Regional

TRAGIC FOR HIM BUT GOOD FUN FOR US Hot on the heels of the run of Old Jews Telling Jokes, the Lyceum brings us a very different and more personal look at Jewish humor.   Instead of a non-stop set of jokes, comedian and actor Brad Zimmerman’s one-man show is a well-rounded piece.   Part observational humor,…

AMERICAN HERO OR AMERICAN ZERO? While researching a speech on the origins of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” I came across a name that I remembered from a visit to Gettysburg National Military Park’”Major General Daniel E. Sickles, Union Third Army Corps commander. One of the most controversial figures in American history, Sickles has an almost universally…

WHAT, WOULD IT KILL YOU TO HEAR A JEWISH JOKE, I ASK YOU? A German, a Frenchman, and a Jew are crawling across the desert.   The German says, “Mein Gott!   I’m so hot and thirsty and tired.   I must have a beer!”   The Frenchman says, “Mon Dieu!   I’m so hot and thirsty and tired.   I…

TIME IS RELATIVE FOR THE RELATIVES IN TIME J. B. Priestley’s Time and the Conways is in some ways a creaky play, yet the production at The Old Globe is so lovingly directed, thrillingly acted, and stunningly designed that I can declare with confidence it is one of the most luminous productions you may ever…

DIM LIGHTS As part of its 17th Annual Pacific Playwrights Festival, South Coast Repertory presented a play by Adam Rapp. Unlike Theresa Rebeck’s Zealot and Rajiv Joseph’s Mr. Wolf, which received staged readings last weekend, Mr. Rapp’s The Purple Lights of Joppa Illinois, read once at SCR’s NewSCRipts series last December,  was given a fully staged…

WATER IS THE GIFT OF LIFE Water by the Spoonful is the second play in Quiara Alegria Hudes’ “Elliot Cycle,” three stand-alone plays written over an eight-year period. Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue, the first in the trilogy and a finalist for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize, follows the title character, a perky but troubled Puerto Rican…

DON’T PASS ON  PASSION When first I saw Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Passion on Broadway in 1994, it was clear that this shattering new work was like nothing that had come before. Simultaneously dark, refreshing, provocative, troubling, and profound, the creative team behind Sunday in the Park with George and Into the Woods managed to…

SAN DIEGO OPERA’S SWAN SONG SPEAKS TO DREAMING IMPOSSIBLE DREAMS Don Quixote (“Don Quichotte” in its original French spelling) serves as a fitting final production with which to close San Diego Opera (SDO)’s distinguished history. Founded in 1950, the company staged its first production in 1965, regularly mounting four or five operas per season. Despite…

A BLINKING YELLOW FOR RED AT THE REP Is a soup can art?   To Matisse, probably not.   To Warhol, clearly yes.   And to everyone else?   Ah, that’s when we start getting into what art really is.   Playwright John Logan’s Red looks deeply at this question from the perspectives of two very different men in 1958….

A LOT OF YOUTHFUL SPRING BUT LITTLE CHARACTER AWAKENING Given harsh themes including child abuse, rape, homosexuality, and suicide, one can easily see why Frank Wedekind’s original German play Spring Awakening  was initially banned when released; these subjects may be par for the course on the nightly news, but it was pretty hot stuff for Germany…

THE FUTURE LOOKS BLIGHT While there are a few missteps in both playwriting and direction, ion theatre’s presentation of two one-acts definitely held my attention. The only similarities between the plays is that they are penned by female British dramatists and that they take place somewhere in an uncertain and dystopian future. But there is…

LBO MAKES A KLINGHOFFER YOU CAN’T REFUSE The big story this weekend isn’t the appearance of John Adams’ The Death of Klinghoffer. Since its arrival in 1991, the opera has been encircled by controversy. Based on the true-life hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro in 1985 by Palestine Liberation Front terrorists, the title refers…

THE LAKE EFFECT In 1993, H.R.H. the Princess of Hanover appointed Jean-Christophe Maillot as the head of Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo. Backed by his experience as a dancer under Rosella Hightower and Hamburg Ballet’s John Neumeier, Maillot’”the previous choreographer-director of the National Choreographic Centre of Tours’”has since created more than 30 pieces, including several great…

INTRIGUE? I’M GLAD YOU MASKED The poster of San Diego Opera’s production of Verdi’s A Masked Ball claims “Based on a True Story.” This is not hyperbole. When their production opens on Saturday with a not-to-be-missed cast, the opulent setting you will see is the court of King Gustav III in 18th-century Sweden. This is…