San Diego Theater Reviews
If there were no world outside their stately home, the Birlings would have it made. Arthur, the patriarch and former Lord Mayor of Brumley, England, might be up for knighthood. His daughter, Sheila, is engaged …
A patient of Dr. Oliver Sacks suffered a massive stroke. “Mrs. S” retained her intelligence and humor but could no longer see anything left of her nose. “She has totally lost the idea of left,” …
For the first of many “don’t try this at home” sequences, in Aurélia’s Oratorio the lights come up on a timeworn, three-tiered chest of drawers. A hand and a foot pop out. Then red high …
At first it looks as if Neil Simon’s Lost in Yonkers (1991) will repeat the coming-of-age theme in his Brighton Beach trilogy. It’s 1942. When their father hits the road to pay off a loan …
The idea behind Duncan Sheik and Kyle Jarrow’s new musical has potential: What if only certain characters sing? And what if they’re ghosts haunting a lighthouse during World War II? The people in the “real …
David Rabe set Hurlyburly, a three-hour emotional maelstrom, in the Hollywood Hills, early ’80s. As I watched Ion Theatre’s snappy, polished, visceral production, I had a nagging sense of déjà vu. Then it dawned: I …
In the bottom circle of Dante’s Inferno, Satan is a gigantic, three-headed monster waist-deep in a lake of ice. His three mouths chew the world’s worst traitors: Brutus and Cassius, who killed Caesar, to the …
Greatest achievement of 2009: though double-teamed by a rotten economy and the swine flu scare, our theaters survived, though many by the slimmest of margins. Many of 2009’s finest productions were ensemble efforts: each actor …
In 1953, Tennessee Williams sent the equivalent of a neutron bomb to Broadway. He wrote Camino Real to demolish theatrical realism. Don Quixote, the archetypal antirealist, falls asleep and envisions a new kind of theater, …
I must admit a bias. Long before way back when, the Pacific Theatre in Santa Cruz audience-tested movies on Tuesday nights. A bunch of us went for free and filled out questionnaires after. We kissed …
And now for something (almost completely) different: for decades, the San Diego Rep staged A Christmas Carol during the holiday season. On the surface, this year’s yuletide production, The Seafarer, by Conor McPherson, couldn’t be …
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 …
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, …
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, …
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 a man far too young for her tastes. Charles is …
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 — for good or ill — were more memorable than …