D A V I D   B A R T H

WRITER  -  DIRECTOR

David Barth is a playwright and director, whose eleven produced plays (New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco) include "Hard Right", Off-Broadway New York, "A Dance Along the Precipice," by San Francisco's Intersection for the Arts, "The Last Frontier," commissioned by the Magic Theater; "Unt Gretel," commissioned by American Conservatory Theater's Encore Theater; "Spook's Lament," commissioned by the Climate Theater; as well as "The Porterhouse Uprising," "The Chicken Press," "The Heel" and "Rat Pie." He is the recipient of numerous grants and commissions including a "Goldie" from the San Francisco Bay Guardian, a Gerbode Foundation Grant, an Edward F. Albee Foundation Fellowship, and a former Resident Artist at the Intersection for the Arts and The Julian Theater. As a director Barth received a "Bernie Award" from the San Francisco Chronicle and worked at The Intersection for the Arts, Dude Theater, Club Foot and under his own company Racket Theater. His work has been published in “Zyzzyva”.  He has also taught playwriting at San Francisco's Z Space. 

VARIETY 

"the laughs kept coming... engrossing.... Barth has created such a visceral display of violence that viewers could be shuddering at its power or laughing at its outsized intensity."

"A swift kick in the gut"

THEATER TALK Hard Right

"...You can't take your eyes away...A log-flume ride...An entertaining, satirical, nightmarish 'what if' on just how close our government may be to totalitarianism...I can't stop watching."

THE NEW YORK TIMES (online readers pick) Hard Right

"paranoid nightmare.. So what about Bob? Does he symbolize anxiety about surveillance, an overreaching government or the invasion of privacy? Perhaps." 

SHOW BUSINESS (critic's pick) Hard Right

"David Barth's Hard Right...a typical "Meet the Parents" setup turns sinister with the arrival of Bob (played with remarkable versatility by Dylan Price)""...a jarring, unpredictable ride driven by a compelling cast." 

VARIETY The Last Frontier

"San Francisco's most promising young playwright.... his bare-bones language style (sometimes bordering on surreal) owes some debt to Pinter, Shepard and Beckett, But his voice has its own distinctive power...It's riveting stuff."

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

"....no single writer captures the agitated uncertain spirit of the times more completely."

BAY GUARDIAN The Heel

"...has distinguished himself as a fresh, quirky absurdist...his willingness to look hard at his own generation, -a new kind of lost generation –is discomforting and brave."

YALE THEATER MAGAZINE

"[Barth] Shows no mercy, always putting the central character at the point where he is about to be crunched by the system."

THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE The Heel

"...Barth establishes his own literary territory and compellingly yanks us along for the ride."

LOS ANGELES READER The Chicken Press

"This play is riveting from the get go.... enthralling in its simplicity."