Text of Review:

All Men Are Created Equal. Or so Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence. It’s kind of weird then, to know that Jefferson owned slaves. And it’s even weirder to realize that one of them, Sally Hemings, was his mistress. What was that about? Which doesn’t stop playwrights and screenwriters and novelists from trying to figure it out.

Thomas Jefferson took to his bed a child, fourteen years old, a human child he owned. The Merchant Ivory film, Jefferson in Paris, presented the 22 year old Thandwe Newton as Hemings. Thomas and Selly, a play produced at Marin Theatre in 2017 showed Hemings as in her late teens, and perhaps a bit of a seductress. That one didn’t go over well in the age of me too.

What Suzan Lori-Parks does in her play, Sally and Tom, first presented in 2022 at the Guthrie,  and now through November 23rd at Marin Theatre, is find a way to tell the story without fantasizing one way of another.

By incorporating the story of Sally and Tom within the framework of an acting company on the verge of bankruptcy, the playwright can present the narrative and comment on it at the same time. The troupe is putting on a play set right after Jefferson returns to Monticello from Paris.  Tom, in the play within the play, is performed by Mike, the director, and Sally by Luce, the playwright. Mike and Luce are themselves an item, grappling with their own issues as well as how, exactly, to tell the story. Luce won’t give an inch when it comes to her play’s discussion of racism and sexism. Mike just wants to keep the company going, and his ex wants to finance the show.

Along the way, we learn about James, Sally’s brother, as well as his performer, Kwame, Luce’s ex, and about the other members of the cast.A two-timeline play is a tough one to pull off, but Parks is successful in making it work, with help from director Lance Gardner keeping confusion at a minimum.

The ensemble is at the top of its game, particularly the two leads, Emily Newsome and Adam Kuveniemann, as well as Titus Vanhook as Kwame. Michael Phillis, as one of the actors, is always entertaining.

Too many speeches that go on too long and repeat themselves, especially toward the end, dampen the play’s power, and a gay subplot seems unnecessary. But Sally and Tom is a gem, puncturing the myth, presenting Jefferson as a bastard as well as an enigma.

Sally and Tom by Suzan-Lori Parks, plays at Marin Theatre through November 23rd. For more information you can go to marintheatre.org. I’m Richard Woiinsky on Bay Area theatre for KPFA.

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KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “A Driving Beat” by Jordan Ramirez Puckett, directed by Jeffrey Lo, at TheatreWorks Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts Second Stage through November 23, 2025.

TEXT OF REVIEW

​​​​​The nature of identity puzzles all of us. Who are we exactly? Are we ourselves, or the tribe to which we belong? Are you a Jew if you don’t believe in the religion? Or better yet, are you Latino if you’ve been raised in a white foster home, and live in a neighborhood with no people from your tribe?

That last question is the reason why fourteen year old Mateo wants to go on a road trip, in the world premiere play A Driving Beat by Jordan Ramirez Puckett at TheatreWorks Mountain View through November 23rd.

Mateo, we learn as the play unfolds, has been bullied by his white classmates and now he wants to go on a road trip with his mom, traveling from Ohio to the hospital in San Diego where he was adopted shortly after his birth. Who am I, he asks. If I’m going to be bullied, the least I can do is learn about my heritage.

A Driving Beat takes us on that road trip, and as the play goes on, we learn more and more about Mateo, and more specifically about his mom, Diane, and her grief and pain as they make the long journey across the continent. Mateo’s use of hip hop to communicate his inner thoughts makes perfect sense in terms of both pacing and context.

A Driving Beat uses a thrust stage similar to the one at the now closed Aurora Theatre, creating an intimacy that serves the play well, even if director Jeffrey Lo doesn’t quite understand the auditory drawbacks of dialogues in which one character’s back is to a third of the audience for long stretches.

Jon Viktor Corpuz does the impossible in making Mateo actually feel fourteen years old, and Lee Ann Payne as his mother Diane, and Livia Gomes Demarchi in several different roles all keep it interesting even through the lulls in the script, when small talk requires emotional truthfulness. But there are issues. A lesbian subplot feels gratuitous. Information is doled out slowly, creating unnecessary mysteries that detract from the events on stage. As a two or three hander, A Driving Beat sometimes feels like an inconsequential addition to the TheatreWorks repertoire. But a scene involving a citizenship search in Texas resonates in ways far greater than the playwright intended.

And the final scenes, in which all is revealed, bring A Driving Beat to both a surprising and satisfying end.

A Driving Beat by Jordan Ramirez Puckett, directed by Jeffrey Lo, plays at Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts Second Stage through November 23rd. For more information you can go to theatreworks.org. I’m Richard Wolinsky on Bay Area Theatre for KPFA.

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TEXT OF REVIEW

​​​​​What does it take to put together a hit rock album, especially if the band itself seems to be falling apart, particularly the two couples that comprise most of the group? How do you separate the personal from the professional when you’re stuck in a recording studio for months?

Those questions lie at the heart of the Tony winning play with music, Stereophonic, now in its national and London touring production at BroadwaySF’s Curran Theatre through November 23rd.

The unnamed band in the play is fictional, barely. The year is 1976, the studio is in Sausalito, and the group bears a remarkable resemblance to Fleetwood Mac, on their way to recording the album “Rumours,” a resemblance so close that the playwright, David Adjani was forced to settle a lawsuit with a chronicler of the band, though publicly he denies it all.

He says he wanted to create a kind of live documentary, unfolding before the audience’s eyes. The actors sing and play their own instruments; the soundboard on stage is a working soundboard, the playbacks are not pre-recorded and taped during the play’s performance. It’s a play, it’’s live, and it puts you fifty years in the past.

The set is the studio in Sausalito, in front, below, the ‘70s era recording console, and above and behind, seen through solid glass, the recording studio itself. The real studio was small and a little grungy. So is the studio at the Curran.

Stereophonic begins quietly, there’s no sudden darkening of the theater. The actors have been on stage for a little while, and now they’re talking while waiting for their bassist to come in, likely stoned and drunk. They’ve just received word the budget has increased, and their time making the album is unlimited. The character Diana’s solo track is back on the charts, and so is the last album.

We listen in as they chat about their work, get stoned together, drink a bit, have arguments; both couples break up and make up, the music is dissected and re-recorded.

The inexperienced engineer Grover, a very good Jack Barrett, does his best through the madness We learn about each band member, their relationship to each other, and to art itselfl. The acting and performing are impeccable. This really could be a successful band, and their songs hits.

Stereophonic is quite long, almost 3 hours, still 20 minutes shorter than on Broadway, but it needs the time to warm up, to get in synch with the characters. The build-up is slow, but paying close attention, Stereophonic can become an exhilarating night in the theater.

The national tour of Stereophonic plays at BRoadwaySF ‘s Curran theatre through November 23. For more information, you can go to broadwaysf.com. I’m Richard Wolinsky on Bay Area Theatre for KPFA.

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KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews the national touring company of “Suffs,” now at BroadwaySF Orpheum Theatre through November 9,, 2025.

REVIEW TEXT:

Imagine a political movement that seems to be on the ropes. Demonstrations aren’t doing it, talks with political leaders fall on deaf ears. There’s no elected way forward, and the only thing going is hope and perseverance.

Sound familiar. But we’re talking here about women’s suffrage, and the movement that led to the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment giving women the right to vote – and which is dramatized in the national tour of the musical Suffs, now at the Orpheum Theatre through November 9th.

The play opens at a 1913 rally in which suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt, in her mid-fifties and a leader of the movement for thirty years is accosted by the young firebrand Alice Paul, tired of the slow and tedious path forward. Alice wants direct action, and she wants it now.

From here, Suffs focuses on Alice and her group of activists who will do what it takes to get the nineteenth amendment passed, including marches, vigils, hunger strikes, and of course, playing the political game.

Despite some lovely music and hummable tunes — Shaina Taub’s score and librettos won a pair of Tonys, Suffs only lasted nine months on Broadway. Perhaps it was the times, or perhaps it’s that Suffs sometimes feels more like a docudrama than a play. While honing in specifically on Alice Paul, a superb Maya Kelleher in the touring production) and a handful of other characters, it only sporadically takes us into their hearts. The audience is kept at a distance as anthems too often replace feelings.

Still, Suffs is a triumph as a history lesson made real – and is not afraid to delve into the overt racism of the white women’s suffrage movement. With Ida B. Wells, the great black journalist, as more than just a walk-on. The show also asks an important question, perhaps more important than when it first premiered three short years ago: how do you handle what seems to be a lost cause? Do you go slowly, compromise until there’s a way forward, or do you simply fight with all you’ve got, ignoring possible blowback. Was it Alice or Carrie who won the vote, was it both? And what does that say about today?

From acting to production values, this is Broadway at its finest, and while Suffs comes just short of being a classic, it’s still a major serious musical, and worth seeing.

The national touring company of Suffs plays at the Orpheum Theatre through November 9th. For more information, you can go to broadwaysf.com. I’m Richard Wolinsky on Bay Area Theatre for KPFA.

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KPFA theatre critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “Little Women,” adapted by Lauren Gunderson, at TheatreWorks Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts through October 12, 2025.

Little Women Review

The classic pre-twentieth century books never die, on stage or on film. A Christmas Carol keeps coming back in December, year after year after year. Maybe the setting is contemporary. Maybe Scrooge is a woman. But the same template carries on and on. Marley. First ghost. Second ghost. Third ghost. Count the beats. Yawn.

There are others. Mr. Darcy and the Bennets. Huck Finn. Dracula. Anna Karenina. Alice and the Rabbit. Frankenstein. And then there’s Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.

There are seven feature length films, eight TV adaptations, two plays, an opera, a ballet, and a Broadway musical. Now there’s Lauren Gunderson’s adaptation of Little Women, at Theatreworks in Mountain View through  October 12th.

Little Women’s ageless popularity rests, as the playwright notes, on its proto-feminism, its focus on family love, and being set during a time of strife and shortages and adds how appropriate it feels in our current times., though of course it also felt appropriate through its previous adaptations. That’s what timelessness is about. And unlike Dickens or Austen, it’s hard to pull out the plot and change time periods or genders. You’re stuck in the Civil War, in New England, and with four specific daughters. Maybe the future will bring us Jo, Meg, Amy and Beth and Zombies, but hopefully not.

In this adaptation, Louisa May Alcott tells the story and illuminates the relationship of her real family to the fictional Marches, with the dialogue and sometimes the book descriptions coming out of the characters’ mouths. It’s a neat touch, and perhaps only possible on stage. But, as with A Christmas Carol, we are still stuck with the same beats. Jo meets Laurie, Beth goes to the big house, Amy burns a manuscript, and so on.

Louisa May Alcott never married, and it’s possible we know why. She’s not attracted to men. This production hints at this through particulars of the performance of Elissa Beth Stebbins as Louisa and Jo,  and by the lack of chemistry with both of Jo’s suitors. Greta Gerwig saw the same issue in the 2019 film, and tackled it by making Jo the author of Little Women and hits the issue dead on. Lauren Gunderson, thugh, approaches it  more obliquely, but without a fuller explanation, the ending feels false. Louisa is Jo, until she’s not.

For the fans who jump at every new adaptation, this Little Women, if redundant, might add a new dimension. For the rest of us, enough is enough.

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KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “The Motion” by Christopher Chen at Shotgun Players Ashby Stage through October 12, 2025.

TEXT OF REVIEW

​​​​​THE MOTION

With so much news in the world today, and with a CDC corrupted by politics and mentally ill cranks, the subject of animal testing seems to fall by the wayside. But the discussion about using animals to test potential life-saving medicines remains as ongoing as the one that drives many to become vegetarians.

This question about animal rights lies at the beginning of “The Motion” by Christopher Chen, now in a Shotgun Players production at the Ashby Stage through October 12th.

The play presents itself as an on-stage debate./ It’s based on a podcast called Intelligence Squared Debates. So, there are two people on either side of the stage, flanking the moderater. The moderator points out that this is a Shotgun production, in Berkeley at the Ashby Stage.

He then announces the motion to be debated, for and against, should animal testing be banned. All four debaters are presented as academics, the older two, the lead debaters, as doctors, the younger two as professors. The audience will be the jury, voting before the debate starts, and then again afterward, and a winner will be announced, based on the changed votes.

The anti-testing lead debater starts by asking the audience to imagine they are in a cage and then murdered. This is what happens to a rabbit. The pro-testing second debater notes that we are fine killing vermin in a restaurant, and we don’t care if the rats or roaches feel pain. The pro-testing lead then tries to find common ground. Nobody wants an animal to suffer. The anti-testing second thinks common ground is impossible. As in real life, the political of course starts to turn personal, and sparks start to fly.

And that’s the start of The Motion, but only the start.

The playwright Christopher Chen has said he likes to think of his shows at times as magic acts, where you may even come in knowing there will be surprises, but then you end up being delighted by what the surprise actually is.

He goes on. I use a lot of rug pulling in my plays. It’s very fun from a structural perspective, but it’s also very serious and meaningful to me. It’s not meant to be a gotcha moment. I’d say the main journey in all of my plays is a digging process, where a reality is presented and we see below that, and then we see below THAT.

Ultimately, The Motion is sometimes very funny, frequently surprising, sometimes confusing, and always entertaining. And it will resonate in your head for days.

The Motion by Christopher Chen, directed by Patrick Dooley, plays at Shotgun Players Ashby Stage through October 12th. For more information, you can go to Shotgunplayers.org. I’m Richard Wolinsky on Bay Area theatre for KPFA.

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KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “The Reservoir” by Jake Brasch, at Berkeley Rep Peets Theatre through October 12, 2025.

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KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews the national touring production of “Shucked” at the BroadwaySF Curran Theatre through October 5, 2025.

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KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “Eureka Day” at Marin Theatre, in partnership with Aurora Theatre, through September 28, 2025.

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KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “The Return,” a Golden Thread production at the Garret at ACT’s Toni Rembe Theatre through August 24, 2025.

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