I don’t socialize with other critics. It’s not that I avoid them, but I’ve spent a great many years of them avoiding me. There are a few for I genuinely admire (Nicole Gluckstern, Sam Hurwitt for two), but the majority of Bay Area theatre critics embody the Anton Ego stereotype that does our profession no favors.
Why, just last week, I stood outside the Oasis to find more press members than usual on opening night. As I waited in my Flo Mask and Rocky Horror tee, I happened to be standing behind two local theatre critics. One ranted at length about how glad he was that EXIT Theatre was dead, as he hated the Tenderloin and everyone in it. He claimed to admire the late, great Cutting Ball (whose EXIT-owned venue has since become EXIT’s resurrected home), but hated braving the TL to see them. To him, EXIT Theatre wasn’t once the heart of SF indie theatre ‘cause SF has no “real” theatre south of Geary. If you can’t impress your wealthy friends, what’s the point?
I suddenly wished I was Darryl Revok from Scanners. This guy was here to see a drag show produced by Oasis Arts (a local queer arts incubator that’s become all the more necessary during the last six months), but reeked of Bill Maher “white liberal” hypocrisy. This is the very sort of obnoxious person that theatre was supposed to push out after 2020. In short, he’s why I’m glad I don’t hang out with critics.
I know they aren’t all this insufferable. But scorning the proletariat is so last decade. As I write this, I have a handful of new invites from marginalized theatre artists in my Inbox, and I’m consistently grateful that they all deliberately seek me out for a PoC opinion on their work. I’d hate to imagine one of their shows was only attended by Sammy Spraytan on his ivory perch. Let him fall hard from that perch. Maybe he’ll learn how the most interesting work is done down here in the dirt.

JURASSIQ PARQ AT OASIS
Despite knowing that idiot was in the audience, I returned to Oasis for the first time in at least a year to do the inevitable: riff on an open-shirted Jeff Goldblum. Of all the indelible images from Steven Spielberg’s classic film, there’s something about the sweaty “chaotician” exposing his hairy chest that’s inspired a generation to wish they, too, could be chased by dinosaurs. Sure enough, the character of “Jeffe Goldblum” (Marshall Forte) has his shirt torn open so many times you’d think he was Superman running for a phone booth.
Such is the cheeky atmosphere of Jurassiq Parq (world premiere through August 2 at Oasis, SF), Michael Phillis’ lovingly lascivious musical tribute to Spielberg’s cinematic groundbreaker. Full of meta-humor and none-too-subtle entendres, Phillis’ aim is to create a Chuck Tingle-esque reimagining that brings all the (mostly imaginary) sexual subtext to the fore. Cheaper, of course.
Very little is changed from the story: Bearded billionaire Col. Sanders Hammond (Vanilla Meringue) has a private island where his scientists experiment on new ways to make finger-lickin’ profits. To keep the company suits happy, he sets up a private tour for very single paleobotanist Dr. Laura Dern (Eleanor Irene Paul), the aforementioned Dr. Jeffe, and, inexplicably, Hammond’s not-quite-minor grandkids, Lexxx (Barbie Bloodgloss) and Timy (Kitty Litter). Science goes awry, dinos get loose, raptors are played by go-go dancers in a cage. Just the way Michael Crichton envisioned.
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Say this for the show: despite numerous meta-jokes about its low budget (a running gag mentions Sam Neill being cut for that very reason), there’s a helluva lotta craft put on stage. Whether the intentionally-cheap park gateway falling apart or the genuinely-impressive T. Rex head (via Dave Haaz-Baroque and Shadow Circus Theatre), a lot of care went into making the show as source-accurate as possible. Even when scenes frequently stretch out too long (milking a lot of jokes way past their effectiveness), there’s still a great deal of craft to admire in the tech.
I was seated in the VIP section, where the tables came with tarps for the occasional splash F/X (which you’ll almost never see coming). In terms of coverage, I was surprised to see I wasn’t the only masked person in the audience, with about 20% of attendees masked (I even saw an Envo Mask). That’s good, because CO² levels on my Aranet4 reached 2,168ppm before the show even started, peaking around 4,358ppm by the end.
At times, Jurassiq Parq gets bloated by thinking it’s cleverer than it is. Still, when it remembers that it’s a raunchy queer remix of a sci-fi/action/horror classic, it’s a lot of fun. Hopefully, you won’t be seated next to any self-righteous local critics when you pick up on subtle jokes like the use of Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game.”
JURASSIQ PARQ’s world premiere runs through August 2 at Oasis, SF. Tickets and further info here.

LES BLANCS AT OAKLAND THEATER PROJECT
Jean Genet thought he was doing Black people a favor when he wrote The Blacks, much the way Orson Welles constantly congratulated himself for directing “Vodou Macbeth” and The Problem with the Hero. That didn’t stop Lorraine Hansberry from having what she called “a visceral reaction” to Genet’s play. Well-intentioned or not, it was another Black story being told through white eyes. She had her own story to tell.
Hansberry never lived to finish that story, so her partner Robert Nemiroff did what he could from her leftover notes. The result was Les Blancs (through July 27 at FLAX art & design, Oakland), a scathing, incendiary work that not only remains one of the great Black American plays, but is now one of the best shows of the year, as produced by Oakland Theater Project. It certainly doesn’t hurt that the production’s original conceit—using an all-Black cast to portray Black and white characters—is given an extra layer of subtext by director James Mercer II directing a cast entirely of Black women.
The fictional African nation Zatembe resembles most of its colonized neighbors in the mid-20th century: The white settlers feel the only thing keeping “their” home from true greatness is the dark-skinned savages who have been there since time immemorial. Well-intentioned white American Charlie Morris (Champagned Hughes) is there to write a story about a supposedly kind-hearted white priest in the area, but arrives just as displaced rebels begin guerilla warfare. It’s also when Zatembe native Tshembe (Jeunée Simon) returns to bury his father. Tshembe lives in Europe with his white wife and newborn. He’s seen Eurocentrism from every conceivable angle. What scares him isn’t the idea of returning to Zatembe, but the possible realization that he may have never really left.

If Hansberry was going for her own “visceral experience”, mission: accomplished. As an artist, activist, and Black person, there are few things as satisfying as the scene between Tshembe and Morris. Not only do the ever-talented Simon and Hughes thrive under Mercer’s direction, but the ease with which Hansberry dismantles Morris’ white privilege may be even more poignant in this second term under Cheeto Mussolini.
Morris ignorantly believes all the world’s problems can be solved by simply sitting down and shaking hands, with Tshembe pointing out how impossible that is when one side isn’t even allowed at the table. It’s Hansberry doing the same thing as MLK: eviscerating the white “moderate” idea that the victims of oppression should reach out to their oppressors. It made no more sense then than it does in this continued time of police terror and the genocide of Palestinians. And this is just one great scene in a show full of them.
There weren’t that many masks on opening night, but there was plenty of heat in Oakland. In addition to CO² levels, my Aranet4 also reads temperature. So, while I wasn’t surprised to see the former levels peak around 1,614ppm, I was, however, taken aback by the latter reaching 82°F in the stuffy, confined FLAX during the two-hour-plus show. (The sole mask-required performance will be this Fri/18.)
If you can get past that, I’ll say again that this is one of the year’s best shows featuring one of the Bay’s best ensembles (the surprise of which Monique Crawford in dual roles). It’s one of our best local companies resurrecting a classic with the power and reverence it deserves to amplify a message that has only grown in significance. It’s disappointing that the message still needs to be heard, but no lesss vindicating to hear.
LES BLANCS runs through July 27 at FLAX art & design, Oakland. Tickets and further info here.