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“to the yellow house” at La Jolla Playhouse

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Posted at TimesofSanDiego.com on 11/30/21 RUN DATES: 11/16/21 - 12/12/21 VENUE: La Jolla Playhouse He’s everybody’s favorite tormented artist: the Dutch master, Vincent van Gogh (1855-1890). Innumerable explorations and representations of his life have given rise to diverse explanations of the artist’s famously erratic, aggressive and often self-sabotaging behavior. Theories about the cause of his unstable mental and physical health include bipolar disease, porphyria (a blood disorder with psychiatric manifestations), temporal lobe epilepsy and syphilis. Playwright Kimber Lee has had two Read More →

“FOR WHOM THE SOUTHERN BELLE TOLLS” from The Roustabouts Theatre Co.

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Posted at TimesofSanDiego.com on 11/22/21 RUN DATES: 11/13/21 - 12/4/21 VENUE: The Roustabouts Theatre Co. These days, everyone could use a good laugh, that’s for sure. But not everyone finds the same things funny. Playwright Christopher Durang is something of an acquired taste. His works are equal parts silly and cynical, smart and snarky, absurdist, campy, over-the-top and fatalistic. All of the above are on display in his 1994 evening of short plays (somewhat akin to SNL sketch comedy), “For Whom Read More →

“BEN BUTLER” at North Coast Repertory Theatre

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Posted at TimesofSanDiego.com on 11/2/21 RUN DATES: 10/20/21 - 11/21/21 VENUE: North Coast Repertory Theatre Talk about your controversial characters. The real-life historical figure who inspired the 2014 play, “Ben Butler” (Benjamin Franklin Butler, 1818-1893; note that his brother’s name was Andrew Jackson Butler), was a sometime Democrat who voted 57 times to make Jefferson Davis President (and subsequently ran for the office himself). A Major General in the Union Army who had no military training. A successful trial Read More →

“THE BELLE OF AMHERST” at Lamb’s Players Theatre

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Posted at TimesofSanDiego.com on 10/16/21 RUN DATES: 10/2/21 - 11/14/21 VENUE: Lamb's Players Theatre Who exactly was Emily Dickinson? Her life, like her poetry, was eccentric and enigmatic. Before she died in 1886, at age 55, she made her sister Lavinia promise to destroy all her papers. But unbeknown to anyone, she left behind nearly 1800 poems (only 7 were published in her lifetime). And one authenticated daguerreotype, taken when she was 17, showing her as plain and solemn. Neither celebrated Read More →

“THE MINEOLA TWINS” at Moxie Theatre

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Posted at TimesofSanDiego.com on 10/5/21 RUN DATES: 9/26/21 - 10/24/21 VENUE: Moxie Theatre Either playwright Paula Vogel was politically prescient in 1999, or the country is moving backwards. Both are equally plausible. In her feminist satire, “The Mineola Twins,” Vogel shows that, in some rationally inconceivable way, ultra-conservative traditionalism and radical progressivism are two sides of the same coin — especially in their extreme forms. The coin of her realm is a genetic one; the opposites are identical Long Island Read More →

“BOOK OF LEAVES” streaming from The Roustabouts Theatre Company

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Posted at TimesofSanDiego.com on 9/25/21 RUN DATES: 9/22/21 - 10/24/21 VENUE: streaming from The Roustabouts Theatre Company It’s a familiar setup. Estranged, dysfunctional family is summoned together one last time by an ailing parent approaching death (and revising his estate plan). But Will Cooper’s “Book of Leaves” has some tricks up its verdant sleeves. Nothing and nobody turns out to be what they seem. Relationships run deeper than at first glance. Family and legacy ultimately take primacy. There are, of course, Read More →