Berkeley

Theater Listings: April 2 – 8, 2014

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

THEATER

OPENING

E-i-E-i-OY! In Bed with the Farmer’s Daughter NOHSpace, 2840 Mariposa, SF; www.vivienstraus.com. $20. Opens Fri/4, 8pm. Runs Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through May 10. Vivien Straus performs her autobiographical solo show.

Painting the Clouds With Sunshine Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.42ndStMoon.org. $25-75. Previews Wed/2-Thu/3, 7pm. Opens Fri/4, 8pm. Runs Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri, 8pm; Sat, 6pm (also April 12, 1pm); Sun, 3pm. Through April 20. 42nd Street Moon performs a world premiere, a first for the company: Greg MacKellan and Mark D. Kaufmann’s tribute to songs from 1930s movie musicals.

BAY AREA

The Hound of the Baskervilles Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, SF; www.theatreworks.org. $19-73. Previews Wed/2-Fri/4, 8pm. Opens Sat/5, 8pm. Runs Tue-Wed, 7:30pm; Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through April 27. TheatreWorks performs Stephen Canny and John Nicholson’s comedic send-up of Sherlock Holmes.

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee Julia Morgan Theater, 2640 College, Berk; www.berkeleyplayhouse.org. $18-60. Previews Sat/5, 1pm. Opens Sat/5, 6pm. Runs Fri, April 24, and May 1, 7pm; Sat, 1 and 6pm; Sun, noon and 5pm. Through May 4. Berkeley Playhouse performs the Tony-winning musical comedy.

Wittenberg Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; www.auroratheatre.org. $32-60. Previews Fri/4-Sat/5 and April 9, 8pm; Sun/6, 2pm; Tue/8, 7pm. Opens April 10, 8pm. Runs Tue, 7pm; Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through May 4. Aurora Theatre Company performs David Davalos’ comedy about reason versus faith.

ONGOING

Bauer San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. Tue-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm); April 13, 2pm. Through April 19. San Francisco Playhouse presents the world premiere of Lauren Gunderson’s drama about artist Rudolf Bauer.

Every Five Minutes Magic Theatre, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.magictheatre.org. $20-60. Previews Wed/2, 8pm. Opens Thu/3, 8pm. Runs Tue, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also April 9, 2:30pm); Sun, 2:30pm (also Sun/6, 7pm). Through April 20. Magic Theatre presents the world premiere of Linda McLean’s drama about a man’s homecoming after years behind bars.

Feisty Old Jew Marsh San Francisco Main Stage, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $25-100. Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through May 4. Charlie Varon performs his latest solo show, a fictional comedy about “a 20th century man living in a 21st century city.”

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.

The Habit of Art Z Below Theatre, 470 Florida, SF; www.therhino.org. $15-25. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through April 13. Theatre Rhinoceros performs a “very British comedy” by History Boys author Alan Bennett.

Hundred Days Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.zspace.org. $10-100. Wed/2 and Sun/6, 7pm; Thu/3-Sat/5, 8pm. Married musical duo the Bengsons (Abigail and Shaun) provide the real-life inspiration and guiding rock ‘n’ roll heart for this uneven but at times genuinely rousing indie musical drama, a self-referential meta-theater piece relating the story of a young couple in 1940s America who fall madly in love only to discover one of them is terminally ill. As an exploration of love, mortality, and the nature of time, the story of Sarah and Will (doubled by the Bengsons and, in movement sequences and more dramatically detailed scenes, by chorus members Amy Lizardo and Reggie D. White) draws force from the potent musical performances and songwriting of composer-creators Abigail and Shaun Bengson (augmented here by the appealing acting-singing chorus and backup band that also feature El Beh, Melissa Kaitlyn Carter, Geneva Harrison, Kate Kilbane, Jo Lampert, Delane Mason, Joshua Pollock). Playwright Kate E. Ryan’s book, however, proves too straightforward, implausible, and sentimental to feel like an adequate vessel for the music’s exuberant, urgent emotion and lilting, longing introspection. Other trappings of director Anne Kauffman’s elaborate production (including an inspired set design by Kris Stone that echoes the raw industrial shell of the theater; and less-than-inspired choreography by the otherwise endlessly inventive Joe Goode) can add texture at times but also prove either neutral figures or distracting minuses in conveying what truth and heft there is in the material. Ultimately, this still evolving world premiere has a strong musical beat at its core, which has a palpable force of its own, even if it’s yet to settle into the right combination of story and staging. (Avila)

I Never Lie: The Pinocchio Project Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason, SF; www.99stockproductions.org. $15. Fri-Sat and April 10, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through April 12. 99 Stock Productions performs Meredith Eden’s bold fairytale retelling.

Lottie’s Ghosts Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th St, SF; www.brava.org. $20. Thu/3-Sat/5, 8pm; Sun/6, 3pm. Dancer, storyteller, and Brava artist-in-residence Shakiri presents a new work based on her novel of the same name.

Lovebirds Marsh San Francisco Studio, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Extended through April 12. Theater artist and comedian Marga Gomez presents the world premiere of her 10th solo show, described as “a rollicking tale of incurable romantics.”

Pearls Over Shanghai Hypnodrome Theatre, 575 10th St, SF; www.thrillpeddlers.com. $30-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through May 31. Thrillpeddlers present the fifth anniversary revival production of its enormously popular take on the 1971 Cockettes musical.

The Scion Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-60. Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through April 18. In his latest solo show, Brian Copeland (Not a Genuine Black Man; The Waiting Period) explores an infamous crime in his hometown of San Leandro: the 2000 murder of three government meat inspectors by Stuart Alexander, owner of the Santos Linguisa Factory. The story is personal history for Copeland, at least indirectly, as the successful comedian and TV host recounts growing up nearby under the common stricture that “rules are rules,” despite evidence all around that equity, fairness, and justice are in fact deeply skewed by privilege. Developed with director David Ford, the multiple-character monologue (delivered with fitful humor on a bare-bones stage with supportive sound design by David Hines) contrasts Copeland’s own youthful experiences as a target of racial profiling with the way wealthy and white neighbor Stuart Alexander, a serial bully and thug, consistently evaded punishment and even police attention along his path to becoming the “Sausage King,” a mayoral candidate, and a multiple murderer (Alexander died in 2005 at San Quentin). The story takes some meandering turns in making its points, and not all of Copeland’s characterizations are equally compelling. The subject matter is timely enough, however, though ironically it is government that seems to set itself further than ever above the law as much as wealthy individuals or the bogus “legal persons” of the corporate world. The results of such concentrated power are indeed unhealthy, and literally so — Copeland’s grandmother (one of his more persuasive characterizations) harbors a deep distrust of processed food that is nothing if not prescient — but The Scion’s tale of two San Leandrans leaves one hungry for more complexity. (Avila)

She Rode Horses Like the Stock Exchange Thick House, 1695 18th St, SF; www.crowdedfire.org. $15-35. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through April 12. Crowded Fire offers a fine West Coast premiere of a clever if less than satisfying satire of the nouveaux riche and pauvre by American playwright Amelia Roper, in which two married couples meet on the grass of their neighborhood park and unravel their tangled, starkly childlike relations and dreams. Amy (a sharp and spirited Zehra Berkman) is a smart and restless woman who knows what she wants and can get it too, but without the slightest idea of how to sit comfortably still and enjoy a sunnySunday morning. Her husband, Henry (a droll, unfussy, good-natured George Sellner), is clearly the antidote to the corporate jungle Amy works in, an agreeably boyish nurse and nurturer, who alleviates the stress of his own workweek in a children’s cancer ward with a scoop of strawberry-flavored ice cream on a cone. Soon they are sharing their modest picnic blanket with a bounding, slightly older couple, well-pampered housewife Sara (Marilee Talkington, alternately splendid and deflated in a beautifully modulated performance) and bank-owning breadwinner Max (an equally dynamic Kevin Clarke, outwardly suave yet reveling in Ubu-esque paroxysms of infantile yearning). Against a backdrop of post-pastoral suburban ease (succinctly evoked in scenic designer Maya Linke’s dangling mobiles, a lovely abstraction of dappled light and trees), we see the couples first commiserate then trade places, like pirate ships on the high seas of finance capitalism. Yet their viciousness has a gentleness around it too, like children playing pirates. In their jockeying, they seem both utterly willful and beyond their ken, while the triumphs and possibilities of a bygone innocence reassert themselves in unguarded moments like a lost Eden. If anything, the play hits its themes (including this sandbox metaphor) a little too forcefully even for satire, and its fleet 80 minutes get only so far in producing a sense of personal and systemic exhaustion as well as transcendence. The play’s agile humor and director M. Graham Smith’s strong and astute cast make the going a pleasure, however, even if we leave wanting a deeper excavation of that pristine lawn. (Avila)

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)

The Speakeasy Undisclosed location (ticket buyers receive a text with directions), SF; www.thespeakeasysf.com. $70 (gambling chips, $5-10 extra; after-hours admission, $10). Thu-Sat, 7:40, 7:50, and 8pm admittance times. Extended through May 24. Boxcar Theater’s most ambitious project to date is also one of the more involved and impressively orchestrated theatrical experiences on any Bay Area stage just now. An immersive time-tripping environmental work, The Speakeasy takes place in an “undisclosed location” (in fact, a wonderfully redesigned version of the company’s Hyde Street theater complex) amid a period-specific cocktail lounge, cabaret, and gambling den inhabited by dozens of Prohibition-era characters and scenarios that unfold around an audience ultimately invited to wander around at will. At one level, this is an invitation to pure dress-up social entertainment. But there are artistic aims here too. Intentionally designed (by co-director and creator Nick A. Olivero with co-director Peter Ruocco) as a fractured super-narrative — in which audiences perceive snatches of overheard stories rather than complete arcs, and can follow those of their own choosing — there’s a way the piece becomes specifically and ever more subtly about time itself. This is most pointedly demonstrated in the opening vignettes in the cocktail lounge, where even the ticking of Joe’s Clock Shop (the “cover” storefront for the illicit 1920s den inside) can be heard underscoring conversations (deeply ironic in historical hindsight) about war, loss, and regained hope for the future. For a San Francisco currently gripped by a kind of historical double-recurrence of the roaring Twenties and dire Thirties at once, The Speakeasy is not a bad place to sit and ponder the simulacra of our elusive moment. (Avila)

“Standing On Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays” New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through April 27. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs short plays about marriage equality by Mo Gaffney, Neil LaBute, Wendy MacLeod, Paul Rudnick, and others.

Tipped & Tipsy Marsh Studio Theater, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat/5, 5pm; Sun/6, 7pm. Last fall’s San Francisco Fringe Festival began on a high note with Jill Vice’s witty and deft solo, Tipped & Tipsy, and the Best of Fringe winner is now enjoying another round at solo theater outpost the Marsh. Without set or costume changes, Vice (who developed the piece with Dave Dennison and David Ford) brings the querulous regulars of a skid-row bar to life both vividly and with real quasi–Depression-Era charm. She’s a protean physical performer, seamlessly inhabiting the series of oddball outcasts lined up each day at Happy’s before bartender Candy — two names as loaded as the clientele. After some hilarious expert summarizing of the do’s and don’ts of bar culture, a story unfolds around a battered former boxer and his avuncular relationship with Candy, who tries to cut him off in light of his clearly deteriorating health. Her stance causes much consternation, and even fear, in his barfly associates, while provoking a dangerous showdown with the bar’s self-aggrandizing sleaze-ball owner, Rico. With a love of the underdog and strong writing and acting at its core, Tipsy breezes by, leaving a superlative buzz. (Avila)

Top Girls Gough Street Playhouse, 1620 Gough, SF; www.custommade.org. $15-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through April 13. Custom Made Theatre Company performs Caryl Churchill’s celebration of powerful women.

Twisted Fairy Tales Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.leftcoasttheatreco.org. $15-25. Thu/3-Sat/5, 8pm. Left Coast Theatre Co. performs the world premiere of seven one-act LGBT-themed plays based on classic children’s stories.

The Two Chairs Bindlestiff Studios, 185 Sixth St, SF; www.performersunderstress.com. $10-30. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through April 13. In this world premiere by Performers Under Stress of its cofounder Charles Pike’s play, two chairs, per title, come matched with two cameras projecting two angles on two characters — He (Vince Faso, alternating nights with Duane Lawrence) and She (Juliana Egley, alternating nights with Valerie Fachman) — who sit at right angles to one another in a series of terse, vaguely clinical encounters. Introduced and concluded each time with cheeky inter-titles (à la Beckett) and the sound of a buzzer (à la Beckett — pretty much everything here is à la Beckett), their interactions unfold as progressive variations on a theme, freighted with references to the Goldberg Variations and other pretentious class markers (belied somewhat by the characters’ less than wholly sophisticated demeanors). Each mysterious not to say unorthodox session also concludes with a limp slap and the exchange of an envelope, as a banal male heterosexual masochist fantasy is jokily and tediously pursued to the point of He’s final erasure. Directed by PUS’s Scott Baker, the production adds a generational variation too across the alternating casts. But at least with the younger cast (Faso and Egley), the exploration comes across as glib and lifeless, and Pike’s self-conscious regression to an old-school avant-garde style feels too ersatz to be persuasive. (Avila)

Venus in Fur Geary Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $20-120. Wed-Sat and Tue, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 7pm. Through April 13. American Conservatory Theater performs a new production of David Ives’ 2012 Tony-nominated play.

The World of Paradox Garage, 715 Bryant, SF; www.paradoxmagic.com. $12-15. Mon/7, 8pm. Footloose presents David Facer in his solo show, a mix of magic and theater.

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $8-11. Sun, 11am. Extended through May 25. The popular, kid-friendly show by Louis Pearl (aka “The Amazing Bubble Man”) returns to the Marsh.

Wrestling Jerusalem Intersection for the Arts, 925 Mission, SF; www.theintersection.org. $20-30. Thu/3-Sat/5, 7:30pm; Sun/6, 2pm. Intersection for the Arts presents Aaron Davidman in his multicharacter solo performance piece about Israel and Palestine.

BAY AREA

Accidental Death of an Anarchist Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-99. Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (no show April 18; also Sat and April 17, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through April 20. Berkeley Rep presents comic actor Steven Epp in Dario Fo’s explosive political farce, directed by Christopher Bayes,

Arms and the Man Barn Theatre, 30 Sir Francis Drake, Ross; www.rossvalleyplayers.com. $13-26. Thu, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through April 13. Ross Valley Players perform George Bernard Shaw’s romantic comedy.

Bread and Circuses La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $20-25. Thu/3-Sat/5, 8pm; Sun/6, 7pm. Impact Theatre performs “a cavalcade of brutal and bloody new short plays” by various contemporary playwrights.

The Coast of Utopia Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-35 (three-show marathon days, $100-125). Part One: Voyage runs through April 17; Part Two: Shipwreck runs through April 19; Part Three: Salvage runs through April 27. Three-play marathon, Sat/5 and April 26. Through April 27. Check website for showtime info. Shotgun Players performs Tom Stoppard’s epic The Coast of Utopia trilogy, with all three plays performed in repertory.

East 14th Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Through April 26. Don Reed’s hit autobiographical solo show returns to the Marsh Berkeley.

Fool For Love Pear Avenue Theatre, 1220 Pear, Mtn View; www.thepear.org. $10-35. Thu/3-Sat/5, 8pm; Sun/6, 2pm. Pear Avenue Theatre performs Sam Shepard’s iconic play, about a pair of former lovers who reunite at a lonely desert motel.

Geezer Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $25-50. Thu, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through April 26. Geoff Hoyle moves his hit comedy about aging to the East Bay.

Johnny Guitar, the Musical Masquers Playhouse, 105 Park Place, Point Richmond; www.masquers.org. $22. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through April 26. Masquers Playhouse performs the off-Broadway hit based on the campy Joan Crawford Western.

Sleuth Center REPertory Company, 1601 Civic, Walnut Creek; www.centerrep.org. $33-54. Wed, 7:30pm; Thu-Sat, 8pm (also April 26, 2:30pm); Sun, 2:30pm. Through April 26. Center REPertory Company performs Anthony Shaffer’s classic, Tony-winning thriller.

Vampire Lesbians of Sodom and Sleeping Beauty or Coma Live Oaks Theater, 1301 Shattuck, Berk; www.viragotheatre.org. $28. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through April 19. Virago Theatre Company performs Charles Busch’s outrageous double bill.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

“California Dreamin’, A Musical Celebration of our Golden State” Ebenezer Herchurch, 678 Portola, SF; www.sflgfb.org. Sun/6, 4pm. Free. The San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band performs. Check website for info on Davis and Woodland concerts.

Caroline Lugo and Carolé Acuña’s Ballet Flamenco Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; www.carolinalugo.com. Sun/6, April 12, 19, 30, May 4, 10-11, 17, and 25, 6:15pm. $15-19. Flamenco performance by the mother-daughter dance company, featuring live musicians.

“Conjuring Wonder” Prescott Hotel, 545 Post, SF; www.miraclemagic.com. Thu/3, 7pm. (Ongoing first Thursday of every month). $35. Dennis Kyriakos performs close-up magic to a small audience; advance ticket purchase recommended.

“Dance Discourse Project #18: Exploring Choreographic Thinking” CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; www.counterpulse.org. Thu/3, 7:30pm, Free. CounterPULSE and Dancers’ Group present a panel discussion exploring “choreographic thinking.” Participants include moderator Megan Nicely and choreographers Christian Burns and Christy Funsch, and dancer-scholar Rebecca Chaleff.

“Drone Magic: San Francisco Bagpipe Festival” Croatian American Cultural Center, 60 Onondaga, SF; www.croatianamericanweb.org. Sun/6, 2-6pm. $15 (children free). With bagpipe music from around the world.

“Dying While Black and Brown” ZACCHO Studio, 1777 Yosemite #330, SF; www.zaccho.org. Fri/4, 8pm; Sat/5, 2pm. Free. ZACCHO Dance Theatre presents two free performances of Joanna Haigood’s San Francisco Equal Justice Society-commissioned work investigating capital punishment and incarcerated people of color.

“Falsehoods & Fairytales” Exit Theater, 156 Eddy, SF; www.mindofkevin.com. Fri/4-Sat/5, 8pm. $20. Kevin Ferguson — “mind-screwer, thought-fiddler, and perception-twiddler” — performs his new magical stage show.

“The Flow Show” Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St, SF; www.theflowshow.org. Fri/4, 8pm. $20. “A cutting-edge showcase of object manipulation” with dance, circus acts, and more.

“Interlace” ODC Dance Commons, 351 Shotwell, SF; www.odctheater.org. Sat/5, 8pm; Sun/6, 4 and 7pm. $10-15. Teen dancers performs works by KT Nelson, Kimi Okada, and others in this 17th season of the ODC Dance Jam.

Morgan James Venetian Room, Fairmont San Francisco, 950 Mason, SF; www.bayareacabaret.org. Sun/6, 7:30pm. $48. The Broadway and jazz singer performs.

“The Life You’ll Never Have” Stage Werx Theatre, 446 Valencia, SF; www.foulplaysf.com. April 8-9, 7pm writing party; 8pm performance. $20. The audience crafts each evening’s soap opera-inspired play at this interactive, immersive performance by Exquisite Corpse Theatre.

“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.

Margaret Jenkins Dance Company Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. Thu/3-Sat/5, 7:30pm; Sun/6, 3pm. $30-35. The company marks its 40th anniversary season with the West Coast premiere of Times Bones, plus a collaboration with Kolben Dance Company of Jerusalem, The Gate of Winds.

“Mi Corazón es tu Piñata” Stage Werx Theatre, 446 Valencia, SF; www.corazonpinata.com. Fri/4-Sat/5, 8pm. $16-20. Fully improvised telenovela (in English) based on audience suggestions.

“Mutiny Radio Comedy Showcase” Mutiny Radio, 2781 21st St, SF; www.mutinyradio.fm. Fri/4, 8pm. $10. Also Sat/5, 5pm, $10, Purple Onion at Kells, 530 Jackson, SF; www.mutinyradio.fm. Local comedians perform.

“Point Break Live!” DNA Lounge, 373 11th St, SF; www.dnalounge.com. Fri/4, 7:30 and 11pm. $25-50. Dude, Point Break Live! is like dropping into a monster wave, or holding up a bank, like, just a pure adrenaline rush, man. Ahem. Sorry, but I really can’t help but channel Keanu Reeves and his Johnny Utah character when thinking about the awesomely bad 1991 movie Point Break or its equally yummily cheesy stage adaptation. And if you do an even better Keanu impression than me — the trick is in the vacant stare and stoner drawl — then you can play his starring role amid a cast of solid actors, reading from cue cards from a hilarious production assistant in order to more closely approximate Keanu’s acting ability. This play is just so much fun, even better now at DNA Lounge than it was a couple years ago at CELLspace. But definitely buy the poncho pack and wear it, because the blood, spit, and surf spray really do make this a fully immersive experience. (Steven T. Jones)

“Schubertiade” Salle Pianos, 1632 C Market, SF; modernschubertiade.brownpapertickets.com. Fri/4, 8pm. $30. Kathryn Roszak’s Danse Lumière performs an updated version of an 1820s salon, with music, dance, and poetry.

“Strange Things” One Grove Street, SF; www.ftloose.org. Sat/5, 8pm. $20-30. Magician Christian Cagigal and mentalist Paul Draper perform together.

Terminator Too: Judgment Play DNA Lounge, 373 11th St, SF; www.dnalounge.com. Thu/3 and May 1, 9pm. $25-50. The creators of Point Break Live! take on James Cameron’s 1991 sci-fi classic, with an audience member picked on the night of the show to embody Schwarzenegger’s iconic role.

BAY AREA

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Zellerbach Hall, Bancroft at Telegraph, UC Berkeley, Berk; www.calperformances.org. Wed/2-Sun/6, 8pm. $30-92. The company performs new works by top choreographers, as well as company classics, as part of its annual Cal Performances residency.

“Feisty Old Jew” Osher Marin JCC, 200 N. San Pedro, San Rafael; www.marinjcc.org. Sun/6, 2pm. Free. Charlie Varon performs his latest solo, a fictional comedy about “a 20th century man living in a 21st century city.” Opening the show is Maxine Epstein’s 15-minute monologue, Pushin’ the Pushka.

“IMPACT” Odell Johnson Theater, Laney College, 900 Fallon, Oakl; www.destinyarts.org. Fri/4-Sat/5 and April 11-12, 7:30pm (also April 12, 2pm). $13-30. Destiny Arts Youth Performance Company celebrates the youth arts and violence prevention organization’s 25th anniversary with this world-premiere show, a mix of dance, theater, spoken word, rap, and song.

“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. *

 

Freedom of expression

Michael Redmond
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Freedom of expression

arts@sfbg.com

FILM The 1960s were a liberating period for movies almost everywhere, not least behind the Iron Curtain and particularly in Czechoslovakia, a country created (from the Austro-Hungarian Empire) in the wake of world war and dissolved (into two nations) by the official end of the Cold War. The “Czechoslovak New Wave” was a moment of considerable international interest at the time — notably winning Best Foreign Language Film Oscars for 1965’s The Shop on Main Street and Closely Watched Trains two years later, along with umpteen festival awards — that attained immediate poignancy by being so short-lived. When Soviet tanks rolled in to aggressively squelch the liberal reforms of “Prague Spring” in August 1968, the reassertion of censorious state control put a chokehold on filmmakers as much as any other “subversive” group.

Some talent fled to the West, achieving variable success, most notably future double Oscar winner Milos Forman (1975’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, 1984’s Amadeus), and Ivan Passer of cult faves Cutter’s Way (1981) and Creator (1985). Some, unwilling or unable to get out, were prevented from working again in the government-controlled film industry for so long that by the time such blacklists no longer existed, they’d lost interest or died. Others, like the recently deceased Vera Chytilová (1966’s Daisies), Jirí Menzel (the aforementioned Trains), Jaromil Jires (1970’s Valerie and Her Week of Wonders), and animator Jan Svankmajer (1988’s Alice), stayed and managed to build substantial bodies of work despite occasionally finding themselves on the wrong end of the political stick.

What virtually all these directors have in common is that some of their films were banned, whether before or after the Soviet invasion: Jires and Menzel had exceptional features (respectively 1969’s The Joke and 1990’s Larks on a String) no one saw until decades later. Chytilová had to direct commercials under her husband’s name before falling back into official favor, while in 1972 Svankmajer was barred from working at all for several years. What would they and myriad lesser-known artists have created if Prague Spring had never ended?

That question looms particularly large over the career of Jan Nemec, alleged enfant terrible of the Czech New Wave. He’s nearing 80 now, and still active — back in the Czech Republic, which he returned to some years ago after a couple fugitive decades abroad — yet his original output from 1964 to 1968 still overshadows the sporadic projects he’s been allowed to realize since. That period’s burst of youthful energy and inspiration remains somewhat dazzling, all the more so because in many ways we never got to see his talent fully mature. The traveling retrospective stopping at Berkeley’s Pacific Film Archive over the next two weeks offers a necessarily spotty portrait of an artist whose expressions have been more than usually subject to cruel fate.

His 1960 graduation short A Loaf of Bread — a terse miniature in which starving concentration camp prisoners toward the end of World War II try to steal sustenance from Nazi guards — could serve as a prelude to his first feature four years later. Diamonds of the Night (1964) begins with frantic handheld camera as two young men stagger uphill from gunfire into the countryside, having fled a prison train probably headed to the camps. The woods are a strange and forbidding landscape, its danger heightened by these city boys’ extreme hunger and exhaustion. Occasionally flashing back to their lives before capture, the film’s woozy disorientation prevents our being sure if the pursued, panicky protagonists are witnessing grotesque sights and committing violence, or simply hallucinating it all.

Barely over an hour, this black-and-white jolt of mixed realism and surrealism (drawn, like Bread, from a story by Czech camp survivor Arnost Lustig) announced a major new talent. While its historical indictment of a persecuting foreign power kept it safe from official criticism, the 28-year-old Nemec wasted little time before pushing the envelope much further. A Report on the Party and the Guests (1966) is an absurdist allegory with unmistakable political overtones. Its protagonists are a group of drunken bourgeoisie picnickers who fall in with other, larger, vaguely sinister parties in the woods, culminating in a vast al fresco banquet in which a good time is had by all — so long as they adhere to the increasingly arbitrary rules of conformity. If not, the fade out suggests, they will be — like Diamonds’ Jewish lads — hunted down with rifles and dogs, like game.

This blunt provocation did not go unnoticed by the right wrongdoing people: It was immediately “banned forever” by the Czech government. Fortunately, Nemec had already begun his next film. Martyrs of Love (1967) is a three-part homage to silent comedy in which there’s almost no dialogue, plenty of slapstick, and a brief cameo by Daisies‘ anarchic female duo. Also tipping hat to Jacques Tati, it was a delight whose elements of social satire could offend no one. Yet it did very little to balm the rancor that Party stirred. After his short documentary about the Soviet occupation, 1968’s Oratorio for Prague was banned — yet footage from it used by news services around the world — he was persona non grata at home, eventually given the choice of exile or prison.

His work over the next couple decades is scant and elusive; it’s represented at the PFA only by a 1975 German TV adaptation of Metamorphosis by Nemec’s hero, Kafka. When he resurfaced with a couple post-perestroika features (notably 1990’s In the Light of Love, from Czech literary avant-gardist Ladislav Klima’s absurdist 1928 novel), they were poorly received and remain hard to find. More recently he’s turned toward collage-style video essays like 2001’s autobiographical Late Night Talks with Mother and 2005’s Toyen (about the Czech surrealist painter). They’re complex intellectual and aesthetic explorations — but they still leave you wondering about the filmmaker he might have become if 1968 hadn’t come in like a lamb and gone out like a sacrificial one. *

DIAMONDS OF THE NIGHT: JAN NEMEC

April 6-23, $5.50-$9.50

Pacific Film Archive

2572 Bancroft, Berk.

bampfa.berkeley.edu

 

Alerts: April 2 – 8, 2014

Michael Redmond
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WEDNESDAY 2

 

Anti-eviction march

24th and Mission BART Station, SF. evictionfreesf.org. 11:30am, free. Eviction Free San Francisco will lead “a spirited lunchtime march and picket” to the Mission offices of Vanguard Properties, in response to an Ellis Act eviction that has been filed against longtime tenant Benito Santiago, a Duboce Triangle resident who was born and raised in San Francisco.

THURSDAY 3

 

Public meeting on tech shuttle plan

City Hall, 1 Dr Carlton B Goodlett, SF. 3pm, free. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors will vote on a controversial pilot program that will allow private shuttles, such as Google buses, to use Muni bus stops for a fee of $1 per stop per day. The program, approved by the San Francisco Metropolitan Transportation Agency in January, has been appealed on the grounds that it should undergo a full environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act. The Board will vote on whether the appeal should move forward.

 

FRIDAY 4

 

IMPACT

Laney College, 900 Fallon, Oakl. www.destinyarts.org. 7:30pm, $20. This is the opening night of IMPACT, a full-length work featuring a cast of 42 talented youth ages 9 to 18 performing a combination of hip-hop, modern and aerial dance, theater, spoken word, rap and song. This group has chosen to take a stand around issues that have powerful impact on themselves, their communities and their world: Environmental destruction, unhealthy food and water, negative attitudes about their bodies, and violence of all kinds.

 

 

Talk: Robots and new media

Banatao Auditorium, Sutardja Dai Hall, UC Berkeley. 2594 Hearst, Berk. robotsandnewmedia.com. 9am-5pm, free. The Center for New Media at UC Berkeley will host this daylong symposium to explore “a new range of more social, personal, expressive, nurturing, and emotional robotic platforms and applications.” Featuring talks by philosopher Hubert Dreyfus of UC Berkeley, Mark Pauline of Survival Research Labs, UC Berkeley robotics professor Ken Goldberg and more.

 

SATURDAY 5

 

SF LGBT Center’s Annual Soiree

City View at Metreon, 135 4th St, SF. tinyurl.com/lgbtsoiree. 6:30-8pm VIP reception; party admission 8pm-midnight; $150 or $95 respectively. Come out in support of San Francisco’s Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) Community Center, which offers free services like career counseling, job fairs, social activities, mentorships, youth meals, daycare and a space for LGBT people to organize and secure equal rights. With a hosted bar, gourmet morsels, silent auction, music, dancing and live entertainment it promises to be a fancy affair.

SUNDAY 6

Ending Solitary Confinement Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists’ Hall, 1924 Bonita, Berk. www.bfuu.org. 2pm, $5-10 suggested donation, no one turned away for lack of funds. Laura Magnani of the American Friends Service Committee will be speaking on Solitary Confinement in California prisons, and what we can do to work to abolish it or promote its more limited use. She will be joined by Marie Levin, sister of a prisoner who has organized and participated in prisoner hunger strikes in the past few years.

State of possession

Michael Redmond
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State of possession

arts@sfbg.com

THEATER In one of the more arresting moments in Aaron Davidman’s new solo play, Wrestling Jerusalem, the Bay Area actor-playwright and former Jewish Theatre artistic director recounts being in a West Bank café with his Palestinian host when four young Israeli IDF soldiers enter in full battle gear. It’s an estranging moment for Davidman, a liberal American Jew on a hunt for answers to his quandary over Israel and its relation to occupied Palestine. But the estrangement he feels is complex, slippery: His first response is to feel estrangement from the soldiers; then a look of recognition from one of the soldiers opens up the difference between Davidman and his new Arab friends; but then Davidman also feels himself very much an American, not an Israeli — just where does he belong?

A self divided among multiple, conflicting affiliations and ideals is a general condition in this complex and stressful world, but it achieves a concentrated poignancy here for the artist son of progressive parents who rooted their liberal values in Judaic tradition. As a young man visiting Israel for the first time in 1992, Davidman had finally to face the contradictions that this would entail in the context of Israel as a Jewish homeland but also as a nation state and, especially, as a colonial power occupying Palestinian land. At the same time, criticism of Israel on the left alienates him when he sees it slipping into a broader pit of anti-Semitism — as he did during an antiracism rally at UC Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.

Many return trips to Israel only made matters worse, more complicated, as his excursions became more purposeful — geared to interviewing people on both sides of the conflict — and his vantage extended into the occupied territories themselves. Grim details of that occupation come out in the course of this sure 85-minute solo performance, but so do voices justifying or qualifying the excesses of the Israeli state in the name of security and historical or political circumstance. While cleaving to core values of equity and justice throughout, Davidman respectfully represents views that range to extreme points on either side of the messy debate.

At the same time, the act of doing so becomes its own trauma. As if in a state of possession, Davidman manifests the inner and outer turmoil in a physical performance marked by often-anguished gestural passages, stirring liturgical verses, unexpected humor, and a series of neatly etched characters. These come all the more forcefully across for being set in an intimate thrust stage arrangement, carved into the central space at Intersection for the Arts. There the play unfolds against scenic designer Nephelie Andonyadis’s beautiful cloth backdrop, dyed in muted desert tones that come atmospherically alive in Allen Willner’s blood-and-earth–hued lighting design.

On one hand, Wrestling Jerusalem‘s airing of opposing views is as timely as ever. News of human rights abuses and more violence in and around the occupied territories comes almost daily, while the US State Department once again meanders down its long and winding road to nowhere with respect to jump-starting “peace talks.” Meanwhile the growing BDS (Boycott Divestment Sanctions) movement across US campuses and around the world is meeting with increasing right-wing pushback (most recently at Northeastern University). And new books by prominent American Jews and gentiles — most recently the New Republic’s John B. Judis — dissent from the usual narratives around Israel-Palestine, stirring charges of apostasy (and anti-Semitism).

On the other hand, for these very reasons Davidman’s measured search for understanding and balance can seem slightly behind these urgent, increasingly polarized times. Directed by Michael John Garcés of Los Angeles’s Cornerstone Theater, the play rehearses mostly familiar, albeit still charged and important, arguments. Its most persuasive aspects instead lie in Davidman’s representation of his personal journey, the expansion of conscience and understanding it spurs. While its mingled voices intentionally unsettle the mind and emotions, they achieve a tentative truce in the play’s final affirmation.

That affirmation — a recommitment to core values that are both traditional and universal — in turn opens common ground in which all might enter. Far from over at this point, the conversation is just getting under way. Pairing performances with something he calls the Peace Café, an opportunity for direct dialogue among audiences members, as well as other post-show discussions moderated by professional mediator Rachel Eryn Kalish, Wrestling Jerusalem is less a political argument (though it contains several) than an invitation to dialogue. Maybe more importantly still, it’s an invitation to listen. *

WRESTLING JERUSALEM

Through April 6

Thu-Sat, 7:30pm; Sun, 2pm, $20-$30

Intersection for the Arts

925 Mission, SF

www.theintersection.org

 

Rep Clock: March 26 – April 1, 2014

Michael Redmond
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Schedules are for Wed/26-Tue/1 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. $7-12. “Gaze #7: Generation Loss,” independent films and videos made by women, Thu, 8. Other Cinema: “Christian Divine’s Imperial 80s Cinema,” Sat, 8:30.

BALBOA THEATRE 3630 Balboa, SF; cinemasf.com/balboa. $10. “Popcorn Palace:” The Wizard of Oz (Fleming, 1939), Sat, 10am. Matinee for kids.

BERKELEY FELLOWSHIP OF UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISTS 1924 Bonita, Berk; www.bfuu.org. $5-10. •International Inquiry into 9/11, and 9/11 Into the Academic Community, Thu, 7. With filmmaker Ken Jenkins and Peter Phillips of Project Censored.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $8.50-11. “Philip Seymour Hoffman (1967-2014):” •Synedoche, New York (Kaufman, 2008), Wed, 7, and Punch-Drunk Love (Anderson, 2002), Wed, 9:15; •Jack Goes Boating (Hoffman, 2010), Thu, 6, and Magnolia (Anderson, 1999), Thu, 8; “Midnites for Maniacs:” •Happiness (Solondz, 1998), Fri, 7:20, and 25th Hour (Lee, 2002), Fri, 9:45. “Drag Queens of Comedy,” with Coco Peru, Sasha Soprano, Lady Bunny, Shangela, Pandora Boxx, Bianca Del Rio, and DWV, Sat, 7 and 10. Hosted by Heklina and Peaches Christ. Advance tickets ($35-100) at thedragqueensofcomedy.eventbrite.com. Beauty and the Beast (Trousdale and Wise, 1991), presented sing-along style, March 30-April 6, 7 (also Sun/30 and April 6, 2:30; no show April 5).

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-$10.75. times. Le Week-End (Michell, 2013), Wed-Thu, call for times. Nymphomaniac: Volume I (von Trier, 2013), March 28-April 3, call for times. “Science On Screen:” Journey of the Universe (Kennard and Northcutt, 2011), Mon, 7.

CLAY 2261 Fillmore, SF; www.landmarktheatres.com. $10. “Midnight Movies:” The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Sharman, 1975), Sat, midnight. with the Bawdy Caste performing live.

HUMANIST HALL 390 27th St, Oakl; www.humanisthall.org. $5. Human Resources Part II (Noble), Wed, 6:30.

JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER OF SF Kanbar Hall, 3200 California, SF; jccsf.org/arts. $25. “Jewish Cult Classics Marathon:” •The Plot Against Harry (Roemer, 1969); The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob (Oury, 1973); and The Troupe (Nesher, 1978), Sun, noon.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; milibrary.org/events. $10. “CinemaLit Film Series: Mystique of the City: Films Shot in San Francisco:” Tucker: The Man and His Dream (Coppola, 1988), Fri, 6.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Jokers Wild: American Comedy, 1960-1989:” “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex:* but Were Afraid to Ask (Allen, 1972), Fri, 7; Young Frankenstein (Brooks, 1974), Fri, 8:50. “The Brilliance of Satyajit Ray:” Days and Nights in the Forest (1970), Sat, 6:30; The Adversary (1970), Sun, 5:15. “Jean-Luc Godard: Expect Everything from Cinema:” Two or Three Things I Know About Her (1966), Sat, 8:45. “Afterimage: Ross McElwee and the Cambridge Turn:” Backyard (McElwee, 1984), plus other biographical shorts, Sun, 2:30; Photographic Memory (McElwee, 2011), Tue, 7.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-11. “I Wake Up Dreaming” benefit: The Argyle Secrets (Endfield, 1948), Wed, 7, and D.O.A. (Maté, 1950), Wed, 9:30. This event, $25; benefits the upcoming noir film series (May 16-25) at the Roxie. “Frameline Encore:” Intersexion (Lahood, 2012), Thu, 7. Free screening. Cheap Thrills (Katz, 2014), March 28-April 3, 7, 9 (also Sat-Sun, 5). Mistaken for Strangers (Berninger, 2013), March 28-April 3, 7, 8:45 (also Sat-Sun, 3:30, 5). “Czech That Film: A Festival of Current Czech Cinema:” Honeymoon (Hrebejk, 2013), Sun, 4; Don Juans (Menzel, 2013), Mon, 7; Colette (Cieslar, 2013), Tue, 7; Lousy Bastards (Kašparovský, 2013), April 2, 7.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. $8-10. “Design and Architecture Films Showcase:” •Tadao Ando: From Emptiness to Infinity (Frick, 2013), and The Successor of Kakiemon (Raes, 2012), Thu, 7:30; Sagrada: The Mystery of Creation (Haupt, 2013), Sat, 7:30, and Sun, 2. *

 

Theater Listings: March 26 – April 1, 2014

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

THEATER

OPENING

Every Five Minutes Magic Theatre, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.magictheatre.org. $20-60. Previews Wed/26-Sat/29 and April 2, 8pm; Sun/30, 2:30pm; Tue/1, 7pm. Opens April 3, 8pm. Runs Tue, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also April 9, 2:30pm); Sun, 2:30pm (also April 6, 7pm). Through April 20. Magic Theatre presents the world premiere of Linda McLean’s drama about a man’s homecoming after years behind bars.

The Habit of Art Z Below Theatre, 470 Florida, SF; www.therhino.org. $15-25. Previews Thu/27-Fri/28, 8pm. Opens Sat/29, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through April 13. Theatre Rhinoceros performs a “very British comedy” by History Boys author Alan Bennett.

I Never Lie: The Pinocchio Project Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason, SF; www.99stockproductions.org. $15. Previews Fri/28, 8pm. Opens Sat/29, 8pm. Runs Fri-Sat and April 10, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through April 12. 99 Stock Productions performs Meredith Eden’s bold fairytale retelling.

“Standing On Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays” New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Previews Wed/26-Fri/28, 8pm. Opens Sat/29, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through April 27. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs short plays about marriage equality by Mo Gaffney, Neil LaBute, Wendy MacLeod, Paul Rudnick, and others.

BAY AREA

East 14th Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Opens Fri/21, 8pm. Runs Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Through April 26. Don Reed’s hit autobiographical solo show returns to the Marsh Berkeley.

Johnny Guitar, the Musical Masquers Playhouse, 105 Park Place, Point Richmond; www.masquers.org. $22. Opens Fri/28, 8pm. Runs Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm (no show Sun/30). Through April 26. Masquers Playhouse performs the off-Broadway hit based on the campy Joan Crawford Western.

Sleuth Center REPertory Company, 1601 Civic, Walnut Creek; www.centerrep.org. $33-54. Previews Fri/28-Sat/29, 8pm; Sun/30, 2:30pm. Opens Tue/1, 7:30pm. Runs Wed, 7:30pm; Thu-Sat, 8pm (also April 26, 2:30pm); Sun, 2:30pm. Through April 26. Center REPertory Company performs Anthony Shaffer’s classic, Tony-winning thriller.

Vampire Lesbians of Sodom and Sleeping Beauty or Coma Live Oaks Theater, 1301 Shattuck, Berk; www.viragotheatre.org. $28. Previews Fri/28, 8pm. Opens Sat/29, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through April 19. Virago Theatre Company performs Charles Busch’s outrageous double bill.

ONGOING

Bauer San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. Tue-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm); April 13, 2pm. Through April 19. San Francisco Playhouse presents the world premiere of Lauren Gunderson’s drama about artist Rudolf Bauer.

Feisty Old Jew Marsh San Francisco Main Stage, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $25-100. Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm (Sun/30 show at 2pm). Extended through May 4. Charlie Varon performs his latest solo show, a fictional comedy about “a 20th century man living in a 21st century city.”

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.

Hundred Days Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.zspace.org. $10-100. Wed and Sun, 7pm; Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through April 6. Married musical duo the Bengsons (Abigail and Shaun) provide the real-life inspiration and guiding rock ‘n’ roll heart for this uneven but at times genuinely rousing indie musical drama, a self-referential meta-theater piece relating the story of a young couple in 1940s America who fall madly in love only to discover one of them is terminally ill. As an exploration of love, mortality, and the nature of time, the story of Sarah and Will (doubled by the Bengsons and, in movement sequences and more dramatically detailed scenes, by chorus members Amy Lizardo and Reggie D. White) draws force from the potent musical performances and songwriting of composer-creators Abigail and Shaun Bengson (augmented here by the appealing acting-singing chorus and backup band that also feature El Beh, Melissa Kaitlyn Carter, Geneva Harrison, Kate Kilbane, Jo Lampert, Delane Mason, Joshua Pollock). Playwright Kate E. Ryan’s book, however, proves too straightforward, implausible, and sentimental to feel like an adequate vessel for the music’s exuberant, urgent emotion and lilting, longing introspection. Other trappings of director Anne Kauffman’s elaborate production (including an inspired set design by Kris Stone that echoes the raw industrial shell of the theater; and less-than-inspired choreography by the otherwise endlessly inventive Joe Goode) can add texture at times but also prove either neutral figures or distracting minuses in conveying what truth and heft there is in the material. Ultimately, this still evolving world premiere has a strong musical beat at its core, which has a palpable force of its own, even if it’s yet to settle into the right combination of story and staging. (Avila)

Lottie’s Ghosts Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th St, SF; www.brava.org. $20. Thu-Sat, 8pm (no show Fri/28); Sun, 3pm. Through April 6. Dancer, storyteller, and Brava artist-in-residence Shakiri presents a new work based on her novel of the same name.

Lovebirds Marsh San Francisco Studio, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Extended through April 12. Theater artist and comedian Marga Gomez presents the world premiere of her 10th solo show, described as “a rollicking tale of incurable romantics.”

Mommy Queerest Exit Studio, 156 Eddy, SF; www.divafest.info. $15-25. Fri/28-Sat/29, 8pm. Sex scenes in solo shows might sound a little onanistic, but in the right circumstances a door jam or a love seat can serve as a fine co-star. Stand-up comic and actor Kat Evasco demonstrates as much in this raunchy and high-spirited story of her sexual awakening as a lesbian-identifying bisexual, coming out in a household dominated by her closeted mother, a Filipina American drama queen with a long-term female companion she insists is the “gay” one. Presented by Guerrilla Rep and the Exit Theatre’s DIVAfest, and directed by Guerrilla Rep’s John Caldon (who co-wrote the play with Evasco), the story follows a familiar and predictable arc in some ways — familial hypocrisy giving way to inspirational cross-generational understanding — and the characterizations and set-ups (including a family feud on Jerry Springer) come with not always inspired choices. Moreover not all the jokes land where they should in a performance that starts as stand-up but immediately shifts into the style of a solo-play confessional. (A more thoroughgoing subversion of the stand-up format might have produced more complex, less foreseeable results.) At the same time, there’s no denying Evasco’s charm and energy, or her buoyant comedic talent, which makes it easier to forgive the play’s structural shortcomings. (Avila)

Pearls Over Shanghai Hypnodrome Theatre, 575 10th St, SF; www.thrillpeddlers.com. $30-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through May 31. Thrillpeddlers present the fifth anniversary revival production of its enormously popular take on the 1971 Cockettes musical.

“Risk Is This … The Cutting Ball New Experimental Plays Festival” Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor, SF; www.cuttingball.com. Free ($20 donation for reserved seating). Fri/28-Sat/29, 8pm. Five new works in staged readings, including two from Cutting Ball resident playwright Andrew Saito.

The Scion Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-60. Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through April 18. In his latest solo show, Brian Copeland (Not a Genuine Black Man; The Waiting Period) explores an infamous crime in his hometown of San Leandro: the 2000 murder of three government meat inspectors by Stuart Alexander, owner of the Santos Linguisa Factory. The story is personal history for Copeland, at least indirectly, as the successful comedian and TV host recounts growing up nearby under the common stricture that “rules are rules,” despite evidence all around that equity, fairness, and justice are in fact deeply skewed by privilege. Developed with director David Ford, the multiple-character monologue (delivered with fitful humor on a bare-bones stage with supportive sound design by David Hines) contrasts Copeland’s own youthful experiences as a target of racial profiling with the way wealthy and white neighbor Stuart Alexander, a serial bully and thug, consistently evaded punishment and even police attention along his path to becoming the “Sausage King,” a mayoral candidate, and a multiple murderer (Alexander died in 2005 at San Quentin). The story takes some meandering turns in making its points, and not all of Copeland’s characterizations are equally compelling. The subject matter is timely enough, however, though ironically it is government that seems to set itself further than ever above the law as much as wealthy individuals or the bogus “legal persons” of the corporate world. The results of such concentrated power are indeed unhealthy, and literally so — Copeland’s grandmother (one of his more persuasive characterizations) harbors a deep distrust of processed food that is nothing if not prescient — but The Scion’s tale of two San Leandrans leaves one hungry for more complexity. (Avila)

She Rode Horses Like the Stock Exchange Thick House, 1695 18th St, SF; www.crowdedfire.org. $15-35. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through April 12. Crowded Fire kicks off its 2014 season with the world premiere of Amelia Roper’s dry comedy about financial disaster.

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)

The Speakeasy Undisclosed location (ticket buyers receive a text with directions), SF; www.thespeakeasysf.com. $70 (gambling chips, $5-10 extra; after-hours admission, $10). Thu-Sat, 7:40, 7:50, and 8pm admittance times. Extended through May 24. Boxcar Theater’s most ambitious project to date is also one of the more involved and impressively orchestrated theatrical experiences on any Bay Area stage just now. An immersive time-tripping environmental work, The Speakeasy takes place in an “undisclosed location” (in fact, a wonderfully redesigned version of the company’s Hyde Street theater complex) amid a period-specific cocktail lounge, cabaret, and gambling den inhabited by dozens of Prohibition-era characters and scenarios that unfold around an audience ultimately invited to wander around at will. At one level, this is an invitation to pure dress-up social entertainment. But there are artistic aims here too. Intentionally designed (by co-director and creator Nick A. Olivero with co-director Peter Ruocco) as a fractured super-narrative — in which audiences perceive snatches of overheard stories rather than complete arcs, and can follow those of their own choosing — there’s a way the piece becomes specifically and ever more subtly about time itself. This is most pointedly demonstrated in the opening vignettes in the cocktail lounge, where even the ticking of Joe’s Clock Shop (the “cover” storefront for the illicit 1920s den inside) can be heard underscoring conversations (deeply ironic in historical hindsight) about war, loss, and regained hope for the future. For a San Francisco currently gripped by a kind of historical double-recurrence of the roaring Twenties and dire Thirties at once, The Speakeasy is not a bad place to sit and ponder the simulacra of our elusive moment. (Avila)

Tipped & Tipsy Marsh Studio Theater, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat, 5pm; Sun, 7pm. Through April 6. Last fall’s San Francisco Fringe Festival began on a high note with Jill Vice’s witty and deft solo, Tipped & Tipsy, and the Best of Fringe winner is now enjoying another round at solo theater outpost the Marsh. Without set or costume changes, Vice (who developed the piece with Dave Dennison and David Ford) brings the querulous regulars of a skid-row bar to life both vividly and with real quasi–Depression-Era charm. She’s a protean physical performer, seamlessly inhabiting the series of oddball outcasts lined up each day at Happy’s before bartender Candy — two names as loaded as the clientele. After some hilarious expert summarizing of the do’s and don’ts of bar culture, a story unfolds around a battered former boxer and his avuncular relationship with Candy, who tries to cut him off in light of his clearly deteriorating health. Her stance causes much consternation, and even fear, in his barfly associates, while provoking a dangerous showdown with the bar’s self-aggrandizing sleaze-ball owner, Rico. With a love of the underdog and strong writing and acting at its core, Tipsy breezes by, leaving a superlative buzz. (Avila)

Twisted Fairy Tales Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.leftcoasttheatreco.org. $15-25. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through April 5. Left Coast Theatre Co. performs the world premiere of seven one-act LGBT-themed plays based on classic children’s stories.

The Two Chairs Bindlestiff Studios, 185 Sixth St, SF; www.performersunderstress.com. $10-30. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through April 13. Performers Under Stress performs Charles Pike’s new play, described as “No Exit as a love story set in Napa on the Silverado Trail.”

Venus in Fur Geary Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $20-120. Opens Wed/26, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat and Tue, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm; Tue/1, show at 7pm); Sun, 7pm. Through April 13. American Conservatory Theater performs a new production of David Ives’ 2012 Tony-nominated play.

The World of Paradox Garage, 715 Bryant, SF; www.paradoxmagic.com. $12-15. Mon, 8pm. Through April 7. Footloose presents David Facer in his solo show, a mix of magic and theater.

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $8-11. Sun, 11am. Extended through May 25. The popular, kid-friendly show by Louis Pearl (aka “The Amazing Bubble Man”) returns to the Marsh.

Wrestling Jerusalem Intersection for the Arts, 925 Mission, SF; www.theintersection.org. $20-30. Thu-Sat, 7:30pm; Sun, 2pm. Through April 6. Intersection for the Arts presents Aaron Davidman in his multicharacter solo performance piece about Israel and Palestine.

BAY AREA

Accidental Death of an Anarchist Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-99. Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (no show April 18; also Sat and April 17, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through April 20. Berkeley Rep presents comic actor Steven Epp in Dario Fo’s explosive political farce, directed by Christopher Bayes,

Arms and the Man Barn Theatre, 30 Sir Francis Drake, Ross; www.rossvalleyplayers.com. $13-26. Thu, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through April 13. Ross Valley Players perform George Bernard Shaw’s romantic comedy.

Bread and Circuses La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $20-25. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through April 6. Impact Theatre performs “a cavalcade of brutal and bloody new short plays” by various contemporary playwrights.

The Coast of Utopia Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-35 (three-show marathon days, $100-125). Previews Wed/26-Fri/28. Opens Sat/29. Part Three: Salvage runs through April 27; Part One: Voyage runs March 26-April 17; Part Two: Shipwreck runs March 27-April 19. Three-play marathon, April 5 and 26. Through April 27. Check website for showtime info. Shotgun Players performs Tom Stoppard’s epic The Coast of Utopia trilogy, with all three plays performed in repertory.

Fool For Love Pear Avenue Theatre, 1220 Pear, Mtn View; www.thepear.org. $10-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through April 6. Pear Avenue Theatre performs Sam Shepard’s iconic play, about a pair of former lovers who reunite at a lonely desert motel.

Geezer Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $25-50. Thu, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through April 26. Geoff Hoyle moves his hit comedy about aging to the East Bay.

The Lion and the Fox Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berk; www.centralworks.org. $15-28. Thu/27-Sat/29, 8pm; Sun/30, 5pm. Central Works performs a prequel to its 2009 hit, Machiavelli’s The Prince, which depicts a face-off between Niccolo Machiavelli and Cesare Borgia.

Once On This Island Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; www.theatreworks.org. $19-73. Wed/26, 7:30pm; Thu/27-Sat/29, 8pm (also Sat/29, 2pm); Sun/30, 2 and 7pm. TheatreWorks performs the Tony-nominated musical about a star-crossed love affair in the tropics, inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

Caroline Lugo and Carolé Acuña’s Ballet Flamenco Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; www.carolinalugo.com. Sat/29-Sun/30, April 6, 12, 19, and 30, 6:15pm. $15-19. Flamenco performance by the mother-daughter dance company, featuring live musicians.

“Dance Anywhere” Various locations; www.danceanywhere.org. Fri/28, noon. Free. Add yourself to this international public-art happening — or catch performances by local pros, busting loose at public venues like the Yerba Buena Gardens (Lizz Roman and Dancers) and the Embarcadero in Oakland (Pink Puppy Project). Check the website for a complete list.

Dandelion Dancetheater with Ysaye M. Barnwell ODC Theater, 351 Shotwell, SF; www.dandeliondancetheater.org. Wed/26, 7:30pm. $7-12. One-night-only collaboration between the dance company and the Sweet Honey and the Rock vocalist, performing Tongues/Gather.

“Drag Queens of Comedy” Castro Theatre, 429 Castro, SF; thedragqueensofcomedy.eventbrite.com. Sat/29, 7 and 10pm. $35-100. With Coco Peru, Sasha Soprano, Lady Bunny, Shangela, Pandora Boxx, Bianca Del Rio, and DWV, plus hosts Heklina and Peaches Christ.

“Dream Queens Revue” Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, 133 Turk, SF; www.dreamqueensrevue.com. Wed/26, 9:30pm. Free. Drag with Collette LeGrande, Ruby Slippers, Sophilya Leggz, Bobby Ashton, and more.

Daisy Eagan Society Cabaret, Hotel Rex, 562 Sutter, SF; www.societycabaret.com. Fri/28-Sat/29, 8pm. $25-45. The Tony winner performs her new solo show, One For My Baby.

“Honest to God” Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St, SF; www.dancemission.com. Fri/28-Sat/29, 8pm; Sun/30, 7pm. $20. Dance company Number9 performs its latest evening-length work.

Jim Jeffries Warfield, 982 Market, SF; www.thewarfieldtheatre.com. Fri/28, 8pm. $37.50. The actor-comedian (Legit) performs his new live show, Day Streaming.

Sean Keane Purple Onion at Kells, 530 Jackson, SF; www.purpleonionatkells.com. Fri/28-Sat/29, 7:30pm. $10. The SF comedian performs.

“A Killer Story” Mechanics’ Institution, 57 Post, SF; www.milibrary.org. Wed/26-Thu/27, 7pm. $15-25. Staged dramatic reading of Dan Harder’s noir play.

“Luster: An American Songbook” Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness, SF; www.sfgmc.org. Wed/26, 8pm. $25-75. San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus performs works by Gershwin, Porter, Ellington, and Berlin, as well as the world premiere of a tribute to Tyler Clementi.

“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.

Mona Khan Company Garage, 715 Bryant, SF; ticketfly.com/event/475517. Sun/30, 5:30 and 7:30pm. $20. The Indian contemporary dance company presents Soch, a night of vignettes.

“The Naked Stage” Bayfront Theater, B350 Fort Mason Center, SF; www.improv.org. Sat/29, 8pm. $20. BATS Improv performs a completely improvised play.

“ODC/Dance Downtown” Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater, 700 Howard, SF; www.ybca.org. Wed/26-Thu/27, 7:30pm; Fri/28-Sat/29, 8pm; Sun/30, 4pm. $20-75. The acclaimed contemporary dance company marks its 43rd season with world premiere boulders and bones, inspired by the work of artist Andy Goldsworthy, among other works.

“Pilot 64 — Sound Bodies: New Dance and Live Music” ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; www.odcdance.org. Fri/28-Sat/29, 8pm. $15. Choreographers work in close collaboration with composers and musicians.

“Point Break Live!” DNA Lounge, 373 11th St, SF; www.dnalounge.com. April 4, 7:30 and 11pm. $25-50. Dude, Point Break Live! is like dropping into a monster wave, or holding up a bank, like, just a pure adrenaline rush, man. Ahem. Sorry, but I really can’t help but channel Keanu Reeves and his Johnny Utah character when thinking about the awesomely bad 1991 movie Point Break or its equally yummily cheesy stage adaptation. And if you do an even better Keanu impression than me — the trick is in the vacant stare and stoner drawl — then you can play his starring role amid a cast of solid actors, reading from cue cards from a hilarious production assistant in order to more closely approximate Keanu’s acting ability. This play is just so much fun, even better now at DNA Lounge than it was a couple years ago at CELLspace. But definitely buy the poncho pack and wear it, because the blood, spit, and surf spray really do make this a fully immersive experience. (Steven T. Jones)

Push Dance Company Museum of the African Diaspora, 685 Mission, SF; push.eventbrite.com. Sat/29-Sun/30, 1 and 3pm. $10-25. The company presents the premiere of a dance installation, Point Shipyard Project, inspired by the community living near the toxic Hunters Point Naval Shipyard.

Right Now Improv Trio Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; therightnowatexittheatre.eventbrite.com. Fri/28-Sat/29, 8pm. $20. The all-female comedy improv troupe performs, plus special guest Huge, an improv musical comedy duo.

“The Romane Event Comedy Show: Grand Hiatus Show” Make-Out Room, 3225 22nd St, SF; www.pacoromane.com. Wed/26, 8pm. $10. Comedian Paco Romane hosts his ninth-anniversary show, the last regular entry in his “Romane Event” series, with an all-star lineup that includes Marga Gomez, Joe Tobin, Kaseem Bentley, Sean Keane, David Gborie, and others.

“Women on the Move” Brava Theater, 2781 24th St, SF; www.dancemission.com. Fri/28, 8pm. $15-30. Singers Holly Near and Gina Breedlove, plus Dance Brigade and Grrrl Brigade, perform at this Grrrl Brigade benefit. Come early (7pm) for the silent auction and raffle.

“Work MORE! #6” SOMArts Gallery, 934 Brannan, SF; cargocollective.com/workmore. Fri/28, 7pm. Free. Mica Sigourney (a 2014 SOMArts Commons Curatorial Residency recipient) presents the opening-night party and interactive drag show to celebrate a new exhibit of drag performer and artist collaborations.

BAY AREA

“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.

“Placas: The Most Dangerous Tattoo” Laney College Theater, 900 Fallon, Oakl; www.sfiaf.org. Wed/26-Sat/29, 8pm. $12-40. Ric Salinas of Culture Clash stars in Paul S. Flores’ acclaimed play about one man’s struggle to keep his family together amid street violence in the Mission. *

 

Life through the lens

Michael Redmond
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0
Life through the lens

cheryl@sfbg.com

FILM It’s been nearly 30 years since documentarian Ross McElwee made Sherman’s March — usually written without its lengthy, if accurately descriptive, subtitle: A Meditation on the Possibility of Romantic Love In the South During an Era of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation. It picked up the Grand Jury prize at Sundance in 1987, years before the festival became a career-maker for the likes of Steven Soderbergh (whose Sex, Lies, and Videotape premiered at the 1989 fest). If McElwee didn’t go on to become a household name, he did begin his Harvard teaching career during the Sherman’s March era. He currently holds the title “Professor of the Practice of Filmmaking” — a suitably important job for an artist whose practice has informed the work of countless filmmakers over the past three decades.

Two of McElwee’s key works, along with short films by his Harvard colleagues, make up “Afterimage: Ross McElwee and the Cambridge Turn,” a three-day Pacific Film Archive series that has McElwee in conversation with author Scott MacDonald (American Ethnographic Film and Personal Documentary: The Cambridge Turn). Sherman’s March is not included, but Backyard (1984) ably demonstrates his trademarks: first-person voice-over (delivered in his unmistakable Carolina drawl); turning the camera on friends and family, most of whom are willing subjects; and crafting a plot of sorts out of a personal journey. (At 40 minutes, Backyard was presumably easier to program than Sherman’s March, which runs 155.)

His most recent feature, 2011’s Photographic Memory, retains all of these characteristics; it also incorporates cinema verité footage first glimpsed in Backyard. The films are ideal companion pieces. Both address father-son relationships, with a focus on the son’s lurching entry into adulthood. In Backyard — shot in the summer of 1975, when McElwee was on summer break from his filmmaking grad program at MIT — the artist documents his brother Tom’s preparations for medical school, a career choice that delights his conservative, Southern-gentleman surgeon father. To his other son, the one with scraggly long hair and a camera attached to his face, Dr. McElwee admits, “I’ve resigned myself to your fate.”

Backyard can also be read for its themes of race in the mid-1970s South, where segregation is still a way of life, and its exploration of grieving, since at the time of filming McElwee’s mother had recently died. It’s as multilayered as the many lives it captures, in a time when filming people just going about their everyday business was pretty uncommon. Dr. McElwee, for one, wonders why his son is wasting expensive film shooting his father puttering around the yard. Back then, home movies were just that — certainly not made for public consumption, and the relaxed demeanor of McElwee’s subjects bears this out.

By contrast, Photographic Memory — one of 16mm devotee McElwee’s first ventures into digital filmmaking — is very much a product of the 21st century. The son from Backyard is now the father, fretting over his own directionless son, Adrian. We see Adrian (in footage no doubt repurposed from earlier McElwee films) as an adorable kid, calling his father “Da-da” and comfortably emoting in front of the lens. Present-day Adrian, an emo 21-year-old, is a glowering poster child for the Selfie Generation, forever tapping on his phone, slurping on iced coffee, and giving off an air of unearned superiority. He avoids eye contact. He’s no longer interested in being filmed, unless he — a budding filmmaker himself — is the one calling the shots. “What makes me think he’s hearing anything I say?” McElwee wonders after trying, and failing, to break through.

At wit’s end, McElwee digs up old journals and photographs from his early 20s, pre-Backyard, when he took a year off college to bum around France (his father was, naturally, aghast). There, he met a charismatic man who became his photography mentor, and a woman with whom he had a significant affair. “It’s admittedly painful to try and penetrate the purple haze of my prose,” he says over a scene where he flips through his youthful scrawlings as his son holds the camera. “I feel a little embarrassed at showing Adrian these pages.”

Admitting embarrassment is a dying art in these narcissistic times (Ugly photo? Just throw a filter over it! Made a mistake? Blame the haters!) — and it’s one reason why McElwee’s films resonate so powerfully. He’s keenly self-aware in a way that’s refreshingly old-fashioned. He knows when to let his images do the talking, and when to let forces beyond his control steer his narrative. There’s much to take in when he returns to sea-swept Brittany, a place he’s romanticized in his memory. “The whole experience was so … French,” he wryly notes, realizing how vague and clichéd that sounds.

As McElwee immerses himself in the scenery he’s dreamed of for decades, he reflects on what kind of person he was back then. Turns out the atmosphere awakens the essence of his younger self far better than his old photos, which are filled with places and faces he doesn’t recognize. (If only he’d had a movie camera back then!) If the stealth mission of his trip is to grasp onto something, anything, that will help him relate to his moody son, it goes mostly unfulfilled — witness a Skype conversation between the US and France, as cluttered with technological difficulties as it is attitude problems.

But there are no tidy endings in McElwee films, because that’s how life is. In the last scene, it’s revealed that Adrian has decided to attend film school, mirroring Tom McElwee’s decision to follow in his father’s footsteps. Is there another McElwee legacy in the making? Stay tuned for the inevitable next chapter. *

“AFTERIMAGE: ROSS MCELWEE AND THE CAMBRIDGE TURN”

March 30-April 2, $5.50-9.50

Pacific Film Archive

2575 Bancroft, Berk

bampfa.berkeley.edu

 

Draining the tank

Michael Redmond
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0
Draining the tank

rebecca@sfbg.com

When University of California Berkeley students Ophir Bruck and Victoria Fernandez first made contact with the University of California Board of Regents, it was a far cry from the genial hobnobbing they engaged in over lunch at the March 19 Regents meeting in San Francisco, as special guests called Student Advocates to the Regents.

About a year ago, they were outside a Regents meeting in Sacramento and, joined by about 60 other students, symbolically locked to a pair of handmade, 10-foot-tall models of oil rigs they’d set up outside the conference center.

“The idea was the symbolism of us being chained to an extractive economy that’s not sustainable,” Bruck explained to us. The message they hoped to impart to the Regents was: “They have the keys to our fossil freedom.”

Taking advantage of the public comment session to get their point across, the students were there to call on the Regents to withdraw UC investment holdings in companies such as Exxon, Chevron, BP, and other leading fossil fuel companies. The campaign, Fossil Free Cal, is just one of dozens of student-led efforts nationwide seeking to convince campus administrations to withdraw funds from oil and gas companies as a way of curbing greenhouse gas emissions and fighting climate change.

Some local institutions of higher education have already committed to divestment from fossil fuels. Oakland’s Peralta Community College District, the Foothill-DeAnza Community College Foundation, and the San Francisco State University Foundation have made commitments to divest.

But other prominent schools have declined. Last October, Harvard University announced that it would not honor students’ request to withdraw investment holdings from the fossil fuel sector, saying such a move would “position the university as a political actor rather than an academic institution,” and could “come at a substantial economic cost.” A student effort to have Brown University divest from fossil fuels also went down the tubes.

Divestment by California’s flagship public university system would have a significant impact. UC Berkeley’s endowment is $3 billion, while the total UC system endowment is $11 billion. Fossil Free Cal organizers estimate that about 5 percent of that money is tied up in the fossil fuel sector.

Beginning with the kickoff to their divestment campaign at that first Regents’ meeting in Sacramento, the students’ message seems to have resonated. In the time since, they’ve attended every Regents meeting, met individually with certain board members, submitted reports in support of divestment, and earned an official endorsement from the UC Students’ Association, a student government that spans all UC campuses. Some individual regents have been receptive — but so far, the powerful UC governing board has not seriously taken up the question of divestment.

“We’re worried about what our future looks like, and what they are doing with our money,” Fernandez said. “We’re saying, if we’re invested in fossil fuels, we’re inherently invested in the destruction of students’ future.”

Nationwide, the campaign to divest from fossil fuels is a proactive, youth-led movement hinged on a moral argument: Since climate scientists have said it is dangerous to continue burning fossil fuels at current rates, universities have an ethical obligation to withdraw support from those corporations sticking to existing business models for extracting and burning fossil fuels.

To argue their case, the students are highlighting a quandary. There’s global scientific consensus that burning fossil fuels is the reason climate change is occurring, and this has led the international community to take action. In 2010, members of the United Nations agreed to take steps to prevent an average global temperature increase above 2 degrees Celsius.

But according to a 2012 report issued by the Carbon Tracker Institute, a London-based think tank, the amount of carbon stored in reserves by the world’s leading 200 leading fossil fuel companies is enough to trigger that temperature increase five times over, if all the reserves were extracted and burned. That would severely alter the global climate with dangerous and irreversible impacts, according to climate modeling scenarios.

To lessen that damage, students are advising their campus administrators to withdraw from fossil fuels, arguing that it makes good business sense. Internationally, some economists have begun referring to a “carbon bubble,” with Green Party members of the European Parliament releasing a study last month to warn of the effect it could have on the pension funds, banks, and insurance companies in the European Union.

Even with the dawning realization that fossil fuel companies’ holdings can’t be burned if the international community is to meet its goals to fight climate change, the UC Regents have yet to make any clear indication on whether they will continue to keep millions of dollars tied up in that sector.

“All successful student movements took sit-ins and mass mobilizations,” Bruck said during an interview at UC Berkeley’s Free Speech Café, named for the historic campus movement.

It may well go there, but at this stage, organizers are still hoping the Regents will take leadership in response to their campaign. Specifically, they’re pushing for UC to drop all existing investments in fossil fuel companies over the next five years, and roll out a climate change investment strategy.

On April 4, organizers behind this effort will host 300 students representing 100 schools from across the United States and Canada, for a conference on the fossil fuel divestment movement. The two-day strategy session, which will be held at San Francisco State University, aims to strengthen the youth-led movement to fight climate change by getting at the economic root of the problem, through divestment.

“Our goal is divesting in the next two semesters,” Fernandez said. But since students cycle out of the universities over four years, and Regents are appointed for terms lasting 12 years, she realizes accomplishing this goal might mean relying on newly engaged students: “Maybe our freshmen right now will have to bring it home.”

“These stories are ours, too” — South Asian women’s collective celebrates a decade of ‘Yoni Ki Baat’

Steven T. Jones
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20

Growing up in San Francisco, I was never sheltered from sexuality. Whether it was the naked runners at Bay to Breakers or the same-sex lovebirds kissing on street corners, there has always been an honest dialogue about love, sex, and gender in my hometown. But that makes it easy to take for granted.

For over a decade, the South Asian Sisters, a Bay Area arts collective, has been cultivating a community of diverse and progressive women of South Asian origin who want to talk openly about sex. While to many outsiders India is the land of Kama Sutra and tantric sex, to those who grew up in South Asian communities, the openness just isn’t there. Talk of sexuality comes in the form of rumors, whispers, and shameful glances, explains Vandana Makker, a member of the South Asian Sisters.

In a grassroots effort to build a candid conversation about these taboo issues, South Asian Sisters has grown into a national movement inviting an open discussion of gender and sexuality — empowering women of South Asian descent across the country. Their efforts come to a head with the yearly rendition of Yoni Ki Baat, a live performance of Vagina Monologues-inspired sketches. The show is comprised of a dozen or so performances by South Asian Sisters, all aimed at bringing light to the silent oppression that’s been going on in South Asian culture for centuries.

This weekend’s shows, on March 22 and 23, will mark Yoni Ki Baat’s 10th Anniversary with three special performances at the iconic and historic Women’s Building in the Mission. Whether painful, funny, disturbing, or powerful, each performance furthers the honesty so vital to these women. I reached out to the diverse women from the South Asian Sisters collective to better understand what this project means to them. 

SF Bay Guardian Why is Yoni Ki Baat important to you?
 

Creatrix Tiara: Born and raised in Malaysia, I found it difficult to find a community of people who were willing to talk about issues like gender, sexuality, and race openly and freely — especially as a Bangladeshi, a much-maligned racial minority in Malaysia. Joining YKB was really refreshing and helpful in finding people who could relate to feeling liminal in those areas — having to navigate cultural norms versus wider societal taboos and stereotypes, never quite fitting in one world or another. People don’t tend to associate South Asians with a lot of issues around gender and sexuality. How can South Asians be kinky? Queer? Into masturbation in strange places? Unthinkable. YKB shows that hey, these stories are ours too, no matter what anyone says.

Micropixie: Growing up in London at the time that I did, and then later moving to Paris, and then back to the UK, I did not have a community of progressive, feminist, radical South Asian women around me. In fact I did not know such a type of woman even existed until I moved to San Francisco 10 years ago. It was wonderful to see my first Yoni Ki Baat 7 years ago and then later join the team of organizers. I love the stories and relate to all of them even those that do not pertain to my personal experience. But I especially love the women in the show, both the performers and the writers…talking about sex, sexuality, and actually so much more. It’s a brave thing we are doing, and for some of the girls it’s the first time they are on stage; personally, my own family was horrified!

ykb

Indira Chakrabarti: The show is especially important to me since I wrote for the first show a decade ago! Then, I wrote and performed for the second one. It is so meaningful to me to be back. I fell out of touch for a variety of reasons but have always believed in the importance of providing this space for women, especially South Asian Women, to have their true voices heard.

Anjali Verma Ruvalcaba: When I first auditioned for YKB I was a 20-year-old college student at UC Berkeley with a newly shaved head. I was already facing stigma and criticisms from both family and friends for wanting to experiment and “discover myself,” so to say that I was nervous going in to it is definitely putting it mildly. Once I got there I was welcomed by such open, kind, genuine, friendly, and loving faces that I knew I had found a very sacred place to call my own, finally, and I haven’t looked back since as this will be my 9th year performing. YKB gave me my first and only set of older sisters to look up to, who understood me, accepted me, inspired me, and kept challenging me to strive for my goals, and whether near or far now, they have all helped mold me into the stronger more honest and more grounded version of my self that I am today, for which I’ll be eternally grateful.

Amruta: There are not many spaces where we, as women, are free to speak within and from our cultural context—where we are best understood, especially if this context involves one or more terribly different cultures. Within this rich diversity, each of us represents an intersection of colors, cultures, places and languages. To have this opportunity, to be yourself amidst this diversity, and at the same time to once a year slip into another’s skin and extend our empathy, is rare. YKB is an invaluable space where we have this opportunity to present, from a woman’s perspective, the multiplicity of the South Asian diaspora.

Barnali Ghosh: The pieces in YKB challenged my assumptions of who South Asian women are as well as assumptions I had about myself and what I was capable of when it came to speaking about these taboo issues. I have met and become friends with so many brave women through being part of the production. Performers are both amateurs and professionals and often women for whom it is the first time doing any kind of performance. There is no director and the cast provides the feedback, support and guidance that allow all of us to find our voice. This kind of non-hierarchical process is not something most of us are used to. But if we trust in it, it works out most of the time and in the case of YKB, in mind-blowing ways.

Neha Shah: I was thrilled to discover YKB about five years ago. I was in Washington, D.C. then, brought my mom to the show where I performed someone else’s piece. Her attending the show was a turning point in our evolving relationship and her realization that I am being an independent young woman. I think it broke the awkward barriers that are typical of Indian parent-child relationships where you just don’t discuss dating and sex.

ykb

SFBG What are you most excited about for the 10th anniversary performance of Yoni Ki Baat?

Creatrix Tiara: The piece I’m performing [The Word of Violence] is one of the earliest pieces in YKB’s history, but the writer has never been able to see it performed live. She’ll be attending this show and will see it performed for the first time. It’s nerve-racking but I hope I am able to give her piece the love and justice it deserves!

Anjali Verma Ruvalcaba: I am excited to simply be celebrating this with everyone who’s written, performed, and witnessed the show. There’s a lot of heart, blood, sweat, and tears that goes into this year after year. It’s all 110 percent volunteer-driven and based, which I can’t even begin to express how thankful I am because without that drive, or passion, we cannot build the emotional space needed to support one another through this process and then convince folks of our stories, be they ours or someone else’s, on stage for the world to see.

Bernali Ghosh: For me personally, I am excited about reprising a funny piece I did 2 years ago. Before I performed it for YKB I didn’t know that I could do humor as a performer. Humor can be really important to healing and way to balance some of our more serious topics, so I am looking forward to sharing laughs with the audience again!

Vandana Makker: Each piece holds a special memory for me, and it’s like looking through an old family photo album and reminiscing about all the things we’ve been through. I’m so proud of the show and what it’s grown to become and can’t wait to give it a proper birthday party.

Amruta: Yoni Ki Baat is the simple message emerging from this dizzying diversity. I am excited to be part of this established tradition that has repeatedly brought to the fore an array of experiences with which we can all empathize

Indira Chakrabarti: I’m anxious and nervous to perform my piece after a decade-long hiatus but am so cozy in a warm hug of support and encouragement from my sisters.

Neha Shah: This an amazing milestone for the movement. Social change via the arts is a necessary and effective way to bridge disparate ideologies—the diversity of voices that YKB has brought together is not a small feat. It reminds me of my favorite quote: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

Yoni Ki Baat 10th anniversary shows

Sat/22, 6:30pm; Sun/23, 12:30pm (this show open to those who self-identify as female) and 5pm
$15 advance, $20 at the door
Women’s Building
3543 18th St, SF
Yoni Ki Baat online

 

Theater Listings: March 19 – 25, 2014

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

THEATER

OPENING

Lottie’s Ghosts Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th St, SF; www.brava.org. $20. Previews Thu/20, 8pm. Opens Fri/21, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm (no show March 28); Sun, 3pm. Through April 6. Dancer, storyteller, and Brava artist-in-residence Shakiri presents a new work based on her novel of the same name.

Pearls Over Shanghai Hypnodrome Theatre, 575 10th St, SF; www.thrillpeddlers.com. $30-35. Opens Thu/20, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through May 31. Thrillpeddlers present the fifth anniversary revival production of its enormously popular take on the 1971 Cockettes musical.

She Rode Horses Like the Stock Exchange Thick House, 1695 18th St, SF; www.crowdedfire.org. $15-35. Previews Thu/20-Sat/22, 8pm. Opens Mon/24, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through April 12. Crowded Fire kicks off its 2014 season with the world premiere of Amelia Roper’s dry comedy about financial disaster.

The Two Chairs Bindlestiff Studios, 185 Sixth St, SF; www.performersunderstress.com. $10-30. Previews Thu/20-Fri/21, 8pm. Opens Sat/22, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through April 13. Performers Under Stress performs Charles Pike’s new play, described as “No Exit as a love story set in Napa on the Silverado Trail.”

Venus in Fur Geary Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $20-120. Previews Wed/19-Sat/22 and Tue/25, 8pm (also Sat/22, 2pm); Sun/23, 7pm. Opens March 26, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat and Tue, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm; April 1, show at 7pm); Sun, 7pm. Through April 13. American Conservatory Theater performs a new production of David Ives’ 2012 Tony-nominated play.

BAY AREA

The Coast of Utopia Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-35 (three-show marathon days, $100-125). Previews March 20-28. Opens March 29. Part Three: Salvage runs March 20-April 27; Part One: Voyage runs March 26-April 17; Part Two: Shipwreck runs March 27-April 19. Three-play marathon, April 5 and 26. Through April 27. Check website for showtime info. Shotgun Players performs Tom Stoppard’s epic The Coast of Utopia trilogy, with all three plays performed in repertory.

ONGOING

Bauer San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. Previews Wed/19-Fri/21, 8pm. Opens Sat/22, 8pm. Runs Tue-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm); Sun/23 and April 13, 2pm. Through April 19. San Francisco Playhouse presents the world premiere of Lauren Gunderson’s drama about artist Rudolf Bauer.

Children Are Forever (All Sales are Final!) Stage Werx Theatre, 446 Valencia, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $15. Fri/21-Sat/22, 8pm. Writer-performer and comedian Julia Jackson’s well acted and consistently funny autobiographical solo show details her and her female partner’s attempt to adopt a newborn girl from a young African American mother in Florida. Along the way, Jackson’s smart script details the trials, red tape, and unexpected market incentives in the field of adoption for a same-sex, interracial couple. If the generally involving story nevertheless attenuates a little across its two-act structure, Coke Nakamoto’s precise direction (which builds on original direction by W. Kamau Bell) offers a lively framework for Jackson’s excellent characterizations as well as her frank and interesting commentary on the social, political messiness of certain natural urges. (Avila)

Crystal Springs Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.crystalspringstheplay.com. $20-65. Fri/21-Sat/22, 8pm; Sun/23, 2pm. Eureka Theatre presents Kathy Rucker’s world-premiere drama about parenting in the digital age.

Feisty Old Jew Marsh San Francisco Main Stage, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $25-100. Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm (March 30 show at 2pm). Extended through May 4. Charlie Varon performs his latest solo show, a fictional comedy about “a 20th century man living in a 21st century city.”

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.

Hundred Days Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.zspace.org. $10-100. Wed and Sun, 7pm; Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through April 6. Married musical duo the Bengsons (Abigail and Shaun) provide the real-life inspiration and guiding rock ‘n’ roll heart for this uneven but at times genuinely rousing indie musical drama, a self-referential meta-theater piece relating the story of a young couple in 1940s America who fall madly in love only to discover one of them is terminally ill. As an exploration of love, mortality, and the nature of time, the story of Sarah and Will (doubled by the Bengsons and, in movement sequences and more dramatically detailed scenes, by chorus members Amy Lizardo and Reggie D. White) draws force from the potent musical performances and songwriting of composer-creators Abigail and Shaun Bengson (augmented here by the appealing acting-singing chorus and backup band that also feature El Beh, Melissa Kaitlyn Carter, Geneva Harrison, Kate Kilbane, Jo Lampert, Delane Mason, Joshua Pollock). Playwright Kate E. Ryan’s book, however, proves too straightforward, implausible, and sentimental to feel like an adequate vessel for the music’s exuberant, urgent emotion and lilting, longing introspection. Other trappings of director Anne Kauffman’s elaborate production (including an inspired set design by Kris Stone that echoes the raw industrial shell of the theater; and less-than-inspired choreography by the otherwise endlessly inventive Joe Goode) can add texture at times but also prove either neutral figures or distracting minuses in conveying what truth and heft there is in the material. Ultimately, this still evolving world premiere has a strong musical beat at its core, which has a palpable force of its own, even if it’s yet to settle into the right combination of story and staging. (Avila)

Lovebirds Marsh San Francisco Studio, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Extended through April 12. Theater artist and comedian Marga Gomez presents the world premiere of her 10th solo show, described as “a rollicking tale of incurable romantics.”

Mommy Queerest Exit Studio, 156 Eddy, SF; www.divafest.info. $15-25. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through March 29. Sex scenes in solo shows might sound a little onanistic, but in the right circumstances a door jam or a love seat can serve as a fine co-star. Stand-up comic and actor Kat Evasco demonstrates as much in this raunchy and high-spirited story of her sexual awakening as a lesbian-identifying bisexual, coming out in a household dominated by her closeted mother, a Filipina American drama queen with a long-term female companion she insists is the “gay” one. Presented by Guerrilla Rep and the Exit Theatre’s DIVAfest, and directed by Guerrilla Rep’s John Caldon (who co-wrote the play with Evasco), the story follows a familiar and predictable arc in some ways — familial hypocrisy giving way to inspirational cross-generational understanding — and the characterizations and set-ups (including a family feud on Jerry Springer) come with not always inspired choices. Moreover not all the jokes land where they should in a performance that starts as stand-up but immediately shifts into the style of a solo-play confessional. (A more thoroughgoing subversion of the stand-up format might have produced more complex, less foreseeable results.) At the same time, there’s no denying Evasco’s charm and energy, or her buoyant comedic talent, which makes it easier to forgive the play’s structural shortcomings. (Avila)

“Risk Is This … The Cutting Ball New Experimental Plays Festival” Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor, SF; www.cuttingball.com. Free ($20 donation for reserved seating). Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through March 29. Five new works in staged readings, including two from Cutting Ball resident playwright Andrew Saito.

The Scion Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-60. Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through April 18. In his latest solo show, Brian Copeland (Not a Genuine Black Man; The Waiting Period) explores an infamous crime in his hometown of San Leandro: the 2000 murder of three government meat inspectors by Stuart Alexander, owner of the Santos Linguisa Factory. The story is personal history for Copeland, at least indirectly, as the successful comedian and TV host recounts growing up nearby under the common stricture that “rules are rules,” despite evidence all around that equity, fairness, and justice are in fact deeply skewed by privilege. Developed with director David Ford, the multiple-character monologue (delivered with fitful humor on a bare-bones stage with supportive sound design by David Hines) contrasts Copeland’s own youthful experiences as a target of racial profiling with the way wealthy and white neighbor Stuart Alexander, a serial bully and thug, consistently evaded punishment and even police attention along his path to becoming the “Sausage King,” a mayoral candidate, and a multiple murderer (Alexander died in 2005 at San Quentin). The story takes some meandering turns in making its points, and not all of Copeland’s characterizations are equally compelling. The subject matter is timely enough, however, though ironically it is government that seems to set itself further than ever above the law as much as wealthy individuals or the bogus “legal persons” of the corporate world. The results of such concentrated power are indeed unhealthy, and literally so — Copeland’s grandmother (one of his more persuasive characterizations) harbors a deep distrust of processed food that is nothing if not prescient —but The Scion’s tale of two San Leandrans leaves one hungry for more complexity. (Avila)

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)

The Speakeasy Undisclosed location (ticket buyers receive a text with directions), SF; www.thespeakeasysf.com. $70 (gambling chips, $5-10 extra; after-hours admission, $10). Thu-Sat, 7:40, 7:50, and 8pm admittance times. Extended through May 24. Boxcar Theater’s most ambitious project to date is also one of the more involved and impressively orchestrated theatrical experiences on any Bay Area stage just now. An immersive time-tripping environmental work, The Speakeasy takes place in an “undisclosed location” (in fact, a wonderfully redesigned version of the company’s Hyde Street theater complex) amid a period-specific cocktail lounge, cabaret, and gambling den inhabited by dozens of Prohibition-era characters and scenarios that unfold around an audience ultimately invited to wander around at will. At one level, this is an invitation to pure dress-up social entertainment. But there are artistic aims here too. Intentionally designed (by co-director and creator Nick A. Olivero with co-director Peter Ruocco) as a fractured super-narrative — in which audiences perceive snatches of overheard stories rather than complete arcs, and can follow those of their own choosing — there’s a way the piece becomes specifically and ever more subtly about time itself. This is most pointedly demonstrated in the opening vignettes in the cocktail lounge, where even the ticking of Joe’s Clock Shop (the “cover” storefront for the illicit 1920s den inside) can be heard underscoring conversations (deeply ironic in historical hindsight) about war, loss, and regained hope for the future. For a San Francisco currently gripped by a kind of historical double-recurrence of the roaring Twenties and dire Thirties at once, The Speakeasy is not a bad place to sit and ponder the simulacra of our elusive moment. (Avila)

Tipped & Tipsy Marsh Studio Theater, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat, 5pm; Sun, 7pm. Through April 6. Last fall’s San Francisco Fringe Festival began on a high note with Jill Vice’s witty and deft solo, Tipped & Tipsy, and the Best of Fringe winner is now enjoying another round at solo theater outpost the Marsh. Without set or costume changes, Vice (who developed the piece with Dave Dennison and David Ford) brings the querulous regulars of a skid-row bar to life both vividly and with real quasi–Depression-Era charm. She’s a protean physical performer, seamlessly inhabiting the series of oddball outcasts lined up each day at Happy’s before bartender Candy — two names as loaded as the clientele. After some hilarious expert summarizing of the do’s and don’ts of bar culture, a story unfolds around a battered former boxer and his avuncular relationship with Candy, who tries to cut him off in light of his clearly deteriorating health. Her stance causes much consternation, and even fear, in his barfly associates, while provoking a dangerous showdown with the bar’s self-aggrandizing sleaze-ball owner, Rico. With a love of the underdog and strong writing and acting at its core, Tipsy breezes by, leaving a superlative buzz. (Avila)

Twisted Fairy Tales Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.leftcoasttheatreco.org. $15-25. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through April 5. Left Coast Theatre Co. performs the world premiere of seven one-act LGBT-themed plays based on classic children’s stories.

The World of Paradox Garage, 715 Bryant, SF; www.paradoxmagic.com. $12-15. Mon, 8pm. Through April 7. Footloose presents David Facer in his solo show, a mix of magic and theater.

Wrestling Jerusalem Intersection for the Arts, 925 Mission, SF; www.theintersection.org. $20-30. Thu-Sat, 7:30pm; Sun, 2pm. Through April 6. Intersection for the Arts presents Aaron Davidman in his multicharacter solo performance piece about Israel and Palestine.

Yellow New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Wed/19-Sat/22, 8pm; Sun/23, 2pm. Playwright Del Shores (Sordid Lives, Southern Baptist Sissies) returns to his native South — while detouring from previous camp-comedy treatments — with this affirming family drama set in Vicksburg, Miss., about a progressive white couple whose marriage and family are rocked in the wake of their son’s illness. Kate (Dana Zook) and Bobby (Andrew Nance) are celebrating 19 years together. Their oldest son, Dayne (Damion Matthews), is a handsome high school senior and football star; their daughter, Gracie (Ali Haas), is his high-strung younger sister, a drama devotee in more ways than one with plans to be the next Meryl Streep. Gracie’s best friend, Kendall (Maurice André San-Chez), is an effeminate young man with a golden singing voice but a strict fundamentalist mother (Linsay Rousseau) from whom he must hide his plan to join Gracie in the school’s production of Oklahoma! Kendall’s fractured family encourages his tight orbit around Gracie’s — including Dayne, on whom Kendall has an impossible-to-disguise crush — all of whom accept the closeted, innocent youth unequivocally. But when Dayne comes down with a rare liver disease (the title has nothing to do with race, which is not explored here, but references, at a literal level, the sickly color that overcomes Dayne at one point), the seemingly ideal family itself fractures along lines of a deeply buried secret regarding his paternity. Amid their worry for Dayne’s future, and the painful dynamic opened between Kate and Bobby, Kendall’s mother moves in with proselyting zeal, alienating her son to the point of total rejection, but also adding to an already volatile tension between his adoptive parents. Helmed by New Conservatory Theatre Center’s founding artistic director, Ed Decker, the production achieves (after some initial warming up) decent performances across the cast, which, along with Shores’ careful plotting and consistent humor, helps keep this sentimental, somewhat too neat story involving until the end. (Avila)

BAY AREA

Accidental Death of an Anarchist Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-99. Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (no show April 18; additional 2pm shows Thu/20 and April 17; also Sat, 2pm, but no matinee Sat/22); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through April 20. Berkeley Rep presents comic actor Steven Epp in Dario Fo’s explosive political farce, directed by Christopher Bayes,

Arms and the Man Barn Theatre, 30 Sir Francis Drake, Ross; www.rossvalleyplayers.com. $13-26. Thu, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through April 13. Ross Valley Players perform George Bernard Shaw’s romantic comedy.

Bread and Circuses La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $20-25. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through April 6. Impact Theatre performs “a cavalcade of brutal and bloody new short plays” by various contemporary playwrights.

Fool For Love Pear Avenue Theatre, 1220 Pear, Mtn View; www.thepear.org. $10-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through April 6. Pear Avenue Theatre performs Sam Shepard’s iconic play, about a pair of former lovers who reunite at a lonely desert motel.

Geezer Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $25-50. Thu, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through April 26. Geoff Hoyle moves his hit comedy about aging to the East Bay.

The Lion and the Fox Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berk; www.centralworks.org. $15-28. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through March 30. Central Works performs a prequel to its 2009 hit, Machiavelli’s The Prince, which depicts a face-off between Niccolo Machiavelli and Cesare Borgia.

The Music Man Julia Morgan Theater, 2640 College, Berk; www.berkeleyplayhouse.org. $17-60. Thu/20-Fri/21, 7pm; Sat/22, 1 and 6pm; Sun/23, noon and 5pm. There’s trouble in River City! See it unfold amid all those trombones at Berkeley Playhouse.

Once On This Island Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; www.theatreworks.org. $19-73. Tue-Wed, 7:30pm; Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through March 30. TheatreWorks performs the Tony-nominated musical about a star-crossed love affair in the tropics, inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

“Attractive Camp” Lost Weekend Video, 1034 Valencia, SF; www.eventbrite.com. Sun/23, 8pm. $10. Stand-up comedy, sketch comedy, and short films with Greg Edwards, Sean Keane, Lydia Popovich, and others.

“Awaiting Dawn” Dennis Gallagher Arts Pavilion, 66 Page, SF; internationalsf.org/awaiting_dawn. Thu/20-Sat/22 and March 27-28, 7pm; March 29, 2pm. $10-30. The French-American International School presents this series of performances exploring the intersections of art, education, and democracy.

Caroline Lugo and Carolé Acuña’s Ballet Flamenco Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; www.carolinalugo.com. Sat/22, March 30, April 6, 12, 19, and 30, 6:15pm. $15-19. Flamenco performance by the mother-daughter dance company, featuring live musicians.

“Comedy Returns to El Rio” El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Thu/20, 8pm. $7-20. Stand-up with Steve Lee, Bob McIntyre, Johan Miranda, Kat Evasco, and Lisa Geduldig.

Feinstein’s at the Nikko Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason, SF; www.feinsteinssf.com. This week: Jason Grae’s “49 1/2 Shades of Grae,” Thu/20, 8pm, $25-35; Vonda Shepard, Fri/21, 8pm, $40-55.

Flamenco Del Oro Emerald Tablet, 80 Fresno, SF; www.emtab.org. Fri/21, 8pm. $15 suggested donation. Flamenco dance and music.

“Izzies Dance Awards” Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th St, SF; www.brava.org. Mon/24, 6-8pm. Free. The 28th annual Isadora Duncan Dance Awards honors achievements by members of the Bay Area dance community, with awards for choreography, performance, visual design, and other categories.

Richard Lewis Cobb’s Comedy Club, 915 Columbus, SF; www.cobbscomedyclub.com. Fri/21, 8pm; Sat/22-Sun/23, 7pm (also Sat/22, 9:15pm). $25. The comedian performs.

“Luster: An American Songbook” Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness, SF; www.sfgmc.org. March 25-26, 8pm. $25-75. San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus performs works by Gershwin, Porter, Ellington, and Berlin, as well as the world premiere of a tribute to Tyler Clementi.

“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.

Mona Khan Company Garage, 715 Bryant, SF; ticketfly.com/event/475517. Sun/23 and March 30, 7:30pm (also March 30, 5:30pm). $20. The Indian contemporary dance company presents Soch, a night of vignettes.

“The Naked Stage” Bayfront Theater, B350 Fort Mason Center, SF; www.improv.org. Sat, 8pm. Through March 29. $20. BATS Improv performs a completely improvised play.

“ODC/Dance Downtown” Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater, 700 Howard, SF; www.ybca.org. Thu/20-Sat/22 and March 28-29, 8pm; Sun/23 and March 30, 4pm; March 26-27, 7:30pm. $20-75. The acclaimed contemporary dance company marks its 43rd season with world premiere boulders and bones, inspired by the work of artist Andy Goldsworthy, among other works.

“Paper Wing” NOHspace, 2840 Mariposa, SF; www.theatreofyugen.org. Fri/21-Sat/22, 8pm. $15-35. Sculptural costume artist Sha Sha Higby presents a new solo performance.

“Point Break Live!” DNA Lounge, 373 11th St, SF; www.dnalounge.com. April 4, 7:30 and 11pm. $25-50. Dude, Point Break Live! is like dropping into a monster wave, or holding up a bank, like, just a pure adrenaline rush, man. Ahem. Sorry, but I really can’t help but channel Keanu Reeves and his Johnny Utah character when thinking about the awesomely bad 1991 movie Point Break or its equally yummily cheesy stage adaptation. And if you do an even better Keanu impression than me — the trick is in the vacant stare and stoner drawl — then you can play his starring role amid a cast of solid actors, reading from cue cards from a hilarious production assistant in order to more closely approximate Keanu’s acting ability. This play is just so much fun, even better now at DNA Lounge than it was a couple years ago at CELLspace. But definitely buy the poncho pack and wear it, because the blood, spit, and surf spray really do make this a fully immersive experience. (Steven T. Jones)

“Sausage Fest Comedy Show” Club OMG, 43 Sixth St, SF; www.clubomgsf.com. Tue/25, 8pm. $10. Charlie Ballard hosts this night of shirtless comedy, with Mark Smalls, Hayden Greif-Neill, Mark Burg, Noah Gain, and others.

Sidra Bell Dance New York Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St, SF; www.dancemission.com. Fri/21-Sun/23, 8pm. $12-20. The NYC-based movement arts company performs garment and STELLA as part of its San Francisco season.

“Silenced” and “The CONTACT Project” CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; www.counterpulse.org. Thu/20-Sat/22, 8pm; Sun/23, 2pm. Counterpulse’s Artist Residency Commissioning Program presents a double bill by its winter residents. Dancer-choreographer Charya Burt’s Silenced blends traditional and modern dance as well as live music in a pointed homage to Cambodian pop star Ros Sereysothea, an iconic face and voice of the swinging Cambodian Sixties who ended up among the two million Cambodians murdered during the genocide under Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge (1975–1979). Backed by dancers Sandra Ruano and Ravy Mey and guitarist Nahuel Bronzini, Burt creates charming moments within a limited narrative arc, embodying in dance and song the artistry and resilience of her subject, who brought Cambodian sensibilities to Western popular musical forms. An enveloping montage of archival images by video designer Olivia Ting and a period score of Sereysothea’s hits supplemented by composer Alexis Alrich add further context and atmosphere. Choreographer Krista DeNio’s The CONTACT project reconfigures the theater space in an intimate exploration of the experiences and perspectives of male and female American military veterans. Created in collaboration with the performers (Daniel Bear Davis, Sonia Decker, Katarina Eriksson, Remi Frazier, Stephen Funk, Hope Hutman, Daniel Lippel, William McQueen, Utam Moses, Susan Pfeffer, Misty Rose Snyder, and Tina Taylor), some of whom are actual veterans, the piece is perhaps necessarily jagged in shape and execution, but DeNio offers connective tissue in the form of group movement and staging. Some of this brings audience members into the fold and even literally following in the steps of the vets, here the subjects and agents of an artificial and unraveling conformity. The emphasis on validating the personal experience of veterans is a political act in itself, and can make for some emotionally potent moments, although the rough balance strived for here can also inhibit a more rigorous political understanding and critique of ever-expanding American militarism. (Avila)

“Sister Spit 2014” Elbo Room, 647 Valencia, SF; www.radarproductions.org. Wed/19, 8pm. $10. Also Thu/20, 8pm, free, Mills College, Student Union, 5000 MacArthur, Oakl. Also Fri/21, 8pm, $10, Rock Paper Scissors Collective, 2278 Telegraph, Oakl. Michelle Tea hosts the 2014 “spring fling” performances by the groundbreaking queer and feminist literature series. Performers include Rhiannon Argo, Dia Felix, Chinaka Hodge, Beth Lisick, Jerry Lee Abram, and Virgie Tovar, plus special guests.

“Sorya! 2014: We Are Still At It” NOHspace, 2840 Mariposa, SF: www.brownpapertickets.com. Sat/22-Sun/23, 2pm; Mon/24, 7pm. Theatre of Yugen presents its 35th anniversary season with a performance by founder Yuriko Doi in the kyogen play Kawakami.

BAY AREA

“Fleetwood Mask: The Ultimate Tribute to Fleetwood Mac” Live Oak Theatre, 1301 Shattuck, Berk; www.theatrefirst.com. Sat/22, 8pm; Sun/23, 2pm. $30. Theatrical tribute to the iconic rock band.

“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.

Pilobolus Marin Veterans’ Memorial Auditorium, 10 Avenue of the Flags, San Rafael; www.marincenter.org. Sat/22, 8pm. $20-75. The dance company performs an eclectic program of past work and three Bay Area premieres.

“Poetry Express” Himalayan Flavors, 1585 University, Berk; poetryexpressberkeley.blogspot.com. Mon, 7pm. Free. Ongoing. This week: Ambrose Mohler, plus open mic. *

 

Sexual assault survivors seek reform at the University of California

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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Sexual assault survivors seek reform at the University of California

University of California Berkeley graduate Nicoletta Commins was 20 when she was sexually assaulted, in early 2012. She’d been taking a Taekwondo class, and said her teammate assaulted her when they were in her apartment.

He was “just an acquaintance,” she said in a phone interview. “We were sort of flirty, but not close friends.”

Following the incident, she had a pervasive sense of fear. “He was on campus for a month or a little more, after this happened. I was really depressed. They let me take a reduced workload, but it was hard to keep up with school,” she said. “I took windy ways to school to avoid him. I saw him on campus and it was a terrifying experience. There was one time I saw him walking by, and I hid behind a car.”

Adding to that stress was the difficulty Commins says she encountered after formally reporting the assault and awaiting a response from campus officials.

Late last month, 31 women who currently or formerly attended UC Berkeley filed formal complaints with the federal Department of Education, alleging that the university had mishandled sexual assault investigations through repeated failure to adequately address reports of these incidents.

Universities are bound to comply with Title IX, a federal civil rights law that requires postsecondary institutions to take measures to protect sexual assault victims. They must also adhere to the Clery Act, which requires reporting of crime statistics and for security policies to be in accordance with federal guidelines.

In their complaint, sexual assault survivors charged that UC Berkeley had violated their rights under Title IX and the Clery Act by failing to meet the complaints with adequate investigation and response. This was the second formal complaint to be lodged along these lines: Last May, nine women who had attended UC Berkeley came forward with an Office of Civil Rights complaint charging the same. This most recent filing was an updated complaint with accounts from more survivors.

After the sexual violence she experienced, Commons said she immediately sought medical care and reported what had happened. Initially, campus staff was responsive, she said. She met with a representative from the Office of Student Conduct, followed by a meeting with a campus coordinator tasked with Title IX compliance.

“People reached out to me. People told me their burden of evidence is lower at the school than the court,” she recounted. “They said people will see disciplinary action in the school that they won’t see from law enforcement.”

But time went on, and she heard nothing. “No one would tell me anything or respond to emails. All of a sudden everyone left me in the dark. They told me there’d be a hearing to participate in. Then nothing. For months.”

Getting nowhere through campus channels, she decided to go to the police, prompting the Alameda County District Attorney to become involved in her case.

After a year and a half had gone by, a settlement was finally reached. “Part of it included him not coming back to school for a few years before I left the campus,” she explained. “He had to get counseling. He was excluded from school functions, and [was barred] from contacting me.”

But she believes UC’s hand was forced by her decision to involve law enforcement. “If I had not reported to the police and the DA had not come to agreement with the lawyers, [the settlement] would not have happened,” she said. “It was an agreement between the DA’s office and the school.”

Following the initial OCR complaint last May, the California Legislature ordered the State Auditor to conduct an audit of UC Berkeley and three other universities, to assess outcomes of sexual violence complaints on a broad scale and to investigate whether the universities’ policies are in compliance with federal guidelines.

“Sexual violence is the elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about, particularly in an educational environment,” Assemblymember Anthony Rendon wrote in a letter calling for the audit.

“I am particularly concerned with the recent allegations made by the nine women from UC Berkeley stating that their cases were simply not taken seriously by campus officials and not reported properly. Campus officials discouraged them from reporting their cases to police and did not provide these victims with adequate support services … These women are broken down physically and emotionally. The lack of support they received from the officials on campus is attributable to this.”

Margarita Fernández, spokesperson for the State Auditor, said the audit was a work in progress and that findings could be released in June.

“The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights received a complaint that alleges discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual violence, race and disability at the University of California-Berkeley,” a spokesperson from that agency wrote in a statement to the Bay Guardian. “The Department is evaluating the complaint allegations to determine whether they are appropriate for a civil rights investigation.”

In the interim, the UC system has taken some steps in the wake of the federal complaints. According to a March 7 announcement, the school released a new policy against sexual violence and harassment that provides for expanded training and education, increased reporting requirements, and broader protections for victims, according to a recent announcement from the office of UC President Janet Napolitano.

UC Berkeley has also issued a formal response, with Chancellor Nicholas Dirks issuing a Feb. 25 letter to announce efforts to streamline campus policies around responding to sexual violence.

Addressing the sexual assault victims who came forward, Dirks said, “I have been deeply moved by your courage and conviction, and offer my full support for your efforts.”   

We sought to contact representatives from the campus’ Gender Equity Resource center, which provides assistance to sexual assault victims, but received a statement from campus spokesperson Janet Gilmore instead.

“We are committed to taking a close look at what we can do to better serve students and incorporate their concerns as we seek to address these issues,” Gilmore wrote. “That process remains underway.”

Dispatches from SXSW: Day 3 — Lessons, brisket, and fool’s gold

Steven T. Jones
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The most important thing I learned from being at SXSW is that I should not under any circumstances make any decisions to move to Austin based on my experience at SXSW. Yes, the city is amazing, hip, and fun for 10 days out of the year, but what about the other 355? I’m willing to bet at least 60 percent of attendees thought to themselves “You know what, I could totally see myself living here.” For San Franciscans and New Yorkers, that number is probably 80 percent. Not to mention, summertime in Austin is a devil’s combo of Arizona heat and Deep South humidity. In addition there’s only one light rail line in this huge sprawl of a city; Austin’s population is a little larger than San Francisco’s but has more than five times the square mileage. I feel this is necessary to point out because I have a feeling there are a dozen or so people every year who did this and after a couple months of living here they panic and are like “Oh god! Why did I sign that one-year lease!”

On to day three (Friday).

Part of the reason I was so excited to visit Austin was for the barbeque, specifically brisket. My original plan was to visit the famous Franklin’s BBQ, a place that usually has a three-hour wait. But when I saw that people were camping out in line, I said scratch that. The first two days were brisket free for me, therefore my third day had to be brisket day. I went to some place called Noah’s and had a brisket plate and a brisket sandwich to go. The plate was good at first and then became mediocre half-way through. When I had the sandwich later on in the day, it was dried out and there virtually useless, I still ate it anyway. My determination to find a decent a brisket joint was still undeterred. I found a food truck area and convinced myself to order a $10 brisket sandwich. It too was mediocre. My friend had a brisket from another food stand, I had a bite of it and it didn’t do anything to impress. Here’s another lesson for you, food at big events sucks, it’s the more expensive and mass-produced version of itself; Outside Lands is very guilty of this.

Anyway, back to the music.

migos
Migos

Day three was also my sleep-in and rest day. Walking 14 miles a day with sun in your eyes and loud noise in your ears and staying out to 2 or 3am can really wreck you. At around 4pm, I’m fully recharged and I make my way to the Fader Fort for one last hurrah. Unfortunately, this time around even the badge-people are having a hard time getting. I’m stuck in line for 80 minutes, while my friends are enjoying the hedonism of the Fader Fort. I finally get in, I catch the last three songs of Young Thug’s raucous set. I find my friends and we decide to bounce, I bid adieu to the Fader Fort.

For our last night in Austin, my friends and I decide that we’re going to stick to one showcase and spend the entire night. We finally decided on the Fool’s Gold showcase hosted by A-Trak and Nick Catchdubs. On the bill was A-Trak, Migos, Travis Scott, Black Atlas, Treasure Fingers, Berkeley rapper 100s, and about 234 other rappers and DJs. We get in line two hours before doors open at 8 and of course there are already 30 people in front of us. We pass the time by playing games, eating dinner, and making new friends with our line buddies. Then 8pm rolls around,  the moment we’ve been waiting for. Nothing happens besides someone telling us to form a strict single-file line. Then at 8:40, we make our way in knowing our patience will be greatly rewarded.

The waiting, however, is not over. The first hour and a half of acts are by and large forgettable. They’re all rappers whose gimmicks, fist-pumping, and attempts to “turn up” were doing little to affect the crowd.

Four hours after we got in line, the real fun kicks in when Treasure Fingers hops on the ones and twos. He spins a bombastic set of fast-paced galloping electro and bass-drenched hip hop, a near perfect threading of the border between hip-hop and electronic music. Fool’s Gold co-head Nick Catchdubs takes over the DJ baton after Treasure Fingers and switches to a more hip-hop centric set that’s just as  exciting. Sweet vindication for all that time waiting is settling in, my version of the marshmallow experiment.

100s
100s

However, I was not prepared for the next two and a half hours. I had never experienced such a colossal amount of hip-hop bravado, swagger, and stage presence packed into such a small space (the venue was a car repair garage.) 100s led off this hip-hop marathon with his silky perm and synth-hop beats. When they say SXSW is a platform for artists to take off, they’re talking about artists like 100s.

A-Trak takes the stage after 100s and starts turntabling for a bit and then out of a nowhere Danny Brown pops out as the “surprise” guest of evening. The crowd goes wild even though despite this being one of the least surprising guests SXSW. Danny Brown throws down a rambunctious set mostly because the crowd is so hyped to see him. He yells “Where’s the molly at?!” of course, then does one more song and bows out to Migos.

As soon as they grab the mic, it’s apparent that Migos are natural performers. Not too many acts can have an iron-fisted control over a mob of drunk and high hip-hop fans. During “Versace” and “Hannah Montana,” the energy in the air is so palpable I think the entire place was going to collapse. Then Young Thug bursts out of nowhere, causing an earthquake registering a 7.2 on the richter scale. Tsunami warnings are issued all along the Texas and Gulf coasts.

young thug and migos
Young Thug and Migos

It’s one of the most “Can’t stop, won’t stop” moments I’ve ever witnessed in hip-hop. More and more guests like A$AP Ferg, Travis Scott, and YG. Each guest somehow finding a way to turn up the crowd more. Every time I feel like we’ve reach peak turn-up, the next track manages to turn up even more.

At the end of this hip-hop extravaganza, I am left nearly catatonic and speechless. I literally OD on hip-hop, and plan to go cold turkey for the rest of the month. When I regain consciousness, a pain and numbness takes over my legs, leaving me with the daunting task of walking two miles home.

This Week’s Picks: March 12 -18, 2014

Michael Redmond
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WEDNESDAY 12

Freddie Rainbow Presents “Gender Night”

It’s no secret that comedy is a male-dominated business. For years, there’s been this stereotype that women aren’t funny. Honestly, how often do you see a comedy with a female lead? While movies like Bridesmaids and Ghost World are few and far between, over the past couple of years, women in entertainment have been speaking out against this double standard. “Gender Night” is the most recent development. Comedian and ardent supporter of gender equality Freddie Rainbow presents an encore presentation of comedy from California’s finest comediennes. Expect jokes about shopping and love as well as fart jokes. Girls fart too, get over it. “The only reason to miss this show is if you hate women,” says the comedy club website. “Please don’t hate women.” (Laura B. Childs)

8pm, $15

Punch Line Comedy Club

444 Battery, SF

(415) 397-7573

www.punchlinecomedyclub.com

 

THURSDAY 13

Shpongle

For more than 15 years, English DJ and producer Simon Posford and Australian flutist Raja Ram have collaborated to produce expansive, mind-bending, psychedelic music. Fans are still raving about how Shpongle rocked Oakland’s Fox Theatre just before Halloween 2011, when Posford and Ram played with a live band and an ensemble of colorful dancers. Posford, who takes to the decks for this show in support of the duo’s latest album Museum of Consciousness (Twisted Records), was a major contributor to the frenetic psy-trance scene that blossomed in Britain in the early ’90s. Those early musical influences shine through in the track “How the Jellyfish Jumped the Mountain,” an intricate, mid-tempo, 10-minute journey through filtered melodies, distorted vocal samples and catchy basslines. (Kevin Lee)

With Desert Dwellers, Vokab Kompany

8 pm, $27.50 presale, $30 at the door

The Regency Ballroom

1300 Van Ness, SF

(415) 673-5716

http://www.theregencyballroom.com

 

IDEO’s David Kelley

IDEO founder David Kelley and his brother Tom Kelley believe that we are watered-down versions of what we could be. On the heels of their bestselling The Art of Innovation, the businessmen brothers have written Creative Confidence, a book that challenges the idea that only some people are creative, suggesting that creativity is not innate but rather a skill. At this JCC event, the IDEO founder and Stanford University professor will speak about unlocking our creative potential; the night will also include a guest lecture by the pioneer for modern journalism and story-telling, Douglas McGray, editor-in-chief of Pop-Up Magazine and the brand new California Sunday Magazine. (Childs)

7pm, $25

Jewish Community Center of San Francisco

3200 California, SF

(415) 292-1200

www.jccsf.com

 

 

Little Minsky’s Burlesque Cabaret

Boasting what some have called both the best pizza and jazz in the city (can you really beat that combination?), Club Deluxe is bringing back Little Minsky’s Burlesque Cabaret every second Thursday of the month. If you like your cocktails stiff and your burlesque dancers flexible, this is the night for you. Take a trip back in time with a lovely lineup of vintage cabaret performers and Prohibition-era jazz musicians. The night is sure to get hot and heavy, but in the classiest of ways, of course. (Childs)

10pm, $5

Club Deluxe

1511 Haight, SF

(415) 552-6949

www.pizza-deluxe.com

 

FRIDAY 14

Screen Printing for Newbies – Late Night Edition

Remember the good old days, when your parents signed you up for various art classes or random activities just so they didn’t have to deal with you on the weekends or school breaks? Workshop SF is oddly reminiscent of summer camp. With Jameson lamps, metallic saws, and only the necessary amount of clutter, the NoPa studio offers awesome classes from Sewing 101 to Hair Bootcamp to Pickling 101. Tonight, they offer a special late night edition of “Screen Printing for Newbies.” Learn the basics of silkscreen printing with an hour-long, hands-on tutorial and two hours of time to print. Bring your own printing supplies or come empty-handed — either way you’ll walk out with some cool designs printed on paper, T-shirts, and even beer koozies. (Childs)

8pm, $42

Workshop

1789 McAllister, SF

(415) 874-9186

www.workshopsf.org

 

Stephen Petronio

It’s been a while since we have seen Stephen Petronio’s dancers fill a local stage with the interlocking complexities of choreography so fiercely layered — and performed at such speed — that the mind sometimes had difficulties in absorbing it all. Apparently, given the newest work’s name, we can expect some slower passages. In Like Lazarus Did, Petronio and his 10 dancers are dancing about death and resurrection, not exactly a hot topic on the traveling dance circuit. But perhaps the subject makes sense for a dancer-choreographer who is close to 60, who was the first male dancer with Trisha Brown — whose troupe is currently on life support — and whose own company is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. So happy birthday and many more to come. (Rita Felciano)

March 14-15, 7:30pm, $35-50

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

700 Howard St. SF

(415) 978-2787

www.ybca.org

 

SATURDAY 15

Magic, Color, Flair: The World of Mary Blair

With a keenly creative outlook and modernist style mixed with bold, beautiful colors, artist Mary Blair helped inspire and design some of the most beloved films and attractions made by Walt Disney Studios during the 1940s and ’50s, including Peter Pan, Cinderella, and Alice In Wonderland. This new exhibit features 200 works that examine not only her seminal time and iconic output with Disney but also her early years, as well as her later work as an illustrator for advertising, theatrical sets, clothing, children’s books, and much more. (Sean McCourt)

Through Sept. 7, 2014

10am-6pm, Wed-Mon, $10 for Blair exhibit only, museum combo ticket $17-$25

The Walt Disney Family Museum

104 Montgomery, SF

www.waltdisney.org

 

 

Sureando: Rambling through the South

There is a difference between listening through your ears and listening through your heart. For the latter, there’s nothing better than the voice of Chilean cellist Mochi Parra. This performance will see Parra teaming up with Peruvian native bass virtuoso and Berkeley Jazz School teacher David Pinto to present a concert of South American musical jewels that will undoubtedly set a precedent for the possibilities of these two instruments. There’s nothing sparse about this: Pinto’s six-stringed bass seems to dialogue with Mochi commanding interpretations, and the duo’s original arrangements combine to create an exquisite orchestration right at the edges of the unpredictable nueva canción styles. (Fernando A. Torres)

7pm, $15

Red Poppy Art House

2698 Folsom, SF

(415) 826-2402

www.redpoppyarthouse.org

 

The San Francisco International Chocolate Salon

In the market for a sugar rush? Now in its 8th year, this annual smorgasbord of all things cocoa-based promises “55,000 square feet of chocolate,” in the form of tastings, demonstrations, new product launches, author talks, wine pairings, a “Chocolate Art Gallery,” and more. Artisan chocolatiers, confectioners, and self-proclaimed chocolate aficionados from all over the globe will converge at the Fort Mason Center to hear from locals like John Scharffenberger, chocolate maker at, yes, Scharffen Berger Chocolate, as well as chocolate-obsessed celebrities from the cooking show world. Let’s get real: It’s been a month since we had any heart-shaped truffles and there are still a few weeks to go until Cadbury Creme Eggs. Our sweet tooth needs this. (Emma Silvers)

10am, $20 -$30, discounts for kids

Fort Mason Center

2 Marina Blvd, SF

www.sfchocolatesalon.com

 

SUNDAY 16

Portland Cello Project

Compelling mysteries arise whenever the Portland Cello Project is slated to perform. What sort of ensemble will participate? Will they go all cellists, or will they incorporate some combination of vocals, horns, winds, and percussion? Moreover, what sort of music will they play? Known as an “indie music orchestra,” PCP (an affectionate nickname from fans) unabashedly reappropriates rap, rock, and pop artists, from Kanye West’s upbeat “All of the Lights” to Radiohead’s melancholic “Karma Police,” into provocative covers that defy easy genre classification. The Project’s most stirring renditions seem to come from slowing down a track and teaming up with a powerful voice, which seems to naturally emphasize the emotional power of the cello. Accompanied by vocalist Chanticleer Tru, the Project’s take on Beck’s “Don’t Act Like Your Heart Isn’t Hard” is a particularly devastating, soul-laden heartbreaker. (Lee)

8pm, $22 presale, $26 at the door

Yoshi’s San Francisco

1330 Fillmore, SF

(415) 655-5600

www.yoshis.com

 

Sunday Sampler at the Berkeley Rep School of Theatre

If you’ve spent more time practicing your Oscar acceptance speech than you’d perhaps like to admit, come out of hiding: Three times a year, the professional thespians at the Berkeley Repertory’s School of Theatre hold an afternoon of free acting workshops that are entirely open to the public, to serve as a preview of the school’s upcoming programming. Classes for youth, teens, and adults are available, from Beginning Acting and Musical Theatre to Playwriting and “Acting Violence” — aka how to stage a swordfight without actually injuring your coworkers or yourself. Even if you never go pro, you never know when that last one could come in handy. (Silvers)

1pm, free

Berkeley Repertory School of Theatre

2071 Addison, Berkeley

(510) 647–2972

www.berkeleyrep.org


MONDAY 17

Crossroads Irish-American Festival with Katherine Hastings

For those whose ideal St. Patrick’s Day celebration is a little more literary, a little less passing-out-in-your-own-green-puke, this evening honoring the legacy of Irish-American poetry, featuring Sonoma County Poet Laureate Katherine Hastings, should be just the ticket. With her recently published Nighthawks, Hastings has established herself as a poet unafraid to tackle controversial current events in her work, but there’s a constant undercurrent of appreciation for nature — she previously edited What Redwoods Know: Poems from California State Parks as a benefit for the struggling California State Parks Foundation. And because poets do know how to have fun: Irish soda bread and other Irish treats will be served. (Silvers)

7pm, free

BookShop West Portal

80 West Portal, SF

www.irishamericancrossroads.org

 

TUESDAY 18

Free to Play advance screening

This feature-length documentary, produced by video game developer Valve, takes viewers inside the world of competitive gaming — sorry, e-sports — as three professional gamers travel the world, competing for a $1 million prize in the first Dota 2 International Tournament. What was once considered a niche interest is now serious business, with trading and politics that mirror professional sports; Dota 2, a five-person team sport, is especially big in China, where one wealthy man recently bought an entire team for $6 million. This premiere will feature a live Q&A with the film’s creators and other special guests. (Silvers)

8pm, $25

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

www.castrotheatre.com

 

The Guardian listings deadline is two weeks prior to our Wednesday publication date. To submit an item for consideration, please include the title of the event, a brief description of the event, date and time, venue name, street address (listing cross streets only isn’t sufficient), city, telephone number readers can call for more information, telephone number for media, and admission costs. Send information to Listings, the Guardian, 225 Bush, 17th Flr., SF, CA 94105; or email (paste press release into email body — no attachments, please) to listings@sfbg,com. Digital photos may be submitted in jpeg format; the image must be at least 240 dpi and four inches by six inches in size. We regret we cannot accept listings over the phone.

Rep Clock: March 12 -18, 2014

Michael Redmond
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Schedules are for Wed/12-Tue/18 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. $7-10. “Matters of Water: Fluid Dynamics + Aqueous Abstractions,” Thu, 8. Film and video program curated by Molly Hankwitz. Druid Underground Film Festival, “avant-weird” short films from around the world, Fri, 8. Other Cinema: Pasolini’s Last Words (Crane, 2012), plus tributes to William S. Burroughs, Sat, 8:30.

BERKELEY FELLOWSHIP OF UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISTS 1924 Cedar, Berk; www.bfuu.org. $5-10. Terms and Conditions May Apply (Hoback, 2013), Thu, 7.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $8.50-11. “Philip Seymour Hoffman (1967-2014):” •Flawless (Schumacher, 1999), Wed, 7, and Boogie Nights (Anderson, 1997), Wed, 9:05. CAAMfest 2014, Thu and Sun. Full schedule at caamfest.com/2014. •The World’s End (Wright, 2013), Fri, 7, and This Is the End (Goldberg and Rogen, 2013), Fri, 9:10. “Putting on the Ritz: A Celebration of Tony, Grammy, Emmy, and Oscar Winner Rita Moreno:” West Side Story (Wise, 1961), presented sing-along style and introduced by Moreno, Sat, 1; The Ritz (Lester, 1976), gala event with Moreno interviewed onstage, Sat, 8. For advance tickets $12.50-60) visit www.ticketfly.com. •Gravity (Cuarón, 2013), Mon, 7, and Silent Running (Trumbull, 1972), Mon, 8:35. Free to Play Tue, 8.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-$10.75. times. The Rocket (Mordaunt, 2013), call for dates and times. The Lunchbox (Batra, 2013), March 14-20, call for times.

CLAY 2261 Fillmore, SF; www.landmarktheatres.com. $10. “Midnight Movies:” Bottle Rocket (Anderson, 1996), Fri-Sat, midnight.

EXPLORATORIUM Pier 15, SF; www.exploratorium.edu. Free with museum admission ($19-25). “Off the Screen: Let Your Light Shine with Jodie Mack,” Thu, 7 (18+ program) and Sat, 1 (all-ages program). With Jodie Mack in person; co-presented by the SF Cinematheque.

FIRST UNITARIAN CHURCH OF BERKELEY 1 Lawson, Kensington; www.orphanwisdom.com. $10-20. Griefwalker (Wilson, 2008), Fri, 7.

GOETHE-INSTITUT SAN FRANCISCO 530 Bush, SF; goethe.de/ins/us/saf/enindex.htm. $5. The Blind Flyers (Sahling, 2004), Wed, 6:30.

JCCSF Kanbar Hall, 3200 California, SF; jccsf.org/arts. $18. Grease (Kleiser, 1978), presented sing-along style, Sat, 2 and 7:30.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; milibrary.org/events. $10. “CinemaLit Film Series: Mystique of the City: Films Shot in San Francisco:” Experiment in Terror (Edwards, 1962), Fri, 6.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Film 50: History of Cinema:” Umberto D. (De Sica, 1952), with lecture by Emily Carpenter, Wed, 3:10. “Jokers Wild: American Comedy, 1960-1989:” Watermelon Man (Van Peebles, 1970), Wed, 7. “Jean-Luc Godard: Expect Everything from Cinema:” Made in USA (1966), Thu, 7. CAAMfest 2014, March 14-21. Full schedule at caamfest.com/2014.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-11. “Wes Anderson in 35mm:” Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009), Wed, 7. 12 O’Clock Boys (Nathan, 2013), Wed-Thu, 9:30. Awful Nice (Sklar, 2013), Wed-Thu, 7, 9. 7 Boxes (Maneglia, 2014), Thu, 7.

SHATTUCK 2230 Shattuck, Berk; www.thewisdomtreefilm.com. $12. The Wisdom Tree (Shah, 2013), Thu, 7.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. $8-10. “Design and Architecture Films Showcase:” •Fallingwater: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Masterwork (Love, 1994/2011), and The Oyler House: Richard Neutra’s Desert Retreat (Dorsey, 2012), Thu, 7 and Sun, 4; Kiss the Water (Steel, 2013), Sun, 2.. *

 

Theater Listings: March 12 – 18, 2014

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

THEATER

OPENING

Bauer San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. Previews March 18-21, 8pm. Opens March 22, 8pm. Runs Tue-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm); March 23 and April 13, 2pm. Through April 19. San Francisco Playhouse presents the world premiere of Lauren Gunderson’s drama about artist Rudolf Bauer.

Twisted Fairy Tales Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.leftcoasttheatreco.org. $15-25. Opens Fri/14, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through April 5. Left Coast Theatre Co. performs the world premiere of seven one-act LGBT-themed plays based on classic children’s stories.

Wrestling Jerusalem Intersection for the Arts, 925 Mission, SF; www.theintersection.org. $20-30. Previews Wed/12-Fri/14, 7:30pm. Opens Sat/15, 7:30pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 7:30pm; Sun, 2pm. Intersection for the Arts presents Aaron Davidman in his multicharacter solo performance piece about Israel and Palestine.

BAY AREA

Arms and the Man Barn Theatre, 30 Sir Francis Drake, Ross; www.rossvalleyplayers.com. $13-26. Previews Thu/13, 7:30pm. Opens Fri/14, 8pm. Runs Thu, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm (no show Sun/16). Through April 13. Ross Valley Players perform George Bernard Shaw’s romantic comedy.

ONGOING

Children Are Forever (All Sales are Final!) Stage Werx Theatre, 446 Valencia, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $15. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through March 22. Writer-performer and comedian Julia Jackson’s well acted and consistently funny autobiographical solo show details her and her female partner’s attempt to adopt a newborn girl from a young African American mother in Florida. Along the way, Jackson’s smart script details the trials, red tape, and unexpected market incentives in the field of adoption for a same-sex, interracial couple. If the generally involving story nevertheless attenuates a little across its two-act structure, Coke Nakamoto’s precise direction (which builds on original direction by W. Kamau Bell) offers a lively framework for Jackson’s excellent characterizations as well as her frank and interesting commentary on the social, political messiness of certain natural urges. (Avila)

Crystal Springs Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.crystalspringstheplay.com. $20-65. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through March 23. Eureka Theatre presents Kathy Rucker’s world-premiere drama about parenting in the digital age.

Feisty Old Jew Marsh San Francisco Main Stage, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $25-100. Sat/15, 8pm; Sun/16, 7pm. Charlie Varon performs his latest solo show, a fictional comedy about “a 20th century man living in a 21st century city.”

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.

Hundred Days Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.zspace.org. $10-100. Wed and Sun, 7pm; Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through April 6. Married musical duo the Bengsons (Abigail and Shaun) provide the real-life inspiration and guiding rock ‘n’ roll heart for this uneven but at times genuinely rousing indie musical drama, a self-referential meta-theater piece relating the story of a young couple in 1940s America who fall madly in love only to discover one of them is terminally ill. As an exploration of love, mortality, and the nature of time, the story of Sarah and Will (doubled by the Bengsons and, in movement sequences and more dramatically detailed scenes, by chorus members Amy Lizardo and Reggie D. White) draws force from the potent musical performances and songwriting of composer-creators Abigail and Shaun Bengson (augmented here by the appealing acting-singing chorus and backup band that also feature El Beh, Melissa Kaitlyn Carter, Geneva Harrison, Kate Kilbane, Jo Lampert, Delane Mason, Joshua Pollock). Playwright Kate E. Ryan’s book, however, proves too straightforward, implausible, and sentimental to feel like an adequate vessel for the music’s exuberant, urgent emotion and lilting, longing introspection. Other trappings of director Anne Kauffman’s elaborate production (including an inspired set design by Kris Stone that echoes the raw industrial shell of the theater; and less-than-inspired choreography by the otherwise endlessly inventive Joe Goode) can add texture at times but also prove either neutral figures or distracting minuses in conveying what truth and heft there is in the material. Ultimately, this still evolving world premiere has a strong musical beat at its core, which has a palpable force of its own, even if it’s yet to settle into the right combination of story and staging. (Avila)

Lovebirds Marsh San Francisco Studio, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thu/13-Fri/14, 8pm; Sat/15, 8:30pm. Theater artist and comedian Marga Gomez presents the world premiere of her 10th solo show, described as “a rollicking tale of incurable romantics.”

Mommy Queerest Exit Studio, 156 Eddy, SF; www.divafest.info. $15-25. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through March 29. Sex scenes in solo shows might sound a little onanistic, but in the right circumstances a door jam or a love seat can serve as a fine co-star. Stand-up comic and actor Kat Evasco demonstrates as much in this raunchy and high-spirited story of her sexual awakening as a lesbian-identifying bisexual, coming out in a household dominated by her closeted mother, a Filipina American drama queen with a long-term female companion she insists is the “gay” one. Presented by Guerrilla Rep and the Exit Theatre’s DIVAfest, and directed by Guerrilla Rep’s John Caldon (who co-wrote the play with Evasco), the story follows a familiar and predictable arc in some ways — familial hypocrisy giving way to inspirational cross-generational understanding — and the characterizations and set-ups (including a family feud on Jerry Springer) come with not always inspired choices. Moreover not all the jokes land where they should in a performance that starts as stand-up but immediately shifts into the style of a solo-play confessional. (A more thoroughgoing subversion of the stand-up format might have produced more complex, less foreseeable results.) At the same time, there’s no denying Evasco’s charm and energy, or her buoyant comedic talent, which makes it easier to forgive the play’s structural shortcomings. (Avila)

“Risk Is This … The Cutting Ball New Experimental Plays Festival” Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor, SF; www.cuttingball.com. Free ($20 donation for reserved seating). Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through March 29. Five new works in staged readings, including two from Cutting Ball resident playwright Andrew Saito.

The Scion Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-60. Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through April 18. In his latest solo show, Brian Copeland (Not a Genuine Black Man; The Waiting Period) explores an infamous crime in his hometown of San Leandro: the 2000 murder of three government meat inspectors by Stuart Alexander, owner of the Santos Linguisa Factory. The story is personal history for Copeland, at least indirectly, as the successful comedian and TV host recounts growing up nearby under the common stricture that “rules are rules,” despite evidence all around that equity, fairness, and justice are in fact deeply skewed by privilege. Developed with director David Ford, the multiple-character monologue (delivered with fitful humor on a bare-bones stage with supportive sound design by David Hines) contrasts Copeland’s own youthful experiences as a target of racial profiling with the way wealthy and white neighbor Stuart Alexander, a serial bully and thug, consistently evaded punishment and even police attention along his path to becoming the “Sausage King,” a mayoral candidate, and a multiple murderer (Alexander died in 2005 at San Quentin). The story takes some meandering turns in making its points, and not all of Copeland’s characterizations are equally compelling. The subject matter is timely enough, however, though ironically it is government that seems to set itself further than ever above the law as much as wealthy individuals or the bogus “legal persons” of the corporate world. The results of such concentrated power are indeed unhealthy, and literally so — Copeland’s grandmother (one of his more persuasive characterizations) harbors a deep distrust of processed food that is nothing if not prescient —but The Scion’s tale of two San Leandrans leaves one hungry for more complexity. (Avila)

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)

The Speakeasy Undisclosed location (ticket buyers receive a text with directions), SF; www.thespeakeasysf.com. $70 (gambling chips, $5-10 extra; after-hours admission, $10). Thu-Sat, 7:40, 7:50, and 8pm admittance times. Extended through May 24. Boxcar Theater’s most ambitious project to date is also one of the more involved and impressively orchestrated theatrical experiences on any Bay Area stage just now. An immersive time-tripping environmental work, The Speakeasy takes place in an “undisclosed location” (in fact, a wonderfully redesigned version of the company’s Hyde Street theater complex) amid a period-specific cocktail lounge, cabaret, and gambling den inhabited by dozens of Prohibition-era characters and scenarios that unfold around an audience ultimately invited to wander around at will. At one level, this is an invitation to pure dress-up social entertainment. But there are artistic aims here too. Intentionally designed (by co-director and creator Nick A. Olivero with co-director Peter Ruocco) as a fractured super-narrative — in which audiences perceive snatches of overheard stories rather than complete arcs, and can follow those of their own choosing — there’s a way the piece becomes specifically and ever more subtly about time itself. This is most pointedly demonstrated in the opening vignettes in the cocktail lounge, where even the ticking of Joe’s Clock Shop (the “cover” storefront for the illicit 1920s den inside) can be heard underscoring conversations (deeply ironic in historical hindsight) about war, loss, and regained hope for the future. For a San Francisco currently gripped by a kind of historical double-recurrence of the roaring Twenties and dire Thirties at once, The Speakeasy is not a bad place to sit and ponder the simulacra of our elusive moment. (Avila)

Tipped & Tipsy Marsh Studio Theater, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat, 5pm; Sun, 7pm. Through April 6. Solo performer Jill Vice performs her Fringe Festival hit.

The World of Paradox Garage, 715 Bryant, SF; www.paradoxmagic.com. $12-15. Mon, 8pm. Through April 7. Footloose presents David Facer in his solo show, a mix of magic and theater.

Yellow New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through March 23. Playwright Del Shores (Sordid Lives, Southern Baptist Sissies) returns to his native South — while detouring from previous camp-comedy treatments — with this affirming family drama set in Vicksburg, Miss., about a progressive white couple whose marriage and family are rocked in the wake of their son’s illness. Kate (Dana Zook) and Bobby (Andrew Nance) are celebrating 19 years together. Their oldest son, Dayne (Damion Matthews), is a handsome high school senior and football star; their daughter, Gracie (Ali Haas), is his high-strung younger sister, a drama devotee in more ways than one with plans to be the next Meryl Streep. Gracie’s best friend, Kendall (Maurice André San-Chez), is an effeminate young man with a golden singing voice but a strict fundamentalist mother (Linsay Rousseau) from whom he must hide his plan to join Gracie in the school’s production of Oklahoma. Kendall’s fractured family encourages his tight orbit around Gracie’s — including Dayne, on whom Kendall has an impossible-to-disguise crush — all of whom accept the closeted, innocent youth unequivocally. But when Dayne comes down with a rare liver disease (the title has nothing to do with race, which is not explored here, but references, at a literal level, the sickly color that overcomes Dayne at one point), the seemingly ideal family itself fractures along lines of a deeply buried secret regarding his paternity. Amid their worry for Dayne’s future, and the painful dynamic opened between Kate and Bobby, Kendall’s mother moves in with proselyting zeal, alienating her son to the point of total rejection, but also adding to an already volatile tension between his adoptive parents. Helmed by New Conservatory Theatre Center’s founding artistic director, Ed Decker, the production achieves (after some initial warming up) decent performances across the cast, which, along with Shores’ careful plotting and consistent humor, helps keep this sentimental, somewhat too neat story involving until the end. (Avila)

BAY AREA

Accidental Death of an Anarchist Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-99. Opens Wed/12, 8pm. Runs Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (no show April 18; additional 2pm shows March 20 and April 17; also Sat, 2pm, but no matinee March 22); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through April 20. Berkeley Rep presents comic actor Steven Epp in Dario Fo’s explosive political farce, directed by Christopher Bayes,

Bread and Circuses La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $20-25. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through April 6. Impact Theatre performs “a cavalcade of brutal and bloody new short plays” by various contemporary playwrights.

Geezer Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $25-50. Thu, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through April 26. Geoff Hoyle moves his hit comedy about aging to the East Bay.

The House That Will Not Stand Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-59. Wed/12, 7pm; Thu/13-Sat/15, 8pm (also Thu/13 and Sat/15, 2pm); Sun/16, 2 and 7pm. July 4, 1836: As a white New Orleans patriarch (Ray Reinhardt) passes from the scene, under somewhat mysterious circumstances, his longtime mistress, Beartrice (an imposing, memorable Lizan Mitchell), and their daughters (the charmingly varied trio of Joniece Abbott-Pratt, Flor De Liz Perez, and Tiffany Rachelle Stewart) — all free women of color — vie for dominance while trying to secure their respective futures in Berkeley Rep’s sumptuous and beautifully acted world premiere. Nationally acclaimed playwright and Oakland native Marcus Gardley (And Jesus Moonwalked the Mississippi; This World in a Woman’s Hands) brews up a historically rich and revealing, as well as witty and fiery tale here, based on the practice of plaçage (common-law marriages between white men and black Creole women), grounding it in the large personalities of his predominately female characters — who include a nosy and angling intruder (played with subtlety by Petronia Paley) — and lacing it all with a delirious dose of magical realism via the voodoo charms of Beartrice’s slave, Makeda (Harriett D. Foy, who with Keith Townsend Obadike also contributes lush, atmospheric compositions to the proceedings). Gardley delves productively into the history overall, although he sometimes indulges it too much in awkward and ultimately unnecessary expository dialogue. When he allows his characters full scope for expression of their personalities and relationships, however, the dialogue sails by with brio and punch —something the powerhouse cast, shrewdly directed by Patricia McGregor, makes the most of throughout. (Avila)

Lasso of Truth Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; www.marintheatre.org. $37-58. Wed/12, 7:30pm;Thu/13-Sat/15, 8pm (also Sat/15, 2pm); Sun/16, 2 and 7pm. Marin Theatre Company performs Carson Kreitzer’s new play about the history of Wonder Woman.

The Lion and the Fox Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berk; www.centralworks.org. $15-28. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through March 30. Central Works performs a prequel to its 2009 hit, Machiavelli’s The Prince, which depicts a face-off between Niccolo Machiavelli and Cesare Borgia.

The Music Man Julia Morgan Theater, 2640 College, Berk; www.berkeleyplayhouse.org. $17-60. Fri and March 20, 7pm; Sat, 1 and 6pm; Sun, noon and 5pm. Through March 23. There’s trouble in River City! See it unfold amid all those trombones at Berkeley Playhouse.

Once On This Island Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; www.theatreworks.org. $19-73. Tue-Wed, 7:30pm; Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through March 30. TheatreWorks performs the Tony-nominated musical about a star-crossed love affair in the tropics, inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

Caroline Lugo and Carolé Acuña’s Ballet Flamenco Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; www.carolinalugo.com. Sun/16, March 22, 30, April 6, 12, 19, and 30, 6:15pm. $15-19. Flamenco performance by the mother-daughter dance company, featuring live musicians.

Companhia Urbana de Dança Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. Thu/13-Sat/15, 8pm. $25-35. Brazilian dance troupe under the direction of Sonia Destri Lie.

“Dream Queens Revue” Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, 133 Turk, SF; www.dreamqueensrevue.com. Wed/12, 9:30pm. Free. Drag with Collette LeGrande, Ruby Slippers, Sophilya Leggz, Bobby Ashton, and more.

Feinstein’s at the Nikko Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason, SF; www.feinsteinssf.com. This week: Cheyenne Jackson with musical director Ben Toth, Fri/14, 8pm; Sat/15-Sun/16, 7pm, $60-75.

Greg Fitzsimmons Punch Line Comedy Club, 444 Battery, SF; www.punchlinecomedyclub.com. Thu/13, 8pm; Fri/14, 8 and 10pm; Sat/15, 7:30 and 9:30pm. $23.50. The comedian performs.

“The Garden Party” Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason, SF; www.overcasttheatre.com. Fri/14-Sat/15 and March 19-22, 8pm; Sun/16, 5pm. $11-13. Overcast Theatre performs Václav Havel’s 1963 comedy.

“LEVYdance Presents: The Salon” LEVYstudio, 19 Heron, SF; www.levydance.org. Sat/15, 8:30pm. $10. Performing arts showcase featuring 10 local artists of various disciplines.

“LOL Mondays at OMG” OMG, 43 Sixth St, SF; www.clubomgsf.com. Mon/17, 7pm. Free. Comedy show hosted by Valerie Branch, with featured performers Imran G., Samantha Gilweit, and Barry Fischer, plus an open mic.

“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.

“The Naked Stage” Bayfront Theater, B350 Fort Mason Center, SF; www.improv.org. Sat, 8pm. Through March 29. $20. BATS Improv performs a completely improvised play.

“New Winter: Winter Choreographers Showcase” Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Fri/14-Sat/15, 8pm. $14. Works by Tika Morgan’s Reggaeton Fusion Performance Workshop, Allan Frias’ Hip-Hop Performance Workshop, Maurice Stokes, Natasha Carlitz Dance Ensemble, and more.

“Paper Wing” NOHspace, 2840 Mariposa, SF; www.theatreofyugen.org. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through March 22. $15-35. Sculptural costume artist Sha Sha Higby presents a new solo performance.

“Point Break Live!” DNA Lounge, 373 11th St, SF; www.dnalounge.com. April 4, 7:30 and 11pm. $25-50. Dude, Point Break Live! is like dropping into a monster wave, or holding up a bank, like, just a pure adrenaline rush, man. Ahem. Sorry, but I really can’t help but channel Keanu Reeves and his Johnny Utah character when thinking about the awesomely bad 1991 movie Point Break or its equally yummily cheesy stage adaptation. And if you do an even better Keanu impression than me — the trick is in the vacant stare and stoner drawl — then you can play his starring role amid a cast of solid actors, reading from cue cards from a hilarious production assistant in order to more closely approximate Keanu’s acting ability. This play is just so much fun, even better now at DNA Lounge than it was a couple years ago at CELLspace. But definitely buy the poncho pack and wear it, because the blood, spit, and surf spray really do make this a fully immersive experience. (Steven T. Jones)

“Shotz: Featuring a Strong Female Lead” Tides Theatre, 533 Sutter, SF; www.amiosnyc.com. Tue/18, 8pm. $10. Seven plays, five minutes each, created in less than a month, and united under the theme “Featuring a Strong Female Lead.”

“Silenced” and “The CONTACT Project” CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; www.counterpulse.org. Fri-Sat and March 20, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through March 23. Performance works by Charya Burt and Krista DeNio.

“Sorya! 2014: We Are Still At It” NOHspace, 2840 Mariposa, SF: www.brownpapertickets.com. Sat-Sun, 2pm; Mon, 7pm. Through March 24. Theatre of Yugen presents its 35th anniversary season with a performance by founder Yuriko Doi in the kyogen play Kawakami.

SOULSKIN Dance Joe Goode Annex, 401 Alabama, SF; soulskindance.brownpapertickets.com. Fri/14-Sat/15, 8pm. $20. A multimedia pop culture journey directed by Adrianna Thompson.

“Speechless” Public Works SF, 161 Erie, SF; www.speechlesslive.com. Wed/12, 7:30pm. $20. One-year anniversary special of the PowerPoint-based comedy show.

Stephen Petronio Company Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater, 700 Howard, SF; www.sfperformances.org. Fri/14-Sat/15, 7:30pm. $35-50. The company performs the West Coast premiere of Like Lazarus Did.

BAY AREA

“An Evening of Relentless Humor in Multiple Formats from SOB” 142 Throckmorton Theatre, 142 Throckmorton, Mill Valley; www.142throckmorton.com. Sat/15, 8pm. $25-35. Sketch and improv comedy.

Savion Glover Marin Veterans’ Memorial Auditorium, 10 Avenue of the Flags, San Rafael; www.marincenter.org. Fri/14, 8pm. $20-60. The tap dancer performs his new work, StePz.

“The Ironbound” Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; www.marintheatre.org. Mon/17, 7pm. Free. Staged reading of a new play by Martyna Majok.

“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.

“Mortified: March Madness” Uptown, 1928 Telegraph, Oakl; www.getmortified.com. Thu/13, 7:30pm. $20. Also Fri/14, 7:30pm, $21. DNA Lounge, 375 11th St, SF. Fearless storytellers share their most adorably embarrassing childhood writings.

Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir’s Annual Spring Musical First Congregational Church of Oakland, 2501 Harrison, Oakl; www.oigc.org. Sat/15, 7:30pm. Free. OIGC performs spiritual and gospel music under the direction of Terrance Kelly, with special guest Calvin B. Rhone.

“Poetry Express” Himalayan Flavors, 1585 University, Berk; poetryexpressberkeley.blogspot.com. Mon, 7pm. Free. Ongoing. This week: Richard Silberg, plus open mic. Next week: Ambrose Mohler, plus open mic.

“Some Girl(s)” Dragon Theatre, 2120 Broadway, Redwood City; www.dragonproductions.net. Fri/14-Sat/15, 8pm (also Sat/15, 2pm); Sun/16, 2pm. $15. Dragon Theater’s 2nd Stages Program kicks off with this production of Neil LaBute’s dark comedy. *

 

Women with movie cameras

Michael Redmond
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0
Women with movie cameras

arts@sfbg.com

CAAMFEST A beautiful butch moviemaker with a penchant for Peking opera divas. A dogged indie documentarian willing to stalk her prey, be it politically radical or the hard-partying dead. These are but a few of the unusual suspects caught in the viewfinders of CAAMFest 2014‘s Asian and Asian American female directors.

Is there a way to knit together their concerns, essentialize their imagery, and boil down their movies to something beyond stereotype and cliché? It would take a revolution in imagination, underlined by a political charge and peopled by well-defined personalities pushed to the margins. Their few numbers on a larger directorial stage dominated by white men throws their strong subject matter into sharp relief.

You can feel it in even the shortest of documentaries, like the 26-minute festival-closing documentary Delano Manongs, by Emmy-winning Berkeley moviemaker Marissa Aroy, who gives Filipino bachelor farmworkers and organizer Larry Itliong their due in the formation of the United Farm Workers union. Or in films that span more than a half a decade of interviews, such as American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs, even when LA director Grace Lee quips in a voice-over aside that while interviewing Detroit activist and citizen intellectual Boggs, she’s not immune from “going back and forth with her on Skype trying to understand what she’s talking about.” (More on that film below.) What gets lost in translation? These directors, more often than not, foreground their attempts to read between the lines and penetrate a fog of forgetfulness and counter-histories in order to get to a few truths, subjective and otherwise.

Such is the case of Hong Kong documentarian S. Louisa Wei, who unearths the once-dumpster-relegated tale of SF Chinatown-born-and-bred Esther Eng, the first Chinese American woman director, in Golden Gate Girls — with rich, mixed results. Now little-known due to the loss of many of the 10 Cantonese-language features she made in the US with producer Joseph Sunn Jue (whose Grandview Film Company gets its own CAAMFest tribute), among others, and Hong Kong during its first “golden age” of moviemaking, the inspiring, enterprising Eng appeared to take difference in stride. First, she was a producer of likely the first Cantonese-language film made in Hollywood (the 1936 nationalist melodrama Heartaches), and then the versatile director and writer of women-centered features starring her favored Peking opera performers. All the while, she lived as an out lesbian who liked to be called “Brother Ha,” wore suits and her hair styled in a boyish crop, and cohabitated with one of her leading ladies and “bosom friends” in 1930s Hong Kong on the brink of Japanese invasion.

Candid about her struggles and sidetracks in uncovering the facts of the director’s life, Wei interviews intimates, like Eng’s youngest sister Sally, cohorts who knew her as a trans-Pacific moviemaker and film distributor who hobnobbed with legendary figures like James Wong Howe, and finally as a popular NYC restaurateur. The documentary maker fills out the cultural context of Eng’s life, with lengthy, at times highly editable, comparisons to Hollywood counterpart Dorothy Arzner and Anna May Wong; riddles the movie with fascinating if weird factoids (the infant Bruce Lee, for example, made his first film appearance in Golden Gate Girls as a baby girl); and regretfully loads on some rather cheesy, cheap-looking digital animation. Still, the sheer interest of Eng’s lost history makes up for any shortcomings.

Wei and Brooklyn Filipina American director Esy Casey know the road to piecing together a documentary is rarely a direct one. Casey’s affectionate Jeepney takes its time over the course of 61 minutes to enjoy the vibrant colors and refracted lights in its ride into the world of the wildly imaginative, color-splashed, mural-and-tagline-spangled jeeps, once in service to World War II US armed forces, now souped-up cheap-fare city buses. The chaos of Manila street traffic, as well as Casey’s interviews with jeepney auto painters, craftspeople, drivers, policy makers, and passengers, as taxes rise and threaten to put customizers and drivers out of business, spur the question “where next?” and add up to a freewheeling and pungently poetic slice of urban Filipino life.

With American Revolutionary, Grace Lee goes deeper with one of the subjects of 2005’s The Grace Lee Project — her study of women who share her surprisingly common name — and plunges into an inspiring life. To say Boggs’ story could only happen in America is a grotesque understatement: Hers is an exceptional tale of American individualism working on behalf of those left behind by American exceptionalism.

Lee details her beginnings as that rare Asian American woman to earn her Ivy League doctorate in the ’30s, only to discover that she was barely employable due to her race and gender; the film then moves to Boggs’ organizing efforts in the African American community before and after the civil rights movement, her role as a grande dame in Black Power circles, and more recently as a community activist instrumental in founding the leadership-nurturing gardening and artmaking projects of Detroit Summer. Less grand but nonetheless revealing are the question ducks, the intellectual battle royales, and the moments when, say, Lee cuts Boggs’ hair in her kitchen. These instances — along with Lee’s highly entertaining 2007 mockumentary, American Zombie, also playing CAAMFest — reveal that Lee is also uniquely and, despite her protests to the contrary, compassionately, one of a kind. *

CAAMFEST

March 13-23, most shows $12

Various SF and East Bay venues

www.caamedia.org

 

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