All Entries Tagged With: "lasplash"
CARRY IT ON: 100% – Bittersweet – UPDATED
BITTERSWEET What becomes legends most? Not necessarily treating them with respect. “Carry It On,” Theatricum Botanicum’s musical survey of American idealists and activists, has a faultless heart, but its showbiz instincts could use a goosing. Charlotte Stoudt – LA Times BITTERSWEET Not to say there weren’t any odd moments in the play: Isadora Duncan explaining [...]
MASTER CLASS: 100% – Sweet
SWEET Ellen Geer has mastered wide-ranging roles during her decades as artistic director and frequent actor at this charming hillside venue. Yet, in her portrayal of Maria Callas (1923–77) during the retirement years of the egocentric Greek opera diva, the term “chameleon” has never seemed a more apt summation of Geer’s talents. Inhabiting this challenging [...]
Critique of the Week
THE LIEUTENANT OF INISHMORE Review by Georja Umano and Gerald Everett Jones - LASplash Bloody mayhem makes for dark Irish comedy in this play about contentious factions within a nasty group of remarkably stupid terrorists during the “Troubles.” Martin McDonagh’s The Lieutenant of Inishmore , features a young hothead Padraic ( Chris Pine) who has broken [...]
THE LIEUTENANT OF INISHMORE: 100% – Sweet
SWEET This kind of theatrical blood sport won’t be for everyone. (Pity the crew assigned to clean up the mess after each performance.) But if a flincher like me found himself tittering with open eyes, maybe you’ll be tickled by McDonagh’s malign mirth as well. Charles McNulty – LA Times SWEET Playwright Martin McDonagh taps [...]
HAMLET: 100% – Bittersweet
BITTERSWEET Director Geer keeps it all moving at a fast clip, but some exasperatingly eccentric blocking divides the focus of too many critical turning points — most egregiously in the mousetrap scene — all but obliterating their dramatic purpose. Bill Raden – LA Weekly BITTERSWEET He does seem to be having a good time, and, [...]
THE THREE MUSKETEERS: 83% – Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET Ellen Geer, doyenne of the leafy Theatricum Botanicum in Topanga Canyon, employs some 50 thesps for almost three hours in Alexandre Dumas’ “The Three Musketeers,” adapted in the cram-it-all-in-there spirit of the RSC’s “Nicholas Nickleby” and Steppenwolf’s “The Grapes of Wrath.” Cinematic rather than theatrical — which is to say, played as straight naturalism [...]
OPUS: 80% – Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET Levy and his accomplished cast almost manage to sell Hollinger’s unnecessary excursions into overwrought soap, particularly in the final scene. It’s the smaller moments that compel, creating an intimacy that make “Opus” a stylish midsummer date night. Charlotte Stoudt – LA Times SWEET The world of classical chamber music easily evokes images of grace [...]
ALL MY SONS: 100% – Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET Ultimately, thanks to solid direction, some sensational performances, and most of all to Arthur Miller’s brilliance as a playwright, this All My Sons leaves its audience moved and shaken as they should be. If you’ve never seen All My Sons, see it now, as who knows when it will be staged once again. Steven [...]
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, [...]
FOUR PLACES: 100% – Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET The manner in which Drake tells this story — blending humor and stark ugliness, while exploring themes of sibling rivalry, marital infidelity and even euthanasia — is thoroughly engaging and held in sharp balance by director Robin Larsen. The characters are fully fleshed out, both in the writing and the performances, as disturbing for [...]
BEHIND THE GATES: 70% – Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET Played out on Stephanie Kerley Schwartz’s set of stone columns and sheer curtains, David Gautreaux’s staging has a minimalist elegance occasionally at odds with the style of the play, which mixes the tropes of a Lifetime movie with journalistic clarity. What ultimately resonates in this Hatikva Productions drama is the fierce hunger of an [...]
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 [...]
ALTAR EGO: 50% – Bitter – UPDATED
BITTER James Lyons’ world premiere, directed by Audrey Moore and Leila Vatan, is a series of monologues parceled out to eight wannabe actors performing, it would seem, for their peers in an acting-class environment. As such, it might be acceptable, though undeniably coarse and beyond vulgar, as a hypersexual statement of “Who I am: the [...]
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF A. EINSTEIN: 88% Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET A veteran of stage and screen, Mersky nails both the Germanic tongue and dry sense of humor, and in weaving her self-admittedly simplistic interpretation of Einstein’s theories into her storytelling, she makes us forget that we are waiting for the man himself. Director Paul Gersten keeps Mersky moving about the stage with an industry [...]
THE ROSE BOWL QUEENS: 100% Sweet
SWEET This folksy musical, with book, music and lyrics by Barbara Hart and Cheryl Gimbel, and music direction by Mary Ekler, combines a gaggle of mostly country songs and deliberately lame jokes, with good-hearted but naïve dramaturgy. Director-choreographer Kay Cole has assembled a lively, colorful cast, and marshals them with panache. Much of the material [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING: 92% – Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET A Noise Within’s “Much Ado About Nothing” is nothing but well done and well-deserving of praise. See it before it closes on 21 May 2010. The production is family-friendly and would make a good introduction to Shakespeare or theater for older children. Jana J. Monji – LA Examiner SWEET With regard to Much Ado [...]
THE UNEXPECTED MAN: 57% Bittersweet – UPDATED
BITTER I wish I could say that the play’s culmination is worth the investment of the slow buildup or that the enjoyment of art, as life, is in the journey, but on this ride, I would have gotten off around Reims. Joel Elkins – LA Theatre Review BITTER If the above sounds hardly the recipe [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
WISDOM 2116: 100% Sweet
SWEET In fact, some 55 years ago, in honor of his dear friends actors Charles Laughton and wife Elsa Lanchester, he penned the sci-fi piece, now titled, Wisdom 2116 for them to perform on stage. But both passed away before having the opportunity to mount it. Now resurrected after all these years, it echoes a [...]
PROOF: 100% Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET Auburn’s powerful play hinges on the issues of trust and faith. As the playwright Bertolt Brecht observed, “the inflexible rule [is] that the proof of the pudding is in the eating.” Despite the fine performances of the cast — tautly directed by Bob Morrisey on set designer Lacey Anzelc’s convincing back porch — Sherer [...]
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 [...]