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.
~by Brian Sonia-Wallace
This is a tough play. Its language is gorgeous, much taken right from the pen of Federico Garcia Lorca, the Spanish poet and this play’s protagonist and muse. But its structure is sometimes infuriating, as Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Nilo Cruz decides that the best way to pay his hero homage is with [...]
~by Brian Sonia-Wallace
Trio Los Machos is one of those tricky plays that straddles the line between community and professional theatre and so winds up with the strengths and shortcomings of both. On one hand, the mixed veteran and amateur Latino cast give a heartfelt account of a community’s under-told story with great humor and compassion. [...]
by Brian Sonia-Wallace
Kristina Wong is a natural performer, and though her show doesn’t entirely escape the stereotypes of a one-woman show, it mostly puts them aside to focus on her hilarious and often ill-fated adventures attempting to live a more eco-friendly life. Ms. Wong’s comedian persona has the charm and crass humor of a Sarah [...]
by Brian Sonia-Wallace~
This show had the feeling of community theatre. Now, a key word in that is community, and that’s great. This is well meaning theatre, filled with old-timer subscribers and possessed of a heart of gold. But it also came across as amateurish in many places, with the actors playing as if for a [...]
by Brian Sonia-Wallace~
Every now and then you come across a show that so thoroughly woos the audience right from the start that they can’t hold their applause until the end but clap right the way through. Stoneface is such a show. A semi-biographical account of the tribulations of silent film actor Buster Keaton (though you [...]
by Brian Sonia-Wallace~
Disclaimer: I’m not at all convinced that I ‘got’ this show. That’s not to say I wouldn’t recommend it, just that I’d recommend it to people considerably cleverer than me (not hard) and with a bit more time and headspace for existential crisis (exceedingly difficult, I could teach a masterclass).
Running at about two [...]
by Brian Sonia-Wallace~
Horror, by nature, is a theatrical genre because to be effective it must acknowledge its audience and enter a relationship with them. This relationship is frequently missing from LA theatre, and its presence is what makes The Visceral Company’s production of The Turn of the Screw a local masterpiece—one that simultaneously worships, subverts, [...]
by Brian Sonia-Wallace~
[Editors Note: This review contains a rather extreme spoiler. Because it enhances the conversation about theatre, one of our main commitments, we are keeping the paragraph in. However, if you have not yet seen this play, you may consider skipping past that paragraph. It is clearly marked.]
Dutchman is something different and thought provoking. [...]
by Brian Sonia-Wallace~
Emilia Richeson and Brad Harris
It’s hard, as a reviewer, to talk about a catastrophic play without a hint of glee. I apologize in advance.
For this assignment, I asked my editor to ‘find me the weird stuff’ in LA theatre. The Hundredth Monkey Effect seemed to fit that perfectly, billing itself as a sci-fi [...]
by Brian Sonia-Wallace~
A solid production that tells a simple human love story with tenderness and skill. Not life changing, but certainly life-affirming.
Raleigh (Frank Krueger) has been discharged from the army for medical reasons and is heading to New York to become a writer, separated by his illness from the men of his generation fighting in [...]
