Email Author Robrt L. Pela

1998 Stories by Robrt L. Pela

• Disabled Vehicle

  published May 21, 1998

  Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire is a nearly faultless play, a beautifully written, deeply disturbing pageant of human frailty that... More >>

• Mirth of a Nation

  published May 21, 1998

  Talk about a job that performs itself: Elana Newport is paid to make politicians look stupid. With the comedy troupe Capitol Steps, which performs... More >>

• Plays of the Day

  published May 14, 1998

  If you go see Arizona Theatre Company's production of Moliere's Scapin, you may leave the theater wishing it were possible to stay and, moviehouse... More >>

• Bag the Dog

  published May 7, 1998

  A middle-aged man enters the living room of his opulent Manhattan apartment. He is followed by a beautiful young woman. They discuss his wife, who... More >>

• Power Tulle

  published May 7, 1998

  Every schoolkid knows the story: A princess gets herself turned into a swan by an evil magician; a prince falls in love with her, and, after the... More >>

• Ad About You

  published April 23, 1998

  I waited to see Personals until a couple of weeks before it closed, and ended up wishing I'd gone sooner. I'd grown weary of the standard fare... More >>

• Growing Up Absurd

  published April 16, 1998

  If there's anything wrong with Steven Dietz's plays, it's that they're so complex that audiences rarely agree on what they're about. This isn't a... More >>

• Blue-Pate Special

  published April 9, 1998

  My dissatisfaction with Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years is not about the quality of its production. The show's current... More >>

• Urbane Sprawl

  published April 2, 1998

  It's too bad that theater audiences aren't usually interested in the evolution of a play. If they were, the new Guillermo Reyes comedy, now... More >>

• Leader of the Pachyderm

  published March 19, 1998

  For the first time in the seven years I've attended Planet Earth Theatre, I was not ushered to my seat by a drooling, incense-burning harpy. I was... More >>

• Tickled Inc.

  published March 12, 1998

  Actors Theatre of Phoenix's claim that its new play is "the biggest downtown Phoenix event preceding the opening of Bank One Ballpark" seems like... More >>

• 12 Angry Diners

  published March 12, 1998

  It's no longer enough that several legitimate stages are regularly afflicted with bad theater. Now it's tailing us to the places where we go to... More >>

• Backstage Passe

  published March 5, 1998

  When he wrote Moon Over Buffalo, Ken Ludwig must have been counting on an audience that hadn't seen the dozen or so funnier plays and movies that... More >>

• Grapple Polishers

  published February 26, 1998

  In the past, I've carped about Arizona Jewish Theatre Company's lamentable productions and its less-than-kosher choice of material. But the... More >>

• Dowry Queen

  published February 19, 1998

  I attended The Heiress, a play about lost love, on Valentine's Day in the company of a couple of reformed bachelors. Until recently, each of us... More >>

• 'Tis Pity He's a Moor

  published February 19, 1998

  Shakespeare purists or anyone who groans upon hearing the word "deconstruction" should stay far away from Desdemona: A Play About a Handkerchief,... More >>

• Crown Ruse

  published February 12, 1998

  It's a testimony to the talents of director Marshall W. Mason that the opening-night crowd for King Lear stayed to cheer his achievement. Because,... More >>

• Picket a Hit

  published January 29, 1998

  White Picket Fence is a show that's built for failure. For starters, it's a dramedy about race relations in which the principal characters are two... More >>

• Below the Belter

  published January 22, 1998

  It's ironic that Phoenix Theatre is making such a big deal of Crooners--unlike the company's other musical hits Forever Plaid and The... More >>

• Between a Frock and a Hard Place

  published January 22, 1998

  Our grandparents might consider male transvestism a daring subject for a drama. The rest of us, having seen plenty of this sort of stuff on TV... More >>