Regional

WHEN RECOMMENDATIONS DON’T TURN OUT AS HOPED FOR Aaron Feldman, the charismatic, bright, and privileged protagonist of Jonathan Caren’s promising but highly unwieldy new play The Recommendation, reminds me of an old college chum. My friend wasn’t just privileged, he was over-privileged. While I worked three jobs to support myself through college, his parents kept…

THE SHOW ABOUT THE HAND THAT GIVES YOU THE FINGER I get a thrill when I think of the tourists who are milling about Old Town in San Diego. Exhausted from tchotchke shopping and sugary treats, they decide to take in a play at the incredibly lovely Cygnet Theatre. Most of these unsuspecting travelers have…

EXCELLENCE VS. HOKUM With Lonesome Traveler, a compendium of the golden years of American folk music, writer/director James O’Neil has developed a long-winded and incoherent revue that is more appropriate for a pledge drive on PBS than a stage. Almost 50 songs are beautifully warbled (at least 36 in their entirety!) by a multi-talented, incomparable…

ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS A GOOD STORY After winning two Tony awards in 2007 for book and lyrics of Spring Awakening, Steven Sater teamed up with the one-and-only Burt Bacharach to write some pop songs.     According to an L.A. Times article, the legendary composer told Sater that he dreamt they rented a theater…

CORNED BEEF TRASH The Great American Trailer Park Musical has a misleading superlative. The show mirrors A Tuna Christmas and Sordid Lives, in that it takes a humorous look at the goings-on of America’s trashy lower-middle class, yet these other shows are far superior in writing and character development.   The Rep’s solid production can not…

SWEET AND WITTY SPOOF IS A CURE-ALL FOR THE BLUES The playbill cover for Coronado Playhouse’s highly charming production of The Drowsy Chaperone describes it as “A Musical Within A Comedy,” which is partly true: it’s also both a take-off and homage to old-fashioned Broadway musicals (book by Bob Martin and Don McKellar and music…

YOU CAN GO HOME AGAIN A trip to South Coast Rep is exactly what was needed to shake off the blues of this year’s morass of over-produced and/or over-written theater. The Trip to Bountiful, Horton Foote’s plaintive 1953 teleplay (adapted for Broadway and for the 1985 film with Geraldine Page), paints a picture of rural…

CYGNET’S GLASS MENAGERIE SPARKLES It is easy to see why Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie was an immediate hit when it debuted in 1944.   In an era of everyone keeping up appearances, hiding any real pains at home, personal struggles could make one feel painfully alone.   Williams gave the masses a chance to sneak a…

LITTLE THEATER SCORES A BIG HIT There’s nothing quite like taking a child to his very first theater outing. And when that child is a baseball fan, and the play is the family-friendly Honus and Me: A Baseball Card Adventure, well’”it’s pretty much a home run. The curtainless stage in the intimate Lewis Family Playhouse…

THERE’S TALENT SOMEWHERE IN THIS FAMILY With West Side Story lighting up Broadway only blocks from their home, the Candelarias are inspired that Chita Rivera has cracked open the doors of opportunity for Latino performers like siblings Alejandro, Francisco, and Rebecca.   As Tony and Maria sing, “There’s a place for us:somewhere.” The Old Globe’s Somewhere…

GREAT DAME Were the masterpiece from the golden age of Broadway Guys and Dolls an actual guy or doll, he or she could score Social Security next year; but make no mistake, this 1950 hoofer is no worse for the wear, thanks to Frank Loesser’s timeless score and Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows’ cheeky book…

NOT YOUR MOTHER’S DARCY AND ELIZABETH South Coast Repertory’s Pride and Prejudice, written for the stage by Joseph Hanreddy and J.R. Sullivan from Jane Austen’s masterpiece, brings out a side of this classic story that this reviewer has never seen (but always wanted to). It seems that a Mr. Bingley (Brian Hostenske) lets a manor…

LOVE’S LABOR’S LOST, FOUND,  LOST, LOST, AND FOUND [England, 1593] I’m not so sure that this William Shakespeare has a future as a playwright. Oh, the man can write, but his newest play, Love’s Labor’s Lost (LLL) is a near disaster of storytelling. Surely, he had a bona fide hit with last year’s The Taming of…