"After Happy" ★ ★

It îs always a pleasure to see a show in the Berkeley City Club, the Julia Morgan-designed venerable space in the heart of Berkeley. Such a small venue gives us an opportunity to feel as if we are inside the production itself and Patricia Milton's new "After Happy," the 79th World Premiere from Central Works, does not disappoint. 

But it doesn't make us yell Yo Ho Ho either. The problem with "After Happy" does not lie with the subplot of the Pirate festival, and especially not with the actors, but with the story itself. Lauren Dunagan, as Katherine, the young eco-terrorist bent on taking over her aunt's family oil business, tries her best to get us to believe Aunt Brenda (a jolly but not naive Jan Zvaifler) would go along with Katherine's idea to allow them to destroy the company, but those attempts are undone by Katherine's co-conspirator Steph (Rezan Asfaw), who is so angry and heartless that it is difficult to feel satisfied with the rather slapstick comedy conclusion.

We liked all three actors. We want to laugh with them. But Auntie is no dope. The idea that she wouldn't see through the two younger women's charade, or that she would let these scheming charlatans convince her of her own complicity in destroying the planet -- it's all a bit hard to digest.

There are some good jokes (has anyone ever seen a dober-doodle?) and funny bits. Perhaps Director Gary Graves could lighten up on Steph's non-stop meanness, or, conversely, make Aunt Brenda less sharp, so we could laugh a little harder and believe this plot is even remotely possible.

Aunt Brenda going to Madagascar to save the lemurs? Really?

RATINGS: ★ ★ 

The San Francisco Theater Blog Awards Division grants "After Happy" Two Stars. The actors are very good. The jokes are clever. And we love how real pirates join the story at the end. Central Works is an excellent company. The show is new and will get sharper and more focused as the run continues.

"After Happy"

The Berkeley City Club

2315 Durant Avenue, Berkeley

Fri-Sun, through March 29, 2026

$35-$45

"M. Butterfly" ★★ BANG

Before Chinglish and Yellow Face, there was M. Butterfly, David Henry Hwang's breakout show, which in 1988 ran for almost two years on Broadway. Then, the show's gender-bending dramatic core was eye-opening. It seemed at least plausible that a French diplomat could enter a sexual relationship with a Chinese opera singer and maintain that relationship for twenty years without ever realizing the woman he idolized was actually a man.

What? Well, you know, the French.

In San Francisco Playhouse's 2026 production, directed and choreographed by Bridgette Loriaux, the emphasis has shifted. Our sensibilities now show Rene Gallimard, played by Dean Linnard, to most likely be bisexual. His gender fluidity is propped up by his friendship with Marc (Andre Amarotico), a clearly heterosexual raptor who continually but unsuccessfully tries to pair up Rene with easily-conquerable women. It never quite works.

We, in the audience, are asked to believe that Song Liling, Gallimard's Butterfly, played by the excellent Edric Young, has somehow duped the foolish Frenchman into believing he is a woman, and not only that, but Gallimard doesn't realize Butterfly is a spy for the Chinese government who is passing along every piece of information that she can gather. 

This production of M. Butterfly is visibly brilliant. Randy Wong-Westbrooke's set is stunning and Michael Oesch's lighting adds all the correct emotional touches. We are big Stacy Ross fans, and her turns onstage as M. Toulon, Gallimard's boss, are all scene-grabbers.  Song Liling's explanation as to how he managed to fool Gallimard all those years is, shall we say, fascinating, when you think carefully about it.

The moral of this story is that we are all capable of self-delusion, in the service of fulfilling our fantasies, both personal and, at times, international.

RATINGS: ★★ BANG

The San Francisco Theater Blog grants "M. Butterfly" Two Stars with a Bangle of Praise. Thirty-eight years ago M. Butterfly packed a Wow! Really! punch. Now, maybe not so much. And without it, we have a drama that is lovely to look at but not as involving as we would like.

We are adding a Bangle of Praise for Keiko Carreiro's costumes. Butterfly has an excellent eye for color.

"M. Butterfly"

San Francisco Playhouse

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

Through March 14, 2026

$52-$145

"The Cherry Orchard" ★ ★ ★

Anton Chekhov wrote “The Cherry Orchard” in 1903 and by 1904 it was already a hit in Moscow. Chekhov was well known by then, and the issues presented - the fading aristocracy’s inability to deal with rising revolutionary fervor — would have hit home and felt both prescient and a little scary to theatre-goers in the last years of Tsarist rule.

Carey Perloff directs this Marin Theater 2026 production with a stellar ensemble made up of Bay Area notables, including Anthony Fusco, Howard Swain, Liz Sklar, Rosie Hallett, Jomar Tagatac and Marin Theater Artistic Director Lance Gardner. This is basically the same cast she used in her previous Marin Theatre production of “Waste.” The set by NIna Ball is gorgeous to look at and the greatcoat-heavy costumes by Lydia Tanji make you happy we have central heat.

Yes, the issues are similar to today, as they always were and always will be - no one wants to change the way we live. NIMBYism appears to be as basic a human trait as the desire to diddle the servant girl.

Chekhov wrote three acts and it has been pared down to two and still feels long. Act One sets us up and Act Two tries to say good-bye but can’t. It doesn’t help that there are many people on stage at once and it is very difficult to tell who is an aristocrat and who is a serf and who is who’s mother and what about that guy with the guitar who keeps falling over?

To Chekhov, “The Cherry Orchard”  was a wry comedy. We find the humor to be more banana-peel slapstick than seriously funny. But it’s 120 years later and maybe putting idiots in charge who don’t know the difference between love and dogma doesn’t feel so humorous any more. 

RATINGS ***

The San Francisco Theater Blog Awards Division grants “The Cherry Orchard” Three Stars. It’s worth seeing just to enjoy the sets, laugh with Lance Gardner as he beats his head against the wall, and watch the future Bolshevik boy whisk away the soon-to-be impoverished aristocrat girl. We all know how that story ends.

“The Cherry Orchard”

Marin Theater

397 Miller Avenue, Mill Valley

Through Feb 22, 2026

$38-$89

Hershey Felder: “The Piano and Me” ★★★★★

We’ve seen and loved many Hershey Felder shows. The Canadian pianist/performer/playwright is usually portraying a well-known composer, a lá Beethoven or Debussy or Irving Berlin, in which he plays their music on piano while simultaneously acting out their life stories. Felder is able to play the most complex piano music while talking at the same time, a gift not available to the rest of us humans.

But this time, in his 2026 World Premiere “The Piano and Me,” playing only until Feb. 8 at the Mountain View Center for Performing Arts, Felder’s subject is none other than himself. His life story is touchingly detailed with set pieces about his immigrant grandparents from Hungary and Poland, which includes the music of all the composers who influenced the young Hershey, such as Beethoven and Mozart and Bach, as well as the favorite composers of his grandparents from their homelands (Bartók from Hungary, Chopin from Poland). We also get the fascinating story about how the young Hershey got his start in Hollywood.

Admittedly, this show has special resonance for this reviewer, whose youth was spent hearing similar immigrant stories from his own grandparents, and learning to love the same music played by his mother on the piano in their living room. We can’t give a show a higher review. It is at once quite long and not long enough. 

At the end, as is his custom, Felder stands on stage and fields random questions from the audience.  One of the set pieces in “The Piano and Me” features a suitcase that his Hungarian grandparents kept by their front door, never opened, but never moved. The reason was “In case they come for us again.”

A lady in the audience shouted out: “Hershey, do you have your own suitcase packed by your front door?” This led to his honest reflections about the horrors he sees overtaking the world today. And then he sat down at the piano and played Debussy’s “Claire de Lune” to a hushed audience. And I cried. And that was that. Lights up. 

RATINGS  ★★★★★ 

The San Francisco Theater Blog gives its highest award possible to Hershey Felder’s “The Piano and Me:” FIVE STARS. We urge you to see this show, to understand the possibilities of live performance and music together, and how they can reach into your heart and tug at it until it hurts.

Hershey Felder’s “The Piano and Me”

Mountain View Center for Performing Arts

500 Castro Street, Mountain View

Through Feb 8, 2026

$34-$115

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. 

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"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.

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

Z Space Below

450 Florida Street, San Francisco

Through Nov. 2

$45-$70