Despite some horseplay excess, Handspring Puppet Company works wonders in 'Midsummer Night's Dream' at the Broad Stage.While a Punch and Judy version of "The Taming of the Shrew" has possibi…
Old-fashioned grace and signature wit embellish a drama that grapples candidly with the costs of repression. Accustomed to living glamorously in the spotlight, Noël Coward conducted his p…
Critic's Notebook: Inflammatory nature of a statutory rape plot in 'Firemen' is fueled by a lack of moral outrage, yet an excellent cast provides insight and honesty."The aim of the poet is …
Caryl Churchill's bracing modern classic 'Top Girls' — which involves a fanciful meeting of strong women from throughout history — is given a spot-on production by the Antaeus Co…
Theater Review: Three high school buddies back together after 25 years hit all the genre buttons, but the cast sets the dramatic pulse.The cooler of beer in the bland, budget motel room sett…
Spring theater highlights include 'A Song at Twilight,' 'Rest' and 'A Midsummer Night's Dream.'Shakespeare with puppets, a legendary director still breaking ground in his 80s, and a couple o…
An unwieldy mix of geopolitical suspense and domestic turmoil trips up Wendy Graf's 'Closely Related Keys,' having its world premiere at the Lounge Theatre.Julia, the protagonist of Wendy Gr…
Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman's 'Harmony,' about the Comedian Harmonists, returns retooled at the Ahmanson. The music is beautiful, but the rest is derivative and plays it too safe.A show …
At Walt Disney Concert Hall, the TchaikovskyFest received some starry theatrical enhancement Wednesday under the direction of actress Kate Burton.
Pulitzer Prize-winner Ayad Akhtar's latest drama ignites a clash of tradition and assimilation through superb acting but uneven structure.The conflict between tradition and assimilation has …
Kneehigh works its own stylized charm on 'Noël Coward's Brief Encounter' at the Wallis Annenberg Center.Some of you, upon hearing that "Brief Encounter" has been adapted to the stage, wil…
Director Barry Edelstein takes chances with a tricky Shakespeare text. The result — 'The Winter's Tale' at the Old Globe — is a happy ending all around.SAN DIEGO — The diff…
Backstage: Artistic director Barry Edelstein hopes to reshape the Old Globe's Summer Shakespeare Festival into a national center for the best in American Shakespeare. And he has the bona fid…
Theater Review: Chekhov's despair and dashed dreams have never been so hilarious as in Christopher Durang's giddy farce 'Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike.'Rarely has middle-aged despair o…
Former newspaper reporter Bernard Weinraub's heavy-handed 'Above the Fold' lacks balance, an element crucial in both journalism and the dramatic arts."Above the Fold," the title of former Ne…
Adam Guettel's music is the essence of 'The Light in the Piazza.' Performed by just five musicians, the score doesn't have Broadway heft. But director Kent Nicholson focuses in on the drama …
Laura Marks' play, concerning squatters in a foreclosed house, features plot points that defy common sense, and the production compounds the problem — though the characterizations most…
As a theater actor, Philip Seymour Hoffman commanded a pile-driving force. He didn’t start softly and build. He came out of the blocks in a fury and steadily ratcheted up to an apoplec…
Sarah Ruhl's 'Passion Play' at the Odyssey Theatre is a bit unwieldy and long, but boldly imaginative and ambitious.Right at the start of Sarah Ruhl's "Passion Play," now at the Odyssey Thea…
Octavio Solis' new play might get you thinking about a lot of 20th century writers, but the nightmarish 'Se Llama Cristina' — at Theatre @ Boston Court — can't speak for itself.I…
The skilled Shakespeare interpreter and film star Christopher Plummer roams a lifetime devoted to books in the elegant one-man stage show 'A Word or Two.'If you've ever said to yourself afte…
Critic's Notebook: For plays with a refreshing otherworldliness, there's nothing quite like the recent L.A. productions of 'The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart' and 'Penny Plain.'Playwrigh…
In 'I'll Go On,' Barry McGovern performs well chosen excerpts from three Samuel Beckett novels. He is a superb interpreter, but these morsels leave the listener wanting to taste more.Irish a…
Zoe Kazan's play, starring Aya Cash and Michael Weston at South Coast Repertory, wrestles honestly with the fiction of happy endings, but the dramatic stakes are small. "Trudy and Max in Lov…
Annette Bening performs Ruth Draper monologues, Ayad Akhtar premieres his next play and Taraji P. Henson stars in 'Above the Fold'The Times asked its reporters and critics to highlight figur…