Varon’s gift is that he wraps it up in a bow and delivers it to you. That he puts a San Francisco patina on the old country (aka NYC) is one more balm for us displaced right coasters.

Dystopic though it may be, there’s forward energy here, if only out of the struggle for more lines, and the rights to those lines.

Tyler Bennett’s performance of Seurat had such depth and nuance that it recalls the old Anna Deavere Smith bit about good acting being the furthest thing from lying that she’s encountered.

Above all, you wonder 'Who are these two to each other?' Is this really the time to be arguing about redoing the living room? You never question why your attention is fixed like a laser on these really disagreeable people.

The roots of the expression "S&M", a play-within-a-play and two outstanding performances conspire to create an epic night of theater.

Performances delight. But at Tom Stoppard's 'Indian Ink', now playing A.C.T. in San Francisco, does the whole add up to the sum of the quality parts?

A play about Silicon Valley that hits close to home. Can two video game developers meet deadline? And will ego, love, and loss render their code useless?

The hit you get off of this one is almost as big as all our collective histories.

Every lighting cue and every sound cue work to heighten this realism and transform the Berkeley Rep’s thrust stage. In lesser hands, this hyperrealism could feel mechanistic and antiseptically cold, but here, it’s so well done that it only pushes the story forward.

This show is the perfect introduction for those who are curious what the often-grueling track to becoming another musician trying to not get stuck in contractor hell is really like.