Terry Morgan – LAist Late great science fiction author Philip K. Dick’s two thematic questions that ran through almost all of his work were “What is reality” and “What does it mean to be human?” While his novel The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch is an example of the former question, a nightmarish tale of … Read more
Les Spindle – Edge on the Net In chronicling the beginning of a momentous chapter in the history of gay culture, namely the initial outbreak of the AIDS epidemic in the early 1980s, Larry Kramer’s watershed play “The Normal Heart” offers a deeply moving snapshot of an era, while imparting timeless truths.Read more… Bob Verini … Read more
Bob Verini – ArtsInLA For R II, Jessica Kubzansky’s adaptation currently being performed at the Theater @ Boston Court, Shakespeare’s Richard II has lost not just six letters from its title but also about 25 percent of its text and upwards of 90 percent of the ensemble usually assembled to perform it. In R II, John Sloan portrays the … Read more
Dany Margolies – Arts In LA Max and Wynn have bought a beautiful house in the country. They’ve invited Roger and Abby for a weekend visit. The two women are best friends. Their husbands, however, gloomily predict it’s going to be a long weekend. As it turns out, in this Norm Foster play, the consequences … Read more
Bob Verini – ArtsInLA Time heals everything, so the song goes, and a quick overview of history reveals there’s no calamity so atrocious that the passage of time won’t soften its impact. Shed any tears over the massacre of the Huguenots lately? How about the victims of the Children’s Crusade? Fortunately, art often comes forward … Read more
Bob Verini – ArtsInLA The Burnt Part Boys, now at the Third Street Theater in a co-production with West Coast Ensemble Theater, is an energetic hoot-’n’-hollerin’ musical play that would benefit from a little less hoot-’n’-hollerin’ and a little more straight talk. Read more… David C. Nichols – LA Times If “Floyd Collins” and “Stand By … Read more
David C. Nichols – LA Times A star is reborn in “Funny Girl,” now marching its band out in Fullerton (and soon after, Redondo Beach). This solid 3D Theatricals revival of the classic 1964 musical generally engrosses, and triumphs in lead Nicole Parker. Shining in every detail, Parker’s nuanced, platinum-voiced Fanny Brice withstands the Streisand … Read more
Pauline Adamek – LA Weekly An all-female production of Hamlet — why?! The gender-bending (and multicultural) casting permits this motley cast of women to tackle the tragedy’s meaty classic roles but adds nothing to the production. Rather, it distracts and detracts. Lisa Wolpe and Natsuko Ohama co-direct and star (as Hamlet and Polonius, respectively) in … Read more
Dany Margolies – Arts In LA Robert Begam and Art Shulman wrote this play as a courtroom drama. Their story could also pass for a gothic tale. Unfortunately, it totters between styles, and director Rick Walters makes a simultaneous case for both. And so this production sits precariously, leaving its audience wondering how to react.Read … Read more
Bob Verini – ArtsInLA As Greek tragedies go, Prometheus Bound poses something of a staging nightmare. There’s no betrayed wife out to murder her own children and her rival, no king brought to understand the truth about the older woman he married. Instead, it’s a solemn religioso pageant in which the god who created mortal … Read more