Stories | Theater Reviews
Insider Outsider Man
Published July 1, 2009
The North Coast Rep took a huge risk, on paper at least. Tom Dudzick’s Over the Tavern has roles for four children, ranging from 8 to 16. The safe choice: find teenage-ish actors (i.e., twentysomething), dress ...
Try to Remember
Published June 24, 2009
The first time I saw The Fantasticks, way back when, I took my fiancée. We adored the chipper first act, in which a “tender and callow” boy and girl fall in a love beyond metaphor. ...
Mind and Hand Together
Published June 10, 2009
How did Shakespeare do it? How did the author of King Lear, Henry IV, Part One, and The Winter’s Tale compose two plays a year for almost two decades? A comparative look at the writing ...
Unexploited Published May 27, 2009
On May 15, 1972, Democratic presidential candidate George Wallace had toned down his vein-bulging, racist views and began to rise in the opinion polls. He ... More Post a comment
Greed Machine Published May 20, 2009
‘We invent ourselves,” Walter Franz tells his brother Vic, “to wipe out what we know.” The title of Arthur Miller’s 1968 drama, The Price, points ... More Post a comment
Character from Costume Published May 13, 2009
A fitting session with costume designer Jennifer Brawn Gittings begins to look a lot like Christmas. She hauls racks of clothes and boxes of shoes ... More Post a comment
Lightning in Chaos Published May 6, 2009
In the sleek, two-story lobby of the Potiker Theater, a soldier saluted, quarter-turned to the east, shoveled imaginary dirt, quarter-turned to the south, peeled imaginary ... More Post a comment
A Smidge of the Harpy Published April 29, 2009
"In Spain there was Guernica! But here there was only hot swing music and liquor, dance halls, bars, and movies, and sex that hung in ... More Post a comment
Various Villains Published April 15, 2009
Marc Blitzstein’s play The Cradle Will Rock had one of the most famous premieres in theater history. The Federal Theatre Project commissioned, then dumped, the ... More Post a comment
All at a Loss Published April 8, 2009
Call your play Rabbit Hole, and you conjure images of a tardy white hare shouting “I’m late!” with a ticking clock tucked under one arm. ... More Post a comment
Four, and Oneness Published April 1, 2009
Sound designers usually draw raves for obvious effects: street traffic, flocks of chirping birds, hammer-the-walls thunder. Their background scores also set mood and period. But ... More Post a comment
Daily Humiliations Published March 25, 2009
The times they have a-change-ed. Working, Studs Terkel’s remarkable collection of interviews, was published in 1974. Subtitled “People Talk About What They Do All Day ... More Comment (1)
Genocidal Days Published March 18, 2009
The Brecht police will probably snipe at the San Diego Rep’s Threepenny Opera: how it fails to achieve this or that aspect of his “Epic ... More Post a comment
Photographer of Ectoplasmic Auras Published March 11, 2009
Henry Louis Grin (1847–1921) was a jack of many trades: a footman for the famous actress Fanny Kemble, a Swiss banker’s servant, an inventor, and ... More Comment (1)
A Rebel's Revolution Published Feb. 25, 2009
Georg Büchner’s Danton’s Death has such a contemporary feel, it’s almost impossible to believe he wrote the play — hailed by many as “the best ... More Post a comment
All Around You Published Feb. 18, 2009
WILL NO ONE MOURN THE CARTER? The Cassius Carter Centre Stage is no more. The Old Globe demolished its intimate theater-in-the-round to make way for ... More Comments (3)
Help Too Much Published Feb. 4, 2009
Diane lost her husband, a “brilliant” CEO, in Africa. Now the socialite wants to sell the house, land a job (her first), and sever all ... More Post a comment
When People Lost Their Ideals Published Jan. 28, 2009
In the theater, said Marlon Brando, “You can have a universal experience of fear, of anger, of tears, of love, and I discovered that it’s ... More Post a comment
Sidney's Son Published Jan. 21, 2009
Flan and Ouisa Kittridge verge on having it all: two children at Harvard, one at Groton; a grand Fifth Avenue apartment near Jackie O’s; a ... More Post a comment
To the Marrow Published Jan. 14, 2009
When American Buffalo premiered on Broadway in 1977, critics had to devise new terms to praise David Mamet’s craft. It wasn’t simply realistic, they said; ... More Comments (2)
Perishable Published Jan. 7, 2009
This column’s late. I got bit but good by that bug going around. “Re-view” a year — would that were possible, literally re-see favorite shows ... More Post a comment
Quaint Past Published Dec. 23, 2008
Each holiday season, Lamb’s Players presents an annual Christmas show at its resident theater and a three-hour extravaganza, An American Christmas, at the Hotel del ... More Post a comment
Woe Plus Meanness Published Dec. 17, 2008
Hooo-boy… Christmas is just around the corner, yet the residents of Tuna, the third-smallest town in Texas — even counting “greater” Tuna — are so ... More Post a comment
Anything for a Laugh Published Dec. 10, 2008
Talk of Broadway surrounds The Princess and the Black-Eyed Pea, an African retelling of the Hans Christian Andersen fable. If the buzz refers to the ... More Post a comment
It'll Get Done Published Nov. 25, 2008
A gutted theater’s a depressing sight. October 25, 2008: painters apply a foundation coat to the Old Town Theatre’s interior walls. A heat wave forced ... More Post a comment
He May Be Mad Published Nov. 19, 2008
Tom Stoppard called Rosencrantz and Guildenstern “the most expendable people of all time.” Minor courtiers in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, they barely exist beyond their Renaissance finery ... More Post a comment
Bread and Games Published Nov. 12, 2008
When the Roman emperor Nero was born in AD 37, an astrologer declared he would have a “naturally cruel heart” and would become a “public ... More Post a comment
Forget Gold Published Nov. 5, 2008
Water and Power, the title of Richard Montoya’s “stage noir” drama, sums up Southern California history in three words. Forget gold, railroads, or waves upon ... More Post a comment
Freak Show Published Oct. 22, 2008
When it opened on Broadway in 1933, Jack Kirkland’s subhuman dramatization of the Erskine Caldwell novel Tobacco Road received mixed to negative reviews. Even though ... More Post a comment
Blood and Fire and War Published Oct. 15, 2008
PROGRAM NOTES: Moxie Theatre invited me to dramaturge its latest production. My notes for the program grew beyond its confines, so I decided to present ... More Comments (3)
Italian Finery Published Oct. 8, 2008
At a time when the light at the end of the tunnel must be an oncoming train, Lamb’s Players Theatre is staging Adam Guettel and ... More Comment (1)
Juiced Published Oct. 1, 2008
From 1986 to 1988, the Oakland Athletics had back-to-back-to-back Rookies of the Year: Jose Canseco, Mark McGwire, and Walt Weiss. Under ex-lawyer Tony La Russa’s ... More Post a comment
Three Damned Characters Published Sept. 24, 2008
Picture hell. For those who live in Pacific Beach and work nine-to-five jobs, hell arrives every Thursday afternoon. College students schedule their classes Monday through ... More Post a comment
You Are What You Look Like Published Sept. 17, 2008
On Victoria Petrovich’s set for The Good Body at the Rep, shiny panels reflect clouds and pale blue skies. Projected slides take us from America ... More Post a comment
Sharecropper Country Published Sept. 10, 2008
When rock ’n’ roll first hit the scene, hipsters swore that “things’s gonna get REAL GONE for a change.” Although it felt born full grown ... More Post a comment
A Drooling Thersites Published Sept. 3, 2008
Shakespeare’s range was enormous. He could charm with Twelfth Night, enchant with Winter’s Tale, go deep with Hamlet and Lear. But what if only one ... More Post a comment
Blame-Thrower Published Aug. 27, 2008
When Spring Awakening won eight Tony Awards for 2007, including Best Musical, word around the Big Apple went that it would never tour, that it ... More Post a comment
He Grabs the Gold Published Aug. 20, 2008
I’ve always been fascinated by sources of artistic inspiration. What triggered Hamlet, say, or The Iliad? What alchemy transformed ambient noise into Don Giovanni? Was ... More Comments (2)
Bad-Boy Visionary Published Aug. 13, 2008
If you judged only by externals, you'd swear that Jonathan Waxman, protagonist of Sight Unseen, has it all. Waxman's a "bad-boy visionary" artist who had ... More Post a comment
Puttin' on the Blitz Published Aug. 6, 2008
‘Every show starts with a stack of papers,” says Duane Daniels, founder of the Fritz Theatre, “words on a page, from the script to production ... More Comment (1)
Slanted Script Published July 23, 2008
The curtain rises at the Old Globe and vwa-lah! We’re in the majestic living room of a Victorian mansion. A bay-window seat, with nine-foot windows, ... More Post a comment
Ancient Grudge Published July 16, 2008
The Old Globe Theatre’s staging three of Shakespeare’s plays about love: star-crossed Romeo and Juliet, gender-crossed All’s Well That Ends Well (in which the woman ... More Post a comment
Bitter Past Published July 9, 2008
Shakespeare’s always up to something. Even in plays that feel written in haste, like All’s Well That Ends Well, the Bard’s twisting conventions and turning ... More Post a comment
Material Glitter Published July 2, 2008
In today’s terminology, you could say that Joe Bonaparte has bipolar gifts. His hands are as adept in the boxing ring, clobbering contenders, as they ... More Post a comment
Junk City Published June 25, 2008
Along with dents on every fifth car, which people can’t afford to repair, and a beer at Petco costing more than the hourly minimum wage, ... More Post a comment
Cubicle Gal Published June 11, 2008
We watch a woman just home from work. Her eyes are so blank, it’s hard to tell if she’s glad to be back in her ... More Post a comment
Jagged Conversation Published June 4, 2008
Caryl Churchill’s play A Number unfolds like a hall of slowly warping mirrors. The play opens with Salter, in his early 60s, talking to his ... More Post a comment
The World Disappears Published May 21, 2008
What is it about acting that can grab a person’s full attention — and often hold it for a lifetime? Recently I got to dramaturge ... More Post a comment
One Down, One Up Published May 14, 2008
The La Jolla Playhouse’s 33 Variations, about Ludwig van Beethoven’s obsession with a paltry theme by Diabelli, concluded its run in early May. San Diego ... More Post a comment
Misplaced Menagerie Published April 30, 2008
The Old Globe Theatre’s “Classics Up Close” series presents some of the great works of American theater on the small Cassius Carter Centre Stage. The ... More Post a comment
33 Variations Published April 23, 2008
Music is time-bound. It must move forward or cease to be. A few hundred years from now, most likely music will leave linear progression and ... More Post a comment
Theater of Real Life Published April 16, 2008
The “Father of Modern Drama” wasn’t Ibsen, or August Strindberg. He was Andre Antoine (1858…1943), a clerk for the Paris Gas Company and an amateur ... More Comment (1)
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