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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ci>Our Practical Heaven\u003c/i>, which had its world premiere at the Aurora Theatre Thursday night, shows us a world where birds and people return to their home year after year. It also shows us a world where cell phone reception stretches into the deep woods, where climate change is displacing wildlife and where technology can cause literary erosion even in the last bastion of higher culture: namely theater.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Anthony Clarvoe’s unlikable play was a finalist in the Aurora’s Global Age Project, an initiative to cultivate theater that addresses life in the 21st century and beyond. In contemporary life, the spoken word is becoming a precious resource; the theater has been a refuge for articulate speech, eloquent language, or at least verbal and human interplay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But playwrights can choose to bypass all of this. Marital disputes can unfold silently on characters’ cell phone screens for audiences to only imagine. Banter can be reduced to texting with chat acronyms and wordlessly projected txtspk. Powerful emotions can be evaded using images of Facebook posts. Director Allen McKelvey and playwright Anthony Clarvoe have made all these language-inhibiting choices in \u003ci>Our Practical Heaven\u003c/i>. Vaguely formed characters, stiff levity, heavy-handed depth, and affected lyricism are other reasons this play disappoints.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/02/06/heaven6.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px\" alt=\"\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Clarvoe’s slogging saga, six characters encompassing three generations of women return to a beloved beach house season after season to loiter under one roof. Clarvoe thickly paints a sense of “Shared Experience”. Later on, the play will strive towards Chekhovian melancholy and longing, but the script flits this way and that before landing on a final mood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The home belongs to Vera, an elderly widow whose doors are always been open to friends, outcasts, and iconoclasts. As Vera, Joy Carlin gives the play’s strongest performance. There’s a peace, quiet, and unspoken texture to both her performance and her appealing character.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Anne Darragh, who plays Vera’s daughter Sasha, brings tense talky clamorousness to the stage. Sasha is a bundle of nerves and Darragh’s grating performance dominates the play. Sasha is forever worrying about worst-case scenario calamities. She barks at her daughters to use sunscreen and she panics at the possibility that her mother might trip on a box and die alone. To top it all, she’s a big whiner. We could sympathize with her or laugh at her. Under the best circumstances, we could do both. But under McKelvey’s off-note direction, Darragh’s version of Sasha is shrill and overwrought.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/02/06/heaven2.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px\" alt=\"\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her daughters Suze and Leez (Blythe Foster and Adrienne Walters) complain about their mother via text. In these instances, texting culture and screen life could add to live theater, if, for instance, screen life and the real world contradicted one another or added further dimensionality to characters. In this play, the use of text messaging projected in real time is a gimmick. And character complexity is in short supply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Julia Brothers plays Willa, Sasha’s oldest friend — the two are “honorary sisters,” (as they say again and again). Brothers’ character is perhaps the most fleshed out of them all. Vera took her into the family when she was down on her luck and now she has become a powerful businesswoman, but also a devoted friend and a selfless mother to her chronically ill prodigal daughter (Lauren Spencer). These sides of Willa reveal themselves at brief points in the narrative — moments when the play wakes itself up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other scenes strain towards lightheartedness and cuddly effusiveness to hit home the theme that this blended family of fiercely close females cherish one another. In a scene that stresses the home-spun fun of close-knit family routine, household chores become a communal dance of synchronicity and pillow tossing. Other scenes show intimacy through lazy lollygagging. But the downtime feels less like relaxation and more like these women are stranded at their precious beach house, just six characters in search of objective.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Our Practical Heaven\u003c/i> runs through March 3, 2013 at the Aurora Theatre in Berkeley. For \u003ca href=\"http://www.auroratheatre.org/our-practical-heaven/\">tickets and information\u003c/a> visit auroratheatre.org.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All photos by David Allen.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cp>4000 Miles is the distance traveled by bike from the west coast to the front door of a Greenwich Village apartment where an elderly widow welcomes in her road-weary grandson. \u003ci>4000 Miles\u003c/i> is also the title of Amy Herzog’s novella of a play, which opened last week at A.C.T.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the parent-child relationship is the stuff of much drama, Herzog unconventionally bypasses the middle generation to focus on the grandparent-grandchild relationship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Grandma Vera is not the warm-hearted, cookie-baking type you see on T.V. Nor do she and her grandson, Leo, have the corny connection that’s so often depicted when grannies are depicted at all. Under Mark Rucker’s low-key direction, Herzog’s play is honest and unsentimental. But it’s a slight play — short on theatrical drama. While there’s something to be said for restraint, this play rolls scenically along, but really doesn’t gain traction or momentum.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/01/28/40001.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px\" alt=\"\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even so, Susan Blommaert’ performance as the octogenarian Vera is sharp and intelligent. Vera is a no-nonsense straight-shooter, a cultured Manhattanite, strong-willed and quick-witted. Blommaert’s Vera holds our full attention. Refreshingly, she’s neither the archetypal kindly granny nor a caricature of a curmudgeonly coot. When Leo shows up, Vera doesn’t push him to call his worried mother. Her bond with her daughter is likewise cool and Leo’s estrangement from his mom is something she can relate to, even though the audience never gets to go down that road.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/01/28/50002.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px\" alt=\"\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reggie Gowland’s Leo is less specific — less character-driven. He is a man with a past. An Oregon “mountain man” and self-proclaimed hippie, Gowland makes this “it’s all good” type credible. Leo’s Zen vibe has been derailed by the ordeal he experienced on his cross-country trip. So, he has arrived in New York with baggage. More than fits in a set of panniers, if this metaphor can be further milked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some will be unpacked for us. Leo, his girlfriend and another couple — their best friends — had originally planned to bike across the country together. But the foursome crumbled and Leo has arrived in New York alone. While the telling of Leo’s back story is vital, it’s the casual couch time between Vera and Leo that is the heart of the play. Leo has a few visitors (Julie Lawler plays Bec, his former girlfriend and Camille Mana plays Amanda, a girl he picks up) but \u003ci>4000 Miles\u003c/i> is richest as Leo comes to know his grandmother.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vera tells him of her past marriages, matter-of-factly revealing details of her sex life and her husband’s infidelities. She tells him a bit (not enough) about her politics — she’s a former communist. Leo later reassures Amanda that “a lot of people were communists back then. It was like recycling — something you did to be socially responsible.” Amanda, a Chinese American who “hates communists,” at first seems like a stock floozy, but Mana surprises us with her sharp, clever and funny performance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/01/28/40003.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px\" alt=\"\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The play balances the comedy and the pathos pretty nicely, but Rucker’s production does have a bit of a dramedy feel with easy laugh lines and a static set where characters come and go through the apartment door. Vera has more senior hours than senior moments; she struggles (too briskly) to recall words, misplaces things and accuses Leo of pilfering. She bickers over the phone with her next door neighbor. Less comically, they check in everyday; neither wants to die alone and undetected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The absent characters, Leo’s mother and especially his adopted sister, feel like loose threads. And Herzog doesn’t heed Chekhov’s play-writing dictum that a loaded rifle on the wall in Act One needs to go off in Act Three. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>4000 Miles\u003c/i> is more of a staged short story than a play, and it’s more of a gentle ride than a comprehensive voyage. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>4000 Miles\u003c/i> runs through February 10, 2013, at A.C.T.’s Geary Theater in San Francisco. For \u003ca href=\"http://www.act-sf.org/1213/4000miles/index.html\">tickets and information\u003c/a>, visit act-sf.org.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All photos: Kevin Berne.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/01/28/50002.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px\" alt=\"\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reggie Gowland’s Leo is less specific — less character-driven. He is a man with a past. An Oregon “mountain man” and self-proclaimed hippie, Gowland makes this “it’s all good” type credible. Leo’s Zen vibe has been derailed by the ordeal he experienced on his cross-country trip. So, he has arrived in New York with baggage. More than fits in a set of panniers, if this metaphor can be further milked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some will be unpacked for us. Leo, his girlfriend and another couple — their best friends — had originally planned to bike across the country together. But the foursome crumbled and Leo has arrived in New York alone. While the telling of Leo’s back story is vital, it’s the casual couch time between Vera and Leo that is the heart of the play. Leo has a few visitors (Julie Lawler plays Bec, his former girlfriend and Camille Mana plays Amanda, a girl he picks up) but \u003ci>4000 Miles\u003c/i> is richest as Leo comes to know his grandmother.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vera tells him of her past marriages, matter-of-factly revealing details of her sex life and her husband’s infidelities. She tells him a bit (not enough) about her politics — she’s a former communist. Leo later reassures Amanda that “a lot of people were communists back then. It was like recycling — something you did to be socially responsible.” Amanda, a Chinese American who “hates communists,” at first seems like a stock floozy, but Mana surprises us with her sharp, clever and funny performance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2013/01/28/40003.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px\" alt=\"\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The play balances the comedy and the pathos pretty nicely, but Rucker’s production does have a bit of a dramedy feel with easy laugh lines and a static set where characters come and go through the apartment door. Vera has more senior hours than senior moments; she struggles (too briskly) to recall words, misplaces things and accuses Leo of pilfering. She bickers over the phone with her next door neighbor. Less comically, they check in everyday; neither wants to die alone and undetected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The absent characters, Leo’s mother and especially his adopted sister, feel like loose threads. And Herzog doesn’t heed Chekhov’s play-writing dictum that a loaded rifle on the wall in Act One needs to go off in Act Three. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>4000 Miles\u003c/i> is more of a staged short story than a play, and it’s more of a gentle ride than a comprehensive voyage. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>4000 Miles\u003c/i> runs through February 10, 2013, at A.C.T.’s Geary Theater in San Francisco. For \u003ca href=\"http://www.act-sf.org/1213/4000miles/index.html\">tickets and information\u003c/a>, visit act-sf.org.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All photos: Kevin Berne.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>The misery of existence set to harsh chords is the special forte of Tom Waits. A troubadour of sad sack gloom and grit, Waits has found inspiration in the cynical class condemnations of the socialist theater of old. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Waits recorded \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertolt_Brecht\">Bertolt Brecht\u003c/a>‘s “What Keeps Man Alive?” (with the lyric, “Mankind is kept alive by bestial acts”), and has has written his own slit-your-wrists ditties, like “Misery is the River of the World” (sample lyric: “If there’s one thing you can say about mankind, there’s nothing kind about man”). \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A hundred years before Brecht’s \u003ci>Three-Penny Opera\u003c/i>, \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_B%C3%BCchner\">Georg Büchner\u003c/a> wrote \u003ci>Woyzeck\u003c/i>, his 19th-century condemnation of capitalist wickedness. The German playwright Georg Büchner paved the way for bleak, Brechtian satire. Georg Büchner died before completing his play and many theater artists have tackled the unfinished work. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I can’t believe anyone has done a finer job than Robert Wilson, who, in 2002, had the genius inspiration to enlist Tom Waits to set the play to music. In its West Coast premiere, Shotgun Players’ director Mark Jackson has also done a bang up job injecting a hipster grunge aesthetic to this desolate, hope-dashing farce, which basks in Waits’ singular style of junkyard jazz.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> In collaboration with his wife Kathleen Brennan, Waits wrote the music and lyrics with song titles like “Everything Goes to Hell” and “God’s Away on Business.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cast sings: “All the good in the world, you can put inside a thimble, and still have room for you and me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2012/12/12/shaving.jpg\" alt=\"\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px\">\u003cbr>Alex Crowther and Anthony Nemirovsky\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alex Crowther play Woyzeck, a young man struggling to keep his head above water. He takes odd jobs to provide for his woman and child. When he shaves a portly, military Captain, (Anthony Nemirovsky), we witness the Captain’s gluttony as Woyzeck is told to replace the shaving cream with whipped cream, so the man can lick his face.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2012/12/12/clarke.jpg\" alt=\"\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px\">\u003cbr>Anthony Nemirovsky, Alex Crowther and Kevin Clarke\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Woyzeck is also paid to participate in a medical experiment for which he must eat only peas. As The Doctor, Kevin Clarke is delightfully bizarro. He has the menacing manner of a mad scientist, with a shock of Albert Einstein hair. Clarke’s edgy unpredictability makes the doctor both menacing and hysterical.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As he seizes Woyzeck for his maniacal purposes, The Doctor sings, “God’s away, God’s away, God’s away on business.” It’s a Waits song that later appeared in the film \u003ca href=\"http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1016268/combined/\">\u003ci>Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room\u003c/i>\u003c/a>. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The songs that make up most of the play were later recorded on Tom Waits’ album \u003ca href=\"http://www.allmusic.com/album/blood-money-mw0000217097/\">\u003ci>Blood Money\u003c/i>\u003c/a>, but this album doesn’t get near the power of the songs as they are integrated into Mark Jackson’s adaptation. On Waits’ recordings, the songs are sung only with Waits’ pulverized baritone and his clamorous orchestrations; they are often more harshly avant-garde than affecting. Under David Möschler’s musical direction, and the musical accompaniment of Bob Sarving and the Whalers, the music in this adaptation captures the characters’ desperation, deceit and even their numbness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The band plays everything from a tuba to a toy piano, and vibraphone to filing cabinet. The music is fraught with dischord and chaos, with assaulting percussion, ironic waltzes, lively big band jazz, deceptively tender ballads and sarcastic upbeat numbers. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2012/12/12/wilmurt.jpg\" alt=\"\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px\">\u003cbr>Beth Wilmurt\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beth Wilmurt deftly conveys the dead-inside human condition as a cynical hooker in a red wig. Looming above on the stage’s scaffolding, she sings in a numb staccato.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She and Madeleine H. D. Brown, who plays Marie, Woyzeck’s lover, perform “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” This is a song that works well in Waits’ \u003ci>Blood Money\u003c/i> interpretation, but is far more meaningful here when sung by fallen women.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2012/12/12/kiss.jpg\" alt=\"\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px\">\u003cbr>Joe Estlack and Madeline H.D. Brown\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Marie’s head his turned by the dashing Drum Major, played with impeccable hilarity by Joe Estlack. In his shiny military duds, he peacocks around her, performing an absurd mating ritual that incorporates a moon walk and other Michael Jackson flourishes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Nina Ball’s set, you can nearly see the grease on the walls, the piss in the pots. Christine Crook’s costume designs playfully demonstrate the haves and the have-nots. In Jackson’s smart and dynamic production, looking into the abyss was never so enjoyable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Woyzeck\u003c/i> runs through January 27, 2012 at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Avenue, Berkeley. For \u003ca href=\"http://www.shotgunplayers.org/2012_woyzeck.htm\">\u003c/a>tickets and information, visit shotgunplayers.org or call 510-841-6500.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All Photos: Jessica Palopoli.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cast sings: “All the good in the world, you can put inside a thimble, and still have room for you and me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2012/12/12/shaving.jpg\" alt=\"\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px\">\u003cbr>Alex Crowther and Anthony Nemirovsky\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alex Crowther play Woyzeck, a young man struggling to keep his head above water. He takes odd jobs to provide for his woman and child. When he shaves a portly, military Captain, (Anthony Nemirovsky), we witness the Captain’s gluttony as Woyzeck is told to replace the shaving cream with whipped cream, so the man can lick his face.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2012/12/12/clarke.jpg\" alt=\"\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px\">\u003cbr>Anthony Nemirovsky, Alex Crowther and Kevin Clarke\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Woyzeck is also paid to participate in a medical experiment for which he must eat only peas. As The Doctor, Kevin Clarke is delightfully bizarro. He has the menacing manner of a mad scientist, with a shock of Albert Einstein hair. Clarke’s edgy unpredictability makes the doctor both menacing and hysterical.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As he seizes Woyzeck for his maniacal purposes, The Doctor sings, “God’s away, God’s away, God’s away on business.” It’s a Waits song that later appeared in the film \u003ca href=\"http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1016268/combined/\">\u003ci>Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room\u003c/i>\u003c/a>. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The songs that make up most of the play were later recorded on Tom Waits’ album \u003ca href=\"http://www.allmusic.com/album/blood-money-mw0000217097/\">\u003ci>Blood Money\u003c/i>\u003c/a>, but this album doesn’t get near the power of the songs as they are integrated into Mark Jackson’s adaptation. On Waits’ recordings, the songs are sung only with Waits’ pulverized baritone and his clamorous orchestrations; they are often more harshly avant-garde than affecting. Under David Möschler’s musical direction, and the musical accompaniment of Bob Sarving and the Whalers, the music in this adaptation captures the characters’ desperation, deceit and even their numbness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The band plays everything from a tuba to a toy piano, and vibraphone to filing cabinet. The music is fraught with dischord and chaos, with assaulting percussion, ironic waltzes, lively big band jazz, deceptively tender ballads and sarcastic upbeat numbers. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2012/12/12/wilmurt.jpg\" alt=\"\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px\">\u003cbr>Beth Wilmurt\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beth Wilmurt deftly conveys the dead-inside human condition as a cynical hooker in a red wig. Looming above on the stage’s scaffolding, she sings in a numb staccato.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She and Madeleine H. D. Brown, who plays Marie, Woyzeck’s lover, perform “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” This is a song that works well in Waits’ \u003ci>Blood Money\u003c/i> interpretation, but is far more meaningful here when sung by fallen women.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2012/12/12/kiss.jpg\" alt=\"\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px\">\u003cbr>Joe Estlack and Madeline H.D. Brown\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Marie’s head his turned by the dashing Drum Major, played with impeccable hilarity by Joe Estlack. In his shiny military duds, he peacocks around her, performing an absurd mating ritual that incorporates a moon walk and other Michael Jackson flourishes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Nina Ball’s set, you can nearly see the grease on the walls, the piss in the pots. Christine Crook’s costume designs playfully demonstrate the haves and the have-nots. In Jackson’s smart and dynamic production, looking into the abyss was never so enjoyable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Woyzeck\u003c/i> runs through January 27, 2012 at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Avenue, Berkeley. For \u003ca href=\"http://www.shotgunplayers.org/2012_woyzeck.htm\">\u003c/a>tickets and information, visit shotgunplayers.org or call 510-841-6500.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All Photos: Jessica Palopoli.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "A Family Crucible at Summer Camp in Anna Ziegler's 'Another Way Home'",
"headTitle": "A Family Crucible at Summer Camp in Anna Ziegler’s ‘Another Way Home’ | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>The Manhattan couple at the center of \u003ci>Another Way Home\u003c/i>, Anna Ziegler’s new play at the Magic Theatre, are chatting with us. They launch into their narrative with all the social energy of cocktail party conversation. He finishes her sentences, she his. She interrupts him, he interrupts her. They bicker. They are a long-married couple.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It may remind you of the set-up in \u003ca href=\"http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108149/combined/\">\u003ci>Six Degrees of Separation\u003c/i>\u003c/a>, the John Guare play and subsequent movie, which begins with an affluent Manhattan couple telling their friends about a really unusual episode that recently transpired.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://a.s.kqed.net/img/arts/blog/wayhome1.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" alt=\"\">\u003cbr>Mark Pinter as Philip and Kim Martin-Cotten as Lillian\u003cbr>\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>In \u003ci>Another Way Home\u003c/i>, the Nadelmans tell their tale with a “we have such a story to tell you” flair. But their story is not an anecdote; it’s a story of a family — their family — in distress. We do indeed want to hear about the Nadelman’s family crisis. The Magic’s world premiere of Ziegler’s play ultimately conveys how badly parents and their children can hurt one another. Earnest sentiments ring true and family dynamics can hit home. Still, under Meredith McDonough’s unbalanced direction, the narrative tone is off-key.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Joey Nadelman (Daniel Petzold), the 16-year-old son is a handful, to say the least. And in the play, Joey, who is in crisis, says the least. Petzold expertly navigates the character’s fuming silences, angry outbursts and inner turmoil. Like Joey, we would like to hear him get a word in edgewise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://a.s.kqed.net/img/arts/blog/wayhome2.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" alt=\"\">\u003cbr>Daniel Petzold as Joey and Jeremy Kahn as Mike T.\u003cbr>\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>Petzold’s Joey brings an understated urgency to the play, but Lillian and Phillip Nadelman seize the audience with their verbal busy-ness. There are very few quiet moments in \u003ci>Another Way Home\u003c/i>. With its bare stage and self-consciously elaborate eloquence, writerly prose takes center stage, distancing us from the drama.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Nadelmans directly address their captive audience; whether they are talking about lobster bibs or autism, they are “on.” Are they confiding in us? Are they entertaining us? Are they reciting a staged novel? They stand stiffly, speaking well-practiced, too eloquent prose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The couple’s intelligent, well-articulate unhappiness could be played for Jewish neuroses, but they are more generic. (They are more East Side WASP than West Side Jewish.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The parents have traveled from the Upper West Side to a sleep-away camp in Maine, where their problem son is now a CIT (Counselor-in-Training). He has been diagnosed with ADD, then ADHD, autism and then ODD — Oppositional Defiance Disorder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When his parents arrive at camp, Joey is full-throttle oppositional. Does he have a bad case of being a teenager? Could he be suicidal? His parents are at a loss as to how to speak to him without someone getting pissed off. Mark Pinter plays Phillip, a successful and self-satisfied lawyer who is not sure he really likes his kid. Kim Martin-Cotton’s Lillian is fairly sure she doesn’t really like her life. Neither of them know how to talk to their son. She nags about Joey not wearing sunscreen and not writing letters. She calls her teen daughter (Riley Krull) for advice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://a.s.kqed.net/img/arts/blog/wayhome3.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" alt=\"\">\u003cbr>Riley Krull as Nora and Kim Martin-Cotten as Lillian\u003cbr>\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>Mother, father and son get on one another’s last nerve. Into the scene walks, Mike T, a camp counselor who is a breath of fresh, kind and non-oppositional air, bringing sanity and sympathy to the insular Naderman family tension. Although the parents are overbearing, Mike can get them to listen. As Mike, Jeremy Kahn is genuine and appealing. We wait with bated breath (a little) to see if he can be the family’s horse whisperer. Petzold is painfully real as Joey; we must also wait to see if he will survive being a teenage Nadelman.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Another Way Home\u003c/i> runs through December 2, 2012 at Magic Theatre in San Francisco. For \u003ca href=\"http://magictheatre.org/season/another-way-home/\">tickets and information>\u003c/a>, visit magictheatre.org.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All photos: Jennifer Reiley.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The Manhattan couple at the center of \u003ci>Another Way Home\u003c/i>, Anna Ziegler’s new play at the Magic Theatre, are chatting with us. They launch into their narrative with all the social energy of cocktail party conversation. He finishes her sentences, she his. She interrupts him, he interrupts her. They bicker. They are a long-married couple.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It may remind you of the set-up in \u003ca href=\"http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108149/combined/\">\u003ci>Six Degrees of Separation\u003c/i>\u003c/a>, the John Guare play and subsequent movie, which begins with an affluent Manhattan couple telling their friends about a really unusual episode that recently transpired.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://a.s.kqed.net/img/arts/blog/wayhome1.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" alt=\"\">\u003cbr>Mark Pinter as Philip and Kim Martin-Cotten as Lillian\u003cbr>\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>In \u003ci>Another Way Home\u003c/i>, the Nadelmans tell their tale with a “we have such a story to tell you” flair. But their story is not an anecdote; it’s a story of a family — their family — in distress. We do indeed want to hear about the Nadelman’s family crisis. The Magic’s world premiere of Ziegler’s play ultimately conveys how badly parents and their children can hurt one another. Earnest sentiments ring true and family dynamics can hit home. Still, under Meredith McDonough’s unbalanced direction, the narrative tone is off-key.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Joey Nadelman (Daniel Petzold), the 16-year-old son is a handful, to say the least. And in the play, Joey, who is in crisis, says the least. Petzold expertly navigates the character’s fuming silences, angry outbursts and inner turmoil. Like Joey, we would like to hear him get a word in edgewise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://a.s.kqed.net/img/arts/blog/wayhome2.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" alt=\"\">\u003cbr>Daniel Petzold as Joey and Jeremy Kahn as Mike T.\u003cbr>\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>Petzold’s Joey brings an understated urgency to the play, but Lillian and Phillip Nadelman seize the audience with their verbal busy-ness. There are very few quiet moments in \u003ci>Another Way Home\u003c/i>. With its bare stage and self-consciously elaborate eloquence, writerly prose takes center stage, distancing us from the drama.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Nadelmans directly address their captive audience; whether they are talking about lobster bibs or autism, they are “on.” Are they confiding in us? Are they entertaining us? Are they reciting a staged novel? They stand stiffly, speaking well-practiced, too eloquent prose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The couple’s intelligent, well-articulate unhappiness could be played for Jewish neuroses, but they are more generic. (They are more East Side WASP than West Side Jewish.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The parents have traveled from the Upper West Side to a sleep-away camp in Maine, where their problem son is now a CIT (Counselor-in-Training). He has been diagnosed with ADD, then ADHD, autism and then ODD — Oppositional Defiance Disorder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When his parents arrive at camp, Joey is full-throttle oppositional. Does he have a bad case of being a teenager? Could he be suicidal? His parents are at a loss as to how to speak to him without someone getting pissed off. Mark Pinter plays Phillip, a successful and self-satisfied lawyer who is not sure he really likes his kid. Kim Martin-Cotton’s Lillian is fairly sure she doesn’t really like her life. Neither of them know how to talk to their son. She nags about Joey not wearing sunscreen and not writing letters. She calls her teen daughter (Riley Krull) for advice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://a.s.kqed.net/img/arts/blog/wayhome3.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" alt=\"\">\u003cbr>Riley Krull as Nora and Kim Martin-Cotten as Lillian\u003cbr>\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>Mother, father and son get on one another’s last nerve. Into the scene walks, Mike T, a camp counselor who is a breath of fresh, kind and non-oppositional air, bringing sanity and sympathy to the insular Naderman family tension. Although the parents are overbearing, Mike can get them to listen. As Mike, Jeremy Kahn is genuine and appealing. We wait with bated breath (a little) to see if he can be the family’s horse whisperer. Petzold is painfully real as Joey; we must also wait to see if he will survive being a teenage Nadelman.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Another Way Home\u003c/i> runs through December 2, 2012 at Magic Theatre in San Francisco. For \u003ca href=\"http://magictheatre.org/season/another-way-home/\">tickets and information>\u003c/a>, visit magictheatre.org.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All photos: Jennifer Reiley.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Performance Sorceress Mary Zimmerman Spins 'The White Snake'",
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"content": "\u003cp>The specter of a snake as symbol of sorcery, temptation, and duality is ubiquitous. We’ve heard about Eve’s encounter, but less familiar to Westerners is the legend of the white snake. The legend can be traced back to ancient China where it continued in the oral tradition before being written down sometime during the Ming Dynasty. The fable of the white snake itself has been retold as folktales, anime films, operas and even, last year, as the basis for a Chinese 3D action movie.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In its newest incarnation, \u003ca href=\"http://www.berkeleyrep.org/season/1213/6331.asp\">\u003c/a>\u003ci>The White Snake\u003c/i> is a stunningly-staged play recently opened at Berkeley Rep. As the play’s adaptor and director, Mary Zimmerman’s immense talents are in full bloom in this world premiere production about a supernatural snake who transforms herself into a woman to join the mortals on Earth and seduce a trusting man.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like the story’s shape-shifting snake enchantress, Zimmerman uses her beguiling magic to bridge two worlds; a world that speaks to a contemporary audience and a more mysterious and exotic land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2012/11/18/Cfakepathwhitesnake.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" alt=\"\">\u003cbr>Photo: Allesandra Mello\u003cbr>\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>Zimmerman has made a career of revamping classics, reinventing ancient myths and fables in surprising ways to remind us of their relevance. This time, Zimmerman’s take even has political undertones. This adaptation reveals that the practices of religious hypocrisy and moral outrage which are alive and well in our churches and houses of Congress, are in fact, old as antiquity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Amy Kim Waschke plays the White Snake, a spirit who, in this version, deceives her husband out of love instead of evil intent. Tanya Thai McBride plays the Green Snake, the comic sidekick, who has much the same role as the crafty servant stock character in the tradition of Commedia dell’Arte.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Christopher Livingston plays Xu Xian, the naïve and trusting husband of Madame White Snake, who acknowledges that people do not believe what they see, they see what they believe. For the most part, the play’s performances are stylized and the characters are more mythic than down-to-earth. But Livingston’s performance is vaguely out of place — his affect and delivery are too casual. Jack Willis plays the villainous monk, bent on restoring the natural order, a moral command that forbids a mortal from marrying an immortal. The theme of piety in the face of love and marriage equality may resonate with audiences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2012/11/18/Cfakepathwhitesnake2.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" alt=\"\">\u003cbr>Photo: Allesandra Mello\u003cbr>\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>Zimmerman’s previous works, including the terrific \u003ci>Metamorphosis\u003c/i>, \u003ci>Argonautika\u003c/i> and \u003ca href=\"http://www.7x7.com/arts/revamped-arabian-nights-something-ululate-about/\">\u003ci>The Arabian Nights\u003c/i>\u003c/a>, are modernized takes on classics sprinkled with contemporary wit. \u003ci>The White Snake\u003c/i> doesn’t have the same visual wit as its precursors. The play is something to be admired, but not adored.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is the visual design that makes \u003ci>The White Snake\u003c/i> an extraordinary theatrical achievement. While the production is strikingly beautiful, the play itself is less engaging. It is more a performance-as-art than a piece of dramatic material.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Up in the realm of the immortals, the White Snake is initially seen as a puppet. First she is a silky fabric snake whose slithery motions are maneuvered by a woman moving two attached rods. Later, a choreographed line of women hold white paper umbrellas angled to become snake scales coiled in unison. Shimmering fabric billows create skies, clouds, and waves. Unfurled ribbons of paper create a rainstorm. The set — and all the movement on the set creates a gorgeous impressionistic tableau.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2012/11/18/Cfakepathwhitesnake4.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" alt=\"\">\u003cbr>Photo: Jenny Graham\u003cbr>\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>Zimmerman’s artistry here has much in common with the avant-garde theatrical wonder of Julie Taymor’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.shnsf.com/online/lionking\">\u003ci>The Lion King\u003c/i>\u003c/a>, which opened last week at the Orpheum Theater. Fifteen years after the Broadway opening of \u003ci>The Lion King\u003c/i>, the stage musical continues to inspire awe — more than can be said for the new 3D version of the movie. Both Taymor and Zimmerman are visionaries who put digital realism to shame.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just as Taymor used the colors and fabrics of Africa to create an organic mise en scène, Zimmerman furnishes \u003ci>The White Snake\u003c/i> with the sights and sounds of China. This includes paper umbrellas, bamboo accents, red blossoms, a minimalist and elegant amalgam of unplugged puppets, gentle, evocative projections and lighting (Shawn Sagady and T.J. Gerckens) and glorious costumes (Mara Blumenfeld). With Daniel Ostling’s brilliant scenic design, the play is a radiant reminder of the magic of low-tech theater.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>The White Snake\u003c/i> runs through December 23, 2012 at Berkeley Rep Theater. For \u003ca href=\"http://www.berkeleyrep.org/season/1213/6327.asp\">tickets and information\u003c/a> visit berkeleyrep.org.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The specter of a snake as symbol of sorcery, temptation, and duality is ubiquitous. We’ve heard about Eve’s encounter, but less familiar to Westerners is the legend of the white snake. The legend can be traced back to ancient China where it continued in the oral tradition before being written down sometime during the Ming Dynasty. The fable of the white snake itself has been retold as folktales, anime films, operas and even, last year, as the basis for a Chinese 3D action movie.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In its newest incarnation, \u003ca href=\"http://www.berkeleyrep.org/season/1213/6331.asp\">\u003c/a>\u003ci>The White Snake\u003c/i> is a stunningly-staged play recently opened at Berkeley Rep. As the play’s adaptor and director, Mary Zimmerman’s immense talents are in full bloom in this world premiere production about a supernatural snake who transforms herself into a woman to join the mortals on Earth and seduce a trusting man.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like the story’s shape-shifting snake enchantress, Zimmerman uses her beguiling magic to bridge two worlds; a world that speaks to a contemporary audience and a more mysterious and exotic land.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2012/11/18/Cfakepathwhitesnake.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" alt=\"\">\u003cbr>Photo: Allesandra Mello\u003cbr>\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>Zimmerman has made a career of revamping classics, reinventing ancient myths and fables in surprising ways to remind us of their relevance. This time, Zimmerman’s take even has political undertones. This adaptation reveals that the practices of religious hypocrisy and moral outrage which are alive and well in our churches and houses of Congress, are in fact, old as antiquity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Amy Kim Waschke plays the White Snake, a spirit who, in this version, deceives her husband out of love instead of evil intent. Tanya Thai McBride plays the Green Snake, the comic sidekick, who has much the same role as the crafty servant stock character in the tradition of Commedia dell’Arte.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Christopher Livingston plays Xu Xian, the naïve and trusting husband of Madame White Snake, who acknowledges that people do not believe what they see, they see what they believe. For the most part, the play’s performances are stylized and the characters are more mythic than down-to-earth. But Livingston’s performance is vaguely out of place — his affect and delivery are too casual. Jack Willis plays the villainous monk, bent on restoring the natural order, a moral command that forbids a mortal from marrying an immortal. The theme of piety in the face of love and marriage equality may resonate with audiences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2012/11/18/Cfakepathwhitesnake2.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" alt=\"\">\u003cbr>Photo: Allesandra Mello\u003cbr>\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>Zimmerman’s previous works, including the terrific \u003ci>Metamorphosis\u003c/i>, \u003ci>Argonautika\u003c/i> and \u003ca href=\"http://www.7x7.com/arts/revamped-arabian-nights-something-ululate-about/\">\u003ci>The Arabian Nights\u003c/i>\u003c/a>, are modernized takes on classics sprinkled with contemporary wit. \u003ci>The White Snake\u003c/i> doesn’t have the same visual wit as its precursors. The play is something to be admired, but not adored.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is the visual design that makes \u003ci>The White Snake\u003c/i> an extraordinary theatrical achievement. While the production is strikingly beautiful, the play itself is less engaging. It is more a performance-as-art than a piece of dramatic material.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Up in the realm of the immortals, the White Snake is initially seen as a puppet. First she is a silky fabric snake whose slithery motions are maneuvered by a woman moving two attached rods. Later, a choreographed line of women hold white paper umbrellas angled to become snake scales coiled in unison. Shimmering fabric billows create skies, clouds, and waves. Unfurled ribbons of paper create a rainstorm. The set — and all the movement on the set creates a gorgeous impressionistic tableau.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://u.s.kqed.net/2012/11/18/Cfakepathwhitesnake4.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" alt=\"\">\u003cbr>Photo: Jenny Graham\u003cbr>\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>Zimmerman’s artistry here has much in common with the avant-garde theatrical wonder of Julie Taymor’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.shnsf.com/online/lionking\">\u003ci>The Lion King\u003c/i>\u003c/a>, which opened last week at the Orpheum Theater. Fifteen years after the Broadway opening of \u003ci>The Lion King\u003c/i>, the stage musical continues to inspire awe — more than can be said for the new 3D version of the movie. Both Taymor and Zimmerman are visionaries who put digital realism to shame.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just as Taymor used the colors and fabrics of Africa to create an organic mise en scène, Zimmerman furnishes \u003ci>The White Snake\u003c/i> with the sights and sounds of China. This includes paper umbrellas, bamboo accents, red blossoms, a minimalist and elegant amalgam of unplugged puppets, gentle, evocative projections and lighting (Shawn Sagady and T.J. Gerckens) and glorious costumes (Mara Blumenfeld). With Daniel Ostling’s brilliant scenic design, the play is a radiant reminder of the magic of low-tech theater.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>The White Snake\u003c/i> runs through December 23, 2012 at Berkeley Rep Theater. For \u003ca href=\"http://www.berkeleyrep.org/season/1213/6327.asp\">tickets and information\u003c/a> visit berkeleyrep.org.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "The Trojan War: This Time It's Personal",
"headTitle": "The Trojan War: This Time It’s Personal | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>When was the last time two fingers walking across a table ledge became a landscape, a battlefield, and a warrior in pursuit? And you could feel the suspense of a man destined to die? Feel awe at the beauty of such simplicity?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Berkeley Rep’s \u003ci>An Iliad\u003c/i>, the antiquated story of the Trojan War is dusted off and the ancient tradition of the storyteller is reanimated. In this artful production, language is a demigod with the power to weave stories that transcend centuries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last week, I slammed \u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/arts/performance/article.jsp?essid=109561\">\u003ci>Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson\u003c/i>\u003c/a> because, among other things, its method of contemporizing its story lost pretty much everything in the translation. But this take on Homer’s ancient text shows that a buttoned down update can work terrifically. Lisa Peterson and Denis O’Hare’s adaptation of Homer’s epic story speaks with maturity in the language of today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://a.s.kqed.net/img/arts/blog/iliad1.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px\" alt=\"\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The adaptation, with a translation by Robert Fagles, makes the subject relevant with an informal but poetic narrative. The script’s contemporary language and references are not gratuitous. This is \u003ci>An Iliad\u003c/i> told with urgency, with the purpose of getting its modern audience to care about what happened long ago and far away, because we share a common humanity — and because war still exists and because the spoken word can still be very effective.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://a.s.kqed.net/img/arts/blog/iliad2.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px\" alt=\"\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Henry Woronicz plays a grizzled storyteller, a poet who tells these legends as if he were reporting back from the battlefield. “Every time I sing this song I hope it’s the last time,” he says as he prepares to start. The passing down is his duty and it takes a lot out of him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rachel Hauck’s set design is minimal, allowing the poet to set the stage with hundreds of ships and thousands of men. He sees the enormity of the scene and repeatedly entreats us to see it, too. Do you see? Do you see? He asks. “This is what the war looks like.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://a.s.kqed.net/img/arts/blog/iliad3.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px\" alt=\"\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brian Ellingsen is the poet’s muse on a perch with an upright bass; the instrument is a character conjuring the rage of Achilles, the intensity of the battlefield and the serenity of Troy. Marvelously, the bass invokes a variety of personalities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Director Lisa Peterson deftly employs a few more performers: shadow and sound. Floodlights on Woronicz cast daunting shadows behind him, which become mighty warriors and gods. The sonorous echo of reverb on the mike is the voice of the gods. The poet’s voice channels theirs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://a.s.kqed.net/img/arts/blog/iliad4.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px\" alt=\"\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>War is hell. It is also tedious and this monologue grows tiresome at points. Battle scenes are described in detail. Backstories are reinacted. The characters mentioned are many and their long and complicated histories are hard to follow at times. And over-told. Certainly, the story-teller is long-winded.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But his rambling old-timer yarns sometimes serve a rhetorical function. The script effortlessly collapses the Trojan War with other, more familiar wars. As the poet describes the scores of soldiers on the ships, their faces and names shift; these young men are from Ohio farmlands, Springfield, Illinois, The Florida Panhandle, Brooklyn, and Berkeley. The storyteller rambles like a senile man who often loses his thread, an ancient who has lived a thousand years and knows this story has been told before and will be told again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>An Iliad\u003c/i> runs through November 18, 2012 at Berkeley Repertory Theater’s Thrust Stage, 2015 Addison Street in Berkeley, CA. For \u003ca href=\"http://www.berkeleyrep.org/season/1213/6327.asp\">tickets and information\u003c/a> visit berkeleyrep.org or call (510) 647-2949.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All photos courtesy kevinberne.com.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>When was the last time two fingers walking across a table ledge became a landscape, a battlefield, and a warrior in pursuit? And you could feel the suspense of a man destined to die? Feel awe at the beauty of such simplicity?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Berkeley Rep’s \u003ci>An Iliad\u003c/i>, the antiquated story of the Trojan War is dusted off and the ancient tradition of the storyteller is reanimated. In this artful production, language is a demigod with the power to weave stories that transcend centuries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last week, I slammed \u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/arts/performance/article.jsp?essid=109561\">\u003ci>Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson\u003c/i>\u003c/a> because, among other things, its method of contemporizing its story lost pretty much everything in the translation. But this take on Homer’s ancient text shows that a buttoned down update can work terrifically. Lisa Peterson and Denis O’Hare’s adaptation of Homer’s epic story speaks with maturity in the language of today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://a.s.kqed.net/img/arts/blog/iliad1.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px\" alt=\"\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The adaptation, with a translation by Robert Fagles, makes the subject relevant with an informal but poetic narrative. The script’s contemporary language and references are not gratuitous. This is \u003ci>An Iliad\u003c/i> told with urgency, with the purpose of getting its modern audience to care about what happened long ago and far away, because we share a common humanity — and because war still exists and because the spoken word can still be very effective.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://a.s.kqed.net/img/arts/blog/iliad2.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px\" alt=\"\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Henry Woronicz plays a grizzled storyteller, a poet who tells these legends as if he were reporting back from the battlefield. “Every time I sing this song I hope it’s the last time,” he says as he prepares to start. The passing down is his duty and it takes a lot out of him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rachel Hauck’s set design is minimal, allowing the poet to set the stage with hundreds of ships and thousands of men. He sees the enormity of the scene and repeatedly entreats us to see it, too. Do you see? Do you see? He asks. “This is what the war looks like.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://a.s.kqed.net/img/arts/blog/iliad3.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px\" alt=\"\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brian Ellingsen is the poet’s muse on a perch with an upright bass; the instrument is a character conjuring the rage of Achilles, the intensity of the battlefield and the serenity of Troy. Marvelously, the bass invokes a variety of personalities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Director Lisa Peterson deftly employs a few more performers: shadow and sound. Floodlights on Woronicz cast daunting shadows behind him, which become mighty warriors and gods. The sonorous echo of reverb on the mike is the voice of the gods. The poet’s voice channels theirs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://a.s.kqed.net/img/arts/blog/iliad4.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px\" alt=\"\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>War is hell. It is also tedious and this monologue grows tiresome at points. Battle scenes are described in detail. Backstories are reinacted. The characters mentioned are many and their long and complicated histories are hard to follow at times. And over-told. Certainly, the story-teller is long-winded.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But his rambling old-timer yarns sometimes serve a rhetorical function. The script effortlessly collapses the Trojan War with other, more familiar wars. As the poet describes the scores of soldiers on the ships, their faces and names shift; these young men are from Ohio farmlands, Springfield, Illinois, The Florida Panhandle, Brooklyn, and Berkeley. The storyteller rambles like a senile man who often loses his thread, an ancient who has lived a thousand years and knows this story has been told before and will be told again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>An Iliad\u003c/i> runs through November 18, 2012 at Berkeley Repertory Theater’s Thrust Stage, 2015 Addison Street in Berkeley, CA. For \u003ca href=\"http://www.berkeleyrep.org/season/1213/6327.asp\">tickets and information\u003c/a> visit berkeleyrep.org or call (510) 647-2949.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All photos courtesy kevinberne.com.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "In 'Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson,' the Populist President Speaks Mostly to the Teens",
"headTitle": "In ‘Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson,’ the Populist President Speaks Mostly to the Teens | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003ci>Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson\u003c/i> is a hard-rock musical that tells the life story of this nation’s seventh president in modern lingo in an attempt to make the 19th century relevant to youth culture. Let’s just say, been there, done that, hella better.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jesus Christ totally became a rock star back in 1971 when \u003ci>Jesus Christ Superstar\u003c/i> transubstantiated God’s only son into someone the kids could really groove on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That innovation, of contemporizing a historical figure with pop music and hip vernacular is now a familiar way to make an archaic story pertinent to our times. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ’70s musical explained the rise of a magnetic populist figure by comparing his ascendancy to that of celebrities and rock stars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-RCIUdvPus&w=480&h=270]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson\u003c/i> re-imagines Jackson as a guitar slinging, injin’ shooting bad boy with a potty mouth. The 2006 musical, written by Alex Timbers with music and lyrics by Michael Friedman \u003ca href=\"http://www.broadway.com/shows/bloody-bloody-andrew-jackson/\">opened on Broadway\u003c/a> to mixed reviews in 2009. Although it was nominated for several Tonys, it closed early in New York. Last week, San Francisco Playhouse launched its Tenth Season with the play at their wonderful new theater in the Kensington Park Hotel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Giddy and anarchic, the production is an accessible account of the birth of populism, the founding of the Democratic Party and Jackson’s obliteration of Indian tribes. The musical revels in it’s dumbed-down version of history. The play relies heavily on the drawn-out gag of anachronistic ineloquence. If that \u003ci>fourscore\u003c/i> stuff is a real snooze, won’t kids today perk up to hear the prez say that “James Monroe is a douche bag?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In these 1900’s, the \u003ca href=\"http://www.oed.com/\">OED\u003c/a> has been shelved and replaced by OMG and its ilk of thumb-talk and inarticulate youth-speak. And stuff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://a.s.kqed.net/img/arts/blog/bloodybloody1.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px\" alt=\"\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ashkon Davaran plays Jackson as a petulant youth having one long hissy fit. He sings, “Life sucks and my life sucks in particular.” John Quincy Adams’ and Henry Clay’s back-up singers sing, “Jackson is a loser, Jackson is a loser.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The back-up singers make a cheery brigade of groupies and play other roles with solos and some clever lyrics. Angel Burgess plays Jackson’s wife, Rachel, who dies more or less from abandonment and heartbreak, when Jackson decides to run for president. Crushed and defeated, she sings a sad ballad: “I always thought I’d live in a house with a dog and some kids and some slaves.” El Beh plays a cello, waving it like it’s an electric guitar. She sings “Ten Little Indians,” counting down the number of Native Americans as they are pushed back off their land in the Trail of Tears.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Safiya Fredericks plays Black Fox, an Indian chief who negotiates with Jackson on the Indian Removal Act of 1830.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A little old lady narrator (Ann Hopkins on a scooter) narrates the story in historical context, positing, “Was Jackson a great president, an American hero or a genocidal murderer?” Jackson who does not want the history books to define him, keeps shooting her in the head.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact blood, bloody ambushes, blood-stained clothes, gun shots and arrow wounds add to the over-the-top humor in this bad attitude version of a middle-school history play.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>William Elsman, Michael Barrett Austin and Lucas Hatton play political foes and supporters and round out the onstage band, under the musical direction of Jonathan Fadner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jon Tracy directs a large cast of frontier cowboys, wild west militiamen, establishment politicians, Indians and womenfolk. The ragtag renegades stomp around with thrasher dance moves, hanging from ladders and scaffolding. Their defiant, rebellion rock looks a bit like the stage of \u003cb>American Idiot\u003c/b>, the show based on the music of Green Day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the talent is more amateurish. In fact, it is surprising that a play that relies so heavily on music features some sub-par singers, some are off-key. Head-banger punk rock may often strive for dissonance and noise, but here, the actors are called upon to sing songs that are audible over the electric guitars and pounding percussion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The show has been described as an \u003ci>emo rock musical\u003c/i>. Short for emotional hardcore. A subgenre, “screamo,” may be even more apt, as it accentuates the aggressiveness. Emo musicians have a certain look and the music has been associated with self-mutilation and suicide. In \u003cb>Bloody, Bloody\u003c/b> Jackson has a compulsion to cut his wrists. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Davaran’s Jackson is certainly an interesting combination of aggression, self-pity and bravado. He struts the stage and asserts political promises such as “I’m gonna fill you with Popula-jizz-m.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Call me an old-fogey, but my favorites aspects of the show were the historical insights and the parallels to contemporary politics. Jackson’s fan base gushes that the president invited the public to attend his inauguration and that he turned to bow to the people. Of course, one thinks of the massive stadium concert that was Barack Obama’s crowd-pleasing inauguration. Candidate Obama speaks of our vital participation in his election (enough with the email blasts!) and tells us that we are the one’s we’ve been waiting for. Andrew Jackson brings his groupies, some with pom poms and sunglasses, into the Oval Office. “What The People want…” he proclaims, “is pizza!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson\u003c/i> runs through November 24, 2012 at the SF Playhouse. For \u003ca href=\"http://www.sfplayhouse.org/season1213/bloody_andrew_jackson.php\">tickets and information\u003c/a>, visit sfplayhouse.org or call 415-677-9596.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ci>Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson\u003c/i> is a hard-rock musical that tells the life story of this nation’s seventh president in modern lingo in an attempt to make the 19th century relevant to youth culture. Let’s just say, been there, done that, hella better.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jesus Christ totally became a rock star back in 1971 when \u003ci>Jesus Christ Superstar\u003c/i> transubstantiated God’s only son into someone the kids could really groove on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That innovation, of contemporizing a historical figure with pop music and hip vernacular is now a familiar way to make an archaic story pertinent to our times. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ’70s musical explained the rise of a magnetic populist figure by comparing his ascendancy to that of celebrities and rock stars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/O-RCIUdvPus'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/O-RCIUdvPus'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson\u003c/i> re-imagines Jackson as a guitar slinging, injin’ shooting bad boy with a potty mouth. The 2006 musical, written by Alex Timbers with music and lyrics by Michael Friedman \u003ca href=\"http://www.broadway.com/shows/bloody-bloody-andrew-jackson/\">opened on Broadway\u003c/a> to mixed reviews in 2009. Although it was nominated for several Tonys, it closed early in New York. Last week, San Francisco Playhouse launched its Tenth Season with the play at their wonderful new theater in the Kensington Park Hotel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Giddy and anarchic, the production is an accessible account of the birth of populism, the founding of the Democratic Party and Jackson’s obliteration of Indian tribes. The musical revels in it’s dumbed-down version of history. The play relies heavily on the drawn-out gag of anachronistic ineloquence. If that \u003ci>fourscore\u003c/i> stuff is a real snooze, won’t kids today perk up to hear the prez say that “James Monroe is a douche bag?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In these 1900’s, the \u003ca href=\"http://www.oed.com/\">OED\u003c/a> has been shelved and replaced by OMG and its ilk of thumb-talk and inarticulate youth-speak. And stuff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://a.s.kqed.net/img/arts/blog/bloodybloody1.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px\" alt=\"\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ashkon Davaran plays Jackson as a petulant youth having one long hissy fit. He sings, “Life sucks and my life sucks in particular.” John Quincy Adams’ and Henry Clay’s back-up singers sing, “Jackson is a loser, Jackson is a loser.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The back-up singers make a cheery brigade of groupies and play other roles with solos and some clever lyrics. Angel Burgess plays Jackson’s wife, Rachel, who dies more or less from abandonment and heartbreak, when Jackson decides to run for president. Crushed and defeated, she sings a sad ballad: “I always thought I’d live in a house with a dog and some kids and some slaves.” El Beh plays a cello, waving it like it’s an electric guitar. She sings “Ten Little Indians,” counting down the number of Native Americans as they are pushed back off their land in the Trail of Tears.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Safiya Fredericks plays Black Fox, an Indian chief who negotiates with Jackson on the Indian Removal Act of 1830.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A little old lady narrator (Ann Hopkins on a scooter) narrates the story in historical context, positing, “Was Jackson a great president, an American hero or a genocidal murderer?” Jackson who does not want the history books to define him, keeps shooting her in the head.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact blood, bloody ambushes, blood-stained clothes, gun shots and arrow wounds add to the over-the-top humor in this bad attitude version of a middle-school history play.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>William Elsman, Michael Barrett Austin and Lucas Hatton play political foes and supporters and round out the onstage band, under the musical direction of Jonathan Fadner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jon Tracy directs a large cast of frontier cowboys, wild west militiamen, establishment politicians, Indians and womenfolk. The ragtag renegades stomp around with thrasher dance moves, hanging from ladders and scaffolding. Their defiant, rebellion rock looks a bit like the stage of \u003cb>American Idiot\u003c/b>, the show based on the music of Green Day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the talent is more amateurish. In fact, it is surprising that a play that relies so heavily on music features some sub-par singers, some are off-key. Head-banger punk rock may often strive for dissonance and noise, but here, the actors are called upon to sing songs that are audible over the electric guitars and pounding percussion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The show has been described as an \u003ci>emo rock musical\u003c/i>. Short for emotional hardcore. A subgenre, “screamo,” may be even more apt, as it accentuates the aggressiveness. Emo musicians have a certain look and the music has been associated with self-mutilation and suicide. In \u003cb>Bloody, Bloody\u003c/b> Jackson has a compulsion to cut his wrists. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Davaran’s Jackson is certainly an interesting combination of aggression, self-pity and bravado. He struts the stage and asserts political promises such as “I’m gonna fill you with Popula-jizz-m.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Call me an old-fogey, but my favorites aspects of the show were the historical insights and the parallels to contemporary politics. Jackson’s fan base gushes that the president invited the public to attend his inauguration and that he turned to bow to the people. Of course, one thinks of the massive stadium concert that was Barack Obama’s crowd-pleasing inauguration. Candidate Obama speaks of our vital participation in his election (enough with the email blasts!) and tells us that we are the one’s we’ve been waiting for. Andrew Jackson brings his groupies, some with pom poms and sunglasses, into the Oval Office. “What The People want…” he proclaims, “is pizza!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson\u003c/i> runs through November 24, 2012 at the SF Playhouse. For \u003ca href=\"http://www.sfplayhouse.org/season1213/bloody_andrew_jackson.php\">tickets and information\u003c/a>, visit sfplayhouse.org or call 415-677-9596.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "The Normal Heart, 30 Years Later",
"headTitle": "The Normal Heart, 30 Years Later | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>In May, President Obama became the first U.S. president to publicly endorse gay marriage. Two weeks ago, a whole line-up of Democrats spoke up for marriage equality on stage at their national convention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Amplified and well-lit and standing center stage at the Convention, Obama, Michelle and Biden affirmed their party’s support for gay rights.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last Wednesday, the Broadway revival of \u003ca href=\"http://www.act-sf.org/1213/normalheart/index.html\">\u003ci>The Normal Heart\u003c/i>\u003c/a> opened at A.C.T. and underscored the world of difference between 2012 and 1982.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>The Normal Heart\u003c/i>, Larry Kramer’s agit-prop saga shouts at the outpouring of silence that met the mushrooming AIDS epidemic in 1982.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In one scene, AIDS activists struggle to get government to address the AIDS epidemic. When The \u003ca href=\"http://www.gmhc.org/\">Gay Men’s Health Crisis\u003c/a> (a newly formed organization consisting of four bickering guys) finally meets with City Hall, their long-awaited meeting takes place — literally — in the basement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://a.s.kqed.net/img/arts/blog/normalheart2.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" alt=\"\">\u003cbr>The cast of \u003ci>The Normal Heart\u003c/i>; Photo by Kevin Berne.\u003cbr>\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>There in the basement of City Hall, a closeted assistant to \u003ca href=\"http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Ed-Kochs-Outraged.html/\">Mayor Ed (closeted) Koch\u003c/a> finally agrees to quietly meet the group led by the angry, abrasive Ned Weeks (Patrick Breen as the Larry Kramer character) and Bruce Niles, “the reasonable one.” (Nick Mennell plays the hunky and hesitant closet case.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That year, there were 41 deaths from AIDS. When the play opened on Broadway last year, where it won a Tony for Best Revival, the tally of AIDS deaths was up to approximately 30 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://a.s.kqed.net/img/arts/blog/normalheart1.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" alt=\"\">\u003cbr>Ned Weeks (Patrick Breen, left) and his lover Felix Turner (Matt McGrath) in \u003ci>The Normal Heart\u003c/i>; Photo by Kevin Berne.\u003cbr>\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>Larry Kramer was right. And lots of the time belligerent, obnoxious, and relentless yelling and screaming is necessary to wake us up. But does it make for stunning theater? I’m not sure about that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>The Normal Heart\u003c/i> has been restaged by the brilliant George C. Wolfe and stars the marvelous Patrick Breen as a charismatic pain in the ass. But, theatrically speaking, it’s mostly yelling monologues and single-note outrage. Still, with AIDS itself as the play’s heart-breaking leading man, how could \u003ci>The Normal Heart\u003c/i> not win three Tony Awards? It’s the “Whoops, we royally F–ed up, but here’s this” — award. A Lifetime Achievement Award.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://a.s.kqed.net/img/arts/blog/normalheart3.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" alt=\"\">\u003cbr>Mickey Marcus (Michael Berresse, left) accompanies his friend Craig Donner (Tom Berklund) to his doctor’s appointment in \u003ci>The Normal Heart\u003c/i>; Photo by Scott Suchman.\u003cbr>\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>As Kate Winslet said, (playing a farcical version of herself) \u003ca href=\"http://www.7x7.com/arts/nuns-nazis-and-pedophiles-and-oscar-goes/\">“you do a film about the Holocaust, guaranteed an Oscar.”\u003c/a> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yes there are scenes of real good drama. When Ned pleads with his brother (Bruce Altman) to say that he is normal and Ben cannot say it. This is an emotionally specific scene, which comes with family history and complex feelings. But most of the other characters are little more than their casting call descriptions: “handsome and scared,” “Southern and sassy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://a.s.kqed.net/img/arts/blog/normalheart4.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" alt=\"\">\u003cbr>Dr. Emma Brookner (Jordan Baker) is one of the first physicians to speak out about the mysterious disease plaguing New York’s gay community in \u003ci>The Normal Heart\u003c/i>; Photo by Kevin Berne.\u003cbr>\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>I admire the strength and courage of Dr. Emma Brookner, a character based on Dr. Linda Laubenstein, one of the first doctors to treat AIDS patients. Helpless to stop these men from dying, Emma is mad as hell on wheels. She contracted polio just months before the vaccine was discovered and she is in a wheelchair. But Emma, played by Jordan Baker (in the role that Ellen Barkin won a Tony for) is simply the Righteous Disabled Doctor. She raises her voice in frustration and keeps it up there almost all of the play.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is quite possible that the play works better now, as historical drama, rather than as autobiographical agitprop. (Agitprop theater is really, really hard to pull off unless you have Kurt Weill writing the songs.) \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Larry Kramer was inspired to write \u003ci>The Normal Heart\u003c/i> after a visit to Dachau, where he learned that Jews were being exterminated as early as 1933, back when Germans could have spoken out. Germany didn’t stop it, America ignored it. No one “Acted Up” or “Fought Back.” As the play starts, Ned Weeks points out that the first time \u003ci>The New York Times\u003c/i> reported on Hitler’s Final Solution, the article appeared on page 28. (\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Buried-Times-Holocaust-Important-Newspaper/dp/0521607825\">Much has been written\u003c/a> since about the Jewish-owned paper’s concern of public perception.) \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ned Weeks rages against \u003ci>The Times\u003c/i> for ignoring the mounting deaths of gay men in New York. He points out that that year, \u003ci>The New York Times\u003c/i> featured daily cover stories about the seven deaths in Chicago that resulted from Tylenol bottles that had been tampered with.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Weeks lobbies reporters at \u003ci>The Times\u003c/i> (many who were gay and reluctant to report on the gay disease). He confronts the Mayor’s office (gay, closeted, reluctant). And, what with Reagan in the White House, it becomes clear that this is a perfect storm of political asphyxiation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This revival of \u003ci>The Normal Heart\u003c/i> arrives some thirty years after the action occurs. We watch Ned Weeks denounce the silence = death Holocaust coverage just thirty years before him. The symmetry is poetic. But as \u003ca href=\"http://www.act-sf.org/site/DocServer/normalheart_wop_pleaseknow.pdf\">Larry Kramer tells us\u003c/a> in a letter tucked into the program, it’s not like we’ve learned from the past. And it’s not over yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>The Normal Heart\u003c/i> runs through October 7, 2012 at A.C.T.’s Geary Theater in San Francisco. For \u003ca href=\"http://www.act-sf.org/1213/normalheart/index.html\">tickets and information\u003c/a> visit act-sf.org.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>In May, President Obama became the first U.S. president to publicly endorse gay marriage. Two weeks ago, a whole line-up of Democrats spoke up for marriage equality on stage at their national convention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Amplified and well-lit and standing center stage at the Convention, Obama, Michelle and Biden affirmed their party’s support for gay rights.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last Wednesday, the Broadway revival of \u003ca href=\"http://www.act-sf.org/1213/normalheart/index.html\">\u003ci>The Normal Heart\u003c/i>\u003c/a> opened at A.C.T. and underscored the world of difference between 2012 and 1982.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>The Normal Heart\u003c/i>, Larry Kramer’s agit-prop saga shouts at the outpouring of silence that met the mushrooming AIDS epidemic in 1982.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In one scene, AIDS activists struggle to get government to address the AIDS epidemic. When The \u003ca href=\"http://www.gmhc.org/\">Gay Men’s Health Crisis\u003c/a> (a newly formed organization consisting of four bickering guys) finally meets with City Hall, their long-awaited meeting takes place — literally — in the basement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://a.s.kqed.net/img/arts/blog/normalheart2.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" alt=\"\">\u003cbr>The cast of \u003ci>The Normal Heart\u003c/i>; Photo by Kevin Berne.\u003cbr>\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>There in the basement of City Hall, a closeted assistant to \u003ca href=\"http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Ed-Kochs-Outraged.html/\">Mayor Ed (closeted) Koch\u003c/a> finally agrees to quietly meet the group led by the angry, abrasive Ned Weeks (Patrick Breen as the Larry Kramer character) and Bruce Niles, “the reasonable one.” (Nick Mennell plays the hunky and hesitant closet case.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That year, there were 41 deaths from AIDS. When the play opened on Broadway last year, where it won a Tony for Best Revival, the tally of AIDS deaths was up to approximately 30 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://a.s.kqed.net/img/arts/blog/normalheart1.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" alt=\"\">\u003cbr>Ned Weeks (Patrick Breen, left) and his lover Felix Turner (Matt McGrath) in \u003ci>The Normal Heart\u003c/i>; Photo by Kevin Berne.\u003cbr>\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>Larry Kramer was right. And lots of the time belligerent, obnoxious, and relentless yelling and screaming is necessary to wake us up. But does it make for stunning theater? I’m not sure about that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>The Normal Heart\u003c/i> has been restaged by the brilliant George C. Wolfe and stars the marvelous Patrick Breen as a charismatic pain in the ass. But, theatrically speaking, it’s mostly yelling monologues and single-note outrage. Still, with AIDS itself as the play’s heart-breaking leading man, how could \u003ci>The Normal Heart\u003c/i> not win three Tony Awards? It’s the “Whoops, we royally F–ed up, but here’s this” — award. A Lifetime Achievement Award.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://a.s.kqed.net/img/arts/blog/normalheart3.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" alt=\"\">\u003cbr>Mickey Marcus (Michael Berresse, left) accompanies his friend Craig Donner (Tom Berklund) to his doctor’s appointment in \u003ci>The Normal Heart\u003c/i>; Photo by Scott Suchman.\u003cbr>\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>As Kate Winslet said, (playing a farcical version of herself) \u003ca href=\"http://www.7x7.com/arts/nuns-nazis-and-pedophiles-and-oscar-goes/\">“you do a film about the Holocaust, guaranteed an Oscar.”\u003c/a> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yes there are scenes of real good drama. When Ned pleads with his brother (Bruce Altman) to say that he is normal and Ben cannot say it. This is an emotionally specific scene, which comes with family history and complex feelings. But most of the other characters are little more than their casting call descriptions: “handsome and scared,” “Southern and sassy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://a.s.kqed.net/img/arts/blog/normalheart4.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" alt=\"\">\u003cbr>Dr. Emma Brookner (Jordan Baker) is one of the first physicians to speak out about the mysterious disease plaguing New York’s gay community in \u003ci>The Normal Heart\u003c/i>; Photo by Kevin Berne.\u003cbr>\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>I admire the strength and courage of Dr. Emma Brookner, a character based on Dr. Linda Laubenstein, one of the first doctors to treat AIDS patients. Helpless to stop these men from dying, Emma is mad as hell on wheels. She contracted polio just months before the vaccine was discovered and she is in a wheelchair. But Emma, played by Jordan Baker (in the role that Ellen Barkin won a Tony for) is simply the Righteous Disabled Doctor. She raises her voice in frustration and keeps it up there almost all of the play.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is quite possible that the play works better now, as historical drama, rather than as autobiographical agitprop. (Agitprop theater is really, really hard to pull off unless you have Kurt Weill writing the songs.) \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Larry Kramer was inspired to write \u003ci>The Normal Heart\u003c/i> after a visit to Dachau, where he learned that Jews were being exterminated as early as 1933, back when Germans could have spoken out. Germany didn’t stop it, America ignored it. No one “Acted Up” or “Fought Back.” As the play starts, Ned Weeks points out that the first time \u003ci>The New York Times\u003c/i> reported on Hitler’s Final Solution, the article appeared on page 28. (\u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Buried-Times-Holocaust-Important-Newspaper/dp/0521607825\">Much has been written\u003c/a> since about the Jewish-owned paper’s concern of public perception.) \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ned Weeks rages against \u003ci>The Times\u003c/i> for ignoring the mounting deaths of gay men in New York. He points out that that year, \u003ci>The New York Times\u003c/i> featured daily cover stories about the seven deaths in Chicago that resulted from Tylenol bottles that had been tampered with.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Weeks lobbies reporters at \u003ci>The Times\u003c/i> (many who were gay and reluctant to report on the gay disease). He confronts the Mayor’s office (gay, closeted, reluctant). And, what with Reagan in the White House, it becomes clear that this is a perfect storm of political asphyxiation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This revival of \u003ci>The Normal Heart\u003c/i> arrives some thirty years after the action occurs. We watch Ned Weeks denounce the silence = death Holocaust coverage just thirty years before him. The symmetry is poetic. But as \u003ca href=\"http://www.act-sf.org/site/DocServer/normalheart_wop_pleaseknow.pdf\">Larry Kramer tells us\u003c/a> in a letter tucked into the program, it’s not like we’ve learned from the past. And it’s not over yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>The Normal Heart\u003c/i> runs through October 7, 2012 at A.C.T.’s Geary Theater in San Francisco. For \u003ca href=\"http://www.act-sf.org/1213/normalheart/index.html\">tickets and information\u003c/a> visit act-sf.org.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Wrong Words Make Us Laugh at Superpowers in David Henry Hwang's 'Chinglish'",
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"content": "\u003cp>Chinese signs with unintentionally comical English translations — crack me up no end. “Slip carefully.” “You can enjoy the fresh air after finishing civilized urinating.” These mangled translations are known as \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/05/03/world/asia/20100503_CHINGLISH.html/\">Chinglish\u003c/a> (or Engrish), egregiously mistranslated Chinese with accidentally hilarious consequences. The documenting of such “found humor” is a pastime that has resulted in numerous blogs and \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Chinglish-Translation-Oliver-Lutz-Radtke/dp/1423603354/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1346444610&sr=8-2&keywords=chinglish/\">books\u003c/a> — and now a play at Berkeley Rep.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Chinglish\u003c/i>, written by David Henry Hwang, is really about communication and social protocol between Americans and Chinese. As an American Midwesterner learns the fine art guanxi and Chinese business etiquette, this slight comedy touches upon the theme of the shifting balance of power and the China/America top/bottom relationship. These are themes that were addressed ever so brilliantly and beautifully in \u003ci>M. Butterfly\u003c/i>, Hwang’s 1988 play about the love affair between an American diplomat and a Chinese opera diva, who is in fact a man masquerading as a woman.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://a.s.kqed.net/img/arts/blog/chinglish1.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" alt=\"\">\u003cbr>Michelle Krusiec and Alex Moggridge\u003cbr>\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>Alex Moggridge plays a fresh-faced American business man, representing the Ohio Signage Company who is angling for a big contract in a small Chinese city. Well aware of the pitfalls of Chinglish, he promises to save the town from \u003ca href=\"http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8219427.stm/\">embarrassment\u003c/a> by getting the translations right. We learn that in Chairman Mao’s efforts to simplify the tens of thousands of ancient Chinese characters, many characters have more than one meaning, often leading to speech that gets lost in translation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And as we all know from Shakespeare and sit-coms, misunderstanding is the stuff on which comedy is made.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://a.s.kqed.net/img/arts/blog/chinglish4.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" alt=\"\">\u003cbr>Larry Lei Zhang and Michelle Krusiec\u003cbr>\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Chinglish\u003c/i>, directed by Leigh Silverman, is performed in both English and Mandarin, with projected subtitles. In the play, diplomacy is often undermined by inept translators who provide lousy and often unintentionally honest translations. With language conversions that distort and/or cut to the chase, the transmuted sentiments remind me (somewhat) of Stephen Colbert’s segment called “the Word,” in which the written word mischievously defies the spoken word.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://a.s.kqed.net/img/arts/blog/chinglish3.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" alt=\"\">\u003cbr>Austin Ku, Celeste Den and Vivian Chiu\u003cbr>\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>In a town where bureaucrats think Enron felons are Bonnie and Clyde-type heroes, the Minister of Culture is eager to become a high roller (“you roll the big crap” is the translated compliment.) Larry Lei Zhang plays the affable and seemingly honorable minister. Michelle Krusiec is terrific as his assistant minister, a hard-boiled broad with an agenda of her own. Krusiec’s performance skillfully bridges the play’s tricky balance between noir and romantic comedy. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The quick scene changes accompanied by booming club music seek to emulate the high stakes energy of the heist or sting operation genre. And indeed, there are allegiances, betrayals and some wheeling and dealing. But this is no Mamet drama, nor is it a full throttle comedy, nor a particularly thought-provoking cultural ponderation, although it dabbles in each genre.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://a.s.kqed.net/img/arts/blog/chinglish2.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" alt=\"\">\u003cbr>Michelle Krusiec and Alex Moggridge\u003cbr>\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>Reviewers have called the play sexy because a knock-out actress (Michelle Krusiec) plays the secretive tough-cookie with a passionate side, and who isn’t turned on by that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But even passion is played for light laughs as pillow talk also has chinglistic misfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Longer than an episode of \u003ca href=\"http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Series/ThreesCompany?from=MainThreesCompany\">\u003ci>Three’s Company\u003c/i>\u003c/a>, David Henry Hwang’s play is entertaining for a while. But websites like \u003ca href=\"http://www.engrish.com/\">Engrish.com\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"http://chairmanlol.com/\">Chairman LOL\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"http://www.signspotting.com/\">Sign Spotting\u003c/a> (with their snarky remarks) will do the job too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Chinglish\u003c/i> runs through October 7, 2012 at The Roda Theatre in Berkeley, CA. For \u003ca href=\"http://www.berkeleyrep.org/season/1112/5420.asp/\">tickets and information\u003c/a>, visit berkeleyrep.org.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Chinese signs with unintentionally comical English translations — crack me up no end. “Slip carefully.” “You can enjoy the fresh air after finishing civilized urinating.” These mangled translations are known as \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/05/03/world/asia/20100503_CHINGLISH.html/\">Chinglish\u003c/a> (or Engrish), egregiously mistranslated Chinese with accidentally hilarious consequences. The documenting of such “found humor” is a pastime that has resulted in numerous blogs and \u003ca href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Chinglish-Translation-Oliver-Lutz-Radtke/dp/1423603354/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1346444610&sr=8-2&keywords=chinglish/\">books\u003c/a> — and now a play at Berkeley Rep.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Chinglish\u003c/i>, written by David Henry Hwang, is really about communication and social protocol between Americans and Chinese. As an American Midwesterner learns the fine art guanxi and Chinese business etiquette, this slight comedy touches upon the theme of the shifting balance of power and the China/America top/bottom relationship. These are themes that were addressed ever so brilliantly and beautifully in \u003ci>M. Butterfly\u003c/i>, Hwang’s 1988 play about the love affair between an American diplomat and a Chinese opera diva, who is in fact a man masquerading as a woman.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://a.s.kqed.net/img/arts/blog/chinglish1.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" alt=\"\">\u003cbr>Michelle Krusiec and Alex Moggridge\u003cbr>\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>Alex Moggridge plays a fresh-faced American business man, representing the Ohio Signage Company who is angling for a big contract in a small Chinese city. Well aware of the pitfalls of Chinglish, he promises to save the town from \u003ca href=\"http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8219427.stm/\">embarrassment\u003c/a> by getting the translations right. We learn that in Chairman Mao’s efforts to simplify the tens of thousands of ancient Chinese characters, many characters have more than one meaning, often leading to speech that gets lost in translation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And as we all know from Shakespeare and sit-coms, misunderstanding is the stuff on which comedy is made.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://a.s.kqed.net/img/arts/blog/chinglish4.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" alt=\"\">\u003cbr>Larry Lei Zhang and Michelle Krusiec\u003cbr>\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Chinglish\u003c/i>, directed by Leigh Silverman, is performed in both English and Mandarin, with projected subtitles. In the play, diplomacy is often undermined by inept translators who provide lousy and often unintentionally honest translations. With language conversions that distort and/or cut to the chase, the transmuted sentiments remind me (somewhat) of Stephen Colbert’s segment called “the Word,” in which the written word mischievously defies the spoken word.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://a.s.kqed.net/img/arts/blog/chinglish3.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" alt=\"\">\u003cbr>Austin Ku, Celeste Den and Vivian Chiu\u003cbr>\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>In a town where bureaucrats think Enron felons are Bonnie and Clyde-type heroes, the Minister of Culture is eager to become a high roller (“you roll the big crap” is the translated compliment.) Larry Lei Zhang plays the affable and seemingly honorable minister. Michelle Krusiec is terrific as his assistant minister, a hard-boiled broad with an agenda of her own. Krusiec’s performance skillfully bridges the play’s tricky balance between noir and romantic comedy. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The quick scene changes accompanied by booming club music seek to emulate the high stakes energy of the heist or sting operation genre. And indeed, there are allegiances, betrayals and some wheeling and dealing. But this is no Mamet drama, nor is it a full throttle comedy, nor a particularly thought-provoking cultural ponderation, although it dabbles in each genre.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003ccenter>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://a.s.kqed.net/img/arts/blog/chinglish2.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" alt=\"\">\u003cbr>Michelle Krusiec and Alex Moggridge\u003cbr>\u003c/center>\n\u003cp>Reviewers have called the play sexy because a knock-out actress (Michelle Krusiec) plays the secretive tough-cookie with a passionate side, and who isn’t turned on by that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But even passion is played for light laughs as pillow talk also has chinglistic misfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Longer than an episode of \u003ca href=\"http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Series/ThreesCompany?from=MainThreesCompany\">\u003ci>Three’s Company\u003c/i>\u003c/a>, David Henry Hwang’s play is entertaining for a while. But websites like \u003ca href=\"http://www.engrish.com/\">Engrish.com\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"http://chairmanlol.com/\">Chairman LOL\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"http://www.signspotting.com/\">Sign Spotting\u003c/a> (with their snarky remarks) will do the job too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Chinglish\u003c/i> runs through October 7, 2012 at The Roda Theatre in Berkeley, CA. For \u003ca href=\"http://www.berkeleyrep.org/season/1112/5420.asp/\">tickets and information\u003c/a>, visit berkeleyrep.org.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "The Bay Area Playwrights Festival: What, Who and Why Bother",
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"content": "\u003cp>Did you hear the one (so the joke goes) about the Polish actress? She slept with the writer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now this is a joke about screenwriters and Hollywood. Not playwrights and San Francisco. But it pretty much holds true everywhere that writers don’t have a lot of control of the final product. But at the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, a Polish actress could do a lot worse than schtuping the writer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.playwrightsfoundation.org/index.php?p=263\">The 35th annual Bay Area Playwrights Festival\u003c/a>, which runs July 20-29, 2012 at the Thick House in San Francisco, is a theater festival with the emphasis on the writing. “The playwright is in the leadership position during our festival,” explains Playwrights Foundation’s Artistic Director, Amy Mueller. “This festival is about the playwright’s process, which, counter-intuitively, often gets side-lined in the process of a full production.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The festival’s productions are “plays in the making,” staged readings that are the end result of much rewriting, research and discussion. “The playwrights voice is important to us,” says Mueller. “While the festival presents staged readings, they feel very performative, because they feature amazing actors and are the result of much rehearsal.” Mueller notes that this year, the selections all have an unintended unity of theme. “They question the ways in which advanced technologies are changing ‘the very humanness of modern man.'” she says, quoting Vaclav Havel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s why each of these plays is so very worth your time:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003ca href=\"http://www.playwrightsfoundation.org/index.php?p=271\">\u003ci>Tea Party\u003c/i>\u003c/a> by Gordon Dahlquist\u003cbr>\u003cb> What’s the quote unquote “plot”?\u003c/b> \u003ci>Tea Party\u003c/i> is a scary journey into a world that could very well come to pass if an extremist fringe political system comes into power.\u003cbr>\u003cb>Why bother? \u003c/b> It creates this world with a barest minimum of exposition — and it turns time on it’s head so that you have to figure out what is happening by unpacking it backwards.\u003cbr>\u003cb>Who’s the playwright anyway? \u003c/b> Dahlquist’s first novel, \u003ci>The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters\u003c/i>, was a \u003ci>NY Times\u003c/i> bestseller and has been published in 30 countries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.playwrightsfoundation.org/index.php?p=272Brahman/i\">\u003ci>Brahman/i: A One Hijra Stand Up Comedy Show\u003c/i>\u003c/a> by Aditi Brennan Kapil\u003cbr>\u003cb>What’s the quote unquote “plot”? \u003c/b> The play explores the journey of a young intersexual person (a Hijra), someone born both male and female, coming of age along with the colonial history of India.\u003cbr>\u003cb>Why bother? \u003c/b> Staged as a stand-up routine, the play concerns gender identity, the history of colonialism in Southeast India, and modern medicine. It’s intelligent, fun, fascinating and it is fall down funny, truly comic.\u003cbr>\u003cb>Who’s the playwright, anyway? \u003c/b>Aditi Brennan Kapil is a playwright, actress, and director, of Bulgarian and Indian descent, raised in Sweden. Her most recent play, \u003ci>Agnes Under The Big Top\u003c/i>, a tall tale, was selected as a 2009 Distinguished New Play Development Project by the NEA New Play Development Program hosted by Arena Stage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.playwrightsfoundation.org/index.php?p=268\"> \u003ci>Grounded\u003c/i>\u003c/a> by George Brant\u003cbr>\u003cb>What’s the quote unquote “plot”? \u003c/b>A one person play about a female fighter pilot who is ‘grounded’ after having a baby — and returns to the air force reassigned to control a drone in Afghanistan from a computer screen near Las Vegas.\u003cbr>\u003cb>Why bother?\u003c/b> “Because of the badassery of the character,” says Mueller.\u003cbr>\u003cb>Who’s the playwright anyway? \u003c/b>George Brant has been awarded the Kennedy Center’s David Cohen National Playwriting Award, the Smith Prize, the Keene Prize for Literature, an OAC Individual Excellence Award for 2012.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.playwrightsfoundation.org/index.php?p=269/\">\u003ci>Ideation\u003c/i>\u003c/a> by Aaron Loeb\u003cbr>\u003cb>What’s the quote unquote “plot”? \u003c/b>Without knowing who they will be working for, American management consultants compete for a contract to solve a thorny high-security problem. The contract is extremely lucrative but the project will no doubt annihilate their morals, their relationships and maybe also their lives.\u003cbr>\u003cb>Why bother? \u003c/b>To get a scary peek into the ruthless, and morally questionable day-to-day boardroom of corporate America.\u003cbr>\u003cb>Who’s the playwright anyway? \u003c/b>Aaron Loeb’s \u003ci>Abraham Lincoln’s Big, Gay Dance Party\u003c/i> had its Off-Broadway debut in 2010 and received the Outstanding Play recognition from the New York International Fringe Festival and was a GLAAD Media Award Nominee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.playwrightsfoundation.org/index.php?p=270\">\u003ci>Samsara\u003c/i>\u003c/a> by Lauren Yee\u003cbr>\u003cb>What’s the quote unquote “plot”? \u003c/b> In one last attempt at procreation, an American couple go to India to find a way to create a baby of heir own. Don’t ask me how because I haven’t seen the play yet but — their tiny zygote will somehow escape and grow up. Flash forward 25 years.\u003cbr>\u003cb>Why bother? \u003c/b>So you can tell me what happens. The play promises to be a hilarious yet unsettling look at reproduction in the 21st century.\u003cbr>\u003cb>Who’s the playwright anyway? \u003c/b>Lauren Yee was born and raised in San Francisco, her play \u003ci>Ching Chong Chinaman\u003c/i> was a finalist for the Princess Grace Award.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.playwrightsfoundation.org/index.php?p=267/%22\">\u003ci>The Hundred Flowers Project\u003c/i>\u003c/a> by Christopher Chen\u003cbr>\u003cb>What’s the quote unquote “plot”? \u003c/b>So this is more of a “meta-theatrical journey” than a plot-based narrative. \u003ci>The Project\u003c/i>‘s play-within-a-play structure mirrors Mao Tse Tung’s impact on modern-day China and his regime’s profound effect on political and social engineering on the world stage.\u003cbr>\u003cb>Why bother? \u003c/b>Because Christopher Chen believes he can dismantle your smug presumption that “meta” is so over. He has heard the grousers grouse that “this play-within-a-play thing’s been done ad nauseam,” and yet he is brave enough to go there.\u003cbr>\u003cb>Who’s the playwright anyway?\u003c/b> Chris Chen’s \u003ci>The Hundred Flowers Project\u003c/i> is a co-production with Crowded Fire Theater, and will be further developed and produced fully in the fall. He is a resident playwright at the Playwrights Foundation. He has received a Ford Foundation Emerging Writer of Color Grant and finalist status for the Jerome Fellowship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So Polish actresses, on your marks…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Bay Area Playwrights Festival runs July 20-29, 2012 at Thick House in San Francisco. For \u003ca href=\"http://www.playwrightsfoundation.org/index.php?p=263\">more information\u003c/a> visit playwrightsfoundation.org.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Did you hear the one (so the joke goes) about the Polish actress? She slept with the writer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now this is a joke about screenwriters and Hollywood. Not playwrights and San Francisco. But it pretty much holds true everywhere that writers don’t have a lot of control of the final product. But at the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, a Polish actress could do a lot worse than schtuping the writer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.playwrightsfoundation.org/index.php?p=263\">The 35th annual Bay Area Playwrights Festival\u003c/a>, which runs July 20-29, 2012 at the Thick House in San Francisco, is a theater festival with the emphasis on the writing. “The playwright is in the leadership position during our festival,” explains Playwrights Foundation’s Artistic Director, Amy Mueller. “This festival is about the playwright’s process, which, counter-intuitively, often gets side-lined in the process of a full production.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The festival’s productions are “plays in the making,” staged readings that are the end result of much rewriting, research and discussion. “The playwrights voice is important to us,” says Mueller. “While the festival presents staged readings, they feel very performative, because they feature amazing actors and are the result of much rehearsal.” Mueller notes that this year, the selections all have an unintended unity of theme. “They question the ways in which advanced technologies are changing ‘the very humanness of modern man.'” she says, quoting Vaclav Havel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here’s why each of these plays is so very worth your time:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003ca href=\"http://www.playwrightsfoundation.org/index.php?p=271\">\u003ci>Tea Party\u003c/i>\u003c/a> by Gordon Dahlquist\u003cbr>\u003cb> What’s the quote unquote “plot”?\u003c/b> \u003ci>Tea Party\u003c/i> is a scary journey into a world that could very well come to pass if an extremist fringe political system comes into power.\u003cbr>\u003cb>Why bother? \u003c/b> It creates this world with a barest minimum of exposition — and it turns time on it’s head so that you have to figure out what is happening by unpacking it backwards.\u003cbr>\u003cb>Who’s the playwright anyway? \u003c/b> Dahlquist’s first novel, \u003ci>The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters\u003c/i>, was a \u003ci>NY Times\u003c/i> bestseller and has been published in 30 countries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.playwrightsfoundation.org/index.php?p=272Brahman/i\">\u003ci>Brahman/i: A One Hijra Stand Up Comedy Show\u003c/i>\u003c/a> by Aditi Brennan Kapil\u003cbr>\u003cb>What’s the quote unquote “plot”? \u003c/b> The play explores the journey of a young intersexual person (a Hijra), someone born both male and female, coming of age along with the colonial history of India.\u003cbr>\u003cb>Why bother? \u003c/b> Staged as a stand-up routine, the play concerns gender identity, the history of colonialism in Southeast India, and modern medicine. It’s intelligent, fun, fascinating and it is fall down funny, truly comic.\u003cbr>\u003cb>Who’s the playwright, anyway? \u003c/b>Aditi Brennan Kapil is a playwright, actress, and director, of Bulgarian and Indian descent, raised in Sweden. Her most recent play, \u003ci>Agnes Under The Big Top\u003c/i>, a tall tale, was selected as a 2009 Distinguished New Play Development Project by the NEA New Play Development Program hosted by Arena Stage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.playwrightsfoundation.org/index.php?p=268\"> \u003ci>Grounded\u003c/i>\u003c/a> by George Brant\u003cbr>\u003cb>What’s the quote unquote “plot”? \u003c/b>A one person play about a female fighter pilot who is ‘grounded’ after having a baby — and returns to the air force reassigned to control a drone in Afghanistan from a computer screen near Las Vegas.\u003cbr>\u003cb>Why bother?\u003c/b> “Because of the badassery of the character,” says Mueller.\u003cbr>\u003cb>Who’s the playwright anyway? \u003c/b>George Brant has been awarded the Kennedy Center’s David Cohen National Playwriting Award, the Smith Prize, the Keene Prize for Literature, an OAC Individual Excellence Award for 2012.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.playwrightsfoundation.org/index.php?p=269/\">\u003ci>Ideation\u003c/i>\u003c/a> by Aaron Loeb\u003cbr>\u003cb>What’s the quote unquote “plot”? \u003c/b>Without knowing who they will be working for, American management consultants compete for a contract to solve a thorny high-security problem. The contract is extremely lucrative but the project will no doubt annihilate their morals, their relationships and maybe also their lives.\u003cbr>\u003cb>Why bother? \u003c/b>To get a scary peek into the ruthless, and morally questionable day-to-day boardroom of corporate America.\u003cbr>\u003cb>Who’s the playwright anyway? \u003c/b>Aaron Loeb’s \u003ci>Abraham Lincoln’s Big, Gay Dance Party\u003c/i> had its Off-Broadway debut in 2010 and received the Outstanding Play recognition from the New York International Fringe Festival and was a GLAAD Media Award Nominee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.playwrightsfoundation.org/index.php?p=270\">\u003ci>Samsara\u003c/i>\u003c/a> by Lauren Yee\u003cbr>\u003cb>What’s the quote unquote “plot”? \u003c/b> In one last attempt at procreation, an American couple go to India to find a way to create a baby of heir own. Don’t ask me how because I haven’t seen the play yet but — their tiny zygote will somehow escape and grow up. Flash forward 25 years.\u003cbr>\u003cb>Why bother? \u003c/b>So you can tell me what happens. The play promises to be a hilarious yet unsettling look at reproduction in the 21st century.\u003cbr>\u003cb>Who’s the playwright anyway? \u003c/b>Lauren Yee was born and raised in San Francisco, her play \u003ci>Ching Chong Chinaman\u003c/i> was a finalist for the Princess Grace Award.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.playwrightsfoundation.org/index.php?p=267/%22\">\u003ci>The Hundred Flowers Project\u003c/i>\u003c/a> by Christopher Chen\u003cbr>\u003cb>What’s the quote unquote “plot”? \u003c/b>So this is more of a “meta-theatrical journey” than a plot-based narrative. \u003ci>The Project\u003c/i>‘s play-within-a-play structure mirrors Mao Tse Tung’s impact on modern-day China and his regime’s profound effect on political and social engineering on the world stage.\u003cbr>\u003cb>Why bother? \u003c/b>Because Christopher Chen believes he can dismantle your smug presumption that “meta” is so over. He has heard the grousers grouse that “this play-within-a-play thing’s been done ad nauseam,” and yet he is brave enough to go there.\u003cbr>\u003cb>Who’s the playwright anyway?\u003c/b> Chris Chen’s \u003ci>The Hundred Flowers Project\u003c/i> is a co-production with Crowded Fire Theater, and will be further developed and produced fully in the fall. He is a resident playwright at the Playwrights Foundation. He has received a Ford Foundation Emerging Writer of Color Grant and finalist status for the Jerome Fellowship.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So Polish actresses, on your marks…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Bay Area Playwrights Festival runs July 20-29, 2012 at Thick House in San Francisco. For \u003ca href=\"http://www.playwrightsfoundation.org/index.php?p=263\">more information\u003c/a> visit playwrightsfoundation.org.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>In \u003ci>FWD: Life Gone Viral\u003c/i>, two of the four characters in this two-actor play are tiny flies on the wall — spying on their exes. That is, they are spying through the lens of minute, unarmed drones that appear, to the unassuming eye, to be flies on the wall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ridiculous you may say. But wait — in our age of nanotechnology and compromised standards of privacy, such a thing is already out there. On the other hand, yes, its implausible because this premise is put forth by Charlie Varon, the satirist-monologist who made a name for himself in 1995 with \u003ci>Rush Limbaugh in Night School\u003c/i>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Rush Limbaugh\u003c/i> follows the conservative radio host as he goes undercover as a liberal wacko in Birkenstocks, falls in love with a femi-nazi and performs Shakespeare in the park.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That cockamamie concoction was set in the near future. \u003ci>FWD: Life Gone Viral\u003c/i> is set in the here and now — an especially interesting time because it is midway between past and future. Here and now is where middle age adults stumble forward, saying, “What the heck is this you tube? Why would private citizens want to publicize their thoughts, philosophies, grievances, revenges and funny pets?” Some of them are very uncomfortable with such exhibitionism, while others compulsively hit “refresh” to see how many new views they have received.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"http://a.s.kqed.net/img/arts/blog/fwd.jpg\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px\" alt=\"\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under David Ford’s direction, \u003ci>FWD: Life Gone Viral\u003c/i> is keenly observed and vastly appealing and much more substantial than the “it’s funny because it’s true” brand of humor. Like the best comic writers, Charlie Varon, and co-writers Jeri Lynn Cohen and David Ford, are wise cultural analysts. Varon’s character Adam breaks it down to YouTube Newbie, Dr. Lillian Steinberg. Adam points out that Oprah is the mother of YouTube, ushering a society that has given up our secrets. He eloquently argues that YouTube broadcasters have a far greater reach, and potential significance, than did Aristotle. He articulates that broadcasting yourself (the YouTube motto) has supplanted broadcasting the truth. And that The Truth has been replaced by A Truth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yes, much of this has been said before. (See Stephen Colbert’s discussion of \u003ca href=\"http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/72347/july-31-2006/the-word---wikiality/\">Wikiality: Truth by Consensus\u003c/a>). But not in the context of a play about love and death and relationships. The play spoofs cultural trends, but (mostly) the characters are not caricatures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Adam and his doctor discuss death, dying, end-of-life philosophies and social media self-promotion, what transpires is a surprisingly touching, intelligent and very honest discourse that is much meatier than a mere satire about these crazy high-tech times we live in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although he had thought he was dying, Adam’s medical files had been mixed up and he does not, in fact, have pancreatic cancer. When he thought he was dying, Adam had taken comfort in a YouTube video that expresses that dying is a courageous journey of enlightenment and that impending death is a beautiful experience. Lo and behold, the video was made by Dr. Steinberg’s ex-husband, an unfaithful insincere schmuck. And, in a world where good things happen to bad people, this video has gone viral; its been embraced by multitudes and has earned Donald rock star guru fame and money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jeri Lynn Cohen is wonderful as Dr. Lillian Steinberg, a smart, sharp physician, who is bewildered and enraged that her ex-husband’s video has gone viral. She tentatively weighs her professional reputation against her desire to expose her ex-husband for the fraud he is. Cohen’s Lillian is an arrestingly real person who reveals thoughtfulness and vulnerability as she ventures into the new terrains of romance and internet fame.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Adam whips out his iPhone to video-tape Lillian’s response to her ex-husband’s sermon, “Death,” she says, “is not noble, not heroic, not peaceful.” Above them, on the wall, Donald and Ellen, Adam’s ex-wife, spy, scoff and ridicule.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the brash, abrasive and flagrantly Jewish Ellen, Cohen is marvelously entertaining with her mocking, running commentary. As Donald, Varon is an irritating blowhard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the four of them, YouTube videos are made and volleyed — racking up views and ratings and comments and thumbs up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>FWD: Life Gone Viral\u003c/i> runs through June 10, 2012 at The Marsh in San Francisco. For \u003ca href=\"http://themarsh.org/Charlie_varon.html\">tickets and information\u003c/a> visit themarsh.org.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under David Ford’s direction, \u003ci>FWD: Life Gone Viral\u003c/i> is keenly observed and vastly appealing and much more substantial than the “it’s funny because it’s true” brand of humor. Like the best comic writers, Charlie Varon, and co-writers Jeri Lynn Cohen and David Ford, are wise cultural analysts. Varon’s character Adam breaks it down to YouTube Newbie, Dr. Lillian Steinberg. Adam points out that Oprah is the mother of YouTube, ushering a society that has given up our secrets. He eloquently argues that YouTube broadcasters have a far greater reach, and potential significance, than did Aristotle. He articulates that broadcasting yourself (the YouTube motto) has supplanted broadcasting the truth. And that The Truth has been replaced by A Truth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yes, much of this has been said before. (See Stephen Colbert’s discussion of \u003ca href=\"http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/72347/july-31-2006/the-word---wikiality/\">Wikiality: Truth by Consensus\u003c/a>). But not in the context of a play about love and death and relationships. The play spoofs cultural trends, but (mostly) the characters are not caricatures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Adam and his doctor discuss death, dying, end-of-life philosophies and social media self-promotion, what transpires is a surprisingly touching, intelligent and very honest discourse that is much meatier than a mere satire about these crazy high-tech times we live in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Although he had thought he was dying, Adam’s medical files had been mixed up and he does not, in fact, have pancreatic cancer. When he thought he was dying, Adam had taken comfort in a YouTube video that expresses that dying is a courageous journey of enlightenment and that impending death is a beautiful experience. Lo and behold, the video was made by Dr. Steinberg’s ex-husband, an unfaithful insincere schmuck. And, in a world where good things happen to bad people, this video has gone viral; its been embraced by multitudes and has earned Donald rock star guru fame and money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jeri Lynn Cohen is wonderful as Dr. Lillian Steinberg, a smart, sharp physician, who is bewildered and enraged that her ex-husband’s video has gone viral. She tentatively weighs her professional reputation against her desire to expose her ex-husband for the fraud he is. Cohen’s Lillian is an arrestingly real person who reveals thoughtfulness and vulnerability as she ventures into the new terrains of romance and internet fame.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Adam whips out his iPhone to video-tape Lillian’s response to her ex-husband’s sermon, “Death,” she says, “is not noble, not heroic, not peaceful.” Above them, on the wall, Donald and Ellen, Adam’s ex-wife, spy, scoff and ridicule.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the brash, abrasive and flagrantly Jewish Ellen, Cohen is marvelously entertaining with her mocking, running commentary. As Donald, Varon is an irritating blowhard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the four of them, YouTube videos are made and volleyed — racking up views and ratings and comments and thumbs up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>FWD: Life Gone Viral\u003c/i> runs through June 10, 2012 at The Marsh in San Francisco. For \u003ca href=\"http://themarsh.org/Charlie_varon.html\">tickets and information\u003c/a> visit themarsh.org.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp> On the corner of \u003ci>then\u003c/i> and \u003ci>now\u003c/i> is Maple and Vine. The house on that corner is part of a planned community that gives the word “planned” a rigorous new meaning. Here, in suburban America, 1955 has become a lifestyle choice. Here, Americans can reject the cacophonous distractions of 2012 and find sanctuary in a place where every day is 1955.All you need are the right gloves, the right fedora and the desire for a cocoon of simplicity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Such is the cumbersome premise of \u003ca href=\"http://www.act-sf.org/1112/mapleandvine/index.html\">\u003c/a>\u003cb>Maple and Vine\u003c/b>, Jordan Harrison’s curious new play about an overwhelmed Manhattan couple who stumble into a sect who call themselves The Society of Dynamic Obsolence. The SDO have isolated themselves into a self-sufficient community that exists in a perennial 1955. In modern day Manhattan, Katha and Ryu gaze into their back-to-back laptops and curse the noisy upstairs neighbors they’ve never met. He’s a plastic surgeon, she’s a harried editor who pops sleeping pills. At the breakfast table, she’s watching the 1985 miniseries Anne of Green Gables on YouTube, remembering how she watched it as a kid. “I don’t know if I’m nostalgic for the 1880s or the 1980s,” she tells her husband.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But all of a sudden, she becomes nostalgic for the 1950s. Or, I guess, since she’s thirty-something, her notion of the era. Or maybe just a \u003ca href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJsnR-KDbFc/\">Calgon-Take-Me-Away\u003c/a> colony. But she’s had it up to here with her job (a flaming assistant and his bitchy BFF give the office a straight out of \u003cb>Ugly Betty\u003c/b> vibe.) When a dapper, 50s-fashioned gent (Jamison Jones as Dean) who asks the time of day turns out to be a SDO recruiter…addax yadda, yadda…Katha and Ryu quit their jobs and move to an ersatz era where you can say Tupperware but you can’t say Velcro.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m pretty sure there’s a yadda yadda there. Or Jordan Harrison’s vague narrative progresses like a lazy yada yada. Eventually, Act II delivers the money shot: 1950s stylin’ costumes (Alex Jaeger) and set (Ralph Funicello) and the amusing premise of urbane New Yorkers who are tourists in provincial I-Like-Ike olden days. One wonders if the whole shaky thing hopes to ride on the (retro/vintage) coattails of our recent \u003ca href=\"http://www.amctv.com/shows/mad-men/\">\u003cb>Mad Men\u003c/b> \u003c/a> craze. The 2010’s TV audiences love Mad Men’s clothes, the pocket squares and the martini lunches — but we also enjoy deconstructing the mores of the Sterling Cooper crowd. From our perch in the post-chauvinist 21st century and through the lens of Mad Men’s crack directors and writers, the 1950s are so much more interesting than a Doris Day movie.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Jamison Jones’ dapper Dean is no Don Draper. And while director Mark Rucker might hope to combine the seer and the seen, the tourist and the local, into the same character, \u003cb>Maple and Vine’s\u003c/b> faux fifties residents don’t have nearly as much insight as you and me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Katha and Ryu (an appealing Emily Donahoe and Nelson Lee) are charmed by cocktails with the next door neighbors, the construction of pigs in a blanket, ladies who lunch and men who wear the pants. They are happy to trade hummus and Portobello mushrooms for Sanka and salt. And sex is so much hotter in the age of repression.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Indeed Katha (she is now Kathy) seems to get off on her neighbor’s referring to her Asian husband as Oriental. For a truly authentic experience, she suggests other forms of subtle racism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The SDO’s Authenticity Committee meets regularly to discuss what products and practices will disrupt their fourth wall. Birth control, for instance, was not yet legal in 1955. Julia Coffey offers a precise performance as Ellen, the committee head and strict proprietor of standards and verisimilitude.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We could do anything we wanted so we didn’t want anything,” 1950s Kathy says, describing a nightmare in which she is 2012 Katha. In the intentional community of 1955, turpitude is made all the more thrilling — or is it tortured? — within the confines of a self-imposed rigid morality. But are the transgressors tortured souls or are they fake tortured? Are their emotions even real or is this all some kind of Truman Show? In this intentionally absurdist play, why ask why when a yadda yadda will do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maple and Vine\u003c/b> runs through April 22, 2012 at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. For \u003ca href=\"http://www.act-sf.org/1112/mapleandvine/index.html/\">tickets and information\u003c/a> visit act-sf.org or call 415.749.2228.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"info": "Gentrification is changing cities across America, forcing people from neighborhoods they have long called home. Call them the displaced. Now those priced out of the Bay Area are looking for a better life in an unlikely place. American Suburb follows this migration to one California town along the Delta, 45 miles from San Francisco. But is this once sleepy suburb ready for them?",
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},
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"id": "baycurious",
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"tagline": "Exploring the Bay Area, one question at a time",
"info": "KQED’s new podcast, Bay Curious, gets to the bottom of the mysteries — both profound and peculiar — that give the Bay Area its unique identity. And we’ll do it with your help! You ask the questions. You decide what Bay Curious investigates. And you join us on the journey to find the answers.",
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},
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},
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"info": "KQED’s statewide radio news program providing daily coverage of issues, trends and public policy decisions.",
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"order": 8
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"tagline": "Your state, your stories",
"info": "Every week, The California Report Magazine takes you on a road trip for the ears: to visit the places and meet the people who make California unique. The in-depth storytelling podcast from the California Report.",
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"airtime": "SUN 1pm-2pm, TUE 10pm, WED 1am",
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"source": "City Arts & Lectures"
},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
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"order": 1
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"title": "Code Switch / Life Kit",
"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
"airtime": "THU 10pm, FRI 1am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Commonwealth-Club-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
"link": "/radio/program/commonwealth-club",
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"title": "Forum",
"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 9am-11am, 10pm-11pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 9
},
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"meta": {
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"source": "WNYC"
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"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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"hidden-brain": {
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"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
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"source": "NPR"
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"how-i-built-this": {
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"title": "How I Built This with Guy Raz",
"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
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"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
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"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
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"order": 18
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},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
}
},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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"rss": "https://feeds.publicradio.org/public_feeds/marketplace-pm/rss/rss"
}
},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WaitWhat"
},
"link": "/radio/program/masters-of-scale",
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"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
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