THE WHIPPING MAN
Wednesday, January 14th, 2015
On April 9, 1865, General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant at the Appomattox Court House, at long last ending what is still the deadliest war in United States history. Five days later, President Abraham Lincoln was dead, the victim of an assassin’s bullet. Coincidentally, during this fateful week in our country’s history, Jews in both North and South observed Pesach, the festival of Passover, celebrating the freeing of the Israelites from centuries of slavery in Egypt.
Inspired by this bit of historical happenstance, and armed with the knowledge that there were indeed Jewish slaveholders (and Jewish slaves) in the pre-Civil War Deep South, playwright Matthew Lopez sat down to write The Whipping Man, a gripping, eye-opening look at three Jews—two black, one white—in the days just following Appomattox, a play now brought to compelling life in a spectacular South Coast Repertory debut set to transfer next month to the Pasadena Playhouse.
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RANSOM, TEXAS
Sunday, January 11th, 2015RECOMMENDED
San Francisco’s Virago Theatre Company has come south to offer L.A. its production of William Bivins’ edgy psychological thriller Ransom, Texas, and there is much to recommend in it, particularly Dixon Phillips’ intensely raw lead performance, though Phillips’ costar’s vaguely non-native accent makes it hard to buy the pair as a West Texas father and son.
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BLONDE POISON
Sunday, January 11th, 2015
Salome Jens gives an absolutely riveting performance as Stella Goldschlag, the Berliner whose collaboration with the Gestapo sent thousands of her fellow German Jews to the death camps, in the American Premiere of Gail Louw’s Blonde Poison, now playing at Beverly Hills’ Theatre 40.
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LEND ME A TENOR
Saturday, January 10th, 2015
Glendale Centre Theatre follows this past summer’s staging of Ken Ludwig’s Leading Ladies with the master playwright’s 1986 smash Lend Me A Tenor, a revival that hits all the right comedic notes as performed by an expert cast under James Castle Stevens’ snappy direction.
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THE KING AND I
Friday, January 9th, 2015NOT RECOMMENDED
Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein’s score is as glorious today as it ever has been, the now iconic “Small House Of Uncle Thomas” ballet remains a thing of unique beauty and charm, and Victoria Strong and Richard Bermudez not only prove sensational choices to play Anna and the King of Siam, they give the visiting English schoolmarm and the Siamese monarch a romantic, sexual chemistry almost unheard of since The King And I made its 1951 Broadway debut.
Unfortunately, the current Welk Resort Theatre staging of the R&J classic also features some racially insensitive casting choices straight out of the 1950s that underline the creakiness of book writer Hammerstein’s depiction of the Thai people and their centuries-old culture.
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WIT
Monday, January 5th, 2015Too much meddling with a Pulitzer Prize winner, along with an otherwise effective Kelly Carlton’s unwillingness to “go all the way,” make Stage Against The Machine’s revival of Margaret Edson’s Wit a no-go despite co-director Carlton’s often quite moving work as Vivian Bearing PhD and a couple of terrific supporting turns.
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THE PENIS CHRONICLES
Sunday, January 4th, 2015RECOMMENDED
The eight largely unrelated monologs about sex and love (from a male point of view) that comprise The Penis Chronicles: Every Man’s Journey make Tom Yewell’s World Premiere drama seem at times more acting class showcase than full-fledged play. Still, there are enough fine performances in its mostly well-written one-man playlets to make The Penis Chronicles worth a look-see by those who don’t mind its lack of character interaction or cohesive storyline.
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POSSUM CARCASS
Saturday, January 3rd, 2015
The love triangles of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull return to wild-and-crazy 21st-century life in David Bucci’s Possum Carcass, the 120-year-old Chekhov classic retold as graphic novel … and the latest from the always intriguing Theatre Of NOTE.
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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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