November 7, 2015
Central Works presents “Ada and the Memory Engine”
Remembering Ada
In a long and high-ceilinged room in the stately and charming Berkeley City Club on Durant, just south of the campus, Central Works presented...
theater
October 30, 2015
42nd Street Moon’s “Sail Away”
Sailing in on waves of light and laughter
The bubbly musical Sail Away, written by the incomparably witty Noel Coward, opened at 42nd Street...
October 27, 2015
ACT presents O’Neill’s “Ah, Wilderness!”
Ah, the wilderness of sentiment
For the most part, ACT puts on terrific plays, well acted and directed, with sophisticated productions. You can hardly miss going to a performance. Its current...
October 2, 2015
ACT stages “Monstress”
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September 11, 2015
Berkeley Rep stages a bright new musical
Amelie sings! Amelie rules!
The new musical at Berkeley Rep, Amelie, is a glorious triumph, so I feel safe making a confession. When the movie it’s based on came out in 2001, I hated it. I saw it at a critic’s preview in San Francisco, where pretty much everyone adored it.
“This is the sort of French movie that gives French movies a bad name,” I said.
I can confess this for another reason: Berkeley...
ACT opens its season with a sizzling new play
A proud old man stands his ground at ACT
ACT’s Geary Street stage bursts with life in the company's 49th season opener, Stephen Adly Guirgis’s vivid and profane Between Riverside and Crazy. The life the play reveals belongs to New York City cops and criminals, who intersect explosively in a rent-controlled apartment on Riverside Drive.
Inside the apartment’s shabby walls everybody claims to tell it like it is, but...