Like their fellows all over the country, Bay Area theaters are still slowly recovering from the pandemic, rebuilding audiences while often cutting back on staff and shows in their seasons. Some, like Berkeley’s TheatreFIRST, have closed their doors, while others, such as TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, had emergency fundraising campaigns.
And there’s also a sense of renewal, with newly minted artistic directors such as Giovanna Sardelli at TheatreWorks, Lance Gardner at Marin Theatre Company and Jon Tracy at Marin Shakespeare Company looking to the future.
Through it all, theaters around the Bay Area have continued to put out excellent productions of bold new works and beloved classics alike. Some have felt like grand events, such as Dominique Morisseau’s “Soul Train” musical “Hippest Trip” at American Conservatory Theater, or Billy Crudup’s virtuoso performance in David Cale’s suspenseful solo show “Harry Clarke” at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Some have been stunningly intimate, such as Aleshea Harris’ poetic road-trip revenge Western “Is God Is” at Oakland Theater Project.
And then there’s a few that have proven unforgettable. Here are 10 standout shows that have stuck with us for one reason or another, or for all the reasons in the world.
“The Headlands,” American Conservatory Theater: Christopher Chen’s plays often feel like elaborate mind-bending puzzles, so it feels only natural that he would write a full-on murder mystery. Both an homage to film noir and a love letter to Chen’s hometown of San Francisco, “The Headlands” unfolds spellbindingly as a Chinese American true crime enthusiast (the wonderfully bewildered Phil Wong) tries to chase down clues about the shooting of his father in what was believed to be a burglary decades ago.
“Bulrusher,” Berkeley Repertory Theatre: Berkeley native Eisa Davis expertly interweaves folkloric elements, lushly poetic dialogue and the unique dialect of Boonville in Mendocino County in this 2007 Pulitzer finalist making a triumphant return to her hometown in this coproduction with New Jersey’s McCarter Theatre Center. Director Nicole A. Watson brought it all to shimmering, luminous life with a terrific cast centered by Jordan Tyson as a strong-willed foundling with a gift for prophecy who’s also the only Black girl in the community.
“Chinglish,” San Francisco Playhouse: David Henry Hwang’s comedy about a fish-out-of-water American businessman trying to brazen his way through the intricate subtext of doing business in China was hilarious when it played Berkeley Rep back in 2012, and it’s only gotten better as Hwang has revised it. That was especially true in director Jeffrey Lo’s superb staging at SF Playhouse, with a terrific cast headed by Michael Barrett Austin as the hapless entrepreneur and Nicole Tung as the government functionary who helps him navigate for her own reasons.
“Born with Teeth,” Aurora Theatre Company: William Shakespeare’s “Henry VI” plays are seldom staged today, but Liz Duffy Adams’ new play imagining the creation of that trilogy ought to be produced everywhere. This suspenseful and beautifully written two-hander brings preeminent playwright Christopher Marlowe and up-and-comer Shakespeare together as collaborators in a cat-and-mouse dance of personal and political intrigue crackling with danger and sexual tension.
“Cambodian Rock Band,” Berkeley Repertory Theatre: It took five years for SF native Lauren Yee’s play to come to the Bay Area, but it proved well worth the wait. Laced with dynamic ’60s style rock music by the band Dengue Fever, the play tells the gripping story of members of a Cambodian garage band in the mid-’70s both immediately before and after the brutal totalitarian Khmer Rouge took hold through the present-day lens of an idealistic Cambodian-American lawyer prosecuting war crimes (marvelous singer Geena Quintos) and her seemingly cheerful father (deft guitarist Joe Ngo) who clearly has something to hide.
“Dragon Lady,” Marin Theatre Company: Writer-performer Sara Porkalob retraced her grandmother’s journey from gangland killings and nightclub singing in Manila to trailer-park single motherhood in Washington state in this thoroughly captivating solo cabaret musical with a mixture of jazzy original songs and clever covers, mashups and medleys. Deftly bouncing back and forth between many characters, Porkalob spun a touching and sometimes troubling and tale of indomitable survival packed with considerable humor and heart.
“Six: The Musical,” BroadwaySF: As the six wives of Henry VIII competed in concert as a supergroup of pop divas to determine who was the most mistreated, the energy in the house when “Six” played the Orpheum this February was positively electric. A Tony Award winner for best original score, this touring British musical by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss is both wonderfully clever and so absurdly catchy that the Studio Cast Recording went into heavy rotation in this reviewer’s house for the rest of the year.
“Twelfth Night,” Marin Shakespeare Company: In a trial run before being officially hired on as the company’s new artistic director, Jon Tracy produced a wonderfully dynamic two-play summer season as the company’s first mainstage shows since 2019. Tracy’s own remix of “Hamlet” proved grippingly bold. And with a dynamite cast, director-choreographer Bridgette Loriaux’s “Twelfth Night” was about as dynamic, sexy, hilarious, compassionate and visually enthralling as that play’s ever been, and it’s one of Shakespeare’s better comedies to begin with.
“Tasha,” 3Girls Theatre Company: Former Oakland mayoral candidate Cat Brooks wrote this stunning solo show about Natasha McKenna, an African-American woman with schizophrenia tasered to death by police in a Virginia jail in 2015. Powerfully directed by Ayodele Nzinga, Jeunée Simon gave a riveting performance at SF’s Z Below, playing Tasha both as a cheerful child and as a disoriented adult and shifting through other roles such as her mournful mother, arrogant police officers and an incensed activist determined to somehow stop the ongoing epidemic of police killing Black people in the United States.
“Odyssey,” Marin Theatre Company: There’s been no shortage of adaptations of the poet Homer’s ancient Greek epic of Odysseus’ tempest-tossed 10-year voyage home from the Trojan War. But playwright-director Lisa Peterson, formerly Berkeley Rep’s associate director, brought the old story home in a vital new way, setting it in a present-day refugee camp and retelling it through four young women from different countries waiting for the next step in their own journeys. After premiering it in Marin, New York’s the Acting Company immediately took this deeply resonant piece on tour to communities all over the country.
Contact Sam Hurwitt at [email protected], and follow him at Twitter.com/shurwitt.
