Seasonal Classic Inspires Good Will and Good Ideas by Alice Cheng In Amercian Conservatory Theater’s “A Christmas Carol,” abundance and poverty bump up against each other, starkly. On the teeming Geary Theater stage, we see both Dickens’ Victorian and our own modern economic divides. In San Francisco, the most expensive city in the nation,…
Leading Ladies Give New Meaning to ‘Summer Fling’ by Alice Cheng What women want wavers between our practical minds, passionate hearts, and reproductive needs. In order to “have it all,” we must strike a delicate balance while appeasing traditional demands. Custom Made Theatre’s edgy “Rapture, Blister, Burn” by feminist playwright Gina Gionfriddo, briskly directed…
Shop Clerks Sing Their Hearts Out in Pre-War Hungary by Alice Cheng “She Loves Me,” the 1963 musical hit, proves that we are all hopeless romantics. Set in Budapest in 1937, two secret pen pals work in the same elegant perfume shop. Although they fall in love anonymously on paper, they continue to clash,…
Cirque du Soleil Makes Imagination Happen by Alice Cheng Cirque du Soleil unleashes a torrential downpour of physical feats and Latin delights with the U.S. Premiere of “Luzia: A Waking Dream of Mexico.” With an international cast of 44 performers and a $47 million investment by Mexico, “Luzia” integrates incarnations of water in pools,…