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Los Angeles Music Review: LE SALON DE MUSIQUES: LA BELLE ÉPOQUE (Season Four, Concert Seven)
A BEAUTIFUL ERA IN ONE AFTERNOON There were two revelations at Le Salon de Musiques’ “La Belle Époque,” the seventh concert of its fourth season: Pianist Steven Vanhauwaert and Ernest Chausson’s Piano Trio in G minor Op. 3. First, you must understand that I have been thoroughly spoiled by this premier organization. Helmed by François…
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Off-Broadway Theater Review: INVENTING MARY MARTIN (York Theatre Company)
OUR HEARTS BELONG TO MARY, BUT THE REVUE ABOUT HER LIFE NEEDS REINVENTING The legendary actress and singer Mary Martin would have been 100 years old today, and to celebrate this centennial York Theatre Company is presenting the world premiere of Stephen Cole’s Inventing Mary Martin: The Revue of a Lifetime. The show, a tribute…
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San Diego Theater Review: PASSION (ion theatre)
DON’T PASS ON PASSION When first I saw Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Passion on Broadway in 1994, it was clear that this shattering new work was like nothing that had come before. Simultaneously dark, refreshing, provocative, troubling, and profound, the creative team behind Sunday in the Park with George and Into the Woods managed to…
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Chicago Theater Review: MILL FIRE (Shattered Globe Theatre at Theater Wit)
NO CLOSURE IN BIRMINGHAM Originally produced at Goodman Theatre in 1989, Sally Nemeth’s incendiary two-act, 125-minute Mill Fire depicts the origins and aftermath of its title disaster. This flash fire erupts at 2 a.m. in an ill-tended steel mill (itself basically a controlled fire) in Birmingham, Alabama circa 1978. It’s a small horror in a…
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Off-Broadway Theater Review: THE COMPLETE AND CONDENSED STAGE DIRECTIONS OF EUGENE O’NEILL, VOLUME 2 (New York Neo-Futurists)
NOW SHOW ME HOW TO CHEW IT As a critic I have a confession to make: when reading a play for fun I usually skim over the stage directions. I generally don’t care how many chairs are in a room or what color the rug is or whether what’s in the corner is a dresser…
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Tour / Los Angeles Theater Review: THE GERSHWINS’ PORGY AND BESS (National Tour at the Ahmanson)
I LOVES YOU, STORY I grew up with Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald and Janis Joplin and Billie Holiday singing “Summertime” outside a context of which I was ignorant; I never cared much for the late Romantic tradition of which composer George Gershwin usually reminds me, and what I’d read of Porgy and Bess frightened…
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Broadway Theater Review: BULLETS OVER BROADWAY (St. James Theatre)
SOME OF THE GLITZ WORKS, BUT BULLETS BASICALLY SHOOTS BLANKS In keeping with the growing trend of turning films into Broadway musicals, Douglas McGrath and Woody Allen’s 1994 comedy, Bullets Over Broadway, has arrived at the St. James Theatre. Director and choreographer Susan Stroman’s jukebox musical uses songs from the 20s and 30s with additional…
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Tour / Los Angeles Theater Review: MAN IN A CASE (National Tour at the Broad in Santa Monica)
RURALITY AS A METAPHORICAL STRATEGY IN CHEKHOV: CHECK Deconstructing two Anton Chekhov short stories with a series of post-hip Director’s Theater flourishes, Paul Lazar and Annie-B Parson are presently touring the 75 incredibly long minutes of Man in a Case. Familiar Chekhovian themes are investigated: of backwoods stultification, of falling to the level of one’s…
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Chicago Theater Review: IN THE GARDEN: A DARWINIAN LOVE STORY (Lookingglass)
CHARLES DARWIN AND NATURAL AFFECTION With its intentionally contradictory title, In the Garden: A Darwinian Love Story is not about the Garden of Eden; it is an earnest but unengrossing world premiere at Lookingglass Theatre Company, a study in amorous opposites that attract. Lookingglass artistic associate Sara Gmitter delivers a warmly written but ponderously circular chronicle…
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Los Angeles Theater Preview: THE DROWSY CHAPERONE (Norris Center in Palos Verdes Peninsula)
THE DROWSY CHAPERONE OPENS AT THE NORRIS Before American Musical Theater was reinvented by Oklahoma! in 1943, musical comedies were constructed piecemeal’”a comic star here, a songwriting team there, whoever was available, really. The plot was most often something to endure until the next great tune. Along with the boy-gets-girl, boy-loses-girl syndrome, librettos included a…
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Chicago Theater Review: SEVEN HOMELESS MAMMOTHS WANDER NEW ENGLAND (Theater Wit)
PREHISTORIC PERSPECTIVE ON THE PRESENT Extended until mid-May, Theater Wit’s Midwest debut of Madeleine George’s sharp new show has clearly touched hearts and nerves. It’s no secret: Full of the quirky, zany, and daffy characters that constitute the “new normal,” it’s a relationship drama with enough metaphor-mongering and symbol-serving to reflect whatever the viewer may…
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Film Review: NIGHT MOVES (directed by Kelly Reichardt / US premiere at Tribeca Film Festival)
THE ROAD TO HELL IS PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS Most good actors need some help to be excellent – Nicholas Cage comes to mind, Kevin Spacey, the young Mickey Rourke. And then there are those few who are mesmerizing no matter what they are doing. Jesse Eisenberg is one of these brilliant rarities, fascinating to…
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Los Angeles Theater Preview and Interviews: AN AMERICAN SOLDIER’S TALE / A FIDDLER’S TALE (Long Beach Opera)
GET SOME TALE In 1918, Igor Stravinsky and Swiss writer Ferdinand Ramuz wrote L’Histoire du soldat (The Soldier’s Tale) a short theatrical work meant to be “read, played, and danced” while accompanied by a septet. Based on a Russian folk tale, the libretto relates the parable of a soldier who trades his fiddle to the…
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Los Angeles Opera Review: A COFFIN IN EGYPT (The Wallis in Beverly Hills)
A NAIL IN OPERA’S COFFIN As the opera’s West Coast premiere, A Coffin in Egypt is frankly disappointing. As the first opera production at the new Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts (co-produced with Houston Grand Opera and Opera Philadelphia), A Coffin in Egypt is doubly disappointing. Based on Pulitzer Prize-winner Horton Foote’s similarly…
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Film Review: PALO ALTO (directed by Gia Coppola / U.S. premiere at Tribeca Film Festival)
YET ANOTHER STUDY OF SUBURBAN TEENS It’s difficult to make a successful first feature, even for one who comes from cinematic royalty, as Palo Alto demonstrates. Writer/director Gia Coppola’s film, based on a short story collection of the same name by James Franco (who also acts in the film), is by no means a disaster….
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Chicago Theater Review: EMMA (Dead Writers Theatre Collective at Stage 773)
MATCHMAKERS GET BURNED In the social maze of Regency England, where any successful matrimony required sexual politics and emotional intrigue, novelist Jane Austen understood how love gets lost. There were too many artful simulations of actual affection for the real deal to compete. Hard as it is to find love for oneself, 21-year-old Emma Woodhouse,…
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Film Review: CHEF (directed by Jon Favreau / New York premiere at Tribeca Film Festival)
EMPTY CALORIES Chef concerns Carl, a successful L.A. chef who finds he must reinvent himself after a Twitter fight with an important critic goes viral. First, let me tell you what I like of the film written, directed and starring Jon Favreau. Number one: Jon Favreau. I fell in love with him as an actor…
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Film Review: TRAITORS (directed by Sean Gullette / North American premiere at Tribeca Film Festival)
MAKING IT IN MOROCCO Set in Tangier, writer/director Sean Gullette’s admirable debut feature Traitors follows Malika (Chaimae Ben Acha), a rebellious young woman from a struggling, working-class family, who is trying to get her all-female punk band off the ground. When a producer offers her a chance to cut a demo, provided she can pay…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: THE LION IN WINTER (The Colony Theatre in Burbank)
A TOOTHLESS LION James Goldman’s The Lion in Winter is a brilliant study in castle intrigue laced with deceit and deception, alliances and allegiances, backstabbing and double dealing. The power of the 1966 drama emanates from its uncompromising wit and biting humor. Unfortunately, under the direction of Stephanie Vlahos, The Colony Theater’s production, a muted…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: BE A GOOD LITTLE WIDOW (NoHo Arts Center in North Hollywood)
UNBEREAVABLE Bekah Brunstetter’s Be a Good Little Widow is awash with structural issues (ambiguous timeline, disconnected scenes), trite themes and relationships, and a refusal to penetrate into the characters. Why, then, have prominent companies Collaboraction in Chicago, Ars Nova in New York, Old Globe in San Diego, and now NoHo Arts Center decided to produce…
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