1,308 stories by "Charles McNulty"
Muddled beginning, smudgy staging and distracting songs in this musical ultimately add up to a tender honesty.NEW YORK — "Fun Home," the musical adaptation of Alison Bechdel's extraord…
Alison Pill radiates Old Hollywood and theatrical style in an adaptation of 'Wait Until Dark' that only partly dusted off an outdated work.The suspense is laboriously built up in the Geffen …
A family of con artists are as ruthless with one another as they are with their marks in Carla Ching's clever but labored drama at South Coast Repertory.In the program for "Fast Company," a …
The characters are more involving than the plot in Samuel D. Hunter's play at the Old Globe about unresolved relationships.SAN DIEGO — Characters in drama don't have to be likable, as …
Stanley Kauffmann, who died Wednesday at 97, will be remembered for his intellectually rigorous, neatly manicured film reviews -- the meditative yin to Pauline Kael’s ecstatic yang.
The fusion of Jeff Buckley songs with 'Romeo and Juliet' is sometimes hypnotic at the Old Globe, but more often it jangles.Shakespeare and contemporary popular music might seem strange bedfe…
'The Sunshine Boys,' with former 'Taxi' stars Danny DeVito and Judd Hirsch at the Ahmanson Theatre, feels dated and a step slow.The knock against Neil Simon in the early days was that he car…
Critic's notebook: The festival has created a significant cultural event and allowed us to appreciate the scope of an unorthodox theater town.Nearly all of the shows in Radar L.A. have packe…
An erotic 1933 story from Japan is beguilingly rendered in a joint production by Complicite and Japan's Setagaya Public Theatre.Rarely has the dance of shadows, the interplay of light and da…
The truths told by, respectively, Luis Alfaro ('St. Jude'), Roger Guenveur Smith ('Rodney King') and Trieu Tran ('Uncle Ho to Uncle Sam') at Kirk Douglas Theatre have a personal quality that…
The drama chronicling the early AIDS epidemic also serves as an emotionally searing character study.Larry Kramer's "The Normal Heart" holds such an important place in the history of the AIDS…
Gritty New Hampshire drama presents a truthful psychological study that ultimately proves moving and poetic.John Pollono, author of the much-feted "Small Engine Repair," has supplied Rogue M…
Jessica Kubzansky's ingenious adaptation of Shakespeare's 'Richard II' at the Theatre @ Boston Court uses three actors and focuses on the tale of a ruler who is never more kingly than when g…
Such exciting new writers as Samuel D. Hunter, Amy Herzog and Young Jean Lee are on tap. So are stalwarts Neil Simon, Reginald Rose and, yes, Shakespeare.Theater festivals have the potential…
Charlie Robinson rises above inconsistent staging to get to the hard truth of the South Coast Repertory revival of an Arthur Miller classic.It's always a privilege to be in the company of an…
Julie Harris wasn’t simply one of the great American actors of the 20th century. She represented to those in her profession a reverential ideal.
Gina Gionfriddo's 'Rapture, Blister, Burn' at the Geffen Playhouse adds a comical edge to the old question of whether a woman can have it all.To judge by appearances, Catherine is a roaring …
It's a Pinteresque reunion for English actors Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart, performing the Broadway-bound 'No Man's Land' in Berkeley.BERKELEY — Their Stradivarius voices precede t…
Jaunty Actors' Gang entertains mightily in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream,' but at eve's end it's stretched to the limit.The love games of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" are as frolic…
Critic's Notebook: For Cate Blanchett, it's an inspired trip from 'Streetcar Named Desire' on stage to 'Blue Jasmine' on film.One of the joys for a theater critic of watching Woody Allen's …
In “Postscript,” a critic returns to works already reviewed to respond to readers, touch on points not covered, share second thoughts and extend the critical conversation. Â
A fun Brooke Shields-directed production of 'Chicago' at the Hollywood Bowl features a vivid Ashlee Simpson and a strong Samantha Barks."Chicago" is a perfect fit for the Hollywood Bowl for …
A colleague asked me the other day whether there was a character in Shakespeare to compare to disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner, whose New York mayoral campaign has spun out of …
Rex Pickett's 'Sideways,' directed by Des McAnuff at La Jolla Playhouse, is touching but struggles with both a stage car and memories of the film.The theater can do just about anything in my…
Adrian Lester, Rory Kinnear star in a can't-miss 'Othello.' You can miss 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.' Reviews of 'Passion Play,' more. LONDON — Traveling to London this summer …
