Pauline Adamek – Stage Raw A couple meet, fall in love and marry. But do Whitney and Jake live happily together forever and ever thereafter? Not in Dean Farell Bruggeman’s heart-wrenching drama they don’t. Read more… Now running through March 12.
Pauline Adamek – Stage Raw Robert Lawrence Nelson’s melodrama about two lonely people finding a connection disappoints on almost all fronts. While the performances from the two leads — Julie Dolan as Samantha and Chad Addison as Toby — are solid, with both actors plumbing some complicated emotional depths, the production as a whole fails … Read more
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw The clash of values in playwright Bess Wohl’s disputatious two-hander takes place between Irene (Betty Gilpin), a chattering blonde tourist from Denver, and Manuel (Carlos Leal), a handsome Spaniard who’s ferried her back to his loft in Barcelona for wild, mutually satisfying sex. Read more… Dany Margolies – The Daily News … Read more
Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw Kate Morgan Chadwick makes an arresting entrance as she slithers alluringly across the floor at Atwater Village Theatre, climbing onto the large white bed (Se Oh’s scenic design) that serves as the focus for Sheila Callaghan’s fiercely feminist one-act. Read more… Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA The central focus of Bed — Sheila Callaghan’s … Read more
Pauline Adamek – Stage Raw Singer, songwriter and Tony-nominated Broadway star, Sam Harris has enjoyed a vivid and successful career. His autobiography, “HAM: Slices of a Life” (published in January 2014 by Simon & Schuster), is a collection of personal essays that describe his conflicted early days growing up gay, musically gifted and ferociously ambitious … Read more
Paul Birchall – Stage Raw Sometimes all a play really needs is two characters and some genuine emotion. Set in 1930s Berlin, playwright Janet Schlapkohl’s evocative two-hander tells of a pair of identical twin sisters (played by bona fide identical twins Elizabeth Hinkler and Emily Hinkler) beset by troubles as the Nazis rise in power … Read more
Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA A chilling stage adaptation of Orwell’s novel 1984 is now playing at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica through February 6. This adaptation, written and directed by Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan, highlights today’s serious issues of state-sponsored surveillance, identity and intrusions into our privacy. Read more… Terry Morgan – Stage Raw Another day, … Read more
Myron Meisel – Stage Raw As a theater critic, I find myself writing perhaps disproportionally about plays with race, gender and sexuality issues — those subjects being responsible for a disproportionate amount of the most meaningful work being created — for which I am arguably ill-equipped to discuss, falling back on the presumptive faith that … Read more
Pauline Adamek – Stage Raw From lights up, playwright Meghan Brown’s drops her audience right into the swirling midst of her drama. A woman enters a chintzy living room, startling the other occupant asleep on the couch. The two women immediately launch into the kind of messy rapid-fire argument familiar to siblings or long-time friends. … Read more
Bob Verini – Stage Raw The committed theatergoer, confronted with the prospect of a play set in Ireland, may well inquire, “First of all, is it one of the light ones or one of the dark ones?” Read more… Jonas Schwartz – TheaterMania Outside Mullingar feels like a memory play of the distant past that is set … Read more