Gary Kluger
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw
Steve Nevil’s “tumbleweed comedy” strives to be both a version of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot set in the American West in 1870, and homage to the film westerns of John Ford and Sam Peckinpah — and to a large extent it succeeds on both counts.
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Now running through April 22
Brian M. Cole
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw
It’s Christmas Eve in 2011. The Keen family is haunted by the memories, and the ghost, of daughter Dana (Kara Hume), who was killed while working as a Navy corpsman in Afghanistan. Each member of the family reacts differently to the loss.
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Now running through May 13
Peter Carrier
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw
In the interests of full disclosure, let me say that I am not very knowledgeable about computers and programming, so much of the technical jargon and inside humor in Marek Glinski’s play went right over my head. Glinski’s play might be called a cyber-satire, or a madcap comedy for the cyber age. I could not always follow exactly what was happening, though the overall idea was clear enough.
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Now running through April 15
Ed Krieger
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw
Stephanie Alison Walker’s stirring drama is set in Buenos Aires in the 1980s, when Argentina was ruled by a ruthless military junta. Anyone who spoke out against the regime could be taken into custody and “disappeared,” and even those who privately disagreed with the government and its policies were in danger and subject to constant scrutiny by an extensive network of spies and informers.
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Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly
Among the 20th century’s catalog of atrocities is the chilling fate of Los Desaparecidos of Argentina — unknown thousands of that country’s citizens who were kidnapped, tortured and murdered by right-wing death squads between 1976 and 1983.
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Harker Jones – Arts In LA
Stephanie Alison Walker’s The Madres is a searing, devastating look at a movement that swept Argentina in the 1970s. Set in 1978, the play focuses on Josefina (Margarita Lamas, who trades off with Denise Blasor), a housewife who buries her head in the sand at the political upheaval surrounding her….
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Sharon Yablon
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw
These three one-acts by Sharon Yablon are all set in the bleak Mojave Desert, and they share an equally bleak vision, albeit touched with fantasy and surrealism.
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Now running through March 25
Photo courtesy Casa 0101
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw
This is Casa 0101’s 4th collection of short plays exploring the LGBTQ+ scene from the Latinx point of view. The participating writers include Abel Alvarado, Corky Dominguez, Claudia Duran, Josefina Lopez, Jaime Mayorquin, Raymond Arturo Perez, Matthew Benjamin Ramos, Gilbert Salazar, Richard Billegas, Jr. and Patricia Zamorano.
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Now running through March 4
Ed Krieger
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw
I have to admit that I’m confused. I don’t know why playwright David Sessions calls his play Two Fisted Love, and labels it a dark comedy. The comedy is in short supply, and most of the love seems to be in the past tense, or essentially destructive.
Now running through March 11
James Esposito
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw
This 2005 musical, here receiving its Los Angeles premiere, was written by Lynn Ahrens (book and lyrics) and Stephen Flaherty (music), based on the novel by Sherley Anne Williams. It’s set in the American South in 1847 and deals with two strong-minded, volatile women.
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Rob Stevens – Haines His Way
The 2005 off-Broadway Dessa Rose, a little gem of a musical by the team of Ahrens & Flaherty (Once on This Island, Ragtime), is getting a strong production by the Chromolume Theatre in its Los Angeles debut.
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Now running through February 25
Jamal Y. Speakes Sr.
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw
The Watsons of Flint, Michigan are an African-American family of five: dad Daniel (Marcus Clark-Oliver), mom Wiloma (Tiffany Coty), sons Byron (Javen Marquise Smith) and Kenny (Ken Ivey), and daughter Joetta (Victoria Elizabeth Newman). Byron is the family bad boy and the despair of his parents.
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Now running through February 25
(Photo by Brian M. Cole)
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw
Sarah (Paris Perrault) and her boyfriend Sam (Philip Orazio) are enjoying a quiet Christmas Eve at home when they are interrupted by an imperious knocking at the door. The visitor is Nate (Josh Zuckerman), Sarah’s friend since childhood and perhaps her former lover.
Rob Stevens – Haines His Way
The Road Theatre Company is currently presenting the West Coast Premiere of playwright Anna Ziegler’s A Delicate Ship at their space on Magnolia Blvd. in North Hollywood. It’s a delicate memory play with three thirty-something characters who constantly break the fourth wall….
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Now running through March 11
(Photo by Enci Box)
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw
George Bernard Shaw once observed that it is useless to argue with a clergyman because his livelihood depends on his not changing his mind. But the remark could equally well be applied to anyone whose career depends on defending and maintaining a particular point of view —and that could be said of both the protagonists in Mark St. Germain’s play.
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Rob Stevens – Haines His Way
Dr. Sigmund Freud was born to Jewish parents in the Austrian Empire in the mid-19th Century. He came to regard the monotheistic God as an illusion based on the infantile emotional need for a powerful, supernatural pater familias. He believed that in modern times (early 20th Century) religion could be set aside in favor of reason and science.
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Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly
Philosophers, theologians, believers and nonbelievers from a broad spectrum of cultures and faiths have been arguing about God’s existence for centuries. In Freud’s Last Session, playwright Mark St. Germain crystallizes the essence of the debate, creating a fictional encounter between Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis and a famous skeptic, and Irish-born C.S.
Lewis, a scholar, novelist and devout Christian…
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Dany Margolies – The Daily Breeze
Freud! Lewis! Rumble in the library!
More or less.
Mark St. Germain’s two-character play, “Freud’s Last Session,” at the Odyssey through March 4, doesn’t rise to fisticuffs. But his imagined debate between the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, and author and newly converted Anglican, C.S. Lewis, is as contentious as a heavyweight fight.
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Now running through March 4
(Photo by Billy Baque)
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw
Bugaboo (Bug) is the nickname of a feisty blue-collar woman (Heidi Sulzman) who’s incarcerated in the Henderson County, West Virginia jail on a drug charge. She’s been alone in her cell for 42 days, which is hard on her because she’s a compulsive non-stop talker and has been deprived of an audience.
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Now running through February 24