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Continue reading →: Review: Both infuriating and inspiring, TheatreWorks’ ‘Hold These Truths’ is also powerfulFive minutes to eight. For anyone else, five minutes to eight means exactly that. But when you are Japanese-American in 1942, just mere months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, you are guilty. Guilty as sin. There is nothing you can do to prove how less guilty you are. You…
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Continue reading →: My latest piece at Theatre Bay AreaI was able to pitch a series to Theatre Bay Area focusing on diversity on Bay Area stages. Here is the first piece, focusing on Asian American theatre, its progress and where it is headed. Thank you so much to Jeffrey Lo, Rinabeth Apostol and Lily Tung Crystal for being so generous…
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Continue reading →: Closing weekend for powerful and timely ‘Richard III’ from African-American ShakesDirector Kirsten Brandt is a few days away from closing her first show with the African-American Shakespeare Company, a production of the vicious classic “Richard III.” And to hear the energy in her voice when speaking about the show and working with one of the company’s founders, L. Peter Callender,…
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Continue reading →: Review: A friendship built from oppression displayed in ACT’s searing ‘Splendid Suns’Theirs is a bond like no other. It is not hard to see what makes Mariam and Laila come together. Both existing in a world of suffocating oppression, tethered to a man who is as vile as they come. In the return engagement of American Conservatory Theater’s “A Thousand Splendid…
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Continue reading →: Review: Everything’s all white with sharp ‘Two Mile Hollow’ at Ferocious LotusOne thing you have to say about those Donnelly’s – they know how to make an entrance. Take the dashing, thunderously white stepson Joshua. He doesn’t so much enter a room but rather is sent in by a vicious gust of wind. His eyes peer down, and even his nose…
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Continue reading →: Review: ‘Soft Power’ at the Curran takes sharp aim through laughs and songIn the past few years, I have fallen in love with a few things. First, there’s KPop. What’s not to love about these fantastically constructed groups with sick dance moves and sicker beats? BTS? Umm, yes please. And then there’s Korean Food. A Bonchon is opening around the corner from…
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Continue reading →: San Francisco’s Ferocious Lotus tackles a new genre in world premiere of Winkler’s ‘Two Mile Hollow’As the family gathers where the loons call them back, the sunset cascades down onto the muddy bank while simultaneously piercing through the Lake House window. And as the night grows darker, so do the secrets. Moonlight is thrown onto the blanket of water, white wine is consumed, and as…
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Continue reading →: Two inspirations motivate Reynolds in her solo piece ‘Hattie McDaniel…What I Need You to Know’“I sincerely hope I shall always be a credit to my race.” – Hattie McDaniel in her acceptance speech at the 1940 Academy Awards * …
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Continue reading →: Review: Initially confounding ‘Humans’ at SHN accelerates quickly with passion, pathos and purposeAt first, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of things. Circular dialogue that seemed to go nowhere in one of those New York Chinatown apartments that have a million things wrong for an absurd monthly price, yet a spot that anyone would kill for. The dialogue felt banal, the…
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Continue reading →: vanden Heuvel explores mysteries and secrets in Fugard’s ‘A Lesson From Aloes’ at Z BelowThere are so many depths and layers when it comes to portraying a character created by seminal South African playwright Athol Fugard. Wendy vanden Heuvel knows this all too well. “All of his characters have layers and layers, and to go deeply into all the layers so it’s not just…
David John Chávez
Bay Area theater critic/reporter, Executive Chair – American Theatre Critics/Journalists Association, Two-time Pulitzer Prize for Drama jurist (’22-’23). Follow me on socials and say hi! #hellatheatre
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