Stories | Theater Reviews
Quaint Past
Published Dec. 23, 2008
Each holiday season, Lamb’s Players presents an annual Christmas show at its resident theater and a three-hour extravaganza, An American Christmas, at the Hotel del Coronado. Set 100 years ago, the program for American Christmas includes ...
Woe Plus Meanness
Published Dec. 17, 2008
Hooo-boy… Christmas is just around the corner, yet the residents of Tuna, the third-smallest town in Texas — even counting “greater” Tuna — are so low on holiday cheer it won’t wet the dipstick. The ...
Anything for a Laugh
Published Dec. 10, 2008
Talk of Broadway surrounds The Princess and the Black-Eyed Pea, an African retelling of the Hans Christian Andersen fable. If the buzz refers to the cast, one of the finest ever assembled at the San ...
It'll Get Done Published Nov. 25, 2008
A gutted theater’s a depressing sight. October 25, 2008: painters apply a foundation coat to the Old Town Theatre’s interior walls. A heat wave forced ... More Post a comment
He May Be Mad Published Nov. 19, 2008
Tom Stoppard called Rosencrantz and Guildenstern “the most expendable people of all time.” Minor courtiers in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, they barely exist beyond their Renaissance finery ... More Post a comment
Bread and Games Published Nov. 12, 2008
When the Roman emperor Nero was born in AD 37, an astrologer declared he would have a “naturally cruel heart” and would become a “public ... More Post a comment
Forget Gold Published Nov. 5, 2008
Water and Power, the title of Richard Montoya’s “stage noir” drama, sums up Southern California history in three words. Forget gold, railroads, or waves upon ... More Post a comment
Freak Show Published Oct. 22, 2008
When it opened on Broadway in 1933, Jack Kirkland’s subhuman dramatization of the Erskine Caldwell novel Tobacco Road received mixed to negative reviews. Even though ... More Post a comment
Blood and Fire and War Published Oct. 15, 2008
PROGRAM NOTES: Moxie Theatre invited me to dramaturge its latest production. My notes for the program grew beyond its confines, so I decided to present ... More Comments (3)
Italian Finery Published Oct. 8, 2008
At a time when the light at the end of the tunnel must be an oncoming train, Lamb’s Players Theatre is staging Adam Guettel and ... More Comment (1)
Juiced Published Oct. 1, 2008
From 1986 to 1988, the Oakland Athletics had back-to-back-to-back Rookies of the Year: Jose Canseco, Mark McGwire, and Walt Weiss. Under ex-lawyer Tony La Russa’s ... More Post a comment
Three Damned Characters Published Sept. 24, 2008
Picture hell. For those who live in Pacific Beach and work nine-to-five jobs, hell arrives every Thursday afternoon. College students schedule their classes Monday through ... More Post a comment
You Are What You Look Like Published Sept. 17, 2008
On Victoria Petrovich’s set for The Good Body at the Rep, shiny panels reflect clouds and pale blue skies. Projected slides take us from America ... More Post a comment
Sharecropper Country Published Sept. 10, 2008
When rock ’n’ roll first hit the scene, hipsters swore that “things’s gonna get REAL GONE for a change.” Although it felt born full grown ... More Post a comment
A Drooling Thersites Published Sept. 3, 2008
Shakespeare’s range was enormous. He could charm with Twelfth Night, enchant with Winter’s Tale, go deep with Hamlet and Lear. But what if only one ... More Post a comment
Blame-Thrower Published Aug. 27, 2008
When Spring Awakening won eight Tony Awards for 2007, including Best Musical, word around the Big Apple went that it would never tour, that it ... More Post a comment
He Grabs the Gold Published Aug. 20, 2008
I’ve always been fascinated by sources of artistic inspiration. What triggered Hamlet, say, or The Iliad? What alchemy transformed ambient noise into Don Giovanni? Was ... More Comments (2)
Bad-Boy Visionary Published Aug. 13, 2008
If you judged only by externals, you'd swear that Jonathan Waxman, protagonist of Sight Unseen, has it all. Waxman's a "bad-boy visionary" artist who had ... More Post a comment
Puttin' on the Blitz Published Aug. 6, 2008
‘Every show starts with a stack of papers,” says Duane Daniels, founder of the Fritz Theatre, “words on a page, from the script to production ... More Comment (1)
Slanted Script Published July 23, 2008
The curtain rises at the Old Globe and vwa-lah! We’re in the majestic living room of a Victorian mansion. A bay-window seat, with nine-foot windows, ... More Post a comment
Ancient Grudge Published July 16, 2008
The Old Globe Theatre’s staging three of Shakespeare’s plays about love: star-crossed Romeo and Juliet, gender-crossed All’s Well That Ends Well (in which the woman ... More Post a comment
Bitter Past Published July 9, 2008
Shakespeare’s always up to something. Even in plays that feel written in haste, like All’s Well That Ends Well, the Bard’s twisting conventions and turning ... More Post a comment
Material Glitter Published July 2, 2008
In today’s terminology, you could say that Joe Bonaparte has bipolar gifts. His hands are as adept in the boxing ring, clobbering contenders, as they ... More Post a comment
Junk City Published June 25, 2008
Along with dents on every fifth car, which people can’t afford to repair, and a beer at Petco costing more than the hourly minimum wage, ... More Post a comment
Cubicle Gal Published June 11, 2008
We watch a woman just home from work. Her eyes are so blank, it’s hard to tell if she’s glad to be back in her ... More Post a comment
Jagged Conversation Published June 4, 2008
Caryl Churchill’s play A Number unfolds like a hall of slowly warping mirrors. The play opens with Salter, in his early 60s, talking to his ... More Post a comment
The World Disappears Published May 21, 2008
What is it about acting that can grab a person’s full attention — and often hold it for a lifetime? Recently I got to dramaturge ... More Post a comment
One Down, One Up Published May 14, 2008
The La Jolla Playhouse’s 33 Variations, about Ludwig van Beethoven’s obsession with a paltry theme by Diabelli, concluded its run in early May. San Diego ... More Post a comment
Misplaced Menagerie Published April 30, 2008
The Old Globe Theatre’s “Classics Up Close” series presents some of the great works of American theater on the small Cassius Carter Centre Stage. The ... More Post a comment
33 Variations Published April 23, 2008
Music is time-bound. It must move forward or cease to be. A few hundred years from now, most likely music will leave linear progression and ... More Post a comment
Theater of Real Life Published April 16, 2008
The “Father of Modern Drama” wasn’t Ibsen, or August Strindberg. He was Andre Antoine (1858…1943), a clerk for the Paris Gas Company and an amateur ... More Comment (1)
Realism Dethroned Published April 9, 2008
When first produced in 1889, August Strindberg’s “naturalistic tragedy,” Miss Julie, was a shocker: not just for its stark class conflicts, herky-jerky dialogue, and “multiplicity ... More Post a comment
Inaugural Ball Published April 2, 2008
Cygnet Theatre has already extended A Little Night Music, with good reason. They’re offering a wonderful production of Stephen Sondheim’s kaleidoscopic inspection of love’s many ... More Post a comment
Odious, but Inevitable Published March 19, 2008
Stephen Sondheim was so proud to have a musical on Broadway — West Side Story, for which he wrote the lyrics — he went back ... More Post a comment
On the Brink Published March 12, 2008
In UCSD Theatre’s recent staging of The Physicists, Michelle Diaz played Sister Boll, a monobrowed, lock-stepping head nurse at a sanitarium. Diaz made bold physical ... More Post a comment
Plan Well Acted Published March 5, 2008
Maybe things’re different across the lake, where vacationers play nonstrenuous games and pound down chow on the American Plan: three squares, plus tea, coffee, and ... More Post a comment
Lost Pain Published Feb. 27, 2008
‘That cat Oedipus is a bad mother-…” “Shut-cho mouth!” “But I’m talkin’ ’bout Oedipus.” In Will Power’s often blazing, at times reductive hip-hop take on ... More Post a comment
Requisite Chops Published Feb. 20, 2008
Jerry Herman and Michael Stewart’s Hello, Dolly! had the requisite chops for a long Broadway run. Add in the Hall of Famers who eventually played ... More Comments (2)
Sacred and Profane Published Feb. 6, 2008
The great boxer Joe Louis and baseball immortal Josh Gibson were contemporaries who thrived in the 1930s. The Old Globe Theatre’s In This Corner tells ... More Post a comment
Art on Trial Published Jan. 30, 2008
A woman walked into Ion Theatre’s intimate space, glanced at the set, and froze. The stage is an interrogation room: institutional gray, cinderblock walls, a ... More Post a comment
Who They Weren't Published Jan. 23, 2008
Right place, wrong timing: In 1938, a friend of mine’s great-uncle saved his shekels and went to the, at that time, Fight of the Century ... More Post a comment
Blared and Brayed and Tweaked Published Jan. 9, 2008
THE YEAR IN REVIEW: PLAYS AND PRODUCTIONS. Last year, several shows arrived ballyhoo-first. Pre–opening-night accolades promised “Broadway bound” quality and SRO houses both here and ... More Post a comment
A Good Place Published Jan. 2, 2008
THE YEAR IN REVIEW. A woman at a local mall, recently interviewed on TV, summed up 2007 with one look. Asked why Christmas shopping was ... More Post a comment
Wicked Grasp Published Dec. 27, 2007
If I could host a dinner for five "unforgettable" San Diegans from long ago, one guest would have to be Apolinaria Lorenzana. Called "La Beata" ... More Post a comment
Truth Attack Published Dec. 13, 2007
Off the Ground, by Amy Chini and Tom Zohar New Village Arts Theatre Christmas Is Comin' Uptown, Common Ground Theatre, WorldBeat Center Kristianne Kurner's set ... More Post a comment
Feisty As Ever Published Dec. 6, 2007
Sweet 15 (Quinceañera), by Rick Najera San Diego Repertory Theatre, 79 Horton Plaza, downtown Directed by Sam Woodhouse; cast: Rick Najera, Alma Martinez, Nina Brissey, ... More Post a comment
Hipsters Overnight Published Nov. 29, 2007
Cry-Baby, book by Mark O'Donnell and Thomas Meehan, songs by David Javerbaum and Adam Schlesinger, based on the John Waters movie La Jolla Playhouse, 2910 ... More Post a comment
Theater of War Published Nov. 15, 2007
'I always had a passion for play-making," says Robert Landis, co-founder of the legendary Footlights Theatre of San Diego (1947) and equally legendary Scripteasers (1948). ... More Post a comment
Super Seducer Published Nov. 8, 2007
Dracula, by Stephen Dietz, adapted from the Bram Stoker novel North Coast Repertory Theatre, 987 Lomas Santa Fe Drive, Solana Beach Directed by Christopher Vened; ... More Post a comment
Morality Mania Published Oct. 25, 2007
Oscar Wilde loved to spin platitudes on their ear. "Fathers should be neither seen nor heard," says Lord Goring in An Ideal Husband. "My Reginald ... More Post a comment
Time and Space Manipulated Published Oct. 18, 2007
Humble Boy, by Charlotte Jones New Village Arts Theatre, 2787 State Street, Carlsbad Directed by Kristianne Kurner; cast: Rosina Reynolds, Daren Scott, Jessica John, Jim ... More Post a comment
Look Inside Published Oct. 11, 2007
Harvey Fierstein's musical remake of A Catered Affair begins like a pebble tossed in a pond. Janey and Ralph are getting married. They don't want ... More Post a comment
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