Theater

DANSE MACABRE At Bootleg Theater, David J‘s The Chanteuse and the Devil’s Muse is not so much a play as it is an art installation. But, as an art installation, it has a terrible beauty and some moments of bizarre theatrical innovations that linger in the memory. While it purports to be an investigation of…

TOUCHING MOMENTS DO NOT SUSTAIN FAMILY DRAMA In Collaborative Artists Ensemble’s production of Jon Courie’s new play, To Carry the Child, the oldest daughter, Ashley (Meg Wallace), her life in shreds, is facing a serious disease and finds her lover, Diane (Justine Woodford) running from the crisis. She returns to her family home in Caraprice…

A PUZZLE TO RELISH SOLVING As both theatergoer and theater writer, this reviewer is decidedly unenthusiastic about absurdist, avant-garde, or post-modern theatre.   It’s not so much the concept or ideas behind these movements as it is the execution. Playwrights and theatre companies get so caught up in approaching the presentation of their story – vignettes,…

THE MANY FACES OF VIVIEN LEIGH The one woman play Vivien, presented by Rogue Machine at Theatre Theater, is a stunning showcase of two talents, both of which make this a recommended outing: the superlative acting of Judith Chapman and the extraordinary directorial guidance of Elina de Santos. Unfortunately, Rick Foster’s play is more like…

THIS BEAU IS JEST FINE Do you ever just want to go home, eat your mother’s comforting chicken soup, put on your oldest fuzzy slippers and find some old-fashioned comedy on AMC? Well, you’ll get no soup or slippers at Beau Jest, but you will be glad you got away from home for this old-fashioned,…

AN OUNCE OF MISSTEPS IS WORTH THIS POUND OF FLESH Before you run off to see The Porters of Hellsgate production of William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice — and I surely hope that you do — let us clear something up once and for all regarding the nature of its topicality. It would be…

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…