KPFA - Bay Area Theater

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “North By Northwest,” adapted and directed by Emma Rice, at ACT Toni Rembe Theatre through October 18, 2026, TEXT OF REVIEW Along with having to be perfect night after night, live theatre can only rely on sets, costumes and craft to transform time and space to fit the parameters of a script. Sure, these days a lot is computerized, but it’s still hands on, and if something goes wrong, it stays wrong. Directors like Emma Rice look at the limitations of theatre as a canvas, and then see impossible concepts as creative challenges. Whether the moors of “Wuthering Heights” or the fantasy of “The Red Shoes”, she looks to find ways to make it all work and keep audiences entertained. There may be few films less obvious to bring to the stage than Alfred Hitchcock’s classic thriller, “North By Northwest,” with its ever changing scenery, famous set pieces and convoluted plot. But in her version, now at ACT’s Toni Rembe Theatre through October 18th, it all happens on one…

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “African Stew” a rolling world premiere by Lisa B. Thompson, directed by Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe, presented by Lorraine Hansberry Theatre at the Magic Theatre in Fort Mason through September 27, 2026. TEXT OF REVIEW Tales of in-laws from opposite sides of the fence go way back, \o Babylonian times with Pyramus and Thisbe, and moving up a few millennia, we’ve got Abie’s Irish Rose in 1922, a sitcom from 1962, The In-Laws from 1979 and more recently Meet the Fockers, all mining comic gold. And now there’s African Stew, a world premiere play from Lorraine Hansberry theatre at the Magic in Fort Mason through September 27th. The play opens, after a brief flashback, as Julie Lawson, a young African American graduate student, is preparing a special Nigerian stew for her new future in-laws, arriving all the way from Lagos. Helping her and setting up the story is her black Latina best friend Trish. It’s easy to see where this is going. Only not quite. This isn’t Coming to…

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “The Cook” by Eduardo Machado, at Berkeley Rep’s Peets Theatre through October 11, 2026. TEXT OF REVIEW: Over the past seventy years, Cuba has gone through a remarkable series of changes. First there was the Batista coup overthrowing the 1940 Constitution, leading to the corruption and repression of the mafia years. Then came the Cuban revolution, with its promise of democracy and freedom. Then Castro’s socialist government offering free medical care education, along with censorship and repression. Then came the blockade, shortages and eventually a loosening. Some of those changes are evident in Eduardo Machado’’s heartfelt and emotionally rewarding play, originally produced in 2003, The Cook, now at Berkeley Rep’s Peets Theatre through October 11th. Gladys has been a cook in a very wealthy Havana home since she was thirteen. It is the end of December 1958, and she and her boyfriend Carlos, the family chauffeur and an avid Communist, are presenting a New Years Eve…

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “The White Chip” by Sean Daniels, directed by Lance Gardner, at Marin Theatre through September 20, 2026. TEXT OF REVIEW: We live in a world of addiction. Drugs, tobacco, overeating, even mindless scrolling. But the granddaddy of all addictions, going back millennia, is of course alcoholism. It’s been a long time since the drunken comedy of people like W.C. Fields or even Dean Martin, and the serious stuff, about actual alcoholism, is always very serious. So it’s a surprise and maybe a shock to see a comedy about the subject, The White Chip by Sean Daniels, now at Marin Theatre through September 20th, which tells a largely autobiographical story about a young theatre director who is, until he isn’t, a very functioning drunk. The White Chip sets itself up as a memory play, with Steven, our narrator, telling us how he first meets alcohol as a teenager, how the drinking continues ,while work afterward as a theatre director and artistic director collide with his…

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “R.O.I. (Return on Investment) by Aaron Loeb, directed by Jonathan Moscone, a San Francisco Playhouse production at Creativity Theatre. TEXT OF REVIEW: Back just a few short years ago, despite the warning dystopias of Skynet in the Terminator films and HAL in 2001, most believed technology had the power to turn this planet into a utopia. That was especially true since the tech titans seemed so idealistic. Elon Musk and his electric cars, Jeff Bezos and the Washington Post, the optimism of Steve Jobs. But times have changed. How does the horror of monopoly capitalism engage with the sunniness of a brighter tomorrow? These are heavy questions, which are subsumed inside the interpersonal power struggles that make up the bulk of the funny and profound World Premiere play, ROI, Return on Investment by Aaron Loeb, directed by Jonathan Moscone, now a San Francisco Playhouse production at the Creativity Theatre through September 5th. The Montrose Fund links investors with…

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “Orpheus Descending” by Tennessee Williams, at Oakland Theatre Project through August 23, 2026. Text of Review: Over the course of his career, Tennessee Williams wrote thirty full length plays and a host of one-acts. Yet looking at the list of plays produced by local and regional theaters, you’d think he only wrote The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire. While it’s true there was a fall off in quality after 1965, and some of the early works were sketchy, there’s still quite a roster of plays that hardly ever get revived outside of New York. So it’s a kind of gift that Orpheus Descending is now playing at Oakland Theatre Project through August 23rd. The play has a curious and confusing history. A rewrite of one of Williams’ early plays, Battle of Angels, Orpheus Descending opened on Broadway in 1957 in the midst of Williams’ most creative period. It received mixed to negative reviews, and closed quickly, later becoming a Brando film titled The Fugitive…

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews the musical “Hairspray” directed by Bill English, at San Francisco Playhouse through September 12, 2026. Text of Review: The Golden Age of the Broadway musical faded in the sixties, the age of Sondheim and the pop opera died before the new century, and since then, the Great White Way has atrophied into a world of corporate jukeboxes, pointless renderings of hit movies, little shows that could, and hits that never close. And then there’s 2003’s Hairspray, now in a fine production at San Francisco Playhouse through September 12th. It’s not as if the show vanished; it pops up frequently in community theaters these days, filling in the gaps between the spelling bee Audrey II, Hedwig and a host of Sondheims. But without a Broadway revival, Hairspray never inserted itself into the canon. And it should, particularly now. John Waters’ most mainstream film from 1988 was a tribute to the outsiders, outcasts and freaks he grew up with in Baltimore, those very people…

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “The Employee Dhama Handbook: a world premiere play by Geetha Reddy at TheatreWorks Lucie Stern Theatre in Palo Alto through August 2, 2026. TEXT OF REVIEW Discrimination comes at you in many ways. Racial bigotry. Religious fanaticism. Gender and disabled bias. Homophobia. Fat-shaming, agism. The list lengthens as you expand to other cultures. There’s the whole tribal thing too. Then there’s the caste system from India. Banned in 1950, it still lives on under the surface.Explaining caste in detail takes too long, but some jobs simply can’t go to members of one caste or another. The Brahmin are on top; Dalits at the bottom. But has the system spread to America, and if it has, how does it manifest? That question, and the relationship of that particular bias to the caste system of corporations lies at the heart of The Employee Dharma Handbook, a new play by Geetha Reddy, at TheatreWorks in Palo Alto through August 2nd. The focus is on a handful of workers at a…

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “The Lunchbox” at Berkeley Rep‘s Roda Theatre through July 5, 2026. TEXT OF REVIEW The golden age of the Broadway musical died over a half century ago. The post-golden age of Sondheim and the rock opera faded before the new century. Since then, we’ve had corporate movie adaptations, jukebox junk and an increasing number of parody meta-musicals. But good and great shows do slip through the cracks. Hamilton, certainly, but also Fun Home, Next to Normal, Suffs and others. It’s quite possible that another gem eventually to hit New York, is currently at Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theatre through July 5th, and that’s The Lunchbox, created by the team of Ritesh Batra and The Lazours. Based on a 2013 film of the same name, The Lunchbox is about one of those one in a million chance meetings that change people and the direction of their lives. Mumbai, or Bombay as it was known, has a complex system in which business people’s hot lunches are delivered from home to workplace in the…

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Woinsky reviews “Dracula, A Feminist Revenge Fantasy, Really: by Kate Hamill at San Francisco Playhouse through June 27, 2026. TEXT OF REVIEW According to Google’s unreliable AI, nobody beats Dracula as the single most portrayed literary character in film history, with over two hundred direct adaptations, parodies and crossover appearances. You can add the hundreds of theatrical versions floating around as well. Due to a screw-up in the 19th Century, Dracula has always been in the public domain in the United States. There’s also the whole vampire thing too, Vlad Tepes, Anne Rice, the Lost Boys. In 2020, following a flurry of Jane Austen adaptations, playwright Kate Hamill chose to take a bite out of Bram Stoker, and thus we have Dracula, A Feminist Revenge Fantasy, Really … yes, that’s the title, which now runs at San Francisco Playhouse through June 27th. This Dracula hews to the beats of the Stoker novel, and at the same time turns it upside down. Dracula is not merely a…

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “Pictures from Home” at Marin Theatre through May 31, 2026 TEXT OF REVIEW Acclaimed photographer Larry Sultan based his career on capturing life as lived through his art, and what better notion than collating photos of his own family and home growing up in Sherman Oaks in Southern California during the middle of the twentieth century. This collection of snapshots became a book published in 1992, which was then adapted for the stage as “Pictures from Home”, which plays at Marin Theatre through May 31st. In this memory play, Larry, who died in 2009, tells the story of his visits to his parents while preparing the book, as the three, parents and son, comment on the pictures and bicker with one another. Irving Sultan, a retired salesman, is no Willy Loman. He sold well and retired well-off, always ready to explain exactly what makes a great salesman, often to Larry’s chagrin. Jean Sultan, ever acerbic, puts up with her husband’s toxic masculinity, refusing to take his…

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews the national touring company production of “Hell’s Kitchen” at the Orpheum Theater in San Francisco. FULL TEXT: Following the release of her debut album in 2001, Songs in A Minor, singer songwriter Alicia Keys became an instant superstar, a position firmed up by a series of successful albums and Grammy Awards over the course of the next decade. So it is not surprising that a jukebox musical would at some point emerge. And thus we have Hells Kitchen, which runs at the Orpheum Theatre through May 24th. Most jukebox shows fall into two categories: a history of the performer’s career, with the songbook performed in the order the songs were recorded, with occasional numbers shoehorned into the story, or an original story retconned to make the songs fit the plot. Hells Kitchen presents new songs and shoehorned ones in a sanitized autobiography. The show focuses on Alicia Keys’ life at the age of seventeen, as she and her single mom reside in a high-rise inthe…

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews the Royal Shakespeare Company touring production of “Hamnet” at ACT Toni Rembe (Geary) Theatre through May 24, 2026. Text of Review: In November 2025, a film adaptation of the 2020 Maggie O’Farrell novel Hamnet hit the screens of America. Four months later, Jessie Buckley won an Oscar for the role of Agnes Hathaway, wife of William Shakespeare, and mother of their three children. But back in April 2023, the same month that Chloe Zao was contracted to co-author and direct the screenplay of Hamnet, a stage adaptation of the novel made its premiere under the auspices of the Royal Shakespeare Company at their home, the Swan Theatre in Stratford-on-Avon in England. And it’s a touring production by that same company that is now at ACT’s Toni Rembe Theatre through May 24th. From a purely academic viewpoint, it’s fascinating to examine the differences between the two adaptations. The same high points exist in both, sometimes the dialogue even matches. The characters are…

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews the musical “Come from Away” at TheatreWorks Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts through May 10, 2026. Text of Review: Works of art age in different ways. Chekhov’s plays, for example, were written and performed as contemporary pieces. Now their dachas and threadbare aristocrats are artifacts of history, though the universal truths remain. And nobody in their right mind would today produce Milk and Honey, Jerry Herman’s ode to Zionism. So what to make of the hit musical, “Come from Away,” which made its Broadway debut less than ten years ago, and is now in a regional production at TheatreWorks Mountain View venue through May 10th? The show tells the story of how the town of Gander Newfoundland became the temporary home of thousands of travelers forced to land there in the wake of the tragedy of 9/11, when United States airspace was closed. The town and surrounding burgs all came alive with hospitality, proving that Canadians and Americans were all one…

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “The Monsters” by Ngozi Anyanwu at Berkeley Rep’s Peets Theatre through May 3, 2026. West Coast Premiere. TEXT OF REVIEW: (minor differences between the text and the recorded review). Putting aside solo performances, the heart of the theatrical experience usually lies in the interaction between two characters, no matter the size of the cast. Obviously, several characters in plays can interact with each other at once, but the most intense scenes are usually one on on. When these interchanges work well, we talk about the chemistry between actors. When they don’t, it becomes obvious. One actor is listening and responding, the other pretending, and the audience knows it. Here’s the thing, though. None of it quite works the same way in film or TV. There are multiple takes, cross-cutting. Confrontations might even be recorded separately and put together in post-production. It feels real, but too often it isn’t. Only in live theatre, happening in real time, can we see…

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “Flex” by Candice Jones, at San Francisco Playhouse through May 2, 2026. TEXT OF REVIEW: Film and TV audiences love sports stories, groups of disparate people thrown together striving to work as one to achieve their goal, usually to win the big game. From Major League to Ted Lasso to The Sandlot, we are entranced by how the characters grow and mature, and hopefully, in the end, they will become heroes. Sports stories in live theatre are few and far between, most likely because you can’t really show the games. And sports stories about girls, black girls in particular? They’re nowhere to be found, except in the play Flex by Candice Jones, having its West Coast premiere at San Francisco Playhouse through May 2nd. Flex tries the impossible: to actually show the game, or at least some facsimile. The stage has basketball hoops at both ends, the one stage right in a playground, and stage left at a gym. We’re in a small town in Arkansas in 1998, a team of five high school…

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews :”The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?” by Edward Albee at Shotgun Players Ashby Stage through April 28, 2026. TEXT OF REVIEW: (some wording is different in the recording) Edward Albee’s reputation beyond theatre junkies mostly rests on one play, his masterpiece, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. While that play shows off his caustic wit to great effect, it’s perhaps one of the least absurdist of his plays. And Edward Albee, over all, is one of the greatest of absurdist playwrights, in plays ranging from his early masterpiece, The Zoo Story, to Tiny Alice and Seascape. The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? , which won the Tony Award for Best New Play in 2002, excels in both strains. Absurdist and deeply weird, it also contains some of Albee’s most cutting wit, all elements in full display in Shotgun Players current production, which runs through April 28th at the Ashby Stage. In this production, directed by Kevin Clarke, the play opens on a bare stage. Later we will learn where we…

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “Assassins” by Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman, at Oakland Theatre Project extended to April 12, 2026. TEXT OF REVIEW: When Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s Assassins first opened in 1990, the show focused on the relationship between America’s gun culture and the need to be seen. Looking at presidential assassins and would-be assassins, we see desperate people finding all kinds of excuses to rationalize their actions. Today, mass shooters don’t care about being seen, and obviously neither do the masked thugs of ICE. But Assassins still speaks to us in different ways, as is evident in the production now at Oakland Theatre Project through April 5th. As Oakland Theatre Project’s Executive Artistic Director Michael Socrates Moran says , Assassins was always a work of experimental theatre, so why not experiment further and turn a show, which usually features eight actors, into a one-person tour de force, signifying modern day loneliness and desperation. He notes…

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “All My Sons” by Arthur Miller, at Berkeley Rep Roda Theatre through March 22, 2026. TEXT OF REVIEW Great plays stay relevant, no matter the time or setting, or even subject matter. It could be a castle in Denmark in medieval times, a diner in Pittsburgh’s Hill District in the 1960s, a cramped Chicago apartment in the 1950s, a shabby dacha in Tsarist Russia, or even Central Park during the AIDS crisis. Or it could be 1947, Just after World War II, in the backyard of a house in an Ohio town, as is the case with “All My Sons” by Arthur Miller, the classic play that gave the playwright his first success in the theatre, and is now seen in a brilliant and unforgettable production at Berkeley Rep through March 22nd. Joe Keller is the successful owner of an appliance company, having made his money on government contracts during the war years, it’s the American dream come true. Joe’s wife Kate refuses to believe their son Larry died three years ago after being reporting…

Photo: Teresa Castracane KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “Paranormal Activity” at ACT Toni Rembe (Geary) Theatre through March 22, 2026. TEXT OF REVIEW In real life, we hate being scared, but in a theatre or on TV, there’s nothing quite like it. The slow burn of suspense, the shock of horror. Ghosts, demons, and the old cliché, things that go bump in the night. On television and film, there’s Amityville, The Exorcist, Stranger Things, a long list of Stephen King adaptations, and they date back to the earliest days of the silents. And CGI makes everything real. It’s a bit different live on a stage. We suspend our disbelief, but we’re in a community with the actors, we’re seeing effects live as they happen, all with the question, How exactly did they do THAT? Which is a question asked multiple times in the entertaining if often incoherent and vapid play, Paranormal Activity, now at ACT’s Toni Rembe Theatre through March 22nd. The curtain rises on a two-tiered set. Downstairs, the kitchen, dining…

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “M. Butterfly” at San Francisco Playhouse through March 14, 2026. TEXT OF REVIEW (minor changes were made during recording and editing): M. Butterfly Back in 1964, a French Diplomat in China became infatuated with a singer from the Beijing Opera. When they met, the singer, now wearing men’s clothing, said she was a woman presenting as a man. They embarked on an affair that began in China and ended several years later in Paris, where it turned out the diplomat was passing secret information to his lover. He later said he never knew that the singer was really a man. That story caught the public’s eye, and not long afterward, first time playwright David Henry Hwang used that story to create a play,which launched the career of B.D. Wong and later became a film with Jeremy Irons. And now a production of M. Butterfly is at San Francisco Playhouse through March 14th. Of course, times change. When first produced on Broadway in 1988, gender roles outside of the gay…

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews the national touring company of “The Notebook, the Musical” at ATG Orpheum Theatre through March 1, 2025. TEXT OF REVIEW Towards the end of the twentieth century, as the corporate world eyed the record-breaking receipts of shows like Cats and Les Miz, it became clear that if you could turn any IP, intellectual property, into a musical, a new stream of profits would come a-calling. Its also true that producers have always been searching for properties that might sing, and often it’s a labor of love. So is “The Notebook: The Musical”, now in a national tour at the Orpheum theatre through March 1st a labor of love, or just another brand name for Broadway’s corporate class to exploit for profit? Based on the weepy best-seller by Nicholas Sparks and the 2004 film with Ryan Gosling and Gena Rowlands, among others, The Notebook on Broadway presented theatregoers with a free box of tissues at each performance. The show received mixed reviews and closed after nine months,…

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “The Mountaintop” at Oakland Theatre Project through Feb. 15, 2026. TEXT OF REVIEW: In late 2008, it felt as if we’d entered a new world. The Republicans were out of office, people of color were being appointed to key positions in business and government, and a black man had just been elected president. Martin Luther King’s dream seemingly had come true. Stories of his infidelities had come to light two decades earlier, and he’d been shown to have, as they say, feet of clay. He was no longer a god, but he was a hero. And Obama’s election had proven it. And in June 2009, The Mountaintop, a play by Katori Hall, about the last evening in the life of Martin Luther King, premiered in a small theatre in London, later moving to the West End, and coming to Broadway two years later. Now, under a very different national circumstance, The Mountaintop can be seen in an Oakland Theatre Project production, which runs through February 15th, this coming weekend. We are in Dr.…

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “The Cherry Orchard” by Anton Chekhov at Marin Theatre through February 22, 2026. TEXT OF REVIEW (differs slightly from final edit for time). ​​​​​For centuries, serfs had no power in Russia. They weren’t quite slaves, but they also were not free. It was a feudal society, run by a powerful nobility ruled by an all-powerful Tsar. Due to societal and economic advances, that all changed in 1861 when Alexander the second freed the serfs. Even though their economic status shifted, and a new middle class was born, the old nobility carried on as before, eventually finding themselves in poverty. The great playwright Anton Chekhov wrote about these newly impoverished aristocrats, first in Uncle Vanya, and then later in his final play, The Cherry Orchard, which runs in a new production at Marin Theatre through February 22nd. The spendthrift Madame Lyubov has returned to her country estate with her two daughters, having bankrupted the family while in Paris. The estate itself…

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “How Shakespeare Changed My Life” at Berkeley Rep Peets Theatre through March 1, 2026. TEXT OF REVIEW You’re just a kid. You’re Black .Your teachers think you’re stupid, a hopeless fat boy. At home, your mom tossed out your junkie dad. Mom herself is ice cold, and when you’re sixteen, Mom throws you out on the street. You’re homeless, destitute, and you love Shakespeare. That’s the start of the world premiere one person play, How Shakespeare Saved My Life, written and performed by Jacob Ming-Trent, now at Berkeley Rep’s Peets Theatre through March 1st. The play is billed as semi-autobiographical, and it’s unclear what the relationship is between Jacob the character and Jacob the playwright performer. The real Jacob, for example, was already on stage at age eleven, and was admitted to acting school in New York at the age of seventeen, before developing a career in Hollywood. It shouldn’t matter, but in retrospect, it does. The story, at least, feels real, and Jacob…