WORKING
Sunday, March 18th, 2012
Following its critically acclaimed revival of Martin McDonagh’s The Beauty Queen Of Leenane, The Production Company makes it two in a row with its sensational intimate staging of Studs Terkel’s Working, as adapted by Stephen Schwartz and Nina Faso.
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THE COLOR PURPLE
Saturday, March 10th, 2012
The 2005 Broadway smash The Color Purple now makes its Los Angeles Intimate Theater debut in a production so spectacular that it virtually redefines the term “intimate theater musical.” Brilliantly directed by Michael Matthews and starring as musically and dramatically gifted a cast as you’ll see this year on any stage large or small, this Celebration Theatre production looks to be the Intimate Theater Event of 2012.
BRILLIANT TRACES
Saturday, February 25th, 2012
A bedraggled young woman barges into a seemingly deserted Alaska cabin in the midst of a raging snowstorm, a frenzied look on her face, a torn, filthy wedding dress hanging off her like a grubby old rag. Suddenly becoming aware of a blanket-hooded figure seated on the cabin’s sole bed, she launches into a stream-of-consciousness monolog describing in detail how she kept from getting frostbite on the way from a dead car to the stranger’s cabin following days upon days of near nonstop driving, with only rare pauses for gas, a pee, a candy bar, or a Coke. Eventually, the combination of sugar withdrawal (“This is a Mars bars tremble,” she explains when she can’t get her hands to stop shaking) and multiple swigs from a whiskey bottle left conveniently atop the stranger’s kitchen table, the young woman crumples gracefully to the floor in a faint. Only then does the stranger rise and reveal himself to be a handsome, bearded young man with an unconscious woman in the middle of his house.
Thus begins Cindy Lou Johnson’s utterly riveting comedy-drama Brilliant Traces, now being revived (and quite terrifically so) at Hollywood’s Lounge Theatre.
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BALM IN GILEAD
Monday, February 20th, 2012NOT RECOMMENDED
Balm In Gilead, Lanford Wilson’s gritty slice of the lives of a couple dozen addicts, hookers, hustlers, pimps, and thieves has been enthusiastically lauded by theater critics since its 1965 premiere and its roles welcomed by actors eager for a walk on the wild side. Having now spent two and a half hours with these largely unsympathetic, offputting folks, however, this reviewer does not particularly share their enthusiasm.
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THE COST OF THE ERECTION
Friday, February 17th, 2012
Pulitzer Prize nominee Jon Marans plays headily with time and space—and two couples’ lives—in his tantalizingly complex new play The Cost Of The Erection, masterfully directed at Hollywood’s The Blank Theatre by its founding artistic director Daniel Henning.
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YOURS, ISABEL
Saturday, February 4th, 2012
Playwright Christy Hall reinvents the epistolary play (one based on an exchange of letters) with her zesty, captivating World War II romance Yours, Isabel, now getting its official American Premiere at Hollywood’s Actors Co-op, and an all-around splendid one at that.
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EXPECTING TO FLY
Monday, January 30th, 2012RECOMMENDED
“There you stood on the edge of your feather, expecting to fly. While I laughed, I wondered whether I could wave goodbye, knowin’ that you’d gone.”
The strains of Neil Young’s melancholy “Expecting To Fly” provide a musical prelude to Michael Hyman’s World Premiere drama of the same name, a play which despite considerable script shortcomings nonetheless provides a terrific acting showcase for its two stars, Justin Mortelliti and Casey Kringlen, who deliver riveting performances as lovers Jared and Sean under Kiff Scholl’s highly imaginative direction.
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NOgoodDEED
Friday, January 27th, 2012
“No good deed goes unpunished,” or so Richard Jewell discovered when the mass media, having previously heralded his heroism at the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics, turned viciously against him, dragging the security guard through the mud without a shred of proof—or even evidence, all because he “fit” an FBI criminal profile.
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