‘Sideways The Play’ overburdened with the f-word.
By Cynthia Citron SANTA MONICA, California — There were a lot of f-words in the Oscar-winning movie Sideways. And I’m not talking alliteration here. But the words were somehow mitigated by the...
View ArticleTom Dugan provides a brilliant portrait of Robert E. Lee
By Cynthia Citron BEVERLY HILLS, California — “History is written in black and white, but life is lived in shades of gray.” In this case, the “shades of gray” refers not only to the ambiguous...
View Article‘Our House’ needs some renovation
By Cynthia Citron HOLLYWOOD — When you go to see a play by Theresa Rebeck you can generally be assured that it will be a thoroughly enjoyable evening of theater. But not this time. Our House,...
View Article‘The Savannah Disputation’ a religious comedy
By Cynthia Citron BURBANK, California — Whose God is it, anyway? In Evan Smith’s sparkling new play The Savannah Disputation, the question is anything but moot. Especially not to Melissa (Rebecca...
View ArticlePlay is as dysfunctional as the family it depicts
By Cynthia Citron NORTH HOLLYWOOD, California– If a play’s success can be measured by the amount of meat it offers you to chew on, and the length of time it takes for you to digest it, then That Good...
View ArticleMeet Jessica Olson, who makes double costumes
By Cynthia Citron NORTH HOLLYWOOD –So there’s one cast (the Kinsmen). Then there’s another (the Thanes). And then there are the Hurlyburlys. It’s the Antaeus Company’s way of making sure that if an...
View Article‘Komitas’ tells of Armenian genocide and lost music
By Cynthia Citron LOS ANGELES — If you’re Armenian you’ll love Komitas. If you’re not, the play may seem a little obscure. It’s the story of a 19th century musicologist who made it his life’s work to...
View ArticleThe Haunting of Greystone Mansion
By Cynthia Citron BEVERLY HILLS, California–Two men in love with the same woman. And, according to some reports, with each other as well. All living together in a 55-room mansion in the hills. What...
View Article‘Mutually Assured Destruction’ is a suburban tale
By Cynthia Citron LOS ANGELES –Remember when “mutually assured destruction” meant maintaining détente with Russia—or else? As the threat of nuclear war hung like a mushroom cloud over all our heads,...
View ArticleSeniors strut their stuff in Hollywood musical
By Cynthia Citron HOLLYWOOD, California–They rolled out the pink carpet to celebrate the opening weekend of Jackie “The Pink Lady” Goldberg’s fourth annual musical production, Rockin’ with the Ages...
View Article‘Pi’ proves far greater than a number sequence
By Cynthia Citron LOS ANGELES — I couldn’t get through the book, so now I feel the need to express my apologies to its author, Yann Martel. The film they have made of his novel, Life of Pi, is one...
View ArticleL.A. Play Reviews: ‘Yankees’ and ‘Pancreas’
By Cynthia Citron NORTH HOLLYWOOD, California–What could be more lacerating than a sister’s scorn? Especially if she sits on the board of a prestigious art museum and he is a struggling conceptual...
View Article3 looks at ‘da mob’ at the Ruskin
By Cynthia Citron SANTA MONICA, California — Five deez-dem-and dowz guys are currently chewing up the stage of the Ruskin Group Theatre here. You might think of them as the Sopranos on steroids....
View ArticleComedy tells of Jewish girl playing Jesus
By Cynthia Citron LOS ANGELES — They should have called it Corny Island Christmas. Corny in a good way, of course. Donald Margulies’ new play, Coney Island Christmas celebrates what Jewish kids...
View ArticleFoote notes not likely to be more than that
By Cynthia Citron Soft-spoken playwright Horton Foote is to Texas what William Faulkner was to Mississippi: a faithful chronicler of the values and mores of a cultural subset of the American people. A...
View Article‘Rainmaker’ pours on the emotions
By Cynthia Citron SANTA MONICA –You may think that all this rain we’re having is caused by a drop in barometric pressure. But are you aware that Tanna Frederick, Robert Standley and their director Jack...
View ArticleSigmund Freud vs. C.S. Lewis in philosophical repartee
By Cynthia Citron SANTA MONICA, California — So this Jewish atheist gets into a conversation with an atheist convert to the Church of England… Sounds like there should be a shaggy dog punch-line at...
View ArticleHirsch prefers interviews on current projects, not ‘Taxi’
By Cynthia Citron SANTA MONICA, California — If there’s one thing that makes actor Judd Hirsch grumpy, it’s when a critic throws in information that Hirsch considers extraneous or irrelevant to the...
View Article‘Machu Picchu, Texas’ when dreams turn into delusions
By Cynthia Citron HOLLYWOOD — Timothy McNeil’s new play, Machu Picchu, Texas, now having its world premiere at the Stella Adler Theatre in Hollywood, is about an angry, dysfunctional family again,...
View ArticlePlay probes problems of having a famous dad
By Cynthia Citron LOS ANGELES — For anyone who’s ever wished that he had grown up as the child of a major celebrity, Elliot Shoenman’s new play A Heap of Livin’ provides a powerful cautionary tale....
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