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Theater Review: NOISES OFF (Geffen Playhouse)
ONE COULD GO ON AND ON, EVEN THOUGH IT’S A LITTLE OFF Ah, Noises Off, the ever-reliable theatrical farce that’s been delighting us for decades with its impeccable timing, pratfalls, and, of course, an ungodly number of sardines. Presented at L.A.’s Geffen Playhouse in cahoots with Steppenwolf Theatre—where Geffen’s new Artistic Director Tarell Alvin McCraney…
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Theater Review: FRIDA … A SELF PORTRAIT (Writers Theatre in Glencoe)
Frida … A Self Portrait Enlightens and Beguiles with Impressive Force You’d have to go a long way to find someone with as potent a life force as Frida Kahlo’s. She left this branch of existence just over 70 years ago, in 1954, and still, there’s something about her spirit that continues to enthrall the…
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Theater Review: FROGGY (Center REP in Walnut Creek)
FANTASTIC FROGGY Jennifer Haley’s audacious graphic novel Froggy comes roaring to life on the Margaret Lesher Theatre’s big stage in Walnut Creek, and it’s one of the freshest theatrical offerings anywhere. Jamella Cross (Froggy) At its core a tale of a young woman who falls for a flaky third-tier actor, Froggy is a dark comedy spoofing…
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Theater Review: BACON (Rogue Machine at The Matrix)
BACON SIZZLES If you’re in search of a play that simmers with tension before scorching the stage with raw, emotional fire, English playwright Sophie Swithinbank’s Bacon, currently searing audiences at the tiny Henry Murray Stage upstairs at the Matrix, will leave you thoroughly singed—and perhaps a little brittle. Bacon is less a coming-of-age story and…
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Theater Review: SONDHEIM’S OLD FRIENDS (Pre-Broadway Engagement at The Ahmanson in Los Angeles)
SONDHEIM MERRILY ROLLS ALONG, BUT OLD FRIENDS DOESN’T ALWAYS BOUNCE When a show is billed as a tribute to Stephen Sondheim, expectations are sky-high. His music isn’t just a collection of songs—it’s a theatrical language of its own, intricate, intelligent, and deeply human. Undoubtedly a love letter to the late master, the revue-on-steroids Old Friends…
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Theater Review: WASTE (Marin Theatre in Mill Valley)
WHAT—OR WHOM—SHALL BE DISCARDED? Marin Theatre Company has never shied away from provocative material, and its current production, Waste, is no exception. Waste tells the story of politically ambitious and idealistic Henry Trebell (Lance Gardner) and the loss of his political dreams when his affair with Mrs. O’Connell (Liz Sklar), a married woman, becomes public…
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Theater Review: AVENUE Q (Revolution Stage in Palm Springs)
GUARANTEED HAPPINESS AWAITS It was just slightly over a year ago that the newcomer Revolution Stage Company staked its claim as one of The Valley’s top production companies with their presentation of Avenue Q (see Stage and Cinema‘s review) There was a bit of concern when the company announced that it would be restaged for this…
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Theater Review: DOODLER (The Marsh San Francisco, SAFEHouse & Theatre Rhinoceros)
A SUSPENSEFUL ONE-MAN MURDER MYSTERY The Gay community in San Francisco was shocked and terrified by a series of murders between 1974-75 committed by a serial killer known as “The Doodler.” Believed to have killed between six and sixteen men, most of whom were gay, he was known for meeting his victims in bars, and…
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Theater Review: FOOL FOR LOVE (Steppenwolf Theatre)
A BRILLIANTLY BRACING LOOK AT LOVE’S OTHER SIDE Romantic love is rarely easy. Even when a relationship progresses from first attraction to full commitment to picture-perfect nuptials, there are no guarantees. Since its 1983 debut in San Francisco, Sam Shepard’s hour-long one-act Fool for Love, written after a difficult divorce, has become a template for…
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Theater Review: THE BROTHERS ABELSON SINCE 1946 (Electric Lodge in Venice)
A TIME CAPSULE OF GENERATIONAL LOVE, PAIN, AND RESILIENCE Every family has a unique mix of personalities, every member knowing their place and how to maneuver others to get what they need. But universal truths define Jewish families of Eastern European descent, shaping a shared culture forged through eviction from their homeland and the necessity…
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Theater Review: EXOTIC DEADLY: OR THE MSG PLAY (San Francisco Playhouse)
WELL-SEASONED THEATER IS LOADED WITH FLAVOR Welcome to 1999, a time of hysteria over the impending Y2K crisis, widespread fear of monosodium glutamate (MSG), crude video games and crude popular culture. In the midst of all this wanders a Japanese-American high school girl named Ami (Ana Ming Bostwick-Singer), wrestling with her cultural identity, arguing with…
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Theater Review: FRANCIS GREY AND THE CASE OF HIS DEAD BOYFRIEND (New Conservatory Theatre Center)
Currently playing at The New Conservatory Theater, Francis Grey and the Case of His Dead Boyfriend is a whirlwind one-man mystery that fuses elements of classic whodunits, camp, film noir, and drag—all packed into a breakneck, one-hour experience. This world premiere, written, directed, and performed by the multi-talented Nathan Tylutki, is a theatrical high-wire act…
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Theater Review: HELLO, DOLLY! (San Diego Musical Theatre)
GOOD GOLLY, MISS DOLLY! Under Randy Slovacek’s direction for San Diego Musical Theatre, Hello, Dolly! festoons the theater with a cumulatively enchanting restoration of this infectious delight. So much that life fails to encourage, theater redeems—seldom more winningly than in Hello, Dolly! Charismatic matchmaker Dolly Levi (Heidi Meyer) arrives in Yonkers in the late 1800s,…
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Theater Review: OTHER DESERT CITIES (Cygnet Theatre)
LEARNING HOW TO SURVIVE IN THE DESERT Jon Robin Baitz‘s Other Desert Cities—which opened at Cygnet Theatre last weekend—portrays about 24 hours in the upscale home of the Wyeth home in Palm Springs, California, and it’s an emotional stunner. Baitz sets his play over a 24-hour period in 2004. All the action takes place in the…
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Theater Review: MY FAIR LADY (Palm Canyon Theatre)
THIS CLASSIC MUSICAL STILL SPARKLES By and large, I don’t understand why people are so eager to return to familiar musicals. We know that Curly and Laurie are going to get hitched and that Annie is going to enjoy a plush life with Daddy Warbucks. For that reason, I have avoided My Fair Lady for…
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Theater Review: SPACE (Central Square Theater and Brit d’Arbeloff Women in Science in Cambridge, MA
TO BOLDLY GO WHERE NO WOMAN HAS GONE BEFORE After seeing SPACE at Central Square Theater, the line that haunted me came from Mae Jemison, the first Black woman to travel into space: “Rockets leave behind the thing that got them up there—their fuel tanks.” Like those fuel tanks, the first group of courageous and…
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Theater Review: THE THING ABOUT JELLYFISH (Berkeley Rep)
THE THING ABOUT GREAT THEATER Directed by Tyne Rafaeli, Berkeley Rep’s world premiere production of The Thing About Jellyfish delivers an emotionally resonant adaptation of Ali Benjamin’s beloved coming-of-age novel, weaving together grief, wonder, and the mysteries of growing up with an ethereal, dreamlike quality, as a young girl on the cusp of adolescence searches…
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Theater Review: PERFECT ARRANGEMENT (The Bent at The Palm Springs Cultural Center)
PERFECT, INDEED: TERRIFIC—AND TIMELY The Bent Theatre, Palm Springs’ queer theatre company now in its third season, continues to prove its significance not only for the LGBTQ+ community but for the greater theatre scene as well. Their current production of Perfect Arrangement —which opened last night—exemplifies this beautifully. Topher Payne’s script is a work of genius….
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Theater Review: WICKED (National Tour)
STILL A WICKED GOOD TIME The stage musical Wicked is now Broadway’s fourth longest-running show—surpassing Cats; productions continue to sprout up globally in many languages; and last year’s film adaptation of just Act I continues to be a ginormous hit. And last night, the equally successful North American Tour—which has played over 6000 performances—settled in for a…
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Theater Review: DEBATE: BALDWIN VS. BUCKLEY (TimeLine Theatre at Cortelyou Commons at DePaul University)
NOW VS. THEN A historic confrontation between James Baldwin, the leading literary voice of the civil rights movement, and William F. Buckley Jr., America’s most influential conservative intellectual, took place on February 18, 1965 in a packed Cambridge Union in England. Broadcast live on the BBC and later re-broadcast across America, the question up for…
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