The word epic is so misused. It can be applied to, for instance, a migraine headache, or the feat of eating the most hot dogs in a competition at the county fair. Epic originally meant a long heroic poem, told in elevated style, The Iliad, for example. But epic has also been used to describe … Continue reading “The Gary Plays-Part I” at Atwater Village Theatre
Donald Margulies’ play, Dinner with Friends, won a Pulitzer Prize for Drama in the year 2000. The intimate drama reveals the marital states of two couples that are long time friends. On a snowy evening in the Connecticut home of Gabe (Patrick Vest) and Karen (Christina Morrell), the cheerful couple cook and chatter about their … Continue reading “Dinner with Friends” at Little Fish Theatre
Rajiv Joseph, a remarkable playwright with a wide-ranging imagination, is famous for his Broadway hit Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo for which he was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. Other plays include The North Pool, a psychological thriller; The Lake Effect, a tight family drama; Animals Out of Paper, set in the workshop of an … Continue reading “Archduke” at The Mark Taper Forum
Dorothy Fortenberry’s new play, Species Native to California, produced by IAMA Theatre Company at Atwater Village Theatre, is as current as yesterday, or more to the point, last fall, when politics ruled the collective consciousness. She forges new meanings out of some old tropes. Loosely inspired by Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, the play also dips … Continue reading “Species Native to California” at Atwater Village Theatre
The title of Amy Freed’s The Monster Builder conjures up some classical allusions, certainly to Henrik Ibsen’s The Master Builder with its ego driven Solness, an architect who builds high and falls low, as well as, perhaps, to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, with another driven genius whose creation goes awry. The Monster Builder, however, is a … Continue reading “The Monster Builder” at South Coast Repertory
Michael Harney’s The Awful Grace of God, presented by Go the Distance Productions, is an evening of six one-act plays that deal with three forms of death in the first half, and then lightens up in the second with family violence, unrequited love, and existential despair. There is some serious, well-acted drama going on here, … Continue reading “The Awful Grace of God” at The Other Space @ The Actors Company
A sense of mystery surrounds Chilean playwright Guillermo Calderón’s play, Kiss, even before an audience is seated. Playgoers are told that the expected program will be given to the spectators after the final curtain. And, yes, they were indeed handed out as the audience exited the performance space. The initial scene takes place in Damascus, … Continue reading “Kiss” at Odyssey Theatre
