SWEET “What the Butler Saw” represents Orton at his most sophisticatedly silly. It’s a play bursting with references to other plays, including even one of the greatest trag…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 05:26PM[SHARE]BITTERSWEET Overall, the show has its plusses and minuses, which can always be the case when any theater company takes on a challenging and very detailed period piece. It comes across in a v…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 06:51PM[SHARE]SWEET A high degree of skill and individuality accompanies “Takarazuka!!!” at East West Players. In its elegant West Coast premiere, Susan Soon He Stanton’s very promising …
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 03:37PM[SHARE]SWEET Writers Matt Soson and Vika Stubblebine's witty, 90-minute intellectual thrill ride takes its 12-member audiences down a harrowing narrative rabbit hole. The show satirizes the convent…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 02:16PM[SHARE]BITTERSWEET The cast includes Zuleyka Silver as a pulchritudinous porn star wannabe, Sumiko Braun as her younger sister, and Rob Belushi as the porn producer whose dirty dealing triggers a c…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 12:37PM[SHARE]SWEET “The Old Woman” is, in the large scheme of the ever-escalating Wilson World, a road-show roundelay, theater as hit and run. It comes into town and is gone before you know i…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 12:04PM[SHARE]SWEET Although I tend to be skeptical about the power of any garment to effect lasting spiritual change, all those stilettos evidently tenderized me to a pulp: I drove home beaming, filled w…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 01:51PM[SHARE]SWEET Some of these stories " such as depictions of anorexia-bulimia, tumultuous pregnancies, abandonment and misogynistic violence " have been explored many times in television, movies and …
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 04:27PM[SHARE]SWEET Itamar Moses's Completeness is chockfull of discourse about protein processes and algorithmic probabilities, and if, like myself, you're not of a scientific bent, you could drift off a…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 01:39AM[SHARE]SWEET In short: this piece is well performed and directed. Daniel Faigin – Observations Along the Road SWEET Through playwright Jason Odell Williams’ focus on comedy and director…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 07:08PM[SHARE]SWEET Don't let the gay bashing that is the pivotal event of Diana Son's Stop Kiss scare you away from its exciting Pasadena Playhouse debut. Under Seema Sueko's nuanced direction and with a…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 03:50PM[SHARE]SWEET In fact, this is a sweet and very funny coming-of-age tale, punctuated with sassy musical numbers and ferocious wit. And, yes, in the end there is a serial killing subplot, when a trio…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 01:12AM[SHARE]SWEET Rarely is one able to see a musical that can thrill an audience not in spite of a low budget… but because of it. There can be such an expectation for spectacle when seeing a musi…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 12:46AM[SHARE]SWEET Gordon's skewering of these three earnest, dopey Gen Y-ers is sharp and often quite witty. (One of Anikka's several businesses is making "kombucha cozies for orthodox Jewish women.") T…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 02:07PM[SHARE]BITTERSWEET The scene in Act 4 between the mad Lear and the blinded Gloucester doesn’t register the heartbreak of two men at the end of their lives searching for meaning in their abomi…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 02:48AM[SHARE]BITTERSWEET Kelegian’s dead-eyed determination ("I’m just not having a very good time, and I don’t have any reason to think it’ll get anything but worse") is the reas…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 11:54AM[SHARE]SWEET Cohn has a talent for aphorism, Morgenstern excels at pacing, and the facile cast keeps the laughs coming — a tactic that not only richly entertains but also obscures the play…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 03:17PM[SHARE]SWEET Queer Classics' The Importance Of Being Earnest gives us a world that Oscar Wilde could scarcely have conceived of in his Wildest dreams, and in so doing, Casey Kringlen and company gi…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 05:32PM[SHARE]BITTER If exuberance and good intentions were enough, Pope! might come closer to the epic experience predicted in its title. As it is, for this audience member, this one just didn't fly. Ell…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 03:39PM[SHARE]SWEET By the end of the play, we learn that much of the stories are embellishments " but at the center of it all, Edward is still the hero he claims to be. In fact, he is more the hero than …
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 07:26PM[SHARE]SWEET Robert Beltran's staging is more clear than nuanced, approached with considerable competence and occasional flair. The cast wanders the stage in costume designer Abel Alvarado's tunics…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 06:26PM[SHARE]SWEET Some of the finest voices I've heard at Candlelight Pavilion Dinner Theatre along with Jason James' assured direction make for a first-rate Jekyll & Hyde out Claremont way, with Ja…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 06:12PM[SHARE]BITTER Director Jon Lawrence Rivera must bear some of the blame, as the staging emphasizes irrelevant and sometimes daffy gimmicks " images projected on upstage videoscreens, big gory rubber…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 12:43AM[SHARE]BITTERSWEET In a play about a man's bargain with the devil, either the man or the devil " but ideally both " should fascinate or intrigue, certainly more than they do here. Deborah Klugman &…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 04:50PM[SHARE]BITTERSWEET Though directors Price and JR Esposito prove far more self-assured with sci-fi than horror, their ungainly staging of the latter cannot fully obscure Macher's thought-provoking m…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 04:27PM[SHARE]SWEET The world premiere of the unauthorized parody musical “Scream!” at the Rockwell Table and Stage in Los Feliz includes a star studded cast and hilarious satirical humor, all…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 12:51AM[SHARE]BITTER “Zealot,” which has been directed by SCR artistic director Marc Masterson on a handsome office set designed by Ralph Funicello, has come off the Rebeck assembly line with …
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 07:12PM[SHARE]BITTERSWEET The script could be further trimmed: the opening takes up more time than it needs to and Enrique's repeated hardships start to run together. For a story so grounded in grim reali…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 06:11PM[SHARE]SWEET With Troubies shows, revivals, and West Coast stagings of East Coast hits making up the bulk of its seasons, a Falcon Theatre World Premiere comedy achieves event status in our L.A. th…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 05:12PM[SHARE]SWEET The promise of the show’s opening number “Magic to Do” was lived up to with Houdini-esque virtuosity. “Pippin” was a show that inspired teens from the 197…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 06:00PM[SHARE]BITTERSWEET The basics of a good story and good drama are here, but Morgan doesn't provide adequate, convincing heft to these characters, or to the structure of her plot. Oddly, she saves he…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 02:38PM[SHARE]
