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Chicago Theater Review: DRACULA (The Hypocrites at Mercury Theater)
LOST IN TRANSFUSION Halloween is dangling out in the future, which means that Washington D.C. is finally getting competition in the terror market. The indefatigable Sean Graney, disruptive director/adaptor of The Hypocrites’ thinking theater, just jumped on the scream wagon. He offers us the latest variation on a theme by Bram Stoker (via Vlad the…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: MASTER CLASS (Garry Marshall Theatre in Burbank)
SCHOOLED BY CALLAS; ENTERTAINED BY HENNESY If you’ve ever been to a master class, then Terrence McNally’s Master Class will seem very familiar. If you haven’t, then you’re in for a real eye-opener. A master class, as its name suggests, is a class given by an expert (or master) to students in a particular discipline,…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: EXIT STRATEGY (The Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Davidson/Valentini Theatre)
EXIT TRAGEDY Fierce, funny, and relevant under Deena Selenow’s choreographic direction, Ike Holter’s entertaining but uneven melodrama takes place in a Chicago high school that’s suffering from an image problem and a 40% graduation rate. There, a feckless assistant principal, five diverse, overloaded teachers and an intelligent, social media-savvy, system-fighting student will suffer triumph, defeat,…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: SEE/SAW (Civic Center Studios in Downtown)
SHUFFLE ALONG Is stuff magical only because it can’t be explained? Perhaps it’s more than just the absence of logic, probability, or reason. There’s a presence too: Magic evokes a child-like sense of wonder in the oldest adults, rewarding their imagination more than their ignorance. But in a world where Vegas-styled, hi-tech acts abound, nothing…
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Chicago Theater Review: BLUE MAN GROUP (20th Anniversary at Briar Street Theater)
A TWENTY-YEAR ALIEN INVASION The azure takeover began in 1991. Six years later, Blue Man Group—the company that is a show—debuted in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood. 20 years later, now the longest running production in the city, it still plays the Briar Street Theater (which used to be the stable for Marshall Field’s delivery horses). Clearly, in the right…
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Los Angeles Dance Preview: DORRANCE DANCE (The Wallis in Beverly Hills)
TAPPING TROUBLES AWAY Michelle Dorrance, founder and artistic director of Dorrance Dance, is one of the most sought after tap dancers of her generation. Her imaginative work, which continually pushes the boundaries of this time-honored form, made her a MacArthur Fellow. Beginning tonight, her company is coming to the Wallis in Beverly Hills through October…
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Los Angeles Music Preview: BRAHMS SYMPHONIES No. 2 and 3 (Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Disney Hall)
MUTI AND THE CSO BRING BRAHMS SYMPHONIES TO DISNEY HALL Endlessly frustrating his admirers, Johannes Brahms was well-known for his reluctance to begin symphonic works. Once he began—with the arrival of his First Symphony in 1876—the floodgates swung open. The First took about 15-21 years to finish (depending on which scholar you ask), but the…
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Chicago Theater Review: THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH (Remy Bumppo at Greenhouse Theater Center)
THORNTON WILDER’S SURVIVAL SAGA It’s a play for all seasons and all sorrows: Writing during the uncertainty of a world war, Thornton Wilder intended The Skin of Our Teeth to be a three-act reassurance. A promissory note to be redeemed during misfortunes, it would remind mortals of their better angels. This winner of the 1943 Pulitzer Prize…
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Off-Broadway Theater Review: MEASURE FOR MEASURE (Elevator Repair Service/The Public Theater)
FULL MEASURE More often than not, stagings of Shakespeare plays turn into dull, tedious exercises. The reasons for this vary but the one problem that always seems present is the lack of an artistically significant personal and urgent connection between material and interpreter. To put it another way, one often gets the sense of productions…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: WITH LOVE AND A MAJOR ORGAN (The Theatre @ Boston Court)
A FINE PRODUCTION OF A MINOR ORGAN Midway through playwright Julia Lederer’s feather-light, yet rather droning romantic comedy, a character literally reaches into her own chest and pulls out her heart, which thumps and pumps and leaks blood into the padded envelope she shoves it into. The lovesick woman then leaves it in a New York…
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Theater Tour Review: PIAF! THE SHOW (global tour at the Athenaeum Theatre in Chicago)
THE ULTIMATE FRENCH KISS It was a one-off last night at the Athenaeum Theatre. But a long run on the road continues to beckon to Awesome Company’s bravura showcase Piaf! The Show (which will return to Chicago April 10, 2018). Embarked on a 400-performance world tour, with over half a million tickets sold in more than 30…
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Chicago Opera Review: RIGOLETTO (Lyric Opera)
QUINN KELSEY AND MATTHEW POLENZANI SHINE IN CLASSIC ITALIAN OPERA After the novelty of Lyric’s season-opening production of Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice, this more traditional production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto is welcome indeed. In Rigoletto, Verdi’s score is as delightful and charming as ever, with such memorable songs as “La donna è mobile” and “Caro…
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Chicago Theater Review: THE CRUCIBLE (Steppenwolf)
FEAR FACTOR: 1692 = 2017 325 years ago, a witchhunt gave this continent one of its most chilling and cautionary cases of panic-peddling and persecution: In assorted “witch trials” the supposedly godly townsfolk of Salem, Massachusetts executed 19 innocent fellow humans. Part class-ridden repression, part naked plunder (these hangings facilitated some very convenient land grabs),…
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Los Angeles Opera Preview: THE PEARL FISHERS (LA Opera at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion)
DIVE INTO A GREAT OPERA Bizet’s most successful opera besides Carmen, The Pearl Fishers premiered as Les Pêcheurs de Perles at the Théâtre Lyrique in Paris (1863). London saw it at Covent Garden under the title of Leila (1887); and Italy, Pescatori di Perle (1899). The New York premiere was at the Metropolitan Opera House…
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Chicago Theater Review: DUKE ELLINGTON’S GREATEST HITS (Music Theater Works)
HE STILL GOT THAT SWING In his 75 years of marvelous music-making, Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington really was American nobility if not royalty. The sultan of swing was also the jazz king, a sophisticate with the common touch who merged Broadway with Main Street, a composer of countless songs that launched dozens of careers. And…
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Los Angeles Music Review: MOZART CLARINET CONCERTO & SELECTIONS FROM THE MAGIC FLUTE (Los Angeles Philharmonic)
THE HARD-HEARTED WILL TURN TO LOVE Few operas are more delightful than Mozart’s Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte), which fuses fantasy and adventure with high ideals and memorable melodies. Emmanuel Shikaneder’s Singspiel libretto is suffused with masonic elements, emphasizing the triumph of reason, nature, and wisdom over the forces of darkness and superstition. But there are contradictions too,…
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Dance Tour Preview: MARIINSKY BALLET AND ORCHESTRA (All-Fokine program at Segerstrom Hall in Costa Mesa)
THE MIGHTY MARIINSKY AND FABULOUS FOKINE For more than two centuries, the Mariinsky Ballet, formerly known as the Kirov, has created classical dance at its best, a tradition that continues to this day. This incredible company is coming to Segerstrom Center for the Arts for one weekend only, October 12-15, 2017, where they’ll pay tribute to…
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Chicago Theater Review: CHOIR BOY (Raven Theatre)
SINGING, SURVIVING, AND SPIRIT It’s a fine fit: As much as molding character is the goal of the imaginary Charles R. Drew Prep School for Boys in Choir Boy, it’s also the purpose of Chicago’s very real Raven Theatre—where make-believe manages to matter. The characters on this stage—seen from every side—are forged in the script, transforming…
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Los Angeles Theater Preview: STATE OF SIEGE (Théâtre de la Ville at Royce Hall)
FANTASTIC, FRIGHTENING, FIERCE, FRENCH: THÉTRE DE LA VILLE’S STATE OF SIEGE AT UCLA Presented by CAP UCLA, Paris’s Théâtre de la Ville returns to Royce Hall with a new production of Albert Camus’ harrowing political allegory, State of Siege, on Thursday October 26 and Friday October 27, 2017. This incredible company premiered the astounding production…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: OUR TOWN (Pasadena Playhouse)
THE UNBEARABLE CURSE OF BEING I remember reading Rebecca Mead’s New Yorker review of Gypsy when Tyne Daly first starred as Mama Rose. She described the experience of not being sure beforehand whether she had ever seen the show. The songs were so familiar’”of course she had seen some production or other at some point….
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