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"content": "\u003cp>The spirit of rugged individualism is the very lifeblood of San Francisco. It’s the kind of place where Starchild can run for County Supervisor, where we not only put a measure to impeach President Bush on the ballot, but dozens of people will go out to Ocean Beach in mid-winter and lie upon the sand to spell the words “IMPEACH” with their bodies. I like to think of it as a city of the grand flourish.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And ever has the City by the Bay been this way, it appears. The city’s slogan, “Find Yourself Here,” was never more applicable than to the epic figure of San Franciscan Joshua Norton, Emperor of the United States, who ruled the nation from his seat of power, a little place on Commercial Street between Kearny and Montgomery. And for those not familiar with the man who was once one of San Francisco’s most beloved figures, Kim Ohanneson and Marty Axelrod have devised a rough-hewn tribute to Emperor Norton I, \u003cb>Emperor Norton, The Musical\u003c/b>, which runs through April 1 at the tiny Shelton Theater off Union Square.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The production, which had its origins as a cabaret act is undeniably cheesy — and long — with a handmade look about it. Painted flats of scenes from the Hyde Street pier or Tadich Grill simply lean against the back wall and the 12-member cast barely fits on the postage stamp sized stage. With little room backstage at the Shelton, the divan that you see in the lobby at intermission makes its way onto stage in the second act. There’s a whiff of the sense that this show had roots in a group of pals goofing off and yet there’s also something good humored and heartwarming about what is obviously a labor-of-love project. The folksy numbers are cute and despite — no, perhaps because of — its amateur moments, it somehow fits the quirky DIY story of the Emp, as he was more familiarly known.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A true San Francisco character, the Emperor handed down his decrees, well-publicized in the newspapers, on topics that touched the lives of his subjects. He decreed that the streets of Sacramento should be cleaned of mud, that a bridge should be constructed between Oakland and San Francisco. He abolished the Democratic and Republican parties and dissolved Congress. And no one was EVER to refer to San Francisco as “Frisco.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Accompanied by his faithful canine companions, Bummer and Lazarus, the Emp, played by Stephen Pawley, was an honored guest at local functions and theatrical openings. In fact his devoted ragamuffins, played with relish by Peter Doty and Steffanos X in the musical offer some of the show’s most vivid moments, appearances by famous local characters Lola Montez, Lotta Crabtree, and Mark Twain not withstanding. There’s some strong singing from John Harrison as a newsboy who befriends the Emp, and an appearance by director David Stein as the Tadich Grill founder John Tadich, as well as the forlorn police officer Barbier who once arrested Norton and tried to have him committed for mental instability. (Needless to say, after public outrage ensued, his Highness was released.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The musical ranges over a lot of historical ground — an Emperor’s life is a quite busy one — and it’s hard to pick up the details of any particular thread to the story. Still, enough of the “strange, but true” essentials are in there to make for a colorful portrait of a post-Barbary Coast city where anything and everything goes, and apparently went.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Emperor Norton, The Musical\u003c/b> runs through April 1, 2007 at The Shelton Theater in San Francisco. For \u003ca href=\"http://emperornortonthemusical.com/\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Tickets and Information\u003c/a> visit emperornortonthemusical.com.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The spirit of rugged individualism is the very lifeblood of San Francisco. It’s the kind of place where Starchild can run for County Supervisor, where we not only put a measure to impeach President Bush on the ballot, but dozens of people will go out to Ocean Beach in mid-winter and lie upon the sand to spell the words “IMPEACH” with their bodies. I like to think of it as a city of the grand flourish.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And ever has the City by the Bay been this way, it appears. The city’s slogan, “Find Yourself Here,” was never more applicable than to the epic figure of San Franciscan Joshua Norton, Emperor of the United States, who ruled the nation from his seat of power, a little place on Commercial Street between Kearny and Montgomery. And for those not familiar with the man who was once one of San Francisco’s most beloved figures, Kim Ohanneson and Marty Axelrod have devised a rough-hewn tribute to Emperor Norton I, \u003cb>Emperor Norton, The Musical\u003c/b>, which runs through April 1 at the tiny Shelton Theater off Union Square.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The production, which had its origins as a cabaret act is undeniably cheesy — and long — with a handmade look about it. Painted flats of scenes from the Hyde Street pier or Tadich Grill simply lean against the back wall and the 12-member cast barely fits on the postage stamp sized stage. With little room backstage at the Shelton, the divan that you see in the lobby at intermission makes its way onto stage in the second act. There’s a whiff of the sense that this show had roots in a group of pals goofing off and yet there’s also something good humored and heartwarming about what is obviously a labor-of-love project. The folksy numbers are cute and despite — no, perhaps because of — its amateur moments, it somehow fits the quirky DIY story of the Emp, as he was more familiarly known.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A true San Francisco character, the Emperor handed down his decrees, well-publicized in the newspapers, on topics that touched the lives of his subjects. He decreed that the streets of Sacramento should be cleaned of mud, that a bridge should be constructed between Oakland and San Francisco. He abolished the Democratic and Republican parties and dissolved Congress. And no one was EVER to refer to San Francisco as “Frisco.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Accompanied by his faithful canine companions, Bummer and Lazarus, the Emp, played by Stephen Pawley, was an honored guest at local functions and theatrical openings. In fact his devoted ragamuffins, played with relish by Peter Doty and Steffanos X in the musical offer some of the show’s most vivid moments, appearances by famous local characters Lola Montez, Lotta Crabtree, and Mark Twain not withstanding. There’s some strong singing from John Harrison as a newsboy who befriends the Emp, and an appearance by director David Stein as the Tadich Grill founder John Tadich, as well as the forlorn police officer Barbier who once arrested Norton and tried to have him committed for mental instability. (Needless to say, after public outrage ensued, his Highness was released.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Do you love stories? I do. Passionately. In less than an hour a simple short story can transport me to the moon and back home again. When our lives become turbulent, the short story structure reminds me that after great conflict, tranquility returns. The other night I was fortunate to catch Word For Word’s show \u003cb>Strangers We Know\u003c/b> at the Fort Mason Center’s Magic Theater.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Word For Word performs short stories by some of the most outstanding writers in print. If there were an Olympic Dream Team of short fiction, Word For Word’s favorite authors would surely be on the team. Tobias Wolff. Amy Hempel. Richard Ford. Sandra Cisneros. Grace Paley. Sherwood Anderson. These names make me want to fall to my knees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Strangers We Know\u003c/b> is Word For Word’s most current rendition of two stories: Mavis Gallant’s “Mlle. Dias de Corta” and Lorrie Moore’s “Which Is More Than I Can Say About Some People.” In Mavis Gallant’s story, a middle-aged widow writes a long letter to Alda Dias de Corta, a confused young actress who once boarded in the narrator’s Parisian home. The widow, a smug middle-aged woman wearing an unfortunate wig, can’t excise the memory of her former tenant, and her thinly-disguised pity for Alda is, we discover, really driven by emptiness and envy. This story is a quiet revelation about the true nature of a character. The second half of the show features Lorrie Moore’s absolutely hilarious story about the strained relationship between an American mother and daughter traveling through Ireland. Moore’s story culminates when the two characters hike up a winding trail to kiss the Blarney Stone. This is a physically and mentally challenging feat since in order to plant the kiss, each must lie on her back and stretch over a chasm. In doing so the mother, who by a long shot seems to be the stronger of the two characters, reveals her fears and frailties, and in the end we witness a lovely example of bravery and bonding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’ve all been double-crossed by filmmakers who’ve sold out our favorite novels and stories, and afterwards left the theater feeling a bit soiled. But believe me, after seeing \u003cb>Strangers We Know\u003c/b> you’ll feel squeaky clean because the company doesn’t alter a word of the original masterpiece, which is appropriate, as Word For Word performs stories in which every single word counts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This strict dedication to an author’s original piece presents a major challenge; a typical short story comprises not only dialogue and scene, but exposition — passages where a character’s thoughts wander into memory and description and reaction. Word For Word lives up to this challenge by creatively enacting a character’s situation and psychological state. So even though Mavis Gallant’s story is written in letter narration from a point of view limited to one character, at certain moments the main character puts words in other peoples’ mouths — and those characters appear onstage to deliver those statements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then there’s the challenge of enacting a character’s every whim, thought, and action. The short story doesn’t take into account the limits of the stage. Word For Word meets these challenges with a vast array of creative staging, blocking, and use of props. A table is not only a table: it’s also a bench, a soapbox, and when overturned, a tray. Sometimes, too, props take on a new layer of meaning — when actors use suitcases not only as luggage but also as seats in their vehicles, we’re being invited to think about the nuances of the words such as “transitory” and “baggage.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These two words certainly touch on the themes of both Gallant’s and Moore’s story, but the true highlight of the night was Lorrie Moore’s piece, which contained sentences like this one: “They stopped briefly in an English manor house, to see the natural world cut up into moldings and rugs, wool and wood captive and squared, the earth stolen and embalmed and shellacked.” And one actor in particular, Patricia Silver (who played the domineering mother), nearly stole the show because in her role she was tough as steel and as brittle as balsa, recognizable yet unique, endearingly bossy to the very end.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the show ended and Silver and company took their bows, I picked my way through the muggy night to my car. As I walked past a grove of fresh-smelling cypress, I had a thought: \u003cb>Strangers We Know\u003c/b> is an ideal marriage of literature and theater, as one form respects the other. In this model, the emergent form is as strong as its parents. And since I believe that the viewer is integral to art, I’d venture this: art that fortifies art also fortifies the viewer. Fortified, then, and alone in the dark, I felt tranquil, at last, despite all the turbulence I’ve experienced at home recently, a long story — let’s not get into it. Tranquility is the home we carry inside of us, and the performance had delivered me safely home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Strangers We Know\u003c/b> runs January 31 through February 4, 2007 at the Julia Morgan Theater in Berekely. Lorrie Moore will join the group on March 13th, 2007 to discuss the production at the Cowell Theater in San Francisco. Get \u003ca href=\"http://www.zspace.org/strangersweknow.htm\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Tickets and Information\u003c/a> (at zspace.org)\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Do you love stories? I do. Passionately. In less than an hour a simple short story can transport me to the moon and back home again. When our lives become turbulent, the short story structure reminds me that after great conflict, tranquility returns. The other night I was fortunate to catch Word For Word’s show \u003cb>Strangers We Know\u003c/b> at the Fort Mason Center’s Magic Theater.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Word For Word performs short stories by some of the most outstanding writers in print. If there were an Olympic Dream Team of short fiction, Word For Word’s favorite authors would surely be on the team. Tobias Wolff. Amy Hempel. Richard Ford. Sandra Cisneros. Grace Paley. Sherwood Anderson. These names make me want to fall to my knees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Strangers We Know\u003c/b> is Word For Word’s most current rendition of two stories: Mavis Gallant’s “Mlle. Dias de Corta” and Lorrie Moore’s “Which Is More Than I Can Say About Some People.” In Mavis Gallant’s story, a middle-aged widow writes a long letter to Alda Dias de Corta, a confused young actress who once boarded in the narrator’s Parisian home. The widow, a smug middle-aged woman wearing an unfortunate wig, can’t excise the memory of her former tenant, and her thinly-disguised pity for Alda is, we discover, really driven by emptiness and envy. This story is a quiet revelation about the true nature of a character. The second half of the show features Lorrie Moore’s absolutely hilarious story about the strained relationship between an American mother and daughter traveling through Ireland. Moore’s story culminates when the two characters hike up a winding trail to kiss the Blarney Stone. This is a physically and mentally challenging feat since in order to plant the kiss, each must lie on her back and stretch over a chasm. In doing so the mother, who by a long shot seems to be the stronger of the two characters, reveals her fears and frailties, and in the end we witness a lovely example of bravery and bonding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’ve all been double-crossed by filmmakers who’ve sold out our favorite novels and stories, and afterwards left the theater feeling a bit soiled. But believe me, after seeing \u003cb>Strangers We Know\u003c/b> you’ll feel squeaky clean because the company doesn’t alter a word of the original masterpiece, which is appropriate, as Word For Word performs stories in which every single word counts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This strict dedication to an author’s original piece presents a major challenge; a typical short story comprises not only dialogue and scene, but exposition — passages where a character’s thoughts wander into memory and description and reaction. Word For Word lives up to this challenge by creatively enacting a character’s situation and psychological state. So even though Mavis Gallant’s story is written in letter narration from a point of view limited to one character, at certain moments the main character puts words in other peoples’ mouths — and those characters appear onstage to deliver those statements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then there’s the challenge of enacting a character’s every whim, thought, and action. The short story doesn’t take into account the limits of the stage. Word For Word meets these challenges with a vast array of creative staging, blocking, and use of props. A table is not only a table: it’s also a bench, a soapbox, and when overturned, a tray. Sometimes, too, props take on a new layer of meaning — when actors use suitcases not only as luggage but also as seats in their vehicles, we’re being invited to think about the nuances of the words such as “transitory” and “baggage.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These two words certainly touch on the themes of both Gallant’s and Moore’s story, but the true highlight of the night was Lorrie Moore’s piece, which contained sentences like this one: “They stopped briefly in an English manor house, to see the natural world cut up into moldings and rugs, wool and wood captive and squared, the earth stolen and embalmed and shellacked.” And one actor in particular, Patricia Silver (who played the domineering mother), nearly stole the show because in her role she was tough as steel and as brittle as balsa, recognizable yet unique, endearingly bossy to the very end.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the show ended and Silver and company took their bows, I picked my way through the muggy night to my car. As I walked past a grove of fresh-smelling cypress, I had a thought: \u003cb>Strangers We Know\u003c/b> is an ideal marriage of literature and theater, as one form respects the other. In this model, the emergent form is as strong as its parents. And since I believe that the viewer is integral to art, I’d venture this: art that fortifies art also fortifies the viewer. Fortified, then, and alone in the dark, I felt tranquil, at last, despite all the turbulence I’ve experienced at home recently, a long story — let’s not get into it. Tranquility is the home we carry inside of us, and the performance had delivered me safely home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Strangers We Know\u003c/b> runs January 31 through February 4, 2007 at the Julia Morgan Theater in Berekely. Lorrie Moore will join the group on March 13th, 2007 to discuss the production at the Cowell Theater in San Francisco. Get \u003ca href=\"http://www.zspace.org/strangersweknow.htm\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Tickets and Information\u003c/a> (at zspace.org)\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>If a play’s stage directions require the use of fake blood, it’s sure to be an exciting event — at least in my estimation. The Berkeley Rep’s production of Martin McDonagh’s \u003cb>The Pillowman\u003c/b> does not disappoint. \u003cb>The Pillowman\u003c/b> features gallons of the aforementioned fake blood, as well as severed toes (also fake, I hope), insane children, flying spittle, and parents so evil that “evil” becomes a comic overstatement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Short story writer Katurian and his twisted brother Michal have been jailed for the murders of three local children. They have come under suspicion because the gruesome methods behind the killings are identical to those in Katurian’s stories (which feature particularly creative child murders). The grisly truths behind the murders and the inspiration for Katurian’s nightmarish fiction are eventually revealed, but along the way \u003cb>The Pillowman\u003c/b> jangles the senses, a kaleidoscope of horrors, real and imagained.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Berkeley Rep’s production is fabulous — the lighting suitably drab, the set’s spareness contrasting nicely with Katurian’s elaborately creepy memories and fantasies, which are enacted on a raised platform upstage while he narrates. It’s as if we can see the inner workings of his mind — and be prepared, because the unglued contents therein will disturb and unsettle you. Each of the sound effects in \u003cb>The Pillowman\u003c/b>, from a little girl scratching at the inside of her coffin to the whine of drills and crackling electrodes, was quite effective — amongst a host of effects, these sounds were particularly evocative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So evocative, in fact, that intermission came as a relief. On the night I attended, the room at intermission buzzed with conversation. People were NOT discussing dinner, babysitters or plans for the weekend. They were talking about the play. I overheard one patron, a man wearing an abalone-shell necklace, complain about how the other audience members snickered inappropriately during what he considered a serious play. And yet, I found many of the lines in \u003cb>The Pillowman\u003c/b> funny. The playbill promises laughter, so I wondered about the source of this man’s confusion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maybe it was Erik Lochtefeld’s rendering of Katurian, who’s often consumed with terror (as anyone would be when under interrogation with threat of execution). That is, Lochtefeld might have given a performance that allowed us to relax and laugh with a clear conscience if he hadn’t so strongly emphasized Katurian’s fear. But emphasize it, he did. In plenty of instances, Lochtefeld’s stance reminds us that Katurian is well aware that his stories are gothic grotesqueries, and even when he’s being questioned by two sadistic detectives, even when he’s tremblingly obeisant, the glee he takes in his fiction’s over-the-top horror is apparent — as is an author’s pride. Katurian has learned to turn his harrowing past into art.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I had no objections to Lochtefeld’s performance, as I enjoy being kept off-balance. In fact, I was deeply impressed by everyone in \u003cb>The Pillowman\u003c/b>. Matthew Maher’s Michal, Katurian’s brain-damaged brother, uses psychological dissociation to provide a very creepy kind of humor, contrasting the emotional depth of his words with a flat, neutral delivery. His bald head is as expressive as Ben Kingsley’s. Tony Amendola as Agent Tupolski is charmingly acid, while Andy Murray as “bad cop” Ariel is his perfect foil.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Berkeley Rep’s rendition of \u003cb>The Pillowman\u003c/b> is the best thing I’ve seen in a long time. I’m still thinking about how our egos are invested in our art and trying to figure out when laughter is inappropriate. And I’m still haunted by the play’s central image — a kind, sad man made out of pillows. It’s one of many vivid images arising from \u003cb>The Pillowman\u003c/b>‘s intricate storyline (or rather lines), stories within stories as much about storytelling as grisly child murder, torture and imprisonment and the vanity of the artist. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>The Pillowman\u003c/b> plays at the Berkeley Repertory Theater in Berkeley through February 25, 2007. \u003ca href=\"http://www.berkeleyrep.org/ticketing/calendar/index.aspx\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Purchase tickets\u003c/a> (at berkeleyrep.org).\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>If a play’s stage directions require the use of fake blood, it’s sure to be an exciting event — at least in my estimation. The Berkeley Rep’s production of Martin McDonagh’s \u003cb>The Pillowman\u003c/b> does not disappoint. \u003cb>The Pillowman\u003c/b> features gallons of the aforementioned fake blood, as well as severed toes (also fake, I hope), insane children, flying spittle, and parents so evil that “evil” becomes a comic overstatement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Short story writer Katurian and his twisted brother Michal have been jailed for the murders of three local children. They have come under suspicion because the gruesome methods behind the killings are identical to those in Katurian’s stories (which feature particularly creative child murders). The grisly truths behind the murders and the inspiration for Katurian’s nightmarish fiction are eventually revealed, but along the way \u003cb>The Pillowman\u003c/b> jangles the senses, a kaleidoscope of horrors, real and imagained.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Berkeley Rep’s production is fabulous — the lighting suitably drab, the set’s spareness contrasting nicely with Katurian’s elaborately creepy memories and fantasies, which are enacted on a raised platform upstage while he narrates. It’s as if we can see the inner workings of his mind — and be prepared, because the unglued contents therein will disturb and unsettle you. Each of the sound effects in \u003cb>The Pillowman\u003c/b>, from a little girl scratching at the inside of her coffin to the whine of drills and crackling electrodes, was quite effective — amongst a host of effects, these sounds were particularly evocative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So evocative, in fact, that intermission came as a relief. On the night I attended, the room at intermission buzzed with conversation. People were NOT discussing dinner, babysitters or plans for the weekend. They were talking about the play. I overheard one patron, a man wearing an abalone-shell necklace, complain about how the other audience members snickered inappropriately during what he considered a serious play. And yet, I found many of the lines in \u003cb>The Pillowman\u003c/b> funny. The playbill promises laughter, so I wondered about the source of this man’s confusion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maybe it was Erik Lochtefeld’s rendering of Katurian, who’s often consumed with terror (as anyone would be when under interrogation with threat of execution). That is, Lochtefeld might have given a performance that allowed us to relax and laugh with a clear conscience if he hadn’t so strongly emphasized Katurian’s fear. But emphasize it, he did. In plenty of instances, Lochtefeld’s stance reminds us that Katurian is well aware that his stories are gothic grotesqueries, and even when he’s being questioned by two sadistic detectives, even when he’s tremblingly obeisant, the glee he takes in his fiction’s over-the-top horror is apparent — as is an author’s pride. Katurian has learned to turn his harrowing past into art.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I had no objections to Lochtefeld’s performance, as I enjoy being kept off-balance. In fact, I was deeply impressed by everyone in \u003cb>The Pillowman\u003c/b>. Matthew Maher’s Michal, Katurian’s brain-damaged brother, uses psychological dissociation to provide a very creepy kind of humor, contrasting the emotional depth of his words with a flat, neutral delivery. His bald head is as expressive as Ben Kingsley’s. Tony Amendola as Agent Tupolski is charmingly acid, while Andy Murray as “bad cop” Ariel is his perfect foil.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Berkeley Rep’s rendition of \u003cb>The Pillowman\u003c/b> is the best thing I’ve seen in a long time. I’m still thinking about how our egos are invested in our art and trying to figure out when laughter is inappropriate. And I’m still haunted by the play’s central image — a kind, sad man made out of pillows. It’s one of many vivid images arising from \u003cb>The Pillowman\u003c/b>‘s intricate storyline (or rather lines), stories within stories as much about storytelling as grisly child murder, torture and imprisonment and the vanity of the artist. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>The Pillowman\u003c/b> plays at the Berkeley Repertory Theater in Berkeley through February 25, 2007. \u003ca href=\"http://www.berkeleyrep.org/ticketing/calendar/index.aspx\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Purchase tickets\u003c/a> (at berkeleyrep.org).\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>“Holy smokes, it’s the story of my life,” I thought during the first act of \u003cb>Homeland\u003c/b>, Jay Kuo’s terrific new musical, which has been workshopped at the New Conservatory Theatre and arrived as a semi-staged production at the Magic Theatre over the weekend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A followup to his successful romantic comedy, \u003cb>Insignificant Others\u003c/b>, \u003cb>Homeland\u003c/b> finds Kuo again mining the local landscape and coming up with a gem of a bittersweet tale about love blooming in the rarefied world of San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a curious thing that happens quite often in the Bay Area — a place where I’m startled if I run into a bona fide, born-and-bred local. No matter where we’re from though, somehow we all wind up discovering “families” for ourselves. You know the family I mean — the one with your crazy left wing activist friend, the struggling artist you met in a coffee shop, your wild and crazy, newly-freed-from-the-closet pal, and various interesting and probably left-leaning others. Kuo has built \u003cb>Homeland\u003c/b> around just such an extended family, in this case, a loosely-banded guerilla street theater group. As a love story and a tale of the divisive politics of this current generation, it will no doubt connect to audiences at many levels, but for the Bay Area crowd, it will be doubly poignant, because it tells the stories of the people that you and I know — maybe even the stories of our own lives. And as with all the best musicals, the circumstances in which our heroes find themselves might be farcical, even far-fetched, but it doesn’t matter at all, because the characters ring true.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The action splits between San Francisco and Lubbock, Texas, but the heart of \u003cb>Homeland\u003c/b> centers around the winsome Yilin Hsu and Luke Klipp as Rose and J.D, two transplants to San Francisco whose romance is buffeted by family expectations, politics, racism and circumstance. Rose’s brother Lincoln (Austin Ku), has his own romance with the gently sarcastic Tennessee (Jason Hoover) and faces up to the struggle of coming out to his mother — played with hilarious, often touching grace by Lily Tung. In a part of America miles apart geographically and ideologically, J.D.’s mom, Trudy, played with heartfelt simplicity by Kelly Ground, has fallen in with an Operation Rescue, “Flip” Benham-type preacher (Brandon Mears). It’s a complex interplay between all these personalities, ideas and prejudices that drives the action. How easy it is, after a few years in the Bay Area, to forget that elsewhere in America, people don’t see politics or life as we do here. It seemed to take a moment for the crowd at the Magic to register the fact that a romance between a Korean woman and a guy from Texas might be problematic, or to recall that there are places where people still think sushi is a queer thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Homeland\u003c/b> is an ambitious undertaking and packs a lot of commentary into a musical framework. Besides the love story, Kuo works extensive political ground from abortion rights to animal rights, from racism to fanaticism, albeit wearing decidedly blue colors on his political sleeve. Still, he dots the evening with catchy tunes and bon mots aplenty. Sweetly romantic duets like “All That We Know” and punchy production numbers like “Something in the Key of D” — a kind of cabaret riff on musical theater staples like \u003cb>Phantom of the Opera\u003c/b>, and \u003cb>The King & I\u003c/b> — show off an uncommonly confident stride.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The twelve performers — including Erin Diamantides as the left wing radical Eleanor, as well as William Brown III, Sean Grady, Mary Kalita and Nancy Dobbs Owen — make for a strong cast, forging ahead with vivacious energy, even if they are forced to sing to recorded music. Nevertheless, director George Quick has provided a clean, theatrical staging, and in a way — although I know it’s only meant to be a bare-bones workshop production — I enjoyed the way the spareness threw the characters into high relief.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the last three or four numbers, unabashed sentimentalism and sniffles dominated the audience — most of us had gone to pieces by the time we got to Lincoln and Tennessee’s “You’ve Got Me.” That’s when the real kicker hits: this musical isn’t really about politics or immigration or freeing lab rats or blockading abortion clinics. It’s about the things we allow to push and shove us into making decisions. It’s about hopes and expectations — and \u003cb>Homeland\u003c/b> exceeds them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Homeland\u003c/b> continues through December 19 at the Magic Theatre. Catch it if you can, and bring tissues with you. But if you miss it, keep your eyes peeled — a show this good is more than likely to be picked up and put onstage for a well-deserved long run.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>“Holy smokes, it’s the story of my life,” I thought during the first act of \u003cb>Homeland\u003c/b>, Jay Kuo’s terrific new musical, which has been workshopped at the New Conservatory Theatre and arrived as a semi-staged production at the Magic Theatre over the weekend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A followup to his successful romantic comedy, \u003cb>Insignificant Others\u003c/b>, \u003cb>Homeland\u003c/b> finds Kuo again mining the local landscape and coming up with a gem of a bittersweet tale about love blooming in the rarefied world of San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a curious thing that happens quite often in the Bay Area — a place where I’m startled if I run into a bona fide, born-and-bred local. No matter where we’re from though, somehow we all wind up discovering “families” for ourselves. You know the family I mean — the one with your crazy left wing activist friend, the struggling artist you met in a coffee shop, your wild and crazy, newly-freed-from-the-closet pal, and various interesting and probably left-leaning others. Kuo has built \u003cb>Homeland\u003c/b> around just such an extended family, in this case, a loosely-banded guerilla street theater group. As a love story and a tale of the divisive politics of this current generation, it will no doubt connect to audiences at many levels, but for the Bay Area crowd, it will be doubly poignant, because it tells the stories of the people that you and I know — maybe even the stories of our own lives. And as with all the best musicals, the circumstances in which our heroes find themselves might be farcical, even far-fetched, but it doesn’t matter at all, because the characters ring true.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The action splits between San Francisco and Lubbock, Texas, but the heart of \u003cb>Homeland\u003c/b> centers around the winsome Yilin Hsu and Luke Klipp as Rose and J.D, two transplants to San Francisco whose romance is buffeted by family expectations, politics, racism and circumstance. Rose’s brother Lincoln (Austin Ku), has his own romance with the gently sarcastic Tennessee (Jason Hoover) and faces up to the struggle of coming out to his mother — played with hilarious, often touching grace by Lily Tung. In a part of America miles apart geographically and ideologically, J.D.’s mom, Trudy, played with heartfelt simplicity by Kelly Ground, has fallen in with an Operation Rescue, “Flip” Benham-type preacher (Brandon Mears). It’s a complex interplay between all these personalities, ideas and prejudices that drives the action. How easy it is, after a few years in the Bay Area, to forget that elsewhere in America, people don’t see politics or life as we do here. It seemed to take a moment for the crowd at the Magic to register the fact that a romance between a Korean woman and a guy from Texas might be problematic, or to recall that there are places where people still think sushi is a queer thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Homeland\u003c/b> is an ambitious undertaking and packs a lot of commentary into a musical framework. Besides the love story, Kuo works extensive political ground from abortion rights to animal rights, from racism to fanaticism, albeit wearing decidedly blue colors on his political sleeve. Still, he dots the evening with catchy tunes and bon mots aplenty. Sweetly romantic duets like “All That We Know” and punchy production numbers like “Something in the Key of D” — a kind of cabaret riff on musical theater staples like \u003cb>Phantom of the Opera\u003c/b>, and \u003cb>The King & I\u003c/b> — show off an uncommonly confident stride.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The twelve performers — including Erin Diamantides as the left wing radical Eleanor, as well as William Brown III, Sean Grady, Mary Kalita and Nancy Dobbs Owen — make for a strong cast, forging ahead with vivacious energy, even if they are forced to sing to recorded music. Nevertheless, director George Quick has provided a clean, theatrical staging, and in a way — although I know it’s only meant to be a bare-bones workshop production — I enjoyed the way the spareness threw the characters into high relief.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the last three or four numbers, unabashed sentimentalism and sniffles dominated the audience — most of us had gone to pieces by the time we got to Lincoln and Tennessee’s “You’ve Got Me.” That’s when the real kicker hits: this musical isn’t really about politics or immigration or freeing lab rats or blockading abortion clinics. It’s about the things we allow to push and shove us into making decisions. It’s about hopes and expectations — and \u003cb>Homeland\u003c/b> exceeds them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Homeland\u003c/b> continues through December 19 at the Magic Theatre. Catch it if you can, and bring tissues with you. But if you miss it, keep your eyes peeled — a show this good is more than likely to be picked up and put onstage for a well-deserved long run.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>When art speaks truth, it hurts, and it never hurts so much as in Mark Jackson’s stylish new play \u003cb>The Forest War\u003c/b>, which runs through January 14 at the Shotgun Players’ Ashby Stage in Berkeley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Written and directed with imaginative flair, \u003cb>The Forest War\u003c/b> comes in the form of Japanese Kabuki theater, from the choreographed stylized stage movements and tableaux, to Valera Coble’s beautifully-textured elaborate costumes, to Jackson’s formalized, rhythmic dialogue. It’s a classic jidai geki, or Japanese period drama, addressing themes that are timeless and in this case, all too familiar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Forest War of the title has been prosecuted by the aging Grand Lord Karug, played by Drew Anderson, and after a decade, the long battles have decimated the country and demoralized its citizens. In theory, the war has been won, and Karug decides to pass the leadership to the peaceable Lord Kulan (Cassidy Brown) instead of his belligerent son, Lord Kain (Kevin Clarke). Thus the stage is set for your classic father/son power struggle. Read into it what you will.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>President Bush — sorry, I mean, Lord Kain — believes that the battle for the Great Oil Fields — sorry, the Great Forest — is far from finished, and he angrily plots against the peace-loving Bill Clinton — that is, Lord Kulan who has set about rebuilding the country, improving infrastructure and even — horrors! — appointing a local medicine woman (read Jocelyn Elders) and taking political counsel from his wife, Lady Ema, or if you like, Hillary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Would you be surprised to learn that Lord Kulan’s downfall is a sexual peccadillo with a young courtesan, and that the sword of state passes to Lord Kain, who invents the fiction that their enemies have risen again and restarts The Forest War with the help of General Mau Tant, i.e. Military-Industrial Complex?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course Jackson doesn’t stick slavishly to the parallels — although it would be great to think of Chelsea Clinton stabbing Bush with a paintbrush — but it’s close enough to make watching painful. Painful, not because I disliked the production, but because I find thinking about the war in Iraq extremely painful. I think we can all agree that the Oil Field War looks like an epic and archetypal story — and maybe it really is just another incarnation of the father-son struggle — but it’s difficult to watch the unfolding of a blood-covered mythopoetic story whose real-life ending has yet to be written.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All that aside, the Shotgun Players look comfortable in the movement conventions that Jackson employs as a method of defining the rich panoply of characters, similar to his use of biomechanics in the 2003 \u003cb>Death of Meyerhold\u003c/b>. Figures like the wild-haired Kain and his militaristic general Mau Tant (Reid Davis) cut across the space in aggressive diagonals, while Thu Tran’s vacillating courtier Lunnen sways in contrapposto stances. Tran also appears with Erin Mei-Ling Stuart under heavy black veiling, as mystical movers of the minimalist props and sets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A coterie of peasant figures, including Carla Pantoja as the clothmaker Madame Ajbi and Richard Reinholdt as the blacksmith Morduk, are entertaining and adept as the working class, who, like most of us plebes, are mainly caught up in the struggles of daily life — happy to gossip about court, but only reacting when the fears and rumors affect them personally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Providing expert and atmospheric accompaniment are musicians Christopher Broderick and Daniel Bruno, who play a wide range of instruments. And the scenic desig, by Melpomene Katakalos and lighting by Heather Basarab are effective in their simplicity. Two small pots of reeds stand in for a meadow, blood flows through red ribbons and the spirits of the dead make ceremonious exits through the back wall unfurling a white paper umbrella. It’s a scale that suits the limitations of a small theater troupe, but which also comes off as understated tastefulness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The biggest problem with \u003cb>The Forest War\u003c/b> is that it’s too long. It’s a bit of a challenge to sit on the Ashby Stage’s church pew seats for over two and a half hours. (As the company raises money for their new solar powered theater project, maybe a few dollars can go towards better seats.) Still, the imagery is power-packed, and worthy of a story that looks like it will already be the stuff of legend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>The Forest War\u003c/b> continues through January 14 at the Ashby Stage. \u003ca href=\"http://www.shotgunplayers.org/\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Get tickets and information\u003c/a> (at shotgunplayers.org)\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>When art speaks truth, it hurts, and it never hurts so much as in Mark Jackson’s stylish new play \u003cb>The Forest War\u003c/b>, which runs through January 14 at the Shotgun Players’ Ashby Stage in Berkeley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Written and directed with imaginative flair, \u003cb>The Forest War\u003c/b> comes in the form of Japanese Kabuki theater, from the choreographed stylized stage movements and tableaux, to Valera Coble’s beautifully-textured elaborate costumes, to Jackson’s formalized, rhythmic dialogue. It’s a classic jidai geki, or Japanese period drama, addressing themes that are timeless and in this case, all too familiar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Forest War of the title has been prosecuted by the aging Grand Lord Karug, played by Drew Anderson, and after a decade, the long battles have decimated the country and demoralized its citizens. In theory, the war has been won, and Karug decides to pass the leadership to the peaceable Lord Kulan (Cassidy Brown) instead of his belligerent son, Lord Kain (Kevin Clarke). Thus the stage is set for your classic father/son power struggle. Read into it what you will.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>President Bush — sorry, I mean, Lord Kain — believes that the battle for the Great Oil Fields — sorry, the Great Forest — is far from finished, and he angrily plots against the peace-loving Bill Clinton — that is, Lord Kulan who has set about rebuilding the country, improving infrastructure and even — horrors! — appointing a local medicine woman (read Jocelyn Elders) and taking political counsel from his wife, Lady Ema, or if you like, Hillary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Would you be surprised to learn that Lord Kulan’s downfall is a sexual peccadillo with a young courtesan, and that the sword of state passes to Lord Kain, who invents the fiction that their enemies have risen again and restarts The Forest War with the help of General Mau Tant, i.e. Military-Industrial Complex?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Randy Rutherford’s show,\u003cb>This May Feel A Little Funny\u003c/b>, is now playing at The Marsh Theater on Valencia Street. The performance takes place on a small stage under a gorgeous open-beam redwood ceiling that arches over head, lending the entire proceedings a homey, barnlike feel. While I waited for the performance to begin, strains of Willie Nelson drifted from the speakers. Despite having just stepped in from San Fran’s mecca of bohemian hipness, I felt as though we were gathered in the community center of some small, rural town.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The personal nature of Rutherford’s piece is well-suited to the venue. During his monologue he tells the story of how, after turning forty and divorcing, after experiencing a progressive hearing loss that leaves him dependent on two hearing aids and the strength of his other senses, he finds himself at a California dance camp/retreat. Every attendee (except Rutherford, apparently) is expressive and uninhibited. Rutherford, who’s self-conscious about meeting women, his dancing skills, and his deafness, chooses to watch rather than participate. One dancer is a bewitching married woman who flits around the room from man-to-man. We leave this scene and jump ahead ten years. Now, Mr. Rutherford’s touring and playing his guitar on stage. He’s been invited to perform in a distant California town and guess who’s in charge of the venue? Randy falls in love, and at the suggestion of his new mate, subjects himself to a healthier lifestyle in which he eats (many) vegetables, drinks bitter organic wines, and consents to a terrifying “cleansing” enema.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Mr. Rutherford addresses the insecurities of being middle-aged and suddenly alone (and who, really, is adequately prepared for this?), there’s something extremely reassuring about his charming delivery. He has a habit of addressing the audience directly, interrupting himself often to ask how we’re doing. In the wrong hands this device could be intrusive and annoying. But Mr. Rutherford presents his monologue as though he’s telling a story to a group of kind-souled but skeptical listeners; ultimately, he wins us over. At certain points during his monologue, Mr. Rutherford strums his guitar and sings snippets from old folk tunes — you’ll surely recognize them when you hear them. His musical presentation is gentle and pleasant. He seems right at home in our little city/big town.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Also reassuring is Randy Rutherford’s brand of humor, which seems to belong to another era. Perhaps that’s because he’s so positive — in our times, humor is most often constructed on a firm foundation of sneering; we most often laugh at someone else’s expense because the current climate makes us deeply insecure. But Rutherford pokes fun at his own impairment and his resulting self-consciousness about it without jabbing out at the world, too. It’s quite clear from his monologue that his self-consciousness originates not with others but within himself — I find the stance both unusual and brave. Randy Rutherford performs sans his hearing aids and manages to sing gorgeously and in tune. Clearly he doesn’t need the devices to express himself, and through personal expression Mr. Rutherford has beaten his adversities. Now THAT’S inspiring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Don’t get me wrong: Randy Rutherford’s performance is heartwarming, but he’s offering more than simple cracker-barrel philosophy. At times he expresses his nightmares in a way that’s downright abstract. This is especially apparent when Rutherford acts out his post-enema anxieties, personifying them by modulating his voice, twisting his limbs, and presenting us with a rapid succession of conflicting fears. In these moments, you might recognize the influence of sophisticated body-actors like Robin Williams.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the end of the night, Mr. Rutherford reveals that from his west-coast lover, he learned to open up. And what a nice thought to carry out of the theater and onto the streets of San Francisco. Our region has a reputation for self-examination, insight, and openness. That’s what I love about our part of California, and I do believe that performers like Randy Rutherford mean to perpetuate this reputation by reinforcing its truth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>This May Feel a Little Funny\u003c/b> runs through December 2, 2006 at the Marsh. For \u003ca href=\"http://www.themarsh.org/feelfunny.html\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">tickets and information\u003c/a> visit themarsh.org.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Randy Rutherford’s show,\u003cb>This May Feel A Little Funny\u003c/b>, is now playing at The Marsh Theater on Valencia Street. The performance takes place on a small stage under a gorgeous open-beam redwood ceiling that arches over head, lending the entire proceedings a homey, barnlike feel. While I waited for the performance to begin, strains of Willie Nelson drifted from the speakers. Despite having just stepped in from San Fran’s mecca of bohemian hipness, I felt as though we were gathered in the community center of some small, rural town.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The personal nature of Rutherford’s piece is well-suited to the venue. During his monologue he tells the story of how, after turning forty and divorcing, after experiencing a progressive hearing loss that leaves him dependent on two hearing aids and the strength of his other senses, he finds himself at a California dance camp/retreat. Every attendee (except Rutherford, apparently) is expressive and uninhibited. Rutherford, who’s self-conscious about meeting women, his dancing skills, and his deafness, chooses to watch rather than participate. One dancer is a bewitching married woman who flits around the room from man-to-man. We leave this scene and jump ahead ten years. Now, Mr. Rutherford’s touring and playing his guitar on stage. He’s been invited to perform in a distant California town and guess who’s in charge of the venue? Randy falls in love, and at the suggestion of his new mate, subjects himself to a healthier lifestyle in which he eats (many) vegetables, drinks bitter organic wines, and consents to a terrifying “cleansing” enema.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Mr. Rutherford addresses the insecurities of being middle-aged and suddenly alone (and who, really, is adequately prepared for this?), there’s something extremely reassuring about his charming delivery. He has a habit of addressing the audience directly, interrupting himself often to ask how we’re doing. In the wrong hands this device could be intrusive and annoying. But Mr. Rutherford presents his monologue as though he’s telling a story to a group of kind-souled but skeptical listeners; ultimately, he wins us over. At certain points during his monologue, Mr. Rutherford strums his guitar and sings snippets from old folk tunes — you’ll surely recognize them when you hear them. His musical presentation is gentle and pleasant. He seems right at home in our little city/big town.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Also reassuring is Randy Rutherford’s brand of humor, which seems to belong to another era. Perhaps that’s because he’s so positive — in our times, humor is most often constructed on a firm foundation of sneering; we most often laugh at someone else’s expense because the current climate makes us deeply insecure. But Rutherford pokes fun at his own impairment and his resulting self-consciousness about it without jabbing out at the world, too. It’s quite clear from his monologue that his self-consciousness originates not with others but within himself — I find the stance both unusual and brave. Randy Rutherford performs sans his hearing aids and manages to sing gorgeously and in tune. Clearly he doesn’t need the devices to express himself, and through personal expression Mr. Rutherford has beaten his adversities. Now THAT’S inspiring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Don’t get me wrong: Randy Rutherford’s performance is heartwarming, but he’s offering more than simple cracker-barrel philosophy. At times he expresses his nightmares in a way that’s downright abstract. This is especially apparent when Rutherford acts out his post-enema anxieties, personifying them by modulating his voice, twisting his limbs, and presenting us with a rapid succession of conflicting fears. In these moments, you might recognize the influence of sophisticated body-actors like Robin Williams.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the end of the night, Mr. Rutherford reveals that from his west-coast lover, he learned to open up. And what a nice thought to carry out of the theater and onto the streets of San Francisco. Our region has a reputation for self-examination, insight, and openness. That’s what I love about our part of California, and I do believe that performers like Randy Rutherford mean to perpetuate this reputation by reinforcing its truth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>This May Feel a Little Funny\u003c/b> runs through December 2, 2006 at the Marsh. For \u003ca href=\"http://www.themarsh.org/feelfunny.html\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">tickets and information\u003c/a> visit themarsh.org.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>We’ve all got problems, and as you know, our problems can seem overwhelming. Here’s what I’ve heard people talking about on the street: Kim Jong Il, global warming, the shootings in The Castro, renegade drivers, and the fact that every fifteen days (on average) someone jumps off the Golden Gate Bridge. All this is just the tip of the iceberg, as each of us has to cope with our private problems. Before there was Prozac, how did people cope? Were our problems less weighty in the past?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jennifer Berry, who wrote and is the sole actor in The Marsh Theater’s \u003cb>Big Pharma\u003c/b>, believes they weren’t less weighty at all. Slipping into her grandmother’s voice, Berry explains why, during The Great Depression, a woman carried a white handkerchief: first, she might need to cry; second, tears could sneak up on a friend or stranger, and at such times one wanted to offer comfort. Back before there were pills meant to numb us to sadness we, as a culture, allowed ourselves to experience pain’s depths, and from there we could fully recover. Now, says Berry, the pscho-pharmaceutical companies target women in their thirties and convince us that we’re in unnecessary pain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is certainly food for thought, and it was nice to think it while attending The Marsh Theater, which is located in San Francisco’s hip Valencia district. The theater doesn’t look like much from the outside, but inside there’s a great bar where patrons can buy drinks and baked goods before the performance. Further in, the red vinyl seats that face the stage from three sides are striking in contrast with the black walls and floor. There’s something about this stylish, contemporary interior that informs Berry’s frightening depiction of a slick drug company representative. Wearing a white lab coat and sturdy glasses, she plays this part with snarky condescension. The audience loved this character in particular, and the commercials she showed for drugs such as Lexapro were, like the representative, easy to watch with irony. Too easy, perhaps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Berry inhabited a variety of characters as she told their stories. Many of them were said to be old friends of Berry’s generation, fellow Gen X-ers who’d gone on medications that suspended their sufferings, rendering their voices airy and flat. The most striking of these characters provides us with a spark of personality the drugs haven’t quenched. She is a bi-racial woman named Maria who speaks English with a heavy accent and whose Spanish flies off her tongue. While playing Maria, Berry strides across the stage with a liveliness that seems especially poignant given the idea that Maria was diagnosed as bi-polar. Maria tells us her medication is destroying the dualities that define her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Berry’s stance might not sit well with everyone. Of course her target audience — women presently in their mid-thirties — is a skeptical bunch. We’re as wary of art’s tendency to manipulate as we are of advertisements. Most controversial is how Berry implies that mental illness is a sane reaction to society’s ills and an expression of individuality. Yes, it’s unconscionable that corporations profit by pushing drugs meant to squelch our feelings. But for some mentally ill people, feelings run so amok that a passing gesture or a coincidence becomes disproportionately sinister. \u003cb>Big Pharma\u003c/b> succeeds if we consider that Berry is so obviously channeling her private sadness. Add to that her talent for slipping into character, changing her stance and delivery so that each is very clearly defined. This ability lends her message some credence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Berry reiterates her case in the end of \u003cb>Big Pbarma\u003c/b> when, in a voice shaky with age, she quietly relates her grandmother’s story of sadness felt, shared and overcome. I left the theater wondering if the solution is that simple. Would passing around handkerchiefs really make us happier? And then I realized there’s nothing simple about Berry’s solution at all. After all, what could be simpler than swallowing a pill?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Big Pharma\u003c/b> is at The Marsh through December 10. Call: (415) 838-3006 or (800) 826-5750 for tickets.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cp>“Stew” is a great moniker for the rock musician-poet-filmmaker, all-around-performing-artist, whose \u003cb>Passing Strange\u003c/b> made its bow last week at Berkeley Rep. He’s a rich mix of flavors, a bubbling cauldron of ideas and talents, and his latest effort, which takes an autobiographical look at his development as a young black musician, is a kind of spicy recipe based on his life. Some of the ingredients might seem improbable, but the final dish is worth savoring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Passing Strange\u003c/b> takes its title from Othello’s description of how he won Desdemona’s heart. But as with much of the wordsmithy in this play — which Stew and partner Heidi Rodewald first developed at the Sundance Institute and which will move on to New York’s Public Theater after the Berkeley run — “passing” is meant to encompass numerous other meanings: passing for white or passing for black, being passed up, passing through, passing on. The word itself has a sense of restlessness that is reflected in the rhythm of the play as well as the music, as it follows Stew’s youthful escapades — a Baptist upbringing in LA and coming of age amidst rarefied surroundings in Amsterdam and Berlin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Billed as a rock musical, \u003cb>Passing Strange\u003c/b> reminds me, not of large-scale spectacles like \u003cb>Tommy\u003c/b> or even the old Genesis concerts, but rather of more intimate journeys on the scale of \u003cb>The Fantasticks\u003c/b> or \u003cb>Godspell\u003c/b>, evincing the kind of wide-eyed naiveté that only comes with canny theatricality. The show traces its origins back to the semi-autobiographical ballads and laconic patter that Stew developed as the front man for a band called The Negro Problem. On the Thrust Stage, he remains front and center as the Narrator, with band members (Rodewald on bass, Marc Doten on keyboard, Russ Kleiner on drums and Jon Spurney on guitar) scattered around the space in “mini-pits.” The sets are often just simple chairs and tables and two rolling racks of Annie Smart’s well chosen costumes serve as the rich repository for new characters taken on by Eisa Davis, Colman Domingo, Rebecca Naomi Jones, Chad Goodridge, De’adre Aziza. But at the heart of the adventure is Stew’s fictional counterpart, Daniel Breaker, as the middle class black youth whose quest to find himself leads from funk and groove to punk to arthaus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are a few spectacular moments. Midway through, the actors unveil David Korins and Kevin Adams’ white wall of primary-colored fluorescent bulbs arranged Mondrian-like to create an Impressionist version of Amsterdam’s Red Light District. When the scene moves on to Berlin, Domingo launches into an amusing pseudo-Sprockets bit that leaves Breaker with a look of thorough confusion. It’s the kind of confused look you recognize immediately if, say, you’ve ever taken someone to see an evening of the Frankfurt Ballet golfing dildos off the end of the opera house stage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the most part though, this musical is nothing too heavy. It’s more about the infectious joyousness of the music, and the literate and sometimes observant, poetry, which reeks of the wonder of life. But one wonders if a show like this can ever be performed without Stew himself, whose presence is the glue that holds the whole premise together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Moments of personal resonance crop up in unexpected ways. In the second act, Rodewald sings a plaintive song about loss and Stew, who had been watching his alter ego, suddenly regards his bassist, who is his partner in life as well as art.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He never saw the point of love without understanding,” he says later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rodewald fixes Stew in her gaze and says directly, “How about now?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Passing Strange\u003c/b> is clearly still a work in development. The ending, an upbeat drinking song, has a bit of the thrown-together, appended look about it, but it is immediately preceded by a eulogy that would have resonated for anyone who’s swum around in foreign places looking for “home” and “family.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From the early previews and reviews on \u003cb>Passing Strange\u003c/b> it looks as though everyone is still trying to figure out a category for it — rock musical? Performance art? Afro-Baroque cabaret? I have no idea what it is, but whatever it is, it’s terrific entertainment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Passing Strange\u003c/b> continues at Berkeley Rep through Dec 3, 2006. For further information and tickets visit \u003ca href=\"http://www.berkeleyrep.org/\" target=\"offsite\" rel=\"noopener\">Berkeley Repertory Theater\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cp>First let me say that I’m all for the trying. The \u003cb>Noh Pressure Cooker Festival\u003c/b>, which ran over three weekends in October, is meant to offer a range of new works by the NOHSpace’s resident troupe Theatre of Yugen. Now in its 28th season, this active group of performers studies a variety of techniques centered around the venerable 600-year old Japanese theater form, but their focus in the \u003cb>Pressure Cooker Festival\u003c/b> is new work and contemporary stories. Anyone wandering in looking for a classical Noh version of \u003cb>The Tale of Genji\u003c/b> is in the wrong place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the air of experimentation is admirable, however, the execution still leaves something of a slapdash feeling. Enthusiasm for their work obviously informed the three pieces on display on the second weekend, but the overall impression was that these were works-in-progress that, for the most part, were just not thoroughly thought out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Libby Zilber’s \u003cb>Chu-no-mai Remix\u003c/b>, which opened the show, strove to demonstrate the underpinnings of the training dance of the title, which according to the program notes is one traditionally used in Noh theater pieces. Divided into two parts — the first a film and the second a demonstration of chu-no-mai with Yugen’s artistic director Zilber on Noh flute accompanying co-artistic director Jubilith Moore’s dance-demonstration — the whole affair came off as part didactic and part etude.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The film was recorded at the troupe’s retreat at Circle W Ranch as well as the Burning Man decompression party. The result is a dizzying (and I mean that literally, given the amateurish \u003cb>Blair Witch Project\u003c/b> camerawork) and — to the uninitiated — incomprehensible blur of clips. People in the woods with sticks, with cleavers, moving solo or in groups, splashing in the lake. It somehow reminded me of those wintry afternoons when my geeky friends and I used to cut school to play out our own episodes of \u003cb>Star Wars\u003c/b> in Central Park. They were elaborate productions, sometimes requiring props and borrowed blankets for cloaks — but it was all very much for ourselves, not for anyone else to see.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More traditionally Noh and worthy of further development was \u003cb>Internment of the Heart\u003c/b>. Undoubtedly the most fully realized of the three, it was the only one to use an integrated text, based on haiku poetry composed by Japanese-Americans interned in camps during World War II.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Yugen” is a word that implies the deep, dark richness of the spirit world, which often emerges in Noh works. In \u003cb>Internment\u003c/b> it is personified by Moore as the wind, but the demons and ghosts lie within the characters. With a looming white circle that served as both a moon and a screen for slides of real internment papers, three characters (Julie Brown, Yugen co-artistic director Lluis Valls and Stephen Siegel) trudge through the indignities of the concentration camp tagged and numbered like so much department store merchandise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The piece has room to improve of course — it’s far too long for one thing. And when the characters step out of the poetry and into explicit literality, we see the seams of the play’s construction and its effort to espouse a cause, rather than simply tell the story. Nevertheless, \u003cb>Internment\u003c/b> elegantly adapted a poetical Noh sensibility to a 20th century story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The final piece, \u003cb>Clowns on the Moon\u003c/b>, seemed like an elaborate afterthought. The program notes mention that none of the routines in this piece are original — indeed they are not. Accompanied by Max Baloian and Jason Ditzian — on, variously, clarinet, sax, guitar and drum — the six players (Brady Gill, Christina Lewis, James Pelican, Jules Pelican, David Rosenfeld and Valls) reenact the famous “eating a leather workboot” scene from Charlie Chaplin’s 1925 film \u003cb>Gold RushL\u003c/b>, and other vaguely familiar routines that resonate from childhood: a clown covered in telephones, or battling with a lamp, another one tentatively emerging from a picture frame.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still the whole shebang looks to me like an embarrassing violation of the unwritten clown code, the centuries old — and very serious — tradition in clowning which dictates that you don’t steal someone else’s bits. But most unforgivably of all, they are not funny — and you can’t blame the material.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Noh Pressure Cooker\u003c/b> ran October 1-19, 2006 at Noh Space.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>First let me say that I’m all for the trying. The \u003cb>Noh Pressure Cooker Festival\u003c/b>, which ran over three weekends in October, is meant to offer a range of new works by the NOHSpace’s resident troupe Theatre of Yugen. Now in its 28th season, this active group of performers studies a variety of techniques centered around the venerable 600-year old Japanese theater form, but their focus in the \u003cb>Pressure Cooker Festival\u003c/b> is new work and contemporary stories. Anyone wandering in looking for a classical Noh version of \u003cb>The Tale of Genji\u003c/b> is in the wrong place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the air of experimentation is admirable, however, the execution still leaves something of a slapdash feeling. Enthusiasm for their work obviously informed the three pieces on display on the second weekend, but the overall impression was that these were works-in-progress that, for the most part, were just not thoroughly thought out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Libby Zilber’s \u003cb>Chu-no-mai Remix\u003c/b>, which opened the show, strove to demonstrate the underpinnings of the training dance of the title, which according to the program notes is one traditionally used in Noh theater pieces. Divided into two parts — the first a film and the second a demonstration of chu-no-mai with Yugen’s artistic director Zilber on Noh flute accompanying co-artistic director Jubilith Moore’s dance-demonstration — the whole affair came off as part didactic and part etude.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The film was recorded at the troupe’s retreat at Circle W Ranch as well as the Burning Man decompression party. The result is a dizzying (and I mean that literally, given the amateurish \u003cb>Blair Witch Project\u003c/b> camerawork) and — to the uninitiated — incomprehensible blur of clips. People in the woods with sticks, with cleavers, moving solo or in groups, splashing in the lake. It somehow reminded me of those wintry afternoons when my geeky friends and I used to cut school to play out our own episodes of \u003cb>Star Wars\u003c/b> in Central Park. They were elaborate productions, sometimes requiring props and borrowed blankets for cloaks — but it was all very much for ourselves, not for anyone else to see.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More traditionally Noh and worthy of further development was \u003cb>Internment of the Heart\u003c/b>. Undoubtedly the most fully realized of the three, it was the only one to use an integrated text, based on haiku poetry composed by Japanese-Americans interned in camps during World War II.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Yugen” is a word that implies the deep, dark richness of the spirit world, which often emerges in Noh works. In \u003cb>Internment\u003c/b> it is personified by Moore as the wind, but the demons and ghosts lie within the characters. With a looming white circle that served as both a moon and a screen for slides of real internment papers, three characters (Julie Brown, Yugen co-artistic director Lluis Valls and Stephen Siegel) trudge through the indignities of the concentration camp tagged and numbered like so much department store merchandise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The piece has room to improve of course — it’s far too long for one thing. And when the characters step out of the poetry and into explicit literality, we see the seams of the play’s construction and its effort to espouse a cause, rather than simply tell the story. Nevertheless, \u003cb>Internment\u003c/b> elegantly adapted a poetical Noh sensibility to a 20th century story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The final piece, \u003cb>Clowns on the Moon\u003c/b>, seemed like an elaborate afterthought. The program notes mention that none of the routines in this piece are original — indeed they are not. Accompanied by Max Baloian and Jason Ditzian — on, variously, clarinet, sax, guitar and drum — the six players (Brady Gill, Christina Lewis, James Pelican, Jules Pelican, David Rosenfeld and Valls) reenact the famous “eating a leather workboot” scene from Charlie Chaplin’s 1925 film \u003cb>Gold RushL\u003c/b>, and other vaguely familiar routines that resonate from childhood: a clown covered in telephones, or battling with a lamp, another one tentatively emerging from a picture frame.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still the whole shebang looks to me like an embarrassing violation of the unwritten clown code, the centuries old — and very serious — tradition in clowning which dictates that you don’t steal someone else’s bits. But most unforgivably of all, they are not funny — and you can’t blame the material.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Noh Pressure Cooker\u003c/b> ran October 1-19, 2006 at Noh Space.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>The other night I saw Bekah McNeil’s production of \u003cb>Cowboy Mouth\u003c/b>, a play written by Sam Shepard and Patti Smith, at The Exit Theater. The Exit’s an unassuming place with only a sign reading “EXIT” out front to distinguish it. This sign, which glows right near the entrance, is a very Shepard-like touch. His plays often contain out-of-place objects that make deep sense; that is, they seem to originate in our dreams, where the anomalous symbol takes on a meaning personal to the dreamer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But before I tell you about what I witnessed that night, I have a question: have you ever secretly wished to be famous? Or more to the point: can you imagine sabotaging your wildest dream?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The play begins when one character, Slim, enters a dirty apartment at gunpoint. Behind him, dancing and waving a pistol, is his lover, Cavale, who lives in the apartment. Aside from their physical attraction, the two have a strong artistic connection because Slim WANTS to be a creator/star and Cavale is creative to the point of near-madness. But on the night of the play’s action Slim can’t give himself entirely to Cavale because he’s remorseful about what he’s just lost by chasing her — his wife and his child. In other words, he’s thrown away his entire past in service to his dreams of fame. All evening Cavale urges him to shed the past entirely and emerge in a future where he will be a rock n’ roll Jesus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I can only imagine how emotionally difficult it must have been for Shepard to play Slim’s role when \u003cb>Cowboy Mouth\u003c/b> opened in 1971 (which he did, for one night, then he fled the production) because at the time he’d just left his wife and child for Patti Smith. But this production’s Slim, Chris Carlone, is mischevious, reckless, and volatile. The real anguish of the situation — Slim’s (and Shepard’s) sudden uprooting — never seemed to make it to the surface. Instead, Carlone’s Slim comes across as spoiled, critical of his lover, and certainly not deserving of the worship Cavale wants to heap on him. Cavale, played by Kimberly Schooling, is mad, vulnerable, and full of a potential she (that is, the character) doesn’t realize. Her Cavale is full of charisma, which is interesting, because Slim believes that HE’S the main attraction, as he made the greater sacrifice in order to carry on with Cavale. This isn’t necessarily a brand-new spin on the play, but for me it was a new spin on my view of Sam Shepard, who I’ve revered since the first time I read something by him. It’s very apparent in this production that the Shepard who co-wrote the piece was young and confused and felt out of his league when dating Patti Smith. He was very human, indeed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In between scenes Chris Kaup, a sweet-faced, mournful man wearing a fringed cowboy shirt, provides an unobtrusive but haunting soundtrack of original music. This device is a little startling at first, but once I got used to the idea of having a musician off to the side of the stage, I found that the accompaniment provides a soft frame for — and a little respite from — the cruel drama.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the course of the evening Slim orders a lobster dinner. It’s delivered, to the couple’s amusement, by a creepy human-sized lobster. After the lobster drops off the food, the couple taunts each other in a way that’s brutal and sexual all at once, never getting satisfactorily comfortable as a couple. Later, because they aren’t sufficiently amusing each other, they call the lobster man back and beg him to return. He does, and Slim is finally able to leave Cavale and relieve himself of his own dreams — and Cavale’s expectations — that he will be a rock-god. Kris Kaup, the musical accompanist, plays the role of the giant lobster. Very well, I might add. His presence is thrillingly disturbing, especially when he literally emerges from his carapace and turns out to be the rock god Cavale was waiting for, and he’s as soft and vulnerable as the musical numbers that accompany the play.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This version of \u003cb>Cowboy Mouth\u003c/b> has a lot to say about the nature of fame. To become famous one must make a lot of personal sacrifices, channel the audience’s desires in lieu of one’s true identity, and become incredibly vulnerable in the process. At the beginning of the play, Slim makes the initial sacrifice by severing his ties to the past, but by the end he rejects fame in order to hang on to the one thing he can’t sacrifice: himself. The idea that the self is the last bastion of humanity is a very American notion, so Bekah McNeil’s take on the play — that to cling to the self is, well, SELFISH — made me question this notion. Which was a little disorienting, much in the way dreams can be disorienting, because sure, I understand that celebrity is supposed to be difficult, but having never tasted it I can’t quite shake the notion that fame is some kind of jackpot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A Sam Shepard play is wide open to interpretational nuance, so please, judge for yourself and go see this play! Better yet, bring a few friends, think on it for a little while, and then discuss what you saw. Believe me, during that discussion you’ll learn at least one new thing about your dreams, whether you expect them to be realized or not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cowboy Mouth\u003c/b> runs October 5 – 21, 2006 at Exit Theatre. Call 415.218.6033 for tickets.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The other night I saw Bekah McNeil’s production of \u003cb>Cowboy Mouth\u003c/b>, a play written by Sam Shepard and Patti Smith, at The Exit Theater. The Exit’s an unassuming place with only a sign reading “EXIT” out front to distinguish it. This sign, which glows right near the entrance, is a very Shepard-like touch. His plays often contain out-of-place objects that make deep sense; that is, they seem to originate in our dreams, where the anomalous symbol takes on a meaning personal to the dreamer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But before I tell you about what I witnessed that night, I have a question: have you ever secretly wished to be famous? Or more to the point: can you imagine sabotaging your wildest dream?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The play begins when one character, Slim, enters a dirty apartment at gunpoint. Behind him, dancing and waving a pistol, is his lover, Cavale, who lives in the apartment. Aside from their physical attraction, the two have a strong artistic connection because Slim WANTS to be a creator/star and Cavale is creative to the point of near-madness. But on the night of the play’s action Slim can’t give himself entirely to Cavale because he’s remorseful about what he’s just lost by chasing her — his wife and his child. In other words, he’s thrown away his entire past in service to his dreams of fame. All evening Cavale urges him to shed the past entirely and emerge in a future where he will be a rock n’ roll Jesus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I can only imagine how emotionally difficult it must have been for Shepard to play Slim’s role when \u003cb>Cowboy Mouth\u003c/b> opened in 1971 (which he did, for one night, then he fled the production) because at the time he’d just left his wife and child for Patti Smith. But this production’s Slim, Chris Carlone, is mischevious, reckless, and volatile. The real anguish of the situation — Slim’s (and Shepard’s) sudden uprooting — never seemed to make it to the surface. Instead, Carlone’s Slim comes across as spoiled, critical of his lover, and certainly not deserving of the worship Cavale wants to heap on him. Cavale, played by Kimberly Schooling, is mad, vulnerable, and full of a potential she (that is, the character) doesn’t realize. Her Cavale is full of charisma, which is interesting, because Slim believes that HE’S the main attraction, as he made the greater sacrifice in order to carry on with Cavale. This isn’t necessarily a brand-new spin on the play, but for me it was a new spin on my view of Sam Shepard, who I’ve revered since the first time I read something by him. It’s very apparent in this production that the Shepard who co-wrote the piece was young and confused and felt out of his league when dating Patti Smith. He was very human, indeed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In between scenes Chris Kaup, a sweet-faced, mournful man wearing a fringed cowboy shirt, provides an unobtrusive but haunting soundtrack of original music. This device is a little startling at first, but once I got used to the idea of having a musician off to the side of the stage, I found that the accompaniment provides a soft frame for — and a little respite from — the cruel drama.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the course of the evening Slim orders a lobster dinner. It’s delivered, to the couple’s amusement, by a creepy human-sized lobster. After the lobster drops off the food, the couple taunts each other in a way that’s brutal and sexual all at once, never getting satisfactorily comfortable as a couple. Later, because they aren’t sufficiently amusing each other, they call the lobster man back and beg him to return. He does, and Slim is finally able to leave Cavale and relieve himself of his own dreams — and Cavale’s expectations — that he will be a rock-god. Kris Kaup, the musical accompanist, plays the role of the giant lobster. Very well, I might add. His presence is thrillingly disturbing, especially when he literally emerges from his carapace and turns out to be the rock god Cavale was waiting for, and he’s as soft and vulnerable as the musical numbers that accompany the play.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This version of \u003cb>Cowboy Mouth\u003c/b> has a lot to say about the nature of fame. To become famous one must make a lot of personal sacrifices, channel the audience’s desires in lieu of one’s true identity, and become incredibly vulnerable in the process. At the beginning of the play, Slim makes the initial sacrifice by severing his ties to the past, but by the end he rejects fame in order to hang on to the one thing he can’t sacrifice: himself. The idea that the self is the last bastion of humanity is a very American notion, so Bekah McNeil’s take on the play — that to cling to the self is, well, SELFISH — made me question this notion. Which was a little disorienting, much in the way dreams can be disorienting, because sure, I understand that celebrity is supposed to be difficult, but having never tasted it I can’t quite shake the notion that fame is some kind of jackpot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A Sam Shepard play is wide open to interpretational nuance, so please, judge for yourself and go see this play! Better yet, bring a few friends, think on it for a little while, and then discuss what you saw. Believe me, during that discussion you’ll learn at least one new thing about your dreams, whether you expect them to be realized or not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cowboy Mouth\u003c/b> runs October 5 – 21, 2006 at Exit Theatre. Call 415.218.6033 for tickets.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>The Dark Room Theater is located in that area of Mission between 19th and 20th, where you can find some truly great Mexican food but you shouldn’t let that distract you from guarding your purse. The front of the building is painted black, and until show time a black accordion gate bars the narrow entryway. Once the proprietor unlocks the gate, note that the front door’s offset so that what goes on inside the theater can’t be glimpsed from the street — there’s something clandestine-feeling about entering The Dark Room.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I went to The Dark Room to see Jennifer Blowdryer’s comedy act, \u003cb>The Mind of Blowdryer\u003c/b>, and while I waited in my seat for the show to begin, I had only vague notions about what to expect, pieced together from what I’d found on the internet. I’d gathered that she’s a worldly Jewish punk rock singer with a wild past and a good head on her shoulders. And in order to get an idea of the context in which she was performing, I’d read about a few of The Dark Room’s other featured events. Such as every third Wednesday night at 8pm, which The Dark Room has dubbed \u003cb>Bad Porn Night\u003c/b>. Then there’s Thursdays, when the theater hosts its weekly \u003cb>American Fido\u003c/b> contest, a spinoff of American Idol; the idea, however, is to find the worst act in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Having learned all this, I expected camp. Art that’s racy and mannered and makes light of art. But I didn’t expect the casual, impromptu feel of the show, which wasn’t racy at all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jennifer Blowdryer came out on stage wearing a tousled wig, ripped fishnets, and a plaid dress that could barely contain her. She introduced herself in a way that was part comedy routine and part conversation with the audience. Clearly we were welcome to sass back, and while few of us did, the evening had the unrehearsed tone of a party.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ms. Blowdryer then sat with the audience to watch a DVD featuring some of her friends, comedy skit actors living in New York. One actress, Johanna Buccola, stood out for playing several distinct characters: a drawling, laconic Southern beauty in lingerie intent on showing us just how much she loved her brand-name skin products; a hyperactive woman blurting strange, self-revealing facts about herself to her evasive first date; and finally a Christian woman leading a tour of her church, her every gesture made hurky and awkward with what seemed to be immense sexual repression. Before airing this final skit, Ms. Blowdryer warned us that she could barely watch Buccola’s act. And part of the way through she left the room, reminding us that if we, too, found it unbearable, she would stop the DVD. Not one of us did, though, because while they were certainly grotesque, each character Johanna Buccola played was fascinating and hilarious.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During this evening’s act two, a blonde male actor performed a monologue in the voice of a drunk guy who, during the course of one evening, gets evicted from several bars. Then a statuesque woman wearing striped tights came out of the audience to tell her story of being kicked out of a fetish club for doing something that, considering the context, seemed as though it might be permissible. (Though in the vast majority of other public contexts, one might run the risk of getting arrested for committing the act she described.) And Jennifer Blowdryer herself described a night during which she went home with someone who may or may not have been Cher and was subsequently kicked out for vomiting all over her hostess’s fur bedcover.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Throughout the evening Blowdryer appeared to be very at ease. This was interesting, as the evening’s subject matter and the kinds of characters we’d seen on the screen seemed tied together by one theme: the rejected outsider. One doesn’t expect a rejected outsider to be so gracious and warm. It was as though we, the audience, were being called upon to remember being excluded, to recognize that exclusion doesn’t amount to much in the long run, and that for the evening the performers and viewers alike were INCLUDED by virtue of having been — each of us, at some point in our lives — excluded.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the end of the evening, having adjusted to my surroundings, I stepped out to the street less concerned about my purse. On the corner a man lay on the sidewalk, clutching his chest. He appeared to be bleeding. The crowd that surrounded him consisted of concerned and capable-looking people; some were ordering the man to stay awake, others were on their cell phones seeking assistance, and still others waited on the perifery in case fate called on them to spring to action.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s funny, the things that can bring us together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>The Mind of Blowdryer\u003c/b> plays Fridays, September 22 and 29, 2006. Show starts at 8pm. Call 415-401-7987 for info.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The Dark Room Theater is located in that area of Mission between 19th and 20th, where you can find some truly great Mexican food but you shouldn’t let that distract you from guarding your purse. The front of the building is painted black, and until show time a black accordion gate bars the narrow entryway. Once the proprietor unlocks the gate, note that the front door’s offset so that what goes on inside the theater can’t be glimpsed from the street — there’s something clandestine-feeling about entering The Dark Room.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I went to The Dark Room to see Jennifer Blowdryer’s comedy act, \u003cb>The Mind of Blowdryer\u003c/b>, and while I waited in my seat for the show to begin, I had only vague notions about what to expect, pieced together from what I’d found on the internet. I’d gathered that she’s a worldly Jewish punk rock singer with a wild past and a good head on her shoulders. And in order to get an idea of the context in which she was performing, I’d read about a few of The Dark Room’s other featured events. Such as every third Wednesday night at 8pm, which The Dark Room has dubbed \u003cb>Bad Porn Night\u003c/b>. Then there’s Thursdays, when the theater hosts its weekly \u003cb>American Fido\u003c/b> contest, a spinoff of American Idol; the idea, however, is to find the worst act in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Having learned all this, I expected camp. Art that’s racy and mannered and makes light of art. But I didn’t expect the casual, impromptu feel of the show, which wasn’t racy at all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jennifer Blowdryer came out on stage wearing a tousled wig, ripped fishnets, and a plaid dress that could barely contain her. She introduced herself in a way that was part comedy routine and part conversation with the audience. Clearly we were welcome to sass back, and while few of us did, the evening had the unrehearsed tone of a party.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ms. Blowdryer then sat with the audience to watch a DVD featuring some of her friends, comedy skit actors living in New York. One actress, Johanna Buccola, stood out for playing several distinct characters: a drawling, laconic Southern beauty in lingerie intent on showing us just how much she loved her brand-name skin products; a hyperactive woman blurting strange, self-revealing facts about herself to her evasive first date; and finally a Christian woman leading a tour of her church, her every gesture made hurky and awkward with what seemed to be immense sexual repression. Before airing this final skit, Ms. Blowdryer warned us that she could barely watch Buccola’s act. And part of the way through she left the room, reminding us that if we, too, found it unbearable, she would stop the DVD. Not one of us did, though, because while they were certainly grotesque, each character Johanna Buccola played was fascinating and hilarious.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During this evening’s act two, a blonde male actor performed a monologue in the voice of a drunk guy who, during the course of one evening, gets evicted from several bars. Then a statuesque woman wearing striped tights came out of the audience to tell her story of being kicked out of a fetish club for doing something that, considering the context, seemed as though it might be permissible. (Though in the vast majority of other public contexts, one might run the risk of getting arrested for committing the act she described.) And Jennifer Blowdryer herself described a night during which she went home with someone who may or may not have been Cher and was subsequently kicked out for vomiting all over her hostess’s fur bedcover.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Throughout the evening Blowdryer appeared to be very at ease. This was interesting, as the evening’s subject matter and the kinds of characters we’d seen on the screen seemed tied together by one theme: the rejected outsider. One doesn’t expect a rejected outsider to be so gracious and warm. It was as though we, the audience, were being called upon to remember being excluded, to recognize that exclusion doesn’t amount to much in the long run, and that for the evening the performers and viewers alike were INCLUDED by virtue of having been — each of us, at some point in our lives — excluded.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the end of the evening, having adjusted to my surroundings, I stepped out to the street less concerned about my purse. On the corner a man lay on the sidewalk, clutching his chest. He appeared to be bleeding. The crowd that surrounded him consisted of concerned and capable-looking people; some were ordering the man to stay awake, others were on their cell phones seeking assistance, and still others waited on the perifery in case fate called on them to spring to action.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s funny, the things that can bring us together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>The Mind of Blowdryer\u003c/b> plays Fridays, September 22 and 29, 2006. Show starts at 8pm. Call 415-401-7987 for info.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Hello, my name is Alison and I am a musical theater geek. You wouldn’t know it from looking at me. I won’t go so far as to say I am closeted, because I have recently come clean about this, and have even gone so far as to admit (and even brag) that I am writing a full-length Broadway musical. It will probably take me about ten years to finish it, but it will happen. In the meantime, I am happy to embrace and express my inner M.T.G., and to mourn the lost years where I buried this passion under layers of cool ass rock n’ roll.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I spent most of my childhood and early adolescence performing in musicals and plays, and the absolute happiest moments of my life were play rehearsals. Even more than the performances, I loved being at rehearsal. It was a special, insulated place where my talents were recognized, my friends were all around me, and most of all — I belonged. In the outside world, and at school, I was too smart, too Jewish, had a big butt, had divorced parents, was an only child, preferred listening to records to playing with other kids. But at play rehearsal I was part of an elite group of people who were working on something important, learning lines, singing, dancing, blocking scenes, all those cool fun things that I loved more than anything in the world. We would start after school, and work into the evening, when it would feel incredibly romantic and glamorous to be toiling so late into the night. In reality it was probably only six o’clock, but it sure felt exciting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At some point, that all changed. It’s sad to think about, but there were several factors that turned me away from musical theater. I honestly saw theater as my career path, my calling, and my lot in life. But then the musical theater director left our high school, and I discovered smoking pot and punk rock. I continued to act in plays and even went to NYU theater school for my freshman year of college, but at some point I decided that theater was clearly for the uncool, self-absorbed actorly types, and I just wanted to play in rock bands. My attitude won the fight, and that was that — I switched majors, started a band and never looked back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But during those lovely years when I was all-singing-all-dancing-all-the-time, I had the good fortune of seeing some original musicals on Broadway during their initial runs. \u003cb>Godspell\u003c/b>, \u003cb>Annie\u003c/b>, \u003cb>The Wiz\u003c/b>, and best of all — \u003cb>A Chorus Line\u003c/b>. I had never experienced anything like it. Even at ten years old, \u003cb>A Chorus Line\u003c/b> spoke to my soul. I probably didn’t understand most of the dirty jokes, and some of the more sophisticated ideas may have floated right over my head, but I sure got what that play was about. It was about loving everything about performing, and never being able to let go of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The current production of \u003cb>A Chorus Line\u003c/b> playing here in San Francisco is about to open on Broadway, and it brings back all the passion and beauty and pathos of the original, without modernizing a single word. For those uninitiated, \u003cb>A Chorus Line\u003c/b> takes place at the audition for a Broadway show. The actors stand in a line and answer questions about themselves asked by a director who sits in front of the stage. Their personal revelations turn into universal truths, and ultimately fantastic songs. Sure, the cultural references are outdated, and the musical arrangement is ’70s cheeseball Broadway (written by Marvin Hamlisch, for chrissakes!), but somehow the show has remained an absolute marvel, a true masterpiece of its kind. And oh, those songs. The second Sheila started singing “At the Ballet,” I had to nudge my mom (my date for the evening) for a tissue so I could bawl my eyes out. My favorite song, sung by the character I always wanted to play but never got the chance, Diana Morales, is called “Nothing.” For anyone who has ever been to acting school, this song hits the nail right on the self-indulgent head. Diana describes her first week at the High School for the Performing Arts, where her acting teacher is trying to get the students to work with sense memory. Diana cannot connect, and feels frustrated and unworthy:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Okay… we’re going to do improvisations.\u003cbr>Now, you’re on a bobsled. It’s snowing out.\u003cbr>And it’s cold…Okay…GO!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ev’ry day for a week we would try to\u003cbr>Feel the motion, feel the motion\u003cbr>Down the hill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ev’ry day for a week we would try to\u003cbr>Hear the wind rush, hear the wind rush,\u003cbr>Feel the chill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I dug right down to the bottom of my soul\u003cbr>To see what I had inside.\u003cbr>Yes, I dug right down to the bottom of my soul\u003cbr>And I tried, I tried.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And everybody’s goin’ “Whooooosh, whooooosh …\u003cbr>I feel the snow… I feel the cold… I feel the air.”\u003cbr>And Mr. Karp turns to me and he says,\u003cbr>“Okay, Morales. What did you feel?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I said…”Nothing,\u003cbr>I’m feeling nothing,”\u003cbr>And he says “Nothing could get a girl transferred.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They all felt something,\u003cbr>But I felt nothing\u003cbr>Except the feeling\u003cbr>That this bullshit was absurd!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Well, this cast is worthy, and they handle the material with great flair and exuberance. The current choreographer played the part of Connie in the original Broadway cast, which brings a nice continuity to the affair.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I have seen so many musicals over the past ten or twenty years, and most of them suck, I must say. In this age of hackneyed shows wrung from the greatest hits of ABBA or Queen, there is nothing that compares to an original piece of work, a story spun from the hearts and souls of the people who created it, with songs that were written to propel the emotional highs into the stratosphere, and convey the essence of the characters’ inner lives. That doesn’t seem too much to ask from a show. At least it’s what I’m going to try to do with my musical, if I ever get it done. Although I have continued performing in bands (and some theater) all these years and have never stopped working as an artist, I am continually awed by beauty of this magnitude — voices singing together, feet dancing together, people expressing in song what they cannot say in words. So I shall sing to the rafters: I am a musical theater geek, and proud of it.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Hello, my name is Alison and I am a musical theater geek. You wouldn’t know it from looking at me. I won’t go so far as to say I am closeted, because I have recently come clean about this, and have even gone so far as to admit (and even brag) that I am writing a full-length Broadway musical. It will probably take me about ten years to finish it, but it will happen. In the meantime, I am happy to embrace and express my inner M.T.G., and to mourn the lost years where I buried this passion under layers of cool ass rock n’ roll.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I spent most of my childhood and early adolescence performing in musicals and plays, and the absolute happiest moments of my life were play rehearsals. Even more than the performances, I loved being at rehearsal. It was a special, insulated place where my talents were recognized, my friends were all around me, and most of all — I belonged. In the outside world, and at school, I was too smart, too Jewish, had a big butt, had divorced parents, was an only child, preferred listening to records to playing with other kids. But at play rehearsal I was part of an elite group of people who were working on something important, learning lines, singing, dancing, blocking scenes, all those cool fun things that I loved more than anything in the world. We would start after school, and work into the evening, when it would feel incredibly romantic and glamorous to be toiling so late into the night. In reality it was probably only six o’clock, but it sure felt exciting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At some point, that all changed. It’s sad to think about, but there were several factors that turned me away from musical theater. I honestly saw theater as my career path, my calling, and my lot in life. But then the musical theater director left our high school, and I discovered smoking pot and punk rock. I continued to act in plays and even went to NYU theater school for my freshman year of college, but at some point I decided that theater was clearly for the uncool, self-absorbed actorly types, and I just wanted to play in rock bands. My attitude won the fight, and that was that — I switched majors, started a band and never looked back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But during those lovely years when I was all-singing-all-dancing-all-the-time, I had the good fortune of seeing some original musicals on Broadway during their initial runs. \u003cb>Godspell\u003c/b>, \u003cb>Annie\u003c/b>, \u003cb>The Wiz\u003c/b>, and best of all — \u003cb>A Chorus Line\u003c/b>. I had never experienced anything like it. Even at ten years old, \u003cb>A Chorus Line\u003c/b> spoke to my soul. I probably didn’t understand most of the dirty jokes, and some of the more sophisticated ideas may have floated right over my head, but I sure got what that play was about. It was about loving everything about performing, and never being able to let go of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The current production of \u003cb>A Chorus Line\u003c/b> playing here in San Francisco is about to open on Broadway, and it brings back all the passion and beauty and pathos of the original, without modernizing a single word. For those uninitiated, \u003cb>A Chorus Line\u003c/b> takes place at the audition for a Broadway show. The actors stand in a line and answer questions about themselves asked by a director who sits in front of the stage. Their personal revelations turn into universal truths, and ultimately fantastic songs. Sure, the cultural references are outdated, and the musical arrangement is ’70s cheeseball Broadway (written by Marvin Hamlisch, for chrissakes!), but somehow the show has remained an absolute marvel, a true masterpiece of its kind. And oh, those songs. The second Sheila started singing “At the Ballet,” I had to nudge my mom (my date for the evening) for a tissue so I could bawl my eyes out. My favorite song, sung by the character I always wanted to play but never got the chance, Diana Morales, is called “Nothing.” For anyone who has ever been to acting school, this song hits the nail right on the self-indulgent head. Diana describes her first week at the High School for the Performing Arts, where her acting teacher is trying to get the students to work with sense memory. Diana cannot connect, and feels frustrated and unworthy:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I have seen so many musicals over the past ten or twenty years, and most of them suck, I must say. In this age of hackneyed shows wrung from the greatest hits of ABBA or Queen, there is nothing that compares to an original piece of work, a story spun from the hearts and souls of the people who created it, with songs that were written to propel the emotional highs into the stratosphere, and convey the essence of the characters’ inner lives. That doesn’t seem too much to ask from a show. At least it’s what I’m going to try to do with my musical, if I ever get it done. Although I have continued performing in bands (and some theater) all these years and have never stopped working as an artist, I am continually awed by beauty of this magnitude — voices singing together, feet dancing together, people expressing in song what they cannot say in words. So I shall sing to the rafters: I am a musical theater geek, and proud of it.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
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}
},
"restaurantDataById": {},
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"error": null
},
"userAgentReducer": {
"userAgent": "Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; ClaudeBot/1.0; +claudebot@anthropic.com)",
"isBot": true
}
}
