(Photo by Doug Catiller, True Image Studio)


Two strangers are waiting for the bus on a cold road at night… next to a cemetery. The bus is late. The woman’s coat is too thin. And this fast-talking teenager waiting at the same bus stop won’t leave her alone. He works hard to get her to talk to him, using everything from philosophical riffs to brash seduction. Just around the corner is a liquor store, whose owner is waiting for a special delivery. All three people have no idea what this fateful night holds in store… and that it may provide the answers they’ve all been looking for.  Taken from the website.

Good Show!
Review
8.1 Overall
0 Users (0 votes)
Story8
Set & Design7.5
Entertainment8
Acting8.5
Costumes8.5
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September 22 – October 22, 2019

Photo by Brandon Simmoneau

Candid, uninhibited and visceral. A Deaf couple’s relationship is revealed through their lovemaking in a startlingly intimate portrait of a marriage. Taken from the website. 

Transcript for Deaf Community :

Hello, I’m Patrick Chavis and you are listening to LA Theatre Bites Review of The Solid Life of Sugar Water Playing now at Inner City Arts in Downtown Los Angeles September 5th – October 13th, 2019.

The Solid Life of Sugar Water gives you a raw, tragic and honest portrayal of a relationship.  The ups, the downs and even bigger downs through the relationship of a deaf couple.  The strong acting and voice over from the cast keep you and pull you in with some incredibly powerful moments.  But it’s also attached to other moments and ideas that seem more interested in sounding poetic then actually doing anything interesting.

The Solid Life of Sugar Water is the story of a Deaf Couple. Alice played by Sandra Mae Frank and her partner Phil played by Tad Cooley.   We get to experience an intense amount of intimacy as we watch the couple share their intimate moments during sex. Their stories of how they met and also a very tragic situation in their relationship.

This is my first show at the Deaf West Theatre and also my first deaf show I’ve ever seen, and I loved how blocking wise the show was set up. I’m not deaf and I don’t read sign much of the language being communicated in the way doesn’t really communicate much to me besides the beauty of form you can admire without fully understanding something like not being able to read Japanese but being able to appreciate the art in creating the symbols.

Because nothing is spoken out loud by the actors but from somewhere else, you feel like you’re inside the actors heads the entire show. Even though these are deaf characters and they are communicating right in front of you with sign.

Watching this show is like asking someone you just met, how they met, and they told you that and way, way more then you ever wanted to know.  And in that way the show can feel a little heavy emotionally and feel monotonous. But it’s also very human because of this very reason.

The set of the play is dimly lit bedroom inverted so the bed is facing the audience as if we are looking down at the room from the ceiling.

This is an adult show as a good majority of the show is about sex and all those spicy details about this couple’s relationship.

Why does this show work because you can feel the intimacy between Frank and Cooley.

Sandra Mae Frank pulls off a heart wrenching and dramatic performance with phenomenal physical movement.

I give the Solid Life of Sugar Water. A 7.9 out of 10 – It’s Above Average!

Thank you for Listening!

September 12th – October 13th, 2019 

Above Average!
Review
7.9 Overall
0 Users (0 votes)
Story7.5
Set & Design8.5
Entertainment7.5
Acting8
Costumes8
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(Photos by John Perrin Flynn)

A virginal Sunday school teacher has a sexual awakening, while across the world, a doctor tries to communicate with an elephant. Sex, faith, and violence intersect in Bekah Brunstetter’s Miss Lilly Gets Boned, which is an an exploration of how tenuous and permeable are the boundaries that separate our civilized sides from our more animal ones, and how we continue to destroy the earth that does not belong to us. Taken from the website. 

Exceptional Show! 
Review
9.2 Overall
0 Users (0 votes)
Story9
Set & Design10
Entertainment9.5
Acting8.5
Costumes9
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September 21st – October 28th, 2019

Photo by Chris Whitaker

Hanging on by a thread after her ex-husband gets engaged to a much younger woman, Jodi (Tony Award winner Idina Menzel, RentWicked) retreats to her dad’s swanky Manhattan townhouse. But rather than the comforts of home, she instead finds her aging father’s new live-in boyfriend, Trey—who is 20. In his new comedy, Joshua Harmon (Bad JewsSignificant Other) brings neurotic family drama to the forefront as father and daughter contend with the age-old questions of how to age gracefully in a world obsessed with youth and where love fits into it all. Taken from the website. 

GOOD SHOW!
Review
8 Overall
0 Users (0 votes)
Story8
Set & Design8.5
Entertainment7.5
Acting8.5
Costumes7.5
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September 12 – October 12, 2019 

Photo by Darrett Sanders

When a gay writer hires a man to work as a “shirtless cleaner,” homophobia, racism and issues of consent bubble to the surface. Erik Patterson’s (One of the Nice Ones) dark comedy explores the deepest sensitivities in our culture — with unexpected and hilarious consequences. Taken from the website.

It Needs Work!
Review
6.9 Overall
0 Users (0 votes)
Story6.5
Set & Design7
Entertainment6
Acting8
Costumes7
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