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Chicago Theater Review: TEDDY FERRARA (Goodman Theatre)
VIRTUAL THEATER Teddy Ferrara, Goodman Theatre’s new commissioned work, is almost three hours long. That excess suggests that nobody had the courage to cut or, not knowing what it was about to start with, couldn’t know where to start or stop. The indulgent length also implies that Teddy Ferrara has a lot of plot to…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: CATCHING THE BUTCHER (Long Beach Playhouse)
PROMISING SCRIPT BUTCHERED BY PRODUCTION VALUES Adam Seidel’s sanguinary dark comedy, Catching the Butcher, is an unlikely and eccentric love story in which a secret and utterly sick relationship develops between Bill, a selectively cruel serial killer, and Nancy, his Stockholm Syndrome affected victim. Seidel uses psychological horror to craft a deliciously demented commentary about…
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San Diego Theater Review: PYGMALION (Old Globe)
GALATEA COMES TO LIFE Transformation. Evolution. Metamorphosis. These words are often confined to biological definition, abused in a critic’s articulation, and criminally under-applied by artists of this generation. Most popular art today can be likened to fast food: Sub-par products synthesized under the pretense that it’s what the consumer is demanding. In actuality, it is…
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Chicago Theater Review: AIRPORT FOR BIRDS (AND OTHER GREAT IDEAS) (UP Comedy Club)
AIRPORT FOR BIRDS FAILS TO TAKE OFF In their sketch comedy show Airport for Birds (and Other Great Ideas), Team StarKid seems to have wracked their brains to come up with as many reasons as possible for the performers to scream: There’s a pair of fitness enthusiasts who think that it’s part of doing yoga…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: THE GIFT (Geffen Playhouse)
I’D LIKE TO RETURN THIS GIFT, PLEASE The Geffen Playhouse has a proud tradition of staging crackerjack productions of dramatic works by some of the modern theater’s greatest playwrights. To their misfortune, though, these works invariably turn out to be the celebrated playwrights’ most excruciatingly dreadful plays – the ones, you suspect, that the authors…
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San Diego Theater Review: THE BROTHERS SIZE (Old Globe)
A SIZE THAT DOES NOT FIT ALL Of the three plays which constitute Tarell Alvin McCraney’s “The Brother/Sister Plays,” The Brothers Size, now playing at The Old Globe, is the most intimate and confined, much like a chamber piece. The first play of the triptych, In the Red and Brown Water, is an epic tale…
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Los Angeles/Regional Dance Review: THE LITTLE MERMAID (Hamburg Ballet at Segerstrom)
ALL HANS ON DECK Don’t expect the Disneyfication of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid when you attend Hamburg Ballet’s rendition of the tragic 1836 fairy tale, which opened last night at Segerstrom Hall. This imaginative and handsome adaptation is more faithful to its dark and bittersweet source material. In John Neumeier’s version, created for…
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Film Review: KUMARÉ: THE TRUE STORY OF A FALSE PROPHET (directed by Vikram Gandhi)
IMPERFECTLY INSPIRING Kumaré, Vikram Gandhi’s spiritual alter ego and the subject of his navel-gazing documentary, questions the growing Western trend of seeking personal fulfillment through self-sublimation to Eastern gurus. Gandhi, who was raised devoutly in the Hindu tradition and even studied religion in college, initially begins work on a documentary about seeking a true guru….
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Off-Broadway Theater Review: CLIVE (Acorn Theatre)
A DULL DESCENT INTO HELL The charisma and passion Ethan Hawke brings to the title role, Vincent D’Onofrio’s powerful stage presence, a gnarly set by Derek McLane, lovely songs by Latham and Shelby Gains, and evocative lighting (Jeff Croiter), sound (Shane Rettig) and costumes (Cathrine Zuber) all fail to save Jonathan Marc Sherman’s new play,…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: BENCHED (InterACT at Avery Schreiber)
BENCHED SHOULD HAVE BEEN BENCHED A cantankerous senior gets his dander up when he discovers a stranger occupying his favorite Central Park bench in the L.A. premiere of Richard Broadhurst’s Benched. Five minutes into the show I began wishing that the squatter would simply get up and leave so I could as well. No such…
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San Francisco Theater Review: THE MOTHERFUCKER WITH THE HAT (San Francisco Playhouse)
MIGHT AS WELL FACE IT, WE’RE ADDICTED TO, WELL, EVERYTHING In the tragicomedy The Motherfucker with the Hat, every character has something painful in their lives that they are self-medicating. Bronx couple Jackie and Veronica are alcohol and drug addicts, trying hard to get their lives together but continually slipping up. After being imprisoned for…
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Los Angeles Dance/Theater Review: TRAVERSE (Arcosm at Theatre Raymond Kabbaz)
CROSS OVER FROM ROUTINE AND VIVRE LE VIE Napoleon’s vision to make the world his grand empire of France was stifled by his winter campaign in Russia and his defeat at Waterloo. However, what he may not have imagined is France’s prevailing influence in the world – not necessarily as a military superpower – but…
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Chicago Theater Review: THE BIRTHDAY PARTY (Steppenwolf)
PIôATA FULL OF DARKNESS Don’t be concerned if you don’t receive an invitation to Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party – the Steppenwolf’s revival production is still an event not to be missed. Caretaker Meg Bowles and her deck-chair attendant spouse, Petey (Moira Harris, returning to the Steppenwolf for the first time since 1998, and John…
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Stage and Cinema Theater Interview: IMPRO THEATRE
AN IMPROVISED TRUTH Los Angeles-based Impro Theatre opens a run of Jane Austen: UnScripted on Valentine’s Day at the Pasadena Playhouse’s Carrie Hamilton Theatre. Their most recent L.A. performance at the Odyssey Theatre, inspired by another giant of international literature, may offer a parallel idea of what to expect in Pasadena: The set awaits, a pleasant throw…
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San Francisco Theater Review: SE LLAMA CRISTINA (Magic Theatre)
FEAR AND LOATHING IN THE SPANISH GHETTO Octavio Solis’ Se Llama Cristina is a gritty, mind-bending trip. The main characters, Man and Woman, slip in and out of past, present, and future with varying degrees of lucidity. They and the audience struggle to keep a grasp on what’s real. What is tangible is that Magic…
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Theater Review: LADY DAY AT EMERSON’S BAR & GRILL (Porchlight)
THE LADY OF THE GARDENIAS Thanks to Lanie Robertson’s bedrock-basic script, Rob Lindley’s dedicated staging and the utter effacement of a good vocalist into a great one, courtesy of Alexis Rogers, Porchlight Music Theatre’s 90-minute revival pays full, if conditional, homage to Billie Holiday’s heroism and heartbreak. Unlike her famous “God Bless the Child,” Lady…
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Bay Area Theater Review: OUR PRACTICAL HEAVEN (Aurora Theatre)
THE SEMBLANCE OF A PLAY It is unfortunate that Our Practical Heaven is a relationship-fueled play, because it was difficult to invest in any of the characters. The two-hour play, now receiving its world premiere at the Aurora in Berkeley, contained one-dimensional characters and lacked a three-dimensional story. Anthony Clarvoe’s script resulted from Aurora’s Global…
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LOS ANGELES THEATER FEATURE: MISS COCO PERU: SHE’S GOT BALLS (L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center)
THE DRAG QUEEN TO DRAG YOUR THOUGHTS AWAY FROM YOUR TROUBLES I first saw Coco Peru perform in a B movie sendup – a campy romp called Blood Orgy of the Carnival Queens! But at New York’s Off-Off-Broadway Hamlet Theatre in 1994, the actress playing Kitty Valise, Student Nurse was simply Miss Coco. Later that week,…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: THE DEEP THROAT SEX SCANDAL (Zephyr Theatre)
WHERE’S THE SCANDAL? When I first drove past the Zephyr Theatre looking for parking, I saw what appeared to be anti-pornographic picketers on the sidewalk in front of the building. I wasn’t looking forward to wading through that melee. Well, by the time I parked and finally arrived for the show, the picketers were nowhere…
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Film Review: WARM BODIES (directed by Jonathan Levine)
THINGS ARE DEAD ALL OVER Summit Entertainment, the company that brought the Twilight series to the big screen, continues to explore horror film dating options with the satire Warm Bodies – an inevitability considering America’s love affair with zombies and hot teenage vampires. This RrrrrRomeo and Juliet story, based on the Isaac Marion novel, mashes…
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