Arts & Events

THURSDAY, OCT. 30 -more-

This is the first time in its 38 years that the Berkeley Art Museum has devoted almost its entire space to a single exhibition. This wide-ranging show of almost 150 works comprises paintings, sculptures, photographs, videos and installations by 96 artists exploring the history of art in China from its Social Realist propaganda paintings of the ’70s through its explosive changes in Chinese cuLture. -more-

When Stravinsky and opera, or Stravinsky and theater, are mentioned in the same breath, the first things coming to mind would probably be Rake’s Progress or the theatricality of the ballets as produced by Diaghilev. Or maybe the Oedipus Rex he did with Cocteau. -more-

On the eve of an international trade conference, its convener, Simon Primo (Marvin Greene), finds himself unusually alone in his palatial mansion outside Geneva, his depleted domestic staff seeming to melt away as a big storm’s brewing. Alone, that is, except for a mysterious visitor, who interrupts Primo’s fractious telephoning and heart pill-popping: a woman in an elegant serape who introduces herself as Maria de Arroyo (Catherine Castellanos), but more insistently as his friend, asking to speak to him about the trade agreement to be signed the next day—and demanding he rescind the global accord he regards as the crowning work of his career. -more-

“Once upon a time in Berkeley, two incredibly stubborn men decided to go into business together.” So begins Cometbus #51, The Loneliness of the Electric Menorah, opening like a fractured—or fractious—fairy tale with a title in hipster kabbalah tacked on. -more-

With an unusual—and unusually good—idea for a community theater Halloween show, Actors Ensemble of Berkeley’s staging a lively production of Christopher Marlowe’s Elizabethan masterpiece, Doctor Faustus, in a cranked up, vaudevillized version, directed by Jeremy Cole and produced by Jennifer Rice at Live Oak Theatre, that plays like ‘Faustus, Hellzapoppin’. -more-

Our Landmarks Preservation Ordinance, which Tom Bates and his pro-development backers are so eager to emasculate via Measure LL, was enacted in 1974 as a direct response to the rampant wave of demolitions that overtook Berkeley in the 1960s. -more-

A client called me this evening to talk about a house he was in contract to buy and we became engaged in a rather long, intricate and complex conversation involving all the things that he and his wife were now facing that had formerly been a foggy and insubstantial tissue of details beyond their attention. The house was exciting and new a week ago and no thought of the finer issues had intruded into their reverie of the Dream Home. The inspection was fun and exiting and we chatted happily for hours about all the things that might be done and some harsh realities about what should be done. A water heater from the 1930’s (yes, no joke) was long overdue for replacement and genuinely unsafe. Some foundation issues were demanding attention and the need for seismic work also loomed harshly. -more-

THURSDAY, OCT. 30 -more-