Halloween

Boo ya!

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Boo ya!

culture@sfbg.com

Hell’s bells, our very own high unholy day approaches — and the fact that Halloween’s on a Monday this year means an entire weekend of insane. Oh, why not just make it a whole week. Surely you have a week’s worth of slutty Rick Perry toupee costumes in your closet? Tape ’em on crooked and check out some of the eee-vil events below, from fiendishly family friendly to naughtily “adult.”

WEDNESDAY 26

“Death in Parallel” fundraiser and preview Mission Cultural Center, 2868 Mission, SF. (415)821-1155, www.missionculturalcenter.org. 6:30 p.m.–9:30 p.m., $50. Get your dead on a little early at this sneak preview of the epicenter of SF’s Dia de los Muertos celebration.

Dream Queens Revue: Halloween Spooktacular Show Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, 133 Turk, SF. www.dreamqueensrevue.com. 9:45 p.m., free. The dreamy weekly drag show goes ghoulish with SF’s sole goth queen, Sophilya Leggz.

THURSDAY 27

“Ann Magnuson plays David Bowie and Jobriath, or, the Rock Star as Witch Doctor, Myth Maker, and Ritual Sacrifice San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 151 Third St., SF. (415) 357-4000, www.sfmoma.org. 6 p.m.-9:45 p.m., free with museum admission. Fierce hero of the 1980s New York performance underground (and familiar face as sitcom television sidekick-boss-neighbor), Magnuson returns to her fabulous roots in this piece that include incorporate “dreams, Jung, human sacrifice, Aztec shamanism, and all things dark, bloody, and beautiful.” And it’s a costume party! In the SF MoMA! Creativity abounds.

“Halloween! The Ballad of Michele Myers” CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF. www.counterpulse.org. 8 p.m., also Fri/28-Sun/30, $20. Gear up for a drag-studded slasher musical taking cues from “Heathers” and “The Facts of Life,” starring the perfectly horrific Raya Light. She’s a-scary!

Naked Girls Reading: Neil Gaiman Center for Sex and Culture, 1349 Mission, SF. www.sexandculture.org. 8 p.m., $15. Costumes and masks are encouraged at this semi-participatory, all-but-traditional reading of Sandman creator Gaiman’s darker work.

TheaterPop SF: SuperNatural, Red Poppy Arthouse, 2698 Folsom, SF. www.redpoppyarthouse.org. 7 p.m., $10. Local performers skip the tacky underchin flashlights and dry ice for carefully composed, intricate explorations of the macabre.

“Unmasked! The 2011 GLBT Historical Society Gala” Green Room, San Francisco War Memorial, 401 Van Ness, SF. www.unmaskedgala.org. 6 p.m.-9 p..m., $60/$100. A star-studded affair featuring fabulous (of course) entertainment, yummy food, and some of the most revered names in the queer community, including Phyllis Lyon, Jose Sarria, and Armistead Maupin.

Zombie Nightlife with Peaches Christ California Academy of Sciences, 55 Music Concourse Dr., Golden Gate Park, SF. www.calacademy.org. 6 p.m.-10 p.m., $12. The undead are by no means unfashionable — get a zombie makeover, dance with similarly festering folks, sample the latest zombie video games, and listen to a presentation by the Zombie Research Society at the ever-popular, always good-looking weekly Nightlife event at the Cal Academy of Sciences. With Peaches Christ as hostess, it’s a zombie no-brainer.

FRIDAY 28

The Big Nasty: 10th Anniversary Party with Too $hort Mezzanine, 444 Jesse, SF. www.mezzaninesf.com. 8 p.m., $30. A $1000 best costume prize is sure to put the kibosh on those perennially popular nurse get-ups. As if legendary Bay legend Boo $hort, er, Too $hort weren’t enough of an incentive to ditch tired costumes and go as your favorite classic rapper.

Haunted Hoedown, Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. www.bottomofthehill.com, 9 p.m., $10. Rin Tin Tiger and Please Do Not Fight headline the second annual hoedown at this live rock showcase; expect a barn-burner.

Jason Webley’s Halloween Spectacular Slim’s, 333 11th St., SF. www.slims-sf.com. 9 p.m., $14. After once faking his own death at a Halloween show and then disappearing for six months, accordionist Webley’s full-band show this year promises excitement, to say the least.

Night of the Living Shred Club Six, 66 Sixth St., SF. www.clubsix1.com. 9 p.m.-4a.m., $10. This hip-hop and electro throwdown is one where we’ll let the WTF press release speak for itself: “four rooms, five bands, five of the Bay’s best DJs including The Whooligan and Richie Panic, a Paradise Wheels half-pipe and best skate trick contest” — all catered by Mission Chinese Food and Bar Crudo and hosted by two of our favorite people ever, Kelly Kate Warren and Parker Day.

“Rhythm of the 90s” Ultimate Halloween Party Café Cocomo, 650 Indiana, SF. www.fivestarunited.com. 9 p.m.-2 a.m., $45. Break out the Clueless costume and the ketchup bottle; Café Cocomo’s massive dance floor has plenty of room to turn back the clock. Macarena, anyone?

Salem 103 Harriet, SF. www.1015.com, 10 p.m., free. The biggest and scariest name in the witch house dance music movement swoops in from Michigan for a free show, with Tearist, Pfang, Gummybear, Dials and Whitch providing gallows support.

Scaregrove, Stern Grove, 2750 19th Ave., SF. www.sfrecpark.org. 4 p.m.-9 p.m., $8. ‘Tis the season for bouncy castles — bring the kids out for hayrides, carnival activities, a haunted house, and (fingers crossed) funnel cake at the park.

Speakeasy’s Monsters of Rock Halloween Festival Speakeasy Ales and Lagers, 1195 Evans, SF. www.goodbeer.com. 4 p.m.-9 p.m., free. Parties centered upon the theme of good beer never really get old — especially when there are food trucks, live music, and heady costumes.

Sugar Skull Decorating Workshop Autumn Express, 2071 Mission, SF. www.autumnexpress.com. 5 p.m.–6 p.m., $20. Sugar skulls are provided (so you can keep licking away at last year’s) at artist Michele Simon’s decorative exploration of the Dia de los Muertos tradition.

Third Annual Zombie Prom Verdi Club, 2424 Mariposa, SF. www.zombiepromsf.com. 9 p.m., $20. Costume contest, coffin photo booth, live music, and a scary thought: the dancers on the floor tonight may have been doing that move for hundreds of years. Hey, our prom was kind of like night of the living dead, too.

SATURDAY 29

BiBi SF: Queer Middle East Masquerade 4 Shine, 1337 Mission, SF. www.bibisf.org, 9 p.m., $10. The charitable and extremely sultry BiBi SF throws a great party that combines Arabic, Persian, Pan-African, and Latin sounds with hip-shaking belly dancers, lovely drag performances, and an unbelievably hot crowd. All are welcome to this fourth installment of marvelous masquerading.

Club 1994 Halloween Special Vessel, 85 Campton Pl., SF. www.vesselsf.com. 9 p.m.-3 a.m., $18.50 advance.  Sexy electro glamour throwdown for Halloween, anyone? The gorgeous crew behind Blow Up is resurrecting its super-popular, Nintendo-rrific tribute to the pop sounds of the early ’90s (oh yes boy bands and TERL classics!) for a Halloween dress ’em up. With Stretch Armstrong, Jeffrey Paradise, and Vin Sol. The awesome Ava Berlin hosts.  

Circus Center’s Haunted House Circus Center, 755 Frederick, SF. www.circuscenter.org. Tours from 6-7 p.m., show at 7:30. Putting your body in the hands of a practicing student is sometimes not the best idea (see: haircuts, dental exams), but the Circus Center’s students have thrown together an extensive haunted house sure to turn your stomach in only the best way.

Dark Room does Halloween Hot Spot, 1414 Market, SF. 10 p.m., $5. “It’s like Debbie Does Dallas for freaks!” Quoth the undead hosts of this cute monthly queer goth and industrial party at a the little-known but awesome Hot Spot club on Market. Throw on your sheet and twirl. 

Ghost Ship IV: The Afterlife Treasure Island. www.spacecowboys.org. 9 p.m.-4 a.m., $50 tickets (extremely limited) on site. A massive, Halloween-themed arm of Burning Man, Ghost Ship mashes together DJs, art cars, food trucks, a stroboscopic zoetrope, and thousands of people.

GO BOO! Deco Lounge, 510 Larkin, SF. www.decosf.com, 9 p.m.-late, $5. If you want to experience some really sexy underground disco energy with a fantastically diverse crowd, the monthly Go Bang! Party is one of your best bets — this Halloween edition brings in DJ Glenn Rivera and Mattski to join residents Sergio and Steve Fabus of the storied Trocadero Disco. Pop on a costume and hustle on down.

Halloween Freakout with Planet Booty Café du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. www.planetbooty.org. 9 p.m., $12. It’s hard to imagine a more extreme Planet Booty, but this would be the night for it: swap your standard neon unitard for a black velvet version.

Halloween Masquerade with Zach Deputy The Independent, 628 Divisidero, SF. www.theindependentsf.com. 8:30 p.m., $20. Deputy’s “gospel-ninja-soul” provides the soundtrack to an unorthodox masquerade, followed by a free (with ticketstub) Boom Boom Room afterparty.

Halloween 2011: A Red Carpet Runway Massacre Jones, 620 Jones, SF., www.juanitamore.com. 9 p.m., $35. “I prefer the glamour to the gore on Halloween,” quoth ever-poised (even while double-fisting shots) drag ruler Juanita More. Join her at recently opened rooftop bar Jones for dancing and fashionable fun with Djs Delachaux and Sparber, club Some Things hilarious Project Runtover amateur design contest, treats from farm:table and Gimme Shoes, and More, More, More.

“Hallowscreen” cartoon screening Walt Disney Family Museum, 104 Montgomery, Presidio, SF. www.waltdisney.org 11 a.m., 1 p.m., 3 p.m., 4 p.m., 5 p.m. Also Sun/30, Mon/31. $7 adults, $5 children. Catch “Hell’s Bells” and other early, strange Disney shorts that show Walt’s more uncanny side. If you haven’t been to the excellent museum yet, here’s a great occasion.

Horror Costume Party, SUB-Mission, 2183 Mission, SF. www.sf-submission.com. 9 p.m., $4 in costume. Get your gore on with Meat Hook and the Vital Organs; after an earsplitting set, zombiewalk down the street for a taco at Cancun.

Foreverland Halloween Ball Bimbos 365 Club, 1025 Columbus, SF. www.bimbos365club.com. 9 p.m., $22. The Thriller dance is only the beginning at this costume-intensive, 14-piece tribute to M.J. himself.

Jack O’Lantern Jamboree Children’s Fairyland, Oakl. www.fairyland.org. 10 a.m. — 5 p.m., also Sun/30. $10. From juggling and puppets to rides and parades, Oakland’s Fairyland puts on a gentle All Hallow’s weekend.

Lights Down Low Halloween SOM Bar, 2925 16th St., SF. www.som-bar.com. 9:30 p.m., $10 advance. One of the city’s finest, wildest parties brings in bass music star Pearson Sound a.k.a. Ramadanman with DJ Christian Martin, Manaré, Sleazemore, and Eli Glad.

Mansion Madness: Official Playboy Halloween 2011 Mist Ultra Club, 316 11th St., SF. 9 p.m., $40-$80 Find your haunted honey bunny among the bodacious playmate hostesses at this hoppin’ Slayboy event.

Monster Bash on the U.S.S. Hornet 707 W. Hornet, Pier 3, Alameda. www.uss-hornet.org. 7:30 p.m., $25. What better place to celebrate spooks than among the 300 ghosts haunting the crannies of Alameda’s ancient aircraft carrier?

Spooktacular Japantown Halloween Party and Trick-or-Treat Japantown Peace Plaza, Post at Buchanan, SF. www.sfjapantown.org. 12 p.m.–4 p.m., free. Uni-nigiri and candy corn: the perfect combination. Trick-or-treat in the light of day through the Japan Center Malls.

32nd Annual Spiral Dance, Kezar Pavilion, 755 Stanyan, SF. www.reclaimingspiraldance.org. 7:30 p.m., $10–$20 (sliding scale). The witches of San Francisco gather for a huge participatory dance honoring those who have passed.’

Trannyshack Presents: Halloween: A Party DNA Lounge, 375 11th, SF. www.dnalounge.com. 11 p.m., $25. Anything but the traditional drag, the 5th incarnation of Peaches Christ and Heklina’s annual costumed throwdown features a fantastically horrific secret (and “big!”) guest judge. Oh, and the usual genius-creative bevy of outré drag performers, including Fauxnique, Becky Motorlodge, Toxic Waist, and Exhibit Q.

Wild Side West Costume Contest and Party Wild Side West, 424 Cortland, SF. 8 p.m., free. Try not to get your t.p. body cast caught on a shrub in the Bernal hotspot’s beer garden.

Wicked Gay! Halloween Bash Lexington Club, 3464 19th St., SF. www.lexingtonclub.com. 9 p.m., free. The happily hectic Mission dyke bar holds a costume party and contest with live beats.

SUNDAY 30

All Hallow’s Eve DNA Lounge, 375 11th St., SF. www.dnalounge.com. 9 p.m.-afterhours, $13, 18+. Great goth and industrial music parties Meat and Death Guild form an unholy alliance with the gorily titillating Hubba Hubba revue burlesque dancers for what’s sure to be a night to dismember. DJs Decay, devon, Joe Radio, Netik, and more tear you apart on the dance floor

Ceremony Halloween Tea, City Nights, 715 Harrison, SF. www.industrysf.com. 5 p.m.-midnight, $40. The name sounds genteel; the shirtless gay dancing to Freemasons and others will likely be raucous.

Fruitvale Dia de los Muertos Festival Fruitvale Village, Oakl. www.unitycouncil.org. 10 a.m.-5 p.m., free. Oakland’s Day of the Dead festival, falling a bit before SF’s, features dancers, gloriously fragrant food, huge crowds, and, of course, compelling tributes to loved ones who have passed.

Halloween Family Dance Class, ODC Dance Commons, 351 Shotwell, SF. www.odcdance.org. 1 p.m-2 p.m., $5/person, $20/family. Britt Van Hees allows kids and folks who’ve already mastered the Sprinkler to add the Thriller dance to their repertoire.

The Holy Crow Holy Cow, 1535 Folsom, SF., www.honeysoundsystem.com. 8 p.m.-2 a.m., $5. Quaffingly queer electronic music collective Honey Soundsystem throw one of the best weekly parties in the city — the Halloween edition of Honey Sunday should be a total scream, queen. 

Midnight Monster Mayhem, Rockit Room, 406 Clement, SF. www.rock-it-room.com. 9 p.m., $10 before 11 p.m. The live hip-hop dance party (costumed, of course) may well be the perfect nightcap to pumpkin pork stew at nearby Burma Superstar.

PETNATION 5 Public Works, 161 Erie, SF. www.publicsf.com. 9 p.m., $5 before 10 p.m., $10 after. Dance to Fido’s memory — Public Works honors deceased pets with soul-shaking beats, a DDLM art exhibit and a commemorative altar (plus, proceeds go to OccupySF).

MONDAY 31

Classical at the Freight Freight and Salvage Coffeehouse, 2020 Addison, Berk. www.freightandsalvage.org. 6:30 p.m., $10.50 for adults, under 12 free. The Bellavente Wind Quintet breathes chilling strains to a kid’s costume parade and candy-filled celebration.

Halloween at El Rio El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF. www.elriosf.com. 8 p.m., $7. Two Ohioans under the stage name “Mr. Gnome” take over the inclusive, ever-popular dive for Halloween.

Teatro ZinZombie, Teatro ZinZanni, Pier 29, SF. www.love.zinzanni.org. 6 p.m.-11 p.m., tickets start at $117. Tonight might be the one to finally catch SF’s cabaret mainstay, which for a few precious hours transforms into a zombie-laden spectacle.

Viennetta Discotheque: Halloween! UndergroundSF, 424 Haight, SF. 10 p.m., free. One of SF’s cutest underground queer Monday weekly parties will claws you to reel in horror at the frightful fantasticity of its drag denizens. Your body hits the floor with DJ Stanley Frank, Alexis Blair Penny, and Jason Kendig on the decks.

 

Haunting the hunters

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Haunting the hunters

marke@sfbg.com

“There are so many popular ghost-hunting apps, software programs, and TV shows out there right now that rely only on the tech side of things — but what people don’t realize is that if you take the human part out of the ghost-hunting equation, you’re really left with nothing. Sure, it may look like your app is detecting some sort of peripheral movement, or the people on TV may be tracking some remote electromagnetic phenomenon. But you have to remember that ghosts were once people, that you’re dealing with human beings. Technology will only take you so far. You need that human sensory and extrasensory contact for the spirit to fully reveal itself as more than just a blip on a screen. You can’t just go take a photo of a ghost with your iPhone!”

Master of Parapsychology, professor at JFK university, and Bay Area ghost detective Loyd Auerbach (www.mindreader.com) is speaking to me over the phone about the book he published earlier this year with psychic Annette Martin, The Ghost Detectives’ Guide to San Francisco, a spooky and involving compendium of the duo’s 16-year investigations into local paranormal phenomenon. Auerbach had just come from a weeklong conference on the paranormal at Atlantic University in Virginia, where hot topics included quantum psychometrics, split beam research, global consciousness projection and convergences, and — his specialties — recurrent research with mediums and parapsychology education.

That’s some heady stuff for a down-to-earth guy who credits comic book geekiness as his gateway to paranormal investigation. “It’s either surprising or not surprising that so many paranormal investigators are comic book geeks and old TV show fanatics,” he says with a laugh. (Auerbach is also a well-known chocolatier: his Haunted By Chocolate line, www.hauntedbychocolate.com, will be featured at Berkeley’s Spun Sugar shop for Halloween.)

Besides the ghost detectives’ indepth sleuthing at places like Alcatraz, the Queen Anne Hotel, and Chinatown, I was particularly intrigued by Auerbach and Martin’s concept of “residual haunting” versus actual haunting. “Residual hauntings are simply traces of emotion or action that clutters the psychic territory of a location — even living people can ‘haunt’ a place residually. A real haunting consists of a complex set of phenomena that naturally involve one or several spirits, but that moves beyond repetitive enactments and into a fuller narrative.”

The ghost detectives do indeed experience fuller narratives — several of them chilling, like the barrage of negative feelings that assault Annette in Chinatown and the echoes of despair filling Alcatraz. And some are more, er, entertaining, like Auerbach’s intimate encounter with a specter named Cayte at the Moss Beach Distillery that’s jokingly referred to as “ghost sex.”

The book was to have kicked off a series exploring Bay Area. Unfortunately, Annette, whose “gift of the white light” brought her a considerable amount of TV and radio fame, passed away in September. “I have so much material from our collaboration, I’m still planning to do something,” Auerbach said. “And to answer your next question: no, I haven’t exactly heard from Annette from the other side. But several of her psychic friends have, and I’m hoping my next project will involve seeking her out.”

ENCOUNTER AT THE PRESIDIO OFFICERS’ CLUB

An excerpt from The Ghost Detectives’ Guide to San Francisco

LOYD I indicated we should move back to the main room, it had large windows looking out toward the bay. In front of the windows was a platform. Annette moved to the platform and windows.

ANNETTE What I felt was a lot of energy, right around here.

LOYD Right here?

I set down the TriField Meter as well as a natural EMF meter, which measures non-tech sources of magnetic and EM fields. The latter has a sound indicator to alert the user when the readings change.

ANNETTE I am going to turn on my tape recorder and see if we can pick up any voices.

Something is registering with me. … She stands at the window, waiting for him. Ah, she’s asking me why he hasn’t come.

[Annette took a few deep breaths and began to channel.]

My name is Annette and this is Loyd. There is nothing to be afraid of. Can you show me something? …

[Annette: She was certainly curious. I was getting her questions intuitively.]

ANNA MARIE Yes, I am from San Francisco. I went to school here, Notre Dame de Victoria and St. Gabriel’s and Mercy High School… Did I like the nuns? Some of them. You spend time in the chapel [at the Presidio]. You feel good there. You want to run and play with the children, but sometimes they get frightened.

LOYD What is your name?

ANNA MARIE Anna Marie.

LOYD What is your last name?

ANNA MARIA Guiterrez.

LOYD Where were you born?

ANNA MARIE Not in this country. I came as a child. Travelled a long ways…

LOYD How did you travel? By what means of transportation?

ANNA MARIE Mother said by boat. Mother was beautiful. I came back to find her, but she is not here ….

LOYD Do you remember when you came back here?

ANNA MARIE People, many parties … noise … people … men … no ladies. I used to swing on a tree.

LOYD A tree here? [Annette nods.] Were you married?

ANNETTE She’s turned away from me now, she says others come here but not her love, not her man. “Ships, many ships.”

LOYD Annette, can you tell what she is wearing?

ANNETTE Yes, she is wearing this long white dress, with something tied in the center. She has very long hair but there is something tied around her head. Like a white scarf… She looks, she could be 20. She keeps changing, sometimes she looks older…. This is where she is waiting for him.

LOYD The man she loves?

ANNETTE She says she calls him Pugsy, but that wasn’t his real name….She doesn’t want to talk anymore. Anna Marie, can you tell me his real name? “It’s too painful,” she says. It’s alright, it’s alright, we will call him Pugsy.

This is the place where they would meet. There was a big tree, a great big tree with branches that go way up. He put a rope around the branch so that she could swing and they would laugh.

She doesn’t understand why all these people were here. She says that if she stays here, maybe he will find her. She can’t find him…

LOYD What year does she remember being here?

ANNETTE She thinks it’s 1776…. This is 1996, Anna Marie. We come with love and we don’t want you to be sad and you can leave if you want. [Annette takes in two deep breaths.] OK, she ran away. Wow!

LOYD So she’s basically stuck here?

ANNETTE She is stuck here, on her fixation on this man. And there was this tree, like a big oak tree, I saw it so clearly, and laughing and giggling.

LOYD Do you think it was taken down to build this building?

ANNETTE I forgot to mention that I felt closer to the water when I was talking to Anna Marie. Did anything measure on the meter?

LOYD Yes, a couple times when she was speaking through you.

ANNETTE She would come in close to me and then she would back away. At one point is was like we were holding hands. She is very friendly, very loving, but also very sad.

From The Ghost Detectives’ Guide to Haunted San Francisco, copyright 2011 by Loyd Auerbach and Annette Martin, published by Craven Street Books

 

Snack time!

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Snack time!

cheryl@sfbg.com

FILM “We are going to eat you!” Accompanied by a close-up shot of a vile, undead head, the iconic poster for Lucio Fulci’s 1979 Zombie clearly delineates the fate of all human flesh. It’s not a threat — it’s a guarantee, oozing with maggots and emphasized with a follow-up promise: “The dead are among us!”

Like all international cult movies of a certain era, Zombie is known by multiple titles; sometimes you’ll see it called Zombie Flesh-Eaters or Zombi 2, since it was released on its Italian home turf as a sequel-in-name-only to George Romero’s 1978 Zombi (better known stateside as Dawn of the Dead). But Fulci’s film is no Romero rip-off; you’ll find zero social commentary or monsters-as-metaphors here. (Sometimes, a zombie is just a zombie.) Fulci, who’d made his name directing salacious giallo films and the occasional spaghetti western, plunged eagerly into full-bore horror; the film’s skin-crawling, buzzing-fly mise-en-scène is jolted throughout with eyeball-popping moments of both terror and what-the-fuckness (key phrase: zombie vs. shark).

As Stephen Thrower notes in Beyond Terror: The Films of Lucio Fulci (an essential tome for its gore-geous photo plates alone), “Fulci’s zombies [are] far more revolting and putrescent than Romero’s.” I’d agree, even with Dawn‘s epic exploding head. But you know what, horror fan? You don’t have to choose. There’s room enough in the world for two zombie kings. It’s been a whole lot easier for Americans to feast on Romero films over the years, though, which is why the Roxie’s three-day screening of Zombie is such cause for excitement. The theatrical re-release is part of a nationwide rollout by Blue Underground, one of the current leaders in the give-trashy-movies-the-classy-DVD-releases-they-deserve movement (the company was founded by William Lustig, director of 1980 cult classic Maniac — speaking of exploding heads).

It’ll hit the screen “in a new 2K High Definition transfer from the original uncut and uncensored camera negative,” so everything will look extra juicy. As of October 25, you can also snatch up Blue Underground’s two-disc “Ultimate Edition,” featuring the new transfer and quite a few extras (though some seem to resemble the extras from Shriek Show’s 2004 two-disc “25th Anniversary” release; diehards will likely repurchase anyway).

If your only exposure to zombies of late has been TV’s The Walking Dead, you need a dose of Zombie. First shot: a gun aimed at the camera; from that moment it never lets up, as big-eyed Tisa Farrow (Mia’s less charismatic sister) travels in search of her missing father to the cursed island of “Matul” with suave newspaper reporter Ian McCulloch (Fulci, dubbed in Noo Yawk-ese, cameos as his editor). Matul happens to be ground zero for the undead apocalypse — filled to the brim with gushing, goregasmic guts. It makes The Walking Dead look like Disneyland. Best Halloween treat ever.

ZOMBIE

Sat/29, 3 and 5 p.m.; Sun/30, 3, 5, 7, and 9 p.m.; Sun/31, 7 and 9 p.m., $5-$9.75

Roxie Theater

3117 16th St., SF

(415) 863-1087

www.roxie.com

 

When it’s over

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
0
When it’s over

arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC “The reason why my rhythms are so repetitive and feel almost infinite is that, in a way, I fear closure. In the same way that I can never finish a book, I have trouble ending my songs. I have trouble ending anything. I can’t even finish a meal,” Luis Vasquez, frontrunner of the Soft Moon, tells me. (The group plays Mon/31 at the Independent.)

Thinking about beginnings is equally problematic. The Soft Moon is a music project built on unsettled grounds. It’s magnetized between the poles of late 1970s and early ’80s post-punk, the motorik beats of techno and Krautrock, and organic forms of Afro-Cuban poly-percussion, but all equally disrupted from their roots, on a search for some other destination.

The anxiety about endings is strange, on the surface at least, because Vasquez — singer, songwriter, multi instrumentalist — has accomplished more than your average procrastinator. Since last year’s self-titled debut on Captured Tracks, a desolate and rapturous composition, the Soft Moon has steadily seduced a devoted listenership. Vasquez, along with fellow Bay Area-based musicians Justin Anastasi on bass and Damon Way on drum machines and synthesizers, just performed a few shows on the East Coast after returning from tour in Europe earlier in the summer. The band is also working on material for a second full-length and preparing for the release of a new EP, Total Decay, coinciding with a launch party on Halloween in San Francisco.

Songs by the Soft Moon often begin in full throttle, as if they’ve already begun. They move forward carried by the sheer propulsive gravity of their engineered drum patterns — driving their gutted vehicles according to shapes and zigzags, towards endings that dissolve, break in static, submerge into chaos, or collapse abruptly as if the frequency on the radio has just changed or connection suddenly lost. Despite whatever glimmer of hope or flicker of light is carved out by the oscillating guitar strums and the burning synthetic melodies, the songs never find their way out of claustrophobia.

They have geometrical names: “Circles,” “Parallels,” or frightening ones: “Tiny Spiders,” “Dead Love.” They conjure moods of loss: forgotten memories, clouded nostalgia, a future that never came to pass, harrowing desire, and love. Vasquez doesn’t sing so much as chant in a corrosive whisper, “You can’t pull yourself out of the fire,” or he screams, yells, moans, gurgles from the depths — his voice degenerates into a mechanical short-circuit, primal electric emotion. “I don’t know what it is about endings,” he says. “Maybe I want to hold onto the moment. Sometimes I take a snapshot of it as if it’s still there. Maybe it’s simply my fear of death.”

The substance of the Soft Moon is raw, cutting. Yet the music feels good, even approaches heights of euphoria. Streams of pleasure charge the rawness; optimism suspends fear. It’s delivered in pop formulas, forged from hours, years of digesting Prince, Madonna, Joy Division, Kraftwerk. But the Soft Moon also turns pop upside down. Hope is never realized. Familiar intensities of pleasure and desire are disturbed. The music spurs an emotional awakening in your guts, in the ghost of the machine that beats its mechanical rhythms on and on. A haunted undercurrent of pop washes up on the shore — like all promised lands, a tragic place.

Vasquez thinks the Soft Moon evokes his childhood growing up in Victorville, a suburban desert community nestled in the heart of the Inland Empire just outside of Los Angeles. He recalls empty space, tract houses, malls, skies that went on forever, blinding flashes of sunlight, and a soft moon hanging low in the horizon. He remembers riding in the car for endless stretches, the rhythms of commuting, “isolated in music as if it was a sanctuary.”

I ask, so how do you ever finish a song, at least in the sense of putting it out there? “I just abandon them,” Vasquez says. Why bother making them? “I get attached to songs and put a lot of effort into making them. Occasionally they become revelations for me.” How do you recuperate your abandoned revelations when you perform, repeating all over again what you could never finish in the first place? “When I play live, it gets to a euphoric level, and it’s very cathartic, but I never get a sense of overcoming anything. Or the overcoming is really only my chance to express something to the crowd, to be vulnerable, finally.”

Perhaps the Soft Moon’s most revelatory song yet is “When It’s Over.” It’s something of a post-apocalyptic nightmare, anticipating the end, a bleak and empty one, and at the same time recovering the traces of a past, revealing the specters and ghosts that still inhabit the present. Recurring dreams serve as inspiration; “You know, the typical: alien invasions, planets colliding, comets, the sun exploding — very cosmic — the earth stopping, or falling,” he says. “It always has something to do with the galaxy. It’s always so devastating … I never could finish [Cormac McCarthy’s] The Road either.”

The EP, Total Decay, follows these same themes of temporal and planetary displacement, or rather, diaspora. But the core engine, and enigma, of these songs is always one full of life, vital and imaginative. “I want to hold onto the organism, since technology is developing so fast that we have difficulty adapting.” Vasquez says. “Body, sensitivity, emotion, skin, flesh, blood — I think that’s why the nostalgia is so prevalent in the music.”

The Soft Moon holds on just as equally to the machine. The songs are produced organisms, synthesized from spirit and electronics; they are born, grow, mature, and wither away. In “Total Decay,” swirling alarms disperse, echo, derail into static breath. Synthetic wind gusts into the hypnotic poly-percussion of “Visions,” dancing frenetically around punctuated low end bass. Claps chatter and keys bubble up from the ether, and return to their source, without justification, just as suddenly. *

THE SOFT MOON

With Led Er Est, Chelsea Wolfe, Michael Stocke, and Josh Cheon

Mon/31, 9 p.m., $13

The Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

(415) 771-1421

www.theindependentsf.com

 

Events Listings: Halloween edition

Andrew Lam
-
0

culture@sfbg.com

Hell’s bells, our very own high unholy day approaches — and the fact that Halloween’s on a Monday this year means an entire weekend of insane. Oh, why not just make it a whole week. Surely you have a week’s worth of slutty Rick Perry toupee costumes in your closet? Tape ’em on crooked and check out some of the eee-vil events below, from fiendishly family friendly to naughtily “adult.”

WEDNESDAY 26

“Death in Parallel” fundraiser and preview Mission Cultural Center, 2868 Mission, SF. (415)821-1155, www.missionculturalcenter.org. 6:30 p.m.–9:30 p.m., $50. Get your dead on a little early at this sneak preview of the epicenter of SF’s Dia de los Muertos celebration.

Dream Queens Revue: Halloween Spooktacular Show Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, 133 Turk, SF. www.dreamqueensrevue.com. 9:45 p.m., free. The dreamy weekly drag show goes ghoulish with SF’s sole goth queen, Sophilya Leggz.

THURSDAY 27

“Ann Magnuson plays David Bowie and Jobriath, or, the Rock Star as Witch Doctor, Myth Maker, and Ritual Sacrifice” San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 151 Third St., SF. (415) 357-4000, www.sfmoma.org. 6 p.m.-9:45 p.m., free with museum admission. Fierce hero of the 1980s New York performance underground (and familiar face as sitcom television sidekick-boss-neighbor), Magnuson returns to her fabulous roots in this piece that include incorporate “dreams, Jung, human sacrifice, Aztec shamanism, and all things dark, bloody, and beautiful.” And it’s a costume party! In the SF MoMA! Creativity abounds.

“Halloween! The Ballad of Michele Myers” CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF. www.counterpulse.org. 8 p.m., also Fri/28-Sun/30, $20. Gear up for a drag-studded slasher musical taking cues from “Heathers” and “The Facts of Life,” starring the perfectly horrific Raya Light. She’s a-scary!

Naked Girls Reading: Neil Gaiman Center for Sex and Culture, 1349 Mission, SF. www.sexandculture.org. 8 p.m., $15. Costumes and masks are encouraged at this semi-participatory, all-but-traditional reading of Sandman creator Gaiman’s darker work.

TheaterPop SF: SuperNatural, Red Poppy Arthouse, 2698 Folsom, SF. www.redpoppyarthouse.org. 7 p.m., $10. Local performers skip the tacky underchin flashlights and dry ice for carefully composed, intricate explorations of the macabre.

Zombie Nightlife with Peaches Christ California Academy of Sciences, 55 Music Concourse Dr., Golden Gate Park, SF. www.calacademy.org. 6 p.m.-10 p.m., $12. The undead are by no means unfashionable — get a zombie makeover, dance with similarly festering folks, sample the latest zombie video games, and listen to a presentation by the Zombie Research Society at the ever-popular, always good-looking weekly Nightlife event at the Cal Academy of Sciences. With Peaches Christ as hostess, it’s a zombie no-brainer.

FRIDAY 28

The Big Nasty: 10th Anniversary Party with Too $hort Mezzanine, 444 Jesse, SF. www.mezzaninesf.com. 8 p.m., $30. A $1000 best costume prize is sure to put the kibosh on those perennially popular nurse get-ups. As if legendary Bay legend Boo $hort, er, Too $hort weren’t enough of an incentive to ditch tired costumes and go as your favorite classic rapper.

Haunted Hoedown, Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. www.bottomofthehill.com, 9 p.m., $10. Rin Tin Tiger and Please Do Not Fight headline the second annual hoedown at this live rock showcase; expect a barn-burner.

Jason Webley’s Halloween Spectacular Slim’s, 333 11th St., SF. www.slims-sf.com. 9 p.m., $14. After once faking his own death at a Halloween show and then disappearing for six months, accordionist Webley’s full-band show this year promises excitement, to say the least.

Night of the Living Shred Club Six, 66 Sixth St., SF. www.clubsix1.com. 9 p.m.-4a.m., $10. This hip-hop and electro throwdown is one where we’ll let the WTF press release speak for itself: “four rooms, five bands, five of the Bay’s best DJs including The Whooligan and Richie Panic, a Paradise Wheels half-pipe and best skate trick contest” — all catered by Mission Chinese Food and Bar Crudo and hosted by two of our favorite people ever, Kelly Kate Warren and Parker Day.

“Rhythm of the 90s” Ultimate Halloween Party Café Cocomo, 650 Indiana, SF. www.fivestarunited.com. 9 p.m.-2 a.m., $45. Break out the Clueless costume and the ketchup bottle; Café Cocomo’s massive dance floor has plenty of room to turn back the clock. Macarena, anyone?

Salem 103 Harriet, SF. www.1015.com, 10 p.m., free. The biggest and scariest name in the witch house dance music movement swoops in from Michigan for a free show, with Tearist, Pfang, Gummybear, Dials and Whitch providing gallows support.

Scaregrove, Stern Grove, 2750 19th Ave., SF. www.sfrecpark.org. 4 p.m.-9 p.m., $8. ‘Tis the season for bouncy castles — bring the kids out for hayrides, carnival activities, a haunted house, and (fingers crossed) funnel cake at the park.

Speakeasy’s Monsters of Rock Halloween Festival Speakeasy Ales and Lagers, 1195 Evans, SF. www.goodbeer.com. 4 p.m.-9 p.m., free. Parties centered upon the theme of good beer never really get old — especially when there are food trucks, live music, and heady costumes.

Sugar Skull Decorating Workshop Autumn Express, 2071 Mission, SF. www.autumnexpress.com. 5 p.m.–6 p.m., $20. Sugar skulls are provided (so you can keep licking away at last year’s) at artist Michele Simon’s decorative exploration of the Dia de los Muertos tradition.

Third Annual Zombie Prom Verdi Club, 2424 Mariposa, SF. www.zombiepromsf.com. 9 p.m., $20. Costume contest, coffin photo booth, live music, and a scary thought: the dancers on the floor tonight may have been doing that move for hundreds of years. Hey, our prom was kind of like night of the living dead, too.

SATURDAY 29

BiBi SF: Queer Middle East Masquerade 4 Shine, 1337 Mission, SF. www.bibisf.org, 9 p.m., $10. The charitable and extremely sultry BiBi SF throws a great party that combines Arabic, Persian, Pan-African, and Latin sounds with hip-shaking belly dancers, lovely drag performances, and an unbelievably hot crowd. All are welcome to this fourth installment of marvelous masquerading.

Circus Center’s Haunted House Circus Center, 755 Frederick, SF. www.circuscenter.org. Tours from 6-7 p.m., show at 7:30. Putting your body in the hands of a practicing student is sometimes not the best idea (see: haircuts, dental exams), but the Circus Center’s students have thrown together an extensive haunted house sure to turn your stomach in only the best way.

Ghost Ship IV: The Afterlife Treasure Island. www.spacecowboys.org. 9 p.m.-4 a.m., $50 tickets (extremely limited) on site. A massive, Halloween-themed arm of Burning Man, Ghost Ship mashes together DJs, art cars, food trucks, a stroboscopic zoetrope, and thousands of people.

GO BOO! Deco Lounge, 510 Larkin, SF. www.decosf.com, 9 p.m.-late, $5. If you want to experience some really sexy underground disco energy with a fantastically diverse crowd, the monthly Go Bang! Party is one of your best bets — this Halloween edition brings in DJ Glenn Rivera and Mattski to join residents Sergio and Steve Fabus of the storied Trocadero Disco. Pop on a costume and hustle on down.

Halloween Freakout with Planet Booty Café du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. www.planetbooty.org. 9 p.m., $12. It’s hard to imagine a more extreme Planet Booty, but this would be the night for it: swap your standard neon unitard for a black velvet version.

Halloween Masquerade with Zach Deputy The Independent, 628 Divisidero, SF. www.theindependentsf.com. 8:30 p.m., $20. Deputy’s “gospel-ninja-soul” provides the soundtrack to an unorthodox masquerade, followed by a free (with ticketstub) Boom Boom Room afterparty.

Halloween 2011: A Red Carpet Runway Massacre Jones, 620 Jones, SF., www.juanitamore.com. 9 p.m., $35. “I prefer the glamour to the gore on Halloween,” quoth ever-poised (even while double-fisting shots) drag ruler Juanita More. Join her at recently opened rooftop bar Jones for dancing and fashionable fun with Djs Delachaux and Sparber, club Some Things hilarious Project Runtover amateur design contest, treats from farm:table and Gimme Shoes, and More, More, More.

“Hallowscreen” cartoon screening Walt Disney Family Museum, 104 Montgomery, Presidio, SF. www.waltdisney.org 11 a.m., 1 p.m., 3 p.m., 4 p.m., 5 p.m. Also Sun/30, Mon/31. $7 adults, $5 children. Catch “Hell’s Bells” and other early, strange Disney shorts that show Walt’s more uncanny side. If you haven’t been to the excellent museum yet, here’s a great occasion.

Horror Costume Party, SUB-Mission, 2183 Mission, SF. www.sf-submission.com. 9 p.m., $4 in costume. Get your gore on with Meat Hook and the Vital Organs; after an earsplitting set, zombiewalk down the street for a taco at Cancun.

Foreverland Halloween Ball Bimbos 365 Club, 1025 Columbus, SF. www.bimbos365club.com. 9 p.m., $22. The Thriller dance is only the beginning at this costume-intensive, 14-piece tribute to M.J. himself.

Jack O’Lantern Jamboree Children’s Fairyland, Oakl. www.fairyland.org. 10 a.m. — 5 p.m., also Sun/30. $10. From juggling and puppets to rides and parades, Oakland’s Fairyland puts on a gentle All Hallow’s weekend.

Lights Down Low Halloween SOM Bar, 2925 16th St., SF. www.som-bar.com. 9:30 p.m., $10 advance. One of the city’s finest, wildest parties brings in bass music star Pearson Sound a.k.a. Ramadanman with DJ Christian Martin, Manaré, Sleazemore, and Eli Glad.

Monster Bash on the U.S.S. Hornet 707 W. Hornet, Pier 3, Alameda. www.uss-hornet.org. 7:30 p.m., $25. What better place to celebrate spooks than among the 300 ghosts haunting the crannies of Alameda’s ancient aircraft carrier?

Spooktacular Japantown Halloween Party and Trick-or-Treat Japantown Peace Plaza, Post at Buchanan, SF. www.sfjapantown.org. 12 p.m.–4 p.m., free. Uni-nigiri and candy corn: the perfect combination. Trick-or-treat in the light of day through the Japan Center Malls.

32nd Annual Spiral Dance, Kezar Pavilion, 755 Stanyan, SF. www.reclaimingspiraldance.org. 7:30 p.m., $10–$20 (sliding scale). The witches of San Francisco gather for a huge participatory dance honoring those who have passed.’

Trannyshack Presents: Halloween: A Party DNA Lounge, 375 11th, SF. www.dnalounge.com. 11 p.m., $25. Anything but the traditional drag, the 5th incarnation of Peaches Christ and Heklina’s annual costumed throwdown features a fantastically horrific secret (and “big!”) guest judge. Oh, and the usual genius-creative bevy of outré drag performers, including Fauxnique, Becky Motorlodge, Toxic Waist, and Exhibit Q.

Wild Side West Costume Contest and Party Wild Side West, 424 Cortland, SF. 8 p.m., free. Try not to get your t.p. body cast caught on a shrub in the Bernal hotspot’s beer garden.

Wicked Gay! Halloween Bash Lexington Club, 3464 19th St., SF. www.lexingtonclub.com. 9 p.m., free. The happily hectic Mission dyke bar holds a costume party and contest with live beats.

SUNDAY 30

Ceremony Halloween Tea, City Nights, 715 Harrison, SF. www.industrysf.com. 5 p.m.-midnight, $40. The name sounds genteel; the dancing to Freemasons and others will likely be raucous.

Fruitvale Dia de los Muertos Festival Fruitvale Village, Oakl. www.unitycouncil.org. 10 a.m.-5 p.m., free. Oakland’s Day of the Dead festival, falling a bit before SF’s, features dancers, gloriously fragrant food, huge crowds, and, of course, compelling tributes to loved ones who have passed.

Halloween Family Dance Class, ODC Dance Commons, 351 Shotwell, SF. www.odcdance.org. 1 p.m-2 p.m., $5/person, $20/family. Britt Van Hees allows kids and folks who’ve already mastered the Sprinkler to add the Thriller dance to their repertoire.

Midnight Monster Mayhem, Rockit Room, 406 Clement, SF. www.rock-it-room.com. 9 p.m., $10 before 11 p.m. The live hip-hop dance party (costumed, of course) may well be the perfect nightcap to pumpkin pork stew at nearby Burma Superstar.

PETNATION 5 Public Works, 161 Erie, SF. www.publicsf.com. 9 p.m., $5 before 10 p.m., $10 after. Dance to Fido’s memory — Public Works honors deceased pets with soul-shaking beats, a DDLM art exhibit and a commemorative altar (plus, proceeds go to OccupySF).

MONDAY 31

Classical at the Freight Freight and Salvage Coffeehouse, 2020 Addison, Berk. www.freightandsalvage.org. 6:30 p.m., $10.50 for adults, under 12 free. The Bellavente Wind Quintet breathes chilling strains to a kid’s costume parade and candy-filled celebration.

Halloween at El Rio El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF. www.elriosf.com. 8 p.m., $7. Two Ohioans under the stage name “Mr. Gnome” take over the inclusive, ever-popular dive for Halloween.

Teatro ZinZombie, Teatro ZinZanni, Pier 29, SF. www.love.zinzanni.org. 6 p.m.-11 p.m., tickets start at $117. Tonight might be the one to finally catch SF’s cabaret mainstay, which for a few precious hours transforms into a zombie-laden spectacle.

 

Events Listings: Halloween edition

Andrew Lam
-
0

culture@sfbg.com

Hell’s bells, our very own high unholy day approaches — and the fact that Halloween’s on a Monday this year means an entire weekend of insane. Oh, why not just make it a whole week. Surely you have a week’s worth of slutty Rick Perry toupee costumes in your closet? Tape ’em on crooked and check out some of the eee-vil events below, from fiendishly family friendly to naughtily “adult.” 

WEDNESDAY 26

“Death in Parallel” fundraiser and preview Mission Cultural Center, 2868 Mission, SF. (415)821-1155, www.missionculturalcenter.org. 6:30 p.m.–9:30 p.m., $50. Get your dead on a little early at this sneak preview of the epicenter of SF’s Dia de los Muertos celebration.

Dream Queens Revue: Halloween Spooktacular Show Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, 133 Turk, SF. www.dreamqueensrevue.com. 9:45 p.m., free. The dreamy weekly drag show goes ghoulish with SF’s sole goth queen, Sophilya Leggz.

THURSDAY 27

“Ann Magnuson plays David Bowie and Jobriath, or, the Rock Star as Witch Doctor, Myth Maker, and Ritual Sacrifice San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 151 Third St., SF. (415) 357-4000, www.sfmoma.org. 6 p.m.-9:45 p.m., free with museum admission. Fierce hero of the 1980s New York performance underground (and familiar face as sitcom television sidekick-boss-neighbor), Magnuson returns to her fabulous roots in this piece that include incorporate “dreams, Jung, human sacrifice, Aztec shamanism, and all things dark, bloody, and beautiful.” And it’s a costume party! In the SF MoMA! Creativity abounds.

“Halloween! The Ballad of Michele Myers” CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF. www.counterpulse.org. 8 p.m., also Fri/28-Sun/30, $20. Gear up for a drag-studded slasher musical taking cues from “Heathers” and “The Facts of Life,” starring the perfectly horrific Raya Light. She’s a-scary!

Naked Girls Reading: Neil Gaiman Center for Sex and Culture, 1349 Mission, SF. www.sexandculture.org. 8 p.m., $15. Costumes and masks are encouraged at this semi-participatory, all-but-traditional reading of Sandman creator Gaiman’s darker work.

TheaterPop SF: SuperNatural, Red Poppy Arthouse, 2698 Folsom, SF. www.redpoppyarthouse.org. 7 p.m., $10. Local performers skip the tacky underchin flashlights and dry ice for carefully composed, intricate explorations of the macabre.

Zombie Nightlife with Peaches Christ California Academy of Sciences, 55 Music Concourse Dr., Golden Gate Park, SF. www.calacademy.org. 6 p.m.-10 p.m., $12. The undead are by no means unfashionable — get a zombie makeover, dance with similarly festering folks, sample the latest zombie video games, and listen to a presentation by the Zombie Research Society at the ever-popular, always good-looking weekly Nightlife event at the Cal Academy of Sciences. With Peaches Christ as hostess, it’s a zombie no-brainer.

FRIDAY 28

The Big Nasty: 10th Anniversary Party with Too $hort Mezzanine, 444 Jesse, SF. www.mezzaninesf.com. 8 p.m., $30. A $1000 best costume prize is sure to put the kibosh on those perennially popular nurse get-ups. As if legendary Bay legend Boo $hort, er, Too $hort weren’t enough of an incentive to ditch tired costumes and go as your favorite classic rapper.

Haunted Hoedown, Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. www.bottomofthehill.com, 9 p.m., $10. Rin Tin Tiger and Please Do Not Fight headline the second annual hoedown at this live rock showcase; expect a barn-burner.

Jason Webley’s Halloween Spectacular Slim’s, 333 11th St., SF. www.slims-sf.com. 9 p.m., $14. After once faking his own death at a Halloween show and then disappearing for six months, accordionist Webley’s full-band show this year promises excitement, to say the least.

Night of the Living Shred Club Six, 66 Sixth St., SF. www.clubsix1.com. 9 p.m.-4a.m., $10. This hip-hop and electro throwdown is one where we’ll let the WTF press release speak for itself: “four rooms, five bands, five of the Bay’s best DJs including The Whooligan and Richie Panic, a Paradise Wheels half-pipe and best skate trick contest” — all catered by Mission Chinese Food and Bar Crudo and hosted by two of our favorite people ever, Kelly Kate Warren and Parker Day.

“Rhythm of the 90s” Ultimate Halloween Party Café Cocomo, 650 Indiana, SF. www.fivestarunited.com. 9 p.m.-2 a.m., $45. Break out the Clueless costume and the ketchup bottle; Café Cocomo’s massive dance floor has plenty of room to turn back the clock. Macarena, anyone?

Salem 103 Harriet, SF. www.1015.com, 10 p.m., free. The biggest and scariest name in the witch house dance music movement swoops in from Michigan for a free show, with Tearist, Pfang, Gummybear, Dials and Whitch providing gallows support.

Scaregrove, Stern Grove, 2750 19th Ave., SF. www.sfrecpark.org. 4 p.m.-9 p.m., $8. ‘Tis the season for bouncy castles — bring the kids out for hayrides, carnival activities, a haunted house, and (fingers crossed) funnel cake at the park.

Speakeasy’s Monsters of Rock Halloween Festival Speakeasy Ales and Lagers, 1195 Evans, SF. www.goodbeer.com. 4 p.m.-9 p.m., free. Parties centered upon the theme of good beer never really get old — especially when there are food trucks, live music, and heady costumes.

Sugar Skull Decorating Workshop Autumn Express, 2071 Mission, SF. www.autumnexpress.com. 5 p.m.–6 p.m., $20. Sugar skulls are provided (so you can keep licking away at last year’s) at artist Michele Simon’s decorative exploration of the Dia de los Muertos tradition.

Third Annual Zombie Prom Verdi Club, 2424 Mariposa, SF. www.zombiepromsf.com. 9 p.m., $20. Costume contest, coffin photo booth, live music, and a scary thought: the dancers on the floor tonight may have been doing that move for hundreds of years. Hey, our prom was kind of like night of the living dead, too.

SATURDAY 29

BiBi SF: Queer Middle East Masquerade 4 Shine, 1337 Mission, SF. www.bibisf.org, 9 p.m., $10. The charitable and extremely sultry BiBi SF throws a great party that combines Arabic, Persian, Pan-African, and Latin sounds with hip-shaking belly dancers, lovely drag performances, and an unbelievably hot crowd. All are welcome to this fourth installment of marvelous masquerading.

Circus Center’s Haunted House Circus Center, 755 Frederick, SF. www.circuscenter.org. Tours from 6-7 p.m., show at 7:30. Putting your body in the hands of a practicing student is sometimes not the best idea (see: haircuts, dental exams), but the Circus Center’s students have thrown together an extensive haunted house sure to turn your stomach in only the best way.

Ghost Ship IV: The Afterlife Treasure Island. www.spacecowboys.org. 9 p.m.-4 a.m., $50 tickets (extremely limited) on site. A massive, Halloween-themed arm of Burning Man, Ghost Ship mashes together DJs, art cars, food trucks, a stroboscopic zoetrope, and thousands of people.

GO BOO! Deco Lounge, 510 Larkin, SF. www.decosf.com, 9 p.m.-late, $5. If you want to experience some really sexy underground disco energy with a fantastically diverse crowd, the monthly Go Bang! Party is one of your best bets — this Halloween edition brings in DJ Glenn Rivera and Mattski to join residents Sergio and Steve Fabus of the storied Trocadero Disco. Pop on a costume and hustle on down.

Halloween Freakout with Planet Booty Café du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. www.planetbooty.org. 9 p.m., $12. It’s hard to imagine a more extreme Planet Booty, but this would be the night for it: swap your standard neon unitard for a black velvet version.

Halloween Masquerade with Zach Deputy The Independent, 628 Divisidero, SF. www.theindependentsf.com. 8:30 p.m., $20. Deputy’s “gospel-ninja-soul” provides the soundtrack to an unorthodox masquerade, followed by a free (with ticketstub) Boom Boom Room afterparty.

Halloween 2011: A Red Carpet Runway Massacre Jones, 620 Jones, SF., www.juanitamore.com. 9 p.m., $35. “I prefer the glamour to the gore on Halloween,” quoth ever-poised (even while double-fisting shots) drag ruler Juanita More. Join her at recently opened rooftop bar Jones for dancing and fashionable fun with Djs Delachaux and Sparber, club Some Things hilarious Project Runtover amateur design contest, treats from farm:table and Gimme Shoes, and More, More, More.

“Hallowscreen” cartoon screening Walt Disney Family Museum, 104 Montgomery, Presidio, SF. www.waltdisney.org 11 a.m., 1 p.m., 3 p.m., 4 p.m., 5 p.m. Also Sun/30, Mon/31. $7 adults, $5 children. Catch “Hell’s Bells” and other early, strange Disney shorts that show Walt’s more uncanny side. If you haven’t been to the excellent museum yet, here’s a great occasion.

Horror Costume Party, SUB-Mission, 2183 Mission, SF. www.sf-submission.com. 9 p.m., $4 in costume. Get your gore on with Meat Hook and the Vital Organs; after an earsplitting set, zombiewalk down the street for a taco at Cancun.

Foreverland Halloween Ball Bimbos 365 Club, 1025 Columbus, SF. www.bimbos365club.com. 9 p.m., $22. The Thriller dance is only the beginning at this costume-intensive, 14-piece tribute to M.J. himself.

Jack O’Lantern Jamboree Children’s Fairyland, Oakl. www.fairyland.org. 10 a.m. — 5 p.m., also Sun/30. $10. From juggling and puppets to rides and parades, Oakland’s Fairyland puts on a gentle All Hallow’s weekend.

Lights Down Low Halloween SOM Bar, 2925 16th St., SF. www.som-bar.com. 9:30 p.m., $10 advance. One of the city’s finest, wildest parties brings in bass music star Pearson Sound a.k.a. Ramadanman with DJ Christian Martin, Manaré, Sleazemore, and Eli Glad.

Monster Bash on the U.S.S. Hornet 707 W. Hornet, Pier 3, Alameda. www.uss-hornet.org. 7:30 p.m., $25. What better place to celebrate spooks than among the 300 ghosts haunting the crannies of Alameda’s ancient aircraft carrier?

Spooktacular Japantown Halloween Party and Trick-or-Treat Japantown Peace Plaza, Post at Buchanan, SF. www.sfjapantown.org. 12 p.m.–4 p.m., free. Uni-nigiri and candy corn: the perfect combination. Trick-or-treat in the light of day through the Japan Center Malls.

32nd Annual Spiral Dance, Kezar Pavilion, 755 Stanyan, SF. www.reclaimingspiraldance.org. 7:30 p.m., $10–$20 (sliding scale). The witches of San Francisco gather for a huge participatory dance honoring those who have passed.’

Trannyshack Presents: Halloween: A Party DNA Lounge, 375 11th, SF. www.dnalounge.com. 11 p.m., $25. Anything but the traditional drag, the 5th incarnation of Peaches Christ and Heklina’s annual costumed throwdown features a fantastically horrific secret (and “big!”) guest judge. Oh, and the usual genius-creative bevy of outré drag performers, including Fauxnique, Becky Motorlodge, Toxic Waist, and Exhibit Q.

Wild Side West Costume Contest and Party Wild Side West, 424 Cortland, SF. 8 p.m., free. Try not to get your t.p. body cast caught on a shrub in the Bernal hotspot’s beer garden.

Wicked Gay! Halloween Bash Lexington Club, 3464 19th St., SF. www.lexingtonclub.com. 9 p.m., free. The happily hectic Mission dyke bar holds a costume party and contest with live beats.

SUNDAY 30

Ceremony Halloween Tea, City Nights, 715 Harrison, SF. www.industrysf.com. 5 p.m.-midnight, $40. The name sounds genteel; the dancing to Freemasons and others will likely be raucous.

Fruitvale Dia de los Muertos Festival Fruitvale Village, Oakl. www.unitycouncil.org. 10 a.m.-5 p.m., free. Oakland’s Day of the Dead festival, falling a bit before SF’s, features dancers, gloriously fragrant food, huge crowds, and, of course, compelling tributes to loved ones who have passed.

Halloween Family Dance Class, ODC Dance Commons, 351 Shotwell, SF. www.odcdance.org. 1 p.m-2 p.m., $5/person, $20/family. Britt Van Hees allows kids and folks who’ve already mastered the Sprinkler to add the Thriller dance to their repertoire.

Midnight Monster Mayhem, Rockit Room, 406 Clement, SF. www.rock-it-room.com. 9 p.m., $10 before 11 p.m. The live hip-hop dance party (costumed, of course) may well be the perfect nightcap to pumpkin pork stew at nearby Burma Superstar.

PETNATION 5 Public Works, 161 Erie, SF. www.publicsf.com. 9 p.m., $5 before 10 p.m., $10 after. Dance to Fido’s memory — Public Works honors deceased pets with soul-shaking beats, a DDLM art exhibit and a commemorative altar (plus, proceeds go to OccupySF).

MONDAY 31

Classical at the Freight Freight and Salvage Coffeehouse, 2020 Addison, Berk. www.freightandsalvage.org. 6:30 p.m., $10.50 for adults, under 12 free. The Bellavente Wind Quintet breathes chilling strains to a kid’s costume parade and candy-filled celebration.

Halloween at El Rio El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF. www.elriosf.com. 8 p.m., $7. Two Ohioans under the stage name “Mr. Gnome” take over the inclusive, ever-popular dive for Halloween.

Teatro ZinZombie, Teatro ZinZanni, Pier 29, SF. www.love.zinzanni.org. 6 p.m.-11 p.m., tickets start at $117. Tonight might be the one to finally catch SF’s cabaret mainstay, which for a few precious hours transforms into a zombie-laden spectacle.

 

Events Listings: Halloween edition

Andrew Lam
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0

culture@sfbg.com

Hell’s bells, our very own high unholy day approaches — and the fact that Halloween’s on a Monday this year means an entire weekend of insane. Oh, why not just make it a whole week. Surely you have a week’s worth of slutty Rick Perry toupee costumes in your closet? Tape ’em on crooked and check out some of the eee-vil events below, from fiendishly family friendly to naughtily “adult.” *

WEDNESDAY 26

“Death in Parallel” fundraiser and preview Mission Cultural Center, 2868 Mission, SF. (415)821-1155, www.missionculturalcenter.org. 6:30 p.m.–9:30 p.m., $50. Get your dead on a little early at this sneak preview of the epicenter of SF’s Dia de los Muertos celebration.

Dream Queens Revue: Halloween Spooktacular Show Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, 133 Turk, SF. www.dreamqueensrevue.com. 9:45 p.m., free. The dreamy weekly drag show goes ghoulish with SF’s sole goth queen, Sophilya Leggz.

THURSDAY 27

“Ann Magnuson plays David Bowie and Jobriath, or, the Rock Star as Witch Doctor, Myth Maker, and Ritual Sacrifice San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 151 Third St., SF. (415) 357-4000, www.sfmoma.org. 6 p.m.-9:45 p.m., free with museum admission. Fierce hero of the 1980s New York performance underground (and familiar face as sitcom television sidekick-boss-neighbor), Magnuson returns to her fabulous roots in this piece that include incorporate “dreams, Jung, human sacrifice, Aztec shamanism, and all things dark, bloody, and beautiful.” And it’s a costume party! In the SF MoMA! Creativity abounds.

“Halloween! The Ballad of Michele Myers” CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF. www.counterpulse.org. 8 p.m., also Fri/28-Sun/30, $20. Gear up for a drag-studded slasher musical taking cues from “Heathers” and “The Facts of Life,” starring the perfectly horrific Raya Light. She’s a-scary!

Naked Girls Reading: Neil Gaiman Center for Sex and Culture, 1349 Mission, SF. www.sexandculture.org. 8 p.m., $15. Costumes and masks are encouraged at this semi-participatory, all-but-traditional reading of Sandman creator Gaiman’s darker work.

TheaterPop SF: SuperNatural, Red Poppy Arthouse, 2698 Folsom, SF. www.redpoppyarthouse.org. 7 p.m., $10. Local performers skip the tacky underchin flashlights and dry ice for carefully composed, intricate explorations of the macabre.

Zombie Nightlife with Peaches Christ California Academy of Sciences, 55 Music Concourse Dr., Golden Gate Park, SF. www.calacademy.org. 6 p.m.-10 p.m., $12. The undead are by no means unfashionable — get a zombie makeover, dance with similarly festering folks, sample the latest zombie video games, and listen to a presentation by the Zombie Research Society at the ever-popular, always good-looking weekly Nightlife event at the Cal Academy of Sciences. With Peaches Christ as hostess, it’s a zombie no-brainer.

FRIDAY 28

The Big Nasty: 10th Anniversary Party with Too $hort Mezzanine, 444 Jesse, SF. www.mezzaninesf.com. 8 p.m., $30. A $1000 best costume prize is sure to put the kibosh on those perennially popular nurse get-ups. As if legendary Bay legend Boo $hort, er, Too $hort weren’t enough of an incentive to ditch tired costumes and go as your favorite classic rapper.

Haunted Hoedown, Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. www.bottomofthehill.com, 9 p.m., $10. Rin Tin Tiger and Please Do Not Fight headline the second annual hoedown at this live rock showcase; expect a barn-burner.

Jason Webley’s Halloween Spectacular Slim’s, 333 11th St., SF. www.slims-sf.com. 9 p.m., $14. After once faking his own death at a Halloween show and then disappearing for six months, accordionist Webley’s full-band show this year promises excitement, to say the least.

Night of the Living Shred Club Six, 66 Sixth St., SF. www.clubsix1.com. 9 p.m.-4a.m., $10. This hip-hop and electro throwdown is one where we’ll let the WTF press release speak for itself: “four rooms, five bands, five of the Bay’s best DJs including The Whooligan and Richie Panic, a Paradise Wheels half-pipe and best skate trick contest” — all catered by Mission Chinese Food and Bar Crudo and hosted by two of our favorite people ever, Kelly Kate Warren and Parker Day.

“Rhythm of the 90s” Ultimate Halloween Party Café Cocomo, 650 Indiana, SF. www.fivestarunited.com. 9 p.m.-2 a.m., $45. Break out the Clueless costume and the ketchup bottle; Café Cocomo’s massive dance floor has plenty of room to turn back the clock. Macarena, anyone?

Salem 103 Harriet, SF. www.1015.com, 10 p.m., free. The biggest and scariest name in the witch house dance music movement swoops in from Michigan for a free show, with Tearist, Pfang, Gummybear, Dials and Whitch providing gallows support.

Scaregrove, Stern Grove, 2750 19th Ave., SF. www.sfrecpark.org. 4 p.m.-9 p.m., $8. ‘Tis the season for bouncy castles — bring the kids out for hayrides, carnival activities, a haunted house, and (fingers crossed) funnel cake at the park.

Speakeasy’s Monsters of Rock Halloween Festival Speakeasy Ales and Lagers, 1195 Evans, SF. www.goodbeer.com. 4 p.m.-9 p.m., free. Parties centered upon the theme of good beer never really get old — especially when there are food trucks, live music, and heady costumes.

Sugar Skull Decorating Workshop Autumn Express, 2071 Mission, SF. www.autumnexpress.com. 5 p.m.–6 p.m., $20. Sugar skulls are provided (so you can keep licking away at last year’s) at artist Michele Simon’s decorative exploration of the Dia de los Muertos tradition.

Third Annual Zombie Prom Verdi Club, 2424 Mariposa, SF. www.zombiepromsf.com. 9 p.m., $20. Costume contest, coffin photo booth, live music, and a scary thought: the dancers on the floor tonight may have been doing that move for hundreds of years. Hey, our prom was kind of like night of the living dead, too.

SATURDAY 29

BiBi SF: Queer Middle East Masquerade 4 Shine, 1337 Mission, SF. www.bibisf.org, 9 p.m., $10. The charitable and extremely sultry BiBi SF throws a great party that combines Arabic, Persian, Pan-African, and Latin sounds with hip-shaking belly dancers, lovely drag performances, and an unbelievably hot crowd. All are welcome to this fourth installment of marvelous masquerading.

Circus Center’s Haunted House Circus Center, 755 Frederick, SF. www.circuscenter.org. Tours from 6-7 p.m., show at 7:30. Putting your body in the hands of a practicing student is sometimes not the best idea (see: haircuts, dental exams), but the Circus Center’s students have thrown together an extensive haunted house sure to turn your stomach in only the best way.

Ghost Ship IV: The Afterlife Treasure Island. www.spacecowboys.org. 9 p.m.-4 a.m., $50 tickets (extremely limited) on site. A massive, Halloween-themed arm of Burning Man, Ghost Ship mashes together DJs, art cars, food trucks, a stroboscopic zoetrope, and thousands of people.

GO BOO! Deco Lounge, 510 Larkin, SF. www.decosf.com, 9 p.m.-late, $5. If you want to experience some really sexy underground disco energy with a fantastically diverse crowd, the monthly Go Bang! Party is one of your best bets — this Halloween edition brings in DJ Glenn Rivera and Mattski to join residents Sergio and Steve Fabus of the storied Trocadero Disco. Pop on a costume and hustle on down.

Halloween Freakout with Planet Booty Café du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. www.planetbooty.org. 9 p.m., $12. It’s hard to imagine a more extreme Planet Booty, but this would be the night for it: swap your standard neon unitard for a black velvet version.

Halloween Masquerade with Zach Deputy The Independent, 628 Divisidero, SF. www.theindependentsf.com. 8:30 p.m., $20. Deputy’s “gospel-ninja-soul” provides the soundtrack to an unorthodox masquerade, followed by a free (with ticketstub) Boom Boom Room afterparty.

Halloween 2011: A Red Carpet Runway Massacre Jones, 620 Jones, SF., www.juanitamore.com. 9 p.m., $35. “I prefer the glamour to the gore on Halloween,” quoth ever-poised (even while double-fisting shots) drag ruler Juanita More. Join her at recently opened rooftop bar Jones for dancing and fashionable fun with Djs Delachaux and Sparber, club Some Things hilarious Project Runtover amateur design contest, treats from farm:table and Gimme Shoes, and More, More, More.

“Hallowscreen” cartoon screening Walt Disney Family Museum, 104 Montgomery, Presidio, SF. www.waltdisney.org 11 a.m., 1 p.m., 3 p.m., 4 p.m., 5 p.m. Also Sun/30, Mon/31. $7 adults, $5 children. Catch “Hell’s Bells” and other early, strange Disney shorts that show Walt’s more uncanny side. If you haven’t been to the excellent museum yet, here’s a great occasion.

Horror Costume Party, SUB-Mission, 2183 Mission, SF. www.sf-submission.com. 9 p.m., $4 in costume. Get your gore on with Meat Hook and the Vital Organs; after an earsplitting set, zombiewalk down the street for a taco at Cancun.

Foreverland Halloween Ball Bimbos 365 Club, 1025 Columbus, SF. www.bimbos365club.com. 9 p.m., $22. The Thriller dance is only the beginning at this costume-intensive, 14-piece tribute to M.J. himself.

Jack O’Lantern Jamboree Children’s Fairyland, Oakl. www.fairyland.org. 10 a.m. — 5 p.m., also Sun/30. $10. From juggling and puppets to rides and parades, Oakland’s Fairyland puts on a gentle All Hallow’s weekend.

Lights Down Low Halloween SOM Bar, 2925 16th St., SF. www.som-bar.com. 9:30 p.m., $10 advance. One of the city’s finest, wildest parties brings in bass music star Pearson Sound a.k.a. Ramadanman with DJ Christian Martin, Manaré, Sleazemore, and Eli Glad.

Monster Bash on the U.S.S. Hornet 707 W. Hornet, Pier 3, Alameda. www.uss-hornet.org. 7:30 p.m., $25. What better place to celebrate spooks than among the 300 ghosts haunting the crannies of Alameda’s ancient aircraft carrier?

Spooktacular Japantown Halloween Party and Trick-or-Treat Japantown Peace Plaza, Post at Buchanan, SF. www.sfjapantown.org. 12 p.m.–4 p.m., free. Uni-nigiri and candy corn: the perfect combination. Trick-or-treat in the light of day through the Japan Center Malls.

32nd Annual Spiral Dance, Kezar Pavilion, 755 Stanyan, SF. www.reclaimingspiraldance.org. 7:30 p.m., $10–$20 (sliding scale). The witches of San Francisco gather for a huge participatory dance honoring those who have passed.’

Trannyshack Presents: Halloween: A Party DNA Lounge, 375 11th, SF. www.dnalounge.com. 11 p.m., $25. Anything but the traditional drag, the 5th incarnation of Peaches Christ and Heklina’s annual costumed throwdown features a fantastically horrific secret (and “big!”) guest judge. Oh, and the usual genius-creative bevy of outré drag performers, including Fauxnique, Becky Motorlodge, Toxic Waist, and Exhibit Q.

Wild Side West Costume Contest and Party Wild Side West, 424 Cortland, SF. 8 p.m., free. Try not to get your t.p. body cast caught on a shrub in the Bernal hotspot’s beer garden.

Wicked Gay! Halloween Bash Lexington Club, 3464 19th St., SF. www.lexingtonclub.com. 9 p.m., free. The happily hectic Mission dyke bar holds a costume party and contest with live beats.

SUNDAY 30

Ceremony Halloween Tea, City Nights, 715 Harrison, SF. www.industrysf.com. 5 p.m.-midnight, $40. The name sounds genteel; the dancing to Freemasons and others will likely be raucous.

Fruitvale Dia de los Muertos Festival Fruitvale Village, Oakl. www.unitycouncil.org. 10 a.m.-5 p.m., free. Oakland’s Day of the Dead festival, falling a bit before SF’s, features dancers, gloriously fragrant food, huge crowds, and, of course, compelling tributes to loved ones who have passed.

Halloween Family Dance Class, ODC Dance Commons, 351 Shotwell, SF. www.odcdance.org. 1 p.m-2 p.m., $5/person, $20/family. Britt Van Hees allows kids and folks who’ve already mastered the Sprinkler to add the Thriller dance to their repertoire.

Midnight Monster Mayhem, Rockit Room, 406 Clement, SF. www.rock-it-room.com. 9 p.m., $10 before 11 p.m. The live hip-hop dance party (costumed, of course) may well be the perfect nightcap to pumpkin pork stew at nearby Burma Superstar.

PETNATION 5 Public Works, 161 Erie, SF. www.publicsf.com. 9 p.m., $5 before 10 p.m., $10 after. Dance to Fido’s memory — Public Works honors deceased pets with soul-shaking beats, a DDLM art exhibit and a commemorative altar (plus, proceeds go to OccupySF).

MONDAY 31

Classical at the Freight Freight and Salvage Coffeehouse, 2020 Addison, Berk. www.freightandsalvage.org. 6:30 p.m., $10.50 for adults, under 12 free. The Bellavente Wind Quintet breathes chilling strains to a kid’s costume parade and candy-filled celebration.

Halloween at El Rio El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF. www.elriosf.com. 8 p.m., $7. Two Ohioans under the stage name “Mr. Gnome” take over the inclusive, ever-popular dive for Halloween.

Teatro ZinZombie, Teatro ZinZanni, Pier 29, SF. www.love.zinzanni.org. 6 p.m.-11 p.m., tickets start at $117. Tonight might be the one to finally catch SF’s cabaret mainstay, which for a few precious hours transforms into a zombie-laden spectacle.

 

Our Weekly Picks: October 26-November 1

Andrew Lam
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0

WEDNESDAY 26

Yngwie Malmsteem

Coming to prominence in the early 1980s, master guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen blew listeners away with classically-inspired shredding and a flashy style that displayed his incredible technical prowess on the instrument. The virtuoso has released a slew of metal and rock records that show off his scorching solos, but he has also put out albums featuring classical and orchestral compositions and collaborations with groups such as the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. Malmsteen, whose latest effort Relentless (Universal) came out last year, continues to hone his fancy fretwork — don’t miss out on your chance to see him “unleash the fury!” (Sean McCourt)

8 p.m., $30

Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

(415) 346-6000

www.thefillmore.com

 

“Desdemona”

Determining to write a response to Othello following Peter Sellars’ controversial staging in New York in 2009, world renowned author Toni Morrison teamed up with famed theater-opera director Sellars and acclaimed West African singer Rakia Traoré to craft this unique piece of music theater, making its US premiere in Berkeley. Taking her cue from a couple of brief but suggestive lines in Shakespeare’s text, Morrison imagines a reunion beyond the grave between Desdemona and the African woman who raised her, in a song cycle combining traditional West African compositions with original ones penned by Traoré and Morrison. From this encounter come hints of a new future based on a world that was always deeply interconnected.(Robert Avila)

Through Sat/29, 8 p.m., $100

Zellerbach Playhouse

101 Zellerbach Hall, Berk.

(510) 642-9988

www.calperformances.org


THURSDAY 27

“Lumière and After”

Although Louis Lumière famously described cinema as “an invention without a future” not long after having a major hand in inventing it, the beautifully composed single shot actualities he produced with his brother Auguste still have a strong hold on the motion picture imagination. An intriguing Cinematheque program lines up several shorts directly inspired by the Lumières along with a handful of the original articles. Expect work by avant-garde materialists like Ken Jacobs and Peter Tscherkassky along with Andrew Norman Wilson’s fascinating short Workers Leaving the Googleplex. The latter drills holes in the search engine’s labor practices by way of revisiting the Lumières’ first publicly screened film (Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory). The Cinematheque screening sets the stage for Bring on the Lumière!, an original choreographic work premiering at the ODC Theater in a couple of weeks. (Max Goldberg)

7:30 p.m., $10

Artists’ Television Access

992 Valencia, SF

(415) 824-3890

www.sfcinematheque.org


FRIDAY 28

“Kevin Smith’s Halloween Extravaganza”

Do you like your spooky mixed with side-splitting hilarity? Then celebrate All Hallows Eve the “View Askewniverse” way with “Kevin Smith’s Halloween Extravaganza!” Writer and director Smith, known for his movies such as Clerks, Dogma and Chasing Amy, and actor Jason Mewes bring their “Jay and Silent Bob Get Old” live podcast show to the city tonight for what promises to be wildly funny romp through all manner of subject and story. Afterward, stick around for a screening of the horror flick Red State, Smith’s latest work, for which he will also partake in an audience Q&A. (McCourt)

7 p.m., $55

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

(415) 621-6120

www.castrotheatre.com

 

Get Dead

San Francisco troublemakers Get Dead were forged in the furnace of rad. The punk five-piece’s interests include drinking gin out of pineapples and getting banned for life from local venues. Get Dead’s shows are rough, rowdy, and downright unforgettable. Charismatic leader Sam King is temporarily relocating to Costa Rica, so this Halloween bash is also a going away party. King returns in February, when the band will release an acoustic album featuring a slew of California collaborators. Go buy him a shot and raise some hell. (Frances Capell)

Slick’s Helloween Bash With Code 4-15, Murderland, Lazerwolf, and AxeWound

10 p.m., free

Rockit Room

406 Clement, SF

(415) 387-6343

www.rock-it-room.com

 

SATURDAY 29

Journey to the End of the Night

A citywide game modeled after tag, Journey to the End of the Night has become one of the most popular street games in the world since its inception in 2006; now played everywhere from Chicago to Vienna, Mexico City to Berlin. In San Francisco last year, 1,300 participants flooded the streets in play. A brief rundown of the rules: there are six check points scattered throughout the city that you must try to get to, either on foot or by public transit, without being caught by “chasers,” those that do everything in their power to stop you. If caught by a chaser, you become a chaser. The first to the last checkpoint wins. Meet at Justin Herman Plaza and include friends, certainly, but the website recommends you bring “ones you can outrun.” Tag, you’re it (James H. Miller)

7 p.m., Free

Justin Herman Plaza

End of Market at Embarcadero, SF

www.totheendofthenight.com


“Diary of a Country Priest”

Diary of a Country Priest (1951), written and directed by Robert Bresson and adapted from the novel by Georges Bernanos, is a film that is so earnest and heartrending that it doesn’t feel entirely of this world. When a sickly priest (Claude Laydu, who lived in a monastery to prepare for the role) is assigned to his first parish in a small village devoid of faith or morals, he’s met with blatant hostility and outcast as a fool (the character recalls Myshkin from Dostoevsky’s The Idiot). Using dialogue pulled directly from the novel, Country Priest has scenes of such emotional intensity and suspense that it will make you ache in the gut, or,stir your very soul. If you feel nothing watching this film, you’re missing a heart. (Miller)

Sat/29, 7:30 p.m.; Sun/30, 2 p.m.; $8

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-2787

www.ybca.org


SUNDAY 30

“The Phantom of the Opera: Halloween Concert with Cameron Carpenter”

Juilliard-trained Cameron Carpenter been called “a talent of Mozartean proportions” and “the bad boy of the organ;” the bio on his slick website speaks breathlessly not only of his talents on the keys, but also his “Swarovski-encrusted performance wear and organ shoes.” He may be from Pennsylvania, but it sounds like he’ll fit in just fine in Halloween-crazed San Francisco — specifically at the SF Symphony’s annual silent-film screening. This year’s flick is the 1925 Phantom of the Opera, starring Lon Chaney; Carpenter performs a short recital and accompanies the film on Davies Symphony Hall’s insanely grand Ruffatti pipe organ. (Cheryl Eddy)

8 p.m., $20–$60

Davies Symphony Hall

201 Van Ness, SF

(415) 864-6000

www.sfsymphony.org

 

Anamanaguchi

Are you a bad enough dude? A chip-rock band hailing from New York, Anamanaguchi’s music comes as much from hacked Gameboys as it does electric guitars. Following its Dawn Metropolis LP in 2009 the band was tapped to create the epic soundtrack to the epic video game based on the epic indie comic Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. Imagine Rivers Cuomo brawling through a side-scrolling beat ’em up of your youth and you’ll have some idea of what it sounds like. The live show is a frenetic, hyper affair. (Try to resist the familiar urge to pick up the person nearest to you and throw them into the crowd. They are not a crate.) (Ryan Prendiville)

With Starscream, Knife City, Crash Faster

8 p.m., $12-$14

Slim’s

333 11th St., SF

(415) 255-0333

www.slims-sf.com


MONDAY 31

“Shock It To Me Halloween Spookenany”

Calling all monster kids! Local promoter and writer August Ragone — who penned the behemoth biography Eiji Tsuburaya: Master of Monsters — has been working in his dungeon lab all year and has created a frightful fete so terrifyingly good it would make Uncle Forry and all his Famous Monsters proud! The “Shock-It-To-Me Halloween Spookenanny” will feature music from rockabilly rumbler Johnny Legend & His Naked Apes (with members of the Mummies and the Chuckleberries,) Beachkrieg, and the Undertaker & His Pals. Host Miss Misery and DJ Omar will lord over the ghoulish gathering, which will also include a “scary screaming contest” and “creepy costume contest” — hopefully security can keep the torch-wielding villagers at bay! (McCourt)

9 p.m., $13–$15

Café Du Nord

2170 Market, SF

(415) 861-5016

www.cafedunord.com


“Fog & Laser 3 — Halloween Spectacular”

In the beginning there was the void. It was really dark and God kept bumping into shit, so God said ‘Let there be lasers.” And there were. But then it was just way too bright and killed the mood, so God said, “Let there be a fog machine.” And that, children, is how the first party came to be. Today, the wise ones know that you don’t need more than that to have a great time. (Well, alcohol, some eclectic indie and electro dance music by DJs RamblinWorker & EmDee , maybe a photobooth — those things help) Oh, and costumes: Adam and Eve had the right idea with the fig leaves, but God thought the snake’s disco ball costume was fucking sweet. (Prendiville)

9 p.m., $7

Makeout Room

3225 22nd St., SF

(415) 647-2888

www.makeoutroom.com


TUESDAY 1

Shantala Shivalingappa

If you want to know why Pina Bausch was enchanted with Kuchipudi performer Shantala Shivalingappa, check out the Madras-born, Paris-raised dancer’s contemporary solo on YouTube. You can’t miss the exquisitely detailed arm and finger gestures that feel like the essence of Indian classicism. Bausch hired Shivalingappa for her “Bamboo Blues” — just about the only “authentic” Indian ingredient in that 2007 work. Last year, Shivalingappa made her San Francisco debut in what she does best, Kuchipudi — the fleet-footed, free-spirited yet ever so disciplined South Indian form. Fabulously musical — she has a first-rate live “band”— expressive and elegant, she made the Tarangam, a rhythmic bravura endeavor in which the dancer performs on the edges of a brass plate look as if she were riding the waves. (Rita Felciano)

8 p.m. $35-50

Herbst Theatre

401 Van Ness, SF

(415) 392-2545

www.sfperformances.org


Youth Lagoon

The recent release of Youth Lagoon’s debut LP The Year Of Hibernation (Fat Possum) has catapulted 22-year-old college student Trevor Powers out of the Boise, Idaho, bedroom where he recorded the album and into the hearts of countless indie kids. Powers began composing wistful, dreamy piano pop as a means of confronting his struggles with anxiety. Since posting his first track as Youth Lagoon in May, he’s emerged as one of the most buzzed about new acts of 2011. Powers is taking his tender, haunting body of work on the road for Youth Lagoon’s first national headlining tour. Don’t miss the kick-off show at Bottom of the Hill on Tuesday. (Capell)

With Young Magic and Parentz

9 p.m., $12

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St., SF

(415) 621-4455

www.bottomofthehill.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.

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

How to Love Garage, 975 Howard, SF; www.pustheatre.com. $15. Opens Fri/28, 8pm. Runs Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Nov 20. Performers Under Stress Theatre presents Megan Cohen’s Plato-inspired world premiere.

Totem Grand Chapiteau, AT&T Park, Parking Lot A, 74 Mission Rock, SF; cirquedusoleil.com/totem. $58-248.50. Opens Fri/28, 8pm. Runs Tues-Sun, schedule varies. Through Dec 11. Cirque Du Soleil returns with its latest big-top production.

BAY AREA

Annie Berkeley Playhouse, Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College, Berk; (510) 845-8542, www.berkeleyplayhouse.org. $17-35. Opens Thurs/29, 7pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 7pm; Sun, noon and 5pm. Through Dec 4. Berkeley Playhouse performs the classic musical.

ONGOING

Almost Nothing, Day of Absence Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, 450 Post, SF; (415) 474-8800, www.lhtsf.org. $43-53. Wed-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through Nov 20. The Lorraine Hansberry Theatre christens its grand new home near Union Square with two well-acted one-act plays under sharp direction by artistic director Steven Anthony Jones. Almost Nothing by Brazilian playwright Marcos Barbosa marks the North American premiere of an intriguing and shrewdly crafted Pinteresque drama, wherein a middle-class couple (Rhonnie Washington and Kathryn Tkel) returns home from an unexpected encounter at a stop light that leaves them jittery and distracted. As an eerie wind blows outside (in David Molina’s atmospheric sound design), their conversation circles around the event as if fearing to name it outright. When a poor woman (Wilma Bonet) arrives claiming to have seen everything, the couple abandons rationalization for a practical emergency and a moral morass dictated by poverty and class advantage — negotiated on their behalf by a black market professional (Rudy Guerrero). Next comes a spirited revival of Douglas Turner Ward’s Civil Rights–era Day of Absence (1965), a broad satire of Southern race relations that posits a day when all the “Neegras” mysteriously disappear, leaving white society helpless and desperate. The cast (in white face) excel at the high-energy comedy, and in staging the text director Jones makes a convincing parallel with today’s anti-immigrant laws and rhetoric. But if the play remains topical in one way, its too-blunt agitprop mode makes the message plain immediately and interest accordingly pales rapidly. (Avila)

Desdemona: A Play About a Handkerchief Boxcar Theatre Playhouse, 505 Natoma, SF; www.boxcartheatre.org. $15-35. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Nov 5. Written in 1979 by a 28-year-old Paula Vogel, Desdemona retells a familiar Shakespearean tragedy, Othello, through the eyes of its more marginalized characters, much as Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead did with Hamlet in 1966. In Vogel’s play, it is the women of Othello — Desdemona the wife, Emilia her attendant (demoted down to washer-woman in Vogel’s piece), and Bianca, Cassio’s lover, and the bawdy town pump — who are the focus, and are the play’s only onstage characters. Whiling away an endless afternoon cooped up in the back room of the governor’s mansion, the flighty, spoiled, and frankly promiscuous Desdemona (Karina Wolfe) frets over the loss of her “crappy little snot-rag,” while her subservient, pious, but quietly calculating washer-woman Emilia (Adrienne Krug) scrubs the sheets and mends the gubernatorial underpants with an attitude perfectly balanced between aggrieved, disapproving, and cautiously optimistic. Though the relationship between the two women often veers into uncomfortable condescension from both sides, their repartee generally feels natural and uncontrived. Less successfully portrayed is Theresa Miller’s Bianca, whose Cockney accent is wont to slip, and whose character’s boisterous nature feels all too frequently subdued. Jenn Scheller’s billowing, laundry-line set softens the harsh edges of the stage, just as Emilia’s final act of service for her doomed mistress softens, though not mitigates, her unwitting role in their mutual downfall. (Gluckstern)

Fear SF Playhouse, Stage Two, 533 Sutter, SF; www.un-scripted.com. $12-25. Wed/26-Mon/31, 8pm. Un-Scripted Theater Company performs improvised horror stories.

Hanging Georgia Thick House, 1695 18th St, SF; www.theatrefirst.com. $15-30. Thurs/27, 7:30pm; Fri/28-Sat/29, 8pm; Sun/30, 5pm. TheatreFIRST, in collaboration with BootStrap Theater Foundation, presents an ambitious but shallow new play by Sharmon J. Hilfinger about the emergence of artist Georgia O’Keefe (Paz Pardo), with emphasis on her rocky but crucial relationship with groundbreaking modernist photographer and exhibitor Alfred Stieglitz (Michael Storm). Set to a tuneful score by Joan McMillen, the play unfolds as a creative series of tableaux, in which director Jake Margolin has actors animating art objects and making live sound effects as well as stepping into various historical roles, including art patron and salon queen Mabel Dodge (Claire Slattery) and photographer Paul Strand (Nick Allen). In addition to some weak or doubtful interpretations of these personages, the acting is uneven and overly presentational throughout. No doubt the musical underscoring pushes the volume up but Hilfinger’s dialogue tends to be didactic anyway. At times the whole production feels as if it were being pitched to children, with little sense of the complexities of lived experience but rather a one-note history lesson whose characters and moral, however closely pegged to biographical details, are hard to credit as real life. (Avila)

Honey Brown Eyes SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; (415) 677-9596, www.sfplayhouse.org. $20-50. Tues-Thurs, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm). Through Nov 5. Bosnia in 1992 is divided in a horrifying civil war, some characteristics of which play out in parallel circumstances for two members of a single rock band in SF Playhouse’s west coast premiere of Stefanie Zadravec’s new play. In the first act, set in Visegrad, a young Bosnian Muslim woman (Jennifer Stuckert) is held at gunpoint in her kitchen by a jumpy soldier (Nic Grelli) engaged in a mission of murder and dispossession known as ethnic cleansing. The second act moves to Sarajevo and the apartment of an elderly woman (Wanda McCaddon) who gives shelter and a rare meal to an army fugitive (Chad Deverman). He in turn keeps the bereaved if indomitable woman company. Director Susi Damilano and cast are clearly committed to Zadravec’s ambitious if hobbled play, but the action can be too contrived and unrealistic (especially in act one) to be credible while the tone — zigzagging between the horror of atrocity and the offbeat gestures of romantic comedy — comes over as confused indecision rather than a deliberate concoction. (Avila)

*The Kipling Hotel: True Misadventures of the Electric Pink ’80s Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Nov 13. Acclaimed solo performer Don Reed (East 14th) premieres his new show, based on his post-Oakland years living in Los Angeles.

Making Porn Box Car Theatre Studios, 125A Hyde, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $25-50. Thurs/27, 8pm; Fri/28-Sat/29, 7 and 10pm. Ronnie Larsen brings back his crowd-pleasing comedy about the gay porn industry.

*”Master Harold” … and the Boys Phoenix Theater, 414 Mason, Ste 601, SF; 1-800-838-3006, www.offbroadwaywest.org. $18-40. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Nov 19. Based loosely on personal history, Athol Fugard’s drama explores institutionalized racism in South Africa’s apartheid era ensconced in the seemingly innocuous world of a Port Elizabeth tea room. The play opens during a rainy afternoon with no customers, leaving the Black African help, Willie (Anthony Rollins-Mullens) and Sam (LaMont Ridgell), with little to do but rehearse ballroom dance steps for a big competition coming up in a couple of weeks. When Hally (Adam Simpson), the owner’s son, arrives from school, the atmosphere remains convivial at first then increasingly strained, as events happening outside the tea room conspire to tear apart their fragile camaraderie. The greatest burdens of the play are carried by Sam, who fills a range of roles for the increasingly pessimistic and emotionally-stunted Hally — teacher, student, surrogate father, confidante, and servant — all the while completely aware that their mutual love is almost certainly doomed to not survive past Hally’s adolescence, and possibly not past the afternoon. Ridgell rises greatly to the challenges of his character, ably flanked by Rollins-Mullens, and Simpson; he embodies the depth of Sam’s humanity, from his wisdom of experience, to his admiration for beauty, to his capacity to bear and finally to forgive Hally’s need to lash out at him. It is a moving and memorable rendering. (Gluckstern)

Not Getting Any Younger Marsh San Francisco, Studio Theater, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 3pm. Extended through Dec 17. Marga Gomez is back at the Marsh, a couple of too-brief decades after inaugurating the theater’s new stage with her first solo show — an apt setting, in other words, for the writer-performer’s latest monologue, a reflection on the inevitable process of aging for a Latina lesbian comedian and artist who still hangs at Starbucks and can’t be trusted with the details of her own Wikipedia entry. If the thought of someone as perennially irreverent, insouciant, and appealingly immature as Gomez makes you depressed, the show is, strangely enough, the best antidote. (Avila)

*The Odyssey Aboard Alma, Hyde Street Pier, San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park, SF; www.weplayers.org. $160. Fri/28-Sat/29, Nov 4-6, 11-12, and 18, 12:30pm. Heralding their hugely ambitious Spring 2012 production of The Odyssey, which will take place all over Angel Island, the WE Players are tackling the work on a slightly smaller scale by staging it on the historic scow schooner Alma, which is part of the Maritime National Historical Park fleet docked at the end of Hyde Street Pier. Using both boat and Bay as setting, the essential chapters of the ten-year voyage — encounters with the Cyclops, Circe, the Underworld, the Sirens, Aeolus, the Laestrygonians, and Calypso — are enacted through an intriguing mash-up of narration, choreography, sea chanteys, salty dog stories (like shaggy dog stories, but more water-logged), breathtaking views, and a few death-defying stunts the likes of which you won’t see on many conventional stages. High points include the casual swapping of roles (every actor gets to play Odysseus, however briefly), Ross Travis’ masked and flatulent Prometheus and sure-footed Hermes, Ava Roy’s hot pants-clad Circe, Charlie Gurke’s steady musical direction and multi-instrumental abilities, and the sail itself, an experiential bonus. Landlubbers beware, so much time facing the back of the boat where much of the action takes place can result in mild quease, even on a calm day. Take advantage of the downtime between scenes to walk around and face forward now and again. You’ll want to anyway. (Gluckstern)

On the Air Pier 29 on the Embarcadero (at Battery), SF; (415) 438-2668, love.zinzanni.org. $117 and up (includes dinner). Wed-Sat, 6pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Dec 31. Teatro ZinZanni’s final performance at Pier 39 riffs on the company’s own struggles to stay in San Francisco. Geoff Hoyle and Duffy Bishop are the headlining guest stars.

Pellas and Melisande Cutting Ball Theater, Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor, SF; 1-800-838-3006, www.cuttingball.com. $10-50. Opens Thurs/27, 8pm. Runs Thurs, 7:30; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 5pm. Through Nov 27. Cutting Ball Theater performs Rob Melrose’s new translation of Maurice Maeterlinck’s avant-garde classic.

Race American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary, SF; (415) 749-2228, www.act-sf.org. $10-85. Opens Wed/26, 8pm. Runs Tues-Sat, 8pm (Tues/1, performance at 7pm; also Wed and Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm (no matinee Wed/26; additional show Nov 6 at 7pm). Through Nov 13. ACT performs David Mamet’s wicked courtroom comedy.

Richard III Curran Theatre, 445 Geary, SF; 1-888-746-1799, www.shnsf.com. $35-150. Wed/26-Fri/28, 7:30pm; Sat/29, 2 and 8pm. Kevin Spacey plays the lead in this Sam Mendes-directed production of the Shakespeare classic.

The Rover, or the Banish’d Cavaliers, The American Clock Hastings Studio Theater, 77 Geary, SF; (415) 749-2228, www.act-sf.org. $10 ($15 for both productions). Through Nov 5, performance times vary. American Conservatory Theater’s Masters of Fine Arts program presents plays in repertory by Aphra Behn and Arthur Miller.

“San Francisco Olympians Festival” Exit Theater, 156 Eddy, SF; www.sfolympians.com. Thurs/27-Fri/28, 8pm. No Nude Men Productions presents a festival of 12 new full-length plays written by 14 local writers. Each play focuses on one of the Olympian characters from ancient Greece.

Savage in Limbo Actors Theatre of San Francisco, 855 Bush, SF; (415) 345-1287, www.actorstheatresf.org. $26-38. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 3. Actors Theatre of San Francisco performs John Patrick Shanley’s edgy comedy.

ShEvil Dead Cellspace, 2050 Bryant, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $25. Fri/28-Sat/29, 8pm. Primitive Screwheads return with a horror play (in which the audience is literally sprayed with blood, so leave the fancy suit at home!) based on the Evil Dead movies.

“Shocktoberfest 12: Fear Over Frisco” Hypnodrome Theatre, 575 10th St, SF; (415) 377-4202, www.thrillpeddlers.com. $25-35. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Nov 19. In its annual season-scented horror bid, Thrillpeddlers joins forces with SF’s Czar of Noir, writer-director Eddie Muller, for a sharply penned triplet of plays that resurrect lurid San Francisco lore as flesh-and-blood action. In the slightly sluggish but intriguing Grand Inquisitor, a solitary young woman modeling herself on Louise Brooks in Lulu (an alluringly Lulu-like Bonni Suval) believes she has located the Zodiac killer’s widow (a sweet but cagey Mary Gibboney) — a scenario that just can’t end well for somebody, yet manages to defy expectations. An Obvious Explanation turns on an amnesiac (Daniel Bakken) whose brother (Flynn de Marco) explains the female corpse in the rollaway (Zelda Koznofski) before asking bro where he hid a certain pile of money. Enter a brash doctor (Suval) with a new drug and ambitions of her own vis-à-vis the hapless head case. Russell Blackwood directs The Drug, which adapts a Grand Guignol classic to the hoity-toity milieu of the Van Nesses and seedy Chinatown opium dens, where a rough-playing attorney (an ever persuasive Eric Tyson Wertz) determines to turn a gruesome case involving the duplicitous Mrs. Van Ness (an equally sure, sultry Kära Emry) to his own advantage. The evening also offers a blackout spook show and some smoothly atmospheric musical numbers, including Muller’s rousing “Fear Over Frisco” (music composed by Scrumbly Koldewyn; accompaniment by Steve Bolinger and Birdie-Bob Watt) and an aptly low-down Irving Berlin number — both winningly performed by the entire company. (Avila)

You Will Gonna Go Crazy Bayanihan Community Center, 1010 Mission, SF; 1-800-838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $7-17. Fri/28-Sat/29, 8pm; Sun/30, 3pm. Kularts presents a multimedia dance-theater play.

BAY AREA

Bellwether Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; (415) 388-5208, www.marintheatre.org. $34-55. Wed/26, 7:30pm; Thurs/27-Sat/29, 8pm (also Sat/29, 2pm); Sun/30, 2 and 7pm. Marin Theatre Company performs Steve Yockey’s spooky fairy tale for adults.

Clementine in the Lower 9 TheatreWorks at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View; (650) 463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. $19-69. Wed/26, 7:30pm; Thurs/27-Sat/29, 8pm (also Sat/29, 2pm); Sun/30, 2 and 7pm. TheatreWorks presents the world premiere of Dan Dietz’s post-Katrina New Orleans drama.

Doubt: A Parable Live Oak Theatre, 1301 Shattuck, Berk; www.aeofberkeley.org. $12-15. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Nov 13, 2pm. Through Nov 19. Actors Ensemble of Berkeley performs John Patrick Shanley’s Pulitzer-winning drama.

How to Write a New Book for the Bible Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-73. Tues, Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm; no show Nov 18); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 7pm). Through Nov 20. An aspiring writer who later becomes a priest, Bill (Tyler Pierce) is the caregiver for his aging mother (Linda Gehringer) during her long bout with cancer. His father (Leo Marks), though already dead, still inhabits his mother’s flickering concept of reality, made all the more dreamlike by her necessary dependence on pain medication. His brother (Aaron Blakely), meanwhile, has returned from Vietnam with survivor guilt but lands a meaningful career as a schoolteacher in the South. The latest from playwright Bill Cain (Equivocation, 9 Circles) is a humor-filled but sentimental and long-winded autobiographical reflection on family from the vantage of his mother’s long illness. It gets a strong production from Berkeley Rep, with a slick cast under agile direction by Kent Nicholson, but it plays as if narrator Bill mistakenly believes he’s stepped out of an Arthur Miller play, when in fact there’s little here of dramatic interest and far too much jerking of tears. (Avila)

Inanna’s Descent Codornices Park, 1201 Euclid, Berk; www.raggedwing.org. Free. Sat/29-Sun/30, 1pm; Mon/31, 5-8pm. After last year’s memorable presentation of the Persephone myth as a site-specific, Halloween-heralding, multi-disciplinary performance in the wooded glades of Codornices Park, it seemed inevitable that Ragged Wing Ensemble would want to build on that success by following it up with an equally memorable exploration of another mythological underworld. This year’s chosen subject, the descent of the Sumerian Goddess Inanna, Queen of the Heavens into the Underworld where her jealous sister Ereshkigal reigns, is enacted as a half-hour play as well as a self-guided, seven-station circuit around the park, from the tunnel to the fire pit, where the central performance is held. Each station is hosted by a different character from the play, who engages each passing audience member in a series of activities: from wishing on the future to coloring in a self-portrait of “meat.” The play itself stars Kelly Rinehart as Inanna, “the bombshell of the story,” who appears onstage clad in a dress of shredded reflective insulate and a giant leonine headdress. The other ensemble-created costumes are cleverly constructed of equally non-biodegradable materials: a faux-fur cloak decorated with remote controls, robes of state made entirely from rustling plastic shopping bags, a bandolier of empty water bottles. More genial and thought-provoking than a typical trip to a haunted house, Inanna’s Descent is an inventive Halloween expedition for children of most ages, and adults with young hearts. (Gluckstern)

Rambo: The Missing Years Cabaret at Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thurs-Fri, 7pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Through Dec 10. Howard “Hanoi Howie” Petrick presents his solo show about being an anti-war demonstrator — while also serving in the Army.

*Rita Moreno: Life Without Makeup Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-73. Wed-Sun, showtimes vary. Extended through Nov 12. The life of stage and screen legend Rita Moreno is a subject that has no trouble filling two swift and varied acts, especially as related in anecdote, song, comedy, and dance by the serene multiple–award-winning performer and Berkeley resident herself. Indeed, that so much material gets covered so succinctly but rarely abruptly is a real achievement of this attractively adorned autobiographical solo show crafted with playwright and Berkeley Rep artistic director Tony Taccone. (Avila)

Sam’s Enchanted Evening TheaterStage at Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Through Nov 26. The Residents wrote the script and did the musical arrangements for this musical, featuring singer Randy Rose and pianist Joshua Raoul Brody.

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh Berkeley, TheaterStage, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Sun, 11am. Through Nov 20. Louis “The Amazing Bubble Man” Pearl returns with this kid-friendly, bubble-tastic comedy.

DANCE/PERFORMANCE

“Night Falls” ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; (415) 863-9834, www.deborahslater.org. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. $17-20. Peregrine is a freelance film writer awoken from bad dreams on the eve of her 60th birthday in this fitful but witty dance-theater rumination on aging and success co-directed by writer Julie Hébert and choreographer Deborah Slater. Played by a restless, irascible Joan Shirle (a force in pajamas and leather jacket with wild graying hair), Peregrine is alone yet not — shadowed by a younger self (Jessica Ferris) and the shade of her aging mother (Patricia Silver) as well as a certain feminine spirit known (in the program) as Prima (Patricia Jiron) who sings snatches of a Beatles song while flashing a flummoxing eight of spades at troubled Peregrine. Set against, and on, a large metal staircase covered by a wall of driftwood curled at the top like a cresting wave (in Giulio Cesare Perrone’s scenic design), Peregrine chews up the night with worry and regret, yet to write tomorrow’s commencement speech for MFA grads despite the job that may be riding on it. Feeling she has nothing to say, wondering where her youth went, and cynical about mentoring students in a ruthless freelance economy, she makes a desperate call to her ex-husband only to retrieve his brother (Robert Ernst) by mistake. He too comes shadowed by a youthful spirit (Stephen Buescher), who flirts shamelessly with Peregrine’s counterpart, but ultimately retreats in hesitation back into his own pain, though not without some good accomplished. From scattered anguish and anxiety, amid a gestural choreography alternately suggesting slow-tumbling physicality and imperfect or vaguely noisome communication, the performers finally coalesce around an individual acceptance of the persistence of the body itself, site and measure of all that — in the wee hours of truthful night — could ever be called success. (Avila)

*”PanderFest 2011″ Stage Werx 446, 446 Valencia, SF; www.panderexpress.com. Thurs/27-Sat/29, 8pm. $20. San Francisco’s Crisis Hopkins and (PianoFight’s S.H.I.T. Show makers) Mission Control join forces for a tag-team evening of sketch and “improv” (quotes kind of necessary this time). Claiming dubiously to fill a need for yet another festival in this city (though at the same time striving for above-average fawning of the public), the show delivers two acts of mostly spot-on comedy by two agreeable ensembles and is thus a fine night out anyway. The program (based rather loosely on online-video–generated audience suggestions, interspersed with the sneezing Panda baby and other YouTube perennials) also inaugurates Stage Werx’s cozy new Mission District venue — the former digs of Intersection for the Arts and a huge improvement over Stage Werx’s old subterranean lair on Sutter Street. Highlights of a ridiculous evening include a two-part Crisis Hopkins sketch detailing a site visit by a ball-wrecking contractor (Christy Daly) to her chary foreman (Sam Shaw) and his withering cherries; and Mission Control’s pointed ’70s TV show homage with a twist, Good Cop, Stab Cop. (Avila)

Rep Clock

Andrew Lam
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Schedules are for Wed/26-Tues/1 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features are marked with a •. All times p.m. unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $6.66. “Christian Divine’s Eco-Horror Spooktacular,” Sat, 8.

BALBOA 3630 Balboa, SF; www.unaff.org. $10. “United Nations Association Film Festival: Education is a Human Right:” Because We Were Beautiful (van Osch), Wed, 5:30; Paradise Hotel (Tzavella), Wed, 6:50; Forerunners (Wood), Wed, 8:10; Butterflies and Bulldozers (Dunsky and Dunsky), Wed, 9:20.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-15. “Berlin and Beyond Film Festival:” 100 Years of Hollywood – The Carl Laemmle Story (Christiansen, 2011), Wed, 2:30; Lila Lila (Gsponer, 2009), Wed, 4:30; If Not Us, Who? (Veiel, 2011), Wed, 7. For tickets (most shows $12) and more information, visit www.berlinbeyond.com. Metropolis (Lang, 1927), with Giorgio Moroder’s 1984 score, Thurs, 3:30, 5:30, 7:30, 9:15. “Kevin Smith’s Halloween Extravaganza:” •”Jay and Silent Bob Get Old: Live!”, Fri, 7, and Red State (Smith, 2011), Fri, 9:30. •The Red Shoes (Powell and Pressburger, 1948), Sat-Sun, 2:30, 7, and Black Narcissus (Powell and Pressburger, 1947), Sat-Sun, 4:55, 9:30. Closed Mon-Tues.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.75-10.25. Margin Call (Chandor, 2011), call for dates and times. The Women on the Sixth Floor (Le Guay, 2011), Wed-Thurs, call for times. Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life (Star, 2010), Oct 28-Nov 3, call for times. !Woman Art Revolution (Hershman Leeson, 2011), Sun, 4:15.

LOST WEEKEND VIDEO 1034 Valencia, SF; www.lostweekendvideo.com. $5. “Zombie Battle Royale:” Kárate a muerte en Torremolinos (Temboury, 2003) with “Attack of the Zombie Luchadores!” (Bandera, 2011), Sun, 8.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; (415) 393-0100, rsvp@milibrary.org. $10 (reservations required as seating is limited). “CinemaLit Film Series: Discovering Myrna Loy:” Love Crazy (Conway, 1941), Fri, 6.

NINTH STREET INDEPENDENT FILM CENTER 145 Ninth St, SF; www.cutthefilm.com. $6. Cut: Slicing Through the Myths of Circumcision (Ungar-Sargon), Sat, 7.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Alternative Visions:” “Films of Chick Strand” (1964-86), Wed, 7:30. “The Outsiders: New Hollywood Cinema in the Seventies:” The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover (Cohen, 1978), Thurs, 7. “Rainer Werner Fassbender: Two Great Epics:” Berlin Alexanderplatz, Parts XII-XII, Epilogue (1979-80), Fri, 7. “A Theater Near You:” Summer (Rohmer, 1986), Sat, 6:30 and Sun, 4; Four Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle (Rohmer, 1987), Sat, 8:30. “UCLA Festival of Preservation:” Waiting for Godot (Schneider, 1961), Sun, 6. “Kino-Eye: The Revolutionary Cinema of Dziga Vertov:” “Kino-Pravda Nos. 18, 20-22” (1924-25), Tues, 7.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-9.75. San Francisco Documentary Film Festival, Wed-Thurs. For tickets (most shows $11) and more info, visit www.sfindie.com. Gainsbourg: The Man Who Loved Women (Forneri, 2011), Oct 28-Nov 3, 7, 9 (also Sat-Sun, 3, 5). “Halloween Spooktacular:” The Hunger (Scott, 1983), Fri, 7; Nadja (Almereyda, 1994), Fri, 9:30. “20th Anniversary Celebration for David Lynch’s Twin Peaks:” Laura (Preminger, 1944), Sat, 7; Twin Peaks: The Pilot (Lynch, 1990), Sat, 9; Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (Lynch, 1992), Sat, 11. Zombie (Fulci, 1979/2011), Sat, 3, 5; Sun, 3, 5, 7,9; Mon, 7, 9. Some Guy Who Kills People (Perez, 2011), Tues, 7, 9. SFFS | NEW PEOPLE CINEMA 1746 Post, SF; www.sffs.org. $12-13. “French Cinema Now:” Bachelor Days Are Over (Lewcowicz, 2011), Thurs, 6:15 and Sun, 9; Goodbye First Love (Hansen-Løve, 2011), Thurs, 9 and Sat, 4; Beautiful Lies (Salvadori, 2010), Fri, 1:30 and Sun, 6:30; The Moon Child (Gleize, 2010), Fri, 4 and Sat, 1; The Kid With a Bike (Dardenne and Dardenne, 2011), Fri, 7 and Sun, 4:30; The Long Falling (Provost, 2011), Fri, 9 and Sun, 1:30; The Minister (Schoeller, 2011), Sat, 6:30 and Mon, 9; Four Lovers (Cordier, 2010), Sat, 9:30 and Tues, 9; The Screen Illusion (Amalric, 2011), Mon, 7; Angèle and Tony (Delaporte, 2010), Tues, 7. SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY Koret Auditorium, 100 Larkin, SF; www.sfpl.org. Free. “Thursdays at Noon Film Series: When Women Got the Vote:” Standing On My Sister’s Shoulders (2002), Thurs, noon. VORTEX ROOM 1082 Howard, SF; www.myspace.com/thevortexroom. $5 donation. “The Vortex Incarnate:” •Phantom of the Paradise (De Palma, 1974), Thurs, 9, and Poor Devil (Scheerer, 1973), Thurs, 11. YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. “Mexico Rising: The Films of Nicolás Pereda:” Perpetuum Mobile (2009), Thurs, 7:30. Diary of a Country Priest (Bresson, 1951), Sat, 7:30; Sun, 2. New 60th anniversary print restoration.

Interview with a master pumpkin carver: Shawn Feeney of Team Bling Bats

Andrew Lam
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The triumphant Team Bling Bats might owe some of their success to German electronic music pioneer Karlheinz Stockhausen. Without it, the champions of the Food Network reality design show Halloween Wars might not have had the kickass contributions of SF local Shawn Feeney, who helped drive the team to victory in the four-episode series final show on Sunday.

Feeney is an concept art illustrator working at Industrial Light and Magic, but in his spare time he creates these killer jack-o-lanterns that feature the face of a musician who has passed away in the last year (wo0o0o0o0o0oo!). Stockhausen, a composer who made music to be performed on helicopters, by three orchestras at once, and in weeklong cycles. His face was one of the ones that Food Network brass saw on Feeney’s website, who then contacted him to be on the show. 

On Sunday, Feeney sat down with buddies at Asiento in the Mission to watch his Bling Bats defeat Team Boo. Then he sat down to email us his secret tricks and what he’s going to say to Obama to put this country back on track, via pumpkinery. 

 

SFBG: Where’d you get them carving skills from?

SF: I used to work in a prosthetic hand laboratory. I also got a master of fine arts in New Zealand, and later worked as a forensic artist for the New York police. Recently, I have been working at effects studio Industrial Light and Magic, where I’ve further developed my analog and digital sculpting skills.

Karlheinz Stockhausen, German godfather of electronic music, composed pieces that were meant to be performed in a helicopter and one for three orchestras. He became Feeney’s gourd muse when he passed away in 2007.

SFBG: How did you prepare for last night’s battle?

SF: There was an enormous amount of surface area on that 1200-pound pumpkin, so I knew the ribbon loop tool I usually use wouldn’t suffice to get the skin off. Instead, I got an angle grinder – that thing vaporized the pumpkin skin into a fine mist (although it made the floor dangerously slippery).

 

SFBG: How would you rate your performance?

SF: I think Karen Portaleo, Susan Notter, and I really worked well together as a team, with each member contributing equally. I’m in awe of their talents. I didn’t approach this as a pumpkin carving contest – rather, I tried to develop designs that showcased everyone’s skills in a cohesive manner.

 

SFBG: How are you celebrating your triumph?

SF: I watched the final episode at Asiento in the Mission with some friends – the whole bar was on pins and needles! I’ve decided to use the winnings to further develop my carving practice, even beyond pumpkins. I’ll be making a lot more work in this field in the coming months, and I’m available for custom carvings, events, and teaching. I’ve really excited to offer my skills to the Bay Area foodie culture. 

 

SFBG: I hear you’re carving presidents for Obama. Please explain. 

SF: I’m carving pumpkins for Obama. A couple weeks ago, I got in touch with fruit and vegetable artist James Parker. He’d been watching Halloween Wars and liked my work. James organizes this event to bring some of the top carving and culinary artists to create displays for the White House lawn on Halloween. I feel honored that he invited me to participate.

 

SFBG: Also, can you tell him that we’re a little frustrated with him right now? I’m not sure if you can work that into pumpkin discussions, but surely you can craft a metaphor involving pumpkin smashing. Or whatnot. 

SF: Hopefully Obama is astute enough to realize there is much unrest in the country right now due to vast economic inequality. At this event though, I’m really aiming to inspire (and perhaps scare) the trick-o-treaters, and to collaborate with some of the top food sculptors in the country.

 

Video Premiere: Uzi Rash “Garbageland”

Tony Robles
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Beach squelch shimmy is back.

Just in time for its Halloween show at Brick & Mortar Music Hall, where it will take part in punk rock tradition alongside the likes of Nobunny and Ty Segall, Oakland’s Uzi Rash has gifted us this exclusive peek at its next album, a video directed Dan Shaw (big brother of Shannon of Shannon & the Clams).

I Was 30 in 2012, due out in November after some delay, features the song “Garbageland.” Enjoy scenes of what appears to be the band giving “Ring Around the Rosie” a go, mixed with horrifying images of half-human, half-beasts foraging for rotten foods. I would say that this is reminiscent of the “I am The Walrus” segment from Magical Mystery Tour on acid, but it’s fair to assume that was already the case. So take a gander here at this bum trip version — or perhaps it’s Uzi Rash’s take of a dystopian future, and remember to catch the band covering the Undertones for Halloween this Friday, Oct.28.

Uzi Rash
With Nobunny,Ty Segall, Apache, and Zulus
Friday/28, 8 p.m. $10, 18+
Brick & Mortar Music Hall
1710 Mission, SF
(415) 800-8782.
www.brickandmortarmusic.com

Swiss (don’t) miss

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Swiss (don’t) miss

arts@sfbg.com

FILM Heidi stand down. The Berlin and Beyond Film Festival celebrates its sweet 16 with a clutch of Swiss films that catapult that oft-overlooked alpine land into the cinematic big leagues. From this year’s centerpiece film Bold Heroes, set in a juvenile cancer ward, to How About Love, a tense love story set on the troubled border between Myanmar and Thailand, Swiss cinema is hogging some of the German-language spotlight generally dominated by its Northern neighbor. My personal picks, Sennentuntschi, a Halloween-appropriate horror flick, and The Sandman, a quirky comedy about a man who becomes a walking sandstorm, aren’t the festival’s biggest movies, but may prove to be among the most memorable.

An Alp-traum, combining bits of The Blair Witch Project (1999), Deliverance (1972), and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), Sennentuntschi unfolds in a series of sometimes confusingly non-linear flashbacks from 1975. After the presumed suicide of the church sacristan (Thomas Landl), a bedraggled mute (Roxane Mesquida) stumbles into the village. Immediately suspicion for the young man’s death falls on her, especially when the parish priest (Ueli Jaggi) denounces her as evil, demonstrating as proof her apparent fear of the crucifix. Certain there is a rational explanation for her unexplained presence, the village cop (Nicholas Ofczarek), a slow-witted, big-hearted John Elway look-alike, begins the search for her true identity as discontent and rumor simmer around him.

Meanwhile, on top of the mountain, uncouth goat herder Erwin (Andrea Zogg), his mentally-challenged protégé Albert (Joel Basman), and his city-slicker volunteer Martin (Carlos Leal) court codified horror-film comeuppance by crafting a straw-filled sex puppet, a Sennentuntschi, and “inviting the devil” to turn her into a real woman. The cruelly violent treatment meted out to their “supernatural” helpmate, naturally the mysterious mute, is rendered all the more disturbing once it’s revealed that she may in fact be a feral innocent rather than a demonic succubus. The movie boasts some remarkable cinematography, with a palette that renders even slaughtered goats attractive, and haunting shots of the misty mountains that would do Peter Jackson proud. And though the film occasionally gets bogged down in police procedure and missing persons’ bureaus, there’s enough splatter and chill to satisfy the blood-thirst of most horror fans, from slasher-flick fan kids to aficionados of refined psychological terror.

A gem of minimalistic absurdity, The Sandman opens innocuously enough, following an uptight philatelist and failed conductor, Benno (Fabian Krüger) on his daily rounds from stamp shop to café, shower to bed. Navigating the world and his relationships with the special arrogance of a congenital loser who doesn’t recognize his own shortcomings, Benno’s limited horizons take on a surreal cast once sand inexplicably begins to trickle from his body, leaving a pebbly trail wherever he goes. Possibly even more disturbing to his equilibrium are the romantic dreams he begins having about Sandra (Irene Brügger), the barista he despises, who runs the café directly below his apartment and keeps him awake at night practicing her “one-woman orchestra” act with sousaphone and loop machine.

Horrified to discover they are sharing the same dream, the two join forces to determine both the source of the nightmare and of the endless streams of sand, which eventually turn Benno’s formerly pristine apartment into a treacherous dune. Krüger and Brügger each deliver gracefully understated performances, circling each other with wary exasperation even as circumstance forces them into ever closer proximity. Although a couple of plot points never really get fully developed (it appears that the sand has soporific properties, but selectively so), The Sandman‘s guileless commitment to its own playful illogic makes it a genuine pleasure to watch. And while it’s never entirely clear whether or not they find the secret of stopping the sand, Krüger and Brügger’s final musical collaboration is a show-stopper.

BERLIN AND BEYOND FILM FESTIVAL

Oct. 20-26, most shows $12

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

www.berlinbeyond.com

 

The killer next door

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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The killer next door

TRASH Having terrified generations of horror film fans with his portrayals of some of cinema’s most feared and iconic characters, Kane Hodder is a modern monster movie legend.

Perhaps best known for his long-time portrayal of the hockey mask-clad killer Jason Voorhees in the Friday the 13th franchise (he played the role four times — more than any other person) the actor and stuntman has had a storied 30-plus year career in Hollywood, which he covers in his excellent new autobiography, Unmasked: The True Story of the World’s Most Prolific Cinematic Killer (Author Mike Ink, 352 pgs., $25.99).

Co-written with Michael Aloisi, the book is full of great behind-the-scenes stories from Hodder’s entertainment work, but it also delves into his childhood, when he was the victim of many a bully, and into brutally honest and heartbreaking (but ultimately inspiring) detail about the horrific burn he suffered in a 1977 stunt gone awry.

“It’s not so much the re-living the traumatic stuff that’s hard, but it’s the stuff that I am really grateful for that’s hard or emotional to talk about,” says Hodder over the phone from a book tour stop in Massachusetts. “It’s like any other therapy session, though — you talk about the things that bother you and you feel better.”

The softer side of the celluloid boogeyman is revealed throughout the pages, from stories about the people that helped save him and aided his recovery, to interacting with his loyal fans. Hodder also talks about teaming up with Scares That Care! a nonprofit organization run by horror industry professionals to help sick children.

“It’s nice to not only help raise money — I [also] enjoy talking to young people who have burned or have been bullied, because I can certainly identify with both of those things,” he says.

One shouldn’t think that Hodder has lost any of his ability or appetite for terrorizing, however. His roles in recent films such as BTK (2008) and Hatchet (2006) are clear examples of that. He enjoys giving people a good scare even when he’s not working on screen — around Halloween he sometimes appears at events at haunted houses and attractions to sign autographs — and he can’t help himself from getting in on a little of the fright action.

“Very often I’ll just go into the haunted house and take somebody’s spot for a while, and scare people for fun. When I can smell that fear it’s very intoxicating to me,” Hodder says with a dark chuckle. “I just really enjoy scaring people, I think it’s so much fun.”

www.kanehodderkills.com

Our Weekly Picks: October 19-25

Andrew Lam
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THURSDAY 20

Gabrielle Hamilton

Gabrielle Hamilton is a chef, first and foremost. Food critics praise her homegrown 30-seat New York City restaurant Prune. The James Beard Foundation (think the foodie Emmys) named her the Big Apple’s top chef this year. She topped Bobby Flay in an Iron Chef showdown. But when she’s not roasting duck breast or braising lamb shank, Hamilton is writing about cuisine for the New York Times, Saveur, Bon Appétit, and Food & Wine. She draws the connections between family and food in her earnest and unsparing New York Times bestselling memoir, Blood Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef. Tonight, she appears in conversation with with fellow food writer Kim Severson at Herbst Theater. (Kevin Lee)

8 p.m., $17–$27

Herbst Theater

401 Van Ness, SF

(415) 392-4400

www.cityarts.net

 

John Doe

Continuously proving himself a multi-talented singer-songwriter-actor and jack-of-all-artistic-trades, John Doe has been hitting the stage for more than three decades now, from his time with punk icons X, the Flesheaters, and the Knitters, to his solo releases and collaborations with a wide variety of other artists. His latest effort, Keeper (Yep Roc 2011) is his eighth solo foray, and features both stellar tunesmithing and punctuating contributions from guests including Patty Griffin, Jill Sobule, Don Was, and Steven Berlin. (Sean McCourt)

With Dead Rock West

8 p.m., $20

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell St., SF

(415) 885-0750

www.gamh.com


FRIDAY 21

Four Tet Kieran Hebden a.k.a. abstract eclecticist Four Tet played two shows in the Bay Area last year: one headlining at the Independent and another an afternoon set at the Treasure Island Music Festival. The difference was night and day, illustrating that not so surprisingly, Four Tet was most at home in a particular setting. Underlining this point is a recent entry for super club Fabric’s FabricLive series. Not simply a typical set, Four Tet’s mix is designed to replicate a night out, a heady mix of UK garage, that’s at once full of steadily driving breaks and hypnotic backing tracks, as much about getting lost in the music as a particular space. (Ryan Prendiville)

With Rub N Tug (Thomas Bullock DJ Set), Jus Wan, Shawn Reynaldo, DJ Dials, Chris Orr, Eug, Ryury

10 p.m., $15-20 presale

103 Harriet, SF

(415) 431-1200

www.1015.com


Kendrick Lamar

On stage at a concert in Los Angeles this past August, Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, and Game “passed the torch” to a teary-eyed Kendrick Lamar, officially pronouncing him the new King of the West Coast. Born and raised in Compton, the 24-year-old rapper has gained swift notoriety thanks to a series of popular mixtapes including the critically acclaimed Section.80. He cites Tupac as his greatest influence, but he sounds more like underground legends Souls Of Mischief or the Pharcyde. In November, Lamar will head east to embark on a brief tour with none other than Drake. Before he does, you can catch him headlining the New Parish on Friday. (Frances Capell)

9 p.m., $23–$35

New Parish

579 18th St., Oakl.

(510) 444-7474

www.thenewparish.com


DJ Shadow

Like everyone else, I got lost in the instrumental hip-hop collages found on Endtroducing (1996), the first album from DJ Shadow. That album literally introduced turntablism to people like me who imagined it was merely that scratching sound heard on Beck and Garbage. I can even remember my conservative father (this is saying a lot) being intrigued by Endtroducing. Since then though, the progenitor of vinyl sampling has moved on to other, unforeseen sonic experiments. On his first studio album in five years, The Less You Know, The Better, Shadow builds up everything from bluesy jazz to rock and heavy metal; an experiment that may alienate some, perhaps, but thrill Shadow’s most devoted. (James H. Miller)

9 p.m. $35–$38

Regency Ballroom

1290 Sutter, SF

(800) 745-3000

wwww.theregencyballroom.com


SATURDAY 22

Masquerotica What this town really needs right about now is a Masquerade Ball — it must have been at least two weeks since the last one! Oh, I jest. But seriously, what we never can have too many of are large-scale Halloween bashes, alternatives to the sleeping giant of the currently-banned Castro Street frenzy. Adding another AnonEvent to the year’s calendar ‘o’ fun, Masquerotica will be an all-you-can-eat buffet of sensory overload, with nine separate stages showcasing acts as diverse as punk jazz-circus rock ensemble the Mutaytor, Kinky Salon’s zombie strippers, Unkle Paul’s Dark Kabaret, Asian Diva Girls a’plenty, and Annie Sprinkle and Margo St. James holding court at the Hooker’s Ball Brothello. There will be music, masques, a food court, and some very sexy people. Maybe you too? Costumes required. (Nicole Gluckstern)

8 p.m., $45–$100

Concourse Exhibition Center

635 Eighth St., SF

www.masquerotica.com


SUNDAY 23

Cashore Marionettes

Perhaps the universal attractiveness of puppets comes from the fact that they look so alive when we know full well that they are just a bunch of rags and wires. Borrowing his title from the Shakers, who danced to transport themselves into ecstasy, Joseph Cashore named his latest show after their most famous hymn “Simple Gifts.” He has been making and performing with marionettes for more than 20 years and has grown a master of his craft. There is nothing “simple” about the sophistication of his artistry and sheer acts of love he showers on his audiences. If you go with a child, you’ll open a world; if you don’t have an easily-available kid, take a friend. You’ll both be transported back to the time when “pulling strings” meant bliss. (Rita Felciano)

11 a.m. And 3 p.m. $24.

Cal Performances, Wheeler Hall, Berk.

(510) 642-9988

www.calperformances.org

 

Mammatus

Named after that most awe-inspiring of all cloud formations, Mammatus is as epic sounding as its meteorological namesake is visually stunning. Hailing from the wooded and misty hills of Santa Cruz, the three-piece reaches spectacularly ripping heights with songs like “Excellent Swordfight,” “Dragon of the Deep,” and “The Coast Explodes” (among others) that bridge the gap between jam band technical wizardry and space rock headbangery. Speaking of wizards, Mammatus used to perform with one, and although he no longer shares the stage, the atmosphere remains one friendly to bearded magicians with pointy hats and a long pipe filled with something pungent. When Gandalf indulges in “Longbottom Leaf,” (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) he listens to Mammatus. (Cooper Berkmoyer)

With Swanifant and San Francisco Watercooler

9 p.m., $10

Cafe Du Nord

2170 Market, SF

(415) 861-5016

www.cafedunord.com

 

Anthrax

Anthrax might be a junior partner when it comes to the massive “Big Four” concerts recently held in L.A. and New York, but it’s a giant on every other bill. The NYC-based band stayed ahead of the curve back in the day by embracing hardcore and hip-hop, and this year it put its arena-filling colleagues to shame with Worship Music, an urgent, heavy album that stands in sharp contrast to dreck like Lulu or Death Magnetic. At the head of a potent tour that includes Bay Area heroes Testament and Death Angel, Gotham’s finest thrashers plan to demonstrate their undiminished ferocity. (Ben Richardson)

With Testament, Death Angel, and Chimaira 6 p.m., $35 Warfield 982 Market, SF (415) 345-0900 www.thewarfieldtheatre.com


MONDAY 24

1Q84 release party

It goes without saying that Green Apple Books loves the written word. Just the other day, I was browsing its stacks and saw a staff note by an Ambrose Bierce collection that read, “If you haven’t read Ambrose Bierce you must be very, very sad.” It seems Green Apple also loves Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami. So much so that it’s hosting a release party, complete with a taco truck camped out front, for the author’s new novel, 1Q84. If you pre-order a copy of 1Q84 before it becomes available at midnight, Green Apple hooks you up with a taco and a beer, and then enters your name into a raffle to receive a signed copy — free of charge. Which are reasons, in turn, to love Green Apple. (Miller)

9:30 p.m. Free

Green Apple Bookstore

506 Clement, SF

(415) 387-2272

www.greenapplebooks.com

 

“An Injury to One”

Travis Wilkerson’s An Injury to One is nearly 10 years old, but I haven’t seen another American documentary since that comes close to matching its fire. The film takes up the buried history of Frank Little, an organizer murdered for aiding the workers of the aptly named Anaconda Mining Corporation in their efforts to unionize. Wilkerson deploys a radical form of graphic rhetoric to engage with this incendiary content. He’ll have nothing to do with the polite distance maintained in mainstream documentary (just think of all those nonfictions of ostensibly radical solidarities that come packaged in a conservative style made to order for HBO and PBS). Anyone with even a passing interest in political cinema and American class warfare needs to see this film. (Max Goldberg)

6:30 p.m., $9–$11

New People Cinema

1746 Post, SF

(415) 525-8630

www.sffs.org


TUESDAY 25

Gold Panda

I paid $10 to see Gold Panda. Supposed to be $15, but the woman gave me a deal, since the show’d been on for a while. Couldn’t tell from the crowd. Aside from a few people in the front, everyone was still. Eyes closed, a few were touching themselves. (No, not like that.) Just rubbing their neck or arm, minds so inwardly withdrawn and focused on hearing that their bodies wanted attention. The song was from 2010’s Lucky Shiner (a mix for DJ-Kicks comes out this month), mostly an airy drone, overlaid with choked, tightly modulated samples. Totally warm. After about fifteen seconds, the set was done, and I’ve meant to catch the rest ever since.(Prendiville)

With Jonti, and Blackout Make Out

8 p.m., $15

Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

(415) 771-1421

www.theindependentsf.com


TUESDAY 25

Male Bonding

If you’ve heard Male Bonding’s Endless Now (Sub Pop), there’s a good chance it’s still stuck in your head. The noisy English trio swapped the lo-fi grunge of its debut Nothing Hurts for a sunny, slightly more polished pop-punk aesthetic on its second full length release. Despite its differences, a ’90s Seattle slacker rock influence remains clear throughout the short, infectious album. Endless Now boasts so much slurry, layered guitar, the band enlisted an additional member for tour. Put on a flannel and check ’em out. (Capell)

With WATERS and Lilac

8 p.m., $12

Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell, SF

(415) 861-2011

www.rickshawstop.com

 

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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

Fear SF Playhouse, Stage Two, 533 Sutter, SF; www.un-scripted.com. $12-25. Opens Tues/25, 8pm. Runs nightly through Oct 31, 8pm. Un-Scripted Theater Company performs improvised horror stories.

Pellas and Melisande Cutting Ball Theater, Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor, SF; 1-800-838-3006, www.cuttingball.com. $10-50. Previews Fri/21-Sat/22, 8pm; Sun/23, 5pm. Opens Oct 27, 8pm. Runs Thurs, 7:30; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 5pm. Through Nov 27. Cutting Ball Theater performs Rob Melrose’s new translation of Maurice Maeterlinck’s avant-garde classic.

Race American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary, SF; (415) 749-2228, www.act-sf.org. $10-85. Previews Fri/28-Sat/22 and Tues/25, 8pm (also Sat/22, 2pm); Sun/23, 7pm. Opens Oct 26, 8pm. Runs Tues-Sat, 8pm (Nov 1, performance at 7pm; also Wed and Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm (no matinee Oct 26; additional show Nov 6 at 7pm). Through Nov 13. ACT performs David Mamet’s wicked courtroom comedy.

Richard III Curran Theatre, 445 Geary, SF; 1-888-746-1799, www.shnsf.com. $35-150. Opens Wed/19, 7:30pm. Runs Tues-Fri, 7:30pm; Sat, 2 and 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Oct 29. Kevin Spacey plays the lead in this Sam Mendes-directed production of the Shakespeare classic.

The Rover, or the Banish’d Cavaliers, The American Clock Hastings Studio Theater, 77 Geary, SF; (415) 749-2228, www.act-sf.org. $10 ($15 for both productions). Oct 19-Nov 5, performance times vary. American Conservatory Theater’s Masters of Fine Arts program presents plays in repertory by Aphra Behn and Arthur Miller.

Savage in Limbo Actors Theatre of San Francisco, 855 Bush, SF; (415) 345-1287, www.actorstheatresf.org. $26-38. Opens Wed/21, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 3. Actors Theatre of San Francisco performs John Patrick Shanley’s edgy comedy.

You Will Gonna Go Crazy Bayanihan Community Center, 1010 Mission, SF; 1-800-838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $7-17. Opens Fri/21, 8pm. Runs Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Oct 30. Kularts presents a multimedia dance-theater play.

BAY AREA

Doubt: A Parable Live Oak Theatre, 1301 Shattuck, Berk; www.aeofberkeley.org. $12-15. Opens Fri/21, 8pm. Runs Fri-Sat, 8pm; Nov 13, 2pm. Through Nov 19. Actors Ensemble of Berkeley performs John Patrick Shanley’s Pulitzer-winning drama.

Rambo: The Missing Years Cabaret at Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Opens Thurs/20, 7pm. Runs Thurs-Fri, 7pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Through Dec 10. Howard “Hanoi Howie” Petrick presents his solo show about being an anti-war demostrator — while also serving in the Army.

Sam’s Enchanted Evening TheaterStage at Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Opens Thurs/20, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Through Nov 26. The Residents wrote the script and did the musical arrangements for this musical, featuring singer Randy Rose and pianist Joshua Raoul Brody.

ONGOING

“AfroSolo Arts Festival” Various venues, SF; www.afrosolo.org. Free-$100. Through Thurs/20. The AfroSolo Theatre Company presents its 18th annual festival celebrating African American artists, musicians, and performers.

Almost Nothing, Day of Absence Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, 450 Post, SF; (415) 474-8800, www.lhtsf.org. $43-53. Wed-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through Nov 20. Lorraine Hansberry Theatre performs one-act plays by Marcos Barbosa and Douglas Turner Ward.

Desdemona: A Play About a Handkerchief Boxcar Theatre Playhouse, 505 Natoma, SF; www.boxcartheatre.org. $15-35. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Nov 5. Written in 1979 by a 28-year-old Paula Vogel, Desdemona retells a familiar Shakespearean tragedy, Othello, through the eyes of its more marginalized characters, much as Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead did with Hamlet in 1966. In Vogel’s play, it is the women of Othello — Desdemona the wife, Emilia her attendant (demoted down to washer-woman in Vogel’s piece), and Bianca, Cassio’s lover, and the bawdy town pump — who are the focus, and are the play’s only onstage characters. Whiling away an endless afternoon cooped up in the back room of the governor’s mansion, the flighty, spoiled, and frankly promiscuous Desdemona (Karina Wolfe) frets over the loss of her “crappy little snot-rag,” while her subservient, pious, but quietly calculating washer-woman Emilia (Adrienne Krug) scrubs the sheets and mends the gubernatorial underpants with an attitude perfectly balanced between aggrieved, disapproving, and cautiously optimistic. Though the relationship between the two women often veers into uncomfortable condescension from both sides, their repartee generally feels natural and uncontrived. Less successfully portrayed is Theresa Miller’s Bianca, whose Cockney accent is wont to slip, and whose character’s boisterous nature feels all too frequently subdued. Jenn Scheller’s billowing, laundry-line set softens the harsh edges of the stage, just as Emilia’s final act of service for her doomed mistress softens, though not mitigates, her unwitting role in their mutual downfall. (Gluckstern)

Honey Brown Eyes SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; (415) 677-9596, www.sfplayhouse.org. $20-50. Tues-Thurs, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm). Through Nov 5. Bosnia in 1992 is divided in a horrifying civil war, some characteristics of which play out in parallel circumstances for two members of a single rock band in SF Playhouse’s west coast premiere of Stefanie Zadravec’s new play. In the first act, set in Visegrad, a young Bosnian Muslim woman (Jennifer Stuckert) is held at gunpoint in her kitchen by a jumpy soldier (Nic Grelli) engaged in a mission of murder and dispossession known as ethnic cleansing. The second act moves to Sarajevo and the apartment of an elderly woman (Wanda McCaddon) who gives shelter and a rare meal to an army fugitive (Chad Deverman). He in turn keeps the bereaved if indomitable woman company. Director Susi Damilano and cast are clearly committed to Zadravec’s ambitious if hobbled play, but the action can be too contrived and unrealistic (especially in act one) to be credible while the tone — zigzagging between the horror of atrocity and the offbeat gestures of romantic comedy — comes over as confused indecision rather than a deliberate concoction. (Avila)

The Kipling Hotel: True Misadventures of the Electric Pink ’80s Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Nov 13. Acclaimed solo performer Don Reed (East 14th) premieres his new show, based on his post-Oakland years living in Los Angeles.

Making Porn Box Car Theatre Studios, 125A Hyde, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $25-50. Thurs, 8pm; Fri-Sun, 7pm (also Fri-Sat, 10pm). Through Oct 29. Ronnie Larsen brings back his crowd-pleasing comedy about the gay porn industry.

“Master Harold” … and the Boys Phoenix Theater, 414 Mason, Ste 601, SF; 1-800-838-3006, www.offbroadwaywest.org. $18-40. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Nov 19. Off Broadway West Theatre Company performs Athol Fugard’s South African-set drama.

Not Getting Any Younger Marsh San Francisco, Studio Theater, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thurs/19-Fri/21, 8pm; Sat/22, 8:30pm; Sun/23, 3pm. Marga Gomez is back at the Marsh, a couple of too-brief decades after inaugurating the theater’s new stage with her first solo show — an apt setting, in other words, for the writer-performer’s latest monologue, a reflection on the inevitable process of aging for a Latina lesbian comedian and artist who still hangs at Starbucks and can’t be trusted with the details of her own Wikipedia entry. If the thought of someone as perennially irreverent, insouciant, and appealingly immature as Gomez makes you depressed, the show is, strangely enough, the best antidote. (Avila)

Nymph Errant Eureka Theater, 215 Jackson, SF; (415) 255-8207, www.42ndstmoon.org. $20-50. Wed, 7pm; Thurs/19-Fri/21, 8pm; Sat/22, 6pm; Sun/23, 3pm. 42nd Street Moon performs Cole Porter’s madcap 1933 musical.

*The Odyssey Aboard Alma, Hyde Street Pier, San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park, SF; www.weplayers.org. $160. Oct 28-29, Nov 4-6, 11-12, and 18, 12:30pm. Heralding their hugely ambitious Spring 2012 production of The Odyssey, which will take place all over Angel Island, the WE Players are tackling the work on a slightly smaller scale by staging it on the historic scow schooner Alma, which is part of the Maritime National Historical Park fleet docked at the end of Hyde Street Pier. Using both boat and Bay as setting, the essential chapters of the ten-year voyage — encounters with the Cyclops, Circe, the Underworld, the Sirens, Aeolus, the Laestrygonians, and Calypso — are enacted through an intriguing mash-up of narration, choreography, sea chanteys, salty dog stories (like shaggy dog stories, but more water-logged), breathtaking views, and a few death-defying stunts the likes of which you won’t see on many conventional stages. High points include the casual swapping of roles (every actor gets to play Odysseus, however briefly), Ross Travis’ masked and flatulent Prometheus and sure-footed Hermes, Ava Roy’s hot pants-clad Circe, Charlie Gurke’s steady musical direction and multi-instrumental abilities, and the sail itself, an experiential bonus. Landlubbers beware, so much time facing the back of the boat where much of the action takes place can result in mild quease, even on a calm day. Take advantage of the downtime between scenes to walk around and face forward now and again. You’ll want to anyway. (Gluckstern)

On the Air Pier 29 on the Embarcadero (at Battery), SF; (415) 438-2668, love.zinzanni.org. $117 and up (includes dinner). Wed-Sat, 6pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Dec 31. Teatro ZinZanni’s final performance at Pier 39 riffs on the company’s own struggles to stay in San Francisco. Geoff Hoyle and Duffy Bishop are the headlining guest stars.

*red, black & GREEN: a blues (rbGb) Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $5-25. Thurs/19-Sat/22, 7:30pm. This remarkably protean new piece from Marc Bamuthi Joseph/The Living Word Project searches for common ground between the environmental movement at large and movements for social justice rooted in poor communities of color (where ecological crisis is only one among multiple life-threatening issues). Structured as a vibrant multimedia installation and performance work at once, red, black & green transforms co-commissioner YBCA’s Forum stage into an evolving environment audiences can walk through and linger in, as performers Bamuthi Joseph, Theaster Gates, Tommy Shepherd, and Traci Tolmaire deliver a multifaceted narrative road-trip through Chicago, Huston, New York, and West Oakland, following the “Life Is Living” festivals bringing arts, education, and activism to urban parks. The highly attuned ensemble conveys and accentuates this narrative with a commanding mix of firsthand accounts, poetry, dance, song, and percussion (tapped out on surfaces with fingers, palms, or carving knives). Theaster Gates’ gorgeous set design, meanwhile, blends repurposed materials into mobile environments — floating island habitats beautifully lit by James Clotfelter, decorated with sculpture and video designs (evocative media collages composed by David Szlasa), and continually reconfigured as neighborhoods, shotgun houses, storefronts, and other environs. Intended to provoke discussion about social justice struggles in the age of environmental crisis, the production’s ambitious balancing of history, contemporary politics, center and periphery, personal idealism and doubt, and individual voices feels perhaps inevitably uneven and incomplete, but the attempt is frequently bracing and the delivery as sure as it is urgent. (Avila)

“San Francisco Olympians Festival” Exit Theater, 156 Eddy, SF; www.sfolympians.com. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Oct 28. No Nude Men Productions presents a festival of 12 new full-length plays written by 14 local writers. Each play focuses on one of the Olympian characters from ancient Greece.

ShEvil Dead Cellspace, 2050 Bryant, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $25. Fri/21 and Oct 28-29, 8pm. Primitive Screwheads return with a horror play (in which the audience is literally sprayed with blood, so leave the fancy suit at home!) based on the Evil Dead movies.

“Shocktoberfest 12: Fear Over Frisco” Hypnodrome Theatre, 575 10th St, SF; (415) 377-4202, www.thrillpeddlers.com. $25-35. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Nov 19. In its annual season-scented horror bid, Thrillpeddlers joins forces with SF’s Czar of Noir, writer-director Eddie Muller, for a sharply penned triplet of plays that resurrect lurid San Francisco lore as flesh-and-blood action. In the slightly sluggish but intriguing Grand Inquisitor, a solitary young woman modeling herself on Louise Brooks in Lulu (an alluringly Lulu-like Bonni Suval) believes she has located the Zodiac killer’s widow (a sweet but cagey Mary Gibboney) — a scenario that just can’t end well for somebody, yet manages to defy expectations. An Obvious Explanation turns on an amnesiac (Daniel Bakken) whose brother (Flynn de Marco) explains the female corpse in the rollaway (Zelda Koznofski) before asking bro where he hid a certain pile of money. Enter a brash doctor (Suval) with a new drug and ambitions of her own vis-à-vis the hapless head case. Russell Blackwood directs The Drug, which adapts a Grand Guignol classic to the hoity-toity milieu of the Van Nesses and seedy Chinatown opium dens, where a rough-playing attorney (an ever persuasive Eric Tyson Wertz) determines to turn a gruesome case involving the duplicitous Mrs. Van Ness (an equally sure, sultry Kära Emry) to his own advantage. The evening also offers a blackout spook show and some smoothly atmospheric musical numbers, including Muller’s rousing “Fear Over Frisco” (music composed by Scrumbly Koldewyn; accompaniment by Steve Bolinger and Birdie-Bob Watt) and an aptly low-down Irving Berlin number — both winningly performed by the entire company. (Avila)

Sorya! A Minor Miracle (Part One) NOHSpace, Project Artaud, 2840 Mariposa, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $12-18. Sun/23-Mon/24, 7pm. Each year, NOHspace residents Theatre of Yugen present a program of short Kyogen and Noh pieces, demonstrating the building blocks that define their unique approach. Blending classical Japanese theatrical styles with original and contemporary works, the company’s multi-cultural ensemble has been performing their specialized brand of East-West fusion since 1978. This year’s Sorya! program includes two modern-day works written by Greg Giovanni, a Philadelphia-based playwright and Noh artist, directed by Theatre of Yugen artistic director Jubilith Moore, and one traditional comedy, Boshibari (Tied to a Pole), directed by company founder Yuriko Doi. This piece is by far the strongest of the three, a tale of two servants pulling one over their master, who has tied them up in order to prevent them from breaking into the sake cellar. Lluis Valls and Sheila Berotti as Taro and Jiro execute the highly-ritualized aspects of the Kyogen farce with deft mobility and expressiveness, working together to overcome their captivity just enough to enjoy a few drinks before being discovered by their irate master (Sheila Devitt). The other two pieces, one set in Narnia and the other based on an Irish folk ballad, are less compelling, though no less ambitious, and Stephen Siegel and Karen Marek’s joint performance as a pair of squabbling dwarves is worthy of praise. (Gluckstern)

*Tutor: Enter the Enclave Exit Studio, 156 Eddy, SF; (415) 673-3847, www.darkporchtheatre.com. $15-25. Thurs/19-Sat/22, 8pm. Dark Porch Theatre performs Martin Schwartz’s play, inspired by an 18th century German drama, about a tutor who realizes the creepy family he works for is not quite what they seem.

*Wallflower Little Theatre, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway, SF; creativearts.sfsu.edu. $8-12. Thurs/20-Sat/22, 8pm; Sun/23, 2pm. One by one a baker’s dozen appears in the otherwise abandoned gymnasium: high schoolers in their awkward finery all fleeing prom night, which rages away on the other side of the wall like a blast furnace and shrieks like a jet engine every time the double doors are thrown open in escape. Here, in relative silence and stillness, begins a dream-dance of its own, largely wordless but speaking volumes through a brilliantly devised choreography of hesitation, alienation, attraction, and repulsion — the push-and-pull of fear and desire epitomized by adolescence in all its desperate and beautiful vulnerability (but of course from this school no one ever really graduates). At turns hilarious, raucous, wrenching, and sweetly, smolderingly sensual, Wallflower is another must-see collaboration between Bay Area director Mark Jackson and a remarkably adept cast and crew from San Francisco State’s theater department — collaborations that have blazed a regular path out to Lakeside for discriminating theatergoers. Like last year’s stunning Juliet, Wallflower draws equal inspiration from Shakespeare (here A Midsummer Night’s Dream) and the personal insecurities and compulsions offered up by the performers themselves. Impressively designed throughout — including a choice and supple sound design by Teddy Hulsker — this dance-theater performance is an elating mixture of flooring choreography and the mesmerizing personalities and relationships registered in the subtlest of words and gestures. It’s all as enchanting and revelatory as the intoxicating dream it describes. (Avila)

BAY AREA

Bellwether Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; (415) 388-5208, www.marintheatre.org. $34-55. Tues, Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Thurs/20, 1pm; Oct 29, 2pm); Wed, 7:30pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Oct 30. Marin Theatre Company performs Steve Yockey’s spooky fairy tale for adults.

Clementine in the Lower 9 TheatreWorks at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View; (650) 463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. $19-69. Tues-Wed, 7:30pm; Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Oct 30. TheatreWorks presents the world premiere of Dan Dietz’s post-Katrina New Orleans drama.

*A Delicate Balance Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; (510) 843-4822, www.auroratheatre.org. $10-48. Wed/19-Sat/22, 8pm; Sun/23, 2 and 7pm. Aurora Theatre performs Edward Albee’s comedy of manners.

How to Write a New Book for the Bible Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-73. Tues, Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm; no matinee Sat/22; no show Nov 18); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 7pm). Through Nov 20. Berkeley Rep performs a world premiere by Bill Cain.

Inanna’s Descent Codornices Park, 1201 Euclid, Berk; www.raggedwing.org. Free. Sat-Sun, 1pm. Through Oct 30. Special Halloween show Oct 31, 5-8pm. After last year’s memorable presentation of the Persephone myth as a site-specific, Halloween-heralding, multi-disciplinary performance in the wooded glades of Codornices Park, it seemed inevitable that Ragged Wing Ensemble would want to build on that success by following it up with an equally memorable exploration of another mythological underworld. This year’s chosen subject, the descent of the Sumerian Goddess Inanna, Queen of the Heavens into the Underworld where her jealous sister Ereshkigal reigns, is enacted as a half-hour play as well as a self-guided, seven-station circuit around the park, from the tunnel to the fire pit, where the central performance is held. Each station is hosted by a different character from the play, who engages each passing audience member in a series of activities: from wishing on the future to coloring in a self-portrait of “meat.” The play itself stars Kelly Rinehart as Inanna, “the bombshell of the story,” who appears onstage clad in a dress of shredded reflective insulate and a giant leonine headdress. The other ensemble-created costumes are cleverly constructed of equally non-biodegradable materials: a faux-fur cloak decorated with remote controls, robes of state made entirely from rustling plastic shopping bags, a bandolier of empty water bottles. More genial and thought-provoking than a typical trip to a haunted house, Inanna’s Descent is an inventive Halloween expedition for children of most ages, and adults with young hearts. (Gluckstern)

*Phaedra Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; (510) 841-6500, www.shotgunplayers.org. $17-26. Wed/19-Thurs/20, 7pm; Fri/21-Sat/22, 8pm; Sun/23, 5pm. Catherine (Catherine Castellanos) is the loveless matron in the impeccably tidy, upper-class home of middle-aged right-wing judge Antonio (Keith Burkland), secretly infatuated with her stepson (Patrick Alparone), the prodigal returning home from jail and rehab for a new start. Catherine’s cold, obsessively ordered run of the household — with heavy-lifting by her cheerful, steadfast housekeeper (a wonderfully genuine Trish Mulholland) — masks a desolation and chaos inside her, a churning emptiness evoked in the deliberately listless pace of act one and the skudding clouds we can see reflected in the walls of designer Nina Ball’s impressively stolid, icily tasteful living room. Portland Center Stage’s Rose Riordan directs a strong cast (which includes Cindy Im, as the stepson’s rehab partner and sexual interest) in a modern-day adaptation of the Greek myth by Adam Bock (The Shaker Chair, Swimming in the Shallows), in a worthy premiere for Shotgun Players. The drama comes leavened by Bock’s well-developed humor and the dialogue, while inconsistent, can be eloquent. The storm that breaks in the second act, however, feels a bit compressed and, especially after the languid first act, contributes to a somewhat pinched narrative. But whatever its limitations, Catherine’s predicament is palpably dramatic, especially in Castellanos’s deeply moving performance — among her best work to date and alone worth giving Phaedra a chance. (Avila)

*Rita Moreno: Life Without Makeup Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-73. Tues-Sun, showtimes vary. Through Oct 30. The life of stage and screen legend Rita Moreno is a subject that has no trouble filling two swift and varied acts, especially as related in anecdote, song, comedy, and dance by the serene multiple–award-winning performer and Berkeley resident herself. Indeed, that so much material gets covered so succinctly but rarely abruptly is a real achievement of this attractively adorned autobiographical solo show crafted with playwright and Berkeley Rep artistic director Tony Taccone. (Avila)

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh Berkeley, TheaterStage, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Sun, 11am. Through Nov 20. Louis “The Amazing Bubble Man” Pearl returns with this kid-friendly, bubble-tastic comedy.

DANCE/PERFORMANCE

*”PanderFest 2011″ Stage Werx 446, 446 Valencia, SF; www.panderexpress.com. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Oct 29. $20. San Francisco’s Crisis Hopkins and (PianoFight’s S.H.I.T. Show makers) Mission Control join forces for a tag-team evening of sketch and “improv” (quotes kind of necessary this time). Claiming dubiously to fill a need for yet another festival in this city (though at the same time striving for above-average fawning of the public), the show delivers two acts of mostly spot-on comedy by two agreeable ensembles and is thus a fine night out anyway. The program (based rather loosely on online-video–generated audience suggestions, interspersed with the sneezing Panda baby and other YouTube perennials) also inaugurates Stage Werx’s cozy new Mission District venue — the former digs of Intersection for the Arts and a huge improvement over Stage Werx’s old subterranean lair on Sutter Street. Highlights of a ridiculous evening include a two-part Crisis Hopkins sketch detailing a site visit by a ball-wrecking contractor (Christy Daly) to her chary foreman (Sam Shaw) and his withering cherries; and Mission Control’s pointed ’70s TV show homage with a twist, Good Cop, Stab Cop. (Avila)

Not just for Halloween: bone tome “Empire of Death”

Sue Vaughan
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Not just for Halloween: bone tome “Empire of Death”

Sometimes, you can judge a book by its cover. Case in point: Dr. Paul Koudounaris’ The Empire of Death: A Cultural History of Ossuaries and Charnel Houses (Thames and Hudson, 224 pgs., $50), a hefty black tome emblazoned with shiny gold letters and a photo of a skeleton posed with its arm raised, clad in a helmet and suit of armor.

Sold! So, uh, what’s this book about, now? Koudounaris, whose credentials include a PhD in Art History from UCLA and an innate curiosity about things he terms “bizarre and suspicious,” spent five years traveling the globe learning more about the ancient (and primarily Catholic) practice of massing bones in charnel houses, often with eerily artistic results. He’ll be in town for a series of Empire of Death-related events starting Thurs/20.

To gather the book’s 260 photos (plus dozens of illustrations), the author traveled across multiple continents to 70 different locations, many of which are off-limits to the public. Lest you think he’s some kind of ghoulish Ed Gein type, Koudounaris explains his motivation on his website (a companion source for the book): “The Empire of Death [contains] hundreds of photographs and a text which not only recovers their history, but the history of the religious movement which gave birth to them. This is not a book about the macabre or death. It is a book about beauty and salvation. If you understand that when looking at these photos, then I hope you will choose to read the book.”

And the photos are beautifully presented, with accompanying text to contextualize, and share the significance of, exactly what you’re looking at: a wall of skulls arranged behind a “plague crucifix” in Switzerland; mummified monks posed beneath the memento mori symbol of an hourglass with wings (“time flies”) in Rome; painted skulls and a spectacularly bejeweled skeleton in Germany; and that fellow from Empire of Death‘s cover, martyr St. Pancratius, articulated using a “fine mesh fabric” and dressed in gleaming armor, forever on guard at the Church of St. Nikolaus in Wil, Switzerland.

Koudounaris’ author bio reveals that while he was working on the book, “he managed to become cursed, exorcized, arrested, and manacled by a deranged Italian monk,” so expect some hair-raising storytelling during his Bay Area appearances. Also on tap: slide shows, book signings, and a chance to check out prints of original photos from the book.

Thurs/20, 6:30 p.m., free
Paxton Gate
824 Valencia, SF
www.paxtongate.com

Thurs/20, 9 p.m., $20 (part of a larger event)
Trickster Salon, SF
For location information, RSVP here)

Fri/21, 7 p.m., free
Dark Carnival Imaginative Fiction Bookstore and Escapist Comic Bookstore
3086 and 3090 Claremont, Berk.
www.darkcarnival.com

Sun/23, 8 p.m., free
Dog Eared Books
900 Valencia, SF
www.dogearedbooks.com

Get lit! A handy guide to Saturday night’s LitCrawl

Sue Vaughan
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Get lit! A handy guide to Saturday night’s LitCrawl

LitQuake has been rough. You’ve been dashing out of work, shoving people away from their cabs to make it to the Chuck Klosterman event and sprinting after buses to catch Karen Russell; you’ve had to make the hard decision between “Kafkaesque” and “Rock Out with your Book Out;” and all the while, you keep thinking Jeffrey Eugenides has just passed you on the street. With LitCrawl coming up Sat/15, things become even more overwhelming and terrific. In the Mission, bars, cafes, and bookstores together host 450 readers in 79 readings, all free and open to the public. One way to navigate the event might be to pick your favorite bar or cafe, find a chair, order a drink and wait for something to happen. Or, you can check these readings out:
 
I Live Here: SF. How We Got Here, Why We Stay
Not a lot of us can say we were born and raised in San Francisco. Most of us fled here from elsewhere for one reason or another: failed relationships, parents kicked you out, a nervous breakdown, a mid-life crisis, you formed an indie-rock band. Maybe you came for LoveFest and simply forgot whom you were. There are a thousand reasons for arriving and a thousand more for staying. In Clarion Alley, writers and non-writers alike including Mark Bittner and M.C. Mars talk about what brought them here and why they haven’t budged. 6 p.m., Clarion Alley, between Mission and Valencia, and 17th and 18th Sts, SF

BARTab’s Blame it on the a a a a a Alcohol: Tall Tales of Inebriated Adventures
Alcohol and writers have always had a vital, if tumultuous relationship. Hemingway said that when you worked in your head day after grueling day, the only viable remedy was whiskey; that “The only time it isn’t good for you is when you write or when you fight. You have to do that cold.” Luckily, a drunken night can become a source of inspiration, if not the next morning, sometime when you’re “cold.” At this reading, writers like Daphne Gottlieb, Jon Ginoli, Brenda Knight, and the editor of BARtab, Joe Provenzano, read about nights of drunken debauchery. 6 p.m., Martuni’s, 4 Valencia, SF
 
Come Cheer the Reaper: Readings from the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto
The San Francisco Writers’ Grotto was founded because, dammit, this writing business can be agonizing, but it’s more manageable when others surround you with whom you can collectively suffer. Convening at the Elbo Room for a night of readings tied around death, you might think that collectively suffering wasn’t working out so well for the Grotto. However, tonight is not a night for morbidity and gloom. Nine writers, including Janis Cooke Newman, Marianna Cherry, Gerard Jones, and Chris Colin read work that looks at death with humor and lightheartedness. 7:15 p.m., Elbo Room, 647 Valencia, SF
 
The Three-Penny Review Presents…
The Three-Penny Review, based out of Berkeley, would naturally host a night of premium writers at LitCrawl. The journal has been hosting the best authors, poets, and critics in its pages since 1980, and it publishes reviews and essays about everything under the sun (their recent issue features 3 great essays about live music). A good way to gauge the journal’s breath is looking at tonight’s lineup at the Summit. Kay Ryan is, of course, the former Poet Laureate of the U.S. and the Pulitzer Prize winner for The Best of It: New and Selected Poems; Walter Murch is a three-time Oscar-winning film and sound editor famous for his work on Apocalypse Now and The English Patient; Louis B. Jones is an author whose most recent novel is Radiance. Others tonight are poet Victoria Chang and the playwright and screenwriter Erik Tarloff. 7:15 p.m., Summit, 760 Valencia, SF
 
Zyzzyva Presents…
If you’ve taken a look at the West Coast writers and artists magazine Zyzzyva lately, you probably noticed some substantial changes: a new design, a full color art spread, an additional 40 pages of content. The changes are credited to the magazine’s first new editor since its founding in 1985, Laura Cogan. At 29, Cogan has breathed new life into the magazine and given it more presence in the community by doing, among other things, events like this one. Contributors to the fall issue of the magazine W.S. Di Piero and Troy Jollimore are joined by Heather Altfeld, and Malena Watrous. 7:15 p.m., Blue Macaw, 2565 Mission, SF
 
From Buddha to Batman
If you’re a fan of comic superheroes and also have a costume you’re dying to wear before Halloween, this event is most certainly for you. Gotham Chopra, co-founder of Liquid Comics and co-author of the comic Bullet Proof Monk, discusses our persistent fascination with muscles, spandex, super powers, and sidekicks. If you’re one of the first 20 to arrive to the event in a superhero costume, you get a free drink, while the best three costumes win signed books. 8:30 p.m., Laszlo Bar, 2526 Mission, SF

McSweeny’s and The Believer Present…
McSweeny’s and The Believer need no introduction. They are of what they are, and everyone knows that, together, the publisher and magazine support the very best writing. This event features a handful of those talent writers and personalities: poets Matthew Zapruder and Tess Taylor, columnist Daniel Handler (known by some as Lemony Snicket), and Anthony Myint and Karen Leibowitz, founders of Mission Street Food, and authors of the book Mission Street Food: Recipes and Ideas from an Improbable Restaurant. 8:30 p.m., Latin American Club, 3286 22nd St., SF

The World Cries Out for Revolution
Some, like the protestors defiantly camping outside the Federal Reserve Building for OccupySF, get their voices heard by taking to the streets. Others, like us at the San Francisco Bay Guardian, stir things up with the written word. You can see this every week in the articles written by our own Steven T. Jones (check out his article on the pot club crackdowns in this week’s issue). At Cafe La Boheme, Jones reads in the spirit of dissent with former Black Panther Richard Brown, as well as Larry Everest, the author of Oil Power & Empire: Iraq and the U.S. Global Agenda.
8:30 p.m., Cafe La Boheme, 3318 24th St., SF

Get used: Your retro fix is waiting at the Alameda Point Vintage Fashion Faire

Andrew Lam
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That inevitable turn of the seasons is fast approaching. Perhaps you’ve already had one of those moments when, standing in front of your closet, you wonder where all your cable-knit cardigans and berets got too. But no worries – next weekend provides the best indoors opportunity to re-up on retro: the second Alameda Point Vintage Fashion Faire (Sat/22).

But why wait until the hectic fair itself to scope out your crisp weather wardrobe? Three large ballrooms of vintage fashion will be on view at the fair’s preview party the day before (Fri/21) – and if you go, your ticket includes re-admittance to Saturday’s faire. 

The sneak peek will allow you to purchase items early, drink signature cocktails (the event is only open to those of legal drinking age, sorry tykes), and enjoy the smooth live jazz of the Blue Bone Express. This being the Bay Area, there will even be a Halloween costume contest with prizes. 

Something for that treasure chest. Photo by Calibree Photography

With any luck, the fair’s venue is soaked in enough glam history that it’ll rub off on your fashion sense. The Albert H. Dewitt O’Club was built on the Alameda Naval Air Station in 1941, when America was entering World War II – a time during which Uncle Sam wasn’t too keen on luxuries. 

But the O’Club is glamorous – there’s massive front doors and a 40-foot-long canopy that shelters the walkway from the street to the front doors. John F. Kennedy once attended a gala at the club, and Lucille Ball, Henry Fonda, and Van Johnson filmed a scene on the base in the movie Yours, Mine and Ours (1968). 

All in all, the perfect setting for 50 booths of fabulous fashions from the Victorian eras all the way up to the 1980s. Attendees can support the troops at the event by bringing food, DVDs, CDs, toiletries, batteries and phone cards for donation to Operation Care and Comfort.  

 

Alameda Point Vintage Fashion Faire

Preview party: Fri/21 6 p.m.-9 p.m., $10, 

Fair: Sat/22 10 a.m.-5 p.m., $5 

Albert H. Dewitt O’Club

641 West Red Line, Alameda

(510) 522-7500

www.alamedapointantiquesfaire.com

 

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

“Master Harold” … and the Boys Phoenix Theater, 414 Mason, Ste 601, SF; 1-800-838-3006, www.offbroadwaywest.org. $18-40. Opens Sat/15, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Nov 19. Off Broadway West Theatre Company performs Athol Fugard’s South African-set drama.

On the Air Pier 29 on the Embarcadero (at Battery), SF; (415) 438-2668, love.zinzanni.org. $117 and up (includes dinner). Opens Thurs/13, 6pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 6pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Dec 31. Teatro ZinZanni’s final performance at Pier 39 riffs on the company’s own struggles to stay in San Francisco. Geoff Hoyle and Duffy Bishop are the headlining guest stars.

red, black & GREEN: a blues (rbGb) Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $5-25. Opens Thurs/13, 7:30pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 7:30pm. Through Oct 22. Marc Bamuthi Joseph’s world premiere is a collaborative, multimedia performance work and installation addressing environmental racism, social ecology, and other topics.

BAY AREA

Inanna’s Descent Codornices Park, 1201 Euclid, Berk; www.raggedwing.org. Free. Opens Sat/15, 1-5pm. Runs Sat-Sun, 1pm. Through Oct 30. Special Halloween show Oct 31, 5-8pm. Ragged Wing Ensemble presents its second annual “outdoor, site-specific, ritual performance event for Halloween.”

ONGOING

“AfroSolo Arts Festival” Various venues, SF; www.afrosolo.org. Free-$100. Through Oct 20. The AfroSolo Theatre Company presents its 18th annual festival celebrating African American artists, musicians, and performers.

Alice Down the Rwong Wrabbit Whole Emerald Tablet, 80 Fresno, SF; (415) 500-2323, www.brownpapertickets.com. $15. Fri/14-Sat/15, 9pm. Karen Light and Edna Barrón perform their new comedy based on Alice in Wonderland.

Almost Nothing, Day of Absence Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, 450 Post, SF; (415) 474-8800, www.lhtsf.org. $43-53. Previews Wed/12-Thurs/13, 8pm. Opens Fri/14, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through Nov 20. Lorraine Hansberry Theatre performs one-act plays by Marcos Barbosa and Douglas Turner Ward.

Desdemona: A Play About a Handkerchief Boxcar Theatre Playhouse, 505 Natoma, SF; www.boxcartheatre.org. $15-35. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Nov 5. Boxcar Theatre performs Pauls Vogel’s dark comedy, inspired by the three female characters from Shakespeare’s Othello.

Honey Brown Eyes SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; (415) 677-9596, www.sfplayhouse.org. $20-50. Tues-Thurs, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm). Through Nov 5. Bosnia in 1992 is divided in a horrifying civil war, some characteristics of which play out in parallel circumstances for two members of a single rock band in SF Playhouse’s west coast premiere of Stefanie Zadravec’s new play. In the first act, set in Visegrad, a young Bosnian Muslim woman (Jennifer Stuckert) is held at gunpoint in her kitchen by a jumpy soldier (Nic Grelli) engaged in a mission of murder and dispossession known as ethnic cleansing. The second act moves to Sarajevo and the apartment of an elderly woman (Wanda McCaddon) who gives shelter and a rare meal to an army fugitive (Chad Deverman). He in turn keeps the bereaved if indomitable woman company. Director Susi Damilano and cast are clearly committed to Zadravec’s ambitious if hobbled play, but the action can be too contrived and unrealistic (especially in act one) to be credible while the tone — zigzagging between the horror of atrocity and the offbeat gestures of romantic comedy — comes over as confused indecision rather than a deliberate concoction. (Avila)

The Kipling Hotel: True Misadventures of the Electric Pink ’80s Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Nov 13. Acclaimed solo performer Don Reed (East 14th) premieres his new show, based on his post-Oakland years living in Los Angeles.

Making Porn Box Car Theatre Studios, 125A Hyde, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $25-50. Thurs, 8pm; Fri-Sun, 7pm (also Fri-Sat, 10pm). Through Oct 29. Ronnie Larsen brings back his crowd-pleasing comedy about the gay porn industry.

Not Getting Any Younger Marsh San Francisco, Studio Theater, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Oct 23. Marga Gomez is back at the Marsh, a couple of too-brief decades after inaugurating the theater’s new stage with her first solo show — an apt setting, in other words, for the writer-performer’s latest monologue, a reflection on the inevitable process of aging for a Latina lesbian comedian and artist who still hangs at Starbucks and can’t be trusted with the details of her own Wikipedia entry. If the thought of someone as perennially irreverent, insouciant, and appealingly immature as Gomez makes you depressed, the show is, strangely enough, the best antidote. (Avila)

Nymph Errant Eureka Theater, 215 Jackson, SF; (415) 255-8207, www.42ndstmoon.org. $20-50. Wed, 7pm; Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 6pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Oct 23. 42nd Street Moon performs Cole Porter’s madcap 1933 musical.

*The Odyssey Aboard Alma, Hyde Street Pier, San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park, SF; www.weplayers.org. $160. Oct 28-29, Nov 4-6, 11-12, and 18, 12:30pm. Heralding their hugely ambitious Spring 2012 production of The Odyssey, which will take place all over Angel Island, the WE Players are tackling the work on a slightly smaller scale by staging it on the historic scow schooner Alma, which is part of the Maritime National Historical Park fleet docked at the end of Hyde Street Pier. Using both boat and Bay as setting, the essential chapters of the ten-year voyage — encounters with the Cyclops, Circe, the Underworld, the Sirens, Aeolus, the Laestrygonians, and Calypso — are enacted through an intriguing mash-up of narration, choreography, sea chanteys, salty dog stories (like shaggy dog stories, but more water-logged), breathtaking views, and a few death-defying stunts the likes of which you won’t see on many conventional stages. High points include the casual swapping of roles (every actor gets to play Odysseus, however briefly), Ross Travis’ masked and flatulent Prometheus and sure-footed Hermes, Ava Roy’s hot pants-clad Circe, Charlie Gurke’s steady musical direction and multi-instrumental abilities, and the sail itself, an experiential bonus. Landlubbers beware, so much time facing the back of the boat where much of the action takes place can result in mild quease, even on a calm day. Take advantage of the downtime between scenes to walk around and face forward now and again. You’ll want to anyway. (Gluckstern) *Once in a Lifetime American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary, SF; (415) 749-2228, www.act-sf.org. $10-85. Wed/12-Sat/15, 8pm (also Wed/12 and Sat/15, 2pm); Sun/16, 2pm. Three enterprising small-time New York theater makers head to Hollywood as voice coaches for silent screen actors fumbling the transition to talkies in American Conservatory Theater’s revival of George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart’s first Broadway collaboration. Originally premiered in 1930, the satirical take on the industry and its corruption of art and more is ever apt if not exactly fresh, and not all the comedy in its hefty three acts still lands where it should. That said, you probably couldn’t ask for a better revival of the piece, which retains much to admire and enjoy. Beautifully designed in grand fashion (including wowing sets by Daniel Ostling and snazzy costuming by Alex Jaeger), director Mark Rucker’s slick and savvy production ensures a perfect pace and wonderfully sharp ensemble acting led by the terrific trio of Julia Coffey, Patrick Lane, and John Wernke — but including some notable turns in multiple roles, including by René Augesen, Margot Hall, and Will LeBow. Rucker inserts some choice period film clips (the mesmerizing moments speaking with perhaps inadvertent force to the power of the celluloid medium and its tensions with theater, a sub-theme of the story), while Alexander V. Nichols’ video design adds further moment to this continent-crossing Hollywood escapade. (Avila)

“San Francisco Olympians Festival” Exit Theater, 156 Eddy, SF; www.sfolympians.com. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Oct 28. No Nude Men Productions presents a festival of 12 new full-length plays written by 14 local writers. Each play focuses on one of the Olympian characters from ancient Greece.

ShEvil Dead Cellspace, 2050 Bryant, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $25. Sat/15, Oct 21, and 28-29, 8pm. Primitive Screwheads return with a horror play (in which the audience is literally sprayed with blood, so leave the fancy suit at home!) based on the Evil Dead movies.

“Shocktoberfest 12: Fear Over Frisco” Hypnodrome Theatre, 575 10th St, SF; (415) 377-4202, www.thrillpeddlers.com. $25-35. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Nov 19. In its annual season-scented horror bid, Thrillpeddlers joins forces with SF’s Czar of Noir, writer-director Eddie Muller, for a sharply penned triplet of plays that resurrect lurid San Francisco lore as flesh-and-blood action. In the slightly sluggish but intriguing Grand Inquisitor, a solitary young woman modeling herself on Louise Brooks in Lulu (an alluringly Lulu-like Bonni Suval) believes she has located the Zodiac killer’s widow (a sweet but cagey Mary Gibboney) — a scenario that just can’t end well for somebody, yet manages to defy expectations. An Obvious Explanation turns on an amnesiac (Daniel Bakken) whose brother (Flynn de Marco) explains the female corpse in the rollaway (Zelda Koznofski) before asking bro where he hid a certain pile of money. Enter a brash doctor (Suval) with a new drug and ambitions of her own vis-à-vis the hapless head case. Russell Blackwood directs The Drug, which adapts a Grand Guignol classic to the hoity-toity milieu of the Van Nesses and seedy Chinatown opium dens, where a rough-playing attorney (an ever persuasive Eric Tyson Wertz) determines to turn a gruesome case involving the duplicitous Mrs. Van Ness (an equally sure, sultry Kära Emry) to his own advantage. The evening also offers a blackout spook show and some smoothly atmospheric musical numbers, including Muller’s rousing “Fear Over Frisco” (music composed by Scrumbly Koldewyn; accompaniment by Steve Bolinger and Birdie-Bob Watt) and an aptly low-down Irving Berlin number — both winningly performed by the entire company. (Avila)

Sorya! A Minor Miracle (Part One) NOHSpace, Project Artaud, 2840 Mariposa, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $12-18. Sun-Mon, 7pm. Through Oct 24. Each year, NOHspace residents Theatre of Yugen present a program of short Kyogen and Noh pieces, demonstrating the building blocks that define their unique approach. Blending classical Japanese theatrical styles with original and contemporary works, the company’s multi-cultural ensemble has been performing their specialized brand of East-West fusion since 1978. This year’s Sorya! program includes two modern-day works written by Greg Giovanni, a Philadelphia-based playwright and Noh artist, directed by Theatre of Yugen artistic director Jubilith Moore, and one traditional comedy, Boshibari (Tied to a Pole), directed by company founder Yuriko Doi. This piece is by far the strongest of the three, a tale of two servants pulling one over their master, who has tied them up in order to prevent them from breaking into the sake cellar. Lluis Valls and Sheila Berotti as Taro and Jiro execute the highly-ritualized aspects of the Kyogen farce with deft mobility and expressiveness, working together to overcome their captivity just enough to enjoy a few drinks before being discovered by their irate master (Sheila Devitt). The other two pieces, one set in Narnia and the other based on an Irish folk ballad, are less compelling, though no less ambitious, and Stephen Siegel and Karen Marek’s joint performance as a pair of squabbling dwarves is worthy of praise. (Gluckstern)

*Tutor: Enter the Enclave Exit Studio, 156 Eddy, SF; (415) 673-3847, www.darkporchtheatre.com. $15-25. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Oct 22. Dark Porch Theatre performs Martin Schwartz’s play, inspired by an 18th century German drama, about a tutor who realizes the creepy family he works for is not quite what they seem.

BAY AREA

Attempts on Her Life Zellerbach Playhouse, Bancroft at Telegraph, UC Berkeley, Berk; tdps.berkeley.edu. $15. Fri/14-Sat/15, 8pm; Sun/16, 2pm. “Annie” never appears onstage but is the much discussed, indeterminate subject of British playwright Martin Crimp’s dazzling 1997 play, which spins the titular “her” into a postmodern cipher-self coughing up — in a shrewd, caustic, at times hilarious slew of discrete but interrelated scenes — the detritus of an international world/netherworld of consumerism, terrorism, media, and murder. The play, which premiered at the cusp of the millennium (and locally in a memorable 2002 production by foolsFURY), retains perhaps all of its original force in these menacing times, but unfortunately much of it is lost or diluted in director Scott Wallin’s production for UC Berkeley’s Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies. The staging (set within a large initially bare stage with audience members on either side arena-style) holds some effective surprises, but is unhelpfully diffused or static at times, while the performance of the polyglot 10-actor ensemble is generally weak (the monologue “Kinda Funny” is one among a handful of notable exceptions), especially when the cast attempts singing and moving together. The decidedly mixed success here leaves room for another attempt soon on this elusive and stimulating work. (Avila)

Bellwether Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; (415) 388-5208, www.marintheatre.org. $34-55. Tues, Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Sat/15 and Oct 29, 2pm; Oct 20, 1pm); Wed, 7:30pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Oct 30. Marin Theatre Company performs Steve Yockey’s spooky fairy tale for adults.

Clementine in the Lower 9 TheatreWorks at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View; (650) 463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. $19-69. Tues-Wed, 7:30pm; Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Oct 30. TheatreWorks presents the world premiere of Dan Dietz’s post-Katrina New Orleans drama.

*A Delicate Balance Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; (510) 843-4822, www.auroratheatre.org. $10-48. Tues, 7pm; Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Extended through Oct 23. Aurora Theatre performs Edward Albee’s comedy of manners.

*Phaedra Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; (510) 841-6500, www.shotgunplayers.org. $17-26. Wed-Thurs, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Oct 23. Catherine (Catherine Castellanos) is the loveless matron in the impeccably tidy, upper-class home of middle-aged right-wing judge Antonio (Keith Burkland), secretly infatuated with her stepson (Patrick Alparone), the prodigal returning home from jail and rehab for a new start. Catherine’s cold, obsessively ordered run of the household — with heavy-lifting by her cheerful, steadfast housekeeper (a wonderfully genuine Trish Mulholland) — masks a desolation and chaos inside her, a churning emptiness evoked in the deliberately listless pace of act one and the skudding clouds we can see reflected in the walls of designer Nina Ball’s impressively stolid, icily tasteful living room. Portland Center Stage’s Rose Riordan directs a strong cast (which includes Cindy Im, as the stepson’s rehab partner and sexual interest) in a modern-day adaptation of the Greek myth by Adam Bock (The Shaker Chair, Swimming in the Shallows), in a worthy premiere for Shotgun Players. The drama comes leavened by Bock’s well-developed humor and the dialogue, while inconsistent, can be eloquent. The storm that breaks in the second act, however, feels a bit compressed and, especially after the languid first act, contributes to a somewhat pinched narrative. But whatever its limitations, Catherine’s predicament is palpably dramatic, especially in Castellanos’s deeply moving performance — among her best work to date and alone worth giving Phaedra a chance. (Avila)

*Rita Moreno: Life Without Makeup Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-73. Tues-Sun, showtimes vary. Through Oct 30. The life of stage and screen legend Rita Moreno is a subject that has no trouble filling two swift and varied acts, especially as related in anecdote, song, comedy, and dance by the serene multiple–award-winning performer and Berkeley resident herself. Indeed, that so much material gets covered so succinctly but rarely abruptly is a real achievement of this attractively adorned autobiographical solo show crafted with playwright and Berkeley Rep artistic director Tony Taccone. (Avila)

The Taming of the Shrew Bruns Amphitheater, 100 California Shakespeare Wy, Orinda; (510) 809-3290, www.calshakes.org. $35-66. Wed/12-Thurs/13, 7:30pm; Fri/14-Sat/15, 8pm; Sun/16, 4pm. California Shakespeare Theatre’s last show of the season is a high-fashion, pop-art take on Shakespeare’s battle of the sexes.

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh Berkeley, TheaterStage, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Sun, 11am. Through Nov 20. Louis “The Amazing Bubble Man” Pearl returns with this kid-friendly, bubble-tastic comedy.

DANCE/PERFORMANCE

Alonzo King LINES Ballet Novellus Theater, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard, SF; www.linesballet.org. Fri/14-Sat/15 and Oct 21-22, 8pm; Sun/15 and Oct 23, 5pm; Oct 19-20, 7:30pm. $15-65. The company performs its fall home season, featuring two world premieres.

“Hula Show 2011” Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, 3301 Lyon, SF; (415) 392-4400, www.cityboxoffice.com. Sat/15, Oct 21-22, 8pm; Sun/16, 4pm; Oct 23, noon (family matinee) and 4pm. $10-45. Patrick Makuakane’s Na Lei Hulu I Ka Wekiu performs its annual show mixing traditional and contemporary forms of hula, with special guests Golden Gate Men’s Chorus.

*”PanderFest 2011″ Stage Werx 446, 446 Valencia, SF; www.panderexpress.com. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Oct 29. $20. San Francisco’s Crisis Hopkins and (PianoFight’s S.H.I.T. Show makers) Mission Control join forces for a tag-team evening of sketch and “improv” (quotes kind of necessary this time). Claiming dubiously to fill a need for yet another festival in this city (though at the same time striving for above-average fawning of the public), the show delivers two acts of mostly spot-on comedy by two agreeable ensembles and is thus a fine night out anyway. The program (based rather loosely on online-video–generated audience suggestions, interspersed with the sneezing Panda baby and other YouTube perennials) also inaugurates Stage Werx’s cozy new Mission District venue — the former digs of Intersection for the Arts and a huge improvement over Stage Werx’s old subterranean lair on Sutter Street. Highlights of a ridiculous evening include a two-part Crisis Hopkins sketch detailing a site visit by a ball-wrecking contractor (Christy Daly) to her chary foreman (Sam Shaw) and his withering cherries; and Mission Control’s pointed ’70s TV show homage with a twist, Good Cop, Stab Cop. (Avila)

“San Francisco Trolley Dances 2011” Tours leave from SF Public Library, 100 Larkin, SF; (415) 226-1139, www.epiphanydance.org. Sat/15-Sun/16, every 45 minutes from 11am-2:45pm. Free with Muni fare ($2). Ephiphany Productions presents its eighth annual moving festival of local dance companies performing site-specific, outdoor pieces.

“To Bury a Cat: A Clown Show” NOHspace in Project Artaud, 2840 Mariposa, SF; 1-800-838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. $10. Theatre of Yugen’s ARTburst Program presents this performance by Clowns On a Stick.

“Witches of Wonder” Big Umbrella Studios, 960 Divisadero, SF; www.bigumbrellastudios.com. Fri, 7pm. Free. All all-female cast sends up Halloween, Day of the Dead, and “all things goth” in this performance.

Check yo’ head: “The Book of Skulls”

Sue Vaughan
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Check yo’ head: “The Book of Skulls”

Sure, it’s still only September, but in my mind (and at Walgreens, have you noticed?) it’s totally Halloween season. What better time to get your bony hands on The Book of Skulls (due in October from Laurence King Publishing, 160 pages, $14.95), Faye Dowling’s new compilation of all things Memento mori? The table of contents page is illustrated by San Francisco’s own Matt Furie, people. Get on this!

The strikingly-designed (dig the nifty “skeleton binding”) Book of Skulls packs a lot into its petite pages. Dowling, a “freelance editor, curator, and art buyer,” draws together a huge array of representations of skulls (in fine art, street art, fashion, rock n’ roll, etc.), all of them visually stirring but with different levels of spookiness.

Page through and you’ll find a Noel McLaughlin photograph of Paris’ catacombs; examples from Noah Scalin’s popular “Skull-A-Day” blog; Boo Davis of Quiltsrÿche‘s “evil quilts,” works by Shepard Fairy and Damien Hirst; plus giant skull skull-ptures, teeny skull minatures, Day of the Dead art, skull murals and graffiti, crystal skulls, jewel-encrusted skulls, skateboard skulls, skull tattoos, biker skulls, Grateful Dead skulls, the Misfits fiend, Skullphone (you know it), and Alexander McQueen and Vivienne Westwood jewelry. (Blessedly, there’s no Ed Hardy.) The Book of Skulls isn’t your typical hefty art book — obviously, it’s aimed at a wider audience, and is potentially something you’d pick up and flip through while in line at Urban Outfitters. So what? It’s a thoughtfully-curated, great-looking book. Read it while eating your way though that bag of Creepy Peepers.  

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