Theater

THURSDAY

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Nov. 16

Performance

The Outsider Chronicles

Creative is the title of one of Sean Dorsey’s funniest and most heartrending dance theater pieces, a solo in which the keening voice of a guidance counselor yanks on Dorsey’s strings, trying to maneuver his masculine enthusiasm into expressions of gender that aren’t “inappropriate.” Creative is also a good word to describe Dorsey’s impulses – he’s making vital work that charts its own territories without following trad dictates of gender and genre. Dorsey’s skill as a choreographer and his observant quality as a writer are both grounded in naturalism – he makes tough creative work look easy, even as it faces tough subject matter. This weekend brings the return of his acclaimed The Outsider Chronicles. (Johnny Ray Huston)

8 p.m. (through Sat/18)
Dance Mission Theater
3316 24th St., SF
$15
(415) 273-4633
www.freshmeatproductions.org

Music

Partyline

Who’s afraid of the big bad terror suspect – or the prez, for that matter? Not Partyline, that’s for sure. Bratmobile vocalist Allison Wolfe’s new all-femme band lashes together nyah-nyah vocals, punktastic guitar action, and a conscience. “We gotta keep from crying at our monkey terror president!” she yelps on the combo’s Retard Disco debut, Zombie Terrorist, the follow-up to last year’s Girls with Glasses EP. Imagine the Ramones in skirts and with a singular activist attitude, and you’ll get an idea of Partyline’s garagy gumption. (Kimberly Chun)

With French Toast and Golden Bears
9:30 p.m.
Hemlock Tavern
1131 Polk, SF
$7
(415) 923-0923
www.hemlocktavern.com

“When it comes to herb, you gotta set some standards in your life.”

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Tomorrow night at the Parkway Theater — local writer-director Kevin Hahn premieres his new film Stoner’s Run. Judging by the cover art (below), I assumed it was gonna be in the grand tradition of Up in Smoke or Half-Baked, which is to say, a pot comedy all the way. I’m not sure if it’s a spoiler to tell you that the giant joint never actually makes an appearance.

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Goldies Theatre winner Last Planet Theatre

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Offensive. Repugnant. Sick. Few theater directors enjoy hearing these words from patrons, especially as they’re bolting up the aisle ahead of the first-act curtain. Then again, for some there’s a certain satisfaction in knowing you’re still on track.
“The audiences are getting bigger,” notes Last Planet Theatre’s artistic director, John R. Wilkins. “Sometimes they hate it and walk out. They aren’t walking out, out of boredom. They’re walking out because it’s too much.”
That’s all right with him, provided what offends is delivered with artistic skill, vision, and honesty. “It’s not a lie that a 14-year-old rape victim, a retarded girl, should fall in love with a 45-year-old man who rapes her in diarrhea sex,” he muses. “I mean, it takes a lot to portray, but it doesn’t take a lot to imagine [the humanity of these characters]. You can say Seth [the 45-year-old in Franz Xaver Kroetz’s Farmyard] is corrupt. And he is — he’s wrong. But he’s going for it. Like the woman in [Howard Brenton’s] Sore Throats. To me, that’s just exactly perfect. Go and burn all the money, go out and destroy yourself — either live or destroy yourself. In the realm of art, that’s great.”
Not every production from Last Planet merits a walkout. But without fail every Last Planet production is an attempt to take the audience beyond the expected, the usual, the safe, and the prepackaged.
To that extent, Last Planet has been proudly offending audiences since 1998 — the year husband and wife John and Kimball Wilkins shelved their new Berkeley PhDs in English to pursue what they privately concede was a madcap dream of founding a theater company. The company has been in its own 80-seat theater since 2004 and comprises a small group of committed collaborators — including longtime associates Paul Rasmussen and Andrew Jones, the core of the company’s outstanding production team. Its productions of highly literary and brazenly theatrical work by the likes of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Matthew Maguire, Michael McClure, Wallace Shawn, Howard Barker, and Ronald Ribman have less to do with a narrow sense of authenticity or realism than a commitment to exploring all you might be capable of feeling and thinking inside a theater. Along the way Last Planet presents an invariably bold and imaginative theatrical vision that’s in a refreshingly distinct orbit of its own.
“It has to be beautiful and confrontational,” John says, explaining the qualities that attract the company to a given work. “Those are some of the things we look for: sheer beauty and sheer brutality at the same time.”
Kimball pinpoints another crucial theme: “The logic or vision of the play has to believe more deeply in experience — the mystery of experience and the possibility of experience — than a particular idea, let alone an ideology. There’s something about the strength of experience in the plays that’s always an attraction.”
“We just see so many plays which are like copycats of television or copycats of movies,” John says. “They aren’t theatrical. They don’t have any theatrical models. Or if they do, they’re horribly content. You don’t get the type of nuts like Howard Barker or Howard Brenton and [Anthony] Neilson and Kroetz, who are just nutty to destroy the form that they love.”
“It’s a creative destruction,” Kimball says.
“Yeah, a creative destructive force,” John agrees. “So you’re sitting there thinking, can we match it? Pulling tricks on [the audience] — theatrical tricks are fine, but go right at them and try to grab them, shake them up and not let them loose and not let it be easy.”
“That’s not to say that it shouldn’t be enjoyable,” he adds with a laugh. “We don’t want to be avant-garde nuts. It should be an absolutely enjoyable experience. But given that, [it] should destroy people.” (Robert Avila)

Goldies Dance winners Benjamin Levy and LEVYdance

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Benjamin Levy entered college as a future pediatrician. He left as a dancer — not exactly what his Jewish Iranian parents had in mind. “They were not pooh-poohing it,” Levy recently recalled. “They just had no frame of reference. It was not even in their lexicon.”
After graduating from UC Berkeley, Levy danced with the Joe Goode Performance Group for two seasons. “He was such a beautiful mover. He could do anything and was a good inventor and great collaborator,” Goode says. “But it was very clear that he needed to do his own thing.” So in 2003 the newly formed LEVYdance company made its first splash as part of the second House Special, ODC Theater’s two-week residency program. The following year the company made its East Coast debut, and the dancers have been back every year since. In 2005 they were chosen for the prestigious California Regional Touring Project. Last March they performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic as part of its “Minimalist Jukebox” festival. Last month they embarked on their first international tour — a two-week gig in Lithuania. The company has given workshops across the country and worked with college ensembles. Recently, it moved into its own large and handsome studio South of Market. And all of this with a repertory of barely a dozen pieces.
So what makes LEVYdance so hot? For one thing, the dances crawl under your skin. Levy’s pieces look a little bit like creepy film noir. Shadowy forces lurk inside the voluptuously strong dancers, but you can’t quite pin those forces down. And actually, you probably don’t really want to know why a hug turns into a chokehold or flailing limbs get so entangled that you wonder whether they’ll ever return to their owners. The intensity is fierce. The choreographer describes Violent Momentum, a 2005 commission from ODC and Meet the Composer, as “being with the rawest part of yourself. It may be an uncomfortable experience, it may be an embracing one, but ultimately, it’s an important, sobering journey.”
And yet Levy’s work is gorgeous to look at. He embeds finely detailed choreography into theatrical contexts with sophisticated lighting designs, stark but elegant costumes, and imaginative and oft-original scores. This is a man of the theater, maybe even an old-fashioned man of the theater.
Levy started to dance and choreograph in high school (“It fulfilled a PE requirement, and I didn’t want to run laps”), but his eyes were opened by his Martha Graham training. It’s as much Graham’s ethics as her movement that impressed him: “Life is too precious to mess around. If you can’t be here fully, don’t show up.” Used to seeing a lot of dance that he describes as “the ooey, gooey, never-ending releasy soup,” Levy appreciated that in Graham “a hard line could be a hard line, and it could stay there and be energized and buzz with life. That was so exciting.”
Up next is an untitled work to be premiered at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco in 2007. It will be the biggest piece Levy has done yet. “It’s about how identity is formed in first-generation Americans who are born of parents who fled oppressive governments,” he says. “The interesting thing is that it is a veiled past — a past that is vast and influential, yet your parents don’t speak about it very much.”
So are his parents reconciled to not having a pediatrician in the family? “My mom not too long ago said to me that doctors can heal bones, but artists can heal human souls,” Levy says with a smile. (Rita Felciano)

Goldies Dance winner Sean Dorsey

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One look at Sean Dorsey — a debonair dancer with slightly mussed hair and innovative modern dance choreographer — and two words instantly come to mind: dip me!
But watching him dance, you see more of a rough-and-tumble Gene Kelly than a gliding Fred Astaire. Which isn’t to say he can’t throw down a steamy tango, as he does in Red Tie, Red Lipstick, a moving pas de deux about violence against a transgender couple. Dorsey featured the piece, with narration by trans poet Marcus Van, in his first full-length show, Outsider Chronicles, staged last year at ODC Theater and soon to be remounted Nov. 16 to 18 at the Dance Mission Theater.
Since moving to San Francisco in 2001 from Vancouver, Dorsey has blazed a fierce trail for transgender performers. He immediately became enamored with the city when he met site-specific choreographer Lizz Roman while visiting here with the Kokoro Dance company. “There was very little release technique or inversion work in Vancouver,” the native Canadian recalls. “I totally fell in love with her [Roman’s] movement and what she was doing.”
The feeling was mutual, and Roman gave the young dancer a spot in her company. Dance Brigade founder Krissy Keefer also went mad for Dorsey, granting him a solo slot in the now-defunct Lesbian and Gay Dance Festival. Even our pampered SF LGBT audience wasn’t used to seeing butch-looking dancers like Dorsey onstage, and its response was ecstatic.
By the spring of 2002 he was in ODC Theater’s Pilot Program, which nurtures emerging choreographers as they develop new work eventually showcased on the theater’s floor. Three months later he founded the groundbreaking Fresh Meat Productions, which brings trans and queer performers, filmmakers, musicians, and writers together annually to tell their stories through their chosen artistic discipline. Since the first two-day show at ODC Theater that summer, Fresh Meat has moved on to cosponsoring Tranny Fest, a festival of independent trans cinema now helmed by Dorsey’s partner, filmmaker Shawna Virago, and also helped to organize national tours of trans artists. Currently, Dorsey, the nonprofit’s artistic director, is organizing a show for a trans printmaker at the Femina Potens gallery and another solo show for a trans visual artist.
Amid all the organizing, marketing, and promoting, Dorsey brought his own point of view to queer performance with last year’s Outsider Chronicles, via an individual artist grant from the San Francisco Arts Commission. Written and choreographed by Dorsey, the program combines modern dance with music and narration in five stories that reflect the life of a transgender person — as well as any human being who has ever had a crush, a secret, or a high school guidance counselor with a textbook full of bad advice. Each vignette (most performed with dance partner Meir Culbreth) expresses a language of movement that is boldly real and acutely honest.
Through Fresh Meat and his own choreography, Dorsey has been able to combine art and activism in a way that creates alliances, fosters a community of like-minded artists, and changes our notion of what defines dance and, at its most basic level, our bodies. Next on the horizon, the onetime housing and poverty activist who realized his dance career almost accidentally while on a hiatus from grad school plans to use his Gerbode Emerging Choreographer Award to continue combining his two great passions. Tentatively titled Some Went Untold, the envisioned piece will be based on interviews Dorsey conducts with trans folk across the land.
“I’m still, like, ‘Hello, hello, hello, where are all the trans dancers?’” Dorsey says. “I’m hoping very soon that there will be more trans dancers to work with.” He also hopes to find the time to learn ballroom dance. Let the dipping begin! (Deborah Giattina)

Goldies Lifetime Achievement winner Pandit Chitresh Das

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After a highly disciplined childhood, spending up to six hours a day practicing on a cement floor for his very demanding but revered guru, Pandit Ram Narayan Misra, Kathak master Chitresh Das moved from his native Calcutta (by way of a one-year stint in Maryland) to the Bay Area.
The year was 1971. Das had been hired by the Ali Akbar College of Music to teach one of the most ancient arts of India to young countercultural Americans eager to learn Eastern practices.
It was, at the very least, something of a cultural shock — for both sides. “This was the beautiful age of the flower children, the hippie generation,” Das remembers. “They were looking toward the East for answers, but I did not fit their idealized image of an Indian guru. Having been schooled in the old-world traditions — to respect and obey my teachers and elders and to assume a secondary stance in their presence — my amused bewilderment at my students’ behavior never ceased.”
Thirty-five years later Das and his American-born dancers, many of Indian descent, have more than reached harmony. His Chhandam School of Kathak has five Bay Area branches, plus outposts in Boston, Toronto, and Calcutta. The most accomplished of his Chitresh Das Dance Company members is the Floridian Charlotte Moraga, who stumbled into Das’s class at San Francisco State University — where he taught for 17 years — because the jazz dance class she wanted was full.
Das’s most important contribution to the Bay Area may well be the way he has woven Kathak into the fabric of local dance. Once an exceedingly esoteric art form, born at the Islamic courts of the Mogul Empire in northern India, Kathak now has a home in the Bay Area’s more egalitarian environment. In the ’80s, Das’s dancers were among the first participants in the SF Ethnic Dance Festival. His company regularly presents him as a solo dancer and as a choreographer of both traditional and unconventional work.
Now in his early 60s, an age at which most Western dancers have long retired from the theater, Das remains a stunning performer and the best advocate for his art. When he is onstage, you cannot take your eyes off him, whether he’s moving through the pure dance passages that require dizzying turns and mind-boggling footwork or the more expressive sections in which the dancer calls up a favorite story from the Mahabharata, impersonating all its different characters and sometimes the landscape as well.
Das thinks nothing of transforming a performance into something akin to a lecture demo if his audience will walk away with a better understanding of Kathak’s rhythmic intricacies and the vast world of the Hindu mythology in which the art is rooted. A “kathaka,” he likes to remind theatergoers, is a storyteller.
In September, Das organized “Kathak at the Crossroads,” the largest festival of its kind ever held outside India. The San Francisco event’s subtitle, “Innovation within Tradition,” could describe Das himself. A fierce traditionalist, he is also explosively freethinking. He embraces the improvisatory interaction between dancer and musician — a connection that takes place within given parameters but is never rehearsed. The way he talks about it, the dancer strives toward a kind of oneness, maybe a divine type of play that is both meditative and intensely joyful. His guru used to tell him to “dance in such a way that the sound of your [ankle] bells and the room become one.”
As traditional as Das can be, he is also an innovator. A few years ago he created a new genre of dancing, Kathak yoga, inspired by the ascetic traditions of the Himalayas. It is primarily designed as a spiritual and physical practice. Without music the dancer mentally counts the rhythms, recites and chants the embellishments aloud, and dances the footwork.
As a storytelling choreographer, Das has been a force for change ever since he first performed the clever and amusing The Train as a student at an international East-West dance conference in India. Choreographed by his guru, the piece imitates a train — traveling, speeding up, changing tracks, breaking, passing a railroad station.
Das has created traditional dance dramas (such as Darbar [1999]) but also less traditional ones, such as Impressions of the California Gold Rush (1990), in which a trio of 49ers perform in ankle bells and cowboy outfits.
Sadhana (2001) is a multimedia solo evening about different forms of practice — dance, life, meditation. For his 60th birthday he created the autobiographical Sampurnam (2004) for himself and his company.
But Das’s most innovative work has come with practitioners of other dance styles: The Guru (Bharata Natyam, 1991), Sole Music (tap and flamenco, 1986), Sugriya-Subali (Balinese, 2000), and East as Center (Kathakali and Balinese, 2003). His latest exploration in that direction is Jazz Suites, a collaboration with tap dancer Jason Samuels Smith that grew out of a friendly competition in the hallways of the American Dance Festival in 2004. The duo have been touring the piece around the country and will take it to India this winter.
While Das has been passionate about opening American eyes to the beauty of his art form, he is equally committed to doing the same for Indian audiences. He spends part of every year in Calcutta teaching, performing, and giving workshops. In 2002 he reopened his father’s old school, which had trained Kathak dancers in Calcutta even before Indian independence. Last year Das started a training program for the children of Calcutta’s sex workers; most recently he gave a lecture demonstration for professional Indian boxers about their connection with the Hindu goddess Kali and the monkey god Hanuman.
Clearly, one lifetime simply may not be enough to contain Chitresh Das, his artistry, his humanity, his passion. (Rita Felciano)

Bollywood dreams

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› news@sfbg.com
It was the proverbial phone call every aspiring actor waits for. An agent for a TV producer rang Raj Vasudeva in 2003 to say he would be perfect for a role in a new show that needed a dynamic lead.
Vasudeva, 33, eagerly invited the agent over to view his modeling portfolio and acting tapes. The agent flipped through a book that featured shots of the former Mr. India California crawling through the surf seductively with a dress shirt fluttering open. The agent said he was impressed. Vasudeva thought he had the role, but then the real audition began.
“‘Can I be blunt with you?’” Vasudeva recalled the agent saying. “‘Are you ready to get your ass fucked by men and older women?’”
Vasudeva laughed at the sleazy suggestion and said no. The interview ended abruptly, and the agent tossed the following advice at Vasudeva as he left the meeting in Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay: “If you’re coming to Bollywood, you have to be shameless.”
Welcome to Bollywood, or as they say in India, Bollywood mein aap kaa swaagat ho. Vasudeva, who was born in Delhi but spent much of his life in San Francisco, is trying to accomplish something no US resident has ever done: become a top star in the world’s largest film industry.
For anyone still not familiar with Bollywood, it’s entertainment on a scale that can make your average Hollywood production look like Saved by the Bell. The films are a brawling mix of Broadway-style song and dance, bling that rivals a 50 Cent video, and dizzying scene changes across two or even three continents. The pictures often mash up elements of drama, comedy, and action into a single bursting-at-the-seams melodrama that can last more than three hours.
Bollywood has grown increasingly popular in the United States over the last five years. While it was a lackluster summer for many of Hollywood’s big summer releases, Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (Never Say Goodbye) grossed $1.4 million in US theaters during its opening weekend in August — the best showing ever by a Bollywood movie in this country. The film shows Nov. 11 at 8:15 p.m. in the Castro Theatre as part of the San Francisco International South Asian Film Festival (www.thirdi.org/festival).
Vasudeva’s transformation into an aspiring actor might work nicely as a plot for a Bollywood film. Vasudeva came to the States in 1990 to attend college. He graduated with a degree in industrial management and seemed to be headed down the path to a respectable, if somewhat unfulfilling, white-collar future.
His acting career began as little more than a hobby in 1997. He began taking classes at San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theater. Later, he took a job in sales at Oracle in Redwood City. His friend Paul Chopra recalled Vasudeva renting a bunch of Bollywood films and then practicing lines from them in between fielding service calls to Oracle from India in the dead of the night.
He graduated to theater and film productions at the San Francisco Academy of Art, which was followed by his first feature film, Indian Fish. It traces the journey of an Indian software engineer as he makes his way through unfamiliar American culture. Vasudeva, who is tall and has boyish good looks, burnished his résumé by snagging the title of Mr. India California in 2002 on the strength of a performance of a monologue from a Bollywood film.
Vasudeva then starred in Khwaab, the story of another Indian immigrant who gives up a career in the tech world — against the wishes of his parents and friends — to pursue an acting career. Vasudeva declined to discuss whether the movie parallels his own struggles, but the similarities are striking. He said his parents were initially upset about his career choice but eventually came around.
With some solid acting experience to his name, Vasudeva decided to make the leap to Bollywood in 2004. He packed up his San Francisco apartment and moved to Mumbai. It was a shock for him.
Vasudeva found the Mumbai film industry was more freewheeling than the one in the United States. Contracts are often nonexistent; producers hit him up for money to complete films and sometimes bounce his paychecks. Then there are the thickets of “secretaries” — movie agents who serve as intermediaries for actors looking to land roles.
“There are secretaries that will squeeze every penny from you,” Vasudeva said.
Occasionally, the action off the screen seems as dramatic as that on it. The Indian underworld has been accused of threatening — and even killing — actors who won’t pay it protection money or act in its films.
It hasn’t been easy, but Vasudeva managed to get his first break by placing in the top 10 in another contest, called Grasim Mr. India, which was broadcast nationally in India. He compared the contest to Bravo’s short-lived Manhunt USA, which pitted aspiring models against each other to win a contract with an agency. A publicity photo for Grasim Mr. India shows Vasudeva was right on the mark. It features him and a stageful of hunky guys decked out in mesh shirts. (Unfortunately, mesh shirts seem to be a staple fashion for male actors in Bollywood.)
Vasudeva’s showing in the event prompted the interview with the sleazy talent agent. He has since landed a role in Kaho na Kaho, a Bollywood remake of Notting Hill. (Bollywood often liberally borrows from American films and music because, for the most part, artists in the West have not paid much attention to Bollywood, although this is coming to an end.) And he’s starred in a remake that would seem an unlikely choice for Bollywood’s romance- and family-centered cinema, The Ring. The movie is called Second Day. Both Kaho na Kaho and Second Day have yet to be released.
Lisa Tsering, who has covered Bollywood for the newspaper India West for 10 years, said Vasudeva’s chances of making it in Bollywood are “not too good.” And it has little to do with his talent.
“I think that NRIs [nonresident Indians] don’t have a certain quality they are looking for in India,” Tsering said. “They feel NRIs are too complacent and too well fed. They’re not hungry enough.”
An American has yet to crack Bollywood’s A-list, although Canadian-born actress Lisa Ray (who starred in Deepa Mehta’s Bollywood/Hollywood and Water) has generated buzz recently. Tsering said non-Indians are also at a disadvantage because many don’t have the family connections that are so important to making it in Bollywood. Unlike in Hollywood, where actors often try to obscure their family connections by changing their name (think Angelina Jolie and her father, Jon Voight), blatant nepotism is part of the game in Bollywood. It is so pervasive it has become a running joke among Indian film fans, who often complain about the latest pudgy, bad-haired, leaden-acting relation who is foisted on them. Vasudeva may be able to capitalize on this nepotistic trend: he is related to Gauri Khan, an actress and the wife of megastar Shah Rukh Khan, star of Never Say Goodbye. (Vasudeva said he doesn’t trade on his family connections.)
Vasudeva’s current role could be his most challenging yet. In the psychological thriller tentatively titled Boomerang he plays three separate characters. The movie is based on the story of a famous London crime novelist who returns to his ancestral home in India to write a novel. The novelist, played by Vasudeva, soon realizes that someone has followed him there. Drama ensues.
Vasudeva’s choice to pursue a career in Bollywood instead of in the States says as much about Hollywood as it does about the Indian film industry. Despite the exasperations of Bollywood, he’s happy with the choice and doesn’t plan to return to this country anytime soon.
“I didn’t want to spend my career playing a cab driver,” Vasudeva quipped about the limited roles for Indians in Hollywood. SFBG

GOLDIES 2006

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The Guardian turned 40 this year, and the Goldies — our annual arts awards — are now 18. Which makes them a bit like the paper’s child, a many–gendered and splendored one that reaches the US’s idea of adulthood this year. An event like that deserves a party and — after a private award ceremony in honor of this year’s winners — we’re throwing one at 111 Minna Gallery.
It’s free — a San Francisco value.
Dance is at the heart of any ceremony that matters and any party worth remembering, and it’s at the heart of this year’s Goldies thanks to three winners that demonstrate the diversity of its forms. Our cover stars, the extraordinary Benjamin Levy and LevyDANCE, prove it is past time to explode the cold post that’s been lingering in front of the phrase modern dance: close to two years after the first time I saw them perform, I still remember specific images of aggression and tender respite from their pieces. Local Hip Hop Dance Fest mainstays Funkanometry SF take the movement language of B-boys and music video choreographers, add their own signature style, and electrify and take over any room in the process. This year’s Lifetime Achievement awardee, Pandit Chitresh Das, introduced Kathak dance to this country; more recently, he has tapped into its connections to tap.
This year’s Goldie winners were selected by the Guardian’s Johnny Ray Huston, Kimberly Chun, and Cheryl Eddy with valuable input from our writers and critics, as well as members of the Bay Area arts community. The people in the following pages make noise that’s transcendental and meditative, use film to look at toxic currents of contemporary life, stage works that leap across boundaries, and vivify — and add impish prankishness to — visual art. Join us, and them, at this year’s party.
MUSIC
DEERHOOF
GRIS GRIS
OM
TRAXAMILLION

FILM
JAMES T. HONG
CHRIS METZLER AND JEFF SPRINGER

THEATER
LAST PLANET THEATRE

DANCE
FUNKANOMETRY SF
BENJAMIN LEVY AND LEVYDANCE

PERFORMANCE
SEAN DORSEY

VISUAL ART
CHRIS DUNCAN
YOON LEE
TIM SULLIVAN


LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT
PANDIT CHITRESH DAS

SATURDAY

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Sat/4

Performance

“Campfire”
Oh, to be kids again, sitting around the fire and chomping toasted marshmallows while taking turns freaking each other out with tales of the spirit world! Well, here’s your chance: BATS Improv, with special guests Unexpected Productions, is offering an improvisational theater version of the campfire story. Before the show audience members are encouraged to share their experiences with ghosts; these accounts are then converted into improvised performances certain to quicken the pulse and thrill the most jaded of hearts. (Todd Lavoie)
8 p.m.
Bayfront Theater
Fort Mason Center, bldg. B
Marina at Buchanan, SF
$15
www.improv.org

Music

Mudhoney
Born from the ashes of the seminal Seattle band Green River, Mudhoney was one of the first groups to rise to moderate fame during the alternative rock explosion in the late ’80s and early ’90s. Though its profile and popularity were eventually far eclipsed by other acts labeled with the now-despised “grunge” tag, Mudhoney is one of the few original bands of that era still touring and putting out records. Tunes from this year’s Under a Billion Suns seethe and spit with the same attitude that made “Touch Me I’m Sick” and “Suck You Dry” anthems for a disaffected Generation X. (Sean McCourt)
9 p.m.
12 Galaxies
2565 Mission, SF
$20
(415) 970-9777
www.12galaxies.com
www.subpop.com

MONDAY

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Oct. 30

Karaoke

Dead Rock Star

Join in the fun as a room full of Elvises, Jim Morrisons, and Kurt Cobains step to the mic and deliver heartrending versions of their favorite songs. (Todd Lavoie)

8 p.m.-2 a.m.
Cellar
685 Sutter, SF
Free
(415) 441-5678

Theater

The Creature

Black Box Theatre Company gives a single performance before a studio audience of their new podcast adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankensten. This version tells the story from the monster’s point of view. (Todd Lavoie)

8 p.m.
Magic Theatre
building D, Fort Mason Center, SF
Free; reservations required
(415) 731-4922

WEDNESDAY

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Oct. 25

Theater

Hamlet and Hamlet:
Blood in the Brain

’Tis the season for dueling Hamlets – dueling unconventional Hamlets, in fact. Stuart Bousel and his No Nude Men Productions stick with the title of Shakespeare’s original but interpret the play as myth rather than canon fodder, casting the movie-length result so that male parts are played by women and female parts are played by men. Developed in partnership with California Shakespeare Theater and Campo Santo, Naomi Iizuka’s Hamlet: Blood in the Brain places the drama amid the drug-related violence of ’80s-era Oakland. Opening night forces you to overcome Hamlet-like indecision to choose one of these two versions, but at least you have a month or so to see both. (Johnny Ray Huston)

Hamlet
8 p.m. (continues Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; through Nov. 18)
Climate Theater
285 Ninth St., SF
(415) 621-1503
www.horrorunspeakable.com

Hamlet: Blood in the Brain
8 p.m. (Thurs.-Sun., 8 p.m.; through Nov. 20; special benefit performance Sat/28, 7 p.m.)
Intersection for the Arts
446 Valencia, SF
$9-$20 ($25-$40 for Sat/28 benefit)
(415) 626-3311
www.theintersection.org

Film

United Nations Association Film Festival

Tonje Hessen Schei’s documentary Independent Intervention is the single most staggering doc yet made about the unholy matrimony of the military-industrial complex and the media. Using corporate newsreels, interviews with journalists, and footage from unembedded correspondents, the film relentlessly stabs its audience with egregious facts about the war in Iraq that have been avoided by mainstream reports. Both painful and empowering, this is a film everyone needs to see. Another highlight among the 31 docs playing at the United Nations Association Film Festival is Ben Lewis’s Blowing Up Paradise, which plots the history of France’s nuclear bomb testing on the French Polynesian island of Moruroa. (Sara Schieron)

Through Thurs/26
Stanford University
See Web site for program information
www.unaff.org

Welcome to the CSA

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› annalee@techsploitation.com
TECHSPLOITATION I love a good alternate history yarn for the same reason I love science fiction. Both genres analyze present-day trends by projecting them into another reality. That other reality might be the future or simply a transformed version of the present.
In the United States, there are two incredibly popular alternate history scenarios: 1. What if the South had won the Civil War? and 2. What if Germany had won World War II? C.S.A: The Confederate States of America, a fake British documentary made by Kansas filmmaker Kevin Willmott, answers both questions.
After its limited release in the theaters two years ago, the movie achieved cult status in DVD form, which is really its natural medium. It’s fascinating to watch CSA on a television set because the movie is meant to resemble a snippet from a TV station, complete with freaky commercials and news breaks, that is airing a “controversial” British documentary about the history of the CSA.
Blending dark humor with painstakingly researched historical revisionism, Willmott begins the movie with a fake commercial for insurance. The clip looks exactly like something you might see on ABC, including the fact that everyone in it is white. Then the announcer says, “Our insurance protects you and your property,” and the camera pans over to a smiling black boy who is clipping a hedge. This is a present day in which slavery still exists.
The British documentary reveals how this came to pass. After the South wins the Civil War with the help of France and England, the president heals the rift between North and South by offering Northerners slaves to help reconstruct the bombed-out cities of New York and Boston. Deposed president Lincoln flees to Canada, followed by 20,000 abolitionists including Fredrick Douglass and Henry David Thoreau.
Shortly thereafter, Chinese laborers in California are also declared slaves. The CSA annexes South America and becomes entrenched in a Cold War with what politicians call Red Canada. Several African nations collude with the CSA to maintain the slave trade, and we see historical footage of an African leader reassuring his people that only the “inferior tribes” are sold as slaves.
Hitler retains control over Germany when the CSA refuses to intervene in World War II, although the president does say it’s too bad the Germans are killing Jews instead of enslaving them.
What’s sheer genius about this alternate history is how much of it is drawn from actual US history. We hear about Native Americans being rounded up and put into orphanages, which actually happened; and the fake commercials advertising things like “Darkie Toothpaste,” “Niggerhair Cigarettes,” and “Coon Chicken” are all based on real products sold long after the abolition of slavery.
More chilling are ads for anti-depressants aimed at controlling slaves, and for a TV show based on Cops called Runaway. The message may be heavy-handed, but it nevertheless rings true enough to be thought-provoking: US popular culture is only one degree removed from being that of a slave-owning nation.
The same goes for US political culture. Historical figures and events in CSA also remain virtually unchanged. Kennedy is elected president and calls for abolition right before being assassinated, and the Watts Riots are portrayed as a “slave uprising.” Reagan’s presidency heralds a new spike in the slave trade. Experts explain how the Internet has helped rejuvenate interest in the science of slave control, and we see clips from the Slave Shopping Network, where bidders can choose to break up a family or “buy the complete set.”
Willmott has said in several interviews that CSA is not about what could be, but what is. He points out that African Americans and other people of color may not view the film as an alternate history so much as a reflection of a true history that many whites still can’t quite see. Maybe that accounts for why the film, which received an enthusiastic reception at Sundance in 2004 and critical raves, didn’t make it onto DVD until quite recently. Freed from the confines of traditional movie theater distribution, I think this flick will at last find the audience it deserves in online communities, where people can simultaneously watch, discuss, and recommend it.
In fact, I can’t think of a better movie to share in small pieces on
YouTube or MySpace, enticing people to rent or buy it and get the whole story. Its message should be out there, spreading like the world’s most virulent antiracist media virus, infecting the nation one computer screen at a time. SFBG
Annalee Newitz is a surly media nerd whose other favorite alternate history is about what would have happened if Martin Scorsese had directed ET.

SPECIAL: Scary monsters and supercreeps

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com
Halloween is the season for self-expression in all of its many glorious forms: costumes, music, dance, art, theater, and maybe even a few forms that can’t be classified. Whether you’re a trash-culture junkie or a splatter-movie freak, a pagan ritual follower or a brazen exhibitionist, you’ll definitely find something chilling, somewhere in the Bay Area. Here’s a sampling; for more Halloween and Día de los Muertos events, go to www.sfbg.com.
PARTIES AND BENEFITS
FRIDAY 27
The Enchanted Forest Cellar, 685 Sutter, SF; 441-5678. 10pm-2am. $5-10. Silly Cil presents the seventh annual Enchanted Forest costume ball; woodland nymphs and mythical creatures are welcome. DJs McD and Scotty Fox rock the forest with hip-hop and ’80s sounds.
Hyatt Regency/98.1 KISS FM Halloween Bash Hyatt Regency, 5 Embarcadero Center, SF; 788-1234. 8 pm. $28.50 advance ($30 door). KISS Radio’s Morris Knight MCs an evening of costumed revelry. DJ Michael Erickson brings the dance mix.
Rock ’n’ Roll Horror Show Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, SF; 820-3907. 7:30pm. $5-10 donation. Rock out and scream loud for a good cause: proceeds go to the ninth SF Independent Film Festival. A screening of 1987 B-movie Street Trash is followed by the sounds of Sik Luv, Wire Graffiti, Charm School Drop Outs, and Madelia.
SambaDa: Afro-Brazilian, Afro-Exotic Halloween Extravaganza Elbo Room, 647 Valencia, SF; 552-7788. 10pm. $8-10. Don’t feel like ghosts and goblins and blood and guts? How about samba and bossa nova grooves to keep your feet busy?
BAY AREA
Halloween Madness Speisekammer, 2424 Lincoln, Alameda; (510) 522-1300. 9pm. Free. Skip Henderson and the Starboard Watch offer hard-drinking sailor songs. Come in costume and get a free rum drink, matey.
SATURDAY 28
Exotic Erotic Ball Cow Palace, 2600 Geneva, SF; 567-2255, www.exoticeroticball.com. 8pm-2am. $69. P-Funker George Clinton, ’80s icon Thomas Dolby, and rapper Too Short are among the musical guests at this no-holds-barred celebration. Put on your sexiest, slinkiest number and admire the antics of trapeze artists, fetish performers, and burlesque show-stoppers, as well as those of the attendees.
SUNDAY 29
Fresh/Halloween T-Dance Ruby Skye, 420 Mason, SF; www.freshsf.com. 6pm-midnight. $20. Sassy, slinky, and sexy costumes abound at this Halloween dance party. DJ Manny Lehman spins.
MONDAY 30
Dead Rock Star Karaoke Cellar, 685 Sutter, SF; 441-5678. 8pm-2am. Free. Elvises, Jim Morrisons, and Kurt Cobains deliver heartrending renditions of favorite songs.
TUESDAY 31
A Nightmare on Fulton Street Poleng Lounge, 1751 Fulton, SF; www.polenglounge.com. 8pm-2am. $5-10. The third annual Holla-ween showcases a rich harvest of fat beats, thanks to the DJ skills of Boozou Bajou.
Scary Halloween Bash 12 Galaxies, 2565 Mission, SF; 970-9777. 8pm. $10. All dressed up but not feeling like heading to the Castro? Want to hear a marching band? No, wait, come back. It’s the Extra Action Marching Band, which specialize in baccanalian freak-shows. Sour Mash Jug Band and livehuman leave you grinning beneath that rubber mask.
FILM/MUSIC/THEATER/ART
WEDNESDAY 25
Art Hell ARTwork SF Gallery, 49 Geary, suite 215, SF; 673-3080. noon-5:30pm. Free. Bay Area artists render darkness, death, and all things devilishly creepy. Sale proceeds go to the San Francisco Artist Resource Center. Also open Thu/26-Sat/28, same hours.
THURSDAY 26
Babble on Halloween Dog Eared Books, 900 Valencia, SF; 282-1901. 8pm. Free. There’s nothing like shivers up the spine to go with cupcakes and wine! Bucky Sinister, Tony Vaguely, and Shawna Virago creep you out with spooky stories and bizarre performances.
A Second Final Rest: The History of San Francisco’s Lost Cemeteries California Historical Society Library, 678 Mission, SF; 357-1848. 6pm. Free. Trina Lopez’s documentary tells the story of how San Francisco relocated burial grounds in the wake of the 1906 earthquake and fire — ironically sending some of the city’s settlers on a last journey after death.
Shocktoberfest!! 2006: Laboratory of Hallucinations Hypnodrome, 575 10th St, SF; 377-4202. 8pm. $20. The Thrillpeddlers are back with a gross-out lover’s delight: public execution, surgery, and taxidermy in three tales of unspeakable horror. Also Fri/27-Sat/28, 8pm.
FRIDAY 27
BATS Improv/True Fiction Magazine’s Annual Halloween Show Bayfront Theater, 8350 Fort Mason Center, SF; www.improv.org. 8pm. $18 ($15 advance). Madcap improvisational comics of True Fiction Magazine transform audience suggestions into hilariously bizarre pulp fiction–inspired skits. In the spirit of the season, TFM is sure to throw ghoulish horror into the mix. Also Sat/28.
Hallowe’en at Tina’s Café Magnet, 4122 18th St, SF; 581-1600. 9pm. Free. What’s Halloween in San Francisco without any drag? Before you consider the sad possibilities, let Tina’s Café banish those thoughts with a deliciously campy drag queen cabaret show. Mrs. Trauma Flintstone MCs.
Rural Rampage Double Feature Alliance Française de San Francisco, 1345 Bush, SF; www.ham-o-rama.com. 7:30pm. Free. Those midnight movie aficionados at Incredibly Strange Picture Show unreel a shriekingly tasty lineup from the “scary redneck” genre: Two Thousand Maniacs and the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
SATURDAY 28
11th Annual Soapbox Pre-Race Party/Halloween Show El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; 282-3325. 9pm. $7. What better way is there to get revved up for the Oct. 29 Soapbox Derby in Bernal Heights? With a full evening of good ’n’ greasy garage rock and rockabilly, thanks to the All Time Highs, Teenage Harlets, and the Phenomenauts, this party gets you in touch with your inner speed demon.
Pirate Cat Radio Halloween Bash Li Po Cocktail Lounge, 916 Grant, SF; www.piratecatradio.com. 8pm. $5. The community radio station presents an evening of crazy rock mayhem with Desperation Squad, the band now famous for getting shot down on TV’s America’s Got Talent! Wealthy Whore Entertainment, the Skoalkans, and Pillows also perform.
Shadow Circus Vaudeville Theatre Kimo’s, 1351 Polk, SF; p2.hostingprod.com/@shadowcircus.com. 9pm. $5. Shadow Circus Creature Theatre hosts a variety show of ukulele riffs, comedy, burlesque, and filthy-mouthed puppets.
Spiral Dance Kezar Pavilion, Golden Gate Park, 755 Stanyan, SF; www.reclaiming.org. 6pm. Free. Reclaiming, an international group observing pagan traditions, celebrates its 27th annual Spiral Dance with a magical ritual incorporating installations, drama, and a choral performance.
BAY AREA
Flamenco Halloween La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck, Berk; (510) 849-2568, ext. 20. 8:30pm. $15. Flametal brings the evil to flamenco with mastermind Benjamin Woods’s fusion of metal and the saddest music in the world.
Murder Ballads Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck, Berk; (510) 841-0188. 9pm. $8. Murder, misfortune, and love gone really, really wrong — all sung by an impressive array of garage rockers, accordionists, and female folk-metal songstresses. There’s even a duo who specializes in suicide songs! Dress up so no one can recognize you weeping into your beer.
SUNDAY 29
The Elm Street Murders Club Six, 60 Sixth St., SF; www.myspace.com/theelmstmurders. 7:30pm. $20. Loosely based on A Nightmare on Elm Street, this multimedia interactive stage show promises heaping helpings of splatter.
MONDAY 30
The Creature Magic Theatre, building D, Fort Mason Center, SF; 731-4922. 8pm. Free. Reservations required. Black Box Theatre Company gives a single performance before a studio audience of their new podcast adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankensten. This version tells the story from the monster’s point of view.
Independent Exposure 2006: Halloweird Edition 111 Minna Gallery, 111 Minna, SF; 447-9750. 8pm. $6. Microcinema International assembles a festively creepy collection of short films from around the world, focusing on the spooky, unsettling, and just plain gross.
TUESDAY 31
Bat Boy: The Musical School of the Arts Theater, 555 Portola, SF; 651-4521. 7pm. $20. It’s back: a Halloween preview performance of the trials and tribulations of everyone’s favorite National Enquirer icon, Bat Boy. Camp doesn’t get any better than this.
Cramps Fillmore, 1805 Geary, SF; 346-6000. 8pm. $30. Don’t get caught in the goo-goo muck. The Demolition Doll Rods and the Groovie Ghoulies also whip you up into a rock ’n’ roll frenzy.
One Plus One (Sympathy for the Devil) San Francisco Art Institute Lecture Hall, 800 Chestnut, SF; 771-7020. 7:30pm. Free. Before the Rolling Stones became some of the richest people on earth, Mick, Keith, and the boys dabbled on the dark side. At a rare screening of Jean-Luc Godard’s One Plus One, you get a chance to see them at the height of their flirtation with evil, performing the still-mesmerizing “Sympathy for the Devil.”
EVENTS/FESTIVALS/KID STUFF
FRIDAY 27
Haunted Haight Walking Tour Begins at Coffee to the People, 1206 Masonic, SF; 863-1416. 7pm. $20. How else can you explain all of those supernatural presences drifting between the smoke shops and shoe stores? Here’s a chance to find out about the more lurid chapters in the neighborhood’s history. Also Sat/28-Tues/31, 7pm.
SATURDAY 28
Boo at the Zoo San Francisco Zoo, 1 Zoo, SF; 753-7071. 10am-3pm. Free with zoo admission. Costumed kiddies can check out the Haunted Nature Trail and the Creepy Crawly Critters exhibit. Live music, interactive booths, games, and prizes keep little ghosts and goblins delighted.
Children’s Halloween Hootenanny Stanyan and Waller, SF; www.haightstreetfair.org. 11:30am-5pm. Free. The Haight Ashbury Street Fair folks provide children ages 2 to 10 with games, activities, theater, and food. Costumes are encouraged.
Family Halloween Day Randall Museum, 199 Museum, SF; 554-9600. 10am-2pm. Free. Trick-or-treaters play games, carve pumpkins, create creepy crafts, and take part in the costume parade. Jackie Jones amazes with a musical saw and dancing cat; Brian Scott, a magic show.
Hallo-green Party Crissy Field Center, 603 Mason, SF; 561-7752. 10am-2pm. $8. It’s never too early to teach your children about environmentalism. The party includes a costume contest and a chance to bob for organic apples.
House of Toxic Horrors Crissy Field Center, 603 Mason, SF; 561-7752. 10am-2pm and 4-8pm, $8. Ages 9 and older. No, it’s not a Superfund site, but it should be equally educational: the center’s first haunted house addresses the scary world of environmental horror. Sludge and smog lurk behind every corner.
BAY AREA
Boo at the Zoo Oakland Zoo, 9777 Golf Links, Oakl; (510) 632-9525. 10am-3pm. Free with zoo admission. Dress up the kids and bring them over to the zoo for scavenger hunts, crafts, rides on the Boo Choo Choo Train, puppet shows, and musical performances. Also Sun/29, 10am-3pm.
SUNDAY 29
Halloween’s True Meaning Shotwell Studios, 3252-A 19th St., SF; 289-2000. 1-3pm, $5-15 sliding scale. Kids are encouraged to come in costume for this afternoon of interactive theater led by Christina Lewis of the Clown School. Enjoy Halloween history, storytelling, role-playing, and face-painting.
Pet Pride Day Sharon Meadow, Golden Gate Park, SF; 554-9427. 11am-3pm. Free. Dress up your pet in something ridiculous and head down to Golden Gate Park to laugh at all of the other displeased pups! The pet costume contest is always a blast, as is the dog-trick competition.
BAY AREA
Haunted Harbor Festival and Parade Jack London Square, Oakl; 1-866-295-9853. 4-8pm. Free. Families can check out live entertainment, games, crafts, activities, and prizes. The extravagantly decked-out boats in the parade are not to be missed.
Rock Paper Scissors’ Annual Street Scare Block Party 23rd Ave. and Telegraph, Oakl; www.rpscollective.com. Noon-5pm. Free. Who doesn’t love block parties? The kid-friendly blowout has something for everyone: fortune-telling, craft-making, pumpkin-carving, and all sorts of wacky games and prizes. And barbecue — witches love a good barbecue.
MONDAY 30
Halloween Heroes Benefit Exploratorium, Palace of Fine Arts, 3601 Lyon, SF; (650) 321-4142, www.wenderweis.org. 6:30pm. $185 for a parent and child. A benefit for the Exploratorium Children’s Educational Outreach Program and the Junior Giants Baseball Program, this lavish costume party for kids promises to be equally fun for the parents. Many of the exhibits are turned into craft-making and trick-or-treat stations.
TUESDAY 31
Halloween in the Castro Market and Castro, www.halloweeninthecastro.com. 7pm-midnight. $5 suggested donation. You and 250,000 of your new best friends — reveling in the streets and getting down to thumping beats. Don’t even think of driving to get there, and don’t forget: no drinking in the streets.
Vampire Tour of San Francisco Begins at California and Taylor, SF; (650) 279-1840, www.sfvampiretour.com. 8pm. $20. This isn’t Transylvania, but San Francisco has had its share of vampires. Just ask Mina Harker, your fearless leader, if you dare take this tour.
DÍA DE LOS MUERTOS
ONGOING
BAY AREA
‘Laughing Bones/ Weeping Hearts’ Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak, Oakl; (510) 238-2200. Wed-Sat, 10am-5pm. $8. Guest curator Carol Marie Garcia has assembled a vibrant collection of installations produced by local artists, schools, and community groups, all celebrating the dead while acknowledging the sorrow of those left behind. Through Dec. 3.
THURSDAY NOV. 2
Death and Rebirth Precita Eyes Mural Arts Center, 2981 24th St, SF; 334-4091. 7-10pm. Free. Precita Eyes Muralists will be celebrating the work of founder Luis Cervantes with a breathtaking mural exhibit and celebration.
Día De Los Muertos Procession and Outdoor Altar Exhibit 24th St and Bryant, SF; www.dayofthedeadsf.org. 7pm. Free. Thousands of families, artists, and activists form a procession to honor the dead and celebrate life, ending at the Festival of Altars in Garfield Park, at 26th Street and Harrison. Local artists have created large community altars at the park; the public is invited to bring candles, flowers, and offerings.
Fiesta De Los Huesos’ Gala Opening Reception Mission Cultural Center for the Latino Arts, 2868 Mission, SF; 643-5001. 6-11pm. $5. Curator Patricia Rodriguez has put together a family-oriented party, with musical performances, mask carving, sugar skull–making, videos, and other tempting creations among the exhibits, altars, and installations. The exhibition opens Oct. 27.
BAY AREA
Día De Los Muertos Benefit Concert 2232 MLK, 2232 Martin Luther King Jr., Oakl; www.2232mlk.com. 7pm. $8-20 sliding scale. Hosted by the Chiapas Support Committee, this benefit concert features Fuga, los Nadies, la Plebe, and DJ Rico. Early arrivals get free pan dulce and hot chocolate.
SUNDAY NOV. 5
Dia De Los Muertos Family Festival Randall Museum, 199 Museum, SF; 554-9681. 1-5pm. $100 and up for family of five. The family event benefits the museum’s Toddler Treehouse and other toddler programs. Arts and crafts, food, and entertainment make this a rewarding educational experience for kids. Attendees learn how to make masks and sugar skulls and to decorate an altar. Los Boleros provide festive entertainment.
BAY AREA
Día De Los Muertos Fruitvale Festival International Blvd., between Fruitvale Ave and 41st Ave, Oakl; (510) 535-6940. 10am-5pm. Free. With the theme “love, family, memories,” the Unity Council in Oakland has put together a full day of family celebration. Five stages showcase music and dance performances by local and world-renowned artists. More than 150 exhibitors and nonprofits highlight wares and services. Art and altars are on view, and the Children’s Pavilion promises to be a rewarding educational experience for kids of all ages.
THURSDAY NOV. 9
Mole to Die For Mission Cultural Center For Latino Arts, 2868 Mission, SF; 643-5001. 7-10pm. $5. Try it all at this mole feeding-frenzy and vote for your favorite.

SUNDAY

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Oct. 22

Visual art

“Semina Culture: Wallace Berman and His Circle”

It’s been almost 50 years since Wallace Berman withdrew his art from public spaces after facing obscenity charges for a show he put together in Los Angeles. The traveling exhibition “Semina Culture: Wallace Berman and His Circle” brings the late Berman’s creativity and that of his many associates – including Jack Smith – into a museum space. Every one of the dozens of varied contributors to Berman’s journal Semina opens up a fascinating universe. (Johnny Ray Huston)

Opens Wed/18, 11 a.m.-7 p.m. (through Dec. 10)
Berkeley Art Museum
2625 Durant, Berk.
$5-$8 (free for children and UC Berkeley students)
(510) 642-1295
www.bampfa.berkeley.edu

Dance

Imagenes Flamencas

When it comes to flamenco, Yaelisa more than knows how to bring the drama and the beauty – she’s been dancing onstage since she was four, and for the past decade she’s been bringing the best of her chosen form to the Bay Area through classes and performances. Fresh from a recent collaboration with Savion Glover, she’s reuniting with a number of artists from Spain for Imagenes Flamencas, the latest show by her company, Caminos Flamencos. The show draws inspiration from the flamenco pictorials of painter Roberto Zamora. (Johnny Ray Huston)

3 p.m.
Cowell Theater
Fort Mason Center
Marina at Buchanan, SF
(415) 345-7575
www.caminosflamencos.com

THURSDAY

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Oct. 19

Event

“Inside Storytime: Bad Girls”

“What exactly is a bad girl?” you might ask. According to Cameron Tuttle, author of the popular Bad Girl’s guides, this headstrong vixen can be defined as a woman who “knows when to work a room, when to work the angles, and when to work her curves – or all of the above.” Tuttle will participate in the all-girl reading “Inside Storytime: Bad Girls.” The fierce female lineup includes Jennifer Solow, author of “Booster,” and Kathi Kamen Goldmark of the Rock Bottom Remainders. The MC for the night is comedian Mary Van Note, whose stage antics would make even the most jaded devilette blush. (Hayley Elisabeth Kaufman)

7 p.m.
Rickshaw Stop
155 Fell, SF
$3-$10, sliding scale
(415) 861-2011
www.rickshawstop.com
www.insidestorytime.com

Theater

Passing Strange

There’s nothing that critics love more than jumping on bandwagons (except maybe jumping off them a few months later). So it’s best to take an artist with a boatload of great reviews with a grain of salt. However, sometimes an artist’s reviews are so hyperbolically positive because there’s some fire under all that smoke. Take Stew, for example, who has created a piece of musical theater titled Passing Strange that paints an alternately uproarious and heartbreaking picture of the black experience from suburbia to bohemia. The New York Times said it may be the best thing anyone’s done all year, and Entertainment Weekly gave Stew its Artist of the Year award – twice! Now if you know what’s good for you, you’ll get your butt to Berkeley, plant it in a seat, and be wowed by one of this generation’s greatest talents. (Aaron Sankin)

8 p.m. (Through Dec. 3; see Web site for dates and times)
Berkeley Repertory Theatre
2025 Addison, Berk.
$33 ($16.50 for 29 and under)
(510) 647-2949
www.berkeleyrep.org

GooTube is dead

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› annalee@techsploitation.com
TECHSPLOITATION By the time you read this, the meme “GooTube” will already be dead. Everyone will have stopped talking about the freakishly large amount of money Google paid for video-sharing Web site YouTube. They will therefore no longer need to refer to this event as if it were a celebrity marriage like Bennifer or Brangelina.
Despite this extremely desirable state of affairs for the English language, we will nevertheless remain perplexed and obsessed with Google’s latest bid to make all forms of digital expression searchable.
I wouldn’t mind the “make the world searchable” thing if it weren’t for the part where Google accomplishes this laudable goal by owning everything in the world first. As thousands of YouTube contributors have already pointed out grumpily, somebody should be paying them part of that $1.6 billion. Really, somebody should.
Let’s pretend for a minute, however, that Google didn’t buy YouTube for its stellar content. Let’s say — and I know I’m being crazy here, but bear with me — that Google bought YouTube for its audience of millions. News Corp. bought MySpace for the same reason last year. Like News Corp., Google wanted eyeballs, not a bunch of movies with cats freaking out and kids drinking milk until they barf.
Alright, let’s face it: you are the real reason why Google paid all that money to YouTube. And by “you” I mean the person who watched the milk barf video, then watched a bunch of clips from The Colbert Report and briefly searched for videos tagged “kaiju porn.” As those people who are done using the word “GooTube” have already pointed out, Google no doubt plans to turn YouTube into another place to paper with ads, sort of like Gmail or its search engine. It’ll monetize your eyeballs if it’s the last thing it does.
Another possible reason why Google bought YouTube is because it fits with the company’s copyright reformist agenda. Google has already been testing the limits of corporate activism in the copy wars with its frankly awesome Google Book Search. This controversial project, which led to a lot of legal chest-thumping in the publishing industry, allows people to search the full text of thousands of books. Maybe YouTube will be a kind of Google Book for movies, with fully-searchable videos that allow artists, students, and film geeks to appreciate the motion picture in a whole new way.
Even if Google hadn’t intended YouTube to be another Google Book, the media industry is treating it that way. Time Warner president Dick Parsons told the London Guardian last week that his company intends to get its copyright complaints about YouTube “kicked up to the Google level.” And by that I don’t think he means the level where you get free espresso and a lava lamp for your desk.
So Google bought you when it bought YouTube, and it also bought itself a legal headache that will hopefully lead to some better laws around digital copyright. What are you getting out of the deal? Frankly, worse than nothing. You probably won’t see the benefits from Google’s copy war anytime soon. And worst of all, I predict you’ll lose one of the best things about YouTube when Google forces it to submit to the old “make it fully searchable” regime.
The thing is, YouTube isn’t about searchability. You don’t go there to plug in a search term and find information. You go there for the same reason you go to the local independent movie theater — you want a place where somebody has put together a unique and bizarre lineup of films to watch. YouTube rules because of users who act like the owners of very tiny movie theaters or cable stations by finding cool videos and posting them on their “channels.”
These people offer findability, which is practically the opposite of searchability. When you search, you have to already know what you want to find. You have to plug in “espresso” or “fainting goats.” Findability means that you can discover things for which you’d never dream of searching. Findability is what YouTube has now, and what Google has never had.
So what will you lose when Google turns YouTube into one of its searchable data troves? You may lose the ability to find a video of a beautiful thing you never knew existed. SFBG
Annalee Newitz is a surly media nerd who was once offered $1.6 billion for her Web 2.0 company, but she said, “No way, man. I’m not gonna sell out, ’cause I gotta keep the AJAX real, just like it is on the street.”

SUNDAY

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Dance

Savage Jazz Dance Company

Do you know what jazz dance is? For Reginald Ray Savage, who took it upon himself to let the Bay Area see what he considers jazz dance when he founded his Savage Jazz Dance Company 14 years ago, the definition is simple: jazz dance is what gets performed to jazz music. His musical taste is immaculate and never better than in the current premiere: Everything’s Everything is all based on Miles Davis. (Rita Felciano)

3 p.m.
ODC Theater
3153 17th St., SF
$15–$25.
(415) 863-9834
www.odctheater.org

Also Oct. 19–21, 8 p.m.; Oct. 22, 3 p.m.
Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts
1428 Alice, Oakl.
$14–$19
1-866-558-4253, (415) 256-8499

Music

Vagabond Opera

Somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, there run two rivers, one of vodka and one of absinthe. Not found on any maps, they are known only to five men and one woman. The name of these musicians? Vagabond Opera. Fusing klezmer with sounds of the Balkans and the Rom, along with a peppering of belly dance, opera, and tango, these neo-cabaret fire starters roll out a rabble-rousing vision of globalization, 1920s-style. With the “Bay Area’s Premier Balkan Brass Band,” Brass Menazeri. (Todd Lavoie)

9 p.m.
Amnesia
853 Valencia
$7
(415) 970-0012
www.amnesiathebar.com
www.vagabondopera.com

Win, lose, or draw

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FESTIVAL Anyone who assumes the San Francisco Film Society hibernates between springtime fests is sorely mistaken. Aside from all the preparations for next year’s landmark 50th SF International Film Festival, much year-round activity has been emanating from the organization’s Presidio headquarters, including a recent outdoor screening of giant-ant classic Them! Next up: the first San Francisco International Animation Showcase, three days of films at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Clear your Oct. 12 calendar, for the only place your butt needs to be is sitting in a theater watching Bong Joon-ho’s The Host, without a doubt the monster movie of this year’s festival circuit. It features F/X by San Francisco’s own the Orphanage — and a giant, hungry, nasty sea creature riddled with political and social subtext. Oct. 14 heralds a pair of shorts programs: “The Kids Are Alright,” with award-winning student films like Sukwon Shin’s Rock the World (George W. Bush, Colin Powell, and … Journey?) and Luis Nieto’s ingeniously seamless live action–animation hybrid Carlitopolis, about a spectacularly resilient lab mouse; and “International Panorama,” with dynamic works from England, Iran, Japan, and beyond. The minifest wraps up with The Incredibles director Brad Bird’s 1999 The Iron Giant, which to everyone but diehard Pacifier fans remains Vin Diesel’s best family-friendly performance to date. (Cheryl Eddy)
www.sffs.org

Static shock

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com
REVIEW When it premiered in New York two years ago, Sam Shepard’s latest play was timed to influence the outcome of the presidential election — an enticingly bold agenda. Of course, if you want to influence elections, as everybody understands by now, you need to be more than bold. You need to be Diebold. And anyway, what politician worries about what’s on an Off-Broadway stage? As political theater goes, Hugo Chávez calling George W. Bush the devil and sniffing out his sulfuric farts before the United Nations has much more oomph to it, in addition to getting at least as big a laugh. Chávez also backed up his warm-up zingers with a real political program. And he reads Noam Chomsky!
Two years and another flagrantly stolen election later, The God of Hell remains less interesting for any recyclable reference to the electoral contest between Democrats and Republicans (two packs squaring off again for dominance in the same corporate-owned kennel) than for the reflection in its bleak farce of something larger: an attempt to redraw the psychic and social landscape. Shepard’s ostensibly simple political broadside — whose call to alarm rings more with absurdist resignation than Brechtian defiance — has nonetheless a wily power curled up inside.
The play — sharply directed by Amy Glazer and leading off the 40th anniversary season of the Magic Theatre, Shepard’s old stomping ground — opens on the home of a dying breed: a Wisconsin dairy farmer and his wife. Emma (played with just the right suggestion of guileless good humor and native smarts by Anne Darragh) loves her indoor plants, which she compulsively waters to within an inch of their lives. Frank (John Flanagan), meanwhile, “loves his heifers,” as his affectionate wife readily explains to Frank’s old friend and their current houseguest, the jumpy and radioactive Graig Haynes (Jackson Davis), hiding from some unspecified disaster out west at a mysterious place called, in a name redolent of real-life nuclear disasters, Rocky Buttes. On the one hand, the couple looks primed to live happily heifer after. On the other, they appear stuck in a semiparadisial oasis amid unforgiving winter and a sea of agribusiness, isolated, alone, stoic, lonely, a little loony, and lost without knowing it — yet.
Emma is in the act of coaxing Haynes from the basement with some frying bacon when a stranger at the door interrupts her. As the pork sizzles, the man (Michael Santo), a business suit we later learn goes by the name Welch, appears to be selling a host of patriotic paraphernalia out of his attaché case. But his pushy demeanor quickly goes beyond the usual sales routine, his interest in Emma’s loyalty and her basement growing downright creepy, exuding an unctuousness and a sly arrogance that perfectly suggest the totalitarian turn in what Frank calls a “country of salesmen.” (Santo, whose face stretched into a thin grin bears an eerie resemblance to our real-life torturer-in-chief, is altogether perfect in the part.)
Shepard’s farmers, while purposefully cartoony, aren’t country bumpkins. Nor are they merely atavistic 1950s farmers, existing wholly in the past and detached from the present (as Welch, with telling condescension, likes to imagine them). Locally speaking, they are savvy and sure. (It’s no joke holding your own as an independent dairy farmer amid government-subsidized corporate behemoths.) Emma in particular is rooted to the very house itself, born on a patch of floor Hayes finds himself standing on at one point.
It’s the world beyond the farm and Wisconsin that the main couple find hard to grasp. In the play’s central irony, Frank and Emma tentatively mark the outer world by reference to a standard pop-cultural conspiracy narrative. But significantly, it’s just that laughable (at first) recourse to the formula of a TV thriller or sci-fi movie that points in the direction of the truth, helping Emma and Frank chart the terrain opened up by the arrival of Haynes and Welch. Long before his old friend resurfaces, Frank has already imagined for him, however vaguely, just the kind of intrigue and danger he turns out to have been undergoing. After passing the seeds of this narrative to his wife (who, as it were, dutifully overwaters them), Frank turns around and mocks her paranoia of government vehicles: “Dark cars. Suspicious. Tinted windows. Unmarked Chevies. Black antennas bowed over.” But we already know she’s right. The terrain of conspiracy, like the empire it limns, stretches in all directions, making borders meaningless except as a demagogic strategy in Welch’s fascist, state-centered patriotism.
The play invokes borders mainly to undermine, comically deflate, or cynically manipulate them. The overall and overwhelming implication is their irrelevance to an imperial might that recognizes no boundaries in the exercise of its will (things don’t need to escalate far before Welch threatens to send a bunker buster through Emma’s kitchen window). The vastness of the system confronting Emma and Frank comes across most dramatically in the unstoppable reach of plutonium — named after Pluto, the god of hell — which here serves as both a literal threat of the system and the ideal metaphor for its poisonous, apocalyptic reach. It’s this geography (real, metaphorical, potential) that the play wants us to pay attention to, since survival depends on some grasp of the lay of the land. SFBG
THE GOD OF HELL
Through Oct. 22
Tues.–Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2:30 p.m.
Magic Theatre
Fort Mason Center, bldg. D, Buchanan at Marina, SF
$20–$45
(415) 441-8822
www.magictheatre.org

Breakfast with Dr. Bish

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This weekend brings a major event: the rare return of Bruce Baillie — whose visions of San Francisco are just as brilliant and uncanny, if not as famous, as Alfred Hitchcock’s — to a movie screen in the city. Contemporary filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul, the director making the most revelatory commercial features today, cites Baillie as his favorite experimental filmmaker. Though Baillie primarily made short films, the philosophical rivers of beauty that run between their works are deep. The moment seemed more than right for a conversation between Baillie and filmmaker Michelle Silva, who helps run Canyon Cinema, one of the two organizations (along with SF Cinematheque) that Baillie founded. They got on the phone and let the tape roll. SFBG We’re recording. BRUCE BAILLIE How do they say that in the industry? SFBG “For quality assurance, we’re recording this conversation.” BB Well, for the recorder’s sake, I might be mumbling a little, because I’m still eating my second bowl of cereal. It’s the famous Dr. Bish’s elixir, which all filmmakers require. SFBG You’ve built a monumental body of cinema now housed in our Library of Congress. You’ve also founded two distinguished organizations, the avant-garde film distributor Canyon Cinema and the experimental film and video exhibitor San Francisco Cinematheque, which both began in your own backyard over 40 years ago. At the beginning, did you have any forethought about the significance of your work and the movement you would initiate? BB To give a generic response, probably not. People don’t operate that way generally. Adolf Hitler probably had a pretty grand idea at the beginning, but it was ill founded. Theater was always one of the bases. I was very taken by Balinese theater and Noh theater. Also [Jean] Cocteau’s admonishments that all theater must arise from local familiarity. We had all those ingredients there, almost like baking bread, and it did arise very nicely and warmly and simply. We had a theater in the woods with the neighbors coming over and putting up park benches. There was a big old willow tree by our house and conveniently, a hill behind that held the big surplus screen nicely. I always say to myself, “What is theater made of?” and it really is any collage collection of sticks and stones. It can be highly technical or it can be like the charred bones and the fire out in the desert of Mongolia. If it’s done with that kind of ancient mind-set, that kind of respect and adulation of the content — and also the Irish tradition of the manner of presentation — then you’re all right. It could be under the apple tree that I’m looking at now while we speak. I’m not too worried about all the modern stuff, aside from the problem of the way semiconscious people identify with the mere technology of it and become two-dimensional. Then you don’t have theater, you have President Bush at Harvard taking business administration. SFBG When I watch your films, such as Here I Am, the tightly framed faces reveal unconventional beauty. Could you talk about the people who do appear in your films? BB I will try … I’m going to have to wash the Bishery off my teeth. The only trouble with the Bish formula at breakfast is that it not only gives you thick ankles eventually if you keep eating it, but it’s also hard on the dentures or teeth. We don’t like to admit it on the labels. We have a big business shipping this stuff out of the house in a dehydrated form to all the filmmakers in the world. Especially in Asia, it’s very popular. We sent a batch to South Korea for a festival. I just got their booklet back, from a Dr. Kim. I didn’t realize she was such an esteemed colleague of the doctor here. Apparently the huge batch of dehydrated Bishery was rejected by most of the younger people there, who prefer their own diet, so they sent it up to North Korea. I don’t know what’s going to come of that. I might be able to save us from the bombs and everything they’re trying to throw over here. Anyway, avante, as my old friend would say — on to the question. There’s all kinds of references in our literature, especially, I suppose, in the holy works like the Gita and the writings of the Buddha, which run across the idea of direct perception. Just seeing. Or in the Bible, the Old Testament. Or the Tibetan teachings for the acolytes who were becoming monks and priests — they used to sit up above the road, maybe one at a time, and observe the faces coming up from the world below. For some reason, when most people take a camera in hand and click on a face, all they get is a two-dimensional representation. I don’t see why I’d wanna be satisfied by that. When you photograph, you photograph what is, not what is merely apparent or not. That’s the assignment, really, and it’s not completed and shouldn’t be exceptional. SFBG The spiritualism in your films, like Mass of the Dakota Sioux, Tung, and On Sundays, seems to be combined with a little bit of disdain for modern civilization. There’s that mixture. BB Well, there’s what Jesus called hatred of the world — which is something one might be able to teach his or herself along the way, to give up all the appearances and become one with the continuity of life flow itself. That’s a whole process. Some people, like myself, are born with a disdain, yes, for the world in that other sense. For example, my totem animal is a wolf, and I’ve never liked my neighbors. That’s a horrible thing, but I was born with that in my portfolio and I work with that every day. Some people really are very fond of going to the supermarket and the malls and are able to behave themselves when they’re buying a pair of shoes. Actually, whether they believe in it all or not doesn’t seem to come into any question, and overall it’s quite wonderful that they’re able to be not only very kind but loving with all of these comings and goings. To me, going to the aerodrome to pick up the Alaska Air number 387 is the most frightening kind of experience that anyone could have devised in purgatory. In my own case, since you’re asking me, this person, not someone else, about the images they project, the images are contaminated with not only a great universal love but at the same moment a great hatred for the goings on of worldly affairs and events and shapes and forms. So as I get into nature I find it less contaminated by man’s touch, but it’s also frightening in its own way, of course, with all the monsters at the edge of the world that are ready to devour you when you’re out on your sailboat in the Atlantic. And the tigers in the night and the ragings of the great beasties. SFBG In your work there will sometimes be a shot where the subject is the mist or the fog. Those two aspects cut together create a tension that has an emotional effect. How would you say your palette developed and matured over time? BB I lived my life with the camera and I deliberately took on nothing else. No family, which is the main thing one gives up to live that kind of life, and I lived en route, always on the move. Living in my car, just seeing and trying my best to get it through that little eyepiece, that little Bolex viewfinder — the first version, which was half the size of the later version. I can’t see through it anymore, it’s so small. There’s no reason at all to settle for anything less than a grand attempt at bringing back from the unknown what is there. The what is of this. Part of it can kind of humorously involve a practice that I used to throw out when I was teaching, that is, to learn to become invisible. I would line all my students up and say, “OK, everybody close their eyes,” and then I would run around the corner [laughs] and disappear. We’d go into it a little further, where I’d say, “What I really meant was we have to learn not to use the camera, just the way a policeman has to learn not to use his or her pistola.” It’s a weapon, a medium, that exists between self and other. One must become selfless, invisible, in order to relate to the other or vice versa. “When you meet the tiger on the trail, you become one with him instantly by your training so that there’s no fear.” Rather than ignorantly involving one’s self in confrontational relationships, one intelligently unifies the selfhood between the two appearances and it becomes one reality. That’s how you work with a Bolex. (Intro by Johnny Ray Huston; interview by Michelle Silva)

Poppin’ and popcorn

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Well, this comes as absolutely no surprise. As the Hollywood Reporter noted today, Newmarket Films is running into difficulties with the distribution of Death of a President. The Toronto International Film Festival hit — which imagines the assassination of President George W. Bush, and all the Cheney-led chaos and freedom-crackdowns that follow — will not be playing at the nation’s largest theater chain, Regal Cinemas. Nor will it be opening at any theaters operated by Cinemark USA, the company that just took over the Century chain (including the brand-new SF Centre, so nope, you won’t be slidin’ on their swanky faux-leather seats while you watch the Prez eat a lead sandwich).

doap.jpg

Fortunately, the made-for-British-TV faux-doc will be coming to the Bay Area no matter what — look for Death of a President at one of San Francisco’s Landmark Theatres starting Oct 27. Though I had mixed feelings about the film (loved its shocking concept, ehh on its second-act slowdown) I’m glad to see it’s getting attention (although, come on — like this movie is just gonna casually saunter into theaters?) Too bad this smaller release means it might well end up preaching to the choir — as so many politically-themed docs (or faux-docs, as the case may be) do, tending to open only in cities already rollin’ in art-houses and progressive audiences.

SATURDAY

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Oct. 7

Visual Art

ArtSpan Open Studios

Art, it’s often argued, is in the eye of the beholder. During ArtSpan’s 31st Open Studios, you’ll have the opportunity to behold a lot of it as more than 700 working artists open their studios to the public over the course of four weekends. Art aficionados like the Open Studios event as a time to spot emerging trends; artists like it for the chance to display and sell their backlog; plebs such as myself enjoy the accompanying Havarti cubes and two-buck chuck. There will also be a number of events held at SomArts, including a free opening reception on Fri/6 from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., plus an exhibition of over 400 pieces. (Nicole Gluckstern)

Through Oct. 29
Times and locations vary
(415) 861-9838
www.artspan.org

Dance

Smuin Ballet

You can pick any of three reasons to see Smuin Ballet this month. Reason one: the dancers. Each of the 15 is a strong, well-trained, uniquely talented individual – including the three new ones. Reason two: the rep. It’s a pungent mix of the new and the old. Top billing has to go to the world premiere of Amy Seiwert’s Revealing the Bridge, based on Claude Monet’s painting The Japanese Bridge. Michael Smuin’s new Obrigado, Brazil, set to João Gilberto’s music, probably will rouse the bossa to the point where you wish you could join the dancers. Smuin is also bringing back Shinju, which will be performed to Paul Chihara’s magical score. This piece just might be the most erotic you’ll ever see in ballet form. Reason three: the Palace of Fine Arts. With good sight lines and a relaxed setting, it’s the perfect theater for a company of this size. (Rita Felciano)

Through Oct 15. Opens Sat/7, 8 p.m. Runs Tues.-Sat., 8 p.m. (also Sat., 2 p.m., except Sat/7); Oct 15, 2 p.m.
Palace of Fine Arts
Bay and Lyon, SF
$40-$55
(415) 978-2787
www.smuinballetorg

World Wide Web: Vancouver International Film Festival, Day Two

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My second day at the Vancouver International Film Festival brought white lines of thin girls, silent film shadows, a Unabomber web, and American telemarketing Mubai-style. But before all that, it might be best to begin with life outside the movie theater. It does exist, after all, even if film festival obsessiveness sometimes make it easy to forget.

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40-year-old teens

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com
American Conservatory Theater, the Magic Theatre, and Marin Theatre Company all turn 40 this year. Accordingly, these three regionally and nationally preeminent Bay Area companies are rolling out ambitious celebratory seasons. But despite all the satisfaction rightfully implied by this triple birthday, theater finds itself in a significant and uncertain period of transition.
Relevance and sustainability were prominent themes when artistic directors Carey Perloff (ACT), Lee Sankowich (MTC), and Chris Smith (Magic) sat down with the Guardian to share their thoughts on the trajectories of their respective organizations as well as theater’s past, present, and future in the culture at large.
CHRIS SMITH There is a lot of looking back and celebration of legacies and all that a significant landmark — turning 40 — suggests. But organic to the Magic’s mission is seeding the future, because we really are about new work. And to be committed to new work is really to have a perspective on the horizon.
We can talk about it from a number of different points of view, including the way most people want to talk about theater and art making these days, which is from the consumer model. We’re all completely obsessed with audiences and consumers. And that’s one of the critical differences [between] now and 40 years ago. In a weird way we’re a 40-year-old teenager. Suddenly we’re saying we have to be more concerned now than in the past about making sure people are having a good experience and getting them in.
But if you stop thinking for one split second about the financial success of the theater or the relevancy of the theater within a country that is arguably celebrating the dumbing down of the political spectrum, the health of the theater as an art form is very, very good. The best thing to cite on that front is the proliferation of high-quality MFA writing programs contributing to the number of committed, intelligent, craft-oriented, theatrically vibrant artists coming into our field.
So I actually have a great deal of optimism about the value that theater will have in the next decade in our society. That’s very distinct from numbers. The audiences that will be attending challenging, literate, smart work I expect are going to shrink. But I think it brings us back to a kind of churchlike sensibility.
The theater as a church for a thinking person is increasingly at value in our digital age, where we’re being separated from liveness, we’re being separated from the communal, separated from contact. We are in a moment between a fundamental impulse to look backwards and an impulse to look forwards. And the artists are the ones that live in that cusp.
CAREY PERLOFF Of course, this is exactly what [Tom Stoppard’s] Travesties is about. There’s a great moment where [Tristan] Tzara says, “As a Dadaist I’m a natural ally of the political left, but the paradox is the further left you go politically, the more bourgeois they like their art.” On the other hand, obviously what Stoppard believes — and what we all have to believe or we wouldn’t be doing this — is that in the long run, when everything else goes, the thing that lasts is art.
The real fight for us in the field right now is to have our own barometers of value. You have to try to take the long view. The only external measures of value [now] are box office sales and critical response. But there are many plays that had miserable box office returns and disastrous critical responses and have come to be the plays we treasure. As I get older, what I most admire in certain artists is their willingness to stay the course and keep their own exploration, their own voice, their own particular artistic journey going, whether or not it seems to be popular or viable.
We wrestle with it here all the time, because I wish people were writing bigger plays. We’re doing [Philip Kan Gotanda’s After the War] at the Geary. Now this may be the most foolhardy choice I’ve ever made, but it’s such a big, meaty play that it deserves to be on the Geary stage. We do Lillian Hellman, we do August Wilson, we do Stoppard. Who’s the next generation of writers writing 10-character plays that can fit in the Geary? No wonder nobody’s doing it, because who’s producing it? Nobody! Of course everyone’s writing four-character plays. They’re not idiots.
You have to say to a writer, “Have the courage to think big. Learn the Chekhovian skill of writing for 10 actors,” which is extremely difficult. To sustain complex character over a canvas that size is a totally different challenge. We don’t ask our writers to do that anymore.
LEE SANKOWICH Well, it comes down to support. To be able to do what both of you are talking about, it comes down to corporate funding and grants.
CP But the grant ethos right now — the word that is used more than anything else — is outcomes, right? We’re all being asked to demonstrate measurable outcomes. To me this is so hilarious. It’s like saying, “I’m going to be raising my children, and the measurable outcomes are what?”
CS We need to — as artists and as leaders of artistic institutions — stand up and say, “No, we need cultural metrics. We need the enlightenment-o-meter for measurable outcomes.” Did I walk out of this performance of Orson’s Shadow knowing more about the peculiar nature of these tremendous stars and their relationships and how that impulse really created art? Did I leave there somehow changed? And can we measure that? Can we say, instead, there was a 20 percent increase in enlightenment — what a remarkable outcome! — although the attendance figures stayed flat?
LS It’s interesting, [when] you walk out of Orson’s Shadow, if nothing else, you realize that the big struggle, especially for Welles and Olivier, [is that] they’re known for what they did 30 years earlier. And their big thing is they’re trying to become modern.
CS The opening of our seasons is really emblematic. MTC is working with these great artists in a very literate, funny, interesting perspective. ACT is working on this very big social canvas in a really smart way with Stoppard. The Magic Theatre is getting to work with Sam Shepard and his most recent play [The God of Hell], likewise his most passionate play, written in a moment specifically with the intention to affect the outcome of an election! SFBG
www.act-sfbay.org
www.magictheatre.org
www.marintheatre.org
For the complete interview with Perloff, Sankowich, and Smith, see www.sfbg.com/blogs/pixel_vision.

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