Dancing Kicks It For The Altar Boyz

The first thing you should know about Altar Boyz is that it’s fun.  The second thing you should know is that it’s fun.  The third thing you should know is that not much else matters. Noah Longton’s production at the Diversionary Cabaret (which means that the show is not an official Diversionary production and the…

Read More

Tour of La Cage Worth Seeing Despite It All

Producers Fran and Barry Weissler have made a lot of money doing what’s called “stunt casting.” They take an appealing show, front it with a “name” celebrity they think audiences would pay to see, surround the star with a cast that can sell the show, and then if the star bombs the rest of the…

Read More

“Carnage” Perhaps Too Mild a Word

Carnage3

Four WASPS and a cell phone are featured in Yasmina Reza’s God of Carnage, now on the stage of the Old Globe’s White Theatre. Mom on the landline has a supporting role. It’s a pocket-sized version of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?: Fewer revelations, diminished booze and far less time lapsed but comparable…

Read More

Essay: A Noble and Dirty Business

Seeing San Diego REP’s excellent season-opening production of Zoot Suit left me wondering about the role of politics in theatre and theatre in politics. It’s doubtful that the theatre will impinge much into the upcoming presidential race (though President Obama held a fundraiser on Broadway recently and has seen at least a couple of Broadway…

Read More

Cygnet’s La Mancha: Faithful But No New Insights

Sean Murray, Erika Beth Phillips, and Bryan Barbarin

Audiences dreamed the impossible dream when “Man of La Mancha” opened in 1965. Despite his recent assassination, John F. Kennedy’s Camelot era still ruled both the national mood and the Broadway stage. The cynicism that accompanied a prolonged war and battles for civil and other rights would not set in for a couple of years…

Read More