A HOUSE WITH NO WALLS
Sunday, May 11th, 2008
Playwright Thomas Gibbons completes his trilogy about black/white relations in the United States with A House With No Walls, the latest production of the Robey Theatre Company. The Robey, which was named after the great African American actor/singer/civil rights pioneer Paul Robeson, dedicates itself to producing plays about the African American experience. A House With No Walls fulfills the Robey’s mission with an engrossing drama which spans over 200 years and features black and white characters with a wide range of political points of view. It is likely that virtually everyone in the audience will identify with at least one of the people on stage. That Thomas Gibbons happens to be white is merely a footnote, so authentic and well-written are his characters.
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THE NIGHT OF THE IGUANA
Thursday, May 8th, 2008
Glendale’s A Noise Within (“California’s Classical Theatre Company”) is about the closest thing Los Angeles has to an “artists in residence” repertory ensemble, which for theatergoers means that each of their superb productions is likely to feature many of the same gifted actors who’ve delivered memorable performances in years past. For the resident artists, it means a kind of job security which is almost non-existent in L.A. theater, plus a chance to perform some of the greatest roles ever written, in works by Shakespeare and Racine and Moliere and Shaw and Miller and Foote and, in the current production of The Night Of The Iguana, by Tennessee Williams.
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SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE PALACE
Thursday, May 1st, 2008
A brief news clipping reporting the aftermath of a crime in 1980s Apartheid-ruled South Africa inspired renowned playwright Paul Slabolepszy to imagine the 90 minutes which might have led up to it. The harrowing result, Saturday Night At The Palace, had its Cape Town premiere at a time when it was illegal for black and white actors even to appear on stage together.
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NO EXIT
Tuesday, April 29th, 2008NOT RECOMMENDED
Matthew Hannon and two other grads of LACC’s prestigious Theatre Academy have mounted Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit as a tribute to their late teacher/director Brett Gandy. It is Gandy’s concept which director/star Hannon has remounted in a production of the French existentialist classic playing Tuesdays at the Lounge Theatre.
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LADY
Saturday, April 26th, 2008
Craig Wright may be most familiar as the writer/(executive) producer of TV’s Dirty Sexy Money and Six Feet under, but theatergoers know him as a prodigious playwright, the author of such radically different fare as Orange Flower Water, Grace, and Recent Tragic events, all three of which have had superb L.A. productions over the past two years. Orange Flower Water is a harrowing drama of adultery, Grace mixes that theme with evangelical Christianity, and Recent Tragic Events dares to imagine a screwball comedy taking place the day after 9-11. Now comes the West Coast Premiere of 2007’s Lady, and the trio of outstanding local productions of Wright’s work is now a quartet.
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DINNER WITH FRIENDS
Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008
“You never know what couples are like when they’re alone.”
Thus speaks one of the characters in Donald Margulies’ Dinner With Friends, a play which allows us, the audience, to see what its two couples are like behind closed doors. Like flies on the fourth wall, we observe Gabe and Karen’s (and Tom and Beth’s) most private moments. We also see each couple as they see the other, and what they see is often quite different from the other couple’s intimate reality.
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MAYFLOWER
Monday, April 14th, 2008The year is 1984 and the city of Baltimore is devastated. Its hometown football team, the Colts, has snuck away in the middle of the night, their entire belongings loaded into a fleet of Mayflower Transit trucks bound for Indianapolis. Reviled team owner Robert Isray’s name is less than mud in Baltimore on this snowy March morning, when its residents awaken to the news that the Baltimore Colts are no more.
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WHAT THEY HAVE
Sunday, April 13th, 2008
Thousands upon thousands of actors choose Los Angeles as their career base for the obvious reason; no other city offers them as many opportunities to do film and television work as L.A. does. Nevertheless, even many of the most successful choose to make regular stage appearances for the challenge and joy of performing before a live audience. The same holds true for movie and TV writers who, despite big and small screen success, continue to write for the theater, to the benefit of L.A. audiences.
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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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