Areas We Cover
Categories
-
Off-Broadway Theater Review: STOCKHOLM (One Year Lease Theater Company at 59E59 Theaters)
AN UNHAPPY COUPLE – UNHAPPY IN ITS OWN WAY Stockholm Syndrome is a form of traumatic bonding in which hostages develop an irrational sympathy for their captors. The term refers to a robbery in Stockholm in which bank employees who were held hostage in a vault for six days not only rejected government assistance, but…
-
Los Angeles Dance Review: SAVION GLOVER’S STePz (Valley Performing Arts Center in Northridge)
WAITING TO CLIMAX To use a sexually potent metaphor, STePz’ display of tap choreography was long on foreplay, producing many unfulfilled climaxes which led to an awkward happy ending. The slow build up, I believe, was due to the show’s lack of intensity, and should not to be mistaken for the caliber of tap dancing…
-
Chicago Theater Review: PASSION (Theo Ubique)
THE RHAPSODIC SIDE OF STALKING Stendhal wrote a story once about a man who also wrote a story as a way to force himself to fall in love. It seems an impossibly pure task. Passion carries that degree of difficultyand overcomes it with precision, power and, well, passion. Stephen Sondheim has been cheaply faulted for…
-
Off-Broadway Theater Review: NO EXIT (The Pearl)
ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER THE THEATER As staged by Linda Ames Key, Paul Bowles’ adaptation of Jean Paul Sartre’s No Exit, a play that imagines three individuals’ hell as being trapped in a room together for all eternity, succeeds less as a conventional show and more as performance art: Ms. Key really lets…
-
Theater Review: DESSA ROSE (Bailiwick Chicago at Victory Gardens in Chicago)
SOUL MATES FROM 167 YEARS AGO “Oh, we have paid for our children’s place in the world. We have paid again and again.” This assertion of achievement rings terribly true after two and a half hours of Dessa Rose. This characteristically urgent offering from Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, creators of Ragtime and Once on…
-
Chicago Theater Review: LEVELING UP (Steppenwolf)
SCRIPT ABOUT VIDEO GAME USAGE NEEDS FIXES Early in Leveling Up at Steppenwolf Theatre, professional gamer Ian (Clancy McCartney) makes it clear that he prefers playing video games all day rather than going out in the real world; games, he says, give him “epic wins.” Perhaps a reference to Jane McGonigal’s book Reality is Broken:…
-
Los Angeles Opera Review: CARMEN (A POP-Up production by Pacific Opera Project)
POP MISSES AN OP Pacific Opera Project’s production of Carmen is difficult to review, only because the benchmark is unclear. Bizet’s ever-popular four-act 1875 opera about a gypsy temptress and the soldier she seduces is being presented under the guise of a “POP-Up” Production. With about a week of rehearsals and minimal production costs, the…
-
Los Angeles Theater Review: TALHOTBLOND (Ruskin Group Theatre Co. in Santa Monica)
NOTSOGUD Everything you need to know about Ruskin Group Theatre’s current world premiere production is revealed in the title: TALHOTBLOND: everybody lies online. If you are at all tech savvy’”or for that matter have in the last decade read a paper or watched TV (Dateline: To Catch a Predator)’”this news will be anything but a…
-
Chicago Theater Review: THE GOSPEL OF LOVINGKINDNESS (Victory Gardens Biograph Theater)
THE FORCE OF FORGIVENESS What’s too ugly or scary to process, let alone to confront, in real life is grist for the mill of theater, such as how a gun appears and death comes out of nowhere. In the optimistically titled The Gospel of Lovingkindness, hit-and-run scenes present the prelude to, and aftermath of, a…
-
San Diego Theater Review: THE WINTER’S TALE (Old Globe Theatre in Balboa Park)
SHAKESOPHRENIC, OR SCHIZSPEARE American director Barry Edelstein knows his Shakespeare. Before being appointed Artistic Director of the Old Globe 16 months ago, he was Director of the Shakespeare Initiative at New York City’s Public Theater, which means he not only directed Shakespeare but oversaw all of the company’s Shakespeare productions, including Shakespeare in the Park….
-
Film Review: THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL (directed by Wes Anderson)
GRAND Enough with the Wes Anderson-bashing. It’s as if, in having an imagination, Anderson has committed a crime. Can we just sweep words like “quirky” and “whimsy” under the bed? I’m thinking “dollhouse” could also burn to the ground or get tossed out the window like Jeff Goldblum’s unlucky cat in Anderson’s latest film. Are…
-
Los Angeles Music Review: AVALON STRING QUARTET (The Music Guild)
I FOUND MY LOVE WITH AVALON Based in Chicago where they have been the quartet-in-residence at the Northern Illinois University of Music in DeKalb since 2007, The Avalon String Quartet offered patrons of The Music Guild such a seamless performance that any catch-all adjectives’”“brilliant,” “kudos”’”fail to elucidate my experience. For once, my notebook was set…
-
Nat’l Tour / Chicago Theater Review: HEARTBEAT OF HOME (Oriental Theatre)
STEPS THAT SOAR Produced by Moya Doherty, the dynamo behind Riverdance, director John McColgan’s well-crafted spinoff just launched its U.S. premiere at Chicago’s Oriental Theatre before continuing its tour (Detroit, Boston, New York City and Los Angeles are some of the stops). This exuberant spectacle delivers dance the way a slot machine pours out coins’”effortlessly,…
-
Regional Dance Preview: LAC (AFTER SWAN LAKE) (Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo at Segerstrom Hall in Costa Mesa)
THE LAKE EFFECT In 1993, H.R.H. the Princess of Hanover appointed Jean-Christophe Maillot as the head of Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo. Backed by his experience as a dancer under Rosella Hightower and Hamburg Ballet’s John Neumeier, Maillot’”the previous choreographer-director of the National Choreographic Centre of Tours’”has since created more than 30 pieces, including several great…
-
Los Angeles Theater Review: THE GOAT, OR WHO IS SYLVIA? (California Repertory Company in Long Beach)
GOAT ON A BOAT Edward Albee’s diligently disturbing tragicomedy, The Goat or Who is Sylvia?, is running at California Repertory Company in the belly of the Queen Mary’s Royal Theatre. One of Albee’s most well-known works, Goat follows the dissolution of a perfect family after central character, Martin, reveals that he is having a zoophilic…
-
Los Angeles Theater Review: THE TRIP BACK DOWN (Whitefire Theatre in Sherman Oaks)
A SHORT TAKE ON A LONG TRIP Sometimes critics get caught up in their own words and feel the need to expand upon their self-important ramblings beyond all reason. They spew forth with so much falderal that their point is completely lost, and they simply end up beating a dead horse. The same can be…
-
Chicago Theater Review: THE SECOND CITY’S INCOMPLETE GUIDE TO EVERYTHING (UP)
NOT SO INCOMPLETE The Incomplete Guide to Everything features scenes culled from more than 50 years of The Second City performances, right up to sketches that are part of the soon-to-end main stage revue Let Them Eat Chaos, which means loyal fans are likely to recognize some scenes. Director Ryan Bernier devotes much of the…
-
Los Angeles Theater Review: CRY TROJANS! (TROILUS AND CRESSIDA) (The Wooster Group at REDCAT)
CRY!BOYS AND INDIANS Let’s be honest: Director Elizabeth LeCompte’s sometimes astonishing adaptation of Shakespeare’s Trolius and Cressida by the acclaimed Wooster Group of New York is indeed a bit of a misstep. On the other hand, it is a simply brilliant failure. The show crackles with ferociously presented and compelling ideas; gorgeously visual stagecraft; and…
-
San Diego Opera Preview: A MASKED BALL (San Diego Opera at the Civic Theatre)
INTRIGUE? I’M GLAD YOU MASKED The poster of San Diego Opera’s production of Verdi’s A Masked Ball claims “Based on a True Story.” This is not hyperbole. When their production opens on Saturday with a not-to-be-missed cast, the opulent setting you will see is the court of King Gustav III in 18th-century Sweden. This is…
-
Chicago Theater Review: SEMINAR (Haven Theatre Company at Theater Wit)
BAPTISM IN WORDS Seminar, Theresa Rebeck’s utterly engaging one-act, is all about the wonders and terrors of writing. Both in the author’s dazzling dialogue and the fascinating issues she confronts–authorial authenticity and the corruption of ambition on art–these 105 minutes seethe and surge. A lucky audience reaps a harvest of biting psychology, whiplash wit, sexual…
Search Articles
Please help keep
Stage and Cinema going!
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
Find beautiful trendy gowns for girls' special events.
Need to order an essay? Hire our top writers to complete the most challenging papers at an affordable rate.
For professional writing support, hire essay writers at Edubirdie for high-quality help.
Discover top-rated Australian online casinos with fair games, fast payouts, and generous bonuses for every type of player.
Explore the best paying pokies Australia games with high RTP and clear bonus terms
