Film & Stage Reviews

TV Star Gosselaar Falls for Kafka in Rebeck’s Play ‘Understudy’ Playwright Theresa Rebeck has described her off-Broadway dark comedy “The Understudy” as a love letter to the theater. Mark-Paul Gosselaar, a television actor with no prior stage experience, is an unlikely messenger.

Diaz Weighs Fatal $1 Million Offer; Aliens in Alaska: Movies Would you kill for $1 million?

Live Nation Theater Sale Creates West End Rival to Lloyd Webber The power balance has shifted in London’s West End with the creation of a theater company bigger than those owned by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Cameron Mackintosh.

Bon Jovi Joins Barenboim, Gorbachev to Fete Fall of Berlin Wall Daniel Barenboim, who was in town the night the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, is joining Bon Jovi, Mikhail Gorbachev, Lech Walesa and Hillary Clinton to celebrate the 20th anniversary.

Fellini’s Curvy Heroines, Clowns Strut in Paris Show: Review Fellini, once viewed by some as a mere farceur, has become a classic. The Jeu de Paume in Paris is honoring the Italian film director with a vast exhibition, aptly named “La Grande Parade.”

Clooney Bursts Clouds, Kills Goat; Mo’Nique’s Abusive Mom: Film Claireece “Precious” Jones is an obese, illiterate, pregnant 16-year-old from Harlem who’s been raped by her father, beaten by her mother, ridiculed by her schoolmates and ignored by everyone else.

Ill, Unfazed Redgrave Real Trouper in ‘Nightingale’: John Simon Lynn Redgrave’s solo performance in “Nightingale,” which she also wrote, marks a triple triumph: For the woman, battling cancer for four years; for the actress, at her peak after four decades; and for the Redgrave clan, which hereby surpasses the mighty Barrymores as the royal family of stage and screen.

Mamet’s ‘November’ Skewers Politicos, Turkeys, Gays: S.F. Stage David Mamet’s 2008 Oval Office comedy “November” gets a laugh-rich staging at San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theater that zings -- too gently -- the venality of politicians and their enablers.