"Sir, you are married to a snake!” the holy man Fa Hai tells bewildered Xu Xian at the Golden Monastery. “You are coiled in the snares of a snake demon.” His wife and her sidekick …
April 1, 2015
Prosperina
The White Snake slithers into the Old Globe
Congrats, thespians
The San Diego Theater Critics Circle held its 12th annual awards ceremony on February 4. Congratulations to the winners, the nominees, and the entire community of theater artists for one heck of a year. Designer …
February 7, 2017
Rich Girl finds little purchase at the Old Globe’s theater in the round
The only time it happened was at the old Old Town Theatre. I was watching a production of The Heiress, where a complete and total jerk courts rich, innocent, young Catherine. He was so obviously …
June 3, 2015
History out the corner of your eye
Asian Story Theatre’s Stories of the Sun Café runs three performances through the weekend of June 27-29. Written by Kent Brisby, who researched the subject with Joyce Teague for two years, the piece is the …
June 26, 2015
Moonlight's delight
There is something magical about the open-air setting of Moonlight Stage Productions’ The Music Man: a perfect spot for the classic American musical. Taking place in River City, Iowa, the story centers around the interactions …
July 19, 2015
San Diego Fringe: So Small a Thing and Breaking Waves Festival
So Small a Thing. Even tragedy can be played for comedy. Dominique Salerno’s scripts opens years following the gruesome events in Euripides’ Medea. Stuck together on an elevator for the deceased, the angry Medea (Jennie …
July 27, 2015
San Diego Fringe: Put Your Face On and Train of Thought
Put Your Face On. Touted as a parade into the complex human psyche, Put Your Face On is The Great Borealis & Pisces Dance Project’s two-part modern dance expose of the dark emotions that bubble …
July 26, 2015
San Diego Fringe: Yellow Heaven and A Date with Death: Hollywood Confidential
Yellow Heaven. “One performer’s journey” — that’s the way, according to the old joke, you refer to a show about which you’re uncertain of the specifics. Yellow Heaven, performed by author Debi Ham, has sympathy …
July 28, 2015
San Diego Fringe: The Other Don Quixote and 120 Years
The Other Don Quixote. Three clowns – replete with red noses – represent three after-hours workers at a film studio. The set, like most at the Fringe, is rudimentary, made up of bare bone essentials: …
July 28, 2015
San Diego Fringe: Scenes From Mars One: Now With 68% Less Gravity! and Los Dorados (The Golden Ones)
Scenes From Mars One: Now With 68% Less Gravity!. Mars One Productions’ Scenes From Mars One is an irreverent spoof of disastrous theatrical experiences. A depressed director puts on a never-before-produced show, written by his …
July 28, 2015
San Diego Fringe: Big Kitchen: A Counter Culture Musical
Big Kitchen: A Counter Culture Musical. San Diego should confer the equivalent of knighthood on its special ones — those who have devoted decades to making some part of “America’s Finest City” approach that inflated …
July 28, 2015
The Strange Case of Mr. Wallace Leach
The sun over Coronado said 3 p.m. Wallace Leach bumbled out the side door of the Horton House bar and shielded his eyes from the glare. Though a snappy dresser — he was one of …
July 29, 2015
Little man with a big gun
Wallace Leach barged into the Occidental Hotel bar with a broken nose and a powerful thirst. He was in San Francisco on business, he said, but was out for revenge. He came to hire a …
August 5, 2015
Eve of destruction
Did Eddie spend four years in Vietnam? Or did it just seem that way?
August 5, 2015
Absurdist inquisition
When a young actor, Harold Pinter needed a place to stay at a rainy, seaside town. A man in a pub suggested a nearby boarding house, but couldn’t vouch for its cleanliness. Pinter lodged in …
August 17, 2015
Cirque du Chaotic
Long before the dancing cacti showed up or Audrey III flapped mastic jaws in a pile of laundry, I began to wonder if Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez’s romantic-comedy musical, Up Here, was actually a …
August 19, 2015
Shrill, grotesque love
Hitler called Leni Riefenstahl “my perfect German woman.” The first time she saw him, in 1932, she said “I feel very happy that such a man has come.” Riefenstahl opened the movie camera’s eye. In …
September 15, 2015
Light comedy lite
It’s tournament weekend at Quail Valley Country Club. They have their annual match with a dreaded — albeit evil — opponent. Crouching Squirrel C.C. has better golfers and just absconded with Quail Valley’s only decent …
September 21, 2015
Tribute to Arthur Wagner by Jefferson Mays
Arthur Wagner, indefatigable champion of the theater, passed away yesterday morning. He was 92. I asked Jefferson Mays, one of his most devoted and accomplished students — and Tony Award-winner for I Am My Own …
September 22, 2015
Talking walls
The La Jolla Playhouse’s popular Without Walls Festival begins Friday, October 9 and runs through October 11. That’s 22 events in three days, and all are “site-specific.” “The Playhouse has four theaters,” says artistic director …
October 4, 2015