Fashion

Snap Looks: Glamorama fashion director is glamorous

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Snap Looks: Glamorama fashion director is glamorous

I kind of adore that Laura Schara is not just the fashion director who oversees the annual Macy’s fall fashion kickoff show and fiesta, Glamorma  (a valuable fundraiser for AIDS Emergency Fund, Glide, and Project Open Hand), she’s also the offical Macy’s “trend correspondent,” responsible for “translating emerging fashion trends for the department store.” I did not know this position could exist! And while I doubt we’ll be seeing much Hood by Air or RHLS appearing on the couture floor any time soon (maybe I’m wrong), I’m sure she gets to translate a lot of intriguing things.

Like Britain! And Nicole Richie! Glamorama is tonight, Fri/14, the theme is “The British Invasion.” Below, Laura shared a few quick words about the theme, the designers, and the glamour that is SF.

SFBG Could you tell us a little about the British Invasion theme  — did you have a hand in its development? And what specific appeal do you think the theme has for our moment?

LAURA The British seem to be invading pop culture and fashion recently, so that combined with the Olympics and the 50th Anniversary of the Rolling Stones and the Beatles made this seem like the right fit for the theme of Glamorama this year.
 
Also, Duchess Kate has definitely become a fashion icon herself and I think she has influenced some of the current fashion trends.  We are seeing classic dressing make a comeback not only for women but also men. So that also makes this theme the perfect fit this year. 

SFBG How did you choose the designers to work with, and how (if applicable) did you tailor their specific strengths to fit within the theme?

LAURA Each year we chose the designers based on a few things, and we always want to showcase a variety of designers that will appeal to everyone in the audience. We’ll show everything from classic lines, to avant garde and modern, to those contemporary designers. Also we take into consideration of what is new at Macy’s and of course Glamorama being Macy’s fall fashion kick off event, we will launch new lines at this show. This year we are excited to launch Nicole Richie for Macy’s Impulse.

SFBG Do you have overall thoughts about the state of fashion in the Bay Area? What excites you or makes you think?

LAURA I can tell you I have traveled to many destinations working on fashion events and this city always has some of the best shopping in the world.  You can find anything here from talented local designer merchandise to whatever is hot off the runway. It’s one of my favorite cities to shop in.

Symptom of the universe

Andrew Lam
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Symptom of the universe

cheryl@sfbg.com

TRASH Get ready, Damon Packard fans — the mad genius behind underground cult sensations Reflections of Evil (2002) and SpaceDisco One (2007) unfurls his latest, Foxfur, at Other Cinema’s fall season kickoff (also on the bill: Marcy Saude with a slideshow on ufologist George Van Tassel, free champagne and VHS tapes, and more). I spoke with the Los Angeles-based Packard, who hopes to attend in person, ahead of the event.

San Francisco Bay Guardian How long did it take you to make Foxfur?

Damon Packard A little less than two years. I mean, it should have taken a week, because there were so few shooting days. It just took that long because it’s so difficult when you’re working with no money. I was adding little bits right up to the last minute [before the film’s July 21 premiere in SoCal]. Shots of cats, stuff like that.

SFBG Is that why you have something like six different women playing the lead role?

DP Yes. There were always these short windows of time when we had to shoot, and I had to get whoever was available. It became an experiment in the end, with the multiple actresses.

SFBG When people ask you what Foxfur is about, how do you explain it?

DP It’s difficult to sum it up. I would say it’s a UFO sci-fi fantasy, mostly about the Billy Meier Pleiadian contacts of the 1970s. That was the inspiration.

SFBG Many of your previous films made use of non-original footage, like Carpenters videos and old commercials, but Foxfur is all original, isn’t it?

DP Well, I do use music from Tangerine Dream scores: Firestarter, Wavelength (both 1984), things like that. Also some ambient tracks by Steve Roach and Michael Stearns.

SFBG In addition to Foxfur‘s Billy Meier references, the film also has actors portraying David Icke and Bob Lazar. Why conspiracy theorists?

DP Well, they’re part of the Foxfur universe — I like taking real-life characters and incorporating them into a story. Foxfur is obsessed with New Age elements — crystals, dolphins, the Pleiadians — which includes people like David Icke and Richard Hoagland. She’s an avid Coast to Coast AM listener. So yeah, it was supposed to be about her disillusionment. She’s so devastated when she discovers that it’s not real.

SFBG There’s a line in Foxfur about how “everyone is operating in their own vacuum of reality,” and scenes depicting people zoned out on their phones, unhelpful store clerks, and so on. Were those your 21st century frustrations coming out?

DP It happens a lot in real life — everywhere you go, you sort of run into that. Nobody knows anything about anything and nobody wants to help anyone. It’s a kind of apathetic, clueless, state of mind. Or if you need to call your bank, for example, you’re gonna get transferred to all these different worthless departments where people won’t be able to help you. There are always problems, errors, computer systems going down. You can’t get any answers to anything.

SFBG You’ve said in the past that you’re anti-CGI, and Foxfur (which contains the line “I hate Peter Jackson!”) suggests you still feel this way.

DP I do think there’s room for a good balance between practical and digital effects — there’s no reason not to use modern technology. For the most part, though, I hate it. It usually looks awful. I don’t know why other filmmakers, including veteran filmmakers, don’t see that.

I think practical effects are better and always will be, but there aren’t any companies set up to do practical effects anymore. It’s incredibly difficult to do and there aren’t any filmmakers pushing for it. But real explosions, real pyro, always looks better than any kind of digital explosion.

SFBG Is there any hope for the future of film? Or — since Foxfur takes place on the eve of the apocalypse — of humanity?

DP One of the themes of Foxfur is about the “dead zone” — in the film, it’s the time we’re in now, where everything is revolving in circles. It’s a time that wasn’t meant to exist. We’re in the end of the world already.

To me, it feels like music, fashion, it’s all reaching to the past. There’s no new movements going on. It’s a strange time. And movies feel that way too; it seems like everything’s been done already. Everything is an updated variation. I wanted Foxfur to be really pressing in that sense: that there’s no hope, there’s no point in anything. I can’t imagine there’s any future to cinema, or what movies will be like in even five to ten years from now. Are we going to see reboots of reboots? How many reboots can they keep going on with? If it’s not a reboot or a sequel, it’s a reboot or a sequel in disguise.

OTHER CINEMA

Sat/15, 8:30pm (reception at 8pm), $6

Artists’ Television Access

992 Valencia, SF

www.othercinema.com

You’re drinking Air

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You’re drinking Air

marke@sfbg.com

AIR Know that for this article I just spent an ungodly amount of time popping the Youtube replay button on Biggie’s 1995 30-second TV spot for St. Ides malt liquor, “Big Poppa” shoutouts from passing flygirls and all. Why besides the fashion tips, you ask? Turns out St. Ides is from good ol’ San Francisco, created by the McKenzie River Corporation, a somewhat overlooked party beverage marketing powerhouse that also brought us Steele Reserve, Black Star, and the one, the only Sparks, truly the hipster runoff off the ’00s.

But this is about the future, not the past — and what could be more “future is now” than McKenzie’s new product, Air (www.drinkair.com), the “alcohol inspired beverage” that’s started popping up in cuter nightclubs and sublebrity paws. A clear, carbonated, deflavored, de-aromatized malt product with 95 calories and four percent alcohol content per can, and available in berry and citrus flavors, Air is packaged in sleek, thin silver cans, and has variously been described to me as “sparkling alcohol water,” “flavored alcoholic club soda,” “diet vodka,” and “Not Redbull, more like clearbuzz.” All of those are kind of true — and we’re obviously through the cocktail-in-a-can looking class, people.

“We like to describe Air as a more healthy, less filling alternative to regular cocktails — although it tastes pretty great when mixed with vodka like club soda,” McKenzie’s marketing director, Ashley Garver told me over the phone. “It’s for people who want to keep the party going without all the sugar highs and lows or, shall we say, any overestimation of their own limits.”

Air had a pretty auspicious launch — thousands of San Francisco sports fans may remember the dude in the hydraulic jet pack zooming up over McCovey Cove this summer during a particularly iconic moment. “Here we were all excited to try out this brand new jetpack technology,” Garver said with a laugh, “and it turned out to be right when Matt Cain pitches a perfect game for the Giants.

Word’s still out on whether sports fans, notoriously fussy about their beverages, will take to Air. One target audience, smartly, is the electronic dance music crowd, whose booze buzz is a little tricker to uphold than that of the average couch potato’s. “I just got back from the Video Music Awards in LA where we had some great interactions with EDM stars,” Ashley told me. “I got to hang out with Kaskade.” An avowed Mormon, Kaskade might abstain, but his legions of complexly inebriated fans may appreciate Air’s quick refreshment. Probably, too, will the more discerning and diverse crowds at local venues like Mezzanine, 222 Hyde, and 1015 Folsom, where Air is now served. And a team up with the awesome Lights Down Low party at Public Works on September 22 should spread more indie and underground dance-fan Air.

Which brings us to the legendary Sparks saga, which McKenzie marketed to indie and hardcore electro types so well that it pretty much branded a generation and was snapped up by Miller for hundreds of millions of dollars — only to be pulled from shelves due to objections over its deliciously killer combo of sugar, caffeine, taurine, and alcohol. What could possibly ever go wrong with that?

Garver laughs at the memory of Sparks, but stays positively on message: “The country came back to us looking for something lighter, more refreshing, less high octane and more innovative. We’d honestly been wanting to do something like Air for a while, but the technology wasn’t yet available to completely take the taste and smell out of malt liquor and leave something lighter.” (For the record, there still is a very, very slight beery mouth-feel of malt that’s not quite covered up by the carbonation or natural flavoring, but if you’ve ever woken up on a 40 oz. pillow, this mouth-feel is of infinitely minuscule concern.)

And what about that effete forerunner of Air, the clear malt liquor drink of the ’90s that became a famous running joke? Is Air just a zombie Zima? Or is it zomething different?

Garver laughs again. “I can certainly see where that comes from, but Air has like one third the calories and alcohol content of Zima, and it’s much more versatile. We have no added sugar so we’re a lot more healthy.

“Well, I guess I don’t know if you can ever get healthy drinking an alcoholic product. But we’re certainly aiming to make you feel lighter.”

 

Doc ‘Girl Model’ investigates the dark side of the catwalk

Sue Vaughan
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Doc ‘Girl Model’ investigates the dark side of the catwalk

The recent outcry over a “Team Supermodel” strut showing off British fashion during the Olympics’ closing ceremony underlined a dichotomy: as much as people want the conventional glamour of the moment, they don’t want to feel guilty about it, i.e. have it exposed by direct comparison to the purportedly natural physical beauty of athletes.

Yet there are parallels between these two groups, particularly in the realm of concerns about weight and drugs. Plus, being a sports star and a model are both roles that allow the performer to actually merit being “entitled.” Everyone wants to be special — though of course that only works if other people aren’t.

The disturbingly instructive new documentary Girl Model (opening Fri/14) makes a good case for not encouraging such desires in your child, because the likelihood is that someone will come along to exploit that desire, convincingly promise them fame, then leave them worse off than before, with debts accrued from the dream that didn’t come true. “The first secret to a successful modeling career is to start modeling at five or ten years old,” says an emcee at a cattle-call showcase early on in David Redmond and Ashley Sabin’s film. It’s Russia, where the relatively new capitalism trickles down even less than here, so the families are even more eager to turn little Svetlana into a moneymaker. But that way lies madness, or at least deceit and disappointment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHWDLkkOk4Y

Plucked from a couple hundred pretty, rail-thin girls — the lucky ones are reassuringly told, “We’ll put you on a diet” — 13-year-old wide-eyed blonde Nadya Vall is yanked from her rural Siberian village and mother and sent to Japan, where she fits a general type sought there. One that is willowy, “innocent,” but mostly just plain young. The younger the better, as talent scout Ashley Arbaugh tells us, qualifying that it’s not her taste, but she’s learned to see through the clients’ eyes. An ex-model herself (who “hated it,” and is seen in footage she videotaped of that career years earlier when she was 18), Ashley gives off disillusioned, compromised vibes. She constantly seems on the verge of confessing some horrible truth about the business, but is held back by good taste or the Russian mafia or her own maternal instincts toward her charges. It takes a while for us to realize that she’s a user and a hypocrite — not a buffer between the girls and harsh reality but a key part of the problem herself.

Nadya has never traveled abroad and speaks no languages but her own. She arrives in Tokyo (an overwhelming place for even the best-prepared visitor) alone; no one shows up to meet her. Of course she’s homesick — she’s a child. But worse than her fast, unkind education and personal sacrifice is that there appears to be no reward. A Japanese agency admits that there’s little use for such “new faces” sans portfolio here, even though he and the Russian agency (whose flamboyant chief simpers “Just like Noah saved all the animals, I’m trying to save these girls … in a way for me it’s a religious matter,” sounding about as convincing as a Fox pundit) promise their young recruits exactly the opposite.

Needless to say, Nadya ends up owing rather than making money. Meanwhile Ashley lounges around the immaculate, expansive, coldly all-white house her job as middleman has earned (and which she’s about to sell at a profit). She has two plastic baby dolls she keeps around, and shows off snapshots she’s surreptitiously taken of models’ extremities. She is creepy, never more so than when she visits Nadya and a roommate at their flat and is as uneasy playing the best-friend-slash-minder as they are having her there. At one point we learn she has two stomach growths that must be operated on, and rather than feeling sympathy, we wonder if this is some cancerous manifestation of her having exchanged the role of exploited for exploiter.

At the end she’s straight-facedly telling a new group of parents “Every model has success in Japan, unlike other markets where they might go into debt. They never do in Japan.” She’s even picked another 13-year-old protegee from the crowd — one that, like Nadya, will probably be fired once she’s been snagged in debt for gaining as little as a centimeter in waist, hips, or bust. This is the point in a Harry Potter movie or other fantasy where the wicked witch would be surrounded by tell-tale black smoke, or reveal her true ugly face. But this is the real world, and Ashley stays pretty on the outside.

GIRL MODEL opens Fri/14 in Bay Area theaters.

3D knits, canapes, moving mannequins: Shots from Fashion’s Night Out

Andrew Lam
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Shots by Bowerbird Photography

Models and mannequins started to blend together. Downtown SF was abuzz with fashion frenzy on Thursday for Fashion’s Night Out — a multi-store extravaganza taking place in urban areas across the country.

The streets were filled with wonderfully-outfitted fashionistas and all the fancy department stores were filled with up-do stations, makeover fun, nibbles, and bubbly — and even a little local indie love. Holy Stitch, a custom denim/hem and repair company who “assists denim lovers of the most passionate and exacting breed,” and was on location to bedazzle shoppers’ jeans, as part of a pop-up fashion shop curated by the Bold Italic at Macy’s.

There were also iPad portrait sketches and fall lines on display by SF fashion students, including the chunky and luxurious sweaters by Jeanette Au. Fun for all those with a love for fashion!

Stage Listings

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

THEATER

OPENING

Asteroids: Live! Dark Room Theater, 2263 Mission, SF; (415) 401-7987. $20. Opens Fri/7, 8pm. Runs Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 29. Interstellar comedy “based very, very loosely on the arcade game.”

Kiss of the Spider Woman Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason, SF; secondwind.8m.com. $15-35. Opens Fri/7, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Sept 29. Second Wind presents Manuel Puig’s acclaimed drama about cellmates in a Buenos Aires jail.

Placas Lorraine Hansberry Theater, 450 Post, SF; www.sfiaf.org. $13-35. Opens Thu/6, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Sept 16. San Francisco International Arts Festival, Central American Resource Center, and the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts present Paul S. Flores’ world premiere drama, starring Ric Salinas as a former gang member who tries to mend fences with his family when he gets out of prison.

Port Out, Starboard Home Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.foolsfury.org. $12-35. Previews Fri/7-Sat/8, 8pm. Opens Mon/10, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat and Sept 19, 8pm; Sept 23, 2pm. Through Sept 23. foolsFURY performs the world premiere of Sheila Callaghan’s black comedy.

The Real Americans Marsh Studio Theater, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $25-50. Opens Fri/7, 8pm. Runs Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Through Sept 29. Dan Hoyle’s hit show about his trip across America returns.

“San Francisco Fringe Festival” Exit Theatreplex, 156 Eddy, SF; www.sffringe.org. Most shows $10 or less (five-show pass, $40; ten-show pass, $75). Sept 5-16. The 21st annual fest of unconventional, raw theater presents over 200 performances of 42 shows in 12 days.

Strange Travel Suggestions MainStage, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Opens Sat/8, 8:30pm. Runs Sat, 8:30pm. Through Sept 29. Author and Ethical Traveler founder Jeff Greenwald (Shopping for Buddhas, Snake Lake) has done his solo show Strange Travel Suggestions dozens if not hundreds of times and still has no idea where it’s going. No wonder he and his audience keep coming back for more. The unknown, an aphrodisiac to the traveler, also makes great catnip for the storyteller. Still, there are consistent elements. There is no need to reinvent the wheel — or the impressive Wheel of Fortune that sits just off center stage, painted with a map of the globe and ringed with symbols abstract and evocative enough to conjure up myriad adventures, peak experiences, and humbling encounters from the vivid grab-bag memory of an accomplished travel writer and inveterate globetrotter. There’s also a real grab bag, just in case, and an oversize tarot card, a sort of visual aid cum talisman sporting a classic image of the Fool, patron saint of the traveler’s heedless leaps of faith. Greenwald’s stories possess a fine sense of humor and a knack for the shrewd detail and telling observation. They also contain a Zen-inflected homespun wisdom no doubt born of leaving home on a regular basis. If slightly self-conscious at times, these tales are always genuine and appealing. In the end, Greenwald’s show, as reliable as it is unpredictable, mimics a genie-from-a-bottle experience: What you get is three spins, three stories, and a lot of unexpected truth. Note: capsule condensed from 2008 feature review of this production. (Avila)

Tripping on the Tipping Point Stagewerx, 446 Valencia, SF; (707) 322-5731. $15-20. Opens Thu/6, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 29. Human Nature performs a new comedy about global warming.

ONGOING

Henry V Presidio of San Francisco, Main Post Parade Ground Lawn, SF; www.sfshakes.org. Free. Sat-Sun, 2pm. Through Sept 23. The San Francisco Shakespeare Festival celebrates the 30th anniversary of Free Shakespeare in the Park with this history play.

My Fair Lady SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $30-70. Tue-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm). Through Sept 29. SF Playhouse and artistic director Bill English (who helms) offer a swift, agreeable production of the Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe musical, based on George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion. The iconic class-conscious storyline revolves around a cocky linguist named Higgins (Johnny Moreno) who bets colleague Colonel Pickering (Richard Frederick) he can transform an irritable flower girl, Eliza Doolittle (Monique Hafen), into a “lady” and pass her off in high society. A battle of wills and wits ensues — interlarded with the “tragedy” of Alfred Doolittle (a shrewd and gleaming Charles Dean) and his reluctant upward fall into respectability — and love (at least in the musical version) triumphs. The songs (“Wouldn’t It Be Loverly,” “I Could Have Danced All Night,” “Get Me to the Church on Time,” and the rest) remain evergreen in the cast’s spirited performances, supported by two offstage pianos (brought to life by David Dobrusky and musical director Greg Mason) and nimble choreography from Kimberly Richards. Hafen’s Eliza is especially admirable, projecting in dialogue and song a winning combination of childlike innocence and feminine potency. Moreno’s Higgins is also good, unusually virile yet heady too, a convincingly flawed if charming egotist. And Frederick, who adds a passing hint of homoerotic energy to his portrayal of the devoted Pickering, is gently funny and wholly sympathetic. (Avila)

Rights of Passage New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Sept 16. New Conservatory Theatre Center presents the world premiere of Ed Decker and Robert Leone’s multimedia play, inspired by global human rights laws in relation to sexual orientation.

Vital Signs Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sun, 7pm. Extended through Sept 16. The Marsh San Francisco presents Alison Whittaker’s behind-the-scenes look at nursing in America.

Twelfth Night San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park, Hyde Street Pier, 2905 Hyde, SF; www.weplayers.org. $30-80. Opens Fri/7, 5:30pm. Runs Fri-Sun, 5:30pm (also Sat-Sun, noon; matinee only Sept 22; no performances Sept 29; evening performances only Oct 6-7). Through Oct 7. We Players board the Balclutha and the Eureka for this jazzy take on Shakespeare’s romance.

The Waiting Period MainStage, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Extended through Sept 29. 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)

War Horse Curran Theatre, 445 Geary, SF; www.shnsf.com. $31-300. Wed/5-Sat/8, 8pm (also Wed/5 and Sat/8, 2pm); Sun/9, 2pm. The juggernaut from the National Theatre of Great Britain, via Broadway and the Tony Awards, has pulled into the Curran for its Bay Area bow. The life-sized puppets are indeed all they’re cracked up to be; and the story of a 16-year-old English farm boy (Andrew Veenstra) who searches for his beloved horse through the trenches of the Somme Valley during World War I, while peppered with much elementary humor too, is a good cry for those so inclined. The claim to being an antiwar play is only true to the extent that any war-is-hell backdrop and a plea for tolerance count a melodrama as “antiwar,” but this is not Mother Courage and no serious attempt is made to investigate the subject. Closer to say it’s Lassie Come Home where Lassie is a horse — very ably brought to life by Handspring Puppet Company’s ingenious puppeteers and designers, and amid a transporting and generally riveting mise-en-scène (complete with pointedly stirring live and recorded music). But the simplistic storyline and its obvious, somewhat ham-fisted resolution (adapted by Nick Stafford from Michael Morpurgo’s novel) are too formulaic to be taken that seriously. And at two-and-a-half-hours, it’s a long time coming. A shorter war, the Falklands say, would have done just as well and gotten people out before the ride began to chafe. (Avila)

BAY AREA

Chinglish Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-99. Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm; no show Oct 5; no 2pm show Sat/8; additional 2pm shows Thu/6 and Oct 4); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm). Through Oct 7. Berkeley Rep presents the West Coast premiere of David Henry Hwang’s Broadway comedy.

The Death of the Novel San Jose Rep, 101 Paseo de San Antonio, San Jose; www.sjrep.com. $23-69. Opens Wed/5, 7:30pm. Check web site for schedule. Through Sept 23. Vincent Kartheiser (a.k.a. Pete Campbell from Mad Men) stars in Jonathan Marc Feldman’s drama about creativity in post-9/11 America at San Jose Rep.

The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; (510) 843-4822, www.auroratheatre.org. $32-60. Tue and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm); Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 30. Playwright Kristoffer Diaz, a self-professed fan of the aggressively-theatrical spectacle that is professional wrestling, delivers much more than a “wrestling 101” primer for the uninitiated with The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity. Beneath the razzle-dazzle of the arena lighting (Kurt Landisman), the gaudy costuming (Maggie Whitaker) and the giant televised image of a hot bikini babe (Elizabeth Cadd, video by Jim Gross) lies the trampled luster of an American Dream. The dreamer, Macedonio “The Mace” Guerra (Tony Sancho), a wiry fall guy for THE Wrestling, wrestles not for money or glory (he is rarely privy to either), but for his love of the strange ballet that occurs in the ring. Guerra’s job is to make his opponents look good, including the pec-flexing, bling-booted Chad Deity (Beethovan Oden), leaving him to wrestle alone with the identity politics of being a marginalized but fully capable warrior battling perennially stacked odds. Willing suspension of disbelief does get stretched pretty thin when the character Vigneshwar Paduar, a smooth-talking hustler chance-met on the basketball courts of Brooklyn, rises to championship levels in record-breaking time as the truly cringe-worthy persona known as “The Fundamentalist,” but Nasser Khan’s skillfully self-possessed performance as Paduar makes it impossible not to root for him all the way. Rod Gnapp as foul-mouthed bossman “EKO” and fight director Dave Maier as a whole squadron of hapless B-list wrestlers round out the excellent cast. (Gluckstern)

The Fisherman’s Wife La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $10-20. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 29. The latest from playwright Steve Yockey (Bellwether, Skin) is an exercise in pure pleasure, not least for the devious sea creatures preying lustily and unashamedly on the hapless human flesh of a small coastal town. There, in cracked fairytale fashion, an unsuccessful fisherman named Cooper Minnow (an endearingly nerdy but passionate Maro Guevara) is preparing to set out to sea, leaving at home frustrated wife Vanessa (a wonderfully, volcanically bitchy yet complex Eliza Leoni) and their sinking marriage, when he meets an oddly brazen pair of sexy, sassy bathers in old-fashioned beach attire (the swimmingly synchronized duo of Sarah Coykendall and Roy Landaverde). At more or less the same moment, a devilishly dashing yet prim traveling salesman (poised, nicely offbeat Adrian Anchondo) is offering a clearly aroused Vanessa an erotic woodcut featuring monstrous tentacles groping human victims at a very familiar-looking dock. Will she take the woodcut? Will she ever! And later she’ll defend her husband’s honor and swap places with him too, much to the commercial advantage of the ever-accommodating salesman who — like Yockey’s smart and sure sex farce — has a little something for everyone. Directed with smooth precision by Ben Randle for Berkeley’s Impact Theatre, The Fisherman’s Wife again finds Yockey playing productively with the fine fuzzy line separating human nature from nature at large (as in Large Animal Games, the winning 2009 co-production from Impact and Dad’s Garage). The animals come through for playwright and company once more, with a thoroughly enjoyable comedy whose borrowed maritime mythos has just enough metaphorical pull to lead those so inclined out beyond the shallow waters. (Avila)

Keith Moon/The Real Me TheaterStage at the March Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sept 13, 20, and 27, 8pm. Mike Berry workshops his new musical, featuring ten classic Who songs performed with a live band.

The Kipling Hotel: True Misadventures of the Electric Pink ’80s Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through Oct 14. 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)

A Midsummer Night’s Dream Forest Meadows Amphitheater, 890 Belle, Dominican University of California, San Rafael; www.marinshakespeare.org. $20-35. Check website for schedule. Through Sept 30. Marin Shakespeare Company performs the Bard’s classic, transported to the shores of Hawaii.

Our Country’s Good Redwood Amphiteatre, Marin Art and Garden Center, 30 Sir Francis Drake, Ross; www.porchlight.net. $15-30. Thu/6-Sat/8, 7:30pm. Porchlight Theatre Company presents an outdoor performance of Timberlake Wertenbaker’s play about Royal Marines and prisoners in an 18th century New South Wales prison colony.

Precious Little Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $18-25. Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat/8, 3pm); Sun, 5pm. Through Sept 16. Shotgun Players presents Madeleine George’s new play about an expectant mother who studies near-dead languages and befriends a “talking” gorilla.

Time Stands Still TheatreWorks at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, SF; www.theatreworks.org. $23-73. Tue-Wed, 7:30pm; Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Sept 16. TheatreWorks performs Donald Marguelis’ drama about a couple — one a photojournalist, one a war correspondent — struggling with their recent experiences covering a war.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

BATS Improv Bayfront Theater, B350 Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.improv.org. Thu-Sat, 8pm. $10-25. This week: “An Improv Team Named Desire and Flux Capacitor” (Thu/6); “25th Annual Gala and Fundraiser” (Fri/7); “BATS Improv SF vs. Impro Theatre LA” (Sat/8).

“Comedy Returns to El Rio!” El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; www.koshercomedy.com. Mon/10, 8pm. $7-20. Stand-up with Diane Amos, Malcolm Grissom, Jill Bourque, Kevin Young, and host Lisa Geduldig.

“Dancing Poetry Festival” Florence Gould Theater, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, Lincoln Park, SF; www.dancingpoetry.com. Sat/8, noon-4pm. $4-15. The 19th annual fest celebrates poetry and dance as a unified art form.

“Elect to Laugh” Studio Theater, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. Tue, 8pm. Through Nov 6. $15-50. Veteran political comedian Will Durst emphasizes he’s watching the news and keeping track of the presidential race “so you don’t have to.” No kidding, it sounds like brutal work for anyone other than a professional comedian — for whom alone it must be Willy Wonka’s edible Eden of delicious material. Durst deserves thanks for ingesting this material and converting it into funny, but between the ingesting and out-jesting there’s the risk of turning too palatable what amounts to a deeply offensive excuse for a democratic process, as we once again hurtle and are herded toward another election-year November, with its attendant massive anticlimax and hangover already so close you can touch them. Durst knows his politics and comedy backwards and forwards, and the evolving show, which pops up at the Marsh every Tuesday in the run-up to election night, offers consistent laughs born on his breezy, infectious delivery. One just wishes there were some alternative political universe that also made itself known alongside the deft two-party sportscasting. (Avila)

“A Funny Night for Comedy” Actors Theater of San Francisco, 855 Bush, SF; www.natashamuse.com. Sun/9, 7pm. $10. Natasha Muse and Ryan Cronin host this comedy show, presented in talk-show format, with guests Caitlin Gill, Kaseem Bentley, and Jesse Fernandez.

“Mary Mack Comedy Show” Gallery and Bar 4N5, 863 Mission, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Tue/11, 7:30pm. $15. Mandolin-infused folk comedy with Mary Mack.

“A Pinoy Midsummer” Bindlestiff Studio, 185 Sixth St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm). Through Sept 15. $10-20. A re-imagining of Shakespeare with Philippine folklore, shadow puppets, and other Pinoy elements.

“10 Acrobats in an Amazing Leap of Faith” CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; www.counterpulse.org. Fri/7-Sat/8, 8pm; Sun/9, 2pm. Yuseff El Guindi’s comedy is about a conflicted Muslim family during the month of Ramadan in post-9/11 America.

On the Cheap Listings

Andrew Lam
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0

Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

WEDNESDAY 5

Humpday happy hour Good Vibrations, 2504 San Pablo, Berk.; 1620 Polk, SF. www.goodvibes.com. 6:30-7:30pm, free. The strap-on: a necessity to many, mind-boggling to others, both to some. In Berkeley, tool over to your local Good Vibes for this guided shopping event where experts will talk to you about what you need to look for in a falsie friend. At the chain’s Polk Street location, GV employees will demystify the 50 Shades of Grey phenomenon. What will it take for you to recreate a scene with your own Christian Grey? Chances are, you’ll find the tools you need here.

THURSDAY 6

"Captured: Specimens in Contemporary Art" Bedford Gallery, Lesher Center for the Arts, 1601 Civic Dr., Walnut Creek. (925) 295-1417, www.bedfordgallery.org. Through Nov. 18. Opening reception 6-8pm, $5. Trend watch! Throughout our history, humans have appropriated the natural world as raw material for our bizarre artistic impulses. Nowhere is this more true than in Walnut Creek, where a new exhibit opens showcasing reassembled taxidermy, curiosity cabinets, and specimen boxes.

Geoff Manaugh talks applied topology Banatao Auditorium, Sutardja Dai Hall, UC Berkeley. (510) 495-3505, bcnm.berkeley.edu. 5-7pm, free. Things we know: Manaugh used to be a senior editor at Dwell Magazine, and a contributing editor at Wired UK. Currently, he runs a think tank for the Columbia University architecture department. Today’s UC Berkeley talked will be, according to the press release, about "burglary, tunneling, and urban perforation." In other news, UC Berkeley can sometimes create really confusing press releases.

Fillmore Fashion Night

MADison Avenue party Cartoon Art Museum, 655 Mission, SF. www.cartoonart.org. 7-9pm, $5-500. Celebrate the closing of "What, Me Worry?: 60 Years of Mad Magazine" at this little downtown shrine to the drawn and funny. Early 1960s attire is encouraged – in fact, you’ll get your date in for free if you’re both wearing Mad Men-style flair.

FRIDAY 7

Paralympics viewing party LightHouse for the Blind, 214 Van Ness, SF. (415) 694-7350, www.lighthouse-sf.org. 6-8pm, free. RSVP recommended. This center for the visually-impaired is celebrating its brand-new entertainment center with this party for the London 2012 Paralympic Games. Yes, there will be pizza.

"Party Like It’s 1906" One City One Book launch party The Green Arcade, 1687 Market, SF. www.sfpl.org. 7pm, free. It’s always a good idea to celebrate author-sociologist Rebecca Solnit, and no day better than today, when the SF Public Library launches a citywide reading of her community-forged-in-disaster book A Paradise Built in Hell. It’s the eighth time the library’s encouraged the city to read together, and today Solnit will be on hand, and snacks they were noshing around the time of the 1906 SF earthquake will be available like oysters, sourdough bread, and beer.

Night Market Public Works, 161 Erie, SF. www.publicsf.com. 5-9:30pm, $5. "Bacon Crack" chocolates, vegan soul food, and champagne funnel cakes go fabulously with a ukulele chanteuse — as any attendee of Forage SF’s upcoming Night Market will be able to attest. The organization dedicated to promoting ultra-local nourishment has been striking gold with this recurring nightlife-snack event, at which local small vendors rub elbows with the Bay’s musicos, DJs, and of course, party-hard foodies. Check out Uni and Her Ukulele, the 29th Street Swingtet, and Izzy*Wise.

KALX 50th anniversary art exhibit opening Rock Paper Scissors Collective, 2278 Telegraph, Berk. kalx.berkeley.edu. 6-9pm, free. For a half-century, UC Berkeley’s been home to 90.7 FM, a.k.a. KALX, where John Lennon talked People’s Park riots and Green Day crashed when they came to town. Come tonight to check out a collection of KALX paraphernalia, flyers, and historic photos.

SATURDAY 8

All You Can Dance Alonzo King Lines Dance Center, 26 Seventh St., SF. dancecenter.linesballet.org. 1-5pm, $5. Don’t know jack about dancing? Take a four-hour crash course today, with a sampling of mini-courses on ballet, flamenco, Chinese movement, hip-hop, modern, and more. Teachers will be on hand to possibly turn you on to a whole new beat of your heart.

Babylon Salon Cantina, 580 Sutter, SF. www.babylonsalon.com. 7pm, free. Explore the Bay at this evening of readings – you’ll hear tales from a special education classroom, from assassinated journalist Chauncey Bailey’s finals days and ensuing trial, plus words from the "refreshingly off-kilter" (according to the NY Times Book Review) Lysley Tenorio. Cash bar on-site.

SUNDAY 9

The Last Picture Show free screening Berkeley Underground Film Society, The Tannery, 708 Gillman, Berk. berkeleyundergroundfilms.blogspot.com. 7:30, donations suggested. Small town life examined, in this film about Anarene, Texas, and a bunch of kids just trying to get along. High school honey Jacey is the babe every one wants, but will the perfect sweetheart be enough to counteract the slow death of the town she calls home?

TUESDAY 11

Jefferson Graham’s "Video Nation: A DIY Guide to Planning, Shooting, and Sharing Great Video" The Booksmith, 1644 Haight, SF. (415) 863-8688, www.booksmith.com. 7:30pm, free. These days, it’s all about video. Author Graham knows it – that’s why he compiled this book on how to create the best footage for bloggers, web show hosts, and small business owners. The USA Today columnist and tech video host shares how to get your clip to go viral.

Women’s comedy night The Layover, 1517 Franklin, Oakl. www.feelmore510.com. 7pm, free. Sponsored by downtown Oakland’s sex-positive community shop Feelmore510 (a Best of the Bay 2012 winner!), this evening is for female-focused yucksters. Grab a drink, peruse the art that covers the Layover’s walls, and ready yourself for quips.

Is it hot in here, or is that just Maru? Uniqlo brings techy wonderclothes, cult cat to SF

Andrew Lam
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0

It was a foggy, sloppy evening in Golden Gate Park, and I was activating my gloom-whine during our walk to Pasquale’s but then: HEATTECH. Thanks Uniqlo! Your Union Square pop-up, and impending West Coast flagship store opening, half-translated catch phrases, mega-cheap Hiroshima-born line of basic clothing, and all, saved my dinner date.

Though, the pop-up shop that is now open isn’t the dreamland of cheap basics and jewel tones I’d been promised — stock is mainly limited to HEATTECH, cashmere sweaters, puffy jackets and the zipper-free “easy legging pants” I am now living in. (I prefer to refer to them as “future pants,” but believe the layperson terminology would be “jeggings.”) The day we visited, it was staffed about three times as heavily as it needed to be — hyper-training sessions for the future staff of its store at 111 Powell set to open on October 5.

Clothes that make you warmer

Why should you care about another affordable shop for solid t-shirts when that neighborhood already hosts a passel of H&Ms, Forever 21s, and other number-initial combos? I don’t see those chains featuring Maru in any of their opening-day promos, firstly.

Secondly, the fog monster. I was a little skeptical of some of Uniqlo’s HEATTECH line of clothing claims (the unnamed anti-perspiration chemicals in its men’s clothes gave me pause, and the fact that the women’s line eschews these for an “extra-soft” fabric feel is not that cute.) But gender-neutrality aside, those “hollow fiber threads” that Uniqlo uses to make its patterned and plain-colored line of turtlenecks, tank tops, and long-and-short-sleeved HEATTECH shirts are on the money, when it comes to depression-producing SF freeze. Time will tell how many washes the effect will withstand, but my boatneck long-sleeve was magic on aforementioned Golden Gate hike. 

I’m hoping to learn more about this miracle of wardrobe at the brand’s upcoming fashion-tech panel discussion, where Yasunobu Kyogoku, Uniqlo’s chief operating officer will chat with Refinery29 editor Katie Hintz-Zambrano, director of merchandising for the Academy of Art’s fashion school Keanan Duffty, and Brit + Co.‘s Brit Moran. They’re covering clothing technology, which includes how its marketed on ye olde social networks. 

“Making Life a Little Better” Uniqlo fashion-tech panel discussion

Thu/6 6-9pm (panel at 7pm), free with RSVP

Uniqlo pop-up

117 Post, SF

www.uniqlo.com/us

King Khan shares his spiritual side, hosts tarot reading contest

Tony Robles
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After talking to Arish “King” Khan over the phone last Friday, I got a sense of a more spiritual and sympathetic side as opposed to the notorious showman he’s become over the years. Along with his band — the Shrines, he’ll bring his traveling stage show to the Great American Music Hall on Tuesday. He spoke to me from Berlin, his residence for more than a decade, where he raises his family (yes, the man we’ve seen prance around on stage in sequined undies and flashy, feathery costume is also a father) in what continues to become a rapidly “hipster-fied” artists’ mecca.

Khan touched on his musical roots in Montréal where he was a 17-year-old-punk doing interviews with the likes of Napalm Death and the equally teenaged and “obnoxious” Jay Reatard  for a magazine known in the late 1990s as “Voice of Montréal.” It would later be renamed Vice. In fact one of his earlier bands, the Spaceshits (featuring Mark Sultan, a.k.a. BBQ) had a guitarist who designed the magazine’s current logo.

But it was this environment that would also serve as his training ground, where he’d learn his craft; absorb his antics and prepare to launch his own ritualistic rock and soul experience.

“When I was a kid, I’d be like 10 and watching infomercials for oldies music collections and saw Otis Redding, James Brown, Chuck Berry, and Bo Diddley. That’s really something essential to rock and roll — people who are characters.”

Character is one thing the ostentatious one isn’t short on, but his backing musicians in the Shrines are nothing to scoff at either. One of them, Ron Streeter, is a veteran percussionist who previously worked for Curtis Mayfield and Stevie Wonder.

Khan told some of Streeter’s story, how he became somewhat estranged from his family; not having seen his brother, a Vietnam vet, for over 25 years. He mentions Streeter had a stroke a few years before joining the band and lost power in half of his body. Khan said he’s always upbeat and that in the beginning, when they were touring, sleeping on floors, doing it “punk style,” that the elder was always fine with it.

“It was like he was reliving his past. Ron has been with us for 12 years. He’s like the grandpa of the band,” Khan said. “I found him when he started playing with people [because he wasn’t doing much anymore] and so I invited him to join. I think the Shrines thing is a big family.”

And for Streeter it would be a family reunion when lo and behold his family finally saw him in Texas on Current TV performing with the Shrines. Khan called it a miracle.

He said while every religion has something to offer, music is his salvation.

“It’s a pretty simple formula. You’re giving off a ritual. A lot of bands forget to do that.” He said some concertgoers revel in what he called an orgiastic, orgasmic experience of uncontainable energy. And he loves that younger people come out to his shows. “It’s great that kids aren’t hypnotized by bullshit,” he said.

While it’s not exactly hypnotism, Khan does partake in reading tarot cards. He learned about this after meeting surrealist filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky in Paris a few years back. The maker of Holy Mountain, a film Khan considers one of the most psychedelic ever made, gave him a pack of cards and he considers it an honor (he took it to heart and wrote a tarot column for a French fashion magazine).

Are you a big fan of King Khan & The Shrines and tarot cards? Want King Khan to read your tarot? If so, please email info@gamh.com describing why you want King Khan to do your personal reading. It’ll take place on Tuesday, Sept. 4 before their Great American Music Hall show in SF. All entries must be received by noon this Friday, Aug. 31.

King Khan and the Shrines
With Apache
Tues/4, 8pm, $16
Great American Music Hall
859 O’Farrell, SF
www.slimspresents.com

Stage Listings

Andrew Lam
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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

Henry V Presidio of San Francisco, Main Post Parade Ground Lawn, SF; www.sfshakes.org. Free. Opens Sat/1, 2pm. Runs Sat-Sun and Mon/3, 2pm. Through Sept 23. The San Francisco Shakespeare Festival celebrates the 30th anniversary of Free Shakespeare in the Park with this history play.

Twelfth Night San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park, Hyde Street Pier, 2905 Hyde, SF; www.weplayers.org. $30-80. Previews Sat/1-Sun/2, 5:30pm. Opens Sept 7, 5:30pm. Runs Fri-Sun, 5:30pm (also Sat-Sun, noon; matinee only Sept 22; no performances Sept 29; evening performances only Oct 6-7). Through Oct 7. We Players board the Balclutha and the Eureka for this jazzy take on Shakespeare’s romance.

BAY AREA

Chinglish Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-99. Opens Wed/29, 8pm. Runs Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm; no show Oct 5; no 2pm show Sept 8; additional 2pm shows Sept 6 and Oct 4); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm). Through Oct 7. Berkeley Rep presents the West Coast premiere of David Henry Hwang’s Broadway comedy.

The Death of the Novel San Jose Rep, 101 Paseo de San Antonio, San Jose; www.sjrep.com. $23-69. Previews Thu/30, 7:30pm; Fri/31-Sun/2, 2pm (also Sun/2), 7pm. Opens Sept 5, 7:30pm. Check web site for schedule. Through Sept 23. Vincent Kartheiser (a.k.a. Pete Campbell from Mad Men) stars in Jonathan Marc Feldman’s drama about creativity in post-9/11 America at San Jose Rep.

ONGOING

Daughter of the Red Tzar Thick House Theatre, 1695 18th St, SF; www.thickhouse.org. $30. Fri/31-Sun/2, 8pm. ScolaVox and First Look Sonoma present the world premiere of Lisa Scola-Prosek’s chamber opera about a meeting between Churchill, Stalin, and Stalin’s teenage daughter.

My Fair Lady SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $30-70. Tue-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm). Through Sept 29. SF Playhouse and artistic director Bill English (who helms) offer a swift, agreeable production of the Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe musical, based on George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion. The iconic class-conscious storyline revolves around a cocky linguist named Higgins (Johnny Moreno) who bets colleague Colonel Pickering (Richard Frederick) he can transform an irritable flower girl, Eliza Doolittle (Monique Hafen), into a “lady” and pass her off in high society. A battle of wills and wits ensues — interlarded with the “tragedy” of Alfred Doolittle (a shrewd and gleaming Charles Dean) and his reluctant upward fall into respectability — and love (at least in the musical version) triumphs. The songs (“Wouldn’t It Be Loverly,” “I Could Have Danced All Night,” “Get Me to the Church on Time,” and the rest) remain evergreen in the cast’s spirited performances, supported by two offstage pianos (brought to life by David Dobrusky and musical director Greg Mason) and nimble choreography from Kimberly Richards. Hafen’s Eliza is especially admirable, projecting in dialogue and song a winning combination of childlike innocence and feminine potency. Moreno’s Higgins is also good, unusually virile yet heady too, a convincingly flawed if charming egotist. And Frederick, who adds a passing hint of homoerotic energy to his portrayal of the devoted Pickering, is gently funny and wholly sympathetic. (Avila)

Rights of Passage New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Sept 16. New Conservatory Theatre Center presents the world premiere of Ed Decker and Robert Leone’s multimedia play, inspired by global human rights laws in relation to sexual orientation.

Vital Signs Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. New show day and date: Sun, 7pm. Extended through Sept 16. The Marsh San Francisco presents Alison Whittaker’s behind-the-scenes look at nursing in America.

The Waiting Period MainStage, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri, 8pm (starting Sept 6: also Thu, 8pm); Sat, 5pm. Extended through Sept 29. 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)

War Horse Curran Theatre, 445 Geary, SF; www.shnsf.com. $31-300. Wed-Sat, 8pm (also Wed and Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through Sept 9. The juggernaut from the National Theatre of Great Britain, via Broadway and the Tony Awards, has pulled into the Curran for its Bay Area bow. The life-sized puppets are indeed all they’re cracked up to be; and the story of a 16-year-old English farm boy (Andrew Veenstra) who searches for his beloved horse through the trenches of the Somme Valley during World War I, while peppered with much elementary humor too, is a good cry for those so inclined. The claim to being an antiwar play is only true to the extent that any war-is-hell backdrop and a plea for tolerance count a melodrama as “antiwar,” but this is not Mother Courage and no serious attempt is made to investigate the subject. Closer to say it’s Lassie Come Home where Lassie is a horse — very ably brought to life by Handspring Puppet Company’s ingenious puppeteers and designers, and amid a transporting and generally riveting mise-en-scène (complete with pointedly stirring live and recorded music). But the simplistic storyline and its obvious, somewhat ham-fisted resolution (adapted by Nick Stafford from Michael Morpurgo’s novel) are too formulaic to be taken that seriously. And at two-and-a-half-hours, it’s a long time coming. A shorter war, the Falklands say, would have done just as well and gotten people out before the ride began to chafe. (Avila)

BAY AREA

Blithe Spirit Bruns Amphitheater, 100 California Shakespeare Theater Way, Orinda; www.calshakes.org. $35-71. Wed/29-Thu/30, 7:30pm; Fri/31-Sat/1, 2pm; Sun/2, 4pm. Noël Coward’s 1941 comedy, not exactly a paean to marriage, is nevertheless a romantic romp with just enough meat on its ethereal subject to make a meal of its triangular love affair. Appearing as the relevant points on that geometric form are a witty Coward-esque writer, Charles Condomine (Anthony Fusco), his confident equal and second wife Ruth (René Augesen), and the uninvited ghost of his first wife, Elvira (Jessica Kitchens). The unwieldy ménage arises from Charles’s invitation to a local medium (Domenique Lozano), from whom he hopes to cull a juicy detail or two for his next book. He and Ruth, as well as their other dinner guests, Dr. and Mrs. Bradman (Kevin Rolston and Melissa Smith), do get a fine show out of the eccentric soiree, but soon Charles finds he’s also now being haunted by Elvira, who only he can actually see and hear and who adamantly refuses to leave. Um, yeah: awkward. Anyway, what happens next is solidly entertaining in director Mark Rucker’s polished production for Cal Shakes. Fusco and Augesen are a droll pair, while a beaming Kitchens brings a much appreciated brightness to the proceedings, even as Lozano’s exuberant innocent, Madame Arcati, comes over as perhaps the most persuasive of all. (Avila)

The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; (510) 843-4822, www.auroratheatre.org. $32-60. Previews Wed/29, 8pm. Opens Thu/30, 8pm. Runs Tue and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm); Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 30. Aurora Theatre Company opens its 21st season with Kristoffer Diaz’s comedy about pro wrestlers.

The Fisherman’s Wife La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $10-20. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 29. The latest from playwright Steve Yockey (Bellwether, Skin) is an exercise in pure pleasure, not least for the devious sea creatures preying lustily and unashamedly on the hapless human flesh of a small coastal town. There, in cracked fairytale fashion, an unsuccessful fisherman named Cooper Minnow (an endearingly nerdy but passionate Maro Guevara) is preparing to set out to sea, leaving at home frustrated wife Vanessa (a wonderfully, volcanically bitchy yet complex Eliza Leoni) and their sinking marriage, when he meets an oddly brazen pair of sexy, sassy bathers in old-fashioned beach attire (the swimmingly synchronized duo of Sarah Coykendall and Roy Landaverde). At more or less the same moment, a devilishly dashing yet prim traveling salesman (poised, nicely offbeat Adrian Anchondo) is offering a clearly aroused Vanessa an erotic woodcut featuring monstrous tentacles groping human victims at a very familiar-looking dock. Will she take the woodcut? Will she ever! And later she’ll defend her husband’s honor and swap places with him too, much to the commercial advantage of the ever-accommodating salesman who — like Yockey’s smart and sure sex farce — has a little something for everyone. Directed with smooth precision by Ben Randle for Berkeley’s Impact Theatre, The Fisherman’s Wife again finds Yockey playing productively with the fine fuzzy line separating human nature from nature at large (as in Large Animal Games, the winning 2009 co-production from Impact and Dad’s Garage). The animals come through for playwright and company once more, with a thoroughly enjoyable comedy whose borrowed maritime mythos has just enough metaphorical pull to lead those so inclined out beyond the shallow waters. (Avila)

For the Greater Good, Or The Last Election This week: Nicholl Park, Richmond; www.sfmt.org. Free (donations accepted). Thu/30, 7pm. Also Dolores Park, 19th St at Dolores, SF; www.sfmt.org. Free (donations accepted). Sat/1-Mon/3, 2pm. Various venues through Sept. 8. “Don’t they understand that without us they don’t have anything?” asks Gideon Bloodgood (Ed Holmes), investment banker at the top of the San Francisco Mime Troupe’s vivisection of the “real” American Dream, For the Greater Good, Or the Last Election. But surely the hero of a Mime Troupe show cannot possibly be a billionaire? Well, sort of. Though Bloodgood enriches himself dishonestly with precarious investments and outright theft in this Occupy-era melodrama, he actually does occasionally spare a sentiment for Mom and apple pie, or anyway his daughter Alida (Lisa Hori-Garcia) and cookies baked by the unsuspecting victim of his ill-gotten gains, the Widow Fairweather (Keiko Shimosato Carreiro) — now living at the last Occupy encampment standing in the city. Alida, however, displays no compunction in throwing aside his affection and her prospective seat in Congress, running off to join the occupiers for reasons that truthfully appear about as politically motivated as her father’s parasitic avarice, leaving him to join forces instead with the most unlikely of allies — the impeccable, ingenuous Lucy Fairweather (Velina Brown), heiress to a stolen legacy, and staunch patriot. Based loosely on 19th century play The Poor of New York, The Last Election attempts to turn a presumptive ode to the free market into its swan song with good-humored, if predictable, results. (Gluckstern)

Keith Moon/The Real Me TheaterStage at the March Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sept 13, 20, and 27, 8pm. Mike Berry workshops his new musical, featuring ten classic Who songs performed with a live band.

The Kipling Hotel: True Misadventures of the Electric Pink ’80s Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through Oct 14. 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)

A Midsummer Night’s Dream Forest Meadows Amphitheater, 890 Belle, Dominican University of California, San Rafael; www.marinshakespeare.org. $20-35. Check website for schedule. Through Sept 30. Marin Shakespeare Company performs the Bard’s classic, transported to the shores of Hawaii.

Our Country’s Good Redwood Amphiteatre, Marin Art and Garden Center, 30 Sir Francis Drake, Ross; www.porchlight.net. $15-30. Thu-Sun, 7:30pm. Through Sept 8. Porchlight Theatre Company presents an outdoor performance of Timberlake Wertenbaker’s play about Royal Marines and prisoners in an 18th century New South Wales prison colony.

Precious Little Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $18-25. Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat/1 and Sept 8, 3pm); Sun, 5pm. Through Sept 16. Shotgun Players presents Madeleine George’s new play about an expectant mother who studies near-dead languages and befriends a “talking” gorilla.

Time Stands Still TheatreWorks at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, SF; www.theatreworks.org. $23-73. Tue-Wed, 7:30pm; Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Sept 16. TheatreWorks performs Donald Marguelis’ drama about a couple — one a photojournalist, one a war correspondent — struggling with their recent experiences covering a war.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

BATS Improv Bayfront Theater, B350 Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.improv.org. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 8. $10-25. This week: “The Fosse Posse and From Scratch” (Thu/30); “Romantic Comedy Musical” (Fri/1); “Bond…Improvised Bond” (Sat/2).

“Elect to Laugh” Studio Theater, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. Tue, 8pm. Through Nov 6. $15-50. Veteran political comedian Will Durst emphasizes he’s watching the news and keeping track of the presidential race “so you don’t have to.” No kidding, it sounds like brutal work for anyone other than a professional comedian — for whom alone it must be Willy Wonka’s edible Eden of delicious material. Durst deserves thanks for ingesting this material and converting it into funny, but between the ingesting and out-jesting there’s the risk of turning too palatable what amounts to a deeply offensive excuse for a democratic process, as we once again hurtle and are herded toward another election-year November, with its attendant massive anticlimax and hangover already so close you can touch them. Durst knows his politics and comedy backwards and forwards, and the evolving show, which pops up at the Marsh every Tuesday in the run-up to election night, offers consistent laughs born on his breezy, infectious delivery. One just wishes there were some alternative political universe that also made itself known alongside the deft two-party sportscasting. (Avila)

“RAWdance presents the Concept Series: 12” 66 Sanchez Studio, SF; www.rawdance.org. Sat/1-Sun/2, 8pm (also Sun/2, 3pm). Pay what you can. Informal and intimate salon of contemporary dance, with Smith/Wymore Disappearing Acts, Yayoi Kambara, Palanza Dance, detour dance, and Chris Black.

Brian Regan Cobb’s, 915 Columbus, SF; www.cobbscomedyclub.com. Fri/31, 8 and 10:15pm; Sat/1, 7:30 and 9:45pm. $45. The comedian performs a rare club date.

“The Romane Event Comedy Show” Make-Out Room, 3225 22nd St, SF; www.pacoromane.com. Wed/29, 8pm. $10. Comedy with Joe Tobin, Mike Spiegelman, Sergio Barajas, Sandra Risser, and host Amy Miller.

“Tagabanua” Union Square Park, Geary and Stockton, SF; www.kularts.org. Sun/2, 2pm. Free. Kularts attempts a world record for largest Palawan dance event with an outdoor performance of Jay Loyola’s folkloric work. Learn the choreography at Kularts’ website and join the flash mob.

You must have a Peaches Christ mask

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You must have a Peaches Christ mask

Er, if you have $200 to spare for this flawless Nikki Dyer latex piece. Clean with warm water. Do not scrub; just wipe away dirt. And maybe keep away from kids? 

A vision in Vocaloid: Fashion shots from J-Pop Summit Festival 2012

Andrew Lam
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Black lace, kimonos, and colorful wigs ruled the day this weekend in Japantown at the J-Pop Summit Festival Aug. 25-26. Also popular this year, for those of you trend-spotting, were sweetly wobbling attenae, which announced the presence of the head attached as they weaved through the booths, stopping here and there to check out the Vocaloid dance contest, an Evangelion fan’s robotic get-up, or the Sunday performance by 18-year singer Kylee. Although there was music, food, and things to buy, it was really all about the clothes. Whether they were dressing up to be a favorite anime character or simply sporting super-sweet tights or an awesome leather jacket, those on the street were working it in some pretty amazing threads.

City College board takes first step toward scaling back its mission

Sasha Cuttler
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[CORRECTED BELOW] The first step was taken in changing City College of San Francisco’s educational mission at last night’s Board of Trustees meeting, a decision that would drastically alter what programs the college funds and who it serves.

The college’s mission statement is an overarching funding guideline, according to Gohar Momjian, the college’s accreditation liaison officer. She presented the mission statement workgroup’s findings to the college’s board and a packed room of faculty and students last night.

Momjian oversees the 15 workgroups responsible for addressing the major areas the Accrediting Commission of Community and Junior Colleges told the school it has to rectify. A failure to do so by March 2013 could result in the revocation of the school’s accreditation, which is necessary for the college’s degrees to be recognized and for the school to receive federal funding.

Simply put, City College was tasked by the ACCJC to gets its mission in line with current fiscal realities. The workgroups, tasked with brainstorming ways to reshape the college and meet the criteria of the accreditation team’s findings, will use the new mission statement as a guide for what programs are viable, said Momjian.

So what was cut out of the new mission statement? Completion of adult high school diplomas, GED’s (which help students test out of high school), active engagement in the social fabric of the community, lifelong learning, life skills, and enrichment courses were all dropped from the revised mission statement. [[8/27 CORRECTION: Transitional Studies, which includes GEDs and basic adult education, ended up being in included in the primary mission]].

In their place was a statement making these things “conditional” on available resources. “In addition, the college offers other programs and services consistent with our primary mission, only as resources allow and whenever possible in collaboration with partnering agencies and community-based organizations,” reads the new draft statement of the college’s mission.

Essentially, the college promises to enrich the community only if the resources are available to do so. Students and faculty from classes geared towards older adults and also disabled students came out to oppose changes to the mission statement, and a loss of their funding.

“We have students that will wait 40 minutes in the rain in a wheelchair for a bus to get to class,” Disabled Students Programs and Services faculty Katherine Brown said to the board.

Shelly Glazer, faculty in the older adults program, left the board with a warning. “Here are the almost 2,000 letters written to the Student Success Task Force when they tried to cut our dollars,” Glazer said, dropping the huge stack of paper on the top of the podium. “They need your support, and you need theirs.”

Importantly, English as Second Language classes and basic skills classes were preserved in the primary mission guideline. “There are compromises made in the mission statement. There are things we can do under [better] conditions,” said Momjian in her report to the board. “That was our compromise.”

The board made a motion to approve the new draft mission statement, and voted unanimously in favor. The board will look at a second revised mission statement on Sept. 11, and take a final vote to amend the mission statement on Sept. 27. The draft mission statement can be read at the City College website here.

Forty-five problem areas were found in City College’s financial structures by a financial consulting group at the same college board meeting last night. The findings left the college board nearly speechless once the report was complete.

The Financial Crisis Management Team, known as FCMAT, was paid for by the state community college chancellor’s office and assigned to City College to help it review its finances. This was good timing with the recent accreditation troubles, but officially has no connection to the recent accreditation team visit or with any direction from the state chancellor’s office, FCMAT Chief Analyst Michelle Plumbtree told the college board.

Plumbtree and her associate Mike Hill made the presentation to the board on behalf of the four members of the “financial SWAT team,” as they’ve been dubbed by the board in the past. The report it gave to the board that night was only the tip of the iceberg.

“The report itself is going to be in the realm of 65 pages. There are about 45 specific recommendations,” said analyst Mike Hill. “But we do want to give you a sense of some of our observations first, and some of our recommendations grouped together.”

The hit list was read in a bullet point fashion, and as he rattled off each of the findings, the silence in the room deepened:

  • The district has made a cost structure over time that can’t be sustained in this economy.
  • The district opted for short term solutions.
  • Employee contracts have been made without long-term analysis.
  • Decision making has been made by power and political whim rather than logic and fairness.
  • The conduct of key leaders and the culture within the district have greatly diminished the role and the effectiveness of the management team.
  • The district lacks data to assess sites.
  • The district supports much more faculty than its closest peers.
  • There’s a history of maintaining a small fund balance, with 90-92 percent of the budget being committed to salary and benefits, the college needs to make adjustments.
  • The department chair structure is not cost effective nor administratively sound.
  • We’re recommending a reduction in full time faculty through attrition.
  • We’re recommending the district not subsidize categorical programs, and that current subsidies be reassessed (the state cut funding for some categorical programs, like the second chance program, and City College has been eating that cost to the tune of around $20 million a year, according to AFT 2121 president Alisa Messer).
  • Consider either elimination of department chairs or diminish them while empowering deans and giving them the ability to act.”

“There’s a lot there, it covers a lot of territory, and you need to see the context and data and analysis in order to have informed questions, or else you’ll be spinning our wheels,” Hill said to the stunned board.

Chief Analyst Michelle Plumbtree concluded by cautioning the board against inaction. “The circumstances the district found itself did not happen overnight, decisions made over many years brought you here,” she said. “You’re going to have to move quicker than you want to, but that’s what’s needed.”

“Some of these things are new to me, but some of these things have come up in work groups. Some of these things are things we’ve known for years,” board President John Rizzo said after the report concluded. Financial administrators at City College declined to comment before the release of the full report. The 65-page final report will be made public on Sept. 18, and given to the college board a few days before that, Plumbtree said.

The City College Board of Trustees motioned to delay one of their most controversial votes at last night’s board meeting.

The board hopes to bring in a “special trustee,” who would be provided by the state, to help guide them through their recent accreditation woes. A special trustee is not simply a guide. A special trustee has veto power over the college board, giving the trustee unilateral decision making powers, according to college officials that night.

Most of the board welcomed the notion of outside help. The board has asked for $1.5 million dollars in cuts that never got made, Rizzo said, arguing for the need for the special trustee.

“It’s an enormous wealth of expertise that we do not have…We need someone from the outside to tell us where that mistake was made,” Rizzo said.

Trustee Chris Jackson wasn’t sure that the board had full knowledge of what it was asking. “I support a special trustee, but I have questions…How long would a trustee be here? What’s the process of asking them to leave?” Jackson asked, to the applause of the audience.

It was student Trustee William Walker who clarified the students’ position. He had a meeting with students the previous day, and they strongly disagreed with bringing in a special trustee to help run the school.

Given the history of special trustees in college districts, it’s not surprising why. A report by the LA Sentinel shows the discord brought by one special trustee to the Compton community college district, also facing accreditation woes. To read a report of Compton College’s and how it mirrors City College, check out the Guardian report “Saving City College.”

Special trustee Dr. Genethis Hudley-Hayes, was removed from her position as special trustee by State Community College Chancellor Jack Scott last September, according to the Sentinel article. The article cites multitudes of complaints against her by the community, who wrote a six page letter to Gov. Jerry Brown and Scott asking for Hayes’ removal.

“Who do you serve and why are you here?” Associated Students President Shanell Williams said to the board during its public comment session. “It’s shameful… If you can’t make decisions without a special trustee, then we need a new board.”

Student Kitty Lui said that the board’s decision to bring in a special trustee would undercut the democratic will of the community.
“If you don’t know how to move forward, I don’t know why you’re still here,” she said.

Despite students’ objections, if the board does not choose a special trustee, the likelihood is that one will be imposed on them, Jackson said. The board ultimately decided to shelve the decision until a special meeting on Sept. 11.

Interestingly, the “financial SWAT team,” FCMAT, thinks that a special trustee is a good idea. “To have an outside expert is always good,” FCMAT Chief Analyst Michelle Plumbtree told The Guardian. “Sometimes, you’re just too close.”

Our Weekly Picks: August 22-28

Andrew Lam
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WEDNESDAY 22

Time Stands Still

The Tony-nominated (Best Play 2010) play Time Stands Still comes to Theatreworks Mountain View, after the hugely successful Broadway run starring Laura Linney. The play, written by Pulitzer Prize winner Donald Margulies, is the intriguing story of a couple traumatized by their work in Afghanistan — one as a photojournalist, one as a print journalist. Margulies explores how they attempt, through their professions, to bring insight into the US occupation. The central theme explored is the division between the professional and personal, and how nonexistent the line between the two can become, when a journalists’ foreign correspondent work is so emotionally taxing. While the play works on a larger political scope about the implications of US foreign policy, soldiers, and civilian deaths, the perspective is told through the couple, exploring what drives them to this dangerous profession. (Shauna C. Keddy)

8pm, $31–$51

Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts

500 Castro, Mountain View

(650)- 903- 6000

www.theatreworks.org

 

AM and Shawn Lee

London-based musician-producer Shawn Lee has established himself as one of the foremost retro-futurists currently in on the scene. Recalling the prolificacy of John Zorn, the aesthetic consistency of Stereolab, and the endearingly hokey escapism of a Martin Denny record, Lee has stumbled upon a winning balance between exotica and funk. Based in LA, indie-popster AM takes a similarly exotic approach, and having toured with Air and Caetano Veloso, he seems due for a Lee collaboration. So, things should get interesting when the two join forces on the Cafe Du Nord stage, cranking out space-age-bachelor-pad music with a singer-songwriter’s touch. (Taylor Kaplan)

With Nina Moschella

8pm, $12

Cafe Du Nord

2170 Market, SF

(415) 861-5016

 www.cafedunord.com


THURSDAY 23

Kool A.D.

Victor Vazquez, a.k.a. Kool A.D., represents one third of Das Racist, the politico-rap genius group that brought us the viral hit “Combination KFC and Taco Bell” in 2008. Though Das Racist hails from Queens, Kool A.D. grew up in San Francisco, and lately he’s been getting back to hit roots on the best coast. 51, Kool A.D.’s brand new mixtape, was recorded in Oakland and features an impressive array of local talent, including budding rap duo Main Attraktionz and longtime artist and activist Boots Riley. The lyrics, which continue Das Racist’s tradition of quick wit and scathing sociopolitical criticism, are peppered with Bay-centric references. Victor, it’s good to have you back. (Haley Zaremba)

With Fat Tony, Main Attraktionz, Trackademics, Kech Phrase

9pm, $20

New Parish

579 18th St., Oakl.

(510) 444-7474

www.thenewparish.com

 

The Iguanas

Formed in New Orleans back in 1989, the Iguanas quickly started blending a host of musical and cultural influences, drawing inspiration from each of the members’ backgrounds, ranging from Latin and Mexican sounds to the deep rooted styles of Southern blues and country, all boiled together in a rockin’ gumbo befitting their adopted hometown. Their latest record, Sin To Sin, came out this past April, full of the same fiery spirit and attitude that kept them going even after having to leave the Big Easy for a time after Hurricane Katrina. (Sean McCourt)

With Beso Negro

8pm, $16

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

(415) 885-0750

www.slimspresents.com


FRIDAY 24

Mica Sigourney’s Work MORE! #5

This latest iteration of the searching, always surprising drag performance event curated by VivvyAnne ForeverMORE! (drag alter ego of artist Mica Sigourney) promises to be one of the coziest, most unusual, maybe least comfortable, maybe more exciting yet. Again blurring the line between nightlife and theater realms, this weekend’s show divides the stage into quadrants, in each of which unfolds a distinct time-based performance as audiences press in and rotate through sort of haunted-house style. In addition to ForeverMORE!, the drag queens, dancers, visual artists, and designers participating include Diamanda Callas, John Foster Cartwright, Liz Tenuto, Mona G. Hawd, Tessa Wills, and Martha T. Lipton (the failed actress). (Robert Avila)

Fri/24-Sun/26, 8pm, $15–$20

CounterPULSE

1310 Mission Street, San Francisco

(415) 626-2060

www.counterpulse.org

 

Cannibal Corpse

Buffalo, New York’s death metal deity Cannibal Corpse is about to celebrate 25 years of brutality, and the band is gearing up for the anniversary with the Summer Slaughter tour, a national run that includes a laundry list of some of death metal’s biggest and blackest names. The tour coincides with the release of its 12th album Torture, a seamless continuation of the group’s signature pounding cacophony and ultra-violent lyrical content. Cannibal Corpse’s flair for all things horrific has lead to its music being banned in several countries throughout its career. So metal. (Zaremba)

With Between the Buried and Me, The Faceless, Periphery, Veil of Maya, Job for a Cowboy, Goatwhore, Exhumed, Cerebral Bore

2:30pm, $32.50

Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

(415) 346-6000

www.thefillmore.com

 

The Very Best

The Very Best’s latest album MTMTMK represents the first time the band recorded as a duo, following the departure of original member, Parisian producer Etienne Tron. If anything, Malawian singer Esau Mwamwaya and London-based producer Johan Hugo have turned up the intensity, setting an uplifting tone throughout the album. Mwamwaya alternates between English and his native Chewan, and his ascending vocals provide a sharp contrast to Hugo’s quick and bass-heavy club beats. Hugo adds in enough Afrobeat and reggae to keep listeners engaged. Renowned African musicians K’Naan, Baaba Maal and Amadou a Mariam all make supportive cameos. (Kevin Lee)

With Seye, Palner, Miles the DJ

9pm, $15

Mezzanine

444 Jessie, SF

(415) 625-8880

www.mezzaninesf.com


SATURDAY 25

Foreverland

Michael Jackson might be moonwalking around the giant amusement park in the sky, but Foreverland won’t stop ’til we get enough. This time, SF’s premiere tribute act to the King of Pop is going all out, adding a string section to its 14-piece lineup, and for good reason; this August marks not only MJ’s 54th birthday, but the 25th anniversary of Bad (1987), as well. Ever wanted to hear “Smooth Criminal,” embellished by a team of six percussionists? Or, “The Way You Make Me Feel,” with the dynamics of a live band replacing the, arguably, dated ’80s production sound? (Sorry, Quincy Jones.) Then, jump on it! (Kaplan)

9pm, $22

Bimbo’s 365 Club

1025 Columbus, SF

(415) 474-0365

www.bimbos365club.com

 

Rock the Bells

With an impressive list of both up-and-coming acts and long prevailing hip-hop royalty, this weekend’s Rock the Bells fest is bound to be a titillating conglomerate of endless styles and sounds. Look to A$AP Rocky chanting effortless swag while transforming the typical rhythm and rhyme in to a codeine-infused fusion of his favorite regional influences. Or J Cole to worry earnestly aloud about 21st-century problems, set to 1990s jazz beats. But at the end of the night, leave it to masters like DMX and Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, who have stood the test of the Internet boom and Tumblr rap-craze, to show how certain thematic and lyrical concerns have continued to stay in focus throughout the last decade in hip-hop. (Soojin Chang)

11am, $265 for two-day tickets

Shoreline Amphitheatre

1 Amphitheatre, Mountain View

www.rockthebells.net

 

Slaughter By The Water

Looking for a real “heavy metal” festival? How about one that takes place on 33,000 tons of floating steel? Hosted by Testament’s Chuck Billy, Slaughter By The Water 3 features Bay Area thrash legends Exodus, along with Autopsy, Impaled, Philm, Fog of War, Severed Fifth and more, all performing on the USS Hornet, a World War II era aircraft carrier that is now a museum in Alameda. In addition to the Hornet’s legendary combat service, it is also purportedly one of the most haunted ships in the world — will a day and night of blasting metal be enough to wake and raise the dead? Find out at one of the most unique shows to come along in some time. (Sean McCourt)

Pier Stage: noon-9pm, free

Main Stage: 5:30-12:30am, $35–$45

USS Hornet

707 W. Hornet Ave., Pier 3, Alameda

www.slaughterbythewater.com


SUNDAY 26

Theophilus London

The charismatic and eclectic Theophilus London gained notoriety by splicing together a few clever bootleg compilations. The Trinidad-born, New York-based emcee rhymes over Bill Withers and Kraftwerk while slipping in some original works on 2009’s “This Charming Mixtape.” In last year’s debut LP “Timez Are Weird These Days,” (Warner Bros.) London crooned over indie pop, new wave, and electro-tinged productions. Latest mixtape “Rose Island Vol. 1” sees London switch back to rhymes, while borrowing from Wang Chung, Marvin Gaye and Big Boi. Confused yet? Outside of music, London is setting trends and foraying into fashion design. London’s recently released $360 rose-embroidered velvet slippers could describe the tastemaker himself — smooth, stylish, and perhaps just a touch showy. (Lee)

With Iamsu and Antwon

8pm, $20 Mezzanine

444 Jessie, SF

(415) 625-8880

www.mezzaninesf.com


MONDAY 27

Maurya Kerr/tiny pistol

This coming Monday at Z Space will be both depressing and exhilarating. Maurya Kerr, a 12-year Alonzo King Lines Ballet dancer whose career in 2006 prematurely ended due to injury, will present the first full evening of her own choreography. At the same time, her concert will be the curtain call for San Francisco’s long running WestWave Dance Festival, which, during its 21 years, presented 523 choreographers, 393 world premieres and 2,092 performances. Kerr, who has been choreographing around the country, made her WestWave debut last year with “Billy Tate,” a finely crafted solo whose thrust strongly communicated Kerr’s artistic intent. For this concert she and her nine tiny pistol dancers are preparing three works: “Buck” (2011), “Sick with Joy” (2011), and the world premiere of “FreakShow”, an exploration of otherness. (Rita Felciano)

8pm, $18–$23

Z Space

450 Florida, SF

www.zspace.org

www.brownpapertickets.com

 

Bomb the Music Industry!

New York’s Bomb the Music Industry! likes to do things its own way. Since 2004, the band has been recording its spastic ska-punk in basements and bedrooms, releasing it for free, encouraging fans to make their own T-shirts and bring their own instruments to shows, and generally just doing its best to stir things up. Beyond the DIY charm, Bomb the Music Industry! produces some of the funniest, most poignant music you’ll never hear. The songs are a little too heavy on inside jokes and the recordings a little too raw for the band to ever reach mass appeal, making it one of independent music’s best-kept secrets. Sadly, being this underground is not exactly lucrative. The band has announced that this summer likely marks its final tour. You won’t want to miss it. (Zaremba)

With Classics of Love, Street Eaters, Point of View

8:30pm, $9

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St., SF

(415) 626-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com

 

Clipd Beaks

Post-punk? Indie rock? Industrial? Like TV on the Radio, or Liars, Oakland’s Clipd Beaks like to keep us guessing, and for that reason, they’re one of the most fascinating outfits the Bay Area has to offer. Taking thorny, decidedly un-hooky hooks, and drowning them in dense layers of reverb and noise, Clipd Beaks is much more production-focused than your average five-piece rock band. (Kaplan)

With Creepers, Feral Kizzy, Disappearing People, DJ Longhairs

9pm, $5

Elbo Room

647 Valencia, SF

(415) 552-7788

www.elbo.com


The Guardian listings deadline is two weeks prior to our Wednesday publication date. To submit an item for consideration, please include the title of the event, a brief description of the event, date and time, venue name, street address (listing cross streets only isn’t sufficient), city, telephone number readers can call for more information, telephone number for media, and admission costs. Send information to Listings, the Guardian Building, 135 Mississippi St., SF, CA 94107; fax to (415) 487-2506; or e-mail (paste press release into e-mail body — no text attachments, please) to listings@sfbg.com. Digital photos may be submitted in jpeg format; the image must be at least 240 dpi and four inches by six inches in size. We regret we cannot accept listings over the phone.

Too $hort signs on for Cow Palace sex soirée

Andrew Lam
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Too $hort luvs porn stars. In fact, sometimes he needs them. The Oakland rapper performed with a passel of them onstage at this year’s AVN Awards, and if you need more proof, this: he’s headlining next month’s Cow Palace pervfest (handily stepping in to replace the now-defunct Exotic Erotic Ball), the XO Ball and Expo.

He joins a list that also includes adult flick luminaries Tori Black, Chanel Preston, Stoya, and the puzzle tattoo-covered, chainsaw-to-the-face wielding Enigma. What else will you find at the open-to-all-sexualities soirée on Folsom Street Fair weekend, besides another change to wear your Mr. S pyramid swirl pouch? Burlesque, a freak show, aerial performances, and erotic art and fashion. No indiscriminate groping please.

XO Ball and Expo

Expo Sept. 21, 5-11pm; Sept. 22 11am-6pm; $20-35/day

Ball Sept. 22, 8pm-2am, $50-200

Cow Palace

2600 Geneva, SF

www.xoexpo.com

On the Cheap Listings

Andrew Lam
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Listings compiled by Caitlin Donohue. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

WEDNESDAY 15

Smack Dab open mic Magnet, 4122 18th St., SF. www.magnetsf.org. 8pm, open mic sign-up starts at 7:30pm, free. Magnet, the Castro’s neighborhood health clinic hosts this open mic for all ages and genders. Lewis DeSimone, author of Chemistry and The Heart’s History, will be the night’s featured reader but everyone is welcome to bring in up to five minutes of shareable words.

Competitive Erotic Fan Fiction Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. www.hemlocktavern.com. 6-8pm, $10. The San Francisco debut of LA’s sexy comic showdown, this installation of CEFF brings 10 comics to the stage to share their fan fic-themed smut. Some even take audience suggestions in their creative process, so bring your dirty minds.

THURSDAY 16

Ruben Martinez The Booksmith, 1644 Haight, SF. (415) 863-8688, www.booksmith.com. 7:30pm, free. The Western plains of the United States that once were home to Native American tribes and later, roaming cowboys, are now the scene of an entirely different wild frontier. Post-colonial author Martinez reads from his time spent researching Marfa, Texas; the banks of the Rio Grande; and the Tohono O’odham reservation in his research for Desert America: Boom and Bust in the New “New West.”

“Discover the Birds of Honduras” Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda, Berk. (510) 843-2222, www.northbrae.org. 7-9pm, free. The Golden Gate Audubon Society sponsors this talk by Robert Gallardo, who has opened butterfly farms and spent 12 years as a bird guide. Today, Gallardo presents some of the 750 bird species of Honduras, home to nearly 10 percent of the planet’s winged species.

Squeeze This! A Cultural History of the Accordion in America Accordion Apocalypse, 255 10th St., SF. www.accordionapocalypse.com. 7pm, free. Author Marion Jackson penned this look at our country’s relationship with the squeezebox. Should you be inspired to tickle the ivories yourself, you can buy an accordion of your own from the lecture’s gracious hosts.

San Jorocho Festival Brava Theater, 2781 24th St., SF. (415) 641-7657, www.brava.org. 8pm, $6-$35. Brava’s celebration of the Veracruz region of Mexico kicks off tonight with filmmaker Marcos Villalobos presenting his documentary on three Son Jorocho musicians. Son Siglos looks at the cross-border translation of culture – particularly pertinent to this Northern Cali look at Mexican tradition.

SATURDAY18

Street Food Festival Folsom between 20th and 26th Sts. and some other streets, SF. www.sfstreetfoodfest.com. 11am-7pm, free. Some of SF’s hautest eateries and best food entrepreneurs take to the Mission streets for this foodie heaven: hundreds of dishes for $8 and under from across the world, not to mention bars selling artisan cocktails and more.

Balboa Park grand re-opening San Jose and Sgt. Young Drive, SF. www.tpl.org. 11am-2pm, free. The Balboa Park playground has a fresh new look, and the whole neighborhood’s invited to come out and give it a swing. The Trust for Public Land and SF Rec and Parks will be hosting and providing snacks, music, and activities.

Haute Pool Show Chambers at Hotel Phoenix, 601 Eddy, SF. www.hautepoolshow.eventbrite.com. 1-8pm, $5-$15. Shop local fashion by the pool at the city’s rock ‘n’ roll pool while DJs like Omar from Popscene and Brandon Arnovick from Rondo Brothers spin. 30 independent clothesmakers will be participating – the perfect stop-off if you’re looking for weekend threads.

Tell Your Tattoo Story video shoot Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, 2868 Mission, SF. (415) 671-0507, www.sfiaf.org. 6:30pm, free. RSVP necessary. The new play Placas (part of the SF International Arts Festival this fall) centers around street gangs and the implications of tattoo removal – but that doesn’t mean that those involved in the production are anti-ink. Sign up to show off your tats and explain their provenance. Footage will be shown as a companion piece when the play debuts.

Alamo Square Flea Market South side of Alamo Square Park, SF. www.alamosquare.org. 9am-3pm, free. Sidestep the Full House-house-seeking tour buses and search for your own vision of superlative San Francisco – the 29th year of this neighborhood-sponsored flea market will feature clothes, housewares, dogs for adoption from Rocket Dog Rescue, and much more.

Pedalfest Jack London Square, Broadway and 1st St., Oakl. www.pedalfestjacklondon.com. 11am-8pm, free. Bikes for days! Art bikes, acrobatic bikes, stunt bikes, foldable bikes, kids bikes, food for bikes – okay, maybe just food for riders, who will also enjoy live music and cavorting with their two-wheeled community. The East Bay Bike Coalition also sponsored last year’s Pedalfest, which attracted over 18,000 attendees.

SUNDAY 19

SF Mime Troupe Yerba Buena Gardens, Mission and Fourth St., SF. www.sfmt.org. 2pm, free. Check out the Bay’s historic radical theater troupe in the rolling hills of downtown’s greenest field. This year’s production is called The Last Election. Shall we reflect on a world without political monkeying about? At least electoral shenanigans birthed a spectacular community theater troupe.

Indie Mart Wisconsin between 16th and 17th Sts., SF. www.indie-mart.com. Noon-7pm, free. Because you know somebody that deserves an August handmade gifty, this regularly-occurring craft fair is coming to Potrero Hill with 100 of the city’s finest makers. Thee Parkside is included in the festivities, so grab some tots and a Bloody before you shop – pricetags will go down way easier.

 

Lens flair

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Lens flair

arts@sfbg.com

VISUAL ART Cindy Sherman is nearly always described as a groundbreaking postmodern photographer and pioneer. The mostly excellent, just-the-hits traveling retrospective currently visiting the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is carefully curated to justify that praise. All the high points of Sherman’s prolific career are here, and her virtuosic scrambling of photographic conventions and assumptions are shown in high relief. As an act of institutional pedagogy, it’s certainly effective if not exactly revelatory.

Luckily for us, in pairing her retrospective with the “Stage Presence: Theatricality in Art and Media” group show across the hall, SFMOMA makes interesting work of recasting Sherman as primarily a performance artist who utilizes photography as a tool. “Stage Presence” curator Rudolf Frieling’s scruffy show fashions a strong lens through which to see Sherman’s work from new angles, and if you bounce from one show to the other you’ll see undercurrents drawn out by that context.

>>Drag artists re-enact Cindy Sherman portraits: view our “Tastes of Cindy” photo essay

The retrospective leads off with “Untitled Film Stills,” Sherman’s breakout 1980 series of 69 images, presented together in the show’s first gallery. These black and white photos, staged and composed to resemble European film promotion stills, show Sherman in costume and makeup inhabiting dozens of distinct, recognizable tropes and types. These are not self portraits, and understanding that point is a kind of prerequisite for digging beneath Sherman’s body of work. Although she appears in every image, Sherman is an actor playing a role. Or more precisely, she’s performing the act of recreating herself and slipping between multiple roles.

Completed when Sherman was 26, “Untitled Film Stills” sets out the major themes she would follow for the next 30-plus years: fascination with media and film, deliberate manipulation of photographic conventions, ability to stitch together and swap out identities like costumes, a flair for storytelling, and a complicated allegiance with the characters she invents.

And about those pictures. As both photographer and model for her images, Sherman appropriates, tweaks, and ultimately tries to outrun established photographic idioms. At the heart of these single-frame performances, Sherman couches the act of slipping into character within familiar conventions of portrait work — series formats include publicity stills (“Untitled Film Stills”); centerfolds (her 1981 work commissioned for and then scrapped by Artforum magazine); classical portrait painting (over represented, frankly, in this show); headshots (here, from 2000); and large-scale society portraits (from 2008). By turns creepy, gaudy, lurid, ugly, garish, and exhilarating, her photographs put up a testy fight to keep you from instantly or casually objectifying the woman or man — usually woman — in the image.

While each tableau is meant to show a persona, it’s also meant to keep you at distance. Her facial expressions throughout are steely, usually blank-ish, and they project thin personalities that reveal only slivers of the people behind them. Across series she repeats the same narrative beat in her work, namely a moment of resistance in her characters to being fully captured on film. She’s rubber and you’re glue. Your gaze bounces off her and sticks to you.

Still, don’t be fooled by what may seem to be sarcasm — she is emphatic and earnest about the complications of photography’s lies, and by extension about the sum of ways we can possibly present ourselves to each other. One of the main reasons art historians love Sherman’s work is that she injects complicated arguments into the trajectory of identity and liberation theory. In her work, you see traces of an adaptable, slippery identity that represents itself only by wearing and exchanging costumes and masks. The self in Sherman’s work is an actor that acts, and never leaves the stage. It’s not that mastery of appearances allows for the actual presentation of the real, it’s that appearances are the only thing there is. There is no presentation of the real, only the constructed reality of the presentation.

Viewed together with “Stage Presence,” Sherman’s work fills in for performance artists you might find oddly absent across the hall. She stands in for both Mike Kelley and Paul McCarthy, as well as Bruce Nauman. All the same concerns that those artists (yes, male) are known for — forces played out in the body by abjection, failed desire, absurdity, and the grotesque — abound in her work. In this context it’s hard not to see both commentary on and participation with those artists in her clowns, fashion, and grotesque series. This angle is made most explicit by her work of the last dozen or so years. Less referential to film, her headshots and society portraits since the late 1990s include more plausible, abject characters whose constructed lives and identities are in various states of decay.

For another day or two, Sherman’s photographs can be seen in contrast with the exuberant Jean Paul Gaultier retrospective at the De Young Museum (closing August 19). In some ways Sherman is the yang to Gaultier’s yin, both addressing the slippery nature of identity and the performance of norms through the clothes and apparatuses of presentation. Highly recommended.

CINDY SHERMAN

Through Oct. 8, $11-$18

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

151 Third St., SF

www.sfmoma.org

 

Oh no they didn’t! Hilarious horror stories at Mortified

Sue Vaughan
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Oh no they didn’t! Hilarious horror stories at Mortified

Why is it that I like myself most when looking back on my years as a college freshman, drunkenly spooning peanut butter into my mouth amid the squalor of my dirty kitchen? Why is it that I appreciate a boyfriend most when I see his elementary school photos and realize he used to look like a well-fed lizard in glasses?

I’m going to wager that it isn’t my own affinity for the less-than-socially acceptable and is actually a testament to the fact that humans often love that which is most, well, human. And humanity has the tendency to do some painfully embarrassing stuff.
 
This is the concept that drives Mortified, a collection of short readings and performances of the sometimes brilliant, sometimes artistic, sometimes sad, and always humiliating personal musings its performers created as children and teens. The brainchild of creators and producers Dave Nadelberg and Neil Katcher, Mortified has a constantly changing cast, mainly consisting of adults who have, fortunately, left most of their adolescent angst behind — but still have plenty of stories to tell about it.

The DNA Lounge is surprisingly conducive to theater, with its upper balcony offering unobscured views of the performers. On Aug. 10, the night’s first performance was by Orlando, Fla. native Jessica Wassil, reading from her teenage diaries. There isn’t much to do in Orlando, the edgy-looking brunette explained in her introduction, and thus her 14-year-old self saw no other alternative to the cultural void than to eat Butterfingers by the truckload and obsess over football players who didn’t know she existed.
 
Wassil’s excerpts treaded not-so-lightly on the line between funny and cringe-inducing, with her bellowing laments of insecurity and unrequited love making the audience members guffaw, but also tempting them to crawl under their seats. Her powerhouse opening excerpt, describing what indeed seemed to be the “worst Valentine’s day ever” (eating Snickers for breakfast and then soiling herself at school) had tears of ambiguous varieties streaming from the audience’s eyes.
 
But it’s okay, because now she’s totally cute. And kind of a hipster. And probably pretty awesome, given her confidence to stand alone on a stage and read almost grotesque confessions from her youth.
 
However, Heather Aronson’s accounts of a being an underage metalhead were anything but sad. Her diary entries read more like an epistolary novel addressed to the guitarist of Def Leppard, to whom a young Aronson’s commitment resembled a nun’s devotion to God. Kinda freaky. And such was the collective opinion of Aronson’s classmates in her first year at a new high school.
 
And yet, the admittedly girly but nonetheless badass actions of the head-banging teen were wholly awesome. She backed boys into corners, scored concert tickets, got drunk, made at least one friend, and — as the piece’s climax and finale went — cussed out the haughty girls at her school, kicked in her science classroom’s door, and ends her high school year of hell in appropriately metal fashion.
 
The “Worst Teen Poetry Slam,” for which Mortified creator Dave Nadelberg traveled from Los Angeles to San Francisco, offered some variety in the evening. The first contestant was businesswoman Lisa Ratner, who read adolescent love poetry directed toward one particular (and, it seemed, totally undeserving) young man.

Imagine any lovesick and slightly pathetic tween’s poetry, then add in a strong penchant for metaphors about kings, queens, stardust, and chariots, and you’ve got the general aesthetic of Ratner’s collection. Nadelberg was the night’s second contestant, and eventual winner, thanks to some awkwardly erotic poetry about “world music” just bizarre enough to offer a refreshing reminder that teens aren’t only pitiful … they’re also weird as hell.

“What’s in the bag, Mr. Pips?” began Nadelberg’s ode to bagpipes. He had me at that.
 
Lily Sloane’s confessions of a boy-crazy, coffee-shop working, rock’n’roll loving, and prematurely cynical teen girl were perhaps an unspoken dedication to all those 15-year-old girls who know they’re cool but, goddamn it, why doesn’t anyone else realize it? Covering her insecurities with swearwords yet always admitting to her own faults and adorably neurotic self-awareness, Sloane shared oodles of unwittingly fantastic one liners. (“That little fucker better call me” ended one entry about the boyfriend for whom she incessantly pined.)
 
Her piece, however, was best punctuated by the live performance of her fifth and sixth grade musical stylings, with which she angrily serenaded her parents: “I have to be cute when we have guests/I don’t want to wear my little pink dress.”
 
San Francisco show producers Scott Lifton and Heather Van Atta programmed wisely by choosing to end the night’s series of confessionals with Ezra Horne. His diary of an overweight, closeted Mormon boy read like a Daniel Pinkwater coming-of-age novel, with daily accounts of the number of times he looked at porn (which he coded as “P”) or masturbated (creatively delineated by the letter “M”).
 
He thought he was a fat, lazy, slob. He was jealous of his friends. He made secretly-self hating speeches at church. He knew he would never get into the celestial kingdom. And yet, by the end, there was some hope in Horne’s brash yet somehow whimsical musings. He ended his piece with an epilogue: his eventual coming-out was a well-supported, smooth transition by his family and community. Currently happy and in love, Horne said: “I was always hoping God would fix me. But God can’t fix me because I’m not broken.”
 
And that could be the moral for all the of night’s performers: despite horror-story, silly-stupid childhoods, they’d all moved on nicely.
 
Mortified officially began in 2002, and this is by no means the first Mortified SF installation. Speaking with audience members, it’s evident that every show is different. According to the unnamed gentleman on my right, this show “wasn’t even as funny” as the last.
 
And that may prove my thesis: the concept behind Mortified is brilliant to the point where I’m not quite sure where any Mortified show could go wrong, with its ability to lovingly yet bluntly look at personal and painful topics.
 
The series returns to the DNA Lounge Sept. 14; the group will also make a special performance at the SF Improv Festival Sat/18.

Stage Listings

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

THEATER

OPENING

A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum Woodminster Amphitheater, Joaquin Miller Park, 3300 Joaquin Miller Rd, Oakl; www.woodminster.com. $12-56. Previews Thu/9, 8pm. Opens Fri/10, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sun, 8pm. Through Aug 19. Woodminster Summer Musicals presents the Sondheim comedy.

Henry V Sequoia High School, 1201 Brewster, Redwood City; www.redwoodcity.org. Free. Opens Sat/11, 7:30pm. Runs Sat, 7:30pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Aug 26. San Francisco Shakespeare Festival presents the Bard’s history play as part of its "Free Shakespeare in the Park" series.

ONGOING

Absolutely San Francisco Alcove Theater, 414 Mason, Ste 502, SF; www.thealcovetheater.com. $32-50. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 18. A multi-character solo show about the unique residents of San Francisco.

Enron Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.enron2012.com. $25. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 17. In OpenTab’s production of British playwright Lucy Prebble’s 2009 Enron, tragedy plus time equals comedy plus puppets (in imaginative designs by Miyaka Cochrane), as fast-paced satire delivers a timely reconsideration of yet another infamous financial scandal. Some fictional elements shape the plotline but simplifying strategies serve well to clarify the real-life actions and consequences of Ken Lay (GreyWolf) and Jeffry Skilling’s (Alex Plant) deceptive energy-trading juggernaut, the onetime darling of Wall Street and the financial pages. There’s also much verbatim information (echoing the book and documentary, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room) enlivening the quick dialogue and underscoring the reckless, hubristic malfeasance that famously preyed on California’s electricity grid and threw Enron’s own employees under the bus. Director Ben Euphrat gets spirited and engaging performances from his principals, with especially nice work from Plant as a cruelly superior Skilling, Laurie Burke as ambitious straight-shooter Claudia Roe (a fictionalized composite creation of the playwright), and Nathan Tucker as manic sycophant Andy Fastow, feeding poisonous Enron debt into three beloved "raptors" (the pet names for some animated shadow companies arising from Fastow’s fast work in "structured finance"). At the same time, the staging can prove rough between concept and execution, with scenic elements sometimes confusing as well as aesthetically ragged (a red fabric serving as a large profit graph, for instance, just looks like some droopy inexplicable drapery at first; and the first puppets to appear are too small to be very effective either). Despite this messiness in terms of mise-en-scène, however, the play is generally clear-eyed and good for more than easy laughs — since no single villain but rather a system and culture are the proper targets here. As Prebble notes, the strategies developed by Enron, far from remaining beyond the pale, are now standard practices throughout the financial and corporate world. That, in some circles, is known as progress. (Avila)

Humor Abuse American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $25-95. Tue-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through Aug 19. "This is a show about clowning," advises Lorenzo Pisoni at the outset of his graceful solo performance, "and I’m the straight man." It’s a funny line, actually — funny because it’s true, and not true. In the deft routines that follow, as well as in the snapshots cast on the atmospherically dingy curtain hung center stage, the career of this Pickle Family Circus brat (already alone in the spotlight by age two) never veers far from the shadow of his father. That fact remains central to the winning comedy and wistful reflection in Humor Abuse. Reared in the commotion and commitment of the famed San Francisco circus founded by his parents Larry Pisoni and Peggy Snider, Lorenzo had a childhood both enviable and unusually challenging. The fact that he shares his name with both a grandfather and his dad’s famous clown persona is instructive. His trials and his triumphs are further conflated — along with his father’s — in such elegant catastrophes as falling down a long flight of stairs. And in his good-humored and honest reflections, the existential poignancy at the heart of such artful buffoonery begins to rise to the surface. The spoken narrative feels a little pinched or abbreviated, in truth, but there are no shortcuts to the skill or wider perspective inculcated by the charming Pisoni and (under direction of co-creator Erica Schmidt) set enthrallingly in motion. (Avila)

The Merchant of Venice Gough Street Playhouse, 1622 Gough, SF; www.custommade.org. $25-32. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through Aug 19. Custom Made Theater presents director Stuart Bousel’s generally sharp staging of Shakespeare’s perennially controversial but often-misunderstood play. The lively if uneven production ensures the involved storyline cannot be reduced to the problematical nature of its notorious Jewish villain, Shylock (played with a compellingly burdened intensity by a quick Catz Forsman), but rather has to be seen in a wider landscape of desire in which money, status, sex, gender, political and ethnic affiliations, and human bodies all mix, collide, and negotiate. To this end, this Merchant is set amid a contemporary financial district coterie (given plenty of scope in Sarah Phykitt’s thoughtfully pared-down scenic design), where titular melancholic businessman Antonio (Ryan Hayes) sticks his neck out (or anyway a pound of flesh) for his beloved friend Bassanio (Dashiell Hillman) — no doubt the unspoken source of Antonio’s brooding heart as staged here — as the latter seeks a loan with which to court the lovely and brilliant Portia (a winning Megan Briggs). While the subplot concerning the wooing and flight of Shylock’s daughter, Jessica (Kim Saunders), is less adeptly rendered, fluid pacing and a confident sense of the priorities of the drama overall offer a satisfying encounter with this fascinatingly subtle play. (Avila)

Les Misérables Orpheum Theatre, 1192 Market, SF; www.bestofbroadway-sf.com. $83-155. Tue-Sat, 8pm (also Wed and Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through Aug 26. SHN’s Best of Broadway series brings to town the new 25th anniversary production of Cameron Mackintosh’s musical giant, based on the novel by Victor Hugo. The revival at the Orpheum does without the famous rotating stage but nevertheless spares no expense or artistry in rendering the show’s barrage of colorful Romantic scenes (with Matt Kinley’s scenic design drawing painterly inspiration from Hugo’s own oils) or its larger-than-life characters — first and foremost Jean Valjean (a slim but passionate Peter Lockyer), nemesis Javert (Andrew Varela), and rescued orphan beauty Cosette (Lauren Wiley). Chris Jahnke contributes new orchestrations to the rollicking original score by Claude-Michel Schönberg (music) and Herbert Kretzmer (lyrics) in this flagrantly sentimental, somewhat problematic but still-stirring meld of music and melodrama in dutiful overlapping service of box office treasure and powerful humanist aspirations. (Avila)

My Fair Lady SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $30-70. Tue-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm). Through Sept 29. SF Playhouse and artistic director Bill English (who helms) offer a swift, agreeable production of the Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe musical, based on George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion. The iconic class-conscious storyline revolves around a cocky linguist named Higgins (Johnny Moreno) who bets colleague Colonel Pickering (Richard Frederick) he can transform an irritable flower girl, Eliza Doolittle (Monique Hafen), into a "lady" and pass her off in high society. A battle of wills and wits ensues — interlarded with the "tragedy" of Alfred Doolittle (a shrewd and gleaming Charles Dean) and his reluctant upward fall into respectability — and love (at least in the musical version) triumphs. The songs ("Wouldn’t It Be Loverly," "I Could Have Danced All Night," "Get Me to the Church on Time," and the rest) remain evergreen in the cast’s spirited performances, supported by two offstage pianos (brought to life by David Dobrusky and musical director Greg Mason) and nimble choreography from Kimberly Richards. Hafen’s Eliza is especially admirable, projecting in dialogue and song a winning combination of childlike innocence and feminine potency. Moreno’s Higgins is also good, unusually virile yet heady too, a convincingly flawed if charming egotist. And Frederick, who adds a passing hint of homoerotic energy to his portrayal of the devoted Pickering, is gently funny and wholly sympathetic. (Avila)

The Princess Bride: Live! Dark Room Theater, 2263 Mission, SF; foulplaysf.com/princessbride. $20. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 25. Dark Room Productions presents a live tribute to the cult fairy-tale movie.

Project: Lohan Costume Shop, 1117 Market, SF; www.projectlohan.com. $25. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Aug 19. D’Arcy Drollinger pays tribute to the paparazzi target with this performance constructed solely from tabloids, magazines, court documents, and other pre-existing sources.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.rayoflighttheatre.com. $25-36. Thu/9-Sat/11, 8pm (also Sat/11, 2pm). Halloween comes early this year thanks to Ray of Light Theatre’s production of Sweeney Todd and all its attendant horrors. Set in bleakest, Industrial Revolution-era London, this Sondheim musical pushes the titular Todd to enact a brutal vengeance on a world he perceives as having stolen the best of life from him, namely his family and his freedom. No fey, gothic vampire, ROLT’s Sweeney Todd (played by Adam Scott Campbell) is both physically and psychically imposing, built like a blacksmith and twice as dark. Pushed over the line between misanthropic and murderous, Sweeney Todd methodically plots his revenge on the hated Judge Turpin (portrayed with surprising sympathy by Ken Brill) while the comfortably comical purveyor of pies, Mrs. Lovett (Miss Sheldra), dreams of a sunnier future. Mrs. Lovett’s no-nonsense, wisecracking ways aside, there are few laughs to be had in this slow-burning dirge to the worst in mankind, and as the body count rises, it is made abundantly clear that all hope of redemption is also but a fantasy. Contributing to the dark mood are Maya Linke’s imposing, industrial set, Cathie Anderson’s ghostly green and hellfire amber lighting, and a spare chamber ensemble of six able musicians conducted by Sean Forte. (Gluckstern)

"Un-Abridged: The Best of Ten Years of Un-Scripted" SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; www.un-scripted.com. $10-20. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 18. The veteran Bay Area company celebrates its tenth anniversary season with a four-week retrospective of its favorite long- and short-form improv shows. Check website for schedule.

Vital Signs Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat, 8:30pm. Extended through Aug 25. The Marsh San Francisco presents Alison Whittaker’s behind-the-scenes look at nursing in America.

War Horse Curran Theatre, 445 Geary, SF; www.shnsf.com. $31-300. Wed-Sat, 8pm (also Wed and Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through Sept 9. The juggernaut from the National Theatre of Great Britain, via Broadway and the Tony Awards, has pulled into the Curran for its Bay Area bow. The life-sized puppets are indeed all they’re cracked up to be; and the story of a 16-year-old English farm boy (Andrew Veenstra) who searches for his beloved horse through the trenches of the Somme Valley during World War I, while peppered with much elementary humor too, is a good cry for those so inclined. The claim to being an antiwar play is only true to the extent that any war-is-hell backdrop and a plea for tolerance count a melodrama as "antiwar," but this is not Mother Courage and no serious attempt is made to investigate the subject. Closer to say it’s Lassie Come Home where Lassie is a horse — very ably brought to life by Handspring Puppet Company’s ingenious puppeteers and designers, and amid a transporting and generally riveting mise-en-scène (complete with pointedly stirring live and recorded music). But the simplistic storyline and its obvious, somewhat ham-fisted resolution (adapted by Nick Stafford from Michael Morpurgo’s novel) are too formulaic to be taken that seriously. And at two-and-a-half-hours, it’s a long time coming. A shorter war, the Falklands say, would have done just as well and gotten people out before the ride began to chafe. (Avila)

BAY AREA

Circle Mirror Transformation Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; www.marintheatre.org. $20-57. Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat/11, Aug 16, and 25, 2pm); Wed, 7:30pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Though Aug 26. Marin Theatre Company and Encore Theatre Company co-present the regional premiere of Annie Baker’s comedy about a drama class.

A Doll’s House Willows Theatre, 1975 Diamond, Concord; www.willowstheatre.com. $20-29. Wed-Thu, 7:30pm (also Wed, 3:30pm); Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun/12, 3pm. Through Aug 18. The large stage at Willows Theatre is a sunken living room with walls the color of butterscotch pudding, a long rumpled powder-blue sofa, scattered seasonal decorations, and a single translucent panel that brings to mind a Bob Barker-era game show set. It’s like a cross between a showroom and homeroom without meaning to be either, but that less than winsome amalgam hits the right note for Irish playwright Frank McGuiness’s modern adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s 1879 play. Here, the Helmers are just a couple of upstate New Yorkers with slightly funny-sounding names circa Christmas 1959: Nora (a captivatingly buoyant yet subtly shaded Lena Hart) is a bubbly young mother of three, and Torvald (a credibly oblivious Mark Farrell) is a smug but affable bank executive on the rise. A secret intervention in Torvald’s career by a devoted Nora, his up-to-now happily caged "little songbird," once saved them from ruin (via a reckless loan borrowed on a forged signature), but now it invites a calamitous mixing of formerly separate spheres as the man who loaned Nora the money, once-disgraced Nils Krogstad (a fine, persuasively desperate yet smooth Aaron Murphy), blackmails her to insure his precarious position at her husband’s bank. A panicked Nora confides in old friend and reluctant single-lady Christine (an impressively stoic, subtly wounded Kendra Oberhauser). Meanwhile, terminally ill family friend Dr. Rank (an initially wooden, later warmer Dale Albright) watches Nora from a devoted but helpless vantage. If the plot feels at times like a mirthless episode of I Love Lucy, that again may speak to the aptness of McGuiness’s transposition as much as the sometimes forced way playwright Ibsen has of rearranging the dramatic furniture. But the generally strong cast under Eric Inman’s able direction offers enough vivid dramatic tension to keep us engaged, while suggesting the continuing relevance and limits of the play’s robust critique of marriage and patriarchy. (Avila)

Happy Hour with Kim Jong Il Cabaret at the Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 826-5750,l www.themarsh.org. Free. Fri, 6pm. Through Aug 24. Comedy work-in-progress by Kenny Yun, with live music by cabaret singer Candace Roberts.

Keith Moon/The Real Me TheaterStage at the March Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri/10, Aug 17, Sept 13, 20, 27, 8pm. Mike Berry workshops his new musical, featuring ten classic Who songs performed with a live band.

The Kipling Hotel: True Misadventures of the Electric Pink ’80s Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through Aug 26. 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)

A Midsummer Night’s Dream Forest Meadows Amphitheater, 890 Belle, Dominican University of California, San Rafael; www.marinshakespeare.org. $20-35. Check website for schedule. Through Sept 30. Marin Shakespeare Company performs the Bard’s classic, transported to the shores of Hawaii.

Noises Off Live Oak Theatre, 1301 Shattuck, Berk; www.aeofberkeley.org. $15. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun/12, 2pm. Through Aug 18. Actors Ensemble of Berkeley performs Michael Frayn’s backstage comedy.

Roald Dahl’s Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory Julia Morgan Theatre, 2640 College, Berk; www.berkeleyplayhouse.org. $17-35. Thu and Sat, 7pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, noon and 5pm. Through Aug 19. Berkeley Playhouse performs a musical based on the candy-filled book, with songs from the 1971 movie adaptation.

"TheatreWorks 2012 New Works Festival" TheatreWorks at Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; www.theatreworks.org. $19-25 (fest pass, $65). Various times, through Aug 19. The 11th annual festival features a developmental production of The Trouble With Doug by Will Aronson and Daniel Maté and staged readings of Sleeping Rough by Kara Manning, The Loudest Man on Earth by Catherine Rush, Being Earnest by Paul Gordon and Jay Gruska, and Triangle by Curtis Moore and Thomas Mizer.

Upright Grand TheatreWorks at Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; www.theatreworks.org. $24-73. Wed/8, 7:30pm; Thu/9-Fri/10, 8pm. TheatreWorks launches its 43rd season with the world premiere of Laura Schellhardt’s play about a musical father and daughter.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

BATS Improv Bayfront Theater, B350 Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.improv.org. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 8. $10-25. This week: BATS School of Improv Theatresports Championship (Thu/9); Freestyle Improv (Fri/10); Elvis Beach Party Musical (Sat/11).

"Bawdy Storytelling" Verdi Club, 2424 Mariposa, SF; www.bawdystorytelling.com. Wed/8, 7pm. $20. The theme: "Go BIG or Go Home!"

"Comedy Returns to El Rio" El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; www.elriosf.com. Mon/13, 8pm. $7-20. Comedy with Nathan Habib, Brendan Lynch, Andrea Carla Michaels, and more.

"Elect to Laugh" Studio Theater, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. Tue, 8pm. Through Nov 6. $15-50. Veteran political comedian Will Durst emphasizes he’s watching the news and keeping track of the presidential race "so you don’t have to." No kidding, it sounds like brutal work for anyone other than a professional comedian — for whom alone it must be Willy Wonka’s edible Eden of delicious material. Durst deserves thanks for ingesting this material and converting it into funny, but between the ingesting and out-jesting there’s the risk of turning too palatable what amounts to a deeply offensive excuse for a democratic process, as we once again hurtle and are herded toward another election-year November, with its attendant massive anticlimax and hangover already so close you can touch them. Durst knows his politics and comedy backwards and forwards, and the evolving show, which pops up at the Marsh every Tuesday in the run-up to election night, offers consistent laughs born on his breezy, infectious delivery. One just wishes there were some alternative political universe that also made itself known alongside the deft two-party sportscasting. (Avila)

"Electile Dysfunction: The Kinsey Sicks for President" Rrazz Room, 222 Mason, SF; www.therrazzroom.com. Wed/8-Sat/11 and Aug 14-18, 8pm; Sun/12 and Aug 19, 7pm. $35-40. The "dragapella beautyshop quartet" satirizes the upcoming election.

"Indulge! Benefit" ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; www.odctheater.org. Tue/14, 8pm. $35-50. An evening of

desserts and dance to benefit ODC’s future programs.

"Ladies to the Rescue" CounterPulse, 1310 Mission, SF; www.counterpulse.org. Wed/8-Thu/9, 7pm. $7-20. Flyaway Productions and Oasis For Girls present an evening of youth performances, based on the question "Who is Tending the City?"

"Majestic Musical Review Featuring Her Rebel Highness" Harlot, 46 Minna, SF; www.herrebelhighness.com. Sun/12, 5pm. $25-65. A trio of 18th century princesses (the graceful, full-throated, international team of Velia Amarasingham, Linsay Rousseau Burnett, and Maria Mikheyenko), chafing under the patriarchal constraints of their otherwise exalted status, metamorphose into a defiant band of disco queens in this stylish, high-kitsch musical revue by writer-producer Amarasingham and composer–musical director Simon Amarasingham. The action begins in desultory fashion, bar-side in the Harlot lounge, amid scuttlebutt from a pair of chatty housemaids (Meira Perelstein and a tuneful Diana DiCostanzo) overseen by a giddy royal valet (a gregariously foppish Michael Sommers, also the show’s emcee and narrator). When the dallying princesses finally arrive (sumptuously attired in appealing period costumes by Noric Design), they ascend a small stage attended by Lady Lucinda Pilon (a Goth-inflected Amber Slemmer, alternating nights with director Danica Sena), and launch into a slick set of tightly choreographed ‘autobiographical’ numbers as the prerecorded music progresses stylistically from smooth, harpsichord-tinted dance-floor beats to all-out four-on-the-floor Donna Summer–style revelry. Despite a certain static, slightly stark ambiance in the site-specific surroundings, with the right crowd and a couple of drinks this 90-minute revue is easily a doubly retro girl-power party for all. (Avila)

"Measure for Measure" Café Royale, 800 Post, SF; sftheaterpub.wordpress.com. Tue/14, Aug 20-21, and 27, 8pm. Free ($5 suggested donation). SF Theater Pub performs the Shakespeare play.

"On Broadway" San Francisco Conservatory of Music, 50 Oak, SF; www.mandance.org. Fri/10-Sat/11, 8pm. $25-45. The Man Dance Company performs inventive, queer-themed takes on classic Broadway song and dance numbers.

"Soundwave ((5)) Humanities: Revelations: Myths + Meditations" Episcopal Church of St. John the Evangelist, 1661 15th St, SF; www.projectsoundwave.com. Sun/12, 8pm. $12-25. Performances and "experiences" by Michael Elrod, Voicehandler, and Xavier Leonard and Cassidy Rast.

"Summer Sampler" ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; www.odcdance.org. Sat/11, 4 and 7pm. $30-40. ODC’s annual summer event — which doubles as veteran ODC dancer Daniel Santos’ farewell performances — includes KT Nelson’s Cut-Out Guy, Brenda Way’s Unintended Consequences, and Way’s Part of a Longer Story.

"Writers With Drinks" Make-Out Room, 3225 22nd St, SF; www.makeoutroom.com. Sat/11, 7:30pm. $5-10. Readings by Jane McGonigal, Saqib Mausoof, Rachel Swirsky, and Simon Sheppard.

BAY AREA

"Al-Stravaganza: A Burlesque Tribute to the Music of Weird Al" Uptown, 1928 Telegraph, Oakl; www.hubbahubbarevue.com. Mon/13, 9pm. $5. A burlesque journey through the music and comedy of Weird Al. Admit it, you’re curious.

"Magic Jester’s Summer Breeze Show" Temescal Arts Center, 511 48th St, Oakl; www.magicjestertheater.com. Sat/11, 8-10pm. $5-10. Improv comedy performance.

"Mrs. Pat’s House" La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck, Berk; www.lapena.org. Fri/10-Sun/12, 8pm. $15. Jovelyn Richards performs her original play about a Great Depression-era brothel, accompanied by a live jazz and blues band. *

Dick and a smile

Andrew Lam
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4
Dick and a smile

caitlin@sfbg.com

SEX “I was basically wearing a wet sock full of sweat,” porn crossover star of the year James Deen tells me. “There was hair everywhere, I was pulling hair out of the girl’s mouth.”

Perhaps another interviewer would not have led with questions about Deen’s recent involvement in an offbeat Kink.com panda gang bang production. Hey, this isn’t TMZ. And who doesn’t already know the standard gossip about the 26-year old, who has shot porn nearly every day of his life since turning 18?

(Just in case:) This year, Deen became the youngest performer ever to take home the industry’s vaunted AVN Award for Best Male Performer. He recently landed a starring role alongside Lindsay Lohan in a new, non-porn feature film penned by Brett Easton Ellis and directed by Paul Schrader, writer of Taxi Driver, American Gigolo, and Raging Bull.

Anyone remotely familiar with the Deen canon knows about the Deenagers, the actor’s legions of underage fans who fill Tumblr with odes to his dick and smile. These superfans were immortalized in epic fashion by an ABC Nightline segment which host Terry Moran introduced with this warning of corruption and apocalypse: “For any parent concerned about what their teen does online, the huge popularity of the young man you are about to meet may be deeply disturbing.”

But like I said, these facts have been written into public record, and dammit, I want to talk about panda porn. Because although Deen’s crossover from Simpsons porn parodies (he played Moe the Bartender, and fucked Cookie Kwan) to The Lohan and Perez Hilton coverage is certainly interesting, the fact that he has also been shooting brutal BDSM porn for years says something else entirely. And he doesn’t think anything of it! Perhaps this flip, blogging, boy-door-faced individual is the first real sign that BDSM porn is coming out of the closet (dungeon, steel-barred cage), and into mainstream consciousness.

BAMBOOZLED

In PANDAMONIUM!!! PANDA LULLABY!!! PANDA PORNO!!!!! adult star Ashli Orion is subjected to the penises of six, raping panda bears. One of these panda bears was Deen, in a furry suit with a custom-made dick hole.

“But I thought pandas were supposed to be nice!” Orion pants, surrounded by hazy pink lighting, artfully-placed bamboo shoots, and silent pandas who mostly remove their furry paws by the end of the scene because their fluffy baseball mitts turned out to be prohibitive to the nitty-gritty of sex acts.

The mini-movie could be considered the first Kink.com furry shoot — a wry twist on director Princess Donna’s usual product released through Kink subsite Bound Gang Bangs.

Not all of Kink’s regulars, and especially not the Bound Gang Bang enthusiasts found PANDAMONIUM!!! to their liking. User comments expressed their concern that Orion wasn’t even bound. Given the limited mobility of the men in the panda suits, she had to be mobile for copulation to even be possible. “I spent a lot of time holding fur out of the shot so we could see the penetration on camera,” said Princess Donna in an email interview.

“Some people think it’s the best thing that ever happened, some people think it’s the worst porn ever made,” she continued. “That’s what happens when you take risks.”

But Deen says he did the panda gang bang — just like every other project he takes — less because of the viewers, or for the chance to express himself creatively, as much as the kicks. “Princess Donna said she had this idea, I said that’s amazing. While it was going on, I just wanted it to end. There was hair everywhere. But the second it was done and we were all hanging out after I was like, I wanna do it again.”

Deen thinks nothing of a work schedule that takes him from vanilla scenes for Digital Playground to deliberately humiliating public sex in Spain for Kink to Dallas XXX parodies.

“It’s completely standard,” he says in our phone interview. “For pretty much every freelance talent, you go where the call takes you.” Sure, there are a few sex acts that Deen will not perform. These include sex with a person who is not into it, sex with clowns, and sex with men. He apologies to me for this last stipulation. “I’m a lame old straight boy.”

And the fact that Deenagers now refer to him affectionately as Baby Panda? (At ‘5″8, Deen made a shorter bear than his suited Kink peers on the shoot.) No dissonance there, says Deen, who hawked T-shirts emblazoned with the nickname on his website. There was no coordinated attempt to wind up alongside Justin Beiber and Robert Pattinson on dorm room walls, he says. “I’m not Joe Camel. I’m just going out and doing my job.”

Deen has minimal support staff besides his publicist. During our interview, I express my disbelief that a person that has sex for a living wouldn’t be worried about getting exploited without someone to review contracts, approve press requests. Deen shrugs it off. “There’s no reason to battle over everything, just be nice. You catch more bees with ants — honey, vinegar, whatever it is.”

Maybe everything really is just that simple. So seems the tale of Deen’s porn provenance. As a teenager, he heard Jenna Jameson tell a radio host that being in skin flicks simply took a complete lack of modesty, superhuman stamina, and an ability to ejaculate on command. He began proving he had those skills by having public sex at parties. Soon, he was on his way to 300 shoots a year, a figure that seems shocking to those unfamiliar with the standards of those unfamiliar with the grinding nature of the porn industry.

And now, Hollywood is knocking, seemingly uncourted by Deen himself. Ellis bagged him for The Canyons role by tweeting that he was interested in Deen for his low-budget, Kickstarter-funded film. (That momentous tweet mentioned the actor would have “to act and be full-frontal naked banging girls and guys realistically.” Will Deen’s comfort zones shift for fame?)

The two had dinner to talk about the writer’s vision for the tale of disaffected 20-somethings moping around drop-dead beautiful LA locations. Ellis, Deen relates to me, has a somewhat cynical view of modern-day celebrity. “People like Charlie Sheen, his acting didn’t make him famous,” Deen explains. “It was because he was Charlie Sheen.” As actor with next-to-no inhibitions and a famously goofy tell-all blog, Deen was perfect material for Ellis’ experiment in equating stardom with sheer exposure.

And sure enough, Deen is now getting a taste of what’s it’s like to live life à la Sheen — or put more aptly, à la Lohan. All it took was for the two to duck out of a restaurant for a smoke break and paparazzi blew up the Interwebs with rumors they were sleeping together.

This kind of thing seems besides the point for someone like Deen, who it would appear rarely sleeps with someone without posting a picture of their distended orifice on his blog. If the LiLo rumors had been true, he wrote on his site, “I think I would tell everybody.” And search engine optimize it with a shot of her boobs, one wants to add.

“I’m not surprised, because he’s that type of guy,” says a post-panda Orion when I contact her about Deen’s recent rise in profile. “He’s very charismatic and he has a look that’s definitely commercial, so I’m not surprised that he would get into Hollywood, you know what I’m saying.”

And for all of Nightline‘s tut-tutting, porn stars have been making waves in clothes-on culture for decades. Traci Lords appeared on Roseanne and Married With Children. Ron Jeremy, Nina Hartley, and Jenna Jameson have all made Hollywood features. And nowadays, even the hardcore stuff is surfacing more and more — like in Rihanna videos and 50 Shades of Grey, a 2011 novel that has become so ubiquitous that sex activists I’ve interviewed refuse to even say its name, so quick was it to sloppily spotlight their subculture for the viewing pleasure of soccer moms, et. al.

Switching between kink erotica and vanilla porn doesn’t seem to be that unusual anymore for adult talent. “When I first started there was a more clear delineation between ‘porn’ models and ‘BDSM’ models,” says Princess Donna. (“Donna is Kink.com. Without her, the company wouldn’t be as successful, and that’s a fact,” says Deen.) “Most BDSM porn didn’t have penis-in-vagina sex in it,” she continues. “Now that it does, you there is a huge crossover.”

Of course, there are other reasons why porn actors shift between kinds of erotica. It’s because they want to get paid.

“I’m a crazy nympho,” says Orion in a phone interview. “I’m down for everything and I always have been. But there’s a lot of girls who are like no, I would never have sex with [that] guy, or never in my ass, no kink. And now, that’s what they’re doing because they have no money!” In the era of low-budget gonzo porn and the consumer’s unwillingness to pay for any kind of media “You can’t rely on girl-girl scenes to pop up everyday if everyone is competing for that,” says Orion.

So maybe Deen is right, and he’s just a guy who is riding high on porn practicalities coupled with an increased tolerance of sluttiness and bondage in pop culture today.

Where will it all lead? I ask him about his career goals to round out our chat. “I want to keep myself in a constant state of smiles,” he says. “I like to smile. I am currently smiling.”

Doing what, pray tell? He has the day off from The Canyons‘ hectic shooting schedule that’s had him sleeping in odd, daytime spurts. What does James Deen do when he gets a moment to spare? Oh, you know. “I’m shooting some porno,” he says.

 

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