Top 10 of 2010

2010 winds to a close. And though I only saw about half as much theater (and concerts and nightclub acts) as I did in 2009, I still saw enough to make a solid Top 10 list.

Here – in reverse order of preference – are the best theatrical experiences of the past 12 months:

10: “Oedipus el Rey” at the Magic Theater
This retelling of the Oedipus story in the barrio and prison culture of Hispanic gangs was beautifully staged and performed. Poetic and haunting.

9: Alan Cumming at the Castro Theater
A night of dishy fun. Cumming sang, told jokes, ragged on celebrity culture – all quite expertly.

8. David Sedaris at Berkeley Rep
This was a simple evening: just David talking and reading from his (then) forthcoming new book, “Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary.” What sort of surprised me was how kind and generous David was – he signed books for absolutely everyone who wanted it, and chatted and laughed with his fans both before and after the reading.

7. “Palomino” at the Aurora Theater
Solo performer David Cale did a brilliant job (both in writing and performing) with this piece about an Irish hansom cab driver in Central Park who becomes an escort on the side. Cale played the driver and all the women who loved/hired him. Funny and insightful and wonderfully-constructed.

6. “Andy Warhol: Good for the Jews?” at The Jewish Theater of San Francisco
Another one-man show, another great success. Kornbluth has made me laugh about as hard as anyone ever has. This show wasn’t as roaringly-funny as, say, “Red Diaper Baby,” but the cultural insights more than made up for the somewhat reduced humor quotient.

5. “The Brothers Size” at the Magic Theater
One of the trilogy of the Brother/Sister plays, this was my favorite of the bunch. All broke down not the fourth wall, but the first wall, taking us inside the mind of the playwright, sensing his intentions – even as those intentions were being realized right in front of us.

4. “Mrs. Warren’s Profession” at Cal Shakes
Just a restaging of one of George Bernard Shaw’s lesser-performed works, but it was so ably done, and I love Shaw so much that it had to go on the list.

3. “In The Wake” at Berkeley Rep
Set in the Bush years, this show examined the effects of politics and culture on the lives of people who feel they have the power to effect change in those areas but come to realize they are as inconsequential as every other individual without vaults of cash or far-reaching political influence.

2. “Equivocation” at Marin Theater Company
A celebration of language and art, set in the world of Shakespeare and his company of actors. Fun, challenging, entertaining – a smart but thoroughly enjoyable evening.

1. “The Real Americans” at The Marsh
Dan Hoyle (son of great physical actor Geoff Hoyle) created easily my favorite show of the year. Dan spent several months driving around the heartland of America looking for old-fashioned country wisdom – but discovered so much more. Racism, xenophobia, ignorance…but also sincerity and compassion. What’s more, his skewer didn’t spare his intellectual Bay Area aesthetes, either.

This will be staged at Berkeley Rep this year, so you will have another chance to see it. Do so.

Even Geeks can be Luddites

Brilliant.

Inspired by Nature

...and man. These faucet designs found their genesis from a variety of sources: penguins, violins, sculpture. I think the penguins is my fave.

This...

...is the craziest f*#!ing thing I've ever seen. At least today. You must wait for the chorus, and there's a tiny extra dollop of crazy at the very end. (Oh, and Jim...? Shouldn't "his" be capitalized if "Him" is?)

And...applause.

There is simply no piece of classical music with a more compelling, dramatic conclusion than Rachmaninoff's "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini."

Go ahead, listen to it. Tell me I'm wrong.

The Marriage Equality Cup Final

This year's World Cup final will feature teams from two countries (Spain and The Netherlands) that have embraced marriage equality, playing in yet another country (South Africa) that has embraced marriage equality. Somebody up there likes us?

The Vuvuzela Wave

Watching some of the World Cup games, I've decided we ought to send Krazy George to South Africa and get them to do the wave with vuvuzelas: as the "wave" hits you, you stand and blow on the horn. The idea is to get the sound cycling around the stadium in the same way the wave of people do.

Now what I'm wondering is this: if you take two things that were fun to begin with but ultimately grew annoying and overstayed their welcome, do they cancel each other out and become cool for another 20 minutes, or do they cause a logarithmic increase of annoyance?

They Ditched Her

You may know the story of Constance McMillen, the Itawamba (Mississippi) High School senior who wanted to take her girlfriend (and wear a tux) to the prom. School said no, McMilled sued, with the help of the ACLU she won, she was re-invited to prom. Except it seems the school (or at least most kids and probably some parents) planned a double-super-secret prom to be held someplace else. At the "official" prom, Constance was there with her girlfriend -- and only seven other kids! How fun was that?

I'm anxious to see what investigations into this prove, as the word is just breaking today. But if it's true (and I can't imagine it can be kept secret for long in the Facebook age), it's incredibly twisted and cruel and I hope anyone who is responsible ultimately feels enormous shame for their actions. And if any school officials helped plan this secret prom or keep the secret prom a secret from Constance, I hope they are sued or jailed for perjury.

Slightly Spooky

In the past couple of weeks we've begun watching season one of the cable drama "Damages" on DVD. The show stars Glenn Close as both the hero and villain of series; she's a high-powered attorney who is brilliant, manipulative, conniving and caring.

But that's not the spooky part. The spooky part is that while watching an episode, I noticed that one of the characters looked a bit like Tom Cruise. He's a recurring character and has been in several episodes, but in this one scene, the resemblance just struck me. So I said to Bob, "doesn't that guy look a bit like Tom Cruise?" Before he could answer -- in fact, in about ONE SECOND, the character on screen with this guy said: "Has anyone ever told you you look like Tom Cruise?"

Like I said, spooky.

More Common Sense from Tom

Not Paine. Not me. Friedman. Tom Friedman. In an op-ed piece in today's New York Times, Friedman lays out a few ideas about how to get the "radical center" more involved in politics and perhaps cure some of the negative effects of rabid partisanship that has our system of governance trapped.

Money quote:

"One reason independent, third-party, centrist candidates can’t get elected is because if, in a three-person race, a Democrat votes for an independent, and the independent loses, the Democrat fears his vote will have actually helped the Republican win, or vice versa. Alternative voting allows you to rank the independent candidate your No. 1 choice, and the Democrat or Republican No. 2. Therefore, if the independent does not win, your vote is immediately transferred to your second choice, say, the Democrat. Therefore, you have no fear that in voting for an independent you might help elect your real nightmare — the Republican."

God and Randomness

In the last few months, my posts here have become less and less regular. This leads me to believe there are fewer and fewer of my readers still out there. (Hi mom!) However, even when I was posting 4-5 times a week, sometimes daily, I was never doing it for anyone but myself.

When I post now, it's for the same reasons: because I have some opinion to get off my chest or some half-baked idea I think might be interesting or some opinion or work of someone else that I think should get a slightly wider reading. Today's post is the latter. It's a brief column from Jonah Lehrer, a science writer for Wired and The New Yorker. He references a study from the University of Waterloo that addresses how people might deal with the random nature of existence by putting greater stock in a controlling hand of G-d. Being a big believer in randomness being responsible for pretty much everything about our existence, I found it interesting. Money quote:

"What this study really reminds me of is the stock market. On the one hand, it's a mostly accepted fact that the stock market is a random walk. (Some smart behavioral economists disagree.) Nevertheless, it's pretty clear that, for the vast majority of investors, it's safe to assume that the market is so efficient that it's effectively random. So how do we react to this information? Do we stop trying to outsmart the S&P 500 and instead sink our savings into a low cost index fund? Do we seek the safety of bonds? Not at all. Instead, we become day traders."

Just Brilliant

An amazing video that is text only. You have to watch until at least halfway through. That's where the brilliance starts.

Wholly Trinity

Stumbled into this place Saturday night. Viraocha is not just a gallery or a retail store or an art installation -- it's all three in one. And beyond that, it's sort of indescribable. But whatever it is, it's very, very cool.

Johnny Weir Rocks

Maturity, self-confidence, compassion...Johnny is a real man.

Can't Say As I Blame Him

An orca at Sea World park has attacked and killed one of his trainers. No one seems to understand why this happened. Speculation by one park employee, though he wisely stated he wouldn't jump to conclusions was that this "could be play behavior."

But that doesn't make sense to me. If this is how orcas play, why would such an incident be so rare? (Although this orca, Tilikum [above, playing the submissive role], has previously killed a trainer, and is the prime suspect in the death of an idiot who apparently snuck into the park in order to swim with the whales.) Orcas know how to be gentle, they know how to be in the water with humans in a cooperative way if they want -- why would the pattern change so abruptly?

Seems to me Tilikum is like a prisoner who got to one of the guards. Captivity -- especially for creatures used to roaming such expansive areas -- will drive almost any mammal (and many non-mammals) insane. And if not insane, it stands a good chance of making them really, really mad and vengeful. Like Tilikum.

Boggles my mind as so how we allow theme parks to capture and enclose amazing, air-breathing, live-birthing, breast-feeding fellow mammals. As I wrote in another post, some animals seem to be able to take only so much abuse off of humans. They refuse to be domesticated. Good for them.

Fascinating Graph

I didn't realize so many San Franciscans rode public transit.

"Doubt: A Parable" at NCTC

The first time I saw "Doubt: A Parable," John Patrick Shanley's play about a (possibly) pedophile priest in the Bronx in 1964, it was during its original run off-Broadway at the Manhattan Theater Club, during previews. I remember staggering from the theater, knocked off-kilter by the brilliant economy of Shanley's text, not to mention equal brilliance from the cast, especially Cherry Jones and Brian F. O'Byrne. I saw the play a second time, during its Best of Broadway run, again with Cherry Jones, but many of its nuances were lost because the Golden Gate was simply too big a venue.

I wasn't planning to see it again, but good friends were very impressed by the production at New Conservatory Theater Center and insisted I go. I did, more than a tad skeptical. NCTC has hosted a couple of the worst things I've ever seen staged. However, I support them with my presence at many of their shows, and cut them a lot of slack, given the budget and talent pool they have to work with. Sometimes they surprise with their quality ("History Boys"), sometimes they disappoint ("Some Men"). Tonight they sort of blew me away.

From the moment I walked in, this was the best NCTC production I've seen. The set was simple without being austere, and evocative of the time and place. But, I thought, set is one thing -- this could all come crashing down the moment the actors open their mouths. But they didn't. In fact, every one acquitted themselves extremely well, especially Scarlett Hepworth in the role of the twisted Sister Aloysius. When you've seen Cherry Jones and Meryl Streep in a role, it's hard to expect anyone to top those performances. Fortunately, acting isn't a zero-sum game with world ranking points, and Hepworth brought her own (equally valid) interpretation of the character to the NCTC stage and I was just as mesmerized by it. The 85 minutes flew past.

Of course, when you are given a text as brilliant as Shanley's (which ended up winning both the Pulitzer and Tony Awards), that's a great start. But it takes more than a great play to make a great production, and the cast and director Ben Randle also deserve kudos for revealing aspects of the play I'd never noticed before. After the past few productions, I was left in doubt as to whether Father Flynn actually did have an inappropriate relationship with one of the altar boys. When I left the theater last night, I had much greater certainty about what the character was up to. I'd also been a little confused by the last line of the play, but now I believe I know what Sister Aloysius means when she says, "I have such doubts."

If you haven't seen "Doubt: A Parable," don't wait any longer. This may be the best chance you get. Go see a wonderful production of terrific play.

I pride myself on my packing skills...

But this is insane.

Herzog Deconstructs Children's Books

These are both brilliant, though I think I like the first one better.

Whose Way?

The world is full of strange and interesting stories. Like this one from the New York Times about how the singing of Paul Anka's "My Way" can spark violence in karaoke bars. So much violence that the song is now rarely sung.

"The authorities do not know exactly how many people have been killed warbling “My Way” in karaoke bars over the years in the Philippines, or how many fatal fights it has fueled. But the news media have recorded at least half a dozen victims in the past decade and includes them in a subcategory of crime dubbed the “My Way Killings.”"