‘Sex A.K.A.Wieners and Boobs’ is dumb fun

A few things worth knowing before you watch Sex a.k.a. Wieners and Boobs:
• Allow yourself at least a full hour at Bouchees Bistro beforehand. Those adorable mini-burgers are meant to be tenderly—lovingly—chewed, not mauled.
• Should you at any point consume a beverage during your meal (Fat Tire, $3; glass [...]

Warning: ‘Cabaret’ spoilers below. Keep reading!

PHOTO by SHASHIN DESAI
I AM GOING TO BE TALKING ABOUT THE ENDING OF CABARET. IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO KNOW THE ENDING OF CABARET, STOP READING! (Don’t stop reading!) AND ALSO, DON’T THINK THAT JUST BECAUSE YOU SAW THE BOB FOSSE FOSSTACULAR STARRING LIZA MINNELLI THAT YOU ALREADY KNOW [...]

‘Orpheus & Euridice’ swims into our hearts
It was the eau de chlorine that snapped me alert, as if someone had waved smelling salts under my nose and it was 1856. I settled into the bleachers at the Belmont Plaza Olympic Pool and prepared to be shaken and stirred.
Soon enough, a soprano joined a clarinet, climbing [...]

Go for the ballet, stay for the ballet

The dancers and actors of the Relevant Stage were still getting used to the rococo beauty of San Pedro’s Warner Grand Theatre when we stopped in to catch a rehearsal. Mostly, they were chattering (about the Oscar noms) and stretching, but one hugely muscled man was prancing: He [...]

Male comedy troupe Trockadero goes there

PHOTO by SASCHA VAUGHN
It’s understandable that anyone, well, me, would first think about the Harlem Globetrotters when learning that Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo—“Trocks” to their buds—is coming back to town. After all, the Trocks, who perform Feb. 7 and 8 at Cal State Long Beach’s Carpenter Center, and [...]

A ladylike solution to the irritatingly enjoyable ‘A Feminine Ending’
From the very first sentence of A Feminine Ending at South Coast Repertory, I wanted to sneak behind the lead, Brooke Bloom (last seen as Ophelia in SCR’s magnificent Hamlet), and give her a hard, nasty pinch on the back of the arm, right where it [...]

Garage’s annual holiday melodrama touches children inappropriately

Though nothing can touch what remains the undisputed, dizzying height of the Long Beach stage—Safe House’s 1998 kabuki Harold & Maude—the ultradoityourselfiness of the Garage Theatre’s fifth annual holiday melodrama (for kids!) Long Beach Is Sinking did touch me (inappropriately). With the fabulous villain, Amy Louise Sebelius, sneering in [...]

Long Beach Shakespeare Company deftly de-immortalizes a classic
There are several things disconcerting about the Long Beach Shakespeare Company’s adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon–that Sam Spade smokes Djarum cigarettes; that he wears cuffless pants; that he’s a blond. But none are so difficult to reconcile as the distance between the seminal 1941 film version [...]

Shipwrecked works because its actors do
South Coast Repertory’s production of Shipwrecked: An Entertainment, The Amazing Adventures of Louis De Rougemont (As Told By Himself) claims to be an examination of the nature of truth. Eh, not so much.Yes, Shipwrecked: An Entertainment, The Amazing Adventures of Louis De Rougemont (As Told By Himself) is about a [...]

International City Theatre delivers a modernized goddess

For a play that begins with a flitting dream-sequence dance between a lovesick Japanese schoolgirl in traditional kimono and a droning Greek love goddess in flowing robes, Calling Aphrodite is surprisingly down-to-earth, particularly after the atom bomb explodes.
Velina Hasu Houston’s new drama is inspired by the cruel irony of [...]