Photo courtesy of The Groundlings
Jenny Lower – Stage Raw
This latest outing from The Groundlings’ main company earns a respectable B. Directed by Kevin Kirkpatrick, the show at its best moments delivers the comedic goods, with writing that’s fresh, taut and clever, and performances of disciplined zaniness. In its weaker moments, ill-conceived sketches peter out or linger too long, leaving a whiff of self-indulgence.
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Now running through April 14
(Photo by Xavi Moreno)
Jenny Lower – Stage Raw
First performed in 2013, the Latino Theater Company’s Latina Christmas Special reunites three comedians — Diana Yanez, Sandra Valls and Maria Russell — who recount their personal tales of Navidades past.
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Now running through January 7
(Photo by Geoffrey Wade Photography)
Jenny Lower – Stage Raw
Antaeus announced Christopher Hampton’s 1987 adaptation of Les Liaisons Dangereuses as the debut of its current season all the way back in June. The director’s note in the program discusses how this pre-revolutionary tale of French aristocratic depravity speaks to our era of the one percent.
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Erin Conley – On Stage & Screen
Les Liaisons Dangereuses is a story that would be best served with popcorn and red wine. Written by Christopher Hampton and based on Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’s 1782 novel of the same name, Liaisons opened at the Antaeus Theatre Company in Los Angeles this weekend in a sexy, provocative production that explores the despicable behavior of what we would now refer to as “the one percent” in a modern, stylized fashion.
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Margaret Gray – LA Times
Are Americans today better off than the aristocrats of pre-revolutionary France? Spandex has simplified couture, wigs no longer require powder and, thanks to social media and smartphones, epistolary romances can be conducted in real time.
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Now running through December 10
Photo by Ed Krieger
Jenny Lower – Stage Raw
Separate Beds, a relationship comedy by that lacks the absurdity of a farce and the insight of a drama, may stir self-recognition among a few long coupled audience members. (If so, you should get yourself to a marriage counselor right away.) Read more…
Now running through June 19
Photo by Jeff Lorch
Margaret Gray – LA Times
The first time Derek DelGaudio performed at the Geffen Playhouse — in the 2012 show “Nothing to Hide,” which he created with co-star Helder Guimarães and director Neil Patrick Harris — DelGaudio ended up staying longer than expected: The magic act, originally slotted for a one-month run, packed the house for 18 weeks. Read more…
Dany Margolies – Arts in LA
Derek DelGaudio’s world premiere In & of Itself proves him to be a captivating performer and a mesmerizing illusionist. He is not quite yet the philosopher he purports to be, but kernels of interesting ideas weave through the piece—such as making personal pain disappear like a house of cards. Read more…
Jenny Lower – LA Weekly
Derek DelGaudio’s new solo show at the Geffen Playhouse’s black-box theater is a lot different from other one-man ventures. For one thing, there’s magic. And unlike the impulse to overshare that weighs down so many other autobiographical efforts, DelGaudio cloaks his personal storytelling in mythological allusions….. Read more…
Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA
The illusion and prestidigitation show, In & Of Itself, presently playing at the Geffen Playhouse, feels somewhat underwhelming. Ostensibly a very short evening with a solo performer (one hour and five minutes) the show unfolds at a languid pace. Read more…
Now running through June 26
Jenny Lower – Stage Raw
Lunatics & Actors, the latest world premiere by Jeremy Aluma’s clowning troupe Four Clowns, is less a fixed narrative than a series of funny, unpredictable, and menacing vignettes that excavate the distinction between creative performance and insanity.
Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA
Four Clowns’ newest theatrical staging is Lunatics & Actors, written by David Bridel. Bridel’s one-act drama is posited as an anthropological and scientific experiment in progress, with some results and further experimentation being presented this night to a collection of interested persons (being us, the audience). The play commences when an eccentric neurologist, Dr. Duchenne du Boulogne (Thaddeus Shafer) introduces himself to us and explains his work to date; being the science of electrophysiology. Read more...
Now running through May 28
Photo by Michael Lamont
Jenny Lower – LA Weekly
More than any contemporary playwright who comes to mind, Sarah Ruhl’s characters inhabit worlds wholly her own. Even when she adopts a historical setting, as with In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play), her lyrical sensibility fashions heightened realities, where a house of string or a dead man’s perpetually ringing cellphone seem natural. Read more…
Jonas Schwartz – TheaterMania
Stage Kiss, now featured at the Geffen Playhouse, offers both belly laughs and belly aches. Many zingers leave audiences gasping for air between chortles, but the play feels empty because of sketchy characterizations and a fuzzy interpretation of Shakespeare’s frequently quoted, “All the world is a stage.” Read more…
Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA
Sarah Ruhl’s insular comedy is set in the world of the theater. Act One begins with an audition then sees its way through to opening night. Act Two follows our leading pair and the aftermath of their off-stage love affair. Stage Kiss is chock full of in-jokes and ‘theaterly’ sight gags and business, but none of it proves all that funny. Read more…
Now running through May 15
Photo by Ed Krieger
Jenny Lower – Stage Raw
In just over an hour, Scottish playwright Gary McNair’s affectionate portrait of the rise and fall of an inveterate gambler manages to span 45 years, chart a grandson’s disillusionment and recovery of faith in his hero, mull the randomness of the universe, and probe the legacy of any human life. And at just over an hour, the Ruskin Group Theatre’s Los Angeles premiere of A Gambler’s Guide to Dying manages to feel a shade too long. Read more…
Now running through April 29
Photo by Craig Schwartz
Jenny Lower – Stage Raw
“I have a powerful urge to communicate with you, but I find the distance between us insurmountable.”
That refrain, repeated at various points throughout Lucas Hnath’s powerful, richly textured The Christians, could be the motto for any number of American ideological divides. Read more…
Jonas Schwartz - TheaterMania
Religion can be a great separator. Though it can bind people together, it can also create an us-vs.-them mentality. In The Christians playwright Lucas Hnath lights a charge in his audience by confronting head-on the dangers of absolute faith, particularly when that belief excludes others viewpoints. Read more…
Now running through January 10.
Photo by Alice Reyes
Jenny Lower – Stage Raw
Josh Carson’s lovingly crafted theatrical tribute to the action franchise starring Bruce Willis opens in darkness, until an offstage cappella chorus sounds the familiar crescendo and theme music that herald a 20th Century Fox movie. Read more…
Now running through December 19.
Photo by Tom Sullens
Jenny Lower – LA Weekly
The Shoplifters, Morris Panych’s 2014 comedy having its West Coast premiere at the Victory Theatre in Burbank, tries to put a goofy spin on some not-so-funny topics: high-strung rookie cops, overzealous right-wing Christians and the San Andreas Fault–sized gap between the rich and poor. Read more…
Les Spindle – Edge on the Net
It is the time of Spain’s bloody Civil War (a small screen flashes graphic newsreel footage of the conflict before the play starts), and the pair must put on a “command,” performance for some of Franco’s officers and an unfortunate group of prisoners slated for the firing squad. Read more..
Now running through December 20.
Photo by Stephen Mihalek
Jenny Lower – LA Weekly
Though the Latino Theater Company’s newest production never delves into contemporary politics, it’s hard to imagine a more direct or effective counter-narrative to the kind of xenophobic propaganda that so often dominates immigration debates. Read more…
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw
Writer Cris Franco was a year old when his Mexican-born father brought his family from a small town in Mexico to South Central Los Angeles. As a young boy Cris thrived there until the age of 10. Then his Dad, a skilled mechanic with a booming business, grew tired of commuting to and from the San Fernando Valley and relocated his wife and kids to the White cultural wasteland we know as Granada Hills. Read more…
Now running through December 6.