Stories | Theater Reviews
Brothers Back and Forth
Published Nov. 18, 2009
Link and younger brother Booth have virtuoso hands. To hear him tell it, Link was “the Stink,” the “be all end all,” best three-card monte hustler in town. He could “throw” the cards — two hearts, ...
Word Scenery
Published Nov. 4, 2009
If she’s right, Tiffany Stern has cracked a theatrical mystery: how companies rehearsed — or didn’t — between 1567 and 1780. Her book, Rehearsal from Shakespeare to Sheridan, first appeared in 2000. Reactions to it, including ...
Top Speed
Published Oct. 28, 2009
Alexander Dodge’s glitzy set for the Old Globe’s Sammy includes stately, showcase-windowlike structures framed by rows of blinking lights. They feature props for the scene, or people who pose, in Fabio Toblini’s classy period costumes, and ...
From Their Mouths Published Oct. 21, 2009
Okay, Hope isn’t quite snockered to the gills. She’s sober enough to recognize a tight spot. In this case, literally: the cramped studio apartment of ... More Post a comment
Libelous Tell-All Published Oct. 14, 2009
Thus far, the La Jolla Playhouse’s season has been forgettable. In Terrence McNally’s slight Unusual Acts of Devotion and Claudia Shear’s not-ready-for-prime-time Restoration, the sets ... More Post a comment
Ken Falls Hard Published Oct. 7, 2009
Ken Carpenter doesn’t look like a dramatic lead. Soft-spoken, bespectacled, a slight humble stoop in the shoulders, the 57-year-old’s a successful insurance salesman in Lincoln, ... More Comment (1)
Eerie Ease Published Sept. 30, 2009
Tough acts to follow. Welk Resorts Theatre begins The Andrews Brothers with video clips from the old USO Command Performance radio shows. Bob Hope jokes ... More Post a comment
Two on a Bench Published Sept. 23, 2009
The late Herb Gardner (he died in 2003) hand-wrote his plays on a Central Park bench. One day, the author of A Thousand Clowns watched ... More Post a comment
Trusted by Burt Published Sept. 9, 2009
‘He’s WHAT?” Word of mouth roared through the North Coast Repertory Theatre: “Burt Bacharach’s coming Friday night!” At first, Steve Gunderson went into deep Waiting ... More Comments (2)
Two Against Nature Published Sept. 2, 2009
In the 1950s, led by John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger, British playwrights railed against the establishment’s bankrupt values and hypocrisy. In the 1990s, Sarah ... More Post a comment
Mettle Test Published Aug. 26, 2009
The telephone rings. Then it rings. Then, like an irate brat, the phone REALLY RINGS. And you wonder: where have I heard that progression — ... More Post a comment
The Tree Lost in Leaves Published Aug. 12, 2009
The press packet for Herringbone at the La Jolla Playhouse includes an “artist’s statement” claiming that the “dark, quirky musical allegory” hopes “to illuminate the ... More Post a comment
Wicked Published Aug. 5, 2009
And you thought you knew Oz. I suspect the one thing all Americans have in common, culturally, isn’t the Super Bowl or the Academy Awards. ... More Post a comment
The Curse of Heart Published July 29, 2009
One of the enduring questions about William Shakespeare, which might have surprised him: where did he stand? In Coriolanus, for example, did he side with ... More Post a comment
Handsome Ensemble Published July 15, 2009
The boondoggle makes logical sense, at first. A storm capsized Viola and twin brother Sebastian’s ship off Illyria. When the ship split in two, Viola ... More Post a comment
A Play in Pieces Published July 8, 2009
The La Jolla Playhouse’s popular Page to Stage series, which presents readings of works in progress, has an astonishing track record: Billy Crystal’s 700 Sundays ... More Post a comment
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 ... More Post a comment
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 ... More Post a comment
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 ... More Comments (4)
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
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