KRCB-FM: Second Row Center
187 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 5 years ago - ★★★★★ - 1 ratingHouse lights down. Cue the music. The curtain rises weekly on KRCB’s early-morning news segment Second Row Center.
There’s a lot of theatre in the Bay Area. With so many options and limited time and resources, how does one go about deciding just what to see? That’s where a critic can be of assistance.
Theatre critic Harry Duke has been knocking around Bay Area stages for twenty years since his days in the Sonoma State University Theatre Arts program. He’s turned what used to be post-show conversations with fellow artists into full-fledged reviews of Bay Area theatre that can be found in the Sonoma County Gazette and on the For All Events website. More than a simple recitation of a plot (you can look that up yourselves,) his reviews are honest evaluations of the components that make a good show good and a bad show bad.
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Episodes
“Treasure Island” and "Amelie" - September 30, 2015
September 30, 2015 13:58 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBA story is an illusion, a series of events that are not really taking place, presented in a way that fools its audience into believing, for a moment, that it is all really happening. Telling that story in a book or movie is a certain kind of trick, with its own rules and traditions, and telling the same story on the stage is quite another. But transferring a story from one medium to another—say, from the screen to the stage—that may be the hardest trick of all. Which brings us to ‘Treasure ...
“The Taming of the Shrew” - August 26, 2015
August 27, 2015 14:09 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBIn Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew,” the indelible Kate and Petruchio—a feisty, ferocious fiancé and her would-be “tamer”—together discover something truly amazing and surprising. They discover that even after 400 years, people will see a show about two people fighting with each other until they finally fall in love. Kate and Petruchio are amongst the most famous characters in western theatrical literature, and despite the datedness of the play, and the imbedded minefield of gender is...
"A Midsummer Night’s Dream" - August 12, 2015
August 27, 2015 14:05 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MB“Oh, what fools these mortal’s be!” “The course of true love never did run smooth.” “Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind.” There are a lot of great lines in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but one of my favorites comes close to the end. It’s a theater review, of sorts. Having just witnessed a wacky performance by a band of over-excited tradesmen turned actors, the stern Duke Theseus quiets his nitpicky entourage with the words, “Nothing can be amiss when simpleness and...
Maintaining That Festival State-Of-Mind - August 5, 2015
August 06, 2015 14:09 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBLast week—in my report on Dezi Gallegos’ new show, ‘Yesterday Again’—I spent a lot of time talking about newness, originality, world premieres, fresh spins on old themes… You know.. Stuff we haven’t seen before. Since then, I’ve been thinking a lot about this, in part because this week marks the one-year-anniversary of my trip to Scotland, where I presented fourteen performances of my own theatrical enterprise, the one-man-show ‘Wretch Like Me.’ Going to Scotland, a land where so much is s...
"Yesterday, Again" - July 29, 2015
July 29, 2015 19:01 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBIt’s a mystery, a challenge, a puzzle, a conundrum. How do you keep theater alive and interesting, when the majority of your audience has proven their relative preference for familiar shows, revivals of familiar shows, and shows based on familiar movies or T.V. programs, and takes a wait-and-see attitude when presented with a play that is un-familiar, in development, or brand spanking new. “New,” apparently, while clearly something we get excited about when it’s a new car...
The Sonoma County Stage One Theatre Arts Awards - July 22, 2015
July 22, 2015 20:13 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBIt is better, they say, to give than to receive. That must be why so many groups gather so often to give so many awards to so many people for their efforts in so many different art forms connected to so many different award-worthy fields of endeavor. Though most people in show business are buzzing about the upcoming Emmy awards, about 75 people gathered together on Monday, July 13, to watch the offbeat, quirky annual distribution of certificates known to local theater peopl...
"Shiner" - July 16, 2015
July 17, 2015 03:24 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBFor those who prefer not to travel far for their onstage entertainment, and like to avoid any excursions into foreign territory, there are, fortunately, a tremendous number of nearby theater companies. But for those who like experiencing the new and exotic, and don’t mind working a bit to get there, may I suggest a trip to San Francisco, and Faultline Theater Company’s impressively performed light-and-dark comedy "Shiner," by rising playwright Christian Durso. The play runs...
"Twelfth Night" - July 15, 2015
July 16, 2015 03:17 - 4 minutes - 1.82 MB"Twelfth Night" is amongst Shakespeare’s most popular plays, in part because the story is so accessible, and the situations so universally funny. Typical of the Bard, humor and tragedy are never far from each other. A young woman, Viola, grieves for her twin brother Sebastian after surviving a shipwreck in which she believes he drowned. Cast ashore in a strange country, she disguises herself as a man, donning an outfit matching that of her brother, who soon shows up - surpris...
"Twelfth Night;" "Cymbeline" - July 8, 2015
July 09, 2015 22:21 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBThere’s an old Latin saying. "Aestivo Tempori est Shakespeare!" Roughly translated: There’s no better time to watch Shakespeare than in the summertime! I don’t know when summer became so connected to the Bad Bard of Avon, but there’s no denying that the moment the weather gets nice, along comes a troupe of iambic-pentameter talking actors to put on a little something by good old William S. This coming weekend, Railroad Square’s Shakespeare in the Cannery will open "Tw...
"The Count of Monte Cristo;" and "A Long Day’s Journey Into Night" - July 6, 2015
July 06, 2015 22:07 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBOne of the cool things about the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the current season of which I have been reporting on lately, is the way it often programs shows that cleverly comment on each other in interesting ways. This year’s festival, which runs through November 1st up in Ashland, Oregon, has one particularly creative pairing of shows, though to the casual theatergoer, the connection might not seem obvious. I’m talking about Charles Fechter’s melodramatic 1868 adaptation ...
"Antony and Cleopatra;" and "Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land" - July 2, 2015
July 02, 2015 21:36 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBThe good, the bad and the ugly. It’s not just the name of an old Clint Eastwood movie. It’s also a fitting way to think about this year’s Oregon Shakespeare Festival, currently running in Ashland on OSF’s three world-class stages. Yesterday I talked about the VERY GOOD "Head Over Heels," a new musical by Jeff Whitty of "Avenue Q" fame. With summer kicking into gear, there are several shows running on those three stages, and that’s one of the good ones. So let me tell ...
"Head Over Heels" - July 1, 2015
July 01, 2015 20:10 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBWell, the recent Supreme Court ruling affirming marriage equality to all couldn’t be better timed, ‘cause the big celebration’s already started up in Ashland, Oregon, and this dance party’s got somethin’ special on the record player. It’s got the Go-Go’s. Well . . . it has a bunch of Go-Go songs, if not the actual 1980’s all-female punk-pop band, but either way, the music is so good even Shakespeare would be dancing. He, after all, was a big believer in love. And so i...
"Oh, What A Night!" - June 24, 2015
June 25, 2015 01:55 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBLets talk about inspiration. Inspiration is often likened to lightning striking, or an electric bulb popping on over our heads. Metaphorically, when light suddenly appears, when lightning suddenly strikes, it means we have been inspired, either with a new idea or with a new sense of energy and excitement. Theater has long been in the business of inspiration. It feeds off of it, and also causes it, in a remarkable endless loop of creativity. Which brings me to the Tran...
"Falstaff;" and "Choir Boy" - June 17, 2015
June 18, 2015 01:37 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBThere’s no denying it. Music is a powerful force. Music can express the deepest of human emotions. And there are, obviously, many different styles and forms of music. One could easily make the argument that no two forms of musical expression better convey the depth of human feeling than do OPERA and the mighty SPRITUALS that grew out of slavery and the African-American experience. Right now, two different opportunities await you in the Bay Area to experience the power of bo...
"The North Plan;" and "The Clean House" - June 3, 2015
June 04, 2015 01:09 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBMaking an audience laugh is not an easy task for any playwright, or for the actors indebted with bringing the author’s words to life on stage. Humor is primarily a matter of taste. Where one of might think a joke about geometry is hilarious, another prefers to watch an actor plummet headlong into a birthday cake. Expecting an entire audience to snort and guffaw at any one gag or line of dialogue is as optimistic as thinking that every patron in a restaurant will start salivat...
“Peter Pan" - May 27, 2015
May 27, 2015 23:05 - 4 minutes - 1.82 MBNo one’s ever done an official scientific study on this, but I have observed certain conspicuous distinctions between the way adults react to the story of Peter Pan, and how children respond to the same story - whether we’re talking about the 1911 novel by J.M. Barrie or the various stage versions, and especially the 1954 musical adaptation made famous by Mary Martin. Kids, of course, love the action and adventure, they love the fairies, pirates, the natives, mermaids, the ...
"Noises Off;" and "One Man, Two Guvnors" - May 20, 2015
May 20, 2015 23:17 - 4 minutes - 1.82 MBLet’s face it - it’s not always easy to look on the bright side of life. Laughter helps, but getting there often requires a helpful boost. If you are looking for something to give your laughing-and-smiling impulses a comedic kick in the pants, you are currently in luck. Right now, there are two shows running in the Bay Area, each one designed to make you feel a bit lighter and a touch happier - a stunt made possible by daredevil actors committed body-and-soul to the fine art ...
“Mary Poppins;" and "Crazy For You" - May 14, 2015
May 15, 2015 04:13 - 4 minutes - 1.82 MBTheater is all about transformation, and transformation is never easy. But transforming one of the best-loved movies of all time into a stage musical? That’s a huge challenge, because the expectations are always so remarkably high. So it takes guts, creativity, and a whole lot of daring-do, all of which are on vivid display in the splendid new production of "Mary Poppins," presented by Spreckels Theater Company in Rohnert Park. Adapted, in part, from the Walt Disney film wi...
“Trailer Park Gods" - May 13, 2015
May 14, 2015 03:51 - 4 minutes - 1.82 MBFirst, let me tell you about a show I saw last week, then let me say a few words about where I saw it. "Trailer Park Gods" is an original play by Nayia Kuvetakis, a recent UC Berkeley graduate. So, actually, are most of the members of Faultline Theater, a San Francisco-based company made up of recent Berkeley theater majors, all fueled by a passion for creating fresh new plays, by emerging playwrights, telling effective stories that speak to a new generation of theatergoers...
“Point Break Live!" - May 6, 2015
May 07, 2015 21:29 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBWhatever else one says about "Point Break Live!," you have to agree there aren’t many other live entertainments where the audience is doused with water, beaned by flying sandwiches, robbed at gunpoint by guys wearing Richard Nixon masks, and . . . um . . . spattered with blood. Fake blood, but yeah, blood. Welcome to "Point Break LIVE!" an astonishingly weird, loose-limbed spoof of the iconic, 1991 cult-hit B-movie starring Keanu Reeves, Patrick Swayze and Gary Busey. "Po...
“The Way West;” and “The Amen Corner” - April 29, 2015
April 28, 2015 23:53 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBMusic has a way of reaching out like no other art form. In times of stress it calms our nerves. It gives us strength when we are struggling. Then again, it also has a way of reaching into our souls and tearing us into sad little pieces. Two new Marin County shows, neither a traditional musical, each use music in unexpected ways to tell stories about tough, resilient people battling impossible odds. One is just so-so. The other is a must see. “The Way West,” now playing ...
"Nunsense!" - April 22, 2015
April 23, 2015 03:43 - 4 minutes - 1.82 MBThere may be more-than-one theatrical franchise of musical plays that started out as a line of greeting cards showing nuns saying vaguely racy things, but if there is, it’s not anywhere as famous or as popular as the "Nunsense" shows by Dan Goggins. The first one appeared off Broadway in 1985. The show, in which the Little Sisters of Hoboken put on a fundraiser to bury the four dead sisters who are taking up space in the freezer - they died of botulism - was a mostly plotle...
"King Lear" ... with puppets! - April 15, 2015
April 16, 2015 02:09 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBI love puppets. It’s a secret that only a certain number of people know about me, but in my late teens, I was a professional puppeteer. It’s true. I had my own company - a puppet company - and we toured around Southern California doing, you know, puppet shows. That was a 35 years ago, but as a guy who knows what its like to bring an inanimate object to life, I still appreciate the sheer difficulty of putting puppets on stage in a theatrical production. Which brings us to ...
"Venus in Fur" - April 8, 2015
April 09, 2015 02:57 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBSomething kinky has been taking place lately in the world of mainstream entertainment. Sadism and masochism are now to romantic comedy what romance and comedy use to be to romantic comedy. From the 2002 movie Secretary to 2011’s three-novel series 50 Shades of Grey (released as a movie earlier this year), many of our favorite new “love stories” are disturbingly, conspicuously twisted. Standing somewhere between those two examples is David Ives’ Tony-winning 2010 stage play ...
Oregon Shakespeare Festival: "Guys and Dolls" and "Fingersmith" - April 2, 2015
April 02, 2015 19:16 - 4 minutes - 1.82 MBOne thing about the Oregon Shakespeare Festival that surprises a few newcomers is that only about four or five of the eleven shows they do each year are by William Shakespeare. The festival mixes things up a lot, adding original shows, historical classics, world premieres, musicals and American standards. This year - with four shows open already and more to come as the year unfolds - two non-Shakespeare shows are already clear hits. Such is the case with Frank Loesser’s "Gu...
Oregon Shakespeare Festival: "Much Ado About Nothing" and "Pericles" - April 1, 2015
April 01, 2015 19:28 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBEvery year in spring, when people hear me talking about the shows that just opened at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, they get confused. “Wait . . . what? Just opened? You mean LAST year! Last SUMMER, right? The Shakespeare festival is in summer.” My response is usually along the lines of, “Yes, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival runs in the summer. But it opens in February. And it closes in October.” It’s true. Each year, OSF produces eleven shows between th...
"[Title of Show];" and "Deathtrap" - March 25, 2015
March 26, 2015 04:15 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBIt’s a striking coincidence. You don’t have to be the writer of stage thrillers to see it. Maybe it’s the work of some devious theatrical conspiracy. How else to explain two shows opening in the North Bay the same weekend, each one a play about people writing a play about people writing a play. And just keep things interesting, one of these self-referential theatrical endeavors is a musical. "[Title of Show]," and yes, that’s the title of the show, was written in 2004...
39th Annual San Francisco Bay Area Theater Critics Awards - March 11, 2015
March 11, 2015 02:50 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBWell, Monday night was a good night for North Bay theater people. At the 39th annual San Francisco Bay Area Theater Critics Awards, a batch of Sonoma County theaters were honored, with some very talented actors, directors and theater artists walking the steps up to claim awards for their work in 2014. Winners included Denise Elia-Yen for her snappy portrayal of Annie Oakley in Spreckel’s Performing arts Center’s brilliantly presented production of "Annie Get Your Gun." Ot...
"The Convert" - March 4, 2015
March 03, 2015 21:22 - 4 minutes - 1.84 MBChange is part of life. Some changes are easy, others much less so. And when cultures collide, change is often dangerous, violent, and destructive. From the opening scenes of Danai Gurira’s astonishing period drama "The Convert" - set in Colonial Africa in the late 1800s - we are plunged into the middle of such a change, as the brutal dominance of the British Empire and the aggressive forward thrust of Christianity brings civilization to the people of Africa - whether the...
"Bonnie & Clyde;" and "Shining City" - February 25, 2015
March 01, 2015 19:03 - 4 minutes - 1.84 MBThe thing about death is, it’s not negotiable. Sooner or later, we all have to face it. Till then, it’s hanging out there, somewhere, waiting for us. And one way we deal with that is by experiencing books, movies, songs, poetry and plays about the inevitability of death. Somehow, when glimpsing the grim reaper through the arts, we feel a little better because, I don’t know, maybe watching other people deal with the specter of mortality makes it all seem more normal. O...
"Carousel" - February 18, 2015
February 20, 2015 00:10 - 4 minutes - 1.84 MB"Carousel," the second musical created by the legendary Rogers & Hammerstein, is noted today for two major things. One - it’s the show from which we gained the songs "June is Bustin’ Out All Over," and "You'll Never Walk Alone," sometimes alternately known as "When You Walk Through a Storm," a song without which funerals, church services, graduations, and high school music recitals would have been a very different experience over the last 70 years. The SECOND Thing "Carousel"...
"I Am My Own Wife" - February 11, 2015
February 11, 2015 19:33 - 4 minutes - 1.82 MBTwelve years ago, journalist and playwright Doug Wright unveiled a new one-actor play with a curious name: "I Am My Own Wife." As a member of the Tectonic Theater, which had earlier premiered the ground breaking play "The Laramie Project," Wright was fully adept at the process of creating documentary style theater, a play that built from actual interviews with people who lived the experiences being recreated on stage, actors performing real-life characters using the actual wo...
"Heroines" and "In the Next Room" - February 4, 2015
February 04, 2015 20:55 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBIn Victorian England, the unhappy wife of a repressed doctor yearns to feel alive - and finally takes matters into her own hands. In an imaginary steam-punk version of Victorian England, a band of brave, opera-singing women similarly yearn to be happy, free - and a little bit naughty - and they make it happen through the power of song. In East Berlin, Germany, a mysterious woman with a powerful secret survives against impossible odds, ultimately becoming an inspiration to a y...
Theatre Awards Season! - January 28, 2015
January 28, 2015 21:18 - 4 minutes - 1.83 MBIt’s awards season, and everyone’s talking about who got nominated and who didn’t. And no, I’m not talking about the Oscars. Last week, the San Francisco Bay Area Theater Critics Circle announced the nominees for its upcoming 29th annual awards ceremony, to be held Monday March 9, at the Victoria Theater in San Francisco. After decades of neglect from the Circle, which simply has had a majority of writers working and watching shows in the City, the East Bay and South Bay, the...
"The Fever" - January 21, 2015
January 21, 2015 19:28 - 3 minutes - 1.83 MBI saw an amazing performance last weekend, but I have no clue how to properly describe what I saw. I could start by talking about Wallace Shawn, the playwright of "The Fever," which was first performed in 1990 or so, was turned into a provocative film in 2004, and is now being performed by actor and author Elliot Fintushel, most commonly in other people’s living rooms. Occasionally their backyards. And for one more weekend . . . in an actual theater, Main Stage West in Se...
"Clybourne Park" - January 14, 2015
January 14, 2015 19:05 - 3 minutes - 1.56 MBOne need not have ever seen Lorraine Hansberry’s 1959 play A Raisin in the Sun to appreciate the setup - or laugh at the jokes - in Bruce Norris’s brilliant 2012 Pulitzer-and-Tony-winning comedy-drama "Clybourne Park." Taking place immediately following the events of the original, Clybourne - running through January 25 at 6th Street Playhouse - is a smart, insightful, baldy frank and frequently hilarious examination of the racial divide in America. Hansberry’s play - whic...
"Edith Piaf: Under Paris Skies" - January 7, 2015
January 08, 2015 04:15 - 3 minutes - 1.6 MBIt’s a new year, and as the North Bay theater community prepares to launch its first shows of 2015, Cinnabar Theater, in Petaluma, has already unveiled its newest show, and I mean new. "Edith Piaf: Under Paris Skies" is an original commission, assembled from scratch for Cinnabar Theater, and though its creators are better known as performers than authors, I predict their clever, moving, raunchy, mysterious, funny, sad and seductive little musical theater piece will definitely...