Terry Morgan – Stage Raw To paraphrase a theater maxim of Edmund Kean’s, “Tragedy is easy; comedy is hard.” It’s an assertion that’s proved true time and again. Harder still, perhaps, is successfully combining these two genres into one play, as the disappointing Big Night at the Douglas proved a couple of weeks back.Read more… Rob Stevens … Read more
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw Jean Giraudoux’s The Madwoman of Chaillot (translated by Maurice Valency) has always been one of my favorite plays. Written in 1943 and premiering after the playwright’s death in 1945, it’s a witty whimsical takedown of perfidious capitalism and a paean to the artists and free spirits who oppose them.Read more… The Stage … Read more
Deborah Klugman – Capital & Main Ball culture — the subject of the 1991 documentary Paris Is Burning and the backdrop for Filipino-American playwright Boni B. Alvarez’s new play, Fixed — developed out of Harlem in the 1960s.Read more… Now running through October 22
Lovell Estell III — Stage Raw August Strindberg’s 1900 tale about a monumentally unhappy marriage has been neatly touched up in this adaptation by Irish playwright Conor McPherson. As bleak as it is funny, it unfolds on an island fortress in Sweden that was once a prison (nicely rendered interior of gloomy faux brick, arched … Read more
Frances Baum Nicholson –The Stage Struck Review Any time someone translates a novel to the stage, there is risk involved. The depth of interior monologue, the detail of setting and character, the convolutions of plot and emotion, even the poetry of language used to provide all of this, are all limited by the confines of … Read more
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw The Upstairs Lounge was a lively and popular New Orleans gay bar till 1973, when an arsonist doused the stairs leading to the club with lighter fluid, set it aflame, and then rang the doorbell. In the ensuing blaze, 32 people were killed — mocked and ridiculed even in death, … Read more
Dany Margolies – The Daily Breeze The Norris Theatre’s latest theatrical offering is entrancing and ebullient, two words best defined as fun. And although its characters are too-smart adolescents and odd adults, it feels inviting and universal.Read more… Now running through October 1
Dany Margolies – The Daily Breeze Arthur Miller’s classic “All My Sons” opened on Broadway in January 1947, but it still feels relatable, thought-provoking and moving in its revival at Torrance Theatre Company.Read more… Now running through October 15
Jonas Schwartz – TheaterMania A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Gynecologic Oncology Unit at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center of New York City tosses around the word “funny” often. Besides landing in the title itself, the characters constantly tell others they are funny, declare that they themselves are funny, and attempt funny jokes… … Read more
Margaret Gray – LA Times Jeremy J. Kamps’ play “Runaway Home,” now premiering at the Fountain Theatre, is set in New Orleans’ Lower 9th Ward three years after Hurricane Katrina. The waters may have long receded, but the residents still wander like ghosts through the wreckage of their lives.Read more… Neal Weaver – Stage Raw … Read more