Steve PalopoliSF Station Writer |
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Steve Palopoli's Articles
| | City Lights’ ‘Rent’ pays off with talented, energetic cast CONSIDERING it was one of the top 10 longest-running shows on Broadway, and on endless national tours for almost 15 years, I’m probably the rare theatergoer who hadn’t seen Rent before its current run at City Lights. I’m happy to say that finally seeing it has changed my mind. Despite tackling the AIDS issue, and being populated by responsibility-free boho types who might be seriously irritating to meet in real life, City Light’s production of Rent is not overly self-important, preachy or any of other things that kept me away. On the contrary, it’s vibrant, absorbing and entertaining from start to finish. More » |  | | | Outside Lands Festival in San Francisco features quality wines as well as music WITH THE THIRD year of the Outside Lands Festival going down this weekend, the biggest buzz is about the musical line-up: Kings of Leon, Further, the Strokes, Phoenix, Social Distortion, Cat Power, and on and on down the bill. But there’s a huge part of the festival that delivers a much more literal buzz, and yet has gone mostly under the cultural radar, and that’s the wine. More » | | | | Plays at The Mountain Winery in Saratoga WAIT, so Kenny Loggins is a hippie? Apparently, everyone who’s ever heard “Danny’s Song” knows this, but c’mon, I grew up on “Danger Zone.” You know Maverick’s not having any of that peace and love shit. He’s having another bowl of whup-ass! And what about “Footloose?” More » | | | | Laurie Anderson presents short plays Wednesday for Stanford Lively Arts Laurie Anderson may be the most genuinely curious person on the planet. She’s let her endlessly questioning spirit guide her through three decades of fascinating, thought-provoking and (though she rarely gets credit for it) very funny performance pieces. She endures not because she’s some kind of high-and-mighty intellectual, but because underneath the circuitry, her questions are the questions we all have, at some level. More » | | | | Theatreworks brings darkness to the edge of town in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ TheatreWorks’ artistic director Robert Kelley has taken the quasireligious tradition of [i]To Kill a Mockingbird[/i] and given it a lavish stage-bound treatment. With its lush, epic sets created at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, TheatreWork’s take on [i]To Kill a Mockingbird[/i] delivers a compelling small-town Southern evening. From the Southern Gothic houses that lend the idea of Boo Radley its proper creepiness factor, to the lighting that gives the sunset depth and the shadows texture, it’s a stunning vision of Lee’s work, gorgeous but always with a hint of menace to cut the nostalgia. More » | | | | San Jose Stage cast handles everything Tom Stoppard can throw at them in the dense ‘Rock ’n’ Roll’ MY GUESS IS Tom Stoppard is well past the point in his career when anyone’s going to say, “Gee, Tom, this looks good, but it could use some serious editing.” Especially when the subject is something as obviously close to the heart as the political fate of his native Czechoslovakia. Wait, one might ask, isn’t Stoppard’s [i]Rock ’n’ Roll[/i] about—rock & roll? Yup, that too, and that’s another very personal subject Stoppard has packed into the action of his 2006 work. He tries to find the intersection of these two obsessions, using a blazing trail of rock-music history and Czech politics to fuel the play’s underlying debate over whether revolut More » | | | | The adult side of famed children's book author is revealed in new Dragon Productions play IT IS a little too easy to be shocked by Shel Silverstein’s plays. As is apparent just minutes into Dragon Theatre’s [i]An Adult Evening of Shel Silverstein[/i], they are outrageous, ghoulish and full of dark, crude and sexual humor. For easily offended fans of Silverstein’s children’s works, such as [i]Where the Sidewalk Ends[/i] and [i]The Giving Tree[/i], it may be too much. But for most of us who loved his stuff as a kid, it’s a chance to see his genius in a totally different context and just confirms what a lot of us suspected all along: the dude is twisted. More » | | | | Triumphant ‘Daddy Long Legs’ shows how TheatreWorks has found success in taking risks SHUFFLING toward the exit after Theatreworks’ opening night performance of [i]Daddy Long Legs[/i], I saw the man next to me turn to his wife and say simply: “Their best ever.” Curious, I asked them how long they’ve been going to TheatreWorks productions. Twenty years. Now, granted, that’s only half the time the company has been in existence More » | | | | Santa Cruz Mountain wineries walk away with top honors for pinot noirs at San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition THE RESULTS of the 2010 [i]San Francisco Chronicle[/i] Wine Competition are in, and perhaps the most fascinating trend for Silicon Valley wine watchers is the showing that Santa Cruz Mountain wineries made in the upscale ($50 and up) pinot noir category. Simply put, they cleaned up, with far more winners than Napa or Anderson Valley and exactly as many decorated wines as California’s hallowed pinot territory, the Russian River Valley. More » | | | | The snarky puppets of 'Avenue Q' come to Broadway San Jose I GUESS when it comes to naughty puppets, you have to be careful what you wish for. Personally, I wish [i]Avenue Q[/i], the long-running Broadway musical touring in San Jose at the Center for the Performing Arts this week, was an edgier parody of Sesame Street’s chipper, overcaffeinated puppetry. More » | |
Steve Palopoli's Articles
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