ODC

Our Weekly Picks: December 12-18

Andrew Lam
-
0

WEDNESDAY 12/12

"The Lion and the Lamb"

Sam Flores, a graffiti-inspired artist whose work often deals with religious themes, now turns his attention to the conflicting symbols of violence and innocence. His recent paintings, which show a more classical style than previous works, depict the lion and the lamb amongst other figures in chaotic, urban settings. These bold and deeply hued paintings convey the convoluted relationship between good and evil. As a prominent artist in the crossover between urban and fine arts, you may have found his work alongside painter-designer, Jeremy Fish or tagger-tattoo artist, Mike Giant. Like many others, Flores got his start designing for skateboard and clothing companies, but with more and more solo exhibits, his painting has begun to flourish. This show should be a great example of the strong voice he has found. (Molly Champlin)

Through Feb. 12

Opening reception tonight, 6:30pm, free

Fifty24SF

218 Fillmore, SF

(415) 861-1960

www.fifty24sf.com

WEDNESDAY 12/12

Charles Phoenix Holiday Show


Oddball Americana guru Charles Phoenix has explored and celebrated the best in kitschy, cool, and kooky artifacts and history for many years now, having written several books on mid-20th century, deep-fried pop culture, fashion, lifestyle and more. The author of tomes such as Southern California In The 50s, and Americana The Beautiful brings his hilarious holiday show and talk to the city, set to roast not just Christmas, but all of the holidays with his ever-growing collection of slides and tales of his off-beat and always colorful road trip adventures. (Sean McCourt)

8pm, $25

Empress of China Ballroom

838 Grant, SF

www.charlesphoenix.com

WEDNESDAY 12/12

"How The Grouch Stole Christmas"


The Grouch is continuing his annual holiday hip-hop tour through 18 cities across the West Coast. This year the merry night in San Francisco will include performances by Bay Area native Mistah F.A.B., Minneapolis-based artist Prof, DJ Fresh, and of course, the Grouch and Eligh. Apart from the live show, Mistah F.A.B. will host a Battle of the Bands/MCs Showcase where participants will have the platform to show their own talent. The freestyle champion will win a Grouch Merchandise pack and a pair of Able Planet studio headphones. (Soojin Chang)

8pm, $20

Regency Ballroom

1300 Van Ness, SF

www.theregencyballroom.com

THURSDAY 12/13

Subterranean Arthouse’s Third Annual Chanukah Party


Yiddish supergroups, klezmer dance parties, and tzedakah, all wrapped into one shiny gold coin of an evening. The Subterranean Arthouse’s Chanukah Party is part of Heather Klein’s "Hungry for Yiddish: A Mitzvah Project" concert series, which donates proceeds from events to the Berkeley Food Pantry and similar organizations; and the event is co-presented by KlezCalifornia and the Jewish Music Festival. Acts include Klein’s Inextinguishable Trio, Anthony Mordechai-Tzvi Russell, noted Yiddish dance instructor Bruce Bierman, and Saul Goodman’s Klezmer Band. With instructions from Bierman, the lovely Yiddish songs of both Klein and Russell, and Goodman’s brassy klezmer, this should make for a fun, frenzied mid-point party during the festival of lights — and yes, they’ll light the menorah. Chag Sameach, Berkeley. (Emily Savage)

9pm, $10–$20 donation

Subterranean Arthouse

2169 Bancroft, Berk.

Klezmer.brownpapertickets.com

FRIDAY 12/14

Dylan Moran


Perhaps best known to American audiences for his appearances in Shaun of the Dead and Run, Fatboy, Run, Irish comedian Dylan Moran is a huge hit in his native UK, notably for his brilliant role as a cantankerous and drunk, yet lovable book shop owner in the tragically short-lived BBC series "Black Books." His live stand-up is where he’s really making his name now though; his current "Yeah, Yeah" tour is only stopping in New York, Los Angele, and here in San Francisco — consider yourself lucky and don’t miss your chance to see one of funniest comics on either side of the pond. (McCourt)

Also Sat/15, 8pm, $35

Marines Memorial Theatre

609 Sutter, SF

(415) 771-6900

www.marinesmemorialtheatre.com

FRIDAY 12/14

The Mountain Goats


I’d like to sit on some front porch (any porch, really) with John Darnielle and just listen to him tell stories — maybe over a glass of whiskey and several puffs of something. Sometimes telling the truth, but mostly relying on a wild imagination, the Mountain Goat’s dynamic leader has been writing songs about addiction, infidelity, and more sensitive subjects for the last 20 years. The group’s new album, Transcendental Youth, has been an excuse for Darnielle to branch out, inviting avant-symphonic rocker, Matthew E. White, to write horns for the album and working with Owen Pallett to arrange the songs for a collaboration with the a cappella quartet, Anonymous 4. This should be a well-worn show — mixing old and new in a chaotic journey through the picaresque scenes of Darnielle’s mind. (Champlin)

With Matthew E. White

9pm, $28

Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

(415) 346-6000

www.thefillmore.com

FRIDAY 12/14

"Diez Por Arriba"


The glorious annual flamenco season is in full swing — so much emotion, so much drama, so much invigorating live sound and movement, olé! It’s all a perfect rehearsal for your upcoming family holiday gatherings. Next up, fantastic choreographer Yaelisa and her Caminos Flamencos company, an enthralling troupe that stomps, whirls, hypnotizes, and enraptures like a force of nature, all under the expert musical direction of Jason McGuire "El Rubio." I would say the distinguishing feature of Yaelisa’s work is its generous spirit and breadth of technique. As evidenced by Caminos’ show last year, she favors longer solos and duos, giving each featured performer enough time to weave a spell of exquisite technique and subtle variations. Gorgeous costumes (hello, tight-pantsed toreadors!) and music from an international ensemble helps turn up the magic past 10. (Marke B.)

Also Sat/15, 8pm; Sun/16, 3pm, $20–$40

ODC Theater

3153 17th St., SF

www.caminosflamenco.com

SATURDAY 12/15

"In One Hand A Ghost, The Other An Atom"


As urban art has become more popular, many taggers are making a profit from their work in the gallery world. New2, who has been writing in Australia since the movement began in the early ’80s, is one of these. He’s worked in a variety of spray paint alternatives when bringing his work indoors, including paint, sculpture, and paper. His most recent project, "In One Hand A Ghost, The Other an Atom," uses intricate, paper cut-outs to merge his long tradition of writing (the ghost) with his futuristic take on letters (the atom). In the show, care and thoughtfulness form the same bright colors, geometric currents, and space themes that he has developed in years of experimentation on trains and empty walls. (Champlin)

Through Jan. 5

7pm, free

White Walls Gallery

835 Larkin, SF

(415) 931-1500

www.whitewallssf.com

SATURDAY 12/15

Pilot 61


Making dances — we all know — is a lonely and precarious enterprise. You can’t just sit down on your keyboard and write your poems. You need bodies and a bigger area than your kitchen. That’s why ODC’s Pilot program is such a gift to young choreographers. They get 11 weeks, a studio, a tiny budget, and a lot of feedback. In return, they have to commit to two public performances — of which we are the beneficiary. Seeing what gifted but not-yet-established choreographers come up with is a thrill like few others. In its 61st incarnation, Pilot will introduce Jenni Bregman, David Schleiffers, Katharine Hawthorne, Erin Malley, and Phoebe Osborne. They are calling the program Nightcap. (Rita Felciano)

Also Sun/16, 8pm, $12

ODC Dance Commons

351 Shotwell, SF

(415) 863-9833

www.odctheater.org

SATURDAY 12/15

Found Footage Festival


You’ve seen ’em: those piles of mysterious VHS tapes, often unmarked, gathering dust at Community Thrift. Found Footage Festival curator-hosts Nick Prueher and Joe Pickett live for the thrill that comes from finding bizarre, hilarious cast-off videos — and they’re on the road, sharing their fascination with audiences across the country. The 2012 program of repurposed entertainment looks to be stuffed with gems, gut-busters, and things that make you go "WTF?": ferret-care tips, freaky craft-sponging, and something called "The Sexy Treadmill Workout." Head to the FFF website to whet your appetite with the "VHS Find of the Day" feature. Two words: cat massage. (Cheryl Eddy)

Also Sun/16, 8pm, $13

Roxie Theater

3117 16th St., SF

www.foundfootagefest.com

MONDAY 12/17

Dee Dee and Brandon


Dee Dee from the Dum Dum Girls and Brandon from the Crocodiles are in love — married, in fact, and make a rather swoon-worthy couple. She with her thick-lined lids and vertical striped tights, he with his dark sunglasses. Listen to Dee Dee’s crooning on "Bedroom Eyes" off 2011’s Only In Dreams, in which she repeats "fear I’ll never sleep again" and you start to get a sense of their connection, and the pain they feel apart on separate tours. To view said connection live, in all its gushy splendor, be the voyeur at their joint Rickshaw Stop show tonight; a very special showcase, indeed, where both will perform songs from their respective catalogs and — as I can only imagine — harmonize like old lovers do. Like Johnny and June, Exene and John Doe, all those passionate, oft-heartsick music mates that have come before them, the duo is sugar and spice with a splash of whiskey. (Savage)

With Gio and Stef (Young Prisms)

8pm, $15

Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell, SF (415) 861-2011

www.rickshawstop.com

TUESDAY 12/18

Kinky Friedman


Although he has garnered a considerable amount of national mainstream success in the last 25 years as the author of a series of popular mystery novels and non-fiction books touching on politics, writer and all-around raconteur Kinky Friedman first made a name for himself as a singer and songwriter. In the early 1970s, along with his band the Texas Jewboys (he was raised by Jewish parents in the Lone Star State), he penned a slew of country and twang-tinged tunes such as the rollicking and humorous "They Ain’t Making Jews Like Jesus Anymore." He hits the city tonight as part of his "Bipolar" tour. This is your chance to meet the man, as he promises to "sign anything but bad legislation!" (McCourt)

With Brian Molnar

8pm, $25

Cafe Du Nord

2170 Market, SF

www.cafedunord.com


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

Stage Listings

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
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

A Christmas Carol Geary Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $20-95. Opens Fri/30, 7pm. Runs Tue-Sat, 7pm (no evening performance Dec 6, 11, or 18; also 2pm matinees Sat/1, Dec 8, 12, 15, 21, and 22; Sun, 5:30pm (also 1pm matinees Dec 9, 16, 23); Dec 24, 1pm. Through Dec 24. American Conservatory Theater’s annual holiday performance features James Carpenter as Scrooge.

The Marvelous Wonderettes New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $27-46. Previews Fri/30-Sat/1 and Dec 5-7, 8pm; Sun/2, 2pm. Opens Dec 8, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm (no show Dec 23). Through Jan 13. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs Roger Bean’s 1950s pop-hit musical.

The New California Traveling Jewish Theater, 470 Florida, SF; www.pianofight.com. $20-25. Opens Wed/28, 8pm. Runs Wed, 8pm. Through Dec 19. PianoFight Productions’ female-centric sketch comedy group ForePlays presents an all-new variety show.

Pal Joey Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.42ndstreetmoon.org. $25-75. Previews Wed/28, 7pm; Thu/29-Fri/30, 8pm. Opens Sat/1, 6pm. Runs Wed, 7pm; Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 6pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Dec 16. 42nd Street Moon performs the Rodgers and Hart classic.

BAY AREA

Big River TheatreWorks, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; www.theatreworks.org. $23-73. Previews Wed/28, 7:30pm; Thu/29-Fri/30, 8pm. Opens Sat/1, 2 and 8pm. Runs Tue-Wed, 7:30pm; Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Dec 30. TheatreWorks performs the Tony-winning musical based on Mark Twain’s Huck Finn stories.

Dracula Berkeley Community Church, 1802 Fairview, Berk; www.infernotheatre.org. $12-25. Opens Thu/29, 8pm. Runs Thu and Sat-Sun, 8pm; Fri, 9pm. Though Dec 16. Inferno Theatre Company performs Giulio Cesare Perrone’s adaptation of the Bram Stoker classic.

Woyzeck Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $23-35. Previews Thu/29 and Dec 5-6, 7pm; Fri/30-Sat/1, 8pm; Sun/2, 5pm. Opens Dec 7, 8pm. Runs Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Jan 27. Shotgun Players presents Tom Waits, Kathleen Brennan, and Robert Wilson’s tragic musical, based on an unfinished 1837 play by Georg Büchner.

ONGOING

Foodies! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.foodiesthemusical.com. $30-34. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. AWAT Productions presents Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue all about food.

History: The Musical Un-Scripted Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.un-scripted.com. $10-20. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 22. The Un-Scripted Theater Company performs “an unscripted romp through Western history.”

Hysterical, Historical San Francisco: Holiday Edition Alcove Theater, 414 Mason, Ste 502, SF; www.thealcovetheater.com. $25-40. Fri-Sat and Dec 26-31, 9pm. Through Dec 31. Comedian Kurt Weitzmann takes on San Francisco history, adding some holiday flair along the way.

The Rainmaker Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sheltontheater.org. $38. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 22. Shelton Theatre preforms N. Richard Nash’s classic drama.

Slugs and Kicks Thick House, 1695 18th St, SF; www.therhino.org. $15-30. Previews Wed/28, 8pm. Opens Thu/29, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Dec 9. Theatre Rhinoceros performs John Fisher’s play about the offstage drama at a college theater company.

Speed-the-Plow Actors Theatre of San Francisco, 855 Bush, SF; www.actorstheatresf.org. $26-38. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Extended through Dec 21. Actors Theatre of San Francisco performs the David Mamet drama.

The Submission New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Dec 16. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs Jeff Talbott’s drama about a playwright who falsifies his identity when he enters his latest work into a prestigious theater festival.

Superior Donuts Gough Street Playhouse, 1622 Gough, SF; www.custommade.org. $25-30. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Dec 2. Consider the doughnut: an infinite ring of fried dough and glaze, simple, unassuming, ubiquitous. Once a staple of on-the-go breakfasts and on-the-road snacking, the doughnut has gone into decline, assaulted on all sides by nutritionists, tastier pastries, and luxury branding. Arthur (Don Wood), the aging protagonist of Tracy Letts’ Superior Donuts, has failed to see the writing on the wall, perhaps for decades, as his family doughnut shop, whose regulars include a feisty bag lady (Vicki Siegel) and a pair of beat cops (Ariane Owens, Emmanuel Lee), struggles to compete with the Starbucks across the street and the changing mores and values of the neighborhood demographic. Enter Franco (Chris Marsol), a likable youthful hustler in desperate need of a job, who sees potential in Arthur’s decrepit shop: poetry readings! Bran muffins! A liquor license! Drawn to each other by mutual loneliness the two warily navigate the waters of friendship, despite their obvious gaps in age, ambition, and fashion sense (Franco to Arthur: “the Grateful Dead aren’t hiring anymore”). Custom Made’s production, directed by Marilyn Langbehn, breathes vibrancy into a gentrifying corner of Chicago, thanks especially to Chris Marsol, whose Franco is bold, intelligent and thwarted, and Don Wood, who plays Arthur like a man frozen in ice, whose eventual thaw speaks to the restorative powers of possibility. (Gluckstern)

The Waiting Period Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Extended through Dec 8. Brian Copeland (comedian, TV and radio personality, and creator-performer of the long-running solo play Not a Genuine Black Man) returns to the Marsh with a new solo, this one based on more recent and messier events in Copeland’s life. It’s a worthy aim but only a fitfully engaging piece, since as drama it remains thin, standing at perhaps too respectful a distance from the convoluted torment and alienation at its center. (Avila)

BAY AREA

Acid Test: The Many Incarnations of Ram Dass Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Extended through Jan 5. Lynne Kaufman’s new play stars Warren David Keith as the noted spiritual figure.

It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; www.marintheatre.org. $36-57. Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat/1 and Dec 15, 2pm; Dec 6, 1pm); Wed, 7:30pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Dec 16. Marin Theatre Company performs Joe Landry’s live radio play adaptation of the classic Capra film.

The Kipling Hotel: True Misadventures of the Electric Pink ’80s Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through Dec 16. This new autobiographical solo show by Don Reed, writer-performer of the fine and long-running East 14th, is another slice of the artist’s journey from 1970s Oakland ghetto to comedy-circuit respectability. Even with some awkward bumps along the way, it’s never a dull thing watching Reed work. (Avila)

The Sound of Music Julia Morgan Theatre, 2640 College, Berk; www.berkeleyplayhouse.org. $15-35. Thu-Sat, 7pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, noon and 5pm. Through Dec 2. Berkeley Playhouse opens its fifth season with the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical.

Toil and Trouble La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $10-20. Thu-Sat, 8pm (no show Thu/22). Through Dec 8. For a theater company known for its radical interpretations of the Shakespearean canon, a play such as Lauren Gunderson’s Toil and Trouble, a goofy Generation Why retelling of Macbeth, is a particularly good fit for Impact Theatre. Whittled down to a dynamic three-character chamber play featuring delusionary slackers plotting to turn their MBAs and nebulous SF Giants connections into a bloodless takeover of a remote island nation rather than get crappy café jobs to pay the rent, Toil throws baseball, investors, Wikipedia, fortune cookies, hypothetical sex, and real violence into one cauldron, letting them bubble and froth throughout the piece. The so-crazy-it-might-just-work plan hatched by Adam (Michael Delaney), a relentlessly cheerful narcissist, quickly leads to tension between the three, especially once the potential payout is estimated at 30 million dollars, and before their plot is even finalized, a tenuous, murderous alliance forms between the insufferably wimpy Matt (Will Hand) and the rage-aholic Beth (Jeanette Penley). All three actors play their all-too-familiar characters to the hilt, and Josh Costello’s direction is deft and assured. A surprise twist subverts the expected lull of tragedy, and all is resolved, more or less, in a manner more appropriate to this time and place than Shakespeare’s, though not without some grand sound and fury beforehand, signifying both. (Gluckstern)

The White Snake Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2025 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-99. Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Nov 29, Dec 13, and Sat, 2pm; no matinee Dec 1; no show Thu/22); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Dec 23. In Mary Zimmerman’s The White Snake, nothing is quite as it seems. A mysterious stranger and her faithful servant are, in reality, a pair of shape-shifting serpents, the humble village pharmacy they build (with stolen money) is a front for their magical healing powers, a venerated Buddhist Abbott is actually a small-minded tyrant with a remarkably unholy obsession. Based on a Chinese myth dating to the 10th century, elements of “The White Snake” can be found in other mythologies around the world — from the biblical tempter in the Garden of Eden, to the healer snakes of Asclepius. However, in accordance with the tale’s historical evolution, from horror story to romance, Zimmerman’s treatment focuses mainly on the unusual love affair between Madame White (Amy Kim Waschke) and her karma-selected husband Xu Xian (Christopher Livingston). Weaving together fanciful design (a rainfall of ribbons, parasol puppetry, elegant period costuming and evocative video), elements of Chinese drama (amusingly described by narrators as they take place on stage), and a stirring reflection on the transformative power of love, complete with themes of self-sacrifice and endless fidelity, The White Snake, is a delicately-rendered fairytale which may not offer a way to enlightenment, but certainly clears a path to the heart. (Gluckstern)

Wilder Times Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; www.auroratheatre.org. $32-60. Tue, 7pm; Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Dec 9. Aurora Theatre performs a collection of one-acts by Thornton Wilder.

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Fri/23-Sun/25, 11am. Louis “The Amazing Bubble Man” Pearl brings his lighter-than-air show back to the Marsh.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

BATS Improv Bayfront Theater, B350 Fort Mason Center, SF; www.improv.org. $20. “Theatresports,” Fri, 8pm, through Dec 21.

“The Buddy Club Children’s Shows” Randall Museum Theater, 199 Museum Wy, SF; www.thebuddyclub.com. Sun/2, 11am-noon. $8. Juggling and acrobatics with the Keith Show.

“Clas/sick Hip-Hop” Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. Fri/30-Sat/1, 8pm. $15-20. Violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain accompanies hip-hop dancers Rennie Harris, Rokafella, and others.

“Instrument” CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; www.counterpulse.org. Thu-Sun, 8pm. Through Dec 9. $15-20. Monique Jenkinson, a.k.a. Fauxnique, performs her new solo show.

“Life with Laughter” Garage, 715 Bryant, SF; www.975howard.com. Tue/4, 8:30pm. $10-20. comedy, storytelling, spoken word, and music.

“Murderous Little World” ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; www.odctheater.org. Mon/3, 8pm. $15-30. NEXMAP and ODC present the US premiere of Linda Bouchard’s experimental musical theater work, based on poems by Anne Carson and performed by Canadian trio Bellows and Brass.

“The Romane Event” Make-Out Room, 3225 22nd St, SF; www.pacoromane.com. Wed/28, 8pm. $7-10. Comedy with Alex Koll, Johnny Taylor, Leslie Small, Andrew Holgren, Lynn Ruth Miller, and Paco Romane.

San Francisco Comedy College Purple Onion at Kells, 530 Jackson, SF; www.sfcomedycollege.com. $5-15; all shows ongoing. “Laughter Hour,” Thu-Fri, 7pm. “Destini and Yonatan’s Stand-Up Rebellion,” Thu, 8:30. “Comedy Bottle,” Fri-Sat, 8:30pm. “Kells Comedy Saturday,” Sat, 7pm. “New Talent Shows,” Tue-Wed, 7. Also Larkspur Hotel, 524 Sutter, SF. “Rocket Salad,” Sun, 7.

“San Francisco Magic Parlor” Chancellor Hotel Union Square, 433 Powell, SF; www.sfmagicparlor.com. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Ongoing. $40. Magic vignettes with conjurer and storyteller Walt Anthony.

BAY AREA

“Hear Me Now” Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. Mon/3, 8pm. $15. Shotgun Cabaret presents cell phone monologues as part of its First Person Singular reading series.

“A Memory from the Future/Un Recuerdo del Futuro” Studio 8, 2525 Eighth St, SF; www.theteadancers.org. Sat/1 and Dec 8, 8pm; Dec 9, 2pm. $20. The Tea Dancers/Ballet de la Compasion perform a bilingual multimedia show.

“Risk for Deep Love” Temescal Art Center, 511 48th St, Oakl; www.eroplay.com. Sat/1, 8pm. Free. “Improvised passions” with performance artist Frank Moore. *

 

No satisfaction

Andrew Lam
-
0
No satisfaction

arts@sfbg.com

DANCE The tenth anniversary concert for Benjamin Levy’s LEVYdance Company should have been an occasion for looking back a little and glancing into the future a lot. The fact that this was a subdued, at-time depressing event was certainly not the dancers’ fault. They were fabulous, crackerjack performers: fierce, fast, and committed, whether in solo passages or in ensemble work. If you watch dance primarily because of its performers, this was your night.

Where the program fell short was in choreography that would stay in your mind beyond its ephemeral existence on stage. Instead of showing a work that would hint at where he might be going in the next decade, Levy chose to present two pieces from the past. Good as they were, they gave the unfortunate impression that he is a one-note choreographer. He is not. One of the reasons this choreographer has been a pleasure to watch over the years is because he tries to find new vehicles for his volatile and fractured vocabulary. Despite their surface appeal, an undercurrent of violence and danger often propels Levy’s choreographies. It’s what keeps you on the edge of your seat.

It’s with the stunningly tight Falling After Too that Levy introduced himself as choreographer in 2003. Performing it himself at the time, he was partnered by a much heftier Christopher Hajin Lee. The up and down of this contest between will and muscle was partly based on the two men’s different physicalities. Reprised as a duet between Yu Reigen and a slender Paul Vickers, it inevitably shifted the focus onto a male-female relationship. It’s a sign of the work’s choreographic strength — and the performance, including Anthony Porter on piano — that it worked as well as it did.

But why did Levy program Physics (2008), which is essentially an elaboration for two couples of that earlier work? The sequential and overlapping duets, including switching partners, didn’t really tell us much about these couples. Still, Levy has an appealing way of including tiny gestures — a pat here, a kick there — in the muscularity of these ever-shifting encounters. They suggested a sense of spontaneity not unlike the grace notes in a piece of music.

And why Levy chose Sidra Bell Dance New York to collaborate on this concert remains a mystery. What on earth did he think his company — such as it is — could learn from Bell’s? Robert Moses’ Kin introduced her last spring when she set a modest quartet on his female dancers. Here the New York-based artist created less for Levy, and Nudity for her own dancers. Bell knows a good thing when she sees it; she sent her dancers behind the screen, up the walls, and into the audience. She took advantage of ODC Theater’s vaunted lighting possibilities, lowering and tilting levels of the grids in less and having a bank of floor lights shine directly into her audience in Nudity. Maybe turn-around is fair play since that’s what performers have to deal with on a daily basis. But there was something offensive about the approach that left my seat neighbor with a fierce headache and a fiercer fury.

Bell is a complete creature of the theater. Interestingly, she takes credit as “director” instead of “choreographer” of her works. One thing is certain: she is big on image making — whether they come from Glamour or “girlie” (and their male counterpart) magazines. And the accoutrement of these two dance theater works looked promising; the dancers in less wore flimsy whites with big, noose-like scarves, and in Nudity they went Goth — mohawks, black outfits, and fright make-up.

Spectacle, in-your-face aggressiveness, a contempt for continuity in favor of the moment, and raw and supposedly unmediated energy seem to be the elements that fascinate Bell. That’s fine and good, but these practices need to arise from ideas that suggest more than clichés. A man crawling on all fours? Throwing people and catching them — sometimes? Retching to some comment on nutrition — in French? Dominatrixes in both pieces?

The ferocious physicality of Bell’s dance making is its most attractive quality, but the imagery — and she uses a lot of it — has to accumulate into something bigger than its constituent parts. Otherwise why do it? Both of Bell’s works fell short that way. They left behind a sense of ennui and déjà vu.

GOLDIES 2012: Joe Landini and the Garage

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
1
GOLDIES 2012: Joe Landini and the Garage

GOLDIES Choreographer, impresario, and arts advocate Joe Landini likes to say yes. “It’s my philosophy to start that way,” the founder and artistic director of the Garage — San Francisco’s most hoppin’ performance venue — explains. “If you say no to something, the conversation is closed. There is nowhere to go.”

Landini is a curious mixture between visionary idealist and pragmatist who has a solid grasp of what it takes to get a job done. As a young jazz dancer, he was told to take ballet to improve his alignment. So he did, until his knees gave out and he switched to modern dance at UC Irvine, where he majored in choreography.

While Landini was in college, master choreographer Donald McKayle suggested that he had talents as an administrator. Landini accepted the observation though he saw himself primarily as a choreographer. He moved back to San Francisco — he grew up in Concord — and waited tables while interning for Mary Alice Fry’s Footloose Dance Company and Shotwell Studios. “I learned to write grants,” he remembers over coffee, near the Garage’s digs at 715 Bryant. “And I got free rehearsal space for my own choreography.” He also learned that per capita, San Francisco funds its dancers reasonably well. “In New York, you might have 200 applicants for one grant. Here, there may be 50 to 60.”

Opening the Garage in 2007 (its original location was on Howard Street) allowed him to offer what he thought artists, particularly young ones, need: an environment where experimentation, learning, and risk-taking are welcome. Artistic failure doesn’t bother Landini; it’s part of the learning process, he says. During the first five years, he estimated that annually around 10,000 people walked through that iconic red door on Howard.

Landini’s major initiative, RAW (Resident Artists’ Workshop), is modeled after AIRspace (AIR standing for “artists in residence”) — which had been set up for queer performers at the Jon Sims Center for the Arts. Landini ran it for a year. When the Sims Center closed, he bought the seats and tech equipment, putting them in storage until needed.

The Garage is run like a time-share in which 30 groups evenly divide up the time slots. While primarily a haven for dancers, theater folks and performance artists are equally welcome. Anybody can apply. True to form, Landini doesn’t tell them no, though “they just may have to wait until a space opens up.”

Wayne Hazzard, executive director of Dancers’ Group, the Bay Area’s dance service organization, considers the Garage a “powerful space where community-building can start. Joe, with his practically 24-hour open-door policy and constant presence, is almost like a neighborhood mom-and-pop store. For first-time young artists, this is particularly valuable.”

All Garage artists get three months of four-hours-a-week rehearsal time that ends with a public performance. Artists can come back — and many do. As for his own choreography, Landini is just getting back into it. During a two-year stint in London for an MA in choreography from the Laban Centre, he immersed himself in the European dance theater tradition. “I learned so much, and I have never been able to use it,” he says — until now: on November 27, he will present his new physical theater piece, Bitter Queen.

As if running the Garage seven days a week was not enough, Landini also started a Summer Performance Festival this year, curated in conjunction with ODC Theater. Again, he couldn’t say no — this time to offering a select group of Garage choreographers a venue more professional than his own modest theater can provide. The event will return in August 2013.

And, of course, Landini couldn’t say no when he heard that the city was interested in keeping another summer event, the 22-year-old West Wave Dance Festival, alive. “Every city needs a yearly independent dance festival, right?” he asks. One guess who will be running it in 2013.

Rare talent

-
0
Rare talent

arts@sfbg.com

DANCE Wendy Rein and Ryan T. Smith may be best known for their hit biannual show, the CONCEPT series — where you munch free popcorn while watching informal presentations of local choreography. Their own company, RAWdance, performs only occasionally. So to see them in a full-evening program, "re: framed" (Nov. 2-4 at ODC Theater), was to realize just how special their work is. Raw it ain’t, conceptual it is.

Of the four pieces, only one of them, Burn In, Part I, consisted of what this duo does best, choreographing on their own sinewy and fiercely interacting bodies. Described in the program as the beginning of a larger piece to be shown next year, Burn seemed to emanate from an intense searching for connection between two people. An underlying tension colored every move, as they invaded each other’s spaces and Rein, incubus-like, hung on Smith’s back and plopped on his lap. Despite the intensity of these dramatic and detailed encounters, emotions were held in check by the analytical processes that seemed to have generated the movements.

Breton Tyner-Bryan, first seen through some slats of light, intruded into the relationship. Her presence became a perhaps corrosive element that heated up an already fiery intensity. It was as if some kind of apocalyptic terror was descending on these slithering and shivering creatures. In the last image Smith was hanging onto Rein’s legs as a beam of red light contracted onto her back, a mountain of quivering muscles. It looked like a piece of raw meat.

For Double Exposure, the two dancers asked for original two-minute duets from good and stylistically different choreographers. They got a pleasant divertissement. Ann Carlson gave them an amusing Beauty and Beast encounter based on rhythmic panting. Joe Goode, punning on the company name, created a sly roll in the hay, followed by a verbal ping-pong match. KT Nelson’s frolicking duet was short, musical, and witty. The most intriguing contribution came from Shinichi and Dana Iova-Koga. In skull-hugging caps and long, simple gowns, the couple’s slow progression and reversal of direction looked like Edward Gorey might have been designed it.

The current version of The Beauty Project is the result of rethinking for the stage of a 2009 work originally performed in an empty store at the Westfield San Francisco Centre. I wish I had seen it there, in the context of all those shop windows with their empty-faced mannequins.

The thematic material of the doll that comes alive, of course, is a trope already used by 19th century ballet choreographers — but Ryan and Smith’s take, for five women in tiny dresses and black bob wigs, was fully contemporary. Four silver-painted chairs become tools to architecturally redesign the stage. Designed on an invisible grid, the dancing followed clear patterns of oppositions, canons, and unisons that break up and reconfigure themselves. Though highly formal — that’s the essence of who these choreographers are — the work’s fast-paced rhythms constantly shifted moods as the dancers vacillated between vacuous stares and come-hither sexual invitations. They collaborated and competed, borrowing the assertive strides, half-turns, and hip thrusts from the runway. Every once in awhile, the "models" stepped out of their roles, showing glimpses of the anxiety, aggression, and boredom that makes them human. One of the dancers stared into the audience from downstage left, a look of forlornness about her. However, wrapping her up in cellophane and carrying her off looked too easy, as if the choreographers couldn’t figure out how to end this slight but well-crafted work.

The evening’s closer, 66 Measures, was a throwaway study of fairly standard patternings for a sextet of dancers, each inside a circle of light. They were dressed in a variety of black and white stripes that looked good. But clothes, of course, don’t make the emperor.

Stage Listings

Andrew Lam
-
0

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

THEATER

OPENING

The Foreigner Mission Dolores Academy Auditorium, 3371 16th St, SF; (650) 952-3021. Free (donations requested). Opens Fri/9, 7:30pm. Runs Fri, 7:30pm; Sat-Sun, 3pm. Through Nov 18. 16th Street Players perform Larry Shue’s comedy about an Englishman in the American South.

The Submission New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Previews Wed/7-Fri/9, 8pm. Opens Sat/10, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm (no shows Nov 21-22); Sun, 2pm. Through Dec 16. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs Jeff Talbott’s drama about a playwright who falsifies his identity when he enters his latest work into a prestigious theater festival.

Superior Donuts Gough Street Playhouse, 1622 Gough, SF; www.custommade.org. $25-30. Opens Thu/8, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Dec 2. Custom Made Theatre performs Tracy Letts’ poignant, Chicago-set comedy.

BAY AREA

The White Snake Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2025 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-99. Previews Fri/9-Sat/10 and Tue/13, 8pm; Sun/11, 2pm. Opens Nov 14, 8pm. Runs Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Nov 29, Dec 13, and Sat, 2pm; no matinee Dec 1; no show Nov 22); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Dec 23. Mary Zimmerman (Metamorphoses) returns to Berkeley Rep with this classic romance adapted from a Chinese legend.

ONGOING

Carmelina Eureka Theatre, 215 Geary, SF; www.42ndstmoon.org. $25-75. Wed, 7pm; Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 6pm (family matinee Sat/10, 1pm); Sun, 3pm. Through Nov 18. 42nd Street Moon performs the “forgotten musical” that inspired the Broadway hit Mamma Mia!

Elektra Geary Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $20-110. Opens Wed/31, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat and Nov 13, 8pm (also Wed/7, Sat/10, and Nov 17, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through Nov 18. Academy Award winner Olympia Dukakis stars in Sophocles’ Greek tragedy.

Fat Pig Boxcar Theatre Studio, 125A Hyde, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $20. Thu/8-Sat/10, 8pm. Theater Toda presents Neil LaBute’s dark comedy about a man who faces scrutiny from his friends when he falls for a plus-sized woman.

Foodies! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.foodiesthemusical.com. $30-34. Fri-Sat, 8pm (no show Nov 17). Open-ended. AWAT Productions presents Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue all about food.

Geezer Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $30-100. Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Nov 18. Geoff Hoyle’s popular solo show about aging returns.

The Hundred Flowers Project Thick House, 1695 18th St, SF; www.crowdedfire.org. $10-35. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Nov 17. Reinvention is as American as apple pie — allowing every individual to shed the limitations of the past and move constantly forward. Of course it’s not an exclusively American concept, a point Christopher Chen makes early on in his latest play, The Hundred Flowers Project. A group of Asian American actors gather to collaborate on a play about the Maoist Cultural Revolution, focusing first on the idea of China as a “country of only beginnings … built on the idea of no past,” while wrestling with the implications of creating and recreating history as you go along, including, eventually, their own. Ultimately the ideal overtakes their earnest intentions and hijacks the play to serve its own dictatorial end, each actor reduced to an insubstantial shadow of their former “selves,” from the over-eager Sam (Ogie Zulueta) to the penitent philanderer Mike (Wiley Naman Strasser) to his somewhat wary ex, Lily (Anna Ishida). Their identities gobbled up by the restless juggernaut the play has morphed into after a triumphal five-year world-tour they hover constantly just on the edges of a dangerous discovery, their once lively sense of purpose replaced by an almost willful inability to question their roles or their fate. Chen’s sprawling, Orwellian tour de force is further bolstered by an army of adroit designers and the competent hand of director Desdemona Chiang, who one hopes is a slightly more benign force than the director of the play-within-the-play, Mel (Charisse Loriaux) (Gluckstern)

Lost Love Mojo Theatre, 2940 16th St, Ste 217, SF; www.mojotheatre.com. $28. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Nov 17. Modern love and modern life: it’s all a wash in this very funny and smart play from playwright-director Peter Papadopoulos about two pairs of lost souls thrown together in the shoals of a soggy apocalypse. Mitzy (a sure Elena Spittler) is a stunned bride whose just lost her wedding party and everyone she knew — except the valet, Tito (a perfectly deadpan Carlos Flores, Jr.), a loose canon if ultimately goodhearted, who finds himself clinging to the same rock after some unmentioned catastrophe. Meanwhile, Jan (a brilliantly, manically articulate Kimberly Lester) has gone from just sexy crazy to all-out nuts for her girlfriend Barb (a sharp, sympathetic Jessica Risco), whose recent infidelity has apparently triggered Jan’s meltdown, key symptoms of which include an obsession with a certain downbeat French existentialist on the Discovery Channel (a spritely Roy Eikleberry in an outrageous French accent so mal it’s bon), and shedding all material possessions in their mutually decorated apartment. What happens when they all end up together? The possibilities, if not endless, spell end times for the old world. The welcome inaugural production by newcomers Mojo Theatre turns out to have preempted Hurricane Sandy with its own storm of the century, proving rather timely as well as dramatically very worthwhile. Director Papadopoulos makes excellent use of modest resources in staging the action with dynamic contrasts and choice detailing, across a set of finely tuned ensemble performances, as the eccentricities and common sense at war within and between his characters begin slowly and surely to unravel a life out of balance, merrily and mercifully making way for who knows what. (Avila)

Phaedra’s Love Bindlestiff Studios, 185 Sixth St, SF; www.doitliveproductions.com. $15. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Nov 17. Although she didn’t make it into the 21st century herself, British playwright Sarah Kane (1971-1999) left behind a small group of plays that continue to test the complacency of an age lulled into thinking itself ultimately rational and civilized. In Kane’s cutting, brutally funny reworking of Seneca’s play (itself an adaptation of Euripides’ Hippolytus), the titular lovelorn queen (an amiably tormented Whitney Thomas) throws herself shamelessly at her stepson, royal slob Hippolytus (a sharp yet low-key Michael Zavala, channeling mumblecore nihilism) despite, or because of, his pungent contempt for everyone around him. The play’s main action, however, takes place after Phaedra has killed herself, leaving a note accusing Hippolytus of rape and setting in motion a downfall that is his own perverse salvation. Despite occasionally flagging momentum, director Ben Landmesser and newcomers Do It Live! (in their second outing since last season’s debut, an agile staging of Sam Shepard’s Suicide in B Flat) deliver a worthy production of this clever gem. While a sporadic, low-murmuring sound design (by Hannah Birch Carl) infuses the atmosphere with a muffled libidinal menace, the thrust stage brings us close to the action, rubbing our noses in the fetid whisperings and fumblings of royal parasites and their dialectical kin, the infantilized, desensitized masses. Kane’s Hippolytus, meanwhile, turns from a sort of repellent Hamlet without motive to a Genet-like criminal-saint whose martyrdom is a solitary ecstasy of stark perception. (Avila)

The Rainmaker Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sheltontheater.org. $38. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 22. Shelton Theatre preforms N. Richard Nash’s classic drama.

“ReOrient 2012 Festival and Forum” Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.goldenthread.org. $20. Series A runs Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Nov 18. Series B runs Nov 16-17, 8pm. After a three-year hiatus, Golden Thread Productions’ ReOrient Festival of short plays from and about the Middle East is back (coupled with an impressive two-day forum of talks, panels, workshops, and performance around art and politics in the wake of the Arab Spring and other momentous developments across the region). The first of two series of plays, Series A, includes War & Peace, a short symbolical comedy by 20th-century Egyptian literary giant Tawfiq Al-Hakim (handily translated by May Jayyusi and David Wright) that distills imposing social forces into a three-way ménage between a smart, free-spirited woman (a vibrant Lena Hart), her secret suitor in a showman’s coattails and cane (a comically fervent Jesse Horne), and her jealous husband, a violent-tempered military officer (a suave yet stentorian Garth Petal). Sharply directed by Hafiz Karmali, it’s an effervescent little farce that in its power dynamics, and the elusive happiness of the characters, neatly limns bigger themes never timelier in Egypt (or here). It’s followed by Farzam Farrokhi’s 2012, directed by Sara Razavi, a low-key second-coming cum coffee klatch among three laid-back, cell phone-obsessed messiahs (Cory Censoprano, Horne, Roneet Aliza Rahamim) from the three Abrahamic religions that sets an unexpected tone but never really amounts to much. Far more dramatic is Birds Flew In by Yussef El Guindi (of Golden Thread hit Language Rooms, among others), a monologue by a single Arab American mother mourning her deceased soldier-son and wondering where she might have gone wrong. Delivered with unsentimental grit by Nora El Samahy, it’s a strongly voiced if familiar story that registers ambivalence with facile patriotism and violent nationalism, yet unconvincingly retreats at the last moment into a familiar red-white-and-blue corner. Silva Semericiyan’s Stalemate, directed by Desdemona Chiang, is a triptych of scenes between changing pairs of men (played by Censoprano and Horne) that aims at a transnational snapshot of ingrained patterns of male aggression (from Fleet Street to Red Light Amsterdam to war-torn Baghdad) but comes across too weakly and a little confusingly. Durected by Christine Young, Jen Silverman’s In the Days That Follow — set in Boston amid clichés of American openness, innocence and possibility (albeit charmingly personified by Censoprano) — is the longest piece and the most dramatically interesting, if also somewhat strained, positing a 22-year-old Jewish Israeli translator and IDF veteran (Rahamim) as the instigator of peaceful dialogue and mutual affection with an older and politically hardened Palestinian Lebanese poet (El Samahy). Finally, in Mona Mansour and Tala Manassah’s sweet but drifting meta-theatrical, The Letter, directed by Razavi, a Palestinian American physicist (Petal) and his philosopher daughter (Hart) mount an amateur theater piece to respond to the 2011 controversy over CUNY’s blocking of an honorary degree to Tony Kushner based on an attack by a CUNY board member on Kushner’s opposition to Israel’s occupation of Palestine. (Avila)

Roseanne: Live! Rebel, 1760 Market, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $25. Wed, 7 and 9pm. Through Nov 14. Lady Bear, Heklina, D’Arcy Drollinger, and more star in this tribute to the long-running sitcom.

Shocktoberfest 13: The Bride of Death Hypnodrome, 575 10th St, SF; www.thrillpeddlers.com. $25-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Nov 17. Thrillpeddlers’ seasonal assortment of yeasty Grand Guignol playlets is a mixed bag of treats, but it all goes so nicely with the autumnal slink into early nights and dark cravings. Fredrick Whitney’s Coals of Fire is lightly amusing, if far from smoking, as a two-hander about a blind older matron (Leigh Crow) who discovers her young companion (Zelda Koznofski, alternating nights with Nancy French) has been secretly schtupping her husband. I’m a Mummy is a short, not very effective musical interlude by Douglas Byng, featuring the bright pair of Jim Jeske and Annie Larson as Mr. and Mrs., respectively. The titular feature, The Bride of Death, written by Michael Phillis and directed by Russell Blackwood, proves a worthy centerpiece, unfolding an intriguing, well-acted tale about a reporter (Phillis) and his photographer (Flynn DeMarco) arriving at a stormy castle to interview a strangely youthful Grand Guignol stage star (Bonni Suval) making her film debut. After another, this time more rousing musical number, Those Beautiful Ghouls (with music and lyrics by Scrumbly Koldewyn; directed and choreographed by D’Arcy Drollinger), comes the evening’s real high point, The Twisted Pair by Rob Keefe, acted to the bloody hilt by leads Blackwood and DeMarco as the titular duo of scientists driven mad by an experimental batch of ‘crazy’ glue. All of it comes capped, of course, by the company’s signature lights-out spook show. (Avila)

“Strindberg Cycle: The Chamber Plays in Rep” Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor, SF; www.cuttingball.com. $10-50 (festival pass, $75). Thu, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 5pm. Through Nov 18. Cutting Ball performs a festival of August Strindberg in three parts: The Ghost Sonata, The Pelican and The Black Glove, and Storm and Burned House.

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

BAY AREA

Acid Test: The Many Incarnations of Ram Dass Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through Nov 24. Lynne Kaufman’s new play stars Warren David Keith as the noted spiritual figure.

An Iliad Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-77. Wed/7 and Sun/11, 7pm (also Sun/11, 2pm); Thu/8-Sat/10, 8pm (also Sat/10, 2pm). Director Lisa Peterson and actor Denis O’Hare’s adaptation of the Homeric epic poem (in Robert Fagles’ translation) puts the narrative of the Trojan War in the hands of a Homeric storyteller (played by an indefatigable but somewhat histrionic Henry Woronicz) who, finding himself backstage before an audience, reluctantly warms to yet another retelling of the ninth year of the ten-year battle. The narrative comes underscored by bassist Brian Ellingsen (as a shy hipster Muse, arriving late to the theater on his bicycle), and comes peppered with contemporary analogies to drive home, in a rather stock and limited way, the “timeliness” of such a timeless story. This can be heavy-handed (as in a long chronological listing of foreign wars from ancient to modern delivered with a strained intensity) or even jarringly banal (as when entry into battle is described with reference to everyday road rage). Indeed, the whole production is likely to bring to mind one of those special-assembly days in grade school, where a traveling actor delivers an accessible amount of good-for-you classics to a half-bored auditorium of children. Meanwhile, the story’s over-the-top patriarchal and class biases and general authoritarianism mostly get a pass. The complacency of it all simply belies the war-is-hell message. (Avila)

The Kipling Hotel: True Misadventures of the Electric Pink ’80s Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through Dec 16. This new autobiographical solo show by Don Reed, writer-performer of the fine and long-running East 14th, is another slice of the artist’s journey from 1970s Oakland ghetto to comedy-circuit respectability — here via a partial debate-scholarship to UCLA. The titular Los Angeles residency hotel was where Reed lived and worked for a time in the 1980s while attending university. It’s also a rich mine of memory and material for this physically protean and charismatic comic actor, who sails through two acts of often hilarious, sometimes touching vignettes loosely structured around his time on the hotel’s young wait staff, which catered to the needs of elderly patrons who might need conversation as much as breakfast. On opening night, the episodic narrative seemed to pass through several endings before settling on one whose tidy moral was delivered with too heavy a hand, but if the piece runs a little long, it’s only the last 20 minutes that noticeably meanders. And even with some awkward bumps along the way, it’s never a dull thing watching Reed work. (Avila)

Richard the First: Part One, Part Two, Part Three Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berk; www.centralworks.org. $14-25. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm (three-part marathon Sun/11 and Nov 18, 2, 5, 8pm). Through Nov 18. This Central Works Method Trilogy presents a rotating schedule of three plays by Gary Graves about the king known as “the Lionheart.”

Richard III Live Oak Theatre, 1301 Shattuck, Berk; www.aeofberkeley.org. $12-15. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Nov 17. Actors Ensemble of Berkeley performs the Shakespeare classic.

Sex, Slugs and Accordion Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $10. Wed, 8pm. Through Nov 14. Jetty Swart, a.k.a. Jet Black Pearl, stars in this “wild and exotic evening of song.”

The Sound of Music Julia Morgan Theatre, 2640 College, Berk; www.berkeleyplayhouse.org. $15-35. Thu-Sat, 7pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, noon and 5pm. Through Dec 2. Berkeley Playhouse opens its fifth season with the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical.

Toil and Trouble La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $10-20. Thu-Sat, 8pm (no show Nov 22). Through Dec 8. Impact Theatre presents Lauren Gunderson’s world premiere comedy inspired by Macbeth.

Wilder Times Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; www.auroratheatre.org. $32-60. Previews Wed/7, 8pm. Opens Thu/8, 8pm. Runs Tue, 7pm; Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Dec 9. Aurora Theatre performs a collection of one-acts by Thornton Wilder.

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Sun, 11am; Nov 23-25, 11am. Through Nov 25. Louis “The Amazing Bubble Man” Pearl brings his lighter-than-air show back to the Marsh.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

BATS Improv Bayfront Theater, B350 Fort Mason Center, SF; www.improv.org. $20. “Theatresports,” Fri, 8pm, through Dec 21. “Family Drama,” Sat, 8pm, through Nov 24.

“Comedy Bodega” Esta Noche Nightclub, 3079 16th St, SF; www.comedybodega.com. Thu, 8pm. Ongoing. No cover (one drink minumum). This week: Pippi Lovestocking.

“Comedy Returns to El Rio” El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Mon/12, 8pm. $7-20. Stand-up with David Hawkins, Samson Koletkar, Stefani Silverman, Kate Willett, and host Lisa Geduldig.

“Dr. Zebrovski’s Hour of Power” Garage, 715 Bryant, SF; zebrovski.brownpapertickets.com. Fri/9-Sat/10, 8pm. $9.99-19.99. Commercial and infomercial parodies.

“Literary Death Match: All Jew Review” Contemporary Jewish Museum, 736 Mission, SF; www.thecjm.org. Thu/8, 7pm. $10. A read-off with celebrity judges Nato Green, Ayelet Waldman, and Josh Kornbluth.

“Numb” Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.simonamstell.com. Fri/9-Sat/10, 8pm. $20. British comedian Simon Amstell performs his new show.

“Passion and Soul: Direct from Spain” Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th St, SF; www.brava.org. Sun/11, 7pm. $30-40. Flamenco de Raiz performs.

“Round One Cabaret” Alcove Theater, 414 Mason, Ste 502, SF; roundonecabaret.brownpapertickets.com. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Nov 17. $30. Not Quite Opera presents this showcase of new songs by Bay Area composers.

“San Francisco Magic Parlor” Chancellor Hotel Union Square, 433 Powell, SF; www.sfmagicparlor.com. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Ongoing. $40. Magic vignettes with conjurer and storyteller Walt Anthony.

“Show/Off” Box Factory, 865 Florida, SF; www.underthegoldengate.com. Thu/8, 9pm. $5 suggested donation. Live taping of Under the Golden Gate’s new internet program, a drag and variety show starring Pristine Condition and DJ Dank.

“SF International Festival Lounge Cabaret” Joe Goode Annex, 401 Alabama, SF; www.sfiaf.org. Sat/10, 8pm. $25-50. Performance cabaret with Rhodessa Jones, Paul Flores, inkBoat, and more.

“Take 5” and “Unplugged” ODC Dance Commons Studio B, 351 Shotwell, SF; www.odctheater.org. Fri/9, 5pm (“Take 5”); Fri/9, 7pm (“Unplugged.”) $5-20. A showcase of five minutes’ worth of three new works, followed by discussion, precedes ODC/Dance’s popular in-progress series.

Our Weekly Picks: October 31-November 6

Andrew Lam
-
0

WEDNESDAY 31

Halloween at Thee Parkside

There was a pretty sizable chunk of paper last week dedicated to the eye-popping range of spooky/trashy/candy-coated Halloween events out there for you to dig into. Though on this night, this favorite holiday of many, I throw my vote to the tribute band. It’s just fun to see local bands dressed as other bands, rocking a catalogue they likely researched on Wikipedia and/or Youtube. That’s why I doff my cat-eared hat to Thee Parkside’s linup: Glitter Wizard as the Seeds, Twin Steps and the Cramps, Meat Market as G.G. and the Jabbers, and the Parmesans as the Kinks. Plus, some monster mashups via DJ Dahmer, MOM’s spook booth, tarot card readings, and (creepy?) silent film projections. (Emily Savage)

8pm, $8

Thee Parkside

1600 17th St., SF

(415) 252-1330

www.theeparkside.com

 

THURSDAY 1

Mr. Kind

Less than a year old, Oakland foursome Mr. Kind is still in its infancy. But when the band formed in March, it hit the ground running, releasing its first EP OK just a few months in. Now, three months later, Mr. Kind is taking on another ambitious project by playing Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot in its entirety. The 2002 best-selling, alt-country masterpiece celebrated its 10th anniversary this year. When the band discussed which album they wanted to honor with a tribute show, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was the unanimous choice, described in the group’s press release as “a classic album that has played a big part in influencing the members of Mr. Kind.” To top off the celebration, Mr. Kind will be joined onstage by various Bay Area musicians, including members of Please Do Not Fight and Finish Ticket. And one more thing: be sure to keep wearing your costume, Halloween’s not over yet. (Haley Zaremba)

With River Shiver, Marquiss

9pm, $10

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St, SF

(415) 626-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com

 

When We Were Young and Dumb: the Stranger vs. Believer

You’re currently reading the San Francisco Bay Guardian (thanks!), but if you lived in Seattle, you would probably be scanning Dan Savage’s home paper, the Stranger. As comrades in free-thinking liberal media, we can’t help but support their appearance in a face-off with another great publication, the Believer. One of Dave Eggers many projects, the literary journal lets writers do what they do best: ramble. It started by publishing only rejects from other literary journals and now specialize in longer form interviews and original work. Writers from both publications will be speaking of their younger days, including some key cornerstones: Jesus, LSD, and virginity. (Molly Champlin)

6pm, free

Makeout Room

3225 22 St., SF

(415) 647-2888

www.makeoutroom.com

 

Kirk Von Hammett Presents: Day of the Dead Bash

That guy from Metallica? Stringy-haired lead shredder Kirk (Von) Hammett? He’s also way into horror paraphernalia, and has packed his home with a collection of monster-movie memorabilia, including Bela Lugosi’s Dracula script and original Frankenstein posters. He’s got so much stuff, that he compiled an entire 224-page coffee table book on the subject — Too Much Horror Business — and will fête said tome’s release with zombies, Day of the Dead burlesque by Hubba Hubba Revue, and live performances by veteran Concord metal band Death Angel, and local string-metal trio Judgement Day tonight at Public Works. (Savage)

9pm, $13.99

Public Works

161 Eerie, SF

(415) 932-0955

www.publicsf.com


FRIDAY 2

“Private Life Studies”

Being a soldier and an artist is not a natural fit. But think about it. For both you need dedication, discipline, a willingness to submit your ego to something bigger than yourself and, for dancers, an ability to work with others. So, perhaps, it should be no surprise that Private Freeman, one of ODC/Dance’s most generous, witty, and focused dancers, managed to successfully integrate these two, seemingly contradictory impulses. Deborah Slater’s work-in-progress Private Life Studies is exploring some of these issues as a series of “dance stories”, based on strategies from Sun Tzu’ “The Art of War.” Sun was just one of some of history’s most brilliant minds writing about war; Machiavelli and von Clausewitz were others. Odd, isn’t it? (Rita Felciano)

Also Sat/3, 8pm; Sun/4, 2pm, $15–$25

CounterPULSE

1310 Mission St. SF

(877) 297-6805

privatelife-eorg.eventbrite.com

 

Day of the Dead altars and procession

Although the changing nature of the crowd at the Mission’s annual night of remembrance for those who’ve passed has earned it the affectionate nickname “Dia de los Dead Gringos,” there’s no denying that the community-led, candle-lit procession and park full of homemade altars can be breathtakingly lovely. Arrive early at Garfield Park to tiptoe around meticulously, sometimes even extravagantly decorated tributes to dead family members and public figures. Add a note of your own to the interactive exhibits, and await the arrival of the costumed procession, whose inevitable approximations of La Catrina are a distinctly San Franciscan way of celebrating the holiday. (Caitlin Donohue)

Procession: 6-7pm, free

Starts at Bryant and 22nd St., SF

Festival of Altars: 6-11pm, free

Garfield Park

Harrison and 26th St., SF

www.dayofthedeadsf.org

 

Chilly Gonzales

It’s not hard to come up with a list of catchy things about Chilly Gonzales to entice you to go to his show. And he knows it. While his strongest talents lie in piano, he has made quite a scene on Youtube, adapting his skills to popular demand with his genuine love of rap (and bongos, hula hoops, and pink suits). He has provided compositions for Feist, Drake, and Steve Jobs and then turned the tables to rap with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. Now though, like a true artist, he’s returning from his pop adventures and getting serious with his latest work, “Piano Solo II,” which is mostly short piano pieces showcasing serious skill in a still modern, easily digestible format. (Champlin)

8pm, $20

Swedish American Hall

2170 Market, SF

(415) 861-5016

www.cafedunord.com


SATURDAY 3

Informant

No documentary subject in recent memory is as infuriating as Brandon Darby — the radical activist turned FBI informant turned Tea Party chucklehead at the center of Informant, local documentary filmmaker Jamie Meltzer’s most recent work. (Prior to this, Meltzer was probably best-known for 2003’s wonderfully bizarre Off the Charts: The Song-Poem Story.) Scream at the screen (you will want to) at Other Cinema tonight, Informant’s first local showing since its San Francisco International Film Festival bow earlier this year. (Cheryl Eddy)

8:30pm, $6

Artists’ Television Access

992 Valencia, SF

www.othercinema.com

 

SF Symphony Dia de los Muertos community concert

Is a skeleton a xylophone or a marimba? You can bet your sweet sugar skull there’ll be an ocean of chromatic bones, dancing akimbo, at the vibrant annual celebration of the afterlife. The family favorite boasts performances from the SF Symphony Youth Orchestra (playing Aaron Copland’s El Salón México and Jose Pablom Moncayo’s Huapango), dance company Los Lupeños de San José, Mariachi Nuevo Tecalitlán, and more, all narrated by the twinkling Luis Valdez, “father of Chicano theater.” Face painting, paper flower-making, tons of colorful art, and a pre-show by the Mixcoatl Anahuac Aztec dancers, the 30th Street Chorus, and the Solera singers boost the fun — but really they had us at cinnamon-infused Mexican hot chocolate and pan de muerto. (Marke B.)

2pm, $17.50–$68

Davies Symphony Hall

401 Van Ness, SF.

(415) 864-1000

www.sfsymphony.org

 

AU

In my younger and more vulnerable years, certain music videos left definitive scars on my brain. Faith No More’s “Epic” — seemingly an over-the-top ode by Mike Patton to drowning fish and exploding pianos — taught me the meaning of the word in a way that no amount of Greek literature could. Things have largely remained that way until listening to the latest adventurous pop album from Portland’s AU, which opens with another “Epic” — an instrumental soundscape where technical, Hella-tight drumming is joined by impossibly high rising GY!BE guitars as part of a larger Tim-Riggins-winning-the-big-game-triumphant structure. The lexographically challenging track is only the first surprise on the record, and demands a live rendition. (Ryan Prendiville)

With Zammuto

9pm, $15

Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

(415) 771-1421

 www.theindependentsf.com


SUNDAY 4

Kid Koala

It’s been a big year for Eric San, the Montreal turntablist better known as Kid Koala. Not only did he contribute to the revival of Deltron 3030 after a decade-long hiatus; he’s also managed to release 12 Bit Blues, his first solo record in six years. Conceptually inspired and determined, the album utilizes a clunky, old-school sampler, à la Public Enemy, to reconstruct blues music from the ground up, resulting in a man vs. machine sort of tension that makes for a constantly engaging listen. Luckily, for those fans hesitant to watch a dude spin records for two hours, Kid Koala’s “Vinyl Vaudeville Tour” is loaded with bells and whistles to keep things interesting: Puppets! Dancing girls! Parlor games! Robots! If only more electronic acts were bold enough to co-opt these kooky antics of the Flaming Lips variety. (Taylor Kaplan)

With Adira Amram and the Experience

9pm, $20

Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

(415) 771-1421

www.theindependentsf.com


MONDAY 5

Jens Lekman

“Hey do you want to go see a band? No I hate bands. It’s always packed with men spooning their girlfriends, clutching their hands, as if they let go their feet would lift off the ground and ascend,” Swedish pop master Jens Lekman sings on I Know What Love Isn’t, his first full-length since 2007’s classic Night Falls Over Kortedala. Gone are the enraptured recollections of romantic highs — this is the ever autobiographically charming Lekman, soberly looking at relationships from the outside. But on this “break-up” album, Lekman’s observations on past failures and limitations break through to a melancholic optimism for the future. Recreating the album’s full palette of ’80s balladry, Lekman will be performing with a full band. (Prendiville)

With Taken By Trees, Big Search

8pm, $25–$35

Fillmore

1850 Geary, SF

(415) 346-6000

 www.thefillmore.com

 

TUESDAY 6

Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band

Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band must be exhausted. Not only does the trio have to live up to its highfalutin’ damn big title, it found time this year to release its eighth full-length album while maintaining its ridiculous, awe-inspiring average of 250 shows per year. The Indiana-based Americana blues band consists of a Reverend Peyton on guitar and vocals, his wife Breezy on washboard, and Peyton’s cousin, Aaron “Cuz” Persinger on drums. For the band’s newest effort Between the Ditches, the Rev. and company slowed down enough to get into a studio and lay out the record instrument by instrument, track by track, instead of recording it live all in one big, enthusiastic rush as usual. The result is a beautifully recorded bit of nostalgia that transports the listener to a big wraparound porch in the Southern summer. And trust me, it’s exactly where you want to be. (Zaremba)

With The Gypsy Moonlight Band, Anju’s Pale Blue Eyes

9pm, $10

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St, SF

(415) 626-4455

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, 225 Bush, 17th Flr., SF, CA 94105; or e-mail (paste press release into e-mail body — no attachments, please) to listings@sfbg.com. Digital photos may be submitted in jpeg format; the image must be at least 240 dpi and four inches by six inches in size. We regret we cannot accept listings over the phone.

Live Shots: ABADA-Capoeira’s “The Spirit of Brazil”

-
0

Sparking machetes. Lots of them, clanking against each other, as the dancers holding them ran in circles.

I’ll be honest, sitting in the front row was slightly intimidating, and also rather exhilarating! The ABADÁ-Capoeira dance troupe, plus special guests from as far Switzerland, filled the stage with pure energy, in rehearsal for the troupe’s “Spirit of Brazil” show, running Thu/18-Sun/20. 

One of the dances tells the story of an ancient church in Brazil, where people of all religions went to be blessed. It was a moody and beautiful piece. There’s live music, soulful singing by the musicians and the dancers, and, yes, seriously speedy dance moves involving very large, sharp knives. It’s primal, wild, and filled with history. Go see it — just make sure your eyebrows don’t get shaved off!

ABADÁ-Capoeira San Francisco’s “The Spirit of Brazil”
Thur/18-Sat/20, 7pm, $23
Sun, October 21, 3pm
ODC Theater
3153 17th St., SF
www.odcdance.org

Keep digging

-
0
Keep digging

arts@sfbg.com

DANCE Once you have learned to ride a bike or tie your shoes, your body will recall the movements and their sequential logic for the rest of your life. It’s called muscle memory and dancers are fantastic at it.

Before videotape and dance notation, it was not uncommon to ask, say, former Martha Graham dancers about an old piece — only to hear them respond that they couldn’t recall it. But if you put them into a studio together, one of them would demonstrate a half-remembered gesture, another would place or correct it, and a third would bring up a sequence or antecedent. Four hours later, these women would have drawn out of their bodies a pretty good approximation of what had been thought to be a forgotten piece of choreography.

Morgan Thorson’s oddly titled and deeply flawed Spaceholder Festival (Oct. 5-7, ODC Theater) took a stab at examining the residue that life imprints on our bodies. Comparing the process of uncovering what is hidden to archeologists’ trying to make sense of what they unearth, Thorson partook in an actual dig and used that experience in her choreography. When it came to evaluating the results, she apparently felt that assigning artifacts to the highest bidder was an accurate reflection of reality. So the work’s middle section also included two dancers as auctioneers.

Spaceholder opened on a quasi-abstract note, evolved into a messy theatricality only to circle back on itself. Screeching machine sounds accompanied uniform dancers being spit out onto the stage as if by an assembly line. They dutifully followed each other, stepping into two against three or horizontal movement patterns. Strangest were their blank faces. They looked as if they were being pulled by something, perhaps an urge to catch what was just out of their reach.

Spreading across the stage, they moved in and out of sync with each other. Many small phrases — a scratch on a leg, a knee opening and closing, a skipping step — held promises that never were fulfilled. Some were clearly dance-derived; a fourth position and jetés, hip rolls, and toe walks were recognizable. But what to make of a wafting hand that approached like a butterfly trying to land? A woman resting on the floor on her side looked like an Odalisque, her smile an invitation to the rest of the group to join her. A finger pointing section, the result of a counting maneuver, evolved into a wheel with the arms being the spokes. Gestures might connect to each other with no apparent logic. With its neutral tone and the dance’s accompanying sense of accumulation for its own sake, it became about as involving as watching falling snow after a while. Yet simultaneously fascinating and frustrating was the clarity that these dancers brought to their tasks.

At one point, the dancers coalesced into a tight group with arms stretched up as they reached for each other’s fingers. That section later returned, except with the dancers passing pieces of foam around. One of them tried to press them into a single shape. The idea of retroactively deciphering meaning may avoid an obvious linear development, but it makes entering a piece very difficult — perhaps impossible, unless seeing it several times.

Part two opened with a promising twist. A dancer was ceremoniously carried in on a blanket and started to throw rubbish — old shoes, cans, rags, paper — around the stage as if the items were a goddess’ precious gifts. The stuff got kicked around, swept away, and finally ended up on a table, being sorted into what probably was meant to suggest legible patterns. The gathering and examination of this detritus and using some of it as props may have had its comic elements, but if so most of the humor escaped me. The remembered physicality of the table’s effect on the dancers, however, was a lovely touch.

Perhaps the evening’s most intriguing element came with Max Wirsing, the company’s lone male dancer, who donned silver sandals and paraded around while covered by a tablecloth. Later he repeated the gesture of closing the clasp around his ankle. It was clearly a movement that had entered his body. As for me, I was grateful when the last of this unearthed material — a single dancer — was blanketed by the dark falling onto the stage.

Stage Listings

Andrew Lam
-
0

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

THEATER

OPENING

The Fifth Element: Live! Dark Room Theater, 2263 Mission, SF; www.darkroomsf.com. Opens Fri/5. Runs Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Oct 27. Comedic adaptation of the 1997 Luc Besson sci-fi epic.

Geezer Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $30-100. Opens Sat/6, 8pm. Runs Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Nov 18. Geoff Hoyle’s popular solo show about aging returns.

Of Thee I Sing Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.42ndstmoon.org. $25-75. Previews Wed/3, 7pm; Thu/4-Fri/5, 8pm. Opens Sat/6, 6pm. Runs Wed, 7pm; Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 6pm (also Oct 13, 1pm); Sun, 3pm. Through Oct 21. 42nd Street Moon performs George and Ira Gershwin’s classic political satire.

BAY AREA

Acid Test: The Many Incarnations of Ram Dass Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Opens Thu/4, 8pm. Runs Thu-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through Nov 24. Lynne Kaufman’s new play stars Warren David Keith as the noted spiritual figure.

Sex, Slugs and Accordion Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $10. Opens Wed/3, 8pm. Runs Wed, 8pm. Through Nov 14. Jetty Swart, a.k.a. Jet Black Pearl, stars in this “wild and exotic evening of song.”

33 Variations TheatreWorks at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View; www.theatreworks.org. $23-73. Previews Wed/3-Fri/5, 8pm. Opens Sat/6, 8pm. Runs Tue-Wed, 7:30pm; Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Oct 28. TheatreWorks performs Moisés Kaufman’s drama about a contemporary musicologist struggling to solve one of Beethoven’s greatest mysteries, and a connecting story about the composer himself.

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Opens Sun/7, 11am. Runs Sun, 11am; Nov 23-25, 11am. Through Nov 25. Louis “The Amazing Bubble Man” Pearl brings his lighter-than-air show back to the Marsh.

ONGOING

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

Family Programming: An Evening of Short Comedic Plays Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $20. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Oct 13. Left Coast Theatre Company performs short plays about gay and alternative families.

Foodies! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.foodiesthemusical.com. $30-34. Previews Fri/5, 8pm. Opens Sat/6, 8pm. Runs Fri-Sat, 8pm (no show Nov 17). Open-ended. AWAT Productions presents Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue all about food.

The Normal Heart American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $25-95. Wed/3-Sat/6, 8pm (also Sat/6, 2pm); Sun/7, 2pm. Three decades after the onset of the AIDS epidemic — today affecting and killing millions across the globe — playwright and ACT UP founder Larry Kramer’s 1985 autobiographical docudrama of the first years and victims of the crisis in New York City proves still relevant and powerful in this spirited 2011 Tony Award–winning Broadway revival, under direction by George C. Wolfe, now up at American Conservatory Theater in an ACT-Arena Stage co-presentation. Centering on the grassroots response to official inaction amid the homophobic status quo — in particular, the founding of a small but determined HIV advocacy group by Ned Weeks (Kramer’s stand-in, played brilliantly by Patrick Breen) and others — The Normal Heart also roots itself in a set of characters and fraught personal relationships as Weeks’s brash, confrontational style progressively alienates him from his brethren and more accommodating (or closeted) allies. It’s a play that really shouldn’t work so well, given its message-driven and inevitably self-serving structure, but it nevertheless does — in part because the urgency behind it remains, and the eerie confusion and unforgivable official neglect of those early years carry even more weight with tragedy-laden hindsight. Kramer also crafts some affecting scenes and some rousingly fiery monologues (not just for Weeks, and all expertly delivered by the sharp cast) that underscore a time when history, as it is wont to do, put forward fervent loudmouths and nonconformists as the necessary agents of resistance and change. (Avila)

The Other Place Magic Theatre, Fort Mason Center, Bldg D, Third Flr, SF; www.magictheatre.org. $22-62. Wed/3-Sat/6, 8pm (also Wed/3, 2:30pm); Sun/7, 7pm. A middle-aged scientist named Juliana (Henny Russell) finds herself marooned inside her own rapidly unraveling mind in the West Coast premiere of this occasionally intriguing but finally unconvincing psychological drama of madness and grief by Sharr White (Annapurna). Describing an “episode” she suffered while presenting a major new dementia treatment to an audience of doctors and sales reps in the Bahamas, Juliana soon proves an unreliable narrator, as estranged husband Ian (Donald Sage Mackay) challenges her on some basic facts — including her claim to be in phone contact with their long-lost daughter (Carrie Paff) and Juliana’s disgraced former post-doc (Patrick Russell). The mystery here has to do with another “episode” altogether, one that took place at the couple’s Cape Cod summer home years before, which has left Juliana and Ian bereft and now on the verge of divorce. As Juliana slides back and away to “the other place,” we understand the mistakes this supposedly brilliant but also flawed woman has made, and the emotional logic of her mind’s drift. Not a bad premise, but it also feels contrived, with dialogue straining after tension and wit that are too often not there. Helmed by artistic director Loretta Greco, the action unfolds at almost too regular a clip, leaving little room for rumination — no doubt a stylistic choice but one which undercuts what modest force there is in the play’s dynamics, which anyway serve a rather sentimental storyline about loss and forgiveness. (Avila)

The Real Americans Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $25-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Extended through Oct 27. Dan Hoyle’s hit show, inspired by the people and places he encountered during his 100-day road trip across America in 2009, continues.

Roseanne: Live! Rebel, 1760 Market, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $25. Wed, 7 and 9pm (no shows Oct 31). Through Nov 14. Lady Bear, Heklina, D’Arcy Drollinger, and more star in this tribute to the long-running sitcom.

Shocktoberfest 13: The Bride of Death Hypnodrome, 575 10th St, SF; www.thrillpeddlers.com. $25-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Nov 17. Thrillpeddlers’ annual Halloween horror extravaganza features a classic Grand Guignol one-act and two world premiere one-acts, plus a blackout spook show finale.

The Strange Case of Citizen de la Cruz Bindlestiff Studio, 185 Sixth St, SF; www.bindlestiffstudio.org. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun/7, 2pm. Through Oct 13. Bindlestiff Studio presents Luis Francia’s political thriller.

Twelfth Night San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park, Hyde Street Pier, 2905 Hyde, SF; www.weplayers.org. $30-80. Fri/5-Sun/7 and Oct 13, 5:30pm. After spending the summer on Angel Island with their epic-scale production of The Odyssey, the We Players have scaled back with a lo-key rendition of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night on Hyde Street Pier. Of course when it comes to the We Players, “scaled-back” still means a two-and-a-half hour long participatory jaunt taking place mainly along the length of the pier and aboard the historic ferryboat, the Eureka, which serves primarily as the residence of the grieving Illyrian Countess, Olivia (Clara Kamunde) around whose favors much of the plot revolves. Highlights of the experience include the opportunity to visit historic Hyde Street Pier, a gypsy-jazzy score directed by Charlie Gurke (who also plays the lovelorn Duke Orsino), and the rascally quartet of the prankish Maria (Caroline Parsons), jocular drunk Toby Belch (Dhira Rauch), clueless doofus Andrew Augecheek (Benjamin Stowe), and wise fool Feste (John Hadden). But as We Players productions go, this one feels less inspired in its staging, and much of the action merely shuffles back and forth on the Eureka without incorporating many of the intriguing nooks and views the Hyde Street Pier offers, despite a promising opening scene involving a beach and a rowboat. Also, uncharacteristically for We, the comic timing seemed to be off the evening I saw it, although both Stowe and Hadden ably conveyed their wit without a flaw. Dress warmly, carry a big flask, and you’ll be fine. (Gluckstern)

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

BAY AREA

Assassins Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-30. Previews Wed/3-Thu/4, 7pm. Opens Fri/5, 8pm. Runs Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Nov 11. Shotgun Players performs the Sondheim musical about John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, and other famous Presidential killers (and would-be killers).

Chinglish Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-99. Wed/3 and Sun/7, 7pm (also Sun/7, 2pm); Thu/4 and Sat/6, 2 and 8pm. Tony Award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly) delivers this inconsistent but generally lively and fascinatingly au courant comedy about a down-on-his-luck American businessman (Alex Moggridge) who visits China hoping to win a contract for English-language signage. Hiring a British expat (Brian Nishii) to smooth the way for him, he enters negotiations with a local official (Larry Lei Zhang). Although things seem to be going well (across some hilarious scenes of half-assed simultaneous translation), he finds the deal running inexplicably aground, then finds unexpected help from a hard-nosed, initially hostile, and beautiful Party official (a standout Michelle Krusiec), with whom he soon begins an extramarital affair. But the American (who has a past of his own that eventually comes to light with surprising consequences) has no idea of the machinations taking place behind the formal business meetings and other confused cross-cultural encounters. What unfolds is a sometimes stretched but generally shrewd and laugh-out-loud funny assessment of has-been American delusions through the prism of rising Chinese ambitions and clout, cultural and otherwise. If the central dynamic between the lovers is not always convincing on the individual or metaphorical level, Leigh Silverman directs for Berkeley Rep a super slick production, complete with rotating sets and precisely timed entrances, featuring an enjoyable cast rounded out by Vivian Chiu, Celeste Den, and Austin Ku. (Avila)

Hamlet Bruns Amphitheater, 100 California Shakespeare Theater Way, Orinda; www.calshakes.org. $35-71. Tue-Thu, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 4pm. Through Oct 14. Liesl Tommy directs this season closer for Cal Shakes, a decidedly uneven and overall surprisingly bland production of one of Shakespeare’s most fascinating, affecting, and endlessly rich works. The best part of Tommy’s less-than-inspired hodgepodge production (summed up by the dry and cluttered swimming-pool set, albeit very nicely designed by Clint Ramos) is lead Leroy McClain, whose Hamlet is a vibrantly intelligent and charismatic force most of the time. He gets some fine support from Dan Hiatt as a comically pedantic but still sympathetically paternal Polonius, but there is precious little chemistry with either Ophelia (a nonetheless striking Zainab Jah) or faithless queen mother Gertrude (Julie Eccles). The rest of the cast is rarely more than dutiful. Meanwhile, the staging comes laden with some awkward and/or tired conceits: a small fish tank-like landscape inset into the back wall for an unraveling Ophelia; a gore-covered zombie-esque ghost (a flat Adrian Roberts, who also plays Claudius); or guards sporting submachine guns, which always looks ridiculous. Moreover, the language comes awkwardly modernized in places —substituting “dagger” for “bodkin” in a rather famous soliloquy, for example, seems unnecessary and is definitely distracting. Why not “submachine gun”? (Avila)

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

Topdog/Underdog Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; www.marintheatre.org. $36-57. Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat/6 and Oct 20, 2pm; Oct 11, 1pm); Wed, 7:30pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Oct 21. Marin Theatre Company performs Suzan-Lori Parks’ Pulitzer Prize winner about a contentious pair of brothers.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

“Comedy Bodega” Esta Noche Nightclub, 3079 16th St, SF; www.comedybodega.com. Thu, 8pm. Ongoing. No cover (one drink minumum). Stand-up comedy.

“Comedy Returns to El Rio” El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Mon/8, 8pm. $7-20. With Maureen Langan, Sammy Obeid, Dhaya Lakshminarayanan, Bobby Golden, and guest host Nick Leonard.

Dance Elixir Kunst-Stoff Arts, One Grove, SF; www.danceelixirlive.org. Thu/4-Sat/6, 8:30pm. $10. Performing Destroy// with Tiberius and Ava Mendoza.

“Hot Mess 3: Third Time, No Charm” New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. Thu/4-Sat/6, 8pm. $15. San Francisco’s newest sketch comedy group performs.

Shazia Mirza Punchline, 444 Battery, SF; www.punchlinecomedyclub.com. Wed/3, 8pm. $15. The British comedian performs, with opening acts Kevin Camia and Samson Koletkar.

Smuin Ballet Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.smuinballet.org. Fri/5-Sat/6 and Oct 11-13, 8pm (also Oct 13, 2pm); Oct 14, 2pm. $25-65. The company performs its fall program, including West Coast premiere Cold Virtues.

“Spaceholder Festival” ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; www.odctheater.org. Fri/5-Sat/6, 8pm; Sun/7, 7pm. $25-45. Choreographer Morgan Thorson spearheads this evening-length performance that transforms the stage into “an archeological dig, an auction block, and a museum.”

“The Spooky Cabaret” Stage Werx, 446 Valencia, SF; www.wilywestproductions.com. Sun/7, 5:30pm; Oct 8-10, 7:30pm. $10. ‘Tis the season for this fest of three full-length and five one-act plays with horror themes.

“Theatecture on UN Plaza” Civic Center, UN Plaza, Seventh St at Market, SF; www.ftloose.org. Tue, noon-2pm. Through Oct 16. Free. Outdoor performance of Mary Alice Fry’s Honeycomb Zone as part of the “24 Days of Central Market Arts Festival.”

Insider/Outsider art: Paul Festa’s ‘Tie It Into My Hand’ at ODC Fri/21-Sat/22

Sue Vaughan
-
0
Insider/Outsider art: Paul Festa’s ‘Tie It Into My Hand’ at ODC Fri/21-Sat/22

In a way, his first film, the experimental documentary Apparition of the Eternal Church (2006), did for Paul Festa what years of classical musical training and fiction writing never yet had: it put him squarely before the eyes and ears of the world as a serious artist. Ironically, he’d never trained as a filmmaker. He was following a musical muse, to be sure, but down an unfamiliar path.

Asking how we listen — why we listen — to music, Apparition gathered an eclectic assortment of interview-subjects (friends, drag queens, his Juilliard mentor Albert Fuller, even his old college prof, renowned critic-scholar Harold Bloom), had them strap on headphones, and then describe their reactions to Olivier Messiaen’s Apparition de l’église éternelle, the composer’s unrelentingly intense 1932 piece for organ. It was a simple notion that produced complex, and completely absorbing, results.

That unscheduled journey through film has been to the benefit of audiences literally around the world, as Apparition not only received awards and enthusiastic reviews but also toured widely in the lead-up to the centenary of Messiaen’s birth in 2008. In April of that year, it screened at San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral as part of a larger program that included Festa on violin, performing the West Coast premiere of Messiaen’s 1933 Fantasy for violin and piano (only published in 2007).

It also marked a vital new turn in Festa’s career, which continues this weekend with the world premiere of Tie It Into My Hand, his new experimental documentary and a fascinating exploration of the artistic life, as rollickingly entertaining as it is insightful and stirring. The premise is again cunningly straightforward: ask a wide range of artists (but no violinists) to give the filmmaker a violin lesson. (After many years of serious study at Juilliard and elsewhere, Festa had retired from playing music in the wake of a hand injury. In the film, he attempts passages from Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto.)

Going from the insular world of Juilliard, with its disciplinary rigor and institutional certitudes, to the wide-open prairie of independent filmmaking, is not a typical trajectory for an artist. Festa’s work both expresses and investigates precisely those tensions — between professionalism and amateurism, mentorship and independence, success and failure, glamor and alienation, opinion and taste, beauty and pain — stirred up in his own unconventional path through life and art.
Among the film’s invariably interesting interlocutors are many local artists as well as prominent national figures, but the variety lies as much in the breadth of artistic disciplines represented: actors, drag queens, performance artists (including an uncompromisingly blunt but ever-precise Penny Arcade), poets, musicians (barring only violinists), writers (Daniel Handler, for instance, an old friend from middle and high school years in San Francisco), at least one historian, dancers, theater directors, and playwrights (ACT’s Carey Perloff and Theatre Rhinoceros’s John Fisher being examples in both categories), and painters (including the last recorded interview with the late William Theophilus Brown, for whom Festa had previously modeled and who, as part of the project, produced three color drawings of the violinist-filmmaker).

“It’s a combination of people with whom I’ve had a long acquaintance, some people I had just met at [the Yaddo] artist colony, or wherever else, and then people I was referred to. Apparition of the Eternal Church was really skewed more toward people in my circle. There were only two people in Apparition of the Eternal Church who I met for the first time at the interview.”

If Apparition of the Eternal Church asked questions about the perception of art, and specifically music, for different people, Tie It Into My Hand asks questions about the artistic impulse itself. But the conversations, culled from roughly 120 interviews, range widely, and Festa’s shrewd editing clusters the themes that arise in purposefully harmonic and dissonant clusters, while threading certain leitmotifs throughout. Tie It Into My Hand screens tonight and Sat/22 as part of a triptych of short films (the full program is discussed below), culminating Festa’s theater residency at ODC.

The filmmaker talked about his process, and his circuitous artistic career, while attending to some final color corrections at ODC a couple of days ago. Sitting in the control booth at the back of ODC’s theater, Festa admits he’s not gotten enough sleep of late, but speaks thoughtfully about the necessity of bridging strikingly different artistic terrains.

SFBG You were saying how this project transitioned from a theater piece to a film?

Paul Festa How it went from a theater piece into this film. It’s funny. Carey Perloff has this wonderful line in the film about how men have their nervous breakdowns ten years earlier than women. Well, I had mine right on schedule, six months from my 40th birthday. It had to do with the theater piece, and it had to do with the death of three of four really central mentors to me. Three people died in a four-year period. The first one was George Dusheck, who used to be a reporter here in San Francisco and he dated my mother. He became a really central father figure and mentor. He moved up to Mendocino and introduced me to this whole group of amazing artists and musicians up there. And he died in 2005.

And then Albert Fuller, who you see in this film, who was also the star of Apparition of the Eternal Church, who was the great mentor whose philosophy and whose teaching about music, ostensibly about music, is really what created me as a filmmaker. His imagination about music, his harpsichord music — it had nothing to do with opera or ballet, it wasn’t like he was in the theater, but he had his own theater going on up here. Exposing that to us, he was the origin, and he was the first interview of Apparition of the Eternal Church. And in a sense that whole film is an expression or a crystallization of his teaching. And he died in 2007.

And then this woman Juliette died in 2009. And about three weeks later I had a conversation [about the proposed theater piece at ODC] with a guy who had helped me put on the Grace Cathedral evening. And he kind of looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “What are you talking about? First you did music, and you didn’t make a debut or cut a record. And then you were a writer and you didn’t finish the novel.”

He basically accused me of being a dilettante. He said, “Wow. You’re middle-aged. Do you know that? Are you aware that it’s difficult to get funders and audiences and everyone else to take you seriously?” He didn’t phrase it in quite such a judgmental way; that’s how I took it. He was more amazed that I had the nerve to do that. He’s very wealthy, and he said, “I would be concerned about my own security. Do you have no concern for your own security?”

Well, that’s how I had my nervous breakdown. I became morbidly concerned with my own security. “Holy shit. What have I been doing? Have I been asleep for the last 25 years?” And so at that point I stopped sleeping. There were a lot of practical things [concerning me]. One of the practical things was you can’t even apply to an artist residency or a lot of different things unless you have work that is less than four years old. And Apparition of the Eternal Church, my only film, was about to age-out of that system. So I’d lay awake just trying to think my way out of this disaster that I had somehow engineered for myself. You know, kind of the worst-case nervous-breakdown anxieties.

And I thought, “OK, I’ll make a film, and I’ll introduce the theater piece with this film, and I’ll sort of kill two birds with one stone or I’ll sort of rescue the theater piece and rescue my career with this movie. And it’ll be a silent film comedy, and I’ll accompany it live on the violin. So I’ll keep all the things in the air at once. Kind of like the Grace Cathedral thing, I’ll finally bring everything together. So that became this silent film called The Glitter Emergency, which is set to the second and third movement of the Tchaikovsky violin concerto. So the idea was that that would be the prelude to the theater piece.

What wound up happening was that it ended up being the conclusion to a triptych of films called Three Short Films by Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky. The first of which is this thing. The second of which is a ballet fantasy, which we’ll watch a text-based storyboard of, with me playing live, on [Fri/21]. And then there’s The Glitter Emergency. So it’s one kind of enormous short film and two 20-minute short films.

So that’s how it all came about. And every step of the way, ODC was right with me. When I told [former ODC Theater Director] Rob [Bailis] the theater piece had really evolved and would now be a series of short films, he was totally down. ODC has been a really incredible partner for the last three years.

SFBG Tie It Into My Hand does have elements of self-examination of course, which resonates with the context you describe, but part of why it is so very approachable and compelling is the way it invariably goes much further in what it explores. Did you have a sense of what you’d find?

PF It was like Apparition of the Eternal Church in that it was this big experiment. I didn’t know what the hell was going to happen when I walked into these lessons. I mean, I had an idea: I wanted to accomplish what Apparition of the Eternal Church had accomplished, which was to get people to forget that there was a camera on them. When the headphones went on, I realized that’s why you can watch Apparition of the Eternal Church and just watch talking heads for 35 of those minutes: because they’re doing something, and responding to something.

When you get the download from people, usually they become very cerebral and very careful and they speak in measured tones — and these people were kind of losing it, and that was fun to watch. So I wanted to give them something to do, and that’s what the violin lesson did — and it involved music without the headphone conceit. But also I learned, from everywhere I’d been to music school, that the best way to get someone talking is to have them teach. I heard so many great stories from my teachers.

So I hoped, and I think I was right, it would turn out to be a really productive pretext or device for an interview.

SFBG I would agree. In addition to longer conversations, there are just so many wonderful lines in the film; some very funny, others very perceptive, and often both.

PF What are some you remember?

SFBG For instance, one question was, “Is that as painful to play as it is to listen to?”

PF [Laughs] And the answer to that question is, actually, yes. Thank you, Mink Stole.

Tie It Into My Hand

Fri/21-Sat/22, 7pm, $15-$35

ODC Theater

3153 17th St, SF

www.odctheater.org

Styles for miles

-
0
Styles for miles

arts@sfbg.com

FALL ARTS Most folks going to dance performances have a sense of how they want to spend their time and dollars. For some, a show must be conceptually edgy. For others, it’s got to be ballet. Still others want choreography that resonates with socio-political implications — or they only want to see choreography grounded in indigenous traditions. I’m more of an omnivore: show me a piece, no matter its style, in which the forces at work arise from some internal necessity and play off each other convincingly, and I’m in.

The next three months are bursting with dance offerings. In downtown San Francisco, many are free. Zaccho Dance Theatre reprises its hauntingly poetic Sailing Away (Sept. 13-16, Powell and Market, SF; www.zaccho.org); it pays tribute to the exodus of a remarkable group of African Americans. In only three years, the Central Market Arts Festival (Sept. 28-Oct. 21, various locations, SF; www.centralmarketarts.org) has exploded into a major event with dozens of performances that have probably contributed just as much to the area’s revitalization as those high-rent dot coms. Not to be missed is the world premiere of Jo Kreiter and Flyaway Productions’ Niagara Falling (Sept. 26-29, Seventh St. and Market, SF; www.flyawayproductions.com), projected and danced on an exterior wall of the Renoir Hotel. And how about the easy-riding Trolley Dances (Oct. 20-21, various locations, SF; www.epiphanydance.org) that offer unexpected site-specific encounters?

If you are willing to take another look at what may be already familiar, and your budget allows it, the Mariinsky Ballet and Orchestra (Oct. 10-14, Zellerbach Hall, Berk; www.calperformances.org) brings Swan Lake to Berkeley. It may be the most popular ballet in the world, and it is also one of the greats. Another old-timer, the 40-year-old Mummenschanz (Nov. 23-23, Zellerbach Hall, Berk; www.calperformances.org), can’t be beat for its skill, magic, and gentle humor. Take a kid. If your taste oscillates between new and old, check out Na Lei Hulu I Ka Wekiu (Oct. 20-28, Palace of Fine Arts, SF; www.naleihulu.org); its mix of traditional and new-style hula — which this year includes hip-hop — will be time and money well spent.

Keith Hennessy, probably the Bay Area’s most radical theatrical thinker, moves his pulverizing Turbulence (a dance about the economy) from COUNTERPulse to Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (Sept. 27-29, YBCA Forum, SF; www.ybca.org). There you will be invited to participate in the concept’s actualization.

Ticket-buying decision time kicks into high gear in October, with the season’s most intense concentration of big-time artists both local and visiting. Making its Bay Area premiere with the full-evening After Light (Oct. 13-14, YBCA, SF; www.performances.org) will be another of San Francisco Performances’ finds, Britain’s Russell Maliphant Company. The work, set on three performers to Erik Satie’s Gnossiennes, is inspired by dance genius Vaslav Nijinsky’s photographs, choreography, and drawings. Margaret Jenkins Dance Company (Oct. 18-21, Kanbar Hall, Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, SF; www.mjdc.org) presents a first look at Times Bones, for which the choreographer excavated ideas in her rep to re-examine for new content.

Alonzo King LINES Ballet‘s collaboration with musicians and lighting designer Axel Morgenthaler are well known. Increasingly, King seems to be searching also for innovative scenic collaborators to contextualize his mythic choreography. A preview last spring of the as yet un-named premiere (Oct. 19-28, YBCA, SF; www.linesballet.org), at the very least, promised that Jim Campbell’s set of hundreds of LED globes will create its own rhythmic motion.

African and African American voices will be heard at YBCA as part of its commitment to showcasing contemporary dance from that continent. Voices of Strength (Oct. 19-20, YBCA, SF; www.ybca.org) is a quartet of four African women — among them Mozambique’s well-known Maria Helena Pinto — who will show one work each. New YBCA Program Director Marc Bamuthi Joseph concocted “Clas/sick Hip Hop” (Nov.30-Dec.1, YBCA, SF; www.ybca.org) for which he matches a violinist with five radically different hip-hop artists, including the legendary Rennie Harris, who 20 years ago pioneered the art’s theatrical potential.

Others I will try not to miss: smart dance with RAWDance‘s Burn In/Fall Out, (Nov. 2-4, ODC Theater, SF; www.rawdance.org); Deborah Slater’s in progress collaboration with dancer-vet Private Freeman, Private Live (Nov. 2-3, CounterPULSE, SF; www.deborahslater.org); and Sebastian Grubb‘s Workout (Dec. 14-15, CounterPULSE, SF; www.counterpulse.org). At the Garage (Garage, SF; www.715bryant.org), it will be Human Creature Dance Theatre for Halloween (Oct. 31), neo-Finnish punkkiCo (Nov. 16-17), and contemporary Congolese, now SF-based dancer Byb Chanel-Bibene (Dec. 5-6). Perhaps I’ll also return to the Garage for Burlesque Basquiat, Dorian Faust‘s birthday tribute to the late painter (Dec. 21-22).

Stage Listings

Andrew Lam
-
0

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

THEATER

OPENING

Daughter of the Red Tzar Thick House Theatre, 1695 18th St, SF; www.thickhouse.org. $30. Opens Fri/24, 8pm. Runs Sat-Sun and Aug 31, 8pm. Through Sept 2. ScolaVox and First Look Sonoma present the world premiere of Lisa Scola-Prosek’s chamber opera about a meeting between Churchill, Stalin, and Stalin’s teenage daughter.

BAY AREA

The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; (510) 843-4822, www.auroratheatre.org. $32-60. Previews Fri/24-Sat/23 and Aug 29, 8pm; Sun/26, 2pm; Tue/28, 7pm. Opens Aug 30, 8pm. Runs Tue and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm); Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 30. Aurora Theatre Company opens its 21st season with Kristoffer Diaz’s comedy about pro wrestlers.

The Fisherman’s Wife La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $10-20. Previews Thu/23-Fri/24, 8pm. Opens Sat/25, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 29. Impact Theatre performs Steve Yockey’s tentacle-porn-inspired sex farce.

Time Stands Still TheatreWorks at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, SF; www.theatreworks.org. $23-73. Previews Wed/22-Fri/24, 8pm. Opens Sat/25, 8pm. Runs Tue-Wed, 7:30pm; Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Sept 16. TheatreWorks performs Donald Marguelis’ drama about a couple — one a photojournalist, one a war correspondent — struggling with their recent experiences covering a war.

ONGOING

Believers Stage Werx, 446 Valencia, SF; www.wilywestproductions.com. $20-25. Thu/23-Sat/25, 8pm. As a couple of research scientists and a former couple to boot, Rocky Wise (Casey Fern) and Grace Wright (Maria Giere Marquis) are simply mad about love in Wily West’s world premiere of local playwright Patricia Milton’s exuberant but patchy comedy. Employed by a small, less than scrupulous pharmaceutical firm reeling from a product recall and attendant lawsuits, reclusive Rocky toils away after a formula for a drug that will inoculate the user against love — a secret agenda of his own inspired by the broken heart Grace left him with several years earlier. His boss (a comically brassy Jon Fast) thinks he’s working on a commissioned "love activator," and to that end woos back former employee Grace to keep the fires burning in the lab. The strained reunion does the trick, if not exactly in the way intended. Meanwhile, a wacky born-again receptionist (Kate Jones) —"only recently come to the Lord" (and her Texan drawl by the sound of it) — fields calls from desperate people in a world despoiled by corporate greed and seemingly already in the throes of the end times. There are some moments worthy of a titter or two, but director Sara Staley’s cast is less than precise or compelling with dialogue that is already hit-and-miss. Despite a promising scenario, Believers remains too uneven and muddled to generate much love beyond the stage. (Avila)

Dog Sees God Boxcar Playhouse, 505 Natoma, SF; www.boxcartheatre.org. $16. Wed/22-Sat/25, 8pm. There was always a lightly subversive if not latently radical bent to Charles M. Schulz’s Peanuts strip, with its implicit championing of nonconformity, its restless and half-confused longing, and its convincing blend of gentleness and cruelty. Playwright Bert V. Royal mines it all with inspired confidence and fighting spirit in his portrait of the Peanuts gang as a fractured set of contemporary fucked-up if formidable teens. First among them is a sullen but resilient CB (Andrew Humann), blockhead of the title, reeling from the death of his dog and his awakened love for broodingly gifted, deeply estranged pal Beethoven (Bobby Conte-Thornton). In Boxcar’s winning production, the boisterous, often hilarious and poignant story — which includes real-life issues of grief, abuse, abortion, homophobia, and suicide — comes animated by a talented and thoroughly persuasive young cast under beautifully calibrated direction by artistic director Nick A. Olivero. (Avila)

Les Misérables Orpheum Theatre, 1192 Market, SF; www.bestofbroadway-sf.com. $83-155. Wed/22-Sat/25, 8pm (also Wed/22 and Sat/25, 2pm); Sun/26, 2pm. SHN’s Best of Broadway series brings to town the new 25th anniversary production of Cameron Mackintosh’s musical giant, based on the novel by Victor Hugo. The revival at the Orpheum does without the famous rotating stage but nevertheless spares no expense or artistry in rendering the show’s barrage of colorful Romantic scenes (with Matt Kinley’s scenic design drawing painterly inspiration from Hugo’s own oils) or its larger-than-life characters — first and foremost Jean Valjean (a slim but passionate Peter Lockyer), nemesis Javert (Andrew Varela), and rescued orphan beauty Cosette (Lauren Wiley). Chris Jahnke contributes new orchestrations to the rollicking original score by Claude-Michel Schönberg (music) and Herbert Kretzmer (lyrics) in this flagrantly sentimental, somewhat problematic but still-stirring meld of music and melodrama in dutiful overlapping service of box office treasure and powerful humanist aspirations. (Avila)

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

The Princess Bride: Live! Dark Room Theater, 2263 Mission, SF; foulplaysf.com/princessbride. $20. Thu/23-Sat/25, 8pm. Dark Room Productions presents a live tribute to the cult fairy-tale movie.

Rights of Passage New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Previews Wed/22-Fri/24, 8pm. Opens Sat/25, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Sept 16. New Conservatory Theatre Center presents the world premiere of Ed Decker and Robert Leone’s multimedia play, inspired by global human rights laws in relation to sexual orientation.

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

The Waiting Period MainStage, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri, 8pm (starting Sept 6: also Thu, 8pm); Sat, 5pm. Extended through Sept 29. Brian Copeland (comedian, TV and radio personality, and creator-performer of the long-running solo play Not a Genuine Black Man) returns to the Marsh with a new solo, this one based on more recent and messier events` in Copeland’s life. The play concerns an episode of severe depression in which he considered suicide, going so far as to purchase a handgun — the title coming from the legally mandatory 10-day period between purchasing and picking up the weapon, which leaves time for reflections and circumstances that ultimately prevent Copeland from pulling the trigger. A grim subject, but Copeland (with co-developer and director David Ford) ensures there’s plenty of humor as well as frank sentiment along the way. The actor peoples the opening scene in the gun store with a comically if somewhat stereotypically rugged representative of the Second Amendment, for instance, as well as an equally familiar "doood" dude at the service counter. Afterward, we follow Copeland, a just barely coping dad, home to the house recently abandoned by his wife, and through the ordinary routines that become unbearable to the clinically depressed. Copeland also recreates interviews he’s made with other survivors of suicidal depression. Telling someone about such things is vital to preventing their worst outcomes, says Copeland, and telling his own story is meant to encourage others. It’s a worthy aim but only a fitfully engaging piece, since as drama it remains thin, standing at perhaps too respectful a distance from the convoluted torment and alienation at its center. (Avila)

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

BAY AREA

Circle Mirror Transformation Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; www.marintheatre.org. $20-57. Wed/22, 7:30pm; Thu/23-Sat/25, 8pm (also Sat/25, 2pm); Sun/26, 2 and 7pm. Annie Baker has enjoyed a wave of Bay Area premieres this year, beginning with Aurora’s sharp staging of Body Awareness, followed by SF Playhouse’s triumph with The Aliens. Now Marin Theatre Company and co-producers Encore Theatre Company offer Baker’s other "Vermont play," set in a community center drama therapy class run by baby-boomer groovy lady Marty (Julia Brothers). She’s joined in a series of drama exercises (and ill-masked personal convolutions) by her husband James (L. Peter Callender), fretting over his estrangement from his daughter by his first marriage; Schultz (Robert Parsons), a middle-aged recent divorcé smitten with the cute girl in the class; Theresa (Arwen Anderson), said cute girl, a nubile 30-something and recent New York transplant; and Lauren (Marissa Keltie), a reluctant, cloudy teen perpetually absent her mother’s check for the class. If Boxcar Theatre’s current production, Dog Sees God, builds flesh and bone from a comic strip, Baker’s amusing, bite-sized scenes (separated by blackouts) tend to lean in the other direction. Despite elaboration of a certain dramatic metaphor flagged in the title, the play’s thematic possibilities are restrained by an easy if highly palatable humor that flirts knowingly with caricature but to only middling affect. There’s a move in the final scene that nicely expands the reach of the action, but that limited if affecting turn is two hours in the making. That said, this fine production insures it’s no great burden getting there. The cast under director Kip Fagan is uniformly enjoyable. Brothers is terrific in giving Marty a bounding personality and just enough ambiguity to make her positive vibes suspect, and Callender finds wonderful opportunities for fleshing out the character of a charming but frustrated man who has not realized his potential. Parsons’ at first foolishly giddy then bitterly imploded Schultz is wholly convincing opposite Anderson’s zany but compelling Theresa. And Keltie’s sly and sullen teen is rightly the smartest tool in the shed. (Avila)

For the Greater Good, Or The Last Election This week: Montclair Ball Field, Montclair; www.sfmt.org. Free (donations accepted). Thu/23, 7pm. Willard Park, Berk; www.sfmt.org. Free (donations accepted). Sat/25-Sun/26, 2pm. Various venues through Sept. 8. "Don’t they understand that without us they don’t have anything?" asks Gideon Bloodgood (Ed Holmes), investment banker at the top of the San Francisco Mime Troupe’s vivisection of the "real" American Dream, For the Greater Good, Or the Last Election. But surely the hero of a Mime Troupe show cannot possibly be a billionaire? Well, sort of. Though Bloodgood enriches himself dishonestly with precarious investments and outright theft in this Occupy-era melodrama, he actually does occasionally spare a sentiment for Mom and apple pie, or anyway his daughter Alida (Lisa Hori-Garcia) and cookies baked by the unsuspecting victim of his ill-gotten gains, the Widow Fairweather (Keiko Shimosato Carreiro) — now living at the last Occupy encampment standing in the city. Alida, however, displays no compunction in throwing aside his affection and her prospective seat in Congress, running off to join the occupiers for reasons that truthfully appear about as politically motivated as her father’s parasitic avarice, leaving him to join forces instead with the most unlikely of allies — the impeccable, ingenuous Lucy Fairweather (Velina Brown), heiress to a stolen legacy, and staunch patriot. Based loosely on 19th century play The Poor of New York, The Last Election attempts to turn a presumptive ode to the free market into its swan song with good-humored, if predictable, results. (Gluckstern)

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

Henry V Sequoia High School, 1201 Brewster, Redwood City; www.redwoodcity.org. Free. Sat/25, 7:30pm; Sun/26, 2pm. San Francisco Shakespeare Festival presents the Bard’s history play as part of its "Free Shakespeare in the Park" series.

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

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

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

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

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

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

"Along the Way" Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St, SF; www.caitlinelliotdance.com, www.detourdance.com. Fri/24-Sun/26, 8pm. $15-30. Caitlin Elliott Dance Collective and Detour Dance present this evening of world premieres, including performances Fancy and Imitations of Intimacy, and the dance film Pedestrian Crossing.

BATS Improv Bayfront Theater, B350 Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.improv.org. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 8. $10-25. This week: "Original Broadway Cast and Moments of Transition" (Thu/23); "Double Feature" (Fri/24); "The Naked Stage" (Sat/25).

Circus Finelli 50 Mason Social House, 50 Mason, SF; www.circusfinelli.com. Thu/23, 7-10pm. $6. Clowns, cocktails, comedy, and klezmer rule in this performance of "Big Time and Little Something’s Big Adventure."

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

"Jump Into Dance! ODC School Family Day Open House" ODC Dance Commons, 351 Shotwell, SF; www.odcdance.org. Sun/26, 8:45am-3:30pm. Free. Children, teens, and their families are invited to check out the ODC School Youth and Teen Program, with sample dance classes and faculty on hand to answer questions.

Rome Kanda Main Pagoda Stage, Japantown’s Peace Plaza, Geary and Buchanan, SF; www.j-pop.com. Sat/25, 2:30pm; Sun/26, 1pm. Free. The Japanese comedian stops by the J-Pop Summit Festival for a stage appearance and signing of his new digital manga series, Samurai Spirit: The Story of Rome Kanda.

Maurya Kerr/tinypistol Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Mon/27, 8pm. $18-23. WestWave Dance presents this evening of works, including world premiere FreakShow.

"Measure for Measure" Café Royale, 800 Post, SF; sftheaterpub.wordpress.com. Mon/27, 8pm. Free ($5 suggested donation). SF Theater Pub performs the Shakespeare play.

"San Francisco Drag King Contest" DNA Lounge, 375 11th St, SF; www.sfdragkingcontest.com. Thu/23, 9pm. $20-35. The popular, raucous contest returns for its 17th annual incarnation.

"San Francisco Improv Festival" Eureka Theater, 215 Jackson, SF; www.sfimprovfestival.com. Wed/22-Sat/25. $5-35. With local improv talent including BATS Improv, Un-Scripted Theater Company, San Jose ComedySportz, and more.

"Sea Music Festival" San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park, Hyde Street Pier, SF; nps.gov/safr. Sat/25, 9:30am-5pm. $5 (15 and under, free). Singers, intrumentalists, and dance troupes perform in celebration of maritime heritage to coincide with the America’s Cup races.

"Soundwave 5: Revelation Zen" San Francisco Zen Center, 300 Page, SF; www.projectsoundwave.com. Sat/25, 6-9pm. $12-25. Performances by En, Sean McCann, and Marielle V. Jakobsons.

"Work More!" CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; www.counterpulse.org. Thu/24-Sat/26, 8pm. $15-20. Theater performance meets nightlife experience in this drag installation with Mica Sigourney/VivvyAnne ForeverMORE and Ox.

The Performant: Howard’s End

-
0
The Performant: Howard’s End

While the Performant is off hugging trees in Oregon, please enjoy this series of interviews with the curators of three innovative performance spaces.

After five years of making the address 975 Howard synonymous with emergent dance, queer, and fringe artists, Joe Landini has packed up The Garage and relocated it further down SOMA way. Now tucked in an industrial zone next to an automotive repair shop, The Garage’s new location at 715 Bryant might lack the allure of being a hidden gem on ramshackle Howard Street, but has the distinct advantage of having fewer neighbors to annoy, a consideration no low-budget performance space can afford to completely ignore. Particularly one as active and prolific as The Garage—which has hosted over 1000 performances for some 50,000 people during its five-year tenure.

“We are awful neighbors!” Landini admits when I swing by to check out the new digs.

“We are loud. We host 120 choreographers a year, 230 shows a year, that’s a lot of music to listen to.” After looking around the Central Market area for three years without finding a space that was both affordable and allowed for public assembly, Landini set his sights on the section of SOMA he knew to have some of the lowest rental rates in the area yet was still mostly accessible via public transportation—a consideration for many of his performers and audiences.
       
After a cacophonous May Day parade from Howard Street to Bryant, led by a merry conglomerate of performers — familiar faces from The Offcenter and Garage performance series such as RAW and AIRspace — The Garage opened back up for business just 24 hours later. The space is still a work-in-progress a few weeks later (aren’t all moving projects?), but its current bare bones state will not seem unfamiliar to its fans (makeshift risers, a table over to the side for the board operator, minimal but effective lighting). What’s most important, from Landini’s POV is that they are finally ADA compliant, and they have repainted the front door red: “theatre’s love tradition.”

In addition to moving into a new physical space, The Garage is occupying a new psychic space, expanding its definition of incubation, by helping its emerging artists connect to spaces where they can create work for larger audiences. Recently, six Garage artists dubbed The WERK Collective, participated in a joint mentorship program between The Garage and ODC <www.odcdance.org>, culminating in a weekend of performance at ODC, the next step up the narrow ladder of professional possibility that defines the San Francisco Bay Area dance community.

“We’re the only free space in the city now and that does attract a very specific group of broke artists,” Joe muses. “We’ve been so lucky to have some of those artists stay with us for the whole five years, and that’s where the partnership with ODC came up, because I had to come up with a way to keep them involved, and they had clearly outgrown the space…so hopefully that’s going to be a model for the future, an artist could start here and then work their way into ODC (which is) pretty well-organized in terms of where they want their artists to go….(ODC Director) Christy Bolingbroke is very sharp, and she has a real clear understanding of the national profile, and what’s happening nationally.”

What has also changed for Landini is a deeper understanding of The Garage’s overall mission and impact on its core community.

“The old space was such a lark…we threw a lot of mud at a lot of walls and some stuff stuck, but that’s not going to work here…..we’re going to have to become a really shrewd organization. I didn’t really have a sense of the importance of the work we were doing. I mean I kind of knew in the back of my mind, because so many people were coming through…and that community rallied to move into this space…they really really got behind it.”

Stage Listings

Andrew Lam
-
0

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

Dog Sees God Boxcar Playhouse, 505 Natoma, SF; www.boxcartheatre.org. $16. Opens Wed/8, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 25. Boxcar Playhouse performs Bert V. Royal’s darkly comedic take on a moody, grown-up Charlie Brown and his Peanuts buddies.

Rights of Passage New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Previews Fri/17-Sat/19 and Aug 22-24, 8pm; Sun/20, 2pm. Opens Aug 25, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Sept 16. New Conservatory Theatre Center presents the world premiere of Ed Decker and Robert Leone’s multimedia play, inspired by global human rights laws in relation to sexual orientation.

BAY AREA

Our Country’s Good Redwood Amphiteatre, Marin Art and Garden Center, 30 Sir Francis Drake, Ross; www.porchlight.net. $15-30. Previews Thu/16, 7:30pm. Opens Fri/17, 7:30pm. Runs Thu-Sun, 7:30pm. Through Sept 8. Porchlight Theatre Company presents an outdoor performance of Timberlake Wertenbaker’s play about Royal Marines and prisoners in an 18th century New South Wales prison colony.

Precious Little Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $18-25. Previews Sat/19, 8pm; Sun/19, 5pm. Opens Mon/20, 8pm. Runs Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sept 1 and 8, 3pm); Sun, 5pm. Through Sept 16. Shotgun Players presents Madeleine George’s new play about an expectant mother who studies near-dead languages and befriends a “talking” gorilla.

ONGOING

Absolutely San Francisco Alcove Theater, 414 Mason, Ste 502, SF; www.thealcovetheater.com. $32-50. Thu/16-Sat/18, 8pm. A multi-character solo show about the unique residents of San Francisco.

Believers Stage Werx, 446 Valencia, SF; www.wilywestproductions.com. $20-25. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 25. As a couple of research scientists and a former couple to boot, Rocky Wise (Casey Fern) and Grace Wright (Maria Giere Marquis) are simply mad about love in Wily West’s world premiere of local playwright Patricia Milton’s exuberant but patchy comedy. Employed by a small, less than scrupulous pharmaceutical firm reeling from a product recall and attendant lawsuits, reclusive Rocky toils away after a formula for a drug that will inoculate the user against love — a secret agenda of his own inspired by the broken heart Grace left him with several years earlier. His boss (a comically brassy Jon Fast) thinks he’s working on a commissioned “love activator,” and to that end woos back former employee Grace to keep the fires burning in the lab. The strained reunion does the trick, if not exactly in the way intended. Meanwhile, a wacky born-again receptionist (Kate Jones) —”only recently come to the Lord” (and her Texan drawl by the sound of it) — fields calls from desperate people in a world despoiled by corporate greed and seemingly already in the throes of the end times. There are some moments worthy of a titter or two, but director Sara Staley’s cast is less than precise or compelling with dialogue that is already hit-and-miss. Despite a promising scenario, Believers remains too uneven and muddled to generate much love beyond the stage. (Avila)

Enron Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.enron2012.com. $25. Thu/16-Fri/17, 8pm. In OpenTab’s production of British playwright Lucy Prebble’s 2009 Enron, tragedy plus time equals comedy plus puppets (in imaginative designs by Miyaka Cochrane), as fast-paced satire delivers a timely reconsideration of yet another infamous financial scandal. Some fictional elements shape the plotline but simplifying strategies serve well to clarify the real-life actions and consequences of Ken Lay (GreyWolf) and Jeffry Skilling’s (Alex Plant) deceptive energy-trading juggernaut, the onetime darling of Wall Street and the financial pages. There’s also much verbatim information (echoing the book and documentary, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room) enlivening the quick dialogue and underscoring the reckless, hubristic malfeasance that famously preyed on California’s electricity grid and threw Enron’s own employees under the bus. Director Ben Euphrat gets spirited and engaging performances from his principals, with especially nice work from Plant as a cruelly superior Skilling, Laurie Burke as ambitious straight-shooter Claudia Roe (a fictionalized composite creation of the playwright), and Nathan Tucker as manic sycophant Andy Fastow, feeding poisonous Enron debt into three beloved “raptors” (the pet names for some animated shadow companies arising from Fastow’s fast work in “structured finance”). At the same time, the staging can prove rough between concept and execution, with scenic elements sometimes confusing as well as aesthetically ragged (a red fabric serving as a large profit graph, for instance, just looks like some droopy inexplicable drapery at first; and the first puppets to appear are too small to be very effective either). Despite this messiness in terms of mise-en-scène, however, the play is generally clear-eyed and good for more than easy laughs — since no single villain but rather a system and culture are the proper targets here. As Prebble notes, the strategies developed by Enron, far from remaining beyond the pale, are now standard practices throughout the financial and corporate world. That, in some circles, is known as progress. (Avila)

Humor Abuse American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $25-95. Wed/15-Sat/18, 8pm (also Sat/18, 2pm); Sun/19, 2pm. “This is a show about clowning,” advises Lorenzo Pisoni at the outset of his graceful solo performance, “and I’m the straight man.” It’s a funny line, actually — funny because it’s true, and not true. In the deft routines that follow, as well as in the snapshots cast on the atmospherically dingy curtain hung center stage, the career of this Pickle Family Circus brat (already alone in the spotlight by age two) never veers far from the shadow of his father. That fact remains central to the winning comedy and wistful reflection in Humor Abuse. Reared in the commotion and commitment of the famed San Francisco circus founded by his parents Larry Pisoni and Peggy Snider, Lorenzo had a childhood both enviable and unusually challenging. The fact that he shares his name with both a grandfather and his dad’s famous clown persona is instructive. His trials and his triumphs are further conflated — along with his father’s — in such elegant catastrophes as falling down a long flight of stairs. And in his good-humored and honest reflections, the existential poignancy at the heart of such artful buffoonery begins to rise to the surface. The spoken narrative feels a little pinched or abbreviated, in truth, but there are no shortcuts to the skill or wider perspective inculcated by the charming Pisoni and (under direction of co-creator Erica Schmidt) set enthrallingly in motion. (Avila)

The Merchant of Venice Gough Street Playhouse, 1622 Gough, SF; www.custommade.org. $25-32. Thu/16-Sat/18, 8pm; Sun/19, 7pm. Custom Made Theater presents director Stuart Bousel’s generally sharp staging of Shakespeare’s perennially controversial but often-misunderstood play. The lively if uneven production ensures the involved storyline cannot be reduced to the problematical nature of its notorious Jewish villain, Shylock (played with a compellingly burdened intensity by a quick Catz Forsman), but rather has to be seen in a wider landscape of desire in which money, status, sex, gender, political and ethnic affiliations, and human bodies all mix, collide, and negotiate. To this end, this Merchant is set amid a contemporary financial district coterie (given plenty of scope in Sarah Phykitt’s thoughtfully pared-down scenic design), where titular melancholic businessman Antonio (Ryan Hayes) sticks his neck out (or anyway a pound of flesh) for his beloved friend Bassanio (Dashiell Hillman) — no doubt the unspoken source of Antonio’s brooding heart as staged here — as the latter seeks a loan with which to court the lovely and brilliant Portia (a winning Megan Briggs). While the subplot concerning the wooing and flight of Shylock’s daughter, Jessica (Kim Saunders), is less adeptly rendered, fluid pacing and a confident sense of the priorities of the drama overall offer a satisfying encounter with this fascinatingly subtle play. (Avila)

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

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

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

Project: Lohan Costume Shop, 1117 Market, SF; www.projectlohan.com. $25. Thu/16-Sat/18, 8pm; Sun/19, 7pm. D’Arcy Drollinger pays tribute to the paparazzi target with this performance constructed solely from tabloids, magazines, court documents, and other pre-existing sources.

“Un-Abridged: The Best of Ten Years of Un-Scripted” SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; www.un-scripted.com. $10-20. Thu/16-Sat/18, 8pm. The veteran Bay Area company celebrates its tenth anniversary season with a four-week retrospective of its favorite long- and short-form improv shows. Check website for schedule.

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

The Waiting Period MainStage, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Extended through Aug 25. Brian Copeland (comedian, TV and radio personality, and creator-performer of the long-running solo play Not a Genuine Black Man) returns to the Marsh with a new solo, this one based on more recent and messier events` in Copeland’s life. The play concerns an episode of severe depression in which he considered suicide, going so far as to purchase a handgun — the title coming from the legally mandatory 10-day period between purchasing and picking up the weapon, which leaves time for reflections and circumstances that ultimately prevent Copeland from pulling the trigger. A grim subject, but Copeland (with co-developer and director David Ford) ensures there’s plenty of humor as well as frank sentiment along the way. The actor peoples the opening scene in the gun store with a comically if somewhat stereotypically rugged representative of the Second Amendment, for instance, as well as an equally familiar “doood” dude at the service counter. Afterward, we follow Copeland, a just barely coping dad, home to the house recently abandoned by his wife, and through the ordinary routines that become unbearable to the clinically depressed. Copeland also recreates interviews he’s made with other survivors of suicidal depression. Telling someone about such things is vital to preventing their worst outcomes, says Copeland, and telling his own story is meant to encourage others. It’s a worthy aim but only a fitfully engaging piece, since as drama it remains thin, standing at perhaps too respectful a distance from the convoluted torment and alienation at its center. (Avila)

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

BAY AREA

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

A Doll’s House Willows Theatre, 1975 Diamond, Concord; www.willowstheatre.com. $20-29. Wed/15-Thu/16, 7:30pm (also Wed/15, 3:30pm); Fri/17-Sat/18, 8pm (also Sat/18, 2pm). The large stage at Willows Theatre is a sunken living room with walls the color of butterscotch pudding, a long rumpled powder-blue sofa, scattered seasonal decorations, and a single translucent panel that brings to mind a Bob Barker-era game show set. It’s like a cross between a showroom and homeroom without meaning to be either, but that less than winsome amalgam hits the right note for Irish playwright Frank McGuiness’s modern adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s 1879 play. Here, the Helmers are just a couple of upstate New Yorkers with slightly funny-sounding names circa Christmas 1959: Nora (a captivatingly buoyant yet subtly shaded Lena Hart) is a bubbly young mother of three, and Torvald (a credibly oblivious Mark Farrell) is a smug but affable bank executive on the rise. A secret intervention in Torvald’s career by a devoted Nora, his up-to-now happily caged “little songbird,” once saved them from ruin (via a reckless loan borrowed on a forged signature), but now it invites a calamitous mixing of formerly separate spheres as the man who loaned Nora the money, once-disgraced Nils Krogstad (a fine, persuasively desperate yet smooth Aaron Murphy), blackmails her to insure his precarious position at her husband’s bank. A panicked Nora confides in old friend and reluctant single-lady Christine (an impressively stoic, subtly wounded Kendra Oberhauser). Meanwhile, terminally ill family friend Dr. Rank (an initially wooden, later warmer Dale Albright) watches Nora from a devoted but helpless vantage. If the plot feels at times like a mirthless episode of I Love Lucy, that again may speak to the aptness of McGuiness’s transposition as much as the sometimes forced way playwright Ibsen has of rearranging the dramatic furniture. But the generally strong cast under Eric Inman’s able direction offers enough vivid dramatic tension to keep us engaged, while suggesting the continuing relevance and limits of the play’s robust critique of marriage and patriarchy. (Avila)

Dolores: Out from the Void Subterranean Arthouse, 2179 Bancroft, Berk; www.subterraneanarthouse.org. $10-15. Thu/16, 8:30pm. On a bare floor at one end of Subterranean Art House’s Berkeley storefront, physical theater maker Carolina Duncan, as her Colombian grandmother, pops opens her cranium like a steamer trunk and retrieves the scrapbook of a boundless life. Here memory and imagination exist in equal measures, as Duncan traces key moments and fleeting images from an arc of days defined by family, romance, and at least one titanic battle between an Amazonian dinosaur and a new secret-agent boyfriend. Combining mime, scattered dialogue, physical comedy, and a live soundscape (a sinuous score courtesy of musician Carlos Kampff, stage left), this loving and whimsical homage, directed by Nikolas Strubbe, comes gracefully delivered and almost always vividly expressed. All the while, Duncan (a recent graduate of SF’s Clown Conservatory and James Donlon and Leonard Pitt’s Flying Actor Studio) exudes an infectious enthusiasm for her subject, who proves as alive in a passing but concrete image of first childhood steps as she does in her final outing, a prolonged spacewalk into the familiar and unknown. (Avila)

A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum Woodminster Amphitheater, Joaquin Miller Park, 3300 Joaquin Miller Rd, Oakl; www.woodminster.com. $12-56. Thu/16-Sun/19, 8pm. Woodminster Summer Musicals presents the Sondheim comedy.

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

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

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

The Kipling Hotel: True Misadventures of the Electric Pink ’80s Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through Aug 26. This new autobiographical solo show by Don Reed, writer-performer of the fine and long-running East 14th, is another slice of the artist’s journey from 1970s Oakland ghetto to comedy-circuit respectability — here via a partial debate-scholarship to UCLA. The titular Los Angeles residency hotel was where Reed lived and worked for a time in the 1980s while attending university. It’s also a rich mine of memory and material for this physically protean and charismatic comic actor, who sails through two acts of often hilarious, sometimes touching vignettes loosely structured around his time on the hotel’s young wait staff, which catered to the needs of elderly patrons who might need conversation as much as breakfast. On opening night, the episodic narrative seemed to pass through several endings before settling on one whose tidy moral was delivered with too heavy a hand, but if the piece runs a little long, it’s only the last 20 minutes that noticeably meanders. And even with some awkward bumps along the way, it’s never a dull thing watching Reed work. (Avila)

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

Noises Off Live Oak Theatre, 1301 Shattuck, Berk; www.aeofberkeley.org. $15. Fri/17-Sat/18, 8pm. Actors Ensemble of Berkeley performs Michael Frayn’s backstage comedy.

Roald Dahl’s Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory Julia Morgan Theatre, 2640 College, Berk; www.berkeleyplayhouse.org. $17-35. Thu/16 and Sat/18, 7pm (also Sat/18, 2pm); Sun/19, noon and 5pm. Berkeley Playhouse performs a musical based on the candy-filled book, with songs from the 1971 movie adaptation.

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

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

BATS Improv Bayfront Theater, B350 Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.improv.org. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 8. $10-25. This week: “Five Deadly Improvisors and No Gnus is Good Gnus” (Thu/16); “Director’s Cut” (Fri/17); “Theatresports: Battle to Play LA” (Sat/18).

“Carmina Burana” Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness, SF; www.cityboxoffice.com. Fri/17-Sat/18, 8pm. $28-34. The San Francisco Choral Society promises “no ordinary” rendition of the classic, presented as a semi-staged rendition featuring Perceptions Contemporary Dance Company, the Contra Costa Children’s Choir, and other guests.

“Comikaze Lounge” Café Royale, 800 Post, SF; www.comikazelounge.com. Wed/15, 8pm. Free. Comedy showcase with headliner Natasha Muse.

“Competitive Erotic Fan Fiction” Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF; www.hemlocktavern.com. Wed/15, 6pm. $10. Ten comedians write and perform erotic fan fiction, with audience input.

Ian Edwards Punchline, 444 Battery, SF; www.punchlinecomedyclub.com. Wed/15-Fri/17, 8pm (also Fri/17, 10pm); Sat/18, 7:30 and 9:30pm. $15-21. The stand-up comedian performs.

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

“Electile Dysfunction: The Kinsey Sicks for President” Rrazz Room, 222 Mason, SF; www.therrazzroom.com. Wed/15-Sat/18, 8pm; Sun/19, 7pm. $35-40. The “dragapella beautyshop quartet” satirizes the upcoming election.

“House Special” ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; www.odctheater.org. Sat/18, 8pm. $10-30. ODC Theater presents works-in-progress by David Schleiffers, Anna Sullivan, and Kim Yaged.

“Landscape of the Body” Exit Stage Left, 156 Eddy, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Thu/16-Sat/18, 8pm (also Sat/18, 3pm). $15. Bigger Than a Breadbox Theatre Co. presents John Guare’s play about a single mother in 1970s Greenwich Village.

“Live at Deluxe” Club Deluxe, 1511 Haight, SF; comedyatdeluxe.wordpress.com. Mon/20, 9pm. $5. Comedy showcase with headliner Sammy K. Obeid.

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

“Merola Grand Finale” War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness, SF; www.sfopera.com. Sat/18, 7:30pm. $25-45. The operatic training program celebrates its final concert of the summer season.

“Richmond-Ermet AIDS Foundation presents a Special One-Night Only Benefit Concert” Marines Memorial Theater, 609 Sutter, SF; www.helpisontheway.org. Mon/20, 7:30pm. $25-45. With Katya Smirnoff-Skye, SF Gay Men’s Chorus ensemble Vocal Minority, and cast members from Les Misérables.

“Ricky Star’s Planet: One-Man Comedy Show” Actors Theatre of San Francisco, 855 Bush, SF; youtube.com/rickystar5. Mon/20, 8pm. The stand-up comedian performs.

“San Francisco Improv Festival” Eureka Theater, 215 Jackson, SF; www.sfimprovfestival.com. Aug 16-25. $5-35. With local improv talent including BATS Improv, Un-Scripted Theater Company, San Jose ComedySportz, and more.

“Stepology presents the 2012 Bay Area Rhythm Exchange” Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF; www.cityboxoffice.com. Sat/18, 8pm. $17-25. This dance and live music performance is part of the Bay Area Tap Festival’s 10th anniversary celebration.

“Sunk in Sleep” CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; www.counterpulse.org. Fri/17-Sun/19, 8pm. $20. Bianca Cabrera’s Blind Tiger Society presents a new evening-length dance work.

Stage Listings

Andrew Lam
-
0

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

THEATER

OPENING

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

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

ONGOING

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BAY AREA

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

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

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

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

The Kipling Hotel: True Misadventures of the Electric Pink ’80s Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through Aug 26. This new autobiographical solo show by Don Reed, writer-performer of the fine and long-running East 14th, is another slice of the artist’s journey from 1970s Oakland ghetto to comedy-circuit respectability — here via a partial debate-scholarship to UCLA. The titular Los Angeles residency hotel was where Reed lived and worked for a time in the 1980s while attending university. It’s also a rich mine of memory and material for this physically protean and charismatic comic actor, who sails through two acts of often hilarious, sometimes touching vignettes loosely structured around his time on the hotel’s young wait staff, which catered to the needs of elderly patrons who might need conversation as much as breakfast. On opening night, the episodic narrative seemed to pass through several endings before settling on one whose tidy moral was delivered with too heavy a hand, but if the piece runs a little long, it’s only the last 20 minutes that noticeably meanders. And even with some awkward bumps along the way, it’s never a dull thing watching Reed work. (Avila)

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

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

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

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

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

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

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

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

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

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

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

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

desserts and dance to benefit ODC’s future programs.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BAY AREA

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

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

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

Best of the Bay 2012: BEST YOU BETTA WORK

-
0
Best of the Bay 2012: BEST YOU BETTA WORK

Voguing — that drop-dead fabulous and seriously competitive gay African American dance-battle art form — has recently come back into the spotlight, with a new generation of club kids and art queens taking to the floor to chop, mop, drop, drag, gag, and get “cunty.” San Francisco, of course, has put its own spin on the high-attitude, limb-flinging style that originated in the ’70s in underground ballrooms on the East Coast, transforming the dance into a way to get in shape. You may not have come from the streets, but you’re going to leave Vogue and Tone with amazing thighs, honey. The wiggy workout class — Tuesdays, 7-8:30pm, at Dance Mission Theater and Thursdays, 8:30-9:45pm, at ODC Commons — is led by kicky, spinny showman Sir JoQ, a.k.a. Jocquese Whitfield. The dance has also hit the club circuit, leaping on a recent trend of retro-style dance-floor workout sessions, so be on the lookout and don’t throw shade. If all you know of vogue is that old Madonna track, it’s time to get in-shape and up-to-date.

www.dancemission.com

Werk It Out! dances under the disco ball

Andrew Lam
-
0

Add a disco ball to any situation and you will not decrease its likelihood of becoming a party. When I stopped by ODC Theater earlier this week to snap some photos of the Alyce Finwall Dance Theater‘s rehearsals for the upcoming three-day dance festival Werk It Out!, it appeared that the dancers were in a festive mood. Werk It Out! features performances by six up-and-coming Bay Area choreographers, including Alyce Finwall, Minna Harri, Tanya Bello, Christine Bonansea, Michelle Fletcher, and Malinda LaVelle.

The pieces incorporate music ranging from the Beach Boys to Biosphere and themes revolve around a variety of topics — relationships and sexuality are there in spades, just like at any good party. Some pieces request audience participation, so make sure you’re wearing dancing shoes. From the preview I was able to see this week, this dance showcase is not to be missed, and not only because over it all spins that fabulous, glittering disco ball.

Werk It Out!

Fri/20, 8pm; Sat/21, 3pm and 8pm; Sun/22 3pm, one performance $25, festival pass $50-$60

ODC Theater

3153 17th St., SF

www.odcdance.org

1...456...12Page 5 of 12

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