Photo credit: Michael Helms
BITTER
Nanin’s predictable soap-opera script combines countless genres — including lesbian romance, boylesk, after-school special, musical and courtroom drama — to very little purpose, and the author’s slack direction doesn’t help. The cast strives mightily to score with thinly written characters who are trapped within the lackluster material.
Neal Weaver – LA Weekly
BITTER
Rivera is properly sleazy as the dancer leading young Andres astray, and Moreno makes the most of a blandly written role. Carey Embry tries hard in two cross-dress vignettes, but neither character makes much sense: His eccentric courtroom clerk is shoehorned into the scene, and his over-the-top imitation of Katharine Hepburn in another role is less than spot-on. Nanin has attempted a one-size-fits-all entertainment—something for everyone—but a more focused genre piece would yield greater pleasures.
Les Spindle – Backstage
BITTERSWEET
“Naked in the Tropics” is described as “a comedy with music” yet it would be more accurate to say that it is a production still in its incubus and prematurely birthed onto the stage. The resulting amalgamation is a collection of odds and ends including a musical number about the pains of childbirth, a modern overly sexual dance between two men dressed as a lion and his prey, a court case involving a meth addict and his immigration status, and the comedic presence of a drag queen with looks reminiscent of the late Katharine Hepburn.
Jennifer Fordyce – Socal.com
