ABNORMALLY REAL When you avoid musicals as strenuously as I do, after a while you wonder why. For some time I decided that it was the generally trite treatment of serious issues, a gripe…
BOTTOM IS TOPS Unlike Shakespeare's tragedies and histories, which are mostly named for their main character, his comedies have rather different kinds of titles. These differing titles alert…
LOVE AS A MYTHICAL BEAST Compelling performances and Cat Parker's surefooted direction overcome budgetary and other constraints associated with short-run, theater-festival productions, makin…
RAY OF LIGHT FINDS THE HUMANITY WITHIN FRACTURED FAIRY TALES Into the Woods has been produced many times since its 1987 Broadway premiere, but it is unlikely to have benefited from as ebulli…
PIXIE DUST TO PIXIE DUST After a funeral many years ago, a group of my buddies all declared their desire to be cremated when the time comes. Shockingly, however, all four of us avowed to hav…
AMERICAN TRAGEDY BECOMES MUSICAL COMEDY 1931 was a crossroads in American history. With no economic recovery in sight, the Depression had people edgy, and when Americans are edgy, they are d…
CHILD’S PLAY Adapted by Jeremy Bloom from J. M. Barrie's Peter and Wendy and A Little White Bird, Peter/Wendy, which Mr. Bloom also directs, is a charming, semi-interactive theatrical …
EXQUISITE SHARDS OF GLASS Never has the title of Tennessee Williams' early masterpiece, The Glass Menagerie, been so thoroughly embraced by the set designer. Grant Sabin takes the name of th…
BRAIN FRIED Retaining a cephalopod's far-ranging spinelessness and wide-ranging tentacles, Alicia Adams and Justin Zsebe's vanity work, A Fried Octopus, makes a squishy thud at The Bootleg. …
A THUNDEROUS EVENT The "thunder" in Dragon's Thunder comes from huge kettle drums, prominently featured in a pounding competition between a Dragon and a Tiger. (Both win). It's one of 14 lyr…
WHAT A DRAG There are so many ways to glitter and be gay in modern American Musical Theater. The recent revival of La Cage Aux Folles depicts the unexpected bourgeois normality in a near-mar…
HAND IN HAND TO HELL’S ANGELS Deceit and destruction reign in Wayward Productions' hell-bent for leather staging of Richard III, which has been reimagined as biker gang mayhem in a …
A STIRRING MENTAL EXERCISE WELL DONE In reviewing A.C.T.’s Arcadia, I feel compelled to begin with a caveat: It is a highly cerebral work " a tapestry of threads connected by bloodline…
A CURE FOR INSOMNIA Dan Frost's evocative performance as the artist Roger Hilton isn't enough to save Botallack O'Clock, written and directed by Eddie Elks and currently being performed as p…
FANTASTIC, INDEED Fantasticks may be the longest running musical in America, but Amanda Dehnert's magical production at South Coast Rep should run forever. The backdrop for this timeless won…
A FRATERNITY OF MASTER THESPIANS At its core, Jeff Stetson's Fraternity is about the two options that face black men in today's society (or, at least, the society of Birmingham in 1987, when…
SOMETHING WICKED THAT WAY GOES In a rare clash of film noir, an awesome murder mystery party, and Shakespeare, Punchdrunk's Sleep No More is the ultimate voyeuristic thrill. Audience members…
SKETCHY BLUEPRINT The great John Turturro stars as the architect Halvard Solness in David Edgar's translation of Ibsen's enigmatic chef-d’oeuvre The Master Builder, which is currently …
ALL THE WRONG MOVES The musical Chess highlights the tongue-twisting, swift, and pithy lyrics by Tim Rice and the soaring, dazzling music by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus of ABBA fame. …
ALIVE WITH AMBIGUITY If you require a neat and tidy ending, a feeling of clarity, and a sense of completion to insure your theatrical enjoyment, then Dying City " making its Los Angeles prem…
HOME IS WHERE THE HEARTACHE IS Moments before the arrival of Hope (a domineering mother-in-law, not the aspiration), newly-married Melody jests with her handsome corporate attorney husband, …
THEÂ TITLE CHARACTER ISÂ TOO PURE FOR PEOPLE, BUT THIS PURE PRODUCTION IS FOR EVERYONE Of all Moliere’s comedies, The Misanthrope (1666), now gloriously and faithfully revived at C…
SCULPTED TO PERFECTION Dance should never be dull: That's the acting credo of Boris Eifman's kinetic Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg, now erupting across the huge Auditorium Theatre stage th…
BEDEVILED An off-stage character is tortured by a Salem court in Arthur Miller's The Crucible, a play which dramatizes the Salem witch trials of 1692. As heavy stones are placed upon his che…
THE NORTH PLAN STARTS ON COURSE THEN GOES SOUTH A ruthless splinter group has seized power in Washington and a low level bureaucrat who has escaped with the new regime's "hit list" is on the…