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Continue reading →: 42nd Street Moon’s ‘Saturday Night’ a thrill for director Weible
Stephen Sondheim fans are sort of like Disney fans. Disney fans spend an inordinate amount of time scanning blogs, engaging on message boards, and most importantly, wait for the next big Disney thing. In the case of Sondheim, there is no big thing waiting around the corner. A composer who…
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Continue reading →: Review: Visceral beauty abounds in magical Cirque du Soleil ice extravaganza ‘Crystal’
The ice at SAP Center in downtown San Jose is usually reserved to big dudes with bigger beards skating very fast, with solid, frozen rubber spheres flying around the rink. Yet in the most recent incarnation of the wildly successful and artistic Cirque du Soleil show, entitled “Crystal,” which made…
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Continue reading →: Malbrough’s ‘How to be a White Man’ at SFBATCO looks deeper into privilege, power and worth
Initially, Luna Malbroux never felt she was propped up by anyone as an example of Black success. Growing up in rural Louisiana, she always had good grades in school, has a graduate degree, and is a Black woman in the overwhelmingly white male world of stand-up comedy. But after she…
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Continue reading →: Review: Berkeley Rep’s ‘Office Hour’ needs more time than that
There is an odd moment in Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s “Office Hour” that takes place between the disturbed Dennis, the professor Gina and a few pens. The young man takes the bait, humoring the professor by engaging in a conversation. The conversation as a stand-alone piece has some nice, humorous moments,…
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Continue reading →: ACT’s ‘Vietgone’ ready to take its audience on a rollicking, rapping road trip
In 1975, rap was not exactly a thing. Sure, there were influences of rap music and definitely sampling that took amazing beats from the 1970s and placed them into later rap songs, but as a whole, 1975 wasn’t exactly the year when rap burst onto the scene. None of that…
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Continue reading →: Foothill Music Theatre’s ‘9 to 5’ turns fun ’80s film into a timely musical
The beginning of the 1980’s did not exactly kick off a decade in film where story lines showcased respecting and honoring females for their minds. A decade that gave us multiple “Porky’s” movies and plenty of sex-starved teen hijinks makes for some strange viewing in today’s modern world. And…
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Continue reading →: Review: A bloody fantastic ‘Sweeney Todd’ at San Jose Stage
The degree of difficulty on Stephen Sondheim’s exquisite masterpiece “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” is sublimely high. The tight harmonies and aggressive, rhyming syncopation that pulses through this viciously brutal, yet heart-filled story of a man and his revenge is so jadedly appealing. Every note has searing…
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Continue reading →: Review: A fresh ‘Streetcar’ by Ubuntu is magnificent from the first note
The tension between them is palpable. The first time Stanley Kowalski comes across his enigmatic sister-in-law Blanche DuBois, he studies her up and down, quietly dissecting her every move. There is something about her that is wholly appealing, yet disconcerting. And as time passes, the lies of Blanche and the…
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Continue reading →: The sound of a marriage is captured in the Magic’s ‘Reel to Reel’
In many instances, when a married couple who seems to have all the boxes checked for wedded bliss announces their divorce, it is shocking. Two names that are sawdered together for eternity find themselves broken in two, and a marriage that begins with vows which include the words “in sickness…
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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