THE TALENTED MR. JACOBSON Tom Jacobson is nothing if not ambitious. He is not only the most prolific Los Angeles playwright of the moment, but he is the one, given the astonishing record of his successes, on whom one is counting to stay the course and win national recognition – which has eluded some of…

THE WILD, WILD BRECHTIAN WEST The Chinese Massacre (Annotated), Tom Jacobson’s rousing new play, is like a fun day at Disneyland. Jacobson chronicles the 1871 lynching of 18 Chinese men by a mixed-race mob, historically considered to be Los Angeles’ first race riot. Actors break the fourth wall by expounding on exposition and commentating on…

A SHOW IN HOT WATER The Chance Theater is the best and most enterprising small theatre in Orange County; under the guidance of managing director Casey Long and co-founder and current artistic director Oanh Nguyen, the Chance produces new, challenging, and rarely seen works with astounding professionalism. Nguyen brings a brilliant interpretation to the shows…

IN PRAISE OF ECCENTRICITIES It is not surprisng that Tennessee Williams preferred The Eccentricities of a Nightingale to Summer and Smoke. Freed of the conflict between Puritanism (repressed sexuality) and science (sexual liberation), Â Eccentricities is also freed from a good deal of the melodrama which afflicted Â Smoke. Instead, Williams offered up a delicate character study of Alma…

TIME SPENT WITH A MUSICAL GENIUS If ever a production fitted so perfectly within the walls of the elegant Pasadena Playhouse as George Gershwin Alone, I can’t imagine what it may have been. This is, quite simply, what refinement and good taste is all about. Even Yale Pardess’s stage design evokes the thirties in a…

THE ACTOR AND THE ARTIST: TWO MASTERS AT WORK AND PLAY What a joy it is to watch the Los Angeles Theatre Center roar back to life. Once considered a dodgy neighborhood, the Historic Core has become the center of downtown’s magnificent gentrification. The area is now a haven of lofts, art galleries and restaurants;…

WHAT AN ABSURD TIME: EXISTENTIALISM 101 & THEATRE OF THE ABSURD You’re watching a play but you have no idea what’s happening. There is no plot, the dialogue is gobbledygook, and characters are filled with despair, yet you are told that this is Theatre of the Absurd, one of the milestones in modern drama. Still…

THE PLAY’S NOT THE ONLY THING Reinterpreting the setting of Shakespeare’s plays for modern audiences will always be a subject for debate: purists believe that a play’s relevance lies in the time in which it was written; modernists believe that updating the visuals helps a contemporary audience connect to the Romantic language; still, others may…

SHOO SHOO BABY “How do you review The All Night Strut?†my theatre companion asked as we left The Colony Theatre. Well, you don’t. This short Cabaret-style evening of songs (culled from the Swinging Years) has no plot, no skits, no set changes, no characters, and no reality – it’s a superficial stab at recreating…

UNCOMMON GRACE In order to validate his experience of a play, a reviewer should dissect and probe the components of a production, but once in a while a show comes along which catapults the human spirit to near nirvana. Such an outing dictates more than mere analysis – it requires a plea for your attendance….