Myron Meisel – Stage Raw Philip Ridley, whether as playwright (The Fastest Clock in the Universe, Mercury Fur, Tender Napalm) or filmmaker (The Mysterious Skin, Heartless), remains ever distinctively individual, and this revival of his first play, 1991’s The Pitchfork Disney, produced locally in 2006 by Company of Angels (and subsequently in 2011 at Next Stage), … Read more
Myron Meisel – Stage Raw Those who tend to be consistently disappointed in new musicals could profitably explore new opera as a more reliable alternative, where the creative energies appear to have been more vibrant so far in this latest century. Read more… Now running through February 1.
Myron Meisel – Stage Raw Betty (Renee Ulloa-McDonald), “a nice girl”, sits on a bench, reading a book. She is approached by a figure in mime-like whiteface wearing dinner dress (Jeffrey Gardner), who asks her if she “has” the time. Read more… Margaret Gray – LA Times Charles A. Duncombe’s new play at City Garage, “Timepiece,” … Read more
Myron Meisel – Stage Raw During the notoriously doomed 1984 coal miners’ strike against Maggie Thatcher’s determination to destroy the union and its jobs, motherless 11-year old Billy Elliot (Mitchell Tobin) ditches his 50-pence afterschool boxing classes for ballet lessons, unbeknownst to his picketing father (David Atkinson) and firebrand older brother Tony (Stephen Weston). Read more… … Read more
Myron Meisel – Stage Raw While it probably isn’t quite accurate to say that performer Salome Jens saved my life, I prefer to believe that it’s true. After an evening and morning of obliterative obsession, attending her one-woman show about Anne Sexton didn’t seem like the most propitious choice under the circumstances, but I already … Read more
Myron Meisel – Stage Raw While institutions and their procedural processes may be the backbone of our social organization, they can also tend to compound the dysfunctions they confront with systemic failings of their own, whether they be the police, schools, courts, or in the case of Rebecca Gilman’s engrossing drama Luna Gale, child protective services. Read … Read more
Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly If ever there were a writer dedicated to society’s subversion it was Joe Orton. Orton despised the status quo and made it his mission to wreak havoc on its precepts as thoroughly and flamboyantly as possible. In What the Butler Saw, he went after authority figures, psychoanalysis, which he regarded as … Read more
Myron Meisel – Stage Raw One of my seminal experiences in 40 years of Los Angeles theatergoing was the single performance in 1977 at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre of the first local exposure to the work of Robert Wilson, I was sitting on my patio this guy appeared I thought I was hallucinating, a collaboration with … Read more
Myron Meisel – Stage Raw A spoiler and an alert: I’m going to gush, and you should rush, as only two performances remain of one of the year’s most remarkable and exciting productions, Agua a Cucharadas, a Spanish translation of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize-winning play Water by the Spoonful by Quiara Alegría Hudes, making its Los Angeles debut after … Read more
Myron Meisel – Stage Raw Set entirely in the confines of the office of the British Consul in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, during the first day of the annual Hajj pilgrimage, Zealot, by the well-established and prolific Theresa Rebeck (Seminar, Mauritius, Bad Dates, Spike Heels), cannot avoid being a presumptuous play, satirizing and exposing obtuse Western perceptions that … Read more