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Theatre Eddys

Theatre Eddys

San Francisco Bay Area Theater Reviews

4 E

Octet

April 28, 2022 by Eddie Reynolds Leave a Comment

Octet Dave Malloy (Book, Lyrics, Music, Vocal Arrangements) Berkeley Repertory Theatre in Co-Production with Signature Theatre Barely acknowledging the others and each appearing a bit hesitant and even lost, eight individuals – four women, four men – arrive one by one to sit in a circle in what appears to be a church basement.  With a nod by one, they begin a sliding … [Read more...] about Octet

Metamorphoses

April 2, 2022 by Eddie Reynolds Leave a Comment

Metamorphoses Mary Zimmerman (based David Slavitt’s translation of the myths of Ovid) Pear Theatre and Dragon Productions The element that flows and freezes, falls from the sky and evaporates into the air, sustains all life and can drown all existence – This is the medium in which multiple, life-altering transformations occur in each of a dozen-plus vignettes of … [Read more...] about Metamorphoses

Water by the Spoonful

March 24, 2022 by Eddie Reynolds Leave a Comment

Water by the Spoonful Quiara Alegría Hudes San Francisco Playhouse   Remaining estranged from a son for ten years.  Maneuvering through a messy divorce.  Refusing any sort of relationship with a birth mother while caring for the dying aunt (her sister) who raised him.  Being the mother now detested by your son.  Wanting to find the Japanese birth parents … [Read more...] about Water by the Spoonful

Talk to Your People

March 8, 2022 by Eddie Reynolds

Talk to Your People Dan Hoyle The Marsh     Celebrated creator and performer of solo shows about such topics as Nigerian oil scandals (Tings Dey Happen), Red States folks telling their side of the story (The Real Americans), and heart-wrenching yet funny portrayals of men and women from minority races and cultures (The Border People), Oakland … [Read more...] about Talk to Your People

Heroes of the Fourth Turning

February 3, 2022 by Eddie Reynolds 1 Comment

As birds chirp from every direction, a backwoods cabin sits against a backdrop of giant pines, lined up like sentry soldiers guarding under a Wyoming sky whose stars begin to peak through their needles.  Intermittent chords resembling a distant foghorn are heard as we settle into our seats; but there is something ominous in their low, haunting sounds.  As the play progresses, … [Read more...] about Heroes of the Fourth Turning

Toni Stone

March 12, 2020 by Eddie Reynolds Leave a Comment

To a Bay Area that has two baseball teams long esteemed by tens of thousands comes the largely unknown story of a baseball pioneer and hero with local connections, a story of the first woman to play professional baseball on an all-male team.  Lydia R. Diamond’s Toni Stone is a baseball lover’s dream while also unmasking the nightmarish sexism and racism the title character had … [Read more...] about Toni Stone

A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder

March 5, 2020 by Eddie Reynolds

 The 2014, multi-Tony-Award-winning musical with its music-hall-sounding score and oft-rhyming-and-rapid-firing lyrics receives a fast-moving, laugh-out-loud rendering under the jocular direction of Daren A. C. Carollo.  His directorial tongue never leaves his cheeks as he has conceived innumerable, over-the-top ways to tickle our innards while watching the demises of the … [Read more...] about A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder

Macbeth

February 15, 2020 by Eddie Reynolds

Woodwinds creep together in soft, low measures before intertwining in higher registers and giving way to announcing brass that awaken spirits from the underworld.  Those dark figures manipulate wood puppets to tell the agonized history of a royal, childless marriage.  From foggy mists, faceless sisters of the night emerge in every sort of torn and draped rag, roving about while … [Read more...] about Macbeth

The SpongeBob Musical

February 13, 2020 by Eddie Reynolds Leave a Comment

 Goofy but cute?  Check.  Nutty-and-fruity but timely in theme?  Check.  Sappy but good-hearted?  Check.  For kids and adults alike?  Check.  Ignore the title and just go see it?  Check. For anyone like myself that somehow – in my case, even with six kids – never tuned in even once to Stephen Hillenburg’s award-winning, Nickelodeon hit, SpongeBob … [Read more...] about The SpongeBob Musical

Wakey, Wakey

January 30, 2020 by Eddie Reynolds

A half-dressed man lying flat on the stage seems surprised when the stage lights suddenly come up and he turns to see hundreds of audience eyes looking at him.  “Is it now? I thought I had more time,” he says with some regret, anxiety, but also excitement of what is to come next.  An immediate black-out and a few moments later, he appears now in pajama bottoms, slippers, and … [Read more...] about Wakey, Wakey

How to Transcend a Happy Marriage

January 19, 2020 by Eddie Reynolds

Somewhere in the suburbs of New Jersey, the lives are about to be upended of two married couples who are also long-term best friends in ways none of them could have ever predicted – all because of a woman named Pip who hunts to kill all the meat she eats and who happens also to live with and love two men.  Somehow as they sip their Malbec, the topic comes up in the conversation … [Read more...] about How to Transcend a Happy Marriage

Noura

January 15, 2020 by Eddie Reynolds

“I don’t want to forget.  I’m trying desperately to remember who the hell I am.” Forced by a life-threatening siege to leave her home in Mosul as a member of the Iraqi Christian community, immigrant and now American citizen Noura wants this Christmas Eve to be perfect in every respect, recalling the foods and family times of those Christmases spent in her homeland – a … [Read more...] about Noura

Vinegar Tom

December 19, 2019 by Eddie Reynolds

A day cannot go by without hearing the accusation of “it’s a witch hunt” by the likes of Trump (i.e., his impeachment) and Netanyahu (i.e., his indictment).  How ironic that two male, ultra-conservatives should be crying victim using a term that beckons to a period in seventeenth-century, European and American history when tens of thousands of truly innocents – mostly women – … [Read more...] about Vinegar Tom

Gypsy: A Musical Fable

November 11, 2019 by Eddie Reynolds Leave a Comment

The show that New York Times revered and feared theatre critic Ben Brantley has referred to as “what may be the greatest of all American musicals” and Times essayist/columnist Frank Hart Rich Jr. once called “Broadway’s own brassy, unlikely answer to King Lear, Gypsy: A Musical Fable in the end is nothing without a Rose who can join a long line of divas of a certain age to try … [Read more...] about Gypsy: A Musical Fable

Amaluna

November 8, 2019 by Eddie Reynolds Leave a Comment

With seventy per cent of the forty-eight-member cast and all of the musicians and singers being women, Cirque du Soleil’s nineteenth and latest show touring the world – Amaluna – is a tour de force of female power and prowess.  In an evening where the reverberating voices, the gasp-producing athleticism, and the eye-popping pageantry of women reigns supreme, no better segment … [Read more...] about Amaluna

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Eddie is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association and the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle.

Theatre Eddys Ratings Legend

5 E's - Loved It
A classic, would see it a second time.
4 E's - Really Liked It
Excellent, strong production.
3 E's - Liked It
Good production but something is lacking or not clicking.
2 E's - Just OK
Below average but had at least one interesting component.
1 E - Did Not Like It
Waste of time.

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About Eddie

Theatre Critic for the Greater San Francisco Bay Area, writing 150+ reviews annually for Theatre Eddys and Talkin' Broadway (San Jose/Silicon Valley). Read More

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