this week in comedy

LOVE ROCKS NYC

Who: The Black Keys, Hozier, Nile Rodgers, Tom Morello, Don Felder, Bettye Lavette, Joss Stone, Allison Russell, Emily King, Marcus King, Lucius, Dave Grohl, Larkin Poe, Trombone Shorty, Luke Spiller, Quinn Sullivan, Bernie Williams, Conan O’Brien, Jim Gaffigan, Tracy Morgan, Martin Short, Ivan Neville, Jimmy Vivino
What: Benefit concert for God’s Love We Deliver
Where: Beacon Theatre, 2124 Broadway at 75th St.
When: Thursday, March 7, in person $284 – $1,252, livestream $19.99, 8:00
Why: A batch of new tickets has been released for the eighth annual Love Rocks NYC, an all-star benefit concert raising money for the New York City nonprofit, nonsectarian organization God’s Love We Deliver, which, since 1985, has dedicated itself “to improve the health and well-being of men, women, and children living with HIV/AIDS, cancer, and other serious illnesses by alleviating hunger and malnutrition.” Presented by fashion designer John Varvatos, real estate executive Greg Williamson, and events producer Nicole Rechter at the Beacon Theatre on March 7, the evening will feature performances by the Black Keys, Hozier, Nile Rodgers, Tom Morello, Don Felder, Bettye Lavette, Joss Stone, Lucius, Dave Grohl, Trombone Shorty, Bernie Williams, and more, with the house band consisting of music director and bandleader Will Lee, Michael Bearden, Steve Gadd, Shawn Pelton, Eric Krasno, Larry Campbell, Pedrito Martinez, and Jeff Babko. (A complete list can be found above.) This year’s hosts are Conan O’Brien, Tracy Morgan, and Jim Gaffigan, and there will be guest appearances by Martin Short, Ivan Neville, and Jimmy Vivino. The event will also be livestreamed over VEEPS for $19.99.

BRENDAN HUNT: THE MOVEMENT YOU NEED

Brendan Hunt returns to SoHo Playhouse for encore run of one-man show The Movement You Need

THE INTERNATIONAL FRINGE ENCORE SERIES: THE MOVEMENT YOU NEED
SoHo Playhouse
15 Vandam St. between Sixth Ave. & Varick St.
February 7-10, $40
212-691-1555
sohoplayhouse.com
fringeencoreseries.com

Chicago native Brendan Hunt might be best known for his portrayal of Coach Willis Beard on Ted Lasso — in addition to writing several episodes and serving as producer, executive producer, and codeveloper — but he also has a deep affection for theater. The Emmy winner and Jeopardy! contestant has written and performed the solo works Five Years in Amsterdam: The True Story of How a Regular Guy from Chicago Became Absolute Eurotrash and Still Got It as well as the plays The Poe Show (where he was Edgar Allan Poe alongside Dracula, Emily Dickinson, Mary Shelley, Gen. Custer, Charlotte Brontë, Dr. Frankenstein, and the Raven) and Absolutely Filthy (An Unauthorized Peanuts Parody) (in which he appears as the mess). And he won a 2010 LA Ovation Award for Lead Actor in a Musical for Sacred Fools’ Savin’ Up for Saturday Night.

Last November, he brought his autobiographical one-man show The Movement You Need to SoHo Playhouse as part of the International Fringe Encore Series: Comedy Festival, and it’s now back for a bonus encore run, February 7-10. For seventy-five minutes, Hunt explores his complex relationship with his late mother and the only thing they could both agree on: their shared love of the Beatles. When Hunt has the opportunity to talk about that with Sir Paul McCartney himself, it doesn’t go quite as planned. The show is named after a line in “Hey Jude” — “And don’t you know that it’s just you? / Hey Jude, you’ll do, / the movement you need is on your shoulder” — a song the very young Hunt thought was about him because his mother called him Na Na (“Na, na, na, na, na na, na”).

In his high school yearbook photo, Hunt, who is now fifty-one, wore a pin that featured the Fab Four’s infamous butcher cover for the Yesterday and Today album; I wouldn’t be surprised if he makes a detour this weekend to “The Fest for Beatles Fans,” taking place February 9-11 at the TWA Hotel at JFK Airport.

In “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!,” the Beatles promise, “A splendid time is guaranteed for all.” For The Movement You Need, Hunt will only say, “A decent time is guaranteed for all.” He shouldn’t be so self-deprecating. As Sir Paul sings, “And anytime you feel the pain, / Hey Jude, refrain, / Don’t carry the world upon your shoulder.”

TICKET ALERT: THE MUSIC CRITIC

John Malkovich, Hyung-ki Joo, and Aleksey Igudesman star in The Music Critic, coming to the Beacon for one night only

Who: John Malkovich, Aleksey Igudesman, Hyung-ki Joo
What: The Music Critic, play with live classical music and opera
Where: Beacon Theatre, Broadway at 74th St.
When: Saturday, October 28, $66-$257, 7:30
Why: In such films as Being John Malkovich and cable series as The New Pope, two-time Oscar nominee and Emmy winner John Malkovich (Places in the Heart, In the Line of Fire) has shown that he has a wickedly clever sense of humor, especially when it comes to himself. Since appearing on Broadway four times from 1984 to 1987 (Death of a Salesman, Arms and the Man, The Caretaker, Burn This), his stage work in New York has been limited. In 2011, he starred as the title murderer in The Infernal Comedy: Confessions of a Serial Killer at BAM, and two years later he portrayed Giacomo Casanova at City Center in The Giacomo Variations; both traveling productions combined classical music, opera, and theater.

On October 28, Malkovich will return to the city for one night only with his latest traveling show, The Music Critic, in which he plays a cynical expositor who argues that Antonín Dvořák “indulges in ugly, unnatural music,” calls Johannes Brahms a “giftless bastard,” and claims that “the music of Debussy has the attractiveness of a pretty, tubercular maiden.” It was created and conceived by Russian violinist, poet, author, director, composer, and conductor Aleksey Igudesman, who performs in the international hit with his longtime comedy partner, Korean-British pianist, composer, and educator Hyung-ki Joo; both trained at the prestigious Yehudi Menuhin School. The irreverent comic duo of Igudesman & Joo has previously staged such productions as And Now Rachmaninoff, And Now Mozart, and BIG Nightmare Music.

“We are all happy to be back on the road, and for the first time also in the USA, participating in an evening which consists of some of the greatest compositions in the history of classical music, paired with the perhaps rather unexpected initial reactions those compositions elicited from some of the world’s renowned music critics, along with some other surprises,” Malkovich said in a statement. Igudesman added, “The Music Critic is a project very close to my heart, and bringing it to the USA is something I dreamed of from its inception. My dear friend John Malkovich in the role of the evil critic is despicable and lovable at the same time and evokes the critic in every one of us.”

The score of The Music Critic features Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms, Schumann, Debussy, Prokofiev, Eugène Ysaÿe, Giya Kancheli, Astor Piazzolla, and Igudesman; Igudesman and Joo will be joined by cellist Antonio Lysy, violist Hsin-Yun Huang, and violinist Claire Wells. Be prepared for an unpredictable evening of fab music and comic high jinks.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

ONE WOMAN SHOW

Liz Kingsman faces rock bottom in One Woman Show (photo by Joan Marcus)

ONE WOMAN SHOW
Greenwich House Theater
27 Barrow St. at Seventh Ave. South
Tuesday – Sunday through August 11, $67-$109
onewomanshownyc.com

“I’m mocking them for making an elaborate personal vehicle, when this is clearly an elaborate personal vehicle,” Liz Kingsman says in her hilarious and trenchant one-woman show called, well, One Woman Show.

A surprise breakout hit at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival that transferred to the SoHo Theatre and then the West End, earning an Olivier nomination for Best Entertainment or Comedy Play, One Woman Show is making its US debut at Greenwich House Theater through August 11. As the play starts, Kingsman is a nervous actor speaking with her tour manager, Nick, who can be heard on the loudspeaker, about the camera placement for her performance of Wildfowl, which is being recorded live for a Hollywood producer. Kingsman is far more concerned about the filming than the audience at the theater, which she gives short shrift to. It’s an effective opening, especially because it’s actually part of the play; it quickly becomes clear that One Woman Show is about one-woman shows, most specifically Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag, itself a riff on confessional presentations that also got its start at the Edinburgh Fringe. Kingsman’s costume even matches a striped shirt and overalls outfit worn by Waller-Bridge in the second season of Fleabag.

The fictionalized Kingsman of Wildfowl works in marketing at a wildlife conservation charity that protects birds; in one of an endless stream of clever inside jokes, birds is British slang for “young women.” A Manic Pixie Dream Girl, Liz has no filter as she discusses her fling with Jared, her intense sexual desire for an “eight-foot-nine” officemate, her relationship with her best friend from university, and her descent into drugs and alcohol, all the while fiddling around with clichés.

“You’re not a mess, you just want to be seen as one,” her Australian boss, Dana, tells her.

Liz Kingsman stands in the dark in razor-sharp parody (photo by Joan Marcus)

Along the way, Liz gets hit by a car, doesn’t know where she’s woken up, and shares vivid memories that would best be forgotten; at these moments, she announces, “I’m having a remember,” as Daniel Carter-Brennan’s lighting signals the start of a flashback. She tackles feminist tropes (“The only thing longer than my orgasm is how long it takes me to describe it to you.”), misogyny (“They still haven’t decided which woman is going to be successful this year.”), social media (“Are you happy with your life or are you happy with your likes?”), and success itself (“I guess I’m just relatable.”).

Every once in a while Nick butts in to talk about problems with the filming. “Sorry to interrupt,” he says, to which she replies, “That’s okay, I’m used to it.” She suggests that they should start all over for the producer, not caring whether the audience wants to sit through the same thing they just saw. We are just pawns in her rise to stardom.

Trying to get her life back together, she heads out to a nightclub, but it’s not exactly a fantasy evening. “You look like you’ve gone clubbing alone, which is basically the lowest a middle class woman can sink,” she admits.

As Waller-Bridge does in Fleabag, Kingsman never hesitates to paint women as real people with real dreams and desires, just like men. “We need more women’s story,” she says, with both sarcasm and truth.

Affectionately directed with tongue-in-cheek humor by Adam Brace (Just for Us, Literally Who Cares?!), One Woman Show is a fabulously funny and sharp-witted seventy minutes that are not afraid to push any envelopes out of its way. Chloe Lamford’s set features a chair at the center, a pair of self-standing cameras on either side, and random plants on the floor. Carter-Brennan’s lighting includes rows of chasing lights and square panels hanging from the ceiling onto which various images are projected. Max Perryment’s sound helps delineate between Wildfowl and One Woman Show, complete with Nick’s interruptions. The choreography, by Joshua Lay, is highlighted by Kingsman’s dancing at the nightclub.

Born in Sydney, Australia, the London-based Kingsman has appeared in such television series as Parlement, Borderline, and Power Monkeys. She didn’t plan on doing a solo show; she was writing a film script when she needed a distraction and came up with it by accident. She might not have been specifically inspired by such solo provocateurs as V (Eve Ensler), Karen Finley, and Lily Tomlin, but she is now entrenched with the current generation of women creators taking agency over their stories, from Waller-Bridge and Lena Dunham to Amy Schumer and Tig Notaro.

“There’s a guy — there’s always a guy,” Kingsman’s Wildfowl character says.

But there doesn’t always have to be, as One Woman Show so cleverly exposes.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

RACE: THE MOVIE: THE PLAY

Wyatt Saveyer (cowriter Bret Raybould) and Gene Yus (producer Dean Edwards) go for quite a ride in Race: The Movie: The Play (photo by Eddie Merino)

RACE: THE MOVIE: THE PLAY
Soho Playhouse
15 Vandam St. between Varick St. & Sixth Ave.
Wednesday – Saturday through May 27, $41 ($31 with code RACISMSOLVED)
www.racethemovietheplay.com
www.sohoplayhouse.com

For more than two years, beginning during the pandemic lockdown, I’ve spent many Tuesday nights watching the livestreamed “This WAS The Uncle Floyd Show, in which master pianist, puppeteer, and vaudeville-style comedian Floyd Vivino revisits his no-budget television program that ran on various stations from 1974 to 1998. A collection of haphazard, unrehearsed sketches pushing the limits of good taste, performed by a ragtag, close-knit cast and featuring impressive musical guests, it was beloved by a devoted cult that included David Bowie, John Lennon, and Paul Simon.

This past Tuesday night, however, I found myself at the Soho Playhouse watching Race: The Movie: The Play, which has a similar comic sensibility as The Uncle Floyd Show and deserves just a devoted following. Taking on the enormous issue of racism in Hollywood, RTMTP spoofs, references, and/or skewers such high-profile films as Green Book, 12 Years a Slave, Get Out, The Help, Hidden Figures, Black Panther, Django Unchained, Bamboozled, Moonlight, Driving Miss Daisy, Blazing Saddles, and others.

Written by Cristian Duran and Bret Raybould, directed by Duran, and produced by Ted Alexandro, Dean Edwards, and Raybould, RTMTP began life as an award-winning film script, but when the producers couldn’t get funding to make a movie, they turned to the theater. Edwards stars as the distinguished Gene Yus, a gay Frederick Douglass–like character who is about to embark on a concert tour through the Deep South. Raybould is Wyatt Saveyer, a lanky Italian who is hired by Interracial Cab Company head Don Freeman (Andre D Thompson) to drive the stagecoach, led by the white horse Meta and the black horse Phor. Instead of money, Wyatt will receive a solid gold OOTGO badge, confirming that he is “One of the good ones,” which he recognizes as “a distinction white allies, and me an Italian one, can earn from the Black community.” Don explains, “With this OOTGO badge, you will get lifetime access to any cookout.” Wyatt adds, “And you get to say the N word one time,” to which Don quickly replies, “No the fuck you don’t.” Who gets to use the N word is a running gag throughout the ninety-eight-minute play.

A white-coated narrator (Patrice Battey-Simon) shares fun facts in Race: The Movie: The Play (photo by Eddie Merino)

On the road, Gene and Wyatt meet racist hillbilly repairman Wyatt Devil (David Healy), racist white plantation owner Ray Cist (Nick Whitmer) and his daughter, Jen Trifier (Amanda Van Nostrand), prison guard Tuwoke (Patrice Battey-Simon), Black plantation owner Pyler Terry’s Damea (Thee Suburbia), wannabe rapper Stretch (Eagle Witt), touchy-feely Doctor Bukkake (Healy), strapped Black cowboy D-Jango (Menuhin Hart), Kawanda king T’Challa-Latte (Quan Wiggins), evil villain Thanus (Rhyis Knight), mouth breather Max Hayte (Derek Humphrey, who also portrays the squeaky Mick E. Mouse), and Judge Hughbythecolorofyourskin (R. Alex Murray).

Gene and Wyatt encounter racism in many forms while confusingly shifting between time periods, breaking the fourth wall, and poking fun at themselves as Wyatt learns how to be an ally, proudly proclaiming his growth as a human being. When Gene asks Wyatt for help amid a fight, Wyatt admits, “Oh yeah. Sorry, I got lost in a brief spat of character development.” Early on, Wyatt says to Gene, “Hmm . . . a lot of your accomplishments are making me question my preconceived notions about you.” Later, Gene yells at Wyatt, calling him “quite possibly the most helpless, hapless, shiftless shit-for-brains idiot I’ve ever met! What’s your great struggle, what’s your cross to bear: Learning to be less racist and understand privilege? BOO FUCKING HOO!” And Wyatt tells himself with wonder, “Maybe it is harder to be a Black man in America . . . NAH!”

Throughout the show, musical director Andrew Hink, gleefully sitting at his keyboard stage right, plays an eclectic collection of instrumentals, from Britney Spears’s “Baby One More Time” to Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag.” (Every episode of The Uncle Floyd Show featured Vivino performing old standards on piano, though with vocals.)

A wacky cast explores racism and white supremacy in fun spoof at Soho Playhouse (photo by Eddie Merino)

Is RTMTP wildly uneven? You betcha. Do they sledgehammer home their points? Sure, but they are pretty important points. Do more jokes miss than hit their targets? Probably — I wasn’t keeping score — but there are a ton of one-liners, and even the very best baseball players reach base only forty percent of the time.

The depiction of what happens when someone gets canceled is pure genius, the danger of telegraphing while driving is made clear, and T-shirts are emblazoned with playful but serious political messages. Throw in some S&M, a bit of blackface, goofy costumes and props, some improvising in response to audience reaction, low-rent projections that show where the action is taking place, and a cast that is ready, willing, and able to laugh at itself and you have the ingredients of a lively, enjoyable evening, though I would skip the chicken cutlet sandwich. (Plus, if you’re white, you’ll feel like you’ve earned another notch toward your own OOTGO badge.)

One of the highlights the night I went was when Edwards was unable to get a line right after trying several times, so he asked Wiggins, as T’Challa-Latte, for help; it was almost too perfect that the sentence he couldn’t get out was “Let me get this straight, so the only way for us to unlock the power of diversity is if we fulfill the white q’uota?”

Race: The Movie: The Play might not run for a quarter-century and four thousand episodes like The Uncle Floyd Show did — it’s scheduled to close May 27 — but Duran and Raybould are still hoping to make that film, which will, of course, be called Race: The Movie: The Play: The Movie.

KAREN FINLEY: COVID VORTEX ANXIETY OPERA KITTY KALEIDOSCOPE DISCO

Karen Finley performs latest show at the Laurie Beechman Theatre (photo by Max Ruby)

COVID VORTEX ANXIETY OPERA KITTY KALEIDOSCOPE DISCO
The Laurie Beechman Theatre
West Bank Cafe, 407 West Forty-Second St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
Select Saturdays through June 24, $27 general admission, $39 reserved VIP seating (plus $25 food and drink minimum), 7:00
www.westbankcafe.com
spincyclenyc.com

In such works as Shut Up and Love Me, Deathcakes and Autism, Written in Sand, Make Love, Unicorn Gratitude Mystery, and Sext Me If You Can, Chicago-born, New York–based performance artist, musician, poet, author, and activist Karen Finley has explored such topics as AIDS, rape culture, suicide, rampant consumerism, politics, censorship, 9/11, sexual and societal taboos, and the power of art in deeply personal ways that have included chocolate, honey, yams, and nudity. In her latest show, Covid Vortex Anxiety Opera Kitty Kaleidoscope Disco, continuing on Saturday nights through May 6 at the Laurie Beechman Theatre, Finley turns her attention to the coronavirus pandemic, focusing on trauma, loss, loneliness, Zoom, masks, and human connection.

Finley takes the stage to rapturous applause, wearing a hazmat suit and dancing to the 1976 disco hit “Don’t Leave Me This Way,” with Thelma Houston singing, “I can’t survive / I can’t stay alive, / without your love, oh baby.” She proceeds to deliver thirteen poem-monologues from behind a microphone and music stand. To her right is a rack of sequined costumes, where she changes between each number, putting on different masks, shawls, boas, and dresses. To her left is a screen divider with mask-scarves draped over it; sparkling glitter and sequins are everywhere. At the back of the stage is a screen on which are projected news reports, advertisements, video of New Yorkers cheering and banging pots and pans for health-care workers, and, primarily, still photos of pages from old books (encyclopedias, science texts, religious doctrine), music scores, calendars, and magazines she has written over in black marker, including such phrases as “It will get worse before it gets worse,” “It’s called war porn,” and “There is no happy ending.”

For sixty-five minutes, Finley rails against racial injustice, Zoom gatherings, the Catholic church, school shootings, anti-abortion laws, the fatigue and exhaustion the lockdown brought, and the closing of St. Vincent’s. She finds much-needed respite in baking and watching videos of interspecies love and friendship (complete with sing-along).

“Can I just pretend this isn’t happening?” she asks. “Oh grief / Here we go again / Oh loss / I am your constant companion,” she says. Addressing the goddess Venus, she demands, “Provide and support our empowerment / to transform this hate with all our creative imaginative strength / and change this oppressive senseless system forever.” When she opines, “I will try my best today / even in the smallest ways,” it is tentative as she battles despair and sorrow. A segment showing gay men dancing in a club asks us to look at how we viewed AIDS and how we view the coronavirus in what she calls her “Zoom Disco.”

Karen Finley prepares to bake while TV experts discuss hand washing (photo by Max Ruby)

But Covid Vortex Anxiety Opera Kitty Kaleidoscope Disco is often as funny as its title. “I do not want to have a Zoom family reunion,” she proclaims. Asking a stranger on an elevator to put on a mask, Finley says, “The mask is your friend / Really, it is a very friendly mask. Trust me.” Making a cake, she declares, “Give me amaranth flour liberty or give me breath!” Watching a pair of experts discuss hand washing, she acknowledges, “Turns out none of us really knew how to wash our hands / We were doing it all wrong.” Referencing how we dressed during the lockdown, she states, “You do not know where you are / What day it is / What day you are on / What planet you are on / When you changed your clothes / Before or after Tiger King? / How long you have been wearing . . . anything . . . or nothing!”

Finley herself gained notoriety for occasionally wearing nothing onstage; we attended the show with two longtime fans, one of whom had poured honey over Finley’s naked body during one interactive performance. But this time around, the edible items remained on the table, as there is a $25 food and drink minimum in addition to the ticket price.

The production has a DIY feel to it; when Finley is done with an item of clothing, she just tosses it to the floor, the projections are not exactly HD, and a large prop at center stage blocks the bottom of the screen so all the words are not always legible, depending on where you’re sitting. (The technical director is JP Perraux, with sound by Jasmine Wyman; Becky Hubbert is the costume and prop consultant, and the production design is by Violet Overn, Finley’s daughter.)

Don’t expect a polished sheen, but that is a significant part of the show’s charm. Finley plays off the audience, which is in her corner every step of the way. The night I went, she was upset that she forgot a veil for her penultimate piece, “Eulogy,” and asked the crowd to give her a moment to prepare herself psychologically; she was warmed by shouts of encouragement and proceeded with a replacement for the veil as she related, “So many have left us — / the loss and the sorrow of never having a place to mourn. / Here is our eulogy for the lost and left. . . . Let us heal / Let us restore / Let us love / Let us forgive.”

With Covid Vortex Anxiety Opera Kitty Kaleidoscope Disco, Finley once again explores difficult, controversial topics while helping us all heal, restore, love, and forgive.

PENNY ARCADE: LONGING LASTS LONGER

Who: Penny Arcade
What: One-night only engagement
Where: The Players NYC, 16 Gramercy Park South
When: Thursday, April 27, $35, 8:00
Why: “There is a gentrification that happens to neighborhoods and cities, but there is also a gentrification that happens to ideas,” Penny Arcade says in her solo show Longing Lasts Longer. On April 27, the legendary performance artist and activist will deliver what she calls a “refutation of nostalgia” at the Players NYC for one night only, mixing stand-up comedy, rock and roll, and memoir as she tackles zombie tourists, bookstores, advertising, cupcakes, hipsters, and how the world has changed during her lifetime, and not necessarily for the better.

Born in Connecticut in 1950, she has performed the show more than two hundred times in more than forty cities, including at Joe’s Pub and St. Ann’s Warehouse here in New York. At the Players, where it is being presented by the White Horse Theater Company, she will be joined as always by her longtime collaborator, director, designer, and filmmaker Steve Zehentner, who will create a live soundscape. “Look, people, thinking is hard work,” she says in the eighty-minute piece. “That’s why so few people do it.” Priority table seating is already sold out, but general admission tickets are still available to see this force of nature take on our contemporary society like no one else can.