PASSION PLAY
Sunday, May 4th, 2014
Chance Theater challenges adventurous theatergoers and rewards them in equal measure with director Trevor Biship’s powerfully staged vision of Sarah Ruhl’s Passion Play, three acts, two intermissions and all. Bows may not get taken till nearly three-and-a-half hours after curtain, but if you’re anything like this reviewer, you’ll find yourself enthralled from fanciful start to emotional finish.
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MACBETH
Saturday, April 26th, 2014RECOMMENDED
Elijah Alexander and Jules Willcox deliver powerhouse performances as Macbeth and his Lady as A Noise Within presents its latest excursion into Shakespeare territory. By contrast, Larry Carpenter’s direction proves considerably less impressive.
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FIVE MILE LAKE
Thursday, April 24th, 2014
Some plays grab you from their first moments and hold you in their grasp till the lights go out. Others sneak up on gradually until at a certain point you realize that you’ve been hooked … and hooked you stay till the final curtain. Rachel Bonds’ Five Mile Lake, the latest World Premiere from South Coast Repertory, falls into the latter category, and quite a small wonder of a play it is.
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WATER BY THE SPOONFUL
Monday, April 21st, 2014
A recovering crack addict offers online counseling to fellow former drug users as a young Iraq vet and his music prof cousin attempt to cope with the impending death of their aunt, the woman who raised him.
These two initially distinct plot threads come together—and powerfully so—in Quiara Alegría Hudes’s Pulitzer Prize winning Water By The Spoonful, now getting a superbly acted West Coast Premiere at San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre.
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THE LION IN WINTER
Sunday, April 20th, 2014
Mariette Hartley and Ian Buchanan bring star quality, decades of stage and screen experience, and award-winning acting chops to the Colony Theatre’s splendid revival of William Goldman’s The Lion In Winter, a 12th-century drama so rich in family intrigue, it could easily have served as a model for any number of nighttime soaps.
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COME BACK, LITTLE SHEBA
Tuesday, April 15th, 2014
A gripping slice of contemporary Midwest life when it made its 1950 Broadway debut, William Inge’s Come Back, Little Sheba has now become a compelling period piece … and a superb 21st Century revival at A Noise Within.
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REST
Saturday, April 12th, 2014
Native Idahoan Samuel D. Hunter once again turns the lives of ordinary folk into world-class drama in his latest play, Rest, being given an all-around superb World Premiere production at South Coast Repertory under Martin Benson’s inspired direction.
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DOCTOR ANONYMOUS
Tuesday, April 1st, 2014NOT RECOMMENDED
The gay liberation movement may have started in earnest with the 1969 Stonewall riots, but homosexuality was still deemed a “curable” mental illness by the American Psychiatric Association in 1972 when a masked Dr. John E. Fryer addressed the annual APA conference as “Dr. H. Anonymous,” beginning his speech with the simple words “I am a homosexual. I am a psychiatrist.”
A year later homosexuality was removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
Inspired by Fryer’s speech, psychiatrist/playwright Guy Fredrick Glass has written Doctor Anonymous, now getting its World Premiere at the Zephyr Theatre, and though several of its actors rise above the material, neither their performances nor a topnotch production design can mask Doctor Anonymous’s many serious flaws.
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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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