By Cynthia Citron LOS ANGELES – I discovered something very interesting when I interviewed poet-playwright Murray Mednick last week: If you want to get a provocative interview, start by making the subject angry. I begin by remarking, quite innocently, that I don’t understand his plays. Innocent, but terminally tactless. “You want me to explain my plays [...]
By Cynthia Citron BEVERLY HILLS, California — In my view, it’s cause for rejoicing when a play is beautifully written and is performed by actors who are at least as brilliant as the writing. Mostly because it doesn’t happen all that often. Two new shows demonstrate what I mean. Love Struck, which opened at the [...]
By Cynthia Citron LOS ANGELES — “A review is something I read before I see a play. A critique is something I read after,” actress Deidrie Henry said. She was responding to a question about the distinction between reviews and criticism posed by LA Stage Alliance CEO Terence McFarland, who was serving as moderator of a [...]
By Cynthia Citron LOS ANGELES– I can’t rave enough to adequately convey my excitement and admiration for the new adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac that opened this week at the Fountain Theatre. Written by Stephen Sachs and directed by Simon Levy, this brilliant Cyrano is performed by the extraordinary actors of the Deaf West Theatre. [...]
By Cynthia Citron SAN DIEGO — Hold on to your music. It will be your best friend.” This has been the Golabek family mantra for four generations of concert pianists. As pianist and playwright Mona Golabek settles on a sofa in a private meeting room outside the Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater, the intimate performance space [...]
By Cynthia Citron HOLLYWOOD, California –They weren’t projecting, they were SHOUTING! And even if they were better actors, the play would still be a lot of frivolous twaddle. It’s Early and Often, a play by Barbara Wallace and Thomas R. Wolfe, and directed by Ron West, that explores political morality in 1960s Chicago. And if [...]
By Cynthia Citron SAN DIEGO – Not since Mel Brooks’ outrageous Springtime for Hitler has there been a Holocaust musical as ill-conceived and badly performed as No Time to Weep, now onstage at L.A.’s Matrix Theater. No Time to Weep is the autobiography of a sweet, eternally upbeat Czech poet, Lucy Deutsch, who survived Auschwitz, came [...]
By Cynthia Citron SANTA MONICA, California — Unless you’re an aficionado of the ups and downs of the Russian Revolution of the early 20th century, it’s very hard to keep track of the players without a scorecard. Take the White Army. Anti-Communist, anti-Bolshevik, anti-Semitic, and loyal to the Russian Empire of the Tsar, they were [...]
By Cynthia Citron VENTURA, California–Most women, when faced with a diagnosis of lymphoma, might be overcome by despair. But Cheri Steinkellner turned the experience into a one-woman musical monologue that became part of the Inner Voices series that played Off-Broadway at Primary Stages in 2010. “The piece, called Mosaic, was a composite story—mine and a [...]
By Cynthia Citron LOS ANGELES — Those of us who voted for John Fitzgerald Kennedy in 1960 were fortunate enough to experience the exhilaration, the hope, and the joyful anticipation that his election brought to the nation. We watched with pride as this charismatic young man and his ethereally beautiful wife charmed the rest of [...]
