Indecent: an Incandescent Tribute to the Power of Art
By Patrick Hurley
Clocking in at one hour and forty-five minutes, Paula Vogelās Indecent, playing now at the Ahmanson theatre, packs as many themes and covers as much ground as probably theatrically possible in that time.
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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 RuPaulās 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.
A Letter to John Kelly
By Patrick Hurley
Dear Mr. Kelly,
This is in response to your solo performance art piece titled, Time No Line that I just saw at Redcat in Los Angeles.
Read more Singin’ in the Rain is a Delightful Revisit to A Glorious Feeling.
By Patrick Hurley
There are very few movie musicals that are so well-written, solidly structured and infused with such joy that a mere re-creation on stage almost seventy years later actually works. Singinā In the Rain, playing now at La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts, is such a show.
Read more Falsettos Does Set Oh So Typical Standards.
By Patrick Hurley
In the pantheon of Musical theater, where originality has been ebbing farther and farther away from the reboot, remake, revival culture that is Broadway- we find ourselves, quite inexplicably, stranded on the nearly three-hour island that is Falsettos, playing now at the Ahmanson.
Read more Didion’s Search for Meaning Opens a World of Wonder
By Patrick Hurley
The intersection between past and future, between meaning and chaos- all the lingering inertia that implies a sense of false permanence and comfort come together in the telling of Joan Didionās masterwork, āThe White Album,ā a seminal essay that deals with the struggles, both visceral and cultural, that defined a generation of Americans, and gives voice to the uncertainty, the freedom, and the impossible thrust toward more progressive modernity. The time was the late 1960s, the place was Los Angeles and the voice was Joan Didion. CAP UCLA in association with Center Theatre Group presents the essay as a performance piece created by Lars Jan/Early Morning Opera.
A Masterful Performance Breathes New Life into Othello
By Patrick Hurley
One could call it an exercise in theatrical scaling-down, as if the piece were literally and figuratively constricting itself and its characters as it moves along, tightening its grip until at last, nearly out of breath, it culminates in a final claustrophobic moment. Shakespeareās Othello, playing now at A Noise Within, is yet another example of the bardās brilliance for metaphor and symbolism and is one of his more accessible tragedies.
Read more Matthew Bourne’s Cinderella is a Darkly Beautiful Fairy Tale
By Patrick Hurley
Nearly twenty years after its premiere, Matthew Bourneās dazzling production of Cinderella once again graces the stage of the Ahmanson theatre. The piece, like the choreographer/director himself, is still going strong, and is a great testament to the power of storytelling.
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