HOBOKEN TO HOLLYWOOD
Friday, November 5th, 2010
Start spreading the news! There’s a new singing star on the horizon and his name is Luca Ellis.
Ellis’s cameo appearance in last December’s A Vegas Holiday! Songs From “Live At The Sahara” prompted this reviewer to describe the 21st Century crooner as “hearthrob-handsome” and “a vocal dead-ringer for Frank Sinatra.” These words ring truer than ever in Hoboken To Hollywood: A Journey Through The Great American Songbook, the exciting new musical production now playing at Santa Monica’s Edgemar Center For The Arts.
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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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THEY’RE PLAYING OUR SONG
Saturday, October 9th, 2010
Two years after Neil Simon’s semi-autobiographical Chapter Two chronicled the widowed playwright’s second-chanceat-happiness marriage to Marsha Mason, his They’re Playing Our Song brought to the Broadway stage a fictionalized version of another real-life romance, that of songwriting partners Marvin Hamlisch and Carole Bayer Sager, this time told as a musical comedy featuring a dozen original songs by the selfsame team.
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THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF HEDDA GABLER
Saturday, October 2nd, 2010NOT RECOMMENDED
A crackerjack theatrical design can make the difference between a very good production and a great one, and can sometimes even make a so-so script seem better than it actually is. I loved Jeff Whitty’s surrealistic comedy The Further Adventures Of Hedda Gabler when I caught its world premiere at South Coast Repertory in January of 2006. Having now seen it for the second time at Santa Monica’s Morgan-Wixson Theatre, I begin to wonder how much of my enjoyment of Hedda’s adventures in the afterlife came as a result of SCR’s superb set, lighting, and sound design. Take these away from the play, and what ends up on stage is something considerably less successful, despite a committed director and cast.
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RUINED
Thursday, September 16th, 2010
Playwright Lynn Nottage puts a human face on the ongoing Civil War in the Democratic Republic of Congo in her Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Ruined, now in its West Coast Premiere engagement at the Geffen Playhouse.
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THE BEDROOM WINDOW
Thursday, September 2nd, 2010
REVIEW UPDATE:
There’s a reason why Broadway musicals have out-of-town tryouts and weeks of previews before opening to the New York press. Creating a new musical requires the kind of tweaking that only performances in front of live audiences can suggest. Scenes may need to be cut or rewritten, old songs may have to make way for new ones, and cast changes may need to be made.
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TITUS REDUX
Sunday, August 29th, 2010
John Farmanesh-Bocca’s Titus Redux is William Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus like you’ve never seen it before. Yes, there’s still rape, mutilation, and two boys cooked in a pie, and much of Shakespeare’s original dialog remains intact. Still, from the moment Tamora responds to Titus’s “I give him you, the noblest that survives, the eldest son of this distressed queen,” with a very contemporary “Fuck you! You stubborn pigheaded asshole,” you know you’re in for something different.
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ALL MY SONS
Saturday, August 21st, 2010
Arthur Miller’s All My Sons is my very favorite 20th Century play, one I have now had the good fortune of seeing staged a half-dozen times. Debuting on Broadway less than two years after World War II ended with Japan’s surrender, Miller’s examination of personal responsibility in time of war remains every bit as powerful—and relevant— today, sixty-three years after its New York premiere.
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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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