“A sound of river currents crash in the background as a woman looks chillingly beyond the audience... It is the stillness of moments like these that are filled with a dramatic musical hum that gives the entire play a memorable hypnotic power… The story and the excellent acting captivated the audience for the entire show. The issues that the play deals with are timely and reasons alone to watch the play.” 

– THE DAILY CALIFORNIAN

“Unsettling yet absorbing… Jackson brings forth the central issues of Ibsen’s original with keen psychological insight. Marriage and mortality, ambition and narcissism, incest, parenthood and social responsibility swirl through this heady, intensely focused production… Little Erik is concerned with cold truths, and Jackson keeps them coming, right up to the play’s seismic coda.” 

– SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER

“A savage and free-wheeling adaption… It’s the best play the Aurora Theatre Company has produced in some time. Ibsen was a master at giving his supposedly respectable audiences a taste of their own trash, and Jackson has the same nasty impulse here to skewer the bourgeoisie on the corpses of their children… Jackson forces us to take account of how we mis-perceive the world. The symbolic elements of Little Erik aren’t there as an aesthetic, but rather as a strategy to a more forceful realism and accounting of the world.” 

– KQED.ORG

“Little Erik tackles a slew of weighty themes, from guilt to technological dependence. And Jackson uses his vast experience as a playwright and director to plumb each with the tenacity that has earned him a reputation as one of the Bay Area's most intelligent auteurs… The most inventive strength of Jackson's Little Erik lies not in its commentary about anger or betrayal, of which there is plenty. Rather, it's in the production's ability to convincingly characterize a Bay Area fueled by a dependency on technology.” 

– EAST BAY EXPRESS

“Taut and at times brutally frank… It plays out in a mix of realism, mysticism and caricature, and of dramatic tension and social satire that varies from engrossing to confounding. …A richly nuanced and uncomfortable study in class prejudice and injustice… Jackson has raised the bar in terms of Freddie and Andi’s mutual attraction, to riveting effect.”

– SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

“Jackson, always a theatrical adventurer, from The Death of Meyerhold to Now for Now, smacks all the cobwebs out of Ibsen's text with a vividly contemporary take on the fractured family drama… Jackson's adaptation astutely sharpens the edge of the play… There is no denying that you walk away from the theater wrestling with the issues that shape all of our lives.”

– SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS

“The cryptic atmosphere, quickly established in director Mark Jackson’s taut 75-minute production, is part of the pleasure of John W. Lowell’s psychological thriller… Jackson’s crisp direction is aided by Maya Linke’s claustrophobic set.”

SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER

“Slyly directed by Mark Jackson… Ambiguity reigns in this dark parable, which certainly resonates in today's landscape, where mindless corporate doublespeak and radical restructuring of the workforce have become the norm. Jackson, always a visually bold director, uses a tight space to evoke the choking claustrophobia of this era. …It's quite chilling, even surprising. Perhaps the most piercing aspect of The Letters is how Jackson subtly turns us all into voyeurs, peeking at a man and a woman through heavy blinds, hanging on every sordid twist and turn.”

SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS

“Jackson and the cast keep the tension taut through all the twists and turns and just-one-more-things, helping skew the viewer’s understanding of what’s going on while the stakes seem to get higher and higher.”

KQED ARTS

“Attention must be paid. And, dear comrades, is it ever in The Letters. The small sea of heads in the rows in front of me at Aurora Theatre's newly unveiled second stage never wavered from pinpoint focus toward the stage… The play is schematic by design, and director Mark Jackson's production confidently hits the beats laid out by the playwright.”

BAY AREA REPORTER

“Full-fledged Hitchcockian suspense… The resurgence of Russian homophobia and revelations of our own surveillance state and out-of-control interrogations have made The Letters seem unusually timely. Jackson and his actors capture that immediacy without ever making it needlessly explicit.”

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

"Riveting... staged with depth and insight by director Mark Jackson to spellbinding effect... Beth Wilmurt gives a tightly coiled performance as Maureen, and Joy Carlin is mesmerizing as the crafty Mag."

SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER

"One thing that's so striking about Beauty Queen is how slowly and effectively it creeps up on you... It's an often hilarious play that puts you through the emotional wringer before it's through."

MARIN INDEPENDENT JOURNAL

"Jackson turns the received template for Beauty Queen on its head. Ever since Garry Hines' Druid Theatre premiere, the monstrously selfish shut-in mother Mag has savored her endless battle with her embittered 40-year-old daughter Maureen in broad strokes... Jackson reverses that approach even before the play starts. Nina Ball's striking set is a sparely furnished cottage floor, without walls, floating in a metaphoric inky-blue or grunge-yellow space. The realism is in the props and sound effects, but more so in the performances. The necessary shut-in claustrophobia is provided by Jackson and his actors... The fast pace is one of the show's strengths, heightening the comic tension. As the rich textures of McDonagh's stage Irish mingle with those of the performances, Jackson's Beauty Queen builds to a scarifying but moving finale."

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

"Director Mark Jackson’s cast is uniformly excellent... With their talents, Beauty Queen always entertains, but its true payoff comes toward the end."

THE SPLIT END

"Director Mark Jackson’s production for Marin Theatre Company etches [the relationships] with realism and a savory dash of melodrama. ...A finely detailed portrait of a mother and daughter that is so fraught, you flinch and still you can’t turn away... It’s hard to ask for much more from a two-hour evening of theater... Director Jackson and his excellent cast don’t go for sensationalism as much as cringe-inducing shock... The most extraordinary thing about this production is the tension between Wilmurt and Carlin, two ferociously good actors creating a mother-daughter bond that is palpable. And terrifying."

THEATREDOGS.NET

"An explosive, funny play... The four actors under the direction of Mark Jackson deliver the language so compellingly... Jackson’s staging allows the characters to develop without overdramatizing... A stunning play in a stunning production."

MILL VALLEY PATCH

“Adapter and director Mark Jackson has made Friedrich Schiller's vintage play Mary Stuart into a taut religious and political thriller… The show crackles with contemporary sensibilities… It all plays out in bold strokes, flashing lights, masterful video work and incredible direction by Jackson. And the cast is top-notch.” 

SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS

“Jackson's production is thrilling. I loved the taut-lyrical text which balances a contemporary feel with a timeless lyricism, the simmering rage of the characters, the rigorous and compelling performances from all members of the cast – without exception – and moments of gravelly humor. The push-pull of the relationship between Beth Wilmurt as Queen Elizabeth and Stephanie Gularte as Mary – actresses who match pride with sensitivity – keeps us constantly engaged.”

LIES LIKE TRUTH (artsjournal.com)

“A claustrophobic immorality play, a paranoid thriller… Jackson sets the play in the present, but his production feels unsettlingly atemporal… Mary Stuart is a chilling piece… Mark Jackson's stark vision looks and feels Orwellian. It works for 1568, 1800 or 2010 but on the Ashby Stage, it feels frighteningly intimate.”

THE DAILY CALIFORNIAN

“Director Mark Jackson has adapted the play into a modern political thriller, with terrorism, national security and sexual tension each playing their part as Mary struggles for her life… Jackson's fast-paced production easily builds tension with his rhythmic use of language punctuated with total silence.”

CONTRA COSTA TIMES

“Director Mark Jackson's radical adaptation is as stark, direct and unornamented as the corporate walls of Nina Ball's set, and as cruel as a conspirator's smile. Jackson has stripped more than an hour, maybe a dozen characters and a lot of romanticism from Schiller's overstuffed text. What he's lost in terms of scope he more than makes up for in the heightened immediacy of the psychological conflicts… The essence of the broader stakes remains, with sharper currency, in the riveting verbal duels, plots and jockeying for power… A shocking splatter of gore, the startling appearance of a mirror, a stately transformation of Ball's set – Jackson uses everything, along with surveillance videos and Jacob Petrie's slyly shifting lights, to enhance the focus on the queens… It's a thoroughly gripping modern political thriller.”

Named one of the best Bay Area theater productions of 2010. 

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

“Characters enter, they talk, someone leaves. That's it. The few times (you can count them on one hand) they actually touch each other are so shocking it's electric. But the electricity is real: The dialogue, semi-adapted for modern times, shines — and the actors carry a charge… The compelling character conflicts and parallels with our own time make the dramatic tension, in a story whose outcome we already know, nothing short of intense.” 

SF WEEKLY

“In adapting Schiller’s verse play, Jackson hacks it to under two hours, reduces the cast to eight actors, puts them all in modern dress, and unbelievably, creates a tense, taut, engaging, and yes, modern political thriller. …Jackson is working with the play he’s got. He’s not embellishing and he’s not shoehorning it into some modern parallel: he does nothing obvious or contrived. He allows the show to resonate naturally with contemporary audiences, and surprisingly, it does… Jackson has created a smart and enthralling version of Schiller’s lumbering 'classic.'  …It’s actually difficult to tell whether it’s 400 years ago in England or yesterday in America, and that’s a major accomplishment. Mark Jackson and the Shotgun Player’s Mary Stuart is great theater.” 

SCENE 2

“A nail-bitingly tense political drama full of convoluted machinations. It’s The West Wing as Machiavelli might have written it.” 

THEIDIOLECT.COM

“Jackson's new two-act adaptation of Mary Stuart crackles with tension, political intrigue, guilt, rage, and deceit.” 

MYCULTURALLANDSCAPE.COM

“A near-perfect play… It’s intimidatingly smart – in a good way.”

EAST BAY EXPRESS

“Dazzling… Jackson’s free adaptation of the Goethe play clocks in at just under two hours, and, happily, it’s a challenge. This is a disciplined, intentional piece of theater awash in rigorous direction, a simple but aesthetically astute production and a script that crackles with poetry, comedy and terror… Jackson’s performance is virtuoso.”

THEATERDOGS.NET

“This Shotgun Players world premiere showcases Jackson's breathtaking range of gifts. One of the Bay Area's most consistently inventive stage auteurs, Jackson is often hailed for his highly stylized fusion of expressionist techniques with balletic movement as well as his boundless sense of ambition. Here he co-directs, writes and stars… It’s a two-hour theatrical adventure that's as intellectually rigorous as it is bold and hot-blooded... Jackson is riveting.”

SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS

“Sure, compact, and invigorating… Although the text has been trimmed and jiggered greatly, Jackson's version — alive and lively in rhyming verse — strikes a confident, highly effective balance between his own visually striking exegesis and a deep-seated fidelity to the poetical and dramatic spirit of Goethe's glorious closet play. Essaying the title role himself with considerable wit and panache, Jackson leads a winning cast in the kind of dynamic, precisely choreographed neoexpressionist production he has made a hallmark of his work.”

SAN FRANCISCO BAY GUARDIAN

“Tightly written and beautifully constructed… There are moments of stark beauty and incomparable emotion… Huge praise must go to Jackson… His performance as Faust is breathtaking… He shows a tremendous range in his character development, eliciting both revulsion and empathy throughout... Jackson's adaptation leaves many of the story's conclusions to the audience. And that may be what works best of all in this story – it plays across the mind for quite awhile after the final blackout.”

CONTRA COSTA TIMES

“An exhilarating experience… This is a funny Faust, but an intellectually stimulating, startlingly bloody and emotionally gripping one as well… Jackson pulls us in with his rigorously stylized focus, using exaggerated gestures and pauses to layer Goethe's satire on philosophy, politics and religion with the comedy of Faust's intellectual arrogance… Stark, funny, sobering and provocative, this is a Faust for our times.”

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

“Arrestingly stripped-down in all aspects save its rich, elegant language, this take on the classic morality play has an intellectual and physical rigor that's at once ironically distancing and quite inviting… It's to the great credit of Jackson, fellow cast members and co-helmer Kevin Clarke that the play's first 40 minutes – in which near-stationary thesps scarcely exhaust even the sliver of stage space they're allotted – nonetheless have viewers hanging on every nuance… There's a stylized economy at work… This magnifying-glass presentation, in which small detail looms extra-large, also serves to focus attention on Jackson's text. His occasionally rhymed and metered language is full to bursting. Within their formalist framework the actors do very striking work, creating figures both archetypal and emotionally immediate.”

VARIETY

“Director Mark Jackson knows how to make the emotional impact sneak up on you. Masterful! …You’ll be knocked out by this play. Its impact in enormous.”

BEYONDCHRON.COM

“Mark Jackson’s luminous new production, while never relinquishing Strindberg’s naturalism, lets the play’s heightened emotions rise and radiate throughout the Aurora’s intimate space to create an atmosphere of almost unbearable tension.”

ARTSF.COM

“So many things happen in the pauses within Mark Jackson's staging of August Strindberg's Miss Julie that they almost constitute a parallel text… Without unduly calling attention to itself, Jackson's approach takes Strindberg's long-banned but now oft-produced 1888 tragedy and makes it seem both familiar and remarkably new - even shocking.”

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

“Mark Jackson has quickly made his name as one of the most provocative stage auteurs in the Bay Area with his balletic approach to movement. In The Death of Meyerhold, he swept us away in an epic flow of theater, politics and history. In Salome, he transformed Oscar Wilde's classic into a highly stylized pageant of poetry and physicality. Now the adventurous director returns to the Aurora Theatre Company in Berkeley to mine the symphonic richness of stillness in August Strindberg… Silences explode like hand grenades in the opening scenes of this visually arresting revival of Miss Julie."

SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS

“Under the astute direction of Mark Jackson, one of the Bay Area’s most original and exciting directors, [the] production is full of potent moments strongly punctuated and expertly staged. The kissing of a shoe becomes an erotic dance. The pushing of a chair or the slamming of a beer bottle become well-placed exclamation points… Miss Julie is a play that wants to fly in the face of convention, and director Jackson delivers a heat-seeking production that is anything but conventional.”

THEATERDOGS.NET

“Miss Julie, directed by Mark Jackson, simply crackles with energy, realism and wit… This is a perfect night of theater.”

SF THEATER BLOG

“August Strindberg's wildly controversial play still has the power to shock, and, in Mark Jackson’s staging, to awe. At a brisk 90 minutes, Miss Julie had me mesmerized from the first moment to the last… The suspense was almost unbearable at times… This is what theater should be – emotional, raw, captivating, immediate. Go, and be transported.”

THE CANONICAL GLASS

“Director Mark Jackson's Macbeth is fast, sexy and bracingly contemporary… It's an inventive approach that focuses attention on the seductive perils of power… Jackson’s smartly tailored modern look turns the bright lights of a fashion show runway on a dark and endlessly evocative tale of how unscrupulous rulers can ruin a nation.”

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE / SFGATE.COM

“Not your grandmother’s Macbeth… Director Mark Jackson infuses one of Shakespeare’s most beloved tragedies with a modern sensibility, brewing a dark drama with bright lighting, a throbbing club base, and a fervid sexual energy… The thrust-like stage coupled with spot lighting on actors’ faces gives the impression and intensity of cinematic close-ups. The play is carried by strong leads as well as a unique blend of time-tested lines, fist-bumping swords, and a party atmosphere.”

WCITIES.NET

“A sizzling, 21st-Century Macbeth… Director Mark Jackson may have come up with the sexiest production of Macbeth going… Sparkling and scintillating… A wildly effective study of power and bloodlust.”

CONTRA COSTA TIMES

“Superlative directing and acting… If you like shockingly great theater, get thee to the Shotgun Players.”

ALAMEDA SUN

“Macbeth contrasts the city-slicker banality of the exterior world with a hell-raising internal life. Jackson and his partners in crime wallow in a remarkably convincing bloodbath — no small feat for the stage. The merciless choreography and extremely realistic wounds render the deaths of Banquo and Lady Macduff particularly chilling... The production burns with the same delusional energy of Ellis' thriller [American Psycho], to the point where we're not sure which is sicker: Macbeth and Bateman or the societies in which they live out their agitated fantasies… Haute couture is an effective and oft-used metaphor for a culture intent on suppressing its problems under a lustrous veneer. Jackson's Macbeth scrutinizes this mania with gaudy boldness.”

SF WEEKLY

“Mark Jackson’s portrayal of the conflict keeps the original tone of a flexible moral structure, but lightens up the stage palette and modernizes the characters. He keeps the upsetting, brutal and cynical aspects of the original, but adds just a hint of dark humor… The staging is lively and Jackson’s interpretation of this classic brings it into our era and presents venal, amoral characters we might even be personally acquainted with. This Shakespeare comes alive in the present moment.”

SAN FRANCISCO BAY TIMES

“A stimulating, modern production… High-speed, sensuous and exciting… Mark Jackson's direction is sleek and rich, and he gives the audience a refreshing, up to date Macbeth.”

TALKINBROADWAY.COM

“Touching and ever so subtle… A glowing performance… This was global art small in scale, big in impact… A dance theater piece of striking originality…”

DANCE VIEW TIMES

“Masterfully performed… A funny, tragic and touching performance. Unlike most theatre done in English in North America, this was actually theatre, not just live television, and the performers themselves created the various spaces, times and atmospheres of the play using their bodies, voices and three chairs. In a year where I think I only saw one other interesting and well made theatre piece this was absolutely a highlight.”

THE DANCING WORD

“Yes Yes to Moscow – one of the best things to happen on any Bay Area stage in 2008 – managed to capture the essence of Chekhov's Three Sisters to a degree most big-budget, straight-ahead productions could only envy... Wonderfully deft, insouciant, and absolutely telling…”

SAN FRANCISCO BAY GUARDIAN

“In their wry, allusive, funny and surprisingly touching Yes Yes to Moscow, Mark Jackson and his international collaborators use dance, reiterated passages from Three Sisters, song, clinical inquiry and sharply focused acting to probe the sisters' futures within their eternal present… It's a strangely absorbing piece that leaves an afterglow.”

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

“A wickedly funny, wonderfully warped mish-mash of human desperation, celebrity lust and good old American zeal… American $uicide, in all its grandly theatrical glory, [is] a comedy to die for.”

OAKLAND TRIBUNE

“As director and writer, Jackson handles this rich comic material with great skill.”

MARIN INDEPENDENT JOURNAL

“Fast, funny and densely satiric, it's also strikingly designed, brilliantly performed, and directed by the author with the sharp, eclectic inventiveness that marked his stagings of Oscar Wilde's Salome at Aurora, his own extended The Forest War for Shotgun and his breakthrough The Death of Meyerhold in 2003.”

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

“Jackson is one of the few true rising stars of the Bay Area theater scene… American $uicide strongly affirms Jackson's position as one of our most ambitious playwrights and directors. The play is at once a savage diatribe against the debilitating impact on the individual of this country's throwaway, media-saturated, dumbed-down culture, while at the same time an exercise in careening physical farce…. Jackson succeeds in making us feel like the characters in his play: giddy and hyperventilating and high.”

SF WEEKLY

“That the play feels so effortlessly precise makes one appreciate even more the achievement of writer-director Mark Jackson, whose brilliantly staged adaptation of Nikolai Erdman's The Suicide turns the Soviet playwright's banned 1929 tragifarce into a piercingly funny satire on the American way of death.”

SAN FRANCISCO BAY GUARDIAN

“Mark Jackson is one of the hottest playwrights in the Bay Area, and each play he writes is received with great anticipation… Jackson is able to combine brainpower, passion and devilish wit in all of his plays… [American $uicide] is a perceptive commentary on American society's fascination with the media… This sardonic farce is unlike anything you have ever seen.”

TALKINBROADWAY.COM

“A truly transcendent comedy… The laughs begin immediately in the Encore Theatre Company/Z Plays production of American $uicide… But writer/director Mark Jackson has more up his sleeve than easy yuks… America’s obsession with fame and fortune spins absurdly, riotously out of control. Along the way, Jackson pokes fun at every American archetype… Altogether, this show is a delight.”

SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER

“It's been a few weeks since I saw American $uicide… But I can still see and feel the throbbing pulse of the final scene, when one power-glazed manipulator after another urges the hero on toward a fatal celebrity.”

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE (April 2007 feature article on local theater)

“When art speaks truth, it hurts, and it never hurts so much as in Mark Jackson's stylish new play The Forest War… Written and directed with imaginative flair… the imagery is power-packed, and worthy of a story that looks like it will already be the stuff of legend.”

KQED.ORG

“The last time Shotgun Players and writer/director Mark Jackson teamed up, the result was 2003's The Death of Meyerhold, one of the most bracing new works to come out of the Bay Area in some time. As Jackson once again demonstrated in the Aurora Theatre Company's season-opening Salome, his is a distinctively theatrical voice that combines intelligence, emotion and high-minded aesthetics. In The Forest War, Jackson's latest collaboration with Shotgun at Berkeley's Ashby Stage, we get all of the above and a whole lot more. …The Forest War is full of pleasures both visceral and intellectual.”

OAKLAND TRIBUNE

“The Forest War marks Jackson’s second collaboration with Shotgun, and its powerful, graceful debut suggests Meyerhold's chemistry was no fluke… A visual banquet with a palpitating dramatic energy behind it, all operating with a precise economy of movement, gesture, and sign… Jackson directs his actors beautifully, extracting performances that breathe individually and expansively inside the productively strict choreography and caricature demanded.”

SAN FRANCISCO BAY GUARDIAN

“Beauty, grace, passion, immediacy and moments of dramatic power. …Jackson is a master of intensely stylized, physically based stagings in a variety of styles. …Each of the many deaths [in the play] is a stroke of theatrical genius employing red scarves and stark white parasols – an effect that builds to a stunning climax in the finale.”

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

“As a director, Jackson gets an emotional depth charge from the excellent acting ensemble… He is able to frame his vision of war in a timeless theatrical way...”

PACIFIC SUN

“Mark Jackson's The Forest War weaves a tale that's as old as the trees and still somehow feels like a spring sapling… Jackson drives his epic plot along with prose that's as muscular as it is bewitching. Swaggering political speeches melt into lines of lyrical sweetness… Jackson seems a natural heir to the celebrated French director Ariane Mnouchkine… Jackson creates a physical environment that flawlessly encapsulates his theme: the simultaneous dissonance and harmony between two very different ways of being.”

SF WEEKLY

“This is a gutsy show. …It's beautiful and powerful. Jackson has an eye for the show-ending image, and his Forest War is a bold undertaking that uses ancient forms to tell a modern story of love, politics, and needless bloodshed.”

EAST BAY EXPRESS

“The richness of Wilde's dialogue is well served in Aurora Theatre's production, directed by Mark Jackson, the acclaimed writer and director of Shotgun Players' 2003 hit The Death of Meyerhold. …The use of Aurora's theater in the round is striking.”

EAST BAY EXPRESS

“Stunning! Powerful! …The direction by Mark Jackson made this play emotionally rigorous!”

BEYONDCHRON.ORG

“Alternately beguiling and terrifying… While Mark Jackson’s Aurora Theatre directorial debut is not one of his accomplished self-penned offerings, it nonetheless enhances his reputation for physically stylized theater with a penchant for seducing the cerebral cortex.”

SAN FRANCISCO BAY GUARDIAN

"Elegantly depraved, tastefully decadent, wickedly funny… Aurora Theatre's production of Salome can be enjoyed as a rollicking piece of all-out theatricality, or – for those with a more psychological bent – an autobiographical examination of Wilde's social sexuality… Aurora's Salome is the delightful sort of theater that allows you to engage both your imagination and intellect on many different levels… Although the story remains quite shocking, it is almost incidental to the production, which focuses more on Wilde's incredible word-wrangling, a stylized sort of presentation by director Mark Jackson, and a cast of actors who create characters so captivating that simply watching them venture through the tale makes the journey at least as satisfying as the destination.”

CONTRA COSTA TIMES

“The Aurora Theatre has evolved into one of the hot venues in the Bay Area.  Its current Salome by Oscar Wilde will add to its fame… The play is cleverly adapted and directed by Mark Jackson with significant and intelligent changes… [It] becomes a kind of Greek tragedy where the suspense builds up, despite our knowing the outcome… We are on the edge of our seats during the entire play… This is a play to see this season.” 

ARTSSF.COM

“It’s hard to stage Salome today. …Director Mark Jackson’s production goes all out. …The effect of not quite knowing how seriously to take this play is disconcerting. Watching Salome, I found myself unable to distinguish between what I was feeling and an uneasy sensation that I ought to be feeling something else. …My confusion could be a sign of artistic brilliance on the part of both the playwright and the production.”

SF WEEKLY

“The 90-minute, one-act play is still rarely performed, perhaps because of its stilted language… Luckily for Aurora Theatre Company audiences, the play is in good hands, thanks to Mark Jackson's adaptation and direction… It's a fascinating, absorbing production with carefully crafted performances that rivet one's attention.”

AISLESAY.COM

“A wild visual and emotional ride, rampant with poetic excess… Director Mark Jackson skillfully utilizes visual opposites in bold statements and in the small details.”

SAN FRANCISCO BAY TIMES

“Mark Jackson's sleek, intensely stylized Art Deco staging matched Oscar Wilde's ornate, artificial language to bring out the sensual and religious intensity as well as the fear and loathing in King Herod's court, with a terrific cast headed by Ron Campbell's salacious king.”

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE “Best of 2006” article

“Berkeley's Aurora Theatre Company opens its 15th season with a sure-footed lunge into some wonderfully wild theatrical territory. …Wilde wanted to shock his Victorian audience with a biblical story juiced up with florid prose and rampant perversity. We're a lot harder to shock, so director Mark Jackson doesn't even try. With its three gory deaths, near pedophilia and actual necrophilia, Salome could be dripping with blood and creepy images. But Jackson is more interested in theatricality and language than realism, and that's a good thing for this 90-minute, one-act play.”

OAKLAND TRIBUNE

“I can't compare Aurora Theatre Company's production of Salome, directed by the wonderfully inventive Mark Jackson, to any other. But given Wilde's flowery, simile-laden, faux-biblical language and elongated, weirdly repetitive scenes, I can't imagine a better production. Difficult as it is, Jackson makes it somehow work. …Jackson, who specializes in movement-based performance, knows how to heighten the theatricality with acting that's broad, physical, and precisely stylized to good effect.”

BACK STAGE

“Many directors are scared off by this play's dense layers of overwrought poetry, heavy symbolism and highly stylized shifts in tone. But not Mark Jackson, who made his name with The Death of Meyerhold for Berkeley's Shotgun Players some years back. At the Aurora, he has subverted our expectations by setting the action in a dreamlike Jazz Age environment, casting actors who are up to the rigors of the text and finding the flecks of burlesque that shine brightly amid the tragedy. It's an intense production that sheds new light on the play's dark secrets… One moment overpowers the next throughout this 90-minute tour-de-fierce.”

SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS

“Mark Jackson's staging of Wilde's fairly rarely seen Salome, the Aurora Theatre's season opener, is a riveting experiment in creative tension between artistic, emotional and spiritual/fleshly extremes. Fierce and funny, as broadly caricatured as it is densely poetic, the show that opened Thursday inverts and subverts expectations to infuse uncommon life into a difficult text… The highly artificial dialogue, thick with overwrought metaphors, and the highly stylized characters have scuttled many a well-intentioned effort. Jackson confronts the artificiality head-on, with a terrific cast creating dynamic tension between broad caricatures and rigidly stylized, strikingly focused performances punctuated by riveting tableaux.”

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

At Mime Centrum with Beth Wilmurt and Sommer Ulrickson in February 2005, working on what would eventually become Yes Yes To Moscow in 2007.

At Mime Centrum with Beth Wilmurt and Sommer Ulrickson, February 2005.

Students in a Viewpoints workshop I taught at Mime Centrum in March 2005.

At Mime Centrum in July 2005, chatting with Gennadi Bogdanov, with whom I studied Meyerhold's Biomechanics annually from 2000 to 2005.

Students in the Viewpoints class I taught for the Theaterpädagogik program at Universtät der Künste Berlin, November 2005.

First day of tech for Yes Yes To Moscow at Deutsches Theater Berlin, October 2007.

Me outside Deutsches Theater Berlin during the run of Yes Yes To Moscow, October 2007.

Poster for Yes Yes to Moscow at Deutsches Theater Berlin, October 2007.

The lovely flat in Berlin's Neukölln district where I got a lot of writing done during my Fall 2013 residency with English Theatre Berlin.

At the Theater Unterm Dach's bar in 2013, visiting with German actor Tilla Kratochwill with whom I'd worked on Yes Yes to Moscow in 2007 and 2008.