War Stories, a new play by Sarah Kelly, follows the complicated love lives of four aspiring, youngish Angelenos. Their individual trajectories form, not a triangle, but a quadrangle of passionate missteps. Jen (the playwright Ms. Kelly), a therapist, is close to a permanent relationship with Philip, an unseen, unheard character, who is a very wealthy … Continue reading “War Stories” at Actors Workout Studio
Jen Silverman’s new play, The Roommate, now in its West Coast premiere at South Coast Rep, presents two women in their mid-fifties, whose bloom of youth has faded with the inevitable decline of old age a decade or more in the future. All the action takes place in the kitchen of a comfortable home in … Continue reading “The Roommate” at South Coast Rep
It is quite the concept, this recasting of Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice into the post-Civil War cauldron of Washington D.C. Playwright Aaron Posner not only shifts the action out of Venice and moves the time frame up several centuries, but he also re-crafts the old story of a Christian merchant who makes a bad deal … Continue reading “District Merchants” at South Coast Repertory
What to make of Shakespeare’s Cymbeline? The title page of my Yale Shakespeare version calls it “The Tragedy of Cymbeline.” In a seminar called Classicism in the Drama at college, we learned the Aristotelian definition: “A tragedy, then, is the imitation of an action that is serious and also, as having magnitude, complete in itself; … Continue reading “Cymbeline” at Shakespeare by the Sea
It has been more than a half-century since the whole world learned the word “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” invented for the award-winning film Mary Poppins created by the Disney Studio after the notoriously long, arduous negotiations with author P. L. Travers. When the author finally gave in to pleas for a musical stage version, she stipulated that only … Continue reading “Mary Poppins” at Pacific Repertory Theatre
Rajiv Joseph is one of the best rising playwrights in America. He was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for the Broadway production Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo that starred Robin Williams. I have reviewed many of his plays including the terrific world premiere production of his psychological thriller The North Pool at TheatreWorks. His 2009 … Continue reading “Gruesome Playground Injuries” at The Hudson Theatres
Written in the early 1920s, Eugene O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape puts the chasm between unskilled, brute labor and the idle moneyed class front and center in the most passionate of ways. Yank (Hailé D’Alan in a dominating, physical performance) is the kingpin of a gang of stokers on a trans-Atlantic passenger liner. Toiling in the … Continue reading “The Hairy Ape” at Odyssey Theatre Ensemble
In the opening moment of Julia Cho’s new play Office Hour, three university English teachers sitting at a table discuss a problematic student. His name is Dennis and he is asocial. He doesn’t speak, wears dark glasses and a ball cap under a hoody. He sits far removed from other students and writes the most … Continue reading “Office Hour” at South Coast Repertory
Playwright Rich Orloff lampoons the idealized 1950s America with his wacky play, Domestic Tranquility, now playing at Little Fish Theatre in San Pedro. Think of it as a cracked Father Knows Best with a dad who drives off to the office every day, a stay-at-home mom who cooks and dusts, and a teenaged daughter about … Continue reading “Domestic Tranquility” at Little Fish Theatre
Like the finally honed comic classic of Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s On First,” the opening scene of Padraic Duffy’s new comedy, Past Time, now premiering at Sacred Fools Theatre Company, the niggling, bickering repartee of Leon Russom and French Stewart as long time friends James and Lou, is a giggling, guffaw-inducing splash of funny. The … Continue reading “Past Time” at Sacred Fools Theatre Company
Paul Myrvold's Theatre Notes 