The Dark Room Theater definitely has its niche. The tiny black-box theater in the heart of San Francisco's Mission District hosts standup comedy, variety shows, and weekly Bad Movie Nights with heckling de rigueur. But with some regularity it also offers up campy stage adaptations of cult movies and TV shows, from Twilight Zone and Star Trek to Dirty Dancing and The Princess Bride. Recently there was even a play based on the videogame Asteroids. Upcoming shows include a live episode of Firefly in October and one of a dozen theatrical versions of It's a Wonderful Life in December, although theater owner Jim Fourniadis promises that it will be more loving parody than straight-up adaptation. "We make fun of things here at the Dark Room Theater, but only because we love them," Fourniadis says in his preshow speech for the newest show.
Right now the Dark Room is taking on a much bigger target than usual with Godzilla Live, adapted and directed by Fourniadis. How one of San Francisco's tiniest stages is going to capture a thirty-story mutated lizard is most of the fun, and the company rises to the challenge with gusto.
The short answer is that this Godzilla goes back to the 1950s roots of the Japanese monster movie franchise by having the radioactive reptile played by a guy in a full-body suit (cowriter/designer David Moore), his extreme size conveyed by tiny props of ships and San Francisco landmarks.
READ MORE
READ MORE NEWS STORIES
No comments:
Post a Comment