Martίn Hernández – Stage Raw With its hashtag retitle alluding to the #MeToo Movement, author/adaptor Charles A. Duncombe’s version of William Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure offers a timely skewering of sexual harassment, religious hypocrisy, and state repression. Rather than a wholesale adaptation, however, Duncombe maintains the original setting and intersperses contemporary banter and narration with … Read more
Rob Stevens – Haines His Way. City Garage, the resident theatre company at Santa Monica’s Bergamot Station Arts Center, built their thirty-plus year reputation for doing heavy lifting with productions of Greek tragedies and the works of Brecht and Beckett among other dramatists. With their latest offering, Cardenio, they prove they can let down their hair and … Read more
Tracey Paleo – Gia On The Move While Odysseus went off to war……abandoning his family and kingdom for 20 years, it is his wife Penelope who strategically saves Ithaca. But there is a cost. Penelope now sets the record straight by recounting the story we know, with other disturbing facts that have never been discussed. Read … Read more
Rob Stevens – Haines His Way During this long, seemingly endless Heat Wave that has been plaguing Los Angeles for nearly a month, if you did not have central air or a heavy-duty air conditioner, you might have considered a day at the beach. The sun would still be unbearable, but you could cool off … Read more
Don Shirley – Angeles Stage ‘Macbeth’ in Griffith Park, ‘Comedy’ in Irvine. CTG’s month of emulating Netflix. ‘Beach People,’ ‘Lavender Men,’ ‘Valley Song.’ Jason Alexander charts his Abby road. Have you savored Shakespeare in the park this summer? This coming week might be the best possible moment for this annual ritual, as well as one … Read more
Margaret Gray – LA Times There’s nothing scary, at first, about Rudolph, the elderly gentleman who shows up at Albert and Bettina’s house one Christmas Eve in “Winter Solstice,” a 2013 play by the German writer Roland Schimmelpfennig, translated by David Tushingham, which is having its West Coast premiere at City Garage.Read more… Katie Buenneke … Read more
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly While I’m not familiar with all — or even most — of Charles Mee’s work, it’s a safe bet that Adam and Evie, directed by Frédérique Michel at City Garage, is one of his gentler, sweeter plays. Read more… Paul Birchall – Stage Raw Love is madness, just as it is unique … Read more
Paul Birchall – Stage Raw I am taking an online class from my old college about comparative fairy tales – not the cutesy Disney stuff, but the darker, more horrifying tales of little children falling into wells and drowning, or witches being shoved into ovens and roasted alive. So perhaps it was no surprise that, … Read more
Katie Buenneke – Stage Raw A sad Russian clown. His wife, who can’t laugh. An interloper with a mysterious past. A hook that appears in the bathroom one day. Read more… Now running through December 18
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly In the fantastical right left with heels, Polish playwright Sebastian Majewski reflects on grim historical events as observed by a pair of shoes once owned by the wife of Joseph Goebbels. Black high-heel pumps with “attitude” they reek of tart sexuality and a sense of privilege. Read more… Now running through … Read more