AMERICAN BUFFALO
Friday, April 12th, 2013
The four-letter words fly fast and furious in the Geffen Playhouse’s latest, American Buffalo, and though David Mamet’s 1977 Broadway debut remains unlikely to be a traditional theatergoer’s cup of tea, it’s hard to imagine a better cast, acted, directed, or designed revival of this 1977 groundbreaker than the one at the Geffen.
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REMEMBRANCE
Sunday, March 31st, 2013
His Protestant son was murdered by an IRA hit squad in the driveway of his father’s Belfast home. Her Catholic son was tortured, then shot to death by a vigilante Protestant street gang. Their late-in-life romance is at the heart of Graham Reid’s powerful 1987 drama Remembrance, not only one of the finest plays to be part of a Theatre 40 season, but quite possibly the best overall production I have seen at Beverly Hills’ premier 99-seat theater.
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RAGTIME
Monday, March 18th, 2013RECOMMENDED
Kentwood Players takes on the many challenges of Ragtime, one of the most truly epic shows ever to have filled a Broadway stage, and achieves laudable results for a community theater production.
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THE GIFT
Friday, February 8th, 2013NOT RECOMMENDED
Fine performances, impressive design elements, and an absolutely stunning action sequence prove insufficient reasons for this reviewer to recommend a trip to the Geffen Playhouse for the American Premiere of Joanna Murray-Smith’s highly problematic dark comedy The Gift.
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THE SNAKE CAN
Sunday, February 3rd, 2013
When was the last time you saw a play about three women on the cusp of fifty navigating the rough waters of big city singlehood? Actually, when was the last time you saw anything—play, movie, or TV series—about three fiftyish females period?
Since the answer to both of these questions is likely to be a big fat “Never,” Kathryn Graf’s world premiere dramedy The Snake Can comes as a particularly welcome surprise … and a rewarding New Years 2013 treat.
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PLAZA SUITE
Sunday, January 27th, 2013
Neil Simon was the reigning King Of Broadway when his Plaza Suite opened at the Plymouth Theatre on Valentine’s Day, 1968. Only two years before, Simon’s Sweet Charity, The Star-Spangled Girl, The Odd Couple, and Barefoot in the Park were all four playing simultaneously on the Great White Way, and Plaza Suite, the next Simon comedy to open in New York ran over a thousand performances and on into the next decade.
It’s this still rib-tickling, still relevant collection of three short plays, each of them unfolding in Suite 719 of New York’s posh and pricey Plaza Hotel, that the Morgan-Wixson Theatre now revives to near perfection in a production blessed by inspired direction and a pair of sensational lead performances.
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FREUD’S LAST SESSION
Friday, January 18th, 2013
Maxwell Anderson did it in his 1936 play Mary Of Scotland. Steve Allen did it in his late 1970s TV series Meeting Of Minds. And now playwright Mark St. Germain does it in Freud’s Last Session.
What these writers have in common is that all three imagined what might have happened had famous historical figures actually met, like Anderson did with Queen Elizabeth I and Mary Queen Of Scots, or in the case of Germain’s off-Broadway smash, now playing at Santa Monica’s Broad Stage, the Father Of Psychoanalysis (and confirmed atheist) Sigmund Freud and the Chronicles Of Narnia creator (and Christian apologist) C. S. Lewis.
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THE RAINMAKER
Saturday, January 12th, 2013
Few plays from the 1950s hold up as well as L. Richard Nash’s folksy 1954 romance The Rainmaker. Those needing proof of the above need simply to head out to Santa Monica’s Edgemar Center For The Arts where Tanna Frederick and Robert Standley head the cast of director Jack Heller’s pitch-perfect revival of this ‘50s gem.
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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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