Berkeley Repertory’s Roda Theatre
Berkeley, Calif.
(510) 647–2949
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
***
Rita Moreno has been “a Tinseltown stalwart for so long that she ought to get frequent-flier miles on the red carpet,” said Karen D’Souza in the San Jose Mercury News. During a 60-year career, the Puerto Rican singer, dancer, and actress became the first performer to win an Oscar, an Emmy, a Tony, and a Grammy. In this new revue, which plays as a “highly pleasurable showbiz memoir,” the star recounts her most memorable roles as well as the ups and downs of her life. Evidently, she is less comfortable with the personal material; “she was born a chameleon, not a navel-gazer, and that means the autobiographical impulse just doesn’t come easy.” Yet if Moreno “never quite bares her soul onstage,” she still radiates star power of a kind seldom seen today.
Some of what Moreno does reveal is fascinating, said Robert Hurwitt in the San Francisco Chronicle. While her tempestuous relationship with Marlon Brando is the stuff of “fairly well-known Hollywood lore,” it rates as a surprise that she had a fling with Elvis in order to make Brando jealous. Moreno’s larger story is a reminder of just how racist Hollywood was in the 1950s. Born Rosa Dolores Alverio, Moreno had to change her name and her complexion, and endure the lecherous attention of studio bosses, just to win the stereotypical “hot-blooded Latin” roles that seemed her only option. While recounting all this, Moreno “commands the stage with ease,” as if the audience were a group of old friends. Spending two hours with her is a pleasure.
-
Four royal holiday hotspotsThe Week Recommends Follow in the footsteps of royalty and experience the charm of some of their most popular getaways
-
The rise of the lost luggage auctionIn the Spotlight Lost luggage hauls are attracting millions of views online
-
Stunning beaches in ScotlandThe Week Recommends Scenic spots that wouldn't look out of place in the Caribbean
-
If/Thenfeature Tony-winning Idina Menzel “looks and sounds sensational” in a role tailored to her talents.
-
Rocky
feature It’s a wonder that this Rocky ever reaches the top of the steps.
-
Love and Information
feature Leave it to Caryl Churchill to create a play that “so ingeniously mirrors our age of the splintered attention span.”
-
The Bridges of Madison County
feature Jason Robert Brown’s “richly melodic” score is “one of Broadway’s best in the last decade.”
-
Outside Mullingar
feature John Patrick Shanley’s “charmer of a play” isn’t for cynics.
-
The Night Alive
feature Conor McPherson “has a singular gift for making the ordinary glow with an extra dimension.”
-
No Man’s Land
feature The futility of all conversation has been, paradoxically, the subject of “some of the best dialogue ever written.”
-
The Commons of Pensacola
feature Stage and screen actress Amanda Peet's playwriting debut is a “witty and affecting” domestic drama.