THE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL
Friday, November 4th, 2011
The lives of ordinary people make for extraordinary theater in Horton Foote’s 1953 drama The Trip To Bountiful, revived to perfection at South Coast Repertory under the delicately shaded direction of Martin Benson.
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BHUTAN
Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011
Something went dreadfully wrong in the life of New Hampshire high school senior Warren Conroy a year ago, or so we surmise from our first glimpse of him, behind bars, in Daisy Foote’s riveting family drama Bhutan, now getting a superb West Coast Premiere at Rogue Machine Theatre under the inspired direction of Elina de Santos.
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HERMETICALLY SEALED
Tuesday, November 1st, 2011
Hermitically Sealed is both the title of Kathryn Graf’s compelling new family drama and an apt description of the way 40something caterer Tessie May has chosen to live the life she shares with her teenage male offspring—like an egg, “safe and sound in its own little world.”
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NINE CIRCLES
Saturday, October 29th, 2011
If protests against the war in Iraq have never come close to reaching the size or intensity of those of the Vietnam War era, one need merely compare the military demographics of troops serving in the Iraqi desert with those of soldiers sent to fight in the jungles of Southeast Asia. Whereas the pre-1973 military draft affected all but the wealthiest of Americans more or less equally, these days we have an all-volunteer Army, few of whose members have likely chosen a soldier’s life over a university degree or a white collar job. In fact, as Bill Cain’s Nine Circles makes abundantly clear, with soldiers like Pvt. Daniel Reeves in uniform, our military may well be scraping the very bottom of the barrel in recruiting new grunts. If not for Cain’s searing, probing, heart-rending look at Pvt. Reeves wounded soul, few among us would give much of a damn whether he lived his soldier’s life or got sent home in a body bag.
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PEACE IN OUR TIME
Sunday, October 23rd, 2011
It’s November of 1940 and the folks gathered at The Shy Gazelle are precisely those you’d expect to run into in a London pub just a month after the Battle Of Britain. Gregarious manager Fred Shattock and his affable wife Nora are offering pub regulars their customary warm welcome as they serve the usual libations to entertainer Lyia Viven and her lover George Bourne, magazine editor Chorley Bannister, chums Janet Braid and Alma Broughton, and middle-aged couple Mr. and Mrs. Grainger. Conversation revolves around the usual topics—news of the Grangers’ soldier son, “still there, on the Isle Of Wright;” the “dreadfully negative” nine o’clock BBC Nightly News broadcast; George’s defense of Lyia’s vocal talents against Chorley’s nasty digs, etc.
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ALL MY SONS
Sunday, October 23rd, 2011
It’s been nearly sixty-five years since Broadway audiences first thrilled to Arthur Miller’s All My Sons, decades during which countless actors have put their stamp on the now iconic roles of factory owner Joe Keller, Joe’s son Chris, Chris’s fiancée Ann Deever, and Ann’s brother George. It’s a sure bet, however, that few if any of them have ever looked like Alex Morris, A.K. Murtadha, Linda Park, and James Hiroyuki Liao—and for obvious reasons. The Kellers and Deevers are Caucasian. Morris, Murtadha, Park, and Liao are not.
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DUSK RINGS A BELL
Friday, October 14th, 2011
Playwright Stephen Belber starts off his latest with a classic romantic setup—then throws the audience an unexpectedly serious curve—in Dusk Rings A Bell, his not quite perfect but nonetheless highly affecting two-hander, now playing at Hollywood’s Blank Theatre in an exquisitely acted and directed West Coast Premiere.
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THE DINOSAUR WITHIN
Wednesday, October 12th, 2011
An aging, wheelchair-bound 1960s movie goddess longs for a return to past glories. Her greatest fan, a young Australian aborigine hoping to break into the movie biz in Hollywood, still mourns the death of his two older brothers to suicide. A newspaper reporter remains incapable of recovering from the disappearance of his ten-year-old son years before.
The lives of these three disparate characters intersect in both “The Dreamtime” and “The Dream Factory” in John Walch’s powerful, engrossing, deeply moving The Dinosaur Within, now getting its most major production to date at Pasadena’s Theatre @ Boston Court under the inspired direction of Michael Michetti.
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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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