Bob Verini – Arts In LA It can’t be easy to pen a remarkable play about unremarkable people whose main concern is how unremarkable their lives are. (Ask Chekhov.) Yet, Rachel Bonds has pulled it off handily with Five Mile Lake, whose central figures have solid reasons for doubting their own choices and equally solid reasons … Read more
Bob Verini – Arts In LA Noted monodrama writer and performer Daniel Beaty has clearly invested considerable emotion in researching his two-hour portrait of the great Paul Robeson (1898–1976), whose race, progressive politics, and insistence on doing and saying anything and consequences be damned literally demolished his career and reputation. Beaty’s labors are backed up … Read more
Sharon Perlmutter – Talkin’ Broadway I’ll be honest: what initially appealed to me about Independent Shakespeare Co.’s Romeo & Juliet was that it condensed the play. The play is performed with only eight actors. Some of the actors double up on roles; sometimes the lines of one character have been given to another. Thus, for example, Benvolio … Read more
Pauline Adamek – ArtsbeatLA Four monologues written by diseuse Ruth Draper are brilliantly performed by Annette Bening as a 90-minute one act evening of entertainment. This new show at the Geffen begins nicely enough, with a couple of odd character pieces. The first is a slightly bizarre speech and movement class and lesson “in Greek … Read more
Bob Verini – Arts In LA Jason Chimonides’s three-hander The Optimistdeveloped something of a reputation back east in 2008 and has gotten quite a few stagings around the country since, probably not least because it is an affordable piece that offers meaty roles for three attractive 20-somethings. The West Coast premiere at Elephant Stages has corralled … Read more
Neal Weaver – ArtsInLA Trey Nichols’ long one-act begins reasonably enough with two men, Eddie (Luke Baybak) and Moe (Tony Williams), arriving in the bleachers for a high-school football game in which their sons are playing. They talk about the beautiful fall weather, and reminisce about how long they’ve been coming to these games: six … Read more
Myron Meisel – The Hollywood Reporter In the real world, does integrity merely consist of managing to compromise just enough to get what you desire, while permitting yourself not to feel compromised? So the Devil rather persuasively argues in this often pointed, intricately conceived set of nested Matryoshka dolls depicting three different epochs, each worthy … Read more
Margaret Gray – LA Times You may have seen your share of makeovers, but nothing like the one Sheila Callaghan inflicts on her heroine in “Everything You Touch,” her lushly written dark comedy world-premiering at Boston Court Performing Arts Center. Read more… Pauline Adamek – Stage Raw Sheila Callaghan’s compelling play examines the dysfunctional dynamic between … Read more
David C. Nichols – LA Times Social commentary, familial relationships and quantum theory collide in “Time and the Conways” at the Old Globe, and the results are as formidable as they are engrossing. If any doubts remained that J.B. Priestley was one of the most insightful British dramatists of the 20th century, this translucent revival of … Read more
Myron Meisel – The Hollywood Reporter As long as I have attended the theater, I have been an adherent of Peter Brook and for nearly 50 years have never missed any available opportunity to experience his work. Since he split his over 70-year career between London and Paris, that has meant for me only those … Read more