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Chicago Theater Review: HELLISH HALF-LIGHT: Shorter Plays of Samuel Beckett (Mary-Arrchie)
SAMUEL BECKETT: MINIMALISM IN EXTREMIS Dark doings on a claustrophobic stage. These are the 80+ minutes at Mary-Arrchie Theatre’s Angel Island. Six short but not sweet offerings by the late Samuel Beckett create their own Hellish Half-Light. Audience members are scattered about the appropriately minimalist playground, a stark home for Jennifer Markowitz’ awesomely disciplined and…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: PATERNUS (Rogue Machine Theatre)
FATHERS AND SONS The sensitive, expressive, and pensive son. The emotionally cool, impatient, and badgering father. Together, this family dynamic seen throughout history is so familiar that playwright Daphne Malfitano even titles her new play in Latin. Paternus, now receiving its world premiere at Rogue Machine, begins with pater Steve and his scion Stephen trapped…
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Los Angeles Theater Preview: LADY WINDERMERE’S FAN (Chalk Repertory Theatre)
L.A.’S BIGGEST FAN It surprises me that Lady Windermere’s Fan isn’t produced as frequently as the ubiquitous The Importance of Being Earnest. Beginning Friday, Chalk Rep is remounting last year’s sold-out, site-specific production, and I highly recommend you give it a visit. The titular character in Oscar Wilde’s play is a vivacious young woman, married only…
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Los Angeles Music Review: MICHAEL FEINSTEIN SINGS GERSHWIN (Pasadena POPS)
FEINSTEIN’S GOT PLENTY OF SOMETHING Charismatic, appealing, boyish, excited, and eager to please, Michael Feinstein appeared before a proliferation of people (and a pulchritude of peacocks) to gush out Gershwin songs at the L.A. Arboretum last Saturday. This consummate showman’s one-man tunefest began with a 1950’s educational-style film on two huge LED video screens on…
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Off-Broadway Theater Review: DROP DEAD PERFECT (Theatre at St. Clement’s)
A DROP-DEAD DELIGHT Delightful in an over-the-top yet grounded and sympathetic portrayal of Idris Seabright, a well-off spinster obsessed with memories of her long-gone Latin lover, Everett Quinton is the jewel in Joe Brancato’s sharp and whimsical staging of Erasmus Fenn’s hilarious melodrama Drop Dead Perfect. The entire four-person cast is a joy to watch,…
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Theater Review: INTIMATE APPAREL (Eclipse Theatre)
THE THREADS THAT BREAK There’s no doubt why Lynn Nottage’s drama won five national awards for best play, including the Drama Critics’ Circle Award and American Theatre Critics Association’s Primus Award. Nine years ago we saw the cause in Jessica Thebus’ Steppenwolf staging, a perfect marriage of inspired script and elegant production. Eclipse Theatre Company,…
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Los Angeles Music Preview: DUDAMEL & BEETHOVEN (LA Phil at the Hollywood Bowl)
A TRIO AND A FIFTH While there are quite a few well-made recordings of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Piano, rarely will you get a chance to see it performed live. Often referred to as the Triple Concerto, it is a distinctive work in its category; it establishes an amalgamation between the…
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Chicago Theater Review: THE JUNGLE (Oracle Theatre)
IT’S NOT JUST THE MEAT, IT’S THE MISERY The final searing image in Oracle Theatre’s pile-driving retelling of Upton Sinclair’s muckraking masterwork is a bold take on the Chicago flag: Now the blue stripes flank not four stars but four bloody handprints. The vandalism happens just after the magnificent ten-member ensemble have erupted in a…
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National Tour Review: ONCE (Pantages in Hollywood)
MORE THAN ONCE Ironically, the real-life love affair celebrated on screen about collaborators Glen Hasard, an Irish composer, and Markéta Irglová, a Czech songwriter, fizzled after John Carney’s 2007 film became a success (well, it’s not called Once for nothing). But the Tony-triumphant theatrical version, now at the Pantages in a soaring, enchanting, and lovely national…
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Chicago Dance Review: NEW DANCES 2014 (Thodos Dance Chicago)
ELEVATED EXPERIMENTS Now in its 14th season, New Dances 2014, Thodos Dance Chicago’s weekend-long premiere at the Ruth Page Center for the Arts is a grueling, ambitious, and often successful showcase for nine company members. Instead of marching to another’s rhythms, they’re here allowed to design their own dances. Maybe it’s because these performers are…
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National Tour Theater Review: WE WILL ROCK YOU (Ahmanson Theatre)
WE WILL SCHLOCK YOU A huge West End hit for twelve years (just closing last May), this awful jukebox musical does for Queen what Mamma Mia! did for ABBA, Buddy for Buddy Holly and the Crickets, and Jersey Boys for The Four Seasons. But it’s much closer to the first example, if only because the…
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Los Angeles Music/Concert Preview: TAIKO NATION (hosted by TAIKOPROJECT at the Aratani/Japan America Theatre)
TAIKO TAKES LOS ANGELES BY STORM Ever since man could bang a stick on a rock, percussion has been a way for humans to express themselves. From the battlefield to the theater to your teenager’s bedroom, percussion has evolved from communicative and ritualistic purposes into an art form. We take for granted the use of…
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Chicago Theater Review: THE QUALMS (Steppenwolf)
T.M.I. AS DRAMA The Qualms (a cute title that sounds like both a setting and a condition) is basically an Internet forum made flesh, a “truth or dare” confessional in one act. Steppenwolf Theatre Company’s new 90-minute offering from Pulitzer/Tony-winning playwright Bruce Norris is one loud argument divided into eight characters. Four couples in what…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: BUYER & CELLAR (Center Theatre Group/Mark Taper Forum)
HELLO, GORGEOUS Jonathan Tolin’s keen and tremendously funny new show Buyer & Cellar, performed by Michael Urie, imagines what it would be like for Alex More, a young gay man struggling to make it as an actor in Hollywood, to find himself working in the artificial mall Barbara Streisand built in the basement of her…
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Los Angeles Music Preview: I AM HARVEY MILK and CITY OF ANGELS: GMCLA’s 35th Anniversary Concert (Disney Hall)
GET READY TO BE MILKED In 1978, on the night of Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone’s assassinations, an unprecedented candlelight march brought mourners to San Francisco’s City Hall. The newly formed San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus canceled a rehearsal for their upcoming debut concert and opted to perform at the makeshift memorial service. It…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: ANDRONICUS (Coeurage Theatre Company in Silver Lake)
A BLOODY BUT WORTHWHILE MESS When Kenneth Clark asked of William Shakespeare, “who else has felt so strongly the absolute meaninglessness of life,” he illustrated the point with this speech of Macbeth’s: Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time, And all…
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Chicago Theater Review: SEUSSICAL (Chicago Shakespeare Theater)
HORTON HATCHES A HIT “Oh! The Thinks You Can Think!” proclaims this joyous romp as it proves what it belts. One of those powerful pensées is: “A person’s a person, no matter how small.” That truth from Dr. Seuss sits well with the kids flocking to Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s Courtyard mainstage. Because Seussical is the kind…
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Chicago Theater Review: TWAIN’S WORLD (First Floor Theatre at Hugen Hall)
HIDDEN IN THE MASTER’S SHADOW The sardonically named Twain’s World (that hint of amateurism is to be heeded), this year’s week-long LitFest from First Floor Theatre is devoted to the works (first act) and life (second) of America’s crown jester, Mark Twain. Seven ten-minute plays written by local writers and staged by Chicago directors testify…
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Los Angeles Dance Review: ROMEO AND JULIET (National Ballet of Canada)
I DREAM’D A DREAM TO-NIGHT The National Ballet of Canada (TNBC), which presented its thrilling rendition of Christopher Wheeldon’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in 2012, returned to the Music Center last night with a gloriously Technicolor production of Romeo and Juliet, commissioned by TNBC’s artistic director, Karen Kain (the world…
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Los Angeles Music Review: JOSHUA BELL AND FRIENDS (LA Phil at the Hollywood Bowl)
BELL OF THE BOWL Violinist Joshua Bell has been known to hold old-fashion salon-type concerts in a performance space on the second floor of his renovated apartment in New York City. It had long been his desire to invite different kinds of artists and various friends and have an eclectic mix of people playing in…
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