INDELICATE AND OUT OF BALANCE When Edward Albee’s A Delicate Balance won the Pulitzer Prize in 1967 it was no doubt a theatrical revelation. Although it didn’t pack the emotional wallop of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1962), the story of an aging couple, upper-crust empty nesters forced to confront the ramifications of both their…

INTO THE WORDS For his production of Into the Woods, director T.J. Dawson notes that Stephen Sondheim’s score is often revered as genius. “However, many of his incredible lyrics rush by most of us before we can fully take them in.” Unfortunately, this accurately describes the experience watching 3-D Theatricals’ version of the popular 1987…

JUST DANCE I recently read an email from a dance mentor whose advice for performing was simply, “Let it all go and Dance, Motherfuckers!” I couldn’t help but think back to the email as I watched L.A. Contemporary Dance Company’s closing performance of YOUTH, its Spring Repertory Concert. After three Dance Theater works’”which included social…

29 IS THE NEW 19 “If you ever feel stuck in your life,” Broadway, TV, and film heartthrob Jeremy Jordan told the adoring throng at his L.A. debut last night, “go back to your childhood and remember your dream.” The 29-year old was near the tail end of his 85-minute cabaret act, basically a travelogue…

OOPSY DAISY With enough comic personality to rival Fanny Brice, the droll, deft, dirty, daffy, derisive, delirious, and delightful Daisy Eagan, best-known for being the youngest female Tony Winner (The Secret Garden, 1991), has created a new solo show which I caught at Rockwell Table & Stage in Los Angeles. Having already played San Francisco,…

BAROQUE AND LOVING IT It begins innocently enough with two nymphs singing, swinging and blowing bubbles’”until the gods intervene and mayhem ensues. There are transvestites, lusty satyrs, and phalluses galore. There is a blonde bimbo, an ice queen, and a goddess scorned. There is mischief, ribaldry, cuckoldry, tomfoolery, and slapstick. Underscoring it all are Francesco…

THINKING OUTSIDE THE BACHS It is more than satisfying to see what has become a fetish of the solo piano community performed with historical acuity and depth by (lo!) a conductor. Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO) music director Jeffrey Kahane played Bach’s Goldberg Variations at Colburn’s Zipper Hall in the final installment of LACO’s stellar…

NOT PREMEDITATED ENOUGH Despite playwright Evelina Fernández’ ability to take clichéd problems about marriage and turn them into humorous complaints about men tossing underwear on the floor and women nagging, her divertingly silly but disappointingly trite Premeditation doesn’t elevate past the conceit: A woman hires a hit man to off her husband of 25 years….

WHAT DO YOU HAVE A TASTE FOR? Six weeks before the opening of Sacred Fools’ cannibal play, one of Stage and Cinema’s writers (to whom I will assign the alias “Ethel”) asked if she could review Taste. I had not received a press release and knew nothing about it, so I let her have the…

AN ORGAN-IC CONCLUSION Disney Hall’s 2013/2014 Organ Recital Series comes to a rousing conclusion on Sunday, May 4th with Johann Sebastian Bach’s most complex and demanding organ composition Clavier-Übung III (German Organ Mass). Taking command of the keys and putting the multitudinous pedals to the metal will be world renowned organist Paul Jacobs. Adding to…