[contextly_auto_sidebar id="qToyX6SJ454AKU5ZAPxUoStd2PThtZQi"] THE high cost of culture is an important topic these days; steep ticket prices keep a broad swath of the nation away from visual art, classical music, historic architecture and, often, theater. I once spoke to playwright Donald Margulies (Sight Unseen, Dinner With Friends) about his parents – who I take to be lower middle-class … [Read more...]
Tom Stoppard and "Parade’s End"
THIS week on HBO, Americans can catch up with a literary adaptation that hit hard in the UK last year: Parade's End. Godlike playwright Tom Stoppard adapted this series of four short novels by the underrated Ford Madox Ford -- published in the '20s and set around World War I.Yours truly had a story today on the miniseries and the process of adapting a very long and difficult text. It meant, among … [Read more...]
Richard Thompson’s "Cabaret of Souls"
HIS tunes are famously dark. But anyone who's paid attention to Richard Thompson's between-song banter, or seen his semi-comic 1000 Years of Popular Music, know how funny the guy can be. (He was beaten only by Hendrix for The Misread City's poll of favorite guitarist.)So we wasted no time checking out his Cabaret of Souls, a theatrical staging of the Underworld that is sort of an oratorio, sort of … [Read more...]
Remembering Rodney King
IT'S not often that a theater performance stops me cold. But last week's Rodney King, a one-man-show by Roger Guenveur Smith at the Bootleg Theater left me both impressed and a little shaken up at the very least.When I moved to LA in 1997, the city seemed like a sunny, youthful, high-spirited place after a few years in New England. But underneath the good times, there was a sense that I was living … [Read more...]
The Roots of a Theater Company
THIS week my Influences column looked at Ellen Geer, who runs the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum. For those many miles from the wilds of Topanga Canyon: This is a theater company, in a very rustic setting, founded by her father, blacklisted actor Will Geer, known to many as Grandpa Walton.William Holman Hunt paintinginspired by "Measure for Measure"Ellen Geer spoke to me about her family's … [Read more...]
Elaine Stritch and Her Inspirations
EVERY two weeks, I speak to a performer coming to town and ask them about their influences, figures who drove them into a life in the arts or helped shape what they do. But my latest subject -- Broadway's tough dame Elaine Stritch -- was having none of it.Here is my latest Influences column, which I nearly had to rename.She was also surprised to note that despite the success of her Elaine Stritch … [Read more...]
Playwright Donald Margulies in the Southland
RECENTLY, I had the good fortune to spent part of the day strolling through the Orange County Museum of Art's Richard Diebenkorn exhibit. This enchanting show of the California painter's Ocean Park paintings was even better because I took it in with a trained painter who could point out what I might have overlooked. That this former artist was the New York/New Haven playwright Donald Margulies … [Read more...]
The Roots of Stew
Talented as he is, he's become one of Los Angeles's least likely success stories: A hipster cult figure, the toast of Silverlake and Highland Park, who moves to New York and suddenly hits, with a Broadway show and a Spike Lee film. But Stew has always been unpredictable.In today's paper, I spoke to Stew about the figures who've inspired him from outside the familiar pop and rock worlds. He came up … [Read more...]
Remembering Spalding Gray
THERE'S a new collection of journals by the great actor and storyteller Spalding Gray, with a tribute event tonight at the Laemmle Sunset 5. (More detail here.)Soon after Gray's 2004 disappearance -- it was eventually deemed a suicide -- I spoke to several theater and performance figures who walk in Gray's footsteps. I wrote:With his mix of despair, humor, preppy shirts and New England dryness, he … [Read more...]
The Roots of Christine Ebersole
YOU'VE got to be in awe of an actress who can portray both Little Edie and Big Edie from Grey Gardens. Winning a Tony for the feat is not likely easy, either.I spoke recently to Christine Ebersole, the actress and singer who's done everything from Tootsie to Saturday Night Live to Noel Coward. That piece, part of my Influences series for the LA Times Culture Monster page, is here.I should not … [Read more...]