All Entries Tagged With: "la stage watch"
THE SECOND CITY: CAN YOU BE MORE PACIFIC?: 100% Sweet
SWEET To celebrate 50 years of renowned comedy, Chicago’s Second City has dispatched a talented troupe of seven to the Laguna Playhouse in order to transform Orange County tropes into a satirical revue entitled “Can You Be More Pacific?” Though overlong and somewhat toothless, the show is a sure mirth-maker for natives of all ages [...]
THE WAKE: 69% Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET If “The Wake” succeeds more as a character study than as an assessment of the historical zeitgeist, it’s probably because Ellen is too much of an individual to bear the metaphorical burden placed on her. Those blind spots she’s begun to recognize don’t belong to her exclusively. But her journey into understanding the heartbreak [...]
AWAKE AND SING!: 92% – Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET Long before feminism made it a catchphrase, “Awake and Sing!” revealed just how political the personal can be. And though its language often sounds dated, the play’s discordant notes continue to speak to the turbulent longing in our national soul. Charles McNulty – LA Times SWEET Director Andrew J. Traister captures the play’s potent [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Critique of the Week – Runner Up
OEDIPUS EL REY by Don Shirley – LA Stage Watch You want to see something that’s really…hot? On a stage in L.A.? Check out the first meeting of Oedipus (Justin Huen) and Jocasta (Marlene Forte) in Luis Alfaro’s new Oedipus El Rey, at the Boston Court. The sexual electricidad ignites the room. Emphasizing that aspect [...]
OLD GLORY: 100% Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET Director Carri Sullens elicits performances that flow with cross-currents of hardship and fury, yet with a delicacy that’s almost amiable. Ormeny and Gardner excel with these gifts. And the latent violence simmering between the soldiers – one a devotee of graphic novels, the other of real novels – speaks head-on to why the United [...]
INFLUENCE: 100% Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET Sometimes, Bitterman’s internecine politics are so abstruse, they should be accompanied by Wikipedia supertitles. Yet director Steve Zuckerman’s staccato, Mamet-esque pacing keeps things lively, and his actors attack their material like junkyard dogs set loose in a meat packing plant. Simultaneously charming and repugnant, Bitterman’s characters are so daringly dislikable, you have to love [...]
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 [...]
MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG: 100% Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET With this excellent revival, Oanh Nguyen once again proves himself a master at making the very best of Sondheim. Perhaps what Broadway needs to finally get that hit production of Merrily We Roll Along is the right director. Mr. Sondheim, are you listening? Steven Stanley – StageSceneLA SWEET Given a structure that suggests people [...]
BACKWARDS IN HIGH HEELS: 86% Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET “Backwards in High Heels” has no great plot or momentum, but if you happen to be in the vicinity of Long Beach you might want to give this slight, modestly entertaining diversion a whirl. Cynthia Citron – Reviewplays SWEET Just as intricate as the dancing are the multi-voiced songs, of which this work had [...]
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 — [...]
Critique of the Week
THE SUBJECT WAS ROSES by Don Shirley – LA Stage Watch David Mamet was in the Taper audience on Sunday evening – an especially noteworthy appearance because it was Mamet’s Speed-the-Plow that had been ousted from the Taper season to make room for the production that was opening, a revival of Frank Gilroy’s The Subject [...]
LOBBY HERO: 100% Bittersweet – UPDATED
BITTERSWEET There are no real heroes here, and no true villains either, just nimble moral equivocators who tap-dance their way through the ever-shifting rationales of Lonergan’s keenly observed social satire. Unfortunately, in his staging at Pacific Stages – the first full-scale production in this new El Segundo venue – director Robert Bailey short-changes his material, [...]
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 [...]
EXILES: 100% Sweet
SWEET The show’s pacing sags occasionally, particularly toward the end, which feels inordinately drawn out — and the breakdown of the boat seems like a forced plot development to keep the characters from being able to get anywhere. Yet the the play’s emotions crackle, and the piece brims with real fury and regret, whether it’s [...]
The “Stew Review” Becomes a Veritable Pasta Medley
See? I knew it. Don Shirley got the ball rolling with his Stew Review and now everybody wants a taste. The latest Stew Review comes from Cynthia Citron over at Reviewplays. In this particular concoction Cynthia reviews the two shows running at the Geffen, Wrecks and The Female of the Species. I don’t know what [...]
CELADINE: 60% Sweet – UPDATED
BITTERSWEET Evered apparently set out to write a modern Restoration comedy, but his play is too pale, genteel, and bloodless to qualify. It’s all pleasant enough, and it’s not without charm, but it’s too loosely plotted, thinly written, and dependent on offstage action to generate theatrical excitement. A bit of swordplay toward the end perks [...]
Don Shirley’s Spanking New “Stew Review”!
That’s right, the ever-inventive, always insightful, irrepressible LA Theatre Critic, Don Shirley, currently hanging his virtual shingle at LA Stage Watch and famous for – well famous to ME at least – for his spectacular Capsule Reviews, has once again flexed his innovative muscles and birthed what I like to call the “Stew Review”. I [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
WRECKS: 100% Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET Yet, thanks to Harris’ Herculean acting feat, the contrived ending almost becomes beside the point. Harris’ portrayal of Edward Carr, a grieving middle-aged Midwestern man at a funeral parlor, sorting through complex feelings following his wife’s death, works on basic human levels that stand apart from the tacked-on story twist. Never mind that the [...]
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 [...]
CAROUSEL: 100% Sweet – UPDATED
BITTERSWEET Michetti’s story-theater approach surely will be the most talked-about aspect of this production. The stage directions, meant for the production team’s eyes only, are spoken, “Our Town”-like, by the grandfatherly, bushy-eyebrowed character actor M. Emmet Walsh. When not otherwise needed, actors gather with him along the back wall to watch the story unfolding at [...]
The Demise of the Pasadena Playhouse Continued
Some excellent commentary from both Charles McNulty (finally!) at the LA Times and Don Shirley at LA Stagewatch on the demise of the Pasadena Playhouse. First Charles: Ever since hearing the somber news about Pasadena Playhouse, I keep thinking of the title of Polish director Jerzy Grotowski’s book “Towards a Poor Theatre.” This revolutionary text [...]
KINGS OF THE KILBURN HIGH ROAD: 100% Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET The setting, the characters, the behavior — a pub, heavy drinking, nastiness — are all quite stereotypical Irish in Jimmy Murphy’s “The Kings of the Kilburn High Road,” receiving its U.S. premiere at Burbank’s Theater Banshee. As the booze flows at a wake in this north London pub so, too, do the confessions and [...]
BAAL: 100% Sweet
SWEET In director Ben Rock’s sensual and visceral staging of Peter Mellencamp’s profane, poetical adaptation, now playing at Sacred Fools Theatre Company, Gregory Sims performs the title character with the primal seductiveness of the young Al Pacino, growling through the play, as though he’s borrowed Tom Waits’ voice. Steven Leigh Morris – LA Weekly SWEET [...]
PROJECT WONDERLAND: 100% Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET The stars here are Teresa Shea’s costumes and sets and Lynn Jeffries’ puppets, a whirlwind of giant lobster claws and waves of parachute silk and 15-foot flower hats and packs of angry cards buzzing about the stage. Amidst the chaos, standouts include Bonnabel’s Caterpillar, Jabez Zuniga’s Queen of Hearts, Matthew Patrick Davis’ Mad Hatter, [...]