Stacy Trevenon

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, Book and Candle in their sparkling new Post Street venue with its comfy chairs. With its decorative air of belonging to another, long-past time period,…

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 mighty metaphor for a journey of discovery into human foibles, adventure, the meaning of friendship, prejudice, redemption, and right and wrong. More than that, decked in…

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, the reserves to go for 100 unflagging minutes, bringing to life a litany of historical facts, names, dates,…

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 Co.’s 14th  season-opening production of Edward Albee’s The Play About the Baby  a cacophony of absurdist abstracts that requires too much guesswork  –  one which  teeters on the tedious and…

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 step back and see a more human side of Chinese-American relations with its cleverly staged, sophisticated and uproarious Chinglish. Chinese-American playwright David…

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 animals, and interacted with and embraced the communities where it performed. Spice it up with superbly executed acrobatics. Top it off by having it performed…

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 amazingly versatile actors – go (with almost the same urgency as you would to vote) to the San Francisco Mime Troupe’s For the Greater Good, or…

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 Custom Made Theatre Co. has produced a timely rendition of a timeless classic that’s creative, just right, and highly satisfying. In this story about…

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 this era known for its hypocrisy, such knowledge meant scandal that could and did blast lives. In Aurora Theatre Company’s   Salomania,…

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 into a theatrical crucible with Bruja (meaning a witch or sorceress). The Magic Theatre production has cooked up a colorful Mayan theatrical tapestry with nary a weak thread, creating a powerful,…

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 astonished me how satisfying such full measures of delight, laughter, robust song, and crisp dance could be packed into this revival. Add to that the musical’s…

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 extraordinarily beautiful new play.” Playwright Annie Baker, an emerging young talent already rising to the top of…

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 squirm with the effort of holding back shouts of warning and outrage. While Elizabethan audiences were uncensored, presumably barking back to the stage at any of the…

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 will never encounter) deliver a tsunami of shocking revelations (that you hope you will never experience) in a play that will have…

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 American legal system, is chock-a-block with his shining, confrontational style. The verdict on A.C.T.’s production (a west coast premiere following last year’s Broadway run) is that it…

AN UNFORGETTABLE FAIRY TALE FOR GROWN-UPS Just in time for Halloween, Marin Theatre Company’s Bellwether takes its audiences into a deliciously spooky fairy tale world they won’t soon forget. Continuing an association between MTC and former playwright-in-residence Steve Yockey, company producing director Ryan Rilette and his cast have a ball with Bellwether‘s many twists and…

ONCE IN A LIFETIME IS A ROMP FOR AN ERA When the “talkies” trumpeted a new era in American living rooms, a bevy of entertainers stampeded to get in on the ground floor of this opportunity, at all costs. This fertile field for comedy and playful jabs at the industry was harvested by Moss Hart…

WELL-BALANCED THEATRE WITH INDELICATE REALITIES The exhilarating production of A Delicate Balance, directed by Tom Ross, epitomizes what Barbara Oliver had in mind for the Aurora Theatre Company when it opened two decades ago in Berkeley: she believed the text of the play to be the true star. Having premiered on Broadway in 1966 with…