THE SEAGULL

posted on March 4th, 2012 at 9:20 PM by Steven Stanley


I’ll admit it. When I hear the name Chekhov, the first words that pop into my head are dull, somber, and talky. That’s why it’s such a pleasure to report that the Antaeus Company’s revival of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull not only held my attention virtually throughout, it actually had me laughing more times than I could count. Talky it still may be, with characters often choosing monolog over dialog, but wonder of wonders, Seagull director Andrew Traister and company have brought to life on the Deaf-West stage is indeed the comedy its playwright intended it to be.
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posted in Comedy, North Hollywood, WOW!

THE FALL TO EARTH

posted on March 1st, 2012 at 5:57 PM by Steven Stanley


There are times when a reviewer must decide that the less said, the better, and in this reviewer’s humble opinion, his colleagues have been giving away far too much about The Fall To Earth (recently opened at the Odyssey). Therefore, if this is the first time you’re reading about Joel Drake Johnson’s richly complex dramedy, read no further than this review.  Trust me.  This is one play you will want to be surprised by.
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posted in Drama, West Side/Beverly HIlls, WOW!

HUNGER: IN BED WITH ROY COHN

posted on February 27th, 2012 at 7:19 PM by Steven Stanley


If you’re a theatergoer under retirement age, you probably first learned about Roy Cohn from Tony Kushner’s Angels In America, which featured the real-life anti-Communist witch-hunting AIDS-decimated, closet-case lawyer among its cast of otherwise fictional characters.

Playwright Joan Beber now gives Roy Cohn a play he can call his own, one that features supporting appearances by Roy’s mother Dora, his rumored longtime lover G. David Schine, convicted American spy Julius Rosenberg (whom Cohn made sure got sent to the electric chair), Roy’s Hispanic housekeeper Lizette, and none other than Ronald Reagan and Barbara Walters themselves, all of the above in fantasy sequences that make those in Angels In America seem positively realistic by comparison.
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posted in Comedy-Drama, West Side/Beverly HIlls, WOW!

AVENUE Q

posted on February 26th, 2012 at 9:56 PM by Steven Stanley


Imagine what might happen if puppet characters like those you or your kids grew up watching on Sesame Street started singing songs and teaching life lessons about adult topics, things like sexual orientation, racism, Internet porn, and Schadenfreude (that’s German for people taking pleasure in your pain).

Well, that is precisely what Robert Lopez, Jeff Marx, and Jeff Whitty did in their 2003 off-Broadway-to-Broadway (and back-to-off-Broadway) smash hit musical Avenue Q.

Actors’ Repertory Theatre Of Simi now recreates all the magic of the New York original, artfully scaled down from the John Golden Theater’s 804 seats to the Simi Valley Performing Arts Center’s far more intimate 220.
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posted in Musical, Ventura County, WOW!

BRILLIANT TRACES

posted on February 25th, 2012 at 2:53 PM by Steven Stanley


A bedraggled young woman barges into a seemingly deserted Alaska cabin in the midst of a raging snowstorm, a frenzied look on her face, a torn, filthy wedding dress hanging off her like a grubby old rag. Suddenly becoming aware of a blanket-hooded figure seated on the cabin’s sole bed, she launches into a stream-of-consciousness monolog describing in detail how she kept from getting frostbite on the way from a dead car to the stranger’s cabin following days upon days of near nonstop driving, with only rare pauses for gas, a pee, a candy bar, or a Coke. Eventually, the combination of sugar withdrawal (“This is a Mars bars tremble,” she explains when she can’t get her hands to stop shaking) and multiple swigs from a whiskey bottle left conveniently atop the stranger’s kitchen table, the young woman crumples gracefully to the floor in a faint. Only then does the stranger rise and reveal himself to be a handsome, bearded young man with an unconscious woman in the middle of his house.

Thus begins Cindy Lou Johnson’s utterly riveting comedy-drama Brilliant Traces, now being revived (and quite terrifically so) at Hollywood’s Lounge Theatre.
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posted in Comedy, Hollywood/West Hollywood, WOW!

PRIVATE LIVES

posted on February 24th, 2012 at 3:57 PM by Steven Stanley


Noël Coward’s Private Lives is back for its third L.A.-area production in a scant six months, but only the first to present Coward’s still-fresh-at-72 romcom classic up close and personal—adroitly directed by Jules Aaron and spiffily acted by a topnotch cast of five at Burbank’s 98-seat Grove Theatre Center.
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posted in Burbank/Glendale, Comedy, WOW!

BALM IN GILEAD

posted on February 20th, 2012 at 5:25 PM by Steven Stanley

NOT RECOMMENDED

Balm In Gilead, Lanford Wilson’s gritty slice of the lives of a couple dozen addicts, hookers, hustlers, pimps, and thieves has been enthusiastically lauded by theater critics since its 1965 premiere and its roles welcomed by actors eager for a walk on the wild side. Having now spent two and a half hours with these largely unsympathetic, offputting folks, however, this reviewer does not particularly share their enthusiasm.
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posted in Drama, Hollywood/West Hollywood, Not Recommended

NEXT FALL

posted on February 20th, 2012 at 4:42 PM by Steven Stanley


Geoffrey Nauffts’ Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Award-nominated Next Fall has arrived at San Diego’s esteemed Diversionary Theatre in an intimate-theater production that actually surpasses its West Coast Premiere at the Geffen Playhouse, and that’s indeed saying something considering how powerful that big-bucks staging was.
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posted in Drama, San Diego County, WOW!

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