All Entries Tagged With: "lasplash"
CRUMBLE (LAY ME DOWN JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE) (THEATRE 68): 92% – SWEET
BITTERSWEET ‘Twas a shame such a marvelous canvas wasn’t utilized by stronger performances. G.S. Morales – LA Theater Critic SWEET Strip the play of all its craziness and universal struggles emerges that everyone deals with: death and discovering what it means to love. At the end of the day, Crumble is a coming-of-age story about [...]
STEEL MAGNOLIAS (LAGUNA PLAYHOUSE): 100% – SWEET
SWEET The cast absolutely radiates a core of true “giving” & “forgiving” beneath a delightfully teasing and tough-skinned script. Joseph Sirota – Laguna Beach Patch SWEET At the Laguna Playhouse, a solid cast distinguished by a couple of talented veterans delivers a well-crafted version of Robert Harling’s 1987 play, which was made famous two years [...]
JOE TURNER’S COME AND GONE (MARK TAPER): 95% – SWEET
SWEET This powerfully acted production of “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone,” which opened Wednesday at the Mark Taper Forum under the direction of Phylicia Rashad, is a gift for audiences hungering for theatrical nourishment after being fed a steady diet of snacks. Charles McNulty – LA Times SWEET Thesps Keith David, Glynn Turman and John [...]
I’M NOT RAPPAPORT (WEST COAST JEWISH THEATRE): 90% – SWEET
BITTERSWEET The play, like its central characters, was showing its age. Steven Leigh Morris – LA Weekly SWEET In a tribute both to Herb Gardner’s brilliant play which, through his comically sharp dialogue, explores a myriad of social issues, especially the challenge of aging and dodging adult children who think they have your best interests [...]
SMOKEFALL (SOUTH COAST REP): 54% – BITTERSWEET
BITTER Those with a penchant for homespun elegy playfully whipped up may enjoy “Smokefall,” but the work is really a collection of derivative themes in search of a fleshed-out drama. Charles McNulty – LA Times BITTER Director Anne Kauffman and her talented design team contribute polish and visual wit but finally cannot disguise the fact [...]
THE BARGAIN AND THE BUTTERFLY: 80% – SWEET
SWEET Ghost Road artistic director Katharine Noon’s portrait of the latter-day Promethean creator as a psychologically tortured young woman benefits from a uniformly very good cast and stellar sound, light and stage design by the team of Cricket S. Myers, Clark, and Maureen Weiss. Lyle Zimskind – LAist SWEET It is an amalgamation of elements, [...]
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 [...]
END OF THE RAINBOW: 79% – SWEET
SWEET No real-life tragic heroine has ever gone into that good night quite as ungently as Garland does in “End of the Rainbow,” which manages to send you out wondering whether you’ve just seen a cautionary bummer or a high-on-life theatrical thrill-aganza. Better that we don’t have to decide and can just agree to mark [...]
THE WHALE (SOUTH COAST REP): 72% – BITTERSWEET
SWEET Director Martin Benson championed “The Whale” since he first encountered it, and his enthusiasm shows in every aspect of this production. Thomas Buderwitz’s cluttered set and Michael Roth’s thoughtful and subtle sound design are wonderfully effective. Each performance is filled with life and urgency, and we realize from the first moment that the stakes [...]
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 [...]
CATCH ME IF YOU CAN (PANTAGES/SEGERSTROM CENTER): 67% – BITTERSWEET
BITTER Unfortunately, there’s nothing about “Catch Me If You Can” that inspires a repeat visit. While the cast is working hard, the material they’re working with is too flawed to make the show an enjoyable experience. Katie Buenneke – Neon Tommy BITTERSWEET These tireless touring actors nearly con us into thinking we’re seeing a show [...]
Is this Plagiarism, Shoddy Journalism or Just One Heck of a Coincidence?
Sorry to keep picking on reviewer Serita Stevens of LA Splash and this particular “review” of the play Trainspotting, but someone who is a more thorough reader of LA Theater Commentary brought something to my attention yesterday that unfortunately demands a wee bit more attention to the matter. This is the second paragraph from Serita’s [...]
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 [...]
The Life of an Online Critic
Reviewer Serita Stevens, of LASplash didn’t like the current production of Trainspotting at the Elephant. Several of the people who read her review didn’t like her. Take a look at the comments to her review from LASplash below. Ouch. Matthew Richter · Technical Director at Elephant Theatre Company Why would a reviewer post a review for a show they didn’t [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
DOCTOR, DOCTOR: 57% – BITTERSWEET
SWEET Attend this show if you like to sing along numbers like “Your Eyes,” which Dr. Easton (DJ Driskill) does nicely with his pop/rock-ish voice, and if you would like the chance to serve as an extra for the spooky, yet entertaining, behavior of Dr. Cook (Jon Christie). Dena Burroughs – LA Examiner BITTER Frankly, [...]
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, [...]
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 [...]
DRIVING MISS DAISY (SIERRA MADRE PLAYHOUSE): 83% – SWEET
SWEET Anyone interested in that period of history should enjoy the play not to mention the relationship between feisty Miss Daisy and her sparring partner Hoke. Serita Stevens – LASplash SWEET Still, “Driving Miss Daisy” remains, at heart, a play about distinct and interesting individuals. Impressive actors can make this piece what they will, and [...]
HAPPY FACE SAD FACE: 56% – BITTERSWEET
BITTER It all sounds very intriguing, but Colleary and director Kathleen Rubin, who has helmed two of Colleary’s previous plays, have this time collaborated on a well-meaning experiment gone awry. F. Kathleen Foley – LA Times SWEET Director Kathleen Rubin has truly met the tremendous challenge of balance in the piece. While the text is [...]
CHAPTER TWO (LAGUNA PLAYHOUSE): 100% – SWEET
SWEET Despite a bit of overwriting, director Andrew Barnicle finds his way through to the heart of the matter with an outstanding cast, headed by Caroline Kinsolving as a young divorcee and Geoffrey Lower as the novelist who stands in for Simon. Tom Provenzano – LA Weekly SWEET Courtesy of Andrew Barnicle’s deft direction and [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
IN HEAT IN HOLLYWOOD HO HO HO!: 70% – BITTERSWEET
BITTERSWEET Trudell hints at unexplored byways. You can’t help wishing for a little more character, and a little less butt crack. Jenny Lower – LA Weekly BITTERSWEET Trudell’s show is clearly still in development—or should be. Once the tacked-on conceit of half-assed holiday cheer is lifted, and once author and director determine why this story [...]
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 [...]
CONEY ISLAND CHRISTMAS: 79% – SWEET
SWEET As with many gifts, the wrapping isn’t much to speak of, in this case a weak framing narrative taken from a Grace Paley short story. But what’s inside – not one but two kid pageants superbly staged by Bart DeLorenzo, and a pan-denominational message – is a jewel to be cherished. Bob Verini – [...]
