Theater

I HAD A GAY OLD TIME A letter to Sandra Bernhard: Dear Sandy: Oh my God, it thrilled me to no end when I was assigned to review your latest show at REDCAT: Sandra Bernhard: I Love Being Me, Don’t You? Ever since you took off your clothes and sang, all feline-like, to a tied-up…

WHAT’S THIS ALL ABOUT? At the top of Melissa James Gibson’s This, five urbanite thirty-somethings take part in an innocent parlor game that inadvertently goes awry for one of them: an unsuspecting woman just before the anniversary of her husband’s death. Not only does the scene become the best 10-minute play ever written, but the…

A SHOWCASE FOR ORSON WELLES PROVES DIFFICULT TO REVIVE Whitmore Eclectic, a non-profit theatre company now in its second season, brings us a presentation of the tricky Moby Dick Rehearsed, Orson Welles’ 1955 theatrical adaptation of Herman Melville’s famous story. In this version, a Nineteenth Century theatre company must adjust to the fact that they…

A LIBERTY BELL OF A SHOW STILL RINGS TRUE Strength. Courage. Character. Fortitude. These are traits that have inspired Americans, both in our leaders and in folklore. The 1968 musical 1776, now receiving a splendid production at Glendale Centre Theatre, is chock-full of the spirit that audiences need to experience in uncertain economic and political…

THE SAME OLD RHYME I herewith invite you to check out The Troubies (especially those who may call yourselves Newbies). Though their antics are puerile You’ll smile for a while With this assortment of talented boobies. First they take Shakespeare and give him a whack By adding pop music (for this, Fleetwood Mac). Then they…

PAST TO THE FUTURE To be honest, I was not a fan of Rogue Artist Ensemble’s Hyperbole at [inside] The Ford last year. Their current work, D Is for Dog, clearly elucidates what was lacking in that production (and, indeed, much of American Theatre): compelling storytelling. When the venerable company’s use of modern technology (digital…

ENTERTAINING, BUT HARDLY INTRUSIVE When Ralph Waldo Emerson referred to an “interloper” in his writings, it was most assuredly with a negative connotation, for in the 1800s an interloper was one who selfishly intruded on others for the purposes of rank, privilege or money. The interlopers of Gary Lennon’s world premiere play at the Bootleg…

THERE’S LIFE IN THE OLD BOY YET I couldn’t think of a better way to pop my Hollywood Fringe Festival cherry than with Steve Ochs and his solo outing, Life in the Middle Ages, which has rightfully extended its run. This show is a perfect example of why the Fringe is so important: in the…

WHO’S CHEATING WHOM? The spookiest image of Death (with a capital “D”) is that of a tall, hooded, scythe-carrying figure. It merely points with bony finger towards that ultimate location to which we are all headed: the end of life. The aspect that makes this sinister figure all the more terrifying is that it doesn’t…

THE BEGINNING AND THE END Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years is contextually brilliant: it is a two-character musical that starts at the end of a five year relationship for the woman, but at the beginning for the man. Her songs go backward in time and his forward. In the middle of the 85…

TOO MUCH SUGAR ON THE DONUTS If Superior Donuts had come to us as a new American play by an unknown writer, we might have said that, despite a certain soft-headedness and the feeling that it was the pilot for a socially-conscious situation comedy, it was the work of a promising young writer who has…

THE SCHEHERAZADE OF POP CULTURE There are a thousand and one ways to tell a story. In Margo Veil, Len Jenkin, one of our most intriguing and often exasperating playwrights, becomes a modern Scheherazade, weaving elements of contemporary pop culture into the ancient art of fable-making. And, in one of those rare moments when a…

FLEUR ELISE NOBLE: 2 DIMENSIONAL LIFE OF HER This is to installation art what NEVA is to theater: a sublime illustration of the form. Noble’s collage (of projected images, cut-outs, drawings, puppets, paper, and Ms. Elise herself in constant movement somewhere in the space) creates a crisp black-and-white world, with more shades of grey in…

When a festival opens on as brilliantly shattering a note as the RADAR L.A. FESTIVAL did on Tuesday night with Neva, expectations for the rest of the festival run very high indeed. From Chile’s Teatro en El Blanco, vividly written and directed by Guillermo Calderón, who is the company’s leader, Neva brings a jolt of…

Editor’s note:   Brewsie and Willie is currently running as part of the Radar L.A. Theater Festival.   This review is reprinted from an earlier production of the show in July 2010. We are printing the text only.   To see the review as it originally appeared, visit http://old.stageandcinema.com/brewsie_and_willie.html The current production ends June 26, 2011.   For   tickets,…

LEARNING TO FLY WITH BROKEN WINGS “Blackbird singing in the dead of night/Take these broken wings and learn to fly/All your life/You were only waiting for this moment to arise.” Â  Would it have been too obvious to play the haunting Beatles song either before the start of David Harrower’s unsettling Blackbird (which is receiving a…

GOING, GOING…GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN One of the pitfalls of being a theater reviewer in Los Angeles is that it is impossible to see more than the smallest amount of the cascade of plays that open here in a single week; it is probably a source of great frustration as well to the many performers…

WE OF LITTLE FAITH Kate Fodor’s 100 Saints You Should Know is a mildly interesting play, given heft by its author’s obviously sincere attempt to deal seriously with the nature of faith, but, despite its basic decency, it doesn’t really provide one with particularly fresh insights, nor does it probe with great depth its central…

WHAT THE FUNK? When giving feedback at High School theatre competitions, adjudicators are reminded to encourage, not discourage young performers: negative criticism, however accurate, may dampen the spirit of gung-ho newcomers to the theatre. It is the judge’s task to support thespian tenderfoots by accentuating the positive, lest they become dismayed and give up on…