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.
Bouncy around here: Shotgun's Virginia Woolf howls
Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is famous for being, among other things, a night in the life of a querulous quartet, a four-part marital slugfest, a boozy broadside in four parts. In other words, four actors fighting, lashing out, drinking and suffering. All of that is present and accounted for in director Mark Jackson's production concluding Shotgun Players' 25th anniversary season. But it feels like there's another character here.
TheatreFIRST gets tempest tossed in Bagyó
When one of the Bay Area theater scenes most reliably inventive, resourceful and rewarding directors takes over a theater company and begins making changes, you pay attention. Jon Tracy is now at the helm of the Berkeley-based TheaterFIRST, a small but ambitious company that has had bumps and triumphs over the last 20 years while building a reputation as a haven for actors and playwrights to share voices from around the world.
The company's new season officially launched on Monday with the world premiere of San Francisco playwright Rob Dario's Bagyó.
Hello, love: Hedwig slams her Angry Inch in our faces
Hedwig and the Angry Inch launches its first Broadway national tour with the power of a barbecue fired with jet fuel. An explosion of rock, lights, humor and heart, this show is a rarity among rarities: a quirky late '90s off-Broadway hit that inspired a devoted cult following that seemingly peaked with its big-screen adaptation in 2001. Over the years, however, Hedwig's tragic tale of rejection and transformation has traveled around the world and created an international league of Heheads.
Heat, sizzle fire up SF Playhouse's Seared
I'm going to spoil something right off the bat about Theresa Rebeck's fantastic new play Seared now receiving its world premiere from San Francisco Playhouse: there is no conventional romance. Just because the cast consists of one woman and three men does not mean there's going to be a burgeoning love story or a sordid triangle or break-ups or make-ups. No, the central love story comes out of a friendship and business partnership between a chef and a money guy who open a small restaurant in Brooklyn.
Berkeley Rep's warning: it can so happen here
Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s It Can’t Happen Here is a nightmare on so many levels, and that’s mostly a good thing in the world-premiere adaptation of Sinclair Lewis’ 1935 novel.
This is the right story at the right time, and therein lies the dark heart of this nightmare.
Local kids make good, rock out in Hedwig
The coolness of Lena Hall and Darren Criss relates directly to the city of their birth. The two performers, one a Tony Award-winning Broadway star and the other a former object of "Glee" affection, are headlining the Broadway tour of the raging rock musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch, which begins Sunday, Oct. 2 at the Golden Gate Theatre in their hometown, San Francisco.
Lots to unpack in Crowded Fire's Shipment
While Secretary Clinton and The Orange Bloviator were duking it out at the first presidential debate and helping the populace decide the fate of this troubled nation, Crowded Fire Theater was painting its own portrait of America at the opening of Young Jean Lee's The Shipment at the Thick House.
It was an incendiary evening for several reasons, not the least of which was the actual heat wave baking San Francisco.
ACT crowns a glorious King Charles III
What will happen when Queen Elizabeth, Great Britain's longest reigning queen, leaves the throne? In a hefty helping of royal speculation, playwright Mike Bartlett takes on that question, but does so by way of Shakespeare with a soupçon of Notting Hill.
The result is King Charles III a new history play that traffics in family drama, parliamentary procedure, the liberties of the fourth estate and everything we think we know about Charles, Camilla, William, Kate and Harry. There's sensation and substance, comedy and some genuine emotion mixed in with provocative observations on the relevance of the monarchy in the 21st century.
Life on the precipice: Remembering Edward Albee
A towering giant has fallen. Edward Albee has died at 88.
A playwright who forged his own way and wielded his distinctive voice with lacerating skill, Albee helped define theater as we know and practice it today.
I sat down with Albee in 1997 when his Three Tall Women (one of three Albee plays to win the Pulitzer) was playing the Herbst Theatre. He was 69, and though he had a lot to say, he said it quietly, almost mumbling.
Simple command: Catch Caught. Now.
Watching Christopher Chen's new play Caught in its sublime Shotgun Players production is, in a word, disorienting, and that's a good thing. Even clever folk who think they have it all figured out and are hip to what's going on in this mind-twisting play will experience something new here, and it may not be apparent until they leave the theater. Your trust in what is real, what is true (a major theme of the play), will likely have been somewhat shifted. The absurd things that happen to us on a regular basis and all the things we assume are true suddenly seem challenging and connected, as if we've stepped into a Chen play ourselves.
Theater Dogs at 10: A not-so-gala tencennial
On August 1, 2006, a little theater blog called Theater Dogs (thank you, Paul Rudnick for the name and for the story behind the name) came into being, and 10 years later, here we are.
As the 10th anniversary approached, I thought about how I might like to celebrate. Perhaps a party where theater people might imbibe generously and give me fodder for turning this into a gossip rag. Perhaps a limited edition T-shirt followed by posts full of photos of readers wearing the T-shirt (I've actually wanted to do that for years). Maybe nothing at all. Or maybe, just maybe, it was time to let Theater Dogs crawl back into the dog house from whence it came.
Race, politics, compassion at odds in riveting Confederates
A troubled presidential campaign provides the setting for Suzanne Bradbeer's Confederates, a thrilling world-premiere drama from TheatreWorks Silicon Valley now at the Lucie Stern Theatre in Palo Alto. Developed, in part, at TheatreWorks' New Works Festival, this three-person one-act slices into the heart of modern politics and journalism. Bradbeer comes from a realistic perspective in terms of the degradation of modern journalism and the obfuscating chaos surrounding a presidential campaign, but she might rely on types – the noble young journalism, the crusty older journalist, the naive candidate's daughter – those types deepen into characters with depth, complication and easily relatable flaws, ambitions and conundrums.
Grins, gams and gumshoes in SF Playhouse Angels
It's real vs. reel in the San Francisco Playhouse summer musical, City of Angels, a delightfully jazzy take on film noir, greed the constant battle between commerce and art.
This 1989 Broadway hit, with a dazzling score by the great Cy Coleman (music) and David Zippel (lyrics) and a genuinely funny book by Larry Gelbart is a real treat, and it's nice to see that SF Playhouse's musicals just get stronger and stronger.
Campo goes seriously sci-fi with Hookers on Mars
What's the last great work of dramatic science fiction you saw on a stage? Maybe you'll have to get back to me on that one. Sci-fi, while stellar (in every sense) in comics, games, books, big screens and small screens, has not generally been a successful theatrical genre. Shakespeare, Eugene O'Neill, Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams all neglected to set any of their dramas in space, which does seem a shame.
For whatever reason – maybe it's just too much a suspension of disbelief to be in the same roof with actors pretending to be in space, in the future, etc. without feeling a kitschy '70s flashback – sci-fi will likely remain successful outside the theater. But then again there's H.O.M.E. (Hookers on Mars Eventually), a world-premiere play by Star Finch now receiving its world premiere from Campo Santo.
Natural beauty, talent and...disappointment at Transcendence
Heading back to Transcendence Theatre Company for opening weekend of the fifth season, much of what makes this such a special experience was in place. The amount of talent within the 25-member company is, as expected, at an astronomical level, but the opening show itself, dubbed This Magic Moment (running through July 3), is disappointing.
Money trumps all in MTC's fascinating Invisible Hand
Marin Theatre Company concludes its 49th season with a play that is timely for this election cycle to be sure, but because its focus is on the powerful religion known as money, it's really timely all the time.
The Invisible Hand by Pulitzer Prize-winner Ayad Akhtar (Disgraced), is set in the Middle East, involves Muslim extremists and traffics in terrorism in the form of a potentially lucrative (and vengeful) kidnapping of American banker Nick Bright. But the most fascinating aspect of the drama is ...
Reality vs. imagination in ACT's appealing Chester Bailey
In Joseph Dougherty's Chester Bailey, it's reality vs. imagination, and the audience wins.
This world-premiere production from American Conservatory Theater is a modest two-hander performed in the intimate Strand Theater, an old-fashioned feeling play woven through with dry humor and compassion. Think of it sort of as an Oliver Sacks case history come to life with a modicum of theatrical flair.
Ruhl peters out in Berkeley Rep's For Peter Pan
Sarah Ruhl is a brilliant writer capable of intellectual heights and emotional depths. Her latest play, For Peter Pan on Her 70th Birthday, now at Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Roda Theatre, displays few of those qualities.
Paired with director Les Waters with whom she worked so memorably on Eurydice and In the Next Room (or the vibrator play) at Berkeley Rep, Ruhl is working in mysterious ways here.
Ray of Light's Party is wild and winsome
San Francisco has known its share of wild parties, but the particular bit of revelry now happening at the Victoria Theatre under the auspices of Ray of Light theatre is of particular interest. Once again, this enterprising company ignites the local musical theater scene with remarkable energy and talent, and their production of The Wild Party imbues a flawed show with undeniable passion and pizazz.