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Theater
San Francisco's annual lit festival has gotten big, fast. Now a week long, it's filled with sponsors, panels, booze, music, film, and, oh yeah, lots of author readings.
A good friend of mine has on his refrigerator door cartoonist Ted Rall's classic "Everybody's Happy Nowadays," in which young, healthy, cheerful, culturally sensitive San Franciscans browbeat a skeptic until he caves in and says, yes, he also loves The City. Stories about San Francisco's Litquake festival in the local press often remind me of the Rall cartoon, with breathless writers on the verge of exhorting us, too, to say it: "We're literary! We're literary! We're splendidly literary!" More
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Theater
Solid Gothic
As I walk into the Exit Theatre, it is as though I am entering the bowels of Hell itself-- the hallway narrows and darkens, and I find an empty seat in the tiny black womb of the theatre. The stage is small, the setting spare: a stool in the middle, a hanging cloak, and four grinning skulls contemplating the action that is about to unfold. I am vividly reminded of Faustian tales of men selling their souls to the devil in return for magical knowledge. In fact, the play I am here to see is just such a story. More
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Theater
A Sensuous Garden of Delights
The stories of the 1001 Nights conjure exotic images of glittering jewels, desert caravans, magic genies in long-forgotten lamps, and evil viziers plotting to overtake the kingdom. However, also included are simpler, more human tales of love, betrayal, honor, forgiveness, kindness, death, and bodily functions. It is these aspects of the stories that Mary Zimmerman takes up in her play, “The Arabian Nights." While the times and places that she captures are beautiful, faraway, and exotic, the stories that she chooses to tell, and the way in which she chooses to tell them, are surprisingly familiar. More
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Theater
The Light of Dark Days
The holiday season is upon us, and Christmas carols blare from every department store while garish displays persuade consumers to show their appreciation of loved ones through the purchase of material goods. It is also at this time of year that we are reminded to look past the temptations of material culture and consider the true spirit of whichever holiday we choose to celebrate. Regardless of how we greet this time of year, whether with excited anticipation or with concentrated avoidance, it does present us with a unique opportunity: to experience an abundance of artistic endeavors that celebrate the creative spirit. More
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Theater
An Electrifying Take On A Touchy Subject
Few are perhaps aware that one of the first devices to benefit from the harnessing of electricity was, in addition to the toaster, the vibrator. Yes, that kind of vibrator. In the 19th century, doctors on the cutting edge of medical progress armed themselves with electric vibrators in the battle against hysteria. “Hysteria” was a blanket term for numerous “illnesses”, from anxiety and depression to outspokenness, and was primarily applied to women. Doctors felt that hysteria was caused by an excess of fluid in the womb that needed to be released through “paroxysms”- orgasms. More
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Theater
Heartbreakingly Hilarious
The city of San Francisco has a long and captivating history, from the building of Spanish missions to the 1906 earthquake to the bust of the dotcom industry. Throughout that history, San Francisco has become one of the most wonderful, and most tragic, cities in the world. John Bisceglie’s SF Follies surveys the beauty and the horror of living in San Francisco through the lens of absurdity, giving residents and visitors alike a humorous second look at life in the Bay Area. More
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Theater
Dostoevsky Distilled
Three actors, two chairs, a table, and a bed: this is what Berkeley Rep’s production of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment has reduced the story to, yet the ultimate power of the novel remains, concentrated into these carefully chosen fragments. To take on the challenge of adapting Dostoevsky’s enormously complex and voluminous novel into a stage play takes incredible will, and not only do playwrights Marilyn Campbell and Curt Columbus turn the story into a captivating psychological journey but they also successfully distill the main themes of Dostoevsky’s work into a 90-minute production. More
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Theater
A Brave Attempt, But Not Quite There
Honor. Glory. Bloodshed. These are the words that come to mind at the mention of Homer’s Iliad, the famous epic poem about the wrath of Achilles during the last year of the Trojan War. While the poem itself is rather long and tedious in places, the tensions between the characters as well as Homer’s descriptions of the battles would seem rich fodder for a theatrical production. Yet, American Conservatory Theatre’s production of "War Music", a stage adaption of Christopher Logue’s book by the same name, provides none of the spectacle, excitement, and tension one might expect from a modern remake of Homer’s classic tale of war. More
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Theater
Shocking Shenanigans
Hot. Cold. Hot. Cold. Hot. Cold. Like the waters of the ancient Roman baths, Thrillpeddlers’"Audacious Artefacts" douses its audience in alternating splashes of horror and sex, shocking the system. From 1897 until 1962, the Theatre du Grand Guignol in Paris confronted its audiences with horror plays designed to terrify interspersed with sex farces that provided comic relief from said terror. Thrillpeddlers brings to stage four short plays of the Parisian Grand Guignol that probe the depths of human depravity and sexuality, culminating in a downright dirty (yet hysterical) sex romp. More
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Theater
Reality TV’s True Inspiration
Like all the best (or perhaps worst) episodes of Jerry Springer, Euripides’ Ion has it all: a mother forced to abandon her child, questionable paternity, attempted murder, and funny glasses. The ancient Greeks truly did form the foundation of Western society. Boxcar Theatre’s production of Ion pares down the original story for the sake of an outdoor production, but maintains the utterly dysfunctional family dynamic loved by audiences everywhere. More
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