Melinda Schupmann – Arts In LA When Stars Align is a novel by Carole Eglash-Kosoff, chronicling conflicts between advantaged whites and black slaves in the Civil War–era South. Now adapted into a play (by the author, with co-writer and director John Henry Davis) spanning many years, it blends history with the story of young black Thaddeus … Read more
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw There are several hearty laughs to be had as the credits roll on Peter Lefcourt’s clichéd comedy, which is set in a West L.A. Starbucks where a homegrown terrorist is holding people hostage. Read more… Margaret Gray – LA Times One unintended consequence of the communications age is the increased difficulty … Read more
Terry Morgan – Stage Raw Every theater company has its ups and downs. It’s the nature of artistic endeavor. Evidence Room, celebrating its 20th anniversary as a company, has an admirable history of successful and award-winning plays, most recently with its producing partner, the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble. Unfortunately, their new show, Martin Crimp’s adaptation of Pierre … Read more
Dany Margolies – Arts In LA An inspired supporting cast and a superb set salvage the heavily flawed script here. Neil Koenigsberg’s play is nobly modeled on the Bergman film Wild Strawberries, centering on an older man trying to come to grips with his regrets. But the writing is repetitious, it is on-the-nose, and it is … Read more
Jenny Lower – LA Weekly Oedipus Rex may be one of the best known plays of the western canon, but it gets an alien staging, quite literally, in Ron Sossi’s inventive though uneven production at the Odyssey Theatre. Based on Ellen McLaughlin’s modernist, poetic adaptation of the text, Oedipus Machina transports the action to a vaguely eastern, otherworldly … Read more
Terry Morgan – Stage Raw John Bunzel’s new play is reminiscent of David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross, but more comedic in intent. The story takes place in the milieu of “wealth management” during a fictional financial catastrophe as the various characters attempt to screw each other over or profit from the chaos. Read more… Steven Leigh Morris – … Read more
Steven Leigh Morris – LA Weekly Corktown 57 unfolds entirely in the Irish-quarter grocery-shop basement of Frank Keating (John Ruby), who’s having difficulties with his wife (Natalie Britton, in a nicely textured performance). Read more… David C. Nichols – LA Times Family dynamics and political ire mix it up in “Corktown ‘57” at the Odyssey Theatre. Playwright John … Read more
Paul Birchall – Stage Raw “The whole world’s in a state of chassis!” said Jack Boyle, the iconic Irish lotus-eating blackguard of Juno and the Paycock, Sean O’Casey’s great drama about the tragic flaws of an Irish family. Read more… Steven Leigh Morris – LA Weekly Corktown 57 unfolds entirely in the Irish-quarter grocery-shop basement of Frank Keating (John … Read more
Terry Morgan – Stage Raw One of the pleasures of attending theater is witnessing the rebirth of a classic play through a vital new production. There’s something profoundly satisfying in realizing that the concerns of the past aren’t that different from our own; that art, when well done, resounds down the corridors of time like … Read more
Paul Birchall – Stage Raw Playwright-actor Stephanie Satie’s solo show uses the format of a group therapy session to depict the oral histories told by survivors of the Holocaust survivors who were children when the German Nazi concentration camps were functioning. These are women who survived either because they were hidden by parents and friends, … Read more