Goldstar

• Rated 4.0
• Written on Jan 19 2009

This was a very entertaining laughfest -- truly a fun piece of work! It had "The Smiths" rolling. It was presented as a series of inter-related vignettes reminiscent of the extreme animated reality show "Drawn Together" from Comedy Central, or better yet the demented soap opera satire "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" from 1976/1977.

We even called for an encore! And in that vein, I would suggest the players prepare something akin to movie out-takes where they can come back out and do an alternative ending, or something of that nature.

Truly fun stuff! And kudos to the young pianist. That was a nice addition. He really helped set the mood.

• Rated 0.0
• Written on Jan 12 2009

FORKING had a few moments... and I mean few… and moments... of funny. It was essentially a group of drinking buddies who seemed to be demonstrating their personal lives on stage. It appeared that at least half of the audience was made up of their friends (perhaps bar pals?). The theme was swearing, getting laid, and pounding beers. Not acting as if pounding beers - actually doing it - the cast and crew were audibly (crack, pshhhhht) and visibly opening and passing around cans of beer - constantly. And some of their pals came with their own flasks of stronger drinks. Drinking can be great, I love sex, and I'm way above average on the vulgar scale, but that's pretty much all this consisted of. Any of those things, or just about any subject for that matter, can be made interesting if written cleverly and performed well. But none were handled cleverly or interestingly at all. I suppose "FORKING" is meant to imply the voting "forks" in the plot, but it was used much more as a sex reference (what rhymes with fork? the word most used in this play), and most votes were weather or not two people have sex. And you gotta love a cast that high fives, shakes hands, and accepts kudos from good friends and crew as they go on and off stage from the side of the theater – like a football team. And don’t come thirsty unless you like beer. They sell snacks - cookies, brownies, etc. - but there is one beverage available. Beer! I love some of our local theater here in San Francisco, but unfortunately this kind of thing gives local theater a bad name and keeps audiences away from the good shows.

• Rated 3.0
• Written on Feb 03 2009

I went to the last showing in San Francisco, so this probably would not of much help to anyone. Nonetheless, I would like to comment that it was better than I expected. The theater is quite small, and there isn't really a bad seat in the house (unless you are short then sit in front). However, you do want to arrive early if you want to sit with your friends and to avoid not having a seat at all because they usually are fully booked. I suggest sitting near the aisles since most of the action happens on the couch in the middle of the stage. It does get quite warm in there, so wear layers that you can easily take off.

Towards the end, the voting felt sort of tired and overdone, as if they were trying to turn the plot around. I could see how the voting system is somewhat biased because the audience voting for the second choice could simply clap LOUDER and LONGER than the audience who voted for the first choice. I saw that happening a few times and caught on. Overall though, it's a solid show and definitely worth the trip.