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Author: Carol Benet

SONDHEIM’S ‘COMPANY’ RETURNS, TRACING WAYS OF LOVE

SONDHEIM’S ‘COMPANY’ RETURNS, TRACING WAYS OF LOVE

SF Playhouse has neatly staged one of Stephen Sondheim’s greatest hits, “Company,” a musical play about Robert who is celebrating his 35th birthday with lots of friends. He is single and most of them, except for his three girlfriends, are married. What makes Sondheim great is his persistent minimal beat, his playing with dissonance, his frenetic pace juxtaposed with beautiful ballads, his element of quick and unexpected change and that doesn’t even mention his complex and philosophical lyrics that are…

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ANNA D. SMITH’S INTERACTIVE FORM OF THEATER

ANNA D. SMITH’S INTERACTIVE FORM OF THEATER

One-Woman Show with Multiple-Person Interviews BERKELEY — For an all too short run ending August 2, Anna D. Smith’s new one-woman show was launched at the Berkeley Rep. True to all of Smith’s previous works, “Notes from the Field: Doing Time in Education, The California Chapter” deals with important societal issues. It is told through a series of interviews where Smith plays the parts of interviewees, school officials, police officers, juvenile criminals and other people culled from the over 150…

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A SITCOM-LIKE, SEINFELD-LIKE COMEDY

A SITCOM-LIKE, SEINFELD-LIKE COMEDY

The SF Playhouse offers a Pinteresque mad-cap via the world premiere of Richard Dresser’s “Trouble Cometh”—funny and true, from the minute it starts. Five actors replicate a New York firm that produces TV reality shows. It assigns two writers the task of coming up with the next big thing. Joe (Kyle Cameron) is the unwitting newby whose sadistic boss Dennis (Patrick Russell) goads him at every opportunity. Joe and Dennis have a deadline where the “line” part keeps changing with…

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BERKELEY REP’S UPDATE, 4 CENTURIES LATER

BERKELEY REP’S UPDATE, 4 CENTURIES LATER

If the plot of the Berkeley Reps new show, “One Man, Two Guvnors”, sounds familiar, it should. The story of a man who has two bosses derives from the 17th century Italian commedia dell’arte tradition, specifically, the famous 17th play Carlo Goldoni’s “The Servant of Two Masters.” It’s not so unusual for us to observe people with more than one job. By necessity these people have to juggle bosses’ demands, time schedules and temperaments. That is exactly what Francis Henshall…

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SHIFTING SHOALS, SHIFTING FAMILY TIES

SHIFTING SHOALS, SHIFTING FAMILY TIES

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New Play at Berkeley Rep By Carol Benet artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area theater Weeks starting May 5, 2015 Vol. 17, No. 53 BERKELEY — Tarell Alvin McCraney’s “Heads of Passes” is a faith-based play with a topline cast about family conflicts in the Deep South, loosely based on the Biblical “Book of Job.” With added rewrites after its Berkeley Rep run, it will be headed to New York City. Playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney is big…

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‘TARTUFFE’ ANEW AT THE BERKELEY REP

‘TARTUFFE’ ANEW AT THE BERKELEY REP

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Timely Hypocrisy, Pomposity, Comedy By Carol Benet artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area theater Weeks starting April 5, 2015 Vol. 17, No. 49 BERKELEY—Molière’s satirical comedy “Tartuffe,” first performed in 1664, remains one of the most timely scripts ever written despite the vast time gap since it appeared, it. In it, Molière makes fun of excessive religiosity, yet this new interpretation at Berkeley Rep by Dominique Serrand and Steven Epp, who plays Tartuffe, is both hilarious and…

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