SANTA BARBARA THEATER REVIEWS

'In the Red and Brown Water' functions on several levels to allow the audience to be emotionally involved in the saga of Oya's search for meaning....

'Peter and the Starcatcher' is a fun, well-executed production that shows the joys and trials of the hero's journey inevitable to us all: growing up....

Wilde's play about the triviality of Victorian culture has been produced everywhere, by everyone. It's a staple of the English-speaking theatrical repertory in the way that “Don't Stop Believing” is a staple of the karaoke repertory. Mercifully, 'Earnest' has the potential to be a great play—t...

Both writing and staging of 'Intimate Apparel' illustrate the overlapping layers of class, race, religion, and gender in New York City, 1905....

Shakespeare's work is a good fit for DramaDogs, a theatre company whose performance style is characterized by precise, representative movement that unites the intellectual, emotional, and physical aspects of their productions....

'The Nina Variations,' while certainly investigative of the various ways people can behave in a relationship, lacked connective tissue....

While Nixon's blustering is made somewhat ridiculous by his impending political impotence, this type of disquieting abuse of power reminds the audience how natural political corruption becomes when those in power are left unchecked....

Westmont's one-act operas are an example of student theatre that takes risks and introduces conversations about the diverse range of possibilities within the sphere of the theatrical arts....

Psychologically sophisticated with entertaining performances, 154 is a puzzle of blame, fault, and consequence....

Unfinished Business is a production that aspires to engender love and catharsis by allowing eleventh-hour redemption and understanding between family members....

Arthur can control men, but he can't control mankind-a natural tendency toward chaos, ambition, and avarice rules humanity beyond his influence....

John Blondell and Lit Moon are frequent perpetuators of the unique reorganization of classic stories; their stylized version of A Christmas Carol, called Humbug, is strident and modern without denying the latent, yet impending gentleness within Scrooge as he realizes his potential to change his life...

Ensemble's production of The Best Brothers is entertaining and thought provoking, and maintains a sense of playfulness even in its most moving moments....

Middletown has undeniable biting humor and an honest eye to the lovely mess we all make of our lives....

Almost, Maine presents a simpler, kinder world in which sadness runs deep enough to make an impression, but in which the regret of romance lost or unrequited has the capacity to be mended by the gentle reassembly of a shattered heart....

Sayre's version of Alice in Wonderland takes place in a circus, a setting not so far removed conceptually from Carroll's Wonderland: a place of familiar elements without typical context-not quite reality...

When even the director uses the phrase 'old-fashioned' to describe the play, I wonder why a company would choose to produce a show with such a lack of vitality....

Peter Shaffer's Amadeus is a dramatized account of the rivalry between Antonio Salieri, court composer of Vienna, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, musical prodigy and social embarrassment....

'Boeing, Boeing' is an example of the fun that can be had when the aim is entertainment rather than artistic revolution....

DramaDogs's production of Dance Me to the End of Love delivers earnest, emotional realism in concentrated bursts....

Lit Moon's production is an elegant rendition of The Cherry Orchard, a play that Blondell likened to climbing a directorial mountain. Lit Moon successfully scales the Everest of The Cherry Orchard and summits the peak having genuinely represented both the light and dark sides of Chekhov's comedy....

Opera Santa Barbara presents The Telephone, a comedic opera in one act for a quick taste of Gian Carlo Menotti's lighter, more humorous work....

To those who enjoy wisteria and sunshine, Enchanted April at the Circle Bar B ranch is a welcome reprieve from cynicism; a bucolic, unpretentious theatrical experience....

Recognizable, real-world constructs are present in Orlando, but the ties to reality are ambiguous and abandoned without hesitation. Orlando is a dreamscape, a journey of beauty-a physical expression of the protagonist's self-narrated life story....Orlando's experience is a journey of exploration in ...

In some aspects of American culture, weddings are considered amongst the most stressful episodes a person can endure. Despite the happiness associated with the affair, weddings offer a minefield of potential familial discord, monetary pressure, and the inevitable anxiety people feel surrounding thei...