True Romance: A.C.T. Stages Arcadia

True Romance: A.C.T. Stages Arcadia

What a year for Bay Area Tom Stoppard fans. Shotgun Players in Berkeley treated us to a staggeringly good production of Shipwreck, the second installment…

Scotland’s Pride: Black Watch at ACT

Scotland’s Pride: Black Watch at ACT

One of the first productions to come out of the recently established National Theatre of Scotland, Black Watch takes up the story of the country’s…

A Very Mild Nightmare: ‘Stuck Elevator’ at ACT

A Very Mild Nightmare: ‘Stuck Elevator’ at ACT

“I remember at one point I thought it might have to be a guy screaming in Chinese for an hour on stage,” says Byron Au…

Absurd Humanity: The Chairs at Cutting Ball Theater

Theater of the absurd, the catchall term for the works of post-World War II writers like Eugene Ionesco, Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter, is to…

Just Crass: Dead Metaphor at A.C.T.

Dead Metaphor, George F. Walker’s political “black comedy” now running at American Conservatory Theater, begins at a job placement agency for veterans, with what unfortunately…

The Appalling Spectacle of Mike Tyson’s “Undisputed Truth”

“Don’t worry – everyone’s leaving with both ears tonight,” joked a dapper-looking Mike Tyson toward the start of his travelling one-man performance, Mike Tyson: Undisputed…

A Berkeley Travesty: Our Practical Heaven At The Aurora Theatre Company

Beating out hundreds of other scripts, Anthony Clarvoe’s Our Practical Heaven received top honors in the Aurora Theatre Company’s 2011 Global Age Project (GAP), an…

Oh, the Mendacity!: African American Shakespeare Company’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

The African American Shakespeare Company’s production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof comes during an off-year for Tennessee Williams plays. The American Conservatory Theater…

Solid But Safe: 4,000 Miles At A.C.T.

Amy Herzog’s 4,000 Miles begins with shaggy, smelly, twenty-one-year-old Leo (Reggie Gowland) showing up one night at the Manhattan apartment of his ninety-one-year-old Grandma Vera…

Kick-A Adventures, Cut Short: Troublemaker at Berkeley Rep

“I’m having trouble getting into the mind of a twelve and a half-year-old.” This was more or less the feeling I was bracing for upon…

Soul of a Holiday: A Christmas Carol at A.C.T.

There are those who decry contemporary Christmas for losing touch with its religious roots and reforming itself in the name of consumerism instead. They are…

Mesmerizing from Every Angle: The White Snake at Berkeley Rep

It’s the holiday season. Your family is in town, and now that you’ve seen Lincoln, you’re seeking something more spiritually fulfilling than the silver screen….

The Human Condition in Four One-Acts: Wilder Times at Aurora Theatre

Thornton Wilder found a liberating potential in quick, one-act plays. Not beholden to the rounding out of full narrative arcs, they offer just glimpses into…

Vengeance Dies Hard: Elektra at A.C.T.

Greek tragedies are not the sort of play you come out of, quoting lines. The words all but recede into crashing tidal waves of bloodshed…

Ugly Text, Beautiful Show: The Lion King at SHN

Break out the leopard prints, ladies; The Lion King is in town. I’ll start by saying that reviewing this play is pointless; as with most…

A Real Screamer: The Normal Heart at A.C.T.

Contagion. Specifically, HIV/AIDS, but the very early days of the outbreak – the days of patient zero, when deaths were beginning to mount in the…

Cult Of Cruise: Port Out, Starboard Home At Z Space

Cruise fanatics, in particular younger ones, are no doubt a weird bunch. It bespeaks a certain personality (or, pathology) to serially indulge in this form…

Big on Slam but Light on Body: The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity at Aurora Theatre Co.

In spite of the dramatic art form’s possibilities, theater goers – a population that tends to fall few standard deviations above the 18 – 35…

Beloved, But Not Brave: War Horse At The Curran

After seeing War Horse at the Curran Theatre, I walked down the street to a speakeasy-themed bar, where I sat for a while and hypothesized…

Small but Sharp: Ray of Light Theatre’s Sweeney Todd

Since Stephen Sondheim elevated him to Broadway in 1979, Victorian anti-hero Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, has been nicking victims on stage…

Going Strong After 25 Years: Les Miserables

Les Miserables is a play that I have been aware of for what feels like my entire life without knowing a thing about it. With…

Modern Minstrelsy: Scottsboro Boys at A.C.T.

The Scottsboro Boys, written by David Thompson with music and lyrics by Broadway titans John Kander and Fred ebb (Cabaret, Chicago), opened two years ago…

Reclaiming Intensity for Women: Emotional Creature at Berkeley Rep

“Everything is intense to me,” sings one of the girls in Eve Ensler’s Emotional Creature. Her tone is not one of frustration or shame, but…

Theaters of War: Salomania at the Aurora Theatre

The word “theater” has a curious place in the vocabulary of war, where it means something like “arena” (WWII was split between the Pacific theater…

On the Road: Japandroids, How to Dress Well, The Jesus and Mary Chain

Pruning next month’s concert calendar for the not-to-be-missed Japandroids (6/14 at The Independent · Tickets) Japandroids’ Celebration Rock begins and ends with fireworks, though a…

On the Road: Destroyer w/ Sandro Perri, Tycho, Mogwai

Pruning next month’s concert calendar for the not-to-be-missed Destroyer w/ Sandro Perri (6/5 at The Fillmore · Tickets) Sandro Perri has come a long way…

A Dim Conclusion: Play and Endgame at A.C.T.

Samuel Beckett’s Endgame is a play about the end; whether of all humanity or merely one individual consciousness, critics continue to debate, and a convincing…

Voices from the Center Cut: Tenderloin at Cutting Ball Theater

Tenderloin Trailer from The Cutting Ball Theater on Vimeo. Welcome to the Tenderloin. If spoken by an outsider to the neighborhood, it’s likely this phrase…

Less Than Ekstasis: Julia Holter At The Rickshaw Stop

Following up on our own recommendations It felt very much like a school night at the Rickshaw Stop on Sunday. Prior to the headlining performance…

English and Erotic: Wild Beasts Rock The Independent

Following up on our own recommendations The stage at The Independent, bathed luxuriously in deep blue, purple and turquoise light, was an anemone of craning…

Girls’ Night Out: Wild Flag and EMA at the Fillmore

Following up on our own recommendations Wild Flag’s riot grrrl tunes, rollicking electric pop with punk-flare, may not occupy quite the same sphere as EMA’s…

Freudian Philandering: Anatol at Aurora Theatre Company

What is a sitcom, but a series of episodes making light of life’s little tests — frequently sex-related ones? By this definition, the typically televised…

Not Dead Yet: Spamalot at the Orpheum Theatre

Spamalot, Eric Idle’s loving Broadway adaptation of Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), has received almost uniform praise from the critics and theatergoers who…

Yuppies in the ’50s: Maple and Vine at A.C.T.

You work at a start up; you spend half your income at fancy bars. You order sushi – it comes; you leave your trash at…

On the Road: The Shins, Julia Holter and Others

Pruning this month’s concert calendar for the not-to-be-missed The Shins (4/23 at Robert Mondavi Center, UC Davis · Tickets) The Shins seem to belong to…

A Single Room: “The Caretaker” at the Curran Theatre

After World War II, the single room seemed the set to end all sets within European drama circuit. Most famously in Sartre’s “No Exit” and…

Doing Rothko Right: “Red” at Berkeley Rep

Our store of famous, mid-century eccentrics has proven a real goldmine for screenwriters lately. Over the past year alone, people have flocked to films about…

Belief in a Power Greater than Oneself: High at SHN

The curtain rises to reveal Sister Jamison Connelly (Kathleen Turner), standing solo. Her delivery promptly takes center stage, thrusting the content of her speech (something…

Just Play It Twice: Perfume Genius at Cafe du Nord

Following up on our own recommendations “We’re a little apprehensive about opening for Perfume Genius,” Parenthetical Girls frontman Zac Pennington admitted. “They’re a very sincere,…

On the Road: Nicolas Jaar, I Break Horses, Elvis Costello and Others

Pruning next months’ concert calendar for the not-to-be-missed Nicolas Jaar (3/25 at The Independent · Sold Out – start Craigslisting!) “Replace the word space with…