Charles McNulty, Theater Critic

November 22, 2009

THEATER

Domestic drama: Lee Strasberg's family continues the legacy of instruction, despite some friction

The Method is dead. Long live the Method. ¶ Spend an afternoon with David Lee Strasberg, the ambitious 38-year-old son of legendary acting guru Lee Strasberg, and you just might walk away with the idea that something revolutionary is going on at the Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute. That would be overstating matters. This family-run school with flagships in West Hollywood and New York still finds its raison d'être in what Strasberg himself identified as the training of the actor's internal skills. But the vision of the Method being articulated at the institute, observing its 40th anniversary this year, seems to have little to do with the stereotype of sweaty, mumbling actors wallowing in the muck of unhappy childhoods. ¶ Dressed in preppy clothes that hint at his undergraduate days at Brown, Strasberg fils, the institute's CEO and creative director (whom I'll refer to as DLS), says that the Strasberg approach -- the best known of the American adaptations of the Stanislavsky "system" commonly grouped together as the Method -- is less reliant on psychobabble than most people believe. The words "Oedipal Complex" never pass his lips. But more interesting is the way developments in neuroscience keep cropping up in his conversation. Don't bother telling him about the toy your parents didn't buy you, but do engage him on the subject of conditioned reflexes and the neuropsychology of smells.

August 23, 2009

THEATER

Oregon Shakespeare Festival offers much to build upon

If the Oregon Shakespeare Festival doesn't have the most enthusiastic audience of any regional theater in the country, there must be some performing arts center out there with quite a rabid cult.

August 9, 2009

CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK

Did the show change, or did I?

In these cash-strapped days, people are lucky to get to see a show once, never mind a second or third time. But with "Spamalot" now playing at the Ahmanson Theatre more than four years after it opened on Broadway and a couple of years after it premiered in Las Vegas, there are a number of returning customers, Monty Python addicts chief among them.

May 3, 2009

CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK

Hey, Hollywood: Why not work on the L.A. stage?

There are precious few guarantees in the theater anymore. Boffo playwrights went out with the Neil Simon dinosaurs. A new show by Stephen Sondheim, hands down the greatest living musical theater composer, can't even count on a Broadway booking. The only thing producers can bank on are stars. Celebrities still sell, which is why so many of them are working these days on the Great White Way.

March 5, 2009

AN APPRECIATION

Remembering Horton Foote

If one were to choose a single phrase to distill the essence of Horton Foote's distinctive literary grace, the title of the 1983 film for which he won an Academy Award for screenwriting, "Tender Mercies," could hardly be bettered. For it is this quality of loving forbearance that characterizes his relationship to all those everyday eccentrics from Texas backwaters he introduced us to -- that colorful, twangy crew who wear their hearts as well as their foibles on their sleeves.

Inauguration gives public theater a lift

Review: 'Xanadu' @ LaJolla Playhouse

Daniel Radcliffe receives a Broadway tutorial in 'Equus'

November 1, 2008

THEATER REVIEW

'Spring Awakening' is all about the strife

Morality evolves and musical styles change, but there's something constant about sex, teenagers and rock 'n' roll. Oops, almost left out the emotional glue holding together this perennial pubescent compound -- angst.

October 16, 2008

THEATER REVIEW

Druid Theatre draws peasant life in the raw at UCLA Live

The plays of John Millington Synge may have more rustic charm than a bed-and-breakfast brochure from the Irish tourist board, but don't be fooled by their picturesque settings and lyrical lilt. Tragic, comic or some blithe hybrid, they have a way of telling audiences uncomfortable truths -- usually about the raging cowardice of ordinary men and the strong, sex-starved women who are stuck with them.

October 11, 2008

THEATER REVIEW

'The Sound and the Fury (April Seventh, 1928)' at REDCAT

The first section of William Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury" is such a notorious brain twister that any attempt at straightforward dramatization would be almost as foolhardy as trying to resurrect the Old South. Told from the point of view of Benjy, the Compsons' mentally challenged adult son, the narrative hopscotches with such retrospective insouciance that Faulkner was tempted to color-code passages to clarify shifts in time.

October 8, 2008

THEATER REVIEW

'Tobacco Road' at La Jolla Playhouse

WHEN "Tobacco Road" premiered on Broadway in 1933, it pushed the envelope with its unsavory depiction of rural poverty. Would theatergoers looking for a fun night out want to have their noses rubbed in the degrading conditions of destitute Georgia sharecroppers? As it turned out, the middle class had a real appetite for this sort of filthy fingernail naturalism.

September 24, 2008

THEATER REVIEW

Charles Busch's 'The Third Story' at LaJolla Playhouse

LA JOLLA -- Imagine Joan Crawford's stately glamour, Susan Hayward's tough-broad shtick and Carol Burnett's parodic flair all rolled into the same male actor. Yes, the one and only Charles Busch is back on stage, starring in your garden-variety science-fiction gangster melodrama meets Russian fairy tale.

September 23, 2008

THEATER REVIEW

'9 to 5: The Musical'

NOTHING gets the comic juices flowing like a workplace revenge fantasy. In "9 to 5: The Musical," an eager-to-please adaptation of the fizzy 1980 pop-feminist film, three female employees, tired of banging their heads against a low-hanging glass ceiling, team up against the sort of sexist boss who deserves to run into Gloria Steinem, Germaine Greer and Billie Jean King in a dark alley.

September 16, 2008

THEATER REVIEW

'The House of Blue Leaves'

GROPING for a comfortable moral in John Guare's classic black comedy "The House of Blue Leaves," which opened Sunday at the Mark Taper Forum in a sensational revival directed by Nicholas Martin, is a little like asking an escaped felon for some friendly advice. But one thing can safely be said: When it comes to trampling traditional family values, there's nothing more brutalizing than a middle-aged guy with a frustrated dream.

Mark Taper Forum makeover freshens up L.A. theater scene

Touring the newly renovated Mark Taper Forum a few weeks before its official unveiling was a bit like standing at the crossroads between the past and the future. It wasn't merely the sight of stage carpenters readying the set for "The House of Blue Leaves," John Guare's delirious 1970 farce, which will inaugurate the next chapter in the Taper's 41-year history when the show opens today. Nor was it the mix of old construction and new, the way the striking carousel-shaped building has been endowed with a freshly carved-out basement lounge complete with luxurious bathrooms, not to mention all the technical improvements that have the crew happily humming as they work.

September 3, 2008

Tyne Daly plays a mama scorned in 'Agamemnon'

WHEN IT comes to pursuing the bad guys, few actors move mountains like Tyne Daly. For years on television she huffed and puffed after crooks as a New York City cop on "Cagney & Lacey." More recently, as a social worker on "Judging Amy," she battled for needy children while making sure her own gavel-pounding daughter never lost sight of what was really at stake in her courtroom. But playing Clytaemnestra in the Getty Villa's new staging of Aeschylus’ “Agamemnon” brings this righteous fury to what can confidently be called its tragic apex.

August 4, 2008

CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK | THE ART OF PERFORMANCE

Heath Ledger in 'Dark Knight': Bravo!

Great actors, even those who have been blessed with longevity, often bear a tragic mark. It's not just the ups and downs of stardom that can make for a cruel career. Rough inner seas are typically the very reason someone seeks to be among what William Hazlitt, that lyrical witness of the early 19th century British stage, called "the motley representatives of human nature."

August 1, 2008

THEATER REVIEW

'Gulls'

Points for degree of difficulty: "Gulls," which is receiving its world premiere at the Theatre @ Boston Court, sets out to transform Anton Chekhov's "The Seagull" into a musical.

August 1, 2008

THEATER REVIEW

'Body Politic'

Wendy Hoffman (Kristina Lear), an earnest screenwriter with an attractive, low-key style, wants to tell the story of injured vets at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Capt. Gray Whitrock (Michael James Reed), a strapping military guy with a prosthetic foot and a by-the-book manner, is the gatekeeper to the ward. Their verbal tug-of-war -- laden with as much partisan disdain as sneaky sexual subtext -- establishes the serious game of Jessica Goldberg's new play, "Body Politic."

July 25, 2008

THEATER REVIEW

'Accomplices' by Bernard Weinraub

High-profile reporting isn't the usual route to becoming a playwright, but in one respect Bernard Weinraub's newspaper pedigree serves him well in "The Accomplices." Like any muckraker worth his salt, Weinraub knows how to level accusations and make them sting.

July 10, 2008

THEATER REVIEW

'Looped' at the Pasadena Playhouse

A new school of psychology is inaugurated in Matthew Lombardo's play "Looped," which had its world premiere Tuesday at the Pasadena Playhouse. It's called Tallulah Therapy, and it involves being stuck in a room with an aging Southern booze-and-pill-addicted actress who says the most outlandishly naughty things, reveals her sorriest secrets and demands that you confront whatever it is you've been running away from your whole life. And make it snappy, dahling -- this old diva needs a stiff drink.

July 14, 2008

THEATER REVIEW

'Of Equal Measure' at the Kirk Douglas Theatre

The trouble with historical fiction is that there often isn't a satisfying amount of either element. Fact constrains fantasy as the helpless past gets reduced to a pencil sketch.

July 7, 2008

ON SECOND THOUGHT

The drama after deadline

MUCH AS one would like to join Edith Piaf in a duet of "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien," a critic can't help having occasional regrets after passing instantaneous verdicts on scores of plays and musicals, usually in the space of a few morning hours after a deadline-spoiled night's sleep.

June 29, 2008

CD REVIEWS

Reviews are in: B'Way cast recordings

Curious about the changing sound of the Great White Way? Times Theater Critic Charles McNulty weighs in on five noteworthy cast recordings from the year on Broadway -- four from new shows that couldn't be more wildly disparate and one from a classic that's been absolutely revitalized.

June 16, 2008

CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK

Highs, if not heights at the Tony Awards

FIRST THE good news: Compared to our debt-roiled, war-mired nation, Broadway had a lot to celebrate this year. In addition to luminously acted new dramas and shimmeringly staged revivals, there was something approximating a genuine horse race for best musical -- a godsend for everyone who religiously sits through the normally suspense-bereft Tony telecast.

June 15, 2008

CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK

Team effort helps position for the Tony Awards

AMERICANS ARE suckers for teams. The prospect of talents blending into a collective heave ho of inspiration turns us into giddy school kids at recess. Sports fans know better than anyone the joy of watching the gifted spur one another to new heights. Want to see a grown man cry? Wait for the next bottom-of-the-ninth grand slam. Want to make him sulk for weeks? Fill him in on how those supposedly chummy superstars really feel about each other off the field.

June 13, 2008

THEATER REVIEW

Stephen Belber's 'Finally' at Black Dahlia

Four monologues, four characters, one mesmerizing actor and a whole mess of sorry violence -- Stephen Belber's "Finally" at the Black Dahlia Theatre is a small Rashomon puzzle laden with pernicious explosives.

May 26, 2008

THEATER REVIEW

It's all in a farcical day's work in SCR's 'Taking Steps'

There's nothing like a British farce to make you feel stubbornly, even condescendingly American.

May 20, 2008

THEATER REVIEW

'Two Unrelated Plays by David Mamet'

When you've been crowned the heavyweight playwriting champion of trash-talking masculinity, it can be hard to get anyone to acknowledge that you're good for more than just verbal uppercuts. David Mamet's talent has always been more diverse than his reputation. No, there definitely isn't an old softy waiting to emerge from behind the brawler's facade. But what about a bespectacled metaphysician with an absurdist streak or a vaudevillian cutup who could still probably make a killing in late-night sketch comedy?

July 20, 2007

THEATER REVIEW

'Avenue Q' can really grow on you

SAN DIEGO — If the words "Children's Television Workshop" light up old neural centers in your brain, consider yourself in the right demographic for "Avenue Q," the diverting Tony-winning musical that lends a new twist to the familiar "Sesame Street" formula.

June 1, 2007

MOVIE REVIEW

'ShowBusiness: The Road to Broadway'

By theatrical standards, Broadway's 2003-04 season was hardly vintage. But for musicals it was an unusually newsworthy one. Headlines were made, naturally enough, by Rosie O'Donnell, who invested $10 million in the ill-fated Boy George musical "Taboo." The war between the blockbuster "Wicked" and "Avenue Q," the little puppet show that could, for the top Tony was fought with a surprising Harvey Weinstein-like fierceness. And Tony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori's "Caroline, or Change" had launched an all-out campaign to rescue the Great White Way from complete commercialization with its envelope-pushing civil rights music drama.

March 27, 2007

THEATER REVIEW

Attention must be paid

Please put down whatever else you might be doing. This review demands your undivided attention.

February 23, 2007

THEATER REVIEW

'Wicked' is almost sure to be evergreen

"Wicked" parked its theatrical sorcery at the Pantages on Wednesday, and don't expect it to vanish in a puff of smoke anytime soon.

November 18, 2006

THEATER REVIEW

Straight into the face of war

"When Patrick came home in a coffin, the media contacted me," says Nadia McCaffrey. "They asked if I wanted the media to cover it. I knew it was forbidden to take photos of coffins with flags on them. But I thought about it and said, 'Yes.' "

November 17, 2006

THEATER REVIEW

Chalk one up for candor

By now you've probably heard a good deal about the psychological case study known as Carrie Fisher. To review the basic facts: Hollywood icon parents torn asunder by lavender-eyed Jezebel, early movie stardom marred by laughingstock hairdo, a minor shipwreck on the shoals of Paul Simon, rehab, resurrection via "Postcards From the Edge," rehab again, confession of mental illness to Diane Sawyer, bipolar acclaim, fresh scandal involving dead gay Republican operative in bed, more rehab. Prognosis: one-woman show.

November 3, 2006

THEATER REVIEW

'Piazza's' dramatic light grows sharper

Romantics beware: "The Light in the Piazza" may seem like a picture postcard of amour with its lovely American ingénue and handsome Italian bachelor falling head over heels amid the sensual backdrop of Florence. But all is not as it appears in Adam Guettel and Craig Lucas' musical adaptation of Elizabeth Spencer's 1960 short novel, which provides some ominous Henry James cloud cover on what from afar could be mistaken for a sweet, sun-dappled love story.

November 3, 2006

MOVIE REVIEW

'Wrestling With Angels'

Tony Kushner, author of the epic millennial trumpet blast "Angels in America," has never doubted that he's living in interesting times — "interesting" in the euphemistic sense of the proverbial Chinese curse. As an artist and citizen, he has felt a responsibility to respond to contemporary political upheaval through his plays and copious remarks as the quotable go-to guy now that Susan Sontag and Arthur Miller have moved on to that old public-intellectual retirement home in the sky.

October 14, 2006

THEATER REVIEW

If it only had a heart

In the aftermath of Katrina, the sight of an African American family ambushed by a natural disaster can't help carrying political baggage. But racial concerns hardly register in Des McAnuff's update of the unpredictable theatrical twister known as "The Wiz."

September 24, 2006

CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK

One-man show

NO one said it was going to be easy. But with his first season behind him and his second already underway, Center Theatre Group artistic director Michael Ritchie has yet to communicate a clear theatrical game plan.

March 21, 2006

THEATER REVIEW

Equal-opportunity love

Love in all its dizzying, rainbow-flag-waving variety is on frolicsome display in the Cornerstone Theater Company's "As You Like It: A California Concoction," which opened Friday at the Pasadena Playhouse.