Two Highly Rated Shows Return for Encores in August

By popular demand of audiences, two excellent productions that graced local stages earlier this year will re-open this month for extended runs.  Each tells a GLBT-related story and relates an important story of our not-too-distant history.

Photo by David Wilson

Breaking the Code: The Alan Turing Story (Hugh Whitemore)  reopens at Theatre Rhinoceros August 5-29, 2015, once again at the Eureka Theatre in San Francisco.  Returning with many of its key roles played by the same outstanding cast as in March, including John Fisher in the title role, Breaking the Code is a show not to be missed.  Here is an excerpt from my earlier review:

“Alan Turning emerges as a human being and not just as an historical figure.  We are never far away from his mathematical, scientific mind, given Jon Wai-keung Lowe’s effective and versatile set whose walls and doors are blackboards covered in formulas and complicated sketches.  But in this telling of his life, Whitemore emphasizes not so of this shy, sensitive, stubborn, and sometimes silly Alan.  More telling, he exposes in truthful, believable, and moving ways the gay life and struggles of this historic hero.” 

My full review can be re-read at http://theatreeddys.blogspot.com/2015/03/breaking-code.html.

Photo by Karen Ripley

Karen Ripley returns to the Berkeley Marsh August 15 – October 3, 2015, to reprise her hilarious and gripping Oh No There’s Men on the Land.  Taking us from the late ‘60s up to moments the AIDS crisis hits in the early ‘80s, Ms. Ripley explodes in fun fury on the stage as she recounts her life as a young lesbian in the East Bay.  As I said in my review,

“Ripley’s stories are full of incredible characters right out of the best of yellowed, much-read paperbacks.  …  Among others she brings in both caricature and love to the stage, we meet a wild, leather-wearing wooer; her half dozen co-owners of a greasy diner (all lesbians except for one dorky straight guy); and a sweet-singing partner of her two-person, traveling band.  Each tale brings loads of laughs and a genuine admiration for this woman before us who clearly helped write the passages of East Bay lesbian and feminist history just by being hard-working, persistent, daring, and -- of course -- talented in such diverse areas as dish-washing, drumming, and stand-up comedy.”

My original, full review can be found at http://theatreeddys.blogspot.com/2015/05/oh-no-theres-men-on-land.html. 

Breaking the Code: The Alan Turing Story plays August 5-29, Wednesdays – Saturdays, 8 p.m. & Sundays at 3 p.m. at the Eureka Theatre in San Francisco.

Oh No There’s Men On the Land plays Saturdays at 5 p.m., August 15 – October 3, 2015, at the Marsh Cabaret in Berkeley.