All Entries Tagged With: "dany margolies"
THE CLEAN HOUSE (INTERNATIONAL CITY THEATRE): 100% – Sweet
SWEET Costume designer Kim DeShazo provides Lane with a white pantsuit in almost great-white-hunter style, which softens to a pink sweater and white slacks by play’s end. Virginia’s clothing, by contrast, begins as prim but comfortable and ends as happily comfortable. As does the audience’s tour of this odd, unique, and ultimately cathartic play. Dany [...]
TITUS REDUX: 100% – Sweet
SWEET The minimalist settings are dynamic in their flexibility. Using two tables and a few other bits and pieces, the nearly two-hour narrative, unbroken by intermission and strewed with terrible soliloquies, create the pain, suffering and grief that few of us would dare even to imagine. Laurence Vittes – Hollywood Reporter SWEET The story’s pieces [...]
THE MYSTERY OF IRMA VEP: 100% – Sweet
SWEET There’s a mildness that prevents Lorre and Remington’s handling, played out on a set of black furniture adorably marked with chalk, from becoming an unfettered tour de force. (A few bald comic patches could use a directorial comb-over.) But the duo’s gentle playfulness has its own rewards — first and foremost, a chuckling sincerity. [...]
THE GOOD BOOK OF PEDANTRY AND WONDER: 63% – Sweet – UPDATED
BITTER From such fascinating but dramatically unpromising ingredients Pomerance seeks to assemble a play. Given that Murray used the wealth of English literature to assemble his dictionary, one might have imagined a Stoppardesque approach where Murray’s painstaking effort is scrimmed through some well-known literary masterpiece providing a superstructure on which to hang the theatrically inert [...]
BEDROOM FARCE: 67% – Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET Director Ron Bottitta wisely keeps this soufflé in period, abetted by designers Kathi O’Donohue (lighting), Kathryn Poppen (costumes) and Bill Froggatt (sound). His players form a first-rate ensemble, the odd dialect glitch or overstressed beat trivial when set beside such unified light-comic style. The play remains middlebrow boulevard fare, albeit written by a master [...]
PROCREATION: 33% – Bitter – UPDATED
BITTER My theater companion said afterward that he kept waiting for the large cast to break out into a musical number. I was just hoping that the humor would kick into a higher gear. But whatever the expectation, “Procreation” fails to deliver. Charles McNulty – LA Times SWEET Tanner’s satire of behaviors roasts not so [...]
THURGOOD: 100% – Sweet
SWEET At the end, Marshall recites the following lines from a poem by his Lincoln University schoolmate Langston Hughes: “O, let America be America again./The Land that never has been yet — /And yet must be….” Fishburne allows the words to resonate with purpose, clarity and democratic feeling, and his performance is an opportunity for [...]
ST. NICHOLAS: 100% – Sweet
SWEET Call it vampire light, void of Stoker but with a touch of Anne Rice. McPherson’s tinkering with the vampire myth is a clever literary sleight of hand, but the ease of his narrative and its animated density, the shades of humor and poignancy, and McGee’s textured performance make for a terrific outing. Lovell Estelle [...]
AMADEUS: 100% – Sweet – UPDATED
BITTERSWEET In that quest, Swander often speaks of passion, yet it rarely feels as if his character possesses the passion his words suggest. Part of this may have been director August Viverito’s desire for a slow build, even though it does eventually pay off in Act 2. Stafford’s Mozart, on the contrary, is id perfectly [...]
GRACE & GLORIE: 100% – Bittersweet – UPDATED
BITTTERSWEET Unfortunately for this play, Grace is paired with Gloria—who seems to have been created with less forethought by Ziegler and who is portrayed confusingly by Melinda Page Hamilton. Deep down, what kind of person is Gloria, whom Grace calls “Glorie”? Hamilton and director Cameron Watson seem to have found no gist of the character, [...]
LONDON’S SCARS: 100% – Sweet
SWEET Hirsch’s ear for the British idiom, especially London slang, is undeniable, and his characters are fascinating — especially the tortured souls of Mary and Habib. However the simmering tension Hirsch strives to build into “explosive” (sorry) moments unfortunately lacks the requisite danger and menace to keep us in anticipation. Director Darin Anthony employs creative [...]
COPENHAGEN: 100% – Sweet
SWEET The good news is that the intimacy of director August Viverito’s pared parlor staging (Viverito is also credited for production design) does away with the ostentatious redundancy of the Broadway production’s grand tribunal set; this allows the play’s human dimensions — and riveting, nuanced performances by a terrific ensemble — to take center stage. [...]
MY SISTER IN THIS HOUSE: 100% – Sweet
SWEET “My Sister” is an absorbing, often oppressive study of class and codependency. Or, as an audience member put it as we filed out of the theater, “Too much estrogen under one roof.” Charlotte Stoudt – LA Times SWEET Bray and Zion are lovely and expressive in communicating the sisters’ bond, forged ever more tightly [...]
BENGAL TIGER AT THE BAGHDAD ZOO (TAPER REVIVAL): 100% – Sweet
SWEET Derek McLane’s Middle Eastern sets are as spare as they are atmospherically rich. The scenic design may have worked better on a more compact stage, but the magical sense that anything can occur has been vitally left intact. David Lander’s pockets of lighting certainly enhance this quality, as do David Zinn’s simple yet transformative [...]
ACTING: THE FIRST SIX LESSONS: 100% Sweet
SWEET The production is dedicated to Betty Garrett, a founding member of Theatre West, whom I was fortunate to sit beside and hear stories of Beau’s early days with the company. Initially, Beau was rejected for membership because he was so young! This, his first effort on the main stage of Theatre West ably directed [...]
THE ARSONISTS: 100% Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET The performances, as well as the flames, crackle in Ron Sossi’s slyly sardonic staging — performances that combine perfect comic timing with dense, rich personalities. Weisser’s nervous (and increasingly delusional) Biedermann and Hogan’s uptight wife are hilarious — but the true scene-stealers are Achorn’s rubber-faced, diabolical Schmitz and Bottitta’s ghoulish Eisenring, who are simultaneously [...]
THE LANGUAGE ARCHIVE: 88% Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET Director Mark Brokaw, an experienced hand with adventurous American playwrights (he’s had an especially fruitful history with Paula Vogel and Craig Lucas), stages the whimsy in an exaggerated manner that doesn’t diminish the work’s underlying streak of tragicomic tenderness. If the humor at times seems strained, that’s probably because Cho is better at imagining [...]
LASCIVIOUS SOMETHING: 91% Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET Callaghan finds the madness in each of her characters. It’s not apparent but it’s there, as it is in each of us. This gives the play its strength, as each of the characters is strong, too, and the three of them stubbornly fight to defend their turf. August is weak and unlikeable and, as [...]
THE CHARM OF MAKING: 33% – Bitter – UPDATED
BITTERSWEET This Stella Adler Los Angeles Theatre Collective production has its charms, including the genuine sense of connection that director Milton Justice creates among his cast, and some tart dialogue. But the play is an ensemble in search of an engine — everyone sits around the living room half in love with easeful death – [...]
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 [...]
OEDIPUS EL REY: 100% Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET Alfaro spins much of this in a colloquial lexicon that makes it all the more forceful. Some of his passages — Tiresias’ musings on what a father really is, after Oedipus has beaten and reviled him (beautifully played by Rocha) — are memorable and moving. Huen is charismatic, the ensemble is strong and the [...]
DUAL CITIZENS: 100% Sweet – UPDATED
BITTERSWEET The story of Broken Nails is less stunning than Ms. Skubik’s performance. It is the usual story of an aging star using power and manipulation to keep her flame alive while alternately abusing and relying on her faithful help, who has anger and resentment of her own. There is a twist in the end [...]
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 — [...]
SIDHE: 83% Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET Full of dark turns, Noble’s story is so packed with tension and conflict that at times it’s hard to believe only four characters are taking part. Not every twist is credible, even given the play’s supernatural standards. And sometimes the heavy Irish brogue makes essential details difficult to grasp. These qualifications notwithstanding, the production [...]
COUSIN BETTE: 100% Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET At least one key performance is over laden with shtick, and some fine-tuning of others is in order. Still, Doukas is terrific, delivering a consummate performance that arouses, for her long-suffering deceitful character , pity, disdain — and admiration. Tony Amendola’s licentious merchant is also top-notch. And alongside the story’s bathos is its salient [...]
Are Avant-Garde and a Good Story Mutually Exclusive?
I kinda know the answer to this already, sorta, but this fantastic dual-review by my current-most-favorite-Los-Angeles-critic Harvey Perr over at the Stage and Cinema site brought it back for me like no one else has in a long, long while. Harvey, in his review – SIMULTANEOUSLY – goes after two currently-playing Los Angeles productions – [...]
STAGE DOOR: 67% Sweet – UPDATED
BITTERSWEET So what’s missing here? Not all the actors are up to the challenges of this production’s style, nor any acting style. Too bad this sinks our complete enjoyment here. But credit Open Fist Theatre Company with giving so many actors a chance to ply their skills onstage—an opportunity the devoted women of the Footlights [...]
A SONG AT TWILIGHT: 100% Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET In this age of Facebook, Twitter, and texting, where the English language has been reduced to grunts and groans and fractured grammar, Noel Coward has come to the rescue, at least for an extremely delicious few hours, in the form of the West Coast premiere of A Song at Twilight at the Odyssey Theatre [...]
CONFUSIONS: 100% Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET The Lost Studio, a beautiful and warm, wooden-beamed structure hiding above La Brea also plays host to a small faux art exhibit. The theatre’s anteroom displayed a series of matching prints, each labeled with decreasing “prices,” and encouraging more than a few bemused faces during intermission. The black and white print featured disparate characters, [...]
Critique of the Week
AN OAK TREE by Dany Margolies – Backstage What exactly is Tim Crouch’s theatrical presentation—”play” being too limiting a word? Crouch (who wrote and who co-directs with Karl James and A. Smith) stars onstage with a different guest star at each performance of this two-hander. About five minutes before the start of the production, the [...]