Bob Verini – ArtsInLA Gina Gionfriddo’s Rapture, Blister, Burn is a report from the feminist front. Folded within a thin narrative is a lot of intriguing conversation, which in the course of two acts brings out numerous perspectives on what women do (and should) need and what they do (and should) want. The talk is … Read more
Terry Morgan – LAist If, as the old adage has it, “you can’t go home again,” then that truth deserves another, which is that wherever you’re from is always with you. Regardless of the relative importance of nature or nurture, the past is an umbilical cord that is never completely cut. This idea is dealt … Read more
Terry Morgan – LAist When one thinks of Arthur Miller’s body of work, one doesn’t immediately think “chronicler of Italian-American experience,” but with A View From The Bridge, he revealed a further breadth of his talent. The lead characters of most of Miller’s plays are imperfect men, from Willy Loman and John Proctor, and Eddie … Read more
Pauline Adamek – LA Weekly Sequels are tough. Expectations are generally high and you can never attain the novelty factor of the first outing. Writer-director Jaime Robledo’s Watson and the Dark Art of Harry Houdini, the second installment in his Watson series, is less dazzling (far fewer action set-pieces) and more talky than the first … Read more
Bob Verini – ArtsInLA If you revel in fine actors’ pushing the envelope of what performance can do, or have an interest in investigating important historical experience via theatrical means, this ungainly-named but unforgettable work is *the* production of the summer, just as Son of Semele’srecently closed Our Class was *the* production of the spring. In both, a … Read more
THE CRUCIBLE by Arthur Miller. Neal Weaver – LA Weekly Arthur Miller’s play, first produced on Broadway in 1953, was Miller’s impassioned response to McCarthyism and the witch-hunts launched by the House Un-American Activities Committee. But the fact that it has become an oft-produced American classic and the basis for two films (including a French version with … Read more
Neverwhere by Robert Kauzlaric, adapted from the novel written by Neil Gaiman. Pauline Adamek – LA Weekly After assisting a distraught and injured woman named Door (Paula Rhodes), a milquetoast office worker named Richard (Bryan Bellomo) embarks on a journey that draws him into a fantastical subterranean world that lies beneath London. Neil Gaiman’s Wizard of Oz-esque story promises a … Read more
French Stewart, TV star (“3rd Rock From the Sun”) and local theatre mainstay (“Stoneface”: “Voice Lessons”) will host the 44th Annual Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle (LADCC)Awards on Monday, March 18, 2013 at the Los Angeles Theatre Center, 514 S. Spring St. Downtown. Tickets for the show and opening reception, which will start at 6:30 pm, can be reserved by e-mailing crixawards2013@gmail.com. All … Read more
Intimate Apparel by Lynn Nottage. Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA A persuasive melodrama, Intimate Apparel is perhaps Lynn Nottage’s best known play, although she won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Ruined in 2009. Written and first staged at Center Stage in Baltimore almost ten years ago, Intimate Apparel has a pleasing contemporary relevance. Although Nottage’sdrama is set in New York City in 1905, in the love letter romance … Read more
Bad Apples by Jim Leonard. Terry Morgan – LAist.com Circle X Theatre Co. has been one of the best theatre companies in Los Angeles for fifteen years now. One thing the company has never lacked for is ambition, and this admirable quality is on display in their current world premiere, Bad Apples. It’s a musical concerning the Abu … Read more