San Francisco
(Bay Area)

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…

THE GREATEST STORY NEVER TOLD 18 year-old Jesus of Nazareth has heard some distressing news from his sucky carpenter of a father, so he bails Galilee with his whiny, Girl, Interrupted-like friend, Abigail, who’s, like, way in love with Jesus. They arrive in India where Jesus is ready to party. Like, suck on a hookah….

MIST OPPORTUNITY I was troubled after the opening of the West Coast Premiere of Chicago playwright Keith Huff’s A Steady Rain at Marin Theatre Company. I couldn’t shake the feeling that this play belongs in a tiny, storefront theatre, if anywhere at all. The dubious construction of the script made it feel like a tele-play:…

PLAYWRIGHT AWARENESS With three produced plays under her belt, Annie Baker is quickly becoming THE playwright to watch in the American Theatrical landscape. Her first play, Body Awareness (originally staged Off-Broadway by the Atlantic Theater Company in 2008), is currently receiving a marvelous rendering at the Aurora Theatre in Berkeley, and has been rightfully praised…

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…

IT’S A NIGHTCLUB (NOT A CABARET) [Editor’s Note: In May, 2013, a year after this article was written, this nightclub became Feinstein’s at The Nikko. This article still suits the club as it is now in many ways. The Rrazz Room still has 4 other locations. Updated info for all clubs below.] It was by…

GO TO THE DEVIL Within the manifesto of Kneehigh – an avant-garde, world-class theater company based in Cornwall, England – is a simple but mighty statement: Kneehigh tells stories.   By remaining on the fringe of theater as a business, this magnificently inventive, multi-talented, multi-cultural team of artists brings to the theater refreshing and persuasive theatrical…

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…

SEVEN GUITARS HITS A POWERFUL CHORD Late playwright August Wilson’s reputed knack for capturing time, place, and character crystallizes unforgettably in the Marin Theatre Company’s production of Seven Guitars, which is bolstered by understated yet effective direction by award-winning Broadway veteran Kent Gash. It succeeds as riveting, quality theatre while remaining uncompromisingly true-to-life. In a…

LOVE, CHAOS AND DINNER There was a moment toward the end of License To Kiss II, A Sweet Conspiracy, Teatro ZinZanni’s latest 3 and  Â½ hour gastronomic theatricopia (my word) when I thought, “There is nowhere else in the world that I would rather be than right here†– and with good reason. We are…

IS THIS A SPARKLING AND CLEVER COMEDIC FARCE’¦OR, WHAT? Thank goodness Oliver Cromwell died when he did: Parliament restored the monarchy to Charles II, and the Restoration took off when, in 1660, William Davenant and Thomas Killigrew were given a royal warrant to form a theatre company, one that abolished the Puritan rule prohibiting women…