The San Francisco Mime Troupe delivers another lackluster performance in the face of a real political crisis. Will this company ever wake up and stop preaching to the converted?
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In these times, it’s hard to think of a more fascinating and emblematic artist than Scott-Heron. His mystery should demand great art. But Ong’s retreat into commercial sitcom aesthetics is just another example of how timid our playwrights and theaters have become.
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The transformation of the set from the verdant Arcadia of the court to the industrial landscape of Oakland -- both displaced and bohemian -- is a breathtaking transposition. The production feels like it's going to take off with it and then it doesn't.
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That such delightful froth should achieve a striking level of philosophical depth is kind of amazing, especially as it does so by haphazardly dashing its way through the lives of a party’s worth of characters.
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We’re in the midst of real cultural change, where some theaters are seeking to take the place of the church. Not as a new cosmogony, but rather as a place where people go to heal and be healed. What type of art will come of this?
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Director Peter Brook’s Battlefield is filled with all the magic, strangeness, bad thinking, revelatory moments, and daring you might expect from a 92-year old theatrical rebel and avant-garde showman.
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Ultimately, this is not an experience so much as a bludgeoning of the possibility of any experience at all. Vapid art dressed up as an avant-garde extravaganza.
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Sometimes you wonder about the souls of theaters. CounterPulse certainly has a fascinating one, the way they commission and produce work, and the general vibe before and after performances feel at odds with most Bay Area theaters.
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Internationally acclaimed Québécois theater director Robert Lepage’s Needles and Opium and his team of designers and technicians give the clunky, material nature of the theater a fluidity that approaches and at times surpasses film.
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One of the lovely aspects of Wooster Group productions under Liz LeCompte’s commanding direction is the way the actors just kind of stroll on stage. It's as if we've caught them in the middle of an elaborate rehearsal meant for some future performance.
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