Faust Talking
So Hamlet, Martin Luther and Doctor Faustus walk into a college, and that thing’s the play.
My review of Wittenberg at Aurora Theatre Company is on KQED Arts. Read more
Talk and Talk and Talk About a Revolution
Shotgun Players is taking on The Coast of Utopia,Tom Stoppard’s mammoth trilogy about the budding Russian intellectual life of the mid-19th century, planting seeds for the revolution that will come much later. Having done chapter one, Voyage, last year, Shotgun now presents part two, Shipwreck, in repertory with a limited revival of Voyage. My review‘s up on KQED Arts for the intrepid explorer.
Family Portrait
There sure are a lot of plays about wealthy Manhattanites. I guess that makes sense, because New York is a large theater market, a lot of playwrights choose to live there, and wealthy Manhattanites are a significant target market. But a lot of these plays wind up playing, and even premiering, in San Francisco, to the point where it feels like there are more plays on our stages about the lives and concerns of the New York rich than anything that might speak to ordinary San Franciscans. It’s the cultural imperialism of the Empire State, and local theaters seem to be only too happy to bow down before it.
Who Watches Big Brother?
I reviewed Josh Costello’s adaptation of Cory Doctorow’s novel Little Brother for today’s Marin Independent Journal.
Head over there to read all about it before the review expires or becomes otherwise unlinkable. (Short version: I liked it. It’s good. Go see it.) Read more
Homeric Undone
After creating a propulsive contemporary take on George Orwell’s Animal Farm for Shotgun Players’ summer show last year, this summer writer-director Jon Tracy followed it up with The Salt Plays, Part 1: In the Wound, a stunning, kinetic, poetic riff on the Trojan War that both was and wasn’t an adaptation of The Iliad. And if that wasn’t ambitious enough, Tracy followed his Iliad up this December with–what else?–his Odyssey, following his cold-blooded, business-suited strategist Odysseus on his long-delayed voyage home to his waiting wife Penelope.
