THE POWER OF DUFF: 64% – BITTERSWEET
BITTER The volume and interchangeability of plot developments suggest a story in search of something to say. The punchy gimmick — an anchorman who starts to pray — could conceivably be spun into a...
View ArticleCHAVEZ RAVINE, AN L.A. REVIVAL (KIRK DOUGLAS THEATRE): 88% – SWEET
BITTERSWEET The staging is of such high caliber and the material has so much import that it would have been nice to see these artists put more faith in the sophistication of their audience — and their...
View ArticleTHE PRICE (MARK TAPER FORUM): 82% – SWEET
BITTERSWEET Garry Hynes’ production, which opened Saturday at the Mark Taper Forum, is a shade too respectful. The Tony-winning Irish director treats the text as though it were a castle of poetry when...
View ArticleTHE NIGHT ALIVE (GEFFEN PLAYHOUSE): 79% – SWEET
BITTERSWEET When I saw the play, under McPherson’s direction, at London’s Donmar Warehouse, a quality of undefined menace was unmistakably part of the drama. That same edge isn’t quite there at the...
View ArticleREBORNING (FOUNTAIN THEATRE): 80% – SWEET
SWEET Director Simon Levy has assembled an extraordinary cast in his exquisitely well-realized production, which also features impressive design elements, particularly Jeff McLaughlin’s scruffy...
View ArticleBLITHE SPIRIT (AHMANSON THEATRE): 82% – SWEET
SWEET Coward’s work enables virtuosos who possess technique that’s as polished as it is effortless to reach new heights. Lansbury might as well be flying across the Ahmanson stage. Seeing her in...
View ArticleCritique of the Week
Karen Weinstein brings such an interesting psycho-analytical approach to her reviews. This is a prime example. INTO THE WOODS Karen Weinstein – Culture Vulture Trip thee lightly into the woods my...
View ArticleThe Saturday Saying
“The world does not need a sanitized version of “Into The Woods” and children do not need all the production values of a Disney blowout (though Meryl Streep will probably do the Witch’s role justice)....
View ArticleINTO THE WOODS (OREGON SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL/THE WALLIS): 92% – SWEET
SWEET This OSF production at the Wallis may not have the star power of the screen version coming out on Christmas Day, but it has the buoyancy and complexity of feeling that have turned Sondheim and...
View ArticleWHAT THE BUTLER SAW (MARK TAPER): 82% – SWEET
SWEET “What the Butler Saw” represents Orton at his most sophisticatedly silly. It’s a play bursting with references to other plays, including even one of the greatest tragedies ever written,...
View ArticleThe Saturday Saying
“I began this review by discussing the advantage to theaters of producing one-person shows, and the short-cut writing a personal memoir offers. Orlandersmith often consulted a notebook as she expounded...
View ArticleFOREVER: 67% – BITTERSWEET
BITTERSWEET From a theatrical perspective, unmodulated rage works best in small doses; too much of it stuns the senses. Subtler moments, as when she confesses her dreams of marrying the Irish cop who...
View ArticleBRIGHT STAR (OLD GLOBE): 79% – SWEET
BITTERSWEET The drawbacks of this musical’s backward-glancing manner are most notable in Martin’s book, which is often floridly melodramatic. The action takes place just after the Second World War,...
View ArticleAFFLUENCE: 94% – SWEET
BITTERSWEET The cast — Pedersen, Lord, Kulinska, Huff, Uhebe and Tepper — are all experienced actors and performed appropriately. I found Eisenberg’s direction to be slow, as if the audience might miss...
View ArticleTHE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL (AHMANSON THEATRE): 97% – SWEET
SWEET Ultimately, what makes this harrowing “Trip” endurable, even uplifting, is Carrie’s hard-won humor and wisdom, and the peace she is able to make with her own unhappiness before she is caught and...
View ArticleMARJORIE PRIME: 67% – BITTERSWEET
BITTER A terrible play, and depressing as well, playwright Jordan Harrison’s Marjorie Prime is set in a not-too-distant future and imagines a world where sophisticated robots have been fashioned as...
View ArticleCHOIR BOY (GEFFEN PLAYHOUSE): 86% – SWEET
BITTER Tarell Alvin McCraney’s 2012 Choir Boy is a tantalizing, underdeveloped play-with-music not entirely improved by Trip Cullman’s direction, now at the Geffen a year after the production’s...
View ArticleBUYER AND CELLAR: 98% – SWEET
SWEET Wicked without being unnecessarily cruel, Buyer and Cellar takes jabs at the cult of celebrity while reminding us why we’re so fascinated by it in the first place. Streisand’s eccentric behavior...
View ArticleTHE LION IN WINTER (COLONY THEATRE): 78% – SWEET
SWEET Artistic Director Barbara Beckley has made a great choice in bringing The Lion in Winter to our community. This play is a must see, masterly mounted, and very well cast by Patricia Cullen....
View ArticleTHE TALLEST TREE IN THE FOREST (MARK TAPER FORUM): 64% – BITTERSWEET
BITTERSWEET Daniel Beaty brings this story to the Mark Taper Forum in his solo show “The Tallest Tree in the Forest,” a respectful and intelligent if dramatically disappointing recap of Robeson’s life....
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