Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly Writer Betty Tokudani’s cliché-ridden comedy centers on four elderly women whose curmudgeonly cluelessness we are supposed to find endearing. Vain, stylish Tomi (Jeanne Sakata) is mourning her middle-aged son, a mama’s boy who for years gobbled her high-cholesterol food, then died young of a heart attack. Her friends strive to … Read more
David C. Nichols – LA Times Charles Dickens meets Lewis Carroll, literally, in “A Perfect Likeness” at Fremont Centre Theatre in South Pasadena. This beautifully appointed two-hander about the authors of “Great Expectations” and “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” isn’t exactly deep-dish, but it should appeal to those seeking a pleasantly literate 90 minutes in the … Read more
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly There are glints of the Oresteia in Marcus Gardley’s poetic, sweeping drama, the road weeps, the well runs dry, which takes place in a 19th-century Oklahoma town settled by fleeing African-American freedmen and their Native American cohabitants. The story’s tragic chain of events erupts around the searing rivalry between the … Read more
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly Daniel Keyes’ now classic sci-fi story about a mentally challenged man whose IQ skyrockets after a surgical procedure tackles not only how we treat disabled individuals but how ephemeral are those intangible values — love, life, respect — that we cherish. Read more… Sharon Perlmutter – Talkin’ Broadway There are … Read more
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly Marthe Rachel Gold’s lumbering melodrama is a concoction of dramatic setups that never develops into an interesting or credible narrative. Widowed Anne (Laurie O’Brien), a former ballerina, lives with her grown mentally and physically disabled son, Will (Alex Smith), in a house that’s been owned by her family for generations. … Read more
Deborah Klugman – ArtsBeatLA Death of a Salesman is about American capitalism and the price it extracts from the everyday working Joe. It’s about dreams and expectations, and what happens to someone when these go unfulfilled. It’s about honesty and the ultimate consequences extracted from those who self-deceive. And, of course, it’s about fathers and sons … Read more
Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA Almost immediately after the central protagonist Maggie (Jennifer Pollono) bustles onto the stage, pretty soon she’s letting fly a string of profanity. We are abruptly dropped into playwright John Pollono’s milieu, inhabited by working class New Hampshire types who are struggling to make ends meet.Read more… Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly … Read more
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly As a storyteller, Joyce Carol Oates frequently traverses aberrant corridors of the human psyche. That’s readily apparent in this 1990 (since updated to 2003) one-act, about a middle-aged couple, Frank and Emily Gulick (Alan Blumenfeld and Katherine James), whose son has been accused of the brutal rape and murder of … Read more
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly Adapter and director Ramon Monxi Flores weaves Mayan mythology into this otherwise predictable message drama about a gangbanger and his uncertain journey toward redemption. Originating from a 1992 script by Victor Tamayo, which focused primarily on drug abuse, the familiar plot revolves around Carlos (Johnny Ortiz), a parentless youth living … Read more
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly As Bottom, performer Katherine Griffith may be the best reason to see this amusing but somewhat quotidian presentation of Shakespeare’s seasonal classic. Cast across gender by directors Melora Marshall and Willow Geer, Griffith’s likable blowhard garners a plurality of the laughs, along with his proletarian colleagues, whose presentation of Pyramus … Read more