Show Me Yours is a weekly column in which Senior Arts Editor Chloe Veltman shares her picks for the Bay Area’s best bets in the performing arts.
There are times when you wish the people behind a long-running or oft-reprised theatrical production would just cash in their chips and call it quits. The thought crosses my mind every time I see Phantom of the Opera returning for yet another San Francisco run, or when I consider the fact that Catherine Russell, the lead actress in the astonishingly long-running off-Broadway theatrical thriller Perfect Crime, has acted in more than 11,000 performances of the show since it debuted in 1987.
Every now and again, though, a show deserves to have a long shelf-life. That’s how I feel about Club Inferno, a feisty glam-rock musical based on Dante’s Divine Comedy. San Francisco’s resplendently louche Thrillpeddlers theater company, which created the show, is bringing it back to the stage for the third time since it first appeared in 2000.
Club Inferno had an outing last summer, which I adored for the singability of the songs, the intelligent-kitsch sense of humor, and the bonkers energy of the performances. The musical depicts Italy’s most famous Medieval poet as a pop diva. When Dante wakes up at the Gates of Hell following a terrible accident in the middle of her high-octane club act, she winds up taking a circuitous route back to the land of the living accompanied by Virgil. On the way, they run into a host of eclectic characters including Cleopatra, Karen Carpenter and — when the duo finally reaches the final circle of hell — Judy Garland. Created by Kelly Kittell and Peter Fogel and directed by Russell Blackwood, the production features many of the original cast members and heaps of Thrillpeddlers’ characteristic hedonism. Club Inferno runs Thursday, Feb. 4 through Saturday, Mar. 5; Thrillpeddlers at The Hypnodrome, San Francisco.
And here are some other lively stage goings-on to give you something to talk about this week:
Now through Sunday, Feb. 28: Sagittarius Ponderosa at New Conservatory Theatre Center, San Francisco
A young trans man is at the heart of playwright M. J. Kaufman’s world premiere play. The drama follows the story of Archer who travels back home to eastern Oregon after he finds out that his father is dying. Between dealing with his family — the members of which still insist on calling him by his former name, Angela — and having a chance meeting with a mysterious, erudite stranger, Archer learns more about his identity and roots as well as about the evolving nature of the world around him. What sets this play apart from other trans narratives is that the theme of transition is more metaphorical than literal. “I had been feeling frustrated that most queer narratives are coming-out stories and most transgender narratives are transition stories,” Kaufman is quoted as saying on the theater website Broadway World. “I wanted to create art that would acknowledge constant change as an intrinsic part of being a person.”
