‘The Big Meal’: More than a mouthful at the San Jose Rep
The emotional impact of all this action ripples across the audience, particularly during the past twenty minutes when sniffles become audible as yet another character…
Theater and Stage
Reviews and coverage of theater and performing arts in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Berkeley, and beyond. Written by ATCA critic Clinton Stark.
Mark Kenward in ‘Nantucket’ at the Berkeley Marsh (Review)
So powerful was his hold on the audience, the only evidence that anyone was even breathing was an occasional gasp.
More Cole Porter: ‘DuBarry Was a Lady’
Director and choreographer Zack Thomas Wilde was smart enough not to let Rothrock’s cleanly defined moves dominate the production, allowing for other equally superb talents,…
Back in the USSR with ‘The Letters’
Her superior, an apparatchik known only as “Director” enters, vaguely handsome in a Donald Trump dunderhead kind of way.
A South African Journey: ‘The Suit’
Philemon is so opaque, so self-controlled, that you know as much about him at the end of the play as you did in the beginning.…
Review: Not a Genuine Black Man at Berkeley Rep
Copeland's performance suggests that most of us are more genuinely confused than genuinely racist, and that self-hatred can be insidiously contagious.
Review: The Ram’s Head does ‘Les Mis’
Chris Apy and Tonyboy Marin's performances of Gavroche (especially “Little People”) brought down the house.
Coming home with ‘Tribes’ at Berkeley Rep (Review)
The show begins with the theatre equivalent of a palate-chaser, as the lights plunge you into a darkness so deep that the stage lights sear…
Clever comedy ‘Wittenberg’ scores in Berkeley
Davalos characterizes Faustus as a Renaissance Timothy Leary.
Post-zombie apocalypse ‘Iliad’ storms San Jose (Review)
This is a massive tome, and their cuts were well placed to “sing the rage of Peleus’s son Achilles” without tediously dragging the audience across…