Bob Verini – Arts In LA Is there a more critic-proof title out there than Motown the Musical? Not only does it indicate exactly what it is (an overview of the recording powerhouse founded by Berry Gordy) and what it contains (three decades’ worth of soulful hits), but the audience at which it’s aimed couldn’t … Read more
David C. Nichols – LA Times Words not meant to misdirect are wasted,” says one of the combatants in “The Anarchist,” and at certain levels that might describe the whole thing. Read more… Neal Weaver – Stage Raw There’s something slightly inhuman about David Mamet’s play: It tells the tale of a former anarchist, Cathy (Felicity … Read more
Steven Leigh Morris – LA Weekly Ron Klier’s new play at Vs. Theatre Company, Gus’s Fashion & Shoes, is the second in a St. Louis–based trilogy about police/minority relations, Cops & Friends of Cops being the first in 2013. The third is yet to come. Read more… Margaret Gray – LA Times The characters in Ron Klier’s new play … Read more
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw This piece, written and directed by Angeliki Giannakopoulos, and based on her award-winning documentary film, takes a probing look at the lives of women whose children served in the armed forces during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It provides an emotionally charged examination of their love, hopes, pride, fears, … Read more
Bob Verini – Stage Raw Talk about your call of the wild! The atavistic urge – the impulse to fall in with nature in its most primitive state – is an old standby in drama and literature, and it’s now being applied to strong effect in My Barking Dog, Eric Coble’s startling two-hander at the Theatre @ … Read more
Paul Birchall – Stage Raw Stan Rich and Ronnie Jayne’s flippant tour de force about taxation with musical representation is a charming affair, though hardly enough to shake off our rage relating to any recent adventures with the I.R.S. Rich and Jayne’s sweet musical slides by a fair way on upbeat silliness, while the straightforward … Read more
Harold Pinter’s Betrayal may revolve around an adulterous triangle, but the tone and language of the play are as restrained, as understated and as famously precise as anything else in his poetically taut compendium of work. Read more… Now running through May 17.
Terry Morgan – Stage Raw Rebecca Gilman’s 2000 play about stalking, Boy Gets Girl, unfortunately hasn’t become any less relevant 15 years after its initial production. Her observations that male dominance and female submission is culturally reinforced, and that most “romantic” movies are essentially stalker how-to guides, still hold true, which gives the play an undeniable … Read more
Myron Meisel – Stage Raw The prophet Ezekiel, preaching to the Babylonian exiles, decried the maxim that “the fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth turn out,” insisting that each generation was responsible for its own sins. While as moralists we might agree, if we eschewed the concept, where would the modern theater … Read more
Steven Leigh Morris – LA Weekly Ground Control to Major Tom: David Bowie, Richard Nixon, the Cold War, the women’s liberation movement, early Steven Spielberg movies and a staff-impaired NASA space program from 1973 all combine into a Mel Brooks aesthetic in Bill Robens’ world-premiere farce Entropy, which just opened at Hollywood’s Theatre of NOTE. Read … Read more