All Entries Tagged With: "keisha7"
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, [...]
PALOMINO: 89% – Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET As it happens, Kieren tries to get Edward, who has a connection to Vallie, interested in publishing his tell-all diaries. This coincidence enables Cale to take his theme of the bartering of love in a more generous direction. The outcome is far from inevitable, but Cale’s initial conceit sparks enough fascination to sustain our [...]
THE WOMEN OF BREWSTER PLACE, THE MUSICAL: 88% – Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET Musical director Gregory Nabours works expertly with the strong cast, as he does with his skilled musicians, to create a production of immense scale in this tiny venue. Scenic designer Kurt Boetcher offers just enough set to suggest the slum conditions but stays out of the way of the actorsm and it’s all nicely [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
SWEENEY TODD: 100% Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET I have seen this show more than a few times and I have to say I thoroughly enjoy this production. Norman Large comfortably heads a formidable company of talented performers that are both vocally and dramatically strong. Debbie Prutsman was for me, the greatest treat of the show. Her twisted turn as the Machiavellian [...]
Critique of the Week
ORPHEUS DESCENDING by Keisha7 – LASplash Somewhere in the forgotten South, back in the not so distant past, the locals of a small country town await the arrive of one of it’s most important citizens. Jabe Torrance (Geoffrey Wade) is returning home from the hospital after suffering from heart ills. His general dry goods store [...]
ORPHEUS DESCENDING: 86% Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET Frantic Redhead Productions’ presentation of Tennessee Williams’ Orpheus Descending is a prime example of Los Angeles theater at its finest. A big-name trio of leading players with serious theatrical credits and training, a gifted director with an inspired concept, and one of the finest design teams in town have combined forces to make one [...]
F*CKING MEN: 86% Sweet
SWEET With a title like F*cking Men and the promise of full frontal male nudity, the latest Celebration Theatre production will have no problem attracting audiences. Joe DiPietro’s modern gay twist on Arthur Schnitzler’s 1900 classic La Ronde has been filling seats in London for the past two years and counting. What WeHo theatergoers will [...]
ITALIAN AMERICAN RECONCILIATION: 100% Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET The gloves come off in John Patrick Shanley’s romantic comedy at the Ruskin Group Theatre. Performed by an outstanding cast, the play follows the delightful mishaps of love and hate as Aldo (John Collela) tries to help his good friend Huey (Chad Wood) woo back his shrewish ex-wife, Janice (Amy Jacobson Ruskin) in a [...]
“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 [...]