Arts & Events

Art Calendar

Tuesday May 26, 2009 - 10:40:00 AM

THURSDAY, MAY 21 -more-


Berkeley Actor Completes Bard’s Canon

By Ken Bullock Special to the Planet
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 10:10:00 AM

Berkeley actor Julian Lopez-Morillas has played in or directed every one of the 38 plays that make up the Shakespeare canon. -more-


Thoughts on Theatre Yugen’s 30th Anniversary

By Ken Bullock Special to the Planet
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 10:14:00 AM

During June, 1980, I was attending shows put on by Jean-Louis Barrault (best-known as Baptiste the pantomime in the movie Children of Paradise) at Zellerbach Auditorium. One night, performing “Language of the Body,” his “essay” on mime, Barrault showed us his piece-de-resistance from an adaptation of William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying: a man taming, mounting and riding off on a bucking horse. Barrault played both man and horse (“this Centaur-horse”) I read later that night in the drama section at Moe’s, in Artaud’s Theater and Its Double almost 50 years before. Artaud, who had assisted his friend Barrault, wrote of the imagery and physical dynamism that made the piece a modern classic—and how its virtues limited it from touching deeper concerns—“But who has tasted the wellsprings?” -more-


Williams’ ‘Streetcar’ at Altarena Playhouse

By Ken Bullock Special to the Planet
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 10:15:00 AM

I’m keepin’ a little notebook of the quant phrases I’m pickin’ up around here,” says Blanche DuBois, an unexpected guest (in the grander sense of the word) in her sister and brother-in-law’s squalid little French Quarter “rooms.” -more-


SFMOMA Exhibits Robert Frank’s ‘The Americans’

By R. M. Ryan Special to the Planet
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 10:16:00 AM

I’ve been on the road, and so have a lot of you and here’s the road,” begins Jack Kerouac’s introduction to the 83 photographs in Robert Frank’s 1958 book The Americans. Frank commissioned Kerouac to write this introduction, and it still provides an insightful point of entry to this major work of American photography. -more-


Robin Blaser, 1925-2009

By Ken Bullock Special to the Planet
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 10:17:00 AM

Robin Blaser—poet, teacher, editor, librarian—died May 7 in Vancouver, British Columbia. -more-


Around the East Bay: Soul Jazz Sundays

Thursday May 21, 2009 - 10:17:00 AM

The Howard Wiley Organ Trio will perform “jazz from the ’60s and beyond, that simply sounds good” every Sunday in Oakland starting this week. Howard, on “tenor saxophone and jokes,” will be joined by fellow Berkeley High Jazz Band alumnus Mike Aaberg on organ and keyboards, and excellent bop drummer Sly Randolph. 5 p. m. every Sunday, at the Aqua Lounge (above Clancy’s Cantina), 311 Broadway (near Jack London Square). $5 donation requested, or free with dinner. 625-9601. -more-


Around the East Bay: Triumph of Love

Thursday May 21, 2009 - 10:18:00 AM

Chora Nova, conducted by Paul Flight, presents “Triumph of Love,” with chorus and two soloists (Rita Lily, soprano; Mark Mowry, tenor). It’s Carl Orff’s “lusty musical play Catulli Carmina (Poems of Catullus) under a different name, the lesser-known middle section of “Trionfi,” of which Carmina Burana is the best-known part, with Brahm’s “Liebeslieder Waltzes.” 7:30 p.m. Sunday, May 24 at First Congregational Church. 2345 Channing Way. $10-20. (925) 768-5558 (Rick Stober). www.choranova.org. -more-


Around the Bay: Fresh Voices Festival

Thursday May 21, 2009 - 10:19:00 AM

Berkeley composers Sheli Nan and Jean Ahn (featured in Berkeley Symphony’s “Under Construction” last year) join a slew of other Bay Area composers and singers with operatic pieces presented by San Francisco Cabaret Opera for their “Fresh Voices IX Festival: Three Evenings and One Afternoon in Hell: Or Is it Heaven?” 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. Sunday, May 24 at Community Music Center, 544 Capp St. in San Francisco’s Mission District. $10-25. (415) 289-6877. www.goathall.org. -more-


Around the Bay: 'East 14th Street'

Thursday May 21, 2009 - 10:19:00 AM

East Oakland native Don Reed’s one man show, East 14th Street: True Tales of a Reluctant Player, was hailed off-Broadway (and by the NAACP). Reed plays all the parts, including his pimp father who pushed his son onto the straight-A, church-going, college grad path. Reed guest-starred on The Cosby Show and A Different World at Bill’s behest. 8 p.m. Fridays; 8:30 Saturdays; 3 p.m. Sundays at The Marsh, Valencia (near 22nd) in San Francisco $20-3- (sliding scale). (415) 826-5750; www.themarsh.org. -more-


East Bay Then and Now: A Viennese Epicure in the Athens of the West

By Daniella Thompson
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 10:20:00 AM
The courtyard at Cloyne Court, 2005.

There was a time when the University of California’s summer school was an instrument of adult education, created primarily for the benefit of elementary and secondary school teachers. Such was the case in 1905, when the eminent Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann (1844–1906) was invited to teach at the summer school, his trip financed by university regent and patron Phoebe Apperson Hearst. -more-


About the House: The Trouble with New Construction Products

By Matt Cantor
Thursday May 21, 2009 - 10:21:00 AM

Well, once again, that miraculous, once-size-fits-all, end-of-all-your-troubles, maintenance-free thing turns out to be none of the above. This time it’s Trex decking, but there are lots of product defects out there so I’m certainly not going to single out Trex for lambasting. -more-


Community Calendar

Thursday May 21, 2009 - 10:01:00 AM

THURSDAY, MAY 21 -more-