SPRING’S AWAKENING
Tuesday, July 1st, 2008NOT RECOMMENDED
German playwright Frank Wedekind’s 1891 play Spring’s Awakening was so shocking for its era that when it finally opened in New York 26 years later, it took a Supreme Court injunction to allow the show to go on … and then only for a single performance before closing. With scenes of masturbation, violence, and sex between 14-year-old characters, it is no wonder that pre-Roaring 20s audiences were shocked to the point of outrage.
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THE LAST SEDER
Sunday, June 29th, 2008
Jennifer Maisel’s warm and winning family dramedy The Last Seder opens with Michelle (Elisa Donovan), the youngest of four adult sisters, inviting Josh (Douglas Dickerman), a total stranger, to her family home. Michelle’s Alzheimer’s afflicted father Marvin (Joseph Ruskin) is about to be moved for long-term care into the serenely named Serenity Willows and the family home is soon to be sold, thus this year’s Seder will be the family’s last together and Michelle does not want to arrive empty-handed, so to speak.
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BETRAYAL
Saturday, June 28th, 2008
In the year 1999, Jerry confesses to Emma, his best friend’s wife, that he has loved her since he was best man at her wedding to Robert, and they begin an affair which goes on for years. In 2008, two years after ending the affair, Jerry and Emma meet again. With her marriage breaking up, she needs someone to talk to. In the course of conversation, Emma reveals (to Jerry’s dismay) that Robert knew about (and didn’t particularly mind) their affair. Indeed, says Emma, he knew about it as far back as 2004.
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THE SWEEPERS
Thursday, June 19th, 2008
ICT has yet another winner in the West Coast premiere of The Sweepers, the first of John C. Picardi’s proposed 10-play cycle focusing on the Italian American experience. Set in the summer of 1945, The Sweepers begins as a Neil Simonesque comedy about squabbling female neighbors in Boston’s Italian neighborhood, then in its final quarter veers into Arthur Miller territory. That this startling transition from comedy to drama happens organically, and not as if from another play entirely, is thanks to the very real characters Picardi has created, and the superb performances of the cast ICT has assembled.
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ORANGE FLOWER WATER
Sunday, June 15th, 2008RECOMMENDED
A bit of advice for the SoCal theatergoer. Whenever you see the words, “written by Craig Wright,” don’t hesitate. Just go. The TV scribe most famous for Dirty Sexy Money and Six Feet Under is also an accomplished playwright, capable of writing comedy in the face of tragedy (Recent Tragic Events), testosterone-filled drama (Lady), and suspenseful tragedy (Grace). In Orange Flower Water, Wright takes a plot as old as humankind itself (adultery) and adds his unique voice to its repercussions on the cheaters and the cheated upon.
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IN ON IT
Sunday, June 8th, 2008NOT RECOMMENDED
In Daniel MacIvor’s In On It, two actors perform on a bare black stage, their sole “props” being a pair of chairs and a gray suit jacket. Who are these two men? Are they actors? Writers? Students in an acting class? They seem to be preparing a play or movie about someone named Ray who was involved in an accident. At various times, both performers (named “This One” and “That One”) don the jacket to become Ray, or doff it to portray one of the other characters in Ray’s life. Other scenes between the two men, a gay couple, have them discussing their work in progress. Still others seem to be flashbacks from their past.
TRACERS
Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008
With over 4000 Americans killed in Iraq since the United States declared its “war on terror” in the Middle East, now seems a particularly appropriate time to remember the Vietnam War and its more than 47,000 American casualties (not to mention the over 300,000 wounded in action).
THE BLOWIN OF BAILE GALL
Sunday, June 1st, 2008
Ronan Noone’s The Blowin Of Baile Gall deals with racism and xenophobia in Ireland, but it could just as easily be set anyplace in the United States where people frustrated with their own failures and inadequacies find it necessary to stereotype and demonize those who are “the other.” It could be about African Americans angry at Korean grocers taking over businesses in “their” neighborhoods, or Latinos detesting the gentrification of their neighborhoods by upscale gays, or Caucasians complaining about “illegal immigrants.” Sound familiar?
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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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