A ballerina stretched her limbs outside the Durham Studio Theater as an actor practiced his vocal exercises, both at odds with the glaring sunshine. 2 p.m. on a Friday seemed an unlikely time for a theater performance. It was a few minutes before those smoking their cigarettes heeded the suggestion Read More…
Our lead writers bring you the latest and greatest in Bay Area arts and culture this week Film This week the Pacific Film Archive hosts four films by Michael Glawogger, an Austrian filmmaker who focuses on the plight of the working class amid an increasingly alienating global economy. Glawogger’s experimental Read More…
Our lead critics bring you the latest and greatest in Bay Area arts and culture this week. Film Wednesday afternoon, Pacific Film Archive hosts the last of its Film 50 series, a course taught by Marilyn Fabe which surveys a variety of films from different eras and sensibilities. This year’s Read More…
Set in Vienna in the late 19th century, “Anatol” follows the romantic dalliances of the namesake protagonist, an aging Austrian playboy in constant search of female affection. The play is an episodic depiction of Anatol’s many interrelated affairs, each depicting him simultaneously deluding and distrusting himself with his women. Originally Read More…
The S.F. Playhouse’s quaint 100-seat theater is the perfect setting for Annie Baker’s Obie-winning “The Aliens,” which takes place on a shabby back porch behind a coffee shop in a small town in Vermont. Confined by mismatched fence posts, two grizzly 30-somethings, KJ (Haynes Thigpen) and Jasper (Peter O’Connor), try Read More…
Nineteenth-century London — that grimy, Industrial Age time — is frequently dreamed up in novels and films as a place of chimney smoke and dark alleys, rogues and street urchins. In short, it’s a dog-eat-dog world. This is literalized in the BareStage Productions’ “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Read More…
Visual Art: Cal Day is approaching, and Saturday’s flurry of events will offer art lovers unexpected opportunities for special tours, exhibitions and demonstrations. These art-related events are not just for bright-eyed future Cal bears and their parents, but are also offered to the general public. At Free Speech Movement Cafe, Read More…
Our lead critics bring you the latest and greatest in Bay Area culture for this week. Film Our very own Pacific Film Archive mixes, as it were, sound and image in the next installment of its Cine/Spin series, where Cal DJs take on films from the PFA collection. On Thursday, Read More…
Film Peter Greenaway’s “The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover” (1989) is not a movie that calls for popcorn, not only because of its twisted antics — running the gamut of blood, shit and piss — but because it is a bold, serious film. Michael Gambon plays Albert Read More…
“What do you see?,” grunted an artist in paint-splattered clothing. The question, repeated several times in the first moments of Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s “Red,” was directed to his young assistant. There’s clearly an imbalance in the dynamic. The older man’s severe glasses channeled the sheer force of his personality, whereas Read More…
