43 plays, presidents

Caught up late with Rough and Tumble's production of 43 Plays for 43 Presidents at La Val's Subterranean Theatre in Berkeley this week. It runs through Jan. 27 and is mostly sold out. Congratulations, Rough and Tumble.I didn't find the show nearly as funny as the rest of the audience, though I did think Joshua Pollock and Arwen Anderson were stand-outs in the energetic ensemble.The play is the product of Chicago's Neo-Futurists, and my friend and fellow theater writer Kerry Reid of the Windy City, shared the following anecdote about the show's Atlanta run, which she read about in American Theatre (why the word theater has an "re" ending after the word "American" is something I'll never understand):

Jimmy and Roslyn Carter saw [the show] at Dad's Garage in Atlanta and it just made me love Carter all over again. Particularly because when they asked "Who can tell me something about Benjamin Harrison's administration?," guess who had the only hand in the air? Which, of course, caused the actor asking the question to observe "Okay, basically, that's cheating."

For more info, visit www.randt.org.