{"id":2683,"date":"2012-09-03T19:11:27","date_gmt":"2012-09-03T19:11:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/?p=2683"},"modified":"2012-09-03T19:14:29","modified_gmt":"2012-09-03T19:14:29","slug":"two-for-one-petty-theft-and-liars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/two-for-one-petty-theft-and-liars\/","title":{"rendered":"Two for One: Petty Theft and Liars"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two only-in-Marin in one day\u2014September 2, 2012.\u00a0 First stop a free concert at Homestead Valley in Mill \u00a0Valley.\u00a0 We arrived toward the end of the middle band\u2019s set, found a place in the sun and settled in for the final act\u2014a cover band for the Heartbreakers<\/em> known as Petty Theft.<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 I was a fan of Hearbreakers<\/em> radio play from the late 70\u2019s, but listened less and cared less as the decades moved on.\u00a0 Of course Petty has his enduring fans, but I was not particularly one of them.\u00a0 I was in Mill Valley to lie in the sun (a perfect day for it), picnic and listen to some live music, so I was happy.<\/p>\n

As the show went on, it became impossible for me to lie still.\u00a0 After a while I was sitting up, then on my feet, then gotta-go-dance.\u00a0 I was not alone in this.\u00a0 Petty Theft does a near perfect cover of every Heatrbreakers song that ever got airplay, vocals and arrangement note-for-note, with plenty of room for the guitars to take flight on their own (and every other instrument as well) and singer Dan Durkin to stir the crowd up with when the time comes.\u00a0 Audience participation?\u2014You bet.\u00a0 The set ended with a show-stopping \u201cNeed to Know\u201d but when the band left the stage without playing \u201cAmerican Girl\u201d we all knew there was an encore if we wanted it.\u00a0 We got it, and a follow-on \u201cRefugee\u201d that brought down the house.\u00a0 What a show!<\/p>\n

Check out Petty Theft<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 As they say themselves, \u201cIt\u2019s about the music.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 They\u2019re playing all around the Bay Area through September and beyond.\u00a0\u00a0 If you like Tom Petty<\/em> and the Heartbreakers<\/em>, you\u2019ll be glad you did.\u00a0 Website:\u00a0 http:\/\/www.pettytheftrocks.com\/<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

That was just the start of the evening.\u00a0 We had just enough time between shows to get home and make another picnic\u2014supper this time\u2014and get to Marin Shakespeare\u2019s evening performance of The Liar<\/span><\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 I hadn\u2019t read the playbill and had no idea what to expect for this play, so I was surprised the actors appeared onstage foppishly costumed for 1643 Paris.\u00a0 The first lines were another novelty when it became clear that the script was written entirely in metered verse approaching iambic pentameter and the quickly developed into farce.\u00a0 The script was adapted in 2010 by David Ives from the 1643 French comedy by Pierre Corneille.\u00a0 As Ives said, \u201cto render this luminous world in English. . . .it had to be in verse, just as it is in Corneille.\u201d<\/p>\n

We have the standard ingredients of love affairs based mistaken identities, good and evil twins, intentional and unintentional conceits, all compounded by the lofty extravagances that gush from the lips of Darren Bridgett\u2019s Liar<\/span><\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 His servant Clito (Jarion Monroe) is by similar token unable to say a single word that is not the absolute truth, despite detailed instruction:\u00a0 \u201cDon’t swerve. Be tripping. Poetry. Stay low. Irrelevant details. With verve<\/strong>!\u201d<\/p>\n

There is really no way to express in print how absolutely hilarious this play is from one end to the other.\u00a0 The script is wonderfully absurd, and all in rhyme rhymes but it is these eight marvelous actors taking flight under the freewheeling direction of Robert Currier who make it all seem so, well, believable.\u00a0 When the whole play is compounded on lies.\u00a0 It\u2019s something you\u2019ll have to see to believe, and you will not be sorry.\u00a0 You\u2019ll be thinking and talking about this play for days. \u00a0\u00a0At the Forest Meadows Amphitheatre, Dominican University in San Rafael CA, through September 23, 2012.<\/p>\n

Website:\u00a0 http:\/\/www.marinshakespeare.org\/index.php<\/a><\/p>\n

Box Office:\u00a0 (415) 499-4488<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two only-in-Marin in one day\u2014September 2, 2012.\u00a0 First stop a free concert at Homestead Valley in Mill \u00a0Valley.\u00a0 We arrived toward the end of the middle band\u2019s set, found a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"yasr_overall_rating":0,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[80],"tags":[716,82,81],"class_list":{"0":"post-2683","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-david-hirzel","7":"tag-david-hirzel","8":"tag-marin-shakespeare","9":"tag-petty-theft"},"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":true,"span_bottom":"