CHICAGO
Saturday, June 25th, 2011
Just the thought of a community theater trying its hand at the Broadway megahit Chicago is probably enough to send most Kander and Ebb lovers scurrying in the opposite direction, that is unless the community theater in question is Santa Monica’s venerable Morgan-Wixson. As their productions of Urinetown: A Musical, A Chorus Line, and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee have demonstrated, the folks at the Morgan-Wixson are more than capable of staging quality musical theater on a tight budget—without the benefit of Equity performers, blessed as they are with directors, designers, and technical staff who know their stuff, and the talent pool of an area as crowded with triple-threats as is Los Angeles.
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A MEMORY OF TWO MONDAYS
Sunday, June 12th, 2011
“Attention must be paid to such a person,” declares Linda Loman at the end of Arthur Miller’s 1949 masterpiece Death Of A Salesman, eulogizing a husband who woke up one morning to find that the thirty-four years he’d spent as a traveling salesman had been for naught.
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SUPERIOR DONUTS
Thursday, June 9th, 2011
It’s taken a few years for Tracy Letts’ Superior Donuts to make it from Chicago to Broadway to Westwood—even San Diego beat the Geffen Playhouse to the punch—but for those in search of two-and-a-half hours of laughter with more than a bit of depth, the latest from Pulitzer-&-Tony-winning Letts proves well worth the wait.
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LOCKED AND LOADED
Sunday, June 5th, 2011NOT RECOMMENDED
Despite the many positive reviews it has garnered during its extended run at the Santa Monica Playhouse, I did not enjoy Locked And Loaded, Todd Sussman’s existentialist dramedy. I found myself turned off from the get-go by its terminally ill, suicide-bound sexagenarian heroes, two men I wouldn’t enjoy spending time with in real life, let alone as characters in a play. Things perked up a bit, or at least at first, when a pair of hookers appeared magically at their doorstep, one of them sporting an irresistible Spanish accent. Unfortunately, her foulmouthed chick-with-a-dick companion proved entirely resistible, and though I kept hoping to be won over, I found myself less and less involved in the onstage action as the play went on to bizarre extremes, its characters engaging in a mock trial à la Sartre (not one of my favorite writers).
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LUV
Thursday, June 2nd, 2011
This out-and-out hilarious blend of the absurd, the romantic, and the slapstick opens with a chance late night meeting between old school chums Harry Berlin (Michael Goldstrom) and Milt Manville (Rob Roy Cesar), reunited on a big city bridge for the first time in fifteen years. An overjoyed Milt can’t wait to update Harry on his life, which includes a wife, a home in the suburbs, a twenty-two carat gold watch, a designer suit, silk underwear, the works. As for his college friend’s sorry state of affairs, the crummily dressed Harry gives him the bad news. “It couldn’t be worse. I’m at the end of the line. Everything’s falling apart.” The worst of the worst had to be when a fox terrier peed all over the poor schlump’s gabardine pants, then turned right around and walked off. That’s why tonight, Harry confesses, “I was going to end it all, make one last stupid gesture of disgust and … that would be it.”
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THICKER THAN WATER
Friday, May 6th, 2011
Three-time Best Actress Emmy-winner Barbara Bain and well-known film/TV actor D.B. Sweeney are among the baker’s dozen performers headlining Thicker Than Water, an entertaining, perceptive evening of one-acts by Dale Griffiths Stamos at Santa Monica’s Promenade Playhouse.
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SONDHEIM UNSCRIPTED
Thursday, April 14th, 2011
They’ve improvised William Shakespeare, Tennessee Williams, Jane Austen, and Film Noir to side-splitting success. Now, the comic geniuses that call themselves ImproTheatre strut their musical comedy stuff in Sondheim UnScripted, running in rep with their Will and Williams shows at the Odyssey Theatre.
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RETURN FROM THE ASHES
Wednesday, April 13th, 2011RECOMMENDED
Fabienne Wolf has ”un petit problemme,” and she has come to her father Dr. Pierre Le Bigan for help. The beautiful young Frenchwoman believes the time has come for her missing-person mother Elizabeth Wolf Pilgrin, once Pierre’s lover, to be declared dead, and the only one with the legal authority to do so is Pierre. Naturally, the physician’s refusal to accede to his daughter’s request does not sit well with Fabienne, set to inherit a vast fortune upon her mother’s death, money she plans to share with her stepfather Stanislaus Pilgrin, her mother’s much younger husband and Fabienne’s current lover.
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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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