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1st appeared 02 November 2000 NINA'S ARTS NOTES
An Arts Checklist There are so many exciting
arts events going on these days and nights in San Francisco that there
simply isn’t webspace to do more than list them with brief descriptions.
A personal selection: DANCE Don’t wait to order
your seats: Nutcracker is such a beloved family event that many
of the 35 performances plus two student matinees are heavily booked
in advance. New this year is the Nutcracker
Festival, a gallery of unique holiday shops featuring fashion, home,
and gift exhibitors along with dining and entertainment at Fort Mason
Festival Pavilion, November 9-12. Information and tickets online.
For tickets to Nutcracker performances and also to the Ballet’s fun-filled New Year’s Eve Family Celebration: call 415/865-2000 or order online. * * * * * Savion Glover, the terrific tap dancer and Tony-award-winning choreographer of Bring in ‘Da Noise Bring in 'Da Funk, headlines a new show FOOTNOTES: The Concert, only until November 5 at the Orpheum, Market & Hyde. Evenings Tues. through Sat, Matinees Thurs. & Sun. Tickets at Orpheum box office or Ticketmaster 415/512-7770. * * * * *
New season of Smuin Ballets from November 1st through 19 is at the Cowell Theatre, whose size and sightlines make it ideal. There’s also ample parking in Fort Mason Center (entrance on Bay Street opposite Safeway.) Ballets include Smuin’s riveting, powerful Medea; Carmina Burana, set to the wild choral chants of Carl Orff; and the world premiere of Sapphire Rain, inspired by a tropical rainforest. Charge by phone 415/978-2787 every day from 11 to 6. Discounts for Seniors, Students, Family Pack. Information online. By the way, on November 13, Smuin and Evelyn Cisneros, former prima ballerina of SF Ballet, will appear in conversation for the City Arts & Lectures Series at the Herbst Theatre, Van Ness & McAllister. 415/392-4400 for tickets.
R. BUCKMINSTER FULLER: The History and Mystery of the Universe is back by popular demand. Wonderful one-man show got my rave for its first SF run. It’s the most stimulating and absorbing theater experience you’re likely to have in this or any other year. American maverick and genius inventor Bucky Fuller is brought to life by the extraordinary actor Ron Campbell, who explores his writings and inventions as recreated for the stage and directed by D.W. Jacobs. Limited engagement now at George Coates Performance Works, 110 McAllister Street, Civic Center. For tickets 415/392-4400 or online. * * * * * Not many great actors are also great playwrights. Shakespeare was one, another was Jean Baptiste Poquelin, known as Molière, the supreme French playwright, who lived from 1622 to 1673. He satirized the manners and mores of his time, which was also that of the Sun King Louis XIV, in witty dialogue spoken by unforgettable characters, each a fully drawn recognizable man or woman.
"In this extraordinary play," Perloff writes, " Molière posits a culture so filled with euphemism, pretence, and conformity that a man who tells the truth is considered mad, " pointing out that "The Misanthrope is almost painfully contemporary." It’s full of sex, lies and politics, of lawsuits, deceptions in love, and impossible ideals, especially those of the title character, Elects, first played by Molière himself, who is so enraged by the hypocrisy around him that he wants to turn his back on the whole human race. The actors are almost all fine, especially Rene Augesen as Alceste’s beloved Celimene, Anthony Fusco as his rival Oronte, and Gregory Wallace, his friend Philinte, the most accomplished actor in the cast, whose timing is superb. Unfortunately David Adkins, the Alceste, hadn’t the presence, force of movement or voice for the role on opening night but he may grow into it during the run. The Misanthrope plays eves. and mats. at the Geary Theater through November 19. Tickets at Box Office, 405 Geary at Mason, 415/749-2228, online and BASS outlets. * * * * * Around the corner, the Magic Theatre will stage a new play, THE LATE HENRY MOSS, written and directed by its former playwright in residence, Pulitzer prize-winner Sam Shepard. In the cast are some familiar names: James Gammon, Woody Harrelson, Cheech Marin, Nick Nolte, Sean Penn, and Sheila Tousey. The play is set in Shepard’s favorite territory, the American West, where two long-estranged brothers, Nolte and Penn, confront each other and their violent past. Opens November 7 through
December 17. Tickets at Theatre on the Square, 450 Post Street,
or Charge by Phone at 415/478-2277, or online. * * * * *
The performances will be held in the round, in a kiosk which recalls an old pavilion or bandshell, at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission Street at Third. Live music swings from rock guitar to naked voice in what is called "a visual feast which tells the story of the fall, the sacred, the violent and the erotic." This fascinatingly unusual
show runs from November 2 through 19, eves. and mats. Tickets
from City Box Office, 180 Redwood Street, 415/392-4400, or Yerba Buena
Center box office 415/978-ARTS, or online.
Halfprice tickets for students and seniors on performance days, subject
to availability. * * * * * MUSIC Thrilling and heartwarming are the words for the SF Symphony programs and those of its guest artists over the next few weeks: November 9 and 10: The wonderful cellist Lynn Harrell plays the well-beloved Dvorák concerto with conductor Alasdair Neale November 12 at 2 p.m.: SF Symphony’s own musicians in chamber music, including one of the Beethoven Piano Trios and the Brahms Clarinet Quintet November 19, 2 p.m.: Aladair Neale conducts the wonderful SFS Youth Orchestra in a program of Beethoven, Copland, and the Prokofiev Symphony No. 5 Nov. 30: The Boston Pops Christmas Tour comes to Davies Hall: a great way to get into the holiday spirit. December 2, Deck the Hall Children’s (ages 2 – 10) holiday parties in the morning and again in the afternoon with new presentation of Twas the Night Before Christmas, special entertainment and refreshments. December 10, 3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.: Candlelight Christmas with the marvelous SF Symphony Chorus under Vance George and John Fenstermaker, organist. * * * * * Philharmonia Baroque turns to Haydn and Mozart to showcase several of its outstanding artists in its November Bay Area concerts, conducted by renowned music director Nicholas McGegan. The San Francisco concert is November 17 at the Herbst Theatre, Van Ness & McAllister, Civic Center. Included are Haydn’s "Surprise" Symphony and Mozart’s ballet music from his opera Idomeneo.
* * * * *
SEMELE, perhaps the most beautiful of Handel’s operas, opens November 1st for a total of eight performances through November 25th at the War Memorial. Sung in English with English Supertitles, Semele dates from 1744 during the Baroque period and is being seen in a lovely production from London’s Covent Garden which is new to SF Opera, conducted by one of the world’s greatest, Sir Charles Mackerras, and featuring several artists beloved by Bay Area audiences who were trained at the SFOpera Center: soprano Ruth Ann Swenson, countertenor Brian Asawa, bass baritone John Relyea and bass John Ames. Tickets at SFOPera box office,
Grove & Van Ness or 415/864-3330, and online. * * * * * VISUAL ARTS We all owe a great deal to Hunk and Moo and Putter. Those are the nicknames of longtime Bay Area residents, art lovers and fabulous art collectors Hartley Anderson, his wife Mary Margaret, and their daughter Mary Patricia Anderson Pence. Over more than three decades, the Andersons accumulated one of the largest and most comprehensive private collections of contemporary art in the US.
To concentrate for now on the 200 prints, monotypes and other graphic works at the Legion, most of which were created after World War II, the major artists represented include Richard Diebenkorn, Jim Dine, Helen Frankenthaler, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, and Wayne Thiebaud. The Andersons began to collect contemporary art in 1968. It’s a fascinating aspect of the exhibition to be able to follow the course of their interest as they visited artists’ studios, learned about print making, and gradually filled their home and every part of Hunk’s Saga Corporation building in Menlo Park with art works. Often the Andersons would buy paintings from the same artists whose prints they admired and had purchased. And their collecting continues: Putter now has her own gallery and the family’s interest is extending into new work by familiar names and new work by new names. While not as dramatic as some of the huge paintings and sculptures at the SFMOMA, "An American Focus" offers a splendid opportunity to study the way works on paper are created, including some that are three-dimensional, and to enjoy their special beauty. The Anderson Graphic Arts Collection until December 31 at the Legion of Honor, Lincoln Park, 34th Avenue & Clement Street. Open Tues. through Sun 9:30 to 5. Information hotline 415/863-3330 and online. * * * * * In Golden Gate Park, the Asian Art Museum---now officially known as the Chong-Moon Lee Center for Asian Art and Culture---has just mounted a deeply absorbing and revealing exhibition of Chinese Paintings called Between the Thunder and the Rain.
As a result of the Opium War, the British and other Western powers forced China to open the so-called Treaty Ports, including Shanghai and Canton, to Western trade and cede Hong Kong to Great Britain. The Taiping Rebellion from 1950 to 1964 ravaged much of central China and caused 20 million deaths. More recently, vast tumults continued with the Sino-Japanese War, the toppling of the last Chinese Emperor in 1912, the Civil War in 1946-49, the triumph of Maoism and the Cultural Revolution of 1966-76. The works in the Asian exhibition are divided into chronological groups covering the major artists, some of whom were later influenced by acquaintance with foreign art. Most Chinese artists, however, clung even closer to traditional forms. That’s the amazing aspect of these lovely paintings to a Western eye: remembering how Napoleon influenced European art and later the 19th century upheavals and the two world wars, despite or perhaps because of the turmoil of events around them these artists went on creating serenele beautiful images of trees and blossoms, of familiar rock formations and peaked mountains, exquisite calligraphy and vivid drawings of animals and plants. The Museum has published a magnificent catalogue to this exhibition with excellent essays and superb illustrations which are of great help in understanding the tradition and meaning of these works of high art. Between the Thunder and the Rain, Asian Museum in Golden Gate Park, through January 14, 2001. Open Tues. through Sun. 9.30 to 5, first Wed. of month to 8.45 p.m. Information 415/379-8801 or online. The new Asian in Civic Center, the old Main Library building, is now dramatically open to the sky while being completely rebuilt to house more of the City’s vast riches of Oriental art than we have ever been able to see. A San Francisco resident for 20 years, Nina Beckwith is a longtime arts writer and music critic and a former Time magazine overseas correspondent. She was founding editor of the UC Berkeley Library newsletter Bene Legere and worked for six years with the late Dr. Peter Ostwald, Director of the UCSF Health Program for Performing Artists. |
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Not
too soon to get ready for Nutcracker time. The ever-popular ever-delightful
full-length dance spectacular in its magically beautiful SF Ballet production
plays December 12-31 at the War Memorial Opera House.
MICHAEL
SMUIN was artistic director of SF Ballet and has won every award
there is for his choreography in Broadway shows and movies. His dances
are unfailingly inventive, clear and beautiful, often outrageous fun,
and his SF-based company is superb.
One
of Molière’s best plays is The Misanthrope of 1666,
the new A.C.T. production directed by Carey Perloff, the company’s
artistic director. The translation is a new version by Constance Congdon
in "slang-free American English," and it’s brilliant.
If only for the gorgeous colors of its 17th century-style
costumes with matching movable footstools, the only stage furnishings
plus a few mirrors in Kate Edmunds’ clever set, this production
is entrancing. 
Compagnie
Cahin-Caha’s Cirque Bâtard is made up of three French
circus artists and three American performance artists who join together
for a very physical theater of images, a hybrid of circus, dance and
song.
Works
from their magnificent collection make up the stunning shows currently
at the SF Museum of Modern Art and at the Palace of the Legion of
Honor where works from the Anderson Graphic Arts collection,
called "An American Focus," are on view in the elegantly
spacious underground galleries.
These
are over 120 paintings, scrolls, fans, and albums from the collection
of Father Richard Fabian, Rector of St. Gregory Nyssen Church in San
Francisco. They were made during one of the most tumultuous periods
in China’s long history: 1840-1979, from the Opium War through
the Cultural Revolution.