Theater

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…

COCTEAU CALLING A disheveled bed, letters strewn across the floor, a woman quaking by the phone awaiting her lover’s last call: Jean Cocteau’s 1930 play about the need for human communication is strangely poignant in our contemporary world of pervasive cell phones, e-mail, and Facebook. A Bunch of Artists’ Los Angeles premiere of Anthony Wood’s…

GLORY DAYS GETS ITS GLORY BACK Glory Days is legendary among contemporary musical theater fans. With book by James Gardiner and music and lyrics by Nick Blaemire, this youthful musical received rave reviews in its initial run at Signature Theatre, transferred to Broadway in 2008, and promptly opened and closed in a single night. What…

SON OF A HORROR FLICK How lucky we Angelenos are that Re-Animatorâ„¢ The Musical a funny, campy, thoroughly entertaining gore-fest, opened here before splattering itself on legions of cult-loving audiences around the country. Horror fans will love the grisly story, theatre fans will prick up their ears to an exciting composer/lyricist, and cultists will love…

COWARD ON THE BEACH Noël Coward’s oft-produced classic Private Lives is indeed, as one of his characters states, jagged with sophistication. The story is of a divorced, fiercely contentious, and veddy British couple who, having reconnected on the honeymoon night of their new marriages, run off with each other to Paris, abandoning their respective spouses….

YOUNG IN L.A. For self-proclaimed losers Sarah and Meaghan, a post-college move to Los Angeles promises a total break from the past, if not fame and fortune as well. In Sofia Alvarez’s provocative new play Between Us Chickens, these small-town East Coast friends must face up to LA’s devastating fantasies of self-(re)invention. One of SoCal’s…

LOVELY STAGING, BUT PERFORMANCES LACK FINESSE Since its premiere in c. 429 BC, Sophocles’ Oedipus the King has been considered the Mount Olympus of Greek Tragedies, largely because it humanizes the theme of fate, a subject that fascinated the Greek culture; personally, I warrant that a story which contains patricide, unholy incest, self-mutilation and not…

CATESCHISM, OR A HOST THAT IS HARD TO SWALLOW What a curious play. Well, it’s not really a play, it’s a stand-up act. No, it’s a one-person show with two people. Hang on’¦I’ll get it. It’s fringe theater without the edge. No, it’s a showcase that inadvertently does not showcase the titular character (a Catholic…