Reviews

The Second City’s “A Christmas Carol: Twist Your Dickens!”

by

The Second City’s “A Christmas Carol: Twist Your Dickens!” by Peter Gwinn and Bobby Mort. Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA ‘Tis the season for Christmas-themed shows and every year there are numerous versions of “A Christmas Carol.”  Now playing at the Center Theatre Group’s Kirk Douglas Theatre is a barely above-average sketch comedy show based on the ghostly old Holiday chestnut by Charles Dickens, entitled “A Christmas … Read more

Gatz, Elevator Repair Service at REDCAT

by

Gatz by Elevator Repair Service after F. Scott Fitzgerald. Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA It’s engrossing, subtle and riveting. A theatrical performance that consists of the “reading” and acting out of an entire novel over the course of a single day, Gatz, by New York City’s experimental theater ensemble Elevator Repair Service(ERS) is a unique and rewarding experience – both literary and theatrical.   … Read more

Anything Goes, CTG/Ahmanson Theater

by

Anything Goes by Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse; revised by Howard Lindsay andRussel Crouse; reworked by librettist John Weidman andTimothy Crouse. Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA Wall-to-wall hit tunes, ear-to-ear grin all night long F U N ! –  Cole Porter’s timeless classic musical theatre masterpiece, Anything Goes, has set sail at the Center Theatre Group/Ahmanson Theatre in a new Broadway revival and continues through January 6, 2013. The fluffy, madcap and … Read more

The Santaland Diaries, Blank Theatre

by

The Santaland Diaries by David Sedaris. Pauline Adamek – LA Weekly The season brings with it enough Christmas- and holiday-themed fare to set your teeth on edge from sugar overload. Fortunately for the cynics among us, the Blank Theatrehas brought back its not-safe-for-children, one-man hit show for the fourth year running. Based on comedian David Sedaris’ sardonic radio segments on NPR’sMorning … Read more

Slipped Disc, Son of Semele Theater

by

Slipped Disc by Ingrid Lausund. Mayank Keshaviah – LA Weekly Bertolt Brecht, in defining his vision of “epic theater,” coined the term Verfremdungseffekt, or “alienation effect,” which implied that in order to be effective, theater should keep an audience from fully losing itself in the story being told. Playwright Ingrid Lausund, also German, seems to have embraced … Read more

The Morini Strad, Colony Theatre Company

by

The Morini Strad by Willy Holtzman. Sharon Perlmutter – TalkinBroadway.com I have to admit out front that I’m not a huge fan of “unlikely friendship” plays, in which two complete opposites start out hating each other, but ultimately end up with a mutual respect. Willy Holtzman’s The Morini Strad is a better than average example of the genre, largely because … Read more

One November Yankee, NoHo Arts Center

by

One November Yankee by Joshua Ravetch. Sharon Perlmutter – TalkinBroadway.com Joshua Ravetch’s One November Yankee is a play for two performers and an airplane. In the NoHo Arts Center world premiere production, that’s Harry Hamlin, Loretta Swit, and a two-seater yellow Piper Cub. The actors play three different brother/sister pairs as we follow the story of the plane through three critical scenes: … Read more

The Coarse Acting Show, Sacred Fools Theater Company

by

The Coarse Acting Show by Michael Green, adapted byPaul Plunkett. David C. Nichols – Backstage In his priceless 1964 volume “The Art of Coarse Acting,” English journalist and humorist Michael Green typifies a coarse actor as “one who can remember his lines, but not the order in which they come.” After more pointed examples, Green notes: “His problems? Everyone else connected … Read more

86′d, 68 Cent Crew Theatre Company

by

86′d by Jon Polito and Darryl Armbruster. David C. Nichols – L.A. Times Would that all indie films translated to the stage as well as “86’d” at Theatre 68. Jon Polito and Darryl Armbruster’s dark comedy about collective moral equivalency in a late-night diner weathers some blips in tone and casting to hold us in uncomfortably laughing thrall. Read more…

Intimate Apparel, Pasadena Playhouse

by

Intimate Apparel by Lynn Nottage. Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA A persuasive melodrama, Intimate Apparel is perhaps Lynn Nottage’s best known play, although she won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Ruined in 2009. Written and first staged at Center Stage in Baltimore almost ten years ago, Intimate Apparel has a pleasing contemporary relevance. Although Nottage’sdrama is set in New York City in 1905, in the love letter romance … Read more