Sunday, August 9, 2020
SAN FRANCISCO PLAYHOUSE ANNOUNCES AUGUST LIVE STREAMING EVENTS San Francisco Playhouse is offering five new episodes of its live streaming calendar, including three Zoomlet Live Play Readin…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:09PMWednesday, April 9, 2014
A HOWLINGLY FUNNY BASKERVILLES SPOOF IS MORE THAN ELEMENTARY It turns out that you can teach an old dog new tricks, proven by TheatreWorks’ contemporary stage-spoof treatment of the 1901 S…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:42PMWednesday, January 29, 2014
A CASE OF HIGH-TECH FUSION This production is described by Berkeley Rep as “high-tech fusion” and that, I found, indeed is what it is. Two Anton Chekhov circa-1898 short stories, “Man …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 11:55AMThursday, December 19, 2013
SPIRITS MATERIALIZE A SPIRITED CHRISTMAS IN SONG AND DANCE Anyone with a soft spot for holiday song and dance through history must attend the California Revels lofty production of The Christ…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:44PMSaturday, November 30, 2013
A TRIUMPH OF IMAGINATIVE STORYTELLING Monty Python meets Shakespeare meets Cirque du Soleil in Tristan & Yseult at Berkeley Rep. A universal love story with roots in classic times at the…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:20PMThursday, November 21, 2013
OVER THE MOON A big top with a 13-meter stage, despite its yawning spatial dimensions, hardly seemed big enough to contain the amount of sheer artistry, astounding gymnastic physicality, sla…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:38AMFriday, October 4, 2013
TO UPDATE OR NOT UPDATE: THAT IS THE QUESTION If, as described in its publicity, Cal Shakes’ A Winter’s Tale takes viewers through “a Narnia-esque door to fantastical lands” to f…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:42PMSunday, September 29, 2013
A THREE-RING ONE-MAN SHOW Start with a true story about a family circus that shot to prominence even though it eschewed big-business-conglomerate backing, ran in a single ring without exotic…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:23PMFriday, June 7, 2013
MARVIN HAMLISCH GETS A WARM-HEARTED, STAR-FILLED MUSICAL TRIBUTE You had the feeling you were watching the cream of musical theater history come fully, wholeheartedly alive on the evening of…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:23PMMonday, May 27, 2013
A STIRRING MENTAL EXERCISE WELL DONE In reviewing A.C.T.’s Arcadia, I feel compelled to begin with a caveat: It is a highly cerebral work – a tapestry of threads connected by bloodli…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:31PMWednesday, April 3, 2013
DETROIT COMES TO BERKELEY The Berkeley Playhouse production of Guys and Dolls is just the thing for a theater lover, a fan of this timeless musical, or a family to kick back and enjoy. The s…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:13PMThursday, March 7, 2013
A PERFECT CHILDREN’S STORY FOR OPERA, BEAUTIFULLY STAGED…BUT IS IT READY FOR CHILDREN? I confess to being passionately attached to the score for the successful stage musical, The…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:58PMMonday, February 18, 2013
MAY THE WONDERFUL FOURTH MESSENGER BE A HARBINGER OF GOOD THEATER TO COME Enter a flight of fancy and imagine the scenario if a deity on the scale of a Buddha were a woman living today, wher…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:09PMSunday, January 27, 2013
GROWING UP AND GROWING OLD Engaging, comfortable, realistic, gripping, and heart-tugging – all these tags apply equally to story, language, script and performances in American Conservatory…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:34PMA SOBERING AND SUBSTANTIAL CAT Why do we tend to stick with the intolerable? When slashing at those closest to us becomes our way of filling inner emptiness or expressing a family bond, even…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:44PMThursday, December 20, 2012
DIVERSE CHARACTERS CAST A THEATRICAL SPELL It’s not Halloween but Christmastime, and the San Francisco Playhouse is ringing in the season in a novel way with their production of Bell, …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:06PMThursday, December 6, 2012
BIG RIVER MAKES A CLASSIC BOOK FLOW BEAUTIFULLY ONTO THE STAGE In Big River, adapted from the novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the “mighty Mississippi” gracefully becomes a migh…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:16AMWednesday, October 24, 2012
BERKELEY REP HITS A HOMER It utterly astonishes that the epic tale of the Trojan War could be rendered with power and grace by a solo actor. The fact that one actor would have, and does have…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:19PMWednesday, September 19, 2012
LOTS OF LEVELS TO PLAY WITH If you tend to like plays with concrete storylines, well-defined goals, and a balance of symbolism integrated into reality, you may find The Custom-Made Theatre …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:04PMFriday, September 14, 2012
LANGUAGE AND CUSTOM ARE SOURCES OF HILARITY IN CHINGLISH At a time when Americans may feel a little uneasy about the rising power of China, Berkeley Repertory Theatre offers us a chance to s…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:35PMWednesday, August 8, 2012
A THREE-RING ONE-MAN SHOW Start with a true story about a family circus that shot to prominence even though it eschewed big-business-conglomerate backing, ran in a single ring without exotic…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:53PMSunday, July 22, 2012
DRAT THAT UNAPPRECIATIVE 99% For a good marriage of politics and theatre – pure melodrama, bull’s-eye political satire, a live band and zapping social commentary all served up by ama…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:48PMSaturday, July 14, 2012
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE: AS TRUE NOW AS THEN Setting Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice in the cutthroat world of contemporary finance a la Wall Street is an inspired notion and Custo…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:05AMTuesday, June 26, 2012
SALOMANIA BLENDS HISTORY WITH GREAT THEATER The year is 1918 and the world is fraught with an unimaginable war. Only a doctor or a pervert knows what a clitoris is. For anyone else during th…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:15PMSunday, June 10, 2012
A MYTH ADVENTURE In retelling Euripides’ Medea, Luis Alfaro stirs mythology, mysticism, vengeance, raw passion, the immigrant’s plight, and unfathomable traditions of cultures past i…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:21PMMonday, June 4, 2012
BARED SOULS AND BARE FLESH The huge production of Ray of Light Theatre’s The Full Monty may be packed into the tiny Eureka Theater (opening night was squirming-room-only), but it asto…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:18PMMonday, April 16, 2012
THE ALIENS CUTS CLOSE TO THE BONE The Aliens was already sailing high when it made its West Coast premiere at the SF Playhouse, as it has been hailed by the New York Times as a “gentle and…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:31AMWednesday, April 11, 2012
A GRIPPING PLUNGE INTO THE DARK SIDE Watching Marin Theatre Company’s Othello, I wondered if William Shakespeare was determined – with teeth-gritted ferocity – to make the audience squ…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:51AMWednesday, March 21, 2012
JULIUS CAESAR IN AFRICA Modern theater companies traditionally place Shakespeare into all kinds of settings, eras and cultures in search of new or updated relevance. While the choices for ma…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:02AMThursday, February 2, 2012
BECKY SHAW WON’T LET YOU FORGET HER – THAT’S A PROMISE AND A THREAT I’m pleased to report that Becky Shaw is not easy to sit through. Five well-chiseled characters (that you pray you…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:27PMMonday, October 31, 2011
PRINCIPLES ON TRIAL Playwright David Mamet is a master of provocative, gut-wrenching truths packed in fast-paced, blue dialogue, and Race, his 90-minute, one-act take on racism and the Ameri…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:02PM 
