My overall impression
Five Uneasy Pieces
Review by Pauline Adamek
This review first appeared in the LA Weekly [link below]
Todd Waring’s impressive self-penned solo show (with moody live accompaniment on double bass from Lyman Medeiros) plays like an actor’s show reel.
His six short monologues demonstrate the middle-aged actor’s command of a range of accents and personae, while the unpredictable subject matter swerves between dark, sinister, and emotional.
Characters range from a crotchety old black woman (with perfect, quaint Southern intonations) to a jovial Australian art instructor (broad accent is passable) whose simmering rage inadvertently surfaces in an art class, to a foul-mouthed street gangster and a tough-talking Special Ops sergeant who goes rogue in Afghanistan.
Disappointingly, the last piece, skewering a cheesy folk singer who amusingly gibbers nonsensical French, doesn’t fit the bill.
Five strong and one weak monologue is not a bad ratio.
(Pauline Adamek/LAW — http://blogs.laweekly.com/stylecouncil/2011/06/stage_raw_hollywood_fringe_rev_1.php#more)
