Author Archive for LemonMeter
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.
A MIDSUMMER SATURDAY NIGHT’S FEVER DREAM (TROUBIES): 88% – SWEET
SWEET Even by the Troubies’ typically reliable comic standards, this commedia dell’arte-infused mash-up of classical lit and pop culture is an exceptionally hilarious and energetic romp. Philip Brandes – LA Times BITTERSWEET The current incarnation, once again helmed by Troubie founder Matt Walker, is more polished than the original but less surprising and not as [...]
ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI…: 100% – SWEET
SWEET Nonetheless, the vivid humor, ironic reversals and the larger implications hold us, right through to the bittersweet fade-out. Director Carl Cofield keeps things tautly entertaining on designer Stephanie Kerley Schwartz’s excellent set, and his actors (with alternates), who express rather than mimic their real-life counterparts, are first-rate. David C. Nichols – LA Times SWEET [...]
BOB: A LIFE IN FIVE ACTS: 80% – SWEET
SWEET Go see it by any means possible. If you have to drag yourself there with nothing but two arms and determination, and must collect the price of admission from fallen change, do it. This is one of the finest productions in Los Angeles this year, and I must recommend the viewing of it to [...]
BEAUTIFUL: 87% – SWEET
BITTERSWEET Directed by Geoff Rivas on a stark proscenium, with shifts in time and place well-illustrated by Patsy McCormack’s crystallizing videography, this is a promising work that still needs pruning, polish and a pacing adjustment. Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly SWEET If, after sharing Marie’s harrowing experiences and luminous catharsis, you still (like me) can’t [...]
THE TAMING OF THE SHREW (THEATRICUM BOTANICUM): 100% – SWEET
SWEET This rip-roaring take on William Shakespeare’s ever-popular romantic comedy opens the 40th anniversary season at this incomparable outdoor venue with marvelous forward momentum. David C. Nichols – LA Times SWEET While this particular venue may be difficult to get to, it’s more than worth it. The location is beautiful, the people are friendly and [...]
IONESCOPADE (ODYSSEY THEATRE): 95% – SWEET
SWEET In a culminating scene, the entire ensemble drops dead, one by one, of a mysterious plague — humorously exaggerated deaths that elicit raucous laughter. That juxtaposition of the comical and the catastrophic is Ionesco’s gift, prettily packaged here in Ricin-laced wrappings. F. Kathleen Foley – LA Times SWEET Perhaps the greatest attribute of Castellino’s [...]
TO BEGIN THE WORLD OVER AGAIN: THE LIFE OF THOMAS PAINE: 90% – SWEET
SWEET So nuanced and layered is Ruskin’s performance, and so enlightening is his script, it’s as if Paine has been brought to back life just to speak to us. Ben Miles – Showmag BITTERSWEET Despite director Shanga Parker’s seductive stage polish (including Sarah Nash Gates’ period-perfect costuming) and Ruskin’s own amiable and engaging stage presence, [...]
NEXT TO NORMAL (LA MIRADA THEATRE): 100% – SWEET
SWEET Although it has a valiant laugh or two, “Normal” is serious business, and director Nick DeGruccio, aided by Darryl Archibald’s marvelous musical direction, handles his trust with unerring skill and compassion. It helps that the technical elements are Broadway caliber. But it’s the show’s crack ensemble, spearheaded by the gutsy Malone, that makes this [...]
SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE (PASADENA PLAYHOUSE): 62% – BITTERSWEET
BITTER The 1993 romantic comedy “Sleepless in Seattle” has been turned into a stage musical that can best be described as pointless in Pasadena. Robert Hofler – Variety SWEET Artistic director of the Playhouse, Sheldon Epps, directs his cast adroitly around John Iacovelli’s multilevel set populated with projections and moving wagons. It’s a Broadway musical, [...]
PRISCILLA, QUEEN OF THE DESERT: THE MUSICAL: 88% – SWEET
SWEET In fact, the dogged professionalism of the production may both underlie its shortcoming of vision and be its saving grace. The actors, all seasoned veterans, know how to hold the stage and impart the necessary emotional information with broad clarity and touching skill, though depth is pointedly avoided. For a show that is amply [...]
A FRIED OCTOPUS: 67% – BITTERSWEET
BITTER In Fried, the creators make the mistake that this popcorn-type effect of topic jumping and oblique callbacks can work on the stage. Maybe it can, but here it is the opposite of effective. It doesn’t work because we’re not all in the same headspace as those who created it, and no effort is made [...]
THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS (AHMANSON): 90% – SWEET
BITTER With “Scottsboro,” it doesn’t help that Stroman has pushed her actors, as she did on Broadway, to perform minstrel as if they were in a high-school production, as if egregiously over-the-top bad acting would indicate the genre’s inherent awfulness. It’s curious how a director could make us laugh at the soulless gay characters in [...]
ATTACK OF THE ROTTING CORPSES (ZOMBIE JOE): 100% – SWEET
SWEET Attack Of The Rotting Corpses is a fun ride. It’s a comedy horror mash-up that will shock you, only to have you beg for more. Spencer Cotter – The_Detective SWEET The whole show’s a riot, both very funny and, in a couple of key moments, truly scary as well. (Gross, too, of course, so [...]
HEART SONG: 81% – SWEET
SWEET Boasting top-notch direction from Shirley Jo Finney and a resplendent cast, Heart Song is a life-affirming poem that must be experienced at the Fountain Theatre through July 14. Don Grigware – BroadwayWorld SWEET The play, itself, was so both funny and sad at the same time. Sachs deserves kudos for being able to effectively [...]
BE A GOOD LITTLE WIDOW (OLD GLOBE): 78% – SWEET
SWEET A wonderfully austere Christine Estabrook had the Old Globe audience gasping and laughing at Hope’s audacity. As we will find in this comedy that tailspins into a drama, there’s more to Hope than disapproval of the marriage and the tasteless decor. John Todd – Stage and Cinema SWEET The dialogue sometimes comes off as [...]
AT THE FLASH: 100% – SWEET
SWEET This is a show that makes its point with humor but also searing and truthful vision. Catch this if you can. Highly recommended. Robert Machray – Stagehappenings SWEET Most of Leeper’s characters have trodden a well-worn road. If that road veered in unexpected directions, At the Flash would be great. Because of Leeper’s individuated [...]
MAHMOUD: 83% – SWEET
SWEET The freshest and funniest material — aided by Davis’ smart and brisk staging — belongs to the 11-year-old Tara and her fixation on somehow mitigating the physical differences between her own dark complexion and that of her class’s most popular blond, blue-eyed girl. Bill Raden – LA Weekly BITTERSWEET Despite duo Fringe kudos, there [...]
FOOL FOR LOVE (T.U. STUDIOS): 83% – SWEET
SWEET Chad Doreck and Lauren Plaxco deeply and thoroughly inhabit the unhinged yearning and raw sexuality between Eddie and May with the kind of intensity and deep connection to each other that will grab you from the beginning and leave you begging for more of their story when the play ends. Shari Barrett – BroadwayWorld [...]
COOPERSTOWN: 89% – SWEET
BITTERSWEET Director Darryl Johnson seems to hope we’ll sail over these logical gaps on the power of catharsis alone, but we could use a little more help from Golden. Robinson may be destined to be a metaphor forever, but another draft or two could help these promising characters escape a similar fate. Margaret Gray – [...]
THE FANTASTICKS (SOUTH COAST REP): 94% – SWEET
SWEET Purists may howl — I noted scattered walkouts at intermission — but that’s their loss, because ultimately this ingenious revival is enchanting. David C. Nichols – LA Times SWEET Tricks and illusions give ‘Fantasticks’ magical new life. Paul Hodgins – OC Register SWEET It’s easy to see why The Fantasticks is the longest running [...]
DYING CITY: 89% – SWEET
SWEET Directed by Michael Peretzian and starring Laurie Okin and Burt Grinstead, the production serves Shinn’s drama admirably. The acting is as meticulously observed as it is emotionally tense. And though confined to a cramped room, the staging fluidly handles the shifts of time and situation. Charles McNulty – LA Times SWEET The ambiguities that [...]
OPENING NIGHT (THEATRE 40): 91% – SWEET
SWEET The entire fiasco offers an evening of laughter throughout, and all of the actors prove their comedic talent. Former Canadian actor Bruce Gray directs. Carol Kaufman Segal – Reviewplays SWEET The show beamed with brilliance… from the direction, acting, and writing. Even the set decorators were deserving of applause, proving yet again, what Theatre [...]
THE CRUCIBLE (ANTAEUS): 97% – SWEET
BITTERSWEET As for the differing styles of delivery, it’s a brave theatrical device, but it was used for one of the few plays I know that doesn’t need deconstructionist staging. It’s like chipping away at some of the marble on Michelangelo’s David to display it in a smaller museum. Yes, there were moments that I [...]
CHESS (EAST WEST PLAYERS): 60% – BITTERSWEET
SWEET There’s much more to say about this vivid production, but its best left to experience yourself. There are things here and there that were different from previous productions of the show (“Someone Else’s Story” and “Pity the Child” are both moved to the first act, albeit fairly effectively) and the love story needed a [...]
TRUE WEST (STAGES OF GRAY): 33% – BITTER
BITTER However, I felt this project was just too ambitious for this new theater company. I want a large stage for Shepard’s plays; there exhausting and I feel you need the space between the actors and the audience. Gray tried to use too different casts one with a traditional approach and one group more edgy. [...]
RICHARD III (ZOMBIE JOE’S): 75% – BITTERSWEET
SWEET Zombie Joe’s Underground Theatre, is a small black box theater but they can put on Shakespeare with the best of them. Spencer Cotter – The_Detective BITTERSWEET The basics are there, but if you aren’t familiar with the story and the relationships, it isn’t always easy to distinguish one character from another. This can be [...]
THE SIZE OF PIKE (MOVING ARTS): 100% – SWEET
SWEET Boys will be boys and men will be men, though the distinction between the two is more likely one of personal income rather than emotional maturity. Or so it is with the three middle-aged children (Dennis Delsing, Jon Amirkhan and Gregg Christie) who explore their frayed adult bonds in this engaging revival of playwright [...]
THE WOMEN (THEATRE WEST): 90% – SWEET
SWEET The women created by Clare Boothe Luce may have been born a century or more ago, but her comedy classic remains as sharply-clawed and freshly-mascaraed as if it had been written just last week. Those requiring proof positive of the above need only check out the entertaining revival confectioned by The Women Of Theatre [...]
THE MATCHMAKER (ACTORS CO-OP): 100% – SWEET
SWEET With a whopping cast of 14 nutty actors darting on and off the stage, there are many belly laughs, and countless twists n’ turns to follow. Pat Taylor – Tolucan Times SWEET In a season that has included a brilliantly reconceived The World Goes Round and superbly acted revivals of Agatha Christie’s And Then [...]
THE NORTH PLAN: 67% – BITTERSWEET
SWEET The North Plan written by Jason Wells and directed by David Fofi presented by Elephant Theatre Company in its Los Angeles Premiere is a fast-paced, overlapping dialogue, prodigious show with wonderful performances by an astonishing cast who will have you on the edge of your seat! And the ending will have you begging for [...]
