All Entries Tagged With: "cynthia citron"
The Saturday Saying
“What did he say?” Standing on a stage and repeating lines does not make one an actor. For those of us who were introduced to theater during the heyday of the great Britons—Laurence Olivier, Richard Burton, John Gielgud, Alec Guinness, et al—it is a great disappointment to listen to the mushy ramblings of many of today’s “stars”.The current stage actors’ mantra, “act [...]
THE ROYALE: 65% – BITTERSWEET
BITTERSWEET “The Royale” doesn’t penetrate all that deeply into the story of a boxer who made history for himself, his sport and his country. But its lively manner of telling reanimates this breakthrough saga for a new generation. Charles McNulty – LA Times SWEET Daniel Aukin stages a mesmerizing spectacle with a perfect five-member ensemble. [...]
RAISE ME UP (SANTA MONICA PLAYHOUSE): 100% – SWEET
SWEET Raise Me Up is directed by Chris DeCarlo. A cast of extremely fine actors bring so much life into the characters. Dialects are absolutely perfect. Costumes by Ashley Hayes are wonderful as they always are in all productions at the Santa Monica Playhouse. Visca has written a wonderful tribute to her parents, and the [...]
YEARS TO THE DAY: 82% – SWEET
BITTERSWEET Rants and strategically timed revelations are not, however, ideal substitutes for strong writing. Barton’s play is a laborious 80 minutes, 15 minutes into which angry, mortality-obsessed Dan (Yavnieli) and his sensitive, secrets-stuffed buddy Jeff (LeBeau) are inducing audience weariness. This largely obnoxious and maudlin duo may be in an empty café because, after overhearing [...]
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 [...]
MRS. WARREN’S PROFESSION (ANTAEUS): 95% – SWEET
SWEET Shaw’s 1893 ground-breaker makes an exciting return to Los Angeles as The Antaeus Company premieres another if its couldn’t-be-better revivals starring the incomparable Anne Gee Byrd in the title role. Who could ask for anything more? Steven Stanley – StageSceneLA SWEET A strong, able cast led by Robin Larsen’s firm direction makes George Bernard [...]
ON THE SPECTRUM: 82% – SWEET
SWEET Watching the beautiful work of Virginia Newcomb and Dan Shaked Iris and Mac, two challenged young people trying to negotiate something resembling first love, is witnessing a flag being planted for hope, sensitivity, and artistic progress. The production that director Jacqueline Schultz surrounds them with ain’t shabby either. Evan Henerson – Backstage SWEET On [...]
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 [...]
COMPLETE: 58% – BITTERSWEET
SWEET The play is always interesting and fun to watch, and director Jennifer Chambers keeps the comedy in the forefront, but the insistently nonlinear structure sometimes proves distracting. Credibility also is an issue. Neal Weaver – LA Weekly SWEET The play goes back and forth in time, and director Jennifer Chambers, who was once a [...]
PARADISE: A DIVINE BLUEGRASS MUSICAL COMEDY: 96% – SWEET
SWEET This is a musical about everything we ever knew or imagined concerning exploitation versus core values. Hollywood is evil (naturally). And the entire show is a charm-fest under Dan Bonnell’s unified direction. Steven Leigh Morris – LA Weekly SWEET The book and music, written by Bill Robertson, Tom Sage, and Cliff Wagner, is a [...]
A HEAP OF LIVIN’: 95% – SWEET
SWEET Even beyond Shoenman’s smart and perceptive ruminations about how the heartiest of lives often devolve into dependency and fulltime nursing care, what this production has is a stellar cast of veterans, who are able to overcome some clumsy missteps. Travis Michael Holder – Backstage SWEET This marvelous threesome, tightly controlled by director Mark L. [...]
7 STORIES: 80% – SWEET
SWEET The characters that appear in the windows are absolutely the funniest ever and keep the audience laughing throughout. They are Greg Barnett, Jennifer Laks, Richard Hoyt Miller, Steve Oreste, Flora Plumb, and Jill Remez, all who each play two wild and crazy characters in this unusual play. One would not expect such humor from [...]
MACHU PICCHU, TEXAS: 100% – SWEET
SWEET That McNeil’s staging achieves such uniform and tightly-orchestrated performances from the entirety of his 11-member cast is all the more impressive — there are no weak links in this finely-tuned ensemble effort. Philip Brandes – LA Times SWEET It’s an angry, dysfunctional family again, folks, but this time the intensity is mitigated by a [...]
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 RAINMAKER (EDGEMAR CENTER FOR THE ARTS): 91% – SWEET
SWEET All the players are ablaze in this terrific version of N. Richard Nash’s classic play, thanks to Jack Heller’s careful direction, Christopher Stone’s beautiful set design, Juliet Klanchar’s lighting, and Kelly Fluker’s costumes. But, bottom line, the play belongs to Tanna Frederick, and Meryl Streep couldn’t do it better. Cynthia Citron -LA Examiner SWEET [...]
FOOTE NOTES (OPEN FIST): 90% – SWEET
SWEET Both plays are populated with characters quirky and eccentric yet wholly lacking in artifice; each is steeped in genuine regional flavor and awash in Foote’s accurate ear for colloquial speech. Open Fist Theatre Company’s production takes to them with ease and grace, reminding us why the theater arts are so compelling. Eric Marchese – [...]
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 [...]
ONE NOVEMBER YANKEE: 83% – SWEET
SWEET Taking its name from the tail number of a crashed airplane, “One November Yankee” at the NoHo Arts Center is about a disaster rather than being a disaster, which is always the better side of the equation for a new play to be on. Philip Brandes – LA Times BITTERSWEET Overall, though, One November [...]
MUTUALLY ASSURED DESTRUCTION: 70% – BITTERSWEET
BITTERSWEET The cast members are clearly enjoying themselves, but with a fair number of duds among the verbal warheads, hilarity is not always mutually assured. Philip Brandes – LA Times BITTERSWEET If a play is going to traffic in cartoons, as this one does, they really need to keep bouncing off the walls — so [...]
KOMITAS: 67% – BITTERSWEET
SWEET Komitas is an interesting, engaging and emotional play that has all of the major elements of one man’s struggle within himself: his passions and choices vs. his destiny. Arpine Eloyan – OnStageLosAngeles SWEET It’s an interesting and absorbing play, but as I indicated earlier, it helps if you’re Armenian. Cynthia Citron – LA [...]
OUR HOUSE (LOUNGE THEATRE): 63% – BITTERSWEET
BITTERSWEET The production is technically somewhat chaotic. Dan Mailley’s game-board setting is colorful but a bit cumbersome, and Corwin Evans’ video elements have a way to go. “Our House” has its moments, but not enough of them. Jennie Webb – Backstage BITTER Striving to combine scathing satire with black comedy, the production’s uneven tone renders [...]
THAT GOOD NIGHT: 85% – SWEET
BITTERSWEET Russom is so absolutely top-notch that you mourn the absence of a noteworthy script, one unburdened of faux intrigues and ludicrous twists. The good news: The characters outrun the plot. Scarpone’s dotty matriarch needs to lose some of her shtick; otherwise the ensemble performs well under Scott Alan Smith’s direction. Deborah Klugman – LA [...]
BEAUTIFIED: 75% – BITTERSWEET
BITTERSWEET With a running time of almost two hours, either an intermission or, better yet, some judicious trimming by director Jenny Sullivan (even in Candy’s tear-inducing closing monologue) would make for a more perfectly coifed tale of the two friends. Gil Kaan – Culture Spot LA BITTER These are too many topics for one play [...]
SYNESTHESIA: 83% – SWEET
SWEET The performance piece (actually, eight performance pieces in one) is a multi-medium event with such a clever concept that one would suspect the outcome would pale compared to the idea, but in its west coast premiere now playing at the Bootleg, Synesthesia is as fun, quirky and inventive as its notion. Tony Frankel – [...]
SIDEWAYS: THE PLAY: 92% – SWEET
SWEET Adapted by Rex Pickett from his novel (which also spawned the 2004 hit movie), their oenophilial odyssey makes an enjoyable if at times leisurely debut in its stage incarnation at Ruskin Group Theatre. Philip Brandes – LA Times BITTERSWEET In this intimate world premiere, we have a fun time swilling with the errant boys [...]
LOVE STRUCK: 68% – BITTERSWEET
SWEET As StageSceneLA readers may have noticed, this reviewer rarely attends one-acts, preferring full-length plays in the same way I invariably opt for novels over short stories. Still, there are times when I make exceptions, and in the case of Love Struck, I’m quite glad I did. Steven Stanley – StageSceneLA BITTER Maggie Grant’s direction [...]
CYRANO (DEAF WEST/FOUNTAIN THEATRE): 94% – SWEET
SWEET Sachs and director Simon Levy have embarked on a major mission: bringing Rostand’s poetry-spewing protagonist to life using ASL, spoken word, and e-language. Thanks to Jeffrey Elias Teeter’s projections, flashed onto eight omnipresent monitors incorporated into Jeff McLaughlin’s versatile bare-bones set, nothing is lost in this superbly crafted production besides a large tub of [...]
NO TIME TO WEEP (MATRIX THEATRE): 67% – BITTERSWEET
BITTER Not since Mel Brooks’ outrageous “Springtime for Hitler” has there been a Holocaust musical as ill-conceived and badly performed as No Time to Weep, now onstage at L.A.’s Matrix Theater. Cynthia Citron – LA Examiner SWEET Standing ovations at the Matrix Theatre greeted the actors of Lucy Deutsch’s Holocaust life story, No Time To [...]
EARLY AND OFTEN: 75% – BITTERSWEET
SWEET It’s unclear how many of the period jokes and references will register with viewers not steeped in the legacy of former Mayor Richard J. Daley’s political machine, but the intricately plotted shenanigans tap a cynicism that never goes out of style. With inanimate corporations now enjoying the same rights as people, the idea of [...]
IN PARIS (BROAD STAGE): 80% – SWEET
BITTERSWEET Baryshnikov’s physical approach serves him well in a performance piece that doesn’t give him much more than a dramatic scenario to work with. Directed by Dmitry Krymov, who also adapted the text, this production (performed in French and Russian with English supertitles) is long on mood and atmosphere, short on action. It’s really just [...]
