THEATER REVIEW: SAN JOSE
Double Indemnity, San Jose Repertory Theatre.
By Sam Hurwitt
If crime doesn’t pay, it’s not for lack of trying. Though it’s a quick and pulpy read, hardboiled crime writer James M. Cain’s 1935 novella Double Indemnity gives some of the same moral lessons as Fyodor Dostoevsky’s literary classic Crime and Punishment—that murder, no...
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THEATER REVIEW: SAN FRANCISCO
Future Motive Power, Mugwumpin.
By Sam Hurwitt
It’s hard to imagine what Future Motive Power would have been like if the ensemble Mugwumpin hadn’t managed to obtain use of San Francisco’s Old Mint to stage it in. It’s not that the Mint has anything to do with the story of inventor and electricity...
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THEATER REVIEW: BERKELEY
Show #116: God’s Plot, Shotgun Players, December 3.
By Sam Hurwitt
American theater started as a criminal act. The first play performed in English in the colonies was Ye Bare and Ye Cubbe, a satirical stab at the English throne performed in rural Virginia in 1665. As Shakespeare’s contemporaries could attest a generation before,...
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THEATER REVIEW: SAN FRANCISCO
Show #118: Bring It On: The Musical, SHN, December 14.
By Sam Hurwitt
Bring It On: The Musical may look like just the latest in a very, very long line of hit movies and cult classics that have been turned into stage musicals in recent years, but looks can be deceiving. This should...
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THEATER REVIEW: BERKELEY
Show #109: The Chalk Boy, Impact Theatre, November 5.
By Sam Hurwitt
If there’s one thing we learn from Joshua Conkel’s recent plays at Impact Theatre, it’s that kids are jerks. Last season Impact produced MilkMilkLemonade, Conkel’s comedy about preteen bullying, repressed homosexuality and chicken processing. Now the Berkeley company reteams with the Washingtonian...
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THEATER REVIEW: SAN FRANCISCO
Show #103: The Kipling Hotel, The Marsh, October 23.
By Sam Hurwitt
Don Reed’s popular one-man show East 14th: True Tales of a Reluctant Player ran at the Marsh and the Marsh Berkeley for two and a half years, chronicling his childhood in 1970s Oakland between his Jehovah’s Witness missionary stepfather...
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THEATER REVIEW: SAN FRANCISCO
Show #106: Totem, Cirque du Soleil, October 28.
By Sam Hurwitt
Montreal’s Cirque du Soleil produces such a steady stream of shows that either take root in Vegas or tour indefinitely around the world that we get a new one passing through the Bay Area every couple of years. In 2009 it was...
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Show #112: A Man, His Wife, and His Hat, AlterTheater, November 12.
I reviewed AlterTheater’s commissioned world premiere of a Lauren Yee play in today’s Marin Independent Journal, so hie thee over yonder to check it out.
A Man, His Wife, and His Hat runs through December 4 at 1414 Fourth St., San Rafael. http://altertheater.org
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THEATER REVIEW: BERKELEY
Show #110: The Internationalist, Just Theater, November 6.
By Sam Hurwitt
“People are always more appealing when they’re unintelligible.” That’s what Sara says to Lowell in Anne Washburn’s play The Internationalist. It’s a pithy quote, but the play doesn’t necessarily prove it true.
Lowell is an American businessman just arrived in an unnamed Eastern...
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THEATER REVIEW: SAN FRANCISCO
Show #107: Sticky Time, Crowded Fire, October 29.
By Sam Hurwitt
There’s a Willie Nelson song that asks, “Ain’t it funny how time slips away?” The funny thing about Crowded Fire Theater’s new world premiere Sticky Time is that time in it slips all over the place, refusing to stick at all. Written...
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