When it comes to the great Pat Kinevane, an Irish national treasure and Olivier Award winner, the word that comes up, after trolling through my mental hard drive, is “incomparable.” I really can’t liken him to any other performer that I know of, and I get around and have done so for decades. A solo … Continue reading “Before” at Odyssey Theatre
Playwright Grant Woods, a man accomplished in multiple ways, came to a fork in the road like Robert Frost. As an Occidental College undergrad he gave himself a choice of careers—law or writing. As a lawyer, he was successful and moved into politics as Arizona’s Attorney General from 1991-1999, served as Chief-of-Staff to Senator John … Continue reading “The Things We Do” at Odyssey Theatre
Brian Friel’s Faith Healer, now in production at Odyssey Theatre, has a structure that has been compared to Rashomon, in that certain events are experienced by three characters whose memories of those events are, of course, unique to them while overlapping in some details. Emotional memories are another story. In the 1970s in various locations … Continue reading “Faith Healer” at Odyssey Theatre
Nicky Silver’s 2014 play, Too Much Sun, is not a predictable, linear progression of action with characters moving from point A to point B and so on, but is rather like a Jackson Pollack painting, an emotional splatter that has more structure than might be readily perceived. Start with the prologue, a brilliant hook that … Continue reading “Too Much Sun” at Odyssey Theatre
Put aside all expectations of an Aristophanes comedy. Eduardo Machado’s new play, Lysistrata Unbound, is no light-hearted romp about a bunch of Athenian women who cut off all sexual contact with men in order to bring a halt to the endless Peloponnesian Wars. No, this show, under the inspired direction of John Farmanesh-Bocca (Tempest Redux, … Continue reading “Lysistrata Unbound” at Odyssey Theatre Ensemble
In Forgotten, Pat Kinevane takes on the roles of four residents of an elder care facility. As in his other two performance pieces, Underneath and Silent, Kinevane forms a bond with his audience, singling out individuals and asking their names. He talks to them over and over throughout the show. At times he stands as … Continue reading “Forgotten” at Odyssey Theatre
David Sessions’ play, Two Fisted Love, is touted as a dark comedy. Mr. Sessions says it is, “…a modern drawing room comedy,” which summons up expectations of Wilde or Coward. Dark it is; comedy it is not. Are there moments that could be considered humorous? Well, yes, but then there is the drunken porter scene … Continue reading “Two Fisted Love” at Odyssey Theatre
Ashes to Ashes, a new play written by Debbie Bolsky, directed by Katherine James, and presented by The Athena Cats, a collective of Southern California female playwrights and directors, is touted as “a madcap romantic comedy…written in the tradition of classic film screwball comedies.” A pair of former lovers, Sara (Lena Bouton) and Jefferson (Kevin … Continue reading “Ashes to Ashes” at Odyssey Theatre
Inspired by her family’s personal history, playwright Tania Wisbar’s The Red Dress dramatizes the post-World War I era in Germany with the subsequent rise of the Nazi Party. The story focuses on the romance between a film star and a shattered officer with an artistic bent. In the passionate drama, Alexandra Schiele (Laura Liguori), known … Continue reading “The Red Dress” at Odyssey Theatre
The title of Kevin Armento’s play, Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally, is a reference to the old mnemonic device that is meant to help students remember the order of mathematical operations in solving equations, which I am sure all of you readers will remember as PEMDAS: parentheses, exponents, multiplication, division, addition, subtraction. It should … Continue reading “Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally” at Odyssey Theatre
Paul Myrvold's Theatre Notes 