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Theater Review: SPRING AWAKENING (East West Players)
SPRING HAS SPRUNG Distinguished by its raw emotional resonance, formidable musical composition, and a compelling narrative that plumbs the depths of adolescence, sexuality, and defiance, Spring Awakening, the rock opera adapted from Frank Wedekind’s provocative 19th-century German drama, has held global audiences in thrall since its inaugural performance in 2006. It remains a boldly audacious…
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Theater Review: THE BAND’S VISIT (The Huntington and SpeakEasy Stage Company in Boston)
AN UNEXPECTED AND BEAUTIFUL VISIT Once, not very long ago, a group of musicians came to Israel from Egypt. You probably didn’t hear about it. It wasn’t very important. These sentences, projected on a screen, are the opening of The Band’s Visit, the musical that won 10 Tony Awards in 2018. Directed by Paul Daigneault…
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Theater Review: BABBITT (World Premiere at La Jolla Playhouse)
BOTH BRODERICK AND BABBITT NEED A BOOST The La Jolla Playhouse is creating lots of buzz with the premiere of its adaptation of novelist Sinclair Lewis’s 1922 social satire Babbitt. The play is sold out for its run, which has already been extended to December 10. Much of the show’s audience appeal obviously resides with…
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Theater Review: MID-CENTURY MODERNS (Revolution Stage Company in Palm Springs)
WITH MID-CENTURY MODERNS, FROTHY, PLAYFUL AND FUNNY ARE MORE THAN ENOUGH Written and nicely directed by Mark Christopher, Mid-Century Moderns is a light, breezy, funny and entirely enjoyable entertainment. Mid-Century Moderns is the musical adventures of Maryann Popecky, (Shannon Mary Dixon) a Wisconsin widow who want to move West for her dream job – a…
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Theater Review: THE LEGEND OF GEORGIA MCBRIDE (Center Rep at Lesher Center in Walnut Creek)
GEORGIA MCBRIDE AIN’T NO DRAG Definitely worth the drive out to the suburbs, Center Rep’s The Legend of Georgia McBride is fun, irreverent and empowering. Alan Coyne Matthew López (The Inheritance) created this original story of Casey (Joe Ayers), who works as an Elvis impersonator in Cleo’s, a dive bar in Florida, where most of…
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Theater Review: DR. SEUSS’S HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS! (The Old Globe)
GRINCHING FROM EAR TO EAR I attended a recent late afternoon performance of the Old Globe holiday production of Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas with some trepidation. I braced myself for mingling among restless children fidgeting in their seats while their adult keepers periodically shushed them to maintain some semblance of order. Tommy…
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Theater Review: FREIGHT: THE FIVE INCARNATIONS OF ABEL GREEN (Fountain Theatre)
THE FREIGHT OF THE AMERICAN DREAM How fascinating that two bookending one-man shows opened in Los Angeles this past weekend. The first, Just for Us at the Taper, is a play with universalisms and stories through a Jewish lens to largely comedic effect. The second, Freight, contains universalisms and stories told through a Black lens…
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Theater Review: JUST FOR US (Alex Edelman on Tour at the Mark Taper Forum)
A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE WHITE SUPREMACIST MEETING If you’re looking for great night of humor about white supremacy and anti-Semitism (and who isn’t?), this is the show for you. Alex Edelman, Boston-born and -bred but now located in New York, brings his one-man show to the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles….
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Theater Review: COLLECTIVE RAGE: A PLAY IN 5 BETTIES (Desert Ensemble Theatre in Palm Springs)
IS THIS ENSEMBLE GREAT? YOU BETTIE BELIEVE IT Desert Ensemble Theater (DET) launched its 23/24 season tonight, November 10, with Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties, a play so provocative that some publications won’t publish its full title: Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties; In Essence, A Queer and Occasionally Hazardous Exploration; Do…
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Theater Review: MAN AND MOON (Moxie Theatre)
OVER THE MOON In much of our lives, we get to choose the people we surround ourselves with. Shy of that, we’re at least usually around those with whom we share some common interest, such as taste in movies or having kids on the same soccer team. And then there are those locations where we…
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Theater Review: HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH (Shotgun Players in Berkeley)
East Berlin expat Hedwig was forced to leave a rather important bit of himself’”later herself’”behind the Wall in order to pass physical exams and immigrate to America with the G.I. of her dreams. Move ahead one year: impoverished, divorced and the casualty of a distortedly bungled gender removal procedure, creator John Cameron Mitchell’s counterculture hero(ine)…
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Theater Review: THE THANKSGIVING PLAY (Dezart Performs in Palm Springs)
THANKS, BUT NO THANKS Dezarts Performs (Dezarts) has opened their new season with a fine production of Larissa Fasthorse’s The Thanksgiving Play, which runs just two weekends, ending this Sunday, November 12. The Thanksgiving Play had its world premiere in 2018. As of April, 2023 it is the only Native American play written by a…
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Theater Review: MAMMA MIA! (25th Anniversary Tour)
THANK YOU FOR THE MUSIC The theater-going public may never get enough of Mamma Mia! Since the Swedish musical opened in London in 1999 there have been 50 productions throughout the world and the international audience now exceeds 65 million. The ABBA-based musical is playing a one week visit to San Diego and judging by…
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Theater Review: THE LITTLE FELLOW (OR THE QUEEN OF TARTS TELLS ALL) (World Premiere at Cygnet Theatre in San Diego)
SHE AIN’T LITTLE AND SHE AIN’T NO FELLOW! The Little Fellow is playwright Kate Hamill’s account of the life of the infamous high-society se퓳 worker Harriette Wilson (1786 – 1845). Harriette counted many of England’s nobility among her clientele. She was known to be a savvy, wise-mouthed, outspoken individual and found men who liked that…
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Theater Review: HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE (Actors’ Shakespeare Project at Boston Center for the Arts)
FASTEN YOUR SEATBELTS Actors’ Shakespeare Project’s production of the 1998 Pulitzer-winning drama How I Learned to Drive takes its audience on a harrowing ride through the dark land of sexual abuse and incest illuminated by moments of honesty, humor, and humanity. Director Elaine Vaan Hogue keeps playwright Paula Vogel’s best-known work moving through its complex…
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Theater Review: INHERIT THE WIND (Pasadena Playhouse)
LIKE HENRY DRUMMOND, I’M AN AGNOSTIC, BUT THIS PRODUCTION OF INHERIT THE WIND SENT ME TO THEATRICAL HEAVEN Inherit the Wind, a theatrical warhorse authored in 1955 by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, emerges as an eloquent narrative, artfully crafted around the historical backdrop of the infamous 1925 “Scopes Monkey Trial.” This legal saga…
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Theater Review: THE FANTASTICKS: A LOVE STORY REIMAGINED (Coachella Valley Rep)
THE NEW FANTASTICKS IS ENCHANTING, MAGICAL AND, YES, FANTASTIC Pride weekend was the perfect time for CVRep to open its production of The Fantasticks, A Love Story Reimagined. It is the opening production of Artistic Director Adam Karsten’s second season. If you want to know how he is doing, I suggest looking no further than…
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Theater Review: THE 39 STEPS (Scripps Ranch Theatre)
39 STEPS TAKEN IN CLOWN SHOES In 1935, Alfred Hitchcock released his spy thriller film The 39 Steps to much acclaim. Robert Donat played Richard Hannay, the handsome and dashing man who stumbles, purely by accident, into a crazy situation where he must save England from ruthless spies stealing military secrets. Adding to his woes…
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Theater Review: BULRUSHER (Berkeley Rep)
A PLAY WITH WATER AS A THEME WILL HAVE YOU FLOATING OUT OF THE THEATER Now playing at the inimitable Berkeley Rep, Eisa Davis’s lyrical, fascinating, humorous and gorgeous play Bulrusher — a 2007 Pulitzer Prize finalist — is set in 1955, 110 miles north of San Francisco in Boonville, California. Founded in 1890, the…
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Theater Review: LAST SUMMER AT BLUEFISH COVE (The Bent in Palm Springs)
BY COVE, THEY DID IT The Bent in association with Palm Springs Cultural Center recently launched its second season on the heels of its successful inaugural season that began less than one year ago. The Bent’s second offering of its second season is a very short run coinciding with Pride Weekend in Palm Springs. Now…
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