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Theater Review: NOISES OFF (Lyric Stage Boston)
NOISES OFF, LAUGHS ON Just in time for the holiday season, Lyric Stage Company of Boston has something for audiences eager for some silly fun. Written by Michael Frayn the quintessential farce (within a farce) is a true ensemble piece about an amateur acting troupe presenting Nothing On, the name of the play within the…
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Theater Review: HENRY IV, PARTS 1 and 2 (The Porters of Hellsgate in North Hollywood)
THE PORTERS SHARE WITH US IN GLORY HENRY IV There is a danger of critical indulgence when considering a company like the Porters of Hellsgate; their ambition to produce all of Shakespeare’s canon (which they’ve nearly accomplished – four plays remain) is laudable and exceptional, such that there is a temptation to simply approve each…
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Theater Review: GALILEO’S DAUGHTER (Central Square Theater and WAM Theatre in Cambridge, MA
GALILEO’S THEORIES WOULD PROVE THAT THE SUN DOESN’T MOVE – GALILEO’S DAUGHTER ALSO DOESN’T MOVE It’s an intriguing notion: the ground-breaking scientist and astronomer Galileo Galilei, who defied the Catholic Inquisition to publish his observations regarding the movement of Earth around the sun, had a daughter who shared his intellectual curiosity. Dava Sobel’s 1999 biography…
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Theater Review: LITTLE WOMEN: THE BROADWAY MUSICAL (Moxie Theatre in San Diego)
LITTLE WOMEN WITH A BIG PRESENCE Allen Knee took on a daunting task in creating a play from Louise Mae Alcott’s hefty 1868–69 two-volume novel, but he also cuts back the narrative for the musical version of Little Women with Jason Howland’s music and Mindi Dickstein’s lyrics, which opened on Broadway with Sutton Foster in…
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Broadway Review: DEATH BECOMES HER (Lunt-Fontanne)
DEATH BECOMES HER BECOMES BROADWAY I had opposite opinions this week between the opening of the film version of Wicked and the new Broadway musical comedy Death Becomes Her. Wicked outsoared the Broadway version; the movie gave me more heart, warmth, and laughs than I ever got from the original (still running since October of…
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Theater Review: HEXEN: AN ANCESTRAL WITCH PLAY (Tour at El Portal Theatre in North Hollywood)
CONFRONTING THE CURSE It is a signal accomplishment to produce 70 minutes of solo theater which are all the things Hexen manages to be: solemn, playful, enchanting, insightful, and finally, deeply moving. I first encountered Dreya Weber, the sole performer of Hexen (“witches” in German) at the bar before the show. When an exceedingly quirky…
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Theater Review: SUMMER, 1976 (Studio Theatre in D.C.)
A POIGNANT LOOK AT FEMALE FRIENDSHIP What are the makings of female friendships? What holds them together and what causes them to shift off course? These are just two of the philosophical questions raised by David Auburn’s latest masterpiece and recent Broadway hit Summer, 1976, currently at Studio Theater. Known best for his heady play…
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Theater Review: LIFE & TIMES OF MICHAEL K (Handspring Puppet Company and Baxter Theatre at The Wallis)
A LIVING PORTRAIT Regular patrons of the theatre are accustomed to passively sitting back, letting the story flow off the stage and course through them. Life & Times Of Michael K is not traditional theatre. It’s not really a play. This beautiful and spellbinding stage adaptation of the award-winning 1983 novel by South African-born writer…
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Theater Review: THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD (Theatre 40 in Beverly Hills)
DEAD ON ARRIVAL The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, adapted for the stage by Mark Shanahan from Agatha Christie’s 1926 novel, premiered at the Alley Theatre in Houston, Texas in 2023. It’s no surprise that the West Coast premiere at Theatre 40 in Beverly Hills is only the second production, as Shanahan’s script draws out the…
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Theater Review: OUR DEAR DEAD DRUG LORD (Moxie Theatre)
A PLAY THAT RAISES THE ESCOBAR Pablo Escobar was a Colombian drug lord, narcoterrorist, and corrupt politician who founded and ran the deadly Medellín Cartel. Known as “the king of cocaine”, Escobar was one of the wealthiest criminals in history, reaching a net worth of close to thirty billion U.S. dollars by the time of…
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Theater Review: THE 39 STEPS (Masquers in Point Richmond)
MASQUERS KNOWS THE STEPS TO A SUCCESSFUL, MAGICAL COMEDY Alfred Hitchcock gets a good-natured but thorough pummeling in The 39 Steps at Masquers Playhouse in Point Richmond, through December 8. Sam Barksdale, Amy Stringer, Damion Clark A small theater in a quaint town at the eastern end of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, Masquers is known…
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Theater Reviews: LA CAGE AUX FOLLES; JOAN; FIRST DATE; CAROL COOKE DIED FOR MY SINS; BEING PIAF; RENT; A GOING AWAY PARTY PLAY (various theaters throughout L.A.)
WHAT’S YOUR STORY? In the “It’s Not the Story, It’s in How You Tell It” Department, an incredible number of shows I saw in the last month have incredible tales to tell, but falter in their context. Listen, storytelling is in our genes ever since cavemen told their friends how they caught a mammoth. From…
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Theater Review: LA CAGE AUX FOLLES (Pasadena Playhouse)
LA CAGE: STRIPPED OF ITS FEATHERS In Sam Pinkleton‘s well-intentioned but ultimately discordant revival of La Cage aux Folles at the Pasadena Playhouse, that old showbiz maxim about the show must going on feels less like a triumph than a duty. This production of Jerry Herman and Harvey Fierstein’s landmark 1983 musical about love, family,…
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Theater Review: HILLARY AND CLINTON (Dezart Performs in Palm Springs)
THE ALTERNATE UNIVERSE OF POLITICS When you hear the name Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton there are three visceral reactions that may occur. The first is deep respect for a woman who gave her entire life to making American local and federal government better for everyone. The second is patriarchal hatred for a woman stepping out…
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Theater Review: LOOT (Desert Ensemble Theatre, Palm Springs)
LOOT IS A HOOT Loot is Joe Orton’s darkly comic masterpiece that eviscerates societal norms and exposes the hypocrisies of authority figures with razor-sharp wit. Two young men, Hal and Dennis, rob a bank next to a funeral parlor and attempt to stash their ill-gotten gains in the coffin of Hal’s recently deceased mother, Mrs….
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Theater Review: EMMA (Actors Shakespeare Project at the Multicultural Arts Center in Cambridge, MA)
A TIME-TRAVELING JANE AUSTEN What if Jane Austen had managed to read The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan’s groundbreaking 1963 exploration of why well-educated and prosperous women were so unhappy in their roles as homemakers and mothers? Obviously, it would have been impossible for Austen (1775–1817) to do such a thing, so playwright Kate Hamill has…
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Theater Review: MINDPLAY (Huntington Calderwood, Boston)
MIND FOR ALL ITS WORTH The antidote to anxiety is control — or so the mind would have us believe. Our knee-jerk reaction to worrying about a situation, event, person, outcome, or (let’s face it) life in general can be a desperate attempt to exert our limited human influence over it all. And we all…
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Theater Review: PAW PATROL LIVE! A MIGHTY ADVENTURE (International Tour by Nickelodeon at Hobby Center, Houston)
PAWFECT FOR THE KIDDIES I have often felt that anything that gets children exposed to live theatrical productions is such a gift. A staged show can have such an enormous impact on both creativity and cognitive development. With that said, Nickelodeon’s PAW Patrol Live! A Mighty Adventure certainly had an impact on all the little…
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Theater Review: ARMS AROUND AMERICA (Dan Froot & Company; World Premiere at The Nimoy Prior to Tour)
VOICES INSTEAD OF BULLETS Although Arms Around America, which opened last night at The Nimoy in Westwood, is about guns and their people (or “ammo-sexuality,” to steal a wonderful phrase from the show), it is also a feast of sounds, a display of musical bravura and an all-around fabulous evening of unconventional live theatre. Serving…
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Theater Review: A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM (Signature Theatre in Arlington, VA)
THE GOOD-NATURED BUFFOONERY IN FORUM IS THE TONIC FOR WHAT AILS YOU A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, currently at Signature Theater, is knee-slapping farcical fun à la vaudeville and the Marx Brothers mixed with ancient Roman escapades, all set to the music and lyrics of Stephen Sondheim. Sound like a…
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