Tom Stoppard Springs His Magic Spell  by Barry David Horwitz For the springtime, Aurora Theatre has pulled "The Real Thing" by Tom Stoppard (1982) out of its bag of tricks to give us the …
Lucas Hnaf Asks: Does Hell Exist, or Is It Us? by Barry David Horwitz When you wander into a Christian mega-church and find the pastor questioning the existence of Hell, you know you must be…
Wendy McLeod's "Much Ado about Nothing" by Kim Waldron If you are a woman, man, or any citizen who feels in jeopardy from the new presidential administration, the escapist farce "Women in Je…
Richard Wright Rules in Damning Depression History by Barry David Horwitz You will remember Jerod Haynes playing Bigger in "Native Son" at Marin Theatre Company. He does a yeoman's night's w…
Samuel Beckett's Most Animated Void by Susan Dunn Samuel Beckett accomplished the impossible when he wrote "Waiting for Godot" in 1949, the classic absurdist play about the vacuity of life.�…
Acting Human in the Valley by Jeremiah Wall We have all heard by now that automation will replace many more of today's jobs. This startling fact is announced as if the matter were entirely s…
Oscar Wilde Asks US: "What's In a Name?" by Heather Morrison What could a bunch of rich, snobbish English people, living at the height of the British empire, whose sticky hands reach around …
Amy Herzog's Americans in Paris"with Baggage  by Tony Urgo  "Belleville" will take you from charming to chilling in a performance without intermission. The cast is excellent, embodying…
Talented Singers Update Donizetti's Comic Opera by Robert M. Gardner What makes a complete life? This age old dilemma is the central question of this little gem of a production of Donize…
Bright, Cute Cast Sings: "The Internet Is for Porn" by Barry David Horwitz This is a show that audiences want to see over and over again. Since its beginning in 2003, "Avenue Q" has played t…
Amy Herzog's Alarming Americans in Paris by Kim Waldron "Belleville" by Amy Herzog, at Custom Made Theatre Co., provides a moving and unnerving 90 minutes of suspense. Smarter than the typic…
Reliving Juke Box Memories with "America's Sweetheart" by Robert M. Gardner Rosemary Clooney charted four Number One hits in the 50s, including "Come On-A My House, "If I Knew You Were Comin…
Mark Jackson Puts the Ham Back into Hamlet by Buzz Goldberg Who to be or not who to be? That's the nightly question in Shotgun's comic spin on Hamlet Who knew Hamlet was a comedy? In the cur…
Gertrude and Alice Make Good Company by Kim Waldron If you are fed up with the current political scene, Kardashian pop culture, and anti-intellectualism, escape to a sweet world of love, pai…
Alice B. Toklas Steps from Stein's Shadow by Barry David Horwitz Who knew that Gertrude Stein was such a sweetheart? Lots of us have followed her work, her life, her friendships, her paintin…
A New Look at Evolution vs. Faith in the 21st Century by Robert M. Gardner Be prepared for a wild ride of imagination in Indra's Net Theater's "Darwin in Malibu" at the historic and beautifu…
Flappers, Molls, and Wise Guys Sing and Slink by Susan Dunn "I know a dark secluded place. A place where no one knows your face, just strike a match…" "The Speakeasy" invites us into t…
Do-Gooders Do Good in Bronx Soup Kitchen by Buzz Goldberg So this 19-year-old girl walks into a soup kitchen. Emma (a secretive Megan Trout) has been kicked out of college (she never went to…
What Is A Woman to Do? by Clare Hedin "The Village Bike," the provocative and insightful play by Penelope Skinner, performed at Shotgun Players, Berkeley, hosts five characters who manage to…
Young and Old Thrill to Sparkling African Folklore by Sysamone Phaphon Last weekend I went to a live theatrical musical for the first time. I attended "The Lion King" on Sunday evening with …
In her show "The Madwoman in the Volvo" at the Berkeley Rep, Sandra Tsing Loh tells a story that needs to be told. Accompanied by only two other cast members"the remarkably fluid Caroline Aa…
"Christmas at Pemberley": A Comedy of Romantic Rights  by Barry David Horwitz Mrs. Elizabeth Darcy (the winning Cindy Im), always the groundbreaker, has run away with Christmas. She knows…
Intimate Blackout Show Thrills at Ashby Stage by Daniel Joseph Lilly Fifteen minutes before Christopher Chen's sidesplitting and cerebral play "Caught" at Shotgun Players was about to begin,…
British Genius for Swing & Story on Parade  by Barry David Horwitz How about a D-Day landing story from a little village, called Slapton, on the south coast of England, where thousand…
Seasonal Classic Inspires Good Will and Good Ideas by Alice Cheng In Amercian Conservatory Theater's "A Christmas Carol," abundance and poverty bump up against each other, starkly. On th…