I OUGHT TO BE IN PICTURES

posted on October 25th, 2012 at 5:17 PM by Steven Stanley


There was a time a while back there that every Broadway season seemed to feature a World Premiere Neil Simon hit. 1980’s I Ought To Be In Pictures arrived smack dab in the middle of those prolific years, and though its fame may pale in comparison to better known Simon classics like Barefoot In The Park, The Odd Couple, Lost In Yonkers and the Brighton Beach Trilogy, even minor Simon can provide major entertainment as its current revival at The Falcon Theatre makes quite clear.
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posted in Burbank/Glendale, Comedy, WOW!

A BRIGHT NEW BOISE

posted on October 23rd, 2012 at 8:07 PM by Steven Stanley


A great big bear of a man stands alone at night in a deserted Boise, Idaho parking lot and repeats and repeats a single word like a cry to heaven. “Now. Now. Now.” The “now” Will is begging for is the moment in which the “dead in Christ” and those who are still alive will be “caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord”—in other words, The Rapture. In the meantime, the Boise newcomer has taken a part-time job at the local Hobby Lobby superstore, the better to get to know teenage cashier Alex, the son he gave up for adoption eighteen years ago.
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posted in Drama, Los Angeles, WOW!

COLLECTED STORIES

posted on October 21st, 2012 at 8:45 PM by Steven Stanley


Two of L.A.’s most gifted actresses ignite the stage in The Group Rep’s production of Donald Margulies’ Pulitzer Prize finalist Collected Stories,  giving performances every bit as brilliant as one might expect to see on the stages of our finest regional theaters.
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posted in Drama, North Hollywood, WOW!

SLICE

posted on October 21st, 2012 at 5:45 PM by Steven Stanley


“Hel-lo… It’s the 14th Century!” an exasperated Aiko Matsuda reminds her ne’er-do-well son Kai, invisible phone receiver to her ear, in Paul Kikuchi’s World Premiere screwball comedy Slice, and she’s not kidding. It really is the Age Of The Samurai in Japan, and 20something Kai can’t seem to get with the program. Mom is still waiting for Kai to throw out the trash, “which I asked you to do three days ago,” but Kai would rather while away the hours designing the world’s greatest sword, one which Lord Ito is bound to love … which will mean he’ll endorse it … which will mean that every samurai will want one! “It’s my duty as your mother to give you a sanity check,” declares Aiko in no uncertain terms. “Are you an idiot?!”

If this all sounds too sitcom silly for words, then you should probably skip Slice and opt for whatever Noël Coward revival might be playing locally. If, on the other hand, you simply want to spend a laugh-filled seventy minutes being entertained by a castful of zanies as seen through the eyes of a Japanese-American Mel Brooks, then check out the latest from the playwright who brought us Ixnay and Wrinkles. (Kikuchi does like those one-word titles.)
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posted in Comedy, Pasadena, WOW!

YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU

posted on October 20th, 2012 at 10:43 PM by Steven Stanley

If you love Kaufman and Hart’s 1930s classic You Can’t Take It With You as much as I do, then the best news in town will surely be The Antaeus Company’s sensational revival of this screwball gem, a production that gives audiences two completely different casts to choose from—and more.
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posted in Comedy, North Hollywood, WOW!

CHEKHOV UNSCRIPTED

posted on October 19th, 2012 at 3:43 PM by Steven Stanley


Here’s a question for all you Anton Chekhov fans out there. Which among these plays ran only one performance: The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, The Three Sisters, The Lake, or The Cherry Orchard? Need a hint? Its one and only performance took place on Wednesday, October 17, at the Odyssey Theatre in West Los Angeles.

The answer should be obvious to anyone who’s caught a Tennessee Williams, William Shakespeare, Stephen Sondheim, or Jane Austen opus as improvised entirely from scratch by the ad-lib geniuses who call themselves Impro Theatre, currently presenting Chekhov Unscripted (and the previously reviewed Twilight Zone Unscripted) in glorious repertory.
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posted in Comedy, West Side/Beverly HIlls, WOW!

GOOD PEOPLE

posted on October 18th, 2012 at 4:51 PM by Steven Stanley


When a well-known politician recently made some off-the-cuff remarks about a certain 47% of Americans he essentially considers free-loading bums, one American who’d surely have a word or two to say to him would be Margaret Walsh, the protagonist of David Lindsay-Abaire’s Good People, currently America’s most-produced play—and a great one at that, as its San Diego premiere at the Old Globe Theatre makes abundantly clear.
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posted in Drama, San Diego County, WOW!

CREATION

posted on October 15th, 2012 at 5:48 PM by Steven Stanley


Ian and Sarah have had what would seem to be the perfect marriage, not only of hearts but of minds, his work as an evolutionary biologist complimenting hers as a pathologist with none of that religious mumbo-jumbo attached. Then one night Ian gets struck by lightning and all that changes in an instant.

Thus begins Kathryn Walat’s intriguing, thought-provoking new drama Creation, now getting its World Premiere in a production that makes it abundantly clear why The Theatre @ Boston Court is as top-tier as 99-Seat-Plan theater gets.
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posted in Drama, Pasadena, WOW!

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