Posts Tagged ‘Geffen Playhouse’
reasons to be pretty
Friday, August 8th, 2014
Even a single word can wound, particularly if the word you just happen to use to describe your girlfriend’s looks is “regular,” or so 20something Greg will learn to his eternal chagrin in Neil LaBute’s laceratingly funny reasons to be pretty, now getting a pitch-perfect Geffen Playhouse premiere under artistic director Randall Arney’s astute direction.
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DIXIE’S TUPPERWARE PARTY
Friday, July 11th, 2014RECOMMENDED
When playwright Kris Andersson and his Tupperware Lady alter ego “Dixie Longate” debuted their “one-woman” show Dixie’s Tupperware Party at the 2004 New York International Fringe Festival, little did they realize that ten years later, their comedy confection would earn a slot at Westwood’s Geffen Playhouse. As to whether it merits a run at one of L.A.’s most prestigious regional houses … Well, I’ll say this for Dixie and her honest-to-gosh Tupperware party: There are far less entertaining ways to spend an evening at the theater than in the presence of the trailer-trashy redhead and her multi-colored plastic bowls, canisters, jars, and other assorted gadgets.
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THE COUNTRY HOUSE
Friday, June 13th, 2014
Dinner With Friends. Shipwrecked! Collected Stories. Sight Unseen. Coney Island Christmas. And now comes Donald Margulies’ latest, The Country House, a captivating look at a contemporary American Royal Family of stage and screen, with stage-and-screen star Blythe Danner bringing her own brand of radiance to the Geffen Playhouse. Who could ask for anything more?
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DEATH OF THE AUTHOR
Friday, May 30th, 2014
An accusation of plagiarism is but the opening shot in Death Of The Author, Steven Drukman’s academia-set World Premiere drama that unfolds like an edge-of-your-seat suspense-thriller from its “gotcha” hook to the unexpectedly satisfying way Drukman manages to tie the whole thing up some ninety minutes later.
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RUTH DRAPER’S MONOLOGUES
Friday, April 18th, 2014
Four-time Academy Award nominee Annette Bening brings her movie-star glamour and a career-long commitment to the legitimate stage to the Geffen Playhouse in Ruth Draper’s Monologues, as captivating and deliciously performed a one-woman show as you’re likely to see all year.
HERSHEY FELDER IN ABE LINCOLN’S PIANO
Friday, January 10th, 2014NOT RECOMMENDED
Hershey Felder is back at the Geffen with his latest one-man show, Hershey Felder In Abe Lincoln’s Piano, and though Felder does treat the audience to a bit of Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue, unlike the smash hit Hershey Felder As George Gershwin Alone, the maestro’s latest may prove a hard sell to all but Felder fanatics.
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WAIT UNTIL DARK
Saturday, October 19th, 2013
Some plays simply cannot be updated to the 21st Century. Take for example Wait Until Dark, Frederick Knott’s classic 1966 thriller about a blind New York City newlywed targeted by a trio of thugs out to find the heroin-filled doll they believe to be hidden somewhere in the walk-down flat she shares with her photographer husband—a play entirely dependent on there being just one land-line phone in the apartment and a (now virtually non-existent) phone booth on a nearby corner.
That’s why, when I heard that playwright Jeffrey Hatcher was adapting Wait Until Dark for the Geffen Playhouse “in a new time/setting,” my first thought was “They must be kidding!” Then I found out that Hatcher was actually taking Knott’s thriller back in time to WWII New York City and that thought turned to “Wow! What a clever idea!” Not only a clever idea, it turns out, but one that proves as exiting in execution as in theory.
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RAPTURE, BLISTER, BURN
Friday, August 23rd, 2013
Pulitzer Prize-nominated playwright Gina Gionfriddo examines the changing roles of women from the pre-Betty Friedan 1950s to the post-post-Feminist now in Rapture, Blister, Burn—and if this sounds like a potentially dry (i.e. boring) way to spend a night at the theater, think again. I haven’t had a more exhilarating time with four fabulous women and one not-so-fabulous man in I don’t know how long.
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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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