ODC

The Performant: More than words

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Sheetal Gandhi and Ragged Wing Ensemble stretch their forms

If an image is worth a thousand words, how much dialogue does the art of dance encompass, when every flick of the wrist can denote whole unspoken volumes? As dance in the Bay Area moves ever further into hybrid territories, where language and limbs combine to stretch the parameters of storytelling, patrons of more traditional theatrical fare may find familiarity in the broadened scope of this increasingly amalgamated artform.

Sheetal Gandhi’s “Bahu-Beti-Biwi” at ODC is a great example of this heterogeneity, bringing to life a series of characters who speak as much in gesture as with words on an almost ascetically bare stage.

When Gandhi does speak it is often in song, and just as frequently in Marwadi, a dialect of Rajasthani, a language obscure enough that it’s guaranteed to be unfamiliar to a large portion of her audiences. Which means it’s through her nuanced physicality that she connects best, blending traditional dance forms such as Kathak with the modern, inhabiting the skin of each of her creations as easily as she wraps herself in a length of striped fabric which serves sometimes as a sari, sometimes a veil, and sometimes as an evocative hobble.

Ghandi is light on her feet, even when she portrays the hunched figure of a family elder, but many of her characters do bear an internal weight—from the smiling auntie who serves the multitudes with a stretched smile to the veiled woman threatening to throw pepper in the eyes of her father-in-law to blind him, a regretful groom on the other side of an arranged marriage to the young girl being wrapped in a length of golden satin in preparation for her own wedding day. Alone and onstage for the entire piece, Gandhi’s more dramatic shifts of scene are expertly heralded by Tony Shayne’s lighting design, which expands and contracts according to the limits of her characters’ perspectives while the elegant compositions by Joseph Trapanese that frame each portion of her performance are equally atmospheric, mixing electronica and field recorded samples with the distinctive tones of the sitar, the insistent rhythm of the tabla.

Across the Bay Bridge, in a vaulted room dubbed “The Sanctuary,” Ragged Wing Ensemble debuts a new play written and directed by Artistic Director Amy Sass called “Time Sensitive.” Just as dancers such as Sheetal Gandhi are experimenting with theatrical techniques within a dance context, so are collaborative arts ensembles such as Ragged Wing creating works of theatre that incorporate far more than the spoken word as the building blocks of narrative.

In “Time Sensitive,” ensemble members don featherlight robes and enter singing “Da Pacem Cordium” (“Give Peace to Every Heart”) before morphing abruptly into suited, scowling business-persons who scuttle back and forth across the stage chanting “gotta GO GO GO” and position themselves in the manner of a flock of early birds demanding worms. In two of several alternating storylines an old clockmaker and his faithful automaton (Addie Ulrey and Keith C. Davis) travel beneath the cracks of the known world on an existential quest, while an adrenaline-seeking elevator-repair guy (Soren Santos) hurls himself from the top of the city’s tallest building and hopes his parachute (artfully rendered with a bobbing line of umbrellas) doesn’t fail. At two hours plus intermission, punctuated by a series of choppy transitions, the ambitious piece does lose some of its initial ballistic momentum, but none of the curious beauty of its dialogue-defying, sumptuously-devised ritual.

“Time Sensitive”

Through May 18, $25-$40

The Sanctuary

496 38th St, Oakl.

(800) 316-8559

www.raggedwing.org

 

 

Stage listings

Andrew Lam
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Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

THEATER

OPENING

Talk Radio Actors Theatre of San Francisco, 855 Bush, SF; www.actorstheatresf.org. $26-38. Opens Fri/26, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through June 15. Actors Theatre of San Francisco performs Eric Bogosian’s breakthrough 1987 drama.

BAY AREA

The Dead Girl Avant Garde, 1328 Fourth St, San Rafael; www.altertheater.org. $25. Previews Wed/24, 7:30pm, and Fri/26, 8pm. Opens Sat/27, 8pm. Runs Wed, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through May 19. AlterTheater performs 90-year-old playwright Ann Brebner’s new family drama.

ONGOING

Acid Test: The Many Incarnations of Ram Dass Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm (May 11, show at 8pm). Through May 18. Playwright Lynne Kaufman invites you to take a trip with Richard Alpert, a.k.a. Ram Dass (Warren David Keith), as he recounts times high and low in this thoughtful, funny, and sometimes unexpected biographical rumination on the quest for truth and meaning in a seemingly random life by one of the big wigs of the psychedelic revolution and (with his classic book, Be Here Now) contemporary Eastern-looking spirituality. Directed by Joel Mullennix, the narrative begins with Ram Dass today, in his Hawaiian home and partly paralyzed from a stroke, but Keith (one of the Bay Area’s best stage actors, who is predictably sure and engagingly multilayered in the role) soon shakes off the stiff arm and strained speech and springs to his feet to continue the narrative as the ideal self perhaps only transcendental consciousness and theater allow. Nevertheless, Kaufman’s fun-loving and extroverted Alpert is no saint and no model of perfection, which is the refreshing truth explored in the play, but rather a seeker still, ever imperfect and ever trying for greater perfection or at least the wisdom of acceptance. As the privileged queer child of a wealthy Jewish lawyer and industrialist, Alpert was both insider and outsider from the get-go, and that tension and ambiguity makes for an interesting angle on his life as well as the complexities of his relationships with a homophobic Leary, for instance, and his conservative but ultimately loving father. Perfection aside, the beauty in the subject and the play is the subtle, shrewd cherishing of what remains unfinished. (Avila)

The Bereaved Thick House, 1695 18th St, SF; www.crowdedfire.org. $10-35. Wed/24-Sat/27, 8pm. Crowded Fire Theater launches its Mainstage season with Thomas Bradshaw’s wicked comedy about “sex, drugs, and the American dream.”

Boomeraging: From LSD to OMG Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Tue, 8pm. Through May 28. Comedian Will Durst performs his brand-new solo show.

The Bus New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $32-45. Wed/24-Sat/27, 8pm; Sun/28, 2pm. NCTC performs James Lantz’s tale of two young men whose meeting place for their secret relationship is a church bus.

The Expulsion of Malcolm X Southside Theatre, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.fortmason.org. $30-42.50. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through May 5. Colors of Vision Entertainment and GO Productions present Larry Americ Allen’s drama about the relationship between Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad.

Foodies! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.foodiesthemusical.com. $30-34. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. AWAT Productions presents Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue all about food.

Ghostbusters: Live On Stage Dark Room Theater, 2263 Mission, SF; www.darkroomsf.com. $20. Thu/25-Sat/27, 8pm. Rhiannastan Productions brings the beloved 1984 comedy to the stage.

How To Make Your Bitterness Work For You Stage Werx Theatre, 446 Valencia, SF; www.bitternesstobetterness.com. $15-25. Sun, 2pm. Through May 5. Fred Raker performs his comedy about the self-help industry.

I’m Not OK, Cupid 🙁 Shelton Theatre, 533 Sutter, SF; www.leftcoasttheatreco.org. $15-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through May 4. Left Coast Theatre Co., a new company formed in 2012 from the gay men’s writing group GuyWriters Playwrights, offers this rocky but sometimes clever evening of seven short gay comedies about love, relationships, getting it on, getting it off, and so forth. The evening begins with Andrew Black’s A Small Fishing Village Wedged Between Estonia and Latvia, set in the Castro, where a gay couple (Chris Maltby and Dene Larson) try to foil a mixed couple of would-be robbers (Laura Espino and Richard Sargent) by injecting some homoerotic tension between their otherwise heterosexual vibe. Directed by ShawnJ West, it’s drolly if inconsistently acted, but never very funny, and followed by three more non-starters: James A. Martin’s Lollipops, Rodney “Rhoda” Taylor’s Goodbye, Cupid, and Black’s verse-bound Arlecchino’s Last Prank. The second half of the bill proves more satisfying overall — Rich Orloff’s Chekhov-inspired That Bitch, directed by Joseph Frank and featuring the able trio of Hayley Saccomano, Laura Espino, and Danielle O’Dea; Joseph Frank’s wacky The Parenthetical Trap, directed by Frank and Saccomano, wherein sibling rivalry (i.e., the amusingly puerile duo of Kyle Glasow and Dawson Montoya) meets dysfunctional family (rounded out by Gabrielle Motarjemi and Frank) reunited in musical harmony; and Alex Dremann’s randy and well-acted Four Dry Tongues, directed by ShawnJ West, in which friends Ginny (Angela Chandra) and Tristan (Michael Erickson) compete for the affection of guest Matt (Robert Rushin) by flirting with his gorgeously haughty lesbian friend Laura (Danielle O’Dea). (Avila)

The Lost Folio: Shakespeare’s Musicals Un-Scripted Theater, 533 Sutter, Second Flr, SF; www.un-scripted.com. $10-20. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through May 18. Un-Scripted Theater Company performs a fully-improvised, full-length musical inspired by Shakespeare.

The Lullaby Tree Phoenix Theater, 414 Mason, SF; www.secondwind.8m.com. $15-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through May 4. In the face of the ever more extensive and controversial spread of GMO foods worldwide — not to mention last year’s state battle over Prop 37 — Second Wind premieres founding member and playwright Ian Walker’s half-whimsical, half-hardheaded drama about a boy searching for his mother in the underworld and a small band of lawyers and environmentalists going toe-to-toe with a multinational over the ownership of a mysterious crop of genetically engineered corn. It will eventually become plain that the two stories are linked, but first a ten-year-old boy (Samuel Berston) befriends a somewhat shrunken giant (Davern Wright) in an attempt to find his mother (Evangeline Crittenden) in an enchanted and hostile land of dragons. Elsewhere, Tim (Walker) and law partner Nod (Wright) prepare to do legal battle with a modern-day dragon, in the person of a corporate attorney (Cheryl Smith) for the ominous Mendes Corporation (read: Monsanto). They will argue over the ownership of the corn that has sprung up on the banks of a drowned town, and which may spell environmental disaster for the nature preserve surrounding it. In this fight Tim and Nod are in uneasy, ultimately disastrous alliance with activist Callie (Crittenden), whom Nod distrusts and with whom Tim is hopelessly smitten. The result is a convoluted plot and a fitful production (co-directed by Walker and Misha Hawk-Wyatt) in which a three-pronged story precariously balances the fairy tale, the romance, and the legal battle. It’s the last prong that offers the more interesting if formulaic scenes, in which the politics of GMOs mesh with the swashbuckling machinations of the attorneys. But the less compelling strands converge and take precedence, forcing things down a sentimental and forgettable road. (Avila)

reasons to be pretty San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post, Second Flr, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $30-100. Tue-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm). Through May 11. Completing a trilogy of plays about body awareness and self-image (along with The Shape of Things and Fat Pig), Neil LaBute’s reasons to be pretty begins with a misconstrued remark that quickly gathers enough weight and momentum to tear three sets of relationships apart in the span of a two-hour play. The SF Playhouse production begins with a bang, or rather an awesomely knock-down, blow-out breakup fight between a righteously pissed-off Steph (Lauren English) and her awkwardly passive boyfriend Greg (Craig Marker), who has inadvertently referred to her as “regular” in a conversation with his jerkish buddy Kent (Patrick Russell), which she takes to mean he finds her ugly. English’s Steph is at turns ferocious and fragile, and her comic timing as she eviscerates Greg’s looks in a mall food court zings, while the hyperkinetic Russell elevates the condition of noxiously irredeemable douchebag to an art form. But terrific acting and polished design can only make up so much for a script that feels not only flawed, barely scratching the surface of the whys and wherefores each character has internalized an unrealistic view of the importance of conventional beauty standards, but also already dated, with its circa-2008 pop culture references. Ultimately it gives the impression of being a rerun of a Lifetime television drama that wraps itself up into a too-neat package just in time for the final credits to roll to its admittedly kickass soundtrack (provided by Billie Cox). (Gluckstern)

Sam I Am: A Processional of Short Plays and Prose About Samuel Beckett Bindlestiff Studio, 185 Sixth St, SF; www.pustheatre.com. $10-20. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through May 11. Performers Under Stress remounts and revamps its series of short plays and pieces by Samuel Beckett, this time staging it throughout the basement quarters of Bindlestiff Studio, where audiences are led around an economical maze of performance spaces. Opening weekend consisted of too much text and too little in way of staging ideas, especially with several spoken selections of Beckett prose (which have reportedly since been dropped from the program). The best of what remains (in a program of six short plays total) includes Valerie Fachman’s respectable performance as the disembodied “mouth” of the brilliant Not I; and James Udom and Geo Epsilany’s duet in Rough for Theatre I, in which a wheelchair-bound food-hoarder (a softly eccentric Epsilany) strikes up a doomed friendship with a blind beggar (a solid Udom) amid a colorless and barren landscape. The bucket of Beckett dreary gets less satisfying from there, though director Scott Baker’s wordless performance as the titular Joe in Eh Joe proves poised and the doubled voices in his head (by Melissa Clason and Allison Hunter Blackwell) both haunting and intriguing. (Avila)

Sex and the City: LIVE! Rebel, 1760 Market, SF; trannyshack.com/sexandthecity. $25. Wed, 7 and 9pm. Open-ended. It seems a no-brainer. Not just the HBO series itself — that’s definitely missing some gray matter — but putting it onstage as a drag show. Mais naturellement! Why was Sex and the City not conceived of as a drag show in the first place? Making the sordid not exactly palatable but somehow, I don’t know, friendlier (and the canned a little cannier), Velvet Rage Productions mounts two verbatim episodes from the widely adored cable show, with Trannyshack’s Heklina in a smashing portrayal of SJP’s Carrie; D’Arcy Drollinger stealing much of the show as ever-randy Samantha (already more or less a gay man trapped in a woman’s body); Lady Bear as an endearingly out-to-lunch Miranda; and ever assured, quick-witted Trixxie Carr as pent-up Charlotte. There’s also a solid and enjoyable supporting cast courtesy of Cookie Dough, Jordan Wheeler, and Leigh Crow (as Mr. Big). That’s some heavyweight talent trodding the straining boards of bar Rebel’s tiny stage. The show’s still two-dimensional, even in 3D, but noticeably bigger than your 50″ plasma flat panel. (Avila)

Sheherezade 13 Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.wilywestproductions.com. $25. Thu/25-Sat/27, 8pm. Wily West Productions presents a short play showcase.

Show Me Yours: Songs of Innocence and Experience Alcove Theater, 414 Mason, Ste 502, SF; www.thealcovetheater.com. $27. Thu/25-Sat/27, 8pm. New Musical Theater of San Francisco performs a new musical revue written by Pen and Piano, the company’s resident group of writers and composers.

Steve Seabrook: Better Than You Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thu, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Extended through May 18. Self-awareness, self-actualization, self-aggrandizement — for these things we turn to the professionals: the self-empowerment coaches, the self-help authors and motivational speakers. What’s the good of having a “self” unless someone shows you how to use it? Writer-performer Kurt Bodden’s Steve Seabrook wants to sell you on a better you, but his “Better Than You” weekend seminar (and tie-in book series, assorted CDs, and other paraphernalia) belies a certain divided loyalty in its own self-flattering title. The bitter fruit of the personal growth industry may sound overly ripe for the picking, but Bodden’s deftly executed “seminar” and its behind-the-scenes reveals, directed by Mark Kenward, explore the terrain with panache, cool wit, and shrewd characterization. As both writer and performer, Bodden keeps his Steve Seabrook just this side of overly sensational or maudlin, a believable figure, finally, whose all-too-ordinary life ends up something of a modest model of its own. (Avila)

Stuck Elevator American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $20-85. Wed/24-Sat/27, 8pm (also Wed/24 and Sat/27, 2pm); Sun/28, 7pm. As federal immigration reform captures the national spotlight, ACT premieres a dynamic and entertaining new musical by Byron Au Yong (score) and Aaron Jafferis (libretto) that privileges the real-life experience of an undocumented Chinese deliveryman Ming Kuang Chen, trapped for 81 hours in a Bronx elevator in 2005. Slickly directed by Chay Yew, the memories, fears, and fantasies of Guang (a sympathetic and mellifluous Julius Ahn) become the stuff of chamber opera, wherein the chamber is a malfunctioning elevator car in a dilapidated high-rise housing complex. Initially too afraid to call for help (lest his immigration status be discovered), Guang suffers at the thought of the precious dollars he is losing with each hour spent away from work, and distracts himself with thoughts of his wife (Marie-France Arcilla) and son (Raymond J. Lee) back home in China, his mean employer (Joseph Anthony Foronda in comical drag), and his Mexican friend and coworker (Joel Perez). With the undocumented immigrant’s precarious situation become a literal cell, Daniel Ostling’s impressively kinetic, expansive scenic design pivots between grimy naturalism and a multimedia canvas for the protagonist’s unbounded thoughts and imagination. Fantastical routines ensue, sometimes wistful and romantic, sometimes comical and outlandish, throughout a story and score that prove consistently engaging but also somewhat lacking in real suspense. The impressive cast is also a highlight here, and the 80 minutes go by pleasantly enough, even if the larger complexity of the subject — the social, racial, and class dynamics that produce the protagonist’s surreal situation — is itself somewhat confined by the genre of the romantic immigrant narrative. (Avila)

Tinsel Tarts in a Hot Coma: The Next Cockettes Musical Hypnodrome, 575 10th St, SF; www.thrillpeddlers.com. $30-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through June 1. Thrillpeddlers and director Russell Blackwood continue their Theatre of the Ridiculous series with this 1971 musical from San Francisco’s famed glitter-bearded acid queens, the Cockettes, revamped with a slew of new musical material by original member Scrumbly Koldewyn, and a freshly re-minted book co-written by Koldewyn and “Sweet Pam” Tent — both of whom join the large rotating cast of Thrillpeddler favorites alongside a third original Cockette, Rumi Missabu (playing diner waitress Brenda Breakfast like a deliciously unhinged scramble of Lucille Ball and Bette Davis). This is Thrillpeddlers’ third Cockettes revival, a winning streak that started with Pearls Over Shanghai. While not quite as frisky or imaginative as the production of Pearls, it easily charms with its fine songs, nifty routines, exquisite costumes, steady flashes of wit, less consistent flashes of flesh, and de rigueur irreverence. The plot may not be very easy to follow, but then, except perhaps for the bubbly accounting of the notorious New York flop of the same show 42 years ago by Tent (as poisoned-pen gossip columnist Vedda Viper), it hardly matters. (Avila)

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Sun, 11am. Through July 21. Louis “The Amazing Bubble Man” Pearl returns after a month-long hiatus with his popular, kid-friendly bubble show.

BAY AREA

The Arsonists Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; www.auroratheatre.org. $35-60. Tue and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm); Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through May 12. There’s a lot of humor to be found in Alistair Beaton’s crackling translation of Max Frisch’s The Arsonists, playing now at the Aurora Theatre, but much of the laughter it elicits is of the nervous variety, as the play’s mostly protagonist, the effete, bourgeois Herr Biedermann (Dan Hiatt) inadvertently signs off on his own destruction when he invites an uncouth arsonist to come and stay in his attic (Michael Ray Wisely). “If we assume everyone is an arsonist, where does that get us?” becomes his standard deflection, as one arsonist becomes two (adding in the unctuous, nihilistic Tim Kniffin), and the empty attic a repository for giant drums of gasoline, a detonator, and fuse wire — arousing the suspicions of a chorus of firefighters (Kevin Clarke, Tristan Cunningham, Michael Uy Kelly), who act as the conscience and guardians of the township. Although on the surface the scenario is patently absurd, the message that passivity in the face of evil is like helping to measure out the fuse wire that will eventually claim your life, is relatively clear. “Not every fire is determined by fate,” point out the firefighters right in the first act. Hiatt, as Biedermann, strikes an admirable balance between loathsome and powerless, while Gwen Loeb shines as his socialite wife, Babette, as does Dina Percia as his agitated housemaid, Anna. (Gluckstern)

Being Earnest Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View; www.theatreworks.org. $23-73. Wed/24, 7:30pm; Thu/25-Sat/27, 8pm (also Sat/27, 2pm); Sun/28, 2 and 7pm. TheatreWorks performs the world premiere of Paul Gordon’s musical take on Oscar Wilde’s comedy.

The Coast of Utopia: Voyage & Shipwreck Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-35. Shipwreck runs Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through May 5. Voyage runs Sat/27 and May 4, 3pm. Last year in the Shotgun Players’ production of Voyage, the first part of Tom Stoppard’s The Coast of Utopia trilogy (also playing in repertory through May 4), we were introduced to a tight circle of Russian thinkers and dreamers, chafing against the oppressive regime of Nicholas I. In the second part, Shipwrecked, we find them older, perhaps wiser, struggling to keep their revolutionary ideals alive while also juggling familial concerns and personal passions. Focused mainly on Alexander Herzen (Patrick Kelley Jones) and family, Shipwrecked travels from Russia to Germany, France, Italy, and the English Channel, buffeted from all directions by the forces of the uprisings and burgeoning political consciousness of the European proletariat. It’s an unwieldy, sprawling world that Stoppard, and history, have built (made somewhat more so by the Shotgun production’s strangely languid pace during even the most dramatic sequences) but it’s worth making the effort to spend time absorbing the singular world views of Russian émigré Herzen, his impulsively passionate wife Natalie (Caitlyn Louchard), the cantankerous, influential critic Vissarion Belinsky (Nick Medina), professional rabble-rouser Michael Bakunin (Joseph Salazar) and up-and-coming writer Ivan Turgenev (Richard Reinholdt) as they desperately seek to carve out both their personal identities and a greater, cohesive Russian one from the imperfect turmoil of Western philosophy. (Gluckstern)

A Killer Story Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Thu-Sat, 8pm (pre-show cabaret at 7:15pm). Through May 18. Dan Harder’s film noir-inspired detective tale premieres at the Marsh Berkeley.

The Language Archive Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berk; www.symmetrytheatre.com. $20-28. Thu/25-Sat/27, 8pm; Sun/28, 2pm. A linguist named George (a nerdy but sincere Gabriel Grilli), obsessed with collecting languages on the cusp of extinction, reels when his unhappy wife Mary (a captivatingly distraught but spirited Elena Wright) decides to leave him in Julia Cho’s heart-tugging comedy exploring the language of love and other ineffable things. As Mary, discouraged by George’s inability to voice a reason why she should stay, heads out to who knows where, George and his secretly smitten lab assistant Emma (Danielle Levin) try to interview an older married couple who are among the last speakers of a dying language. But the couple (played winningly, in vaguely Eastern garb, by Stacy Ross and Howard Swain) spends all their time fighting with one another — in English (the language of aggression and the noncommittal, as they at various points explain). In one of the best scenes, Mary meets a despairing older gentleman (Swain again, in one of several excellent supporting turns) on a railroad platform who will change the course of her life as, meanwhile, George copes with grief and the reexamination of his faith in language, including the unabashedly utopian Esperanto, his favorite. Cho’s narrative broaches an intriguing exploration of language’s underlying dialectic of joy and suffering, and the fact that perfect understanding lies finally beyond it. The play has strained aspects in its humor and dialogue, and Symmetry Theatre’s production doesn’t navigate every turn in the story equally well. But director Chloe Bronzan ensures an overall enjoyable and well-acted production (set in the small, intimate playing area at the Berkeley City Club), while making the most of several key scenes that mine the genuine pathos and wonder in the subject matter.

Love Letters Various Marin County venues; www.porchlight.net. $15-30. Through Sun/28. Porch Light Theater performs A.R. Gurney’s romantic play at four different Marin venues; check website for addresses and showtimes.

“Pear Slices” Pear Avenue Theatre, 1220 Pear, Mtn View; www.thepear.org. $10-30. Thu/25-Sat/27, 8pm; Sun/28, 2pm. Nine original short plays by members of the Pear Playwrights Guild.

Pericles, Prince of Tyre Berkeley Repertory Theatre, 2025 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-77. Tue, Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat and Thu/25 and May 23, 2pm; no matinee Sat/27; no show May 24); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2). Through May 26. Mark Wing-Davey directs Berkeley Rep’s take on the Bard.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

Alonzo King LINES Ballet LAM Research Theater, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard, SF; www.linesballet.org. Wed/24-Thu/25, 7:30pm; Fri/26-Sat/27, 8pm; Sun/28, 5pm. $30-65. The company celebrates its 30th anniversary spring season with a collaboration between choreographer Alonzo King and composer Edgar Meyer.

“Dances from the Heart 2” Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.helpisontheway.org. Sun/28, 7:30pm. $40-60. Dancers from top Bay Area companies, including ODC Dance and Company C Contemporary Ballet, join forces to raise funds for the Richmond/Ermet AIDS Foundation and other AIDS charities.

David Dorfman Dance Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. Thu/25-Sat/27, 8pm. $25-30. Performing Prophets of Funk, a work inspired by Sly and the Family Stone.

FACT/SF ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; www.factsf.org. Thu/25-Sat/27, 8pm. $23-28. World premiere of Falling, an evening-length contemporary dance piece.

“Ghetto Klown” Orpheum Theatre, 1192 Market, SF; www.shnsf.com. Fri/26-Sat/27, 8pm. $40-95. John Leguizamo performs his latest autobiographical show.

“Journey of the Shadow” Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF; www.sfchamberorchestra.org. Fri/26, 8pm. Also Sat/27, First Palo Alto United Methodist Church, 625 Hamilton, Palo Alto; Sun/28, 3pm, First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing, Berk. All performances free. The San Francisco Chamber Orchestra presents the world premiere of musical stories, spoken and sung, with special guests composer-in-residence Dr. Gabriela Lena Franke, and Pulitzer-winning playwright Nilo Cruz.

Kunst-Stoff Dance Company Old Mint, 88 Fifth St, SF; www.kunst-stoff.org. Tue/30 and May 1-2, 7pm, 7:40pm, and 8:20pm. Free. Yannis Adoniou and company celebrate 15 years of Kunst-Stoff with the world premiere of Rapport, presented at the historic Old Mint Building.

“Mission Position Live” Cinecave, 1034 Valencia, SF; www.missionpositionlive.com. Thu, 8pm. Ongoing. $10. Stand-up comedy with rotating performers.

“The Naked Stage” Bayfront Theater, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.improv.org. Sat/27, 8pm. $20. BATS Improv performs an improvised stage play.

Opera Parallele Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.operaparallele.org. Fri/26-Sat/27, 8pm; Sun/28, 2pm. $40-75. Performing a double bill of Leonard Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti and Samuel Barber’s A Hand of Bridge.

Red Hots Burlesque El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; www.redhotsburlesque.com. Wed, 7:30-9pm. Ongoing. $5-10. Come for the burlesque show, stay for OMG! Karaoke starting at 8pm (no cover for karaoke).

“The Romane Event Comedy Show” Make-Out Room, 3225 22nd St, SF; www.pacoromane.com. Wed/24, 8pm. $10. With Sean Keane, Paco Romane, Kate Willett, Matt Lieb, and more.

“San Francisco Magic Parlor” Chancellor Hotel Union Square, 433 Powell, SF; www.sfmagicparlor.com. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Ongoing. $40. Magic vignettes with conjurer and storyteller Walt Anthony.

“Tickled Pink!” Café Royale, 800 Post, SF; www.caferoyale-sf.com. Thu/25, 8pm. Free. Comedy night with Butch Escobar, Ryan Papazian, Dan “Gonzo” Mechanik, and more.

“Union Square Live” Union Square, between Post, Geary, Powell, and Stockton, SF; www.unionsquarelive.org. Through Oct 9. Free. Music, dance, circus arts, film, and more; dates and times vary, so check website for the latest.

BAY AREA

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley, Berk; www.calperformances.org. Wed/24-Sat/27, 8pm (also Sat/27, 2pm); Sun/28, 3pm. $30-92. Four programs highlight the company’s annual Cal Performances residency, including two Bay Area premieres.

CubaCaribe Festival Laney College Theater, 900 Fallon, Oakl; www.cubacaribe.org. Fri/26-Sat/27, 8pm; Sun/28, 2 and 7pm. $25. Master artists performing music and dance from the Caribbean Diaspora.

“The Divine Game” Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. Mon/29, 8pm. $20. A spur to thought, to reading, to listening, to sparring over the meaning and magnitude of art — they’re all there in the brilliantly expansive, acute, and sometimes barbed observations of professor Vladimir Nabokov (a delighting, animated John Mercer), as he expounds on the subject of Russian literature in this simply staged but witty, well-honed dramatic reading from First Person Singular and adapter-director Joe Christiano. Presented as part of Shotgun’s Monday night Cabaret series, The Divine Game, drawing verbatim on Nabokov’s Cornell lectures of the 1950s, is an invitation to a heady walk down several byways in the land of great literary art, and there are few more discerning or inspiring guides whether or not you share in every conclusion about the relative merits and demerits of Chekhov (Joshua Han) or Dostoyevsky (Brian Quackenbush) — both of whom appear onstage alongside their idiosyncratic peers Gogol (Colin Johnson) and Tolstoy (Jess Thomas). There’s a frisson of mental joy in a distillation like, “Chekhov’s books are sad books for humorous people,” or the sweet-talking yet penetrating pronouncement that, “Of all the great characters that a great artist creates, his readers are the best,” and their cumulative impact over the course of 90 minutes offers enough inspiration for several reckless bookstore sprees. (Avila)

Nina Haft and Company Shawl-Anderson Dance Center, 2704 Alcatraz, Berk; ninahaftandcompany.wordpress.com. Fri/26-Sat/27, 8pm; Sun/28, 7pm. $20. World premiere of a performance installation of dance, sound, words, and food: To begin with the ending already in sight. *

 

Stage listings

Andrew Lam
-
0

Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

THEATER

OPENING

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Opens Sun/21, 11am. Runs Sun, 11am. Through July 21. Louis “The Amazing Bubble Man” Pearl returns after a month-long hiatus with his popular, kid-friendly bubble show.

ONGOING

Acid Test: The Many Incarnations of Ram Dass Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm (May 11, show at 8pm). Through May 18. Lynne Kaufman’s play (starring Warren Keith David as the spiritual seeker) moves from Berkeley to San Francisco.

The Bereaved Thick House, 1695 18th St, SF; www.crowdedfire.org. $10-35. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through April 27. Crowded Fire Theater launches its Mainstage season with Thomas Bradshaw’s wicked comedy about “sex, drugs, and the American dream.”

Boomeraging: From LSD to OMG Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Tue, 8pm. Through May 28. Comedian Will Durst performs his brand-new solo show.

The Bus New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $32-45. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through April 28. NCTC performs James Lantz’s tale of two young men whose meeting place for their secret relationship is a church bus.

Carnival! Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.42ndstreetmoon.org. $25-75. Wed/17, 7pm; Thu/18-Fri/19, 8pm; Sat/20, 6pm; Sun/21, 3pm. 42nd Street Moon performs the Tony Award-winning musical.

The Expulsion of Malcolm X Southside Theatre, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.fortmason.org. $30-42.50. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through May 5. Colors of Vision Entertainment and GO Productions present Larry Americ Allen’s drama about the relationship between Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad.

Ghostbusters: Live On Stage Dark Room Theater, 2263 Mission, SF; www.darkroomsf.com. $20. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through April 27. Rhiannastan Productions brings the beloved 1984 comedy to the stage.

Foodies! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.foodiesthemusical.com. $30-34. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. AWAT Productions presents Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue all about food.

The Happy Ones Magic Theatre, Fort Mason Center, Bldg D, Third Flr, SF; www.magictheatre.org. $22-62. Wed/17-Sat/20, 8pm; Sun/21, 2:30pm. An Orange County appliance store owner finds his life turned upside down in Julie Marie Myatt’s drama at Magic Theatre.

How To Make Your Bitterness Work For You Stage Werx Theatre, 446 Valencia, SF; www.bitternesstobetterness.com. $15-25. Sun, 2pm. Through May 5. Fred Raker performs his comedy about the self-help industry.

I’m Not OK, Cupid 🙁 Shelton Theatre, 533 Sutter, SF; www.leftcoasttheatreco.org. $15-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through May 4. Left Coast Theatre Co. presents a new collection of one-act, LGBT-themed comedies about dating and relationships.

The Lost Folio: Shakespeare’s Musicals Un-Scripted Theater, 533 Sutter, Second Flr, SF; www.un-scripted.com. $10-20. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through May 18. Un-Scripted Theater Company performs a fully-improvised, full-length musical inspired by Shakespeare.

The Lullaby Tree Phoenix Theater, 414 Mason, SF; www.secondwind.8m.com. $15-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through May 4. In the face of the ever more extensive and controversial spread of GMO foods worldwide — not to mention last year’s state battle over Prop 37 — Second Wind premieres founding member and playwright Ian Walker’s half-whimsical, half-hardheaded drama about a boy searching for his mother in the underworld and a small band of lawyers and environmentalists going toe-to-toe with a multinational over the ownership of a mysterious crop of genetically engineered corn. It will eventually become plain that the two stories are linked, but first a ten-year-old boy (Samuel Berston) befriends a somewhat shrunken giant (Davern Wright) in an attempt to find his mother (Evangeline Crittenden) in an enchanted and hostile land of dragons. Elsewhere, Tim (Walker) and law partner Nod (Wright) prepare to do legal battle with a modern-day dragon, in the person of a corporate attorney (Cheryl Smith) for the ominous Mendes Corporation (read: Monsanto). They will argue over the ownership of the corn that has sprung up on the banks of a drowned town, and which may spell environmental disaster for the nature preserve surrounding it. In this fight Tim and Nod are in uneasy, ultimately disastrous alliance with activist Callie (Crittenden), whom Nod distrusts and with whom Tim is hopelessly smitten. The result is a convoluted plot and a fitful production (co-directed by Walker and Misha Hawk-Wyatt) in which a three-pronged story precariously balances the fairy tale, the romance, and the legal battle. It’s the last prong that offers the more interesting if formulaic scenes, in which the politics of GMOs mesh with the swashbuckling machinations of the attorneys. But the less compelling strands converge and take precedence, forcing things down a sentimental and forgettable road. (Avila)

reasons to be pretty San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post, Second Flr, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $30-100. Tue-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm). Through May 11. Completing a trilogy of plays about body awareness and self-image (along with The Shape of Things and Fat Pig), Neil LaBute’s reasons to be pretty begins with a misconstrued remark that quickly gathers enough weight and momentum to tear three sets of relationships apart in the span of a two-hour play. The SF Playhouse production begins with a bang, or rather an awesomely knock-down, blow-out breakup fight between a righteously pissed-off Steph (Lauren English) and her awkwardly passive boyfriend Greg (Craig Marker), who has inadvertently referred to her as “regular” in a conversation with his jerkish buddy Kent (Patrick Russell), which she takes to mean he finds her ugly. English’s Steph is at turns ferocious and fragile, and her comic timing as she eviscerates Greg’s looks in a mall food court zings, while the hyperkinetic Russell elevates the condition of noxiously irredeemable douchebag to an artform. But terrific acting and polished design can only make up so much for a script that feels not only flawed, barely scratching the surface of the whys and wherefores each character has internalized an unrealistic view of the importance of conventional beauty standards, but also already dated, with its circa-2008 pop culture references. Ultimately it gives the impression of being a rerun of a Lifetime television drama that wraps itself up into a too-neat package just in time for the final credits to roll to its admittedly kickass soundtrack (provided by Billie Cox). (Gluckstern)

Sex and the City: LIVE! Rebel, 1760 Market, SF; trannyshack.com/sexandthecity. $25. Wed, 7 and 9pm. Open-ended. It seems a no-brainer. Not just the HBO series itself — that’s definitely missing some gray matter — but putting it onstage as a drag show. Mais naturellement! Why was Sex and the City not conceived of as a drag show in the first place? Making the sordid not exactly palatable but somehow, I don’t know, friendlier (and the canned a little cannier), Velvet Rage Productions mounts two verbatim episodes from the widely adored cable show, with Trannyshack’s Heklina in a smashing portrayal of SJP’s Carrie; D’Arcy Drollinger stealing much of the show as ever-randy Samantha (already more or less a gay man trapped in a woman’s body); Lady Bear as an endearingly out-to-lunch Miranda; and ever assured, quick-witted Trixxie Carr as pent-up Charlotte. There’s also a solid and enjoyable supporting cast courtesy of Cookie Dough, Jordan Wheeler, and Leigh Crow (as Mr. Big). That’s some heavyweight talent trodding the straining boards of bar Rebel’s tiny stage. The show’s still two-dimensional, even in 3D, but noticeably bigger than your 50″ plasma flat panel. (Avila)

Sheherezade 13 Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.wilywestproductions.com. $25. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through April 27. Wily West Productions presents a short play showcase.

Show Me Yours: Songs of Innocence and Experience Alcove Theater, 414 Mason, Ste 502, SF; www.thealcovetheater.com. $27. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through April 27. New Musical Theater of San Francisco performs a new musical revue written by Pen and Piano, the company’s resident group of writers and composers.

Steve Seabrook: Better Than You Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thu, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Extended through May 18. Self-awareness, self-actualization, self-aggrandizement — for these things we turn to the professionals: the self-empowerment coaches, the self-help authors and motivational speakers. What’s the good of having a “self” unless someone shows you how to use it? Writer-performer Kurt Bodden’s Steve Seabrook wants to sell you on a better you, but his “Better Than You” weekend seminar (and tie-in book series, assorted CDs, and other paraphernalia) belies a certain divided loyalty in its own self-flattering title. The bitter fruit of the personal growth industry may sound overly ripe for the picking, but Bodden’s deftly executed “seminar” and its behind-the-scenes reveals, directed by Mark Kenward, explore the terrain with panache, cool wit, and shrewd characterization. As both writer and performer, Bodden keeps his Steve Seabrook just this side of overly sensational or maudlin, a believable figure, finally, whose all-too-ordinary life ends up something of a modest model of its own. (Avila)

Stuck Elevator American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $20-85. Tue-Sat, 8pm (also Wed and Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm (no evening performances Sun/21 or April 28). Through April 28. American Conservatory Theater presents the world premiere of Byron Au Yong and Aaron Jafferis’ musical (sung in English with Chinese supertitles) about a Chinese immigrant trapped in a Bronx elevator for 81 hours.

Tinsel Tarts in a Hot Coma: The Next Cockettes Musical Hypnodrome, 575 10th St, SF; www.thrillpeddlers.com. $30-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through June 1. Thrillpeddlers and director Russell Blackwood continue their Theatre of the Ridiculous series with this 1971 musical from San Francisco’s famed glitter-bearded acid queens, the Cockettes, revamped with a slew of new musical material by original member Scrumbly Koldewyn, and a freshly re-minted book co-written by Koldewyn and “Sweet Pam” Tent — both of whom join the large rotating cast of Thrillpeddler favorites alongside a third original Cockette, Rumi Missabu (playing diner waitress Brenda Breakfast like a deliciously unhinged scramble of Lucille Ball and Bette Davis). This is Thrillpeddlers’ third Cockettes revival, a winning streak that started with Pearls Over Shanghai. While not quite as frisky or imaginative as the production of Pearls, it easily charms with its fine songs, nifty routines, exquisite costumes, steady flashes of wit, less consistent flashes of flesh, and de rigueur irreverence. The plot may not be very easy to follow, but then, except perhaps for the bubbly accounting of the notorious New York flop of the same show 42 years ago by Tent (as poisoned-pen gossip columnist Vedda Viper), it hardly matters. (Avila)

BAY AREA

The Arsonists Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; www.auroratheatre.org. $35-60. Tue and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm); Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through May 12. There’s a lot of humor to be found in Alistair Beaton’s crackling translation of Max Frisch’s The Arsonists, playing now at the Aurora Theatre, but much of the laughter it elicits is of the nervous variety, as the play’s mostly protagonist, the effete, bourgeois Herr Biedermann (Dan Hiatt) inadvertently signs off on his own destruction when he invites an uncouth arsonist to come and stay in his attic (Michael Ray Wisely). “If we assume everyone is an arsonist, where does that get us?” becomes his standard deflection, as one arsonist becomes two (adding in the unctuous, nihilistic Tim Kniffin), and the empty attic a repository for giant drums of gasoline, a detonator, and fuse wire — arousing the suspicions of a chorus of firefighters (Kevin Clarke, Tristan Cunningham, Michael Uy Kelly), who act as the conscience and guardians of the township. Although on the surface the scenario is patently absurd, the message that passivity in the face of evil is like helping to measure out the fuse wire that will eventually claim your life, is relatively clear. “Not every fire is determined by fate,” point out the firefighters right in the first act. Hiatt, as Biedermann, strikes an admirable balance between loathsome and powerless, while Gwen Loeb shines as his socialite wife, Babette, as does Dina Percia as his agitated housemaid, Anna. (Gluckstern)

Being Earnest Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View; www.theatreworks.org. $23-73. Tue-Wed, 7:30pm; Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through April 28. TheatreWorks performs the world premiere of Paul Gordon’s musical take on Oscar Wilde’s comedy.

The Coast of Utopia: Voyage & Shipwreck Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-35. Shipwreck runs Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through May 5. Voyage runs Sat/20, April 27, and May 4, 3pm. Last year in the Shotgun Players’ production of Voyage, the first part of Tom Stoppard’s The Coast of Utopia trilogy (also playing in repertory through May 4), we were introduced to a tight circle of Russian thinkers and dreamers, chafing against the oppressive regime of Nicholas I. In the second part, Shipwrecked, we find them older, perhaps wiser, struggling to keep their revolutionary ideals alive while also juggling familial concerns and personal passions. Focused mainly on Alexander Herzen (Patrick Kelley Jones) and family, Shipwrecked travels from Russia to Germany, France, Italy, and the English Channel, buffeted from all directions by the forces of the uprisings and burgeoning political consciousness of the European proletariat. It’s an unwieldy, sprawling world that Stoppard, and history, have built (made somewhat more so by the Shotgun production’s strangely languid pace during even the most dramatic sequences) but it’s worth making the effort to spend time absorbing the singular world views of Russian émigré Herzen, his impulsively passionate wife Natalie (Caitlyn Louchard), the cantankerous, influential critic Vissarion Belinsky (Nick Medina), professional rabble-rouser Michael Bakunin (Joseph Salazar) and up-and-coming writer Ivan Turgenev (Richard Reinholdt) as they desperately seek to carve out both their personal identities and a greater, cohesive Russian one from the imperfect turmoil of Western philosophy. (Gluckstern)

Fallaci Berkeley Repertory Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-89. Wed/17 and Sun/21, 7pm (also Sun/21, 2pm); Thu/18-Sat/20, 8pm (also Sat/20, 2pm). Berkeley Rep performs Pulitzer-winning journalist Lawrence Wright’s new play about Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci.

A Killer Story Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Thu-Sat, 8pm (pre-show cabaret at 7:15pm). Through May 18. Dan Harder’s film noir-inspired detective tale premieres at the Marsh Berkeley.

Love Letters Various Marin County venues; www.porchlight.net. $15-30. Through April 28. Porch Light Theater performs A.R. Gurney’s romantic play at four different Marin venues; check website for addresses and showtimes.

“Pear Slices” Pear Avenue Theatre, 1220 Pear, Mtn View; www.thepear.org. $10-30. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through April 28. Nine original short plays by members of the Pear Playwrights Guild.

Pericles, Prince of Tyre Berkeley Repertory Theatre, 2025 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-77. Opens Wed/17, 8pm. Runs Tue, Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat and April 25 and May 23, 2pm; no matinee April 27; no show May 24); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2). Through May 26. Mark Wing-Davey directs Berkeley Rep’s take on the Bard.

The Whipping Man Marin Theatre Center, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; www.marintheatre.org. $36-57. Wed/17, 7:30pm; Thu/18-Sat/20, 8pm (also Sat/20, 2pm); Sun/21, 2 and 7pm. Marin Theatre Company performs the Bay Area premiere of Matthew Lopez’s Civil War drama.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

Alonzo King LINES Ballet LAM Research Theater, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard, SF; www.linesballet.org. Fri/19 and April 26-27, 8pm; Sat/20, 6pm; Sun/21 and April 28, 5pm; April 24-25, 7:30pm. $30-65. The company celebrates its 30th anniversary spring season with a collaboration between choregrapher Alonzo King and composter Edgar Meyer.

“Another Way Home” and “The Fox and the Beast” Joe Goode Annex, 401 Alabama, SF; www.cieloverticalarts.com. Fri/19-Sat/20, 8pm. $18. Cielo Vertical Arts presents a new aerial dance work with music by Jesse Olsen Bay, followed by a new work by Fog Beast.

“Anywhere But Here” SF Community Music Center, 544 Capp, SF; www.goathall.org. Sat/20-Sun/21, 8pm. $15. Goat Hall Productions, San Francisco’s Opera Cabaret Company, presents this show of works by Mozart, Weill, and Menotti.

“The Buddy Club Children’s Shows” Randall Museum, 199 Museum Wy, SF; www.thebuddyclub.com. Sun/21, 11am. $8. Comedy magician Phil Ackerly performs.

“Concert to End Bullying” Palace of Fine Arts, 3301 Lyon, SF; ayayale.tix.com. Sat/20, 8pm. $25-150. Stage and screen star Taye Diggs and the Yale Whiffenpoofs join forces for this show benefitting the New Conservatory Theatre Center’s Youth Aware Program.

“Crosscurrent” Garage, 715 Bryant, SF; www.975howard.com. Fri/19-Sat/20, 8pm. $15. Original dance theater, improvisation, and live music with dancers Daria Kaufman and Bianca Brzezinski, and composer Richard Warp.

CubaCaribe Festival This week: Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.cubacaribe.org. Fri/19, 7pm. $35. Next week: Laney College Theater, 900 Fallon, Oakl. April 26-27, 8pm; April 28, 2 and 7pm. $25. Master artists performing music and dance from the Caribbean Diaspora.

“Goodbye Taxes, Hello Mary Lou” Brick and Mortar Music Hall, 1710 Mission, SF; www.brickandmortarmusic.com. Fri/19, 9pm. $10. Music by Jugtown Pirates, a performance by Salacious Underground Burlesque, and more.

“Mission Position Live” Cinecave, 1034 Valencia, SF; www.missionpositionlive.com. Thu, 8pm. Ongoing. $10. Stand-up comedy with rotating performers.

“The Naked Stage” Bayfront Theater, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.improv.org. Sat, 8pm. Through April 27. $20. BATS Improv performs an improvised stage play.

“The Original Scratch-N-Sniff Variety Show” 50 Mason Social House, 50 Mason, SF; www.questforzest.org. Thu/18, 7pm. $10. Variety show with “scratch-n-sniff elements” between acts.

Red Hots Burlesque El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; www.redhotsburlesque.com. Wed, 7:30-9pm. Ongoing. $5-10. Come for the burlesque show, stay for OMG! Karaoke starting at 8pm (no cover for karaoke).

“Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir: Revolt of the Golden Toad Bay Area Tour” Various Bay Area venues; www.revbilly.com. April 22-27. The performance artist and activist visits the Bay Area for book readings from The End of the World, as well as a variety of performances and direct action events.

“San Francisco Magic Parlor” Chancellor Hotel Union Square, 433 Powell, SF; www.sfmagicparlor.com. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Ongoing. $40. Magic vignettes with conjurer and storyteller Walt Anthony.

“Sheetal Gandhi: Bahu Beti Biwi” ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; www.odctheater.org. Fri/19-Sat/20, 8pm; Sun/21, 7pm. $25-35. The North Indian choreographer and performer presents a work that combines dance, vocalization, and percussive text.

BAY AREA

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley, Berk; www.calperformances.org. April 23-27, 8pm (also April 27, 2pm); April 28, 3pm. $30-92. Four programs highlight the company’s annual Cal Performances residancy, including two Bay Area premieres.

“The Divine Game” Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. April 29, 8pm. $20. A spur to thought, to reading, to listening, to sparring over the meaning and magnitude of art — they’re all there in the brilliantly expansive, acute, and sometimes barbed observations of professor Vladimir Nabokov (a delighting, animated John Mercer), as he expounds on the subject of Russian literature in this simply staged but witty, well-honed dramatic reading from First Person Singular and adapter-director Joe Christiano. Presented as part of Shotgun’s Monday night Cabaret series, The Divine Game, drawing verbatim on Nabokov’s Cornell lectures of the 1950s, is an invitation to a heady walk down several byways in the land of great literary art, and there are few more discerning or inspiring guides whether or not you share in every conclusion about the relative merits and demerits of Chekhov (Joshua Han) or Dostoyevsky (Brian Quackenbush) — both of whom appear onstage alongside their idiosyncratic peers Gogol (Colin Johnson) and Tolstoy (Jess Thomas). There’s a frisson of mental joy in a distillation like, “Chekhov’s books are sad books for humorous people,” or the sweet-talking yet penetrating pronouncement that, “Of all the great characters that a great artist creates, his readers are the best,” and their cumulative impact over the course of 90 minutes offers enough inspiration for several reckless bookstore sprees. (Avila)

“Flamencio from Sevilla to Jerez” La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck, Berk; www.eventbrite.com. Sun/21, 7:30pm. $25-40. Spanish flamenco artists Javier Herida and Kina Menez perform.

“Man, Oh Man!” Laney College Theater, 900 Fallon, Oakl; www.oebgmc.org. Sat/20, 7pm; Sun/21, 5:30pm. $15-25. The Oakland-East Bay Gay Men’s Chorus performs a program of “music written for men to sing,” from chants to a world premiere.

Stage listings

Andrew Lam
-
0

Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

THEATER

OPENING

Acid Test: The Many Incarnations of Ram Dass Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Opens Fri/12, 8pm. Runs Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm (May 11, show at 8pm). Through May 18. Lynne Kaufman’s play (starring Warren Keith David as the spiritual seeker) moves from Berkeley to San Francisco.

Boomeraging: From LSD to OMG Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Opens Tue/16, 8pm. Runs Tue, 8pm. Through May 28. Comedian Will Durst performs his brand-new solo show.

The Expulsion of Malcolm X Southside Theatre, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.fortmason.org. $30-42.50. Opens Fri/12, 8pm. Runs Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through May 5. Colors of Vision Entertainment and GO Productions present Larry Americ Allen’s drama about the relationship between Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad.

Ghostbusters: Live On Stage Dark Room Theater, 2263 Mission, SF; www.darkroomsf.com. $20. Opens Thu/11, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through April 27. Rhiannastan Productions brings the beloved 1984 comedy to the stage.

How To Make Your Bitterness Work For You Stage Werx Theatre, 446 Valencia, SF; www.bitternesstobetterness.com. $15-25. Opens Sun/14, 2pm. Runs Sun, 2pm. Through May 5. Fred Raker performs his comedy about the self-help industry.

I’m Not OK, Cupid 🙁 Shelton Theatre, 533 Sutter, SF; www.leftcoasttheatreco.org. $15-35. Opens Thu/12, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through May 4. Left Coast Theatre Co. presents a new collection of one-act, LGBT-themed comedies about dating and relationships.

The Lost Folio: Shakespeare’s Musicals Un-Scripted Theater, 533 Sutter, Second Flr, SF; www.un-scripted.com. $10-20. Previews Thu/11, 8pm. Opens Fri/12, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through May 18. Un-Scripted Theater Company performs a fully-improvised, full-length musical inspired by Shakespeare.

Sheherezade 13 Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.wilywestproductions.com. $25. Opens Fri/12, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through April 27. Wily West Productions presents a short play showcase.

Stuck Elevator American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $20-85. Previews Wed/10-Sat/13, 8pm; Sun/14, 2 and 7pm. Opens Tue/16, 8pm. Runs Tue-Sat, 8pm (also Wed and Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm (no evening performances April 21 or 28). Through April 28. American Conservatory Theater presents the world premiere of Byron Au Yong and Aaron Jafferis’ musical (sung in English with Chinese supertitles) about a Chinese immigrant trapped in a Bronx elevator for 81 hours.

BAY AREA

A Killer Story Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Opens Fri/12, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm (pre-show cabaret at 7:15pm). Through May 18. Dan Harder’s film noir-inspired detective tale premieres at the Marsh Berkeley.

Pericles, Prince of Tyre Berkeley Repertory Theatre, 2025 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-77. Previews Fri/12-Sat/13 and Tue/16, 8pm; Sun/14, 7pm. Opens April 17, 8pm. Runs Tue, Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat and April 25 and May 23, 2pm; no matinee April 27; no show May 24); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2). Through May 26. Mark Wing-Davey directs Berkeley Rep’s take on the Bard.

ONGOING

The Bereaved Thick House, 1695 18th St, SF; www.crowdedfire.org. $10-35. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through April 27. Crowded Fire Theater launches its Mainstage season with Thomas Bradshaw’s wicked comedy about "sex, drugs, and the American dream."

The Bus New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $32-45. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through April 28. NCTC performs James Lantz’s tale of two young men whose meeting place for their secret relationship is a church bus.

Carnival! Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.42ndstreetmoon.org. $25-75. Wed, 7pm; Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 6pm (also Sat/13, 1pm); Sun, 3pm. Through April 21. 42nd Street Moon performs the Tony Award-winning musical.

Eurydice Gough Street Playhouse, 1622 Gough, SF; www.custommade.org. $25-30. Thu/11-Sat/13, 8pm; Sun/14, 7pm. Custom Made Theatre Co. performs Sarah Ruhl’s inventive take on the Orpheus and Eurydice myth, exploring the story through the heroine’s eyes.

Foodies! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.foodiesthemusical.com. $30-34. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. AWAT Productions presents Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue all about food.

The Happy Ones Magic Theatre, Fort Mason Center, Bldg D, Third Flr, SF; www.magictheatre.org. $22-62. Wed-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2:30pm; no matinee April 20); Sun, 2:30pm; Tue, 7pm. Through April 21. An Orange County appliance store owner finds his life turned upside down in Julie Marie Myatt’s drama at Magic Theatre.

reasons to be pretty San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post, Second Flr, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $30-100. Tue-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm). Through May 11. San Francisco Playhouse’s tenth season continues with Neil LaBute’s romantic drama.

Sex and the City: LIVE! Rebel, 1760 Market, SF; trannyshack.com/sexandthecity. $25. Wed, 7 and 9pm. Open-ended. It seems a no-brainer. Not just the HBO series itself — that’s definitely missing some gray matter — but putting it onstage as a drag show. Mais naturellement! Why was Sex and the City not conceived of as a drag show in the first place? Making the sordid not exactly palatable but somehow, I don’t know, friendlier (and the canned a little cannier), Velvet Rage Productions mounts two verbatim episodes from the widely adored cable show, with Trannyshack’s Heklina in a smashing portrayal of SJP’s Carrie; D’Arcy Drollinger stealing much of the show as ever-randy Samantha (already more or less a gay man trapped in a woman’s body); Lady Bear as an endearingly out-to-lunch Miranda; and ever assured, quick-witted Trixxie Carr as pent-up Charlotte. There’s also a solid and enjoyable supporting cast courtesy of Cookie Dough, Jordan Wheeler, and Leigh Crow (as Mr. Big). That’s some heavyweight talent trodding the straining boards of bar Rebel’s tiny stage. The show’s still two-dimensional, even in 3D, but noticeably bigger than your 50" plasma flat panel. (Avila)

Show Me Yours: Songs of Innocence and Experience Alcove Theater, 414 Mason, Ste 502, SF; www.thealcovetheater.com. $27. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through April 27. New Musical Theater of San Francisco performs a new musical revue written by Pen and Piano, the company’s resident group of writers and composers.

Steve Seabrook: Better Than You Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thu, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Extended through May 18. Self-awareness, self-actualization, self-aggrandizement — for these things we turn to the professionals: the self-empowerment coaches, the self-help authors and motivational speakers. What’s the good of having a "self" unless someone shows you how to use it? Writer-performer Kurt Bodden’s Steve Seabrook wants to sell you on a better you, but his "Better Than You" weekend seminar (and tie-in book series, assorted CDs, and other paraphernalia) belies a certain divided loyalty in its own self-flattering title. The bitter fruit of the personal growth industry may sound overly ripe for the picking, but Bodden’s deftly executed "seminar" and its behind-the-scenes reveals, directed by Mark Kenward, explore the terrain with panache, cool wit, and shrewd characterization. As both writer and performer, Bodden keeps his Steve Seabrook just this side of overly sensational or maudlin, a believable figure, finally, whose all-too-ordinary life ends up something of a modest model of its own. (Avila)

Tinsel Tarts in a Hot Coma: The Next Cockettes Musical Hypnodrome, 575 10th St, SF; www.thrillpeddlers.com. $30-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through June 1. Thrillpeddlers’ sixth annual Theatre of the Ridiculous Revival presents a restored version of the Cockettes’ 1971 Art Deco-inspired musical extravaganza.

BAY AREA

The Arsonists Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; www.auroratheatre.org. $35-60. Previews Wed/10, 8pm. Opens Thu/11, 8pm. Runs Tue and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm); Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through May 12. Aurora Theatre Company performs Max Frisch’s classic comic parable, translated by Alistair Beaton.

Being Earnest Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View; www.theatreworks.org. $23-73. Tue-Wed, 7:30pm; Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through April 28. TheatreWorks performs the world premiere of Paul Gordon’s musical take on Oscar Wilde’s comedy.

The Coast of Utopia: Voyage & Shipwreck Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-35. Shipwreck runs Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through May 5. Voyage runs Sat/13, April 20, 27, and May 4, 3pm. Last year in the Shotgun Players’ production of Voyage, the first part of Tom Stoppard’s The Coast of Utopia trilogy (also playing in repertory through May 4), we were introduced to a tight circle of Russian thinkers and dreamers, chafing against the oppressive regime of Nicholas I. In the second part, Shipwrecked, we find them older, perhaps wiser, struggling to keep their revolutionary ideals alive while also juggling familial concerns and personal passions. Focused mainly on Alexander Herzen (Patrick Kelley Jones) and family, Shipwrecked travels from Russia to Germany, France, Italy, and the English Channel, buffeted from all directions by the forces of the uprisings and burgeoning political consciousness of the European proletariat. It’s an unwieldy, sprawling world that Stoppard, and history, have built (made somewhat more so by the Shotgun production’s strangely languid pace during even the most dramatic sequences) but it’s worth making the effort to spend time absorbing the singular world views of Russian émigré Herzen, his impulsively passionate wife Natalie (Caitlyn Louchard), the cantankerous, influential critic Vissarion Belinsky (Nick Medina), professional rabble-rouser Michael Bakunin (Joseph Salazar) and up-and-coming writer Ivan Turgenev (Richard Reinholdt) as they desperately seek to carve out both their personal identities and a greater, cohesive Russian one from the imperfect turmoil of Western philosophy. (Gluckstern)

Fallaci Berkeley Repertory Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-89. Tue, Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm). Through April 21. Berkeley Rep performs Pulitzer-winning journalist Lawrence Wright’s new play about Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci.

Love Letters Various Marin County venues; www.porchlight.net. $15-30. Through April 28. Porch Light Theater performs A.R. Gurney’s romantic play at four different Marin venues; check website for addresses and showtimes.

"Pear Slices" Pear Avenue Theatre, 1220 Pear, Mtn View; www.thepear.org. $10-30. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through April 28. Nine original short plays by members of the Pear Playwrights Guild.

The Whipping Man Marin Theatre Center, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; www.marintheatre.org. $36-57. Tue-Sat, 8pm (also Thu/11, 1pm; April 20, 2pm); Wed, 7:30pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through April 21. Marin Theatre Company performs the Bay Area premiere of Matthew Lopez’s Civil War drama.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

Caroline Lugo and Carolé Acuña’s Ballet Flamenco Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; www.carolinalugo.com. Sat/13, 6:15pm. $15-19. Flamenco performance by the mother-daughter dance company, featuring live musicians.

CubaCaribe Festival This week: Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St, SF; www.cubacaribe.org. Fri/12-Sat/13, 8pm; Sun/14, 3 and 7pm. $10-35. Master artists performing music and dance from the Caribbean Diaspora.

Jamel Debbouze Nob Hill Masonic Auditorium, 1111 California, SF; www.masonicauditorium.com. Fri/12, 8pm. $35.50-125. If you understand French: check out this comedian. If you don’t: probably not the show for you.

"Ecstatic Dance" Regency Ballroom, Sutter Room, 1290 Sutter, SF; www.ecstaticdance.org. Tue/16, 7pm. $15-20. Free-form conscious dance for all.

"Feria with Mision Flamenca" Bissip Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; www.misionflamenca.com. Sat/13, 7:30pm. $15. Flamenco music and dance.

"KALW presents Heard Here" Victoria Theatre, 2961 16th St, SF; www.victoriatheatre.org. Fri/12, 8pm. Free. Storytelling inspired by real people in the Bay Area.

"Mission Position Live" Cinecave, 1034 Valencia, SF; www.missionpositionlive.com. Thu, 8pm. Ongoing. $10. Stand-up comedy with rotating performers.

"Mortified" DNA Lounge, 375 11th St, SF; www.getmortified.com. Fri/12, 7:30pm. $21. Also Sat/13, 7:30pm, $20, Uptown, 1928 Telegraph, Oakl. Embarrassing tales with an April Fools’ Day theme.

"The Naked Stage" Bayfront Theater, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.improv.org. Sat, 8pm. Through April 27. $20. BATS Improv performs an improvised stage play.

Ophelia Fort Mason Center (starting at the Firehouse), Marina at Laguna, SF; www.carteblanche-sf.com. Thu/11 and Sat/13-Sun/14, 8:30pm. $22. Carte Blanche performs a walk-through performance featuring dance, theater, and interactive video.

Red Hots Burlesque El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; www.redhotsburlesque.com. Wed, 7:30-9pm. Ongoing. $5-10. Come for the burlesque show, stay for OMG! Karaoke starting at 8pm (no cover for karaoke).

"San Francisco Magic Parlor" Chancellor Hotel Union Square, 433 Powell, SF; www.sfmagicparlor.com. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Ongoing. $40. Magic vignettes with conjurer and storyteller Walt Anthony.

"Take 5" ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; www.odctheater.org. Fri/12, 5pm. $5. Works-in-progress by dance artists Andrea Mock, Nicole Klaymoon, and Rachael Lincoln, with discussion to follow.

BAY AREA

"Axis Dance Company Celebrates 25 Years of Inspired Dance" Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts, 1428 Alice, Oakl; www.brownpapertickets.com. Fri/12-Sat/13, 8pm; Sun/14, 2pm. $22. The veteran company celebrates 25 years with three works by Victoria Marks, Amy Seiwert, and Sonya Delwaide.

"The Divine Game" Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. Mon/15 and April 29, 8pm. $20. A spur to thought, to reading, to listening, to sparring over the meaning and magnitude of art — they’re all there in the brilliantly expansive, acute, and sometimes barbed observations of professor Vladimir Nabokov (a delighting, animated John Mercer), as he expounds on the subject of Russian literature in this simply staged but witty, well-honed dramatic reading from First Person Singular and adapter-director Joe Christiano. Presented as part of Shotgun’s Monday night Cabaret series, The Divine Game, drawing verbatim on Nabokov’s Cornell lectures of the 1950s, is an invitation to a heady walk down several byways in the land of great literary art, and there are few more discerning or inspiring guides whether or not you share in every conclusion about the relative merits and demerits of Chekhov (Joshua Han) or Dostoyevsky (Brian Quackenbush) — both of whom appear onstage alongside their idiosyncratic peers Gogol (Colin Johnson) and Tolstoy (Jess Thomas). There’s a frisson of mental joy in a distillation like, "Chekhov’s books are sad books for humorous people," or the sweet-talking yet penetrating pronouncement that, "Of all the great characters that a great artist creates, his readers are the best," and their cumulative impact over the course of 90 minutes offers enough inspiration for several reckless bookstore sprees. (Avila)

"Marin Ballet’s 50th Anniversary Reunion Performance" College of Marin, 835 College, Kentfield; www.marinballet.org. Sat/13, 8pm. $50. Featuring Marin Ballet alumni performing works by Ronn Guidi, Julia Adam, Robert Moses, and more.

"Rhythm of Life" 142 Throckmorton Theatre, 142 Throckmorton, Mill Valley; www.142throckmortontheatre.com. Fri/12, 8pm. $20-30. The cabaret and theater star performs songs from throughout his extensive career.

"Sagala 2013" Brentwood Community Center, 35 Oak, Brentwood; www.philippinearts.org. Sat/13, 3pm. $50. Support the American Center of Philippine Arts’ youth dance and music programs by attending this Sagala parade celebrating springtime, with music by jazz vocalist Mitch Franco.

"UniverSoul Circus" Under the Big Top, 633 Hegenberger, Oakl; www.ticketmaster.com. Wed/10-Fri/12, 10:30am and 7:30pm; Sat/13, noon, 4pm, 7:30pm; Sun/14, 1pm, 4pm, 7pm. $16-40. Circus arts acts from Vietnam, Ethiopia, and the US.

Stage listings

Andrew Lam
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Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

THEATER

OPENING

BAY AREA

The Coast of Utopia: Voyage & Shipwreck Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-35. Shipwreck previews Fri/22-Sat/23 and March 29, 8pm; March 27-28, 7pm; Sun/24, 5pm. Opens March 30, 8pm. Runs Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through May 5. Voyage previews March 27, 7pm. Opens April 3, 3pm. Runs April 13, 20, 27, and May 4, 3pm. Shotgun Players perform the first two parts of Tom Stoppard’s revolutionary trilogy.

ONGOING

Assistance NOHspace, 2840 Mariposa, SF; www.opentabproductions.com. $20. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 6pm. Through March 30. Over the past three years, things we’ve come to expect from plucky OpenTab Productions — whose annual offerings deal in aggressively contemporary themes such as media spin, business fraud, and job (in)security — include tight ensemble acting, minimal tech, and snappy direction, and in all these regards, Assistance does not disappoint. A crew of desperate office drones whose lives basically revolve around the abuse dished out by their unseen employer, Daniel Weisinger (who may or may not resemble playwright Leslye Headland’s old boss, Harvey Weinstein), hold down their airless fort, fielding calls at 11 p.m. and shirking responsibility whenever possible. Though Headland doesn’t do much to make her emotionally and professionally stunted characters palatable, the capable cast and director Ben Euphrat do manage to wring something resembling humanity out of them. From Nick (Tristan Rholl,) the frustrated slacker supervisor, to Nora (Melissa Keith), the-new-girl-turned-cynical-old-hand, to Justin (Nathan Tucker), the unctuous winner of the title of "last man standing," to Jenny (Michelle Drexler) a pragmatic yet annoyingly bubbly Brit, what stands out in each performance are the perfectly captured quirky nuances and barely-concealed neuroses of people caught in the process of losing their souls. Nothing about Assistance is likely to change your view of the business world, but if you’ve yet to experience the frenetic fun of an OpenTab show, it’s a perfect primer to the madness behind their method. (Gluckstern)

The Chairs Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor, SF; www.cuttingball.com. $20-45. Thu, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 5pm. Extended through April 7. In Rob Melrose’s new translation of Eugene Ionesco’s The Chairs, an elderly couple sit in the austere parlor of their lonely lighthouse, chortling over a spate of private wordplay and reminiscing of sprightlier times, until their initially frantic and disjointed dialogue settles into a smooth flow, well-polished by decades of endearments and gentle bickering. Possibly the last two survivors of a not entirely explained apocalypse, the isolated nonagenarians (magnificently played by David Sinaiko and Tamar Cohn) nevertheless make it known that important guests are expected to arrive at any moment in order to hear a hired orator (Derek Fischer) deliver the Old Man’s "message," which he has spent a lifetime honing. As the doorbell begins to ring, a jarring squall, and invisible guests and dozens of mismatched chairs begin to crowd their peaceable empire in claustrophobia-inducing numbers, their companionable seclusion is shattered for good. Director Annie Elias manages to coax both gravitas and decorum out of this little-produced, yet influential absurdist relic, imbuing her protagonists with a depth of character that belies their farcical circumstances, while Theodore J.H. Hulsker’s murmuring sound design of crashing waves, angry winds, and the strident doorbell could almost be another character in the play, so thoroughly does it set the tone in ways that Ionesco might not have approved of, but is all the better for. (Gluckstern)

Dead Metaphor ACT’s Geary Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $20-95. Wed/20-Sat/23, 8pm (also Sat/23, 2pm); Sun/24, 2 and 7pm. American Conservatory Theater performs George F. Walker’s dark comedy about postwar living.

Foodies! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.foodiesthemusical.com. $30-34. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. AWAT Productions presents Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue all about food.

The Great Big Also Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.zspace.org. $15-30. Thu/21-Sat/23, 8pm; Sun/24, 5pm. The Rift is coming, and when it does, you’ll have to decide for yourself, will you stay or will you go? But stay for what? Go where? These are just a couple of the big questions underlying Mugwumpin’s latest devised occurrence The Great Big Also, a tour de prophétie, on the conundrum that is survival. Split up from the outset, each audience member must undergo a sort of personal journey through the play, sequestered in a kind of labyrinth of inter-locking white walls (cunningly designed by Sean Riley) that lead equally nowhere, and subjected to the roving attentions of the eight ensemble members, who chatter amiably about their individual pasts and the history of their tenuous confederation — the New Settlers. Punctuated by bursts of exposition coming from above, and the cacophonous underpinnings of Theodore Hulsker’s dramatic sound design, their spirited discourse creates more questions than answers, and random snatches of eavesdropped-upon conversation gleaned from other rooms in the labyrinth only serves to muddle their objectives even more. As the tightly-knit, New Settler community becomes increasingly stretched and frayed, the physical walls of the set stretch too and eventually collapse, (once the audience is seated, somewhat more traditionally in a ring of folding chairs that encircle the wide parameter of the Z Space stage). Interesting resonances abound with FoolsFURY’s production of Doug Dorst’s futuristic Monster in the Dark and Banana Bag and Bodice’s neo-sci-fi melodrama The Sewers, yet Mugwumpin’s exploration of a possibly brave, possibly new world, manages to be both maddeningly cryptic and exuberantly profound all on its own. (Gluckstern)

God of Carnage Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sheltontheater.org. $38. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through March 30. Shelton Theater presents Yasmina Reza’s Tony-winning comedy about upper-middle-class parents clashing over an act of playground violence between their children.

Inevitable SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $20. Thu/21-Sat/23, 8pm. SF Playhouse’s "Sandbox Series," enabling new and established playwrights to stage new works, kicks off its third season with Jordan Puckett’s drama about a woman trying to make sense of her life.

Just One More Game Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.tripleshotprodutions.org. $25. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through March 30. With the rise of the programmer as pop culture hero, it was probably inevitable that we’d start writing plays about them too. In local playwright Dan Wilson’s Just One More Game our programmer protagonist is Kent (Christopher DeJong) whose mission is to find love, and his co-player is Marjorie (Linda-Ruth Cardozo), who wields her own geek credentials like a Mortal Kombat wrath hammer. Where Wilson’s comedy excels is in the witty gamer banter that defines much of their attraction and commonality — references to Zork, Oregon Trail, Dungeons and Dragons, and The Secret of Monkey Island abound, while a series of meticulous video game animations (also Wilson’s) lend colorful counterpoint to the action on the stage. DeJong plays his role of emotionally-inhibited loner with a degree of laconic detachment that unfortunately eliminates all traces of chemistry between him and Cardozo, who is especially good at capturing the cheerfully aggressive awkward of a woman accustomed to being "one of the boys" because there was nothing about "the girls" she could relate to. Both the comedy and pace flag by the time the first NPCs (non-player characters) enter the room, broadly clichéd parents yammering for grandchildren and obnoxious college buddies armed with too many baby photos, who conspire to stunt the growth of Kent and Marjorie’s relationship and wind up stunting the growth of the play. If the quest for love is a game, as the title suggests, it’s one that could use a little more back-end development, and a much greater degree of playfulness. (Gluckstern)

A Lady and a Woman Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.therhino.org. $15-30. Wed/20-Sat/23, 8pm; Sun/24, 3pm. Life wasn’t easy in the South of the 1890s, particularly for single black women, but in Shirlene Holmes’ A Lady and a Woman the focus is emphatically on rising above circumstance. When itinerant hog-cutter Biddie Higgins (Dawn L. Troupe) swaggers into the village inn run by Miss Flora Devine (Velina Brown) and demands a room, sparks fly almost instantaneously, as the two pragmatic and independent women become drawn to the strength they see in the other. A healer and midwife as well as an innkeeper, Miss Flora has endured enough abuse at the hands of men in her life to make her grateful to be able to live without one around, while Biddie, the only daughter in a household of fourteen, has become accustomed to a life of manual labor and clandestine trysts with willing women, never sticking around one place long enough to run out of either, declaring "it’s been easier to live a hard life then a lie." Both Brown and Troupe embody their multi-dimensional characters with grace and backbone, never striking a false note as their tender courtship unfolds and they discover that the greatest strength of all is the ability to love freely. (Gluckstern)

The Lisbon Traviata New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25. Wed/20-Sat/23, 8pm; Sun/24, 2pm. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs Terrence McNally’s play, a mix of comedy and tragedy, about the relationship between two opera fanatics.

Sex and the City: LIVE! Rebel, 1760 Market, SF; trannyshack.com/sexandthecity. $25. Wed, 7 and 9pm. Open-ended. It seems a no-brainer. Not just the HBO series itself — that’s definitely missing some gray matter — but putting it onstage as a drag show. Mais naturellement! Why was Sex and the City not conceived of as a drag show in the first place? Making the sordid not exactly palatable but somehow, I don’t know, friendlier (and the canned a little cannier), Velvet Rage Productions mounts two verbatim episodes from the widely adored cable show, with Trannyshack’s Heklina in a smashing portrayal of SJP’s Carrie; D’Arcy Drollinger stealing much of the show as ever-randy Samantha (already more or less a gay man trapped in a woman’s body); Lady Bear as an endearingly out-to-lunch Miranda; and ever assured, quick-witted Trixxie Carr as pent-up Charlotte. There’s also a solid and enjoyable supporting cast courtesy of Cookie Dough, Jordan Wheeler, and Leigh Crow (as Mr. Big). That’s some heavyweight talent trodding the straining boards of bar Rebel’s tiny stage. The show’s still two-dimensional, even in 3D, but noticeably bigger than your 50" plasma flat panel. (Avila)

Steve Seabrook: Better Than You Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm, through March 30. Starting April 4, runs Thu, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Extended through May 18.

Self-awareness, self-actualization, self-aggrandizement — for these things we turn to the professionals: the self-empowerment coaches, the self-help authors and motivational speakers. What’s the good of having a "self" unless someone shows you how to use it? Writer-performer Kurt Bodden’s Steve Seabrook wants to sell you on a better you, but his "Better Than You" weekend seminar (and tie-in book series, assorted CDs, and other paraphernalia) belies a certain divided loyalty in its own self-flattering title. The bitter fruit of the personal growth industry may sound overly ripe for the picking, but Bodden’s deftly executed "seminar" and its behind-the-scenes reveals, directed by Mark Kenward, explore the terrain with panache, cool wit, and shrewd characterization. As both writer and performer, Bodden keeps his Steve Seabrook just this side of overly sensational or maudlin, a believable figure, finally, whose all-too-ordinary life ends up something of a modest model of its own. (Avila)

The Voice: One Man’s Journey Into Sex Addition and Recovery Stage Werx Theater, 446 Valencia, SF; thevoice.brownpapertickets.com. $10-18. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through April 6. Ticket sales for David Kleinberg’s autobiographical solo show benefit 12-step sex addiction recovery programs and other non-profits.

The Waiting Period Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $25-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through March 30. Brian Copeland (comedian, TV and radio personality, and creator-performer of the long-running solo play Not a Genuine Black Man) returns to the Marsh with a new solo, this one based on more recent and messier events` in Copeland’s life. The play concerns an episode of severe depression in which he considered suicide, going so far as to purchase a handgun — the title coming from the legally mandatory 10-day period between purchasing and picking up the weapon, which leaves time for reflections and circumstances that ultimately prevent Copeland from pulling the trigger. A grim subject, but Copeland (with co-developer and director David Ford) ensures there’s plenty of humor as well as frank sentiment along the way. The actor peoples the opening scene in the gun store with a comically if somewhat stereotypically rugged representative of the Second Amendment, for instance, as well as an equally familiar "doood" dude at the service counter. Afterward, we follow Copeland, a just barely coping dad, home to the house recently abandoned by his wife, and through the ordinary routines that become unbearable to the clinically depressed. Copeland also recreates interviews he’s made with other survivors of suicidal depression. Telling someone about such things is vital to preventing their worst outcomes, says Copeland, and telling his own story is meant to encourage others. It’s a worthy aim but only a fitfully engaging piece, since as drama it remains thin, standing at perhaps too respectful a distance from the convoluted torment and alienation at its center. Note: review from an earlier run of the same production. (Avila)

BAY AREA

Dostoevsky’s The Grand Inquisitor Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berk; www.centralworks.org. $15-28. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through March 31. Central Works performs Gary Graves’ adaptation of the story-within-a-story from The Brothers Karamazov.

Fallaci Berkeley Repertory Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-89. Tue, Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm). Through April 21. Berkeley Rep performs Pulitzer-winning journalist Lawrence Wright’s new play about Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci.

The Mountaintop Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; www.theatreworks.org. $23-75. Tue-Wed, 7:30pm; Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm), through March 31. Starting April 3, runs Wed-Thu, 11am (also Thu, 8pm); Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through April 7. TheatreWorks performs Katori Hall’s play that re-imagines the events on the night before Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination.

The Real Americans Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $25-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through April 6. Dan Hoyle shifts his popular show about small-town America to the Marsh’s Berkeley outpost.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

BATS Improv Bayfront Theater, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.improv.org. $20. "Theatresports," Fri, 8pm. Through March 29. "Double Feature," Sat, 8pm. Through March 30.

"The Buddy Club Children’s Shows" Randall Museum Theater, 199 Museum Wy, SF; www.thebuddyclub.com. Sun/24, 11am-noon. $8 (under two years old, free). Comedy magician Robert Strong performs.

Caroline Lugo and Carolé Acuña’s Ballet Flamenco Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; www.carolinalugo.com. Sun/24, 6:15pm. $15-19. Flamenco performance by the mother-daughter dance company, featuring live musicians.

"Mission Position Live" Cinecave, 1034 Valencia, SF; www.missionpositionlive.com. Thu, 8pm. Ongoing. $10. Stand-up comedy with rotating performers.

"New Works by Artists in Residence" CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; www.counterpulse.org. Thu-Sun, 8pm. Through March 31. $20-30. With richien (Rowena Richie and Jennifer Chien) performing Twindependent, and Sense Object (Miriam Wolodarksi) performing Of Limb and Language.

"Ninth Annual Conceptual Public Art Performance: Dance Anywhere" Various locations, SF; www.danceanywhere.org. Fri/22, noon. Free. This worldwide movement presents simultaneous performance art in over 45 countries; check the website for local events and to connect with other participants.

"ODC/Dance Downtown 2013" Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater, 700 Howard, SF; www.odcdance.org. Wed/20-Thu/21, 7:30pm; Fri/22-Sat/23, 8pm; Sun/24, 4pm. $20-75. The company celebrates its 42nd season with three world premieres from Brenda Way and KT Nelson.

"ODC Pilot 62: Kinetoscope…This Time With Pictures" ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; www.odctheater.org. Fri/22-Sat/23, 8pm. $15. Rising dance film artists present dance films and live, multimedia performances.

"San Francisco Magic Parlor" Chancellor Hotel Union Square, 433 Powell, SF; www.sfmagicparlor.com. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Ongoing. $40. Magic vignettes with conjurer and storyteller Walt Anthony.

"Shen Wei Dance Arts: Undivided Divided" Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. Thu/21-Sat/23, 8pm (also Sat/23, 5pm); Sun/24, 2 and 5pm. $10-30. The choreographer for the 2008 Beijing Olympics opening ceremony, Shen Wei, also heads up China’s first contemporary dance company; this performance is an installation featuring 18 dancers and multimedia elements.

"Snow White and Her Merry Men" Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness, SF; www.sfgmc.org. Mon/25-Tue/26, 8pm. $15-75. The San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus and Steve Silver’s Beach Blanket Babylon come together for this special joint concert.

"2013 Rhino Benefit Celebration" Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.therhino.org. Sun/24, 7:30pm. $25. Theatre Rhinoceros celebrates 35 years of queer theater with this benefit bash, featuring Connie Champagne, Dave Dobrusky, Mike Finn, Casey Ley, Matthew Martin, and more.

Mathematical certainty

Andrew Lam
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Mathematical certainty

arts@sfbg.com

DANCE ODC/Dance started its 42nd season with a party-happy gala and two contrasting but complementary works: Brenda Way’s new Lifesaving Maneuvers and KT Nelson’s redressed and finessed 2012 Transit: Next Stop. Two days later, the season’s major premiere, Triangulating Euclid, co-choreographed by Way, Nelson, and Kate Weare, opened an intriguing perspective on what gifted women can do when they put their heads and hearts together. Of course, women working together is not exactly a fresh idea at ODC — it’s at the core of what this troupe set out to do four decades ago.

Though the dark Lifesaving has its moments of humor, Way’s look at wild excesses and paralyzing paranoia, both as social and personal phenomena, is a tough watch. The piece develops in front of Alexander Nichols’ semi-transparent curtain that closes off some ominous, hinted-at life beyond our vision.

While the sheer clarity and force of its choreographic vision pulls you in, Way’s unsparing look on coping strategies is chilling. Chaotic explosions could distill into social dance sequences where a partner, nonetheless, could be dropped like a rock. Yayoi Kambara looked caught in a tornado from which there seemed to be no exit, while Anne Zivolich darted around like a hunted rabbit.

Way grounds the choreography in an intense, often frantic energy that implodes mid-air. She balances discontinuity with unity processions, starting with battlefield imagery of dancers carrying off fallen comrades, women being pushed into the wings like brooms and vacuously waving men and women that might have stepped out of a Pina Bausch piece.

Still, Way doesn’t want us to feel too gloomy. You can’t help but smile when dancers choke and need Heimlich maneuvers as "Mad About the Boy" plays. In a silent movie melodrama, Natasha Adorlee Johnson throws herself at Corey Brady’s suave villain; he coolly assesses his victim and flips her off.

The piece ends with Justin Andrews cradling a desperately flailing Vanessa Thiessen. He tries to comfort her; she can’t respond. Curtain.

Whatever the process that the three collaborators engaged in for Triangulating, it worked. At first the piece looks like an illustration of basic plane geometry, but it quickly blossoms into an exuberant celebration of the way dancers inscribe themselves into space. From the moment a dancer’s leg smudges the carefully drawn line on the floor, you realize that poetry supersedes science.

The half-hour piece sails through its accumulations and dissolutions of staggered and overlapping encounters with surety and an increasing sense of freedom. The piece grows and finishes with Yayoi Kambara as the single dancer who draws the others onto the stage. Line formations give way to duets — still at the core of how and why we dance. Wonderfully, the cantilevered lifts, upside-down holds, and kicking feet feel thoroughly at home in Schubert’s music. The partnering between Corey Brady and Maggie Stack, contentious and passionate in the way he throws and whips her around, stands out.

Finally, Anne Zivolich sniffs, tiptoes, and encircles an indifferent Jeremy Smith; she breaks into one of her by-now-legendary whiplashing explosions when he takes off with someone else. One by one her colleagues march in and try to stomp her to the ground. The scene was both hilarious and spoke to truth: surely there is more to this dancer than being a female hurricane —something she appears as in just about every choreography that ODC produces.

The simple costumes (by Way and Lisa Claybaugh) of black shorts and bras for the women, and then supplemented by diaphanous white blouses, couldn’t be better. The score’s trajectory from synthesizer to Schubert to grand-style minimalism did its job as well.

Nelson’s Transit: Next Stop has acquired a spectacular set of animations which contextualize her urban dwellers’ attempts to manage their relationships. Yet Barry Steele’s design is so big that it draws undue attention to itself. It works best during a night scene in which life becomes a dream. But I am not sure whether adding a filmic sense of passing and changing habitats brings that much to this funny-yet-tender perspective on what it means to be a contemporary city dweller. *

ODC/DANCE DOWNTOWN 2013

Wed/20-Thu/21, 7:30pm; Fri/22-Sat/23, 8pm; Sun/24, 4pm, $20-$75

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater

700 Howard, SF

www.odcdance.org

Stage Listings

Andrew Lam
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Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

THEATER

ONGOING

Assistance NOHspace, 2840 Mariposa, SF; www.opentabproductions.com. $20. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 6pm. Through March 30. Over the past three years, things we’ve come to expect from plucky OpenTab Productions — whose annual offerings deal in aggressively contemporary themes such as media spin, business fraud, and job (in)security — include tight ensemble acting, minimal tech, and snappy direction, and in all these regards, Assistance does not disappoint. A crew of desperate office drones whose lives basically revolve around the abuse dished out by their unseen employer, Daniel Weisinger (who may or may not resemble playwright Leslye Headland’s old boss, Harvey Weinstein), hold down their airless fort, fielding calls at 11 p.m. and shirking responsibility whenever possible. Though Headland doesn’t do much to make her emotionally and professionally stunted characters palatable, the capable cast and director Ben Euphrat do manage to wring something resembling humanity out of them. From Nick (Tristan Rholl,) the frustrated slacker supervisor, to Nora (Melissa Keith), the-new-girl-turned-cynical-old-hand, to Justin (Nathan Tucker), the unctuous winner of the title of “last man standing,” to Jenny (Michelle Drexler) a pragmatic yet annoyingly bubbly Brit, what stands out in each performance are the perfectly captured quirky nuances and barely-concealed neuroses of people caught in the process of losing their souls. Nothing about Assistance is likely to change your view of the business world, but if you’ve yet to experience the frenetic fun of an OpenTab show, it’s a perfect primer to the madness behind their method. (Gluckstern)

The Chairs Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor, SF; www.cuttingball.com. $20-45. Thu, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 5pm. Through March 31. Cutting Ball Theater performs Rob Melrose’s new Eugene Ionesco translation.

Dead Metaphor ACT’s Geary Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $20-95. Tue-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through March 24. American Conservatory Theater performs George F. Walker’s dark comedy about postwar living.

Foodies! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.foodiesthemusical.com. $30-34. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. AWAT Productions presents Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue all about food.

The Great Big Also Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.zspace.org. $15-30. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through March 24. Mugwumpin performs a world premiere about creating a new world.

God of Carnage Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sheltontheater.org. $38. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through March 30. Shelton Theater presents Yasmina Reza’s Tony-winning comedy about upper-middle-class parents clashing over an act of playground violence between their children.

Inevitable SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $20. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through March 23. SF Playhouse’s “Sandbox Series,” enabling new and established playwrights to stage new works, kicks off its third season with Jordan Puckett’s drama about a woman trying to make sense of her life.

Jurassic Ark Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.theexit.org. $15-25. Fri/16-Sat/16, 8pm. Writer-performer David Caggiano’s zany, well-executed solo play centers on a Christian televangelist who is unwaveringly bent on making a big-budget movie about a cowboy-like Biblical Noah, his Ark, and the largely lovable dinosaurs callously left out of the story — a project he sees delivering a decisive blow to the Darwinians, while turning cineplexes across the land into celluloid cathedrals. Brother Dallas and his proselytizing pitch eventually find receptive ears in a trinity of movie-industry heavies, whose collective business acumen demands a few changes to the script. Meanwhile, the intoxicating power of it all leads to a lapse in Brother Dallas’s righteousness and a scandal reminiscent of Hugh Grant’s career. Dallas rebounds from this bout with the Devil and sees his movie made — but surely only he is unaware that the Devil keeps a Hollywood address. Smartly directed by Mark Kenward, this low-frills production relies almost exclusively on Caggiano’s sturdy ability with quick-change characterizations (couched in Dylan West’s modest lighting design and a suggestive soundscape by sound editor–musician John Mazzei). The fitful satire trades in pretty orthodox caricature and, in Brother Dallas, lacks a very compelling or sympathetic central figure; but it unfolds with a very cinematic imagination that, while formulaic, is itself one hell of a movie pitch. (Avila)

Just One More Game Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.tripleshotprodutions.org. $25. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun/17, 2pm. Through March 30. With the rise of the programmer as pop culture hero, it was probably inevitable that we’d start writing plays about them too. In local playwright Dan Wilson’s Just One More Game our programmer protagonist is Kent (Christopher DeJong) whose mission is to find love, and his co-player is Marjorie (Linda-Ruth Cardozo), who wields her own geek credentials like a Mortal Kombat wrath hammer. Where Wilson’s comedy excels is in the witty gamer banter that defines much of their attraction and commonality — references to Zork, Oregon Trail, Dungeons and Dragons, and The Secret of Monkey Island abound, while a series of meticulous video game animations (also Wilson’s) lend colorful counterpoint to the action on the stage. DeJong plays his role of emotionally-inhibited loner with a degree of laconic detachment that unfortunately eliminates all traces of chemistry between him and Cardozo, who is especially good at capturing the cheerfully aggressive awkward of a woman accustomed to being “one of the boys” because there was nothing about “the girls” she could relate to. Both the comedy and pace flag by the time the first NPCs (non-player characters) enter the room, broadly clichéd parents yammering for grandchildren and obnoxious college buddies armed with too many baby photos, who conspire to stunt the growth of Kent and Marjorie’s relationship and wind up stunting the growth of the play. If the quest for love is a game, as the title suggests, it’s one that could use a little more back-end development, and a much greater degree of playfulness. (Gluckstern)

A Lady and a Woman Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.therhino.org. $15-30. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through March 24. Life wasn’t easy in the South of the 1890s, particularly for single black women, but in Shirlene Holmes’ A Lady and a Woman the focus is emphatically on rising above circumstance. When itinerant hog-cutter Biddie Higgins (Dawn L. Troupe) swaggers into the village inn run by Miss Flora Devine (Velina Brown) and demands a room, sparks fly almost instantaneously, as the two pragmatic and independent women become drawn to the strength they see in the other. A healer and midwife as well as an innkeeper, Miss Flora has endured enough abuse at the hands of men in her life to make her grateful to be able to live without one around, while Biddie, the only daughter in a household of fourteen, has become accustomed to a life of manual labor and clandestine trysts with willing women, never sticking around one place long enough to run out of either, declaring “it’s been easier to live a hard life then a lie.” Both Brown and Troupe embody their multi-dimensional characters with grace and backbone, never striking a false note as their tender courtship unfolds and they discover that the greatest strength of all is the ability to love freely. (Gluckstern)

The Lisbon Traviata New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through March 24. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs Terrence McNally’s play, a mix of comedy and tragedy, about the relationship between two opera fanatics.

The Motherfucker with the Hat San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $30-70. Wed/13-Thu/14, 7pm; Fri/15-Sat/16, 8pm (also Sat/16, 3pm). A fine cast makes the most of Stephen Adly Guirgis’s deceptively coarse, often amusing little play, The Motherfucker with the Hat, which receives its local premiere in a sure and rowdy production from SF Playhouse. Director and designer Bill English’s striking two-tier set almost belies the intimate nature of the quirky story, which concerns a hapless parolee and recovering alcoholic named Jackie (a winningly frazzled, bumptious Gabriel Marin) who retreats to his AA sponsor’s apartment to pine and plot revenge after he discovers a stranger’s hat in the bedroom of his longtime Puerto Rican girlfriend, Veronica (played vividly by an at once edgy and vulnerable Isabelle Ortega). But Ralph, his suave and persuasive sponsor (played with unctuous charm gilded by just a hint of ineptitude by an excellent Carl Lumbly), may not be the guy he wants in his corner. Not that Jackie can see that — he’s got a man-crush on Ralph that dwarfs his already ambivalent affection for much put-upon but stalwart cousin Julio (a sharply funny Rudy Guerrero) and blinds him to the warning signals from Ralph’s own disgruntled wife (a coolly disgusted Margo Hall). Throughout, these working-class New York borough dwellers display their wit and shield their soft underbellies with a rapid-fire barrage of creative swearing. English and cast display a real comfort with this kind of material (this is SF Playhouse’s fourth Girguis play), which drapes its soft heart in the intimations of violence more than the real thing. If the heat and imaginative cursing also seem to cover up for a play with little dramatic purpose beyond a gentle and somewhat pat exploration of loyalty, maturity, and trust, there’s pleasure to be had in the unfolding. (Avila)

Sex and the City: LIVE! Rebel, 1760 Market, SF; trannyshack.com/sexandthecity. $25. Wed, 7 and 9pm. Open-ended. It seems a no-brainer. Not just the HBO series itself — that’s definitely missing some gray matter — but putting it onstage as a drag show. Mais naturellement! Why was Sex and the City not conceived of as a drag show in the first place? Making the sordid not exactly palatable but somehow, I don’t know, friendlier (and the canned a little cannier), Velvet Rage Productions mounts two verbatim episodes from the widely adored cable show, with Trannyshack’s Heklina in a smashing portrayal of SJP’s Carrie; D’Arcy Drollinger stealing much of the show as ever-randy Samantha (already more or less a gay man trapped in a woman’s body); Lady Bear as an endearingly out-to-lunch Miranda; and ever assured, quick-witted Trixxie Carr as pent-up Charlotte. There’s also a solid and enjoyable supporting cast courtesy of Cookie Dough, Jordan Wheeler, and Leigh Crow (as Mr. Big). That’s some heavyweight talent trodding the straining boards of bar Rebel’s tiny stage. The show’s still two-dimensional, even in 3D, but noticeably bigger than your 50″ plasma flat panel. (Avila)

Steve Seabrook: Better Than You Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Through March 22. Kurt Bodden’s San Francisco Best of Fringe-winning show takes a satirical look at motivational speakers.

The Voice: One Man’s Journey Into Sex Addition and Recovery Stage Werx Theater, 446 Valencia, SF; thevoice.brownpapertickets.com. $10-18. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through April 6. Ticket sales for David Kleinberg’s autobiographical solo show benefit 12-step sex addiction recovery programs and other non-profits.

The Waiting Period Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $25-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through March 30. Brian Copeland (comedian, TV and radio personality, and creator-performer of the long-running solo play Not a Genuine Black Man) returns to the Marsh with a new solo, this one based on more recent and messier events` in Copeland’s life. The play concerns an episode of severe depression in which he considered suicide, going so far as to purchase a handgun — the title coming from the legally mandatory 10-day period between purchasing and picking up the weapon, which leaves time for reflections and circumstances that ultimately prevent Copeland from pulling the trigger. A grim subject, but Copeland (with co-developer and director David Ford) ensures there’s plenty of humor as well as frank sentiment along the way. The actor peoples the opening scene in the gun store with a comically if somewhat stereotypically rugged representative of the Second Amendment, for instance, as well as an equally familiar “doood” dude at the service counter. Afterward, we follow Copeland, a just barely coping dad, home to the house recently abandoned by his wife, and through the ordinary routines that become unbearable to the clinically depressed. Copeland also recreates interviews he’s made with other survivors of suicidal depression. Telling someone about such things is vital to preventing their worst outcomes, says Copeland, and telling his own story is meant to encourage others. It’s a worthy aim but only a fitfully engaging piece, since as drama it remains thin, standing at perhaps too respectful a distance from the convoluted torment and alienation at its center. Note: review from an earlier run of the same production. (Avila)

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Sun/17, 11am. The Amazing Bubble Man (a.k.a. Louis Pearl) continues his family-friendly bubble extravaganza.

BAY AREA

Dostoevsky’s The Grand Inquisitor Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berk; www.centralworks.org. $15-28. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through March 31. Central Works performs Gary Graves’ adaptation of the story-within-a-story from The Brothers Karamazov.

Fallaci Berkeley Repertory Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-89. Opens Wed/13, 8pm. Runs Tue, Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm). Through April 21. Berkeley Rep performs Pulitzer-winning journalist Lawrence Wright’s new play about Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci.

The Mountaintop Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; www.theatreworks.org. $23-75. Tue-Wed, 7:30pm; Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm), through March 31. Starting April 3, runs Wed-Thu, 11am (also Thu, 8pm); Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through April 7. TheatreWorks performs Katori Hall’s play that re-imagines the events on the night before Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination.

The Real Americans Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $25-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through April 6. Dan Hoyle shifts his popular show about small-town America to the Marsh’s Berkeley outpost.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

“Adventures of a Black Girl: Traveling While Black” Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th St, SF; www.brava.org. Fri/15-Sat/16, 8pm; Sun/17, 3pm. $15. Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe performs the second part of her “Adventures of a Black Girl” trilogy, this time taking a look at the impact of African migration on the black diaspora.

BATS Improv Bayfront Theater, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.improv.org. $20. “Theatresports,” Fri, 8pm. Through March 29. “Double Feature,” Sat, 8pm. Through March 30.

Caroline Lugo and Carolé Acuña’s Ballet Flamenco Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; www.carolinalugo.com. Sat/16 and March 24, 6:15pm. $15-19. Flamenco performance by the mother-daughter dance company, featuring live musicians.

“Dream Queens Revue” Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, 133 Turk, SF; dreamqueensrevue@gmail.com (reservations suggested). Wed/13, 9:30pm. Free. Groovy drag with Colette LeGrande, Diva LaFever, Sophilya Leggz, and more.

“Ham Pants Productions presents Sketch Comedy and More!” Stage Werx Theatre, 446 Valencia, SF; www.hampantsproductions.com. Tue/19, 8pm. $10. Sketch comedy, music, and “general chicanery.”

Labayen Dance Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St, SF; www.dancemission.com. Fri/15-Sat/16, 8pm; Sun/17, 7:30pm. $25. The company, which blends classical and modern dance with Philippine arts, celebrates its 18th anniversary spring season with the US premiere of Enrico Labayen’s Rites of Spring.

“Laughs at the Lookout” Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; www.lookoutsf.com. Thu/14, 10pm. $10. Comedy with host Valerie Branch and performers Charlie Ballard, Ronn Vigh, Natasha Muse, and more.

“Mission Position Live” Cinecave, 1034 Valencia, SF; www.missionpositionlive.com. Thu, 8pm. Ongoing. $10. Stand-up comedy with rotating performers.

“The Next Generation of Comedy Tour” Palace of Fine Arts, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.ngoctour.com. Sat/16, 8pm. $25-65. With Ahmed Ahmed (TBS’s Sullivan and Son), Assad Motavasseli, Raj Sharma, Fahim Anwar, and more. “ODC/Dance Downtown 2013” Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater, 700 Howard, SF; www.odcdance.org. Thu/14-Sat/16 and March 22-23, 8pm; Sun/17 and March 24, 4pm; March 20-21, 7:30pm. $20. The company celebrates its 42nd season with three world premieres from Brenda Way and KT Nelson.

“Push Dance March Benefit Performance and Party” Terra Gallery and Event Venue, 511 Harrison, SF; marchbenefit.eventbrite.com. Fri/15, 7pm. $25-50. Dance performances plus a silent auction, culinary delights, and a DJ party.

“San Francisco Magic Parlor” Chancellor Hotel Union Square, 433 Powell, SF; www.sfmagicparlor.com. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Ongoing. $40. Magic vignettes with conjurer and storyteller Walt Anthony.

“Unturtled” CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; www.counterpulse.org. Fri/15-Sat/16, 8pm. $15. The Goethe-Institut presents a conceptual performance by choreographer Isabelle Schad and visual artist Laurent Goldring. (Artist talk Wed/13, 8pm, free.)

Steven Wright Regency Ballroom, 1300 Van Ness, SF; www.theregencyballroom.com. Fri/15, 9pm. $32-47. The deadpan comedian performs.

BAY AREA

“Incarnating for the Evening with the X-plicit Players” East Bay Media Center Performance Space, 1939 Addison, Berk; www.xplicitplayers.com. Fri/15, 8pm. $8-15. Clothing-optional event with an enactment of audience-participatory performance “Group Body,” plus excerpts from the new DVD, Incarnating for an Afternoon: The Ninth Annual Nude and Breast Freedom Parade.

Who am I?

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Who am I?

arts@sfbg.com

DANCE CounterPULSE always makes a point of thanking its volunteers. One can only hope that they’ll turn up en masse to help clean up after Faye Driscoll and Jesse Zaritt step off the stage this coming weekend. Their You’re Me is not exactly what might be called a clean show. Still, if the work-in-progress preview, presented at the end of their residency at the Headlands Center for the Arts almost two years ago, is any indication, the mess is more than worth it. After all, most of us will recognize a mess when we see it.

The Los Angeles-born Driscoll lived in San Francisco from 2003 to 2005. She put in a shift at the ODC/Pilot Program — for on-the-verge choreographers — even though dance was not her primary focus at the time. As she explained in a recent phone conversation from her home in Brooklyn, in San Francisco, “I really was inspired by the music and art scene, hanging out with people who were putting band together that were kind of art bands.” At the time, she was in recovery mode from two years of performing and touring with Doug Varone and Dancers. Apparently it had not been all that happy a match — too much structure, too much energy from the top down.

So San Francisco — where the mantra is “you can do anything you want,” and where you go “to find yourself” — proved to be liberating experience for her, particularly because she had been so “serious and disciplined about dance” since her childhood.

In some ways Driscoll is still trying to find herself. On the most visible level You’re Me is a piece about a relationship — after all, it is performed by a man and a woman. But it’s also a work looking at identity: the one you claim for yourself, that one you are working toward, or the one that is imposed on you by the outside world. For many people that is unstable territory that tends to slide away from under your feet.

Partly because she “had a lot going on in my home that was kind of crazy,” and because she remembered people reflecting an identity back to her that was quite different than the one she experienced herself, Driscoll was drawn to dance early on. “Dance had the structure that allowed me to express what I am in the world,” she says. “It was the place where I could go and practice my movements and make myself open to other people’s bodies.”

You’re Me is inspired by the in-between spaces Driscoll observes in non-verbal human communication, as well as by fixed historic representations she and Zaritt collected in the visual arts, from Renaissance paintings to contemporary magazines. In the process they became fascinated by how ideas of what is masculine and feminine have changed over time. Finding much that resonated but also created dissonance within themselves, the experience fed into their appetites for trying out other identities.

To do that choreographically, in one section of the five-part 80-minute duet, the two performers also draw on one of the earliest ways kids try to tell us something about who they are. A little girl who wobbles around in her mother’s heels is considered cute. A little boy who prefers dresses to pants rings alarm bells. Role-playing, fantasy games, make-believe, dress-up —whether in a playgroup or the theater — are serious business. They present way of talking about being or becoming in the world. But they are also a lot of fun.

Driscoll describes her working process as taking “things and blowing them up, creating them to excess and putting them into rhythmic structure and try to pull them apart and grapple with them.” Here, in addition, to the physically demanding movement interactions, the dancers have to don, strip off, and exchange parts of props and costumes, often at dizzying speed. They rehearsed a lot, she says, and they have a prop master who makes sure that the final mess is nicely controlled.

Pulling You’re Me together, however, was a different challenge. Like many artists, Driscoll is homeless, scurrying around from one studio to another. “I could never rehearse with all that stuff I had to lug around.” That’s why the residency at Headlands became such a respite: they gave her a closet. *

YOU’RE ME

Thu/7-Sun/10, 8pm, $20-$30

CounterPULSE

1310 Mission, SF

www.counterpulse.org

 

Our Weekly Picks: March 6-12

Andrew Lam
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WEDNESDAY 6

Sixth Annual International Juried Plastic Camera Show

These days, every smartphone-toting amateur can create his or her own hazy vignette to remind us of those groovy days before digital photography. But Instagram and its peers always stop short in their quest for that special quality that only real lo-fi technology — cameras constructed of plastic and the occasional piece of tape — can achieve. In its sixth Plastic Camera Show, RayKo Photo center will exhibit the best 90 photos chosen from thousands of international submissions, with a special focus on Los Angeles-based Thomas Alleman’s black-and-white images that his plastic camera manages to render in a mood that is both cinematic and sordid. Instagram has nothing on these photos. (Laura Kerry) Through April 22 6-8pm opening, free RayKo Photo Center

428 Third St., SF

(415) 495-3773

www.raykophoto.com


THURSDAY 7

University Dance Theatre

Student recitals are just one of a number of campus spring rituals. The University Dance Theatre’s at SF State University is no exception. This year’s program, besides showing new works by alumni, faculty, and advanced students, is very much worth trip out into the fog belt. KT Nelson, Co-Artistic Director of ODC/Dance, with whom State has an ongoing relationship, is setting her Transit on student performers. Transit is witty, wistful, and wondrous; sort of a love letter to harried urban lives. Max Chen’s fantastical, multipurpose bikes also pay tribute to the City’s favorite mode of transportation. Nelson knows that spectacular props can steal a show; she didn’t let it happen. Transit focuses its lively energy on where it belongs — the dancing. (Rita Felciano)

Through Sat/9, 8pm, $8–$15

San Francisco State University

Creative Arts Building

1600 Holloway Ave.

(415) 338-2467

creativestate.sfsu.edu

 

San Francisco International Ocean Film Festival

To celebrate its 10th year, the San Francisco International Ocean Film Festival is assembling the following: a Cousteau (Jean-Michel, son of Jacques, who will be a special guest at the opening-night gala); a documentary about the first lady of surfing (Brian Gillogly’s Accidental Icon: The Real Gidget); and a shark-themed program highlighted by Steve Dilaridan’s adorably-titled animated short I’m Going to Bite Someone. And that ain’t even taking into account the rest of the over 50 ocean-themed films from some 14 countries. Dive in! (Cheryl Eddy)

Through Sun/10, most films $8–$14 (opening gala, $150)

Bay Theater

Aquarium of the Bay

Pier 39, SF

www.oceanfilmfest.org


FRIDAY 8

The Hush Sound

Chicago’s the Hush Sound was “discovered” in 2005 by Pete Wentz via Panic! At the Disco’s Ryan Ross, but don’t hold that against it. The group’s simple boy-girl harmonies and catchy melodies are at once sincere and whimsical, creating a timeless, folk-tinged pop sound. When the band formed, core songwriters Greta Salpeter and Bob Morris were essentially still children, going to school and lifeguarding, respectively. In the years and three albums that followed, the band mercifully never lost its youthful nature. Now, after a five-year hiatus, the Hush Sound is finally back with a new album in the works — and its ready to relive its youth. (Haley Zaremba)

With the Last Royals, Sydney Wayser

8pm, $15

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell

(415) 885-0750

www.slimspresents.com

 

Pickwick

A Youtube comment on the song “Blackout” from Pickwick’s record, Myths Vol. 3, reads “these fucking albums are nowhere to be found.” Though one should usually ignore Youtube comments, in this case we say, Kamelbutiken, you have a point. For the past year, the band has sold out shows in its native Seattle and earned spots in notable festivals, gaining hype only through the release of a series of seven-inch vinyl records and online videos. It’s hard to believe that with all the recognition they’ve earned, March 12 marks the release of the band’s official debut album. While the soul-and-folk-infused rock the band makes is still nowhere to be found, find Pickwick live at the Independent. (Kerry)

With Radiation City, Sandy’s

9pm, $15

Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

(415) 771-1421

www.theindependentsf.com

 

Melt! with Machinedrum

Futuristic beats producer Travis Stewart, a.k.a. Machinedrum, takes cues as much from hip-hop and jungle rhythms as from the current dubstep/wobble craze. The American-born Berlin resident has produced for rising Harlem star Azealia Banks and counts rhymesayer Theophilus London and UK-based dream-techno star Lone as collaborators. Machinedrum keeps his productions quick and tightly-woven, typically floating catchy melodies and some sonorous vocal samples alongside shuffling beats. The multi-faceted Stewart has also earned respect for his recent reinterpretations of giants in their respective genres, Scottish electronic duo Boards of Canada and psychedelic jazzist Sun Ra. (Kevin Lee)

With French Fries, Dark Sky, and more

10pm, $17.50–$20

1015 Folsom, SF

(415) 431-1200

www.1015.com


SATURDAY 9

San Francisco Bulgarian Film Festival

With directors like Cristi Puiu (2005’s The Death of Mr. Lazarescu) and Cristian Mungiu (whose latest, Beyond the Hills, opens March 15) leading the charge, the Romanian New Wave is a well-established phenomenon. So it stands to reason that next-door neighbor Bulgaria would also be eager to come into its own, cinematically speaking — and the inaugural San Francisco Bulgarian Film Festival is here to share some of the country’s recent triumphs with local audiences. Included in the two-day fest are Bulgaria’s 2011 Oscar submission, Tilt, about friends who dream of opening a bar amid the country’s tumultuous early 1990s; and contemporary drama Love.Net, a hit at the 2011 Bulgarian National Film Festival. (Eddy)

Through Sun/10, $12

Brava Theater Center

2781 24th St, SF

sfbff.blogspot.com

 

Garry Winogrand retrospective

Legend has it that Garry Winogrand would shoot an entire roll of film in a single block, barely pausing or taking his eye away from his Leica camera’s viewfinder until he reached the end. As a result, his body of work presents barely mediated views of daily life in postwar America. And it presents a lot of them. Winogrand produced so many rolls of film that he never saw an estimated 250,000 images contained on them before his untimely death in 1984. In a retrospective that will travel the globe after leaving San Francisco, SFMOMA will display about 100 of these never-before-seen prints, adding to an already prolific and important collection. We’re lucky to get to see so many streets through Winogrand’s eyes. (Kerry)

Through June 2

$9–$18

SFMOMA

151 Third St., SF

(415) 357-4000

www.sfmoma.org

 

Flogging Molly

Don’t let Flogging Molly fool you: everything about the band may seem wonderfully drunk and Irish, but like any other illusion, it actually hails from Los Angeles. Vocalist Dave King, however, is a bona fide Irishman, and his thick brogue is the perfect addition to Flogging Molly’s Celtic-flavored punk madness. Whether or not you want to listen to songs about drunken pirates and whiskey in your free time, its live show is a spectacle that anyone could and should enjoy. Though the band has been together and touring since the ’90s, it hasn’t slowed down one iota. That x-factor that makes some live shows over-the-top fun simply can’t be spoken for. Grab a bottle of Jameson and go see for yourself. You can thank me later. (Zaremba)

With Mariach El Bronx, Donots

7:30pm, $32.50

Fox Theater

1807 Telegraph, Oakland

(510) 302-2250

www.thefoxoakland.com


MONDAY 11

Efterklang The Danish band Efterklang first gained international plaudits with its soaring 2007 LP Parades on the Leaf Label Ltd and such triumphant, symphonic battle cries as “Mirador” and “Caravan.” Since switching labels to 4AD Ltd., Efterklang has (somewhat regrettably) corralled that bright energy and fostered a more direct, intimate sound. Legend has it that the Danish trio wandered through an abandoned Norwegian coal mining settlement near the North Pole formerly operated by the Soviet Union. The band’s journey and field recordings became source material for last year’s Piramida, in which frontperson Clasper Clausen drops his voice an octave and embarks on mysterious stories of exploration and melancholy. (Lee)

With Nightlands

8pm, $15

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

(415) 885-0750

 www.slimspresents.com

 

San Francisco Moth StorySLAM: Secrets

The Moth: “True Stories Told Live.” Where else could we listen to strangers, alone on a stage with their words, telling fantastical-but-true personal stories of Jewish mobster uncles, family embezzlement, Montgomery Clift’s wishes from beyond the grave, the whiskey-soaked life of a rookie reporter, the cult of Radical Honesty, and sexual awakenings during midlife crises? The NY-born series — in which reading from notes is a major no-no — has been going strong since 1997, with monthly StorySLAMs (open mics) in LA, Chicago, Louisville, and Seattle, among other cities. The San Francisco Moth StorySLAM launches today at the Rickshaw Stop and will continue on the second Monday of every month. The first round’s theme is “secrets” so come prepared to divulge the dirt. And as podcast host Dan Kennedy always notes, “we hope you have a story-worthy week.” (Full of secrets you’re willing to share.) (Emily Savage)

7pm, $8

Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell, SF

(415) 861-2011

www.rickshawstop.com

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Game on

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Game on

arts@sfbg.com

DANCE Unlike more commercially competitive markets, the Bay Area is, fortunately, still a place where young choreographers have the freedom to grow. This past weekend, two who are primarily known for dancing other people’s works showed their own promising premieres.

Katharine Hawthorne graduated from college with degrees in physics and dance. On February 22, its opening night at the Joe Goode Annex, you could not possibly miss Analog’s dual pedigree. This startlingly intense quintet opened on the quietest of notes but built its trajectory like a smoldering volcano that finally erupted into a threatening destructive force.

Looking at movement through a scientist’s lens, in conjunction with knowing it to be the dancer’s basic tool, allowed Hawthorne — and her fearlessly athletic dancers — to offer a fascinating perspective on how art and science can elegantly coexist with each other. However, why the dancers repeatedly lugged around an overhead project (and barely used it) remains a mystery.

A 19th century illustration of a mechanical hand, against which Katherine Disenhof wiggled her fingers, set the tone. Those tiny live gestures led other dancers (Hawthorne, Jesse Chin, Luke Taylor, and Megan Wright) to use their arms in almost machine-like ways, as if to demonstrate speed, direction, level, and space. Movements changed with sharp angles, trajectories were linear, and collisions avoided. Dancers also looked like planets circling a sun. Chin and Taylor repeatedly repulsed each other like two positively charged particles. Wright found herself in a whirling circle — a tornado about to take off.

But more and more the movements’ relentless and increasing intensity began to look like threats to the dancers’ well being. Several times I thought Chin was about to collapse though touches and handholds seemed to suggest temporary respite. Yet Analog resembled a nightmarish perpetuum mobile until finally the clock began to slow everything down. We were left with darkness descending on the two dancers left. I couldn’t decide whether that meant peace or the ultimate catastrophe.

As a performer, Tanya Bello brings a ferocious appetite for space, soaring elevations, and dizzying spins to her dancing. So it was almost expected that as a young choreographer she brought many of these characteristics to GamesWePlay(ed), which premiered at the ODC Dance Commons this past weekend. The half-hour piece is a nicely calibrated essay on play as both an innocent activity but also as a means to manipulate those around us. Bello wisely engaged dancers from top local companies: Vilte Bacinskaite, Tristan Ching Hartmann, Kelly Del Rosario, Norma Fong, Chin-chin Hsu, Mei-ling Murray, and Katherine Wells. The work also greatly benefited from Judy Hansen’s costumes, which were elegant, tiny dresses with just a wisp of a tutu suggestion.

GamesWePlay(ed) consisted of a number of distinct episodes which included versions of tag, races, imitation, and mirroring activities, but also pure dance sections. Some looked highly structured only to explode; others involved repeated and fast partner changes. Woven wicker balls were passed around but also hung onto. When Del Rosario curled up on the floor, a tiptoeing Wells gently sent him back into the fracas. I couldn’t help but wonder whether there was a joke here since as the ensemble’s only male, Del Rosario had to do all of the heavy lifts.

Though the work was not particularly fresh in terms of the vocabulary used, Bello showed an already impressive control in the way she used the dancers on stage. The choreography — from solos to septets — flowed and dissolved with almost filmic quality. A mirroring duet opened up into a group, loosing its architecture but gaining breath. Two dancers approaching each other from opposite corners became a double duet. But the piece also had its moments of (ballet?) humor when Fong released a quartet of shadowing women from their monotonous tasks. At another point dancers flopped over received a magic touch to blossom again like those eternal flowers in the Nutcracker.

Towards the end Bello went back to material used earlier in the piece. Was that just to lead up to a finale? There must be better ways to end a show.

Performing on the same program was Karen Reedy Dance from Washington, D.C. Reedy’s Sleepwalking (2008) was a beautifully danced septet, a work that gently yet penetratingly considered what makes us panic and silently scream at night.

Our Weekly Picks: February 27- March 5, 2013

Andrew Lam
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WEDNESDAY 27

Lisa Fagan and Alison Williams

At the Garage, you get to see a lot of choreography in progress, which is a pleasure in itself because you can imagine what the final product might be like. Not this time. Lisa Fagan and Alison Williams — friends and colleagues, who first met during that hotbed of incubation, ODC’s Pilot Programs — are offering finished work. The evening, about an hour of choreography, comes with a bonus. Fagan calls her trio, Full Grown Baby Lemon, “a dance work of fiction,” and it has a definitely odd set of characters. Williams’ Edit promises to be rollicking duet between pop and geology. That’s where the bonus comes in. Her music will be live and includes an after-performance dance party where you can dive into dubstep. (Rita Felciano)

8pm, $10–$20

Garage

715 Bryant, SF

www.brownpapertickets.com

 

Fresh and Onlys

Noise Pop borrows its name from a mid-1980s genre that merges contradictions. Noise is edgy and gritty; pop is sunny and easily digestible. The Fresh and Onlys, a San Francisco band that has taken off since its ’08 formation, represents a ’13 incarnation of these oppositions. In “20 Days and 20 Nights,” the opener of last fall’s Long Slow Dance, “I cry” repeats over and over against bright harmonies and an upbeat piano hook, leaving the listener to bop along to the singer’s misery. It is an intriguing sensation caused by the balanced mix of grit and sunshine that continues throughout the vibrant album. The band invites you to bop along to its Noise Pop contradictions at Bottom of the Hill. (Laura Kerry)

With R. Stevie Moore, Plateaus, Burnt Ones

8pm, $14

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St., SF

(415) 621-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com

 

Ceremony

Through the progression of its three studio albums, Rohnert Park’s Ceremony has evolved from unbridled, no-nonsense bursts of hardcore punk to a more slow-burning and equally devastating aggression. While it’s certainly not unusual for punk bands to shine on stage rather than on recordings, Ceremony’s live show takes the cake. Vocalist Ross Farrar is reminiscent of Ian Curtis as he lurches, jerks, and occasionally collapses across the stage, moaning, howling, and screeching as guitarist Anthony Anzaldo and bassist Andy Nelson leap and high-kick around him. The result is a cacophonous and tightly-coiled energy that is deliciously cathartic and at times transcendent in the pissed-off way only a punk band from the suburbs can produce. (Haley Zaremba)

With Terry Malts, Comadre, Perfect Ruin, Synthetic ID

8pm, $12

Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell, SF

(415) 861-2011

www.rickshawstop.com


THURSDAY 28

Other Minds 18

Noise Pop isn’t the only contemporary music and art festival rolling into town this week. Other Minds, an annual event that invites composers and artists to share their avant-garde work, launches its 18th year on Thursday with performances of music from far-away places such as Denmark and India. Each of the three nights includes a panel discussion and a performance to fully engage the world of music outside the mainstream. Don’t come to Other Minds expecting the same finger-snapping tunes as the other festival in town; do come to hear some innovative music and to learn something along the way. (Kerry)

Through Sat/2, 7pm, $30-$115 (festival pass)

Jewish Community Center

3200 California, SF

(415) 292-1200

www.otherminds.org

 

Punk in Africa

How much do you know about origins of global underground punk scenes? Beyond the live shows, Noise Pop always shows a handful of creative takes on the usual music doc; Punk in Africa is no exception. It explores a too-infrequently examined continent’s aggressive punk roots, from “the underground rock music of early 1970s Johannesburg, the first multi-racial punk bands formed in the wake of the Soweto Uprising and the militant anti-apartheid hardcore and post-punk bands of the ’80s to the rise of celebratory African-inspired ska bands, which sprang up from Cape Town to Maputo in the democratic era of the ’90s.” It also spotlights current acts battling political bombs with explosive lyrics and pounding drumbeats in Zimbabwe and South Africa. (Emily Savage)

7pm, $10

Artists’ Television Access

992 Valencia, SF

(415) 824-3890

www.atasite.org


FRIDAY 1

Peter

Following last November’s potent For the Love of Emptiness (danced by Jorge De Hoyos), San Francisco-based choreographer Sara Shelton Mann presents the second solo in her fascinating “Eye of Leo Series.” Peter reteams the long esteemed, ever-searching Mann with video-light designer David Slaza, joined by composer Robbie Beahrs and performer Jesse Hewit. In these highly dynamic collaborations, Mann is wont to hover on the fringes, interacting variously with the performance space. “I open the ground and track it as a guide and follow the progress of the terrain chosen by the individual,” explains Mann. “Some chose the difficult path, some chose the surreal dream of extinction, some the practice of perfection. . . . I have chosen and I do not choose. People find me. I have become a hermit in a cage and those who find me have to find the key to the door.” (Robert Avila)

Through Sat/2, 8pm, $15

Joe Goode Annex

499 Alabama, SF

www.brownpapertickets.com

www.sarasheltonmann.org

 

Shih Chieh Huang: Synthetic Seduction

If a work of art had a spirit soundtrack, what would it be? Considering the use of industrial materials such as plastic bags, electrical sensors, and colored lights, one would expect Shih Chieh Huang’s installations to play to the the robotic pop of Daft Punk. Past pieces, though, including one at the National Museum of Natural History, achieve an organic quality that recalls the sound of being submerged in water. Continuing to explore the creation of technological landscapes while engaging in the theme of psychedelia, the artist’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts installation conjures the image of a Jimi Hendrix solo played backwards over a heart monitor. Huang’s art certainly dances to the beat of its own drummer. (Kerry)

Through June 30 Noon, $10

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

(415) 978-2700

www.ybca.org


SATURDAY 2

“Voices of Afghanistan”

Ustad Farida Mahwash and Homayoun Sakhi — both legends in their own right — will return to Cal Performances tonight (for the first time in two years) for a pleasant and educational evening of live traditional and contemporary Afghan music. Mahwash, a popular vocalist in her home country known as “the voice of Afghanistan,” will sing over rubâb virtuoso Sakhi and his ensemble in Wheeler Auditorium. The Sakhi Ensemble is a quartet employing instruments such as the harmonium, tula, doyra, tabla, and Sakhi’s rubâb — a lute-like instrument played with a bow that’s one of Afghanistan’s national instruments; it’s likely the sound you imagine when you think of mesmerizing Middle Eastern music. (Savage)

8pm, $36

Wheeler Auditorium, UC Berkeley Campus

Bancroft Way at Telegraph, Berk.

(510) 642-9988

www.calperformances.org

 

Sonny and the Sunsets

San Francisco’s Sonny Smith has already done more in the past few years than most of us will accomplish in our lifetime. The singer-songwriter-illustrator-playwright has more side projects than Jack White and a seemingly bottomless reserve of creative energy. In 2010, Smith released 200 songs at once that he had recorded for his 100 Records exhibition, and instead of swearing off music for a period like an exhausted person might, he soon began writing the next Sunsets album, worked on 100 Records: Vol. 3 (released this January) and began planning another exhibition, basing songs off protest signs. This project, tentatively titled “Protest Factory,” is still gestating, but last year saw the release of the Sunsets’ third full-length album, which carried on Smith’s tradition of engaging narrative lyrics, though with a surprisingly fantastic country twist. (Zaremba)

With Magic Trick, Cool Ghouls, Dune Rats

Bottom of the Hill

9pm, $12

1233 17th St., SF

(415) 626-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com


SUNDAY 3

“Balboa Birthday Bash”

San Francisco is all about celebrating the newest, hottest place — that pizza restaurant where you wait a full hour for a gourmet pie; that bar where each drink is hand-crafted using 11 exotic ingredients. So why not tip your top hat to an 87-year-old veteran: the Balboa Theatre, keeping the avenues cinematically rockin’ since Feb. 7, 1926? The party gets started at 4pm today with a 35mm screening of the 1924 silent version of Peter Pan, featuring live accompaniment by Frederick Hodges; come to the evening show for a repeat screening, plus a live vaudeville show, birthday prizes, and treats. Roaring Twenties attire encouraged! (Cheryl Eddy)

4 and 7pm, $10

Balboa Theatre

3630 Balboa, SF

www.cinemasf.com

 

“Tom Fest” Benefit for Tom Mallon

While he may not be a household name, Tom Mallon had a huge influence and impact on the San Francisco music scene, beginning the mid-1970s. As a musician, Mallon has performed with American Music Club and Toiling Midgets among others, and as a producer and engineer, he provided acts with low-cost studio time and guidance that helped document the work of countless artists. A host of musicians he has worked with over the years are performing tonight at “TomFest,” a special tribute and benefit concert for Mallon and his family (along with the SF Brain Tumor Support Group at UCSF), including Chuck Prophet, Toiling Midgets, Fright Wig, Penelope Houston, Ugly Stick, Peter Case, members of American Music Club, and many more. (Sean McCourt)

7:30pm, $25

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

(415) 885-0750

www.slimspresents.com

Stage Listings

Andrew Lam
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Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

THEATER

OPENING

Assistance NOHspace, 2840 Mariposa, SF; www.opentabproductions.com. $20. Opens Sat/2, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 6pm. Through March 30. Leslye Headland’s comedy about assistants is loosely based on her experiences working for Harvey Weinstein.

Inevitable SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $20. Previews Thu/27-Fri/1, 8pm. Opens Sat/2, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through March 23. SF Playhouse’s "Sandbox Series," enabling new and established playwrights to stage new works, kicks off its third season with Jordan Puckett’s drama about a woman trying to make sense of her life.

Just One More Game Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.tripleshotprodutions.org. $25. Opens Fri/1, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm; March 10 and 17, 2pm. Through March 30. Triple Shot Productions presents Dan Wilson’s video game-themed romantic comedy.

Pageant: The Musical! Victoria Theatre, 2961 16th St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $25. Opens Thu/28, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through March 9. Robbie Wayne Productions presents this "drag-tastic adventure through the hilarious world of beauty contests."

The Voice: One Man’s Journey Into Sex Addition and Recovery Stage Werx Theater, 446 Valencia, SF; thevoice.brownpapertickets.com. $10-18. Previews Sun/3, 7pm. Opens Tue/5, 8pm. Runs Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through April 6. Ticket sales for David Kleinberg’s autobiographical solo show benefit 12-step sex addiction recovery programs and other non-profits.

ONGOING

Foodies! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.foodiesthemusical.com. $30-34. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. AWAT Productions presents Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue all about food.

God of Carnage Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sheltontheater.org. $38. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through March 30. Shelton Theater presents Yasmina Reza’s Tony-winning comedy about upper-middle-class parents clashing over an act of playground violence between their children.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch Boxcar Playhouse, 505 Natoma, SF; www.boxcartheatre.org. $25-40. Wed/27-Sat/2, 8pm (also Sat/2, 5pm). Hold onto your hairpiece, Boxcar Theatre is reprising their all-too short summer run of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and just in case you think you saw it already, be forewarned — you ain’t seen nothing yet. Recast, redesigned, and re-vamped, this outcast-rock musical familiarly follows the misadventures of one Hedwig Robinson (né Hansel Schmidt) with glam, guts, and glitter. But unlike the movie version penned by and starring John Cameron Mitchell as the titular chanteuse, or other staged versions, director Nick A. Olivero splits the larger-than-life, would-be rock sensation into eight different characters, who are each given a solo turn as well as plenty of ensemble harmonizing during the course of the two hour-plus performance. The effect is often electric, and just as frequently hilarious, as when the four female actors playing the role stomp across the stage swinging imaginary dicks in the air to the lyric "six inches forward and five inches back, I got a, I got an angry inch!" Supported by a tight quartet of rock musicians led by Rachel Robinson, and the phenomenal Amy Lizardo as Hedwig’s beleaguered "man Friday" Yitzhak, Hedwig keeps on extending for what appears to be an indefinite run, employing the time-honored Thrillpeddlers’ tradition of rotating cast members and comeback performances, which means you could theoretically go multiple times and never see quite the same show twice. I certainly plan to. (Gluckstern)

Jurassic Ark Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.theexit.org. $15-25. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through March 16. Writer-performer David Caggiano’s zany, well-executed solo play centers on a Christian televangelist who is unwaveringly bent on making a big-budget movie about a cowboy-like Biblical Noah, his Ark, and the largely lovable dinosaurs callously left out of the story — a project he sees delivering a decisive blow to the Darwinians, while turning cineplexes across the land into celluloid cathedrals. Brother Dallas and his proselytizing pitch eventually find receptive ears in a trinity of movie-industry heavies, whose collective business acumen demands a few changes to the script. Meanwhile, the intoxicating power of it all leads to a lapse in Brother Dallas’s righteousness and a scandal reminiscent of Hugh Grant’s career. Dallas rebounds from this bout with the Devil and sees his movie made — but surely only he is unaware that the Devil keeps a Hollywood address. Smartly directed by Mark Kenward, this low-frills production relies almost exclusively on Caggiano’s sturdy ability with quick-change characterizations (couched in Dylan West’s modest lighting design and a suggestive soundscape by sound editor–musician John Mazzei). The fitful satire trades in pretty orthodox caricature and, in Brother Dallas, lacks a very compelling or sympathetic central figure; but it unfolds with a very cinematic imagination that, while formulaic, is itself one hell of a movie pitch. (Avila)

The Lisbon Traviata New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through March 24. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs Terrence McNally’s play, a mix of comedy and tragedy, about the relationship between two opera fanatics.

The Motherfucker with the Hat San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $30-70. Tue-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm). Through March 16. A fine cast makes the most of Stephen Adly Guirgis’s deceptively coarse, often amusing little play, The Motherfucker with the Hat, which receives its local premiere in a sure and rowdy production from SF Playhouse. Director and designer Bill English’s striking two-tier set almost belies the intimate nature of the quirky story, which concerns a hapless parolee and recovering alcoholic named Jackie (a winningly frazzled, bumptious Gabriel Marin) who retreats to his AA sponsor’s apartment to pine and plot revenge after he discovers a stranger’s hat in the bedroom of his longtime Puerto Rican girlfriend, Veronica (played vividly by an at once edgy and vulnerable Isabelle Ortega). But Ralph, his suave and persuasive sponsor (played with unctuous charm gilded by just a hint of ineptitude by an excellent Carl Lumbly), may not be the guy he wants in his corner. Not that Jackie can see that — he’s got a man-crush on Ralph that dwarfs his already ambivalent affection for much put-upon but stalwart cousin Julio (a sharply funny Rudy Guerrero) and blinds him to the warning signals from Ralph’s own disgruntled wife (a coolly disgusted Margo Hall). Throughout, these working-class New York borough dwellers display their wit and shield their soft underbellies with a rapid-fire barrage of creative swearing. English and cast display a real comfort with this kind of material (this is SF Playhouse’s fourth Girguis play), which drapes its soft heart in the intimations of violence more than the real thing. If the heat and imaginative cursing also seem to cover up for a play with little dramatic purpose beyond a gentle and somewhat pat exploration of loyalty, maturity, and trust, there’s pleasure to be had in the unfolding. (Avila)

Sex and the City: LIVE! Rebel, 1760 Market, SF; trannyshack.com/sexandthecity. $25. Wed, 7 and 9pm. Open-ended. It seems a no-brainer. Not just the HBO series itself — that’s definitely missing some gray matter — but putting it onstage as a drag show. Mais naturellement! Why was Sex and the City not conceived of as a drag show in the first place? Making the sordid not exactly palatable but somehow, I don’t know, friendlier (and the canned a little cannier), Velvet Rage Productions mounts two verbatim episodes from the widely adored cable show, with Trannyshack’s Heklina in a smashing portrayal of SJP’s Carrie; D’Arcy Drollinger stealing much of the show as ever-randy Samantha; Lady Bear as an endearingly out-to-lunch Miranda; and ever assured, quick-witted Trixxie Carr as pent-up Charlotte. There’s also a solid and enjoyable supporting cast courtesy of Cookie Dough, Jordan Wheeler, and Leigh Crow (as Mr. Big). That’s some heavyweight talent trodding the straining boards of bar Rebel’s tiny stage. The show’s still two-dimensional, even in 3D, but noticeably bigger than your 50" plasma flat panel. (Avila)

Steve Seabrook: Better Than You Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Through March 22. Kurt Bodden’s San Francisco Best of Fringe-winning show takes a satirical look at motivational speakers.

The Waiting Period Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $25-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through March 30. Brian Copeland (comedian, TV and radio personality, and creator-performer of the long-running solo play Not a Genuine Black Man) returns to the Marsh with a new solo, this one based on more recent and messier events` in Copeland’s life. The play concerns an episode of severe depression in which he considered suicide, going so far as to purchase a handgun — the title coming from the legally mandatory 10-day period between purchasing and picking up the weapon, which leaves time for reflections and circumstances that ultimately prevent Copeland from pulling the trigger. A grim subject, but Copeland (with co-developer and director David Ford) ensures there’s plenty of humor as well as frank sentiment along the way. The actor peoples the opening scene in the gun store with a comically if somewhat stereotypically rugged representative of the Second Amendment, for instance, as well as an equally familiar "doood" dude at the service counter. Afterward, we follow Copeland, a just barely coping dad, home to the house recently abandoned by his wife, and through the ordinary routines that become unbearable to the clinically depressed. Copeland also recreates interviews he’s made with other survivors of suicidal depression. Telling someone about such things is vital to preventing their worst outcomes, says Copeland, and telling his own story is meant to encourage others. It’s a worthy aim but only a fitfully engaging piece, since as drama it remains thin, standing at perhaps too respectful a distance from the convoluted torment and alienation at its center. Note: review from an earlier run of the same production. (Avila)

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Sun, 11am. Extended through March 17. The Amazing Bubble Man (a.k.a. Louis Pearl) continues his family-friendly bubble extravaganza.

BAY AREA

Dostoevsky’s The Grand Inquisitor Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berk; www.centralworks.org. $15-28. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through March 31. Central Works performs Gary Graves’ adaptation of the story-within-a-story from The Brothers Karamazov.

The Fourth Messenger Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.thefourthmessenger.com. $23-40. Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through March 10. It’s been some time since a work by local playwright Tanya Shaffer last graced our stages, not since 2005 to be precise, and in keeping with her penchant for multicultural themes, her latest piece, The Fourth Messenger, is a reimagining of the Siddhartha story, written as a musical in collaboration with composer Vienna Teng. Raina (Anna Ishida), a "hungry" journalism intern with a secret agenda, pitches her first scoop — the debunking of a beatific guru named Mama Sid (Annemaria Rajala) — and embeds herself in a meditation retreat where she can get close to the famously private teacher and uncover her past. Neither as humorous or as merciless as Jesus Christ Superstar or as exuberant as Godspell (though the excellent song "Monkey Mind" crackles with wit and trenchant observation, and the tender "Human Experience" genuinely uplifts), Messenger does offer a fairly solid primer to the path of spiritual enlightenment including its all-too-human fallout and sacrifices. The white-on-wood set design by Joe Ragey frames the action in a deceptively delicate layer of gauze and mystery, and the capable ensemble inhabit their multiple roles with ease — from jaded newsies to loyal disciples. Which makes it doubly unfortunate that the jazzy, piano-driven score seems pitched just outside of most of the actor’s ranges, even those of the notably skilled Ishida and Rajala, an admitted distraction for the monkey-minded, which is to say most of us. (Gluckstern)

My Recollect Time South Berkeley Community Church, 1802 Fairview, Berk; (510) 788-6415. $12-25. Thu/28, Sat/2, March 7, and 9, 8pm; Fri/1, March 8, 9pm; Sun/3, 5pm. Through March 9. Inferno Theater performs Jamie Greenblatt’s play about the life of former slave Mary Fields.

Our Practical Heaven Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; www.auroratheatre.org. $32-60. Wed/27-Sat/2, 8pm; Sun/3, 2 and 7pm. Anthony Clarvoe’s new play receives its world premiere as a 2011 prizewinner in Aurora’s Global Age Project (GAP), which cultivates new work addressing life in the 21st century. In the case of this labored and dull effort, the young century and its anxious outlook come refracted through three generations of women who gather for holidays at a seaside home whose own future is threatened by, first, financial and, ultimately, climatic conditions. Neurotic, self-absorbed Sasha (Anne Darragh) and capable businesswoman Willa (Julia Brothers) are middle-aged best friends forever who grew up in the home of Sasha’s mother (Joy Carlin) and late father. Joining Sasha’s two daughters by separate husbands, Suze (Blythe Foster) and Leez (Adrienne Walters), is Willa’s daughter, Magz (Lauren Spencer), who suffers from a debilitating disease. Despite many personal and generational differences — and a rising conflict over the house — all six women share in a traditional bout of bird watching in this fragile nature "refuge" for bird and human alike. While bird watching supplies the play’s operative metaphors, however, it does little to actually bring these characters together in any compelling or convincing way. In fact, respective backstories are pretty sketchy in general, dialogue strained and broadcasting, and performances correspondingly patchy. The three stage veterans in director Allen McKelvey’s cast — Brothers, Carlin, and Darragh — go furthest toward making Clarvoe’s leaden exposition somewhat buoyant, but the momentary pleasure they provide can’t stem the overall tide. (Avila)

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

"Cabaret Showcase Showdown, Year #4: Best Singer/Songwriter" Martini’s, 4 Valencia, SF; (415) 241-0205. Sun/3, 7pm. $5. Contestants compete in front of a panel of judges, including Katy Stephan (who also performs).

"Hand to Mouth Comedy" Dark Room Theater, 2263 Mission, SF; www.handtomouthcomedy.com. Fri/1, 10pm. $8. With stand-up comedians Trevor Hill, James Fluty, Lydia Popovich, Cameron Vannini, Kelly Anneken, and more.

"Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth" Orpheum Theatre, 1192 Market, SF; www.shnsf.com. Thu/28-Sat/2, 8pm. $50-310. The controversial former boxer performs his Spike Lee-directed solo show.

"The News with Fembot and Friends" SOMArts Cultural Center, 934 Brannan, SF; somarts.org/thenews. Tue/5, 7:30pm. $5. New and experimental queer performance.

Elaine Page Venetian Room, Fairmont San Francisco, 950 Mason, SF; www.bayareacabaret.org. Fri/1, 8pm. $47. The musical theater icon performs.

"Pamtastic’s Comedy Clubhouse Presents: A Comedy Showcase" Mutiny Radio, 2781 21st St, SF; www.mutinyradio.org. Fri/1, 9pm. $5-20. Live podcast recording with Zorba Jevon, Glamis Rory, Luna Malbroux, and more, hosted by DJ Eddie Winters.

"Rotunda Dance Series: ODC/Dance" City Hall, Van Ness at McAllister, SF; www.dancersgroup.org. Fri/1, noon. Free. Dancers’ Group and World Arts West host a monthly free dance performance under City Hall’s rotunda. This month: KT Nelson’s Transit.

"San Francisco Magic Parlor" Chancellor Hotel Union Square, 433 Powell, SF; www.sfmagicparlor.com. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Ongoing. $40. Magic vignettes with conjurer and storyteller Walt Anthony.

BAY AREA

"The Buddy Club Children’s Shows" JCC of the East Bay Theater, 1414 Walnut, Berk; www.thebuddyclub.com. Sun/3, 1pm. $8. Daniel DaVinci, "the Juggling Genius," performs. Also Sun/3, 1pm, $8, Kanbar Center for the Performing Arts, 200 North San Pedro, San Rafael. Juggler and physical comedian Unique Derique performs.

"I Like Everything About You (Yes I Do!)" Taoist Center, 3824 MacArthur, Oakl; ww.crosspulse.com. Sat/2, 10:30am, $5-10 (family, $25). Also Sun/3, 4pm, $6-12, Dance Palace, 503 B St, Point Reyes. Celebrate body music with this kid-friendly show that’s "part international drill team, part polycultural rhythm section."

"One-Off Wednesdays (or sometimes Two-Off)" Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. Wed/27 and March 6, 8pm. $15-50. This week: Roy Zimmerman in Wake Up Call.

"PoRazone Love Project" Musically Minded Academy, 5776 Broadway, Oakl; www.musicallyminded.com. Sun/3, 3pm. $12-15. Raz Kennedy and Pollyanna Bush present original song, storytelling, theater, video, and dance.

Live Shots: ‘Dance + Diaspora’ at ODC Theater

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Strong drum beats, hip shimmies laden with bells and voices coming together in song. This show has it all. Presenting “Dance + Diaspora” two performances this Friday and Saturday — pics above are from the dress rehearsal — by choreographers Jill Parker (with her Foxglove Sweethearts troupe) and Tania Santiago (with her Movendo con Capoeira troupe)   — a showcase of steamy belly dancing and heart-pumping Capoeria.

The belly dance performance includes solos, but is a mainly a group dance, with multiple belly rolls and wrist rotations happening in unison by all the dancers. Their piece also includes live music, like some pretty great clarinet and double-reeded zurna tunes. After intermission, the mood shifts and takes you to Brazil, for an energizing Capoeira piece, mixing both incredible acrobatics and traditional Afro-Brazilian folk dance. The show as a whole is a wonderful combination of music and dance, creating a true cultural dance experience.

Dance + Diaspora, Fri/22 and Sat/23

More info here

 

A taste of Jill Parker and the Foxglove Sweethearts

 

Stage Listings

Andrew Lam
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Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

THEATER

OPENING

The Lisbon Traviata New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25. Opens Fri/22, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through March 24. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs Terrence McNally’s play, a mix of comedy and tragedy, about the relationship between two opera fanatics.

Steve Seabrook: Better Than You Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Opens Fri/22, 8pm. Runs Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Through March 22. Kurt Bodden’s San Francisco Best of Fringe-winning show takes a satirical look at motivational speakers.

BAY AREA

Dostoevsky’s The Grand Inquisitor Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berk; www.centralworks.org. $15-28. Previews Thu/21-Fri/22, 8pm. Opens Sat/23, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through March 31. Central Works performs Gary Graves’ adaptation of the story-within-a-story from The Brothers Karamazov.

My Recollect Time South Berkeley Community Church, 1802 Fairview, Berk; (510) 788-6415. $12-25. Opens Fri/22, 9pm. Runs Sat/23-Sun/24, Feb 28, March 2, 7, and 9, 8pm; March 1, 8, 9pm; March 3, 5pm. Through March 9. Inferno Theater performs Jamie Greenblatt’s play about the life of former slave Mary Fields.

ONGOING

Dear Harvey New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Wed/20-Sat/23, 8pm; Sun/24, 2pm. There’s always room in San Francisco for milk — Harvey Milk, that is, our very own out-and-proud crusader for equal rights for all, whose election as city supervisor in 1977 and assassination in 1978 galvanized the LGBT movement on a national level. Part history lesson, part memorial tribute, the Patricia Loughrey-penned Dear Harvey offers details of the extent of his influence, mostly in the realm of the political, collected from interviews with over 30 of Milk’s associates and friends. Interspersing testimonials with Bay Area Reporter headlines, fan mail, and projections of Daniel Nicoletta’s candid photos of the era, each member of the ensemble cast assumes multiple roles throughout the piece including Harvey’s activist nephew Stuart Milk, the "Queen Mother of the Americas" Nicole Murray-Ramirez, openly-gay politician Tom Ammiano, former youthful aide and prominent AIDS activist Cleve Jones, Milk’s spitfire campaign manager Anne Kronenberg, and even Milk himself. At its core, Dear Harvey plays out mainly like a talking head-style documentary, the disparate strands of monologue woven together providing a composite image of a single character. But as endearing in many ways that character is, it’s not enough to sustain the overall piece, which never develops its other, often fascinating, characters enough for the audience to feel much of a connection to the stage, no matter how much, personally, they might feel a connection to Milk himself. (Gluckstern)

Foodies! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.foodiesthemusical.com. $30-34. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. AWAT Productions presents Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue all about food.

God of Carnage Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sheltontheater.org. $38. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through March 30. Shelton Theater presents Yasmina Reza’s Tony-winning comedy about upper-middle-class parents clashing over an act of playground violence between their children.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch Boxcar Playhouse, 505 Natoma, SF; www.boxcartheatre.org. $25-40. Wed-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 5pm). Through March 2. Hold onto your hairpiece, Boxcar Theatre is reprising their all-too short summer run of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and just in case you think you saw it already, be forewarned — you ain’t seen nothing yet. Recast, redesigned, and re-vamped, this outcast-rock musical familiarly follows the misadventures of one Hedwig Robinson (né Hansel Schmidt) with glam, guts, and glitter. But unlike the movie version penned by and starring John Cameron Mitchell as the titular chanteuse, or other staged versions, director Nick A. Olivero splits the larger-than-life, would-be rock sensation into eight different characters, who are each given a solo turn as well as plenty of ensemble harmonizing during the course of the two hour-plus performance. The effect is often electric, and just as frequently hilarious, as when the four female actors playing the role stomp across the stage swinging imaginary dicks in the air to the lyric "six inches forward and five inches back, I got a, I got an angry inch!" Supported by a tight quartet of rock musicians led by Rachel Robinson, and the phenomenal Amy Lizardo as Hedwig’s beleaguered "man Friday" Yitzhak, Hedwig keeps on extending for what appears to be an indefinite run, employing the time-honored Thrillpeddlers’ tradition of rotating cast members and comeback performances, which means you could theoretically go multiple times and never see quite the same show twice. I certainly plan to. (Gluckstern)

Jurassic Ark Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.theexit.org. $15-25. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through March 16. Writer-performer David Caggiano’s zany, well-executed solo play centers on a Christian televangelist who is unwaveringly bent on making a big-budget movie about a cowboy-like Biblical Noah, his Ark, and the largely lovable dinosaurs callously left out of the story — a project he sees delivering a decisive blow to the Darwinians, while turning cineplexes across the land into celluloid cathedrals. Brother Dallas and his proselytizing pitch eventually find receptive ears in a trinity of movie-industry heavies, whose collective business acumen demands a few changes to the script. Meanwhile, the intoxicating power of it all leads to a lapse in Brother Dallas’s righteousness and a scandal reminiscent of Hugh Grant’s career. Dallas rebounds from this bout with the Devil and sees his movie made — but surely only he is unaware that the Devil keeps a Hollywood address. Smartly directed by Mark Kenward, this low-frills production relies almost exclusively on Caggiano’s sturdy ability with quick-change characterizations (couched in Dylan West’s modest lighting design and a suggestive soundscape by sound editor–musician John Mazzei). The fitful satire trades in pretty orthodox caricature and, in Brother Dallas, lacks a very compelling or sympathetic central figure; but it unfolds with a very cinematic imagination that, while formulaic, is itself one hell of a movie pitch. (Avila)

The Little Foxes Tides Theatre, 533 Sutter, SF; www.tidestheatre.org. $20-38. Wed/20-Sat/23, 8pm. Tides Theatre Company performs a modern take on the Lillian Hellman classic.

The Motherfucker with the Hat San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $30-70. Tue-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm). Through March 16. A fine cast makes the most of Stephen Adly Guirgis’s deceptively coarse, often amusing little play, The Motherfucker with the Hat, which receives its local premiere in a sure and rowdy production from SF Playhouse. Director and designer Bill English’s striking two-tier set almost belies the intimate nature of the quirky story, which concerns a hapless parolee and recovering alcoholic named Jackie (a winningly frazzled, bumptious Gabriel Marin) who retreats to his AA sponsor’s apartment to pine and plot revenge after he discovers a stranger’s hat in the bedroom of his longtime Puerto Rican girlfriend, Veronica (played vividly by an at once edgy and vulnerable Isabelle Ortega). But Ralph, his suave and persuasive sponsor (played with unctuous charm gilded by just a hint of ineptitude by an excellent Carl Lumbly), may not be the guy he wants in his corner. Not that Jackie can see that — he’s got a man-crush on Ralph that dwarfs his already ambivalent affection for much put-upon but stalwart cousin Julio (a sharply funny Rudy Guerrero) and blinds him to the warning signals from Ralph’s own disgruntled wife (a coolly disgusted Margo Hall). Throughout, these working-class New York borough dwellers display their wit and shield their soft underbellies with a rapid-fire barrage of creative swearing. English and cast display a real comfort with this kind of material (this is SF Playhouse’s fourth Girguis play), which drapes its soft heart in the intimations of violence more than the real thing. If the heat and imaginative cursing also seem to cover up for a play with little dramatic purpose beyond a gentle and somewhat pat exploration of loyalty, maturity, and trust, there’s pleasure to be had in the unfolding. (Avila)

Not a Genuine Black Man Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $25-50. Fri/22, 8pm; Sat/23, 5pm. What, the unapologetically middle-class Brian Copeland asks, is the real meaning behind the phrase "a genuine black man"? By way of an answer, the stand-up comic and KGO radio host offers up a simultaneously funny and disarmingly frank story about growing up African American in the racist suburb that was San Leandro in the early 1970s. Letting his narrative bounce back and forth between his boyhood memories and a period of depression that overtook him as a parent in 1999 — and interlacing the autobiography with verbatim utterances from both sides of the fight his family joined to desegregate the city — Copeland brings admirable chops as a comedian to bear on some difficult and disturbing, if ultimately hopeful, material. Note: review from an earlier run of the same show. (Avila)

Sex and the City: LIVE! Rebel, 1760 Market, SF; trannyshack.com/sexandthecity. $25. Wed, 7 and 9pm. Open-ended. Lady Bear, Trixie Carr, Heklina, and D’Arcy Drollinger star in this drag tribute to the long-running HBO show.

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Sun, 11am. Extended through March 17. The Amazing Bubble Man (a.k.a. Louis Pearl) continues his family-friendly bubble extravaganza.

You Know When the Men Are Gone Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.zspace.org. $30-55. Wed/20-Thu/21, 7pm; Fri/22-Sat/23, 8pm; Sun/24, 3pm. Word for Word mounts two related short stories from the titular collection by Siobhan Fallon about the home-front impact of warfare on the families of an American army base. In The Last Stand, an injured soldier (Chad Deverman) returns home to his young wife (Roselyn Hallett) to find she has decided to leave him. In Gold Star, a wife (Arwen Anderson) learns of her soldier husband’s (Ryan Tasker) death — the officer who died saving the life of the young soldier in the first story. Reeling from grief, she innocently hangs on the words of the young soldier (Deverman) as he comes to visit her. Beautifully designed — with shrewd use of Z Space’s large, potentially engulfing stage by Jacqueline Scott (set), Drew Yerys (lighting, sound), Delia McDougall (costume, props), and Andrea Weber (choreography) — directors Joel Mullennix (Last Stand) and Amy Kossow (Gold Star) show an imaginative command of the material that has made the company’s trademark verbatim staging of literature a viable theatrical undertaking in its own right, with much to admire and ponder in the juxtaposition of words, blocking, characterization, and imagery. Moreover, the ensemble (rounded out by Marilet Martinez and Armando McClain) is very strong, with standout turns from the mutually sympathetic but achingly at-odds characters played by Deverman and Hallett in the first half, and by Anderson’s shattered, erratic, yet highly attuned new widow in the second. As for the stories themselves, certain details of base life (such as the prime parking spaces eerily and crassly allotted widows of soldiers killed in combat) reveal the author’s firsthand knowledge as the wife of an active-duty soldier, adding a sense of authenticity to these intimate, heartfelt, and movingly told stories. Their essentially everyday tragedies, however, remain tightly focused on the subtleties of grief rather than any larger contextualizing of the immediate political and moral dimensions of the American imperial machine in which all characters ultimately serve. That leaves largely intact and unexamined the usual allusions to sacrifice, service, nationhood, duty, and traditional modes of male and female heroism in war, which is perhaps the most distressing thing about these otherwise quietly troubled stories. (Avila)

BAY AREA

The Fourth Messenger Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.thefourthmessenger.com. $23-40. Wed-Thu, 7pm (no show Wed/20); Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through March 10. It’s been some time since a work by local playwright Tanya Shaffer last graced our stages, not since 2005 to be precise, and in keeping with her penchant for multicultural themes, her latest piece, The Fourth Messenger, is a reimagining of the Siddhartha story, written as a musical in collaboration with composer Vienna Teng. Raina (Anna Ishida), a "hungry" journalism intern with a secret agenda, pitches her first scoop — the debunking of a beatific guru named Mama Sid (Annemaria Rajala) — and embeds herself in a meditation retreat where she can get close to the famously private teacher and uncover her past. Neither as humorous or as merciless as Jesus Christ Superstar or as exuberant as Godspell (though the excellent song "Monkey Mind" crackles with wit and trenchant observation, and the tender "Human Experience" genuinely uplifts), Messenger does offer a fairly solid primer to the path of spiritual enlightenment including its all-too-human fallout and sacrifices. The white-on-wood set design by Joe Ragey frames the action in a deceptively delicate layer of gauze and mystery, and the capable ensemble inhabit their multiple roles with ease — from jaded newsies to loyal disciples. Which makes it doubly unfortunate that the jazzy, piano-driven score seems pitched just outside of most of the actor’s ranges, even those of the notably skilled Ishida and Rajala, an admitted distraction for the monkey-minded, which is to say most of us. (Gluckstern)

Our Practical Heaven Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; www.auroratheatre.org. $32-60. Tue and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm); Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through March 3. Anthony Clarvoe’s new play receives its world premiere as a 2011 prizewinner in Aurora’s Global Age Project (GAP), which cultivates new work addressing life in the 21st century. In the case of this labored and dull effort, the young century and its anxious outlook come refracted through three generations of women who gather for holidays at a seaside home whose own future is threatened by, first, financial and, ultimately, climatic conditions. Neurotic, self-absorbed Sasha (Anne Darragh) and capable businesswoman Willa (Julia Brothers) are middle-aged best friends forever who grew up in the home of Sasha’s mother (Joy Carlin) and late father. Joining Sasha’s two daughters by separate husbands, Suze (Blythe Foster) and Leez (Adrienne Walters), is Willa’s daughter, Magz (Lauren Spencer), who suffers from a debilitating disease. Despite many personal and generational differences — and a rising conflict over the house — all six women share in a traditional bout of bird watching in this fragile nature "refuge" for bird and human alike. While bird watching supplies the play’s operative metaphors, however, it does little to actually bring these characters together in any compelling or convincing way. In fact, respective backstories are pretty sketchy in general, dialogue strained and broadcasting, and performances correspondingly patchy. The three stage veterans in director Allen McKelvey’s cast — Brothers, Carlin, and Darragh — go furthest toward making Clarvoe’s leaden exposition somewhat buoyant, but the momentary pleasure they provide can’t stem the overall tide. (Avila)

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

"Analog: New Work by Katharine Hawthorne" Joe Goode Annex, 401 Alabama, SF; analogdance.eventbrite.com. Fri/22-Sat/23, 8pm. $15-25. A full evening of choreography inspired by the intersection of art and science.

BATS Improv Bayfront Theater, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.improv.org. Sat/23, 8pm. $20. The company performs "Warp Speed: An Improvised Trek!"

"Comedy Night at the Presidio" Presidio Café and Golf Course, 300 Finley, SF; www.presidiocafe.com. Thu/21, 8pm. $10. With Will Durst, Andrew Holmgren, and host Justin Gomes.

"Dance and Diaspora" ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; www.odctheater.org. Fri/22-Sat/23, 8pm. $25-30. Featuring the work of belly dance artist Jill Parker and Afro-Brazilian choreographer Tania Santiago.

"Fabulous Artistic Guys Get Overtly Traumatized Sometimes: The Musical!" CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; www.counterpulse.org. Thu/21-Sun/24, 8pm. $20-25. DavEnd’s performance extravaganza promises "singing pink cakes, dancing mirrors, and couture genitalia."

"Killing Me Softly With Jazz Hands" Stage Werx Theatre, 446 Valencia, SF; (415) 517-3581. Wed/20, 8pm. $10. Comedian Becky Pedigo performs.

"Megillah 3.0" Intersection for the Arts, 925 Mission, SF; www.killingmylobster.com. Sat/23, 7pm, $20. Killing My Lobster launches its online collection of original videos, music, and performance with a Purim carnival, featuring live sketch shows, KML comedy videos, and more.

"Our Voices, Our Stories Play Reading Festival" San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. Mon/25, 7:30pm. Free. Readings of in-development works Without and Opportunity for Defense and Obeah.

"San Francisco Magic Parlor" Chancellor Hotel Union Square, 433 Powell, SF; www.sfmagicparlor.com. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Ongoing. $40. Magic vignettes with conjurer and storyteller Walt Anthony.

"Smack Dab" Magnet, 4122 18th St, SF; www.magnetsf.org. Wed/20, 8pm. Free. Open mic featuring Randy Alford.

"Solo Sundays: Family Blend, the Sweet and the Bitter" Stage Werx Theatre, 433 Valencia, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Sun/24, 7pm. $12. With Susan Ito, Lisa Marie Rollins, and Zahra Noorbakhsh.

Tanya Bello’s Project. B. and Karen Reedy Dance ODC Dance Commons, 351 Shotwell, SF; www.odcdance.org. Sat/23, 8pm; Sun/24, 7pm. $22. Featuring the world premiere of Bello’s Games We Play(ed).

BAY AREA

"One-Off Wednesdays (or sometimes Two-Off)" Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. Wed/20, 8pm. $15-50. This week: Wayne Harris in The Letter: Martin Luther King at the Crossroads.

Peace corps

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Peace corps

arts@sfbg.com

DANCE In a pre-rehearsal conversation at the ODC Commons, choreographer Robert Moses says that his newest piece, Nevabawarldapece (“never be a world of peace”– premiering at YBCA Fri/25-Sun/27), is “a dance about protest movements.” The evening-length work is set on ten dancers and is a collaboration between Moses and Obie and Bessie winning writer-performer Carl Hancock Rux; activist and singer-composer Laura Love; and MacArthur Fellow and blues musician Corey Harris. The trio will perform live during this weekend’s world premiere at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

The impetus for Neva, explains Moses, came less from the specifics of historic revolutions and contemporary challenges to the social order than from the people who gave their all attempting to bring about fundamental change — only to see their efforts dissipated, co-opted, or met with failure. “It’s about idealism, the loss of it, and then what you do? What are you left with if the rage, the energy, and all the sacrifices you have made fall by the wayside? Can you pick up and keeping moving forward? I don’t know,” he says.

Moses and Love, who is in town for her first look at the company, discussed leaders like Malcolm X, James Brady, and Nat Turner, but also contemporary movements like Occupy Wall Street, the Arab Spring, and environmental activism. Referencing Sisyphus’ rock, Moses says, “When it falls, it’s hard to go down that mountain and pick it up again. It takes courage and energy to roll it and believe that this time it just might stay up.”

For Love the choice is clear. “I have moments of disillusionment, and moments when I believe that we can have justice. Right now I am more afraid not to act than to act.” She remembers a banner at a recent Freedom of Choice rally that said: “I can’t believe that we have to do this again.”

Neva had been in the back of Moses’ mind for a long time. “It’s a big idea,” he admits. So he was pleasantly surprised that when he called his now collaborators and described exactly what he wanted to explore, everybody agreed to participate. For Love, it was Moses’ willingness to not restrict her role. (Moses laughs, “I can’t do what she does, so why would I restrict her?”)

Love and Harris sent him musical suggestions; Hancock Rux emailed texts he had written. Moses has yet to determine Neva’s final shape. For instance, he has two versions of one of Love’s banjo tunes. He also wants to hear Hancock Rux’s voice reading text. “I don’t want to pin myself down, because when we get together I want to see how context and content push against each other.”

Heading into rehearsal, he chuckles, “Yeah, the piece is finished … and it is not.” A thread, he knows, will emerge when everybody finally meets in the studio a few days before the premiere. Right now, he explains, the dancers have between 30 and 40 choreographic sections from which choices will be made.

In the studio on this particular afternoon, the dancers work on three of these pieces. As other couples observe and copy, Moses refines small gestures — a handgrip, a leg stretch, an overhead lift — on tiny Norma Fong and lanky Brendan Barthel. Then Crystaldawn Bell, softly but intensely, talks the company through a section that she has developed based on a solo which Moses had created for senior dancer Katherine Wells. Finally, Moses gives newcomer Jeremy Bannon-Neches five minutes to keep teaching to the company a piece he had choreographed for him. “The teaching is good experience,” Moses notes.

Dripping with sweat, tired to the point of exhaustion, and throwing themselves with every ounce of their being into fierce, volatile, and ever-changing movement challenges, the dancers are an odd contrast to the studio’s serene and neutral environment. They are also unstoppable — just like those who are willing to commit whatever it takes to make their ideals come to life.

NEVABAWARLDAPECE

Fri/25-Sun/27, 8pm, $25-$50

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

Lam Research Theater

700 Howard, SF

www.ybca.org

www.robertmoseskin.org

Heads Up: 7 must-see concerts this week

Tony Robles
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What a momentous way to kick off the week: Barack Obama’s second inauguration falling on MLK Jr. Day, and with tear-inducing performances by Beyonce and James Taylor, to boot. It doesn’t get much more U-S-A than that. Oh, and there was that whole SF football win on Sunday.

Celebrate your fleeting pride swell with a week-long journey through challenging live music; stop by former local Jhameel’s return concert, the annual SF Tape Music Festival, Luke Sweeney’s Wet Dreams Dry Magic at Mission Creek Oakland, Blond:ish at Monarch, and Gaucho at Cyprian’s, as the group recognizes Django Reinhardt’s birthday.

Also, it’s technically sold out, but “UnderCover presents Joni Mitchell’s Blue” at Freight and Salvage tonight (Mon/21) may have some standing room tickets at the door ($24.50). Plus, there are still some presale available for tomorrow night’s show (Tue/22).

Here are your must-see Bay Area concerts this week/end:

Jhameel
Jhameel, our beloved multi-instrumentalist On the Rise star, returns from LA – for the night at least. The formerly Bay Area-based pop songwriter has been hard at work down south in the sun, polishing his futuristic Michael Jackson vibes, writing a new album, and recording more drunk videos for his devoted followers. For this show, he promised those fans he’d sing his damn heart out.
With Giraffage, Coast Jumper
Wed/23, 8:30pm, $10
Cafe Du Nord
2170 Market, SF
www.cafedunord.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiN8CWzNNPI

The Tambo Rays
“If you’re looking for a San Francisco-based band to adore in the new year, keep your eye on the Tambo Rays. The punkish young chillwave foursome released Kaleidoscope, its debut EP, last summer and has speedily garnered an enthusiastic audience. The group — a collaboration between brother and sister Brian and Sara DaMert along with friends Greg Sellin and Bob Jakubs — makes catchy, introspective pop music characterized by B. DaMerts’ crooning vocals and a hazy wall of dissonance.” — Mia Sullivan
With Evil Eyes, Moonbell, Jesus Sons
Wed/23, 9pm, $6
Brick and Mortar
1710 Mission, SF
(415) 371-1631
www.brickandmortarmusic.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1p4WNQaBpAg

Luke Sweeney and Wet Dreams Dry Magic
Luke Sweeney recently released his solo debut, Ether Ore, the album name a reference to the singer-guitarist’s spirit animal, Elliot Smith. It’s a sweet, fresh start for Sweeney as an indie solo artist (“recorded on 1/2″ tape in a living room…over the span of a few days in April 2012”), but you likely know his previous work in VOWS and his excellent current band, lo-fi pop dreamers Wet Dreams Dry Magic, headlining tonight as part of the Mission Creek Oakland Music and Arts Festival.
With Soft Bombs, French Cassettes
Thu/24, 9pm, $10
Uptown
1928 Telegraph, Oak.
www.uptownoakland.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVVhS1xOVc4&feature=plcp

The Walkmen and Father John Misty
The sonic gods have blessed us with this lineup. Separately, both acts would be worthy of a Heads Up shout-out, together they’re an emotional goldmine – bringing together the tender post-punk of the Walkmen, and hip-swinging indie-folk of singer-songwriter Father John Misty (a.k.a. J. Tillman of Fleet Foxes).
Thu/24, 8pm, $25.
Fillmore
1805 Geary, SF
www.livenation.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QaFK_GvO_s

San Francisco Tape Music Festival
The Tape Music Festival reminds us of the more idiosyncratic San Francisco of yore, the one we’re all desperately trying to hold on to, despite blooming micro-apartments, bans on nudity, and the like. Go, support this, “America’s only festival devoted to the performance of audio works projected in three-dimensional space.” This year, there will be a retrospective of the works of Bernard Parmegiani – an influential Parisian composer of acousmatic tape music – along with a piece by Japanese sound artist Ryoji Ikeda, classics by Luciano Berio and Hugh Le Caine, local composers Pamela Z and Andrea Williams, and more.
Fri/25-Sun/27, 8pm, $15 ($35 festival pass)
ODC Theater
3153 17th St., SF
sfsound.org/tape
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXAevrYhicI

Blond:ish
“In a section of the music industry where club promoters and marketers all too frequently rely on glamor headshots layered over photoshopped neon clouds, London based but Montreal bred Anstascia D’elene and Vivie Ann Bakos have smartly chosen a name that immediately undercuts appearances. (Plus the tag-line: “not all dumbs are blonde.”) With that out of the way, this posh, Kompakt-approved duo has spent the last couple of years making a real name for itself, releasing credible 4×4 house sets and EPs with callbacks to ’60s psychedelia and ’80s new wave, while providing remixes for Todd Terje, Pete Tong, and Tomas Barfod.” — Ryan Prendiville
With DJ M3, Anthony Mansfield
Sat/26, 9pm, $10-20
Monarch
101 Sixth St., SF
(415) 284-9774
www.monarchsf.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtjQTHZ4Wrg

Gaucho: Django Reinhardt’s birthday
If you play any form of gypsy jazz, you have Django Reinhardt to thank for that. Popular local band, Gaucho – which recently passed the decade mark as a group together, no small feat in band-land – recognizes this relationship with an evening dedicated to Reinhardt, during the week of what would have been his 102nd birthday (he was born Jan. 23). If you’d like to wish bonne anniversaire to the master, there’s no better spot this weekend for hot gypsy jazz, ragtime, and pre-war blues.
With Kally Price and the Old Blues and Jazz Band
Sat/26, 8pm, $12
SF Live at Cyprian’s
297 Turk, SF
www.noevalleymusicseries.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn5WWGnggkw

Fin-spiration

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Fin-spiration

arts@sfbg.com

DANCE After a decade of dancing and choreographing in the Bay Area, Cid Pearlman departed for Los Angeles, spent a year in Estonia, and now lives in Santa Cruz.

At last May’s San Francisco International Arts Festival, she re-introduced herself with This is what we do in winter, choreographed in 2010 for both her own dancers and performers from Tallinn, Estonia’s capital. In that piece, dance as social activity beautifully co-existed with the art as rigorous practice. This is what made you wonder what else this choreographer might have percolating.

It turns out to be the premiere of the intriguingly named Your Body is Not a Shark, a collaboration between Pearlman, composer Joan Jeanrenaud, and poet Denise Leto. Maya Barsacq, music director of chamber orchestra Cadenza, instigated the project. The women came together with a common interest in exploring constraints — physical and otherwise — as a generative force in art making. “In dance,” Pearlman says, “the young athletic body is the norm. I want to explore physical differences because I am interested in complicated stories that show people at different stages in their lives.” Shark’s seven dancers range from 18 to 64.

As a no-longer-young dancer, the 49-year-old Pearlman knows about the fragility and vulnerability of the human body. But, as she pointed out in a New Year’s Day conversation from Santa Cruz, “there are different kinds of virtuosity. There is hugely physical, deeply embodied dancing in your 20s and 30s which relies on strength and sharpness technique. Older dancers bring maturity to their work. If they can’t jump so high, don’t ask them to. You ask a performer to do what they are good at.”

“Limitations can hit you any time,” she adds. “It’s part of the human condition.” Her collaborators know whereof she speaks. Poet Leto, who wrote the text for this production, likes to present her works orally. A few years ago, she developed dystonia, a neurological disorder that has affected her vocal chords. “Sometimes she can get the words out, sometimes she can’t,” Pearlman says. But like the dancer who finds new ways to use her body, Leto has developed new strategies for presenting her poetry. Among them is the presence of a co-reader, “so if her voice gives out, the other person picks up.” Jeanrenaud was a cellist with the Kronos Quartet who had to alter her musical career in 1999, when she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. She too adapted to the changed circumstances by becoming a solo performer and composer with wide-ranging works in many media.

Each of these three artists has faced the restrictions on their expressiveness by expanding their reach. (And as Pearlman points out, sharks die if they stop moving.) At the core of Shark are Leto’s poems, each written within the constraints of separate, highly formal parameters: a sestina, an oulipo, and a tanka. She then turned the verses over to Jeanrenaud, who generated a sound collage and an instrumental score to be performed by herself, percussionist William Winant, and members of the Cadenza chamber players. Leto too will be on stage.

Shark’s most demanding task by going farther afield may well have been Pearlman’s. Having immersed herself in the verses’ technical demands — some of them sound like algorithms — she shaped her choreography along the same rules. Leto seems to be happy with how her partners have worked with the poems. “Taken off the page — by the movement of bodies and the movement of sound — they have become something altogether different,” she says in the introduction to the texts’ printed version.

But what about the rest of us? With its intricately interweaving of formal questions and demands, will Shark be readable to an audience? “It’s not a problem,” Pearlman laughs. “They don’t have to know how it works. It’s an experiment. It’s meant to be a puzzle.” *

“YOUR BODY IS NOT A SHARK”

Fri/11-Sat/12, 8pm; Sun/13, 3pm, $18-$24

ODC Theater

3153 17th St, SF

www.odctheater.org

 

Discovery channels

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Discovery channels

arts@sfbg.com

YEAR IN DANCE Looking back on 2012’s over 500 performances — as calculated by Dancers’ Group — the game of “best” and “worst” makes less sense than ever. What makes the Bay Area a place worth living in is the vitality of its arts, and dance in particular. We only have one superstar company, San Francisco Ballet, but we’ve got a number of excellent mid-size ensembles and just enough of a competitive environment to discourage rank amateurism.

Whether for financial reasons or a desire to forego the demands of conventional stage presentations, dancers have continued their exodus to galleries and museums, like the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Asian Art Museum, the California Academy of Sciences, and the de Young Museum. But they have also presented work in public spaces: City Hall, Market Street, Union Square, and Golden Gate Park. These performances necessitate the rethinking of formal parameters, but also reach out to new audiences.

Here are ten companies and artists who challenged expectations or unveiled surprises (at least to me) in 2012. Surprises from young artists are the norm, but experienced choreographers have a far more difficult task when it comes to catching viewers off-guard.

In the middle of March (and after 40 years of rethinking time, space, and motion), Eiko and Koma presented their most radical performance yet. With the breathtaking Fragile, a four-hour meditation in which they moved perhaps two feet, they stretched every conceivable theatrical concept beyond where it could reasonably be expected to go. It was mesmerizing, though I kept wondering where Fragile would be without the wondrous collage of music that David Harrington had assembled for his Kronos Quartet.

Keith Hennessy’s Turbulence (a dance about the economy), a many-tentacled creature that sprawled and oozed its way through Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, was one of the year’s most controversial premieres. No easy viewing, it showed that, for all his passion to redesign the social order, Hennessy is still working on creating new vehicles into which to pour his content. Gratifyingly, Hennessy just received a USA Fellows Award, one of only five Bay Area choreographers to have been so honored.

Monique Jenkinson’s splendid solo Instrument just finished its run at CounterPULSE. It needs to come back. She’s known as Fauxnique in her drag alter ego, but there is nothing faux about this dancer-performance artist. In Instrument, perhaps Jenkinson’s finest work yet, she asks questions about the body as a tool and the nature of being on stage. The figure of Rudolf Nureyev gave her the entrance into a witty but also heartbreaking portrayal of what it means to be a performer.

Even if you watch dance a lot, once in a while it happens that somebody pops up that you have never seen — and yet what they show is already excellent. Such was the case with Nicole Klaymoon’s Embodiment and her joyously rocking House Matter. Working with very good modern and hip-hop dancers, plus jazz singer Valerie Troutt and her vocal ensemble, the women created an evening-long piece about how a house can become a home.

Jenny McAllister’s two-year old 13th Floor Dance Theater is the newest incarnation of McAllister’s dance making endeavors. She has been choreographing genuinely funny dance, often sending up popular culture, for a long time. Bloomsbury/It’s Not Real was her first evening-length work. Using reality TV as a format, she came up with a lovingly loony but smart portrait of the lives and loves of that motley crew known as the Bloomsbury Group.

At the end of September, Birju Maharaj, the 74-year-old Kathak virtuoso, packed the Palace of Fine Arts with a primarily Indian audience who sat through a four-plus hour performance of superb dance. Maharaj performs here every couple of years, often with a similar repertoire. And still you sit there and can’t believe your eyes and ear at this gentle, witty, and generous artist playing “games” with someone like Zakir Hussein.

During its 41st home season, ODC/Dance premiered KT Nelson’s Transit. Taking one look at Max Chen’s whimsical bike concoctions, I just knew that they would steal the show — but they didn’t. Nelson used these metamorphosing velocipedes to call to the stage an image of urban life as fast-paced, fluid, and unstable. Yet for all its fractured continuity, Nelson and ODC’s superb dancers seemed to say, it’s a wonderful life.

San Francisco Ballet’s Beau raised more eyebrows than any of its other commissions, as far as I can remember. Longtime guest artist Mark Morris has built up expectations, so people were furious, feeling let down by what they considered thin, slipshod, easy-way-out choreography. My opinion was in the minority — so I’m looking forward to the piece’s return to find out whether what I thought was there, really is.

In the fall, my first encounter with Einstein at the Beach opened my ears and eyes to what I had known as “an opera” by Robert Wilson and Philip Glass. Surprising to see was how its exquisite details and extraordinary stylization owed more to kabuki than opera, and how Lucinda Childs’ choreography fit into it like a jewel set into a frame. For once the hype surrounding a piece did not even approach the reality of the experience.

Dancers around the world know the Venezuelan-born David Zambrano as a superb, idiosyncratic teacher. So his Soul Project, set to a rich selection of blues and soul music, raised questions about his approach to choreography. Using the YBCA’s Forum as a unified space for dancers and audience, Soul’s meandering trajectory — you never knew who would perform what where — made this one of the year’s most intimate experiences. To be a couple of inches away from such different, yet such superb performers doing what they do best was a treat.

 

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