Arts & Events

Opens December 12 at the Landmark in Berkeley

Director Talya Lavie's "dark comedy," Zero Motivation (in Hebrew with English subtitles), has racked up a half-dozen Ophir Awards (Israel's Oscar) for best director, screenplay and actress. The film (with screenplay by Lavie) follows the misadventures of Zohar (Dana Ivgy) and Daffi (Nelly Tagar), two forlorn young women assigned to perform their mandatory two-year stretch of national service in an isolated military base in the Negev Desert. It's a tale of slackers, hackers and attackers surrounded by an emotional desert of Negevtivity. -more-

On Sunday, December 7, I attended a concert at Zellerbach Hall by the Takács Quartet, a Hungarian-English-American string quartet. This concert was mistakenly listed in the Datebook section of the San Francisco Chronicle as taking place in Zellerbach Playhouse, which struck me as an appropriately intimate venue for a concert of chamber music t. However, when Cal Performances Press Information office confirmed my request for a press ticket, they informed me that this event would take place in Zellerbach Hall. This was my first disappointment with this concert. -more-

"But I think I know what you mean. There are some things you remember that never happened."

Nothing much out of the ordinary ... A visit to a couple living in the country from the old roommate of the wife, someone out of the past, not seen in years ... But even before the visit itself, in the first words of Harold Pinter's 'Old Times,' the implications, the allusions of everything and anything that may--or may not--be said loom out of the shadows quite casually in the most banal speech:

"Was she your best friend?"

"What does that mean?"

--and by the end of the play, there's been something of a catharsis for the three "Old-Timers," whether seen as lost in uncertain memories, manipulators of those memories in themselves and each other, or strangers to each other and themselves, run aground on memory and speech ... -more-

On Sunday, November 30, I journeyed to Hayward’s Douglas Morrisson Theatre for a performance of Leonard Bernstein’s opera Candide. Somehow, this 1956 opera had thus far eluded me, so I jumped at the chance to hear it. My effort was rewarded by a robust performance of Candide featuring a huge cast of soloists, chorus members, and a 14-piece orchestra conducted by David Möschler. -more-