Bob Verini – Arts In LA Rogue Machine has turned itself into the go-to organization for provocative two-handers. If Rajiv Joseph’s Gruesome Playground Injuries lacks the dread of 2011’s Blackbird or the contemporary relevance of 2013’s Dying City, this production, directed by Larissa Kokernot, demonstrates anew the Pico Boulevard company’s knack for finding something precious in the confrontation of one … Read more
Sharon Perlmutter – Talkin’ Broadway I’ll be honest: what initially appealed to me about Independent Shakespeare Co.’s Romeo & Juliet was that it condensed the play. The play is performed with only eight actors. Some of the actors double up on roles; sometimes the lines of one character have been given to another. Thus, for example, Benvolio … Read more
Myron Meisel – The Hollywood Reporter Possibly his most recognized work, Noel Coward’s screenplay for David Lean’s 1945 British film Brief Encounter, with its proper and decent married lovers resolutely resisting adultery, was indubitably the adult romance of its time, with the swells of Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto counterpointing the personal sacrifice of ardor for order … Read more
Dany Margolies – Arts In LA Dawn King’s play is set in Britain, in the near future. As with all good literature, it’s meant to represent the here and now. So when an inspector arrives at a struggling farm, interrogating the farmers too inappropriately and searching the home too thoroughly, a certain Notorious Safety Administration … Read more
Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA Almost immediately after the central protagonist Maggie (Jennifer Pollono) bustles onto the stage, pretty soon she’s letting fly a string of profanity. We are abruptly dropped into playwright John Pollono’s milieu, inhabited by working class New Hampshire types who are struggling to make ends meet.Read more… Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly … Read more
Bob Verini – ArtsInLA The first extended run of the tuner A Man of No Importance is a matter of some importance, as it inaugurates—in this era of folding companies and theaters in transit—a new enterprise: the Good People Theater Company, under the direction of the gifted veteran stager-choreographer Janet Miller. Taking on the countervailing winds (money … Read more
Slipping by David Talbott. Sharon Perlmutter – Talkinbroadway.com There is much to admire about the writing, and directing, of the Rattlestick production of Daniel Talbott’s Slipping. On a scene-by-scene basis, Talbott has a true gift for realistic dialogue; and, when directing his own work, he knows exactly where the pauses ought to go, to make for true-to-life … Read more
I’ll Be Back Before Midnight by Peter Colley. Sharon Perlmutter – TalkinBroadway.com I’ll Be Back Before Midnight is the sort of play that screams “regional theatre staple.” A four-character comic thriller, it doesn’t try to be anything more than what it is: a sometimes funny, sometimes jump-inducing diversion. In its Los Angeles premiere production at the Colony Theatre, it … Read more
Cassiopeia by David Wiener. Sharon Perlmutter – TalkinBroadway.com David Wiener’s Cassiopeia is beautiful, intelligent, and delightful to listen to. To be sure, it isn’t much of a play. The script itself calls the piece a “duet,” which does seem a bit closer to the truth. It’s two poetic monologues, inextricably intertwined and occasionally interspersed with an actual scene. Read more…
Blue/Orange by Joe Penhall. Sharon Perlmutter – TalkinBroadway.com I’ve been waiting for a Los Angeles production of Joe Penhall’s Blue/Orange ever since it won a bunch of awards in London back in 2000-2001. It’s a dark little piece about race, the human condition, degrees of insanity, and the way our own perceptions and biases influence our reality. Sort of an Oleanna by … Read more