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Off-Off-Broadway Theater Review: PORT OUT, STARBOARD HOME (La MaMa)
AFLOAT ON HIGH ASPIRATIONS Many positive things can and should be said about Sheila Callaghan’s Port Out, Starboard Home, a play about a three-day cruise at the end of which the passengers participate in a secret, transformative ritual. The play is an allegory, an indictment of thoughtless first-world consumerism, as well as materialism, superficiality, and…
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Chicago Theater Review: THE ODD COUPLE (Northlight Theatre in Skokie)
NOT IN THE CARDS Northlight audiences should cut the theater’s revival of The Odd Couple some slack. The production took a major hit when co-star George Wendt was forced to drop out of the show only a few days before the scheduled opening for medical reasons. So the production pulled Marc Grapey out of the…
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DVD Review: THE DUST BOWL (PBS Distribution)
A DISASTER WORSE THAN MOST OF US EVER KNEW In elementary school, for me, “Dust Bowl” was little more than two words that had to be memorized for tests in history classes that unfailingly failed to make history interesting. Sure, I heard the term often enough that some kind of image formed…but it was not…
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San Diego/Tour Preview: DRALION (Cirque du Soleil)
HUMANS ARE THE SPECTACLE, NOT ANIMALS Childhood memories of circus fun include ringleaders putting heads in a lion’s mouth, dancing bears, and elephants resting a paw upon a lovely lady’s head. That is, such memories exist if you are a person of a certain age. If you haven’t been to a circus type event since…
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New York Cabaret Preview: TAPS, TUNES AND TALL TALES (Tommy Tune at Feinstein’s)
FEINSTEIN’S AT LOEWS REGENCY PRESENTS THE NEW YORK SOLO DEBUT OF NINE TIME TONY AWARD-WINNING BROADWAY LEGEND TOMMY TUNE In his review of A Day in Hollywood – A Night in the Ukraine (1980), New York Times’ critic Mel Gussow called director/choreographer Tommy Tune “The toe-tapping heir to Busby Berkeley. What his predecessor did with…
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Film Review: SKYFALL (directed by Sam Mendes)
BOND TO THE PAST And as the fog rolls in across the Scottish moors, the old woman turns to the young friend she had recently ordered to his death. He grew up an orphan, now wrinkled. She asks how his parents died. There is a moment of hesitation, then a slant in his voice. “You…
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San Francisco Theater Review: BEACH BLANKET BABYLON (Club Fagazi)
THE HAT’S JUST KEEP ON COMIN’ Billed as the world’s longest running musical revue, Steve Silver’s Beach Blanket Babylon is a flamboyant, frivolous, and frothy burlesque that takes a jab at popular culture with super-talented performers as oversized caricatures, many of whom wear Babylon’s signature oversized headdresses and fabulously garish costumes. There is an ever-changing…
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Los Angeles Theater and Film Review: WRECK-IT RALPH (Directed by Rich Moore)
AN IMAGINATIVE STORY AND SPECTACULAR VISUALS MAKE UP FOR CALCULATED FAMILIARITY It’s quite an accomplishment for Disney that the multitude of elements in Wreck-It Ralph don’t collapse in on themselves. It’s fast-paced and stunning visuals abound, 190 distinct characters are introduced (some familiar from video games), Shrek-like topical references thrive, and $165 million worth of…
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Los Angeles/Regional Theater Review: HOW TO WRITE A NEW BOOK FOR THE BIBLE (South Coast Rep in Costa Mesa)
HOW TO LAUGH AND CRY AND BE UNMOVED AT THE SAME TIME Playwright Bill Cain, after discovering his mother, Mary, had six months to live, moved into the family home in Syracuse, New York. Like any good writer, Cain kept a diary during that trying time. His notes became the basis for How to Write…
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Film Review: THE COMEDY (directed by Rick Alverson)
THE JOKE’S ON WHO? As a story, The Comedy is as blunt as its title, devoting 94 unrelenting minutes of character development to a man-boy whose development and character are equally questionable. Tasked with bringing some sense of soul to the dead-eyed, over-privileged slacker Swanson, Tim Heidecker (the Tim half of Adult Swim’s Tim and…
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San Francisco Theater Preview: STRINDBERG CYCLE: THE CHAMBER PLAYS IN REP (Cutting Ball Theater)
AN AUGUST PROJECT In many ways, playwright August Strindberg’s influence in the theater has been far more significant than his public reception. While theater historians and scholars speak of Strindberg (1849-1912) with the fervency normally associated with Shakespeare, only five of his over sixty plays are produced with any kind of regularity: The Father, Miss…
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Chicago Theatre Review: SUPERIOR DONUTS (Royal George Theatre)
THERE’S A HOLE IN DONUTS’ PROMISING STORY Arthur Przybyszewski, the gray bearded and ponytailed proprietor of a donut shop in Chicago, enters his store one morning to find it vandalized. Two policemen and the whistleblowing next-door neighbor are already there, witnesses to the trash, tossed chairs, and graffiti. Arthur enters without a word, examines the…
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San Francisco Cabaret Preview: TAPS, TUNES AND TALL TALES (Tommy Tune at the Fairmont)
NINE TIME TONY AWARD WINNER TOMMY TUNE RETURNS TO THE VENETIAN ROOM In his review of A Day in Hollywood – A Night in the Ukraine (1980), New York Times’ critic Mel Gussow called director/choreographer Tommy Tune “The toe-tapping heir to Busby Berkeley. What his predecessor did with 50 dancing girls and a sound stage,…
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Chicago Theater Review: TALES OF THE TWINKLING TWILIGHT (Raven Theatre)
TWINKLE, TWINKLE, LITTLE PLAY Developed by Raven Theatre’s Workshop Series, these ten hit-and-run “playlettes” by John Weagly take only 52 minutes to rearrange reality into quirky juxtapositions and odd angles. Everything seems immediately familiar, then instantly not: An apparently innocuous wolfman refuses to be called a werewolf as he suffers a stomach ache from the…
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San Francisco Theater Preview: CARMELINA (42nd Street Moon)
THAT’S AMORE I hope San Franciscans actually know how advantaged they are to have a company like 42nd Street Moon, which presents fully staged productions of rarely-seen musicals. While I am grateful for Musical Theatre Guild’s concert-style, one-time only productions in Los Angeles, rare is the theater company willing to dust off an old American…
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Chicago Dance Review: MOULIN ROUGE – THE BALLET (Royal Winnipeg Ballet)
THE FRAMEWORK IS A BIT ODD, BUT THE MOVEMENT IS GLORIOUS Not to be confused with the frenetic film starring Nicole Kidman or the older Oscar winner with Jose Ferrer as Toulouse Lautrec, this 2009 confection by Jorden Morris celebrates the seedy side of “la belle époque” as exposed by the still-scary underworld of Montmartre….
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Los Angeles Theater Review: IN THE RED AND BROWN WATER (Fountain Theatre)
RED AND BROWN IS THEATRICAL GOLD Los Angeles is usually the last major theater city in the states to see productions of playwrights whose works have received praise in their world premieres, either in New York or at a regional house. It often takes years for exhilarating plays to arrive in what is the busiest theater city…
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Los Angeles Theater Feature: DEATH OF A SALESGIRL (Bootleg)
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID Bootleg Theater continues its run of the world premiere of Death of a Salesgirl, an absurdist tragicomedy with integrated media, about one woman’s struggle to free herself from her past. Written by Patricia Scanlon, and starring Scanlon and Paul Dillon, Death of a Salesgirl is a dark and humorous parable of a salesgirl breaking…
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Chicago Theater Review: MUSIC FROM A SPARKLING PLANET (Eclectic Theatre Company)
HERE. THEN. NOW. WHEN? WHAT? WHY? Which 1970’s TV show had the nicest Nazi’s’”was it Wonder Woman or Hogan’s Heroes? Which cartoon character is stoned most of the time’”was it Shaggy from Scooby Doo? Why did the Howells pack so many clothes when they were only going on a three hour tour? As three grown…
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San Francisco Cabaret Review: MARY WILSON (Fairmont Venetian Room)
THE STUFF THAT DREAMGIRLS ARE MADE OF Bay Area Cabaret launched its 2012-13 season this week with a headliner sure to pull in baby-boomers by the busload: Mary Wilson, one of the three women (along with Florence Ballard and Diana Ross) who would form the legendary 60s girl group, The Supremes. The setting is the…
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