Naomi Lizuka’s play, Concerning Strange Devices From The Distant West, is a puzzle of a play designed as a triptych that unfolds as a three-panel structure as if being seen form a camera’s lens. This drama is a provocative examination of the American fascination with the exotic and distant Far East (here Japan)
Puccini sets the mood for his proverbially adored opera, La Boheme in the very first bars; a pungent, disarming motif outlining the first three pitches of a minor scale in descending order that leads directly into the action without an overture. It is modern, and life affirming, in a jazzy nonchalant sort of way, with a definite tinge of melancholy.
Marriott’s lead artistic director, Aaron Thielen and Marc Robin (who holds 16 jeff Awards), both enthusiast lovers of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s music , conceived and created a most stunning and artistically stylish music revue. With a cast of 19, this ALW review has much dance including naturalistic movement and ballet styled dance to instrumental renditions of ALW music.
Played out on a stunning Palm Springs art-deco home set (designed by Thomas Lynch), Ron Robin Baitz’s Other Desert City is a family drama filled with politics that becomes an embroiled debate between the conservative ex-film star father, Lyman Wyeth (Chelcie Ross), now an ambassador with close Republican Party roots and his ultra-conservative wife, Polly (Deanna Dunagan) and their New York liberal writer daughter, Brooke (Tracy Michelle Arnold).
The acting is disciplined and fully internalized. Steve Haggard is charming as Jasper; Michael Finely is the shy, tentative introvert struggling to have friends and find his place in the world. Without giving away much more, let me state that Evan and J.K. form a special bond based on mutual respect and genuine friendship
An LGBT classic gets a 20-year update with some great performances at its lovable core.
A Grand Night For Singing is the perfect choice to launch a run of originally produced Broadway musicals at the Mercury Theater. It is a stylish revue of the amazing songbook of Rodgers and Hammerstein conceived by Walter Bobbie in 1993. It is a romantic songfest that presents the R & H select songs in a new context that highlights romantic relationships.
This is an idea play that will have you debating it long after leaving the theatre. David Hare effectively argues both Tom’s and Kyra’s point of views. Each character’s point of view convinces us until we hear the other’s rebuttal. Ultimately trust decides things but only after a riveting evening of conflicted desires, aspirations, and ideologies. Hare’s brilliant writing is equalized by the expert work by Matt Farabe, Laura Rook, and especially Philip Earl Johnson.
How can a play begin with someone dropping her underpants? Well Carl Sternheim conceived the idea back in 1910 before the days of reliable elastic, and Steve Martin adapted Sternheim’s idea for modern audiences. As a farce, Underpants contains no slap stick or slamming doors, but does give a refreshing change of pace through many naughty double entendres. The characters begin as solid stereotypes, before the days of political correctness, but change and offer surprises as they interact with each other. The creative dialogue from two playwrights results in a very clever sparkling comedy with some universal themes.
The conceit is that a young pianist (James F.Giles) is having trouble realizing an early Beethoven Piano Sonata in C minor, when a bust of the composer which he had ordered arrives. Placed on a table beside the piano, the bust magically becomes a real-life, and, if I may say so, utterly convincing, Ludwig Van Beethoven (Bruce Adolphe), who, on hearing the pianist, bursts into a rhapsodic remonstration on how to realize his music with all it proper depth and subtlety.