ANDRONICUS

”14 killings, 9 of them on stage, 6 severed members, 1 rape (or 2 or 3 depending on how you count), 1 live burial, 1 case of insanity, and 1 of cannibalism” is how critic S. Mark Hulse sums up William Shakespeare’s vengeance-fueled Titus Andronicus, and Coeurage Theatre Company gives us each and every one of the above in a mere two hours (including intermission) in Jeremy Lelliott’s exhilarating new adaptation of Shakespeare’s contribution to the “revenge play” genre, redubbed Andronicus to befit this leaner, zippier incarnation of the 16th-Century classic.
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FLIM FLAM: HOUDINI AND THE HEREAFTER

“Spiritualism” may not be the first word to spring to mind when master illusionist/escape artist Harry Houdini and Sherlock Holmes/Dr. Watson-creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle are mentioned, but it is precisely this fascinating but lesser-known aspect of the two men’s lives on which playwright Gene Franklin Smith has based his World Premiere drama Flim Flam: Houdini And The Hereafter, now entertaining and elucidating audiences at Malibu Playhouse.
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THE CURSE OF OEDIPUS

Spending time with the Ancients has rarely if ever been as exhilarating as it is in Kenneth Cavander’s The Curse Of Oedipus, an Antaeus Company World Premiere which proves that even the deadly dullest of theatrical genres, Greek Tragedy, can end up the opposite of boring when given fresh new life by the right creative team.
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FLOWER DUET

Marriage is “till death do us part”—except when it isn’t—or so Max and Stephanie and Sandy and Maddie discover in Maura Campbell’s provocative Flower Duet, now getting its West Coast Premiere at North Hollywood’s Road Theatre following a 2010 World Premiere in Burlington, Vermont.
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CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF

RECOMMENDED

A pair of sensational performances by Sienna Farall as Maggie and Brian Robert Harris as Big Daddy elevate Theatre Palisades’ revival of Tennessee Williams Cat On A Hot Tin Roof above standard community theater fare.
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THE BROTHERS SIZE

RECOMMENDED

The Fountain Theatre follows its multiple award-winning 2012 production of Tarell Alvin McCraney’s In The Red And Brown Water with the Los Angeles Premiere of the 33-year-old playwright’s The Brothers Size, and while the production is as beautifully acted as they get, I am a good deal less enamored with the second in McCraney’s Brother/Sister Plays trilogy than I was with the first.
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OTHER DESERT CITIES

Jon Robin Baitz’s Other Desert Cities, one of the best written, most thought-provoking, and ultimately most moving plays of the last decade, now arrives at Long Beach’s International City Theatre in a production that no lover of contemporary drama will want to miss.
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DEATH OF THE AUTHOR

An accusation of plagiarism is but the opening shot in Death Of The Author, Steven Drukman’s academia-set World Premiere drama that unfolds like an edge-of-your-seat suspense-thriller from its “gotcha” hook to the unexpectedly satisfying way Drukman manages to tie the whole thing up some ninety minutes later.
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