LA Times’ Culture Monster Theater review: ‘The Emperor’s Last Performance’ at Los Angeles Theatre Centre
An unjustly forgotten chapter in American theatrical and racial history is the raison d’être of “The Emperor’s Last Performance,” which ends its limited Los Angeles Theatre Center run on Sunday. This respectable Robey Theatre Company staging of Melvin Ishmael Johnson’s drama about the first star of Eugene O’Neill’s “The Emperor Jones” merges the techniques of stage fantasia and social document. Once... Read More
A Word With the Emperor
Robey Theatre Production Kicks Off LATC Spring Season by Ryan Vaillancourt Published: Friday, March 26, 2010 4:42 PM PDT DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES – The central conflict in the Robey Theatre Company’s The Emperor’s Last Performance revolves around a racial slur, a word whose use is as controversial now as it was during the 1920s, when the world premiere is set. Against the backdrop of the Harlem Renaissance, the play centers on African-American... Read More
