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 05:26PMBITTERSWEET 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 06:51PMSWEET 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 03:37PMSWEET 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 conve…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 02:16PMBITTERSWEET 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 12:37PMSWEET “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 12:04PMSWEET 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 01:51PMSWEET Some of these stories – such as depictions of anorexia-bulimia, tumultuous pregnancies, abandonment and misogynistic violence – have been explored many times in television, movies …
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 04:27PMSWEET 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 o…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 01:39AMSWEET 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 07:08PMSWEET 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 …
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 03:50PMSWEET 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 01:12AMSWEET 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 12:46AMSWEET 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 wome…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 02:07PMBITTERSWEET 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 02:48AMBITTERSWEET 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 …
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 11:54AMSWEET 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 03:17PMSWEET 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 …
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 05:32PMBITTER 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. E…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 03:39PMSWEET 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 tha…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 07:26PMSWEET 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 tu…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 06:26PMSWEET 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, wit…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 06:12PMBITTER 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 rubb…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 12:43AMBITTERSWEET 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 Klu…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 04:50PMBITTERSWEET 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…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 04:27PMSWEET 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 12:51AMBITTER “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 07:12PMBITTERSWEET 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 rea…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 06:11PMSWEET 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 05:12PMSWEET 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 06:00PMBITTERSWEET 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 …
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 02:38PM
