Orson Bean tells his stories as only a master raconteur can in “Safe at Home” at Pacific Resident Theatre. Charles McNulty It's no secret that Orson Bean, an actor who won fame as a "TV personality," is a master raconteur. No one appears on "The Tonight Show" as many times as he has without talking a good game. But it might surprise you to discover that the 87-year-old Boston-bred performer, a regular Yankee Read More

… AND A HOME MORE SWEET THAN SAFE On another stage, in far-away Venice — not Italy, but California, which is far enough — a delicious 75 minutes may be spent in the company of one Dallas Burrows, alias Orson Bean, alias simply O, who invites us into his cockeyed world. It’s all magic tricks, terrible jokes, hellish tales of childhood trauma sweetly told, while Bean inimitably offers all of the Read More

Safe at Home: An Evening with Orson Bean Reviewed by Pauline Adamek Pacific Resident Theatre Through November 29 RECOMMENDED: “There’s a danger with one-man shows. What if you don’t like the performer? You’re screwed.” I’m paraphrasing, but this is a sentiment that Orson Bean articulates early into his own one-man show. The ironic implications just hang in the air, unanswered. Before and after this line, however, Bean’s efforts indicate his intent to entertain rather Read More

Multi-award winning Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice presents THE DOCK BRIEF, a comedy by John Mortimer, as their fourth show of the 2014/2015 season, directed by PRT's Robert Bailey, featuring PRT founding member Frank Collison as the barrister Morgenhall and Wesley Mann as his imprisoned client Fowle. For those unfamiliar with the term, a dock brief is a case given directly to a barrister (a lawyer in Britain who has the Read More

by Paul Birchall on October 27, 2015 in Theater-Los Angeles HOME AND HEART When you go to Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice, one of the great pleasures is seeing performers Orson Bean and his wife Alley Mills hanging out in the lobby either manning the concession stand or assisting in helping folks to their seats (that is, if they aren’t actually in the show). Both Bean and Mills will seem familiar to you–and Read More

Review: ‘The Dock Brief’ at Pacific Resident Theatre October 25, 2015 | By David Maurer | Category: Featured Articles, Theater and Dance   “Comedy is, to my mind, the only thing worth writing in this despairing age, providing it is comedy which is truly on the side of the lonely, the neglected and the unsuccessful.” So says Sir John Mortimer, the British-born playwright and author Read More

SAFE AT HOME: AN EVENING WITH ORSON BEAN What's not to love about Orson Bean? The man is an absolute marvel and the sharpest octogenarian you'll ever have the pleasure to encounter. He's seen everything, done everything and, even more remarkable, he remembers it all. Young people admire him, the older one envy him. A multi-talent, he has found success on stage, screen, television, as a musician, singer and magician and Read More

The Dock Brief Review - A Sly British Comedy By Elaine L. Mura.  An English barrister, author, and playwright, John Mortimer has written a two-character subtle comedy bursting with unfulfilled hopes and dreams. At the same time, it is a poignant tale about two losers who have lasting effects on each other. Mortimer opines that comedy “is the only thing worth writing in this despairing age, providing it is Read More

THE DOCK BRIEF by John Mortimer.   This jolly, little play takes place in a prison cell in England in 1958 (set by Norman Scott), where a droll man named Fowle (Wesley Mann), the confessed murderer of his wife, is awaiting trial. He is being represented via a dock brief (like our court appointed Public Defender) by a verbose solicitor, Mr. Morgenhall (Frank Collison) who, after a less than illustrious Read More

A blowhard lawyer?   That's the joke in 'The Dock Brief' in Venice F. Kathleen Foley What do you do when a lifetime of carefully harbored illusions are stripped away by irrefutable circumstance? If you’re the clueless barrister in John Mortimer’s “The Dock Brief,” now at Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice, you simply rush to embrace another erroneous belief, in delusional defiance of reality. That’s the poignant conceit that gives a bit of heft to Read More