MRS. MANNERLY
Wednesday, November 28th, 2012
Playwright Jeffery Hatcher takes a delightful trip down memory lane in Mrs. Mannerly, his staged memoir of an etiquette class he once took under the tutelage of Mrs. Helen Anderson Kirk, aka the Emily Post of Steubenville, Ohio.
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THE EIGHT: REINDEER MONOLOGUES
Tuesday, November 27th, 2012
Chance Theater resident artist Casey Long could hardly have imagined back in 2004 that eight Christmases later he’d be performing in the Ninth Annual Chance production of The Eight: Reindeer Monologues. Yet, miracle of miracles, Casey and the rest of The Eight (reindeer that is) continue shocking and delighting Orange County audiences with year after year of raunchy, R-rated yuletide cheer, written by Jeff Goode (author of the equally adult-themed Poona The Fuckdog And Other Plays For Children).
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86’d
Monday, November 26th, 2012RECOMMENDED
What happens when you take an obscure direct-to-video movie from the ‘90s, adapt it as a stage comedy, edit it down from 86 minutes to a little over an hour, give it a new title and World Premiere it at Hollywood’s Theatre 68? The answer is 86’d, an enjoyable albeit slight (and very short) comedy that has quite a bit going for it … and against it as well.
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DOESN’T ANYONE KNOW WHAT A PANCREAS IS?
Friday, November 16th, 2012
Friends (and friends of friends) find themselves Looking For Love In Los Angeles in Carole Real’s funny, perceptive new comedy Doesn’t Anybody Know What A Pancreas Is?, now getting a sparkling World Premiere production by Ensemble Studio Theatre/LA.
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PRESENT LAUGHTER
Sunday, November 11th, 2012RECOMMENDED
San Pedro’s Little Fish Theatre closes its 2012 season with a sparklingly performed revival of Noël Coward’s hilariously farcical Present Laughter. If only poor sightlines didn’t leave many audience members craning for a view of the actors.
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THE DOCTOR’S DILEMMA
Saturday, November 10th, 2012
Two men facing imminent death from a terminal illness and a doctor with the means to save only one of them. Who will live? Who will die?
If this sounds like a made-for-TV movie or an episode of a weekly medical drama, think again. It’s The Doctor’s Dilemma, George Bernard Shaw’s smart, funny, still thought-provoking 1906 comedy and the latest classic to be revived—smashingly—by A Noise Within.
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THE FISHERMAN’S WIFE
Tuesday, November 6th, 2012
An unhappily married fisherman and his wife get some unsolicited sex therapy from a nautically tattooed traveling salesman and a sexually insatiable pair of tentacled sea creatures in Steve Yockey’s laugh-out-loud surreal screwball comedy The Fisherman’s Wife, Ensemble Studio Theatre’s maiden offering in The Speakeasy, its brand new (and aptly named) performance space in Atwater Village.
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CYMBELINE
Saturday, October 27th, 2012
A plucky young heroine who dons male apparel as disguise. A villain who plots to make our hero suspect his young wife of adultery. A potion that simulates death without that pesky fatal result. A royal father who rejects his beloved daughter. Children separated at birth and reunited at long last in adulthood. An ambitious queen without a moral scruple to her name. A bit of Ancient Roman history thrown in for good measure.
Care to venture a guess as to which Shakespeare play I’m talking about?
The answer, as any true Shakespeare buff will surely tell you, is neither As You Like it, Othello, Romeo And Juliet, King Lear, A Comedy Of Errors, Hamlet, or Antony And Cleopatra (though the abovementioned plot threads appear to have been borrowed from this half-dozen or so of Shakespeare’s Greatest Hits). No, it’s Cymbeline, reputedly Shakespeare’s fifth-from-last play, originally classified as a tragedy, later redubbed a romance, and as performed at A Noise Within under the truly inspired direction of Bart DeLorenzo, about as hilarious a comedic romp as any theatergoer seeking escapist entertainment could wish for.
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