San Diego

FOR ALL IT’S GIRTH Sumo is a Japanese sport in which two bulky Japanese wrestlers clutch and grab at each other within a circular ring enclosed by bales of straw. The goal is to either eject the opponent from the ring or knock him on his back. The typical match runs a few seconds and…

LAMB’S STRIVES FOR AN EYRE OF MYSTERY Playwright David McFadzean is no stranger to Lamb’s Players, having been a part of the company from 1979-1984. From there, his career took him to writing and produced for TV and film, including Roseanne, Home Improvement, Carol & Company, Thunder Alley, and the Mel Gibson comedy, What Women…

DON’T DOUBT THIS PRODUCTION John Patrick Shanley‘s drama Doubt: A Parable opened in New York City in 2004 and won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 2005. As evidenced by New Village Arts‘ production, which opened at the Conrad Prebys Theatre last weekend, twenty years after its premiere it still ranks among the most stirring…

ALTOGETHER OOKEY GOOD FUN When American cartoonist Charles Addams started drawing a family of moderately harmless ghoulish folks for The New Yorker in 1938, how could he have expected them to gain huge fame in the world of television (as there was no TV) and multiple films. And he certainly would have been amazed if…

WHO LEFT FROWNING? NUN OF US! When you’re picking shows for your season, you’re off to a good start when you pick the second-longest-running show in Off-Broadway history. One that’s been produced in 26 languages. One that’s spun off five sequels. And perhaps most telling, one that came full circle to be produced in Brazil…

SOMEONE MUST HAVE CLIPPED THE WINGS, BECAUSE THIS ANGEL DOESN’T FLY There are times when a reviewer is tempted to recuse himself (or herself) from publicly commenting on a comedy because he/she is unenthusiastic about a work that the audience apparently finds hilarious. Thus is my dilemma assessing North Coast Rep‘s The Angel Next Door,…

PERFECTLY MARVELOUS Cabaret is a masterpiece of American musical theater that has been presented in a vast variety of musical and physical shapes and sizes since its premiere on Broadway in 1966. The score has been cut, added to, and shifted around, and the mood and look have been countlessly revised. So audiences attending the…

GIVE THREE CHEERS AND ONE CHEER MORE FOR SILLY GOOD FUN In the US, the term “Savoyard” generally means a person intensely interested in, and perhaps highly knowledgeable about, the works of Gilbert and Sullivan. In the U.K., the term refers more directly to some of the original players at the Savoy theatre but, for…

MAKE THIS FUN SHOW ONE TO CHEKHOV YOUR LIST Any time you take one sibling out of a group of three, the remaining two are bound to talk about the missing one. Take that situation further, with two of them living together and the third being a egomaniac who just pops in occasionally — it’s…

DON’T KNOW WHETHER TO LAUGH OR CRY You know that close friend or relative you have who  can talk about the most trivial stuff in their world and you’ll still ask leading questions for more details? Like, “So what did you do when the can opener wouldn’t go all the way around?” But if someone else…

EVITA IS SURPRISINGLY GOOD FOR YOU The Cygnet Theatre revival of the musical Evita has already been extended to October 1, 2023, due to positive ticket buyer interest. Cygnet visitors should find much to admire in the production, though it does have issues. But decent presentations of Evita don’t come around very often, so area…

THE WEARYING WIVES OF WINDSOR Scholars generally believe that William Shakespeare wrote about 38 plays. And those scholars likely would rank the comedy The Merry Wives of Windsor at or close to number 38 in the Shakespearean canon. The play centers on Sir John Falstaff, one of the great comic characters in world literature. According…

PERFECTLY MARVELOUS You better tell Momma and everybody else to come see Wildsong’s production of Cabaret, which opened last weekend in Ocean Beach. When you take into consideration that this is “community theater” on a shoestring budget, it is nothing short of miraculous that this incarnation has some of the most indelible moments of any…

YOUR ONLY CRIME WOULD BE MISSING THIS PUNISHMENT The Old Globe Theater is presenting the world premiere of Crime and Punishment, A Comedy and it is a gem of a satire on one of the most famous novels in 19th-century Russian literature. In a bit under 90 uninterrupted minutes, co-authors Steve Rosen and Gordon Greenberg…