THEATER
OPENING
The Kipling Hotel: True Misadventures of the Electric Pink ’80s Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Opens Sat/1, 8:30pm. Runs Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Nov 13. Acclaimed solo performer Don Reed (East 14th) premieres his new show, based on his post-Oakland years living in Los Angeles.
Sorya! A Minor Miracle (Part One) NOHSpace, Project Artaud, 2840 Mariposa, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $12-18. Opens Sun/2, 7pm. Runs Sun-Mon, 7pm. Through Oct 24. Theatre of Yugen presents a selection of new and traditional Kyogen comedies.
BAY AREA
The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh Berkeley, TheaterStage, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Opens Sun/2, 11am. Runs Sun, 11am. Through Nov 20. Louis "The Amazing Bubble Man" Pearl returns with this kid-friendly, bubble-tastic comedy.
ONGOING
"AfroSolo Arts Festival" Various venues, SF; www.afrosolo.org. Free-$100. Through Oct 20. The AfroSolo Theatre Company presents its 18th annual festival celebrating African American artists, musicians, and performers.
Alice Down the Rwong Wrabbit Whole Emerald Tablet, 80 Fresno, SF; (415) 500-2323, www.brownpapertickets.com. $15. Fri-Sat, 9pm. Through Oct 15. Karen Light and Edna Barrón perform their new comedy based on Alice in Wonderland.
All Atheists Are Muslim Stage Werx Theatre, 533 Sutter, SF; (415) 517-3581, www.brownpapertickets.com. $20. Thurs/29-Sat/1, 8pm. On the TV, CNN carries the dismal thumping of the Bush gang for more war. In the living room, a father and daughter are in a standoff over a proposed live-in boyfriend. It’s 2005, and a clash of generations, as Zahra tries to convince her immigrant Iranian American Muslim father that her white infidel boyfriend Duncan would make an ideal roommate. For her Muslim father, "the Duncan" has plenty of acceptable virtues — even his professed atheism is hardly an insurmountable obstacle to dad, who doesn’t seem to recognize the word but is sure it translates into a wishy-washy approach to the divine through an enthusiastic appreciation for gravity. But moving in together is a different story. How it plays out is the heart of comedian and solo performer Zahra Noorbakhsh’s uneven but charming and funny take on a familiar American family dynamic whose particular ethnic flavor includes a mild but timely geopolitical aroma. Playing herself as well as her loving mother, her bounding and big-hearted father (with his priceless Persian accent), and her good-natured but recalcitrant boyfriend, Noorbakhsh celebrates the immigrant experience while beating back the age’s pernicious appeal to stereotype and xenophobia with the far more realistic metaphor of a nice, crazy family dinner. (Avila)
American Buffalo Actors Theatre of San Francisco, 855 Bush, SF; (415) 345-1287, www.actorstheatresf.org. $26-38. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Extended through Oct 8. Actors Theatre of San Francisco performs the David Mamet crime classic.
Desdemona: A Play About a Handkerchief Boxcar Theatre Playhouse, 505 Natoma, SF; www.boxcartheatre.org. $15-35. Previews Thurs/29, 8pm. Opens Fri/30, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Nov 5. Boxcar Theatre performs Pauls Vogel’s dark comedy, inspired by the three female characters from Shakespeare’s Othello.
Hunter’s Point St. Boniface Church Theater, 175 Golden Gate, SF; www.strangeangelstheater.org. $15-25 (no one turned away for lack of funds). Wed/28-Sat/1, 7pm. Strange Angels Theater in collaboration with Jump! Theatre performs Elizabeth Gjelten’s musical drama about homelessness.
Joy With Wings: A Daughter’s Tale Alcove Theater, 415 Mason, Fifth Flr, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $32-50. Wed-Thurs, 8pm. Through Oct 6. Chaucer Theater performs Becky Parker’s drama about a mother’s love.
Killing My Lobster Conquers the Galaxy The Jewish Theatre, 470 Florida, SF; www.killingmylobster.com. $10-20. Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat-Sun, 7pm (also Sat, 10pm). Through Oct 9. The sketch comedy troupe returns with a sci-fi show.
Lucrezia Borgia War Memorial Opera House, 201 Van Ness, SF; (415) 864-3330, www.sfopera.com. $30-389. Thurs/29 and Oct 5, 7:30pm; Sun/2, 2pm; Oct 8 and 11, 8pm. Famed soprano Renée Fleming stars in San Francisco Opera’s presentation of Gaetano Donizetti’s classic.
Night Over Erzinga South Side Theatre, Magic Theatre, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; (415) 345-7575, www.goldenthread.org. $20-100. Thurs, 8:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Oct 9. Golden Thread Productions’ season opener is the result of its first-ever Middle East America new play initiative (co-presented with Chicago’s Silk Road Theatre Project and New York’s Lark Play Development Center): playwright Adriana Sevahn Nichols’ story of three generations in an Armenian American family struggling with a history of violence, dispossession, and the tensions between individual and collective destiny in the modern world. The play begins at an overly dramatic pitch as a young woman (Sarita Ocón) summons the spirits of her grandparents. Director Hafiz Karmali’s staging is deliberately spare and sensible throughout, though this initial action feels alternately stiff and shuffling, and the recorded music can be overbearing, as the roots of a family saga are laid immediately before and after the 1915 genocide. But the second act settles into a surer and more engaging mode and tempo, as Ava (a sharp Juliet Tanner in a nicely shaded performance), rebellious American daughter of two Armenian exiles (Terry Lamb and Neva Marie Hutchinson), pursues a career as a popular dancer and singer and ends up estranged from her father for years (her mother, sole survivor of a massacred Armenian family, spends her latter years in a mental institution). Wooed by a charming Dominican crooner (an adept, appealing Brian Trybom), Ava starts a family of her own. While pregnant with daughter Estrella (the young, spirited Natalie Amanian), she re-establishes a shaky relationship with her repentant father. Old wounds and buried histories insure reconciliation won’t be easy, but the truth alone shows the way back to a sense of connection and communion for a family severed by injustice and unmoored in the drift of immigrant America. (Avila)
Not Getting Any Younger Marsh San Francisco, Studio Theater, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Oct 23. Marga Gomez is back at the Marsh, a couple of too-brief decades after inaugurating the theater’s new stage with her first solo show — an apt setting, in other words, for the writer-performer’s latest monologue, a reflection on the inevitable process of aging for a Latina lesbian comedian and artist who still hangs at Starbucks and can’t be trusted with the details of her own Wikipedia entry. If the thought of someone as perennially irreverent, insouciant, and appealingly immature as Gomez makes you depressed, the show is, strangely enough, the best antidote. Her narrative careens wildly from character-filled childhood memories (the earliest traumas on down) and stand-up-like shtick that turns over well-worn subject matter like babies with freshly piquant musings (idea for an "it get better" campaign for infants: you’ll be able to wipe yourself and chew your own food). There’s even something like wisdom, or anyway historical curiosity, in her skewed nostalgia for such childhood ephemera as Freedomland, a doomed Bronx-based Disneyland alternative Gomez is old enough to remember visiting. Needless to say, she looks and acts very good for her age, whatever it is exactly (there are, typically, no straight answers here).
The Odyssey Aboard Alma, Hyde Street Pier, San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park, SF; www.weplayers.org. $160. Sat/1, Oct 28-29, Nov 4-6, 11-12, and 18, 12:30pm. This "full afternoon adventure" (12:30-5pm) includes a sailing performance of tales from Homer by We Players (aboard an 1891 scow schooner), plus a light meal.
Once in a Lifetime American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary, SF; (415) 749-2228, www.act-sf.org. $10-85. Opens Wed/28, 8pm. Runs Tues-Sat, 8pm (Oct 7 performance at 7pm); Wed and Sat-Sun, 2pm (no matinees Sun/25 or Sept 28; additional performance Sun/2 at 7pm). Through Oct 16. ACT performs a revival of Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman’s 1939 Hollywood satire.
*Patience Worth Thick House, 1695 18th St, SF; (415) 456-8892, www.symmetrytheatre.com. $20-30. Thurs/29-Sat/1, 8pm; Sun/2, 2pm. In the second decade of the 20th century, a young new St. Louis bride named Pearl Curran (Megan Trout), looking to rise above her humble Ozarks upbringing yet with hopeless aspirations to be a singer, suddenly began channeling the spirit of a 16th-century woman named Patience Worth. The rest was literary history, here uncovered and subtly examined by playwright Michelle Carter in Symmetry Theatre Company’s thoughtful, gradually stirring world premiere, its second production after last year’s strong debut (with Anthony Clarvoe’s Show and Tell). Introduced to Patience by Emily Hutchings (Elena Wright) and her Ouija board, Pearl soon displaces the chagrined Hutchings — who has literary aspirations of her own she pedals doggedly to the leading publisher of the day (Warren David Keith) — and inverts the patriarchal order as her much older husband (Keith) plays stenographer to the virtuosic verbosity of the spirit. When she adopts a child for Patience whome she names Patience Wee (Alona Bach), she drives the desperately lonely young girl into the arms of her equally isolated mother (Jessica Powell) toward an unexpected and terrible inspiration. Director Erika Chong Shuch sets her able cast (headed by Trout’s sure take on a complex figure) atop an area rug backed by a line of trees and strewn over the bare earth, like a floating island of bourgeois respectability amid a wild and mysterious sea of natural and supernatural impulses, in a complex tale of female liberation that intersects with questions of fame, status, self-invention, ventriloquism, and a dark bargain with destiny that has something quintessentially American about it. (Avila)
"Shocktoberfest 12: Fear Over Frisco" Hypnodrome Theatre, 575 10th St, SF; (415) 377-4202, www.thrillpeddlers.com. $25-35. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Nov 19. The Thrillpeddlers’ 12th annual Grand Guignol fest features three "noir-horror" plays by noted noir expert Eddie Muller.
Show Ho New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; (415) 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $20-32. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Oct 9, 2pm. Through Oct 9. Sara Moore performs her multi-character story about a clown in a low-rent circus.
Turandot War Memorial Opera House, 201 Van Ness, SF; (415) 864-3330, www.sfopera.com. $21-389. Sat/1, 8pm; Tues/4, 7:30pm. The San Francisco Opera performs Puccini’s classic in conjunction with the Lyric Opera of Chicago.
Why We Have a Body Magic Theatre, Fort Mason Center, Bldg D, SF; (415) 441-8822, www.magictheatre.org. $20-60. Wed/28-Sat/1, 8pm (also Sat/1, 2:30pm); Sun/2, 2:30pm. Magic Theater opens its new season with a "legacy revival" of playwright Claire Chafee’s comedy, a major hit for the Magic in 1993. Despite fleet staging by director Katie Pearl, the play feels dated, long-winded, and a bit too pleased with itself. Lili (Lauren English) is a private investigator who falls hard for a recently divorced paleontologist (Rebecca Dines) whose lesbian tendencies Lili awakens when they meet on a commercial flight. Lili’s sister, Mary (Maggie Mason), is a manic loner who holds up convenience stores and obsesses about Joan of Arc. Their mother (Lorri Holt), meanwhile, a Betty Friedan–era feminist and a specialist in the female brain (a brief and corny lecture on same is proffered early on), is up a tropical river on a solitary expedition. All four women are embarked on journeys of self-discovery as much as anything else, although Lili the P.I. emphasizes her desire to be someone else’s mystery for a change. The characters speak mainly in tedious monologues, however, with humor that is frequently strained and insights that are slim or false sounding, making the wandering narrative difficult to countenance pretty much from the get-go. (Avila)
BAY AREA
*A Delicate Balance Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; (510) 843-4822, www.auroratheatre.org. $10-48. Tues, 7pm; Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Extended through Oct 16. Aurora Theatre performs Edward Albee’s comedy of manners.
Madhouse Rhythm Cabaret at Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-35. Thurs, 7:30pm. Extended through Oct 6. Joshua Walters performs his hip-hop-infused autobiographical show about his experiences with bipolar disorder.
Of Dice and Men La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $10-20. Thurs/28-Sat/1, 8pm. Impact Theatre performs Cameron McNary’s comedy about a group of adult Dungeons and Dragons players.
Phaedra Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; (510) 841-6500, www.shotgunplayers.org. $17-26. Thurs, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm (starting Oct 5, also runs Wed, 7pm). Through Oct 23. Shotgun Players perform Adam Bock’s modern adaptation of the Racine classic.
*Rita Moreno: Life Without Makeup Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-73. Tues-Sun, showtimes vary. Through Oct 30. The life of stage and screen legend Rita Moreno is a subject that has no trouble filling two swift and varied acts, especially as related in anecdote, song, comedy, and dance by the serene multiple–award-winning performer and Berkeley resident herself. Indeed, that so much material gets covered so succinctly but rarely abruptly is a real achievement of this attractively adorned autobiographical solo show crafted with playwright and Berkeley Rep artistic director Tony Taccone. (Avila)
The Taming of the Shrew Bruns Amphitheater, 100 California Shakespeare Wy, Orinda; (510) 809-3290, www.calshakes.org. $35-66. Tues-Thurs, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat/1, 2pm); Sun, 4pm. Through Oct 16. California Shakespeare Theatre’s last show of the season is a high-fashion, pop-art take on Shakespeare’s battle of the sexes.
DANCE
"Falling Flags" Shotwell Studios, 3252-A 19th St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. $10-15. Footloose presents a dance and spoken word performance featuring poet Genny Lim and dancers Judith Kajiwara, Frances Cachapero, and Sharon Sato.
Faustin Linyekula/Studios Kabako Novellus Theater, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. $15-25. The Congolese choreographer and his company perform more more more…future.
"Imitations of Intimacy" Garage, 975 Howard, SF; (415) 518-1517, www.975howard.com. Fri-Sat, 8pm. $10-20. Detour Dance performs a new dance-theater work about "acting upon those irrational and rhetorical things we normally keep to ourselves."
"Lanyee: A Ballet from Guinea, West Africa" Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St, SF; www.duniyadance.com. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 6pm. $20. Duniya Dance and Drum Company presents this
traditional Guinean West African ballet directed by Bongo Sidibe.
"We Don’t Belong Here" Union Square, Powell at Geary, SF; www.dancersgroup.com. Thurs-Fri and Sun, 8pm. Also Oct 6-9, 8pm, Yerba Buena Lane (between Market and Mission and Third and Fourth Streets), SF. Free. Katie Faulkner’s little seismic dance company and multimedia artist Michael Trigilio present a new public performance project.
Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.