San Diego

A CAPITOL IDEA FOR A PLAY Nina Kissinger finds laughs, humanity, and uncomfortable questions in the people trying to keep government working from behind the scenes At Moxie Theatre, Nina Kissinger’s dramedy, This Is Government, opens with three congressional staffers who find themselves navigating the peculiar realities of working on Capitol Hill. Kaz (Kailey Madoka Agpaoa),…

DEALING WITH THE HAND THEY WERE GIVEN Suzan-Lori Parks stacks the deck against two brothers whose love, rivalry, and hunger for a better life turn one rigged game into another There are only two actors onstage in Suzan-Lori Parks’ Topdog/Underdog, but there is nothing small about the world they create. Now playing at The Old…

A RARE BIRD WORTH WAITING FOR Mat Smart’s warm, funny new play finds that what we’re searching for may matter less than what we fail to see along the way You don’t need to know a warbler from a woodpecker to get hooked by A Black-billed Cuckoo, Mat Smart’s funny, warm, and surprisingly sharp new…

WELL ABOVE PAAR FOR THE COURSE David Corlew gives a gripping performance as Oscar Levant in this darkly funny and increasingly tense backstage drama To put it mildly, Oscar Levant, the brilliant mid-century pianist known equally for his Oscar Wilde-like wit (“I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin”), wasn’t a happy-go-lucky kind of…

PREDICTABLE NEVER SOUNDED SO GOOD Terrific music, performances, and sheer good feeling make this familiar story hard to resist Sometimes a show really tears at your psyche, makes you question your beliefs, or exposes you to a new level of consciousness. This isn’t that show. Instead, this world-premiere musical will make you feel good almost…

YOU WILL BE WON OVER Cygnet delivers a moving, beautifully acted production with terrific voices Hooray for misunderstandings! Where would theatre be without them? And in Cygnet Theatre’s excellent production of Dear Evan Hansen, some serious misunderstandings rule. The specifics of high school senior Evan Hansen’s (Aiden Meyndert) personality quirkiness are not spelled out in…

A DEVILISHLY GOOD TIME WITH THE NOT-SO-ANGELIC Paul Slade Smith’s delightful farce earns hearty laughs from a terrific cast Playwright and actor Paul Slade Smith is on a winning streak. Besides starring in North Coast Rep’s Scapin earlier this year, all three of his plays have been produced by the combination of NCR and Scripps…

HOME SWEET HOME-ICIDE Joseph Kesselring’s dark comedy classic still delivers its lethal dose of laughs Joseph Kesselring’s Arsenic and Old Lace, now revived by Coronado Playhouse, was a sensation when it opened on Broadway in 1941, running for more than 1,400 performances. Eighty-five years later, done as a period piece, most of the humor holds…

FARCE MAJEURE This inventive adaptation trades reverence for revelry, with hilarious results Not everything ages well: milk, dress codes, and comedies are among the many things that are often better when they first appear. Just this week, in fact, I watched a couple of episodes of The Jeffersons and cringed—not just at comments by the…

SEXY, SINCERE… AND SLIGHT Outstanding chemistry can’t quite compensate for an opera that compresses too much Andy Acosta has sung Timothy Laughlin enough that the role has started to feel like autobiography. Miami-raised, Cuban American, and publicly out before he was out to his parents, Acosta sang as though it belonged to him. San Diego…

DIAL M FOR META Emma Rice’s inventive adaptation is an enjoyable ride; just don’t expect to be transported The movies lie to us in ways the stage cannot. Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest works because the camera goes where Roger Thornhill goes, feels what he feels, and cuts away before we notice the seams. A…

READY, SET, SPONGE! A colorful musical that’s tailor-made for kids and SpongeBob devotees SpongeBob SquarePants debuted on Nickelodeon in 1999 and was a quick success, becoming a must-watch for kids and many college students. The animated series became a multibillion-dollar global hit, yielding spin-offs, movies, and this musical adaptation now on at Cygnet Theatre titled,…

SPEAK SOFTLY AND CARRY A BIG SONG Megan Carmitchel delivers a knockout performance in Backyard Renaissance’s latest gem During a recent move, I handed down dozens of DVDs. One I couldn’t part with was 1998’s Little Voice, featuring Brenda Blethyn’s exquisite performance. So, imagine my excitement—and trepidation given my esteem of the film—when I learned…

WHAT A PIECE OF WORK IS HOMBRE Tony Meneses explores the hidden costs of masculinity with humor, compassion, and insight For centuries, women and gay men have fought to carve out power in a world largely shaped by straight men, within systems built by and for them. But straight men often wrestle with a different…

THE WOMEN LEFT OFFSTAGE Lauren Gunderson reclaims Shakespeare’s sidelined women in a sharp, emotionally intelligent companion piece to Hamlet The women in Hamlet exist largely to reflect Hamlet’s choices and actions. They are little more than props to propel the plot, with no backstory or motivation. Playwright Lauren M. Gunderson clearly feels frustration at this…

A DRESS FOR SUCCESS A polished TYA production that treats identity and imagination with care. Mosaic Theatricals’ production of Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress at Patio Playhouse does not just aim to charm young audiences—it makes its point clearly. This is a heartfelt lesson for children of all ages about belonging, delivered with a…

A NICE JEWISH BOY— OR IS HE? Plenty of laughs and genuine feeling power this crowd-pleasing production Sarah Goldman is a young Jewish Chicago teacher in the late 1900s. Her boyfriend is a lawyer named Chris Cringle and they are thinking about getting married. But there is a problem. Chris is not Jewish and Sarah’s…