Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly Daniel Keyes’ now classic sci-fi story about a mentally challenged man whose IQ skyrockets after a surgical procedure tackles not only how we treat disabled individuals but how ephemeral are those intangible values — love, life, respect — that we cherish. Read more… Sharon Perlmutter – Talkin’ Broadway There are … Read more
Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA Legendary comedy writer Neil Simon’s 1972 play The Sunshine Boys has an excellent premise: two old vaudevillian stars who worked together for over 40 years, but who haven’t spoken in over a decade, are reunited for a TV spot. (In fact, it was a good enough premise for Fellini to copy for Ginger e … Read more
Neal Weaver – LA Weekly Breaking up is hard to do, particularly if you’re embedded in a 20-year marriage. That’s the not terribly surprising message of Paul Coates’ play, illustrated by three couples: one straight (Kelly Coffield Park and playwright Coates), one gay (David Youse and William Franklin Barker) and one lesbian (Ferrell Marshall and … Read more
David C. Nichols – LA Times The tenacious human need for connection forms the heart of “Kin” at Theatre 40. Bathsheba Doran’s elliptical 2011 comedy-drama about how familial and personal relationships inform each other in this fragmented world receives a proficient albeit over-attenuated West Coast premiere. Read more… Now running through October 27.
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly Marthe Rachel Gold’s lumbering melodrama is a concoction of dramatic setups that never develops into an interesting or credible narrative. Widowed Anne (Laurie O’Brien), a former ballerina, lives with her grown mentally and physically disabled son, Will (Alex Smith), in a house that’s been owned by her family for generations. … Read more
Neal Weaver – LA Weekly Four one-acts, performed by the Chalk Repertory and set in the exhibition halls of the Natural History Museum, deal, directly or indirectly, with the museum’s history. Tom Jacobson’s A Vast Hoard, directed by Janet Hayatshahi, set in 1913 and played in the Rotunda, deals with the efforts of two officials … Read more
Dany Margolies – Arts In LA It’s not the first play of Shakespeare’s canon to spring to mind, but Henry VIII was reportedly among the last he wrote (co-credited to John Fletcher). At least all of us know of this king, the one with the outsized appetites—including six wives. At the end of Shakespeare’s version, … Read more
Dany Margolies – Arts In LA The Norris Center for the Performing Arts wanted to be a producer of a great big Broadway smash. It found one: a splashy, slightly raunchy tuner. Yes, the ambitious folks at Norris got themselves The Producers. And because they got it, they thoroughly, totally, flaunt it.Read more… Now running … Read more
Hoyt Hilsman – Huffington Post This performance piece by Samoan choreographer Lemi Ponifasio, which had its world premiere at the Radar Festival in Los Angeles this week, is a perplexing work. On the one hand, it has a powerful and truthful core – it was developed by a group of Maori women as a response … Read more
Terry Morgan – LAist Late great science fiction author Philip K. Dick’s two thematic questions that ran through almost all of his work were “What is reality” and “What does it mean to be human?” While his novel The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch is an example of the former question, a nightmarish tale of … Read more