Dany Margolies – The Daily News Breaking out of old patterns, ridding ourselves of toxic habits, or just growing up sometimes requires extreme courage. In the highly metaphoric play “Shiv,” the character who navigates the path of maturity and change is given the qualities of the Hindu deity Shiva. Read more… Myron Meisel – Stage Raw … Read more
Myron Meisel – Stage Raw Why the devil do we do the things we do? And what kind of answers are genuinely responsive and illuminating to that question of “Why?” Easier to examine the confounding deeds of other people and endeavor to find clues in the motivations we attribute to (or project upon) them for … Read more
Margaret Gray – LA Times Struggles over inheritance are always painful — unless, of course, they take place in a French farce, in which case they are endlessly prankish and ribald. Read more… Myron Meisel – Stage Raw David Ives’s“translaptation” of Jean-Francois Regnard’s 1708 farce The Heir Apparent (Le Legataire Universel), at International City Theatre, also involves a … Read more
David C. Nichols – LA Times Talk amongst yourselves,” says a wild-eyed Lester Bangs as he hammers away at his typewriter, gesturing us into his unkempt apartment, Black Sabbath blaring from the turntable. “And nobody touch my records.”Read more… Dany Margolies – Arts In LA The lesson to be learned here is not how to … Read more
Jenny Lower – LA Weekly Among the many contentious ideas explored during Bad Jews, Joshua Harmon’s delicious pressure cooker of a show now playing at the Geffen, is how a religious or cultural identity can become the sole bedrock upon which some people base their identity. Read more… Myron Meisel – Stage Raw I can remember the … Read more
Myron Meisel – Stage Raw Allen Ginsberg may not have quite been Walt Whitman, but he was certainly the Walt Whitman of our lifetimes. To paraphrase Andrew Sarris on Orson Welles, while he could be a great bravura poet, he was an incomparable bravura personality. Read more… Now running through June 7.
Myron Meisel – Stage Raw The prophet Ezekiel, preaching to the Babylonian exiles, decried the maxim that “the fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth turn out,” insisting that each generation was responsible for its own sins. While as moralists we might agree, if we eschewed the concept, where would the modern theater … Read more
David C. Nichols – LA Times Never underestimate the power of stagecraft. Case in point: ”Carrie: The Musical,” now receiving a mind-blowing immersive production at La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts. Read more… Jonas Schwartz – TheaterMania Few musicals are as infamous as the 1988 Broadway bomb Carrie. That notoriety was enhanced by the bootlegged CDs … Read more
Bob Verini – Variety Writers of crime fiction are rarely as brutal or twisted as the characters they create. But meet Patricia Highsmith (1921-1995), by general agreement a foul-mouthed misanthrope who spent decades detailing the psychotic narcissism lurking in humanity’s dark heart. Read more… Hoyt Hilsman – Huffington Post Crime novelist Patricia Highsmith was renowned for her intense … Read more
Myron Meisel – Stage Raw Argentinian theater auteur Mariano Pensotti returns to REDCAT three years after his remarkable The Past is a Grotesque Animal with an even more intricately woven tapestry of tales. Cineastas, which closes this weekend, is incontrovertibly one of the essential stage productions of 2015. Read more… Now running through Feb. 21.