All Entries Tagged With: "oc register"
THE FANTASTICK (SOUTH COAST REP): 100% – SWEET
SWEET Purists may howl — I noted scattered walkouts at intermission — but that’s their loss, because ultimately this ingenious revival is enchanting. David C. Nichols – LA Times SWEET Tricks and illusions give ‘Fantasticks’ magical new life. Paul Hodgins – OC Register SWEET It’s easy to see why The Fantasticks is the longest running [...]
PARADE (3-D THEATRICALS): 100% – SWEET
SWEET The company 3-D Theatricals attains a rarefied level of artistry with this arresting, beautifully appointed take on Jason Robert Brown and Alfred Uhry’s Tony-winning 1998 account of the notorious Leo Frank trial in 1913 Atlanta. David C. Nichols – LA Times SWEET At any rate, T. J. Dawson’s staging of Parade overcomes the boxy [...]
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 [...]
FLASHDANCE, THE MUSICAL (SEGERSTROM CENTER): 42% – SWEET
BITTER Most of the original score, though, is period-unspecific, ultra-low-grade, ingénue-with-a-dream stuff. Poor Alex has to sing what seem like thousands of lines about “knowing that this is my moment” and how leaping and falling is better than never leaping at all — generic, yearning ballads that Ariel, Beauty, and the heroine of “Tangled” all [...]
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 [...]
THE LARAMIE PROJECT & THE LARAMIE PROJECT: 10 YEARS LATER (CHANCE THEATRE): 100% – SWEET
SWEET By presenting both stagings in alternating performance slots as, essentially, two halves of one show, director Oanh Nguyen and company have created a nearly five-hour epic. The results are sobering and painful in their candor, but the sum total – the act of experiencing of both plays – is also richly rewarding. Eric Marchese [...]
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 PARISIAN WOMAN (SOUTH COAST REP): 85% – SWEET
BITTERSWEET The result, at least in this entertaining if ultimately puzzling world premiere — which unites the star power of rising director Pam MacKinnon (“Clybourne Park”); actors Dana Delany, Steven Culp and Steven Weber; scenic designer Marion Williams; and sound designer Cricket S. Myers — still feels stuck between two genres, its transformation incomplete. Margaret [...]
AMERICAN BUFFALO (GEFFEN): 80% – SWEET
SWEET David Mamet’s “American Buffalo” is set in a junk shop, but there are jewels to be found in the play and they are thrillingly laid out for us in the Geffen Playhouse’s dynamically acted production directed by Randall Arney. Charles McNulty – LA Times SWEET Nevertheless, Mamet’s world, despite its grounding in acute social [...]
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 [...]
ANYTHING GOES (AHMANSON THEATRE): 90% – SWEET
SWEET After seeing opening night of “Anything Goes” at that Ahmanson, I’m still humming the tunes this morning. In these dark economic times this top notch Roundabout Theatre Company production is a great pick me up. Jana Monji – LA Examiner SWEET Could tap-dancing possibly be as fun as Rachel York makes it look? She [...]
HOW TO WRITE A NEW BOOK FOR THE BIBLE: 77% – SWEET
SWEET Ultimately, Cain’s unique blend of theater and theology satisfies both disciplines. His faithfulness to the story is justified. The universal will emerge from the singular. As Cain the character says for Cain the writer-priest, “If you want to see God – says the Book – look at your family story.” Cristofer Gross – TheaterTimes [...]
KRAPP’S LAST TAPE (KIRK DOUGLAS THEATRE): 96% – SWEET
SWEET The emphasis on humor in Michael Colgan’s visiting Gate Theater Dublin production, executed by the brilliantly talented John Hurt, makes it easier to swallow Beckett’s bitter pill. Bob Verini – Variety SWEET A truly great actor, Hurt’s performance is riveting. His voice, both the pre-taped version and when he speaks live, is rich with [...]
THE 39 STEPS (LAGUNA PLAYHOUSE): 100% – SWEET
SWEET At the Laguna Playhouse, this hilarious adaptation of a Hitchcock classic brings a wonderful sense of slapstick silliness. Peter A. Balaskas – LASplash SWEET But I’d argue the play achieves both, while providing an added tongue-in-cheek layer that makes it delightfully postmodern: the performers are aware of their own ridiculousness. We’re watching a group [...]
EURYDICE (SOUTH COAST REP): 75% – BITTERSWEET
BITTERSWEET The acting isn’t quite as accomplished as the mise en scène. Alex Knox’s Orpheus and Carmela Corbett’s Eurydice make an attractive pair, though their characterizations sometimes seem stilted in a way that isn’t very compellingly individualized. Charles McNulty – LA Times BITTERSWEET At the production’s best moments, the strong, simple truths of relationships are [...]
ABSURD PERSON SINGULAR (SOUTH COAST REP): 88% – SWEET
BITTER Because we don’t get a palpable feel for these couples, the ironic reversals that befall them don’t land with much impact. We’re left hanging from punch line to punch line, with the sense that the cast too has somehow been stranded. Charlotte Stoudt – LA Times SWEET If the first act is a delightful [...]
THE CHANGELING (LONG BEACH PLAYHOUSE): 82% – SWEET
BITTERSWEET With Middleton and Rowley’s Jacobean tragedy, Dave Barton, who handles both, does a serviceable job in terms of comprehensibility, but the effect is at best uneven and at times languorous in terms of dramatic impact. Mayank Keshaviah – LA Weekly BITTERSWEET If you consider a play a piece of military strategy, in that actors [...]
I LOVE A PIANO (3-D THEATRICALS): 100% – SWEET
SWEET It’s a thread of a story, to be sure, but enough to make this evening more than just a walk down memory lane. Each section – from Tin Pan Alley to The Great Depression to the Stage Door Canteen and Post World War II – is a winner. Ellen Dostal – Musicals in LA [...]
THE BOOK OF MORMON (PANTAGES): 100% – SWEET
SWEET This national tour production gets the job done, matching the stampeding verve, if not the granulated sharpness, of the original Broadway production. Charles McNulty – LA Times SWEET The joyous West Coast premiere of Trey Parker, Robert Lopez, and Matt Stone’s Tony-winning gusher doesn’t just meet expectations; it tramples them. Neither Broadway musicals nor [...]
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING (SHAKESPEARE OC): 100% – SWEET
SWEET Some odd quirks and remnants of wit adorn “Much Ado About Nothing,” which closes Shakespeare Orange County’s 21st season in beautifully appointed, crowd-pleasing, curiously off-kilter fashion. David C. Nichols – LA Times SWEET Shakespeare Orange County’s placement of “Much Ado About Nothing” during the Roaring ’20s never threatens to dwarf or trivialize the material [...]
RED (MARK TAPER): 94% – SWEET
SWEET Alfred Molina’s volcanic incarnation of painter Mark Rothko is reason enough to rush to the Taper for John Logan’s “Red,” to say nothing of the involving text and visual audacity of helmer Michael Grandage’s impeccably imported Donmar Warehouse production. Bob Verini – Variety SWEET In their finest moments, Logan’s script and Molina’s performance combine [...]
THE TRAGEDY OF RICHARD III (SHAKESPEARE ORANGE COUNTY): 100% – SWEET
SWEET Yet when all is said and done, this is Walcutt’s show. His Richard is cheerfully, gleefully corrupt, yet also suitably choleric, the fire of hatred burning openly in his face. He brims with energy so boundless, it drives this fascinating and always entertaining historical tale. Eric Marchese – OC Register SWEET For this 2012 [...]
THE EXORCIST (GEFFEN PLAYHOUSE): 46% – BITTER
BITTER The physical production is just so much more persuasive than the dramatic encounters contained within it. The casting of Brooke Shields, lovely as always to look at, doesn’t enhance the work’s credibility, although I think she would be terrific in an alternative camp version directed by John Waters. Playing actress Chris MacNeil, the bewildered [...]
MILLION DOLLAR QUARTET: 80% – SWEET
SWEET So in between some good-natured alpha-male posturing and even a few flashbacks of early meetings—mostly told via heavily Southern-accented first-person monologues from Phillips—MILLION DOLLAR QUARTET more than anything assembles some truly rousing musical numbers, with every actor on stage playing their own instruments live! Michael L. Quintos – BroadwayWorld BITTERSWEET With cast members doing [...]
THE PRINCE OF ATLANTIS: 95% – SWEET
BITTERSWEET A good percentage of Saturday’s matinee audience at South Coast Repertory, where the work is having its world premiere, seemed to eat it up. I found it contrived and tedious, but as dramedies (awful word) go, it hits all the requisite emotional marks while cracking just enough jokes to be labeled harmlessly diverting, at [...]
SIGHT UNSEEN (SOUTH COAST REP): 100% – SWEET
SWEET This close-up view of an artist whose fame and fortune have been exacted at a terrible price still has the power to move. Eric Marchese – Backstage SWEET “Sight Unseen” isn’t a masterpiece, but it’s an intelligent piece of writing concealing multiple layers. Theatergoers who find this SCR revival engrossing should look for an [...]
WAITING FOR GODOT (MARK TAPER): 100% – SWEET
SWEET Any chance the Taper could produce more revivals of this caliber? Beckett is no doubt right about the confounding ache of existence, but this “Waiting for Godot” provides theatrical hope. Charles McNulty – LA Times SWEET Michael Arabian’s stunning revival of Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” at the Mark Taper Forum never wears the [...]
Critique of the Week – Runner Up
I picked this one because the inner conflict in Paul’s review is palbable. He didn’t really want to like this but he just couldn’t help himself. AMERICAN IDIOT Paul Hodgins – OC Register “American Idiot” captures all the strengths and weaknesses of the music that propels it. Based on the 2004 Green Day album of [...]
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 [...]
THE CAR PLAYS (LA JOLLA PLAYHOUSE): 100% – SWEET
SWEET These stories are provocative, to say the least. Paul Hodgins – OC Register (Segerstrom Review) SWEET And it’s a great way to evoke all the drama that can take place inside parked cars. Don Shirley – LA Stage Watch (Segerstrom Review) SWEET That’s just one of the situations you’ll find yourself in during Paul [...]
