Myron Meisel – The Hollywood Reporter
If one cares about the movies, and about comedy (and what can life be without them?), the soul of Buster Keaton (played here by French Stewart) needs must be spliced into one’s DNA. One cannot help but feel proprietary about one’s personal relationship to the bottomlessly expressive, impassive Keaton, so one can readily anticipate trepidation at the temerity of representing his art and life onstage. Read more…
David C. Nichols
More than one legend gets their due in “Stoneface,” which is only as it should be. In a felicitous transfer from the Sacred Fools Theater Company, Vanessa Claire Stewart’s surreal smash about the rise and fall and rise of Buster Keaton moves to the Pasadena Playhouse — and scores an absorbing coup. Read more…
Jonas Schwartz – TheaterMania
It takes chutzpah to play actual footage of the genius Buster Keaton for audiences entering the Pasadena Playhouse before actors take the stage to perform those pratfalls and stunts. But this technique pays off when you have the stupendous, heartbreaking, and hysterical actor French Stewart starring as “the great stone face” himself. Read more…
Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA
Stoneface is a truly brilliant play about Buster Keaton, renowned star of the silent movie screen, and this production is not to be missed! Vanessa Claire Stewart’s marvelous comedy/drama has been handsomely adapted for the spacious Pasadena Playhouse stage, and newly remounted with almost its entire original cast as well as the addition of several gorgeous new sets. Read more…
Neal Weaver – Stage Raw
This homage to silent comedian Buster Keaton began as a birthday present from actress-playwright Vanessa Claire Stewart to her husband French Stewart, who is a long-time Keaton fan and she thought, the perfect actor to play him. They took the script to director Jaime Robledo over at Sacred Fools Theatre Company, which mounted a modest 99-seat theatre production, with French Stewart as its star. Read more…
Now running through June 29.
