Theater

IT’S NOT THE SIZE OF THE PLAY THAT MATTERS Say what you will about Voice Lessons, Justin Tanner’s shockingly uproarious one-act play, now receiving an encore presentation at Sacred Fools Theatre, but you will never forget that you attended it. Still emblazoned in my hippocampus is Tanner’s 1994 hit, Â Pot Mom, which remains one of the…

A CRITIC WHO RHYMES? IT’S A SIGN OF GOOD TIMES. I tell you, there’s no place that I’d rather be in, than a theatre where actors become Jacobean. A classical company, Antaeus by name, has created a show that begs nationwide fame. Penned by John Marston in 1604, The Malcontent proves to be all but…

RECIPE FOR SUCCESS Here’s a mouth-watering recipe for making people happy: 1) Take a great musical. (Kiss Me, Kate will do. If you need to ask why, then I’ll tell you: It’s both a wonderful backstage comedy romance and a scintillating interpretation of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew and it combines the two in…

THE TALENTED MR. JACOBSON Tom Jacobson is nothing if not ambitious. He is not only the most prolific Los Angeles playwright of the moment, but he is the one, given the astonishing record of his successes, on whom one is counting to stay the course and win national recognition – which has eluded some of…

THE WILD, WILD BRECHTIAN WEST The Chinese Massacre (Annotated), Tom Jacobson’s rousing new play, is like a fun day at Disneyland. Jacobson chronicles the 1871 lynching of 18 Chinese men by a mixed-race mob, historically considered to be Los Angeles’ first race riot. Actors break the fourth wall by expounding on exposition and commentating on…

A SHOW IN HOT WATER The Chance Theater is the best and most enterprising small theatre in Orange County; under the guidance of managing director Casey Long and co-founder and current artistic director Oanh Nguyen, the Chance produces new, challenging, and rarely seen works with astounding professionalism. Nguyen brings a brilliant interpretation to the shows…

IN PRAISE OF ECCENTRICITIES It is not surprisng that Tennessee Williams preferred The Eccentricities of a Nightingale to Summer and Smoke. Freed of the conflict between Puritanism (repressed sexuality) and science (sexual liberation), Â Eccentricities is also freed from a good deal of the melodrama which afflicted Â Smoke. Instead, Williams offered up a delicate character study of Alma…

TIME SPENT WITH A MUSICAL GENIUS If ever a production fitted so perfectly within the walls of the elegant Pasadena Playhouse as George Gershwin Alone, I can’t imagine what it may have been. This is, quite simply, what refinement and good taste is all about. Even Yale Pardess’s stage design evokes the thirties in a…

THE ACTOR AND THE ARTIST: TWO MASTERS AT WORK AND PLAY What a joy it is to watch the Los Angeles Theatre Center roar back to life. Once considered a dodgy neighborhood, the Historic Core has become the center of downtown’s magnificent gentrification. The area is now a haven of lofts, art galleries and restaurants;…

WHAT AN ABSURD TIME: EXISTENTIALISM 101 & THEATRE OF THE ABSURD You’re watching a play but you have no idea what’s happening. There is no plot, the dialogue is gobbledygook, and characters are filled with despair, yet you are told that this is Theatre of the Absurd, one of the milestones in modern drama. Still…

THE PLAY’S NOT THE ONLY THING Reinterpreting the setting of Shakespeare’s plays for modern audiences will always be a subject for debate: purists believe that a play’s relevance lies in the time in which it was written; modernists believe that updating the visuals helps a contemporary audience connect to the Romantic language; still, others may…

SHOO SHOO BABY “How do you review The All Night Strut?†my theatre companion asked as we left The Colony Theatre. Well, you don’t. This short Cabaret-style evening of songs (culled from the Swinging Years) has no plot, no skits, no set changes, no characters, and no reality – it’s a superficial stab at recreating…

UNCOMMON GRACE In order to validate his experience of a play, a reviewer should dissect and probe the components of a production, but once in a while a show comes along which catapults the human spirit to near nirvana. Such an outing dictates more than mere analysis – it requires a plea for your attendance….

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO LANFORD WILSON? The beautifully detailed lower Manhattan loft that Ralph Funicello has created – complete with fire escape and skylight, unfinished walls daubed with swatches of paint – for the revival of Lanford Wilson’s Burn This takes one’s breath away as one settles into one’s seat. But, as the saying goes,…

WHERE’S A TOUGH-MINDED AND PROLETARIAN WHORE WHEN YOU NEED ONE? The most interesting thing about Jane Anderson’s The Escort is the revelation that a Cadillac call girl takes on the attitudes of her high-rolling customers and, to her, as well as to her male consort, a client who takes her to a room at a…

TAKING JUKEBOX MUSICALS TO TASK Grab those love beads and tie-dye shirts, smoke a bowl, and head down to Long Beach to hear kick-ass songs from the 60s and 70s delivered with professional gusto – songs which take you back to your early years when’¦wait, that’s too simple. Okay, how about this? In Summer of…

THE GENERAL AND THE ARCHBISHOP Gore Vidal wondered if the stupidest city in the world even deserved a play as radical as Donald Freed’s Devil’s Advocate. He certainly seemed, in a post-play discussion at the Los Angeles Theatre Center, surprised to be seeing the play done at all. Freed has had some defenders of his…

THE VIRTUE OF SMALL ENGINES In the mood for a heavy dose of machismo? The kind where three old chums get together and talk about pussy and big tits and reminisce about the old days? Who say “Let’s drink and talk less†and then drink more and talk more without revealing much more about themselves…