Theater

UC Berkeley’s Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies (TDPS) continues its 2018–19 season with Tartuffe, a daring and witty comedy that tells the story of a crafty trickster who uses religion as a guise to flatter the vulnerability of a wealthy patriarch. Initially censored following its 1664 premiere, the play is one of Molière’s most famous works and will be presented at the Zellerbach Playhouse stage on the UC Berkeley campus. Translated into English verse by Richard Wilbur, and directed by Domenique Lozano, Tartuffe runs November 9–18. Tickets are $13 to $20...

Ensconced in the center of the Zellerbach Playhouse is a vertiginous stage, stained in aquamarine, licorice red and pale salmon. Floating around the arena are knee-high tables, an assortment of chairs and a monumental amount of tapestries, ranging from the typical pillow sham to the ones draped across a college student’s window. To the side is a nook resembling a backyard concert. It’s an array of set dressing which magnetizes in service of the story. At the convergence of the UC Berkeley Department of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies, or TDPS, program...

Set in Nueva, New York in the late 23rd century, Dustin Chinn’s Radio Play, featuring CAL students under the direction of Mina Morita, imagines a world where Caucasians, nearing extinction, survive under federal protection. They live on preservation farms and perform their “caucasity” for a curious public.

In this near white-less future world, Chinn wittily shows two arrogant Caucasians who disrupt the prevailing ethnic diversity. Even in a world where Caucasians are critically endangered, their white voices carry weight.