Posts Tagged ‘San Diego Theater Review’
PICASSO AT THE LAPIN AGILE
Tuesday, February 21st, 2017
Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso square off to both whimsical and profound effect in Picasso At The Lapin Agile, Steve Martin’s delightful theatrical soufflé now getting a splendid, star-studded revival at San Diego’s Old Globe.
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THE BOY WHO DANCED ON AIR
Monday, May 16th, 2016
As the centuries-old Afghan tradition of Bacha Bazi (i.e. selling boys from poor families to wealthy masters to serve as their private entertainment) continues well into the present day, a couple of teenage dancers fall into first love in Tim Rosser and Charlie Sohne’s gorgeous and powerful The Boy Who Danced On Air, the latest World Premiere musical from San Diego’s Diversionary Theatre.
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BABY WITH THE BATHWATER
Sunday, March 8th, 2015
Wacky is the word for Baby With The Bathwater. Winningly wild and wonderful apply too to Christopher Durang’s 1983 comedy classic, as does gut-bustingly hilarious, a bathtub full of adjectives and adverbs that make the latest from Diversionary Theatre well worth a San Diego road trip this month.
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THE KING AND I
Friday, January 9th, 2015NOT RECOMMENDED
Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein’s score is as glorious today as it ever has been, the now iconic “Small House Of Uncle Thomas” ballet remains a thing of unique beauty and charm, and Victoria Strong and Richard Bermudez not only prove sensational choices to play Anna and the King of Siam, they give the visiting English schoolmarm and the Siamese monarch a romantic, sexual chemistry almost unheard of since The King And I made its 1951 Broadway debut.
Unfortunately, the current Welk Resort Theatre staging of the R&J classic also features some racially insensitive casting choices straight out of the 1950s that underline the creakiness of book writer Hammerstein’s depiction of the Thai people and their centuries-old culture.
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BRIGHT STAR
Wednesday, October 8th, 2014
Some of the most gorgeous songs I’ve heard in a new musical plus a bevy of equally memorable performances bode well for the post-World Premiere future of Steve Martin and Edie Brickell’s Bright Star despite an “original story” so reminiscent of this or that 1930s/40s Hollywood weeper that audience members may find themselves convinced they’re watching the musical stage adaptation of an oldtime Barbara Stanwyck/Claudette Colbert flick. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)
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REGRETS ONLY
Sunday, August 31st, 2014
It’s a measure of how much times have changed over the less than eight years since Paul Rudnick’s Regrets Only debuted off-Broadway that Rudnick’s contemporary comedy has already become what some critics might call “dated” … and it’s a measure of Rudnick’s comedic mastery that this matters not a whit, not with characters as wedding-cake delectable as those now onstage at San Diego’s Diversionary Theatre, and certainly not in a production as pitch-perfect as the one Jessica John has directed for America’s third-oldest continuously-producing LGBT theater.
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OKLAHOMA!
Sunday, August 24th, 2014
Director-choreographer Dan Mojica and an exciting young cast offer Welk Theatre San Diego audiences an Oklahoma! certain to delight both blue-haired Welk regulars and the Glee generation of its late teens-early 20s ensemble, sixteen talented performers who enrich the Rodgers & Hammerstein classic with a freshness and life belying its 71 years of age.
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INTO THE WOODS
Tuesday, July 29th, 2014
Fiasco Theatre Company’s re-imagined revival of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Into The Woods is the most thrillingly imaginative production I’ve seen of the 1987 triple-Tony-winner, and trust me … I’ve seen a forest-ful of Into The Woodses, fourteen in all since the First National Tour stopped at the Ahmanson in 1989.
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Since 2007, Steven Stanley's StageSceneLA.com has spotlighted the best in Southern California theater via reviews, interviews, and its annual StageSceneLA Scenies.
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