Arts & Events

More often than not, religion is not a woman's best friend.

In Iran, women must dress in robes and not venture out. In Saudi Arabia women are not allowed to drive. And, in Israel, married women are not allowed to seek relief from a broken marriage. In Israel's rabbinical courts, only the man can grant a divorce.

This is the reality that drives Gett (the Hebrew word for divorce). The Amsalem's are barely on speaking terms. Viviane (Ronit Elkabetz) has moved out of the home she once shared with Elisha. Despite the rift, she continues to cook meals for her son and has them delivered by a friend who makes the ten-minute trek between homes. YHVH knows, she tries.

But not only is Viviane at odds with her distant, controlling spouse, she also has to deal with a trio of patriarchal rabbis who preside over a seemingly endless separation trial. -more-

Berkeley's Just Theater, in collaboration with the Shotgun Players, is in the midst of a critically acclaimed run of a new play, 'We Are Proud to Present ... A Presentation About the Herero of Namibia Formerly Known as South West Africa from the German Showestafrika Between the Years 1884-1815,' by Jackie Sibbles Dreury, directed by Molly Aaronson-Gelb, 7 p. m. Wednesday-Thursday, 8 on Fridays & Saturdays, 5 on Sunday, through March 7 at Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby at MLK. $20-$25 general, $5-$15 students & under 25 years old (by reservation). justtheater.org; shotgunplayers.org -more-

Fifteen years after its première at San Francisco Opera, Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking returned to the city in a scaled-down production launched by Opera Parallèle, an organization that specializes in offering new or infrequently performed operas in small-scale productions that are more affordable than the grandiose stagings often encountered in major opera houses here and abroad. Opera Par-allèle’s Artistic Director, Nicole Paiment, who conducted the three performances at Yerba Buena Center on Friday-Sunday, February 20-22, worked closely with composer Jake Heggie to re-orchestrate Dead Man Walking for a smaller orchestra than when it was first performed. -more-

On Friday, February 20, Jordi Savall returned to Berkeley’s First Congreg-ational Church with his Hespèrion XXI Ensemble to perform music from diverse Balkan, Iberian and Middle Eastern traditions. For some fifteen years, Jordi Savall has immersed himself in researching the music of the Ottoman Empire based in Istanbul. Of great importance in this research was The Book of the Science of Music by Dimitrie Cantemir (1693-1723), a Moldovan composer and music theorist who compiled in this work the most important collection of 16^th and 17^th century Ottoman instrumental music to have survived to the present day. -more-