KPFA - Bay Area Theater

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “The Lunchbox” at Berkeley Rep‘s Roda Theatre through July 5, 2026.             TEXT OF REVIEW The golden age of the Broadway musical died over a half century ago. The post-golden age of Sondheim and the rock opera faded before the new century. Since then, we’ve had corporate movie adaptations, jukebox junk and an increasing number of parody meta-musica...

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Woinsky reviews “Dracula, A Feminist Revenge Fantasy, Really: by Kate Hamill at San Francisco Playhouse through June 27, 2026.           TEXT OF REVIEW According to Google’s unreliable AI, nobody beats Dracula as the single most portrayed literary character in film history, with over two hundred direct adaptations, parodies and crossover appearances. You can add the hun...

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “Pictures from Home” at Marin Theatre through May 31, 2026           TEXT OF REVIEW Acclaimed photographer Larry Sultan based his career on capturing life as lived through his art, and what better notion than collating photos of his own family and home growing up in Sherman Oaks in Southern California during the middle of the twentieth century. This col...

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews the national touring company production of  “Hell’s Kitchen” at the Orpheum Theater in San Francisco.           FULL TEXT: Following the release of her debut album in 2001, Songs in A Minor, singer songwriter Alicia Keys became an instant superstar, a position firmed up by a series of successful albums and Grammy Awards over the course of the next decad...

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews the Royal Shakespeare Company touring production of “Hamnet” at ACT Toni Rembe (Geary) Theatre through May 24, 2026.         Text of Review: In November 2025, a film adaptation of the 2020 Maggie O’Farrell novel Hamnet hit the screens of America. Four months later, Jessie Buckley won an Oscar for the role of Agnes Hathaway, wife of William Shakespeare,...

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews the musical “Come from Away” at TheatreWorks Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts through May 10, 2026.       Text of Review: Works of art age in different ways. Chekhov’s plays, for example, were written and performed as contemporary pieces. Now their dachas and threadbare aristocrats are artifacts of history, though the universal truths remain...

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “The Monsters” by Ngozi Anyanwu at Berkeley Rep’s Peets Theatre through May 3, 2026. West Coast Premiere.           TEXT OF REVIEW: (minor differences between the text and the recorded review). Putting aside solo performances, the heart of the theatrical experience usually lies in the interaction between two characters, no matter the size of the cast. O...

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “Flex” by Candice Jones, at San Francisco Playhouse through May 2, 2026.           TEXT OF REVIEW: Film and TV audiences love sports stories, groups of disparate people thrown together striving to work as one to achieve their goal, usually to win the big game. From Major League to Ted Lasso to The Sandlot, we are entranced by how the characters grow and...

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews :”The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?” by Edward Albee at Shotgun Players Ashby Stage through April 28, 2026.                 TEXT OF REVIEW: (some wording is different in the recording) Edward Albee’s reputation beyond theatre junkies mostly rests on one play, his masterpiece, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.  While that play shows off his caustic wit to great...

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “Assassins” by Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman, at Oakland Theatre Project extended to April 12, 2026.         TEXT OF REVIEW: When Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s Assassins first opened in 1990, the show focused on the relationship between America’s gun culture and the need to be seen. Looking at presidential assassins and would-be assassins, we...

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “All My Sons” by Arthur Miller, at Berkeley Rep Roda Theatre through March 22, 2026.               TEXT OF REVIEW Great plays stay relevant, no matter the time or setting, or even subject matter. It could be a castle in Denmark in medieval times, a diner in Pittsburgh’s Hill District in the 1960s, a cramped Chicago apartment in the 1950s, a shabby dacha...

Photo: Teresa Castracane KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “Paranormal Activity” at ACT Toni Rembe (Geary) Theatre through March 22, 2026.             TEXT OF REVIEW In real life, we hate being scared, but in a theatre or on TV, there’s nothing quite like it.  The slow burn of suspense, the shock of horror. Ghosts, demons, and the old cliché, things that go bump in the night. On televis...

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “M. Butterfly” at San Francisco Playhouse through March 14, 2026.               TEXT OF REVIEW (minor changes were made during recording and editing): M. Butterfly Back in 1964, a French Diplomat in China became infatuated with a singer from the Beijing Opera. When they met, the singer, now wearing men’s clothing, said she was a woman presenting as a ma...

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews the national touring company of “The Notebook, the Musical” at ATG Orpheum Theatre through March 1, 2025.       TEXT OF REVIEW Towards the end of the twentieth century, as the corporate world eyed the record-breaking receipts of shows like Cats and Les Miz, it became clear that if you could turn any IP, intellectual property, into a musical, a new strea...

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “The Mountaintop” at Oakland Theatre Project through Feb. 15, 2026.       TEXT OF REVIEW: In late 2008, it felt as if we’d entered a new world. The Republicans were out of office, people of color were being appointed to key positions in business and government, and a black man had just been elected president. Martin Luther King’s dream seemingly had com...

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “The Cherry Orchard” by Anton Chekhov at Marin Theatre through February 22, 2026.           TEXT OF REVIEW (differs slightly from final edit for time). ​​​​​For centuries, serfs had no power in Russia. They weren’t quite slaves, but they also were not free. It was a feudal society, run by a powerful nobility ruled by an all-powerful Tsar. Due to societa...

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “How Shakespeare Changed My Life” at Berkeley Rep Peets Theatre through March 1, 2026.           TEXT OF REVIEW You’re just a kid. You’re Black .Your teachers think you’re stupid, a hopeless fat boy. At home, your mom tossed out your junkie dad. Mom herself is ice cold, and when you’re sixteen, Mom throws you out on the street. You’re homeless, destitut...

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews the Streetcar Project’s production of  “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams at ACT Toni Rembe Theatre through February 1, 2026.           TEXT OF REVIEW (some changes were made during recording and cuts for timing were made for radio). ​​​​​The greatest of plays often allow for multiple interpretations. We see that all the time in Shakespear...

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “Sunday in the Park with George” at Shotgun Players Ashby Stage extended through January 31, 2026.   Text of Review: The late great composer lyricist Stephen Sondheim tackled a variety of subjects in his work, from an examination of relationships in Company to obsession in Passion, to gun culture in Assassins But two shows seem a bit more autobiographic...

A short excerpt from a 2019 interview with James Lapine, who collaborated with Stephen Sondheim on “Sunday in the Park with George” and “Into The Woods.” Sunday in the Park with George plays at Shotgun Players Ashby Stage through January 31, 2026. “Into the Woods” plays at San Francisco Playhouse through January 17, 2026. The post James Lapine on his collaboration with Stephen Sondheim appeared fi...

KPFA Theatre critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “Sally and Tom” by Suzan Lori-Parks at Marin Theatre through November 23, 2025.           Text of Review: All Men Are Created Equal. Or so Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence. It’s kind of weird then, to know that Jefferson owned slaves. And it’s even weirder to realize that one of them, Sally Hemings, was his mistress. What was th...

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “A Driving Beat” by Jordan Ramirez Puckett, directed by Jeffrey Lo, at TheatreWorks Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts Second Stage through November 23, 2025.   TEXT OF REVIEW ​​​​​The nature of identity puzzles all of us. Who are we exactly? Are we ourselves, or the tribe to which we belong? Are you a Jew if you don’t believe in the religion?...

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews the national tour of “Stereophonic” at Broadway SF Curran Theatre through November 23, 2025.           TEXT OF REVIEW ​​​​​What does it take to put together a hit rock album, especially if the band itself seems to be falling apart, particularly the two couples that comprise most of the group? How do you separate the personal from the professional when y...

KPFA Theatre Critic Richard Wolinsky reviews the national touring company of “Suffs,” now at BroadwaySF Orpheum Theatre through November 9,, 2025.   REVIEW TEXT: Imagine a political movement that seems to be on the ropes. Demonstrations aren’t doing it, talks with political leaders fall on deaf ears. There’s no elected way forward, and the only thing going is hope and perseverance. Sound familiar....

KPFA theatre critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “Little Women,” adapted by Lauren Gunderson, at TheatreWorks Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts through October 12, 2025.   Little Women Review The classic pre-twentieth century books never die, on stage or on film. A Christmas Carol keeps coming back in December, year after year after year. Maybe the setting is contemporary. Maybe Scrooge is...