Critic's Corner

Theater Review: 'Moon Over Buffalo'

In her directorial debut, Drina Durazo keeps the action moving and the chemistry between the characters intense.

A farce without substance is like a tree without roots. Yet those are abundant. A farce on the rarer side now inhabits the Lonny Chapman Theatre and is produced by The Group Repertory in the NoHo Arts District through June 24. It is Ken Ludwig’s Moon Over Buffalo and it tickles the funny bone to the nth degree. It is the story of a struggling theatrical family that tries to keep its company alive by performing "hack versions of popular theater classics." When the actors find themselves in Buffalo unable to meet payroll and the announcement that the legendary film director Frank Capra is coming to check out the company is made, all hell breaks loose. The depth here resides beneath the surface in characters that are frustrated with their lot…

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Tolucan Talk

Best Places to Celebrate Mother's Day in Toluca Lake

The holiday dates back over a hundred years.

Mother's Day is a celebration of family, friends, and of course, glorious food. It's a holiday to take mom out of the kitchen and shower her with flowers, chocolates and homemade gifts. This year, Mother's Day falls on May 13. The holiday dates back over a hundred years. Anna Jarvis is credited with the creation of Mother's Day in 1908. The unmarried, childless woman, sought to honor her deceased mother by petitioning for a recognized holiday. The first official Mother's Day celebration took place on May 10, 1908, at Andrew's Methodist Church in Grafton, West Virginia, and a church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. By 1909, forty-six states were holding some form of Mother's Day celebration, recognizing it as a holiday even though it would be…

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Critic's Corner

Theater Review: 'The Square Root of Wonderful' at The Raven Playhouse

This play about Southern outcasts hits all the right notes.

When choosing a play as a production the choices are often not easy. But when a unique, seldom-produced piece is chosen by a company determined to make it work, magic can often be the result. Such is the case with the Collaborative Artists Ensemble’s staging of Carson McCullers’ The Square Root of Wonderful at the Raven Playhouse in the NoHo Arts District through May 27. This play about Southern outcasts hits all the right notes. It is human in its portrayal of pain and suffering, accurate in its understanding of the twisted fate of love and heartbreaking in its characterization of loss, misery and ruin. But McCullers sumptuous language and beautiful spirit somehow make this story soar. It is the tale of Mollie, a woman twice-divorced from…

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Theater Review: 'The Bridge Club' at Deaf West Theatre

At the heart of the play are the choices and decisions we make in our lives that sometimes force us to confront our mortality.

At the intersection of fiction and reality lies genius. Such genius is now on display in the Simon Productions’ staging of the West Coast Premiere of The Bridge Club at Deaf West Theatre in the NoHo Arts District through May 12. Revolving around the reputation and history that San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge has for suicide attempts, this story of a man in his late 30s and a mouthy young woman who meet on the bridge as they are planning to jump to their deaths straddles fantasy and contemporary psychology while operating as a metaphor for suffering and the courage to bear it. At the heart of the play are the choices and decisions we make in our lives that sometimes force us to confront our mortality. The people we take on or subtract …

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Watching the City Burn from the Rooftops—the L.A. Riots 20 Years Later

A personal remembrance of a low point of Los Angeles history.

We had a balcony seat to the Los Angeles Riots of 1992.  My housemate snaked a TV up to the second floor rooftop of the historic Craftsman in West Hollywood 20 years ago today and we watched—live all around us and on TV—our beloved Los Angeles burn. It was a weird bit of sensurround. Not only were we watching live TV, but helicopters swooped overhead, we heard gunshots in a distance, and we could smell the smoke. Within hours, we watched the plume of smoke get closer and closer, coming up LaBrea Avenue, and eventually skipping past Santa Monica and going north to Hollywood Boulevard. It did erupt into the Valley, but only in certain areas. Studio City was spared. Today, looking back, it amazes me more not that it happened, but how many …

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Review: Cloris Leachman Stars in Thriller Playing at NoHo Laemmle

'The Fields' is scheduled to play for one week in North Hollywood.

Cloris Leachman is a gem. She is fascinating and entertaining to watch no matter what she's doing, working on the Emmy-winning TV show Phyllis, or rediscovering her Oscar-winning performance in The Last Picture Show. (You may remember her funny appearance at a recent awards show I attended.) In The Fields, she's a cranky granny with a wise side who takes in her 8-year-old grandson Steven, played by the cute curly-haired Joshua Ormond. She keeps warning him, "Don't go into the corn." Of course, he's a kid, and he goes in.  This story is based on real events, taking place around the time of the Charles Manson Family murders in the 1970s. It shows how the grandmother and boy are affected by the true-life story and their love of actual horror …

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About Town

Missing Out On CicLAvia Is a Reminder of Bike-Friendly NoHo

I've had to ditch the massive L.A. bike- and pedestrian-friendly event the last few occasions, but my neighborhood proves to be just as good as any to walk or ride.

I can never get the timing quite right when CicLAvia rolls through.  Saturday family gatherings, forgetfulness, companions who are reluctant to exercise, friends without bikes – I’ve cited all of these as past excuses for missing L.A.’s biggest bike-friendly event. When nearly 100,000 Angelenos rode through 10 miles of car-free streets through downtown last weekend, I was again absent as I enjoyed an all-afternoon family get-together instead. Though CicLAvia and I can never seem to catch one another, the missed opportunity also serves as a reminder that North Hollywood is a perfectly good place to bike, closed streets or not. Chandler Boulevard, which stretches from Burbank to Van Nuys, has already made it easy for bicyclists to ride …

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About Town

The Candy Factory Hits A Sweet Spot in Valley Village

At this chocolate store, anything is possible with some creativity, candy and imagination. Oh yes, your sweet tooth will thank you, too.

The unexpected aroma of chocolate is the first thing I notice when I step into The Candy Factory.  I had imagined walls of sugary stations filled with jelly beans separated by color, gummies in a variety of animal shapes and other sweet treats. Instead, the walls are covered with hundreds of plastic molds in different designs: everything from romantic roses and rubber duckies, toys (Legos or handcuffs, depending on your sense of humor) and objects for nearly every holiday (Valentine’s Day, Easter, Hanukah). An electronic bell rings when walk through the door, and I’m happily greeted by Debi Hernandez.  “Have you been here before?” she asks. I tell her this is my first time in the store, despite living just down the street.  She gives me a …

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Danielle Directo-Meston

9:39 pm on Friday, April 13, 2012

I didn't even notice that. It's definitely very charming!   more ›

Theater Review: 'Lights Off, Eyes Closed' at T.U. Studios

Love can be a powerful aphrodisiac.

It is indeed rare to witness a compelling contemporary love story produced on a Los Angeles stage, notwithstanding one with courage, spirit and spine. Such is the case with Lights Off, Eyes Closed, the second production of The Sky Pilot Theatre Company’s 2012 season running through April 29 at T.U. Studios at 10943 Camarillo Street in the NoHo Arts District. After her mother’s sudden death, Jane finds herself in charge of finishing her mother’s last book. With a little help from the novel’s overly-passionate characters, and her mother’s ghost Jane must find a way to honor her mother’s dying wish to bring romance into her life. Love can be a powerful aphrodisiac. And the struggle to find it can be downright frightening and frustrating. The …

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