Min Kahng Makes a Musical Masterpiece by Victor Cordell “This land was made for you and me,” song by Woody Guthrie –Or was it? In 1904, four young men of differing backgrounds and aspirations, each tired of the old ways in Japan, meet in transit to San Francisco and form a bond. One is…
Shakespeare’s comedy of errors in which all’s well that ends well by Victor Cordell A moonshine swillin’, cigar smokin’, spittoon hawkin’ bachelorette as a member of a feuding clan in Appalachia? This is Beatrice? This is Shakespeare? While Marin Shakes is among the most conservative of the 10 or so “Shakespeare theater companies” in…
The cost of uninvited lust runs high. by Victor Cordell Death, betrayal, incest, intrigue, mendacity. Just another day in the lives of the ancient Greeks. This installment, Jean Racine’s 17th Century treatment of Euripides’ “Hippolytus,” reveals the treachery of Theseus’s wife, who is impelled to defend her son’s claim to Theseus’s crown, and to…
Power of the people keeps the flame growing strong. by Victor Cordell American society is a web of contradictions. We have broken the mold of change by creating new cultures, mores, institutions, products, and processes. Yet we vigorously resist change that wends too closely to our own doorstep. Oakland’s Ragged Wing Ensemble and its…