All Entries Tagged With: "tolucan times"
TOPDOG/UNDERDOG (FREMONT PRODUCTION): 100% – Sweet
BITTERSWEET As Booth, Rider has an appealing intensity that bounces nicely off of Jed Reynolds’ low-key Lincoln. James Reynolds’ simple staging is clear and clean, and the young actors own the play’s many comic moments. They have more difficulty mining the complexity of the material—reaching the depths it demands—and at times handling the heightened language. [...]
A STRING OF PEARLS: 33% – Bitter
SWEET “A String of Pearls” is an ambitious play, but one the Group Rep at the Lonny Chapman Theatre pulls off beautifully. Jackie Houchin – NoHoArtsDistrict BITTER This one just wasn’t my cup of tea… or favorite style of play. Sorry… non-linear offerings always trip me up a bit, and this one often missed its [...]
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 [...]
KARMA, THE MUSICAL: 100% – Sweet
SWEET And the production gains traction from Liz Heathcoat’s lively choreography, executed by an enthusiastic ensemble, and from videographer Scott Hunter’s background montage of cultural icons. That said, the show has multiple rough edges, including an uneven standard of performance and vocals that need improving. Director Michael Eiden does a respectable job of maneuvering a [...]
EAT THE RUNT (Theatre of NOTE): 80% – Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET Written by Avery Crozier with mind-boggling brilliance… This one will twist your brain! One of the most innovative, funny, wildly creative, ingenious, and theatrically challenging staged concepts I’ve ever seen! Pat Taylor – Tolucan Times SWEET As to whether this reviewer will be back for more runt eating, the answer is yes indeed. Stay [...]
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 willing participant in the great chicanery that is LA theater criticism” – David Jette
Chicanery: The act of deceiving. This is the sad state within which David Jette, playwright/director and once-critic at LA Theatre Review has found himself. He has come to the conclusion that Los Angeles Theatre Criticism is an “act of deception”. In a recent post entitled Why I Stopped Writing Theatre Reviews David has – with [...]
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 [...]
JUST 45 MINUTES FROM BROADWAY (Extended Run): 60% – Sweet
SWEET Start with quite possibly the most gorgeous set ever designed for a 99-seat theater production, add to that an intelligent, witty script which reads like a 21st Century version of Kaufman and Ferber’s The Royal Family, cast it with some of L.A.’s finest stage and screen talent—and the result is Henry Jaglom’s Just 45 [...]
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 [...]
CIRCLE OF WILL: 33% – Bitter – UPDATED
BITTER A stumbling attempt at satire, the piece portrays Shakespeare as a lesser literary light and Burbage as a cretinous narcissist, fed up with dramas about death and threatening to walk unless he gets to be a hero in a play with a positive ending. The problem lies not in the lampoon of the theater [...]
TWO PLAYS BY YUKIO MISHIMA: 100% – Sweet
SWEET An excellent production. Recommended. M. Jarrett Christensen – Tolucan Times SWEET Though the production has its share of rough edges, a delightful cast and supple direction (accented by Chris Edinjikilian’s misty scenic painting and Sandy Gabucan’s effective lights) neatly illuminate Mishima’s dark and uncompromising obsessions. Bill Raden – LA Weekly SWEET Demonstrating once again [...]
CHIPS THE MUSICAL: 100% – Sweet
SWEET The 14 loony production numbers (under Eric Heinly’s musical direction), neatly skewer the original series’ generic, funk-flavored, adult-contemporary score along with its absurdly insipid storylines — talk about shooting fish in a barrel! — and even produce the occasional gem, like Caroline Gross’ hilarious, must-be-seen, aerial-birthing flashback dance. Bill Raden – LA Weekly SWEET [...]
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 [...]
THE SOCIALIZATION OF RUTHIE SHAPIRO: 50% – Bittersweet – UPDATED
SWEET This is an endearingly wonderful and “emotion stirring” play. It will take you back to your own “growing pains” at age 12, time and time again. We enjoy every moment of Ruthie’s search for acceptance! Beautifully written with a feast of “food for thought” by Barbara Nell Beery, it is billed as a memory [...]
LENNY BRUCE IS BACK (AND BOY IS HE PISSED): 67% – Sweet
BITTER Unfortunately, YouTube clips of Bruce’s act are far more compelling than Bobrick and Stein’s script, which is written largely in the past tense and concentrates on interpersonal relations with friends and family — including Bruce’s appreciation for his mother and annoyance with his father. Such domestic confession is not what made this comedian a [...]
SKYLIGHT: 80% – Sweet – UPDATED
BITTER It’s possible that in a few weeks director Ken Meseroll’s stodgy production of the seething drama will gel to reflect the play’s subtle emotional shifts and nuances in a more involving way. At this point, though, Meseroll’s staging is merely workmanlike, with flat line readings and stiff blocking, while also missing the psychological edge [...]
WHITE PEOPLE: 100% – Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET Director Douglas Clayton and his cast elevate Rogers’ words, be they damning or mundane, to perfection. The actors handle Rogers’ format, a 95-minute one-act series of monologues, so expertly that the resulting stories seem to be uttered out loud for the very first time. Doerr’s delivery is astonishing in this regard, as his character [...]
U.S.S. PINAFORE: 100% – Sweet
BITTERSWEET The transference of Gilbert and Sullivan’s social satire into a few quips on our pop culture feels like a reduction of scale, but nothing compared to the reduction served up in the tinny soundtrack. Delivering the goods with confident glee, this excellent ensemble deserves better. In fact, this would be a sinking ship were [...]
MADAGASCAR: 100% – Sweet
SWEET Playwright JT Rogers begins this piece with a descriptive passage regarding the results of someone vanishing from the life they have been leading until then. What follows is an amazing treatise about the effects of said disappearance on those closest to the missing subject. Melodically constructed, it alternates between a dryly etched wit and [...]
BACKSTREET: 60% – Sweet – UPDATED
BITTER This musical—with a book by Evelyn Rudie, Matthew Wrather, and director Chris DeCarlo—has an engaging premise but was much more effective when originally produced at the Santa Monica Playhouse in 1998. During the first act of the current revival, the music so overpowers the singers that their voices are virtually inaudible, while most of [...]
MORE LIES ABOUT JERZY: 86% – Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET Holmes’ journalist tries to psychoanalyze why Jerzy would make stuff up so habitually – perhaps a war trauma or something – and Jerzy ridicules that process as petty psychoanalysis. The degree to which Jerzy may be right is the degree to which this play gets very interesting, veering away from its dangerous trajectory of [...]
SISTER MARY IGNATIUS EXPLAINS IT ALL FOR YOU/ THE ACTOR’S NIGHTMARE: 100% – Sweet
BITTERSWEET The play, however, challenges a very old system of doing things: Catholicism. Durang does away with God by interrogating a horrible representative of the religion, the Sister, with all the major faith-based questions. A lot of people, perhaps Durang, are introduced to God and turn away from God because of a particular religion. And [...]
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 [...]
LANGSTON & NICOLAS: 75% – Sweet – UPDATED
SWEET A gripping and historical true story, a huge and colorful multi-racial cast, hot blooded music, dance and poetry, and lots of heartfelt emotion… This is a fabulous and exciting journey! In development for many years by the dedicated Towne Street Theatre folks, they hope to eventually produce it in a larger Equity theatre (…and [...]
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 [...]
ACTING: THE FIRST SIX LESSONS: 100% Sweet
SWEET The production is dedicated to Betty Garrett, a founding member of Theatre West, whom I was fortunate to sit beside and hear stories of Beau’s early days with the company. Initially, Beau was rejected for membership because he was so young! This, his first effort on the main stage of Theatre West ably directed [...]
THE BLVD.: 67% Sweet
SWEET The Blvd can easily be called a guilty pleasure. It’s camp at its best and this full-length play that combines two iconic films of yesteryear would feel right at home in a late-night slot at any of the smaller theatres in L.A. with the capacity to elevate high camp into a work of art. [...]
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, [...]
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 [...]