SOMEWHAT FORCED, WE STILL GET THE GLORY OF WEST SIDE STORY Strangely enough, West Side Story feels more dated than Romeo and Juliet, its 500-year-old inspiration. Compared to Sha…
THE LOSSES THAT GROW Only 75 minutes long, this slice of loss by Lauren Yee–a "rolling world premiere" from the National New Plays Network–charts one mother's tailspin after the …
WRAP YOUR BRAIN AROUND A NEW A NEW BRAIN When A New Brain opened at Lincoln Center in 1998, I couldn't understand why the reviews were so higgledy-piggledy. True, I hadn't actually seen the …
ONE NERDY, ANAL AND SINGULAR SENSATION The first two weeks of June, 2001, was a very good time to attend Broadway shows. On one day alone, I saw The Producers at 2:00, The Rocky Horror Show …
THE SILVER SCREEN IS NOT A MIRROR At three hours long, The Flick takes its"and our"time to not tell a story. Almost all atmosphere (more specifically, totally character), Annie Baker's 2014 …
THE HEART KEEPS ITS REASONS Starring Julianne Moore and Dennis Quaid, Todd Haynes' 2002 film Far From Heaven told a tale timeless as Romeo and Juliet. But its glimpse of hearts out of sync w…
EVEN GOD CAN’T SAVEÂ THIS FROM ITSELF Dear God (if I may quote Alice Walker): What’s going on with the theater these days? Oh, that’s right, you already know. In fact, yo…
MAGIC CAN STRIKE TWICE IN THE SAME PLACE In 2013, a new production of The Magic Flute from Berlin's Komische Oper became a sell-out sensation, courtesy of the Los Angeles Opera. Now, it retu…
PRESIDING OVER HISTORY This is a discovery-rich, impeccably presented journey through our political past: American Blues Theater's Looking Over the President's Shoulder takes audiences on an…
FRENZY IN FEBRUARY Detonating across the Auditorium Theatre's vast stage through February 21, Joffrey Ballet's Bold Moves has more of the latter than the former stuff. But this kinetic winte…
MAJESKI'S MAJESTIC MARSCHALLIN Lyric Opera's new production of Der Rosenkavalier is beautiful, charming, and magnificent. It delightfully exceeded my expectations and gave me a new appreciat…
TALLY LOW Doggedly determined to fight yesterday's battles, Nell Benjamin's chronic farce The Explorers Club manically mocks the heyday of male British explorers. Fuddy-duddy adventure seeke…
AÂ HOLLYWOOD MUSICAL AS YOU’VE NEVER SEEN IT In 1993, H.R.H. the Princess of Hanover appointed Jean-Christophe Maillot as the head of Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo. Backed by his experi…
A DAMNED GOOD PAIRING What could be a more appropriate title for an opera than La Voix Humaine? What better source material for an opera than Dante's Divina Commedia? Chicago Opera Theatre c…
AÂ FUNNY AND NOT-SO FUNNY THING An irresistible mix of Roman "new comedy," commedia dell'arte, and vaudeville, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum rivals The Producers as the fu…
HE AND SHE AND ME The performers' abundant charm can't overcome the script's shortcoming in I and You, Lauren Gunderson's tedious comedic drama about two high schoolers attempting a class pr…
COLORFUL COLORATURA IN A CLUNKY CANDIDE There isn't much I could say about the musical Candide that hasn't been written about before. Leonard Bernstein created one of our greatest Broadway s…
TO BAKER STREET AND BEYOND! Not to give anything away but the title character in The Man Who Murdered Sherlock Holmes is not Professor Moriarty, "the Napoleon of crime." In this life-imitate…
CENSORSHIP COMES TO LOS ANGELES The Wooster Group has let Stage and Cinema know that Samuel French, Inc., which manages the United States rights for Harold Pinter's work, has bannedÂ�…
IF BREVITY WAS THE SOUL OF ETHICS… One of the advantages of one-act plays is that if they're bad, you don't have to wait long for them to be over. (I can't ever remember wishing a good pla…
STAGNANT STAGING AND CRAZY COSTUMES, BUT THEÂ CAST AND CHORUS CAPTIVATE There's a good reason why Verdi's operas are typically described as "grand opera." They're big and bold, requiring m…
WHEN IT RAINS, IT SOARS Let’s start with the unavoidable down-side so we can end with the up-side. While Cygnet Theatre’s When the Rain Stops Falling is spectacular, it is ter…
THE DESCENT OF MAN AS DRAMA Another incendiary offering from Oracle Productions, Monty Cole's bold take on Eugene O'Neill's The Hairy Ape is pugilistic and powerful. In his athletic tour-de-…
THE TROCKS ROCK! As part of their worldwide tour, one of the most original troupes on the globe is coming to Carpenter Center in Long Beach this weekend. Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte C…
COMMITMENT CRISES FUEL A CRACKLING COMEDY Many, many gay plays since Stonewall have pitted fidelity against promiscuity, love against sex, and, nowadays, marriage against friendship. Same-se…