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Los Angeles Theater Review: THE COMPLETE HISTORY OF COMEDY [ABRIDGED] (Falcon Theatre in Burbank)
THIS COMEDY IS TRAGIC Painfully unfunny to the point of torture, Falcon Theatre’s production of The Complete History of Comedy (abridged) puts a nail in the coffin of vaudeville and burlesque, and left me stone-faced. Lacking inventiveness and freshness, Reed Martin and Austin Tichenor’s script trammels us with a trajectory of comedy from its birth (plastic dolls shooting…
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Theater Review: AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (National Tour reviewed at the Hollywood Pantages)
THE DANCING ENTRANCES, BUT THE BOOK DOESN’T STAND A CHANCE Back in the era that spawned musicals with tunes by Gershwin, Kern, Porter, and Rodgers, the Broadway Musical Comedy book was almost unnecessary. The 1920s and ’30s saw shows constructed piecemeal’”a comic star here, a songwriting team there, whoever was available, really. The cliché-ridden plots and dubious groaners…
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DVD Series Review: CORP + ANAM (MHz Networks)
THE AWESOME LANGUAGE OF BODY AND SOUL The primary value of the American company, MHz Releasing, lies in its ability to ferret out quality dramas and police-procedure shows from around the world, but mostly Europe. DVD releases from Italy, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and more have all been aired in their native languages,…
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Theater Review: RAIN: A TRIBUTE TO THE BEATLES (U.S. Tour at the Oriental Theatre in Chicago)
SGT. PEPPER’S AT 50; LET IT RAIN For baby boomers wanting to share their childhood with their kids, for all the true-blue or late-blooming fans of the Fab Four whose great regret is that they never got to see the world’s greatest quartet in concert, or for folks who like to watch great songs return…
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Chicago Music Review: MORE THAN A LETTER: A CELEBRATION OF LGBTQ ARTISTS AND CLASSICAL MUSIC (Chicago Sinfonietta)
MORE THAN LAVENDER, BEYOND A RAINBOW Finding another noble excuse to make music, for its fourth concert this season Chicago Sinfonietta offered a sweet salute to a worthy cause. Performed to a regrettably half-full Orchestra Hall, More Than a Letter: A Celebration of LGBTQ Artists and Classical Music was a well-conceived and impeccably chosen evening…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF (Antaeus Theatre in Glendale)
UP ON THE ROOF Tennessee Williams’ complete oeuvre went from totally brilliant to completely flat as he evolved in his work, beginning in the early 1940s and ending in the early ’80s. Considering that Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955) is considered one of his top five dramas, it’s a logical choice for classical theater…
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Los Angeles Cabaret Review: ABSINTHE (Spiegelworld Tent at L.A. Live)
TITS AND SASS My only problem with 20 year old acrobats and showgirls is that they’re not going to date me while I’m in Las Vegas to catch a show. The casinos that hire them aren’t stupid; sexual frustration is the foundation of the gambling followed by cocaine followed by hookers tourism industry. I personally…
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Dance Review: WHIPPED CREAM (American Ballet Theatre World Premiere)
WHIPPED INTO SUBMISSION Explaining the creation of his 1924 two-act ballet, Richard Strauss stated, “I cannot bear the tragedy of the present time. I want to create joy.” Thus was born Schlagobers, which premiered at the Vienna State Opera. More sweet than meat, it was meant to satiate the angst caused by a brutal world…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: RULES OF SECONDS (Los Angeles Theatre Center)
GOOD FORM AND OTHERS Most playwrights look like they’d rather kiss an ass than kick it. I like John Pollono because he looks like he came expressly to throw a beating, and so it is facile of me to observe that Pollono’s fun new play opened Thursday with the intention of knocking its audience around….
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Los Angeles Music Review: TETZLAFF PLAYS DVOŘíK WITH ESCHENBACH (LA Phil at Disney Hall)
TETZLAFF PLAYS DVOŘíK There was atmosphere galore in Christian Tetzlaff’s intense interpretation of the Dvořák Violin Concerto last night at Disney Hall, but something was amiss’”or rather missing. This is precisely the type of performance that perplexes this critic: Everything is handled right by a soloist, well-steered by conductor, and executed perfectly by well-balanced players….
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Los Angeles Theater Photo Preview: CAROUSEL (Musical Theatre West in Long Beach)
COME RIDE THE CAROUSEL The photos are in for Musical Theatre West’s production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical masterpiece Carousel, which opens tonight and plays through April 9, 2017 at the Carpenter Performing Arts Center in Long Beach. Truly one of the greatest musicals ever written, Carousel explores the timeless message of message of love,…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: THE TOWN HALL AFFAIR (The Wooster Group at REDCAT)
BOYS AND GIRLS TOGETHER Having complained more than once that postmodern deconstruction often a) picks on literature that can’t fight back and b) discourages dialogue by speaking in and to a closed system, I am ecstatic to find that the new Wooster Group show dissects a text so dense and fraught that cutting it up only…
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Los Angeles Music Preview: HE HAD IT COMING (Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles)
COMING AND CUMMING Gay men and show tunes? I know this sounds shocking, but I wonder how many of you know what a swell fit that is. And to prove it, the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles (GMCLA) continues its super-spectacular 38th Season with He Had It Coming, a showcase of Broadway’s best songs for…
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Los Angeles Music Feature: MAX RAABE & PALAST ORCHESTER (on tour, stopping at The Broad Stage in Santa Monica)
HEAVEN, YOU’LL BE IN HEAVEN One could scrutinize the reasons that an apotheosis of songwriting appeared early in the twentieth-century, but there was something magical floating through the air that surrounded the world of popular music, not just in America but in Europe as well. Baby Boomers and Millennials have enjoyed a glimpse of this…
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Chicago Theater Review: DESTINY OF DESIRE (Goodman Theatre)
A SEASON OF SOAPS IN ONE SHOW An exhilarating, over-the-top, floridly artificial romp, Destiny of Desire is as wonderfully hokey as its title. A Chicago premiere, Goodman Theatre’s co-production with South Coast Repertory is Karen Zacarías’ affectionate salute to the romance of the telenovela. Her stylized showcase is a giddy treat that quietly carries an…
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Los Angeles Theater Preview: INTO THE WOODS (Fiasco Theatre at the Ahmanson)
INTO THE SOUL OF INTO THE WOODS When I first saw Fiasco Theatre’s production of Into the Woods, it was without reservation that I told friends it was worth the drive from Los Angeles to San Diego’s Old Globe. Now, there is no excuse. Uniquely the most emotionally hard-hitting of any of the dozen or so…
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DVD Review: CAROUSEL (Live From Lincoln Center)
A CAROUSEL FOR THE AGES Concert versions of famous Broadway fare are almost always exciting and delightful. But the Live from Lincoln Center production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1945 Carousel, just released on DVD after being recorded four years ago, hits all the right spots of attraction: gorgeous music, great singers from Broadway and the opera world, terrific acting,…
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Chicago Theater Review: THE HARD PROBLEM (Court)
DRAMATIZING WHAT CANNOT BE KNOWN Aerobic exercises for the cerebral cortex, Tom Stoppard’s daunting dramas (The Real Thing, Arcadia, The Invention of Love) go for the gray matter. In perpetual motion and unstoppable talk, they ponder, posit, propose, rebut and refute. But none so deliberately as his 2015 screed The Hard Problem. Now in an…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: THE OFFENDING GESTURE (Son of Semele Ensemble)
DEFENSIVE ACTION Richard Brinsley Sheridan learned the consequence of gesture earlier than most of us. At 21, he fought two duels with the same man over the same woman; having once spared his opponent’s life, he was skewered in their second duel and had his face pulped with the butt of a sword besides. At…
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Los Angeles Music Preview: THE CALDER QUARTET (In Residence at The Broad Stage in Santa Monica)
AN AMAZING QUARTET, AN AMAZING PROGRAM, AN AMAZING VENUE Finally, chamber music is enjoying a Renaissance of sorts in Los Angeles. Outfits such as The Music Guild and Da Camera Society have been presenting intimate music by quality musicians for decades, but now the movement to hear salon music in more intimate venues has blossomed….
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