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BEST OF BEST OF THIS WEEK THIS WEEK, Open Fist Theatre Company at Atwater Village Theatre

Photo by Chris Phipps
March 22, 2023Martίn Hernández – Stage Raw Following in the satirical footsteps of Saturday Night Live and The Daily Show, this Open Fist Company production takes the past year’s cream of the crop of its Thursday night comedy sketch show, This Week This Week, and skewers our calamitous society with mostly hilarious results. Creator and director Ron
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TWELFTH NIGHT At The Broadwater Studio Theater

Photo courtesy of Foolish Production Co.
March 22, 2023Tracey Paleo – BroadwayWorld Notwithstanding that they fell into many textbook Shakespeare traps, and that there was zero chemistry between any single one of the characters, the Foolish Production Company cast actually knew what they were doing. And mostly their 1-hour rendition of TWELFTH NIGHT (playing in rep with MEASURE FOR MEASURE at The Broadwater)
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CARDENIO at City Garage Theatre

Photo by Paul Rubenstein
March 22, 2023Rob Stevens – Haines His Way City Garage, the resident theatre company at Santa Monica’s Bergamot Station Arts Center, built their thirty-plus year reputation for doing heavy lifting with productions of Greek tragedies and the works of Brecht and Beckett among other dramatists. With their latest offering, Cardenio, they prove they can let down their
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THE THIN PLACE, Echo Theater Company at Atwater Village Theatre

March 22, 2023Harker Jones – BroadwayWorld Tony-nominated playwright Lucas Hnath’s THE THIN PLACE is an eerie meditation on grief, regret and the need for closure, though it is undermined by the lack of a satisfying conclusion… Obie Award- and Outer Critics Circle Award-winning Hnath (“Red Speedo”; “A Doll’s House, Part 2″) carefully delineates each character with precise
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ONCE at Laguna Playhouse

Photo by Jason Niedle
March 22, 2023Socks Whitmore – Stage Raw In Dublin, a struggling Irish musician bumps into a young Czech woman and his life changes forever. This is the premise of the 2007 musical film Once, and likewise the stage musical of the same name, both featuring songs by Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová (including the infamous “Falling Slowly”),
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TWILIGHT: LOS ANGELES, 1992 at the Mark Taper Forum

Sabina Zúñiga Varela. Photo by Craig Schwartz Photography.
March 22, 2023Dana Martin – Stage Raw Center Theatre Group meets the moment with Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, conceived, written and revised by Anna Deavere Smith. The original production premiered on Broadway in April, 1994. Smith wrote it as a solo piece, which she developed from hundreds of interviews following the 1992 L.A. uprising. This updated version
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THE LONELY FEW at Geffen Playhouse

Lauren Patten. Photo by Jeff Lorch.
March 18, 2023Patrick Chavis – LA Theatre Bites World Premiere: The Lonely Few @ Geffen Playhouse – 8 out of 10 – Good Show! LA Theatre Bites Recommended! More… Jonas Schwartz-Owen – Theatermania The Lonely Few, a world premiere rock musical at the Geffen Playhouse, does away with conventional narrative. It immerses its audience in rock clubs
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Archive for Stage Raw – Page 2

KRISTINA WONG, SWEATSHOP OVERLORD at Kirk Douglas Playhouse, a co-production with East West Players

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Tuesday, February 21st, 2023
Kristina Wong. Photo by Javier Vasquez.

Kristina Wong. Photo by Javier Vasquez.

Tracey Paleo – BroadwayWorld

There are defining moments in our lives where we either shrink away in fear or make a stand at all costs. In 2020, at the beginning of a global health crisis, under the order of a shelter-in-place lockdown, Kristina Wong faced such a moment. And in that moment, Kristina Wong became a warrior.

It’s not that she meant to be one. No, not at all, in fact. In her one-woman show, Kristina Wong SWEATSHOP OVERLORD, the artist goes to great lengths to explain, as the crow flies, that single-handedly taking on the COVID-19 pandemic was no more than an offering of service to her fellow humans during a period of personal crisis. A way of reclaiming herself while feeling lost inside a contagion she did not start, and very likely would not survive as a creative talent with a show now canceled because of schools going entirely online, theaters closing, and public spaces barred from operating. Read more…

Socks Whitmore – Stage Raw

Before launching into a beat-by-beat replay of national events, Wong opens the show with a land acknowledgement, jokes about masking, and a complete list of content warnings, all delivered with her characteristic humor and spunk. Her re-enactment of her own life is delivered with hilarious over-dramatization and a plentitude of fourth-wall breaks, the script skillfully navigating between humor and pathos to hold equal space for the absurdity and grief of it all. One might imagine that much of what Wong shares is not dissimilar to the audience’s own pandemic life stories, but knowing the future takes no thrill away from the suspense; perhaps some of the hardest-hitting moments are the video clips pulled from the greatest moments of trauma and political unrest during the pandemic, their force magnified by our collective recognition. Various moments of audience participation enhance the show’s communal energy. (If you’re sitting in the front row, prepare for the potential of being interviewed and/or small objects flying over your head.) Read more…

 

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COME GET MAGGIE, Rogue Machine Theatre at The Matrix

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Wednesday, February 15th, 2023
Photo courtesy of the artists

Photo by John Perrin Flynn

Socks Whitmore – Stage Raw

John Perrin Flynn, the producing artistic director of Rogue Machine Theatre, states clearly in the program for their latest production: “We don’t do musicals.” And yet, the show itself — the world-premiere run of Come Get Maggie, a feature-length retro science-fiction/forbidden romance created by Diane Frolov and Susan Justin — is exactly that.

The music of Come Get Maggie exists in a particularly interesting place; the vocal textures and counterpoint are notably inventive, likely to appeal to fans of Hadestown and Come from Away, and the lyrics (especially those regarding physics) feature a formidable number of well-researched, complex rhymes. In its current form, it’s unclear whether the show wants to be a musical or a rock opera because a fair bit of the score draws from operatic recitative, drawn-out dramatic moments, and sometimes even chanted verse. From a traditional musical theater standpoint, some moments are musicalized unnecessarily, and could be cut or streamlined to remove a good 15 minutes from the show’s runtime. The first 15 minutes are the weakest; they suffer from a lack of “show don’t tell” and rhythmic drive — but after two or three scenes the narrative pacing finally clicks. Read more…

Patrick Chavis – LA Theatre Bites

The World Premiere of COME GET MAGGIE @ Rogue Machine Theatre – 8.8 out of 10! Great Show! LA Theatre Bites Recommended! More…

Tracey Paleo – BroadwayWorld

Love may be real and not science fiction. But Rogue Machine’s attempt at a first musical is so bubble gum, pop-retro, Flash Gordon-y, it’s almost guaranteed to be a runaway hit.

Never mind the low-barometer canned music, the predictably misogynistic thin-minty storyline, the dated, go-to tropes, or the underwhelmingly, slow-paced melodies. COME GET MAGGIE is a powerhouse of intellectually, politically, and emotionally, unchallenging, non-threatening, audience-pleasing instant-feel-good with a gleeful, if not logically sound ending for all. What could be better? Read more…

Katie Buenneke – Theatre Digest

This is an original musical, staged in a scrappy production, and it didn’t work for me…Some of the songs, by Diane Frolov and Susan Justin, were charming, but the score spans a large enough range that a few in the cast struggled vocally. It’s possible that the book, lyrics, and design elements were aiming to be fun and campy. Unfortunately, I didn’t find that they landed at that destination. It’s quite possible that with some finessing, this will be a charming show, but this incarnation is not there yet. Read more…

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NIMROD at Theatre of NOTE

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Wednesday, February 15th, 2023
Kirsten Vangsness. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Kirsten Vangsness. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Terry Morgan – Stage Raw

The Trump administration was noted for an almost Shakespearian level of hubris, and the world is still waiting with bated breath for the comeuppance we’ve always been told follows such behavior. Life always models itself after literature, right? For those of us who can’t wait for reality to accord with fiction, playwright Phinneas Kiyomura has crafted Nimrod, a most tragical comedy in which these matters are finally resolved. The world premiere of the play at Theatre of NOTE features a bravura turn by Kirsten Vangsness as the Orange One, and a talented ensemble, but although it’s amusing it doesn’t ultimately seem to have much of import to say. Read more…

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THE FIRST DEEP BREATH at Geffen Playhouse

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Monday, February 13th, 2023
Geffen, The First Deep Breath

Photo by Jeff Lorch

Terry Morgan – ArtsBeat LA

Plays in which family secrets are tragically revealed are nothing new – Oedipus and his mom were shocking audiences back as far as 429 BCE. In the U.S., the 500 lb. gorilla of this genre would be Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night, and the most influential of recent plays of this type is Tracy Letts’ August: Osage County. Playwright Lee Edward Colston II seems to have taken County as a stylistic inspiration for his play The First Deep Breath, which focuses on the many secrets that come out during a large family gathering. There is a lot to like about the Geffen Playhouse’s production, from a superb ensemble to Colston’s skill for humorous dialogue and dramatic moments, but unfortunately it’s also an overstuffed play and at its current running time of four hours it could perhaps use some judicious trimming. Read more…

Patrick Chavis – LA Theatre Bites

West Coast Premiere: The First Deep Breath @ Geffen Playhouse – Review. More…

Jonas Schwartz-Owen  – TheaterMania

At almost four hours, The First Deep Breath at the Geffen Playhouse is unwieldy — and not because audiences will not sit for an epic play. An earlier work this season, part one and part two of Matthew López’s The Inheritance, ran six and a half hours total and left audiences transfixed. And while Deep author Lee Edward Colston II has a knack for stirring monologues and humorously evocative exchanges, there are too many secrets, too many lies, too many dramas. It is the audience at the Geffen who is too exhausted to take deep breaths anymore. Read more…

 Deborah Klugman – Stage Raw

There are moments in Lee Edward Colston II’s family melodrama where one or another of the characters reflect on human behavior in an eloquent and/or meaningful way. These are moving moments when, watching intently, you think to yourself: I know so well what that person is talking about, and it is so very true. Such interludes, however, are too infrequently found in this sprawling ambitious work, whose text might benefit from pruning and whose current staging at Geffen Playhouse features missteps in casting, design and performance that undercut the play’s strengths. Read more…

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THE DRY YEARS at Ghost Road Theatre Company

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Wednesday, February 8th, 2023
Photo by Austin Crowley

Photo by Austin Crowley

Steven Leigh Morris – Stage Raw

There’s so much to recommend in Christine Breihan’s staging of John Guerra’s play, even though the work feels in need of one more pass to address some dramaturgical clutter.

Let’s start with the almost gothic beauty of a rural, drought-plagued California valley that has the mythology of the Wild West stamped all over it. This is luminously captured in Katrina Coulourides’ set featuring sun-bleached planks (that Breihan uses imaginatively as props and set pieces) and ramshackle wooden structures that speak to the harshness of the elements. Add to that an ensemble of solid performances. Read more…

Patrick Chavis – LA Theatre Bites

Ghost Road presents: The Dry Years @ Broadwater – 8.5 out of 10 – Great Show! More…

 

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STAGED at Laguna Playhouse

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Wednesday, February 8th, 2023
Rita Rudner and Mike McShane. Photo by Jason Niedle.

Rita Rudner and Mike McShane. Photo by Jason Niedle.

Dana Martin – Stage Raw

Not every new work is stage worthy. Laguna Playhouse’s new comedy Staged by Martin Bergman and Rita Rudner finds charm in fits and spurts but the world-premiere production is clunky and underwhelming…The play behaves and moves like an old-school sitcom, with the characters crafted in broad strokes. Both Fenella and Jarvis are vapid, self-absorbed narcissists who aren’t interested in anyone but themselves. There’s no learning, growing or changing happening with these two. The play’s scenic transitions are punctuated by podcast host Barry Broadway (Brian Lohmann), who is dedicated to Broadway gossip and incorrectly sensationalizes details of the pair’s ill-fated reunion (one of the more interesting aspects of the story). Read more…

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RIDE THE CYCLONE at Chance Theater

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Monday, February 6th, 2023
Photo by Doug Catiller, True Image Studio.

Photo by Doug Catiller, True Image Studio.

Patrick Chavis – Orange Curtain Review

Ironically, this might be the happiest story about death I have ever seen. The Chance Theater has transformed its stage area to look like some haunted carnival that time has forgotten in the middle of the county. To further the illusion, the show tickets look like tickets you would use at a carnival. The seating pattern in The Chance also facilitated the feeling of going to the carnival. Add a strong cast of singers and a goofy but clever script with a unique twist on the genre, and, well, I think you’ve got a hit. Read more…

 Katie Buenneke – Stage Raw

“Lip sync for your life!” RuPaul tells contestants every week on Drag Race. Ride the Cyclone, now making its California premiere at Chance Theater in Anaheim, makes a similar proclamation, impelling six dead teenagers to sing for a chance to leave the show’s carnival purgatory and survive the accident that killed them.

The story (book, music and lyrics by Brooke Maxwell and Jacob Richmond) introduces the audience to The Amazing Karnak (Robert Foran), our narrator and an animatronic fortune teller in the vein of Zoltar from Big.  Karnak explains that a group of five high schoolers rode the Cyclone rollercoaster at a Canadian amusement park, and the coaster failed, causing their deaths. Karnak offers them the chance to return to life if they provide a compelling enough reason for it. Because this is a musical, the teens interpret this as a chance to plead their case via song, offering self-contained supplications to survive. Read more…

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AND IF I DON’T BEHAVE THEN WHAT at Open Fist Theatre Company

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Friday, February 3rd, 2023
Cynthia Ettinger. Photo by Frank Ishman.

Cynthia Ettinger. Photo by Frank Ishman.

Steven Leigh Morris – Stage Raw

Brdar’s play isn’t a play in any traditional sense. It’s a poem. A one-woman confessional in 13 verses, starting with “Age 0” and culminating in “Age 78.” It’s almost a one-woman show performed by Cynthia Ettinger, except for the supporting characters (Carmella Jenkins, Howard Leder and Debba Rofheart) who step in nimbly to supplement the verse, sometimes speaking it as in a baton passed, or suggesting the characters to whom the central speaker, Woman, refers.

Each verse begins with what becomes a refrain: “My mother always said . . .” and weaves from there into all kinds of sometimes salient, sometimes idiotic counsel — sometimes getting Woman into ludicrous physical contortions… Read more…

 

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TOWARDS ZERO at Long Beach Playhouse

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Wednesday, February 1st, 2023
Milena Gotch, Jordan Brayboy, and Alex Piper. Photo by Mike Hardy.

Milena Gotch, Jordan Brayboy, and Alex Piper. Photo by Mike Hardy.

Lara Altunian – Stage Raw

Although it can be argued that a growing obsession with true crime may in part be responsible for the most recent revival of Agatha Christie’s work, there is no doubt that her detective fictions’ compelling twists make them visual treats easily transferable to theater and cinema. Jumping on the bandwagon is Long Beach Playhouse with their production of Towards Zero — a lesser-known tale than those of the famous Hercule Poirot, but still gnarled enough to keep the audience guessing until the end. Read more…

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KATRINA at Loft Ensemble

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Tuesday, January 31st, 2023
John Goodwin and Jessica Perkins. Photo by Paul Davis and Victoria Greenwood.

John Goodwin and Jessica Perkins. Photo by Paul Davis and Victoria Greenwood.

Socks Whitmore – Stage Raw

…KATRINA is a highly sensory play; from an excellently crafted hurricane soundscape to a backdrop cleverly painted to meld with the projections of a churning sea, the audience is encouraged to feel immersed in the storm. The recounting of Hurricane Katrina is communicated by footage, voice over, and the acted-out broadcasts of two newscasters. (A note for theatregoers: the seating arrangement will give those seated by the entrance a close-up view of these actors from behind.) The weatherperson and reporter step in and out of the fourth wall throughout the show, sometimes reporting live on the 2005 tragedy, and sometimes speaking directly to the audience about what it was like. All four talented Black actors that make up the cast are at their most powerful in their characters’ moments of greatest distress, but a favorite moment was the temporary levity during Nyla’s a capella solo “Give Me Some Blues” as she sang and danced with Dante. Read more…

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BLOOD SUPPLY: A Zombie Apocalypse Love Story at Theatre 68 Arts Complex – The Emerson

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Wednesday, January 25th, 2023
Photo by Rachel Gray

Photo by Rachel Gray

Socks Whitmore – Stage Raw

It’s not often the words “love” and “zombie” are paired together—and it’s even rarer to see them alongside the words “new musical.” Set one year after the onset of the dreaded zombie virus, Blood Supply: A Zombie Apocalypse Love Story is a folk rock saga that has populated the Emerson Theatre stage with its world premiere shamble. The two-act show follows Sadie, a blind woman who is left for dead by her fellow survivors after her father is turned, and the relationship she forms with Harold, a zombie microbiologist who uses his remarkable sentience to pass as a (sickly-looking) human. Meanwhile, a plot stirs at the junkyard where Sadie’s ex-gang ends up under the dictatorship of Alec Baldwin gone rogue. Blood Supply marks multi-hyphenate Holly Anne Mitchell’s playwriting debut, adding ever more unconventionalism to the production if you look at her background as a leadership coach, hypnotist, and former dentist. Mitchell notes that this production is dedicated to her late partner Evan and has deep connections to the personal and collective apocalypses from her own life experience. For her, this show is part of a healing process focused on themes of love and the urgency of life; “You never know what’s going to happen… you figure out what’s important, and love is important.” Read more…

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DO YOU FEEL ANGER? by Circle X Theatre Company

By LADCC critics · Comments (0)
Wednesday, January 25th, 2023
Napoleon Tavale, Paula Rebelo, and Rich Liccardo, Photo by Jeff Lorch.

Napoleon Tavale, Paula Rebelo, and Rich Liccardo, Photo by Jeff Lorch.

Patrick Chavis – LA Theatre Bites

Circle X Theatre Company’s West Coast premiere production of Do You Feel Anger? @ Atwater Village Theatre – 10 out of 10 – Masterpiece! LA THEATRE BITES RECOMMENDED. More…

Terry Morgan – Stage Raw

There’s a Cowboy Junkies song from 1993 called “Hunted,” which is about the ever-present threat of male violence in women’s lives, the refrain of which is: “Do you know what it’s like to be hunted?” It’s a terrifying song, and unfortunately is no less resonant today than it was 30 years ago. Mara Nelson-Greenberg’s play, Do You Feel Anger?, explores the dark side of the war between the sexes with great humor and a bit of surrealism but clearly gets across outrage that women still have to deal with this situation. The new production by Circle X at the Atwater Village Theatre is superb, bolstered greatly by vivid performances…Director Halena Kays gets high-energy work from her talented cast and adroitly achieves the tricky balance between humor and disquiet that the play requires. Read more…

Harker Jones – BroadwayWorld

Sexism and misogyny have been rampant for decades – centuries – no matter the context: social, private, or professional…Playwright Mara Nelson-Greenberg smartly and incisively takes on the topic of this disease in DO YOU FEEL ANGER?, now being performed at the Circle X Theatre Company in Atwater Village to explosive and thought-provoking results.

Nelson-Greenberg does a magnificent job of hitting the zeitgeist of the #MeToo movement with a fresh approach. Her script is complex and trenchant and edgy without being self-conscious about it. It has touches of absurdity a la Beckett (the male characters all but wear red noses they’re such clowns) but it is only half a step from reality, making the comedy that much more terrifying. She is masterful at skewering the toxic masculinity that infects even the most mediocre of men. It’s so instilled in so many that they can’t see it or understand it, which is exhibited uniquely through John, Jordan, and Howie, who are so emotionally stunted, they can’t identify an emotion let alone process one. Read more…

Katie Buenneke – Theatre Digest

This is a fairly new play by Mara Nelson-Greenberg that is, ostensibly, about a woman (Paula Rebelo) who comes in and teaches a collections office how to manage their emotions. But it’s really about how people navigate around male emotions, which often come out as anger. The text is too stylized for my taste, and I wondered who was supposed to be the intended audience of the play. Read more…

 

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