BENT
Sunday, April 18th, 2010RECOMMENDED
Recent years have seen great strides for the LGBT movement in the United States and even more so in certain other parts of the world. At the same time, as a visit to Towleroad.com will attest, anti-gay violence occurs on a daily basis, and in countries like Uganda, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, the mere fact of being gay can mean death, and not merely by your garden variety basher but by the government itself. Thus, Theatre Out’s production of Martin Sherman’s Bent comes at a propitious time indeed, and though a key directorial decision dilutes its power, a committed cast and one performance in particular make this an important piece of theater for LGBT playgoers and general audiences as well.
(read more)
THE BLUE ROOM
Sunday, April 11th, 2010RECOMMENDED
Austrian playwright Arthur Schnitzler’s 1900 play La Ronde so shocked the early 20th Century European theatrical world that it didn’t get its first public performance until 1920, and even then the play (and Schnitzler) were roundly attacked by critics and theatergoers alike. Hardly surprising, considering its plot—a sequence of not two or three, but ten sexual encounters. No matter that the most the play showed was a bit of foreplay, the actual sex taking place entirely in the audience’s imagination during brief blackouts. It was too much for Europe, let alone America, to take.
(read more)
LASCIVIOUS SOMETHING
Thursday, April 8th, 2010
Liza is August’s Lascivious Something in Sheila Callaghan’s provocative, adventurous, stimulating, surprising new play of the same name. Better put, she was his lascivious something back in the 1960s when the two were fighting the good fight against the Vietnam War and all things rigid, boring, and traditional.
(read more)
THE LANGUAGE ARCHIVE
Sunday, April 4th, 2010RECOMMENDED
George is a linguist, and he’ll be the first to explain that this doesn’t mean that he speaks a whole bunch of languages fluently, but rather that his field is linguistics, the scientific study of language and languages as a whole. George’s particular field of interest and expertise is the study of dying languages such as Elloway, whose two remaining speakers are facing their twilight years. If George doesn’t probe their knowledge asap, it will be too late to for a recorded/written record of the language, and Elloway will be lost forever.
(read more)
AWAKE AND SING!
Wednesday, March 31st, 2010
If all you knew about New York in the 1930s came from Hollywood movies, you’d think that the city was populated entirely with zany heiresses and egomaniacal divas whose broken legs allowed their talented understudies to go on and become overnight Broadway stars. That’s why Clifford Odet’s Depression-era drama Awake And Sing!, now being revived in an absolutely splendid production at Glendale’s A Noise Within, comes as such an eye-opening surprise. There’s not an heiress, diva, or talented understudy in sight.
(read more)
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
Tuesday, March 16th, 2010RECOMMENDED
Actors Co-op is attempting pretty much the impossible—a 90 minute version
of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime And Punishment, featuring a cast of three. The
adaptation, written by Marilyn Campbell and Curt Columbus, debuted
several years ago in Chicago, where it won the Jefferson Award for “Best New
Adaptation.” The playwrights deserve high marks for condensing a mammoth
novel into a one-act play without sacrificing cohesion. Its message of
redemption is particularly appropriate for the Christian-based Co-op. Director
Ken Sawyer is a master of the visual, and the production looks great.
(read more)
IN A GARDEN
Tuesday, March 16th, 2010
Middle East Meets West in Howard Korder’s thought-provoking culture clash dramatic comedy In A Garden, now playing to considerable acclaim at South Coast Repertory.
(read more)
HARAM IRAN
Thursday, March 11th, 2010NOT RECOMMENDED
In 2005, the Western world recoiled in horror at photos of Iranian teenagers Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni, hangman’s nooses around their necks, about to be put to death for, it was reported at the time, the crime of consensual homosexual acts.
(read more)
Since 2007, Steven Stanley's StageSceneLA.com has spotlighted the best in Southern California theater via reviews, interviews, and its annual StageSceneLA Scenies.
COPYRIGHT 2026 STEVEN STANLEY :: DESIGN BY