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Los Angeles Theater Review: SHOTSPEARE’S ROMEO AND JULIET (Skinny’s Lounge in North Hollywood)
DRINKS ARE QUICK Corey Womack has produced and stage-managed my two favorite Shakespeare shows of the past year, and so to me she is among the most able and important people working in the American theater. True, more famous names may bring the classics to Southern California stages. But from Peter Hall’s uninspired Midsummer Night’s…
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Chicago Theater Review: HAIRSPRAY (Drury Lane Theatre in Oakbrook Terrace)
A PERFECTLY COIFFED HAIRSPRAY A successful revival of Hairspray demands pinpoint casting in two roles: Tracy Turnblad, the show’s central character, must be short, exceedingly stocky, look like a high school girl, and have a performing motor that doesn’t stop for more than two hours, and Tracy’s mother Edna must be credibly played by a man….
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Los Angeles Theater Review: MISS SAIGON (La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts in La Mirada)
COME FOR THE MUSIC, STAY FOR THE CADILLAC The music is everything in Miss Saigon’”not the plot, which is strangely muddled at times, and not the lyrics, which are sometimes awkward. What sticks in your mind and what made the show such an enduring hit (currently the eleventh longest running show in Broadway history) is…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: THE CONVERT (Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City)
NEW BEGINNINGS “You are bafu!” is an insult hurled many times throughout Danai Gurira’s new play The Convert. Bafu means traitor; in this context, it is used to describe Africans who collaborate with Europeans in ways that go against tribal customs. Much of the drama in The Convert centers on those who are considered traitors…
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Chicago Theater Review: THE RAINMAKER (BoHo Theatre at Theater Wit)
A REFRESHING RAIN When reviving an oft-produced play like N. Richard Nash’s The Rainmaker, the hope is that the director will somehow put a new spin on the production so that the piece doesn’t come off as dusty as the drought-ridden plains in which it takes place. Bohemian Theatre Ensemble’s production at Theater Wit has…
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Off-Off-Broadway Theater Review: YOU BETTER SIT DOWN: TALES FROM MY PARENTS’ DIVORCE (The Civilians at The Flea Theater)
YOU’RE GONNA STAND UP: Sometimes in the theater, all you need are four chairs and four actors and a director who knows how to move them around so that everything they do is as natural as breathing. Welcome to You Better Sit Down: Tales From My Parents’ Divorce, the newest project of the innovative and…
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Chicago Theater Review: BLUE MAN GROUP (Briar Street Theatre)
FEELING A LITTLE BLUE In 1992, a friend insisted that we see Blue Man Group: Tubes at the tiny, cramped Astor Place Theatre in New York City. At the time, people were calling it a new generation of performance art, largely because it lacked the self-serving air of attention-seeking SoHo artists. To us, it was…
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Off Broadway Theater Review: MASSACRE (SING TO YOUR CHILDREN) (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater)
BLOODY MASSACRE, DULL SONG As they march through (or are flung through) the doors of an abandoned slaughterhouse, their bodies bloodied, one wonders what battle zone of what war they have come from. But it turns out that this group of survivors have merely killed a mean neighbor. Who would have thought there’d be so…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT (Actors Co-op in Hollywood)
LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NATURALISM Much has been written about Eugene O’Neill’s decision to trade first names with his own dead brother Edmund when naming the younger Tyrone brothers in Long Day’s Journey into Night. The autobiographical play about the family of a fading actor was after all so personal to the writer that he…
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Broadway Review: EVITA (Marquis Theatre)
LIVING EVITA LOCA Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber – together with lyricist Tim Rice – released the Evita “rock opera concept album” in 1976, a few years before the first theatrical production came to life on the West End and ultimately Broadway, a production that I vividly remember. It was truly exhilarating to witness Patty LuPone…
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Broadway Theater Review: CLYBOURNE PARK (Walter Kerr Theatre)
THERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD Ever since Crimes of the Heart won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1981, a cloud of skepticism has followed the award. The announcement that last year’s winner Clybourne Park was coming to Broadway was met with a blend of excitement and cynicism. While Clybourne Park also won several major new…
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Upcoming Chicago Dance Feature: SPRING DESIRE (Joffrey Ballet Company in Chicago)
THERE’S MUCH TO DESIRE One of the most truly inspiring films of the last year was Joffrey: Mavericks of American Dance; while it was clearly a love letter to Joffrey’s legacy, the documentary made evident that the current company, under the artistic direction of Ashley C. Wheater, continues to be a forward-looking institution while honoring what…
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Chicago Theater Review: WHO DO WE THINK WE ARE? (Second City in Chicago)
SECOND CITY KNOWS EXACTLY WHO THEY ARE Second City calls its 100th mainstage revue Who Do We Think We Are? The question is rhetorical. For more than half a century, Second City has been the citadel of improvisational theater in the United States, with an astonishing alumni list that runs from John Belushi and Alan…
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Chicago Theater Review: BEING SHAKESPEARE (Broadway Playhouse in Chicago)
GET THEE TO BEING SHAKESPEARE There’s simply no other way to encourage your attendance to Being Shakespeare than to submit my unequivocal good word. Those who fret at comprehending Shakespeare’s prose may be put off by the man’s name in the title. Don’t be. If you hear that this is a solo show, but you…
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Broadway Theater Review: ONE MAN, TWO GUVNORS (The Music Box in New York City)
ONE HIT, TWO GUVNORS Once upon a time, you could attend theatre by Americans and watch actors who had worked together for decades. Long rehearsal periods to explore classical texts were commonplace until Reagan cut the NEA. Acting companies were devastated. Today American audiences rarely get to see finely honed ensembles perform collaboratively developed classical…
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Los Angeles Theater Review: IVANOV (Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles)
A YOUNG MAN’S PLAY Would-be writers are often given the advice, “Write what you know.” Of the many reasons why writers should write what they know is that it lends authenticity to their creative output. Anton Chekhov’s first full-length play, Ivanov, proves the truth of this dictum. While Ivanov is not exactly an autobiographical play,…
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Broadway Theater Review: THE BEST MAN by Gore Vidal (Schoenfeld Theatre)
POLITICS AS USUAL Given the nastiness of the recent Republican primary debates and a sense of even worse nastiness to come with the next election, it is no surprise that thoughts of reviving Gore Vidal’s The Best Man would be imminent. Vidal’s gimlet-eyed insight into the peculiarities of the Washington political scene and his trenchant…
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Chicago Theater Review: ANGELS IN AMERICA (Court Theatre in Chicago)
A LITTLE OUTDATED, ANGELS IS STILL MANNA FROM HEAVEN In 1994, Tony Kushner’s two-part Angels in America plays – Millennium Approaches and Perestroika – opened locally at the Royal George Theatre where they provided a stunning viewing experience. In two sprawling works Kushner brought alive the American national scene of the 1980’s and early 1990’s,…
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Chicago Theater Review: AFTER THE REVOLUTION (Next Theatre in Evanston)
I SAY YOU WANT THIS REVOLUTION After the Revolution is a chewy new play about family dynamics and the difficulty of making moral judgments, especially after the fact. For audiences thirsting for a literate, intelligent, stimulating, and accessible new play, it will fill the bill nicely. The Amy Herzog 2010 drama premiered Off Broadway to…
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San Francisco Theater Review: THE ALIENS (SF Playhouse in San Francisco)
THE ALIENS CUTS CLOSE TO THE BONE The Aliens was already sailing high when it made its West Coast premiere at the SF Playhouse, as it has been hailed by the New York Times as a “gentle and extraordinarily beautiful new play.” Playwright Annie Baker, an emerging young talent already rising to the top of…
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