Bay Area Limelight

In a child-size library with child-sized chairs, the Executive Committee of elite Eureka Day grammar school in Berkeley meets to resolve school issues. When we first encounter them, they are peddling around whether the races listed on the dropdown of their website are accurate and inclusive enough. They need to determine whether there needs to be a change in the identity checklist on the school admission form. Should they include Jewish or is white enough? The actors brilliantly satirize the types of parents who would choose to send their children to a progressive school. Author Spector has an ear for the jargon used by his characters. They constantly interrupt each other using phrases like unpack issues , framing opinions . The audience guffaws. As they go about this exercise, the personalities of the four parents are revealed. Eli (gesticulating Austin Bean) retired from Facebook and cashed out. He is a stay-at-home dad with time on is hands and a need to be center stage. Meiko list...

This farce could not have played at a more appropriate time. Dolly Parton’s theme song to the film Nine to Five , where the women are working for an incompetent jerk, could have been used in this play. A sharp exchange between Michelle Rabkin’s Harriet, the president’s Chief of Staff and Karla Acosta Ormond’s Jean, his jaded Press Secretary, starts things off. Jean is doing damage control. Potus, who we never see, has described the first lady’s mood with the c-word, within hearing of the press. Chief of Staff Harriet is responsible for solving all the problems like this inside the West Wing and around the world. There are no specific administrations referred to, but a little bit of this and a little bit of that let our imaginations run wild. A disjointed beginning looking like a series of black out skits opens the play. In a farce about women holding things together for the men running the show, it works better when we see more of the cast. Feisty Raven Douglas plays Chris, a White Hou...

A play about addiction described as a comedy? I was expecting something depressing but this dark comedy promises hope at the end of the tunnel. Instead of avoiding the stigma of alcoholism, writer Sean Daniels wants us to talk about it and get it out in the open. This attitude is reinforced by Director Lance Gardner, who will soon celebrate 20 years of sobriety. Gardner keeps the play running at a tight pace and the actors are up to it. Benjamin Clark, in his Marin Theatre debut, plays a successful theatre director. His character, Steven, is a high functioning alcoholic who kids himself that his coworkers perceive him as simply quirky. "You’re an artist. You’re expected to be eccentric!" We see Steven introduced to alcohol at the age of 12 and gradually starts getting into trouble. Car crashes, vomiting at the movies, misguided leaps from buildings, the usual teenage stuff. His teenage pals voted him “most likely to exceed.” After one too many car crashes Steven’s parents sen...