Theatre Talk
Theatre Talk
In-depth, provocative reviews and commentary on theatre in Southern California and beyond from James C. Taylor. He is an in-demand film/TV editor with a passion for theatre and opera who flies all over the world to see what's happening on stage.
Photo credit: Marc Goldstein
RECENT SHOWS
Pee-Wee 2.0
Each week in this town, brave performers mount tiny shows in tiny theaters hoping that someone will spot their talent. In 1980, Paul Reubens was one of those brave souls. He gathered some friends and used as much money as he could muster to stage something at the Roxy Theatre called The Pee-Wee Herman Show
Reading Theater
Last week, the New Year kicked in with almost different 30 productions opening in Southern California. Sadly, I didn't see a single one of them, as I've been on assignment in New York, interviewing the actor/comedian Eddie Izzard who performs his stand up show next weekend at the Nokia Theatre downtown. But traveling to New York — and traveling over the holidays — gave me a good deal of time on airplanes to read so this week I'd like to tell you about two fascinating, recently been published books about theater...
Premiere Fatigue
Hosting the world premiere of a new work is a big deal for a theater. It gives the company a boost of publicity plus lasting bona fides if the play goes on to better things—it also helps the theater attract talent, as top actors and directors like to be able to say they were there first...
Blanche Hysterias
The Glass Menagerie, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and A Streetcar Named Desire are perhaps the most well-known American plays in the modern theatrical repertoire. Revivals of these three Tennessee Williams classics are frequent and often noteworthy, as big stars are attracted to the signature parts at the center of these meaty dramas. The problem with these plays is that they are so familiar, and their southern idiom so particular, that even good performances by talented actors can feel clichéd — or worse, feel like self-parody...
Going 'Rogue' and Getting 'Racy'
There is something very liberating about knowing that no one is who they say they are and that nothing is what it seems. If you've ever entered the world of Ricky Jay, either through his books, his radio show on KCRW (where, as a disclaimer, I should say he became an acquaintance) or his stage shows, you are assuredly aware at all times that that you are being misled, misdirected and possibly mesmerized too...
Nine and Tuppence: Big Money Movie Musicals
What's more difficult: making a movie out of a well-known Broadway musical or making a Broadway musical out of a well-known movie? Audiences here in Los Angeles have a great chance to contemplate this question over the next few weeks...
A Comedy of Terrors
A less subtle title for Bill Cain's new play Equivocation would be "Shakespeare in War." Just as Shakespeare in Love (the Oscar-winning 1998 film, written by Marc Norman with help from Tom Stoppard) implies that a love affair inspired the Bard's greatest comedy, Twelfth Night, Equivocation posits that an act of terrorism inspired Shakespeare's great tragedy Macbeth...
Arias on the Rocks?, Arias with a Twist, and Arias di Alan
The big news in the Southern California performing arts world this week was Los Angeles Opera received an emergency loan from the County on Tuesday to the tune of $14 million. In the last few years LA Opera has become one of the most important and innovative opera companies in the country, attracting top singers, conductors and famous directors. That it is in financial trouble is a real wake up call — and a real shame given that the last few weeks has seen LA Opera at its best...
No Man's Lands: Quartets by Pinter and Walsh
Before Harold Pinter passed away last December, the final production the playwright was involved with was a West End revival of his 1975 drama No Man's Land. Pinter was at the opening night of Rupert Goold's staging last fall, which was polished if not particularly probing. Michael Gambon starred in the role of Hirst, originated 33 years earlier by Ralph Richardson. Gambon was perfectly cast as the old British bull, yet for as strong a presence as Gambon was in London, his turn — and the production — ultimately didn't shed any new light on Pinter's enigmatic work...
A 'Labour of Love'
Shakespeare's comedy Love's Labour's Lost is not one of his sturdiest creations. While the major plays like Hamlet, Twelfth Night or A Midsummer Night's Dream can rise above lackluster stagings or uninspired acting, Love's Labour's Lost is a delicate soufflé — only when presented with absolute grace and skill, can it avoid collapsing under the weight of its own deliciousness...
A 'Farce' to Be Reckoned With
Last summer, Theatre Talk spoke of "the most dazzling production of a new play to come along in years." That play was The Walworth Farce, by Irish dramatist Enda Walsh. And after runs in Edinburgh, London, and New York, the original production has arrived here in Los Angeles where it opened last night as part of UCLA Live's International Theater Festival...
Irish Ghosts and Leprechauns
In this week after Halloween, it's fitting that we talk about ghost stories. Conor McPherson, the prolific Irish dramatist, is a master of modern ghost stories — his plays have featured apparitions, bloodsuckers, even Mephistopheles himself. And yet, there's no blood or gore in McPherson's plays — he's more interested in the guilt these spirits represent, not who they can kill....
Nojangles
The late 1950's and 1960's were indeed Sammy Davis Jr.'s moment. During that time he was one of, if not, the highest paid entertainer in America. His career is the subject of a new musical titled Sammy...
A Reigning Parade
Those are the opening bars of the musical Parade and that little bit of music tell you a great deal about the show as a whole. There's the military drum beat that evokes the Civil War, the bells and oboe melody that sound like Broadway and the atonal piano clusters which tells you the dissonant Parade is not your standard feel-good, leave-whistling-the-songs musical...
Donuts and Dilaudid
What do you do after your sprawling, three-hour play about America in decline wins the Pulitzer Prize for drama? That's a problem most aspiring playwrights — to say nothing of established writers — would love to have; but it's nevertheless been a problem for Tracy Letts. Letts is the writer of popular, short shockers, like Killer Joe and Bug, who then decided to write something long and serious. That play turned out to be August: Osage County, which won the Tony, the Pulitzer, and is now touring the country in a production starring Oscar-winner Estelle Parsons...
Program Details
Host
James C. Taylor
James C. Taylor reviews theatre, large and small.
Tapes & Transcripts
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THEATRE TALK CALENDAR
The Browning Version
Terence Rattigan's old-fashioned dramas can seem musty, but with crisp direction and good acting (see David Mamet's film version of The Winslow Boy) one can see why they remain in the theatrical repertory. This revival by PRT is receiving rapturous early reviews and has just been extended through the next year.
Through February 14; Pacific Resident Theatre, Venice
Just 45 Seconds from Broadway
Known for independent films, Henry Jaglom has also dashed off a few plays. This new one (a world premiere) is about a family of Jewish actors and it stars Tanna Frederick (who's acted in two of Jaglom's films). The title is a riff on two Broadway shows from years past: 45 Minutes From Broadway, a George M. Cohen musical from 1906 and Neil Simon's 45 Seconds From Broadway.
Through February 28; Edgemar Center for the Arts, Santa Monica
The Trojan Women
The City Garage once again takes on a Greek classic with its own brand of sexual-political stagecraft. Charles Duncombe adapts Euripides and Frederique Michel directs.
Through February 21; The City Garage, Santa Monica
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