Neal Weaver – Arts In LA Playwright Mac Rogers has written an oddball comedy about suicide. But his thinking is so muddled, it’s sometimes hard to tell if he’s for it or against it. Read more… Steven Leigh Morris – LA Weekly ….Rogers’ new comic drama, presented by Moving Arts at the Bootleg Theatre, is … Read more
Myron Meisel – Stage Raw While it probably isn’t quite accurate to say that performer Salome Jens saved my life, I prefer to believe that it’s true. After an evening and morning of obliterative obsession, attending her one-woman show about Anne Sexton didn’t seem like the most propitious choice under the circumstances, but I already … Read more
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly It’s easy to understand why solo performer Chris Lemmon wants to pay homage to his famous father Jack. Celebrity aside, the parent-child bond is a powerful one. Watching and listening to Jack Lemmon Returns at the Broad Stage, I could almost feel the presence of my own irreplaceable dad, who passed from … Read more
Margaret Gray – LA Times Remember the scene in “Gone With the Wind” when Scarlett fries latkes for a Hanukkah party at Tara? No? Right, there wasn’t such a scene. American Civil War sagas seldom reflect a Jewish perspective. Read more… Terry Morgan – Stage Raw Matthew Lopez’s The Whipping Man is reputed to be one of … Read more
Bob Verini – Arts In LA As surely as the Rockettes annually turn out to Occupy Radio City, Troubadour Theater Company uses December to command Burbank’s Falcon Theatre for a celebratory holiday mash-up of some sort of Christmas tale and a particular pop songbook. The Snow QUEEN, the sixth such expression of wassail I’ve encountered, is … Read more
Bob Verini – Arts In LA Ill-advised, intrusive direction plagues the Chance Theater’s She Loves Me, and the casualty is the easy, unforced enjoyment traditionally associated with this jewel box of a musical, adapted from the 1940 Lubitsch classic The Shop Around the Corner. Read more… David C. Nichols – LA Times The three essential qualities invoked in … Read more
Pauline Adamek – Stage Raw What follows the “happily ever after” conclusion of most fairy tales? That’s what composer-songwriter Stephen Sondheim and book-writer James Lapine examine in their sophisticated 1986 Broadway musical based on Grimm’s fairy tails and composed expressly for adults. (Lapine directed the musical’s eventual debut on Broadway, after it premiered at San … Read more
Bob Verini – Arts In LA First things first: Dirty is by no means dirty, at least insofar as habitues of Melrose Avenue’s Zephyr Theatre might expect. That particular venue has hosted more than its share of full-frontal nudity and simulated sex acts over the years. Read more… Steven Leigh Morris – LA Weekly In its rather earnest … Read more
Dany Margolies – Arts In LA Traditional fairy tales begin with characters who have far to travel, while the promise of adventure perfumes the story. And at the conclusions of these tales, the righteous get their rewards, while the wrongdoers are punished or worse. Read more… Now running through December 20.
Dany Margolies – Arts In LA Widely considered the best of writer Neil Simon’s well-made plays, Brighton Beach Memoirs—about a Jewish family in 1930s Brooklyn—has landed in the South Bay through Dec. 19 at Torrance Theater Company. But can this Southern California cast give it that New York zing and Jewish bittersweetness? Read more… Now running … Read more