Da
Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts - Mertz Theater

 Autobiographical "memory plays" weren't all that common when Hugh Leonard wrote his about his father and their relationship. Neither was the device of a mature person interacting with a remembered younger self. Now, however, Da's use of these dramatic devices seems less fresh, more contrived. Not that V Craig Heidenreich lacks conviction as successful Irish playwright Charlie, back from his English home to his childhood one, where he's just buried his Da but can't shake his presence.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
January 2002
Daddy's Dyin'...Who's Got The Will?
Poway Performing Arts Company

 Entering Poway Performing Arts Company's home, it's apparent this will be a different kind of theater experience. Mounted animal heads, antlers, Texas memorabilia, and much more adorn the walls and lobby. A second clue of things to come is the pre-show music. It's been a long time since I've seen an audience listening and reacting to pre-show and between-scene music. Sound Designer Lou Alliano's selection of country tunes enhance the jocular mood of the evening. The John Ivey set, dressed by Camel, Inc., has the perfect feel of a large country farmhouse.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
October 2001
Daddy's Dyin'...Who's Got The Will?
Sunshine Brooks Theater

 Texas playwright Del Shores' Daddy's Dyin' Who's Got The Will? is set on the Turnover Ranch outside of Lowake, Texas (pop. 40) in 1986. Daddy is about to come home from the hospital to die is his own bed. Daddy, Buford Turnover, is played by Kirk Duncan. Buford is being wasted by dementia. He watches imaginary television, talks to imaginary people, and plays imaginary games. His moments of clarity are limited. The power is held by Mama Wheelis (Dovey Goral). Goral handles her role with ease, being completely convincing in her character's ability to handle sibling rivalry.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
September 2006
Dame Edna: The Royal Tour
Shubert Theater

Possums, please know that Dame Edna Everage has checked into "the tucked-away Shooooobert Theatre" for a two-week stay that everyone can enjoy, even the "cheapskates" (better known as "Les Miserables," or Les mizzies) up in the second balcony. Edna, who began life forty years ago as a Melbourne working-class woman (in a gallery of impersonations by then unknown actor/writer Humphries) has worked her way up the social scale to her present status as self-anointed royalty, hobnobbing with the likes of the Queen Mother.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
May 2001
Dames At Sea
Lamplighters Community Theater

Some shows, like Dames At Sea, can only be described as joyous. The George Haimsohn and Robin Miller musical, with Jim Wise's music, began as a short piece in 1962 at the Cafe Cino in New York City. It starred a 17-year-old newbie, Bernadette Peters. The creators were determined to fashion a big musical with only nine actors and succeeded admirably.

Dames At Sea is an affectionate spoof on the Hollywood musicals of the 30s.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
July 2006
Dames At Sea
Downtown Cabaret Theater

The Downtown Cabaret is presenting Dames At Sea, a 1930s spoofy musical with book & lyrics by George Haimsohn & Robin Miller and music by Jim Wise. It is billed as "a salute to a time when dance was all tap, all scenery silver and the only Berkeley we cared about was Busby." Trouble is that this is a second-rate musical; there's not a song among the 16 pleasant ditties that really captivates.

Rosalind Friedman
Date Reviewed:
March 2000
Damn Yankees
Golden Apple Dinner Theater

 Helluva good show! Who wouldn't be tempted to fall for slick Faustian Gary Marachek, with his bewitching grin, and hope he wins a mid-1950s world series away from the Bronx Bombers? Certainly not the Washington Senators' biggest fan, middle-aged Joe Boyd (portly John F. Roberson, fitting his part like a well-worn glove)! A melodious "Six Months Out of Every Year" his lovely wife Meg (glorious soprano Melliss Kenworthy) can't pry him away from his rabbit-eared TV set. Still, he insists on an escape clause when he contracts with devilish Applegate to sell his soul to help D.C.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
January 2003
Damn Yankees
Walnut Street Theater

 Damn Yankees is a 1955 musical with a great premise and two spectacular roles, but, let's face it, the show has flaws. It is slow-moving, and the minor players are stick figures with corny dialogue. The most interesting character, Lola, appears to have been an afterthought. This quintessential Bad Girl doesn't show up until the latter half of Act One, at which time Gwen Verdon, in the original production, stole the show.

Steve Cohen
Date Reviewed:
May 2002
Damn Yankees
Kennedy Center

 I have never been a fan of Jerry Lewis, but as Applegate in Damn Yankees, he gives a devil of a performance. On opening night at the Kennedy Center, the audience gave him his due - a cheering, standing ovation. As with legend Carol Channing in Hello, Dolly!, this was as much a tribute to the grit and determination of the artist (starring in his first Broadway role at the age of 70) as to his talent.

Barbara Gross
Date Reviewed:
December 1996
Dancing at Lughnasa
OnStage Playhouse

 Last night I was fortunate to observe the Mundy sisters and their older missionary brother Jack, recently returned from 25 years in Uganda. Their small house and garden in Northern Ireland is a typical example of homes I've visited in that country. This magic of transforming OnStage's stage into a wee bit of the ole sod is the result of the deft hand and eye of designer Brenda Leake. It is so authentic; I knew it would take a tremendous cast to shine as brightly.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
March 2006
Danny And Sylvia
American Century Theater

 Every celebrity should be so lucky as to have his biography written if not by his mother, then by his publicist. Danny Kaye, entertainer extraordinaire, lucks out in "Danny and Sylvia: A Musical Love Story," with lyrics provided by Bob McElwaine, who between 1953-59 served as Kaye's personal manager, confidante and publicist. (McElwaine's previous theatrical credits include a commission to musicalize Herman Wouk's "Marjorie Morningstar," which effort was subsequently vetoed for production by the novelist.

Barbara Gross
Date Reviewed:
September 2001
Danny and the Deep Blue Sea
Bath House Cultural Center

WingSpan Theater Company opened Danny and the Deep Blue Sea on October 27, 2005 at the Bath House Cultural Center. It is a mediocre early effort by John Patrick Shanley who went on five years later to win the Oscar in 1988 for his original screenplay of "Moonstruck."

First performed as a staged reading in 1983 at the National Playwrights Conference at the O'Neill Center, the play received its professional debut in February 1984 at Actors Theater of Louisville and moved to Circle in the Square in New York on June 6, 1984.

Rita Faye Smith
Date Reviewed:
November 2005
Dark Play Or Stories for Boys
Actors Theater of Louisville

Fourteen-year-old Nick (Matthew Stadelmann) in Carlos Murillo's stunning Dark Play, Or Stories for Boys, the second offering in this year's Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theater of Louisville, believes he can wriggle out of any sticky situation that arises from his Internet addiction. That's because he has "the dexterity of a sharp-thinking, comic-book hero," he boasts. But the online stories he concocts to manipulate the lives of others and satisfy his burgeoning sexual appetite lead him into dark and dangerous territory.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
March 2007
Darker Face Of The Earth, The
American Renegade Theater

 Rita Dove, who won a Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1987, is a gutsy writer who is unafraid to tackle the Oedipus myth, slavery, miscegenation and folk song all in one fell swoop. Working on a big canvas -- an 1820s plantation replete with swamps, cotton fields and nineteen characters -- Dove struggles to bring her impassioned but flawed text under control. She is at her strongest when dealing with African-American speech and song (eight spirituals are sung, movingly, by the plantation slaves), at her weakest in making the Oedipal love affair work in consistently believable fashion.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
August 2000
Darwin in Malibu
FSU Center for the Performing Arts - Mertz Theater

 Except for huge sounds of waves, the flowery bamboo-furniture-filled beach house in Darwin in Malibu has the peaceful solitude conducive to Charles Darwin's reading. It's a novel as sexy as the young girl, Sarah, in cut-offs, serving him banana milk shakes. She (a langorous Leigh Ann Wolf) herself has been reading what he calls a "dangerous thing," a diary that makes her recall a boyfriend having a hot night with a "bitch" not far away in Bakersfield. Darwin (way-too-detached Stephen Temperley) would rather she didn't obsess about the "truth" in the diary.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
May 2007
Das Barbecu
WaterTower Theater

 Das Barbecu, with book and lyrics by Jim Luigs and music by Scott Warrender, opened July 25, 2003 at the WaterTower Theatre in Addison, Texas. It represents one of their most egregious squandering of talent to date. Warrender's wonderful music is far better than Luigs' sophomoric script deserves.

Rita Faye Smith
Date Reviewed:
August 2003
Day After Yesterday, The
North Park Vaudeville

 In physics we learn that the fourth dimension is time and that it is a constant linear function. In the works of Einstein we learn that it is relative. In quantum physics we learn it may not even be linear, what with the possibility of parallel universes. From playwright Kristina Meek, in her The Day After Yesterday, we learn the potential effect of non-linear, non-constant, parallel universe time on the life of one very perceptive young lady.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
August 2005
Joe Egg

(See reviews under "Day in the Death of Joe Egg, A")

Dead Monkey, The
Woolly Mammoth Theater

 How the fur flies in Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company's reprise of Nick Darke's The Dead Monkey. Belligerent, lumbering Hank (David Marks) and wiry, talkative Dolores (Sarah Marshall) live in an idyllic California beach shack, envisioned by English playwright Darke years before he visited America in 1989 to attend the American premiere at Woolly Mammoth. (David Soul starred in the 1986 London premiere by the Royal Shakespeare Company, directed by Brennan Street.) Darke's views of American life, as obtained through the media help create a skewed reality for the aging surfers.

Barbara Gross
Date Reviewed:
September 1999
Dear Esther
Off-Broadway Theater

 A young girl's long and torturous journey toward freedom is outlined in chilling detail in Dear Esther. The play opens Next Act Theater's 15th anniversary season, and it showcases how far this company has come over the years. The sensitive retelling of this true-life story is due mainly to artistic director David Cecsarini, who captures the main character's spitfire determination as well as her compassion. As the audience soon learns, both qualities are needed for a young Jewish girl to survive a Polish death camp called Sobibor.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
September 2004
Dearly Departed
Westminster Theater

 In 1991 two Kentucky-born actors co-wrote Vanguard's current production, Dearly Departed, playing at the Westminster Theater. This piece of charmingly funny rural humor has been called "drop dead funny" -- an amusing pun.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
April 2006
Death And The Maiden
La Jolla Stage

What is it like to live under a repressive government? What are the long term effects of torture and rape? What would you do when face-to-face with your persecutor? Would you call for justice or vengeance or . . .?

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
January 2002
Death By Chocolate
Derby Dinner Playhouse

 Death By Chocolate, Derby Dinner Playhouse's dumbed down, current offering, recalls those simple-minded corny senior plays that small town and rural high schools used to do. Surely they are choosing better things these days. This comedy/mystery, set on the eve of the reopening of a posh health resort in Pennsylvania's Poconos Mountains following the supposed suicide of its previous owner, is loud, frantic, and agonizingly unfunny as it hammers home every cliche of the genre.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
January 2001
Death Defying Acts
Martin Experimental Theater at Kentucky Center for the Arts

 This triptych of comedies by Elaine May, David Mamet, and Woody Allen while enjoyable throughout saves the best for last: Allen's wildly funny Central Park West. Under Dennis Stilger's smartly-paced direction, Allen's neurotic, angst-ridden Manhattanites are hilariously observed as they navigate through their adulterous affairs that come to light. Allen's witty one-liners and put-downs keep an audience howling. Allen himself, in the guise of nerdy Howard (Tom Schulz), almost seems to be up there on stage.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
January 2002
Death Of A Salesman
Ahmanson Theater

 After successful runs in Chicago and New York, this production of the Arthur Miller classic comes to L.A. in taut, polished shape. The actors have invested themselves deeply in their roles and work with assurance, backed up by elaborate production values -- revolving stages, tricky lighting, cubistic set -- and a director working at full strength. Strength is probably the operative word in this contemporary interpretation of the play, with Brian Dennehy delivering a big, loud Willy and Elizabeth Franz a vigorous, angry Linda.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
September 2000
Death Of A Salesman
Raven Theater

 So much attention has been paid to Willy Loman as Tragic Hero, we often forget that he is, as the play's title states, a salesman -- kin to the cynical shysters of Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross and the butt of countless jokes trading on his ancestral stereotypes. Tom Higgins' Willy is a salesman first, however; a gladhander brimming with bluster and bonhommie. He exhorts his two sons (sensitively played by John Gaynor and Brian McCaskill) to live by his code of bluff and braggadocio: "Personality always wins the day," while secretly sneering at his gentle brother, Charley.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
October 1995
Deathtrap
Performing Arts Theater of the Handicapped

 PATH (Performing Arts Theater of the Handicapped) takes up the challenge of playwright Ira Levin's Deathtrap. They handle the complex mix of comedy and murderous plot twists with aplomb. In Deathtrap, playwright Sydney Bruhl, portrayed by Gary Zupkas, has an epidemic-sized case of writer's block. His last plays have been major bombs. A former student has submitted an excellently-crafted play. His wife, Myra, played by Karen McDaniel-Kopicki, conspires with him to murder the young playwright and steal his work. Deathtrap is a spoof on writing murder mysteries.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
November 2000
Deathtrap
OnStage Playhouse

 Ira Levin's Deathtrap is a perennial favorite of theater audiences as well as a delightful film. OnStage Playhouse is currently running the production to appreciative audiences.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
January 2003
Deathtrap
North Park Vaudeville

 I visited an old friend last night: Ira Levin's Deathtrap, which is the current offering at North Park Vaudeville and Candy Shop. This is a playwright's play, i.e., a play about a play about... Director Terie Trenchard obviously had fun staging this piece.

Once-successful playwright Sidney Bruhl, Jonathan Wexler, is long on intrigue and short on new ideas. He enlists Clifford Anderson, Nick Louie, whom Bruhl recently met after one of his talks to new playwrights, to work with him. Simple. Straightforward. Well, not quite.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
September 2007
Debbie Does Dallas
Fifty Foot Penguin Theater

 What do you get when you take a porn classic, take out the nudity, and add music? Good campy fun.

David Steinhardt
Date Reviewed:
October 2005
Deception, The
La Jolla Playhouse - Mandell Weiss Forum

 In 2005 I raved about Steven Epps' and Dominique Serrand's interpretation of Moliere's The Miser. Their current collaboration, The Deception, is based on 18th century writer Pierre Marivaux's La Fausse Suivante, which has been freely translated as, The False Servant or Companion or Follower or Confidante. All are equally fitting. However, their choice of "The Deception" is certainly most appropriate.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
July 2007
Defending The Caveman
Pantages Theater

 I watched Rob Becker's 90-minute stand-up routine about the differences between men and women -- especially husbands and wives -- with constantly conflicting emotions. One moment my inner voice said, "How familiar, how old hat," the next it shut up and I found myself laughing. Never uproariously, never out of some kind of shock of recognition as at early Lenny Bruce / Richard Pryor. Becker isn't that bold or original; his cutting-edge is about as keen as a butter knife.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
October 1999
Delicate Balance, A
Milwaukee Repertory Theater - Stiemke Theater

 A shoo-in for any Milwaukee critic's Top 10 list is the current Milwaukee Repertory Theater production of Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance. In a production that borders on perfection, director Edward Morgan slices through the gauze of a seemingly well-ordered suburban lifestyle. Though the play won a Pulitzer Prize in 1966, it remains remarkably fresh and funny. (Clearly, Albee was ahead of his time.)

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
September 2002
Deporting the Divas
Diversionary Theater

Marge, a woman who obviously rules the local social scene, pushes her way through a row of patrons, down the center aisle, and takes full command of the stage. The stage is hidden by sheer white satiny cloth, a not-quite-opaque "show curtain." This is definitely a woman you do not want to tangle with -- ever!
Thus, she sets the style for Guillermo Reyes' Deporting The Divas at Diversionary Theater. The forth wall is broken and far beyond repair. Marge is pompously played by Jason Waller, who is also responsible for four other characters.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
April 2003
Description Beggared
Actors Theater of Louisville

 Sitting through Mac Wellman's pedantically titled Description Beggared; or the Allegory of WHITENESS, (the caps and punctuation are his) commissioned by Actors Theatre of Louisville for this year's Humana Festival of New American Plays, is a trying experience. Trying to make sense of it, to figure out what is going on and why, yields slim results. Yet the play's visual and verbal effects are striking, even as they confound us.

Charles Whaley
Date Reviewed:
March 2001
Description Beggared
Children's Theater of Charlotte - Black Box

 Mac Wellman has been an Off-Broadway mainstay for 20 years, producing a steady stream of poetic plays that joyously joust with language, impishly flirt with American mass culture, and triumphantly elude all meaning. Description Beggared, currently running in the cozy Black Box studio theater in the catacombs of Children's Theater, is wedded to songs composed by longtime musical accomplice Michael Roth. Or it was -- until the young banshees of the Farm Theater Company got hold of it.

Perry Tannenbaum
Date Reviewed:
August 2003
Desdemona
Main Street Playhouse

 Here, through the imagination of playwright Paula Vogel, is what Shakespeare didn't show us in Othello: Desdemona, the doomed wife of the Moor general; Emilia, the equally doomed wife of the lethally conniving Iago; and Bianca, the courtesan with a thing for the pawn Cassio, dishing and dissing the men in their lives. In this telling, they've had way more men than Shakespeare ever let on. Here, though, the deceit and treachery the women visit on each other are center stage.

Julie Calsi
Date Reviewed:
July 2005
Desire Under the Elms
Cygnet Theater

 Desire under the Elms is definitely not for the weak of heart. Eugene O'Neill's story is placed in a remote New England farm. Ephraim Cabot (Jim Chovick), 70-something, brings his much younger bride, Abbie (Jessica John), home to meet his family of three boys. Youngest son, Eben (Francis Gercke), steals Ephraim's rainy-day money to stake older brothers Peter and Simon (John Garcia and Craig Huisenga) for their quest to California. Eben is determined to hate Abbie, but the young man ends up lusting for her.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
May 2007
Devil Dog Six
Lyceum Space

 Devon Tramore (Jo Anne Glover) is one of the first female jockeys, a winning jockey, but horse owners think she's just a fluke. She has won on Devil Dog Six, but when the big race comes, it is a male jockey in the saddle – even though the previous Preakness had been won with a female astride.

Robert Hitchcox
Date Reviewed:
June 2007
Pride and Prejudice
Geva Theater Center - Mainstage

There doesn't seem to be a great need for another new stage version of Jane Austin's most beloved novel, but Geva's Pride and Prejudice is a handsome, well-produced and smartly repackaged one, and Austen's period romances seem to be oddly in vogue now that they seem entirely foreign to our society. They are, of course, women's novels, entirely concerned with who should marry whom and what each should wear and the glories of moving up in a rigidly class-conscious society.

Herbert Simpson
Date Reviewed:
June 2008

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