https://www.backstage.com/la-theater/News articles for the following category: LA Theater ReviewenMon, 08 Apr 2013 16:53:53 -0400https://www.backstage.com/review/la-theater/neverwhere-sacred-fool-theater-company-neil-gaiman/When blithely satisfied British office drone Richard Mayhew stops to help an injured girl named Door who is moaning on the pavement, his complacent world of job promotions and his engagement to the kind of woman he’s expected to marry are dashed to smithereens. Robert Kauzlaric’s epic adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s 1996 fantasy novel “Neverwhere” travels with Mayhew and his rescued waif into a dank netherworld “between the cracks of ordinary perception” below the streets of London. In a place populated by cheerfully dangerous assassins, dubious heroes, talking rats, and fantastical creatures waiting to be challenged, Mayhew’s journey through the sewer ducts and frightening corners of Neverwhere becomes a quest to find a key that could unlock the mystery of why Door’s family was murdered and return him home to London without once having to click ruby slippers together. Unlike in Dorothy Gale’s classic adventure, however, the idea that “there’s no place like home” comes into question as Mayhew’s reluctance to participate turns into a gallant mission. In the physically challenging role of Mayhew, understudy Bryan Bellomo, in for Michael Holmes, has aMon, 08 Apr 2013 16:53:53 -0400https://www.backstage.com/review/la-theater/neverwhere-sacred-fool-theater-company-neil-gaiman/https://www.backstage.com/review/la-theater/the-beaux-stratagem-a-noise-within-george-farquhar-thornton-wilder-ken-ludwig/In Thornton Wilder and Ken Ludwig’s adaptation of George Farquhar’s 1707 comedy “The Beaux’ Stratagem,” fortune hunters, highwaymen, saucy serving wenches, and adventure- and pleasure-seeking rogues all converge first at an inn, then subsequently at a country residence. Their hearts are (mostly) good, their accents thick, their perukes all manner of crazy. One could probably find a spare forceps clamp somewhere in the wild white tease of hair sported by Deborah Strang’s scene-stealing dowager Lady Bountiful. Those inclined to blanch and flee at the very mention of the words “restoration comedy” should instead pull up a bar stool at A Noise Within, where director Julia Rodriguez-Elliott and her delicious cast go through their paces, all for our considerable enjoyment. In this West Coast premiere, it’s difficult to see—much less care—where one century’s dramatist leaves off and another begins. Blake Ellis’ Archer—one of the two titular beaux—largely paces the action, but with every new character holding forth during a philosophizing soliloquy, we see how rich this play remains. As Rodriguez-Elliott’s players romp across the stage andMon, 08 Apr 2013 16:09:08 -0400https://www.backstage.com/review/la-theater/the-beaux-stratagem-a-noise-within-george-farquhar-thornton-wilder-ken-ludwig/https://www.backstage.com/review/la-theater/billy-and-ray-falcon-theatre-mike-bencivenga-garry-marshall-billy-wilder-raymond-chandler/There’s always something special about an inside Hollywood story told inside Hollywood, but the world premiere of “Billy & Ray” takes that concept one step further. Directed in his own theater by Garry Marshall, one of the industry’s heaviest heavyweights, and written by Emmy Award–winning producer-screenwriter Mike Bencivenga, the show has significant pedigree. Better still, this travel back to 1943 chronicles a defining moment in film history, when hard-boiled director-writer Billy Wilder collaborated with equally well-done crime novelist Raymond Chandler to create the screenplay for the film classic “Double Indemnity.” During the process, through sessions in which Wilder and Chandler seem ready to kill one another at any moment, something major is accomplished: the cracking of the obstructive Motion Picture Code, which restricted Hollywood films from employing any profanity or nudity and forbade the depiction of murder. As the two geniuses labored to survive their partnership despite bristling personal incompatibilities, they worked together to circumvent the censors. They agreed on very little beyond Wilder’s belief that they were “grossly overpaid to make shitMon, 08 Apr 2013 15:29:10 -0400https://www.backstage.com/review/la-theater/billy-and-ray-falcon-theatre-mike-bencivenga-garry-marshall-billy-wilder-raymond-chandler/https://www.backstage.com/review/la-theater/years-to-the-day-skylight-theatre-company/In “Years to the Day,” two guys in their 40s, very close friends since college, meet for coffee for the first time in four years only to realize how very little they now know each other and how inconsequential this gap of knowledge is. We are either in soggy power-of-friendship territory or David Mamet land. With his world premiere for Skylight Theatre Company, playwright Allen Barton is shooting for somewhere in between. Whatever else you might say about “Years to the Day,” Barton writes entertaining rants, and actors Jeff LeBeau and Michael Yavnieli know how to spew them. Rants and strategically timed revelations are not, however, ideal substitutes for strong writing. Barton’s play is a laborious 80 minutes, 15 minutes into which angry, mortality-obsessed Dan (Yavnieli) and his sensitive, secrets-stuffed buddy Jeff (LeBeau) are inducing audience weariness. This largely obnoxious and maudlin duo may be in an empty café because, after overhearing them for five minutes, any fellow patrons would run screaming for the exits. Allowances must to some degree be made, as the men are damaged, saddled with skeletons, living a lie, desperately lonely, or some combination thereof. Nonetheless, theyMon, 08 Apr 2013 14:50:18 -0400https://www.backstage.com/review/la-theater/years-to-the-day-skylight-theatre-company/https://www.backstage.com/review/la-theater/smokefall-noah-haidle-south-coast-repertory-goodman-theatre/What happens inside our minds and hearts is locked away, making the human spirit a metaphysical mystery. That sensibility pervades Noah Haidle’s quirky dramedy “Smokefall,” which examines the interactions of various members of a family in Grand Rapids, Mich. The play isn’t so much a portrait of an eccentric family as it is a series of artfully sketched character vignettes with no specific dramatic through line—theatrical poetry rather than prose. We first watch the family patriarch, a retired army colonel (Orson Bean), whose daughter Violet (Heidi Dippold) is expecting twins. Violet’s husband, Daniel (Corey Brill), has secretly decided to flee before his wife gives birth, while the couple’s daughter, April, known as Beauty (Carmela Corbett), hasn’t spoken a word in three years since hearing her parents viciously argue. Next, we’re inside Violet’s womb and privy to the intellectually advanced, cosmologically convoluted debates of her two unborn sons, Fetus One (Brill) and Fetus Two (Leo Marks). The conceit that souls who have yet to enter the world are already frighteningly aware of what that world holds marks the highlight of Haidle’s text, which doesn’t soSat, 06 Apr 2013 14:45:20 -0400https://www.backstage.com/review/la-theater/smokefall-noah-haidle-south-coast-repertory-goodman-theatre/https://www.backstage.com/review/la-theater/mad-forest-caryl-churchill-the-open-fist-theatre-company/Caryl Churchill’s 1996 play “Mad Forest” is back in Los Angeles, in a solid production that proves the material to be denser and madder than ever. The play is a fascinating journey into the specificity of Romania in December 1989 and the overthrow of Communist leader Nicolae Ceausescu. But docudrama is only part of this wild ride into the murky woods of oppression and upheaval. Revolution is never black and white, and Churchill wisely dwells in uncertainty and targets the surreal nature of social and political shifts in a world where the more things change, the more they stay the same. Director Marya Mazor has done a terrific job taking us into Ceausescu’s Romania right off the bat. We glimpse abbreviated, secretive slices of life judiciously rationed out, framed by Richard Hoover’s smart set; he surrounds the playing space with compartments that let us know there are eyes everywhere, effectively transporting us into a kind of Soviet industrial bloc. Sara R. Clement’s costumes scream Eastern Europe and cheap cigarettes. “Mad Forest” is structured in three acts and begins in near silence. We meet peasants Bogdan and Irina (Joe Hulser and Katherine Griffith), son Gabriel (BradMon, 01 Apr 2013 17:53:55 -0400https://www.backstage.com/review/la-theater/mad-forest-caryl-churchill-the-open-fist-theatre-company/https://www.backstage.com/review/la-theater/orange-flower-water-craig-wright-the-creative-collective-the-stephanie-feury-studio-theatre/There are some powerful moments in Craig Wright’s “Orange Flower Water,” which deals with the shattering effect of adultery on families and innocent spouses. Unfortunately, the Creative Collective’s production suffers from a few weak performances and negligent direction. As the play opens, Cathy Calhoun (Leslie Liberman) is writing a note to husband David (Jeff Denton), instructing him about what to do for the children while she is away and adding a declaration of love. But unbeknownst to Cathy, David is cheating with Beth Youngquist (Sarah Ann Schultz). We meet the two lovers in a motel room. The passion between them is irresistible, and they are bent on being together. When Beth finally tells her spouse, Brad (Mick Thyer), that she is leaving him, he goes through a litany of emotions: rage, pain, neediness, and heartbreak. He has known about the affair but can look beyond it because of how much he loves his wife. The turmoil takes its toll on Beth, who ends up sobbing on their bed. During the breakup scene between David and Cathy, she demands that he make love to her. Unable to get aroused at first, he finally accomplishes the act, but the marriage is over. There is a very civilized encounter betweenMon, 01 Apr 2013 17:40:50 -0400https://www.backstage.com/review/la-theater/orange-flower-water-craig-wright-the-creative-collective-the-stephanie-feury-studio-theatre/https://www.backstage.com/review/la-theater/mrs-warrens-profession-the-antaeus-company-george-bernard-shaw-anne-gee-byrd/George Bernard Shaw’s once-scandalous 1893 drama “Mrs. Warren’s Profession” can be a tough nut to crack, but thanks to the steadfast guidance of director Robin Larsen and a stellar double-cast ensemble of some of the Antaeus Company’s most resolute members, the balance between the crafty old master’s droll humor and jabs at the mores of his time survives remarkably intact. Productions of Shaw are often hampered by exaggeratedly posh accents and cartoonlike depictions of the stiff-backed demeanor embraced by denizens of Victorian England, but Larsen carefully avoids stereotypes. Despite Antaeus’ practice of what it calls “partner casting,” it’s not hard to understand why the title role is performed in both companies by one of Los Angeles’ best. A great deal of the production’s success is inspired by Anne Gee Byrd, who as Kitty Warren sets the standard for the others to fall in step behind her. Entering well into the action during the first scene, Byrd adopts a surprisingly conversational tone to depict a grandly nonconformist reprobate of a woman. As she begins to speak, everyone suddenly takes his or her own volume down to accommodate, as though Byrd isSat, 30 Mar 2013 14:12:54 -0400https://www.backstage.com/review/la-theater/mrs-warrens-profession-the-antaeus-company-george-bernard-shaw-anne-gee-byrd/https://www.backstage.com/review/la-theater/lunch-lady-courage-cornerstone-theater-company-bertolt-brecht/“Wake up!” the company of Cornerstone Theater Company’s “Lunch Lady Courage” yells toward the end of the show. But by that point you’ve already woken up. The cast of local teenagers, community members, and professional actors revives old material to tackle modern social issues and creates something that is relevant, memorable, and moving. In this world premiere, playwright Peter Howard twists Bertolt Brecht’s “Mother Courage and Her Children” to fit inside a Los Angeles public high school. But our heroine isn’t caught in medieval wars of religion like her Brechtian counterpart; she’s fighting modern social battles: obesity, income inequality, and slashed public-education budgets. She arrives at the crowded school with her three children and a mission for change. She wants the students to make healthy choices, to work hard, and to take off their hats in the cafeteria. A chorus of hair net–wearing cafeteria workers guides us along through the passage of class periods and semesters. As Lunch Lady Courage’s son, Queso (David Toledo), struggles to read Brecht’s original work for a book report, his assignment reminds us of the original play’sSat, 30 Mar 2013 14:04:07 -0400https://www.backstage.com/review/la-theater/lunch-lady-courage-cornerstone-theater-company-bertolt-brecht/https://www.backstage.com/review/la-theater/jefferson-mays-a-gentlemans-guide-to-love-and-murder-the-old-globe-hartford-stage/After experiencing its world-premiere production at San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre, it’s not so difficult to understand why Robert L. Freedman and Steven Lutvak’s “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder” took eight years to come together. Like the music box that springs open in the first scene to reveal important letters to our anti-hero, the musical is a contraption of delicate and decidedly tricky parts—from a patter-stuffed tongue-twister of a score to the synchronicity with which leading ladies Lisa O’Hare and Chilina Kennedy negotiate a pair of songs to the octet of aristocrats, squires, hams, and boobs played in a tour de force by the remarkable Jefferson Mays—that must mesh just so. All these elements are present and clicking like a freshly unwrapped metronome, but under Darko Tresnjak’s direction you’re never pulled out of the fun long enough to wonder how it’s done. The show is constructed in the style of early-20th-century British music hall, and blamed if it doesn’t entertain like a dream. Based on Roy Horniman’s novel “Israel Rank”—also the source for the film “Kind Hearts and Coronets”—“AWed, 27 Mar 2013 16:35:52 -0400https://www.backstage.com/review/la-theater/jefferson-mays-a-gentlemans-guide-to-love-and-murder-the-old-globe-hartford-stage/https://www.backstage.com/review/la-theater/the-nether-center-theatre-group-jennifer-haley-robert-joy-dakin-matthews-brighid-fleming/Works about the perils of technology may come and go, but if there’s any justice in this world or cyberspace, Jennifer Haley’s “The Nether” will enjoy a lengthy shelf life. Part detective story, part ethical conundrum, and—oddly—part love story, the play’s future looks rosy indeed if companies give it the kind of treatment being provided by Center Theatre Group, director Neel Keller, and a superb cast in its world premiere at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. We think we know where the show is headed when Morris, an all-business agent (Jeanne Syquia), starts harassing a 50-something man named Sims (Robert Joy) for information about servers and access codes. We are, however, mistaken. The time is the not-so-distant future, where virtual reality and online living have evolved to such an enticing—or is it perilous?—degree that people want to “cross over” and live forever in alternate worlds such as the one created by Sims. His realm, called the Hideaway, is a cozy Victorian estate populated by preadolescent girls where visitors can commit morally unspeakable acts and suffer no consequences because, as Sims points out, they are hurting no one. Agent Morris disagrees. SheMon, 25 Mar 2013 15:35:21 -0400https://www.backstage.com/review/la-theater/the-nether-center-theatre-group-jennifer-haley-robert-joy-dakin-matthews-brighid-fleming/https://www.backstage.com/review/la-theater/reality-tv-assistants-loft-ensemble/Reality TV has become ubiquitous in recent years, but what happens when things on the set get a little too real? Loft Ensemble’s world-premiere play “The Assistants” imagines the effects of a reality-TV disaster on the lives of the producers and assistants who control the show from behind the scenes. Playwright Joel Sinensky sets up the scenario cleverly. Rather than showing the tragedy onstage, his script has Tori and Chad, assistants to reality-television producers, meet over drinks and discuss in hushed tones a dramatic event that took place on the set that morning. The details unravel over several scenes, and the writing tantalizes us with strange clues, until the whole gruesome story finally comes out about midway through the play. But while the expository scenes building up the plot keep the audience curious, the latter half of the play meanders, with Sinensky’s writing turning formulaic in Act 2. Most scenes pair up a set of characters for a tense conversation usually leading into an unremarkable fight, and several characters’ personal breakdowns in response to the TV show tragedy are predictable. It also seems as though Sinensky couldn’t decide how to finish his story, as he leavesMon, 25 Mar 2013 15:33:16 -0400https://www.backstage.com/review/la-theater/reality-tv-assistants-loft-ensemble/https://www.backstage.com/review/la-theater/rank-odyssey-theatre-ensemble/“Rank,” by Irish playwright Robert Massey, is an unremarkable, derivative, and predictable piece that is neither fish nor foul. Billed as a “darkly comic thriller,” it is hardly noirish enough to be a thriller, nor is it funny enough to be considered a comedy. Because the script lacks any dramatic or comedic tension, we remain uninvolved with the characters and what happens to them. At times their behavior seems unmotivated, so the play’s impact is even further eroded. The action, set in Dublin, begins as racketeer Jackie Farrell (Ron Bottitta) berates cabdriver Carl Conway (Kevin Kearns), ostensibly for gaining weight and generally letting himself deteriorate. But Jackie is really enraged over Carl’s gambling debt to him, and he warns that the debt must be fully paid by midnight or there will be dire consequences. Hovering nearby is Jackie’s lame-brained son and enforcer, Freddie (Jason Killalee). Terrified, Carl goes to his father-in-law, George Kelly (David Schaal), who is railing against his garage’s transformation into a self-service station. George kicks in some money, along with Carl’s fellow cabbie Bush (Karl Maschek), and the three go to Jackie’s house to tryMon, 25 Mar 2013 15:23:31 -0400https://www.backstage.com/review/la-theater/rank-odyssey-theatre-ensemble/https://www.backstage.com/review/la-theater/spring-awakening-la-mirada-theatre-duncan-sheik-steven-sater-frank-wedekind/Like the once-controversial 1891 Frank Wedekind drama on which it’s based, Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik’s Tony Award–winning 2006 musical “Spring Awakening” risks interpretations that are overwrought, stilted, or unintentionally funny. Fortunately, as directed by Brian Kite, music directed by John Glaudini, and choreographed by Dana Solimando, La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts’ nuanced production creates something extraordinary. Its 11 young actors prove fearless in depicting how a group of troubled teenage classmates in 1890s Germany struggle to navigate the rocky shoals of puberty with no truthfulness or guidance from their parents and teachers. By placing the audience onstage with the performers and substantially reducing the cavernous theater’s seating capacity to 199 seats, La Mirada has engineered an experience far more intimate than usual. We’re thrust directly into the characters’ lives and the innocence that their distorted views of sex only magnify, naiveté that’s very real thanks to Kite’s subtle direction and the performers’ nerve. Sater’s book wisely hews closely to Wedekind’s original text, while his lyrics offerSun, 24 Mar 2013 16:14:12 -0400https://www.backstage.com/review/la-theater/spring-awakening-la-mirada-theatre-duncan-sheik-steven-sater-frank-wedekind/https://www.backstage.com/review/la-theater/end-of-the-rainbow-judy-garland-tracie-bennett/It was indeed near the “End of the Rainbow” for Judy Garland in 1968 when she traveled to London to begin yet another comeback. Peter Quilter’s play with music, on a national tour after a short Broadway stay, captures the shaky star during that tumultuous run, her last attempt to revive her career and give sobriety another try. By summer she would be dead at age 47. “End of the Rainbow” begins as Garland arrives at the Ritz for that infamous last engagement, already complaining about the unacceptable size of her suite, something hard to fathom even from the often cranky diva, considering that the room fills the massive Ahmanson stage. Garland’s difficult tenancy avoiding the management’s pleas to pay her bill is interspersed with scenes in concert at Talk of the Town, complete with a dynamic band appearing from behind, made possible by designer William Dudley’s magically disappearing hotel room. Tracie Bennett is physically like the star in those troubled days, offering a breakneck performance that’s on the money in many ways. Bennett captures the manic energy and notorious tantrums, reeling around the suite searching for anything to get high, even a bottle ofThu, 21 Mar 2013 18:33:31 -0400https://www.backstage.com/review/la-theater/end-of-the-rainbow-judy-garland-tracie-bennett/https://www.backstage.com/review/la-theater/one-night-with-janis-joplin-pasadena-playhouse/For anyone old enough to remember the unearthly Queen of Rock ’n’ Roll, “One Night With Janis Joplin” will make the past 40-plus years melt like a grilled cheese sandwich in a microwave. Presented as Joplin performing in concert, the show will teleport boomers and latter-day Joplin fans alike back in Marty McFly’s DeLorean to the glory days of the Fillmores East and West. Even before dead ringer Mary Bridget Davies takes the Pasadena Playhouse stage in costumer Jeff Cone’s feathered and beaded Joplinesque finery, that golden epoch is impeccably evoked by Justin Townsend’s set and lighting. Re-creating a rock venue of the time, with the Playhouse’s rococo proscenium camouflaged by massive amounts of billowing tulling and lit from within by psychedelic bursts of color, all that’s missing is the smell and smoky haze of funny cigarettes endemic to the era. It’s a given that almost anyone who saw the legendary singer perform live says that the experience was one of the musical highlights of his or her youth. Davies doesn’t just play Joplin; she channels her. Physically, at least from the distance between the stage and the audience, it’s as thoughWed, 20 Mar 2013 14:50:44 -0400https://www.backstage.com/review/la-theater/one-night-with-janis-joplin-pasadena-playhouse/https://www.backstage.com/review/la-theater/tomorrow-donald-freed-skylight-theatre-company-rogue-machine-york-theatre-royal/“Tomorrow” is a treat, with a script by Donald Freed containing elegant dialogue and characters that are rich and fascinating. The story concerns three extraordinary actors and explores a singular form of teacher-student relationship along with the devotion of actors to their art, all permeated with a sense of secrecy and an expectation of impending revelations. As the play begins, Laura Keating (Jenn Robbins), a rising young star, has been offered the part of Lady Macbeth and comes to the Hollywood home of Abigail Booth (Salome Jens), a 100-year-old member of the celebrated acting family, hoping to persuade the doyenne of the stage to coach her in the role. Laura offers Abigail her house, but Abigail says, “I want your soul.” After much entreaty Abigail agrees to work with Laura every other day for a week, the intervening days to include coaching by James Booth (Geoffrey Forward), purportedly Abigail’s nephew, though Abigail sometimes calls him “son.” What follows is the expert integration of the main scenario with speeches from “Macbeth.” Freed very skillfully has the characters reveal their deepest emotions through Shakespeare’s text during the coaching sessions. HeMon, 18 Mar 2013 18:51:11 -0400https://www.backstage.com/review/la-theater/tomorrow-donald-freed-skylight-theatre-company-rogue-machine-york-theatre-royal/https://www.backstage.com/review/la-theater/samuel-d-hunter-the-whale-matthew-arkin-south-coast-repertory/In his acclaimed 2012 Off-Broadway drama“The Whale,” Samuel D. Hunter cleverly conflates the concepts and practices of the Mormon Church; the American literary classic “Moby Dick”; themes of faith, hope, and betrayal; and the massive burden of emotional pain, particularly all forms of frailty and anything caused by those we love most. Hunter’s protagonist is the morbidly obese Charlie (Matthew Arkin), who does online tutoring of expository writing for high school students from his apartment by voice, too ashamed of his 600-pound weight to be seen via webcam. The divorced Charlie is estranged from his ex-wife, Mary, and a 17-year-old daughter, Ellie, whom he hasn’t seen in 15 years. He’s also gay, was heartbroken by the death of his partner, and gets medical supervision from his partner’s sister Liz (Blake Lindsley), a nurse. That Liz and her brother are children of a Mormon bishop figures prominently, which causes the appearance at Charlie’s door of Elder Thomas (Wyatt Fenner), a 19-year-old Mormon on his mission, to carry considerable heft. Arkin shows that Charlie has always been optimistic and life-affirming and still is, despite his size, finding comfort in memorizingSun, 17 Mar 2013 16:37:34 -0400https://www.backstage.com/review/la-theater/samuel-d-hunter-the-whale-matthew-arkin-south-coast-repertory/https://www.backstage.com/review/la-theater/nuttin-but-hutton-betty-hutton-noho-arts-center/Bob Hope called Betty Hutton “a vitamin pill with legs.” From her heyday as one of Hollywood’s biggest stars to her later days working as a cook in a Rhode Island rectory, Hutton was a force of nature despite the extreme highs and lows of her life and career. Musical theater veteran Diane Vincent became interested in the star’s story and how she lost everything. That obsession led to “Nuttin’ but Hutton,” an ambitious musical tribute to the late, great Miss H., as she liked to be called in her post-Hollywood years while working the summer stock circuit. Vincent, who co-created the show with her husband, Sam Kriger, also stars, performing more than 20 of Hutton’s songs, and the evening is a treat for anyone old enough to remember the carefree days of schmaltzy musical entertainment. Although it features some of Hutton’s enduring hits, such as Irving Berlin’s “There’s No Business Like Show Business” and “Anything You Can Do,” which Hutton sang in the screen version of “Annie Get Your Gun,” also included are more obscure tunes, including Frank Loesser and Jimmy McHugh’s “Murder, He Says” and Loesser’sSun, 17 Mar 2013 15:34:59 -0400https://www.backstage.com/review/la-theater/nuttin-but-hutton-betty-hutton-noho-arts-center/https://www.backstage.com/review/la-theater/on-the-spectrum-fountain-theatre-ken-lazebnik/Depictions of individuals with autism spectrum disorders happily have blossomed since Dustin Hoffman’s early “Rain Man” benchmark. Equally positive is the fact that playwrights such as Ken LaZebnik have returned to ASD themes in multiple plays and can attract talented actors to turn in the kinds of affecting and carefully observed performances that currently grace the Fountain Theatre’s production of “On the Spectrum.” Watching the beautiful work of Virginia Newcomb and Dan Shaked Iris and Mac, two challenged young people trying to negotiate something resembling first love, is witnessing a flag being planted for hope, sensitivity, and artistic progress. The production that director Jacqueline Schultz surrounds them with ain’t shabby either. The line between hope and fantasy can be a tenuous one, however. “On the Spectrum” is constructed around a rather enormous leap of faith: We’re asked to accept that Iris, a woman so trapped by her disorders that she can neither control the tics of her own body nor leave her apartment, can exist as a very different being online and via technology. Once she “meets” the right person—in this case the higher functioningSun, 17 Mar 2013 14:33:09 -0400https://www.backstage.com/review/la-theater/on-the-spectrum-fountain-theatre-ken-lazebnik/