Slipped Disc by Ingrid Lausund. Mayank Keshaviah – LA Weekly Bertolt Brecht, in defining his vision of “epic theater,” coined the term Verfremdungseffekt, or “alienation effect,” which implied that in order to be effective, theater should keep an audience from fully losing itself in the story being told. Playwright Ingrid Lausund, also German, seems to have embraced … Read more
The Morini Strad by Willy Holtzman. Sharon Perlmutter – TalkinBroadway.com I have to admit out front that I’m not a huge fan of “unlikely friendship” plays, in which two complete opposites start out hating each other, but ultimately end up with a mutual respect. Willy Holtzman’s The Morini Strad is a better than average example of the genre, largely because … Read more
One November Yankee by Joshua Ravetch. Sharon Perlmutter – TalkinBroadway.com Joshua Ravetch’s One November Yankee is a play for two performers and an airplane. In the NoHo Arts Center world premiere production, that’s Harry Hamlin, Loretta Swit, and a two-seater yellow Piper Cub. The actors play three different brother/sister pairs as we follow the story of the plane through three critical scenes: … Read more
The Coarse Acting Show by Michael Green, adapted byPaul Plunkett. David C. Nichols – Backstage In his priceless 1964 volume “The Art of Coarse Acting,” English journalist and humorist Michael Green typifies a coarse actor as “one who can remember his lines, but not the order in which they come.” After more pointed examples, Green notes: “His problems? Everyone else connected … Read more
86′d by Jon Polito and Darryl Armbruster. David C. Nichols – L.A. Times Would that all indie films translated to the stage as well as “86’d” at Theatre 68. Jon Polito and Darryl Armbruster’s dark comedy about collective moral equivalency in a late-night diner weathers some blips in tone and casting to hold us in uncomfortably laughing thrall. Read more…
Intimate Apparel by Lynn Nottage. Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA A persuasive melodrama, Intimate Apparel is perhaps Lynn Nottage’s best known play, although she won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Ruined in 2009. Written and first staged at Center Stage in Baltimore almost ten years ago, Intimate Apparel has a pleasing contemporary relevance. Although Nottage’sdrama is set in New York City in 1905, in the love letter romance … Read more
Hah Nah by Joy Cha. Mayank Keshaviah – LA Weekly A Korean U.S. Army field nurse trying to track down her missing father while encamped in his hometown during the Korean War seems like fertile ground. Butthe tree that emerges from it, nurtured by writer and performer Joy Cha, unfortunately never bears fruit. Read more…
Fuddy Meers by David Lindsay-Abaire. Shirle Gottlieb – Gazette Newspapers Some theater enthusiasts are still shaking their heads in disbelief. After so many years of featuring Agatha Christie-type mysteries and British living-room comedies, it’s hard to believe the Long Beach Playhouse is producing provocative, cutting-edge plays. Read more…
A Bright New Boise by Samuel D. Hunter. Dany Margolies – ArtsInLA.com This Samuel D. Hunter script is saying something, and other people say they hear its message. But some of us do not hear it. Why not? The play pleased a New York publication enough to win an Obie. The play then merited the interest of Rogue Machine theater company … Read more
Teatro ZinZanni: Love, Chaos & Dinner by Norman Langill, Kevin Kent, Joe de Paul, Mat Plendl, Juliana Rambaldi, Duffy Bishop, Manuela Horn, Hans Teuber and Jane Langill. David C. Nichols – L.A. Times Federico Fellini and Toulouse-Lautrec meet Garrison Keillor and Wolfgang Puck by way of Bricktop and Bob Fosse in Teatro ZinZanni’s “Love, Chaos & Dinner,” now catapulting its way around the collective id of Costa Mesa. This latest high-concept spectacle from the iconoclastic … Read more