October 23rd, 2008 Written by: Craig · No Comments
Willy Russel's Blood Brothers at the Whitefire Theater
This is a review by guest critic, Jeremy Lake.
Willy Russell’s BLOOD BROTHERS, continues to live on despite the 25 year span from its London debut. Bryan Rasmussen, directs this version of the Olivier Award-winning and Tony-nominated musical, at the Whitefire Theater in Sherman Oaks.
Rasmussen, successfully integrates a complicated testimony of the battle between British social hierarchies while using a talented, multi-ethnic cast of Los Angelenos . It’s an eerie correlation between the economic clash in the play to our country’s current financial crisis with this American cast.
This is the story of a struggling lower class mother, Mrs. Johnstone (Pamela Taylor) who burdened by financial strains gives up her newborn twin boys, Mickey and Eddie, to her barren upper class employer, Mrs. Lyons (Judy Norton). The twins, played by Eduardo Enrikez and Ryan Nealy, are raised in separate social classes despite growing up in the same neigborhood but through fate, become best of friends. Over the years, their bond is tested by economic stresses and the rivalry over the love of a woman named Linda (Sita Young).
The era of the play is noticeable in dialogue and musical style. However, it’s a bit like drinking a fine wine with new grapes from an old vine. One must note its history to appreciate the flavor.
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Tags: Reviews · Stage
October 16th, 2008 Written by: Craig · No Comments
For fathers who fool themselves, violence is the only truth.
Deano’s crime-free life comes with a frustrating price: A wife who doesn’t excite him and a son whose softness is embarrassing. What’s an ex-heavy to do? With ill-health advancing, our patriarch is forced to take stock of his swapped life sooner than he thinks when the elder son bursts onto the scene with some demons of his own.
There is perhaps no relationship more complex and combustible than that between father and son.
It’s a life bond based on honor and tradition, as much as it’s steeped in envy and competition. But let’s not diminish the ‘dames.’ This is a domesticated gangster yarn where women quietly take control by falling apart at the calculated time.
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Tags: Reviews · theatre
October 16th, 2008 Written by: Craig · No Comments
“Arpsnarpflarpbarpgarpnarpdarpmarp means, ‘I love you.’” If you’re an alien in Jonas Oppenheim’s debut musical Earth Sucks.
This latest stage play, from the award winning playwright, is a fun trip back to teenage love and an adventure with people from “a galaxy far, far away”.
“The story was inspired by The Carpenter’s song ‘Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft’ and David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust concertâ€, said Oppenheim, during an interview after Sunday night’s show.
A large cast, of over a dozen characters, are squeezed onto the cozy Art|Works theatre stage. Echo Bell, played by Emily Stern, is an all American teenage girl. She’s tired of her loser boyfriend, sick of home life and thinks everything on Earth basically sucks. With her head in the stars, she’s visited by a runaway rock band from space, the Citizens of Earth.
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Tags: Reviews · Stage
Hillbilly hilarity: Less teeth - More cartwheels. Easy targets flattened like roadkill that have nowhere to hide.
The ‘play within a play’ can be an inventive canvas, albeit, when the former has something relevant to convey that impacts the latter. Not the case here. There is nothing to be learned, revealed or pondered. It’s just a hick sitcom for hick-sake.
As the playbill states, ‘It’s an intimate look at clashing egos on and off-stage, as a cast of misfits prepare to mount the story of small-town boy’s attempt to win a cheerleader’s heart.’ The boy, being the playwright, directing his upbringing for the stage.
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Tags: Reviews · theatre
Love Hurts: May I have another? Love Hurts: May I have another?
Suicide- Abortion- Homosexuality: Aaahh youth!
Like a stiff salesman traveling thru Tulsa: Teens needs sex no matter what the face of fate.
This highly imaginative production paints a moral space as an illuminated womb where the only way out is by kicking and screaming. Is there anything more sensual than curiosity? A trio of youths rage to find romance hoping to conquer what their parents feared most: Satisfaction.
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Tags: Reviews · theatre
May 9th, 2008 Written by: Craig · 1 Comment
AIR TRAFFIC: David Ryan Jordan, Jim Maddock, Tom Pritchard and Chris Wall
AIR TRAFFIC has burst onto the pop-rock scene with textured tempos and morose melodies that dare you dance and ignore your last call for love at 4am.
While standing outside an Italian restaurant in London’s most aromatic district. I caught up with AIR TRAFFIC band mate Chris Wall, who was quick to confide that although he’s the talker this time around, it’s Dave who’s the troublemaker — it’s Jim that’s diabolically devious. (All in good ‘brotherly love’ fun) and it’s the new fans that make being on tour an unexpected pleasure. With two back2back gigs slated for Los Angeles, (Avalon and Spaceland respectively) AIR TRAFFIC (on Capitol’s EMI label) are quickly catching nationwide attention.
Keep reading for their interview and concert information for their shows tonight and tomorrow in LA.
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Tags: Interviews · bands
Playwright: Jonathan Tolins
Directed by: Matt Shakeman
Starring: John Glover and Edward Tournier, Amy Aquino, Mark
Taylor and Bill Brochtrup (***) SECRETS OF THE TRADE presented by the Black Dahlia Theatre, tells the story of Andy Lipman a sparklingly ambitious kid from Long Island who dreams of a Broadway career. Through numerous wide-eyed letters to his idol Martin Kerner (portrayed by Tony Award winner, John Glover) young Lipman pleads for his mentorship. It’s time to play a little game of Frankenstein and the blind girl.
It does seem improbable that a half decade+ of compressed time would take Andrew through so many career highs and lows highlighted by sexual exploits – but what does remain hauntingly effective thru time lapse is the “hurry up and wait†fate of any entertainment career; revealed for what it is: How long can a 20-something pretend his life has not yet began?
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Tags: Reviews · theatre
Buzzworks Theatre Company presents the West Coast premiere of INVASION OF THE MINNESOTA NORMALS written by Jen Ellison and directed by Melissa Denton.
Please note: Communists come thirsty for cocktails: Cordials and Lenin Squares are sold in the lobby by a bubbly 1950’s Stepford wife wearing a chin-strapped blonde wig. (I bet she’s packing an EZ Bake Oven)
To Sirk with Love: Poise, Turquoise and Secrets
A review by Craig Rafael Parish (3 out of 4 stars) A Must See
Think back to the day, where condoms came with cuff links. Filmmaker Douglas Sirk knew it well as re-imagined here in MINNESOTA. Beware the MMPI: The Minnesota Multi-phasic Personality Inventory Test that scored identity and social conformity by confining the parameters of thought for a ½ century or more. Somewhere between hope and despair lay the 1950s suburbs, where careers were defined by an isosceles office and by wives who faked Tupperware screams to give their husbands the confidence to face the morning commute.
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Tags: Reviews · theatre
