Dany Margolies – Arts In LA Most Westerners of a certain age, certainly most Catholics, recall the startling day in 1978 when we learned that Pope John Paul I had died 33 days after the puff of white smoke announced his election to the papacy. Very few people, if anyone, knew the exact cause of … Read more
Bob Verini – Arts In LA Steven Drukman’s Death of the Author is, hands down, one of the very best plays of the year. A mystery wrapped within a psychological portrait gallery within a stinging critique of academic politics, it satisfies on every level during its completely gripping 90 minutes. Angelenos lucky enough to catch it at … Read more
Terry Morgan – Stage Raw Theatre West’s “Writers in Rep” program provides a great opportunity for playwrights, giving two new plays a repertory slot in the season. These are coveted full productions that spotlight new works. Unfortunately, one of these plays, Charlie Mount’s Against The Wall, a comedy about comedians, doesn’t fulfill its humorous promise. I … Read more
Myron Meisel – The Hollywood Reporter A Delicate Balance (1967) won the Pulitzer Prize shamefully denied Edward Albee for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. Spiky, stilted and maybe maddening to many, it was probably the most abstruse honoree at that point in the award’s history. Albee managed the difficult feat of being muskily dated and vanguardishly visionary … Read more
Terry Morgan – Stage Raw “We swirl about in a vortex of beastliness,” wrote Noël Coward in his 1924 drama The Vortex. True enough. While this story of selfish socialites being forced to acknowledge the effects of their actions hasn’t retained its scandalous reputation, the enjoyable new production at the Malibu Playhouse demonstrates that it still … Read more
BobVerini – Arts In LA The premise of Benjamin Brand’s Taste, as the management of Sacred Fools Theater Company has been unabashedly eager to trumpet in preopening publicity, is a compact made between two men to meet for dinner, at which the guest is to be killed, butchered, cooked, and eaten by the host in what … Read more
Terry Morgan – Stage Raw One thing the theater is particularly good at is exploring the ramifications of an argument, be it interpersonal, philosophical or political: Simply look at the works of George Bernard Shaw or David Hare. Hugh Whitemore’s take on the subject of the validity of Christianity or any religion is called God Only … Read more
Terry Morgan – Stage Raw Sometimes a great concept is enough to power a play, such as the backwards structure of Harold Pinter’s Betrayal or the three plays intersecting simultaneously in Alan Ayckbourn’s The Norman Conquests. It doesn’t hurt that those works mentioned also benefited from strong writing, acting and direction. Classic Couples Counseling, a world premiere at the … Read more
Pauline Adamek – Stage Raw During the ‘greed is good’ ‘80s and the tumultuous era of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, London-born playwright Caryl Churchill informed her scathing political satires with an examination of feminist themes — challenging and charting the evolving notions of gender and sexuality in the workplace. Her plays were bold, different, … Read more
Steven Leigh Morris – LA Weekly A quartet of Big Idea plays has opened over the past two weeks, exploring the intersections of art, psychology and history. Sarah Ruhl’s Passion Play, co-presented by the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble and Evidence Room, has been around since at least 2005, with productions at Arena Stage in Washington, Chicago’s … Read more