A Moor with Conviction
Trolling leads to tragedy in Marin Shakespeare’s Othello, featuring their first ex-con star.
Disturbed in the Suburbs
Lisa D’Amour’s dark comedy gnaws at the unease lurking beneath suburban life.
Read my review on KQED Arts. Read more
A Cold-Hearted Romeo
Isn’t it romantic? No, not really.
My review of Marin Shakespeare Company’s Romeo and Juliet is in the Marin Independent Journal. Read more
Arden Admirers
Marin Shakespeare Company celebrates its 25th year with the ever-popular As You Like It–in period dress, no less!
Read all about it in my review in the Marin Independent Journal. Read more
All’s Not Well
The good news: It’s a Shakespearean romantic comedy that we’re not all already sick of. The bad news: It’s only so-so. My review of Marin Shakespeare Company’s All’s Well That Ends Well is in today’s Marin Independent Journal.
Out of the Woods (and into the Bar)
Impact Theatre gets gender-bent with an As You Like It where Celia’s a dude, them Dukes are double dutchesses, the melancholy Jaques is a female hipster, and the forest of Arden is a Northern California bar. I give you
a full report over on KQED Arts. Read more
If This Luau Hath Offended
Robert Currier dreamed up a Hawaiian-themed Midsummer at Marin Shakes, featuring hulu fairies in long johns, and I dutifully wrote it up for today’s Marin Independent Journal. Hie thee hence to read all about it.
A Fracking Shame
Shotgun Players has doubled down on its commitment to new plays lately. Last year’s 20th-anniversary season was entirely made up of commissioned world premieres, and after an impressively solid production of Tom Stoppard’s Voyage this spring, Shotgun unveils another commission. The Great Divide is a modern take on Henrik Ibsen’s 1882 play An Enemy of the People, updated to focus on current hot-button environmental issues. The playwright is Adam Chanzit, whose play Down to This closed in a Sleepwalkers Theatre production in San Francisco the same weekend this show opened in Berkeley.
High School Confrontational
THEATER REVIEW: BERKELEY
Show #109: The Chalk Boy, Impact Theatre, November 5.
Lock Up Your Teenagers
When I heard that Impact Theatre artistic director Melissa Hillman was going to be helming Romeo and Juliet this year, the tag lines started to write themselves in my mind (“never was a story of more whoa”–that sort of thing). Although Impact specializes in new plays, Hillman’s own stagings for the company each year have been fast-paced productions of Shakespeare (or other classics like John Ford’s ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore).
