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Theater Review: IMPROBABLE FICTION (Masquers Playhouse in Point Richmond)
WRITERS RUN AMOK WHEN IMAGINATION TAKES OVER THE ROOM A nimble, high-energy ensemble comedy that turns creative frustration into gleeful theatrical chaos As hilarious today as it was when it debuted 21 years ago, Alan Ayckbourn’s Improbable Fiction is enjoying a terrific run at Masquers Playhouse in Point Richmond. Director Angela Mason draws a crisply…
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Theater Review: THE CIRCLE (Greenway Court)
A FAMILY REUNION TURNS INTO A PRESSURE COOKER A fascinating first act can’t survive a nearly three-hour drift into exhaustion Stacey Martino Rivera’s world premiere The Circle at Greenway Court Theatre begins with a smart framing device: a teenage presentation by Ana (Ava Rivera) on restorative culture that gestures toward indigenous healing circles—and then cuts…
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Theater Review: HAIR (Palm Canyon Theatre)
THE AGE OF AQUARIUS RETURNS TO PALM SPRINGS A vibrant production overcomes a frustrating book Palm Canyon Theatre’s (PCT’s) productions are always top-notch, with excellent singing, dancing, and acting. Hair, which opened last weekend, is no exception. The musical is a rollicking celebration of the hippie movement of the 1960s which took the theatre world…
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Off-Broadway Review: AN IDEAL HUSBAND (Storm Theatre at A.R.T./New York Theatres)
WITNESSING WILDE’S WONDERFUL WIT IS ALWAYS WELCOME Storm Theatre delivers elegance and precision, if not always sparkle Lurking under the characters’ control, courtesies and curtseys, calculated comments, formal wear and formalities, etiquette, etc., are their real feelings and fears that forced smiles with gritted teeth and British stiff-upper-lip mask. Mocking manners and marriage in the…
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Opera Review: ABDUCTION FROM THE SERAGLIO (Pacific Opera Project)
MOZART MEETS THE FINAL FRONTIER Pacific Opera Project boldly goes where singspiel has gone before Begin with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s 1789 complex and comic singspiel Die Entführung aus dem Serail, aka Abduction from the Seraglio, commissioned by the Habsburg monarch Joseph II, who famously complained to Mozart, “Too many notes.” Now take Gene Roddenberry’s visionary…
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Theater Review: HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING (San Diego Musical Theatre)
HOW TO SUCCEED IN PRODUCING A MUSICAL Offices tend not to be much fun, which is why they are ripe for exploring undertones of emotion and comedy in scripts like Office Space, Working Girl, 9 to 5, and NBC’s The Office. Throw in some music (okay, a LOT of music) and dynamic choreography and you’ve got a…
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Off-Broadway Review: THE MONSTERS (Manhattan Theatre Club at NY City Center)
BOXING, BLOODLINES, AND BURIED TRAUMA A smart, muscular, triumphant and thrilling two-hander that lands every blow What’s worse? The monsters we fight, the monsters we carry, or the monsters we are? Luckily for us, the emotional two-hander The Monsters, which opened tonight at Manhattan Theatre Club’s NY City Center Stage II, safely contains one such…
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Theater Review: HOLIDAY (Goodman Theatre)
A SAVVY, GLORIOUS UPDATE It took three productions, but Goodman’s Centennial Season has finally hit its stride. Pour one out for Richard Greenberg, one of the great American playwrights of the last several decades, who, even after his death last year, has graced us with a stellar update of a screwball gem from 1928. Philip…
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Theater Review: THREE COCONUTS (West Coast Jewish Theatre in Santa Monica)
SHABBAT, SLAPSTICK, AND THREE SUITORS IN 1968 CHICAGO The comedy cracks open plenty of laughs, then lets the shell sit too long. A domineering Jewish mother, her sharp-tongued teenage son, three oddball suitors, a hippie pimp, and two Chicago cops walk onto a stage. Chaos follows. The question is whether the play knows when to…
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Theater Review: THE DANCE OF DEATH (Steppenwolf)
It’s the little ways you try together; cry together; lie together—that make perfect relationships – Stephen Sondheim, Company Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, in a high stone tower, there lived a beautiful woman who hated her husband of twenty-five years and waited every day for him…
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Boston Theater Review: LITTLE WOMEN (Actors’ Shakespeare Project)
LITTLE PATIENCE FOR LITTLE WOMEN Girls interrupted, potential unrealized Actors’ Shakespeare Project is an esteemed local theater company here in Greater Boston and frankly one of my favorites. Kate Hamill, one of the most produced living playwrights in the United States, is also one of my favorite playwrights. Not everyone loves the way she applies…
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Theater Review: OF MICE AND MEN (Lamplighters)
HOPE WITH CALLOUSED HANDS: A QUIET MASTERPIECE REVISITED John Steinbeck’s play Of Mice and Men came quickly after the success of his novella by the same name. In fact, the play opened on Broadway in 1937 while the book was still on best sellers lists. In each telling, Steinbeck draws upon his own teenage experiences…
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Off-Broadway Review: AI YAH GOY VEY! – ADVENTURES OF A DIM SUN IN SEARCH OF HIS WANTON FATHER (A.R.T./New York Theatres)
DIM SUM, DAD JOKES, AND DOWNTOWN DELIRIUM It’s ridiculous, but Richard Chang’s solo show serves up wordplay, warmth, and a wonderfully wild cultural mashup. ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ “It’s called a Yamaha,” Richard Chang jokes while pointing to his yarmulke. This and many other puns and plays on words…
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Theater Review: MY LIFE AS A COWBOY (North American Premiere at Open Space Arts)
“A teasin’ squeezin’ pleasin’ kinda time.” — Shania Twain As drama goes, you can’t get more low stakes than the driving event of Hugo Timbrell’s My Life as A Cowboy, now playing at the tiny Open Space Arts theater in Uptown, and extended to March. Conor, a seventeen-year-old gay man in Croydon, a dreary suburb…
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Theater Review: MY SON THE PLAYWRIGHT (Rogue Machine)
TWO MONOLOGUES IN SEARCH OF A DIALOGUE Justin Tanner has spent decades making chaos look easy. Those early Cast Theatre productions like Pot Mom and Zombie Attack trafficked in a particular brand of Los Angeles mayhem — high energy and unruly and knowing. With My Son the Playwright, now receiving its world premiere at Rogue…
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Theater Review: CAMP MORNING WOOD (Prism Theater in Palm Springs)
PALM SPRINGS DISPATCH FROM HEADAH HOPPER Your faithful correspondent in the desert My dear reader, If you are planning a visit to Palm Springs and think your evenings will be limited to early dinners, tasteful cocktails, and discussions of real estate values, allow me — helpfully, lovingly — to redirect you. You are going to…
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Theater Review: THE IRISH … AND HOW THEY GOT THAT WAY (Porchlight Music Theatre)
This oral history of the Irish-American journey soars when it sings A history lesson masquerading as a jukebox musical, The Irish … and How They Got That Way is the creation of Pulitzer winner Frank McCourt (Angela’s Ashes) who wrote the book, and wove in a selection of standards spanning centuries old folk music from…
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Theater Review: THE CHERRY ORCHARD (Marin Theatre Company in Mill Valley)
A RADICAL MASTERPIECE Chekhov’s final play blossoms with emotional clarity and grace Renowned Russian writer Anton Chekhov’s final play, The Cherry Orchard, may be set more than a century ago, but its themes feel strikingly contemporary. Now playing at Marin Theatre in a handsomely mounted, emotionally attentive production, the story centers on a once-aristocratic, formerly…
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Theater Review: CONFEDERATES (Redtwist Theatre)
HISTORY IN DIALOGUE WITH ITSELF Dominique Morisseau’s time-splitting drama refuses easy parallels On paper, Dominique Morisseau’s Confederates might read as high concept: two Black women in different eras confront institutionalized racism. It’s tempting to see the stories as straightforward parallels, especially since the same actors play supporting roles in both narratives, but this fiercely intelligent…
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Theater Review: DESCRIBE THE NIGHT (Austin Playhouse West Campus)
HISTORY, POWER, AND WHO GETS TO DECIDE Rajiv Joseph’s epic drama offers no comfort—only urgent questions For those seeking entertainment as a refuge from the nightmare of our current political moment, Describe the Night offers no such sanctuary. Spanning ninety years and shifting between 1920, 1937, 1940, 1989, and 2010, playwright Rajiv Joseph traverses Poland,…
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