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Chicago Theater Review: STUFFED AND UNSTRUNG (Bank of America Theater)
THESE MUPPETS ARE NOT FOR PUBLIC TELEVISION There is something disconcerting about watching an R-rated Muppets show. After all, for decades the Muppets television shows and movies have been the gold standard for family entertainment, funny and endearing for children and droll and hip for adults. Now comes a 75-minute live show called Stuffed and…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: POOL (NO WATER) (Monkey Wrench Collective in Hollywood)
CAST DIVES IN HEAD FIRST TO MAKE pool (no water) FLOAT If you’ve been wondering whatever happened to all those experimental communal collective consciousness theater pieces that made New York’s famed La MaMa legendary back in the early 70’s, wonder no more. The art form is alive and well and swimming into The Complex’s Flight…
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Film Review: PATANG (THE KITE) directed by Prashant Bhargava
NOWHERE TO FLY TO On a trip to the city of Ahmedabad several years ago, Chicagoan Prashant Bhargava found his parents’ native India as strange as it would be to any other tourist. The specifically sub-continental mélange of Hindu and Muslim, the chaotic streets and promiscuous human intercourse, spurred Bhargava to invent and tell a…
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Off-Broadway Theater Review: DAMASCUS (4th Street Theater)
MAGNIFICENT CHARACTER ACTOR ON THE BUMPY ROAD TO DAMASCUS When Andrew Weems enters the stage to perform Damascus, a solo play he also wrote, the 4th Street Theater immediately fills with his rich inner life. Weems is one of the great unsung actors of the American stage, the one whom you took for granted in…
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Chicago Theater Review: I AM GOING TO CHANGE THE WORLD (Chicago Dramatists)
A RUDE AWAKENING In his 2011 Northwestern commencement address, Stephen Colbert told alumni that they may have been told to follow their dreams, but that sometimes dreams can change, especially if your first dream is a stupid one. That’s not advice that protagonist John Chapman is prepared to accept in I am Going to Change…
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Off-Off-Broadway Theater Review: THESE SEVEN SICKNESSES (The Flea Theater)
A HAPPENING OF THE HIGHEST THEATRICAL ORDER The Flea Theatre’s young resident acting ensemble, The Bats, is re-mounting their production of These Seven Sicknesses. If you’re looking for an engaging summer theatrical event in New York City (and have already seen Sleep No More), These Seven Sicknesses might just be your ticket. Under Ed Sylvanus…
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Los Angeles Theater Review and Commentary: NO WAY AROUND BUT THROUGH (Falcon Theatre in Burbank)
NO WAY The current production of No Way Around But Through, a world premiere play by Scott Caan, contains many ingredients that explain why L.A. has little to no reputation as a fountainhead of great theater. It is more of a tutorial about the perpetuation of mediocrity than a reviewable event. Certainly, the play is problematic,…
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Chicago Theater Review: IMMEDIATE FAMILY (Goodman Theatre)
GUESS WHO’S COMING TO THE WEDDING DINNER? Immediate Family, written by Chicago actor and playwright Paul Oakley Stovall, is part sitcom and part dysfunctional family drama, garnished with racial and gay humor that flows into racial and gay tensions. As directed by Phylicia Rashad, it’s a pretty good play right now, but needs some tweaking…
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San Francisco Theater Review: BRUJA (Magic Theatre)
A MYTH ADVENTURE In retelling Euripides’ Medea, Luis Alfaro stirs mythology, mysticism, vengeance, raw passion, the immigrant’s plight, and unfathomable traditions of cultures past into a theatrical crucible with Bruja (meaning a witch or sorceress). The Magic Theatre production has cooked up a colorful Mayan theatrical tapestry with nary a weak thread, creating a powerful,…
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Los Angeles Theater and Tour Review: THE ADDAMS FAMILY (Pantages Theatre)
REAPPLYING MAKE-UP ON THE SAME CORPSE Your enjoyment of The Addams Family, now on its National Tour, will depend largely on your expectations. If you are a discerning musical theater aficionado who craves a well-crafted story and amazing songs, this will be a head-scratching affair, one which creates more questions than answers. Those who are…
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Chicago Theater Review: ALMOST AN EVENING (Circle Theatre in Oak Park)
SHOULD YOU GO TO HELL? Sarte said that Hell is other people, but playwright Ethan Coen proposes that watching other people experience hell is supposed to be hysterical. Coen’s Almost An Evening is the inaugural show in Circle Theatre’s new, more intimate space, and while J. Christopher Brown’s production can be devilishly fun at times,…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: TAKE ME OUT (Sky Lounge in North Hollywood)
BLACK BOX BASEBALL Rise Above Theatre Movement has proved once again that it is not afraid of performing difficult material. In the young theatre company’s first show, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, many of the actors were challenged by the play’s unconventional religious content and its lead actor bared his body on stage. In…
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Off-Off-Broadway Theater Review: THE GOLDEN VEIL (The Kitchen)
THEATER AS A COLLECTIVE DREAM The band is already playing, the show underway, as we enter The Kitchen Theatre by way of the stage, which is set up like the parlor of a mystic or a fortuneteller, full of old books and odd, antiquated objects. As we take our seats we are offered wine from…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: LOS OTROS (World Premiere at the Mark Taper Forum)
¿POR QUÉ? I have been trying to figure out sixty ways from Sunday’s opening of Los Otros just exactly how to approach a critique. The new one-act musical by composer Michael John LaChiusa (The Wild Party) and librettist/lyricist Ellen Fitzhugh (Grind) is essentially two sung-through monologues. For about 45 baffling minutes, The Woman (Michele Pawk),…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: VERY STILL & HARD TO SEE (Lex Theatre in Hollywood)
VERY IMPERVIOUS AND HARD TO GET, OR WHAT THE HELL..? I’m debating whether or not to tell you to go to Hell. Should you choose to go, playwright Steve Yockey will take you there in the world premiere of Very Still and Hard to See, a cluster of sporadically startling but ultimately opaque short stories…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: WHERE THE GREAT ONES RUN (Rogue Machine)
RUN The Rogue Machine is one of the best theatre companies in Los Angeles, producing some of the finest productions anywhere. Sadly, their latest effort Where the Great Ones Run wandered off their true artistic center and truly left me baffled. The story basically is about a Country Star returning to his home town because…
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Chicago Theater Review: [TITLE OF SHOW] (Northlight Theatre in Skokie)
[title of review] The Northlight Theatre decided to step off of the beaten path this season, putting on the relatively unknown cult musical [title of show]. The simple premise has two writers, Jeff and Hunter, who are trying to write a show about themselves writing a show ([title of show] refers to the New York…
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Chicago Theater Review: CAMELOT (Light Opera Works in Evanston)
THE LIBRETTO NEVER REALLY WORKS, BUT THIS PRODUCTION SURE DOES Camelot is a good musical that should be better. After all, it was composed by the team of Lerner and Loewe, of My Fair Lady immortality. And it takes as its subject one of the great romantic legends in Western culture, the reign of King Arthur…
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San Francisco Theater Review: THE FULL MONTY (Ray of Light Theatre)
BARED SOULS AND BARE FLESH The huge production of Ray of Light Theatre’s The Full Monty may be packed into the tiny Eureka Theater (opening night was squirming-room-only), but it astonished me how satisfying such full measures of delight, laughter, robust song, and crisp dance could be packed into this revival. Add to that the musical’s…
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Chicago Theater Review: THE BLOND, THE BRUNETTE, AND THE VENGEFUL REDHEAD (Writers’ Theater in Glencoe)
GO FOR THE PERFORMANCE, NOT THE SCRIPT Like most one-actor plays, the new show at Writers Theatre is more satisfying as a performing showcase than as a drama. The play carries the tantalizing title of The Blonde, the Brunette, and the Vengeful Redhead, identifying three of the seven characters impersonated by an exceptionally versatile actress…
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