Beckett Appreciation 101
Few writers are able to capture the imagination through irony, metaphor, and despair as startling or as vividly as Samuel Beckett. His prose has proven as deeply layered and richly textured as a perfectly aged bottle of wine. And much like wine, it is definitely an acquired taste.
John Leguizamo Gives a Long Overdue, Passionate and often Hilarious History Lesson
Most American History textbooks are lying to us. The Eurocentric, xenophobic, and excruciatingly myopic view of this land we call America gets a proper re-telling by the hilariously entertaining John Leguizamo in his solo show Latin History for Morons, playing now at the Ahmanson Theatre.
A Lesson in Dramaturgy
The Echo Theater Company is presenting the world premiere of Handjob written by Erik Patterson. In the #MeToo, Times Up, Harvey Weinstein era, this play seems to be positioning itself as a statement piece. It wants to join the conversation, but is it able to? If we break the play down to its most basic dramatic parts, we’ll find the answer.
Confounding Witch Leaves Much to Be Desired
At some point recently, the theater, at least in Los Angeles, has changed from a medium of thematic exploration and development to one of undisguised political posturing and heavy-handed morality. The latest victim of this sophomoric writing style is Witch, written by Jen Silverman and playing now at the Geffen Playhouse.
Deconstructing Female Empowerment in 1930s New England
By Patrick Hurley
Considered a feminist classic, an avant-garde trailblazer, and a groundbreaking theatrical experience Fefu and her Friends by Maria Irene Fornes, playing now at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, is at once confounding, inquisitive, and thought-provoking.
Wrong Proves Sometimes To Be Sort of Right.
By Patrick Hurley
Somewhere between a Vegas show and a Theme park experience sits The Play That Goes Wrong, a Mischief Theatre Production- playing now at the Ahmanson theatre.
Indecent: an Incandescent Tribute to the Power of Art
By Patrick Hurley
Clocking in at one hour and forty-five minutes, Paula Vogel’s Indecent, playing now at the Ahmanson theatre, packs as many themes and covers as much ground as probably theatrically possible in that time.
Read more Let Me Make This Perfectly Queer
Theatre is a queer art.
This might be a bold, generalization, for surely there can be no cultural attachment to an artform, only works of art that are submerged within it.
Read more Smoke & Mirrors Is A Fabulous Allusion.
By Patrick Hurley
Sash Velour, winner of Season 9 of RuPaul’s Drag Race, brings a performance art aesthetic to Drag in her one-queen show Smoke & Mirrors, and the result is a technically impressive blend of camp, memoir, and fabulousness.
