Email Author L.A. Weekly Theater Critics

2009 Stories by L.A. Weekly Theater Critics

• Theater Reviews: A RUBICON FAMILY CHRISTMAS, THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG, A VEGAS HOLIDAY! SONGS FROM LIVE AT THE SAHARA

  published December 24, 2009

  GO  A RUBICON FAMILY CHRISTMAS Andy Williams and his fancy sweaters are nowhere to be seen, but the Rubicon... More >>

• Theater Reviews: La Posada Magica, Women Behind Bars, Peep This

  published December 17, 2009

  GO  BOB’S HOLIDAY OFFICE PARTY It’s the holiday season, and, if you can’t muster the energy for... More >>

• Theater Reviews: A Lie of the Mind, Mercy Warren’s Tea, Molly, Extinction

  published December 3, 2009

  GO  BLACK LEATHER Photographer Robert Krapplethorpe — an unmistakable twist on Mapplethorpe — is a... More >>

• Theater Reviews: Arias With a Twist, La Ronde de Lunch, Love in Bloom

  published November 26, 2009

  GO  ARIAS WITH A TWIST Poor Joey Arias, a female impersonator here attired in black bra and panties, has just... More >>

• Theater Reviews: Noises Off, Mary Poppins, Carbon Black, The River Niger

  published November 13, 2009

  GO  BABY IT’S YOU Florence Greenberg (Meeghan Holaway) was a restless Passaic housewife with two nearly... More >>

• Theater Reviews: Bleeding Through, Answer the Call, Exit Strategy, The Changeling

  published November 5, 2009

  ANSWER THE CALL This well-meaning musical deserves credit for espousing universal respect and genuine family values (not the... More >>

• Theater Reviews: Scarcity, The Conquest of the South Pole, The Value of Names, Flight

  published October 29, 2009

  THE CONQUEST OF THE SOUTH POLE German playwright Manfred Karge’s 1988 fantasia about a quartet of unemployed men... More >>

• Theater Reviews: Kooza, Chesapeake, Private Eyes

  published October 22, 2009

  AMERICAN GRIND An amalgam of the work of four writers and two directors, this hybrid piece falls somewhere between sketch... More >>

• Theater Reviews: Festen, Just Imagine, Never Land, Save Gertrude

  published October 15, 2009

  THE BLUNDERS Jon Berstein’s site-specific comedy with music about L.A. ditherers and sweet loons is set in an L.A.... More >>

• Theater Reviews: How Katrina Plays, Mom’s the Word, Elections and Erections, To Kill a Mockingbird

  published October 8, 2009

  ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL Poor but smart surgeon’s daughter Helena (Michelle Terry) cures the king of France... More >>

• Theater Reviews: Sock & Shoe, Children of a Lesser God, Art, Savin’ Up for Saturday Night

  published September 24, 2009

  GO  ART Playwright Yasmina Reza’s scintillating 1994 comedy debates a variety of ideas, and you find yourself... More >>

• Theater Reviews: Friends Like These, The Crossing, Peace, Somebody’s Somebody

  published September 17, 2009

  GO  AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY Tracy Letts’ 2007 Great American Family Drama, or so we’d believe from the national... More >>

• THEATER REVIEWS: HEYDRICH/HITLER/HOLOCAUST, LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS

  published September 10, 2009

  GROSS INDECENCY: THE THREE TRIALS OF OSCAR WILDE There’s wonderful irony in the fact that, though Oscar Wilde’s... More >>

• Theater Reviews: Burn This, Manish Boy, Bright Ideas

  published September 3, 2009

  GO  BRIGHT IDEAS “All the world’s a stage, and our children our players,” advises a tutor to... More >>

• Theater Reviews: Liquid, In Arabia We’d All Be Kings, The New Testament/Helter Skelter

  published August 27, 2009

  GO  ANITA BRYANT DIED FOR YOUR SINS The title of Brian Christopher Williams’ Anita Bryant Died for Your... More >>

• Theater Reviews: The Receptionist, Legally Blonde the Musical

  published August 20, 2009

  BLOCK NINE Tom Stanczyk’s play, “an unapologetically same-sex, retro noir 1930s gangster homage,” is performed... More >>

• Theater Reviews: All in the Timing, Hair, Life Could Be a Dream

  published August 13, 2009

  ALL IN THE TIMING Frequently performed and durably diverting, this series of six short plays by David Ives takes ironic... More >>

• Theater Reviews: Treefall, One Woman, Two Lives, The Miser

  published August 6, 2009

  THE CHAIRS Eugène Ionesco’s 1952 post-apocalyptic comi-tragedy premiered the same year as Samuel Beckett’s... More >>

• Theater Reviews: Facing East, Insanity, Farragut North

  published July 2, 2009

  GO  THE CHERRY ORCHARD In 1950, writer-director Josh Logan transferred Chekhov’s play to the American South... More >>

• Theater Reviews: 2 Pianos 4 Hands, Coming Home, Cirque Berzerk

  published June 25, 2009

  CABARET The economy is terrible; unemployment is rising; sex and promiscuity abound; traditions are constantly broken,... More >>

• Theater Reviews: Bach at Leipzig, Bingo With the Indians, La Didone

  published June 18, 2009

  APARTMENT 6 & 9 These two one-acts, written and directed by Matt Morillo, deal with contemporary romantic/sexual conflicts and... More >>

• Theater Reviews: Cymbeline, Oleanna, The Little Foxes

  published June 11, 2009

  GO  CYMBELINE What might Shakespeare have written if he’d been asked by some 17th-century counterpart of a... More >>

• Theater Reviews: Mercury Fur, Breaking the Code, A Grand Guignol Cabaret

  published June 4, 2009

  ALWAYS AND FOREVER It’s easy to see what drew playwright-director Michael Patrick Spillers to write this painfully... More >>

• Theater Reviews: Eve's Rapture, Half of Plenty, The Country Wife

  published May 28, 2009

  GO  THE COUNTRY WIFE Adapted and directed by Richard Tatum, William Wycherley’s 1675 bawdy satire is a... More >>

• Theater Reviews: Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, Dirty Dancing, Ten to Life

  published May 21, 2009

  GO  BENGAL TIGER AT THE BAGHDAD ZOO Provoked by an American guard named Tom (Glenn Davis), the Tiger (Kevin Tighe)... More >>