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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I OUGHT TO BE IN PICTURES
Thursday, October 25th, 2012
There was a time a while back there that every Broadway season seemed to feature a World Premiere Neil Simon hit. 1980’s I Ought To Be In Pictures arrived smack dab in the middle of those prolific years, and though its fame may pale in comparison to better known Simon classics like Barefoot In The Park, The Odd Couple, Lost In Yonkers and the Brighton Beach Trilogy, even minor Simon can provide major entertainment as its current revival at The Falcon Theatre makes quite clear.
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SLICE
Sunday, October 21st, 2012
“Hel-lo… It’s the 14th Century!” an exasperated Aiko Matsuda reminds her ne’er-do-well son Kai, invisible phone receiver to her ear, in Paul Kikuchi’s World Premiere screwball comedy Slice, and she’s not kidding. It really is the Age Of The Samurai in Japan, and 20something Kai can’t seem to get with the program. Mom is still waiting for Kai to throw out the trash, “which I asked you to do three days ago,” but Kai would rather while away the hours designing the world’s greatest sword, one which Lord Ito is bound to love … which will mean he’ll endorse it … which will mean that every samurai will want one! “It’s my duty as your mother to give you a sanity check,” declares Aiko in no uncertain terms. “Are you an idiot?!”
If this all sounds too sitcom silly for words, then you should probably skip Slice and opt for whatever Noël Coward revival might be playing locally. If, on the other hand, you simply want to spend a laugh-filled seventy minutes being entertained by a castful of zanies as seen through the eyes of a Japanese-American Mel Brooks, then check out the latest from the playwright who brought us Ixnay and Wrinkles. (Kikuchi does like those one-word titles.)
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YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU
Saturday, October 20th, 2012
If you love Kaufman and Hart’s 1930s classic You Can’t Take It With You as much as I do, then the best news in town will surely be The Antaeus Company’s sensational revival of this screwball gem, a production that gives audiences two completely different casts to choose from—and more.
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CHEKHOV UNSCRIPTED
Friday, October 19th, 2012
Here’s a question for all you Anton Chekhov fans out there. Which among these plays ran only one performance: The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, The Three Sisters, The Lake, or The Cherry Orchard? Need a hint? Its one and only performance took place on Wednesday, October 17, at the Odyssey Theatre in West Los Angeles.
The answer should be obvious to anyone who’s caught a Tennessee Williams, William Shakespeare, Stephen Sondheim, or Jane Austen opus as improvised entirely from scratch by the ad-lib geniuses who call themselves Impro Theatre, currently presenting Chekhov Unscripted (and the previously reviewed Twilight Zone Unscripted) in glorious repertory.
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TWILIGHT ZONE UNSCRIPTED
Thursday, October 11th, 2012
“There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone.”
Anyone around in the early 1960s can surely recall these words, and the voice of the man speaking them, the legendary Rod Serling, creator of the iconic TV series The Twilight Zone, one which spawned a feature film, a radio series, a comic book, a magazine, and various other spin-offs over the next five decades, including two revival television series and now, in 2012, an evening of hilariously improvised theater which the masters of improvisation known as Impro Theatre have entitled—what else?—Twilight Zone Unscripted.
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Since 2007, Steven Stanley's StageSceneLA.com has spotlighted the best in Southern California theater via reviews, interviews, and its annual StageSceneLA Scenies.
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