The River Rolls Deep
There’s almost no point to reviewing The River. It’s not that kind of play. A world premiere play by Richard Montoya of Culture Clash, The River is a tribute to Luis Saguar, the late cofounder of Intersection for the Arts’ resident theater company Campo Santo, written for and performed by that company. As such, it’s an intensely personal project and ultimately feels very much like an in-joke. Maybe you had to have been there, you had to have known him, to understand what the heck is going on here.
Return to ReOrient
It’s been a while since Golden Thread’s last ReOrient festival of short plays about the Middle East. The festival had been going on an almost annual basis since 1999, but after its 10th anniversary in 2009 the company went on a producing hiatus, reemerging last year for the world premiere of Adriana Sevahn Nichols’s Night over Erzinga. But now the festival’s back in a big way, with two programs of short plays (the second batch for two shows only toward the end of the fest) and a forum of panel discussions at Z Space.
Missed Connections
Intersection for the Arts and company-in-residence Campo Santo are on a roll. Having debuted Chinaka Hodge’s marvelous Mirrors in Every Corner this February, they’re now introducing another impressive young emerging playwright with Sharif Abu-Hamdeh’s Habibi. This is no coincidence. The result of long development processes through Campo Santo’s new play lab, these plays constitute a sort of trilogy of world premieres by first-time playwrights, along with Dennis Kim’s New Tree Legends next fall.
New Review Zoo
I reviewed both ACT and AlterTheater’s new shows for today’s Marin Independent Journal, so you can check out my Round and Round the Garden review here and my Owners review here. Or pick up a copy if you’re in the North Bay, because it looks way better in print.
