WISH I HAD A SYLVIA PLATH: 88% – SWEET
LemonMeter | Mar 22, 2011 | Comments 0 |
SWEET
Nonetheless, it’s a show not be missed, whether you’re a theatre techie, an acting nut, or simply a person who wants to see a show that teaches an important lesson, which is that death is most certainly not the end of life.
Joshua Morrison – FineArtsLA
SWEET
Davidson, in a full-skirted red dress, can best be thought of as an after-life projection. She doesn’t look like Plath, (which doesn’t matter) or have the sense of suffering. The piece, directed by Matthew McCray, has pace and holds the audience to the final scene when Esther coyly dances as if it were all a game. The end, when her rage builds and finally explodes satisfyingly gets us where we were headed all the time.
Laura Hitchcock – CurtainUp
SWEET
Wish I had a Sylvia Plath is a lovechild of a play that has obviously grown into being such a great production from all the efforts and hard work from the cast and crew. A must see!
Jennifer Fordyce – Socal.com
BITTERSWEET
Amy Davidson assays the role of Esther, commanding the stage well enough, but shrieking a little too much for my liking. I fault director Matthew McCray with not reining her in and guiding her to a more theatre of the absurd approach. Sure, the bulk of the play is Esther lamenting about life’s shortcomings, but the Davidson-McCray team needs to find the comic irony in the writing. Ms. Davidson is certainly a committed and skilled actress, she just needs to get more tuned in to the comedy of the piece.
Robert Axelrod – Reviewplays
SWEET
Something’s cooking over at the Lounge Theatre and it smells a lot like a well-done Sylvia Plath. Add an absurd combination of a talking oven, an adulterous husband, a couple of demanding kids, and a hallucinogenic cooking show to a clever but risky premise in the last moments leading up to Sylvia Plath’s suicide and you’re left with a sizzling, embittered poet on a hotplate.
M.R. Hunter – EyeSpyLA
SWEET
The production’s virtues lie in Davidson’s effervescent performance and its technical accomplishments. Its larger purpose lies in wait.
Steven Leigh Morris – LA Weekly
BITTER
But Esther’s conversations—at first with her oven, which Davidson voices in squeaks, then with the audience, and then again with the oven—are surprisingly devoid of import, or poetry, nor are they particularly entertaining, except perhaps to the opening-weekend claques. Davidson offers little assistance, instead plying a grab bag of bad acting clichés.
Dany Margolies – Backstage
SWEET
The show was fascinating, surprising and imaginative, working with a fantastical but consistent logic that at once brought humor and terror to the subject matter. Both the writing and overall direction are some of the most original work I’ve seen in the past year.
Erin Daley – LA Theatre Review
SWEET
This disturbing story will leave you in shivers.
Cindy Kyungah Lee – Campus Circle
“Wish I had a Sylvia Plath”
Presented by Rogue Machine Theatre
The Lounge Theatre
6201 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood
Through April 17th
For reservations call (855) 585-5185
Filed Under: LemonMeter
About the Author: We don’t “review” shows here at the Lemon, rather we "review" reviews by gathering them from a variety of local review sites around the internet, judging them to be positive or negative, then forming an aggregate score that we call a LEMONMETER RATING, showing how well that show has been reviewed in total. For more detail on how the LemonMeter works visit here.
