GODDAMN CHEKHOV, AGAIN I suspect nobody really likes The Seagull except theater people. It established for the modern age some of the essential playwriting untouchables: a play about…
WHEN THE SAINTS COME DANCING IN Here's a charming revue that sets to song and dance the words of the great poet Gertrude Stein, mistress of new language and one of the tremendous free spirit…
A MAIDENLY DEATH Victory Gardens Theater's Death and the Maiden is one of the most highly anticipated Chicago productions this year: Ariel Dorfman's well-known play (made famous by Roman Pol…
SOBER CANNIBALS, DRUNKEN CHRISTIANS This show made me wish I had chosen to sit through Lost Moon Radio’s Million Dollar Hair again. If this sounds like faint praise, it is; I did not e…
“THIS JOURNEY IS MINE” Richard (Ric) Montejano was born on September 22, 1949 in San Gabriel and grew up in Van Nuys and then La Habra. In the late 1970's, he found his true …
PRO AND (EX-)CON In telling his true-life tale about being convicted of attempted murder and released following a hefty prison term, Joe Assadourian is proof that you can be a crook and stil…
EXPECT NO ERRORS IN THIS COMEDY One of Shakespeare's earliest plays, The Comedy of Errors is also his shortest and most farcical. In fact, while scholars argue over the classification of oth…
WHILE GENERIC, A SINCERE SHIP HARDLY CAPSIZES The Last Ship, now in a shakedown cruise at Bank of America Theatre, joins a proud list of fervent tributes to blue-collar Brits. These salutes …
COME ON AND SHOOT A PRESIDENT Assassins ushers together the horde of maniacs who have made attempts on the lives of US Presidents, seeking to examine their varying degrees of sanity, as well…
DARK SUBJECT MATTER LEAVES US IN THE DARK Inspired by Theater of the Absurd, Cuban expatriate MarÃa Irene Fornés (b. 1930) cut her teeth during the Off-Off-Broadway avant-garde movement.…
DELIVERING THE GOODS WITH INTO THE WOODS Somewhere between "Once Upon a Time" and "Happily Ever After" there is a very adult world of tests, losses, disappointments, and grief. Despite this,…
TILL DEATH DO US RECONCILE In little more than an hour Sharr White pulls off a (one) act of forgiveness, reuniting estranged partners in a foul trailer in Paonia, Colorado. The unpromising s…
RUSSIAN AVANT-GARDE AS SURREAL BURLESQUE Delightful wouldn't be a word I'd expect to use when describing a Robert Wilson show. But The Old Woman, adapted by Darryl Pinckney from an absurdist…
A JUICY CLUSTER OF APES There are no simians in Apes of Wrath, Second City e.t.c.'s new revue at Pipers Alley"but then, as always, the jokes are on us. The vague premise behind this trenchan…
I HAVE A LOVE Conductor Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony have just released a live recording of the first ever complete concert performances of West Side Story. I wanted …
MEGALOMANIA WAS NEVER SO MUCH FUN Move over Evita, there's another Queen of Hearts in town. And she likes diamonds too. I'm talking about Imelda Marcos"she of the thousand pairs of shoes"who…
ORPHANS OF THE RICH No one captures the volatile complexity and fragile bravado of mixed-up young adults better than the angry young plays of the 20th century. In Look Back in Anger, Dealer'…
CAVE-IN The press release refers to The Cave as being inspired by Beauty and the Beast and Persephone. In Greek mythology, Persephone was abducted by Hades, the god-king of the Underworld. B…
A WORLD APART FROM TYPICAL FRINGE FARE Like a breath of fresh air, Jason Robert Brown's Songs for a New World far exceeded my expectations of both the Fringe and Brown's uneven song cycle. T…
FAR FROM FABULOUS A young gay man named Charlie has had a breakup. Feeling despondent, he enters an empty theater and performs a ritual aided by a copy of Witchcraft for Dummies. He conjures…
GIVE US THE OL' RAZZLE DAZZLE There are some perfect pairs in entertainment: Laurel and Hardy, Bert and Ernie, Simon and Garfunkel, Gumby and Pokey, Cheech and Chong, and Shaggy and Scooby c…
LINDEN HOPS Based on the lyrics of Van Morrison's "Linden Arden Stole the Highlights," Colin Mitchell's one-man play of the same name may have a sketchy narrative, but a combination of genui…
CANDY MAN Yes, this is a superficial “And then I…” retelling of Anthony Newley’s life, but Jon Peterson’s one-man outing at the Hollywood Fringe Festival is fun…
ONCE NIGHT ONLY Pretend for a moment that One Night Only Cabaret wasn't a fundraiser for both Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and the Richmond/Ermet AIDS Foundation (REAF). Pretend that yo…
MUCH ADO ABOUT SOMETHING YOU WANT TO SEE If one were only to see Shakespeare as produced by The Public Theater at the Delacorte Theater, it would be easy to come to the conclusion that all o…