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Theater Review: COMPANY (2023-2024 North American Tour)
THE COMPANY WE KEEP To wed or not to wed — that is the question that Stephen Sondheim poses in his 1970 musical Company, for which he is the composer and lyricist (with a book by George Furth). James Earl Jones II as Harry, Kathryn Allison as Sarah, Britney Coleman as Bobbie and Judy McLane…
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Theater Review: CREVASSE (Son of Semele and The Victory Theatre Center at Victory Theatre)
A RIVETING TALE OF ART AND IDEOLOGY AT ITS FINEST In Tom Jacobson’s Crevasse, playing at the Victory Center Theatre, the curtain rises on a fractured world where art, love, and propaganda intersect amidst the gathering storm clouds of World War II. This ambitious play, set in the fall of 1938, deftly traverses the fraught…
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Theater Review: HENRY 6 (The Old Globe in San Diego)
LONG MAY THIS PRODUCTION REIGN Since its first production opened in Balboa Park in 1935, the Old Globe Theatre has built a national reputation for ambitious and stimulating productions, but this summer the company’s adaptation of William Shakespeare’s history trilogy Henry VI, Parts I, II, and III has raised the bar to what must surely…
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Theater Review: THE LORD OF THE RINGS: A MUSICAL TALE (Chicago Shakespeare Theater)
BORED OF THE RINGS In J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, Bilbo Baggins famously states to his nephew and adoptive heir, “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.” It’s also a…
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Theater Review: DON’T DRESS FOR DINNER (North Coast Rep)
DON’T BOTHER FOR DINNER The North Coast Repertory Theater is offering two hours of exceedingly lightweight summer theater in the French farce Don’t Dress for Dinner. And being a typical French farce, the play revels almost exclusively in ostentatious slapstick with an erotic edge. My large Sunday matinee audience seemed to love every unsubtle moment…
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Theater Review: COLLECTIVE RAGE: A PLAY IN 5 BETTIES (Shotgun Players in Berkeley)
WHAT’S ALL THE HOO-HA? Last Saturday, Berkeley’s Shotgun Players opened a play by Jen Silverman which is 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 You Remember When You Were In Middle School And You Read About…
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Theater Review: CAMELOT (Laguna Playhouse)
A BRIEF SHINING MOMENT AT LAGUNA PLAYHOUSE Sometimes less can be more in the arts. Consider the Lerner and Loewe musical Camelot. The show set a record for the biggest advance sale in Broadway history at the time it opened in 1960. From the creators of My Fair Lady, Camelot seemed to have everything going for it ’” the hit…
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Theater Review: THE PITCH (Odyssey Theatre Ensemble)
TELEMARKETING SURE IS A PITCH There’s nothing like a fascinating story, and that’s what’s in store with The Pitch, now at the Odyssey Theatre directed by Louie Liberti. If you’ve ever done telemarketing, it can be a cold and brutal business, because — of course — the bottom line is sales, and as we have…
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Theater Review: THE SPY WHO WENT INTO REHAB (Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice)
ESPIONAGE COMES TO GROUP THERAPY There’s a pretty good reason why the world premiere of Gregg Ostrin’s The Spy Who Went Into Rehab, onstage at Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice, has been extended. It’s a darned good farcical and absurdist comedy. The studly, well-cast Satiar Pourvasei plays Cross. Simon Cross. He’s been dropped off at…
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Opera Review: LA BOHÈME (Wolf Trap Opera Company at Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts in Virginia)
AH, BOHÈME! Last Friday, Wolf Trap Opera Company, the summer residency program for emerging opera professionals hosted at Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts, offered a lovely production of Giacomo Puccini’s 1896 opera La Bohème, which poignantly depicts the struggles and joys of young bohemians trying to pursue their dreams while facing harsh…
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Theater Review: CLUE (National Tour)
MURDEROUS LAUGHTER In 1945, “Cluedo” first came on the scene in the United Kingdom to the delight of board game lovers. Created by game designer Anthony E. Pratt, this beloved family friend board game, better known as “Clue” in the United States, has been a staple in the American zeitgeist for over half a century….
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Theater Review: DON’T LET THE PIGEON DRIVE THE BUS! THE MUSICAL! (Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire)
THIS PIGEON ADAPTATION IS NOT FOR THE BIRDS My kids love Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!, the popular children’s book by Mo Willems. It’s a simple, comic story about a pigeon that wants to be a bus driver, but whose dreams are thwarted by reality. An incredibly expressive and somewhat sympathetic character, the…
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Theater Review: 46 PLAYS FOR AMERICA’S FIRST LADIES (Hub Theatre Company at Club Café in Boston)
AS USUAL, THE WOMEN DEAL WITH THE MESS Hub Theatre Company‘s pay-what-you-will production of 46 Plays for America’s First Ladies offers a series of playlets as varied as the women portrayed. There are many surprises in store here. First of all, while the United States has had forty-six presidents, there have been many more First…
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Theater Review: ALICE BY HEART (Wildsong Theatre and Arts Collective in Ocean Beach, San Diego)
ALICE IN STUNNED-ERLAND Lewis Carroll sure never saw this version coming. His 1865 novel Alice In Wonderland, probably best known from the 1951 Disney animated film, has been reinterpreted time and again. This rocking musical version (with music by Duncan Sheik, lyrics by Steven Slater, and book by Slater and Jessie Nelson) reworks the original…
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Theater Review: THE BEST MAN SHOW (Hollywood and Edinburgh Fringe Festivals)
THE WORST BEST MAN MAKES THE BEST MAN SHOW A GUARANTEED WINNER We’re attending a wedding. Every viewer in the audience is an attendee. The vows have already been exchanged, and now it’s time for the groom’s brother — his best man — to give the customary speech. Charming and truthful but filled with toxicity…
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Theater Review: DUEL REALITY (Old Globe in San Diego)
MACROBATS The one challenge in writing this review is my atypical, completely-blank notepad taken home from the theatre. But that’s with good reason. Duel Reality — which opened last night — makes it challenging to decide just what to look at on stage at times, let alone dare to look away for something as mundane…
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Theater Review: THE ANTI YOGI (part of the Hollywood Fringe)
Mayuri Bhandari, an unenthusiastic gorgeous yoga instructor, has something to get off her chest. She’s miffed at how Western folks have commercialized the practice and teaching of yoga, turning an ancient, sacred practice into a commodity. In The Anti Yogi, which I caught at a packed encore performance at The Zephyr Theatre on July 10,…
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Theater Review: MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL (World Premiere Musical at Goodman Theatre in Chicago)
MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND BAD — GET HIGH FROM A TALL GLASS OF LADY CHABLIS; TAKE A BOTTLE OF BOURBON TO ENDURE THE OTHERS The Goodman Theatre’s premiere production of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil brought the beloved non-fiction book by John Berendt to life in a way that…
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Theater Review: EVITA (San Francisco Playhouse)
MEHVITA Eva Perón is back on stage downtown as San Francisco Playhouse stages the classic Broadway musical Evita. Inspired by a radio documentary about Perón, the first lady of Argentina, Evita began as a 1976 rock opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, the authors of Jesus Christ Superstar; it was staged as a musical on…
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Theater Review: THE COLORED MUSEUM (Studio Theatre, D.C.)
A FANTASIZED LOOK INTO BLACKNESS IN AMERICA The Colored Museum by George C. Wolfe, currently at The Studio Theatre, is a wild, satirical glance into African-American experiences, dating back to slaves in Africa to the present (which was 1986 when Wolfe penned it). The experiences are how Blacks are portrayed to a white public, as…
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