Theater

RAGING AGAINST THE DYING LIGHT Elderly parents losing their independence is more significant demographically in America now than at any time in our history. Most still-living Greatest Generation parents of Baby Boomers are in their seventies to nineties or even early one-hundreds. After lifetimes of gritty independence, often forged during the Depression, they tend to…

BEAUTIFUL HONESTY The title of Tracy Letts’ play Linda Vista, Steppenwolf Theatre’s production now at the Mark Taper Forum, translates as “Beautiful View.” In a literal sense, it refers to a San Diego apartment complex with a tiny slice of ocean visible (if you know where to look). It is also ironic. Nothing here looks…

GREAT CHORUS, GREAT BRIDGE, GREAT INTRO WONKY SUPERSTRUCTURE A middle 8 is a section in song structure  — usually in the middle and consisting of eight bars — that is used to add some new content into the later part of a song to revitalize a tune that could get stale. It also breaks the repetition…

ACTUALLY MAGICAL I didn’t have any idea what to expect from this hybrid theatrical invention. It employs scenes from the beloved Richard Curtis film Love Actually, live musicians (who often arrive onstage as characters), and stage actors who act out some of the scenes and then sing songs from the soundtrack as well as a…

LITTLE SHOP OF HAPPINESS I’ll be the first to admit that it may be impossible to create a bad production of the 1963 jewel-box musical She Loves Me. This perfect show, based on the 1937 play Parfumerie by Miklós László, is so resplendent, so charming, and so well-constructed that a 2011 gathering of literati for…

THIS REALLY IS HOLIDAY MAGIC I can’t think of more entertaining way to spend the holidays then to see  A Very Merry Magic Mania at the Santa Monica Playhouse. This intimate showcase of the best magicians around was created by Albie Selznick, creator of the theatrical smash hit, Smoke and Mirrors. Albie, who hosts as well,…

BEAUTIFUL DESPAIR BY A MASTER THESPIAN The river of lost souls can be found in Westwood, and your magnificent tour guide is Brian Dennehy. In this coupling of one-acts by Eugene O’Neill and Samuel Beckett, Dennehy supplies the concentrated crux of regret by embodying how time shreds our delusions. At the same time, with brilliant…

A GHOSTLY CAROL TO REMEMBER A Christmas Carol keeps the lights on at theaters across the country, filling their coffers every year and helping underwrite their other productions. It usually is done as a rather jolly affair, along the lines of British panto, where nothing bad ever seems to happen. Sometimes the ghosts are funny…

LOVING THE COCKROACH WITHIN Playwright Eric Reyes Loo wisely observes that the messiness of love and grief does not easily coexist within the binary world of Facebook. In his new play, Death and Cockroaches, a Chalk Repertory Theatre presentation at the Atwater Village Theatre, he explores the tectonic changes his family experienced in real life…

IT’S ALL GREEK TO ME In 2011, Playwrights Horizon Artistic Director Jon Lawrence Rivera staged Donald Jolly’s bonded, which explored the restrictiveness of gays based on their situation, namely slavery in 1820s’ Virginia. That work-in-progress was made more than palatable with witty, poetic dialogue and a tantalizing tale. Now comes a tale of repressed homosexuality,…

WALKS LIKE A DUCK, QUACKS LIKE A HIT Playwright Eliza Clark, in notes about Quack, her new play now in its world premiere at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City, writes that she has been thinking a lot about privilege and entitlement, and the scary forces coming out of the woodwork in America. As…