Review

IF YOU DON'T KNOW, I'M NOT GOING TO TELL YOU

Theater of NOTE's late-night show consists of 10 one-act plays, each no longer than five minutes. You'd think five minutes is not nearly long enough to say anything interesting or meaningful. Yet each of the 10 writers packs an amazing amount of dynamic theatricality into a comparatively small ...

HONKIES WITH ATTITUDE

While playwright Matt Pelfrey's work, including his fine one-act, Monkey, never shirks from controversial social topics, it usually comes with a heavy dose of irony, which mitigates the author's earnestness. Unfortunately, Pelfrey's latest play, under the direction of Darrell Kunitomi, loses much of this ironic tone. The ...

Critic's Picks

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA• Big River, presented by and at Deaf West Theatre, 5112 Lankershim Blvd., N. Hollywood. Thurs.-Sat. 8 p.m., Sat. 2 p.m., Sun.

DOREEN GRAY— A HOLLYWOOD STORY

This may be one of the most deliciously embarrassing things I've witnessed for quite some time, mortifying in both the watching and the perpetration. The script, by Brad Kahn and Jacqueline Stewart, purports to be an admittedly loose spin on the Oscar Wilde tale of the debaucher who remains ...

Seattle Shakes

There is so much of the Bard on the boards—and more to come—that you'd think the companies in the Puget Sound region had planned a season saluting Shakespeare. At the moment, there are two productions of The Merry Wives of Windsor afoot—one in Seattle, the other ...

Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights

Presented as part of the New York International Fringe Festival at the Paradise Theater, 64 E. Fourth St., NYC, Aug. 10-26.

LENNY'S BACK

Lenny Bruce was not only one of the great standup storytellers, he was also one of the first to take the stage without a planned routine and push the boundaries of comedy as far as he could take them. Charged with the energy of the unfamiliar audience and the performance ...

THE LONG CHRISTMAS DINNER and THE SANTALAND DIARIES

The Sacred Fools' Christmas double-bill offers something sort of foolish and something sort of sacred. In the end, sacred wins out. The foolish is David Sedaris' sardonic solo radio play, The SantaLand Diaries, adapted for the stage by Joe Mantello into what is essentially an overlong, mean-spirited standup routine. The ...

THE FAIRY TALE ENGINEERS

Be careful what you wish for, goes the old saying; you just might get it. But then again, maybe you'll get something entirely different. In Brian Howrey's surrealistic comedy, it's often unclear what sphere we're in—reality vs. fantasy, past vs. present, conscious vs. subconscious, death ...