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Theater Review: MOJADA: A MEDEA IN LOS ANGELES (Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades)
BORDERING ON TRAGEDY There is a lot to like about playwright Luis Alfaro’s Mojada, a modern retelling of Medea which sets the main character as an undocumented immigrant and seamstress in the East L.A. neighborhood of Boyle Heights. At its best moments, this Euripides redux offers remarkable insight into both the harrowing and promising aspects…
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Theater Review: SONDHEIM UNSCRIPTED (Impro Theatre at the Falcon Theatre in Burbank)
RECREATION My editor and I didn’t toss a coin to see who would write the review – he’s smarter than that; he wrote a very nice preview piece, the kind I find very difficult, and that was that. Neither one of us wanted to write a review because we’re out of words to describe Impro…
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Theater Review: UP HERE (La Jolla Playhouse)
THERE’S NOTHING GOING ON UP HERE It’s an idea whose time has already come this summer, and with far superior results. In fact, the character of Lindsay, a t-shirt designer who has fallen for the analytical nerdy computer whiz Dan, mentions on their first date the enormously successful Disney’¢Pixar film Inside Out, which chronicles the…
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Theater Review: ALWAYS…PATSY CLINE (Sierra Madre Playhouse)
A FINE CLINE Patsy Cline couldn’t be more fondly or accurately recalled than by Cori Cable Kidder in Robert Marra’s production of Always…Patsy Cline, the oft-produced 1990 paean to the once and future crossover country icon who made audiences “fall to pieces.” Written and originally directed by Ted Swindley, this tribute—equal parts play, concert and…
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Theater Review: BENT (Mark Taper Forum)
DACHAU DELIVERANCE TO THE MAX More than six million Jews were slaughtered by Nazis. When Martin Sherman wrote Bent in 1979, the yellow star that emblazoned the clothing of Jews was well-known, but history had yet to add “We shall never forget” to the image of a pink triangle, the insignia used to identify the…
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Theater Review: ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL (Stage Left Theatre at Theater Wit)
AN OFFER HE CAN’T REFUSE It’s easy to dislike this alleged 511-year-old comedy. All’s Well That Ends Well (originally Love’s Labors Won) is the wrong title: It should be “The End Justifies The Means.” The end is for the sadly smitten Helena to successfully fornicate with Bertram, her attractive and worthless spouse. The means is…
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Theater Review: ANTIGONICK (Sideshow Theatre Company at Victory Gardens in Chicago)
SOPHOCLES, ANCIENT BENDER OF GENDERS This “free translation” of Sophocles’ timeless tragedy about a sister against the state is only 75 minutes long. Even so, Antigonick manages to almost completely repeat itself. The catch or switch is that the protagonists’ sexes are reversed, as if to prevent a universal conflict from ever being sex-specific. Thanks to Canadian…
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Theater Review: SONS OF THE PROPHET (The Blank Theatre in Hollywood)
ALL IS REALLY WELL In playwright Stephen Karam’s touching and funny drama, characters are frequently spotted quoting the great Lebanese poet-philosopher Khalil Gabran. “All is well,” they say, often in the midst of the most odious adversity. Of course, all is not well at all: Indeed, all is rather, as the Yiddish expression goes, full…
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Theater Review: IT’S A WONDERFUL SANTALAND MIRACLE, NUT CRACKING CHRISTMAS STORY… JEWS WELCOME! (Stage 773)
ROASTING CHESTNUTS Nothing if not all-inviting, this modestly entitled holiday revue, It’s A Wonderful Santaland Miracle, Nut Cracking Christmas Story… Jews Welcome! is Stage 773’s second coming of 2012’s feel-good, all-purpose Yuletide romp. Accordingly, the pro(scenium) stage is festooned with colored lights, stockings, snowflakes and sparkles. The audience is regaled with cookies before the show…
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Theater Review: PIPPIN (National Tour)
I’M NOT SAYING YOU SHOULD BE SKIPPIN’ PIPPIN, BUT: Prepare yourself. After all the rave reviews and buzz from New York, Diane Paulus’s Tony-winning revival hits the road filled with enough high-flying frivolity to bedazzle even the most jaded of theatergoers. But for all its extraordinarily magical moments it ends up being a soulless circus…
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Theater Review: HAIR (Hollywood Bowl)
EVEN WHEN A GENERATION CAN’T HOLD UP, ITS HAIR CAN When Diane Paulus’s revival of Hair swooshed into the Pantages in 2012, it felt more like a cause for nostalgic partying than a recreation of the zeitgeist of the summer of love. Adam Shankman’s version which opened at the Hollywood Bowl last night is far…
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Theater Review: INTIMATE APPAREL (Eclipse Theatre)
THE THREADS THAT BREAK There’s no doubt why Lynn Nottage’s drama won five national awards for best play, including the Drama Critics’ Circle Award and American Theatre Critics Association’s Primus Award. Nine years ago we saw the cause in Jessica Thebus’ Steppenwolf staging, a perfect marriage of inspired script and elegant production. Eclipse Theatre Company,…
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Theater Review: TARTUFFE (South Coast Rep in Costa Mesa)
A BLASPHEMOUS BLAST After Dominique Serrand‘s jaw-droppingly juicy and insanely inventive production of Molière’s Tartuffe, a South Coast Rep patron was heard to say, “Well, I don’t know if I can honestly recommend it.” Then she looked around cautiously and leaned towards her companion with, “It’s unlike any Tartuffe I’ve ever seen.” Then a whisper. “It’s…
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Theater Review: CIRQUE SHANGHAI: WARRIORS (Pepsi Skyline Stage on Navy Pier)
CHINA SOARS OVER LAKE MICHIGAN For a ninth consecutive summer, Cirque Shanghai (its title actually referring to whatever Chinese city produces these performers) has returned to the well-named Skyline Stage on Navy Pier, Chicago’s tourist Mecca. A feast for the family, Warriors is the testosterone-fueled title of this year’s edition, a thrill show that’s a…
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Theater Review: TOP GIRLS (Antaeus Theatre Company in North Hollywood)
YOU’RE THE TOP, GIRLS For the most part, Joyce, a working class Englishwoman in Ipswich is not a sympathetic or likeable person: She is annoyed by her 16-year-old daughter Angie (who admittedly is belligerent and daft), and begrudging toward her sister, Marlene, whom she views as a ball-busting, career-driven, selfish, soulless abandoner (not that there…
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Theater Review: DESSA ROSE (Bailiwick Chicago at Victory Gardens in Chicago)
SOUL MATES FROM 167 YEARS AGO “Oh, we have paid for our children’s place in the world. We have paid again and again.” This assertion of achievement rings terribly true after two and a half hours of Dessa Rose. This characteristically urgent offering from Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, creators of Ragtime and Once on…
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Theater Review: THE HOW AND THE WHY (TimeLine Theatre)
ANATOMY IS NOT DESTINY Bursting with more arguments than solutions — cerebral, metaphorical and personal (sometimes simultaneously) — Sarah Treem’s two-act, two-person drama is also two plays: Two evolutionary biologists present conflicting theories of the sexual survival of the fittest, centering on menstruation and menopause. At the same time, these women — who are, not…
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Theater Review: STOMP (North American Tour)
PLEASE MAKE IT STOMP When I first saw the Blue Man Group at the Astor Place Theatre in 1991, it was performance art nirvana. Sadly, what started as a sweet and satisfying event became a corporate machine; the size of the show in its newer behemoth incarnations (Vegas, Chicago, et al) has robbed it of…
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Theater Review: SHE-RANTULAS FROM OUTER SPACE-IN 3D! (Diversionary Theatre)
CAMPY SHE-RANTULAS HAS QUITE A BITE Dictionary.com defines “camp” as “something that provides sophisticated, knowing amusement, as by virtue of its being artlessly mannered or stylized, self-consciously artificial and extravagant.” Perhaps more to the point, though, is the quote found in the margin; author Curtis F. Brown quips, “In short, camp mocks bad taste; kitsch…
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Theater Review: EVITA (National Tour in Hollywood)
A HIGH FLYING, ADORED REVIVAL Composer Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyricist Tim Rice released the Evita “rock opera concept album” in 1976, a few years before the first theatrical production came to life on the West End and ultimately Broadway, a production that I vividly remember. It was truly exhilarating to witness Patti LuPone…
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