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 K. Primeau~
When you walk into a theatre and the first question they ask is, “Would you like vodka? Or better vodka?” you know either way you’re a winner. If the play is a mess, at the very least you can enjoy the stiff drink. But when that introduction leads you through a worn-down circus, [...]
by Ashley Steed~
“Tonight I have seen that I have been the fool, just a bit player in a story you all know too well.”
The story is that of a man prophesied to kill his father and marry his mother. That bit player is, of course, Oedipus. Luis Alfaro’s Oedipus El Rey, playing at Boston Court, [...]
by Geoff Hoff~
On The Air, playing at the Whitefire Theatre, is a charming show, a murder mystery musical comedy, although it is not quite a full musical; there are only two songs in the first act and only two in the second. The murder mystery also takes a back seat to that shenanigans going on [...]
by Joel Elkins~
It takes a lot of courage to write a play like The Unexpected Man, and just as much courage to stage a production of it. A play with only two characters is daunting enough, but when those characters, for the most part, don’t even interact, keeping the audience involved requires a tight rope [...]
by Geoff Hoff~
(Full Disclosure: Slaughter City was produced by one of LATR’s newest writers, Ashley Steed.)
According to the program notes by director Barbara Kallir, Slaughter City, now playing at Son of Semele, is a play about how relevant the case for collective action and working class solidarity still is today. This is a valid and [...]
by K. Primeau~
Edward Allan Baker’s “sibling plays,” Dolores and North of Providence, now playing at Stephanie Feury Studio Theatre, may need to pull back for being a bit too fraternal. From production design to directing, writing to performance, twin themes and dramatic flaws unfolded like zygotes, multiplying and dividing to create a discomfiting headache of [...]
by D. Jette~
Living in Los Angeles has afforded me the guilty pleasure of meeting countless has-been actors from all levels of bygone fame (especially in bars.) All of them have one thing in common: a connection to a show or a director or another actor who actually made it and probably no longer returns their [...]
by D. Jette~
Creative design and black humor triumph again in the very entertaining new comedy Wirehead, now in performance by the Echo Theater Company at STAGE 52. The plot is familiar Phillip K. Dick material, and the story has its serious moments, but for the most part director Larry Biederman has gone beyond the script to [...]
by Geoff Hoff~
Duel Citizens is actually two distinct plays with little in common besides that in each, all the characters are played by one person.
In Look, What I don’t Understand, a young family man from communist Bulgaria tries, with his family, to enter the United States as a political refugee in 1969. Through flashbacks we [...]
by K. Primeau~
Antaeus Theatre Company continues its tradition of bringing audacious, relevant classical theatre to Los Angeles with their world-premiere production of Cousin Bette, adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher from the original text by Honore de Balzac. The “deliciously wicked” tale of vengeance and lust effectively straddles post-Napoleonic France and contemporary wit with seamless grace and [...]
Kharmful Charms of Daniil Kharms at Art/WorksOedipus El Rey at Theatre @ Boston CourtOn The Air at the Whitefire TheatreThe Unexpected Man at Lounge Theatre 2Slaughter City at the Son of SemeleDolores/North of Providence at SFS TheatreBarbra’s Wedding at Blank 2nd Stage TheatreWirehead at Stage 52