Non-Registered Critics: Christine Deitner
Revenge Song
Director Robert Ross Parker and Playwright Qui Nguyen direct our focus with the kind of clarity and humor I wish we had in a quarter of the action films that come out of this town. It’s jaw-dropping and we think we’ve seen it all but then that live feed, complete with miniatures, clever visual tricks and the ton of work that results in the kind of timing Charlie Chaplin and his ilk made look easy in the old days is one of the most phenomenal sequences I’ve seen in as long as I can remember.
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Bad Habits
If you aren’t of the Catholic faith (or of any faith at all) there are definitely going to be some ideas in the script that will leave you wondering where it tries to leave us but if you are looking for something that will make you think about Christmas in a new light, that also takes you out of the Nutcracker/A Christmas Carol routine, this is a good one to consider.
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Key Largo
Andy Garcia deserves the same sense of palpable threat that Robinson earned in the Huston film and with a stage this large, with that much of a set, it is startling to note that no effort was made to carve out those small, intimate spaces that could have made this production shine. The cast is strong, yet something is amiss.
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The Great Leap
Pasadena Playhouse collaborates with East West Players to deliver a visual feast with some deeply emotional surprises in The Great Leap, written by Lauren Yee and directed by BD Wong.
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Eight Nights
Overall, this is a well-written play that avoids easy answers, assumes we are able to keep up, and presents us with questions, which is ultimately ideal.
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The Thanksgiving Play
The actors are committed to everything one thousand percent and that’s wonderful to watch but something holds us back from fully embracing every comic beat, and there are a lot of them.
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Orwell's 1984
Throughout the physical work in the show is intricate, specific and strong and it was an honor to be able to sit with this company and watch them ride this emotional roller coaster that makes love actually seem as dangerous as Big Brother thinks it is. This is strong work that gives us a lot to think about, and more than a few things to be fearful of.
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ON BECKETT
For ninety minutes, we get to sit with a master craftsman and hear how he has worked with another master craftsman. If that isn’t beautiful, nothing is.
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A PLAY IS A POEM
The Center Theatre Group presents a particularly cinematic treat with the World premiere of Ethan Coen’s A Play Is a Poem at Mark Taper Forum. Directed by Neil Pepe and presented in association with Atlantic Theater Company, the piece is a collection of five one-acts set in five very different locations featuring characters some audience members might find familiar if they are a fan of Coen brothers films. Scenic design by Riccardo Hernández features a large brick wall that can be transformed via doors, windows and via a bit of scenic magic into different locales and a lovely wood floor that feels overtly theatrical as if we were watching this play in an old Broadway house with its exposed back wall and little else to shape it. It is a raw space that lends itself easily to the sudden shifts of mood each section, or ‘Act’ as musical performer Nellie McKay calls them while maintaining a visual thread that holds it all together.
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Skintight
Overall, it’s a bit of a challenge to fully love anyone in this play but it is incredibly easy to laugh along with them and that laughter eventually helps the character work their way under your skin, leaving you with a lot to think about. In the end, that’s exactly what we hope for when we go to the theatre and the cast should be commended for that beautiful accomplishment.
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Pericles
Incest, attempted murder, attempted rape, and a family desperately seeking out a better life only to be torn apart during a storm at sea that leads to a decade-plus-long separation. It sounds like a summary of some Facebook news feeds but no, this is William Shakespeare and George Wilkins’ Pericles… and in the capable hands of Independent Shakespeare Co.’s co-founder and Artistic Director Melissa Chalsma, it is a solidly funny good time.
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An Enemy of the People
This is not a production that chooses to tiptoe around anything. This is a show that frames an important conversation we as a nation seem incapable of having around a secondary moral concern and it makes it work.
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Son of Semele presents MEN ON BOATS
Son of Semele Ensemble brings Jaclyn Backhaus’ Men on Boats to Los Angeles audiences with a highly physical production that elicits the terrors and dangers of exploration in a uniquely simple way...
The character work is specific across the board and it isn’t hard to align yourself with one or several of these historical figures.
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Death of a Salesman
The Ruskin Theatre Group’s production of Death of a Salesman in Santa Monica, CA confronts us with uncomfortable truths and questions about the American Dream that makes this 70-year-old play feel as challenging and immediate as if Arthur Miller wrote it for us yesterday. Mike Reilly directs a superb cast in the theatre’s delightfully intimate space situated across from the Santa Monica Airport. He and his design team do a fantastic job of using the space to bring the claustrophobic elements of the Loman’s living situation into the audience’s experience.
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American Saga - Gunshot Medley: Part 1
The overall effect is that we are walking into a different world in a different time and it is so successful, you start to relax into it – that is if you are open to it, and friends, if there was ever a play that demanded we be open and actively listening, this is the one. If you aren’t and you don’t, you are going to miss something sorrowful and true...
With work like this out there available for audiences to see, there is no excuse not to.
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THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG
The Play That Goes Wrong takes no prisoners and never apologizes for being as outlandish and over the top as ‘play’ can get. We ought to thank them for giving us a good laugh, especially at ourselves.
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The Caucasian Chalk Circle
Director Stephanie Shroyer has taken masterful hold of Alistair Beaton’s translation of the play with a diverse Ensemble that feel quite comfortable in their many changing roles while never letting us escape the emotional experience nor forget what is at stake.
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Nancy F***ing Reagan
The subject of the play is something we need to witness, understand and discuss. The execution of it lacks the clarity that ultimately diffuses any power it might have.
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Twelfth Night
All told, no one here is doing this kind of work with the focus on diversity and community involvement that this company has had since its inception. We are lucky to have them.
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Anna St. Hesia Dreams
It turned out to be the perfect show – not only to end the day but in many dreamlike, horrifying, visceral ways...
With one actress, a couple of painted black boxes, a hospital bed, a chair, a tangled web of what looked like cords from discarded Apple products serving as the mare shell necklace and strong physical and verbal choices, Rinny and Petriello crafted a world that could make any filmmaker with a multi-million dollar budget green with envy...
This is a complex dream story about fear and sacrifice and yet it is presented with such clarity and a sense of purpose, it is easy to slip into it like a warm bath and not want it to end. It’s what theatre is about.
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