by Ron Friedenthal

  As the name implies, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley’s production of Mike Lew’s “Tiger Style!”, currently performing through April 28 at the Mountain View Center for Performing Arts (500 Castro Street), in Mountain View, CA., is a comedic satire of tiger parenting, often stereotypically portrayed of East Asian societies.

Through the representation of a Chinese family, the theme of of this production will resonate with any parents who try to navigate the coming of age of their children and the subsequent blame the children may have of their parents when things do not work out as planned.

This is a five-actor all-star ensemble, three of whom play multiple roles superbly, including Francis Jue, Emily Kuroda, and Jeremy Kahn. The lead actors, William Dao and Jenny Nguyen Nelson, who play brother (Albert Chen) and sister (Jennifer Chen), are excellent, using humor and insight into the young adults they portray. They demonstrate how, with their parents’ strict cultural guidance, it helps them to exceed in academia. However, heir exceptional early years did not prepare them for coping in society. As a result, their early successes did not translate into having a very happy and productive adulthood.

by Ed Brice

     Center Repertory Company of Walnut Creek presents “The Great Leap”, a high-stakes work that follows a University of San Francisco college basketball team that travels to Beijing in 1989 for a well-publicized exhibition game. The play takes place in San Francisco’s Chinatown and Beijing China in 1971 and 1989, featuring a USF basketball coach, a walk-on Chinese American player in ’89, and the Chinese team’s coach.

     1971 and 1989 are pivotal years in Communist China: Communist China’s “Great Leap” by Mao Zedong in 1958-61, then Cultural Revolution resulted in incredible upheaval, famine, deaths, etc. By 1971, tension between China and the U.S. was thawing, including international ping-pong, visits and…basketball!

     In 1989 there were the Chinese student-led peaceful demonstrations in Tiananmen Square, including the famous “tank guy” looking for more reform. As we know, that was physically and forcefully put down by the Chinese communist government without major reforms achieved for individuals.

by Darlene Jurow

     Alfred Hitchcock’s iconic “The 39 Steps” is ripe for satire, and San Francisco Playhouse’s (450 Post Street) stage version of this 1935 film, performing through Saturday, April 20, offers high energy, vaudevillian flair, impeccable comic timing, and overall, is a zany gem of a show!

     “The 39 Steps” has a superb cast of four actors playing some 100 characters as it follows the high-speed adventures of protagonist Richard Hannay (superbly portrayed by Phil Wong), who is kept busy chasing villains through the U.K.., cracking an international spy ring and, naturally, finally, getting the girl!

     Phil Wong plays Richard Hannay, who is being falsely accused on murder, and having to go on the run to clear his name. Hannay, after having a mysterious woman, Annabella Schmidt (Maggie Mason), murdered in his apartment, heads off to the Scottish countryside in search of a certain house, stays over at a farmhouse where he encounters a woman who helps him (also Maggie Mason), encounters a shady professor named Jordan (Renee Rogoff), is disbelieved by the town sheriff after he's nearly killed (also Renee Rogoff), encounters another woman, Pamela (again, Maggie Mason), who ends up handcuffed to him, and more hilarity ensues as the two head back to London to figure out how to finally clear Hannay's name and foil the spies' plot. The fourth member of the cast, Greg Ayers, is also an extremely talented humorist, and takes on the roles of dozens of characters.

   August 25, 1966. Specialist Dan Crowley was among the handful of demolition experts assigned to a route clearing mission in support of Operation AMARILLO. His equipment load was the same as it had been numerous times before: a Claymore mine, TNT, C-4 explosives, blasting caps, time fuse, det cord, eighteen rounds for his M-79 grenade launcher, two hand grenades, and his Colt .45.
     But this would be no ordinary mission.
     The Viet Cong had just surrounded an American patrol along Highway 16. Crowley’s outfit – Charlie Company, 1st Engineer Battalion – was among the smattering of units thrown together for this impromptu “relief force.” History would call it the Battle of Bong Trang.
     In a war dominated by airmobile infantry, the combat engineers played a critical role in shaping America’s battlefield victories. They built obstacles, dug defensive positions, set landmines, performed various types of demolition, and could fight as infantry whenever ordered.
     “Fire in the Hole” tells the story of Charlie Company, 1st Engineer Battalion during their deployment to the Republic of Vietnam in 1965-66. Told from the perspective of four Charlie Company veterans – Dan Crowley, Larry Blair, Chuck Humphrey, and Jay Franz – this book provides an intimate, no-holds-barred account of the combat engineers in Vietnam.