Recovery, Relapse, Rinse, Repeat
The familiarity of the addiction and recovery narrative may be part of the point.
Read my review of the one-woman show Playing My Hand at Altarena Playhouse in the East Bay Times and Mercury News. Read more
Fill Up on “Pasta”
Maria Grazia Affinito’s solo show Eating Pasta Off the Floor is a bittersweet delight.
Read my review in the Marin Independent Journal. Read more
Resonant Echo
Solo theater artist Echo Brown’s lighthearted dating story packs a devastating wallop.
Once More into the Fringe
I checked out 10 and a half consecutive hours of the San Francisco Fringe Festival, and boy is my everything tired.
Read my review on KQED Arts. Read more
Kvetch on the Beach
Charlie Varon is one of those artists who are pretty much synonymous with the Marsh. He’s been a mainstay and artist-in-residence at the hub for solo performance for more than 20 years, creating hilarious and thought-provoking multicharacter one-man shows from 1994’s Rush Limbaugh in Night School to 2009’s Rabbi Sam. Certainly not all of these have been in the same style, and his last show, 2012’s Fwd: Life Gone Viral, even brought in a second performer, Jeri Lynn Cohen. Even so, Varon’s latest piece, Feisty Old Jew, feels like a departure or a new direction.
This Time It’s Not Personal
Solo-show favorites Brian Copeland and Marga Gomez are back at the Marsh, and this time they’re both stepping back from the autobiographical. My review is on KQED Arts.
Once More Into the Fringe
I took in a day and a half of the San Francisco Fringe Festival. The things I do for you people. My full report is on KQED Arts.
Worth the Wait
Brian Copeland has a lot going on. His last one-man show at the Marsh, Not a Genuine Black Man, ran off and on for seven years, setting a record for the longest-running solo show in San Francisco history. The longtime standup comic also hosts KGO radio’s Brian Copeland Show and ABC’s 7Live TV talk show. But he’s also struggled with crushing depression, as detailed in his long-anticipated new solo show The Waiting Period, which opened its world premiere run last Saturday at the Marsh after a few weeks of previews. The play captures a particularly dark period after his grandmother died, he totaled his car, and his wife left without explanation. The title refers to the ten-day waiting period required by buy a gun, which Copeland is only shopping for in case he wants to do himself in.
Senioritis
It’s hard to imagine the Bay Area theater scene without Geoff Hoyle, who’s been a tremendous comedic presence on local stages from the early days of the Pickle Family Circus down to frequent shows at Berkeley Rep and ACT today (not to mention notable side trips such as the original cast of Broadway’s The Lion King). From the start his work has been so rooted in his marvelous facility for physical comedy that it’s especially striking that his new, sold-out solo show is about the body falling apart. An often hilarious reflection on aging, Geezer was developed with and directed by David Ford at the latter’s frequent stomping ground the Marsh, where Hoyle’s son Dan has enjoyed long runs in his solo shows Tings Dey Happen and The Real Americans (the latter is still running after a hiatus to recover from a leg injury).
