Konstantine Stanislavski Love art in yourself and not yourself in art.
Harold Clurman The stage is life, music, beautiful girls, legs, breasts, not talk or intellectualism or dried-up academics.
Hello, and welcome to LA Theatre Review. Back in February, a good friend approached me, lamenting the downsizing and/or closing of the review departments in several of the print newspapers in Los Angeles. Because of this, small theatre was being left, metaphorically, in the dust. After a good meal and conversation, it [...]
by Geoff Hoff
The Elephant Man by Bernard Pomerance is an award winning play about the disfigured man who became a celebrity during his short life in Victorian England. Although his name was Joseph Merrick, due to a mistake by the doctor who wrote a book about him, most accounts, factual and fictional, call him John [...]
by D. Jette
Alot of plays are made about the events leading up to the Holocaust, and with good reason. My partner in last Saturday’s viewing of The Accomplices, a rehashed production by The Fountain Theatre, remarked that “If most of my relatives were murdered not fifty-odd years ago, I wouldn’t make plays about anything else.” One of [...]
by Joel Elkins
Let’s see … Young couple, wacky neighbors, senile parent, absurd situations. Yep, all the ingredients for madcap comedy and Half of Plenty (now playing at Theatre/Theater) has got ‘em all. One thing it forgot: the humor. It answers the age-old question: What would happen if they threw a comedy and no jokes showed [...]
by Robin Galen Kilrain
Julie Taymor—Playing with Fire: Theater, Opera, Film
Julie Taymor, Eileen Blumenthal, and Antonio Monda
What do Bunraku and Spider-Man have in common? Julie Taymor. Yep, the director known for her use of traditional—and not-so-traditional—puppetry will be spinning the web as both director and cowriter when Spidey hits Broadway next spring. But what does she [...]
by D. Jette
Andrew Block, director of Rogue Machine’s newest late night Off-The-Clock adventure, wants artists to look at themselves and laugh. By choosing to direct Bingo with the Indians, Adam Rapp’s short play about penniless thespian grifters who seduce themselves and others with their theatrical pretentions, Block happily invites criticism on both himself and his [...]
by Joel Elkins
Trafficking in Broken Hearts takes you to the heyday of 42nd Street of the 1980’s (before then-mayor Giuliani set out to make it more tourist- and family-friendly), back to a time when every other shop was an adult book store, when policemen would stand around while homeless people urinated on the streets and [...]
by Joel Elkins
If you’re sick of the stereotype that all African American families live in the inner city, have an abusive and/or absent father, and can barely make ends meet, and you’re looking for a well-educated, upper class family that deals with everyday problems through love, respect and humor, then go watch reruns of “The [...]
by D. Jette
Frank South, the writer-star-subject of Pay Attention: ADHD in Hollywood: On the Rocks with a Twist, is a troubled man working hard to resolve himself. Diagnosed with Attention Defecit Hyperactivity Disorder at the age of 49, and eight-years removed from a nagging alcoholism that was a poor regulator for his disability, he is [...]
by Geoff Hoff
Last night I saw a production of Our Town by Thornton Wilder, that wonderful celebration of the mundane that, done well, can elevate the everyday to glorious heights. The play was presented by The Actors’ Gang at the Ivy Substation in Culver City. The marriage of this play with the Gang’s toned-down Commedia [...]
