Steven Leigh Morris

Photo by Michael LamontIT MAY SEEM STRANGE, BUT A SONG-CYCLE TRIBUTE to the decade-old Tian An Men Square protests (Beijing Spring) and a slick musical lampoon of '30s anti-dope flicks (Reefer Madness!) are actually inverted renditions of the same play. Both are about the passions of youth stifled by the......

Photo by Craig SchwartzFRENCH PLAYWRIGHT ERIC-EMMANUEL SCHMITT uses Edward Elgar's "The Enigma Variations" to spark his similarly titled mystery (in its American premiere at the Mark Taper Forum). The play certainly enchants, though in the end, there's not much that's enigmatic about it. Rather, after a brief metaphysical excursion, it......

Photo by Kathleen Clark"IT'S A LOVELY FEELING TO GET A LAUGH OUT LOUD," JAMIE Lee Curtis says about playing live, "rather than performing before 20 members of my crew, who aren't allowed to respond." Curtis is part of a wave of American film celebrities (including Nicole Kidman, Annette Bening, Teri......

Photo by Craig SchwartzIN IBSEN'S 1890 HEDDA GABLER (IN A CLASSY YET COLLOquial adaptation by Jon Robin Baitz), lethally romantic Hedda (Annette Bening) hands a pistol to her former flame, Lovborg (Patrick O'Connell), and -- for her own peace of mind -- goads him to suicide with the words "But......

Photo by Lee WochnerIN THE SUPERHUMANS, TOM SCANLON'S SNAPPY FARCE (at Silver Lake's Moving Arts), a portly character named Sal (Brad Henson) -- attired in an orange shirt and bright-yellow tie -- sits at home (an essentially barren stage) watching helplessly as his wife, Sally (Frankie Cohen), packs her bags......

Photo by Neal PrestonIT'S ABSOLUTELY UNTRUE THAT BRITISH DIRECTOR Sam Mendes' much-heralded "reinvention" of Masteroff, Kander and Ebb's musical Cabaret is gutsy, as the reviews from three different cities tend to suggest. (The production was born in London's Donmar Warehouse in 1993 and later -- after it had transferred to......

Photo by Larry GundPAULA VOGEL'S HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE (AT THE Taper) studies an old perv's influence upon his niece as she comes of age. Meanwhile, at Silver Lake's Glaxa Studios, a quintet of women (Beth Bates, Christina Bebes, Sera Gamble, Angie Gibbs and Raelle Tucker) perform a collaboratively......

Photo by Erin FiedlerYou could say that Ruth Margraff's Sophoclean riff The Elektra Fugues (at the Ivy Substation) and the vaudeville troupe the New Bozena (goofing off at the Hudson Main Stage) are cut from the same ancient cloth. True, Elektra is a theme-and-variation on Sophocles' lament for the House......

Photo by Anne Fishbein Laural Meade’s burlesque-vaudeville-drama, Harry Thaw Hates Everybody, has been through several workshops (including stagings at the Los Angeles Theater Center and the Taper), and though it made its official debut a couple of weeks ago, it still feels like a work in progress. And probably always......

Photo by Carol RoseggLet's be fair: Had Yasmina Reza's charming chamber comedy Art premiered here on a shoestring budget at, say, the 99-seat Odyssey or Hudson Theater, rather than at the tony Doolittle, it would be couched in a different frame, with less hype and lower expectations. Instead, it prances......