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Theater Review: THE MYSTERY OF IRMA VEP (Actors Co-op in Hollywood)
A PENNY DREADFUL SAVED ISN’T ALWAYS EARNED Back in the 1800s, the Industrial Revolution was in full swing in merry ole England. The working class was becoming more educated and printing was becoming more affordable. To quench the thirst of the masses for every day diversions, “penny dreadfuls” hit the scene. These serialized fictional publications,…
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Theater Review: LA VIE EN ROSE (Julia Migenes at the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles)
A LIVING ROSE If you have even a modest love of French songs, or just the art of performance, of hearing and seeing a singer bring a lyric to vibrant life, do yourself a favor and go see this consummate artist in a sweet, masterful evening of Chanson. Julia Migenes is one of those rare…
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Theater Review: IN TROUSERS (Lounge Theatre)
GETTING IN TROUSERS William Finn’s musical masterpiece Falsettos is a melding of two one-acts: March of the Falsettos ’” debatably one of the best scores of the 1980s ’” which opened Off-Broadway in 1981, and Falsettoland, which opened in 1990 at the Lucille Lortel, where unprepared audience members like myself needed boxes of tissues to survive the…
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Theater Review: JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR 50TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR
50 YEARS SINCE ITS BIRTH AND JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR FINALLY RISES AGAIN Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar is given the rock concert treatment for its 50th Anniversary Tour, and that’s precisely what it needs to soar. It’s a mash-up of stadium staging with lead actors holding microphones and stands, music video,…
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Theater Review: N (Greenhouse Theatre Center & GLP Productions in Chicago)
THE HURT OF HATE Dirty laundry demands an airing. Given the disunion afflicting our republic, a play like N (short for the “N word”) has healing to share. A provocative world premiere by Chicago writer David Alex at the Greenhouse Theater Center, this 100-minute character piece stirs up the sometimes static tale of an evolving relationship between…
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Theater Review: MIKE BIRBIGLIA’S THE NEW ONE (Tour at The Ahmanson in Los Angeles)
TOSSING OUT THE BABY BUT KEEPING THE BATHWATER Reluctance takes center stage in Center Theater Group’s production of Mike Birbiglia’s theatrical child The New One. In his 2018 one-man show, the comedian confesses to cold feet at his wife’s suggestion of having a child. That aversion to risk unfortunately finds its way to Birbiglia’s script,…
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Theater Review: THE MERCHANT OF VENICE (Invictus Theatre Co. in Chicago)
HATE CRIMES ROCK A SUBVERSIVE COMEDY This show can never be nice: Along with The Taming of the Shrew, a comedy built squarely on misogyny, The Merchant of Venice, a tragicomedy festering with anti-Semitism, remains the Bard’s most problematic play. But Shakespeare wrote it. Felt from all sides, there’s humanity to spare. Truth overcomes prejudice as an…
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Theater Review ONCE (3-D Theatricals in Cerritos)
ONCE AGAIN, PLEASE Ironically, the real-life love affair between collaborators Glen Hasard, an Irish singer-songwriter, and Markéta Irglová, a Czech songwriter, fizzled after John Carney’s 2007 film became a success (well, it’s not called Once for nothing). But the Tony-triumphant 2011 stage musical, now offered in 3-D Theatrical’s soaring, enchanting, and bittersweet yet uplifting production,…
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Theater Review: THE MUSIC MAN (5-Star Theatricals in Thousand Oaks)
IT JUST KEEPS GETTING BETTER In 1994, 5-Star Theatricals (formerly Cabrillo Music Theatre) produced its first show: Meredith Willson’s The Music Man, which opened on Broadway in 1957 and became an instant hit. Now on their 25th anniversary, the show has returned to the Fred Kavli Theatre in Thousand Oaks and lightning has struck twice…
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Theater Review: THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA (LA Opera at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion)
PIAZZA EXPLODES LIKE TUSCAN SUNLIGHT From London’s Royal Festival Hall to L.A.’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion comes a rapturous new production of the Tony Award-winning musical The Light in the Piazza. Presented by LA Opera under the helm of Olivier Award-winning director Daniel Evans and conductor Kimberly Grigsby, Piazza is an exciting return to of one…
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Theater Review: SUNSET BOULEVARD (Porchlight Music Theatre at Ruth Page Center for the Arts)
UP CLOSE, SHE’S BIGGER THAN EVEN PEANUT BUTTER From the start it seemed strange that anyone would make a musical out of a movie that embodies its medium so completely. Yes, the film All About Eve deserved to become the musical Applause. Both were obsessed with the theater. But Billy Wilder’s consummately cinematic 1950 masterpiece was a cautionary…
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Theater Review: ANASTASIA (National Tour)
ON ANASTASIA, AMNESIA, AND ANESTHESIA First came the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia, the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, who was murdered in 1918 just after the Bolshevik Revolution, most likely by Vladimir Lenin’s secret police. Then came the rumors that she was still alive. Then came the imposters, keeping alive one of…
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Theater Review: A KID LIKE JAKE (IAMA Theatre Company at the Pasadena Playhouse)
CINDERFELLA The best play on any L.A. stage right now, Daniel Pearle’s 2013 A Kid Like Jake couldn’t be more relevant. The parents of a four-year-old boy are applying for a private primary school in Manhattan with the help of a pre-school admissions counselor, Judy (Sharon Lawrence), who gets caught in the crosshairs of the…
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Theater Review: THE ABUELAS (Antaeus Theatre Company in Glendale)
THE DIRTY WAR COMES HOME Stephanie Alison Walker’s The Abuelas at Antaeus Theatre is the story of a woman discovering that she is a child of the “Disappeared,” the approximately 30,000 people killed through state-sponsored terrorism during Argentina’s 1976-1983 Dirty War, when opposition to the military junta-led government was ruthlessly quashed. Two generations of women,…
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Theater Review: TRUE WEST (VS. Theatre in L.A.)
SHEPARDING OUT THE TRUTH Sam Shepard’s domestic disruption True West hasn’t left the theatrical landscape since it first premiered with Peter Coyote at San Francisco’s Magic Theater in 1980. Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre’s 1982 production with John Malkovich and Gary Sinise remains legendary and Roundabout’s Broadway outing with Ethan Hawke and Paul Dano just closed last…
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Theater Review: SUNDOWN, YELLOW MOON (Raven Theatre in Chicago)
A FAMILY IN KEY SIGNATURES As she showed in  Five Mile Lake,  Rachel Bonds works with a small brush. She lays low before her subject in order to convey tender, unassuming connections between the characters. The result: inconclusive plots that suggest so much more life around these souls — ones that we can only assume but nonetheless…
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Theater Review: BORDER PEOPLE (The Marsh San Francisco)
ON THE BORDERLINE What do a Latino cop, a black vet in the Bronx, a Saudi Arabian without a country, a gay pagan goat rancher, and a homeless HIV-positive man have in common? Dan Hoyle. SF’s own master storyteller is back with a new show, Border People, one he has crafted from a series of…
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Theater Review: THE VANDAL (West Coast Premiere at Chance Theatre)
WHAT LIES BURIED Actor Hamish Linklater’s funny, sharp and tender play The Vandal begins on a cold winter night as a down-on-her-luck middle-aged woman waits for a bus on a deserted street. A high-school boy appears and starts up a conversation. Precocious and lively, he quickly overcomes the woman’s reluctance to participate. He points out…
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Theater Review: YOGA PLAY (Laguna Playhouse)
THE CORE IS THERE, BUT THE POSE IS OFF Not only is yoga a gentle exercise and a Hindu spiritual discipline, it’s also an $83 billion international industry. Meet Joan (Susi Damilano), a new marketing director of Jojomon, a yoga merchandise conglomerate. She actually could care less about yoga; she’s going for numbers and new…
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Theater Review: THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (City Lit in Chicago)
THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME Terry McCabe, artistic director of City Lit Theater, knows Sherlock Holmes and his shadow sleuth Dr. Watson almost as well as author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. His adaptations of their adventures combine storytelling urgency and narrative drive with crime solving at a perfect fever. Ever at…
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