Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

Essential grace

Michael Redmond
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Essential grace

arts@sfbg.com

FALL ARTS Fall may no long bring with it the nervous anticipation of entering a new classroom, clutching a shiny lunch box to your chest. But for those of us hooked on live performance, September brings its own thrills, as theaters, studios, and lofts reopen their doors. If dance happens to be your particular bag, you can’t do much better than the here and now. Few other places in the country can beat the Bay Area for the sheer variety with which nude, slippered, and high-heeled feet take the stage.

 

SAN FRANCISCO SPECIAL: DANCE THEATER

EmSpace Dance‘s Erin Mei-Ling Stuart ranges far and wide for her new Monkey Gone to Heaven, exploring the role of prayer, meditation, and belief systems in primates of both the higher and the lower order. Sept. 12-15 and 19-22, CounterPULSE, SF; www.counterpulse.org.

For their new, multi-disciplinary MU — based on a Japanese legend about a young man who meets a mermaid and visits a lost continent at the bottom of the sea — First Voice art and life partners Brenda Wong Aoki and Mark Izu team up with ODC choreographer Kimi Okada. Young Kai Kane Aoki Izu portrays the traveler. Sept. 27-29, Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, SF; www.jccsf.org.

13th Floor Dance Theater‘s Jenny McAllister must have a thing for writers. She follows last year’s witty take on the Bloomsbury crowd with Being Raymond Chandler, in which she channels the quintessential mystery icon as he’s haunted by his fictional characters. Oct. 26-27 and Nov. 1-2, ODC Theater, SF; www.13thfloordance.org.

 

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

In the Netherlands the baton has been passed. It remains to be seen whether the long-time choreographic team — a rarity in itself — of Sol León and Paul Lightfoot can keep up the standards of the always superb Nederlands Dans Theater. Oct. 23-24, Zellerbach Hall, Berk; www.calperfs.berkeley.edu.

Good news: the West Wave Dance Festival is stayin’ alive. Its new artistic director, Joe Landini, commissioned choreographers Anne-René Patraca, Anandha Ray, Holly Shawn, and Casey Lee Thorne for one program. He turned over the other three evenings to guest curators Dance Mission Theater, Jesse Hewit, and Amy Seiwert, who imprint their own view on the fest. Sept. 16-Oct 28, various venues, SF; www.westwavedancefestival.org.

Joe Goode is poet, a soothsayer, and a clown who addresses a loneliness that goes to the core of who we are. His particular perspective comes from being a gay man, but his reach is broad and generous. Perhaps most important is his ability to continue finding intriguing new frameworks for his musings. The new Hush is based on six real-life stories. Sept. 26-Oct. 5, Z Space, SF; www.joegoode.org.

A rarity in contemporary dance, Los Angeles’ BodyTraffic is not a single-choreographer company, but focuses its efforts on creating a rep from the most exciting new voices it can find. For SF it will be Kyle Abraham, Barak Marshall, and Richard Siegal — hip-hop, dance theater, and jazz. Sept. 26-29, ODC Theater, SF; odcdance.org/bodytraffic.

 

ANNIVERSARIES

At 20, Smuin Ballet has begun to make major inroads into drawing audiences with a repertoire that pushes the boundaries of ballet without disowning late founder Michael Smuin’s heritage. Czech choreographer Jirí Kylián’s Return to a Strange Land is a case in point. Oct. 4-12, Palace of Fine Arts, SF; www.smuinballet.org.

To honor Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company‘s three decades of rethinking dance, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts has scheduled exhibits, conversations, master classes, video screenings, a site-specific piece at CounterPULSE (Oct. 10), and a rethinking of a classic. In A Rite Jones works with theater pioneer Anne Bogart for a fresh take on Stravinsky’s masterwork The Rite of Spring. Oct. 7-13, YBCA and CounterPULSE, SF; www.ybca.org.

For its 40th anniversary, Oakland-based Dimensions Dance Theater makes a rare appearance in SF. At this year’s SF Ethnic Dance Festival, the company just about tore the roof off YBCA with its explosively joyous take on a New Orleans funeral. The anniversary program offers glimpses into past — going back to 1973 — and the world premiere of Rhythms of Life Down the Congo Line. Oct. 5, YBCA, SF; www.dimensionsdance.org.

 

FREEBIES

Flamenco’s La Tania and ODC/Dance (with Waving Not Drowning: A Guide to Elegance, featuring paper dresses) are among the participants in Cal Performances’ annual hit show, Fall Free for All, an all-day open house of live performances on the UC Berkeley campus. Sept. 29, UC Berkeley, Berk; calperfs.berkeley.edu.

Janice Garrett and Charles Moulton of Garrett + Moulton Productions seem to inspire each other in pursuing the unknown with a common language. A Show of Hands is their latest endeavor — daytime performances exploring gestures with the help of Dan Becker’s commissioned score, performed live by the Friction Quartet. Oct. 17-26, Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, SF; www.garrettmoulton.org.

Offered at noon every first Friday, the Rotunda Dance Series, presented by Dancers’ Group and World Arts West, makes City Hall sing in a dance-by-the-people, for-the-people sort of way. Kicking off the new season is Peruvian dance company Asociación Cultural Kanchis. Starts Sept. 6, City Hall, SF; www.dancersgroup.org. *

Theater Listings: August 14 – 20, 2013

Michael Redmond
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Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

THEATER

OPENING

In Friendship: Stories By Zona Gale Z Below, 470 Florida, SF; www.zspace.org. $20-50. Previews Wed/14-Thu/15, 7pm; Fri/16, 8pm. Opens Sat/17, 8pm. Runs Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Sept 8. Word for Word performs Zona Gale’s “comedy of American manners.”

BAY AREA

All’s Well That Ends Well Forest Meadows Amphitheater, 890 Bella, Dominican University of California, San Rafael; www.marinshakespeare.org. $20-37.50. Previews Fri/16, 8pm. Opens Aug 24, 8pm. Presented in repertory Fri-Sun through Sept 28; visit website for performance schedule. Marin Shakespeare Company continues its outdoor season with the Bard’s classic romance.

Lady Windermere’s Fan Bruns Amphitheater, 100 California Shakespeare Theater Way, Orinda; www.calshakes.org. $35-62. Previews Wed/14-Fri/16, 8pm. Opens Sat/17, 8pm. Runs Tue-Thu, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sept 7, 2pm); Sun, 4pm. Through Sept 8. California Shakespeare Theater performs Oscar Wilde’s comedy.

Orlando Live Oak Theatre, 1301 Shattuck, Berk; www.theatrefirst.com. $10-30. Previews Thu/15, 8pm. Opens Fri/16, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Sept 15. TheatreFIRST performs Sarah Ruhl’s gender-shifting comedy, which takes place over a span of 300 years.

ONGOING

Can You Dig It? Back Down East 14th — the 60s and Beyond Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Aug 25. Don Reed’s new show offers more stories from his colorful upbringing in East Oakland in the 1960s and ’70s. More hilarious and heartfelt depictions of his exceptional parents, independent siblings, and his mostly African American but ethnically mixed working-class community — punctuated with period pop, Motown, and funk classics, to which Reed shimmies and spins with effortless grace. And of course there’s more too of the expert physical comedy and charm that made long-running hits of Reed’s last two solo shows, East 14th and The Kipling Hotel (both launched, like this newest, at the Marsh). Can You Dig It? reaches, for the most part, into the “early” early years, Reed’s grammar-school days, before the events depicted in East 14th or Kipling Hotel came to pass. But in nearly two hours of material, not all of it of equal value or impact, there’s inevitably some overlap and indeed some recycling. Reed, who also directs the show, may start whittling it down as the run continues. But, as is, there are at least 20 unnecessary minutes diluting the overall impact of the piece, which is thin on plot already — much more a series of often very enjoyable vignettes and some painful but largely unexplored observations, wrapped up at the end in a sentimental moral that, while sincere, feels rushed and inadequate. (Avila)

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

God of Carnage Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sheltontheater.com. $26-38. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 7. Shelton Theater performs Yasmina Reza’s award-winning play about class and parenting.

Gold Rush! The Un-Scripted Barbary Coast Musical Un-Scripted Theater Company, 533 Sutter, Second Flr, SF; www.un-scripted.com. $10-20. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 24. The Un-Scripted Theater Company performs an improvised musical about gold-rush era San Francisco.

Gorgeous Hussy: An Interview With Joan Crawford Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.wilywestproductions.com. $15-35. Thu/15-Fri/16, 8pm. Running in repertory with Lawfully Wedded (below), this world premiere by Morgan Ludlow imagines a young writer’s encounter with the legendary movie star.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch Boxcar Theatre, 505 Natoma, SF; www.boxcartheatre.org. $27-43. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. John Cameron Mitchell’s cult musical comes to life with director Nick A. Olivero’s ever-rotating cast.

How to Make Your Bitterness Work for You Stage Werx Theatre, 446 Valencia, SF; www.stagewerx.org. $15-25. Mon-Tue, 8pm. Through Aug 27. Kent Underwood is a motivational speaker and self-help expert with some obvious baggage of his own in this solo play from former comedy writer and stand-up comedian Fred Raker (It Could Have Been a Wonderful Life). The premise, similar to that of Kurt Bodden’s Steve Seabrook: Better Than You (ongoing at the Marsh), has the audience overlapping with participants in an Underwood seminar. Underwood, however, two years on the seminar circuit and still unable to get his book published, deviates from the script to answer texts related to a possible career breakthrough. Meanwhile, with the aid of some bullet points and illustrative slides, he explains the premise of said manuscript, “How to Make Your Bitterness Work For You,” as the sad truth of his own underdog status emerges between the laugh lines. But where Bodden is careful to make his Seabrook a somewhat believable character despite the absurdity of it all (or rather, while firmly embracing the absurdity of the self-help industry itself), Raker and director Kimberly Richards put much more space between the playwright/performer and his character, which turns out to be a less effective strategy. Verisimilitude might not have mattered much if the comic material were stronger. Unfortunately, despite the occasional zinger, much of the humor is weak or corny and the narrative (interrupted at regular intervals by an artificial tone representing the arrival of a fresh text message) too contrived to sell us on the larger story. (Avila)

Keith Moon: The Real Me Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $40. Thu/15-Sat/17, 8pm; Sun/18, 7pm. Was Keith Moon the greatest rock ‘n’ roll drummer ever? Veteran solo performer and drum stylist Mick Berry doesn’t exactly come out and say so, but his biographical play about Moon definitely makes a good case for the possibility. Keith Moon: The Real Me, written and performed by Berry, kicks off with a literal bang, a hi-octane cover of “Baba O’Riley,” featuring Berry’s exuberantly crashing cymbals layered over the iconic, rapid-fire synth riff that runs throughout the song. Though the characters of the play are all portrayed by Berry — with references to all the requisite sex, drugs, and self-destruction thrown into the mix — a full band stands at the ready behind two transparent screens to flesh out the show’s strongest element: the rock-and-roll. In order to channel Moon’s full-throttle drumming, Berry enlisted the assistance of Frank Simes, the music director of the Who’s 2012-2013 tour, while to channel Moon’s freewheeling but insecure personality, he enlisted local director Bobby Weinapple. The script itself is still ragged, and a couple of key moments, particularly when Moon’s car is attacked in early 1970, are presented in such a way that the context comes later, which is confusing if you don’t already know the history of the incident. But if you don’t mind a bit of chat with your rock concert, you’ll probably find this fusion of the two intriguing. Just remember, when the nice concessions people offer you complimentary earplugs, take them. (Gluckstern)

Lawfully Wedded: Plays About Marriage Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.wilywestproductions.com. $15-35. Sat/17, 8pm. Running in repertory with Gorgeous Hussy (above), this world premiere “collage of scenes and stories” by Morgan Ludlow, Kirk Shimano, and Alina Trowbridge takes on marriage equality.

Marius Southside Theatre, Fort Mason Center, Bldg D, SF; www.generationtheatre.com. $20-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Aug 25. GenerationTheatre performs R. David Valayre’s new English translation of Marcel Pagnol’s classic about a man who dreams of traveling the seas.

Sex and the City: LIVE! Rebel, 1760 Market, SF; trannyshack.com/sexandthecity. $25. Wed, 7 and 9pm. Open-ended. It seems a no-brainer. Not just the HBO series itself — that’s definitely missing some gray matter — but putting it onstage as a drag show. Mais naturellement! Why was Sex and the City not conceived of as a drag show in the first place? Making the sordid not exactly palatable but somehow, I don’t know, friendlier (and the canned a little cannier), Velvet Rage Productions mounts two verbatim episodes from the widely adored cable show, with Trannyshack’s Heklina in a smashing portrayal of SJP’s Carrie; D’Arcy Drollinger stealing much of the show as ever-randy Samantha (already more or less a gay man trapped in a woman’s body); Lady Bear as an endearingly out-to-lunch Miranda; and ever assured, quick-witted Trixxie Carr as pent-up Charlotte. There’s also a solid and enjoyable supporting cast courtesy of Cookie Dough, Jordan Wheeler, and Leigh Crow (as Mr. Big). That’s some heavyweight talent trodding the straining boards of bar Rebel’s tiny stage. The show’s still two-dimensional, even in 3D, but noticeably bigger than your 50″ plasma flat panel. Update: new episodes began May 15. (Avila)

So You Can Hear Me Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Extended through Aug 24. A 23-year-old with no experience, just high spirits and big ideals, gets a job in the South Bronx teaching special ed classes and quickly finds herself in over her head. Safiya Martinez, herself a bright young woman from the projects, delivers this inspired accounting of her time not long ago in perhaps the most neglected sector of the public school system — a 60-minute solo play that makes up for its slim plot with a set of deft, powerful, lovingly crafted characterizations. These complex portraits, alternately hysterical and startling, offer their own moving ruminations on a violent but also vibrant stratum of American society, deeply fractured by pervasive poverty and injustice and yet full of restive young personalities too easily dismissed, ignored, or crudely caricatured elsewhere. An effervescent, big-hearted, and very talented performer, Martinez boasts a bounding personality and contagious passion for her former students (as complicated as that relationship was), and makes this deeply felt tribute all the more memorable. (Avila)

Steve Seabrook: Better Than You Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat, 8:30pm. Extended through Aug 24. Self-awareness, self-actualization, self-aggrandizement — for these things we turn to the professionals: the self-empowerment coaches, the self-help authors and motivational speakers. What’s the good of having a “self” unless someone shows you how to use it? Writer-performer Kurt Bodden’s Steve Seabrook wants to sell you on a better you, but his “Better Than You” weekend seminar (and tie-in book series, assorted CDs, and other paraphernalia) belies a certain divided loyalty in its own self-flattering title. The bitter fruit of the personal growth industry may sound overly ripe for the picking, but Bodden’s deftly executed “seminar” and its behind-the-scenes reveals, directed by Mark Kenward, explore the terrain with panache, cool wit, and shrewd characterization. As both writer and performer, Bodden keeps his Steve Seabrook just this side of overly sensational or maudlin, a believable figure, finally, whose all-too-ordinary life ends up something of a modest model of its own. (Avila)

Stories High XII: The Soma Edition Bindlestiff Studio, 185 Sixth St, SF; www.bindlestiffstudio.org. $10-20. Thu/15-Sat/17, 8pm. Four mini-plays about “living, working, playing, and struggling” in SoMa, written by Dianne Aquino Chui, Paolo Salazar, Cristal Fiel, and Conrad Panganiban.

Sweet Bird of Youth Tides Theatre, 533 Sutter, Second Flr, SF; www.tidestheatre.org. $20-40. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 24. Tides Theatre performs Tennessee Williams’ Gulf Coast-set drama about an improbable couple.

BAY AREA

A Comedy of Errors Forest Meadows Amphitheater, 890 Bella, Dominican University of California, San Rafael; www.marinshakespeare.org. $20-37.50. Presented in repertory Fri-Sun through Sept 29; visit website for performance schedule. Marin Shakespeare Company presents a cowboy-themed spin on the Bard’s classic.

No Man’s Land Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $35-135. Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Thu and Sat, 2pm; no matinee Aug 29); Wed, 7pm (also Aug 28, 2pm); Sun/18 and Aug 25, 2pm. Through Aug 31. Acting legends and erstwhile X-Men Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen star in this pre-Broadway engagement of Harold Pinter’s play.

Oil and Water This week: San Lorenzo Park, Dakota at Ocean, Santa Cruz; www.sfmt.org. Free (donations accepted). Sat/17-Sun/18, 3pm (music at 2:30pm). Through Sept 2 at NorCal parks. It’s a rough year for mimes, or at any rate for the San Francisco Mime Troupe who, after presenting 53 seasons of free theater in the parks of San Francisco (and elsewhere), faced a financial crisis in April that threatened to shut down this season before it even started. The resultant show, funded by an influx of last-minute donations, is one cut considerably closer to the bone than in previous years. With a cast of just four actors and two musicians, plus a stage considerably less ornate then usual, even the play has shrunk in scale, from one two-hour musical to two loosely-connected one-acts riffing on general environmentalist themes. In Deal With the Devil, a surprisingly sympathetic (not to mention downright hawt) Devil (Velina Brown) shows up to help an uncertain president (Rotimi Agbabiaka) regain his conscience and win back his soul, while in Crude Intentions adorable, progressive, same-sex couple Gracie (Velina Brown) and Tomasa (Lisa Hori-Garcia) wind up catering a “benefit” shindig for the Keystone XL Pipeline giving them the opportunity to perpetrate a little guerrilla direct action on a bombastic David Koch (Hugo E Carbajal) with a “mole de petróleo” and a smartphone. Throughout, the performers remain upbeat if somewhat over-extended as they sing, dance, and slapstick their way to the sobering conclusion that the time to turn things around in the battles over global environmental protection is now — or never. (Gluckstern)

Sea of Reeds Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-35. Wed/14-Thu/15, 7pm; Fri/16-Sat/17, 8pm; Sun/18, 5pm. The stage comes unusually populated in this latest from well-known Bay Area monologist and red-diaper baby Josh Kornbluth: a four-piece musical ensemble (El Beh, Jonathan Kepke, Olive Mitra, and Eli Wirtschafter) sits stage right, a standing table with some reed-making equipment appears stage left. Front and center is Kornbluth and his oboe, before him a music stand and behind him three “reeds”—freestanding concave walls of a bamboo-hue (designed by Nina Ball). But there’s more: Kornbluth’s physical trainer (Beth Wilmurt), bounding up from her seat in the first row to lend Kornbluth support or, more productively, prod him in the right direction as he takes the long road home to setting up a promised recital of Bach’s Cantata No. 82. That set up hinges on his recent bar mitzvah, at 52, in Israel, and its unexpected connections between his life-long oboe playing, his Communist upbringing in New York, his mixed marriage, his conversations with a local rabbi, and the Book of Exodus (specifically, Moses’s trail-blazing for the Israelites across the Red Sea, a.k.a., the Sea of Reeds). Although the introduction of supporting characters, musicians, and a musical score (by Marco D’Ambrosio) breaks new ground for the longtime soloist, Sea of Reeds is classic — indeed classical (thanks to a final few tenuous bars from the promised Bach cantata) — Kornbluth. Directed by longtime creative partner David Dower, the show features the boyish comedic persona, the intricate storytelling, and the biographical referents that have given him a loyal following over the years. Diehard fans aside, the show’s cheesy, somewhat self-regarding conceit of staging “spontaneous” interactions between Kornbluth and his trainer may not work with everyone. Perhaps more challenging, though, is the persistence of a less than fully examined disjunction between the political values of his parents and his own political and ethical evolution — a disjunction highlighted here in the narrative’s fraught Middle Eastern setting and its vague navigation between the violence of religious zealotry and a plea for tolerance. (Avila)

The Wiz Julia Morgan Theater, 2640 College, Berk; www.berkeleyplayhouse.org. $17-60. Wed-Thu and Sat, 7pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, noon and 5pm. Through Aug 25. The first time I saw the movie version of The Wiz with Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Richard Pryor, and Lena Horne (among others) it pretty much blew my young, Wizard of Oz-loving mind, swapping funky R&B for syrupy ballads, sophisticated silver pumps in place of the familiar sequined red ones, and mean city streets and subways in place of the more bucolic surroundings of the 1939 Victor Fleming film. Unfortunately, from a certain perspective, the 1970s feel just about as dated today as the 1930s, and consequently The Wiz doesn’t seem quite as innovative as it once did. And while there are some nods to the political climate of today made by the creative team behind the Berkeley Playhouse’s production (such as a pair of almost randomly-wielded rainbow flags, and a handful of t-shirts printed with peace-and-love messages), they mostly steer clear of making any kind of overt statements, even in regards to the all black casting (now thoroughly integrated). Similarly, many of the trappings of the “seventies” have also been axed in favor of more fanciful, almost cartoonish, costuming and choreography. It’s long for a children’s musical, clocking in at around two-and-a-half hours, but that seems no deterrent to the plucky Wiz Kidz youth ensemble who tread the floorboards as a pack of munchkins, a band of sweatshop laborers, and a groovy bunch of glammed-up citizens of the Emerald City. Grown-up voices of special note belong to Taylor Jones as Dorothy, Nicole Julien as Aunt Em/Glinda, Amy Lizardo as Addaperle, Reggie D. White as Tin Man, and Sarah Mitchell as Evillene. (Gluckstern)

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

“Amplitude II” Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. Fri/16, 7-9pm. Free with gallery admission ($8-10). Novelist Laleh Khadivi, scholar Paula Moya, and others lead this event in which audience members are invited to read excerpts from novels recommended by participating artists. There will also be an expanded cinema performance by Michelle Dizon (2012’s Perpetual Peace).

BATS Improv Bayfront Theater, B350 Fort Mason, SF; www.improv.org. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 31. $20. The company’s 19th annual Summer Improv Festival continues with “Spontaneous Broadway” (Fri/16); “SF vs. LA Theatresports” (Sat/17); “Duoprov Championship” (Aug 23-24); and “Choose Your Own Adventure” (Aug 30-31).

Kurt Braunohler Verdi Club, 2424 Mariposa, SF; kurttub.eventbrite.com. Fri/16, 8pm. $18. The comedian release his new album, How Do I Land?, with fellow performers Laura Kightlinger, the Business, and a special musical guest.

Caroline Lugo and Carolé Acuña’s Ballet Flamenco Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; www.carolinalugo.com. Sat/17 and Aug 25, 6:15pm. $15-19. Flamenco performance by the mother-daughter dance company, featuring live musicians.

“Help Is On the Way 19” Palace of Fine Arts, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.helpisontheway.org. Sun/18, 7:30pm (silent auction and VIP party, 5pm; pre-show gala reception, 6-7:30pm; post-show party, 10-11:45pm). $65-125. Alex Newell (Glee) and Judy Garland impersonator Jim Bailey headline this benefit for the Richmond/Ermet AIDS Foundation.

“Iolanthe” Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Lam Research Theater, 700 Howard, SF; www.ybca.org. Fri/16-Sat/17, 8pm (also Sat/17, 2pm); Sun/18, 2pm. $15-59. Lamplighters Music Theatre performs Gilbert and Sullivan’s classic musical comedy.

“Merola Grand Finale” War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness, SF; www.merola.org. Sat/17, 7:30pm. $25-45. Future opera headliners perform.

“Mission Position Live” Cinecave, 1034 Valencia, SF; www.missionpositionlive.com. Thu, 8pm. Ongoing. $10. Stand-up comedy with rotating performers.

“Okeanos Intimate” Aquarium of the Bay, Pier 39, SF; www.capacitor.org. Sat, 7pm. Through Sept 28. $20-30 (free aquarium ticket with show ticket). Dance-circus company Capacitor presents a family-friendly series of performances inspired by the ocean. Each show features a pre-performance talk by a marine biologist or oceanographer.

“Performing Diaspora Festival” CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; www.counterpulse.org. Thu-Sun, 8pm. Through Aug 25. $20-30 sliding scale. This week: Byb Chanel Bibene, Joti Singh, and Jia Wu; next week: Jewlia Eisenberg, Muisi-kongo Malongo, and Nadhi Thekkek.

“RAWdance presents the Concept Series: 14” 66 Sanchez Studio, 66 Sanchez, SF; www.rawdance.org. Sat/17-Sun/18, 8pm (also Sun/18, 3pm). Pay what you can. Intimate salon of contemporary dance with Nina Haft and Company, Stranger Lover Dreamer, Post: Ballet, the Anata Project, Fog Beast, and RAWdance. Plus popcorn!

“San Francisco Drag King Contest” Space 550, 550 Barneveld, SF; www.sfdragkingcontest.com. Sat/17, 10pm. $15-35. The 18th rendition of this popular contest, hosted by Sister Roma and Fudgie Frottage, benefits Pets Are Wonderful Support; a dance party with guest DJs follows.

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

San Francisco Opera Sigmund Stern Grove, 19th Ave at Sloat, SF; www.sterngrove.org. Sun/18, 2pm. Free. As part of the Stern Grove Festival, SF Opera performs an outdoor concert featuring the works of Verdi, Wagner, and Benjamin Britten.

“San Francisco Son Jarocho Festival” Yerba Buena Gardens, Mission at Third, SF; www.brava.org. Thu/15, 12:30-1:30pm, free. Son de Madera performs. Additional events at Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th St, SF; www.brava.org. Thu/15, 7pm: screening of documentary Soneros del Tesechoacan ($5); Fri/16, 8pm: Los Soneros del Tesechoacan perform with Cambalache ($18-35); Sat/17, 8pm: Son de Madera play a concert with Dia Pa’ Son ($18-35); and Sun/18, times and prices vary: workshops, master classes, and more.

“SPF6” ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; www.odcdance.org. Wed/14-Sun/18, 7pm (also Wed/14-Sat/17, 9pm; Sat/17-Sun/18, 4pm; Sun/18, 2pm). $10-20. SAFEhouse, which fosters new performing artists through residencies and other programs, presents its sixth annual Summer Performance Festival.

“Union Square Live” Union Square, between Post, Geary, Powell, and Stockton, SF; www.unionsquarelive.org. Through Oct 9. Free. Music, dance, circus arts, film, and more; dates and times vary, so check website for the latest.

Yerba Buena Gardens Festival Mission at Third St, SF; www.ybgf.org. Free. This week: “Brazil in the Gardens” (Sat/18, 1-2:30pm); “Poetry Tuesday at Jessie Square” (Tue/20, 12:30-1:30pm).

BAY AREA

“My Own Fairytale” Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 24. $15-30. Leslie Noel presents a workshop performance of her new musical about heartbreak, love, and betrayal.

“Legally Blonde: The Musical” Valley Center for the Arts, Regent’s Theater, Holy Names University, 3500 Mountain Blvd, Oakl; www.stagedoorconservatory.org. Fri/16-Sat/17, 7:30pm; Sun/18, 2pm. $15-35. Stage Door Conservatory performs the musical based on the Reese Witherspoon comedy.

“The Peace Project; Shaking & Shocking” Laney College Theater, 900 Fallon, Oakl; www.dnaga.org. Fri/16-Sat/17, 8pm; Sun/18, 5pm. $15-20. dNaga in partnership with PDActive and Danspace presents Claudine Naganuma’s work about the ways in which patients manage Parkinson’s Disease.

“TheatreWorks New Works Festival” Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; www.theatreworks.org. Wed-Sun, showtimes vary. $19 (festival pass, $65). TheatreWorks performs its 12th annual fest, with a line-up that includes a new comedy from Pulitzer winner Beth Henley. *

 

Season’s greetings

Michael Redmond
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Season’s greetings

ODC/Dance’s 2013 “Summer Sampler” was a smash. The theater was completely packed, and it looked like the entire staff was present to greet audience members on the way to their seats, glasses in hand without spilling a drop. You couldn’t even get mad at latecomers, because theater director Christy Bolingbroke accomodated them so graciously. This was a party before the first performer even set foot on the Marley floor.

But it was dance that made this evening memorable. The short, tightly run program offered three smart, excellently chosen pieces, including a world premiere.

Does Kimi Okada’s wildly applauded Two if by Sea reference Paul Revere’s lanterns? Perhaps. The fact is that Okada, one of ODC’s three co-founders (she also runs the ODC School), has given the company a delicious morsel of intricate give-and-take pair dancing. Jeremy Smith and Vanessa Thiessen, the latter in her final performance before retiring, engaged each other in a duet in which being a jock, a snob, and a lover are all part of a contentious relationship.

Okada clearly has one foot in vaudeville, and how welcome that gift is. Two started with fiery tap dancing as Smith and Thiessen went at each other like boxers in the ring. Donning soft slippers, they extended their repartees into a whole body language, throwing out challenges and teases with their hips and wildly slashing arms. Though there’s no question that Two needs some tightening — even at the price of cutting some of Teiji Ito and Steve Reich’s rich percussion scores — the work also reminded us that humor in pure dance is very rare, because it is so difficult to pull off.

I didn’t see Kate Weare’s 2008 The Light Has Not the Arms to Carry Us when her own dancers performed it at ODC’s Walking Distance Dance Festival at the end of May. As set on ODC’s dancers, it confirms Weare as an intellectually challenging and fearless dance maker who repeatedly pushes her work nearly over the edge without letting it fall.

Light‘s two parts, a solo danced by an astounding Anne Zivolich, and a bravely rendered duet from Dennis Adams and Justin Andrews, don’t connect — except, perhaps in our heads. On stage, they simply follow each other, letting us hang in uncertainty.

Alone on stage, Zivolich seemed in a relationship with the parallel rectangles of light that became like characters, imposing their presence before slipping away from her. The fierce and nuanced Zivolich portrayed somebody (or something) haunted, terrified, and finally overcome. As she kneeled, a simple bob of her head traveled down her spine into backwards crawls and slides, leaps and headstands. When she spread her legs, the slit in her white dress revealed a dark crotch only to be covered up again. This was powerful stuff, with not a wrong move to be seen.

Looking at Adams and Andrews’ big, steady unisons, you search and find small differences. But when they start enacting partnering sequences, you want to see them go somewhere. They don’t seem to, but you sure end up smelling the dancers’ sweat.

Though it debuted in March at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, ODC’s splendid Triangulating Euclid, choreographed by Weare, Brenda Way, and KT Nelson, looked almost brand new. It’s not just that the ODC Theater is more intimate than YBCA’s Lam Research Theater; it’s also that the Mission District venue has a steep rake so that you look down at (instead of more or less straight at) the dancers. Upstage activities, for instance, acquired more prominence. Nuances and facial expressions became more visible. However, not having wing space impinged on the entrances and exits’ effectiveness. The second viewing also clarified the interlocking of Triangulation’s two parts, much the way the dancers’ transparent white blouses, donned in the latter part of the program, still allowed us to see the initial section’s black leotards and tights.

The piece opened with Yayoi Kambara’s expansively exploring solo set to a voice-over by Karen Zukor, who restored the book on Euclid’s Elements of Geometry and to whom the piece is dedicated. The dancers stepped in to give us choreographic images of Euclid’s concepts, forming themselves into squares, triangles, diagonals, and parallels. This was living geometry that moved through its patterns with the inevitability and serendipity of a kaleidoscope.

When Kambara’s single, huge ronds de jambe smudged Maggie Stack’s carefully “drawn” chalk lines, the dance exploded into a series of highly individualized duets: lush and sensuous for Stack and Corey Brady; volatile and athletic for Adams and Kambara; and, particularly intriguing, one for Zivolich and Smith in which he seemed blind to her pleading. The number two was of primary importance to Euclid; it also is for dance. And what better way to explore its ramifications than to Schubert compositions.

 

Rep Clock: August 6 – 13, 2013

Michael Redmond
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Schedules are for Wed/7-Tue/13 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features marked with a •. All times pm unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $5-10. “OpenScreening,” Thu, 8. Email programming@atasite.org for submission info. “New! Form! Fiction!”: “The Nova Avon: Social Media Fiction Screening, Performance, and Maker Opportunity,” Fri, 7.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. •Un Flic (Delon, 1972), Wed-Thu, 2:45, 7, and Max et les ferrailleurs (Sautet, 1971), Wed-Thu, 4:45. 8:55. •This Is Spinal Tap (Reiner, 1984), Fri, 7:30, and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Schultz, 1978), Fri, 9:10. •Big Wednesday (Milius, 1978), Sat, 6, and Apocalypse Now (Coppola, 1979), Sat, 8:20. •M (Lang, 1931), Sun, 1, 6, and Metropolis (Lang, 1927), Sun, 3:15, 8:05.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.75-$10.25. Hannah Arendt (von Trotta, 2012), call for dates and times. The Hunt (Vinterberg, 2012), call for dates and times. Rebels With a Cause (Kelly, 2012), call for dates and times. Storm Surfers 3D (McMillan and Nelius, 2012), call for dates and times. 20 Feet From Stardom (Neville, 2013), call for dates and times. The Hole (Dante, 2009), Fri and Tue, 4:30, 6:45. Ain’t In It For My Health: A Film About Levon Helm (Hatley, 2012), Fri, Tue, Aug 14-15, 8:45.

CLAY 2261 Fillmore, SF; www.landmarktheatres.com. $10. “Midnight Movies:” The Room (Wiseau, 2003), Sat, midnight.

ERIC QUESADA CENTER 581 Valencia, SF; www.mitfamericas.org. $5-10. Revolutionary Medicine: A Story of the First Garifuna Hospital (Freeston, 2013), Tue, 7.

“FILM NIGHT IN THE PARK” This week: Creek Park, 451 Sir Frances Drake Blvd, San Anselmo; www.filmnight.org. Free (donations appreciated). Being There (Ashby, 1979), Fri, 8; Lincoln (Spielberg, 2012), Sat, 8.

FOUR STAR 2200 Clement, SF; www.lntsf.com. $10. “Live From the Red Square,” concert film featuring Russian opera stars Anna Netrebko and Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Fri, 6; Sat-Sun, 11:30am.

JACK LONDON SQUARE Market lawn, Harrison at Water, Oakl; www.jacklondonsquare.com. Free. Skyfall (Mendes, 2012), Thu, sundown.

NEW PARKWAY 474 24th St, Oakl; www.thenewparkway.com, www.cinekink.com. Donations accepted. “Best of CineKink,” sexy short films, Thu, 7.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “A Call to Action: The Films of Raoul Walsh:” High Sierra (Walsh, 1941), Wed, 7; They Drive By Night (Walsh, 1940), Sat, 6:30; White Heat (Walsh, 1949), Sat, 8:30. “Tales of Love: The Enchanted World of Jacques Demy:” The Young Girls of Rochefort (Demy, 1967), Thu, 7; The Young Girls Turn 25 (Varda, 1993), Fri, 7; The World of Jacques Demy (Varda, 1994), Sun, 6:45. “Dark Nights: Simenon and Cinema:” Red Lights (Kahn, 2003), Fri, 8:45. “Castles in the Sky: Masterful Animation from Studio Ghibli:” Whispers of the Heart (Kondo, 1995), Sun, 4:30.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-11. Downloaded (Winter, 2013), Wed-Thu, 7:15, 9:30. Terms and Conditions May Apply (Hoback, 2013), Wed-Thu, 7:15, 9:30. Low Movie (How to Quit Smoking) (Harder, 2013), Thu, 7:15, 8:45. The Canyons (Schrader, 2013), Aug 9-15, 7:15, 9:30 (also Sat-Sun, 2:45, 4:45). Kid-Thing (Zellner, 2013), Aug 9-15, 7 (also Sat-Sun, 5).

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. $8-10. Harana (Bautista, 2012), Fri-Sun, 7 (also Sat-Sun, 1, 3, 5). *

 

Theater Listings: July 31 – August 7, 2013

Michael Redmond
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Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

THEATER

OPENING

Stories High XII: The Soma Edition Bindlestiff Studio, 185 Sixth St, SF; www.bindlestiffstudio.org. $10-20. Opens Thu/1, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 17. Four mini-plays about “living, working, playing, and struggling” in SoMa, written by Dianne Aquino Chui, Paolo Salazar, Cristal Fiel, and Conrad Panganiban.

BAY AREA

No Man’s Land Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $35-135. Opens Sat/3, 8pm. Runs Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Thu and Sat, 2pm; no matinee Aug 29); Wed, Sun/4, and Aug 11, 7pm (also Sun/4 and Aug 28, 2pm); Aug 18 and 25, 2pm. Through Aug 31. Acting legends and erstwhile X-Men Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen star in this pre-Broadway engagement of Harold Pinter’s play.

ONGOING

Can You Dig It? Back Down East 14th — the 60s and Beyond Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Aug 25. Don Reed’s new show offers more stories from his colorful upbringing in East Oakland in the 1960s and ’70s. More hilarious and heartfelt depictions of his exceptional parents, independent siblings, and his mostly African American but ethnically mixed working-class community — punctuated with period pop, Motown, and funk classics, to which Reed shimmies and spins with effortless grace. And of course there’s more too of the expert physical comedy and charm that made long-running hits of Reed’s last two solo shows, East 14th and The Kipling Hotel (both launched, like this newest, at the Marsh). Can You Dig It? reaches, for the most part, into the “early” early years, Reed’s grammar-school days, before the events depicted in East 14th or Kipling Hotel came to pass. But in nearly two hours of material, not all of it of equal value or impact, there’s inevitably some overlap and indeed some recycling. Reed, who also directs the show, may start whittling it down as the run continues. But, as is, there are at least 20 unnecessary minutes diluting the overall impact of the piece, which is thin on plot already — much more a series of albeit often very enjoyable vignettes and some painful but largely unexplored observations, wrapped up at the end in a sentimental moral that, while sincere, feels rushed and inadequate. (Avila)

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

God of Carnage Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sheltontheater.com. $26-38. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 7. Shelton Theater performs Yasmina Reza’s award-winning play about class and parenting.

Gold Rush! The Un-Scripted Barbary Coast Musical Un-Scripted Theater Company, 533 Sutter, Second Flr, SF; www.un-scripted.com. $10-20. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 24. The Un-Scripted Theater Company performs an improvised musical about gold-rush era San Francisco.

Gorgeous Hussy: An Interview With Joan Crawford Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.wilywestproductions.com. $15-35. Thu/1, Sat/3, Aug 9, and 15-16, 8pm. Running in repertory with Lawfully Wedded (below), this world premiere by Morgan Ludlow imagines a young writer’s encounter with the legendary movie star.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch Boxcar Theatre, 505 Natoma, SF; www.boxcartheatre.org. $27-43. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. John Cameron Mitchell’s cult musical comes to life with director Nick A. Olivero’s ever-rotating cast.

How to Make Your Bitterness Work for You Stage Werx Theatre, 446 Valencia, SF; www.stagewerx.org. $15-25. Mon-Tue, 8pm. Through Aug 27. Kent Underwood is a motivational speaker and self-help expert with some obvious baggage of his own in this solo play from former comedy writer and stand-up comedian Fred Raker (It Could Have Been a Wonderful Life). The premise, similar to that of Kurt Bodden’s Steve Seabrook: Better Than You (ongoing at the Marsh), has the audience overlapping with participants in an Underwood seminar. Underwood, however, two years on the seminar circuit and still unable to get his book published, deviates from the script to answer texts related to a possible career breakthrough. Meanwhile, with the aid of some bullet points and illustrative slides, he explains the premise of said manuscript, “How to Make Your Bitterness Work For You,” as the sad truth of his own underdog status emerges between the laugh lines. But where Bodden is careful to make his Seabrook a somewhat believable character despite the absurdity of it all (or rather, while firmly embracing the absurdity of the self-help industry itself), Raker and director Kimberly Richards put much more space between the playwright/performer and his character, which turns out to be a less effective strategy. Verisimilitude might not have mattered much if the comic material were stronger. Unfortunately, despite the occasional zinger, much of the humor is weak or corny and the narrative (interrupted at regular intervals by an artificial tone representing the arrival of a fresh text message) too contrived to sell us on the larger story. (Avila)

Keith Moon: The Real Me Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $40. Extended run: Thu/1-Sat/3, 8pm; Sun/4, 7pm. Was Keith Moon the greatest rock ‘n’ roll drummer ever? Veteran solo performer and drum stylist Mick Berry doesn’t exactly come out and say so, but his biographical play about Moon definitely makes a good case for the possibility. Keith Moon: The Real Me, written and performed by Berry, kicks off with a literal bang, a hi-octane cover of “Baba O’Riley,” featuring Berry’s exuberantly crashing cymbals layered over the iconic, rapidfire synth riff that runs throughout the song. Though the characters of the play are all portrayed by Berry — with references to all the requisite sex, drugs, and self-destruction thrown into the mix — a full band stands at the ready behind two transparent screens to flesh out the show’s strongest element: the rock-and-roll. In order to channel Moon’s full-throttle drumming, Berry enlisted the assistance of Frank Simes, the music director of the Who’s 2012-2013 tour, while to channel Moon’s freewheeling but insecure personality, he enlisted local director Bobby Weinapple. The script itself is still ragged, and a couple of key moments, particularly when Moon’s car is attacked in early 1970, are presented in such a way that the context comes later, which is confusing if you don’t already know the history of the incident. But if you don’t mind a bit of chat with your rock concert, you’ll probably find this fusion of the two intriguing. Just remember, when the nice concessions people offer you complimentary earplugs, take them. (Gluckstern)

Lawfully Wedded: Plays About Marriage Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.wilywestproductions.com. $15-35. Fri/2, Aug 8, 10, and 17, 8pm. Running in repertory with Gorgeous Hussy (above), this world premiere “collage of scenes and stories” by Morgan Ludlow, Kirk Shimano, and Alina Trowbridge takes on marriage equality.

Sex and the City: LIVE! Rebel, 1760 Market, SF; trannyshack.com/sexandthecity. $25. Wed, 7 and 9pm. Open-ended. It seems a no-brainer. Not just the HBO series itself — that’s definitely missing some gray matter — but putting it onstage as a drag show. Mais naturellement! Why was Sex and the City not conceived of as a drag show in the first place? Making the sordid not exactly palatable but somehow, I don’t know, friendlier (and the canned a little cannier), Velvet Rage Productions mounts two verbatim episodes from the widely adored cable show, with Trannyshack’s Heklina in a smashing portrayal of SJP’s Carrie; D’Arcy Drollinger stealing much of the show as ever-randy Samantha (already more or less a gay man trapped in a woman’s body); Lady Bear as an endearingly out-to-lunch Miranda; and ever assured, quick-witted Trixxie Carr as pent-up Charlotte. There’s also a solid and enjoyable supporting cast courtesy of Cookie Dough, Jordan Wheeler, and Leigh Crow (as Mr. Big). That’s some heavyweight talent trodding the straining boards of bar Rebel’s tiny stage. The show’s still two-dimensional, even in 3D, but noticeably bigger than your 50″ plasma flat panel. Update: new episodes began May 15. (Avila)

So You Can Hear Me Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Extended through Aug 24. A 23-year-old with no experience, just high spirits and big ideals, gets a job in the South Bronx teaching special ed classes and quickly finds herself in over her head. Safiya Martinez, herself a bright young woman from the projects, delivers this inspired accounting of her time not long ago in perhaps the most neglected sector of the public school system — a 60-minute solo play that makes up for its relatively slim plot with a set of deft, powerful, lovingly crafted characterizations. These complex portraits, alternately hysterical and startling, offer their own moving ruminations on a violent but also vibrant stratum of American society, deeply fractured by pervasive poverty and injustice and yet full of restive young personalities too easily dismissed, ignored, or crudely caricatured elsewhere. An effervescent, big-hearted, and very talented performer, Martinez’s own bounding personality and contagious passion for her former students (as complicated as that relationship was), makes this deeply felt tribute all the more memorable. (Avila)

Steve Seabrook: Better Than You Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat, 8:30pm. Extended through Aug 24. Self-awareness, self-actualization, self-aggrandizement — for these things we turn to the professionals: the self-empowerment coaches, the self-help authors and motivational speakers. What’s the good of having a “self” unless someone shows you how to use it? Writer-performer Kurt Bodden’s Steve Seabrook wants to sell you on a better you, but his “Better Than You” weekend seminar (and tie-in book series, assorted CDs, and other paraphernalia) belies a certain divided loyalty in its own self-flattering title. The bitter fruit of the personal growth industry may sound overly ripe for the picking, but Bodden’s deftly executed “seminar” and its behind-the-scenes reveals, directed by Mark Kenward, explore the terrain with panache, cool wit, and shrewd characterization. As both writer and performer, Bodden keeps his Steve Seabrook just this side of overly sensational or maudlin, a believable figure, finally, whose all-too-ordinary life ends up something of a modest model of its own. (Avila)

Sweet Bird of Youth Tides Theatre, 533 Sutter, Second Flr, SF; www.tidestheatre.org. $20-40. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 24. Tides Theatre performs Tennessee Williams’ Gulf Coast-set drama about an improbable couple.

Wunderworld Creativity Theater, 221 Fourth St, SF; www.wunderworld.net. $10-15. Sat-Sun, 2pm (also Sat, 11am; Sun, 5pm). Through Aug 11. In an irresistible boost to the the Children’s Creativity Museum’s new Creativity Theater (formerly Zeum), beloved Bay Area comedian, playwright, and performer Sara Moore (Show Ho) teams up with gifted co-writer and performer Michael Phillis (The Bride of Death) and director Andrew Nance for a largely wordless, but gabble-packed, family-friendly comedy that asks what Alice might find down the rabbit hole were she to tumble down it again as an octogenarian? The 60-minute play showcases the elastic features and sharp comedic instincts of both Moore (as a hilarious and heartfelt Alice, whom no one recognizes these days unless she stretches her face smooth again) and Phillis (who kicks things off with a mimed pre-curtain speech deserving of its own encore, before coming back as the now droopy-eared White Rabbit). Equally endearing are performances by Dawn Meredith Smith (as Caterpillar, Red Queen, and a rest home nurse), choreographer Rory Davis (as the Cheshire Cat), and the inimitable Joan Mankin as Alice’s bored nursing-home roommate and the Mad Hatter. (Avila)

BAY AREA

A Comedy of Errors Forest Meadows Amphitheater, 890 Bella, Dominican University of California, San Rafael; www.marinshakespeare.org. $20-37.50. Presented in repertory Fri-Sun through Sept 29; visit website for performance schedule. Marin Shakespeare Company presents a cowboy-themed spin on the Bard’s classic.

The Loudest Man on Earth Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; www.theatreworks.org. $19-73. Wed/31, 7:30pm; Thu/1-Sat/3, 8pm (also Sat/3, 2pm); Sun/4, 2 and 7pm. TheatreWorks presents the world premiere of Catherine Rush’s unconventional romantic comedy starring acclaimed actor Adrian Blue, who is deaf.

A Maze Live Oak Theatre, 1301 Shattuck, Berk; www.justtheater.org. $15-30. Thu/1-Sun/4, 8pm. Just Theater performs Rob Handel’s drama about multiple characters re-inventing their identities, running in repertory with Underneath the Lintel (below).

Oil and Water This week: Lakeside Park, Bellevue at Perkins, Oakl; www.sfmt.org. Wed/31-Thu/1, 7pm. Free. Also Sat/3, 2pm, Frances Willard/Ho Chi Minh Park, Hillegass and Derby, Berk; www.sfmt.org. Free. Also Sun/4, 2pm, Yerba Buena Gardens, Mission at Third St, SF; www.sfmt.org. Free. Through Sept 2. It’s a rough year for mimes, or at any rate for the San Francisco Mime Troupe who, after presenting 53 seasons of free theater in the parks of San Francisco (and elsewhere), faced a financial crisis in April that threatened to shut down this season before it even started. The resultant show, funded by an influx of last-minute donations, is one cut considerably closer to the bone than in previous years. With a cast of just four actors and two musicians, plus a stage considerably less ornate then usual, even the play has shrunk in scale, from one two-hour musical to two loosely-connected one-acts riffing on general environmentalist themes. In Deal With the Devil, a surprisingly sympathetic (not to mention downright hawt) Devil (Velina Brown) shows up to help an uncertain president (Rotimi Agbabiaka) regain his conscience and win back his soul, while in Crude Intentions adorable, progressive, same-sex couple Gracie (Velina Brown) and Tomasa (Lisa Hori-Garcia) wind up catering a “benefit” shindig for the Keystone XL Pipeline giving them the opportunity to perpetrate a little guerilla direct action on a bombastic David Koch (Hugo E Carbajal) with a “mole de petróleo” and a smartphone. Throughout, the performers remain upbeat if somewhat over-extended as they sing, dance, and slapstick their way to the sobering conclusion that the time to turn things around in the battles over global environmental protection is now — or never. (Gluckstern)

Sea of Reeds Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-35. Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Aug 18. The stage comes unusually populated in this latest from well-known Bay Area monologist and red-diaper baby Josh Kornbluth: a four-piece musical ensemble (El Beh, Jonathan Kepke, Olive Mitra, and Eli Wirtschafter) sits stage right, a standing table with some reed-making equipment appears stage left. Front and center is Kornbluth and his oboe, before him a music stand and behind him three “reeds”—freestanding concave walls of a bamboo-hue (designed by Nina Ball). But there’s more: Kornbluth’s physical trainer (Amy Resnick, replaced by Beth Wilmurt beginning August 7), bounding up from her seat in the first row to lend Kornbluth support or, more productively, prod him in the right direction as he takes the long road home to setting up a promised recital of Bach’s Cantata No. 82. That set up hinges on his recent bar mitzvah, at 52, in Israel, and its unexpected connections between his life-long oboe playing, his Communist upbringing in New York, his mixed marriage, his conversations with a local rabbi, and the Book of Exodus (specifically, Moses’s trail-blazing for the Israelites across the Red Sea, a.k.a., the Sea of Reeds). Although the introduction of supporting characters, musicians, and a musical score (by Marco D’Ambrosio) breaks new ground for the longtime soloist, Sea of Reeds is classic — indeed classical (thanks to a final few tenuous bars from the promised Bach cantata) — Kornbluth. Directed by longtime creative partner David Dower, the show features the boyish comedic persona, the intricate storytelling, and the biographical referents that have given him a loyal following over the years. Diehard fans aside, the show’s cheesy, somewhat self-regarding conceit of staging “spontaneous” interactions between Kornbluth and his trainer may not work with everyone. Perhaps more challenging, though, is the persistence of a less than fully examined disjunction between the political values of his parents and his own political and ethical evolution — a disjunction highlighted here in the narrative’s fraught Middle Eastern setting and its vague navigation between the violence of religious zealotry and a plea for tolerance. (Avila)

The Spanish Tragedy Forest Meadows Amphitheater, 890 Bella, Dominican University of California, San Rafael; www.marinshakespeare.org. $20-37.50. Presented in repertory Fri-Sun through Aug 11; visit website for performance schedule. Marin Shakespeare Company performs Thomas Kyd’s Elizabethan revenge tragedy.

Underneath the Lintel Live Oak Theatre, 1301 Shattuck, Berk; www.justtheater.org. $15-30. Wed/31, 8pm; Sat/3-Sun/4, 3pm. Just Theater performs Glen Berger’s literary comedy, running in repertory with A Maze (above).

The Wiz Julia Morgan Theater, 2640 College, Berk; www.berkeleyplayhouse.org. $17-60. Wed-Thu and Sat, 7pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, noon and 5pm. Through Aug 25. The first time I saw the movie version of The Wiz with Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Richard Pryor, and Lena Horne (among others) it pretty much blew my young, Wizard of Oz-loving mind, swapping funky R&B for syrupy ballads, sophisticated silver pumps in place of the familiar sequined red ones, and mean city streets and subways in place of the more bucolic surroundings of the 1939 Victor Fleming film. Unfortunately, from a certain perspective, the 1970s feel just about as dated today as the 1930s, and consequently The Wiz doesn’t seem quite as innovative as it once did. And while there are some nods to the political climate of today made by the creative team behind the Berkeley Playhouse’s production (such as a pair of almost randomly-wielded rainbow flags, and a handful of t-shirts printed with peace-and-love messages), they mostly steer clear of making any kind of overt statements, even in regards to the all black casting (now thoroughly integrated). Similarly, many of the trappings of the “seventies” have also been axed in favor of more fanciful, almost cartoonish, costuming and choreography. It’s long for a children’s musical, clocking in at around two-and-a-half hours, but that seems no deterrent to the plucky Wiz Kidz youth ensemble who tread the floorboards as a pack of munchkins, a band of sweatshop laborers, and a groovy bunch of glammed-up citizens of the Emerald City. Grown-up voices of special note belong to Taylor Jones as Dorothy, Nicole Julien as Aunt Em/Glinda, Amy Lizardo as Addaperle, Reggie D. White as Tin Man, and Sarah Mitchell as Evillene. (Gluckstern)

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

“Amplitude I” Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. Fri/2, 7-9pm. Free with gallery admission ($8-10). Writers Ed Bok Lee, D. Scot Miller, Aleida Rodriguez, and Pireeni Sundaralingam share poetry addressing “the impact of migration and diasporic experiences on identity.”

BATS Improv Bayfront Theater, B350 Fort Mason, SF; www.improv.org. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 31. $20. The company’s 19th annual Summer Improv Festival kicks off this week with “Split Decision.”

“Burlesque and Why! (The Naked Truth)” Stage Werx, 446 Valencia, SF; www.burlesqueandwhy.com. Thu/1, 8pm; Fri/2-Sat/3, 10pm (also Sat/3, 7pm); Sun/4, 5 and 8pm. $5-35. Red Hots Burlesque presents its first stage show, with performers sharing “behind-the-curtain” stories.

Caroline Lugo and Carolé Acuña’s Ballet Flamenco Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; www.carolinalugo.com. Sun/4, Aug 17, and 25, 6:15pm. $15-19. Flamenco performance by the mother-daughter dance company, featuring live musicians.

“The Fantasy Club” Alcove Theater, 414 Mason, SF; www.thealcovetheater.com. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Aug 11. $15-18.50. All Terrain Theater performs Rachel Bublitz’s world-premiere comedy about a sexy housewife caught between her husband and her high-school crush.

Bobcat Goldthwait Cobb’s Comedy Club, 915 Columbus, SF; www.cobbscomedyclub.com. Fri/2, 8 and 10pm; Sat/3, 7:30 and 9:45pm. $25. The comedian, director, and NPR personality performs.

“Mission Position Live” Cinecave, 1034 Valencia, SF; www.missionpositionlive.com. Thu, 8pm. Ongoing. $10. Stand-up comedy with rotating performers.

“Le nozze di Figaro” Everett Auditorium, 450 Church, SF; www.merola.org. Thu/1, 7:30pm; Sat/3, 2pm. $25-60. Merola Opera Program performs Mozart’s classic comedy.

“ODC/Dance presents Summer Sampler” ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; www.odcdance.org. Fri/2-Sat/3, 8pm. $30-45. Featuring the world premiere of Kimi Okada’s Two If By Sea; Triangulating Euclid, a collaboration between Brenda Way, KT Nelson, and Kate Weare; and Weare’s The Light Has Not the Arms to Carry Us.

“The Romane Event Comedy Show” Make-Out Room, 3225 22nd St, SF; www.pacoromane.com. Wed/31, 8-10pm. $10. The comedy show celebrates its 100th edition with performers Bucky Sinister, Joe Tobin, Ronn Vigh, David Gborie, Scott Simpson, and Paco Romane.

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

“Trapeze 8: Hot August Hoo-Ha” Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, SF; www.rickshawstop.com. Fri/2, 9pm. $10. “Big bass burlecto-swing party” with DJs Delachaux, the Klown, and JSIN-J, plus burlesque performances by Lux O’ Matic, Fou Fou Ha, Eva D’ Luscious, and more.

“Union Square Live” Union Square, between Post, Geary, Powell, and Stockton, SF; www.unionsquarelive.org. Through Oct 9. Free. Music, dance, circus arts, film, and more; dates and times vary, so check website for the latest.

BAY AREA

“Love in the Dark: Pauline Kael and the Movies” Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. Mon/5, 8pm. $15. The Shotgun Cabaret presents Mary Baird in this First Person Singular production about the legendary film critic.

“The Phantom Tollbooth” Ward Nine Chapel Auditorium, 1501 Walnut, Berk; www.stagedoorconservatory.org. Thu/1-Sat/3, 7:30pm. $15-25. Stage Door Conservatory presents the stage adaptation of the children’s adventure novel. *

 

Rep Clock: July 24 – 31, 2013

Michael Redmond
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Schedules are for Wed/24-Tue/30 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features marked with a •. All times pm unless otherwise specified.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $8.50-11. •Gloria (Cassavetes, 1980), Wed, 7, and Escape from New York (Carpenter, 1981), Wed, 5, 9:20. San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, July 25-Aug 1. See www.sfjff.org for program information.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.75-$10.25. The Hunt (Vinterberg, 2012), call for dates and times. The Look of Love (Winterbottom, 2013), call for dates and times. One Track Heart: The Story of Krishna Das (Frindel, 2012), call for dates and times. Rebels With a Cause (Kelly, 2012), call for dates and times. Storm Surfers 3D (McMillan and Nelius, 2012), call for dates and times. 20 Feet From Stardom (Neville, 2013), call for dates and times. Dial M for Murder (Hitchcock, 1954), Thu and Sun, 7 (also Sun, 4:15).

CLAY 2261 Fillmore, SF; www.landmarktheatres.com. $10. “Midnight Movies:” Samurai Cop (Sharvan, 1989), Fri, midnight; The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Sharman, 1975), Sat, midnight, with the Bawdy Caste performing live.

“FILM NIGHT IN THE PARK” This week: Creek Park, 400 Sir Francis Drake, San Anselmo; www.filmnight.org. Free (donations appreciated). Moonrise Kingdom (Anderson, 2012), Fri, 8; The Road to El Dorado (Bergeron, Finn, Paul, and Silverman, 2000), Sat, 8.

FIRST UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST CHURCH 1187 Franklin, SF; www.laborfest.net. Donations accepted. FilmWorks United: International Working Class Film and Video Festival: Roadmap to Apartheid (Nogueira and Davidson, 2012), Thu, 7.

518 VALENCIA SF; www.laborfest.net. Donations accepted. FilmWorks United: International Working Class Film and Video Festival: •The Machinist (Majid and York, 2010), and Bhopali (Carlson, 2011), Fri, 7.

JACK LONDON SQUARE Market lawn, Harrison at Water, Oakl; www.jacklondonsquare.com. Free. Brave (Andrews, Chapman, and Purcell, 2012), Thu, sundown.

MISSION CULTURAL CENTER FOR LATINO ARTS 2868 Mission, SF; www.laborfest.net. Donations accepted. FilmWorks United: International Working Class Film and Video Festival: Dreamworks China (Facchin and Fraceschini, 2012), with “War in Paterson, the Strike that Changed the Labor Movement” (Seidel, 2010), and “A Witness to the Paterson Strike” (Golzio), Sun, 7:30.

NEW PARKWAY 474 24th St, Oakl; www.thenewparkway.com. $6. “SPECTRUMQueerMedia.com presents:” Strange Frame: Love and Sax (Hajim, 2012), Sun, 3.

NEW PEOPLE CINEMA 1746 Post, SF; www.jffsf.org. $13. “J-Pop Summit Festival: Japan Film Festival of San Francisco,” new films and anime from Japan, July 27-Aug 4.

NIMBY’S 8410 Amelia, Oakl; www.brainwashm.com. $10. Brainwash Drive-In/Bike-In/Walk-In Festival, Fri-Sat, 9 (music at 8). All shows broadcast in FM stereo.

NINTH STREET INDEPENDENT FILM CENTER 145 Ninth St, SF; detourdance.com/TDFF. $10-15 (two-day pass, $25). detour dance presents: “Tiny Dance Film Festival,” short dance films from around the globe, Fri-Sat, 8.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “A Call to Action: The Films of Raoul Walsh:” They Died with Their Boots On (1942), Wed, 7; What Price Glory (1926), Sat, 6. “Tales of Love: The Enchanted World of Jacques Demy:” Lola (1961), Thu, 7; Bay of Angels (1962), Fri, 7; The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), Sat, 8:30. “Dark Nights: Simenon and Cinema:” Monsieur Hire (Leconte, 1989), Fri, 8:45; The Bottom of the Bottle (Hathaway, 1956), Sun, 7. “Castles in the Sky: Masterful Anime from Studio Ghibli:” Princess Mononoke (Miyazaki, 1997), Sun, 4:30.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-11. A Band Called Death (Covino and Howlett, 2012), Thu, 7. Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me (DiNicola and Mori, 2012), Wed, 9; Thu, 9:15. An Oversimplification of Her Beauty (Nance, 2012), Wed-Thu, 7, 9:15. “This Must Be the Place: Post-Punk Tribes 1983-1990,” docs and oddities, Fri-Sun. Check website for full schedule. Plimpton! Starring George Plimpton As Himself (Bean and Poling, 2012), July 26-31, 6:45, 8:45.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. $8-10. Viola (Piñeiro, 2012), with “Muta” (Martel, 2011), Thu and Sat, 7:30; Sun, 2. *

 

The ascendants

Michael Redmond
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0
The ascendants

arts@sfbg.com

DANCE Though only in its fourth season, Robert Dekkers’ Post:Ballet has already gained an enthusiastic, impressively large following that has allowed the company to move from the Cowell to the Herbst to this year’s Lam Research Theater at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. It’s easy to see the reason for Dekkers’ success.

While his dance making is clearly ballet-based, his works have an expansive sense of freedom that makes them welcoming and easy on the eye. By choosing to perform in the summer when other companies are on break, he can also work with highly trained professionals otherwise unavailable to a small (ten-person) ensemble like his. This year they came from Houston Ballet and Ballet Arizona, as well as the local Smuin Ballet, Alonzo King LINES Ballet, and Company C Contemporary Ballet.

Perhaps most intriguing is the ease with which Dekkers’ choreography embraces the ground and the air as one liquid continuum. His dancers crawl, slither, and slide along the floor like billowing smoke — and then rise into space as if born to it.

The world premiere for seven dancers, field the present shifts, is probably Dekkers’ most ambitious piece yet. It is a problematic work. A collaboration with architects Robert Gilson and Catherine Caldwell and a commissioned score, performed live by Matthew Pierce, it also features gorgeous magenta body-hugging costumes by Christine Darch, and a richly varied lighting design by David Robertson.

According to the program notes, field examines complex relationships. Within a given set of parameters, the piece also allows for individual decision-making by everyone involved. It added up to a lot of in-the-moment choices by a lot of people, and the results did not convince.

Visually, however, field was a feast for the senses. The dancers flew at each other like arrows, bunched up into swaying unisons as if buffeted by some gale force wind. They gathered on individual squares of light, responded to each other across the stage, and seemed to walk on water. They rolled into somersaults and carefully explored and yanked at each other. What I missed was an encompassing frame that held these individual units together. Also, a sense of uncertainty marred some the canons and unisons.

The two designers came up with what looked like huge sheaves of wheat hung upside down; at one point, they were lowered, presumably for the dancers to interact with. Few of them did. So what was the point? The distinct character of each of the ten or so sections of Pierce’s score for five violins, however, was a pleasure to hear.

The evening opened with the reworked Colouring II from 2011, danced with great authority by Ashley Flaner and Domenico Luciano. The piece traced the making of a pas de deux, developing at the same time as Enrico Quintero’s creation of a large, calligraphy-inspired painting. The dancers, approaching each other from opposite sides, added another gesture with each encounter, suggesting an almost filmic sense of accumulation. Daniel Berkman’s score, performed live, contributed his own voice to this intriguing process. This was watching visual and kinetic art in the making, and it was a delight. However, Dekkers standing on the sidelines, cueing the process, seemed intrusive. He should have trusted his artists.

Sixes and Seven, also from 2011, is a solo, here danced delicately yet firmly by Jessica Collado. This was richly varied choreography in which the dancer made full use of her body, including an excellent use of gestural language. At times, Collado appeared to withdraw into herself, but she also reacted to invisible external forces that impinged on her. You got a sense that she was living in a rich world. If the use of an excerpt from Philip Glass’s Einstein at the Beach meant to suggest some kind of cosmic existence, the choice was perfect.

Last year’s When in Doubt ended awkwardly in a wobbly pyramid, and used a distracting word-and-sound score by Jacob Wolkenhauer. But Dekkers showed considerable choreographic chops in the way he used his septet of dancers both in unisons and in smaller units. With the women on pointe walking in plié, and Robertson’s stark lighting that pulled the dancers across the stage with a quasi magnetic force, When began to feel ominous. This was even true for the two very different duets for Raychel Weiner and Christian Squire, and Collado and Jane Hope Rehm.

Dressing the women in black leotards and the topless men in black tights was inspired because the dancers could almost disappear into each other. The women were dark from the waist up, the men from the waist down. The color scheme abstracted personal interactions and sequences into two-dimensional patterns — thus foregoing overly eager tendencies to read narrative intentions into Dekkers’ choreography. *

 

Rep Clock: July 17 – 23, 2013

Michael Redmond
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Schedules are for Wed/17-Tue/23 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features marked with a •. All times pm unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $6-9. “Periwinkle Cinema: Reality Check,” short films, Wed, 8. The Space Invaders: In Search of Lost Time (Von Ward, 2012), Fri, 8. “An Evening with Sublime Frequencies and filmmaker Hisham Mayet,” Sat, 8.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $8.50-11. •Mystery Train (Jarmusch, 1989), Wed, 7, and Night on Earth (Jarmusch, 1991), Wed, 9:05. San Francisco Silent Film Festival: Prix de Beauté (Genina, 1930), Thu, 7; “Amazing Tales from the Archives,” Fri, 11am (free screening); The First Born (Mander, 1928), Fri, 2; Tokyo Chorus (Ozu, 1931), Fri, 4:30; The Patsy (Vidor, 1928), Fri, 7; The Golden Clown (Sandberg, 1926), Fri, 9:30; “Winsor McCay: His Life and Art,” presentation by John Canemaker, Sat, 10am; The Half-Breed (Dwan, 1916), Sat, noon; Legong: Dance of the Virgins (de la Falaise, 1935), Sat, 2:15; Gribiche (Feyder, 1926), Sat, 4; The House on Trubnaya Square (Barnet, 1928), Sat, 6:30; The Joyless Street (Pabst, 1925), Sat, 8:30; “The Kings of (Silent) Comedy,” Sun, 10am; The Outlaw and His Wife (Sjöström, 1918), Sun, 1; The Last Edition (Johnson, 1925), Sun, 3:30; The Weavers (Zelnik, 1927), Sun, 6; Safety Last! (Taylor and Newmeyer, 1923), Sun, 8:30. Tickets (most shows $15) and more info, including accompanists for each program, at www.silentfilm.org. The Great Gatsby (Luhrmann, 2013), Mon-Tue, 6, 9 (also Tue, noon, 3).

CHILDREN’S CREATIVITY MUSEUM 221 Fourth St, SF; www.artsanddialogue.org. Free (space is limited, so RSVP to info@ybcbd.org). “Arts and Dialogue presents the Yerba Buena Mini-Film Festival,” Thu, 6.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.75-$10.25. Augustine (Winocour, 2012), call for dates and times. Frances Ha (Baumbach, 2012), call for dates and times. One Track Heart: The Story of Krishna Das (Frindel, 2012), call for dates and times. Rebels With a Cause (Kelly, 2012), call for dates and times. Storm Surfers 3D (McMillan and Nelius, 2012), call for dates and times. 20 Feet From Stardom (Neville, 2013), call for dates and times. The Hunt (Vinterberg, 2012), July 19-25, call for times. The Oyster Princess (Lubitsch, 1919) with “Cops” (Cline and Keaton, 1922), Mon, 7:15. With live musical accompaniment; this event, $12.

CLAY 2261 Fillmore, SF; www.landmarktheatres.com. $10. “Midnight Movies:” V/H/S 2 (Various directors, 2013), Fri-Sat, midnight.

“FILM NIGHT IN THE PARK” This week: Creek Park, 400 Sir Francis Drake, San Anselmo; www.filmnight.org. Free (donations appreciated). The School of Rock (Linklater, 2003), Fri, 8; Brave (Andrews and Chapman, 2012), Sat, 8.

518 VALENCIA SF; www.laborfest.net. Donations accepted . International Working Class Film and Video Festival: •Strike (Eisenstein, 1925), and Even the Heavens Weep: The Mine Wars of West Virginia (McGuire, 1985), Thu, 7.

HUMANIST HALL 390 27th St, Oakl; www.humanisthall.org. $5. RiP!: A Remix Manifesto (Gaylor, 2008), Wed, 7:30.

NIMBY’S 8410 Amelia, Oakl; www.brainwashm.com. $10. Brainwash Drive-In/Bike-In/Walk-In Festival, Fri-Sat through July 27, 9 (music at 8). All shows broadcast in FM stereo.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Dark Nights: Simenon and Cinema:” The Man on the Eiffel Tower (Meredith, 1949), Wed, 7; La Marie du port (Carné, 1950), Fri, 7; The Brothers Rico (Karlson, 1957), Sat, 8:30. “A Call to Action: The Films of Raoul Walsh:” Objective Burma (1945), Thu, 7. “From the Archive: Treasures of Eastern European and Soviet Cinema:” And Give My Love to the Swallows (Jires, 1971), Fri, 8:45; The Maple and Juliana (Uher, 1972), Sat, 6:30. “Castles in the Sky: Masterful Anime from Studio Ghibli:” Spirited Away (Miyazaki, 2001), Sun, 4:30.

REDSTONE BUILDING 2940 16th St, SF; www.laborfest.net. Donations accepted. International Working Class Film and Video Festival: •Living As Brothers (Fraser, 2012), with “Newspeak” (Fero, 2011) and Mothers of Fukushima (Torii, 2013), Fri, 7.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-11. How to Make Money Selling Drugs (Cooke, 2013), Wed-Thu, 7, 9. An Oversimplification of Her Beauty (Nance, 2012), Fri-Sun, 9:15; July 22-25, 7. Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me (DiNicola and Mori, 2012), Fri-Sun, 6:45; July 22-25, 9. “Pictoclik Film Festival,” local film festival competition, Fri-Sat, 9. This event, $30-50.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. $8-10. Band of Sisters (Fishman, 2012), Thu-Sun, 6, 8 (also Fri, 4; Sat-Sun, 2, 4). *

 

Theater Listings: July 17 – 23, 2013

Michael Redmond
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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.

THEATER

OPENING

Sweet Bird of Youth Tides Theatre, 533 Sutter, Second Flr, SF; www.tidestheatre.org. $20-40. Previews Thu/18, 8pm. Opens Fri/19, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 24. Tides Theatre performs Tennessee Williams’ Gulf Coast-set drama about an improbable couple.

BAY AREA

A Comedy of Errors Forest Meadows Amphitheater, 890 Bella, Dominican University of California, San Rafael; www.marinshakespeare.org. $20-37.50. Previews Fri/19 and Sun/21, 8pm. Opens July 27, 8pm. Presented in repertory Fri-Sun through Sept 29; visit website for performance schedule. Marin Shakespeare Company presents a cowboy-themed spin on the Bard’s classic.

ONGOING

Betrayal Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason, Sixth Flr, SF; www.offbroadwaywest.org. $40. Thu/18-Sat/20, 8pm. Off Broadway West Theatre Company performs Harold Pinter’s out-of-sequence drama about an unfaithful married couple.

Can You Dig It? Back Down East 14th — the 60s and Beyond Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Aug 25. Solo performer Don Reed returns with a prequel to his autobiographical coming-of-age hits, East 14th and The Kipling Hotel.

Chance: A Musical Play About Love, Risk, and Getting it Right Alcove Theater, 415 Mason, Fifth Flr, SF; www.thealcovetheater.com. $40-60. Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm); Sun, 5pm. Through July 28. New Musical Theater of San Francisco presents Richard Isen’s world premiere work inspired by the writings of Oscar Wilde.

Endgame Royce Gallery, 2901 Mariposa, SF; www.itetheater.org. $18-24. Thu/18-Sat/20, 8pm. International Theater Ensemble performs Samuel Beckett’s Theatre of the Absurd classic.

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

God of Carnage Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sheltontheater.com. $26-38. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 7. Shelton Theater performs Yasmina Reza’s award-winning play about class and parenting.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch Boxcar Theatre, 505 Natoma, SF; www.boxcartheatre.org. $27-43. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. John Cameron Mitchell’s cult musical comes to life with director Nick A. Olivero’s ever-rotating cast.

How to Make Your Bitterness Work for You Stage Werx Theatre, 446 Valencia, SF; www.stagewerx.org. $15-25. Mon-Tue, 8pm. Through Aug 27. Kent Underwood is a motivational speaker and self-help expert with some obvious baggage of his own in this solo play from former comedy writer and stand-up comedian Fred Raker (It Could Have Been a Wonderful Life). The premise, similar to that of Kurt Bodden’s Steve Seabrook: Better Than You (ongoing at the Marsh), has the audience overlapping with participants in an Underwood seminar. Underwood, however, two years on the seminar circuit and still unable to get his book published, deviates from the script to answer texts related to a possible career breakthrough. Meanwhile, with the aid of some bullet points and illustrative slides, he explains the premise of said manuscript, “How to Make Your Bitterness Work For You,” as the sad truth of his own underdog status emerges between the laugh lines. But where Bodden is careful to make his Seabrook a somewhat believable character despite the absurdity of it all (or rather, while firmly embracing the absurdity of the self-help industry itself), Raker and director Kimberly Richards put much more space between the playwright/performer and his character, which turns out to be a less effective strategy. Verisimilitude might not have mattered much if the comic material were stronger. Unfortunately, despite the occasional zinger, much of the humor is weak or corny and the narrative (interrupted at regular intervals by an artificial tone representing the arrival of a fresh text message) too contrived to sell us on the larger story. (Avila)

Keith Moon: The Real Me Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $40. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through July 28. Mick Berry performs the world premiere of his solo play about the Who drummer.

A Pinoy Midsummer Bindlestiff Studio, 185 Sixth St, SF; www.bindlestiffstudio.org. $10-25. Thu/18-Sat/20, 8pm. It’s the perfect time of year for Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but unless you caught Bindlestiff Studio’s irreverent adaptation A Pinoy Midsummer last September, you’ve probably never seen a version quite like it. Conceptualized and directed by Lorna Velasco, A Pinoy Midsummer combines elements of Philippine culture—traditional music, dress, and language—with a rowdy modernist approach to the tale of tradition-bound lovers and the bawdy fairies who would make sport of them and each other. A live score directed by Ogie Gonzales, choreographed interludes by Gemma Calderon, and otherworldly shadow puppetry designed by Melissa Diaz Infante and Marcius Noceda help to flesh out the bare bones production and enhance the action, in particular the intrigues of the mischievous fairy folk. Of the Athenians, it’s star-crossed Hermia (Aureen Almario) and Helena (Julie Kuwabara) who stand out most particularly, and their cat fight over the  fickle love of the fairy-enchanted Lysander (Tonilyn A. Sideco) is wickedly funny. But the true highlight of the scrappy production is the band of the rudest mechanicals to ever grace a stage, from the scene-stealing Bottom (Joe Cascasan) to the angry butch Flute (Roczane Enriquez), the fact that they deliver their lines almost entirely in Tagalog not detracting one bit from their brilliant buffoonery, whether you speak the language or not. (Gluckstern)

Sex and the City: LIVE! Rebel, 1760 Market, SF; trannyshack.com/sexandthecity. $25. Wed, 7 and 9pm. Open-ended. It seems a no-brainer. Not just the HBO series itself — that’s definitely missing some gray matter — but putting it onstage as a drag show. Mais naturellement! Why was Sex and the City not conceived of as a drag show in the first place? Making the sordid not exactly palatable but somehow, I don’t know, friendlier (and the canned a little cannier), Velvet Rage Productions mounts two verbatim episodes from the widely adored cable show, with Trannyshack’s Heklina in a smashing portrayal of SJP’s Carrie; D’Arcy Drollinger stealing much of the show as ever-randy Samantha (already more or less a gay man trapped in a woman’s body); Lady Bear as an endearingly out-to-lunch Miranda; and ever assured, quick-witted Trixxie Carr as pent-up Charlotte. There’s also a solid and enjoyable supporting cast courtesy of Cookie Dough, Jordan Wheeler, and Leigh Crow (as Mr. Big). That’s some heavyweight talent trodding the straining boards of bar Rebel’s tiny stage. The show’s still two-dimensional, even in 3D, but noticeably bigger than your 50″ plasma flat panel. Update: new episodes began May 15. (Avila)

So You Can Hear Me Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thu/18-Fri/19, 8pm; Sat/20, 5pm. A 23-year-old with no experience, just high spirits and big ideals, gets a job in the South Bronx teaching special ed classes and quickly finds herself in over her head. Safiya Martinez, herself a bright young woman from the projects, delivers this inspired accounting of her time not long ago in perhaps the most neglected sector of the public school system — a 60-minute solo play that makes up for its relatively slim plot with a set of deft, powerful, lovingly crafted characterizations. These complex portraits, alternately hysterical and startling, offer their own moving ruminations on a violent but also vibrant stratum of American society, deeply fractured by pervasive poverty and injustice and yet full of restive young personalities too easily dismissed, ignored, or crudely caricatured elsewhere. An effervescent, big-hearted, and very talented performer, Martinez’s own bounding personality and contagious passion for her former students (as complicated as that relationship was), makes this deeply felt tribute all the more memorable. (Avila)

Steve Seabrook: Better Than You Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat, 8:30pm. Extended through August 24. Self-awareness, self-actualization, self-aggrandizement — for these things we turn to the professionals: the self-empowerment coaches, the self-help authors and motivational speakers. What’s the good of having a “self” unless someone shows you how to use it? Writer-performer Kurt Bodden’s Steve Seabrook wants to sell you on a better you, but his “Better Than You” weekend seminar (and tie-in book series, assorted CDs, and other paraphernalia) belies a certain divided loyalty in its own self-flattering title. The bitter fruit of the personal growth industry may sound overly ripe for the picking, but Bodden’s deftly executed “seminar” and its behind-the-scenes reveals, directed by Mark Kenward, explore the terrain with panache, cool wit, and shrewd characterization. As both writer and performer, Bodden keeps his Steve Seabrook just this side of overly sensational or maudlin, a believable figure, finally, whose all-too-ordinary life ends up something of a modest model of its own. (Avila)

Tinsel Tarts in a Hot Coma: The Next Cockettes Musical Hypnodrome, 575 10th St, SF; www.thrillpeddlers.com. $30-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Extended through July 27. Thrillpeddlers and director Russell Blackwood continue their Theatre of the Ridiculous series with this 1971 musical from San Francisco’s famed glitter-bearded acid queens, the Cockettes, revamped with a slew of new musical material by original member Scrumbly Koldewyn, and a freshly re-minted book co-written by Koldewyn and “Sweet Pam” Tent — both of whom join the large rotating cast of Thrillpeddler favorites alongside a third original Cockette, Rumi Missabu (playing diner waitress Brenda Breakfast like a deliciously unhinged scramble of Lucille Ball and Bette Davis). This is Thrillpeddlers’ third Cockettes revival, a winning streak that started with Pearls Over Shanghai. While not quite as frisky or imaginative as the production of Pearls, it easily charms with its fine songs, nifty routines, exquisite costumes, steady flashes of wit, less consistent flashes of flesh, and de rigueur irreverence. The plot may not be very easy to follow, but then, except perhaps for the bubbly accounting of the notorious New York flop of the same show 42 years ago by Tent (as poisoned-pen gossip columnist Vedda Viper), it hardly matters. (Avila)

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Sun/21, 11am. Louis “The Amazing Bubble Man” Pearl returns after a month-long hiatus with his popular, kid-friendly bubble show.

Wunderworld Creativity Theater, 221 Fourth St, SF; www.wunderworld.net. $10-15. Sat-Sun, 2pm (also Sat, 11am; Sun, 5pm). Through Aug 11. In an irresistible boost to the the Children’s Creativity Museum’s new Creativity Theater (formerly Zeum), beloved Bay Area comedian, playwright, and performer Sara Moore (Show Ho) teams up with gifted co-writer and performer Michael Phillis (The Bride of Death) and director Andrew Nance for a largely wordless, but gabble-packed, family-friendly comedy that asks what Alice might find down the rabbit hole were she to tumble down it again as an octogenarian? The 60-minute play showcases the elastic features and sharp comedic instincts of both Moore (as a hilarious and heartfelt Alice, whom no one recognizes these days unless she stretches her face smooth again) and Phillis (who kicks things off with a mimed pre-curtain speech deserving of its own encore, before coming back as the now droopy-eared White Rabbit). Equally endearing are performances by Dawn Meredith Smith (as Caterpillar, Red Queen, and a rest home nurse), choreographer Rory Davis (as the Cheshire Cat), and the inimitable Joan Mankin as Alice’s bored nursing-home roommate and the Mad Hatter. (Avila)

BAY AREA

The Loudest Man on Earth Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; www.theatreworks.org. $19-73. Tue-Wed, 7:30pm; Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Aug 4. TheatreWorks presents the world premiere of Catherine Rush’s unconventional romantic comedy starring acclaimed actor Adrian Blue, who is deaf.

Oil and Water This week: Arena Theater, 214 Main, Point Arena; www.sfmt.org. $10-15. Wed, 8pm. Also Thu, 7pm, free, Todd Grove Park, Live Oak at Clubhouse, Ukiah; Sat, 8pm, $20, Mateel Community Center, 59 Rusk, Redway. It’s a rough year for mimes, or at any rate for the San Francisco Mime Troupe who, after presenting 53 seasons of free theater in the parks of San Francisco (and elsewhere), faced a financial crisis in April that threatened to shut down this season before it even started. The resultant show, funded by an influx of last-minute donations, is one cut considerably closer to the bone than in previous years. With a cast of just four actors and two musicians, plus a stage considerably less ornate then usual, even the play has shrunk in scale, from one two-hour musical to two loosely-connected one-acts riffing on general environmentalist themes. In Deal With the Devil, a surprisingly sympathetic (not to mention downright hawt) Devil (Velina Brown) shows up to help an uncertain president (Rotimi Agbabiaka) regain his conscience and win back his soul, while in Crude Intentions adorable, progressive, same-sex couple Gracie (Velina Brown) and Tomasa (Lisa Hori-Garcia) wind up catering a “benefit” shindig for the Keystone XL Pipeline giving them the opportunity to perpetrate a little guerilla direct action on a bombastic David Koch (Hugo E Carbajal) with a “mole de petróleo” and a smartphone. Throughout, the performers remain upbeat if somewhat over-extended as they sing, dance, and slapstick their way to the sobering conclusion that the time to turn things around in the battles over global environmental protection is now — or never. (Gluckstern)

Sea of Reeds Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-35. Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Aug 18. The stage comes unusually populated in this latest from well-known Bay Area monologist and red-diaper baby Josh Kornbluth: a four-piece musical ensemble (El Beh, Jonathan Kepke, Olive Mitra, and Eli Wirtschafter) sits stage right, a standing table with some reed-making equipment appears stage left. Front and center is Kornbluth and his oboe, before him a music stand and behind him three “reeds”—freestanding concave walls of a bamboo-hue (designed by Nina Ball). But there’s more: Kornbluth’s physical trainer (Amy Resnick, replaced by Beth Wilmurt beginning August 7), bounding up from her seat in the first row to lend Kornbluth support or, more productively, prod him in the right direction as he takes the long road home to setting up a promised recital of Bach’s Cantata No. 82. That set up hinges on his recent bar mitzvah, at 52, in Israel, and its unexpected connections between his life-long oboe playing, his Communist upbringing in New York, his mixed marriage, his conversations with a local rabbi, and the Book of Exodus (specifically, Moses’s trail-blazing for the Israelites across the Red Sea, a.k.a., the Sea of Reeds). Although the introduction of supporting characters, musicians, and a musical score (by Marco D’Ambrosio) breaks new ground for the longtime soloist, Sea of Reeds is classic — indeed classical (thanks to a final few tenuous bars from the promised Bach cantata) — Kornbluth. Directed by longtime creative partner David Dower, the show features the boyish comedic persona, the intricate storytelling, and the biographical referents that have given him a loyal following over the years. Diehard fans aside, the show’s cheesy, somewhat self-regarding conceit of staging “spontaneous” interactions between Kornbluth and his trainer may not work with everyone. Perhaps more challenging, though, is the persistence of a less than fully examined disjunction between the political values of his parents and his own political and ethical evolution — a disjunction highlighted here in the narrative’s fraught Middle Eastern setting and its vague navigation between the violence of religious zealotry and a plea for tolerance. (Avila)

The Spanish Tragedy Forest Meadows Amphitheater, 890 Bella, Dominican University of California, San Rafael; www.marinshakespeare.org. $20-37.50. Presented in repertory Fri-Sun through Aug 11; visit website for performance schedule. Marin Shakespeare Company performs Thomas Kyd’s Elizabethan revenge tragedy.

This Is How It Goes Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; www.auroratheatre.org. $32-60. Tue and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm); Wed-Sat, 8pm. Extended through July 28. An awkward love triangle between former high school classmates gets the caustic Neil LaBute treatment in Aurora Theatre Company’s production of This is How it Goes. Not content to merely skewer the familiar battles between the sexes, LaBute further prods his captive audience with the big stick of race relations, and the often unacknowledged prejudices that lurk in the hearts of men. And women. There are no innocents in this play, though each character certainly has moments where they play upon audience sympathies, only to betray them a few inflammatory lines later. As the marriage between the successful yet self-conscious African American alpha male Cody (Aldo Billingslea) and his neurotically placating Caucasian wife Belinda (Carrie Paff) erodes, the mostly affable (and former fat kid) “Man” (Gabriel Marin) insinuates himself in the middle of their troubled relationship, obviously still carrying the torch for Belinda he did 15 years ago — as well as the same wary animosity an unpopular kid carries for the star of the track team, in this case, Cody. All three actors do a very good job of shape-shifting between their middle-class Jekyll and Hyde selves, assisted in part by Marin’s amiable asides, which don’t so much lull the audience as tease them with the idea that things are about to get better, when they can only get worse. (Gluckstern)

The Wiz Julia Morgan Theater, 2640 College, Berk; www.berkeleyplayhouse.org. $17-60. Wed-Thu and Sat, 7pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, noon and 5pm. Through Aug 25. Berkeley Playhouse travels to Oz with the Tony-winning musical.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

BATS Improv Bayfront Theater, B350 Fort Mason, SF; www.improv.org. $20. BATS Improv performs spontaneous shows based on current events (Fri, 8pm, through July 26) and “Improvised Shakespeare” (Sat, 8pm, through July 27).

“Bay Area Playwrights Festival” Thick House Theater, 1695 18th St, SF; www.playwrightsfoundation.org. Fri/19-Sun/21 and July 26-28. $15. Three Bay Area playwrights and three New Yorkers contribute brand-new works to this 36th annual fest. The six plays were chosen from 425 submissions.

“Bitch and Tell: A Real Funny Variety Show” Garage, 715 Bryant, SF; www.ftloose.org. Fri/19-Sat/20, 8pm. $10-20. Tracy Shapiro performs both nights, with guests David Gborie, Mary-Alice McNab, and others.

“Bubbles on Fire Burlesque presents: Mad Women!” Mojo Theatre, 2940 16th St, #217, SF; www.bubblesonfire.com. Fri/19, 8:15pm. $10-20. With MC Patina DeCopper, Alexa Von Kickinface, Candi Fornia, Dolly Dior, and others.

Caroline Lugo and Carolé Acuña’s Ballet Flamenco Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; www.carolinalugo.com. Sun/21, July 27, Aug 4, 17, and 25, 6:15pm. $15-19. Flamenco performance by the mother-daughter dance company, featuring live musicians.

“The Dirt on Dorian Gray” CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; www.counterpulse.org. Fri/19-Sun/21, 8pm. $15-20. Samantha Giron Dance Project presents an examination of “Peter Pan syndrome” via contemporary dance and other elements.

“Dohee Lee: ARA Gut (Ritual of Ocean)” Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. Sat/20, 4-6pm. Free. The artist presents a site-specific performance installation reflecting on the relationship between humans and nature.

“Factory Parts” NOH Space, 2840 Mariposa, SF; www.foolsfury.org. Wed/17-Sun/21 and July 25-28, 8pm. $15. FoolsFURY presents new works-in-progress by 10 cutting-edge theater ensembles, including San Francisco’s Affinity Group and Oakland’s Ragged Wing.

50 Shades! The Musical Marines’ Memorial Theatre, 609 Sutter, SF; www.50shadesmusical.com. July 23-25, 8pm; July 26-27, 6:30 and 9:30pm; July 28, 3pm. $20-65. Musical parody of Fifty Shades of Grey.

“Four Plays” Lam Research Theater, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard, SF; www.postballet.org. Thu/18-Fri/19, 8pm. $30-50. Post:Ballet presents its fourth annual home season, featuring a world premiere collaboration between choreographer Robert Dekkers, architect Robert Gilson, and other artists.

“Harboring” Fort Mason Center Festival Pavilion, Marina at Buchanan, SF; www.bandaloop.org. Thu/18, 8:30pm; Fri/19-Sun/21, 8:30pm (also Sat/20, 2pm). $25-100. Vertical dance company Bandaloop performs a site-specific, multi-dimensional work inspired by Fort Mason’s maritime past and present.

“Merola Opera’s Schwaber Summer Concert” Everett Auditorium, 450 Church, SF; www.merola.org. Thu/18, 7:30pm. $25-40. Also Sat/20, 2-4pm, free, Yerba Buena Gardens, Mission between 3rd and 4th Sts, SF; www.ybgfestival.com. The company performs scenes from Don Giovanni and other operas.

“Mission Position Live” Cinecave, 1034 Valencia, SF; www.missionpositionlive.com. Thu, 8pm. Ongoing. $10. Stand-up comedy with rotating performers.

“Randy Roberts: Live!” Alcove Theater, 414 Mason, Ste 502, SF; www.thealcovetheater.com. Tue/23, 9pm. $30. The famed female impersonator takes on Cher, Better Midler, and other stars.

Red Hots Burlesque El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; www.redhotsburlesque.com. Wed, 7:30-9pm. Ongoing. $5-10. Come for the burlesque show, stay for OMG! Karaoke starting at 8pm (no cover for karaoke).

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

“Union Square Live” Union Square, between Post, Geary, Powell, and Stockton, SF; www.unionsquarelive.org. Through Oct 9. Free. Music, dance, circus arts, film, and more; dates and times vary, so check website for the latest. *

 

Rep Clock

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Schedules are for Wed/10-Tue/16 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features marked with a •. All times pm unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $5-6. “OpenScreening,” Thu, 8. For participation info, contact programming@atasite.org. “Re-Inventing the Reel,” artist-made works from Elements of Image Making, Fri, 8. “Your Skin is the Fourth Wall,” video and performance work, Sat, 8.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $8.50-11. •The Night of the Hunter (Laughton, 1955), Thu, 7, and Cape Fear (Scorsese, 1991), Thu, 8:45. •The Exorcist (Friedkin, 1973), Fri, 7, and Suspiria (Argento, 1977), Fri, 9:30. The Craft (Fleming, 1996), Sat, 3, 8. With a “witch-tacular” performance starring Peaches Christ, Sharon Needles, Alaska Thunderfuck, and Honey Mahogany. This event, $30-80; more details at www.peacheschrist.com. “Ray Harryhausen Tribute:” The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (Juran, 1958), Sun, 3:05, 7, and Jason and the Argonauts (Chaffey, 1963), Sun, 1, 4:55, 8:45. Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel (Immordino Vreeland, 2011), Tue, 7, and Renoir (Bourdos, 2012), Tue, 8:45.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.75-$10.25. Augustine (Winocour, 2012), call for dates and times. Frances Ha (Baumbach, 2012), call for dates and times. Rebels With a Cause (Kelly, 2012), call for dates and times. 20 Feet From Stardom (Neville, 2013), call for dates and times. One Track Heart: The Story of Krishna Das (Frindel, 2012), July 12-18, call for times. Storm Surfers 3D (McMillan and Nelius, 2012), July 12-18, call for times.

CLAY 2261 Fillmore, SF; www.landmarktheatres.com. $10. “Midnight Movies:” The Room (Wiseau, 2003), Fri, midnight. Hosted by Sam Sharkey.

“FILM NIGHT IN THE PARK” This week: Creek Park, 400 Sir Francis Drake, San Anselmo; www.filmnight.org. Free (donations appreciated). Footloose, Fri, 8. Union Square, Geary at Powell, SF. Vicky Cristina Barcelona (Allen, 2008), Sat, 8.

518 VALENCIA SF; www.laborfest.net. Donations accepted . International Working Class Film and Video Festival: •Shift Change (Dwarkin and Young, 2012), and One Shot, One Kill (Fujimoto, 2009), Wed, 7. Also ILWU Local 34 Hall, 801 Second St, SF. •The Contis: The Struggle Continues (Clatot, 2010), and On the Art of Water (Luzi and Bellino, 2012), Fri, 7.

JACK LONDON SQUARE Market lawn, Harrison at Water, Oakl; www.jacklondonsquare.com. Free. Hitchcock (Gervasi, 2012), Thu, sundown.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “A Call to Action: The Films of Raoul Walsh:” Regeneration (1915), Fri, 7; The Yellow Ticket (1931), Fri, 8:30; The Big Trail (1930), Sun, 6:30. “From the Archive: Treasures of Eastern European and Soviet Cinema:” Pastorale (Iosseliani, 1975), Wed, 7; Five Evenings (Mikhalkov, 1979), Sat, 6:30. “Dark Nights: Simenon and Cinema:” La tête d’un homme (Duvivier, 1933), Thu, 7; Stray Dog (Kurosawa, 1949), Sat, 8:30. “Castles in the Sky: Masterful Anime from Studio Ghibli:” Porco Rosso (Miyazaki, 1992), Sun, 4:30.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-11. A Band Called Death (Covino and Howlett, 2013), Wed-Thu, 7, 9. Maniac (Khalfoun, 2012), Wed-Thu, 7:15, 9:15. San Francisco Frozen Film Festival, indie films, Fri-Sat. More details at www.frozenfilmfestival.com. How to Make Money Selling Drugs (Cooke, 2013), July 12-18, 7, 9 (also Sat-Sun, 3, 5).

VOGUE 3290 Sacramento, SF; www.wordsondance.org. $20. “Words on Dance:” Maria Tallchief in Conversation with Evelyn Cisneros (1998), Mon, 7.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. $8-10. André Gregory: Before and After Dinner (Kleine, 2012), Thu and Sat, 7:30pm; Sun, 2.

Diversity in motion

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Diversity in motion

arts@sfbg.com

DANCE Last weekend, World Arts West’s San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival closed out four almost completely sold-out weekends of performances. It is tempting to take this 35-year-old celebration for granted. Yet despite universal accolades, excellent audiences, a steadily improving roster of artists, an increase in live music, and ever-better production values, EDF still does not receive the support it deserves.

Consider this: according to its own numbers, EDF’s budget this year was two-thirds of what it was five years ago. Foundation and corporate support is down, between 30 and 50 percent. This time around, even Grants for the Arts — a stalwart champion of the festival since the beginning — had to cut its contribution by close to 20 percent.

Add to these challenges the fact that in 2011, due to the complications of the Doyle Drive construction, EDF lost its home at the Palace of Fine Arts. The much smaller Lam Research Theater at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts cannot make up the lost ticket sales.

Of course, in these mean and lean times, all the arts suffer. But other institutions of similar size, track record, and scope have endowments that help tie them over. Not EDF. It’s paycheck to paycheck. One reason for EDF’s survival, however, is that the biggest supporters of the arts have always been the artists themselves. Most of this year’s 500 dancers and musicians performed for free. (Their companies get a small stipend.)

So perhaps it’s appropriate to give a small bouquet to these eminent artists who may have come from places most of us will never visit — 19 countries on five continents — but are bringing to both fellow dancers and audiences their perspectives on what dance can tell us about being human.

While the Palace’s loss deprived EDF of its preferred stage, spreading the dance to different venues was a successful experiment. On June 7, a free, mid-day gala opening rocked the rotunda at San Francisco City Hall; the following day, Charya Burt’s reimagining of sculptor Auguste Rodin’s 1906 encounter with classical Cambodian dance brought East and West together at the Legion of Honor Museum’s jewel box theater. Later in the festival, one could walk across the lawn at Yerba Buena Gardens, where Patrick Makuakane was teaching light-hearted contemporary hula — and then, at YBCA, watch Halau o Keikiali’i present dignified re-interpretations of sacred Hawaiian rituals, offering an inkling of the complexities of culturally-specific dance.

EDF presents cultural traditions that range from high classicism (Chinese Performing Arts of America) to folkloric community celebrations (Lowiczanie Polish Folk Ensemble). But the fest also embraces change within continuity. It gives newcomers a chance, and welcomes re-interpretations of the past.

Nine of this year’s 33 participants made their EDF debuts. Among them were Colectivo Anqari, which charmed with an urban reinterpretation of popular dance from the Andes in which the men both danced and played the pan pipes. The women’s contribution almost looked like an afterthought. Ceremonially stepping dancers, drummers, and a flute player from Ensohza Minyoushu performed Sansador from Northern Japan, its high degree of formality leavened by a leaping masked “spirit.” Antoine Hunter’s short Risk showed a fascinating mix of jazz and sign language by this deaf dancer. High fives, however, must go to the two dozen youngsters of Mona Khan Company Emerging Performers. Their rousing, Bollywood-inspired Jalsa showed them to be disciplined, tough, and exuberant.

A relatively recent phenomenon is dancers and companies who rethink their heritage and reframe it into the kind of individual expression that Western art encourages. Charya Burt is one of them. Another is La Tania Baile Flamenco, whose Tierra translated the quintessential male farruca into a women’s dance. The trio became a striking expression of female power — rigorous and utterly convincing. Solo artist Oreet incorporated modern and ballet vocabulary into her spunky belly dancing, making it a decidedly contemporary expression of womanhood.

I do find it problematic, however, that dance from Mexico — there are over two dozen folklórico groups in the Bay Area — inevitably is represented by suites that are happy, fast, and loud. Surely there are more varied ways to showcase that culture’s rich variety of traditions.

The Palace of Fine Arts is scheduled to re-open in 2015. The people at World Arts West would like the complex to become a center for art and culture from around the globe. Sounds like a good idea to me.

Stage Listings

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

THEATER

OPENING

God of Carnage Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.sheltontheater.com. $26-38. Opens Thu/27, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 7. Shelton Theater peforms Yasmina Reza’s award-winning play about class and parenting.

In A Daughter’s Eyes Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th St, SF; www.brava.org. $15. Previews Thu/27-Fri/28, 8pm. Opens Sat/29, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through July 14. Brava! For Women in the Arts and Black Artists Contemporary Cultural Experience presents the West Coast premiere of A. Zell Williams’ tale of two women: the daughter of a man on death row, and the daughter of the man he’s been convicted of killing.

BAY AREA

Sea of Reeds Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-35. Previews July 2-4, 8pm. Opens July 5, 8pm. Runs Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Aug 18. Josh Kornbluth’s brand new comedy — it involves atheism, oboes, and the Book of Exodus — opens at Shotgun Players “before it goes on Torah.”

Superior Donuts Pear Avenue Theatre, 1220 Pear, Mtn View; www.thepear.org. $10-30. Previews Thu/27, 8pm. Opens Fri/28, 8pm. Runs July 3 and Thu-Sat, 8pm (no show July 4); Sun, 2pm. Through July 14. Pear Avenue Theatre performs Tracy Letts’ comedy about the redemptive power of friendship.

ONGOING

Abigail’s Party San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $30-100. Tue-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm). Through July 6. Although it’s tempting to compare Mike Leigh’s Abigail’s Party to Edward Albee’s rancorous Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Abigail‘s escalating nastiness skews emphatically British, giving it as much in common with televised exports such as Fawlty Towers and the Ricky Gervais version of The Office. As with these, the humor in Abigail’s Party is of the bleakest and cruelest kind, and there are moments when the five Americans onstage don’t quite convey the wit that lurks beneath the ire, but when they do the results are hysterical and uncomfortable in equal measure. Though the party we witness is not Abigail’s (she’s having a teenage house party next door, the music of which keeps throbbing through the walls of Bill English’s attractively-appointed set) the adults-only cocktail party is just as awkward as any high school mixer. Hosted by the fiercely self-absorbed Beverly (Susi Damilano) and her obnoxiously classist husband Laurence (Remi Sandri), the guest list includes the mousy Angela (Allison Jean White), her monosyllabic husband Tony (Patrick Kelley Jones), and Abigail’s ill-at-ease mum, Susan (Julia Brothers), who’s agreed to keep out of the house during her daughter’s wild soiree. The acting — as well as Brendan Aanes’ sound design, Jacqueline Scott’s props, and Tatjana Genser’s costuming — is pitch perfect, but unless you haven’t already been to enough bad parties, you might find it difficult to sit through this one. If you do, don’t be surprised if you find yourself secretly envying Laurence by the end of the play — at least he finds a way out. (Gluckstern)

The Ape Woman: A Rock Opera Exit Studio, 156 Eddy, SF; www.theapewoman.com. $15-30. Wed/26-Sat/29, 8pm. Dark Pork Theatre presents May van Oskan’s rock opera, inspired by a Victorian-era circus performer.

Betrayal Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason, Sixth Flr, SF; www.offbroadwaywest.org. $40. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through July 20. Off Broadway West Theatre Company performs Harold Pinter’s out-of-sequence drama about an unfaithful married couple.

Birds of a Feather New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Fri/28-Sat/29, 8pm (also Sat/29, 2pm). New Conservatory Theatre Center performs the San Francisco premiere of Marc Acito’s tale inspired by two gay penguins at the Central Park Zoo.

Can You Dig It? Back Down East 14th — the 60s and Beyond Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Aug 25. Solo performer Don Reed returns with a prequel to his autobiographical coming-of-age hits, East 14th and The Kipling Hotel.

Darling, A New Musical Children’s Creativity Museum, 221 Fourth St, SF; www.act-sf.org. $20. Wed/26-Sat/29, 7:30pm (also Sat/29, 2pm). American Conservatory Theater’s Young Conservatory performs Ryan Scott Oliver and Brett Ryback’s jazz-age musical.

The Divine Sister New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Fri/28-Sat/29, 8pm. Charles Busch’s latest comedy pays tribute to Hollywood films involving nuns.

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

410[GONE] Thick House, 1695 18th St, SF; www.crowdedfire.org. $10-35. Wed/26-Sat/29, 8pm. Crowded Fire Theater presents the world premiere of Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig’s fanciful, Chinese folklore-inspired look at the underworld.

Frisco Fred’s Magic and More Alcove Theater, 414 Mason, Ste 502, SF; www.thealcovetheater.com. $35-50. Thu/27-Sat/29, 7pm. Performer Fred Anderson presents his latest family-friendly show, complete with magic, juggling, and “crazy stunts.”

Hedwig and the Angry Inch Boxcar Theatre, 505 Natoma, SF; www.boxcartheatre.org. $27-43. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. John Cameron Mitchell’s cult musical comes to life with director Nick A. Olivero’s ever-rotating cast.

Into the Woods Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.rayoflighttheatre.com. $25-36. Thu/27-Sat/29, 8pm (also Sat/29, 2pm). Ray of Light Theatre performs Stephen Sondheim’s fairy-tale mash-up.

Pansy New Conservatory Theater Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Fri/28-Sat/29, 8pm. Feeling isolated and angry in a queer culture seemingly shy of commitment and thin on the meaning of community, a lonely young man stumbles over a box of old VHS tapes in the basement and makes a powerful connection to his doppelganger, a San Francisco club maven named Peter Pansy, who died of AIDS in 1993. From this synchronicity (based on a true story), actor-playwright Evan Johnson and director-collaborator Ben Randle take the measure of a generational divide and an attendant cultural amnesia, as the narrative spins two parallel arcs 20 years apart but now in open conversation with each other. That conversation is most powerful in moments that prove largely dialogue-free, as in the excellent interplay between Peter and his shadow, which reinforces a sense that the dialogue in general could benefit by being more succinct or elliptical. At the same, Johnson (actor-playwright behind 2010’s outstanding solo play about Jeffrey Dahmer, Don’t Feel) has a commanding presence as he cuts nimbly back and forth between 2013’s Michael and 1993’s Peter, tracing ever subtler lines of pride and alienation, utopian dissent and quotidian oppressions, until the import of the recent but heretofore hazy past offers itself as a quiet but profound afflatus. (Avila)

Sex and the City: LIVE! Rebel, 1760 Market, SF; trannyshack.com/sexandthecity. $25. Wed, 7 and 9pm. Open-ended. It seems a no-brainer. Not just the HBO series itself — that’s definitely missing some gray matter — but putting it onstage as a drag show. Mais naturellement! Why was Sex and the City not conceived of as a drag show in the first place? Making the sordid not exactly palatable but somehow, I don’t know, friendlier (and the canned a little cannier), Velvet Rage Productions mounts two verbatim episodes from the widely adored cable show, with Trannyshack’s Heklina in a smashing portrayal of SJP’s Carrie; D’Arcy Drollinger stealing much of the show as ever-randy Samantha (already more or less a gay man trapped in a woman’s body); Lady Bear as an endearingly out-to-lunch Miranda; and ever assured, quick-witted Trixxie Carr as pent-up Charlotte. There’s also a solid and enjoyable supporting cast courtesy of Cookie Dough, Jordan Wheeler, and Leigh Crow (as Mr. Big). That’s some heavyweight talent trodding the straining boards of bar Rebel’s tiny stage. The show’s still two-dimensional, even in 3D, but noticeably bigger than your 50″ plasma flat panel. Update: new episodes began May 15. (Avila)

Steve Seabrook: Better Than You Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat, 8:30pm. Extended through August 24. Self-awareness, self-actualization, self-aggrandizement — for these things we turn to the professionals: the self-empowerment coaches, the self-help authors and motivational speakers. What’s the good of having a “self” unless someone shows you how to use it? Writer-performer Kurt Bodden’s Steve Seabrook wants to sell you on a better you, but his “Better Than You” weekend seminar (and tie-in book series, assorted CDs, and other paraphernalia) belies a certain divided loyalty in its own self-flattering title. The bitter fruit of the personal growth industry may sound overly ripe for the picking, but Bodden’s deftly executed “seminar” and its behind-the-scenes reveals, directed by Mark Kenward, explore the terrain with panache, cool wit, and shrewd characterization. As both writer and performer, Bodden keeps his Steve Seabrook just this side of overly sensational or maudlin, a believable figure, finally, whose all-too-ordinary life ends up something of a modest model of its own. (Avila)

Sylvia Fort Mason Theater, Fort Mason Center, Bldg C, Rm 300, Marina at Laguna, SF; sylvia.brownpapertickets.com. $20-45. Thu/27-Sat/29, 8pm; Sun/30, 7pm. Independent Cabaret Productions and Shakespeare at Stinton present AR Gurney’s midlife-crisis comedy.

Tinsel Tarts in a Hot Coma: The Next Cockettes Musical Hypnodrome, 575 10th St, SF; www.thrillpeddlers.com. $30-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Extended through July 27. Thrillpeddlers and director Russell Blackwood continue their Theatre of the Ridiculous series with this 1971 musical from San Francisco’s famed glitter-bearded acid queens, the Cockettes, revamped with a slew of new musical material by original member Scrumbly Koldewyn, and a freshly re-minted book co-written by Koldewyn and “Sweet Pam” Tent — both of whom join the large rotating cast of Thrillpeddler favorites alongside a third original Cockette, Rumi Missabu (playing diner waitress Brenda Breakfast like a deliciously unhinged scramble of Lucille Ball and Bette Davis). This is Thrillpeddlers’ third Cockettes revival, a winning streak that started with Pearls Over Shanghai. While not quite as frisky or imaginative as the production of Pearls, it easily charms with its fine songs, nifty routines, exquisite costumes, steady flashes of wit, less consistent flashes of flesh, and de rigueur irreverence. The plot may not be very easy to follow, but then, except perhaps for the bubbly accounting of the notorious New York flop of the same show 42 years ago by Tent (as poisoned-pen gossip columnist Vedda Viper), it hardly matters. (Avila)

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Sun, 11am. Through July 21. Louis “The Amazing Bubble Man” Pearl returns after a month-long hiatus with his popular, kid-friendly bubble show.

BAY AREA

Dear Elizabeth Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $24-77. Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun and July 3, 2pm); Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat and Thu/6, 2pm; no show July 4). Through July 7. Berkeley Rep performs Sarah Ruhl’s play written in the form of letters between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell.

George Gershwin Alone Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-77. Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm; no show July 4); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun and July 3, 2pm). Extended through July 7. Hershey Felder stars in his celebration of the music and life of composer George Gershwin.

This Is How It Goes Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; www.auroratheatre.org. $32-60. Tue and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm); Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through July 21. Aurora Theatre Company performs the Bay Area premiere of Neil LaBute’s edgy comedy about an interracial couple.

Wild With Happy TheatreWorks at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View; www.theatreworks.org. $23-73. Wed/26, 7:30pm; Thu/27-Sat/29, 8pm (also Sat/29, 2pm); Sun/30, 2 and 7pm. TheatreWorks presents the West Coast premiere of Colman Domingo’s new comedy, starring the playwright himself.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

BATS Improv Bayfront Theater, B350 Fort Mason Center, SF; www.improv.org. “Director’s Cut!” Fri/28, 8pm, $20. “Improvised Noir Musical,” Sat/29, 8pm, $20.

Caroline Lugo and Carolé Acuña’s Ballet Flamenco Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; www.carolinalugo.com. Sun/30, July 13, 21, and 27, 6:15pm. $15-19. Flamenco performance by the mother-daughter dance company, featuring live musicians.

“Dream Queens Revue” Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, 133 Turk, SF; www.dreamqueensrevue.com. Wed/26, 9:30-11:30pm. Free. Drag with Collette LeGrand, Diva LaFever, Sophilya Leggz, and more.

“Harvey Milk 2013” Nourse Theatre, 201-299 Hayes, SF; www.sfgmc.org. Wed/26-Fri/28, 8pm. $25-60. The San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus presents its 35th anniversary celebration concert, featuring the world premiere of Andrew Lippa’s new choral work I Am Harvey Milk.

Kathy Mata Ballet City College of San Francisco, 50 Phelan, SF; www.kathymataballet.com. Sat/29, 3 and 7:30pm. Free. The company presents its “Summer Showcase” performance, featuring new works as well as classics in a variety of dance styles.

“Minced Meat” CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; www.counterpulse.org. Fri/28-Sat/29, 8pm. $20. The Thick Rich Ones use movement, music, and theater to explore the question “What are we really hungry for?”

“Mission Position Live” Cinecave, 1034 Valencia, SF; www.missionpositionlive.com. Thu, 8pm. Ongoing. $10. Stand-up comedy with rotating performers.

“Randy Roberts: Live!” Alcove Theater, 414 Mason, Ste 502, SF; www.thealcovetheater.com. Fri/28-Sat/29 and July 9, 16, and 23, 9pm. $30. The famed female impersonator takes on Cher, Better Midler, and other stars.

Red Hots Burlesque El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; www.redhotsburlesque.com. Wed, 7:30-9pm. Ongoing. $5-10. Come for the burlesque show, stay for OMG! Karaoke starting at 8pm (no cover for karaoke).

“San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival: Weekend Four” Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Lam Research Theater, 700 Howard, SF; www.sfethnicdancefestival.org. Sat/29, 2 and 8pm; Sun/30, 3pm. $18-58. With Bolivia Corazón de América, Charlotte Moraga, Lowiczanie Polish Folk Ensemble of San Francisco, and more.

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

“Union Square Live” Union Square, between Post, Geary, Powell, and Stockton, SF; www.unionsquarelive.org. Through Oct 9. Free. Music, dance, circus arts, film, and more; dates and times vary, so check website for the latest.

“Yerba Buena Gardens Festival” Yerba Buena Gardens, Mission between 3rd and 4th Sts, SF; www.ybgfestival.org. Through Oct 15. Free. This week: Circus Bella’s Shine (Fri/28, noon-1pm; Sat/29, 2:15-3:15pm); Estonian Dance Festival (Sun/30, 12:30-3pm).

“You Can’t Hire Me: Live!” Stage Werx Theater, 446 Valencia, SF; youcanthireme.bpt.me. Sun/30, 7pm. $15. Comedy about “awful cover letters and unemployment,” with readings by Paolo Sambrano (creator of the Tumblr You Can’t Hire Me) and stories by Marc Abirgo and Nikki Thayer.

BAY AREA

“Praise Dance Conference and Festival” Conference: Sat/29, 8:30am-4:30pm, email info@rossdance.com for registration information, Malonga Casquelourd Center, 1428 Alice, Oakl; www.rossdance.com. Dance Festival: Sun/30, 7pm, $15-30, Holy Names University, 3500 Mountain Blvd, Oakl; www.rossdance.com. Christian praise dance company Ross Dance Company presents its fifth annual conference and performance festival. *

 

Holding out for a hero…or an antihero…or the Antichrist: this week’s new movies!

Sue Vaughan
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Holding out for a hero…or an antihero…or the Antichrist: this week’s new movies!

Already in theaters, Seth Rogen and his bro posse take on doomsday in This Is the End. I got the chance to talk with Mr. Rogen, his co-director and co-writer Evan Goldberg, and co-star Craig Robinson when they visited San Francisco a few days back. (Fun fact: Rogen really does laugh like that in real life.) Check the interview here!

In rep news, this weekend at the Castro Theatre heralds the San Francisco Silent Film Festival‘s “Hitchcock 9” event, spotlighting nine silent films by the guy who would later claim the title “Master of Suspense,” direct some of the greatest thrillers of all time, etc. You can’t go wrong with any of the films, but just for kicks, here’s my take on the series here. And at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Austrian director Ulrich Seidl’s dark Paradise Trilogy continues its bummer-summer run this weekend; Dennis Harvey breaks ’em down here.

Plus! That Superman movie you’ve been hearing a thing or two about, and the rest of the week’s new offerings, after the jump.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sq6ffF8QLsQ

Becoming Traviata Philippe Béziat’s backstage doc offers an absorbing look at a particularly innovative production of Verdi’s La Traviata, directed by Jean-François Sivadier and starring the luminous Natalie Dessay (currently appearing in SF Opera‘s production of Tales of Hoffman). Béziat eschews narration or interviews; instead, his camera simply tracks artists at work, moving from rehearsal room to stage as Sivadier and Dessay (along with her co-stars) block scenes, make suggestions, practice gestures, and engage in the hit-and-miss experimentation that defines the creative process. The film is edited so that La Traviata progresses chronologically, with the earliest scenes unfolding on a spartan set (Dessay’s practice attire: yoga clothes), and the tragic climax taking place onstage, with an orchestra in the pit and sparkly make-up in full effect. Dessay will appear in person at San Francisco screenings Sat/15 at 7pm and Sun/16 at 2pm. (1:53) (Cheryl Eddy)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWnrk35qYMs

Dirty Wars Subtitled “the world is a battlefield,” this doc follows author and Nation magazine writer Jeremy Scahill as he probes the disturbing underbelly of America’s ongoing counterterrorism campaign. After he gets wind of a deadly nighttime raid on a home in rural Afghanistan, Scahill does his best to investigate what really happened, though what he hears from eyewitnesses doesn’t line up with the military explanation — and nobody from the official side of things cares to discuss it any further, thank you very much. With its talk of cover-ups and covert military units, and interviewees who appear in silhouette with their voices disguised, Dirty Wars plays like a thriller until Osama bin Laden’s death shifts certain (but not all) elements of the story Scahill’s chasing into the mainstream-news spotlight. The journalist makes valid points about how an utter lack of accountability or regard for consequences (that will reverberate for generations to come) means the “war on terror” will never end, but Dirty Wars suffers a bit from too much voice-over. Even the film’s gorgeous cinematography — director Rick Rowley won a prize for it at Sundance earlier this year — can’t alleviate the sensation that Dirty Wars is mostly an illustrated-lecture version of Scahill’s source-material book. Still, it’s a compelling lecture. (1:26) (Cheryl Eddy)

The Guillotines Why yes, that is Jimmy Wang Yu, director and star of 1976 cult classic Master of the Flying Guillotine, in a small but pivotal role commanding a team of assassins who specialize in dispatching heads with airborne versions of you-know-which weapon. Unfortunately, this latest from Andrew Lau (best-known stateside for 2002’s Infernal Affairs, remade into Martin Scorsese’s 2006 Oscar-winner The Departed) doesn’t have nearly as much fun as it should; dudes be chopping heads off in a flurry of CG’d-up steampunky whirlygigs, but The Guillotines‘ tone is possibly even more deadly, as in deadly serious. When a rebellious prophet-folk hero known as Wolf (Xiaoming Huang) runs afoul of the Emperor’s top-secret Guillotine brotherhood, led in the field by Leng (Ethan Juan), the squad travels in disguise to a rural, smallpox-afflicted village to track him down. Along for the journey is the Emperor’s top operative, ruthless Agent Du (Shawn Yue), a boyhood friend of Leng’s. Leng and Du share a dark secret: the Guillotines have been deemed expendable — yep, in the Stallone sense — and the Emperor has decided to kill them off and replace them with armies toting guns and cannons in the name of progress. Lau is no stranger to tales of men grappling with betrayals, misplaced loyalties, and hidden personal agendas — and as historical martial-arts fantasies go, The Guillotines has higher production values than most, with sweeping, luscious photography. Too bad all the action scenes are punctuated by episodes of moody brooding — replete with slo-mo gazing off into the distance, dramatically falling tears, solemn heart-to-hearts, swelling strings, and the occasional howl of anguish. (1:53) (Cheryl Eddy)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6DJcgm3wNY

Man of Steel As beloved as he is, Superman is a tough superhero to crack — or otherwise bend into anything resembling a modern character. Director Zack Snyder and writer David S. Goyer, working with producer Christopher Nolan on the initial story, do their best to nuance this reboot, which focuses primarily on Supe’s alien origins and takes its zoom-happy space battles from Battlestar Galactica. The story begins with Kal-El’s birth on a Krypton that’s rapidly going into the shitter: the exploited planet is about to explode and wayward General Zod (Michael Shannon) is staging a coup, killing Kal-El’s father, Jor-El (Russell Crowe), the Kryptonians’ lead scientist, and being conveniently put on ice in order to battle yet another day. That day comes as Kal-El, now a 20-something earthling named Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) — resigned to his status as an outsider, a role dreamed up by his protective adoptive dad (Kevin Costner) — has turned into a bit of a (dharma) bum, looking like a buff Jack Kerouac, working Deadliest Catch-style rigs, and rescuing people along the way to finding himself. Spunky Lois Lane (Amy Adams) is the key to his, erm, coming-out party, necessitated by a certain special someone looking to reboot the Kryptonian race on earth. The greatest danger here lies in the fact that all the leached-of-color quasi-sepia tone action can turn into a bit of a Kryptonian-US Army demolition derby, making for a mess of rubble and tricky-to-parse fight sequences that, of course, will satisfy the fanboys and -girls, but will likely glaze the eyes of many others. Nevertheless, the effort Snyder and crew pack into this lengthy artifact — with its chronology-scrambling flashbacks and multiple platforms for Shannon, Diane Lane, Christopher Meloni, Laurence Fishburne, and the like — pays off on the level of sheer scale, adding up to what feels like the best Superman on film or TV to date — though that bar seems pretty easy to leap over in a single bound. (2:23) (Kimberly Chun)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4V1E2IgXeuI

Pandora’s Promise Filmmaker Robert Stone has traveled far from his first film, 1988’s Oscar-nominated anti-nuke Radio Bikini, to today, with the release of Pandora’s Promise, a detailed and guaranteed-to-be-controversial examination of nuclear power and the environmentalists who have transitioned from fervently anti- to pro-nuclear. Interviewing activists and authors like Stewart Brand, Gwyneth Cravens, Mark Lynas, and Michael Shellenberger, among others, Stone eloquently visualizes all angles of their discussion with media, industrial, and newly shot footage, starting with a visit to the largest nuclear disaster of recent years, Fukushima, which he visits with the hazmat-suited environmental activist and journalist Lynas and continuing to Chernobyl and its current denizens. Couching the debate in cultural and political context going back to World War II, Stone builds a case for nuclear energy as a viable method to provide clean, safe power for planet in the throes of climate change that will nonetheless need double or triple the current amount of energy by 2050, as billions in the developing world emerge from poverty. In a practical sense, as The Death of Environmentalism author Shellenberger asserts, “The idea that we’re going to replace oil and coal with solar and wind and nothing else is a hallucinatory delusion.” Stone and his subjects put together an enticing argument to turn to nuclear as a way forward from coal, made compelling by the idea that designs for safer alternative reactors that produce less waste are out there. (1:27) (Kimberly Chun)

Wish you weren’t here

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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2
Wish you weren’t here

arts@sfbg.com

FILM Austrian Ulrich Seidl has been making films since the early 1980s, but didn’t get much attention internationally until 2001’s Dog Days, a bleak and nasty ensemble piece about some seemingly ordinary — but all variably pathetic, ugly and/or perverse — Viennese suburbanites sweating through a heat wave. It was the sort of movie that demanded attention, being grotesque, funny, surprising, meticulously crafted, and arguably just plain mean.

Following decades of mostly documentary work, he’d suddenly joined the ranks of what you might call the New (though not necessarily young) Misanthropes: directors like his fellow countryman Michael Haneke, France’s Gaspar Noé, and the Philippines’ Brillante Mendoza. For some their invariably depressing, often upsetting films illuminate the human capacity for cruelty. For others, they wallow in it.

After taking his time making a Dog Days follow-up (2007’s Import/Export, a predictably grim comment on Europe’s immigration inundation), Seidl is back in atypical bulk with his Paradise Trilogy, three lightly interlocking (there’s no real overall arc) features more tightly focused on hapless individual protagonists. Each are observed — and this director is among the most ruthlessly clinical observers around, as if cinema were a laboratory and characters his test subjects — on vacation. But of course the experience of any earthly paradise is a sour joke in the contexts they find themselves in. Striking if unpleasant, the trio gets its Bay Area debut over the next three weekends at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

Paradise: Love (2012) makes the pursuit of pleasure look grim indeed, from the rather cheap-shot opening of Teresa (Margaret Tiesel) overseeing mentally handicapped adults as they enjoy an amusement-park outing on bumper cars — a scene whose “grotesquerie” feels exploitative. But once she’s on her holiday in sunny Kenya, it’s Teresa who does the exploiting. At the urging of a cheerfully horny friend (one among many plus-sized, German-speaking women well into middle age holidaying there), she partakes of the local populace of young men who offer gigolo-type services for a price.

But Teresa wants something more — or at least the illusion of it. Ergo she’s thoroughly suckered when the first seemingly non-predatory beach stud she encounters (Peter Kazungu as Munga) starts asking for money — he’s got no end of needy sick relatives, it seems — once they’ve consummated his declared “love.” Similar disappointments ensue. Teresa’s naiveté isn’t exactly sympathetic, however. She unconsciously brings the full weight of class/racial privilege and condescension with her, and is endlessly, petulantly demanding as a sex tourist who insists on being treated as a lover. (The negotiation around how her breasts should be touched by Munga seem to take half an hour alone.) She just wants to be desired. Yet she acts like a pushy colonialist bargain shopper.

In Paradise: Faith (2012), the spotlight is taken by Teresa’s older sister Anna Maria (Maria Hofstaetter), who most certainly is not looking for romance, let alone sex — without wearing a cowl, this hospital radiologist has become a fervent bride of Christ. She spends her vacation time alone in her over-large house, scrubbing it spotless, flogging herself clean of impure thoughts before Jesus, and singing hymns at the Casio keyboard. She also goes on daily outings to the homes of strangers, frequently immigrants. She barges in with sizable Virgin Mary statues crying “The Mother of God has come to visit you!,” and tries browbeating them into sin-abjuring prayer. Needless to say, this all seems much more about her needs than theirs.

She returns one day to the unwelcome surprise of husband Nabil (Nabil Saleh), an Egyptian Muslim back after an unexplained two-year absence. They’ve both changed greatly — back then he wasn’t yet paralyzed from the waist down, and she wasn’t a born-again fanatic. He’s nonplussed that her vinegary form of “Christian charity” treats him more as a home-nursing burden than a marital partner, and hostilities between them soon escalate to nightmarish proportions.

Ultimately, faith provides no comfort — and that failure induces a crisis of faith. Rigorously controlled in aesthetic terms, Seidl goes over the top content-wise at times — as when Anna Maria stumbles upon a public park orgy, or uses a crucifix à la Linda Blair — yet this cruel portrait of religious fixation has a certain compulsive, often cringe-inducing tension.

Finally, there’s some light at the end of the tunnel with Paradise: Hope (2013). While Teresa is fucking Africans and Anna Maria proselytizing, the former’s teenage daughter Melanie (Melanie Lenz) has been packed off to fat camp, where she and other pudgy youths endure long days of tortuous exercise and other “improving” programs. But the kids have each other; rather surprisingly, Seidl doesn’t rain gloom on their giddy rapport. Melanie also develops a serious crush on the resident doctor, a handsome, friendly, and flirtatious fellow (Michael Thomas) approximately four times her age.

Convinced she’s overdue to lose her virginity, she’s an avid pursuer — and disturbingly, he’s kinda interested. It is the movie’s major failing that seemingly kind, intelligent, grounded Dr. Arzt remains too much of an enigma for us to grasp why he’d even consider taking up a 13-year-old on the offer of herself. Yes, Melanie is cute, vivacious, and likable … but, well, come on. Of course this won’t end well. Still, Hope is indeed the most hopeful of the Paradise trilogy: its main character’s life isn’t ruined already, and she might well survive the hard knocks she’s given here to experience actual happiness.

ULRICH SEIDL’S PARADISE TRILOGY

June 13-30, $8-$10

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

www.ybca.org

 

Stage listings

Andrew Lam
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Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

THEATER

OPENING

Can You Dig It? Back Down East 14th — the 60s and Beyond Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Opens Sat/15, 8pm. Runs Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Aug 25. Solo performer Don Reed returns with a prequel to his autobiographical coming-of-age hits, East 14th and The Kipling Hotel.

Darling, A New Musical Children’s Creativity Museum, 221 Fourth St, SF; www.act-sf.org. $20. Opens Fri/14, 7:30pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 7:30pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through June 29. American Conservatory Theater’s Young Conservatory performs Ryan Scott Oliver and Brett Ryback’s jazz-age musical.

BAY AREA

This Is How It Goes Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; www.auroratheatre.org. $32-60. Previews Fri/14-Sat/15 and June 19, 8pm; Sun/16, 2pm; Tue/18, 7pm. Opens June 20, 8pm. Runs Tue and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm); Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through July 21. Aurora Theatre Company performs the Bay Area premiere of Neil LaBute’s edgy comedy about an interracial couple.

ONGOING

Arcadia ACT’s Geary Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $20-95. Wed/12-Sat/15, 8pm (also Sat/15, 2pm); Sun/16, 2pm. In Tom Stoppard’s now 20-year-old master work Arcadia, sex and science, and poetry and pastoralism crowd the otherwise uncluttered stage (designed by Douglas W. Schmidt), as two sets of characters separated by 200 years demonstrate themselves to be far more connected then even their immediate descendents suspect. As two modern academics (Gretchen Egolf and Andy Murray) vie over the contents of a country estate library in order to verify their own pet theories about the past occupants — including, briefly, Lord Byron — a 19th-century intellectual prodigy (Rebekah Brockman) discovers the principles of chaos theory more than a hundred years ahead of her time, impressing her raffish tutor (Jack Cutmore-Scott) while the rest of the household busies itself with the mundane intrigues that better typify their aristocratic caste. Although at times the pacing of the nearly three-hour play feels sluggish, the slow unfurling of key plot points and character reveals suits the intricacies of the text, while still allowing for much of Stoppard’s wry humor to shine, if not crackle, through the layers. The delightfully antagonistic chemistry between Egolf and Murray, and the more delicately cerebral connection between Brockman and Cutmore-Scott alone make this a production worth seeing, to say nothing of the rigorous crash course in Latin, landscaping, physics, and Romanticism. (Gluckstern)

Birds of a Feather New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through June 29. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs the San Francisco premiere of Marc Acito’s tale inspired by two gay penguins at the Central Park Zoo.

Black Watch Drill Court, Armory Community Center, 333 14th St, SF; www.act-sf.org. $100. Wed/12-Sat/15, 8pm (also Wed/12 and Sat/15, 2pm); Sun/16, 2pm. American Conservatory Theater presents the National Theatre of Scotland’s internationally acclaimed performance about Scottish soldiers serving in Iraq.

The Divine Sister New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through June 29. Charles Busch’s latest comedy pays tribute to Hollywood films involving nuns.

Drunk Enough to Say I Love You? Costume Shop, 1117 Market, SF; www.therhino.org. $15-30. Wed/12-Sat/15, 8pm; Sun/16, 3pm. Theatre Rhinoceros performs Caryl Churchill’s play that asks, “Do countries really behave like gay men?” Included in the program are two one-act plays: Churchill’s Seven Jewish Children: A Play for Gaza and Deborah S. Margolin’s Seven Palestinian Children.

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

410[GONE] Thick House, 1695 18th St, SF; www.crowdedfire.org. $10-35. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through June 29. Crowded Fire Theater presents the world premiere of Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig’s fanciful, Chinese folklore-inspired look at the underworld.

Frisco Fred’s Magic and More Alcove Theater, 414 Mason, Ste 502, SF; www.thealcovetheater.com. $35-50. Thu-Sat, 7pm. Through June 29. Performer Fred Anderson presents his latest family-friendly show, complete with magic, juggling, and “crazy stunts.”

Hedwig and the Angry Inch Boxcar Theatre, 505 Natoma, SF; www.boxcartheatre.org. $27-43. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. John Cameron Mitchell’s cult musical comes to life with director Nick A. Olivero’s ever-rotating cast.

Into the Woods Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.rayoflighttheatre.com. $25-36. Thu-Sat, 8pm (check website for matinee schedule). Through June 29. Ray of Light Theatre performs Stephen Sondheim’s fairy-tale mash-up.

Krispy Kritters in the Scarlett Night Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor, SF; www.cuttingball.com. $10-50. Extended run: Thu, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 5pm. Through June 23. For patrons of last year’s production of Annie Elias’ documentary theater piece Tenderloin, walking into Cutting Ball’s take on Andrew Saito’s Krispy Kritters in the Scarlett Night brings about a slight sensation of déjà vu. It’s not so much that the cast actually resembles that of Tenderloin (save the familiar face of Cutting Ball associate artist David Sinaiko), but there’s a similar atmosphere of decay and powerlessness that roils beneath a surface of surrealistic flash. Framed by Michael Locher’s versatile, split-level set, clad in Meg Neville’s savvy costumes, the trampled-upon characters hurl poetic invective around the stage, delight in fish heads and petrified gerbils, plot to torture, seduce, and murder, and form clumsy, temporary alliances in order to accomplish the above. David Sinaiko’s crass, legless patriarch Pap Pap and Marjorie Crump-Shears’ deceptively fragile-looking brothel proprietor Gran Ma Ma preside over the inexorable decline of their insular households while their immediate kin, the cheerfully morbid Drumhead (Wiley Naman Strasser) and the irresistible temptress, Scarlett (Felicia Benefield), desperately seek to break free of their overbearing elders and the stifling routines that chain them to their circumstances. Much like the fish heads beloved by the characters as food, the play isn’t easy to digest, and there are gaps left in the narrative that even heavy abstraction can’t explain away, but Saito’s topsy-turvy world is nonetheless one worth visiting, and inaugurates his three-year playwriting residency at Cutting Ball with a weird and wonderful flourish. (Gluckstern)

Oleanna Exit’s Studio Theater, 156 Eddy, SF; www.theexit.org. $18-25. Fri/14-Sat/15, 8pm (also Sat/15, 2pm); Sun/16, 4pm. True to the mission implied in its name, Spare Stage offers dramatic purity en lieu of flashy stage concepts in this beautifully calibrated, consistently stimulating production of David Mamet’s 1992 two-hander, about a university professor (Aaron Murphy) and the female undergrad (Frannie Morrison) who accuses him of sexual misconduct. The action takes place exclusively inside the small office where John, on the verge of gaining tenure and simultaneously closing a deal on a new house, meets with his failing student Carol, a young woman who, ironically enough, seems lost by the concepts her professor deploys in his lectures on the social underpinnings of higher education (insights he recycles from his recently minted book, which is naturally the assigned reading). What begins as a condescending tutorial by the distracted prof soon turns into a vaguely prurient extracurricular exercise and, then, a table-turning power struggle as the initially introverted and stumbling Frannie returns with serious and highly articulate charges of impropriety throwing John’s tenure and world into jeopardy. Now it’s his turn to try to explain and justify himself. The power struggle throughout is grippingly played by the remarkably potent team of Murphy and Morrison, who, under the shrewd direction of Stephen Drewes, lock into a dynamic battle of wills where minute changes in posture can say as much about the cloaked, institutionalized nature of power as anything in Mamet’s precise and heightened dialogue. (Avila)

Sex and the City: LIVE! Rebel, 1760 Market, SF; trannyshack.com/sexandthecity. $25. Wed, 7 and 9pm. Open-ended. It seems a no-brainer. Not just the HBO series itself — that’s definitely missing some gray matter — but putting it onstage as a drag show. Mais naturellement! Why was Sex and the City not conceived of as a drag show in the first place? Making the sordid not exactly palatable but somehow, I don’t know, friendlier (and the canned a little cannier), Velvet Rage Productions mounts two verbatim episodes from the widely adored cable show, with Trannyshack’s Heklina in a smashing portrayal of SJP’s Carrie; D’Arcy Drollinger stealing much of the show as ever-randy Samantha (already more or less a gay man trapped in a woman’s body); Lady Bear as an endearingly out-to-lunch Miranda; and ever assured, quick-witted Trixxie Carr as pent-up Charlotte. There’s also a solid and enjoyable supporting cast courtesy of Cookie Dough, Jordan Wheeler, and Leigh Crow (as Mr. Big). That’s some heavyweight talent trodding the straining boards of bar Rebel’s tiny stage. The show’s still two-dimensional, even in 3D, but noticeably bigger than your 50″ plasma flat panel. Update: new episodes began May 15. (Avila)

Steve Seabrook: Better Than You Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thu, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Extended through June 29. Self-awareness, self-actualization, self-aggrandizement — for these things we turn to the professionals: the self-empowerment coaches, the self-help authors and motivational speakers. What’s the good of having a “self” unless someone shows you how to use it? Writer-performer Kurt Bodden’s Steve Seabrook wants to sell you on a better you, but his “Better Than You” weekend seminar (and tie-in book series, assorted CDs, and other paraphernalia) belies a certain divided loyalty in its own self-flattering title. The bitter fruit of the personal growth industry may sound overly ripe for the picking, but Bodden’s deftly executed “seminar” and its behind-the-scenes reveals, directed by Mark Kenward, explore the terrain with panache, cool wit, and shrewd characterization. As both writer and performer, Bodden keeps his Steve Seabrook just this side of overly sensational or maudlin, a believable figure, finally, whose all-too-ordinary life ends up something of a modest model of its own. (Avila)

Sylvia Fort Mason Theater, Fort Mason Center, Bldg C, Rm 300, Marina at Laguna, SF; sylvia.brownpapertickets.com. $20-45. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through June 30. Independent Cabaret Productions and Shakespeare at Stinton present AR Gurney’s midlife-crisis comedy.

Talk Radio Actors Theatre of San Francisco, 855 Bush, SF; www.actorstheatresf.org. $26-38. Wed/12-Sat/15, 8pm. Actors Theatre of San Francisco performs Eric Bogosian’s breakthrough 1987 drama.

Tinsel Tarts in a Hot Coma: The Next Cockettes Musical Hypnodrome, 575 10th St, SF; www.thrillpeddlers.com. $30-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Extended through June 29. Thrillpeddlers and director Russell Blackwood continue their Theatre of the Ridiculous series with this 1971 musical from San Francisco’s famed glitter-bearded acid queens, the Cockettes, revamped with a slew of new musical material by original member Scrumbly Koldewyn, and a freshly re-minted book co-written by Koldewyn and “Sweet Pam” Tent — both of whom join the large rotating cast of Thrillpeddler favorites alongside a third original Cockette, Rumi Missabu (playing diner waitress Brenda Breakfast like a deliciously unhinged scramble of Lucille Ball and Bette Davis). This is Thrillpeddlers’ third Cockettes revival, a winning streak that started with Pearls Over Shanghai. While not quite as frisky or imaginative as the production of Pearls, it easily charms with its fine songs, nifty routines, exquisite costumes, steady flashes of wit, less consistent flashes of flesh, and de rigueur irreverence. The plot may not be very easy to follow, but then, except perhaps for the bubbly accounting of the notorious New York flop of the same show 42 years ago by Tent (as poisoned-pen gossip columnist Vedda Viper), it hardly matters. (Avila)

Vital Signs: The Pulse of an American Nurse Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sun/16, 7pm. Registered nurse Alison Whittaker returns to the Marsh with her behind-the-scenes show about working in a hospital.

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Sun, 11am. Through July 21. Louis “The Amazing Bubble Man” Pearl returns after a month-long hiatus with his popular, kid-friendly bubble show.

BAY AREA

The Beauty Queen of Leenane Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; www.marintheatre.org. $36-52. Wed/12, 7:30pm; Thu/13-Sat/15, 8pm (also Sat/15, 2pm); Sun/16, 2 and 7pm. Martin McDonagh wrote a rash of plays in the mid-1990s (six in all) that have had worldwide traction ever since, though I suspect it’s due less to any thematic depth or aesthetic polish than to the cool charm of McDonagh’s gritty and hilariously broad riffs on rural Irish life — a scene the London-born playwright (now filmmaker) gleaned from a distance, during vacations to County Galway as a child, and which serves as a ready vessel for all the pettiness, naiveté, cruelty, extreme violence, and loneliness of contemporary life in general. Of course, there’s usually a little passing tenderness along the way. All of these traits are on display in The Beauty Queen of Leenane, the first of McDonagh’s plays to win production (in 1996) and accolades in the UK and on Broadway. Marin Theatre Company offers a well acted if muted production of this bleakly humorous little drama about the bottled-up home life of a 40-year-old spinster, Maureen (Beth Wilmurt), and her manipulative semi-invalid mother, Mag (Joy Carlin). The sadomasochism inherent in Maureen and Mag’s daily battle of wits and wills over the porridge and the pee in the sink comes to a cringing climax eventually, but most of the drama sustains itself on the passive aggressive dialogue along the way, with buoying interjections from dim and sniping neighbor Ray (an amusingly snarky Joseph Salazar) and his brother Pato (a winningly bemused yet gallant Rod Gnapp), the latter presenting himself as the unlikely knight who might rescue Maureen from her mirthless seclusion. Wilmurt’s shy and desperate, vaguely unhinged Maureen and Carlin’s unassumingly treacherous Mag, carried helplessly away by the logic of her dependency, are nicely wrought and affecting in director Mark Jackson’s careful staging. However, the violence is oddly muffled as played, as is the claustrophobia that should be almost unbearable in the unchanging setting of the women’s dingy kitchen. As is, on MTC’s large stage and designer Nina Ball’s open set (which does away with the walls and front door en lieu of a larger expanse of gray), the actors are rarely right up against each other and the tension and sense of visceral disgust is accordingly too dispersed. (Avila)

Bubbles for Grown-Ups Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Wed, 8pm. Through June 19. Louis “The Amazing Bubble Man” Pearl presents a show aimed at adults.

By & By Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-30. Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through June 23. Shotgun Players presents a new sci-fi thriller by Lauren Gunderson.

Dear Elizabeth Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $24-77. Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun and July 3, 2pm); Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat and Thu/6, 2pm; no show July 4). Through July 7. Berkeley Rep performs Sarah Ruhl’s play written in the form of letters between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell.

George Gershwin Alone Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-77. Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm). Through June 23. Hershey Felder stars in his celebration of the music and life of composer George Gershwin.

The Medea Hypothesis Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berk; www.centralworks.org. $15-28. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through June 23. Medea is perhaps one of the most problematic tragic protagonists in theater history, as even the most flexibly sympathetic viewpoint is severely challenged when faced with a filicidal mother. But at Central Works, rather than just updating an old tale of bloody vengeance, The Medea Hypothesis further takes a page from the pop science book of the same name written by Peter Ward, in which he speculates on the latent suicidal and self-destructive tendencies of the planetary superorganism. As the brittle, middle-aged Em, Jan Zvaifler dominates the stage, holding herself and her glamorous career in fashion together as her husband leaves her for a woman with a “perfect neck” and her daughter Sweetie (Dakota Dry), who appears only as a video projection, becomes contested property in an angry custody battle. Relentlessly egged on by her Mephistophelian flunky Ian (Cory Censoprano), and enraged by the interference of her ex-husband’s prospective father-in-law (Joe Estlack), Em does lash out at the happy couple in the Euripides-approved manner (though with flunky-provided “Plutonium 210” instead of plain old poison) but when it comes to the expected act of ultimate violence playwright Marian Berges provides a surprising twist to the familiar Grecian formula, giving Em a shot at a redemption never allowed the Euripidean matriarch. It’s still undeniably a tragedy, but concurrently, also a triumph. Kind of like the continued presence of multicellular life on earth. (Gluckstern)

Wild With Happy TheatreWorks at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View; www.theatreworks.org. $23-73. Tue-Wed, 7:30pm; Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through June 30. TheatreWorks presents the West Coast premiere of Colman Domingo’s new comedy, starring the playwright himself.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

“Bitter Queen” Garage, 715 Bryant, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Fri/14-Sat/15, 8pm; Sun/16, 2pm. $15. The Garage’s AIRspace residency program and the National Queer Arts Festival present this physical theater installation and contemporary dance performance.

Caroline Lugo and Carolé Acuña’s Ballet Flamenco Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; www.carolinalugo.com. Sat/16, June 22, 30, July 13, 21, and 27, 6:15pm. $15-19. Flamenco performance by the mother-daughter dance company, featuring live musicians.

“Dream Queens” Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, 133 Turk, SF; www.dreamqueensrevue.com. Wed/12, 9:30pm. Free. Drag with Collette LeGrande, Diva LaFever, Sophilya Leggz, and more.

“Laughs at the Lookout” Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; www.lookoutsf.com. Thu/13, 10pm. $5. Stand-up with host Valerie Branch and guests Charlie Ballard, Eloisa Bravo, Ronn Vigh, Shanti Charan, and Justin Lucas.

“Love and Light” Joe Goode Annex, Project Artaud, 401 Alabama #150, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Thu/13-Fri/14, 7:30pm. $10-18. Leigh Fitzjames performs her solo play about a yoga teacher who has a one-night stand with a famous guru.

“ImShift” CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; www.counterpulse.org. Fri/14-Sat/15, 8pm. $8-20. Victoria Mata’s performance investigates what identity means for a Latin American in the diaspora.

LEVYdance Heron Street, off 8th St between Folsom and Harrison, SF; www.levydance.org. Wed/13, 7pm (opening night celebration); Fri/14-Sun/16, 8:30pm. $20-200. “Spring Season at Home” features favorite works from the company’s first ten years, presented on custom-built outdoor stages and catwalks.

“Mission Position Live” Cinecave, 1034 Valencia, SF; www.missionpositionlive.com. Thu, 8pm. Ongoing. $10. Stand-up comedy with rotating performers.

“Mortified SF” DNA Lounge, 375 11th St, SF; www.getmortified.com. Fri/14, 7:30pm. $21. Outrageous and awkward true tales, told by those who lived them.

“ODC Dance presents Global Dance Passport Showcase” ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; www.odctheater.org. Fri/14-Sat/15, 8pm (also Sat/15, 5:30pm). $10. A sampler of dance styles from around the world.

“Randy Roberts: Live!” Alcove Theater, 414 Mason, Ste 502, SF; www.thealcovetheater.com. Fri-Sat through June 29 and July 9, 16, and 23, 9pm. $30. The famed female impersonator takes on Cher, Better Midler, and other stars.

Red Hots Burlesque El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; www.redhotsburlesque.com. Wed, 7:30-9pm. Ongoing. $5-10. Come for the burlesque show, stay for OMG! Karaoke starting at 8pm (no cover for karaoke).

“San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival: Weekend Two” Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Lam Research Theater, 700 Howard, SF; www.sfethnicdancefestival.org. Sat/15-Sun/16, 2pm (also Sat/15, 3pm). $18-58. With Colective Anqari, Chaksam-Pa, Parangal Dance Company, and more.

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

Amara Tabor-Smith Various locations (starts at 32 Page), SF; www.dancersgroup.org. Sat/15 and June 21-23, 3:30-8:30pm. Free. Dancers’ Group’s ONSITE Series presents the performer’s site-specific work, He Moved Swiftly But Gently Down the Not Too Crowded Street: Ed Mock and Other True Tales in a City That Once Was…

“Union Square Live” Union Square, between Post, Geary, Powell, and Stockton, SF; www.unionsquarelive.org. Through Oct 9. Free. Music, dance, circus arts, film, and more; dates and times vary, so check website for the latest.

“Yerba Buena Gardens Festival” Yerba Buena Gardens, Mission between 3rd and 4th Sts, SF; www.ybgfestival.org. Through Oct 15. Free. This week: Na Lei Hulu I Ke Wekiu (Sat/15, 1-2:30pm).

BAY AREA

“Bloomsday in Berkeley” Garden Gate Creative Center, 2911 Claremont, Berk; www.wildeirish.org. Sat/15, 7pm; Sun/16, 2pm. $25. Staged readings from James Joyce’s Ulysses and other works.

“Ojai North!” Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley, Bancroft at Telegraph, Berk; www.calperformances.org. Wed/12-Sat/15, times vary. $20-110. The Ojai Music Festival makes a NorCal visit with performances that include the world premiere of Mark Morris Dance Group’s Stravinsky/The Rite of Spring.

“Swearing in English: Tall Tales at Shotgun” Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. Mon/17, 8pm. $15. Shotgun Cabaret presents John Mercer in a series of three stranger-than-fiction dramatic readings.

“Te’s Harmony” El Cerrito Performing Arts Center, 540 Ashbury, El Cerrito; tesharmonyencore.eventbrite.com. Fri/14-Sat/15, 6-9pm. $8-45. Spoken word theater written and performed by Richmond youth.

Selector: June 5-11, 2013

Andrew Lam
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WEDNESDAY 5

“New Filipino Cinema 2013”

Fourteen out of the 16 films screening at Joel Shepard and Philbert Ortiz Dy’s co-curated series are American premieres. Aside from being an impressive coup for the programmers, that statistic suggests we don’t get many Filipino movies stateside, despite the country’s thriving cinema industry. All the more reason to visit Yerba Buena Center for the Arts for “New Filipino Cinema 2013,” a five-day, 16-film showcase with several filmmakers appearing in person as well as a panel discussion puzzling over “What is New Filipino Cinema?” One highlight is sure to be the delightfully insane-sounding Tiktik: The Aswang Chronicles, Erik Matti’s horror-comedy about Philippine folklore’s favorite fetus-gobbling monster. (Cheryl Eddy)

Through Sun/9, $8–$10

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

www.ybca.org

 

Lenka

Here’s a sweet little slice of pop for your foggy SF summer. Lenka’s album Shadows, on her own Skipalong Records, is about as breezy as it gets, with the songwriter’s child-like whisper whipped into pleasant melodies rising over fiddle-de-dee beats and bells; they’re songs that have been described as modern lullabies for adults. But don’t let the lilting pop fool you, the Australian singer-songwriter (and wife of visual artist James Gulliver Hancock, who does much of her album artwork and stage design) has major creative chops, having worked as an actress by age 13 in her homeland, and in collaboration with Australian electronic group Decoder Ring on the soundtrack to ’04’ film Somersault. She’s released a couple of albums on Epic Records since a late aughts move to the US, and her newest, Shadows, drops this week. The song “Show” from her ’08 debut is likely her best known stateside, thanks to its brief appearance in commercials and family-friendly sitcoms. (Emily Savage)

With Satellite

9:30pm, $15

Café Du Nord

2170 Market, SF

www.cafedunord.com

 

Fossil Collective

Fossil Collective will not offer you a chance to let loose and dance. You may not even sing along with the band at its shows. But its performance doesn’t need any of that. The group is fond of making the type of music you simply love and truly appreciate. Reminiscent of Fleet Foxes, the angelic harmonies of Fossil Collective could take you to the heavens and back. All that finger-picking of the acoustic guitars alone is entrancing enough. “Only when the moon is bright enough/only when the stars are high enough,” croon the brothers in “Let it Go.” Well, the moon is bright enough with this band, and the stars are definitely high enough. The Leeds-based band opens tonight for the Boxer Rebellion. (Hillary Smith)

9pm, $21.50

Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

(415) 346-6000

www.thefillmore.com


THURSDAY 6

Sam Amidon

He’s highly derivative; completely unoriginal; a thief. And he’s refreshing because of that. Growing up in Brattleboro, Vt., folk music surrounded Amidon and seeped into his psyche. As he wrote his new album, Bright Sunny South, songs from his youth resurfaced and he would build on or reshape them, The result feels so old and familiar that it’s uncannily thrilling, as if he has the ability to communicate with the ghosts of Irish traditional music, historical Appalachian tunes, and old New England melodies and beckon them into a living frenzy. Amidon fits more neatly into the folk revival than his peers; he has literally brought folk back to life. Come see his beautiful reincarnation at the Chapel. (Laura Kerry)

With Alessi’s Ark

9pm, $12

Chapel

777 Valencia, SF

(415) 551-5157

www.thechapelsf.com

 

Slough Feg

Once a constant presence on local stages, metal battlecruiser Slough Feg has been hiding in a nebula of late, awaiting the moment to strike. The time is now ripe; the band returns this week to the Eagle Tavern, also recently on hiatus. But though the historic SOMA leather bar has undergone a few renovations, expect no such changes from Slough Feg when it returns to the Eagle’s long-running Thursday Night Live series. The band’s inimitable sound continues to mix galloping classic metal with infectious melody; vocals by singer/guitarist Mike Scalzi veer from Sci-Fi to show tunes to philosophy and sometimes encompass all three at once. When he ducks offstage to change costumes, brace yourself for incoming fire. (Ben Richardson)

With Owl, Wounded Giant

9:30pm, $10

Eagle Tavern

398 12th St., SF

www.sf-eagle.com


FRIDAY 7

San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival opening performance

You know it’s June when the SF Ethnic Dance Festival (by now just about the oldest event of its kind in the country) returns. Still, without a permanent, or at least a stable home, the Festival with its four weekends of 35 companies and over 500 performers, will perform where it is welcome: at YBCA, the Legion of Honor and closes with an artists’ discussion at the Museum of the African Diaspora. The opening performance by Ballet Folklórico Netzahualcoyotl (Mexico) and Fogo Na Roupa Performing Company (Brasil) will take place in the Rotunda of City Hall. What a great idea to have the seat of government be inundated by the sounds, sights, and sentiments of cultures that were alive and thriving before this city was even a speck on the map. (Rita Felciano)

Noon, free; additional performances, $18–$58

City Hall Rotunda, SF

(415) 978-2787

www.sfethnicdancefestival.org

 

Parquet Courts

The genre “Americana punk” doesn’t describe the music of Parquet Courts as much as it describes their story. The Texans relocated to Brooklyn a few years ago, and now that they’re in a jungle of a city, they’re going to do what they want. With songs off of Light Up Gold (2012) such as “Yr No Stoner,” “No Ideas,” and “Stoned and Starving,” the band projects the attitude of people whose greatest care is deciding between Swedish Fish or licorice. Any laziness in subject, though, is undermined by music that captures and emits real energy. Parquet Courts may be punkish, but they understand where they came from. And considering their weird and exciting breed of rock, we can’t wait to see where they’re going next. (Kerry)

With Cocktails, Pang

9pm, $12

Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell, SF

(415) 861-2011

www.rickshawstop.com

 

Raissa Simpson’s UNLOCK

Choreographer-dancer Raissa Simpson may best be recognized locally for her nuanced yet powerful performances with Robert Moses Kin and Zaccho Dance Theatre, and as the brain and heart behind the 3rd Street Youth Center and Clinic. For her own Push Dance Company, she has choreographed among others, the early, still eloquent solo Judgement in Milliseconds, the intimate site-specific Mixed Messages as well as an ambitious hip-hop opera, Black Swordsman Saga. For her present eighth season concert she chose a venue she knows inside out: Zaccho Dance Theatre’s recently refurbish performance space. The mixed evening’s focal point will be the premiere of UNLOCK, inspired by anthropologist-writer Zora Neale Hurston: it will be danced by Adriann Ramirez, Nafi Watson­Thompson, Arvejon Jones, Jhia Jackson, Elizabeth Sheets, and Katerina Wong. (Rita Felciano)

Through Sun/9, 8pm, $25

Zaccho Dance Theatre

1777 Yosemite, Suite 330, SF

push.eventbrite.com

 

Mark Farina and Roman Flügel (two sets each)

Sideshows can be sad at 1am. I once witnessed a DJ give up, outright get on the mic and tell us to pack into the main room to see the headliner, an uncomfortable situation on every level, and the difference between a party and a show. Here, Public Works is tricking out the conventional club hierarchy, with dual performances from two headliners, starting with a signature mushroom jazz set from Mark Farina in the loft and Roman Flügel housing the main room. At some point they’ll pull the old switcheroo, not just on the stages, but on genres, showcasing an entirely different sound — house and techno, respectively — from each. (Ryan Prendiville)

With Dax Lee, Duserock

9:30pm-3:30am, $20

Public Works

161 Erie St., SF

(415) 932-0955

www.publicsf.com


SATURDAY 8

“Plants from Outer Space”

How could the theme “Plants from Outer Space” steer you wrong? The San Francisco Succulent and Cactus Society’s annual show and sale is this weekend, and the theme is just that, with plant oddities from around the succulent world on full display. And if you’re picturing Seymour Krelborn squinting upwards after that Total Eclipse of Sun before noticing his own little leafy plant of horror, you’re also in my brain. More to reality however, the show will include California plant vendors with succulents, cacti, and the like, with society members of the nonprofit educational organization on hand to answer all your pertinent plant questions. (Savage)

Also Sun/9, 9am-5pm, free admission

San Francisco County Fair Building

1199 Ninth Ave., SF

www.sfsucculent.org

 

San Francisco Free Folk Festival

The San Francisco Folk Music Club is teeming with diehard folk fans who just might plague you with the same passion. Musicians and listeners alike will gather for the 36th time at this excitingly diverse event. Though large and busy, the festival offers an intimate experience with performers playing on three different stages. More than 20 folk groups will perform throughout the day from noon until 10pm, making this a must-see for Bay Area folk fans or people just looking for a fun, folky time. Some artists I recommend looking out for: Anne and Pete Sibley, Misisipi Mike Wolf, and the Easy Leaves. Just try leaving not a die-hard folk music fan; I dare you. (Smith)

Noon-10pm, free

Presidio Middle School

450 30th Ave., SF

www.sffolkfest.org


SUNDAY 9

Said the Whale

So, what did the whale say? The Canadian group Said the Whale may not have a straight answer to that, but it sure wouldn’t mind shooting the bull with you after the show anyways. On stage, it employs this same personable energy. Its upbeat attitude transforms into a deep appreciation of the depressing or fickle moments of life. It has a driving theme of nature in many songs, like in “Hurricane Ada” and “Seasons”. It’s not just the lyrics that reflect this theme though. Stomping, swaying, and thrashing around, the musicians of Said the Whale are all four seasons. Collected, they’re a hurricane. If you’re lucky enough, they’ll sweep you up with them. (Smith)

With Parson Red Heads and Desert Noises

Brick and Mortar Music Hall

10pm, $10

1710 Mission, SF

(415) 800-8782

www.brickandmortarmusic.com

 

Sunset Island

From boat parties in the bay (and Croatia!?) to a campout in Belden Town, Sunset Sound System is putting on bigger, bolder events than ever in 2013. But still, the one I look forward to the most is this “Electronic Music Picnic” on Treasure Island, which recalls both the crew’s name and its origins, dancing as the sun went down on the Berkeley Marina in 1994. The key word in this year’s lineup is “live,” featuring sets from the all hardware Detroit duo Octave One and vintage toned Chicago house veteran Tevo Howard, as well as the deep sounds of Midwestern DJ DVS1. (Prendiville)

With Galen, Solar, J-Bird

Noon-9pm, $10–$20

Great Lawn, Treasure Island

www.sunsetmusicelectric.com


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Clock ticks, ground breaks: SFMOMA kicks off its two years of renovations with 24-hour party, glitter bomb

Andrew Lam
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Clock ticks, ground breaks: SFMOMA kicks off its two years of renovations with 24-hour party, glitter bomb

The students from SoMa’s Bessie Carmichael Elementary, against my better judgement, were to ones to push down the level detonating… whatever was going to mark the groundbreak of SFMOMA’s planned two-and-a-half years of closure for massive renovations expansions this morning.

When glitter cannons took the place of the further obliteration of the building behind Supervisor Jane Kim and the museum trustees with their hard hats and decorative shovels, I breathed a sigh of relief. I should have known any cultural institution with the foresight to build a DIY graffiti wall made of cookies wouldn’t allow minors to be injured. 

You’ll probably want to say hasta luego to the Bay Area’s premier contemporary art museum by attending the Countdown Days celebration, which’ll bring ecosexual performance artists Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens, dancer-force Marc Bamuthi Joseph, Homobiles, TCHO Chocolate, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, one-canvas docent explorations, and much more, culminating in a 24-hour extravaganza, to the soon-to-be-shuttered atriums and galleries Thu/30-Sun/2.

Dry your eyes though kitty-cat, when the museum returns, it’ll be free to visitors under 18 and larger by 225,000 square feet at an estimated cost of $610 million. 41,000 square feet of free-access public space has been promised, in addition to a new seventh floor outdoor terrace and massive vertical gardens.

While we wait for 2016 to arrive, art fans are invited to enjoy special roaming installations, like the Mark di Suvero sculptures already gracing Crissy Field.

The Contemporary Jewish Museum, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and Asian Art Museum, and other venues will be hosting special SFMOMA collaborations. 

Here’s what we have to look forward to with the new design, courtesy its creators, Norway’s Snøhetta architecture firm.

Turn around girl… 

… There it is.

Today’s groundbreaking included aforementioned cookie wall, accompanied by some sadly impotent spray cans of edible spray paint. Groundbreakers were encouraged to spray, then walk off with a souvenir “brick” baker by Blue Bottle Coffee pastry chef Caitlin Freeman. I ate mine when it feel apart in my hands: a delicious impermanence, sonly slightly troubling in that the cookie wall was meant to mimick Snøhetta’s architectural style. 

Delicious cookie wall

I’m sure it will be fine. Here are the little ones charged with ushering the SF arts scene into the future. 

And Supervisor Kim, in a chain metal scarf-necklace that topped off the single best outfit I’ve seen a city politician sport. 

Museum trustees and officials praised the city’s “universal support” towards getting the renovations funded, which was also supported by private donors, including $5 million from anonymous sources. An estimated 1,400 construction jobs wil be created by the project, say museum PR materials. 

Swing through for one last look at the current facilities, and check out the future if you’re so inclined. Download this app by Brooklyn’s Will Pappenheimer and John Craig Freeman and pull out your phone at 10 points throughout the SFMOMA to view: 

Artist-created motifs that riff on features of the museum—such as plants from the new vertical garden and fragments from the current building—merge with iconic images from the Bay Area’s natural and tech environments to create a circling vortex of animation through and around the building, as well as floating off into space. 

SFMOMA Countdown Celebration

Thu/30-Fri/31, 10am-9:45pm; open continuously Sat/1, 10am-Sun/2, 5:45pm

SFMOMA

151 Third St., SF

www.sfmoma.org

Rep Clock

Andrew Lam
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Schedules are for Wed/29-Tue/4 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features marked with a •. All times pm unless otherwise specified.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $8.50-13. •Spring Breakers (Korine, 2012), Wed, 7, and Enter the Void (Noé, 2009), Wed, 8:45. "Inforum Presents: A #Nofilter Conversation with the Founders of Instagram," Thu, 7. This event, $15-65; advance tickets at instagraminforum.eventbrite.com. "Agents of Chaos," "unauthorized" book release event for Tales of the San Francisco Cacophony Society, Fri, 7:30. This event, $20-50; advance tickets at agentsofchaos.eventbrite.com. Grease (Kleiser, 1978), presented sing-along style, Sun-Mon, 2:30, 8. This event, $10-15; advance tickets at www.ticketweb.com.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.75-$10.25. Frances Ha (Baumbach, 2012), call for dates and times. In the House (Ozon, 2012), call for dates and times. Midnight’s Children (Mehta, 2012), call for dates and times. Renoir (Bourdos, 2012), call for dates and times. Stories We Tell (Polley, 2012), call for dates and times. Elemental (Roshan and Vaughan-Lee, 2012), May 31-June 6, call for times. Bitter Seeds (Peled, 2011), Sun and June 9, 7.

DELANCEY STREET SCREENING ROOM 600 Embarcadero, SF; www.everydaygandhis.org. Free (reserve a ticket by emailing amy@everydaygandhis.org). The Fight to Forgive: From Child Soldiers to Peacebuilders (Travis, 2013), Fri, 9. With film subject and former child soldier Lassana Kanneh in person.

GOFORALOOP GALLERY AND STUDIOS 1458 San Bruno, SF; www.goforaloop.com. Donations welcome. "The Long and the Short of It:" Hard Eight (Anderson, 1996), plus shorts by local filmmakers, Thu, 7:30.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; (415) 393-0100, milibrary.org/events. $10 (reservations required as seating is limited). "CinemaLit Film Series: Paddy Chayefsky: Scenes from American Lives:" The Hospital (Hiller, 1971), Fri, 6.

NEW PARKWAY 474 24th St, Oakl; www.thenewparkway.com. $6-10. "New Parkway Classics:" Pink Flamingos (Waters, 1972), Thu, 9. "Thrillville:" The Sadist (Landis, 1963), Sun, 6.

NEW VALENCIA HALL 747 Polk, SF; (415) 864-1278. $5-10 (dinner at 6:30pm, $8 donation). GOFORALOOP GALLERY AND STUDIOS 1458 San Bruno, SF; www.goforaloop.com. Donations welcome. "The Long and the Short of It:" The Sugarland Express (Spielberg, 1974), plus shorts by local filmmakers, Thu, 7:30. Harvest of Empire: The Untold Story of Latinos in America (González, 2012), Sat, 7:30.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. PFA closed through June 5.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-11. In the House (Ozon, 2012), Wed-Thu, 9:15. Something in the Air (Assayas, 2012), Wed-Thu, 6:45. Trance (Boyle, 2013), Wed-Thu, 7. Upstream Color (Carruth, 2013), Wed-Thu, 9. Rebels With a Cause (Kelly, 2012), May 31-June 6, call for times.

"SAN FRANCISCO GREEN FILM FESTIVAL" Various venues, SF and Berk; www.sfgreenfilmfest.org. $12 per film (passes, $100-200). Over 20 international, environmentally-focused feature films, May 30-June 5.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. $8-10. Post Tenebras Lux (Reygadas, 2012), Thu-Sat, 7:30; Sun, 2 and 4:30.

Stage listings

Andrew Lam
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Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

THEATER

OPENING

The Divine Sister New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Previews Fri/31-Sat/1 and June 7, 8pm; Sun/2, 2pm. Opens Sat/8, 8pm. Runs Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through June 29. Charles Busch’s latest comedy pays tribute to Hollywood films involving nuns.

Drunk Enough to Say I Love You? Costume Shop, 1117 Market, SF; www.therhino.org. $15-30. Previews Thu/30-Fri/31, 8pm. Opens Sat/1, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through June 16. Theatre Rhinoceros performs Caryl Churchill’s play that asks, “Do countries really behave like gay men?” Included in the program are two one-act plays: Churchill’s Seven Jewish Children: A Play for Gaza and Deborah S. Margolin’s Seven Palestinian Children.

Frisco Fred’s Magic and More Alcove Theater, 414 Mason, Ste 502, SF; www.thealcovetheater.com. $35-50. Opens Thu/30, 7pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 7pm. Through June 29. Performer Fred Anderson presents his latest family-friendly show, complete with magic, juggling, and “crazy stunts.”

Into the Woods Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.rayoflighttheatre.com. $25-36. Opens Fri/31, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm (check website for matinee schedule). Through June 29. Ray of Light Theatre performs Stephen Sondheim’s fairy-tale mash-up.

Killing My Lobster Learns a Lesson Stage Werx Theatre, 446 Valencia, SF; www.killingmylobster.com. $10-25. Previews Thu/30, 8pm. Opens Fri/31, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Jun 9. The sketch troupe performs “comedy vignettes for the avid achievers.”

BAY AREA

Dear Elizabeth Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $24-77. Opens Wed/29, 8pm. Runs Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun and July 3, 2pm); Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat and June 6, 2pm; no matinee June 8; no show July 4). Through July 7. Berkeley Rep performs Sarah Ruhl’s play in the form of letters between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell.

ONGOING

Arcadia ACT’s Geary Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $20-95. Tue-Sat, 8pm (also Wed and Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through June 9. American Conservatory Theater performs Tom Stoppard’s literary romance.

Birds of a Feather New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through June 29. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs the San Francisco premiere of Marc Acito’s tale inspired by two gay penguins at the Central Park Zoo.

Black Watch Drill Court, Armory Community Center, 333 14th St, SF; www.act-sf.org. $100. Tue-Sat, 8pm (also Wed and Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through June 16. American Conservatory Theater presents the National Theatre of Scotland’s internationally acclaimed performance about Scottish soldiers serving in Iraq.

Burqavaganza Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th St, SF; www.brava.org. $20. Thu/30-Sat/1, 8pm; Sun/2, 3pm. Brava! For Women in the Arts and RasaNova Theatre present Shahid Nadeem’s Bollywood-style “love story in the time of jihad.”

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

Hedwig and the Angry Inch Boxcar Theatre, 505 Natoma, SF; www.boxcartheatre.org. $27-43. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. John Cameron Mitchell’s cult musical comes to life with director Nick A. Olivero’s ever-rotating cast. Sat/1, the production celebrates its 100th performance with an expanded cast of special guests and a post-show party.

Krispy Kritters in the Scarlett Night Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor, SF; www.cuttingball.com. $10-50. Thu, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm; no shows June 8); Sun, 5pm. Through June 16. Cutting Ball Theater performs Andrew Saito’s Howl-inspired portrait of San Francisco.

Sex and the City: LIVE! Rebel, 1760 Market, SF; trannyshack.com/sexandthecity. $25. Wed, 7 and 9pm. Open-ended. It seems a no-brainer. Not just the HBO series itself — that’s definitely missing some gray matter — but putting it onstage as a drag show. Mais naturellement! Why was Sex and the City not conceived of as a drag show in the first place? Making the sordid not exactly palatable but somehow, I don’t know, friendlier (and the canned a little cannier), Velvet Rage Productions mounts two verbatim episodes from the widely adored cable show, with Trannyshack’s Heklina in a smashing portrayal of SJP’s Carrie; D’Arcy Drollinger stealing much of the show as ever-randy Samantha (already more or less a gay man trapped in a woman’s body); Lady Bear as an endearingly out-to-lunch Miranda; and ever assured, quick-witted Trixxie Carr as pent-up Charlotte. There’s also a solid and enjoyable supporting cast courtesy of Cookie Dough, Jordan Wheeler, and Leigh Crow (as Mr. Big). That’s some heavyweight talent trodding the straining boards of bar Rebel’s tiny stage. The show’s still two-dimensional, even in 3D, but noticeably bigger than your 50″ plasma flat panel. Update: new episodes began May 15. (Avila)

Sonia Flew Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason, Sixth Flr, SF; www.viragotheatre.org. $20. Fri/31-Sat/1, 8pm. Virago Theatre Company performs Melinda Lopez’s drama about a Cuban immigrant grappling with her son’s decision to enlist in the military after 9/11.

Steve Seabrook: Better Than You Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thu, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Extended through June 29. Self-awareness, self-actualization, self-aggrandizement — for these things we turn to the professionals: the self-empowerment coaches, the self-help authors and motivational speakers. What’s the good of having a “self” unless someone shows you how to use it? Writer-performer Kurt Bodden’s Steve Seabrook wants to sell you on a better you, but his “Better Than You” weekend seminar (and tie-in book series, assorted CDs, and other paraphernalia) belies a certain divided loyalty in its own self-flattering title. The bitter fruit of the personal growth industry may sound overly ripe for the picking, but Bodden’s deftly executed “seminar” and its behind-the-scenes reveals, directed by Mark Kenward, explore the terrain with panache, cool wit, and shrewd characterization. As both writer and performer, Bodden keeps his Steve Seabrook just this side of overly sensational or maudlin, a believable figure, finally, whose all-too-ordinary life ends up something of a modest model of its own. (Avila)

Talk Radio Actors Theatre of San Francisco, 855 Bush, SF; www.actorstheatresf.org. $26-38. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through June 15. Actors Theatre of San Francisco performs Eric Bogosian’s breakthrough 1987 drama.

Tinsel Tarts in a Hot Coma: The Next Cockettes Musical Hypnodrome, 575 10th St, SF; www.thrillpeddlers.com. $30-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Extended through June 29. Thrillpeddlers and director Russell Blackwood continue their Theatre of the Ridiculous series with this 1971 musical from San Francisco’s famed glitter-bearded acid queens, the Cockettes, revamped with a slew of new musical material by original member Scrumbly Koldewyn, and a freshly re-minted book co-written by Koldewyn and “Sweet Pam” Tent — both of whom join the large rotating cast of Thrillpeddler favorites alongside a third original Cockette, Rumi Missabu (playing diner waitress Brenda Breakfast like a deliciously unhinged scramble of Lucille Ball and Bette Davis). This is Thrillpeddlers’ third Cockettes revival, a winning streak that started with Pearls Over Shanghai. While not quite as frisky or imaginative as the production of Pearls, it easily charms with its fine songs, nifty routines, exquisite costumes, steady flashes of wit, less consistent flashes of flesh, and de rigueur irreverence. The plot may not be very easy to follow, but then, except perhaps for the bubbly accounting of the notorious New York flop of the same show 42 years ago by Tent (as poisoned-pen gossip columnist Vedda Viper), it hardly matters. (Avila)

Vital Signs: The Pulse of an American Nurse Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sun, 7pm. Through June 16. Registered nurse Alison Whittaker returns to the Marsh with her behind-the-scenes show about working in a hospital.

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Sun, 11am. Through July 21. Louis “The Amazing Bubble Man” Pearl returns after a month-long hiatus with his popular, kid-friendly bubble show.

BAY AREA

The Beauty Queen of Leenane Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; www.marintheatre.org. $36-52. Tue, Thu-Sat, 8pm (also June 6, 1pm; June 15, 2pm); Wed, 7:30pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through June 16. Marin Theatre Company performs Martin McDonagh’s award-winning black comedy about a dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship.

By & By Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-30. Opens Wed/31, 8pm. Runs Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through June 23. Shotgun Players presents a new sci-fi thriller by Lauren Gunderson.

Hanging Georgia, a play with music about Georgia O’Keefe Pear Avenue Theatre, 1220 Pear, Mtn View; www.thepear.org. $10-30. Thu-Sat, 8pm (additional shows Sat/1 and June 8, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through June 9. Pear Avenue Theatre marks its 75th show with Sharmon J. Hilfinger and Joan McMillen’s world premiere, a co-production with BootStrap Theater Foundation.

The Medea Hypothesis Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berk; www.centralworks.org. $15-28. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through June 23. Central Works performs Marian Berges’ reconfiguration of the Euripides classic.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

“Bay Area Cabaret presents a Gala Birthday Tribute to Marvin Hamlisch” Venetian Room, Fairmont San Francisco, 950 Mason, SF; www.bayareacabaret.org. Sun/2, 8pm. $75-100. The late, legendary composer is honored by Broadway stars and award-winning musicians.

“Dancing Across Cultures” Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.presidiodance.org. Fri/31, 7pm. $40-120. The multi-generational Presidio Dance Theatre performs ballet and international dance as part of its 15th anniversary celebration.

“Desires and Desiderations” Theatre of Yugen, NOHspace, 2840 Mariposa, SF; www.apiculturalcenter.org. Fri/31-Sat/1, 7:30pm. $15-25. Theatre of Yugen and JypsyJays Productions present new works by butoh artist Judith Kajiwara and Kathak dancer Jaysi.

“Kunst-Stoff Arts Fest 2013” Kunst-Stoff Arts, One Grove, SF; www.kunst-stoff.org. Through June 7. Most events $10-15. Morning classes, afternoon workshops, and evening performances are the focus of this festival of dance, film, music, and more.

“Misery Index” Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; miseryindexsf.tumblr.com. Mon/3, 8pm. Free. Stand-up comedy hosted by Trevor Hill.

“Mission Position Live” Cinecave, 1034 Valencia, SF; www.missionpositionlive.com. Thu, 8pm. Ongoing. $10. Stand-up comedy with rotating performers.

Red Hots Burlesque El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; www.redhotsburlesque.com. Wed, 7:30-9pm. Ongoing. $5-10. Come for the burlesque show, stay for OMG! Karaoke starting at 8pm (no cover for karaoke).

“San Francisco Ballet School Student Showcase” Lam Research Theater, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard, SF; www.sfballet.org. Wed/29 and Fri/31, 7:30pm; Thu/30, 6pm. $35-40. Students from the official San Francisco Ballet school perform.

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

“State: Not Anywhere Near to Now” CounterPULSE, 1013 Mission, SF; www.funschdance.org. Fri/31-Sat/1, 8pm. $15-20. New dances by Christy Funsch with guest artist Katherine Longstreth.

“Through Seneca Falls and Selma and Stonewall” Herchurch Lutheran, 678 Portola, SF; www.sflgfb.org. Fri/31, 8pm. Free. The San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band performs a concert celebrating civil rights pioneers.

“Union Square Live” Union Square, between Post, Geary, Powell, and Stockton, SF; www.unionsquarelive.org. Through Oct 9. Free. Music, dance, circus arts, film, and more; dates and times vary, so check website for the latest.

“Viva Cuba!” Southside Theater, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.fortmason.org. Fri/31-Sat/1, 8pm. $12-20. American Theater Company performs a musical about post-revolutionary Cuba.

“Walking Distance Dance Festival” ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; www.odcdance.org. Fri/31, 7-9pm; Sat/1, 4-6pm and 7-9pm. $20 (festival pass, $50). Three separate programs of contemporary dance highlight this fringe-style festival.

BAY AREA

“Peter” Marin Veterans’ Memorial Auditorium, 10 Avenue of the Flags, San Rafael; www.marincenter.org. Sat/1, 7pm; Sun/2, 6pm. $18-23. RoCo Dance celebrates its 20th anniversary with a contemporary dance performance inspired by Peter Pan.

“Swearing in English: Tall Tales at Shotgun” Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. Mon/3 and June 17, 8pm. $15. Shotgun Cabaret presents John Mercer in a series of three stranger-than-fiction dramatic readings.

“33rd Annual Planetary Dance” Mt. Tamalpais State Park, Marin County; www.planetarydance.org. Sun/2, 11am (main event; visit website for directions and related events). Free. Dance legend Anna Halprin leads this participatory event that honors the Earth through movement.

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