A Candid Date with the Candidate
As satire goes, The Totalitarians is blunt, broad and messy in more ways than one.
Knot in Your Gut
Gidion’s Knot is a hard play to take. As seen in director Jon Tracy’s brutally effective Bay Area premiere staging at Aurora Theatre Company, Johnna Adams’s drama is 75 minutes of nonstop tension, alleviated only by moments of grim humor.
Social Class, Pursued by Abaire
David Lindsay-Abaire tackles the class divide in Good People at Marin Theatre Company, and if you get past the slow first act you’re in for a treat in the second. You can read my review in today’s Marin Independent Journal.
We’re a Happy Family
“Happy families are all alike,” Leo Tolstoy writes in Anna Karenina; “every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Two classic examples are on display at two Berkeley theatres, both of which are celebrating their 20th anniversary seasons right now, albeit in different ways. Shotgun Players are in the middle of a whole season of commissioned world premieres, while at Aurora Theatre it’s old home week, bringing back key artists from throughout the company’s history. But the plays they’re doing depict two houses, alike in comfortable wealth, that have both been unhappy a very long time.
