Love Triangle

— Take away the miracles, the bluesy guitar licks and all those antsy apostles, and what's "Jesus Christ Superstar" really about? Des McAnuff thinks he has the answer. It's a love triangle among Jesus, Judas and Mary Magdalene, said the U.S.-Canadian director of the critically heralded, Broadway-bound production of the Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice musical that's running through year's end at the La Jolla Playhouse. Actually, McAnuff said, he heard lyricist Rice deliver that revisionist take on the New Testament during a TV interview.

Embrace A Novel Jessica Shirvington Sourcebooks Fire: 400 pp., $16.99, ages 12 and up If angels are the new vampires, then "Embrace" is a worthy follow-up to "The Twilight Saga. " The kickoff to a new young adult series from debut author Jessica Shirvington has many of the same strengths - and flaws - as the Stephenie Meyer blockbuster with a heroine who doesn't understand her own strengths and becomes entangled in a complicated, steamy, love triangle. "Embrace" opens on the eve of Violet's 17th birthday - a bittersweet occasion that overlaps with the anniversary of her mother's death.

The blogosphere has been buzzing for days over the perky widow who stole the handsome gay guy from his longtime partner. She's been called a "home wrecker" and the sobriquet that rhymes with witch, and lambasted as a wretch "who only lives for her own happiness, no matter who gets hurt." Cherchez la femme notwithstanding, the saga of Linda and Harry and poor, cuckolded Pepper has ignited a fierce debate about whether homosexuality is a choice. Even People magazine has called for details.

Stephanie Lazarus, the Los Angeles police officer on trial for allegedly murdering the wife of an ex-boyfriend, tearfully confronted the man after learning he had become engaged, according to testimony Wednesday. "She was basically trying to tell me … she was in love with me," said John Ruetten, whose testimony marked the first time he has publicly discussed his wife's killing. "It was clear that I was moving on and getting married. " Lazarus, who served in the Los Angeles Police Department for more than 25 years before retiring last year as a detective, was arrested in 2009 when LAPD cold-case detectives linked her to the 1986 beating and shooting death of Sherri Rasmussen, 29. Prosecutors allege that Lazarus, a patrol officer at the time of the killing, was infatuated with Ruetten, an engineer who she had dated before he became engaged to Rasmussen.

Stephanie Lazarus, the Los Angeles police officer on trial for allegedly murdering the wife of an ex-boyfriend, tearfully confronted the man after learning he had become engaged, according to testimony Wednesday. "She was basically trying to tell me … she was in love with me," said John Ruetten, whose testimony marked the first time he has publicly discussed his wife's killing. "It was clear that I was moving on and getting married. " Lazarus, who served in the Los Angeles Police Department for more than 25 years before retiring last year as a detective, was arrested in 2009 when LAPD cold-case detectives linked her to the 1986 beating and shooting death of Sherri Rasmussen, 29. Prosecutors allege that Lazarus, a patrol officer at the time of the killing, was infatuated with Ruetten, an engineer who she had dated before he became engaged to Rasmussen.

The space shuttle pilot at the center of a bizarre love triangle that included a former astronaut who now faces attempted kidnapping charges is leaving the space agency, NASA said in Houston. Cmdr. William A. Oefelein will leave NASA on June 1, nearly four months after authorities believe his cooled relationship with Lisa Marie Nowak led her to drive 900 miles from Houston to Florida and confront her romantic rival. Oefelein was being assigned to the Naval Network Warfare Command in Norfolk,

A shooting allegedly stemming from a love triangle left one man dead and another in jail on suspicion of murder, police said Monday. Charles McKeen, 40, was shot in front of his home in the 11800 block of Eldridge Avenue about 11 p.m. Sunday, police said. McKeen was pronounced dead at the scene.

A dispute between two men over a woman they were both dating ended with one of the men shot to death and the other in custody, Los Angeles police said today. The victim, a 30-year-old Van Nuys man whose name was not released, was shot Monday night at a home in the 5700 block of Troost Avenue in North Hollywood. Gary Bergantino, 42, was arrested on suspicion of murder.

Matteo Garrone's "The Embalmer" is a seductive, suspenseful psychological drama set against the evocative vistas of a coastal resort outside Naples off-season. A master of nuances, Garrone first introduces us to Peppino Profeta (Ernesto Mahieux, in a complex portrayal), a very short, middle-aged taxidermist of much skill and dedication, clearly a lonely man who pours his life into his work.

The suicidal factory worker in Goshen who gunned down a co-worker and wounded six others was involved in a "love triangle" at work, co-workers and police said. Robert Wissman, 36, was having a problem with a male employee over a female co-worker, Police Chief Terry Schollian said. Neither employee was among those wounded, but police refused to release other details. After telling his boss he had not slept in three days, Wissman was asked to leave the Nu-Wood Decorative Millwork factory Thursday.

New technology or DNA evidence often helps crack decades-old slaying cases, but in the case of 58-year-old Archie McFarland, years of inconsistent testimony finally sealed the fate of his killer. "The passage of time played to this case's advantage," Deputy Dist. Atty. John Lewin said. "Lies are hard to remember. The truth never changes. " On Wednesday, more than 25 years after McFarland was stabbed to death outside his Torrance home, L.A. County Superior Court Judge Mark S. Arnold sentenced Janos Kulcsar, now 60, to 26 years to life in prison.

— Take away the miracles, the bluesy guitar licks and all those antsy apostles, and what's "Jesus Christ Superstar" really about? Des McAnuff thinks he has the answer. It's a love triangle among Jesus, Judas and Mary Magdalene, said the U.S.-Canadian director of the critically heralded, Broadway-bound production of the Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice musical that's running through year's end at the La Jolla Playhouse. Actually, McAnuff said, he heard lyricist Rice deliver that revisionist take on the New Testament during a TV interview.

BOOKS In "The Marriage Plot," Jeffrey Eugenides' first novel since 2002's Pulitzer Prize–winning "Middlesex," he examines the lives of three college seniors at Brown University in the '80s. The three characters — Madeleine, an incurable romantic; Leonard, a brilliant but unstable philosopher, and Mitchell, a clear-eyed religious-studies student — find themselves enveloped in a love triangle of sorts that loops in enigmatic professors, feminist theorists, neo-Victorians and concerned mothers.

The love triangle gets an evolutionary update in Tom Tykwer's romance "3" (Drei), a sensuous intellectual romp whose strong casting makes it involving, even when sentimentality creeps into the story or ideas present themselves in boldface. Hanna and Simon are a 40-ish Berlin couple, together 20 years and both with successful careers on the cultural cutting edge. She hosts a highbrow talk show — the kind not seen on American television in decades — and he's an "art engineer," translating sculptors' visions into large-scale installations.

In "A Kiss and a Promise," which claims to be based on actual events, the owner of a small-town B&B has kinky sex with his wife (it's her thing) but finds emotional solace cuddling in the arms of their semipermanent male tenant. Also, he strangles female strangers. Meant as a hybrid of a serial-killer tale and a semi-serious domestic drama, the film never quite brings those dangling strands together in anything but a narratively convenient way. The love triangle is presumably meant to somehow explore the ways in which people often willingly turn a blind eye to even the worst in a partner to keep things on an even keel, but fails to offer any deeper insight.

In the constant search for new operatic inspiration, composers in recent years have seized on some of the great American novels of the 20th century. F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" was turned into an opera in 1999 by composer John Harbison, premiering to great fanfare at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. More recent page-to-stage adaptations include John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" by composer Ricky Ian Gordon in 2007, and Theodore Dreiser's "An American Tragedy" by composer Tobias Picker in 2005.

A love triangle apparently led to the firebombing of a house in Detroit that killed three children and three adults, police said. Police arrested a woman and searched for a male suspect in connection with the blaze that swept through the house in the neatly groomed, flower-filled neighborhood. Two Molotov cocktails crashed through the front window 20 minutes after the female suspect made a threatening call to a woman in the home, police said.

"Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel " To save the school music program, the Chipmunks square off in a battle of the bands against the Chipettes. "Creation" A look at Charles Darwin's family life and his love for his deeply religious wife. "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus" Christopher Plummer's traveling magician tries to renege on a deal with the devil in director Terry Gilliam's latest. "It's Complicated" Meryl Streep stars as a divorced mother caught up in a love triangle when she renews a romance with her ex. "Police, Adjective" A police officer on a surveillance mission has a crisis of faith.

Before dying at age 25 in a hail of lawmen's bullets, Clyde Barrow had achieved the fame he sought -- and he had killed 14 men, directly or indirectly. His loyal moll, Bonnie Parker, may never have shot anyone. But as one of their cohorts in the Barrow gang said, "She was one hell of a loader." The notorious 1930s bank robbers were transformed into mythical outlaw lovers by director Arthur Penn, actor-producer Warren Beatty and screenwriters David Newman and Robert Benton in the 1967 film "Bonnie and Clyde."