COMPRESSED CRUELTY IN A SMALL STRINDBERG SHOCKER August Strindberg, the "father of modern psychological drama," told his publisher that Creditors, a drama that he prized as much as he did hi…
A NOURISHING TREE While lacking in emotional engagement, Daniel Beaty's solo outing exploring the life of actor/singer/activist Paul Robeson undoubtedly entertains, educates, inspires, and l…
VERDICT: WEAK ADAPTATION There's something innately suspenseful about a courtroom drama. Perhaps it's the fact that real life courtrooms are themselves theaters and a criminal trial is e…
BOYS WILL BE MONSTERS William Golding's 1954 cautionary thriller depicts a world on the edge of nuclear war. But when a plane crashes, a tiny portion of humanity is given a do-over. Tragical…
PUTTING THE THEATER IN DANCE Living up to its name, Nederlands Dans Theater 1 bounded into Los Angeles last night, showing off the reasons why The Hague-based contemporary dance outfit is kn…
NOT ONLY THE PLAY, BUT THE PLAY-WITHIN-THE-PLAY’S THE THING The Storm Theater presents the first offering of its Ferenc Molnár festival with this gem, adapted by P.G. Wodehouse from…
A PUPPET IN THE WILDERNESS In The Table, a curious creation now on its first U.S. tour, three members of the U.K.'s Blind Summit puppet theater depict a garrulous Bunraku-style hand puppet, …
FRANCE:Â WHERE THE WOMEN ARE WOMEN (AND THE MEN ARE WOMEN, TOO) Director Paul Urcioli's delightful production of Moliere's classic skewering of female emancipation is given an additional …
INDIAN NIGHTS Earlier this fall the Joffrey Ballet revisited the uneasy birth of modern dance with a kinetic revival of Stravinsky's still-shocking, century-old Sacre du Printemps in all its…
CIRQUE'S PERKS What’s a circus without lions, tigers, and elephants? Â In the case of Cirque du Soleil's Totem, their eleventh major production in 26 years, it’s a marked impro…
THE FOOD HERE IS MIXED…AND SUCH SMALL PORTIONS One thing you've got to love about this festival of ten minute plays:Â When they're done correctly, these vignettes are like plates of…
SITE-SPECIFIC IS NOT SO SPECIFIC La Jolla Playhouse supported the trend of site-specific and immersive theater by presenting a four-day program of over 20 different performances in and aroun…
STOPPARD AND GO Tom Stoppard's brilliant Travesties (1974) is literate and fiercely crafted, tackling ideas of love, wit, politics, art, theater, literature, intellectualism and whatever els…
THE STANDARD FOR STORYTELLING It's a coup just to get the theatrical rights to this juicy work, the late, great Paddy Chayevsky's Oscar-nominated 1956 screenplay. But it's sensational to pul…
BIG HOGS AND HOT POCKETS We buy products because they consume us. Ultimately our products replace us, because if you are what you eat, it follows that what you eat also is you. And a…
WIT DOESN’T HOLD BACK Years back, Oldsmobile released a new line of sporty, sleek cars with the tagline “This is NOT your father’s Oldsmobile.” For those who asso…
NO HALLELUJAH FOR THE LAST GOODBYE No one can deny why Jeff Buckley has achieved cult status. The coffeehouse-rock singer brought an aching, wrenching, ethereal and vulnerable quality to bot…
A ZOMBIE MUSICAL THAT NEEDS BRAINS There's something wrong with a show that demands you be drunk. On opening night the howling fans of this cult phenom, now in its fourth incarnation (if tha…
LOVE IMITATES ART Ironically, the real-life love affair celebrated on film and in the theater by co-creators Glen Hasard, an Irish composer, and Marketa Irglova, a Czech songwriter, fizzled …
FRIENDS DISCOVERING BENEFITS Familiarity needn't breed contempt. An old-fashioned "coming out" drama can reinvent the wheel with charm enough to distract from any cloying sense of déjà v…
SAY WATT? While it is probably safe to assume that the NoHo Arts Center Ensemble's "playwright in residence," Joshua Ravetch, had some bright idea in mind when writing The Light Bulb, I must…
ROMANCE MEETS REALITY Written early but published posthumously (1817), Jane Austen's most comical novel, Northanger Abbey, works equally well as a literary satire and a psychologically probi…
TOO FEW Samuel D. Hunter's slice-of-life one-act, The Few, returns to familiar territory for this up-and-coming playwright. As in his previous plays, Hunter takes us to small-town Idaho; thi…
CLUELESS CORRUPTION Much has been said about Neil LaBute’s work at Profiles, but there's so much that can't be given away about Wrecks (2005), a 70-minute solo show by the ever-cont…
BACK TO THE SALEM WITCH TRIALS Definitely thoughtful, at times charming, occasionally compelling, but mostly tedious, Adriano Shaplin's new play Sarah Flood in Salem Mass, tells of two girls…