Posts Tagged ‘Theatricum Botanicum’

THE PEOPLE OF POMPEII

All bets are off when a sextet of native and transplanted Topangans get together for a couples’ dinner in the aftermath of the Palisades Fire in Bernardo Cubría’s The People Of Pompeii, as laugh-out-loud funny as it is deeply perceptive of the political, economic, and social divides that polarize us and the humanity that binds us together.
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TREASURE ISLAND

Dialog scenes get bogged down in nautical jargon, 18th-century slang, and outdated grammar, much of it unintelligible to 21st-century ears, but whenever action sequences take over, Theatricum Botanicum audiences are treated to the swashbucklingest adventure story ever to unfold under Topanga skies.
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WAITING IN THE WINGS


Dames don’t get any grander than the grandes dames taking centerstage at Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum in Waiting In The Wings, Noël Coward’s charming 1960 salute to actresses of a certain age who’ve still got it in them to hold an audience spellbound.
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ROMEO AND JULIET


Casting real-life highschoolers as the world’s most iconic pair of lovestruck teens is just one reason Theatricum Botanicum’s Romeo And Juliet feels fresh and new. So is setting the classic tale of doomed adolescent lovers in Gilded Age New York.

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WINE IN THE WILDERNESS


Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum concludes one of its best seasons ever with an absolutely terrific staging of Alice Childress’s slice-of-1960s-African-American-life Wine In The Wilderness.
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THE SEAGULL: MALIBU


Ellen Geer updates Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull from 1890s tsarist Russia to Malibu, California during the “It’s All About Me” 1970s, and the exhilarating result is The Seagull: Malibu, a romantic dramedy that’s both Chekhovian and Southern Californian, and a Summer Of 2025 treat no matter how you feel about Chekhov.
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STRIFE


The rich get richer and the poor get poorer in Strife, John Galsworthy’s more-relevant-than-ever look at the darker side of HBO’s The Gilded Age.
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MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING


Beatrice and Benedick are once again at it tooth and nail, but this time round she’s wearing a hoopskirt and he’s sporting a Civil War-era Army uniform as director Ellen Geer transposes the Shakespeare comedy classic from 16th-century Italy to 1860s Virginia while sprinkling in one I Love Lucy-inspired physical comedy bit after another.
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