Opening the Curtain

It's tricky. I'm realizing that my reviews end up having the same arc as the plays I see. Which makes this week tough because The Train Driver starts dark and stays there. Athol Fugard's latest work is based on a horrific true story...

In any story, the protagonist is motivated by passion. You know: avenging the death of a loved one, righting a wrong, becoming king. In Jordan Harrison's new play Futura at Boston Court, the protagonist's passion is something a little less passionate: typography. You know - fonts, serifs and the like...

It's not everyday you hear someone say "Get in your car. Drive to La Jolla and see some Dostoyevsky!” Today is your lucky day...

The question raised by two works performed in Southern California this weekend is: To what length will we go to pursue a forbidden desire?  And though subject is the same, the two shows are separated by 50 miles, 100 years, and two radically different styles and audiences, they both have at their heart - desire...

OK, there are these young lovers and their love is thwarted by their pompous elders.  So they ask their wacky servants to help out, and hilarity ensues...

You'd think that something as tried and true as Greek tragedy was cut in stone.  But watching Sophocles Elektra performed at the expansive outdoor amphitheater at the Getty Villa in Malibu, I was struck by the question: "what is Greek theater?"  and, specifically, "what is a Greek chorus?"

Before the onslaught of fall theater openings I thought we'd leave the intimacy of local theater and go big . . . really, really big.  Like T. Rex big. Of course, I'm talking about Walking with Dinosaurs - billed as an “arena spectacular” - it's coming to Staples Center this weekend.  

Neighbors, a new play by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, starts in a peaceful, familiar middle class suburb, home to Richard, a black upwardly mobile professor and his white wife, Jean. As the play opens, a family of minstrels, black face and all, moves in to the adjacent tract home. The neighbors have come to town to mount their traditional minstrel show as if they’ve traveled straight out of 1850...

It's been said that the role of the theater is to synchronize the audience and the artists in time and space. Traditionally that's been pretty straight forward.  Show up at the theater - the space - at 8 o'clock - the time - and we'll begin the show.  When the curtain goes up we're all in that moment.   Easy...