All Entries Tagged With: "curtainup"
MISS JULIE (GEFFEN PLAYHOUSE): 67% – BITTERSWEET
BITTERSWEET A few minutes into this “Miss Julie,” you might think that the Geffen Playhouse started out with a traditionally cast “The Heiress” and then switched plays after losing a few key supporting players. Julie’s fall at the hands of this John isn’t so devastating. But the injustice of her money and his lack of [...]
THE NETHER: 97% – SWEET
SWEET Like the hard-core radical voyeurs in Jennifer Haley’s terrific sci-fi play “The Nether,” you won’t want to leave the Hideaway, that site on a futuristic Internet that caters to men in search of Victorian children. Nor will you want to leave the Kirk Douglas Theater, which gave Haley’s play its world premiere. Robert Hofler [...]
TRAINSPOTTING (ELEPHANT THEATRE): 89% – SWEET
SWEET “Trainspotting” is definitely not for the squeamish or faint of heart. It is often as gag-inducing as it is thought-provoking, but with strong direction and performances the production finds the right balance between grim and funny. Katherine Davis – Backstage BITTER The play lives up to expectations – a waste of time. Serita Stevens [...]
WOLVES: 69% – BITTERSWEET
BITTERSWEET Director Michael Matthews and his game cast intently embrace the darkness, but Yockey’s newest work doesn’t seem ready to be honored with such a ferociously ardent effort to make it whole. Travis Michael Holder – Backstage BITTER He directs the actors, to the varying degrees that they can take direction, toward real motivations and [...]
TRIBES: 89% – SWEET
SWEET With actors this emotionally connected, words are secondary. More to the point of Raine’s play, hearing is shown to depend more on an open heart than fully functioning ears. Charles McNulty – LA Times SWEET The conversation Tribes inspires about communication and community in the deaf world more than justifies this production. It’s unfortunate [...]
THE GIFT: 55% – BITTERSWEET
BITTER An appealing and capable cast keeps the flicker of hope alive that Joanna Murray-Smith’s play “The Gift” will be worth our time despite the mounting evidence to the contrary. But by the end of this 90-minute comedy even the actors seem done in by the effort of sustaining the illusion that there’s something important [...]
CHINGLISH (SOUTH COAST REP): 100% – SWEET
SWEET Directed by Leigh Silverman, who staged the work on Broadway, “Chinglish” gleams with witty intelligence about the dizzying divide that separates the world’s two economic superpowers. Charles McNulty – LA Times SWEET Hwang brilliantly blends character, dialogue, and the idea that even when bilingual interpreters are present, translations are fraught with errors and misconceptions, [...]
ABSOLUTELY FILTHY: 100% – SWEET
SWEET Devoid of Schulz’s signature innocence and simplicity, Absolutely Filthy is certainly not an authorized use of the Peanuts franchise, but this reviewer laughed enough to hope that the cease-and-desist letter demons stay far, far away from this Sacred Fools run. Mia Bonadonna – Stage and Cinema SWEET Not only did people in the audience [...]
BACKBEAT: 65% – BITTERSWEET
BITTER The design team turns the Ahmanson stage into a virtual black-and-white movie. It’s nice to look at, but Leveaux never finds a way to piece together the two stories, especially in act two. The Beatles glide upstage and down on a platform, Sutcliffe and Kirchherr move across stage on a series of sofas and [...]
GANESH VERSUS THE THIRD REICH: 93% – SWEET
SWEET These are mighty questions that “Ganesh,” a small but rippling production, leaves you pondering. It’s a piece in which a hug, proffered by the wispy Laherty to a fellow performer after a brutal scene, turns into an eloquent statement about what it means to be a human being. Charles McNulty – LA Times SWEET [...]
PETER PAN (PANTAGES): 96% – SWEET
BITTERSWEET Without negating the freshness of Rigby’s performance, “Peter Pan” in 2013 is ripe for a genuine reinterpretation rather than just the amiable rehash at the Pantages. Lewis Segal – LA Times SWEET Barrie has been unjustly overshadowed as a writer by this domineering success: while his plays often evince the sentimentality of arrested development, [...]
FREUD’S LAST SESSION (BROAD STAGE): 76% – SWEET
BITTERSWEET For “Freud’s Last Session” to be a deeper play it would have to take a freer hand with the characters, exploring the textures of their inner lives rather than simply surveying their intellectual positions. St. Germain playfully illuminates some of the contradictions in their characters, but the piece sticks mostly to the surface, satisfying [...]
THE GRAND IRRATIONALITY: 60% – BITTERSWEET
BITTER Kennedy’s characters may talk about big ideas and make many sales pitches, but it’s unlikely that audiences will be sold on “The Grand Irrationality.” Katherine Davis – Backstage SWEET Is this play funny? Yes. Will Kennedy’s outlet for revenge stand the test of time and become a classic for the ages? Probably not. Is [...]
‘TIS PITY SHE’S A WHORE (FREUD PLAYHOUSE): 100% – SWEET
SWEET Cheek By Jowl’s revival leaves you with the same disquieting frisson of a Tarantino film or McDonagh play, raising questions about the artistic purpose of shock and horror that have no easy answers and may send you home more disturbed than entertained. Charles McNulty – LA Times SWEET The true pity would be to [...]
OTHER DESERT CITIES (MARK TAPER): 76% – SWEET
BITTERSWEET What should be a perfect storm, alas, isn’t. Working with watchable and often affecting material, Egan and his cast of five feel like they’re trying to wrestle two or three disparate plays into a shapable entity. Despite a career-stretching performance by JoBeth Williams and strong work by the consistently reliable Robert Foxworth, “Other Desert [...]
GATZ (REDCAT): 91% – SWEET
SWEET Theatre like this arrives once in a blue moon, and you don’t want to miss a word-for-word of it. Tony Frankel – Stage and Cinema SWEET In its simultaneous devotion to Fitzgerald’s text and ingenious expansion upon it, “Gatz” looks forward to an entirely new American theatrical form. It is quite simply not to [...]
IN THE RED AND BROWN WATER: 100% – SWEET
SWEET Beyond the fact that it is sensational, the Fountain Theatre’s production of “In the Red and Brown Water” by Tarell Alvin McCraney is important for two reasons: It introduces Los Angeles audiences to a dramatic poet in the process of discovering his singular voice and it shows how magnificently one of L.A.’s better small [...]
BAD APPLES: 77% – SWEET
SWEET Anybody concerned that Circle X’s new musical about America’s most notorious prisoner-torture atrocity was going to be some sort of Abu Ghraib: The Musical! can rest easy; Bad Apples is a thoughtful, penetrating and theatrically thrilling meditation on the all-too-human dimensions of what Hannah Arendt famously called the banality of evil. LA Weekly BITTER [...]
THE GRONHOLM METHOD: 97% – SWEET
SWEET Director BT McNicholl does a laudable job of keeping the action kinetic while leading his actors to remain calm, cool, and cagey. All four performers are outstandingly understated, though their roles could be played to the hilt of theatrical grandiosity. Travis Michael Holder – Backstage SWEET Director BT McNicholl often takes the audience to [...]
MARY POPPINS (AHMANSON): 94% – SWEET
SWEET This is a lovely evening of theater, with everything and everyone operating at a gratifyingly consistent high level of professionalism. Samuel Bernstein – Stage and Cinema SWEET Mary Poppins is a thoroughly engaging, beautifully produced piece of musical theater. Jason Baxter – LASplash SWEET Baby boomers who are hungry for a heaping helping of [...]
HEARTS LIKE FISTS: 100% – SWEET
SWEET Fun well done neatly sums up this brazenly silly and irresistibly funny show. Deborah Klugman – LA Weekly SWEET Don’t miss this show! Pauline Adamek – ArtsBeatLA SWEET Director Jaime Robledo, fresh from his Sacred Fools smashes Watson and Stoneface, now pops over to Theatre Of NOTE to stage Szymkowicz’s latest, a collaboration that [...]
LOS OTROS: 46% – BITTER
BITTERSWEET “Los Otros” is curious about the manifold layers of personal identity, but in a desultory way that deprives the work of sufficient dramatic pressure. The Southern California lens adds local interest, but that and first-class underscoring aren’t enough to transform these essayistic compositions into riveting theater. Charles McNulty – LA Times BITTERSWEET While some [...]
THE SLEEPER (THEATRE TRIBE): 100% – SWEET
SWEET Theatre Tribe continues its long string of unconventional hits with Catherine Butterfield’s The Sleeper. Laura Hitchcock – CurtainUp SWEET Gretchen complains in the dark comedy “The Sleeper,” now at Theatre Tribe, that our country had been attacked “for no reason?” As this zippy, hilarious revival of Catherine Butterfield’s 2004 play, flawlessly directed by Theatre [...]
FOLLIES (AHMANSON THEATRE): 91% – SWEET
SWEET There’s so much to praise in the blissful Broadway revival of “Follies,” which opened Wednesday at the Ahmanson Theatre on the heels of its numerous Tony nominations, but let’s pay homage first to the sheer sophistication of the show itself. After experiencing “Follies” again — an adult entertainment if ever there was one — [...]
THE HEIRESS (PASADENA PLAYHOUSE): 97% – SWEET
SWEET The theater might want to frisk future ticketholders for produce, or add an anger-management session to the bill: It’s that hard to handle the emotions provoked by this gorgeously directed and acted revival. Margaret Gray – LA Times SWEET “The Heiress” can easily devolve into a potboiler costume drama in the wrong hands, but [...]
GOOD PEOPLE (GEFFEN PLAYHOUSE): 96% – SWEET
SWEET Although Kaczmarek is the shining star of the show, she isn’t the only standout in the L.A. production of Good People. The sets, by designer Craig Siebels, are stunning, changing from a back alley to a kitchen to a church hall to a suburban mansion. And Marylouise Burke is an inveterate scene-stealer as Dottie, [...]
AMERICAN IDIOT (AHMANSON): 68% – BITTERSWEET
SWEET From the poetic “Are We the Waiting” and “Wake Me Up When September Ends” to the defiant “Know Your Enemy” to the anthem-like “21 Guns,” the expertly performed songs cast a spell that had young, old and middle-aged audience members head-banging together at the Ahmanson. Now that alone is one incredible feat even if [...]
AMERICAN NIGHT: THE BALLAD OF JUAN JOSE: 92% – SWEET
SWEET Fluidly directed by Jo Bonney, who shares a development credit with Culture Clash, “Night” is nimblest when it exposes the strange bedfellows of the American project. Charlotte Stoudt – LA Times SWEET Culture Clash, the veteran troupe of Chicano-American social satirists, is back with one of its most trenchantly funny works to date. Les [...]
THE SEAGULL (ANTAEUS): 82% – SWEET
SWEET I’ll admit it. When I hear the name Chekhov, the first words that pop into my head are dull, somber, and talky. That’s why it’s such a pleasure to report that the Antaeus Company’s revival of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull not only held my attention virtually throughout, it actually had me laughing more times [...]
THE TREATMENT: 78% – SWEET
SWEET Thankfully, there’s plenty of sly wit and food for thought in this wacky but incisive view of a cuckoo’s nest, and Chekhov’s trenchant social commentary still rings true. Les Spindle – Backstage SWEET Presented in collaboration with Theatre Movement Bazaar, this Boston Court world premiere is part vaudeville, part crew jam and part prose [...]
