Tuesday, April 15, 2014
SWEET Three years ago, also with the help of Estienne and Krawczyk, Brook reduced Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” down to its ritualistic essences, removing the magic and retain…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 08:48PMBITTER Judging by the pervasive silence during the performance, the rest of the audience apparently didn’t get what was being said, either. Whether it was the accents or the acoustics or t…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 08:13PMMonday, April 14, 2014
BITTERSWEET Performances from the strong 11-member company are first rate, and Sossi directs his cast to play the lengthy, absurdist drama for maximum laughs. Yet there is a dark and disturb…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 12:44PMFriday, April 11, 2014
BITTERSWEET The jazz is delicious, many songs are delightful, but the entire show would have been better without the intrusive and distracting plots. John Farrell – Random Lengths SWEE…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 11:20PMBITTERSWEET Beck’s decision to make Anna’s affliction an anthropomorphic one – a handsome devilish specter (Jack Millard), visible only to her, is responsible for her pain …
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 03:52PMThursday, April 10, 2014
SWEET This prolific dramatist’s latest play, which is having its world premiere at South Coast Repertory in a finely acted production directed by Martin Benson, put me in mind of the A…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 06:37PMSWEET The ANW cast members inhabit their 1950 characters with stunning authenticity. G. Bruce Smith – Stage and Cinema SWEET Fortunately, the current revival of Inge’s 1950 drama “…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 06:10PMBITTERSWEET Still, the production, by War Horse director Tom Morris, is surprisingly uninvolving. The main quartet of lovers and their foibles feel too separate from the puppet business, a b…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 03:18PMFriday, April 4, 2014
BITTERSWEET The production now playing at Cabrillo Music Theatre in Thousand Oaks, which is, for all intents and purposes, a regional replica of the Broadway show (the director and a large c…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 08:06PMSWEET Indeed, this delicately potent West Coast premiere, a co-production between the Falcon and Chicago’s Tony-winning Lookingglass Theatre Company, often seems to be composing itself bef…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 06:32PMSWEET Ultimately, this is a literate and entertaining examination of a vital period in our history, told with wit, humor, and perspicacity, and acted with skill. And director Bjorn Johnson k…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 04:15PMSWEET This is the show to see in Los Angeles, and the continuing success of its cast and creators is well-deserved. Bravo Kevin P. Taft – Frontiers SWEET For The Record: Tarantino brin…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 03:35PMThursday, April 3, 2014
SWEET From its striking opening tableau, to its full-cast musical prologue, “The Ballad Of Floyd Collins,” accompanied by teenaged balladeer Jewell Estes (Matt Magnusson) on guitar, to o…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 04:09PMBITTERSWEET Based on the true story of Dr. John Fryer, the Philadelphia psychiatrist who bravely came out at the Association’s Philadelphia conference in 1972, Doctor Anonymous is a well-i…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 03:06PMSWEET Clark is smart to envision a near-future, fear-based world that’s taken its cue from the chilling rash of school shootings that have occurred over the past decade or so—even if Qui…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 02:19PMSWEET Happily, director Carly Weckstein’s accomplished studio revival of the play (abetted by William Herder’s nicely emblematic scenic design) does come as a potent reminder of just wha…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 01:43PMMonday, March 31, 2014
SWEET The look of the play was truly excellent. Paterno skillfully acted as de-evolved Seymour, which, combined with his monkey makeover, was pretty disturbing. Yet convincing! The audience …
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 07:00PMSWEET So hurry on down to Candlelight Pavilion for a true treat and enjoy a good meal and great show. Robert Machray – Stagehappenings SWEET The songs are all Gershwin, the dancing is …
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 04:28PMSWEET Throughout, the beige-clad and slight grubby (!) performers move, sway, declaim, sing and either perform percussion or play musical instruments—all in a deftly choreographed and plea…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 02:55PMSWEET Director Gloria Gifford, with a cast of over twenty artists allowed each performance to be distinctive. At no time was there a moment when the attention was not exactly where she inten…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 02:13PMFriday, March 28, 2014
SWEET L.A. Deli is a therapeutic 12 Sketch Program for show business habitués trying to break the cycle of rejection and self-delusion. Industry predators and their preyed-upon square off a…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 06:08PMBITTERSWEET The least effective scene is an unnecessarily thorough reenactment of Robeson’s appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee, with Smith asking the questions fr…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 01:28PMThursday, March 27, 2014
SWEET It is a solid example of the Modernist movement in literature, and of high-stakes drama that is surprisingly still relevant and as wildly entertaining today as it must have been in 193…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 05:43PMBITTERSWEET Staging this play was no easy task for Santa Monica Rep’s Director Jan Bloom, who has chosen to present it with the audience seated on either side, like at a tennis match (…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 04:27PMSWEET Riotously written, and maniacally directed by Jeff Gould … this x-rated adult comedy is outrageously funny! Pat Taylor – Tolucan Times SWEET This play is the third in a series …
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 04:03PMSWEET So…what if Lady MacBeth had been diagnosed with OCD, manifest through excessive hand washing? What if The Taming of the Shrew’s Petruchio was discovered to have been bipolar in his…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 03:33PMTuesday, March 25, 2014
SWEET The show’s perfectly paced. It begins frat kegger funny and then, almost in a whisper, becomes sad as hell. It ends neither maudlin nor tragic. Instead, to Vander Roest’s c…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 08:45PMSWEET If you enjoy a mystery, you will enjoy the United States Premiere of a mystery thriller at Theatre 40 in Beverly Hills. Whether you are a believer or not, you will enjoy God Only Knows…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 02:04PMSWEET This production of “A Song at Twilight” is a reminder that there’s more to Coward than Champagne bubbles and intoxicating quips. What could very easily have turned in…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 01:26PMMonday, March 24, 2014
SWEET Moosie Drier directs with verve and a wealth of comic invention. Bell skillfully navigates the changes as Max is transformed from nebbish to newly confident faux-star. Ladd is a whirlw…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 08:16PMSWEET Under the focused direction of Jeff Soroka, the superb cast relishes the material without ridiculing it. The hijinks that follow are treated with a sharpness that the script demands. C…
SOURCE: Bitter Lemons at 07:40PM 
