All Entries Tagged With: "bob verini"
THROUGH THE NIGHT: 100% Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET Beaty’s language is realistic and lyrical. The situations he creates are true-to-life and dreamlike. The story is spiritual and earthy. But there is nothing ambiguous in the aftereffects of this enthralling 80 minutes of storytelling. May “Through the Night” continue to reverberate through the years. Dany Margolies – Backstage BITTERSWEET Although crisply directed by [...]
IN A GARDEN: 100% Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET What ultimately pulls the play together is a fascination with the compromises that bedevil the artistic process every bit as much as they stymie diplomatic progress. In this sense, architecture mirrors politics — both adapting dreams into flawed but concrete realities. “In a Garden” possesses the subdued intelligence and unflashy dramatics that distinguish Korder’s [...]
LIBERTY INN: THE MUSICAL: 100% Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET The impeccable set is changed by Faber and the Captain’s Aide (Mark Doerr) in choreographed perfection. Dean Cameron, who designed the set, also did the costumes, particularly outdoing himself in the Revolutionary War uniforms. Ryback plays his own score with dashing brilliance, including an overture and scintillating arpeggios. May and Snow have outstanding voices, [...]
HARAM IRAN: 40% Bitter – UPDATED
BITTER Human rights issues in Iran deserve a great play to be written about them, and Michael Matthews deserves a great play to direct, one at the level of his talents. The cast too deserve better than Haram Iran. So does the Celebration Theatre. Steven Stanley – StageSceneLA BITTERSWEET It’s an apt Celebration property and [...]
FORGIVENESS: 100% Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET The human heart’s capacity to get past the atrocious sins of others in order to grant forgiveness is bracingly dramatized in stage and TV scribe David Schulner’s world premiere, packing more character tension into a mere 75 minutes than many another work twice its length. Helmer Matt Shakman unerringly steers a family ensemble — [...]
WIREHEAD: 50% Bitter
BITTER Audience members more fond than I am of the sci-fi, futuristic fantasy genre may take to Wirehead more than I did. One thing at least is undeniable. Echo Theater Company is one of L.A.’s best, and most daring young theater ensembles. Steven Stanley – StageSceneLA SWEET Creative design and black humor triumph again in [...]
THE SUBJECT WAS ROSES: 70% Sweet – UPDATED
BITTERSWEET All right, given this impressive pedigree, what’s my beef? Well, beyond the play’s passé style, I have trouble with the workmanlike use of the symbolic roses that inspire the title and even more with scenes that sometimes seem like acting workshop exercises. Charles McNulty – LA Times SWEET Yet traditional dramatic styles needn’t be [...]
NORTH ATLANTIC: 86% Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET With an ensemble that includes such company stalwarts as Kate Valk, Ari Fliakos and Scott Shepherd, along with Oscar winner Frances McDormand, who was in the delightful 2002 Wooster Group neo-Racinian deconstruction “To You, The Birdie! (Phèdre),” there’s plenty of concentrated theatrical audacity to entice you along this uncharted 90-minute journey. And staged with [...]
THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES: 89% Sweet – UPDATED
BITTERSWEET The script has an unending flow of verbal and physical high jinks but too many sitcom-quality one-liners and a lazy reliance on popular culture for easy laughs. There also is too much insincere rattling on about the sexual issues that Bening’s character has made her career by exploiting. And there’s no pretense at character [...]
WHY TORTURE IS WRONG, AND THE PEOPLE WHO LOVE THEM: 100% Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET Durang is getting a lot off his chest, and off ours. The laughter he generates is from nonsense about nonsense, unnervingly true and cathartic, and beautifully performed. Steven Leigh Morris – LA Weekly SWEET At this point the play takes a surprising twist and justifies your having sat for nearly two hours wondering where [...]
WHISPER HOUSE: 83% Sweet – UPDATED
BITTER Composer Duncan Sheik’s voice, which entered the world of stage tuners with a roar in 2004′s “Spring Awakening,” is reduced to a whisper in “Whisper House,” the somnolent chamber musical now world premiering at the Old Globe. Sheik’s sophomore slump doesn’t mean his vastly popular, Tony-winning debut was a fluke. But it does suggest [...]
CAMELOT: 73% Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET In 1960 two legendary tuners bowed in Gotham exactly seven months apart: two-planks-and-a-passion romance “The Fantasticks” (May 3) and lavish spectacle “Camelot” (Dec. 3). Fifty years later at the Pasadena Playhouse, their destinies are again intertwined, after a fashion, as an expurgated “Camelot” receives a “Fantasticks”-like bare-bones staging with a mere eight thesps, minimalist [...]
ORDINARY DAYS: 83% Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET The lesson: Simple joys have a way of secretly expanding. If you go into “Ordinary Days” with reasonable expectations, you’ll likely come out feeling as if you’ve just had an experience that was more than a little special. Charles McNulty – LA Times BITTERSWEET Though meant to be ironic because it is a story [...]
AN OAK TREE: 89% Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET On opening night, Gallagher’s grief-stricken father produced an atmosphere of anguish that cast light on some of Crouch’s impenetrable themes. Of course, the tone will necessarily change with each new performer, but the final point, one suspects, will remain elusive. What is clear is that Crouch is an assured puppet master who inspires trust [...]
FROSTY THE SNOW MANILOW: 75% Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET Costumes by Sharon McGunigle add color and sparkle to the production, nicely lighted by Christian Epps. Sherry Santillano’s multilevel village set offers opportunities for cast members to appear in open windows above the stage. The heart-stopping acrobatics on the Troubadours’ trampoline are always a showstopper, and Walker and his youthful cast don’t disappoint. Melinda [...]
PALESTINE, NEW MEXICO: 38% Bitter – UPDATED
BITTERSWEET This curious development leads to a fantasy sequence featuring, among other harebrained shenanigans, a golem in the shape of a cactus. The high jinks have a fatuous air that aims to translate the zaniness of the Marx Brothers and Aristophanes into Culture Clash’s unique brand of tomfoolery. But the plot is convoluted in a [...]
BONNIE & CLYDE: 50% Bitter
BITTER It’s theoretically possible to turn the “Bonnie & Clyde” saga into a conventional musical play, but the eponymous tuner at La Jolla Playhouse hasn’t found the magic formula. Flummoxed by the challenge of creating likable, sympathetic protagonists while remaining truthful to the facts of their vain, pointless Depression-era death spree, the creative team falls [...]
EQUIVOCATION: 100% Sweet
BITTERSWEET Bottom Line: An original and often witty play that says less than it wants to say in more words than it needs to use. Jay Reiner – Hollywood Reporter BITTERSWEET Cain should be congratulated for the breathtaking boldness of his endeavor here. But rather than equivocate myself, let me say that more playwriting discipline [...]
“Oleanna”: 100% Sweet
SWEET “Oleanna” still fills me with reservations — artistic as well as political. Yes, the debate is tendentiously rigged. But you can’t argue with a play that retains the power to get theatergoers arguing with each other as they head home. Charles McNulty – LA Times BITTERSWEET The only line of defense against this play’s [...]
“Dirty Dancing”: 67% Sweet
BITTERSWEET We’re all here to see Baby come into her own, but it sure takes a while. The producers could easily cut 20 minutes off the evening without losing the heart of the story. As is, the endless parade of camp activities and general stage busyness takes the air out of a storyline ultimately intimate [...]
“Rantoul and Die”: 100% Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET Best of all is the cast, which tears into the material with canine ferocity. Watching them attack the play is energizing and a little bit disconcerting. Their plunge into the abyss is so complete that by the end, you can only fear for their sanity. David Ng – LA Times SWEET Rantoul Illinois is [...]
“Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo”: 100% Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET An ebullient synthesizer of world data, Joseph is not just alert to the fevered geopolitical madness surrounding us, he’s also endlessly inventive in finding bold theatrical metaphors to depict the extent of the depravity. “Bengal Tiger” marks the breakthrough of a major new playwriting talent. Attending the opening gave me a sense of what [...]
“The Fantasticks”: 50% Bitter
BITTERSWEET The show’s fragile amalgam of rueful romance, whimsy, slapstick, and metaphorical fable calls for a delicate balance of moods and styles. Unfortunately, director Jason Alexander’s reinvention of the piece favors ham-fisted burlesque over wistful lyricism, obscuring the bittersweet beauty at the play’s core. There are moments—mostly in the second act—when the cast and production [...]