Bruce Norris :: LA Drama Critics Circle

THE LONELY FEW at Geffen Playhouse

March 18, 2023Patrick Chavis – LA Theatre Bites World Premiere: The Lonely Few @ Geffen Playhouse – 8 out of 10 – Good Show! LA Theatre Bites Recommended! More…

LA EGOISTA at Skylight Theatre

Lys Perez and Chanel Castañeda. Photo by Jenny Graham.

March 17, 2023Patrick Chavis – LA Theatre Bites West Coast Premiere: La Egoista @ Skylight Theatre – 8.2 out of 10 – Good Show! LA Theatre Bites Recommended! More…

HAROLD AND MAUDE at Group Repertory Theatre

Clara Rodriguez and Landon Beatty. Photo by Doug Engalla.

March 17, 2023Rob Stevens – Haines His Way. GRT’s production uses projections on the back wall and on smaller screens that come and go from the wings in an attempt to open up the action. Unfortunately, they don’t add much to the show and Larry Eisenberg’s lackadaisical direction lets the production drag on. Most scenes just meander
Read More

SNOWHITE at Santa Monica Playhouse

Photo courtesy of Santa Monica Playhouse

March 15, 2023Lara J. Altunian – Stage Raw When it comes to classic fairy tales, there’s always room for updated adaptations — particularly when it comes to introducing one with antiquated values to a new generation of audiences. Santa Monica Playhouse’s rendition of the Brothers Grimm’s Snow White spins the narrative of a helpless young girl into
Read More

MEAN GIRLS at Segerstrom Center for the Arts

March 13, 2023Dana Martin – Stage Raw …Mean Girls is updated from the movie in order to reflect an era of smartphones and selfies but still manages to feel dated. Even the most feared book in school, the almighty Burn Book, loses a bit of its sting. Yet — Mean Girls doesn’t talk down to its audience
Read More

LOVE AND INFORMATION at Antaeus Theatre Company

March 9, 2023Katie Buenneke – Theatre Digest Through some unlucky combination of script, direction, cast, set design, and video design, this felt more like sitting through a scene study class than a professional play. Somehow, I hadn’t seen a play by Caryl Churchill before, but I’m in no rush to see another. Read more… Patrick Chavis –
Read More

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MCKENNA at the Hudson Backstage Theatre

March 7, 2023Martίn Hernández – Stage Raw Playwright-director Steven Silverman’s dark yet amiable comedy offers up a multi-ethnic family whose members, despite living or being raised in racially turbulent Chicago, have no apparent animus over each other’s skin colors. No, these folks are dealing with more explosive issues common to many a kith and kin, regardless of
Read More

Archive for Bruce Norris

THE PAIN AND THE ITCH at the Zephyr Theatre

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)

Monday, November 4th, 2013

Terry Morgan – LAist

Having seen a couple of plays written by Bruce Norris, (Clybourne Park and The Parallelogram) I’m beginning to detect a theme in his writing. He seems to find the purportedly liberal beliefs of certain rich white people worthy of ridicule, specifically convictions of a “politically correct” strain. Nowhere is this clearer than in his play The Pain And The Itch, where most of the characters are smug and self-deluded, almost to the point of caricature. Nonetheless, his writing is sharp and witty, and the new production of the show at the Zephyr Theatre is outstanding.
Read more…

Dany Margolies - ArtsInLA

Playwright Bruce Norris doesn’t provide his audience with comfort and hope. Apparently he’d rather we think, squirm, even cringe. So his plays are not for the faint of heart. Then again, neither is life.
The Pain and the Itch is his 2004 opus….

Read more…

Now running through December 1.

Comments (0)

Categories : Reviews

Tags : ArtsInLA, Bruce Norris, Dany Margolies, LAist, Terry Morgan, The Pain and the Itch, Zephyr Theatre

A PARALLELOGRAM at the Mark Taper Forum

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)

Thursday, July 25th, 2013

Bob Verini – ArtsInLA

If there’s a more sheerly interesting playwright in the United States these days than Bruce Norris, I don’t know who it is. In a continuing series of audacious, ambitious comedies, he has remained resolutely non-P.C. in questioning some of our culture’s most cherished assumptions on race (his Pulitzer winner Clybourne Park), compassionate liberalism (The Pain and the Itch), wounded warriors (Purple Heart), and sexual obsession (The Infidel). Read more…

Steven Leigh Morris – LA Weekly

In Bruce Norris’ stark comedy A Parallelogram, 30-ish Bee (Marin Ireland) — a regional manager for Rite Aid, a job that’s “very fulfilling,” she quips — is in this inexorably doomed relationship with a slightly older man (Tom Irwin) whom, later in the play, the older Bee (Marylouise Burke) will refer to as “a gigantic asshole.”
Read more…

Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA

An existential “comedy” in the bleakest sense, Bruce Norris’ new play A Parallelogram posits the question “What would you do if you knew your future but couldn’t do anything to change it?” and then explores the various facets of this conceit. Read more…

Sharon Perlmutter – Talkin’ Broadway

Bad news, nerds: Bruce Norris’s A Parallelogram is not about math. Good news, though: It’s about time travel. Specifically, the play considers what happens when a woman, Bee, is visited by her future self (the unimaginatively named Bee 2), who brings some bad news about the future—both Bee’s personal future and the overall future of people on the planet.
Read more…

Les Spindle – Frontiers L.A.

The Steppenwolf-bred works of fast-rising playwright Bruce Norris—notably The Pain and the Itch and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Clybourne Park (seen at the Mark Taper Forum last season)—have explored thought-provoking themes in inventive and provocative ways. Those familiar with these earlier works shouldn’t be surprised that Norris’ new play, A Parallelogram, thrives on unexpected twists and turns and flights of fancy. It will keep viewers on their toes to fathom its unconventional dramatic conceits and sharp segues between sly humor and cerebral reflections.
Read more…

Photo by Craig Schwartz

Now running through August 18.