Theatre

	All for Dumas and Dumas for All at Theatricum By Frederik Sisa @ 12:00 PM June 28, 2010 Found in: Theatre A larger-than-life story like Alexandre Dumas’s classic adventure needs room for swords to clash, dastardly villains to plot and heroes to save the day. Movie adaptations of “The Three Musketeers” benefit from expansive locations and sets, along with the illusion provided by camera angles. Ellen Geer’s theatrical adaptation benefits from the outdoor amphitheatre space of the Theatricum Botanicum in Topanga Canyon. read
	How the Other Half Loves: A Game of Wit, Space, and Time By Frederik Sisa @ 9:00 AM May 06, 2010 Found in: Theatre “The play’s a game,” says playwright Sir Alan Ayckbourn, “which I hope an audience enjoys playing as much as the actors enjoy playing it.” Quite. It’s an entertaining bauble, chock full of colliding assumptions, misinterpretations, well-intentioned but misguided interventions, and all the usual trimmings of a farcical comedy of errors. read
	‘The Wake’: Turbulence and Self-Reflection in a Stellar Kirk Douglas Production By Frederik Sisa @ 10:00 AM April 09, 2010 Found in: Theatre Note: The Wake is on stage at the Kirk Douglas Theatre until Sunday, April 18. See www.centertheatregroup.org to purchase tickets. read
	Backwards in High Heels: A Bronze Start to a Silver Jubilee Year By Frederik Sisa @ 1:00 PM March 05, 2010 Found in: Theatre I like to think of the International City Theatre in Long Beach as the off-Ahmanson. That is, the ICT is to the Ahmanson what off-Broadway is to Broadway; it may not be the first theatre that comes to Angeleno minds when craving the stage, but it’s the source of many gems and well worth the drive. The reason isn’t all that difficult to articulate: excellent production values and bravura choices, including Mark Twain’s Is He Dead and Berthold Brecht’s Threepenny Opera from past seasons. Alas, as the ICT’s silver jubilee season gets underway, the inaugural production doesn’t quite meet the high standards set by previous productions. Backwards in High Heels: A Ginger Rogers Musical has all the temperament of a high school play. read
	Criss Angel’s Believe: Some Things Just Shouldn’t Happen in Vegas By Frederik Sisa @ 12:00 PM October 30, 2009 Found in: Theatre What happens when you take an acclaimed illusionist, wrap him up in a Cirque du Soleil production, and put the whole shebang on a Vegas stage? A lesson in the value of reading reviews before watching your money suffer an irrevocable disappearing act. Of course, as a critic I prefer to approach a play, a movie, a production, without the prejudice of other reviews. It doesn’t usually make a difference what other critics think, but there’s something to be said for the tabula rasa approach. Yet, by Houdini, had I possessed an inkling of the calamity that is Believe - on stage at the Luxor – I would have certainly gone to any one of the other Vegas shows.read
	‘Sole Mate and Death and Giggles.’ Some Death. Mostly Giggles. All Magic. By Frederik Sisa @ 11:00 AM September 23, 2009 Found in: Theatre There’s a dose of Cirque du Soleil in Daisuke Tsuji’s Sole Mate and Death and Giggles, which is no surprise given his tour as a clown with the Japanese edition of Dralion. The great physicality in his performance — drawing on all the usual clowning disciplines of mime and physical comedy, and more — matched by the ability to evoke an almost child-like sense of wonder certainly distills an essence of the Cirque. The comparison is apt; Death and Giggles is very much a non-narrative piece of performance art more loosely sketched and surreal than coherent and realistic.read
	A Magical Summer Dream at the Theatricum Botanicum By Frederik Sisa @ 1:00 PM July 24, 2009 Found in: Theatre The play that needs no introduction gets a woodsy handling at the Theatricum Botanicum. It’s an ideal setting for Shakespeare’s much loved play, and the folks at this little gem of a theatre nestled in Topanga Canyon know it; A Midsummer Night’s Dream is, quite rightly, a signature feather in their repertory cap. Performers zip on and off the built-up stage from a hill or trail, swing from a tree jutting out in the middle of the stage floor – it adds three-dimensional magic to the production. But where this magic was blunted in the Theatricum’s enjoyable but hit-or-miss, overperformed production of Cymbeline, it gets full expression here. read
	Get Thee to a Shrubbery: See ‘Spamalot’! By Frederik Sisa @ 1:00 PM July 10, 2009 Found in: Theatre “Spamalot” not only keeps the venerable and ever-silly name [of Monty Python] alive, it delivers more laughs and entertainment in a couple of hours than entire seasons of popular sitcoms.read
	Deciding Whether to Toast or Roast Shakespeare in the Canyon By Frederik Sisa @ 10:00 AM June 03, 2009 Found in: Theatre One of Shakespeare’s later plays gets the fresh air treatment at the Theatricum Botanicum, an outdoor amphitheatre tucked away in Topanga Canyon like the key to a chastity belt. And what a venue it is, with a stage surrounded by woodsy paths that give the actors the opportunity to enjoy off-stage freedom of movement and defined by a versatile set. read
	Mark Twain Returns in ICT’s Not-to-be-Missed ‘Is He Dead?’ By Frederik Sisa @ 10:00 AM May 07, 2009 Found in: Theatre The reports of Mark Twain’s death are, as always, greatly exaggerated; his spirited wit lives on. It seems it was living in a file cabinet at U.C. Berkeley until scholar Shelley Fisher Fishkin rescued it, gave it some fresh air and exercise, and found it every bit the Twain we know and love. A buff and a shine later, courtesy of playwright David Ives, and voila, a new offering of the quintessential American author’s impish, incisive humour. read