Compulsion
by: berk rep
rec: w/ jessica
Very good play about man trying to get Anne Fank's diary out into world. Becomes obsessed; the man is a beast, but sometimes likable. Caused me to reflext on being jewish in various ways. Good, amazing, fantastic puppets too.
Crime and Punishment
by: berk rep
Nicely done 90 minute play of Crime and Punishment. Faithful to book, as best I can recall. Enjoyed fractured frenzy of chopping scenes together, repeating lines at end to stich it all back. Made it feel like being in a tormented mind--which we were.
The Arabian Nights
rec: berk rep
Version of arabian nights. Nicely done. High melodrama theater, but it fit. Beautiful set of persian rugs and lanterns. Bizzare ending with improve dance theater or some such.
Sad, the ending being like that.
Joe Turner's Come and Gone
by: August Wilson
rec: berk rep w/ debby
1911 philidelpia boarding house for American Blacks. Man and daughter come, man tormented. "Living collage" -- lots of scenes and conversations and arguments. Overall quite good and funny, interesting picture of history. Author also did "Fences"
Yellowjackets
by: berk rep
Excellent first act with amazing closing monologue about why a kid wanted to go to public school and what happened after. The second act is very disappointing--smarmy, weak, and not sharp.
Danny Hoch
by: Danny Hoch
rec: berk rep
Excellent series of monologues on gentrification
After the Quake
rec: berk rep
Decent play, strange storytelling. Didn't hang together but good moments.
The Pillowman
by: Martin McDonagh
rec: berkeley rep
Nasty play about arrested storyteller and his brother. Very good dialogue, very funny, very dark. Dark Sweeney Todd dark.
Kill Me Like You Mean It
by: Stolen Chair Theater Co
rec: w/ peggy
Noir and absurdist are blended in this american detective story with some metatextual components of writing the story that kills.
All Wear Bowlers
rec: berk rep
Slapstick, ode to silent film (Laurel & Hardy), absurdist theater. Well done although the clowning was not top notch. Some really excellent moments of theater--mocking the audience for being an audience, etc. "Giggle, giggle, giggle. Bleed, bleed, bleed."
Passing Strange
rec: berk rep
Coming of age of a middle-class black musician traveling and searching for "the real." Rough in parts, brilliant at times.
Suicide Girls Burlesque
by: see above
rec: karl
strippers with tats and additude. Fun, and very, very loud.
Proof
by: sonoma academy
Very spiffy play about woman, her father, a grad student, and a sister who is hard to take. Beautiful patter and energy.
The Dog Problem
by: David Rabe/Actor's Thearter of SF
rec: john koffman
Good one-act play followed by horrid second act. Very funny, fast dialogue. Acting was good, actually.
Sweeney Todd
rec: kamela
wow! beautifully harsh musical with some great music.
Necessary Targets
by: Eve Ensler
rec: londa, etc.
woman in bosnia and two woman who go to "help" them. Interesting, but a bit choppy. Some nice bits.
Children of Herakles
rec: cws
Old greek play. Redone to address modern refugee problem. Interesting, but flawed. Bad blood on stage, for example.
Assassins
rec: stephen peters
mit production. Quite well done. Beautiful play full of good songs.
d
Vienna: Lusthaus (revisited)
by: Martha Clarke
rec: Time Out Mag
PAIN! Horrid movement piece that tried to be erotic and mesmerizing, but which in the end made me realize that naked woman caressing each other on stage can still be so boring that you want to go home and read a good book, or slam your head in the door, or anything, anything, but being there feeling the slow seconds tick away as you creep towards old age and death.
Contact
rec: klingenstein
dance/play about humans and connection. Three bits, Swing, some dinner thing which was in the end quite depressing, and Contact, a story about a man in his apartment and a dance hall where he faces his fears and learns to dance. Very sexy.
Absolution
Horrid crap. Painful mysogeny and immature male scriptwriting. Three men hash their rape and murder of a woman 15 years after the act, with no sincere remorse. Complete with concluding remarks from one of the spineless woman characters that they live to serve.
The Vagina Monologues
Excellent series of monologues. Painful and funny, quite intense.
Fortenbras
A comedic 'sequel' to Hamlet. Excellent and funny. The production
I saw used tv sets and actors in them, looking around and stuff. Hamlet's
ghost ordered people to push him around stage. good.
Fences
by: August Wilson
rec: via Lick
Man thwarted in his efforts to play ball. Thwarts son too. The constraints of the slavery heritage and culture. Nasty, good.
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