Stupidity and Sisters

If you are in Berkeley and looking for an evening's fun along with good pizza and excellent beer, you might head over to LaVal's on the North Side and see "A History of Human Stupidity." It's not Monty Python but it's wacky and the five women are all excellent performers. This is The Great Plotnik's idea of Dinner Theater at its best. You inhale beer, slurp pizza and watch funny people make you laugh while having a lot of fun themselves on stage.



They say this is what the Globe Theater was like in Shakespeare's time -- ok, maybe "Stupidity" isn't Shakespeare but it's a whole lot better than staying home watching Law and Order CSI-Milpitas.

You can read The San Francisco Theater Blog review of "A History of Human Stupidity" here, but remember that review is intended for theater-goers. We are all multi-faceted. If one of your facets just happens to include slapstick, live performance, pizza and beer, you can't go wrong here. But they're only at LaVal's through April 25 so plan accordingly.

Were you wondering when was the last time Plotnik, Berkeley graduate, had a pizza at LaVal's? (Actually, he's thinking he reviewed another show here a few years ago for AOL and may have even had pizza that night. But go with him here, for the sake of the blogosphere.) The last time Plotnik ate pizza at LaVal's was most likely some time in 1965. That was the last time he lived on the North Side of Berkeley, in Mrs. Nesbit's one-room basement with the rented piano, the view of the Golden Gate, and Mrs. Nesbit, who periodically burst into the apartment: "I'm just checkin' to see if yiz has any women down here."

You probably didn't know that Plotnik had sisters. He didn't either, until he lived in Mrs. Nesbit's basement and occasionally one of his sisters might come over, you know, for tea. ("Yiz say this is yer sister too? How many you got, anyway?")

He can't really remember rolling down the hill to LaVal's in 1965, but he had a job umpiring high school and semipro baseball that year so he would have had a little pizza change in his pocket.

He also gave guitar lessons to sorority girls. Jeez, what a year.

Laval's hasn't changed at all, but the neighborhood has. It was kind of rowdy in those days and there certainly wasn't any shawarma place next door nor yoga studio down the block.

You might sense that Plotnik still has a lot of fond memories of being a Berkeley student and you'd be right.