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Arts & Culture
Arts & Culture
Cruel stories of youth
arts@sfbg.com
FILM Richard Linklater’s Boyhood is so popular that by now it’s acquired the seemingly inevitable backlash against such overwhelming critical support — god forbid “the critics,” that mysterious, possibly secret-handshaking Masonic elite, should tell anyone what to think. It’s a lucky movie that invites hostility by being so widely (and, admittedly, a bit hyperbolically) considered a masterpiece. Whatever your parade, someone will always be dying to rain on it.
Everyone should go see Boyhood, ideally with expectations kept low enough that they won’t feel betrayed by its admitted, even flavorful flaws. But meanwhile, everyone should also see two movies that open at the Roxie this Friday. Equally striking portraits of male adolescence, they couldn’t be more different in nearly every respect, but both are completely enveloping.
Documentarians Andrew Droz Palermo and Tracy Droz Tragos’ exquisite Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner Rich Hill spends some months in the company of three boys living in particularly problematic circumstances in the depressed titular Missouri small town. The future doesn’t look bright, but then their present is already pretty bleak. Harley is a rather thick teen with serious anger-management issues (and an ominous fondness for weaponry) who’s fallen into the weary care of his grandmother. His mother is in prison. When we learn why, it explains a great deal about why he always teeters on the edge of violent rage.
The younger Appachey, barely adolescent but already dropping f-bombs like a cranky Teamster, lives in chaotic near-squalor with his mother and junior siblings. Ma is no shrinking violet either, and one is tempted to blame his state of perpetual hyperactive tantrum on bad parenting. But she’s doing the best she can — her own dreams long ago scotched by having kids way too young, now working multiple crap jobs to support the brood with no father in sight. Of course their house is a mess. Stuck in a hamster wheel of even more basic daily obligations, where would she find the time or energy to clean?
You can tell the filmmakers’ favorite is Andrew. How could he not be? The adorable 14-year-old is an oasis of faith and positivity despite the shitstorm of bad luck life’s already dealt him. His mother seems murkily incapacitated mentally and physically; his father is a genial layabout who can’t hold onto a job, or housing, for very long. Worse, he doesn’t seem to grasp that those things are his responsibility. So Andrew is the default grownup. (His situation is eerily similar to that of Tye Sheridan’s fictive character in David Gordon Green’s underseen 2013 Larry Brown adaptation Joe.) “We’re not trash, we’re good people,” he says at one point, though one imagines his hapless, transient family might be regarded as the former by some of Rich Hill’s more respectable 1,393 citizens. (We see them on display in a Fourth of July parade, and at an annual auction where donors bid up to the thousands for a home baked charity pie.) Later he rationalizes continued dire straits by musing, “God must be busy with everyone else,” a statement of dogged hope rather than bitterness.
Rich Hill is more beautifully crafted, notably in the realm of Palermo’s gorgeous cinematography and Nathan Halpern’s musical scoring, than documentaries are supposed to be these days — as opposed to when you could get away with staging some elements for “atmosphere” and “greater truth.” (Check out such arguably nonfictive past Oscar contenders as 1957’s On the Bowery and 1966’s The War Game.) The lyricism never seems forced, however. This is a movie about young American lives orphaned by globalization and trickle-up, among other factors — the kinds of small-town heartland existence they were born into has already been written off as unprofitable.
Bernardo Bertolucci’s Me and You is this once-towering director’s first feature in over a decade spent sidelined by crippling back pain. But it’s also his best since at least 1990’s The Sheltering Sky, despite some limitations to the material adapted from Niccolò Ammaniti’s novel. Though he no longer works with Vittorio Storaro, the extraordinary (if allegedly over-perfectionist) cinematographer of his acknowledged classics (1970’s The Conformist, 1972’s Last Tango in Paris, 1976’s 1900, 1987’s The Last Emperor), there’s a hypnotic, poetical mastery of the visual medium here that Bertolucci’s sketchier post-prime projects seldom approach.
In some respects, it’s a flashback to 1979’s cultishly adored, popularly reviled Luna, again mixing up awkward male adolescence, heroin addiction, and diva behavior. Lorenzo (Jacopo Olmo Antinori) is a more-than-usually withdrawn teen, perhaps due to major acne and his parents’ separation. When the mom he’s exhausting with his attitude (Sonia Bergamasco) sends him off to ski camp, he quails at joining so many prettier peers. Instead, he sneaks back for a week of blissful solitude in their apartment building’s conveniently well-supplied basement.
This curmudgeon’s idyll, however, is interrupted by another fugitive. Lorenzo’s older half-sister Olivia (Tea Falco) is a decadent wild child temporarily out of allies, and horse. She needs a place to crash and withdraw. Yelps that he’d prefer being alone don’t get pimply Lorenzo very far, as Olivia is “not exactly dying to be in this craphole.” She’s here because it’s her only option.
Bertolucci embarrassed himself with a couple of later movies (1996’s Stealing Beauty, 2003’s The Dreamers) in which he seemed a stereotypical old artiste ogling young flesh. Me and You doesn’t go where you might expect, but neither do its characters develop in otherwise sufficiently surprising or revealing ways. Once they’re trapped in the basement, the movie remains fascinating, but the fascination is all directorial rather than narrative. It’s a master class in execution with a definite minor in content. But sometimes sheer craft is a thing you can sink into like a shag carpet. Me and You is the kind of film you just want to roll around in, luxuriating in its plush pile. *
RICH HILL and ME AND YOU open Fri/22 at the Roxie.
(Un)deadpan
cheryl@sfbg.com
FILM Consider the zombie comedy — more specifically, the zombie romantic comedy. Simon Pegg of 2004’s Shaun of the Dead famously coined the term “zomromcom,” and it makes sense that the genre has only continued to grow. Even the best zombie movies hit the same ol’ story beats: the dead rise up, a dwindling group of survivors bands together to fight back, someone gets yanked through a window and devoured by a hungry horde, etc. The variables tend to be things like cause of outbreak (disease, aliens); speed of ghoul (from lumbering to sprinting); and outrageousness of gore (the gold standard remains Lucio Fulci’s 1979 eye-gouger, Zombie). But just add in some laughs, or better yet, yearning young hearts, and you’ve got new sources of tension and plot twists galore.
The 2013 Warm Bodies (zombie meets girl, girl loves zombie back to life), 2004’s Zombie Honeymoon (self-explanatory), and the 1993 Bob Balaban-directed My Boyfriend’s Back (in which Matthew McConaughey appears as “Guy #2,” shortly before his breakout role in Dazed and Confused) are other zomromcom examples. Now there’s Life After Beth, which keeps the pun-tastic naming tradition of the genre alive. Like Shaun of the Dead, it’s about a relationship on the rocks that happens to coincide with a zombie outbreak. The twist is that the girl, Beth (Aubrey Plaza), is among their numbers, and may even be Zombie Patient Zero. Her boyfriend, Zach (Dane DeHaan), and parents Maury and Geenie (John C. Reilly and Molly Shannon) are just happy she’s alive again. Or is she?
Beth’s “resurrection” (as her dad puts it) unfolds like something out of The Monkey’s Paw, only when she knocks on her front door after apparently bursting out of her grave, she’s suspiciously preserved and has no memory of suffering that inconveniently fatal snakebite. At first, everyone’s overjoyed; Maury can mend fences with the daughter whose final words to him were “Dad, you’re being annoying,” and Geenie can finally snap all the photos she regretted not taking. It’s more complicated for Zach, whose last conversations with Beth 1.0 included the revelation that she wanted to “see other people,” not that she remembers any of that — and whose own family members (Paul Reiser and Cheryl Hines as his distracted parents; Criminal Minds’ Matthew Gray Gubler as his aggro-nerd brother) are too self-involved to offer any support.
Not that they’d know where to begin, since Zach’s romantic troubles soon become supremely spooky. Maury is as dead-set on keeping his undead offspring a secret (“She died, and she’s not dead now. I don’t know why. Who cares why?”) as he is with keeping her in the dark about the fact that she’s back from beyond. Though Zach would rather be honest with Beth — he’s bummed he wasn’t more open with her the first time around — he goes along with the ruse until things get weird. Like, bellowing-fits-of-anger, window-smashing, decaying-skin, smooth-jazz-obsessed weird. “I kinda wish she’d stay dead,” he admits. It isn’t long before Beth’s affliction begins spreading through the greater Los Angeles area, and the inevitable chaos reigns.
Life After Beth was written and directed by Jeff Baena, whose biggest prior credit is co-writing David O. Russell’s I Heart Huckabees (2004), but who also happens to be dating Plaza. Known for her dry, deadpan delivery, Plaza (2013’s The To Do List, 2012’s Safety Not Guaranteed) is more prickly than other leading-lady comedians, like her Parks and Recreation co-star Amy Poehler. Even dressed in Beth’s sweet polka-dotted dress, Plaza is equal parts snarky and unpredictable, a vibe that perfectly suits the scene where Zach tries to woo her with a song he’s written for her. “This fucking sucks!” she growls, before exploding into a rage that ends with a beachside inferno involving an unfortunately situated lifeguard stand. She’s high maintenance. She’s shrill, demanding, jealous, and terrifying. And her boyfriend may have written her the part, but Plaza is 100 percent in control of this character — even in the scenes after Beth has morphed into a teeth-gnashing monster, she appears to be having a blast. Did I mention that zombies in this movie are obsessed with smooth jazz?
Zach is the first romantic leading role for DeHaan, who’s best-known for sinister turns in Chronicle (2012) and The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Though he spends most of his scenes with Plaza recoiling from Beth’s antics, his emo intensity is the perfect foil for the easygoing Reilly, whose cool-dad persona (he keeps a joint stashed for emergencies) starts to crack as Maury becomes more desperate to protect his daughter.
Life After Beth could have dared to shove the skewer a little deeper into the zombie genre — the notion that Haitian voodoo causes the dead to rise does get a well-deserved knock, and there are some funny bits with zombies who behave in non-traditional ways (some of them even deliver the mail). But aside from Plaza’s oversized performance, the humor here is surprisingly subtle, and often of the muttered-under-the-breath variety. As for the romance, the movie cops out a little bit by bringing Anna Kendrick in about midway through as Zach’s childhood friend Erica, a living, breathing alternative to Beth — who by that point is displaying aggressive mood swings and giving off killer death breath. But there’s also the suggestion that giggly airhead Erica, who agrees with everything Zach says and whose favorite word is “Ohmygod!”, isn’t much of an upgrade. A different kind of zombie, perhaps? *
LIFE AFTER BETH is available for viewing on DIRECTV.
Final stages
arts@sfbg.com
THEATER Theatre Rhinoceros had a big enough success with The Habit of Art last spring to bring it back for a final run, allowing more people, this reviewer included, the chance to see the 2009 follow-up to The History Boys by England’s rightly beloved Alan Bennett. Judging by the production, it’s also possible they were just having too much fun with it to stop so soon. But then that would speak as much to the themes of the play as to its decidedly playful construction. As a play-within-a-play-within-a-rehearsal, The Habit of Art ends up, among much else, a cleverly crafted paean to the lure of theater itself.
As with several of his other well-known plays, including the Madness of King George III and Single Spies (the latter, a shrewd pair of one acts on the Cambridge Five spy ring, was essayed by Theatre Rhino in 2004), Bennett finds inspiration in the real lives of eccentric Englishmen, whether long since passed or roughly contemporary. Here, the playwright imagines a fictitious meeting between two giants of his own time: W.H. Auden (Donald Currie) and Benjamin Britten (John Fisher).
The poet and the composer did know each other in real life, and had been collaborators at times. But Bennett brings the two men together for one more tête-à-tête, in 1972, a year before Auden’s death and some quarter of a century after they had parted ways in the wake of their work on the operetta Paul Bunyan, a critical failure. Interestingly, their meeting has many brokers — a biographer (Ryan Tasker), a stage manager (Tamar Cohn), a playwright (Michael DeMartini), and the real playwright, Bennett himself — yet feels personal and vivid, at once jocularly familiar and freighted with a sad awareness of time spent.
But that encounter takes place only in act two, sandwiched in a lively rehearsal of the play-within-the-play, a work called “Caliban’s Day,” inspired by Auden’s long poem, The Sea and the Mirror. That poem, which imagines the characters of Shakespeare’s The Tempest in dialogue with the author and his audience, is itself partly a meditation on the tangled natures of life and art. And in the back and forth between the “play” being staged and the actors and crew rehearsing it, we get Bennett’s subtle, witty, unflinchingly raunchy measure of a life lived in artistic creation.
Act one, which sets up the turmoil that act two engages and in some sense subdues, belongs to Auden as well as the addled actor playing him, who can’t quite remember his lines (both embodied with a lively and beautifully measured insouciance by Currie). Having recently returned to Oxford, Auden lives at his alma mater in a cluttered and untidy room like a rowdy teen. His less than sanitary disposition comes coupled with an abrasive temperament that wins him few admirers despite his status as a grand master and living legend. At one point, he tactlessly and unapologetically mistakes a visit from BBC reporter and future biographer Humphrey Carpenter (an excellent Tasker, replacing Craig Souza in the role) for his rent boy (an even-keeled Justin Lucas) — a figure who comes to stand, defiantly, for all those left out by posterity.
Act two finds Britten (played with an almost wooden reserve by director Fisher) approaching his old friend in an anxious mood over his current project, an opera based on Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice. Here the play’s true themes come into view, as the two aging artists, under the gaze of their mutual biographer and very much opposites in most ways, circle a common need for the certainty of art like desert vagrants at a watering hole: It may be a mirage, but it’s a life-saving one just the same.
If the disheveled book shelves, garden of crumpled paper balls, and two upstage pianos (in Gilbert Johnson’s scenic design) seems to belie the neatness of the play’s construction, Bennett’s care and control evoke precisely the untidiness of life. It’s maybe this that attracts him more than anything else — the messiness of personality, love, sex, art, loyalty, and all of the things we’d like to think of as pure and inviolate. *
THE HABIT OF ART
Wed/20-Sat/23, 8pm (also Sat/23, 3pm), $15-$25
Eureka Theatre
215 Jackson, SF
Mr. Smooth
marke@sfbg.com
SUPER EGO “I’m starting my own line of lipstick called Freak Flag, the proceeds of which will go towards funding sex change operations,” 24-year-old tech house sensation Nick Monaco told me over the phone, as he drove to his studio in San Rafael. “I started wearing lipstick onstage and to afterparties as a kind of shtick, but I began to notice all the hypermasculinity that’s present on certain house scenes, the quasi-homophobia. Which is so weird, since house music was nurtured by the LGBT community. So this is my way of being a better ally.”
Monaco’s fresh-faced idiosyncrasy in a tech house scene rife with unfortunate conformity extends not just to his goofy stage persona — part bargain-basement Lothario, part kids’ Halloween costume closet — but, essentially, to his music as well. Hypercool new album Mating Call (out on Crew Love Sept. 8) is a loose-limbed squiggle of neon pop ideas, slippery grooves, and good jokes that plays off the styles of Monaco’s mentors, Soul Clap and the dirtybird crew, while going off in a few great, woo-woo directions all his own.
Monaco grew up in Santa Rosa. (“You can imagine what my exposure to club music was like out there,” he laughs.) But at 17 he wandered into a house club in Switzerland and was hooked. “I had to go to Europe to discover this American music, in Euro-house form. Then after college, I was working as a DJ in Barcelona — on the beach at Sitges, I heard [Boston duo] Soul Clap for the first time and thought: That kind of sound is exactly what I want to do. So I wrote to them out of the blue. And they took me under their wing.”
“I’ve been listening to a lot of early ’90s New York house records from the likes of Masters at Work, who combined Puerto Rican music with house, and acts like Freddie Mercury, Arthur Russell, Talking Heads, and Deee-Lite,” Monaco said. (Russell’s mellow experimentalism seems to be the guiding force on Mating Call.) “But I’ve been recording at TRI Studios, the Grateful Dead’s old studios, and there’s all these great old-school musicians there jamming. I think as a result this album was a lot more organic, in sound and structure. I started out with clear ideas, but things really expanded to other places.”
For an album called Mating Call, there’s a lot of erotic ambivalence powering the tracks, including a symbolic dissolution of Monaco’s own voice. “I did this thing where I recorded three versions of myself and combined them: a falsetto higher one, a more middle talking one, and a lower one. I play with my voice all throughout the album — and then there are tracks like ‘Private Practice’ [the first single], where I don’t think I’m singing real words at all.”
Other tracks play with sexual stereotypes. Jaunty, kwaito-tinged “Maintenance Man” riffs off an eternally tacky porn trope while steaming up the windows. Instead of “I’m sooo drunk,” “TooHighToDrive” offers its own full-steam version of the punchline answer to the old “What’s the sorority girl mating call?” joke.
Monaco’s been developing a live show since March, taking the one-man-band-with-visuals approach, and will be touring extensively in the months ahead. “You have no idea how many nightmares I’ve had where I press the wrong button onstage,” he says in mock terror. “But I’m ready to do this.”
Oh, and the shade of that lipstick he’s planning to sell? “Mating Call red, of course.”
NICK MONACO LIVE with Baby Prince. Thu/21, 10pm, $10. Monarch, 101 Sixth St., SF. www.monarchsf.com
FOUR TET B2B JAMIE XX
Kieran Hebdan, aka Fourtet, jazzy intellectual of the UK bass scene, goes head to head with Jamie xx — yes, of ruminative indie erotics The xx — whose own deep electronic explorations have taken him to the limits of pop. Two biggies, lotta bass.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iy–rb3pByo
Fri/22, 10pm-3am, $30–$50. 1015 Folsom, SF. www.1015.com
TODD TERJE
Norwegian Terje has updated the classic Scandinavian cosmic disco sound with blorby ’80s splashes, piano-lounge mystique, and kids’ show theme music nostalgia (“Inspector Norse”). He played here seven years ago in an old gay square dance bar; now he headlines the As You Like It crew’s massive fourth anniversary party, with Maurice Fulton, DJ Qu, and a ton more.
Fri/22, 9pm-4am, $20–$30. Public Works, 161 Erie, SF. www.publicsf.com
DJ SPRINKLES
“There’s a kind of cultural compression going on, similar to audio compression, where everything has to be ‘punched up’ to the same intensity or people feel lost. What the fuck is so wrong with being lost?” Terre Thaemlitz, aka trans musician and philosopher DJ Sprinkles, told me last year. Then she proceeded to send the Honey Soundsystem party into an intense, wonderfully deep spiral. Now she’s back to do it again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pf0fG0R79sY
Sat/23, 10pm-4am, $20. F8, 1192 Folsom, SF. www.feightsf.com
Burnachella
BURNING MAN On July 9, Burning Man’s White Ocean sound camp officially announced its DJ lineup. The outcry came loud and swift. White Ocean, helmed by Timur Sardarov, founder of private jet service Ocean Group International, had broken informal protocol by releasing its lineup ahead of the traditional couple-weeks-before with the other camps. But those kinds of Burning Man rules are meant to be broken.
No, what got burner sarongs in a twist was the way the lineup was announced: A slick, professional-looking graphic containing, Coachella-like, a panoply of DJs and genre styles. And emblazoned above it all was “Timur Sardarov and Paul Oakenfold Present” — as if Burning Man was another Outside Lands or Electric Daisy Carnival, complete with famous headliner (Paul Oakenfold) branching out into “event branding,” and questionable promoter (Sardarov) making sure his name was the first one everyone read.
“Dear Burners,” came the inevitable Facebook apology. “As you know, a few weeks ago the entire White Ocean line up went public, in a relatively big way. To add insult to injury, it also listed ‘Presenting’ parties in the most un-Burner like fashion! We know that this greatly upset each and everyone of you, and for good reason! We agree this is a huge failure, on our part! There’s no excuse!!!”
The post went on to say the camp had hired a mainstream promoter, who “proceeded to create and implement a full promotions campaign, as if he was working for some music festival in Europe. That was his perception of Burning Man, an elaborately modified festival in the desert that doesn’t sell beer.”
But burners were forced to confront the question, “Are we actually becoming just a music festival in the desert that doesn’t sell beer?” As a nightlife writer, I’ve been getting emails for years touting different pre-BM fundraisers, innovative theme camp designs, and dance performances. But it’s only been in the past couple that I’ve been getting press releases from record labels announcing artists “appearing one night only!” at Burning Man. DJs routinely brag about multiple BM experiences. (One PR person even accidentally offered me press tickets!)
“It’s true that the current generation does see Burning Man mostly through the prism of music,” Syd Gris of the music-powerhouse Opulent Temple camp told me over the phone. “Most of the draw now may be not for the original communal experience, but the mind-blowing spectacle of seeing so many of the world’s biggest DJs playing on giant fire sculptures.
“Ever since the music festival circuit became such a huge thing in the past decade, there’s been the possibility that Burning Man may end up just another stop on it.”
Opulent Temple itself is boasting a jaw-dropping lineup — I can’t say the secret surprise headliners’ names (one’s that dubstep whizkid with the lesbian haircut, and the other helps put you Pon de Floor), but Crystal Method, Carl Cox, and Infected Mushroom will be there — Moby had to cancel, alas.
These kinds of superstar DJs always give me bad ’90s flashbacks. Sure, one of the ultimate Burning Man experiences is making out with several people as the sun rises and seeing someone unexpectedly unbelievable in the booth — really just counting down until Beyonce rides atop the giant BAAAHS sheep art truck. But is all this starpower needed? Is Burning Man just a badge of authenticity for electronic artists, now that electronic music has seized the mainstream?
“Really, most of the artists approach us at this point,” Gris said. “We don’t pay them anything, and we let them know that as part of the camp, they have to work. It can be an education process. Other camps can afford to fly people in and treat them to perks. But sound camps don’t get cash grants like art camps, so once we build the stage and sound system, there’s no money left for egos. Tiësto actually donated to us after he played one year, to help cover expenses.”
“I look at it as a fun act of subversion,” Gris said. “Opulent Temple is dedicated to sacred dance. So if people come for the headliners but leave with some of that original spirit and intent in them, it’s worth it.”
Outside Lands 2014: The view from the photo pit
Were you there? Were you among the approximately 200,000 human bodies smashed together for warmth at Golden Gate Park this past weekend, because you somehow couldn’t stand the idea of wearing anything but your midriff-baring tube top with your whimsical animal hat and/or flower crown?
Whether you spend this week recuperating from 72 straight hours of partying at Outside Lands or patting yourself on the back for steering clear of the whole thing — never fear, we were there to capture the weekend for you. Check our review here, and click through the slideshow above for some of our favorite live shots by Guardian photographers Matthew Reamer and Brittany M. Powell.
Innocent bay stander
arts@sfbg.com
THEATER Sarah Cameron Sunde will be standing in the water at Aquatic Park this Friday. She’ll stand from low tide, at 9:26 that morning, through high tide at 4:09 in the afternoon, and back to low tide again at 10:31 that night. Thirteen hours and five minutes of being still, while everything around her changes.
When it comes to the near and distant impacts in store from sea level rise brought on by the planet’s changing climate, Bay Area residents might be expected to know more than most. The bay’s distinctive shape is already being modified by creeping water levels. New efforts at shoreline protection are underway, but with an expected rise of six feet by the end of the century, the bay and San Francisco are destined to be different places no matter what.
How conscious we are of that fact remains a question. It’s one thing to know the figures and another to “feel the rise,” as Sunde puts it in her invitation to locals. For the New York–based theater director and interdisciplinary artist, the awesome movement of the daily tide shift acts as a visceral metaphor for larger cycles, and momentous changes afoot. Even those who choose to watch from the shore might grasp something of this larger theme, tucked into an ephemeral moment, merely by registering the bay’s embrace of a human tidal gauge.
That, anyway, is Sunde’s hope as she embarks on the third iteration of her 36.5 Water Project. The venture began last August in Maine, while Sunde was at an artist residency near Bass Harbor. But its roots go back a little further, to 2012 and Hurricane Sandy.
“When Hurricane Sandy hit New York,” she says, “it was the first time I truly, deeply understood that everything is temporary.” This despite being married to a water engineer from the Netherlands, whose first impression of New York City was tantamount to a liver specialist encountering Dean Martin. “And I didn’t believe him,” she admits. “Then [the hurricane] hit, and I understood. It changed the way I think about these things.” Sunde realized there was a real and dangerous deficit in long-term vision. “We know how to rally after a disaster but there’s no forward, future thinking.”
Sunde — whose theatrical work has largely revolved around her position as deputy artistic director of New York’s New Georges theater company, as well as her role as the foremost American translator and director of the famed contemporary Norwegian playwright Jon Fosse — was at that time also moving away from new play development toward her roots in more experimental, devised performance-making with a group of interdisciplinary collaborators collectively known as Lydian Junction. Its experiments, informed in part by the writing of Norwegian writer Knut Hamsun and by issues of sustainability in the arts, explore art’s relation to suffering and sacrifice.
“In Maine, I was thinking about all these things. I was thinking about New York sinking. I was thinking about art and sacrifice and suffering, sustainability. And I was on this bay, this tidal bay, where there is a ten-and-a-half foot tidal shift. That meant that it was a mudflat during low tide, and then during high tide it was a bay, a full-on bay of water. I had never seen the environment change so drastically with the tide before. I was watching this huge rock out in the bay get swallowed. There was something really beautiful about this.”
Suddenly, an image came to her director’s eye.
“I thought, I see a human being standing there up to the neck, and then the water going back down again. I thought, I have to do this. How can I create this spectacle? I thought about my collaborators and I thought, shit, they’re not going to do it; I guess I’m going to have to do it myself. I decided to do it three days later because it was my half birthday — I always try to do something that is related to my own tracking of time. I’m a little obsessed with time, the expansion, the contraction of it, the perception, all of it, the routine, the anti-routine. That’s why it’s called 36.5, because I turned 36 and a half that day.”
Since then, Sunde has developed some more thinking around the shape of her piece and its intentionally simple design. She plans to travel to six continents, drawn to places with some personal connection. (Having grown up in Palo Alto, Sunde has roots in the Bay Area that run especially deep.) Each iteration will involve specific local partnerships. Aptly enough, the after party for Friday’s performance takes place at the Long Now Foundation at nearby Fort Mason. And the number in the title ends up being significant in several ways: The average person needs 36.5 cubic meters of water a year; at the current rate of climate change, oceans could rise 36.5 inches by the century’s end; and ditching the decimal point leaves the number of days in a year. The connotations underscore the way the personal and universal remain deeply entwined here.
The invitation to the public to test the waters with her, meanwhile, adds a new wrinkle in this globetrotting project, granting space for direct participation in the experience. At the same time, it means the performance becomes a collective action, however peripheral or absurd it may appear on the surface. Small steps just might sound greater depths. *
36.5 WATER PROJECT
Fri/15, 9:26am-10:31pm, free
Aquatic Park
Hyde at Jefferson, SF
Boxing lessons
arts@sfbg.com
While still a child in early-’80s San Francisco, Boots Riley witnessed something he didn’t quite understand but that would stick with him for the rest of his life. Walking into a theater performance at the venerable Mission District art space Project Artaud, Riley saw actors in body paint writhing around him in apparent agony on all sides. It was meant as a simulation of the AIDS epidemic, with the actors portraying the afflicted. But it didn’t enlighten him much as a kid.
“It just scared the hell out of me,” Riley recalls. “You walk into this place, and it’s like a whole city, with people all around you.”
Given how Riley’s own work with long-running hip-hop group The Coup likewise mixes political activism with overwhelming performance energy, it’s fitting he would look back on this experience as the inspiration for The Coup’s new multimedia project, Shadowbox. Featuring the work of street artist Jon-Paul Bail, videographer David Szlasa, and a host of other bands and performers, Shadowbox casts the Coup’s music in the context of an all-encompassing artwork that attacks the audience from all sides. He’s debuting the project at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts on Aug. 16, but he hopes to eventually take it on the road to wherever an art establishment is willing to fund it.
Riley prefers to remain secretive about what the performance actually entails. He’s described it in the past as featuring puppets, drones and “Guantanamo Bay go-go dancers,” whatever those may be. To Riley, having the audience come in blind is key to maximizing the impact of the show.
“Some of the things that would make people probably want to come to the performance are things I don’t want to talk about before they happen,” Riley says.
What we do know is that it’ll feature multiple stages and a dizzying roster of collaborators, from socialist hip-hop militants Dead Prez to dream-pop duo Snow Angel, comedian W. Kamau Bell, chamber orchestra Classical Revolution, and the New Orleans-style second line unit Extra Action Marching Band. All of it will be encased by Bail’s black-and-white artwork, which will give the audience the impression of being in an actual “box of shadows.”
Bail, a Bay Area street artist perhaps best known as of late for his “Hella Occupy Oakland” poster, was one of Riley’s early heroes on the Bay Area art scene. The two met in the late ’80s amid a wave of neo-Nazi skinhead activity in the Bay Area, which the two of them helped fight to counter.
“When I was in high school I would hang out at Alameda Beach,” Riley recalls. “Back then Alameda was still a navy town and they didn’t like a lot of black folks coming around. Police rolled up to harass us, and the police insignia on the car was covered in a swastika. The first thing I thought was: ‘Who the fuck did that?'”
It turned out to be Bail, and the two artists quickly bonded, putting up anti-Nazi posters around the city. They’ve remained friends through the years, but they haven’t collaborated on a large-scale project until now.
“He was the first artist I ever met who was trying to do something more with art than just make art,” Riley says. “He had a collective at California College of the Arts at the time, which had the slogan — ‘no art for art’s sake.'”
The Yerba Buena Arts Center connected Riley and Bail with videographer (and Theater Artaud collaborator) David Szlasa, who helped design the video elements of the project. Together, they form Shadowbox’s core creative axis, responsible for the aesthetically overwhelming experience Riley hopes the project will be.
Though Shadowbox contains elements of both a gallery exhibition and a theatrical performance, Riley ultimately hopes that Shadowbox will feel more like a show than anything else, in line with the Coup’s high-octane concerts.
“A lot of the time when you’re doing something theatrical people just want to stand around,” Riley says. “But our shows have always been known to be a dance party, and we’re keeping the audience with us and not just watching us.”
The performers and artworks are intended to surround an audience, which will be able to move around and examine the exhibit at first. But as the room fills, Riley hopes the crowd will solidify and focus on the music. The musical element of Shadowbox will mostly consist of Coup songs, but each of the additional musical performers will play one of their own songs in addition to collaborating with the band.
The Coup didn’t write songs specifically for the performance, rather choosing to perform works culled from the band’s six-album, 20-plus-year catalog — including a few unreleased tracks and songs they don’t generally perform live. Though calling Shadowbox an augmented Coup concert would surely sell the event and its collaborators short, it seems as if all the key elements of a Coup show will be there: the songs, the audience-bludgeoning power, and especially the politics.
Though the title Shadowbox primarily refers to the effect Bail’s artwork creates on the performance space, Riley sees multiple meanings to the title. Shadowboxing is the practice in boxing of “fighting” an imaginary opponent to prepare for a match, and Riley sees parallels between this practice and the way in which the Coup “prepares” its listeners to fight real-life injustices. He’s aware political art can’t always change the world on its own, but it can inspire listeners to take action.
This gives rise to a third, even more poignant meaning to the title: that the social issues depicted in the work are only shadows of what’s really happening in the world, contained within the clearly defined “box” of the performance space.
“There are a lot of terrible things happening in the world that we’re talking about in the performance,” Riley said. “But the artwork is just a shadow of what’s really going on.”
THE COUP’S SHADOWBOX
Saturday, Aug. 16, 5 and 9pm, $25-$30
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
701 Mission, SF
(415)978-2700
Rep Clock: August 13 – 19, 2014
Schedules are for Wed/13-Tue/19 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features marked with a •. All times pm unless otherwise specified.
ANSWER COALITION 2969 24th St, SF; www.answersf.org. We Are the Palestinian People (CineNews, 1973), Wed, 7.
BALBOA 3630 Balboa, SF; cinemasf.com/balboa. $10. “Thursday Night Rock Docs:” Stop Making Sense (Demme, 1984), Thu, 7:30.
BERKELEY FELLOWSHIP OF UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISTS 1924 Cedar, Berk; www.bfuu.org. $5-10 (no one turned away for lack of funds). The Day After Trinity: Oppenheimer and the Atomic Bomb (Else, 1981), Thu, 7.
CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $8.50-11. •The Rover (Michod, 2013), Wed, 7, and A Boy and His Dog (Jones, 1975), Wed, 9. “Carax/Linklater:” •Mr. X: A Vision of Leos Carax (Louise-Salomé, 2014), Thu, 6; Boy Meets Girl (Carax, 1984), Thu, 7:25; and Before Sunrise (Linklater, 1995), Thu, 9:20. Triple feature, $12. •Mamma Mia! (Lloyd, 2008), Fri, 7, and Moulin Rouge! (Luhrmann, 2001), Fri, 9:10. “SF Sketchfest Summer Social:” The Muppet Movie (Frawley, 1979), Sat, 11am. With Dave Goelz (“Gonzo the Great” puppeteer and voice) in person. This event, $10. “SF Sketchfest Summer Social: The Benson Movie Interruption:” The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (Slade, 2010), Sat, 4:20. With comedian Doug Benson and friends. This event, $20. “SF Sketchfest Summer Social:” Office Space (Judge, 1999), Sat, 9. With Stephen Root (“Milton”) in person. This event, $12. “SF Sketchfest Summer Social:” Fred Armisen with special guest Ian Rubbish (Armisen’s English punk rock alter ego), Sun, 8. This event, $25. •The Lineup (Siegel, 1958), Sun, noon, and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Leone, 1966), Sun, 1:40. •Ida (Pawlikowski, 2013), Tue, 7, and Incendies (Villeneuve, 2010), Tue, 8:35.
COURTHOUSE SQUARE 2200 Broadway, Redwood City; www.redwoodcity.org. Free. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (Stiller, 2013), Thu, 8:45.
EXPLORATORIUM Pier 15, SF; www.exploratorium.edu. Free with museum admission ($19-25). “Saturday Cinema: Experimental Films for Kids with Canyon Cinema,” Sat, 1, 3.
JACK LONDON FERRY LAWN Clay and Water, Oakl; www.jacklondonsquare.com. Free. “Sing-along Cinema:” The Wizard of Oz (Fleming, 1939), Wed, sundown.
NEW PARKWAY 747 24th St, Oakl; http://thenewparkway.com. $10. “Best of CineKink 2014,” sexy narrative and documentary shorts, Thu, 9:15; Fri, 9:30.
PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Over the Top and Into the Wire: WWI on Film:” Gabriel Over the White House (La Cava, 1933), Wed, 7; Arsenal (Dovzhenko, 1929), Sun, 5. “Kenji Mizoguchi: A Cinema of Totality:” The Taira Clan Saga (1955), Thu, 7; Sansho the Bailiff (1954), Sun, 7. “Martin Scorsese Presents Masterpieces of Polish Cinema:” A Short Film About Killing (Kieslowski, 1987), Fri, 7. “Rude Awakening: American Comedy, 1990–2010:” Best in Show (Guest, 2000), Fri, 8:50. “The Brilliance of Satyajit Ray:” The Kingdom of Diamonds (1980), Sat, 6:15. “Derek Jarman, Visionary:” The Tempest (1979), Sat, 8:35.
ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-11. “Arab Film Festival’s Summer Screening:” Mars at Sunrise (Habie, 2014), Wed, 7. Video release party for “We’re Here” by Future Twin, Wed, 9:30. Heli (Escalante, 2013), Wed-Thu, 7, 9:15. “Frameline Encore:” Valentine Road (Cunningham, 2013), Thu, 7 (free screening). Venus in Fur (Polanski, 2014), Thu, 9:30. Kink (Voros, 2013), Aug 15-21, 7, 8:30 (check website for Sat-Sun matinee times). Mi Casa No Es Su Casa (Yu and Jensen), Sat, 7. Slamdance presents: I Play With the Phrase Each Other (Alvarez, 2014), Tue, 7.
SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-$10.75. “Monty Python Live (Mostly),” recorded at London’s O2 Arena, Thu, 7. This screening, $18. Horses of God (Ayouch, 2013), Wed, call for times. Alive Inside (Rossato-Bennett, 2014), Aug 15-21, call for times. “Alec Guinness at 100:” Kind Hearts and Coronets (Hamer, 1949), Sun, 4:30, 7.
YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. $8-10. “The Exploitation of William Lustig:” •Maniac: Unrated Director’s Cut (1980), Fri, 7; Vigilante (1983), Fri, 9; Hit List (1989), Fri, 10:45. “Maniac Cop Trilogy:” Maniac Cop (1988), Sat, 7; Maniac Cop 2 (1990), Sat, 9; and Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence (1993), Sat, 10:45. With Lustig in person.*
Psychic Dream Astrology: August 13 – 19, 2014
August 13-19, 2014
ARIES
March 21-April 19
You don’t have to be fearless and perfectly confident about what you’re doing and how, Aries. All you need to have is a willingness to get in the ring and fight/create/play for all you’re worth. Once you make a decision this week, it’s important that you move forward and don’t look back.
TAURUS
April 20-May 20
If you don’t have a plan now’s the time to make one, Taurus. Your energy should carry you through the growth spurt that Jupiter in Leo is trying to shove your way, but know this; you must know yourself in order to make the most of your opportunities. Be equal parts patient and daring this week.
GEMINI
May 21-June 21
You’re absolutely doing it, Gemini! You are moving through intense emotional terrain and have tons of celestial support to help you on your way, but you must stay in motion. Stay creative in your thinking and courageous of heart this week. Whatever it is that you are trying to achieve is well on its way.
CANCER
June 22-July 22
You can be surrounded by any amount of love, but if you’re not open to receiving it, it won’t permeate. This week is all about checking in with what you’re open to, and therefore calling in, Moonchild. There are no easy answers, but that doesn’t mean that solutions aren’t there for you.
LEO
July 23-Aug. 22
So much is changing in your world that the only thing you can really hold on to is you. Solidify your relationship with your sweet self this week, Leo. You are not in control but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a larger plan in the works. Don’t get in the way of the Universe in your drive to make your life a success.
VIRGO
Aug. 23-Sept. 22
When major change is brewing it’s not time to make things stable. You are changing in deep ways and it’s better to go with the flow than to stop, drop, and cover. Stay true to your self as you make adjustments (both internal and external) this week. You can’t damn the forces of change and you shouldn’t even try.
LIBRA
Sept. 23-Oct. 22
You’re doing a great job for someone who has no clue what they’re doing, Libra! Keep on following your gut instincts and leaning on the people you trust, because it’s totally working. Whether it seems this way or not, you’re building atop foundations you’ve been long at work on. Don’t let fear slow you down.
SCORPIO
Oct. 23-Nov. 21
Refocus away from results and think more about the process this week. You don’t have to have it all figured out, so pace yourself, Scorpio. You are capable but if you allow yourself to get distracted by the wrong things it can have disastrous effects. Stay in alignment of your purpose, pal.
SAGITTARIUS
Nov. 22-Dec. 21
You’re lucky, but how long will your good fortune last? I’m not necessarily suggesting that you’re going to have a twist of fate, but only that you be prepared for one. Live in a way that makes you happy but also prepare for rainy days, too. Use an ounce of prevention with your spoonful of sugar this week, Sag.
CAPRICORN
Dec. 22-Jan. 19
The thing about risk is that you can’t know how it’ll turn out for you in advance. Approach the chances you’re willing to take and the changes you want in a grounded way this week. You may be on the right track, but that doesn’t mean you have proof of that just yet. Collect data to back up your ideas.
AQUARIUS
Jan. 20-Feb. 18
It’s hard to trust yourself when your brilliant ideas refuse to fall in line with how you feel (or visa versa). Develop emotional boundaries based on how you feel, not how you think you should feel. You can only be free from what is if you accept it, Aquarius. Nurture your heart based on the honest truth of where you’re at.
PISCES
Feb. 19-March 20
The line between being selfish and acting with grounded self-preservation can be a fuzzy one. You gotta crack a few eggs to make an omelet, my friend; sometimes when you take proper care of yourself you end up hurting or disappointing others. Do what’s right, not what’s nice.
Want more in-depth, intuitive or astrological advice from Jessica? Schedule a one-on-one reading that can be done in person or by phone. Visit www.lovelanyadoo.com
Theater Listings:August 13 – 19, 2014
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
Killing My Lobster Goes Radio Active Z Below, 470 Florida, SF; www.killingmylobster.com. $10-20. Opens Wed/13, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 23. Killing My Lobster performs a live radio comedy.
Motown the Musical Orpheum Theatre, 1192 Market, SF; www.shnsf.com. $45-210. Opens Fri/15, 8pm. Runs Tue-Sat, 8pm (also Wed and Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm (also Sun/17, 7:30pm). Through Sept 28. Over 40 hits (“My Girl,” “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”) pack this tale of Motown founder Barry Gordy’s career in the music biz.
BAY AREA
Fetch Clay, Make Man Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; www.marintheatre.org. $35-58. Previews Thu/14-Sat/16, 8pm; Sun/17, 7pm. Opens Tue/19, 8pm. Runs Tue-Sat, 8pm; Wed, 7:30pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Sept 7. Marin Theatre Company performs the West Coast premiere of Will Power’s historical drama.
An Ideal Husband Forest Meadows Amphitheater, 890 Belle, Dominican University of California, San Rafael; www.marinshakespeare.org. $12-35. Previews Fri/15 and Sun/17, 8pm. Runs in repertory Fri-Sun through Sept 27; visit website for specific performance dates and times. Marin Shakespeare Company performs Oscar Wilde’s witty tale.
Moonlight and Magnolias Dragon Theatre, 2120 Broadway, Redwood City; www.dragonproductions.net. $10-30. Previews Thu/14, 8pm. Opens Fri/15, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Sept 7. Dragon Productions presents Ron Hutchinson’s behind-the-scenes drama about the filming of Gone With the Wind.
ONGOING
Each and Every Thing Marsh San Francisco Main Stage, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm (starting Sept 6, Sat shows at 5); Sun, 2pm. Extended through Oct 4. The latest solo show from celebrated writer-performer Dan Hoyle (Tings Dey Happen, The Real Americans) winds a more random course than usual across the country and abroad but then that’s the idea — or at least Hoyle warns us, right after an opening encounter with a touchy young white supremacist, that the trip he’s taking us on is a subtle one. Displaying again his exceptional gifts as a writer and protean performer, Hoyle deftly embodies a set of real-life encounters as a means of exploring the primacy and predicament of face-to-face communication in the age of Facebook. With the help of director Charlie Varon (who co-developed the piece with Hoyle and Maureen Towey), this comes across in an entertaining and swift-flowing 75-minute act that includes a witty rap about “phone zombies” and a Dylan-esque screed at a digital detox center. But the purported subject of connection, or lack there of, in our gadget-bound and atomized society is neither very original nor very deeply explored — nor is it necessarily very provocative in a theater, before an audience already primed for the live encounter. Far more interesting and central here is Hoyle’s relationship with his old college buddy Pratim, an Indian American in post-9/11 America whose words are filled with laid-back wisdom and wry humor. Also intriguing is the passing glimpse of early family life in the Hoyle household with Dan’s celebrated artist father, and working-class socialist, Geoff Hoyle. These relationships, rather than the sketches of strangers (albeit very graceful ones), seem the worthier subjects to mine for truth and meaning. Indeed, there’s a line spoken by Pratim that could sum up the essence of Hoyle’s particular art: “It’s so much better,” he says, “when you find yourself in other people than when you just find yourself.” Hoyle’s real frontier could end up being much more personal terrain, much closer to home. (Avila)
Foodies! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.foodiesthemusical.com. $32-34. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. AWAT Productions presents Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue all about food.
From Red to Black ACT Costume Shop, 1119 Market, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $7.50-20. Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 30. San Francisco Playhouse performs Rhett Rossi’s detective drama as part of its Sandbox Series.
The Habit of Art Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.therhino.org. $15-25. Wed-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm). Through Aug 23. Theatre Rhinoceros presents the return engagement of Alan Bennett’s “very British comedy” about a meeting between Benjamin Britten, W.H. Auden, and other figures from throughout time, including their future biographer.
Into the Woods San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $20-120. Tue-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm); Sun, 2pm. Through Sept 6. SF Playhouse performs Stephen Sondheim’s fractured fairy-tale musical.
Millicent Scowlworthy Thick House Theatre, 1695 18th St, SF; www.99stockproductions.org. $20. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 30. 99 Stock Productions presents Rob Handel’s spooky tale that cautions against burying tragic events in the past.
Noises Off! Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sheltontheater.org. $38. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Oct 25. Shelton Theater performs Michael Frayn’s outrageous backstage comedy.
O Best Beloved This week: Precita Park, 3200 Folsom, SF; www.obestbeloved.org. Sat/16, 2pm. Free (donations accepted). Also Sun/17, 5pm, Centennial Park, 5353 Sunol, Pleasanton. Through Sept 13 at various NorCal venues. Idiot String’s Joan Howard and Rebecca Longworth bring their SF Fringe Festival hit, an adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s Just-So Stories, to local public spaces aboard a mobile stage.
Patterns Dennis Gallagher Arts Pavilion (in the French American International High School), 66 Page, SF; www.thenewstage.com. $30. Wed/13-Sat/16, 8pm. The New Stage’s premiere of company founder Amy Munz’s solo work is one of the more intelligent and sophisticated debuts (by both a new company and a young artist) in recent memory. It’s an ambitious and notably subtle, serious, unsentimental exploration of love, in which a dynamic Munz — on a wide bare stage bounded on three sides by her own wonderfully evocative three-channel video-scape — plays several characters, and three in particular: Amot, Abigail, and Ava, whose stories are slyly interwoven. Amot, the principal focus across two discrete acts, is a young woman raised by her widowed father in his butcher shop, who later falls in love with a young man. But her story, like that of the other young women, comes to us in a form more like the stream of consciousness, fractured and expansive in the disjuncture and interplay between Munz’s ardently committed performance and the shrewd audio and visual environment surrounding the audience — a manufactured landscape of memory, desire, and role-playing in which to some extent the audience is free to find its own way and discover its own truths. Part two further integrates the voices of the other young women, Abigail and Ava, forming a mesh of narratives and associations stimulating in their intellectual, visual, and aural juxtapositions. This is a work that demands a kind of letting go, but also invites full participation of the viewer’s imagination, as the rich mise-en-scène and Munz’s intense, unflinching performance unfold with unexpected abundance. (Avila)
Pleiades Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason, Sixth Flr, SF; http://pleiadessf.wordpress.com. $20-25. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 30. Marissa Skudlarek’s world premiere reimagines the Greek myth of the seven Pleiades sisters as a story about Baby Boomers in their youth.
The Ripple Effect This week: Glen Park, Bosworth and O’Shaughnessy, SF; www.sfmt.org. Free (donations accepted). Sat/16, 2pm. Also Sun/17, 2pm, Washington Square Park, Columbus at Union, SF. Through Sept 1 at various NorCal venues. The veteran San Francisco Mime Troupe stays current by skewering San Francisco’s ever-dividing economy; think rising rents, tech-bus protests, and (natch) Glassholes.
The Scion Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org.$30-100. Sat, 5pm. Through Aug 23. Brian Copeland’s hit solo show, “a tale of privilege, murder, and sausage,” returns to the Marsh.
Shit & Champagne Rebel, 1772 Market, SF; shitandchampagne.eventbrite.com. $25. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. D’Arcy Drollinger is Champagne White, bodacious blond innocent with a wicked left hook in this cross-dressing ’70s-style white-sploitation flick, played out live on Rebel’s intimate but action-packed barroom stage. Written by Drollinger and co-directed with Laurie Bushman (with high-flying choreography by John Paolillo, Drollinger, and Matthew Martin), this high-octane camp send-up of a favored formula comes dependably stocked with stock characters and delightfully protracted by a convoluted plot (involving, among other things, a certain street drug that’s triggered an epidemic of poopy pants) — all of it played to the hilt by an excellent cast that includes Martin as Dixie Stampede, an evil corporate dominatrix at the head of some sinister front for world domination called Mal*Wart; Alex Brown as Detective Jack Hammer, rough-hewn cop on the case and ambivalent love interest; Rotimi Agbabiaka as Sergio, gay Puerto Rican impresario and confidante; Steven Lemay as Brandy, high-end calf model and Champagne’s (much) beloved roommate; and Nancy French as Rod, Champagne’s doomed fiancé. Sprawling often literally across two buxom acts, the show maintains admirable consistency: The energy never flags and the brow stays decidedly low. (Avila)
Show Down! Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.thunderbirdtheatre.com. $15-25. Thu/14-Sat/16, 8pm. Thunderbird Theatre performs an original comedy, set amid a war against technology at the last all-live TV station left in the United States.
Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind Boxcar Theatre, 505 Natoma, SF; www.sfneofuturists.com. $11-16. Fri-Sat, 9pm. Ongoing. The Neo-Futurists perform Greg Allen’s spontaneous, ever-changing show that crams 30 plays into 60 minutes.
BAY AREA
Catch Me If You Can Woodminster Amphitheater, Joaquin Miller Park, 3300 Joaquin Miller, Oakl; www.woodminster.com. $18-59. Thu/14-Sun/17, 8pm. Woodminster Summer Musicals presents the musical based on the film about notorious con artist Frank Abagnale, Jr.
Cops and Robbers Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allison, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $20-100. Previews Fri/15, 8pm. Opens Sat/16, 8pm. Runs Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Through Sept 13. Hip-hop artist and law enforcement officer Jinho “The Piper” Ferreira performs his 17-character solo show.
Dracula Inquest Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berk; www.centralworks.org. $15-28. Thu/14-Sat/16, 8pm; Sun/17, 5pm. Central Works performs Gary Graves’ mystery inspired by the Bram Stoker vampire classic.
Old Money Barn Theatre, 30 Sir Francis Drake, Ross; www.rossvalleyplayers.com. $10-26. Thu/14, 7:30pm; Fri/15-Sat/16, 8pm; Sun/17, 2pm. Ross Valley Players performs Wendy Wasserstein’s New York City-set comedy.
Romeo and Juliet Forest Meadows Amphitheater, 890 Belle, Dominican University of California, San Rafael; www.marinshakespeare.org. $12-35. Runs in repertory Fri-Sun through Sept 28; visit website for specific performance dates and times. Marin Shakespeare continues its 25th season with the Bard’s timeless tragedy.
Semi-Famous: Hollywood Hell Tales from the Middle Marsh Berkeley Main Stage, 2120 Allison, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $20-100. Sat, 5pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Sept 7. Don Reed’s new solo show shares tales from his career in entertainment.
The Taming of the Shrew Sequoia High School grounds, 1201 Brewster, Redwood City; www.sfshakes.org. Free. Sat, 7:30pm; Sun, 4pm. This location and schedule through Aug 24. Continues through Sept 21 at various Bay Area venues. Free Shakespeare in the Park presents this take on the Bard’s barb-filled romance.
“TheatreWorks New Works Festival” Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; www.theatreworks.org. $19. Wed/13-Sun/17, 8pm (also Sat/16-Sun/17, noon and 4pm) . TheatreWorks presents this festival of staged readings of in-development plays and musicals.
12th Night Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-35. Wed/13-Thu/14, 7pm; Fri/15-Sat/16, 8pm; Sun/17, 5pm. Shotgun Players take a fresh approach to the Shakespeare classic, using folk music and other twists.
PERFORMANCE/DANCE
Yayne Abeba Punch Line Comedy Club, 444 Battery, SF; www.punchlinecomedyclub.com. Tue/19, 8pm. $15. The comedian performs with guests Ronn Vigh, Kaseem Bentley, and Yuri Kagan.
“BATS Summer Improv Festival” Bayfront Theater, B350 Fort Mason, SF; www.improv.org. Through Sept 20. $20. This week: “Spontaneous Broadway,” Fri/15, 8pm; “SF vs LA Theatresports,” Sat/16, 8pm.
Caroline Lugo and Carolé Acuña’s Ballet Flamenco Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; www.carolinalugo.com. Aug 24, 30, Sept 6, 13, 21, 28, Oct 4, 11, 18, 26, 6:30pm. $15-19. Flamenco performance by the mother-daughter dance company, featuring live musicians.
“Dash: Improv in a Flash” Un-Scripted Theater Company, 533 Sutter, Second Flr, SF; www.un-scripted.com. Sat, 10pm. Through Aug 30. $15. A late-night, free-form improv show with Un-Scripted Theater Company.
“Decades Apart: Reflections of Three Gay Men” Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.theexit.org. Thu/14-Sat/16, 8pm. $25. Gay men living in 1970s SF, 1980s NYC, and 1990s LA are the characters in Rick Pulos’ multimedia solo performance piece.
“Desi Comedy Fest” Cobb’s Comedy Club, 915 Columbus, SF; www.desicomedyfest.com. Wed/13, 8pm. $15. Also Thu/14, 8pm, Washington Inn, 495 10th St, Oakl; Fri/15, 8pm, Sunnyvale Community Center Theater, 550 E. Remington, Sunnyvale; and Sat/16, 8pm, Vito’s Express, 4060 Grafton, Dublin. Showcase of South Asian comedians, including Abhay Nadkarni, Samson Koletkar, Dhaya Lakshminarayanan, Imran G, and more.
“Dream Queens Revue” Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, 133 Turk, SF; www.dreamqueensrevue.com. Wed/13, 9:30pm. Free. Drag with Collette LeGrande, Ruby Slippers, Sophilya Leggz, Bobby Ashton, and more.
Feinstein’s at the Nikko 222 Mason, SF; www.feinsteinssf.com. This week: “Broadway Bingo,” Wed/13, 7pm. “I Heart the ’80s,” nostalgic tunes from Michael Jackson, Cyndi Lauper, and others, starring Tony Vincent and Jessica Phillips, Thu/14-Fri/15, 8pm; Sat/16-Sun/17, 7pm, $35-50.
Justin Harrison, Kabir Singh, Chunk 99.7, Josh Waldron FAME Venue, 443 Broadway, SF; http://famevenue.com. Fri/15, 8pm. $20-35. Stand-up comedy showcase.
“Love and Laughter” Society Cabaret, Hotel Rex, 562 Sutter, SF; http://darlenepopovic.com. Fri/15-Sat/16, 8pm. $25-45. Cabaret chanteuse Darlene Popovic performs her latest show.
“Magic at the Rex” Hotel Rex, 562 Sutter, SF; www.magicattherex.com. Sat, 8pm. Ongoing. $25. Magic and mystery with Adam Sachs and mentalist Sebastian Boswell III.
“Merola Grand Finale” War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness, SF; www.merola.org. Sat/16, 7:30pm. $25-45. The Merola Opera Program’s Summer Festival concludes with this concert of works by Mozart, Handel, Strauss, and others.
“Music Moves Festival” ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; www.odctheater.org. Through Aug 24, most performances at 8pm. $25-45. Diverse performances celebrating the relationship between music and dance, with Bandelion, Kate Weare Company, San Jose Taiko, and more.
“Out of Line Improv” Stage Werx, 446 Valencia, SF; outoflineimprov.brownpapertickets.com. Sat, 10:30pm. Ongoing. $12. A new, completely improvised show every week.
“Outrageous Adult Sing-Along Show” Martuni’s, 4 Valencia, SF; (415) 241-0205. Sat/16, 7pm; Sun/17, 4pm. $20. Sing show tunes, TV themes, mash-ups, and more with host Matt Yee.
“People in Plazas” Various locations, SF; www.peopleinplazas.org. Through Oct 3. Free. Lunchtime concerts in various downtown locations showcasing jazz, world, funk, and other styles of music.
“The Pirates of Penzance” Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard, SF; www.lamplighters.org. Thu/14-Sat/16, 8pm (also Sat/16, 2pm); Sun/17, 2pm. $20-59. Also Aug 23-24, 2pm (also Aug 23, 8pm), Bankhead Theatre, 2400 First St, Livermore. Lamplighters Music Theatre performs the Gilbert & Sullivan classic.
“San Francisco Comedy College” Purple Onion at Kells, 530 Jackson, SF; www.purpleonionatkells.com. Ongoing. $5-15. “New Talent Show,” Wed-Thu, 7; “Purple Onion All-Stars,” Wed-Thu, 8:15; “The Later Show,” Wed-Thu, 10. Check website for Fri-Sat shows and schedule updates.
“San Francisco Drag King Contest” SOMArts Cultural Center, 934 Brannan, SF; www.sfdragkingcontest.com. Sat/16, 9pm. $25. Drag kings compete at this 19th annual “studliest competition in the world,” co-hosted by Sister Roma and Fudgie Frottage. Proceeds benefit PAWS — Pets Are Wonderful Support.
San Francisco Son Jarocho Festival Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th St, SF; www.brava.org. Sat/16, 7:30pm. $20-25. Folkloric music from Southern Mexico with Joel Cruz Castellanos y Sonos de Tuxtlas and others. Visit website for additional concerts and workshops.
“Terminator Too: Judgment Play” and “Point Break LIVE!” DNA Lounge, 375 11th St, SF; www.dnalounge.com. Sept 5, Oct 3, Nov 7, and Dec 5, Terminator at 7:30pm; Break at 11pm. $20-50. The raucous, interactive staged recreations of two of 1991’s greatest action films return to the DNA Lounge.
“Till Death Do Us Party” DNA Lounge, 375 11th St, SF; www.dnalounge.com. Tue/19, 9pm. $22.50-40. RuPaul’s Drag Race star Adore Delano performs with her live band.
“Trapeze 13: Double-Bubble Bottom-Rockin’ Anniversary” Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, SF; www.rickshawstop.com. Fri/15, 9pm. $15-20. Celebrate this “equal parts Weimar cabaret and wild speakeasy rave” with live music, burlesque performances, and more.
“Yerba Buena Gardens Festival” Yerba Buena Gardens, 760 Howard, SF; www.ybgfestival.org. Through Oct 26. Free. This week: Encuentro de Jaraneros, Thu/14, 12:30pm; “The Unique Derique,” hip clowning, Thu/15, 11am and 12:15pm; Jerry González and the Fort Apache Band, Sat/16, 1pm; “Brazil in the Gardens” with Paula Santoro, Sun/17, 1pm; “Poetic Tuesday,” Tue/19, 12:30pm.
BAY AREA
“Knights of Revery” Flight Deck, 1540 Broadway, Oakl; www.eventbrite.com/e/knights-of-revery-laughter-dreams-august-8-9-10-15-16-tickets-12259096287. Fri//15-Sat/16, 8pm. $20. Variety show starring Sir Psycho and Sir Pomp, who “travel with you between the realms of the conscious and unconscious, between fact and fiction, between here and now, between our creamy peanut butter and your smooth jelly.”
“MarshJam Improv Comedy Show” Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. Fri, 8pm. Ongoing. $10. Improv comedy with local legends and drop-in guests. *
Scruff love
marke@sfbg.com
SUPER EGO Extended DJ sets aren’t so rare in our burg — beloved Garth of Wicked has been throwing his occasional, self-helmed, seven-hour-plus All Night Long parties, and visitors like the almighty Steffi of Berlin or the UK’s Lee Burridge like to go it alone for six hours or more. Even though “taking the dance floor on a cosmic journey” has become a press-release cliché (which DJ would admit she merely drops you off at the mall?), as access to more releases and mixing tools has grown, marathon sets have acquired the aura of necessary artistic statements — and the good ones really do get you a few yards closer to the stars.
Others can veer into endurance test territory, alas, especially if the mixmaster is more interested in imprinting a certain personal “sound” on the crowd, rather than letting dance music in all its wild variety lead the way. Manchester’s incredible Mr. Scruff has been dropping gigantic, all-vinyl sets for 20 years now, and is as famous for his global vinyl-hunting skills as his own releases on the storied Ninja Tune label. (He’s the dude who seems to know the geek behind pretty much every record store counter in the world.)
Scruff’s ear is a various as they come: He got into music via his dad’s ska collection — Prince Buster was an early touchstone — and quickly moved on to gobbling up every other genre imaginable, from Cuban music to Detroit house. And even though it’s also become a cliché to praise a DJ’s unpredictable playlist, Scruff rides that unpredictability to its extreme. “I used to have stuff I just played at home, but from playing gigs over the years you start to realize that if it’s loud and it’s in a club then it’s club music — even if it’s just a guitar and vocal,” he recently told Mixmag. When Scruff is seamlessly dropping 15-minute Afrobeat jams, rare 1988 Chicago jack tracks, Jamaican gems, or Brazilian baile funk, it’s his sheer love of actually listening to records that moves people to the floor.
In honor of his two decades behind the decks — and the recent release of roots-y, stripped-down Friendly Bacteria album — Scruff’s embarked on a US tour, during which he’ll be spinning six-hour sets, and rebuilding DJ booths along the way for maximum sonic fidelity. I chatted with him by email before he takes over Public Works, Sat/16.
SFBG How large would you estimate your vinyl collection to be? And how on earth do you haul six hours’ worth of music around on tour?
MR. SCRUFF I have two rooms full of vinyl, so probably around 20,000 records. My collection has stayed that size for the last 10 years, so a lot of records have to leave the house in order to make room for more. I always bring two boxes of vinyl — plus some CDs as well.
SFBG A big part of this tour is how you’ll be “rebuilding DJ booths” along the way. Can you tell me how you’ll be setting up things for sets of this length? Are there any little rituals you perform before you launch into things?
MS We do a lot of research in advance, by looking at the venue specs and photographs, so that we can liaise with the venue techs before the show. That way, we don’t get any surprises on the day, and any equipment that we require is already there. I bring some kit (mixer, hi-fi preamps, five-band isolator, delay unit, parametric EQ, cables, stylii, foam, squash balls, etc.), and we spend a couple of hours setting up the DJ table, and then do a soundcheck. Some venues — Public Works looks like one of them — have systems that are set up very well, others may need a little work, perhaps some additional front fills, speaker alignment, crossover-EQ adjustment etc. After set up, we always go for a good meal before the gig. As for during the set, the energy and people in the venue keep me going!
SFBG Do you tailor your sets to fit specific settings?
MS I don’t plan any sets, as I find it much more rewarding to interact musically with the surroundings and people in the venue. I do always try and play a little local music. The good thing about playing all night is that you can really relax and get into it, without worrying about time.
SFBG In an time of more maximalist dance music releases, Friendly Bacteria was a nice refreshing, laidback stepper. What were some of your intentions making the album, and how do you see yourself fitting into the current dance music landscape?
MS The main intention was to work with some of the musicians that I have had on my list for a while. Denis Jones (singer) and Matthew Halsall (trumpeter) are both good friends, and made a massive contribution to the overall feel of the album. I suppose that when you start work on an album, it slowly takes shape, in a similar way to carving a wooden sculpture. I have no idea where I fit in, but am completely happy with that!
SFBG How’s Manchester these days? Do you play out there a lot? Any current up-and-comers who have your attention?
MS Manchester is great, there are so many people creating great music, and it is a very inspiring place to live. I play there once a month, and probably go out every other month to a club night or gig. The last gig I saw was the Theo Parrish live band. Talent-wise, Werkha, Honeyfeet, and the Mouse Outfit are currently rocking my boat.
MR. SCRUFF SIX-HOUR DJ SET Sat/16, 9pm-3am, $20. Public Works, 161 Erie, SF. www.publicsf.com
HEARTTHROB
Berliner-Michigander Jesse Siminski isn’t afraid to pull out “jacking Latin weird acid tracks” or deep ravey vibes. He’ll be at the great Housepitality party with Krikor, aka Crackboy, a French wiz who tempers old school Chicago house sounds with industrial touches and abstract detours.
Wed/13, 9pm, free before 11pm with RSVP at www.housepitalitysf.com/rsvp, otherwise $5-$10. F8, 1192 Folsom, SF.
COYU
This too-cute Spanish DJ may have become synonymous with the viral cat vids he’s been broadcasting lately, but his output — which ranges from Ibiza-intense to breezy wistfulness — continues to scratch through the cuddly gimmickry.
Thu/14, 9pm-3am, $10-$15. Monarch, 101 Sixth St, SF. www.monarchsf.com
SANDMAN BALL
A goth and dreampop Neil Gaiman tribute night extravaganza, featuring original artwork and projections inspired by the comics master, fashion booths, and a costume contest? Count me in, sweet Morpheus.
Fri/15, 9:30pm-2:30am, $5-$8. Cat Club, 1190 Folsom, SF. www.sfcatclub.com
ODYSSEY
One of SF’s loveliest, freakiest house parties returns after a short break. DJ Guy Ruben helms this time around, with co-captains Robin Malone Simmons and Elaine Dunham cresting the waves of love.
Sat/16, 9pm-3am, $5. The Stud, 399 Harrison, SF. www.odysseysf.com
SF DRAG KING CONTEST
For sheer only-in-SF kooky-fabulousness — that also happens to include a very high standard of entertainment — you can’t beat this macho-fied, and sometimes macho-fried, institution, now in its 19th year. Fudgie Frottage and Sister Roma host a spectacular array of questionably applied facial hair — this year with a space alien theme, because of course.
Sat/16, 8pm, $20. SOMArts, 934 Brannan, SF. www.sfdragkingcontest.com
SUNSET BOAT PARTY
The dark and delirious sounds of headliner Ivan Smagghe will float you across the bay at this annual favorite from the Sunset crew. Feeling seasick (or too broke for $55 tickets)? There’s always an afterparty once the crew’s cruise docks, this time around at Monarch, starting at 10pm.
Sun/17, 5pm-11pm, $55 advance. Pier 3, Hornblower landing, SF. www.facebook.com/sunsetsoundsystem
Cubicle cult
arts@sfbg.com
FILM For anybody who has ever had to put up with a creepy boss, annoying co-workers, or a soul-sucking work environment — and that is most likely all of us, at some point in our lives — Mike Judge’s 1999 comedy Office Space has become a supremely entertaining and highly relatable touchstone for its razor-sharp take on office politics and corporate culture.
Written and directed by Judge, who also created Beavis and Butthead and King of the Hill, along with the recent HBO show Silicon Valley, the movie has gone on to become a cult classic, with a variety of quotable lines (“Yeah, I’m gonna need you to go ahead and come in tomorrow … that would be great”) and cultural references (do you have the requisite pieces of flair?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IwzZYRejZQ
Office Space fans are in for a treat this weekend when SF Sketchfest presents a special 15th anniversary screening in 35mm at the Castro Theatre, with actor Stephen Root — who plays the stapler-obsessed Milton — in person for the festivities.
“I don’t think there’s a set that I go on where some part of the crew doesn’t have something for me to sign from Office Space — it’s its own little animal, much like Rocky Horror was in its day,” says Root.
“For me it’s a constant amazement that it continues to get a new audience; people who weren’t born [when it came out] get it, people who enter the work force get it, and it keeps a life of its own. It’s about the interplay of the people in the office. That’s universal.”
While Root has fond memories of working on the film, he says that bringing the mumbling, mistreated, and bespectacled Milton to life did present some challenges, particularly when it came to wearing the character’s signature glasses.
“They were a nightmare!”, he remembers. “They were about a half an inch thick at least, and I had to wear contact lenses behind those glasses to be able to see at all. I didn’t have any depth perception whatsoever, so whenever I had to reach for something during a scene I had to practice it because I couldn’t tell where it was — just reaching for the stapler and putting it to my chest, I had to practice that, because I could have reached out and missed it by five inches.”
That stapler, the red Swingline that Milton prizes (and loses), has gone on to become a pop culture icon of its own — a fact that still makes Root laugh.
“There was no red Swingline stapler [when the film was made]. I have one of the props, and Mike [Judge] has another one. Who knew it would start a cottage industry for staplers? I see them every week — people want me to sign them. It is what it is, it’s crazy, but it’s great, and it makes me smile.”
While he has appeared in many other films and television shows (including NewsRadio, King of the Hill, and Boardwalk Empire) since Office Space, Root admits that he’s recognized as Milton most of the time — and that’s fine with him.
“I always tell everybody, my obituary will be ‘Milton’s dead!'” Root laughs. “And I’m okay with that!” 2
OFFICE SPACE 15TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION
Sat/16, 9pm, $12
Castro Theatre
429 Castro, SF
Beyond the force
cheryl@sfbg.com
FILM In the 14 years since Sir Alec Guinness’ death, his fame has only grown, thanks to the enduring cult of the biggest hit of his long career — a film he famously dubbed “fairy-tale rubbish.” Star Wars (1977) made the stage-trained thespian a very rich man. It also meant that he was forever branded as Obi-Wan Kenobi in the minds of every moviegoer born in the post-lightsaber era.
Star Wars is notably absent from “Alex Guinness at 100,” a slate of digital restorations (and one archival print) screening at the Smith Rafael Film Center — just down the road from George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch, as it happens. The series does include the actor’s two Best Picture-winning collaborations with director David Lean: 1962’s Lawrence of Arabia, in which a heavily eyeliner’d Guinness plays a supporting role; and 1957’s The Bridge on the River Kwai, for which he won Best Actor. These films are, obviously, glorious and best seen projected onto a theatrical screen, particularly when they’re being offered in sparkling 4K resolution. So if you haven’t seen either, this is a great opportunity. But the real attractions of “Alex Guinness at 100” are its lesser-seen selections, including several post-war comedy classics made at London’s venerable Ealing Studios.
The earliest among them (and the first film in the series, which begins Sun/17) is Robert Hamer’s Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), made a year after Guinness’ turn as Fagin in Lean’s adaptation of Oliver Twist. Technically, he’s not the star of Hearts — that’d be Dennis Price as Louis Mazzini, whose deeply involved and darkly hilarious explanation of how he became a serial killer unfolds from his elegantly appointed prison cell, where he’s penning his memoirs the night before his execution. Born to a poor father and a mother disowned by her aristocratic family, Louis learns he’s eighth in line to be the next Duke of Chalfont. Spurred on by a number of factors (revenge for his mother’s treatment by her snooty family; his longing for a pretty childhood friend, played by the husky-voiced Joan Greenwood, who won’t take him seriously as suitor while he’s toiling as a sales clerk), he decides to start takin’ down the D’Ascoyne family, one branch of the tree at a time.
Hearts‘ most enchanting gag is that all of the D’Ascoynes are portrayed by Guinness, who dons wigs, facial hair, costumes, and even drag, but has such a way with characters that he barely requires the enhancements. Some of the heirs are more odious than others, and some of them conveniently pass away before their number comes up, but Louis’ victims all meet ghastly-yet-posh ends, like a plunging hot-air balloon (thanks to a carefully-aimed arrow) and an exploding jar of caviar. Throughout, the script is full of zingers (“My principles would not allow me to take a direct part in blood sports,” insists the bloodthirsty killer before a hunting excursion), an escalating parade of hats (worn by Greenwood’s conniving character), and the thrill of wondering in which guise Guinness will pop up next. In 2013, a Broadway musical based on the same source novel — Ron Horniman’s Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal, retitled A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder for the stage — won a Tony for Best Musical.
Guinness moved to the forefront for Charles Crichton’s 1951 caper The Lavender Hill Mob, which netted him his first Oscar nomination (T.E.B. Clark’s script won for Original Screenplay). He’s bank worker Henry Holland, who oversees the delivery of gold bars from foundry to vault — and has been cultivating a persnickety, detail-obsessed persona for 20 years, biding his time until he can pull off the ultimate heist. Enter new lodging-house neighbor Alfred Pendlebury (Stanley Holloway), who’s in the souvenir-trinket trade (“I propagate British cultural depravity!”, he says proudly), and has access to a foundry of his own. The first-time crooks round out their gang with two career criminals, and the conspiracy creaks into motion only to hit a major snafu in the form of one wayward, solid gold miniature Eiffel Tower. Keep your peepers primed for a pre-fame Audrey Hepburn (bangs already on point), who pops up in an early scene.
Also in 1951, Guinness starred in Alexander Mackendrick’s satire The Man in the White Suit, about textile-factory genius Sidney Stratton, who gets his kicks tinkering with fabrics on a molecular level. (That he’s a mere loading-bay worker is only a slight inconvenience, since he still manages to con his way into the research lab.) With the help of his boss’ daughter (Greenwood again, here playing a woman turned on by nerdiness), the socially-awkward Sidney creates a seemingly indestructible cloth — terrifying both factory management and the labor union, which join forces to obliterate the invention that’ll render their jobs obsolete. Lots of goofiness in this one, including Sidney’s bleep-blooping chemistry setup, which wouldn’t be out of place in Willy Wonka’s HQ. More juicy cameos, this time for classic horror fans: Hammer Film Productions player Michael Gough plays Greenwood’s uptight beau, and Ernest “Dr. Pretorius” Thesinger shows up to wave a cane around as an anxious senior executive.
Guinness and Mackendrick teamed up again for 1955’s The Ladykillers, remade in 2004 by Tom Hanks and the Coen Brothers. The original — which features a young Peter Sellers, The Man in the White Suit‘s Cecil Parker, several rascally parrots, and Guinness in comically ill-fitting false teeth — remains the better version, with several Ealing Comedy motifs in play: boarding-house shenanigans, a heist gone wrong, one or more ludicrous chase scenes involving hapless cops. Ringleader Guinness, as “Professor” Marcus, assembles a group of ne’er-do-wells, who pretend to be a string quintet for the benefit of their kindly but meddlesome landlady, Mrs. Wilberforce (Katie Johnson). Her creaky home overlooks a train station, which is perfect positioning for the faux musicians’ robbery scheme. But, naturally, nothing unfolds as intended. “All good plans include a human element,” the Professor muses through his choppers. “But no really good plan would include Mrs. Wilberforce.”
The seventh film in the series, 1959’s Our Man in Havana, is neither Lean epic nor Ealing farce, but it has its own impressive pedigree: director Carol Reed (1949’s The Third Man), screenwriter Graham Greene (who adapted his own novel), an authentic pre-revolutionary Cuba setting, and a supporting cast of Noël Coward, Ralph Richardson, Maureen O’Hara, Burl Ives, and Ernie Kovacs. Guinness is brilliant as an expat whose desire to provide a better life for his materialistic teenage daughter (Jo Morrow) leads him to set aside the vacuum-cleaner biz and accept a gig as a British secret agent. Thing is, he’d rather just sip daiquiris than engage in espionage, so he fakes his way, with luck and imagination, into being “the best agent in the Western hemisphere.” With spy-jinks galore and a plot that veers from silly to suspenseful, Our Man is probably the gem of the series — and it’ll unspool in an archival 35mm print. As Lavender Hill Mob‘s Pendlebury would say, “Capital! Capital!” 2
“ALEC GUINNESS AT 100”
Aug 17-Sept 28, $7.75-$11
Smith Rafael Film Center
1118 Fourth St, San Rafael
rafaelfilm.cafilm.org/alec-guiness-at-100
Look here instead
arts@sfbg.com
VISUAL ART So far, 2014 has been a pretty depressing and demoralizing year for Bay Area artists and the organizations and institutions that support them. Increasingly, the only options seem to be “fight or flight,” with “flight” too often becoming the default.
Against the economic and cultural ascendancy of the tech industry, commercial and residential rents have skyrocketed as funding sources have become more restrictive and competitive. Longstanding commercial galleries and noncommercial spaces alike have been forced to relocate, downsize, or face eviction. The past few months, my Facebook feed has reliably been filled with mournful think pieces on tech’s perceived indifference to local arts and culture, news of another gallery closure, or someone else posting about his or her imminent departure to Los Angeles or Chicago. For many, community stalwart Intersection for the Arts’ announcement last month that it was drastically reducing its operations and staff felt like the last straw.
This climate of mounting precariousness and frustration invariably forms the backdrop against which one takes in Bay Area Now 7, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ triennial survey of local art. It also spills over into some of the art on view. For this reason alone the stakes feel higher — perhaps unfairly so — especially when compared to past iterations of the exhibition, which have sometimes struggled with articulating a coherent or relevant point of view.
Curators Betti-Sue Hertz and Ceci Moss’s decision to “decentralize” the curatorial process this year and, instead, issue an open call to small- to mid-size regional visual arts organizations to select and commission work, turned out to be a smart one. For starters, putting YBCA’s institutional resources and clout behind much smaller organizations as opposed to individuals proposes an alternate function for large-scale, regional surveys such as Bay Area Now, beyond the early-to-mid-career professional stopover-launching pad they serve as for many artists (the Whitney Biennial continues to be a best- and worst-case example of this).
More importantly, the 15 jury-selected partner organizations in BAN7 present an alternative map of the Bay Area’s arts ecosystem, one that intersects with but also sometimes falls outside of the more familiar circuits between higher educational institutions such as California College of Arts and the San Francisco Art Institute, and larger local galleries and museums. Partner organizations include residence-based exhibition spaces (2nd Floor Projects, Important Projects, n/a) and established arts education programs (Creativity Explored, San Quentin Prison Arts Project), as well as further-afield institutions (the Napa-based di Rosa and the Saratoga-based Montalvo Arts Center) and nimbler project- or action-based collectives (Publication Studio, Stairwell’s, the Bay Area Arts Workers Alliance).
The art is as varied as the organizations presenting it although many of the mediums and subjects feel indigenous. This sense of familiarity can cut both ways. Daniel Case’s gorgeous landscape photographs of empty California cruising grounds, in 2nd Floor Project’s space, seem to be having a sympathetic kiki with Tammy Rae Carland’s earlier photo series of similarly depopulated off-the-grid, lesbian feminist encampments. Kristin Faar and Jeff Meadows’ New Age-y paint and slat construction in Adobe Books Backroom Gallery’s space, on the other hand, presents a cheerful if derivative homage to the Mission School and the beloved bookstore’s place within its history.
There are also some sui generis standouts. Creativity Explored artist Christina Marie Fong’s hand-drawn, cardboard installation of her dream bedroom — complete with R&B LPs, cult horror movie posters, and spilled junk food — is a hypnotizing explosion of pop cultural references rendered in filigree-like lines. Floris Schönfeld’s video Sanguine Dreams at di Rosa — filmed on location at the estate in collaboration with a Sonoma County vampire-themed LARP group — falls somewhere between Dark Shadows and Mike Kelley’s ensemble-filled video opuses.
True to its name, BAN7 is topical, and the pieces that channel the current climate of economically-fueled dissatisfaction in which so many feel priced out, kicked out, silenced, or foreclosed upon is what gives the exhibition its teeth. Taking up almost a quarter of the main gallery space, the Bay Area Art Workers Alliance’s strategically messy installation Invisible Labor attempts to stage the opposite of its title, rendering visible (as well as audible; you hear the installation before you see it) the physical labor and construction materials used to install the very art on display throughout YBCA. The names of Alliance members, many of whom are artists who also created and contributed to the installation, are pointedly writ large on the gallery’s floor-to-ceiling east-facing window.
Invisible Labor can be taken as a response to the same question asked by How Do We Make More Public the Other Work that We Do?, Edgar Mojica’s in-process collaborative mural that’s part of Important Projects’ section. Once completed, the mural — which depicts San Francisco as a sprawling technopolis — will then be re-covered by the same hands that created it, making it an “invisible monument” to the labor of all involved.
Mojica’s question has been asked a lot lately in the local arts community. One answer was proposed this past June when adjunct professors at the San Francisco Art Institute voted to form a union affiliated with the Service Employees International Union, following a similar vote by adjuncts at Mills College earlier in the same month.
BAN7, much like Invisible Labor, insists that organization and visibility can take other forms as well. This might not make this year’s triennial into an avenging David to the tech boom’s Goliath, as poet Kevin Killian casts Publication Studio in a colorfully illuminated manuscript that hangs in front of its in-house printing press. But it can provide a stage for alternate realities, such as Fong’s bedroom. And it can confront us — as it does by having pieces from the San Quentin Prison Arts Project be some of the first artworks one encounters — with other sites of struggle and resistance. As Lori Gordon exclaims in one of her newsprint Snippets, a participatory variation on Jenny Holzer’s Truisms series: “divert your eyes from the traffic accident of culture and look here instead.” *
BAY AREA NOW 7
Through Oct. 5
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
701 Mission, SF
Sm/Art car
arts@sfbg.com
THEATER Once the image of the highway-bound pioneer, the camper van has been reborn on the plains of the Wild West of arts programming, just off 51st Street in Oakland. It’s been sighted here and there since May, greeted with honking and cheering by fans of the tiny house movement, idle curiosity by idling bystanders, and mild frustration by those anticipating a sidewalk taco or crème brûlée.
Something like the sloped cross-section of a survivalist’s shack, the trail-able cabin, with a pair of wide windows set in its redwood-plank sidewalls, looks modest enough if a little odd. But husband-and-wife artists and Range Studio founders David Szlasa and Katrina Rodabaugh see it as the beginning of a convoy, and endless possibilities.
The idea was born shortly after the couple’s son was born, about three years ago. Szlasa had just left his position as programming director at Z Space to pursue life as a stay-at-home artist and dad, and was quickly finding room to work at more of a premium than ever. Already a fan of the tiny house movement, he applied to the Center for Cultural Innovation for a material-support grant, with the idea of building a small studio in the parking space beside his house.
“In the process of designing it and talking to people about what it would take, a lot more people became interested in it,” recalls Szlasa. “I started thinking more broadly that this is a significant need across the Bay Area and, after talking to people outside the Bay Area, a significant need all around.”
One of the needs he had hit on was a way of leveraging project-based support to artists for capital improvements that they could get further use out of.
“We as artists get in this pattern of raising money to do this show or do that show,” he explains. “This was re-thinking that and reapplying those funds to something that could give and keep giving. So with that I began to see the bigger opportunities in it, and pretty quickly realized this would be a prototype and model for a larger effort.”
Having built it over the course of about six months beginning last December — with crucial help from a few friends with specialized skills — Szlasa is now tooling around with his new mobile artist studio, hitched to the back of his old white pickup, in the hope of attracting support for the larger venture. Formalized as the Range Studio project, and co-directed with Rodabaugh, the former program director of artists resources at Intersection for the Arts, the idea is to replicate the prototype, christened Studio 1, and create a small fleet of deliverable art spaces and platforms that can be used individually, in tandem, or in remote coordination across a wide geographical area as a scalable artist residency program. Made of reclaimed and sustainable materials and entirely solar powered, the flatbed studio offers arts makers and programmers a real-world solution to the increasingly challenging problem of space in the Bay Area’s punishing real estate market, while embracing an ethic of conserving and maximizing material resources.
“And it’s all working!” says Szlasa, still a little surprised by the whole thing.
Studio 1 makes its formal debut this week as part of Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ Bay Area Now 7 exhibition, which this year assumes an art fair format to showcase a wide range of practices and strategies among the Bay Area’s small to mid-size visual arts organizations. Parked outside YBCA’s downtown edifice, Studio 1 will house a series of micro residencies — with its guest artists on display to, and in various degrees of contact with, the general public. Artists-in-residence temporarily ensconced in the tech’d out trailer include Aaron Landsman (co-creator of last week’s City Council Meeting at Z Space); Dohee Lee; YBCA’s own Marc Bamuthi Joseph; and Keith Hennessy.
It promises to be almost as much of a spectacle as anything an artist inside might be working on. And Szlasa (who’ll be editing video there himself ahead of the Coup’s Shadowbox at YBCA on Aug. 16) readily admits, “It’ll be a hard day’s work to stay focused in there.” Still, with the amenities and accessibility Studio 1 offers, not to mention the spur to the imagination, it’s fair to assume its maker-residents will be happy campers. *
BAY AREA NOW 7
Through Oct. 5
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
701 Mission, SF
Rep Clock: August 6 – 12, 2014
Schedules are for Wed/6-Tue/12 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features marked with a •. All times pm unless otherwise specified.
ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. “Southern Lights: Films by Pablo Marin,” Sat, 7:30.
BALBOA 3630 Balboa, SF; cinemasf.com/balboa. $10. “Thursday Night Rock Docs:” 20 Feet from Stardom (Neville, 2013), Thu, 7:30. Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods (Hosoda, 2013), Sat-Sun, 10:30am, 12:30; Mon, 7, 9.
BAY MODEL CENTER 2100 Bridgeway, Sausalito; www.tiburonfilmfestival.com. Free. Tiburon Film Society presents: The Trials of Muhammad Ali (Siegel, 2013), Tue, 6.
CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $8.50-11. •A Hard Day’s Night (Lester, 1964), Wed, 5:30, 7, and The Knack … And How to Get It (Lester, 1965), Wed, 9:15. •Do the Right Thing (Lee, 1989), Thu, 7, and In the Heat of the Night (Jewison, 1967), Thu, 9:15. The Wizard of Oz (Fleming, 1939), presented sing-along style, Fri-Sun, 7 (also Sat-Sun, 2:30). •Only Lovers Left Alive (Jarmusch, 2013), Tue, 7, and The Hunger (Scott, 1983), Tue, 9:15.
COURTHOUSE SQUARE 2200 Broadway, Redwood City; www.redwoodcity.org. Free. The Wizard of Oz (Fleming, 1939), Thu, 8:45.
EXPLORATORIUM Pier 15, SF; www.exploratorium.edu. Free with museum admission ($19-25). “Saturday Cinema: Things,” Sat, 1, 2, 3.
GRAND LAKE CENTER 3200 Grand, Oakl; www.renaissancerialto.com. $15 (all-day pass, $25). Last Chance for Eden (Lee, 2003), Thu, 1; The Color of Fear (Lee, 1994), Thu, 3:30; If These Halls Could Talk (Lee, 2014), Thu, 7.
JACK LONDON FERRY LAWN Clay and Water, Oakl; www.jacklondonsquare.com. Free. “Waterfront Flicks:” Man of Steel (Snyder, 2013), Thu, sundown.
MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. CIVIC CENTER PARK 2151 MLK Jr. Wy, Berk; www.newbelgium.com/clips. Free (beer samples, $1.25-5). New Belgium Brewing presents: “Clips and Beer Film Tour,” short films, Sat, 7:30.
PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Rude Awakening: American Comedy, 1990–2010:” The Royal Tenenbaums (Anderson, 2001), Wed, 7. “Alternative Visions: Animation:” “Films by Sally Cruikshank (1971-1996),” Thu, 7. “Derek Jarman, Visionary:” Wittgenstein (1993), Fri, 7. “Over the Top and Into the Wire: WWI on Film:” Grand Illusion (Renoir, 1937), Fri, 8:30. “The Brilliance of Satyajit Ray:” The Elephant God (1977), Sat, 6; The Chess Players (1977), Sun, 6. “Martin Scorsese Presents Masterpieces of Polish Cinema:” The Constant Factor (Zanussi, 1980), Sat, 8:35. “Picture This: Classic Children’s Books on Film:” “Idle Time,” short films, Sun, 3:30.
ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-11. The Dance of Reality (Jodorowsky, 2013), Wed, 9:15. Happy Christmas (Swanberg, 2014), Wed-Thu, 7, 8:45. Life Itself (James, 2014), Wed, 6:45; Thu, 9:15. Heli (Escalante, 2013), Fri, 7, 9:45; Sat, 6, 9; Aug 10-14, 7, 9:15. “Bay Area Docs:” Brown Bread: The Story of an Adoptive Family (Gross, 2013). Sun, 4:30.
SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-$10.75. “Monty Python Live (Mostly),” recorded at London’s O2 Arena, Wed and Aug 14, 7. This screening, $18. San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, Fri-Sun. For complete program and ticket info, visit www.sfjff.org. Horses of God (Ayouch, 2013), Aug 11-13, call for times.
TEMESCAL ART CENTER 511 48th St, Oakl; www.shapeshifterscinema.com. Free. “Shapeshifters Cinema:” Works by tooth, Sun, 8.
YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. $8-10. “Invasion of the Cinemaniacs:” Death Wish 3 (Winner, 1985), Sat, 7:30; Madame Freedom (Han, 1956), Sun, 2. *
Psychic Dream Astrology: August 6 – 12, 2014
Aug. 6-12, 2014
ARIES
March 21-April 19
You need to be true to yourself, Aries; the mystery is in how to do that when you’re not really sure who you are. Do whatever you need to do to get in touch with yourself this week. You are in need of deeper connection with others, but first you’ve gotta be a better friend to you.
TAURUS
April 20-May 20
If you get everything you want, will you be happy? Or is it possible that you define yourself through hard work of striving? This week can have you meet with much happiness, but you have to be willing to receive it. Don’t be so fixated on security that you miss out on joyfulness and excitement, Taurus.
GEMINI
May 21-June 21
You know what you’ve got to do, Gemini, but that doesn’t mean you want to do it. This week you may need to do more than suck it up; you need to let go of the attitudes that are keeping you so stuck in the past that you’re also mired in the present. Make friends with what you want to make happen and try giving the cold shoulder to what you want to leave behind.
CANCER
June 22-July 22
There’s a storm brewing within you, and you’d be wise to deal with it before it deals with you. You need to change- whether we’re talking about your attitudes, your closest relationships, or your actions, it almost doesn’t matter. What’s important is that it’s out of your comfort zone; don’t put off what needs your attentions, pal.
LEO
July 23-Aug. 22
You are at the beginning and it’s a beautiful place to be, Leo. Be patient and intentional because you have a Midas touch this week, with all its perks and responsibilities. The more thoughtful your goals are, the better that things will unfold for you. Create the life you want to live, even if it comes slower than you’d prefer.
VIRGO
Aug. 23-Sept. 22
It doesn’t matter whose fault it is; what matters is what you’re doing about it now. Instead of losing energy thinking about how things came to be, try pointing your powers of investigation towards something constructive, Virgo. Plan your next move and let go of the past.
LIBRA
Sept. 23-Oct. 22
This is a good week to take risks, but well considered ones. You don’t want to put yourself in a position where you overextend yourself emotionally and you feel exposed and rushed. Jump into the pool, but try not to promise anyone that you plan on swimming for the day. Take things as they come Libra.
SCORPIO
Oct. 23-Nov. 21
You can run and you can hide, but you can’t escape, Scorpio. If you don’t find a way to cope with your anxieties then they’ll just crop up in a new context. Seek internal balance in whatever ways work for you- take up meditating, go for a run, sleep more; whatever works to help you help yourself.
SAGITTARIUS
Nov. 22-Dec. 21
The worst thing you can do this week is focus so much on the details that you miss the big picture. Things are changing and you’ve got to keep up. If you act out of fear then what you create will only be a product of those fears. Manage your thoughts before you decide what move to make next, Sag.
CAPRICORN
Dec. 22-Jan. 19
It’s not actually safer to give up on hope, and you aren’t protecting yourself by preemptively fearing the worst. Dare to want more for yourself, Capricorn! You don’t have to settle, even if the Universe offers you opportunities to do just that. Don’t choose less than you desire.
AQUARIUS
Jan. 20-Feb. 18
Give it your best, even if you don’t know whether it’ll work out, or if your wisdom will fall on deaf ears. Doubt threatens to unravel you if you give it too much energy this week, so create some healthy distractions. Let your worries go, Aquarius, and your instincts will emerge.
PISCES
Feb. 19-March 20
Accept your circumstances, Pisces. Because within the conditions of your life you have so much influence and power that you only have to use. Don’t allow yourself to get lost in fantasies; exercise the freedoms you have to create the life you want this week.
Want more in-depth, intuitive or astrological advice from Jessica? Schedule a one-on-one reading that can be done in person or by phone. Visit www.lovelanyadoo.com
Theater Listings:August 6 – 12, 2014
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
From Red to Black ACT Costume Shop, 1119 Market, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $7.50-20. Previews Thu/7-Fri/8, 8pm. Opens Sat/9, 8pm. Runs Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 30. San Francisco Playhouse performs Rhett Rossi’s detective drama as part of its Sandbox Series.
Millicent Scowlworthy Thick House Theatre, 1695 18th St, SF; www.99stockproductions.org. $20. Previews Fri/8, 8pm. Opens Sat/9, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 30. 99 Stock Productions presents Rob Handel’s spooky tale that cautions against burying tragic events in the past.
Pleiades Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason, Sixth Flr, SF; http://pleiadessf.wordpress.com. $20-25. Previews Thu/7-Fri/8, 8pm. Opens Sat/9, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 30. Marissa Skudlarek’s world premiere re-imagines the Greek myth of the seven Pleiades sisters as a story about Baby Boomers in their youth.
BAY AREA
Catch Me If You Can Woodminster Amphitheater, Joaquin Miller Park, 3300 Joaquin Miller, Oakl; www.woodminster.com. $18-59. Previews Thu/7, 8pm. Opens Fri/8, 8pm. Runs Sun/10 and Aug 14-17, 8pm. Through Aug 17. Woodminster Summer Musicals presents the musical based on the film about notorious con artist Frank Abagnale, Jr.
Cops and Robbers Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allison, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $20-100. Previews Fri/8-Sat/9 and Aug 15, 8pm. Opens Sat/16, 8pm. Runs Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Through Sept 13. Hip-hop artist and law enforcement officer Jinho “The Piper” Ferreira performs his 17-character solo show.
“TheatreWorks New Works Festival” Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; www.theatreworks.org. $19. Opens Sat/9, 8pm. Runs Sun/10, Aug 12-17, 8pm (also Sun/10, 2pm; Aug 15, 10:30pm; Aug 16-17, noon and 4pm) . Through Aug 17. TheatreWorks presents this festival of staged readings of in-development plays and musicals.
ONGOING
Each and Every Thing Marsh San Francisco Main Stage, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Extended through Aug 24. The latest solo show from celebrated writer-performer Dan Hoyle (Tings Dey Happen, The Real Americans) winds a more random course than usual across the country and abroad but then that’s the idea — or at least Hoyle warns us, right after an opening encounter with a touchy young white supremacist, that the trip he’s taking us on is a subtle one. Displaying again his exceptional gifts as a writer and protean performer, Hoyle deftly embodies a set of real-life encounters as a means of exploring the primacy and predicament of face-to-face communication in the age of Facebook. With the help of director Charlie Varon (who co-developed the piece with Hoyle and Maureen Towey), this comes across in an entertaining and swift-flowing 75-minute act that includes a witty rap about “phone zombies” and a Dylan-esque screed at a digital detox center. But the purported subject of connection, or lack there of, in our gadget-bound and atomized society is neither very original nor very deeply explored — nor is it necessarily very provocative in a theater, before an audience already primed for the live encounter. Far more interesting and central here is Hoyle’s relationship with his old college buddy Pratim, an Indian American in post-9/11 America whose words are filled with laid-back wisdom and wry humor. Also intriguing is the passing glimpse of early family life in the Hoyle household with Dan’s celebrated artist father, and working-class socialist, Geoff Hoyle. These relationships, rather than the sketches of strangers (albeit very graceful ones), seem the worthier subjects to mine for truth and meaning. Indeed, there’s a line spoken by Pratim that could sum up the essence of Hoyle’s particular art: “It’s so much better,” he says, “when you find yourself in other people than when you just find yourself.” Hoyle’s real frontier could end up being much more personal terrain, much closer to home. (Avila)
Foodies! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.foodiesthemusical.com. $32-34. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. AWAT Productions presents Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue all about food.
God Fights the Plague Marsh San Francisco Studio Theater, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-100. Sat/9, 8:30pm; Sun/10, 7pm. The Marsh presents a solo show written by and starring 18-year-old theater phenom Dezi Gallegos.
The Habit of Art Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.therhino.org. $15-25. Wed-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm). Through Aug 23. Theatre Rhinoceros presents the return engagement of Alan Bennett’s “very British comedy” about a meeting between Benjamin Britten, W.H. Auden, and other figures from throughout time, including their future biographer.
Into the Woods San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $20-120. Tue-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm); Sun, 2pm. Through Sept 6. SF Playhouse performs Stephen Sondheim’s fractured fairy-tale musical.
Noises Off! Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sheltontheater.org. $38. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Oct 25. Shelton Theater performs Michael Frayn’s outrageous backstage comedy.
Patterns Dennis Gallagher Arts Pavilion (in the French American International High School), 66 Page, SF; www.thenewstage.com. $30. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 16. The New Stage’s premiere of company founder Amy Munz’s solo work is one of the more intelligent and sophisticated debuts (by both a new company and a young artist) in recent memory. It’s an ambitious and notably subtle, serious, unsentimental exploration of love, in which a dynamic Munz — on a wide bare stage bounded on three sides by her own wonderfully evocative three-channel video-scape — plays several characters, and three in particular: Amot, Abigail, and Ava, whose stories are slyly interwoven. Amot, the principal focus across two discrete acts, is a young woman raised by her widowed father in his butcher shop, who later falls in love with a young man. But her story, like that of the other young women, comes to us in a form more like the stream of consciousness, fractured and expansive in the disjuncture and interplay between Munz’s ardently committed performance and the shrewd audio and visual environment surrounding the audience — a manufactured landscape of memory, desire, and role-playing in which to some extent the audience is free to find its own way and discover its own truths. Part two further integrates the voices of the other young women, Abigail and Ava, forming a mesh of narratives and associations stimulating in their intellectual, visual, and aural juxtapositions. This is a work that demands a kind of letting go, but also invites full participation of the viewer’s imagination, as the rich mise-en-scène and Munz’s intense, unflinching performance unfold with unexpected abundance. (Avila)
The Scion Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org.$30-100. Sat, 5pm. Through Aug 23. Brian Copeland’s hit solo show, “a tale of privilege, murder, and sausage,” returns to the Marsh.
Sex and the City: Live!! Victoria Theatre, 2961 16th St, SF; sexandthecitylive.eventbrite.com. $30. Thu/7-Sat/9, 8pm; Sun/10, 7pm. Velvet Rage Productions presents two new live episodes of the hit HBO show, with an all-star drag cast (Lady Bear, Heklina, D’Arcy Drollinger, and RuPaul’s Drag Race runner-up Alaska).
Shit & Champagne Rebel, 1772 Market, SF; shitandchampagne.eventbrite.com. $25. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. D’Arcy Drollinger is Champagne White, bodacious blond innocent with a wicked left hook in this cross-dressing ’70s-style white-sploitation flick, played out live on Rebel’s intimate but action-packed barroom stage. Written by Drollinger and co-directed with Laurie Bushman (with high-flying choreography by John Paolillo, Drollinger, and Matthew Martin), this high-octane camp send-up of a favored formula comes dependably stocked with stock characters and delightfully protracted by a convoluted plot (involving, among other things, a certain street drug that’s triggered an epidemic of poopy pants) — all of it played to the hilt by an excellent cast that includes Martin as Dixie Stampede, an evil corporate dominatrix at the head of some sinister front for world domination called Mal*Wart; Alex Brown as Detective Jack Hammer, rough-hewn cop on the case and ambivalent love interest; Rotimi Agbabiaka as Sergio, gay Puerto Rican impresario and confidante; Steven Lemay as Brandy, high-end calf model and Champagne’s (much) beloved roommate; and Nancy French as Rod, Champagne’s doomed fiancé. Sprawling often literally across two buxom acts, the show maintains admirable consistency: The energy never flags and the brow stays decidedly low. (Avila)
Show Down! Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.thunderbirdtheatre.com. $15-25. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Aug 16. Thunderbird Theatre performs an original comedy, set amid a war against technology at the last all-live TV station left in the United States.
Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind Boxcar Theatre, 505 Natoma, SF; www.sfneofuturists.com. $11-16. Fri-Sat, 9pm. Ongoing. The Neo-Futurists perform Greg Allen’s spontaneous, ever-changing show that crams 30 plays into 60 minutes.
BAY AREA
As You Like It Forest Meadows Amphitheater, 890 Belle, Dominican University of California, San Rafael; www.marinshakespeare.org. Donations accepted. Fri/8-Sun/10, 8pm. Marin Shakespeare kicks off its 25th season with a classic production of the Bard’s gender-bending comedy.
Dracula Inquest Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berk; www.centralworks.org. $15-28. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Aug 17. Central Works performs Gary Graves’ mystery inspired by the Bram Stoker vampire classic.
Monsieur Chopin Berkeley Repertory Theatre, 2025 Addison, Shattuck; www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-87. Wed/6 and Sun/10, 7pm (also Wed/6, 2pm); Thu/7-Sat/9, 8pm (also Sat/9, 2pm). Hershey Felder stars in his musical biography of legendary composer Chopin.
Old Money Barn Theatre, 30 Sir Francis Drake, Ross; www.rossvalleyplayers.com. $10-26. Thu, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Aug 17. Ross Valley Players performs Wendy Wasserstein’s New York City-set comedy.
The Ripple Effect This week: Lakeside Park, Edoff Memorial Band Stand, 468 Perkins, Oakl; www.sfmt.org. Wed/6-Thu/7, 7pm. Free (donations accepted). Also Sat/9-Sun/10, 3pm, San Lorenzo Park, Santa Cruz. Through Sept 1 at various NorCal venues. The veteran San Francisco Mime Troupe stays current by skewering San Francisco’s ever-dividing economy; think rising rents, tech-bus protests, and (natch) Glassholes.
Romeo and Juliet Forest Meadows Amphitheater, 890 Belle, Dominican University of California, San Rafael; www.marinshakespeare.org. $12-35. Runs in repertory Fri-Sun through Sept 28; visit website for specific performance dates and times. Marin Shakespeare continues its 25th season with the Bard’s timeless tragedy.
Semi-Famous: Hollywood Hell Tales from the Middle Marsh Berkeley Main Stage, 2120 Allison, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $20-100. Sat, 5pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Sept 7. Don Reed’s new solo show shares tales from his career in entertainment.
“Splathouse Double Feature” La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; http://impacttheatre.com. $10-25. Thu/7-Sat/9, 8pm. Impact Theatre performs The Sadist and Eegah!, film and live performance blends inspired by the classic exploitation movies.
The Taming of the Shrew Sequoia High School grounds, 1201 Brewster, Redwood City; www.sfshakes.org. Free. Sat, 7:30pm; Sun, 4pm. This location and schedule through Aug 24. Continues through Sept 21 at various Bay Area venues. Free Shakespeare in the Park presents this take on the Bard’s barb-filled romance.
12th Night Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-35. Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Aug 17. Shotgun Players take a fresh approach to the Shakespeare classic, using folk music and other twists.
PERFORMANCE/DANCE
“BATS Summer Improv Festival” Bayfront Theater, B350 Fort Mason, SF; www.improv.org. Through Sept 20. $20. This week: “Improvised Shakespeare: 25th Anniversary Edition!,” Fri/8-Sat/9, 8pm.
“Bay Area Now 7 Performance Festival” Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. Thu/7-Sat/9, 8-10pm. $25-30. A multidisciplinary fest of boundary-pushing artists, including Antique Naked Soul, Katie Faulkner/little seismic dance company, Lenora Lee Dance, Eddie Madril/Sewam American Indian Dance, sfSound, and many more.
Caroline Lugo and Carolé Acuña’s Ballet Flamenco Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; www.carolinalugo.com. Sat/9, Aug 24, 30, Sept 6, 13, 21, 28, Oct 4, 11, 18, 26, 6:30pm. $15-19. Flamenco performance by the mother-daughter dance company, featuring live musicians.
“Dash: Improv in a Flash” Un-Scripted Theater Company, 533 Sutter, Second Flr, SF; www.un-scripted.com. Sat, 10pm. Through Aug 30. $15. A late-night, free-form improv show with Un-Scripted Theater Company.
“Deaf Louder: The Second Bay Area Deaf Dance Festival” Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St, SF; www.dancemission.com. Fri/8-Sat/9, 8pm; Sun/10, 4pm. $15-25. Celebrating the talents of hearing-impaired performing artists, as well as collaborations between hearing and deaf artists. Participants include Antoine Hunter (the fest’s artistic director), Def Motion, Michelle Banks, Fred Beam, Half N Half, and more.
Emote Dance and Marlena E. Zahm Garage SF, 715 Bryant, SF; www.ticketfly.com. Fri/8-Sat/9, 8pm. $10-20. New dance works exploring individuality and vulnerability.
Feinstein’s at the Nikko 222 Mason, SF; www.feinsteinssf.com. This week: “Operation Opera,” Thu/7-Fri/8, 8pm; Sat/9-Sun/10, 7pm, $35-50.
“Flying Five High” Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater, 700 Howard, SF; www.postballet.org. Thu/7-Sat/9, 8pm. $30-65. Post: Ballet, under the director of choreographer Robert Dekkers, launches its fifth season with an evening-length program containing world premiere ourevolution.
“The Glass Menagerie” Beverly Hills Playhouse of SF, 414 Mason, Fifth Flr, SF; www.overcasttheatre.com. Fri/8-Sat/9, 8pm; Sun/10, 5pm. $14-16. Overcast Theatre performs the Tennessee Williams drama.
“Magic at the Rex” Hotel Rex, 562 Sutter, SF; www.magicattherex.com. Sat, 8pm. Ongoing. $25. Magic and mystery with Adam Sachs and mentalist Sebastian Boswell III.
“Music Moves Festival” ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; www.odctheater.org. Through Aug 24, most performances at 8pm. $25-45. Diverse performances celebrating the relationship between music and dance, with Bandelion, Kate Weare Company, San Jose Taiko, and more.
Jim Norton Cobb’s Comedy Club, 915 Columbus, SF; www.cobbscomedyclub.com. Thu/7-Fri/8, 8pm (also Fri/8, 10:15pm); Sat/9, 7:30 and 9:45pm. $27. The comedian and talk show host performs.
“Out of Line Improv” Stage Werx, 446 Valencia, SF; outoflineimprov.brownpapertickets.com. Sat, 10:30pm. Ongoing. $12. A new, completely improvised show every week.
“People in Plazas” Various locations, SF; www.peopleinplazas.org. Through Oct 3. Free. Lunchtime concerts in various downtown locations showcasing jazz, world, funk, and other styles of music.
“San Francisco Comedy College” Purple Onion at Kells, 530 Jackson, SF; www.purpleonionatkells.com. Ongoing. $5-15. “New Talent Show,” Wed-Thu, 7; “Purple Onion All-Stars,” Wed-Thu, 8:15; “The Later Show,” Wed-Thu, 10. Check website for Fri-Sat shows and schedule updates.
“Summer Camp!” DNA Lounge, 375 11th St, SF; www.dnalounge.com. Fri/8, 9:30pm. $15-30. Hubba Hubba Revue performs burlesque with a campers-and-counselors theme.
“Terminator Too: Judgment Play” and “Point Break LIVE!” DNA Lounge, 375 11th St, SF; www.dnalounge.com. Sept 5, Oct 3, Nov 7, and Dec 5, Terminator at 7:30pm; Break at 11pm. $20-50. The raucous, interactive staged recreations of two of 1991’s greatest action films return to the DNA Lounge.
“Tough” Z Below, 470 Florida, SF; www.zspace.org. Thu/7-Sat/9, 8pm. $20-25. Bay Area choreographer-dancer Chris Black comes out swinging, rolling, singing and more in this beautifully tailored solo take on the concepts of strength, couched in the biographical particulars of legendary bare-knuckle (and gloved) boxing champ John L. Sullivan (1858–1918). Black (natty in a three-piece period-style men’s suit) presents herself in friendly but decidedly composed fashion to her arriving audience, distributing some simple instructions to a few willing participants who together relate the rules of the game — namely, old-school 19th-century boxing. But Black is also, in a sense, relating the terms of the piece, which unfolds as something of a conversation between the audience and herself/Sullivan on the nature of the transitory. Black’s precision and control throughout echo the storied power of her purported subject, and the double identity she assumes as herself and Sullivan casts a particular light on the life of a dancer even as she is enveloped in the aura and atmosphere of the Boston-born Irish American and his times. The smooth evocation of those life and times — brought about with the help of some pungent, chiseled dialogue (carved from historical sources as well as an original text by Courtney Moreno) as well as delicately crafted sound and lighting designs from Hannah Birch Carl and Heather Basarab, respectively — can seem at times too cool and well-ordered a world for the kind of fragility and uncertainty also being explored here. But it casts its own spell, and there’s no denying either its poise or the power to which that can speak. (Avila)
“Yerba Buena Gardens Festival” Yerba Buena Gardens, 760 Howard, SF; www.ybgfestival.org. Through Oct 26. Free. This week: Tiffany Austin Quintet, Thu/7, 12:30pm; Pi Clowns, Fri/8, 11am and 12:15pm; Pistahan Festival celebrating Filipino and Filipino American arts and culture (more info at www.pistahan.net), Sat/9-Sun/10, 11am-5pm.
BAY AREA
“Free Comedy Night” Bayfair Center, Center Court, 15555 E. 14th St, San Leandro; www.shopbayfair.com. Sat/9, 7pm. Free. Stand-up comedy with local performers and host Mark Pitta (of FOX’s Totally Hidden Video).
Nick Griffin Rooster T. Feathers, 157 W. El Camino Real, Sunnyvale; www.roostertfeathers.com. Thu/7-Sun/10, 8pm (also Sat/9, 10:30pm). $13-19. The veteran comedian performs.
“Knights of Revery” Flight Deck, 1540 Broadway, Oakl; www.eventbrite.com/e/knights-of-revery-laughter-dreams-august-8-9-10-15-16-tickets-12259096287. Fri/8-Sun/10 and Aug 15-16, 8pm. $20. Variety show starring Sir Psycho and Sir Pomp, who “travel with you between the realms of the conscious and unconscious, between fact and fiction, between here and now, between our creamy peanut butter and your smooth jelly.”
“MarshJam Improv Comedy Show” Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. Fri, 8pm. Ongoing. $10. Improv comedy with local legends and drop-in guests.
“National Poetry Slam” Various venues, Oakl; www.nationalpoetryslam.com. Through Sat/9. $15-125. The National Poetry Slam celebrates its 25th anniversary with a full schedule of events, with 500 poets representing 72 slam teams from across the US and Canada (and including seven from the Bay Area).
“The Pirates of Penzance” Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View; www.lamplighters.org. Sat/9-Sun/10, 2pm (also Sat/9, 8pm). $20-59. Also Aug 14-16, 8pm (also Aug 16, 2pm); Aug 17, 2pm. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard, SF. Also Aug 23-24, 2pm (also Aug 23, 8pm), Bankhead Theatre, 2400 First St, Livermore. Lamplighters Music Theatre performs the Gilbert & Sullivan classic. *
Snap sounds
TOM PETTY & THE HEARTBREAKERS
Hypnotic Eye
(Reprise)
Of all the rock singers who could truly be considered “legends,” Tom Petty is perhaps the least oligarchic. His records under his name alone are producer-driven affairs that put his voice at the center, but with the Heartbreakers, he’s merely a frontman, a central cog in a machine that’s been churning out unpretentious rock for almost forty years. On this latest Heartbreakers record, he’s even more understated than usual. For much of the album, he sings through a tinny, almost Strokes-like filter that serves to both give his voice an appealing grit and bring out the sounds of the band around him.
But aside from that, Hypnotic Eye is almost devoid of producerly interference. It sounds above all else like a garage jam, cycling through rock, blues, psychedelia, and even some peaceful ballads. The album’s worst moment, the overwrought “Shadow People,” is the only one that sounds like a conscious effort to make something “good.” But it’s the only bad song here, and the fact that Petty can still make good music with so little effort gives me an odd kind of hope for this rock institution whose best albums should, by all logic, be long behind them.
MOON B
II
(People’s Potential Unlimited)
Moon B makes largely the same sort of proudly analog neo-boogie as Dam-Funk, but while Dam-Funk’s music is starry-eyed and optimistic, Moon B’s is dark and unsettling. His music has never been gnarlier than on II. Though the universe B conjures on his second album is contained within only 31 minutes of music, it seems huge and labyrinthine, filled with darkened streets and dimly lit windows. The drums beat cautiously like nervous footsteps, and the ghostly synth chords that form the melodic core of the music seem to watch you from the shadows. A good aesthetic reference point is the Simpsons episode “Bart Sells His Soul,” in which Bart wanders panicked through a deserted, beautifully rendered labyrinth of quiet skyscrapers.
Though this might make II sound too scary for everyday listening, it’s surprisingly great chillout music. The music is never frightening, just spooky, and it’s got a Boards of Canada-like ability to fade into the background while still keeping you on your toes. Its length also prevents the album from devolving into monotony — all the songs follow the same sonic template, but not to their detriment. This is some of the best mood music I’ve heard this year so far.
HERBERT
Part 6 EP
(Accidental)
Matthew Herbert’s ability to write great songs is almost a liability. Under the mononym Herbert, the British producer released the holy trinity of Around The House, Bodily Functions, and Scale between 1998 and 2006, each containing a phenomenal, almost absurdly good second track. These songs — “So Now…,” “It’s Only,” and “The Movers And The Shakers,” respectively — cast long shadows not only over the rest of their parent albums but the increasingly conceptual work Herbert’s been producing under his full name lately. In dropping his first name from his new Part 6 EP, he’s made things a lot harder for himself given how much he has to live up to. Part 6 doesn’t quite live up to those albums, but it’s still exemplary house music. Its vocally-oriented track “One Two Three” would be maybe the fifth-best song on any of his great Herbert albums, and perhaps the second-best on most decent-quality house albums. The others are pummeling club bangers that would sound great in the club but aren’t quite as hospitable for casual listening as most of Herbert’s work. But each track is layered with peculiar, welcome details that remind you one of house’s all-time greats is back in action. (Daniel Bromfield)