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Press coverage

praise for past productions

season 08/09

About You, Nero

San Francisco Chronicle feature by Chad Jones
KPFA interview with Sharon Ott
Playbill story by Kenneth Jones
“Two hours of almost uninterrupted delight…You can’t help loving that despicably cute monster Nero. Not the way Danny Scheie personifies him in a tour de force of murderously comic, canny and catty derangement…Scheie rules the stage in leopard briefs, flipping in an instant from preening prima donna to bloody tyrant, charming artiste, cutting critic or sensitive egomaniac…Nero is a romp, but one that works on many levels, leavened by some serious concerns about the politics of art.”—San Francisco Chronicle
“The togas hit the fan in You, Nero, Amy Freed’s gleefully apocalyptic comedy about the fall of the Roman Empire. [It] revels in gloriously madcap juxtapositions of period and theme that land the laugh as well as make the point. The Pulitzer-nominated Freed, who teaches at Stanford, walks the fine line between farce and philosophy…Her genius for marrying shtick and subtext gives Nero its over-the-topical depth charges of wit and warning. History is her playground, and here she throws the sand right in our short-attention spans…Danny Scheie’s flamboyance as the title emperor fuels the outrageousness…He came, he saw, he conquered this production from start to finish. Half academic, half imp and all camp, Scheie lights up the stage like a fireworks display.”—San Jose Mercury News
“Wildly hilarious…The show will keep you riveted and laughing until the end with what is a tour de force performance by Danny Scheie, the popular Bay Area comic actor, for whom the title role was created. The part fits him like a gold lame glove, which would go well with the leopard-print trunks his tres fey character wears.”—Bay Area News Group
“For the final production of its 41st season, Berkeley Repertory Theatre is presenting the funniest play that I’ve seen in years. It’s the world premiere production of Amy Freed’s hilarious romp, You, Nero, a campy, ridiculous spoof of ancient Rome…Believe me, this is my kind of humor, and I loved it. By all means, don’t miss You, Nero. You’ll laugh all the way home!”—KGO-AM
“Berkeley Repertory Theatre ends a spectacular 41st season with local playwright Amy Freed’s You, Nero…Effortlessly blending contemporary and classical, Freed’s comedy generates continuous laughter. Ott’s cast descends from comedy nirvana with Danny Scheie as Nero serving as lord and master of the merry mayhem…Childish, imperious, frightening and flamboyant, Scheie’s energetic Nero is a one-man spectacle as he veers from giddy delight to tyrannical tempest to nearly genuine introspection. Though widely admired here in the Bay Area, Scheie emerges a true star in this play, and it’s impossible to imagine You, Nero having future life without him.”—Theater Dogs

About The Lieutenant of Inishmore

San Francisco Chronicle feature on our feline friend
“Bloody funny…Gasps and laughter fill the house simultaneously. This is shock not for the sake of awe, but as a hilariously timely look at man’s inhumanity to man—and cats…Those who like their comedy very dark, which includes most fans of playwright Martin McDonagh, should be lining up for tickets at the Rep’s Roda Theatre.”—San Francisco Chronicle
“A ballet of bullet, bodies and blood…McDonagh has raised gore to the level of high art in this blood-drenched splatter zone. It’s a savagely funny comedy of errors, cats and carnage that will have you howling with laughter, not to mention pity and fear, from start to finish…One of the most viciously witty, deeply entertaining and strangely cathartic experiences to be had in ages. Only in a world as dark and menacing as our own could a farce about terrorism be this laugh-out-loud hysterical.”—San Jose Mercury News
“Berkeley Rep’s Lieutenant of Inishmore is a bloody triumph [and] an eloquent and understated plea for peace…Every bit as clever and funny as it is grisly. It is a show that has you laughing uproariously from beginning to end…McDonagh, with tremendous assistance from director Les Waters and an astonishingly adept cast (not to mention the special effects from Tolin FX), make this a show Berkeley Rep fans will be talking about for seasons to come. Those who see it will have a hard time believing what they have seen, and those who only hear about it will have serious doubts that something this bloody can be brought to the stage, let alone draw huge laughs. But it can, and it does.”—Bay Area News Group
“It’s the best dark comedy I’ve ever seen! It’s blood and guts and a trainload of laughs!”—KGO-AM

About Crime and Punishment

San Francisco Chronicle feature
“This Crime is beautifully staged…it’s the much-anticipated return of director Sharon Ott to the scene of some of her greatest triumphs…Crime gets inside tortured mind of a murderer.”—San Francisco Chronicle
“Berkeley Repertory’s Crime and Punishment bristles with intensity…It is an elegant production, tightly written, clad in understated costumes, and, for the most part craftily acted under the direction of former Berkeley Rep artistic director Sharon Ott. The adaptation runs only 90 minutes long, which, considering its emotional intensity, is quite long enough.”—Bay Area News Group
“An elegant study in dread…Marilyn Campbell and Curt Columbus have sculpted the 600-page Russian opus into a 90-minute study in menace. Elegantly directed by Sharon Ott, who returns to Berkeley Rep, the company she helped make famous, it’s a muscular psychological drama that’s both intellectually rigorous and visually arresting…Campbell and Columbus have crafted a sort of ritual exorcism out of the Russian epic, marked by choral refrains and a propulsive sense of rhythm that’s haunting but also quite fragile.”—San Jose Mercury News
“It’s magnificently directed by the Rep’s former artistic director, Sharon Ott…The cast of three includes J.R. Horne and Delia MacDougall playing multiple roles, and Tyler Pierce as Raskolonikov in one of the finest dramatic performances that I have ever seen. It’s all performed in 90 minutes and provides an exciting evening of great theatre…It’ll keep you on the edge of your seat!”—KGO-AM

About In the Next Room (or the vibrator play)

East Bay Express feature
“Breathtakingly inventive…has the potential to be a modern masterpiece…Directed by Les Waters in a manner that quietly and vividly serves the writing, the play is at its best when it disregards the dramatic rules altogether. There’s an acute playfulness at work, an unabashed enjoyment in letting characters test out new possibilities for themselves as they gain insight into the mind-body phenomenon of human sexuality and the oppressive forces that shape its expression.”—Los Angeles Times
“A fascinating, funny and evocative play…It’s beautiful. Like most of the play, the end vibrates with sexually charged comedy and affectionate striving…Ruhl develops the story with the enticing blend of irreverent humor and skewed realism familiar from her breakthrough The Clean House and bicoastal success with Eurydice.”—San Francisco Chronicle
“You’ll get a charge out of Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Vibrator Play…a wickedly funny production with some poignancy and moments of peace in the ongoing battle of the sexes. For a new work, Next Room is remarkably well-developed, with crackling dialogue and an engaging story that moves audience both to laughter and tears…Les Waters has directed the show masterfully, creating some wild moments of physical humor and an energy to the unfolding story that refuses to let things lag. And the cast is simply phenomenal—skilled and talented actors who manage to find a charming middle ground in the complex area between comedy and poignancy.”—Bay Area News Group
“A titillating comedy of manners, marriage and masturbation that more than lives up to its buzz…From orgasms and breast-feeding to lesbianism, Ruhl disentangles the web of taboos that laced up Victorian ladies as tightly as their whalebone corsets…her insatiably curious heroines explore the metaphysical world as vigorously as the carnal…The last time Ruhl teamed with director Les Waters, she was an emerging artist. Now she’s one of the hottest playwrights around, a Pulitzer nominee and MacArthur “genius” letting her imagination run wild in a juicy discourse about the politics of desire.”—San Jose Mercury News
“In the Next Room is an incredibly clean and literary play. It revels in transparent metaphors: the many electrical lamps which represent Dr. Givings’ fetish for technology (several times in the play he delivers lectures on the wonders of electricity while masturbating his patients); the wet nurse who becomes both an artistic muse and a Madonna figure; the confining zippers, buttons, and ruffled layers that characterize Victorian clothing; and funniest of all, the heavy rain—and later, snow—that parallels a series of ecstatic female ejaculations. Such analogies might seem campy had Ruhl tried to make the play pornographic, but given the historical context—Victorian mores running up against progress and modernity—it’s appropriate that the characters resort to sublimated language and innuendo…But all that happens in the midst of a gentle, sweet, traditional comedy. You see the word ‘vibrator’ in the title, and you think one thing. Then it turns out to be something else.”—East Bay Express
“This serenely funny new work by the author of Eurydice and The Clean House sparkles with wit and invention in Les Waters’ pitch-perfect production for Berkeley Rep.”—Variety
“It’s a sexual farce that cleverly concerns the romance, loneliness, intimacy, race relations and electricity of six people…The cast of seven excellent actors has a great sense for comedy, plus—near the end of the play—a sudden change to serious emotion. I thoroughly enjoyed this play’s new dimension with Ruhl’s superb writing. It’s brilliantly directed by Les Waters and has wonderful lighting, sound and costumes, and a remarkable set. In the world of theatre, this is truly an enjoyable change of pace.”—KGO-AM

About The Arabian Nights

San Francisco Chronicle feature
“Enchantment…Stories are flying carpets in Mary Zimmerman’s The Arabian Nights. Performed by 15 resourceful actors and staged with a maximum of invention by Zimmerman, the ancient tales magically transport the Berkeley Repertory Theatre audience from a king’s bedroom in Baghdad through markets, harems, courts and a crowded privy, and from heights of hilarity to sobering affirmations of shared humanity…Zimmerman has a genius for building stage spectaculars from the most basic, old-fashioned materials [and] the actors transform themselves into an exhilarating panoply of expertly etched characters.”—San Francisco Chronicle
“a magical night of theater…wildly funny, touchingly emotional, highly dramatic, visually captivating, madly energetic…There is a grand-slam, winning-the-World-Series sort of exhilaration to seeing top-notch theater performed by actors working at the peak of their game. You could feel it Wednesday night in the intermission buzz at Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s production of Mary Zimmerman’s The Arabian Nights, a spectacular retelling of the old ‘1,001 nights’ tales staged so wonderfully well that you feel somehow better off just to have been in the theater that night. This rare and breathtaking piece of theater made it into my all-time Top 10 list maybe 15 minutes after it started, and it just kept climbing the chart as its 2 1/2-hour production flew along.”—Contra Costa Times
“A sultry fantasy that refreshes the senses…Berkeley Rep’s Arabian Nights casts a spell of myth and whimsy…Tony-winning theater alchemist Mary Zimmerman has become famous for breathing fresh life into primal fables, from Metamorphoses to Argonautika. Time and again, she reconnects us to the myths and fables dancing at the edges of our collective subconscious…It’s a celebration of the craft of the storyteller from which we too emerge recharged, renewed.”—San Jose Mercury News
“Zimmerman’s got a great gimmick: she creates beautifully designed, expertly acted vehicles for sophisticated storytelling. In a very grown-up way, she turns us into kids slathering for a juicy bedtime story. And she always delivers…Zimmerman’s 15-member ensemble tumbles and spins through the tales with grace and glee. They drum, they play stringed instruments, sing, dance and jump from one character to another with ease and clarity. And they’re gorgeous in the shimmering, flowing robes and gowns and drapes provided by costumer Mara Blumenfeld. [Yet] The Arabian Nights never devolves into frivolity. There’s weight to the stories that comes from sadness and wisdom, and when, at the end, Zimmerman echoes present-day Baghdad, the oft-described ‘city of peace and poets,’ we sense the depth of history and our place in it.”—Examiner.com
“Berkeley Repertory has opened a magnificent production of The Arabian Nights, written and directed by Tony Award-winning Mary Zimmerman…Tales of romance, intrigue and betrayal, brilliantly performed by a superbly talented cast of 15. And it’s all backed by traditional music and a fabulous open set…It’s truly a spectacle to behold, and it’s just perfect for the holidays.”—KGO-AM

About Joe Turner’s Come and Gone

Delroy Lindo interview on NPR’s California Report
Delroy Lindo interview on NPR’s Forum
Delroy Lindo on KPFA’s Cover to Cover
Brent Jennings on KPFA’s Against the Grain
“Powerful, joyously musical and chillingly visionary…Sexual tensions and comic confrontations inhabit a Pittsburgh boardinghouse as the fierce visions and fervent rhythms of ancestral African spirituality fill the Rep’s Roda Theatre…How far we’ve come. Wednesday’s post-election euphoria was running high before the opening of Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s production of Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. Two and a half hours later, the high of President-elect Barack Obama’s victory had gained deeper resonances from August Wilson’s dramatic depiction of the lives of African Americans just a few generations ago.”—San Francisco Chronicle
“Riveting…a full scale spiritual tsunami…Mysticism and pragmatism collide head-on across the dining room table of a small boarding house in the Pittsburgh Hills District of 1911 in August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone…The play is beautifully produced [and] the acting is outstanding.”—Bay Area News Group
“A stirring revival of the playwright’s masterpiece…Joe Turner quietly seduces us with the enigma of identity…In the wake of Tuesday’s historic election, the plays of August Wilson sing with a renewed sense of urgency. It’s the heartbreaking sound of history crying out to be remembered…Delroy Lindo, who was nominated for a Tony for his portrayal of Herald Loomis in the original Broadway production, here directs the play with a sure sense of the musicality of the text…The denizens in this ramshackle Pittsburgh boardinghouse bristle to life with pitch-perfect clarity [and] the understated poetry of the play still fills us with truth and longing, the ache of the blues.”—San Jose Mercury News
“beautifully acted…Wilson’s rich dialogue comes to vivid life in the hands of such remarkable actors…Joe Turner’s Come and Gone is graceful and deeply felt with surprising bursts of passion. With the skill of both poet and dramatist, August Wilson reminds us how close our past is and yet, on this day in November, 2008, how mercifully far away.”—Examiner.com

About Yellowjackets

NPR’s Artery
American Theatre feature on Itamar Moses (PDF)
San Francisco Chronicle feature
NPR’s Do List
J Weekly feature
Berkeley Daily Planet feature
San Francisco Examiner feature
“Electrifying…Captures much of the immediacy, angst and firestorm of racial tensions, sex, bullying and other pressures we call a high school education.”—San Francisco Chronicle
“Fascinating…substantial and compelling…Director Tony Taccone has infused the play with a wonderful helplessness and restless energy that typifies high school and that horrible age when everyone tells you you’re grown up, yet locks you up on campus for most of the day. He has also gathered an astonishingly talented cast of young actors who breathe a reality and genuine sense into the characters.”—Contra Costa Times
“Deeply authentic…Berkeley native Itamar Moses goes back to school with a vengeance in Yellowjackets…the playwright acutely nails the speech patterns of each clique, from taggers and stoner-philosophers to the geek squad. The dialogue pops in scene after scene as Moses plays games with linguistics, from SAT words to street slang.”—San Jose Mercury News
“Provocative and involving…the lightning-paced dialogue and slam-bang scene changes keep the play hurtling forward at breakneck speed. Imagine high school as re-imagined by Aaron Sorkin: It’s Welcome Back Kotter meets The West Wing…it’s smart, political, contentious, relentless, confusing and so full of weighty issues you may forget you’re actually dealing with teenagers here.”—Examiner.com

About our 2008/09 season

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