All Entries Tagged With: "mr. hunter"
ALL MY SONS (RUSKIN GROUP THEATRE): 100% – Sweet
SWEET Director Edward Edwards does not attempt any revisionist flourishes in the current production of “Sons” at the Ruskin Group, but although his simple staging may seem somewhat tame at intervals, it has, on the whole, an emotional authenticity that honors the play’s timeless themes. F. Kathleen Foley – LA Times SWEET Trust me, there [...]
A WOLF INSIDE THE FENCE: 75% – Sweet – UPDATED
BITTER One of three plays in the First Look Festival, Joseph Fisher’s dramedy creeps along at a maddeningly slow pace with a plot as thick and tedious as any world history textbook. The knock-you-on-the-side-of-your-head stock characters are of the typical all-American high school trope: the bad girl that smokes out front, a frustrated history teacher, [...]
SHAKE: 67% – Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET The mystery comes in the reverse momentum. Told forward, it’s a soap opera — going back, a parlor game. We know this drama traces back to the fall of the towers, but when we get there, we realize Bill and Peggy’s relationship was already headed to destruction — 9/11 simply changed the route. More [...]
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 [...]
![[title of show] (Celebration Theatre): 92% – Sweet – UPDATED](http://bitter-lemons.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/titleofshow-150x150.jpg)
[title of show] (Celebration Theatre): 92% – Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET Now, mind you, the characters’ sexuality is never a hindrance to the evening, as it is all done in fun and in fairness to everyone. The American Theatre has not been particularly homophobic, or racist, or even sexist, for some decades. And as the show is playful in the extreme, running a tad over [...]
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 GOOD WOMAN OF SETZUAN: 100% – Sweet
SWEET A moral dilemma bubbles at the play’s core: Can a person do good in the world — assisting others clearly in need — while also safeguarding one’s personal comfort? That question loomed in collective consciousness when the play was written between 1939 and 1941, and hovers there still. If that seems strong stuff, fear [...]
KING LEAR (ANTAEUS PRODUCTION): 100% – Sweet
SWEET The Matthews team, featuring Morlan Higgins’ stalwart Kent, Kirsten Potter’s villainous Goneril, Francia DiMase’s vindictive Regan and Drew Doyle’s sly Oswald, ultimately had a larger intellectual impact on me — the play administering a lesson on the dangers of dividing language from truth. The Groener crew, with Allegra Fulton’s sinister Goneril and Jen Dede’s [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
THE BLUE ROOM: 22% Bitter – UPDATED
SWEET With carefully choreographed direction by acclaimed director Elina de Santos, the action takes place on a minimal set, with excellent and evocative lighting, set design, musical segues and costuming to buoy the exploration of sex and the sense of existential meaninglessness that accompanies it here. Bea Wolff – Tolucan Times BITTER In director Elina [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
LIBERTY INN: THE MUSICAL: 100% Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET The impeccable set is changed by Faber and the Captain’s Aide (Mark Doerr) in choreographed perfection. Dean Cameron, who designed the set, also did the costumes, particularly outdoing himself in the Revolutionary War uniforms. Ryback plays his own score with dashing brilliance, including an overture and scintillating arpeggios. May and Snow have outstanding voices, [...]
THE BALLAD OF EMMETT TILL: 89% Sweet – UPDATED
BITTERSWEET The problem may be one of taste, but it ties directly back to the compulsion to spill the guts theatrically. Finney’s staging of the abduction starts brilliantly, with a pair of headlights appearing behind a translucent scrim. The production then devolves into a graphic, extended and emotionally exploitative depiction of the fatal beating – [...]
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 [...]
DIGGING UP DAD: 100% Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET “Digging Up Dad” may not have much in the way of shock value or serrated-edged satire, still, it has a lot of heart for a ‘tough guy’ who finds that forgiveness can be the toughest thing of all. Cris D’Annunzio was well advised by Kevin Spacey to see his monologue through and introduce us [...]
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 [...]
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 – [...]
BOBRAUSCHENBERGAMERICA: 78% Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET Bart DeLorenzo’s staging preserves the tone, inherent the text, that’s both wry and frivolous, abstract and pop, with one breakout poetical excursion into Walt Whitmanesque grandeur, delivered by a hobo (Brett Hren) and accompanied by Dvorak’s Symphony from The New World. Steven Leigh Morris – LA Weekly SWEET In viewing the show at Inside [...]
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 [...]
11, SEPTEMBER: 0% Bittersweet – UPDATED
BITTERSWEET The play rides the line between exploring and exploiting coincidences, yet it gets bogged down in its own psychological realism. This raises questions that can’t be answered by chaos theory, or any other — such as why the characters sometimes blurt out incendiary details of their past, given how neither is particularly trustworthy, or [...]
Critique of the Week – Runner Up
SANTASIA MR Hunter – Stagehappenings Rudy, the red-nosed mobster had a very short fuse and if you ever crossed him, he’d put out a hit on you. All of the other elves liked to strip and spank around. They even let Santa bounce, bounce and get jiggy with it. Then one Pulpy Christmas show Vincent [...]
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 [...]
EXTINCTION: 100% Sweet
SWEET Gabe McKinley’s debuting play takes a perceptive look at the evolution of male friendships, exploring the personal sacrifices that come with maturity and the communication barriers that sometimes cause people to grow apart. Director Wayne Kasserman and actors James Roday and Michael Weston make the most of the sly humor and subtle heartbreak in [...]
TREE: 100% Sweet
SWEET In “Tree,” there is no true love without pain. Hébert suggests that real families are the people who know you well enough to push you into becoming someone new. Now there’s an idea to bring to the Thanksgiving table. Charlotte Stoudt – LA Times SWEET The play finds its stride through people clashing, even [...]
“Our Town”: 91% Sweet – UPDATED
BITTERSWEET The jury’s still out on “Our Town”: Is it a high school staple for a reason, or a victim of sentimentalists? The new production of Thornton Wilder’s 1937 classic at the Actors’ Gang doesn’t exactly settle that question. Clocking in at nearly three hours, Justin Zsebe’s staging showcases what’s best and worst about both [...]