Oct. 25
Theater
Hamlet and Hamlet:
Blood in the Brain
’Tis the season for dueling Hamlets – dueling unconventional Hamlets, in fact. Stuart Bousel and his No Nude Men Productions stick with the title of Shakespeare’s original but interpret the play as myth rather than canon fodder, casting the movie-length result so that male parts are played by women and female parts are played by men. Developed in partnership with California Shakespeare Theater and Campo Santo, Naomi Iizuka’s Hamlet: Blood in the Brain places the drama amid the drug-related violence of ’80s-era Oakland. Opening night forces you to overcome Hamlet-like indecision to choose one of these two versions, but at least you have a month or so to see both. (Johnny Ray Huston)
Hamlet
8 p.m. (continues Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; through Nov. 18)
Climate Theater
285 Ninth St., SF
(415) 621-1503
www.horrorunspeakable.com
Hamlet: Blood in the Brain
8 p.m. (Thurs.-Sun., 8 p.m.; through Nov. 20; special benefit performance Sat/28, 7 p.m.)
Intersection for the Arts
446 Valencia, SF
$9-$20 ($25-$40 for Sat/28 benefit)
(415) 626-3311
www.theintersection.org
Film
United Nations Association Film Festival
Tonje Hessen Schei’s documentary Independent Intervention is the single most staggering doc yet made about the unholy matrimony of the military-industrial complex and the media. Using corporate newsreels, interviews with journalists, and footage from unembedded correspondents, the film relentlessly stabs its audience with egregious facts about the war in Iraq that have been avoided by mainstream reports. Both painful and empowering, this is a film everyone needs to see. Another highlight among the 31 docs playing at the United Nations Association Film Festival is Ben Lewis’s Blowing Up Paradise, which plots the history of France’s nuclear bomb testing on the French Polynesian island of Moruroa. (Sara Schieron)
Through Thurs/26
Stanford University
See Web site for program information
www.unaff.org