Paul Birchall – Stage Raw Playwright Paul Shoulberg’s dark sardonic comedy is a tale of finding love within the rubble of one’s damaged psyche. It’s a work that brings to mind Hemingway’s old koan, “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.” Read more… Rob Stevens – Haines His Way My … Read more
Paul Birchall – Stage Raw Playwright A. David Redish’s odd drama is a weird mix of Blithe Spirit and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. This pitch is likely to have you thinking that the show might be better than it is. So it gives no me pleasure to note that Steve Jarrard’s awkwardly executed production will leave you … Read more
Paul Birchall – Stage Raw It is a terrible thing for a theater critic to admit, but I’d never seen this scabrously funny Tony Award-winning musical, about the price put on the most fundamental of bodily functions, before attending the Coeurage Theatre Company’s fresh and sprightly production. Read more… Now running through February 25
Paul Birchall – Stage Raw Sometimes a play can go up a little too early — and I am afraid that is the case with this drama co-written by Alicia Adams and Peter Monro. Its bones are in all the right places, but its narrative is slight and its tone is heavy and flat. Read … Read more
Paul Birchall – Stage Raw Adam Mervis’s romantic satire, set amongst a group of youngish Los Angelinos, is caparisoned with many of the bells and whistles of the millennial generation: Mentions of Tinder and Bumble, ipads, video games, and bitcoin abound, as well as the (quite narratively irrelevant) spiritual presence of the actress Natalie Portman, … Read more
Paul Birchall – Stage Raw At the Opening Night performance of director Phylicia Rashad’s powerful staging of playwright August Wilson’s modern classic Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, I found myself seated next to a gentleman who claimed to be one of the agents for one of the performers in the show. He promptly loosened his tie and shrugged … Read more
Paul Birchall – Stage Raw The spirits of Mo Gaffney and Kathy Najimy cast a long shadow over director Jenny Sullivan’s mostly straightforward production of this one time off-Broadway hit. (Gaffney and Najimi were the original writer/performers of this two-person comic show, which won an Obie in 1989 and was later produced on HBO in … Read more
Dany Margolies – Arts In LA In a tiny church, a battle wages. That battle has been nearly settled by American law, it seems to be settling in large urban areas. But in the hearts and minds of the congregation at Kandota Lutheran Church in Little Sauk, Minn., it’s still a stubbornly fought war. Read … Read more
Paul Birchall – Stage Raw The stage at the Zombie Joe’s Underground Theater is really extremely small. While at times it feels like the size of a large conference table or a front counter at Starbucks, the electrifying power that erupts from this tiny postage stamp is really quite amazing. Read more… Now running through September … Read more
Paul Birchall – Stage Raw The Victorian Era operettas of W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan are almost unique in the theatrical canon in that sometimes talent is not as important to a production’s success as gusto and enthusiasm. Read more… Now running through August 28