All Entries in the "Weeklies" Category
Critique of the Week
I picked this one because I saw the show and I thought this review captured well what I experienced myself, though, admittedly, I experienced a little more profundity than this particular author did. Also, it was such a rare thing to see THR actually reviewing something in its own backyard (you are the HOLLYWOOD Reporter [...]
Critique of the Week – Runner Up
I picked this one because of its incredibly layered context. OSWALD: THE ACTUAL INTERROGATION Earnest Kearney – Working Author For nearly a decade and a half, tucked away between Franklin and Hollywood Blvd the Write Act Repertory Company has been the “little engine that could” of L.A. Theater, staging upwards of a hundred productions while [...]
Critique of the Week- Runner Runner Up
Bowing to the will of the people – or rather the LemonHead Nation – I’m going to add very brief descriptions of why I’ve chosen certain reviews for our “Critique of the Week” (COW) starting with this one. I picked this one because of its almost uncomfortably personal nature. BUDDHA: A FANTASTIC JOURNEY Clare Elfman – [...]
The Saturday Saying
“The problem in a nutshell is this: Established theaters have by and large grown larger, public funding has become a monumental challenge and artistic directors have moved in an increasingly commercial direction, adopting a bottom-line mentality that has put publicity and profitability over bold and substantive choices.” Charles McNulty – from his article “Regional theater’s [...]
The Friday Feature
Edwardian Ball, 2011, supposedly a nice primer for the event that’s happening this Sunday night.
The Thursday Thought
Since we’ve been on a Dramaturg kick lately here at the Lemon, thought I’d offer this latest ditty. This motif has been jumping around Facebook and now there’s one for the Dramaturg. Eat your heart out, Dylan Southard!
The Monday Moment
I know this isn’t going to be very PC, but I was never much of a fan of Whitney Houston’s music. Clearly she was a gifted singer, but her music just never did anything for me, and for me she was the one that started that hideous trend of souless vocal histrionics that still to [...]
The Saturday Saying (on a Monday)
“I’m going to open my review with some sage advice: Don’t drink anything before this show as there’s no intermission and you’ll likely wet your pants from all the gut-wrenching laughter. Also, (and this is for the ladies), plan to schedule a Botox injection to rid yourself of those new laugh lines you’ll have after [...]
Critique of the Week
A RAISIN IN THE SUN & CLYBOURNE PARK Anthony Byrnes – Opening the Curtain Okay, what’s this whole Clybourne Park – A Raisin in the Sun connection at Center Theatre Group? Good question. Stick with me a minute because this gets a little tricky. A Raisin in the Sun is Lorraine Hansberry’s 1959 play revolving [...]
Critique of the Week
ELEMENO PEA Bob Verini – Variety Molly Smith Metzler makes a minor contribution to American class warfare with “Elemeno Pea.” In a profanity-laden variation on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” she has a trio of proles suffer under the chaotic lifestyles of the rich and feckless, then strains after an eleventh hour stab at poignancy. [...]
The Monday Moment (on a Tuesday)
For all you tree-huggin’, gun-hatin’ vegetarians out there, I give you – squirrel melts. I dare anyone to watch this thing to the end. Holy Bullwinkles!
Critique of the Week
OUR TOWN Sarah Taylor Ellis – Compositions on Theatre According to a woman sitting behind me at the Broad Stage on Sunday afternoon, Thornton Wilder’s Our Town is performed at least once a day somewhere in the United States. The middle aged couple next to me remembered reading Our Town in high school, but they [...]
Critique of the Week – Runner Up
A RAISIN IN THE SUN & CLYBOURNE PARK Don Shirley – LA Stage Watch The tweeters are coming, the tweeters are coming…into the theater. Center Theatre Group has joined the opera companies, orchestras and musical theater groups experimenting with “tweet seats” – sections of the theater in which the use of Twitter is allowed during [...]
Critique of the Week – Runner Runner Up
A RAISIN IN THE SUN Frederik Sisa – The Front Page Online It always puzzles me when fellow critics take notes during a performance. I’ll notice them scribbling away on their note pads or in the margins of the press kit – sometimes sedately, sometimes madly – and wonder how they can possibly foster an [...]
The Saturday Saying
“If dividing one’s attention between notepad and performance seems counter to the idea of theatre as an immersive experience, what should we think about people glued to their smartphones, attempting to share their experience in the mangled English of thoughts expressed in 140 characters or less? Looking over the tweets, the end results fall in [...]
The Friday Feature
Innocent Flesh now playing at the Zephyr Theatre. Check it. It’s working itself out for an Off-Broadway run.
The Thursday Thought
With all this talk of LAUSD considering cutting Arts Education completely from Elementary Schools, I am continuously buoyed by the ability of private citizens to creatively teach our children about the arts outside the classrooms. If the public school system simply fails in its mission to educate our youth, well, then its up to the [...]
The Jesus Rap
Cool video about the difference between Jesus and the institution known as Christianity done in rap. Speaks to the change in mindset of the next generation and the questions they are now asking. I’m endlessly fascinated by the parallels between church and theater and how the institutions can simultaneously seem so at odds when they [...]
The Monday Moment
I don’t know about you, but I’ve never really been a fan of Christina Aguilera’s singing. She clearly has a great voice, but every time I listen to her all I can think about is, “Wow, nice range!” And so I find this rendition of Etta James’ “At Last” that she delivered at Etta’s memorial [...]
Critique of the Week
OUR TOWN & A RAISIN IN THE SUN Anthony Byrnes – Opening the Curtain Maybe it was the eggs? Both plays began with eggs. Scrambled eggs. Onstage, the woman of the house gets up early, before her husband, and starts the daily ritual of making breakfast. In one kitchen you can literally hear the crack [...]
Critique of the Week – Runner Up
NO GOOD DEED Ron Irwin – LA Examiner The Furious Theatre Company presents “No Good Deed” written by its own playwright in residence Matt Pelfrey and directed by Damaso Rodriguez at “Inside the Ford” now through February 26, 2012. This is absolutely not grandpas stage play. It’s wild, often funny and over the top. It [...]
The Saturday Saying
“So there is some good truth in this play and a whole lot of entertainment value. But it is not for everyone. First of all young children should not attend because of language, violence and drug use. Also folks who are mentally inflexible as this show will stretch and yes sometimes even trouble your [...]
Another Friday Feature
Teaser trailer for the Geffen’s Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins starring Kathleen Tuner. An interesting mix of Ms. Ivins herself, some fun music, wacky visuals and those sparkling reviews from, well, elsewhere.
The Friday Feature
Very nicely done teaser for The 39 Steps now playing at the La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts. Spare, economical, packs a punch.
The Thursday Thought
My buddy Rainn Wilson has finally embraced the fact that he looks suspiciously similar to a young Newt Gingrich. You can see it here. Hmmmmm.
A Happy Chinese New Year of the Dragon Monday Moment
This is a videotaped performance of Master Russian Puppeteer Nikolai Zykov, dancing as a giant dragon to what appears to be an 80′s Techno bop version of Jingle Bells. Seemed appropriate. Happy Chinese New Year to all of you Asian LemonHeads out there! And those that may perhaps not be Asian yet nevertheless enjoy celebrating [...]
Critique of the Week
OUR TOWN Charles McNulty – LA Times Grover’s Corners, the fictional New Hampshire community of Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town,” uncannily resembles our neck of the woods in David Cromer’s starkly sublime and strikingly unsentimental revival, which opened Wednesday at the Broad Stage with Oscar-winner Helen Hunt assuming the role of the Stage Manager. It’s a [...]
Critique of the Week – Runner Up
RED HOT PATRIOT: THE KICK-ASS WIT OF MOLLY IVINS Harvey Perr – Stage and Cinema WILL THE REAL MOLLY IVINS PLEASE STAND UP? Molly Ivins was a ballsy Texas-based reporter who became a legend in her own time by calling a spade a spade (or, more succinctly, calling George W. Bush a moron – even [...]
Critique of the Week – Runner Runner Up
GOD’S EAR Jason Rohrer – Stagehappenings The American issue play sometimes feels as dead as the children it so frequently conjures; stymied by political and social strictures, playwrights either censor themselves or, worse, have no ideas vibrant enough to cause a stir. A highly lauded recent entry, David Lindsay-Abaire’s 2006 Rabbit Hole, treats the death [...]
Marine lays down some whoop ass at the Tomb of Unknown Soldier
Some tourists felt like chucklin’ it up at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the Marine on duty steps out and shames them somethin’ fierce. My father is a veteran and I get very angry when those that put their lives on the line for our freedom are not given the respect they deserve [...]
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