The Empathic Duo
Before the opening of the Bay Area premiere of Becky Shaw, SF Playhouse artistic director Bill English gave a stirring speech about theater as a gym for compassion, for developing the muscle of empathy. The sentiment rings true, but it’s also ironic going into a comedy about people who either lack compassion for anyone outside of their chosen circle or whose empathy draws them into trouble. Whether or not you empathize with these characters, you’re such to be entertained by them in this tantalizing first local glimpse of playwright Gina Gionfriddo’s work, thanks to an excellent cast and director Amy Glazer’s sharply paced staging.
Live Through This
THEATER REVIEW: SAN FRANCISCO
Show #92: Honey Brown Eyes, SF Playhouse, September 27.
Show #90: Night over Erzinga, Golden Thread Productions, September 18.
Declined Intervention
THEATER REVIEW: SAN FRANCISCO
Show #105: The Sunset Limited, SF Playhouse, October 16.
Southern Dialectic
The Apotheosis of Pig Husbandry is an unwieldy name for a play. But it’s just about right for a scholarly treatise, which is what the object of the same name is within the world of William Bivins’s “agricultural noir” play on SF Playhouse’s Second Stage.
