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Archive for Macbeth

Troubies, Tanner, and a Top Tenth list

Matt Walker and Rick Batalla. Photo by Douglas Leadwell.

Matt Walker and Rick Batalla. Photo by Douglas Leadwell.

Don Shirley – Angeles Stage

Plus ‘Annie,’ ‘Clyde’s,’ ‘Invincible,’ Sheldon Epps’ memoir.

Tis the season for Troubadour Theater’s annual holiday hoot. As usual, it’s a refreshing antidote to too many competing “Christmas Carol”s.

This year Troubies director Matt Walker takes aim at the 1988 shoot-’em-up film “Die Hard.” Its setting — a corporate holiday party in a Century City high-rise — is the excuse for the timing in December. The Troubie title is “Die Heart,” because the show includes melodies and riffs, if not the precise lyrics, of some of the songs from the rock group Heart. Read more…

MACBETH at The Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles

Photo by Jenny Soo

Photo by Jenny Soo

Neal Weaver – Stage Raw

When Mrs. Patrick Campbell was rehearsing for her debut in the role of Hamlet’s Ophelia, her mentor, George Bernard Shaw, gave her a choice piece of advice: “In Shakespeare, the only justification for a pause is a fight or a procession.” It’s not a fundamental law, but it is a useful rule of thumb, and director Caitlin Hart might have been wise to heed it in this rendition of the Scottish play.Read more…

Now running through November 20

MACBETH at A Noise Within

Photo by Craig Schwartz

Photo by Craig Schwartz

David C. Nichols – LA Times

Fair is foul and foul is fair in “Macbeth” at A Noise Within. William Shakespeare’s Scottish tragedy of lethal ambition receives an emphatically respectable albeit uneven production.   Read more…

Now running through May 11.

Macbeth, The Antaeus Company

 

Macbeth by Shakespeare.

 

Dany Margolies – ArtsinLA

Are we, as an educated audience, expected to know exactly when Macbeth “turns”— when the pathologically evil ambition overtakes his soul? Or must the change in him be left open to interpretation? The answer may determine which cast to see in this double-cast production of Shakespeare’s “Scottish play,” illuminatingly directed by Jessica Kubzansky.  Read more…

 

Terry Morgan – LAist

Macbeth has never been my favorite Shakespeare play. I don’t have anything against it, but it’s never spoken to me in the way King Lear or Hamlet has, doesn’t have quite the flights of poetical brilliance. That being said, when the combined talents of the Antaeus Company take on a particular work, it’s always worthy of one’s time. The new production of Macbeth is expertly done, highlighted by Jessica Kubzansky’s deft direction and superb performances from its two lead actors.  Read more…

 

Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA

In Shakespeare’s macabre and unsettling tragedy, a ruthlessly ambitious Scottish general seizes the throne with the help of his scheming wife and guidance from a trio of witches. He then commits further murders to maintain a tenuous grip on his newly won power.  Adopting an unusual approach, director Jessica Kubzansky opens her production of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, now running at the Antaeus classical theater Company, with a scene not scripted by The Bard.  Read more…

 

David C. Nichols – Back Stage

The dagger strokes of Macbeth at the Antaeus Company convey vaulting ambition but variable horror. Director Jessica Kubzansky’s intelligent, evocative take on Shakespeare’s daunting tragedy of treason and the supernatural is sensible to feeling as well as to sight, up to a point.  Read more…