THREE SISTERS OR PERESTROIKA
Sunday, May 8th, 2011NOT RECOMMENDED
At the risk of alienating the many who consider Anton Chekhov one of the world’s greatest playwrights, I must preface this review with a confession. I am not now, nor am I likely to become, a Chekhov fan. Having seen one or two productions each of his four greatest works, I have come to the conclusion that the author of The Cherry Orchard, The Seagull, The Three Sisters, and Uncle Vanya is simply not my cup of tea—or should that be vodka? Therefore, any Chekhov lovers reading this review should take whatever I say about Three Sisters Or Perestroika with a grain of salt. By the same token, those with a similar lack of affinity for the very talky Russian may want to pass on Pavel Cerny’s 1980s adaptation of Chekhov’s ode to Moscow.
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HOW TO DISAPPEAR COMPLETELY AND NEVER BE FOUND
Sunday, May 1st, 2011NOT RECOMMENDED
Theatre @ Boston Court’s Southern California Premiere of Fin Kennedy’s How To Disappear Completely And Never Be Found has so much going for it, I wish I could say I enjoyed it more. Performances are superb, beginning with a tour de force star turn by Brad Culver. Direction by Nancy Keystone is imaginative and even inspired at times. Design elements, particularly John Zalewski’s striking sound design, are way up at the level of excellence theatergoers have come to expect @ Boston Court. The play was the first ever to win the prestigious John Whiting Award before being staged. British critics were ecstatic at the play’s World Premiere and I expect the Boston Court production will garner equal praise. And yet I failed to be engaged by its story or characters and in the end (and this is something I rarely say), I would have been happier accepting a different press invitation this past Sunday afternoon.
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SPEECH & DEBATE
Saturday, February 19th, 2011NOT RECOMMENDED
Stephen Karam’s comedy Speech & Debate points a webcam lens at three teenage outsiders living up Salem, Oregon way, while at the same time making strong points about hypocritical politicians, “ex-gay” ministries, and the importance of coming out. Having seen two brilliant productions of it, this reviewer finds its current Orange County Premiere at Theatre Out a letdown.
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THE CRADLE WILL ROCK
Thursday, February 17th, 2011NOT RECOMMENDED
Corruption and corporate greed are nothing new to the 21st Century. Composer-playwright Marc Blitzstein wrote about both in The Cradle Will Rock, his 1937 “play in music,” now being revived by the company that won the LA Weekly Award for Musical Of The Year for its first production of it back in 1994.
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MR. KOLPERT
Tuesday, February 1st, 2011NOT RECOMMENDED
When a play gets a 5-star review in London’s The Guardian yet fails to impress in an intimate Los Angeles production, one can’t help wondering, “What went wrong in the transatlantic transfer?”
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ISLAND OF BRILLIANCE
Sunday, December 19th, 2010NOT RECOMMENDED
Eighteen-year-old Evie is reputed to be one of the top students in her New Jersey high school, but you wouldn’t know it from her college interviews. She tells the Princeton interviewer that she applied to the Ivy League school because her guidance counselor “thought I might get in.” She tells the Dartmouth interviewer that he applied there to see if the school is worth attempting suicide for. (Someone she knows tried to off himself when the school rejected him.) As for Yale, she tells the boy next door that she can’t remember whether she applied there or not.
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THE BLUE ROOM
Thursday, December 9th, 2010NOT RECOMMENDED
When David Hare’s The Blue Room was staged at the Pasadena Playhouse in 2002, it ran about 90 minutes without an intermission. The same play now being presented at The Moth Theatre on Melrose lets out at about 10:50. Even figuring in an 8:10 start time (par for the course in 99-seat L.A. theater) and a 15 minute intermission, that’s a whopping 55 minutes longer—without adding new dialog.
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FDR
Tuesday, October 19th, 2010NOT RECOMMENDED
The Pasadena Playhouse has reopened only nine months after the sad announcement that it was closing its doors for good, news worth celebrating in the streets with fireworks to light up the sky. If only FDR, the production chosen to welcome back Playhouse subscribers and friends, were equally deserving of a celebration.
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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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