All Entries Tagged With: "steven leigh morris"
AT THE FLASH: 100% – SWEET
SWEET This is a show that makes its point with humor but also searing and truthful vision. Catch this if you can. Highly recommended. Robert Machray – Stagehappenings SWEET Most of Leeper’s characters have trodden a well-worn road. If that road veered in unexpected directions, At the Flash would be great. Because of Leeper’s individuated [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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, [...]
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 [...]
FRAGMENTS OF OSCAR WILDE (ZJU): 100% – SWEET
SWEET What a wonderful series of vignettes, coupled with the historical writings of Oscar Wilde himself and some really clever and unique performances, and you have this wonderful production of “Fragments of Oscar Wilde.” Lorenzo Marchessi – NoHoArtsDistrict SWEET The acting is more wobbly than at Ghost Road, but Cate’s staging is really of a [...]
Critique of the Week
I’m a little late on this one but better late than never. This finely crafted piece from Steven Leigh once again shows he is the master of context. Unfortunately, Steven’s bosses have forbade me to use their entire reviews here at the Lemon so I’m only posting a portion of it. You’ll have to click [...]
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, [...]
TOMORROW: 91% – SWEET
SWEET Though this outstanding show will speak particularly to theater people, audiences of every stripe are sure to be enthralled. Iris Mann – Backstage SWEET That the emphasis of the play was not clear (at least to this critic) doesn’t diminish the effective impact of his love of the theatre and why it counts. Dale [...]
DIVORCE PARTY: THE MUSICAL: 60% – BITTERSWEET
BITTER The result is formulaic truisms struggling to pass for something true. Steven Leigh Morris – LA Weekly BITTER Mark Schwartz, producer of the runaway hit “Menopause: The Musical,” struggles to repeat that winning formula in this unfortunate outing, which features a book by Schwartz, Amy Botwinick and Jay Falzone. Falzone, who directs and choreographs, [...]
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 GRAPES OF WRATH (A NOISE WITHIN): 86% – SWEET
SWEET A Noise Within’s stellar production of Frank Galati’s 1990 Tony Award–winning stage adaptation honors the novel’s messages, bringing the work to the stage in a way that is sincere, memorable, and deeply relevant. Katherine Davis – Backstage SWEET A Noise Within’s production is agonizing but beautifully realized; it is an excellent example of how [...]
EARLY PLAYS (REDCAT): 67% – BITTERSWEET
SWEET On the whole, Early Plays is often rocked by crosscurrents. The magnificent focus and masterful irony of Wooster Group’s leading lady Kate Valk, for instance, don’t seem to jibe with the cut of Maxwell’s jib. She and Fliakos have too much going on in their minds to abstain wholly from interpreting the text. This [...]
Behold the Bitter Lemons Academy of Arts Criticism (BLAAC)
Pronounced “blaaach,” kinda like “blech” but with more “aaa”. But yes indeedy you heard right: The Bitter Lemons Academy of Arts Criticism. BLAAC. What the hell is it? Right now it is most definitely in its embryonic stage, but eventually it will become a full-fledged Academy with professors and semesters and tuition and diplomas and cigars [...]
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 [...]
WHEN YOU’RE IN LOVE, THE WHOLE WORLD IS JEWISH (GREENWAY COURT): 53% – BITTERSWEET
BITTER The effect is like sitting for 90mins while watching someone flog a pony as it brays for relief. 90mins? It felt more like 3 hours as the vignettes are dished out in an all-you-can-eat buffet line of one-liners, wise cracks and creaky setups for a punchline that is as crusty as week old challah [...]
THE DEEP THROAT SEX SCANDAL: 75% – BITTERSWEET
BITTERSWEET There have been so many derivative works based on the same history, from the more thorough and reliable 2005 documentary Inside Deep Throat to the splendidly inventive and perceptive 2009 locally premiered rock musical, Lovelace, that this pleasant and sympathetic yet relatively pedestrian rendering lacks much justification save for those thoroughly uninitiated. Myron Meisel [...]
CASSIOPEIA: 71% – BITTERSWEET
SWEET If you’re in a mood to give yourself over to rich imagery richly (sometimes too richly) conveyed, you’ll encounter something rare and beautiful. Bob Verini – Variety SWEET Part dream drama, part choreo-poem, the 75-minute three-character work, directed by Emilie Beck, charms both the brain and the senses. Evan Henerson – Backstage SWEET Still, [...]
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 [...]
TRACK 3: 86% – SWEET
BITTERSWEET While the 80-minute evening follows more or less the entire arc of Chekhov’s original it feels oddly incomplete. For long-time fan’s of the company, missing is the normally aggressive and wonderful design. The lighting lacks specificity and the sound score doesn’t feel as intricately layered. Still, it’s thrilling to watch a company do what’s [...]
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 [...]
The Saturday Saying
“The best argument for supporting artists on the edge, and the theaters that produce them, is that the artists we now lump into conservative classical and romantic genres were once regarded as marginal. They made their names by breaking the rules and sabotaging expectations. From Eugene O’Neill to Thornton Wilder to Tennessee Williams, their work [...]
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 – [...]
The Saturday Saying
“The relationship between critics and artists is like that between parents and children, though who’s the parent and who’s the child remains an open question. There’s a layer of anguish and frustration, a power-identity struggle surging from mutual condescension as well as respect, from a deep-seated and sometimes subliminal desire for bonding.” Steven Leigh Morris [...]
LA Weekly Looks Forward to 2013
LA Weekly’s Steven Leigh Morris gazes into his crystal ball and sees promise and hope for Los Angeles Theater in 2013. Besides mentioning the upcoming seasons for the always worthy companies of CTG, The Theatre @Boston Court, Sacred Fools, Zombie Joe’s Underground, Son of Semele, Rogue Machine, Theatre of NOTE and Antaeus, Steven also offers some [...]
LA Weekly’s Most Memorable Theater Moments of 2012
LA Weekly’s Steven Leigh joins the chorus of year-end theater accoladers here. Again, there is some nice overlap with the Bitter Lemons Best Of as well as McNulty’s and Don Shirley’s, but there are some other nice touches, especially some well-deserved praise for the always adventurous Boston Court in Pasadena. I was hideously remiss in [...]
RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDOORS (TROUBADORS): 100% – SWEET
SWEET No offense to the original cartoon’s sound track, but it’s the Doors songs that provide the theatrical oomph that allows this mild-mannered TV show to explode all over a stage, especially when performed by Eric Heinly’s hot live band. Don Shirley – LA Stage Times SWEET Well, my guests were certainly stuffed after this [...]
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 [...]
Critique of the Week – Runner Up
Again, Papa Steven provides rich context for two tremendous productions that seem to be flying in the face of the attention-deficit generation. NOTHING TO HIDE & GATZ Steven Leigh Morris – LA Weekly A telling admission in Derek DelGaudio and Helder Guimarães’ magic show Nothing to Hide, at the Geffen Playhouse through Jan. 6, is [...]
