Daytona at MET Theatre

Daytona

MET Theatre
1089 N. Oxford Ave. Los Angeles

Haunting and humorous, Daytona is a play with two love stories at its heart. Joe and Elli were childhood friends who survived the Holocaust. They found each other, after the war, and have been married almost 50 years now and living in New New York. The couple created a world for themselves to forget the past…until the day an unexpected visitor arrives, fracturing the relationship that took a lifetime to build. How do we forgive ourselves, and others, and live with what we have done?

Thru - Oct 30, 2017

Price: $40

Show Type: Comedy

Box Office: 323-957-1152

Daytona Reviews

Average Rating based on 8 reviews

Highly Recommended
Recommended
Somewhat Recommended
Not Recommended

Los Angeles Times - Highly Recommended

"...Suffice it to say that De Santos is a proven and protean director whose staging of "Daytona" stands alongside her very best work. Fancy, Shayne and Wyner perform at the peak of their craft. They invest Cotton's flawed but fascinating play with a harrowing emotionalism that is unforgettable."

Read Full Review

- F. Kathleen Foley

Broadway World - Highly Recommended

"...Daytona is one of the best plays I've seen in Los Angeles this year. I must admit that I was very skeptical walking into the show. The cast consisted of only three people, and they were all old enough to be my grandparents. Last year, I gave Menopause the Musical a chance and absolutely regretted it (I'll chalk it up to not being the show's "target demographic"). I was worried that this show, like Menopause, might have a hard time keeping a hip millennial's attention, like my own. Oh, how wrong I was. I couldn't look away from this two hour long emotional thriller."

Read Full Review

- George Brietigam

Stage and Cinema - Recommended

"...Under Elina de Santos' confident direction, the three veteran actors reveal layers beneath layers. The big dramatic moments have a laser-like precision, but de Santos also lets an awful possibility linger. Perhaps in so fully giving themselves over to their personal dramas, these characters are subconsciously recreating the emotional intensity of the past. Elli seems particularly ravenous, not just for change, but for catastrophe-as if she's been distracting herself in the ballroom while waiting for a chance to fight for survival again, with emotional torture replacing the physical perils of the camps."

Read Full Review

- Samuel Garza Bernstein

On Stage Los Angeles - Recommended

"...Act II has uncomfortable bumps now and then with uneven performances. Tensions rise and fall.The outcome is fraught with moral dilemma. Cotton breaks the dramatic rule about a gun on stage."

Read Full Review

Hollywood Progressive - Highly Recommended

"...Suffice it to say that this is a superbly written, acted and directed (by Elina de Santos, Rogue Machine's Co-Artistic Director) drama that may have you on the emotional edge of your seat. It is full of moral conundrums regarding life, death, assimilating to hide your true ethnic identity and self, fidelity and more. Daytona provoked total strangers to hold serious debates in their theater seats during the intermission about ethical and other questions."

Read Full Review

- Ed Rampell

Total Theater - Recommended

"...Daytona is, in essence, a Holocaust play, but one that puts its own wrinkle on that immense, much-examined subject. The actors deserve high praise for their diligent and expert work in this intimate-theatre production. Director de Santos, who just recently staged Arsenic and Old Lace at the Odyssey, has somehow gone from farce to tragedy without missing a beat."

Read Full Review

- Willard Manus

Stage Raw - Highly Recommended

"...Playwright Oliver Cotton's elegiac and unexpectedly thrilling drama carries the weight of the world on its shoulders - not just the pain and sadness of growing older, or of lost or squandered love, but the legacy of the Holocaust itself."

Read Full Review

- Paul Birchall

Hollywood Revealed - Recommended

"...Despite it's running time of two and half hours, (including a ten minute intermission), Daytona manages to get under your skin. It deals with the loss of love, the will to survive and the difficulty of letting go, it's tragic, fragile characters are not ones you are likely to forget."

Read Full Review

- Peter Foldy