Good morning, and welcome to the U-T Arts & Culture Newsletter.
I’m David L. Coddon, and here’s your guide to all things essential in San Diego’s arts and culture this week.
“Breaking Bad” may not have put Albuquerque, N.M., on the map, but it certainly has given the city’s tourism a shot in the arm. Why else would Albuquerque unveil, as it did last week at its convention center, bronze statues of drug dealers Walter White (Bryan Cranston) and Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul)?
Many of those aforementioned tourists are booking a seat on the Breaking Bad RV Tour, a hosted three-hour ride in a replica of the 1986 Fleetwood Bounder in which Walt and Jesse cooked their notorious meth. The $75 tour takes fans of “Breaking Bad,” its prequel “Better Call Saul” (which airs its final episode on Aug. 15) and the Jesse Pinkman film “El Camino” to locations around Albuquerque immortalized in the “Breaking Bad” universe.
They include the car wash where Walter was persuaded by his “criminal lawyer” Saul Goodman to launder his drug money, the Twisters restaurant that served as the location of drug baron Gustavo Fring’s Los Pollos Hermanos chicken joint, and, of course, the Walter and Skyler White residence on Negra Arroyo Lane.
If you can’t get over to Albuquerque, there’s an alternative for fans at home: the ABQ Breaking Bad RV Virtual Tour. A rotating 360-degree camera transports you virtually to all of the in-person tour locations while also flashing on the screen bits of trivia: like the fact that “Breaking Bad” was originally planned to be set in Riverside, Calif., or that Matthew Broderick had been approached for the role of Walter White.
The one-hour virtual tour lacks what must be the genuine fun of being at these locations. It’s better than photographs, but just barely. Diehard fans may appreciate it just the same, and the cost is only $20.
Theater
All the world’s a stage, from West Coast to East this week. Locally, New Fortune Theatre Company returns after a long hiatus with a production of “As You Like It” (the Shakespearean comedy in which that famous observation by the melancholy Jaques is spoken) at the outdoor amphitheater behind Westminster Presbyterian Church in Point Loma. It opens Sunday and runs through Aug. 29.
Across the country, at the Delacorte Theater in New York City’s Central Park, a musical production of “As You Like It” from the Public Theater opens on Wednesday. It’s the second in the Delacorte’s annual Free Shakespeare in the Park series. Should you find yourself in the Big Apple, this is a summertime tradition. This “As You Like It” will continue through Sept. 11.
Classical music
La Jolla Music Society’s ongoing SummerFest goes Parisian this weekend with performances through Sunday that feature works reflective of the “City of Light” between the mid-1800s and the mid-1900s.
The “A Weekend in Paris” theme includes “The Salon and the Masquerade” Friday with works by Chopin, Debussy, Ravel and more; “Le Conservatoire” on Saturday with a prelude performance by the Aestas Trio; and “Beg, Borrow and Steal” on Sunday afternoon with a focus on composers inspired by the works of others to create their own stunning music.
All performances are at the Baker-Baum Concert Hall at the Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center in La Jolla.
READ MORE: SummerFest’s ‘Weekend in Paris’ concerts will bring French salon music traditions to San Diego
Art festival
The free ArtWalk @ Liberty Station returns to Point Loma Saturday and Sunday. You know all about ArtWalk as it’s been around for 17 years. You go. You look. Maybe you buy. You meet the artists and artisans, which is pretty cool.
So let’s focus on this weekend’s music at the event. The lineup includes some mainstays on the San Diego scene, among them singer-songwriter Lisa Sanders on Saturday from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. and bluesman Robin Henkel, performing both Saturday from 11:10 a.m. to 12:10 p.m. and Sunday from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Here’s the complete schedule.
ArtWalk @ Liberty Station hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.
Film
In the new Netflix documentary “Not Just A Girl,” Shania Twain is hailed as a cross-genre (country and pop music) pioneer, a cultural icon, a feminist, a mega-superstar. There’s plenty of evidence to back all that up in this love letter to the singer-songwriter born Eileen Regina Twain in Timmins, Ontario, Canada.
Twain, now 56, tells her story herself, seated barefooted and comfortable on camera in between film clips of her rise to country and later country-pop music fame in the ‘90s and early 2000s. These include her sexy and spectacular music videos, which took advantage of her singing voice, her beauty and her charisma.
“I was a disruption to the image of country music,” she reflects at one point, something not followed up on and therefore making one aspect of the documentary disappointing: It doesn’t touch at all on the perception of Twain by country-music purists (some of them fans, some of them critics) as a fraud. They’re wrong, of course, and it would’ve been nice to hear Twain tell them so.
Theater reviews
The darkness of “Cabaret,” washing over its decadence and devil-may-care, is omnipresent. Evil is at the door of the Kit Kat Klub.
More than half a century since it first appeared on Broadway, “Cabaret” continues to be a thrilling — and chilling — theatrical experience. Its multiple reinterpretations over the years have only deepened its mingling of debauchery and dread.
This is viscerally on display in a superior production from Cygnet Theatre in Old Town, which has remounted its 2011 staging of “Cabaret,” again directed by Sean Murray. Sean Fanning’s original set returns as well, with a bang-up five-piece band perched above.
As with Cygnet’s “Cabaret” 11 years ago, its familiar opening number, “Willkommen,” is preceded by the owner of the Kit Kat Klub and the Kit Kat Girls performing a polka-flavored German drinking song, “Schnitzelbank,” and exhorting the audience to sing along. What follows will be nothing like Oktoberfest. From the moment a drum rolls, a cymbal crashes and the Emcee appears, the vivid but uneasy dream that is “Cabaret” begins.
READ MORE OF MY REVIEW HERE: Cygnet Theatre presents a superior production of ‘Cabaret’
What is the essence of human evil? Surely Adolf Hitler’s “final solution” is on the shortlist.
But what about the German officers, doctors and office workers who ran Hitler’s most efficient death camp, Auschwitz, where more than 1.1 million Jews and others were massacred during World War II? Were they evil, or just regular people swept up in a frenzy of hate and nationalistic propaganda and readily able to emotionally detach themselves from the end results of their work?
Probing the shady areas of human nature is the heart of La Jolla Playhouse’s chilling world-premiere drama “Here There Are Blueberries,” which opened Sunday in a co-production with New York’s Tectonic Theater Project.
READ MORE OF THE REVIEW BY THE UNION-TRIBUNE’S PAM KRAGEN: La Jolla Playhouse’s ‘Here There Are Blueberries’ a chilling examination of the roots of human cruelty
Radio
After 41 years as the voice of Jazz 88.3 morning wake-up music, drive-time show host Joe Kocherhans will miss being on the airwaves. But he won’t miss going to bed at 7 p.m. and waking up each weekday at 4 a.m.
Today’s 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. show will be his farewell broadcast, the day before his 70th birthday.
“It’s time,” says Kocherhans, who will be replaced, both at the microphone and as music director, by his KSDS FM colleague Chad Fox.
Kocherhans calls the assistant program director a terrific choice. “He and I have had many great conversations over the years, and he knows what needs to be done. I’m glad it’s somebody within our ranks.”
Kocherhans began working at KSDS radio on the campus of San Diego City College in 1972 while a student there.
READ MORE IN THIS REPORT BY THE UNION-TRIBUNE’S DIANE BELL: Listeners will miss the morning voice of Jazz 88.3 radio
UCTV
University of California Television invites you to enjoy this special selection of programs from throughout the University of California. Descriptions courtesy of and text written by UCTV staff:
“The Art of Change: Don Williams”: UC Santa Cruz drama lecturer Don Williams talks about how he founded, in 1991, UCSC’s African American Theater Arts Troupe, or “AATAT” as it’s often called. The theater group has had a profound and lasting effect on countless African American students throughout the years. His students have a deep appreciation and love for his willingness to address head on not only what it means to be Black on the UCSC campus, but also the importance of exposing African American students, and all students, to the Black experience through plays written by Black playwrights.
“Large-Scale Human Modification of the Planetary Microbiome”: Through the Earth Microbiome Program and complementary efforts, a broad range of microbiomes from across the planet have been sampled, and all microbiomes studied are impacted by human activity – the effects of which have been shown to alter our environment and climate. Indeed, the pervasive role of environmental microbiomes in biogeochemical cycles necessary to sustain life led scientists to issue a warning about our impact on the microbiome and its impact on climate change. Learn more about new monitoring and modeling approaches that will help us understand where to look globally for the best specimens and microbes to preserve.
“Climate Adaptation and Action – Lessons Learned from the State of California”: The State of California has been steadfast in battling climate change and has passed several pieces of legislation including the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 which established a comprehensive program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from all sources throughout the state. California is at the forefront of working towards 100-percent renewable energy by 2045. Siva Gunda, the vice chair of the California Energy Commission, and Wade Crowfoot, the secretary of California Natural Resources Agency, discuss lessons learned from the state’s adaptation to the growing threat of climate change and the action policymakers are taking to prevent that threat from growing.
And finally: Top weekend events
Here are the top events happening in San Diego from Thursday, Aug. 4 to Sunday, Aug. 8.
Coddon is a freelance writer.
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