Featured events- 03/10/2012 - Ton Koopman & The Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir
- 02/27/2012 - Classical at the Freight: Rossini Birthday Celebration
- 02/23/2012 - Michio Kaku: Physics of the Future, How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100
- 02/23/2012 - 2012: a Turning Point? And If So, Which Way?: A Talk by Robert Reich
- 02/19/2012 - Takacs Quartet
Category Archives: Theater
Berkeley Rep’s “Ghost Light” resurrects pain of the past
The San Francisco political establishment came to Berkeley Wednesday night for the opening night of Ghost Light, Berkeley Rep’s play about the life and legacy of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone, whose life was cut short when Dan White assassinated him and Supervisor Harvey Milk in 1978.
Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, flanked by earpiece-wearing bodyguards, former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, and Moscone’s widow, Gina, were all in the audience. Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates, who once worked for Moscone, was there, too.
If those politicos came to see a play that recounted Moscone’s life and legacy, they were out of luck. Ghost Light, which was written by the Rep’s Artistic Director Tony Taccone, and directed by Moscone’s youngest son, Jonathan, now the artistic director of the California Shakespeare Theater, is the story of an imagined Jon Moscone and his struggles to come to terms with the loss of his father 34 years after his death. It is a play within a play, for the narrative centers on the fictional Jonathan trying to direct a production of Hamlet. He can’t seem to decide what the ghost in that play should look or act like, in part because his dreams are haunted by the ghosts of the past who just won’t leave him alone. … Continue reading »
Berkeley Rep’s The Wild Bride is fantastical theater
By Emily S. Mendel
Berkeley Rep’s The Wild Bride is a fantastic theatrical experience. Fresh from England, the extraordinary Kneehigh Theatre traveled to Berkeley to bring us a rare holiday gift — an imaginative creation based on an ancient fairy tale, with a cast of only six ultra-talented actors/musicians/dancers. In the course of the evening, the troupe enchants us, scares us, moves us and jokes with us.
This haunting, yet animated theatrical event follows the Grimm Brothers’ version of the fairytale, The Handless Maiden, but is set in the rural South. A daughter is mistakenly sold to the devil by her naïve father. The daughter, aka The Girl, is too clean for the devil to take her, so she is bathed in excrement and mud. The devil, finding her still too pure, forces her father to cut off her hands. The Girl’s bloody arms emerge from a bucket. Thus, shamed, angry and amputated, The Girl escapes into the woods to begin the next phase of her life. … Continue reading »
Tagged Berkeley Rep, Kneehigh Theater, The Wild Bride
Les Waters to leave Berkeley Rep for Kentucky post
Les Waters, an Obie-winning Brit who has served as Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s assistant artistic director for eight years, is leaving the theater to take over as artistic director at The Actors Theater of Louisville, Kentucky.
Waters, 59, will assume the role in January, but will not take on fulltime duties until March, after he directs Berkeley Rep’s production of Red, the theater announced Tuesday.
“After eight years together, it is difficult to leave Berkeley – yet it is an honor and a privilege to take up the reins at Actors Theatre of Louisville, an organization I’ve long admired,” Waters said in a statement.
“I’ve had the opportunity to direct twice at Actors Theatre, and I was deeply impressed with the theatre, its staff, and the community at large. I am committed to making theatre there that is passionate and intelligent, funny and heartfelt, and look forward to leading Actors Theatre to new artistic endeavors.” … Continue reading »
Tagged Actors Theater, Berkeley Rep, Les Waters, Sarah Ruhl, Tony Taccone
Desdemona: The stories you didn’t read in Shakespeare
Desdemona, one of the highlights of the Cal Performances season had its opening last night in Zellerbach Hall. The work is a collaboration between Nobel-prize winning novelist Toni Morrison, singer/songwriter Rokia Traoré, and director Peter Sellars. Sellars talks about the genesis of the work in the video above.
As The New York Times detailed yesterday, the collaboration grew out of a furious argument Sellars had with Morrison a decade ago about Othello. Sellars thought it was a terrible, senseless play; Morrison disagreed. Sellars agreed to stage a production of Othello, while Morrison agreed to “talk back to Shakespeare”. Desdemona was originally staged at the Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers near Paris. It has three further performances in Berkeley (tonight, Friday and Saturday), before moving to New York next week for two performances. It then transfers to Berlin and will be staged in London to coincide with the 2012 Olympics next summer. … Continue reading »
Aurora: 20 years at heart of Berkeley’s cultural life
Edward Albee was in the audience for the opening night of “A Delicate Balance” at the Aurora Theatre earlier this month. He stood up at the play’s end, joining many others to give the actors a standing ovation. Tom Ross, who directed the play, had not told his cast that the renowned author of the play they were performing would be present on their first night. It would have given them the jitters, he said — even more than … Continue reading »
New Yorker illustrator enlivens Cal Performances programs
When concertgoers attend Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas in the Zellerbach Hall tomorrow night, the opening performance of this year’s Cal Performances season, they’ll encounter famed choreographer Mark Morris in the novel role of conductor.
They’ll also catch the first sight of the whimsical caricatures by Tom Bachtell that will be gracing the Cal Performances programs this season.
Bachtell’s style is well known from his illustrations for The New Yorker‘s Talk of the Town, which he has … Continue reading »
Tagged Cal Performances, Tom Bachtell
Rita Moreno’s life laid bare in “Life without Makeup”
When audiences entered Berkeley Rep’s Roda theater on Wednesday night, they passed by a table with a shiny display: an Oscar, a Grammy, two Emmy awards, a National Medal of the Arts, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
The awards, of course, belonged to Rita Moreno, the legendary 79-year old actress who is one of the few people to have won an EGOT, a popular term that describes the winning of all four major American entertainment awards. Moreno accomplished this … Continue reading »
More than 30 years of “thinking sound” in Berkeley
Meyer Sound factory off Heinz Avenue. Photos: Meyer Sound
Sound is life at the Meyer Sound facility on San Pablo. The 32-year-old Berkeley business continues to churn out professional sound products for concert halls, churches and traveling bands from around the world.
“We’re a family-run company, privately owned still,” said Helen Meyer, executive vice president of Meyer Sound. “We’re still private to this day. That’s kind of a unique feature of our company.”
I sat down with the Meyers to discuss sound, local lifestyles and new technologies.
CEO John Meyer founded the company in 1979 after he and Helen attended an inaudible Donovan concert at the Oakland Coliseum. When they sat down to take in the performance from one of their favorite folk singers, the couple soon realized they couldn’t hear a thing.
“It was barely louder than if someone was just there without anything,” John said. “Everyone in the audience was dead quiet and we still couldn’t hear. We said, ‘there’s got to be a better way.’ ” … Continue reading »
Tagged Ashkenaz, Berkeley Rep, Meyer Sound
Aurora’s Metamorphosis: a black farce that might bug you
By Niclas Ericsson
What does one do when a close family member one day turns into a man-sized insect? Invite him to join you for dinner and serve him some old cheese carvings? Or do you gradually turn into a fascist asking for his extermination? Then again, you could simply pretend like nothing has happened.
Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka’s iconic novella from 1915, is a cruel and absurd drama about the incomprehensible and dark side of the seemingly mundane everyday life. It has been adapted to other forms numerous times – opera, graphic novel, dance, theater.
The Aurora Theater Company is now presenting an apt stage adaption of Metamorphosis done by by David Farr and Gísli Örn Gardarsson and skillfully directed by Mark Jackson. It’s worth seeking out.
Gregor Samsa, the main character of the play and a traveling salesman, is late for work one day. Gregor still lives with his parents and his sister. As they knock on his door to inquire what has happened, they find him transformed into a giant, insect-like creature. … Continue reading »
Anna Deavere Smith astonishes in ‘Let Me Down Easy’
Anna Deavere Smith’s latest one-woman play “Let Me Down Easy” is like a novella of stories – the individual vignettes are bold and interesting, but are only loosely linked.
From her spot-on impersonation of Lance Armstrong, whose body is so kinetic it can’t stay still, to pretending to be the bed-ridden, cancer-stricken film critic Joel Siegel, to her poignant portrayal of Kiersta Kurtz-Burke, an intern who was shocked by the way her superiors at Charity Hospital in New Orleans treated Katrina victims, Smith is mesmerizing in her ability to channel the words and quirks of her characters.
The 105-minute play is based on interviews with more than 320 people on three continents over a ten-year period. Smith focuses on 20 of those characters and uses their verbatim interviews to create a heart-wrenching portrait of our attitudes toward our bodies, their strengths and weaknesses, and our feelings about death.
On a stage sparsely decorated with a white couch, a dining table with chairs, and huge hanging mirrors, Smith changes lightening-fast from one person to another. She dons a piece of clothing or picks up a prop like a bottle of beer or coffee mug to delineate each character, and then discards those items on the stage as the play progresses. It’s almost a metaphor for her overarching theme: that life is ethereal and short. We are here and then we are not. The props are of use and then they are not, but traces of them remain. … Continue reading »
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