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Los Angeles Theater Review: GRUESOME PLAYGROUND INJURIES (Rogue Machine Theatre)
MERRY-GO-ROUND PLAYWRITING More of a writing exercise than a fleshed-out drama, Rajiv Joseph’s Gruesome Playground Injuries begins with an intriguing premise, but sputters to a halt when we realize that this much-hyped “Pulitzer-finalist” has written himself into a corner. Flip-flopping throughout a 30-year time span, the play is constructed as a series of meetings between…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: LES MISÉRABLES (La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts)
DON’T MIZ IT Unlike most of the characters in the blockbuster sung-through musical Les Misérables, the show itself will never die. Consistently presented either on Broadway, national tours, and/or globally since the English-language version opened on the West End in 1985, audiences can’t get enough of Victor Hugo’s story about ex-con and do-gooder Jean Valjean…
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Chicago Theater Review: ASK AUNT SUSAN (Goodman)
CYBER COMPASSION, OR PIXELS FAKE PASSION Like his equally probing The Day of the Locust, Nathanael West’s 1933 novella Miss Lonelyhearts all but skewers its subject: the loneliness of crowds and the desperation that anonymity generates in each and, finally, en masse. West’s seminal work depicts a hard-boiled young journalist who reluctantly becomes a newspaper…
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Theater Review: TARTUFFE (South Coast Rep in Costa Mesa)
A BLASPHEMOUS BLAST After Dominique Serrand‘s jaw-droppingly juicy and insanely inventive production of Molière’s Tartuffe, a South Coast Rep patron was heard to say, “Well, I don’t know if I can honestly recommend it.” Then she looked around cautiously and leaned towards her companion with, “It’s unlike any Tartuffe I’ve ever seen.” Then a whisper. “It’s…
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Regional Theater Review: THE STINKY CHEESE MAN AND OTHER FAIRLY STUPID TALES (South Coast Rep)
FRACTURED FAIRY TALES Director Jessica Kubzansky’s imagination is firing on all cylinders, turning frivolity into delight with South Coast Rep’s The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, a Theatre for Young Audiences production. Playwright John Glore closely follows Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith’s best-selling 1992 children’s book of the same name, turning 13 beloved fairy…
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San Diego Theater Review: MY SON THE WAITER, A JEWISH TRAGEDY (Lyceum in San Diego)
TRAGIC FOR HIM BUT GOOD FUN FOR US Hot on the heels of the run of Old Jews Telling Jokes, the Lyceum brings us a very different and more personal look at Jewish humor. Instead of a non-stop set of jokes, comedian and actor Brad Zimmerman’s one-man show is a well-rounded piece. Part observational humor,…
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Los Angeles Opera Review: THAíS (LA Opera)
ALL THAT GLITTERS IS NOT GOLD Headlining Plácido Domingo and Georgian soprano Nino Machaidze, the extravagance of LA Opera’s production of Massenet’s 1894 opera, Thaïs, is a veritable banquet of visual delights (this version was first seen in Seville in 2012, and also starred both Domingo and Machaidze). Thaïs tells the story of the celebrated…
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Chicago Theater Review: TYRANT (Sideshow Theatre Company at Theater Wit)
HOME LOST HOME A world premiere from Sideshow Theatre Company, this curious and lengthy offering feels as familiar as it is threatening. In 145 minutes Kathleen Ackerley (who also co-directs) imagines a very ingrown world within a highly structured system: Basically, Tyrant (the title referring not to a dictator but to a rich man’s internal…
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Film Review: PING PONG SUMMER (written and directed by Mike Tully)
ENDLESS SUMMER Michael Tully, the writer and director of Ping Pong Summer, seems like a sweet guy, so I’ll try and be brief. Sitting through his movie, which attempts to both imitate and parody the 1980’s American coming-of-age formula film, feels like a punishment; imagine chewing soap or drinking castor oil for 90 minutes. With…
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Los Angeles Dance Preview: JESSICA LANG DANCE (Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts)
MORE LANG FOR YOUR BUCK While Jessica Lang has made a name for herself in the dance world as an independent choreographer, dance patrons in Los Angeles may find this dancemaker difficult to place. Because the majority of troupes that visit here offer programs by the company’s namesake (Paul Taylor, Lar Lubovitch, Bill T. Jones),…
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San Francisco and San Diego Theater Preview: THE ORPHAN OF ZHAO (U.S. Premiere at A.C.T. and La Jolla Playhouse)
趙 æ° å¤ å…’ COMES TO A.C.T. AND LA JOLLA PLAYHOUSE Who amongst us can deny that at one time or another we have been wronged or injured by someone else? But how many feel that retaliation by exacting punishment is the only option? Since the dawn of man, revenge has been a double-edged sword: The…
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Theater Review: CIRQUE SHANGHAI: WARRIORS (Pepsi Skyline Stage on Navy Pier)
CHINA SOARS OVER LAKE MICHIGAN For a ninth consecutive summer, Cirque Shanghai (its title actually referring to whatever Chinese city produces these performers) has returned to the well-named Skyline Stage on Navy Pier, Chicago’s tourist Mecca. A feast for the family, Warriors is the testosterone-fueled title of this year’s edition, a thrill show that’s a…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: DEATH OF THE AUTHOR (Geffen Playhouse)
DEARTH OF DRAMA Steven Drukman’s Death of the Author takes its name, premise, and some of the devices in its dialogue from a Roland Barthes essay on postmodernism. It’s wonderful to see Drukman adapt Gore Vidal’s riposte to William Buckley about crypto-Nazis and fold it into a pun on Marxist literary theory. But there’s nothing…
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San Diego Theater Preview: FADED GLORY (North Coast Repertory Theatre in Solana Beach)
AMERICAN HERO OR AMERICAN ZERO? While researching a speech on the origins of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” I came across a name that I remembered from a visit to Gettysburg National Military Park’”Major General Daniel E. Sickles, Union Third Army Corps commander. One of the most controversial figures in American history, Sickles has an almost universally…
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San Francisco Art Preview: LEADING LADIES AND FEMMES FATALES: THE ART OF MARC DAVIS (The Walt Disney Family Museum)
RENAISSANCE MAN Marc Davis. He is one of those Americans who touched the lives of millions, yet few except rabid Disney fans would be able to place his name. Even those who claim to know everything Disneyland are in wonderment when I point out Davis’ many contributions to the Park. As an artist for WED…
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Film Review: GORE VIDAL: THE UNITED STATES OF AMNESIA (directed by Nicholas Wrathall)
“I TOLD YOU SO” The drawling aristocratic lethargy of Gore Vidal’s public manner would have seemed cartoonish if not for the darting intelligence in his eyes and his words. For all its craft – crown of the head tipped back, the long pointed nose elegantly spearing something in you, the indulgent but disapproving wag of…
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Chicago Theater Review: ONE HIT WONDERS (Black Ensemble Theatre)
WILL WONDERS NEVER CEASE? No question, Black Ensemble Theatre’s latest offering boasts the usual superb quality control of sounds and notes, casting, performance, ensemble rapport, and musical impeccability that distinguish their worthy works. Contrary to previous delights by Jackie Taylor that showcased Jackie Wilson, Marvin Gaye, or Howlin’ Wolf, its title One Hit Wonders suggests…
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San Diego Theater Preview: THE MOTHERFUCKER WITH THE HAT (Cygnet Theatre Company)
SAY IT, MOTHERFUCKER When you see the word “Motherf**ker” in the title The Motherf**ker with the Hat, what comes to mind? Why, “Motherfucker,” naturally. While the asterisks may be necessary for public advertising, Stephen Adly Guirgis did not use them for the title of his smart and laugh-out-loud funny tragicomedy that Cygnet Theatre opens this…
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Off-Broadway Theater Review: FORBIDDEN BROADWAY COMES OUT SWINGING! (Davenport)
A SHOW THAT DESERVES AN EXCLAMATION POINT! Broadway’s recent bumper crop of musicals has provided spoof-meister Gerard Alessandrini a mother load to mine in the latest installment of his well-established, venomous valentines to the Great White Way, Forbidden Broadway Comes Out Swinging! Performed by a four member cast of actor-chameleons (Carter Calvert, Mia Gentile, Marcus…
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Bay Area Theater Preview: Tony Kushner’s THE INTELLIGENT HOMOSEXUAL’S GUIDE TO CAPITALISM AND SOCIALISM WITH A KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES (Berkeley Rep)
TWO TONY’S UNITE FOR ONE OF THE BIGGEST THEATER EVENTS OF THE YEAR For anybody starved for smart and thrilling playwriting, your destination is Berkeley Rep, which is unfurling the West Coast premiere of Tony Kushner’s latest play, The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures, which officially opens…
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