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Theater Review: WAITING FOR GODOT (Druid Theatre)
STOOD UP YET AGAIN: “Birth was the death of him”: Terse to the point of cruelty, Samuel Beckett here devours the human experience in six words. Waiting for Godot, his minimalist masterpiece, takes nearly three hours for the same result. But Beckett succeeds in his life-long task: to “find the form that will accommodate the mess”…
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San Diego Theater Review: SOUTH PACIFIC (San Diego Musical Theatre)
SOME ENCHANTED EVENING, INDEED Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1949 Broadway hit South Pacific is so full of familiar, classic numbers that it almost feels like a Broadway review in itself − what a coup to have song after song that we recognize beyond its most familiar piece, Some Enchanted Evening. Overall, characters are likable and the…
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Theater Review: THE BABY DANCE: MIXED (Rubicon Theatre Company in Ventura)
AN UPDATED BABY IS STILL CAPTIVATING THEATER For all its melodrama, Jane Anderson’s The Baby Dance has always been one of my favorite plays since I first saw it at Pasadena Playhouse in 1990. Revisiting the show again at Actors Co-op years later only cemented my sentiments. A poor couple living in a Louisiana trailer…
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Theater Review: SCHOOL OF ROCK THE MUSICAL (National Tour at the Hollywood Pantages)
KIDS RULE IN ENERGETIC ROCK There is an announcement before the start of School of Rock The Musical. After the expected exhortations against using electronic devices, we are assured that yes, indeed, the children are playing their own instruments live on stage. Cluing us in is smart, because once those kids get a chance to…
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Theater Review: SOUTH PACIFIC (La Mirada Theatre)
NO MUSICAL IS AN ISLAND Whenever it’s revived, it’s hard to imagine a more necessary musical than this 1949 Pulitzer Prize winner. 72 years after the Japanese surrender, it remains a healing tribute to resilience in adversity and tolerance in the thick of war. Consummate showmen, Rodgers and Hammerstein knew just why Americans need to…
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San Diego Theater Review: NOISES OFF (Lamb’s Players Theatre in Coronado)
ONE COULD GO ON AND ON FOR OFF Half the fun of theater is in the performance; the other half is in the rehearsal. Rehearsal is the time for experimenting, bonding, and watching everything come together. Except when it isn’t. On those occasions, perhaps not so rare, it’s a time of tongue-biting, panic, and blame….
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Music and Dance Preview: TAO: DRUM HEART (International Tour)
TAIKO ME AWAY Ever since man could bang a stick on a rock, percussion has been a way for humans to express themselves. From the battlefield to the theater to your teenager’s bedroom, percussion has evolved from communicative and ritualistic purposes into an art form. We take for granted the use of percussion — primitive,…
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Tour Theater Review: SOUL DOCTOR (Lyceum Theatre in San Diego)
JUST WHAT THE DOCTOR ORDERED: A JOYFUL MESSAGE There is an ancient Chinese proverb: “The wise adapt themselves to circumstances, as water molds itself to the pitcher.” In the musical Soul Doctor, the Jewish Orthodoxy apparently aren’t big on such Chinese wisdom. Based on the true story of Shlomo Carlebach, often known as “The Singing…
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San Diego Theater Review: KING CHARLES III (Coronado Playhouse)
WOULD SHAKESPEARE BY ANY OTHER PLAYWRIGHT SMELL AS SWEET? If the title King Charles III sounds rather Shakespearean, yet you cannot recall a “Charles” among all his Henrys and Richards, there’s a good reason. Mike Bartlett’s homage to the “Bard of Avon,” written just over 400 years later than Richard III, is about a king that Shakespeare…
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Theater Review: ON YOUR FEET (National Tour)
DANCE DELIRIUM As jukebox musicals go, On Your Feet! really earns its exclamation point. No question, the music alone, which won 26 Grammy Awards, would justify this 2015 tribute to the flashdance fervor of Gloria and Emilio Estefan and their Miami Sound Machine. Their irresistible Cuban-fusion street beat is more fun than we deserve. Two dozen numbers…
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San Diego Theater Review: A JEWISH JOKE (The Roustabouts Theatre Co. at MOXIE Theatre)
A JEWISH JOKE WAS NO LAUGHING MATTER IN THE 1950s When the nation went into Commie panic in the ‘40s and ‘50s, one of the first places to get hard hit was Hollywood. In 1947, Congress’s House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) announced the “Hollywood Ten,” the first wave of accusations against ten Tinseltown Americans for…
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San Diego Theater Review: A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC (Cygnet Theatre Company)
CYGNET DOESN’T SEND IN ANY CLOWNS IN THIS LOVELY REVIVAL Much like modern art, Stephen Sondheim musicals aren’t for everyone. They are purposefully discordant in places, often dark in tone, and border on operatic on occasion. Other parts will be sweetly melodic with gorgeous harmonies − strikingly different from the same composer. Whether you like…
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San Diego Theater Review: THIS RANDOM WORLD (North Coast Rep)
WELL-PLANNED IRONIES Facebook and LinkedIn have illuminated the error in the supposed six degrees of separation theory, which asserts that all living things and everything else in the world are six or fewer steps away from each other; in our interconnected world, the correct number is probably closer to three. In This Random World, the…
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San Diego Theater Review: CAMPING WITH HENRY AND TOM (Lamb’s Players Theatre)
THREE GREAT MINDS MAKE FOR INTRIGUING THEATER There’s a game where you get to pick three famous people and go to dinner with all of them. In Mark St. Germaine’s Camping with Henry and Tom, it’s kind of like that game, except it’s based on a true story. And you only get to watch the…
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San Diego Theater Review: THE LAST WIFE (Cygnet)
THE LAST WIFE GETS IT RIGHT Historical fiction can be a dicey game, let alone a modernization of historical figures. When the results are as captivating as Kate Hennig’s The Last Wife, be prepared for some stimulating theater while brushing up on your history lessons. When speaking of British History, Katherine Parr may not be…
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San Diego Theater Review: THE FULL MONTY (San Diego Musical Theatre)
THE FULL MONTY IS WORTH BARING IN MIND When the main factory in town shuts down and only menial work, far below previous pay grade, can be found, what’s a man supposed to do? For the two central men in The Full Monty, the answer is to create a one-night-only strip show to compete with…
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San Diego Opera Review: AS ONE (San Diego Opera)
CLASSIC SOUND; MODERN THEME Composer Laura Kaminsky and co-librettists Kimberly Reed and Mark Campbell’s 80-minute chamber opera, As One, is a tribute to the fact that art must keep growing with the times. We expect modern themes explored in painting, music, dance, and more, but encountering today’s issues in opera causes a little more head-cocking….
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Music Preview: BRUCKNER’S EIGHTH WITH CARL ST. CLAIR (Pacific Symphony at Segerstrom Concert Hall)
AN EXPERIENCE NOT TO BE MISSED On a website which attempts to list every Anton Bruckner orchestral recording offered to the public (abruckner.com), the discography collector and annotator John F. Berky states that the Austrian composer “expanded the concept of the symphonic form in ways that have never been witnessed before or since. When listening to a…
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San Diego Theater Review: HAND TO GOD (San Diego Repertory Theatre at the Lyceum Stage)
EVIL RIGHT AT HAND What could go wrong when a newly widowed mom leads three teens in a wholesome, Lutheran, extra-curricular church class tasked with creating a Christian puppet show? Thankfully for us, plenty, in this gripping, darkly-comic drama by Robert Askins which premiered off-Broadway in 2011. Trying to fill her empty life with something…
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San Diego Theater Review: THE LEGEND OF GEORGIA MCBRIDE (Cygnet Theatre Company)
GEORGIA MCBRIDE AIN’T NO DRAG Playwright Matthew Lopez (The Whipping Man) has created a theatrical recipe: Take one part Torch Song Trilogy, mix in some La Cage aux Folles and, for a fun fish-out-of-water flavor, add in a generous dash of Sister Act. Sprinkle on some mixed nuts and you’re ready to serve up The Legend…
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