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Adaptation

Sophie and the Rising Sun

Alex Heeney / January 30, 2016

Maggie Greenwald on Sophie and the Rising Sun

Maggie Greenwald’s Sophie and the Rising Sun is an unconventional period piece about race, public and private spaces, and romance. Set in 1941 in the South, the mysterious arrival of a badly beaten Japanese man disrupts small town life.

Kurzel Macbeth

Alex Heeney / December 25, 2015

Kurzel’s Macbeth emphasizes tone over text

Kurzel takes his cues from the text, but he expresses his ideas about the text through images and sounds — the whistling wind, the clashing swords, and the ghostly hooded figures — rather than through the dialogue. The verse, in Kurzel’s hands, is barely even identifiable as poetry. But what is Shakespeare without the unforgettable language?

Matilda

Alex Heeney / July 27, 2015

Warchus’ ‘Matilda: The Musical’ at SHNSF is a miracle without peer

“My mummy says I’m a miracle! My daddy says I’m his special little guy! I am a princess And I am a prince. Mum says I’m an angel sent down from the sky My daddy says I’m his special little soldier, No one is as handsome, strong as me. It’s true he indulges my tendency […]

Far From the Madding Crowd, Matthias Schoenaerts

Alex Heeney / May 1, 2015

Far From the Madding Crowd is a modern romance

Thomas Vinterberg’s film adaptation of Far From The Madding Crowd opens on a long shot of Bathsheba Everdene (a terrific Carey Mulligan) opening the door to a dark barn. Illuminated by just a glimmer of light, she’s dressed sensibly in a leather coat and trousers, readying her horse. In voiceover, she explains that some say she’s […]

Alex Heeney / April 1, 2015

Terrific production of ‘Stupid F##king Bird’ proves SF Playhouse has arrived

With its wonderful and often hilarious new production, “Stupid F##king Bird,” Aaron Posner’s modernization of Chekhov’s “The Seagull” directed by Susi Damilano, the San Francisco Playhouse has earned its place as one of the best, major theater companies in the Bay Area. What started as a company that put on amazing productions — with terrific […]

Fifty Shades of Grey, Jamie Dornan, Dakota Johnson

Alex Heeney / February 13, 2015

Don’t be fooled by the title, Fifty Shades of Grey is Anastasia’s film

Fifty Shades of Grey is far more interested in Anastasia’s thoughts and conscious decisions than in giving Christian even a semblance of a personality.

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