Bob Verini – Arts in LA The Echo Theater Company has gone to some lengths to sidestep, in its pre-opening publicity, the subject matter of Tommy Smith’s remarkable new play titled Firemen. The world premiere drama is described as “a different kind of love story” that “explores an unthinkable love relationship,” though what proves unthinkable is … Read more
Neal Weaver – Arts in LA Adam Rapp’s haunting solo-drama startles with its very first line: “Fifteen years ago I killed my sister.” Then the narrator, who is identified only as The Son (Belgian actor George Regout), goes on to reveal the circumstances of the death. When he was 19, he was driving home on … Read more
Deborah Klugman – ArtsBeatLA Oscar Wilde is famous for his sparkling wit, but there’s not much spark to this humdrum production of An Ideal Husband, Wilde’s moral-minded comedy about a prominent public figure facing a choice between sacrificing his principles or destroying his career. Read more… Now running through February 23.
Bob Verini – Arts in LA So you’re a distinguished playwright in your early 60s: a very Chekhovian age; an age when the mind drifts toward dreams once grasped, then compromised, then lost, and fixates on memories of simpler, happier times. You look around your Bucks County farmhouse and think, “Gosh, this looks a lot … Read more
Margaret Gray – LA Times “A Cat Named Mercy,” a new play by Josefina López (“Real Women Have Curves”) premiering at Casa 0101 Theater, is full of reformist passion but feels underbaked. Perhaps it was rushed into production to capitalize on the Obamacare controversy. A cautionary tale about U.S. health insurance, “Cat” has the fervor and subtlety … Read more
Jonas Schwartz – TheaterMania The model for Bernard Weinraub’s play Above the Fold, premiering at the Pasadena Playhouse, is Tom Wolfe’s Pulitzer Prize winner Bonfire of the Vanities. Though parallels can be seen between both works, the indictment of politicians, the press, and Caucasian and African-American leaders for instigating and celebritizing the racial divide, Weinraub’s work also maintains … Read more
Shirle Gottlieb – Gazette Newspapers The Olio Theatre Works is back with a new version of its all-time favorite production — one that OTW first produced 10 years ago. By adding music and lyrics to “Old Black Magic,” Terra Taylor-Knudson and Lauren Nave have turned their Voodoo comedy into a high-spirited “Haunted Musical.” (Get it? … Read more
Bob Verini – Arts in LA For this chamber musical, Shaun Davey and Richard Nelson have crafted Irish faux folk tunes that rely more on vocal brio than beauty. And let’s face it, the characters’ increasing insobriety lowers the bar on singing quality as the play’s Christmastime celebration progresses. But the adaptation of James Joyce’s … Read more
Neal Weaver – Arts In LA Prolific playwright Lucille Fletcher is best known for the suspense drama Sorry, Wrong Number—which began life as prizewinning 1948 radio play, starring Agnes Morehead, and in 1950 was made into a film noir that garnered an Oscar nomination for its star, Barbara Stanwyck. Fletcher’s Night Watch is also a suspense drama, in which … Read more
Bob Verini – Arts in LA The Light in the Piazza’s cross-cultural love story, in which red-state Americans fall victim to the allure of Florence circa the early 1950s, is musically alluring, although helmer Kent Nicholson eschews the glamorous spectacle that characterized Bartlett Sher’s Broadway original. With the NY chorus halved, and musical director Dennis … Read more