All Entries in the "LemonMeter" Category
CALIFORNIA DREAMIN’: 67% – BITTERSWEET
BITTERSWEET However, the show sometimes resembles an American College Theatre Festival entry on LSD. That’s understandable, given the property’s identity issues, here a sociological treatise, there a psychological study of attracted opposites. “California Dreamin’” warrants attention, also further rewrites. David C. Nichols – LA Times SWEET Director L. Flint Esquerra’s production is brisk and faithful, [...]
IF WE ARE WOMEN (LONNY CHAPMAN THEATRE): 80% – SWEET
BITTER Given Glass’ track record, one suspects that “If We Are Women,” first produced in 1993, also contains hidden virtues. But in its current staging at Group Rep’s Lonny Chapman Theatre, director Sherry Netherland and an uninspired cast obscure the material’s potential under a thick layer of inexpertise. F. Kathleen Foley – LA Times BITTERSWEET [...]
ROOMS: A ROCK ROMANCE: 100% – SWEET
SWEET Taken together, they weave a story that’s sweet but not saccharine, quirky but not strange, and just offbeat enough to capture and keep our attention. Eric Marchese – Backstage SWEET The burgeoning punk music scene of the late 1970s provides the setting for the Outer Critics Circle Award-nominated ROOMS: a rock romance, whose exhilarating [...]
PLANE TALK: 83% – SWEET
SWEET Give yourself a treat and spend an evening with 29 unusual and comedic characters in the recent production of Plane Talk at SkyPilot Theater in NoHo. Geri Rhosen – NoHoArtsDistrict BITTERSWEET Here’s a collection of brief, one-act plays set in airports and airplanes, and while some of the mostly comic pieces are first-class in [...]
THREE YEAR SWIM CLUB: 75% – BITTERSWEET
SWEET All of these elements come together to warm your heart so powerfully that you may feel it has vacationed in Maui. Margaret Gray – LA Times SWEET Still, there’s something particularly special about the theatricality of East West Players’ delightful live staging. As both history lesson and losers-turned-winners tale, Three Year Swim Club works [...]
NEW JERUSALEM: 60% – BITTERSWEET
BITTER Breathing life into those ideas, however, requires performers who understand them. Setting aside flubbed lines, cadences and delivery frequently do not reflect a good handle on their meaning. Instead, emotional peaks arrive at arbitrary overacted moments, with insignificant sound and fury. Philip Brandes – LA Times BITTERSWEET Ives strives to make the theological debate [...]
THE FALL TO EARTH: 78% – SWEET
SWEET “Fall” is an earlier play; its hairpin turns feel less organic and therefore less credible. Nevertheless, the production offers an occasion for its predominantly female creative team, led by Larsen, Williams and co-producer Roxanne Hart, to unleash their vivid talents. Charlotte Stoudt – LA Times BITTER Unfortunately it was a disappointment: while the acting [...]
THE JACKSONIAN: 76% – SWEET
SWEET In the meantime, there are five wildly original performances to dazzle and darken your imagination. They’re an extreme group, but under Falls’ peerless guidance, they blend together in that unhinged Southern way that is Beth Henley’s specialty. Charles McNulty – LA Times BITTERSWEET A marvelous cast and moments of sidesplitting humor make for an [...]
THE COST OF THE ERECTION: 60% – BITTERSWEET
SWEET Now comes the provocatively titled “The Cost of the Erection,” a sly and sophisticated portrait of marital strife that combines the scintillating wit of a Noël Coward drawing-room comedy with the darker undercurrents of an Edward Albee drama. Director Daniel Henning’s stylish West Coast–premiere staging bristles with sardonic humor and startling character revelations. Les [...]
MINE: 67% – BITTERSWEET
BITTERSWEET Brunstetter has a gift for pointing out the underlying, unspoken conversations that make seemingly casual exchanges so awkward. Often, both men are on the stage, or in the bed, when Annie is “really” with only one. But director Dep Kirkland possibly overdoes the pensive silences and uneasy glances; the production has a muted, hesitant [...]
BUDDHA: A FANTASTIC JOURNEY: 76% – SWEET
BITTERSWEET Solo performance can never get too personal — the more it intimately exposes, the more it draws us in. Right now Brenner seems to be embodying his Buddhist story better than he is telling it. Charles McNulty – LA Times SWEET His conversational style, in concert with an unpretentious script and good direction by [...]
DISSONANCE: 90% – SWEET
BITTERSWEET Once the emphasis shifts to emotional interactions, things get marginally more interesting. But under Crispin Whittell’s rote direction, the actors fail to adequately humanize their curiously flat characters. F. Kathleen Foley – LA Times SWEET Still, the juxtaposition of artistic temperament and devotion to art is neatly captured in “Dissonance.” Melinda Schupmann – Backstage [...]
TWENTIETH CENTURY (SIERRA MADRE PLAYHOUSE): 86% – SWEET
BITTER Though director Michael Lorre and his solid cast manage more than a few shining moments, the story feels stale and the ham-fisted comedy never hits its requisite screwball stride. Amy Lyons – LA Weekly SWEET Twentieth Century gives the venerable Sierra Madre Playhouse one of its best productions ever, and if you’ve never visited [...]
MAN OF LA MANCHA (CARPENTER CENTER): 100% – SWEET
SWEET Yet the net effect, aided by Steven Young’s invaluable lighting and Cathleen Edwards’ Goya-esque costumes, coordinated by Todd Proto, is gripping. So subjective, deeply personal a reading will have its detractors, but it left this reviewer invigorated, with both eyes trained toward the unreachable stars. David C. Nichols – LA Times SWEET Director Nick [...]
SIDETRACKED: 67% – BITTERSWEET
BITTER At the opening-night performance, some actors looked uncomfortable as they were clumped upstage, waiting to pick up their cues while jokes crashed and leaden pacing prevailed. Adding to the muddle were the numerous instances of fluffed lines by one lead player, who corrected his dialogue so frequently that a better title for this world-premiere [...]
OLD WICKED SONGS (COLONY THEATRE): 100% – SWEET
SWEET Towey is as eloquent in his silences as in his speech and acts with unforced authority. Danz provides a wonderfully prideful foil. Together they produce potent theater magic. Neal Weaver – Backstage SWEET Towey and Danz are actor-musicians at the top of their game, and Old Wicked Songs is intimate musical dramedy at its [...]
THE INDIANS ARE COMING TO DINNER: 90% – SWEET
SWEET This is a delightful play, sparkling with humorous dialogue and rib-tickling situations but at the same time, rife with a humanity that will, to use an applicable, old cliché, tug at your heartstrings. Ingrid Wilmot – Will Call BITTERSWEET Boasting some winning one-liners and artful emotional interactions, Rowland’s play teems with complex themes and [...]
BRILLIANT TRACES (LOUNGE THEATRE 2): 87% – SWEET
SWEET Fortunately, director John Hindman and his talented performers unearth the fraught emotionalism beneath the inscrutable exchanges. Wagner displays real depth, but it is the indescribably unusual Ferrer who fascinates in a haunting turn that should be seen. F. Kathleen Foley – LA Times BITTERSWEET Compelling at key junctures, the reiterative script comes packed with [...]
GOD OF CARNAGE (ICT): 100% – SWEET
SWEET The International City Theatre puts on stylish and stunningly sleek productions, and “God of Carnage” is no exception. The cast is first-rate. Earnest Kearney – Working Author SWEET While the discussions and negotiations are obviously doomed from the start, and the destruction of the spouses’ efforts is just as obviously inevitable, Desai and company [...]
FINDING FOSSILS: 83% – SWEET
SWEET A grown son attempts to reconnect with his crotchety old man in Ty DeMartino’s first-rate dramedy Finding Fossils, a three-actor one-act which transcends soap opera through the playwright’s gift for believable dialog and a trio of superb performances at North Hollywood’s Road Theatre. Steven Stanley – StageSceneLA SWEET Another hypnotically focused offering from The [...]
ELEMENO PEA: 89% – SWEET
SWEET Elemeno Pea is indeed a laugh-out-loud comedy lasting just a little longer than 90 minutes, and its realistic set and real-time structure make it look a little like something you might see in a TV comedy. But when you’re in a large group that’s laughing out loud together, and you add the flame of [...]
YOURS, ISABEL: 100% – SWEET
SWEET Still, with its nostalgic Greatest Generation setting, “Yours, Isabel” offers an affectionate look at an age when overcoming absence required more than mere email. Charlotte Stoudt – LA Times SWEET Playwright Christy Hall reinvents the epistolary play (one based on an exchange of letters) with her zesty, captivating World War II romance Yours, Isabel, [...]
THE LONESOME WEST (RUSKIN GROUP): 40% – BITTER
BITTER It’s a delicious premise, but McDonagh hasn’t delivered on it. Unlike “The Lieutenant of Inishmore,” with its ruthless efficiency, “West” suffers from lazy storytelling. The intimate space at the Ruskin is ideal for this claustrophobic tale, yet no amount of careful scene work by director Mike Reilly can disguise McDonagh’s shoddy construction. Charlotte Stoudt [...]
RICHARD III (SACRED FOOLS): 67% – BITTERSWEET
BITTERSWEET The obvious excellence of these actors in search of a director merely underscores that director’s lack of interest in cadging nuance from them, or from his text. The fault lies not in Rock’s stars, therefore, but in himself. Jason Rohrer – Stage and Cinema SWEET Director Ben Rock guides nineteen actors through this massive [...]
INNOCENT FLESH: 100% – SWEET
SWEET From the beginning, Innocent Flesh gets the audience right on the “track” with the girls and the “life” of this piece. There is innocence. There is violence. There is brutality. There is hilarity. Tracey Paleo – LA Theatre Review SWEET On a simple set, with no costume changes, and minimalist production effects, Lethridge does [...]
EXPECTING TO FLY: 83% – SWEET
BITTERSWEET Hyman’s decent writing doesn’t offset the dense stasis that sets in early on, or a central conceit that wears terribly thin. The convenient Twilight Zone-inspired finale doesn’t offer much satisfaction either, but the performances are outstanding. Lovell Estell III – LA Weekly SWEET Hyman brings us a taut, convincing, carefully calibrated anatomy of a [...]
ORSON’S SHADOW (ALIVE THEATRE): 100% – SWEET
SWEET What I do know is that I enjoyed Alive Theatre’s production quite a bit. That wouldn’t be possible for me if the script wasn’t at least decent; but the only thing about which I have absolutely no ambivalence is how staged the show is. Greggory Moore – Greater Long Beach SWEET But I encourage [...]
EL NOGALAR: 70% – BITTERSWEET
SWEET As soon as Gottesman speaks, though, you understand why she was cast; her Maite is charismatic, joyful, insane, a force of nature. Saracho’s boldest update is making the dynamic between Maite and Lopez overtly sexual. After their sadistic, heartbreaking love scene, hauntingly lit by Lonnie Rafael Alcaraz, I will never be able to look [...]
ART (PASADENA PLAYHOUSE): 91% – SWEET
SWEET The play, however, is the thing. And, ART deserves repeat patronage and many sold out performances. Michael Sheehan – OnStageLosAngeles SWEET In short, “Art” does what Reza had become known for: strip the social veneer from supposedly civilized society to show its underlying animosity. Still, in this version there is a genuine friendship, however [...]
WHAT THE BUTLER SAW (ODYSSEY THEATER): 57% – BITTERSWEET
BITTER Time has frayed the edges of Orton’s once-insurrectionary lampoon; a bigger problem in this production is the ensemble’s failure, despite individually capable performances, to collectively replicate the mindset that spurred Orton’s outrage. Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly SWEET There are doubtless some amongst the Odyssey Theatre’s post-retirement subscriber base for whom Joe Orton’s brand [...]
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