Category: Theater
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A Very, Very, Very Fine House
People cannot sing songs or write poetry on the subject of home without it reverting to an ode to the every-day, to those simple, “meaningless,” and “ordinary” things … that are actually just so goddamn important to us. That are, it turns out, everything.
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Weirdo. Dynasty Handbag — Divine Meets Karen Finley.
Dynasty Handbag (the Doppelgoofy of performance artist Jibz Cameron), is one exaggeratedly foppish gal. She is as schmutzy-glamorous (and lackadaisical with her gowns and lipstick) as Divine, yet suddenly as combative and comedically intense as Karen Finley. Talk about a wonderful blend!
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Mother Russia, No America
Sooo…. The “great transformation” going on in the play — about Russia, and a society being slowly turned into a murderous oligarchic libertarian capitalist one –- should obviously remind us all, right NOW, of … Covid?!
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Vive Lapage! Vive Le FLIP! Vive Le Cirque!
OK, “contemporary circus” – you had my curiosity, but now … you have my attention. … Combine the cirque nouveau of FLIP with the theater of Ex Machina, and you now have a dovetailing of creative energy that blends into one of the most humorous and entertaining contemporary circus experiences I’ve ever had, with SLAM!,…
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Jinkxies! — “Get Ready Bitches ‘Cause It’s Monsoon Season!”
“Get Ready ‘Cause It’s Monsoon Season!” is what Jinkx proclaimed as she was crowned the winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race in Season 5. Well, it was a slowly increasing pitter-patter (delayed, in part, by the plague), but Jinkx is now starting to truly feel more like a downpour. I think Monsoon Season is really here…
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Second City Dreamin’
You literally have to see to believe. You have to see Stafford twist apart like a creature from The Thing, when he fears Rihanna might never make music again (was this insanity a little homage to Swarm?). Or McFadden, dancing around as the wooden boy, Pinocchio, finding some cocaine and dry-humping fratboys…. Or Mills’ “sashaying…
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Passengers, on Earth
Soon, after the wonderful spinning rope work by Eduardo de Azevedo Grillo, I briefly thought the story might revolve around two lone souls who were becoming lovers, our trapeze artist and our rope artist. But no, it is another vignette, another brief chance moment in ‘time’ — with no ‘main character,’ no real ‘destination’, no…
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Macbeth and Macbeth and Macbeth: Three Weird Macbeths
More power to Daniel Craig for trying to get our butts in the seats for a Shakespeare play! He doesn’t HAVE to do this. You get the feeling he WANTS to do this. I take it back – give the tickets out to the unruly high school kids. It’s the whole point. Go stars, go! …
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Ghosts — The Play that Returned
Thus, on the topic of religion oppressing women, we need a MUCH more impassioned art, that speaks to all women, not just the Gen X and Boomer Rep audiences. An art that really captures today, the here-and-now. While I love the idea of this play, this production just doesn’t do that for me. It feels…
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Los Angeles Philharmonic’s “Pelléas and Mélisande” is a French-styled “Total Work of Art”
The “hero’s welcome” for composer-conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen at the opening night performance of the L.A. Philharmonic’s production of Debussy’s “Pelléas and Mélisande” hit with a refreshing coolness of modesty; with an apropos absence of fanfare perfectly suited to the production at hand. Salonen so casually enters while other philharmonic members are still trickling in that…
S.E. Barcus 