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Los Angeles
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Theater Preview: JITNEY (Mark Taper Forum)
JUMP FOR JITNEY It is an incontestable fact that every play August Wilson wrote justifies being looked at again and again. It has been fascinating to see how the moral, political and emotional life of African-Americans has been given the sweep of history by concentrating on the ten decades of a tumultuous century and how…
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Jazz Preview: GERALD CLAYTON (Solo Piano at LACC)
GERALD CLAYTON SOLOS AT LACC ONE NIGHT ONLY There are few times in life that one witnesses an artist and knows immediately that something is different. I can even catch it on a recording. That specialness that can’t be replicated by imitation or study. Well, to quote Thelonius Monk: “Know it when you hear it.”…
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Theater Review: THE THANKSGIVING PLAY (Geffen)
THANKS BUT NO THANKS I can’t imagine a riper subject for satire than the chokehold that far-left liberal political correctness has on America. Playwright Larissa Fasthorse offers her 2015 comedy at The Geffen that is chock-full of the ridiculing we need, but satire without a story gets old fast. Instead of farce, which is grounded…
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Music Review: GARRICK OHLSSON IN RECITAL (The Wallis in Beverly Hills)
GARRIFIC It’s been almost a half-century since Garrick Ohlsson won the International Frédéric Chopin Competition in Warsaw, so I attended his recital at The Wallis in Beverly Hills last Friday with a bit of trepidation. And seeing his large frame in person, I wondered at first that he should be hauling the piano not playing…
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Theater Review: THE GOODBYE GIRL (Musical Theatre Guild at the Alex Theatre in Glendale)
HELLO TO GOODBYE The Musical Theatre Guild should be proud of this fine, coherent, splendidly cast reading of The Goodbye Girl, with principals Wendy Rosoff and Will Collyer charismatically suited to their characters, in great voice, and as a couple, exuding all the essential romantic chemistry. After a mere twenty-five hours rehearsal, and with only…
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Theater Review: EIGHT NIGHTS (Antaeus Theatre Company in Glendale)
OY VEY A barrage of human suffering — anti-Semitism, racism, anti-Muslim hostility, misogyny, LGBT closets, slavery, Japanese-American internment camps, miscarriages, PTSD, death, and a literal onstage kitchen sink — are given the holiday treatment in Jennifer Maisel’s Hanukkah-inspired Eight Nights. Highlighting eight not-so-festive nights over eight decades in the life of Holocaust survivor Rebecca Blum,…
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Theater Interview: JUSTIN SAYRE (writer and star of RAVENSWOOD MANOR at the Celebration Theatre)
MIND YOUR MANOR Now camping through November 24 is Ravenswood Manor, a much-needed send-up of all things soap, perhaps even the one you dropped in the shower. You never know with funnyman Justin Sayre, writer of this brand-new series with “wood” and “man” in the title. Think chunks of Dark Shadows sprinkled with even more…
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Theater Review: MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET: A LIVE MUSICAL RADIO PLAY (Actors Co-op in Hollywood)
MIRACLE ON NORTH GOWER STREET If you’re in need of a miracle, look no further than the Los Angeles premiere of Lance Arthur Smith‘s new adaptation of Miracle on 34th Street: A Live Musical Radio Play presented by Actors Co-op at the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood. Based on the Lux Radio Theatre broadcast and…
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Theater Review: BIG RIVER: THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN (Rubicon Theatre in Ventura)
THE MIGHTY MISSISSIPPI JUST GOT MIGHTIER Do whatever you can. Take a raft, pretend you’re a duke, toss pig blood around your lean-to so everyone thinks you’re dead, but get to Rubicon Theatre in Ventura for what is easily the most satisfying and uplifting musical experience in recent memory. In Big River, adapted from the…
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Music Review: DUDAMEL CONDUCTS BRUCKNER (Los Angeles Philharmonic)
LIVE MUSIC IS ALWAYS SUSTENANCE I’m happy to report that Andrew Norman’s Sustain, an LA Phil centennial commission that premiered last year — and saw a second showing last weekend at Disney Hall — is far more agreeable than much of the atmospheric “new” music these days, and a much more promising avenue for this…
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Theater Review: THE LAST FIVE YEARS (Cygnet Theatre Company in San Diego)
TWO WAY STREET INTERSECTS AT TOUCHING PERSONAL DRAMA The Last Five Years shares the joys, trials, and failures of two people, Jamie (Michael Louis Cusimano) and Cathy (Racquel Williams), in their deeply-loving relationship. At first, it might seem like they are in two different relationships, almost schizophrenically so, because the songs they sing (and virtually…
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Opera Preview: THE MAGIC FLUTE (Los Angeles Opera at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion)
MAGIC CAN STRIKE THRICE IN THE SAME PLACE In 2013, a new production of The Magic Flute from Berlin’s Komische Oper became a sell-out sensation, courtesy of the Los Angeles Opera. In 2016, it returned just as magical as it was the first time. Now, it returns to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion starting Saturday, November 16,…
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Theater Review: THE MYSTERY OF IRMA VEP (Actors Co-op in Hollywood)
A PENNY DREADFUL SAVED ISN’T ALWAYS EARNED Back in the 1800s, the Industrial Revolution was in full swing in merry ole England. The working class was becoming more educated and printing was becoming more affordable. To quench the thirst of the masses for every day diversions, “penny dreadfuls” hit the scene. These serialized fictional publications,…
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Theater Review: LA VIE EN ROSE (Julia Migenes at the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles)
A LIVING ROSE If you have even a modest love of French songs, or just the art of performance, of hearing and seeing a singer bring a lyric to vibrant life, do yourself a favor and go see this consummate artist in a sweet, masterful evening of Chanson. Julia Migenes is one of those rare…
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Theater Review: IN TROUSERS (Lounge Theatre)
GETTING IN TROUSERS William Finn’s musical masterpiece Falsettos is a melding of two one-acts: March of the Falsettos ’” debatably one of the best scores of the 1980s ’” which opened Off-Broadway in 1981, and Falsettoland, which opened in 1990 at the Lucille Lortel, where unprepared audience members like myself needed boxes of tissues to survive the…
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Music Review: JOSHUA BELL AND ALESSIO BAX (Recital at Walt Disney Concert Hall)
BELL, BAX, BACH: BEAUTIFUL, BRILLIANT, BREATHTAKING I first saw Italian pianist Alessio Bax five years ago when he made his Los Angeles premiere playing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24 with the L.A. Chamber Orchestra. I remember thinking he has all the right moves but had yet to incorporate personality into his work. While he demonstrated…
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Theater Review: JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR 50TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR
50 YEARS SINCE ITS BIRTH AND JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR FINALLY RISES AGAIN Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar is given the rock concert treatment for its 50th Anniversary Tour, and that’s precisely what it needs to soar. It’s a mash-up of stadium staging with lead actors holding microphones and stands, music video,…
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Theater Review: MIKE BIRBIGLIA’S THE NEW ONE (Tour at The Ahmanson in Los Angeles)
TOSSING OUT THE BABY BUT KEEPING THE BATHWATER Reluctance takes center stage in Center Theater Group’s production of Mike Birbiglia’s theatrical child The New One. In his 2018 one-man show, the comedian confesses to cold feet at his wife’s suggestion of having a child. That aversion to risk unfortunately finds its way to Birbiglia’s script,…
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Music Review: JAVIER CAMARENA IN RECITAL (LA Opera at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion)
CAMARENA HAS BELLAS ARTES IN HIS SOUL When I was 19, a friend asked if I’d like to drive to San Francisco from L.A. to hear Luciano Pavarotti in recital. Being a musical theater buff, it took quite a bit of convincing to get me into anything that smacked of opera, especially 400 miles away….
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Los Angeles Theater Review: ALL MY SONS (Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice)
THE SINS OF THE FATHER There’s no doubt that Arthur Miller’s 1947 play All My Sons is an astonishing piece of theater. 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. It is based on a true story which…
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