Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw Immigration issues are bandied about in political discourse in the media every day, but the lives of kitchen workers and janitors and fruit pickers are rarely brought to the stage. Kudos to New York-based playwright Elizabeth Irwin for doing just that. Read more… Margaret Gray – LA Times The workplace, where … Read more
Paul Birchall – Stage Raw Playwright Charles A. Duncombe’s drama is ostensibly a riff on the play Othello. It’s not an adaptation, mind you, because the structure and plot digress wildly from the Shakespearean original — but it is a work involving some of the same themes with basically the same set of characters. Read more… Now running … Read more
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly Phrazzled, by writer/director Phinneas Kiyomura, is a smart character-driven satire that takes aim at the underside of television production. Yes, the terrain is familiar, with the usual suspects — falsehood, greed, betrayal — driving the plot. But Kiyomura, a long time local theater artist who’s also written for television, ventures … Read more
Jenny Lower – LA Weekly More than any contemporary playwright who comes to mind, Sarah Ruhl’s characters inhabit worlds wholly her own. Even when she adopts a historical setting, as with In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play), her lyrical sensibility fashions heightened realities, where a house of string or a dead man’s perpetually ringing … Read more
Dany Margolies – The Daily Breeze Mix mobsters, doctrinarians, disco and polyester, and the last thing this farrago should produce is a story about finding one’s blissful true self. But somehow the musical “Sister Act” does just that, particularly in the hands of Musical Theatre West, under Michael Matthews’ direction. Read more… Shirle Gottlieb – … Read more
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw In her intriguing solo-drama, writer-performer Stacie Chaiken plays archeologist Sally Jenkins, who specializes in the study of ancient DNA. As she says, “It’s easy to extract the whole gene from soft tissue, but there is never soft tissue in ancient burials. I’ve managed to replicate the material I need from … Read more
Margaret Gray – LA Times Borrowed Time,” a new magic act by Helder Guimarães, doesn’t quite defy description. Rather, it reminds its audience, with a conspiratorial wink, that description might spoil the fun for future audiences. Read more… Now running through May 29.
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s the exceptional American woman who doesn’t wrestle with image issues, the modern feminist movement notwithstanding. Years ago my own mother lectured my sister and me on the virtues of thinness, and her invocations pursue me to this day. Read more… … Read more
Terry Morgan – Stage Raw Ruby Rae Spiegel’s Dry Land succeeds on multiple levels: first, as a dark comedy, second, as a graphic portrayal of the process of a self-administered abortion, and last and most particularly, as a sharp and illuminating character study. This West Coast premiere by the Echo Theatre Company is entertaining and assured and … Read more
Paul Birchall – Stage Raw The shadow of Eugene O’Neill looms large over the plot and writing of playwright Chris Collins’ angry family drama. That’s not a bad thing, mind you, as Collins lays the sadness and rage on so thick that Long Day’s Journey almost seems like a situation comedy in comparison. Read more… Now running through May … Read more