completed its successful run at Roundabout in NY, and opens at The Geffen Playhouse this…
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Dance Preview: FORMULAE AND FAIRY TALES (Invertigo Dance Theatre World Premiere at The Broad Stages in Santa Monica)
ONES AND ZEROS, APPLES AND POISONS, QUEENS AND WITCHES, FORMULAE AND FAIRY TALES A new dance work by Invertigo Dance Theatre is making its world premiere at The Broad Stages in Santa Monica next weekend on Friday and Saturday, September 13 & 14, at 7:30. Formulae and Fairy Tales is based on the life and…
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Theater Review: WITCH (Geffen Playhouse)
A PITCH FOR THIS RICH WITCH Written by Jen Silverman and directed by Marti Lyons, Witch is inspired by William Rowley’s Jacobian 1621 play Witch of Edmonton. The classic story follows Elizabeth Sawyer, a woman forced to the outskirts of society who finds revenge on her bullying neighbors by selling her soul to the devil. Well,…
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Theater Review: FEFU AND HER FRIENDS (Odyssey Theatre Ensemble in West L.A.)
FRIENDLY FEMINIST FIRE Fefu and Her Friends is one of the most famous plays by the recently deceased feminist avant-garde playwright María Irene Fornés, a Cuban American who has won nine Obie Awards including the award for sustained achievement. After seeing this production directed by Denise Blasor, I understand why. Fornés brilliantly captures the time…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: FRANKENSTEIN (A Noise Within in Pasadena)
ENDURING THE MONSTER Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851) wrote her famous “ghost story,” Frankenstein, in 1818, while on a vacation on Lake Geneva with her husband, the poet Percy Shelley, the explorer Lord Byron, and Dr. John Polidon. It was a gloomy summer and these Romantic poets each wrote a Gothic story of some kind to…
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Theater Review: EARLY BIRDS (Moving Arts)
EARLY BIRDS GETS THE BIRD The phrase “early bird” generally denotes someone who is an early-morning riser or who shows up anywhere early, words usually attributed to the elderly. In Dana Schwartz’s light comedy, two senior women — one rich, one middle-class poor — find themselves on the first day of an ocean voyage beating…
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Theater Review: 33 1/3 – HOUSE OF DREAMS (San Diego Repertory Theatre)
TRIBUTE TO THE HITS FROM GOLD STAR Gold Star Recording Studio might not be a household name, but the musicians they recorded for certainly are: Tina Turner, Sonny and Cher, and the Beach Boys are just hint at the long list. Gold Star turned out over 120 Top-40 songs in their thirty year history. With…
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Theater Review: SHREK (3-D Theatricals in Cerritos)
SHREK IS A SHRUG OF A MUSICAL; BUT THIS PRODUCTION IS SURE AND SHARP Shrek The Musical is a mystifying experience. The whole thing is rather inane, versus the sophisticated silliness of Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. The first time I saw the show was the final performance of the National…
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Review: ALL SHOOK UP (San Diego Musical Theatre)
A HUNK-A HUNK-A BURNING FUN On the heels of Cygnet’s Rock of Ages, in which every tune is an 80s hit, comes San Diego Musical Theatre’s staging of All Shook Up, in which every musical moment is an Elvis Presley song. (It played Broadway in 2005 with 213 performances.) It’s an interesting trend, fitting in…
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Interview: VINCE MELOCCHI (writer of world premiere ANDY WARHOL’S TOMATO at Pacific Resident Theatre)
PEELING A TOMATO If you’ve ever wondered what Andy Warhol was like as a kid, perhaps writer Vince Melocchi’s new play will give you a better understanding of the iconic artist, far beyond his eccentric persona. This curiosity became the biggest challenge for the playwright, finding the voice of a teenage Andy Warhola who was…
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Theater Review: SCRAPS (Matrix Theatre Company)
GIVE US A SECOND ACT WE DESERVE; ALL WE END UP WITH IS SCRAPS The angry young man syndrome is nothing new — think Protestant reformer Martin Luther! — but it sure found a home in the theater when British playwright John Osborne wrote the seminal Look Back in Anger in 1956. Jimmy, the uptight,…
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Theater Review: WEST SIDE STORY (5-Star Theatricals in Thousand Oaks)
A RESONATING STORY It rarely happens. “The Broadway Chill” I call it. That moment when an already amazing show is given the perfect and unexpected staging which heightens emotion, inducing moist eyes and gooseflesh as only can happen in the theater. Having seen West Side Story staged many times, I can say that rare is…
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Theater Review: STRAIGHT (Loud Fridge Theatre Group in San Diego)
WALKING THE STRAIGHT LINE 1982’s groundbreaking film Making Love gave us our first cinematic look at a man torn between the woman he loves and the man who fulfills his needs. Since then, we have been many such stories in the arts about one who genuinely cares about an opposite-gender partner while feeling incomplete because…
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Theater Review: INTO THE WOODS (Hollywood Bowl)
THRIVING WOODS Somewhere between “Once Upon a Time” and “Happily Ever After” there is a very adult world of tests, losses, disappointments, and grief. Despite this, we assert our agency; or as a baker’s wife sings in Into the Woods, “If you know what you want, then you go and you find it, and you get…
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Theater Review: ANOTHER ROLL OF THE DICE (North Coast Rep in San Diego)
LESSER LOESSER Well, here’s a jukebox musical just bursting at the seams with promise. And North Coast Rep’s production of Another Roll of the Dice is definitely kinda cute, a far cry from the overblown, disappointing jukeboxers we’re forced to endure. It may get a life at regional theaters with subscription audiences who thrive on…
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Theater Preview: RAGTIME (Chance Theater)
CHANCE THEATER’S RAGTIME EXTENDS TO AUGUST 11 This critically-acclaimed intimate reimagining of the epic musical will be adding ten performances over the course of a two-week extension. Chance Theater, Orange County’s best small theater oufit, will be extending its sold-out run of Ragtime: The Musical. Based on the novel Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow, the…
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Theater Review: MISS SAIGON (National Tour)
IT USED TO BE A MISS; NOW, THE HEAT IS ON IN SAIGON Infinitely stronger than the original Broadway outing, this national tour of Miss Saigon overcomes a still strangely muddled plot, some awkward sophomoric lyrics by Richard Maltby, Jr. and Alain Boublil, and a few scenes and songs that could be cut with no…
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