Freebie(s) of the week: This weekend offers a couple of events for those who want to keep the Lunar New Year celebration going. In San Francisco, the annual Lunar New Year Sunset Night Market runs 5 to 10 p.m. Friday along a five-block stretch of Irving Street (between 20th and 25th avenues). The event is inspired by the massive street markets you’ll find in Asian cities, which, first and foremost, means it’s highly unlikely that you’ll walk away feeling hungry. A wide variety of food vendors will be on hand offering a plethora of food items and takeout meals. You’ll also find a nice array of arts, crafts and other vendors on hand. More information is at sunsetmercantilesf.com. Meanwhile, Redwood City is celebrating the Year of the Horse from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday at the San Mateo County History Museum, 2200 Broadway. On Courthouse Square, you’ll find performances by lion dancers, martial artists and taiko drummers. The museum will also offer kids arts & crafts and other activities with a Lunar New Year theme. More information is at historysmc.org. And if markets are your thing, know that the massive and fun annual White Elephant Sale to benefit the Oakland Museum of California is heading into its final weekend, which means prices will be slashed and the bargains will be plentiful. And of course, the browsing is free. The sale runs 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at the White Elephant Sale Warehouse, 333 Lancaster St., Oakland. More information is at www.whiteelephantsale.org.
And they all fall down: Why would anyone in their right minds want to go see a 3½-hour play about a bank? The answer is yes when that bank is the former Lehman Brothers financial company and the play is “The Lehman Trilogy,” now playing at San Jose Stage Company. Stefano Massini’s intensely captivating drama about how the stunning collapse of the 158-year-old financial institution helped bring about the 2008 subprime-mortgage-fueled collapse is way more than a recounting of financial principles and theories. The 2013 play, which was nominated for eight Tony Awards and won five (including for best play) digs into the three brothers who founded the company and how they were propelled by the American Dream, only to eventually trigger what came close to being the destruction of the global economic order. The play came to American Conservatory Theater in 2024 — fresh off its smash London and Broadway runs — and was the talk of the San Francisco theater scene. San Jose Stage is featuring a different production and a different cast, but it’s the I-can’t-believe-this-happened story line that will keep you glued to your seat past two intermissions. “The Lehman Trilogy” runs through Sunday at San Jose Stage, 490 S. 1st St., San Jose; tickets are $34-$84; go to thestage.org.
Two for the road’s end? In what the Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts is dubbing “One Last Ride with the Assad Brothers,” Sérgio and Odair Assad will be appearing in recital at the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco at 7:30 p.m. Saturday. Now in their early 70s and both sporting distinguished, neatly trimmed silver beards, this fabulous classical guitar duo, called “the best two-guitar team in existence” by the Washington Post, has been wowing audiences across the world for six decades. Hailing from Brazil, where they trained in Rio de Janeiro, elder brother Sérgio now lives in New York, while Odair resides in Brussels — and this tour represents his first trip back to the United States since the end of the pandemic. While no information about the brothers’ recital program was available on the Omni website, works they performed by Sérgio himself, Villa-Lobos and Gismonti at a recent sold-out concert on this tour in Tucson, Arizona, brought the audience to its feet, and the evening there ended with Sérgio wrapping his arms around his brother’s shoulders for a four-hand, single guitar performance. Now, that’s togetherness! Tickets, $55-$75, are available through omniconcerts.com, and here is a video that demonstrates their prodigious talents: https://youtu.be/DYxTy1Ta-aM?si=7M0UPvIALiABrG_C
An unusual pairing: Another unique duo is scheduled to entertain us in the Bay Area this weekend, this time at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Walnut Creek, where married couple Rebecca Rust, a cellist, and Friedrich Edelmann, a bassoonist, have a program planned for a 7 p.m. recital. The American wife and her German husband (formerly the principal bassoonist at the Munich Philharmonic) have performed together all over the world, including appearances in France, Germany, the Czech Republic, Scotland, North Africa, China and Japan, in addition to the United States. Their repertoire extends from the Baroque to the Classical as well as ethnocentric works from Japan and Jewish Hassidic melodies. Their Saturday program consists of works by Couperin, Boccherini, Bach, Haydn, three Hassidic duets composed for them by Max Stern, Beethoven, Sher and two Japanese melodies, concluding with a rousing ragtime by Arthur Frackenpohl. The suggested donation is $20, or $10 for students, but as is usual with the St. Paul’s series, no one will be turned away for lack of funds. Find information, tickets and a link to an online performance at stpaulswc.org/concert-series.