CarnEvil

NOT RECOMMENDED

Sacred Fools Theatre Company, the troupe that brought Los Angeles such delightful oddities as Hamlet Shut Up, Land Of The Tigers, and BeaverQuest! The Musical, now gives us CarnEvil: A Gothic Horror Rock Musical, a show which makes its predecessors seem positively tame by comparison and one that David Cronenberg fans may well drink up like Dracula at a victim’s neck. Still, despite considerable talent onstage and off, CarnEvil ended up being not this reviewer’s cup of tea, or goblet of blood as the case may be.
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GUIDED CONSIDERATION OF A LAMENTABLE DEED


The play may well be the thing, but sometimes “the thing” adds up to considerably more than just the play. Such is the case with needtheater’s World Premiere production of Frank Basloe’s Guided Consideration Of A Lamentable Deed. Though Basloe’s dark comedy is intelligent, entertaining, and thought-provoking enough to stand on its own, when you add a pre-show “kegger” (more about that later), a one-of-a-kind venue, and live music after the show for those who wish to stick around, this brand new play by a relative unknown becomes a “thing” well worth taking a chance on.
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A WIDOW OF NO IMPORTANCE


East West Players open their 46th Anniversary Season with the World Premiere of Shane Sakhrani’s infectiously funny and utterly charming A Widow Of No Importance, a generation gap comedy set in Mumbai, India that theatergoers from any ethnic background are likely to embrace as warmly as its core South Asian audience.
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LIFE ON THIS COUCH


ec•cen•tric ([ik-sen-trik, ek-)—adjective: (of a person or behavior) Unconventional and slightly strange, as in “No one writes eccentric characters quite like Laura Richardson.”

For proof of the above, head on over to Open Fist Theatre where Richardson’s latest, Life On This Couch, is delighting audiences with the playwright’s unique, quirky, and thoroughly entertaining take on life. Like the eccentrics in Richardson’s Do Do Love and Come Back Little Horny, the people who live on and around Cece Taylor’s sofa are folks you might not want to live with 24/7, but it sure is fun to spend a couple hours observing the habits, mating and otherwise, of this wild and crazy bunch.
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PASSING PROPER/PASSION AND PRECISION


A would-be screenwriter attempts to navigate the shark-ridden Hollywood waters in Passion And Precision, the second of a matched set of one-acts by Joe Davis Massingill. That the first of the two, Passing Proper, just happens to be a staged version of the very screenplay the writer is hoping to sell is just one of several reasons to check out the two plays running on a single bill at Theatre 68.
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WATSON


You don’t have to be a Sherlock Holmes fan to deem Jaime Robledo’s Watson theatrical magic, as its return engagement at Sacred Fools Theater Company makes abundantly clear. No wonder Watson (aka The Last Great Tale Of The Legendary Sherlock Holmes) won a pair of coveted LA Weekly Awards—for Robledo’s direction and Henry Dittman’s bravura comedic work—in its initial run last fall. Robledo’s comedy thrills and astonishes again and again, making its midsummer encore the best possible news for Los Angeles theatergoers in the mood to be dazzled.
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BLACKBIRD


A 30ish woman confronts the 60ish man who had sex with her when she was only 12 in David Harrower’s harrowing Blackbird, now shocking, disturbing, and dare I say entertaining audiences in equal measure in its Los Angeles premiere by Rogue Machine Theatre.
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THE INSIDIOUS IMPACT OF ANTON


You could hardly call Francesca “The Girl Who Has Everything,” but she for one is not complaining. She has a job and a small circle of sort-of friends, and while she doesn’t have a husband or a boyfriend, what she does have is a life which includes “people, cable, books on occasion, sex when required. And an apartment that always gets compliments.” And then she meets Anton.
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