Fixed Attempts to Break Through Stereotypes.

By Patrick Hurley

In the ever-expanding canon of representational literature, where under-represented voices are, at long last, being heard, the theater scene is bristling with more and more stories about minorities from an internalized perspective. Fixed, the new play by Boni B. Alvarez, is another of these plays.

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New Musical “Upstairs” Offers a Familiar View of LGBTQ*

By Patrick Hurley

The new musical The View UpStairs, is making its West Coast premiere at Celebration Theatre. The musical which features book, music and lyrics by Max Vernon is a sort of nostalgic, slightly politicized and gaycentric piece that raises comparisons of violence toward the modern LGBTQ community and the early 1970s, where community was a much different word and idea.

Phylicia Rashad Is Something of a Miracle in Head of Passes

By Patrick Hurley

Faith, that ubiquitous and imperfect belief, wherein trust and confidence take the place of facts or proof, is placed into extreme focus in Tarell Alvin McCraney’s new play Head of Passes, playing now at the Mark Taper Forum.

Big Night = Big Disappointment

By Patrick Hurley

Sophomoric pedantry rises to dizzying new heights in Paul Rudnick’s slog-fest Big Night, which opened last night at The Kirk Douglas Theatre. It is an unfledged, didactic glob of far-left liberal moralizing—fortified with overwrought, yet undeveloped dialogue, spewed by posturing archetypes, so staggeringly far-fetched it’s almost impressive, and then the whole thing is vigorously dredged in puerile saccharine.

Formula Fuels A Funny Thing

By Patrick Hurley

A funny thing happens when derivative contrivance fuels a play’s engine; namely, compulsory catharsis drawn from formulaic content, wherein a distrait attempt to entwine pathos with dark humor simply can’t rise above its own prosaicisms because of the Rom-Com insistence of containing the whole thing as a neatly packaged, sugary-sweet trifle.

Indecision Reigns In Iphigenia

By Patrick Hurley

Iphigenia in Aulis, presented by the Getty Museum and Court Theatre, is playing now at the Getty Villa. The play is the last extant tragedy by Ancient Greek playwright Euripides, and was part of a tetralogy that also included Bacchae.