The Arts

  By Carol Davis ENCINITAS, California— The Turn of the Screw by Henry James appeared in Collier’s weekly magazine with a prologue followed by a twelve-part ghost story. Between January and April of 1898 it appeared as a serial and was later published in book version.  Then it was probably more frightening to read than […]

By Carol Davis CARLSBAD, California –When doing what you do best means bringing Sam Shepard back to your stages again and again, then Sam Shepard it is. Buried Child premiered at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco in 1978 and was directed by Robert Woodruff. It premiered in New York of that same year and

By Carol Davis ESCONDIDO, California —-Rita McKenzie has been called ‘bold and brassy’. ‘Dynamite’. Call her what you will, but there is no doubt that she embodies the voice, spirit and persona of the bold, brassy and dynamite Ethel Merman. Now, in a limited engagement at the Welk Resort Theatre in Escondido Ms. McKenzie will

By Carol Davis SAN DIEGO–T.C. Boyle’s best selling novel Tortilla Curtain has been adapted to stage by Matthew Spangler (he adapted the popular novel The Kite Runner into a stage play) and the San Diego Repertory Theatre is giving it its first airing.  Now in a ninety-minute long (It seemed much longer to this viewer)

By Carol Davis VISTA, California — James Sherman’s 1989 family comedy “Beau Jest” closes out the winter season at Moonlight’s indoor theatre, The Avo. It is just what the doctor ordered for a-laugh-a minute Jewish infused play sprinkled with a bit of good old-fashioned ‘common sense’ (if you will) and a cast up to the

By Carol Davis SAN DIEGO — Can you imagine being kidnapped by robots? No? Neither can I. Because from the looks of things in playwright Elizabeth Meriwether’s off the wall play Heddatron, a San Diego premiere, the five robots twirling about the stage at ion Theatre Company just don’t listen to reason. Well, why would

By Carol Davis SAN DIEGO — The first things noticeable when entering the White Theatre at The Old Globe are the nautical accoutrements (Wilson Chin) of heavy ropes defining sections of Johnny-Priest’s Saloon, wooden planks of floor, heavy beams both stumped and tall, lots of coiled ropes, dim yellow lighting (Austin R. Smith), fog and

By Carol Davis SAN DIEGO — In 1998 the Alfred Uhry (book) Jason Robert Brown (music and lyrics) musical drama Parade closed shortly after it opened at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theatre. Lincoln Center co produced the show with the Canadian producing company Livent, Inc. One doesn’t usually associate politics with theatre but politics rears

By Carol Davis SAN DIEGO — The novel A Room With A View by E.M. Forster is a charming period piece that takes place in the early 1900’s. It was published in 1908 as England was on the cusp of sloughing off the repressive Victorian attitudes and readying itself toward more flexible and relaxed attitudes

By Carol Davis SAN DIEGO–Two men play twenty-one characters in Amlin Gray’s How I Got That Story. No easy fete this. But war is hell and sometimes the absurdities of war need to be funneled into this type of environment where everything is turned upside down and the only way to relive it is through

By Carol Davis SAN DIEGO— Diversionary Theatre announced that it has invited a rabbi, a pastor and a humanist to host a panel to discuss how family and faith ‘shape our lives and our relationships’. It’s all in conjunction with its current offering, Geoffrey Naufft’s Next Fall, a poignant, contemporary and funny play about being

  By Carol Davis SOLANA BEACH, California—Mr. Green (Robert Grossman) is an 86-year-old widower who clings to his Jewish values and beliefs. He is angry, unpleasant, stubborn, worn out and alone. He and his wife Yetta were married 59 years. “We almost made it to sixty and never had and argument”. But she died a

By Carol Davis LA JOLLA, California– When my family was young and we used to pile into the car for any number of our family excursions, I never dreamed some of them would come back to haunt me. Recently, I attended Moving Arts The Car Plays: San Diego, a concept developed and conceived by Paul Stein.