THEATER REVIEW: BERKELEY
Titus Andronicus, Impact Theatre.
By Sam Hurwitt
Titus Andronicus is William Shakespeare’s bloodiest tragedy, and for centuries it was also generally considered to be his worst. Although the playwright’s contemporaries loved it, it wouldn’t regain popularity until after Word War II, when all the play’s hand-chopping, child-killing, rape, decapitation and cannibalism no longer seemed...
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THEATER REVIEW: SAN FRANCISCO & BERKELEY
Becky Shaw, SF Playhouse.
Body Awareness, Aurora Theatre Company.
By Sam Hurwitt
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...
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THEATRE REVIEW: SAN FRANCISCO
Show #92: Honey Brown Eyes, SF Playhouse, September 27.
Show #90: Night over Erzinga, Golden Thread Productions, September 18.
By Sam Hurwitt
Genocide is a tough nut to crack. The unimaginable excesses of war are exactly the sort of thing that theatre should address and explore, but it’s hard to know...
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THEATER REVIEW: BERKELEY
Show #80: Of Dice and Men, Impact Theatre, September 2.
Half-drow assassin Nigel Blackthorn and Petula the Space Pirate walk into La Val’s tavern, still much wearied from their quest to lay siege to Castle Dashwood and in need of rest before embarking upon the morrow’s epic adventure that would become known...
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THEATER REVIEW: BAY AREA
Show #69: Fly by Night, TheatreWorks, July 16.
Show #62: Tigers Be Still, SF Playhouse, June 25.
By Sam Hurwitt
The Bay Area is being given quite an introduction to the work of playwright Kim Rosenstock right now, with the world premiere of her musical Fly by Night being unveiled at TheatreWorks...
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THEATER REVIEW: SAN FRANCISCO
Show #44: Reborning, SF Playhouse, May 12.
By Sam Hurwitt
Babies are cute and all, but baby dolls can be pretty dang creepy. Baby dolls made to look real—and not just real but just like your dead child—well, those are pretty high up on the creepiness scale.
As luck would have it, those dolls...
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THEATER REVIEW: BERKELEY
Show #14: Romeo and Juliet, Impact Theatre, February 19.
By Sam Hurwitt
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...
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THEATER REVIEW: BERKELEY
Show #119: The Play About the Naked Guy, Impact Theatre, November 12.
By Sam Hurwitt
I rarely miss a show at Berkeley’s Impact Theatre, because I’ve always liked the company’s fast and loose energy and its knack for finding outrageously funny new comedies. And from the name alone, The Play About the Naked Guy...
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THEATER REVIEW: SAN FRANCISCO
Show #106: Seven Days, SF Playhouse, October 16.
By Sam Hurwitt
An old colleague of mine from the good old days of the East Bay Express, Daniel Heath has done pretty well for himself since he took up playwriting five years ago to join the PlayGround pool of one-act writers. Last...
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THEATER REVIEW: BERKELEY
Show #92: MilkMilkLemonade, Impact Theatre, September 10.
By Sam Hurwitt
Impact Theatre’s 15th season is off to a promising start with the Bay Area premiere of MilkMilkLemonade (opening just a week after its West Coast premiere in L.A.). Joshua Conkel’s 2009 Off-Off-Broadway hit has all the trappings of a sweet coming-of-age...
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