Photo by Ed Krieger
David C. Nichols – LA Times
Life changes in an instant. The ordinary instant.” And so it did for Joan Didion in 2003, when her husband John Gregory Dunne succumbed to cardiac arrest in their New York apartment.
Now running through Oct. 30.
Photo courtesy of Lisa David
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw
Lisa David is so likable, and her autobiographical show so ingenuous and inspiring, that you can readily forgive its extended length and lack of polish. Read more…
Now running through Nov. 5.
Photo by John Flynn
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw
Vince Melocchi’s provocative, long one-act hinges on the death in Afghanistan of a young recruit named Danny, who’s from a small Pennsylvania town. His fiancée Amy (Connor Kelly-Eiding), who works in a local donut shop, is trying to cope with her grief over his loss, but she’s also angry on several counts. She’s resentful that military red tape is delaying the payment of his death benefits, and the arcane rules that may make him ineligible to receive them. Read more…
Margaret Gray – LA Times
In his new play, “Nice Things,” premiering at Rogue Machine Theatre, Vince Melocchi returns to the middle-American, blue-collar, recession-devastated milieu of his two previous plays, “Lions” and “Julia.”
Set in and around a dying mall in Dunsmore, Pa., “Nice Things” explores the ethics of army recruitment in a bad economy, a complex issue helpfully broken down in the segments of a radio broadcast that frame each scene. Read more…
Now running through Nov. 23.
Photo by Craig Schwartz
Margaret Gray – LA Times
One of the few laugh lines in Dael Orlandersmith’s harrowing new solo show, “Forever,” in its world premiere at the Kirk Douglas Theatre, comes in an exchange she describes with an attendant at the morgue after her mother’s death.
She asks him if he’s afraid. His laconic reply: “The dead can’t do nothing to you. It’s the living you’ve got to look out for.” Read more…
Bob Verini - Arts In LA
At the Douglas, writer-performer Dael Orlandersmith reads Forever—a memoir of growing up with an abusive parent—from a loose-leaf binder while (mostly) standing at a lectern or (occasionally) sitting on a stool. Though the performance is raised above the floor on a handsome, raw-wood structure from Takeshi Kata, and given arty lighting effects by Mary Louise Geiger, by me this is not a play. Read more…
Now running through Oct. 26.
Photo by Johanna Siegmann
Jonas Schwartz - Arts In LA
Kevin Saunders Hayes’s ambitious multimedia experimentations with silent films returns to Los Angeles with a funhouse version of the Lon Chaney classic Phantom of the Opera. Projecting the film on the big screen, the production comments on the movie by intensify the experience with original songs, dance, and wild costumes. Though the quality of the songs is uneven, the intriguing premise and Natalie Willes’s scandalous choreography make for an amusing evening. Read more…
Photo by Angela Kase
Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA
Joyful & exuberant — Isango Ensemble’s afrobeat version of Mozart’s fairytale opera The Magic Flute is a unique and beautiful experience. You will probably have never experienced anything like it before, and perhaps never will again — it’s that special. Read more…
Now running through Oct. 12.
Photo by Daniel Kitayama
Terry Morgan - Stage Raw
This sixth annual presentation by Unbound Productions is a cool, autumnal treat. Participants gather at the Mountain View Mausoleum & Cemetery in Altadena to witness three adaptations of famous scary stories from literature or folklore, staged on the grounds. Read more…
Bob Verini - Arts In LA
Immersive, site-specific theater could end up saving the art form for the immediate future. At the very least, it offers an audience an interactive and one-of-a-kind experience that can’t be gotten in front of a large or small screen or on a mobile device. It tends to involve music and movement, never a bad idea when it comes to attracting young people. Read more…
Now running through Nov. 8.
Photo by Brandon Clark
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw
This farce, written and directed by Sean Abley, belongs to that subset of gay theater which specializes in sending up (or cannibalizing) the plots and themes of more conventional works for its own deliberately trashy purposes. It’s set in the Susan B. Anthony School for Girls, and though all the characters are female, they’re played by male actors. Read more…
Now running through Nov. 2.
Photo by Darrett Sanders
Steven Leigh Morris – Stage Raw
Jessica Goldberg told The Jewish Journal that her new play Better is quasi-autobiographical, written in the wake of her father’s death from brain cancer in conjunction with her own crumbling marriage to actor Hamish Linklater. Read more…
Now running through Nov. 16.
Photo by Nikki Eva Kentor
Pauline Adamek – Stage Raw
Antony J. Bowman’s afterlife drama begins with his amiable central character, architect Michael (Josh T. Ryan), vividly describing his sudden death in a violent car wreck in upstate New York. Michael then proceeds to narrate the story from a state of limbo, observing his grief-stricken wife and best-friend colleagues during his wake and making wry observations throughout. It’s a nice dramatic device that, for the most part, works well. Read more…
Now running through Oct. 26.
Photo by Ann McGrath
Bob Verini - Stage Raw
Victor Kaufold’s The Why is a young man’s play, and feels like it. Essentially a series of revue sketches on the topic of school gun violence, it was featured in the Blank Theater’s venerable Young Playwrights Festival in 2000 when Kaufold was 19. Now with a Yale MFA in tow, he doesn’t appear to have revisited the work much to deepen its thrusts and smooth over its rough edges. Read more…
Now running through Oct. 19.
Photo by Michael Lamont
Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA
Ann Noble gives a magnificent performance in Edward Albee’s absurd drama The Goat or, Who Is Sylvia?, now playing at the Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Davidson/Valentini Theatre.
Ostensibly a study of the irreparable destruction of a perfect marriage, Albee softens us up with his dry humor and jokey lines swirling around a premise, and then charts the disintegration.
Les Spindle – Frontiers L.A.
Though “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” is generally considered Edward Albee’s masterpiece, his 2002 scorcher “The Goat or, Who is Sylvia?” is a galvanizing work of timeless resonance. In a taut 90 minutes, Albee’s pitch-black comedy explores taboos of sexuality to challenge our notions of morality and social acceptance.
There’s sharp relevance to gay social issues, alongside far more expansive implications. A seemingly idyllic yuppie household implodes when architect Martin (Paul Witten) admits he is having a most unusual extramarital affair, sending his sophisticated and upbeat wife, Stevie (Ann Noble), and gay teenage son (Spencer Morrissey) into emotional tailspins.
Meanwhile his meddlesome best friend, Ross (Matt Kirkwood), is flabbergasted. Noble’s explosive performance is shattering, and Witten matches her brilliance with his multi-shaded portrayal while Morrissey and Kirkwood offer excellent support. The design effort is exemplary. The LGBT Center’s mesmerizing rendition, astutely produced by Jon Imparato, shimmers with intelligence, daring and artistry.
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw
Edward Albee meant it literally when he subtitled The Goat or, Who is Sylvia as “notes towards a definition of tragedy.”
Tragedy, in Greek, means goat story. Scholars aren’t sure how the word and the animal came to be linked: whether goats were the prize given at the annual playwriting contest held in ancient Athens, or whether the creature was part of an attendant sacrificial ceremony for Dionysus. Or something else. Read more…
Now running through Nov. 23.