ALL MY SONS
Sunday, June 6th, 2010
There’s no greater work of 20th Century American theater than Arthur Miller’s now classic All My Sons. Debuting on Broadway less than two years after World War II ended with Japan’s surrender, Miller’s examination of personal responsibility in time of war remains every bit as powerful—and relevant—sixty-three years after its New York premiere.
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SKYLIGHT
Sunday, June 6th, 2010
30-year-old schoolteacher Kyra Hollis has scarcely gotten back to her East London flat, the evening’s groceries in tow, when recent high school grad Edward Sargeant arrives on her doorstep with a question and a request. Kyra, a former employee of Edward’s restaurateur father, had been living with the Sargeants for half a dozen years until suddenly vanishing from their lives a couple years back. Not long after, Edward’s mother was diagnosed with cancer, her death last year leaving Edward without the two most important women in his life, his real life Mum and the “older sister” Kyra had become to him. Edward wants to know why Kyra abandoned them. He also wants her to do something to help his father, Tom, who’s not been doing all that well since his wife’s death.
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DINNER WITH FRIENDS
Saturday, June 5th, 2010
There’s a moment in Donald Margulies’ Dinner With Friends when one of its characters comments, “The thing is, you never know what couples are like when they’re alone; you never do.”
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SUPERNOVA
Friday, June 4th, 2010
Mabel Davies is trying to make the most of her Midwest hell of a life in Timothy McNeil’s World Premiere drama Supernova—but it sure as hell isn’t easy. Her inattentive, loutish husband John spends his days plunked down in front of the tube before heading off to his graveyard-shift factory job, leaving Mabel alone at home to fend for herself. Son Kip used to be the apple of both his parents’ eyes, but as his eighteenth birthday approaches, the surly youth wastes his days and nights drinking, getting high, and spouting right wing militia catchphrases. (He’s also carrying on a secret sexual affair with the Davies’ recently separated next door neighbor Fran, twice his age.) No wonder Mabel finds solace in her nightly phone calls with Joe, a lonely watch salesman in far away California.
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BEHIND THE GATES
Sunday, May 23rd, 2010RECOMMENDED
Bethany Lieberman’s adoptive parents are at their wits’ end. The privileged seventeen-year-old has turned to sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll to the point that she now sees Mom and Dad as the devil incarnate. Fearing that their child, born to a crack-addicted mother, may possibly be beyond saving, Susan and Jerry Lieberman ship Bethany off to Israel, kicking and screaming.
What the Liebermans are hoping for is a miracle. What they get is the same kind of nightmare Sally Field faced in Not Without My Daughter.
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MADAGASCAR
Saturday, May 22nd, 2010
A young man disappears, and five years later remains missing with nary a clue of his possible whereabouts.
JT Rogers’ Madagascar looks at the effect of this disappearance on three of the people closest to him. Densely written, told almost entirely through monologs, Madagascar is a smart play that requires smarts from its audience.
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THE ICE-BREAKER
Sunday, May 16th, 2010RECOMMENDED
Global warming is both a matter of scientific concern and a metaphor for Sonia and Lawrence’s relationship in David Rambo’s The Ice-Breaker, now playing at Beverly Hills’ Theatre 40. Though ultimately too talky to hold this reviewer’s attention as much as I would have liked, the production is distinguished by fine acting, direction, and design.
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LONDON’S SCARS
Saturday, May 15th, 2010
Two scarred Londoners take center stage in award-winning playwright Richard Martin Hirsch’s latest, the current-as-today’s-headlines London’s Scars, now in its World Premiere engagement as a guest production at West L.A.’s Odyssey Theatre.
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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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