Author Archive
STATE OF THE UNION
Sunday, September 26th, 2010
The Republican Party has lost control of the White House and wants it back in the next election. “If we get a strong candidate, we’ve got a better than fighting chance,” remarks newspaper publisher Kay Thorndyke at a meeting with party bigwig James Conover and reporter/political strategist Spike MacManus. “The party’s best chance is to put up a candidate who’s never been identified with politics,” Kay goes on, and the trio set their sights on wealthy, self-made tycoon Grant Matthews. It just so happens that Kay and Grant have been carrying on an affair under the nose of Grant’s justifiably suspicious wife Mary, but no matter. What the public doesn’t know won’t hurt the Republican candidate, whoever he may turn out to be. Now, if they can just get Grant and Mary to play the parts of happily married man and wife and persuade Grant to tone down those speeches that have riled the special interest groups, thereby presenting a more homogenized image to the American public, they may just have an electable candidate.
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THE GOAT OR, WHO IS SYLVIA?
Saturday, September 25th, 2010
If you are a theatergoer who likes to be intellectually challenged, loves nothing more than laughing out loud unless it’s witnessing absolutely brilliant acting, doesn’t get his or her knickers in a twist by subject matter some would deem inappropriate for the dinner table—and if you know nothing at all about the plot twists in Edward Albee’s The Goat Or, Who Is Sylvia?, then read no further. Simply head on over to the Chance Theater for a production so all-around splendid that it will knock your goat’s wool socks off.
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SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN
Friday, September 24th, 2010
1920s matinee idol Don Lockwood is once again “walkin’ down the lane with a happy refrain” as the Norris Center For The Performing Arts presents the live stage adaptation of the MGM musical Singin’ In The Rain in an all-around terrific production sure to delight theater and movie buffs of all ages.
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DEAR HARVEY
Thursday, September 23rd, 2010
Before Sean Penn’s Academy Award-winning performance as Harvey Milk, it’s a fair guess that not too many people under the age of forty had ever heard of the first openly gay man elected to a major public office in the U.S. Dustin Lance Black’s movie changed all that, and now, Dear Harvey, a powerful dramatization of Milk’s words and those of the people who knew and worked with him, arrives at West Hollywood’s Lee Strasberg Theatre as a companion piece to the film, and one well worth seeing.
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BEEHIVE
Tuesday, September 21st, 2010
Beehive: a) a structure housing a colony of bees; b) a hairstyle for women, popular around 1960, in which the hair is arranged in a high rounded shape on top of the head; c) a fabulous musical revue featuring the greatest hits of the top girl singers and girl groups of the swingin’, turbulent 1960s.
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70, GIRLS, 70
Monday, September 20th, 2010NOT RECOMMENDED
John Kander and Fred Ebb had already had considerable success with Flora The Red Menace, Cabaret, The Happy Time, and Zorba when 70, Girls, 70 made its Broadway debut in 1971. Still, not even the renown of their four previous musicals could save their latest show from a quick 35 performance demise. In fact, 70, Girls, 70 vanished so quickly into obscurity that probably only the most avid Broadway buffs are even aware of its existence—Broadway buffs and the Musical Theatre Guild, which has as one of its missions to rescue flops like 70, Girls, 70 from obscurity.
MISALLIANCE
Sunday, September 19th, 2010
South Coast Repertory opens its 2010-2011 season with a deliciously staged and performed revival of George Bernard Shaw’s 100-year-old comedy Misalliance, a production so all-around splendid that it makes one of Shaw’s earliest plays seem half its age—or even younger.
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JACQUES BREL IS ALIVE AND WELL AND LIVING IN PARIS
Sunday, September 19th, 2010
Anyone under a certain age who hears the title Jacques Brel Is Alive And Well And Living In Paris may well wonder, “Who the hell is this Jacques Brel?”—a question likely to provoke a cry of “Sacrilege!” from more seasoned theater aficionados.
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