TENNESSEE WILLIAMS UNSCRIPTED
Friday, March 20th, 2009
The improv geniuses who brought us Jane Austen UnScripted make a welcome return with their latest concoction—Tennessee Williams UnScripted. Like its predecessors, which spoofed Austen, Shakespeare, and Sondheim, Tennessee Williams UnScripted is a two-act comedy completely improvised in the style of its titular writer. Because this is Williams, author of Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, A Streetcar Named Desire, and The Glass Menagerie, the director’s note promises that the only thing the cast knows in advance is that “some poetic sensitivity…will be crushed by brutal forces from the outside world.” The rest is up to the imagination of the oh-so-creative improvisers.
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A SKULL IN CONNEMARA
Thursday, March 12th, 2009
The residents of Connemara, a small town in rural Galway, Ireland, appear not to need television or the movies for diversion. They’ve got each other—and their secrets and gossip and gleefully traded insults—to keep themselves and each other entertained night and day.
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THE TAMING OF THE SHREW
Sunday, March 8th, 2009
Director Geoff Elliott re-envisions Shakespeare’s The Taming Of The Shrew as a 1950s movie set in Italy and succeeds at the challenge with flying colors, making A Noise Within’s production a veritable treat for Shakespeare lovers and classic film buffs alike.
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BAREFOOT IN THE PARK
Friday, March 6th, 2009
One of my favorite things about being a theatergoer is having the chance to see new productions of favorite plays. Unlike the movies, where the word “remake” usually spells artistic disaster, revivals of popular theater favorites give directors and actors the opportunity to put their own stamp on iconic productions and roles, and playgoers the chance to revisit favorite characters and situations—with a fresh new twist.
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THE TAMING OF THE SHREW
Wednesday, March 4th, 2009
I’ve been known to say that I’m not the world’s biggest Shakespeare fan. In last December’s review of Love’s Labor’s Lost, I confessed that “I often get lost in his convoluted plots, whole chunks of dialog whizzing past me or over my head without really sinking in.” Well, just as I thoroughly enjoyed Love’s Labor’s Lost last December, I’m happy to report that I absolutely loved The Odyssey Theatre Ensemble and Circus Theatrical’s new production of The Taming Of The Shrew. It only took the first lines of dialog for me to have that “Eureka!” moment of thinking, “Wow, I’m actually understanding everything they’re saying, and it’s funny to boot!” Precisely what audiences in Shakespeare’s time must have been thinking when Shakespeare’s verse was not that far removed from actual contemporary speech.
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OUR LEADING LADY
Sunday, February 22nd, 2009
Comedienne extraordinaire Carol Burnett once said, “Comedy is tragedy plus time,” an adage which playwright Charles Busch proves spot-on in his hilarious backstage farce Our Leading Lady, now playing at The Neighborhood Playhouse in Palos Verdes Estates. The tragedy is the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln at Washington D.C.’s Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865, only days after Lee surrendered at Appomattox. In imagining the backstage shenanigans taking place in the hours leading up to that fateful performance of Our American Cousin, starring real-life actress-manager Laura Keene, Busch has written an outrageously funny play which finds comedy out of national tragedy—and serves as an affectionate love letter to the theater as well.
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IXNAY
Wednesday, February 18th, 2009RECOMMENDED
Following his death in a car crash, third-generation Japanese-American Raymond Kobayashi finds himself at heaven’s Reincarnation Station where he is given special permission to begin a new life immediately—on one condition. He must go back as a Japanese-American. Though the word Ixnay is never uttered in Paul Kikuchi’s new comedy-fantasy, a resounding “No way!” is Raymond’s response to this proposition. He’s had enough of his just-ended life as a sansei and the thought of being Japanese-American a second time is one he wants to put an emphatic “nix” on.
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NOISES OFF
Sunday, February 15th, 2009
Nobody loves farce more than the British, whether it’s plays like No Sex Please, We’re British, or Joe Orton’s What The Butler Saw, or Alan Ayckbourn’s Taking Steps, or any of Ray Cooney’s frantically-paced comic gems (Move Over Mrs. Markham, Run For Your Wife, etc.) These British farces are so popular that they not only get major professional productions throughout the world, they have also become a staple of community theaters, where unfortunately they don’t always get the caliber of actors required. Only performers with a) total command of their lines, b) perfect coming timing, and c) absolute readiness to enter and exit on cue can do these comedies justice.
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