Berkeley Rep's Great Wave crashes
Director Mark Wing-Davey layers an intricate sound design (by Bray Poor and even more intricate projection design (by Tara Knight) onto the play in a way that makes it seem he doesn't fully trust Turnly or the actors enough to convey the emotional weight of the show. And he may be right.
Berkeley Rep's Pericles: Prince of Tyre-less theatrics
There's a rough beauty to director Mark Wing-Davey's Pericles, Prince of Tyre now on Berkeley Repertory Theatre's Thrust Stage. The industrial look of the bi-level set by Douglas Stein and Peter Ksander indicates that this will be a utilitarian telling of this dubious Shakespeare tale – dubious only because we don't really know how much (if any) of the play the Bard actually wrote.
From the giant crane that hoists everything from crystal chandeliers to pirates' nets to the goddess Diana, to the sliding metal doors that bang and clang during scene transitions, this is a production that revs and lurches like an engine that could use a little more tuning
But that's not to say that this re-imagining of Pericles by Wing-Davey and Jim Calder isn't entertaining or even, at times, quite captivating.