Only two months before his assassination by Spain’s newly installed right-wing government in 1936, famed Federico Garcia Lorca completed his final play, The House of Bernarda Alba.  Loathed by fascists for his unrepentant socialism, homosexuality, and rejection of stultifying paternalism, the play stood as a symbol of defiance of conservative norms.  The always innovative Oakland Theater Project now presents the Chay Yew adapted English-language version of the masterpiece.

The action takes place in a small town in Spain’s Andalusia province.  Bernarda’s husband has just died, and the tyrannical widow consigns her five grown daughters to eight years of mourning.  The hitch is that the eldest, Augustias, whose father differed from that of the others, has not only received a meaningful inheritance, but she is set to marry Pepe, a rare eligible man in the town.  Thus, she has two modes of escape, while the four younger have none, especially as Bernarda “protects” them from having any contact with other men in town as she considers them all below the Alba family station.

The title figure, Bernarda, is performed as severe and uncompromising by an effectively grim Lisa Ramirez.  She scowls and thumps her cane as if grinding underlings.  Her prime antagonist is Adela, the youngest daughter, portrayed as overwrought and defiant by an also excellent Antonella Scogna who stomps and wriggles her arms furiously as if unable to free herself from invisible shackles.  Family dynamics are further complicated as Adela is secretly seeing Pepe who acts as her window to the world, giving her a glimpse of freedom.  The other sisters are also enamored with him, yet another cause for family friction.

The plot deals with very real issues in a passionate manner.  By reflection it reminds of how much change, both ebb and flow, we’ve seen in social mores and behaviors in our time.  One criticism of the text is that despite its being short for its era, it is still highly repetitious, and could have been trimmed further or added other issues.  Another consideration is that the women (and the characters on stage are all women) are one dimensional, though perhaps that is true of many real people.

So apart from the historic significance and sheer drama of the piece, why should it resonate with a contemporary American audience?  Because in many ways it mirrors our own political environment with an autocratic leader who is totally self-serving, cruel, and immune to reason.  Bernarda even repeats that she is respected and worshipped by her daughters, despite massive evidence to the contrary.  Sound familiar?  Like our president, she knowingly inflicts pain on those outside her defined circle, but she is also insensitive or oblivious to the pain she inflicts on those close to her and chokes off any attempts at freedom of action or thinking.

To accommodate a larger staging and audience than at its home playhouse, OTP took a black box space at Oakland’s Omni Commons and transformed it miraculously.  Special recognition goes to Lighting Designer Ashley Munday who not only created an extensive light grid from scratch but then executed a noteworthy design to boldly highlight features in the production.

The look of the staging is absolutely stunning, starting with Sam Fehr’s imaginative set.  With audience on three sides, glass walls surround the stage, accentuating the Alba women’s separation from society while witnessing their lives in a figurative glass house.  A white cross spans the boundaries of the floor within the space, signifying the conservative restrictiveness of religion, and the dirt covering the remainder of the floor is life suppressed.  Isadora Duskin Feinberg’s predominately black costumery also adds to the sense of stark and suffocating social restrictions.  Director Michael Socrates Moran pulls all the stops to make the material lively and relevant.

The one major criticism of the production, and it is a big one, is that the sound is inadequate.  I have verified with five other patrons who all had difficulty hearing and therefore understanding all of the dialog.  Fortunately, the overarching plotline is clear and the powerful staging and acting are not diminished.  And while I hate to ignore all of the other fine performances, I also particularly liked Angelina Fiodellisi as Maria Josefa, Bernarda’s ditsy mother. But it is not possible to give a detailed or fair accounting for this work at a granular level with so many gaps.

The House of Bernarda Alba, written by Federico Garcia Lorca and adapted by Chay Yew, is produced by Oakland Theater Project and plays at Omni Commons, 4799 Shattuck Ave., Oakland, CA through June 7, 2026.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) promises to be the most disruptive force that civilization has seen.  Unlike other earth-shattering innovations, it has arrived like a storm.  Yesterday, online searches of specific words or terms delivered lists of relevant citations.  Today, lengthy search questions deliver customized compilations and analyses in response.  While robots have slowly displaced many repetitive labor jobs, AI is scooping up thinking tasks and the jobs that go along with them.

Lauded playwright Lauren Gunderson was on the leading edge of the curve with her 2023 play anthropology, in which a 30ish computer programmer, Merril, has lost her decade-younger half-sister, Angie, presumed dead, under mysterious circumstances. The older sister feels guilt though it is unclear how she could have prevented the tragedy.   In part to help her grieving and in part to replace the empty spot in her life, Merril writes an AI program to create a video image of Angie that she can interact with.  Studded with all of the information about her sister before her loss, AI Angie can think and even act within the electronic world.

But along the lines of the old saw “Be careful what you ask for,” this program is an algorithm that acts within defined parameters.  In this case, AI Angie was designed to comfort Merril.  As innocuous as that may seem, it opens the door to actions and inactions that carry consequences.

Gunderson’s concept is brilliant; the overarching plotline and subplots are compelling; and the line-by-line dialog and action is well developed and logically consistent.  Although the product is definitely interesting, it still seems that there is room for more as the incidents and climaxes, whether build-ups or surprises, don’t produce as much dramatic impact as expected.

Maria Marquis is Merril, and she has left her mark on many Bay Area productions with consistently fine acting, including this one.  But through the first 30 minutes of the play, she is the one person on stage, which strains dramatic limits, though she is supported by a video head shot of AI Angie with whom she interacts.  Interestingly, in the sound balance, AI Angie is louder than Merril, which can be interpreted as AI taking dominance over real life.  On the other hand, it diminishes the perception of the live performance.

A note on AI Angie, played by Tiffany Cartagena – the first question in the mind of audience members is whether the video of her was pre-recorded or live.  A surprise to many is that it is live.  Cartagena was flawless in delivery as if taped in multiple takes – her head immobile with eyes wide open and blinking rarely and slowly with intention.  Otherwise, only her mouth moved with speaking and smiling, as if a “real” computer image.

The central issue is that Angie was presumed abducted and killed, and the police case is cold, but Merril wants to look at it again.  In a nod to AI’s comprehensiveness beyond human patience or capacity, AI Angie suggests that some evidence, like texts from her cell phone, and evidence from after the disappearance were not properly reviewed.  Subplots involve Merril’s relationship with her ex (Alycia Adame) and her mother (Doll Piccotto), a chronic druggie and suspicious character.

With all-female characters, anthropology is cast as a sisterhood story, but it could just as easily be an all-male or mixed gender story.  What it does remind us of is that life takes on yet another new dimension with the advent of even more powerful computer tools, but in the end, we are still people who long for the warm touch of other human beings and that we must be adaptable. At the same time, it broaches the scary conflict that arises when AI seems to be so human that we treat electrical pulses as flesh and blood.  At some point, the lines may become so blurred that inability to distinguish between life and AI will become a medical pathology.  Finally, the story is cleverly a mystery that unfolds through the AI model of the victim herself.

City Lights production values always exceed standards for a company of its type, and this is no exception.  Ron Gasparinetti’s set is limited but works with the material.  A special recognition goes to Maxwell Bowman for his extensive and outstanding video and projection work.  Executive Artistic Director Lisa Mallette as director brings it all together.

anthropology, written by Lauren Gunderson, is produced by City Lights Theater Company and plays on its stage at 529 South Second Street, San Jose, CA through June 7, 2026.

A Greek Classics instructor at a university, the disturbed Daphne desperately calls for help from the Greek Gods.  Lo and behold, who should appear?  – Dionysus, the God of wine, and Thalia, the Goddess of Comedy.  Needless to say, Daphne is shocked that her invocation produces results.  Perhaps it draws on the power of the talisman an appreciative souvenir vendor gave her in Naxos.

So what can these goofy among the Gods do for her?  What she really needs is an investigator.  But at least the good news is that Ovid’s Metamorphoses suggests that the Gods can transform into other personas, so maybe they can help after all.  Not to mention, these divinities who Zeus allows to intervene in these human affairs are charged to ensure a happy ending.

So, what’s the problem?  Daphne’s department chair Ralph has found a hitherto unknown manuscript of the ancient master Euripides’ lost play Andromeda.  Ralph will become famed in his field.  Entrusting the work to Daphne while he runs errands, Ralph later finds that the invaluable manuscript has disappeared, and the fault lies with Daphne who was not supposed to let it leave her little hands.

Such is the set up to The Gods of Comedy, from the unquestioned master of modern American farce, Ken Ludwig, who created Lend Me a Tenor, Moon Over Buffalo, and Crazy for You, among many others.  While not as lauded as his most distinguished work, this one is full of idiosyncratic characters in quirky situations.  And it happily romps through tropes of academe, romance, and Greek theater.

Director Ronnie Anderson has attracted a fine cast that appear to enjoy the silliness and pratfalls and do a fine job in extracting the humor from the material.  The Masquers Playhouse staging, notably sets and sound but also costumes and lighting, exceeds expectations, particularly given that it is a small-house community theater.

From the outset, Anna Wesner’s Daphne is a timid and bookish soul, but she animates with hysteria, determination, and amor as the plot thickens.  Her relationship with Ralph, a sometimes stuttering and daft Paul Bisesi, is conflicted by their respective professional standing and by their attraction.  It becomes more conflicted when Daphne, made invisible by the Gods, hears Ralph refer to her as his assistant.  The shoe is on the other foot when she thinks she is still invisible and admits in front of Ralph that she lost the irreplaceable book.

The comic center of the play, however, are the deities.  Jeffrey Biddle is Dionysus, who is happy-go-lucky and into current human culture, but he also has an obsession with working sex and cringeworthy jokes into every discussion.  Ironically, though, when given opportunities with Daphne, he turns chaste.  Somehow, he is aware of many idioms in English, like “pulling your leg,” which make no sense literally, that he frequently has to explain to Thalia.  Yet, as much as he loves cheeseburgers, he is taken to calling them cheeseburglers!  Biddle’s quick laugh and gregarious personality make him easy to watch.

But he is totally matched by Melody Payne Alonzo who imbues Thalia with charm, panache, enthusiasm, and humor fitting her comic designation as a muse, that make her an appealing character.  She bounces around chaotically, doing everything from playing a cheerleader with pom-poms to doing the splits.  She is not the sharpest tool in the shed, waxing on about a nectar called Dr. Pepper and enthusing over heavenly French fries.  Thalia tends to complicate matters rather than resolve them.  But Alonzo makes her irresistible.

Some of the characters are really one-dimensional, but metamorphosis allows the actors to break out.  One example is Lisa Wang who plays Dean Thicket simplistically with humorous pomposity and a put-on British affect.  However, when Thalia is transformed to portray the Dean, it is Wang with a completely different characterization that demonstrates the breadth of her acting skills.

The Gods of Comedy holds the attention, and even those who aren’t crazy about farce will find it full of humor and gentle jabs at institutions and practices that we love.

The Gods of Comedy is written by Ken Ludwig, produced by Masquers Playhouse, and plays on its stage at 105 Park Place, Point Richmond, CA through May 17, 2026.

So pre-eminent is William Shakespeare as the world’s greatest ever playwright that the Bay Area alone possesses upwards of a dozen theater companies and festivals with the Bard referenced in the name. And his aura extends to other literary works that draw from his cachet. There are spin-offs from his plays like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead drawn from Hamlet, and fantasies such as the fictional love affair that became Shakespeare in Love.

Finally come the biographies with broad-brush truths but whimsical details like Maggie O’Farrell’s novel Hamnet which became the basis for the play and movie of the same name. Both adaptations are drawing favorable attention from critics and audiences alike, and The Royal Shakespeare Company is touring with a version that strikes the right notes at American Conservatory Theater.

First things first.  Yes, the name Hamlet was largely used interchangeably with Hamnet in Elizabethan times.  The latter was the name of Shakespeare’s only son who died at age 11, and the title character of the Shakespeare play was considered an homage to the playwright’s long deceased son.  Though that death is a central event in this play, it is not really a defining one as he was far from being a main character, and his death was just another rut in the road.

Presumably, like most others, I had heard of Shakespeare’s wife as Anne Hathaway, a designation that alters her given name and fails to recognize her married surname, despite her espousal and three children by William. One of O’Farrell’s motivations for her reinterpretation of Shakespeare’s wife and marriage was that this virtually unknown woman Agnes was scorned by centuries of possibly sexist male historians whose unsupported inferences about her were universally negative and often indefensible.

Determined by many writers to be an unappealing krone at the time of her marriage, she was only 26 years old, which was near average for the time. Though she was pregnant by the 19-year-old Will when they married, so were 40% of brides during that time. She was from a more comfortable financial background than the groom, so perhaps she wasn’t such a bad catch.

Given the small role that the title character in this play has, the title Hamnet is a bit of a misrepresentation, with its intent being to make the connection with perhaps Shakespeare’s greatest play. Nor does much of the play deal with Will’s playwrighting. For the greater part, the story could otherwise be about any fictional playwright. And a more appropriate title would be Agnes, as it is really about rehabilitating her reputation as possibly a woman of character with agency.

With the exception of the final scenes that largely concern Will’s time in London as an increasingly successful playwright and actor, the narrative is mostly a domestic drama, a slice of late 16^th century life. We are reminded how brutal and benighted life was as Will’s father and Agnes’s stepmother, her only surviving “parent,” are physically and mentally cruel. Women are treated as chattel, even in Agnes and Will’s wedding vows. Also representative of the low value accorded women, Will’s mother refers to herself as “only being a woman.”

Sorcery was a common social concern, with Will’s mother even suspecting Agnes of being a witch. And while her use of herbs from a medical garden could be cast as naturalistic medicine, it really reflects the medical alchemy of the day which was based on folklore that was also suggestive of witchcraft.

Agnes is performed by Kemi-Bo Jacobs who provides an intense and riveting interpretation of the woman mostly through her first two decades as a wife and mother. Often buoyant and expansive, she also trembles with fear and anger toward her interfering and disagreeable elders. She also quarrels with Will, portrayed aptly as an engaging but self-absorbed intellectual by Rory Alexander. An absentee husband for many years, Will feels the need to be in London for his work while Agnes feels the need to stay in Warwickshire for the health of the children.

Acting is strong but tends to play a bit much to the back rows. Nigel Barrett stands out as both Will’s harsh ear twisting father and as effusive actor Will Kempe. However, he constantly seems to almost burst from his skin with zeal. The same can be said of Nicki Hobday as Agnes’s stepmother. Conversely, Penny Layden as Will’s mother Mary is suitably naturalistic and nuanced.

The action plays on a rudimentary but effective stage comprised mostly of framing beams that are used to depict everything from the small house annex that was the Shakespeare home for many years in Stratford to the Globe Theatre in London.  Erica Whyman directs and intersperses a moody mysticism of otherworldliness with more literal reality.  Some disembodied verbiage at the opening however is too muddled to understand.

The out-of-sequence opening scene that one later learns is of the couple’s twins, including Hamnet, causes a little confusion, and the first act is generally a bit slow.  But the play is ultimately redeemed as an entertainment of supposition that speculates on filling in the mystery of William and Agnes Shakespeare.

Hamnet, based on Maggie O’Farrell’s novel as adapted by Lolita Chakrabarti, is produced by Royal Shakespeare Company and Neal Street Productions, presented by American Conservatory Theater, and plays at Toni Rembe Theater, 415 Geary Street, San Francisco, CA through May 24, 2026.

One wonders how many words have been written about Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata since its premiere in 1853.  A disaster at its opening, it quickly became one of the most appreciated masterpieces in the canon and the anchor to the composer’s rich middle period along with Il Travatore and Rigoletto.  In many years it has been the most performed opera worldwide, and why not?  With end-to-end luscious music, gaiety, romance, drama, exoticism, dance, and tragedy, all in a believable (fictionalized) storyline, what’s not to like?  And remarkably, this stunningly beautiful opera was written in record time.

What made the source material, the roman à clef La Dame aux Camélias, au courant and what set salon society atwitter was that with little concealed, it tells of the recent sad existence of Parisian courtesan Marie Duplessis and her relationship with none other than the novel’s author, Alexandre Dumas fils.

The opera appeared shortly after the novel with the basic facts intact, wherein Alfredo Germont falls in love with Violetta.  Unbeknownst to Alfredo, his father Georgio successfully implores her to abandon her love for the sake of Alfredo’s sister and the family honor – notwithstanding that Violetta is dying of consumption and is now without means of support.  An atoned father and son come separately to Violetta’s tattered lodgings and deathbed just before she expires.  The real-life Marie was 23 years old.

There is a reason that the plot of this opera is important to summarize.  Francesco Maria Piave’s libretto offers social commentary, noting that the Germonts were in the highly prosperous merchant class where social mores were quite strict. The nobility that Violetta normally hung with could give a damn about the propriety of the masses.

Also, it would be difficult to find many operas in which three main characters reveal such poignant evolution in three acts.  As a courtesan of the highest order, Violetta should be totally amoral, yet she falls in love with a commoner, and her caring for Alfredo and his family lead to her isolation, impoverishment, and death.  Alfredo goes from being an ardent puppy dog to a petulant spurned paramour to a regretful true lover.  Giorgio was driven only by the needs of his family to maintain its social position. This blinded him to the goodness of Violetta and the love that she and Alfredo shared. Too late he realizes how complete her sacrifice has been, and he becomes racked with earnest grief and guilt.  This is real tear-jerking stuff.

Opera San Jose takes on this war horse once more, insightfully directed by Tara Branham who has an interesting backstage history with the opera.  She takes a more literal and expressive approach than many productions, while introducing some new twists that work well, like kathak (Indian) dancing in the party scene and an amusing gender transformation.  Further, Alfredo is portrayed very much as an outsider lacking the largesse of the noble class. The outcome is all you could ask for from the company, equally comfortable with the grand party scenes that fix in the memory and the intimate chamber scenes that better reveal character traits.  The staging and singing are thoughtful and beautiful throughout.

Overture themes signal the wonderful music to come, and its somber opening motif foretells and bookends the closing sadness.  The remainder of Act 1 contains a wealth of memorable arias and ensembles that few other operas can claim.  The whole work resonates with instrumental music delivered by Conductor Johannes Löhner’s well-honed orchestra.

Violetta is regarded as a great challenge for any soprano, demanding vocal and acting versatility, reflecting the character’s many shifts in mood and physical strength.  Mikayla Sager in a role debut delivers the receipts, as her dark spinto voice suits the part of a doleful and dying heroine.  She commands the coloratura runs and flourishes with ease along with the emotional rollercoaster that the character suffers from the bright “Sempre libera” (“Always free”) to the gut-wrenching finale “Gran Dio!…morir sì giovane” (“Great God!…to die so young”).

Her counterpart, WooYoung Yoon as Alfredo exhibits a strong, clarion tenor voice that rings clear to the very end.  It did seem that he needed a warmup at opening.  Perhaps it’s unfair to have a highlight such as the lively brindisi “Libiamo ne’ lieti calici” (“Let’s drink from the joyful cups”) almost out of the gate before the singer hits stride.  In a couple of places in that toasting song, Yoon seemed to get caught between major and minor intervals, but beyond that, he was on pitch and powerful.

The third major player is Giorgio Germont, performed by bass Kidon Choi who produces a big, round, warm sound backed with emotion.  A fitting Giorgio, his voice, however, is a bit cloaked, and he does have a tendency to drag to dirge speed, as noted in his signature aria “Di Provenza il mar” (“Who erased the sea and the land of Provence from your heart?”

Even for those who feel they’ve seen enough of La Traviata (my tenth), this one is a joy.

La Traviata, with music by Giuseppe Verdi and libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the novel La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas fils, is produced by Opera San José and plays at California Theatre, 345 South First Street, San Jose, CA through May 3, 2026.

As the world’s most noted playwright, it should be no surprise that William Shakespeare’s works have provided the basis for some of opera’s most enduring classics.  Giuseppe Verdi was a particular admirer and sourced Otello, Falstaff, and Macbeth from the Bard’s work.  Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet and Thomas’s Hamlet are other examples.  But though Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears condensed the beloved A Midsummer Night’s Dream (AMND), unlike other adaptations from Shakespeare, they preserved his language in an eloquent if archaic libretto.

Pocket Opera offers a spectacular rendering of Britten’s music in a world premiere chamber orchestra adaptation of the instrumental music by its orchestrator Liam Daly, authorized by the Britten-Pears Estate.  The score feels absolutely perfect in the chamber form as well executed under the leadership of Music Director and Conductor David Drummond.

As Shakespeare’s foremost comedy, AMND possesses all of the trappings of the genre – non-human fairies, supernatural intervention, sleeping potions, crossed lovers, mistaken identities, a play-within-a-play, the human Bottom in a pun-worthy act turned into an ass (the animal, that is), and general frivolity throughout.  All of this plays to the most lilting, delightful music in Britten’s canon.

For the greater part, the orchestral music seems almost detached from the sung, but each appeals, and somehow they work together.  Leitmotifs abound, and the score is bouncy, often with lush, quavering strings supported by a raft of pizzicato elements from plucks to clinks coming from virtually all of the instruments.  There are discrete if unmemorable arias in the score, while the most distinctive true ensemble is the interesting high wire screaming quartet by the young Athenian lovers in Act 2.

The score is generally in the post-Romantic, modernist idiom, with the exception of the rustic actors’ performance of the play-within-a-play.  In this case, the orchestra very much complements the singing, and the idiom is a melodic throwback to the likes of Puccini and Verdi.  To top it off, bits include humorous parodies of Romeo and Juliet’s death scene as well as Lucia’s mad scene.

Bringing off this somewhat overstuffed narrative that may be hard for the uninitiated to follow, is an absolutely marvelous, well-selected cast.  With twentyish named principal roles, filling the parts would seem a monumental challenge, but each voice is remarkably skilled and suited to the role.  In a sense, it’s unfair to highlight some and not others, but we all have our favorites.

As the mischief-making protagonist Oberon, the King of the Fairies, Kyle Tingson displays a rare, honey-like, easy-sounding countertenor voice that sets the standard and tone for the other artists.  Another standout is tenor Kevin Gino as Lysander who not only displays a wide vocal range but best exemplifies the other compelling aspect of all of the performances, and that is fine acting.  Gino visually and emotionally expresses with the fine detail expected from a straight actor.

The other male voice of note is a local favorite with a strong North American resumé, and that is bass Kirk Eichelberger as Bottom.  His powerful, mellifluous voice is a house filler under normal circumstances, but in the intimate surroundings of this production, there’s no challenge.  This intimacy, performed on a front-row-level thrust stage and only several rows of seats on each side offers an immediacy that makes for a very involving personal experience.

While male voices dominate AMND, female voices in the production are equally strong, but only one major principal female part stands out, the role of Tytania, Queen of the Fairies.  With the originally-cast Tytania falling sick early in the week, cover Ash Hurtado filled the role without missing a beat.  Hurtado’s heavily tremoloed coloratura soprano soars to the heights with arpeggios and leaps, both in terms of range and volume, standing out above a chorus of others.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is full of humorous possibilities that rely on interpretation and fulfillment.  Here we must shed light on multi-talented factotum (borrowing from Figaro) Nicolas Garcia, the general director of the company. He stage directs this production, extracting wonderfully expressive and nuanced performances from the cast and guiding the complex movement.  He also designed the lively costumes from the pastel jump-suit-like outfits of the soprano-driven fairy chorus to the gaudy plaid suits of the rustic actors.

Because of Pocket Opera’s unique operational mode, offering one performance of a production in three different venues, staging must be easily portable.  Though Daniel Yelen’s set and props are fairly rudimentary, they work beautifully in this compact arena and with the other elements of the production.

Similar to other Pocket Opera productions that I’ve reviewed, I have not been favorably disposed going in.  However, they’ve proven once again how professionally they produce and how entertaining their productions are.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a world-premiere orchestration by Liam Daly, is composed by Benjamin Britten with libretto by the composer and Peter Pears, based on the play of the same name by William Shakespeare, and was performed at Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts with remaining performances on April 19 at Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar Street, Berkeley, CA, and on April 26 at Legion of Honor, 100 34^th Avenue, San Francisco, CA.

We want to believe that the arc of our lives is driven by our own agency.  But at least in its embellishments, life is full of random occurrences that color our existence.  As a small example, recently on a flight from Paris to Cotonou, Benin, my wife Karin engaged in conversation with another passenger.  Though working for Google in Silicon Valley, it turns out he was from Benin and visiting home.  The next day he hosted us to visit attractions, restaurants, and events that we would never have experienced as normal tourists, and it left a wonderful impression with us that we would have otherwise missed.

How often have we all been on planes or trains or elsewhere and observed the people around us?  Perhaps by their appearance; what they are reading or watching; and the food and drink they order, we may even concoct backstories in our mind about them.  Yet, for the greater part, we never talk to them.  Such is the premise of Keith Bunin’s The Coast Starlight, named for the Amtrak itinerary between Los Angeles and Seattle.  But this 36-hour gabfest is a grand “What if?”  The exchanges that we will witness between the passengers do not happen, but they are their thoughts of what might have been if they’d actually had the interest or courage to meet and interact with these strangers.

The Rebecca Haley Clark directed production by San Jose’s The Stage captivates from beginning to end.  Six passengers trickle onto a train car between Los Angeles and Oakland and disembark between Dunsmuir, CA and the end of the line.  The ensemble is exceptionally powerful, giving life and gravity to their portrayals; the characters are sharply drawn with stories that are compelling; and though the action occurs in a train car, the scenic design by Giulio Cesare Perrone makes the field of play larger and more dynamic.

As each character enters the carriage, we quickly learn what challenge they confront – love relationship, family, or job.  But the central figure who has the most challenging decision is T.J., portrayed with great magnetism by Braeden Harris, whose anxiety shows with his thoughtful expression emanating from his gestures, his eyes, and brows.  A Navy medic who is going AWOL over orders to deploy to Afghanistan, T.J. has already pulled a tour of duty there and sees the futility of risking his life in a conflict that seems to have no purpose and no end.

T.J. and Jane (Storm White), an animation artist who is going to Seattle with the expectation that a romance will end, are the first on the train.  Seated across from each other, like most people in real life, they steal glances at one another but fail to connect.

Along the way, Noah (Terrance Austin Smith) will board.  He had served in Afghanistan ten years before and represents a class of individuals who put a cause above their own needs.  He got nothing from serving and has led an aimless existence since mustering out, yet he believes in the greater good and fears the deaths that will occur in T.J.’s absence.  Noah can be viewed as an unquestioning patriot, whether his position is right or wrong.

T.J. will have to weigh the arguments as the clock ticks.  Should he concoct a story for his reporting late for duty and accept some punishment for his imprudence, or will he spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder in the country he loves or live in exile, never to come home again?

One minor flaw in the conceit that interactions are in the minds of the passengers is when they have soliloquies.  As Liz, Charlotte Boyce Munson arrives having abandoned her boyfriend at a couples retreat at Esalen.  She strikes a vein as either the oblivious or self-obsessed person who exposes all sorts of personal information by yakking on a cell phone at a volume that fills the room.  Did that really happen?  What about the entrance of Ed (Joel Roster) who has failed his way down the employment and family ladders and boards the train in a blithering, inebriated fog.  And finally, there’s Anna (Rinabeth Apostol), who has identified her dead brother and carries his ashes.  Does she really offer her sleeping berth to T.J., or is that her (or his) fantasy?

If the above seems to expose a lot of plot line, wait, there’s much more, and it’s highly enticing. In any case, the interactions are lively, and sometimes blistering, with poignant portraits of decent people fighting through lonely interludes yet not reaching out except in their imaginations.  Though the events could play in a claustrophobic setting, two devices open up the staging.  End-to-end projections (Erik Scanlon) on the back wall depict the California terrain as the train passes by.  Also, pairs of passenger seats are joined and on rollers, so they can be scooted around, which they often are, and at times playfully or joyously.

The people and situations that they face on the Coast Starlight resonate in an extremely clever script executed with excellence.

The Coast Starlight, written by Keith Bunin, is produced by The Stage and plays at its home at 490 South 1^st Street, San Jose, CA through April 26, 2026.

Dribble between your legs.  Talk trash.  Push and cheat as much as possible without getting called for a foul.  Such were among the things taught to Starra by her mother, who preceded her by a generation on the Plainole (Arkansas) girls’ basketball team.

While her mother was the main attraction, intense and scrappy Starra has been reduced to second fiddle with the arrival of super-scorer Sidney.  But maybe with her addition, the team can make it to the state championship rounds, and catch the eyes of college recruiters.  The hitch is that the other key player on the team, April, is pregnant, and Coach Francine Page has a strict rule that pregnant girls can’t play.  The members of the team had made a pact that there would be no smoking, no drinking, and no sex until the season was over.  April broke that vow.

The team tries all manner of trickery to get the coach to relent, even wearing pregnancy prosthetics to show that they can all perform with a belly bump.  What else to do?  Of course, one alternative is for April to get an abortion, and since she’s seen the future for teen mothers, she has the will but not the money.

Meanwhile, Starra’s resentment of Sidney reaches the point that she is willing to undermine her.  This fixation on punishing a rival, despite the probable consequences to the team and to herself, is a sad reflection of the human condition that resonates with truth.

Flex is a play that centers on basketball, with plenty of one-on-ones, scrimmaging, and simulated games.  Even though the ball playing is far from realistic, the opening night audience still became frenzied during a “game” as if its cheering for a real team in a real competition.

But despite the overarching focus on basketball which can seem superficial, the play can also be seen through a line in the dialog – “Basketball isn’t a game.  It’s a war zone.”  Indeed, thematic issues emerge with the rat-a-tat of a machine gun – competition, abortion, sacrifice, keeping secrets intending to protect others, imposition of will, commitment, friendship, coming-of-age, young love, agency, separation, trust, betrayal, redemption, faith, sexual abuse, and more.  Yet, for the abundance of issues that arise, they almost all seem organic to the story line, and they are certainly all relevant to growing up hard-scrapple, female, and black in the South, or anywhere else.

Playwright Candrice Jones knows these girls.  She has created an ensemble of characters with distinct personalities and traits from the religious Cherise (Emma Gardner) to the independent April (Camille Collaço) and the conciliator Donna (Courtney Gabrielle Williams).  Under Margo Hall’s direction, each actor attacks her part with conviction.

Starra, performed by a form-fit Santeon Brown, is the captain of the team and the anchor of the cast.  She is the only one who displays notable basketball skills, but she also has the grit and the strutting panache to talk the talk and walk the walk.  But Starra also has a loving side as she often has soliloquies to share with her presumably deceased mother. Her nemesis, Sidney (Page Mayes), is also cocky, but with more convincing and less boisterous confidence.

The adult in the room is the driven but empathetic Coach Francine Pace, portrayed wonderfully by Halili Knox.  She disciplines as should be expected, but she cares about her charges and can also mother them and provide support when needed.  She also possesses the classic former athlete’s characteristic of living in the past by repeating the same stories over and again to groans by the listeners.

The overall production is powerful, with the actors creating three-dimensional characters who often face conundrums with no simple solutions, like April’s pregnancy and Starra’s deception.  But as individuals, they draw attention and sympathy.

The action plays on Bill English’s well-appointed scenic design, a simple gym-like setting with baskets that sometimes seemed to have a lid on them, as many easy shots were missed.  A car makes appearances more than once, and there is also a baptismal pool (I won’t say why.) One weakness is sound.  The performers are not amplified, and occasionally voices fade.  But what is more challenging for the listener is when music is playing which competes with the dialog.  Background sound early in the piece is mostly just annoying, but in a scene in Donna’s car, the music overpowers the girls’ voices.

Nonetheless, the play is very watchable and the messages very important.

Flex, written by Candrice Jones, is produced by San Francisco Playhouse and is performed on its stage at 450 Post Street, San Francisco, CA through May 2, 2026.

No doubt, the whole world has drooled in speculation, wondering what would happen if Keith from The Partridge Family and Marcia from The Brady Bunch fell in love.  Totally Shakespearean – like the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet!   Well, if nobody else did, playwright Stephen Garvey did.

The outcome is a parody of the two squeaky-clean, oversized families from sit-com television in the first half of the ‘70s.  But instead of confronting the Brady’s trivial domestic problems or the Partridge’s performance issues, these clans in The Bardy Bunch enter a blood feud that starts with a clash of booking and ends with virtually everyone in both families slain.  And it’s all played to pop music from the original two TV series and with integration of situations and dialog from around a dozen of Shakespeare’s plays.  Do I hear a farce?

Jumping on the bandwagon is rife in the entertainment business, and these copycat cohorts ran in primetime both starting and ending within months of each other.  Both had loving parent or parents with an age-diverse five or six kids whose competition with one another became an issue.  And each had a dorky non-family member who was part of the mix – the maid Alice for the Bradys and the manager Reuben for the Partridges.

A lot of theatergoers grew up with these TV series, while others had not.  This production offers ticket upgrade options that include screenings of excerpts from the two shows, so that even those who are unfamiliar can get a flavor of the characters and then see their theatrical personas.  Probably the more familiar the viewer is, the more pumped they will get with the theatrical mash up.  Yet, even those who know nothing of the series’ background but know a little Shakespeare should find it a gas.  Of course, there is a lot of parody of Romeo and Juliet but also bits from Macbeth including Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalk; Hamlet, with a particular fractured line delivered by Bobby Brady as “To BB or not to BB” (get it?); The Merchant of Venice’s “pound of flesh;” and more.

Guggenheim Entertainment’s rowdy revival captures the ‘70s with silly characters clad in garish period costumery with an emphasis on comic/graphic flowers and orange color that look straight out of Rowan and Martin’s Laugh In. 

Dave Abrams as Keith and Sophie Schulman bring verve to their central roles.  On television, Keith was the most musical of the kids, so Abrams does the heavy lifting here.  The most famous song to come out of the shows was the Partridge’s “I Think I Love You,” a pop anthem that rose to number 1 on several charts.  With that as a benchmark, one might expect that the whole soundtrack would be bubble gum.

But with some solid tunes and arrangements and a heavier sound led by the energetic Abrams, much of the music rocks and even has a touch of soul.   Numbers like “I Woke Up This Morning” and “I Can Feel Your Heartbeat” hit the spot.  And while most of the lead singers deliver the goods, some underutilized voices are particularly powerful.  Stephen Guggenheim and Susan Gundunas as the Brady parents both have considerable opera resumés.  Meanwhile, between the chirpy interludes, intrigue and mayhem abound, but the dark side is delivered in such a goofy manner that you don’t even think of the body count.

Director Scott Evan Guggenheim keeps the action moving on a stage that divides the two families onto respective sides of the stage.  The staging cleverly serves many purposes, with the special visual attraction being the Partridge family’s bus in the style of a Mondrian painting.

The Bardy Bunch is for most but not for everyone.  It has no layers of meaning, thoughtful provocation, or ethereal performances.  But if you relish nostalgia, like pop music, enjoy identifying markers from Shakespeare plays, and are into cheesy camp and chaos, this one’s for you.

The Bardy Bunch, written by Stephen Garvey, with music from the original TV series and produced by Guggenheim Entertainment, plays at 3 Below Theaters, 288 South 2^nd Street, San Jose, CA through April 26, 2026.

The Great American Musical has evolved through the years.  In the early days, musicals were little more than a compilation of unrelated pop songs interspersed into a paper-thin story.  Nowadays, they integrate thematic and often sophisticated songs into the plot; they may be sung-through like an opera; and un-frothy genres range from political to horror.  But “back in the day” and particularly in 1934 in the midst of the Great Depression’s woes, audiences wanted fun-filled escapism and glamor.  Into that breach came Cole Porter’s Anything Goes.

Set in the luxury of an ocean liner crossing the Atlantic to London, its passenger list is replete with the wealthy, the nobility, and importantly to other passengers, the famous.  But in this case, the famous are on the FBI’s Most Wanted List.  And for all of its superficial frivolity, the book and lyrics do contain some broadsides concerning the erosion of American morality and respect for the law that occurred as a result of the just repealed Prohibition.  Even the original lyrics of the title song are racy and full of sneaky social commentary.

Thanks in part to revisions over the years which have tightened the storyline and borrowed several key songs from other Porter musicals, Anything Goes is often revived.  Because of the large cast and frequent and diverse dancing, it is particularly popular with performing arts programs in schools.  Altarena Playhouse has produced an appealing version that provides the kind of high-level entertainment that better community theaters are capable of.

Like many musicals, Anything Goes is ultimately about couples in love facing obstacles and overcoming them.  Getting to the ultimate attachments is roundabout with a lot of implausible but engaging situations.

Billy Crocker, the central character, stows away on the S.S. American, on which his boss, a Wall Street magnate, is booked.  Much of the plot is about Billy’s travails of not having a passport, a cabin, or clothes, other than what he’s wearing.  Nico Jaochico is Billy, and the actor’s fit with the character is evident with Jaochico’s smiling enthusiasm, broad gesticulation, and comic delivery throughout.  To avoid detection by his boss and the ship’s captain, Billy is constantly changing guises, including sailor, chef, and female, and the actor gets to display his versatility with voices and affect.

Through these changes, the score is full of melodic tunes.  The first act alone has an incredible five songs that are standards in the American Songbook – “You’re the Top,” “It’s De-Lovely,” “Friendship,” “I Get a Kick Out of You,” and of course, “Anything Goes.”  All are delivered joyously, and the title song has the addition of great tap dancing accompaniment which leaves the whole audience smiling.

The female lead is nightclub singer Reno Sweeney, who knew Billy before the cruise and had a crush on him.  Performed by a compelling Seana Nicol, she possesses a strong singing voice and acting chops, and like Jaochico, has charisma that suits the role.  Individually and together, they give fine renditions to the Porter tunes, but one weakness is Act 2’s “All Through the Night,” in which the orchestra arrangement overpowers the singing in what should be a very understated backing.  Nonetheless, the decision to have Music Director Armando Fox and the other six musicians on stage and in uniforms creates the feeling of a shipboard orchestra and otherwise works well.

Another layer of the story could be labeled Damon-Runyon-goes-to-sea, as violent criminals who would have been sociopaths in real life are treated as harmless, goofy characters.  The third lead in the show is the always reliable Dan Kolodny, who plays Moonface Martin, #13 on the FBI’s Most Wanted List, but who is disguised as a priest.  He carries the passport of “Snake Eyes” Johnson, Public Enemy #1, who was to board the ship but was mistakenly left onshore.  Moonface befriends Billy and allows him to use “Snake Eyes’” passport to have an identity.  Being mistaken for a famous criminal initially benefits Billy, but he will eventually regret it.

Anything Goes is a funny romp, and Director Laura Morgan ensures crack delivery of the performances, and along with Set Designer Tom Curtin, they make great use of the small space to include a catwalk above the stage.  Although the tap and other numbers with a dozen or so dancers is a bit congested, Choreographer Rachel King Campodonico makes the best of the limitations.  While performances in supporting roles are uneven, most are adequate to make for an enjoyable production.  Some voices are very good, led by Christina Swindlehurst Chan as Billy’s love interest, Hope.

Anything Goes with music and lyrics by Cole Porter and new book by Timothy Crouse & John Weidman, is produced by Altarena Playhouse and is performed on its stage at 1409 High Street, Alameda, CA through April 26, 2026.