Arts & Events

Around & About Theater: "Cracked Clown'--David A.Moss at the East Bay Media Center; 'Shoot O'Malley Twice'--Virago Theater; Gesture Vocabularies, lecture & video on mudras in Indian ritual & traditional theater at UCB

By Ken Bullock
Wednesday November 09, 2011 - 12:19:00 PM

—David Moss, a talented performer on Bay Area stages over the past decade and more, will reprise his show 'Cracked Clown' Friday & Saturday the 11th & 12th at 8 p. m., the same show that sold out here in August, at the East Bay Media Center, which has initiated a live performance series over the past few months. 1939 Addison, just west of Milvia, in the Berkeley Arts District. $12. 843-3646; eastbaymediacenter.com 

—Virago Theatre, co-founded by Berkeley residents, usually producing in Alameda, is staging the premiere of local playwright Jon Brooks' 'Shoot O'Malley Twice' at Stagewerx 446 in downtown San Francisco. Brooklyn Dodgers vs. NY Giants—for the last time—1957; Robert Moses, a psychic & the Savannah Kid. Directed by Angela Dant. 553 Sutter, just west of Powell. $15-$20. (510) 865-6237; viragotheatre.org 

—Gestural Vocabularies, a lecture with a 10-minute video of Kathakali performed, will be presented, free, at Dwinelle Hall #370 on the UC campus, Tuesday the 14th, 5-7 p. m. Kalamandalam M. P. Sankaram, former principal of the great Kathakali school, and Kunju Vasudevan, visting scholar at Butler University, will talk about the complex, grammatical gestural vocabularies of mudra, in Vedic ritual, Kootiyattam theater (dating from the 10th century) and the colorful, better-known Kathakali, which dates from the 17th century, texts from the Mahabhurata & Ramayana sung as non-speaking, heavily made-up & costumed actor-dancers move & gesture in mudras to drumming. 642-3608; berkeley.edu/events