"My feelings for you are like a big bowl of fishhooks," she tells her offspring. "You can't pick out just one."

Why do we feel the need to project such goodness upon some externalized other who brings order to our households and happiness to our children – as if it was something entirely beyond our ken?

Many refer to the story of The White Snake as "profound." Yet I have another take on it. Like, how many times have us guys fallen for a woman who turns out to be a snake?

Marin indicates he might not be the most reliable narrator, but since he presents multiple takes on an event, you dismiss it. Sometime later, the ah-hah hits, and you realize that the apparent falsity was some of the best acting Marin’s ever done.

A natural showman, Jessup doesn’t err on the side of excessive theatricality. He does more by changing his jacket or putting on a tie than many performers do with a whole costume room.

What might have otherwise been a cheap slice’em, dice ‘em suicidal thriller was rendered into something deeply emotive that probed the dimensions of loyalty and family.

Kathleen Turner stars in 'Red Hot Patriot' at Berkeley Rep. "A perfect holiday show if you can't countenance anymore Nutcracker saccharine."

A must-see summer treat, now playing downtown San Jose.

Armen Ohanian was clearly a fascinating person whose story deserves to be told. A genderqueer Armenian over a century ago, she began life as an "honest woman" in an upper-class family but pursued a career as an artist. She danced on tour in Europe, wrote poetry, and composed Orientalized...

The national tour of Wicked couldn’t possibly be less than fabulous. Stephen Schwartz’s score combines the infuriatingly catchy with the beautifully lyrical. His clever lyrics provoke laughs with their well-rhymed mix of real SAT vocabulary words and made-up imitations (confusifying, disgusticified). The whole plot—based on Gregory Maguire’s novel of...