The Conical Glass: 36 Hours in Berkeley

Saturday, March 29, 2008

36 Hours in Berkeley

The New York Times spent three whole days in Berkeley and they want to warn you: "Public transportation in the Berkeley area is limited, so rent a car."

Not only is Berkeley served by BART (three stops), but there are at least a few dozen AC Transit bus routes going through town. Plus, the city is small enough that you can walk most places you'd want to visit. Most importantly, though, THERE'S NO PARKING ANYWHERE. And every single side street is blocked by some kind of traffic calming device. To drive in Berkeley would reduce an out-of-towner to tears in no time.

The only place in Berkeley that offers free, convenient parking is Shotgun Players, which is across the street from the Ashby BART station and is allowed to use its lot at night. New York Times readers: check it out! Now playing is "Mrs. Warren's Profession," a George Bernard Shaw play that was considered shocking in its day (the late 19th century and even into the 20th) because the titular profession is running whorehouses. If I hadn't known that going into the play, it might have taken me a while to figure it out, because everything is so heavily couched in euphemism. Something of an early forerunner of the Joan Crawford weepie "Mildred Pierce," "Mrs. Warren's Profession" is about the estrangement between mother and daughter when the latter finds out just how her mum has been paying for her fancy education. It's interesting to consider the fact that daughter Vivie's own profession -- she works as an actuary and studies law, and, she says, "when I'm tired of working, I like a comfortable chair, a cigar, a little whisky, and a novel with a good detective story in it" -- was nearly as shocking as the fact that her mom was a madam.

How times have changed: meanwhile, over a century later, Dennis Lehane (Mystic River) can pepper a script with about 100 F-bombs and it attracts an appreciative audience of grayhairs at a senior citizen matinee. (What was I doing there? Hey, no one asks you for proof of age when you buy those discounted tickets.) Lehane's noirish play "Coronado" is having its West Coast premiere at the SF Playhouse, a tiny theater tucked away in a second-floor space on Sutter St. The elevator wasn't working, which meant a lot of folks with canes were moving up and down the stairs very slowly. The play's first act switches back and forth between three couples in a Texas bar -- a pair of adulterous lovers, a father and his son who's freshly out of prison, and a therapist and his patient/lover. After a while, you start to realize that these seemingly discrete couples are somehow connected; the mystery unfolds before you in a most clever and satisfying way, as the theater's small stage makes an impressive transition from a saloon to a desolate plot of land in the middle of nowhere.

posted by 125records @ 9:20 PM

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