Berkeley Rep’s literary adore music to its dwelling city

Berkeley is a state of head as a great deal as a stage on the map.

It is a deeply progressive city village, an iconic faculty town and a location where radicalism has normally been on development.

If you have at any time lived in the metropolis, the attract of its idiosyncratic spirit will never ever leave you and Berkeley Rep’s poignant new 10-episode podcast from 10 estimable writers, “Place/Options: Berkeley,” will make you a lot more than a very little heartsick.

This is a celebration of the city in all its eccentricity, history and character at a time of wonderful isolation, when there is nothing at all much more healing than a sense of local community. Component actuality, element fiction, this collection of shorter stories slyly uses the prism of Berkeley to inspire an exploration of the self.

A sharp feeling of nostalgia for the sights and appears of the pre-pandemic world loaded this reviewer with longing from commence to finish. Now I know why Chekhov’s “Three Sisters” ended up so whiny.  So lots of matters seem utterly out of get to proper now. We all have our Moscow these times.

That’s why I hung on each individual phrase of “The Black Mass Sonata.” Daniel Handler, very best known for “A Collection of Unfortunate Functions,” captures the pulse of the existential in this haunting 13-minute riff.  A lonely teen finds himself when he is carefully shed in Berkeley with a cup of lentil soup and classical audio as his only guide posts. An audio valentine to the relaxed sophistication of the Musical Providing Cafe, this sensitive tale is as evocative as Proust’s madeleine. It vividly transported me back again in time to the land of my personal recollections for an intoxicating reverie.

Sean San José, a veteran of the Campo Santo phase ensemble, potential customers another tour via the Berkeley of yore in “For the Report.” Welcome to the hurly burly of the Bay Spot in the ‘80s, when Berkeley was a counterculture mecca, a very little patch of tie-dyed protest amid a sea of yuppiedom. Let the writer and performer encourage you to peruse the passion for vinyl and revolution that marked the Telegraph Avenue establishment that was Leopold’s Documents.

Sarah Ruhl’s “The Character Actor” also crammed me with a yen for the earlier. I yearned for the revelry of the Berkeley Rep courtyard, the euphoria of theater opening evening parties and the jostle of intermission audiences from two adjacent theaters. This 15-minute ode to the joys of local community is a painful reminder of all that we have skipped.

You might sample these stories in any order but the podcast that walloped me the toughest, the one particular I listened to more than the moment, is “The Slide,” a 13-moment memoir in the manner of “Our Town.”

Written and executed by Itamar Moses, who grew up in Berkeley and won a Tony for “The Band’s Check out,” this is the story of a boy and a slide, tucked away in a neighborhood playground. It is the kind of position that would seem like a universe unto itself when you are compact. In the primary of lifestyle, it appears to be far more like an afterthought, just a spot to destroy time. Only afterwards in lifestyle does the childhood fixture after all over again seem like talismanic item.

Just before you climb aboard, it seems to be a extended and snaking journey. But at the time you’re whooshing down it,  you know the darn matter is nearly above. You know, like existence.

‘PLACE/Configurations: BERKELEY’

Audio creation showcasing 10 stories prepared by Eisa Davis, Philip Kan Gotanda, Daniel Handler, Aya de León, Adam Mansbach, Richard Montoya, Itamar Moses, Kamala Parks, Sarah Ruhl and Sean San José.

When: Accessible as a result of June

Tickets: $10, absolutely free to Berkeley Rep 7-Play subscribers www.berkeleyrep.org