UBUNTU THEATER PROJECT Oakland’s Ubuntu Theater Project is coming to Berkeley with the third show in its inaugural season, the Pulitzer Prize-winning I Am My Own Wife by Doug Wright. The play opens on Saturday March 5 in a cozy, historic Berkeley home whose original ballroom has been converted into a theater space. The contemporary classic is based on Wright’s fascination with Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, a transgender person who survived Nazi Germany and Stasi surveillance in East Berlin. Von Mahlsdorf’s story is a celebration of courage, resilience and of self-preserving compromises. The play speaks to the complexity of survival when one’s most intimate home — the body — is the source of persecution. Ubuntu’s co-artistic director William Hodgson plays all 40 characters in the play. The play runs through March 20 at Haba Na Haba House, 1936 Thousand Oaks Blvd, Berkeley 94707. For tickets ($15-35 online; pay-what-you-can at the door) and information, call 510-646 1126 or visit www.ubuntutheaterproject.com.
GUSTAVE CAILLEBOTTE DISSECTED AT BAMPFA Join Columbia University neuroscientist Claude Ghez for a probing exploration of how the composition of Gustave Caillebotte’s masterpiece, Le Pont de l’Europe, comprises at least three different systems of linear perspective. The painting is a highlight of the Architecture of Life exhibition at Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, and Ghez suggests that the artist constructed this perspectival complexity to discredit criticism of his work as excessively “photographic.” Saturday March 5 at 11 a.m. Lectures are included with BAMPFA admission. BAMPFA, 2155 Center St., downtown Berkeley. Visit BAMPFA for details.
COMEDY OF ERRORS Shakespeare’s funniest comedy is getting the full Impact Theatre treatment at La Val’s Subterranean in North Berkeley. Directed by Melissa Hillman, the show transports this farce of mistaken identities to the world of Looney Tunes. Impact (slogan: “Pizza, Beer, Plays”) is known for making Shakespeare exciting, and with the company suspending productions at the end of this season after 20 years, it may be the last time you’ll get to see them in action. Thursday-Saturday 8 p.m., through March 26. Advance tickets (and students/seniors/TBA members/military): $15/$20 at the door. La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid Ave. Visit Impact Theatre for details.
AUTHORS IN CONVERSATION Correction: This event is on Sunday March 13 at 2 p.m. Apologies for the confusion. Susan Griffin, noted writer and theorist (A Chorus of Stones, Woman and Nature), is leading discussions with seven authors in an intimate literary series of four programs at the Berkeley Central Library titled “Works in Progress, Conversations with Writers.” On Sunday March 6, at 2 p.m., she talks to novelist and poet Elizabeth Rosner and writer Joan Miura in an event titled “Inheriting Trauma, Secrets and Stories.” Miura was sent to a Japanese relocation camp along with her parents during World War II and Rosner’s parents both suffered from the Holocaust, one in hiding, the other in a concentration camp. Admission is free. Berkeley Central Library, 2090 Kittredge St., downtown Berkeley.
CLERESTORY Clerestory, the Bay Area’s acclaimed male vocal ensemble, closes its tenth anniversary season with “New Lights,” a program of “luminous and exciting” contemporary music at the David Brower Center on Sunday March 6, at 4 p.m. Works by Eric Whitacre, Jake Heggie, and Aaron Jay Kernis will be sung alongside new songs written for Clerestory’s anniversary by composers friends dear to the ensemble. The performance will run just over an hour with no intermission. Tickets: $15-25. Visit Clerestory’s website for details.
Don’t miss these other events featured on Berkeleyside:
Destani Wolf: Headlining ‘Just Like a Woman” in Berkeley
Big Screen Berkeley: ‘The Incident’
On the couch with David Weisberg, creator of Central Works’ ‘Totem and Taboo’
First GLAS Animation Festival launches in Berkeley
Glittering stars in ‘Macbeth’ at Berkeley Rep
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