Frances Baum Nicholson –The Stage Struck Review Any time someone translates a novel to the stage, there is risk involved. The depth of interior monologue, the detail of setting and character, the convolutions of plot and emotion, even the poetry of language used to provide all of this, are all limited by the confines of … Read more
Erin Conley – On Stage & Screen “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens has been a staple of western literature since its publication in 1859, and has been adapted many times over—as movies, television mini-series, radio shows, a short-lived Broadway musical, … Read more
Frances Baum Nicholson – San Gabriel Valley Tribune When one first hears that A Noise Within has reset the powerful 1960s musical “Man of La Mancha” in a modern prison in the developing world, it can make one nervous. After all, it is based not only on one of the great works of international literature, but a … Read more
Frances Baum Nicholson – The Daily News It is an interesting new spin on Shakespeare’s “King Lear” to look at the downfall of this unwise ruler from the lens of Alzheimer’s disease. That is what director Julia Rodriguez-Elliott does in the production now in repertory at A Noise Within. Read more… Now running through May 6
Frances Baum Nicholson – The Daily Breeze When one thinks of Eugene O’Neill, one thinks of wrenchingly serious plays, but “Ah, Wilderness” gives him a chance to explore the comparative innocence of a life he wished he could have lived. Read more… Jonas Schwartz – TheaterMania Ah, Wilderness! is a tender memory piece about a family … Read more
Jonas Schwartz – TheaterMania During its 25th anniversary season, A Noise Within revives Molière’s madcap play The Imaginary Invalid after first performing it in 2001, but this time with Constance Congdon’s 2007 adaptation. Zany as a Marx Brothers movie, the farce delves into hypochondria and the perversity of the patriarchy. Though some of the modern speech in Congdon’s text … Read more
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw George Bernard Shaw’s’s turn of the 20th century rom-com, had a rocky start. Set to debut in 1897, it failed to make it to the stage that year, as actors struggled with the material and one leading lady quit, complaining the comedy had neither enough laughs nor enough exits. Not … Read more
David C. Nichols – LA Times Christmas Carol” is upon us, and its winning A Noise Within production is a keeper. Amid worthy area stagings of Charles Dickens’ immortal classic about miserly Ebenezer Scrooge’s Christmas Eve journey to redemption, this deftly performed, meta-theatrical edition stands out for fidelity to text, witty stagecraft and heartfelt embrace … Read more
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly As in Death of a Salesman, his 1949 Pulitzer Prize winner (and my personal favorite) Arthur Miller’s All My Sons looks at an American family in crisis and weaves their story into a broader vision of a morally bankrupt culture. Read more… Paul Birchall – Stage Raw Arthur Miller’s powerful 1947 family drama has aged … Read more
Myron Meisel – Stage Raw …it is piquantly paradoxical that such a determined ironist as Jean Anouilh (Becket, Waltz of the Toreadors, The Lark), the most commercially and critically successful French playwright internationally immediately following the Second World War, now can be seen to exemplify some of the pitfalls of logical colloquy. Read more… Now running … Read more