Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

GOLDIES 2011: Tammy Rae Carland

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
1
GOLDIES 2011: Tammy Rae Carland

GOLDIES The beds in the photographs are like any other unmade beds — messes of rumpled sheets and dented pillows occasionally punctuated by a stray article of clothing or a curious pet. Except that they are not like other beds: they are, as the title of Tammy Rae Carland’s 2002 series of depopulated portraits informs the viewer, “lesbian beds.”

The distinction is crucial, critical. A smart conceptual retort to the hoary stereotype of lesbian bed death, Carland’s photographs of one of the places where women share their lives (and their bodies) with other women also make clear the political stakes of representing even the most quotidian objects.

At the same time, there is nothing in or about the photographs that signifies “lesbian.” Indeed, it is very banality of the images’ content, the very familiarity of the scene that is repeatedly depicted in “Lesbian Beds,” that makes them so immediately relatable. And yet to uncouple these photographs from the title which brackets them would be to disregard the difference the entire series makes visible.

This sometimes uneasy mix of representational politics and sentimental attachment to objects is at the core of Carland’s work. She cites her longtime involvement in the queer and feminist punk scenes that sprung up in Pacific Northwest in the early ’90s — where she made zines, ran a gallery space, booked shows and, later, ran the successful and politically progressive indie label Mr. Lady Records with her partner — as a catalyst for her interest in, “marginal identities and marginal bodies.”

“[And] not just in regards to sites of oppression,” explains Carland — who has lived in Oakland for close to a decade and now chairs the California College of the Arts’ photography department — “but alternative sites where people function.” It is often the material possessions accumulated at those sites, rather than the people themselves, that catch Carland’s sympathetic eye and form the genesis for a new project. For her series “Outposts,” it was the (unpopulated) encampments within the “women born, women only” space of the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival. In “My Inheritance,” Carland turned the camera on the inventory of her late mother’s apartment — the entirety of which could fit in a paper grocery bag.

Carland’s latest project, “I’m Dying Up Here,” which was recently featured as part of Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’s triennial Bay Area Now 6, takes a different tack, focusing on stand-up comedy and the figure of the self-deprecating comedian. Pieces include staged photographs of local female performers, their faces often obscured, caught mid-routine, as well as a bar stool and microphone — the tools of the trade — cast in white porcelain.

Like beds, the comedy club stage is also a site of vulnerability, albeit a public one. For female comedians, the price of admission is often predicated on making themselves the butt of their own jokes. The melancholy and tender pieces in “I’m Dying Up Here” convey that moment, pregnant with empowerment but also the threat of rejection. A joke, like an artwork, can always flop or the audience just might not get it. A bed is just a bed; but then it isn’t, if two women share it. Carland’s work routinely foregrounds this riskiness while extending a reassuring hand as if to say, “it’s ok if this fails, because we both still tried.”

Rep Clock

Andrew Lam
-
0

Schedules are for Wed/9-Tues/15 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features are marked with a •. All times p.m. unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $6-10. “Brazil on Screen:” Bandido de Luz Vermelha (Sganzerla, 1968), with “O Vermelha Luz do Bandido” (Jorge, 2009), Fri, 8. “Other Cinema:” works by archival compilation master Bill Morrison, Sat, 8:30.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-10. “Woody Wednesdays:” •Annie Hall (Allen, 1977), Wed, 3, 7, and Hannah and Her Sisters (Allen, 1986), Wed, 4:50, 8:50. The Man Who Fell to Earth (Roeg, 1976), Thurs, 2:30, 5:15, 8. “Midnites for Maniacs: Lost in No Man’s Land:” •FernGully: The Last Rainforest (Kroyer, 1991), Fri, 7:30; Romancing the Stone (Zemeckis, 1984), Fri, 9:30, and Ishtar (May, 1987), Fri, 11:45. $12 for all three films. “3rd I International South Asian Film Festival:” Gamperaliya (Peries, 1964), Sat, noon; I Am Sindhutai Sapkal (Mahadevan, 2010), Sat, 2:30; A Letter of Fire (Handagama, 2005), Sat, 5:10; Delhi Belly (Deo, 2011), Sat, 9:15. More info at thirdi.org/festival. •Flash Gordon (Hodges, 1980), Sun, 2, 4, and Dune (Lynch, 1984), Sun, 4:10, 9:15.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.75-10.25. Le Havre (Kaurismäki, 2011), Nov 11-17, call for times. Crimebuster: A Son’s Search for His Father (Dematteis, 2011), Sun, 2. Between Two Worlds (Kaufman and Snitow, 2011), Mon, 7.

EMBARCADERP CENTER CINEMA One Embarcadero Center, SF; www.sffs.org. $12-20. “New Italian Cinema:” A Quiet Life (Cupellini, 2010), Sun, 1; The First Assignment (Cecere, 2010), Sun, 3:45; Our Life (Luchetti, 2010), Sun, 6:30, 9:30; It’s Happening Tomorrow (Luchetti, 1988), Mon, 6:30; Ginger and Cinnamon (Luchetti, 2003), Mon, 9; 20 Cigarettes (Amadei, 2010), Tues, 6:30; One Life, Maybe Two (Aronadio, 2010), Tues, 9:15.

EXPLORATORIUM McBean Theater, 3601 Lyon, SF; www.exploratorium.edu. $5. “The Last Kodachrome Movie: Recent Works in Obsolete Color,” Wed, 7:30.

NINTH STREET INDEPENDENT FILM CENTER 145 Ninth St, SF; www.artwithimpact.org. Free. Slingshot Hip-Hop (Salloum, 2008), Thurs, 6.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Alternative Visions:” El Valley Centro (Benning, 1999), Wed, 7:30. “Romani Culture:” The Shutka Book of Records (Manic, 2005), Thurs, 7:30. “Southern (Dis)Comfort: The American South in Film:” House by the River (Lang, 1950), Fri, 7; The Fugutive Kind (Lumet, 1960), Fri, 8:50. “Abbas Kiarostami: The Fragility of Life:” And Life Goes On… (1992), Sat, 6 and Sun, 3. “Jeanne Moreau: Enduring Allure:” Jules and Jim (Truffaut, 1961), Sat, 8; Touchez pas au grisbi (Becker, 1953), Sun, 4:50. “Kino-Eye: The Revolutionary Cinema of Dziga Vertov:” Stride, Soviet! (The Moscow Soviet in the Present, Past, and Future) (1926), Tues, 7.

PALACE OF FINE ARTS 3301 Lyon, SF; (415) 554-0525, www.americanindianfilminstitute.com. Free-$20. “36th Annual American Indian Film Festival,” Thurs-Sat.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-9.75. “3rd I International South Asian Film Festival:” Big in Bollywood (Bowles and Meehan, 2011), Wed, 7:20; “The Family Circus: Local Short Films,” Thurs, 7:20; Ashes (Naidu, 2010), Thurs, 9:30; Patang (Bhargava, 2010), Fri, 7:20; Semshook (Kumar, 2010), Fri, 9:45; Flying Fish (Pushpakumara, 2011), Sun, noon; Way of Life (Driver, 2011), Sun, 12:20; The Boxing Ladies (Nandakumar, 2011), plus shorts, Sun, 2:30; The Image Threads (Vijay, 2010), Sun, 2:40; Play Like a Lion: The Legacy of Maestro Ali Akbar Khan (Mellars, 2011), Sun, 4:30; What Is Time? (Pasha, 2009), Sun, 6; Pudhupettai (Selvaraghavan, 2006), Sun, 7:20. More info at thirdi.org/festival. Gainsbourg: The Man Who Loved Women (Forneri, 2011), Wed-Thurs, 7, 9. “International BowWow Doggy Film Festival,” Sat, 12:30. This event, $10-90. Public Speaking (Scorsese, 2010), Mon-Tues, 7, 8:45.

SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY Koret Auditorium, 100 Larkin, SF; www.sfpl.org. Free. “Bay Area Community Cinema Series:” We Still Live Here (Makepeace, 2011), Tues, 5:45.

VORTEX ROOM 1082 Howard, SF; www.myspace.com/thevortexroom. $5 donation. “The Vortex Incarnate:” •Bedazzled (Donen, 1967), Thurs, 9, and The Car (Silverstein, 1977), Thurs, 11.

WALT DISNEY FAMILY MUSEUM 104 Montgomery, the Presidio, SF; www.waltdisney.org. $12-20. “The 11th Hour: A Sampling of Shorts from World War II,” Fri, repeats throughout the day starting at 11am.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. Urbanized (Hustwit, 2011), Wed-Thurs, 4, 6, 8. “Manila! Manila!”, reading and screening with author R. Zamora Linmark, Fri, 7 (free event). The Dream of Eleuteria (Zuasola, 2010), Sat, 7:30; Sun, 2.

On the Cheap Listings

Andrew Lam
-
0

Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

WEDNESDAY 9

Food For Thought Dine-Out Various locations, SF. www.missiongraduates.org. 9 a.m. – 11 p.m., prices vary (check website for participating restaurants). Mission Graduates, a nonprofit working to boost the numbers of college-bound Mission youngsters, receives a sizeable chunk of participating diners’ bills tonight at eateries across town. Depending on your budget, today’s the day to either go all-out at Foreign Cinema or reignite your love affair with the humble Papalote burrito.

“Trading Ideas: Emerging Discourses on Asian Contemporary Art” Galley One, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF. www.ybca.org. 6:30 – 8:30 p.m., $7, free for members. YBCA and the Asian Art Museum team up to explore Asia’s role within the contemporary art picture.

“Unwrapped and Regifted: Stories about the Holidays” 111 Minna gallery, SF. (415) 974-1719, www.111minnagallery.com, free. The story-sharers at LitUp Writers know that it’s not even Thanksgiving, and on shopping center time that means the hour is nigh for Christmas and Chanukah tales. If you think you can take the heat, don your worst holiday sweater to compete for a cash prize.

THURSDAY 10

One and Only: the Untold Story of On the Road book reading Booksmith, 1644 Haight, SF. www.booksmith.com. 7:30 p.m., free. LuAnne Henderson rambled with Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady for the entire length of that well-known Road. Her daughter, Anne Marie Santos, joins Kerouac expert Gerald Nicosia to discuss the journey’s underside.

Love Cake Reading Modern Times, 2919 24th St., SF. www.mtbs.com. 7 p.m., free. Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha may not be the easiest name to type into Google, but it merits a cramped finger or two. The activist and spoken-word poet reads from recent work addressing how queer people of color combat violence with compassion and sexuality.

Footloose Forays Talk Randall Museum, 199 Museum Way, SF. www.randallmuseum.org. 7:30 – 9 p.m., free. Michael Ellis’s bio photo shows the man in a backwards pink baseball cap, matching shirt, and dangling binoculars. This may aptly sum him up. Join the freewheeling botanist, Burner, world traveler, and radio host for a recounting of his best adventures.

FRIDAY 11

Legends of Hip-Hop book signing Booksmith, 1644 Haight, SF. www.booksmith.com. 6:30 p.m., free. With a lovingly-penned forward by Chuck D of Public Enemy, Justin Bua’s compilation of art honoring hip-hop’s greats breathes new life into the traditional coffee table book.

Celebration of Craftswomen Festival Pavilion, Fort Mason, SF. Also Sat/12 and Sun/13. www.celebrationofcraftswomen.org. 10 a.m. – 5 p.m., $9. The 33rd annual fair and celebration brings SF’s craftiest females and their wares out on display, accompanied by live music and dance. Proceeds benefit the Mission’s eye-poppingly beautiful Women’s Building.

SATURDAY 12

Green Festival Concourse Exhibition Center, 635 8th St., SF. Also Sun/13. www.greenfestivals.org. 10 a.m. – 7 p.m., free (see conditions below). Maybe the 12 pounds of organic garbanzo beans you just bought do have an immediate use, after all. Bring a Rainbow Grocery receipt (for a purchase of more than ten dollars), four cans of food, your bike, your Sierra Club card or a union card and get free admission to the green equivalent of a state fair. Food court, beer garden, yoga classes, business seminars, speakers, and exhibits await.

Paul Madonna book signing Museum Store, SFMOMA, 151 Third St., SF. www.sfmoma.org. 2 p.m., free. If this well-known SF cartoonist has luminously sketched your cupola, gable, or neighborhood pothole you know you have bragging rights. Everything Is Its Own Reward, Madonna’s latest compilation of SF streetscapes, roams from mundane telephone wires to noble turrets, all in pen and ink.

Writers with Drinks The Make Out Room, 3225 22nd St., SF. www.makeoutroom.com. 7:30 – 9:30 p.m., $5 sliding scale. Authors swig and shoot the breeze with their audience at this recurrent event, which benefits the Center for Sex and Culture this month. Befitting of the cause of the evening, tonight’s lineup includes writers responsible for an erotic novella, a transsexual showbiz memoir, and a treatise on dating as a feminist.

SUNDAY 13

“Man as Object” Peep Show Drawing Circle SOMArts Cultural Center, 934 Brannan, SF. www.somarts.org. Noon – 3 p.m., $8 suggested donation. All our welcome to take up their artistic tools and depict a live male model as part of SOMArts’ ongoing exhibit turning traditional gender roles upside down — although we tend to question the innovation of having a man treated like a piece of meat in this town.

MONDAY 14

Mere Future Reading and Signing Pegasus Books, 2349 Shattuck, Berk. www.pegasusbookstore.com. 7:30 p.m., free. To an audience familiar with paying astronomical rents, Sarah Schulman’s dystopian satire of a future New York will strike a chord. Schulman slyly invents a world where apartments go for forty bucks a month and the only possible jobs are in marketing.

TUESDAY 15

Ether Reading and Signing City Lights, 261 Columbus, SF. www.citylights.com. 7 p.m., free. Ben Ehrenreich once reimagined The Odyssey to critical acclaim, and his latest undertaking – the chronicle of an unnamed protagonist wandering through a city’s violent apocalypse – is no less involved of a literary feat.

Rhythm nations

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
0
Rhythm nations

DANCE Watched over by two pink carousel horses, a rainbow. and a big lotus flower, they sway, stomp, and slide even as they chant, clap, and body slap in increasingly complex rhythms. They are SlamDance, Keith Terry’s sextet of musician-dancers, and they are rehearsing their upcoming performance at the fourth International Body Music Festival, held this year at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

Last year, the (free) festival took place in São Paulo, Brazil; next October it will happen (also free) in Istanbul, Turkey. “Free performances [are] something we could never do in this country,” Terry ruefully observes. Still, the plan is to have a local festival (2011 tickets start at $25) every other year.

Terry, who organized the first festival in 2008, started out as a percussionist. He was the first drummer for the Jazz Tap Ensemble, and he is a founding member of Berkeley’s Gamelan Sekar Jaya. So the beat has been in his body for a very long time — yet early in his career he changed from “a seated musician to a moving musician,” as he calls himself. Using one’s body as a musical instrument, he says, sometimes is called “body percussion” or “body drumming.” Terry prefers the term “body music” because it includes melodic and harmonic aspects as well as its rhythmic components. SlamDance performers, for instance, use their voices to percussive effect as well as in simple part-singing.

Using your body to make music is pretty basic. We all do it, perhaps starting as toddlers with patty-cake, progressing into clapping games at recess, and ending up as oldsters who play the spoons. Much of these practices go back to folkways rooted in ritualistic endeavors. But there are also innovations: the gumboot dance, for instance, was developed by South African miners early in the 20th century, while African American fraternities popularized a particular form of step-dancing.

Body music is both a communal practice with a sense of freedom even as it demands great discipline and precision. “That’s what makes it fun,” Terry explains. Often it integrates improvisation and fixed passages, not unlike what happens in both hip-hop and jazz.

Noticeable from a dance perspective is the SlamDancers’ slight sway in the torso. “It helps with the breathing,” Terry notes, though he was surprised to see how practices change from culture to culture.

“One of the things that fascinates me about these festivals is how differently these musicians, who come from all over the world, carry themselves. It was one of the most profound experiences with my first body music festival because we are, basically, all just clapping and stepping. It’s definitely a cultural thing. You put a French group next to a Brazilian one and you can immediately see the difference.”

One of the first groups Terry identified with as kindred spirits was Çudamani, an astounding troupe of male dancer-musicians from Bali. They perform kecak, a rhythmic, chanting-and-swaying “monkey dance” that originated in trance rituals. Six of its dancers bring new choreography as part of this year’s International Body Music Festival line-up, which features a total of eleven companies.

Others include the theatrical Cambuyón, from the Canary Islands, which integrates tap and hip-hop into other percussive forms, and Kantu Korpu, which draws on flamenco and tap to translate regional Greek music into motion. Both of these groups are making their US debut. KeKeÇa’s five performers interpret Turkish songs within Near Eastern movement traditions. Fernando Barba from Brazil draws from samba and maracatu; Danny “Slapjazz” Barber is a hambone virtuoso; the Las Vegas-based group Molodi pulls in theater and just about everything with a beat. A gentler soul is Quebec’s Éric Beaudry, who will also team up with a trio of Oakland step dancers.

 

INTERNATIONAL BODY MUSIC FESTIVAL

Fri/4-Sat/5, 8 p.m.; Sun/6, 2 p.m., $25–$50

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF.

www.internationalbodymusicfestival.com

Rep Clock

Andrew Lam
-
0

Schedules are for Wed/2-Tues/8 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features are marked with a •. All times p.m. unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $6. Yanqui Walker and the Optical Revolution (Ramey, 2010), plus works by Jesse Lerner and others, Sat, 8.

BALBOA 3630 Balboa, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $10-20. Super Natural (2011), Thurs, 7:15. Big-wave surfing doc. The Bolshoi Re-Opening Gala, Moscow (2011), Sat-Sun, 10am.

CALIFORNIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY MUSEUM 678 Mission, SF; (415) 357-1848, www.californiahistoricalsociety.org. Free. “Manzanar Fishing Club: A New Film Documenting the Untold Story of the Largest Mass Detention in U.S. history,” select clips and discussion with filmmakers, Thurs, 5:30.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-15. •Rebel Without a Cause (Ray, 1955), Wed, 3, 7, and Bigger Than Life (Ray, 1956), Wed, 5, 9:05. •In a Lonely Place (Ray, 1950), Thurs, 3:10, 7, and Party Girl (Ray, 1958), Thurs, 4:55, 8:55. Warren Miller’s Like There’s No Tomorrow (2011), Fri, 8. This screening, $20; more info at www.warrenmiller.com.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.75-10.25. Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life (Star, 2010), Wed-Thurs, call for times. The Bolshoi Re-Opening Gala, Moscow (2011), Sun, 1:30 and Tues, 7.

COUNTERPULSE CounterPulse, 1310 Mission, SF; www.sftff.org. $12-15. “10th Annual San Francisco Transgender Film Festival,” Thurs, 8 (performances); Fri-Sat, 8 (films).

EMBARCADERO One Embarcadero Center, Promenade Level, SF; (415) 554-0525, www.americanindianfilminstitute.com. Free-$20. “36th Annual American Indian Film Festival,” Nov 4-9. Festival continues Nov 10-12 at the Palace of Fine Arts, 3301 Lyon, SF.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Alternative Visions:” The Unstable Object (Eisenberg, 2011), Wed, 7:30. “Jeanne Moreau: Enduring Allure:” Bay of Angels (Demy, 1962), Thurs, 7; Elevator to the Gallows (Malle, 1958), Fri, 7; The Lovers (Malle, 1958), Fri, 8:50. “Abbas Kiarostami: The Fragility of Life:” Where Is the Friend’s Home? (1987), Sat, 6 and Sun, 5. “Special Screening:” Red Desert (Antonioni, 1964), Sat, 8. “Kino-Eye: The Revolutionary Cinema of Dziga Vertov:” Kino-Eye (1924), Sun, 2; The Man with a Movie Camera (1929), Tues, 7.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-9.75. Mindglow (Wohl and Svedas, 2011), Wed, 7:30. With live performances by Bronze and Limosine. Gainsbourg: The Man Who Loved Women (Forneri, 2011), Wed-Thurs, 7, 9. A Hard Day’s Nightmare, Thurs, 7, 9:30. “Not Necessarily Noir:” The Killers (Siegel, 1964), Fri, 6:15, 9:50; Play Misty For Me (Eastwood, 1971), Fri, 8; Brainstorm (Conrad, 1965), Sat, 3:15, 7:45; Blow Out (De Palma, 1981), Sat, 1, 5:40, 9:55; Johnny Guitar (Ray, 1954), Sun, 3:30, 7:30; Female on the Beach (Pevney, 1955), Sun, 1:45, 5:40, 9:40; Teenage Gang Debs (Johnson, 1966), Mon, 8; Girl Gang (Dertano, 1954), Mon, 6:40, 9:40; Jail Bait (Wood, 1954), Tues, 6; Glen or Glenda? (Wood, 1953), Tues, 7:30; Plan 9 From Outer Space (Wood, 1959), Tues, 8:45. Ed Wood screenings hosted by Johnny Legend.

SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY McKenna Theater, 1600 Holloway, SF. “Contact: The Reel and the Real: Humanity’s Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence:” Contact (Zemeckis, 1997), Wed, 6. With astronomer Jill Tarter, inspiration for Jodie Foster’s Contact character, in person; this event, free and more info at www.bayareascience.org. Knuth Hall, 1600 Holloway, SF. In the Wrong Body (Solaya, 2010), Thurs, 7. This event, $10 and more info at www.freethefive.org.

SFFS | NEW PEOPLE CINEMA 1746 Post, SF; www.sffs.org. $12-20. “French Cinema Now:” The Screen Illusion (Amalric, 2011), Wed, 5; Le Havre (Kaurismäki, 2011), Wed, 7; Angèle and Tony (Delaporte, 2010), Wed, 9. “Cinema By The Bay:” I Think It’s Raining (Moore, 2011), Thurs, 9:30; “Baywatch!,” shorts program, Fri, 7; The Bat (West, 1926), with a live performance of a new score by Ava Mendoza, Fri, 9:30; “WeOwnTV: Freetown in the Bay,” shorts program, Sat. 2; “Essential SF: Canyon Cinema,” shorts program, Sat, 4:30; The Price of Sex (Chakarova, 2011), Sat, 6:45; Where’s My Stuff? (Burbank, 2011), Sat, 9 and Sun, 4:15; “Reel SF,” shorts program, Sun, 2; “SF360.org Presents: Essential SF,” shorts program, Sun, 7. VORTEX ROOM 1082 Howard, SF; www.myspace.com/thevortexroom. $5 donation. “The Vortex Incarnate:” •Asylum of Satan (Girdler, 1975), Thurs, 9, and The Devil and Max Devlin (Stern, 1981), Thurs, 11. YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. Urbanized (Hustwit, 2011), Nov 4-10, 4, 6, 8 (also Sat/5-Sun/6, 2).

Our Weekly Picks November 2-8

Andrew Lam
-
0

WEDNESDAY 2

“The Unstable Object”

The PFA hosts the West Coast premiere of The Unstable Object, a mysterious, precisely observed work by Daniel Eisenberg. Nearly wordless (but densely aural), the film surveys three work sites: a glassy Volkswagen plant in Germany which doubles as a tourist destination; a Chicago clock producer staffed by the blind; and the alchemical Zildjian Cymbal factory in Istanbul. Occasionally surreal and completely engrossing, the film poetically analyzes differing degrees of labor and manual reproduction. Tomorrow night Eisenberg visits Yerba Buena Center for the Arts to present his film Persistence (1997) and to continue a conversation with Jeffrey Skoller, a UC Berkeley scholar who has edited a new critical anthology on Eisenberg’s work. (Max Goldberg)

7:30 p.m., $11

Pacific Film Archive

2575 Bancroft, Berk.

(510) 642-1412

www.bampfa.berkeley.edu

www.sfcinematheque.org


THURSDAY 3

Fruit Bats

Starting out life as a lo-fi project of Eric D. Johnson (who has stints behind him as a member of the Shins, among other bands) in the mid 1990s, the Fruit Bats came together as an working live band around the turn of the millennium, and has had somewhat of an open/revolving door of a lineup since — but its releases continue to get better and better. The group’s music is full of joyously simple , yet infectiously catchy folk-esque tunes, mixed with a touch of country-fried Southern rock and brightly sung sweet melodies — Johnson keeps the successful formula going on the group’s most recent release, Tripper (Sub Pop), which dropped earlier this year. (Sean McCourt)

With Parson Red Heads

9 p.m., $15

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

(415) 885-0750

www.gamh.com

 

Unknown Mortal Orchestra

Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s eponymous debut has to be one of my favorite albums of 2011. The brainchild of Portland, Ore., via New Zealand rocker Ruban Nielson, Unknown Mortal Orchestra is like listening to a crate of dusty, warped ’60s psych and Motown records after ingesting a couple mind-altering substances. It may have originated in Portland, but I can’t imagine a place more suited to this fuzzy drugged out basement-pop than San Francisco. Come get weird. (Frances Capell)

With Gauntlet Hair and Popscene DJs 9 p.m., $12–<\d>$14 Rickshaw Stop 155 Fell, SF (415) 861-2011 www.rickshawstop.com

 

Mastodon

Mastodon didn’t please everyone with Crack the Skye, its astral-projecting 2009 concept album, but the band isn’t really in the pleasing business. Ever since mid-aughts underground success propelled the Atlanta quartet into the major label limelight, Mastodon has stuck to its wildly inventive, idiosyncratic guns. Pivoting away from Crack‘s epic song structures and complicated arrangements, The Hunter, released this fall, is an infectious smorgasbord of taut, focused songwriting, heavy on vocal hooks provided by the band’s three singers (guitarist Brent Hinds, bassist Troy Sanders, and drummer Brann Dailor). Lyrical topics range from meth-addled lumberjacks to lonely octopi, but the star of the show is Mastodon’s boundless, yet disciplined creativity. No note, no matter how unexpected or bizarre, feels out of place. (Ben Richardson)

With the Dillinger Escape Plan and Red Fang

8 p.m., $30

Warfield

982 Market, SF

(415) 345-0900

www.thewarfieldtheatre.com

 

San Francisco Transgender Film Festival

One of the greatest things about San Francisco is that there’s a film festival for everyone: green activists, dog lovers, anti-corporate crusaders, horror fiends, outdoor enthusiasts, kung fu fans, and dozens more. Basically, if you can’t find a festival that excites you, you probably don’t actually like movies. This week alone there’s “Not Necessarily Noir” at the Roxie, the San Francisco Film Society’s “Cinema By the Bay,” the American Indian Film Festival (see Fri/4), and the San Francisco Transgender Film Festival. Step out tonight to check out a performance honoring the Transgender fest’s 10th anniversary, with artistic director Shawna Virago among those taking the stage. The films kick in this weekend, showcasing two shorts programs from across the globe; all have a transgender element in common, but topics range from boxing, boobs, and bunnies to the search for true love. (Cheryl Eddy)

Through Sat/5

8 p.m., $12–$15

CounterPulse

1310 Mission, SF

www.sftff.org


FRIDAY 4

American Indian Film Festival

Hollywood loves to depict indigenous people as creatures who exist only in the past, battling cowboys or stepping forth to offer solemn life lessons to the likes of Kevin Costner. The American Indian Film Festival, now in its 36th year, offers ample cinematic evidence to the contrary, with a jam-packed week of programming. Ok, there’s a Western — supernatural frontier tale Yellow Rock — but there are also documentaries (Wild Horses and Renegades, about the Bureau of Land Management’s controversial stance on wild horses), a thriller set in deepest Alaska (On the Ice, which won “Best Debut Film” at the Berlin International Film Festival), and opening night family drama Every Emotion Costs, a Canadian film making its US premiere. (Eddy)

Nov. 4-12, free–$20

Embarcadero Cinema

One Embarcadero Center, Promenade Level, SF

Palace of Fine Arts

3301 Lyon, SF

(415) 554-0525

www.americanindianfilminstitute.com


FRIDAY 4

 

“Cat Lady”

Performance artist, writer, and serious prankster Kristina Wong has a way with stereotypes (cf. her mail-order-bride site, bigbadchinesemama.com), but her work defies categories by virtue of the brilliant wit, creative reach, and restless iconoclasm informing such acclaimed pieces as Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (about the high incidence of suicide among Asian American women) and Going Green the Wong Way (which made its Bay Area debut in July). The SF-born, LA-based Wong normally flies solo, but in her anticipated return to San Francisco this weekend, she unveils her first full-length ensemble piece, a work bringing together “animal psychics, aggressive pick-up artists and musty cat ladies” in a hilarious and unsettling exploration of connection at the social and sexual margins. (Robert Avila)

Fri/4-Sat/5, 8 p.m., Sun/6, 7 p.m.; $17–$20

ODC Theater

3153 17th St., SF

(415) 863-9834

www.odctheater.org

 

Wild Flag

Wild Flag’s self-titled debut, released in September on Merge, is a breath of fresh air from the former members of Sleater-Kinney (Carrie Brownstein, Janet Weiss), Helium (Mary Timony), and the Minders (Rebecca Cole). As tested rockers from Portland, Ore. and Washington D.C. who’ve been playing in bands and listening to them for years (Brownstein also had a blog at NPR Music), Wild Flag’s tough pop rock feels decidedly different from other new bands out today — in other words, not esoteric indie rock awash in reverb. Wild Flag is vivacious, accessible, and catchy. It delivers a multifarious punch of classic hard rock, punk, and post-hardcore that’s downright fun to listen to. And if there’s ever been a great live band, it’s Wild Flag; these women grew up on stage.(James H. Miller)

With Drew Grow & the Pastors’ Wives

Through Sat/5

9 p.m., $19

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

(415) 885-0750

www.gamh.com

 

Das Racist

Das Racist is a tough act to define. It’s weed rap; it’s social commentary. It’s catchy and fun; it’s edgy and subversive. Or, as Himanshu Suri (a.k.a. Heems) and Victor Vazquez (a.k.a. Kool AD) put it, they’re not joking — just joking — they are joking. Since the pair first broke into the hip-hop scene with silly cyber-hit “Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell,” Das Racist has released two hugely successful mixtapes and an album, Relax (Greedhead). Suri and Vazquez may be joking, but with remarkably astute lyrics and a crazy amount of talent, Das Racist is taking over the rap game in a very serious way. (Capell)

With Boots Riley (sitting in with Das Racist), Danny Brown, and Despot

8 p.m., $25

Ruby Skye

420 Mason, SF

(415) 693-0777

www.rubyskye.com


SATURDAY 5

SF Symphony Dia de los Muertos

There is musically much more to Day of the Dead than the ominous-humorous beating of drums, the rustle of voluminous skirts through ofrenda-dotted parks, and the clackity-clack of dancing skeletons bumping knees. There is singing at the symphony! Mexican tenor David Lomelí will join the players in a festive, family-oriented afternoon of favorites like “Besame Mucho,” “Granada,” and works by Mexican composers. Starting at 1 p.m., the colorful Ensambles Ballet Folklórico de San Francisco and musical group Vinikai will lead a procession into Davies Symphony Hall, where musically themed altars will be on display. Plus, complimentary pan de muerto from Bay Baking Co and Mexican hot chocolate will be served, eliciting a few shouts of “Yum!” (Marke B.)

1 p.m. procession, 2 p.m. performance, $15–$68

Davies Symphony Hall

201 Van Ness, SF.

(415) 552-8338

www.sfsymphony.org

 

DaM-Funk and Master Blazter

The last few times DaM-Funk was in town for shows — a DJ set at Som Bar; an incredible but barely remembered 45 party at Public Works to cap off Noise Pop — it wasn’t the full deal. Now the ambassador of boogie will cap off his fall tour with live accompaniment from Master Blazter, strapping on the shoulder synth to accomplish his main goal: throwing a party where everyone gets down. And there’s a good chance DaM-Funk has picked up some new old school tricks producing former Slave frontman Steve Arrington’s new album which comes out this month, Love, Peace, and Funky Beats. (Ryan Prendiville)

With Matthew David, Devon Who, and Sweater Funk DJs

9 p.m., $20

Mezzanine

444 Jessie, SF

(415) 625-8880

www.mezzaninesf.com


SUNDAY 6

“Beyond This Place” with live soundtrack

It makes sense that Sufjan Stevens would compose the soundtrack for Kaleo La Belle’s documentary Beyond This Place. The two have been friends since childhood and the documentary is personal. After 30 years of estrangement, La Belle and his stubborn hippie father, Cloud Rock, embark on a 500-mile bike excursion where La Belle hopes he’ll learn whether there’s an inextricable bond between himself and Cloud Rock — a man without guilt, regret, or compassion. At the Castro Theater, Beyond This Place screens with a live soundtrack performance by Sufjan Stevens and Castanets’ Ray Raposa; a Q&A with La Belle follows. (Miller)

7:30 p.m., $25

Castro Theater

429 Castro, SF

(415) 621-6120

www.castrotheater.com


TUESDAY 8

North Sky Cello Ensemble

When the Yeah Yeah Yeahs burst onto the indie rock scene in 2003, singer Karen O and guitarist Nick Zinner were so fashionable and seductive that I couldn’t quite relate to the coolness of it all. I preferred Brian Chase, who looked like a 1980s tech guy by comparison. Besides, the classically trained drummer played phenomenally. All three members have been working on projects outside the Yeah Yeah Yeahs lately. O wrote a “psycho opera,” Zinner has been doing photography, and Chase? He’s been pounding at the drums with the North Sky Cello Ensemble, a collection of classical musicians whose players have supported the likes of Beyonce and Elton John. How would, say, Debussy sound with a killer rhythm section? (Miller)

8 p.m., free

Brick and Mortar Music Hall

1710 Mission, SF

(415) 800-8782

www.brickandmortarmusic.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.

Rep Clock

Andrew Lam
-
0

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Marc Bamuthi Joseph gets the green movement to live, already

Andrew Lam
-
0

Consider, if you will, the prosaic class issues in the green movement. The price of BART vs. driving, the utility of feeding one’s children McDonald’s after one’s shift is order so you can play with them outside the kichen, the inconvinient truth of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Now add race, and stir. 

Dancer-community activist-poet Marc Bamuthi Joseph did. The result was the Life is Living festival, which he stages in underserved ‘hoods throughout the country (and took place in West Oakland Oct. 8). The festival’s amazing, but its creation was a journey — which Bamuthi has brilliantly set to stage with dancing and singing at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts through Sat/22. It’s called red, black & GREEN: a blues“I’ve got this male Liz Gilbert eat-pray-hip-hop kind of thing,” recounts Bamuthi onstage during opening night at YBCA. Around him, bisected sharecropper’s cabins swing open and shut, revealing their innards and front porches by turns. The set was made from repurposed materials and clay by Theaster Gates (new favorite name), who is participating in double-time — Gates is one of three supporting characters in the play, mainly contributing those eponymous blues in a rich voice from a porch.

Bamuthi’s flip remark (it reaps a guffaw from the audience, one of many garnered from the play’s dealings with race and class) evokes the difficulties that he and his “do-gooder” team faced in cobbling together Life is Living. Originally meant as an eco-festival — Bamuthi’s account of meeting with New Age Oakland environmental activists is gold — the group shifted the traveling events focus to “the celebration of living.” 

The cast of red, black & GREEN: the blues. Photo by Bethanie Hines

The play could be read as an explanation of why this transformation took play. In the scene that serves as the performance’s chorus, repeating through the play, Bamuthi talks to a grieving mom about his festival. “I ask a mother about environment/She tells me of guns/Of emotionally disabled boys.”

She’s got bigger fish to fry than hydroponic gardens. As does a sculptor: “He speaks to me of misters/Old men gathered to pastime/Play young/men games/Share news/Insult/Seed comfort/Cultivate friendship.” A freezing crackhead in the New York winter: “I’m calling collect from tomorrow/track riding.”

And you forget you’re being taught (Bamuthi is fond of likening himself to a 10th grade teacher) because it’s all gorgeous, real artists doing their real artist things. Characters recreate sunny day hip-hop cut-ups, but they also morph their bodies to evoke addiction, old age — two miraculous transformations that showcase the talent in their bodies through the way they restrict their own mobility.

Asking about “what sustains life” instead of “what is sustainable” could be an important cognitive shift for the green movement — one that would reactivate the choir and provide an entry point for people just coming to the green movement. Bamuthi was a featured artist for the NAACP’s centennial anniversary celebration during Barack Obama’s inauguration exercises. President Obama… I hear you’re having some PR troubles. Were you listening to this guy? 

 

red, black & GREEN: a blues

Thu/20-Sat/22 7:30 p.m., $10-$25

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-2787

www.ybca.org

The right combination

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
0
The right combination

arts@sfbg.com

DANCE Deborah Slater Dance Theater celebrated its 20th anniversary last year; for the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company, 2011 is its 38th season. The two choreographers have had enviable careers both locally and nationally. By now they know what they are doing. Or do they? Are there roads not yet taken?

Talking with both of them on the eve of their latest premieres — Slater’s Night Falls October 21 at ODC Theater, Jenkins’ Light Moves November 3 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts — it is striking about how enthusiastic they are about the unknown. At this point in the rehearsal process they have an idea where the new pieces are going, yet they are also conscious of how fragile, risky, and exciting this whole art-making endeavor still is — particularly when it involves new collaborators.

The two women have much experience working closely with dancers, writers, designers, and composers. They are particularly committed to soliciting, and acknowledging, the contributions that dancers make in developing the movement material. But here they are both stepping into unknown territory, pushing their processes into new dimensions.

In Night Slater takes on the subject of aging. It’s a particularly poignant topic for dancers who are considered over the hill by the time they are 40. As is her want, Slater has done her research. Besides doing a lot of reading, she hosted a series of get-togethers with women between 30 and 80 who discussed the subject from a kaleidoscope of perspectives — physical, emotional, social, psychological. They provided welcome information but also elevated the topic beyond the level of personal experience.

The biggest input, however, came from an old friend, playwright-director Julie Hébert, with whom Slater worked early in her career as a soloist. Though the two have never collaborated on a company project, they have had many fruitful conversations over the years. Hébert wrote the script for Night featuring a heroine, Peregrine, who (Hébert and Slater agreed) would be realized by two male and four female performers. Each one, says Slater, acts his or her own age.

Jenkins’ new collaborator is visual artist Naomie Kremer, whose paintings and multi-media work she has admired for years. Jenkins recognized its theatrical potential when she saw Kremer’s video set for the 2008 Berkeley Opera production of Bluebeard’s Castle. In a preview last year, the video environment for Light looked sometimes saturated with color but airy and always luminous — in part, perhaps, because video depends on direct, and not reflected light.

Collaborating with Kremer provided Jenkins, who calls herself hopelessly monolingual, with the opportunity of learning a “new language.” Kremer imposes strong visual rhythms and cadences on what she does; her art dances even on a flat canvass. So to create a piece about the trajectory of daylight as it changes while traveling from dawn to dusk, the two artists had to juxtapose two different kinetic languages.

So what are the particular challenges that Slater and Jenkins are facing in working with these new collaborators? For Slater it is the fact that only one of her performers is a trained dancer. Over the years, she always worked with dancers who express themselves well in words and movement. Actors, apparently, want to use movement on a one-to-one basis with words. The two mediums are different, Slater says, “but they are learning. It’s all coming together.”

Her fellow choreographer has experienced a similar shift in her idea-sharing process: “I have learned to be much more articulate and precise in communicating my observations,” Jenkins says. Night Falls and Light Moves sound like they just might be companion pieces. *

NIGHT FALLS

Fri/21-Sat/22 and Oct. 27-29, 8 p.m.; Sun/23 and Oct. 30, 2 p.m., $17-$20

ODC Theater

3153 17th St., SF

(415) 863-9834

www.deborahslater.org

LIGHT MOVES

Nov. 3-5, 8 p.m., $25-$30

Novellus Theater

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

700 Howard, SF

(415) 978-2787

www.ybca.org

 

Rep Clock

Andrew Lam
-
0

Schedules are for Wed/19-Tues/25 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features are marked with a •. All times p.m. unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $7-35. ATA Film and Video Festival: opening reception, Wed, 7; short film screenings, Thurs-Fri, 8; Super 8 film workshop, Sun, 1-4. “Other Cinema:” “Anomalies of the Archive,” Sat, 8:30.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-15. •Rosemary’s Baby (Polanski, 1968), Wed, 2:20, 7, and Inferno (Argento, 1980), Wed, 4:50, 9:30. “Berlin and Beyond Film Festival:” Almanya: Welcome to Germany (Samdereli, 2011), Thurs, 7; Mount St. Elias (Salmina, 2009), Fri, 3:30; Joschka & Mr. Fischer (Danquart, 2011), Fri, 6; How About Love (Haupt), Fri, 9:15; Winter’s Daughter (Schmid), Sat, 1 and Mon, 4; Little Alien (Kusturica, 2009), Sat, 3; The Poll Diaries (Kraus, 2010), Sat, 6:45; Sennentuntschi (Steiner, 2010), Sat, 6:45; The Tigerduck Gang (Probost), Sun, 11am; Face the Wall (Weinert, 2010), Sun, 1; The Fatherless (Kreutzer, 2011), Sun, 3:30; Bold Heroes (Schaerer), Sun, 6; The Day I Was Not Born (Cossen, 2010), Sun, 8:45; Stopped On Track (Dresen, 2011), Mon, 6:30; Klitschko (Dehnhardt, 2011), Mon, 9:15; Jane’s Journey (Knauer, 2010), Tues, 3:30; Remembrance (Justice, 2011), Tues, 6; The Sandman (Luisi, 2011), Tues, 8:30. For tickets (most shows $12) and more information, visit www.berlinbeyond.com.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.75-10.25. Call for program information.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; (415) 393-0100, rsvp@milibrary.org. $10 (reservations required as seating is limited). “CinemaLit Film Series: Discovering Myrna Loy:” Manhattan Melodrama (Van Dyke, 1934), Fri, 6.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Alternative Visions:” “Jordan Belson: Films Sacred and Profane” (1959-2005), Wed, 7:30. “The Outsiders: New Hollywood Cinema in the Seventies:” Bush Mama (Gerima, 1975), Thurs, 7; The Last Picture Show (Bogdanovich, 1971), Sat, 8:40. “Rainer Werner Fassbender: Two Great Epics:” Berlin Alexanderplatz, Parts IV-VII (1979-80), Fri, 7; Parts VIII-XI (1979-80), Sun, 2. “UCLA Festival of Preservation:” Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (Altman, 1982), Sat, 6:30. “Kino-Eye: The Revolutionary Cinema of Dziga Vertov:” “Kino-Pravda Nos. 14-17” (1922-23), Tues, 7.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-9.75. San Francisco Documentary Film Festival, through Oct 27. For tickets (most shows $11) and more info, visit www.sfindie.com. SFFS | NEW PEOPLE CINEMA 1746 Post, SF; www.sffs.org. $8-25. “NY/SF International Children’s Film Festival,” Sat-Sun, 10am. (This event also has programming Fri, 5pm, Premier Theater, Letterman Digital Arts Center, Presidio, SF). •An Injury to One (Wilkerson, 2002), Mon, 6:30, and “Orbit(film)” (curated by Mike Plante), Mon, 8. “Behind the Story: Under Suspicion,” presented by the Center for Investigative Reporting, Tues, 7. SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY Koret Auditorium, 100 Larkin, SF; www.sfpl.org. Free. “Thursdays at Noon Film Series: When Women Got the Vote:” •Suffragettes in the Silent Cinema (2008), Give the Ballot to the Mothers (1996), and The Sixth Star (2011), Thurs, noon. “Bay Area Community Cinema Series:” Deaf Jam (Lieff), Tues, 5:45. VORTEX ROOM 1082 Howard, SF; www.myspace.com/thevortexroom. $5 donation. “The Vortex Incarnate:” •Image of the Beast (Thompson, 1980), Thurs, 9, and Devil Dog: Hound of Hell (Harrington, 1978), Thurs, 11. YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. “Mexico Rising: The Films of Nicolás Pereda:” Juntos (Together) (2009), Thurs, 7:30; •Where Are Their Stories? (2007), and All Things Were Now Overtaken By Silence (2010), Sun, 2.

Stage Listings

Andrew Lam
-
0

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

THEATER

OPENING

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BAY AREA

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

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

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

ONGOING

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BAY AREA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

DANCE/PERFORMANCE

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

Rep Clock

Andrew Lam
-
0

Schedules are for Wed/12-Tues/18 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features are marked with a •. All times p.m. unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $6. “Other Cinema:” “Gerry Fialka’s PXL This 20!,” films made with the Fisher-Price PXL 2000, Sat, 8:30.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-15. •Dinner at Eight (Cukor, 1933), Wed, 2:50, 7, and Libeled Lady (Conway, 1936), Wed, 4:55, 9:05. Arab Film Festival: Egyptian Maidens (Amin, 2010), Thurs, 7:30. For tickets ($25) and complete festival information (festival runs through Oct 23 in SF, San Jose, and Berkeley), visit www.arabfilmfestival.org. •Fright Night (Holland, 1985), Fri, 7:30, and Child’s Play (Holland, 1988), Fri, 9:30. “Marc Huestis Presents:” The Bad Seed (LeRoy, 1956), noon, 7:30, 9. With star Patty McCormack in person at noon and 7:30pm shows; for tickets ($10-35), call (415) 863-0611 or visit www.ticketfly.com. •The Exorcist (Friedkin, 1973), Sun, 2:20, 7, and The Exorcist III (Blatty, 1990), Sun, 4:45, 9:25. Pearl Jam Twenty (Crowe, 2011), Tues, 8. Free screening presented by KQED; for reservations (recommended) visit kqed.org/pearljam.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. Mill Valley Film Festival, through Sun/16. Tickets (most shows $13.50) and more info at www.mvff.com.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; (415) 393-0100, rsvp@milibrary.org. $10 (reservations required as seating is limited). “CinemaLit Film Series: Discovering Myrna Loy:” Penthouse (Van Dyke, 1933), Fri, 6.

OAKLAND METRO OPERA HOUSE 630 Third St, Oakl; www.bloodsweatvinyl.com. $18. Blood, Sweat + Vinyl: DIY in the 21st Century (Thomas), Sat, 6. With performances by Oxbow and Evangelista, two of 20 bands featured in the documentary.

OAKLAND MUSEUM OF CALIFORNIA James Moore Theater, 1000 Oak, SF; www.museumca.org. Free with museum admission ($6-12). “Home Movie Day,” movies submitted by the public as well as from the African American Museum and Library at Oakland, Sat, 1-5.

ODDBALL FILM AND VIDEO 275 Capp, SF; (415) 558-8112, rsvp@oddballfilm.com. $10. “Media Ecology Soul Salon (MESS) with Joey Bishop (aka Ed Holmes),” rare film clips and interview with Holmes by Gerry Fialka, Fri, 8:30.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Paul Sharits: An Open Cinema:” “Paul Sharits: Midcareer Work” (1973-76), Wed, 7:30; “Late Work” (1975-82), Thurs, 7:30. “Rainer Werner Fassbender: Two Great Epics:” World on a Wire (1973), Fri, 7; Berlin Alexanderplatz, Parts I-III (1979-80), Sun, 2. “Home Movie Day:” “Amateur Night: Home Movies from American Archives,” Sat, 6:30. “UCLA Festival of Preservation:” Sleep, My Love (Sirk, 1948), Sat, 8:45. “Kino-Eye: The Revolutionary Cinema of Dziga Vertov:” “Kino-Pravda Nos. 9–11, 13 (Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow: A Film Poem Dedicated to the October Celebrations)” (1922), Tues, 7.

PIEDMONT 4186 Piedmont, Oakl; (510) 464-5980, www.landmarktheatres.com. $15. The Room (Wiseau, 2003), Fri-Sat, midnight. Director and star Tommy Wiseau and co-star Greg Sestero in person.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-9.75. American Teacher (Roth, 2011), Wed-Thurs, 8:45 (also Wed, 6:30). Sleep Furiously (Koppel, 2008), Wed-Thurs, 7, 9. San Francisco Documentary Film Festival, Oct 14-27. For tickets (most shows $11) and more info, visit www.sfindie.com.

SFFS | NEW PEOPLE CINEMA 1746 Post, SF; www.sffs.org. $13. “Taiwan Film Days:” Formosa Mambo (Wang, 2011), Fri, 7; Taivalu (Huang, 2011), Sat, 1:30; Pinoy Sunday (Ho, 2009), Sat, 4 and Sun, 7; You Are the Apple of My Eye (Giddens, 2011), Sat, 6; Honey Pupu (Chen, 2011), Sat, 9; The Coming of Tulku (Cheng), Sun, 1; Bear It (Cheng, 2011), Sun, 4:15; Ranger (Chienn, 2010), Sun, 9. SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY Koret Auditorium, 100 Larkin, SF; www.sfpl.org. Free. “Thursdays at Noon Film Series: When Women Got the Vote:” Iron-Jawed Angels (von Garnier, 2004), Thurs, noon. SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY Coppola Theater, 1700 Holloway, SF; cinema.sfsu.edu. Free. “SFSU MFA Film Screening,” Thurs, 7:30. VORTEX ROOM 1082 Howard, SF; www.myspace.com/thevortexroom. $5 donation. “The Vortex Incarnate:” •Masque of the Red Death (Corman, 1964), Thurs, 9, and Doctor Faustus (Burton and Coghill, 1967), Thurs, 11. YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. “Mexico Rising: The Films of Nicolás Pereda:” Summer of Goliath (2010), Thurs, 7:30 and Sun, 2.

Stage Listings

Andrew Lam
-
0

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

THEATER

OPENING

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

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

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

BAY AREA

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

ONGOING

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BAY AREA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

DANCE/PERFORMANCE

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

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

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

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

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

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

Really living at the Life is Living Festival (and now there’s a stage show too!)

Andrew Lam
-
0

Every once in awhile, an festival comes along that seems so seamless, so positive, and so needed that it’s like it sprang from the Bay Area gods. Such an event is the Life is Living Festival, which took over West Oakland’s De Fremery Park last Sat/8 in big, happy puppy pile of art and kids and music. “We began this, but as you can see, it’s expanded so that it’s kind of everyone’s thing now,” says Marc Bamuthi Joseph, the founder of the Life is Living organization which has overseen the event’s growth into yearly happenings in Harlem, Houston, and Harlem. Bamuthi, who helped start the Bay’s pioneering spoken word nonprofit Youth Speaks, seemed as gleeful to be out in the Oakland sunshine as the kids flipping head over heels at the padded beginner’s parkour course set up in one side of the park.

In another corner, a spoken word stage pedal-powered by the velo-minded geniuses of Rock the Bike. In another, a simple floor set up on the grass where drummers pounded away for an all-are-welcome dance show-and-tell. A woman in her forties gyrated joyously in precisely free African patterns. A kid that didn’t go up to my waist breakdanced to thunderous applause, finally sitting down in a folding chair just offstage, rubbing the spot on the back of his head that had just been supporting his entire body in an upside-down spin. 

In between stellar sets by Panamanian-cum-Oaklanders Los Rakas and Questlove, a man took the stage to vocalize what it seemed like many in the crowd were already feeling — that this day, with its serenity and family-friendly vibes, was a big deal for West Oakland. He talked about how we were all standing on a corridor of public land. Across the street was a senior citizen’s center. It was a Saturday and its doors were locked. Was this, the man asked the crowd, acceptable? He encouraged us all to utilize public land as something that could nurture community, not to let it lie fallow. 

Such was the overall message of Life is Living — doing stuff with what we have, while we strengthen our voices to ask for more. What we had wasn’t too shabby — a food justice information area, a health and wellness zone that offered free HIV testing, shows from local hip-hop duo the Coup and Haitian dance troupe Ra Ra Loumen. 

Not to mention another of the festival’s major draws: the Estria Invitational Graffiti Battle. Around the country, Bay Area graff legend Estria Miyashiro has been organizing themed graffiiti contests. Competitors hear the word of the day’s showdown (Saturday’s was “proud”) and create vivid works of aerosol cleverness in an alloted time. When the panel of expert street artist-judges had tallied up their impressions Los Angeles artist Vyal received the day’s top honors for the second year in a row. 

The feel-good event of the year, I’m calling it. And community organizers are in luck: Life is Living directors and artists have come together to produce a performance piece about the festival that will combine its environmental agency, a call to arms for members of underserved communities across the country, and the festival’s graffiti art for visual punch. It starts on Thursday at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Especially if you missed the message on Saturday, it’s a production that demands attention. 

 

“Red Black and Green: A Blues”

Thu/13-Sat/15 and Thu/20-Sat/22 7:30 p.m., $25 ($5 on Thursdays)

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-ARTS

www.ybca.org

 

Rep Clock

Andrew Lam
-
0

Schedules are for Wed/5-Tues/11 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features are marked with a •. All times p.m. unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $6. “Other Cinema:” program on the politics of social media, with works by Dominic Gagnon, Hrman Asselbergh, and others, Sat, 8:30.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-15. We Were Here (Weissman and Weber, 2011), Wed-Thurs, 7, 9:15 (also Wed, 2:30, 4:45). “Midnites for Maniacs: Monsters in Your Own Backyard:” •The Goonies (Donner, 1985), Fri, 7; The Hole 3D (Dante, 2009), Fri, 9:30; Gremlins 2: The New Batch (Dante, 1990), Fri, 11:59. Director Joe Dante in person; $15 for one or all three films. Pam Ann live performance, Sat, 7:30. This event, $35-30 at www.biggaycomedy.com. •Brighton Rock (Boulting Brothers, 1947) Sun, 1:15, 5:05, 9, and The Third Man (Reed, 1949), Sun, 3:05, 7. CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. Mill Valley Film Festival, Oct 6-16. Tickets (most shows $13.50) and more info at www.mvff.com.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; (415) 393-0100, rsvp@milibrary.org. $10 (reservations required as seating is limited). “CinemaLit Film Series: Discovering Myrna Loy:” The Animal Kingdom (Griffith, 1932), Fri, 6.

NINTH STREET INDEPENDENT FILM CENTER 145 Ninth St, SF; www.whatisloveproject.com. $10. “What Is Love Project Launch Party:” Who Leads and Love is Not Enough, Sat, 7:30.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Paul Sharits: An Open Cinema:” “Paul Sharits: Early Work” (1966-1971), Wed, 7:30. “A Theater Near You:” Went the Day Well? (Cavalcanti, 1942), Thurs, 7. “The Outsiders: New Hollywood Cinema in the Seventies:” Loose Ends (Morris and Wozniak, 1975), Fri, 7; Killer of Sheep (Burnett, 1977), Fri, 9; Badlands (Malick, 1973), Sat, 6:30; Mean Streets (Scorsese, 1973), Sat, 8:25. “UCLA Festival of Preservation:” Eve’s Leaves (Sloane, 1926), Sun, 4. “Anatolian Outlaw: Yilmaz Güney:” The Poor (Güney and Yilmaz, 1974), Sun, 5:35. “Kino-Eye: The Revolutionary Cinema of Dziga Vertov:” “Kino-Week Nos. 31-35” (Vertov, 1919), Tues, 7. ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-9.75. “TV Noir:” •”Test Flight: Program One,” Wed, 6:15, 9:45, and “Program Two,” Wed, 8; •”Sex, Drugs, and Dragnet,” Thurs, 6:15, 9:50, and “CrimeBusters!”, Thurs, 8. American Teacher (Roth, 2011), Oct 7-13, check website for showtimes. Sleep Furiously (Koppel, 2008), Oct 7-13 (no shows Tues/11), 7, 9 (also Sat-Sun, 3 and 5). “Bioneers Film Night:” !Women Art Revolution (Hershman Leeson, 2011), Tues, 8:15; YERT (Your Environmental Road Trip) (Dixon and Evans, 2011), Tues, 8:45. Tickets ($6.50-8) and more info at bioneers.org/conference. SAN FRANCISCO FILM SOCETY NEW PEOPLE CINEMA 1746 Post, SF; www.sffs.org. $15. “An Evening with Susan Orlean and Rin Tin Tin:” Clash of the Wolves (Smith, 1925), Sun, 7:30. Author Orlean in person with her book Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend. VORTEX ROOM 1082 Howard, SF; www.myspace.com/thevortexroom. $5 donation. “The Vortex Incarnate:” •The Devil’s Rain (Fuest, 1975), Thurs, 9, and Invitation to Hell (Craven, 1984), Thurs, 11. YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. “Cruel Cinema: New Directions in Tamil Films:” Naan Kadavul (I Am God) (Bala, 2009), Thurs, 6 and Sun, 9; Subramaniapuram (Sasikumar, 2008), Sat, 7 and Sun, 4.

Rep Clock

Andrew Lam
-
0

Schedules are for Wed/28-Tues/4 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double features are marked with a •. All times p.m. unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $7-9. “Under the Pavement,” five short films by Nara Denning, Thurs-Fri, 8. “Other Cinema:” Works by Sam Green, Peter Miller, Philip Stepp, and more, Sat, 8:30.

BALBOA 3620 Balboa, SF; www.balboamovies.com. $20. “Opera and Ballet at the Balboa:” •Class Concert and Giselle, performed by the Bolshoi Ballet, Wed, 7:30; Manon, performed by Gran Teatre del Liceu, Sat-Sun, 10am; Oct 5, 7:30.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-15. •The Long Goodbye (Altman, 1973), Wed, 2:40, 7, and California Split (Altman, 1974), Wed, 4:45, 9:05. The Tree of Life (Malick, 2011), Thurs, 2, 5, 8. We Were Here (Weissman and Weber, 2011), Sept 30-Oct 6, 7, 9:15 (also Sat and Oct 5, 2:30, 4:45).

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $5.50-10.25. The Hedgehog (Achache, 2010), call for dates and times. Love Crime (Corneau, 2010), call for dates and times. Mozart’s Sister (Féret, 2010), call for dates and times. Senna (Kapadia, 2011), call for dates and times. Rigoletto in Mantua, Thurs, 7, and Sun, 2. This event, $18. Happy (Belic, 2011), Sept 30-Oct 5, call for times. Passione: A Musical Adventure (Turturro, 2011), Sept 30-Oct 5, call for times. Trust: Second Acts in Young Lives (Kelly, 2010), Sun, 7. American Teacher (Roth, 2011), Tues, 7.

MAIN POST THEATRE LAWN 99 Moraga, Presidio, SF; www.sffs.org. Free. “Film in the Fog:” Dark Passage (Daves, 1947), with live music before the film by Grass Widow, Sat, 7:15.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; (415) 393-0100, rsvp@milibrary.org. $10 (reservations required as seating is limited). “CinemaLit Film Series: Euro Passages:” The Edge of Heaven (Akin, 2007), Fri, 6.

MISSION CULTURAL CENTER 2868 Mission, SF; (415) 821-1155, www.missionculturalcenter.org. $5-10. “Serbis: A Night of Film from the Filipino Diaspora,” Sun, 7.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Alternative Visions:” Zvenigora (Dovzhenko, 1928), Wed, 7:30. “Anatolian Outlaw: Yilmaz Güney:” The Hungry Wolves (1969), Thurs, 7; The Herd (1978), Sat, 6; Elegy (1971), Sat, 8:45. “The Outsiders: New Hollywood Cinema in the Seventies:” Hickey and Boggs (Culp, 1972), Fri, 7; Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (Van Peebles, 1971), Fri, 9:10; Over the Edge (Kaplan, 1979), Sun, 6. “UCLA Festival of Preservation:” Native Land (Hurwitz and Strand, 1942), Sun, 4.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-9.75. Farmageddon (Canty, 2011), Wed-Thurs, 7, 9:15. The Future (July, 2011), Wed, 7, 9. The Beat is the Law: Fanfare for the Common People (Wood, 2010), Thurs, 7:30, 9:30. “TV Noir:” •”Opening Night: Program One,” Fri, 6, 9:45, and “Program Two,” Fri, 8; •”The Great Directors: Program One,” Sat, 2:15, 6:15, 9:50, and “Program Two,” Sat, 4, 8; •”An Evening with Rod Serling:” “Program One,” Sun, 2:45, 6:15, 9:50, and “Program Two,” Sun, 4:30, 8; •”Legends of Horror Go Noir: Program One,” Mon, 6:15, 9:50, and “Program Two,” Mon, 8; •”Space Age Noir: Program One,” Tues, 6:15, 9:45, and “Program Two,” Tues, 8.

SHATTUCK 2230 Shattuck, Berk; www.berkeleyvideofilmfest.org. $12-15. “20th Annual Berkeley Video and Film Festival,” Fri-Sun.

VICTORIA 2961 16th St, SF; www.reelrocktour.com. $15. “Reel Rock Film Tour,” climbing and adventure films, Thurs, 8.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. Lola (Mendoza, 2009), Thurs, 7:30; Sun, 2.

Stage Listings

Andrew Lam
-
0

THEATER

OPENING

The Kipling Hotel: True Misadventures of the Electric Pink ’80s Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Opens Sat/1, 8:30pm. Runs Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Nov 13. Acclaimed solo performer Don Reed (East 14th) premieres his new show, based on his post-Oakland years living in Los Angeles.

Sorya! A Minor Miracle (Part One) NOHSpace, Project Artaud, 2840 Mariposa, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $12-18. Opens Sun/2, 7pm. Runs Sun-Mon, 7pm. Through Oct 24. Theatre of Yugen presents a selection of new and traditional Kyogen comedies.

BAY AREA

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh Berkeley, TheaterStage, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Opens Sun/2, 11am. Runs Sun, 11am. Through Nov 20. Louis "The Amazing Bubble Man" Pearl returns with this kid-friendly, bubble-tastic comedy.

ONGOING

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

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

All Atheists Are Muslim Stage Werx Theatre, 533 Sutter, SF; (415) 517-3581, www.brownpapertickets.com. $20. Thurs/29-Sat/1, 8pm. On the TV, CNN carries the dismal thumping of the Bush gang for more war. In the living room, a father and daughter are in a standoff over a proposed live-in boyfriend. It’s 2005, and a clash of generations, as Zahra tries to convince her immigrant Iranian American Muslim father that her white infidel boyfriend Duncan would make an ideal roommate. For her Muslim father, "the Duncan" has plenty of acceptable virtues — even his professed atheism is hardly an insurmountable obstacle to dad, who doesn’t seem to recognize the word but is sure it translates into a wishy-washy approach to the divine through an enthusiastic appreciation for gravity. But moving in together is a different story. How it plays out is the heart of comedian and solo performer Zahra Noorbakhsh’s uneven but charming and funny take on a familiar American family dynamic whose particular ethnic flavor includes a mild but timely geopolitical aroma. Playing herself as well as her loving mother, her bounding and big-hearted father (with his priceless Persian accent), and her good-natured but recalcitrant boyfriend, Noorbakhsh celebrates the immigrant experience while beating back the age’s pernicious appeal to stereotype and xenophobia with the far more realistic metaphor of a nice, crazy family dinner. (Avila)

American Buffalo Actors Theatre of San Francisco, 855 Bush, SF; (415) 345-1287, www.actorstheatresf.org. $26-38. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Extended through Oct 8. Actors Theatre of San Francisco performs the David Mamet crime classic.

Desdemona: A Play About a Handkerchief Boxcar Theatre Playhouse, 505 Natoma, SF; www.boxcartheatre.org. $15-35. Previews Thurs/29, 8pm. Opens Fri/30, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Nov 5. Boxcar Theatre performs Pauls Vogel’s dark comedy, inspired by the three female characters from Shakespeare’s Othello.

Hunter’s Point St. Boniface Church Theater, 175 Golden Gate, SF; www.strangeangelstheater.org. $15-25 (no one turned away for lack of funds). Wed/28-Sat/1, 7pm. Strange Angels Theater in collaboration with Jump! Theatre performs Elizabeth Gjelten’s musical drama about homelessness.

Joy With Wings: A Daughter’s Tale Alcove Theater, 415 Mason, Fifth Flr, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $32-50. Wed-Thurs, 8pm. Through Oct 6. Chaucer Theater performs Becky Parker’s drama about a mother’s love.

Killing My Lobster Conquers the Galaxy The Jewish Theatre, 470 Florida, SF; www.killingmylobster.com. $10-20. Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat-Sun, 7pm (also Sat, 10pm). Through Oct 9. The sketch comedy troupe returns with a sci-fi show.

Lucrezia Borgia War Memorial Opera House, 201 Van Ness, SF; (415) 864-3330, www.sfopera.com. $30-389. Thurs/29 and Oct 5, 7:30pm; Sun/2, 2pm; Oct 8 and 11, 8pm. Famed soprano Renée Fleming stars in San Francisco Opera’s presentation of Gaetano Donizetti’s classic.

Night Over Erzinga South Side Theatre, Magic Theatre, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; (415) 345-7575, www.goldenthread.org. $20-100. Thurs, 8:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Oct 9. Golden Thread Productions’ season opener is the result of its first-ever Middle East America new play initiative (co-presented with Chicago’s Silk Road Theatre Project and New York’s Lark Play Development Center): playwright Adriana Sevahn Nichols’ story of three generations in an Armenian American family struggling with a history of violence, dispossession, and the tensions between individual and collective destiny in the modern world. The play begins at an overly dramatic pitch as a young woman (Sarita Ocón) summons the spirits of her grandparents. Director Hafiz Karmali’s staging is deliberately spare and sensible throughout, though this initial action feels alternately stiff and shuffling, and the recorded music can be overbearing, as the roots of a family saga are laid immediately before and after the 1915 genocide. But the second act settles into a surer and more engaging mode and tempo, as Ava (a sharp Juliet Tanner in a nicely shaded performance), rebellious American daughter of two Armenian exiles (Terry Lamb and Neva Marie Hutchinson), pursues a career as a popular dancer and singer and ends up estranged from her father for years (her mother, sole survivor of a massacred Armenian family, spends her latter years in a mental institution). Wooed by a charming Dominican crooner (an adept, appealing Brian Trybom), Ava starts a family of her own. While pregnant with daughter Estrella (the young, spirited Natalie Amanian), she re-establishes a shaky relationship with her repentant father. Old wounds and buried histories insure reconciliation won’t be easy, but the truth alone shows the way back to a sense of connection and communion for a family severed by injustice and unmoored in the drift of immigrant America. (Avila)

Not Getting Any Younger Marsh San Francisco, Studio Theater, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Oct 23. Marga Gomez is back at the Marsh, a couple of too-brief decades after inaugurating the theater’s new stage with her first solo show — an apt setting, in other words, for the writer-performer’s latest monologue, a reflection on the inevitable process of aging for a Latina lesbian comedian and artist who still hangs at Starbucks and can’t be trusted with the details of her own Wikipedia entry. If the thought of someone as perennially irreverent, insouciant, and appealingly immature as Gomez makes you depressed, the show is, strangely enough, the best antidote. Her narrative careens wildly from character-filled childhood memories (the earliest traumas on down) and stand-up-like shtick that turns over well-worn subject matter like babies with freshly piquant musings (idea for an "it get better" campaign for infants: you’ll be able to wipe yourself and chew your own food). There’s even something like wisdom, or anyway historical curiosity, in her skewed nostalgia for such childhood ephemera as Freedomland, a doomed Bronx-based Disneyland alternative Gomez is old enough to remember visiting. Needless to say, she looks and acts very good for her age, whatever it is exactly (there are, typically, no straight answers here).

The Odyssey Aboard Alma, Hyde Street Pier, San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park, SF; www.weplayers.org. $160. Sat/1, Oct 28-29, Nov 4-6, 11-12, and 18, 12:30pm. This "full afternoon adventure" (12:30-5pm) includes a sailing performance of tales from Homer by We Players (aboard an 1891 scow schooner), plus a light meal.

Once in a Lifetime American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary, SF; (415) 749-2228, www.act-sf.org. $10-85. Opens Wed/28, 8pm. Runs Tues-Sat, 8pm (Oct 7 performance at 7pm); Wed and Sat-Sun, 2pm (no matinees Sun/25 or Sept 28; additional performance Sun/2 at 7pm). Through Oct 16. ACT performs a revival of Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman’s 1939 Hollywood satire.

*Patience Worth Thick House, 1695 18th St, SF; (415) 456-8892, www.symmetrytheatre.com. $20-30. Thurs/29-Sat/1, 8pm; Sun/2, 2pm. In the second decade of the 20th century, a young new St. Louis bride named Pearl Curran (Megan Trout), looking to rise above her humble Ozarks upbringing yet with hopeless aspirations to be a singer, suddenly began channeling the spirit of a 16th-century woman named Patience Worth. The rest was literary history, here uncovered and subtly examined by playwright Michelle Carter in Symmetry Theatre Company’s thoughtful, gradually stirring world premiere, its second production after last year’s strong debut (with Anthony Clarvoe’s Show and Tell). Introduced to Patience by Emily Hutchings (Elena Wright) and her Ouija board, Pearl soon displaces the chagrined Hutchings — who has literary aspirations of her own she pedals doggedly to the leading publisher of the day (Warren David Keith) — and inverts the patriarchal order as her much older husband (Keith) plays stenographer to the virtuosic verbosity of the spirit. When she adopts a child for Patience whome she names Patience Wee (Alona Bach), she drives the desperately lonely young girl into the arms of her equally isolated mother (Jessica Powell) toward an unexpected and terrible inspiration. Director Erika Chong Shuch sets her able cast (headed by Trout’s sure take on a complex figure) atop an area rug backed by a line of trees and strewn over the bare earth, like a floating island of bourgeois respectability amid a wild and mysterious sea of natural and supernatural impulses, in a complex tale of female liberation that intersects with questions of fame, status, self-invention, ventriloquism, and a dark bargain with destiny that has something quintessentially American about it. (Avila)

"Shocktoberfest 12: Fear Over Frisco" Hypnodrome Theatre, 575 10th St, SF; (415) 377-4202, www.thrillpeddlers.com. $25-35. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Nov 19. The Thrillpeddlers’ 12th annual Grand Guignol fest features three "noir-horror" plays by noted noir expert Eddie Muller.

Show Ho New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; (415) 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $20-32. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Oct 9, 2pm. Through Oct 9. Sara Moore performs her multi-character story about a clown in a low-rent circus.

Turandot War Memorial Opera House, 201 Van Ness, SF; (415) 864-3330, www.sfopera.com. $21-389. Sat/1, 8pm; Tues/4, 7:30pm. The San Francisco Opera performs Puccini’s classic in conjunction with the Lyric Opera of Chicago.

Why We Have a Body Magic Theatre, Fort Mason Center, Bldg D, SF; (415) 441-8822, www.magictheatre.org. $20-60. Wed/28-Sat/1, 8pm (also Sat/1, 2:30pm); Sun/2, 2:30pm. Magic Theater opens its new season with a "legacy revival" of playwright Claire Chafee’s comedy, a major hit for the Magic in 1993. Despite fleet staging by director Katie Pearl, the play feels dated, long-winded, and a bit too pleased with itself. Lili (Lauren English) is a private investigator who falls hard for a recently divorced paleontologist (Rebecca Dines) whose lesbian tendencies Lili awakens when they meet on a commercial flight. Lili’s sister, Mary (Maggie Mason), is a manic loner who holds up convenience stores and obsesses about Joan of Arc. Their mother (Lorri Holt), meanwhile, a Betty Friedan–era feminist and a specialist in the female brain (a brief and corny lecture on same is proffered early on), is up a tropical river on a solitary expedition. All four women are embarked on journeys of self-discovery as much as anything else, although Lili the P.I. emphasizes her desire to be someone else’s mystery for a change. The characters speak mainly in tedious monologues, however, with humor that is frequently strained and insights that are slim or false sounding, making the wandering narrative difficult to countenance pretty much from the get-go. (Avila)

BAY AREA

*A Delicate Balance Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; (510) 843-4822, www.auroratheatre.org. $10-48. Tues, 7pm; Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Extended through Oct 16. Aurora Theatre performs Edward Albee’s comedy of manners.

Madhouse Rhythm Cabaret at Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-35. Thurs, 7:30pm. Extended through Oct 6. Joshua Walters performs his hip-hop-infused autobiographical show about his experiences with bipolar disorder.

Of Dice and Men La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $10-20. Thurs/28-Sat/1, 8pm. Impact Theatre performs Cameron McNary’s comedy about a group of adult Dungeons and Dragons players.

Phaedra Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; (510) 841-6500, www.shotgunplayers.org. $17-26. Thurs, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm (starting Oct 5, also runs Wed, 7pm). Through Oct 23. Shotgun Players perform Adam Bock’s modern adaptation of the Racine classic.

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

The Taming of the Shrew Bruns Amphitheater, 100 California Shakespeare Wy, Orinda; (510) 809-3290, www.calshakes.org. $35-66. Tues-Thurs, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat/1, 2pm); Sun, 4pm. Through Oct 16. California Shakespeare Theatre’s last show of the season is a high-fashion, pop-art take on Shakespeare’s battle of the sexes.

DANCE

"Falling Flags" Shotwell Studios, 3252-A 19th St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. $10-15. Footloose presents a dance and spoken word performance featuring poet Genny Lim and dancers Judith Kajiwara, Frances Cachapero, and Sharon Sato.

Faustin Linyekula/Studios Kabako Novellus Theater, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. $15-25. The Congolese choreographer and his company perform more more more…future.

"Imitations of Intimacy" Garage, 975 Howard, SF; (415) 518-1517, www.975howard.com. Fri-Sat, 8pm. $10-20. Detour Dance performs a new dance-theater work about "acting upon those irrational and rhetorical things we normally keep to ourselves."

"Lanyee: A Ballet from Guinea, West Africa" Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St, SF; www.duniyadance.com. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 6pm. $20. Duniya Dance and Drum Company presents this

traditional Guinean West African ballet directed by Bongo Sidibe.

"We Don’t Belong Here" Union Square, Powell at Geary, SF; www.dancersgroup.com. Thurs-Fri and Sun, 8pm. Also Oct 6-9, 8pm, Yerba Buena Lane (between Market and Mission and Third and Fourth Streets), SF. Free. Katie Faulkner’s little seismic dance company and multimedia artist Michael Trigilio present a new public performance project.

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.

Live Shots: Hightower, Walken, and Black Cobra at YBCA

Tony Robles
-
0

It was all head banging and high-flying guitar yesterday evening in the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ outdoor sculpture garden. With the wailing thrash of Hightower, the electric doom of Walken, and two-man hardcore power of Black Cobra, the event, dubbed Metal Mania, was a success.

Groups of bewildered black-shirted fans slowly started to gather near 6 p.m. to catch Hightower, mostly climbing to the stone bleachers to sit for the still-early opening set. Hightower didn’t seem to mind, they appeared genuinely stoked to be there, all big hair head shaking and quick-footed shoeless drumming. But no one seemed more appreciative then metal maniac-quilter Ben Venom, the artist who pitched the show to YBCA in the first place.

He stood for every band, nodded along with the rapid-fire drumming, and at one point during Black Cobra’s sublimely heavy performance (extra credit: the band’s next SF show is with Kyuss and the Sword), I believe Venom spun around to give the finger to the upscale highrises behind us — but that could just be wishful thinking on my part.

Those who attended owe Venom a thank-you because it was a incomparable experience, such noise and vigor in such a peaceful space, opportunity otherwise unknown. We got to wander the museum’s decorated halls, then head outside to catch three epic local acts. Let’s say it together: Thank you for bringing metal to the museum, Venom.

 

All photos by Chris Stevens.

Rep Clock

Andrew Lam
-
0

Schedules are for Wed/21-Tues/27 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double features are marked with a •. All times p.m. unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $6. “Periwinkle Queen Cinema Series,” short films, Wed, 8. “Films from Four Mountain Ranges by Marcy Saude,” Fri, 8.

BALBOA 3620 Balboa, SF; www.balboamovies.com. $20. “Opera and Ballet at the Balboa:” La Traviata, performed at the Royal Opera House, Wed, 7:30. •Class Concert and Giselle, performed by the Bolshoi Ballet, Sat-Sun, 10am.

BERKELEY FELLOWSHIP OF UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISTS 1924 Cedar, Berk; (510) 841-4824, www.bfuu.org. $5-10. The Battle of Chernobyl (Johnson, 2006), Fri, 7.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-15. Mary Lou (Fox, 2010), Wed, 2, 5:15, 8:15. “Good Vibrations Indie Erotic Film Festival,” party and short-film competition (more info at www.gv-ixff.org), Thurs, 7. The Little Mermaid (Clements and Musker, 1989), presented sing-a-long style, Fri-Sun, 7pm (also Sat-Sun, 2:30).

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $5.50-10.25. The Hedgehog (Achache, 2010), call for dates and times. Love Crime (Corneau, 2010), call for dates and times. Mozart’s Sister (Féret, 2010), call for dates and times. Senna (Kapadia, 2011), call for dates and times. A Fall From Freedom (Minasian, 2011), Sun, 7. Farmageddon (Canty, 2011), Sun, 4:15.

“FILM NIGHT IN THE PARK” This week: Dolores Park, 19th St at Dolores, SF; (415) 272-2756, www.filmnight.org. Donations accepted. Top Gun (Scott, 1986), Sat, 8.

JACK LONDON SQUARE 66 Franklin, Oakl; www.jacklondonsquare.com. Free. “Waterfront Flicks:” Chocolat (Hallström, 2000), Thurs, sunset.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; (415) 393-0100, rsvp@milibrary.org. $10 (reservations required as seating is limited). “CinemaLit Film Series: Euro Passages:” Since Otar Left (Bertuccelli, 2003), Fri, 6.

“OAKLAND INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL” Grand Lake, 3200 Grand, Oakl; www.oakuff.org. $10. Yelling to the Sky (Mahoney), Thurs, 8. Also Fri, 7:30 and Sat, 5:15 at NIMBY, 8410 Amelia, Oakl. Films, music, and food trucks.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Kino-Eye: The Revolutionary Cinema of Dziga Vertov:” A Sixth Part of the World (Vertov, 1926), Wed, 7:30; Enthusiasm: Symphony of the Donbass (Vertov, 1930), Fri, 7; Kino-Pravda, Nos. 1-8 (Vertov, 1922), Sun, 2; Kino-Week Nos. 1, 3, 4, 5, 21–25 (1981), Tues, 7. “UCLA Festival of Preservation:” “On the Vitaphone: 1928-1930,” Thurs, 7. “A Theater Near You:” Diary of a Country Priest (Bresson, 1950), Fri, 8:30 and Sun, 4:15. “Anatolian Outlaw: Yilmaz Güney:” Yol (Güney and Gören, 1982), Sat, 6:30; The Friend (Güney, 1974), Sat, 8:40.

LA PEÑA CULTURAL CENTER 3105 Shattuck, Berk; www.lapena.org. $5. “FistUp Hip-Hop Film Festival:” Black August (2010), Thurs, 7:30.

PRESIDIO 2340 Chestnut, SF; sfslunchline.eventbrite.com. $5. “Slow Food on Film presents:” Lunch Line (Park and Graziano, 2009), Thurs, 6.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-9.75. Cold Fish (Sono, 2011), Wed, 6:50, 9:35 and Thurs, 9. The Future (July, 2011), Wed-Thurs, 7 (also Wed, 9). “San Francisco Irish Film Festival:” The Runaway (Power, 2010), Thurs, 8; festival continues Wed-Sun. Visit www.sfirishfilm.com for schedule.

SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY 100 Larkin, SF; www.communitycinema.org. Free. “Bay Area Community Cinema:” Women, War, and Peace (Disney, Hogan, and Reticker), Tues, 5:45.

SFFS NEW PEOPLE CINEMA 1746 Post, SF; www.sffs.org. $13-15. “Hong Kong Cinema,” recent films from Hong Kong directors Benny Chan, Ann Hui, Johnnie To, and more, Fri-Sun.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. “Greetings on Behalf of the People of Our Planet!,” short “live documentaries” by Dave Cerf and Sam Green, Thurs and Sat, 7:30.

Our Weekly Picks: September 21-27

Andrew Lam
-
0

WEDNESDAY 21

Veronica Falls CANCELLED

Apparently, this UK indie rock band found its relaxed retro pop sound right from the get-go. Singles “Found Love in a Graveyard” and “Beachy Head” combined jangly, propulsive rhythms with light, morbid lyrics for a result that could easily find an anachronistic home in the recent remake of Brighton Rock (and not just because every video for the band looks like it was ran through a Hipstamatic app.) Now with a self-titled debut album on Slumberland Records, Veronica Falls is scheduled to tour in support of the Drums and Dum Dum Girls next month. This will be their West Coast record release show. (Ryan Prendiville)

With The Mantles, Brilliant Colors

9 p.m., $13

Brick and Mortar Music Hall

1710 Mission, SF

(415) 800-8782

www.brickandmortarmusic.com

 

THURSDAY 22

Teengirl Fantasy at Icee Hot

They put something in the water over at Oberlin. Beach House, Blondes, Teengirl Fantasy. Now at work in the real world, which includes opening for Crystal Castles, Teengirl Fantasy has found a style that’s just as likely to draw from the pop charts as it is from their academic pedigree. A little Lil Jon on one track, a little Raymond Scott on the next. With cooled, slo-mo beats and hyped up MCs turned down, the result is an aural muscle relaxant, allowing you to focus on making bedroom eyes across the dance floor. Teengirl Fantasy comes our way to play monthly party Icee Hot. (Prendiville)

With Total Freedom, Magic Touch (Damon Palermo), Shawn Reynaldo, and Rollie Fingers

10 p.m., $5-10

Public Works

161 Erie, SF

(415) 932-0955

www.publicsf.com

 

FRIDAY 23

Smuin Ballet

The late Michael Smuin was not one of my favorite choreographers. But he left behind a substantial inheritance that had gained him respectable audiences. Smuin choreographed one his most serious pieces, “Stabat Mater” — Dvorak’s response to the death of his infant daughter — in the aftermath of 9/11. He also loved to play with pop eroticism; “The Eternal Idol” — you can see its inspiration at the Legion of Honor — and “Tango Palace” showcase that propensity. Amy Seiwert premieres what she calls her “most “Smuinesque” piece yet — to Patsy Cline. Not the least of the company’s attractions these days is the quality of its dancers. Parking around the Palace — because of the Doyle Drive reconstruction — is somewhat restricted, so plan for extra time. Muni 43 goes there as well. (Rita Felciano)

9/23-Oct.1

$25-62

Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco

(415) 556-5000

www.smuinballet.org

 

FRIDAY 23

“Hong Kong Cinema”

Though this is the San Francisco Film Society’s first-ever Hong Kong Cinema mini-fest, there’s no shortage of HK film fanatics in this town, what with the SF International Asian American Film Festival, the programming at Frank Lee’s Four Star Theatre, and even the occasional HK flick that arrives via Hollywood. If you dug Benny Chan’s now-at-the-Four-Star Shaolin, you won’t want to miss his City Under Siege, about bank-robbing, superpowered circus performers. Also on tap: another superhero action comedy, Vincent Kok’s (Pixar-inspired?) Mr. and Mrs. Incredible; Clement Chan and Yan Yan Mak’s multigenerational drama Merry-Go-Round; All About Love, from Ann Hui (her latest, A Simple Life, has been tearing up the international fest circuit); Law Wing-cheong’s kidnap thriller Punished (starring Anthony Wong, always full of win); Alex Law’s coming-of-age drama Echoes of the Rainbow; and rom-com Don’t Go Breaking My Heart, a genre departure for action man Johnnie To. (Cheryl Eddy)

Through Sun/25, $13–$20

San Francisco Film Society New People Cinema

1746 Post, SF

www.sffs.org


FRIDAY 23

SF Cocktail Week: Barbary Coast Bazaar

San Franciscans have long enjoyed a romance with alcohol — from the debauchery of the Barbary Coast era, to the modern renaissance of the artisan cocktail, the city knows how to knock ’em back. Celebrate this high-proof history with SF Cocktail Week, which features a variety of tastings, dinners, seminars, and parties, including “Barbary Coast Bazaar,” a huge fete inside the Old Mint. Expect a roaring 1920s themed party, with vintage circus acts such as stilt walkers, jugglers, contortionists, magicians, and carnival games, along with food, and of course, a wide variety of tasty cocktails. (Sean McCourt)

SF Cocktail Week events run through 9/25, pricing varies

Barbary Coast Bazaar, 9/23

8-11 p.m., $85–$95

The Old Mint

88 5th St., SF

www.sfcocktailweek.com


SATURDAY 24

Moving Planet Worldwide Rally Day

You can make yourself sick thinking about it: what are you going to tell your kids (or — hey sexy single! — the neighbor’s kids) when they ask you what you did to stop climate change back when we still had a chance and the Bayview-Sunset commute didn’t call for a rowboat? Are we creeping you out? Then let us recommend Moving Planet Day. A worldwide rally for sustainability, it’s sponsored by 350.org and will include Sept. 24 actions from Buenos Aires to Nairobi. In SF, a march of self-propelled peoples on foot, bike, and skate will trek from Justin Herman Plaza to the Civic Center, where an afternoon of speakers, music, and other events awaits. (Caitlin Donohue)

10-a.m.-6 p.m., free

March starts at Justin Herman Plaza, SF

Afternoon activities at Civic Center Plaza, SF

www.moving-planet.org


Hank 3

The grandson of country music royalty, Hank Williams III, or as he’s now known, Hank 3, continues to hone his own brand of diverse music, releasing not one, but four brand new albums this month: Ghost to a Ghost/Guttertown, a double record in a country vein, Attention Deficient Domination, with more of a “hellbilly” feeling, and Cattle Callin, which is more on the metal side of things. The modern torch bearer of outlaw country is promising that this tour will touch on all of them, which he released through his own label, Hank 3 Records, and that fans can expect a two-and-a-half to thee-hour set at each barn burning show. (McCourt)

8:30 p.m., $26

The Regency Ballroom

1290 Sutter, SF

www.theregencyballroom.com


SATURDAY 24

Celsius 7

The superchill but often splendidly goofy Bay rapper, a former member of the Psychokinetics crew, hails from one of the golden ages of local hip-hop — that late ’90s-early ’00s period when earnest showmanship and a healthy dose of good humor trumped aggro attention-seeking, niche genre overload, and crass product placement. Cel’s kept himself busy through Bay rap’s recent twists and turns, though, traveling the world and dropping some ace tracks, all the while staying true to his roots. This release party for his poppin’ second solo album, Life Well Spent (which features a nice roster of collaborators including Dirt Nasty, iLL MEDiA, and Baby Jaymes) will showcase his grin-inducing verbal dexterity, be loaded with special guest appearances, and serve as a convention of true school heads. (Marke B.)

9 p.m., $10 (includes copy of album)

Shattuck Downlow

2284 Shattuck, Berk.

(415) 455-4735

www.shattuckdownlow.com


SUNDAY 25

Chinatown Music Festival

The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts has an exhibit going on called “Daily Lives,” a group showing by local Asian American artists that takes prosaic trinkets and uses them to express the psychic winds that ruffle our insides. This weekend, “Daily Lives” is taking this exploration of the private, public. Put on your dark glasses and check out the sidewalk art exhibit in Chinatown — where your ambling will be soundtracked by a day of rad live music; traditional tunes from the SF Guzheng Society and pianist Jon Jang (who will be sharing his recently-penned homage to the Xinhai Revolution of 1911), plus more modern grooves by the grown-up local kids in Jest Jammin’ and the SF Latin Jazz Youth Ensemble. (Donohue)

1-7 p.m., free

Portsmouth Square Kearny between Clay and Washington, SF

www.apiculturalcenter.org


SUNDAY 25

Ladytron

Given the harder direction that Ladytron has gone in over the last few albums — even touring with Nine Inch Nails — I was not expecting what I heard on Gravity the Seducer: ABBA. Whether or not they were invoking the Swedish gods of pop on purpose, the opener “White Elephant” sets a tone for a lighter album. Not simply a step backwards to the sounds of Ladytron’s early albums, it’s its most synthetically dreamy, spaced out record yet. Of course, harder and softer are relative terms with the band, which has generally stuck to a distinctive sound, becoming electronic pop mainstays and developing a cult following in the process. (Prendiville)

With SONOIO, Polaris at Noon, and DJ Omar

8 p.m., $25

The Regency Ballroom

1300 Van Ness, SF

(800) 745-3000

www.theregencyballroom.com

 

MONDAY 26

Dr Ruth

We all fondly recall Dr. Ruth Westheimer as the funny, entertaining, and educational “sexpert” that hit the mainstream media in the 1980s and 90s, but did you know her amazing background before she was a household name? Born in 1928 in Germany, she lost her parents in the Holocaust, and actually fought (and was wounded) as a sniper during Israel’s war of independence. The icon will be touching on all these subjects, along with her new book, Heavenly Sex: Sexuality in the Jewish Tradition, at tonight’s special event. (McCourt)

7 p.m., $20–$35

Jewish Community Center of San Francisco

3200 California St., SF

(415) 292-1200

www.jccsf.org


TUESDAY 27

Tony Bennett Night

As San Francisco Giants fans know, whenever the team wins a game here at home, the crowd exits the ballpark to the sounds of the legendary crooner Tony Bennett’s signature song “I Left My Heart In San Francisco.” The 85-year-old icon performed the song live at last year’s World Series, and the team is honoring him with this special event where he will be celebrated in a pre-game ceremony. He also will perform a short set, and fans will receive a “Tony Bennett” bobblehead that has a sound chip that plays his beloved ode to our city by the bay. (McCourt)

Game starts at 7:15 p.m.; arrive early for pre-game events. Pricing varies; see website for current availability.

AT&T Park

24 Willie Mays Plaza, SF

(415) 972-2000

www.sfgiants.com/specialevents


TUESDAY 27

Nurses

If you listened to Nurses’ earliest album, you might not recognize the groovy melodic rock trio that stands before you today, presenting 2011’s Dracula (Dead Oceans). In the past five years, the harmonic freak-folk band — with a penchant for toy instruments and pianos — has gone through lineup changes, sound modifications, and location shifts. The two Nurses mainstays, singer-guitarist Aaron Chapman and singer-keyboardist John Bowers, have lived in the sweet sunshine of San Diego, close quarters during cold winters — the tour van in Chicago — and finally, settled in the dewy DIY spirit of Portland, Oreg., where they gained drummer James Mitchell, and further developed their technique. But that’s the test of a true musician, isn’t it? The ability to roll with the punches, to grow, to evolve. (Emily Savage)

With Dominant Legs

9 p.m., $12

Cafe Du Nord

2170 Market, SF

(415) 861-5016

www.cafedunord.com

 

The Guardian listings deadline is two weeks prior to our Wednesday publication date. To submit an item for consideration, please include the title of the event, a brief description of the event, date and time, venue name, street address (listing cross streets only isn’t sufficient), city, telephone number readers can call for more information, telephone number for media, and admission costs. Send information to Listings, the Guardian 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.

Portland scene clocked by Time Based Arts Festival

Sue Vaughan
-
0
Portland scene clocked by Time Based Arts Festival

Just up the coast, the contemporary art binge that is Portland Institute of Contemporary Art’s (PICA) ninth Time Based Art Festival (TBA) bubbled with fluidity and openness as the resounding spirit. From September 8-18 that fluidity and openness occurred between contemporary art practices, between the city and the art, between performers and audience members, between onstage and offstage. Not only addressing current global issues, the festival embraced the increasingly porous walls between art disciplines and outside fields, collapsing the container for presenting art experiences.

Under the direction of Cathy Edwards (also the Director of Performance Programs at New Haven’s International Festival of Arts and Ideas and formerly of Dance Theater Workshop and Movement Research), TBA employs a nomadic citywide platform requiring attendees to explore nooks and crannies with eleven main venues spread throughout the four quadrants of Portland. PICA headquarters the festival at the closed Washington High School called “The Works,” a hub for the round-the-clock possibilities including morning workshops with the TBA artists, noontime salons, afternoon happenings, evening performances and late night activity with a beer garden for gathering, digesting and discussing. The clear nights, lush nature, industrial pockets, culinary delights and bike-friendliness that accompany the festival indeed dovetail with the tastes of many San Francisco residents, and help make TBA a ten-day utopia for art lovers.

“The TBA Festival future-forecasts important aesthetic developments,” writes Edwards in the program, and the performances do, in fact, ripple out, with a handful of the TBA artists appearing recently and upcoming in San Francisco. On the opening day of the festival, Shantala Shivalingappa performed solos by her mentors Ushio Amagatsu (of Sankai Juku) and Pina Bausch. Catch her in San Francisco with a Kuchipudi program at the Herbst Theater November 1, presented by San Francisco Performances.

Also coming to town this season, the Portland-based company tEEth appears at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ Left Coast Leaning Festival, December 1-3. Directed by choreographer Angelle Herbert and composer Phillip Kraft, tEEth performed Home Made at TBA, an intimate work with live-feed video, haunting vocals, and plenty of nudity. In the push-pull between hostility and tenderness, hostility dominated the stage for the majority of the work, demonstrating missed connections and relationship struggle with silent and amplified screams, as well as quick-morphing theatrical expressions.

Kyle Abraham, who appeared in San Francisco during the 2011 Black Choreographers Festival with his work-in-process Live! The Realest MC, brought a further developed version of that solo, as well as his full-length work The Radio Show to the festival with his company Abraham.In.Motion. His technique, illuminated during a TBA Institute class, unfolded as a fast-moving mashup of postmodern movement, incorporating influences from New York teacher Kevin Wynn, Merce Cunningham and, naturally, the swift and luscious language of Abraham’s own body.

Taylor Mac, having recently completed his San Francisco run of the epic The Lily’s Revenge, performed his first cabaret at the festival, Comparison is Violence or Ziggy Stardust Meets Tiny Tim Songbook. Highlighting the human tendencies to bring an agenda to the theater and resist audience participation, Mac interrupted himself for a dramatic song here, a David Bowie story there, and, in the end, had the audience on their feet for a mime routine dancing in imaginary bubblegum bubbles.

These are just a handful of the performances that occurred during the ten days in Portland. Augmented by the evening’s natural fade from light to darkness, the Offsite Dance Project, in three parts by Japanese choreographers, immersed witnesses in the playful with Mika Arashiki and Mari Fukutome, the complex with Yukio Suzuki and the disorienting with Yoko Higashino. A train actually ran through the site-specific work, featuring the dance of the city. The program used sites in Southeast Portland’s industrial district for fresh remix of the surroundings.

Austin’s Rude Mechs performed The Method Gun, a theater work based on A Streetcar Named Desire, and gave a talk at the TBA Institute discussing the consensus necessary to create devised work with their group of thirty artists. Additionally, Malina Rodriguez’s Dance Truck – a mobile project that uses the back of a rental truck as a stage – made an appearance from Atlanta. Participatory games by artist Michael Groisman stirred the crowds at Washington High several afternoons. Andrew Dinwiddle’s Get Mad at Sin revisited a 1971 Alabama sermon by Pentecostal preacher Jimmy Swaggart performed in a tent at dusk. Add to that a 24-hour monologue by Mike Daisey, an installation and performance by Seattle-based Zoe|Juniper, and visit from French choreographer Rachid Ouramdance L’A, and you get a sense of the possibilities at TBA.

This year marked a leadership transition for the festival as Cathy Edwards ends her three-year tenure as guest artistic director, passing the torch to San Francisco export and former Yerba Buena Center for the Arts performing arts curator, Angela Mattox. Mattox will remain in Portland year-round (unlike previous directors) expanding PICA’s performing arts programming. While the dates for next year’s TBA are, well, TBA, San Francisco art lovers should plan a jaunt up the coast next September – just a quick flight or ride-share away.

1...131415...31Page 14 of 31

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