Review: “Loot” in Novato

When Joe Orton’s Loot opened in Cambridge, England in 1965 it created such a scandal that the Lord Chamberlain, England’s official theatre “censor” until 1968, ordered revisions and deletions before it could run on London’s West End. It’s running now at the Novato Theater Company through February 10. Orton’s look at the savage hypocrisy beneath…

Review: “Deathtrap” in Ross

Mysteries and thrillers present interesting challenges for critics. We want to give audiences enough of an idea of the plot to pique their interest without giving away any of the twists, turns and surprises audiences should discover for themselves. Well, here goes. Playwright Sidney Bruhl, once a successful writer of theatrical thrillers, is tired of…

Review: “Arsenic and Old Lace”

Serial killing would seem to be rather ghoulish subject matter for a comedic play, yet Arsenic and Old Lace has been a reliable audience-pleaser for over seventy-five years. Sonoma Arts Live has a production running through February 10. Joseph Kesselring’s tale of the Brewster sisters and their penchant for helping lonely old men meet their…

Review: “Moon Over Buffalo” in Santa Rosa

Theatre companies love to produce theatre about theatre. 6th Street Playhouse gets in the act with Ken Ludwig’s 1995 door-slamming farce Moon Over Buffalo, running through February 3. Buffalo’s Erlanger Theater is hosting the repertory company of George and Charlotte Hay (Dodds Delzell & Madeleine Ashe), grade-B actors and grade-A hams who never made it…

Review: “the 12 Dates of Christmas” in Santa Rosa

One-person shows with a holiday theme tend to skew toward the male variety, whether it’s a show about a disgruntled department store Christmas elf (David Sedaris’s Santaland Diaries) or a single dad desperate to maintain the fiction of Santa Claus with his children (David Templeton’s Polar Bears). Even Dickens’s classic A Christmas Carol has been…

Review: “The Odd Couple” in Ross

There’s no more proven commodity for community theatres than Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple. A reliable audience-pleaser since its 1965 Broadway debut, the story of mismatched roommates has been adapted for film and television numerous times and Simon himself rewrote it for an all-female cast. The Ross Valley Players production running through December 16 is…