Category Archives: Theater
On a stage near you: Cal Performance’s new season
[Update, 04.27,11: Watch a video of director Peter Sellars talking about "the Desdemona Project", the upcoming theatrical event he is producing for Cal Performances.]
Cal Performances knows how to serve up a star-studded arts menu. Names such as Peter Sellars, Toni Morrison, Mark Morris, Keith Jarrett, John Malkovitch, Roz Chast and Susan Graham are just a few of the many all-star monikers that pop out on the new season line-up of the UC Berkeley-based culture powerhouse.
But even more impressive is the sheer spectrum of the offerings Berkeleyans have to look forward to this year and next. In presenting the new season, Cal Performances Director Matías Tarnopolsky said there were 25 new artists and companies coming to Berkeley this year, as well as a new series focused on family-friendly performances.
Recitals will center on piano works, the dance program will be mostly modern and the theater focus in on Samuel Beckett, Tarnopolsky said. And he stressed the organization’s commitment to early music, a personal passion, as an example of the range on offer.
“Cal Performances has always prided itself on offering adventurous and compelling work,” he said Tuesday. The underlying mantra, he continued, is “artistic excellence, advocacy and accessibility”. … Continue reading »
Aurora’s “Eccentricities” highlights universal themes
Tennessee Williams is best known for his plays A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, but it was a character in another, less well-known play, that haunted him for decades.
Williams was obsessed with the story of Alma, a spinsterish vocal teacher in a southern town who struggles against conformity, small mindedness, and her own sexual urges.
Williams first wrote about Alma in 1947 in the short story, The Yellow Bird, which he adapted into Summer and Smoke. It had a brief, unsuccessful, run on Broadway in 1948. Williams then wrote and rewrote Alma’s story over a 25-year period, turning it into an all-together different play, The Eccentricities of a Nightingale, first performed on Broadway in 1976.
“Look, I’m Alma,” Williams told the cast, according to Donald Spoto’s biography of the playwright.
On the 100th anniversary of Williams’ birth, the Aurora Theatre Company has brought the little-performed Eccentricities on a Nightingale to the stage. While the moral and sexual struggles at the center of this appealing production feel a bit dated, Alma’s quest to define herself on her own terms remains as relevant today as it did during Williams’ life. … Continue reading »
Berkeley Rep to hold garage sale on theatrical scale
Following its recent move to a new campus in west Berkeley, the Berkeley Rep is doing some spring cleaning and will hold a costume, props and furniture clearance sale at its former storage facility on Carleton Street on April 15-16.
“We literally have tons of things to sell. There are loads of comfortable clothes – like jeans and hoodies – as well as vintage suits and dresses, period hats, and plenty of shoes,” says Costume Director Maggi Yule. ”We’ve got … Continue reading »
Berkeley High students produce independent theater
When Mimi Kaplan moved from Portland to the Bay Area right before starting Berkeley High School, she was apprehensive about fitting in.
But within a few weeks she had found her group: the diverse and talented theater community.
Now, as Kaplan prepares to leave high school to attend a joint degree program at Columbia University and the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, she is directing a play that could serve as a metaphor for her time at Berkeley. It’s called Necropolis, and it tells the story of a Bosnian sniper and American journalist who talk about their clashing ideologies.
“It really struck me when I read it,” said Kaplan, who is a senior in BHS’ International High School. “It’s really powerful. I couldn’t stop thinking about it for the next few days. It kept coming back to me.” … Continue reading »
With verve and polish, “Ruined” tackles atrocities head on
At the start of the second half of “Ruined” at the Berkeley Rep, several members of the cast make their way through the stalls, laughing, reaching out to greet audience members, bursting into song. It’s an attempt at levity, a stab at lightening the mood, but while appreciated, it is doomed. The tone has been set, and even a relatively upbeat end-note does not relieve the tension this unflinching drama creates from the outset.
“Ruined” is set in the Eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo during a civil war in which many of the victims are women — it is estimated that 200,000 women have been raped there in the past decade.
In the drama, whose beautiful set, designed by Clint Ramos, stands in strong contrast to the anguish that will be played out upon it, we watch a tale of survival unfold. … Continue reading »
Berkeley Rep audiences give Mike Daisey some cash
At the end of every performance of “The Last Cargo Cult” at Berkeley Rep, monologist Mike Daisey invited the audience to return to him some of the cash that had been handed out at the beginning of the show.
As members of the audience had walked in, they had been handed crisp $1, $5, $10, $20 or $100 bills.
The money represented what Berkeley Rep had paid him for each performance. Daisey challenged the audience to decide how much his show was worth. They were informed they could keep the money, give it back, or even add a little extra. … Continue reading »
Josh Kornbluth: Good for Andy Warhol’s Jews?
It would be tough to find a funnier guy in Berkeley than Josh Kornbluth.
I’ve been a fan of the moon-faced, wide-eyed, hair-challenged monologist, who has perfected the art of the raised eyebrow for maximum comic effect, since his early days at The Marsh in San Francisco. (An aside: This ex-citysider is so glad The Marsh had no problem crossing the bridge, unlike some people she knows.)
Kornbluth has made a career out of chronicling much of his life on the stage in his frequently hilarious and often thought-provoking solo shows. We first meet him during his childhood in Manhattan’s Washington Heights neighborhood, where he is raised by Marxist, atheists (Red Diaper Baby). Then it’s on to college (The Mathematics of Change), temp work (Haiku Tunnel) and a stint as an editor (Pumping Copy), a personal favorite. Berkeleysiders familiar with his work may recall that the city features prominently in the recent Citizen Josh.
Now, Kornbluth is in the middle of a run of his latest production Andy Warhol: Good For The Jews? His first commissioned show, The Contemporary Jewish Museum of San Francisco asked him to ruminate on the series of portraits depicting the likes of Einstein, Kafka, and the Marx Brothers by the iconic artist.
It’s his fourth collaboration with director David Dower, who joined forces with the writer-comedian on Ben Franklin: Unplugged, Love & Taxes, and Citizen Josh. The two have also worked on film versions of Haiku Tunnel and Red Diaper Baby. … Continue reading »
The Berkeley Wire: 02.10.11
Berkeley approves use of tire boot for parking scofflaws [CC Times]
Berkeley High conference on black youth in crisis [Daily Californian]
Berkeley Rep reschedules Rita Moreno, adds Anna Deveare Smith [Berkeley Rep]
South African judge who did report on Gaza conflict to speak at Cal [The J]
Nine Berkeley gardens on Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour [Oakland Tribune]
Chronicle’s Bauer holds his ground on rating for Gather Restaurant [Eater SF]
Photo: Blue Victorian by wnewton/Berkeleyside Flickr pool.
Berkeley Rep’s Taccone: “three shows from the abyss”
Tony Taccone, artistic director of the Berkeley Repertory Theater, had a particularly engaging and revealing interview with KQED’s Dave Iverson on this morning’s Forum program.
Under Taccone the Rep has established a strong record of originating works that go on to great acclaim in New York, including the current double-Tony winner American Idiot. In the interview, Taccone spoke frankly about the Rep’s constant struggle to focus on its local audiences rather than the lure of New … Continue reading »
Mike Daisey recounts our obsession with cash
At the end of Mike Daisey’s solo show “The Last Cargo Cult,” now playing at Berkeley Rep, all I could do was sit back and gape.
For more than two hours I had watched Daisey shout, scream, murmur, and sweat as he spun a tale about the mysteries of a South Pacific island and the mysterious devotion Westerners have to cash. With little more than a few sheets of notes, a glass of water, a table, a handkerchief to wipe off his brow, and a backdrop of dozens of cardboard boxes featuring every conceivable type of consumer product, Daisey had managed to keep the audience captivated.
Starting with the chilling tale of how he almost died in a island puddle-hopper, and continuing through with stories of his (almost) middle class childhood in Maine, his rude awakening as a freshmen in college that some of his classmates had a lot cooler gadgets than he would ever be able to afford, and on to tales of our obsession with objects, Daisey was a force-field, drawing the audience further and further into his orbit.
Granted, not all the stories he told were engrossing. I didn’t really care for his recounting of the nine-hour dance pageant performed in the honor of one John Frum on the island of Vanuatu. And while he tries to make “The Last Cargo Cult,” a piece that calls into question the centrality of possessions and the willingness of Americans to bow to the mighty dollar, he doesn’t quite succeed. Yet I had a very good time going along for the ride.
(Warning: spoiler coming up)
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