Don Shirley – Angeles Stage If LAist wants to cover LA’s performing arts with any depth and discernment, the LA stage scene would be a good place to start. Plus reactions to ‘Kate’, ‘POTUS’, a ‘Mystic Pizza’ musical, ‘Sukkot’ ‘Middle of the World’. Read more…
Terry Morgan – LAist Audience identification is an interesting phenomenon. It’s the fact that audiences will have sympathy for a possibly repellent character simply because he or she is the protagonist in a story—perhaps it’s an artistic variant of Stockholm Syndrome? This explains the continual fascination with characters such as Richard III, Sweeney Todd and … Read more
Terry Morgan – LAist Having seen a couple of plays written by Bruce Norris, (Clybourne Park and The Parallelogram) I’m beginning to detect a theme in his writing. He seems to find the purportedly liberal beliefs of certain rich white people worthy of ridicule, specifically convictions of a “politically correct” strain. Nowhere is this clearer … Read more
Bob Verini – ArtsInLA This production is a buoyant treat from first to last. Full disclosure, this is coming from someone with a lifelong antipathy to mistaken-identity plots—you know, the ones in which one opportune word from a character would set everything right immediately, but that word is arbitrarily withheld until the 11th hour. That’s … Read more
Terry Morgan – LAist It’s a good week for new adaptations of classic plays in L.A. On the east side, Antaeus has their terrific production of Corneille’s The Liar, while on the west side we’re treated to the L.A. premiere of David Greig’s adaptation of August Strindberg’s Creditors. With its combination of wit and cruelty … Read more
Terry Morgan – LAist Scary plays are a rarity in the American theatrical landscape, but thankfully Los Angeles has several theatre companies that offer something macabre for horror aficionados. Zombie Joe’s Underground in North Hollywood delivers year-long delightful strangeness, Wicked Lit stages literary adaptations in nighttime graveyards and the Grand Guignolers create their own mix … Read more
Terry Morgan – LAist Late great science fiction author Philip K. Dick’s two thematic questions that ran through almost all of his work were “What is reality” and “What does it mean to be human?” While his novel The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch is an example of the former question, a nightmarish tale of … Read more
Les Spindle – Edge on the Net In chronicling the beginning of a momentous chapter in the history of gay culture, namely the initial outbreak of the AIDS epidemic in the early 1980s, Larry Kramer’s watershed play “The Normal Heart” offers a deeply moving snapshot of an era, while imparting timeless truths.Read more… Bob Verini … Read more
Bob Verini – ArtsInLA Gina Gionfriddo’s Rapture, Blister, Burn is a report from the feminist front. Folded within a thin narrative is a lot of intriguing conversation, which in the course of two acts brings out numerous perspectives on what women do (and should) need and what they do (and should) want. The talk is … Read more
Terry Morgan – LAist When one thinks of Arthur Miller’s body of work, one doesn’t immediately think “chronicler of Italian-American experience,” but with A View From The Bridge, he revealed a further breadth of his talent. The lead characters of most of Miller’s plays are imperfect men, from Willy Loman and John Proctor, and Eddie … Read more