Areas We Cover
Categories
Theater
-
Theater Review: CITIZEN DETECTIVE (Geffen Playhouse)
THE BIG SLEEP No crime is as duplicitous as The Geffen’s latest zoom-as-theater project Citizen Detective. This is the point that I say “spoiler alert” but a) nothing I do can spoil this interactive 85 minutes any more than its shoddy execution already has, and b) I can’t spoil who murdered Silent-era Hollywood director William…
-
Theater Review: THE PROJECT(S) (Stage Left Theater, Chicago)
THIS YEAR MORE THAN EVER, THE PROJECT(S) MUST BE SEEN It’s a continuing crisis seen from the inside out, fleshed out with warmth and truth. In The Project(s), the late, great American Theater Company artistic director PJ Paparelli and documentarian Joshua Jaeger created a crash course and action meditation on Chicago’s infam0us housing projects. Inspired…
-
Theater Review: THE SPIN (Interrobang Theatre Project, Chicago)
THE SPIN IS A SPECTACULAR SPARKLING SPUNKY EXPLOIT Satisfying, enriching, entertaining and proof that Chicago contains some of this country’s greatest actors and theater, The Spin is writer/director Spenser Davis’s brilliant blend of theatric sensibilities in a digital format. This offering from Interrobang Theatre Project in Chicago “opened” last night and it is hands down…
-
Theater Review: RUSSIAN TROLL FARM: A WORKPLACE COMEDY (TheaterWorks Hartford, TheatreSquared, The Civilians)
TRENCHANT TROLLS TRIUMPH BY TRANSMOGRIFYING TRUTH Somewhere in the bowels of Saint Petersburg, Russia, there is an agency made up of both Americans and Russians that trolls the internet, creating hashtags and Facebook posts and memes from people who do not exist, and hurl them around the internet so that gullible Americans become so divisive…
-
Theater Review: 45 PLAYS FOR AMERICA’S FIRST LADIES (The Neo-Futurists in NYC, Chicago, and San Francisco)
WHO’S ON FIRST, LADIES? The program states: “Rather than presenting a purely biographical story, this project uses the “honorary” office of First Lady as a lens to examine the roles that women and other marginalized individuals have played in the development of America.” That this recorded production is coarse in value only seems to heighten…
-
Theater Review: ART (San Francisco Playhouse)
YES, BUT IS IT ART? Yasmina Reza’s oft-produced Art (English translation by Christopher Hampton) may be singularly responsible for the current plethora of new plays today with one set, a small cast, and billed as “Ninety Minutes No Intermission.” Art is a cash cow, and it’s no wonder that so many playwrights seem to be…
-
Theater Reviews: STILL. and BOB BAKER’S THE CIRCUS (PlayhouseLIVE from Pasadena Playhouse)
STILL. WAITING FOR THEATER No one has articulated the black American experience in such a way that I, as a white man, “get it,” as has James Baldwin. His cool, unflappable, authoritative delivery is one thing, but his writings — which brilliantly connect the dots between American slavery and growing up Black in America in…
-
Theater Review: WIESENTHAL (The Wallis)
WIESENTHAL ENTHRALLS Writer/performer Tom Dugan’s solo show Wiesenthal capitalizes on the strengths of the famous Nazi hunter – his resilience, tenacity and humor. Dugan has crafted a show in which the retiring Simon Wiesenthal — who claimed he flushed out nearly 1,100 war criminals — addresses us as he packs up memorabilia and memoranda in…
-
Theater Review: A WEEKEND WITH PABLO PICASSO (feature-length film adaptation at San Diego Rep)
When I first saw Herbert Siguenza’s solo show A Weekend with Pablo Picasso, I knew this tour-de-force triumph would live among the greatest one-person shows I could ever see, including James Whitmore as President Truman in Give ‘em Hell, Harry, Robert Morse as Truman Capote in Tru, and Ann Randolph as the kookiest daughter on record in Loveland….
-
Theater Review: PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (Lifeline)
A PRODUCTION TO BE PROUD OF Pride and Prejudice is Austen’s best-known novel, and its rich tapestry of characters and urbane dialogue have made it a natural for the stage, television, and motion pictures — and now, virtual streaming. To kick off its new line of digital programming, Lifeline Theatre presents Pride and Prejudice, adapted…
-
Theater Review: CRUSH (No Puppet Co.)
WORLD PREMIERE OF PUPPET PLAY, CRUSH, FINALLY GETS ITS DUE No Puppet Co. is offering the World Premiere of CRUSH, an ingenious, fun video puppet play presented in six parts and released in separate installments on YouTube through August 20 (the delicious segments will remain there for viewing later on). Picking up roughly from where Kafka left off —…
-
Theater Review: THEATER IN QUARANTINE (The 7th Voyage of Egon Tichy and more)
VOYAGE IN A CLOSET Whereas many theater companies are becoming experimenters with video during the COVID-19 shutdown, Theater in Quarantine has been actually transforming theater into a small space successfully. Now, Theater in Quarantine debuts its most technically ambitious production, The 7th Voyage of Egon Tichy, tonight live at 7pm and 9pm EDT. This slapstick science-fiction adventure adapted from…
-
Theater Review: MARGIN OF ERROR (The Roustabouts)
CATCH THE VIRTUAL WORLD PREMIERE OF MARGIN OF ERROR As with many companies, San Diego’s The Roustabouts have had to restructure due to COVID-19. Now, they are presenting productions and readings in the virtual world. This week, they begin with their archival recording of the 2017 play, Will Cooper’s Margin of Error, a fast-moving drama…
-
Theater Review: BETTE DAVIS AINT FOR SISSIES (live streaming)
FASTEN YOUR SEATBELTS “Stardust” was the name for what made Bette Davis shine. With playwright Jessica Sherr’s solo recreation of more than big eyes and flouncing cigarettes, the magic is back to cast a second spell as Sherr presents a new 80-minute version directed for the small screen by Karen Carpenter. Each of the six…
-
Theater Review: BLEEDING LOVE (Musical Podcast)
BLOODY GOOD! You know, Stage and Cinema has received hundreds of podcasts and other streaming paraphernalia since April when COVID-19 shut the arts down, but most are technically awkward, strangely self-congratulatory, or simply meh. So it took a month for me to finally listen to a podcast of Bleeding Love, a wholly accessible and instantaneously…
-
Theater Review: BOMBSHELL IN CONCERT (streaming)
IT’S DA BOMB! The best set of new Broadway-style songs I’ve heard in years. Marc Shaiman and Scott Witman deserve a standing ovation for creating the spectacular score, the songs of which came from the cancelled TV show Smash. These are the tunes that were from Bombshell, the musical-within-the musical that was about Marilyn Monroe…
-
Theater Review: A BODY OF WATER (Actors Co-op)
PARTS OF A BODY Part Albee, part Ionesco, part mystery thriller, part Doubt, part Groundhog Day and — sadly — all red herrings, Lee Blessing’s 2005 A Body of Water can’t decide what it wants to be in the end — which is a shame because individual parts of this body are bracing. (Actor Co-op’s…
-
Theater Review: ALICE IN WONDERLAND (A Noise Within in Pasadena)
WHAT A WONDER Childhood whimsy is seen through the looking-glass of adult sophistication at A Noise Within. Based on Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There (1871), this 1932 stage adaptation — co-written by Eva Le Gallienne and Florida Friebus — faithfully honors its source materials,…
-
Theater Review: HOME (On Tour at The Broad Stage)
A HOME RUN What do you think of when you think of home? Is it the place where you were born? Is it where you are living now? Is it where you followed your growth by measuring yourself against one of its walls? Is it the home you built? Is it the home you inherited…
-
Theater Review: THE HEALING (formerly titled LEGENDS) (Black Ensemble Theater)
SINGING AGAINST HATE If it takes a village, the Black Ensemble Theater creates one nightly. Actually, it’s a “healing circle” that’s literally at center stage and figuratively at the heart of Legends the Musical: A Civil Rights Movement, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow. Written and directed by founder Jackie Taylor, this generous new work departs from…
Search Articles
Please help keep
Stage and Cinema going!
