IDENTITY CRISIS In a Mumbai flat, Deepa Kirpalani (Lina Patel), who lost her husband two years earlier, lives under the strict Hindu rules of widowhood. She never leaves her home, wears all …
PROSPERO IS UP TO HIS OLD TRICKS There seems to be a plan afoot at Zombie Joe’s Underground Theatre Group to give us The Complete Abridged Works of William Shakespeare, a project that …
DANSE MACABRE David J’s The Chanteuse and the Devil’s Muse is not so much a play as it is an art installation. But, as an art installation, it has a terrible beauty and some mome…
GHOST LIGHT LEAVES US IN THE DARK Assassin Dan White ensured Harvey Milk's legacy when he shot the openly gay San Francisco politician. The gay community continues to hold Milk as a martyr t…
AMPHIBIANS MORE EVOLVED THAN HUMANS Theatre West's production of Edward Albee's Seascape is a study in contrasts. Things either work, and work beautifully, or are muddled and miss the ma…
LOVE'S LABOR'S LOST, FOUND, LOST, LOST, AND FOUND I'm not so sure that this William Shakespeare has a future as a playwright. Oh, the man can write, but his newest play, Love's Labor's Lost …
TOUCHING MOMENTS DO NOT SUSTAIN FAMILY DRAMA In Collaborative Artists Ensemble's production of Jon Courie's new play, To Carry The Child, the oldest daughter, Ashley (Meg Wallace), her life …
ARCANE CRANE Jen Silverman's Crane Story borrows storytelling stage conventions from both east and west. A raised empty platform acts as the main acting area surrounded by wooden panelin…
THE HAPPIEST CORPSE I’VE EVER SEEN How many reasons do you need to rush out and get tickets for the Reprise revival of Cabaret? Let me offer a few. First of all, this is 2011, and a be…
HIGH CULTURE UNDER A MALIBU SKY Anne Bogart is not one to shy away from her own directorial eccentricities. As the American Theater’s Queen of Deconstruction, she has had a formidable …
WHAT’S WRONG? IT’S ALL RIGHT In thousands of YouTube videos, out-and-proud adults tell marginalized queer youth that life will get better. Yet the "It Gets Better" campaign advoc…
WHEN YOU USE MACE, USE WITH DISCRETION Playwright Kristoffer Diaz has an ear for unleashing the poetic possibilities in “street-smarts” vernacular; and director Edward Torres has…
A NEARLY MAGICAL EVENING News reporters ask one passerby after another, "Where were you when the Moon fell?" Yet the Moon has not fallen. She perches on a white chiffon-covered platform, plu…
UNLIKEABLE CHARACTERS STILL LEAVE A RESONATING MESSAGE In Milk Like Sugar, Kirsten Greenidge’s sharply-written world premiere at La Jolla Playhouse, three African-American, inner-city …
GREAT CAESAR'S GHOST Banners of slain leaders in world history, made to look as though they were hastily and inexpensively painted, chillingly greet us at the entrance to the New Theatre at …
AMBIGUITY WITH PURPOSE If you read the spiritual/psychotherapeutic tome A Course In Miracles, it states that miracles occur as a result of a shift in perception; that meaning lies not in the…
THE WEIGHT OF HIS ELOQUENCE Theatrical gimmicks are often a lot of fun. The 39 Steps delivered them with panache, and Story Theater taught us never to underestimate the range of the audi…
A MISSED OPPORTUNITY We learn very little about the history of the African Company (the world's first known African-American theater company) and even less about Richard III in The African C…
A COMEDY OF EXCELLENCE Cue the epic battle underscoring, full orchestra and chorus. A lanky gaoler lopes onstage, indicates a prisoner's head, clumsily hoists an ax from the prop box, and " …
A PUZZLE TO RELISH SOLVING As both theatergoer and theater writer, this reviewer is decidedly unenthusiastic about absurdist, avant-garde, or post-modern theatre. It's not so much the co…
DROOPING MAGNOLIAS One of six female denizens at a rural beauty salon in Louisiana states that, from the Southern male's point of view, "You either shoot it, stuff it or marry it." Well, tha…
AN UGLY DUCKLING OF A MUSICAL In Stephen Schwartz' musical My Fairytale, now receiving its American premiere at PCPA in Solvang, well-known storyteller Hans Christian Anderson has an idea fo…
A PATCHWORK OF THE PERSONAL AND POLITICAL My Name is Rachel Corrie is a solo show comprised of a patchwork of actual e-mails and diary entries by a young female activist in Gaza who was trag…
SCIENCE, GOD, AND LOVE: BEGIN ARGUING Buried somewhere in the convoluted twists, turns and ramblings of playwright Cody Henderson's Wonderlust lives a great story waiting to be told. …
THE ONLY THING THAT MAY NEED A CHANGE IS THE TITLE We hear that that the only thing constant is change, yet we struggle against change, we fight against change, and some are even willing to …