Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly If you’re someone who usually dismisses 19th-century theater classics as stuffy and stiff, you might want to reconsider and go see Hedda Gabler at Antaeus Theatre Company, where Jaimi Paige delivers a mesmerizing performance as the beautiful and manipulative title character. Read more… Dany Margolies – The Daily Breeze Who is … Read more
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw Fans of “swing” and the singing of Billie Holiday will appreciate the music in Billie Holiday: Front and Center. The show, directed by B’Anca, features Sybil Harris as the renowned songstress, who suffered racist affronts throughout her professional career but ultimately wowed audiences at Carnegie Hall before dying prematurely of cirrhosis … Read more
Terry Morgan – Stage Raw The thrill of creating an experimental theatre piece lies in being able to express something one couldn’t in the standard mode. The downside is that not all experiments are a success. Read more… Now running through June 19
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw There’s been no shortage of political satires on local stages, but all too many of them have been broad, obvious and stridently partisan. Jason Wells’ black farce, here receiving its world premiere production, is several cuts above the rest. It’s literate, sophisticated, hip, hilariously funny and relatively free of political … Read more
Jenny Lower – Stage Raw Separate Beds, a relationship comedy by that lacks the absurdity of a farce and the insight of a drama, may stir self-recognition among a few long coupled audience members. (If so, you should get yourself to a marriage counselor right away.) Read more… Now running through June 19
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw Titles don’t always alert you to what plays are about, but with Rajiv Joseph’s Gruesome Playground Injuries, the appellation is pretty much on the mark. Divided into eight scenes, this 75 minute one-act revolves around the relationship between two grievously wounded individuals. Kayleen (Sara Rae Foster) and Doug (Jeff Ward) … Read more
Paul Birchall – Stage Raw I am not sure why it comes as a surprise that Zombie Joe’s Underground, the ferociously imaginative theater company on Lankershim Boulevard in North Hollywood, should so ably create this sweet, artful candy box of an adaptation of Shakespeare’s frivolous rustic comedy. Read more… Now running through June 19
David C. Nichols – LA Times The best of times are now at the David Henry Hwang Theatre, where East West Players concludes its 50th anniversary season with an idiosyncratically endearing revival of “La Cage aux Folles.” Read more… Now running through June 26
Margaret Gray – LA Times Al Dubin wrote lyrics for enduring songs of the stage and screen, won an Academy Award in 1936 for “Lullaby of Broadway” and may be best known for his five-year partnership with Harry Warren at Warner Bros., which produced a string of hits — “42nd Street,” “We’re in the Money,” … Read more
Myron Meisel – Stage Raw Class warfare has surged and ebbed in the U.S. public consciousness during harder or more prosperous times throughout the past century, but the distorted perversion that it is something waged by the poor upon privileged victims gets exposed as a disingenuous lie by Eugene O’Neill’s 1922 The Hairy Ape – an anguished … Read more