All Entries Tagged With: "don grigware"
STREEP TEASE: 83%- Sweet
SWEET Of course, if you haven’t seen all of the films in question, some of the humor might whiz over your head. However, this brisk, hour-long sampling of Streep’s oeuvre, directed by Ezra Weisz, features a gamely goofy cast, including Drew Droege (“Cry in the Dark”), Ron Morehouse (“Death Becomes Her”), Steve Hasley (“The Bridges [...]
A WITHER’S TALE: 91% – Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET A Withers Tale is a nice change of pace for the Troubadour Company but as they are so cosmically gifted at side-splitting silly stuff, let’s hope that their next production is more seriously funny. Lynne Bronstein – Santa Monica Mirror SWEET The somber saga builds to Walker’s showstopping rendition of “Ain’t No Sunshine,” enhanced [...]
CHESS IN CONCERT: 100% – Sweet
SWEET I’ve attended many concert and staged readings of musicals in Los Angeles and most tend to be simple presentations, on book at music stands, with little or no additional production elements. CHESS in Concert at Musical Theatre of Los Angeles has elevated the concert reading convention to new heights, with a lush 9-piece orchestra, [...]
FREE MAN OF COLOR: 100% – Sweet
SWEET Smith’s spare three-character study unfolds through intimate moments and intellectual discourse, powerfully examining the issues of its day, as well as questions surrounding citizenship and belonging, which continue to occupy us. The dialogue is especially refreshing for its crisp diction, for which the credit goes to both the cast and director Dan Bonnell. The [...]
BOY’S LIFE: 75% – Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET Howard Korder writes insightfully—and hilariously—about the male psyche in his 1988 comedy Boys’ Life, smashingly revived (and smoothy updated to the 21st Century) by Crown City Theatre Company. Impeccably acted and directed, this is a production which ought to disprove once and for all any notion of Los Angeles not being the great theater [...]
A WALK IN THE WOODS: 100% – Sweet
SWEET A play that in the wrong hands could easily bog down in dialog becomes a gripping and delicately framed study in human interaction as presented by the Group Rep. The insightful words of playwright Lee Blessing’s back story account of the Salt II negotiations in Geneva, Switzerland in 1983, gain a new life when [...]
ROBIN AND THE 7 HOODS: 100% – Bittersweet
BITTERSWEET As an entertainment, “Robin and the 7 Hoods” succeeds only if you agree to accept it on its own harebrained terms. The film had the advantage of Ol’ Blue Eyes, Dino and Sammy, to get viewers over the hump of the screenplay. Here, Cahn and Van Heusen’s music is the secret weapon. That’s some [...]
HELLO, DOLLY!: 100% – Sweet
SWEET The reason turns out to be a simple one. Major CLOs rent most of their sets, and there hasn’t been a Dolly set available for rent—at least not until 3D Theatricals decided to create one from scratch. The resulting scenic design, a gorgeous watercolor-toned storybook creation by the eminent John Iacovelli, may well lead [...]
BLACK COFFEE: 100% – Sweet
SWEET Agatha Christie and Hercule Poirot give Theatre 40 one of its best productions with the Queen Of Crime’s classic mystery thriller Black Coffee, one which delivers at least as many laughs as thrills, the entire cast delivering sparkling performances with just the right amount of tongue in cheek. Steven Stanley – StageSceneLA SWEET Agatha [...]
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 [...]
BEYOND: 75% – Sweet – UPDATED
BITTERSWEET Hankering for leggy showgirls, recorded New Age music and a vaguely pretentious storyline? Vegas too hot or expensive? Sashay over to the El Portal’s “Beyond,” a Frenchified revue hoping to become Cirque du Soleil when it grows up. An attraction of modest means, modest pleasures and inflated ambitions, this labor of love from quintuple [...]
SOUTH PACIFIC: 100% – Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET But this “South Pacific” is to be treasured above all for Cusack, whose interpretation of her character’s embarrassment of Rodgers & Hammerstein riches is so stunningly suffused with heart that it was as if I were hearing the songs for the first time. Nellie vainly tries to “wash that man right outta” her hair, [...]
THE CLEAN HOUSE: 50% – Bittersweet – UPDATED
BITTER One cannot blame the actors entirely for their sterile performances, enslaved as they are by Stefan Kruck’s anemic and unimaginative direction. But, then again, a theater does not put a play like The Clean House on its season’s schedule out of a passionate commitment to art, but rather out of an impassionate commitment to [...]
THE ICE BREAKER: 100% – Bittersweet
SWEET Act I is infiltrated with too much scientific gibberish and tends not to keep its audience’s interest. There also was a discrepancy in the personality of Sonia, who in the beginning of the play seems bubbly, over zealous and flighty and, as the play progresses, her manner becomes more mature, which may be according [...]
THE KING OF THE DESERT (El Rey del Desierto): 100% – Sweet
SWEET How he fought off all these demons and, at long last, became whole, became himself, is played out vividly and powerfully by Rivera, whose solo performance is one of the best I’ve ever seen. Willard Manus - TotalTheatre.com SWEET Rivera’s performance is astounding. He is electric, passionate and luminous in portraying every character and in [...]
ALFRED HITCHCOCK’S THE 39 STEPS: 85% – Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET Tony Award nominated Director Maria Aitken has successfully transplanted the brilliance of the Broadway production to the incarnation currently running at the Ahmanson Theater in downtown Los Angeles. The production utilizes a sparse collection of set pieces and then challenges the imagination to engage in the world created by the quartet’s tireless Pantomime, a [...]
NIGHTMARE ALLEY: 27% – Bitter – UPDATED
BITTER Although Jonathan Brielle does a neat job of compressing the action into two hours onstage, he fails to capitalize on the terrible implications of falling from grace into a hell beyond the reaches of spirituality or religion, and neither his lyrics nor music is memorable. Laurence Vittes – Hollywood Reporter BITTER But mystery and [...]
PLAYING JORDAN GOLDMAN: 0% Bitter
BITTER There is a germ of a dramatic concept here in the lightweight play, and a lesson, even a message about what it takes to become a man, but it can be learned without the ill-fitting ’frills’ of over-production. There’s no need to spell it out, as this production, and these players seem to have [...]
TEA AT FIVE: 100% Sweet
SWEET This time, she captures the essence, humor, witty cynicism, heart, and innermost thoughts of the late, great Katharine Hepburn. Written by Matthew Lombardo, this revealing telling has been performed in California by Stephanie Zimbalist and Kate Mulgrew in the past. Lombardo’s currently-running hit Broadway solo show, “Looped,” starring Valerie Harper, continues his legacy. Self-directed, [...]
A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM: 100% Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET This presentation may not be a buzz-builder, in the way that the Nathan Lane-led 1996 Broadway revival was, but as directed by David Lee, it is reliably entertaining and is populated with solid singers who, along with conductor Steve Orich and a 22-player orchestra, put the music’s crackling artistry on full display. Daryl H. [...]
DREAMGIRLS: 89% Sweet – UPDATED
BITTERSWEET The all-out attack of Angela’s performance was of a piece with the “American Idol”-ization of this revival, directed by Robert Longbottom with nonstop generic glitz. This is a production that sets out to pummel its audience into smiling submission. The unrelenting dazzle is in fact so exhausting that the producers might want to consider [...]
DON JUAN DISPENSO: 57% Bittersweet – UPDATED
BITTER If the smoky-eyed Enani rarely stokes the Don’s legendary libido with sufficient fire, blame Tanner; he transposes his characters to modern times (a period nicely suggested in designer Daniel Mahler’s ’20s gowns) without updating his antique, baroque archetypes with psychological nuances contemporary to his theme. The result is that the Don’s rascally seductive charms, [...]
THE STORY OF MY LIFE: 100% Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET Neil Bartram and Brian Hill’s 2009 chamber musical is a poignant two-hander exploring the joys and disappointments of a long-term friendship. Simplicity is the hallmark of this delicate gem, which premiered last year on Broadway. Director Nick DeGruccio and gifted actor-singers Robert J. Townsend and Chad Borden tap into the understated emotional power of [...]
BROADS, THE MUSICAL: 50% Bittersweet – UPDATED
BITTER I loved the four gals playing the Broads – all talented – but the show needs a major overhaul. Too many jokes are tired old cliches – and singing about side effects from medications? Audiences do not find that entertaining as many experience these very problems on a daily basis. No one was laughing [...]
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 [...]
THE PRICE: 89% Sweet – UPDATED
BITTER Miller’s characters all seem to struggle with responsibilities and guilt. This play offers the same type of individuals, but because of its long, drawn-out and repetitive dialogue, it is not one of his better plays. None of the characters are too likeable save for Gregory Solomon (performed so well by Kaplan), and the play [...]
Critique of the Week – Runner Runner Up
SOUVENIR by Don Grigware – BroadwayWorld When I first saw Souvenir 3 years ago in Brentwood with its Broadway star Judy Kaye, I marveled at her Tony nominated performance, but did not like the play. I took a look at it again Friday at the Falcon Theatre, enjoyed the performances, but have not changed my [...]
SOUVENIR: 83% Sweet – UPDATED
BITTER Even with its elegant production design, including a NYC skyline that pops up when needed via slide projections, and Nick McCord’s delicate lighting design, Gregg W. Brevvort’s production is a one-trick pony. In her various songs and arias, rather than pursuing the elusive notes, which would create an excruciating tension from a musical game [...]
A PRAYER FOR MY DAUGHTER: 100% Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET Delasante derisively sings “You Are My Sunshine” at various points throughout the play, and that song along with a token prayer at play’s end cast a heavy cloud over our continually failing sense of duty to our fellow man and even worse to ourselves. We tend to take it all for granted, so Babe’s [...]
THE 25TH ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE: 100% Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET The voices of the entire cast are exceptional. Director Jeff Maynard makes the most of the narratives that emerge as the children and adults reflect on winning and losing. Notable is the emotional “The I Love You Song,” sung by Mills, Abston, and Griffith. There are a few lessons to learn from this play [...]