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Theater Review: A BEAUTIFUL NOISE (National Tour)
THIS RETROSPECTIVE ON NEIL DIAMOND SPARKLES When one thinks back to the top solo music acts of the 1970s, the biggest names to come to mind are likely Elton John, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross, Barry Manilow, Barbra Streisand, and Donna Summer. But one man, with less fanfare perhaps, outsold them all. In fact, he outsold…
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Theater Review: HOUSE OF INDIA (The Old Globe)
CURRY UP TO THE OLD GLOBE FOR A TASTE OF FAMILY SERVED HOT The Old Globe is presenting the world premiere of House of India, a new play by Deepak Kumar. The show unfolds in the Globe’s Sheryl and Harvey White Theater, an intimate space offering a theater-in-the-round experience—an element that’s pivotal to the success…
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Theater Review: WE ARE GATHERED (World Premiere by Tarell Alvin McCraney at Arena Stage)
THREE HOURS IN THE CHURCH OF QUEER LOVE: A COMPLICATED DANCE AT ARENA STAGE Tarell Alvin McCraney (Oscar winner for Moonlight) returns to the stage with We Are Gathered, a lyrical and immersive exploration of love, commitment, and the weight of legacy. Directed by Kent Gash at Arena Stage, attending the play feels like an…
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Theater Review: THE CHINESE LADY (Chance Theater / Anaheim)
FRACTURED REFLECTION The Chinese Lady and the Cost of Being Seen She doesn’t enter. She appears—still as a painting, but alive, watching. In Lloyd Suh’s The Chinese Lady, now haunting the Chance Theater with a whisper that lingers long after curtain, Afong Moy isn’t introduced. She’s arranged. Composed. A presence to be consumed. A figure…
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Theater Review: THE WINTER’S TALE (Play On Shakespeare at Skylight Theatre)
EXIT, PURSUED BY A PRODUCTION In taking on a production of William Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, Play On Shakespeare at Skylight Theatre is to be commended. The last of the Bard’s plays-–Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale, portions of Pericles, and The Tempest—present substantial difficulties in staging. But, for my money, The Winter’s Tale sits at the…
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Theater Review: THE BEVERLY HILLS HOTEL PEACE TALKS (CV Rep)
FUNNY GIRL, SERIOUS STAKES ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ In the world premiere of The Beverly Hills Hotel Peace Talks, now running at Coachella Valley Repertory, playwright Gregg Ostrin (The Spy Who Went Into Rehab) blends political farce, nostalgic Hollywood glamor, and razor-sharp insight into an unexpectedly moving comedy that…
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Theater Review: HADESTOWN (Throckmorton in Mill Valley)
THROCKMORTON ROCKS THE UNDERWORLD If this world is going to hell, as some claim, there can be no better guides than the characters in this musical written by Anais Mitchell. Director Reba Gilbert’s double-cast performances of twenty-six young actors are mesmerizing as they sing and dance and drum out a train route to the underworld….
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Theater Review: HELLO, DOLLY! (Lyric Stage Co. Boston)
A HELLO, DOLLY! FOR OUR TIMES If you’d like to know how it’s possible to take a decidedly dated musical written in 1964 (set in 1890) and make it come freshly and fully alive today, go see the Lyric Stage Company of Boston’s vibrant production of Hello, Dolly!, playing until June 22. Director Maurice Emmanuel…
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Theater Review: THE COUNTER (Moxie Theatre in San Diego)
FORGET THE USUAL – MOXIE IS SERVING A TENDER STORY WITH A SIDE OF TRUTH Not every good story needs to take you around the world in eighty days or off to a magical land with wizards; sometimes, a simple, well-written interaction between regular people whom one might meet at, say, a store, can be…
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Theater Review: ROLLING STONE PRESENTS: AMPLIFIED, THE IMMERSIVE ROCK EXPERIENCE (Chelsea Market)
THIS ROLLING STONE JUST OPENED, AND ALREADY IT’S GATHERING MOSS If Rolling Stone Presents: Amplified were a device, it would be the BlackBerry of rock retrospectives. It is an earnest, well-meaning tribute to music by an iconic magazine but ultimately out of sync with the moment. It’s not immersive, not penetrating, and certainly not capable…
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Theater Review: WHITE RABBIT RED RABBIT (Fountain)
THE GOOD AND EVIL IN BOTH WHITE RABBIT RED RABBIT AND AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION The concept sounded so intriguing that I begged to review this experimental theatre piece, White Rabbit, Red Rabbit by Iranian German playwright Nassim Soleimanpour. The hook is that every performance is an “opening night” because every performance features a new actor who…
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Theater Review: LEARNING HOW TO READ BY MOONLIGHT (Chuang Stage & Company One Theatre)
LEARNING HOW TO BE IN COMMUNITY Few productions manage to collapse the space between art and community like Learning How to Read by Moonlight. In this world premiere from Gaven D. Trinidad, directed by Natsu Onoda Power, theater becomes a living, breathing act of solidarity. Between May 16 and June 8, Learning How to Read…
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Theater Review: THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA (Huntington)
“You can almost hear what everyone’s feeling”—an aside delivered to the audience midway through the show—neatly sums up what is most striking about The Light in the Piazza, playing at the Huntington Theatre. The idea that emotions can transcend language is at the heart of this beautiful, heartbreaking, and heartwarming musical. As characters alternate between…
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Theater Review: ROALD DAHL’S MATILDA THE MUSICAL (Novato Theatre Company)
MAYHEM MIXED WITH MAGIC Novato Theatre Company considered a daunting task of shepherding thirty young actors ages 10 to 13 to stage Matilda the Musical, the Broadway hit by Dennis Kelly (book) and Tim Minchin (music and lyrics) based on the book written by Roald Dahl, the much-beloved children’s author. Those familiar with Dahl recognize him as the…
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Theater Review: WHITE RABBIT RED RABBIT (Fountain)
HARE FORCE ONE With White Rabbit Red Rabbit by Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour currently at the Fountain Theatre, what you encounter is an interesting and provocative theatrical game, a hybrid of “Story Theatre” and immersive Role Playing Game (RPG). On stage is a sparse set that displays the sharp divisions of red and white conveying…
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Theater Review: AS BEES IN HONEY DROWN (Theater UnCorked, Boston Center for the Arts)
HOW SWEET IT IS! From the opening scene of As Bees in Honey Drown, we know that young Evan Wyler (Michael Mazzone) is doomed, but we also know that we are going to be happily amused as he tumbles toward his downfall. A debut novelist on the verge of fame, he reluctantly acquiesces to the…
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Theater Review: THE INHERITANCE, PART ONE (The Bent)
AMAZING AND EPIC Palm Springs’ queer theatre company, The Bent, is justifiably proud that they are the first non-professional company on the West Coast to be granted the rights to Matthew Lopez’s The Inheritance, Part One, a play that The Telegraph described as “The most important American play of the century.” Almost every actor in…
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Theater Review: THE AVES (Berkeley Repertory Theatre)
THE WAITING GAME HAS WRINKLES As Bette Davis’s sampler cushion said, “Old age ain’t no place for sissies.” We start to lose our memories. Our bodies start to ache as our strength and endurance fade. People that we love and care about die or move away. Bill Buell In the aves, now premiering at Berkeley…
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Theater Review: BRIGHT STAR (Lamplighters Community Theatre in San Diego)
COMFORTABLE HOMEY FOLK SHARE A SWEET STORY Book and music creators Steve Martin (yes, THAT Steve Martin) and Edie Brickell heard a true story from 1902 and became somewhat obsessed with it. They brainstormed a purely fictional account of what could have led up to that moment (most of Act I), the actual moment itself…
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Theater Review: STUPID FUCKING BIRD (Blue Pen Theatre)
THIS BIRD AIN’T SO STUPID There is a strange little niche tucked away in the theatre world which, for lack of a better term, could be called “Travesty Theatrics.” It’s when a classic drama is taken and reworked as a caricature, parody, or mockery of itself. (More on that later.) A new, actor driven company,…
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