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Theater Review: HIR (Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles)
CRUEL INTENTIONS Now at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, Hir had its world premiere at Playwrights Horizon in 2015, engendering a rave in the The New York Times and going on to play internationally to enthusiastic reviews everywhere. I searched for other reviews because while the stated tone and subject matter of the show are what…
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Theater Review: THE REALISTIC JONESES (Shattered Globe Theatre and Theater Wit)
IS IT TOO REALISTIC, OR NOT REALISTIC ENOUGH? Is it smoke and mirrors or a trick of the light? No matter — the fact that nothing urgent is at stake in the 100 minutes of Will Leno’s The Realistic Joneses is not beside the point: It is the point. Next-door neighbors in a cookie-cutter suburb, four married characters —…
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Theater Review: LAST CALL (Open Fist Theatre Company at Atwater Village Theatre)
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…
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Dance Preview: HUBBARD STREET DANCE CHICAGO (Musco Center for the Arts)
HUBBA-HUBBA-HUBBARD As one of the world’s most important contemporary dance companies, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago encompasses a vast array of techniques and forms, as well as an understanding of abstract artistry and the emotional nuances of movement. With an exuberant, athletic, and innovative repertoire, Hubbard Street presents performances that inspire, yes, but also challenge how…
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CD Review: SOMETHING FOR THE BOYS (2018 Studio Recording on PS Classics)
SOMETHING SWELL FOR MUSICAL LOVERS A studio recording of Cole Porter’s 1943 boisterously farcical musical Something for the Boys has just been released, and producer and PS Classics co-founder Tommy Krasker has done it again. Since the early 1990s, he has helmed the making of studio cast albums of early Broadway musical scores that languished in near…
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Chicago Theater Review: EVIL DEAD THE MUSICAL (Black Button Eyes Productions)
BRINGING DEAD TO LIFE An import from our neighbor to the north that’s almost as inebriating as Canadian Club, Evil Dead The Musical is a blood-splattering, silly-ass, ham-acting confection based on a franchise of three gag-inducing 80s’ films. (How come the “good dead” never get a show? I guess it would be too dull.) A huge hit…
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CD Review: GOLDSTEIN (Original Off-Broadway Cast)
PANNING FOR GOLDSTEIN You have to glean the plot from the songs, because the synopsis for Charlie Schulman’s libretto for Goldstein, an Off-Broadway musical that closed in July, 2018, and now has an Original Cast Album on Broadway Records, is oddly extant from the booklet. Really? You mean I have to look up reviews for…
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Music Preview: BRANFORD MARSALIS QUARTET & YUKO MABUCHI TRIO (Segerstrom Concert Hall)
JAZZIN’ HOT IN COSTA MESA With propulsive muscled arrangements, intense high-powered playing, and ceaseless creativity, saxophonist/composer Branford Marsalis is one of his best and brightest musicians that America has ever produced, and his proficiency in both jazz and classical is mind-boggling. He joins his hard-swinging yet sensitive quartet to heat up the winter for one…
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Theater Review: DADA WOOF PAPA HOT (About Face Theatre at Theater Wit in Chicago)
FRIENDS WITH CHILDREN Gay parents — for centuries that seemed a contradiction in terms. How could promiscuity engender anything beyond itself? But, if, as Delmore Schwartz said, “With dreams begin responsibilities,” along with (modern) marriage comes children. A lot of stuff suddenly altered in 2015 when marriage equality passed. Theater is just now catching up…
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Film Review: CASINO ROYALE (directed by Martin Campbell)
CASINO ROYALE It’s no doubt been quite some time, but you now get to revisit the outstanding Bond movie from 2006, Casino Royale. Adapted from Ian Fleming’s first novel, written in 1953, the hero is different from Marvel Comic-type superheroes and other slot-game characters like Top Cat, where you can get a free spiny. Produced…
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Theater Review: LINDA VISTA (Mark Taper Forum)
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…
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CD Review: RACHMONINOV’S THE BELLS and SYMPHONIC DANCES (Bavarian Radio Choir and Symphony Orchestra)
RING THOSE BELLS To say that these two tone poems are among Rachmaninov’s finest compositions may raise an eyebrow to those who find his Symphonies the best. Don’t take my word for it. Later in his life, the Great Russian believed that The Bells was his greatest achievement. And if you don’t believe The Rach…
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Theater Review: CARDBOARD PIANO (TimeLine)
THEATER AND RECONCILIATION Love never seems greater than when hate sets it off. Then, as if to prove its power, it finds so much to rise above. A huge hit at the 2016 Humana Festival of New American Plays and now making its Chicago premiere in a forceful staging by TimeLine Theatre, Cardboard Piano is an exercise…
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Theater Review: 1776 (La Mirada Theatre)
YOU SAY YOU WANT A REVOLUTION? How remarkable to have been a fly on the wall when the creators of 1776, the 1969 musical receiving a terrific La Mirada Theatre/McCoy Rigby revival, were deciding the 11 o’clock number (the trope given for the big, late in the second act number by a self-realizing main character…
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Chicago Theater Review: FUENTE OVEJUNA (City Lit)
#ME TOO, 15th-CENTURY STYLE If it didn’t actually happen, this play would not be believed. Its climax soars as, tortured by the Inquisition to reveal the murderer of the evil-doing Commander of Calatrava, 300 villagers declared that it was Fuenteovejuna — not a person but their town that struck the blow for freedom. Their defiance,…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: SMART LOVE (Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice)
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE VS. AUTHENTIC EMOTION Brian Letscher’s new play, now at Pacific Resident Theatre, is pitched as a cutting-edge take on how our species might be affected by new developments in artificial intelligence. The narrative follows a family in Michigan through a night of unexpected developments that challenge their identities in the present, as well…
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Theater Review: MIDDLE8 (Stella Adler Theatre)
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…
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Theater Review: THE LIGHTNING THIEF: THE PERCY JACKSON MUSICAL (North American Tour)
LIGHTNING IN A BOTTLE, OR AN EMPOWER SHORTAGE? Holy Hades! It’s an all-purpose victim’s ur-dream of getting even: Every misunderstood teenager secretly imagines he was born better than life lets him show (off). Take that tonic/toxic delusion further: Supposing the Greek gods had secret kids — why not believe that you’re a demigod, not an…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: FOREVER BROOKLYN! (Whitefire Theatre)
NOTHING TRAFE HERE What I found most amazing about Forever Brooklyn! A Kosher Musical Comedy is that the writer/director Mark Wesley Curran is not from Brooklyn nor is he Jewish or even a comedian. Yet he totally captures what it is to be Jewish and what it was like growing up in Brooklyn. I should know since…
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Music Review: ZUBIN MEHTA’S BRAHMS (LA Phil)
ZUBIN (MEH)TA Since classical concerts are scheduled up to two years in advance, there is no possible way to know if an artist will need to be replaced. This is why, in opera for example, singers don’t always seem best-suited for each other when one must cancel. But it’s also how I discovered some bedazzling…
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