Every two and a half years over the past decade, I’ve had the opportunity to go to Malta and direct a play. After more than 25 years in the business, I rarely direct locally because most local theaters don’t pay; they’re too busy chasing audiences to do anything adventurous, so there isn’t much opportunity to […]
Bryan Jennings
Slice of Life
The Rude Guerrilla loves Brit playwright Mark Ravenhill-a man who has been called the U.K.'s most shocking modern dramatist—and since this is my third Ravenhill/RG production review (joining Some Explicit Polaroids and Sleeping Around), I've come to understand, at least in part, director Dave Barton's apparent obsession with Ravenhill's usually gritty work: It's exciting and […]
Poorly Gaited
On one level, Joe Penhall's 1996 play Pale Horseis a not-so-unusual domestic drama about a man losing his wife and his subsequent struggles with grief. But this is Penhall, one of those viscerally oriented, in-yer-face, English playwrights Rude Guerrilla theater loves to champion, which means there's plenty of sex, sauce, spankings, barroom beatings and dark […]
Meet the Rapists
Photo by Jay FraleyIan (Bryan Jennings), a British journalist who writes about serial killers, child molesters and other social icons, has checked into a ritzy hotel room in order to try to shag an old flame, Cate (Hillary Calvert). It's a dry, dreary, sullen exploration of power and sexual politics that basically leaves you with […]
Some Explicit Polaroids Is Much More Than Dirty Pictures
Photo by Jay Michael FraleyThe Rude Guerrilla Theater Co. loves British playwright Mark Ravenhill, and it's easy to see why. Ravenhill's one of the up-and-coming satirical scribes being hailed in every dark corner of independent theater. He balks at formula; he loathes clich; he loves getting his characters naked . . . and giving them […]
Gag Me
The one thing really lacking in today's theater experience is lots of dick. And the West Coast premiere of Sarah Kane's dark and dirty play Cleansed, directed by Dave Barton, should fill your quota for the next 10 years. Cleansed is, in a word, grody. But not really in a bad way. When you're locked […]
A Touch of Ludwig
After bitching at length in this space last week about the shortcomings of a group of short plays by local playwrights, the last thing this lowly scribe was looking forward to was yet another production of a group of short plays by a local playwright. Fortunately, “No More Angels,” comprised of six plays by Stephen […]
Not Quite Hell
In the French, Jean Paul Sartre's No Exit is a sometimes funny, fast-paced examination of the author's hell-is-other-people philosophy. In this Rude Guerrilla production (based on a new translation by Andrew Nienaber), No Exit is unfunny and slow and (come to think of it) an awful lot like hell itself. Sartre's premise remains the same […]