LULU’S LAST STAND
Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010RECOMMENDED
A patriarch’s death brings his three adult daughters back to the family homestead in northern Georgia. Compounding their grief is the upsetting discovery that their mother waited eight full days to inform them of their father’s demise. What on earth could have provoked her to sit on this vital piece of family news for so long? Has Mom gone and lost her mind?
These are the questions that Charlene, Bailey, and Lena attempt to unravel in Lulu’s Last Stand, currently in its World Premiere engagement at Beverly Hills’ Theatre 40. Though it’s not until its second act that Veronica DiPippo’s dramedy really kicks into gear, prompting this reviewer to recommend some first act cuts, it ends up being an enjoyable and even inspiring look at an odd-ball mother and her three very distinctive daughters.
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THE TRAIN DRIVER
Thursday, October 21st, 2010RECOMMENDED
The partnership of Athol Fugard and The Fountain Theatre has possibly led to more awards and award nominations than any ongoing collaboration between writer and theater in the Los Angeles area. Fountain productions of Fugard’s The Road To Mecca, Exits And Entrances, Victory, and Coming Home have won raves from local reviewers and numerous Ovations and LADCC awards, among others. The arrival of Fugard’s latest, The Train Driver, a work the playwright describes as “the most important play I’ve written” therefore seemed a good opportunity to see what all the kudos have been about.
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WHEN GARBO TALKS
Friday, October 15th, 2010RECOMMENDED
Screen legend Greta Garbo’s voice remained as mysterious as the star herself until the release of Anna Christie, her first talking picture. “Garbo Talks!” proclaimed ads for the 1930 flick, and talk the Swedish superstar did, her “Gif me a vhisky, ginger ale on the side, and don’t be stingy, baby!” soon becoming almost as synonymous with the reclusive screen idol as her much quoted “I vant to be alone!”
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KURT VONNEGUT’S SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE
Thursday, October 7th, 2010RECOMMENDED
“You’ll either love it, or push it back in the science-fiction corner,” opined the New York Times in its 1969 review of Kurt Vonnegut’s anti-war sci-fi novel Slaughterhouse Five. The same can probably be said about its theatrical adaptation by Eric Simonson, now getting its first West Coast production fourteen years after its World Premiere at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company. Theatergoers unfamiliar with Vonnegut’s dense, epic tale, or those whose tastes run towards realistic, linear storytelling rather than the avant-garde or experimental may choose to pass on Action Theatre’s intimate staging, despite its generally fine acting and imaginative direction by Tiger Reel. On the other hand, Vonnegut fans will want to check out how adapter Simonson manages to compact Slaughterhouse Five down to an intermission-free ninety minutes of live theater.
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THE TALE OF THE ALLERGIST’S WIFE
Tuesday, October 5th, 2010RECOMMENDED
Things haven’t been going all that well recently for New York matron Marjorie Taub. The death of her beloved therapist has left her with a feeling she describes as “Perdu. Utter damnation. The loss of my soul.” Though the Disney Store has fortunately decided not to press charges for the six porcelain figures she just happened to drop following her shrink’s memorial service, Marjorie can’t seem to get off the living room sofa and attend her usual mix of lectures, gallery exhibits, and opera symposiums. “I’m a fraud,” she moans to her allergist husband Ira. “A cultural poseur. To quote Kaafka, ‘I am a cage in search of a bird’”
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LIVE NUDE GIRL
Monday, September 13th, 2010RECOMMENDED
Monica Himmel is Deanna, an actress in search of professional and personal fulfillment in Monica Himmelheber’s Live Nude Girl, now playing Mondays at Hollywood’s Lounge Theatre.
If Live Nude Girl has an autobiographical ring to it, it’s probably because Himmelheber is a writer in search of professional and personal fulfillment, and Himmel … Well, if you haven’t yet guessed, Himmelheber and Himmel are one and the same.
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SOUTHERN BAPTIST SISSIES
Sunday, August 22nd, 2010RECOMMENDED
Growing up Southern Baptist is no piece of cake for the four title characters in Southern Baptist Sissies, the fifth production of Theatre Out’s 2010 season.
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