23 stories by "Welton Jones"
World Premiere of a potential Broadway show
Fables are fun in the theatre, where the sharing of a simple story told with intimate direct address creates a delicious sense of belonging to an ancient race with basic truths that don&rsqu…
Eugene O’Neill is the artist who first forced the world to confront the American Theatre. Almost alone in the early 20th Century, he chose the largest themes life could offer and wrest…
Musical theatre offers the nuance of music and lyrics in trade for the subtleties of the written word when dealing with a stylish classic like E.M. Forster’s A ROOM WITH A VIEW.
Usuall…
In Lisa Kron’s excellent play IN THE WAKE, now being marvelously presented by the San Diego Rep in their Lyceum Space, everybody is eloquent and everybody suffers.
This is chewy theat…
”Visiting Mr. Green” is a Yiddisher bon-bon, perfect as a recommendation for elderly Jewish relatives interested in a night out.
Really, really elderly. Because things have chang…
GUYS AND DOLLS, one of the mere handful of genuine masterpieces in the American musical theatre, is getting a sturdy, likeable but somewhat bloodless production by the Lamb’s Players. …
THE RECCOMENDATION is a young man’s play,
frantic with jagged urgency over choosing the right next step from the options tumbling past so swiftly. But it is we old men, who understand …
I thought we might be finally done with those tragic Old-South epics of the Civil War legacy. The dilapidated plantations, once-proud families, the ruined gallantry, the uncomfortable racial…
Not a bad premise for a little Christmas musical: What ultimately happens to O’Henry’s loving young couple from “The Gift of the Magi,” the story where she sells her …
Any doubts that JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR is a genuine modern musical masterpiece should be banished forever by the splendid production in residence at the La Jolla Playhouse through December.
…
SOMEWHERE, now in its world premiere on the Old Globe’s White Theatre stage, is a play with a choreographer but no musical director. And its five actors offer some of the best theatre …
THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW is still a triumph of form over content. The story is piffle; the presentation is all. What’s surprising is how well the thing works, 40 years later.
It was titil…
TRYING, now at the Lamb’s Players Theatre in Coronado, is one of those rueful, wintry dramas of the great man living out his last days. The end is inevitable; the only question is will…
Word association: What is the first word you think of when someone says...Shaw? The answer may well be “words.”
Or as Eliza Doolittle says/sings in PYGMALION/MY FAIR LADY, &ldquo…
It’s the kind of idea that blooms late in a brainstorm session and then just never goes away until it becomes reality.
”How about a musical dealing with sleep disorders and featu…
The big question hanging over a stage adaptation of a beloved film fantasy is what happens to the piece when it’s transferred from one type of magic to another.
Millions of fans, inclu…
The moment that defines any staging of MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING is Beatrice’s command in Scene 1, Act IV, when Benedict begs her to choose a service he can perform to prove his love: &ld…
Adrian Nobel is a splendid leader, able to lift a company to new levels of confident achievement, but he works best as a collaborator. Especially with Shakespeare.
His staging of KING LEAR f…
Prospero, after all, is only human. He’s spent 12 years exiled on an isolated island, perfecting his magic, driven by revenge fantasies, sure than he will eventually snare those who wr…
Outside, the corn maybe as high as an elephant’s eye, but inside the cluttered old Weston mansion is an Oklahoma far from Rodgers and Hammerstein, lurching toward a climax that may pur…
The English dramatist Alan Ayckbourn has now written 75 plays! Not counting, it says here, the one-acts, revue turns and kids’ shows!
With the American premiere of his 74th play &ndash…
Nothing like ethnic for that warm family feeling, where the generations squabble and the changes wrench, right up to the group hug of togetherness at the finale. The Jews, the Irish, he Ital…
