“Passover has always been my very favorite holiday,” Viterbi says. “I always found that there was so much inherent pageantry and theatricality baked into the holiday. It’s a holiday all about storytelling.”

Viterbi has been writing annual skits for her own family’s Seders since she was 12 years old.

“It was the year ‘The Passion of the Christ’ came out, and that was obviously a big conversation in Jewish communities at the time,” she recalls. “I wrote ‘The Passion of Moses.’ I can’t say it was my best play, but it was certainly memorable.”

Now making its West Coast premiere with TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, Viterbi’s new play follows one family through its Passover celebrations in four different time periods: 2019, 1954, 2050 and during the Exodus itself.

“I was really drawn to this line in the Passover Haggadah, which is the text that you follow as you go through the Seder: ‘In every generation one is obligated to see themselves as if they personally had left Egypt,’” Viterbi says. “Ritual is tradition, but it’s also time travel. It connects us magically and instantaneously to both the past and the future.”

The play also has roots in much more current events.

“I started writing this play in 2017 in the wake of the Charlottesville march, when it became clear that antisemitism was once again on the rise in America, and when the question of whether White American Jews were White was foregrounded in conversations around contemporary American Jewish identity,” Viterbi says. “These questions got me thinking a lot about what happened to the Israelites after the Exodus from Egypt, after they escaped slavery, when they were no longer enslaved but they weren’t quite free either. That felt like a really powerful metaphor for the state of Jews in our country and globally today.”

“In Every Generation” premiered at Chicago’s Victory Gardens Theater last April. Its second production was scheduled for San Diego Repertory Theatre last May but was canceled right before performances were to start. A month later, San Diego Rep suspended operations and laid off its entire staff.

In September Victory Gardens also dismissed its staff and announced its intention to transition from a producing organization to a presenting venue, the latest chapter in a long conflict between that theater’s board and staff over the firing of its artistic director.

“We were the last show that had a full run, which was a blessing, and then things kind of exploded,” Viterbi says. “So, you know, third time’s the charm. I’m trying not to think that my play is cursed, but rather that there’s larger, deeper institutional issues with theater in this country right now. But TheatreWorks has been a terrific partner, and I’m very excited to see it come to fruition.”

The play has changed a lot over time, especially its vision of the not-so-far future.

“A lot has changed for American Jews in those six years (since she started writing the piece), most notably the shootings at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh and in Poway. I’m from San Diego, so that one hit really close to home,” says Viterbi. “And so the play has transformed a lot in how it talks about antisemitism, how it talks about race, how it talks about the future of the Jewish people and our country at large.”

The contemporary section remains set in 2019, in part because Viterbi didn’t want to introduce COVID into the play.

“That’s not what this play was ever about or wanted to be about,” she says. “And I have the added challenge of two Holocaust survivor grandparents that are a large part of the story. It was important that I lock it in a time when there were still survivors of the Holocaust around to tell the story.”

Still, the intervening COVID years can’t help but inform the experience of the play, Viterbi says.

“I think the themes of community and family and gathering and the necessity of having community in order to make meaning became so much more alive in the wake of the pandemic.”

Contact Sam Hurwitt at shurwitt@gmail.com, and follow him at Twitter.com/shurwitt.

‘IN EVERY GENERATION’

By Ali Viterbi, presented by TheatreWorks Silicon Valley

When: Jan. 18-Feb. 12

Where: Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro St., Mountain View

Tickets: $30-$85; www.theatreworks.org

Here’s a baker’s dozen of highlights to get you started, but there’s way, way, way more going on than can possibly be listed here, including A-List out-of-town performers, local comedy heroes and more sketch, improv and standup than you can shake your head ruefully at. We’re skipping shows in this roundup that are already sold out.

For the full schedule and tickets, visit www.sfsketchfest.com

The Black Version: African American comedians from the Groundlings improvise “the Black version” of popular films suggested by the audience. Performers include creator Jordan Black, Karen Maruyama, Cedric Yarbrough (“Reno 911!”) Nyima Funk and Gary Anthony Williams of “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” and Phil LaMarr and Daniele Gaither of “Mad TV.”

Details: 7:30 and 10 p.m. Jan. 20; Brava Theater Center; $30-$40.

Upright Citizens Brigade — “ASSSSCAT”: UCB’s signature long-form improv show features founders Matt Besser and Ian Roberts alongside guest improvisors such as Tim Meadows of “SNL” and guest monologist Nichole Sakura of “Superstore.”

Details: 7:30 p.m. Jan. 21; Sydney Goldstein Theatre; $35-$55.

Celebrity Autobiography: Enjoy hilarious excerpts from the memoirs of celebs such as Matthew McConaughey and Mariah Carey as performed by an all-star cast of funny people including Beverly D’Angelo, John Michael Higgins, Laraine Newman, Oscar Nunez, Andy Richter, George Wendt and creator Eugene Pack.

Details: 7:30 p.m. Jan. 27; Cobb’s Comedy Club; $45-$65.

Stop Joking for 100 Years and Other Requests from My Kid: Comedians swap stories about their own childhoods or parenting experiences. Eugene Mirman chats with Janeane Garofalo, Bobcat Goldthwait, Dana Gould, Mary Lynn Rajskub and Baron Vaughn at the early show and Nore Davis, Natasha Leggero, Bobby Tisdale, Reggie Watts and Jenny Yang at the late one.

Details: 7:30 and 10 p.m. Jan. 27; Swedish American Hall; $45.

Futurama vs COVID-3019!: The cast and head writer of TV’s “Futurama” assemble for a live episode reading about a somehow even more horrific pandemic of the future, followed by an audience Q&A.

Details: 1 p.m. Jan. 28; Cobb’s Comedy Club; $45-$65.

SF Sketchfest Tribute: An Evening with Elliott Gould: The Long Goodbye: Silver screen legend Elliott Gould discusses a life in the pictures after a 50th anniversary screening of perhaps the most unusual film adaptation of a Raymond Chandler mystery, Robert Altman’s “The Long Goodbye” with Gould as detective Philip Marlowe.  Details: 5 p.m. Jan. 28; Castro Theatre; $20-$35.

The SF Sketchfest Roast of Bruce Campbell: The iconic “Evil Dead” star and his iconic chin subjects himself to loving mockery from comedic pals including Cassandra (Elvira) Peterson, Ted Raimi, David Alan Grier, Kevin Pollak, Dana Gould, Dana DeLorenzo and Peaches Christ.

Details: 7:30 p.m. Jan. 28; Sydney Goldstein Theatre; $35-$55 ($20 streaming).

SF Sketchfest Tribute to Cheech & Chong: Legendary stoner comedy duo Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong celebrate their 50th anniversary in a conversation moderated by journalist Ben Fong-Torres. The honorees of other tributes this year include David Alan Grier of “In Living Color,” original “Saturday Night Live” cast member Laraine Newman and “The State” spinoff “Viva Variety.”

Details: 7:30 p.m. Jan. 31; Sydney Goldstein Theatre; $45-$65.

Play Date with Puddles, Dave Hill and Steve Agee: The sad clown with the golden voice Puddles Pity Party teams up with other music-comedy double threats Dave Hill (“The King of Miami”) and Steve Agee (“Peacemaker”) to form a strange sort of supergroup.

Details: 7:30 p.m. Feb. 3; Swedish American Hall; $50.

Bruce and Friend Kevin with Bruce McCulloch and Kevin McDonald: The two “Kids in the Hall” members with “Mc” in their names that aren’t Mark McKinney get up to whatever comedic hijinks they deem right and proper, joined by guitarist and fellow Canadian Allyson Baker (Dirty Ghosts, Red Room Orchestra).

Details: 4 p.m. Feb. 4, 1 p.m. Feb. 5; Gateway Theatre; $30-$40.

Yo, Is This Racist?: “Star Trek: Lower Decks” star Tawny Newsome and “That ’90s Show” writer Andrew Ti answer voicemail questions about micro and macroaggressions in this live version of their podcast, joined by Eugene Cordero (Pillboi on “The Good Place”) and standup comedian Mohanad Elshieky. Details: 7:30 p.m. Feb. 4; Cobb’s Comedy Club; $30-$40.

John Hodgman & Adam Savage — Spin-a-Wheel Conversation: The name says it all. Professorial “Daily Show” contributor and expert in all things John Hodgman and insatiably curious “MythBusters” tinkerer Adam Savage have a probably hilarious conversation about whatever topic chance dictates through a spin of the wheel.

Details: 4 p.m. Feb. 5; Great Star Theater; $35-$45.

Riffapalooza: “Mystery Science Theater 3000” veterans Bill Corbett, Kevin Murphy, J. Elvis Weinstein and Mary Jo Pehl, and Sketchfest cofounder Cole Stratton, unite for improvised live mockery of some movie that almost certainly deserves it. Details: 8 p.m. Feb. 5; Great Star Theater; $35-$45.

It started in 2002 when then-San Francisco State University students David Owen, Cole Stratton and Janet Varney brought six Bay Area troupes — including their own, Totally False People — for a sketch comedy festival at San Francisco’s Shelton Theatre.

“We sold out every show,” Varney recalls. “And it’s really grown grassroots from there. We added more performers from other places and all different kinds of comedy and reunions and music, essentially things that we are all fans of, that we can sort of nestle into the comedy subheading.”

This year Sketchfest celebrates its belated 20th anniversary and its return to live shows, after a modest virtual event in 2021 and a canceled 2022 fest largely carried over to this year. For the first time, a handful of events will be livestreamed as well.

Events for the festival running Jan. 20-Feb. 5 include a screening of the 1973 satirical film “The Long Goodbye” with star Elliott Gould; a “A Mighty Wind” cast reunion; a roast of “Evil Dead” star Bruce Campbell; and tributes honoring Cheech & Chong, David Alan Grier and original “Saturday Night Live” cast member Laraine Newman.

“The first year, we didn’t even know there would be a second year,” Owen says. “And then the second year we somehow managed to talk Fred Willard and the Upright Citizens Brigade into coming. That felt like such a big deal to us, that we actually got some known comedians from outside of San Francisco to come and play at the festival. I think the third or fourth year we managed to get one of the Kids in the Hall. The next year it was another Kid in the Hall, and a couple years later it was all of the Kids in the Hall. Every year there’s a pinch-ourselves moment of, oh my God, we never thought we’d get this person or this act.”

“We’re so sore from pinching ourselves and each other,” Varney quips.

Many comedy stars quickly get hooked and return to Sketchfest over and over again.

“We look at it as like a playground for them to do whatever they want to do,” says Stratton. “If they want to try some new stuff out or do different kinds of shows that they wouldn’t want to take on the road for a tour.’

“A lot of these performers know each other, but they’re not often in the same city together, and to have them populate each other’s shows and hang out in an amazing city together, I think that’s been a big reason why this thing has kept going,” Stratton adds. “And they tell their friends, and we just keep growing out what we consider to be a giant comedy family at this point.”

Among the frequent returnees is comedian Janeane Garofalo, star of many a ’90s film (“Reality Bites,” “Mystery Men,” “The Truth About Cats and Dogs”). Garofalo has kept coming back since her first Sketchfest in 2009.

“I’m not sure how many Sketchfests I’ve been to, but I always hope to be invited,” she says. “I think I annoy Janet Varney by getting in touch with her and prodding her to please invite me.”

Garofalo will be headlining a standup show and participating in events including “The 6 Year Anniversary of the 10 Year Anniversary of the Eugene Mirman Comedy Festival” (alongside Bobcat Goldthwait, Sarah Vowell, Reggie Watts and others); “Stop Joking for 100 Years and Other Requests from My Kid (Stories of Parenting and Childhood)”; “Tinder Live with Lane Moore”; and “Hound Tall with Moshe Kasher Farewell Show.”

During an interview, she admits the “Stop Joking” parenting-themed show is news to her. “Oh, am I doing that?” she says. “I don’t have children! I haven’t parented.”

It’s unsurprising, because Garofalo loves the serendipity of doing whatever oddball Sketchfest event she’s invited to participate in.

At home in New York, Garofalo often does standup seven nights a week in various venues. But being part of the concentrated hotbed of comedic energy at Sketchfest is a particular delight.

“You get to reconnect with your friends,” Garofalo says. “You get to see new comics you might not have seen before. And San Francisco is one of one of the greatest cities to do this in. The audiences are phenomenal. They’re very literate, they’re very supportive, they’re very interested in comedy. I’m always thrilled to go to San Francisco anyway, but to have the luxury of being in San Francisco, being in a hotel with your friends and getting to see great shows and perform in great shows with your friends, it really could not be a better situation as far as I’m concerned.”

Contact Sam Hurwitt at shurwitt@gmail.com, and follow him at Twitter.com/shurwitt.

SF SKETCHFEST

When: Jan. 20-Feb. 5

Where: Various San Francisco venues

Tickets: Prices vary by show; www.sfsketchfest.com

Point Richmond’s Masquers Playhouse reopened after six years of rebuilding. San Francisco’s venerable EXIT Theatre closed its doors, and San Jose’s Dragon Productions Theatre Company shut down. Cal Shakes has announced that it might not stage any productions of its own next year.

Amid all that, there was a whole lot of excellent theater on local stages. Here, in no particular order, are 10 of the most memorable moments in Bay Area that I was fortunate enough to witness this year.

“Indecent,” San Francisco Playhouse: Paula Vogel’s masterful play is centered around the 1923 Broadway premiere of Sholem Asch’s Yiddish drama “God of Vengeance” that got the whole cast arrested for obscenity, but it tells a much larger story of the controversy that accompanied that play from the beginning, juxtaposed with the rising tide of antisemitism in Europe. Director Susi Damilano gave it a hauntingly resonant production with a marvelous cast shifting smoothly from role to role in a beautifully theatrical play within a play.

“Dana H.,” Berkeley Repertory Theatre: Playwright Lucas Hnath’s gripping one-person play tells the story of his mother’s months-long abduction in her own words and her own voice, embodied by Jordan Baker in a stunning performance in which it’s easy to forget that she’s lip-syncing to the real Dana’s recorded interviews. Both the true story and director Les Waters’ staging were gut-wrenchingly visceral and immediate in this rare post-Broadway engagement of a dazzlingly unique drama.

“Hadestown,” BroadwaySF: Orpheus finally came to the Orpheum in writer-composer Anaïs Mitchell’s enthralling 2019 Broadway hit with irresistibly catchy folk-jazz-blues-pop songs and a lovely, lively and heartbreaking take on the tragic tale of Eurydice and Orpheus’ descent into Hades, set in a Depression-era Speakeasy. Kimberly Marable especially stole the show as a party-loving Persephone, queen of the underworld.

“the ripple, the wave that carried me home,” Berkeley Repertory Theatre: Christina Anderson’s world premiere drama spans decades (and their respective fashions) in recounting one family’s story of lobbying to integrate public swimming pools in one Kansas city and the toll it took on their relationships. It was powerfully told with beautifully eloquent language peppered with humor and great performances in director Jackson Gay’s excellent production.

“This Much I Know,” Aurora Theatre Company: Just as Oakland playwright Jonathan Spector’s last brilliant Aurora world premiere, “Eureka Day,” opened in London, he returned to the Berkeley company to unveil this delightfully brain-tickling examination of the nature of truth and perception. Artistic director Josh Costello’s compelling staging featured wonderful performances by Rajesh Bose as a compulsively pedantic psychology professor, Anna Ishida as his grief-racked wife and as Stalin’s imposing daughter, and Kenny Toll as a semi-reformed white supremacist.

“Goddess,” Berkeley Repertory Theatre: A musical about an African goddess of music had better dazzle in that department, and this world premiere really delivered. With a book by Jocelyn Bioh and songs by Michael Thurber, “Goddess” sweeps you up with propulsive rhythms, electrifying choreography by Darrell Grand Moultrie, stunning vocals by Amber Iman as the titular deity in disguise as a Kenyan nightclub singer and plenty of humor and heart. A number of musicals have made their way from Berkeley Rep to Broadway in recent years, and this one overflows with energy that should carry it there.

“Colonialism Is Terrible, but Pho Is Delicious,” Aurora Theatre Company: Another great world premiere at Aurora was Dustin H. Chinn’s time-hopping triptych of scenes on 1889 and 1999 Vietnam and present-day Brooklyn, each centered in some way around soup as a vehicle to playfully but poignantly explore issues of colonialism, cuisine and cultural appropriation.

“Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812,” Shotgun Players: Past Shotgun collaborator Dave Malloy’s acclaimed Broadway “electro-pop opera,” based on a section of Tolstoy’s “War and Peace,” finally makes its way to the Bay Area, and it’s magnificent. With a terrific cast and a sumptuous score in an eclectic mix of styles, it’s hilarious and heartbreaking and dizzyingly dazzling. This one’s been extended through Feb. 25 and is well worth checking out ($7-$75; www.shotgunplayers.org).

“The Sound Inside,” Marin Theatre Company: Adam Rapp’s drama centers around a disturbingly obsessive creative writing student and the Yale professor who’s troublingly fascinated with him. There’s no way it can end well, but exactly where it’s headed keeps you on the edge of your seat. And actors Denmo Ibrahim and Tyler Miclean made that tension palpable in MTC artistic director Jasson Minadakis’ spare and suspenseful production.

“Moulin Rouge!,” BroadwaySF: No stage musical could be more decadent than Baz Luhrmann’s fever dream of a 2001 movie, but this Tony Award-winning 2018 Broadway hit gives it a good shot with even more insanely jam-packed mashups of pop hits from the intervening decades as well as the breadth of the 20th century. And its tragicomic love story of bohemian artists, courtesans and aristocrats in a lurid Paris cabaret circa 1900 is as over-the-top as ever.

Contact Sam Hurwitt at shurwitt@gmail.com, and follow him at Twitter.com/shurwitt.

And when the adaptation includes some nonbinary performers and same-sex romances, all the better.

The “As You Like It” musical now playing at San Francisco Playhouse is adapted by songwriter Shaina Taub and Public Theater of New York director of public works Laurie Woolery. Taub also composed the musical adaptation of “Twelfth Night” that SF Playhouse did last year (yet another Shakespeare play centered on a woman disguised as a man). Both musicals were commissioned by Public Theater and originally debuted as part of its Free Shakespeare in the Park program.

“As You Like It” is the tale of Rosalind, a noblewoman living as a man in exile in the forest of Arden. There she bumps into Orlando, a nobleman who fell in love with her at first sight immediately before both had to flee for their lives from the tyrant Duke Frederick. So she befriends him in her male identity as Ganymede and convinces Orlando to pretend Ganymede is Rosalind (which of course he actually is) to practice wooing her.

The musical is very faithful to the original’s many characters and assorted subplots and replicates its delightful humor well in artistic director Bill English’s lively staging.

The large cast of 17 has its risks right now, as evidenced by opening night being delayed two weeks because of COVID cases among the ensemble, but it’s full of strong performances.

River Navaille’s Rosalind beautifully conveys the push-and-pull of being wonderfully sharp-witted and confident in toying with Orlando while also being palpably smitten with him. That inner conflict goes deep in other ways, too. Rosalind is obviously much more comfortable as Ganymede and not terribly excited about the thought of going back to the previous identity.

Nikita Burshteyn is an endearingly earnest cheeseball as Orlando, and their scenes together are terrific. Abigail Esfira Campbell is full of vicarious enthusiasm as Rosalind’s companion Celia, tempered by exasperation as her friend starts playing an increasingly dangerous game.

Michael Gene Sullivan is a warm, good-humored presence as Duke Senior, who holds court in the forest after being deposed by his villainous brother, Duke Frederick (Will Springhorn Jr., childishly volatile). The Duke’s infectious optimism is comically countered by the melancholy Jaques’ gloomy cynicism (played by Deanalis Arocho Resto with wry humor). Nicholas Yenson’s amusingly out-of-his element jester Touchstone also provides plenty of mocking commentary as a foil for the young lovers. Sophia Alawi is hilariously lovestruck as the shepherd Silvia (usually Silvius), doggedly wooing Emily Dwyer’s aloof Phoebe.

Bill English and Heather Kenyon’s set looks deceptively simple, its wide-open arches filled in with colorful trees for the Arden scenes. Sarah Phykitt’s projections provide gloomy photographic backgrounds for the scenes in Frederick’s court and brightly colored cartoonish forest scenes for Arden.

The songs are often the weakest part of the show. A number of them are syrupy and mawkish, with keyboard-heavy arrangements and a muddy sound that almost sounds prerecorded, when in fact it’s played backstage by a five-piece band led by music director Dave Dobrusky.

When they’re good, though, they’re terrific. One highlight is Orlando’s catchy pop-R&B boy band number “Will U Be My Bride,” with hilarious pink-clad backup dancers choreographed by Nicole Helfer. The comically bombastic theme music that follows Duke Frederick everywhere he goes is a fine running gag in itself. In one of the most powerful songs, “When I’m Your Wife,” Ganymede sings a litany of the difficult emotional baggage that Rosalind would bring to a relationship, voice choked with emotion.

Even the numbers that aren’t nearly as strong are performed by the cast with so much humor and heart that they’re enjoyable nonetheless.

That’s the thing about Arden. Its environment of ready acceptance and inclusion has always been one of the appealing aspects of “As You Like It,” and in this version that feeling of goodwill suffuses the show more than ever. Those same good vibes make the bits that aren’t that great feel like no big deal.

Contact Sam Hurwitt at shurwitt@gmail.com, and follow him at Twitter.com/shurwitt.

‘AS YOU LIKE IT’

By Shaina Taub and Laurie Woolery, based on the play by William Shakespeare, presented by San Francisco Playhouse

Through: Jan. 14

Where: San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post St., San Francisco

Running time: Two hours, no intermission

Tickets: $15-$100; 415-677-9596, www.sfplayhouse.org

A member of the Polish underground resistance during World War II, Karski traveled around Poland observing Nazi atrocities, including inside the Warsaw Ghetto and the Belzec death camp. He then traveled to report on what he witnessed directly to people such as the British foreign secretary and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. They heard what he said but seemed not to heed it.

Now actor David Strathairn, an Academy Award nominee for “Good Night and Good Luck,” tells Karski’s story at Berkeley Repertory Theatre in the solo show “Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski.”

“He’s exemplary of someone who accepted the civic responsibility of speaking truth to power, bearing witness to the events firsthand, being a courier of information critical to survival of states and nations and people — a man who exemplified in his life a real deep sense of duty and sacrifice for others,” Strathairn says. “From what we learned from people who knew him and had him as a teacher, he was an extremely humble, gracious person whose deep faith put him on a path of bearing witness for humanity.”

It’s a story that Karski himself kept quiet about for decades while he taught as a professor at Georgetown University.

“He became a teacher after feeling that he had failed in his attempt to bring the horrors of the Holocaust to the West,” Strathairn says. “Roosevelt gave him a meeting and didn’t really ask any questions about the Jewish situation. Justice Felix Frankfurter, himself a Jew, said, ‘I do not believe you. I don’t say you’re lying, but I do not believe you.’ He felt that he had done everything possible to bring what was happening in Europe at the time to the highest levels of power in the world, and they did nothing. And then he became silent for 35 years.”

But once he started talking about it in Claude Lanzmann’s 9½-hour documentary “Shoah,” Karski’s account was unforgettable.

“I met him, so to speak, when I saw ‘Shoah’ in 1985 when it was released, and I remembered his testimony. It just stuck with me. Many years later, Derek Goldman, who I’d worked with before on an evening celebrating Studs Terkel, called me and said, ‘Would you be interested in participating in this celebration of Jan Karski?’ I remembered him immediately and said yes.”

“Remember This” is a production of Georgetown’s Laboratory for Global Performance & Politics, directed by Goldman, the university’s performing arts chair, who cowrote the play with Georgetown alum Clark Young. It began in 2014 as an ensemble play at Georgetown to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Karski’s birth and was later streamlined into a solo show. And Strathairn has been there playing Karski every step of the way.

A San Francisco native who grew up in the city and in Marin, Strathairn has performed locally in several plays at American Conservatory Theater (“The Tempest,” “Scorched,” “Underneath the Lintel,” “Chester Bailey”). He starred in Berkeley Rep’s 2020 radio play of “It Can’t Happen Here” early in the pandemic, joining much of the original cast of the company’s 2016 world premiere stage version.

A run of “Remember This” was briefly announced for this February at San Francisco’s Presidio Theatre but was soon canceled due to COVID concerns.

The play has also been recently adapted into a film that has made the rounds of several festivals, including the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival this July.

Strathairn feels Karski’s story is one that must be heard, maybe now more than ever.

“We’re in a critical time worldwide with the rise of nationalism and fascism, the breakdown in trust and rising indifference and denial and partisanship,” Strathairn says. “He tried to make it a better world by telling the truth and giving the most vital information to the most important people. That’s why we’ve chosen to tell his story. It’s not just a historical document. We feel that it can be used as a way for people today to interrogate and reckon with all the critical issues that they’re being faced with: allyship and racial disparities and climate change. All these things that need somebody to bear witness to.”

Contact Sam Hurwitt at shurwitt@gmail.com, and follow him at Twitter.com/shurwitt.

‘REMEMBER THIS: THE LESSON OF JAN KARSKI’

By Clark Young and Derek Goldman, presented by Berkeley Repertory Theatre

When: Dec. 2-18

Where: Berkeley Rep’s Peet’s Theatre, 2025 Addison St., Berkeley

Tickets: $20-$94; 510-647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org

While many theaters offer crowd-pleasing spectacles that are as perfect for the season as they are for any other time of year, here’s a sampling of shows with a particular holiday hook.

“A Child’s Christmas in Wales”: Poet Dylan Thomas’ prose tale of Christmas past is adapted for the stage by Jonathan Rhys Williams, followed by a caroling sing-along. Also available for online viewing. Details: Dec. 9-24; Tabard Theatre, San Jose; $15-$45; www.tabardtheatre.org.

“A Christmas Carol”: There’s no holiday tradition like the usual zillion different adaptations of this classic Charles Dickens story. American Conservatory Theater’s version by Carley Perloff and Paul Walsh is back for the first time since 2019. (Details: Nov. 30-Dec. 24; Toni Rembe Theater, San Francisco; $25-$130; www.act-sf.org.) Center Repertory Company brings back its longtime version by Cynthia Caywood and Richard L. James (Details: Dec. 8-22; Lesher Center for the Arts, Walnut Creek; $29-$50; www.lesherartscenter.org.) Silicon Valley Shakespeare takes the story on for the first time in an immersive walking production, using Richard Orlando’s adaptation that was previously a staple of Northside Theatre Company. (Details: Dec. 2-18; History Park, San Jose; $30-$60; www.svshakespeare.org.)

“Cinderella”: Fairy tales are a holiday staple, and the African-American Shakespeare Company celebrates its 20th anniversary of presenting its version of “Cinderella” in a newly reimagined version with new choreography. (Details: Dec. 10-18; Marines Memorial Theatre, San Francisco; $30-$75; www.african-americanshakes.org.) Town Hall Theatre presents “Cinderella: A Fairytale,” an original retelling by Sally Cookson and Adam Peck revived from 2019 and told through a queer lens in its staging. (Details: Dec. 3-18; Town Hall Theatre, Lafayette; $25-$40; www.townhalltheatre.com.)

“Dear San Francisco”: Club Fugazi’s cabaret circus show by Shana Carroll and Gypsy Snider of the 7 Fingers gets into the holiday spirit with its love letter to the City freshly bedecked with seasonal touches. After a January hiatus, the year-round version returns in February. Details: Through Dec. 31; Club Fugazi, San Francisco; $35-$99 ($79-$175 New Year’s Eve); www.clubfugazisf.com.

“Disney’s Frozen”: It may not be strictly holiday themed, but it’s full of snow, it’s a fairy tale, it’s Disney — let it go. The 2018 Broadway musical of the hit Disney movie finally makes its way to SF. Details: Through Dec. 30; Orpheum Theater, San Francisco; $40.50-$272; www.broadwaysf.com.

“Do You Hear What We Hear?”: Back in SF for the first time in 15 years, the hilarious boozy faux-octogenarian lounge duo Kiki and Herb (alias Justin Vivian Bond and Kenny Mellman) are back with their own brand of holiday chaos for one night only. Details: Dec. 10; Curran Theater, San Francisco; $24-$84; www.broadwaysf.com.

“The Jewelry Box”: Brian Copeland takes a break from his latest one-man show “Grandma & Me” to revive his beloved holiday monologue about doing odd jobs at the age of 6 to save up to buy a Christmas present for his mom in 1970s Oakland. Details: Dec. 15 at Altarena Playhouse, Alameda; $35; www.altarena.org; Dec. 16-17; The Marsh, San Francisco; $25-$35; www.themarsh.org.

“Meet John Doe”: An old Frank Capra film newly adapted for the stage by director Ken Kelleher, “Meet John Doe” is about a newspaper columnist fabricating an unemployed man threatening to commit suicide on Christmas Eve to protest social injustice and having to hire a homeless man to play the part. Details: Through Dec. 18; San Jose Stage, San Jose; $34-$74; www.thestage.org.

“Oy Vey in a Manger”: Returning to San Francisco for the first time in five years, drag a cappella quartet the Kinsey Sicks revive their musical comedy about trying to sell off their now-famous manger before foreclosure, which first played New Conservatory in 2003. Details: Dec. 7-31; New Conservatory Theatre Center, San Francisco; $25-$65; www.nctcsf.org.

“Scrooge in Love”: An upbeat romantic comedy about Ebenezer Scrooge? Sure, why not? Set one year after “A Christmas Carol,” this sequel sees the three Christmas ghosts return, this time to play matchmakers. Details: Nov. 25-Dec. 18; 6th Street Playhouse, Santa Rosa; $19-$48; www.6thstreetplayhouse.com.

“Shoshana in December”: The titular Shoshana steps out of her monogamous relationship and outside her comfort zone in “the worst month of the year” in this brand new “poly-holiday” musical by the makers of past Custom Made hit “Tinderella.” Details: Through Dec. 18; Custom Made Theatre, San Francisco; $35-$55; www.custommade.org.

“Sleeping Beauty”: A traditional British “panto” is a very campy holiday affair based on fairy tales and packed with cheeky humor, and that’s certainly the case with this world premiere musical at the Presidio Theatre, following up on last year’s “The Magic Lamp.” Details: Dec. 1-30; Presidio Theatre, San Francisco; $20-$40; www.presidiotheatre.org.

“The Thanksgiving Play”: Native American playwright Larissa FastHorse’s comedy about a school theater director trying to create a Thanksgiving pageant that won’t offend anybody makes its way to San Jose. Details: Through Dec. 18; City Lights Theater, San Jose; $26-$54; www.cltc.org.

“Transcendence’s Holiday Spectacular”: Sonoma’s Transcendence Theatre Company offers a musical revue featuring holiday classics alongside contemporary seasonal favorites and a bit of Broadway. Details: Dec. 2-4; Hanna Center, Sonoma; $25-$149; www.bestnightever.org.

“A Very Hitchcock Christmas”: Six Bay Area playwrights tangle Yuletide themes with elements of classic Alfred Hitchcock movies in PlayGround’s “twisted” holiday assemblage of new short plays. Also available for online viewing. Details: Dec. 10-11; Potrero Stage, San Francisco; Free (donations encouraged); www.playground-sf.org.

“A Very Special Holiday Special”: Sketch comedy troupe Killing My Lobster homes in on the holidays with its version of an old TV variety special featuring desperate carolers, the most annoying Maccabee, chaos at the Dickens Fair and Ariana Grande and Genghis Khan singing a duet. Details: Nov. 25-Dec. 3 and PianoFight, San Francisco; Dec. 8-17 at PianoFight Oakland, Oakland; $18.50-$42.50; www.killingmylobster.com.

Oakland Theater Project goes deep into one such tale with Lisa Ramirez’s new play “Book of Sand (a fairytale),” based on Borges’ 1975 short story “The Book of Sand” (“El libro de arena”).

OTP’s associate artistic director, Ramirez is the playwright of past productions “To the Bone,” “Exit Cuckoo (nanny in motherland),” “Down Here Below” and “sAiNt jOaN (burn/burn/burn).”  As an actor she’s starred in several of the company’s shows as well, such as “The Waste Land” and the recent “The Crucible.”

In “Book of Sand,” a mysterious bible peddler sells the narrator a book with an infinite number of pages, with no beginning or end, in which no page once turned can ever be seen again. As with many such wondrous items in many such stories, it proves to be more of a burden than a boon.

Ramirez’s adaptation follows the original closely, quoting from it freely, while expanding it and taking it in new directions along the way. For one thing, she completely reinvents the character of the bookseller, who sticks around in this version long after the original departed.

Kevin Rebultan is marvelously compelling as the mild-mannered first-person narrator as he gradually descends from gentle curiosity to torment. He wins you over early on with his good-humored placidity and keeps you closely invested as he moves through increasingly agitated bewilderment to panting, writhing desperation. It’s a riveting performance.

Carla Gallardo’s bible seller is in a way a simpler, more archetypal figure: the menacing, magical woman of mystery. While Rebultan’s character changes markedly over the course of the play, Gallardo’s remains relatively unchanged as a volatile, unknowable antagonist.

Clad in a punk-style tattered and elaborately decorated jacket (costumes by Alice Ruiz), she seems at first to be another victim of the book, shakily huddled over it. But once she approaches Rebultan she circles him, leering like a predator, challenging his narration with mocking commentary and commanding him to further explore the book. Even once she ostensibly leaves him, she looms over him from the platform as if casting some sinister spell on him, singing and reciting competing, complementary or echoing literary passages.

From time to time she convulses, hollering in a burst of light and sound like some prophet or otherworldly being, for reasons as unknown by play’s end as they are when it first occurs. Strange things happen, and there’s not always a why.

Director Susannah Martin’s dynamic staging immerses the viewer in the elliptical magic of the tale. Karla Hargrave’s set gives a fanciful take on the story’s themes with numerous book pages hanging from the ceiling and others wallpapering a mezzanine-like platform lining the stage and a smaller platform that opens into a book that is also a sandbox.

Stephanie Anne Johnson’s shifting lights add to the unnerving atmosphere. Peppered with prominent sections of songs by Patti Smith, Neil Young, Pink Floyd, Santo & Johnny and “Man of La Mancha,” Elton Bradman’s sound design also features several voiceover literary recitations.

As the protagonist leafs through the book — or tries to hold onto sand in the metaphor made literal on stage — he or the voiceovers or sometimes the bookseller recite quotations from Borges writings as well as a multitude of other authors such as James Joyce and Ralph Ellison. There’s even a lovely, profound passage reportedly written by Rebultan.

It’s a suitable tribute to everything that makes Borges’ work so fascinating and resonant, even as Ramirez and the cast and creative team make the story unmistakably their own. After all, a story is not a static thing but something alive and ever evolving that’s never read, heard or retold quite the same way twice.

Contact Sam Hurwitt at shurwitt@gmail.com, and follow him at Twitter.com/shurwitt.

‘THE BOOK OF SAND’

World premiere by Lisa Ramirez, based on the story by Jorge Luis Borges, presented by Oakland Theater Project

Through: Dec. 4 (also live-streamed Nov. 26, available On Demand Dec. 3-Jan. 3)

Where: FLAX art & design, 1501 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Oakland

Running time: 75 minutes, no intermission

Tickets: $10-$52; www.oaklandtheaterproject.com

Emily Brontë’s only novel, “Wuthering Heights” was first published in 1847, along with her sisters Charlotte and Anne’s novels “Jane Eyre” and “Agnes Grey” respectively, all under male pseudonyms. A year later Emily died of tuberculosis at the age of 30.

“‘Wuthering Heights’ is such a big part of the British culture, it’s been in my life always,” Rice says in a Zoom call from the U.K. “I’m from the middle of England, and we used to go up to the Yorkshire moors for holidays. I can remember walking with my mum when I was little to go and see the ruin that they think inspired ‘Wuthering Heights.’ And I was very, very disappointed. It’s this pile of tiny bricks in the middle of nowhere that I’d been forced to walk to in the rain. And then I loved it as a teenager. I loved the gothic romance of it.”

“Wuthering Heights” is the story of the mysterious orphan Heathcliff and his campaign of unrelenting vengeance against the upper-class family that took him in and mistreated him. It’s also a tale of the doomed love between him and his foster sister Cathy that ties them together even as they torment each other.

“It’s agonizing to watch people be the worst of themselves,” Rice reflects. “But I do feel there’s a motor under there which pulls you through, because you understand these people, and you are willing them through. Emily Brontë makes us work for it, but she does give us hope. But my goodness, it’s hard fought for. And I love it for that.”

The former artistic director of Cornwall’s Kneehigh Theatre and Shakespeare’s Globe in London, Rice founded her own touring theater company, Wise Children, in 2017, kicking off with a stage adaptation of Angela Carter’s 1991 novel of the same name.

With Kneehigh, Rice wowed audiences with “Brief Encounter” at American Conservatory Theater in 2009 and a string of shows at Berkeley Rep starting in 2011: “The Wild Bride” (twice), “Tristan & Yseult,” “An Audience with Meow Meow” and “946: The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips.”

Rice decided that she had to adapt ‘Wuthering Heights’ in 2016, spurred by the Syrian refugee crisis that led to large migrant camps such as the Calais Jungle in France (as seen in the play “The Jungle” that came to the Curran in 2019).

“Of the many conversations that were happening, one of them was how many unaccompanied child refugees would Britain be willing to take in,” Rice recalls. “And I can remember raging at the radio, ‘Take them all, for goodness’ sake!’ If we can’t take in the most vulnerable human beings on the planet, we have no right to be frightened of what might happen to us in 20 years. And I thought, wasn’t Heathcliff an unaccompanied child refugee? So I pulled down my copy, and he was. He was found on the Liverpool docks. He has dark skin and dark hair, and he speaks a foreign language that nobody understands. In my version, I can remember when I decided to write in the words, ‘Be careful what you seed.’ If we do not seed compassion and care, be careful what happens.”

Rice describes her adaptation as “epic, elemental, musical, and hopeful.” As Berkeley audiences have learned to expect from her work, it’s full of music and dance, puppets and dynamic theatricality.

Rice does away with the character of Nelly Dean, the chatty servant who narrates most of the novel, replacing her with the Yorkshire Moors themselves personified as a sort of Greek chorus.

“I don’t really find adapting hard, because you have to be so simple,” Rice says. “You have to know what the best bits are and then thread them together. The hardest job is to distill such a huge, rich novel into under three hours. And there’s another job, which I love, which is making it understandable, because it’s a very confusing book. All the names sound the same, and everybody’s related. But I love that, because my background is in telling stories to children. So I feel that I’m very good at saying, Don’t worry, we’re going to look after you.”

Contact Sam Hurwitt at shurwitt@gmail.com, and follow him at Twitter.com/shurwitt.

‘WUTHERING HEIGHTS’

Adapted by Emma Rice from the novel by Emily Brontë, presented by Berkeley Repertory Theatre

When: Nov. 18-Jan. 1

Where: Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theatre, 2025 Addison St., Berkeley

Tickets: $19.50-$124; 510-647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org

Playwright Dustin H. Chinn pulls that background into center stage in “Colonialism Is Terrible, but Pho Is Delicious,” his new play now premiering at Berkeley’s Aurora Theatre Company.

It’s a play in three scenes, each set in a different era. In 1889 Vietnam (then French Indochina), a superb local chef is urged to swallow her pride and cook French food for a French aristocrat with no interest in sampling the local cuisine. In 1999 Ho Chi Minh City, two American travelers nervously get their first taste of the Vietnamese noodle soup pho from the best roadside stall in town. And in present-day Brooklyn, an arrogant white American chef who insists on dictating how diners eat his pho sparks a standoff about cultural appropriation.

It’s a funny, thought-provoking and well-crafted play deftly directed by Oánh Nguyen, artistic director of Anaheim’s Chance Theatre. Its Aurora production is the first in a rolling world premiere that will go to the Chance and to Oregon Contemporary Theatre next year, each production directed by Nguyen.

Mikiko Uesugi’s versatile set nicely conveys very different settings and eras with just a few changes, and Maggie Whitaker’s costumes give a great sense of both period and class. Stebbins’ elegant dress bedecked with ruffles in the first scene tells a whole story on its own. James Ard’s sound design adds tension with ominous music underscoring certain moments.

Developed in Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s 2017 The Ground Floor summer residency and Playwrights Foundation’s 2018 Bay Area Playwrights Festival, the play was initially inspired by a couple of stories about “whitesplaining” Asian food that went viral in 2016, most notably a Bon Appetit post in which a white chef advised how people “should” eat pho.

Chinn’s vignettes paint a much larger and more nuanced picture viewed obliquely from a few different angles, all centered in one way or another around soup.

The same four actors compellingly and comically embody different roles in each section. Nicole Tung plays two acerbic cooks unimpressed by outsiders and a confident customer, each unafraid to speak her mind. Anthony Doan is a cringing steward, a glad-handing tourism official and a pretentious restaurant manager.

Elissa Beth Stebbins is a snobbish aristocrat ceaselessly fanning herself in the heat, an ingratiating tourist speaking broken Vietnamese and a well-intentioned noodle blogger. Joseph Patrick O’Malley plays a smoothly confident French chef, a traveler amusingly stumbling to make himself understood, and a pompous and conceited restaurant chef.

When people are speaking Vietnamese we hear standard American English, while foreigners speak in hilariously exaggerated French or cowboy accents.

Although the characters are different in every era, there are certain commonalities. Tung is always a sardonic, formidable badass, and Doan always a bit of a suck-up and sellout.

At the same time, they’re more complicated than simple types. O’Malley and Tung’s Victorian-era cooks find common ground over the craft and practicalities of food preparation, and in the present day Tung and Stebbins’ characters have a palpably close friendship unshaken by a whole lot of teasing and some hard truths.

As the title suggests, Chinn raises important issues while resisting easy answers in potent and often hilarious ways. Like any well-crafted dish, the play offers a whole lot to savor.

Contact Sam Hurwitt at shurwitt@gmail.com, and follow him at Twitter.com/shurwitt.

‘COLONIALISM IS TERRIBLE, BUT PHO IS DELICIOUS’

By Dustin Chinn, presented by Aurora Theatre Company

Through: Dec. 4

Where: Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison Street, Berkeley (also streaming Nov. 29- Dec. 4)

Running time: 95 minutes, no intermission

Tickets: $20-$75; 510-843-4822, www.auroratheatre.org