LADCC Critics 
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw Tom Hartley’s comedy concerns teenager Miguel (Armando Broncas) who’s in deep denial about his homosexual feelings, ‘till his girlfriend Nuria (Catherine Mersereau) gives him a mysterious pair of sunglasses through which he can see the aura of those around him. Straights, it seems, have blue auras, while gays have red … Read more
Terry Morgan – Stage Raw One thing the theater is particularly good at is exploring the ramifications of an argument, be it interpersonal, philosophical or political: Simply look at the works of George Bernard Shaw or David Hare. Hugh Whitemore’s take on the subject of the validity of Christianity or any religion is called God Only … Read more
Pauline Adamek – Stage Raw That director Ron Sossi decided to remount White Marriage might be an attempt to recapture the hit production for the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble that Sossi almost 40 years ago. In the here and now, however, the urgency of the play’s point is muted largely by Sossi’s own re-staging. Read more… Neal Weaver – … Read more
Myron Meisel – The Hollywood Reporter Like many of the best things in life, overindulgence, even with the classics, can lead to irritability. One could well be sated for life with A Midsummer Night’s Dream (probably the most frequently mounted of all Shakespeare comedies) after landmark productions by Max Reinhardt, Peter Brook and Peter Hall, the Benjamin Britten opera, the George Balanchine ballet, not … Read more
David C. Nichols – LA Times That rarefied place where craft, collaboration and content create theatrical poetry is everywhere in “The Last Act of Lilka Kadison” at the Falcon Theatre. Indeed, this delicately potent West Coast premiere, a co-production between the Falcon and Chicago’s Tony-winning Lookingglass Theatre Company, often seems to be composing itself before … Read more
Bob Verini – Arts in LA One of the most ambitious art musicals of recent years, Floyd Collins by Adam Guettel (music and lyrics) and Tina Landau (book and additional lyrics) is receiving an outstanding mounting from helmer Richard Israel and the management of the La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts. The producers, who regularly bring … Read more
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw For many years, America’s founding fathers were treated so reverentially by historians that they seemed like inhuman figures on a monument. But from the beginning, Benjamin Franklin was the saltiest of them all. Because of his fondness for the ladies, his behind- the-scenes intrigues, his advanced age, and the omnipresent … Read more
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw In Robert E. Sherwood’s 1934 play, The Petrified Forest, a world-weary writer, Alan Squier (skillfully etched by John DeMita), happens into a remote café in the Arizona desert, and in the space of a few short hours has stirred the eternal ardor of the café owner’s starry-eyed daughter, Gabby (Leona Britton) … Read more
Terry Morgan – Stage Raw Sometimes a great concept is enough to power a play, such as the backwards structure of Harold Pinter’s Betrayal or the three plays intersecting simultaneously in Alan Ayckbourn’s The Norman Conquests. It doesn’t hurt that those works mentioned also benefited from strong writing, acting and direction. Classic Couples Counseling, a world premiere at the … Read more
Margaret Gray – LA Times Even the sparest account of the life of Paul Robeson, the lawyer, actor, singer and civil rights activist who died in 1976, has a mythic power: He accomplished more, against greater odds, than seems quite humanly possible. Phillip Hayes Dean’s one-man play “Paul Robeson” (1977), in a revival directed by … Read more