Free Things to Do in San Francisco

I went to see the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival perform Romeo & Juliet at the West Portal library. They did the play in an hour, with five actors/actresses playing all of the roles (with lightening-fast costume changes behind a bookcase). It was set in Mexico in (I think) the early 1900s. Nicely done, especially the performance by Vivian Kane as Juliet. Often Juliet is portrayed as being far more mature than the 13-year old that she is in the text, but here she was an emotionally volatile youngster, which was refreshing.

One thing I liked most about the Festival’s summer shows in the park were their imaginative sets. At the library, the actors said they had a great painted backdrop of a Mexican street for this play, but they weren’t able to bring it because the room in the West Portal branch was too small. It was either the backdrop or the sword fights, and they chose the sword fights. That was probably a wise choice, as the sword fights enthralled the many little kids in the audience.

They will be taking the show to San Ramon this Friday, then SF (the Marina) and San Mateo in December, and Burlingame in March.

By the way, the West Portal branch, which I hadn’t seen since the renovation, is very nice. I should go there more often. They have a slightly bigger selection than the Sunset branch, where I usually go.

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I went to the panel discussion on the role of women in Afghanistan mostly because I’m in the middle of reading “A Thousand Splendid Suns,” which is about exactly that. On the panel were three Afghan-American women and the male non-Afghan photographer who took the pictures in the exhibit on the 6th floor (which, ironically, were almost entirely of men and boys). It’s pretty sad — the role of women in Afghanistan has deteriorated greatly from the way it was before the 30 years of war. It was interesting, though, that panelists were hopeful that Obama would be able to make things better (although one said that she thought putting in more troops was not the answer).

The photography exhibit will be up until January 18, and is worth seeing if you’re in the neighborhood.