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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SAN FRANCISCO’S DANCE CORNUCOPIA

SAN FRANCISCO’S DANCE CORNUCOPIA

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Via the International Festival By Karl Toepfer artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area dance Weeks starting June 15, 2015 Vol. 17, No. 74 SAN FRANCISCO—From May 21 to June 7, Fort Mason hosted the San Francisco International Arts Festival. This extravaganza presented more theater, dance, and music groups than anyone can sanely absorb. Most of the performers came from the United States, but several groups came from faraway places like Iran, Poland, Kurdistan, Ireland, Taiwan and Argentina….

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RARIFIED ATMOSPHERE OF ‘MISSA SOLEMNIS’

RARIFIED ATMOSPHERE OF ‘MISSA SOLEMNIS’

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Bold Semi-Staged ‘ThomasSolemnis’ at S.F. Symphony The audacity of Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas is astounding, bordering on a touch a genius, as he dared to mount a semi-staged performance of Beethoven’s great Latin mass, the Missa Solemnis. It turned a church concert into a grand and vibrant spectacle at Davies Hall, which had to be reconfigured mightily to adapt to unaccustomed theatrical flashpoints. Controversy will surround this venture, of course, just as past stagings of church works like the…

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SMUIN BALLET, THREADING THE GENRES

SMUIN BALLET, THREADING THE GENRES

Starting Multi-City California Tour The Smuin Ballet Company holds a unique position in the dance world for pursuing an idea of ballet that is more heterodox than the aesthetic perspectives of more high profile, traditional, and heavily institutionalized ballet companies. With his extensive experience on Broadway and in Hollywood, as well as in ballet, the company’s founder, Michael Smuin (1938-2007), believed that a prosperous future for ballet involved the incorporation of elements from popular culture, with music, movement, and mood…

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UNRAVELING RAVEL’S SPANISH VEIN

UNRAVELING RAVEL’S SPANISH VEIN

And SFS Tackling de Falla, Lethargically If you love classical music of Spain, you rush to the French composers. Enamored of the Iberian Peninsula, they gave us “Iberia,” “El Cid,” “Carmen,” “Bolero,” “Tzigane,” “Don Quichotte,” “España,” and myriad titles containing the word “espagnol.” The quasi-Spanish vein however has never been a strong repertory point of the S.F. Symphony, which took another crack at it this week under Charles Dutoit but served up merely a watered-down gazpacho. Two alluring works which…

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FLOCKING JOYOUS BIRDS FROM ITALY

FLOCKING JOYOUS BIRDS FROM ITALY

And Schubert’s Morbid Romanticism The New Century Chamber Orchestra is an elite string ensemble having an unabashedly emotional approach to music. Such is the guiding philosophy of Nadja Salerno-Sonnenburg, its music director as well as lead violinist. And she never shies away from arrangements that permit borrowing from a broader repertoire. The keystone of the season finale was the effusive “Death and the Maiden” opus by Schubert as arranged by Gustav Mahler. This is an extraordinary passionate work of depth…

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STUNNING SYMPHONIC NIGHT

STUNNING SYMPHONIC NIGHT

SFS’ Sensitive, Soulful Bartok & Mozart They put it all together, with inspiring sensitivity as never before. Pairing two repertory staples plus a new curtain-raiser is hardly news. But with the expert performances, the pindrop silence, and the sense of awe, this one proved one of the great symphony concerts of recent years. It was the San Francisco Symphony taking on one of the great 20th-century works, written by a dying man driven far from home by war: Bartok’s Concerto…

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REQUIEM FOR A CHAMBER-CONCERT SERIES

REQUIEM FOR A CHAMBER-CONCERT SERIES

LOS GATOS, CA—-In affluent Silicon Valley, of all places, a salient chamber-music series in a beautiful intimate church just bit the dust after 16 years. The church bells in the steeple should have tolled on the hillsides when the Sunset Concerts at St. Luke’s Church played the grand finale May 22. With just a 150-seat capacity, despite people hanging from the rafters, the ticket income could not close the gap, and volunteers to keep running the program were in short…

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OAKLAND BALLET’S EFFUSIVE GOLDEN ANNIVERSARY

OAKLAND BALLET’S EFFUSIVE GOLDEN ANNIVERSARY

14 Ballets Mark the 50th’s Ambitious Concert Program OAKLAND—The classic bedtime story has a young girl beset by all manner of hardships having the perfect dream. The Oakland Ballet had its perfect dream with its gala 50th-anniversary performance at the Paramount Theatre May 23. The troupe laboriously put together a program to top all pot-pourri ballet programs, spotlighting 15 snippets of its ballets new and old showing off a smart, and thoroughly integrated ensemble. Included were six (!) short world…

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