SMUDGE
Saturday, January 15th, 2011RECOMMENDED
How to review a show whose point you missed entirely? That’s the dilemma currently faced by this reviewer in writing about Rachel Axler’s Smudge, the latest offering by Burbank’s esteemed Syzygy Theatre Group.
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LOVE, SEX, AND THE I.R.S.
Friday, January 7th, 2011
Imagine you’re a 20something male living with your longtime best buddy and the tax season is drawing near. As you scan down the seemingly endless list of federal tax rules and regulations, you come to the realization that you’re paying loads more taxes simply because your roommate isn’t a woman and your wife. Then it dawns on you. Since your best friend is lucky enough to have one of those unisex names (like Ashley, Kelly, Tracy, Robin, or in this case Leslie), you suddenly realize how easy it would be simply to check F instead of M on Leslie’s tax return, and married instead of single on both of your returns. Voila, you’re saving a ton of money that Uncle Sam would otherwise pocket and do who knows what with.
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URNED HAPPINESS
Sunday, January 2nd, 2011RECOMMENDED
“Cheery, upbeat, even festive” are hardly the words one would normally use to describe a funeral, but then again the recently deceased “Mother Hapshaw” was probably the last person to inspire tears and lamentations. In fact, “Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead” could easily be the theme song of Ernest Kearney’s black comedy Urned Happiness, now playing at North Hollywood’s T.U. Studios.
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BULLSHOT CRUMMOND & THE INVISIBLE BRIDE OF DEATH
Sunday, January 2nd, 2011
It’s been nearly four decades since British master police detective wannabe Hugh “Bullshot” Crummond made his stage debut, doing his darnedest to outwit fiendish German villain Otto Von Bruno and his seductive “niece” Lenya to the delight of audiences in England and the United States. Co-creator Ron House now brings back Bullshot, the Von Brunos, Bullshot’s blushing bride Rosemary, and a host of other outlandish 1930s characters in Bullshot Crummond & The Invisible Bride Of Death, getting its world premiere production at North Hollywood’s Whitmore-Lindley Theatre. The result is as hilarious and inventive a show as you’re likely to see this or any other holiday/New Year’s season.
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A CHRISTMAS TWIST
Monday, December 27th, 2010
What Blazing Saddles did to the western, what Young Frankenstein did to the
horror movie, what High Anxiety did to Alfred Hitchcock’s oeuvre, this is what A
Christmas Twist does to Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol … and the result is the
funniest Christmas show of this year’s holiday season.
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THE EIGHT: REINDEER MONOLOGUES
Monday, December 13th, 2010
Jeff Goode’s The Eight: Reindeer Monologues has been entertaining Orange County audiences at the Chance Theater for the past seven Decembers. In my review of last year’s production, I called it “the funniest (and filthiest) Christmas show in town.” As for its plot, “one by one, Santa’s eight reindeer weigh in on the sex scandal that’s been rocking the North Pole. Is it true that Jolly Old St. Nick (aka ‘that fat fuck’) sexually molested Reindeer Number 8 (aka Vixen), or is the sexiest of The Eight merely looking for her fifteen minutes of fame?”
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MURDERERS
Wednesday, December 8th, 2010
Jeffrey Hatcher’s Murderers is a theatrical experiment that works, though at first glance you might have your doubts. You might well wonder, for example, if three monologs delivered one each by a trio of actors can possibly be called a play. After all, the actors appear together on stage only twice, first for Murderers’ opening lines (“I am a murderer.” “I am a murderer.” “I am a murderer.”) and second at curtain calls. In fact, the only thing the monologs have in common is their setting—Florida’s Riddle Key Retirement Community—and the fact that each is being delivered by a murderer. Is this really a play, let alone one given thumbs up by the New York Times?
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COLD LANG SYNE
Saturday, December 4th, 2010
In college, frat brothers Trevor, Perry, Garth, and Mark were known as the Four Musketeers of Sigma Pi, and since then—once every four years for the past twenty years—they’ve been reuniting to catch up on old times. There’s only one hitch. Trevor, Perry, and Garth can’t stand Mark’s guts, and wouldn’t mind at all if he dropped dead.
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