CIRQUE'S PERKS What’s a circus without lions, tigers, and elephants? Â In the case of Cirque du Soleil's Totem, their eleventh major production in 26 years, it’s a marked impro…
SITE-SPECIFIC IS NOT SO SPECIFIC La Jolla Playhouse supported the trend of site-specific and immersive theater by presenting a four-day program of over 20 different performances in and aroun…
STOPPARD AND GO Tom Stoppard's brilliant Travesties (1974) is literate and fiercely crafted, tackling ideas of love, wit, politics, art, theater, literature, intellectualism and whatever els…
NO HALLELUJAH FOR THE LAST GOODBYE No one can deny why Jeff Buckley has achieved cult status. The coffeehouse-rock singer brought an aching, wrenching, ethereal and vulnerable quality to bot…
TOO FEW Samuel D. Hunter's slice-of-life one-act, The Few, returns to familiar territory for this up-and-coming playwright. As in his previous plays, Hunter takes us to small-town Idaho; thi…
RELATIVITY, STAGED A trusty theater friend witnessed Einstein on the Beach at BAM in New York last year, and she told me it was not just one of the greatest theatrical experiences of her …
MY KINGDOM FOR A TRANSLATION In the "What Were They Thinking?" Department, the Broad Stage has brought in a magnificently acted, thrillingly staged and cleverly edited version of Shakespeare…
SAFETY IN NUMBERS The production of Carmen that opened this week at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion has been seen before. Emilio Sagi’s production originated at Madrid’s Teatro Rea…
THE HEART OF THE MATTER Larry Kramer's blistering condemnation that chronicles the early years of the AIDS epidemic has arrived with an intimate production that highlights the urgency of the…
THEY COULD HAVE DANCED ALL NIGHT Once a month at the Fountain Theatre, Deborah Lawlor presents Forever Flamenco!, an assemblage of the greatest flamenco artists anywhere. Programs change eac…
NO HEART. NO BRAIN. NO NERVE. STAY HOME. Just short of insulting, a Broadway Machine-styled version of the iconic film, The Wizard of Oz, opened at the Pantages this week. Instead of writing…
THERE IS NOTHING EITHER GOOD OR BAD, BUT CASTING MAKES IT SO Can it really be twenty years now that I have admired Lisa Wolpe's work? Time and again, the actress has impressed me with her ab…
DOMINGO DAZZLES What do world-renowned singers do once they have reached the age of retirement? On the strength of their name, they fill cabarets and concert houses across the land with nost…
NOT MUCH LIFE IN DEATH The miracle of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman is that it contains so many themes relevant to today's world"the American Dream, the disconnect of father and son, a…
I SAY YOU WANT THIS REVOLUTION After the Revolution is a chewy new play about family dynamics and the difficulty of making moral judgments, especially after the fact. For audiences thirsting…
HEAVEN OR HELL? I surmise that opinions will be all over the map for San Francisco Opera’s production of Mefistofele, Arrigo Boito’s 1868 take on the Faust legend. To begin wi…
SOUND AND FURY INDEED The idea of site-specific theater"theatre which is performed in unconventional spaces compatible to the script"is nothing new, but it seems to be gaining ground. From N…
A PRAIRIE THEATER COMPANION As many newer plays fail to grasp the art of storytelling, Word for Word Performing Arts Company offers compelling narratives via short stories which are performe…
THE TITLE SAYS IT ALL The most unfortunate thing about The Unfortunates is that a lot of talent (five writers, actually), having spent three years developing this new hybrid-musical, lacked …
TO THINE OWN SELF BE SHREW What do you get when you cross Carl Perkins, a biker, and Chris Isaak? In David Ivers' rendition of The Taming of the Shrew, that rockabilly man with a sympathetic…
NOT PLAIN BUT TOO LIQUID In her tale of two slaves who seek passage back to Africa in 1791 Rhode Island, Naomi Wallace has constructed a compelling narrative based on true events and people.…
GOOD PEOPLE GETS BAY AREA PREMIERE Having seen productions of David Lindsay-Abaire's Good People at both the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles and Steppenwolf in Chicago, I can attest that thi…
A LOVERLY LITTLE LADY The 1956 musical My Fair Lady, based on George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, was so transplendent in production values that the myriad subsequent revivals all strive for th…
AUDRA MCDONALD MAKES A RARE VISIT TO SAN FRANCISCO As if San Francisco Symphony's (SFS) annual opening night galas were not the most anticipated events of any year, SFS and Music Director Mi…
A PRODUCTION OF AND IN NO MAN'S LAND It seems that people are forever cursed by their feeble attempts to make their lives neat and tidy. Whatever illusion of structure is created"a calendar,…