THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THOMAS JEFFERSON, CHARLES DICKENS AND COUNT LEO TOLSTOY at the Geffen Playhouse

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Myron Meisel – The Hollywood Reporter Sporting a title so long that the average online reader might not even get through it, Discord reconfigures Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit through the filter of Steve Allen’s Emmy-winning 1977-1981 PBS series Meeting of the Minds. Trapped in a locked, baldly-lit white room, three deceased geniuses articulately thrash out their contending views of Scripture as much … Read more

WEDDING BAND at the Antaeus Company

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Terry Morgan  –  Stage Raw The Antaeus Company is well known for its facility with classical plays, such as King Lear and The Crucible. What may not be so well known is that the group often tries to spotlight excellent plays that are a bit less famous, such as Mrs. Warren’s Profession or The Liar. Following that tradition, Antaeus’ new presentation … Read more

THE DANCE OF DEATH at A Noise Within

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Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw Reviewers and scholars invariably describe Strindberg’s The Dance of Death as depicting a miserable marriage between a dissolute army captain and his bored, embittered wife. The characters are frequently remarked upon as prototypes for Edward Albee’s George and Martha.   Read more… Now running through  November 22.

BROOMSTICK at the Fountain Theatre

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Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly “Things aren’t always what they seem” is the main theme of John Biguenet’s play about a strange old woman with magical powers. It’s a piece you want to praise, given how much and how cruelly old women with (or without) magical powers have been maligned over the centuries. Read more… Neal … Read more

VENUS IN FUR at South Coast Repertory

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Steven Leigh Morris  – LA Weekly David Ives’ Tony-nominated 2010 sexual comedy, Venus in Fur, is to eroticism what Yasmina Reza’s Art is to painting. Both are beguiling, erudite parlor games that keep fluttering around the issues they purport to investigate. Read more… Now running through Oct. 26.

BANSHEE at Theatre of Note

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Steven Leigh Morris  – LA Weekly The West Coast premiere of Brian C. Petti’s Banshee at Theatre of NOTE looks like an old play — it’s an Irish fable, but set in New York, in 1981. Sad sack Junior (Bill Voorhees), now 40, unemployed and recovering from a nervous breakdown, lives with his Irish mother, Kit (Lynn … Read more

NICE THINGS at Theater/Theatre

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Neal Weaver  – Stage Raw Vince Melocchi’s provocative, long one-act hinges on the death in Afghanistan of a young recruit named Danny, who’s from a small Pennsylvania town. His fiancée Amy (Connor Kelly-Eiding), who works in a local donut shop, is trying to cope with her grief over his loss, but she’s also angry on … Read more

FOREVER at the Kirk Douglas Theatre

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Margaret Gray – LA Times One of the few laugh lines in Dael Orlandersmith’s harrowing new solo show, “Forever,” in its world premiere at the Kirk Douglas Theatre, comes in an exchange she describes with an attendant at the morgue after her mother’s death. She asks him if he’s afraid. His laconic reply: “The dead … Read more