All Entries Tagged With: "stage and cinema"
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 [...]
DYING CITY: 93% – SWEET
SWEET Directed by Michael Peretzian and starring Laurie Okin and Burt Grinstead, the production serves Shinn’s drama admirably. The acting is as meticulously observed as it is emotionally tense. And though confined to a cramped room, the staging fluidly handles the shifts of time and situation. Charles McNulty – LA Times SWEET The ambiguities that [...]
THE CRUCIBLE (ANTAEUS): 95% – SWEET
BITTERSWEET As for the differing styles of delivery, it’s a brave theatrical device, but it was used for one of the few plays I know that doesn’t need deconstructionist staging. It’s like chipping away at some of the marble on Michelangelo’s David to display it in a smaller museum. Yes, there were moments that I [...]
Critique of the Week
As usual, Tony is laser sharp with his assessment of a show. I saw this production last night and I have to say this appraisal of the production is about as close to how I would assess it as well. I would have been a lot harsher on the direction though, the “concert style staging” [...]
CHESS (EAST WEST PLAYERS): 60% – BITTERSWEET
SWEET There’s much more to say about this vivid production, but its best left to experience yourself. There are things here and there that were different from previous productions of the show (“Someone Else’s Story” and “Pity the Child” are both moved to the first act, albeit fairly effectively) and the love story needed a [...]
THE NORTH PLAN: 67% – BITTERSWEET
SWEET The North Plan written by Jason Wells and directed by David Fofi presented by Elephant Theatre Company in its Los Angeles Premiere is a fast-paced, overlapping dialogue, prodigious show with wonderful performances by an astonishing cast who will have you on the edge of your seat! And the ending will have you begging for [...]
JOE TURNER’S COME AND GONE (MARK TAPER): 92% – 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 ROYALE: 68% – 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. [...]
HOT CAT (THEATRE OF NOTE): 90% – SWEET
SWEET Yet Hot Cat is as ironic as The Royale is earnest — until the finale, a moving pas de deux between the estranged Maggie and Brick, set to the laconic sounds of a piano, in which the entire lunatic tragedy settles into a poignant tenderness. Steven Leigh Morris – LA Weekly SWEET The performers [...]
Night Trains
In the summer of 1995 I took the night train from Moscow to St Petersburg. I had come to study the elements of art as an actor, a writer, a poseur. My pockets bulged with half-liter bottles crookedly labeled as Stolichnaya. You could get these personal-use vodkas from citizens at the airport, on the sidewalk, [...]
FALLING FOR MAKE BELIEVE: 93% – SWEET
SWEET Director Jim Fall and Musical Director Keith Harrison bring unexpected magic to the already magical—a neat trick. Samuel Bernstein – Stage and Cinema SWEET Falling for Make Believe rejects “falling for” the usual “make believe” that has permeated such previous dramatizations of the life of lyricist Hart as the 1948 Hollywood movie Words and [...]
PETER PAN: THE BOY WHO HATED MOTHERS: 97% – SWEET
SWEET Most of the seven actors play multiple roles. They are all gifted with physical agility, grace, and easily switch between different realities and characters. As important is their ability to communicate wonder and joy believably — particularly as adults playing children — and the cast at the Blank Theatre is more than up to [...]
GOD’S MAN IN TEXAS (SIERRA MADRE PLAYHOUSE): 67% – BITTERSWEET
SWEET Though I can’t help wishing that Rambo had pruned down the Act One sermonizing that this particular reviewer found so alienating, God’s Man In Texas turns out to be quite a play, and one well worth driving over to picturesque Sierra Madre to experience. Steven Stanley – StageSceneLA BITTER Director Nancy Youngblut’s staging employs [...]
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 [...]
ANNAPURNA: 94% – SWEET
SWEET From White’s poignant script to Bart DeLorenzo’s faultless direction to Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman’s beautifully centered performances, “Annapurna” is a lovely theatrical construct from the ground up. F. Kathleen Foley – LA Times SWEET Under the sturdy, austere direction of DeLorenzo and featuring two actors capable of such astonishing commitment to their art, [...]
The Saturday Saying
“Via songs by Mr. Dietz and Phillip Owen, painstaking and inventive direction by Michael Michetti, and the enthusiastic participation of a four-man rockabilly band and a cast of eight (some overlap there), this show shouts encouragement to those who would participate in a collective political and spiritual evolution. If the show were a person, I [...]
SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS (LA MIRADA THEATRE): 100% – SWEET
SWEET Well, here’s your chance to discover just why it flopped and why you should see it anyway. The ridiculously rousing and surprisingly satisfying Broadway-caliber revival which opened last weekend at La Mirada offers three things that keep the libretto and score from being stillborn on arrival: The most fantastic dance sequences you will ever [...]
AMERICAN MISFIT: 63% – BITTERSWEET
SWEET Via songs by Mr. Dietz and Phillip Owen, painstaking and inventive direction by Michael Michetti, and the enthusiastic participation of a four-man rockabilly band and a cast of eight (some overlap there), this show shouts encouragement to those who would participate in a collective political and spiritual evolution. If the show were a person, [...]
Patriot Days and Patriot Nights
You take your shoes off at the airport not because you think someone’s going to blow up the airplane, but because if you refuse you’ll miss the flight. You’re an American, and 2001 was over ten years ago, and ten years in America is like a lifetime lived by someone else. You don’t live in [...]
SLIPPING: 100% – SWEET
SWEET The deconstructed text is challenging – hopping back and forth in place and time utilizing a plethora of short scenes packed into eighty-five minutes – but the experience is compelling and occasionally shocking (there is also male nudity in this production). Ultimately, the play’s strength lies in its honest depiction of abuse and loneliness. [...]
ROUND ROCK: 80% – SWEET
BITTERSWEET Kozak largely succeeds in sketching a convincing picture of these desperadoes. The problem is in the script’s structure: There are too many scenes that don’t propel the narrative or bolster the dramatic arc, and the second act is terribly overwritten. The sizable cast, however, performs well. Lovell Estell III – LA Weekly BITTERSWEET This [...]
OUR CLASS: 86% – SWEET
SWEET A performance so powerful that the audience and cast were shaken to their core. Some including myself could not help but cry afterwards. Spencer Cotter – The_Detective SWEET The cast here had to do more than realize these, but bring them to life. They did so with such heart and skill I did what [...]
NEVERWHERE: 67% – BITTERSWEET
SWEET Under the resourceful leadership of director Scott Leggett, utilizing every inventive trick the creative nutjobs who populate Scared Fools have to conjure, “Neverwhere” goes everywhere the imagination can take it. Travis Michael Holder – Backstage SWEET Director Scott Leggett stages the play creatively, using projections and video to create whatever locations he needs, and [...]
THE BEAUX’ STRATAGEM (A NOISE WITHIN): 84% – SWEET
SWEET For educational value alone, it’s wonderful to see the play produced professionally, but under Julia Rodriguez-Elliot’s direction, A Noise Within’s production makes it clear why the play was so popular back in its day. “The Beaux’ Stratagem” is immensely funny, and it’s quite entertaining to watch such a well-crafted play. Katie Buenneke – Neon [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
BILLY & RAY: 97% – SWEET
SWEET Still, the most fascinating aspect of “Billy & Ray” is Bencivenga’s smart, knowing script, which captures an important era in filmmaking fueled by two great minds who rose above their shared belief that “if there’s one thing Hollywood hates, it’s originality.” Travis Michael Holder – Backstage SWEET Mike Bencivenga’s World Premiere play Billy & [...]
LUNCH LADY COURAGE: 67% – BITTERSWEET
SWEET The cast of local teenagers, community members, and professional actors revives old material to tackle modern social issues and creates something that is relevant, memorable, and moving. Katherine Davis – Backstage BITTERSWEET The experience of watching Lunch Lady Courage is estranging and ultimately feels like an extraordinarily well-produced amateur talent show rather than Theater [...]
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST (THEATRE BANSHEE): 67% – BITTERSWEET
SWEET Though the characters in Oscar Wilde’s masterpiece live in a world without cars, telephones, and radios, let alone TV, the Internet, and social media, there’s not a moment of The Importance Of Being Earnest that feels stale or dated. Those in doubt need only head over to Theatre Banshee for proof positive that Earnest [...]
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, [...]
