Margaret Gray – LA Times “I am not your rabbi, I am not your father, I am not your shrink, I am not your friend, I am not your teacher,” the Abstract Expressionist painter Mark Rothko warns his new assistant in the first scene of John Logan’s Tony Award-winning bio-drama “Red,” now at South Coast … Read more
Paul Birchall – Stage Raw Sometimes all a play really needs is two characters and some genuine emotion. Set in 1930s Berlin, playwright Janet Schlapkohl’s evocative two-hander tells of a pair of identical twin sisters (played by bona fide identical twins Elizabeth Hinkler and Emily Hinkler) beset by troubles as the Nazis rise in power … Read more
Bob Verini – Variety The stunningly appointed “Empire The Musical,” world premiering at La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts (and no relation to the hit Fox series), gains strength from the entire company’s shared desire to erect the unprecedentedly tall Empire State Building, in stubborn defiance of the Great Depression. Alas, authors Caroline Sherman and Robert … Read more
Les Spindle – Edge on the Net Writer-director Woody Allen’s memorable 1994 film comedy“Bullets Over Broadway” served up a touch of vintage Billy Wilder (a la “Some Like It Hot” and “One, Two, Three”) driven by Allen’s trademark genius for mixing a farcical story with darker elements and trenchant humor. Read more… Margaret Gray – LA … Read more
David C. Nichols – LA Times Christmas Carol” is upon us, and its winning A Noise Within production is a keeper. Amid worthy area stagings of Charles Dickens’ immortal classic about miserly Ebenezer Scrooge’s Christmas Eve journey to redemption, this deftly performed, meta-theatrical edition stands out for fidelity to text, witty stagecraft and heartfelt embrace … Read more
Margaret Gray – LA Times It happens so often in Iowa that the housewives have come to expect it: Moments after their husbands and children head off to the state fair, hunky photographers arrive, asking directions to picturesque bridges. The photographers have drifters’ souls and hide from true intimacy behind their cameras. Read more… Myron Meisel … Read more
Margaret Gray – LA Times The stripper whose wildest dream is of marriage. The high-stakes gambler who falls for a missionary. Both live on the sweet, homely Broadway of Damon Runyon, whose short stories about Depression-era gamblers and others on the seedy side of the street of dreams inspired the great American musical “Guys and Dolls: A … Read more
David C. Nichols – LA Times Edmond Rostand meets Hermann Hesse at the Village Vanguard in “Miravel” at Sacred Fools. Author-performer Jake Broder’s mash-up of Rostand’s deathless “Cyrano de Bergerac” and Hesse’s novel “Gertrude” has some post-larval quirks, yet a compelling undertow propels its jazz-centric romantic triangle. Read more… Paul Birchall – Stage Raw Playwright/composer Jake … Read more
Margaret Gray – LA Times Frank Gehry’s set for “Ay, Carmela!” at the Hudson Mainstage Theatre may not make any lists of the architect’s most impressive designs. Read more… Now running through December 13.
Pauline Adamek – Stage Raw Steve B. Green’s black comedy Timeshare is set in the cutthroat world of high-pressure sales, and while some thematic similarities to Glengarry Glen Ross can be seen, don’t expect any David Mamet-style pyrotechnics. Read more… David C. Nichols – LA Times I am a professional salesman. I am a professional salesman.” So runs, with drolly … Read more