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
Myron Meisel – Stage Raw … on to Georges Feydeau, a ubiquitous influence as the prime shaper of boulevard farce to the percussive opening and closing of doors, less often seen in actual performance stateside. Read more… David C. Nichols – LA Times Farce is a tricky thing to sustain, especially sex farce. Too much lewdness … Read more
Margaret Gray – LA Times A Noise Within’s new production of “Julius Caesar” has plenty of style. Or rather, plenty of styles: bold but random design elements that compete for attention with the substance. Read more… Now running through May 8.
David C. Nichols – LA Times Eighteenth century subversion meets Larry David lunacy in “Figaro” at A Noise Within. Ingenuity permeates this buoyant adaptation of Beaumarchais’ classic account of one crazy day at the Almavivas’, circa 1784 or 2015, take your pick. Read more… Now running through May 10.
Sharon Perlmutter – Talkin’ Broadway There are two things that doom A Noise Within’s production of The Threepenny Opera. The first is enunciation. The cast seems so concerned with keeping up their British accents throughout the proceedings, they don’t go a good job actually putting the dialogue and lyrics across. At intermission and after the show, … Read more
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw Reviewers and scholars invariably describe Strindberg’s The Dance of Death as depicting a miserable marriage between a dissolute army captain and his bored, embittered wife. The characters are frequently remarked upon as prototypes for Edward Albee’s George and Martha. Read more… Now running through November 22.
David C. Nichols – LA Times The unparalleled sardonic wit of Oscar Wilde sustains “The Importance of Being Earnest” at A Noise Within, where it will doubtless be a crowd-pleasing hit, despite (or because of) its distinct idiosyncrasies, and therein hangs a conundrum. Read more… Now running through Nov.22.
Bob Verini – Arts In LA For Tartuffe to achieve maximum comic, emotional, and thematic impact, the privileged Orgon must serve as the central figure. He must be a misanthrope (a type not unknown to Molière) well and truly disgusted with the world’s vanities as typified by his frivolous, feckless family. Orgon’s profound despair explains his retreat into … Read more
David C. Nichols – LA Times Fair is foul and foul is fair in “Macbeth” at A Noise Within. William Shakespeare’s Scottish tragedy of lethal ambition receives an emphatically respectable albeit uneven production. Read more… Now running through May 11.