A spooky, funny slow burn in ACT's John
There are two Johns in Annie Baker's John, neither of whom we actually meet. One wreaked mental havoc on another person and the other is wreaking havoc on a relationship. Both feel like sinister external forces, but they are just two of many in this wonderfully bizarre, engrossingly enigmatic play by one of our country's most original and captivating voices.
Fractured fairy tales shine in stripped-down Woods
You've journeyed Into the Woods, but you haven't ever been into these woods.
When great musicals are revived, the first question has to be: why? Is it going to be another retread of a successful prior production? Or will it be a reinvention, a new take for a new time? Happily the latter is the case with the glorious Fiasco Theater re-imagining of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Into the Woods.
Humanity shines in ACT's Splendid Suns
Let's be honest: sitting in a beautiful theater watching a well-crafted play is an absolute privilege, so where better to challenge our very notions of privilege and confront the reality that much of the world's population is having a very different experience than those of us sitting in the velvet seats? With a play like A Thousand Splendid Suns, the world-premiere adaptation of Khaled Hosseini's 2007 novel now at American Conservatory Theater's Geary Theater.
Hellishly fun Hand job at Berkeley Rep
Hand to God is just the spiritual exploration we deserve at this point in our sordid human existence. Imagine if the current administration reimagined "Sesame Street" in its own twisted, greedy, egocentric, power-mad image and you might get something like Robert Askins' hit play now at Berkeley Repertory Theatre's Peet's Theatre.
In a small Texas town, the Lutheran church becomes the epicenter for that most human of showdowns: between good and bad, right and wrong, authority and anarchy, virtue and sin, reality and fantasy.
Sacred and profane: much to mull in Playhouse's Christians
While the San Francisco Playhouse audience was delving into Lucas Hnath's The Christians, a powerful, fraught examination of faith and organized religion, protestors were shutting down airports in demonstrations against the Trump administration's ban on immigrants from countries whose religions posed a perceived threat to our nation. In other words, the spiritual and emotional chaos inside and outside the theater were well matched.
Gorgeous, moving Fun Home at the Curran
At only about 100 minutes, the musical Fun Home, manages to encapsulate a profoundly moving life experience: coming to terms with your parents as human beings and not just the people who gave you life then messed up that life one way or another.
What an extraordinary show to officially re-open the spectacularly renovated Curran Theatre, now in its 95th year and the ongoing project of Carole Shorenstein Hays and her family.
Finding Neverland: never found, never lands
I'm calling it: the use of Peter Pan as an automatic trigger for poignant reflections on lost youth and the emotional cruelty of aging is officially over. It's been over for a while, but apparently word has not spread to those still hoping to cash in on Captain Hook, Tinkerbell and the whole Neverland crew. That's unfortunate for the musical Finding Neverland.
Irwin illuminates Beckett at ACT
Bill Irwin wants to address everything you've ever wanted to know about Samuel Beckett but were afraid to ask. His casual one-man show On Beckett, now in a short run at American Conservatory Theater's Strand Theater, provides an excellent opportunity to explore the enigmatic Beckett from a safe distance and through utterly delightful filter of the inimitable Irwin.
Madwoman drives a Volvo through 'the change'
If the idea of an NPR-ready take on the challenges and complexity of menopause appeals to you, get yourself to Berkeley Repertory Theatre's Peet's Theatre to see The Madwoman in the Volvo, Sandra Tsing Loh's disarmingly humorous exploration of her midlife mania. If the combo of NPR and menopause raises your hackles, stay away.
A dreamy White Christmas at the Golden Gate
Eleven years ago, our holiday entertainment bandwidth grew a little wider with the stage adaptation of White Christmas, the 1954 movie that solidified the evergreen popularity of Irving Berlin's holiday ballad.
That production was pure delight, the kind of instant Christmas classic that would inevitably be taking its place alongside the Christmas Carols and Nutcrackers. Sure enough, White Christmas is a perennial, and this year's touring production has returned back to San Francisco
Tickety boo! Kneehigh, Berkeley Rep jazz up history in Adolphus Tips
Spirits are high at Berkeley Repertory Theatre this holiday season. What's interesting is that the merry-making on stage in 946: The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips – the singing, dancing and general revelry – is all in service to a story about war and a little-known and avoidable tragedy that cost nearly 1,000 during World War II. So it's happy about sad, which makes sense given the theater company at work here is Kneehigh, the Cornwall-based troupe that has made various Bay Area splashes.
Raging with Marty @ ACT's Strand
If Martin Moran wanted to tell me about his trip to the dentist, I would stop whatever I was doing and listen in rapt attention knowing that Moran is a master storyteller and will inevitably find every telling detail, every character nuance, every link to something bigger than just the story he's relating.
Holiday cheer in SF Playhouse's sparkling She Loves Me
p>The 1963 musical She Loves Me is just a little gem of a musical – full of melody and charm and camaraderie and romance. The recent Broadway revival made a case for the show as sturdy, funny showcase for actors who can perfectly balance realism and musical comedy in a way that makes the show feel intimate and lived in even while it traffics in song and dance.
Just in time for the holidays, San Francisco Playhouse polishes this gem to a sparkling shine.
Lost in Austen with Marin's Christmas at Pemberly
We're all in need of some genuine Christmas cheer this year, and that's exactly what Marin Theatre Company's Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley provides. It's sweet without being sappy. It's sharp, clever and funny with a warm undercurrent of genuine emotion. What more could you want from a holiday show (except maybe passed eggnog and a round of carols)?
Wonderful women in Word for Word's Aunt Hagar
What you remember from Word for Word's production of All Aunt Hagar's Children, a full theatrical adaptation of the short story by Edward P. Jones, are the women. Such women. They make an impression on the audience the way they make an impression the story's narrator, a nameless young man who returned to his native Washington, D.C., nine months ago after serving in the Korean War.
Cirque du Soleil's Luzia low on thrills, big on beauty
Having seen abundant Cirque du Soleil shows over the years, I've come to think of them as lovely packages. It's not what's inside the package that intrigues – we know each one will be filled with some of the world's best acrobats, assorted clowns and acts that range from prosaic to heartstopping, dopey to achingly beautiful. So it's not the content so much as the packaging itself that makes the arrival of a new Cirque show so exciting.
The newest touring show, Luzia is subtitled "a waking dream of Mexico" ...
Freedom, dreams clash in Aurora's Safe House
There are several ways to interpret the title of Keith Josef Adkins' Safe House now at Berkeley's Aurora Theatre Company. One way sees cobbler Addison Pedigrew, a free man of color in Kentucky, aiming for his version of the American dream: a thriving shoe making/repairing business run out of his home to support his Aunt Dorcas and his brother, Frank, so that they can be truly free to thrive and expand their families. The other way, according to Frank and Dorcas, is to provide shelter and assistance to fugitive slaves on the Underground Railroad. Both co-exist, but not easily in this 2014 drama, which takes much of its first act to really get going.
Making friends with Golden Thread's Enemies
When you go to a show from a specialized company like Golden Thread Productions, which focuses on plays from and about the Middle East, you expect your perspective to be expanded, to have your assumptions challenged and to encounter voices you may not hear enough. In its 20 years, Golden Thread has earned a strong reputation for accomplishing all of the above and more...
ACT attempts to solve Stoppard's Hard Problem
All through American Conservatory Theater's production of The Hard Problem you can feel playwright Tom Stoppard making an effort to be accessible. With a play about the very nature of consciousness – the "hard problem" about not just the knowing about what's at our human core but the knowing about the knowing – there's a danger of a) boring a lay audience with intricate lectures on neuroscience or b) becoming so involved in the intellectual pursuits of the play that actual drama. Stoppard slips a little into both camps during his play's one hour and 40 minutes, but it's hard to fault a playwright for being too smart or too passionate about the subject he's exploring.
Tech & show tunes! SOMA musical skewers Silicon Valley
Having lived in San Francisco for 26 years now, it's' sad to say that everything I know about Silicon Valley comes not from firsthand experience of the world outside my doorstep but from the HBO show "Silicon Valley." Based on that show and on the genial South of Market: The Musical, I would venture to say that the best way to deal with that world is through a satirical lens. My impression is that Silicon Valley life/work is so wacky and self-involved it's basically satire that writes itself.