We love when repertory companies, whose duty it is to cycle through Shakespeare's entire body of work, tackle the "tough" plays that have been deemed by modern minds to be too controversial/un-PC/racist: namely Merchant of Venice, which CalShakes did a marvelous production of a few years back; Titus Andronicus, the ridiculously violent early tragedy which CalShakes tackled earlier this season with some ironic success; and Taming of the Shrew, the indisputably sexist comedy which rounds out CalShakes' 2011 season. While director Shana Cooper does an admirable job of modernizing what she can, and giving Katherine, the "shrew," a sense of autonomy, the script ends up undercutting her efforts before the last act is through. It's a tough job trying to soften a tough play, without outright rewriting it. more ›

The California Shakespeare Theater's four-play season always includes at least one non-Shakespeare work, and in both last season and this one that work has been by the great George Bernard Shaw. Last year's production of Mrs. Warren's Profession proved to us that Shaw could still feel vitally relevant, and even fresh, in the modern day. The current production of Candida, while still a fine example of Shaw's wit and emotional subtlety, feels less vital and somewhat more dated. more ›

CalShakes continues their season exploring another of Shakespeare's earliest works, Two Gentlemen of Verona, which is thought to be the first play Shakespeare wrote, around 1590. (See also our review of Titus Andronicus, Shakespeare's earliest tragedy, which was the first production of the season.) The current production, The Verona Project, is more than just a modern interpretation of Shakespeare's text, however; it's a wholesale update and revision of the play, with modern language, performed by a band of actors who also form a rock band, with songs from a concept album based on Two Gentlemen of Verona interspersed throughout the action. Suffice it to say, it's a highly original piece, with a lot of good music (though some of it falls flat), a lot of good humor — as well as a faithful exploration of the same themes of love and friendship that Shakespeare intended. more ›

Titus Andronicus is one of those Shakespeare plays that doesn't get performed much and that nobody reads in school unless they're a Shakespeare scholar. And here's why: It's ridiculously bloody, and racist, and the writing is generally considered among the worst in Shakespeare's oeuvre. The scholar Harold Bloom has called the play "an explosion of rancid irony," and "a poetic atrocity," and people in the audience of a 1955 London production laughed at parts that were supposed to be tragic, which he uses as evidence that it's a failure as a tragedy. CalShakes' new production, the first they've ever mounted of Shakespeare's earliest known tragedy, is nonetheless a fine example of the company's ability to embrace irony and modernize Shakespeare, complete with some fine performances, a fair amount of blood, and a lot of face-painted Goths. more ›

We can't stop being impressed with CalShakes. No matter how many productions of Shakespeare they churn out (on average, two per season, with two 50+-year-old, non-Shakespeare works in repertory as well), they still manage to find fresh and revealing ways of staging works that most actors and theater lovers have seen at least once or twice before in their lifetimes. more ›

The Bay Area, sadly, does not have the same vibrant, well supported stream of new work on its theater stages as New York does Off-Broadway, but then again no American city really does. What we have, instead, is quite a lot of recycled material — revivals, touring companies, west coast premieres and the like — with the occasional good new play by Berkeley Rep or one of several of S.F.'s small repertory companies. There's nothing wrong with revivals, don't get us wrong, especially when they're not of the ho-hum academic variety that A.C.T. seems to enjoy doing (see this year's Round and Round the Garden, or the more painful Phèdre as examples). It can be exciting to discover a little-known play from theater history that no one's produced in years but which still has some potency or relevance today. Mrs. Warren's Profession, an 1893 work by George Bernard Shaw currently being done at CalShakes in Orinda is one of those plays. more ›

Probably like many of you, we've always liked the idea of A Midsummer Night's Dream (and the title) more than the play itself -- at least what we remembered understanding about it from reading it in high school and watching the 1999 film with Kevin Kline, Michelle Pfeiffer, Christian Bale and Calista Flockhart. Whether it's the whole invisible faerie-people interacting with humans thing, or the spells being cast that change peoples' personalities thing, or the Elizabethan English thing, it's a play that needs to be directed well to keep everything clear and entertaining to a modern audience. Suffice it to say, if you even remotely like this play or have never seen it performed, CalShakes' latest production is the one to see. more ›

If you're a theater nerd, you might already know the most famous aspect of Samuel Beckett's two-person play Happy Days, which is currently being performed at the California Shakespeare Theater in Orinda. This is the play with the woman buried up to her neck in dirt -- not to be confused with Endgame, which features two legless characters who live in trash cans -- and it's getting a rare and riveting staging here in the East Bay. Part dark-humored feminist allegory, part existentialist experiment, it takes balls to attack this play, both as director and performer. more ›

A play by Noel Coward is like a great champagne: bubbly and bright, leaving you intoxicated and laughing with a layered finish. Taking up the torch from Oscar Wilde, Coward was a master of snappy, witty dialogue and his plays chronicle the sexual politics and cynicism of post-WWI Londoners. To modern audiences, a play like Private Lives (written in 1930) might seem surprisingly libertine, centering on a divorced couple who run into each other on each of their second honeymoons, only to abandon their new spouses to sneak off with each other to Paris. But the dialogue has stood the test of time, and something about the clipped, jaded nature of the main characters, Elyot and Amanda, reminds one of contemporary examples like Paul Rudd's character in Role Models -- these are people who are too smart to be fooled by love, and too clever not to be annoyed by social customs and the world around them. more ›

The California Shakespeare Theater's opening production, Romeo & Juliet, is in its last three performances today and tomorrow. It's a lively and fun production directed by Jonathan Moscone, complete with contemporary music and Verona teenagers who smoke, drink Jack Daniels, and carry iPods and skateboards wherever they go. Because it's a play about teenagers in love, all these updates work to reinforce the age and temperament of the characters, and performances by Catherine Castellanos as the Nurse (pictured with the charming Sarah Nealis as Juliet) and Jud Williford as Mercutio deserve special shout-outs -- it's always the supporting characters in Shakespeare who steal the show. more ›

Break out the blanket and brie, and check out our selected (not complete works of) Shakespeare. more ›

This week we take you from Orinda to Fort Mason to the Artaud Building for Shakespeare, an Irish story and a reimagined Greek myth. more ›

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Gothamist loves live theater (or "theatre" if you're getting all highbrow on us). We think everyone should take in a play here and there instead of a movie -- it's more intimate and frequently more daring (note: we're not talking about Phantom of the Opera here)... more ›