LIFE ON THIS COUCH
Friday, August 26th, 2011
ec•cen•tric ([ik-sen-trik, ek-)—adjective: (of a person or behavior) Unconventional and slightly strange, as in “No one writes eccentric characters quite like Laura Richardson.”
For proof of the above, head on over to Open Fist Theatre where Richardson’s latest, Life On This Couch, is delighting audiences with the playwright’s unique, quirky, and thoroughly entertaining take on life. Like the eccentrics in Richardson’s Do Do Love and Come Back Little Horny, the people who live on and around Cece Taylor’s sofa are folks you might not want to live with 24/7, but it sure is fun to spend a couple hours observing the habits, mating and otherwise, of this wild and crazy bunch.
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BEAU JEST
Thursday, August 25th, 2011
Perhaps the three best words of advice to offer any theater company hoping to stay in business year after year are the following: Know Your Audience. The post-retirement set who make up Glendale Centre Theatre’s loyal subscribers keep coming back again and again because they trust GTC to give them the kind of time-proven hit musicals and plays that they grew up enjoying, shows like this season’s Forever Plaid, To Kill a Mockingbird, Big River, and 1776, to name just a few.
Beau Jest, the current Glendale offering, isn’t going to win any “Drama Critics’ Circle” awards for sophistication, daring, or cutting-edgedness. In fact, the New York Times savaged a New Jersey production back in 1994 in a review which still shows up first if you Google the title. But tell that to last night’s mostly over-65 crowd, who loved every one of Beau Jest’s sitcommy jokes and archetypical characters, and you know what? Even though I’m not quite as up there in age as the majority of the aforementioned, I too had a ball from start to finish, thanks in great part to the terrific talent who’ve put together GCT’s latest offering.
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MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
Monday, August 22nd, 2011
If William Shakespeare has been called an acquired taste, the time has come for this reviewer to confess to having—despite considerable kicking and screaming—acquired a taste for the Bard. No longer can I protest too much, as I have in years past, that (to quote from a 2008 review) “I often get lost in his convoluted plots, whole chunks of dialog whizzing past me or over my head without really sinking in.” Yes, Shakespeare’s plots can still be hard to follow, and yes, there are still passages that even the finest Shakespearean actor cannot render comprehensible to my 21st Century ears, but after having (in the past year alone) raved about productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (two of them!), The Comedy Of Errors, Measure For Measure, The Taming Of The Shrew, and The Merchant Of Venice, I’m actually starting to look forward to “Another Op’ning, Another Show.”
The Old Globe 2011 Shakespeare Festival production of Much Ado About Nothing can now be added to the above list, director Ron Daniels and an extraordinarily talented cast having come together to create a truly magical evening of romance and laughter under the San Diego stars.
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THE UNDERPANTS
Friday, August 19th, 2011
What a difference two seconds can make. That’s how short a time Louise Maske insists that her undies dropped down to her ankles “in front of the neighbors, in front of strangers, and at the King’s parade” in The Underpants, adapted from German playwright Carl Sternheim’s 1910 original by none other than Steve Martin. Yes, that Steve Martin, whose unique take on love and life makes Long Beach Playhouse’s production of The Underpants a delightful August surprise.
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AGATHA CHRISTIE’S SPIDER’S WEB
Saturday, August 13th, 2011
Theatre 40 has another Agatha Christie hit on its hand with The Queen Of Crime’s 1954 comedic mystery Spider’s Web. Though not quite on a par with T40’s previous Christie gem Black Coffee (Dame Agatha’s plotting and the cast’s British accents are slightly less razor-sharp this time), Spider’s Web nonetheless makes for a thoroughly entertaining brain teaser with nearly as many laughs as you’d expect in an English farce.
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WATSON
Friday, July 29th, 2011
You don’t have to be a Sherlock Holmes fan to deem Jaime Robledo’s Watson theatrical magic, as its return engagement at Sacred Fools Theater Company makes abundantly clear. No wonder Watson (aka The Last Great Tale Of The Legendary Sherlock Holmes) won a pair of coveted LA Weekly Awards—for Robledo’s direction and Henry Dittman’s bravura comedic work—in its initial run last fall. Robledo’s comedy thrills and astonishes again and again, making its midsummer encore the best possible news for Los Angeles theatergoers in the mood to be dazzled.
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THE INSIDIOUS IMPACT OF ANTON
Sunday, July 24th, 2011
You could hardly call Francesca “The Girl Who Has Everything,” but she for one is not complaining. She has a job and a small circle of sort-of friends, and while she doesn’t have a husband or a boyfriend, what she does have is a life which includes “people, cable, books on occasion, sex when required. And an apartment that always gets compliments.” And then she meets Anton.
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DOUBTING THOMASON
Saturday, July 16th, 2011
Los Angeles theater buffs may recall one of the biggest Ovation Award upsets ever, when the under-the-radar West Coast Premiere of Tracy Letts’ Killer Joe went on to win four crystal statuettes, including Best Production, Best Ensemble, and Best Direction. Far fewer will be aware that, at about the very same time as that production was set to open, another group of L.A. actors were rehearsing the very same play, only to discover a week before their own opening that someone else (the future Ovation winners) had the rights to Killer Joe—and they didn’t.
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