This idea for a musical sounds doomed from the start: base the story on a 100-plus-year-old play so controversial several countries banned it, which closed after one night on Broadway; talk and sing openly about …
March 26, 2014
Prosperina
Stomp holes in the floor
Quilters at Lamb’s Players
Sarah McKendree Bonham, who came west in a covered wagon, hasn’t long to live. Aware that, as the bible says, most of a woman’s work “perishes in the using,” she decides to make a “legacy …
March 30, 2014
All My Sons at Intrepid Shakespeare Company
Okay, it isn’t Death of a Salesman, to which it will forever be compared. And its form lies just this side of calculated. But Arthur Miller’s earlier play, written during World War II, still packs …
April 3, 2014
The Liar at Scripps Ranch Theatre
“The thing I’m not will make me live.” San Diego’s David Ives Victory Tour continues at Scripps Ranch Theatre with his re-invigoration of Pierre Corneille’s 1643 comedy. As with Venus in Fur at San Diego …
April 8, 2014
My Acting Bucket List: Jeffrey Jones
I’m asking veteran local actors to name five dream roles and say why. The answers not only reveal aspirations, they may put an idea in the minds of artistic directors and producers – even some …
September 26, 2014
Rothko is extremes
When courting his second wife-to-be, Mark Rothko gave her a copy of The Trial. In Franz Kafka’s uncompleted novel, an unnamed accuser arrests Josef K for an unnamed crime. According to his biographer, James E.B. …
April 16, 2014
Last Call: All My Sons at Intrepid in Encinitas
If I had a penny for every time I heard someone say “I wanted to see that show. Now I hear it closed,” I could start my own theater — and have a permanent tee-time …
April 17, 2014
Human faces on a rarely told story
Lionel Goldstein’s world-premiere drama has some creaky dramaturgy and overuses a trick so much that, in the first 30 or so minutes, it was tempting to phase out and do character studies of various spectators. …
April 21, 2014
Dance on a minefield
He’s so addicted to alienation, he wouldn’t march in his “own parade.”
April 23, 2014
Last Call: Red and Spring Awakening
Mark Rothko and his fellow Abstract Expressionists (though they didn’t like the name) battered the Cubists to pulp. Now, as Rothko contemplates what could be his masterpiece — and the place to showcase his special …
April 24, 2014
Lamb’s did it!
The old: a group in India read Bible stories non-stop for 72 hours. The new, Guinness Book record: 76 hours, 18 minutes: from Thursday, May 8 at 6:00 p.m. through Sunday, May 11 at 10:17 …
May 15, 2014
Acting is doing
I wanted to interview Annie Hinton because she made her first “professional” directorial debut at New Village Arts earlier this year. And Annie Baker’s spare, almost voiceless collage, Circle Mirror Transformation, called for major directorial …
April 29, 2014
This is a perfect part for me
I have always wanted to ask veteran local actors to name five dream roles and say why. The answers not only reveal aspirations, they may put an idea in the minds of directors and producers …
August 28, 2014
What you see is not what you thought
Cygnet Theatre is running two of Sam Shepard’s plays in repertory: True West and Fool for Love. In Cygnet’s opening day/night double bill last Sunday, True West came off the stronger [to be reviewed 10/15]. …
October 9, 2014
100 Hours of Stories IN A ROW!
The Guinness Book of Records for staying awake is 264 hours. Whoever did that must be cutting out paper dolls in an institution. The oldest person in the world is 116, sayeth the G-Book, and …
May 3, 2014
From innocence to evil
Leopold and Loeb: the dark-eyed, slick-haired, “thrill killers” of 1924 could have posed for Arrow shirt ads. Nathan Leopold, 19, and Richard Loeb, 18, were intelligent lawyers-to-be. Leopold had a 210 IQ and claimed to …
May 6, 2014
Love without reason
Fosca blazes with such fervor that her fierce, unconditional devotion appears grotesque.
May 7, 2014
SD Fringe: Nothing With Nobody, Vucciria Teatro
Rosaria: “Then I’ll take him by his hand and we’ll jump straight down into the blue sea. He will think it’s a game.” Three characters. Sicily, 1980s. The uncredited lighting for this one-act tragedy from …
July 6, 2014
Moxie witchcraft
A raucous opening night makes an all-around odd Discourse on the Wonders of the Invisible World.
October 1, 2014
No author better served
On May 15, Scott Feldsher and Sledgehammer Theatre mount their first production in several years — and IT’S ABOUT TIME! Their choice, Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days, has a legendary San Diego connection. In 1962, Alan …
May 10, 2014