Hello, beautiful people. Here’s what you’re doing this weekend.
Mama Buzz’ Final Show
Visitors to MamaBuzzCafe.com will receive an arresting surprise this week: some random placeholder ads and the message “This domain has expired.” Unfortunately it’s not an error. After almost ten years in business, the cafe — a longtime hub for in-the-know Berkeley undergrads, art school experimenters, self-employed writers and thinkers, and new musicians of all inclinations — is facing closure after losing its lease. And unless matters improve, it’ll have to shut its doors on January 1. So with its future still up in the air, Mama Buzz is spending the month of December reluctantly wrapping things up and celebrating nearly a decade of local culture. On Saturday, December 17, the cafe holds its final show, featuring Street Eaters, Heist, Know Your Saints, Great Apes, and Company. The event also has an added philanthropic element: In an attempt to strike a charitable chord with the DIY community, the show will include a canned-food drive to benefit the Alameda County Food Bank. Each can or boxed-food item will count as a dollar off the $5 suggested donation. That seems apropos of the Mama Buzz ethos. It started out as a scrappy eatery and became a veritable institution, without letting go of its roots. It will surely be mourned and missed. — Will Butler
God’s Plot
Only a playwright like Mark Jackson would have the audacity to dredge up and dramatize the first play ever staged in America — a colonial satire called YeBarre, Ye Cubbe. And interestingly enough, it’s still timely. Turns out the colonists were using a bear and cub to protest an unfair taxation system, which was funneling all the profits from their tobacco bumper crop back to rich aristocrats in England. Sound familiar? Jackson doesn’t shy away from political subtexts in his own updated rendition, but what he’s mostly interested in is the colonists’ fixation with religion. The title of his play, God’s Plot, derives from the idea that Puritans thought they were acting out a grand play for God — thus, they spent their lives performing, confessing, acting penitent, and always watching one another. The conceit is fairly cerebral, but the execution is thoroughly engaging, especially since it’s staged as a musical. Daveen Di Giacomo wrote the score; Nina Ball designed the stark, churchy set; Juliana Lustenader and Carl Holvick-Thomas star. Through Jan. 15 at The Ashby Stage (1901 Ashby Ave., Berkeley). $18-$27. ShotgunPlayers.org or 510-841-6500 — Rachel Swan
