Tally Ho-Ho!

As we head into the holidays, here's a list of shows, ranked more or less in order of best-reviewed to worst-reviewed, to guide your last few weeks of theatregoing this year--and not a traditional holiday show in the lot (Peace Squad Goes 99 and the Scientology Pageant would seem to be great counter-programming for the festivity-minded).


EXITS AND ENTRANCES at the Fountain Theatre through Dec. 18. Four rave reviews (and probably more) for Athol Fugard’s memory play.


CAROLINE, OR CHANGE at the Ahmanson Theatre through Dec. 25.
Four raves, one mixed-positive, and one mixed-negative review. “A whompin’ American hymn: half gospel, half davening, an ode to despair and a prayer for deliverance.”


A VERY MERRY UNAUTHORIZED CHILDREN’S SCIENTOLOGY PAGEANT at the Powerhouse Theatre through Dec. 19. Four raves, one mixed-negative review. "A provocative mix of Christmas-pageant sincerity, Christopher Durang-like irony, and unexpected rage.”

LIKE A DOG ON LINOLEUM at the Elephant Asylum Theatre through Jan. 30, 2005. Three rave reviews for Leslie Jordan’s solo show. "House-shaking hilarity and heart-tugging candor.”


OUROBOROS at the Road Theatre through Dec. 18. Three rave reviews for Tom Jacobson’s play about couples on a spiritual quest in Italy. ”An enchanting metaphysical etude.”

A FLEA IN HER EAR at A Noise Within through Dec. 11. Two rave reviews, one strongly positive review, and one mixed-positive review for this production of Feydeau’s farce. “Dense with details and zipping along at an ever-accelerating pace.”


PEACE SQUAD GOES 99 at the Evidence Room through Dec. 19. Two rave reviews for this holiday extravaganza.
This troupe's most inventive, therapeutic round of 99-cent necromancy yet.”

DRY CLEANING at the 24th Street Theatre through Jan., 2005. One rave and one strongly positive review for Kronis and Alger’s espionage-styled retelling of the Orpheus/Eurydice myth. “Jaw-dropping performance art at its finest.”

LETTING GO OF GOD at the Hudson Backstage through Dec. 19. Two raves and one mixed-positive review for Julia Sweeney’s solo show about losing her religion. “Brave, hilarious, and ultimately moving.”


THE CIDER HOUSE RULES at Long Beach’s Edison Theatre through Dec. 11. Two rave reviews of the two-part epic. “Eminently stageworthy, even more so than at the much larger Taper.”

THREE at Electric Lodge through Dec. 4. Two raves and one positive review for Patricia Cotter’s new play about relationships. ”A fresh and tender comedy.”

MACBETH (A MODERN ECSTASY) at REDCAT through Dec. 12. One rave and one mixed-positive review for this one-man deconstruction of Shakespeare. “Extravaganzas of emotion.”


THE LESSON at City Garage through Dec. 12. Three strongly positive reviews. “If you've never seen any Ionesco, this serves as a great introduction.”

BASIC TRAINING at the 2nd Stage Theatre through Dec. 19. Two strongly positive reviews and two mixed-positive reviews. ”Nonstop energy and world-class humor.”

DEALING WITH CLAIR at the Matrix Theatre through Dec. 19. Two strongly positive reviews and one mixed-positive review for Martin Crimp's mysterious drama. "A production that shames us, shakes us... makes us think.”

BOLD GIRLS at the Matrix Theatre through Dec. 17. One rave, one mixed-positive review, and one all-around mixed review for Rona Munro's play about women in Belfast. “Artfully mingles the pedestrian and the profound… alternately wrenchingly funny and just plain wrenching.”


THE CONQUEST OF THE SOUTH POLE at the Odyssey Theatre through Dec. 12. Two strongly positive reviews and one mixed-positive review for Manfred Karge’s epic play. “Simultaneously whimsical and gut-wrenching”

MODERN DANCE FOR BEGINNERS at the Little Victory, indefinite run. Two strongly positive reviews, one mixed-positive review, and one mixed-negative review for Sarah Phelps’ sex comedy. “An abbreviated La Ronde, with more laughs.”


HEART OF A DOG at the Lillian through Dec. 19. One strongly positive review, one positive review, and one mixed-positive review for this staging of the Bulgakov novel. "As funny as it is provocative."


DOGEATERS at SIPA Performance Space in Filipinotown through Dec. 12. One strongly positive and two mixed-positive reviews for Jessica Hagedorn’s play. "Almost a historical circus… more Dos Passos than Brecht.”


QUIET, PLEASE at Hollywood’s Sacred Fools Theatre through Dec. 17. One strongly positive review and one mixed-positive review Corey Klemow’s staging of two classic radio plays. “Succeeds in transporting us back [in] time.

A GIFT FROM HEAVEN at the Beverly Hills Playhouse through Dec. 19. Two positive reviews and one mixed-positive review for David Steen’s Southern tale. “Unadulterated Southern Gothic.”


URGENT AND CONFIDENTIAL: DEAN CAMERON’S NIGERIAN SPAM SCAM SCAM at Sacred Fools Theatre through Dec. 18. Two positive reviews for this satire of an actual ongoing email exchange between a con artist and an actor. “Doubly hilarious for being true.”

ANATOL VS. at the Met Theatre through Dec. 19. Two positive reviews, one mixed review for L. Flint Esquerra’s boxing-ring adaptation of Schnitzler’s Anatol. The LA Weekly’s Deborah Klugman found the tweaking “Delightfully unpredictable.”

THAT MAY WELL BE TRUE at the Hudson Mainstage through Dec. 19. One positive review and two mixed-positive reviews for Jay Reiss’s play about a friendship strained by an authorship dispute. “High concept… for the most part stays airborne.”

LAST SUMMER AT BLUEFISH COVE at the Davidson/Valenti Theatre through Dec. 18. One positive review and one mixed-positive review for this revival of Jane Chambers’ 1980 play about lesbian pals on holiday. “Exceptionally strong… ensemble work.”

SCAPINO! at NoHo’s Company Rep through Dec. 11. One positive review and one mixed-positive review for this staging of Frank Dunlop and Jim Dale’s Molière adaptation. ”Energetic and effusive.”


LIGHT at Theatre @ Boston Court through Dec. 11. Three mixed-positive reviews for Jean Claude Van Itallie’s intellectual love triangle. “Engaging and evocative, if somewhat overwritten.”

THE FOREIGNER at the Odyssey Theatre through Jan. 30, 2005. Two mixed-positive reviews for Larry Shue’s comedy. “Charm prevails.”.

MACHINAL at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Center through Dec. 11. Two mixed-positive reviews for Sophie Treadwell’s symbolic drama. “A strange and wonderful piece of Expressionistic theater that seems of-the-moment all over again.”

THE CIRCLE at the Stella Adler Theatre through Dec. 18. One strongly positive review, one mixed-positive, and one mixed-negative for Shem Bitterman’s anguished post-Columbine drama. “A huge, almost unbearable concept… daring in execution, fierce in intention.”

2 ACROSS at the Santa Monica Playhouse through Dec. 19. One strongly positive review, one mixed-positive review, and one mixed-negative review for Jerry Mayer's romantic comedy. "Comically well-timed staging and two undemonstrative yet heartfelt performances.”


KITH AND KIN at the Hudson Guild through Dec. 18. One strongly positive, one positive, and one negative review for Oliver Hailey’s white-trash funeral comedy. “A specialized yet satisfying immorality play.”

FOOL FOR LOVE at Theatre 68 in Hollywood through Dec. 12. Two positive reviews and one mixed-negative review for this Sam Shepard revival. “Elicits sympathy.”

CATERPILLAR SOUP at the Ruskin Group Theatre through Dec. 18. One positive review and one mixed-negative review for Lyena Strelkoff’s solo show. “Straightforward, pragmatic, cautionary.”

MACBETT at West Hollywood’s Globe Playhouse through Dec. 12. One positive review, one mixed-positive review, and one negative review for Neno Pervan’s production of Ionesco’s absurdist reading of Shakespeare’s tragedy. “Gratifyingly revisionist staging.”

PAINT YOUR WAGON at the Geffen Playhouse through Jan. 9, 2005. One mixed-positive and one mixed-negative review for this reworking of Lerner and Leowe’s Gold Rush musical. “Doesn't just need a new coat of paint but a complete overhaul.”

ANGEL STREET at Actors’ Co-op through Dec. 12. One mixed-positive review and two negative reviews for Patrick’s Hamilton’s thriller. “Doesn’t brake for subtleties.”

A WORD WITH ORLANDO at the Odyssey Theaetre through Dec. 19. One mixed-negative and one negative review for David T. Chantler’s play about an American couple in Sicily. Little more than an exercise in dialogue writing.”
FREEDOMLAND at the Sidewalk Studios in Burbank through Dec. 18. Two negative reviews and one mixed-negative review for this revival of Amy Freed’s play about a multigenerational family. “Neither particularly funny nor insightful.”

OUT OF TIME at the Paul E. Richards Theater Place through Dec. 11. Two negative reviews for this piece about six characters “Flounders in its endeavor to find an emotional center.”

DEAD STRANGERS at Gardner Stages through Dec. 12. Two strongly negative reviews for this gay murder mystery. “Like a slow-motion train wreck.”

From Radio Tales to "Orlando"

A pair of spooky radio tales form QUIET, PLEASE at Hollywood’s Sacred Fools Theatre through Dec. 17. Back Stage West’s Jeff Favre found director Corey Klemow's staging of two classic scripts by Wyllis Cooper “moody… captivating,” writing that the four-member cast “skillfully balance(s) the intense acting style of classic radio with a modern sensibility to deliver eerie performances.” The Weekly's Miriam Jacobson thought the minimal staging resulted in a "somewhat stilted but endearing evening," concluding that it "succeeds in transporting us back to the time before entertainment got so diluted and dumbed down." (The show sure sounds informative, at least: Jacobson mentioned the "awkward, albeit educational, technical descriptions of an Oxnard oil rig’s operations" of one script and the "interesting details of a Cairo excavation site" in another.)

The featherweight Molière adaptation SCAPINO! at NoHo’s Company Rep apparently hit its comic mark. According to Back Stage West’s Hoyt Hilsman, “Silly is what they are after here, and they succeed quite nicely,” singling out Matt Ryan’s “energetic and effusive performance” in the lead and appreciating that director Brad Shelton “wisely whips through the twisty plots of the story.” The Weekly’s Amy Nicholson was slightly less enthusiastic, writing that while “the production threatens to collapse” at some points, “Brad Shelton’s effusive direction” helps smooth things along, in part by giving the cast a chance to recover with ad libs—which “came in handy,” she reported, “when an actor nearly brained a patron in the third row with a wine bottle.” Oh, that’s the other thing: There’s audience interaction. Just so you’re warned ahead of time.

A friendship tested by an authorship controversy? Happens every day with Hollywood scripts, but in Jay Reiss’s new play THAT MAY WELL BE TRUE at the Hudson Mainstage through Dec. 19, it’s a dispute over a novel’s provenance that reunites estranged friends. Back Stage West’s Brad Schreiber was impressed with Reiss’s ability to “fluidly and demonstratively have his characters recount past histories in a constant flow that suggests bicker is better” (nice wordplay), with Greg Jackson’s “assured” direction, and with the “familiarity” created by the show’s three actors. The Times’ F. Kathleen Foley noted the play’s resemblance to Donald Margulies’ Collected Stories and quibbled with some of its twists but called it an “amusing… incisive examination of the creative process.” For her part, the Weekly’s Erin Aubry Kaplan called it “The Odd Couple meets Amadeus, with lots of modern irony thrown in,” and despite her own reservations declared that this “high concept… for the most part stays airborne.”

Critics didn’t have many kind words for A WORD WITH ORLANDO at the Odyssey Theaetre through Dec. 19. While Back Stage West’s Terry Morgan called David T. Chantler’s play, about a couple trying to save their marriage by moving to Sicily, “a mostly familiar if pleasant comedy,” he detested the “charmless lead character,” whom in Nat Christian’s performance somehow manages to be both “peevish and bland.” Steven Mikulan was quite dismissive, finding himself speculating about the set (specifically, why there’s “a small pyramid of stone steps in the middle of an archway leading to a living room”). He found director Judy Rose’s staging clumsy and the lead couple to be ciphers, concluding that Orlando “soon reveals itself to be little more than an exercise in dialogue writing that goes nowhere.”

Overheard (and Mostly Confirmed)

John C. Reilly as Stanley in Streetcar? He seems tailor-made for Mitch, in which role I had the great good fortune to see him at Steppenwolf in 1997, opposite Gary Sinise's Stanley and Laila Robins' Blanche (a performance, Reilly later told me, was among the best he'd ever had the opportunity to work off of--although, keep in mind, this was before he appeared in Anger Management). On the other hand, he was plenty virile and threatening in True West on Broadway in 2000--at least the night I saw it, he played Lee, opposite Philip Seymour Hoffman's Austin (they traded roles willy-nilly on different night, the showoffs). Anyhoo--the Roundabout has announced a production in April at New York's Studio 54 in which Reilly will play Stanley opposite Natasha Richardson's Blanche. That sounds pretty hot, actually...

John Landis to direct a film of Bat Boy? Yessiree, and I must say there's a kind of perfection in the match. The musical needs a broad touch to come off, and Landis is nothing if not large-scale in his ambitions--but there's not a trace of art-house pretense in him. He'll likely make a bloody, stupid, hilarious movie, in other words. As he told Variety: "It's an opportunity to do something insane." I'll drink blood to that...

Megan Mullally, invited to speak at an upcoming $100-a-plate roast for outgoing CTG artistic director Gordon Davidson, isn't quite sure what to say, since she's never worked with him. Wait, actually, yes she did--when Davidson made a stunt cameo on Will & Grace last year. His performance, she volunteered in a recent barside chat at the Evidence Room, "was definitely created in the editing." That sounds like a good start, Megan.

The Curse of Gordon

I'd like to write a serious and sober post about the extraordinary 37-year legacy of Taper and Center Theatre Group founding artistic director Gordon Davidson, whose contributions to the cultural life of not only Los Angeles but the nation are inestimable.

That post will have to wait while I add one footnote to his illustrious career. To wit: Davidson's last season has been plagued by glitches that have literally stopped the show in each venue he oversees--including his new baby, Culver City's Kirk Douglas Theatre. Two of these I witnessed, because they occured on the opening/press nights: An early scene in Intimate Apparel at the Taper had to be stopped when a bed got stuck in the trap and wouldn't go back down into position. Gordon himself came onstage and introduced an "understudy" bed, which was manually schlepped on and off by stagehands. And at one point near the end of Act One of Little Shop of Horrors, the curtain closed, lights swirled, dramatic music played--and then nothing. A voice came on the PA to tell us there were technical difficulties, and we patiently waited for the show to start up again. (I wish I could say this heightened the drama of that piffling show.)

I wouldn't be posting about my suspicions of a "last season" curse at all if a theatregoer hadn't just filled me in on a rather scary recent evening at the Kirk Douglas Theatre: During the mud-fight that climaxed Act One of A Perfect Wedding, actor Mark Capri started to clutch his chest and announced that he was having chest pains. Given the wild, jarring juxtatpositions playwright Chuck Mee is known for, the audience apparently thought this was part of the show; Capri's castmates knew better, and had to turn to the audience to confirm that this was most definitely not a scripted moment.

Paramedics were called, Capri was given an EKG and a clean bill of health--no heart attack after all--and the show went on.

I've heard about the theatre superstition that a bad dress rehearsal means a killer opening night. But what does this trifecta of show-stoppers say about Gordon Davidson's career? Are the poltergeists giving the old maestro a last farewell? Are the gods of the theatre trying to invite us to pause and reflect on Gordon's legacy?

At the very least, they add a bit of spice to Davidson's exit--and a salient reminder that his career has been devoted to a living, breathing art form in which anything can happen in the moment.

I look forward to next week's School for Scandal opening. If all those wigs stay perfectly in place I'll be so disappointed.

Roht Reaction

I think I just heard a woman speaking in tongues... in Spanish. As I walked up Roselake Ave. to my car after the dizzying, piled-high wedding cake of a confection that is the Evidence Room's Peace Squad Goes 99, I passed a nondescript building from which emanated the strident, hysterical voice of a woman leading a Pentecostal worship. It's a cold night, so the windows weren't open--I couldn't hear details but I could see her congregants gathered, rapt, in the fluorescent-lit second-story room.

Somehow this seemed a fitting nightcap after the heady Shirley Temple cocktail irrepressible dance/theatre impresario Ken Roht has whipped up. There's really too much to talk about with this piece, except to say: Miss it at your own peril. But I must note that I was blown away by the titular "Peace Squad"'s Korean boy-band numbers, which layered on top of the '70s-disco-peacenik-comic-book cheesiness of the squad in such a rich and explosively entertaining way, in the midst of a controlled frenzy of fairy-tale camp and color and booty-shaking whimsy.

What do you call it when all your theatregoing faculties are engaged (hmm, I'm seeing a little Wizard of Oz here, hearing a little Fiddler on the Roof there, and--oh, wait, now I'm grooving to some N'Sync moves flavored with a kind of live-action animé) by an entertainment that's not out to confuse or even necessarily edify us, instead simply to delight us, to turn us on? I feel like all my antennae were up and they got a great tickle--the kind that makes you double over in ecstasy and wake up flushed, thinking, What was that? That was something.

Forget A Perfect Wedding: This is the show that should have opened the Kirk Douglas Theatre.

A girl can dream, can't she?

UPDATE: Yes, Virginia, there is 99-cent wine. I would advise sticking with the alternatives.

From "Soup" to "Paint"

Is CATERPILLAR SOUP at the Ruskin Group Theatre a cathartically graphic examination of a former dancer’s confinement to a wheelchair, or an indulgent wallow in disability stories? Back Stage West’s Dany Margolies, a dancer herself, seemed aglow with appreciation for Lyena Strelkoff’s “straightforward, pragmatic, cautionary tale,” which she found “as fluid as any other well-constructed piece” (or is that intended to be faint praise?). The Weekly’s Deborah Klugman acknowledged that “one can’t help but empathize with this beautiful, graceful woman,” but found that her “conversational tone and penchant for confiding numerous sexually intimate particulars cross the line between confidence-sharing and self-absorption." Famed solo showster Paul Linke directs.

Those movement/language/style provocateurs Kronis and Alger are at it again, and if the critics are to be believed, they’re at the top of their indefinable form. DRY CLEANING at the 24th Street Theatre, an espionage-styled retelling of the Orpheus/Eurydice myth, had the Times’ David C. Nichols’ name-checking its references, “from Alphaville to Abbott and Costello” and lauding the “aperture-minded” design (shades of the current Machinal?), stopping short to note that “the muted emotional tone softens the visceral impact” but concluding that the show’s “angular elegance is altogether arresting.” Back Stage West’s Dink O’Neal had no qualifiers in his review of what he called “one of the most fascinating productions in recent memory… jaw-dropping performance art at its finest.” He did have one warning: “Take a few extra moments to bone up on the source material,” lest you emerge at the other end “mentally fogged.”

The Times’ Nichols was quite taken with a new revival of Larry Shue’s THE FOREIGNER (though I’ve already noted one of his review’s seeming overstatements). He seemed quite willing to forgive director Steve Albrezzi’s “spotty pace,” particularly since “the tickling JD Cullum” is playing the title character. The Weekly’s Neal Weaver also lauded Cullum for “wholeheartedly embracing the role’s myriad contradictions,” and for his part found that Albrezzi “keeps the pot boiling so briskly” that “charm prevails” over the script’s inconsistencies.

I’ve already cited the Times’ Mark Swed in his supernatural praise of MACBETH (A MODERN ECSTASY) at REDCAT; bottom line, he found that by paring the Bard’s tragedy to one performer, director Travis Preston and performer Stephen Dillane discover “even greater extravaganzas of emotion.” The Weekly’s Steven Leigh Morris seemed impressed by the effort but ambivalent about the effect, calling the evening “a visceral, cool-headed, even cavalier meditation on the essences and consequences of vaulting ambition.” Director and star come off as “the project’s primary beneficiaries," he wrote, but wondered "whether or not Shakespeare’s play is similarly served.”

Does Paint Your Wagon deserve its relative obscurity? I’ll never forget the way an instructor in a musical theatre workshop I attended used Lerner & Leowe’s misbegotten Gold Rush musical as a negative example—a model of how skilled craftsmen managed to get every single thing wrong with the script, despite managing to pen some fine songs. So it’s not too surprising that even with a rewrite by David Rambo, a new revival of PAINT YOUR WAGON by the Geffen Playhouse at the Brentwood Theatre is getting mixed notices for its book. The Times’ Daryl H. Miller praises just about everything about the production—set, orchestrations, the “rousing men’s chorus number”—but draws a thick line, writing that all this “good work is most decisively undone, however, by the script,” which he slams for some unintentionally funny “howlers” (“at one point, the gold resides in the only rock on the bare stage floor”) and some “hollow” contemporary references to Bush and Janet Jackson. While Miller seems to think there’s still “a rich vein” in the material, the Daily News’ Evan Henerson thinks that perhaps “this Wagon doesn't just need a new coat of paint but a complete overhaul. Or, better yet, concertized stagings.” He enjoyed the “still hummable” score, the “solid performances,” and the “warm and lush” designs of Daniel Ionazzi. but wrote that the “50-minute second act is god awful.”

Oops, look at the time—I must be off to a late-night performance of Ken Roht’s latest “99-cent necromancy,” as David C. Nichols called it in his colorful Times review.

Peace out!

Starting With a Spread

As the year rushes to a close, the openings of shows are dwindling, just as the opening of packages awaits. This past weekend was among the last big pushes, or at least the weekend that the papers tried to catch up with everything that was still up and running before year's end.

So there's a lot this week, and I'll try to pace myself.

Critics couldn't resist the food-related jokes with BUTTER at Hollywood's [Inside] the Ford. I got it right out of the way in the lead of my Times review: “Light, slight and more touching than uproarious, Elizabeth Logun's Butter is a low-impact British farce about coupling and decoupling that goes down as smoothly as, well, butter.” Back Stage West's Les Spindle, who liked the show considerably less than I, calling it “more noise and frantic activity than rhyme or reason,” saved his big guns for the closer: “Logun's synthetic concoction goes down as smoothly as a slab of chemical-loaded Parkay. One can believe it's not 'buttah.' ” The Weekly's Steven Mikulan showed admirable restraint on this front, though he wasn't a big fan of the show, either, calling it “little more than a writing exercise” and opining that “director Dave P. Moore gets consistently over-the-top performances from his cast, but doesn't orchestrate a steady level of quality for this production.” Getting endearingly specific, Mikulan dings the show for some “inexplicable slips,” such as confusing a “jumper” with a cardigan and chicken with bologna. I guess he did get around to food, after all.