A Play is a Poem is A Play about America.
Five short plays, meant to create a pastiche of Americana comprise Ethan Coen’s A Play is a Poem, and it’s having its world premiere at the Mark Taper Forum.
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.
