Arts & Events

Around & About in the Performing Arts

By Ken Bullock
Tuesday April 26, 2011 - 08:41:00 PM

Music: Quinteto Latino at the Berkeley City Club

Theater: Ireland's Druid performs Martin McDonagh's The Cripple of Inishmaan at Zellerbach Playhouse 

 

►Berkeley Chamber Performances will present Quinteto Latino--Diane Grubbe, flute; Kyle Bruckmann, oboe; Leslie Tagorda, clarinet; Armando Castellano, French horn; Shawn Jones, basson--in an evening of Mexican music by Carlos Chavez (Soli no. 2), Mario Lavista (Cincos danzas breves) Arturo Maquez (Danza de Mediodia), and a traditional piece (Son de la Bruja, arranged by Jose Luis Hurtado) on the eve of Cinco de Mayo, 8 p. m. Tuesday May 3 at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant. $25; high school students free; post-high school students, $12.50. 525-5211; berkeleychamberperform.org (Sample of the Marquez piece available on the website) 

 

►Martin McDonagh's darkly comic plays have provoked both controversy and delight here. Berkeley Rep alone has produced two: Pillow Man and The Lieutenant of Inishmore. 

Now CalPerformances is bringing back Druid, the remarkable theater company from the west of Ireland, whose productions of J. M.Synge's Playboy of the Western World and Shadow of the Glen, and Enda Walsh's The Walworth Farce stand at the top of what's been seen onstage here in recent years, to stage McDonagh's The Cripple of Inishmaan, directed by Druid founder Garry Hynes, whose staging of Playboy was such a remarkable event. 

McDonagh's play deals with the eccentric ultra-provincials of the Aran Islands when a movie crew led by Robert Flaherty (Nanook of the North) comes from America to film a documentary, Man of Aran, on the next island over. The company has previously worked directly with McDonagh. True international theater of the highest caliber. 

Nightly, 8 p. m. Wednesday, May 4 through Saturday, May 14 (excepting Monday, May 9), with Saturday matinees at 2, Sunday May 8 at 3, at Zellerbach Playhouse on the UC campus, Bancroft Way and Dana. $68. 642-9988; calperformances.org