Jenny Lower – Stage Raw Lunatics & Actors, the latest world premiere by Jeremy Aluma’s clowning troupe Four Clowns, is less a fixed narrative than a series of funny, unpredictable, and menacing vignettes that excavate the distinction between creative performance and insanity. Playwright David Bridel, dean of the USC School of Dramatic Arts, has crafted … Read more
Lovell Estell III – Stage Raw This world premiere comedy from Los Angeles playwright Jennie Webb has its moments of glorious insanity and humor, but not enough of them to make it a full-on success. Read more… Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA Jennie Webb’s hilarious new play Currency, is a sly commentary on modern relationships — both … Read more
Jenny Lower – LA Weekly More than any contemporary playwright who comes to mind, Sarah Ruhl’s characters inhabit worlds wholly her own. Even when she adopts a historical setting, as with In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play), her lyrical sensibility fashions heightened realities, where a house of string or a dead man’s perpetually ringing … Read more
Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA There are numerous delights to be found in A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder — the raucously hilarious musical play that opened last night at the Ahmanson Theatre. The ingenious and lavish puppet theater-like set, designed by Alexander Dodge; the gorgeously detailed period costumes, designed by Linda Cho; the clever book and … Read more
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw If you google the town of Pocatello in Southwest Idaho, you’ll get images of dusty hills and a downtown whose architecture might have served as nostalgic backdrop for The Last Picture Show. The place is changing though; look long enough and you’ll see a shot of a Ross store as well, … Read more
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw The clash of values in playwright Bess Wohl’s disputatious two-hander takes place between Irene (Betty Gilpin), a chattering blonde tourist from Denver, and Manuel (Carlos Leal), a handsome Spaniard who’s ferried her back to his loft in Barcelona for wild, mutually satisfying sex. Read more… Dany Margolies – The Daily News … Read more
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw Kate Morgan Chadwick makes an arresting entrance as she slithers alluringly across the floor at Atwater Village Theatre, climbing onto the large white bed (Se Oh’s scenic design) that serves as the focus for Sheila Callaghan’s fiercely feminist one-act. Read more… Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA The central focus of Bed — Sheila Callaghan’s … Read more
Paul Birchall – Stage Raw Sometimes all a play really needs is two characters and some genuine emotion. Set in 1930s Berlin, playwright Janet Schlapkohl’s evocative two-hander tells of a pair of identical twin sisters (played by bona fide identical twins Elizabeth Hinkler and Emily Hinkler) beset by troubles as the Nazis rise in power … Read more
Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA A chilling stage adaptation of Orwell’s novel 1984 is now playing at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica through February 6. This adaptation, written and directed by Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan, highlights today’s serious issues of state-sponsored surveillance, identity and intrusions into our privacy. Read more… Terry Morgan – Stage Raw Another day, … Read more
Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA With his impish smile and boyish, childlike glee, artist Michel Laprise comes across as a fun and genial person with a vast imagination. But the creator (writer and director) of KURIOS – Cabinet of Curiosities™ — the newest Cirque du Soleil extravaganza to come to Southern California — is evidently an extremely hard … Read more