Julie Katz: "Grey Matter" ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼

Julie Katz's "Grey Matter" had us snorting and sniveling with laughter. There are only a dozen more shows before she takes off for the NY Fringe Festival, so I'll keep this short: GO SEE GREY MATTER -- but only if, like everyone else in America, you find corporate-speak hilarious as well as undecipherable. Katz takes us on an angst-filled romp through the brains of the characters who work on many different floors for The Company, until they get fired and go to work for The Corporation. We particularly loved the announcement lady, whose core value is Feel the Spirit and whose Fun Fact is she's never had soda. We wish somebody would change the paper towels in the lunch room. We hope the Assistant VP of Happiness and Effectiveness has a nice life.

Though she looks like a teenager, Katz has had enough time on the planet to become an excellent physical comic, as well as an aphorism sponge. You'll laugh your head off, and when the show is over you'll need a dose of reality. Fortunately, you can get that right outside the door.

RATINGS:☼ ☼ ☼ ☼

The San Francisco Theater Blog Awards Division, each member of whom is a leader, because WE ARE ALL LEADERS (and, on a personal note, we feel the artisan hot chocolate machine should NOT be moved to the 103rd floor), awards "Grey Matter" Four Stars. We have no choice, because this column was leaked in advance and e-mailed to 13,000 subscribers and the Chronicle.

Julie Katz: "Grey Matter"

The Marsh San Francisco

1062 Valencia Street, San Francisco

EXTENDED Through July 9

 $20-$35

The Invisible Hand: ☼ ☼ ☼ BANG

What a concept, what a story. Ayad Akhtar's "The Invisible Hand" brings us into a difficult situation where bad or good mean nothing. The only things that matter are money and God, in that order.

"The Invisible Hand" is one of the guidelines of neoclassical economics -- that financial markets always tend towards equilibrium, guided by the "invisible hand" of thousands of competing transactions.

But sometimes this equilibrium can be upset, for just a moment, but enough time for a wise investor to profit. Craig Marker plays Nick Bright, a low-level Citibank executive working in Pakistan. He is kidnapped by a jihadi group headed by Bashir (Pomme Koch) and Imam Saleem (Barzin Akhavan). The jihadis demand a ten million dollar ransom, but Bright realizes his company will not consider him to be worth that much. Facing his imminent death, he convinces Bashir and Imam Saleem to allow him to teach them how to make that much money and more, simply by manipulating financial markets the way he does in his everyday life. All they need is a computer, internet access and Bright's expertise.

Of course, making money like this is anti-Islam. No matter. And no matter that Nick Bright warns his 'hosts' that money can corrupt anyone. The game is intoxicating. Once the ball starts rolling and the profits begin to accumulate, an unexpected series of events transpire.

Koch is the star here -- as the English-born Bashir, a jihadi whose hatred of the West is matched only by his thirst for knowledge, Bashir absorbs Nick's lessons and begins to use them himself. His associates, Imam Saleem and Dar (Jason Kapoor) lose control of Bashir as he begins to implement a spectacular and bloody scheme.

We have a small problem with Craig Marker -- who was absolutely brilliant in MTC's previous "Anne Boleyn" and is excellent here. But shouldn't he be nervous? Frightened? Nick Bright seems far more hostile than a prisoner would be. His attitude and physical self don't seem to change much as his incarceration continues, until the very end. A few tweaks may be in order here.

The lesson is unmistakable: money can seduce an imam, and God can still help out the western nonbeliever, in such unusual times.

RATINGS: ☼ ☼ ☼ BANG

The San Francisco Theater Blog Awards Division awards "The Invisible Hand' Three Stars with a BANGLE OF PRAISE for Pomme Koch. He is so good that after the show was over, when the young actor came to the front of the stage to make a pitch for an MTC charity, using, of course, his real California voice, I was still afraid of him. I thought he might want to put a shackle on my leg.

There are no bad seats in this theatre. Feel safe buying the least expensive seat in the house.

"The Invisible Hand"

Marin Theater Company

397 Miller Avenue, Mill Valley

EXTENDED Through July 3

$10-$58

The Velocity of Autumn: ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼

From the ridiculous to the sublime, The San Francisco Blog Reviewing Staff saw two (2) two-person shows this weekend. Let's just say Theatreworks' West Coast premiere of Eric Cable's "The Velocity of Autumn" is so good it almost puts to rest the memory of...that other thing.

Susan Greenhill is spectacular. She plays Alexandra, the seventy-nine year old mother of Chris (Mark Anderson Phillips). She has barricaded herself in her Park Slope apartment because her other two children want to put her in a retirement home. She is determined to stay in her own home and has filled bottles with highly inflammable film developing fluid to prove her point. She walks around with her late husband's Zippo lighter (which still works), and if anyone makes a wrong move she will blow up the entire neighborhood.

Enter Chris. He is the son who went away, who never quite fit in. He is, we come to see, just like his mother. They understand each other. The police are standing by outside. If Chris fails to figure out a solution to this problem the world goes up in smoke.

Ms. Greenhill gives such honesty to Alexandra, who realizes she is losing her body and mind as time passes. "Every day, another old body part shrivels," she says. " A friend dies. Your world is ending."  And her memory is failing. "I'm not me anymore." The only world she has left is the small, familiar one inside her apartment. She will not leave without a fight.

RATINGS: ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼

The San Francisco Theater Blog Awards Division, whose members are not as old as Alexandra but sometimes cannot remember where they put their keys, awards "The Velocity of Autumn" Four Stars. How many? Four. See? We remembered. 

Mark Anderson Phillips we know well..."The 39 Steps," "Ideation" and so many more... but Susan Greenhill -- who is this wonderful actor?  She does a lot of TV. We hope she finds a home in the Bay Area very soon. We need to see her again.

"The Velocity of Autumn"

Mountain View Center for Performing Arts

500 Castro Street, Mountain View

Through June 26

$19-$80

"The Last Five Years" ☼ ☼ baub

Jason Robert Brown's "The Last Five Years" is a story about a relationship between Jamie (Zak Resnick) and Cathy (Margo Seibert). It purports to detail five years in their lives, beginning and ending with distance, and in between -- well, more distance. The show is told entirely in song. It is eighty minutes long (no intermission).

Here are the things we like about "The Last Five Years."

These songs: "Still Hurting," "The Next Ten Minutes," "I Can Do Better Than That," and "A Summer in Ohio."

Cathy. She has a fine voice and gives us emotion when called for.

Jamie, at the end when he gets mad.

That's about it.

Why, we ask ourselves, would anyone wish to see a story about two people who seem to have been set up by a cross-eyed demon yenta? Why write a show about two people who show no attraction to each other, nor affection, and whose relationship starts nowhere and ends nowhere, with no lessons learned?

Jamie is such a (WORD FOR MALE SEXUAL ORGAN REDACTED). Self-centered, a sickening fake smile, the essence of callow. But he doesn't know it. We are supposed to feel for him because Cathy's career isn't doing as well as his is. But, you know...please see the first sentence of this paragraph.

And the music. It gets better towards the end, beginning when Resnick and Seibert get a chance to interact in a duet. The rest of the time she sings a song about alienation, and he sings a song about temptation, then she sings a song where she's mad at him, then he sings a song where he is frustrated with her. They could be face-timing from Cleveland.

Feh. As my grandmother used to say, "for every pot there is a cover." These two can have the whole kitchen cabinet to themselves. No they can't. They broke up. Poor pot. Poor cover.

RATINGS: ☼ ☼ baub

The San Francisco Theater Blog Awards Division awards "The Last Five Years" Two Stars with a bauble of despair. The good songs are worth a star and and Margo Seibert's attempts to bring life to a relationship that lacks not only chemistry but biochemistry, gains another.

The bauble is for the song "The Schmuel Song." Not only does it have nothing to do with the story, but the music -- OK, let's say the chorus -- sounds like Schmuel, the old world tailor, with a little Yiddische accent here and there, has gone to the Schlablinsk Center to see The Monkeys. Did the Monkeys play Schlablinsk? Really, guys.

Two Stars falls below our Recommended Level (see side bar for explanation of ratings). You have been warned.

"The Last Five Years"

A.C.T. Theatre

405 Geary Street, San Francisco

 Through June 5

$20-$105

Will Durst: Elect to Laugh 2016: ☼ ☼ ☼ BANG

With one nonstop joke after the other, Will Durst has us roaring in the aisles with big, galumphing belly laughs most of the way through the show. His take-offs on every Republican and Democrat in the primary and debate process helps us recall the scope of the idiocy through which we have been living. Perhaps our favorite Durst line actually belonged to George Bush: "The trouble with the French is they have no word for entrepreneur." And "The American people love the Home Shopping Network because it is commercial free."

And let's not forget Carly Fiorina. Durst says "It took Carly one week to do to the Cruz campaign what it took her years to do to Hewlett Packard."

All very funny. And then we come to Trump, Sanders and Clinton. And it doesn't feel funny anymore. The lines are still good, their mishaps and foibles easy fodder for a comedian of Durst's abilities. But I don't feel like laughing at Donald Trump's women. I don't think Hillary Clinton's email troubles are even real, let alone worth joking about. And Bernie Sanders fills me with fear, because I think he wants to put a bazooka through the whole piñata. None of these people strike me as funny.

So if you take things the least bit seriously, you may have a little trouble with Elect to Laugh 2016. It never seemed so bad when we all laughed at Mitt Romney and Obama. Or John Kerry and George Bush. This year, I don't know.

RATINGS: ☼ ☼ ☼ BANG

The San Francisco Theater Blog Awards Division awards "Elect to Laugh 2016" Three Stars with a Bangle of Praise. The Jokes are so damned funny and just about all of them would earn a big, snarfly Bangle. Bill Clinton and Helen Thomas. Marco Rubio's racist denial. Chris Christie in the baseball uniform, oh, oh, wait, that's for real? Yup. It all is.

Will Durst: Elect to Laugh 2016

The Marsh

1062 Valencia Street, San Francisco

Tuesdays 8pm ONLY

EXTENDED Through  July 26

$15-$35 (sliding scale)