C.L. Alexander
Theatre Reviewer C.L. Alexander
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Theatre Review: “Taking Leave”
By C.L. ALEXANDER So . . . let’s make something very, very clear right up front about “Taking Leave,” a comedy by the award-winning playwright Nagle Jackson directed by the amazing Anet Carlin, currently onstage at San Luis Obispo Little Theatre. It’s a comedy. It’s a satisfying breadbasket brimming with chunks of live – and […]... (Continue Reading)
Theatre Review: Looking for “Love” at the Melodrama
By C.L. ALEXANDER So . . . the time is ‘nigh on one hundred years ago, the setting is a lumber camp deep in the woods of the upper Midwest, and four lonely lumberjacks seeking solace in music are tossing a coin to see which one of them has to take the female part as […]... (Continue Reading)
Theatre Review: PCPA’s “Macbeth” Is a Must-See
By C.L. ALEXANDER So . . . many a live production aims to shower its audience with wondrous sights and sounds, but few directors prove capable of shaping the resulting barrage into a fluent, coherent and fascinating theatrical experience. In the case of Macbeth, currently playing at PCPA Theaterfest in Santa Maria, director Patricia M. […]... (Continue Reading)
Theatre Review: “I Hate Hamlet” and Vaudeville Revue are delightful and distracting
By C.L. ALEXANDER So . . . the current playbill at The Great American Melodrama in Oceano is stuffed to overflowing with something we all need more of in the midst of economic, political and personal woes: diversion. It is truly not possible to attend to dire thoughts of your mortgage or your mother-in-law when […]... (Continue Reading)
Theatre Review: “Mousetrap” merits more applause
By C.L. ALEXANDER So . . . it’s terribly, terribly hard to cast a community theatre production in which all of the actors seem perfectly suited to their roles. Directors facing a shortage of age-appropriate, gender-appropriate or (dare it even be said) talented actors have been known to take liberties with a playwright’s carefully-concocted casting […]... (Continue Reading)
Theatre Review: Cambria gets “Finishing Touches”
By C.L. ALEXANDER So . . . it’s perplexing to contemplate that only three decades later the 1970s may already represent a bygone era in modern theatre. Jean Kerr’s 1973 play Finishing Touches is most certainly a dinosaur from that long ago time that now, for some reason, is roaming the boards of the Pewter […]... (Continue Reading)
Theatre Review: “Golden Girls” have Murder In Mind
By C.L. ALEXANDER So . . . four “Golden Girls” meet Adrian Monk and Jessica Fletcher in an Agatha Christie-type “cozy” that’s been updated to 2010. What is this strange collection of characters and capers? A fractured fairy tale of TV archetypes for sure, and one that audiences can’t help but enjoy. Billed as “interactive […]... (Continue Reading)
