Review by Robert Avila for SF Bay Guardian

Shotgun Founder Dooley Aims Play 'In Your Face'

SF Bay Guardian

The Vampires
La Val's Subterranean Theater, 1834 Euclid, Berk; (510)
704-8210. $10-20. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through May 10.

Shotgun Players presents Harry Kondoleon's vicious but delicious family farce, a suburban nightmare haunted by a frustrated nonconformist, Ian (Patrick Dooley), making the short career hop from misanthropic theater critic to vampire. Ian has already set into his budding bad playwright of a brother Ed (Dave Maier) with a blood-drawing review of Ed's patriotic play about, yeah, America. Now he's onto his repressively good-natured wife, C.C. (Beth Donahue), with teeth bared. But families are a pain in the ass, and everybody's a bloodsucker here. Ed's wife, Pat (Kimberly Wilday), their wayward goth child, Zivia (Nina Auslander), and local snake-oil mystic Porter (Robert Martinez) are all part of the pack. Joan McBrien directs a cast with solid comic timing and a relish for their roles. At the black heart of this story is Kondoleon's clever if not always successful satire of suburbia's spiritual death, and the longing for purpose among the characters takes on absurd manifestations that prove all too familiar. Where nothing is sacred, everything is permitted. And these guys wouldn't know the sacred if it walked up and bit them. (Avila)

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Review can be seen online here:
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/issues/2003-04-23/theater.html/1/index.cfml