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Archive for The Antaeus Company

PICNIC at Antaeus Theatre Company

Photo by Karianne Flaathen

Photo by Karianne Flaathen

Les Spindle –  Edge on the Net

In its shimmering revival of William Inge’s steamy 1953 classic, “Picnic,” the classics-focused Antaeus Theatre Company serves up a theatrical feast. Read more…

David C. Nichols – LA Times

The intimacy of small-town life and its stifling limitations permeate “Picnic,” which the thoughtfully representative staging at Antaeus Theater Company underscores without telegraphing. Read more…

Jenny Lower – Stage Raw

About 15 minutes into Picnic, William Inge’s 1953 play about desire and repression in a small Kansas town, Hal (Jason Dechert), a free-spirited drifter wearing no shirt and glistening with sweat, struts over to a disapproving neighbor and her two virginal daughters, and asks, “Is it all right if I light a fire?” em>Read more…

Now running through August 16.

THE CURSE OF OEDIPUS at the Antaeus Company

oedMyron Meisel – The Hollywood Reporter

If you feel that the Oedipus myth starts with the riddle and ends with the cathartic revelation, that’s just the beginning: here Oedipus (Ramon de Ocampo) blinds himself with Jocasta’s (Rhonda Aldrich) earrings barely an hour into a nearly three-hour evening. Read more…

Terry Morgan  -  Stage Raw

One of the great things about the Antaeus Company is that its deep talent pool and expertise in classical theater allow the group to tackle ambitious projects. The new production of Kenneth Cavander’s The Curse of Oedipus is one such project, a play that uses Sophocles’ famed trilogy and other historical sources to reform the story anew. Casey Stangl’s vibrant staging of the 22-person ensemble results in a brilliant, must-see show.

Neal Weaver  – Arts In LA

The dark and bloody legend of King Oedipus inspired the ancient Greek dramatists to create many plays recounting his fate. In Sophocles’s tragedy Oedipus the King, we learn how he fled his home city, Corinth, to escape a terrible prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother. But instead of evading his fate, he runs headlong into it, unwittingly fulfilling the prophecy. Read more…

the_curse_of_oedipus_a_pNow running through  August 10.

TOP GIRLS at the Antaeus Company

latopgirlsTopGirlsDaniel-G-300x200 (1)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, and felt thrillingly immediate. They were of their time, yet they still scorch.  Read more…

Terry Morgan  -  Talkin’ Broadway

Top Girls, by Caryl Churchill, is a play considered a modern classic, but for some unknown reason it doesn’t seem to get produced very often. One would think there would be quite a lot of theatre companies looking for a play with plenty of interesting roles for women, but I’ve been reviewing theatre in L.A. since 1997, and this is the first time I’ve seen it done. Read more…

Myron Meisel – The Hollywood Reporter

The 1982 Top Girls starts with a loopily sustained tour de force: a dinner party to celebrate the elevation of Marlene (Rebecca Mozo) to a top management post at her London job placement firm at which the guests are all legendary prototypical women of centuries past. From the mythical 9th-century Pope Joan (Elizabeth Swain) to Lady Nijo (Kimiko Gelman), the 13th century concubine to the Japanese Emperor (and later itinerant Buddhist nun), to Griselda (Shannon Lee Clair), the prototypical obedient wife from Boccaccio, Petrarch, Chaucer and numerous operas, to Dull Gret (aka Mad Meg) (Abigail Marks), a folkloric Flemish peasant immortalized in the painting by Bruegel the Elder in 1562, and finally celebrity Victorian naturalist and explorer Isabella Bird (Karianne Flaathen), they comprise one helluva guest list. Read more.

Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly

In the famous first scene of Top Girls, Caryl Churchill’s 1982 play about gender and class, a group of celebrated women from history and literature gather at a restaurant for food, drink and convivial conversation. They arrive at the behest of Marlene (Sally Hughes and Rebecca Mozo, alternating in this double-cast production at Antaeus Company), the steely up-and-coming manager of a top-notch London employment agency and an enthusiastic supporter of Thatcherism, with its twin notions of free market and personal responsibility. Read more…

Now running through May 4.

Mrs Warren’s Profession, The Antaeus Company

Photo by Geoffrey Wade.

 

Mrs Warren’s Profession by George Bernard Shaw.

 

Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly

George Bernard Shaw made his case for women’s lib in this 1894 play involving the contentious struggle between an assertive young feminist and her brothel-managing mom. Educated at Cambridge, Vivie (Rebecca Mozo) exemplifies a new breed of woman who loves her work and is lukewarm to the attentions of various men. Read more…

 

 

Macbeth, The Antaeus Company

 

Macbeth by Shakespeare.

 

Dany Margolies – ArtsinLA

Are we, as an educated audience, expected to know exactly when Macbeth “turns”— when the pathologically evil ambition overtakes his soul? Or must the change in him be left open to interpretation? The answer may determine which cast to see in this double-cast production of Shakespeare’s “Scottish play,” illuminatingly directed by Jessica Kubzansky.  Read more…

 

Terry Morgan – LAist

Macbeth has never been my favorite Shakespeare play. I don’t have anything against it, but it’s never spoken to me in the way King Lear or Hamlet has, doesn’t have quite the flights of poetical brilliance. That being said, when the combined talents of the Antaeus Company take on a particular work, it’s always worthy of one’s time. The new production of Macbeth is expertly done, highlighted by Jessica Kubzansky’s deft direction and superb performances from its two lead actors.  Read more…

 

Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA

In Shakespeare’s macabre and unsettling tragedy, a ruthlessly ambitious Scottish general seizes the throne with the help of his scheming wife and guidance from a trio of witches. He then commits further murders to maintain a tenuous grip on his newly won power.  Adopting an unusual approach, director Jessica Kubzansky opens her production of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, now running at the Antaeus classical theater Company, with a scene not scripted by The Bard.  Read more…

 

David C. Nichols – Back Stage

The dagger strokes of Macbeth at the Antaeus Company convey vaulting ambition but variable horror. Director Jessica Kubzansky’s intelligent, evocative take on Shakespeare’s daunting tragedy of treason and the supernatural is sensible to feeling as well as to sight, up to a point.  Read more…