San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Gomez goes back to school in her new solo show
Comedian and solo performer Marga Gomez has a profound, lyrical way with metaphor, but her style is so the opposite of artsy-fartsy or pretentious that her literary insights practically sneak in undercover.
With “Spanking Machine,” Gomez derives her title from a threat she remembers from grade school, where a so-called spanking machine was a horrible punishment waiting for bad kids always unseen in the next room.
Gomez weaves that image together with an array of scenes from her life that somehow all make sense together.
The spanking machine, it turns out, keeps menacing long after you can no longer get sent to the principal’s office. “Spanking Machine”: 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, Sept. 17-18. Through Oct. 23. $20-$100. The Marsh, 1062 Valencia St., S.F. 415-282-3055. www.the marsh.org