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...

What better time than the close of summer to perform Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream . And what better place than the John Hinkel Park Amphitheater in the hills of Berkeley. In this natural beauty, blooming relationships of young lovers become jumbled as they encounter a forest full of fairies led by the bickering King Oberon and Queen Titania of the fairies, played by Arcady Eugene and Cynthia Lagodzinski respectively. Puck, talented Linda Maria Girón, leads the merry band of prankster fairies through the forest with music and story-telling. In their fairydust-addled state, four lovers, AnneJelika Ong Cortez as Hermia, Nic Moore as Lysander, Parker Soughers as Demetrius, and Tina Traboulsi as Helena, pursue each other through the forest with hysterical physical antics. Tina Traboulsi’s Helena is so besotted by Demetrius she attaches herself to his legs as he drags her across the forest floor. Bottom, delightfully played by Bruce Kaplan, is the perfect fool. His overblown idea...

What is the price of good health? In R.O.I., ethical boundaries, financial gains, and corporate back stabbing play against the desire to make an impact on the well-being of our fellow human beings. Two venture capitalists are debating what their next big project will be: Paul, (Bay Area favorite Anthony Fusco) the founder of The Montrose Fund and mentor to May, (earnest Sharon Shao) who is eager to prove her value. Mention of avoiding scandalous high-profile health technology start-ups like Theranos tells the audience where this is going. Greed, tech, capitalism. There are huge screens above the stage on the right and left. With a prodigious use of projections, R.O.I. drops you into the action as we see May, a young woman in her 30s walking briskly along the sidewalk on the right screen and then enter the stage just below it. The use of these devices indicate we are dealing with high-tech issues. As the play begins, May shares that her recent interview was with someone who has a chip t...

Power and politics are evident in the hilarious ongoing argument which opens The Prince Part 2 between Machiavelli, this time played with aplomb by Mark Farrell, and Leonardo, humorous Michael Ray Wisely, regarding the mess of the water system’s trenches in Pisa. Machiavelli, ever the diplomat, tries to get Leonardo to come up with a solution and Leonardo complains that they didn’t follow his specifications so it’s not his fault. There is lots of clever banter here, one of playwright Graves’ strengths, as Leonardo negotiates for expenses for himself and his entire family.  Sound familiar? Reflections on a reflecting pool? Machiavelli’s engagement of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo Buonorroti to create a wall-sized painting of the Battle of Cascina pits the two artists, one older, the other in his prime, in a furious competition. Brennan Pickman-Thoon’s rebellious Michelangelo won’t work on a schedule. Leonardo sees it as a recruitment tool. These two characters came alive in a w...

After 36 years, Central Works presents its final production - and it is terrific! Gary Graves, playwright and Central Works Co-Director, has been inspired to interpret the life of Niccolo Machiavelli since 2009, in at least four different iterations. Now in The Prince Parts 1 & 2 , he reveals Machiavelli’s whole career in one long, six-act play, broken into two parts. Machiavelli needs to find out if it is best to be fair or ruthless when dealing with people like fanatically pious Brother Jerome Savonarola and ruthless Duke Cesare Borgia – with the aim of furthering his own career. When we meet him, Machiavelli is like a competent administrator with his check lists, taking in the actions and reactions of those around him. He is never the center of attention. As a young diplomat for the Republic of Florence, Machiavelli, played with naive innocence by excellent Kevin Singer, attempts to reason with “mad monk” Savonarola, played by Mark Farrel, who appeals to the religious faith of t...