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“AT THIS EVENING’S PERFORMANCE” at North Coast Repertory Theatre

Views:1050

Posted at TimesofSanDiego.com on 7/17/17 RUN DATES: 7/12/17 - 8/6/17 VENUE: North Coast Repertory Theatre “Comparisons are odorous,” Shakespeare’s malaprop-spewing Dogberry famously declaimed. Comparing Nagle Jackson’s 1978 trifle, “At This Evening’s Performance,” to Michael Frayn’s hilarious and brilliant “Noises Off” (as occurred in some promotional material) is both odorous and odious. (For the record, Frayn’s farce premiered after Jackson’s, in 1982, but he wrote an earlier, one-act version in 1977). The only thing these two theater works have in Read More →

“CLYBOURNE PARK” at Trinity Theatre Company

Views:567

Posted at TimesofSanDiego.com on 3/3/20 RUN DATES: 2/14/20 - 3/8/20 VENUE: Tenth Avenue Arts Some plays with a socio-political edge speak to their time. Some get edgier over time. “Clybourne Park” was written in 2010 as a spinoff, or sequel, to “A Raisin in the Sun,” Lorraine Hansberry’s 1959 classic. Playwright Bruce Norris attempted to continue the racial discussion about integrated housing, white flight and gentrification by setting his play in the same house, over two time periods: 1959 (when Read More →

“KILL LOCAL” at the La Jolla Playhouse

Views:893

Posted at TimesofSanDiego.com on 8/8/17 RUN DATES: 8/1/17 - 8/27/17 VENUE: La Jolla Playhouse It’s a small family business, established by a close-knit mother and her two daughters, after the untimely death of their beloved father. Everyone’s gotta make a living, right? Their gig is Murder for Hire. In some twisted way, they believe they’re doing what’s right (though the mother does admit to having no morality). In the end, though, what goes around comes around. I won’t say Read More →

“SOUTH PACIFIC” at San Diego Musical Theatre

Views:726

Aired on KSDS-FM on 5/11/18 RUN DATES: 4/27/18 - 5/27/18 VENUE: San Diego Musical Theatre San Diego Musical Theatre’s “South Pacific” is somewhat less than “101 pounds of fun.” Though it’s a big production -- high energy and enjoyable -- there’s virtually no dancing in what should be a dance-happy musical. Numbers like “Bloody Mary” and “There is Nothing Like a Dame” should be choreographic show-stoppers. Here, there’s only the most basic of movement throughout. The 1949 musical certainly retains Read More →

“HAMLET” at The Old Globe

Views:1396

Posted at TimesofSanDiego.com on 8/25/17 RUN DATES: 8/6/17 - 9/22/17 VENUE: The Old Globe For older men, the dramatic Everest is King Lear. For younger men, it’s Hamlet. Old Globe artistic director Barry Edelstein has chosen Grantham Coleman, an L.A.-based Juilliard graduate with stage and TV credits but minimal Shakespeare experience (“As You Like It” at the Public Theatre, “Romeo and Juliet” at the Actors Theatre of Louisville), to assay the tortured Danish Prince. The gamble paid off. Grantham Read More →

“IRONBOUND” at Moxie Theatre

Views:1542

Aired on KSDS-FM on 9/29/17 RUN DATES: 9/17/17 - 10/22/17 VENUE: Moxie Theatre In Martyna Majok’s drama, “Ironbound” is both a location and a condition. It’s a multi-ethnic, working-class New Jersey neighborhood, and “Ironbound” also describes the predicament of the central character, Darja, who is shackled by poverty and circumstance. One half-step from homeless, she holes up at a seedy bus stop, boxed in by a chain-link fence. The play hopscotches in time, between a hopeful, pregnant Darja and her Read More →