Berkeley Rep Opens Season With Local Author’s Yellowjackets

A young playwright Itamar Moses—a product of Berkeley High, based the “Yellowjackets” on his own high school experiences, but this is not your regular coming of age story. The show, directed by Tony Taccone and presented by a talented cast (everyone plays two roles—a teenager and an adult), raises an evergreen question of racial and ethnic tensions in the realm of public education. Based on ignorance, prejudice and stereotyping, usually dragged to schools from families, those tensions manifest themselves through bullying, violence, and creeping moral pressure on one side, and complicity, struggle for compromise, and wishful thinking on the other. The playwright, who calls himself “firmly left of center, politically” and “pretty moderate” was quoted by Berkeley Rep literary manager, Madeleine Oldham, as saying “My sense of the political spectrum is that it’s actually a circle, in that if you go far enough to the left you land back on totalitarianism.” The play was commissioned by the theatre obviously for the benefit of local audiences, but its relevance exceeds the locale and encompasses school-related body of problems everywhere. “Yellowjackets” runs through October 12. Tickets start with $27, half-price for those under 30 y.o. Call 510-647-2949 or www.berkeleyrep.orgAmaya Alonso Hallifax and Ben Freeman star in the world premiere of Itamar Moses’ Yellowjackets at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Photo courtesy of www.kevinberne.com