Circus Bella: "Starlight" ★ ★ ★

Circus Bella's 2025 show "Starlight" is another romp through impossible feats of human strength, balance and ingenuity. After all, Ori Quesada, how did you decide to specialize in bouncing tin bowls to the top of your head while balancing on a board which is rolling on a ball? 

And you, Natasha Kaluza, Super Duper Hula Hooper, whose hula hoopery we recognize from previous years, when did you realize you were able to spin a hula hoop both down and up? We have tried. Has no one told you this is not possible?

And the band - operating now without the late Rob Reich but as much fun and perhaps even more virtuosic than in previous years - how do you lose your leader but bounce back with such power and joy?

lt's a special pleasure to see Circus Bella under its little Big Top in the Crossing at East Cut downtown. We are happy this relatively new San Francisco holiday tradition seems to be set for now and into the future.

"Circus Bella"

The Crossing at East Cut

Howard and Beale Streets

San Francisco

Through Jan 4, 2025

$58-$78

Giorgiana and Kitty: Christmas at Pemberley" ★ ★ ★

Here we are in the lushly appointed drawing room of the Bennet family's Pemberley mansion, from which fictional motherlode playwrights Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon have mined yet another drama concerning the Bennet sisters. Perhaps if Jane Austen were still alive, 250 years after her death, she could have dreamed up further adventures for her beloved characters. But she's not. Somebody's got to do it.

Giorgiana Darcy (Emily Ota), introverted musical genius, is best friends with sparkly Kitty Bennet (Kushi Beauchamp), the press agent every artistic sister would long for. They plot together to form a company to aid and encourage female musicians, in an age where overbearing men like Giorgiana's brother Fitzwilliam Darcy (Jordan Lane Shappell) control an economic and social system based on male dominance and female submission. 

Enter Henry Gray (Nima Rakhshanifar), a suitor for Giorgiana. His love for her is championed by his friend and conspirator Thomas O'Brien (William Thomas Hodgson), another eligible male and therefore a suspended chord needing to be resolved into a match for one or another of the Bennet sisters.

That's pretty much that for the action, aided by witty dialogue, frilly dresses, top hats and male stuffiness knocked flat by female cleverness. This is the second of Gunderson and Melcon's productions delving into Jane Austen characters, and judging by the enthusiastic response of the audience, not close to the last.

RATINGS:★ ★ ★

The San Francisco Theater Blog grants "Giorgiana and Kitty: Christmas at Pemberley" Three Stars. We have a few niggles, primarily with the music at the end...but that's part of the surprise ending. It's a cool surprise. We enjoyed the ensemble of actors, particularly the principals Ota and Beauchamp. 

--

"Giorgiana and Kitty: Christmas at Pemberley"

Lucie Stern Theater

1305 Middlefield Rd., Palo Alto

Through December 28, 2025

$34-$105

Word For Word: "Hard Times: Appalachian Stories" by Ron Rash ★★★★

 "If Jesus had driven a car, he would have bought it at Larry's." Ron Rash's story "The Night the New Jesus Fell to Earth" is the first of three Rash short stories performed on the Z-Space stage in a new production by Word for Word. Larry (John Flanagan) is a small-town huckster who has come up with a sure-fire idea to enhance his celebrity and sell more cars. His ex-wife, Tracy, played by Molly Rebecca Benson, is the narrator of this tale. Jesus as advertising is a familiar trope, usually written by Northerners to denigrate Southerners, but Ron Rash is from Western North Carolina and all three of his stories feel not only sympathetic but honest.

The next two, "Sad Man in the Sky" and "Hard Times" are absolutely heartbreaking and both are directed by W4W veteran Amy Kassow. In "Sad Man," Paul Finnochiaro plays a war vet who has taken a job as helicopter pilot working for a tour company. Joel Mullenix is a down-and-out ex-con who hires the chopper to take him over an area where he can drop down presents for his estranged children who he is no longer allowed to see. But dropping packages out of a helicopter reminds the pilot of his war experiences, where children always ran away from the helicopter, not towards it. 

Mullenix also has a role as the father of a starving Appalachian family in the 1930s whose abject poverty brings his neighbors (Delia MacDougall and Ryan Tasker) to uncomfortable realizations about themselves. We will not divulge the last line of this story but you'd better get ready for weak knees and a thump in the chest.

While Word for Word's literal approach to story telling works better with some authors than others, Ron Rash's languorous and humorous story-telling is meant for this company. Please don't miss a most satisfying evening of live theater. You'll also get to hear the cast sing "Poor Wayfaring Stranger."  Buy any ticket and sit anywhere.

RATINGS ★★★★

The San Francisco Theater Blog Awards Division grants Four Stars to Word for Word's production of "Hard Times: Appalachian Stories” by Ron Rash. Writing, staging, directing and the entire ensemble earn one star each. Ryan Tasker outdoes himself in "Hard Times." Well done, everyone.

NOTE: Z Space is a cozy theater. Every seat is good. Buy any one and sit anywhere.

-----

Word for Word: "Hard Times: Appalachian Stories by Ron Rash"

Z Space Below

450 Florida Street, San Francisco

Through Nov. 2

$45-$70

Noises Off: ★★★ BANG

We've seen two Noises Off productions at San Francisco Playhouse, eight years apart, the first with Susi Damilano directing and the current version helmed by Bill English. This 2025 production has a first act that moves a little slower, followed by a second act that never stops firing in all directions. Michael Frayn's 1982 West End love letter to acting and theater production, in which every action has an unequal. unexpected and outlandish reaction, retains all of its slapstick humor and frenetic pace.

Everyone in the fictional story is sleeping with someone else in the cast. Director Lloyd (Patrick Russell) is trying to get flowers to his current fling, Brooke (Sophia Alawi), but his penultimate sweetheart Poppy (Vivienne Truong) has a small problem which will keep getting larger for several more months. Frederick (Nima Rakhshanifar) has issues with just about everything that cause him nosebleeds at inconvenient moments. Selsdon (played to perfection by Louis Parnell) has his eye on the whiskey bottle at at all times. The cast is trying to perform on stage while chaos reins backstage (which we see at the brilliant beginning to Act 2).

A special shout out for the fake program on the back of the real program, in which we discover that the fictional play thanks Kumfy Restraints Ltd. for the straitjackets.

I mean, Kumfy Restraints. That earns a Bangle of Praise all by itself.

RATINGS ★★★ BANG

The San Francisco Theater Blog Awards Division grants Three Stars and a Bangle of Praise to San Francisco Playhouse's production of "Noises Off." Lots of laughs and a barrelful of crazy.

"Noises Off"

San Francisco Playhouse

450 Post St. (2d floor of Kensington Park Hotel)

Through Nov. 8, 2025

$52-$145

"Louisa May Alcott's Little Women" ★★★★

 There is plenty to like in Lauren Gunderson's new adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's classic "Little Women." When we take into consideration that the novel, first published in 1868 with the sequel written in 1880, has never gone out of print in over 150 years, we understand the generational power this story has maintained with audiences. There have been many adaptations but Gunderson's is meant to invoke a more modern sensibility.

The most obvious nod to 2025 is the heroine Jo (alter ego to author Alcott)'s desire to be treated as a man. Whether or not Louisa May Alcott was a lesbian has been an open and unresolved question for years, but she was certainly born and died a woman. Playwright Gunderson takes us further down this road, especially in Act One when actor Elissa Beth Stebbins, who plays both characters, thinks, talks and certainly walks with far less New England femininity than her three sisters, Meg (Emily Ota), Amy (Sharon Shao) and the doomed Beth (Lauren Hart). All four women, as well as their mother Marmee (Cathleen Ridley), appear comfortable doing good for those less fortunate than themselves and worrying about their father who is away fighting in the Civil War. How they are surviving is never discussed - until Jo's stories begin to bring in much-needed cash.

The thing we love best about this Theatreworks production is the way Alcott's world (writing, publishing, moving to New York) and Jo's older-sister role (the person everyone listens to and follows) are written to allow Stebbins to pop in and out of either character with such elegant grace. For example, Act One ends with Alcott preparing to write her sequel, none of the sisters' would-be romances and health issues resolved and Father still gone. Neighbor Laurie (Max Tachis) has been introduced as a potential suitor but Jo is clearly not having it. What will happen? Wait until Act Two.

In real life, the publishers insisted that Alcott write a sequel to resolve those questions for a waiting audience of Nineteenth Century readers. Ah. Scarlett Fever. Death. Love. Just what we're waiting for. Boy gets girl...eh, well, sort of.

RATINGS ★★★★

This World Premiere is an unqualified success. The San Francisco Theater Blog Awards Division grants "Louisa May Alcott's Little Women" Four Stars. It is a stellar production with fine acting and direction, plus great costumes by Meg Neville. A special shout-out to George Psarras, seated in the chair below, who plays two suitors, the last one with a terrific German accent. Jo is excited to be loved by her German professor.  In Jo's voice, Alcott wrote: "Welcome home," she said, "and let her love in. And shut the door."

"LOUISA MAY ALCOTT'S LITTLE WOMEN"

Mountain View Center for Performing Arts

500 Castro St., Mountain View

Through Oct. 12, 2025

$39-$109

Koorosh Ostowari: Grandma's Million-Dollar Scheme: UNRATED

Don't let the catchy title fool you: "Grandma's Million-Dollar Caper" has little to do with Grandma or her rather minor-league caper. Koorosh Ostowari is a real estate flipper in the '70s and '80s, taking advantage of uninformed sellers to cash in himself. Then he meets a Mrs. Johnson who does the same to him. There is no caper, he is just greedy and stupid. She takes his money. That's it.

This all takes place within the first fifteen minutes of Koorosh Ostowari's ninety minute one-man show and never comes up again. Mrs. Johnson may or may not be anyone's Grandma. She is old and black and that appears to be from whence the humor is to be drawn.

The heart of the show is a young Persian immigrant's attempts to fit in to a new society. We like his depiction of his mother and their lives in East, not West, San Mateo. But the great bulk of this show is dedicated to a man using meditation and mindfulness to help prisoners, all the while amassing real estate with his mother and acting like a typical landlord. We would like to identify with him but he tells us little about himself. 

For example: how does this young man come up with the $500,000 for Mrs. Johnson to make off with, or the cool $1million to renovate the place?

Ostowari's story would be more resonant if we could take him more seriously but as a performer he does little to win us over. He is very good with accents but parts of the story are just silly, if not downright insulting, like his Black character LeRoy getting the Buddhists to hiphop while praying and the "little monk" hiding behind a tree to devour a juicy steak.

Comedy is supposed to straddle the line. Mr. Ostowari needs to decide who he is laughing with and who is he laughing at. 

RATINGS: UNRATED

----

"Grandma's Million-Dollar Scheme

The Marsh

1602 Valencia St., San Francisco

Through 8-23-25

$25-$35

The Magnolia Ballet: ★★ BANG

Ezekiel Mitchell VI is a Black teenager living with his widowed father in a small town in rural Georgia. He is fond of Danny Mitchell, a White teenager living close by. The boys are attracted to each other, but there are problems. White Danny’s father has grown up with Black Ezekiel’s father. White Mr. Mitchell used to call Black Mr. Mitchell “Nigger Mitchell.” So we understand Black Mr. Mitchell being angry at White Mr. Mitchell, and by extension, at his son, and by further extension, at the whole damned world. Being kind or affectionate shows weakness, and is therefore out of the question for Ezekiel’s father. (The terrific Drew Watkins plays both fathers.)

Ezekiel, played by Jayden Griffin, seeks affection with benefits from Danny (Nicholas René Rodriguez ) but Danny is still denying he is gay, though he smokes a lot of weed and likes it when his own horn gets tooted by Ezekiel.

This Shotgun Players production, written by Terry Guest and directed by Aejay Antonis Marquis attempts to couch a simple story in a mojo-swampy Southern veneer, a la “Sinners,” but that only goes so far. The white boy can’t come to terms with having sex with the black boy. The dads are useless. That’s pretty much it, despite some flashy production touches.

There is an appartion (played by the excellent Devin Cunningham) who may or may not be Ezekiel’s PawPaw. We find out that PawPaw has had a male lover as well. 

The show is long, close to two hours with no intermission. Flashbacks and unrelated set pieces, like Black Scarlett O’Hara, are humorous but slow down the flow and suggest a review more than a resolvable story. However, the ensemble has a great deal of life. It may be that the show needs editing, which is sure to happen as the summer run continues. A cast this good just needs to have a little more space.

RATINGS: ★★ BANG

The San Francisco Theater Blog grants “The Magnolia Ballet” Two Stars with a Bangle of Praise for the hard-working multi-talented cast. At this point, you go see "The Magnolia Ballet" for the actors. 

“THE MAGNOLIA BALLET”

Shotgun Players

1901 Ashby Avenue, Berkeley

Wed. - Sun. through August 10, 2025

$20-$80