Theater Archives — Page 59 of 107 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

Live Shots: Fact/SF at The Garage, 4/14/11

Andrew Lam

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April 15, 2011

I remember when I was a little girl, I used to live down at my Grandma Kay’s house in Belmont. She had a big living room, with floor to ceiling windows that looked out over the bay. I used to dance around on the wooden floors in my socks to her Peggy Lee and Patsy Cline cassettes, which I played over and over again. It was a strange time. Grandma Kay was sick with cancer and I was too young to totally understand what was going on.

Last night I went to watch FACT/SF at the Garage. The first piece was two people, sitting in metal folding chairs, a lit cigarette filling the room with sweet smoke. There was not an inch of movement, just the sound of Peggy Lee singing “Is That All There Is.” It was melancholy and brought me right back to that living room in Belmont, and I wondered how many other people in the audience had some strange connection to that song.

This is my third time seeing FACT/SF and every time I see them it’s emotional. Yes, there are perfect pirouettes and elegant extensions, but then there’s always something deep, slightly dark and always thought-provoking.

There’s a little bit of theater, at least a few wonderfully wacky costumes, and of course, there are the eyeballs. Choreographer Charles Slender has a serious thing about eyeballs and their ability to transform his dancers into more than just moving bodies. Whether the dancers are staring straight into your own eyes, or directly up at the ceiling, there’s an intensity about those eyeballs that brings so much to the performance.

The show, which has one more run tonight, is a collection of new and old works, including an excerpt from the evocative “The Consumption Series,” with it’s fluffy red tutus and bright orange tangerines. I know you haven’t made any plans for tonight, so now you’ve got some. Now then: let’s keep dancing. Let’s break out the booze and have a ball …

Lemi Ponifasio’s Tempest: Without a Body has a soul

John Elberling

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April 15, 2011

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Lemi Ponifasio’s Tempest: Without a Body has a soul

Watching Lemi Panafasio/MAU’s Tempest: Without a Body on Thurs/7 amplified the grave feeling I often possess when I read the newspaper. The sense of deep empathy and sadness in an effort to understand the unsettling and horrific events in the world permeated the experience. Tempest delivered a heavy reminder of the ugly oppression and destruction of which humans are capable. The visceral result of the performance lingered after the curtain descended, as many of my generally chatty acquaintances remained quiet and introspective in the lobby. The post-show vibe highlighted the transformative power of this very big work composed of rich imagistic theater and ritual dance from the Pacific. The company, MAU, employs indigenous artists to perform outside of the original context of their art form, and the form strongly translates in the context of Tempest.

The dark nature of the work was, thankfully, not elicited by shock factor. A spaciousness allowed for images to shift and resonate, from the pure energy of a man acting in resistance with a quivering hand and ejected tongue, to the creaturely walking of another on all fours, with fisted hands and jutting hips. A silvery naked figure, supine and slithering, offered a luminous embodiment of human breath and life, juxtaposed with a dusty, bloody fallen angel with crooked wings and a blood-curling scream. Throughout the evening, a rumbling stasis reinforced the sense of doom. The images of chaos and toil, absent of overt literality, accumulated and stirred.

Excerpt from Tempest: Without a Body:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfLqv85uCww

Despite the bleak environment, the performers embodied resilience during certain scenes. Charles Koroneho, with his expressive tattooed face, delivered in the Maori tongue a powerful passage called “The Establishment of Life Principle.” He was dwarfed by a large projection of a man’s face, thus appearing to stand up to a grand opposing force. During his oration he experienced each word with his entire body, stamping feet and thrusting limps, completely consumed and incensed to emphasize his message. Within the doomed landscape, he revealed a striving and a voice. Later, a handful of robed men also brought forth a thread of hope, as they executed precise gestural movements and shuffled through a cloud of dust singing a harmonic song, which intensely cut through the dark rumbling.

True to the company’s mission, the work emerges as activist art. In blending politics and performance, Tempest calls on us to do better, to reconnect with that which is nourishing, to take better care of ourselves, each other, our world. Even in an adverse environment, Lemi Ponifasio’s performers boldly demonstrate the pursuit and challenge of humanity in the chaos. Tempest is, indeed, completely unsettling, which fuels its potency and power to transform. This moving work of art shakes us around and asks us to consider our action given the uncomfortable and ugly truths of our time.

Live Shots: Queens of the Stone Age, Fox Theater, 4/11/11

Andrew Lam

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April 13, 2011

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Racing up and down the pavement on Telegraph Avenue, the scalpers were grinding hard outside the Fox Theater on Monday night, perhaps with an inkling that the venue might not be standing by the time the Queens of the Stone Age left the stage in a few hours. True to form, Josh Homme and crew all but blew the Fox to pieces with a monstrous rendering of their debut album, as well as two hefty encores that showcased the stoner age rock royalty in all of their primal glory.

Winding down a ferocious “Walkin’ on the Sidewalks” behind their Mongol-on-a-warpath drummer Joey Castillo, keyboardist Dean Fertita (recently of Dead Weather fame) dialed up the intro for Homme to lay into the sleazy start-and-stop riff of “You Would Know.” They were barely a half dozen songs in, but it was apparent that the juggernaut assault of the Queens’ self-titled debut was offering the audience a glimpse into the band’s nerve center, to the raw and infectious source of one of the best rock outfits of the past decade.

Though his has been dubbed stoner rock, Homme seems to have delved deeply into his Southern California music environment, with traces of Jane’s Addiction-channeling-Zeppelin against Hollywood glam and a dark dose of Doors psychedelia. Songs like “Mexicola” and “You Can’t Quit Me Baby” matched live wire energy against stunning musicianship.

The following encores included a great cross section of the band’s more recent material, with radio hits “Little Sister” and “Go With the Flow” receiving the biggest ovations. But it was a pair of fan favorites – “Better Living Through Chemistry” and “Song for the Dead” – that capped off the performance with proper might, and caused you to wonder why so few live shows these days ever achieve such sonic magnitudes.

The crowd spilt out of the theater half dazed and nearly deaf, but mostly satisfied. Although this show at the Fox showcased the Queens at their beginning, it left you anxious for what they will do next.

Setlist:

Regular John

Avon

If Only

Walkin’ on the Sidewalks

You Would Know

How to Handle a Rope

Mexicola

Hispanic Impressions

The Bronze

Give the Mule What He Wants

I was a Teenage Hand Model

You Can’t Quit Me Baby

Encore:

Monster in the Parasol

Burn the Witch

Make It Wit Chu

Little Sister

Encore 2:

Better Living Through Chemistry

Go With the Flow

A Song For the Dead

A long time ago, in a galaxy not far away

Andrew Lam

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April 12, 2011

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A long time ago, in a galaxy not far away

arts@sfbg.com

SCI-FI DOCUMENTARY Recalling a simpler time — before mass commercialization and marketing took over the world of science fiction, pop culture, and fan conventions — local filmmaker Tom Wyrsch’s new documentary Back To Space-Con conveys the story of the home-grown, grassroots-fueled sci-fi conventions of the 1970s, told through interviews with the people behind the events, fans who were there, and rare footage shot on location here in the Bay Area more than 30 years ago.

Coming off the successes of his first two projects, 2008’s Watch Horror Films, Keep America Strong, which looked at the local TV phenomenon Creature Features and last year’s wildly popular Remembering Playland At The Beach, about the now-gone San Francisco beach-side amusement park, it wasn’t hard for Wyrsch to decide on what subject to tackle next.

Several years ago, the late Bob Wilkins, former host of Creature Features, had given Wyrsch a treasure trove of one-of-a-kind 16mm footage taken for his show at a series of Star Trek and sci-fi conventions, showing a great array of fans, their handmade costumes, and of course, the many special guests and celebrities who were on hand.

Wyrsch himself had attended some of these events, the larger ones called “Space-Con,” when he was growing up in the Bay Area. “At that time they were a brand new experience,” says Wyrsch. “To go to these conventions was just fabulous. And they definitely left a mark.”

With his fond memories in place and the opportunity to use Wilkins’ rare original footage, Wyrsch decided to interview the people who helped put on the shows, along with those who had attended the conventions as fans, all to help share the feeling of what it was like back then, which the film does very effectively.

“My approach to making documentaries is to really do two things: First, I want to take people back who actually experienced it. The other part is, I want to be able to take people there who never had a chance to go because they either weren’t in the area or they were too young,” says Wyrsch.

One of the great things about Back To Space-Con is seeing all the homespun costumes that fans wore — this was before the Star Trek movies started being made, and for some of the conventions included here, just before and at the beginning of the Star Wars (1977) phenomenon. There were virtually no official costumes or merchandise, and many of the people interviewed remark how wonderful it was to see such creativity and excitement in their fellow fans.

“[Space-Cons] were fan-based conventions that really did not have anything to do with the industry. They were the fans putting on shows for each other,” says Wyrsch. “In the film you can see how they are the grassroots movement of conventions that led to the ones we have today.”

Wyrsch is grateful to have been able to use so much original film footage, and he hopes viewers will appreciate how rare it is that material like this has survived all this time.

“What the younger generation doesn’t know was that it was very difficult and very expensive to go out in the field and do an interview or to film indoors because of lighting and the old cameras,” he explains. “With video and all the high-tech electronics and computers you can put in the camera [today], you don’t have to worry about that stuff anymore. But back then, it was tough, and with a lot of interviews they would go out and do them and then throw the film away because there was no use to it anymore and it took up a lot of storage space. Bob [Wilkins] kept this, and he kept part of history.”

Wyrsch will be on hand at a special Back to Space-Con premiere event at the Balboa Theater, along with former Chronicle writer and Creature Features host John Stanley, and Ernie Fosselius, the man behind the Star Wars spoof Hardware Wars (1978).

“I think people get to see the simplicity that was there in the seventies, it wasn’t so regimented like they are nowadays,” says Wyrsch. “And people love that.”

BACK TO SPACE-CON

Thurs/14, 7 p.m., $10

Balboa Theater

3630 Balboa, SF

(415) 221-8184

www.balboamovies.com

Outside and inside

Andrew Lam

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April 12, 2011

7

arts@sfbg.com

PERFORMANCE Some dramatic clouds hung darkly over the Headlands Center for the Arts on the last Sunday in March, threatening more than the prickly spray that had started to whip around in the cold and gusty air. By contrast, everything was bright and bustling inside Building 944, the repurposed 1907-era military barracks at the center of the Marin County artists retreat’s secluded, picturesque coastal campus. The first-floor dining hall was still open until 3 p.m. — when the latest edition of SQUART was scheduled to begin upstairs — so arriving audience members gravitated to the long tables lining the unexpectedly beautiful room, revivified from spartan army drabness by artist Ann Hamilton.

Uncle Sam was not anticipating this crowd in 1907, let alone the anarchic spirit of creative community fostered by SQUART (short for spontaneous queer art). Then and now, Uncle Sam wants “you,” but not your yoke-slipping imagination please. The performers running around loopy for lack of sleep — together with the center’s varied flock of international resident-artists and the crowd arriving from the city to watch the results of SQUART’s 24-hour venture in collaborative art-making — formed an alternative community, low-key and self-assured, the majority queer-identified, well-versed in strategies of critical resistance and up for anything. In striking ways, the four performance pieces communally created for that afternoon — and for that history-haunted place — eloquently registered the gaps and links in a century of social chaos.

All told, a moment from the last piece was probably my favorite. In a large first-floor room elegantly and eccentrically composed like something from a Peter Greenaway film, a good chunk of the audience had been pressed to the wall by a relentlessly advancing line of screaming men and women with their arms outstretched. Then a man rushed to the window and (with a vaguely camp bellicosity) ordered a small group of performers out the windows and up the hill. There in the cold drizzle they stood on the access road in shorts and tees, doing exercises, as two of the performers began to wrestle aggressively.

This “fight” inspired an unwitting passerby to come between them with real violence, as the audience gasped loudly in surprise and alarm at the unscheduled event. The good Samaritan, flushed and angry, cocked a confused glance at the audience of maybe 60 people filling the windows, and trudged back to his car and family and drove away, visibly shaken. The performance continued, in fact did not miss a beat, the performer at the window shouting a beautiful broken monologue full of yearning, confusion, and wonder interspersed with loud calls to “Retreat!” that sent the performers scrambling up the slippery hillside in the rain, bare limbs flailing, helpless, comical, and heartbreaking.

SQUART is the initiative of San Francisco–based choreographer Laura Arrington, one of a new generation of mostly queer artists under or around 30 who are making serious waves in the performance scene. Her own bounding, sharp-cornered, mercurial work has been staged at CounterPULSE (where she shared a much acclaimed bill with fellow artist-resident Jesse Hewit in August of 2010), Women on the Way, the National Queer Arts Festival, The Lab, and the Too Much! queer performance marathons. But SQUART is a unique undertaking in which the artist functions as a channel for collaborative expression. As such, it both epitomizes and catalyzes the current queer performance movement as a whole.

SQUART also epitomizes a community and an ethic of DIY art production that is on the rise just now across a range of insider/outsider artists in the Bay Area. It’s a generational movement, but at the same time it’s building on, and building relationships with, earlier generations of artists. It’s predominately queer, but genuinely inclusive; it’s DIY, but skilled and knowing; it’s anti-institutional but includes many with practical and critical training from university programs; and it’s been producing some of the most appealing, challenging, vital work in performance in the last few years. It’s a highly fertile scene that, taken as a whole, amounts to a movement and a rare moment.

Modeled on reality-TV talent contests — but in opposition to the social Darwinism normally on display there — SQUART gives random teams of artists a set of parameters and two hours to come up with an original performance piece. A panel of “celebrity judges” from the wider arts community evaluates the results. The results have been surprising enough to participants and audiences alike to keep SQUART going through several iterations since its 2010 inception, always with the quick and affable Arrington as the host sporting her now trademark bullhorn.

“It began out of a sincere desire to get people working together and to get ideas out,” says Arrington about SQUART’s origins. “I’m suspicious of how isolating working can be — with grants, residencies, artist statements, etc. — how everything is ‘my project,’ ‘my work.’ I think ideas get better the more they are bounced around, and that stripping away the traditional hierarchies is important. It’s dangerous when work becomes precious. [With] SQUART, you just have to create. There’s no time to do anything else. It can be a big mess; often it’s a really beautiful mess.”

Arrington says SQUART started as a side project but has developed into something larger. “The Headlands SQUART was a big step,” she says, crediting program director Brian Karl with open-minded support of the undertaking. “We kind of took over the main building for 24 hours. It was crazy, but in the end some of the work was just staggering. The timing was pretty magical too. We got [choreographer] Meg Stuart [as a celebrity judge] because she was in town doing Auf Den Tisch! at Yerba Buena [Center for the Arts], and Big Art Group [Caden Manson and Jemma Nelson] happened to be up at Headlands while I was. Jess Curtis is back for a few months from Berlin. It was all quite perfect.”

The coincidental calendar-pairing of SQUART and Auf Den Tisch! (which means “to put things on the table”) was a striking alignment of the leading, established international contemporary performance represented by Berlin-based American Stuart and the new but internationally aware local scene. In making her long-overdue Bay Area debut (courtesy of YBCA), Stuart not only brought a project exploring the nature of collective improvisation, but drew performers from a local artistic milieu that included emerging queer performers like Julie Phelps and Jorge De Hoyos.

Keith Hennessy, the renowned interdisciplinary artist and performance maven who was both a performer and organizer for Auf Den Tisch!, says there are similarities between Stuart’s improvisation project and SQUART.

“In some ways, the Auf Den Tisch! project is like a weeklong SQUART, with a much tighter selection of who’s in it. There’s a certain camp in contemporary dance and performance that was born out of really early queer theater, like Theater of the Ridiculous and Jack Smith, and that came to some people through performance art. I see that in both SQUART and Auf Den Tisch!“

But Hennessy adds a key distinction. “Auf Den Tisch! is more about improvisation than SQUART,” he points out. “In SQUART you have to use improvisational strategies to survive, but it’s actually about collective composition, which is really kind of amazing.”

Hennessy — who was among the celebrity judges at the Headlands SQUART — has been a motive power himself in stitching together this younger generation of artists. Dancer/performer Harold Burns says he moved here from the East Coast partly inspired by Hennessy’s work, “the idea of merging queer and radical with powerful performance that really broke boundaries.” Burns joined workshops Hennessy led in November 2009 in the lead-up to Hennessy’s anniversary season (workshops that would inspire the two annual Too Much! queer marathons). Burns calls those workshops an important catalyst in the development of the community and its momentum. “The relationships were already there,” he explains, “but it personalized them more and took them to the next level.” Arrington agrees. “I met a lot of the people I consider close personal friends and colleagues there. After that, Jesse [Hewit] and I (with our friend Hana Erdman) started a little workshop/experiment where we tried to gather collaborators with similar interests.”

For his part, Hennessy got introduced to many of the younger artists through his participation judging earlier SQUARTs. In fact, SQUART and its larger community have been acquiring the regard of older, more established colleagues in a relatively short time.

David Szlasa can concur. “When I judged SQUART in October, there were 50 incredibly talented people making work who I barely knew,” confesses the artist and programming director at Z Space (which, significantly, will be presenting new work by Laura Arrington and Jesse Hewit on its massive stage in December). “I realized the 20-something crew just came to town, and they’re kicking ass.”

Szlasa credits SQUART with opening his eyes to the recent shift in approach as well. “One of the things that distinguished [the new work] was its nonreliance on the institution. SQUART is a hugely successful, hugely popular thing put together through Facebook.” For Szlasa, committed arts presenters like CounterPULSE and Z Space go only so far in explaining the success being enjoyed by artists like Arrington and Hewit or other of their peers.

“It’s artists who are being built up on the support of a community,” Szlasa notes, “rather than artists looking to institutions to find the support in the community for their work, which is a really different thing. It might be a small community that they’re rallying, but it’s significant. Maybe it’s 200 people and they all see everything everybody does, but, you know, that’s a thing. And it appears to be a mindset change also, which I really appreciate. And I think that there’s something for us — I say “us” as a representative of Z Space or that sort of institution — to consider and learn from that.”

CounterPULSE’s Jessica Robinson Love agrees. “These artists are not just interested in getting their own work out there. Most of them are also engaged in curating and producing each other’s work, serving as dramaturge, writing about it, and generally working to support the community and not just themselves. That’s where the strength comes from.”

MAMA’S BIG HOUSE

In any preliminary mapping of the scene, such as the piece you are reading, SQUART is only one point of reference, albeit a prominent one. At the very least, one would need to include now-defunct Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory, which for three years, under Dwayne Calizo, consistently supported exceptional work by queer artists, especially queer artists of color, in the old Jon Sims Center for the Arts space.

Just as crucial has been Mama Calizo’s still venue-less but highly active successor organization, THEOFFCENTER, whose director Ernesto Sopprani helped organize and run the SQUART event at the Headlands. In fact, TOC includes a good swath of the community. Says artist and codirector Julie Phelps, “THEOFFCENTER rose from the dust [as] a loose collective of 20 to 30 people who just keep showing up, and keep making things happen.”

You’d also need, for sure, to include Philip Huang’s Home Theater Festival, BJ Dini’s anarchist-inspired QAZ (queer autonomous zones); venues like CounterPULSE and The Garage as well as their residency programs; mentoring and collaborating queer performance elders like Hennessy, Jess Curtis, and Monique Jenkinson; the drag series led by Mica Sigourney; and a broad and often highly political host of outsider warehouse and home-based queer performance, as well as music-based work, across San Francisco and the East Bay.

“The artists in our network are making work without permission or money,” says THEOFFCENTER’s Sopprani. “We support one another and let the work and the questions motivating it speak for themselves. Laura Arrington’s SQUART is the perfect example of that credo. Laura is a genius when it comes to building synergy. We support her work because we feel it supports the larger community. In both SQUART and TOC, artists are autonomous and free. It’s a loose collective with the intention and desire to make something out of the ordinary happen. At the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about for us.”

HOME IS WHERE THE ART IS

The Dana Street Theater is an inconspicuous venue, serving most of the year as Philip Huang’s bedroom. In the first week of March, prospective patrons were alerted to upcoming performances by a blog site and a piece of yellow notepaper taped to the front door of his Berkeley apartment building, where some hasty red lettering announced, “Home Theater Festival. ‘Eat, Pray, Tron.'”

The audience for the opening show of the festival — and there were about 30 of us the night I went — sat in a tight squeeze on the floor, camped on cushions or blankets. Huang greeted people as they came in. No reservations were necessary. The prices were $7.99 a ticket, or $4.99 if you’re down on your luck. The scheduled curtain time was 8 p.m., though by the time Huang returned from a last-minute beer run it was more like 20 minutes after the hour. No one cared about the time, or that it seemed Huang hadn’t really bothered to pick up his room before the show. Even before the malt liquor and box wine started circulating, the audience was primed.

The monthlong, second annual Home Theater Festival is Huang’s Internet-orchestrated DIY affair. (And newly international: the same day I saw “Eat Pray Tron,” people Down Under attended a program at Rebecca Cunningham’s pad in Brisbane, Australia. In all, five countries and 30 shows are represented.)

Huang began in character as Ellen Fu, a bracingly frank Taiwanese lady in a black sleeveless number and clip-on earrings. Ellen led a seminar on how to pleasure your black lover. There was more: a disabled man making balloon animals, for instance. Huang was sharp but loose, ready to go with the moment. There was a lot of back-and-forth with pal Bryan Dini of the League of Burnt Children and the aforementioned QAZ. Seated sublimely against a wall, Dini interjected commentary as the mood struck him. Later in this carefree, careening, and irresistible evening, Huang paused for a special message to artists: “You have everything you need to do what you do right now,” he told them. “You have everything you need to be happy.”

The DIY spirit of Home Theater Festival, and of the larger movement it’s part of, couldn’t have asked for a more eloquent summation — or one that hinted so neatly at its radical response to a larger context of economic crisis and control. Huang is a charismatic figure, quick-witted and generous, lanky and handsome in thick-framed glasses and a beaming smile. He’s a fearless, unflappable performer and activist (some of his interventions are documented in must-see YouTube videos). He also makes the most outspoken people sound awfully tactful.

“I think most arts institutions, galleries, foundations, and theaters are useless,” he says. “They keep artists in a state of dependency; they encourage a mindset that they hold all opportunities and paths to legitimacy and artists are only ever on the receiving end. That’s why they keep putting out tired workshops and seminars that teach people to do lame shit like write grants and fundraise and network and do marketing and write press releases. All of that shit makes my dick limp, and none of it is necessary.

“I, in particular, believe that queer artists should not be professionals,” Huang explains. “We should burn bright and burn out. We have a responsibility to society as a whole to scare the shit out of people. We should be the monsters they accuse us of being. Every society needs to enact its shadows, and it’s our sacred duty, our sacred function, to do that for the world.”

Huang argues the fulfillment of that function, the fulfillment of a truly subversive art, necessarily takes place outside of institutions. “Institutions, for the most part, are run by fearful, well-meaning people, to apply a phrase by Kirk Read, and to keep their heads above water, they can never really disturb the status quo. So I encourage queers to break away from institutions for their own independence, certainly, but also to restore queer art to its grimy gutter.”

“This is quite a topic at the moment,” acknowledges Arrington when I ask her about the DIY-versus-institution issue. “For myself, I like hybrid situations. I will always have house shows and do the less structured stuff, but I also love rigorously worked art. I love high production value. In my experience, most institutions are made up of incredibly hard-working people sincerely trying to nurture art. SQUART happening at Headlands is a great example. It’s a totally nontraditional format happening in quite a traditional space.” At the same time, she insists, “institutional success is not all there is. I think, actually I know, bigger issues of politics, economics, and environment are going to reshape how art gets made, both inside and outside institutions.”

Jesse Hewit agrees that the issue of institutional support has become a serious dividing line, though he finds positive aspects to the debate as well. “People are really talking about this right now. On the one hand there’s this group of people, myself included, who are working in conjunction with Angela Maddox over at YBCA curatorially to mobilize the community [around] what’s going on in an international scene in terms of contemporary performance. And there are a lot of people who feel at odds with that. There’s this weird tension.” Hewit notes the change has occurred over the last six months: “The big love fest is over. People are getting more critical, which is good. It’s good for the work. The work has been becoming more excellent.”

Hewit suggests the uneven distribution of funding among the larger community plays some part in the increased tension, which seems all but inevitable, but he also cites a resistance to engaging an international context for contemporary performance. “We’re just not a super savvy contemporary performance/dance community,” he admits. At the same time, he appreciates the invention and novelty of the work being done on its own terms: “We’re doing our own thing. We’re kind of creating our own mini canon.”

Hennessy echoes the notion that the work is generally growing stronger, wherever it may stand with respect to funding. On the anti-institutional side, he stresses the shrewdness in something like the Home Theater Festival. “Part of it is an empowerment strategy,” he says, pointing out that Huang’s project grew from Huang’s experiments with private performances, which granted him—despite a lack of formal training or connections—the permission to consider himself an artist. “He took that personal experience and is using it as almost a viral infection,” says Hennessy. “The Home Theater Festival is simultaneously a super sophisticated aesthetic strategy and an amateur hour—anyone can do whatever they want and it’s not precious. It’s just in your house and it’s 20 people and they paid $7.99.”

Hennessy stresses that this is more than just a theoretical move. “There are all these practical things: no middleman, a really accessible door price, money goes directly to the artist.” In a society that easily dismisses artist labor, Hennessy sees the Home Theater Festival “starting to rebuild this broken bond between the artist and society by making everything really transparent, inviting people into your home. I think all the issues around private and public are really fascinating [and] very much inspired by certain feminist issues that have come to be in the foreground of what queer is. There’s all kinds of lineage in that.”

Wherever the contradictions and tensions may ultimately lead, this continues to be an exciting moment across a range of contemporary performance in the Bay Area. For its part, THEOFFCENTER is looking ahead to their second season with a conviction born of early but impressive successes many can rally behind. Sopprani says TOC will be pushing work “that integrates the arts and artists across platforms and communities.” His examples include Killer Queen: The Story of Paco the Pink Pounder, a show about a gay boxer that will be staged in actual boxing rings in San Francisco and Los Angeles; and Taylor Mac’s The Lily’s Revenge, in which TOC comes on board as a community partner in the Magic Theatre’s much anticipated Bay Area premiere.

“We are hoping to stick around for the long term,” says Sopprani, marveling at all they’ve accomplished thus far. “It’s amazing what comes out of putting the artist first. Entire houses continue to get filled. People are liking what they see, and I am very proud of us all.”

Special thanks to Mark McBeth (markmcbethprojects.com) for his invaluable “field recordings in performance anthropology,” which gave audiovisual access to some of the performances and artists drawn on for this article.

Breaking point

Andrew Lam

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April 12, 2011

0

arts@sfbg.com

FILM When erstwhile Hitchcock (1948’s Rope, 1951’s Strangers on a Train) protagonist Farley Granger died last month, obituaries kindly forgot that hitherto he’d been judged as a limited-range pretty boy luckily cast in a few iconic films.

Beauty alone certainly can get you pretty far in Hollywood, now as then. But Granger’s big-lashed, puppy-eyed, dark-haired hunk had charms not strictly visual, notably a mile-wide vulnerability streak poignant in classic noir films like 1949’s They Live By Night and 1950’s Edge of Doom. He wasn’t that impressive an actor, or even an imposing personality like many golden age stars. But he communicated an attractive, soulful decency.

Similarly positioned is Keanu Reeves, who has managed a longer mainstream Hollywood ride while seldom escaping the perception that he hugely lucked out. He’s one of those actors spectacularly franchise-wealthy — due to those Matrix movies wherein his usual baffled solemnity was ideal — yet whom the public otherwise feels scant evident loyalty toward, and producers don’t know what to do with. Now that he’s aging out of his looks, can he transform into a character actor à la the similarly problematic Kevin Costner?

Maybe. Reeves played charming suitors in Something’s Gotta Give (2003) and The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (2009), both very much supporting roles. He seems increasingly interested in indie films, which he surely doesn’t need to pay the rent. They generally suit him more than the myriad large-scale fantasy, action, or romantic vehicles that followed The Matrix (1999) and Speed (1994).

He’s certainly the best reason to see Henry’s Crime, a pleasant, middling, retro crime caper costarring frequently better actors at dimmer wattage than usual. Although uneven, Reeves still offers a turn equal to (if quite different from) his personal bests: as the second half of a stoner-goofball team in the Bill and Ted movies, and as Siddhartha in the good parts of Bertolucci’s silly Little Buddha (1993), which fully tapped a nirvanic tranquility behind his screen passivity.

Henry’s Crime is an old hat out of the Damon Runyon trunk, in which lovable crooks mix it up with hoity theatrical types and nobody gets hurt except (barely) the really bad guys. James Caan — who starred in similar enterprises during their post-The Sting heyday, particularly 1976’s excessively dissed Harry and Walter Go To New York — plays the veteran convict-conman who schools Reeves’ hapless Buffalo, N.Y., toll-taker Henry after our hero is slammer-thrown for an armed robbery he didn’t know he was embroiled in until it was over.

Upon release, Henry discovers the targeted bank and nearby theater had a Prohibition-era secret tunnel between them. Having already done the time, he figures he might as well do the crime by finishing the aborted bank job for real. He enlists local stage diva Julie (Vera Farmiga) as well as Caan’s parole-coaxed Max. Resulting wacky hijinks render Max a theater “volunteer” and Henry as Julie’s Cherry Orchard costar, all so they can access the walled-up passageway to the bank vault.

Much of this is ridiculous, of course, and not intentionally so. We can’t believe Henry/Reeves is a stage “natural,” for Chekhov or anything else (despite Mr. Ted having played Hamlet in 1995 Winnipeg). Caan and a solid support cast hit predictable notes; romantic interest Farmiga is atypically shallow in her admittedly stereotypical role. Yet her superior thespian chops seem to stir something in Reeves, who remains wooden at times but also flags a relaxed sweetness in their scenes and elsewhere. The climax is classic movies-getting-how-theater-works-wrong. But its contrivance functions to some extent because the lead actor convinces us it should.

Reeves is getting a tad jowly now, physique likewise surrendering to gravity. This could be great for him: he’s made his money already, maybe he can now surrender to being something more-less-other than a box-office behemoth. Costner managed it with The Upside of Anger (2005) and The Company Men (2010), while still playing the occasional lead (albeit in flops). The critical success he’s had as middle-aged losers after a run of critically disclaimed variably-superheroes could be Ted-slash-Neo’s own, if he’s willing to surrender glamour that much. He’d hardly be the first huge movie star to finally get some respect thataway. But he might be the (still) cutest.

HENRY’S CRIME opens Fri/15 in Bay Area theaters.

Our Weekly Picks: April 13-19, 2011

Maria Poblet

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April 12, 2011

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THURSDAY

APRIL 14

MUSIC

Two Door Cinema Club

Featured as a “You Oughta Know” artist on VH1, Northern Ireland’s Two Door Cinema Club is an indie electropop trio comprised of Alex Trimble (lead vocals/guitar), Sam Halliday (vocals/guitar), and Kevin Baird (bass/vocals). (What of the drummer, you ask? Sometimes human, sometimes a computer.) The band’s Tourist History recently picked up the 2010 Choice Music Prize for Irish album of the year, suggesting its making good on the promise shown by opening for indie rock greats like Foals, Phoenix, and Delphic. If you’re one of the working schmucks who can’t take the time off for Coachella, catch Two Door Cinema Club before it goes to Indio. (Jen Verzosa)

With Globes and Work Drugs

8 p.m., $20

Fillmore

1850 Geary, SF

(415) 346-6000

www.livenation.com

EVENT

“Charles Phoenix Retro Slide Show”

Oddball Americana guru Charles Phoenix has explored and celebrated the best in kitschy, cool, kooky artifacts and history for many years now, having written several books on mid-20th century deep-fried pop culture, fashion, lifestyles, and more. The author of tomes such as Southern California In The ’50s and Americana The Beautiful brings his hilarious slide show and talk to the city, set to roast the imagery found in some of the thousands of vintage Kodachrome slides has collected at flea markets over the years. Be sure to keep an eye out for some familiar places and things — Phoenix has promised to include a bevy of vintage San Francisco slides for this entertaining ode to the odd and unique. (Sean McCourt)

8 p.m., $25

Roxie Theater

3117 16th St., SF

(415) 863-1087

www.roxie.com

PERFORMANCE

Our Daily Bread

Carb load on this: in a collaboration between Amara Tabor-Smith’s Deep Waters Dance Theater, director Ellen Sebastian Chang, and visual artist Lauren Elder, Our Daily Bread delves into the folklore and stories surrounding food traditions. The socially conscious hybrid theater experience draws from a family gumbo tradition, examining how industrialized agriculture, fast food culture, and our global food crisis affect current food practices. In addition, CounterPulse resident artist Tabor-Smith also considers who is missing from the sustainable food movement. With red beans and rice on the mind, expect to fill your plate with individual food legacies and questions regarding your own relationship to food. You are what you eat. (Julie Potter)

Thurs/14–Sun/17, 8 p.m., $18–$22

CounterPulse

1310 Mission, SF

(415) 626-2060

www.counterpulse.org

EVENT

Nikki Sixx

Known not only for his fiery stage presence and key songwriting contributions as bassist for Mötley Crüe, Nikki Sixx also gained a notorious reputation for his off-stage antics, particularly his legendary appetite for drugs and debauchery. Sober now for several years, Sixx detailed many of these early escapades and horrors in his 2007 book The Heroin Diaries. He returns — just before a major summer tour, which includes a June stop in SF — with the follow-up, This Is Gonna Hurt: Music, Photography, and Life through the Distorted Lens of Nikki Sixx, a look at his post-addiction life that finds him a successful author, radio host, and of course, still rocking the stage with the Crüe. (McCourt)

6 p.m., $29.99 (includes book)

Book Passage

One Ferry Building, SF

(415) 835-1020

www.bookpassage.com

FRIDAY

APRIL 15

DANCE

Alonzo King’s Lines Ballet

The longer I watch Alonzo King’s Lines Ballet, the more this choreographer manages to surprise me. What intrigues is not so much his language — intricate, idiosyncratic, and demanding — or even the way he uses it on his dancers. But there is a vision, a philosophy behind his work, that we get glimpses of in every new piece. That’s what good dance is supposed to do. King also goes out of his way to find collaborators who can envelop his choreography in the mantle of new contexts. Of course, it helps that these other-than-dance contributions, in particular, are often spectacular on their own. But to get Mickey Hart, who actually is philosophically pretty close to King, create a score for Lines Ballet is a coup even for a choreographer with a growing international reputation. Architect Christopher Haas, who worked on the de Young Museum, created the set. (Rita Felciano)

Through April 24

Fri.–Sat., 8 p.m.; April 20–21, 7:30 p.m.;

April 24, 5 p.m., $25–$65

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

Novellus Theater

700 Howard, SF

(415) 978-2787

www.linesballet.org

MUSIC

The Residents

Hang on to your eyeballs, San Francisco’s most enigmatic art-rock collective the Residents will storm the stage at Bimbo’s in support of its for-no-particular-reason, ghost-story themed “Traveling Light” tour. The calculatedly anonymous group (currently a trio), as well known for its elaborately costumed stage personae and mixed-media presentations as for its deconstructed lyrics and dystopian musical baditude, is fast approaching its fourth decade. But don’t expect a set stuffed merely with humdrum nostalgia. Actually, don’t expecting any particular thing, because defying expectations is what the Residents do best. Word is the group will be recording the proceedings in three (possibly four ) dimensions, so wearing your very best top hat to the show might not be a bad idea. (Nicole Gluckstern)

Fri/15–Sat/16, 9 p.m., $30

Bimbo’s

1025 Columbus, SF

(415) 474-0365

www.bimbos365club.com

PERFORMANCE

Zaccho Dance Theatre

With a title — The Monkey and the Devil — taken from racial slurs, Joanna Haigood’s dance theater performance installation, performed by Zaccho Dance Theatre, addresses lingering contemporary racism, rooted in the lasting effects of America’s slave trade. Even in the age of Obama, the performance acknowledges how Americans grapple with the residue of slavery and reunite a split house. Surrounded by two massive, rotating set pieces designed by visual artist Charles Trapolin, audience members are free to navigate the continuously running performance installation in the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Forum. A post-performance discussion follows Friday’s installment. Don’t miss this immersive, compelling work. (Potter)

Fri/15, 8–10 p.m.;

Sat/16-Sun/17, 12-2 p.m. and 3–5 p.m., free

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Forum

701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-5210

www.ybca.org

SATURDAY

APRIL 16

EVENT

“How-to Homestead: 11 in 11 Tour”

You can go on tour without ever leaving your city. That’s the idealistic message of How-to Homestead’s “11 in 11 Tour,” a yearlong barnstorming series with dates planned for each of San Francisco’s districts. Spearheaded by Melinda Stone, a University of San Francisco professor equally knowledgeable in matters of celluloid and soil, How-to Homestead’s homebrew of entertainment and education draws on alternative cinema, practical workshops, and live music to create a distinctly flavorful commons. The fourth “11 in 11” program takes place at the historic Bayview Opera House and features a “Chickens in the City” workshop and contra dance call, in addition to the usual potluck dinner and film treats. With spring in the air, it should be an especially lively installment. (Max Goldberg)

4–10:30 p.m., $5 suggested donation

Bayview Opera House

4705 Third St., SF

www.howtohomestead.org

DANCE

ODC Dance Jam

At first the ODC Dance Jam consisted of half a dozen cute kids showing their prowess on an ODC/Dance opening night. Today ODC’s youth program is much too big for such capers, and the tables have been turned. This year the professional company will make an appearance — with Brenda Way’s John Somebody — at ODC Dance Jam’s own concert, “Make the Road by Walking.” Taking classes five times in addition to rehearsing, the 14-member troupe, ages 13-18, may not call itself pre-professional, but its dancers surely are on the way. KT Nelson, Kimi Okada, Bliss Kohlmeyer-Dowman, Greg Dawson, and Kim Epifano, about as professional a group as any, created choreography for them. (Felciano)

Sat/16, 8 p.m.; Sun/17, 4 and 7 p.m., $12

ODC Dance Commons

351 Shotwell, SF

(415) 863-9830

www.brownpapertickets.com/event/166923

SUNDAY

APRIL 17

MUSIC

Foxtails Brigade

(((folkYeah!))) and Antenna Farm Records host a release party in honor of San Francisco duo Foxtails Brigade’s full-length debut, The Bread and the Bait. On its surface, The Bread and the Bait is as delicate as lace — the album art depicts a ladylike tea party in progress. But look closer (why are two of the women blindfolded? And why is one clutching a knife?) and listen closely: there’s an underlying darkness cloaked in those ethereal vocals set against simple cello and violin melodies. Join in the celebration with musical performances by ‘Tails and Rachel Fannan of Sleepy Sun, plus comedy by Brent Weinbach and Moeshe Kasher, and a fashion show featuring designs by Verriers and Sako, Lecon de Vetement, and Zoe Hong. (Verzosa)

With Rachel Fannan

8 p.m., $15

Swedish American Music Hall

2174 Market, SF

(415) 861-5016

www.swedishamericanhall.com MUSIC

Wire

On a recent trip to New York City, I won tickets to watch Wire from the “Band Bench” on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Arriving at 30 Rock, I found a few other awkward music nerds who refused to take off their jackets looking forward to the performance. In a bit of TV magic, they filled out the 30 or so “hardcore fans” with tourists eager for a glimpse of Fallon guest Keanu Reeves. It could just be the standard practice, but it’s also typical of the U.K. band’s U.S. reception, remaining relatively unknown despite being perpetual critical darlings and inspiring alternative rock bands throughout a career spanning from the release of 1977’s influential punk album, Pink Flag, to their most recent, Red Barked Tree. (Ryan Prendiville) With Lumerians and DJ Callum McGowan

8 p.m., $21

Slim’s

333 11th St., SF

(415) 255-0333

www.slims-sf.com

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

Stage Listings

Maria Poblet

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April 12, 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. For complete listings, see www.sfbg.com.

THEATER

OPENING

Cordelia NOHspace, 2840 Mariposa; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $18-20. Previews Tues/19, 7pm. Opens April 20, 7pm. Wed-Thurs, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through May 7. Theatre of Yugen presents world premiere of an abstraction of Shakespeare’s King Lear.

ONGOING

The Busy World is Hushed New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness; 861-8972, www.nctcsf,org. $24-40. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through May 1. New Conservatory Theatre Center presents the world premiere of a play by Keith Bunin.

*Caliente Pier 29, The Embarcadero; 438-2668, www.love.zinzanni.org. $117-145. Wed-Sat, 6pm; Sun, 5pm. Open-ended. Teatro Zinzanni presents a new production conceived in San Francisco.

Collected Stories Stage Werx, 533 Sutter; Z(800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $20-25. Fri-Sat, 8pm (alos April 24 2pm). Through May 7. Stage Werx presents David Margulies’ drama about art, ethics, and betrayal.

*40 Pounds in 12 Weeks The Marsh, Studio Theater, 1074 Valencia; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $15-35. Call for dates and times. Through April 30. Pidge Meade’s one-woman show extends its successful run.

Free Theater Community Room, Notre Dame Senior Plaza, 347 Dolores; 864-4467. Free. Fri, 7:30pm; Sat-Sun, 3pm. Through April 17. The 16th Street Players present four comic plays.

*Geezer Marsh, 1062 Valencia; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Thurs, 8pm; Sat, 5pm; Sun, 3pm. Through May 1. The Marsh presents a new solo show about aging and mortality by Geoff Hoyle.

Into the Clear Blue Sky Phoenix Theater, 414 Mason; 913-7272, www.sleepwalkerstheatre.com. $15-17. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through April 30. Sleepwalkers Theatre presents the second production in a three-part apocalypse series.

KML Reboots Traveling Jewish Theater, 470 Floriad; www.killingmylobster.com. $10-20. Thurs-fri, 8pm; Sat, 7 and 10pm; Sun, 7pm. Through April 24. The sketch comedians present a new show about the pleasures and pains of technology.

Loveland The Marsh, 1062 Valencia; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $20-35. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm (also May 1 and 8, 7pm). Through May 8. Ann Rudolph’s one-woman show continues its successful run.

M. Butterfly Gough Street Playhouse, 1620 Gough; (510) 207-5774, www.custommade.org. $20-28. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through April 30. Custom Made Theatre presents David Henry Hwang’s award-winning play.

*Obscura: A Magic Play Exit Studio, 156 Eddy; 673-3847, www.sffringe.org. $20-25. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Sat/16. Christian Cagigal is back with the magical. Over the last several years, the popular Bay Area writer/performer has developed a series of dramatically structured magic shows (the most recent being the autobiographical Now and at the Hour), each a different attempt at blending expert prestidigitation with elements of narrative theater. Tightly focused and deliberately small-scale, Obscura is in some ways his most successful foray yet. In the Exit Theater’s new studio space, Cagigal (with occasional help from his audience) unfolds a series of sly Gothic stories combined with extremely clever, sometimes dementedly playful card and coin tricks—the majority a collection of favorite pieces from other magicians—all played out on a delicately managed little table augmented by overhead projection (a set-up that offers various visual opportunities, including use of title cards). Rapid-fire narration (occasionally indistinct but generally articulate) and a laid back, slightly mischievous demeanor combine here with consummate skill in an intimate and very enjoyable evening of crafty little tales. If there’s an overarching theme, it probably has something to do with human folly, the persistence of mystery, and the devil, but then any good fable involving a deck of cards probably should. (Avila)

Party of 2 — The New Mating Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter; 1-800-838-3006, www.partyof2themusical.com. $27-29. Fri, 9pm. Open-ended. A musical about relationships by Shopping! The Musical author Morris Bobrow.

The Real Americans The Marsh MainStage, 1062 Valencia; 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $25-35. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Through April 30. Dan Hoyle’s hit show returns for another engagement.

Sea Turtles Exit Theater, 156 Eddy; www.generationtheatre.com. $15-25. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm (also April 28, 8pm). Through April 30. GenerationTheatre presents an original play by David Valayre.

Secret Identity Crisis SF Playhouse, Stage 2, 533 Sutter; 869-5384, www.un-scripted.com. $10-20. Thurs-Sat, 8pm (no show may 7). Through May 14. Un-Scripted Theater Company presents a story about unmasked heroes.

Shopping! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter; (800) 838-3006, www.shoppingthemusical.com. $27-29. Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. A musical comedy revue about shopping by Morris Bobrow.

*Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven The Thick House, 1695 18th St; 255-8746, www.asianamericantheatre.org, www.crowdedfire.org. $15-25. Call for dates and times. Through Sat/16. “They have no idea what the fuck we’re doing,” observes one of the nameless “Korean” characters in Young Jean Lee’s Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven. In rapid succession the audience has witnessed a video clip of the playwright being slapped repeatedly in the face, a westernized Korean woman (Cindy Im) ranting about her “retarded monkey” parents and minority rage yet promising her Grandmother that she’ll give Jesus a whirl, bafflingly banal interactions between two “white” people (Alexis Papedo and Josh Schell) struggling with their floundering romance, and cartoonish interludes of exaggerated sex, consumerism, and violence enacted by three gaudily-dressed Korean women (Mimu Tsujimura, Lily Tung Crystal, Katie Chan)—none of whom are actually played by Koreans. It’s a play you have to surrender yourself to, a roller-coaster ride of sharp curves and nausea-inducing plunges (especially twisted is the gross-out contest of suicide methods in which each character takes a turn at dying in an unimaginably gruesome yet hilarious manner). Oddly, the piece ends on a rather lackluster note, with the two “white” people exploring the mutual contempt they pretend is love, which might be the playwright’s method of showing that white people can ruin anything without half trying, but the ride before their dead end is a thrilling one. (Gluckstern)

A Streetcar Named Desire Actors Theatre, 855 Bush; 345-1287, www.actorstheatresf.org. $26-38. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through June 4. Actors Theatre of San Francisco presents the Tennessee Williams tale.

Talking With Angels Royce Gallery, 2901 Mariposa; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $21-35. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through May 21. A play by Shelley Mitchell set in Nazi-occupied Hungary.

Tape The Dark room, 2263 Mission; www.darkroomsf.com. $10-20. Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat/16, 10pm). Through April 23. The 4th Mirror presents a production of the play by Stephen Belber.

Twelfth Night African American Art & Culture Complex, 762 Fulton; (800) 838-3006, www.African-AmericanShakes.org. $15-35. Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm (no performance April 24). Through May 1. African-American Shakespeare Company presents a jazzy interpretation of the Bard.

*Wirehead SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter; 677-9596, www.sfplayhouse.org. $30-50. Tues-Wed, 7pm; Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 3and 8pm. Through April 23. Perfectionism’s ruthless class dimensions come to the fore in SF Playhouse’s smart, fun, and sharply staged Bay Area premiere about the super-smart posthumans of the near future, and the rest of us. A shady China-based conglomerate with a name that sounds like Sin-Tell sells a scintillating if dangerous procedure for those already well connected: a hardwire boost to the neural circuitry that gives the recipient more than an edge on the competition and something just shy of godlike powers. Two friends and colleagues in a banking firm (Craig Marker and Gabriel Marin) and their variously class-marked but equally ambitious girlfriends (Lauren Grace and Madeleine H.D. Brown) are all drawn into this cyborgian gold rush, and it gets sticky in more ways than one, as meanwhile a brash local DJ named RIP (Scott Coopwood) raps sardonically over the airwaves about this latest twist in an old game. SF Playhouse’s Susi Damilano directs a charismatic cast (including a terrific Cole Alexander Smith in a related series of frenetic roles) in Matt Benjamin and Logan Brown’s culture-jamming riposte to tech-mad humanist hogwash about Progress. It gets you thinking. (Avila)

BAY AREA

*Beardo Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; (510) 841-6500, www.shotgunplayers.org. $17-26. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through April 24. Shotgun Players present a an original songplay about Rasputin.

East 14th – True Tale of a Reluctant Player The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Way, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through May 8. Don Reed’s one-man show continues.

Eccentricities of a Nightingale Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison; (510) 843-4822, www.auroratheatre.org. $34-45. Tues, 7pm; Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through May 8. Aurora Theatre Company presents a Tennessee Williams drama.

Not a Genuine Black Man The Marsh Berkeley, TheaterStage, 2120 Allston Way, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Thurs, 7:30pm. Through May 5. Brian Copeland’s one-man show continues.

Out of Sight The Marsh Berkeley, Theaterstage, 2120 Allston Way, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 5pm (no show Sat/9); Sun, 3pm. Through May 8. Sara Felder’s one-woman show returns.

Quidam The Cow Palace 2600 Geneva, Daly City; (415) 404-4100; www.cowpalace.com, www.cirquedusoleil.com. $32-115. Call for dates and times. Through Sun/17. In Albert Lamorisse’s 1956 short film The Red Balloon, a child’s love affair with a mischievous toy takes place on the streets of Paris, a rough gray place that weirdly foreshadows the subterranean world inhabited by the mysterious creatures of Quidam. Here the silent child toting a giant red balloon is Zoe (Alessandra Gonzalez), who’s been spirited away to their underworld from her neglectful, oblivious parents. Her participation in their antics basically amounts to her looking on as acrobats, contortionists, and clowns strut their stuff, in the uninviting, under-populated confines of the Cow Palace, a far from ideal venue for a show that relies so much on audience participation and intimacy. In general the acts involving more performers work better in the cavernous space—an inventive diabolo juggling act, a complicated twenty-person jump rope exhibition, a five-person aerial Spanish Webs ensemble, and a highly-acrobatic fifteen-person Banquine act: synchronized, rapid-fire flinging of bodies to, fro, high, and low without missing a beat or (thankfully) a catch. There is much to admire in Cirque du Soleil’s dedication to legitimizing the Circus as a higher art form, but this presentation of Quidam aims unfortunately low. (Gluckstern)

Singing at the Edge of the World The Cabaret at The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Way, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $15-35. Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through Sat/16. The Marsh presents a one-man show by Randy Rutherford.

Slices 2011 pear Avenue Theatre, 1220 Pear, Mtn View; (650) 254-1148, www.thepear.org. $15-30. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through April 24. Pear Avenue Theatre presents its annual festival of short plays.

Snow Falling on Cedars TheatreWorks at Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View; (650) 463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. $24-67. Tues-Wed, 7:30pm; Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 2 and 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through April 24. TheatreWorks presents a stage adaptation of the David Guterson novel.

Three Sisters Berkeley Reperory Theatre, Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-73. Dates and times vary. Through May 22. The creators of Eurydice and In the Next Room present a new take on Chekhov.

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show The Marsh Berkeley, Cabaret, 2120 Allston Way, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Through July 10. The bubbles keep flowing.

Found in translation

Andrew Lam

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April 5, 2011

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arts@sfbg.com

Those who know nothing of foreign languages know nothing of their own.

— Goethe

THEATER In Mark Jackson’s breakout theatrical hit, 2003’s The Death of Meyerhold, title character and playwright Vsevolod Meyerhold asserts that “the classics are always new. That is why they are called the classics.” That philosophy of theatre is one that Jackson’s other plays frequently embrace. From reimagined Shakespeare to adaptations of underproduced Russian dramas, Jackson’s work is invariably characterized by his respect for and understanding of the universal nature of human emotion, regardless of location or century, as well as an intensely verbal style of playwriting and often aggressively physical staging.

It’s a logical progression that a writer with such a facility for his own language might eventually turn to the translation of theatrical works in other languages — especially after spending a year abroad, steeped in the theater scene of another country (in Jackson’s case, Germany). To date, Jackson has translated two full-length works, Faust, Part 1 by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Mary Stuart, by Friedrich Schiller, presented in 2009 and 2010 by the Shotgun Players at the Ashby Stage. Translating from a director’s perspective, Jackson’s primary focus is on the spirit of the original play, and the intentions of the playwright, not necessarily a word-for-word direct interpretation.

“Why do that,” he wonders when asked about his approach, “except out of academic interest?” In addition to preserving the overall intention of the pieces he translates, Jackson also focuses on what he calls the “music” of the German language.

“Fortunately, because English is a Germanic language, it’s easier to retain the melody of it,” he explains. “To streamline the text but keep the poetry.” From Jackson’s perspective and personal experience, it’s the music of a language that ultimately reveals the character of its people, and therefore the characters of the pieces he translates.

For Rob Melrose of the Cutting Ball Theater, an experimental Bay Area company with a dedicated bent for the classics and the avant-garde, translation is an opportunity to stretch his comprehension of the English language and language in general. A dabbler in five languages in addition to English, Melrose has translated a total of seven plays from French and German and appreciates the insight into different cultures learning languages has given him: how the spare simplicity of French reveals the elegance of the French; how the logical, tightly constructed phrases of German are engineered as flawlessly as one of their vaunted automobiles. But even more, he appreciates the ways that these other languages push him as a writer and an artist.

“Working in another language makes you think differently,” Melrose explains. “Learning how other languages work helps me appreciate our language better and helps me identify what is unique about it. It also helps me stretch English a bit by trying to make it do what French can do or what German can do.”

It’s fair to say that Bennett Fisher, a cofounder of San Francisco Theatre Pub and an English teacher, has an in-depth understanding of English, which may be why for fun he chooses to translate plays from ancient Greek and French. The convivial atmosphere created by San Francisco Theatre Pub doesn’t mask its emphasis on thinking theatre, including Fisher’s translations of Cyclops and Ubu Roi. For his Greek translations, Fisher relies on the translation website Perseus project (www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper), first translating chunks of text verbatim, then struggling to fill in the blanks.

“What I end up with is a kind of “me Tarzan, you Jane” sentence,” he says. “Then it’s a kind of puzzle to figure out what it means and how to phrase it to make it sound conversational. Once I get a handle on that, I can do all the stuff I do with French in terms of getting at feeling, tone, intent, and all that. There’s a lot of trial and error. It’s kind of like being a director — you try interpreting the dialogue in different ways and eventually you find a choice that feels right.”

It’s not just the classics that inspire local theatre-makers to try their hand at translation. One of the most exciting productions of 2006 was foolsFURY’s take on Fabrice Melquiot’s The Devil on All Sides, translated by artistic director Ben Yalom. A harrowing blend of magical realism and atrocity, Melquiot’s play set in the former Yugoslavia was pronounced the theatrical discovery of the year in his native France in 2003. The production went on from San Francisco to New York City, and helped inspire foolsFURY’s ongoing Contemporary French Plays Project, with two more Melquiot translations in the works and more possibilities waiting in the wings.

Daniel Zilber, cofounder of the Thrillpeddlers, translates original Grand Guignol plays from early 20th-century Paris, retaining all the melodrama and humor of the originals. Both the foolsFURY’s emphasis on physical artifice and the extreme naturalism of the Thrillpeddlers stem from French theatrical traditions, an influence that even extends to the writing and staging of their English-language productions. Much the way the art of translation pushes theatre-makers like Jackson and Melrose to think differently about the language of playwriting, so does the language of French theatricality encourage foolsFURY to create seething tableaux of writhing bodies, as in 2008’s Monster in the Dark, and the Thrillpeddlers to push the playfully edgy Grand Guignol aesthetic in their English original shows.

It doesn’t seem like a coincidence that some of Bay Area theatre’s most compelling risk-takers are also drawn to the possibilities translation offers them — from the challenges of the process to the rewards of producing a fresh interpretation of a classic work for the modern stage. But the greatest impact of the translation process may well be the way it continues to influence these theatre-makers during the creation of their original works. Perhaps Melrose puts it best: “It’s only by knowing these other languages well and by translating classic works that I have the idea to push English in my own writing.”

Next step

Andrew Lam

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April 5, 2011

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arts@sfbg.com

DANCE The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater may be an American treasure, but it’s one that has been adopted by the world. Wherever these dancers go, they jam the houses with enthusiastic audiences. That’s why it may seem curmudgeonly to say that while fabulous, they could be better. Not the dancers: technically, they are top-notch, as well as brave, fierce, and committed. What the company needs — and will now get — is a new vision.

It was both hopeful and disconcerting to see the company’s last Zellerbach engagement (March 30) under the leadership of Judith Jamison, Ailey’s first muse. She took over the company upon Ailey’s death, in 1989, when it was demoralized and deeply in debt. Today, Ailey’s repertoire is in good hands, and Jamison has built an enviable infrastructure. But the dancers are such technical powerhouses that audiences the world over gladly indulge work with surface glitz as long as they get Revelations at the end.

The first of this year’s programs showed what is right and wrong with the company. The best pieces by far were by Ailey: Cry (1971) and Revelations (1960). Both received excellent performances. They also showed that the Ailey dancers can be nuanced and expressive, when given half a chance.

Cry is dedicated to “all black women everywhere — especially our mothers,” and was created for Jamison. Here its three sections were entrusted to the majestic Rachel McLarec, a fiercely despairing Constance Stamatiou, and Briana Reed as the victorious survivor. The approach worked, though when performed by one woman, Cry feels more complex.

In Revelations, Linda Celeste Sims and Glenn Allen Sims pushed themselves physically and emotionally to the edge during “Fix Me, Jesus,” while Amos J. Machanic Jr. almost turned himself inside out in “I Wanna be Ready.” For “Rocka My Soul,” the dancers held back. A wise move: the audience wouldn’t let them go without an encore.

The first of two Bay Area premieres, Christopher L. Huggins’ three-part Anointed was intended as a tribute to the growth of the company under Jamison. Unfortunately, it played to the worst of the audience’s expectations. It was visually full of sound and fury, but conceptually and choreographically dim. A dark-clad figure (Jamar Roberts) calls upon a fierce, fist-clutching fighter (the incredibly fit Sims) to follow him. In voice-over, a reluctant Jamison accepts the call. Next, “Sally Forth,” the work’s best choreography, features Sims in a female quintet with a modicum of rhythmic invention as five dancers fly apart and coalesce into solidarity. A parallel men’s quintet, with a “transfigured” Roberts now in white, presented the men in unison turns that spun off into the wings. Not much there. Only the dedication of the dancers kept Anointed from burning itself to ashes.

In the second Bay Area premiere, Robert Battle’s The Hunt, Brown, Sims, Roberts, Antonio Douthit, Kirven James Boyd, and Yannick Lebrun used every ounce of reserve strength. Battle created a convincing evocation of masculinity that turned a cliché — man as hunter — into a complex ritual expression of solidarity, submission, and friendship. Good times were mixed with aggression and victimhood. The ideas flowed in and out of each other in rhythmically intricate stomping, skipping, and running patterns of considerable nuance. All were immaculately performed to music by the outstanding percussion ensemble Les Tambours du Bronx. It’s reassuring to hear that Battle will be taking over the company.

Our Weekly Picks: April 6-12, 2011

Maria Poblet

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April 5, 2011

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THURSDAY 7

FILM

“An Evening with Les Blank”

The man who held Werner Herzog to a bet that involved the consumption of footwear (and filmed it, in 1980’s literally-titled Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe) comes to the Red Vic to present two of his best-loved films: 1969’s The Blues Accordin’ to Lightnin’ Hopkins and 1978’s Always for Pleasure. The Bay Area resident is famed for his ability to seek out and artfully capture American folkways, and this screening includes intimate looks at Texas blues and New Orleans street parties. The latter will be presented in “Smellaround!,” which I think is the Red Vic’s way of suggesting you’ll be unable to resist the rice and beans cooking up free for each attendee — using “Les’ own special recipe.” Let’s hope no boots are in the pot! (Cheryl Eddy)

7:30 p.m., $15

Red Vic Movie House

1727 Haight, SF

(415) 668-3994

www.redvicmoviehouse.com DANCE

DANCE

Lemi Ponifasio

You have never heard of Lemi Ponifasio, the Samoan chief with a full-body tattoo who now lives and works primarily in New Zealand? If you had been lucky enough to attend recent Edinburgh, Sidney, Lincoln Center, or Holland festivals, you might have encountered his Mau (“Vision”) company, which earned accolades in ceremonial dance theater that may be culturally-specific but is not culturally-limited. Ponifasio has said that his work always explores issues around “power and life.” Tempest: Without A Body draws on Shakespeare, Paul Klee, and political philosopher Giorgio Agamben. A Maori activist, Tami Iti, appears in the piece to make a case for his people and for social change. On opening night, director Peter Sellars engages Ponifasio in a pre-performance conversation. (Rita Felciano)

Thurs/7, 8:15 p.m. (pre-performance conversation, 7:15 p.m.);

Fri/8–Sat/9, 8 p.m., $30

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission St., SF

(415) 978-2787

www.ybca.org

EVENT

“Wicked Plants”

Inspired by Northern California writer Amy Stewart’s 2009 New York Times bestseller about deadly plants and their place in human history, the new exhibit “Wicked Plants: Botanical Rogues and Assassins” features a bevy of beautiful (but dangerous and sometimes lethal) flora. Poison hemlock, white snakeroot, castor bean, and more are among the living examples of plants whose effects on people can range from skin irritation, severe pain, and even agonizing death. Explore more than 30 species of this mysterious greenery, all displayed in a spooky Victorian garden — a setting that would make Agatha Christie proud — if you dare. (Sean McCourt)

Through Oct. 30

Tues.–Sun., 10 a.m.–4 p.m., $1.50–$7

Conservatory of Flowers

100 John F. Kennedy Drive

Golden Gate Park, SF

(415) 831-2090

www.conservatoryofflowers.org

DANCE

San Francisco Ballet

The exquisite range of the San Francisco Ballet will be on display this week as it continues its spring season by opening two mixed programs. Program 6 features the company’s premiere of Wayne McGregor’s Chroma, set to compositions by Joby Talbot and arrangements by Jack White (best known for the recently-disbanded White Stripes, though his musical outlets are legion), along with works by Christopher Wheeldon (with a score by erstwhile Winger frontman-turned-composer Kip Winger), and artistic director Helgi Tomasson. Program 7 includes Michel Fokine’s Petrouchka, the tragic tale of a puppet who possesses a human soul. Choreographed to Stravinsky’s mysterious and haunting score, this century-old ballet was originally danced by Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes. (Julie Potter)

Through April 20

Performance times vary, $20–$135

War Memorial Opera House

301 Van Ness, SF

(415) 865-2000

www.sfballet.org PERFORMANCE

COMEDY

Brian Posehn

After getting his start doing stand-up in Northern California, comedian Brian Posehn has since gone on to lend his many talents to a wide variety of other media: TV shows such as The Sarah Silverman Program, films including Rob Zombie’s The Devil’s Rejects (2005), and albums like 2006’s Live In: Nerd Rage. The album featured the side-splitting parody song “Metal By Numbers,” where he skewered modern “false metal” with his searing lyrics and growled incantations of “Cookie Cookie Cookie!” Fans are sure to be in for a treat when Posehn returns to the live stage, free to riff on whichever hilarious subjects — music, pop culture, and more — he chooses. (McCourt)

Thurs/7–Sun/10, 8 p.m.

(also Fri/8–Sat/9, 10:15 p.m.), $17.50–$20.50

Cobb’s Comedy Club

915 Columbus, SF

(415) 928-4320

www.cobbscomedyclub.com

MUSIC

Big Freedia and Rusty Lazer

Words fail. One would be best served by simply looking live videos of “Azz Everywhere” up on YouTube, to be greeted by the sight of sweaty dancers in booty shorts shaking it for the MC, to the call of “Ass all over/ Like I told ya/ Bend over/ Like I told ya.” This indelible image comes courtesy of bounce (or “sissy bounce”), a New Orleans-regional, bass-heavy, call-and-response style of hip-hop. And Big Freedia is its “Queen Diva.” Too heavy for radio, too sexual for TV, but just right for a killer night on the floor. (Ryan Prendiville)

With Richie Panic, Hot Tub DJs, and more

9 p.m., $10

Public Works

161 Erie, SF

www.publicsf.com

FRIDAY 8

DANCE

“Triptych: New work by Kelly Bowker, Gretchen Garnett, Ishika Seth”

If you look at the history of modern dance, you’ll encounter a group of (mostly) women passionate about their discoveries of the body’s expressive potential. They scraped by financially and danced for and with each other, getting paid if there was money — which was rarely the case. Guess what? Not that much has changed. The Bay Area is still a welcoming place for young artists who just have to do what they have to do. Kelly Bowker, Gretchen Garnett, and Ishika Seth are familiar to those who hunt out the less familiar performance venues. That’s probably how they met and found that they could share precious resources. Bowker calls her piece Parallel Uncertainties; Garnett’s is Six Years Dreaming; and Seth’s two works are Death and Other Things and Khwaish. (Felciano)

Fri/8–Sat/9, 8 p.m., $15–$20

CounterPULSE

1310 Mission, SF

www.brownpapertickets.com

FILM

“Jane Russell 1921-2011”

Don’t let Elizabeth Taylor hog the dead non-blonde former sex symbol spotlight. Jane Russell was so hot she changed censorship in the United States. The promotional pictures for 1943’s The Outlaw got director Howard Hughes in trouble with the Hollywood Production Code and the film was delayed for years until cleavage cuts were made. (Not to mention giving new meaning to the term “double feature” — rim shot!) Sure, Marilyn gets the titular nod with 1953’s Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, but the alluring Russell proves that not all men are gentlemen. (Prendiville) The Outlaw, 1, 5, and 9 p.m.;

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, 3:15 and 7:15 p.m., $7.50–$10

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

www.castrotheatre.com

MUSIC

Akron/Family

True or false: band monikers that contain punctuation marks are penned just to screw with the minds of music and copy editors. Either way, the bicoastal trio Akron/Family is undoubtedly a genre-fuck. It’s avant-garde sans the pretentiousness, combining folk, Japanese noise, fuzzed-out rock, and psychedelic elements. To boot, it injects found-sounds like the creaking of a chair into its music à la The Books. While accusations of it being a cult have been refuted, its newest LP, S/T II: The Cosmic Birth and Journey of Shinju TNT, was purportedly written in a cabin perched upon an active volcano on a Japanese island. The album’s origins are simultaneously weird and awesome, just like the band. (Jen Verzosa)

With Delicate Steve, Honeymoon, and DJ Britt Govea

9 p.m., $15

Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

www.theindependentsf.com

DANCE

Fact/SF

With a sense of humor and a solid group of daring, theatrical performers, Charles Slender’s Fact/SF burst onto San Francisco’s dance scene with a steady output of new work. Prior to founding his company in 2008, the U.C. Berkeley graduate danced abroad, spending time in Russia studying with choreographer Tatiana Baganova and performing in her Provincial Dances Theatre company. Slender creates with a dance-theater edge, resulting in compositions that range from the minimal to highly physical, some serious and others lighthearted. His company’s third home season, running for two consecutive weekends, features company repertory as well as a premiere. (Potter)

Fri/8–Sun/10, 8 p.m., $20

Garage

975 Howard, SF

(800) 838-3006

www.975howard.com

SATURDAY 9

MUSIC

Cold War Kids

With overwhelmingly positive cyberspace reviews of self-released EPs With Our Wallets Full and Up in Rags, Long Beach indie-rock foursome Cold War Kids has music bloggers to thank for its popularity — and notoriety. (Pitchfork famously described the band as “skinny-jeaned Christians” because three members attended a Los Angeles bible college). But Cold War Kids has withstood the so-called damnation of this label; newest release Mine Is Yours is more polished than past albums, and the band has joined the ranks of other indie-turned-mainstream greats like Kings of Leon. As they say, bigger is better. (Verzosa)

With Sean Hayes

8 p.m., $25

Fox Theatre

1807 Telegraph, Oakl.

www.thefoxoakland.com

MUSIC

Papercuts

Frequently revered by critics but never quite matching the praise with comparable commercial success, Papercuts frontman Jason Robert Quever may finally break the pattern with Fading Parade, a beautiful new album that marks his first release on Sub Pop. The San Francisco songwriter creates lush, ethereal music full of 1980s dream-pop touchstones and traces of the shimmering lo-fi of artists such as Ariel Pink and Wild Nothing. A healthy dose of reverb surrounding Quever’s melancholic delivery, and the sustained organ and synth lines buried underneath, help evoke the feelings of nostalgic longing he’s no doubt shooting to convey. He may be more than a decade into his career, but one listen to Fading Parade makes it seem like Quever is just starting to get warmed up. (Landon Moblad)

With Banjo or Freakout

9:30 p.m., $14

Café Du Nord

2170 Market, SF

(415) 861-5016

www.cafedunord.com

MONDAY 11

EVENT

“The Spirit of Montmartre: Cafes, Cabarets, and Other Cacophony”

You don’t have to go to Paris to delve into the Moulin Rouge lifestyle and bohemian pleasures. Indeed, you can check out this multimedia presentation by professor William Eddelman, a costume designer and theater historian, exploring the rise of the Paris avant-garde. The evening reveals the world of Toulouse- Lautrec and his contemporaries, a hotbed of collaborative performance art, bold design, laughter, and high spirits in the early 20th century. Francophiles won’t want to miss this sensory event, which includes corset fashions by Dark Garden and an absinthe tasting. (Potter)

7 p.m., $15–$20

Museum of Performance and Design

401 Van Ness, SF

(415) 255-4800

www.mpdsf.org

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

Stage Listings

Maria Poblet

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April 5, 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. For complete listings, see www.sfbg.com.

THEATER

ONGOING

The Busy World is Hushed New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van ness; 861-8972, www.nctcsf,org. $24-40. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through May 1.New Conservatory Theatre Center presents the world premiere of a play by Keith Bunin.

*Caliente Pier 29, The Embarcadero; 438-2668, www.love.zinzanni.org. $117-145. Wed-Sat, 6pm; Sun, 5pm. Open-ended. Teatro Zinzanni presents a new production conceived in San Francisco.

*40 Pounds in 12 Weeks The Marsh, Studio Theater, 1074 Valencia; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $15-35. Call for dates and times. Through April 30. Pidge Meade’s one-woman show extends its successful run.

*Geezer Marsh, 1062 Valencia; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Thurs, 8pm; Sat, 5pm; Sun, 3pm. Through May 1. The Marsh presents a new solo show about aging and mortality by Geoff Hoyle.

It is not about pomegranates! Boxcar Playhouse, 505 Natoma; (510) 982-6311, www.darvag.org. $20. s-Sun, 8pm. Through Sun/10. “It’s not about pomegranates,” the exasperated playwright Atoosa (Ana Bayat King) tells dramaturge Sean (Richard Reinholdt), referring to the fact that her play about love doesn’t deal directly with her purported cultural identity as a woman “between two worlds,” Iran and the US. Any artist who has felt the pressure to play an easily marketable role can sympathize with her dilemma. As a woman from the Middle East (“middle of what,” she demands to know), her story is a hot commodity, but only as it fits the preconceived notion of what her story should be. It’s a premise worthy of exploration, but in Darvag Theatre’s awkwardly-staged production, the exposition comes off as being more preachy than genuine, and the characters confined by the very stereotypes they are battling against. Indeed, though the lady doth protest, the play becomes very much about pomegranates as the broad assumptions the protagonists make about each other in the beginning of the play are little dispelled by their actions by the end. Sean is a rude American man, Atoosa a passionate enigma. There is some quiet humor that infuses the dialogue and the actors are a likable pair, but the piece itself feels underdeveloped and unresolved. (Nicole Gluckstern)

Lady Grey (in ever lower light) EXIT on Taylor, 277 Taylor; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $15-50. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Sun/10. Cutting Ball Theater presents the Bay Area premiere of three short plays by Will Eno.

Loveland The Marsh, 1062 Valencia; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $20-35. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm (also May 1 and 8, 7pm). Through May 8. Ann Rudolph’s one-woman show continues its successful run.

M. Butterfly Gough Street Playhouse, 1620 Gough; (510) 207-5774, www.custommade.org. $20-28. Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Sun/10, 7pm). Through April 16. Custom Made Theatre presents David Henry Hwang’s award-winning play.

*Obscura: A Magic Play Exit Studio, 156 Eddy; 673-3847, www.sffringe.org. $20-25. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through April 16. Christian Cagigal is back with the magical. Over the last several years, the popular Bay Area writer/performer has developed a series of dramatically structured magic shows (the most recent being the autobiographical Now and at the Hour), each a different attempt at blending expert prestidigitation with elements of narrative theater. Tightly focused and deliberately small-scale, Obscura is in some ways his most successful foray yet. In the Exit Theater’s new studio space, Cagigal (with occasional help from his audience) unfolds a series of sly Gothic stories combined with extremely clever, sometimes dementedly playful card and coin tricks—the majority a collection of favorite pieces from other magicians—all played out on a delicately managed little table augmented by overhead projection (a set-up that offers various visual opportunities, including use of title cards). Rapid-fire narration (occasionally indistinct but generally articulate) and a laid back, slightly mischievous demeanor combine here with consummate skill in an intimate and very enjoyable evening of crafty little tales. If there’s an overarching theme, it probably has something to do with human folly, the persistence of mystery, and the devil, but then any good fable involving a deck of cards probably should. (Avila)

*The Oldest Profession Brava Theater, 2781 24th St; 647-2822, www.brava.org. $10-25. Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 3 and 8pm. Through Sat/9. Brava Theater presents a play by Paula Vogel, directed by Evren Odcikin. Who says tricks are for kids? Five elderly women of the night (Linda Ayres-Frederick, Lee Brady, Tamar Cohn, Cec Levinson, Patricia Silver) converge by day at a park bench to swap stories, cavil, and defend their turf amid a changing world and one or two last hurrahs in Brava Theater’s production of Paula Vogel’s 1988 play about sex work, aging, and class solidarity. The subject matter is ripe, but the drama feels somewhat undeveloped. Although consciously set on the cusp of the Reagan era—an era culminating now in roiling confrontations everywhere you look—this fitfully amusing if generally well-acted and enjoyable feminist drama-cum-floorshow gives only a gentle political bite, preferring the tickle and caress of heartfelt comedy centered on the seeming incongruity of streetwise matrons. As the group dwindles, each final bow comes as a sexy and/or raunchy swan song—highlights of the evening—accompanied with Old New Orleans ambience by Angela Dwyer’s jaunty upright piano. It’s a bit like Cabaret meets Going in Style, and as directed by Evren Odcikin makes for a short but sweet ride. (Avila) Party of 2 — The New Mating Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter; 1-800-838-3006, www.partyof2themusical.com. $27-29. Fri, 9pm. Open-ended. A musical about relationships by Shopping! The Musical author Morris Bobrow.

*Pearls Over Shanghai Thrillpeddlers’ Hypnodrome, 575 Tenth St; 1-800-838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $30-69. Sat, 8pm. Through Sat/9. Thrillpeddlers’ acclaimed production of the Cockettes musical ends its successful run.

7 Sins…One More Time! EXIT Theatre, 156 Eddy; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $25-40. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Sun/10. James Judd’s long-running comedy hit has a return engagement.

Secret Identity Crisis SF Playhouse, Stage 2, 533 Sutter; 869-5384, www.un-scripted.com. $10-20. Thurs-Sat, 8pm (no show may 7). Through May 14. Un-Scripted Theater Company presents a story about unmasked heroes.

Shopping! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter; (800) 838-3006, www.shoppingthemusical.com. $27-29. Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. A musical comedy revue about shopping by Morris Bobrow.

A Streetcar Named Desire Actors Theatre, 855 Bush; 345-1287, www.actorstheatresf.org. $26-38. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through May 28. Actors Theatre of San Francisco presents the Tennesse Williams tale.

Talking With Angels Royce Gallery, 2901 Mariposa; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $21-35. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through may 21. A play by Shelley Mitchell set in Nazi-occupied Hungary.

Twelfth Night African American Art & Culture Complex, 762 Fulton; (800) 838-3006, www.African-AmericanShakes.org. $15-35. Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm (no performance April 24). Through may 1. African-American Shakespeare Company presents a jazzy interpretation of the Bard.

*Wirehead SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter; 677-9596, www.sfplayhouse.org. $30-50. Tues-Wed, 7pm; Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 3and 8pm. Through April 23. Perfectionism’s ruthless class dimensions come to the fore in SF Playhouse’s smart, fun, and sharply staged Bay Area premiere about the super-smart posthumans of the near future, and the rest of us. A shady China-based conglomerate with a name that sounds like Sin-Tell sells a scintillating if dangerous procedure for those already well connected: a hardwire boost to the neural circuitry that gives the recipient more than an edge on the competition and something just shy of godlike powers. Two friends and colleagues in a banking firm (Craig Marker and Gabriel Marin) and their variously class-marked but equally ambitious girlfriends (Lauren Grace and Madeleine H.D. Brown) are all drawn into this cyborgian gold rush, and it gets sticky in more ways than one, as meanwhile a brash local DJ named RIP (Scott Coopwood) raps sardonically over the airwaves about this latest twist in an old game. SF Playhouse’s Susi Damilano directs a charismatic cast (including a terrific Cole Alexander Smith in a related series of frenetic roles) in Matt Benjamin and Logan Brown’s culture-jamming riposte to tech-mad humanist hogwash about Progress. It gets you thinking. (Avila)

BAY AREA

*Beardo Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; (510) 841-6500, www.shotgunplayers.org. $17-26. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Apil 24. Shotgun Players present a an original songplay about Rasputin.

East 14th – True Tale of a Reluctant Player The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Way, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through May 8. Don Reed’s one-man show continues.

Eccentricities of a Nightingale Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison; (510) 843-4822, www.auroratheatre.org. $34-45. Tues, 7pm; Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through May 8. Aurora Theatre Company presents a Tennessee Williams drama.

Free Range Thinking Marsh Berkeley, TheaterStage, 2120 Allston, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through Sat/ 9. The Marsh Berkeley presents a new comedic solo show by Robert Dubac.

Not a Genuine Black Man The Marsh Berkeley, TheaterStage, 2120 Allston Way, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Thurs, 7:30pm. Through May 5. Brian Copeland’s one-man show continues.

Out of Sight The Marsh Berkeley, Theaterstage, 2120 Allston Way, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 5pm (no show Sat/9); Sun, 3pm. Through May 8. Sara Felder’s one-woman show returns.

*Ruined Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-73. Call for dates and times. Through Sun/10. Berkeley Rep presents Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer-winning play about the lives of women in Africa.

Singing at the Edge of the World The Cabaret at The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Way, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $15-35. Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through April 16. The Marsh presents a one-man show by Randy Rutherford.

Snow Falling on Cedars TheatreWorks at Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View; (650) 463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. $24-67. Tues-Wed, 7:30pm; Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 2 and 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through April 24. TheatreWorks presents a stage adaptation of the David Guterson novel.

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show The Marsh Berkeley, Cabaret, 2120 Allston Way, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Through July 10. The bubbles keep flowing.

Film Listings

Maria Poblet

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April 5, 2011

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Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Michelle Devereaux, Peter Galvin, Max Goldberg, Dennis Harvey, Johnny Ray Huston, Louis Peitzman, Lynn Rapoport, Ben Richardson, and Matt Sussman. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock. For first-run showtimes, see Movie Guide.

OPENING

Arthur For those keeping score at home, this is 456th remake of 2011. And it’s only April! (1:45) Four Star, Marina.

*Bill Cunningham New York See “The Joy of Life.” (1:24) Embarcadero, Shattuck.

Born to Be Wild Morgan Freeman narrates this IMAX nature doc. (:40)

*Hanna See “Hanna and Her Sisters.” (1:51) Presidio.

*In a Better World Winner of this year’s Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, this latest from Danish director Susanne Bier (2004’s Brothers, 2006’s After the Wedding) and her usual co-scenarist Anders Thomas Jensen (2005’s Adam’s Apples, 2003’s The Green Butchers) is a typically engrossing, complex drama that deals with the kind of rage for “personal justice” that can lead to school and workplace shootings, among other things (like terrorism). Shy, nervous ten-year-old Elias (Markus Rygaard) needs a confidence boost, but things are worrying both at home and elsewhere. His parents are estranged, and his doting father (Mikael Persbrandt) is mostly away as a field hospital in Kenya tending victims of local militias. At school, he’s an easy mark for bullies, a fact which gets the attention of charismatic, self-assured new kid Christian (William Jøhnk Nielsen), who appoints himself Elias’ new (and only) friend — then when his slightly awed pal is picked on again, intervenes with such alarming intensity that the police are called. Christian appears a little too prone to violence and harsh judgment in teaching “lessons” to those he considers in the wrong; his own domestic situation is another source of anger, as he simplistically blames his earnest, distracted executive father (Ulrich Thomsen) for his mother’s recent cancer death. Is Christian a budding little psychopath, or just a kid haplessly channeling his profound loss? Regardless, when an adult bully (Kim Bodnia as a loutish mechanic) humiliates Elias’ father in front of the two boys, Christian pulls his reluctant friend into a pursuit of vengeance that surely isn’t going to end well. With their nuanced yet head-on treatment of hot button social and ethical issues, Bier and Jensen’s work can sometimes border on overly-schematic melodrama, meting out its own secular-humanist justice a bit too handily, like 21st-century cinematic Dickenses. But like Dickens, they also have a true mastery of the creating striking characters and intricately propulsive plotlines that illustrate the points at hand in riveting, hugely satisfying fashion. This isn’t their best. But it’s still pretty excellent, and one of those universally accessible movies you can safely recommend even to people who think they don’t like foreign or art house films. (1:53) Embarcadero. (Harvey)

Max Manus One of Norway’s most expensive films to date, Max Manus follows the rise to infamy of the title character, a charismatic World War II resistance fighter whose specialty was blowing up German ships docked in occupied Oslo harbor. Again, I emphasize: this is a World War II movie about Norway made by Norwegians — though the Brits play a role, there’s nary a mention of the United States. That fact is the single most refreshing part of a movie that’s nonetheless clearly been inspired by stateside war epics, with traumatic flashbacks, male bonding, sadistic Nazis, rousing if familiar-sounding dialogue (“Being a commando takes more than courage!”), etc. Star Aksel Hennie anchors a film that’s painted in pretty broad strokes with a nuanced performance befitting the real-life Manus’ legacy as an everyman who became a hero. (1:58) Balboa. (Eddy)

*Poetry Sixtysomething Mija (legendary South Korean actor Yun Jung-hee) impulsively crashes a poetry class, a welcome shake-up in a life shaped by unfulfilling routines. In order to write compelling verse, her instructor says, it is important to open up and really see the world. But Mija’s world holds little beauty beyond her cheerful outfits and beloved flowers; most pressingly, her teenage grandson, a mouth-breathing lump who lives with her, is completely remorseless about his participation in a hideous crime. In addition, she’s just been diagnosed with the early stages of Alzheimer’s, and the elderly stroke victim she housekeeps for has started making inappropriate advances. Somehow writer-director Lee Chang-dong (2007’s Secret Sunshine) manages not to deliver a totally depressing film with all this loaded material; it’s worth noting Poetry won the Best Screenplay Award at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. Yun is unforgettable as a woman trying to find herself after a lifetime of obeying the wishes of everyone around her. Though Poetry is completely different in tone than 2009’s Mother, it shares certain elements — including the impression that South Korean filmmakers have recognized the considerable rewards of showcasing aging (yet still formidable) female performers. (2:19) Opera Plaza, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Soul Surfer Biopic about teen surfer and shark-attack survivor Bethany Hamilton. (1:46)

Your Highness Failed Oscar host James Franco goes back to his day job in his anachronistic medieval comedy from David Gordon Green (2008’s Pineapple Express). (1:42) Presidio.

ONGOING

The Adjustment Bureau As far as sci-fi romantic thrillers go, The Adjustment Bureau is pretty standard. But since that’s not an altogether common genre mash-up, I guess the film deserves some points for creativity. Based on a short story by Philip K. Dick, The Adjustment Bureau takes place in a world where all of our fates are predetermined. Political hotshot David Norris (Matt Damon) is destined for greatness — but not if he lets a romantic dalliance with dancer Elise (Emily Blunt) take precedence. And in order to make sure he stays on track, the titular Adjustment Bureau (including Anthony Mackie and Mad Men‘s John Slattery) are there to push him in the right direction. While the film’s concept is intriguing, the execution is sloppy. The Adjustment Bureau suffers from flaws in internal logic, allowing the story to skip over crucial plot points with heavy exposition and a deus ex machina you’ve got to see to believe. Couldn’t the screenwriter have planned ahead? (1:39) Four Star, 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Peitzman)

*Battle: Los Angeles Michael Bay is likely writhing with envy over Battle: Los Angeles; his Transformers flicks take a more, erm, nuanced view of alien-on-human violence. But they’re not all such bad guys after all; these days, as District 9 (2009) demonstrated, alien invasions are more hazardous to the brothers and sisters from another planet than those trigger-happy humanoids ready to defend terra firma. So Battle arrives like an anomaly — a war-is-good action movie aimed at faceless space invaders who resemble the Alien (1979) mother more than the wide-eyed lost souls of District 9. Still reeling from his last tour of duty, Staff Sergeant Nantz (Aaron Eckhart) is ready to retire, until he’s pulled back in by a world invasion, staged by thirsty aliens. In approximating D-Day off the beach of Santa Monica, director Jonathan Liebesman manages to combine the visceral force of Saving Private Ryan (1998) with the what-the-fuck hand-held verite rush of Cloverfield (2008) while crafting tiny portraits of all his Marines, including Michelle Rodriguez, Ne-Yo, and True Blood‘s Jim Parrack. A few moments of requisite flag-waving are your only distractions from the almost nonstop white-knuckle tension fueling Battle: Los Angeles. (1:57) 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Chun)

*Carancho What Psycho (1960) did for showers this equally masterful, if far more bloody, neo-noir is bound to do for crossing the street at night. Argentine director Pablo Trapero has spun his country’s grim traffic statistics (the film’s opening text informs us that more than 8,000 people die every year in road accidents at a daily average of 22) into a Jim Thompson-worthy drama of human ugliness and squandered chances. Sosa (Ricardo Darín of 2009’s The Secret in Their Eyes) is the titular “carancho,” or buzzard, a disbarred lawyer-turned-ambulance chaser who swoops down on those injured in road accidents on behalf of a shady foundation that fixes personal injury lawsuits. It’s only a matter of time before he crosses paths with and falls for Lujan (a wonderful Martina Gusman, also of Trapero’s 2008 Lion’s Den), a young ambulance medic battling her own demons and a grueling work schedule. A May-December affair begins to percolate until Sosa botches a job and incurs the wrath of the foundation, kicking off a chain reaction that only leads to further tragedy for him and his newfound love. Trapero keeps a steady hand at the wheel throughout, deftly guiding his film through intimate scenes that lay bare Lujan’s quiet desperation and Sosa’s moral ambivalence as well as genuinely shocking moments of violence. The Academy passed over Carancho as one of this year’s nominees for Best Foreign Language Film, but Hollywood would do well to learn from talent like Trapero’s. (1:47) Lumiere. (Sussman)

*Cedar Rapids What if The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005) got so Parks and Rec‘d at The Office party that he ended up with a killer Hangover (2009)? Just maybe the morning-after baby would be Cedar Rapids. Director Miguel Arteta (2009’s Youth in Revolt) wrings sweet-natured chuckles from his banal, intensely beige wall-to-wall convention center biosphere, spurring such ponderings as, should John C. Reilly snatch comedy’s real-guy MVP tiara away from Seth Rogen? Consider Tim Lippe (Ed Helms of The Hangover), the polar opposite of George Clooney’s ultracompetent, complacent ax-wielder in Up in the Air (2009). He’s the naive manchild-cum-corporate wannabe who never quite graduated from Timmyville into adulthood. But it’s up to Lippe to hold onto his firm’s coveted two-star rating at an annual convention in Cedar Rapids. Life conspires against him, however, and despite his heartfelt belief in insurance as a heroic profession, Lippe immediately gets sucked into the oh-so-distracting drama, stirred up by the dangerously subversive “Deanzie” Ziegler (John C. Reilly), whom our naif is warned against as a no-good poacher. Temptations lie around every PowerPoint and potato skin; as Deanzie warns Lippe’s Candide, “I’ve got tiger scratches all over my back. If you want to survive in this business, you gotta daaance with the tiger.” How do you do that? Cue lewd, boozy undulations — a potbelly lightly bouncing in the air-conditioned breeze. “You’ve got to show him a little teat.” Fortunately Arteta shows us plenty of that, equipped with a script by Wisconsin native Phil Johnston, written for Helms — and the latter does not disappoint. (1:26) California, Four Star. (Chun)

Certified Copy Abbas Kiarostami’s beguiling new feature signals “relationship movie” with every cobblestone step, but it’s manifestly a film of ideas — one in which disillusionment is as much a formal concern as a dramatic one. Typical of Kiarostami’s dialogic narratives, Certified Copy is both the name of the film and an entity within the film: a book written against the ideal of originality in art by James Miller (William Shimell), an English pedant fond of dissembling. After a lecture in Tuscany, he meets an apparent admirer (Juliette Binoche) in her antique shop. We watch them talk for several minutes in an unbroken two-shot. They gauge each other’s values using her sister as a test case — a woman who, according to the Binoche character, is the living embodiment of James’ book. Do their relative opinions of this off-screen cipher constitute characterization? Or are they themselves ciphers of the film’s recursive structure? Kiarostami makes us wonder. They begin to act as if they were married midway through the film, though the switch is not so out of the blue: Kiarostami’s narrative has already turned a few figure-eights. Several critics have already deemed Certified Copy derivative of many other elliptical romances; the strongest case for an “original” comes of Roberto Rossellini’s Voyage to Italy (1954). The real difference is that while Rossellini’s masterpiece realizes first-person feelings in a third-person approach, Kiarostami stays in the shadow of doubt to the end. (1:46) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Goldberg)

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules (1:36) 1000 Van Ness.

Even the Rain It feels wrong to criticize an “issues movie” — particularly when the issues addressed are long overdue for discussion. Even the Rain takes on the privatization of water in Bolivia, but it does so in such an obvious, artless way that the ultimate message is muddled. The film follows a crew shooting an on-location movie about Christopher Columbus. The film-within-a-film is a less-than-flattering portrait of the explorer: if you’ve guessed that the exploitation of the native people will play a role in both narratives, you’d be right. The problem here is that Even the Rain rests on our collective outrage, doing little to explain the situation or even develop the characters. Case in point: Sebastian (Gael García Bernal), who shifts allegiances at will throughout the film. There’s an interesting link to be made between the time of Columbus and current injustice, but it’s not properly drawn here, and in the end, the few poignant moments get lost in the shuffle. (1:44) Opera Plaza. (Peitzman)

Hop (1:30) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, Shattuck.

I Am File in the dusty back drawer of An Inconvenient Truth (2006) wannabes. The cringe-inducing, pretentious title is a giveaway — though the good intentions are in full effect — in this documentary by and about director Tom Shadyac’s search for answers to life’s big questions. After a catastrophic bike accident, the filmmaker finds his lavish lifestyle as a successful Hollywood director of such opuses as Bruce Almighty (2003) somewhat wanting. Thinkers and spiritual leaders such as Desmond Tutu, Howard Zinn, UC Berkeley psychology professor Dacher Keltner, and scientist David Suzuki provide some thought-provoking answers, although Shadyac’s thinking behind seeking out this specific collection of academics, writers, and activists remains somewhat unclear. I Am‘s shambling structure and perpetual return to its true subject — Shadyac, who resembles a wide-eyed Weird Al Yankovic — doesn’t help matters, leaving a viewer with mixed feelings, less about whether one man can work out his quest for meaning on film, than whether Shadyac complements his subjects and their ideas by framing them in such a random, if well-meaning, manner. And sorry, this film doesn’t make up for Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994). (1:16) Shattuck. (Chun)

*The Illusionist Now you see Jacques Tati and now you don’t. With The Illusionist, aficionados yearning for another gem from Tati will get a sweet, satisfying taste of the maestro’s sensibility, inextricably blended with the distinctively hand-drawn animation of Sylvain Chomet (2004’s The Triplets of Belleville). Tati wrote the script between 1956 and 1959 — a loving sendoff from a father to a daughter heading toward selfhood — and after reading it in 2003 Chomet decided to adapt it, bringing the essentially silent film to life with 2D animation that’s as old school as Tati’s ambivalent longing for bygone days. The title character should be familiar to fans of Monsieur Hulot: the illusionist is a bemused artifact of another age, soon to be phased out with the rise of rock ‘n’ rollers. He drags his ornery rabbit and worn bag of tricks from one ragged hall to another, each more far-flung than the last, until he meets a little cleaning girl on a remote Scottish island. Enthralled by his tricks and grateful for his kindness, she follows him to Edinburgh and keeps house while the magician works the local theater and takes on odd jobs in an attempt to keep her in pretty clothes, until she discovers life beyond their small circle of fading vaudevillians. Chomet hews closely to bittersweet tone of Tati’s films — and though some controversy has dogged the production (Tati’s illegitimate, estranged daughter Helga Marie-Jeanne Schiel claimed to be the true inspiration for The Illusionist, rather than daughter and cinematic collaborator Sophie Tatischeff) and Chomet neglects to fully detail a few plot turns, the dialogue-free script does add an intriguing ambiguity to the illusionist and his charge’s relationship — are they playing at being father and daughter or husband and wife? — and an otherwise straightforward, albeit poignant tale. (1:20) Opera Plaza. (Chun)

Inside Job Inside Job is director Charles Ferguson’s second investigative documentary after his 2007 analysis of the Iraq War, No End in Sight, but it feels more like the follow-up to Alex Gibney’s Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005). Keeping with the law of sequels, more shit blows up the second time around. As with No End in Sight, Ferguson adeptly packages a broad overview of complex events in two hours, respecting the audience’s intelligence while making sure to explain securities exchanges, derivatives, and leveraging laws in clear English (doubly important when so many Wall Street executives hide behind the intricacy of markets). The revolving door between banks, government, and academia is the key to Inside Job‘s account of financial deregulation. At times borrowing heist-film conventions (it is called Inside Job, after all), Ferguson keeps the primary players in view throughout his history so that the eventual meltdown seems anything but an accident. The filmmaker’s relentless focus on the insiders isn’t foolproof; tarring Ben Bernanke, Henry Paulson, and Timothy Geithner as “made” guys, for example, isn’t a substitute for evaluating their varied performances over the last two years. Inside Job makes it seem that the entire crisis was caused by the financial sector’s bad behavior, and this too is reductive. Furthermore, Ferguson does not come to terms with the politicized nature of the economic fallout. In Inside Job, there are only two kinds of people: those who get it and those who refuse to. The political reality is considerably more contentious. (2:00) Opera Plaza. (Goldberg)

Insidious (1:42) 1000 Van Ness.

*Jane Eyre Do we really need another adaptation of Jane Eyre? As long as they’re all as good as Cary Fukunaga’s stirring take on the gothic romance, keep ’em coming. Mia Wasikowska stars in the titular role, with the dreamy Michael Fassbender stepping into the high pants of Edward Rochester. The cast is rounded out by familiar faces like Judi Dench, Jamie Bell, and Sally Hawkins — all of whom breathe new life into the material. It helps that Fukunaga’s sensibilities are perfectly suited to the story: he stays true to the novel while maintaining an aesthetic certain to appeal to a modern audience. Even if you know Jane Eyre’s story — Mr. Rochester’s dark secret, the fate of their romance, etc. — there are still surprises to be had. Everyone tells the classics differently, and this adaptation is a thoroughly unique experience. And here’s hoping it pushes the engaging Wasikowska further in her ascent to stardom. (2:00) Albany, Embarcadero, Piedmont, Sundance Kabuki. (Peitzman)

Kill the Irishman If you enjoy 1970s-set Mafia movies featuring characters with luxurious facial hair zooming around in Cadillacs, flossing leather blazers, and outwitting cops and each other — you could do a lot worse than Kill the Irishman, which busts no genre boundaries but delivers enjoyable retro-gangsta cool nonetheless. Adapted from the acclaimed true crime book by a former Cleveland police lieutenant, the film details the rise and fall of Danny Greene, a colorful and notorious Irish-American mobster who both served and ran afoul of the big bosses in his Ohio hometown. During one particularly conflict-ridden period, the city weathered nearly 40 bombings — buildings, mailboxes, and mostly cars, to the point where the number of automobiles going sky-high is almost comical (you’d think these guys would’ve considered taking the bus). The director of the 2004 Punisher, Jonathan Hensleigh, teams up with the star of 2008’s Punisher: War Zone, Ray Stevenson, who turns in a magnetic performance as Greene; it’s easy to see how his combination of book- and street smarts (with a healthy dash of ruthlessness) buoyed him nearly to the top of the underworld. The rest of the cast is equally impressive, with Vincent D’Onofrio, Val Kilmer, Christopher Walken, and Linda Cardellini turning in supporting roles, plus a host of dudes who look freshly defrosted from post-Sopranos storage. (1:46) SF Center. (Eddy)

The King’s Speech Films like The King’s Speech have filled a certain notion of “prestige” cinema since the 1910s: historical themes, fully-clothed romance, high dramatics, star turns, a little political intrigue, sumptuous dress, and a vicarious taste of how the fabulously rich, famous, and powerful once lived. At its best, this so-called Masterpiece Theatre moviemaking can transcend formula — at its less-than-best, however, these movies sell complacency, in both style and content. In The King’s Speech, Colin Firth plays King George VI, forced onto the throne his favored older brother Edward abandoned. This was especially traumatic because George’s severe stammer made public address tortuous. Enter matey Australian émigré Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush, mercifully controlled), a speech therapist whose unconventional methods include insisting his royal client treat him as an equal. This ultimately frees not only the king’s tongue, but his heart — you see, he’s never had anyone before to confide in that daddy (Michael Gambon as George V) didn’t love him enough. Aww. David Seidler’s conventionally inspirational script and BBC miniseries veteran Tom Hooper’s direction deliver the expected goods — dignity on wry, wee orgasms of aesthetic tastefulness, much stiff-upper-lippage — at a stately promenade pace. Firth, so good in the uneven A Single Man last year, is perfect in this rock-steadier vehicle. Yet he never surprises us; role, actor, and movie are on a leash tight enough to limit airflow. (1:58) Empire, 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont, Shattuck, Smith Rafael, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

*Last Lions It’s hard being a single mom. Particularly when you are a lioness in the Botswana wetlands, your territory invaded and mate killed by an invading pride forced out of their own by encroaching humanity. Add buffalo herds (tasty yes, but with sharp horns they’re not afraid to use) and crocodiles (no upside there), and our heroine is hard-pressed to keep herself alive, let alone her three small cubs. Derek Joubert’s spectacular nature documentary, narrated by Jeremy Irons (in plummiest Lion King vocal form) manages a mind-boggling intimacy observing all these predators. Shot over several years, while seeming to depict just a few weeks or months’ events, it no doubt fudges facts a bit to achieve a stronger narrative, but you’ll be too gripped to care. Warning: those kitties sure are cute, but this sometimes harsh depiction of life (and death) in the wild is not suitable for younger children. (1:28) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

*Limitless An open letter to the makers of Limitless: please fire your marketing team because they are making your movie look terrible. The story of a deadbeat writer (Bradley Cooper) who acquires an unregulated drug that allows him to take advantage of 100 percent of his previously under-utilized brain, Limitless is silly, improbable and features a number of distracting comic-book-esque stylistic tics. But consumed with the comic book in mind, Limitless is also unpredictable, thrilling, and darkly funny. The aforementioned style, which includes many instances of the infinite regression effect that you get when you point two mirrors at each other, and a heavy blur to distort depth-of-field, only solidifies the film’s cartoonish intentions. Cooper learns foreign languages in hours, impresses women with his keen attention to detail, and sets his sights on Wall Street, a move that gets him noticed by businessman Carl Van Loon (Robert DeNiro in a glorified cameo) as well as some rather nasty drug dealers and hired guns looking to cash in on the drug. Limitless is regrettably titled and masquerades in TV spots as a Wall Street series spin-off, but in truth it sports the speedy pacing and tongue-in-cheek humor required of a good popcorn flick. (1:37) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Galvin)

*The Lincoln Lawyer Outfitted with gym’d-tanned-and-laundered manly blonde bombshells like Matthew McConaughey, Josh Lucas, and Ryan Phillippe, this adaptation of Michael Connelly’s LA crime novel almost cries out for an appearance by the Limitless Bradley Cooper — only then will our cabal of flaxen-haired bros-from-other-‘hos be complete. That said, Lincoln Lawyer‘s blast of morally challenged golden boys nearly detracts from the pleasingly gritty mise-en-scène and the snappy, almost-screwball dialogue that makes this movie a genre pleasure akin to a solid Elmore Leonard read. McConaughey’s criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller is accustomed to working all the angles — hence the title, a reference to a client who’s working off his debt by chauffeuring Haller around in his de-facto office: a Lincoln Town Car. Haller’s playa gets truly played when he becomes entangled with Louis Roulet (Phillippe), a pretty-boy old-money realtor accused of brutally attacking a call girl. Loved ones such as Haller’s ex Maggie (Marisa Tomei) and his investigator Frank (William H. Macy) are in jeopardy — and in danger of turning in some delightfully textured cameos — in this enjoyable walk on the sleazy side of the law, the contemporary courtroom counterpart to quick-witted potboilers like Sweet Smell of Success (1957). (1:59) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Miral (1:42) Embarcadero.

*Of Gods and Men It’s the mid-1990s, and we’re in Tibhirine, a small Algerian village based around a Trappist monastery. There, eight French-born monks pray and work alongside their Muslim neighbors, tending to the sick and tilling the land. An emboldened Islamist rebel movement threatens this delicate peace, and the monks must decide whether to risk the danger of becoming pawns in the Algerian Civil War. On paper, Of Gods and Men sounds like the sort of high-minded exploitation picture the Academy swoons over: based on a true story, with high marks for timeliness and authenticity. What a pleasant surprise then that Xavier Beauvois’s Cannes Grand Prix winner turns out to be such a tightly focused moral drama. Significantly, the film is more concerned with the power vacuum left by colonialism than a “clash of civilizations.” When Brother Christian (Lambert Wilson) turns away an Islamist commander by appealing to their overlapping scriptures, it’s at the cost of the Algerian army’s suspicion. Etienne Comar’s perceptive script does not rush to assign meaning to the monks’ decision to stay in Tibhirine, but rather works to imagine the foundation and struggle for their eventual consensus. Beauvois occasionally lapses into telegraphing the monks’ grave dilemma — there are far too many shots of Christian looking up to the heavens — but at other points he’s brilliant in staging the living complexity of Tibrihine’s collective structure of responsibility. The actors do a fine job too: it’s primarily thanks to them that by the end of the film each of the monks seems a sharply defined conscience. (2:00) Albany, Lumiere. (Goldberg)

*Orgasm, Inc. Liz Canner’s doc begins as she’s hired to do some editing work for a drug company in need of a loop of erotic videos to excite the women who’re testing its latest invention: a cream targeting so-called “Female Sexual Dysfunction.” As it turns out, basically everyone with a lab is frantically trying to develop a female Viagra; potential profits could rake in billions. Canner’s intrigued enough to leave the porn-editing bay and further investigate the race to scientifically calculate exactly what women need to achieve orgasm. Of course, it’s not as simple as what men need — though that doesn’t stop pharmaceutical giants from pushing potentially harmful drugs, inventors from convincing women to get invasive operations to test something called the “Orgasmatron” (note: Woody Allen not included), surgeons from pimping scary “genital reconstruction surgery,” or TV doctors from defining what a “normal” woman’s sex life should be. San Francisco’s own Dr. Carol Queen is among the inspiring experts interviewed to help cut through all the big-money bullshit. (1:19) Roxie. (Eddy)

Paul Across the aisle from the alien-shoot-em-up Battle: Los Angeles is its amiable, nerdy opposite: Paul, with its sweet geeks Graeme (Simon Pegg) and Clive (Nick Frost), off on a post-Comic-Con pilgrimage to all the US sites of alien visitation. Naturally the buddies get a close encounter of their very own, with a very down-to-earth every-dude of a schwa named Paul (voiced by Seth Rogen), given to scratching his balls, spreading galactic wisdom, utilizing Christ-like healing powers, and cracking wise when the situation calls for it (as when fear of anal probes escalates). Despite a Pegg-and-Frost-penned script riddled with allusions to Hollywood’s biggest extraterrestrial flicks and much 12-year-old-level humor concerning testicles and farts, the humor onslaught usually attached to the two lead actors — considered Lewis and Martin for pop-smart Anglophiles — seems to have lost some of its steam, and teeth, with the absence of former director and co-writer Edgar Wright (who took last year’s Scott Pilgrim vs. the World to the next level instead). Call it a “soft R” for language and an alien sans pants. (1:44) 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

Potiche When we first meet Catherine Deneuve’s Suzanne — the titular trophy wife (or potiche) of Francois Ozon’s new airspun comedy — she is on her morning jog, barely breaking a sweat as she huffs and puffs in her maroon Adidas tracksuit, her hair still in curlers. It’s 1977 and Suzanne’s life as a bourgeois homemaker in a small provincial French town has played out as smoothly as one of her many poly-blend skirt suits: a devoted mother to two grown children and loving wife who turns a blind eye to the philandering of husband Robert (Fabrice Luchini), Suzanne is on the fast track to comfortable irrelevance. All that changes when the workers at Robert’s umbrella factory strike and take him hostage. Suzanne, with the help of union leader and old flame Babin (Gerard Depardieu, as big as a house), negotiates a peace, and soon turns around the company’s fortunes with her new-found confidence and business savvy. But when Robert wrests back control with the help of a duped Babin, Suzanne does an Elle Woods and takes them both on in a surprise run for political office. True to the film’s light théâtre de boulevard source material, Ozon keeps things brisk and cheeky (Suzanne sings with as much ease as she spouts off Women’s Lib boilerplate) to the point where his cast’s hammy performances start blending into the cheery production design. Satire needs an edge that Potiche, for all its charm, never provides. (1:43) Clay, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Sussman)

Rango (1:47) Empire, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki.

Red Riding Hood In order to appreciate a movie like Red Riding Hood, you have to be familiar with the teen supernatural romance genre. Catherine Hardwicke’s sexy reinterpretation of the fairy tale is not high art: the script is often laughable, the acting flat, and the werewolf CGI embarrassing. But there’s something undeniably enjoyable about Red Riding Hood, especially in the wake of the duller, more sexually repressed Twilight series. Amanda Seyfried stars as Valerie, a young woman living in a village of werewolf cannon fodder. She’s torn between love and duty — or, more accurately, Peter (Shiloh Fernandez) and Henry (Max Irons). Meanwhile, a vicious werewolf hunter (Gary Oldman) has arrived to overact his way into killing the beast. It’s a silly story with plenty of hamfisted references to the original fairy tale, but if you can embrace the camp factor and the striking visuals, Red Riding Hood is actually quite fun. Though, to be fair, it might help if you suffer through Beastly first. (1:38) SF Center. (Peitzman)

*Rubber This starts out just on the right side of self-conscious prank, introducing a droll fourth-wall-breaking framework to a serenely surreal central conceit: An old car tire abandoned in the desert miraculously animates itself to commit widespread mayhem. Credit writer-director-editor-cinematographer-composer Quentin Dupieux for an original concept and terrific execution, as our initially wobby antihero wends its way toward civilization, discovering en route it can explode (or just crush) other entities with its “mind.” Which this rumbling black ring of discontent very much enjoys doing, to the misfortune of various hapless humans and a few small animals. Rubber is an extended Dadaist joke that has adventurous fun with filmic and genre language. Beautifully executed as it is, the concept tires (ahem) after a while, reality-illusion games and comedic flair flagging by degrees. Still, it’s so polished and resourceful a treatment of an utterly peculiar idea that no self-respecting cult film fan will want to say they didn’t see this during its initial theatrical run. (1:25) Lumiere. (Harvey)

*Source Code A post-9/11 Groundhog Day (1993) with explosions, Inception (2010) with a heart, or Avatar (2009) taken down a notch or dozen in Chicago —whatever you choose to call it, Source Code manages to stand up on its own wobbly Philip K. Dick-inspired legs, damn the science, and take off on the wings of wish fulfillment. ‘Cause who hasn’t yearned for a do-over — and then a do-over of that do-over, etc. We could all be as lucky — or as cursed — as soldier Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal), who gets to tumble down that time-space rabbit hole again and again, his consciousness hitching a ride in another man’s body, while in search of the bomber of a Chicago commuter train. On the upside, he gets to meet the girl of his dreams (Michelle Monaghan) — and see her getting blown to smithereens again and again, all in the service of his country, his commander-cum-link to the outside world (Vera Farmiga), and the scientist masterminding this secret military project (Jeffrey Wright). On the downside, well, he gets to do it over and over again, like a good little test bunny in pinball purgatory. Fortunately, director Duncan Jones (2009’s Moon) makes compelling work out of the potentially ludicrous material, while his cast lends the tale a glossed yet likable humanity, the kind that was all too absent in Inception. (1:33) Marina, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Sucker Punch If steampunk and Call of Duty had a baby, would it be called Baby Doll? That seems to be the question posed by director-cowriter Zack Snyder with his latest edge-skating, CGI-laden opus. Neither as saccharine and built-for-kids as last year’s Legend of the Guardians, nor as doomed and gore-besotted as 2006’s 300, Sucker Punch instead reads as a grimy Grimm’s fairy tale built for girls succored on otaku, Wii, and suburban pole dancing lessons. Already caught in a thicket of storybook tropes, complete with a wicked stepfather and vulnerable younger sister, Baby Doll (Emily Browning) is tossed into an asylum for wayward girls, signed up for a lobotomy that’s certain to put her in la-la land for good. Fortunately she has a great imagination — and a flair for disassociating herself from the horrors around her —and the scene suddenly shifts to a bordello-strip club populated by such bad-girls-with-hearts-of-gold as Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish) and sister Rocket (Jena Malone). There Baby Doll discovers yet another layer in the gameplay: like a prospective hoofer in Dancing with the Stars, she must dance her way to the next level or next prize — while deep in her imagination, she sees herself battling giant samurai, robot-zombie Nazis, dragons, and such, assisted by the David Carradine-like, cliché-spouting wise man (Scott Glenn) and accompanied by an inspiring score that includes Björk’s “Army of Me” and covers of the Pixies and Stooges. Things take a turn for the girl gang-y when she recruits Sweet Pea, Rocket, and other random stripper-‘hos (Vanessa Hudgens and Real World starlet Jamie Chung) in her scheme to escape. Why bother, one wonders, since Baby Doll seems to be a genuine escape artist of the mind? The ever-fatalistic Snyder obviously has affection for his charges: when the shadows inevitably close in, he delicately refrains from the arterial spray as the little girls bite the dust in what might be the closest thing to a feature-length anime classic that Baz Luhrmann would give his velvet frock coat to make. (2:00) Empire, 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

Super Naive, vaguely Christian, and highly suggestible everyman Frank (Rainn Wilson) snaps when his wife (Liv Tyler) is seduced away by sleazy drug dealer Jacques (Kevin Bacon). With a little tutoring from the cute girl at the comic store, Libby (Ellen Page), he throws together a pathetically makeshift superhero costume and equally makeshift persona as the Crimson Bolt. Time to dress up and beat down local dealers, child molesters, and people who cut in line with cracks like, “Shut up, crime!” Frank’s taking stumbling, fumbling baby steps toward rescuing his lady love, but it becomes more than simply his mission when Libby discovers his secret and tries to horn in on his act as his kid sidekick Boltie. Alas, what begins as a charming, intriguing indie about dingy reality meeting up with violent vigilantism goes full-tilt Commando (1985), with all the attendant gore and shocks. In the process director James Gunn (2006’s Slither) completely squanders his chance to peer more deeply into the dark heart of the superhero phenom, topping off this vaguely Old Testament reading of good and evil with an absolutely incoherent ending. (1:36) Embarcadero, California. (Chun)

*Win Win Is Tom McCarthy the most versatile guy in Hollywood? He’s a successful character actor (in big-budget movies like 2009’s 2012; smaller-scale pictures like 2005’s Good Night, and Good Luck; and the final season of The Wire). He’s an Oscar-nominated screenwriter (2009’s Up). And he’s the writer-director of two highly acclaimed indie dramas, The Station Agent (2003) and The Visitor (2007). Clearly, McCarthy must not sleep much. His latest, Win Win, is a comedy set in his hometown of New Providence, N.J. Paul Giamatti stars as Mike Flaherty, a lawyer who’s feeling the economic pinch. Betraying his own basic good-guy-ness, he takes advantage of a senile client, Leo (Burt Young), when he spots the opportunity to pull in some badly-needed extra cash. Matters complicate with the appearance of Leo’s grandson, Kyle (newcomer Alex Shaffer), a runaway from Ohio. Though Mike’s wife, Jackie (Amy Ryan), is suspicious of the taciturn teen, she allows Kyle to crash with the Flaherty family. As luck would have it, Kyle is a superstar wrestler — and Mike happens to coach the local high school team. Things are going well until Kyle’s greedy mother (Melanie Lynskey) turns up and starts sniffing around her father’s finances. Lessons are learned, sure, and there are no big plot twists beyond typical indie-comedy turf. But the script delivers more genuine laughs than you’d expect from a movie that’s essentially about the recession. (1:46) Bridge, California, Piedmont, SF Center. (Eddy)

Winter in Wartime (1:43) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Smith Rafael.

Rep Clock

Maria Poblet

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April 5, 2011

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Schedules are for Wed/6–Tues/12 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double features are marked with a •. All times are p.m. unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $6. Amreeka (Dabis, 2009), Thurs, 7:30. Woven (Vargas), Fri, 8. With live music by Ever Isles and Honeycomb. “Other Cinema:” “All-16mm, All Retro Music-on-Film Party,” Sat, 8:30.

BERKELEY FELLOWSHIP OF UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISTS 1924 Cedar, Berk; www.bfuu.org. $5-15. “A Quarter Century of Chernobyl:” Chernobyl4Ever, Sun, 4. With panel discussion featuring anti-nuclear activists.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-10. The Fighter (Russell, 2010), Wed, 3, 5:30, 8. “Orson Welles Double Feature:” •The Lady From Shanghai (1947), Thurs, 3, 7, and Touch of Evil (1958/1998), Thurs, 4:45, 8:45. “Jane Russell Double Feature:” •The Outlaw (Hughes, 1943), Fri, 1, 5, 9, and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Hawks, 1953), Fri, 3:15, 7:15. “Justin Vivian Bond in Concert,” Sat, 8. This performance, $27-75; call (415) 863-0611 or visit www.ticketfly.com. Seven Samurai (Kurosawa, 1954), Sun, 2:30, 7.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-15. Certified Copy (Kiarostami, 2010), call for dates and times. Trophy Wife (Ozon, 2010), call for dates and times. Winter in Wartime (Koolhoven, 2009), call for dates and times. Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead (Cross, 2010), Wed, 7. Filmmaker Joe Cross in person. Poetry (Yun, 2010), April 8-14, call for times.

CITY COLLEGE OF SAN FRANCISCO Cloud Hall, Room 246, 50 Phelan, SF; (415) 23903580. Free. The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill (Irving, 2003), Wed, 7. With filmmaker Judy Irving in person.

HUMANIST HALL 390 27th St, Oakl; www.humanisthall.org. $5. Crude: The Real Price of Oil (Berlinger, 2009) Wed, 7.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; (415) 393-0100, rsvp@milibrary.org. $10. “CinemaLit Film Series: French Twist:” Irma Vep (Assayas, 1996), Fri, 6.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Film 50: History of Cinema: Fantasy Films and Realms of Enchantment:” Dreamchild (Millar, 1985), Wed, 3:10. “Alternative Visions:” “The Chicago Survey Trilogy” (Cornerford, 2002-2010), Wed, 7:30. “Patricio Guzmán:” The Southern Cross (1992), Thurs, 7; The Battle of Chile (1975-1978), Sun, 1 (part one), 3 (part two), 5:30 (part three). “Under the Skin: The Films of Claire Denis:” The Intruder (2004), Fri, 6:30 and Sat, 8:30; •U.S. Go Home (Denis and Kahn, 1994) with Claire Denis: The Wanderer (Lifshitz, 1996), Fri, 9. “First Person Rural: The New Nonfiction:” Alamar (González-Rubio, 2009), Sat, 6:30.

RED VIC 1727 Haight, SF; (415) 668-3994; www.redvicmoviehouse.com. $6-10. The Housemaid (Im, 2010), Wed, 2, 7:15, 9:20. “An Evening with Les Blank,” Thurs, 7:30. Enter the Void (Noé, 2009), Fri-Sun, 8:30 (also Sat-Sun, 2, 5:15). Blue Valentine (Cianfrance, 2010), Mon-Tues, 7, 9:20.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-9.75. Orgasm, Inc. (Canner, 2009), Wed-Thurs, 6:45, 8:30, 10. “San Francisco International Women’s Film Festival,” Wed-Sun. Visit www.sfwfi.com for program info. “It’s the Paul Meinberg! Show:” All-American Co-Ed (Prinz, 1941), Tues, 7 and 9:45; Big Town Girl (Werker, 1937), Tues, 8.

SEBASTANI THEATER 476 First St East, Sonoma; www.sonomafilmfest.org. $15. “14th Annual Sonoma International Film Festival,” documentaries, world cinema, and more, including a Susan Sarandon tribute, Wed-Sun. YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. “Fearless: Chinese Independent Documentaries:” Tape (Li, 2010), Thurs, 7; Ghost Town (Zhao, 2008), Sun, 2.

Get some perspective: CounterPulse’s resident artists rearrange a theater

John Elberling

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April 1, 2011

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Get some perspective: CounterPulse’s resident artists rearrange a theater

People who have never performed in their life can take the stage this week at CounterPulse. While artists-in-residence Kegan Marling and Eric Kupers spent the past few months creating new work to premiere this week, they also re-envisioned the black box theater space, turning platforms, nooks, and crannies into performance areas, and situating audience seats to surround the action and also exist smack in the middle of the stage.
Based on a March 12 work-in-progress preview, the resulting performance will likely offer an up close and personal program of narrative dance theater works linked by each artist’s unusual use of the space and the intimate perspectives created. The open presentation and arrangement makes the resident artist performance series double as a creative venue remix.

Prior to the shared residency at CounterPulse, Marling and Kupers crossed artistic paths at U.C. Davis and while performing in the Bay Area. Though Marling’s new work Jump Ship Midway is thematically distinct from Kupers’s Friend, the creations compliment one another, employing fragmented storytelling and allowing close proximity to performers for a cohesive shared evening. For Marling, the re-imagined space begins as a club concert environment with an elevated area and three small platforms in the center of the stage. Along with James Graham, Mica Sigourney, and Nol Simonse, Marling dances on and between these elevated areas with highly physical and character-nuanced movement passages. Through spoken word, they deliver anecdotes, memories, and reflections about life transitions navigated by gay men. One’s placement in the rearranged space and proximity to the performers determines which sections become amplified, overriding the usual cues of lighting which draw attention in proscenium theater based on a particular vantage point.

Friend, performed by Kupers’s Dandelion Dancetheater, relies on a certain degree of darkness. Since dim surroundings augment the impact of sound, the audience’s auditory senses perk up in this environment. Instruments played from different areas of the theater and the hand-clapping of performers direct one’s gaze. Projections surround the audience from all directions with images of brain scans, providing an unusual set for certain scenes. Friend honors a close friend of Kupers who passed away recently, and also mines the nature of friendship.

The joint performance of Marling and Kupers/Dandelion Dancetheater showcases CounterPulse like you’ve never seen it. Don’t be afraid to get close.

COUNTERPULSE ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE KEGAN MARLING AND DANDELION DANCETHEATER

Thur/31- Sat/2, 8 p.m. also Sun/3, 7 p.m., $12-$17

CounterPulse

1310 Mission, SF

(800) 838-3006

www.counterpulse.org

Stage Listings

Maria Poblet

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March 29, 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. For complete listings, see www.sfbg.com.

THEATER

OPENING

*Geezer Marsh, 1062 Valencia; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Opens Thurs/31. Thurs, 8pm; Sat, 5pm; Sun, 3pm. Through May 1. The Marsh presents a new solo show about aging and mortality by Geoff Hoyle.

ONGOING

*Caliente Pier 29, The Embarcadero; 438-2668, www.love.zinzanni.org. $117-145. Wed-Sat, 6pm; Sun, 5pm. Open-ended. Teatro Zinzanni presents a new production conceived in San Francisco.

Lady Grey (in ever lower light) EXIT on Taylor, 277 Taylor; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $15-50. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through April 10. Cutting Ball Theater presents the Bay Area premiere of three short plays by Will Eno.

M. Butterfly Gough Street Playhouse, 1620 Gough; (510) 207-5774, www.custommade.org. $20-28. Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also April 3 and 10, 7pm). Through April 16. Custom Made Theatre presents David Henry Hwang’s award-winning play.

*Obscura: A Magic Play Exit Studio, 156 Eddy; 673-3847, www.sffringe.org. $20-25. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through April 16. Christian Cagigal is back with the magical. Over the last several years, the popular Bay Area writer/performer has developed a series of dramatically structured magic shows (the most recent being the autobiographical Now and at the Hour), each a different attempt at blending expert prestidigitation with elements of narrative theater. Tightly focused and deliberately small-scale, Obscura is in some ways his most successful foray yet. In the Exit Theater’s new studio space, Cagigal (with occasional help from his audience) unfolds a series of sly Gothic stories combined with extremely clever, sometimes dementedly playful card and coin tricks—the majority a collection of favorite pieces from other magicians—all played out on a delicately managed little table augmented by overhead projection (a set-up that offers various visual opportunities, including use of title cards). Rapid-fire narration (occasionally indistinct but generally articulate) and a laid back, slightly mischievous demeanor combine here with consummate skill in an intimate and very enjoyable evening of crafty little tales. If there’s an overarching theme, it probably has something to do with human folly, the persistence of mystery, and the devil, but then any good fable involving a deck of cards probably should. (Avila)

*The Oldest Profession Brava Theater, 2781 24th St; 647-2822, www.brava.org. $10-25. Brava Theater presents a play by Paula Vogel, directed by Evren Odcikin. Who says tricks are for kids? Five elderly women of the night (Linda Ayres-Frederick, Lee Brady, Tamar Cohn, Cec Levinson, Patricia Silver) converge by day at a park bench to swap stories, cavil, and defend their turf amid a changing world and one or two last hurrahs in Brava Theater’s production of Paula Vogel’s 1988 play about sex work, aging, and class solidarity. The subject matter is ripe, but the drama feels somewhat undeveloped. Although consciously set on the cusp of the Reagan era—an era culminating now in roiling confrontations everywhere you look—this fitfully amusing if generally well-acted and enjoyable feminist drama-cum-floorshow gives only a gentle political bite, preferring the tickle and caress of heartfelt comedy centered on the seeming incongruity of streetwise matrons. As the group dwindles, each final bow comes as a sexy and/or raunchy swan song—highlights of the evening—accompanied with Old New Orleans ambience by Angela Dwyer’s jaunty upright piano. It’s a bit like Cabaret meets Going in Style, and as directed by Evren Odcikin makes for a short but sweet ride. (Avila)

Party of 2 — The New Mating Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter; 1-800-838-3006, www.partyof2themusical.com. $27-29. Fri, 9pm. Open-ended. A musical about relationships by Shopping! The Musical author Morris Bobrow.

*Pearls Over Shanghai Thrillpeddlers’ Hypnodrome, 575 Tenth St; 1-800-838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $30-69. Sat, 8pm. Through April 9. Thrillpeddlers’ acclaimed production of the Cockettes musical continues its successful run.

Regrets Only New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness; 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $24-40. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Sun/3. New Conservatory Theatre presents a play by Paul Rudnick, directed by Andrew Nance.

7 Sins…One More Time! EXIT Theatre, 156 Eddy; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $25-40. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through April 10. James Judd’s long-running comedy hit has a return engagement.

Shopping! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter; (800) 838-3006, www.shoppingthemusical.com. $27-29. Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. A musical comedy revue about shopping by Morris Bobrow.

*Wirehead SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter; 677-9596, www.sfplayhouse.org. $30-50. Tues-Wed, 7pm; Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 3and 8pm. Through April Perfectionism’s ruthless class dimensions come to the fore in SF Playhouse’s smart, fun, and sharply staged Bay Area premiere about the super-smart posthumans of the near future, and the rest of us. A shady China-based conglomerate with a name that sounds like Sin-Tell sells a scintillating if dangerous procedure for those already well connected: a hardwire boost to the neural circuitry that gives the recipient more than an edge on the competition and something just shy of godlike powers. Two friends and colleagues in a banking firm (Craig Marker and Gabriel Marin) and their variously class-marked but equally ambitious girlfriends (Lauren Grace and Madeline H.D. Brown) are all drawn into this cyborgian gold rush, and it gets sticky in more ways than one, as meanwhile a brash local DJ named RIP (Scott Coopwood) raps sardonically over the airwaves about this latest twist in an old game. SF Playhouse’s Susi Damilano directs a charismatic cast (including a terrific Cole Alexander Smith in a related series of frenetic roles) in Matt Benjamin and Logan Brown’s culture-jamming riposte to tech-mad humanist hogwash about Progress. It gets you thinking. (Avila)

BAY AREA

Free Range Thinking Marsh Berkeley, TheaterStage, 2120 Allston, Berk; 1-800-838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through April 9. The Marsh Berkeley presents a new comedic solo show by Robert Dubac.

The Iliad Berkeley City Club, 1802 Fairview, Berk; (510) 698-4030. $12-24. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Sun/3. Inferno Theatre Company presents an adaptation of Homer’s ancient tale.

Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe Berkeley Playhouse, 2640 College; (510) 845-8542, www.berkeleyplayhouse.org. $15-33. Call for dates and times. Through Sun/3. Berkeley Playhouse presents a musical fantasy based on the C.S. Lewis story.

The North Pool TheatreWorks at Lucie Stern Theater, 1305 Middlefiled, Palo Alto; (650) 463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. $24-67. Tues-Wed, 7:30pm; Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 2 and 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Sun/3. TheatreWorks presents a psychological thriller by Rajiv Joseph.

Not a Genuine Black Man The Marsh Berkeley, TheaterStage, 2120 Allston Way, Berk; 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $20-35. Thurs, 7:30pm. Through Thurs/31. Brian Copeland’s one-man show returns to the stage.

*Ruined Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-73. Call for dates and times. Through April 10. Berkeley Rep presents Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer-winning play about the lives of women in Africa.

Singing at the Edge of the World The Cabaret at The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Way, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $15-35. Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through April 16. The Marsh presents a one-man show by Randy Rutherford.

World’s Funniest Bubble Show The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Way, Berk; 1-800-838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $8-11. Sun, 11am. Through Sun/3. The Amazing Bubble Man extends the bubble-making celebration.

Music Listings

Maria Poblet

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March 29, 2011

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Music listings are compiled by Cheryl Eddy. Since club life is unpredictable, it’s a good idea to call ahead to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

WEDNESDAY 30

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

B Foundation, Katastro, Jahlectrik Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Careerers, Le Mutant, Marmalade Mountain Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

DOM, Heavy Hawaii, Melted Toys, EpicSauce.com DJs Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10.

Ari Hest, Rosi Golan Café Du Nord. 8pm, $15.

Katchafire, Tomorrows Bad Seeds Independent. 9pm, $20.

Weapons of the Future, Tokyo Raid, Knives Knockout. 10pm, $6.

Mary Wilson Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $35.

Mitch Woods Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $15.

Zodiac Death Valley, Preteen, Mata Leon Elbo Room. 9pm, $7.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Cat’s Corner Savanna Jazz. 9pm, $10.

Cosmo Alleycats Le Colonial, 20 Cosmo, SF; www.lecolonialsf.com. 7pm.

Dink Dink Dink, Gaucho, Michael Abraham Amnesia. 7pm, free.

Guerrilla Cabaret with Tom Shaw Trio Martuni’s, Four Valencia, SF; www.dragatmartunis.com. 7pm.

Ben Marcato and the Mondo Combo Top of the Mark. 7:30pm, $10.

Michael Parsons Trio Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:30pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Stevie Coyle Bazaar Café, 5927 California, SF; (415) 831-5620. 7pm.

Rose’s Pawn Shop, All My Pretty Ones Red Devil Lounge. 8pm, $6.

Matthew Santos, Chi McClean, Chris Gelbuda Hotel Utah. 8pm, $10.

David Wagner Café Royale, 800 Post, SF; www.caferoyale-sf.com. 8pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Booty Call Q-Bar, 456 Castro, SF; www.bootycallwednesdays.com. 9pm. Juanita Moore hosts this dance party, featuring DJ Robot Hustle.

Buena Onda Little Baobab, 3388 19th St., SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $3. Soul, funk, swing, and rare grooves with residents Dr. Musco and DJB.

Cannonball Beauty Bar. 10pm, free. Rock, indie, and nu-disco with DJ White Mike.

Jam Fresh Wednesdays Vessel, 85 Campton, SF; www.vesselsf.com. 9:30pm, free. With DJs Slick D, Chris Clouse, Rich Era, Don Lynch, and more spinning top40, mashups, hip hop, and remixes.

Mary-Go-Round Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 10pm, $5. A weekly drag show with hosts Cookie Dough, Pollo Del Mar, and Suppositori Spelling.

No Room For Squares Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 6-10pm, free. DJ Afrodite Shake spins jazz for happy hour.

Respect Wednesdays End Up. 10pm, $5. Rotating DJs Daddy Rolo, Young Fyah, Irie Dole, I-Vier, Sake One, Serg, and more spinning reggae, dancehall, roots, lovers rock, and mash ups.

Salem, Water Borders, Whitch, Disco Shawn 103 Harriet, 1015 Folsom, SF; www.1015.com. 8pm, $10.

Synchronize Il Pirata, 2007 16th St, SF; (415) 626-2626. 10pm, free. Psychedelic dance music with DJs Helios, Gatto Matto, Psy Lotus, Intergalactoid, and guests.

THURSDAY 31

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Alabama Mike Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

B-Stars Amnesia. 9pm, $5.

Dreamdate, Touch-Me-Nots, Elvis Christ Knockout. 9:30pm, $6.

Frail Amoeba, 1855 Haight, SF; www.amoeba.com. 6pm, free.

Doug E. Fresh Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $20-26.

Brendan James and Matt White, Lauren Pritchard Red Devil Lounge. 8pm, $12.

Kem, Timothy Bloom Warfield. 8pm, $49.50-69.50.

Koalacaust, Steel Tigers of Death, King City Thee Parkside. 9pm, $7.

Travie McCoy, Donnis, Black Cards, XV, Bad Rabbits Slim’s. 7:30pm, $18.

Route 66 Players Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:30pm, free.

Southeast Engine, Pancho-san, Tommy Carns Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Dominique Leone, Meotar, Headshear Blue Macaw, 2565 Mission, SF; www.thebluemacawsf.com. 9pm.

Organsm featuring Jim Gunderson and “Tender” Tim Shea Bollyhood Café. 6:30-9pm, free.

Pascal Bokar Band and Alan Benzie’s Berklee College of Music Band Savanna Jazz. 7:30pm, $10.

Stompy Jones Top of the Mark. 7:30pm, $10.

“Tingel Tangel Club: Three Year Anniversary Party” Café Du Nord. 9pm, $16-20. Cabaret with Ann Magnuson and Kristian Hoffman, Uni and Her Ukelele, Scotty the Blue Bunny, and more.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Bluegrass and old-time jam Atlas Café. 8-10pm, free.

Prince Royce Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $38.

“Twang! Honky Tonk” Fiddler’s Green, 1330 Columbus, SF; www.twanghonkytonk.com. 5pm.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $5. DJs Pleasuremaker and Señor Oz spin Afrobeat, tropicália, electro, samba, and funk.

Bag Raiders, DJs Aaron Axelsen, Omar, and KidHack Rickshaw Stop. 9:30pm.

Base Vessel, 85 Campton, SF; www.vesselsf.com. 10pm, $10. With Roger Sanchez.

Caribbean Connection Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $3. DJ Stevie B and guests spin reggae, soca, zouk, reggaetón, and more.

Drop the Pressure Underground SF. 6-10pm, free. Electro, house, and datafunk highlight this weekly happy hour.

80s Night Cat Club. 9pm, $6 (free before 9:30pm). Two dance floors bumpin’ with the best of 80s mainstream and underground with Dangerous Dan, Skip, Low Life, and guests.

Jivin’ Dirty Disco Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. 8pm, free. With DJs spinning disco, funk, and classics.

Mestiza Bollywood Café, 3376 19th St, SF; (415) 970-0362. 10pm, free. Showcasing progressive Latin and global beats with DJ Juan Data.

1984 Mighty. 9pm, $2. The long-running New Wave and 80s party has a new venue, featuring video DJs Mark Andrus, Don Lynch, and celebrity guests.

Peaches Skylark, 10pm, free. With an all female DJ line up featuring Deeandroid, Lady Fingaz, That Girl, and Umami spinning hip hop.

Thursday Special Tralala Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 5pm, free. Downtempo, hip-hop, and freestyle beats by Dr. Musco and Unbroken Circle MCs.

Wax Candy Showdown, 10 Sixth St, SF; www.showdownsf.com. 9pm, free. Disco, funk, house, and techno with Sergio, the Worker, André Lucero, and Travis Dalton.

FRIDAY 1

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Ashford and Simpson Rrazz Room. 8pm, $55.

Seth Augustus Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 9pm, free.

Ben, Ian, and Tom of Gomez Swedish American Hall (upstairs from Café Du Nord). 8pm, $25.

Books on Tape, Downer Party, Nero Nava Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $10.

De La Soul Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $45.

Galactic, Cyril Neville, Corey Henry and Rebirth Brass Band Fillmore. 9pm, $29.50.

Last Nova, Untied, Fever Charm, Distorted Harmony, Amply Hostile Slim’s. 7:30pm, $15.

Lenka, Greg Laswell Rickshaw Stop. 8:30pm, $14.

Stung, Petty Theft Café Du Nord. 9:30pm, $15.

“Thee Parkside Anniversary Party” Thee Parkside. 9pm, free. With Glen Meadmore and His Hot Horny Born Again Revue.

Walken, Lozen, Dog Shredder, Pins of Light Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $8.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Black Market Jazz Orchestra Top of the Mark. 9pm, $10.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

BeauSoliel aves Michael Doucet Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $25.

Head for the Hills Boom Boom Room. 9:30pm, $10.

Rupa and the April Fishes, Rumen Sali Shopov and the Soul of the Mahala, Sani Rifati and Mahala Blaster, DJ Zeljko Independent. 9pm, $20.

Tony Ybarra and Sonido Moreno Red Poppy Art House. 8pm, $10-15.

DANCE CLUBS

Afro Bao Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $5. Afro and world music with rotating DJs including Stepwise, Steve, Claude, Santero, and Elembe.

Aural Fixation with Kool Keith Club Six. 9pm, $15. Plus DJ Godfather, Dials, Prince Zammy, and Ryury.

DJ Scott Cams Medjool, 2522 Mission, SF; www.medjoolsf.com. 10:30pm, $10.

ESL Music Showcase Public Works, 161 Erie, SF; www.publicsf.com. 10pm, $15. With Rob Garza, Ancient Astronauts, and Afrolicious DJs.

Exhale, Fridays Project One Gallery, 251 Rhode Island, SF; (415) 465-2129. 5pm, $5. Happy hour with art, fine food, and music with Vin Sol, King Most, DJ Centipede, and Shane King.

Fubar Fridays Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. 6pm, $5. With DJs spinning retro mashup remixes.

Good Life Fridays Apartment 24, 440 Broadway, SF; (415) 989-3434. 10pm, $10. With DJ Brian spinning hip hop, mashups, and top 40.

Hot Chocolate Milk. 9pm, $5. With DJs Big Fat Frog, Chardmo, DuseRock, and more spinning old and new school funk.

Mix-Up! 540 Club, 540 Clement, SF; www.540-club.com. 10pm, free. DJ Ben Abstrakt plays indie, new wave, dance, and more.

Oldies Night Knockout. 9pm, $2-4. Doo-wop, one-hit wonders, and soul with DJs Primo, Daniel, and Lost Cat.

120 Minutes Elbo Room. 10pm, $5-10. Witch house with DJs oOoOO, Whitch, Nako, and White Ring.

Rockabilly Fridays Jay N Bee Club, 2736 20th St, SF; (415) 824-4190. 9pm, free. With DJs Rockin’ Raul, Oakie Oran, Sergio Iglesias, and Tanoa “Samoa Boy” spinning 50s and 60s Doo Wop, Rockabilly, Bop, Jive, and more.

Some Thing Stud. 10pm, $7. VivvyAnne Forevermore, Glamamore, and DJ Down-E give you fierce drag shows and afterhours dancing.

Strangelove Cat Club. 9:30pm, $6. Goth, industrial, and plenty of surprises with DJs Tomas Diablo, Melting Girl, Mitch, and more.

Vintage Orson, 508 Fourth St, SF; (415) 777-1508. 5:30-11pm, free. DJ TophOne and guest spin jazzy beats for cocktalians.

SATURDAY 2

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

American Steel, Yi, Cat Party, Hanalei Thee Parkside. 9:30pm, $12.

Ashford and Simpson Rrazz Room. 7 and 9:30pm, $55.

Baseball Project, Minus 5, Steve Wynn Slim’s. 9pm, $17.

Big Bang Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 9pm, free.

De La Soul Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $45.

Doormats, Daisy Chain Thee Parkside. 3pm, free.

Galactic, Cyril Neville, Corey Henry and Rebirth Brass Band Fillmore. 9pm, $29.50.

Hunx and His Punx, Shannon and the Clams, Grass Widow Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $10.

Ivan Neville’s Dumpstaphunk, Zigaboo Modeliste and the New Aahkesstra Independent. 9pm, $22.

Nibblers Shine SF, 1337 Mission, SF; www.shinesf.com. 9pm.

Sex With No Hands Ireland’s 32. 10pm, free.

Trophy Fire, I Was Totally Destroying It, Glass Trains Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $7.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Marcus Shelby Trio Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 11am, $5-15.

John Santos Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 8pm, $19-60.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

“Americana Jukebox” Plough and Stars. 9:30pm, $6-10. With Hang Jones and Susan James.

Hot Buttered Rum String Band with guests Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $21.

Lee MacDougall Elbo Room. 6-9pm, $10.

Belle Monroe and her Brewglass Boys, California Honeydrops, Windy Hill Bluegrass Band Café Du Nord. 9pm, $12.

Craig Ventresco and Meredith Axelrod Atlas Café. 4pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Afro Bao Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $5. Afro and world music with rotating DJs including Stepwise, Steve, Claude, Santero, and Elembe.

Bardot A Go Go’s Serge Gainsbourg Birthday Dance Party Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $10. French pop.

Bootie SF DNA Lounge. 9pm, $6-12. Mash-ups.

Bridge 2 MIghty. 10pm, $10. Eclectic dance music with Deekline, Udachi, and Qdup Foundation.

Debaser Knockout. 9pm, $5. Fly your flannel at this 90s alternative party with DJ Jamie Jams and EmDee.

DJ Duserock Medjool, 2522 Mission, SF; www.medjoolsf.com. 10:30pm, $10.

HeroesNHunks Truck, 1900 Folsom, SF; (415) 252-0306. 6pm. Superhero-themed party with an XXX twist.

HYP Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; www.eightsf.com. 10pm, free. Gay and lesbian hip-hop party, featuring DJs spinning the newest in the top 40s hip hop and hyphy.

Mount Kimble, Shigeto, Matthew David Mezzanine. 9pm, $15.

Rock City Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. 6pm, $5 after 10pm. With DJs spinning party rock.

Saturday Night Soul Party Elbo Room. 10pm, $10. Soul with DJs Lucky, Phengren Oswald, and Paul Paul.

Spirit Fingers Sessions 330 Ritch. 9pm, free. With DJ Morse Code and live guest performances.

SUNDAY 3

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Ashford and Simpson Rrazz Room. 7pm, $55.

A Day to Remember, Bring Me the Horizon, We Came as Romans, Pierce the Veil Warfield. 7pm, $27.

Ferraby Lionheart, Henry Wolfe, Charlie Wadhams Café Du Nord. 8pm, $12.

Gears, Controllers, Poop Hemlock Tavern. 8:30pm, $10.

Helmet, Saint Vitus, Crowbar, Kylesa, Red Fang, Howl, Atlas Moth Mezzanine. 8pm, $25.

Middle Brother, Blake Mills Independent. 8pm, $20.

Dorian Wood Viracocha, 998 Valencia, SF; (415) 374-7048. 8pm.

Young Prisms Knockout. 9pm, $6.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Daria Bliss Bar, 4026 24th St., SF; www.blissbarsf.com. 4:30pm, $10.

Swing-out Sundays Milk Bar. 9pm, $7-15. With beginner swing lessons.

“Switchboard Music Festival” Brava Theater, 2781 24th St, SF; www.switchboardmusic.com. 2-10pm, $15-40. Marathon concert with Birds and Batteries, Causing a Tiger, Loren Chasse, Genie, Gojogo, and more.

Tom Lander Duo Medjool, 2522 Mission, SF; www.medjoolsf.com. 6-9pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Family Folk Explosion Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:30pm, free.

Gentry Bronson, Rachel Efron, Kate Isenberg Yoshi’s San Francisco Lounge. 8pm, $7.

Dang Show Yoshi’s San Francisco. 7pm, $35.

Slow Poisoner, Naked and Shameless Thee Parkside. 4pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Batcave Cat Club. 10pm, $5. Death rock, goth, and post-punk with Steeplerot Necromos and c_death.

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $7. Dub, roots, and classic dancehall with DJ Sep, Vinnie Esparza, and guest Kush Arora.

Gloss Sundays Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 7pm. With DJ Hawthorne spinning house, funk, soul, retro, and disco.

Honey Soundsystem Paradise Lounge. 8pm-2am. “Dance floor for dancers – sound system for lovers.” Got that?

La Pachanga Blue Macaw, 2565 Mission, SF; www.thebluemacawsf.com. 6pm, $10. Salsa dance party with live Afro-Cuban salsa bands.

MONDAY 4

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Saturn, KaeRo, Zutra El Rio. 7pm, $7.

Seasick Steve Slim’s. 7:30pm, $15.

Witchburn, Betty White Hemlock Tavern. 6pm, $5.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Phil Manley, Sean Smith, Ava Mendoza Elbo Room. 9pm, $10.

Lavay Smith Orbit Room, 1900 Market, SF; (415) 252-9525. 7-10pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Death Guild DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $3-5. Gothic, industrial, and synthpop with Joe Radio, Decay, and Melting Girl.

Krazy Mondays Beauty Bar. 10pm, free. With DJs Ant-1, $ir-Tipp, Ruby Red I, Lo, and Gelo spinning hip hop.

M.O.M. Madrone Art Bar. 6pm, free. With DJ Gordo Cabeza and guests playing all Motown every Monday.

Network Mondays Azul Lounge, One Tillman Pl, SF; www.inhousetalent.com. 9pm, $5. Hip-hop, R&B, and spoken word open mic, plus featured performers.

Sausage Party Rosamunde Sausage Grill, 2832 Mission, SF; (415) 970-9015. 6:30-9:30pm, free. DJ Dandy Dixon spins vintage rock, R&B, global beats, funk, and disco at this happy hour sausage-shack gig.

Skylarking Skylark. 10pm, free. With resident DJs I & I Vibration, Beatnok, and Mr. Lucky and weekly guest DJs.

TUESDAY 5

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Sarah Allner, Brian Weeber El Rio. 7pm, free.

Ryan Bisio, Gwyneth and Monko, Ben Jordan Hotel Utah. 8pm, $10.

Erin Brazill and the Brazillionaires, Annie Bacon and Her Oshen, Love Axe Bottom of the Hill. 8:30pm, $8.

British Sea Power, A Classic Education, Sporting Life Independent. 8pm, $16.

Crackerjack Highway, Fulton and 44th Rickshaw Stop. 7pm, $12. Benefit for Boys Hope Girls Hope of San Francisco.

Das Butcher, Rodney J. Cooper, Chronox Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $5.

Donion, Outlaws and Preachers 50 Mason Social House, 50 Mason, SF; www.50masonsocialhouse.com. 9pm, free.

Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad, Kevin Kinsella Café Du Nord. 9pm, $12.

Talib Kweli Fillmore. 8pm, $28.50.

Sydney Ducks, Face the Rail, Go Time, DJ Mackiveli, DJ Taypoleon Knockout. 8:30pm, $5.

Yeallow, Secret Secretaries, General Bye Bye, Interchangeable Hearts Kimo’s. 9pm.

Pete Yorn, Ben Kweller, Wellspring Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $30.

DANCE CLUBS

Benefit for Capoeira Brasil Elbo Room. 9pm, $5. Brazilian dance hits, samba, and more with DJs Dion and Kwala.

Boomtown Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; www.bissapbaobab.com. 9pm, free. DJ Mundi spins roots, ragga, dancehall, and more.

Eclectic Company Skylark, 9pm, free. DJs Tones and Jaybee spin old school hip hop, bass, dub, glitch, and electro.

Share the Love Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 5pm, free. With DJ Pam Hubbuck spinning house

Film Listings

Maria Poblet

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March 29, 2011

0

Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Michelle Devereaux, Peter Galvin, Max Goldberg, Dennis Harvey, Johnny Ray Huston, Louis Peitzman, Lynn Rapoport, Ben Richardson, and Matt Sussman. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock. For first-run showtimes, see Movie Guide.

OPENING

*The Elephant in the Living Room Or, the mountain lion in the kitchen. The gaboon viper in the garage. Americans are crazy enough without needing to keep dangerously exotic pets, but keep them they do, as director Michael Webber discovers in this surprisingly emotional documentary. The film focuses on a pair of Ohio men: the fearless, big-hearted Tim Harrison, a cop and firefighter who’s also the point person when a cast-off or escaped pet’s in a jam; and Terry Brumfield, weakened by depression and the effects of a lingering truck accident, who keeps a pair of fully-grown lions in a dilapidated cage in his junk-strewn yard. As Tim tends to his real-life superhero duties (including going incognito to an exotic pet show and purchasing the deadliest snake on offer, then taking it to a venom lab where it’s put to work saving lives), Terry worries over the continued care of his prized pets, who he sees as family members. The two men inevitably meet, and their relationship is the heart of Webber’s film, which touches on the more sensational aspects of wild-animal ownership via news reports (remember that chimpanzee who ate that woman’s face off?) while never making Terry out to be a villain. On a more selfish note, here’s hoping any puff adder habitats in my neighborhood remain securely latched. (1:43) Four Star. (Eddy)

Hop Comedy about a live-action guy tangling with an animated Easter bunny, from the same director who made Alvin and the Chipmunks (2007) and Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties (2006). (1:30) Presidio, Shattuck.

Insidious Saw (2004) and Paranormal Activity (2007) creators join forces for this PG-13 horror movie about a family whose young son is menaced by evil spirits. (1:42)

Miral Slumdog Millionaire (2008) beauty Freida Pinto stars in Julian Schnabel’s drama about an orphan girl growing up amid Israel-Palestine unrest. (1:42) Embarcadero.

*Orgasm, Inc. Liz Canner’s doc begins as she’s hired to do some editing work for a drug company in need of a loop of erotic videos to excite the women who’re testing its latest invention: a cream targeting so-called “Female Sexual Dysfunction.” As it turns out, basically everyone with a lab is frantically trying to develop a female Viagra; potential profits could rake in billions. Canner’s intrigued enough to leave the porn-editing bay and further investigate the race to scientifically calculate exactly what women need to achieve orgasm. Of course, it’s not as simple as what men need — though that doesn’t stop pharmaceutical giants from pushing potentially harmful drugs, inventors from convincing women to get invasive operations to test something called the “Orgasmatron” (note: Woody Allen not included), surgeons from pimping scary “genital reconstruction surgery,” or TV doctors from defining what a “normal” woman’s sex life should be. San Francisco’s own Dr. Carol Queen is among the inspiring experts interviewed to help cut through all the big-money bullshit; she’ll be part of a panel discussion after the film’s Monday, April 4, 6:45 p.m. show. Director Canner will appear Saturday, April 2, from 8:30-9:30 p.m. at Good Vibrations (www.goodvibes.com) on Valencia Street. (1:19) Roxie. (Eddy)

Potiche When we first meet Catherine Deneuve’s Suzanne — the titular trophy wife (or potiche) of Francois Ozon’s new airspun comedy — she is on her morning jog, barely breaking a sweat as she huffs and puffs in her maroon Adidas tracksuit, her hair still in curlers. It’s 1977 and Suzanne’s life as a bourgeois homemaker in a small provincial French town has played out as smoothly as one of her many poly-blend skirt suits: a devoted mother to two grown children and loving wife who turns a blind eye to the philandering of husband Robert (Fabrice Luchini), Suzanne is on the fast track to comfortable irrelevance. All that changes when the workers at Robert’s umbrella factory strike and take him hostage. Suzanne, with the help of union leader and old flame Babin (Gerard Depardieu, as big as a house), negotiates a peace, and soon turns around the company’s fortunes with her new-found confidence and business savvy. But when Robert wrests back control with the help of a duped Babin, Suzanne does an Elle Woods and takes them both on in a surprise run for political office. True to the film’s light théâtre de boulevard source material, Ozon keeps things brisk and cheeky (Suzanne sings with as much ease as she spouts off Women’s Lib boilerplate) to the point where his cast’s hammy performances start blending into the cheery production design. Satire needs an edge that Potiche, for all its charm, never provides. (1:43) Clay, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Sussman)

*Rubber This starts out just on the right side of self-conscious prank, introducing a droll fourth-wall-breaking framework to a serenely surreal central conceit: An old car tire abandoned in the desert miraculously animates itself to commit widespread mayhem. Credit writer-director-editor-cinematographer-composer Quentin Dupieux for an original concept and terrific execution, as our initially wobby antihero wends its way toward civilization, discovering en route it can explode (or just crush) other entities with its “mind.” Which this rumbling black ring of discontent very much enjoys doing, to the misfortune of various hapless humans and a few small animals. Rubber is an extended Dadaist joke that has adventurous fun with filmic and genre language. Beautifully executed as it is, the concept tires (ahem) after a while, reality-illusion games and comedic flair flagging by degrees. Still, it’s so polished and resourceful a treatment of an utterly peculiar idea that no self-respecting cult film fan will want to say they didn’t see this during its initial theatrical run. (1:25) Lumiere. (Harvey)

*Source Code A post-9/11 Groundhog Day (1993) with explosions, Inception (2010) with a heart, or Avatar (2009) taken down a notch or dozen in Chicago —whatever you choose to call it, Source Code manages to stand up on its own wobbly Philip K. Dick-inspired legs, damn the science, and take off on the wings of wish fulfillment. ‘Cause who hasn’t yearned for a do-over — and then a do-over of that do-over, etc. We could all be as lucky — or as cursed — as soldier Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal), who gets to tumble down that time-space rabbit hole again and again, his consciousness hitching a ride in another man’s body, while in search of the bomber of a Chicago commuter train. On the upside, he gets to meet the girl of his dreams (Michelle Monaghan) — and see her getting blown to smithereens again and again, all in the service of his country, his commander-cum-link to the outside world (Vera Farmiga), and the scientist masterminding this secret military project (Jeffrey Wright). On the downside, well, he gets to do it over and over again, like a good little test bunny in pinball purgatory. Fortunately, director Duncan Jones (2009’s Moon) makes compelling work out of the potentially ludicrous material, while his cast lends the tale a glossed yet likable humanity, the kind that was all too absent in Inception. (1:33) Marina. (Chun)

Super Naive, vaguely Christian, and highly suggestible everyman Frank (Rainn Wilson) snaps when his wife (Liv Tyler) is seduced away by sleazy drug dealer Jacques (Kevin Bacon). With a little tutoring from the cute girl at the comic store, Libby (Ellen Page), he throws together a pathetically makeshift superhero costume and equally makeshift persona as the Crimson Bolt. Time to dress up and beat down local dealers, child molesters, and people who cut in line with cracks like, “Shut up, crime!” Frank’s taking stumbling, fumbling baby steps toward rescuing his lady love, but it becomes more than simply his mission when Libby discovers his secret and tries to horn in on his act as his kid sidekick Boltie. Alas, what begins as a charming, intriguing indie about dingy reality meeting up with violent vigilantism goes full-tilt Commando (1985), with all the attendant gore and shocks. In the process director James Gunn (2006’s Slither) completely squanders his chance to peer more deeply into the dark heart of the superhero phenom, topping off this vaguely Old Testament reading of good and evil with an absolutely incoherent ending. (1:36) Embarcadero, California. (Chun)

ONGOING

The Adjustment Bureau As far as sci-fi romantic thrillers go, The Adjustment Bureau is pretty standard. But since that’s not an altogether common genre mash-up, I guess the film deserves some points for creativity. Based on a short story by Philip K. Dick, The Adjustment Bureau takes place in a world where all of our fates are predetermined. Political hotshot David Norris (Matt Damon) is destined for greatness — but not if he lets a romantic dalliance with dancer Elise (Emily Blunt) take precedence. And in order to make sure he stays on track, the titular Adjustment Bureau (including Anthony Mackie and Mad Men‘s John Slattery) are there to push him in the right direction. While the film’s concept is intriguing, the execution is sloppy. The Adjustment Bureau suffers from flaws in internal logic, allowing the story to skip over crucial plot points with heavy exposition and a deus ex machina you’ve got to see to believe. Couldn’t the screenwriter have planned ahead? (1:39) Four Star, 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont, Presidio, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Peitzman)

*Battle: Los Angeles Michael Bay is likely writhing with envy over Battle: Los Angeles; his Transformers flicks take a more, erm, nuanced view of alien-on-human violence. But they’re not all such bad guys after all; these days, as District 9 (2009) demonstrated, alien invasions are more hazardous to the brothers and sisters from another planet than those trigger-happy humanoids ready to defend terra firma. So Battle arrives like an anomaly — a war-is-good action movie aimed at faceless space invaders who resemble the Alien (1979) mother more than the wide-eyed lost souls of District 9. Still reeling from his last tour of duty, Staff Sergeant Nantz (Aaron Eckhart) is ready to retire, until he’s pulled back in by a world invasion, staged by thirsty aliens. In approximating D-Day off the beach of Santa Monica, director Jonathan Liebesman manages to combine the visceral force of Saving Private Ryan (1998) with the what-the-fuck hand-held verite rush of Cloverfield (2008) while crafting tiny portraits of all his Marines, including Michelle Rodriguez, Ne-Yo, and True Blood‘s Jim Parrack. A few moments of requisite flag-waving are your only distractions from the almost nonstop white-knuckle tension fueling Battle: Los Angeles. (1:57) 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Chun)

*Black Swan “Lose yourself,” ballet company head Thomas (Vincent Cassel) whispers to his leading lady, Nina (Natalie Portman), moments before she takes the stage. But Nina is already consumed with trying to find herself, and rarely has a journey of self-discovery been so unsettling. Set in New York City’s catty, competitive ballet world, Black Swan samples from earlier dance films (notably 1948’s The Red Shoes, but also 1977’s Suspiria, with a smidgen of 1995’s Showgirls), though director Darren Aronofsky is nothing if not his own visionary. Black Swan resembles his 2008 The Wrestler somewhat thematically, with its focus on the anguish of an athlete under ten tons of pressure, but it’s a stylistic 180. Gone is the gritty, stripped-down aesthetic used to depict a sad-sack strongman. Like Dario Argento’s 1977 horror fantasy, the gory, elegantly choreographed Black Swan is set in a hyper-constructed world, with stabbingly obvious color palettes (literally, white = good; black = evil) and dozens of mirrors emphasizing (over and over again) the film’s doppelgänger obsession. As Nina, Portman gives her most dynamic performance to date. In addition to the thespian fireworks required while playing a goin’-batshit character, she also nails the role’s considerable athletic demands. (1:50) Red Vic. (Eddy)

*Carancho What Psycho (1960) did for showers this equally masterful, if far more bloody, neo-noir is bound to do for crossing the street at night. Argentine director Pablo Trapero has spun his country’s grim traffic statistics (the film’s opening text informs us that more than 8,000 people die every year in road accidents at a daily average of 22) into a Jim Thompson-worthy drama of human ugliness and squandered chances. Sosa (Ricardo Darín of 2009’s The Secret in Their Eyes) is the titular “carancho,” or buzzard, a disbarred lawyer-turned-ambulance chaser who swoops down on those injured in road accidents on behalf of a shady foundation that fixes personal injury lawsuits. It’s only a matter of time before he crosses paths with and falls for Lujan (a wonderful Martina Gusman, also of Trapero’s 2008 Lion’s Den), a young ambulance medic battling her own demons and a grueling work schedule. A May-December affair begins to percolate until Sosa botches a job and incurs the wrath of the foundation, kicking off a chain reaction that only leads to further tragedy for him and his newfound love. Trapero keeps a steady hand at the wheel throughout, deftly guiding his film through intimate scenes that lay bare Lujan’s quiet desperation and Sosa’s moral ambivalence as well as genuinely shocking moments of violence. The Academy passed over Carancho as one of this year’s nominees for Best Foreign Language Film, but Hollywood would do well to learn from talent like Trapero’s. (1:47) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Sussman)

*Cedar Rapids What if The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005) got so Parks and Rec‘d at The Office party that he ended up with a killer Hangover (2009)? Just maybe the morning-after baby would be Cedar Rapids. Director Miguel Arteta (2009’s Youth in Revolt) wrings sweet-natured chuckles from his banal, intensely beige wall-to-wall convention center biosphere, spurring such ponderings as, should John C. Reilly snatch comedy’s real-guy MVP tiara away from Seth Rogen? Consider Tim Lippe (Ed Helms of The Hangover), the polar opposite of George Clooney’s ultracompetent, complacent ax-wielder in Up in the Air (2009). He’s the naive manchild-cum-corporate wannabe who never quite graduated from Timmyville into adulthood. But it’s up to Lippe to hold onto his firm’s coveted two-star rating at an annual convention in Cedar Rapids. Life conspires against him, however, and despite his heartfelt belief in insurance as a heroic profession, Lippe immediately gets sucked into the oh-so-distracting drama, stirred up by the dangerously subversive “Deanzie” Ziegler (John C. Reilly), whom our naif is warned against as a no-good poacher. Temptations lie around every PowerPoint and potato skin; as Deanzie warns Lippe’s Candide, “I’ve got tiger scratches all over my back. If you want to survive in this business, you gotta daaance with the tiger.” How do you do that? Cue lewd, boozy undulations — a potbelly lightly bouncing in the air-conditioned breeze. “You’ve got to show him a little teat.” Fortunately Arteta shows us plenty of that, equipped with a script by Wisconsin native Phil Johnston, written for Helms — and the latter does not disappoint. (1:26) California, Four Star, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Certified Copy Abbas Kiarostami’s beguiling new feature signals “relationship movie” with every cobblestone step, but it’s manifestly a film of ideas — one in which disillusionment is as much a formal concern as a dramatic one. Typical of Kiarostami’s dialogic narratives, Certified Copy is both the name of the film and an entity within the film: a book written against the ideal of originality in art by James Miller (William Shimell), an English pedant fond of dissembling. After a lecture in Tuscany, he meets an apparent admirer (Juliette Binoche) in her antique shop. We watch them talk for several minutes in an unbroken two-shot. They gauge each other’s values using her sister as a test case — a woman who, according to the Binoche character, is the living embodiment of James’ book. Do their relative opinions of this off-screen cipher constitute characterization? Or are they themselves ciphers of the film’s recursive structure? Kiarostami makes us wonder. They begin to act as if they were married midway through the film, though the switch is not so out of the blue: Kiarostami’s narrative has already turned a few figure-eights. Several critics have already deemed Certified Copy derivative of many other elliptical romances; the strongest case for an “original” comes of Roberto Rossellini’s Voyage to Italy (1954). The real difference is that while Rossellini’s masterpiece realizes first-person feelings in a third-person approach, Kiarostami stays in the shadow of doubt to the end. (1:46) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Goldberg)

Desert Flower Based on the best-selling “model memoir,” Desert Flower spins the remarkable tale of Waris Dirie, who fled across the Somalian desert as a young teen to escape an arranged marriage. The marriage was not the most cruel tradition to be imposed on the girl, however — as a toddler, she’d been circumcised, and the crude operation (designed to keep her “pure” until marriage) caused her pain for years after. Waris (played as an adult by Ethiopian supermodel Liya Kebede) eventually makes her way to London, where she’s discovered by a top photographer (Timothy Spall) while mopping floors at a fast-food restaurant. Part culture-clash drama, part girl-power success story (Waris befriends a spunky Topshop clerk, played by Sally Hawkins), Desert Flower is directed (by Sherry Hormann) with the heavy-handedness of a TV movie. But the film does a powerful job drawing attention to a subject not often discussed — despite the efforts of activists like the real-life Dirie, female circumcision still affects some 6,000 girls a day — and for that it cannot be faulted. (2:00) Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules (1:36) 1000 Van Ness.

Even the Rain It feels wrong to criticize an “issues movie” — particularly when the issues addressed are long overdue for discussion. Even the Rain takes on the privatization of water in Bolivia, but it does so in such an obvious, artless way that the ultimate message is muddled. The film follows a crew shooting an on-location movie about Christopher Columbus. The film-within-a-film is a less-than-flattering portrait of the explorer: if you’ve guessed that the exploitation of the native people will play a role in both narratives, you’d be right. The problem here is that Even the Rain rests on our collective outrage, doing little to explain the situation or even develop the characters. Case in point: Sebastian (Gael García Bernal), who shifts allegiances at will throughout the film. There’s an interesting link to be made between the time of Columbus and current injustice, but it’s not properly drawn here, and in the end, the few poignant moments get lost in the shuffle. (1:44) Balboa, Opera Plaza. (Peitzman)

I Am File in the dusty back drawer of An Inconvenient Truth (2006) wannabes. The cringe-inducing, pretentious title is a giveaway — though the good intentions are in full effect — in this documentary by and about director Tom Shadyac’s search for answers to life’s big questions. After a catastrophic bike accident, the filmmaker finds his lavish lifestyle as a successful Hollywood director of such opuses as Bruce Almighty (2003) somewhat wanting. Thinkers and spiritual leaders such as Desmond Tutu, Howard Zinn, UC Berkeley psychology professor Dacher Keltner, and scientist David Suzuki provide some thought-provoking answers, although Shadyac’s thinking behind seeking out this specific collection of academics, writers, and activists remains somewhat unclear. I Am‘s shambling structure and perpetual return to its true subject — Shadyac, who resembles a wide-eyed Weird Al Yankovic — doesn’t help matters, leaving a viewer with mixed feelings, less about whether one man can work out his quest for meaning on film, than whether Shadyac complements his subjects and their ideas by framing them in such a random, if well-meaning, manner. And sorry, this film doesn’t make up for Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994). (1:16) Shattuck. (Chun)

*The Illusionist Now you see Jacques Tati and now you don’t. With The Illusionist, aficionados yearning for another gem from Tati will get a sweet, satisfying taste of the maestro’s sensibility, inextricably blended with the distinctively hand-drawn animation of Sylvain Chomet (2004’s The Triplets of Belleville). Tati wrote the script between 1956 and 1959 — a loving sendoff from a father to a daughter heading toward selfhood — and after reading it in 2003 Chomet decided to adapt it, bringing the essentially silent film to life with 2D animation that’s as old school as Tati’s ambivalent longing for bygone days. The title character should be familiar to fans of Monsieur Hulot: the illusionist is a bemused artifact of another age, soon to be phased out with the rise of rock ‘n’ rollers. He drags his ornery rabbit and worn bag of tricks from one ragged hall to another, each more far-flung than the last, until he meets a little cleaning girl on a remote Scottish island. Enthralled by his tricks and grateful for his kindness, she follows him to Edinburgh and keeps house while the magician works the local theater and takes on odd jobs in an attempt to keep her in pretty clothes, until she discovers life beyond their small circle of fading vaudevillians. Chomet hews closely to bittersweet tone of Tati’s films — and though some controversy has dogged the production (Tati’s illegitimate, estranged daughter Helga Marie-Jeanne Schiel claimed to be the true inspiration for The Illusionist, rather than daughter and cinematic collaborator Sophie Tatischeff) and Chomet neglects to fully detail a few plot turns, the dialogue-free script does add an intriguing ambiguity to the illusionist and his charge’s relationship — are they playing at being father and daughter or husband and wife? — and an otherwise straightforward, albeit poignant tale. (1:20) Four Star, Opera Plaza. (Chun)

Inside Job Inside Job is director Charles Ferguson’s second investigative documentary after his 2007 analysis of the Iraq War, No End in Sight, but it feels more like the follow-up to Alex Gibney’s Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005). Keeping with the law of sequels, more shit blows up the second time around. As with No End in Sight, Ferguson adeptly packages a broad overview of complex events in two hours, respecting the audience’s intelligence while making sure to explain securities exchanges, derivatives, and leveraging laws in clear English (doubly important when so many Wall Street executives hide behind the intricacy of markets). The revolving door between banks, government, and academia is the key to Inside Job‘s account of financial deregulation. At times borrowing heist-film conventions (it is called Inside Job, after all), Ferguson keeps the primary players in view throughout his history so that the eventual meltdown seems anything but an accident. The filmmaker’s relentless focus on the insiders isn’t foolproof; tarring Ben Bernanke, Henry Paulson, and Timothy Geithner as “made” guys, for example, isn’t a substitute for evaluating their varied performances over the last two years. Inside Job makes it seem that the entire crisis was caused by the financial sector’s bad behavior, and this too is reductive. Furthermore, Ferguson does not come to terms with the politicized nature of the economic fallout. In Inside Job, there are only two kinds of people: those who get it and those who refuse to. The political reality is considerably more contentious. (2:00) Opera Plaza. (Goldberg)

*Jane Eyre Do we really need another adaptation of Jane Eyre? As long as they’re all as good as Cary Fukunaga’s stirring take on the gothic romance, keep ’em coming. Mia Wasikowska stars in the titular role, with the dreamy Michael Fassbender stepping into the high pants of Edward Rochester. The cast is rounded out by familiar faces like Judi Dench, Jamie Bell, and Sally Hawkins — all of whom breathe new life into the material. It helps that Fukunaga’s sensibilities are perfectly suited to the story: he stays true to the novel while maintaining an aesthetic certain to appeal to a modern audience. Even if you know Jane Eyre’s story — Mr. Rochester’s dark secret, the fate of their romance, etc. — there are still surprises to be had. Everyone tells the classics differently, and this adaptation is a thoroughly unique experience. And here’s hoping it pushes the engaging Wasikowska further in her ascent to stardom. (2:00) Albany, Embarcadero, Piedmont, Sundance Kabuki. (Peitzman)

Kill the Irishman If you enjoy 1970s-set Mafia movies featuring characters with luxurious facial hair zooming around in Cadillacs, flossing leather blazers, and outwitting cops and each other — you could do a lot worse than Kill the Irishman, which busts no genre boundaries but delivers enjoyable retro-gangsta cool nonetheless. Adapted from the acclaimed true crime book by a former Cleveland police lieutenant, the film details the rise and fall of Danny Greene, a colorful and notorious Irish-American mobster who both served and ran afoul of the big bosses in his Ohio hometown. During one particularly conflict-ridden period, the city weathered nearly 40 bombings — buildings, mailboxes, and mostly cars, to the point where the number of automobiles going sky-high is almost comical (you’d think these guys would’ve considered taking the bus). The director of the 2004 Punisher, Jonathan Hensleigh, teams up with the star of 2008’s Punisher: War Zone, Ray Stevenson, who turns in a magnetic performance as Greene; it’s easy to see how his combination of book- and street smarts (with a healthy dash of ruthlessness) buoyed him nearly to the top of the underworld. The rest of the cast is equally impressive, with Vincent D’Onofrio, Val Kilmer, Christopher Walken, and Linda Cardellini turning in supporting roles, plus a host of dudes who look freshly defrosted from post-Sopranos storage. (1:46) SF Center. (Eddy)

The King’s Speech Films like The King’s Speech have filled a certain notion of “prestige” cinema since the 1910s: historical themes, fully-clothed romance, high dramatics, star turns, a little political intrigue, sumptuous dress, and a vicarious taste of how the fabulously rich, famous, and powerful once lived. At its best, this so-called Masterpiece Theatre moviemaking can transcend formula — at its less-than-best, however, these movies sell complacency, in both style and content. In The King’s Speech, Colin Firth plays King George VI, forced onto the throne his favored older brother Edward abandoned. This was especially traumatic because George’s severe stammer made public address tortuous. Enter matey Australian émigré Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush, mercifully controlled), a speech therapist whose unconventional methods include insisting his royal client treat him as an equal. This ultimately frees not only the king’s tongue, but his heart — you see, he’s never had anyone before to confide in that daddy (Michael Gambon as George V) didn’t love him enough. Aww. David Seidler’s conventionally inspirational script and BBC miniseries veteran Tom Hooper’s direction deliver the expected goods — dignity on wry, wee orgasms of aesthetic tastefulness, much stiff-upper-lippage — at a stately promenade pace. Firth, so good in the uneven A Single Man last year, is perfect in this rock-steadier vehicle. Yet he never surprises us; role, actor, and movie are on a leash tight enough to limit airflow. (1:58) Empire, 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

*Last Lions It’s hard being a single mom. Particularly when you are a lioness in the Botswana wetlands, your territory invaded and mate killed by an invading pride forced out of their own by encroaching humanity. Add buffalo herds (tasty yes, but with sharp horns they’re not afraid to use) and crocodiles (no upside there), and our heroine is hard-pressed to keep herself alive, let alone her three small cubs. Derek Joubert’s spectacular nature documentary, narrated by Jeremy Irons (in plummiest Lion King vocal form) manages a mind-boggling intimacy observing all these predators. Shot over several years, while seeming to depict just a few weeks or months’ events, it no doubt fudges facts a bit to achieve a stronger narrative, but you’ll be too gripped to care. Warning: those kitties sure are cute, but this sometimes harsh depiction of life (and death) in the wild is not suitable for younger children. (1:28) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

*Limitless An open letter to the makers of Limitless: please fire your marketing team because they are making your movie look terrible. The story of a deadbeat writer (Bradley Cooper) who acquires an unregulated drug that allows him to take advantage of 100 percent of his previously under-utilized brain, Limitless is silly, improbable and features a number of distracting comic-book-esque stylistic tics. But consumed with the comic book in mind, Limitless is also unpredictable, thrilling, and darkly funny. The aforementioned style, which includes many instances of the infinite regression effect that you get when you point two mirrors at each other, and a heavy blur to distort depth-of-field, only solidifies the film’s cartoonish intentions. Cooper learns foreign languages in hours, impresses women with his keen attention to detail, and sets his sights on Wall Street, a move that gets him noticed by businessman Carl Van Loon (Robert DeNiro in a glorified cameo) as well as some rather nasty drug dealers and hired guns looking to cash in on the drug. Limitless is regrettably titled and masquerades in TV spots as a Wall Street series spin-off, but in truth it sports the speedy pacing and tongue-in-cheek humor required of a good popcorn flick. (1:37) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center. (Galvin)

*The Lincoln Lawyer Outfitted with gym’d-tanned-and-laundered manly blonde bombshells like Matthew McConaughey, Josh Lucas, and Ryan Phillippe, this adaptation of Michael Connelly’s LA crime novel almost cries out for an appearance by the Limitless Bradley Cooper — only then will our cabal of flaxen-haired bros-from-other-‘hos be complete. That said, Lincoln Lawyer‘s blast of morally challenged golden boys nearly detracts from the pleasingly gritty mise-en-scène and the snappy, almost-screwball dialogue that makes this movie a genre pleasure akin to a solid Elmore Leonard read. McConaughey’s criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller is accustomed to working all the angles — hence the title, a reference to a client who’s working off his debt by chauffeuring Haller around in his de-facto office: a Lincoln Town Car. Haller’s playa gets truly played when he becomes entangled with Louis Roulet (Phillippe), a pretty-boy old-money realtor accused of brutally attacking a call girl. Loved ones such as Haller’s ex Maggie (Marisa Tomei) and his investigator Frank (William H. Macy) are in jeopardy — and in danger of turning in some delightfully textured cameos — in this enjoyable walk on the sleazy side of the law, the contemporary courtroom counterpart to quick-witted potboilers like Sweet Smell of Success (1957). (1:59) Balboa, Marina, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Mars Needs Moms (1:28) 1000 Van Ness.

The Music Never Stopped Based on a Dr. Oliver Sacks case history, this neurological wild-ride focuses on the generation gap in extremis: after a ’60s teenage son rebels against his parents, staying incommunicado in the interim, he resurfaces over two decades later as a disoriented, possibly homeless patient they’re called to identify at a hospital. He’s had a benign brain tumor removed — yet it had grown so large before surgery that it damaged gray-matter areas including those handling recent memory. As a result, Gabriel (Lou Taylor Pucci) relates to Mr. (J.K. Simmons) and Mrs. Sawyer (a terrific but underutilized Cara Seymour) as if they were still his upstate NY domestic keepers. A radiant Julia Ormond plays the music therapist who convinces them Gabe might respond to music, which had helped serially glue and sever the father-son bond decades earlier. This is an inherently fascinating psychological study. But director Jim Kohlberg and his scenarists render it placidly inspirational, with too little character nuance, scant period atmosphere (somewhat due to budgetary limitations), and weak homage to the Grateful Dead (ditto) rendering an unusual narrative oddly formulaic. (1:45) Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

*Of Gods and Men It’s the mid-1990s, and we’re in Tibhirine, a small Algerian village based around a Trappist monastery. There, eight French-born monks pray and work alongside their Muslim neighbors, tending to the sick and tilling the land. An emboldened Islamist rebel movement threatens this delicate peace, and the monks must decide whether to risk the danger of becoming pawns in the Algerian Civil War. On paper, Of Gods and Men sounds like the sort of high-minded exploitation picture the Academy swoons over: based on a true story, with high marks for timeliness and authenticity. What a pleasant surprise then that Xavier Beauvois’s Cannes Grand Prix winner turns out to be such a tightly focused moral drama. Significantly, the film is more concerned with the power vacuum left by colonialism than a “clash of civilizations.” When Brother Christian (Lambert Wilson) turns away an Islamist commander by appealing to their overlapping scriptures, it’s at the cost of the Algerian army’s suspicion. Etienne Comar’s perceptive script does not rush to assign meaning to the monks’ decision to stay in Tibhirine, but rather works to imagine the foundation and struggle for their eventual consensus. Beauvois occasionally lapses into telegraphing the monks’ grave dilemma — there are far too many shots of Christian looking up to the heavens — but at other points he’s brilliant in staging the living complexity of Tibrihine’s collective structure of responsibility. The actors do a fine job too: it’s primarily thanks to them that by the end of the film each of the monks seems a sharply defined conscience. (2:00) Albany, Lumiere. (Goldberg)

Paul Across the aisle from the alien-shoot-em-up Battle: Los Angeles is its amiable, nerdy opposite: Paul, with its sweet geeks Graeme (Simon Pegg) and Clive (Nick Frost), off on a post-Comic-Con pilgrimage to all the US sites of alien visitation. Naturally the buddies get a close encounter of their very own, with a very down-to-earth every-dude of a schwa named Paul (voiced by Seth Rogen), given to scratching his balls, spreading galactic wisdom, utilizing Christ-like healing powers, and cracking wise when the situation calls for it (as when fear of anal probes escalates). Despite a Pegg-and-Frost-penned script riddled with allusions to Hollywood’s biggest extraterrestrial flicks and much 12-year-old-level humor concerning testicles and farts, the humor onslaught usually attached to the two lead actors — considered Lewis and Martin for pop-smart Anglophiles — seems to have lost some of its steam, and teeth, with the absence of former director and co-writer Edgar Wright (who took last year’s Scott Pilgrim vs. the World to the next level instead). Call it a “soft R” for language and an alien sans pants. (1:44) 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

*Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune When Phil Ochs was at his peak, he was one of the finest polemical folksingers to come out of the ’60s, and when he tumbled from those heights, the fall was terrible: he lost more than friends and fame — he appeared to completely lose himself, to substance abuse and mental illness. Director Kenneth Bowser does the singer-songwriter justice with this documentary, threading to-the-ramparts tunes like “Hazard, Kentucky,” questioning numbers a la “Love Me, I’m a Liberal,” and achingly beautiful songs such as “Jim Dean of Indiana” throughout political events of the day, scenes from a protest movement that were inextricably entangled with Ochs’ oeuvre. Along with the many clips of Ochs in performance are interviews with the artist’s many friends, cohorts, and fans including Van Dyke Parks (who is becoming a Thurston Moore-like go-to for a generation’s damaged voices), brother (and music archivist) Michael Ochs, Joan Baez, Tom Hayden, Peter Yarrow, Billy Bragg, daughter Meegan Ochs, and Ed Sanders. Expect an education in Ochs’ art, but also, perhaps more importantly (to the singer-songwriter), a glimpse into a time and place that both fed, fueled and bestowed meaning on his songs. Bowser succeeds in paints the portrait of a performer that was both idealistic and careerist, driven to fight injustice yet also propelled to explore new creative avenues (like recording with local musicians in Africa). Did Ochs fall — by way of drink, drugs, and mental illness — or was he pushed, as the artist claimed when he accused CIA thugs of destroying his vocal chords? The filmmaker steps back respectfully, allowing us to draw our own conclusion about this life lived fully. (1:38) Balboa, Smith Rafael. (Chun)

*Queen of the Sun: What Are the Bees Telling Us? There are plenty of docs out there detailing the slow decline of the human race — self-inflicted decline, that is, thanks to our disregard for long-term environmental damage caused by our greedy, polluting ways. But unlike the recent Carbon Nation (2010), for example, which took a broad look at renewable energy, Queen of the Sun studies a far more specific issue. A tiny one, in fact: the size of a honeybee. Of course, as the movie points out, this honeybee-sized disaster is actually a global disaster in the making. The latest from Taggart Siegel, director of 2005’s The Real Dirt on Farmer John, investigates the global bee crisis, talking to numerous beekeepers and scientists to discover why bees are disappearing, how their mass-vanishing act affects the food chain, and what (if anything) can be done before it’s too late. Creative animation and quite a few characters (including a shirtless French guy who tickles his hive with his graying mustache) keep Queen of the Bees from feeling too much like a lecture; in fact, it’s quite an eye-opener. You’ll think twice before ever swatting another bee. (1:23) Roxie. (Eddy)

Rango (1:47) Empire, Presidio, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki.

Red Riding Hood In order to appreciate a movie like Red Riding Hood, you have to be familiar with the teen supernatural romance genre. Catherine Hardwicke’s sexy reinterpretation of the fairy tale is not high art: the script is often laughable, the acting flat, and the werewolf CGI embarrassing. But there’s something undeniably enjoyable about Red Riding Hood, especially in the wake of the duller, more sexually repressed Twilight series. Amanda Seyfried stars as Valerie, a young woman living in a village of werewolf cannon fodder. She’s torn between love and duty — or, more accurately, Peter (Shiloh Fernandez) and Henry (Max Irons). Meanwhile, a vicious werewolf hunter (Gary Oldman) has arrived to overact his way into killing the beast. It’s a silly story with plenty of hamfisted references to the original fairy tale, but if you can embrace the camp factor and the striking visuals, Red Riding Hood is actually quite fun. Though, to be fair, it might help if you suffer through Beastly first. (1:38) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Peitzman)

Sucker Punch If steampunk and Call of Duty had a baby, would it be called Baby Doll? That seems to be the question posed by director-cowriter Zack Snyder with his latest edge-skating, CGI-laden opus. Neither as saccharine and built-for-kids as last year’s Legend of the Guardians, nor as doomed and gore-besotted as 2006’s 300, Sucker Punch instead reads as a grimy Grimm’s fairy tale built for girls succored on otaku, Wii, and suburban pole dancing lessons. Already caught in a thicket of storybook tropes, complete with a wicked stepfather and vulnerable younger sister, Baby Doll (Emily Browning) is tossed into an asylum for wayward girls, signed up for a lobotomy that’s certain to put her in la-la land for good. Fortunately she has a great imagination — and a flair for disassociating herself from the horrors around her —and the scene suddenly shifts to a bordello-strip club populated by such bad-girls-with-hearts-of-gold as Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish) and sister Rocket (Jena Malone). There Baby Doll discovers yet another layer in the gameplay: like a prospective hoofer in Dancing with the Stars, she must dance her way to the next level or next prize — while deep in her imagination, she sees herself battling giant samurai, robot-zombie Nazis, dragons, and such, assisted by the David Carradine-like, cliché-spouting wise man (Scott Glenn) and accompanied by an inspiring score that includes Björk’s “Army of Me” and covers of the Pixies and Stooges. Things take a turn for the girl gang-y when she recruits Sweet Pea, Rocket, and other random stripper-‘hos (Vanessa Hudgens and Real World starlet Jamie Chung) in her scheme to escape. Why bother, one wonders, since Baby Doll seems to be a genuine escape artist of the mind? The ever-fatalistic Snyder obviously has affection for his charges: when the shadows inevitably close in, he delicately refrains from the arterial spray as the little girls bite the dust in what might be the closest thing to a feature-length anime classic that Baz Luhrmann would give his velvet frock coat to make. (2:00) Empire, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio. (Chun)

*Win Win Is Tom McCarthy the most versatile guy in Hollywood? He’s a successful character actor (in big-budget movies like 2009’s 2012; smaller-scale pictures like 2005’s Good Night, and Good Luck; and the final season of The Wire). He’s an Oscar-nominated screenwriter (2009’s Up). And he’s the writer-director of two highly acclaimed indie dramas, The Station Agent (2003) and The Visitor (2007). Clearly, McCarthy must not sleep much. His latest, Win Win, is a comedy set in his hometown of New Providence, N.J. Paul Giamatti stars as Mike Flaherty, a lawyer who’s feeling the economic pinch. Betraying his own basic good-guy-ness, he takes advantage of a senile client, Leo (Burt Young), when he spots the opportunity to pull in some badly-needed extra cash. Matters complicate with the appearance of Leo’s grandson, Kyle (newcomer Alex Shaffer), a runaway from Ohio. Though Mike’s wife, Jackie (Amy Ryan), is suspicious of the taciturn teen, she allows Kyle to crash with the Flaherty family. As luck would have it, Kyle is a superstar wrestler — and Mike happens to coach the local high school team. Things are going well until Kyle’s greedy mother (Melanie Lynskey) turns up and starts sniffing around her father’s finances. Lessons are learned, sure, and there are no big plot twists beyond typical indie-comedy turf. But the script delivers more genuine laughs than you’d expect from a movie that’s essentially about the recession. (1:46) Bridge, California, SF Center. (Eddy)

Winter in Wartime (1:43) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Smith Rafael.

REP PICKS

Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead Joe Cross appears in person for a special screening of his weight-loss documentary; visit www.balboamovies.com for details and advance tickets. (1:40) Balboa.

*Some Girls Do, The President’s Analyst This last double bill in the Vortex Room’s March of vintage espionage offers something silly and something sublime. The former is journeyman U.K. director Ralph Thomas’ 1969 feature, a slick 007 knockoff with Richard Johnson — a homelier Sean Connery lookalike — being pursued far and wide by foes of “the world’s first supersonic airliner.” Plus a lot of sexy girls, natch, including Ohio-born starlet Synde Rome — whose stunning filmography would include roles opposite Marty Feldman, David Bowie, and The Pumaman (1960), not to mention a Polanski movie — as miniskirted twit “Flicky,” and Israeli bombshell Daliah Lavi. The semi-spoof no doubt taxed the finances of Rank Organization, that British studio remembered for its muscleman-striking-gong logo, which had missed out on the Bond bonanza. It’s enjoyably dated disposable entertainment. By contrast, 1967’s The President’s Analyst by writer-director Theodore J. Flicker, whose non-promotion to the status of Woody Allen or Mel Brooks deprived us of unimaginable comic gold, is possibly the greatest of all 1960s movie satires. A marvelous James Coburn plays the title figure, whose privileged access to the Oval Office results in tracking by assassins worried he “knows too much,” to the free world’s peril. Parodying everything from spy flicks to emergent hippie culture, it’s an undervalued classic you’ll remain unacquainted with at your peril. Vortex Room. (Harvey)

A.C.T Presents No Exit

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March 29, 2011

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Experience “epic, voyeuristic, theater-as-film staging” (Calgary Herald) as A.C.T. presents the U.S. premiere of Jean-Paul Sartre’s redefined classic No Exit, fresh from sold-out performances across Canada. When a mysterious valet ushers three people into a shabby hotel room, they soon discover that hell isn’t fire and brimstone at all—it’s other people. Sartre’s famous existential masterpiece, skillfully reimagined through the perspective of a series of hidden cameras, turns the stage into a cinema, and the audience into voyeurs, as a thrillingly staged “live film” takes place before your eyes. A.C.T. continues its tradition of bringing the work of innovative international artists to the Bay Area with this riveting multimedia event. Order online at www.act-sf.org/noexit or call 415.749.2228.

Wednesday, April 13^th at 7PM The Guardian Arts Series presents exciting and affordable shows appealing to the young arts enthusiast. Register online & stay informed of the next great show — don’t pass the G.A.S! Enjoy a complimentary happy hour in A.C.T.’s Sky Bar serving Bear Flag wine, Cabot Cheese, and Pretzel Crisps with the purchase of a 10UP ticket provided by SFBG & A.C.T.

ENTER TO WIN a pair of tickets to the, April 13th reception and show by sending your full name to promos@sfbg.com (subject line: No Exit) no later than April 4th. Winners will be contacted via email. Tickets will be held under the winners name at will call; you must provide a valid photo ID for entry.

NY Export: Opus Jazz — where dancers get to be themselves

John Elberling

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March 27, 2011

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NY Export: Opus Jazz — where dancers get to be themselves

The empty, Depression-era McCarren Park Pool in Brooklyn was, until 2009, a hip venue packed with vibrant twenty-somethings for concerts and summer “pool parties” alike. It’s also appropriately the location for the opening dance scene in NY Export: Opus Jazz, a film celebrating youthful exuberance, during which, fresh-faced New York City Ballet members in sneakers and street clothes perform the original 1958 Jerome Robbins choreography from the ballet of the same name. Exuding vigor and cool, the film, conceived by New York City Ballet soloists Ellen Bar and Sean Suozzi, marks the first return of Robbins’ choreography to the streets of New York since West Side Story. NY Export: Opus Jazz made its San Francisco premiere on Fri./25 at the Ninth Street Independent Film Center as part of the San Francisco Dance Film Festival, directed by Greta Schoenberg.

During the first movement, a linked chain of dancers, captured from above, curves into a semi-circle on top of peeling painted swim lanes. The dancers sway, snap their fingers and throw high kicks under the arch of crumbling brick that frames the pool. The next movement of Robbins’ dance emerges when four men and the sizzling Georgina Pazcoguin tear into Richard Prince’s jazz score in an abandoned parking garage. Leaping to their stomachs and sliding on the cement, the men appear smaller than the statuesque female standing in the foreground of certain camera shots, adding to Pazcouguin’s powerful presence. Each dance scene alternates with footage of city life (traveling on a train, gathering at a diner), thus incorporating the soundscape of Manhattan’s taxis and horns.

Trailer for NY Export: Opus Jazz:

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As the whole ensemble gathers at a school gym, sneakers squeak on the shellacked wood floor and dancers take turns curling their hands into fists and thrusting the pelvis. Arial shots capture the colorful formations as dancers weave between each other on the basketball court. Men playfully shimmy and quick flashes of partnering send dancers into the air. The performers get to be themselves in this film: both dancers and city dwellers, with Robbins’ still-relevant choreography as the vehicle for expressing youthful vibrancy.

Later, Craig Hall and Rachel Rutherford perform the seductive duet during sunset on Manhattan’s Highline, their tension-filled embrace revealing a sense of yearning. With all of the film’s dance set in abandoned surroundings, including the final movement performed onstage at an empty theater, NY Export: Opus Jazz suggests that the dancers truly perform for the joy of themselves and each other, rather than any outside audience. The resulting most ravishing spirit is addictive – that of being young and alive in the Big Apple.

NY Export: Opus Jazz is available for purchase at www.opusjazz.com.

Our weekly Picks: March 23-29, 2011

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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March 22, 2011

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THURSDAY 24

MUSIC

Music For Animals

The catchy tunes of the self-proclaimed “cult” Music For Animals — San Francisco quartet Nick Bray (guitar), Jay Martinovich (vocals), Eli Meyskens (bass guitar), and Ryan Malley (drums) — evoke 1980s classic pop rock while simultaneously embodying the twee music of the here-and-now. While comparisons have been drawn to other electropop acts like the Killers and Kaiser Chiefs, Music for Animals’ neon-retro fans have embraced the band as its own indie rock entity. Its high-energy shows can include wacky antics, making for a perfect opportunity to bust a move. Join the cult! (Jen Verzosa)

With Foreign Resort and Matinees

9 p.m., $8

Hemlock Tavern

1131 Polk, SF

www.hemlocktavern.com

FILM

Disposable Film Festival

Hollywood churns out a huge number of what you might call disposable films (Drive Angry 3D: use once and destroy). San Francisco’s Disposable Film Festival applies the adjective instead to the technology used to create each of its entries: readily available and often handheld devices like cell phones, point-and-shoot cameras, webcams, and so on. Celebrate the all-access-ness of 21st century filmmaking by checking out tonight’s always-popular competitive shorts program; weekend events include an industry panel entitled “How to Become A Disposable De Palma,” a spotlight on filmmaker Christopher McManus, a concert and workshop with YouTube music-video darlings Pomplamoose, and more. (Cheryl Eddy)

Through Sun/27

Competitive shorts night tonight, 8 p.m., $12

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

www.disposablefilmfest.com

EVENT

Neil Strauss

I’m not sure what I like most about Neil Strauss. A six-time New York Times best-selling author and contributing editor at Rolling Stone, he coauthored memoirs with Jenna Jameson and Mötley Crüe. He lived with Dave Navarro for a year and went undercover in the “seduction community” to write about pick-up artists. He was in Beck’s gloriously goofy “Sexx Laws” video. His new book of celebrity chatter, Everyone Loves You When You’re Dead: Journeys Into Fame and Madness, features pop culture personalities from Britney Spears to Stephen Colbert. But his 227 “moments of truth” aren’t in-depth, traditional Q&A pieces. Instead, Strauss wove together the most intriguing few minutes of each interview. Huh? How? Ask him yourself. (Kat Renz)

7:30 p.m., free

Booksmith

1644 Haight, SF

(415) 863-8688

www.booksmith.com

MUSIC

Phantom Kicks

Taking after the Grizzly Bear-meets-Radiohead, now-disbanded Raised By Robots, the San Francisco-based trio of Tanner Pikop (guitar-vocals-keyboard), Phil Pristia (guitar-vocals), and Mike Rieger (drums) — better known as Phantom Kicks — is experimental, ethereal post-punk born of white space à la the xx. Even without an album, Phantom Kicks’ eerie electro pop has garnered notoriety throughout the Bay Area after gigs at numerous local venues and festivals, sharing the bill with other local indie greats like My First Earthquake, the Dont’s, Skeletal System, and Sunbeam Rd. And its days as a live-only entity are soon to end: Phantom Kicks’ debut EP, Tectonics, is due in April. (Verzosa)

With Adventure and Exray’s

8 p.m., $6

Milk Bar

1840 Haight, SF

www.milksf.com

FILM

San Francisco Dance Film Festival

Now in its second year, the San Francisco Dance Film Festival, presented by Motion Pictures and the Ninth Street Independent Film Center, features three evenings of screenings as well as workshops on shooting and editing dance footage. In addition to selections of work by local and international dance filmmakers, Friday night’s lineup includes the San Francisco premiere of NY Export: Opus Jazz, a reimagining of Jerome Robbins’ 1958 “ballet in sneakers” danced by members of the New York City Ballet. This is the first return of Robbins’ choreography to the streets of New York City since the 1961 movie version of West Side Story. (Julie Potter)

Through Sat/26

6:30, 8, and 9:15 p.m., $10

Ninth Street Independent Film Center

145 Ninth St., SF

(415) 625-6100

www.sfdancefilmfest.org

FRIDAY 25

PERFORMANCE

Free: Voices from Beyond the Curbside

Destiny Arts Center in Oakland has been around so long — it was founded in 1988 — that you tend to take it for granted. Better stop doing that, especially in this climate of shrinking resources for socially-engaged arts programs. Destiny provides a safe place, activities, and role models during after school, weekend, and summer programs. Students ages three to 18 learn martial arts, dance (modern, hip-hop, and aerial), theater, self-defense, and conflict resolution. All these elements come into play one more time during this year’s Destiny Youth Company’s big-time production at Laney College. Created by the students with the guidance of adult artist-teachers, Free explores concepts of personal and social freedom (and the lack thereof). The program also features documentary filmmaker David Collier’s video of the process that made Free possible. (Rita Felciano)

Through April 3

Fri.–Sat., 7:30 p.m. (also April 2–3, 2 p.m.), $6–$25

Laney College

900 Fallon, Oakl.

1-800-838-3006

www.brownpapertickets.com

ROCK

Vastum

Vastum, from the Latin vastus: immense. Empty. Wasted. It’s easy to feel that way bumbling home from a dime-a-dozen metal show — depthless, bored, and boozed. But the three times I’ve seen Vastum, I almost pissed myself with joy: my fingers can form horns again, my head bangs rather than bobbles, my tired faith is revived. With members from two stalwart San Francisco bands, Saros and Acephalix, the five-piece delivers precision death metal with a little punk, classically fast and aggressive with none of the cheesiness often befalling the genre. The venue’s a gem, too: an all-ages Oakland warehouse run by an old-school artist and a gargantuan raptor. (Renz)

With Embers, Atriarch, and Headless Lizzy and Her Icebox Pussy

9 p.m., $6

First Church of the Buzzard

2601 Adeline, Oakland

Facebook: Vastum

MUSIC

Wye Oak

Rock duos tend to strive toward sounding greater than their parts. Wye Oak, composed of Baltimore-based musicians Jenn Wasner and Andy Stack, are no exception. Rather than pure bombast, the two play into the contradiction of expectations on almost every track. Wasner’s guitar and lyricism are the initial focus, typically heavily folk-influenced backed by true multi-instrumentalist Stack, who plays drums and keyboard at the same time. As the melodic verses build into the explosive choruses, so do the 1990s alternative rock influences, recalling Yo La Tengo, Sonic Youth, and My Bloody Valentine. It’s an attention-grabbing effect and in a smaller venue should be impossible to ignore. (Ryan Prendiville)

With Callers and Sands

10 p.m., $12

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St., SF

(415) 621-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com

SATURDAY 26

DANCE

“Pilot 58: Fight or Flight”

It may not take a village to produce a dance concert, but a collective of choreographers sure makes the process more creative and exciting. Or at least that’s the lesson gleaned from the participants in Pilot, ODC’s self-producing incubator that selects six dance artists to work together on a shared bill. Known as a springboard for emerging choreographers, Pilot showcases new and under-the-radar dance from fresh choreographic voices: Raisa Punkki, Byb Chanel Bibene, Bianca Cabrera, Katharine Hawthorne, Ashley Johnson, and Erica Jeffrey. Arriving at choreography through notably different experiences, the evening brings a host of ideas to the table, from moving light sources to little dance cartoons. (Potter)

Sat/26–Sun/27, 8 p.m. (also Sun/27, 4 p.m.), $12

ODC Studio B

351 Shotwell, SF

(415) 863-6606

www.odcdance.org

SUNDAY 27

MUSIC

Rotting Christ

Though not as famed as other loci of Lucifer, Greece has a long and distinguished black metal history. Delightfully named Rotting Christ was founded in 1987 by brothers Sakis and Themis Tolis, who have been plying their blast-beaten trade ever since, much to the dismay of born-again Christian headbanger Dave Mustaine of Megadeth, who refused to play at a Greek music festival once he learned that Rotting Christ was on the bill. The hellbound Hellenic quartet is joined on its current tour by cult favorites Melechesh, a “Mesopotamian” metal band — composed of Israeli expatriates based in Amsterdam — whose distinctive sound combines razor-wire riffing with idiosyncratic Middle Eastern harmonies and rhythms. On a more somber note, this show will be the last promoted by Shawn “Whore for Satan” Phillips, whose retirement will be a deeply-felt loss for metal, both in San Francisco and elsewhere. (Ben Richardson)

With Melechesh, Hate, Abigail Williams, and Lecherous Nocturne

7:30 p.m., $25

DNA Lounge

375 11th St., SF

(415) 626-1409

www.dnalounge.com

MONDAY 28

MUSIC

Röyksopp

Fame can go in divergent ways. For Norwegian electronic duo Röyksopp, the breakthrough was “Remind Me,” a catchy 2002 cut featuring vocals from Kings of Convenience’s Erlend Øye. In the U.K. it picked up Best Video at the Europe Music Awards that year. In the U.S., however, a version of the song is associated with a Geico commercial featuring a caveman. Look past that though, as the pair of musicians have otherwise proven themselves as standouts on the electronic scene, releasing ethereal downtempo compositions. Live, their performances are more amped up and free-ranging, involving unexpected covers like Queens of the Stone Age’s “Go With The Flow.” (Prendiville)

With Jon Hopkins

8 p.m., $30

Regency Ballroom

1300 Van Ness, SF

1-800-745-3000

www.theregencyballroom.com

TUESDAY 29

DANCE

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

Under the directorship of Judith Jamison, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater became the country’s most popular dance troupe, with an impressive infrastructure and a $3 million budget. Now it will be up to Robert Battle, its new artistic director, to build a repertoire that matches the troupe’s organizational achievements. His appointment was something of a surprise; he never danced with Ailey and, at 37. he is young to assume that kind of responsibility. (Jamison was 43). Programs A and C on this year’s Zellerbach schedule each feature one of his choreographies. Whatever he does in terms of programming, he is not likely to offer fewer glimpses of Revelations, the company’s bread and butter. But how about presenting it with live music? The Bay Area has some excellent gospel choirs. (Felciano)

March 29–April 2, 8 p.m. (also April 2, 2 p.m.);

April 3, 3 p.m., $34–$62

8 p.m., $34–$62

Zellerbach Hall

Bancroft at Telegraph, Berk.

(510) 642-9988

www.calperformances.org

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

Harmonic canons

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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March 22, 2011

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THEATER A gorgeous clutter of instruments fills the stage at Z Space/Theater Artaud this week, and audiences, after an eye- and earful of Schick Machine, are invited to go up and play them, too. A musical background is unnecessary: Nothing on stage likely resembles anything you grew up practicing, and anyway all that’s called for is a little rhythm. The show itself gives you a healthy dose, amid a wonderfully designed, gently madcap, almost cosmological musing on the nature and origins of rhythm as well as our yearning embrace of it (and vice versa).

The Paul Dresher Ensemble’s Schick Machine — a collaboration with, among others, writer/director Rinde Eckert — gives the stage over to master percussionist and contemporary music veteran Steven Schick. In the character of musical inventor Laszlo Klangfarben, Schick wanders around a garden playground laboratory of ingeniously crafted percussive and stringed instruments (composer Dresher’s fanciful yet practicable inventions), against a video backdrop evocative of everything from superstrings to abstract expressionist painting to architectural blueprints and scientific scribblings. The instruments of wood and steel form elegant ridges, playful spirals, majestic fans, Ferris wheel–like magic circles, and sonic tulip patches — a kind of Eden for a lone but rarely lonesome madman. Schick’s balding head and glasses compliment the mad scientist look, though his outfit — a high blue apron over white shirt and thin tie — calls to mind an old fashioned small-town grocer.

The thinly-sketched narrative is an excuse for a quiet and contemplative piece of theater, though great explosions of rhythm are mixed in with the goofy humor and crisp, enrapturing visual aesthetic. At the center of it all, the piece suggests, is a single heartbeat.

LADY GREY AND OTHERS

Will Eno’s plays (or at least the half-dozen I’ve seen and/or read) tend toward being tongue-in-cheek questions about the relevance of theater, whether as an art form, a social undertaking, or a compliment to dining out. Self-consciousness is both a conceit and strategy here, the basis for playing with inherited forms and conventions as well as an unevenly successful but sometimes rich brand of humor. The best plays not only win laughs but some pang of recognition, through a deft balancing of the profound and the banal. The less successful plays devolve into pretentiousness and sentimentality. In any case, the idea that the traditional theatrical stage is being overturned can only be indulged if you consider a pretty small section of it.

In Cutting Ball Theater’s presentation of Will Eno’s Lady Grey (in ever lower light) and other plays it’s those inconspicuous “other plays” that are most worth seeing. Lady Grey, like the title suggests, is a shadow of former glory, to wit, Eno’s 2004 breakthrough play, Thom Pain (based on nothing), whose structure — up to and including the title itself — provides the template for this play. Cutting Ball had deserved success with Thom Pain, thanks to actor Jonathan Bock, playing no small part but a big and lonely one: the angry, tortured, sarcastic young man who single-handedly holds the audience hostage for an hour or so, assailing it with words, suspect memories, and bold staring contests.

Lady Grey calls for a similar fearlessness and fierceness, depositing onstage something like a female version of Thom Pain to accost and cajole the “audience” (here too much a written idea of one to avoid those scare quotes) across the fourth wall. In the title and only role, Danielle O’Hare, as directed by Cutting Ball’s Rob Melrose, was inconsistent if occasionally beguiling, rarely seeming to step out from behind the text, or rather to completely own its conceit of not being a text. But Melrose and O’Hare, who have done memorable work together in the past, are also essaying a less inspired play. Grey adds up to a hit-and-miss series of one-liners, not a very compelling total.

The other two short plays that make up the fairly brisk evening prove more rewarding. Intermission, which opens directly after one, is an amusing and almost wise desultory conversation between an older couple (Gwyneth Richards and David Sinaiko), and a younger one (Galen Murphy-Hoffman and O’Hare), during the intermission of a seemingly tedious play about life and death. Melrose gets superbly dry performances from his cast, doing full justice to this light but cunning little play riffing on theater’s capacity for channeling yearning, regret, and blank obliviousness.

Cutting Ball regular Sinaiko then returns for the archly histrionic monologue Mr. Theatre Comes Home Different, a piece that the actor — playing an actor reveling in a state of decidedly Eno-esque self-consciousness — rocks with utter conviction. It’s a high note to end on and, for all the seeming ambivalence and sentiment in this slice of Eno’s oeuvre, went perfectly well with dinner.

SCHICK MACHINE

Through Sun/27, $10–$20

Z Space

450 Florida, SF

(800) 838-3006

www.brownpapertickets.com

LADY GREY (IN EVER LOWER LIGHT)

Through April 10, $15–$50

EXIT on Taylor

277 Taylor, SF

(800) 838-3006

www.brownpapertickets.com

Music Listings

Maria Poblet

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March 22, 2011

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Music listings are compiled by Cheryl Eddy. Since club life is unpredictable, it’s a good idea to call ahead to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

WEDNESDAY 23

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Antonionian, Doseone, Jel Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10.

Burmese, Vaz, Rabbits Knockout. 9pm, $6.

Esben and the Witch, Julianna Barwick, Hungry Kids of Hungary Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Otis Heat, Diamond Light, Caldecott Hotel Utah. 9pm, $8.

Theophilus London, Alexander Spit, The 87 Stick Up Kids, C Plus and Duckworth 330 Ritch. 9pm, $17.

Tecumseh, Derek Moneypenny, Opera Mort, Caldera Lakes Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

Wakey! Wakey!, All Smiles Café Du Nord. 8:30pm, $12.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Alfredo Rodriguez Trio Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $10-18.

Cat’s Corner with Christine and Nathan Savanna Jazz. 9pm, $10.

Cosmo Alleycats Le Colonial, 20 Cosmo, SF; www.lecolonialsf.com. 7pm.

Dink Dink Dink, Gaucho, Michael Abraham Amnesia. 7pm, free.

Ben Marcato and the Mondo Combo Top of the Mark. 7:30pm, $10.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Green, Through the Roots, Thrive Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $13.

Matt Turk Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:30pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Booty Call Q-Bar, 456 Castro, SF; www.bootycallwednesdays.com. 9pm. Juanita Moore hosts this dance party, featuring DJ Robot Hustle.

Buena Onda Little Baobab, 3388 19th St., SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $3. Soul, funk, swing, and rare grooves with residents Dr. Musco, DJB.

Cannonball Beauty Bar. 10pm, free. Rock, indie, and nu-disco with DJ White Mike.

Club Shutter Elbo Room. 9pm, $5. Goth with DJs Nako, Omar, and Justin.

Jam Fresh Wednesdays Vessel, 85 Campton, SF; (415) 433-8585. 9:30pm, free. With DJs Slick D, Chris Clouse, Rich Era, Don Lynch, and more spinning top40, mashups, hip hop, and remixes.

Mary-Go-Round Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 10pm, $5. A weekly drag show with hosts Cookie Dough, Pollo Del Mar, and Suppositori Spelling.

No Room For Squares Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 6-10pm, free. DJ Afrodite Shake spins jazz for happy hour.

Respect Wednesdays End Up. 10pm, $5. Rotating DJs Daddy Rolo, Young Fyah, Irie Dole, I-Vier, Sake One, Serg, and more spinning reggae, dancehall, roots, lovers rock, and mash ups.

Synchronize Il Pirata, 2007 16th St, SF; (415) 626-2626. 10pm, free. Psychedelic dance music with DJs Helios, Gatto Matto, Psy Lotus, Intergalactoid, and guests.

THURSDAY 24

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O., Shilpa Ray & Her Happy Hookers Bottom of the Hill. 9:30pm, $12.

Blind Willies Blue Macaw, 2565 Mission, SF; (415) 920-0577. 8pm.

Curious Mystery, Greg Ashley, Zoobombs Knockout. 9:30pm, $6.

Quinn Deveaux Amnesia. 9pm, $5.

Dispirit, Atriarch, Alaric El Rio. 8pm, $8.

Shane Dwight Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

Liam Finn, Luyas Independent. 8pm, $15.

Flexx Bronco, Spittin’ Cobras, Hewhocannotbenamed, Crawler Thee Parkside. 9pm, $8.

Kids of 88, Art vs. Science Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $10-20.

Music for Animals, Foreign Resort, Matinees Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

Naughty By Nature Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $38.

Sky Parade, Grand Atlantic, Parties, Modern Day Sunshine Hotel Utah. 8pm, $8.

Soul Man Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:30pm, free.

Toro Y Moi, Braids, Cloud Nothings Great American Music Hall. 7:30pm, $15.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Derek Smith Latin Jazz Band and director Dee Spencer SFSU Jazz Bands Savanna Jazz. 7:30pm, $10.

Jane Monheit SF Conservatory of Music, 50 Oak, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 7:30pm, $30-50.

Organsm featuring Jim Gunderson and “Tender” Tim Shea Bollyhood Café. 6:30-9pm, free.

Paul Drescher Ensemble 25th Anniversary Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.brownpapertickets.org. 7pm, $20.

Stompy Jones Top of the Mark. 7:30pm, $10.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Kris Delmhorst Café Du Nord. 8pm, $18.

JimBo Trout and the Fishpeople Atlas Café. 8-10pm, free.

“Twang! Honky Tonk” Fiddler’s Green, 1330 Columbus, SF; www.twanghonkytonk.com. 5pm.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $5. DJs Pleasuremaker and Señor Oz spin Afrobeat, tropicália, electro, samba, and funk.

Caribbean Connection Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $3. DJ Stevie B and guests spin reggae, soca, zouk, reggaetón, and more.

Drop the Pressure Underground SF. 6-10pm, free. Electro, house, and datafunk highlight this weekly happy hour.

80s Night Cat Club. 9pm, $6 (free before 9:30pm). Two dance floors bumpin’ with the best of 80s mainstream and underground with Dangerous Dan, Skip, Low Life, and guests.

Gigantic Beauty Bar. 9pm, free. With DJs Eli Glad, Greg J, and White Mike spinning indie, rock, disco, and soul.

Guilty Pleasures Gestalt, 3159 16th St, SF; (415) 560-0137. 9:30pm, free. DJ TophZilla, Rob Metal, DJ Stef, and Disco-D spin punk, metal, electro-funk, and 80s.

Jivin’ Dirty Disco Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. 8pm, free. With DJs spinning disco, funk, and classics.

Mestiza Bollywood Café, 3376 19th St, SF; (415) 970-0362. 10pm, free. Showcasing progressive Latin and global beats with DJ Juan Data.

1984 Mighty. 9pm, $2. The long-running New Wave and 80s party has a new venue, featuring video DJs Mark Andrus, Don Lynch, and celebrity guests.

Peaches Skylark, 10pm, free. With an all female DJ line up featuring Deeandroid, Lady Fingaz, That Girl, and Umami spinning hip hop.

Thursday Special Tralala Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 5pm, free. Downtempo, hip-hop, and freestyle beats by Dr. Musco and Unbroken Circle MCs.

FRIDAY 25

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Beats Antique Fillmore. 9pm, $20.

Bruises, Hold Me Luke Allen, Eighteen Individual Eyes El Rio. 9pm, $5.

Elle Nino, Club Crasherz, Double Duchess Hotel Utah. 9pm, $8.

Good Charlotte, This Century Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $28.

Hot Panda, Twinks, Watch It Sparkle Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $7.

Candye Kane Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

King Tuff, Personal and the Pizzas, Rantouls, Wrong Words, King Lollipop Thee Parkside. 9pm, $10.

Ed Kowalczyk Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $30.

James Lanman and the Good Hurt, Mark Sexton Band, Dylan Cannon Café Du Nord. 9pm, $10.

Men, Lady Tragik, Katastrophe Rickshaw Stop. 8:30pm, $12.

Saw Doctors, AM Taxi Slim’s. 8pm, $24.

Smoking Popes, New Trust, Hot Toddies Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $15.

Taj Mahal, Lady Bianca Independent. 9pm, $40.

Wye Oak, Callers, Sands Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $12.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Black Market Jazz Orchestra Top of the Mark. 9pm, $10.

Lacemaking: Katy Stephan with the Nice Guy Trio Red Poppy Art House. 8pm, $12-20.

Paul Drescher Ensemble 25th Anniversary Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.brownpapertickets.org. 8pm, $20.

Marlina Teich Savanna Jazz. 7:30pm, $8.

Adam Theis and the Jazz Mafia String Quartet Swedish American Hall (upstairs from Café Du Nord). 8pm, $25.

Tin Cup Serenade Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 9pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Albino!, Mark Edwards, DJ Spincycle Elbo Roon. 10pm, $10.

Baxtalo Drom Amnesia. 9pm, $7-10.

DANCE CLUBS

Afro Bao Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $5. Afro and world music with rotating DJs including Stepwise, Steve, Claude, Santero, and Elembe.

Cityfox Showcase Public Works, 161 Erie, SF; www.cityfox.eventbrite.com. 9pm. With Digitaline, Lee Jones, James What?, and more spinning deep house and techno.

Debaser 111 Minna. 9pm, $5. The 90s party celebrates its third anniversary with a Fugazi cover band and DJs Jamie Jams, Emdee, and Stab Master Arson.

Duniya Dancehall Blue Macaw, 2565 Mission, SF; (415) 920-0577. 10pm, $10. With live performances by Duniya Drum and Dance Co. and DJs dub Snakr and Juan Data spinning bhangra, bollywood, dancehall, African, and more.

Exhale, Fridays Project One Gallery, 251 Rhode Island, SF; (415) 465-2129. 5pm, $5. Happy hour with art, fine food, and music with Vin Sol, King Most, DJ Centipede, and Shane King.

Fubar Fridays Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. 6pm, $5. With DJs spinning retro mashup remixes.

Good Life Fridays Apartment 24, 440 Broadway, SF; (415) 989-3434. 10pm, $10. With DJ Brian spinning hip hop, mashups, and top 40.

Hot Chocolate Milk. 9pm, $5. With DJs Big Fat Frog, Chardmo, DuseRock, and more spinning old and new school funk.

Hubba Hubba Revue: The 90s Show DNA Lounge. 9pm, $10-15. Burlesque plus DJs spinning 90s jams.

Psychedelic Radio Club Six. 9pm, $7. With DJs Kial, Tom No Thing, Megalodon, and Zapruderpedro spinning dubstep, reggae, and electro.

Rockabilly Fridays Jay N Bee Club, 2736 20th St, SF; (415) 824-4190. 9pm, free. With DJs Rockin’ Raul, Oakie Oran, Sergio Iglesias, and Tanoa “Samoa Boy” spinning 50s and 60s Doo Wop, Rockabilly, Bop, Jive, and more.

Some Thing Stud. 10pm, $7. VivvyAnne Forevermore, Glamamore, and DJ Down-E give you fierce drag shows and afterhours dancing.

Soul Rebel Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; www.kokococktails.com. 10pm, free.

Spindig Happy Hour Knockout. 6-9pm, free. With Ryan Poulsen, Joe Bank$, and Stef playing rap, punk, and everything in between.

Teenage Dance Craze: The Number One Twisting Party in the Universe Knockout. 10pm, $4. Surf, garage, soul, and more with Russell Quan and dX the Funky Granpaw.

Vintage Orson, 508 Fourth St, SF; (415) 777-1508. 5:30-11pm, free. DJ TophOne and guest spin jazzy beats for cocktalians.

SATURDAY 26

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Appleseed Cast, Muscle Worship Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $15.

Beautiful Losers Café Royale, 800 Post, SF; (415) 641-6033. 8pm, free.

Blue Roan Filly, Pie Crust Promises, Steel Hotcakes El Rio. 9pm, $7.

Davila 666, Mean Jeans, Biters, Booze Thee Parkside. 9pm, $10.

Ha Ha Tonka, Hoots and Hellmouth, Devil’s Own Hotel Utah. 9pm, $10.

“Jason Becker’s Not Dead Yet Festival” Slim’s. 9pm, $25. With Joe Satriani, Richie Kotzen, Steve Lukather, Kehoe Nation, Flametal, Vinnie Moore, and Michael Lee Firkins.

Lost Coves, Bambi Killers, Chapter 24 Hemlock Tavern. 5pm, $6.

Narooma, Aimless Never Miss, We Be the Echo, Form and Fate Submission, 2183 Mission, SF; www.sf-submission.com. 7:30pm, $6.

O’Death, Arann Harris and the Farm Band, Helado Negro Independent. 9pm, $12.

Parson Red Heads, Jean Marie, Laguna Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $8.

Say Hi!, Yellow Ostrich, Blair Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $14.

Sheila E. Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $35.

Earl Thomas Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $22.

Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, Beni Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $12.50.

Traditional Fools, Audacity, Culture Kids, Underground Railroad to Candyland, Skumby and the Disney Dads, Shrouds Thee Parkside. 2pm, $10.

Voodoo Fix, Sara Payah, Con Brio Amnesia. 8pm, $7-10.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Gina Harris and Torbie Phillips Savanna Jazz. 7:30pm, $8.

Paul Drescher Ensemble 25th Anniversary Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.brownpapertickets.org. 2 and 8pm, $20.

Alex Pinto Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 9pm, free.

Jake Shimabukuro Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 7 and 9pm, $30-75.

Lavay Smith and Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers Red Poppy Art House. 7:30 and 9pm, $12-20.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Mijo de la Palma Mission Cultural Center Theater, 2868 Mission, SF; www.missionculturalcenter.org. 7:30pm, $12-15.

Mucho Axé 50 Mason Social House, 50 Mason, SF; www.50masonsocialhouse.com. 9:30pm.

Nada Brahma Music Ensemble Om Shan Tea, 233 14th St., SF; 1-888-747-8327. 7pm, $10-20.

Corey Allen Porter, Seth Augustus, Handlebars and Kindle Make-Out Room. 7:30pm, $7.

Craig Ventresco and Meredith Axelrod Atlas Café. 4pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Afro Bao Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $5. Afro and world music with rotating DJs including Stepwise, Steve, Claude, Santero, and Elembe.

Bootie SF: Titus Jones DNA Lounge. 9pm, $8-15. Mash-ups.

4OneFunktion Elbo Room. 10pm, $8-10. Hip-hop and funk with DJ Numark, F.A.M.E., and DJs Platurn, J. Boogie, and B. Cause.

Go Bang! Deco Lounge, 510 Larkin, SF; www.gobangsf.com. 9pm, $5. Atomic dancefloor disco action with special guest Tim Zawada, plus residents Steve Fabus, Stanley Frank, Tres Lingerie, and Sergio.

HYP Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; www.eightsf.com. 10pm, free. Gay and lesbian hip-hop party, featuring DJs spinning the newest in the top 40s hip hop and hyphy.

Lonely Teardrops Knockout. 10pm. Rockabilly with Daniel and dX theFunky Gran Paw.

Open Forum Madrone Art Bar. 9pm, $5. Pam the Funkstress and DJ BackSide spin 80s, 90s, hip-hop, funk, and more.

Reggae Gold Club Six. 9pm, $15. With DJs Daddy Rolo, Polo Mo’qz, Tesfa, Serg, and Fuze spinning dancehall and reggae.

Rock City Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. 6pm, $5 after 10pm. With DJs spinning party rock.

Temptation Cat Club. 9:30pm, $7. Video dance explosion with DJs Dangerous Dan, Skip, Ryan B spinning 80s and new wave, and guests Blondie K and subOctave spinning indie.

SUNDAY 27

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

“AP Tour” Regency Ballroom. 5:30pm, $18. With Black Veil Brides, Destroy Rebuild Until God Shows, I See Stars, VersaEmerge, and Conditions.

David Dondero, Franz Nicolay, Boats Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $8.

Lloyd Gregory Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

Jeff Jones Band Boom Boom Room. 9:30pm, free.

Miniature Tigers, Pepper Rabbit, Cannons and Clouds Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10.

Mo’Some Tonebender, Lolita No. 18, Zukunashi, Hystoic Vein, Josy Independent. 8pm, $15.

Jay Nash, Joey Ryan and Kenneth Pattengale Café Du Nord. 8pm, $10.

Nobunny, Apache, Wild Thing, Midnite Snaxxx, Egg Tooth Thee Parkside. 8pm, $10.

Ready Set, Allstar Weekend, Downtown Fiction, We Are the In Slim’s. 6:30pm, $16.

Rotting Christ, Melechesh, Hate, Abigail Williams, Lecherous Nocture DNA Lounge. 7:30pm, $25.

She Rides, Bully, Dcoi Submission, 2183 Mission, SF; www.sf-submission.com. 7:30pm, $5.

Sharon Van Etten, Little Scream, Colossal Yes Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $12.

Erica Von Vokyrie vs. Honey Mahogany Martuni’s, 4 Valencia, SF; www.dragatmartunis.com. 7pm, $5.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Frank Jackson, Larry Vuckovich, Al Obidinski Bliss Bar, 4026 24th St., SF; www.blissbarsf.com. 4:30pm, $10.

Little Brown Brother Band Savanna Jazz. 7:30pm, $5.

Paul Drescher Ensemble 25th Anniversary Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.brownpapertickets.org. 2 and 7pm, $20.

Swing-out Sundays Milk Bar. 9pm, $3-15. With beginner swing lessons.

Irma Thomas Palace of Fine Arts, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 7pm, $25-60.

Tom Lander Duo Medjool, 2522 Mission, SF; www.medjoolsf.com. 6-9pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Beyond the Pale, Orkestar Sali Amnesia. 9pm, $10.

Family Folk Explosion Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8pm, free.

Ray Martinez and Salsa Jazz Project El Rio. 4-8pm, $8.

Old Man Markley, Filthy Thieving Bastards, Cooper McBean Thee Parkside. 3pm, $10.

Abigail Washburn Yoshi’s San Francisco. 7pm, $18.

DANCE CLUBS

Batcave Cat Club. 10pm, $5. Death rock, goth, and post-punk with Steeplerot Necromos and c_death.

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. Dub, roots, and classic dancehall with DJ Sep, Vinnie Esparza, and guest DJG.

45 Club: 100 Years of Funky Soul Records Knockout. 10pm, free. With English Steve and dX the Funky Gran Paw.

Gloss Sundays Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 7pm. With DJ Hawthorne spinning house, funk, soul, retro, and disco.

Honey Soundsystem Paradise Lounge. 8pm-2am. “Dance floor for dancers – sound system for lovers.” Got that?

La Pachanga Blue Macaw, 2565 Mission, SF; www.thebluemacawsf.com. 6pm, $10. Salsa dance party with live Afro-Cuban salsa bands.

MONDAY 28

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

B and Not B, She’s, I Hate You Just Kidding Knockout. 9pm, $7.

Crosby and Nash Warfield. 8pm, $43.50-60.50.

Endroit, Mahgeetah, Add Moss Elbo Room. 9pm, $5.

Le Mutant, Tank Attack, Arms N Legs, Black Stool El Rio. 7pm, $5.

Royskopp, Jon Hopkins Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $32.

She Wants Revenge, Californian Independent. 8pm, $25.

“Under Raps” Showdown, 10 Sixth St., SF; www.bposmusic.us. 9pm. Hip-hop open mic hosted by Mantis One and Big Shawn.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

“Earplay: Sound Tangents” Herbst Theater, 401 Van Ness, SF; (415) 392-4400. 7:30pm, $10-20. Works by John Cage, Elliott Carter, and more.

Lisa Mezzacappa’s Bait and Switch Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $15.

Lavay Smith Orbit Room, 1900 Market, SF; (415) 252-9525. 7-10pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Death Guild DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $3-5. Gothic, industrial, and synthpop with Joe Radio, Decay, and Melting Girl.

Krazy Mondays Beauty Bar. 10pm, free. With DJs Ant-1, $ir-Tipp, Ruby Red I, Lo, and Gelo spinning hip hop.

M.O.M. Madrone Art Bar. 6pm, free. With DJ Gordo Cabeza and guests playing all Motown every Monday.

Network Mondays Azul Lounge, One Tillman Pl, SF; www.inhousetalent.com. 9pm, $5. Hip-hop, R&B, and spoken word open mic, plus featured performers.

Sausage Party Rosamunde Sausage Grill, 2832 Mission, SF; (415) 970-9015. 6:30-9:30pm, free. DJ Dandy Dixon spins vintage rock, R&B, global beats, funk, and disco at this happy hour sausage-shack gig.

Skylarking Skylark. 10pm, free. With resident DJs I & I Vibration, Beatnok, and Mr. Lucky and weekly guest DJs.

TUESDAY 29

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Endemics, Uzi Rash, American Splits, Broken Water Knockout. 9pm, $5.

Greenflash El Rio. 7pm, free.

Guitar vs. Gravity, Control-R, Cleve-Land, DJ Culture Shizzam Elbo Room. 9pm, free.

Katchafire, Tomorrows Bad Seeds Independent. 8:30pm, $20.

Mallard, Sugar Sugar Sugar, Will Ivy Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Parlotones, Imagine Dragons, Ivan and Alyosha Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Rebecca Roudman Café Royale, 800 Post, SF; (415) 641-6033. 8pm, free.

Uh Huh Her, Diamonds Under Fire Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $21.

Mary Wilson Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $35.

DANCE CLUBS

Boomtown Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 9pm, free. DJ Mundi spins roots, ragga, dancehall, and more.

Eclectic Company Skylark, 9pm, free. DJs Tones and Jaybee spin old school hip hop, bass, dub, glitch, and electro.

Share the Love Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 5pm, free. With DJ Pam Hubbuck spinning house.<\! * *

Stage Listings

Maria Poblet

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March 22, 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

*Geezer Marsh, 1062 Valencia; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Previews Thurs, 8pm; Sat, 5pm; Sun, 3pm (through March 27). Opens March 31. Thurs, 8pm; Sat, 5pm; Sun, 3pm. Through May 1. The Marsh presents a new solo show about aging and mortality by Geoff Hoyle.

ONGOING

As Always Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson; www.AsAlwaysTickets.com. $25. Thurs-Sun, 8pm. Through March 27. Tracy Ward directs a new musical by Peter W. Tucker.

*Caliente Pier 29, The Embarcadero; 438-2668, www.love.zinzanni.org. $117-145. Wed-Sat, 6pm; Sun, 5pm. Open-ended. Teatro Zinzanni presents a new production conceived in San Francisco.

*40 Pounds in 12 Weeks: A Love Story The Marsh, 1062 Valencia; 1-800-838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $15-35. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Through Sat/26. “I hate assumptions,” says Pidge Meade. In fact, her new solo show, about her experience as a young woman of size on a brutal crash diet, goes a long way toward unsettling more than one. Developed and directed by Charlie Varon (Rush Limbaugh in Night School, Rabbi Sam), Meade’s multi-character monologue eschews easy sentiment for a sharply performed, consistently funny and genuine engagement with her younger, bigger self. Framed by a 20-year college reunion during which she suffers an unwanted conversation with an old roommate about her intervening dramatic weight loss, Meade recounts trying to lose 40 unwanted pounds to please her devoted but “harsh” father, an Olympic-level gymnastics coach shocked and appalled by her weight gain while at school. The father-daughter story comes interlarded with a few other encounters and characters measuring the variety of attitudes and approaches to weight among women in her Midwestern milieu. Meanwhile, Meade’s problematic relationship with her demanding if ultimately responsive father finds an unexpected echo in her former roommate’s pushy inquisitiveness (which, we learn, stems from her own desperate concern over a beloved but obese teen nephew). It’s in quietly mingling awkwardness, fear, and love that Meade’s piece can really surprise, and reaffirm that whatever else follows, it’s the usual assumptions that need shedding first. (Avila)

The Homecoming American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary; 749-2228, www.act-sf.org. Call for times and prices. Through Sun/27. North London in the mid-1960s served Harold Pinter well as an apt location for an enduring vision of familial nightmare, namely a jockeying tribe of self-interested working-class men bent on embracing as much as destroying one another. Into this testy household returns for a visit, unannounced and in the wee hours, one of their own: social climber Teddy (Anthony Fusco) back from America with wife Ruth (René Augesen). What happens next still has real force, even if it’s sometimes missing in American Conservatory Theater’s current revival. A family unit of vipers and sadists and weirdoes is still a family unit, but real connections between the actors are few here. Augesen’s Ruth—startlingly set free from deadening domestic harmony by the braying barnyard she soon comes to dominate—is the riveting center of attention, but the tension overall remains diffuse and inconsistent despite her gravitational pull. As the pugnacious patriarch, Max, slipping mercilessly from his historic spot at the top of the dog pile, Jack Willis is a bit all over the place, sometimes physically—director Carey Perloff has him well across the room in the opening scene’s vital first confrontation, instead of up in the grill of coiled son Lenny (Andrew Polk)—but in tone and register too. Kenneth Welsh’s fine performance as Max’s superficially calm brother Sam goes some way toward grounding the proceedings, but the other performances remain more dutiful than distinguished and the production never quite attains the pressure and threat it should. (Avila)

James Bond: Lady Killer Dark Room Theater, 2263 Mission; 732-9592, www.brownpapertickets.com. $20. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Sat/26. Dark Room Theater presents an all-new James Bond adventure.

Lady Grey (in ever lower light) EXIT on Taylor, 277 Taylor; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $15-50. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through April 10. Cutting Ball Theater presents the Bay Area premiere of three short plays by Will Eno.

*Loveland Marsh, 1062 Valencia; 1-800-838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Through Sat/26. Ann Randolph’s one-woman show extends its run.

M. Butterfly Gough Street Playhouse, 1620 Gough; (510) 207-5774, www.custommade.org. $20-28. Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also April 3 and 10, 7pm). Through April 16. Custom Made Theatre presents David Henry Hwang’s award-winning play.

*Obscura: A Magic Play Exit Studio, 156 Eddy; 673-3847, www.sffringe.org. $20-25. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through April 16. Christian Cagigal is back with the magical. Over the last several years, the popular Bay Area writer/performer has developed a series of dramatically structured magic shows (the most recent being the autobiographical Now and at the Hour), each a different attempt at blending expert prestidigitation with elements of narrative theater. Tightly focused and deliberately small-scale, Obscura is in some ways his most successful foray yet. In the Exit Theater’s new studio space, Cagigal (with occasional help from his audience) unfolds a series of sly Gothic stories combined with extremely clever, sometimes dementedly playful card and coin tricks—the majority a collection of favorite pieces from other magicians—all played out on a delicately managed little table augmented by overhead projection (a set-up that offers various visual opportunities, including use of title cards). Rapid-fire narration (occasionally indistinct but generally articulate) and a laid back, slightly mischievous demeanor combine here with consummate skill in an intimate and very enjoyable evening of crafty little tales. If there’s an overarching theme, it probably has something to do with human folly, the persistence of mystery, and the devil, but then any good fable involving a deck of cards probably should. (Avila)

The Oldest Profession Brava Theater, 2781 24th St; 647-2822, www.brava.org. $10-25. Brava Theater presents a play by Paula Vogel, directed by Evren Odcikin.

Out of Sight Marsh, 1062 Valencia; 1-800-838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thurs and Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Sun/27. Sara Felder’s one-woman show extends its run.

Party of 2 — The New Mating Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter; 1-800-838-3006, www.partyof2themusical.com. $27-29. Fri, 9pm. Open-ended. A musical about relationships by Shopping! The Musical author Morris Bobrow.

*Pearls Over Shanghai Thrillpeddlers’ Hypnodrome, 575 Tenth St; 1-800-838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $30-69. Sat, 8pm. Through April 9. Thrillpeddlers’ acclaimed production of the Cockettes musical continues its successful run.

Regrets Only New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness; 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $24-40. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through April 3. New Conservatory Theatre presents a play by Paul Rudnick, directed by Andrew Nance.

7 Sins…One More Time! EXIT Theatre, 156 Eddy; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $25-40. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through April 10. James Judd’s long-running comedy hit has a return engagement.

Sex and Death: A Night with Harold Pinter Phoenix Theatre, Suite 601, 414 Mason; 1-800-838-3006, www.offbroadwaywest.org. $35. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Sat/26. The thing with Harold Pinter is you never know for certain whether he means for something to be funny or not. Take his most celebrated one-act, The Dumb Waiter, a rather tense dialogue between two hit-men waiting for their mark to show which veers into disarmingly surrealist territory once they start receiving mysterious lunch orders via a creaky dumbwaiter, despite not having any food, or indeed any gas to cook food on. Is this Pinter’s attempt to lighten the mood in an otherwise joyless examination of two minor functionaries in the criminal underworld, or is it a way for him to interject more unease into their already intractable situation? In Off-Broadway West’s staging they opt mainly for the latter interpretation, neither Gus (Conor Hamill) nor Ben (Shane Fahy) play up much of the sly humor tucked into their lines, and when the “surprise” twist arrives, it feels like a foregone conclusion. More deftly nuanced, the second one-act on the bill, The Lover milks the sex lives of the petty bourgeoisie for all the hidden wit and complicated innuendo that could possibly be excavated. Morphing from chilly society marrieds to shameless afternoon fling and “common garden slut” Chad Stender and Nicole Helfer play out a tightly-wound sexual fantasy with a cool edge, a satisfying end to a low-key revival. (Gluckstern)

Shopping! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter; (800) 838-3006, www.shoppingthemusical.com. $27-29. Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. A musical comedy revue about shopping by Morris Bobrow.

Tenth Annual Bay One-Acts Festival Boxcar Theatre, 505 Natoma; 891-7235, www.bayoneacts.org. $20-32. Wed-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 3 and 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Sat/26. Three Wise Monkeys Theatre Company presents the tenth incarnation of the curated festival.

BAY AREA

Free Range Thinking Marsh Berkeley, TheaterStage, 2120 Allston, Berk; 1-800-838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through April 9. The Marsh Berkeley presents a new comedic solo show by Robert Dubac.

The Iliad Berkeley City Club, 1802 Fairview, Berk; (510) 698-4030. $12-24. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through April 3. Inferno Theatre Company presents an adaptation of Homer’s ancient tale.

Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe Berkeley Playhouse, 2640 College; (510) 845-8542, www.berkeleyplayhouse.org. $15-33. Call for dates and times. Through April 3. Berkeley Playhouse presents a musical fantasy based on the C.S. Lewis story.

The North Pool TheatreWorks at Lucie Stern Theater, 1305 Middlefiled, Palo Alto; (650) 463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. $24-67. Tues-Wed, 7:30pm; Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 2 and 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through April 3. TheatreWorks presents a psychological thriller by Rajiv Joseph.

Not a Genuine Black Man The Marsh Berkeley, TheaterStage, 2120 Allston Way, Berk; 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $20-35. Thurs, 7:30pm. Through March 31. Brian Copeland’s one-man show returns to the stage.

Romeo and Juliet La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $10-20. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Sat/26. Bet you thought Romeo and Juliet was just a sappy love story at its beating heart. But as Impact Theatre’s artistic director Melissa Hillman, fight director Dave Meier, and production “blood technician” Tunuviel Luv manage to remind us, R&J is known as a tragedy for good reason—full of escalating violence and a bodycount almost as high as Hamlet’s. Before they snuff it though, Romeo (Michael Garret McDonald) and Juliet (Luisa Frasconi) fall in love in a meet-cute, after-school special way: Frasconi exhibiting the coltish excitability of a very young teenager, and doofy McDonald egged on by a pack of uncouth youth (Seth Thygesen as Benvolio, Marilet Martinez as Mercutio, Miyuki Bierlein as Balthasar) who pretty much steal the show with their crass deconstruction of Romeo’s woes. Unfortunately, the Russian mafia angle is less fully fleshed out than the teen romance portion of the show. Yes, the mobsters all sport some great tattoos, carry mean-looking pistols, and occasionally deliver their lines in Russian thanks to language consultant Helen Nesteruk, but setting the show in the ex-pat Russian community “in the Bay Area” dilutes the extreme feudalism that setting the show in Moscow would imply, and allows the production to rely a little too heavily on familiar California-isms—phrases, behaviors, and fashions— rather than committing fully to exploring the vastly different world of the Russkaya Mafiya. (Gluckstern)

*Ruined Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-73. Call for dates and times. Through April 10. Berkeley Rep presents Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer-winning play about the lives of women in Africa.

Singing at the Edge of the World The Cabaret at The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Way, Berk; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $15-35. Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through April 16. The Marsh presents a one-man show by Randy Rutherford.

World’s Funniest Bubble Show The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Way, Berk; 1-800-838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $8-11. Sun, 11am. Through April 3. The Amazing Bubble Man extends the bubble-making celebration.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

Marga’s Funny Mondays Cabaret at Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk.; 1-800-838-3006, www.themarsh.org. Mon/28, 8pm. $10. Marga Gomez hosts a Monday night comedy series. *