Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly The marital problems of an upper-middle-class couple (with particular focus on the vague discontent of an adulterous wife) are the stuff of soap opera. Read more… Jonas Schwartz – TheaterMania Broadway director John Rando brings the witty comedy Big Sky to the Geffen with a talented cast and a script that plays on conventions of … Read more
Jonas Schwartz – TheaterMania Sandra Tsing Loh has a lot to say about menopause and the suffering and confusion it causes for women. The award-winning essayist’s first play, The Madwoman in the Volvo, reveals very personal travails, but does it in a superficial way, so that the audience cannot always identify with her or understand the … Read more
Jenny Lower – LA Weekly More than any contemporary playwright who comes to mind, Sarah Ruhl’s characters inhabit worlds wholly her own. Even when she adopts a historical setting, as with In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play), her lyrical sensibility fashions heightened realities, where a house of string or a dead man’s perpetually ringing … Read more
Bob Verini – Stage Raw Let’s start by talking about the song, and if you’re reading about Dreamgirls you already know what song I mean. It’s the one that everyone’s always waiting for, the one that practically single-handedly justifies a revival of the Tom Eyen-Henry Krieger-Michael Bennett 60s pop musical in and of itself. It stands as … Read more
Myron Meisel – Stage Raw I remember, back when young and impecunious, sneaking into the house during first intermission to catch the last two acts of Harvey Fierstein’s Torch Song Trilogy, only to be so smitten that I returned the following day to buy a ticket to see the first act and stay again for the … Read more
Margaret Gray – LA Times It could be the setup for a Harlequin romance: A beautiful novelist curls on a couch in a bed-and-breakfast in rural Michigan, proofreading a manuscript, completely alone. Heavy snow has deterred other guests, and even the proprietor has been called away on family business. Read more… Jonas Schwartz – Theatermania Laura … Read more
Jonas Schwartz – TheaterMania God has returned to earth and borrowed Sean Hayes’ body to impart wisdom to the audience at the Ahmanson Theatre and deliver an updated 10 Commandments for the new millennium. Playwright David Javerbaum hilariously skewers humanity’s assumptions about God’s purpose using the popular TV comedian Hayes as a perfect vessel. Read more… Deborah Klugman … Read more
Bob Verini – Variety The stunningly appointed “Empire The Musical,” world premiering at La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts (and no relation to the hit Fox series), gains strength from the entire company’s shared desire to erect the unprecedentedly tall Empire State Building, in stubborn defiance of the Great Depression. Alas, authors Caroline Sherman and Robert … Read more
Myron Meisel – Stage Raw …Will Eno’s acclaimed Thom Pain (based on nothing) arrives in Los Angeles after a decade of playing virtually everywhere else. Read more… Jonas Schwartz – TheaterMania Thom Pain is antagonistic toward his audience. He shouts at them, starts tangents that he suddenly drops, draws seemingly interminable pauses, and rambles on about stories that lead … Read more
Bob Verini – Stage Raw The committed theatergoer, confronted with the prospect of a play set in Ireland, may well inquire, “First of all, is it one of the light ones or one of the dark ones?” Read more… Jonas Schwartz – TheaterMania Outside Mullingar feels like a memory play of the distant past that is set … Read more