Margaret Gray – LA Times It may sit uneasily with our notion of Shakespeare to imagine him tackling the hot-button issues of his era like a Jacobean David Mamet. But Bill Cain’s “Equivocation” at Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum takes a scholarly theory — that “Macbeth” is a coded chronicle of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 … Read more
Dany Margolies – Arts In LA The weighty ideas expressed in this piece have retained their potency from nearly 2,500 years ago. The skills and vibrancy of the actors here are flawless. Had the two elements meshed, this would be a perfect production. Read more… Bob Verini – Stage Raw Reviewing the 2011 Getty Villa production … Read more
Dany Margolies – Daily Breeze Let’s be clear from the outset: The one-woman show “I Married a Neanderthal and Other Modern Problems” does not bash men. It gently ribs them, but, hey, who can’t take a little ribbing? And Honey Buczkowski, the life coach who hosts this show, er, coaching session, did not marry a … Read more
Pauline Adamek – Stage Raw Louise Munson’s meandering and nostalgic family drama is set in Italy during a summer holiday. Two American siblings touch base with their Italian mother’s parents and brother, discussing poetry and philosophy while drinking and dining, reading, playing board games, singing songs and telling stories. Much of the conversation is in … Read more
Dany Margolies – Arts In LA Give Kentwood Players credit for mounting this production. Del Shores’ “Sordid Lives,” at Westchester Playhouse through Aug. 16, focuses on social outcasts who ignite ire, if not disgust and even hatred. Read more… David C. Nichols – LA Times Pity the survivors of the late Peggy Ingram, whose bizarre demise … Read more
David C. Nichols – LA Times In its basic contours and execution, Ian MacAllister-McDonald’s “The Sexual Life of Savages” at the Beverly Hills Playhouse is an edgy dramedy of postmillennial eroticism that certainly keeps us watching. Read more… Myron Meisel – The Hollywood Reporter A couple planning on romance is instead waylaid by argument, a fundamental … Read more
Terry Morgan – Talkin’ Broadway Theatre has many functions, and sometimes its job is to remind or teach people about history. The trick, of course, is to do it in such a way that the piece still works as theatre, so it isn’t essentially a PowerPoint presentation with actors instead of graphics. Playwright has an … Read more
Dany Margolies – Arts In LA Most Westerners of a certain age, certainly most Catholics, recall the startling day in 1978 when we learned that Pope John Paul I had died 33 days after the puff of white smoke announced his election to the papacy. Very few people, if anyone, knew the exact cause of … Read more
Dany Margolies – Arts In LA Shakespeare’s King Lear has its potencies. Simply described, it follows the downfall of a once-powerful leader and the dysfunction of his family. Pondering his retirement, the monarch asks his three daughters to avow their love. The elder two, Goneril and Regan, lavish empty words on papa. The youngest, Cordelia, refuses to … Read more
Dany Margolies – Arts In LA This Agatha Christie play might be a classic murder mystery, but the legendary author underpins the script with her perceptiveness about human behavior. As directed by George Kondreck, Kentwood Players’ production, pretty much finds the undercurrents. They flow while the characters spend a long weekend in 1948 at an … Read more