There are works of art that are exciting and captivating to experience, but which quickly lose their initial spark of pleasure, diminishing in brightness the more you think of them. Guards at the Taj, by Rajiv Joseph (Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo), does the exact opposite. It leaves one a bit stunned and baffled, then…
“The film has a very poetic heartbeat, perhaps because it’s based on a book written by a poet,” observes Prartho Sereno, sipping a cup of coffee this rainy Saturday, while discussing The Zookeeper’s Wife, a new film based on the bestselling book of the same name. “It’s funny, I know, but different poems kept coming to…
Last weekend, two Neil Simon plays opened in the North Bay, each a demonstration of the legendary playwright’s mastery of rat-a-tat dialogue, skillful one-liners and flawed but relatable characters. At San Rafael’s Belrose Theater, Marin Onstage presents The Sunshine Boys, Simon’s 1972 hit about a long-feuding former vaudeville duo lured into reuniting for a television special.…
‘Hold still and sip the pain.” It’s a brief, swift line, uttered kindly but fiercely by the wise, wary slave Azucar (Cathleen Riddley), combing the hair of the impulsive, 13-year-old Zuri (Dezi Soley). Azucar’s simple sentence is a strong early example of how playwright Star Finch will be weaving words together in the stunning world…
“I have to tell you, I used to have a pretty snobby opinion of Neil Simon,” confesses director Jennifer King. She’s just called for a break, roughly halfway through a busy rehearsal day at Cinnabar Theater. The company is readying a new production of Neil Simon’s “The Odd Couple,” and as the play’s two lead…
The poster art for Marin Theatre Company’s current production of the high-school comedy “Peerless” is mischievously ingenious. It features an illustration: a pair of smiling school girls, a silhouetted rat and crow, and a cartoonish x-eyed corpse – all so cutely and crisply drawn one might assume that – rats, crows and corpses aside –…
“Our band motto is ‘All of the feelings, all the time,’” laughs Ingrid Elizabeth, one-half of the contemporary folk duo Mouths of Babes, adding, “We totally think we’ve achieved that goal with our new CD. It’s definitely an emotional ride.” Titled “Brighter in the Dark,” the album is the first full-length release from Mouths of…
As the Sunday afternoon sun reaches into the lobby of the movie theater, a stray shaft of light briefly illuminates a massive cardboard display propped up against the wall. It vividly depicts actress Emma Watson—who briefly glows in the sunlight—posed alongside an array of gesticulating clocks, candelabras, teapots and feather dusters, plus an enormous, forlornly…
“These, over here,” points Caitlynn Adlard, smiling modestly as she gestures to a nearby array of shelves, “are our heads.” Well, yes they are. Those are heads. To be specific, mannequin heads. Lightbulb-shaped and largely featureless, the disembodied crania are mostly bald at the moment, though several of them do boast wildly elaborate and very…
“You want to tell me about black people?” In director Carl Jordan’s sensitive, doggedly humane staging of David Mamet’s 2009 drama Race – running through March 26 at Left Edge Theater – that confrontational line comes early, as a brilliant black lawyer, Henry (Dorian Lockett, funny, furious, and absolutely superb) faces off against a potential client, the cocky…
North Bay Stage and Screen 