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KPFA - Bay Area Theater

KPFA - Bay Area Theater

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 Bay Area theatre reviews with KPFA theatre critic Richard Wolinsky, plus interviews with local Artistic Directors, actors and directors. Older posts include interviews witth former associate KPFA theatre critic C.S. Soong. Dates when reviews airs can be found at http://bookwaves.homestead.com/Theatre_Reviews.html2026KPFA 312700 Political Science Politics & Government
Episodes
  • Review: “M. Butterfly” at San Francisco Playhouse

    Review: “M. Butterfly” at San Francisco Playhouse
    Feb 18 2026
    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 community were rigid, and the East was still somehow viewed as exotic in the United States. But change was already happening. Ten years earlier, Edward Said had redefined the term “orientalism” to describe, now quoting from Google, a Western system of representation that depicts the “East as static, exotic, and inferior to justify Western imperialism and domination.” On top of that, gender fluidity hit the zeitgeist. While David Henry Hwang did update the play in 2017, it turns out there was no need, as we see and hear in the original 1988 version. The show opens. We are in a prison cell where Rene, a former French diplomat, is serving out a sentence of treason. Mocked and reviled, he tries to explain exactly what happened and why, and how his uncontrollable obsession with the opera singer Song led to his ruin. The prison is real, and metaphorical. Rene is trapped in his fantasy and in his understandings, most of which are wrong and foolhardy. Unfolding as a subtext is an examination of gender roles, of myths about the east, and of sexuality in general, as well as of the lies we tell ourselves, the lies we tell others, and the strictures society and governments put on all of us. The production’s secret weapon are its two leads. Dean Lillard as Rene and Edric Young as Song are both brilliant, with a palpable connection, and repulsion. They are assisted by a superb cast in other roles, and mention must also be made of the gorgeous set design, lighting and costumes. This M. Butterfly is a sumptuous feast of theatre, for both the eyes, the intellect and the emotion. M Butterfly plays at San Francisco Playhouse through March 14th. For more information you can go to sfplayhouse.org. I’m Richard Wolinsky on Bay Area theatre for KPFA. The post Review: “M. Butterfly” at San Francisco Playhouse appeared first on KPFA.
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    6 mins
  • Review: “The Notebook, the Musical” at the Orpheum

    Review: “The Notebook, the Musical” at the Orpheum
    Feb 17 2026
    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, in December, 2024, before embarking on this tour, hoping to make back its investment. Noah Calhoun, an older man, is in a nursing home visiting his wife, Allie, whose memory has been ripped out of her by Alzneimers. The only way to get her to remember is by reading his notebook diary of their life together. She had promised him, at the time of her diagnosis, that if he does that, she’ll come back to him. So we embark on their love story, as two couples play Noah and Allie at seventeen and again at twenty seven, while old Noah reads to old Allie. But back to the weepie business. Much of the show is saccharine and manipulative, particularly in the flashbacks focusing on parental meddling and class distinctions. And if Allie only focused on the songs, she’d never get her memory back. But there is much more going on here, and inside The Notebook: The Musical is a much better show than the producers were able to promote. It’s a show about loss, loss of memory, loss of mobility, loss of health. In that sense, the creators have focused on musical theatre as metaphor, with body movement and dance and snippets of dialogue and song representing the swirl going on in Allie’s mind as she attempts to find meaning inside the chaos. Along that path, the strongest elements are the performances of Beau Gravitte and Sharon Catherine Brown, who shine in their scenes, and take the show into places other musicals haven’t attempted, and why ultimately, The Notebook works far better than it should. The Notebook: The Musical plays at San Francisco’s Orpheum Theatre through March 1st. For more information you can go to broadwaysf.com, which takes you to an agttickets site. I’m Richard Wolinsky on Bay Area Theatre for KPFA. The post Review: “The Notebook, the Musical” at the Orpheum appeared first on KPFA.
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    6 mins
  • Review: “The Mountaintop” at Oakland Theatre Project

    Review: “The Mountaintop” at Oakland Theatre Project
    Feb 10 2026
    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. King’s room at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, just after his sermon, I’ve Been to the Mountaintop. Rain pounds the windows, lightning flashes, lights go on and off. He’s sent his assistant out looking for cigarettes and he’s waiting impatiently. He calls room service for coffee. A maid quickly appears. They chat, flirt, and then things take a surprising turn. In this staging, King’s motel room is also his tomb. We are not quite in the real world. But Dr. King, as performed brilliantly by William Thomas Hodgson, feels definitely real, as does Sam Jackson as Camae, the maid. Also real is the intimacy of the theatre, especially during the play’s various moments of crisis, when the audience feels like part of the production. The times are very different now than back in 2009. As the co-director of the production Michael Socrates Moran writes in the program, today It may very well be that the fate of our democracy hinges on the capacity of citizens to engage in non-violent resistance against armed federal paramilitary troops. He goes on to say that, Dr. King’s worldview stands as a bastion for radical humanization not only in the face of fascism, but also in the face of a status quo that privileges peace over justice, equality and freedom. In 2026, Dr. King’s mountaintop feels even further away than it did nearly sixty years ago, and what felt triumphant then takes on an irony nobody could have expected. But the play’s focus on King’s humanity and the humanity of his message still remains, as does the power of theater in this formidable production The Mountaintop plays at Oakland Theatre Project through February 15th. For more information, you can go to oaklandtheatreproject.org. I’m Richard Wolinsky on Bay Area Theatre for KPFA. The post Review: “The Mountaintop” at Oakland Theatre Project appeared first on KPFA.
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    6 mins
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