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Theater Review: EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED (Ensemble Theatre Company in Santa Barbara)
SOME, NOT ALL, IS ILLUMINATED Sadly, not everything is illuminated in British playwright Simon Block’s fascinating but problematic adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer’s best-selling novel about a young American writer who hires a Ukrainian translator to take him to the town where a woman named Augustine saved his grandfather’s life in WWII. Or so Jonathan…
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Theater Review: CHAPS (Lamb’s Players in San Diego)
CHAPSCHTICK It’s 1944. The war is raging across the English Channel and the Germans could invade at any moment. Britain needs levity to get through these tough days. Miles (Charles Evans, Jr.) is the station manager for a BBC program and he’s got the solution. BBC has announced that a famous, beloved American country band…
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Theater Review: NOTES FROM THE FIELD (ZACH Theatre | Kleberg Stage in Austin, TX)
GRACE NOTES Now on the Kleberg Stage in Austin, TX, Anna Deavere Smith’s powerful, engrossing and resonant solo play — Notes from the Field — has been updated for four actors by ZACH’s Producing Artistic Director David Steakley. As always, Ms. Smith has crafted a series of first-person portrayals culled from hundreds of her own…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: ROALD DAHL’S MATILDA THE MUSICAL (5-Star Theatricals in Thousand Oaks)
A VAULTING MATILDA Imagine Annie with psychokinetic powers, Nancy Drew as a mind-reader, or Cinderella acting as her own fairy godmother. Self-empowerment fuels this upbeat, knock-down, pell-mell 2011 musical. A multi-Tony and Olivier award winner, Matilda the Musical is now being given a piping-hot presentation by 5-Star Theatricals at Kavli Theatre. The much motivated heroine…
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Review: FREAKY FRIDAY (San Diego Musical Theatre)
THANK GOD IT’S FREAKY FRIDAY On the weekend of her mother’s everything-must-be-perfect second wedding, teenager Ellie (Rivers Harris) is in a funk: little brother Fletcher (John Perry Wishchuk), who talks through puppets, is driving her crazy; mother Katherine (Cassie Bleher) is bossing everyone around; her fiancé Mike (CJ Ravine) is trying too hard to get…
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Theater Review: NO, NO, NANETTE (Candlelight Pavilion Dinner Theater in Claremont)
A YES AND NO NANETTE When the 1925 musical No, No, Nanette was revised and remounted in 1971, it was predicted to be a flop by folks in the Biz, but it was the buzz of the season with nostalgia-seeking audiences who were sick of assassinations and war; they were ready for a delightful, carefree…
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San Diego Theater Review: GABRIEL (North Coast Repertory in Solana Beach)
TENSION, HUMOR, AND INTRIGUE IN BEGUILING WWII DRAMEDY There would be much better places to live in 1943 than on the German-occupied British island of Guernsey, especially if you are sheltering your Jewish daughter-in-law Lily (Lilli Passero), who is passing for gentile. Our protagonist Jeanne (Jessica John) is not fond of Lily, but has no…
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Theater Review: FAMILIAR (San Diego’s The Old Globe)
FAMILIAR TERRITORY If familiarity does indeed breed contempt, then Danai Gurira’s family tragicomedy about whose legacy will control the future is aptly named Familiar. The title alludes to family; when loved ones squabble with disdain, disrespect, and disapproval over who they are and where they come from, the play asks, just what is familiar? A…
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Theater Review: TINY BEAUTIFUL THINGS (San Diego’s the Old Globe)
LETTERS FROM THE LOVELORN LEAP OFF THE PAGE Dear Sugar, I have a problem. My editor assigned me to review a play that does not follow conventional theater techniques, has only one known character, and doesn’t actually have a plot. What should I do? Confused Critic in San Diego Dear Confused Critic, You don’t have…
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Theater Review: CRAZY FOR YOU (San Diego Musical Theatre in San Diego)
A SWEET EMBRACEABLE SHOW In 1930, a musical called Girl Crazy, with a score by George and Ira Gershwin, opened on Broadway to moderate success, running 272 performances. The rarely-revived show didn’t have the chops to endure the decades, but the music from it certainly did. Girl Crazy gave us memorable tunes, like “Bidin’ My…
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Theater Review: TITANIC (Candlelight Pavilion Dinner Theater in Claremont)
A MORE INTIMATE TITANIC MADE EPIC It’s telling that the 1997 musical Titanic won Tony Awards for each nomination — Best Musical, Peter Stone’s book, Maury Yeston’s score, Jonathan Tunick’s orchestrations, and Stewart Laing’s colossal, four-story, tilting set — yet it didn’t receive one nomination for acting. (I saw the original on Broadway and you definitely…
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Theater Review: SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET (South Coast Rep)
IT COULD HAVE BEEN MURDER Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a musical that never fails to impress, no matter how many times it’s been seen. It tells of Benjamin Barker, a Victorian-era barber who returns to London, having been imprisoned on false charges, to exact vengeance on those responsible for the tattering…
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Dance Preview: HUBBARD STREET DANCE CHICAGO (Musco Center for the Arts)
HUBBA-HUBBA-HUBBARD As one of the world’s most important contemporary dance companies, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago encompasses a vast array of techniques and forms, as well as an understanding of abstract artistry and the emotional nuances of movement. With an exuberant, athletic, and innovative repertoire, Hubbard Street presents performances that inspire, yes, but also challenge how…
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Music Preview: BRANFORD MARSALIS QUARTET & YUKO MABUCHI TRIO (Segerstrom Concert Hall)
JAZZIN’ HOT IN COSTA MESA With propulsive muscled arrangements, intense high-powered playing, and ceaseless creativity, saxophonist/composer Branford Marsalis is one of his best and brightest musicians that America has ever produced, and his proficiency in both jazz and classical is mind-boggling. He joins his hard-swinging yet sensitive quartet to heat up the winter for one…
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Theater Review: 1776 (La Mirada Theatre)
YOU SAY YOU WANT A REVOLUTION? How remarkable to have been a fly on the wall when the creators of 1776, the 1969 musical receiving a terrific La Mirada Theatre/McCoy Rigby revival, were deciding the 11 o’clock number (the trope given for the big, late in the second act number by a self-realizing main character…
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Theater Preview: SOUTH PACIFIC (Rubicon Theatre Company in Ventura)
SOME ENCHANTED EVENING INDEED At about 8 am on December 7, 1941, Japanese planes filled the sky over Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Bombs and bullets rained onto the vessels moored below on the United States Naval Air Base in the Territory of Hawaii in the Pacific. At 8:10, a 1,800-pound bomb smashed through the deck of the…
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Dance Review: DON QUIXOTE (Mikhailovsky Ballet)
DANCING AT WINDMILLS It’s surprising for those who have never seen this ballet before, but Don Quixote isn’t really about that legendary knight who is forever battling evil and seeking his Dulcinea. In fact, the Don is only an ancillary character in the ballet, which centers around two young Spanish lovers, Kitri and Basilio, who…
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Theater Review: A BRONX TALE (North American Tour)
CULTURE CLASH Narratively, there are two cultural clashes at the center of A Bronx Tale, now at the Pantages as part of its North American Tour. Italians and African-Americans are on opposite sides, as are the mafia and law-abiding citizens. There is also a third clash, though, and it’s the one that matters most: The clash…
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Theater Review: DEAR EVAN HANSEN (National Tour)
A SHOW FOR FOREVER That songwriters and lyricists Benj Pasek and Justin Paul — critical darlings for La La Land (film), Dogfight (Off-Broadway), and A Christmas Story (Broadway) — are in effect the Rodgers and Hammerstein of this generation is as alarming as climate change. At least their true colors as creators of whitewashed pop and unintelligent lyrics…
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Theater Preview: THE SEAFARER (Laguna Playhouse)
THE DEVIL’S AT THE DOOR “He knows not Who lives most easily on land, how I Have spent my winter on the ice-cold sea Wretched and anxious, in the paths of exile Lacking dear friends, hung round by icicles While hail flew past in showers:” From the medieval poem The Seafarer translated by Richard Hamer…
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