Word: playwrighting
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...especially talented cast is the main attraction of this production. As the hilariously affected Natasha Navratilova, Janine Poreba is a marvelous Russian femme fatale. Her performance is just overdone enough to maintain the farcical edge, never lapsing into cliched corn. Chip Rossetti gives a pat, almost smug performance as playwright Sandor Turai. Turai is almost a straight parody of the Author in Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of the Character and while studied, Rossetti is more than amusing enough to keep us engaged...
...three roles have a taint of cliche: petty crook, idiot savant and mobster. What saves Orphans itself from cliche is the level of emotion that is maintained throughout. Playwright Lyle Kessler builds momentum nicely by shifting alliances and unearthing painful memories within this throwntogether family. A satisfyingly dramatic ending allows the two brothers to acknowledge the pain of their lives...
...Student playwright and co-director Michael Sonnenschein blends quirky characters, a complex plot and skillful direction in Happy Part, a tale of life, love and bowling. Bowling? Is this a subject for high drama? Well, not exactly. But Sonnenschein's dark comedy about frustrated aspirations in Tulsa, Oklahoma provides amusement and even a bit of truth in its own offbeat...
Josephine Hart wrote her best seller in a style that deserves to be called high Harlequin. Irons and Binoche get into this spirit with their scenes of sexual gymnastics, some of which stretch the laws of physics. But playwright David Hare (Plenty) is more interested in the contortions decent people put themselves through to follow their obsessions while maintaining decorum. Irons has wonderful command of that flummoxed look that seizes the spirit of powerful men who can't understand how they lost control of their life. And Binoche has the lure of mystery in her fine features; she is every...
Philip Kan Gotanda, a well-known Japanese-American playwright, writes that the prejudice Asian-Americans face is more subtle than that facing Blacks and Latinos. Particularly now, he said in a recent interview in the Los Angeles Times, Asian-Americans are left out of the mainstream culture. They are in a "double bind" where they are cast as "'insidious' at the same time there's this feeling of knowing them. You get the worst of both worlds...