Election

Guardian endorsements for June 5 election

Andrew Lam
-
34
Guardian endorsements for June 5 election

>>OUR ONE-PAGE “CLEAN SLATE” PRINTOUT GUIDE IS HERE. 

As usual, California is irrelevant to the presidential primaries, except as a cash machine. The Republican Party has long since chosen its nominee; the Democratic outcome was never in doubt. So the state holds a June 5 primary that, on a national level, matters to nobody.

It’s no surprise that pundits expect turnout will be abysmally low. Except in the few Congressional districts where a high-profile primary is underway, there’s almost no news media coverage of the election.

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t some important races and issues (including the future of San Francisco’s Democratic Party) — and the lower the turnout, the more likely the outcome will lean conservative. The ballot isn’t long; it only takes a few minutes to vote. Don’t stay home June 5.

Our recommendations follow.

PRESIDENT

BARACK OBAMA

Sigh. Remember the hope? Remember the joy? Remember the dancing in the streets of the Mission as a happy city realized that the era of George Bush and The Gang was over? Remember the end of the war, and health-care reform, and fair economic policies?

Yeah, we remember, too. And we remember coming back to our senses when we realized that the first people at the table for the health-policy talks were the insurance industry lobbyists. And when more and more drones killed more and more civilian in Afghanistan, and the wars didn’t end and the country got deeper and deeper into debt.

Oh, and when Obama bailed out Wall Street — and refused to spend enough money to help the rest of us. And when his U.S. attorney decided to crack down on medical marijuana.

We could go on.

There’s no question: The first term of President Barack Obama has been a deep disappointment. And while we wish that his new pledge to tax the millionaires represented a change in outlook, the reality is that it’s most likely an election-year response to the popularity of the Occupy movement.

Last fall, when a few of the most progressive Democrats began talking about the need to challenge Obama in a primary, we had the same quick emotional reaction as many San Franciscans: Time to hold the guy accountable. Some prominent left types have vowed not to give money to the Obama campaign.

But let’s get back to reality. The last time a liberal group challenged an incumbent in a Democratic presidential primary, Senator Ted Kennedy wounded President Jimmy Carter enough to ensure the election of Ronald Reagan — and the begin of the horrible decline in the economy of the United States. We’re mad at Obama, too — but we’re realists enough to know that there is a difference between moderate and terrible, and that’s the choice we’re facing today.

The Republican Party is now entirely the party of the far right, so out of touch with reality that even Reagan would be shunned as too liberal. Mitt Romney, once the relatively centrist governor of Massachusetts, has been driven by Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum so deeply into crazyland that he’s never coming back. We appreciate Ron Paul’s attacks on military spending and the war on drugs, but he also opposes Medicare and Social Security and says that people who don’t have private health insurance should be allowed to die for lack of medical care.

No, this one’s easy. Obama has no opposition in the Democratic Primary, but for all our concerns about his policies, we have to start supporting his re-election now.

U.S. SENATE

DIANNE FEINSTEIN

The Republicans in Washington didn’t even bother to field a serious candidate against the immensely well-funded Feinstein, who is seeking a fourth term. She’s a moderate Democrat, at best, was weak-to-terrible on the war, is hawkish on Pentagon spending (particularly Star Wars and the B-1 bomber), has supported more North Coast logging, and attempts to meddle in local politics with ridiculous ideas like promoting unknown Michael Breyer for District Five supervisor. She supported the Obama health-care bill but isn’t a fan of single-payer, referring to supporters of Medicare for all as “the far left.”

But she’s strong on choice and is embarrassing the GOP with her push for reauthorization of an expanded Violence Against Women Act. She’ll win handily against two token Republicans.

U.S. CONGRESS, DISTRICT 2

NORMAN SOLOMON

The Second District is a sprawling region stretching from the Oregon border to the Golden Gate Bridge, from the coast in as far as Trinity County. It’s home to the Marin suburbs, Sonoma and Mendocino wine country, the rough and rural Del Norte and the emerald triangle. There’s little doubt that a Democrat will represent the overwhelmingly liberal area that was for almost three decades the province of Lynn Woolsey, one of the most progressive members in Congress. The top two contenders are Norman Solomon, an author, columnist and media advocate, and Jared Huffman, a moderate member of the state Assembly from Marin.

Solomon’s not just a decent candidate — he represents a new approach to politics. He’s an antiwar crusader, journalist, and outsider who has never held elective office — but knows more about the (often corrupt) workings of Washington and the policy issues facing the nation than many Beltway experts. He’s talking about taxing Wall Street to create jobs on Main Street, about downsizing the Pentagon and promoting universal health care. He’s a worthy successor to Woolsey, and he deserves the support of every independent and progressive voter in the district.

U.S. CONGRESS, DISTRICT 12

NANCY PELOSI

Nancy Pelosi long ago stopped representing San Francisco (see: same-sex marriage) and began representing the national Democratic party and her colleagues in the House. She will never live down the privatization of the Presidio or her early support for the Iraq war, but she’s become a decent ally for Obama and if the Democrats retake the House, she’ll be setting the agenda for his second term. If the GOP stays in control, this may well be her last term.

Green Party member Barry Hermanson is challenging her, and in the old system, he’d be on the November ballot as the Green candidate. With open primaries (which are a bad idea for a lot of reasons) Hermanson needs support to finish second and keep Pelosi on her toes as we head into the fall.

U.S. CONGRESS, DISTRICT 12

BARBARA LEE

This Berkeley and Oakland district is among the most left-leaning in the country, and its representative, Barbara Lee, is well suited to the job. Unlike Pelosi, Lee speaks for the voters of her district; she was the lone voice against the Middle East wars in the early days, and remains a staunch critic of these costly, bloody, open-ended foreign military entanglements. We’re happy to endorse her for another term.

U.S. CONGRESS, DISTRICT 13

JACKIE SPEIER

Speier’s more of a Peninsula moderate than a San Francisco progressive, but she’s been strong on consumer privacy and veterans issues and has taken the lead on tightening federal rules on gas pipelines after Pacific Gas and Electric Company killed eight of her constituents. She has no credible opposition.

STATE SENATE, DISTRICT 11

MARK LENO

Mark Leno started his political career as a moderate member of the Board of Supervisors from 1998 to 2002. His high-profile legislative races — against Harry Britt for the Assembly in 2002 and against Carole Migden for the Senate in 2008 — were some of the most bitterly contested in recent history. And we often disagree with his election time endorsements, which tend toward more downtown-friendly candidates.

But Leno has won us over, time and again, with his bold progressive leadership in Sacramento and with his trailblazing approach to public policy. He is an inspiring leader who has consistently made us proud during his time in the Legislature. Leno was an early leader on the same-sex marriage issue, twice getting the Legislature to legalize same-sex unions (vetoed both times by former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger). He has consistently supported a single-payer health care system and laid important groundwork that could eventually break the grip that insurance companies have on our health care system. And he has been a staunch defender of the medical marijuana patients and has repeatedly pushed to overturn the ban on industrial hemp production, work that could lead to an important new industry and further relaxation of this country wasteful war on drugs. We’re happy to endorse him for another term.

STATE ASSEMBLY, DISTRICT 17

TOM AMMIANO

Ammiano is a legendary San Francisco politician with solid progressive values, unmatched courage and integrity, and a history of diligently and diplomatically working through tough issues to create ground-breaking legislation. We not only offer him our most enthusiastic endorsement — we wish that we could clone him and run him for a variety of public offices. Since his early days as an ally of Harvey Milk on gay rights issues to his creation of San Francisco’s universal health care system as a supervisor to his latest efforts to defend the rights of medical marijuana users, prison inmates, and undocumented immigrants, Ammiano has been a tireless advocate for those who lack political and economic power. As chair of Assembly Public Safety Committee, Ammiano has blocked many of the most reactionary tough-on-crime measures that have pushed our prison system to the breaking point, creating a more enlightened approach to criminal justice issues. We’re happy to have Ammiano expressing San Francisco’s values in the Capitol.

STATE ASSEMBLY, DISTRICT 19

PHIL TING

Once it became abundantly clear that Assessor-Recorder Phil Ting wasn’t going to get elected mayor, he started to set his eyes on the state Assembly. It’s an unusual choice in some ways — Ting makes a nice salary in a job that he’s doing well and that’s essentially his for life. Why would he want to make half as much money up in Sacramento in a job that he’ll be forced by term limits to leave after six years?

Ting’s answer: he’s ready for something new. We fear that a vacancy in his office would allow Mayor Ed Lee to appoint someone with less interest in tax equity (prior to Ting, the city suffered mightily under a string of political appointees in the Assessor’s Office), but we’re pleased to endorse him for the District 19 slot.

Ting has gone beyond the traditional bureaucratic, make-no-waves approach of some of his predecessors. He’s aggressively sought to collect property taxes from big institutions that are trying to escape paying (the Catholic Church, for example) and has taken a lead role in fighting foreclosures. He commissioned, on his own initiative, a report showing that a large percentage of the foreclosures in San Francisco involved some degree of fraud or improper paperwork, and while the district attorney is so far sitting on his hands, other city officials are moving to address the issue.

His big issue is tax reform, and he’s been one the very few assessors in the state to talk openly about the need to replace Prop. 13 with a split-role system that prevents the owners of commercial property from paying an ever-declining share of the tax burden. He wants to change the way the Legislature interprets Prop. 13 to close some of the egregious loopholes. It’s one of the most important issues facing the state, and Ting will arrive in Sacramento already an expert.

Ting’s only (mildly) serious opponent is Michael Breyer, son of Supreme Court Justice Breyer and a newcomer to local politics. Breyer’s only visible support is from the Building Owners and Managers Association, which dislikes Ting’s position on Prop. 13. Vote for Ting.

DEMOCRATIC COUNTY CENTRAL COMMITTEE

You can say a lot of things about Aaron Peskin, the former supervisor and retiring chair of the city’s Democratic Party, but the guy was an organizer. Four years ago, he put together a slate of candidates that wrenched control of the local party from the folks who call themselves “moderates” but who, on critical economic issues, are really better defined as conservative. Since then, the County Central Committee, which sets policy for the local party, has given its powerful endorsement mostly to progressive candidates and has taken progressive stands on almost all the ballot issues.

But the conservatives are fighting back — and with Peskin not seeking another term and a strong slate put together by the mayor’s allies seeking revenge, it’s entirely possible that the left will lose the party this year.

But there’s hope — in part because, as his parting gift, Peskin helped change state law to make the committee better reflect the Democratic voting population of the city. This year, 14 candidates will be elected from the East side of town, and 10 from the West.

We’ve chosen to endorse a full slate in each Assembly district. Although there are some candidates on the slate who aren’t as reliable as we might like, 24 will be elected, and we’re picking the 24 best.

DISTRICT 17 (EAST SIDE)

John Avalos

David Campos

David Chiu

Petra DeJesus

Matt Dorsey

Chris Gembinsky

Gabriel Robert Haaland

Leslie Katz

Rafael Mandelman

Carole Migden

Justin Morgan

Leah Pimentel

Alix Rosenthal

Jamie Rafaela Wolfe

 

DISTRICT 19 (WEST SIDE)

Mike Alonso

Wendy Aragon

Kevin Bard

Chuck Chan

Kelly Dwyer

Peter Lauterborn

Hene Kelly

Eric Mar

Trevor McNeil

Arlo Hale Smith

State ballot measures

PROPOSITION 28

YES

LEGISLATIVE TERM LIMITS

Let us begin with a stipulation: We have always opposed legislative term limits, at every level of government. Term limits shift power to the executive branch, and, more insidiously, the lobbyists, who know the issues and the processes better than inexperienced legislators. The current system of term limits is a joke — a member of the state Assembly can serve only six years, which is barely enough time to learn the job, much less to handle the immense complexity of the state budget. Short-termers are more likely to seek quick fixes than structural reform. It’s one reason the state Legislatures is such a mess.

Prop. 28 won’t solve the problem entirely, but it’s a reasonable step. The measure would allow a legislator to serve a total of 12 years in office — in either the Assembly, the Senate, or a combination. So an Assembly member could serve six terms, a state Senator three terms. No more serving a stint in one house and then jumping to the other, since the term limits are cumulative, which is imperfect: A lot of members of the Assembly have gone on to notable Senate careers, and that shouldn’t be cut off.

Still, 12 years in the Assembly is enough time to become a professional at the job — and that’s a good thing. We don’t seek part-time brain surgeons and inexperienced airline pilots. Running California is complicated, and there’s nothing wrong with having people around who aren’t constantly learning on the job. Besides, these legislators still have to face elections; the voters can impose their own term limits, at any time.

Most of the good-government groups are supporting Prop. 28. Vote yes.

PROPOSITION 29

YES

CIGARETTE TAX FOR CANCER RESEARCH

Seriously: Can you walk into the ballot box and oppose higher taxes on cigarettes to fund cancer research? Of course not. All of the leading medical groups, cancer-research groups, cancer-treatment groups and smoking-cessation groups in the state support Prop. 29, which was written by the American Cancer Society and the American Heart Association.

We support it, too.

Yes, it’s a regressive tax — most smokers are in the lower-income brackets. Yes, it’s going to create a huge state fund making grants for research, and it will be hard to administer without some issues. But the barrage of ads opposing this are entirely funded by tobacco companies, which are worried about losing customers, particularly kids. A buck a pack may not dissuade adults who really want to smoke, but it’s enough to price a few more teens out of the market — and that’s only good news.

Don’t believe the big-tobacco hype. Vote yes on 29.

San Francisco ballot measures

PROPOSITION A

YES

GARBAGE CONTRACT

A tough one: Recology’s monopoly control over all aspects of San Francisco’s waste disposal system should have been put out to competitive bid a long time ago. That’s the only way for the city to ensure customers are getting the best possible rates and that the company is paying a fair franchise fee to the city. But the solution before us, Proposition A, is badly flawed public policy.

The measure would amend the 1932 ordinance that gave Recology’s predecessor companies — which were bought up and consolidated into a single behemoth corporation — indefinite control over the city’s $220 million waste stream. Residential rates are set by a Rate Board controlled mostly by the mayor, commercial rates are unregulated, and the company doesn’t even have a contract with the city.

Last year, when Recology won the city’s landfill contract — which was put out to bid as the current contract with Waste Management Inc. and its Altamont landfill was expiring — Recology completed its local monopoly. At the time, Budget Analyst Harvey Rose, Sup. David Campos, and other officials and activists called for updating the ordinance and putting the various contracts out to competitive bid.

That effort was stalled and nearly scuttled, at least in part because of the teams of lobbyists Recology hired to put pressure on City Hall, leading activists Tony Kelley and retired Judge Quentin Kopp to write this measure. They deserve credit for taking on the issue when nobody else would and for forcing everyone in the city to wake up and take notice of a scandalous 70-year-old deal.

We freely admit that the measure has some significant flaws that could hurt the city’s trash collection and recycling efforts. It would split waste collection up into five contracts, an inefficient approach that could put more garbage trucks on the roads. No single company could control all five contracts. Each of those contracts would be for just five years, which makes the complicated bidding process far too frequent, costing city resources and hindering the companies’ ability to make long-term infrastructure investments.

It would require Recology to sell its transfer station, potentially moving the waste-sorting facility to Port property along the Bay. Putting the transfer station in public hands makes sense; moving it to the waterfront might not.

On the scale of corrupt monopolies, Recology isn’t Pacific Gas and Electric Co. It’s a worker-owned company and has been willing to work in partnership with the city to create one of the best recycling and waste diversion programs in the country. For better or worse, Recology controls a well-developed waste management infrastructure that this city relies on, functioning almost like a city department.

Still, it’s unacceptable to have a single outfit, however laudatory, control such a massive part of the city’s infrastructure without a competitive bid, a franchise fee, or so much as a contract. In theory, the company could simply stop collecting trash in some parts of the city, and San Francisco could do nothing about it.

As a matter of public policy, Prop. A could have been better written and certainly could, and should, have been discussed with a much-wider group, including labor. As a matter of real politics, it’s a messy proposal that at least raises the critical question: Should Recology have a no-bid, no contract monopoly? The answer to that is no.

Prop. A will almost certainly go down to defeat; Kopp and Kelly are all alone, have no real campaign or committee and just about everyone else in town opposes it. Our endorsement is a matter of principle, a signal that this longtime garbage deal has to end. If Recology will work with the city to come up with a contract and a bid process, then Prop. A will have done its job. If not, something better will be on the ballot in the future.

For now, vote yes on A.

PROPOSITION B

YES

COIT TOWER POLICY

In theory, city department heads ought to be given fair leeway to allocate resources and run their operations. In practice, San Francisco’s Department of Recreation and Parks has been on a privatization spree, looking for ways to sell or rent public open space and facilities as a way to balance an admittedly tight budget. Prop. B seeks to slow that down a bit, by establishing as city policy the premise that Coit Tower shouldn’t be used as a cash cow to host private parties.

The tower is one of the city’s most important landmarks and a link to its radical history — murals painted during the Depression, under the Works Progress Administration, depict local labor struggles. They’re in a bit of disrepair –but that hasn’t stopped Rec-Park from trying to bring in money by renting out the place for high-end events. In fact, the tower has been closed down to the public in the past year to allow wealthy patrons to host private parties. And the city has more of that in mind.

If the mayor and his department heads were acting in good faith to preserve the city’s public spaces — by raising taxes on big business and wealthy individuals to pay for the commons, instead of raising fees on the rest of us to use what our tax dollars have already paid for — this sort of ballot measure wouldn’t be necessary.

As it is, Prop. B is a policy statement, not an ordinance or Charter amendment. It’s written fairly broadly and won’t prevent the occasional private party at Coit Tower or prevent Rec-Park from managing its budget. Vote yes.

 

Utopia, mon amour

-
0
Utopia, mon amour

marke@sfbg.com

VISUAL ARTS With Occupy gearing up again and a fresh round of election hell full upon us, another cycle of protest — and the urge to engage with the problems of the world while somehow escaping them — is in the air. The Oakland Museum’s current “1968 Exhibit” (through August 19) offers a family-friendly, multimedia trip through the Bay Area’s most famous political and cultural upheaval. But here are three ongoing shows that look closely at individual creators from the past whose work transcends nostalgia, transmits a fair amount of beauty, and drums up some idealistic lessons for the present.

 

“ARTHUR TRESS: SAN FRANCISCO 1964”

A miracle to inspire cafe artists everywhere. In 1964, 23-year-old NYC photographer Arthur Tress winged through San Francisco for a season, shooting the populace at a particularly turbulent time: the Republican National Convention, the Beatles’ first North American tour, auto worker protests along Van Ness, the passage of the Civil Rights Act. He developed the negatives in the communal darkroom off Duboce Park, had an unremarkable show in the back of a cafe, packed the photos up at his sister’s, and moved on. After his sister died, he found them in a box of her effects, and realized their significance.

And what a find: Forget Mad Men, this is the real 1964, perched on the edge of a cultural unraveling, its existential beehive slowly loosening into flower child ideals. The 70 photographs on show at the de Young, curated by James Ganz, expertly play with composition to bring rough social patches to artful life. A distorted shot of a George Romney presidential campaign poster delivers Orwellian chills. Screaming girls hoisting “Ringo for President” banners intimate repressed political hysteria. Dashing union workers form impressive phalanxes. Patrons at a Fifth and Market diner embody an microcosm of economic disillusionment. A transgender woman suns her hairy legs on the Embarcadero, a plaid-shirted boy holds up a hand-drawn hammer and sickle.

All of it coated with the glamour of deconstructed nostalgia, in which one can indulge and critique at once. But there’s more: “You have throw into the mix a heavy dose of social commentary and criticism — the idea that the photograph can be a vehicle for social change,” Tress tells an interviewer in the show’s handsome if carelessly annotated catalogue. “You photographed street demonstrations, you photographed protests … it was a way of becoming part of the movement.”

Through June 3. De Young Museum, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Dr., deyoung.famsf.org

“THE UTOPIAN IMPULSE: BUCKMINSTER FULLER AND THE BAY AREA”

Inside the great Henry Ford automotive museum just outside of Detroit, you can tour an actual Dymaxion House, designed by preternaturally productive designer, philosopher, and dissembler R. Buckminster Fuller. It’s as perfect a realtime experience of walking around in someone’s 1940s sci-fi Utopian dream as one can ever have. A polished aluminum mushroom cap subdivided into tiny rooms bursting with ingenious “squee!”-worthy gadgetry to handle all of life’s projected needs, the Dymaxion House never took off as vernacular American architecture, despite its supposed ease of construction, light weight, and good intentions to house an expanding population. (Among its bland nemeses: rain, expense, and snarky architecture critics.)

But while it’s particularly poignant to see this polished dream deferred nestled among the many wheeled ones populating Henry Ford’s shrine to the former glories of the Motor City — and even though geodesic monument Spaceship Earth at Disney’s Epcot, another eerie graveyard of sleek Utopian ideals, remains Bucky Fuller’s only famous American architectural manifestation — the Dymaxion concept, and several other Bucky wonders, have had a profoundly positive and energizing effect on the Bay Area, as this visionary show at the SFMOMA reveals.

Curator Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher forewarned, “To be clear, it’s not so much a show about Fuller.” Indeed, but in the first rooms prepare to be blown away by gorgeous blow-ups of Massachusetts-born Bucky’s hyper-geometric blueprints, which will surely provide several indie electro bands with album cover inspiration for years to come, and a wall of insanely detailed notecards from “Everything I Know,” his late-life video-recorded brain dump.

Then the real magic of the show kicks in, as it opens up into displays of Bay Area movements and products directly traceable to Fuller, from glorious hippie artifacts like the Ant Farm architecture collective, the Whole Earth Catalog scene, and the iconic North Face “Oval Intention” dome-shaped tent (really!) to contemporary tech initiatives, like bright neon specimens from the “One Laptop One Child” campaign and the utterly transfixing “Local Code” by UC Berkeley Assistant Professor Nicholas de Monchaux, which digitally renders the transformation of all the unused public space in SF into “a common ecological infrastucture.”

Beyond reviving interest in Fuller, the ambitious project of SFMOMA here is to showcase the deep connection between the Bay Area’s brilliant tech legacy and its transcendental communal one, an audacious, successful synthesis that would bring Bucky joy — and one that only a full-size recreation of Steve Wozniak’s garage could probably best.

Through July 29. SFMOMA, 151 Third St., SF. www.sfmoma.org

“RADICALLY GAY: THE LIFE OF HARRY HAY”

Harry Hay seemed to drop almost effortlessly into so many essential 20th century ideal-driven environments — Hollywood, unions, the Communist Party, gay rights, naturism, really the list goes on. That this modest show at the SF Main Library, curated by Joey Cain, not only clearly distills Hay’s timeline and influence, but also manages to illuminate new corners of his life and sometimes bring on a few tears, is rather a sensation.

Seriously, the man was multitude. Hay is best known as the founder of one of the first gay rights organizations, the Mattachine Society — here revealed through documents, org charts, and touching photos to have been a sort of Moose Lodge for “homophiles.” In one of the show’s most astounding touches, the exquisite Edwardian tea set used by his mother Margaret to caffeinate the early Mattachine meetings is displayed in full.

But of course there was more for this Mad Hatter, including pleading the Fifth before the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s for his Communist party membership and Marxist musicology studies, his 1930s radicalizing tryst with actor and union supporter Will Geer, a.k.a. Grandpa from The Waltons, the “Circle of Loving Friends” desert commune, the national campaign to stop the damming of the Rio Grande — all laced through with references to underground SF gay clubs and arts happenings. (Some things, like his controversial early support for NAMBLA, which could benefit from some honest contextualization, seem glossed over, perhaps due to space concerns.)

Hay’s creation in the 1970s of the Radical Faeries, a collective whose anti-assimilationist, Pagan aesthetic continue to influence and inform Bay Area style, is well-represented here, as is perhaps Hay’s most stable pursuit: his loving 40-year relationship with John Burnside. Two seemingly politically contradictory Utopian ideals, embodied in one mercurial spirit, revealed beautifully.

Through July 29. SF Main Library, 100 Larkin, SF. www.sfpl.org

Stage Listings

Andrew Lam
-
0

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

THEATER

OPENING

Killing My Lobster Chops Down the Family Tree TJT, 470 Florida, SF; www.killingmylobster.com. $10-22. Opens Thu/26, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm (May 12, shows at 7 and 10pm); Sun, 7pm. Through May 13. The sketch comedy troupe performs a new show inspired by contemporary families.

Tenderloin Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor, SF; (415) 525-1205, www.cuttingball.com. $10-50. Previews Fri/27-Sat/28, 8pm; Sun/29, 5pm. Opens May 3, 7:30pm. Runs Thu, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 5pm. Through May 27. Annie Elias and Cutting Ball Theater artists present a world premiere “documentary theater” piece looking at the people and places in the Cutting Ball Theater’s own ‘hood.

BAY AREA

In Paris Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $22.50-125. Opens Wed/25, 8pm. Runs Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Wed, 7pm; Sun, 2pm. Through May 13. Mikhail Baryshnikov stars in Dmitry Krymov’s romantic new play.

Not Getting Any Younger Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Opens Fri/27, 8pm. Runs Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through May 19. Marga Gomez is back at the Marsh, a couple of too-brief decades after inaugurating the theater’s new stage with her first solo show — an apt setting, in other words, for the writer-performer’s latest monologue, a reflection on the inevitable process of aging for a Latina lesbian comedian and artist who still hangs at Starbucks and can’t be trusted with the details of her own Wikipedia entry. If the thought of someone as perennially irreverent, insouciant, and appealingly immature as Gomez makes you depressed, the show is, strangely enough, the best antidote. Note: review from the show’s 2011 run at the Marsh San Francisco. (Avila)

ONGOING

Act One, Scene Two Phoenix Arts Association Theatre, 414 Mason, Ste 601, SF; www.un-scripted.com. $10-20. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through May 12. Un-Scripted Theater Company performs the beginning of a new, unfinished play by a local author — and creates an ending on the spot once the script runs out.

*The Aliens SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; (415) 677-9596, www.sfplayhouse.org. $20-70. Tue-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through May 5. On the heels of Aurora Theatre’s production of Body Awareness, SF Playhouse introduces local audiences to another of contemporary American playwright Annie Baker’s acclaimed plays, in a finely tailored West Coast premiere directed by Lila Neugebauer. The Aliens unfolds in the days just around July 4, at slacker pace, in the backyard of a Vermont café (lovingly realized to palpable perfection by scenic designer Bill English), daily haunt of scruffy, post-Beat dropouts and sometime band mates Jasper (a secretly brooding but determined Peter O’Connor) and KJ (a charmingly ingenuous yet mischievous Haynes Thigpen). New employee and high school student Evan (a winningly eager and reticent Brian Miskell) is at first desperate to get the interlopers out of the “staff only” backyard but is just lonely enough to be seduced into friendship and wary idolatry by the older males. What unfolds is a small, sweet and unexpected tale of connection and influence, amid today’s alienated dream-sucking American landscape — same as it ever was, if you ask Charles Bukowski or Henry Miller, both points of reference to Jasper and KJ, who borrow Bukowski’s poem The Aliens for one of their many band names. An appropriate name for the alienated, sure, but part of the charm of these characters is just how easy they are to recognize, or how much we can recognize ourselves in them. Delusions of grandeur reside in every coffee house across this wistful, restless land. It’s not just Jasper and KJ who may be going nowhere. A final gesture to the young and awkward but clearly capable Evan suggests, a little ambiguously to be sure, that there’s promise out there yet for some. But more than that: the transaction makes clear by then that there are no fuck-ups, really; not among people with generous and open hearts — never mind how fucked up the country at large. (Avila)

Any Given Day Magic Theatre, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.magictheatre.org. $20-60. Extended run: Wed/25-Sat/28, 8pm (also Sat/28, 2:30pm); Sun/29, 2:30 and 7:30pm. Magic Theatre performs Linda McLean’s Glasgow-set play about modern, urban life.

“Bay One Acts Festival” Boxcar Theatre, 505 Natoma, SF; www.bayoneacts.org. $25-45. Wed-Sat, 8pm (also May 5 and 12, 3pm); Sun, 3 and 7pm. Through May 12. Ten bold and adventurous short plays by local playwrights, performed two full programs running in repertory.

Fwd: Life Gone Viral Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Thu, 8pm (no show Thu/26); Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm (no show May 6). Through June 10. The internet becomes comic fodder for creator-performers Charlie Varon and Jeri Lynn Cohen, and creator-director David Ford.

*Glengarry Glen Ross Actors Theatre of San Francisco, 855 Bush, SF; (415) 345-1287, www.brownpapertickets.com. $26-40. Wed/25-Sat/28, 8pm. Actors Theatre of San Francisco and director Keith Phillips offer a sharp, spirited production of the 1984 play by David Mamet in which four real estate agents (Mark Bird, Sean Hallinan, John Krause, and Christian Phillips) jockey and scheme for advantage in their Chicago office in a landscape of insecurity and fierce competition symbolized by the selective doling out of the best leads by manager and company man John (Frank Willey). Clients (like the gullible young husband played by Randy Blair), meanwhile, are just witless marks for the machinations of the predatory salesman, no more meaningfully human than the “muppets” targeted by Greg Smith’s Goldman Sachs. If the scenic design is a little shabby, the strong cast makes that hardly an impediment to a story that feels especially timely in its sharply etched, not to say angry portrait of the ruthless and corrosive business mentality to which egos, livelihoods, and lives — not to mention the culture at large — are enthralled. (Avila)

Goodfellas Live Dark Room Theater, 2263 Mission, SF; www.darkroomsf.com. $20. Fri/27-Sat/28, 8pm. The Dark Room offers a comedic take on Scorsese’s gangsters.

*Hot Greeks Hypnodrome Theatre, 575 10th St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $30-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Extended through May 19. Cheap thrills don’t come much cheaper or more thrilling than at a Thrillpeddlers musical extravaganza, and their newly remounted run of Hot Greeks affords all the glitter-dusted eye-candy and labyrinthian plot points we’ve come to expect from their gleefully exhibitionist ranks. Structured as loosely as possible on Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, Greeks appropriately enough follows the trials and tribulations of a college sorority tired of “losing” their boyfriends to the big football match every year (Athens U vs. Sparta Tech). Pledging to withhold sex from the men unless they call off the game results in frustration for all, only partially alleviated by the discovery that sexual needs can be satisfied by “playing the other team,” as it were. But like other Cockettes’ revivals presented by the Thrillpeddlers, the momentum of the show is carried forward not by the rather thinly-sketched narrative, but by the group song-and-dance numbers, extravagant costuming (and lack thereof), ribald wordplay, and overt gender-fuckery. In addition to many TP regulars, including a hot trio of Greek columns topped with “capital” headdresses who serve as the obligatory chorus (Steven Satyricon, Ste Fishell, Bobby Singer), exciting new additions to the Hypnodrome stage include a bewigged Rik Lopes as stalwart sister Lysistrata, angelically-voiced Maggie Tenenbaum as the not-so-angelic Sodoma, and multi-faceted cabaret talent Tom Orr as heartthrob hunk Pendulum Pulaski. (Gluckstern)

It Is What It Is and The Watchtower Exit Theater, 156 Eddy, SF; www.myadultland.com. $20. Fri/27-Sat/28, 8pm; Sun/29, 3pm. Short plays by Diane Karagienakos and Christopher Barranti, presented on the same stage with a brief intermission.

It’s All the Rage Studio Theater, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thu, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm, Sun, 7pm. Extended through May 27. Longtime comedian and radio host Marilyn Pittman’s solo play wrestles with the legacy of her parents’ violent deaths in a 1997 murder-suicide initiated by her father. It’s disturbing material that Pittman, a stout middle-aged woman with a gregarious and bounding personality, approaches indirectly via a good deal of humor — including recounting the first time she did her growing-up-lesbian bit before her mother in a DC comedy club. But the pain and confusion trailing her for 13 years is never far behind, whether in accounts of her own battle with anger (and the broken relationships it has left in its wake) or in ominous memories of her too complacent mother or her charming but domineering father, whose controlling behavior extended to casually announcing murderous dreams while policing the boundaries of his marriage against family interference. A fine mimic, Pittman deploys a Southern lilt in playing each parent, on a stage decorated with a hint of their Southwestern furnishings and a framed set of parental photographs. In not exactly knowing where to lay blame for, or find meaning in, such a horrifying act, the play itself mimics in subtler form the emotional tumult left behind. There’s a too brief but eerie scene in which her veteran father makes reference to a murder among fellow soldiers en route to war, but while PTSD is mentioned (including as an unwanted patrimony), the 60-minute narrative crafted by Pittman and director David Ford wisely eschews any pat explanation. If transitions are occasionally awkward and the pace a bit loose, the play leaves one with an uncomfortable sense of the darker aspects of love, mingled with vague concentric histories of trauma and dislocation in a weird, sad tale of destruction and staying power. Note: review from the show’s 2009 run at the Marsh San Francisco. (Avila)

Thunder Above, Deeps Below Bindlestiff Studio, 185 Sixth St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $20-25. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through May 5. Bindlestiff presents A. Rey Pamatmat’s dramatic comedy about three homeless young adults.

The Waiting Period MainStage, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Extended through May 26. Brian Copeland (comedian, TV and radio personality, and creator-performer of the long-running solo play Not a Genuine Black Man) returns to the Marsh with a new solo, this one based on more recent and messier events in Copeland’s life. The play concerns an episode of severe depression in which he considered suicide, going so far as to purchase a handgun — the title coming from the legally mandatory 10-day period between purchasing and picking up the weapon, which leaves time for reflections and circumstances that ultimately prevent Copeland from pulling the trigger. A grim subject, but Copeland (with co-developer and director David Ford) ensures there’s plenty of humor as well as frank sentiment along the way. The actor peoples the opening scene in the gun store with a comically if somewhat stereotypically rugged representative of the Second Amendment, for instance, as well as an equally familiar “doood” dude at the service counter. Afterward, we follow Copeland, a just barely coping dad, home to the house recently abandoned by his wife, and through the ordinary routines that become unbearable to the clinically depressed. Copeland also recreates interviews he’s made with other survivors of suicidal depression. Telling someone about such things is vital to preventing their worst outcomes, says Copeland, and telling his own story is meant to encourage others. It’s a worthy aim but only a fitfully engaging piece, since as drama it remains thin, standing at perhaps too respectful a distance from the convoluted torment and alienation at its center. (Avila)

BAY AREA

Anatol Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; www.auroratheatre.org. $30-55. Tue and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm); Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through May 13. Aurora Theatre Company performs a world premiere translation of Arthur Schnitzler’s drama about the love life of an Viennese philanderer.

The Coast of Utopia: Voyage Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-30. Wed/25-Thu/26, 7pm; Fri/27-Sat/28, 8pm; Sun/29, 5pm. Shotgun Players present Tom Stoppard’s riff on pre-revolutionary Russia.

A Hot Day in Ephesus Live Oak Theatre, 1301 Shattuck, Berk; info@aeofberkeley.org. $12-15. Fri-Sat, 8pm; May 13, 2pm. Through May 19. Actors Ensemble performs the world premiere of a musical based on Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors.

John Brown’s Truth La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck, Berk; www.brownpapertickets.com. $10-15. Sun/29, 7:30pm. The story of abolitionist John Brown comes to life via William Crossman’s script-libretto, plus dance, spoken word, and a variety of improvised music styles.

*The Kipling Hotel: True Misadventures of the Electric Pink ’80s New venue: Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through May 6. This new autobiographical solo show by Don Reed, writer-performer of the fine and long-running East 14th, is another slice of the artist’s journey from 1970s Oakland ghetto to comedy-circuit respectability — here via a partial debate-scholarship to UCLA. The titular Los Angeles residency hotel was where Reed lived and worked for a time in the 1980s while attending university. It’s also a rich mine of memory and material for this physically protean and charismatic comic actor, who sails through two acts of often hilarious, sometimes touching vignettes loosely structured around his time on the hotel’s young wait staff, which catered to the needs of elderly patrons who might need conversation as much as breakfast. On opening night, the episodic narrative seemed to pass through several endings before settling on one whose tidy moral was delivered with too heavy a hand, but if the piece runs a little long, it’s only the last 20 minutes that noticeably meanders. And even with some awkward bumps along the way, it’s never a dull thing watching Reed work. (Avila)

Lucky Duck Julia Morgan Theatre, 2640 College, Berk; www.berkeleyplayhouse.org. $17-35. Thu and Sat, 7pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, noon and 5pm (additional performance May 11, 7pm). Through May 13. Berkeley Playhouse performs a musical inspired by the “Ugly Duckling” tale.

Of Mice and Men TheatreWorks at Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View; (650) 463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. $19-69. Wed/25, 7:30pm; Thu/26-Sat/28, 8pm (also Sat/28, 2pm); Sun/29, 2pm. TheatreWorks performs the Steinbeck classic.

Oleanna Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berk; www.theatrefirst.com. $15-30. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through May 13. TheatreFIRST performs David Mamet’s tense two-charater drama.

Red Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-83. Tue and Thu-Fri, 8pm (also Thu/26, 2pm; no show Fri/27); Wed, 7pm; Sat-Sun, 2pm (also Sat, 8pm; no 8pm show May 12; Sun, 7pm). Extended through May 12. Mark Rothko (David Chandler) isn’t the only one painting with a broad brush in this labored and ultimately superficial two-hander by John Logan, enjoying a competent but underwhelming production by outgoing Berkeley Rep associate artistic director Les Waters. Set inside the late-1950s New York studio of the legendary abstract expressionist at the height of his fame, the play introduces a blunt and brash young painter named Ken (John Brummer) as Rothko’s new hired hand, less a character than a crude dramatic device, there first as a sounding board for the pompous philosophizing that apparently comprises a good chunk of the artist’s process and finally as a kind of mirror held up to the old iconoclast in challenging proximity to a new generation that must ultimately transcend Rothko’s canvases in turn. The dialogue holds up signs announcing intellectual and aesthetic depths but these remain surface effects, reflecting only platitudes, while the posturing tends to reduce Rothko to caricature. Much of the self-consciously reluctant filial interaction here smacks of biographical sound bites or heavy-handed underscoring of theme, and tends toward the outright hokey when touching on the credulity-bending subject of Ken’s murdered parents — with the attendant shades this adds to Rothko’s and the play’s chosen color palette. (Avila)

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh Berkeley, TheaterStage, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Extended run: May 5-27 (Sat-Sun, 11am); June 3-July 15 (Sun, 11am). Louis “The Amazing Bubble Man” Pearl returns with this kid-friendly, bubble-tastic comedy.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

Bad Unkl Sista Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Fri/27-Sat/28, 8pm (also Sat/28, 2pm). $35. The company melds Butoh, aerial installations, couture costuming, and more in the world premiere First Breath — Last Breath.

BATS Improv Bayfront Theater, Fort Mason Center, Marina and Laguna, SF; www.improv.org. Fri/27, 8pm: “Theatresports Madness,” $20.

“Comedy SuperPAC: Promoting Good Comedy and Great Causes Since 2012!” Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF; www.hemlocktavern.com. Mon, 7pm. Through May 7. $5. Nate Green and W. Kamau Bell present this ongoing comedy showcase; this week’s performers are Chris Garcia, Brendan McGowan, Jeff Kreisler, and Brandie Posey.

Company C Contemporary Ballet Cowell Theater, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; (415) 392-4400, www.cityboxoffice.com. Fri/27-Sat/28, 8pm; Sun/29, 2pm. $23-45. The company’s spring program includes works by Charles Anderson, Gregory Dawson, and Peter Anastos.

“Dancers’ Group presents 2012 Bay Area Dance Week” Various locations; www.bayareadance.org. Through Sun/29. Free. Over 600 free dance events at locations throughout San Francisco, the East Bay, and beyond.

“Dances From the Heart” Cowell Theater, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.helpisontheway.org. Mon/30, 7:30pm. $30-50. Dancers from Ballet San Jose, Diablo Ballet, ODC, and more perform to raise money for the Richmond/Ermet AIDS Foundation.

“Elect to Laugh” Studio Theater, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. Tue, 8pm. Ongoing through Nov 6. $15-50. Will Durst and friends perform in this weekly political humor show that focuses on the upcoming presidential election.

“Mark Foehringer Dance Project SF: Young Choreographer’s Forum” Kunst Stoff Arts, One Market, SF; www.mfdpsf.org. Sat/28, 11:30am-12:30pm. Free. As part of Bay Area Dance Week, dance makers ages 16-24 perform.

“Move to the Now” 111 Minna Gallery, 111 Minna, SF; www.asimagery.org, www.postballet.org. Sat/28, 6-9pm. Free. As part of National Dance Week, Amy Seiwert’s Imagery and Post: Ballet present “one night of extravagant dance” featuring performances by numerous Bay Area companies.

“Poems Under the Dome” City Hall, North Light Court, One Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Pl, SF; www.poemdome.net. Fri/27, 5:30-8:30pm. Free. Celebrate National Poetry Month with this open mic at City Hall.

Smuin Ballet Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.smuinballet.org. Fri/27-Sat/28 and May 1-5, 8pm (also Sat/28 and May 5, 2pm); Sun/29 and May 6, 2pm. $25-62. Program includes the West Coast premiere of Val Caniparoli’s Swipe and the world premiere of Ma Cong’s Through.

“Youth Speaks Teen Poetry Slam” Masonic Auditorium, 1111 California, SF; www.youthspeaks.org. Fri/27, 7pm. $6-18. Sixteen finalists battle it out in Youth Speaks’ 16th annual slam competition.

David Zambrano Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. Fri/27-Sat/28, 8pm. $20. The renowned choreographer performs Soul Project.

BAY AREA

“April Follies Same Sex Dance Sport Competition” Just Dance Ballroom, 2500 Embarcadero, Oakl; www.aprilfollies.com. Sat/28, 10am-5pm (competition); 6:30-7:30pm (beginning lessons); 8-11pm (showcase of champions). $15-35. Styles include tango, swing, merengue, salsa, something called “American Smooth,” and more.

“CubaCaribe Dance Festival” Laney College Theater, 900 Fallon, Oakl; www.cubacaribe.org. Fri/27-Sat/28, 8pm; Sun/29, 7pm. $10-24. The festival’s final week features Oil and Water, a world premiere by Alayo Dance Company. 

 

Stage Listings

Andrew Lam
-
0

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

THEATER

OPENING

"Bay One Acts Festival" Boxcar Theatre, 505 Natoma, SF; www.bayoneacts.org. $25-45. Opens Sun/22, 3pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm (also May 5 and 12, 3pm); Sun, 3 and 7pm. Through May 12. Ten bold and adventurous short plays by local playwrights, performed two full programs running in repertory.

Fwd: Life Gone Viral Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Opens Thu/19, 8pm. Runs Thu, 8pm (no show April 26); Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm (no show May 6). Through June 10. The internet becomes comic fodder for creator-performers Charlie Varon and Jeri Lynn Cohen, and creator-director David Ford.

BAY AREA

A Hot Day in Ephesus Live Oak Theatre, 1301 Shattuck, Berk; info@aeofberkeley.org. $12-15. Opens Fri/20, 8pm. Runs Fri-Sat, 8pm; May 13, 2pm. Through May 19. Actors Ensemble performs the world premiere of a musical based on Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors.

Lucky Duck Julia Morgan Theatre, 2640 College, Berk; www.berkeleyplayhouse.org. $17-35. Previews Sat/21, 2pm. Opens Sat/21, 7pm. Runs Thu and Sat, 7pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, noon and 5pm (additional performance May 11, 7pm). Through May 13. Berkeley Playhouse performs a musical inspired by the "Ugly Duckling" tale.

Oleanna Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berk; www.theatrefirst.com. $15-30. Previews Fri/20, 8pm. Opens Sat/21, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through May 13. TheatreFIRST performs David Mamet’s tense two-charater drama.

ONGOING

Act One, Scene Two Phoenix Arts Association Theatre, 414 Mason, Ste 601, SF; www.un-scripted.com. $10-20. Opens Thu/19, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through May 12. Un-Scripted Theater Company performs the beginning of a new, unfinished play by a local author — and creates an ending on the spot once the script runs out.

*The Aliens SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; (415) 677-9596, www.sfplayhouse.org. $20-70. Tue-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through May 5. On the heels of Aurora Theatre’s production of Body Awareness, SF Playhouse introduces local audiences to another of contemporary American playwright Annie Baker’s acclaimed plays, in a finely tailored West Coast premiere directed by Lila Neugebauer. The Aliens unfolds in the days just around July 4, at slacker pace, in the backyard of a Vermont café (lovingly realized to palpable perfection by scenic designer Bill English), daily haunt of scruffy, post-Beat dropouts and sometime band mates Jasper (a secretly brooding but determined Peter O’Connor) and KJ (a charmingly ingenuous yet mischievous Haynes Thigpen). New employee and high school student Evan (a winningly eager and reticent Brian Miskell) is at first desperate to get the interlopers out of the "staff only" backyard but is just lonely enough to be seduced into friendship and wary idolatry by the older males. What unfolds is a small, sweet and unexpected tale of connection and influence, amid today’s alienated dream-sucking American landscape — same as it ever was, if you ask Charles Bukowski or Henry Miller, both points of reference to Jasper and KJ, who borrow Bukowski’s poem The Aliens for one of their many band names. An appropriate name for the alienated, sure, but part of the charm of these characters is just how easy they are to recognize, or how much we can recognize ourselves in them. Delusions of grandeur reside in every coffee house across this wistful, restless land. It’s not just Jasper and KJ who may be going nowhere. A final gesture to the young and awkward but clearly capable Evan suggests, a little ambiguously to be sure, that there’s promise out there yet for some. But more than that: the transaction makes clear by then that there are no fuck-ups, really; not among people with generous and open hearts — never mind how fucked up the country at large. (Avila)

Any Given Day Magic Theatre, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.magictheatre.org. $20-60. Wed/18-Sat/21, 8pm (also Sat/21, 2:30pm); Sun/22, 2:30pm. Magic Theatre performs Linda McLean’s Glasgow-set play about modern, urban life.

*The Caretaker Curran Theater, 445 Geary, SF; www.shnsf.com. $25-175. Wed/18-Sat/21, 8pm (also Wed/18 and Sat/21, 2pm); Sun/22, 2pm. Harold Pinter’s 1960 drama gets its first major revival since the death of the playwright in 2008 in this touring English production featuring Jonathan Pryce in the ambiguous title role. Set in a worn and cluttered attic apartment amid a triangular power play between its seemingly nonchalant tenant, Aston (the excellently vacant, vaguely creepy Alan Cox), an older homeless man he’s just rescued named Davies (a shifty, richly detailed Pryce), and the tenant’s younger brother and landlord Mick (a tightly coiled yet comically skittish Alex Hassell). The story is minimal, the tensions and pivoting interpersonal dynamics all. The spookier aspects of the play are toned down, meanwhile, though not necessarily to bad effect. While the opening scenes are played with somewhat unexpected levity, director Christopher Morahan ensures a subtle shift midway through into a more threatening and serious tone that is perhaps all the more palpable for being less foreseen — as Davies, egged on by the hyper Mick’s persuasive vision of remaking the dumpy room into an elegant penthouse, makes an ill-considered play for dominance over his seemingly gentle but inscrutable host. (Avila)

*Glengarry Glen Ross Actors Theatre of San Francisco, 855 Bush, SF; (415) 345-1287, www.brownpapertickets.com. $26-40. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Extended through April 28. Actors Theatre of San Francisco and director Keith Phillips offer a sharp, spirited production of the 1984 play by David Mamet in which four real estate agents (Mark Bird, Sean Hallinan, John Krause, and Christian Phillips) jockey and scheme for advantage in their Chicago office in a landscape of insecurity and fierce competition symbolized by the selective doling out of the best leads by manager and company man John (Frank Willey). Clients (like the gullible young husband played by Randy Blair), meanwhile, are just witless marks for the machinations of the predatory salesman, no more meaningfully human than the "muppets" targeted by Greg Smith’s Goldman Sachs. If the scenic design is a little shabby, the strong cast makes that hardly an impediment to a story that feels especially timely in its sharply etched, not to say angry portrait of the ruthless and corrosive business mentality to which egos, livelihoods, and lives — not to mention the culture at large — are enthralled. (Avila)

Goodfellas Live Dark Room Theater, 2263 Mission, SF; www.darkroomsf.com. $20. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through April 26. The Dark Room offers a comedic take on Scorsese’s gangsters.

*Hot Greeks Hypnodrome Theatre, 575 10th St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $30-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through May 5. Cheap thrills don’t come much cheaper or more thrilling than at a Thrillpeddlers musical extravaganza, and their newly remounted run of Hot Greeks affords all the glitter-dusted eye-candy and labyrinthian plot points we’ve come to expect from their gleefully exhibitionist ranks. Structured as loosely as possible on Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, Greeks appropriately enough follows the trials and tribulations of a college sorority tired of "losing" their boyfriends to the big football match every year (Athens U vs. Sparta Tech). Pledging to withhold sex from the men unless they call off the game results in frustration for all, only partially alleviated by the discovery that sexual needs can be satisfied by "playing the other team," as it were. But like other Cockettes’ revivals presented by the Thrillpeddlers, the momentum of the show is carried forward not by the rather thinly-sketched narrative, but by the group song-and-dance numbers, extravagant costuming (and lack thereof), ribald wordplay, and overt gender-fuckery. In addition to many TP regulars, including a hot trio of Greek columns topped with "capital" headdresses who serve as the obligatory chorus (Steven Satyricon, Ste Fishell, Bobby Singer), exciting new additions to the Hypnodrome stage include a bewigged Rik Lopes as stalwart sister Lysistrata, angelically-voiced Maggie Tenenbaum as the not-so-angelic Sodoma, and multi-faceted cabaret talent Tom Orr as heartthrob hunk Pendulum Pulaski. (Gluckstern)

It Is What It Is and The Watchtower Exit Theater, 156 Eddy, SF; www.myadultland.com. $20. Thu/19-Sat/21 and April 27-28, 8pm; April 29, 3pm. Through April 29. Short plays by Diane Karagienakos and Christopher Barranti, presented on the same stage with a brief intermission.

It’s All the Rage Studio Theater, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thu, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm, Sun, 7pm. Extended through May 27. Longtime comedian and radio host Marilyn Pittman’s solo play wrestles with the legacy of her parents’ violent deaths in a 1997 murder-suicide initiated by her father. It’s disturbing material that Pittman, a stout middle-aged woman with a gregarious and bounding personality, approaches indirectly via a good deal of humor — including recounting the first time she did her growing-up-lesbian bit before her mother in a DC comedy club. But the pain and confusion trailing her for 13 years is never far behind, whether in accounts of her own battle with anger (and the broken relationships it has left in its wake) or in ominous memories of her too complacent mother or her charming but domineering father, whose controlling behavior extended to casually announcing murderous dreams while policing the boundaries of his marriage against family interference. A fine mimic, Pittman deploys a Southern lilt in playing each parent, on a stage decorated with a hint of their Southwestern furnishings and a framed set of parental photographs. In not exactly knowing where to lay blame for, or find meaning in, such a horrifying act, the play itself mimics in subtler form the emotional tumult left behind. There’s a too brief but eerie scene in which her veteran father makes reference to a murder among fellow soldiers en route to war, but while PTSD is mentioned (including as an unwanted patrimony), the 60-minute narrative crafted by Pittman and director David Ford wisely eschews any pat explanation. If transitions are occasionally awkward and the pace a bit loose, the play leaves one with an uncomfortable sense of the darker aspects of love, mingled with vague concentric histories of trauma and dislocation in a weird, sad tale of destruction and staying power. Note: review from the show’s 2009 run at the Marsh San Francisco. (Avila)

Maple and Vine American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary, SF; (415) 749-2228, www.act-sf.org. $10-95. Wed/18-Sat/21, 8pm (also Wed/18 and Sat/21, 2pm); Sun/22, 2pm. American Conservatory Theater presents the West Coast premiere of Jordan Harrison’s thoughtful, mildly amusing, increasingly cluttered fantasy about an affluent but unsatisfied urban couple — Katha (Emily Donahoe) and Ryu (Nelson Lee) — who try to restart their lives and relationship by joining a cult-like community devoted to living in 1955 America in perpetuity. Directed swiftly but with a slightly shrill comic tone by Mark Rucker, it’s an intriguing premise that tries to be unexpected in its twists around modern modes of alienation and "simpler times." Community leaders (and Katha and Ryu’s new best friends) Dean (Jamison Jones) and Ellen (Julia Coffey) make it clear that they choose 1955 because 2012 is too easy, not too complicated: In the 1950s, technology has not yet completely subsumed human action, while the discrete spice of old-fashioned repression compensates for the sorry spectrum of salt and ketchup at the dinner table. When it becomes clear that the casual white superiority of Ryu’s new boss at the box factory (Danny Bernardy) masks his despair as a closeted homosexual, intrigue and power plays ensue. But the characters and situations have already started to become less and less credible, even for so whimsical a storyline, and the narrative more heavy-handed too as Katha begins to narrate a series of meaningful dreams conflating the characters and characteristics of their present-past and past-future. (Avila)

Thunder Above, Deeps Below Bindlestiff Studio, 185 Sixth St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $20-25. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through May 5. Bindlestiff presents A. Rey Pamatmat’s dramatic comedy about three homeless young adults.

The Waiting Period MainStage, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Extended through May 26. Brian Copeland (comedian, TV and radio personality, and creator-performer of the long-running solo play Not a Genuine Black Man) returns to the Marsh with a new solo, this one based on more recent and messier events in Copeland’s life. The play concerns an episode of severe depression in which he considered suicide, going so far as to purchase a handgun — the title coming from the legally mandatory 10-day period between purchasing and picking up the weapon, which leaves time for reflections and circumstances that ultimately prevent Copeland from pulling the trigger. A grim subject, but Copeland (with co-developer and director David Ford) ensures there’s plenty of humor as well as frank sentiment along the way. The actor peoples the opening scene in the gun store with a comically if somewhat stereotypically rugged representative of the Second Amendment, for instance, as well as an equally familiar "doood" dude at the service counter. Afterward, we follow Copeland, a just barely coping dad, home to the house recently abandoned by his wife, and through the ordinary routines that become unbearable to the clinically depressed. Copeland also recreates interviews he’s made with other survivors of suicidal depression. Telling someone about such things is vital to preventing their worst outcomes, says Copeland, and telling his own story is meant to encourage others. It’s a worthy aim but only a fitfully engaging piece, since as drama it remains thin, standing at perhaps too respectful a distance from the convoluted torment and alienation at its center. (Avila)

BAY AREA

Anatol Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; www.auroratheatre.org. $30-55. Tue and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm); Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through May 13. Aurora Theatre Company performs a world premiere translation of Arthur Schnitzler’s drama about the love life of an Viennese philanderer.

The Coast of Utopia: Voyage Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-30. Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through April 29. Shotgun Players present Tom Stoppard’s riff on pre-revolutionary Russia.

Hairspray Fox Theatre, 2215 Broadway, Redwood City; www.broadwaybythebay.org. $20-48. Fri/20-Sat/21, 8pm (also Sat/21, 2pm); Sun/22, 2pm. Broadway By the Bay opens its 47th season with the John Waters-based, Tony-winning musical.

John Brown’s Truth La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck, Berk; www.brownpapertickets.com. $10-15. Sun, 7:30pm. Through April 29. The story of abolitionist John Brown comes to life via William Crossman’s script-libretto, plus dance, spoken word, and a variety of improvised music styles.

*The Kipling Hotel: True Misadventures of the Electric Pink ’80s New venue: Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through May 6. This new autobiographical solo show by Don Reed, writer-performer of the fine and long-running East 14th, is another slice of the artist’s journey from 1970s Oakland ghetto to comedy-circuit respectability — here via a partial debate-scholarship to UCLA. The titular Los Angeles residency hotel was where Reed lived and worked for a time in the 1980s while attending university. It’s also a rich mine of memory and material for this physically protean and charismatic comic actor, who sails through two acts of often hilarious, sometimes touching vignettes loosely structured around his time on the hotel’s young wait staff, which catered to the needs of elderly patrons who might need conversation as much as breakfast. On opening night, the episodic narrative seemed to pass through several endings before settling on one whose tidy moral was delivered with too heavy a hand, but if the piece runs a little long, it’s only the last 20 minutes that noticeably meanders. And even with some awkward bumps along the way, it’s never a dull thing watching Reed work. (Avila)

Of Mice and Men TheatreWorks at Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View; (650) 463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. $19-69. Tue-Wed, 7:30pm; Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through April 29. TheatreWorks performs the Steinbeck classic.

Red Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-83. Tue and Thu-Fri, 8pm (also April 26, 2pm; no show April 27); Wed, 7pm; Sat-Sun, 2pm (also Sat, 8pm; no 8pm show May 12; Sun, 7pm). Extended through May 12. Mark Rothko (David Chandler) isn’t the only one painting with a broad brush in this labored and ultimately superficial two-hander by John Logan, enjoying a competent but underwhelming production by outgoing Berkeley Rep associate artistic director Les Waters. Set inside the late-1950s New York studio of the legendary abstract expressionist at the height of his fame, the play introduces a blunt and brash young painter named Ken (John Brummer) as Rothko’s new hired hand, less a character than a crude dramatic device, there first as a sounding board for the pompous philosophizing that apparently comprises a good chunk of the artist’s process and finally as a kind of mirror held up to the old iconoclast in challenging proximity to a new generation that must ultimately transcend Rothko’s canvases in turn. The dialogue holds up signs announcing intellectual and aesthetic depths but these remain surface effects, reflecting only platitudes, while the posturing tends to reduce Rothko to caricature. Much of the self-consciously reluctant filial interaction here smacks of biographical sound bites or heavy-handed underscoring of theme, and tends toward the outright hokey when touching on the credulity-bending subject of Ken’s murdered parents — with the attendant shades this adds to Rothko’s and the play’s chosen color palette. (Avila)

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh Berkeley, TheaterStage, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Extended run: May 5-27 (Sat-Sun, 11am); June 3-July 15 (Sun, 11am). Louis "The Amazing Bubble Man" Pearl returns with this kid-friendly, bubble-tastic comedy.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

Alonzo King LINES Ballet Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Novellus Theater, 700 Howard, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. Wed/18-Thu/19, 7:30pm; Fri/20-Sat/21, 8pm; Sun/22, 5pm. $30-65. The company performs Scheherazade.

BATS Improv Bayfront Theater, Fort Mason Center, Marina and Laguna, SF; www.improv.org. Fri/20, 8pm: "BATS Improv vs. Stanford Improv," $20. Sat/21 and April 28, 8pm: "Improvised Hitchcock," $20. April 27, 8pm: "Theatresports Madness," $20.

"CockTales: Fathers and Sons" McKenna Theater, Creative Arts Bldg, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway, SF; creativearts.sfsu.edu. Fri/20, 7pm. $8-15. Investigations of masculinity via poetry, monologues, music, and more.

"Comedy SuperPAC: Promoting Good Comedy and Great Causes Since 2012!" Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF; www.hemlocktavern.com. Mon, 7pm. Through May 7. $5. Nate Green and W. Kamau Bell present this ongoing comedy showcase; this week’s performers are Chris Garcia, Brendan McGowan, Jeff Kreisler, and Brandie Posey.

"CubaCaribe Dance Festival" This week: Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St, SF; www.cubacaribe.org. Fri/20-Sat/21, 8pm; Sun/22, 3 and 7pm. $10-24. Up first in this two-week festival (this year’s theme: "Poder Popular) is a mixed program featuring local artists (Grupo Experimental Nagó, Arenas Dance Company, and more), plus a Sunday matinee with youth performers.

"Dancers’ Group presents 2012 Bay Area Dance Week" Various locations; www.bayareadance.org. April 20, 29. Free. Over 600 free dance events at locations throughout San Francisco, the East Bay, and beyond.

"Elect to Laugh" Studio Theater, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. Tue, 8pm. Ongoing through Nov 6. $15-50. Will Durst and friends perform in this weekly political humor show that focuses on the upcoming presidential election.

"The Great Flood" Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF; www.sfjazz.org. Sat/21, 8pm, $25-65. Guitarist Bill Frisell’s multimedia investigation into the 1927 Mississippi River flood.

"Gutterbunny in Chinatown" Dark Room Theater, 2263 Mission, SF; (415) 401-7987. Mon/23-Tues/24, 7 and 8pm. $10. Spy Emerson’s performance series is described as "theater of the absurdist vaudevillian furry-fetishists."

"Ironic/Not Ironic" Dark Room Theater, 2263 Mission, SF; (415) 401-7987. Sat/21, 10pm, $15. Comedian Harmon Leon performs.

Labayan Dance/SF ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; www.odctheater.org. Fri/20-Sat/21, 8pm; Sun/22, 3pm. $25. The company performs its spring 2012 season, including the premieres of Kulang and Dasal and Rice Blues.

"Natya and Narration — Rebelution" CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; www.counterpulse.org. Fri/20-Sat/21, 8pm; Sun/22, 3pm. $20. Collaborative presentation of short stories, personal essays, and poems through narrative expression and dance.

"Qcomedy Showcase" Stage Werx, 446 Valencia, SF; www.qcomedy.com. Mon/23, 8pm. $8-20. With headliner Cookie Dough.

"RAWDance presents the Concept Series: 11" 66 Sanchez Studio, 66 Sanchez, SF; www.rawdance.org. Sat/21-Sun/22, 8pm (also Sun/22, 3pm). Pay what you can. RAWdance hosts EmSpace Dance, Christy Funsch, and other artists at this informal, intimate contemporary-dance salon.

"Round One Cabaret" Alcove Theater, 414 Mason, Ste 502, SF; www.thealcovetheater.com. Fri/20-Sat/21, 8pm; Sun/22, 4pm. $30. Not Quite Opera Productions presents this shocase of new musical-theater songs by Bay Area composers.

"The Standard Bearer" Royce Gallery, 2901 Mariposa, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Fri/2-Sat/21, 8pm. $25. Julian Sands directs Neil Dickson in this limited run of Stephen Wyatt’s play about a Shakespearean actor traveling through Africa.

"Subvert" Garage, 975 Howard, SF; www.eventbrite.com. Fri/20, 8pm. $15-25. Comedian Heather Gold performs.

"Tease-O-Rama" Bimbo’s 365 Club, 1025 Columbus, SF; www.teaseorama.com. Fri/20-Sat/21, 8pm. $40-150. Main showcase event in a weekend of burlesque-themed performances, classes, and more.

Stage Listings

Andrew Lam
-
0

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

THEATER

OPENING

Act One, Scene Two Phoenix Arts Association Theatre, 414 Mason, Ste 601, SF; www.un-scripted.com. $10-20. Previews Thu/12-Sat/14, 8pm. Opens April 19, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through May 12. Un-Scripted Theater Company performs the beginning of a new, unfinished play by a local author — and creates an ending on the spot once the script runs out.

It Is What It Is and The Watchtower Exit Theater, 156 Eddy, SF; www.myadultland.com. $20. Opens Fri/13, 8pm. Runs Sat/14, April 19-21, and 27-28, 8pm; Sun/15 and April 29, 3pm. Through April 29. Short plays by Diane Karagienakos and Christopher Barranti, presented on the same stage with a brief intermission.

Thunder Above, Deeps Below Bindlestiff Studio, 185 Sixth St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $20-25. Opens Thu/12, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through May 5. Bindlestiff presents A. Rey Pamatmat’s dramatic comedy about three homeless young adults.

BAY AREA

John Brown’s Truth La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck, Berk; www.brownpapertickets.com. $10-15. Opens Sun/15, 7:30pm. Runs Sun, 7:30pm. Through April 29. The story of abolitionist John Brown comes to life via William Crossman’s script-libretto, plus dance, spoken word, and a variety of improvised music styles.

ONGOING

*The Aliens SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; (415) 677-9596, www.sfplayhouse.org. $20-70. Tue-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through May 5. On the heels of Aurora Theatre’s production of Body Awareness, SF Playhouse introduces local audiences to another of contemporary American playwright Annie Baker’s acclaimed plays, in a finely tailored West Coast premiere directed by Lila Neugebauer. The Aliens unfolds in the days just around July 4, at slacker pace, in the backyard of a Vermont café (lovingly realized to palpable perfection by scenic designer Bill English), daily haunt of scruffy, post-Beat dropouts and sometime band mates Jasper (a secretly brooding but determined Peter O’Connor) and KJ (a charmingly ingenuous yet mischievous Haynes Thigpen). New employee and high school student Evan (a winningly eager and reticent Brian Miskell) is at first desperate to get the interlopers out of the "staff only" backyard but is just lonely enough to be seduced into friendship and wary idolatry by the older males. What unfolds is a small, sweet and unexpected tale of connection and influence, amid today’s alienated dream-sucking American landscape — same as it ever was, if you ask Charles Bukowski or Henry Miller, both points of reference to Jasper and KJ, who borrow Bukowski’s poem The Aliens for one of their many band names. An appropriate name for the alienated, sure, but part of the charm of these characters is just how easy they are to recognize, or how much we can recognize ourselves in them. Delusions of grandeur reside in every coffee house across this wistful, restless land. It’s not just Jasper and KJ who may be going nowhere. A final gesture to the young and awkward but clearly capable Evan suggests, a little ambiguously to be sure, that there’s promise out there yet for some. But more than that: the transaction makes clear by then that there are no fuck-ups, really; not among people with generous and open hearts — never mind how fucked up the country at large. (Avila)

Any Given Day Magic Theatre, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.magictheatre.org. $20-60. Opens Wed/11, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm (also April 21, 2:30pm); Sun, 2:30pm; Tue, 7pm. Through April 22. Magic Theatre performs Linda McLean’s Glasgow-set play about modern, urban life.

*The Caretaker Curran Theater, 445 Geary, SF; www.shnsf.com. $25-175. Tue-Sat, 8pm (also Wed and Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through April 22. Harold Pinter’s 1960 drama gets its first major revival since the death of the playwright in 2008 in this touring English production featuring Jonathan Pryce in the ambiguous title role. Set in a worn and cluttered attic apartment amid a triangular power play between its seemingly nonchalant tenant, Aston (the excellently vacant, vaguely creepy Alan Cox), an older homeless man he’s just rescued named Davies (a shifty, richly detailed Pryce), and the tenant’s younger brother and landlord Mick (a tightly coiled yet comically skittish Alex Hassell). The story is minimal, the tensions and pivoting interpersonal dynamics all. The spookier aspects of the play are toned down, meanwhile, though not necessarily to bad effect. While the opening scenes are played with somewhat unexpected levity, director Christopher Morahan ensures a subtle shift midway through into a more threatening and serious tone that is perhaps all the more palpable for being less foreseen — as Davies, egged on by the hyper Mick’s persuasive vision of remaking the dumpy room into an elegant penthouse, makes an ill-considered play for dominance over his seemingly gentle but inscrutable host. (Avila)

*Fool For Love Boxcar Studios, 125A Hyde, SF; www.boxcartheatre.org. $25. Wed/11-Sat/14, 8pm. Another installment of Boxcar Theatre’s epic Sam Shepard repertory project, Fool for Love inaugurates their newest performance space within their Hyde Street Studios location. A depressingly realistic reproduction of a claustrophobic motel room, the tiny jewel-box theatre provides no refuge for the actors, and certainly not for the audience, each trapped beneath the pitiless gaze of the other. And if that too-close-for-comfort intimacy doesn’t get to you, the intentionally difficult subject matter — a "typical" Shepardian foray into alcohol-fueled ranting, violence, incest, and casual cruelty — probably will. Shepard’s strength in monologue shows itself off to meaty effect from May’s (Lauren Doucette) melancholy description of her mother’s love affair with the Old Man (Jeff Garrett) to Eddie’s (Brian Trybom) candid admittance to May’s timid suitor Martin (Geoffrey Nolan) that he and May are not cousins at all but half-siblings who have "fooled around" with each other. In addition to the reliably strong performances from each of the actors, Fool features a notably clever bit of staging involving the Old Man who appears not as a specter wandering the periphery of the stage, but as a recurring figure on the black-and-white television, interrupting the flow of cheesy Westerns with his garrulous trailer park wisdom and an omnipresent Styrofoam cup filled, one suspects, with something stronger than just coffee. (Gluckstern)

*Glengarry Glen Ross Actors Theatre of San Francisco, 855 Bush, SF; (415) 345-1287, www.brownpapertickets.com. $26-40. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Extended through April 28. Actors Theatre of San Francisco and director Keith Phillips offer a sharp, spirited production of the 1984 play by David Mamet in which four real estate agents (Mark Bird, Sean Hallinan, John Krause, and Christian Phillips) jockey and scheme for advantage in their Chicago office in a landscape of insecurity and fierce competition symbolized by the selective doling out of the best leads by manager and company man John (Frank Willey). Clients (like the gullible young husband played by Randy Blair), meanwhile, are just witless marks for the machinations of the predatory salesman, no more meaningfully human than the "muppets" targeted by Greg Smith’s Goldman Sachs. If the scenic design is a little shabby, the strong cast makes that hardly an impediment to a story that feels especially timely in its sharply etched, not to say angry portrait of the ruthless and corrosive business mentality to which egos, livelihoods, and lives — not to mention the culture at large — are enthralled. (Avila)

Goodfellas Live Dark Room Theater, 2263 Mission, SF; www.darkroomsf.com. $20. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through April 26. The Dark Room offers a comedic take on Scorsese’s gangsters.

*Hot Greeks Hypnodrome Theatre, 575 10th St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $30-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through May 5. Cheap thrills don’t come much cheaper or more thrilling than at a Thrillpeddlers musical extravaganza, and their newly remounted run of Hot Greeks affords all the glitter-dusted eye-candy and labyrinthian plot points we’ve come to expect from their gleefully exhibitionist ranks. Structured as loosely as possible on Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, Greeks appropriately enough follows the trials and tribulations of a college sorority tired of "losing" their boyfriends to the big football match every year (Athens U vs. Sparta Tech). Pledging to withhold sex from the men unless they call off the game results in frustration for all, only partially alleviated by the discovery that sexual needs can be satisfied by "playing the other team," as it were. But like other Cockettes’ revivals presented by the Thrillpeddlers, the momentum of the show is carried forward not by the rather thinly-sketched narrative, but by the group song-and-dance numbers, extravagant costuming (and lack thereof), ribald wordplay, and overt gender-fuckery. In addition to many TP regulars, including a hot trio of Greek columns topped with "capital" headdresses who serve as the obligatory chorus (Steven Satyricon, Ste Fishell, Bobby Singer), exciting new additions to the Hypnodrome stage include a bewigged Rik Lopes as stalwart sister Lysistrata, angelically-voiced Maggie Tenenbaum as the not-so-angelic Sodoma, and multi-faceted cabaret talent Tom Orr as heartthrob hunk Pendulum Pulaski. (Gluckstern)

It’s All the Rage Studio Theater, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thu/12, 8pm; Sat/14, 8:30pm, Sun/15, 7pm. Longtime comedian and radio host Marilyn Pittman’s solo play wrestles with the legacy of her parents’ violent deaths in a 1997 murder-suicide initiated by her father. It’s disturbing material that Pittman, a stout middle-aged woman with a gregarious and bounding personality, approaches indirectly via a good deal of humor — including recounting the first time she did her growing-up-lesbian bit before her mother in a DC comedy club. But the pain and confusion trailing her for 13 years is never far behind, whether in accounts of her own battle with anger (and the broken relationships it has left in its wake) or in ominous memories of her too complacent mother or her charming but domineering father, whose controlling behavior extended to casually announcing murderous dreams while policing the boundaries of his marriage against family interference. A fine mimic, Pittman deploys a Southern lilt in playing each parent, on a stage decorated with a hint of their Southwestern furnishings and a framed set of parental photographs. In not exactly knowing where to lay blame for, or find meaning in, such a horrifying act, the play itself mimics in subtler form the emotional tumult left behind. There’s a too brief but eerie scene in which her veteran father makes reference to a murder among fellow soldiers en route to war, but while PTSD is mentioned (including as an unwanted patrimony), the 60-minute narrative crafted by Pittman and director David Ford wisely eschews any pat explanation. If transitions are occasionally awkward and the pace a bit loose, the play leaves one with an uncomfortable sense of the darker aspects of love, mingled with vague concentric histories of trauma and dislocation in a weird, sad tale of destruction and staying power. Note: review from the show’s 2009 run at the Marsh San Francisco. (Avila)

*A Lie of the Mind Boxcar Playhouse, 505 Natoma, SF; www.boxcartheatre.org. $25. Wed/11-Sat/14, 8pm. Sam Shepard’s three-act drama is streaked with humor, horror and heartbreak, all of it arising from the most mundane but also extraordinary of things, love and family. That’s Shepard territory, of course, as surely as is the rowdy backwater of the American West where much of the play unfolds. But seeing the exceptionally sharp and powerful production currently up at Boxcar Theatre under direction of Susannah Martin — in the midst of Boxcar’s mostly terrific four-play Shepard fest that includes his better known Pulitzer-winner, Buried Child (1979) — suggests 1985’s Lie may cut deeper than most. It begins in the immediate aftermath of a vicious episode of domestic abuse, from which the married couple of Beth (Megan Trout) and Jake (Joe Estlack) flies apart and back into the ambivalent arms of their mutually dysfunctional families (played wonderfully by Carolyn Doyle, Marissa Keltie, Tim Redmond, Katja Rivera, Josh Schell, and Don Wood). Trout’s brain-damaged Beth is a wrenching figure, not merely for her confusion and vulnerability but more so for the certainty and determination that make their way from her heart through the prison bars of her hampered mind. As Jake, Estlack is doing some of his finest work, convincingly incarnating a veritable beast whose roaring, roiling emotions sound the loneliest and most desolate of souls within. Martin’s intelligent staging — aided by Steve Decker’s beautifully spare wood-plank set, Lucas Krech’s moody lighting, and a choice, eerie sound design by Teddy Hulsker — adds tangible weight and texture to the play’s radiant dialogue and engrossing characters, realized by one of the finest ensemble casts all year. (Avila)

Maple and Vine American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary, SF; (415) 749-2228, www.act-sf.org. $10-95. Tue-Sat, 8pm (also Wed and Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm (Sun/15, show at 7pm). Through April 22. ACT performs the West Coast premiere of Jordan Harrison’s play about a 21st century couple drawn into a community of people who live as if it’s the 1950s.

The Real Americans Marsh Studio Theater, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $25-50. Fri/13, 8pm; Sat/14, 5pm. Dan Hoyle revives his hit solo show about small-town America.

Waiting for Godot New venue: SF Playhouse Stage Two, 533 Sutter, SF; (415) 336-3522, www.tidestheatre.org. $20-32. Thu/12, 7pm; Fri/13-Sat/14, 8pm. The fuchsia papier-mâché tree and swirling grey-on-white floor pattern (courtesy of scenic designer Richard Colman) lend a psychedelic accent to the famously barren landscape inhabited by Vladimir (Keith Burkland) and Estragon (Jack Halton) in this production of the Samuel Beckett play by newcomers Tides Theatre. The best moments here broadcast the brooding beauty of the avant-garde classic, with its purposely vague but readily familiar world of viciousness, servility, trauma, want, fear, grudging compassion, and the daring, fragile humor that can look it all squarely in the eye. (Avila)

The Waiting Period MainStage, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Extended through April 27. Brian Copeland (comedian, TV and radio personality, and creator-performer of the long-running solo play Not a Genuine Black Man) returns to the Marsh with a new solo, this one based on more recent and messier events in Copeland’s life. The play concerns an episode of severe depression in which he considered suicide, going so far as to purchase a handgun — the title coming from the legally mandatory 10-day period between purchasing and picking up the weapon, which leaves time for reflections and circumstances that ultimately prevent Copeland from pulling the trigger. A grim subject, but Copeland (with co-developer and director David Ford) ensures there’s plenty of humor as well as frank sentiment along the way. The actor peoples the opening scene in the gun store with a comically if somewhat stereotypically rugged representative of the Second Amendment, for instance, as well as an equally familiar "doood" dude at the service counter. Afterward, we follow Copeland, a just barely coping dad, home to the house recently abandoned by his wife, and through the ordinary routines that become unbearable to the clinically depressed. Copeland also recreates interviews he’s made with other survivors of suicidal depression. Telling someone about such things is vital to preventing their worst outcomes, says Copeland, and telling his own story is meant to encourage others. It’s a worthy aim but only a fitfully engaging piece, since as drama it remains thin, standing at perhaps too respectful a distance from the convoluted torment and alienation at its center. (Avila)

BAY AREA

Anatol Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; www.auroratheatre.org. $30-55. Previews Wed/11, 8pm. Opens Thu/12, 8pm. Runs Tue and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm); Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through May 13. Aurora Theatre Company performs a world premiere translation of Arthur Schnitzler’s drama about the love life of an Viennese philanderer.

Cabaret Larkspur Café Theater (American Legion Hall Post 313), 500 Magnolia, Larkspur; www.brownpapertickets.com. $25-45. Fri/13-Sat/14, 8pm; Sun/15, 7pm. Independent Cabaret Productions and Shakespeare at Stinson move their production of the Kander and Ebb classic from Fort Mason to the North Bay.

The Coast of Utopia: Voyage Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-30. Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through April 29. Shotgun Players present Tom Stoppard’s riff on pre-revolutionary Russia.

Hairspray Fox Theatre, 2215 Broadway, Redwood City; www.broadwaybythebay.org. $20-48. Thu/12 and Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through April 22. Broadway By the Bay opens its 47th season with the John Waters-based, Tony-winning musical.

*The Kipling Hotel: True Misadventures of the Electric Pink ’80s New venue: Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through May 6. This new autobiographical solo show by Don Reed, writer-performer of the fine and long-running East 14th, is another slice of the artist’s journey from 1970s Oakland ghetto to comedy-circuit respectability — here via a partial debate-scholarship to UCLA. The titular Los Angeles residency hotel was where Reed lived and worked for a time in the 1980s while attending university. It’s also a rich mine of memory and material for this physically protean and charismatic comic actor, who sails through two acts of often hilarious, sometimes touching vignettes loosely structured around his time on the hotel’s young wait staff, which catered to the needs of elderly patrons who might need conversation as much as breakfast. On opening night, the episodic narrative seemed to pass through several endings before settling on one whose tidy moral was delivered with too heavy a hand, but if the piece runs a little long, it’s only the last 20 minutes that noticeably meanders. And even with some awkward bumps along the way, it’s never a dull thing watching Reed work. (Avila)

Of Mice and Men TheatreWorks at Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View; (650) 463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. $19-69. Tue-Wed, 7:30pm; Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through April 29. TheatreWorks performs the Steinbeck classic.

Red Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-83. Tue and Thu-Fri, 8pm (also April 26, 2pm; no show April 27); Wed, 7pm; Sat-Sun, 2pm (also Sat, 8pm; no 8pm show May 12; Sun, 7pm). Extended through May 12. Mark Rothko (David Chandler) isn’t the only one painting with a broad brush in this labored and ultimately superficial two-hander by John Logan, enjoying a competent but underwhelming production by outgoing Berkeley Rep associate artistic director Les Waters. Set inside the late-1950s New York studio of the legendary abstract expressionist at the height of his fame, the play introduces a blunt and brash young painter named Ken (John Brummer) as Rothko’s new hired hand, less a character than a crude dramatic device, there first as a sounding board for the pompous philosophizing that apparently comprises a good chunk of the artist’s process and finally as a kind of mirror held up to the old iconoclast in challenging proximity to a new generation that must ultimately transcend Rothko’s canvases in turn. The dialogue holds up signs announcing intellectual and aesthetic depths but these remain surface effects, reflecting only platitudes, while the posturing tends to reduce Rothko to caricature. Much of the self-consciously reluctant filial interaction here smacks of biographical sound bites or heavy-handed underscoring of theme, and tends toward the outright hokey when touching on the credulity-bending subject of Ken’s murdered parents — with the attendant shades this adds to Rothko’s and the play’s chosen color palette. (Avila)

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh Berkeley, TheaterStage, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Extended run: May 5-27 (Sat-Sun, 11am); June 3-July 15 (Sun, 11am). Louis "The Amazing Bubble Man" Pearl returns with this kid-friendly, bubble-tastic comedy.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

Alonzo King LINES Ballet Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Novellus Theater, 700 Howard, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. Wed-Thu, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through April 22. $30-65. The company performs Triangle of the Squinches (Thu/12-Sun/15) and Scheherazade (April 18-22).

BATS Improv Bayfront Theater, Fort Mason Center, Marina and Laguna, SF; www.improv.org. Fri/13 and April 27, 8pm: "Theatresports Madness,"$20. Sat/14, April 21, and 28, 8pm: "Improvised Hitchcock," $20.

"The Collection" Exit Stage Left, 156 Eddy, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Wed/11-Fri/13, 8pm. $20-50. Theatrical magician Christian Cagigal debuts his brand-new, top-secret show.

"Comedy SuperPAC: Promoting Good Comedy and Great Causes Since 2012!" Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF; www.hemlocktavern.com. Mon, 7pm. Through May 7. $5. Nate Green and W. Kamau Bell present this ongoing comedy showcase; this week’s performers are Chris Garcia, Brendan McGowan, Jeff Kreisler, and Brandie Posey.

Jorge Rodolfo De Hoyos Garage, 975 Howard, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Sat/14-Sun/15, 8pm. $10-20. As part of the MOVE(MEN)T5 festival of men’s choregraphy, De Hoyos performs Departing Things.

"Elect to Laugh" Studio Theater, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. Tue, 8pm. Ongoing through Nov 6. $15-50. Will Durst and friends perform in this weekly political humor show that focuses on the upcoming presidential election.

"Heart and Soul: The Music of Diana Ross, Dionne Warwick, and Whitney Houston" Rrazz Room, 222 Mason, SF; www.therrazzroom.com. Sat/14, 7 and 9:30pm. $35-45. Cabaret show paying homage to three of music’s most beloved divas.

"Love/Hate" ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; www.odctheater.org. Thu/12 and Sat/14, 8pm; Sun/15, 7pm. $35-65. In association with the San Francisco Opera Center, ODC Theater presents the world premiere of a chamber opera by Jack Perla and Rob Bailis.

Natasha Carlitz Dance Ensemble Cowell Theater, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.carlitzdance.org. Fri/13-Sat/14, 8pm. $14-24. The company performs With a Little Help From My Friends.

"Previously Secret Information" Stage Werx, 446 Valencia, SF; www.eventbrite.com. Sun/15, 7pm. The comedic storytelling series celebrates its second anniversary with performances by Joe Klocek, Dhaya Lakshminarayanan, and Nina G.

"Qcomedy Presents Bear Comedy Night" Stage Werx, 446 Valencia, SF; www.qcomedy.com. Mon/16, 8pm. $8-20. With Bob "Bobaloo" Koenig, Nick Leonard, and more.

Sing for America Herbst Theater, 401 Van Ness, SF; (415) 392-4400, www.singforamerica.org. Tue/17, 8pm. $30. Amateur singers in the SFA chorus perform alongside the San Francisco Boys’ Chorus and professional soloists; ticket proceeds benefit Bay Area arts organizations.

Tim Rubel Human Shakes Garage, 975 Howard, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Thu/12-Fri/13, 8pm. $10-20. As part of the MOVE(MEN)T5 festival of men’s choregraphy, the company performs We Have (Not).

"Uhane" Children’s Creative Museum Theater, Yerba Buena Gardens, 221 Fourth St, SF; www.creativity.org. Fri/13-Sat/14, 8pm; Sun/15, 2pm. $25. Purple Moon Dance Project founder and artistic director Jill Togawa leads this ten-women dance piece in her last San Francisco performance.

BAY AREA

"All Agita All the Time" Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. Mon/16, 8pm. $10. Shotgun Cabaret presents First Person Singular’s family-style reading of The Sopranos‘ pilot episode.

Dimensions Dance Theater Malonga Casquelourde Center, 1428 Alice, Oakl; www.brownpapertickets.com. Sat/14, 8pm. $15-25. The company performs Down the Congo Line.

Why Wall Street loves the War on Drugs

Zelda Bronstein
-
46
Why Wall Street loves the War on Drugs

The raid on Oaksterdam has just about everyone in local politics engaging in a little head-scratching: What possible reason would the Obama administration have to crack down on medical marijuana in an election year? How does it help the president, who will be facing an unsettled and angry electorate in a still-tough economy, to alienate the pot smoking liberals of the world, who were at one point among his most loyal constituents?

What a fucking idiot.

Here’s what make it worse: I don’t think anyone at Goldman Sachs talked to the White House about this, but the 1 percent clearly have a lot to gain from the drug war.

And it has nothing to do with drugs.

Let’s be logical here. There’s only one possible way to increase economic equality in this country, and it involves government intervention. With union membership at a fraction of what it once was, government is the only institution with the power these days to enforce income redistribution. The wealthy have to be forced to pay higher taxes, and that money has to be spent on public education, affordable housing, economic development, public-sector-driven job creation and other programs that are proven to narrow the wealth gap.

But that’s tricky, since the Right has done such an effective job (with the help of corrupt politicians of every stripe, including liberals) of making Americans mistrust government. How do you get people to vote for higher taxes when they think the money’s going to be wasted on pointless wars and crony contracts — and on sending federal agents to roust pot clubs?

The two factors that most accounted for the fall of economic liberalism in the 1960s were Vietnam and pot. My parents generation saw the government as the nation’s leaders who got us out of the Great Depression and won World War II. My generation saw government as the assholes who were sending us to die in Southeast Asia and putting us in jail for smoking weed. That’s why when Ronald Reagan announced that “government is not the solution, it’s the problem,” so many of my peers nodded (through the haze) and said: Right on.

There are more progressives in the Bay Area today who distrust and dislike the federal government than there were before the raids began. We’re going back to the days when “the feds” became a dirty word. And it’s undermining everything that Obama is tyring to do with the economy.

Yeah, Wall Street, which is trying to get rid of pesky regulations, loves this — if you hate the feds in Oaksterdam, it’s hard to love them at the IRS and Securities and Exchange Commission. That’s what the 1 percent relies on. And it’s working.

 

 

Guest opinion: It’s not about Mirkarimi, it’s about us

Zelda Bronstein
-
70
Guest opinion: It’s not about Mirkarimi, it’s about us

Virtually unmentioned in the torrent of words that have flowed over the Ross Mirkarimi false imprisonment, suspension and pending vote to determine his removal by the Board of Supervisors is any reference to what should now be the most important issue to be considered as the sad saga unfolds: the fact that Mirkarimi was, just four months before his removal, elected by a majority vote and his removal from office would simply set aside that vote, diminishing all of our cherished beliefs about “majority rule.”

Mirkarimi didn’t just win, he won big. He beat the second place candidate by nearly 19,000 votes, winning outright without the need for the magic of instant run-off. Mirkarimi got more first place votes than did Ed Lee (70,204 vs. 59,663). Moreover, Mirkarimi’s election was without controversy, complaint or charge of illegality, unlike Ed Lee’s, which resulted in a total of 25 misdemeanor convictions for illegal campaign contributions by a city contractor with a pending contact before a commission appointed by the mayor.

Since the 5-4 vote of the Supreme Court to give George Bush the election in 2000 after Al Gore won a majority of the popular vote, there has been a distressingly frequent willingness by the media to accept executive and judicial actions that set aside popular votes. The conservative governor of Michigan has simply taken over local governments that he deems financially “irresponsible” setting aside the votes of local residents. In California, a tiny minority of Republican legislators, elected by a comparative handful of voters, yearly stymie the overwhelmingly majority elected legislators, forcing deeply unpopular budget cuts — and the media simply goes along.

Majority rule, the very bedrock of representative democracy, seems unnervingly easy to set aside now days. Majority rule is our bedrock because it’s the only way in which our system has to define the political will of the people. Let’s be clear, the very City Charter that is being used to remove Mirkarimi from office rests on the power given by “the people of the City and County of San Francisco,” (Preamble to the Charter) and was itself adopted by a majority vote. Setting aside majority votes is a dangerous business for us all; it risks substituting the will of a few insiders for the will of the people.

The political riskiness of the move has been entirely incorrectly cast by the San Francisco Chronicle, the main voice to overturn the expressed will of the people. The Chronicle asserts the political risks as now falling on the supervisors who most vote to sustain the mayor’s action with nine votes. Indeed, the ace vote counter at the “Comical,” former Mayor Willie Brown, who went zero-for-ever in the last four years of his term in votes at the board, confidently predicts that the vote will be 11-zip to sustain the mayor because of the fear of voter retribution.

But facts indicate that “fear” will play the other way. Last November Mirkarimi won in six of the 11 supervisorial districts (D3, D5, D6, D8, D9 and D10) . In two of them (D8 and D10), he won more first-place votes than the current supervisor. In these same six districts he outpolled Ed Lee by some 18,000 votes. By what measure, other than the huffing and puffing of ex-Mayor Willie, C(onsistenly) W(rong) Nevius, and the two stooges, Matier and Ross, does any political risk fall on these supervisors to vote with their constituents?

Chances are nine votes will NOT be there and that Mirkarimi will remain sheriff, where the people put him.We will have gone through a divisive fight addressing none of our deep problems, Mayor Lee will squander the good will of the supervisors and voters for nothing and we will be exactly where we are now.

We have a way to remove Mirkarimi from office that is far better for our democracy. It’s one of the great inventions of the Progressive Era. It’s called recall, and it puts the matter where it should be: before the people. It’s really not about Mirkarimi anymore. Its about us, the meaning of our votes, and the responsibility of supervisors to understand in whose name they govern. All power to the people!

Calvin Welch lives, works and plays in San Francisco.

We and Mr. Jones

-
1
We and Mr. Jones

caitlin@sfbg.com

THE GREEN ISSUE No one can accuse Van Jones of being a one trick pony. In the early days of his activist career he monitored police violence in the Bay Area, and from there gradually widened the frame of his activist efforts. Jones formed the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland in 1996, then became a green jobs pioneer, promoting environmentally-friendly work in low income communities — a revolutionary tactic that eventually landed him a short-lived adviser position within President Obama’s Council on Environmental Quality.

In his new book Rebuild the Dream (Nation Books, 278pp, $25.99) Jones has expanded his talking points to include the ways in which the financial sector has let us down, how Obama only did what we forced him to do (we gotta yell louder, Jones says), and how we can help fix the economy by focusing on “collaborative consumption.” Call it holistic activism. He’s launched a national junket to talk Rebuild that will bring him to the Commonwealth Club on April 16.

It is perhaps this kind of nuanced approach that scared the bejeezus out of the conservative demagogues whose smear campaign convinced Jones to resign from his White House post in 2009. Leave it to Glenn Beck to shame someone for saying he wanted “a whole new system” (as Jones proclaimed in a speech at a youth climate change conference.) The conservative media accused Jones of a communist past — which was accurate enough — and of signing a 9/11 truther petition that said that George Bush had prior knowledge of the World Trade Center attacks. He was innocent of this last point, the organization in question admitted months later, to a deafening media silence.

But Jones hasn’t retracted his call for a new system. In fact, in the pages of Rebuild the Dream he seems to step into a post-resignation hybrid role, in which he is no longer an outsider activist, but still has no formal role in Washington, D.C. Accordingly, he seems less fired up by the actions of national politicians as the agenda-pushing energy of the Tea Party and Occupy movements, which his new book spends entire chapters analyzing and critiquing. Even certain innovative businesses get a shout-out.

“You have Kiva, Kickstarter, Airbnb, and Zip Car already beginning to point to a future economy where more people are sharing fewer things,” Jones told the Guardian in a phone interview last week. “That’s good for people and the planet. You are also are saving money and you’re relying on people and relationships rather than dollars, you’re refinancing your social capital.”

He calls this economic ethos “collaborative consumption,” and it’s a heady idea for proponents of self-sustaining communities. Building a new economy on this business model, however, will take some tweaking that’s not covered in Rebuild — the city-level debate on whether SF Airbnb users should be subject to the city’s 14 percent hotel tax is one current-day example of how things can get complicated.

Rebuild offers a fairly honest critique of Obama’s successes and failures during the president’s first year in office. Nonetheless, the timing of the book, with it’s underlying message that we need to stay engaged in the political system to achieve real change, seems somewhat cagily timed. Is Rebuild the Dream part of Obama’s re-election campaign?

“The answer is no,” Jones is quick to reply. “We’re a non-partisan organization, we don’t endorse political candidates.”

But the election year publication is no coincidence: he wants all candidates to start talking about fixing the institutional reasons behind inequality.

“The two factors once used to pull people out of poverty were home ownership and education,” he says. “Those have now become the two factors by which people are being pulled into poverty because of the underwater mortgage problem and the fact that kids are coming away from college with massive debt and no ability to get a job. We think that these are issues that the politicians need to be forced to respond to and rethink.”

VAN JONES

April 17, 7pm, $20

Commonwealth Club

595 Market, second floor, SF.

(415) 597-6700

www.commonwealthclub.org

 

The slate controversy at the DCCC

Zelda Bronstein
-
30
The slate controversy at the DCCC

There’s nothing like a combination of insider politics, a struggle for control of the local Democratic Party and the ongoing discussion about the need for progressives and moderates to get along better to make for a complicated political story.

Which is exactly what’s going on with Alix Rosenthal’s effort to put together a Women’s Slate for the Democratic County Central Committee.

I’ve spend way too much time trying to figure it all out, but it raises enough interesting issues to make it worth discussion in the progressive community.

The background: For four years, the progressives have controlled the DCCC – and thus the powerful local endorsements for the local Democratic Party. That’s taken considerable organizing – and it’s worked to a great extent because of a remarkable degree of unity among a famously fractious bunch.
In the past two elections, every progressive group, the Harvey Milk Club, the Tenants Union, the teacher’s union, the nurses, the Sierra Club — and the Bay Guardian – has endorsed essentially the slate of candidates. There are problems with that approach – it’s easy for some people or some groups to get excluded, and you get complaints of machine politics – but in reality, there weren’t a lot of people who identified as progressive getting left out. Quite the opposite – the slate organizers were working hard to recruit people to run. Serving on the DCCC isn’t glamorous and it’s a lot of work. (It’s also at times unpleasant — the arguments are harsh, sometimes more so than necessary.)

In 2012, we have a different problem: The people who are called moderates have convinced a lot of high-profile canidates (former Sup. Bevan Dufty, Sup. Malia Cohen, School Board member Hydra Mendoza) – people who will win on name-recognition alone – to run. Combined with the retirement of Aaron Peskin, and the all-but certain re-election of incumbents like Scott Wiener and Leslie Katz (who remains to this day the only member of the DCCC who refuses ever to take my phone calls) and you have the makings of a conservative victory.

Let me take a second on this “moderate” tag. Moderates in San Francisco are people who are liberal on social issues – like, frankly, 80 or 90 percent of the city – but conservative on economic issues. Conservative is the right word here: The moderates don’t typically support higher taxes on the rich and big business, don’t support development controls, are weak on tenant issues, don’t think that housing should be a right of all people and pretty much buy into what in the Clinton era we called neo-liberalism.

The progressives (who have economic policies more like the Democratic Party of FDR and Lyndon Johnson) and the moderates (who have economic policies more like the Democratic Party of  Walter Shorenstein, Dianne Feinstein and Bill Clinton) have been fighting for decades over the future of a city where there aren’t a whole lot of Republicans.

So when I say conservative I’m not talking about Reagan or Santorum — but I’m talking about a very different economic vision than mine.

And while I’m all in favor of being civil and polite to everyone and respecting friends and colleagues who disagree with you, I guess I’m enough of an old commie (with a lower case “c”) to believe deeply in class struggle and the idea that the rich and powerful don’t give up without a fight.

And having a good working relationship with the conservative Democrats (hey, I’m on great terms with Scott Wiener – we talk all the time and I respect him and like him personally) doesn’t mean I’m ready to give up the notion that in the United States and California and San Francisco, 2012, there’s a class war going on. We didn’t start the war, but we have to fight it to survive — and to keep the city from becoming an ossified playground of the very wealthy.

Okay, enough background and rhetoric. On March 29, Rosenthal – who is also my friend and I respect and often support – sent out an email that announced that all of the women running for DCCC were going to work together on a slate:

“The female candidates for the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee (DCCC) have banded together to form a slate of our own. It’s called Elect Women 2012, and it includes all women running this June in both Assembly districts in San Francisco, moderates and progressives alike. The slate is intended to provide a support network for both new and seasoned candidates, to develop an amicable working relationship between moderate and progressive candidates, and above all to get more women elected to public office.”

 
That’s all good. More women in politics is good. Supporting new candidates is good. A working relationship between progressives and moderates is good.
But here’s the question, and it’s not a new one in San Francisco: Is it a good idea, both politically and as a matter of strategy, to promote the interests of people who largely disagree with you on issues? If a slate of women helps knock off a progressive man in favor of a conservative woman, is that a positive change?

Rosenthal doesn’t think that’s going to happen. We’ve had a couple of long discussions about this, and she’s looked at the math and the current list of candidates, and she thinks her slate is more likely to help a couple of progressive women (Petra DeJesus, for example) who might not otherwise win.
“You need to touch the voters three or four times before they know who you are,” she told me. “The winners will be people who are on several slates, and the progressives have more slates than the moderates.”

The guys who she agrees should really be on the DCCC and might have a close call (Matt Dorsey, for example, a gay man, or Dr. Justin Morgan, an African American man) won’t win or lose on the basis of a competing women’s slate.

Rosenthal ran for office on a pledge to bring more women into the DCCC and into public office, and that’s an important goal – right now, there’s not a single woman among the citywide elected officials in San Francisco. (That hasn’t always been the case — the mayor for 10 (awful) years was Dianne Feinstein, and in the past decade or so we’ve had a female treasurer, assessor, district attorney, city attorney and public defender. But right now: All guys.

The Board of Supes is a bit lopsided, too – seven men, four women.

And for the same reason that putting people of color into office almost by definition changes the perspective of politics, electing women is a progressive value. No matter how sympathetic the straight white men are, there are things we never had to experience and will never really understand.

That said, I would much rather have (mostly progressive) white guy Aaron Peskin run the Democratic Party than (mostly conservative) Asian woman Mary Jung – and so would Rosenthal. “No question, no doubt about it,” she told me.

Now that Jung has all but announced that she wants to be the next party chair, and since a number of the women on the slate will support her over a progressive (and would support her over Rosenthal) – is this doing the movement any good?

Gabriel Haaland, a transgender man and former president of the Harvey Milk Club, points out that “the Milk Club could simply endorse all LGBT candidates for our slate, and there are some who have argued for that over the years. But we don’t — because we work in coalitions, and that kind of slate undermines the whole concept of coalition politics.”

Hene Kelly, who is on the women’s slate but has insisted that the mailings make it clear she isn’t supporting some of the other candidates who will be connected with her, thinks the Rosenthal plan is a bad idea.

“There are people on this slate I could not and would not support because they don’t share my beliefs,” Kelly told me. “These are nice people, but they don’t see San Francisco the way that I do. Mary Jung and I don’t believe in the same things.”

Rosenthal says that the very fact that so many people who disagree on issues can work together on a slate shows that women can get along and end some of the divisiveness on the DCCC. Kelly – who is a passionate and often fierce fighter – disagrees: “I’m not that easy to get along with.”

Kelly is part of what will be a progressive coalition slate – including women and yes, men – and Latinos, African Americans, LGBT people, young people, older people … a mix. An imperfect but generally San Francisco mix. And all of them share the same political values.

Some of the people who don’t like the women’s slate are, indeed, men – and Rosenthal is at least a little proud of that. In another email talking about a Chronicle story, she notes:

“I have already received panicked calls from some male candidates and leaders, it seems there is quite a buzz about us and about Heather’s article. Which is great.  I hear that Malia said some good things, as did Supervisor Wiener.”

Wait — Scott Wiener and Malia Cohen are happy about the slate? This is supposed to be good news? I like Scott and we’ve worked together on issues we agree on, but I didn’t endorse him for office; on the most critical things, we don’t agree at all. And interestingly, there is not one progressive woman quoted as opposing the idea in the Heather Knight piece in the Chron.

I think the panic is not, alas, about men fearing the power of women. There isn’t a progressive man I know who would be unhappy with Hene Kelly running the party.

The question is about whether this effort might help shift the balance of  power away from the progressives – and, frankly, whether all this talk about getting along together is an excuse for watering down what we want to do and what we believe in.

Maybe Alix Rosenthal is right, and her slate — which will spend about $25,000 in what amounts to co-op advertising — will help bump a couple of progressive women to the top and help the left hold on (narrowly, because it will be close) to the DCCC. Maybe the moderate/conservative crew will win a majority, and some of the moderate women will be impressed by the help Rosenthal gave them and elect her chair (which would be a lot better than some of the alternatives).

Maybe politics should be less rancorous and we should all get along better – except that, in my 30 years of experience, getting along with the moderates has always, always, always, led to a watering down of the progressive program and agenda. 

Maybe I’m just a straight white guy who doesn’t get it – and I’m happy to cop to that possibility.

I agree that there aren’t enough women in local political office, that we need to encourage and promote progressive women candidates, that much of the leadership (such as it is) on the left is male — and that needs to change.

But I’m not sure that working to help elect people who disagree with you on the key economic and political issues is good for the values that I think Alix Rosenthal and I share.

It’s tricky, but at least we should be thinking and talking about it. Nicely. I promise.

Stage Listings

Andrew Lam
-
0

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

THEATER

OPENING

Any Given Day Magic Theatre, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.magictheatre.org. $20-60. Previews Thurs/29-Sat/31 and April 4-7, 8pm (also April 7, 2:30pm); Sun/1 and April 8, 2:30pm; Tues/3 and April 10, 7pm. Opens April 11, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm (also April 21, 2:30pm); Sun, 2:30pm; Tues, 7pm. Through April 22. Magic Theatre performs Linda McLean’s Glasgow-set play about modern, urban life.

Maple and Vine American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary, SF; (415) 749-2228, www.act-sf.org. $10-95. Previews Thurs/29-Sat/31 and Tues/3, 8pm (also Sat/31, 2pm). Opens April 4, 8pm. Runs Tues-Sat, 8pm (April 10, show at 7pm); Wed and Sat-Sun, 2pm (no matinees Sun/1 or April 4); April 15, show at 7pm). Through April 22. ACT performs the West Coast premiere of Jordan Harrison’s play about a 21st century couple drawn into a community of people who live as if it’s the 1950s.

ONGOING

*The Aliens SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; (415) 677-9596, www.sfplayhouse.org. $20-70. Tues-Thurs, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through May 5. On the heels of Aurora Theatre’s production of Body Awareness, SF Playhouse introduces local audiences to another of contemporary American playwright Annie Baker’s acclaimed plays, in a finely tailored West Coast premiere directed by Lila Neugebauer. The Aliens unfolds in the days just around July 4, at slacker pace, in the backyard of a Vermont café (lovingly realized to palpable perfection by scenic designer Bill English), daily haunt of scruffy, post-Beat dropouts and sometime band mates Jasper (a secretly brooding but determined Peter O’Connor) and KJ (a charmingly ingenuous yet mischievous Haynes Thigpen). New employee and high school student Evan (a winningly eager and reticent Brian Miskell) is at first desperate to get the interlopers out of the “staff only” backyard but is just lonely enough to be seduced into friendship and wary idolatry by the older males. What unfolds is a small, sweet and unexpected tale of connection and influence, amid today’s alienated dream-sucking American landscape — same as it ever was, if you ask Charles Bukowski or Henry Miller, both points of reference to Jasper and KJ, who borrow Bukowski’s poem The Aliens for one of their many band names. An appropriate name for the alienated, sure, but part of the charm of these characters is just how easy they are to recognize, or how much we can recognize ourselves in them. Delusions of grandeur reside in every coffee house across this wistful, restless land. It’s not just Jasper and KJ who may be going nowhere. A final gesture to the young and awkward but clearly capable Evan suggests, a little ambiguously to be sure, that there’s promise out there yet for some. But more than that: the transaction makes clear by then that there are no fuck-ups, really; not among people with generous and open hearts — never mind how fucked up the country at large. (Avila)

A Bright Room Called Day Gough Street Playhouse, 1620 Gough, SF; www.custommade.org. $25-32. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through April 8. Custom Made Theatre performs Tony Kushner’s drama set in Berlin just before the Nazi takeover.

“Celebration of Women’s History Month:” The Right Thing Thick House, 1695 18th St, SF; www.3girlstheatre.org. $30. Fri/30-Sat/31, 8pm; Sun/1, 4pm. Over one long day of legal mediation, aggrieved former CEO Zell Gardner (a brash but vulnerable Catherine Castellanos) and attorney Manny Diamond (a sharp, loquacious Louis Parnell) square off against Zell’s former Big Pharma pals headed up by vindictive interim CEO David Heller (a coolly cutting Lol Levy) flanked by Zell’s longtime colleague Chris McKnight (a nicely down-to-earth John Flanagan). Zell’s lawyer becomes increasingly ambivalent, however, as Manny discovers his tough, brassy mess of a pill-popping client has been less than forthcoming about the charge of sexual harassment the other side is using to justify her dismissal and the company’s pocketing of the three million Zell expected as compensation — a charge involving Zell’s 19-year-old goddaughter, Sam (Karina Wolfe). Attempting to reconcile the parties and broker a deal is retired judge Leigh Mansfield (Helen Shumaker), but she has her work cut out for her with this crowd. AJ Baker’s new drama — the inaugural production of newcomers 3Girls Theatre — take issues of sexual politics and power in its high-powered setting and cracks them against the everyday familial and social dynamics that are perhaps a casualty of the corporate ethos, but without opening them up to a satisfactory degree. Director Suze M. Allen assembles a generally strong cast (Castellanos is riveting throughout), and some scenes smolder with just the right teeth-baring tension, but pacing is inconsistent and the script’s own wayward drift — together with an odd, unnecessary video backdrop—distract from the concentrated treatment the story demands. (Avila)

Certitude and Joy Bindlestiff Studio, 185 Sixth St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $25-35. Thurs/29-Sun/1, 8pm. In his latest chamber opera, composer Erling Wold (Queer, Mordake) uses his own memories of growing up in an evangelical household, and the harrowing incident in 2005 in which an Oakland mother (played by Talya Patrick) murdered her three children and threw them into the Bay on orders from God, to explore the dark attraction of religious certainty. Surprisingly, while this seems to be among Wold’s most personal works (he even participates intermittently as a character), it is one of his less inspired musically. The score for voices and two pianos (delivered with clarity and finesse by soprano Laura Bohn, baritone Jo Vincent Parks, and pianists Keisuke Nakagoshi and Eva-Marie Zimmerman) is often lovely, but it rarely achieves either the transcendence or dissonance seemingly called for by the libretto. And while the performers (directed by Jim Cave and including actor Robert Ernst and dancers Kerry Mehling and Travis Rowland) deliver the story charmingly, something is lost in the move away from a single narrator. The multiplying of voices may make thematic sense — schizophrenia, religious inspiration, a doubling of stories, and a kind of communal complicity all being operative — but the text is finally divvied up between too many performers and styles of delivery to feel cohesive or even, at times, coherent. Perhaps equally problematic is the overture, which gives away so much that there is little tension or suspense in the story that follows, let alone revelation. (Avila)

*Fool For Love Boxcar Studios, 125A Hyde, SF; www.boxcartheatre.org. $25. Showtimes vary. Through April 14. Another installment of Boxcar Theatre’s epic Sam Shepard repertory project, Fool for Love inaugurates their newest performance space within their Hyde Street Studios location. A depressingly realistic reproduction of a claustrophobic motel room, the tiny jewel-box theatre provides no refuge for the actors, and certainly not for the audience, each trapped beneath the pitiless gaze of the other. And if that too-close-for-comfort intimacy doesn’t get to you, the intentionally difficult subject matter — a “typical” Shepardian foray into alcohol-fueled ranting, violence, incest, and casual cruelty — probably will. Shepard’s strength in monologue shows itself off to meaty effect from May’s (Lauren Doucette) melancholy description of her mother’s love affair with the Old Man (Jeff Garrett) to Eddie’s (Brian Trybom) candid admittance to May’s timid suitor Martin (Geoffrey Nolan) that he and May are not cousins at all but half-siblings who have “fooled around” with each other. In addition to the reliably strong performances from each of the actors, Fool features a notably clever bit of staging involving the Old Man who appears not as a specter wandering the periphery of the stage, but as a recurring figure on the black-and-white television, interrupting the flow of cheesy Westerns with his garrulous trailer park wisdom and an omnipresent Styrofoam cup filled, one suspects, with something stronger than just coffee. (Gluckstern)

*Glengarry Glen Ross Actors Theatre of San Francisco, 855 Bush, SF; (415) 345-1287, www.brownpapertickets.com. $26-40. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Extended through April 28. Actors Theatre of San Francisco and director Keith Phillips offer a sharp, spirited production of the 1984 play by David Mamet in which four real estate agents (Mark Bird, Sean Hallinan, John Krause, and Christian Phillips) jockey and scheme for advantage in their Chicago office in a landscape of insecurity and fierce competition symbolized by the selective doling out of the best leads by manager and company man John (Frank Willey). Clients (like the gullible young husband played by Randy Blair), meanwhile, are just witless marks for the machinations of the predatory salesman, no more meaningfully human than the “muppets” targeted by Greg Smith’s Goldman Sachs. If the scenic design is a little shabby, the strong cast makes that hardly an impediment to a story that feels especially timely in its sharply etched, not to say angry portrait of the ruthless and corrosive business mentality to which egos, livelihoods, and lives — not to mention the culture at large — are enthralled. (Avila)

Hot Greeks Hypnodrome Theatre, 575 10th St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $30-69. Opens Thurs/29, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through May 5. Thrillpeddlers launch a new version (new cast, songs, costumes, etc.) of the Cockettes classic by Scrumbly Koldewyn and Martin Worman.

It’s All the Rage Studio Theater, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thurs, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm, Sun, 7pm. Through April 15. Longtime comedian and radio host Marilyn Pittman’s solo play wrestles with the legacy of her parents’ violent deaths in a 1997 murder-suicide initiated by her father. It’s disturbing material that Pittman, a stout middle-aged woman with a gregarious and bounding personality, approaches indirectly via a good deal of humor — including recounting the first time she did her growing-up-lesbian bit before her mother in a DC comedy club. But the pain and confusion trailing her for 13 years is never far behind, whether in accounts of her own battle with anger (and the broken relationships it has left in its wake) or in ominous memories of her too complacent mother or her charming but domineering father, whose controlling behavior extended to casually announcing murderous dreams while policing the boundaries of his marriage against family interference. A fine mimic, Pittman deploys a Southern lilt in playing each parent, on a stage decorated with a hint of their Southwestern furnishings and a framed set of parental photographs. In not exactly knowing where to lay blame for, or find meaning in, such a horrifying act, the play itself mimics in subtler form the emotional tumult left behind. There’s a too brief but eerie scene in which her veteran father makes reference to a murder among fellow soldiers en route to war, but while PTSD is mentioned (including as an unwanted patrimony), the 60-minute narrative crafted by Pittman and director David Ford wisely eschews any pat explanation. If transitions are occasionally awkward and the pace a bit loose, the play leaves one with an uncomfortable sense of the darker aspects of love, mingled with vague concentric histories of trauma and dislocation in a weird, sad tale of destruction and staying power. Note: review from the show’s 2009 run at the Marsh. (Avila)

Julius Caesar Buriel Clay Theater, African American Art and Culture Complex, 762 Fulton, SF; 1-800-838-3006, www.african-americanshakes.org. $10-30. Sat/31, 8pm; Sun/1, 4pm. Ever since there have been politicians there have been political intrigues, making it completely possible to take a play written around 1599 about Roman politicians in 44 BC, and present it as a thoroughly modern coup d’état with very little alteration. In the African-American Shakespeare Company’s compact adaptation of Julius Caesar, ancient Rome becomes a modern African nation, evoked sparingly by crumbling cement, untamed foliage, camouflage uniforms, and crudely menacing machetes. The overblown syntax of Shakespearean English lends itself particularly well to the heavy West African accents utilized by the actors — most successfully by B. Chico Purdiman, as surprisingly sympathetic assassination mastermind Cassius — and the constant upheavals of public opinion and political influence could be ripped right from the headlines of certain restless regions. The small ensemble cast makes the best of their streamlined numbers to create as big a ruckus as possible during crowd scenes, but having them running around the aisles of the Buriel Clay Theater unfortunately dilutes the power of their limited mass. But excellent performances are rendered unto Caesar by Purdiman and David Moore, who plays co-conspirator Brutus, while Frederick Pitts’ Mark Anthony skillfully delivers a eulogy full of slyly self-serving political double-speak worthy of any modern tyrant-in-waiting. (Gluckstern)

*A Lie of the Mind Boxcar Playhouse, 505 Natoma, SF; www.boxcartheatre.org. $25. Showtimes vary. Through April 14. Sam Shepard’s three-act drama is streaked with humor, horror and heartbreak, all of it arising from the most mundane but also extraordinary of things, love and family. That’s Shepard territory, of course, as surely as is the rowdy backwater of the American West where much of the play unfolds. But seeing the exceptionally sharp and powerful production currently up at Boxcar Theatre under direction of Susannah Martin — in the midst of Boxcar’s mostly terrific four-play Shepard fest that includes his better known Pulitzer-winner, Buried Child (1979) — suggests 1985’s Lie may cut deeper than most. It begins in the immediate aftermath of a vicious episode of domestic abuse, from which the married couple of Beth (Megan Trout) and Jake (Joe Estlack) flies apart and back into the ambivalent arms of their mutually dysfunctional families (played wonderfully by Carolyn Doyle, Marissa Keltie, Tim Redmond, Katja Rivera, Josh Schell, and Don Wood). Trout’s brain-damaged Beth is a wrenching figure, not merely for her confusion and vulnerability but more so for the certainty and determination that make their way from her heart through the prison bars of her hampered mind. As Jake, Estlack is doing some of his finest work, convincingly incarnating a veritable beast whose roaring, roiling emotions sound the loneliest and most desolate of souls within. Martin’s intelligent staging — aided by Steve Decker’s beautifully spare wood-plank set, Lucas Krech’s moody lighting, and a choice, eerie sound design by Teddy Hulsker — adds tangible weight and texture to the play’s radiant dialogue and engrossing characters, realized by one of the finest ensemble casts all year. (Avila)

The Real Americans Marsh Studio Theater, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $25-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Extended through April 14. Dan Hoyle revives his hit solo show about small-town America.

The Rita Hayworth of this Generation Shotwell Studios, 3252-A 19th St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $10-15. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through April 7. Writer and performer Tina D’Elia performs her solo, multi-character play about a queer Latina performer inspired by the legendary Hollywood goddess.

Sam Marlowe and the Mean Streets of San Francisco Stage Werx, 446 Valencia, SF; (415) 412-3989, www.catchynametheatre.org. $20. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through April 7. Catchy Name Theatre presents a world premiere noir play by Jim Strope.

Suicide in B Flat Stagewerx, 446 Valencia, SF; suicideinbflat.blogspot.com. $15. Fri-Sat, 11pm. Through April 7. Sam Shepard is all over SF at the moment. Contributing to the four-play repertory program Boxcar Theatre has underway comes this lively if uneven production of a little seen Shepard work, a darkly comical jazz noir, by capable newcomers Do It Live, under direction of Will Hand. Suicide in B Flat (which features live musical underscoring by Grayson Converse) offers parallel stories overlapping on one stage, as two inept homicide detectives (Anthony Agresti and Hand) investigate the death of jazzman Niles, who may have been murdered or may have offed himself — or may be alive and well, since we soon meet Niles (a suitably charismatic and tentative Michael Saarela) heading out of town in a fitful, indecisive attempt at reinventing himself anew. As Niles’s band mates begin showing up for a jam session, the detectives progressively lose their own sense of identity. There’s a grim streak running through this existential who-dunnit, which sometimes comes across more like an existential what-the-fuck? But that too is a legit question in this in-between realm. (Avila)

*True West Boxcar Studios, 125A Hyde, SF; (415) 967-2227, www.boxcartheatre.org. $25. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through April 7. The first installment of Boxcar Theatre’s four-play Sam Shepard repertory project, True West ushers in the ambitious run with a bang. This tale of two brothers who gradually assume the role of the other is one of Shepard’s most enduring plays, rich with humorous interludes, veering sharply into dangerous terrain at the drop of a toaster. In time-honored, True West tradition, the lead roles of Austin, the unassuming younger brother, and Lee, his violent older sibling, are being alternated between Nick A. Olivero and Brian Trybom, and in a new twist, the role of the mother is being played by two different actresses as well (Adrienne Krug and Katya Rivera). The evening I saw it, Olivero was playing Austin, a writer banging away at his first screenplay, and Trybom was Lee, a troubled, alcoholic drifter who usurps his brother’s Hollywood shot, and trashes their mother’s home while trying to honor his as yet unwritten “contract”. The chemistry between the two actors was a perfect blend of menace and fraternity, and the extreme wreckage they make of both the set (designed by both actors), and their ever-tenuous relationship, was truly inspired. (Gluckstern)

Waiting for Godot New venue: SF Playhouse Stage Two, 533 Sutter, SF; (415) 336-3522, www.tidestheatre.org. $20-32. Thurs, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm. Extended through April 14. The fuchsia papier-mâché tree and swirling grey-on-white floor pattern (courtesy of scenic designer Richard Colman) lend a psychedelic accent to the famously barren landscape inhabited by Vladimir (Keith Burkland) and Estragon (Jack Halton) in this production of the Samuel Beckett play by newcomers Tides Theatre. The best moments here broadcast the brooding beauty of the avant-garde classic, with its purposely vague but readily familiar world of viciousness, servility, trauma, want, fear, grudging compassion, and the daring, fragile humor that can look it all squarely in the eye. (Avila)

The Waiting Period MainStage, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Extended through April 27. Brian Copeland (comedian, TV and radio personality, and creator-performer of the long-running solo play Not a Genuine Black Man) returns to the Marsh with a new solo, this one based on more recent and messier events in Copeland’s life. The play concerns an episode of severe depression in which he considered suicide, going so far as to purchase a handgun — the title coming from the legally mandatory 10-day period between purchasing and picking up the weapon, which leaves time for reflections and circumstances that ultimately prevent Copeland from pulling the trigger. A grim subject, but Copeland (with co-developer and director David Ford) ensures there’s plenty of humor as well as frank sentiment along the way. The actor peoples the opening scene in the gun store with a comically if somewhat stereotypically rugged representative of the Second Amendment, for instance, as well as an equally familiar “doood” dude at the service counter. Afterward, we follow Copeland, a just barely coping dad, home to the house recently abandoned by his wife, and through the ordinary routines that become unbearable to the clinically depressed. Copeland also recreates interviews he’s made with other survivors of suicidal depression. Telling someone about such things is vital to preventing their worst outcomes, says Copeland, and telling his own story is meant to encourage others. It’s a worthy aim but only a fitfully engaging piece, since as drama it remains thin, standing at perhaps too respectful a distance from the convoluted torment and alienation at its center. (Avila)

BAY AREA

Cabaret Larkspur Café Theater (American Legion Hall Post 313), 500 Magnolia, Larkspur; www.brownpapertickets.com. $25-45. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm (no show April 8). Through April 15. Independent Cabaret Productions and Shakespeare at Stinson move their production of the Kander and Ebb classic from Fort Mason to the North Bay.

The Coast of Utopia: Voyage Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-30. Wed-Thurs, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through April 29. Shotgun Players present Tom Stoppard’s riff on pre-revolutionary Russia.

*The Kipling Hotel: True Misadventures of the Electric Pink ’80s New venue: Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through May 6. This new autobiographical solo show by Don Reed, writer-performer of the fine and long-running East 14th, is another slice of the artist’s journey from 1970s Oakland ghetto to comedy-circuit respectability — here via a partial debate-scholarship to UCLA. The titular Los Angeles residency hotel was where Reed lived and worked for a time in the 1980s while attending university. It’s also a rich mine of memory and material for this physically protean and charismatic comic actor, who sails through two acts of often hilarious, sometimes touching vignettes loosely structured around his time on the hotel’s young wait staff, which catered to the needs of elderly patrons who might need conversation as much as breakfast. On opening night, the episodic narrative seemed to pass through several endings before settling on one whose tidy moral was delivered with too heavy a hand, but if the piece runs a little long, it’s only the last 20 minutes that noticeably meanders. And even with some awkward bumps along the way, it’s never a dull thing watching Reed work. (Avila)

Now Circa Then Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; (650) 463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. $19-69. Wed/28, 7:30pm; Thurs/29-Sat/31, 8pm (also Sat/31, 2pm); Sun/1, 2 and 7pm. TheatreWorks performs Carly Mensch’s comedy about a romance that blooms between two historical re-enactors.

The Pirates of Penzance Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College, Berk; (510) 845-8542, www.juliamorgan.org. $17-35. Fri/30-Sat/31, 7pm (also Sat/31, 2pm); Sun/1, noon and 5pm. Berkeley Playhouse performs the Gilbert and Sullivan classic, with the setting shifted to a futuristic city.

Red Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-83. Tues and Thurs-Fri, 8pm (also Thurs/29 and April 26, 2pm; no show April 27); Wed, 7pm; Sat-Sun, 2pm (also Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm; no matinee Sat/31). Through April 29. Berkeley Rep performs John Logan’s Tony Award-winning play about artist Mark Rothko.

Titus Andronicus La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $10-20. Thurs/29-Sat/31, 8pm. Impact Theatre takes on the Bard’s bloodiest tragedy.

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh Berkeley, TheaterStage, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Extended run: Sun/1, 11am. Also May 5-27 (Sat-Sun, 11am); June 3-July 15 (Sun, 11am). Louis “The Amazing Bubble Man” Pearl returns with this kid-friendly, bubble-tastic comedy.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

“April Fools With Miss Coco Peru: There Comes a Time” Victoria Theater, 2961 16th St, SF; www.ticketfly.com. Sun/1, 7 and 9:30pm. $29.95. (Screening of Girls Will Be Girls, Sun/1, noon, $10). Acclaimed storyteller-monologist Clinton Leupp, a.k.a. Miss Coco Peru, performs his latest solo show, which he describes as “a night of pure fun with Coco.”

“Club Chuckles” Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF; www.hemlocktavern.com. Sun/1, 7:30pm. $6. April Fool’s Day comedy with Alex Koll, the exotic magic of Stallion!, and the Ultra Mega Virgins comedy tour.

“The Collection” Exit Stage Left, 156 Eddy, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Sun/1 and April 8, 7pm; April 2-7 and 9-13, 8pm. $20-50. Theatrical magician Christian Cagigal debuts his brand-new, top-secret show.

“Computer Face” Garage, 975 Howard, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Fri/30-Sat/31, 8pm. $10-20. Kirk Read (How I Learned to Snap) performs his latest solo show.

“Dance Anywhere” Various locations; www.danceanywhere.org. Fri/30, noon. Free. Join the global movement of folks who participate in this annual, public performance piece.

“Elect to Laugh” Studio Theater, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. Tues, 8pm. Ongoing through Nov 6. $15-50. Will Durst and friends perform in this weekly political humor show that focuses on the upcoming presidential election.

Jess Curtis/Gravity CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; www.counterpulse.org. Thurs/29-Sun/1, 8pm. $15-20. Gravity’s performance series, Intercontinental Collaborations, presents Jess Meets Angus, a co-production with Silke Z./resistance created and performed by Jess Curtis and Angus Balbernie.

“Octopus’s Garden” Alcove Theater, 414 Mason, Fifth Flr, SF; www.thealcovetheater.com. Sat, 8pm. Through April 7. $25-35. PianoFight performs Scott Herman’s modern-family drama.

“Pilot 60” ODC Dance Commons, Studio B, 351 Shotwell, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Sat/31, 8pm; Sun/1, 7pm. $12. ODC’s 60th (!) Pilot production showcases innovative contemporary work by emerging dance artists.

“The Return of the MF David Deery Show” Jon Good Annex, 401 Alabama, SF; artschoolvets.com/motherfuckindaviddeery. Sat/31, 9pm. $5. David Deery performs music and stand-up.

“The Romaine Event Comedy Show” Make-Out Room, 3225 22nd St, SF; www.pacoromane.com. Wed/28, 7:30pm. $10. Paco Romane’s seventh-anniversary show features headliner Joe Klocek plus other Bay Area comedians, including Joe Tobin, Kaseem Bentley, and more.

“The Secret History of Love” Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Thurs/29-Sun/1, 8pm (also Sat/31-Sun/1, 4pm). $10-25. Sean Dorsey Dance performs a world premiere performance based on Dorsey’s archival research and interviews with LGBT elders.

“Talks of the Vagina” Women’s Building, 3543 18th St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Fri/30, 7. $20. Proceeds from Yoni Ki Baat’s Vagina Monologues-inspired performance benefit the Women’s Building mural restoration project.

Sorting through scandal

Andrew Lam
-
22
Sorting through scandal

news@sfbg.com

>>Read the Guardian Op-Ed by Eliana Lopez’s friend Myrna Melgar here.

On March 20, Mayor Ed Lee announced his decision to suspend and seek the removal of Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, taking the city into complex and uncharted legal and political territory. He did so with little explanation in a statement lasting two minutes. Then he went and hid.

Over the past week, the mayor has refused to expound on the reasoning behind his decision, won’t answer questions from reporters, and has held no public events where he might face the news media.

But he’s set off the political equivalent of a nuclear bomb, forcing the supervisors to take on a no-win situation in an election year and leaving the City Attorney’s Office, the Ethics Commission, and Mirkarimi’s lawyers scrambling to figure out how this will all play out.

At issue is whether Mirkarimi’s guilty plea to a misdemeanor false imprisonment charge — and his actions since the New Year’s Eve conflict with his wife, Eliana Lopez, that led to the three domestic violence charges that he originally faced — warrant his immediate removal from office without pay pending hearings that could take months. Mirkarimi, the mayor alleges, violated official misconduct standards written into the City Charter with little discussion in 1995, broad language that has yet to be interpreted by a court.

Mirkarimi and his new attorney, David Waggoner, responded March 27 by filing a court petition challenging that language — “conduct that falls below the standard of decency, good faith and right action impliedly required of all public officers” — as unconstitutionally vague and arguing Lee abused his mayoral discretion in suspending Mirkarimi and violated his due process rights by taking away his livelihood without a hearing. They are asking the court to order Mirkarimi’s reinstatement, or at least the restoration of his salary, until the long city process determines his fate.

“It makes it more difficult for the sheriff to fight these charges when he’s suspended without pay,” Waggoner told us.

To those who have been calling for Mirkarimi’s removal for the last few months, the case seems simple: Mirkarimi grabbed Lopez’s arm with enough force to leave a bruise, police and prosecutors got a video the neighbor made of the wife tearfully telling the story, and Mirkarimi tried to quell the controversy by calling it a “private matter” — infuriating anti-domestic-violence advocates who have spent decades trying to explain that DV is a crime, not a family issue. The sheriff ended up pleading guilty to a related charge.

That, many say, is plenty of reason to remove him from office: How can a top law-enforcement official do his job when he’s been convicted of a crime for which advocates say there should be zero tolerance? How can a man who runs the jails have any credibility when he’s pled guilty to false imprisonment?

“He has chosen not to resign and now I must act,” Lee said at a press conference he held shortly after the 24-hour deadline he gave Mirkarimi to resign or be removed.

But like everything in this politically fractured and passionate city, it’s a lot more complicated.

WHAT REALLY HAPPENED

Lopez and her attorneys have consistently maintained that Mirkarimi was not abusive, that the video was created solely in case their deteriorating marriage devolved into a child custody battle, and that it was not an accurate description of what happened that day, suggesting the former Venezuelan soap opera star was telling a particular kind of story.

The Guardian and the San Francisco Chronicle (“Mirkarimi’s argument with wife detailed,” March 25) have pieced together some of what happened. Sources say the couple argued in the car on the way to lunch at Delfina Pizzeria about whether Lopez would take their nearly three-year-old son, who was sitting in the backseat, with her to Venezuela.

The couple had been having marital problems and Mirkarimi, worried that she might not return or that their son could be kidnapped for ransom, got angry. As the argument escalated, Mirkarimi decided to take the family home. On the way, Mirkarimi told her that he had spoken to a lawyer and learned that she needed written permission from him to take their son out of the country and that he wouldn’t do so.

That made Lopez angry and she got out of the car and tried to unfasten their son to leave when Mirkarimi grabbed her right arm, leaving a bruise that was clear in the videotape but which wasn’t visible a week later when she wore a sleeveless dress to Mirkarimi’s swearing in ceremony for sheriff.

That’s the couple’s version of events, anyway. There are no witnesses who can verify or dispute it.

Lee never called Lopez or her attorney to hear this story before deciding to remove him from office. But in the official charges he filed against Mirkarimi, Lee alleges “acts of verbal and physical abuse against his wife” and that he “restrained Ms. Lopez and violated her personal liberty,” plus unproven allegations that he was never charged with, including encouraging neighbors to destroy evidence, and of hurting morale in the Sheriff’s Department (based on a newspaper quote from a political opponent).

You don’t have to defend Mirkarimi’s conduct or belittle the serious crime of domestic violence — in fact, you don’t have to believe anything the sheriff or his wife have said — to ask a few basic questions. Is this extraordinary executive power warranted in this case? What harm would come from waiting for a recall election, the usual method of removing elected officials after a scandal? Why did Lee give Mirkarimi 24 hours to resign and did he offer anything as incentive (sources tell us he offered another city job)? Will he release the City Attorney’s Office advice memo, and if not, why?

The Guardian submitted those and many other questions to Mayoral Press Secretary Christine Falvey, who said she would answer them by March 23, but then sent us this message at the end of that day before going on vacation: “After looking at your questions, it seems Mayor Lee addressed much of this in his comments on Tuesday. After Sheriff Mirkarimi pleaded guilty to a crime of false imprisonment, Mayor Lee made a thorough review of the facts, reviewed his duties under the Charter and gave the Sheriff an opportunity to resign. When that did not happen, he moved to suspend the Sheriff.”

Very few progressives have stood up publicly and taken Mirkarimi’s side. One of them is Debra Walker, a longtime activist and city commissioner.

“This is about McCarthyism at this point, and not domestic violence,” Walker told us. “Instead of helping [Lopez], they have succeeded in breaking this family apart. It’s just bullying. It was always aimed at Ross stepping down and removing him as sheriff.”

THE LEGAL MESS

So what happens next? It is, to say the least, unclear.

The last time a public official was charged with misconduct was in the 1970s, when Joe Mazzola, an official with the Plumbers Union, was removed from the Airport Commission because he refused to order striking plumbers back to work. The state Court of Appeal later overturned that decision, ruling that “official misconduct” had to be narrowly construed to be conduct directly related to the performance of official duties (a case Waggoner relies on in his petition).

But the City Charter has changed since then, and now allows removal for the vague charge of “conduct that falls below the standard of decency and good faith and right action impliedly required by all public officers.” That phrase gives extraordinary power to the mayor — and, given some of the conduct we’ve seen at City Hall over the years, could have been used to remove a long list of city officials.

The Charter states that Mirkarimi, as the accused, will get a hearing before the Ethics Commission, and that he can be represented by counsel. It’s silent on the question of what form that hearing will take, what the rules of evidence will be, what witnesses will be allowed, and what rights the defendant will have.

Four of the five Ethics Commission members are practicing attorneys, and before they can call a hearing, they’ll have to hold a meeting to discuss the rules.

In the case of former Sup. Ed Jew, who was accused of falsifying his address, Ethics was prepared to take only written testimony (Jew resigned before any hearing, partially to deal with more serious federal charges of shaking down constituents for bribes). But that’s not a hard and fast rule — this time, the panel could decide to allow both sides to present witnesses.

If the commission decides to allow evidence, someone will have to rule on what evidence can be presented and what can’t. Will that be the commission chair, Benjamin Hur, or the commission as a whole?

The answer is: Nobody knows for sure. Hur told us he couldn’t comment on anything related to the case; the City Attorney’s Office won’t comment, either, since the office is representing both the mayor (on the prosecution side) and the supervisors and the Ethics Commission, and the board and the commission haven’t made any decisions on rules yet.

Then it gets even trickier. The Board of Supervisors has to vote on whether to remove the sheriff, and it takes nine votes to do that. So if three supervisors vote no, Mirkarimi is automatically back in office.

There are no rules in the Charter for how the board will proceed; in theory, the supervisors could simply accept the recommendation of the Ethics Commission and vote without any further hearings. They could rely on the record of the Ethics proceedings — or they could hold the equivalent of a second trial, with their own witnesses and procedures.

To add another layer of confusion, Mirkarimi, as sheriff, is classified under state law as a peace officer — and the Peace Officers’ Bill of Rights sets entirely different standards for administrative and disciplinary hearings. Among other things, Mirkarimi could assert the right to have the Ethics Commission hearing closed to the public and the records sealed.

State law also mandates that a peace officer facing suspension without pay has the right to a hearing and adjudication within 90 days. That’s not in the City Charter; under the Charter, the city can wait as long as it wants to decide the issue.

Nobody knows for sure whether the Peace Officers Bill of Rights trumps the City Charter.

It’s clear that Mirkarimi, like anyone accused of a crime or facing an administrative hearing, has the right to due process — but not necessarily the same rights as he would have in a court proceeding. It’s also clear that the supervisors will be sitting in a quasi-judicial role — and thus can’t take into account anything that isn’t part of the official record of the case.

They probably can’t, for example, hold a public hearing on the issue — and judges in a case are theoretically supposed to ignore the hundreds of calls and emails that are now flooding in to the board offices on all sides.

The political implications are equally complex. Lee would have been in a dangerous situation if he declined to file charges — if Mirkarimi ever did anything else this disturbing, some would say it was Lee’s fault for leaving him in office.

It’s a safe bet that none of the supervisors are happy about having to vote on Mirkarimi’s job, but it’s particularly tough for the progressives. Anyone on the left who votes against removal will be subject to a barrage of attack ads — and since the balance of power on the board will be decided in November, when David Chiu, John Avalos, Eric Mar, David Campos, and Christina Olague, all more or less part of the progressive bloc, will all be up for re-election, the pressure on them will be immense.

That, in and of itself, ought to be reason for the sheriff to step down, some progressives say: Is preserving Mirkarimi in the Sheriff’s Office worth potentially destroying the progressive majority on the board? It’s a good question — and one that Lee’s advisors were well aware of, too.

Guardian Op-Ed: Domestic violence, a Latina feminist perspective

-
272

By Myrna Melgar

Myrna Melgar is a Latina survivor of childhood domestic violence, a feminist, and the mother of three girls. She is a former legislative aide to Sup. Eric Mar.

Eliana Lopez is my friend. I have asked for her permission to put into words, in English, some observations, thoughts and insights reached during our many conversations these past few weeks about her experience with San Francisco’s response to the allegation of domestic violence by her husband, Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi. We hope this will lead to a teachable moment for law enforcement and anti-domestic-violence advocates about cultural sensitivity — and will lead to honest discussions about the meaning of empowerment of women.

We hope that Eliana’s experience, and our shared perspective, will prompt some analysis among feminists, advocates, and the progressive community in general about the impact of the criminalization of low-level, first offenses of domestic violence on this one immigrant woman — and the implications for all immigrant women and other women of color.

Eliana Lopez came to San Francisco from Venezuela with hope in her head and love in her heart. She decided to leave behind her beautiful city of Caracas, a successful career as an actress, and her family and friends, following the dream of creating a family and a life with a man she had fallen in love with but barely knew, Ross Mirkarimi.

Well-educated, progressive, charismatic, and artistic, she made friends easily. She and Ross seemed like a great match. Both were committed environmentalists, articulate and successful. They had a son, Theo. As they settled into domestic life, however, problems began to surface. The notoriously workaholic politician did not find his family role an easy fit. A bachelor into his late forties, Ross had trouble with the quiet demands of playing a puzzle on the floor with his toddler or having an agenda-less breakfast with his wife. Ross would not make time for Eliana’s request for marriage counseling, blaming the demands of job and campaign.

On December 31, figuring that the election campaign was over and Ross would have a little breathing room, Eliana broached the subject of traveling to Venezuela with Theo. Ross’s emotional reaction to her request led to the argument that has now been repeatedly documented in the press — and for which he was eventually charged.

According to Eliana, the context of what happened between them on December 31 actually started much earlier. Ross grew up as the only son of a single teenage mother of Russian Jewish descent and an absent Iranian immigrant father. Pressured by the opposition of her family to her relationship with an Iranian Muslim, Ross’s mother divorced his father by the time he was five. Ross was raised on a small, nearly all-white island in New England, with no connection to his father. When he had the opportunity, Ross traveled to Chicago, where his father had remarried and built a new family with two sons. Ross’s father turned him away. In Eliana’s analysis, Ross’s greatest fear is that his painful story with his father will be replayed again with Theo.

Eliana’s version of what happened next has never wavered. She went to her neighbor Ivory Madison, as opposed to anyone else, because she thought Ivory was a lawyer and could advise her if her troubles with her husband resulted in divorce. Documenting Ross’s reaction to her request to take Theo abroad would be ammunition — targeting his greatest fear. Making the video was Madison’s idea, and Eliana agreed to it, thinking that it would be useful to her if a custody dispute ensued. But in Eliana’s mind, the video was her property, her story.

Eliana insisted that Ivory did not have her permission to share the video or the story with anyone, that she was not in any danger, and that she was working on her marriage with Ross. Unbeknownst to Eliana, by the time Ivory called the police, she had already shared the story with Phil Bronstein, then the editor at large of Hearst Newspapers, the publisher of the San Francisco Chronicle.

Let’s stop for a moment to consider the question of the empowerment of women. The disempowerment of Eliana began on a very small level when her husband grabbed her by the arm during an argument. It was exponentially magnified by the neighbor in whom she confided, who decided that Eliana’s strongly held desire to handle her problems with her husband herself was inconsequential. The disempowerment of Eliana was then magnified again and again, by the police, the press, the district attorney, and finally even anti-domestic-violence advocates.

How did it come to be that a system that was intended to empower women has evolved into a system that disempowers them so completely?

Unquestionably, there are women in deeply abusive relationships who need assistance getting out, who may not be able to initiate an escape on their own. Eliana’s relationship with Ross did not even come close to that standard. Yet in the eyes of Ivory Madison, Phil Bronstein, District Attorney George Gascon, and even the Director of La Casa de las Madres, once her husband had grabbed her arm, Eliana was simply no longer competent and her wishes were irrelevant.

In other words, an action done by a man, over which a woman has no control whatsoever, renders the woman incompetent and irrelevant, and empowers a long list of people — most of whom are male — to make decisions on this woman’s behalf, against her consistent and fervently expressed wishes. No one in the entire chain of people who made decisions on Eliana’s behalf offered her any help — besides prosecuting her husband.

Eliana was only consulted by the district attorney in the context of seeking her cooperation in relation to the criminal charges against her husband. Eliana never gave her input or assessment in the situation, was never consulted about the plea agreement.

Now the disempowerment of Eliana has taken an even more sinister twist. In an opinion piece published in the Chronicle, Ivory Madison’s husband, Abraham Mertens, charged Eliana with intimidation for allegedly pressuring his wife and himself to destroy the video that Ivory conceived and recorded of Eliana’s moment of distress. The same day, Mayor Ed Lee announced that he was suspending Ross as sheriff, and the charges, as written up by the City Attorney, included the Mertens accusation. This had the effect of silencing and disempowering Eliana — but this time, she is being threatened with criminal prosecution. The victim has somehow become the criminal.

Mertens, the mayor, the D.A., the city attorney, and the newspaper editor are all men. All men acting on behalf of a very educated and articulate woman who has repeatedly, passionately, asked them to give her her voice back. And for that they are threatening to criminally prosecute her.

Kathy Black, the director of La Casa de las Madres, called Eliana twice. At the same time, Black and other domestic violence advocates were calling on Ross to step down, raising money to put up billboards, and mobilizing for the anti-Ross campaign, trying him in the press. Seeing all this, Eliana never trusted Black’s motives and never took the call. Had Eliana thought assistance would be available her and to Ross without a threat to her family and livelihood, this all would have been a very different story.

During Ross’s initial preliminary hearing, Eliana Lopez famously told judge Susan Breall “this idea that I am this poor little immigrant is insulting, it’s a little racist.” And yet, what middle class, successful, educated Eliana was exposed to is exactly what we as a city have forced victims of domestic violence to face by our emphasis on criminal prosecution.

In San Francisco, we concentrate on saving victims from domestic violence situations. Our efforts in communities of color, immigrant communities, and teens is geared to make sure that victims get away from their abusers.

It’s inarguable that women in dangerous situations need to be provided options to get out. But concentrating on these alone — rather than on the array of options that are needed in less severe cases — is the equivalent of treating disease at the emergency room. In fact, this approach undermines prevention efforts because it puts women in the position of choosing between seeking help through counseling and therapy to modify the behavior of their partners — or exposing them to criminal prosecution. It has the unfortunate outcome of disempowering women, particularly low-income immigrant women and women of color, whose economic realities, position in society, and relationship to law enforcement both real and perceived is very different than for white middle-class women.

It’s not hard to see that, for immigrant women and women of color, exposure to law enforcement is perceived as dangerous. Many immigrants fear law enforcement based on their experiences with repressive regimes in their own countries. In the past couple of years, the mandatory referral to federal immigration authorities has created panic and fear of police in immigrant communities across America. Immigrant women, already on the edge economically, face the real threat of the loss of their partner’s income if the partner is accused of a crime and the boss finds out. Many black women understandably doubt the criminal justice system’s capacity to treat black men charged with any crime.

So here is the challenge to domestic violence advocates and progressive folks who care about women: A more progressive approach to Eliana and Ross’s particular situation, and to domestic violence in general, would be to work on emphasizing early, non-law enforcement intervention and the prevention of violence against women in addition to the necessary work of extricating women from dangerous situations.

Professor Laureen Snider at Queens University in Ontario has argued that criminalization is a flawed strategy for dealing with violence against women. Snider argues that feminists and progressives have misidentified social control with police/governmental control. In other words, we are substituting one oppressor for another — and glossing over the fact that in the judicial system, poor people of color fare worse than white middle-class people. We have punted on the hard work education, and of shaping and reshaping men’s definitions of masculinity and violence, of the social acceptance of the subjugation of women, of violence against children. We have chosen to define success in the fight against domestic violence by women saved from horrible situations and incarceration rates for their abusers — rather than doing the difficult work of community and individual change necessary to prevent violence from happening in the first place.

Putting up billboards in Spanish telling women that domestic violence is never a private matter might make people feel like they are doing something useful, but it will do nothing to help Eliana, and it will do very little to prevent domestic violence against women in the Spanish-speaking community.

My own experience with the community’s response to domestic violence was very different from Eliana’s. My father was physically abusive. The most violent period of my life was during high school in the 1980’s, shortly after we had immigrated to the United States from war-torn El Salvador. Our economic realities and shaky legal situation placed a level of stress on our family that made violence an almost daily occurrence.

I ran away from home, and eventually got connected with the services offered through the Redwood City YMCA. We entered family counseling, and the intervention was successful — my father was able to stop his violent behavior and our family survived. Had the police intervened, my father would have likely been charged, very possibly deported, and the whole family would have been sent back to El Salvador — back to the civil war.

In the case of my family, in which violence was a severe, everyday occurrence, there was a successful intervention. In Eliana’s case, which was limited to her husband too forcefully grabbing her arm, the family was destroyed and it will take years before the victim and her child will be able to (maybe) put their lives back together.

I challenge the progressive community and anti-violence advocates to reexamine this criminalization-heavy approach and its impact on my friend Eliana’s family, but also to examine how it affects all victims of domestic violence in San Francisco, particularly women in immigrant communities and women of color who rightfully have a distrustful relationship with law enforcement. Although it might make some feel better, all of this energy and effort spent demanding Ross Mirkarimi’s resignation only serves to reinforce the dominant model of criminalization — to make an example out of him. It won’t help Eliana, and it won’t help people suffering from violence in their intimate relationships.

Myrna Melgar is Latina survivor of childhood domestic violence, a feminist, and a mother of three girls. She is a former legislative aide to Sup. Eric Mar.

 

Black Power, then and now

Andrew Lam
-
17
Black Power, then and now

“We’re not ever to be caught up in the intellectual masturbation of the question of Black Power. That’s a function of people who are advertisers that call themselves reporters.”

That’s how the radical student and civil rights leader Stokely Carmichael opened a speech about Black Power — a term he helped popularize — at UC Berkeley in 1966. But the ideas and concepts behind Black Power proved to be an enduring ones that are enjoying a resurgence today.

Angela Davis epitomized the Black Power movement to many observers. The author, scholar, and professor was a Black Panther Party member who then joined the Communist Party USA and brought a class analysis to issues of race, building on the movement that began in the ’60s for decades to come.

In recent months, as the Occupy Wall Street movement began to focus the country’s attention on economic and social inequities, Davis has spoken out regularly in support of the movement and drawn connections back to her early activism. She has embraced the “99 percent” paradigm, and the connections between various issues that Occupy activists have sought to highlight.

“Our demands for justice lead us toward demands for prison abolition. And our demands for prison abolition lead us to demands for free, quality education. And our demands for free quality healthcare, and housing, and an end to racism, an end to sexism, an end to homophobia,” Davis said March 1 in Oakland at a benefit for Occupy 4 Prisoners, a coalition of Occupy protesters and prison justice advocates.

Consciousness surrounding those connections can be largely attributed to efforts from Black Power organizers.

“When I listen to the way young people so easily talk about the connectedness of race, gender, and sexual issues, and I remember how we groped our way towards an understanding of those connections, it makes me really proud,” Davis said in a January interview with Independent Lens.

And as Davis said at the March 1 event: “One of the most exciting accomplishments of the Occupy movement has been to force us to engage in conversation, explicit conversation about capitalism, for the first time since the 1930s.”

The movement’s economic message also seemed useful to Kiilu Nyasha, a San Francisco-based journalist and former member of the New Haven Black Panther Party.

“Globalization has already happened. It’s not happening, it’s happened. One percent, internationally, owns and controls 80 percent of the world’s resources. People are dying all over the world of every complexion which you can think of” Nyahsa said March 14 at a panel discussion called Reboot the Rainbow.

The original Rainbow Coalition- the topic of the March 14 panel- included the Black Panther Party, the Puerto Rican Young Lords, and the poor white Young Patriots organization, and was committed to a Black Power concept: organize your own, fight together. Building coalition is more important now than ever.

“It’s not Black Power right now,” says Terry Collins, president of KPOO radio, a black-owned station long focused on community empowerment. “It’s people power. It’s power unto the people who are in need: all the people out there who are out of their homes, students who owe so much that they’re like indentured servants.”

Occupy the Hood is a national effort to encourage participation of people of color in Occupy Wall Street. In its mission statement the group writes, “It is imperative that the voice of people of color is heard at this moment!”

The focus of San Francisco’s Occupy the Hood chapter is “three-fold,” according to organizer Mesha Irizarry: “The cop-watching in neighborhoods that are criminalized, especially poor neighborhood of color. It’s freedom fighters against foreclosures. It’s also bank transfers.”

Occupy the Hood showed up March 16, when a group known as the Foreclosure Fighters- organized and supported Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, Homes Not Jails, and related groups—occupied their latest foreclosed home. “We’re liberating this house. We’re taking it out of the hands of the oppressor,” said Archbishop Franzo King of the African Orthodox Church.

“Jesus Christ was an uncompromising revolutionary. He spoke truth to power. Then they killed him for it,” added King in a nod to the radical religious leaders who have influenced liberation movements throughout the years.

Black Power was concerned with self-determination, with organizing within community. That legacy is still strong as San Francisco’s African American communities experience an out-migration and continuing police harassment and violence.

“Black sailors and black army personnel built the shipyard,” said Jameel Patterson, a founder of the Bayview-Hunters Point-based community organization Black Star Liner Incorporated. “Hunters Point, West Point, Harbor Road—they’re all military names. The soldiers stayed there with their families. The area has a rich African American legacy going back to the ’40s. Now it’s fading…we want to make sure that community’s still here 20 years from now.”

Patterson remembers being a child in the ’70s when, on the tail of an era brimming with black liberation efforts. “There were more community events,” he said, but now, “People don’t have connections with each other. That’s what we’re building.”

The group does regular events where they serve free home-cooked meals to residents, reminiscent of the Black Panther Party’s free breakfast program. “With every plate, you get information,” often Know Your Rights reminders for encounters with police, said Tracey Bell-Borden of Black Star Liner.

They have also spent countless hours in City Hall meetings advocating for their community and reporting back on city policies that affect it. “We occupy the Police Commission meeting,” said Bell-Borden.

Police are a central and tricky question for the Black Power movement of the ’60s, as well as organizing efforts today. Black Panther Party members spent years serving free breakfast to children, writing and selling newspapers, and even running election campaigns, but they are often remembered for carrying guns and efforts to “police the police.” So many leaders were arrested that energy that could have gone into feeding or education was often channeled into freeing prisoners.

“I was in the second chapter of the Black Panther Party,” Nyasha said at the March 14 event, “which basically existed to get the first chapter out of jail.”

Recent police crackdowns have fed indignation not just about policing protesters, but about the role police play in poor communities of color. “One thing Occupy has done is address the issue of policing in communities of color, to the extent that some aftermath of what we’re seeing at Occupy is shedding light on how police can sometimes treat people,” said Kimberley Thomas Rapp, executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the Bay Area.

“In black neighborhoods, police should be community partners, not come in and exert more force than necessary. And at protests, they should be there to ensure safety, not just to arrest people unnecessarily or use excessive force,” Rapp said.

Police crackdowns on Occupy are the first exposure many white protesters of the younger generation have had to excessive police force, an issue that was central to the story of the Black Power. Sadly, for many black and other protesters of color, excessive police force is nothing new.

“It’s absolutely the case that police brutality shown towards many Occupy protesters has brought to the forefront the issue of police violence and led to an awakening among many white folks of the day to day reality of police violence that many people of color have lived with now for many years,” Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow, told the Guardian.

Enraged at police beatings (see “OPD spies on and beats protesters,” Feb. 14) both Occupy Oakland and Occupy San Francisco have held “fuck the police” marches. March 18, after a six-month commemoration celebration brought 3,000 to Zuccotti Park in New York City, followed by 200 arrests and rampant police violence, Occupy Wall Street protesters followed suit, holding their first anti-police brutality march.

Occupy Wall Street has reanimated concepts that burned through the ’60s, such as violence vs. nonviolence, the systemic causes of personal economic woes, and the peoples’ relationship to police. With the consciousness created by Black Power activists, today’s organizers have a foundation on which to build their own answers to these questions, across issues and generations.

National Occupy the Hood has called for action concerning Trayvon Martin, the unarmed black 17-year-old who was shot Feb. 26 and whose confessed killer has yet to be arrested. Taking up high-profile cases of injustice and working more closely with organizers to respond to the needs of local African American communities could bring more power and truth to the rage for justice currently galvanizing a new generation.

“It’s about black re-empowerment,” Archbishop King said. “It’s like the torch, the light of freedom and justice, has actually gone out. And we’re trying to relight that. That’s why I’m so excited about the Occupy movement; it ties into the Black Power struggle. And I think it’s waking up some of us old revolutionaries to stand up.”

Lee’s charges against Mirkarimi leave questions unaddressed

Sasha Cuttler
-
159

UPDATED BELOW WITH “RESPONSE” FROM LEE’S OFFICE: Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi was formally suspended today and served with “Written Charges of Official Misconduct” that for the first time outline why Mayor Ed Lee believes Mirkarimi should be removed from office, although they leave unaddressed many questions that Lee has been so far been avoiding answering.

The eight-page legal document prepared for Lee by the City Attorney’s Office briefly lays out the process (a hearing before the Ethics Commission, its recommendation, then action by the Board of Supervisors within 30 days thereafter) and the definition of official misconduct, focusing on this phrase: “conduct that falls below the standard of decency, good faith and right action impliedly required of all public officers.”

That vague language is fairly new and has never been considered or interpreted by any court, and the city acknowledges there are at least “two reasonable interpretations” of its meaning: “This phrase could be either (a) an example of misconduct that, by definition, relates to the duties of all public officers, or (b) an independent, alternative category of official misconduct that does not require a connection to an officer’s official.”

Lee’s attorneys argue that they don’t think a direct connection to an official’s duties is required, but they acknowledge that’s how it could be interpreted, so they try to make that connection as well, often by relying on evidence and testimony that hasn’t been vetted by the courts or by making connections likely to be challenged by Mirkarimi’s new attorney, David Waggoner.

The document recounts the “Wrongful Conduct by Sheriff Mirkarimi,” starting with his “acts of verbal and physical abuse against his wife, Eliana Lopez” on New Year’s Eve, continuing through the criminal charges filed against him on Jan. 13 with a focus on allegations that he dissuaded witnesses and “encouraged them to destroy evidence” and with his March 19 sentencing for false imprisonment, concluding the section with a reference to the newspaper quote from Don Wilson, president of the San Francisco Deputy Sheriff’s Association, that the plea had hurt morale in the department.

The DSA actively opposed Mirkarimi’s election, just as it did his predecessor and mentor, Michael Hennessey, in every contested election in the legendary progressive sheriff’s 32-year career, so it seems a little strange to rely on such a self-serving assessment. But that isn’t the only point that raises questions and potential challenges, particularly as they try to argue that Mirkarimi’s actions related to his official duties.

Part of Mirkarimi’s sentence included one day in jail, for which the judge said his booking qualified, meaning that he never actually was inside a cell. But Lee’s attorneys argue without explanation that, “Sheriff Mirkarimi’s one-day sentence to county jail undermines his ability to receive inmates and to supervise the County jails.” It certainly didn’t seem to for former Sheriff Dick Hongisto, who was jailed for several days after being held in contempt of court for refusing to carry out the International Hotel evictions, but who never faced sanctions from the mayor.

The first and seemingly strongest connection it makes between his actions and official duties listed was, “Sheriff Mirkarimi misused his office, and the status and authority it carries, for personal advantage when he stated to Ms. Lopez that he could win custody of their child because he was very powerful,” a charge taken from the videotaped testimony that Lopez gave to his neighbor Ivory Madison.

Lopez’s attorneys have noted that she made the video to paint Mirkarimi as abusive in case there was a custody battle, as she says on tape, and that she was seeking confidential legal help from Madison and never intended for it to be released. But her and Mirkarimi’s attempts to retrieve it are labeled in the charges as efforts to “encourage the destruction of evidence regarding criminal activity,” which they argue also relates to his duties as a law enforcement officer. This issue is likely to be a matter of serious debate during the Ethics Commission hearing.

Finally, the document argues that because the Sheriff’s Department can enforce protective orders in domestic violence cases and funds programs for domestic violence perpetrators – and because it sometimes interacts with the Adult Probation Department, given Mirkarimi’s three-year probation – that the charges directly relate to his official duties.

Clearly, these are complicated issues that raise a variety of questions, which is why it was disconcerting yesterday when Lee announced the charges to a room packed with journalists and refused to take any of our questions. City Attorney Dennis Herrera didn’t speak at all, simply standing behind Lee looking stone-faced and perhaps a bit uncomfortable.

Earlier today, I sent Lee and his Office of Communications a list of questions that I think he has a public obligation to address given the drastic action that he’s just taken against an elected official. I haven’t received a reply yet, but I’m including my comments here for you to consider as well:

 

I was disappointed that Mayor Lee took no questions during yesterday’s press conference, because I had several that I’m hoping you can address for a long story we’re writing on the Mirkarimi affair for our next issue. I’m hoping to get answers by the end of the workday on Friday.
– Will Mayor Lee release the memo he received from the City Attorney’s Office on Ross Mirkarimi and whether his crime rises to the level of official misconduct? [Note to reader: That advice memo is different than the charges I discuss above.] It is solely under Lee’s authority to waive attorney-client privilege and release the memo, as even Willie Brown urged him to do in his Chronicle column on Sunday. And if he won’t release it, can he explain why?
– Lee told reporters last week that he would explain why Mirkarimi’s action rise to the level of official misconduct if concluded they did, but Lee didn’t offer that explanation yesterday. Why does Lee believe actions that Mirkarimi took before assuming office, which were unconnected to his official duties, warrant his removal from office? Is Lee basing his decision primarily on the crime Mirkarimi committed on New Year’s Eve or his actions and statements since then? What specific actions or statements by Mirkarimi does the mayor believe rise to official misconduct?
– Why didn’t Lee consult with Eliana Lopez or her attorney before making this decision? None of the purported evidence in this case has been scrutinized by the courts as to its veracity or completeness (that would have happened at the trial). The only two people who know for sure what happened that night are Ross and Eliana, so why hasn’t Lee asked either of them what happened?
– Why did Lee set a 24-hour deadline for Mirkarimi to resign or be removed? Did Lee offer Mirkarimi anything in exchange for his resignation, such as another city job?
– Who did the mayor consult with about whether Mirkarimi should be removed before making this decision? Were any members of the DSA or SFPOA consulted? How about Rose Pak or other members of the business community? How about Michael Hennessey? Did he seek input and advice from John St. Croix or anyone from the Ethics Commission?
– It’s my understanding that the mayor wasn’t required to remove Mirkarimi from office without pay pending his official misconduct hearings, that Mirkarimi could have either remained in the job or been suspended with pay. Why did Lee feel a need to place this additional financial pressure on Mirkarimi to abandon the office that voters elected him to? Is he concerned about the impact of his decision on Eliana Lopez and Theo?
– Mayor Lee has prided himself on being someone focused on “getting things done” without creating unnecessary political distractions. So why does he want to drag out this distracting political drama for another few months? Why does he believe that it’s a good use of the city’s time and resources to be a forum for airing details of a sordid conflict that has proven to be a divisive issue? Is he worried about exposing the city to liability in a civil lawsuit if his charges against Mirkarimi are later found to be without merit?
– Does Lee intend for Vicki Hennessy to be the permanent replacement for Mirkarimi if the official misconduct charges are upheld? Will he take into account the will of the voters in electing Mirkarimi, someone who had pledged to uphold and continue the legacy of progressive leadership of the Sheriff’s Department as embodied by the long career of Michael Hennessey? Given that the DSA consistently opposed Hennessey at election time, and that in this election voters rejected the DSA’s choices, why is Lee substituting his own judgment and political preferences for those of San Francisco’s voters? Why did Lee feel a need to take preemptive action against Mirkarimi rather than simply allowing voters to launch a recall campaign, which is the typical remedy for removing politicians who have gone through some kind of public scandal?

UPDATE 3/26: Mayoral Press Secretary Christine Falvey told the Guardian that we would have answers to these questions by Friday, but then sent the following message as a response late Friday afternoon: “Steve, After looking at your questions, it seems Mayor Lee addressed much of this in his comments on Tuesday. After Sheriff Mirkarimi pleaded guilty to a crime of false imprisonment, Mayor Lee made a thorough review of the facts, reviewed his duties under the Charter and gave the Sheriff an opportunity to resign. When that did not happen, he moved to suspend the Sheriff. For any information regarding what is in the charges, I will refer you to the City Attorney’s office and their website that has all of the public documents posted.”

For the record, Lee has not addressed these questions nor made any public statements on whether he will release the advice memo (as even Willie Brown publicly urged him to do) or explained why he’s keeping that document secret. And we haven’t even had the opportunity to ask the mayor these questions directly because he hasn’t held any public events since announcing his decision to remove Mirkarimi.

Stage Listings

Andrew Lam
-
0

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

THEATER

OPENING

Hot Greeks Hypnodrome Theatre, 575 10th St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $30-69. Previews Thurs/22-Sat/24, 8pm. Opens March 29, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through May 5. Thrillpeddlers launch a new version (new cast, songs, costumes, etc.) of the Cockettes classic by Scrumbly Koldewyn and Martin Worman.

The Rita Hayworth of this Generation Shotwell Studios, 3252-A 19th St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $10-15. Opens Fri/23, 8pm. Runs Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through April 7. Writer and performer Tina D’Elia performs her solo, multi-character play about a queer Latina performer inspired by the legendary Hollywood goddess.

ONGOING

A Bright Room Called Day Gough Street Playhouse, 1620 Gough, SF; www.custommade.org. $25-32. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through April 8. Custom Made Theatre performs Tony Kushner’s drama set in Berlin just before the Nazi takeover.

"Celebration of Women’s History Month:" The Right Thing Thick House, 1695 18th St, SF; www.3girlstheatre.org. $30. Dates and showtimes vary. Through April 1. Over one long day of legal mediation, aggrieved former CEO Zell Gardner (a brash but vulnerable Catherine Castellanos) and attorney Manny Diamond (a sharp, loquacious Louis Parnell) square off against Zell’s former Big Pharma pals headed up by vindictive interim CEO David Heller (a coolly cutting Lol Levy) flanked by Zell’s longtime colleague Chris McKnight (a nicely down-to-earth John Flanagan). Zell’s lawyer becomes increasingly ambivalent, however, as Manny discovers his tough, brassy mess of a pill-popping client has been less than forthcoming about the charge of sexual harassment the other side is using to justify her dismissal and the company’s pocketing of the three million Zell expected as compensation — a charge involving Zell’s 19-year-old goddaughter, Sam (Karina Wolfe). Attempting to reconcile the parties and broker a deal is retired judge Leigh Mansfield (Helen Shumaker), but she has her work cut out for her with this crowd. AJ Baker’s new drama — the inaugural production of newcomers 3Girls Theatre — take issues of sexual politics and power in its high-powered setting and cracks them against the everyday familial and social dynamics that are perhaps a casualty of the corporate ethos, but without opening them up to a satisfactory degree. Director Suze M. Allen assembles a generally strong cast (Castellanos is riveting throughout), and some scenes smolder with just the right teeth-baring tension, but pacing is inconsistent and the script’s own wayward drift — together with an odd, unnecessary video backdrop—distract from the concentrated treatment the story demands. (Avila)

*Fool For Love Boxcar Studios, 125A Hyde, SF; www.boxcartheatre.org. $25. Showtimes vary. Through April 14. Another installment of Boxcar Theatre’s epic Sam Shepard repertory project, Fool for Love inaugurates their newest performance space within their Hyde Street Studios location. A depressingly realistic reproduction of a claustrophobic motel room, the tiny jewel-box theatre provides no refuge for the actors, and certainly not for the audience, each trapped beneath the pitiless gaze of the other. And if that too-close-for-comfort intimacy doesn’t get to you, the intentionally difficult subject matter — a "typical" Shepardian foray into alcohol-fueled ranting, violence, incest, and casual cruelty — probably will. Shepard’s strength in monologue shows itself off to meaty effect from May’s (Lauren Doucette) melancholy description of her mother’s love affair with the Old Man (Jeff Garrett) to Eddie’s (Brian Trybom) candid admittance to May’s timid suitor Martin (Geoffrey Nolan) that he and May are not cousins at all but half-siblings who have "fooled around" with each other. In addition to the reliably strong performances from each of the actors, Fool features a notably clever bit of staging involving the Old Man who appears not as a specter wandering the periphery of the stage, but as a recurring figure on the black-and-white television, interrupting the flow of cheesy Westerns with his garrulous trailer park wisdom and an omnipresent Styrofoam cup filled, one suspects, with something stronger than just coffee. (Gluckstern)

Glengarry Glen Ross Actors Theatre of San Francisco, 855 Bush, SF; (415) 345-1287, www.brownpapertickets.com. $26-40. Fri/23-Sat/24, 8pm. David Mamet’s cutthroat comedy, courtesy of the Actors Theatre of San Francisco.

It’s All the Rage Studio Theater, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thurs, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm, Sun, 7pm. Through April 15. Longtime comedian and radio host Marilyn Pittman’s solo play wrestles with the legacy of her parents’ violent deaths in a 1997 murder-suicide initiated by her father. It’s disturbing material that Pittman, a stout middle-aged woman with a gregarious and bounding personality, approaches indirectly via a good deal of humor — including recounting the first time she did her growing-up-lesbian bit before her mother in a DC comedy club. But the pain and confusion trailing her for 13 years is never far behind, whether in accounts of her own battle with anger (and the broken relationships it has left in its wake) or in ominous memories of her too complacent mother or her charming but domineering father, whose controlling behavior extended to casually announcing murderous dreams while policing the boundaries of his marriage against family interference. A fine mimic, Pittman deploys a Southern lilt in playing each parent, on a stage decorated with a hint of their Southwestern furnishings and a framed set of parental photographs. In not exactly knowing where to lay blame for, or find meaning in, such a horrifying act, the play itself mimics in subtler form the emotional tumult left behind. There’s a too brief but eerie scene in which her veteran father makes reference to a murder among fellow soldiers en route to war, but while PTSD is mentioned (including as an unwanted patrimony), the 60-minute narrative crafted by Pittman and director David Ford wisely eschews any pat explanation. If transitions are occasionally awkward and the pace a bit loose, the play leaves one with an uncomfortable sense of the darker aspects of love, mingled with vague concentric histories of trauma and dislocation in a weird, sad tale of destruction and staying power. Note: review from the show’s 2009 run at the Marsh. (Avila)

Julius Caesar Buriel Clay Theater, African American Art and Culture Complex, 762 Fulton, SF; 1-800-838-3006, www.african-americanshakes.org. $10-30. Sat, 8pm; Sun, 4pm. Through April 1. African-American Shakespeare Company performs a version of the Bard’s classic set during the ongoing civil wars of West Africa.

*Maurice New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; (415) 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Wed/21-Sat/24, 8pm; Sun/25, 2pm. The eponymous hero of E.M. Forster’s late novel (written early but published only posthumously) wrestles with his love for another man in Edwardian England — oscillating between defiant assertion of feeling and an anguished recoil into desperate treatments like hypnotism — but manages to find happiness as a homosexual by the end of the story. No doubt that would have most appalled the guardians of those extremely homophobic, repressive times. Today there’s still much to recognize in the confused feelings and social censure faced by such a figure, though what helps make the 1998 stage adaptation (by Brits Andy Graham and Roger Parsley) so compelling a story is the not always flattering complexity and honesty with which Forster portrays the (at least partly autobiographical) Maurice Hall — played winningly by an intelligent, agile Soren Santos in New Conservatory Theatre Center’s persuasive U.S. premiere. Maurice’s outré sexuality is one thing; his class position and status as a man are another, affording him certain limited protection and also contributing to certain weaknesses of character, which become most apparent vis-à-vis his mother (a quietly potent Lindsey Murray) and sister (an effervescent Hilary Hyatt) as well as his second love, ambitious young laborer Alec Scudder (a nicely restrained Andrew Nolan). Director George Maguire rightly concentrates on the reciprocal influences between these vital characters and gets fine performances from his entire cast in an uncluttered, sure and measured production, with capable John Hurst in several supporting roles and Alex Kirschner doing excellent work as Clive Durham, Maurice’s Cambridge classmate and mercurial first love. (Avila)

Merchants Exit Stage Left, 156 Eddy, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $10-25. Thurs/22-Sat/24, 8pm. According to playwright Susan Sobeloff, the vision for Merchants, premiering this month at the EXIT Theatre, came to her after watching Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, a play at least partially responsible for cementing the caricature of the money-hungry Jew in Western literary tradition for centuries to come. Her intention to write a play featuring a family of more "rounded" Jews doesn’t entirely coalesce once it becomes clear that the bulk of the dramatic tension actually revolves very closely around monetary concerns. As one family business folds, and other members get squeezed out of their jobs by the new economy, a new family business of sorts begins to grow around the quirky, confessional performance art of youngest daughter, Mercedes (Maura Halloran). Emotional blackmail and sheer desperation kickstart their efforts to turn Mercedes into a financially-sustainable "brand," while the all too human costs of burnout, fatigue, and simmering resentments are roundly disregarded, until a crisis point is reached. It’s difficult to connect with this particular set of almost comically self-absorbed characters, despite the desire to root for the underdog, and the play would have benefited from a staging that allowed either more humor or more humanity to creep into the relentless tirades that characterize much of the dialogue. (Gluckstern)

The Real Americans Marsh Studio Theater, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $25-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Extended through April 14. Dan Hoyle revives his hit solo show about small-town America.

Sam Marlowe and the Mean Streets of San Francisco Stage Werx, 446 Valencia, SF; (415) 412-3989, www.catchynametheatre.org. $20. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through April 7. Catchy Name Theatre presents a world premiere noir play by Jim Strope.

*True West Boxcar Studios, 125A Hyde, SF; (415) 967-2227, www.boxcartheatre.org. $25. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through April 7. The first installment of Boxcar Theatre’s four-play Sam Shepard repertory project, True West ushers in the ambitious run with a bang. This tale of two brothers who gradually assume the role of the other is one of Shepard’s most enduring plays, rich with humorous interludes, veering sharply into dangerous terrain at the drop of a toaster. In time-honored, True West tradition, the lead roles of Austin, the unassuming younger brother, and Lee, his violent older sibling, are being alternated between Nick A. Olivero and Brian Trybom, and in a new twist, the role of the mother is being played by two different actresses as well (Adrienne Krug and Katya Rivera). The evening I saw it, Olivero was playing Austin, a writer banging away at his first screenplay, and Trybom was Lee, a troubled, alcoholic drifter who usurps his brother’s Hollywood shot, and trashes their mother’s home while trying to honor his as yet unwritten "contract". The chemistry between the two actors was a perfect blend of menace and fraternity, and the extreme wreckage they make of both the set (designed by both actors), and their ever-tenuous relationship, was truly inspired. (Gluckstern)

Waiting for Godot New venue: SF Playhouse Stage Two, 533 Sutter, SF; (415) 336-3522, www.tidestheatre.org. $20-32. Thurs, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm. Extended through April 14. The fuchsia papier-mâché tree and swirling grey-on-white floor pattern (courtesy of scenic designer Richard Colman) lend a psychedelic accent to the famously barren landscape inhabited by Vladimir (Keith Burkland) and Estragon (Jack Halton) in this production of the Samuel Beckett play by newcomers Tides Theatre. The best moments here broadcast the brooding beauty of the avant-garde classic, with its purposely vague but readily familiar world of viciousness, servility, trauma, want, fear, grudging compassion, and the daring, fragile humor that can look it all squarely in the eye. (Avila)

The Waiting Period MainStage, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Extended through April 27. Brian Copeland (comedian, TV and radio personality, and creator-performer of the long-running solo play Not a Genuine Black Man) returns to the Marsh with a new solo, this one based on more recent and messier events in Copeland’s life. The play concerns an episode of severe depression in which he considered suicide, going so far as to purchase a handgun — the title coming from the legally mandatory 10-day period between purchasing and picking up the weapon, which leaves time for reflections and circumstances that ultimately prevent Copeland from pulling the trigger. A grim subject, but Copeland (with co-developer and director David Ford) ensures there’s plenty of humor as well as frank sentiment along the way. The actor peoples the opening scene in the gun store with a comically if somewhat stereotypically rugged representative of the Second Amendment, for instance, as well as an equally familiar "doood" dude at the service counter. Afterward, we follow Copeland, a just barely coping dad, home to the house recently abandoned by his wife, and through the ordinary routines that become unbearable to the clinically depressed. Copeland also recreates interviews he’s made with other survivors of suicidal depression. Telling someone about such things is vital to preventing their worst outcomes, says Copeland, and telling his own story is meant to encourage others. It’s a worthy aim but only a fitfully engaging piece, since as drama it remains thin, standing at perhaps too respectful a distance from the convoluted torment and alienation at its center. (Avila)

BAY AREA

Cabaret Larkspur Café Theater (American Legion Hall Post 313), 500 Magnolia, Larkspur; www.brownpapertickets.com. $25-45. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm (no show April 8). Through April 15. Independent Cabaret Productions and Shakespeare at Stinson move their production of the Kander and Ebb classic from Fort Mason to the North Bay.

The Coast of Utopia: Voyage Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-30. Opens Fri/23, 8pm. Runs Wed-Thurs, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through April 29. Shotgun Players present Tom Stoppard’s riff on pre-revolutionary Russia.

A Doctor in Spite of Himself Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-73. Thurs/22 and Sat/24, 8pm; Wed/21 and Sun/25, 7pm (also Sun/25, 2pm). Berkeley Rep performs a contemporary update of the Molière comedy.

*The Kipling Hotel: True Misadventures of the Electric Pink ’80s New venue: Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through May 6. This new autobiographical solo show by Don Reed, writer-performer of the fine and long-running East 14th, is another slice of the artist’s journey from 1970s Oakland ghetto to comedy-circuit respectability — here via a partial debate-scholarship to UCLA. The titular Los Angeles residency hotel was where Reed lived and worked for a time in the 1980s while attending university. It’s also a rich mine of memory and material for this physically protean and charismatic comic actor, who sails through two acts of often hilarious, sometimes touching vignettes loosely structured around his time on the hotel’s young wait staff, which catered to the needs of elderly patrons who might need conversation as much as breakfast. On opening night, the episodic narrative seemed to pass through several endings before settling on one whose tidy moral was delivered with too heavy a hand, but if the piece runs a little long, it’s only the last 20 minutes that noticeably meanders. And even with some awkward bumps along the way, it’s never a dull thing watching Reed work. (Avila)

Now Circa Then Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; (650) 463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. $19-69. Tues-Wed, 7:30pm; Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through April 1. TheatreWorks performs Carly Mensch’s comedy about a romance that blooms between two historical re-enactors.

The Pirates of Penzance Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College, Berk; (510) 845-8542, www.juliamorgan.org. $17-35. Fri-Sat, 7pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, noon and 5pm. Through April 1. Berkeley Playhouse performs the Gilbert and Sullivan classic, with the setting shifted to a futuristic city.

Red Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-83. Opens Thurs/22, 8pm. Runs Tues and Thurs-Fri, 8pm (also March 29 and April 26, 2pm; no show April 27); Wed, 7pm; Sat-Sun, 2pm (also Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm; no matinee March 31). Through April 29. Berkeley Rep performs John Logan’s Tony Award-winning play about artist Mark Rothko.

Titus Andronicus La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $10-20. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through March 31. Impact Theatre takes on the Bard’s bloodiest tragedy.

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh Berkeley, TheaterStage, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Extended run: Sun/25 and April 1, 11am. Also May 5-27 (Sat-Sun, 11am); June 3-July 15 (Sun, 11am). Louis "The Amazing Bubble Man" Pearl returns with this kid-friendly, bubble-tastic comedy.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

"Arthur in Underland" CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; www.counterpulse.org. Fri/23-Sat/24, 8pm. $15-24. Dandelion Dancetheater performs a new work about a young man whose life is changed when he becomes part of a rock group’s entourage.

"Elect to Laugh" Studio Theater, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. Tues, 8pm. Ongoing through Nov 6. $15-50. Will Durst and friends perform in this weekly political humor show that focuses on the upcoming presidential election.

"Enchantingly Wicked" Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness, SF; www.sfgmc.org. Wed/21, 8pm. $15-75. San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus and Stephen Schwartz perform musical theater hits.

Hope Mohr Dance Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.zspace.org. Thurs/22-Sat/24, 8pm. $20-25. The company presents its fifth San Francisco home season, with a rare solo by Hope Mohr and the Bay Area debut of New York-based choreographer-performer Dusan Tynek’s company.

"Improvised Shakespeare" Bayfront Theater, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.improv.org. Sat/24, 8pm. $20. Bay Area Theatre Sports (BATS) presents Improvised Shakespeare, a fine troupe (and a slightly different lineup each night, but on March 10 including Kasey Klemm, Rebecca Stockley, Tim Orr, William Hall, Zoe Galvez, and Regina Saisi) with no idea what full length Shakespeare-ish play they will lay on their eager audience until the latter gift them with a title and a key word or two. The rest is remarkably well-tethered mayhem, as cast spontaneously riffs on the audience cue, the conventions of Elizabethan drama, and its own inventions —including the unintentional slip of the tongue, which in this context can prove as productive as anything. March 10 saw the premiere — and simultaneous closing — of an ephemeral little comedy called Two Crows. The players strutted and fretted (or frolicked, really) an hour or so upon the stage.’Twas an idiotic tale, told by some of the sharpest improvisers around, and signifying nothing, save good times. (Avila)

"indifference and MASTERWORK" CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; www.eventbrite.com. Thurs/22-Sun/25, 8pm, $17-30. New works by artists-in-residence Lisa Townsend and Mica Sigourney.

"ODC Dance/Downtown" Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Novellus Theater, 700 Howard, SF; www.odcdance.org. Through Sun/25, programs and showtimes vary. $15-750. ODC/Dance kicks off its 41st annual home season with two programs of new works, plus an opening-night gala.

"Octopus’s Garden" Alcove Theater, 414 Mason, Fifth Flr, SF; www.thealcovetheater.com. Sat, 8pm. Through April 7. $25-35. PianoFight performs Scott Herman’s modern-family drama.

"Regeneration" Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. Thurs/22-Sat/24, 8pm, $25. Performance duo Eiko and Koma highlight new and old works from their four-decade oeuvre.

"2012 Rhino Benefit Extravaganza" Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.therhino.org. Mon/26, 8pm. $25. Queer talent performances (plus free food and drinks!) to benefit Theatre Rhinoceros.

It’s not what you get, it’s what you keep

-
0
It’s not what you get, it’s what you keep

caitlin@sfbg.com

LIT In Redefining Black Power (City Lights Books, 206pp, $16.95), Joanne Griffith’s assemblage of her interviews with black thought leaders, Obama is not the focus, but his presidency is the frame. Journalists, activists, an economist, a theologist who wrote speeches for Martin Luther King, Jr. — each chapter of the book is a dialogue faithfully transcribed from Griffith’s well-informed questionings, reminding readers that the fight for expanded democracy in the United States didn’t end when the brand-new First Family took the stage that night in Chicago’s Grant Park.

Because when it comes to the fight for equal rights in this country — as economist Julienne Malveaux quotes from Lauryn Hill in her Redefining Black Power interview — “it’s not what you get, it’s what you keep.”

Griffith wants to make sure that the words of black leaders are kept in history’s permanent ledger. The Redefining Black Power project was born after she visited KPFK in Los Angeles, where the Pacifica Radio Archives are kept. The archives, a repository for interviews with African American leaders going back for decades, inspired her role as a modern day chronologist. With the help of Brian DeShazor, director of the Archives, Griffith has been airing one historical interview a week on her BBC Radio 5 Sunday evening show.

She also started conducting interviews herself. This edition of Redefining Black Power (she hopes there will be more) is structured as a look at the state of black America since President Obama ascended to the Oval Office, public fist bumps, and dolorous battles over health care.

The book is important, more readable than you’d think interview transcripts would be, and includes seldom-heard perspectives like those of an activist who refuses to vote and calls President Obama “crack” for African Americans, and a Ghana-born New York journalist who asserts we must never forget what it meant when Malia Obama wears her hair in twists.

Griffith acts as the conduit of information, rarely the pontificator herself. That’s why we tapped her for a Guardian interview via email last month, eager to hear what she’s learned about black power today.

SFBG: Explain where the interviews in the book came from. How did you become acquainted with the Pacifica Radio Archives and why are they important?

JG: The idea for the Redefining Black Power Project, of which the book is part, was born out of the historic audio held in the Pacifica Radio Archives, a national treasure trove of material charting America’s history from a progressive perspective dating back to 1949. But it was one recording of Fannie Lou Hamer addressing the 1964 Democratic national convention that sparked the idea for Redefining Black Power. Brian DeShazor heard the tape and wanted to find a permanent way to preserve and share the voices held in the Archives with a wider audience, and what better way than through the written word? Brian approached City Lights Books with the idea, and this book is the result, drawing on the voices of history to link us to the election of Barack Obama, one of the most significant moments in the social and political history of the United States. Through this project, we hope to preserve the voices, opinions and perspectives of African-Americans in this so called ‘Age of Obama’ for historians to digest and explore in years to come.

How did I get involved? As a complete audio nut, I always make a point of visiting local radio stations wherever I travel in the world. Back in 2007, I was in Los Angeles, called KPFK to arrange a visit and was introduced to the Pacifica Radio Archives. Because of this work and the extensive list of people I have interviewed over the years, Brian invited me to do the interviews for the Redefining Black Power project. Through this book, we delve into the role of the activist from different perspectives; the legal system, the media, religion, the economy, green politics and emotional justice.

SFBG: Was there an interview from the book in which your subject’s answers deeply surprised you? 

Joanne Griffith: It was Dr Vincent Harding, the man behind Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech that surprised me the most. A true veteran of the civil rights movement, he made the point that the election of President Obama was never the goal of the movement; instead he prefers to call the work “the movement for the expansion and deepening of democracy in America.” Put this way, it made me realize more than ever, that the work we do today is not in isolation, but part of a wider movement, stretching back all the way to slavery. And the work isn’t over.

SFBG: Who should read this book? How should it be used? 

JG: Use it as a conversation starter to discuss issues in your own community. Parents, use it as a way to engage your children in history. Students, use it as a resource for papers on race and the Obama presidency. Most importantly, everyone, share your thoughts at www.redefiningblackpower.com. This book is not the end of the project; we’re only getting started.

 

Editorial: Mayor Lee: Ease off Mirkarimi and help stop the foreclosure crisis

-
16

And so the downtown gang (Willie Brown/Rose Pak, PG&E, the Chamber, the big developers et al) used Ed Lee to outmaneuver the progressives and roll Lee into the job of “interim mayor” on condition Lee not run for mayor.  Then Lee kept lying for months about his intentions and saying over and over that he would not run for mayor–until the downtown gang convinced him to run as a way to further damage the progressives. And now, according to news reports, Mayor Lee is poised to file misconduct charges against Mirkarimi for his gulty plea of false imprisonment in the Mirkarimi domestic violence case.

This could lead to an explosive and polarizing scenario where the Board of Supervvisors, in an election year, would be asked to remove Mirkarimi, a former fellow supervisor and political ally, as sheriff or side with him on what has turned out to become a toxic political issue. This would affect at minimum Mar, Avalos, Campos, and Olague in the supervisors’ races and Mar, Avalos, and Campos in the upcoming Democratic County Central Committee race. It would also affect any candidate in any race that said a nice word about Mirkarimi.  If anybody thinks the mayor and the downtown gang would be unhappy with this prospect, think again. I recommend that Lee hold off on Mirkarimi, and work to uphold his position as a “unifier,” and not become a polarizer and promoter of media and City Hall circuses. Instead of taking on Mirkarimi and the progressives, he should concentrate on such important and timely issues as helping stop the foreclosure process on the thousands of homes facing foreclosure in San Francisco. More: he should go after the big foreclosure banks, starting with the Bank of America and its multi-million dollar short term cash account with the city, and  Wells Fargo, with its national headquarters here in town.b3

More than 1,000 homes in San Francisco are either in foreclosure or at the start of the process. Some 16,000 homeowners are underwater, and as many as 12,000 may face foreclosure in the next 12 months. A report by the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment shows that the city could lose $115 million from the reduced property taxes and the costs of carrying out evictions.

That’s a crisis — and while the mayor has no direct control over home foreclosures, he ought to be speaking out and joining the protesters who are fighting this cascade of often-fraudulent bank actions.

The problems are legion: An audit released in February by Assessor Phil Ting shows that more than 80 percent of the foreclosure notices filed in San Francisco contain at least one legal irregularity, and many contain multiple. Banks back-date documents, use faulty information, and in some cases clearly and directly break the law when they move to seize property — often because of bad-faith loans that were more the fault of the banks than the homeowners.

A group from Occupy Bernal, the well-organized, sophisticated operation that’s been intervening in foreclosures and evictions in the Southeast neighborhoods, visited us recently, and the stories we heard were alarming. Some told of bankers who promised to make loan modifications — then went ahead with foreclosure anyway. Some people spend weeks just trying to figure out who actually owns the mortgage — and while the financial institutions are ducking calls and hiding from responsibility, they’re moving forward to toss people out of their homes.

ACCE and Occupy Bernal have had some successes — they slowed down foreclosure actions, forced banks to come to the table and in some cases saved homes. But the activists are up against big corporations and big numbers — too many homes on the block, too many financial institutions, and not enough people and money.

The Ting report showed enough violations of law that we’ve already urged the city attorney and the district attorney to start taking action.

But we’ve heard little beyond silence from the office of Mayor Ed Lee.

Lee’s the city’s chief executive, the person who has to handle the financial fallout of the foreclosure crisis as well as the human impacts — families evicted from their homes have a high chance of winding up on the streets, putting additional pressure on already-stressed social services.

Besides, this is a tragedy — and a lot of the problem is simply unaccountable, unreachable financial institutions. If Occupy Bernal and ACCE, through volunteer organizing and community pressure, can prevent a fair number of evictions, think of what the mayor of San Francisco could do — just by speaking out.

Lee ought to show up at some of the Occupy Bernal actions, but that may be too much to ask. But it’s not too much to suggest that he publicly support the foreclosure fighters and call on the banks to work with local homeowners.

The city keeps its multibillion-dollar short-term cash accounts in institutions like Bank of America, which is responsible for more than 10 percent of all foreclosures in the city. Wells Fargo, with its headquarters right here in town, is responsible for 22 percent of the local foreclosures. Lee ought to let the banks know the city won’t keep doing business with bad actors.

With a little visibility, the mayor could help save hundreds, maybe thousands of families from facing homelessness. This crisis calls for leadership; where’s the mayor?

Mirkarimi sentenced, absent drama

Zelda Bronstein
-
59
Mirkarimi sentenced, absent drama

The drama that hordes of reporters were waiting for didn’t happen. District Attorney George Gascon’s threat to “bring up” at Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi’s sentencing the notion that Mirkarimi didn’t really think he was guilty vanished. Mirkarimi sat in front of Judge James Collins, who years ago helped a sitting judge duck a domestic violence charge, and agreed to the terms of his sentence (three years probation, mandatory attendance at a 52-week DV counseling program and some modest fines). Deputy District Attorney Elizabeth Aguilar-Tarchi said she had nothing to add; neither did Mirkarimi’s lawyer, Lidia Stiglich. And that was that — as far as the courtroom went.

Outside, Mirkarimi faced the expected scrum of cameras and microphones, and read a prepared statement that sounded as if the district attorney had insisted on it. “I deeply and humbly apologize for my behavior,” he said. “There are no excuses and I accept full responsibility.” He said he had started counseling “to remedy my arrogance and anger issues” and apologized for saying earlier that the incident was “a private family matter.”

And he gave no signs of being ready to step down, saying he would “work so much harder to regain your trust … to be a better public servant.”

An hour or so later, Gascon faced the same press crew and announced that he had treated this case “just like any other domestic violence incident.” He denied that there was any political motivation; in fact, he denied it twice. He never made exactly clear why he had decided not to intervene after all at the sentencing hearing, except to say that Mirkarimi’s statements after receiving his sentence were satisfactory (see above).

He said he’s a “strong believer in redemption and restorative justice” and said this deal would “offer [Mirkarimi] an opportunity to redeem himself.”

Which, of course, led to the question of the day: Did Gascon think Mirkarimi could, or should, hold onto his job? Phil Matier from the Chron asked it directly, and Gascon refused to answer, saying “it’s not my place” to say. I tried again a few minutes later, asking if, given Gascon’s belief in redemption, there was any possibility that the sheriff could sufficiently redeem himself to remain in his elected position. Again: “It’s not my place to say.”

It was, however, what everyone was talking about. Matier and Ross reported that Mayor Ed Lee was huddling with lawyers to try to figure out whether he has legal grounds to begin the process of removing Mirkarimi from office. It’s tricky, and has only happened twice in the last 100 years, once in the 1930s, when a public defender was involved in a murder-for-hire case, and again in the 1970s, when an airport commissioner who was also a union official was charged with favoring union workers.

One obstacle, according to Matier and Ross: The D.A.’s Office won’t give Lee the video that was at the heart of this case. Gascon confirmed that, saying the video was considered internal work product and wouldn’t be released to anyone.

The law on removing a sitting elected official in San Francisco is murky and confusing, with little precedent. Does a guilty plea to false imprisonment of his wife equal “official misconduct?” Can an incident that took place before Mirkarimi became sheriff count as misconduct in the office he assumed later?Would the supervisors hold a public trial? What rules of evidence would apply?

The politics are murky, too: If Lee files charges, he’ll be tossing the matter to the Board of Supervisors in an election year, which the supes will hate and it will be a blow to the concept of civility that the mayor tries so hard to promote. If he doesn’t, then in the unilkely event that Mirkarimi does anything else bad, critics will blame the mayor for not acting.

So this isn’t over yet.

Meanwhile, the award for the most inappropropriate question at the Gascon news conference goes to the San Jose Mercury news reporter who, after much discussion about whether Mirkarimi could carry a weapon again and when the stay-away order would be lifted, asked (I kid you not):

“Which should he get back first — his gun or his wife?”

 

 

Dick Meister: Labor’s David vs. GOP’s Goliath

-
0

By Dick Meister

 Dick Meister, former labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for more than a half-century. Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister,com, which includes more than 350 of his columns.

Organized labor is doing exactly what it must do to combat the onslaught against unions being waged by Republican politicians nationwide, throwing lots of money and lots of ground troops into the election campaigns of Democrats – most especially President Obama’s campaign for re-election.

The AFL-CIO made it official with a ringing endorsement of Obama. Federation President Rich Trumka declared that “as president, Barack Obama has placed his faith in America’s working men and women to lead our country to economic recovery and our full potential. So we’re putting our faith in him.”

Trumka acknowledged that the AFL-CIO has sometimes disagreed with Obama and “often pushed his administration to do more – and do it faster.” But he said there never has been any doubt about Obama’s commitment to working families.

On the other hand, Trumka noted, the Republicans seeking their party’s presidential nomination have all “pledged to uphold the special privileges of Wall Street and the 1% that have produced historic economic inequality and drowned out the voices of working people.”

Trumka characterized working people as “the Davids standing up to Goliath in today’s politics. Our strength is in our numbers, our values and plain hard work. When we come together, we are formidable.”

Labor’s political forces have indeed been formidable in past elections, putting millions of dollars and millions of union members into the campaigns of labor-friendly Democrats such as Obama. The AFL-CIO pledges to do even more for Obama’s re-election bid, aided in part by a 2010 Supreme Court ruling that allows unions to go door-to-door to solicit support from non-union voters as well as union members.

Unions expect to spend $400 million this year on national, state and local elections, fully one-fourth of it coming from a key AFL-CIO affiliate, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. The Service Employees International Union expects to mobilize 100,000 of its members, many of them public employees. The AFL-CIO itself anticipates spending nearly $7 million it has collected primarily for campaigning among non-union voters.

The federation aims to outdo its extraordinary campaign for Obama’s election in 2008. A quarter-million union volunteers took part in that effort, knocking on 14 million doors, making 76 million phone call, sending out 57 million pieces of mail and distributing 29 million leaflets at work sites.

It’s certainly true that Obama has generally been a good friend to organized labor. But what, specifically, has he done for working people and their unions? Why do unionists feel he’s deserving of so much union money and so much union effort?

Why? The AFL-CIO’s Trumka cites, for example, Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act which “saved or created 3.6 million jobs” and averted a second Great Depression. There’s also Obama’s championing of comprehensive health insurance reform which “set the nation on a path toward health security,” and Wall Street reform that will eventually lead to reversal of the financial deregulation “that put our entire economy at risk.”

Re-electing a labor-friendly president will be only a part of labor’s election-day mission. Unions will be campaigning at least as hard to defeat the many anti-union Republicans who are running at the local, state and national level and threatening the very existence of unions.

As AFL-CIO Political Director Michael Podhorzer notes, “they’ve clearly tried to weaken unions and drain our treasuries. But the consequence has been more like kicking a hornets’ nest than draining our resources.”

Unions hope to repeat their success of last November in Ohio, where they waged a major campaign that repealed a Republican-sponsored law that greatly weakened the collective bargaining rights of the state’s public employees. It was an overwhelming victory with 62 percent voting for repeal, only 38 percent for retaining the law, which was similar to those proposed elsewhere, along with other anti-union measures.

The AFL-CIO is confident that it can rally millions of voters for Obama in Ohio and other battleground states, including Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Unions have already had a major impact in Wisconsin, where voters have approved the holding of recall elections for Gov. Scott Walker, his lieutenant governor and four Republican state senators because of their support for legislation that stripped public employees of their collective bargaining rights. Previous labor campaigns led to the recall of two other Republican state senators.

Obama would seem to need unions as much as they need him. The latest polls indicate that only about half the citizenry approves of the job he’s doing. He’s going to have to work hard to win over the large body of Americans who apparently don’t share labor’s view of him, but who could be convinced to at least give him another four years to meet their expectations.

Labor’s election–year role, in short, will be to do much of the convincing needed to help rally millions of voters behind their friend in the White House. That would be highly rewarding to labor and to millions of Americans, union and non-union alike.

Dick Meister, former labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for more than a half-century. Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister,com, which includes more than 350 of his columns.

Mayor Lee discusses removing Mirkarimi from office

Sasha Cuttler
-
24

Mayor Ed Lee today seemed to take a step back from his quote in today’s San Francisco Chronicle that his “gut feeling” was that Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi’s guilty plea to a misdemeanor false imprisonment charge represents a conflict with Mirkarimi’s official duties that could warrant his removal from office.

Speaking to reporters after an appearance before the Board of Supervisors, Lee said he hasn’t made up his mind whether to charge Mirkarimi with official misconduct – which would ultimately require at least nine of 11 supervisors to vote for removal over what was alleged to be an incident of domestic violence – but that Lee said he would probably make that decision next week.

“My gut reaction wasn’t that,” Lee said when asked about his newspaper quote, explaining that he was simply surprised when the new charge replaced the three that Mirkarimi had initially been charged with: domestic violence, dissuading a witness, and child endangerment, all misdemeanors. 

“In the surprise of the legal settlement of the case, I’m required to take a look at this charge that wasn’t talked about before and determine whether those charges and the factual allegations behind those charges are measured up to the standard I have to deal with, which is official misconduct. And I have to allow myself enough time to do that with our City Attorney’s advice to make sure I’m on good legal footing. I was just surprised because it wasn’t one of the original charges,” Lee said, noting he had been doing research on the previous charges.

“Because it’s a new charge and one that was accepted by the courts as well, I have to make a thorough study of that, which is something I wasn’t prepared to do,” he said.

When asked whether the term “false imprisonment” (a broad legal charge that can mean different things depending on the context) affects his approach, Lee responded, “The word false imprisonment is obviously connected to a sheriff who does make a determination about imprisonment in general. But we’re going through the elements of what false imprisonment are and what the factual basis is and then, again, reapplying that to the standards of official misconduct.”

As for the timeline of his decision, Lee said, “I think it’s appropriate to wait until after the sentencing,” which is set for Monday, “so probably sometime next week.” Later, he said, “I am cognizant of the public distraction this case has made to the office, so I’m doing the best I can to comply with at least my own time frame.”

We asked Lee why he thought the charges – which resulted from an incident on New Year’s Eve in which Mirkarimi’s wife allegedly told a neighbor that he grabbed her and left a bruise on her arm – might rise to the level of official misconduct, particularly considering he hadn’t been sworn into office yet.

Lee replied, “That’ll be part of the assessment because I don’t think there’s an automatic thing here. He was elected and this was post election, so it doesn’t matter when he was sworn in and I think he was expected to be sworn in, so we have to take into consideration all of those elements.”

Stage Listings

Andrew Lam
-
0

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

THEATER

OPENING

Sam Marlowe and the Mean Streets of San Francisco Stage Werx, 446 Valencia, SF; (415) 412-3989, www.catchynametheatre.org. $20. Opens Thurs/15, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through April 7. Catchy Name Theatre presents a world premiere noir play by Jim Strope.

BAY AREA

The Coast of Utopia: Voyage Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-30. Previews Wed/14-Thurs/15, 7pm; Fri/16-Sat/17, 8pm; Sun/18, 5pm. Opens March 23, 8pm. Runs Wed-Thurs, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through April 29. Shotgun Players present Tom Stoppard’s riff on pre-revolutionary Russia.

Red Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-83. Previews Fri/16-Sat/17 and Tues/20, 8pm; Sun/18, 7pm. Opens March 22, 8pm. Runs Tues and Thurs-Fri, 8pm (also March 29 and April 26, 2pm; no show April 27); Wed, 7pm; Sat-Sun, 2pm (also Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm; no matinees Sat/17-Sun/18 or March 31). Through April 29. Berkeley Rep performs John Logan’s Tony Award-winning play about artist Mark Rothko.

ONGOING

*Blue/Orange Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, 450 Post, SF; (415) 474-8800, www.lhtsf.org. $43-53. Wed/14-Sat/17, 8pm (also Sat/17, 2pm); Sun/18, 2pm. Lorraine Hansberry Theater offers an uneven but worthwhile production of British playwright Joe Penhall’s sardonic comedy of ideas and institutional racism, an intriguingly frustrating three-hander about a young doctor (a bright Dan Clegg) at a psychiatric teaching hospital who begins a battle royal with his suave and pompous supervising physician (a comically nimble Julian Lopez-Morillas) over the release of a questionably-sane black patient. Originally brought in by police for creating a disturbance, Christopher (the excellent Carl Lumbly) still exhibits signs of psychosis and his ability to care for himself seems doubtful to the young doctor treating him. The older physician appeals to the patient’s general competence, hospital procedures, the shortage of beds, and the exigencies of career advancement in countering the younger doctor’s insistence on keeping the patient beyond the mandatory 28-day period required by law. For his part, Christopher, nervous and rather manic, is at first desperately eager to be released back to his poor London neighborhood. Competing interviews with the two doctors complicate his perspective and ours repeatedly, however, as a heated debate about medicine, institutionalization, cultural antecedents to mental "illness," career arcs, and a "cure for black psychosis," leave everyone’s sanity in doubt. Although our attention can be distracted by a too-pervading sound design and less than perfect British accents, Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe directs a strong and engaging cast in a politically resonant not to say increasingly maddening play. (Avila)

"Celebration of Women’s History Month:" The Right Thing Thick House, 1695 18th St, SF; www.3girlstheatre.org. $30. Dates and showtimes vary. Through April 1. Over one long day of legal mediation, aggrieved former CEO Zell Gardner (a brash but vulnerable Catherine Castellanos) and attorney Manny Diamond (a sharp, loquacious Louis Parnell) square off against Zell’s former Big Pharma pals headed up by vindictive interim CEO David Heller (a coolly cutting Lol Levy) flanked by Zell’s longtime colleague Chris McKnight (a nicely down-to-earth John Flanagan). Zell’s lawyer becomes increasingly ambivalent, however, as Manny discovers his tough, brassy mess of a pill-popping client has been less than forthcoming about the charge of sexual harassment the other side is using to justify her dismissal and the company’s pocketing of the three million Zell expected as compensation — a charge involving Zell’s 19-year-old goddaughter, Sam (Karina Wolfe). Attempting to reconcile the parties and broker a deal is retired judge Leigh Mansfield (Helen Shumaker), but she has her work cut out for her with this crowd. AJ Baker’s new drama — the inaugural production of newcomers 3Girls Theatre — take issues of sexual politics and power in its high-powered setting and cracks them against the everyday familial and social dynamics that are perhaps a casualty of the corporate ethos, but without opening them up to a satisfactory degree. Director Suze M. Allen assembles a generally strong cast (Castellanos is riveting throughout), and some scenes smolder with just the right teeth-baring tension, but pacing is inconsistent and the script’s own wayward drift — together with an odd, unnecessary video backdrop—distract from the concentrated treatment the story demands. (Avila)

*Fool For Love Boxcar Studios, 125A Hyde, SF; www.boxcartheatre.org. $25. Showtimes vary. Through April 14. Another installment of Boxcar Theatre’s epic Sam Shepard repertory project, Fool for Love inaugurates their newest performance space within their Hyde Street Studios location. A depressingly realistic reproduction of a claustrophobic motel room, the tiny jewel-box theatre provides no refuge for the actors, and certainly not for the audience, each trapped beneath the pitiless gaze of the other. And if that too-close-for-comfort intimacy doesn’t get to you, the intentionally difficult subject matter — a "typical" Shepardian foray into alcohol-fueled ranting, violence, incest, and casual cruelty — probably will. Shepard’s strength in monologue shows itself off to meaty effect from May’s (Lauren Doucette) melancholy description of her mother’s love affair with the Old Man (Jeff Garrett) to Eddie’s (Brian Trybom) candid admittance to May’s timid suitor Martin (Geoffrey Nolan) that he and May are not cousins at all but half-siblings who have "fooled around" with each other. In addition to the reliably strong performances from each of the actors, Fool features a notably clever bit of staging involving the Old Man who appears not as a specter wandering the periphery of the stage, but as a recurring figure on the black-and-white television, interrupting the flow of cheesy Westerns with his garrulous trailer park wisdom and an omnipresent Styrofoam cup filled, one suspects, with something stronger than just coffee. (Gluckstern)

Geezer Marsh San Francisco, MainStage, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $25-100. Thurs/15 and Sat/17, 8pm; Sun/18, 5pm. Geoff Hoyle’s hit solo show returns.

Glengarry Glen Ross Actors Theatre of San Francisco, 855 Bush, SF; (415) 345-1287, www.brownpapertickets.com. $26-40. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through March 24. David Mamet’s cutthroat comedy, courtesy of the Actors Theatre of San Francisco.

It’s All the Rage Studio Theater, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thurs, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm, Sun, 7pm. Through April 15. Longtime comedian and radio host Marilyn Pittman’s solo play wrestles with the legacy of her parents’ violent deaths in a 1997 murder-suicide initiated by her father. It’s disturbing material that Pittman, a stout middle-aged woman with a gregarious and bounding personality, approaches indirectly via a good deal of humor — including recounting the first time she did her growing-up-lesbian bit before her mother in a DC comedy club. But the pain and confusion trailing her for 13 years is never far behind, whether in accounts of her own battle with anger (and the broken relationships it has left in its wake) or in ominous memories of her too complacent mother or her charming but domineering father, whose controlling behavior extended to casually announcing murderous dreams while policing the boundaries of his marriage against family interference. A fine mimic, Pittman deploys a Southern lilt in playing each parent, on a stage decorated with a hint of their Southwestern furnishings and a framed set of parental photographs. In not exactly knowing where to lay blame for, or find meaning in, such a horrifying act, the play itself mimics in subtler form the emotional tumult left behind. There’s a too brief but eerie scene in which her veteran father makes reference to a murder among fellow soldiers en route to war, but while PTSD is mentioned (including as an unwanted patrimony), the 60-minute narrative crafted by Pittman and director David Ford wisely eschews any pat explanation. If transitions are occasionally awkward and the pace a bit loose, the play leaves one with an uncomfortable sense of the darker aspects of love, mingled with vague concentric histories of trauma and dislocation in a weird, sad tale of destruction and staying power. Note: review from the show’s 2009 run at the Marsh. (Avila)

Julius Caesar Buriel Clay Theater, African American Art and Culture Complex, 762 Fulton, SF; 1-800-838-3006, www.african-americanshakes.org. $10-30. Sat, 8pm; Sun, 4pm. Through April 1. African-American Shakespeare Company performs a version of the Bard’s classic set during the ongoing civil wars of West Africa.

*Maurice New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; (415) 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through March 25. The eponymous hero of E.M. Forster’s late novel (written early but published only posthumously) wrestles with his love for another man in Edwardian England — oscillating between defiant assertion of feeling and an anguished recoil into desperate treatments like hypnotism — but manages to find happiness as a homosexual by the end of the story. No doubt that would have most appalled the guardians of those extremely homophobic, repressive times. Today there’s still much to recognize in the confused feelings and social censure faced by such a figure, though what helps make the 1998 stage adaptation (by Brits Andy Graham and Roger Parsley) so compelling a story is the not always flattering complexity and honesty with which Forster portrays the (at least partly autobiographical) Maurice Hall — played winningly by an intelligent, agile Soren Santos in New Conservatory Theatre Center’s persuasive U.S. premiere. Maurice’s outré sexuality is one thing; his class position and status as a man are another, affording him certain limited protection and also contributing to certain weaknesses of character, which become most apparent vis-à-vis his mother (a quietly potent Lindsey Murray) and sister (an effervescent Hilary Hyatt) as well as his second love, ambitious young laborer Alec Scudder (a nicely restrained Andrew Nolan). Director George Maguire rightly concentrates on the reciprocal influences between these vital characters and gets fine performances from his entire cast in an uncluttered, sure and measured production, with capable John Hurst in several supporting roles and Alex Kirschner doing excellent work as Clive Durham, Maurice’s Cambridge classmate and mercurial first love. (Avila)

Merchants Exit Stage Left, 156 Eddy, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $10-25. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through March 24. According to playwright Susan Sobeloff, the vision for Merchants, premiering this month at the EXIT Theatre, came to her after watching Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, a play at least partially responsible for cementing the caricature of the money-hungry Jew in Western literary tradition for centuries to come. Her intention to write a play featuring a family of more "rounded" Jews doesn’t entirely coalesce once it becomes clear that the bulk of the dramatic tension actually revolves very closely around monetary concerns. As one family business folds, and other members get squeezed out of their jobs by the new economy, a new family business of sorts begins to grow around the quirky, confessional performance art of youngest daughter, Mercedes (Maura Halloran). Emotional blackmail and sheer desperation kickstart their efforts to turn Mercedes into a financially-sustainable "brand," while the all too human costs of burnout, fatigue, and simmering resentments are roundly disregarded, until a crisis point is reached. It’s difficult to connect with this particular set of almost comically self-absorbed characters, despite the desire to root for the underdog, and the play would have benefited from a staging that allowed either more humor or more humanity to creep into the relentless tirades that characterize much of the dialogue. (Gluckstern)

The Real Americans Marsh Studio Theater, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $25-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm; Sun/18, 2pm. Extended through April 14. Dan Hoyle revives his hit solo show about small-town America.

*True West Boxcar Studios, 125A Hyde, SF; (415) 967-2227, www.boxcartheatre.org. $25. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through April 7. The first installment of Boxcar Theatre’s four-play Sam Shepard repertory project, True West ushers in the ambitious run with a bang. This tale of two brothers who gradually assume the role of the other is one of Shepard’s most enduring plays, rich with humorous interludes, veering sharply into dangerous terrain at the drop of a toaster. In time-honored, True West tradition, the lead roles of Austin, the unassuming younger brother, and Lee, his violent older sibling, are being alternated between Nick A. Olivero and Brian Trybom, and in a new twist, the role of the mother is being played by two different actresses as well (Adrienne Krug and Katya Rivera). The evening I saw it, Olivero was playing Austin, a writer banging away at his first screenplay, and Trybom was Lee, a troubled, alcoholic drifter who usurps his brother’s Hollywood shot, and trashes their mother’s home while trying to honor his as yet unwritten "contract". The chemistry between the two actors was a perfect blend of menace and fraternity, and the extreme wreckage they make of both the set (designed by both actors), and their ever-tenuous relationship, was truly inspired. (Gluckstern)

Waiting for Godot New venue: SF Playhouse Stage Two, 533 Sutter, SF; (415) 336-3522, www.tidestheatre.org. $20-32. Thurs, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm. Extended through April 14. The fuchsia papier-mâché tree and swirling grey-on-white floor pattern (courtesy of scenic designer Richard Colman) lend a psychedelic accent to the famously barren landscape inhabited by Vladimir (Keith Burkland) and Estragon (Jack Halton) in this production of the Samuel Beckett play by newcomers Tides Theatre. The best moments here broadcast the brooding beauty of the avant-garde classic, with its purposely vague but readily familiar world of viciousness, servility, trauma, want, fear, grudging compassion, and the daring, fragile humor that can look it all squarely in the eye. (Avila)

The Waiting Period MainStage, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Extended through April 27. Brian Copeland (comedian, TV and radio personality, and creator-performer of the long-running solo play Not a Genuine Black Man) returns to the Marsh with a new solo, this one based on more recent and messier events in Copeland’s life. The play concerns an episode of severe depression in which he considered suicide, going so far as to purchase a handgun — the title coming from the legally mandatory 10-day period between purchasing and picking up the weapon, which leaves time for reflections and circumstances that ultimately prevent Copeland from pulling the trigger. A grim subject, but Copeland (with co-developer and director David Ford) ensures there’s plenty of humor as well as frank sentiment along the way. The actor peoples the opening scene in the gun store with a comically if somewhat stereotypically rugged representative of the Second Amendment, for instance, as well as an equally familiar "doood" dude at the service counter. Afterward, we follow Copeland, a just barely coping dad, home to the house recently abandoned by his wife, and through the ordinary routines that become unbearable to the clinically depressed. Copeland also recreates interviews he’s made with other survivors of suicidal depression. Telling someone about such things is vital to preventing their worst outcomes, says Copeland, and telling his own story is meant to encourage others. It’s a worthy aim but only a fitfully engaging piece, since as drama it remains thin, standing at perhaps too respectful a distance from the convoluted torment and alienation at its center. (Avila)

BAY AREA

Cabaret Larkspur Café Theater (American Legion Hall Post 313), 500 Magnolia, Larkspur; www.brownpapertickets.com. $25-45. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm (no show April 8). Through April 15. Independent Cabaret Productions and Shakespeare at Stinson move their production of the Kander and Ebb classic from Fort Mason to the North Bay.

A Doctor in Spite of Himself Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-73. Tues and Thurs-Sat, 8pm (no show March 23); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm). Through March 25. Berkeley Rep performs a contemporary update of the Molière comedy.

*The Kipling Hotel: True Misadventures of the Electric Pink ’80s New venue: Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through May 6. This new autobiographical solo show by Don Reed, writer-performer of the fine and long-running East 14th, is another slice of the artist’s journey from 1970s Oakland ghetto to comedy-circuit respectability — here via a partial debate-scholarship to UCLA. The titular Los Angeles residency hotel was where Reed lived and worked for a time in the 1980s while attending university. It’s also a rich mine of memory and material for this physically protean and charismatic comic actor, who sails through two acts of often hilarious, sometimes touching vignettes loosely structured around his time on the hotel’s young wait staff, which catered to the needs of elderly patrons who might need conversation as much as breakfast. On opening night, the episodic narrative seemed to pass through several endings before settling on one whose tidy moral was delivered with too heavy a hand, but if the piece runs a little long, it’s only the last 20 minutes that noticeably meanders. And even with some awkward bumps along the way, it’s never a dull thing watching Reed work. (Avila)

Mesmeric Revelation Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berk; (510) 558-1381, www.centralworks.org. Thurs/15-Sat/17, 8pm; Sun/18, 5pm. Central Works opens its season of world premieres with Aaron Henne’s Edgar Allen Poe-inspired drama.

Now Circa Then Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; (650) 463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. $19-69. Tues-Wed, 7:30pm; Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through April 1. TheatreWorks performs Carly Mensch’s comedy about a romance that blooms between two historical re-enactors.

The Pirates of Penzance Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College, Berk; (510) 845-8542, www.juliamorgan.org. $17-35. Fri-Sat, 7pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, noon and 5pm. Through April 1. Berkeley Playhouse performs the Gilbert and Sullivan classic, with the setting shifted to a futuristic city.

Titus Andronicus La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $10-20. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through March 31. Impact Theatre takes on the Bard’s bloodiest tragedy.

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh Berkeley, TheaterStage, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Extended run: Sun/18, March 25, and April 1, 11am. Also May 5-27 (Sat-Sun, 11am); June 3-July 15 (Sun, 11am). Louis "The Amazing Bubble Man" Pearl returns with this kid-friendly, bubble-tastic comedy.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

"Arthur in Underland" CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; www.counterpulse.org. Fri-Sun, 8pm. Through March 24. $15-24. Dandelion Dancetheater performs a new work about a young man whose life is changed when he becomes part of a rock group’s entourage.

"The Big Blow" Ebenezer/Herchurch Lutheran, 678 Portola, SF; www.sflgfb.org. Fri/16, 8pm. Free. In honor of the blustery month of March, the San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band performs powerful songs arranged for wind ensembles.

Chitresh Das Dance Company Samsun Hall, Asian Art Museum, 200 Larkin, SF; www.kathak.org. Thurs/15-Fri/16, 7pm; Sun/18, 2pm. $35-55. Chitresh Das Dance Company and the Asian Art Museum present Darbar, a new work in conjunction with the exhibition "Maharaja: The Splendor of India’s Royal Courts."

Dance Repertory Fort Mason Center, Cowell Theater, Marina at Buchanan, SF; (415) 225-0934. "Dance Repertory Review," Fri/16, 8pm; "Vision Series Dance Festival," Sat/17, 4pm and Sun/18, 6pm; "Dance Repertory Extravaganza," Sat/17, 8pm. $15-20. A series of showcases highlights emerging artists and college ensembles.

"Elect to Laugh" Studio Theater, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. Tues, 8pm. Ongoing through Nov 6. $15-50. Will Durst and friends perform in this weekly political humor show that focuses on the upcoming presidential election.

"Enchantingly Wicked" Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness, SF; www.sfgmc.org. March 20-21, 8pm. $15-75. San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus and Stephen Schwartz perform musical theater hits.

"Exit Cuckoo" Women’s Building, 3543 18th St, SF; www.exitcuckoo.com. Sat/17, 8pm. $15. Lisa Ramirez performs her play about working as a nanny in New York City.

"Improvised Shakespeare" Bayfront Theater, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.improv.org. Sat/17 and March 24, 8pm. $20. Bay Area Theatre Sports (BATS) presents Improvised Shakespeare, a fine troupe (and a slightly different lineup each night, but on March 10 including Kasey Klemm, Rebecca Stockley, Tim Orr, William Hall, Zoe Galvez, and Regina Saisi) with no idea what full length Shakespeare-ish play they will lay on their eager audience until the latter gift them with a title and a key word or two. The rest is remarkably well-tethered mayhem, as cast spontaneously riffs on the audience cue, the conventions of Elizabethan drama, and its own inventions —including the unintentional slip of the tongue, which in this context can prove as productive as anything. March 10 saw the premiere — and simultaneous closing — of an ephemeral little comedy called Two Crows. The players strutted and fretted (or frolicked, really) an hour or so upon the stage.’Twas an idiotic tale, told by some of the sharpest improvisers around, and signifying nothing, save good times. (Avila)

"ODC Dance/Downtown" Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Novellus Theater, 700 Howard, SF; www.odcdance.org. March 15-25, programs and showtimes vary. $15-750. ODC/Dance kicks off its 41st annual home season with two programs of new works, plus an opening-night gala.

"Rhythm and Roots" Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Fri/16-Sat/17, 8pm; Sun/18, 6pm. $25-35. San Francisco World Percussion Arts Festival presents this performance of taiko drumming, tabla, dulcimer, Shakuhachi, and dance traditions from Japan, West Africa, and India.

Domestic violence is not a private matter

Andrew Lam
-
3

EDITORIAL The legal case against Sheriff Ross Mirkarmi has been essentially settled, with the sheriff pleading guilty to false imprisonment and avoiding a trial on domestic violence charges, but the political case is just beginning.

Already, there are calls for Mirkarimi to step down. And Mayor Ed Lee announced March 12 that he’s Mirkarimi’s plea to “a very serious charge that had introduce a new set of legal issues” merits a thorough review.

That could lead to an explosive scenario where the Board of Supervisors, in an election year, would have to vote on whether to remove a sheriff who many of the supervisors have worked with and supported over allegations that are in effect political poison. Anyone who wasn’t ready to throw the sheriff out of office could be accused of coddling a wife-beater.

Mirkarimi’s friends and allies say the sheriff didn’t want to plead guilty to anything. But the questionnaires that potential jurors had filled out showed that virtually everyone who might sit in judgment had read the sensational media coverage of the case, and Judge Garrett Wong had refused to move the trial elsewhere. The judge also rejected every significant motion Mirkarimi’s attorney, Lidia Stiglich, made, and allowed into evidence material that the sheriff’s team didn’t think should be admissible. So the situation looked bleak, and Mirkarimi took a deal.

Mirkarimi maintains his innocence, and says he has no intention of stepping down. He agreed to plead guilty to a crime that had very little to do with what happened New Year’s Eve, when the District Attorney’s Office said he got into a physical altercation with his wife that left her with a bruise on her arm. False imprisonment was never one of the original charges; as is often the case in criminal cases, both sides accepted a less-serious charge in the name of getting the deal done.

Why Mayor Lee sees that as “a new set of legal issues” is baffling; the issues are exactly the same as they were before the plea bargain. None of this is to say that the original charges, backed up by well-publicized (although never fully examined in court) evidence, aren’t serious. Domestic violence, as we’ve said repeatedly, is not a private matter, is not a minor crime, and has far too often been ignored by the courts, police, and prosecutors, sometimes with deadly consequences.

But the way this could play out will open Lee to charges of political opportunism. The mayor would need to charge Mirkarimi with “official misconduct,” which is defined in the City Charter:

“Official misconduct means any wrongful behavior by a public officer in relation to the duties of his or her office, willful in its character, including any failure, refusal or neglect of an officer to perform any duty enjoined on him or her by law, or conduct that falls below the standard of decency, good faith and right action impliedly required of all public officers and including any violation of a specific conflict of interest or governmental ethics law.”

Other than the “standard of decency” statute, which is pretty vague, there’s not much in there for Lee to go on. Unless you say that because Mirkarimi pleaded guilty to a crime with “imprisonment” in the name he’s somehow a threat to the inmates at the county jail, which is a huge stretch, it’s hard to call this “official misconduct.” (There is, on the other hand, the argument that Mirkarimi will be on probation, and thus part of the criminal justice system he oversees, and that it’s an inherent conflict of interest. That, however, would mean any sheriff who was on probation for anything would be ineligible to serve, which again is a stretch.)

If the mayor files official misconduct charges, and the Ethics Commission, by a supermajority, agrees, then the Board of Supervisors would serve in effect as a trial body, much as the U.S. Senate does in an impeachment case. Nine of the 11 supervisors would have to vote to permanently remove the sheriff from office.

If Lee takes that path, he’ll be setting in motion a political process that was designed in the Charter for highly unusual situations and has only been used once in the past 40 years. (And in that case, involving Airport Commission member Joe Mazzola, a court later ruled that the charges, involving his role in plumbers’ strike, didn’t rise to the standard of official misconduct.) You have to ask: Is this case, and this misdemeanor charge, worthy of the exercise of what is, by any standard, an extraordinary power vested in the city’s chief executive? Is it worth the political circus that would result from a trial by the supervisors (some of whom might well be asked to recuse themselves because of their prior relationships with Mirkarimi, making it almost impossible to reach the magic number of nine anyway)?

If the voters of San Francisco think the sheriff needs to go, there’s the right of recall — and it will be available the first week in July, when Mirkarimi will have served six months. If there’s not enough organized opposition to make that happen, he’ll be facing the electorate again in three years (and trust us, he will be opposed and every details of these charges will be part of the campaign). He’s going to pay for this far beyond his court-ordered probation and fine.

Whatever the plea deal, Mirkarimi was clearly involved in a bad conflict with his wife that turned physical. Unless the evidence we’ve seen so far is completely misleading, it’s clear that he left her with a bruise — and that he was at the very least nasty and more likely emotionally abusive to her. Now that the legal case is over, he needs to come clean and tell the public exactly what happened that day, at which point we can all decide if we believe him, if he’s shown that he’s changed, and if the public is willing to give him a chance at redemption.

But Lee should think very seriously before he escalates this by filing misconduct charges. Since the ones who have the most to lose from that are the progressives on the board who are often Lee’s foes, it will have the stench of political maneuvering — and at this point, nobody needs that. The mayor says he’s a unifier; this would be the most divisive thing he could do.

Why the Post Office matters

Zelda Bronstein
-
4
Why the Post Office matters

Nobody writes letters any more. My kids barely know what a letter is. We pay our bills online, and when we buy crap valuable consumer items from Ebay or Amazon, they arrive in a UPS truck. With direct deposit, people don’t even get benefit checks in the mail.

Plus, the Post Office is so much a part of old-fashioned government, an agency that people used to relate to in a positive way. These days, it’s all about bloat and pensions and crazy people. So it’s not surprising that conservative politicians would just as soon shut it down, get rid of employee pensions and eliminate one more part of the public sector.

But there are times when the postal system really matters — elections, for example.

As Brian at Calitics points out, a growing number of people in California vote by mail — and when you shut down post offices and processing centers, the mail gets slowed down. That could be a significant factor in a close election. Secretary of State Debra Bowen:

The USPS asserts the closures won’t affect your ballot, but its future best hopes do not coincide with the current reality voters and elections officials have already witnessed in California. When mail facilities closed last year in Monterey, Ventura, and Yuba counties, officials conducting small local elections there reported mail that used to take one to three days to deliver was instead taking five to seven days.

Of course, that would also apply to last-minute attack mail — because political consultants also use the USPS to deliver their positive and negative messages, timed to arrive in the carefull targeted mailboxes just at the right moment.

Some day, we’ll vote by email. But for now, this particular arm of the hated federal government has a really important role.

Why Mirkarimi pled guilty

Zelda Bronstein
-
103
Why Mirkarimi pled guilty

Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi didn’t want to cop a plea. He knew the damage it  would cause to his political career and he was prepared to fight the charges. But when it became clear that he was losing every single motion around the admissibility of evidence, even when he and his attorney, Lidia Stiglich, were convinced they were right on the merits — and when it was clear from juror surveys that virtually everyone in town had read the salacious press accounts and it was impossible to find a neutral jury, he decided he had no choice.

That’s what people close to the sheriff told me shortly after Mirkarimi unexpectedly agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanor false imprisonment. It may seem an odd plea for a sheriff, but it was a way to get rid of the more serious charges. A domestic violence conviction would seriously interfere with Mirkarimi’s job — among other things, nobody with a DV rap can possess a gun — not that the sheriff of San Francisco needs to carry a gun, but in the law-enforcement world, domestic violence is (properly) taken very seriously.

The calls for the sheriff to resign have already started. An informal sfgate poll on the subject is already posted.

I talked to Mirkarimi shortly after he appeared in court, and he told me he has no plans to step down. “I wanted to resolve this matter and move forward with the important work of the department. And I terribly miss my family and I want to be re-united.”

That’s going to be tough — someone will probably try to mount a recall effort and every single detail that has come out so far in the news media will be repeated if and when he runs for re-election in three years. In politics, that’s a long time away — but these kinds of charges never disappear.

People close to the sheriff told me that that Mirkarimi was concerned that he couldn’t find a jury that hadn’t already convicted him in their minds. “The questionnaires were very clear,” one ally said. “Nearly everyone had read the newspapers and already had some kind of a negative opinion.”

Among other things, his friends said, Mirkarimi was concerned that  a former girlfriend, Christina Marie Flores, would be allowed to testify against him — despite what his team considered serious questions about her credibility.

Flores used to be my next-door neighbor and I’ve always been friendly with her. I was on her TV show once. But the news media accounts have essentially ignored a detail that was in one of Mirkarimi’s defense motions:  After they broke up, Flores sent Mirkarimi a hate poem in which she not-terribly subtly threatened to damage his political career.

I’m not going to quote all of the emails cited in the brief (breakup+email=bad news); suffice to say that until December, 2008, Flores was clearly in love with Mirkarimi and sending him passionate notes asking him to reconsider what was obviously a move by Mirkarimi to end the relationship. (And yeah, there were nude pictures that Mirkarimi was supposed to “enjoy when you miss me.” Gak.)

On Jan 2, 2009, the brief states, “having understood that the relationship with Mirkarimi was over, Flores sent Mirkarimi a lengthy hate poem. In startling contrast to her prior e-mails to Mirkarimi, Flores now called Mirkarami `the worst type of waste of air’ and said that there ‘are smarter and more handsome men BY FAR.’

“Flores ended the poem with the following:

So as 2009 rolls in and you roll out
I remember what my life was all about
Surrounded by so many of my friends
I am rich and happy with how my story ends

Except one thing.

I have never had the distinct pleasure
Of meeting such an idiot of such great measure
That freely let me know of things
That could unwind plans of what his political future brings

Yes, I do know those, some of whom you hate.
Who could have a say in your fate
And long friendships with some that you despise
That after the fact have opened my eyes.

What to do with the ball in my court …
Let us see what happens.”

Don’t know who “some of whom you hate” means, but Mirkarimi has had a contentious relationship the San Francisco Police Department. Flores is the daughter of a police officer and the ex-wife of another officer, who happens to be a domestic violence inspector.

Three years after that poem was written, when she heard about the DV allegations against Mirkarimi, she filed a police report alleging similar behavior. She also talked to two newspapers, the Chronicle and SF Weekly.

In her statement to the district attorney’s office, the brief states, “Flores conceded that she wanted to go public for personal reasons: ‘He said that that woman from Venuzuela (Lopez) knew about our relationship and it didn’t matter to her … which I think is a lie. And that’s probably why I’m here because I don’t think she knew.’”

Doesn’t mean that anything she claims about Mirkarimi was untrue. A woman who is mad at her ex-boyfriend for whatever still has every right to complain about domestic violence, even later; if she was physically abused, then what happened at other points in the relationship doesn’t change anything.
But it’s interesting that the daily papers, which reported freely on the prosecution’s side of this story, haven’t mentioned the equally fascinating (and tawdry) allegations in the defense brief.

It’s the kind of thing that, Mirkarimi’s allies say, made it hard to find a fair jury.

Judges these days go out of their way not to exclude evidence in DV cases, and the fact that this was such a high-profile political case made that even more dramatic. Ruling that the videotape of Mirkarimi’s wife crying and showing a bruise and the testimony of an ex-girlfriend who said he abused her inadmissible would most likely have forced the district attorney to drop the charges. Very few judges would want to take that risk.

So now Mirkarimi has to deal with the fallout, and it raises the question: Can the progressive community accept and once again support a sheriff who has all of this baggage? Is there anything Mirkarimi can do to convince his allies and the voters that either (a) the charges were overblown or (b) he’s learned from this, is going into counseling, is a changed person, and can seek political redemption?

The city forgave Gavin Newsom when he had sex with his close friend’s wife (after he allegedly went into treatment for alcohol abuse) and forgave Willie Brown when he impregnated a campaign fundraiser (because nobody cares about that sort of thing these days), but domestic violence is a very different deal. As it should be.

Any yet, some people are clearly willing to give him a chance. Alix Rosenthal, a longtime leader on women’s issues who supported Mirkarimi for sheriff, told me that she doesn’t think he should step down.

“I think this whole thing has been blown way out of proportion,” she said.

Mirkarimi, she noted, needs to publicly go into counseling with his wife (which he can’t do until the stay-away order is lifted — seriously, right now he can’t even go to counseling with his wife) and he needs to make it clear that he’s addressing anger-management issues. But she thinks he can still play a role in the progressive community.

There will be other progressives who disagree, and Mirkarimi will have to win them over. And all the while, the supporters of Chris Cunnie, the former Police Officers Association president who lost to Mirkarimi in the fall, aren’t going to let this go away quietly.

UPDATE: The Chron is already calling on Mayor Ed Lee to “investigate” the sheriff for misconduct. Investigate? As if there’s anything that hasn’t already become public? The real message is that the Chron wants Lee to try to get rid of Mirkarimi. And so it begins.

1...171819...67Page 18 of 67

48hills.org is the official publication of the non-profit San Francisco Progressive Media Center.
Contact us: info@48hills.org