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.
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 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 Matthew Bourne’s Cinderella is a Darkly Beautiful Fairy Tale
By Patrick Hurley
Nearly twenty years after its premiere, Matthew Bourne’s 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.
Read more Grounded Come From Away Flies High on First National Tour
By Patrick Hurley
In today’s volatile and divisive political climate, where lines are being drawn separating ideology from humanity, it’s heartening to see a work of art that not only demonstrates how small the divide actually is between all of us, but also shows how kindness and benevolence, charity and goodwill are indeed still a thing to which we can all aspire. Come From Away, on its first National Tour, playing now at the Ahmanson Theatre, is a high spirited, evocative and fascinating true story about the capacity of human kindness and the indelible spirit that we all long for in times of crisis. Read more
Dear Evan Hansen Flashes its Way into History
By Patrick Hurley
Stories of teenage turmoil have been being told for centuries. The misunderstood youth trope nearly always serves a narrative wherein a moral dilemma serves as edification to an ignorant, older audience. Shakespeare killed his young star-crossed lovers. The adults in their lives had driven them to suicide because of their inability to reconcile differences with each other, thus preaching the dictum of embracing each other’s differences. Dear Evan Hansen, the Broadway phenomenon, which is currently on its first national tour, playing at the Ahmanson Theatre, is the most recent iteration of the misunderstood youth narrative, and this time, as is the custom with today’s YA fiction, it wants to feel like an inside job. Read more
‘Sweat’ Still The Standard
By Patrick Hurley
The lingering racial tensions of an ever shifting America takes center stage in Sweat, the 2017 Pulitzer-Prize winning play by Lynn Nottage, playing now at the Mark Taper Forum. Read more
School Girls Will be Mean Girls
By Patrick Hurley
Borrowing tropes and devices from teen clique films such as Mean Girls and Heathers, School Girls or, The African Mean Girls Play, playing now at the Kirk Douglas Theatre, is a story of assimilation as much as it is a comedy about the universal struggle of fitting in. Read more
