Parking Archives — Page 12 of 39 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

Easy honors

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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January 10, 2012

virginia@sfbg.com

APPETITE It’s true: the East Bay cocktail scene is growing by leaps and bounds lately, with a slew of new bars (many opened by San Francisco bar stars) popping up from Albany to Alameda. Two comfortable new hangouts just debuted Jan. 3, serving cocktails for the geek and casual imbiber alike. Both claim noteworthy bartenders covering various shifts. I spent an evening tasting through their menus. Here’s an early peek at cocktail stand-outs at these two. For more exciting drink destinations in the East Bay, click here.

HONOR BAR

Situated in its own building — with parking lot — not far from Emeryville’s shopping center madness (and E-ville’s other shining bar beacon, Prizefighter, www.prizefighterbar.com, which opened at the end of 2011), Honor Bar serves gourmet pub food in a room glowing with vintage signs, a Creature from the Black Lagoon pinball machine, and granite red bar at the center of it all. After passing through an entrance lined with cigar signs, records, even a stuffed owl, grab a beer from a tub of ice. It’s all on the honor system, so ask a bartender to add it to your tab. (No surprise: this is already garnering early buzz).

Cocktail menu quality was pretty much guaranteed under bar manager Alex Smith who came from SF’s Gitane. I’ve written about his exquisite drinks at Gitane few times, and was unsurprised to find his offerings at Honor Bar more casual but nonetheless sophisticated, easily exhibiting promise at this early date to be among the best cocktails in the East Bay.

While slurping oysters with St. Germain herb mignonette or dipping Kennebec fries ($3.50) in salt and vinegar aioli or Serrano ham jelly, select from cocktails (all $10) grouped under “stirred” (spirituous) or “shaken” (mixed with other ingredients). I was immediately won over by gently smoky, spicy, bright layers of the Porfiriato. Tequila, guajillo pepper-infused mezcal, Cocchi di Torino, Licor 43, and cinnamon bitters meld in a complex yet drinkable whole.

The spirit of tiki hovers over but does not overwhelm the bourbon-based Bleeding Monarch. Passion fruit lends a tropical air, orgeat adds texture, balsamico amaro and Campari finish with deliciously bitter undertones. Black Sabbath is as badass as it sounds: Laphroiag Scotch dominates with a rough and tumble, smoky presence, given nuance by Averna, absinthe, and orange bitters.

Smith’s established skill with sherry shows in Jenkins’ Ear, highlighting oloroso sherry with aged rum, Angostura bitters and cardamom-spice properties of Hum liqueur — no element out of balance. Dessert with a savory essence can be had in a Winter Flip. Whole egg softens brandy and tawny port, while Smith’s housemade Indian pudding is a cream base (rather than a thick pudding) for layers of spice.

1411 Powell, Emeryville, (510) 653-8667, www.honorbar.com

THE NEW EASY

In Oakland’s Grand Lake district, Easy Lounge closed, transforming into the New Easy. Big Easy inspiration is evident in upcoming Nola Sundays with BBQ, punch bowls (proceeds go to charities), and New Orleans tunes. The space is funky, eclectic, charming, with boozy quotes etched into one wall, stars painted on another, white lights draped over individual picnic tables. The small back patio is warmed by heat lamps and a skeleton gazing over cactus plants.

The welcoming neighborhood joint focuses on farmers market ingredients. Each Saturday a new menu of cocktails is created using ingredients from the big Grand Lake Farmers Market a block away.

Summer-Jane Bell not only created the menu but was hands-on with space design elements, painting stars as she crafted the menu. Her winning bartender team includes Yael Amyra (Circolo, Burritt Room), Ian Adams (15 Romolo, Orson), David Ruiz (Mr. Smith), and Morgan Schick (Nopa, Michael Mina).

Bell’s menu is decidedly playful, reminiscent of American childhood… but with booze. The festive theme starts as you receive Chinese take-out boxes of fresh-popped popcorn, while bites of mini sliders and grilled cheese sandwiches are passed around. I had the most fun with Mad Hatter ($10). Sailor Jerry rum and a spicy ginger soda are obvious mates, but the bright orange, creamy drink surprises with golden raisin puree and carrot juice. Bright and healthy, spice and sweetness (but not too much) make it a delightful alternative to an orange creamsicle.

Gift Horse ($9) was probably the most balanced, making fine use of Hayman’s Old Tom gin, which I haven’t seen much on cocktail menus in awhile. Dolin Blanc vermouth and Bell’s winter bitters made with a tequila base, unfold in floral, dry layers with notes of cranberry and fennel from the bitters.

Winter Sideshow ($11) offers the most spectacle, even if I prefer the former two drinks. The drink will change with the seasons, a base of Beefeater gin and Pür Spiced Blood Orange liqueur the backdrop for Angostura-flambeed kumquats, lit before you.

3255 Lakeshore Ave., Oakl., 510-338-4911, www.easy510.com

Subscribe to Virgina’s twice-monthly newsletter, The Perfect Spot, www.theperfectspotsf.com

Bikes and sailboats

Andrew Lam

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January 10, 2012

8

OPINION I’m not much of a sailor. In fact, I’ve been known to turn more than a little green when venturing out on the bay under sail. So it may seem a little odd that I am excited about the America’s Cup regatta coming to San Francisco. This high-profile international yacht race has the potential to accomplish even more impressive feats on land than on water, ultimately leaving a legacy of safer streets and more accessible neighborhoods.

An anticipated five million spectators will put the city’s transportation infrastructure to the test. It starts this summer with the qualifying races, then ramps up in summer, 2013, when upward of a half million people are expected to travel to the waterfront on peak race days.

There’s no possible way to move all of these people around this tightly packed city in cars. For proof, talk to anyone who’s been near the waterfront during Fleet Week, a traffic nightmare at a fraction of the size of the America’s Cup.

The Mayor’s Office plan for the America’s Cup wisely puts bicycle transportation front and center. Event planners and politicians know that traffic and parking constraints will preclude many from driving, and transit capacity can be stretched only so far so fast.

Event organizers propose investing in a robust bike share program, park-and-ride lots where visitors can ditch their cars on the edge of the city and pedal the last few miles, and plenty of secure valet bike parking lots.

The most important component is ensuring that the city also invests in safe, comfortable routes welcoming the wide diversity of people who will be trying out two wheels — people who are likely to continue biking long after the events if they have a good experience.

A top priority must be the Embarcadero. Already an enormously popular — and overcrowded — bike route for locals and visitors, the Embarcadero should be made more welcoming to the huge numbers of people who will be drawn there on bikes and by foot.

On big event days, the plan calls for temporarily designating an existing travel lane as bicycle-only space and freeing up the pathway for walking — a more comfortable set-up for everyone.

I urge city leaders to take advantage of this opportunity to pilot a permanent, dedicated bikeway on the waterside of the roadway — the EmBIKEadero. It’s a low-cost, easy way to reconnect people with the waterfront and offer an unparalleled biking experience.

Imagine riding on a mini-version of Sunday Streets on the Embarcadero any day of the week. Imagine a New York City-style high line for S.F.’s waterfront, from Mission Bay to the Golden Gate Bridge. Imagine a way to connect diverse neighborhoods and draw people to local businesses…long after the yachts have left the bay.

The city should also use the momentum behind the America’s Cup to test other opportunities for safe, more welcoming streets, including Polk Street, a major connector to the northern waterfront and already an important route for the growing number of people biking in San Francisco.

Market Street should continue to be a site for innovation. Recent pilot programs prioritizing biking, walking, and transit are already proving to save bus riders time and the Muni system big dollars.

The America’s Cup is our opportunity not only to stage a world-class event, but to build toward a world-class bicycling city.

Leah Shahum is executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. To learn more about the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition’s vision for the EmBIKEadero, see connectingthecity.org

The 49ers in SF? Give it up

Zelda Bronstein

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January 10, 2012

4

Some folks just won’t accept the reality that the 49ers are gone. It’s over: The team is moving to Santa Clara. And you know what? It’s not the end of the world.

There’s not going to be a new billion-dollar football stadium in San Francisco, and for one very good reason: Nobody wants to pay for it. With all the financial problems facing this city, there’s no way the taxpayers are going to cough up that kind of money. Mike Antonini’s shadowy “investment company” doesn’t seem likely to put up the money; that’s not how stadiums are built. And the Niners owners, who could afford it, have made it clear they want public money to pay for their grand spanking new private castle.

When the Giants were talking about bulding a new stadium downtown, team representatives got the message loud and clear: San Francisco wasn’t going to pay the tab. So the team raised the money itself, got the approvals and built a park that has brought a significant amount of new economic activity into the city. It’s helps immensely that the Giants did something else — they didn’t try to build a parking lot. No public money, no parking — and look what we got: A stadium people walk or bike or ride transit to — and a thriving business district that lives off the money people spend drinking and eating before and after the games.

You don’t get that at Candlestick. Everyone drives in, watches the game, and drives away. That’s partially a football culture thing — football fans tend to like tailgate parties. But businesses in the area don’t get a whole lot of patronage from Niners fans (many of whom come from the Peninsula anyway).

So losing the team — other than the indignity of somebody talking about the “Santa Clara 49ers” — isn’t such a big deal for San Francisco. It’s too bad — done right, in the right location, a privately funded football stadium with very limited parking could be a cool thing for this city. But that’s not what the York family wants. So let the suckers in Santa Clara spend their money on it — and deal with the traffic and the fact that nobody will stick around after the game for a beer or a burger in any local restaurant.

Besides: Anyone with any sense knows that baseball is better live and football is better on TV.

Editor’s notes

Andrew Lam

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January 3, 2012

0

tredmond@sfbg.com

My gut response to the America’s Cup was always like this: I love a party. I love a big party, and a party that brings lots of visitors and money into San Francisco is a great thing. But you have to remember that at some point the party will be over, and somebody’s got to clean up the mess and pay for the damage.

And right now, in San Francisco, when the party’s over, the big winner will be a multibillionaire named Larry Ellison, and the rest of us will be paying for it.

That said, the party’s going to happen. There may be a little bluster about the Environmental Impact Report, but the 34th America’s Cup race will take place in the waters of the San Francisco Bay, and a whole lot of people will be coming into town to see it.

So we better be ready, and I’m not sure we are.

I read the draft EIR section dealing with transportation and traffic, and it’s kind of crazy. The planners are projecting about 25,000 new vehicle trips a day — and that’s just into San Francisco. Sausalito and the East Bay cities will have their own issues. There are pictures of projected parking areas along the waterfront, including Crissy Field. There are plans to close the Embarcadero, but only the northbound lanes.

Additional Muni service will be able to handle about 1,200 riders a day. That’s way less than five percent of the number of people who are projected to be getting around by car.

So maybe San Francisco should try something radical that would last way beyond the sailing event. Why don’t we see what it would look like if we banned cars from the entire waterfront, closed all the streets and created a real transit-first city — at a time when the whole world will be watching?

No cars at all. Buses for seniors and people with disabilities. Everyone else walks, bikes, or takes a pedicab (that’s a whole lot of jobs, by the way, particularly for young people who can pedal). Could one of the most environmentally conscious cities in the world pull that off? It’s worth a try.

Battling big box

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January 3, 2012

1

news@sfbg.com

In neighborhood commercial districts, national chains and other formula retail stores such as PETCO, Target, Subway, Walmart, and Starbucks are hot button issues for residents who don’t want to see San Francisco turn into a strip mall or have local money pulled from the community.

Sup. Eric Mar and other city officials want to make sure local small businesses aren’t being unnecessarily hurt by competition from national chains, which is why he called a hearing on Dec. 5 to discuss big box retailers and their impacts on San Francisco’s small businesses, neighborhoods, workers, and economy.

“There is no vehicle to see the impacts of big business on the city,” Mar told us, saying he is contemplating legislation to do just that.

Mar was part of city efforts to keep formula pet stores from locating in the Richmond area, working with a coalition of pet food small businesses concerned about PETCO and Pet Food Express trying to move into the area. But it isn’t just pet stores.

“There is a perception that Walmart might make a move into the city since we already have stores like Fresh n’ Easy,” Mar’s Legislative Aide Nick Pagoulatos told us.

The city doesn’t have a comprehensive analysis on how these companies impact San Francisco. Mar says he wants to “have a clear scale of their influence and see what we need to do to protect small business in San Francisco.”

History of wariness

In 2004, the Board of Supervisors adopted the first Formula Retail Use Control legislation, an ordinance that “prohibited Formula Retail in one district; required Conditional Use Authorization in another; and established notification requirements in all neighborhood commercial districts.”

The Planning Code changed again after a voter ballot initiative in 2007, Proposition G, required any formula retail use in neighborhood commercial districts to obtain a conditional use permit, which gave neighboring businesses a chance to weigh in during a public hearing.

Mar said the intent wasn’t to bar big box retail from entering the city, but to simply give neighborhoods a voice. But now, he said the city needs to take a more comprehensive look at what’s coming and how they will impact the city.

Small Business Commissioner Kathleen Dooley echoed the concern, which extends even beyond city limits. “I’ve heard through the rumor mill that Lowe’s in South San Francisco is going to close and

Walmart is looking to take that space since they know they’d never get into the city,” she told us. “It’s bad enough that Target is opening stores [in San Francisco]. They are the quintessential big box because they sell everything.”

Target is in the process of opening a massive store inside the Metreon in SoMa, and another store at Geary and Masonic. Mar isn’t diametrically opposed to the big box industry, but he thinks those companies should be appropriately situated.

“I’ve seen that people in Richmond are positive toward big box like Target coming into the district, but some are nervous that it will take down business,” he told us. “There are some property spaces that are supposed to be for big box, like the property at Geary and Masonic where the old Sears and Toys”R”Us used to be.”

But it’s not easy to figure out what other big box stores have their sights set on the city. The Planning Department’s list of projects in the pipeline aren’t always filed under the name of the business, making it difficult to stay vigilant.

For example, while application #3710017 at 350 Mission Street describes the project as a “95,000 sq. ft. building of office, retail and accessory uses,” it isn’t clear what businesses are actually setting up shop. And these days, some big box stores are coming in smaller boxes.

Prototype stores such as Unleashed by PETCO are specifically designed to squeeze into smaller property spaces so they can get into neighbor corridors that are typically reserved for small businesses.

More help needed

During the Dec. 5 hearing before the Land Use and Economic Development Committee, Sup. Scott Wiener echoed Mar concerns, commenting that he wants to see how the Planning Commission could “improve the Conditional Use process since we see a pushback of strong neighborhood activity.”

Dooley recalled an issue from 2009 when the Small Business Commission formally asked the Planning Commission not to authorize a PETCO in the Richmond because “the surrounding area was already well served by pet stores.” The board ultimately stopped PETCO, but Pet Food Express did locate a store nearby, which Dooley said has already taken a toll on the locally owned pet food suppliers.

“Big box stores carry a huge number of products that impact other stores,” she said. “Big box is a category killer in the neighborhood…the Planning Commission needs new criteria for formula retail because there are several different types.”

Some superstores require parking lots, taking up additional land, and increasing traffic in certain neighborhoods. Yet one trait that most chain stores have in common is that they extract more money from San Francisco than locally owned businesses, whose revenues tend to circulate locally.

“With every dollar spent at local stores, 65 cents will go back into the community, while only a quarter will be returned from a big box.” Rick Karp, owner of the 50-year-old Cole Hardware, said at the hearing, citing various studies on the issue.

Small business owners are asking for economic impact reports to be included in project applications from chain stores to see just how they measure up to their locally owned counterparts.

When Lowe’s entered his district, Karp says he lost 18 percent of his business and was forced to eliminate six full-time jobs. He appealed to city officials to “keep big box out of San Francisco because it impacts the efficacy of neighborhood shopping.”

Once chain stores puts the locals out of business, the consumer is stuck with set prices and reduced variety. But critics say it isn’t just consumers and small business owners who suffer, but workers as well. They singled out Walmart as notorious for union-busting and poor labor standards.

“We can use our land use ordinances and powers to set a basic minimum labor standard. Big box must abide by that and also include health care if implemented in local government [legislation],” Mar said.

But Steven Pitts, a labor policy specialist at UC Berkeley, told us there is a connection between low prices and low wages.

“People who work at Walmart are poorer than those who shop there,” he told us. “Therefore, if prices were raised to increase wages for employees, the burden wouldn’t be on people of lower income.”
Opposing Walmart

To illustrate how Walmart would adversely affect San Francisco’s workforce, the hearing included two employees of Walmart, Barbara Collins and Ronald Phillips from Placerville, who helped create Organization United for Respect at Walmart (OURWalmart) to push for better benefits and labor standards.

“We want to hold Walmart accountable,” said Collins, whose last annual income from Walmart was $15,000 annually, a salary she realized couldn’t support her four children. “Walmart says they pay living wages. No, they don’t.”

Phillips said that Walmart has “a tendency to fire people for any reason and then does not have to pay for the benefits… I was one of these people, but I was rehired.”

For the past three months, Phillips says she has worked at least six days and 40 hours per week, but that she still qualified for welfare assistance.

Also at the hearing, SF Locally Owned Merchants Alliance unveiled a study showing that formula retail costs nearly as many jobs as it creates. A domino effect occurs when stores close because fewer customers circulate to other nearby stores.

But the group noted that consumer habits are probably even more important than city regulations. The SFLOMA study found that if 10 percent of San Franciscans shifted their spending to locally owned small businesses, consumers would create 1,300 jobs and $190 million in the city.

And that would be good for everyone: owners, consumers, and workers. Steven Cornell, owner of Brownie’s Hardware, said that small business pays good wages, typically above the minimum wage, as well as sick leave, health coverage, and other benefits. As he told the hearing, “Local businesses have been doing this for 20 to 30 years since we are already invested in the community.”

Editor’s notes

Andrew Lam

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December 27, 2011

4

Tredmond@sfbg.com

I’m not good at holidays. When your world is made of deadlines, the holidays are just one more — gotta get the kids presents, gotta get the tree, gotta make plans, gotta do dinner … one more set of hassles. Bah humbug.

And I’ve never been a big fan of New Year’s Eve. Too many people acting like they’ve never been drunk before and will never be drunk again, and everything costs too much. I drink every day; I can miss New Year’s Eve. Party pooper.

So I don’t do my own new year’s resolutions; I do them for other people. This is what I would like everyone else to do in 2012:

I would like the Occupy organizers to put together a massive day of teach-ins and a march on Washington in the spring, to keep the movement alive and bring in a lot more people.

I would like my fellow dog owners to pick up the shit off the sidewalks.

I would like the Department of Parking and Traffic to put up No Left Turn signs on 16th Street at Potrero and Bryant.

I would like Visconti to lower the price on that really cool lava fountain pen.

I would like the transportation whizzes at City Hall to figure out how to put bike lanes on Oak Street so I can ride back from Golden Gate Park as safely as I can ride to the park.

I would like the supervisors to change the rules for Question Time so the mayor doesn’t get all the questions in advance and there’s a chance for real discussion that isn’t stupid and boring.

I would like middle school English teachers in San Francisco to explain to their students that homeless people are not “hobos.”

I would like the Obama Administration to quit hassling pot dispensaries.

I would like the airlines to start serving cocktails before takeoff.

I would like the thriller writers of America to learn how to write decent sex scenes.

I would like Jerry Brown to endorse the initiative to outlaw the death penalty.

I would like everyone in politics to stop saying the words “together” and “shared” since we aren’t together and I don’t want to share with the rich.

Anything else? Happy New Year.

Warren Hellman, the 1 percent exception

Sasha Cuttler

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December 19, 2011

103

San Francisco lost a piece of its soul when Warren Hellman died last night. In a deeply polarized city, where Occupy’s paradigm of the 99 percent versus the 1 percent resonates more than anywhere, Hellman showed how an extremely wealthy investment banker could champion the interests of all San Franciscans.

I first got to know Warren in 2007 when I did a series of in-depth interviews with him for a Guardian cover story. Before that, he had been a bit of a villain to progressives as he worked with his downtown friends, such as the late Gap founder Don Fisher, to fund political initiatives and groups that aggressively pushed a pro-business agenda, from the Committee on Jobs to the parking garage under Golden Gate Park.

Born into the family that founded Wells Fargo Bank, he became the youngest partner to join Lehman Brothers before founding one of San Francisco’s largest investment banking firms, Hellman was solidly in the 1 percent. But he was a curious man with a good heart, compassionate soul, nimble mind, and strong sense of integrity.

So when the progressives he previously battled over the parking garage pushed for more car-free hours in the park – something Hellmann and his allies had pledged to support if the garage was built – he joined them and battled with his former garage allies who had abandoned that pledge, eventually forcing a compromise when it seemed the car-free crowd was headed for defeat.

That was the reason I got to know him and the focus on my “Out of downtown” story, but it was only the beginning. I came to know about how he was spending his money to help the schools and the poor, about his generous/selfish gift of the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, and about his belief that George W. Bush and other neo-conservatives – those who so shamelessly and short-sightedly helped consolidate this country’s wealth in fewer and fewer hands – were sullying his Republican Party.

So we stayed in touch and had early morning breakfasts together every six months or so, talking about the issues of the day. We talked about Burning Man, an event he loved and one I was covering and writing a book about. He listened as I complained about my shrinking staff at the Guardian and how the contraction of journalism was bad for San Francisco, and we talked through some possible solutions.
It bothered Warren to see the San Francisco Chronicle being decimated by an out-of-town corporation, and he wanted to help. So he took that kernel of an idea, mulled it, and discussed it with a wide variety of people who had expertise on the topic, just as he would do with his myriad investment banking ideas.

And with that steady heat that he applied to this kernel, he popped it into The Bay Citizen, a non-profit professional newsroom that has already done a great service to San Francisco, and which owes its existence to Hellman, who subsidized it with millions of dollars of his own money and encouraged his rich friends to give millions more. That is among his many legacies, although he was probably most proud of the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, probably the country’s best free concert. Warren loved that music, and he told me it was mostly because it told the stories of common people so beautifully. “The kind of music is the conscience of our country,” he told me. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors last week offered a bit of appreciation for Warren’s gift, renaming the main venue of Speedway Meadows as Hellman’s Hollow.

I’ll let the Bay Citizen and other media outlets write Warren’s full obituary. What I’m choosing to think about now is the man, and he is someone who I will truly miss. San Francisco just won’t be the same place without the example he set, but I hope it lives on in the hearts and minds of those in a position to help San Francisco find its heart and realize its potential.

Nite Trax: The Gathering raves past 20

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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December 15, 2011

7

Talking to founder Martin O’Brien about the party crew’s latest get-together — and an upcoming film about the early Bay rave scene

Earlier this year, SF’s Wicked rave crew celebrated 20 years, and now another seminal and actually legendary party, The Gathering, will mark two full decades of debauchery on Sat/17 (10pm-6am, check the website for location and price — it’s ravey that way! — and here’s the Facebook invite). This party will feature an all-star lineup of much-loved DJs, from Justin Martin and many of the cross-pollinating Wicked and Sunset party DJs to Raindance’s Little John and club stalwart Toph One.

The Gathering started when promoters from separate, then-smaller parties — Malachy from Come-Unity, Tony from Destiny, Kenny and Harry from Pieces, and Martin Eklypz — decided to combine forces for something huge, “and the circle was complete” according to the Gathering’s legend. “Malachy busted out an old Hopi prophecy book” with a passage for that year, 1991, that read:

“For those that stay here on Grandmother Earth, they will totally gain the light of the great light wheel. There will be one planet, one humanity composed of all the different ways of dances in complete harmony in the gathering together circle. In 1991 the seeds will be planted … “

(I remember arriving in Northern Cali from my own much more aesthetically materialist — as in physically grounded — rave tradition in Detroit, and being shocked by the spiritualism and cultural appropriation of the scene here: the prayer circles, Indian invocations, candle-lighting ceremonies, and Buddhist overtones that eventually coalesced into Burning Man culture as the regular rave scene slowly retreated into shadows. I’ve grown to look upon it all fondly as an expression of, and hope for, transcendent possibility.)

Early clips of The Gathering:

I’m really excited about this 20-year shindig — it will now actually be a gathering of some of our scene’s acknowledged masters letting their hair down. I’m not sure if it’s all-ages yet, but I’m thinking there will be a god-sized contingent of the young and curious talented as well. (Thd Gathering has been throwing annual get-togethers for a while now, but this one should be extra-special.)

I got to exchange a few questions via email with The Gathering’s Martin — Martin O’Brien of Mo Films, that is, here’s a good recent radio interview with him — about the Gathering and an upcoming film he’s working on with DJ Jeno of Wicked (also spinning at the party) about the early Bay Area rave scene.

SFBG Can you share a favorite memory of one of the early Gatherings? I know there are a ton …

MARTIN Wow, a favorite memory. What a question. Well… I will have a quick smoke, that normally gets the creative juices flowing ;-).. i’m back.. 🙂

One of my favorite memories of The Gathering rave parties would be when the hill caught fire at the Let Freedom Rave festival (later shortened to Freedom) on July 3rd, 1993, at Sand Hill Ranch in Brentwood. It may sound like a sandy hill should not catch on fire, but there in fact there was a lot of brush and small trees, and it caught fire real fast, with a little help from a bottle rocket.. it was July 4th weekend after all 🙂

The place went into a bit of a panic, the music stopped, and thousands of people ran out of the festival into the parking lot, but some brave souls led by a off-duty fire fighter ran up the hill, with dozens of five gallon water bottles from the free water bar. The guy led them above the fire as he knew it would it would naturally burn uphill, and they made a fire break by pouring the water along a line across the hill (it was a big hill!!)

They grabbed fallen branches of trees, used their jackets, anything they could find and beat the fire out! People were dancing on the f’in flames, they wanted the party to go on that much. It was spectacular! When the throngs of people in the parking lot saw the fire was out, they all came running into the party by the thousands. DJ Jeno pulled the perfect track out to kick off the party again, with a vocal that said “for those of you who can feel the fire burning, check this out” and BOOM!! The bass kicked and the place went absolutely ballistic!!

SFBG What are some of the challenges to putting on an event now compared to back in the day?

MARTIN Putting on parties back in the day was a lot harder. Remember, we were trying to stay one step ahead of Johnny Law, breaking into warehouses, doing mad parties all night long with no permits in all kinds of strange locations. Plus today’s rave promoters are very limited in where they can hold their events, especially the bigger ones. Rave is still a four letter word to a lot of the general public, and to the powers that be.

SFBG Do you still follow the techno and house scene as much now?

MARTIN Yes I do still love the music, and go out to some events for sure. Sunset parties, Friends & Family, and others. That love of the music never really goes away, a person may stop going out a lot, or even stop going out altogether, but the music never leaves your heart. For sure it was combination of many elements that made raves so special and potentially life-changing, but the music was the driving force that people resonated with because it was self interpretive, and you could go on an inner journey to make your self a better person.

SFBG You’re doing a film about the early Bay rave scenewith Jeno from Wicked, yes? Can you tell me a bit about it and when will it be released?

http://vimeo.com/18228601

MARTIN Yes, Jeno and I are making the documentary, with our partners Robbie Proctor and Mike Koeppel. It is a Lunar-tic / Mofilms production. The film is titled (R)evolutions, it is a feature-length documentary that will take you on a fascinating journey through the early days of the San Francisco rave underground. Emerging from a city with a long history of fostering counterculture, it was an evolutionary social movement stemming from a diverse community of Americans and expats that embraced technology, psychedelia, music, and dance. Renegade in nature, DIY in spirit, these all-night electronic-music dance parties became a catalyst in the lives of so many who experienced them. It is beautifully shot in high-definition, with amazing archival footage that takes you back in time. The film features interviews with many of the pioneers who helped develop a cultural phenomenon that continues on globally to this day. The soundtrack made up of the music from the era, seamlessly stitched together into a live DJ set by our very own DJ Jeno. We are currently doing the final sound mix at Skywalker Sound (Lucas Film) in Marin.

We are almost done with this behemoth of a project, that we have been working hard on for close to two years now. I am sure the question on peoples’ minds is when can we see it. In fact I believe I have heard people say “I can’t wait to see it”, a thousand times. Believe me, we cannot wait to show the film to everyone, as soon as we possibly can. So we have entered a few top tier film festivals, The San Francisco International Film Festival, and South by Southwest, to name but a few, and plan to secure a North American theatrical distribution deal by being in one of these festivals. So all going well, people will be able to see the documentary screened here in San Francisco in April, or in Austin Texas in March. It would then come out in theaters in North America a few months after that.

And if people want to see any of my Mofilms company’s previous films, they can watch them free of charge at www.mofilms.org

FULL GATHERING LINEUP:

DJs

MARKIE – Wicked

TONY – The Gathering / Funky Tekno Tribe

JENO – Wicked / The Gathering

JUSTIN MARTIN – Dirty Bird SF

GALEN – Sunset / Pacificsound

SOLAR – Sunset / Pacificsound

ETHAN MILLER – Friends & Family

CARLOS – Area 51

LITTLE JOHN – Raindance

RICK PRESTON – Viva/Worship/Eight-Tracks

TophOne (Pepper/ Late Train/ RedWine)

Dj Chai & MO Corleone – Want it!

VISUAL ARTISTS:

Michael K Matel

Slide and Spin Productions

Lightsout! Lightshow

Stage Listings

Andrew Lam

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December 13, 2011

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

ONGOING

Absolutely San Francisco Alcove Theater, 414 Mason, Ste 502, SF; (415) 992-8168, www.thealcovetheater.com. $32-50. Thurs/15, Sat/15, Dec 22, and 29, 8pm; Sun/11, Sun/18, 4pm. Not Quite Opera Productions presents Anne Nygren Doherty’s musical about San Francisco, with five characters all portrayed by Mary Gibboney.

Cinderella Buriel Clay Theater, African American Art and Culture Complex, 762 Fulton, SF; 1-800-838-3006, www.african-americanshakes.org. $10-35. Fri/16-Sat/17, 8pm; Sun/18, 3pm. African-American Shakespeare Company opens its season with a re-telling of the fairy tale set in the bayous of Louisiana.

Dr. Strangelove: LIVE Dark Room, 2263 Mission, SF; www.darkroomsf.com. $20. Thurs/15-Sat/17, 8pm. Stage adaptation of Stanley Kubrick’s classic cold war comedy.

The Golden Girls: The Christmas Episodes Victoria Theatre 2961 16th St, SF; www.trannyshack.com. $30. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 23. Despite the unseasonably warm weather last week, it was beginning to feel a lot like Christmas, circa 1987, thanks to the return of four luminous drag queens and a little TV-to-stage holiday special that, after six years, can safely be called a San Francisco tradition. Heklina (Dorothy), Pollo Del Mar (Rose), Matthew Martin (Blanche), and Cookie Dough (Sophia) are the older ladies of Miami, delivering verbatim two episodes of the famed sitcom, each with a special gay yuletide theme — fleshed out by special guests Laurie Bushman (as Blanche’s gay kid brother Clayton) and Manuel Caneri (as thinly disguised lesbian Jean). (Opening night also saw special appearances by morning-radio personalities and emcees Fernando Ventura and Greg Sherrell.) Of course, a Word for Word production this isn’t. Knowing drag mischief and unflappable performances allow a certain welcome latitude in attitude, not to mention costuming, which is wonderful in that Pasadena estate sale way: a veritable bazaar of ’80s bizarre. (Avila)

*The Kipling Hotel: True Misadventures of the Electric Pink ’80s Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat/17, 8:30pm; Sun/18, 7pm. 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)

Ladies in Waiting Exit Stage Left, 156 Eddy, SF; www.horrorunspeakable.com. $20. Thurs/15-Sat/17, 8pm. No Nude Men Productions presents three one-acts by Alison Luterman, Claire Rice, and Hilde Susan Jaegtnes.

The Last Five Years Boxcar Playhouse, 505 Natoma, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $20-35. Thurs/15-Sat/17, 8pm; Sun/18, 2pm. Poor Man’s Players performs Jason Robert Brown’s relationship drama as its inaugural production.

Mommy Queerest Bindlestiff Studio, 185 Sixth St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $15-25. Thurs/15-Sat/17, 8pm. Kat Evasco performs her autobiographical show about being the lesbian daughter of a lesbian mother.

Not Getting Any Younger Marsh San Francisco, Studio Theater, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thurs/15-Fri/16, 8pm; Sat/17, 8:30pm. Marga Gomez is back at the Marsh, a couple of too-brief decades after inaugurating the theater’s new stage with her first solo show — an apt setting, in other words, for the writer-performer’s latest monologue, a reflection on the inevitable process of aging for a Latina lesbian comedian and artist who still hangs at Starbucks and can’t be trusted with the details of her own Wikipedia entry. If the thought of someone as perennially irreverent, insouciant, and appealingly immature as Gomez makes you depressed, the show is, strangely enough, the best antidote. (Avila)

*On the Air Pier 29 on the Embarcadero (at Battery), SF; (415) 438-2668, love.zinzanni.org. $117 and up (includes dinner). Showtimes vary, through Dec 31. Teatro ZinZanni’s final production at its longtime nest on Pier 29 is a nostalgia-infused banquet of bits structured around an old-time radio variety show, featuring headliners Geoff Hoyle (Geezer) and blues singer Duffy Bishop. If you haven’t seen juggling on the radio, for instance, it’s pretty awesome, especially with a performer like Bernard Hazens, whose footing atop a precarious tower of tubes and cubes is already cringingly extraordinary. But all the performers are dependably first-rate, including Andrea Conway’s comic chandelier lunacy, aerialist and enchanting space alien Elena Gatilova’s gorgeous “circeaux” act, graceful hand-balancer Christopher Phi, class-act tapper Wayne Doba, and radio MC Mat Plendl’s raucously tweeny hula-hooping. Add some sultry blues numbers by raunchy belter Bishop, Hoyle’s masterful characterizations (including some wonderful shtick-within-a-shtick as one-liner maestro “Red Bottoms”), a few classic commercials, and a healthy dose of audience participation and you start to feel nicely satiated and ready for a good cigar. Smoothly helmed by ZinZanni creative director Norm Langill, On the Air signals off-the-air for the popular dinner circus — until it can secure a new patch of local real estate for its antique spiegeltent — so tune in while you may. (Avila)

*Period of Adjustment SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; (415) 677-9596, www.sfplayhouse.org. $20-50. Tues-Thurs, 7pm (also Dec 21-22, 2pm); Fri-Sat, 9pm (also Sat, 3pm; no show Dec 24). Through Jan 14. A nervous young man with an unaccountable tremor, George Haverstick (a compellingly manic Patrick Alparone) has waited until his honeymoon to finally call on his old Korean War buddy, Ralph (a stout but tender Johnny Moreno) — only to drop his new bride, Isabel (the terrifically quick and sympathetic MacKenzie Meehan), at the doorstep and hurry away. As it happens, Ralph’s wife of five years, Dorothea (an appealing Maggie Mason), has just quit him and taken their young son with her, turning the family Christmas tree and its uncollected gifts into a forlorn monument to a broken home — which, incidentally, has a tremor of its own, having been built atop a vast cavern. Tennessee Williams calls his 1960 play “a serious comedy,” which is about right, since although things end on a warm and cozy note, the painful crises of two couples and the lost natures of two veterans — buried alive in two suburbs each called “High Point” — are the stuff of real distress. SF Playhouse artistic director Bill English gets moving but clear-eyed, unsentimental performances from his strong cast — bolstered by Jean Forsman and Joe Madero as Dorothea’s parents—whose principals do measured justice to the complex sexual and psychological tensions woven throughout. If not one of Williams’s great plays, this is an engaging and surprisingly memorable one just the same, with the playwright’s distinctive blend of the metaphorical and concrete. As a rare snowfall blankets this Memphis Christmas Eve, 1958, something dark and brooding lingers in the storybook cheer. (Avila)

A Tale of Two Genres SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; (415) 869-5384, www.un-scripted.com. $10-20. Thurs-Sat and Dec 20-21, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm). Through Dec 21. Un-Scripted Theater Company presents an improvised musical inspired by Charles Dickens.

The Temperamentals New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; (415) 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Wed/14-Sat/17, 8pm; Sun/18, 2pm. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs Jon Marans’ drama about gay rights during the McCarthy era.

Three Sisters Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; (415) 255-8207, www.42ndstmoon.org. $20-50. Wed/14, 7pm; Thurs/15-Fri/16, 8pm; Sat/17, 6pm; Sun/18, 3pm. 42nd Street Moon performs Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II’s World War I-set musical.

Totem Grand Chapiteau, AT&T Park, Parking Lot A, 74 Mission Rock, SF; cirquedusoleil.com/totem. $58-248.50. Wed/14-Sat/17, 8pm (also Thurs/15-Sat/17, 4pm); Sun/18, 1 and 5pm. Cirque Du Soleil returns with its latest big-top production.

The Treasure of the Himawari Shrine: Another Mr. YooWho Adventure NOHspace, 2840 Mariposa, SF; 1-800-838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $5-18. Fri/16-Sat/17, 7pm; Sun/18, 3pm. Master clown Moshe Cohen’s creation Mr. YooWho returns with a Japan-set adventure.

*Working for the Mouse Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $22. Thurs/15-Sat/17, 8pm. It might not come as a surprise to hear that even “the happiest place on earth” has a dark side, but hearing Trevor Allen describe it during this reprise of 2002’s Working for the Mouse will put a smile on your face as big as Mickey’s. With a burst of youthful energy, Allen bounds onto the tiny stage of Impact Theatre to confess his one-time aspiration to never grow up — a desire which made auditioning for the role of Peter Pan at Disneyland a sensible career move. But in order to break into the big time of “charactering,” one must pay some heavy, plush-covered dues. As Allen creeps up the costumed hierarchy one iconic cartoon figure at a time, he finds himself unwittingly enmeshed in a world full of backroom politics, union-busting, drug addled surfer dudes with peaches-and-cream complexions, sexual tension, showboating, job suspension, Make-A-Wish Foundation heartbreak, hash brownies, rabbit vomit, and accidental decapitation. Smoothly paced and astutely crafted, Mouse will either shatter your blissful ignorance or confirm your worst suspicions about the corporate Disney machine, but either way, it will probably make you treat any “Casual Seasonal Pageant Helpers” you see running around in their sweaty character suits with a whole lot more empathy. (Note: review from the show’s recent run at La Val’s Subterranean in Berkeley.) (Gluckstern)

Xanadu New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; (415) 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Jan 15. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs the retro roller-skating musical.

BAY AREA

The Chalk Boy La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $12-20. Thurs/15-Sat/17, 8pm. Impact Theatre performs Joshua Conkel’s black comedy.

*The Glass Menagerie Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; www.marintheatre.org. $34-55. Wed/14, 7:30pm; Thurs/15-Sat/17, 8pm (also Sat/17, 2pm); Sun/18, 2 and 7pm. Marin Theatre Company marks the Tennessee Williams centennial year with a worthy production of the play that first made him a success on Broadway in 1945. Its pronounced modernism, poetic spirit, and latent sexual content contribute to a sense that it was ahead of its time, despite the embrace of contemporary audiences, and it still roils with the yearning and anguish of boxed-in lives — as well as the echo of another Depression’s larger discontents. MTC artistic director Jasson Minadakis places his sure cast on an appropriately abstract set, evoking the labyrinth of a poor St. Louis apartment building and enlivened by a living portrait of the long-gone, footloose family patriarch (soulful trumpeter Andrew Wilke, who underscores each shade of the play’s complex moods). As son and narrator Tom, immersed in wistful memories, actor Nicholas Pelczar is a wholly sympathetic pressure cooker of competing desires, frustrated potential, and precocious compassion — heated by the generous flames of an indomitable and domineering Southern mother (a terrific Sherman Fracher) and his damaged sister, Laura (a quietly intelligent and tremulous Anna Bullard). The action culminates with the arrival of the “gentleman caller” for Laura, the unwitting Jim O’Connor (a pitch-perfect Craig Marker), a workmate of Tom’s now somewhat deflated from former high school glory but a firm believer in Dale Carnegie-style self-improvement. This well-meaning all-American ass gives Laura what amounts to a single fleeting brush with happiness — a brush that coincides with his jostling of her titular table of fragile figurines and the neutering of her precious unicorn. It’s a tribute to the enduring power of the playwright — and a capable, engrossing production — that the overt metaphor is no impediment here, but an integral piece of a solid drama that reflects its poetic nature back like an achingly delicate, coruscating piece of glass. (Avila)

*God’s Plot Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; (510) 841-6500, www.shotgunplayers.org. $18-27. Thurs, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm (starting Dec 21, also runs Wed, 7pm). Through Jan 15. Playwright-director Mark Jackson excavates a bit of deep history for Occupy USA, an episode in the annals of colonial American theater and jurisprudence that played, and plays, like a rehearsal for a revolution — this time with music. Capping Shotgun Players’ 20th anniversary season of new work, God’s Plot comically animates and literally underscores (through song, and irresistible banjo and bass accompaniment courtesy of Josh Pollock and Travis Kindred) the story surrounding “Ye Bare and Ye Cubb,” a play performed in 1665 Virginia but now lost. The legal battle that engulfed this satire of the English crown and its economic and political domination of the colonies was an early instance of the close but little acknowledged relationship between art and politics in proto-American society, with much too of religious conflict in the mix (personified here by a powerfully smoldering John Mercer as closet-Quaker Edward Martin). The playwright, a brash self-inventor named William Darby (a sure, charismatic Carl Holvick-Thomas), colludes with a disgruntled merchant (Anthony Nemirovsky) and a former indentured servant climbing the social ladder as a new tenant hand (Will Hand). Darby, meanwhile, is secretly wooing — and even more, being wooed by — Tryal Pore (an ebullient, magnetic Juliana Lustenader), a young woman even braver and more outspoken than he. As an expression of her novel and unbridled spirit, Tryal alone breaks into song to express her feelings or observations. Her temperament is meanwhile a source of worry to her father (a comically deft Kevin Clarke) and mother (Fontana Butterfield), but also attracts an unwitting suitor (a compellingly serious Joe Salazar). The play’s overarching narrative of nationalist ferment, which reaches an overtly stirring pitch, thus comes mirrored by the tension in two dramatic triangles whose common point is the precocious, golden-throated Tryal Pore. More of the private drama might have served the overall balance of the play, but a good part of the achievement of director Jackson and his generally muscular cast is making a complex play of enduring ideas and conflicts look so effortless and fun. (Avila)

The Secret Garden TheatreWorks at Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; (650) 463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. $19-72. Tues-Wed, 7:30pm; Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm; Dec 24, shows at 1 and 6pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Dec 31. TheatreWorks performs the Tony Award-winning musical adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s novel.

The Soldier’s Tale Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; (510) 843-4822, www.auroratheatre.org. $10-55. Wed/14-Sat/17, 8pm; Sun/18, 2 and 7pm. It has all the hallmarks of greatness: puppetry, finely-honed chamber music, a noteworthy composer, a fresh translation, a prima ballerina, a note-worthy cast and crew, and an enviable collaboration with one of the consistently pitch-perfect directors in the Bay Area. Even so “The Soldier’s Tale,” at the Aurora Theatre, doesn’t quite feel like a fully-realized theatrical production, but rather an highly-ambitious workshop. The relatively straightforward storyline, narrated by L. Peter Callender—a soldier strikes an ill-fated Faustian bargain with the smooth-talking Devil, a gleefully wicked Joan Mankin—becomes bogged down in its staging, principally between the soldier, a four-foot tall puppet, and his mostly-puppeteer Muriel Maffre, a six-foot tall dancer. Not only does it become quickly apparent that Maffre’s puppeting skills, while earnest, don’t impart the vital spark of life into her shuffling charge, but she then abandons him to the stage crew halfway through the show in order to portray the ailing daughter of the king. Her short but sweet, balletic interpretation of the role is definitely the evening’s highlight, and while it is commendable for her to also choose to serve in the role of puppeteer, it doesn’t quite transport the imagination. However, the Stravinsky score, inventively performed by a quartet of Earplay ensemble players, directed by Mary Chun, does. (Gluckstern) *The Wild Bride Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-73. Tues, Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Thurs and Sat, 2pm; no matinee Thurs/15); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm; no matinee Jan 1). Through Jan 1. In the first act of Kneehigh Theatre’s The Wild Bride, the destinies of an innocent girl (Audrey Brisson), her moonshine-making father (Stuart Goodwin), and a predatory devil in a cheap suit (Stuart McLoughlin) become inextricably entwined by an ill-fated bargain. Steeped in European fairytale logic and American folk and blues music, Bride is inventively staged at the base of a giant tree, combining mime, puppetry, dance, live music, Cirque du Soleil-style vocals, acrobatics, and taut verse into a swooping, expressionistic fable. Accidentally promised to the devil by her doting but drink-dulled dad, “The Girl” suffers first the creepy indignity of being perved on by her preternatural suitor, and secondly the horror of having her hands chopped off by her own father, actions which drive her to flee into the woods, morphing into a character known only as “The Wild” (played by Patrycja Kujawska). After a stint as an unlikely, Edward Scissorhands-esque queen, The Wild too is driven from comfort and morphs a second time into a third character “The Woman” (Éva Magyar), an experience-toughened mother bear who kicks the devil’s ass (literally), and triumphs over adversity, without even uttering a single word. At turns dark, dexterous, fanciful, and fatal, Bride rises above the usual holiday fare with a timeless enchantment. (Gluckstern)

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh Berkeley, TheaterStage, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Sun and Dec 26-30, 11am (no show Dec 25). Through Dec 31. Louis “The Amazing Bubble Man” Pearl returns with this kid-friendly, bubble-tastic comedy.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

“Cut the Crap! With Semi-Motivational Guru, Clam Lynch” Dark Room, 2263 Mission, SF; www.darkroomsf.com. Dec 16, 10:30pm; Jan 6, Jan 13, 8pm. $15. Get motivated with self-help-guru-satirizing comedian Clam Lynch.

“Ha Ha Ho Ho Holiday Show” Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.ticketmaster.com. Sat, 8pm. $40. Comedian Paula Poundstone performs.

“The Jewish Nutcracker, A Maccabee Celebration” ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; www.odcdance.org. Thurs-Sat, 2 and 6pm; Sun, 2pm. $15-25. World Dance Fusion presents its second annual production of the classic ballet, re-imagined with a Hanukkah twist.

“KMLZ Holidaze” Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Sat, 7 and 10pm. $15-25. Sketch comedy troupe Killing My Lobster takes on the season.

Mark Foehringer Dance Project | SF Children’s Creativity Museum, 221 Fourth St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Sat-Sun, 11am, 2pm, 4pm; Dec 20-23, 11am and 2pm. Through Dec 23. $20-35. The contemporary ballet company performs Mark Foehringer’s Nutcracker Sweets.

“Oy Vey in a Manger” Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF; (415) 392-4400, www.cityboxoffice.com. Sat, 8pm. $28-39. “America’s Favorite Dragapella Beautyshop Quartet,” the Kinsey Sicks, perform a holiday musical.

“San Francisco One-Minute Play Festival” Thick House Theater, 1695 18th St, SF; www.playwrightsfoundation.org. Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. $20. Playwrights Foundation hosts this second annual fest of very, very short plays by 32 Bay Area authors.

Smuin Ballet Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.smuinballet.org. Wed/14-Sat/17 and Dec 20-23, 8pm (also Sat/17 and Dec 21, 2pm); Sun/18, 2 and 7pm; Dec 24, 2pm. $65. The company performs its acclaimed tribute to the holidays, The Christmas Ballet.

“Yes Sweet Can” Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St, SF; (415) 225-7281, www.sweetcanproductions.com. Fri/16-Sat/17 and Dec 30, 8pm (also Dec 30, 4pm); Sun/18, 6pm; Dec 27-29, 2:30 and 4:30pm; Dec 31-Jan 1, 2pm. $15-60. Sweet Can Productions presents an hourlong extravaganza of circus arts for the holidays.

Editor’s notes

Andrew Lam

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December 13, 2011

68

tredmond@sfbg.com

Twenty years ago, if you mapped income distribution in San Francisco on a standard graph, you’d see what the economist call a bell curve: At one end were a small number of very poor families, at the other a small number of very rich, and in between the bulk of the city was somewhere roughly close to what you could call middle class.

Take the 2012 census data and make that graph today and you get the opposite — it’s becoming a U-shape, with more people in poverty and more gross wealth and not as much in the center.

You could see that on stark display at City Hall Dec 12.

At 10 a.m., the City Operations and Neighborhood Services Committee heard several hours of testimony on the alarming rise in the number of homeless families. In the end, the Mayor’s Office agreed to find $3 million to help out.

At 1 p.m., the Land Use and Economic Development Committee heard testimony on a plan to build more housing — on the waterfront, for the top one quarter of the top one percent of the richest people in America, people who will need more than $3 million just for the downpayment on their new digs.

The plan calls for 145 of what Port of San Francisco officials call “high end” or “luxury” condominiums, along with 400 underground parking spaces. “It’s going to be tight on three levels,” a Port official testified. “Most of it will be valet parking.” The developer wants to raise the height limit along the waterfront for the first time in half a century.

The Port, which controls some of the land, will get a cut of all the condo sales, maybe as much as $500,000 a year; that money will go to rebuild old piers and fund a long list of Port projects — including the America’s Cup. (Ted Gullicksen of the San Francisco Tenants Union was sitting next to me at the hearing, and he shook his head at that bit of news. “Condos for rich people to pay for boats for rich people,” he said.)

A long list of people, including former City Planning Director Alan Jacobs and former City Attorney Louise Renne — spoke against the project. Jacobs and Renne both explained that this was single-site spot zoning that would change the half-century consensus that the city should “decrease height toward the waterfront so the people can see and enjoy the meeting of land and water,” as Jacobs put it.

Jacobs gave the committee members his one “absolute truth” about city planning: “If a developer accepts and knows that a rule can’t be broken, then it will be economical to build within it. If he or she think it can be changed, then suddenly it will not be economical. It’s called greed.”

In other words, Simon Snellgrove, the developer of 8 Washington, could make money with a lower-scale project that conforms to existing height limits. But he can make more money if the city gives him a big honkin favor.

But it’s not all about height limits for me. It’s not even about the fact that the project will chop up a tennis and swimming club that serves about 2,000 more-or-less middle-class people in an effort to make life nicer for about 145 very rich people.

It’s about what kind of housing we’re building in San Francisco. “Every study that we’ve seen shows that we’ve vastly overbuilt housing for the wealthy,” Gullicksen testified.

And we’re not just talking the ordinary wealthy here. The most compelling testimony came from Frederick Allardyce, a real-estate broker from Sotheby’s who said he had been involved in the sale of about 70 percent of all luxury condos sold from Washington St. to the waterfront. He gave us a glimpse of who would be living — sort of — at 8 Washington.

The cheapest condos would require an income of $469,000, a downpayment of $625,000, and another $493,000 of liquid reserves. Monthly payment: $13,699. The higher-end units would require an annual income of $1.029 million and a downpayment of $6.5 million.

“That’s not the one percent,” he said. “It’s the top one quarter of the top one percent.”

And, Allardyce explained, most of the people who buy that level of property are so rich that they don’t actually live there. It’s a second or third or fourth home, a place to stay a few weeks out of the year. And since the project involves chopping up a tennis and swim club used by some 2,000 people (who are nowhere near that rich), “you’re eliminating the use of that land by the general public” in favor of a tiny elite.

The developer says that the city will get money to build 33 below-market-rate units. That’s nice; by that standard, 80 percent of the new housing goes to the richest people in the world, and 20 percent for everyone else. That percentage ought to be reversed — and until it is (or at least, until we have a plan to build enough affordable housing for the people who really need a place to live in San Francisco) I can’t imagine why we’d want to be doing favors to feed the greed of developers.

What we’re doing in this city is making life harder for low-income people who are increasingly living on the streets and doing big favors for the spectacularly wealthy. There’s no sanity in our housing policy — except to turn San Francisco even more into a city of the rich.

Just pho you

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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December 6, 2011

0

le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

CHEAP EATS I can’t tell you how many times in my life I have been sitting in Java Supreme dunking a biscotti and discussing literature and pork with Earl Butter, and then I have to use the bathroom so I go home.

Yeah, well turnabout is fair play, according to Skeeter Willis and others. Some L.A. friends of Hedgehog were here, and wanted to bum around the Mission with us. One thing we did was I took them to meet Stoplight. But I don’t exactly live in my apartment anymore. We were hoping Stoplight would be out back outside (where he mostly is), and accepting visitors (which he mostly isn’t). As a result, we wound up waiting around in my building’s birdseed covered courtyard, discussing literature and pork, until I had to use the bathroom so we went to Java Supreme.

In truth, this happened twice, and both times I got coffee, because even though the Java people know me, and know that I’ve been dipping my biscotti into their coffee for 20 years, without hardly ever using the facilities … still, I like to set a good example: the restroom is for paying customers only.

So I kept drinking, to earn my pee, and then kept needing to pee on account of all the coffee I was drinking. This was a slippery slope, destined to leave me penniless and friendless, pretty much living on the toilet and pissing off basically everyone.

Except that, luckily, Hedgehog’s L.A. friends needed to be getting on back to L.A., and we had offered to drive them as far as Colma, where their car was parked. After dinner.

They wanted Chinese, but Mission Chinese doesn’t open for dinner until 5, and it’s a what, a six hour drive to L.A.? Or longer — at the end of a holiday weekend.

None of us had had lunch. We couldn’t wait. We went to San Tung, which I like anyway better than Mission Chinese. It was only 4:30. There was a parking space right in front. It was surreal: For the first time ever, we not only sat right down but had a choice of tables.

Then came one of the what-the-fuckest things that ever happened to me in a restaurant: nothing. It took them 20 minutes to find the time to take our order. By which time the place did get crowded. Another party of four sat at the other end of our table, ordered after us, and were served before. Which would be one thing. But. A half hour before??? I’m not exaggerating. And we’d ordered many of the same dishes!

Not only did we have to watch them smugly munching their chicken wings while our end of the table was dying of malnutrition, they were boxing up their leftovers, divvying up the bill, and putting on their coats before half of our dishes were even served. To get any of them at all, we had had to go knock on the kitchen door. Figuratively speaking.

That’s crap, and so is San Tung. Henceforth. In my opinion.

My new favorite restaurant is Pho Saigon II, in Richmond at the Pacific East Mall. I went there on the day after Thanksgiving, on Black Friday, to a mall! But I went there for a massage, and to eat pho, so, no, I have not lost my mind completely.

It’s that Asian mall, you know, with 99 Ranch, which I love. Well, there’s a place in there, upstairs, where you can get an hour-long massage for $20. Crawdad told me about it. The Jungle told her.

Now I’m telling you. And:

Pho Saigon II, for all its fluorescence and atmospherelessness, has good, cheap pho. I would think this would go without saying, but, get the beef. Hedgehog, who prefers pho ga, or chicken noodle soup, was sorely disappointed in hers. And I second her disappointment. The broth was lame and the chicken very dry.

The rare steak in my soup was perfect and pink, and the noodles were good, and the broth … just so.

After lunch, come to think of it, we did do a little shopping. We bought three kinds of rice noodles at 99 Ranch. Oh, and I also stepped into one of those little doodad stores and bought a cute little eraser for Hedgehog. I was their only customer. Pepper spray did not play a role.

PHO SAIGON II

Sun.-Thu.: 10 a.m.-9 p.m.; Fri.-Sat. 10 a.m.-10 p.m.

3288 Pierce St., Suite A116, Richmond

(510) 528-6388

Cash only

No alcohol

Stage Listings

Andrew Lam

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December 6, 2011

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

THEATER

ONGOING

Absolutely San Francisco Alcove Theater, 414 Mason, Ste 502, SF; (415) 992-8168, www.thealcovetheater.com. $32-50. Schedule varies, through Dec 29. Not Quite Opera Productions presents Anne Nygren Doherty’s musical about San Francisco, with five characters all portrayed by Mary Gibboney.

Cinderella Buriel Clay Theater, African American Art and Culture Complex, 762 Fulton, SF; 1-800-838-3006, www.african-americanshakes.org. $10-35. Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat/10, 3pm); Sun, 3pm. Through Dec 18. African-American Shakespeare Company opens its season with a re-telling of the fairy tale set in the bayous of Louisiana.

Dr. Strangelove: LIVE Dark Room, 2263 Mission, SF; www.darkroomsf.com. $20. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 17. Stage adaptation of Stanley Kubrick’s classic cold war comedy.

*Fela! Curran Theatre, 445 Geary, SF; www.shnsf.com. $31-200. Wed/7-Sat/10, 8pm (also Wed/7 and Sat/10, 2pm); Sun/11, 2pm. Director-choreographer Bill T. Jones’s highly successful Off-Broadway to Broadway musical (with book by Jones and Jim Lewis; additional lyrics by Lewis; and additional music by Aaron Johnson and Jordan McLean) proves worth the hype. With a prodigious performance at the center of it all by Sahr Ngaujah (rotating in the title role with Adesola Osakalumi), this is less a biography than euphoric and vehement musical party, sermon, and political rally at once. At the same time, enough of the career and times of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti (1938–1997) come through — amid a gorgeous video-enhanced street-art design scheme, and ecstatic live music and choreography deployed with contagious bravado — that there is no missing the contemporary relevance in the Nigerian Afrobeat legend and popular activist-outlaw who stood up for a devastated population against the Western imperialism and international corporate tyranny fronted by Nigeria’s oil-trading military regime. The only thing that would make this show better would be seeing it down at an Occupy encampment. (Avila)

The Golden Girls: The Christmas Episodes Victoria Theatre 2961 16th St, SF; www.trannyshack.com. $30. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 23. Despite the unseasonably warm weather last week, it was beginning to feel a lot like Christmas, circa 1987, thanks to the return of four luminous drag queens and a little TV-to-stage holiday special that, after six years, can safely be called a San Francisco tradition. Heklina (Dorothy), Pollo Del Mar (Rose), Matthew Martin (Blanche), and Cookie Dough (Sophia) are the older ladies of Miami, delivering verbatim two episodes of the famed sitcom, each with a special gay yuletide theme — fleshed out by special guests Laurie Bushman (as Blanche’s gay kid brother Clayton) and Manuel Caneri (as thinly disguised lesbian Jean). (Opening night also saw special appearances by morning-radio personalities and emcees Fernando Ventura and Greg Sherrell.) Of course, a Word for Word production this isn’t. Knowing drag mischief and unflappable performances allow a certain welcome latitude in attitude, not to mention costuming, which is wonderful in that Pasadena estate sale way: a veritable bazaar of ’80s bizarre. (Avila)

*The Kipling Hotel: True Misadventures of the Electric Pink ’80s Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through Dec 18. 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)

Ladies in Waiting Exit Stage Left, 156 Eddy, SF; www.horrorunspeakable.com. $20. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 17. No Nude Men Productions presents three one-acts by Alison Luterman, Claire Rice, and Hilde Susan Jaegtnes.

Language Rooms Thick House, 1695 18th St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $20-28. Thurs/8-Sat/10, 8pm; Sun/11, 7pm. The immigrant experience has some familiar familial dynamics across the board. Parents, for instance, can easily discover their Americanized children becoming embarrassed by the older generation’s “foreign” ways. Allegiances potentially strain much further, however, when the immigrant story gets entwined with a little narrative called the “war on terror.” That’s the volatile mixture at the center of Yussef El Guindi’s Language Rooms, a somewhat uneven but ultimately worthwhile new play that leverages absurdist comedy to interrogate the perversion of basic human sympathies post-9/11. Seattle-based playwright El Guindi (whose other Bay Area productions include Back of the Throat and the hilarious Jihad Jones and the Kalashnikov Babes) well knows that the transformation of nightmare into bureaucratic routine is a reality sometimes best broached in a comic vein. (Avila)

The Last Five Years Boxcar Playhouse, 505 Natoma, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $20-35. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Dec 18. Poor Man’s Players performs Jason Robert Brown’s relationship drama as its inaugural production.

Mommy Queerest Bindlestiff Studio, 185 Sixth St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $15-25. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 17. Kat Evasco performs her autobiographical show about being the lesbian daughter of a lesbian mother.

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

*On the Air Pier 29 on the Embarcadero (at Battery), SF; (415) 438-2668, love.zinzanni.org. $117 and up (includes dinner). Showtimes vary, through Dec 31. Teatro ZinZanni’s final production at its longtime nest on Pier 29 is a nostalgia-infused banquet of bits structured around an old-time radio variety show, featuring headliners Geoff Hoyle (Geezer) and blues singer Duffy Bishop. If you haven’t seen juggling on the radio, for instance, it’s pretty awesome, especially with a performer like Bernard Hazens, whose footing atop a precarious tower of tubes and cubes is already cringingly extraordinary. But all the performers are dependably first-rate, including Andrea Conway’s comic chandelier lunacy, aerialist and enchanting space alien Elena Gatilova’s gorgeous “circeaux” act, graceful hand-balancer Christopher Phi, class-act tapper Wayne Doba, and radio MC Mat Plendl’s raucously tweeny hula-hooping. Add some sultry blues numbers by raunchy belter Bishop, Hoyle’s masterful characterizations (including some wonderful shtick-within-a-shtick as one-liner maestro “Red Bottoms”), a few classic commercials, and a healthy dose of audience participation and you start to feel nicely satiated and ready for a good cigar. Smoothly helmed by ZinZanni creative director Norm Langill, On the Air signals off-the-air for the popular dinner circus — until it can secure a new patch of local real estate for its antique spiegeltent — so tune in while you may. (Avila)

*Period of Adjustment SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; (415) 677-9596, www.sfplayhouse.org. $20-50. Tues-Thurs, 7pm (also Dec 21-22, 2pm); Fri-Sat, 9pm (also Sat, 3pm; no show Dec 24). Through Jan 14. A nervous young man with an unaccountable tremor, George Haverstick (a compellingly manic Patrick Alparone) has waited until his honeymoon to finally call on his old Korean War buddy, Ralph (a stout but tender Johnny Moreno) — only to drop his new bride, Isabel (the terrifically quick and sympathetic MacKenzie Meehan), at the doorstep and hurry away. As it happens, Ralph’s wife of five years, Dorothea (an appealing Maggie Mason), has just quit him and taken their young son with her, turning the family Christmas tree and its uncollected gifts into a forlorn monument to a broken home — which, incidentally, has a tremor of its own, having been built atop a vast cavern. Tennessee Williams calls his 1960 play “a serious comedy,” which is about right, since although things end on a warm and cozy note, the painful crises of two couples and the lost natures of two veterans — buried alive in two suburbs each called “High Point” — are the stuff of real distress. SF Playhouse artistic director Bill English gets moving but clear-eyed, unsentimental performances from his strong cast — bolstered by Jean Forsman and Joe Madero as Dorothea’s parents—whose principals do measured justice to the complex sexual and psychological tensions woven throughout. If not one of Williams’s great plays, this is an engaging and surprisingly memorable one just the same, with the playwright’s distinctive blend of the metaphorical and concrete. As a rare snowfall blankets this Memphis Christmas Eve, 1958, something dark and brooding lingers in the storybook cheer. (Avila)

A Tale of Two Genres SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; (415) 869-5384, www.un-scripted.com. $10-20. Thurs-Sat and Dec 20-21, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm). Through Dec 21. Un-Scripted Theater Company presents an improvised musical inspired by Charles Dickens.

The Temperamentals New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; (415) 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Dec 18. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs Jon Marans’ drama about gay rights during the McCarthy era.

Three Sisters Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; (415) 255-8207, www.42ndstmoon.org. $20-50. Wed, 7pm; Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 6pm (also Sat/10, 1pm); Sun, 3pm. Through Dec 18. 42nd Street Moon performs Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II’s World War I-set musical.

Totem Grand Chapiteau, AT&T Park, Parking Lot A, 74 Mission Rock, SF; cirquedusoleil.com/totem. $58-248.50. Tues-Sun, schedule varies. Extended through Dec 18. Cirque Du Soleil returns with its latest big-top production.

The Treasure of the Himawari Shrine: Another Mr. YooWho Adventure NOHspace, 2840 Mariposa, SF; 1-800-838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $5-18. Fri-Sat, 7pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Dec 18. Master clown Moshe Cohen’s creation Mr. YooWho returns with a Japan-set adventure.

*Working for the Mouse Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $22. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 17. It might not come as a surprise to hear that even “the happiest place on earth” has a dark side, but hearing Trevor Allen describe it during this reprise of 2002’s Working for the Mouse will put a smile on your face as big as Mickey’s. With a burst of youthful energy, Allen bounds onto the tiny stage of Impact Theatre to confess his one-time aspiration to never grow up — a desire which made auditioning for the role of Peter Pan at Disneyland a sensible career move. But in order to break into the big time of “charactering,” one must pay some heavy, plush-covered dues. As Allen creeps up the costumed hierarchy one iconic cartoon figure at a time, he finds himself unwittingly enmeshed in a world full of backroom politics, union-busting, drug addled surfer dudes with peaches-and-cream complexions, sexual tension, showboating, job suspension, Make-A-Wish Foundation heartbreak, hash brownies, rabbit vomit, and accidental decapitation. Smoothly paced and astutely crafted, Mouse will either shatter your blissful ignorance or confirm your worst suspicions about the corporate Disney machine, but either way, it will probably make you treat any “Casual Seasonal Pageant Helpers” you see running around in their sweaty character suits with a whole lot more empathy. (Note: review from the show’s recent run at La Val’s Subterranean in Berkeley.) (Gluckstern)

Xanadu New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; (415) 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Previews Wed/7-Fri/9, 8pm. Opens Sat/10, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Jan 15. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs the retro roller-skating musical.

BAY AREA

*The Glass Menagerie Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; www.marintheatre.org. $34-55. Runs Tues, Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Dec 17, 2pm); Wed, 7:30pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Dec 18. Marin Theatre Company performs the Tennessee Williams classic.

God’s Plot Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; (510) 841-6500, www.shotgunplayers.org. $18-27. Thurs, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm (starting Dec 15, also runs Wed, 7pm). Through Jan 15. Writer-director Mark Jackson’s historical drama, set in 1665 Virginia, closes out Shotgun Players’ 20th anniversary season.

Rambo: The Missing Years Cabaret at Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thurs/8-Fri/9, 7pm; Sat/10, 8:30pm. Howard “Hanoi Howie” Petrick presents his solo show about being an anti-war demonstrator — while also serving in the Army.

The Secret Garden TheatreWorks at Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; (650) 463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. $19-72. Tues-Wed, 7:30pm; Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm; Dec 24, shows at 1 and 6pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Dec 31. TheatreWorks performs the Tony Award-winning musical adaptaion of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s novel.

The Soldier’s Tale Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; (510) 843-4822, www.auroratheatre.org. $10-55. Tues, 7pm; Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Dec 18. It has all the hallmarks of greatness: puppetry, finely-honed chamber music, a noteworthy composer, a fresh translation, a prima ballerina, a note-worthy cast and crew, and an enviable collaboration with one of the consistently pitch-perfect directors in the Bay Area. Even so “The Soldier’s Tale,” at the Aurora Theatre, doesn’t quite feel like a fully-realized theatrical production, but rather an highly-ambitious workshop. The relatively straightforward storyline, narrated by L. Peter Callender—a soldier strikes an ill-fated Faustian bargain with the smooth-talking Devil, a gleefully wicked Joan Mankin—becomes bogged down in its staging, principally between the soldier, a four-foot tall puppet, and his mostly-puppeteer Muriel Maffre, a six-foot tall dancer. Not only does it become quickly apparent that Maffre’s puppeting skills, while earnest, don’t impart the vital spark of life into her shuffling charge, but she then abandons him to the stage crew halfway through the show in order to portray the ailing daughter of the king. Her short but sweet, balletic interpretation of the role is definitely the evening’s highlight, and while it is commendable for her to also choose to serve in the role of puppeteer, it doesn’t quite transport the imagination. However, the Stravinsky score, inventively performed by a quartet of Earplay ensemble players, directed by Mary Chun, does. (Gluckstern) The Wild Bride Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-73. Opens Wed/7, 8pm. Runs Tues, Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Thurs and Sat, 2pm; no matinees Thurs/8 or Dec 15); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm; no matinee Jan 1). Through Jan 1. Britain’s Kneehigh Theatre Company returns to Berkeley Rep with the American premiere of Emma Rice’s grown-up fairy tale.

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh Berkeley, TheaterStage, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Sun and Dec 26-30, 11am (no show Dec 25). Through Dec 31. Louis “The Amazing Bubble Man” Pearl returns with this kid-friendly, bubble-tastic comedy.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

“Cut the Crap! With Semi-Motivational Guru, Clam Lynch” Dark Room, 2263 Mission, SF; www.darkroomsf.com. Dec 16, Jan 6, Jan 13, 10:30pm. $15. Get motivated with self-help-guru-satirizing comedian Clam Lynch.

“Dance-Along Nutcracker: Clara’s Magical Mystery Tour” Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-ARTS, www.dancealongnutcracker.org. Sat, 7pm; Sun, 11am and 3pm. $16-50. The annual tradition returns, as the San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band presents a tribute to the Summer of Love.

“The Dog Show” Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Thurs-Sun, 8pm. $20. New performance work by Laura Arrington and Jesse Hewit/Strong Behavior.

Kunst-Stoff Kunst-Stoff Arts, One Grove, SF; www.kunst-stoff.org. Thurs-Sat, 8:30pm. $15. The contemporary dance company performs its home season, divided into three programs featuring guests and multiple premieres.

Mark Foehringer Dance Project | SF Children’s Creativity Museum, 221 Fourth St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Sat-Sun, 11am, 2pm, 4pm; Dec 20-23, 11am and 2pm. Through Dec 23. $20-35. The contemporary ballet company performs Mark Foehringer’s Nutcracker Sweets.

“The Nutcracker” Palace of Fine Arts Theater, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.cityboxoffice.com. Sat-Sun, 2pm (also Sat, 7). $20-35. City Ballet School, featuring performers ages 6-19, presents the holiday classic.

ODC/Dance Novellus Theater, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.odcdance.org. Thurs-Fri, 11am; Sat, 1 and 4pm; Sun, 2pm. $15-45. The company presents the 25th

anniversary of KT Nelson’s The Velveteen Rabbit.

“Previously Secret Information” Stage Werx, 445 Valencia, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Sun, 7pm, $15. Joel Selvin, Will and Deb Durst, Sammy Obeid, and Joe Klocek tell true tales.

“The Revolutionary Nutcracker Sweetie: The Kidz Version” Brava Theater, 2781 24th St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Sat, 2 and 6pm; Sun, 1 and 5pm. $15-17. The traditional ballet performed with a twist: Taiko drumming, hip-hop, trapeze artists, and more. Presented by Dance Brigade.

“Why Is the Fat One Always Angry” Dark Room, 2263 Mission, SF; www.kellidunham.com. Sat, 10pm, $10-20. The genderqueer Brooklynite performs her solo comedy show.

Gypsy queen

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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December 2, 2011

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SUPER EGO It was one of those nightlife experiences so magical it turned anthropological, so dreamlike it felt familiar — a long-awaited re-encounter, a foretold déjà vu, a pre-jà vu, if you will. (And I just know you will.) The dust-soaked Spanish heat, the rustle of pleated lace, the handclaps, the catcalls, the foot-stomps. Ancient, Roma-derived acoustic rhythms knotted together in the windowless tavern’s charged air, its tiled, yellowed interior crowded with dark oak tables and heavily varnished paintings — and more than a few heavily varnished patrons, besides.

Earlier this year, we’d braved a gaudy riverfront of Euro-douche tourist bars in Seville to seek out famous flamenco hideaway Casa Anselma, which instantly whisked us back hundreds of years to an idealized Spanish moment of clanking tankards, bangle-clad gypsies, passionate duels, tragic affairs, and completely bonkers over-the-top drama (not to mention stabbed bulls and expelled Jews, ahem). All the overbearing sorrow and icy hauteur of traditional flamenco was found there, but with a wink of course. The art form is nothing if not a party, with its songs about drunken flirtation and impulsive action, its motion composed of impatient seductions and ridiculous come-ons, edged toward climactic applause by alternating spells of self-conscious posing and cartoonish rejection.

And then, after her students had twirled before the claque of ace musicians, the imposing Doña Anselma herself rose, ordered all the lights out but the candle at her table — this was at three in the morning — and launched throat-first into a series of epic cantes that held us rapt for over an hour. Olé!

I recently relived that heady experience at Theatre Flamenco of San Francisco‘s “45 Años de Arte Flamenco” performance at Marines Memorial Theater. The fantastic local professional dance company — the second oldest in the state, and the first in the country to mount full-length Spanish dance numbers (www.theatreflamenco.org) — proudly fierced up rapturous chills, led by charismatic artistic director Carola Zertuche with great performances by dancers Juan Siddi and Cristina Hall, and a crackerjack band of musicians, including singer Kina Mendez and guitarists José Luis Rodriguez and José Tanaka. (Another lauded local flamenco troup Caminos Flamencos, comes to Marines Memorial Fri/2-Sun/4, www.caminosflamencos.com.)

As it happens, we have a great, free(ish) weekly flamenco fix in San Francisco — Sunday night’s Flamenco Room at Thirsty Bear Brewing Co., with shows at 7:30 and 8:30 (www.thirstybear.com/flamenco) Thirsty Bear’s a neat spot that safely navigates the heretofore undiscovered Bermuda Triangle separating zesty local microbrews, authentic Spanish tapas, and adventurous young techies. It’s super cute. The small Flamenco Room troupe, led by Kerensa DeMars, puts on an energetic but absorbing 20-or-so minute set, guitarist’s fingers and dancers’ feet flying. You can grab a housemade barleywine or a $6 beer-cheese pairing and watch from the bar, or reserve a table for a full-on tapas meal — duck rillettes and a glass of Cava, sí. Stop in on your way back from the weekend, or your way out for the week, for a hot-cool Spanish treat.

DANNY KRIVIT

I spent a good part of the late ’90s flying to NYC for the ridiculously transporting Body and Soul parties this man threw with Francois K. and Joe Clausell, mixing everything from Nuyorican funk and bebop jazz to gospel house and Detroit techno for everyone from gangstas to voguers (and gangsta-voguers). Danny’s vinyl style is expansive, witty, and welcoming, he’s a true spirit of the night.

Fri/2, 10 p.m.-4 a.m., $10 before 11 p.m., $15 after. Beatbox, 314 11th St., SF. www.beatboxsf.com

NO PARKING ON THE DANCEFLOOR

Before you groan at this party’s title, know that fab club Mighty almost got shut down by an SFMTA proposal to ban all parking and stopping in its area. (I usually take the 22 Fillmore there, but still.) An online petition went admirably viral and Mighty’s here to stay. This free “thank you” party features DJs Galen, Syd Gris, Ren the Vinyl Archeologist, and tons more SF biggies.

Fri/2, 9 p.m.-late, free. Mighty, 119 Utah, SF. www.mighty119.com

MARK E.

One of my favorite dance music producers of the past few years (not just because of his name), Birmingham, UK’s Mark E. builds meticulous, entrancing grooves out of stripped -down 90s jam loops, redlight disco snippets, and ’80s analogue overhears that teem with relaxed intelligence — and lots of sexy-sexy. Kids get down to him at this week’s Honey Sundays.

Sun/4, 9 p.m., $5. Holy Cow, 1535 Folsom, SF. Facebook: Honey With Mark E

Stage Listings

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

-

November 29, 2011

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

Cinderella Buriel Clay Theater, African American Art and Culture Complex, 762 Fulton, SF; 1-800-838-3006, www.african-americanshakes.org. $10-35. Opens Fri/2, 8pm. Runs Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat/3 and Dec 10, 3pm); Sun, 3pm. Through Dec 18. African-American Shakespeare Company opens its season with a re-telling of the fairy tale set in the bayous of Louisiana.

The Golden Girls: The Christmas Episodes Victoria Theatre 2961 16th St, SF; www.trannyshack.com. $30. Opens Thurs/1, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 23. Heklina, Cookie Dough, Matthew Martin, and Pollo Del Mar star in this drag-tastic holiday tribute to the classic sitcom.

Dr. Strangelove: LIVE Dark Room, 2263 Mission, SF; www.darkroomsf.com. $20. Opens Thurs/1, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 17. Stage adaptation of Stanley Kubrick’s classic cold war comedy.

Ladies in Waiting Exit Stage Left, 156 Eddy, SF; www.horrorunspeakable.com. $20. Opens Thurs/1, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 17. No Nude Men Productions presents three one-acts by Alison Luterman, Claire Rice, and Hilde Susan Jaegtnes.

The Last Five Years Boxcar Playhouse, 505 Natoma, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $20-35. Previews Fri/2, 8pm. Opens Sat/3, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Dec 18. Poor Man’s Players performs Jason Robert Brown’s relationship drama as its inaugural production.

Mommy Queerest Bindlestiff Studio, 185 Sixth St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $15-25. Opens Thurs/1, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 17. Kat Evasco performs her autobiographical show about being the lesbian daughter of a lesbian mother.

Three Sisters Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; (415) 255-8207, www.42ndstmoon.org. $20-50. Previews Wed/30, 7pm; Thurs/1-Fri/2, 8pm. Opens Sat/3, 6pm. Runs Wed, 7pm; Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 6pm (also Dec 10, 1pm); Sun, 3pm. Through Dec 18. 42nd Street Moon performs Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II’s World War I-set musical.

The Treasure of the Himawari Shrine: Another Mr. YooWho Adventure NOHspace, 2840 Mariposa, SF; 1-800-838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $5-18. Previews Thurs/1, 7pm. Opens Fri/2, 7pm. Runs Fri-Sat, 7pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Dec 18. Master clown Moshe Cohen’s creation Mr. YooWho returns with a Japan-set adventure.

Xanadu New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; (415) 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Previews Fri/2-Sat/3 and Dec 7-9, 8pm; Sun/4, 2pm. Opens Dec 10, 8pm. Through Jan 15. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs the retro roller-skating musical.

BAY AREA

God’s Plot Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; (510) 841-6500, www.shotgunplayers.org. $18-27. Previews Thurs/1, 7pm; Fri/2, 8pm. Opens Sat/3, 8pm. Runs Thurs, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm (starting Dec 15, also runs Wed, 7pm). Through Jan 15. Writer-director Mark Jackson’s historical drama, set in 1665 Virginia, closes out Shotgun Players’ 20th anniversary season.

The Secret Garden TheatreWorks at Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; (650) 463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. $19-72. Previews Wed/30, 7:30pm; Thurs/1-Fri/2, 8pm. Opens Sat/3, 2 and 8pm. Runs Tues-Wed, 7:30pm; Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm; Dec 24, shows at 1 and 6pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Dec 31. TheatreWorks performs the Tony Award-winning musical adaptaion of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s novel.

The Wild Bride Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-73. Previews Fri/2-Sat/3 and Tues/6, 8pm; Sun/5, 7pm. Opens Wed/7, 8pm. Runs Tues, Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Thurs and Sat, 2pm; no matinees Dec 8 or 15); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm; no matinee Jan 1). Through Jan 1. Britain’s Kneehigh Theatre Company returns to Berkeley Rep with the American premiere of Emma Rice’s grown-up fairy tale.

ONGOING

Absolutely San Francisco Alcove Theater, 414 Mason, Ste 502, SF; (415) 992-8168, www.thealcovetheater.com. $32-50. Schedule varies, through Dec 29. Not Quite Opera Productions presents Anne Nygren Doherty’s musical about San Francisco, with five characters all portrayed by Mary Gibboney.

Annapurna Magic Theatre, Bldg D, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; (415) 441-8822, www.magictheatre.org. $20-60. Wed/30-Sat/3, 8pm (also Sat/3, 2:30pm); Sun/4, 2:30pm. Magic Theatre artistic director Loretta Greco helms this new two-hander by playwright Sharr White about a dying man named Ulysses (Rod Gnapp) who gets an unexpected visit by his ex-wife, Emma (Denise Cormier), who took their young son and left him some 20 years earlier when he was still an alcoholic. Ulysses, a once respected poet living a reclusive life in his trailer home (a cluttered stick-figure set by Andrew Boyce) in a tiny Colorado town, is now dry of drink and published verse — and normally naked too (at the moment Emma shows up he happens to be frying some sausages, so he’s got a little apron on as well as an oxygen tube for his dire emphysema). But he has continued to write unanswered letters to his son and composed over years an epic work comparing love to the alluring but deadly mountaintop that gives the play its title. For her part, Emma has left her second husband in another middle-of-the-night flight, but her reasons are a little different this time. We sense she never got over Ulysses either, but there’s a nagging urgency to her arrival too related to their now grown-up son, which is gradually revealed in the course of their sometimes too glib or forced interactions. There’s more than a whiff of Sam Shepard about this lonely cowboy poet and his estrangement, but the story is not nearly as compelling or suspenseful as a Shepard play, in part because characters and plot are not very believable and the story is bluntly sentimental to boot. (Avila)

*Fela! Curran Theatre, 445 Geary, SF; www.shnsf.com. $31-200. Wed-Sat, 8pm (also Wed and Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through Dec 11. Director-choreographer Bill T. Jones’s highly successful Off-Broadway to Broadway musical (with book by Jones and Jim Lewis; additional lyrics by Lewis; and additional music by Aaron Johnson and Jordan McLean) proves worth the hype. With a prodigious performance at the center of it all by Sahr Ngaujah (rotating in the title role with Adesola Osakalumi), this is less a biography than euphoric and vehement musical party, sermon, and political rally at once. At the same time, enough of the career and times of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti (1938–1997) come through — amid a gorgeous video-enhanced street-art design scheme, and ecstatic live music and choreography deployed with contagious bravado — that there is no missing the contemporary relevance in the Nigerian Afrobeat legend and popular activist-outlaw who stood up for a devastated population against the Western imperialism and international corporate tyranny fronted by Nigeria’s oil-trading military regime. The only thing that would make this show better would be seeing it down at an Occupy encampment. (Avila)

*The Kipling Hotel: True Misadventures of the Electric Pink ’80s Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through Dec 18. 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)

Language Rooms Thick House, 1695 18th St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $20-28. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through Dec 11. The immigrant experience has some familiar familial dynamics across the board. Parents, for instance, can easily discover their Americanized children becoming embarrassed by the older generation’s “foreign” ways. Allegiances potentially strain much further, however, when the immigrant story gets entwined with a little narrative called the “war on terror.” That’s the volatile mixture at the center of Yussef El Guindi’s Language Rooms, a somewhat uneven but ultimately worthwhile new play that leverages absurdist comedy to interrogate the perversion of basic human sympathies post-9/11. Seattle-based playwright El Guindi (whose other Bay Area productions include Back of the Throat and the hilarious Jihad Jones and the Kalashnikov Babes) well knows that the transformation of nightmare into bureaucratic routine is a reality sometimes best broached in a comic vein. (Avila)

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

*On the Air Pier 29 on the Embarcadero (at Battery), SF; (415) 438-2668, love.zinzanni.org. $117 and up (includes dinner). Showtimes vary, through Dec 31. Teatro ZinZanni’s final production at its longtime nest on Pier 29 is a nostalgia-infused banquet of bits structured around an old-time radio variety show, featuring headliners Geoff Hoyle (Geezer) and blues singer Duffy Bishop. If you haven’t seen juggling on the radio, for instance, it’s pretty awesome, especially with a performer like Bernard Hazens, whose footing atop a precarious tower of tubes and cubes is already cringingly extraordinary. But all the performers are dependably first-rate, including Andrea Conway’s comic chandelier lunacy, aerialist and enchanting space alien Elena Gatilova’s gorgeous “circeaux” act, graceful hand-balancer Christopher Phi, class-act tapper Wayne Doba, and radio MC Mat Plendl’s raucously tweeny hula-hooping. Add some sultry blues numbers by raunchy belter Bishop, Hoyle’s masterful characterizations (including some wonderful shtick-within-a-shtick as one-liner maestro “Red Bottoms”), a few classic commercials, and a healthy dose of audience participation and you start to feel nicely satiated and ready for a good cigar. Smoothly helmed by ZinZanni creative director Norm Langill, On the Air signals off-the-air for the popular dinner circus — until it can secure a new patch of local real estate for its antique spiegeltent — so tune in while you may. (Avila)

*Period of Adjustment SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; (415) 677-9596, www.sfplayhouse.org. $20-50. Tues-Thurs, 7pm (also Dec 21-22, 2pm); Fri-Sat, 9pm (also Sat, 3pm; no show Dec 24). Through Jan 14. A nervous young man with an unaccountable tremor, George Haverstick (a compellingly manic Patrick Alparone) has waited until his honeymoon to finally call on his old Korean War buddy, Ralph (a stout but tender Johnny Moreno) — only to drop his new bride, Isabel (the terrifically quick and sympathetic MacKenzie Meehan), at the doorstep and hurry away. As it happens, Ralph’s wife of five years, Dorothea (an appealing Maggie Mason), has just quit him and taken their young son with her, turning the family Christmas tree and its uncollected gifts into a forlorn monument to a broken home — which, incidentally, has a tremor of its own, having been built atop a vast cavern. Tennessee Williams calls his 1960 play “a serious comedy,” which is about right, since although things end on a warm and cozy note, the painful crises of two couples and the lost natures of two veterans — buried alive in two suburbs each called “High Point” — are the stuff of real distress. SF Playhouse artistic director Bill English gets moving but clear-eyed, unsentimental performances from his strong cast — bolstered by Jean Forsman and Joe Madero as Dorothea’s parents—whose principals do measured justice to the complex sexual and psychological tensions woven throughout. If not one of Williams’s great plays, this is an engaging and surprisingly memorable one just the same, with the playwright’s distinctive blend of the metaphorical and concrete. As a rare snowfall blankets this Memphis Christmas Eve, 1958, something dark and brooding lingers in the storybook cheer. (Avila)

Savage in Limbo Actors Theatre of San Francisco, 855 Bush, SF; (415) 345-1287, www.actorstheatresf.org. $26-38. Wed/30-Sat/3, 8pm. Actors Theatre of San Francisco performs John Patrick Shanley’s edgy comedy.

SexRev: The José Sarria Experience CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; (415) 552-4100, www.therhino.org. $10-25. Fri/2-Sat/3, 8pm (also Sat/3, 10:30pm); Sun/4, 3pm. Theatre Rhinoceros performs John Fisher’s musical celebration of America’s first queer activist — a hit for the company in 2010.

A Tale of Two Genres SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; (415) 869-5384, www.un-scripted.com. $10-20. Thurs-Sat and Dec 20-21, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm). Through Dec 21. Un-Scripted Theater Company presents an improvised musical inspired by Charles Dickens.

The Temperamentals New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; (415) 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Dec 18. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs Jon Marans’ drama about gay rights during the McCarthy era.

Totem Grand Chapiteau, AT&T Park, Parking Lot A, 74 Mission Rock, SF; cirquedusoleil.com/totem. $58-248.50. Tues-Sun, schedule varies. Extended through Dec 18. Cirque Du Soleil returns with its latest big-top production.

*Working for the Mouse Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $22. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 17. It might not come as a surprise to hear that even “the happiest place on earth” has a dark side, but hearing Trevor Allen describe it during this reprise of 2002’s Working for the Mouse will put a smile on your face as big as Mickey’s. With a burst of youthful energy, Allen bounds onto the tiny stage of Impact Theatre to confess his one-time aspiration to never grow up — a desire which made auditioning for the role of Peter Pan at Disneyland a sensible career move. But in order to break into the big time of “charactering,” one must pay some heavy, plush-covered dues. As Allen creeps up the costumed hierarchy one iconic cartoon figure at a time, he finds himself unwittingly enmeshed in a world full of backroom politics, union-busting, drug addled surfer dudes with peaches-and-cream complexions, sexual tension, showboating, job suspension, Make-A-Wish Foundation heartbreak, hash brownies, rabbit vomit, and accidental decapitation. Smoothly paced and astutely crafted, Mouse will either shatter your blissful ignorance or confirm your worst suspicions about the corporate Disney machine, but either way, it will probably make you treat any “Casual Seasonal Pageant Helpers” you see running around in their sweaty character suits with a whole lot more empathy. (Note: review from the show’s recent run at La Val’s Subterranean in Berkeley.) (Gluckstern)

BAY AREA

Annie Berkeley Playhouse, Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College, Berk; (510) 845-8542, www.berkeleyplayhouse.org. $17-35. Thurs/1-Sat/3, 7pm; Sun/4, noon and 5pm. Berkeley Playhouse performs the classic musical.

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

The Soldier’s Tale Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; (510) 843-4822, www.auroratheatre.org. $10-55. Tues, 7pm; Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Dec 18. Aurora Theatre presents a re-imagined version of Igor Stravinsky’s 1918 musical by Tom Ross and Muriel Maffre.

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh Berkeley, TheaterStage, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Sun and Dec 26-30, 11am (no show Dec 25). Through Dec 31. Louis “The Amazing Bubble Man” Pearl returns with this kid-friendly, bubble-tastic comedy.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

“Camino Real” Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor, SF; (415) 419-3584, www.cuttingball.com. Sun, 1pm. Free. Cutting Ball Theater’s “Hidden Classics Reading Series” takes on Tennessee Williams.

“Cut the Crap! With Semi-Motivational Guru, Clam Lynch” Dark Room, 2263 Mission, SF; www.darkroomsf.com. Fri/2, Dec 16, Jan 6, Jan 13, 10:30pm. $15. Get motivated with self-help-guru-satirizing comedian Clam Lynch.

“An Evening With Amy Sedaris” Roxie, 3117 16th St, SF; (415) 431-3611. Sun, 7:30. $100. One more reason to love Amy Sedaris: she’s performing to benefit the Roxie Theater.

“Help Is On the Way for the Holidays X” Marines Memorial Theatre, 600 Sutter, SF; (415) 273-1620, www.helpisontheway.org. Mon, 7:30pm. $40-100. AIDS benefit concert and gala with Mary Wilson, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Sally Struthers, and other stars.

Kunst-Stoff Kunst-Stoff Arts, One Grove, SF; www.kunst-stoff.org. Thurs-Sat, 8:30pm. Through Dec 10. $15. The contemporary dance company performs its home season, divided into three programs featuring guests and multiple premieres.

“Left Coast Leaning” Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. $15. YBCA and Youth Speaks’ Living Word Project present this performance festival, featuring slam poet Rafael Casal, tap dancer Jason Samuels Smith, and others.

“Make Drag Not War 3” Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St, SF; www.veteranartists.org. Sun, 8pm. $5-20. Veteran Artists and Iraq Veterans Against the War present this benefit pairing drag queens with recent military veterans to tell their stories through drag performances.

Mark Foehringer Dance Project | SF Children’s Creativity Museum, 221 Fourth St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Sat-Sun, 11am, 2pm, 4pm; Dec 20-23, 11am and 2pm. Through Dec 23. $20-35. The contemporary ballet company performs Mark Foehringer’s Nutcracker Sweets.

ODC/Dance Novellus Theater, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.odcdance.org. Thurs/1-Fri/2 and Dec 8-9, 11am; Sat/3 and Dec 10, 1 and 4pm; Sun/4 and Dec 11, 2pm. $15-45. The company presents the 25th anniversary of KT Nelson’s The Velveteen Rabbit.

“Picklewater Clown Cabaret Adult Xmas Pageant” Stage Werx, 446 Valencia, SF; www.picklewater.com. Mon, 7 and 9pm. $15. A variety show that celebrates all the winter holidays in one.

Printz Dance Project Z Space, Theater Artaud, 450 Florida, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Wed-Sat, 8pm. $22-25. The company performs its evening-length dance performance Hover Space. 2

Stage Listings

Andrew Lam

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November 22, 2011

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

ONGOING

Absolutely San Francisco Alcove Theater, 414 Mason, Ste 502, SF; (415) 992-8168, www.thealcovetheater.com. $32-50. Schedule varies, through Dec 29. Not Quite Opera Productions presents Anne Nygren Doherty’s musical about San Francisco, with five characters all portrayed by Mary Gibboney.

Annapurna Magic Theatre, Bldg D, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; (415) 441-8822, www.magictheatre.org. $20-60. Showtimes vary, through Dec 4. Magic Theatre artistic director Loretta Greco helms this new two-hander by playwright Sharr White about a dying man named Ulysses (Rod Gnapp) who gets an unexpected visit by his ex-wife, Emma (Denise Cormier), who took their young son and left him some 20 years earlier when he was still an alcoholic. Ulysses, a once respected poet living a reclusive life in his trailer home (a cluttered stick-figure set by Andrew Boyce) in a tiny Colorado town, is now dry of drink and published verse — and normally naked too (at the moment Emma shows up he happens to be frying some sausages, so he’s got a little apron on as well as an oxygen tube for his dire emphysema). But he has continued to write unanswered letters to his son and composed over years an epic work comparing love to the alluring but deadly mountaintop that gives the play its title. For her part, Emma has left her second husband in another middle-of-the-night flight, but her reasons are a little different this time. We sense she never got over Ulysses either, but there’s a nagging urgency to her arrival too related to their now grown-up son, which is gradually revealed in the course of their sometimes too glib or forced interactions. There’s more than a whiff of Sam Shepard about this lonely cowboy poet and his estrangement, but the story is not nearly as compelling or suspenseful as a Shepard play, in part because characters and plot are not very believable and the story is bluntly sentimental to boot. (Avila)

*Fela! Curran Theatre, 445 Geary, SF; www.shnsf.com. $31-200. Wed-Sat, 8pm (also Wed and Sat, 2pm; no show Thurs/24); Sun, 2pm (also Sun/27, 7:30pm). Through Dec 11. The life and music of Nigerian superstar Fela Kuti is captured in this show with choreography by Bill T. Jones.

*The Kipling Hotel: True Misadventures of the Electric Pink ’80s Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through Dec 18. 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)

Language Rooms Thick House, 1695 18th St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $20-28. Thurs-Sat, 8pm (no show Thurs/24); Sun, 7pm. Extended through Dec 11. Golden Thread Productions and Asian American Theater Company present the West Coast premiere of Yussef El Guindi’s dark comedy.

Making Porn Box Car Theatre Studios, 125A Hyde, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $25-50. Fri/25-Sat/26, 9pm; Sun/27, 7pm. Ronnie Larsen brings back his crowd-pleasing comedy about the gay porn industry.

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

*On the Air Pier 29 on the Embarcadero (at Battery), SF; (415) 438-2668, love.zinzanni.org. $117 and up (includes dinner). Showtimes vary, through Dec 31. Teatro ZinZanni’s final production at its longtime nest on Pier 29 is a nostalgia-infused banquet of bits structured around an old-time radio variety show, featuring headliners Geoff Hoyle (Geezer) and blues singer Duffy Bishop. If you haven’t seen juggling on the radio, for instance, it’s pretty awesome, especially with a performer like Bernard Hazens, whose footing atop a precarious tower of tubes and cubes is already cringingly extraordinary. But all the performers are dependably first-rate, including Andrea Conway’s comic chandelier lunacy, aerialist and enchanting space alien Elena Gatilova’s gorgeous “circeaux” act, graceful hand-balancer Christopher Phi, class-act tapper Wayne Doba, and radio MC Mat Plendl’s raucously tweeny hula-hooping. Add some sultry blues numbers by raunchy belter Bishop, Hoyle’s masterful characterizations (including some wonderful shtick-within-a-shtick as one-liner maestro “Red Bottoms”), a few classic commercials, and a healthy dose of audience participation and you start to feel nicely satiated and ready for a good cigar. Smoothly helmed by ZinZanni creative director Norm Langill, On the Air signals off-the-air for the popular dinner circus — until it can secure a new patch of local real estate for its antique spiegeltent — so tune in while you may. (Avila)

*Pellas and Melisande Cutting Ball Theater, Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor, SF; 1-800-838-3006, www.cuttingball.com. $10-50. Fri/25-Sat/26, 8pm (also Sat/26, 2pm); Sun/27, 5pm. The Frog Prince, Rapunzel, the Swan Maiden: shimmering strands of each timeless tale twist through the melancholy tapestry of the Maurice Maeterlinck play Pelleas and Melisande, which opens Cutting Ball Theater’s 12th season. Receiving a lushly atmospheric treatment by director and translator Rob Melrose, this ill-fated Symbolist drama stars Joshua Schell and Caitlyn Louchard as the doomed lovers. Trapped in the claustrophobic environs of an isolated castle at the edge of a forbidding forest and equally trapped in an inadvertent love triangle with the hale and hearty elder prince Golaud (Derek Fischer), Pelleas’ brother and Melisande’s husband, the desperate, unconsummated passion that builds between the two youngsters rivals that of Romeo and Juliet’s, and leads to an ending even more tragic — lacking the bittersweet reconciliation of rival families that subverts the pure melodrama of the Shakespearean classic. Presented on a spare, wooden traverse stage (designed by Michael Locher), and accompanied by a smoothly-flowing score by Cliff Caruthers, the action is enhanced by Laura Arrington’s haunting choreography, a silent contortionism which grips each character as they try desperately to convey the conflicting emotions which grip them without benefit of dialogue. Though described by Melrose as a “fairy tale world for adults,” the dreamy gauze of Pelleas and Melisande peels away quickly enough to reveal a flinty and unsentimental heart. (Gluckstern)

Savage in Limbo Actors Theatre of San Francisco, 855 Bush, SF; (415) 345-1287, www.actorstheatresf.org. $26-38. Wed-Sat, 8pm (no show Thurs/24). Through Dec 3. Actors Theatre of San Francisco performs John Patrick Shanley’s edgy comedy.

SexRev: The José Sarria Experience CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; (415) 552-4100, www.therhino.org. $10-25. Fri/25-Sat/26, 8pm (also Sat/26, 10:30pm); Sun/27, 3pm. Theatre Rhinoceros performs John Fisher’s musical celebration of America’s first queer activist — a hit for the company in 2010.

Shoot O’Malley Twice StageWerx, 446 Valencia, SF; www.viragotheatre.org. Fri/25-Sat/26, 8pm. Virago Theater Company performs Jon Brooks’ world-premiere existential comedy.

A Tale of Two Genres SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; (415) 869-5384, www.un-scripted.com. $10-20. Thurs-Sat and Dec 20-21, 8pm (no show Thurs/24; additional shows Sat, 3pm). Through Dec 21. Un-Scripted Theater Company presents an improvised musical inspired by Charles Dickens.

The Temperamentals New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; (415) 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Dec 18. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs Jon Marans’ drama about gay rights during the McCarthy era.

Totem Grand Chapiteau, AT&T Park, Parking Lot A, 74 Mission Rock, SF; cirquedusoleil.com/totem. $58-248.50. Tues-Sun, schedule varies. Extended through Dec 18. Cirque Du Soleil returns with its latest big-top production.

Two Dead Clowns Box Car Theatre Studios, 125A Hyde, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $20. Fri/25-Sat/26, 7pm. Ronnie Larsen’s new play explores the lives of Divine and John Wayne Gacy.

The Waiting Period MainStage, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-35. Fri/25, 8pm; Sat/26, 5pm. Brian Copeland (Not a Genuine Black Man) presents a workshop production of his new solo show.

*Working for the Mouse Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $22. Thurs-Sat, 8pm (no performances Thurs/24-Sat/26). Through Dec 17. It might not come as a surprise to hear that even “the happiest place on earth” has a dark side, but hearing Trevor Allen describe it during this reprise of 2002’s Working for the Mouse will put a smile on your face as big as Mickey’s. With a burst of youthful energy, Allen bounds onto the tiny stage of Impact Theatre to confess his one-time aspiration to never grow up — a desire which made auditioning for the role of Peter Pan at Disneyland a sensible career move. But in order to break into the big time of “charactering,” one must pay some heavy, plush-covered dues. As Allen creeps up the costumed hierarchy one iconic cartoon figure at a time, he finds himself unwittingly enmeshed in a world full of backroom politics, union-busting, drug addled surfer dudes with peaches-and-cream complexions, sexual tension, showboating, job suspension, Make-A-Wish Foundation heartbreak, hash brownies, rabbit vomit, and accidental decapitation. Smoothly paced and astutely crafted, Mouse will either shatter your blissful ignorance or confirm your worst suspicions about the corporate Disney machine, but either way, it will probably make you treat any “Casual Seasonal Pageant Helpers” you see running around in their sweaty character suits with a whole lot more empathy. (Note: review from the show’s recent run at La Val’s Subterranean in Berkeley.) (Gluckstern)

BAY AREA

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

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

Sam’s Enchanted Evening TheaterStage at Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri/25, 8pm; Sat/26, 8:30pm. The Residents wrote the script and did the musical arrangements for this musical, featuring singer Randy Rose and pianist Joshua Raoul Brody.

The Soldier’s Tale Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; (510) 843-4822, www.auroratheatre.org. $10-55. Tues, 7pm; Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Dec 18. Aurora Theatre presents a re-imagined version of Igor Stravinsky’s 1918 musical by Tom Ross and Muriel Maffre.

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh Berkeley, TheaterStage, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Sun and Fri/25-Sat/26 and Dec 26-30, 11am (no show Dec 25). Through Dec 31. Louis “The Amazing Bubble Man” Pearl returns with this kid-friendly, bubble-tastic comedy.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

Russell Brand Palace of Fine Arts, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.slimstickets.com. Tues, 8pm. $50-125. The bawdy comedian performs to benefit the David Lynch Foundation.

Carolina Lugo and Carolé Acuña’s Ballet Flamenco Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Sun, 6:15pm. $15-19. Spain comes to North Beach with footwork, song, castanets, hand-clapping, and guitar.

Mark Foehringer Dance Project | SF Children’s Creativity Museum, 221 Fourth St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Sat-Sun, 11am, 2pm, 4pm (no 4pm show Sun/27); Dec 20-23, 11am and 2pm. Through Dec 23. $20-35. The contemporary ballet company performs Mark Foehringer’s Nutcracker Sweets.

ODC/Dance Novellus Theater, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.odcdance.org. Fri/25-Sun/27, Dec 4, and 11, 2pm; Dec 1-2 and 8-9, 11am; Dec 3 and 10, 1 and 4pm; $15-45. The company presents the 25th anniversary of KT Nelson’s The Velveteen Rabbit.

“San Francisco Theater Pub” Café Royale, 800 Post, SF; (415) 641-6033. Mon, 7:30pm. Free. A new play by Brian Markey.

Gifts with grace

Andrew Lam

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November 22, 2011

1

culture@sfbg.com

HOLIDAY GUIDE 2011 It’s the gift-giving season, and each foil-wrapped bauble tells a tale. There’s the love-you-this-much of a parent’s infamous peach cobbler pie, the damn-I-just-took-your-breath-away of a winter getaway to the Bahamas. There is the who-are-you-again? of Aunt Shirley’s yearly package of black dress socks. But then there are the let’s-change-the-world gifts, the ones that are not just about the recipient but that nonetheless land in the giftee’s hands with a heft that speaks of their worth to the community. Toasty as a chestnut roasting on an open fire, no? Giving that warmth can be as simple as copping a T-shirt, book, or card from one of the do-gooder nonprofits and shops listed below. And remember, even if you’re not the thin sock-loafer type, you can always improve your own karma by snail-mailing a heartfelt thank you note to Shirley.

NIROGA CENTER

Everyone seems to make the same tired New Year’s resolution: lose weight, live healthier, blah blah blah. At the Niroga Center, however, you can spring for a yoga package for that uncreative loved one that will not just help brighten their inner light, but will go to stoke the spark of others who are struggling to make ends meet. The center offers affordable, high-quality yoga instruction, and puts particular focus on at-risk and underserved individuals, teaching yoga to incarcerated youth, high school children, and cancer survivors. For the holidays, you can donate any amount of money to the center, which will fund their donation-based classes and classes that teach yoga to the underprivileged. You can also purchase yoga classes to start someone’s year anew for as low as $10.

1808 University, Berk. (510) 704-1330, www.nirogacenter.org

CASA BONAMPAK

With a salesfloor awash in papel picado and other crafts from Chiapas, Casa Bonampak believes in preserving Mexican traditions, and that reconnecting with culture can transform and heal. All in all, it’s a feel-good (and community-building) place to do your holiday shopping. The shop’s all-woman staff works directly with Mexican and Latin American artists to sell unique jewelry, luchador masks, and handmade cards, with most items ranging from $4 to $13. The store has also been dedicated to promoting local Latin artists in the Bay Area for 15 years. With so many gorgeous handicrafts crammed into the Valencia Street storefront, Casa Bonampark is a great place to support culture on either sides of the border.

1051 Valencia, SF. (415) 642-4079, www.casabonampak.com

GUARDSMEN CHRISTMAS TREE LOT

The Guardsmen, a group of Bay Area men who work together to help at-risk children and organize educational and outdoor activities for inner-city youth have organized this forest of fir every year since 1947. Now as way back then, the proceeds from the lot support the organization’s doing-good year-round. Post-Thanksgiving, a corner of Fort Mason is transformed into a winter wonderland with trees as tall as 15 feet decorated with ornaments and wreaths. The all-volunteer guardsmen staff can assist you in picking the perfect holiday tree with which to surprise your apartmentmates — you can even arrange to have one delivered to your home. Coupled with events like crab feeds, wine tastings, and opportunities to take photos with Santa, picking up some beautiful boughs for the family never felt so good.

Festival Pavilion, Fort Mason Center, 38 Fort Mason, SF. www.guardsmentreelot.com

LIBERATION INK

Do you have a friend who has been dying for a “Brown and Proud” T-shirt ($24)? Perhaps they’re jonesing for an organic tote with a picture of Assata Shakur ($16)? Liberation Ink, an all-volunteer, worker-owned apparel printing and design collective, believes in a sustainable movement for social justice that is funded from within. It prints revolutionary faces and sayings on shirts made organically and/or without the use of sweatshop labor. All profits go directly to support grassroots social justice organizations like the May 1st Alliance for Land, Work and Power, and the Deporten a la Migra Coalition. The brand’s comfy, stylin’ T-shirts will have your lucky giftee looking fly and spreading the word of social equality in one fell swoop.

www.liberationink.org

COMMUNITY THRIFT STORE

A nonprofit secondhand store, Community Thrift relies entirely upon donations of clothes, knick-knacks, kitchen supplies, and furniture to keep its doors open. And they stay open, too: the Mission District shop is open to browsing and donations from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. Shopping here — and if your boyfriend’s been searching for that perfect yet affordable leather bomber jacket or snazzy armchair, this should be your first stop — supports local non-profits like the San Francisco LGBT Center and the San Francisco Child Abuse Prevention Center, just two of almost 200 organizations that benefit from Community Thrift’s largess.

623 Valencia, SF. (415) 861-4910, www.communitythriftsf.org

SAN FRANCISCO ZOO

Has the kid you nanny been yapping about adopting a Magellanic penguin? Maybe your friend has always admired Chilean flamingos? You can sponsor their love of the wild by donating $50 in their name to the Adopt-an-Animal program at the San Francisco Zoo. The donation will help to provide veterinary care for the furred and feathered, not to mention support educational programs for tomorrow’s wildlife champions. Once you’ve dropped the dough your loved one will receive a certificate of adoption — very official! — as well as a fact sheet and photo of the critter they’re sponsoring. Feeling flush? Your other option is the zoo’s Guardian program, which for a minimum annual contribution of $1000 will help provide further support to the zoo. It supports high-quality animal care, and all kinds of incidentals that keep the family destination open to the public. Give the gift of Guardianship and your buddy will receive free admission, carousel rides, and free parking near their furry for an entire year.

San Francisco Zoo, 1 Zoo Road, SF. (415) 753-7080, www.sfzoo.org

THE BOOKMARK STORE

Sure, the money from your holiday purchase here will go to a good cause — but it’s also the perfect place to browse and spend your lunch hour while you shop down your holiday list. The Bookmark is a non-profit that’s run by the Friends of the Oakland Public Library. It houses everything from science fiction to cooking to non-fiction, an inexpensive place where you don’t have to scour shelves to find those hard-to-find, out-of-print books your favorite bibliophile will flip to receive. Plus, all proceeds from your sale will keep libraries in Oakland with their pages open to the public.

721 Washington, Oakl. (510) 444-0473, www.thebookmarkstore.org

Dickens and drag queens and dreidels (oh my!)

Andrew Lam

-

November 22, 2011

0

Dickens and drag queens and dreidels (oh my!)

culture@sfbg.com

HOLIDAY GUIDE 2011 You know what would be a good present to yourself this holiday season? Some ankle weights. Imagine all the almond cake and vegan eggnog you’ll have shoved into your belly by this time next month, you soon-to-be-less-svelte snowy sexpot. Not into approximating a house arrest prisoner? How about pledging to run about to as many as the Bay’s holiday hotspots as possible this year — you’ll be a Kwanzaa cutie in no time a’tall. And with such jingling gems — from costume fairs to drag queens in Union Square and free chamber orchestra performances — you’ll come out on the other side (2012) cut and cultured.

Union Square iceskating rink Good news for nervous wall-grabbers and double axel spinners alike: the holiday ice rink is back at Union Square. Cue icicle lights, grand romantic gestures, and seizing onto strangers for suddenly-needed support.

Through Jan. 16. 10 a.m.-11:30 p.m. except for when closed for private parties, $10 for 90-minute session. Union Square, SF. www.unionsquareicerink.com

Great Dickens Fair Before Harry Potter and Kate Middleton transformed young Americans into full-blown Anglophiles, a whole different conception of Britain flourished stateside: the Dickensian version, replete with scones and hot toddies. Walk off your burgeoning middle with a jaunt through the Cow Palace’s temporary lamp-lit alleys.

Saturdays and Sundays through Dec. 18, 11 a.m.-7 p.m., $25. Cow Palace, 2600 Geneva, SF. www.dickensfair.com

“The Best Time of Year” SF Symphony Christmas special concert The San Francisco Symphony and Chorus exhale classical Christmas picks and carols to a fully-bedecked Davies Symphony Hall.

Nov.30-Dec.1, 8 p.m., $25–$68. Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness, SF. (451) 864-6000, www.sfsymphony.org

Working Solutions holiday gift fair Showcasing San Francisco businesses assisted by Working Solutions’ micro loan programs, this fair lets shoppers pick up everything from Bernal Heights-wrought knives to chunks of Mission-crafted chocolate.

Dec. 1, 5-8 p.m., free. 101 Second St., SF. (415) 655-5433, www.tmcworkingsolutions.org

The Golden Girls: The Christmas Episodes Trannyshack takes on the blue-haired wonder that was The Golden Girls in a glitzy, raucous yearly San Francisco tradition.

Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays Dec. 1-23, 8 p.m., $25–$30. Victoria Theater, 2961 16th St., SF. www.trannyshack.com

A Christmas Carol There’s no better way to get in the mistletoe mood than to watch old Ebenezer slowly thaw out his icy, pinched heart in the Deco glory of the ACT Theatre.

Dec. 1-24, 7 p.m., $20–$75. American Conservatory Theatre, 415 Geary, SF. (415) 749-2228, www.act-sf.org

Holiday tree-lighting ceremony Jack London Square becomes a Bay-side holiday crèche two hours with live reindeer, snow, wintry tunes, and a tree-lighting to launch the flurry of the holidays.

Dec. 2, 5-7 p.m., free. Jack London Square, Oakl. www.jacklondonsquare.com

Oakland-Alameda Estuary lighted yacht parade How can yachts parade, you ask? With style, we answer — East Bay boat owners trick out their vessels with festive lights visible from the shore.

Dec. 3, 5:30 p.m., free. Visible from Jack London Square, Oakl. www.lightedyachtparade.com

Fantasy of Lights celebration ‘Tis the season for brilliant night-time lights, and Union Street will not be an exception. Stately Victorians provide the glowing background for a holiday gathering featuring everything from a monkey to Santa and his elves.

Dec. 3, 3-7 p.m., free. Union between Van Ness and Steiner, Fillmore between Union and Lombard, SF. www.sresproductions.com

San Francisco Forest Choir Imagine yourself in a snowy Narnia glen, the Forbidden Forest, or roaming through the woods with Hansel and Gretel to the music of the San Francisco Forest Choir, an all-female group who sing in Japanese and English at the Western Addition library.

Dec. 3, 3-4 p.m., free. Western Addition branch library, 1550 Scott, SF. (415) 355-5727, www.sfpl.org.

Sharon Art Studio winter pottery and craft sale Thousands of gleaming pieces are up for sale by this staple of the Bay Area craft scene; lug your loot home and get your bicep curls out of the way for a week.

Dec. 4, 11 a.m., free. Sharon Art Studio, Children’s Playground, Golden Gate Park, SF. (415) 753-7005, www.sharonartstudio.org

SF Chamber Orchestra holiday family concert Circus Bella and the SF Chamber Orchestra team up for a strangely compelling holiday pairing: clownish acrobatics set to the strains of classical music.

Dec. 4, 3-4 p.m., free with RSVP. Bayview Opera House, 4705 Third St., SF. (415) 824-0386, www.bayviewoperahouse.org

Gourmet Ghetto’s snow day For those Bay citizens unfamiliar with the bliss of a true snow day, the Gourmet Ghetto’s version provides a superior version to the rest of the country’s admittedly frigid ones: real snow, yes, but also crafting, hot cocoa and cookies, a Snow Queen, and the warmth of community.

Dec. 5 10 a.m.-3 p.m., free. Andronico’s parking lot, 1550 Shattuck, Berk.; 1-4 p.m., free. M. Lowe and Co., 1519 Shattuck, Berk.; Noon-4 p.m., free. Twig and Fig, 2110 Vine, Berk. www.gourmetghetto.org

“Winter in the Wineries” Sixteen wineries will stamp your passport for a two-month period starting December 2, enabling you to enjoy unlimited tastings, tours, and meet-and-greets throughout Napa Valley.

Various locations and times, Calistoga. www.calistogavisitors.com. $50 for one passport ticket

Palestinian Craft Fair Straight from the hands of Palestinian artists and craftspeople: olive oil-based soap, embroidery, glassware, ceramics, books, honey, and Dead Sea products sold to benefit their makers an ocean away.

Dec. 4, 10 a.m.-4 p.m., free. Live Oak Park, 1301 Shattuck, Berk. (510) 548-0542, www.mecaforpeace.org

“Songs and Harps to Celebrate the Holiday Season” Harpists of the Bay, unite! The young pluckers of the Bay Area Youth Harp Ensemble join the Triskela Celtic Harp Trio to perform holiday pieces from around the world. Singing along is not only encouraged but expected.

Dec. 6, 6 p.m., free. Main Library, 100 Larkin, SF. (415) 557-4400, www.sfpl.org

“Drag Queens on Ice” Break out your very best glitz for a night spent skating next to legions of SF’s drag personalities. A 9:30 p.m. performance by the queens in question ends the evening.

Dec. 8, 8 p.m., $10 for 90-minute session. Union Square, SF. www.unionsquareicerink.com

“A Very Shut-Ins Xmas” The vanguard leaders of the “hulabilly” sound, the Shut-Ins return with a Christmas show to benefit San Francisco’s Legal Assistance to the Elderly.

Dec. 8, 5:30-8 p.m., $20. 50 Mason Social House, 50 Mason, SF. (415) 538-3333, www.laesf.org

Golden Gate Park tree lighting Golden Gate Park’s hundred-foot Monterey cypress (shouldn’t it have a name by now?) transforms into a light-bedecked behemoth for the 82 year.

Dec. 8, 5 p.m., free. McLaren Lodge, 501 Stanyan, SF.

La Cocina gift fair Its cryptic but tasty-sounding “tamale alley” should provide enough of a draw, but La Cocina’s gift fair also promises local vendors selling organic olive oils, handmade pasta, and mushrooms nourished by recycled coffee grounds. Pretty easy to stomach.

Dec. 9, 5-9 p.m., free. Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, 2868 Mission, SF. www.lacocinasf.org

Winter Wunderkammer holiday art sale The most you can spend here on one item is 50 bucks, the least a dollar. Accompanied by spiced wine and tunes, small-format works from local artists are on sale. Proceeds from this walk-in curio cabinet benefit The Lab and participating artists.

Opening party Dec. 9, 6-11 p.m., free. Also Dec. 10, 11 a.m.-4 p.m., free. The Lab, 2948 16th St., SF. (415) 864-885, www.thelab.org

California Revels Ah, the revels. This year, the interactive period presentation will sit you smack down at the Round Table. Dance and sing, young knight — no one’s mocking you at this costume-heavy conclave.

Dec. 9-11, 16-18; Fri. 8 p.m., Sat. and Sun. 1 p.m. and 5 p.m., $19-52. Scottish Rite Theater, 2850 19th Ave., SF. (510) 452-8800, www.californiarevels.org

SF Ballet’s Nutcracker Even with its lampoonable name, the Nutcracker remains a incomparable date choice for its lush costumes, fantastical storyline, and ability to trigger childhood flashbacks.

Dec. 9-25, various times, $25–$285. War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness, SF. (415) 865-2000, www.sfballet.org

Misfit Toy Factory For one evening, artists cobble together sculptures, toys, and gifts under one roof to the beat of DJ Yukon Cornelius. Items are sold at the end of the evening for a fixed price of forty dollars.

Dec. 10, 7-10 p.m., free. Root Division, 3175 17th St., SF. (415) 863-7668, www.rootdivision.org

The Revolutionary Nutcracker Sweetie A radical alternative to the holiday classic, Dance Brigade’s version features Clara, an undocumented worker, a homeless Sugar Plum Fairy, and an angel of resistance.

Dec. 10, 2 p.m. and 6 p.m.; Dec. 11, 1 p.m. and 5 p.m., $15–$17. Brava Theater, 2781 24th St., SF. www.dancemission.com

Hanukah festival of light Geared towards the younger set and their handlers, the JCC East Bay’s festival of light features storytelling, menorah making, dreidel games, and a concert by Isaac Zones, a mainstay in the Bay’s Jewish music scene.

Dec. 11, 10 a.m-2 p.m., $5. JCC East Bay, 1414 Walnut, Berk. www.jcceastbay.org.

“Holidays: Christmas, Chanukah, and Other Festive Celebrations” lecture Library docents present an examination of paintings from around the world dealing with everyone’s favorite subject: the giving, feasting, and receiving endemic to the holiday season.

Dec. 14, 6:30-7:30 p.m., free. Glen Park branch library, 2825 Diamond, SF. (415) 355-2858, www.sfpl.org

Mechanics’ Institute holiday gift and poster sale The staggeringly lovely Mechanics’ Institute hosts a large sale of hard-cover and paperback books, gifts, and posters straight from its library.

Dec. 15, 4:30-6:30 p.m., free. Mechanics’ Institute, 57 Post, SF. (415) 393-0100, www.milibrary.org

Holiday youth mariachi concert Three zestful youth mariachi bands perform traditional Mexican holiday music, providing an energizing segue into a sometimes exhausting season.

Dec. 16, 7:30 p.m., $10. Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, 2868 Mission, SF. (415) 643-2785, www.missionculturalcenter.org

Holiday Memories double feature Head back to the times of toboggans and candle-lit windows with two short films recounting rural winters of yesteryear. A Child’s Christmas in Wales visualizes Dylan Thomas’ Welsh childhood; The Sweater animatedly recounts Roch Carrier’s Quebecois, hockey-centered upbringing.

Dec. 17, 2 p.m., free with $15 museum admission. The Exploratorium, 3601 Lyon, SF. (415) 561-0360, www.exploratorium.edu

Renegade Craft Fair holiday market For the third year and showcasing more than 250 makers and craftspeople, the Renegade Craft Fair’s holiday happening can be a bit overwhelming. But it’s an undeniably great answer to gifting woes: pick up jewelry, body products, paper goods, clothing, and way, way more, all DIY enough to satisfy your most loca-ttired friend.

Dec. 17-18, 11 a.m.-6 p.m., free. Concourse Exhibition Center, 635 Eighth St., SF. www.renegadecraft.com

Reclaiming Yule ritual It may be chilly outside, but Sebastapol’s midwinter celebration (led by Starhawk, a leader in Bay Area earth-based spirituality) is indoors and full of warmth-inducing activities, namely dancing in honor of the Earth and Sun.

Dec. 18, 6:30 p.m., $7. Sebastopol Community Center, 390 Morris, Sebastapol. www.reclaiming.org

Solstice Eve celebration With a bonfire and roles doled out to participants (rocks, trees and mists), celebrating the longest night of the year on Ocean Beach is actually rather toasty. Bring items to release into the transformative fire — love letters are just the starting point.

Dec. 20, 3:30 p.m., free. Ocean Beach at Taraval, SF. www.reclaiming.org

Bill Graham menorah lighting The lighting itself takes place at 5 p.m., but the hours-long run-up is by no means lacking: traditional Jewish music, arts and crafts, and menorahs for every child fill Union Square starting at 3 p.m.

Dec. 20, 5 p.m., free. Union Square, SF. www.chabadsf.org

Kujichagulia celebration Kwanzaa’s day of personal definition and expression comes to City Hall, followed by a candle-lighting ceremony and dinner at Gussie’s, known for its fried tasties, red velvet cake, and Southern sweet tea.

Dec. 27, noon, City Hall, SF., 6 p.m., Gussies Chicken and Waffles, 1521 Eddy, SF. www.kwanzaasanfrancisco.com

Ujima celebration On Ujima, the third day of the week-long Kwanzaa holiday, community members gather to celebrate a collective spirit of responsibility and work.

Dec. 28, 3-6 p.m., free. Bayview Hunters Point YMCA, 1601 Lane, SF. www.sfpl.org

Keeping Score: Ives Holiday Symphony screening Unrecognized at the time of his death, experimentalist composer Charles Ives labored over his Holiday Symphony, which now gets fitting recognition by the San Francisco Symphony in a library concert that follows an hour-long documentary on the man.

Dec. 29, noon, free. Main Library, 100 Larkin, SF. (415) 557-4400, www.sfpl.org

Kuumba celebration Fittingly, the main San Francisco celebration of Kwanzaa’s Kuumba (day of creativity) occurs in the Jazz Heritage Center, a space shared by musical hotspot Yoshi’s. Celebrate the Fillmore’s manifold musical virtuosos on the last day of the year.

Dec. 31, 1-5 p.m., free. Jazz Heritage Center, 1330 Fillmore, SF. www.jazzheritagecenter.org

The one percent on the waterfront

Andrew Lam

-

November 22, 2011

10

EDITORIAL While Mayor Ed Lee struggles with the OccupySF encampment, another, very different group has its eyes on the city’s waterfront. On the edges of the ground where protesters are talking about the one percent of Americans that control the vast majority of the nation’s wealth, two major development projects aimed entirely at that very wealthy sliver are starting to move forward.

At 8 Washington and 75 Howard, developers want to build a total of 365 condominiums aimed at people with incomes that place them in the top sliver of the richest Americans. It will be a key test for the Ed Lee administration: Will he evict the Occupy protesters and allow the One Percent to claim choice property on the waterfront?

The 8 Washington project calls for 165 of what developer Simon Snellgrove says will be the most expensive condos ever built in San Francisco. The 12-story building, sitting on the edge of the Embarcadero, would include units selling for as much as $10 million, and even the low-end places would go for $2.5 million or more.

At 75 Howard, the Paramount Group and Morgan Stanley want to demolish a parking garage and erect a 284-foot tower with units that the San Francisco Business Times predicts would sell for at least $1,000 a square foot.

Just to be clear what we’re talking about here, a $2.5 million condo, according to real estate experts, would require that a buyer have $625,000 cash to put down and an income of more than $450,000 a year. Either that or millions in spare cash to plunk down.

That, needless to say, is not the majority of the working people in San Francisco.

There’s no conceivable planning or housing-policy rationale for either of these projects. They offer nothing that the city needs; there is absolutely no shortage of housing for people with that kind of income. In fact, allowing these two projects to proceed would directly violate the city’s own General Plan and every regional planning proposal for San Francisco’s housing mix. The General Plan states that some 60 percent of all the new housing built in San Francisco should be below market rate. Environmental sanity suggests that the city ought to be building housing for people who work here — high housing costs have driven thousands of local workers to live in the East Bay or further out, leading to long, energy-intensive commutes. And the more of this ultra-luxury housing the city builds, the more the housing balance gets disrupted — and the more rapidly San Francisco becomes a city of, by and for the One Percent.

The two projects have powerful support — among other things, Lee’s friend and ally Rose Pak is promoting 8 Washington, as is lobbyist Marcia Smolens. If Lee has any scrap of independence he’ll make it clear that both of these projects are dead on arrival.

Guardian editorial: The one per cent on the waterfront

-

November 21, 2011

27

Guardian editorial: The one per cent on the waterfront

EDITORIAL While Mayor Ed Lee struggles with the OccupySF encampment, another, very different group has its eyes on the city’s waterfront. On the edges of the ground where protesters are talking about the one percent of Americans that control the vast majority of the nation’s wealth, two major development projects aimed entirely at that very wealthy sliver are starting to move forward.

At 8 Washington and 75 Howard, developers want to build a total of 365 condominiums aimed at people with incomes that place them in the top sliver of the richest Americans. It will be a key test for the Ed Lee administration: Will he evict the Occupy protesters and allow the One Percent to claim choice property on the waterfront?

The 8 Washington project calls for 165 of what developer Simon Snellgrove says will be the most expensive condos ever built in San Francisco. The 12-story building, sitting on the edge of the Embarcadero, would include units selling for as much as $10 million, and even the low-end places would go for $2.5 million or more.

At 75 Howard, the Paramount Group and Morgan Stanley want to demolish a parking garage and erect a 284-foot tower with units that the San Francisco Business Times predicts would sell for at least $1,000 a square foot.

Just to be clear what we’re talking about here, a $2.5 million condo, according to real estate experts, would require that a buyer have $625,000 cash to put down and an income of more than $450,000 a year. Either that or millions in spare cash to plunk down.

That, needless to say, is not the majority of the working people in San Francisco.

There’s no conceivable planning or housing-policy rationale for either of these projects. They offer nothing that the city needs; there is absolutely no shortage of housing for people with that kind of income. In fact, allowing these two projects to proceed would directly violate the city’s own General Plan and every regional planning proposal for San Francisco’s housing mix. The General Plan states that some 60 percent of all the new housing built in San Francisco should be below market rate. Environmental sanity suggests that the city ought to be building housing for people who work here — high housing costs have driven thousands of local workers to live in the East Bay or further out, leading to long, energy-intensive commutes. And the more of this ultra-luxury housing the city builds, the more the housing balance gets disrupted — and the more rapidly San Francisco becomes a city of, by and for the One Percent.

The two projects have powerful support — among other things, Lee’s friend and ally Rose Pak is promoting 8 Washington, as is lobbyist Marcia Smolens. If Lee has any scrap of independence, he’ll make it clear that both of these projects are dead on arrival.

Chron owner exploits its most valuable asset

Zelda Bronstein

-

November 18, 2011

17

Chron owner exploits its most valuable asset

What does Hearst Corporation own at the corner of Fifth and Mission that’s actually worth a lot of money?

No, it’s not the San Francisco Chronicle. The New York-based media congomerate bought the Chron in 1999, at the top of the newspaper market, for something in the neighborhood of a billion dollars, but it’s not even worth a small fraction of that today. Mid-sized dailies like the Chron have lost so much value over the past 12 years that Hearst would have trouble getting ten cents on the dollar if it put the paper on the market.

So here’s this unperforming asset on the Hearst balance sheet that can’t be unloaded without a huge write-down. What’s a corporate bean-counter to do?

Well, in this case (as in the case with urban dailies around the country) it turns out that the most valuable thing Hearst got when it bought the ol’ Chron was the real estate that came in the package. The Chronicle Building is worth a fortune as a development site, but it’s an historic structure that can’t be torn down. On the other hand, the old Examiner building, and the parking lots and the various odd lots on the edges, make up a nice site for high-end condos and office space — and now that the market is picking up, Hearst and its development partner, Forest City, are looking to make some cash off the Fifth and Mission dirt.

We’re talking two highrises, one residential and one commercial, and six smaller buildings. It will change the face of an area that’s outside the downtown core and that abuts a more low-rent district. Hearst and Forest City are talking about people working in the “creative economy” — particularly young tech firms. Between Twitter on one end and the Chron’s new project on the other, the Sixth Street corridor might start to get pinched.

I wonder what the supporters of the Twitter tax break are going to think about this. And I wonder whether the “young tech companies” that the city wants to attract to the area are going to be demanding tax breaks, too.

And I wonder what the Chron will have to say about all of that.

Stage Listings

Andrew Lam

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November 15, 2011

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

THEATER

OPENING

A Tale of Two Genres SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; (415) 869-5384, www.un-scripted.com. $10-20. Previews Thurs/17, 8pm. Opens Fri/18, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat and Dec 20-21, 8pm (no show Sat/19 or Nov 24; additional shows Sat, 3pm). Through Dec 21. Un-Scripted Theater Company presents an improvised musical inspired by Charles Dickens.

ONGOING

Absolutely San Francisco Alcove Theater, 414 Mason, Ste 502, SF; (415) 992-8168, www.thealcovetheater.com. $32-50. Schedule varies, through Dec 29. Not Quite Opera Productions presents Anne Nygren Doherty’s musical about San Francisco, with five characters all portrayed by Mary Gibboney.

Almost Nothing, Day of Absence Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, 450 Post, SF; (415) 474-8800, www.lhtsf.org. $43-53. Wed/16-Sat/19, 8pm (also Sat/19, 2pm); Sun/20, 2pm. The Lorraine Hansberry Theatre christens its grand new home near Union Square with two well-acted one-act plays under sharp direction by artistic director Steven Anthony Jones. Almost Nothing by Brazilian playwright Marcos Barbosa marks the North American premiere of an intriguing and shrewdly crafted Pinteresque drama, wherein a middle-class couple (Rhonnie Washington and Kathryn Tkel) returns home from an unexpected encounter at a stop light that leaves them jittery and distracted. As an eerie wind blows outside (in David Molina’s atmospheric sound design), their conversation circles around the event as if fearing to name it outright. When a poor woman (Wilma Bonet) arrives claiming to have seen everything, the couple abandons rationalization for a practical emergency and a moral morass dictated by poverty and class advantage — negotiated on their behalf by a black market professional (Rudy Guerrero). Next comes a spirited revival of Douglas Turner Ward’s Civil Rights–era Day of Absence (1965), a broad satire of Southern race relations that posits a day when all the “Neegras” mysteriously disappear, leaving white society helpless and desperate. The cast (in white face) excel at the high-energy comedy, and in staging the text director Jones makes a convincing parallel with today’s anti-immigrant laws and rhetoric. But if the play remains topical in one way, its too-blunt agitprop mode makes the message plain immediately and interest accordingly pales rapidly. (Avila)

Annapurna Magic Theatre, Bldg D, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; (415) 441-8822, www.magictheatre.org. $20-60. Showtimes vary, through Dec 4. Magic Theatre performs Sharr White’s world premiere drama about love’s longevity.

Fela! Curran Theatre, 445 Geary, SF; www.shnsf.com. $31-200. Wed-Sat, 8pm (also Wed and Sat, 2pm; no show Nov 24); Sun, 2pm (also Nov 27, 7:30pm). Through Dec 11. The life and music of Nigerian superstar Fela Kuti is captured in this show with choreography by Bill T. Jones.

Forgetting the Details Bindlestiff Studio, 185 Sixth St, SF; www.nicolemaxali.com. $20. Thurs/17-Sat/19, 8pm. In one memorable scene of performer Nicole Maxali’s solo show Forgetting the Details, her artist father, Max Villanueva, takes her to see a Precita Eyes mural he’s been helping to paint. After pointing out the tree he painted, and describing the minute detail he imbued it with, he has her stand away from the mural to observe how quickly the details vanish, but not the integrity of the piece. It’s an instructive life lesson, and also the perfect approach to appreciating Maxali’s show. Ostensibly about her relationship with her grandmother, who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, Forgetting the Details winds up delving deeply into Maxali’s complicated relationship with her freewheeling, artistic dad, whose unexpected death in the summer of 2011 gives her show an unexpected trajectory as her grandmother’s slow decline gradually takes a backseat to the more immediate trauma of her father’s untimely passing. Maxali’s efforts to draw parallels between her grandmother’s in-the-moment mentality with her father’s artistic sensibilities and her own artistic journey are not always seamless, but the emotional content rings with a sincerity and depth often lacking from similarly-constructed solo performances. Just like a mural viewed from a distance, the play’s integrity lies not in the details, but rather in the vitality of the whole. (Gluckstern) How to Love Garage, 975 Howard, SF; www.pustheatre.com. $15. Fri/18-Sat/19, 8pm; Sun/20, 2pm. Three demigod-like personalities at the center of the earth are charged with answering life’s mysteries, big and small, but find themselves stymied by their latest task, namely, explaining “how to love.” They have only a week to do it, for some reason, or humanity will be consigned to everlasting consternation, or something like that — coherence is not a priority here — anyway: stakes are high. Their boss, the Magistrate (Geo Epsilanty), has them present their findings each day, but each of them — the Very Sexy One (Jessica Schroeder in sassy lingerie), the Stern One (Gloria MacDonald in girl-school uniform), and the Young One (Brian Martin in caped crusader outfit) — comes up with bupkus. Finally, the Young One gets the inspiration to kidnap a surface-dwelling earthling (Valerie Fachman) to help them figure it all out. Local playwright Megan Cohen’s mumbling comedy, directed with robust attention to blocking and movement by Scott Baker for Performers Under Stress, is far too skit-like a conceit to merit its two plodding acts. More to the point, its humor is very silly but generally dim. Despite being set at the center of the earth, this is too shallow and glancing an investigation of love to intrigue or tickle the genuinely curious. (Avila)

The Importance of Being Earnest Notre Dame Senior Plaza, Community Room, 347 Dolores, SF; (650) 952-3021. Free. Fri/18, 7:30pm; Sat/19-Sun/20, 3pm. 16th Street Players perform the Oscar Wilde classic.

*The Kipling Hotel: True Misadventures of the Electric Pink ’80s Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through Dec 18. 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)

Language Rooms Thick House, 1695 18th St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $20-28. Thurs-Sat, 8pm (no show Nov 24); Sun, 7pm. Through Dec 4. Golden Thread Productions and Asian American Theater Company present the West Coast premiere of Yussef El Guindi’s dark comedy.

Making Porn Box Car Theatre Studios, 125A Hyde, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $25-50. Thurs, 8pm; Thurs, 8pm; Fri-Sat, 9pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through Nov 27. Ronnie Larsen brings back his crowd-pleasing comedy about the gay porn industry.

*”Master Harold” … and the Boys Phoenix Theater, 414 Mason, Ste 601, SF; 1-800-838-3006, www.offbroadwaywest.org. $18-40. Thurs/17-Sat/19, 8pm. Based loosely on personal history, Athol Fugard’s drama explores institutionalized racism in South Africa’s apartheid era ensconced in the seemingly innocuous world of a Port Elizabeth tea room. The play opens during a rainy afternoon with no customers, leaving the Black African help, Willie (Anthony Rollins-Mullens) and Sam (LaMont Ridgell), with little to do but rehearse ballroom dance steps for a big competition coming up in a couple of weeks. When Hally (Adam Simpson), the owner’s son, arrives from school, the atmosphere remains convivial at first then increasingly strained, as events happening outside the tea room conspire to tear apart their fragile camaraderie. The greatest burdens of the play are carried by Sam, who fills a range of roles for the increasingly pessimistic and emotionally-stunted Hally — teacher, student, surrogate father, confidante, and servant — all the while completely aware that their mutual love is almost certainly doomed to not survive past Hally’s adolescence, and possibly not past the afternoon. Ridgell rises greatly to the challenges of his character, ably flanked by Rollins-Mullens, and Simpson; he embodies the depth of Sam’s humanity, from his wisdom of experience, to his admiration for beauty, to his capacity to bear and finally to forgive Hally’s need to lash out at him. It is a moving and memorable rendering. (Gluckstern)

More Human Than Human Dark Room Theater, 2263 Mission, SF; (415) 401-7987, www.brownpapertickets.com. $25. Thurs/17-Sat/19, 8pm. B. Duke’s dystopian drama is inspired by Philip K. Dick.

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

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

Oh, Kay! Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; (415) 255-8207, www.42ndstmoon.org. $20-50. Wed/16, 7pm; Thurs/17-Fri/18, 8pm; Sat/19, 6pm; Sun/20, 3pm. 42nd Street Moon performs George and Ira Gershwin’s Prohibition-set comedy.

*On the Air Pier 29 on the Embarcadero (at Battery), SF; (415) 438-2668, love.zinzanni.org. $117 and up (includes dinner). Wed-Sat, 6pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Dec 31. Teatro ZinZanni’s final production at its longtime nest on Pier 29 is a nostalgia-infused banquet of bits structured around an old-time radio variety show, featuring headliners Geoff Hoyle (Geezer) and blues singer Duffy Bishop. If you haven’t seen juggling on the radio, for instance, it’s pretty awesome, especially with a performer like Bernard Hazens, whose footing atop a precarious tower of tubes and cubes is already cringingly extraordinary. But all the performers are dependably first-rate, including Andrea Conway’s comic chandelier lunacy, aerialist and enchanting space alien Elena Gatilova’s gorgeous “circeaux” act, graceful hand-balancer Christopher Phi, class-act tapper Wayne Doba, and radio MC Mat Plendl’s raucously tweeny hula-hooping. Add some sultry blues numbers by raunchy belter Bishop, Hoyle’s masterful characterizations (including some wonderful shtick-within-a-shtick as one-liner maestro “Red Bottoms”), a few classic commercials, and a healthy dose of audience participation and you start to feel nicely satiated and ready for a good cigar. Smoothly helmed by ZinZanni creative director Norm Langill, On the Air signals off-the-air for the popular dinner circus — until it can secure a new patch of local real estate for its antique spiegeltent — so tune in while you may. (Avila)

*Pellas and Melisande Cutting Ball Theater, Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor, SF; 1-800-838-3006, www.cuttingball.com. $10-50. Thurs, 7:30; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 5pm. Through Nov 27. The Frog Prince, Rapunzel, the Swan Maiden: shimmering strands of each timeless tale twist through the melancholy tapestry of the Maurice Maeterlinck play Pelleas and Melisande, which opens Cutting Ball Theater’s 12th season. Receiving a lushly atmospheric treatment by director and translator Rob Melrose, this ill-fated Symbolist drama stars Joshua Schell and Caitlyn Louchard as the doomed lovers. Trapped in the claustrophobic environs of an isolated castle at the edge of a forbidding forest and equally trapped in an inadvertent love triangle with the hale and hearty elder prince Golaud (Derek Fischer), Pelleas’ brother and Melisande’s husband, the desperate, unconsummated passion that builds between the two youngsters rivals that of Romeo and Juliet’s, and leads to an ending even more tragic — lacking the bittersweet reconciliation of rival families that subverts the pure melodrama of the Shakespearean classic. Presented on a spare, wooden traverse stage (designed by Michael Locher), and accompanied by a smoothly-flowing score by Cliff Caruthers, the action is enhanced by Laura Arrington’s haunting choreography, a silent contortionism which grips each character as they try desperately to convey the conflicting emotions which grip them without benefit of dialogue. Though described by Melrose as a “fairy tale world for adults,” the dreamy gauze of Pelleas and Melisande peels away quickly enough to reveal a flinty and unsentimental heart. (Gluckstern)

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

SexRev: The José Sarria Experience CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; (415) 552-4100, www.therhino.org. $10-25. Previews Thurs/17-Fri/18, 8pm. Opens Sat/19, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 10:30pm; no show Nov 24); Sun, 3pm. Through Nov 27. Theatre Rhinoceros performs John Fisher’s musical celebration of America’s first queer activist — a hit for the company in 2010.

“Shocktoberfest 12: Fear Over Frisco” Hypnodrome Theatre, 575 10th St, SF; (415) 377-4202, www.thrillpeddlers.com. $25-35. Thurs/17-Sat/19, 8pm. In its annual season-scented horror bid, Thrillpeddlers joins forces with SF’s Czar of Noir, writer-director Eddie Muller, for a sharply penned triplet of plays that resurrect lurid San Francisco lore as flesh-and-blood action. In the slightly sluggish but intriguing Grand Inquisitor, a solitary young woman modeling herself on Louise Brooks in Lulu (an alluringly Lulu-like Bonni Suval) believes she has located the Zodiac killer’s widow (a sweet but cagey Mary Gibboney) — a scenario that just can’t end well for somebody, yet manages to defy expectations. An Obvious Explanation turns on an amnesiac (Daniel Bakken) whose brother (Flynn de Marco) explains the female corpse in the rollaway (Zelda Koznofski) before asking bro where he hid a certain pile of money. Enter a brash doctor (Suval) with a new drug and ambitions of her own vis-à-vis the hapless head case. Russell Blackwood directs The Drug, which adapts a Grand Guignol classic to the hoity-toity milieu of the Van Nesses and seedy Chinatown opium dens, where a rough-playing attorney (an ever persuasive Eric Tyson Wertz) determines to turn a gruesome case involving the duplicitous Mrs. Van Ness (an equally sure, sultry Kära Emry) to his own advantage. The evening also offers a blackout spook show and some smoothly atmospheric musical numbers, including Muller’s rousing “Fear Over Frisco” (music composed by Scrumbly Koldewyn; accompaniment by Steve Bolinger and Birdie-Bob Watt) and an aptly low-down Irving Berlin number — both winningly performed by the entire company. (Avila)

Shoot O’Malley Twice StageWerx, 446 Valencia, SF; www.viragotheatre.org. Thurs-Sat, 8pm (no show Nov 24). Through Nov 26. Virago Theater Company performs Jon Brooks’ world-premiere existential comedy.

Sticky Time Brava Theater, 2781 24th St, SF; www.vanguardianproductions.com. $15-40. Wed/16-Fri/18, 8pm. Crowded Fire and Vanguardian Productions present playwright-director Marilee Talkington’s multimedia science fiction about a woman running out of time in the worst way. The prolix and histrionic story is the real sticking point, however, in this otherwise imaginatively staged piece, which places its audience on swivel chairs in the center of Brava’s upstairs studio theater, transformed by designer Andrew Lu’s raised stage and white video screens running the length of the walls into an enveloping aural (moody minimalistic score by Chao-Jan Chang) and visual landscape. Thea (Rami Margron) heads a three-person crew of celestial plumbers managing a sea of time “threads,” an undulating web of crisscrossing lines (in the impressive video animation by Rebecca Longworth). The structure is plagued by a mysterious wave of “time quakes” that Tim (Lawrence Radecker) thinks he may have figured out. Coworker Emit (Michele Leavy), meanwhile, goofing around like a hyperactive child, spots some sort of beast at work in the ether. When Thea gets stuck by a loose thread, she becomes something of a time junky, desperate to relive the color-suffused world of love and family lost somewhere in space-time as reality starts to unravel (with a dramatic assist from cinematographer Lloyd Vance) and the crew seeks help from a wise figure in a tattered gown (Mollena Williams). A little like a frenetic, stagy version of Andrey Tarkovsky’s Solaris (1972), the story gets credit for dramatizing some confounding facts about time and space at the particle level but might have benefited from less dialogue and more mystery — just as the audio-visual experience works best when the house lights are low. (Avila)

The Temperamentals New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; (415) 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Dec 18. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs Jon Marans’ drama about gay rights during the McCarthy era.

Totem Grand Chapiteau, AT&T Park, Parking Lot A, 74 Mission Rock, SF; cirquedusoleil.com/totem. $58-248.50. Tues-Sun, schedule varies. Extended through Dec 18. Cirque Du Soleil returns with its latest big-top production.

Two Dead Clowns Box Car Theatre Studios, 125A Hyde, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $20. Fri-Sat, 7pm. Through Nov 26. Ronnie Larsen’s new play explores the lives of Divine and John Wayne Gacy.

The Waiting Period MainStage, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-35. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through Nov 26. Brian Copeland (Not a Genuine Black Man) presents a workshop production of his new solo show.

*Working for the Mouse Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $22. Thurs-Sat, 8pm (no performances Nov 24-26). Through Dec 17. It might not come as a surprise to hear that even “the happiest place on earth” has a dark side, but hearing Trevor Allen describe it during this reprise of 2002’s Working for the Mouse will put a smile on your face as big as Mickey’s. With a burst of youthful energy, Allen bounds onto the tiny stage of Impact Theatre to confess his one-time aspiration to never grow up — a desire which made auditioning for the role of Peter Pan at Disneyland a sensible career move. But in order to break into the big time of “charactering,” one must pay some heavy, plush-covered dues. As Allen creeps up the costumed hierarchy one iconic cartoon figure at a time, he finds himself unwittingly enmeshed in a world full of backroom politics, union-busting, drug addled surfer dudes with peaches-and-cream complexions, sexual tension, showboating, job suspension, Make-A-Wish Foundation heartbreak, hash brownies, rabbit vomit, and accidental decapitation. Smoothly paced and astutely crafted, Mouse will either shatter your blissful ignorance or confirm your worst suspicions about the corporate Disney machine, but either way, it will probably make you treat any “Casual Seasonal Pageant Helpers” you see running around in their sweaty character suits with a whole lot more empathy. (Note: review from the show’s recent run at La Val’s Subterranean in Berkeley.) (Gluckstern)

BAY AREA

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

Doubt: A Parable Live Oak Theatre, 1301 Shattuck, Berk; www.aeofberkeley.org. $12-15. Fri/18-Sat/19, 8pm. Actors Ensemble of Berkeley performs John Patrick Shanley’s Pulitzer-winning drama.

How to Write a New Book for the Bible Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-73. Wed/16 and Sun/20, 7pm (also Sun/20, 2pm); Thurs/17 and Sat/19, 2 and 8pm. An aspiring writer who later becomes a priest, Bill (Tyler Pierce) is the caregiver for his aging mother (Linda Gehringer) during her long bout with cancer. His father (Leo Marks), though already dead, still inhabits his mother’s flickering concept of reality, made all the more dreamlike by her necessary dependence on pain medication. His brother (Aaron Blakely), meanwhile, has returned from Vietnam with survivor guilt but lands a meaningful career as a schoolteacher in the South. The latest from playwright Bill Cain (Equivocation, 9 Circles) is a humor-filled but sentimental and long-winded autobiographical reflection on family from the vantage of his mother’s long illness. It gets a strong production from Berkeley Rep, with a slick cast under agile direction by Kent Nicholson, but it plays as if narrator Bill mistakenly believes he’s stepped out of an Arthur Miller play, when in fact there’s little here of dramatic interest and far too much jerking of tears. (Avila)

*The Internationalist Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.justtheater.org. $15-30. Thurs/17-Sat/19, 8pm; Sun/20, 5pm. Lowell (Nick Sholley, as rumpled everyman) is the American fish out of water at the center of playwright Anne Wasburn’s smartly written and very funny comedy, now receiving a terrific West Coast premiere courtesy of Just Theater and director Jonathan Spector. Arriving for a business trip in some unnamed but vaguely Eastern European country with a funny-sounding language he hasn’t had time to study, Lowell is met at the airport by Sara (a persuasive Alexandra Creighton), a beautiful colleague who takes him to dinner, then takes him home. Next day in the office, the increasingly exhausted American meets his friendly counterparts, and discovers Sara is at the bottom of the office totem pole, where the filing happens. All the characters speak English with varying levels of proficiency when making with the usual small talk — “I’m always curious about what Americans know and what they don’t know,” says one po-faced innocent (Kalli Jonsson) with reference to the American Indian genocide — but revert to rapid-flowing gibberish whenever they tire of catering to the foreigner. Things get slowly weirder over the next couple of days, however, as the dynamics of this catty office (filled out wonderfully by Michael Barrett Austin, Lauren Bloom, and Harold Pierce) lead to a bewildering implosion that leaves Lowell sightseeing, and maybe seeing things, with a case of jet lag as big as the zeitgeist. (Avila)

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

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

The Soldier’s Tale Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; (510) 843-4822, www.auroratheatre.org. $10-55. Previews Wed/16, 8pm. Opens Thurs/17, 8pm. Runs Tues, 7pm; Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Dec 18. Aurora Theatre presents a re-imagined version of Igor Stravinsky’s 1918 musical by Tom Ross and Muriel Maffre.

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh Berkeley, TheaterStage, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Sun and Nov 25-26 and Dec 26-30, 11am (no show Dec 25). Through Dec 31. Louis “The Amazing Bubble Man” Pearl returns with this kid-friendly, bubble-tastic comedy.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

“Bare Bones Butoh Presents: Showcase #23!” Studio 210, 3435 Cesar Chavez, SF; bobwebb20@hotmail.com. Fri-Sat, 8pm. $5-20. Butoh performance featuring new and in-progress works by local, national, and international artists.

“BrokeBACH Mountain” Mission Cultural Center, 2868 Mission, SF; www.lgcsf.org. Fri-Sat, 8pm. $15-30. The Lesbian/Gay Chorus of San Francisco opens its 32nd season with a mix of modern and classical hits, inspired in part by Brokeback Mountain.

“Club Chuckles” Verdi Club, 2424 Mariposa, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Fri, 8pm. $20. Comedy with Neil Hamburger, Natasha Leggero, Tim Heidecker, Duncan Trussell, and “The Kenny ‘K-Strass’ Strasser Yo-Yo Extravaganza.”

“Fox and Jewel” Dance Mission, 3316 24th St, SF; www.genryuarts.org. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. $20-25. Gen Ryu arts presents Melody Takata’s interdisciplinary work that uses a Japanese myth to address current concerns about arts and culture in Japantown as the neighborhood redevelops.

“From Wallflower Order to Dance Brigade: A 35-Year Retrospective Celebration” Novellus Theater, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard, SF; (415) 273-4633, www.dancebrigade.org. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Free. Krissy Keefer marks 35 years of Dance Brigade with The Great Liberation Upon Hearing and other works.

“I’d Eat Them Both” Purple Onion, 140 Columbus, SF; kellymccarron.eventbrite.com. Fri, 7 and 9pm. Comedian Kelly McCarron performs for a recording of her first comedy album.

LEVYdance Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; 1-800-838-3006; www.levydance.org. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. $18-23. The company presents its Fall 2011 Home Season, featuring the world premiere of ROMP.

Liss Fain Dance Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.lissfaindance.org. Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 9:30pm); Sun, 5pm. $12.50-25. The company presents performance installation The False and True Are One.

San Francisco Hip Hop DanceFest Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, 3301 Lyon, SF; (415) 392-4400, www.cityboxoffice.com. Program A: Fri, 8pm; Sat, 9:30pm. Program B: Sat-Sun, 6pm. $40 (two shows, $75). The 13th annual festival, produced by Micaya, welcomes 19 companies from places as diverse as Oakland, San Francisco, Paris, Brooklyn, and London.

“10 Women Campaign: Who Is Tending the City?” ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; (415) 863-9834, www.flyawayproductions.com. Thurs, 7:30pm. $25 ($50 to include reception at 6:30pm). Flyaway Productions honors ten community leaders with a performance and ceremony.

The great divide

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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November 15, 2011

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steve@sfbg.com, rebeccab@sfbg.com, tredmond@sfbg.com

Of all the election night parties held in San Francisco Nov. 8, the two that most closely illustrated the city’s political divide were the ones hosted for the winner of the mayoral contest, Mayor Ed Lee, and for the progressive candidate who came in second, Sup. John Avalos.

Lee’s campaign held its own event at Tres, but the really eye-catching bash was thrown in his honor by former Mayor Willie Brown and billionaire tech investor Ron Conway in the decadent, high-ceilinged Garden Court of the prestigious Sheraton Palace Hotel. It attracted high-profile businesspeople, political operatives, tech executives, and celebrities.

Brown and influential Chinatown business consultant Rose Pak — both of whom played key roles in Lee’s appointment as interim mayor and his decision to run for office — attended the Palace event. Real-estate developers, public relations representatives, and others circulated around the room, sipping $17 martinis. MC Hammer, a legend of the 1990s who recently started his own search engine, hovered over his laptop onstage while a cluster of his fans tore up the dance floor.

When Lee arrived, he appeared with Brown, Hammer, and Conway, a Republican who spearheaded an independent expenditure committee (IE) to bolster Lee’s campaign. “He said San Franciscans have spoken,” Lee spokesperson Christine Falvey explained, summarizing the mayor’s comments, which were delivered before the Guardian arrived. “They like what they’ve seen in the last 10 months.”

When we approached Conway, he said he supported the mayor because “Ed Lee’s going to bring jobs to San Francisco.” Asked to comment on the influence of the independent expenditure committee he funded to alter the outcome of the race, Conway dismissed the question and repeated, “Ed Lee’s going to bring jobs to San Francisco.”

The Avalos event was at the jam-packed Roccapulco Supper Club in the Mission. The party drew a host of young, progressive supporters, many of whom are deeply engaged in social justice organizing, promoting workers’ rights, and protecting affordable housing. At least two bicycles were locked to every parking meter and street sign for more than a block in each direction, many sporting Avalos signs in the rims or attached to their frames.

There were live musical performances by The Bayonics and a mariachi band, plus rousing speeches cheering Avalos on as the peoples’ choice for mayor. Former Sup. Chris Daly was there, as was Sup. David Campos and a host of progressive movers and shakers.

Twitter updates offered snapshots of what was happening in the different venues. “This is how I’m doing it tonight! The ‘Too Legit To Quit’ Party! Ed Lee, Willie Brown & MC Hammer,” tweeted DJ MindMotion, who performed at Lee’s event. Later, he offered a few more updates. “Rocking with SF politicians! Getting my parking tickets cleared!” And a few minutes later, “I have a lot of parking tickets.”

At Roccapulco, Avalos’ wife Karen Zapata introduced her husband with a rallying cry for progressives to keep up the fight. She offered a long view of this struggle, a people’s movement battling for the city’s soul and future. If Ed Lee hangs on to win, she said, “We could be screwed unless we work together and organize…We have to stick together and we have to push from outside the system.”

It was a theme and a feeling that would permeate the event, this sense that Avalos and the progressives enjoyed a resurgence in the last month thanks to what’s happening in the streets, both with this campaign and the OccupySF movement that Avalos has taken a lead role at City Hall in supporting. “We’ve got everyone here,” Avalos said when he took the mic. “Except for the 1 percent!”

They were at the Palace, celebrating with Ed Lee.

HOW LEE WON

Lee had the support of establishment politicians at every level. “He is my man. He’s genuine, he’s competent, he’s no flash in the pan,” Rep. Jackie Speier told us at district attorney candidate Sharmin Bock’s campaign party at Yoshi’s. “He’s going to put San Francisco first and check his ego at the door.”

Yet other politicians — even moderates like Sup. Scott Wiener, who supported Dennis Herrera — felt the outcome of the election was skewed by the advantage Lee enjoyed from incumbency that he attained under false pretenses and the huge spending on his behalf by outside groups.

“When you have that big a curve ball thrown three months before the elections, those are the dynamics,” Wiener said.

Part of Lee’s victory was due to turnout — heavy turnout in areas where he won, and low turnout in areas where he didn’t. There’s an important lesson for progressives here — Lee’s campaign (and the independent expenditure groups that supported him) spent considerable money and time on an absentee voter program and on GOTV.

The result: Avalos actually got more votes than Lee on election day — but Lee still came in far ahead, thanks to absentees.

Some of the absentee efforts created controversy and may have been illegal — videos taken by workers with Leland Yee’s campaign showed Lee backers helping voters in Chinatown fill out their ballots (using a stencil to make sure Lee’s name was properly marked) and collecting those ballots in a bag. And while District Attorney George Gascon has announced an investigation, it’s not likely much will come of it: The people caught on film were not senior campaign aides, and the effort was run by one of the Lee IEs.

At any rate, whatever the Lee supporters were doing, legal or not, it worked. An analysis of voting results shows that in Lee strongholds, far more than half the ballots cast were absentees. For example, in Chinatown, where Lee beat Avalos by a margin of more than 4-1, 4,200 of the 7,161 ballots cast — that’s 60 percent of the total — were vote by mail (VBM). In Bayview/Hunters Point, where Lee (with the strong backing of former Mayor Willie Brown) topped Avalos by a 3-1 margin, 64 percent of the turnout was VBM.

Avalos had almost twice as many votes as Lee in the Haight Ashbury, but turnout there was lower than usual — and only 34 percent was VBM. The same pattern appeared in the Mission and Bernal Heights.

Overall, Lee’s support was strong in most parts of the city — of the 26 neighborhoods identified by the Department of Elections, Lee beat Avalos in 18.

Leland Yee, who came in surprisingly low for an elected official who has held public office for more than 20 years and has been elected citywide several times, ran strongly only in the Sunset, the Richmond and the Excelsior. City Attorney Dennis Herrera demonstrated fairly broad-based (but more limited) support, running consistently in second or third place around the city and doing particularly well in the Marina and Upper Market/Castro. Board President David Chiu ran strongest in his district (Chinatown/North Beach), the Marina and the Sunset and Richmond.

And there’s no question that the Asian vote was critical to this race. For perhaps the first time in history, Asian voters turned out in heavy numbers and demonstrated that they are a major factor in San Francisco politics. Some of that was the presence of four major Asian candidates on the ballot, but a lot was due to the excitement of supporting the city’s first Chinese mayor.

“There are really two elections going on in San Francisco,” one longtime activist told us. “There’s the election in the Chinese community, and then there’s everywhere else.”

But Lee also won in the traditionally more conservative parts of town, beating out the other centrist candidates and even former Sup. (and conservative darling) Michela Alioto-Pier.

THE AVALOS FACTOR

Six months ago, when John Avalos first decided to get in the race, a lot of people (including some of his supporters) figured he was running primarily to get his issues out and make sure the progressive perspective was represented. He was up against three people who had won citywide races (Herrera, Yee, and Assessor-Recorder Phil Ting) as well as the president of the Board of Supervisors. Later, of course, the incumbent entered the contest. A first-term district supervisor didn’t seem that formidable.

But the Avalos campaign worked wonders, pulling together hundreds of volunteers, working precincts, getting out the progressive vote and giving tens of thousands of people a candidate to believe in. His strong second-place showing did two things: It demonstrated that the left vote in the city is still strong, and it established Avalos as a credible new leader of the progressive coalition, someone who was able to attract votes across the city and position himself for future runs for higher office.

While Avalos didn’t win any districts outside of the traditional progressive strongholds on the east side of town, he did surprisingly well citywide.

Even moderates like political consultant David Latterman praised the race Avalos ran. “Next to Ed Lee, Avalos had the most solid base in the city,” Latterman said at the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association’s regular post-election wrap-up. “With John Avalos, it’s fair to say he maxed out his base. He ran a positive campaign.”

Alex Clemens, the other political analyst at the SPUR event, agreed: “John Avalos cemented his base and they turned out.”

Election reform activist Steven Hill went even further, noting that Avalos picked up a significant number of second- and third-place votes to hang onto his solid second place standing throughout the ranked choice voting tabulations to finish with about 40 percent of the vote.

“What this election showed is John Avalos had a strong core, and then he broadened his appeal,” Hill said.

Contrary to characterizations that the outcome of this election represented a shift to the right, Latterman noted that voters sided with the endorsements of the Bay Guardian and other progressive entities on more of the ballot measures than they did with the San Francisco Chronicle and others entities to the right of the progressives. Voters aligned with Guardian endorsements on six of the eight measures (almost seven, given that Prop. H, the neighborhood schools measure, won by a fraction of a percentage point).

WHAT’S NEXT?

After Avalos spoke, Daly offered us some insights into a race whose outcome he predicted months ago, consistently telling skeptics that even though the power play that put Lee into office was all but assured of victory, he believed the progressive movement was still strong and that Avalos would place second, ahead of a large field of well-qualified candidates with high name recognition.

“We did as well as we could have,” Daly said, “because the whole thing was juiced from a year ago, with their dirty backroom deal at City Hall and all their dirty money.”

Daly said he saw a new political narrative beginning to take shape, one with the potential to revive the progressive movement in San Francisco. Infused with energy from the campaign volunteers and the rise of the Occupy movement, Daly said it was notable that Avalos got more election day votes than Lee.

“That momentum, we didn’t have it a month ago when the absentee ballots went out,” he said. So now what? “We just keep going. We now have a leader of the progressives in San Francisco and his name in John Avalos,” Daly said. “John has a broad, active base of appeal.”

Avalos echoed similar themes when we spoke on election night, emphasizing the importance of the long struggle of the progressive movement over whether he won the mayor’s race. When we asked him whether election night felt like a victory for him, Avalos replied, “I felt like it was a victory yesterday.”

“All I wanted is for people to be turned out big time for this campaign, and they did that,” Avalos said. “So now, we’ll see what’s next.”

Here’s what’s happening now: The Avalos campaign did, to a significant extent, what the mayoral campaigns for Tom Ammiano in 1999 and Matt Gonzalez in 2003 did — it got the progressives excited and brought a new generation of activists into the world of local electoral politics. As Avalos called up his key supporters to the stage at Roccapulco on election night, it was clear that a broader progressive coalition was forming, with new faces, young organizers, and people of color.

The left in this town has a long history of winning by losing: The Ammiano campaign created the movement that took back the Board of Supervisors a year later, and the Gonzalez campaign drew more activists into the movement. Gonzalez, of course, left office a year later — but Avalos shows no signs whatsoever of backing down from the leadership role he has created.

The other very good news for progressives is the victory of Ross Mirkarimi, who won the race for sheriff and became the first staunch progressive to win a citywide race in more than two decades. He is also positioned to take more of a leadership role, and possibly to run for the mayor’s office at some point down the road. Since there are no term limits for the sheriff, he doesn’t have to rush.

A DIVIDED CITY

One of the key decisions Lee now faces — and one that will define his administration — is choosing a replacement for Mirkarimi. District Five is probably the most progressive district in the city, one that voted overwhelmingly for Avalos. And while Lee will want a loyalist in that job, most of the people who are likely to be able to win an election in 2012 supported another candidate. If Lee puts someone who will vote with the centrists on the board in that seat, he — and his anointed supervisor — will take a big loss in the fall.

He will also have to deal with the city budget — and it won’t be easy. Nonprofits like the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, where he had strong support, are already clamoring for more money for raises for their underpaid staff who have effectively had pay freezes for the past four years. Prop. G, the sales tax measure that Lee was hoping would fill part of the revenue gap, went down in flames. And the big-money people who spent so much getting him elected are supporters of tax breaks for business, not tax increases on the wealthy.

He’ll have to figure out whether to join Avalos and support OccupySF — or join with the more conservative law-and-order types who want the encampment evicted. At press time, as police erected barricades around the encampment, it seemed like that decision was imminent.

And Lee will have to face the fact that, for all his talk about unity and consensus, this is a city deeply divided. There is a huge political and economic gap between the rich and the poor, the haves and the have-nots, the 99 percent and the 1 percent, the folks at the Palace Hotel with their limousines and $17 cocktails and the folks in the Mission with their bicycles and beer. Their interests are often directly and unalterably opposed — and on Nov. 8, the powers-that-be made it very clear whose side they think Mayor Ed Lee is on. Additional research by Nena Farrell

Dick Meister: Mucho car!

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November 15, 2011

1

By Dick Meister

Dick Meister is a San Francisco-based former sports car driver.

It’s gone forever, my beloved Triumph Spitfire, that classic, marvelous looking British sports car that never ran anywhere near as well as it looked. Pearl white it was, with black trim. Pretty. But noisy, roaring sports-car-like down streets and highways to disturb my neighbors and who knows how many others.

For more than 30 years my 1979-model British beauty served me, going everywhere I wanted it to go, drawing approving glances and remarks from pedestrians and other drivers. It was, as one Spanish-speaking admirer exclaimed, “mucho car!”

The Spitfire also gave me the chance to spend lots of time with John, an extremely able, pleasant and sympathetic mechanic. Not to mention the tow truck drivers I often called on to get the car to John’s place of business for fixing,

It also won me the acquaintance of Anthony, the attendant in the garage of the radio station where I regularly recorded commentaries. Whenever I drove in, his eyes lit up. And on those frequent occasions when the Spitfire was being cared for by John, and I arrived in my wife’s humble Toyota sedan, Anthony was clearly disappointed and concerned. He sincerely wanted to know right away whether something bad had happened to “the little car?”

But the Spitfire and I have both become too old to remain together – though the car’s looks don’t reveal its advanced age. My wife Gerry and I were reminded of that recently by two teenage boys who were walking by on the street adjacent to where we had just parked and were sitting with the car’s vinyl top pulled back.

“What,” one boy loudly asked, “is that funny old couple doing in that slick-ass car?”

So now we have parted for good. The memories, however, remain.

It seems not everyone is familiar with Triumph Spitfires, which don’t have brand name labels affixed to their bodies like most other cars. The rarity of the unlabeled Spitfires became frighteningly evident soon after we began our long relationship. My wife Gerry and I were purring along, a mild summer breeze flowing gently around us, brilliant sky above, and not a highway patrolman in sight. Sixty, seventy . . .

Suddenly, a car roared up behind us and then pulled alongside. The driver waved and shouted. What was he saying? “Flat? Flat? “

My God, and we were going close to 80! Gerry didn’t panic. She never does. But me, well . . . “Look! Look! Which tire! Find it! Watch out! Hang on!”

The car next to us slowed as we slowed, and the driver repeated his message. Only now I could see that he was smiling – and hear that he was not saying “flat” at all. The word was “Fiat” as in, “Is that a Fiat, or what?”

And there were those kids staring intently from the rear of cars in front of us on freeways, demanding to know what they were looking at. It wasn’t easy to concentrate on the road with two, three, maybe four kids mugging and waving and pointing as we rolled full tilt down the road.

Coming upon suspicious characters hovering about the car in darkened parking lots and alongside the curb on dark city streets was exciting, too. They always said things like, “Just trying to figure what make car you got here, mister.” But life in the big city being what it is, I was never sure about that.

Yet it was quite nice to be approached in garages and parking lots by young women anxious to learn the identity of “that great looking car.”

Some people didn’t even bother asking the question. One day, for instance, there was a couple crossing the street in front of us, eyeing my magnificent unlabeled machine.

“What?” asked the man, smirking most knowledgably. “A Fiat, of course.” Imagine. My unlabeled British gem being taken again for an Italian.

Then there was the time after I came out of a building in which I had been transacting some important business, quite aware the time had expired on the parking meter. A meter maid in no–nonsense navy blue was slowly circling my unlabeled Spitfire, peering quizzically at the front, side and rear.

“Ah,” said I. “Just in time.”

“No,” said she. “Ticket’s written up. Just looking to see what make to put on it.”

“Oh, ho. And what happens if I don’t tell you?”

“Nothing. I’ll just write it up, ‘Make unknown.’ Actually, you know, it doesn’t really matter to me what it is.”

The final insult to the Spitfire came on its very last day in my possession. It was in one of its frequent non-operating moods, so I yet one more time called AAA for a tow. Out came a truck in four hours – four hours! – a truck equipped to carry, not a beautiful sports car, but a mere motorcycle. The dispatcher had assumed that my Triumph Spitfire was – you guessed it – a Triumph-brand motorcycle.

I tried to drive the car out of the garage and onto the flatbed tow truck’s ramp. Click! Click! Click! Over and over I turned the key and pumped the gas pedal, expecting the usual roar. But the car refused to start. I could only conclude that my beloved Spitfire didn’t want to leave me after all our years together. Finally, the reluctant car was pushed up and onto the truck.

What a humiliating way to go for the Spitfire. For me, too. At least I was able to send the car off to a very good home – John the mechanic’s garage, where it will be on display with a half-dozen other bright, shiny, aged and I assume happy classic British sports cars.

I’ll miss the excitement and feeling of adventure that came with driving what I freely to concede was a highly undependable auto. Despite the fondness I now feel for the departed car, I can’t quite forget the feelings of genuine panic it too often caused me. Too many times, I’d be driving along happily, when, suddenly, the engine would fail me. “Sputter! Sputter! Sputter!” I panicked as I searched desperately for a safe place to park my temperamental machine.

The greatest adventure was my last. I was driving up a very steep San Francisco hill, cars moving in a steady stream in both directions. Then, suddenly, no brakes! Down I plunged, backwards, at ever-accelerating speed, until, finally, I smashed into a neighbor’s parked car. I had no other choice.

I also had no choice but to spend lots to get the brakes replaced. I was used to that, however. I calculate that over the 32 years of our life together, I spent more than $14,000 on repairs for the car that I bought new for $6200.

It’s taken lots of very hard thinking, but I’m finally reconciled to losing what has been my attractive daily companion for three decades. That’s all there is to it.

It’s gone. Gone!

Dick Meister is a San Francisco-based former sports car driver.

One percent assault the waterfront

Zelda Bronstein

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November 15, 2011

106

While the 99 percent are fighting to hold onto a crowded encampment at Justin Herman Plaza, two new condo projects are moving along in San Francisco that would give the one percent specatular views from their mulitmillion-dollar homes on the waterfront.

And as much as OccupySF has been a challenge for Mayor Ed Lee, his administration’s response to giving choice parcels to some of the wealthiest people in the country will test his housing policy and his political independence.

The Port Commission is holding preliminary meetings on the 8 Washington project, which is about as direct a conflict with the city’s General Plan and housing needs as anyone could ever imagine. The developer wants to build 165 of the most expensive condos in the city’s history, aimed entirely at the very, very rich. Many will no doubt be used as pieds a terre for people who will live in San Francisco only a few weeks of the year. The project will do nothing to address the desperate need for affordable housing and housing for the middle class.

Rose Pak, the Chinatown business consultant who was central to Lee’s campaign, told me a few months ago that she supports the project. Marcia Smolens, one of the city’s top lobbyists, is working on it. There will be big money and clout pushing this — even though there is no rational reason why San Francisco should ever approve it.

And while BeyondChron claims that gentrifcation and overdevelopment isn’t so much of a problem these days because “financing … development is more difficult than ever,” the developers don’t seem to have noticed. A Nov. 11 story in the San Francisco Business Times (you can only get a few paragraphs if you don’t subscribe) explains that “developers are starting to plan new projects again after more than three years of inactivity” –and one of the biggest is a 284-foot, 160 unit residental highrise at 75 Howard Street. There’s a parking garage now on the site, which would be demolished to build condos that one expert told the BizTimes would sell for 1,000 a square foot.

You got that? A 1,000 square-foot one-bedroom unit would go for $1 million.

So we have two major waterfront projects — both of them high-end luxury condos, both of which would have just lovely views of the OccupySF encampment — moving forward while the barricades go up and the mayor decides when to evict the protesters. A classic battle for the soul of the city. Who’s side will Ed Lee be on?