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Theater Review: FALSETTOS (National Tour in Chicago)
WHAT MORE CAN THEY SING? By its riveting end Falsettos, a fusion of March of the Falsettos (1981) and Falsettoland (1990), has jolted us with its heartbreak and won us with its wit. This very grown-up musical by composer/lyricist William Finn and bookwriter James Lapine still delivers a daring plot: Marvin leaves wife Trina and son Jason for…
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Theater Review: A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE (Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles)
PLENTY TO DESIRE When I was thirteen I discovered Tennessee Williams when I picked up his play A Streetcar Named Desire at the New York Public Library. I don’t know if I fully understood it at that age, but there was one line that not only stayed with me my whole life, but is the…
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Theater Review: SHOOTING STAR — A REVEALING NEW MUSICAL (Hudson Mainstage in Hollywood)
SHOOTING STAR AIMS, SHOOTS … AND BORES Shooting Star, billed as “A Revealing New Musical” — and getting its World Premiere at the Hudson Theatres in Los Angeles under the direction of Michael Bello — offers us a glimpse of one man’s journey through the world of gay porn. Written by Florian Klein (a.k.a. adult…
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CD Review: DONNA VOCE (Anna Shelest, Piano)
DONNA BELLA Anna Shelest, a New Yorker born in the Ukraine, has not only won me over with her astoundingly dexterous and emotive pianism, but has truly proved herself a whiz at programming her albums. Even if her newest CD, Donna Voce, was not a collection of piano solos by female composers who deserve as…
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Theater Review: SIX (The Yard at Chicago Shakespeare)
SIX CHICKS REMIX TO NIX PRICKS Singing well is the best revenge, especially if you married the spouse from hell. So runs the cunning concept behind Six. This raucous pop concert joyously restores to very loud life the six ex-wives of Henry VIII. The rampaging result, recalling the hip-hop irreverence of the Q Brothers’Othello: The Remix and Christmas…
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Theater Review: HAPPY DAYS (Mark Taper Forum)
HAPPY DAYS IS HERE AGAIN I had never read nor seen Samuel Beckett’s absurdist classic Happy Days, now at the Mark Taper, but was excited at the prospect of seeing the great Dianne Weist in the flesh. Like many people, I’ve loved her ever since Hannah and Her Sisters, one of Woody Allen’s best films,…
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Music Review: DUDAMEL & LANG LANG (LA Phil)
BACK TO BUSINESS Star pianist Lang Lang overcame his left-hand injury — the tendonitis that caused him to hand off four of five scheduled Beethoven Concertos with the LA Phil this month. His limited schedule has allowed for quicker recovery time, but it also allowed four other pianists from around the globe to show off…
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Theater Review: STYLE AND GRACE: IN TRIBUTE TO LENA HORNE AND NANCY WILSON (Black Ensemble Theater in Chicago)
SINGING UP STORMY STUFF With this theater everything good is new again — and never old. The latest homage from Black Ensemble Theater, Style and Grace: In Tribute to Lena Horne and Nancy Wilson honors stellar singers whose consummate talents we lost in 2010 and 2018, respectively. Incarnating “impeccable style and enduring grace,” these divas…
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Theater Review: M. BUTTERFLY (South Coast Rep)
MEH BUTTERFLY M. Butterfly asks the audience to accept a love story in which a French career diplomat takes a Chinese opera diva as his mistress for 20 years, unaware that the diva is actually a man. Truth being stranger than fiction, the story is based on a real life affair that David Henry Hwang…
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Theater Review: MARY SHELLEY’S FRANKENSTEIN (Lookingglass Theatre Company in Chicago)
THE MONSTER WITHIN It was a dark and stormy night. Escaping a tempest by seeking shelter in the Villa Diodati on a summer night in 1814, good friends Mary Shelley (as she would later be called), her future husband and Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, the infamous George Gordon Lord Bryon, affable Dr. John Polidori,…
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DVD Review: UNFORGOTTEN (Seasons 1-3, PBS)
YOU WON’T FORGET THIS All three seasons of this excellent British DVD/Blu-ray import, along the lines of the many Cold Case series, are first-rate and occasionally heart-stopping, here to be had and enjoyed on DVD. Starring the ubiquitous Nicola Walker (seen in her glory in MI5; Last Tango to Halifax; River) and veteran Sanjeev Bhaskar…
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Theater Review: BLOOMSDAY (Remy Bumppo Theatre Company at Theater Wit)
DÉJí€ VU VS. NEVERMORE A very prolific playwright, Steven Dietz can deliver dense dramatic homage. In his 2013 Mad Beat Hip & Gone, now playing at The Edge Theater Off Broadway, his dialogue dives into a recreation of beatnik Jack Kerouac’s road-trip fantasies. Another very recent work, his 2016 Bloomsday, incarnates and embodies James Joyce, specifically the…
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Theater Review: YOGA PLAY (Moxie Theatre Company in San Diego)
PUTTING CAPITALISM ON THE MAT Which of the following defines yoga to you? A series of gentle exercises meant to relax and invigorate the body; A Hindu spiritual and ascetic discipline using breath control and meditation; An 83 billion-dollar international industry of mats, equipment, clothing, and accessories. All three are true, but for Joan (Jo…
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Chicago Theater Review: THE CROWD YOU’RE IN WITH (AstonRep Theatre Company at The Raven)
RETHINKING REPRODUCTION A very pointed question arrives near the end of Rebecca Gilman’s useful 2007 drama The Crowd You’re in With, first produced in Chicago ten years ago by Goodman Theatre. It’s posed by a young husband to a wife who badly wants to be a mother: “Do we love each other enough not to need to have a…
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DVD Review: VAN VEETEREN (Season One, Episodes 1-3 on MHz Releasing)
SCANDI-NOIR-VIA Based on the novels of Hí¥kan Nesser, this series concerns a retired northern European chief detective who opens up a used book shop for his leisure time; yet cops — whether friends from the force or not — keep coming in to test his skills on difficult cases. In Season One, now available on…
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Theater Review: AT THE TABLE (Road Theatre at Lankershim Arts Center in North Hollywood)
THERE’S A LOT AT THIS TABLE At the Table takes place in Catskills, a resort area in the low mountains in E New York State that I hold dear to my heart since I spent many summers there — as many Jewish New Yorkers did. The setting is the house of Nate (Christian Prentice), who…
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Off-Broadway Theater Review: HAPPY TALK (The New Group at The Pershing Square Signature Center)
EVERYTHING IS HAPPY INDEED In Jesse Eisenberg’s very funny and poignant one-act Happy Talk the excellent Susan Sarandon plays Lorraine, an amateur actress whose rosy, self-serving delusions lead to tragic consequences. We first meet Lorraine when she arrives late to her suburban home from rehearsal; she’s playing the part of Bloody Mary in a production…
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Chicago Theater Review: THE WINTER’S TALE (Goodman Theatre)
A FRACTURED FAIRY TALE Shakespeare’s strange romance, which begins with gratuitous jealousy and ends with gratuitous forgiveness, is best savored as a fairy tale for grownups: A virtuous queen is condemned for adultery, her supposed despoiler her husband’s equally honest best friend. It seems as if we’ve blundered from courtly courtesies into an Othello-like tragedy. But…
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Review: THE SECRET GARDEN (3-D Theatricals)
A FLOWERING PRODUCTION The Secret Garden, the hauntingly romantic musical by Marsha Norman (book and lyrics) and Lucy Simon (music) opened on Broadway 1991 and ran 709 performances. The show starred Mandy Patinkin, Rebecca Luker, John Cameron Mitchell, and Robert Westenberg; 11-year old Daisy Egan became the youngest recipient of a Tony Award for Best…
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Theater Review: JULIUS WEEZER (The Troubies at El Portal in North Hollywood)
CAESING THE MOMENT What do you get when you mix Shakespeare’s beloved tragedy Julius Caesar with the hard-driving rock band Weezer? Adapter, director and choreographer Matt Walker, who also plays Cassius, arrived at the mash-up known as Julius Weezer, and you should be prepared before attending that you will no doubt wind up laughing your…
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