Patricia Schaefer

A PRINCIPLED PRODUCTION Director Hal Brooks delivers a remarkably authentic and poignant tale with A.C.T.’s production of Heisenberg, a short play based on a rather unremarkable human relationship story. British writer Simon Stephens tells a more slender, muted tale here than in his ingenious  The Curious Incident of a Dog in the Night-Time: When Georgie Burns…

LES MIZ DIRECTOR JOHN CAIRD BRINGS LA BOHÈME TO SFO San Francisco Opera’s crowd-pleasing rendition of La Bohème, which opened on Friday night, offers vocal enchantment unhampered by a boiler plate production. It’s hard to go wrong (in general) with Giacomo Puccini’s 1896 opera–a relatively light tragedy buoyed with easy-to-love characters, provocative music, and a…

PATOIS, DIALECTS AND DELIVERY LEAVE US IN THE WOODS Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem, currently making a West coast premiere at San Francisco Playhouse, presents a darkly comic tale from the fringes of society, involving squatters and dope-taking teenagers who are up against soulless cogs in the local government’s bureaucratic wheel.   Director Bill English’s ambitious production is…

A BRIGHT NEW PRODUCTION Salvation can’t come soon enough when you’re a long-term, low-wage slave worker at the local Hobby Lobby. Samuel D. Hunter’s tragicomic look at life within the cultural wasteland of post-Capitalist middle America in the Obie award-winning A Bright New Boise  goes beyond the stereotypes in an imaginative Bay Area premiere by Berkeley’s…

STROP THE PRESSES! A NEW RAZOR-SHARP BARBER COMES TO TOWN Gioachino Rossini’s frolicsome 1816 comic opera  The Barber of Seville  is superbly realized with ebullience and verve in San Francisco Opera’s new production. The first night cast (one of two) was a sparkling SF Opera debut for both Mexican tenor Javier Camarena as Count Almaviva and zesty…

IF ONLY OUR CURRENT CONGRESS WAS THIS MUCH FUN Who would think that a musical featuring a bunch of middle-aged white men talking politics could be fun? But that’s the miracle of Frank Galati’s production of 1776. the rousing revival of the 1969 musical classic currently at A.C.T.   Peter Stone’s witty dialogue and Sherman Edwards’…

THE ISHTAR OF OPERA What if the real historical Jesus was someone quite different from what we’ve been told?   What if he was born a bastard, kept a lover and then married her? What if Mary Magdalene, his faithful disciple, was not the legendary prostitute turned penitent? What if we had the chance to meet…

THEATER TO THE MAX What’s to love about the 1970s?   As SF Playhouse’s presentation of Mike Leigh’s acclaimed Abigail’s Room shows, quite a bit.   Director Amy Glazer offers a cornucopia of delights greater than a Nixon-era basket of waxed fruits.   Right from the start, the design team hurls us back to the Me Decade faster…

RAY OF LIGHT FINDS THE HUMANITY WITHIN FRACTURED FAIRY TALES Into the Woods has been produced many times since its 1987 Broadway premiere, but it is unlikely to have benefited from as ebullient a cast as the one seen at the Eureka Theatre last Friday. Ray of Light Theatre’s high-energy ensemble conveyed enthusiasm and an…