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BOOK LAUNCH FOR EL ANATSUI: THE REINVENTION OF SCULPTURE

Who: El Anatsui, Chika Okeke-Agulu, Jason Farago, Massimiliano Gioni, Julian Lucas
What: Book launch
Where: New Museum Theater, 235 Bowery
When: Thursday, September 22, $10, 6:30
Why: “The fact that El Anatsui normally expects curators and collectors of his metal sculpture to decide how to install them, but also because they are hand-wrought, flexible things, with numerous parts that can behave in infinite ways when moved, how they are installed determines their composition, affect, and phenomenological presence. Having conceived the work, and invested so much labor along with his many studio assistants to realize it in initial sculptural form, ceding its inaugural and future manifestations to whoever has custody of the work, is an extraordinary power to invest in others, without any instruction or even suggestion of his own authorial intentionality.” So write Okwui Enwezor and Chika Okeke-Agulu in their new book, El Anatsui: The Reinvention of Sculpture (Damiani, $70), about Ghanaian sculptor El Anatsui, who uses discarded items (primarily bottlecaps) in creating large-scale pieces that comment on the relationship between humans and the environment. The works are malleable, able to be displayed in various configurations that El Anatsui leaves up to whoever is showing the piece.

On September 22 at 6:30, the seventy-eight-year-old El Anatsui (“Gravity and Grace: Monumental Works by El Anatsui”), who works in Ghana and Nigeria, will be at the New Museum for the official US launch of the book, highlighted by a panel discussion with Princeton-based artist, critic, and art historian Okeke-Agulu, art critic Jason Farago, and Brooklyn-based critic and essayist Julian Lucas, moderated by New Museum director Massimiliano Gioni. Okeke-Agulu wrote the book, which features such chapters as “El Anatsui and Modern African Art,” “The Aesthetic and Rhetoric of Fragmentation,” and “The Epic and Triumphant Scale,” with beloved Nigerian curator and critic Enwezor, who passed away in 2019 at the age of fifty-five and whose spirit will be felt throughout the evening.

OUR MAN IN SANTIAGO

Maria Troncoso (Presciliana Esparolini) comes between CIA agents Jack Wilson (George Tovar) and Daniel Baker (Nick McDow Musleh) in Our Man in Santiago (photo by Charlie Mount)

OUR MAN IN SANTIAGO
ATM Theater
354 West Forty-Fifth St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Wednesday – Sunday through October 28, $49-$79
ourmaninsantiago.com

Making its New York City debut through October 28 at ATM Theater, two-time Emmy nominee Mark Wilding’s Our Man in Santiago is a good-natured spy thriller spoof of the US government’s possible involvement in the death of Chilean president Salvador Allende on September 11, 1973, but it ends up missing its target.

The play is framed by testimony by CIA agent Daniel Baker (Nick McDow Musleh) to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, one year after Allende’s short tenue came to an end. He takes Sen. Harry Rubin back to that fateful day, as the inexperienced Baker and his boss, Jack Wilson (George Tovar), plot to assassinate the democratically elected Allende, who had been president since November 3, 1970. The eager Baker and the self-satisfied Wilson are staying in a room with a balcony at the Carrera Hotel in the Chilean capital of Santiago, across the street from the president’s Moneda Palace. (The effective set is by Jeff G. Rack.) There’s marching in the street as a violent coup is expected at any moment. Baker, a functionary who was previously stationed in New Zealand, has not exactly trained to be an assassin; he fumbles when trying to load his gun, the bullets falling to the floor, a scene witnessed by the maid, Maria Troncoso (Presciliana Esparolini), who had walked into the room but, seeing the gun, backed out.

“How many times . . . You don’t drop bullets, Baker,” he says to himself. “Bullets can’t help you when they’re outside the gun. They need to be inside the gun. Doesn’t matter how fast you pick them up. You’re already dead. The enemy has shot you.”

Maria knocks and then enters despite Baker telling her not to. She shares details of the widespread poverty in Santiago as they try to find a better time for her to come clean the room. “Five is good. I will miss my only meal of the day but it is worth it for you to have a new bar of soap,” she says snidely in broken English. When Wilson shows up, he treats Maria with disdain, ordering her to get out; he then warns Baker that anyone could be a foreign operative and that he should trust no one. The young agent has no idea how true that will soon be.

President Richard Nixon (Steve Nevil) and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (Michael Van Duzer) supply comic relief in spy thriller spoof (photo by Charlie Mount)

Wilson sees himself on a path to become the next deputy director of the CIA, a carrot dangled by President Richard Nixon (Steve Nevil) and his loyal secretary of state, Henry Kissinger (Michael Van Duzer), who appear as a back wall slides open to reveal them on the phone at the White House. “Number two man at the agency. That’s a pretty good promotion, wouldn’t you say?” Nixon tells Wilson, who is not about to let Baker ruin this opportunity for him.

Soon Baker, armed with a gun, a press pass, and a camera — for proof that he carried out his mission — heads across the street to kill Allende as the coup gets underway.

Baker has a handgun, but in order for the play to work, director Charlie Mount needs the action and dialogue to be like a rapid-fire machine gun; unfortunately, the pacing is too slow, especially when things get hectic. Mount and Wilding, who has produced and/or written for such television shows as Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, Good Girls, Charmed, and Promised Land, should have injected far more fast slapstick. There were numerous moments when I wanted to be rolling around the floor laughing but instead let out a mere chuckle. The setup is fine, slowly revealing several fun plot twists, but ultimately there are just too many holes in the story, more sitcom than play.

Individually, Musleh is sweetly nervous as the beleaguered Baker, Esparolini is bewitching as the complicated Maria, and Tovar is cool and collected as the calm but not so honorable Wilson, but they don’t light sparks together enough. Nevil and Van Duzer are there to supply comic relief as Kissinger and Nixon, respectively, but they go too far over the top. Wilding, who was inspired to write Our Man in Santiago by the 1974 Harper’s article “The Death of Salvador Allende” by Gabriela García Márquez, about a botched 1970 CIA attempt to oust Allende — the title of the play itself recalls the late-1950s Graham Greene novel and Carol Reed film Our Man in Havana — does cleverly lampoon crass commercialism, US imperialism, and dirty politics. It all makes for a pleasant but underwhelming experience that falls short of what it could have been.

NEW YORK PUBLIC RADIO LIVE: CELEBRATING 40 YEARS OF NEW SOUNDS WITH JOHN SCHAEFER

Who: John Schaefer, Red Baraat, Combo Chimbita, Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley
What: Celebrating forty years of New Sounds
Where: Brooklyn Bowl, 61 Wythe Ave.
When: Wednesday, September 21, $51.90 – $1046.71, 7:30
Why: Queens-born Fordham grad John Schaefer began his New Sounds program on NPR in September 1982, introducing listeners to a wide range of musicians from around the world. The fortieth anniversary of the show will be celebrated on September 21 at Brooklyn Bowl as New York Public Radio’s annual fundraiser. The evening will include live performances by Red Baraat and Combo Chimbita, two groups that were recently featured on the program, which proclaims, “Hand-picked music, genre free. 24/7 radio from New York City.” There will also be a DJ set by Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley from Yo La Tengo. In a January 2011 twi-ny talk, Schaefer, when discussing how the internet has impacted his relationship with his audience, explained, “Now, if you don’t want to stay up till midnight, you can still hear New Sounds — and hear it anytime you like. And even after all these years, I feel like the digital communication with our listeners is still growing up, unsure of what it’s eventually going to be.” Now you can be part of the fortieth anniversary of New Sounds, in person at Brooklyn Bowl, where various NYPR on-air talent will be hanging out to mingle with.

BURN

Alan Cumming brings his debut solo dance-theater piece, Burn, to the Joyce this week (photo by Jane Blarlow/PA Wire)

Who: Alan Cumming
What: North American premiere of solo dance-theater piece
Where: The Joyce Theater, 175 Eighth Ave. at Nineteenth St.
When: September 21-25, $76-$106
Why: “You must not deny me!” Alan Cumming declares in his portrayal of eighteenth-century Scottish poet Robert Burns in Burn, making its North American premiere at the Joyce this week. The solo dance-theater work was created by Olivier- and Tony-winning actor Cumming with Olivier- and Obie-winning choreographer Steven Hoggett, who choreographed the piece with Vicki Manderson, and is set to the music of British composer Anna Meredith, including such songs as “Solstice In,” “HandsFree,” “Blackfriars,” “Descent,” and “Return.” The set design is by Ana Inés Jabares Pitz, with costumes by Katrina Lindsay, lighting by Tim Lutkin, projections by Andrzej Goulding, and sound by Matt Padden.

In a program note, Cumming — who has appeared on Broadway in Cabaret and a one-man reinterpretation of Macbeth and off Broadway in “Daddy” and has lent his voice to such films as They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead and numerous animated children’s films (while spectacularly lending his body to the hybrid documentary My Old School) — explains, “In 2015, I has just turned fifty and realised I would never be as fit or asked to dance in a show in the same way again. But I still felt I had one more in me! I meant a play or a musical that was dance heavy. Little did I think I would end up making my solo dance theater debut at fifty-seven!” Together, Cumming and Hoggett (Black Watch, Once, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child) point out, “An early intention was to explore the idea of Burns as national icon and a figure who, under modern scrutiny, was becoming something more complex than the beloved face on tourists’ souvenir biscuit tins.” There will be a curtain chat with members of the creative team following the September 21 performance. Some shows are already sold out, so get your tickets now if you want to experience what should be an exhilarating evening of dance, theater, music, and poetry.

SHADOW OF THE SEA

Who: Beau Bree Rhee, Caitlin Scranton, Bria Bacon, Cara McManus, Chaery Moon
What: Free live performances
Where: Madison Square Park
When: Wednesday, September 21, Wednesday, October 12, Thursday, October 20, free, 6:00
Why: Madison Square Park Conservancy has teamed up with the Kitchen to present three live, site-specific performances by choreographer Beau Bree Rhee activating Cristina Iglesias’s Landscape and Memory installation, which is on view through December 4. Iglesias’s captivating public intervention consists of a stream that winds through the grass in five bronze sculptural pools, referencing Cedar Creek and Minetta Brook, which once upon a time flowed across the park, heading for the East or Hudson River. Each pool offers its own calming respite, with water gently babbling against rocks. The work morphs slowly over time, first as the grass grows wildly over and around it during the summer, while the coming fall will change it yet again.

Bree’s eight-stanza dance poem, Shadow of the Sea, begins with thirty-minute coastal-walk preludes, referred to by Bree as a Brutal Meditation, at 5:00 at the East River Promenade at East Tenth St. and Pier 64 in Hudson River Park (attendance free with RSVP), with two migratory processions marching toward the Oval Lawn in Madison Square Park, where Caitlin Scranton, Bria Bacon, Cara McManus, and Chaery Moon will perform at 6:00 on September 21 and October 12 and 20. Bree has previously incorporated nature into such pieces as Les Parages, Figure Void to Lithic Landscapes, and the ongoing Dream Garden in the Anthropocene, so this work should be a natural for her.

ANDREA MILLER AND GALLIM: WHY DO WE DANCE?

GALLIM founding artistic director and choreographer Andrea Miller will be at the National Arts Club on September 20 (photo by Franziska-Strauss / First Republic Bank)

Who: Andrea Miller and dancers
What: Actions and Detail panel discussion
Where: The National Arts Club, 15 Gramercy Park South
When: Tuesday, September 20, free with advance RSVP, 7:00
Why: On September 20 at 7:00, GALLIM founding artistic director and choreographer Andrea Miller will be at the National Arts Club to discuss her company’s approach to dance upon its fifteenth anniversary. Since 2007, the New York City–based company has presented such works as Fold Here, I Can See Myself, Wonderland, Blush, and To Create a World. Miller, a Juilliard graduate, stayed busy during the pandemic lockdown, presenting the site-specific You Are Here outside at Lincoln Center in July 2021, directing Another Dance Film starring Sara Mearns at the East River Park Amphitheater, and continuing to host the livestreamed Gallim Happy Hour featuring such guests as Ayodele Casel, Francesca Harper, Justin Peck, Mimi Lien, Camille A. Brown, Gina Gibney, Wendy Whelan, Alicia Graf Mack, and Kyle Abraham. At the NAC, Miller and some of her dancers will answer the question “Why Do We Dance?,” delving into her philosophy of creation and performance.

MY ONLINESS

My Onliness (director Daniel Irizarry) rules over a strange kingdom in new play (photo by Suzanne Fiore Photography)

MY ONLINESS
New Ohio Theatre
154 Christopher St.
Tuesday – Sunday through September 24, $25
newohiotheatre.org

In Narcotics: Nicotine, Alcohol, Cocaine, Peyote, Morphine, Ether + Appendices, Polish polymath Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz wrote, “Now I am faced with an especially difficult task: I must avoid being misunderstood, which is against all the odds, given my verdict on peyote.” The painter, philosopher, playwright, and photographer better known as Witkacy experimented with numerous mind-altering substances; he wrote such novels as Insatiability and such plays as Metaphysics of a Two-Headed Calf, The Madman and the Nun, and The Beelzebub Sonata before committing suicide in 1939 at the age of fifty-four.

Running at the New Ohio Theatre through September 24, Robert Lyons’s fabulously chaotic My Onliness is an homage to Witkacy, a ferociously fractured fairy tale that is one helluva head trip. The story is set in an undisclosed time and place, in a possibly postapocalyptic land ruled by a mad king in a fool’s hat (director Daniel Irizarry) known as My Onliness (MO), a riff on “Holiness” and “Loneliness.” His ragtag court includes a pair of musicians (vocalist and melodica player Joanie Brittingham and guitarist Drew Fleming), two barely dressed mediums (Dickie Hearts, who communicates in American Sign Language, and Malik Paris), a tortured writer (Rhys Tivey) who he sees as the enemy, and the princess-like Morbidita (Cynthia LaCruz).

Radiant in a flowing off-the-shoulder white gown, Morbidita approaches the king with a garbage bag stuffed with a signed petition, but he is having none of it. Speaking directly to the audience (seated on three sides of the stage area), he announces, “Listen up! / I told you that in my presence you are all equal. / It’s true! / You are equally nothing. / Absolutely nothing. / Because I have no equals. / I’m not like some Emperor or King. / I am in a completely different Spiritual Dimension.”

Morbidita (Cynthia LaCruz) wants to help the common folk and avenge her family in My Onliness (photo by Suzanne Fiore Photography)

Expanding on his superiority, he proclaims in true despotic fashion, “I know you all say monstrous things about me behind my back. / I don’t want to know anything about that. / I don’t have any secret informers. / And I’m not going to. / I’m just not going to. / I don’t even have any ministers. / And therein lies my greatness. / I am alone like God. / I alone rule everything. / I alone am responsible for everything. / And I answer only to myself alone. / I suffer for you. / Like the devil. / Because I am sacrificing myself for you. / Out of all of us, I suffer the most. / Just be thankful that you get to suffer / in the presence of a person suffering like me.”

Morbidita, whose father was killed by MO, fears that they’re all trapped in an abyss, not wanting to believe “that everything could come to an end like this. / And not just in my dreams.” Meanwhile, the writer predicts, “This very same story plays out in countries all over the world. / It’s all going to end in a total Fiasco. / Like the world has never seen. / Or even imagined.” (It’s hard not to hear a Trump reference in those words.) Later, Morbidita calls for “an open rebellion,” leading to a tumultuous, helter-skelter finale that the ruthless leader tells the audience to broadcast live on social media.

My Onliness is a nonstop barrage of sights and sounds, a furious and unpredictable, often nonsensical and incomprehensible mythological fable that you can’t take your eyes off of. There is always something going on in every corner of the theater: The writer fills the walls with mathematical equations in chalk; the guitarist roams the space, sometimes posing like a rock star; an orderly in white wanders about; actors change costumes in the wings; and the characters reach for pots and pans and other props hanging from the ceiling.

There is a lot of audience interaction, although consent is always requested first; the relationship developed between the cast and the audience is key to the success of the show, and it also provides fun moments for Irizarry (The Maids, UBU), especially, to improvise, which he does very well. Nobody is put into a position that would make them feel uncomfortable, and some of the positions that audience members are willingly put into are downright hysterical. My involvement included a large puppet of MO as part of an extremely clever depiction of a fight, but to say more would be to give too much away. However, be on the lookout for thrown popcorn, splashed water, and a shared toast with real alcohol.

On one side of Jungah Han’s set is a makeshift throne (an old chair) on top of an open black square; on the other, steps lead to a perch backed by a temporary wall with an abstract design on it. Brittani Beresford’s costumes range from Morbidita’s elegant dress to tight, barely there elements for others. Christina Tang’s lighting and Lawrence Schober’s sound design are as unpredictable as everything else. Alexandria Wailes and Kailyn Aaron-Lozano codirected the ASL, which is sometimes incorporated into the choreography.

A coproduction of One-Eighth Theater, the New Ohio, and IRT Theater, My Onliness has the feel of a show put on by people living in an asylum, as if Randle Patrick McMurphy (from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) was the star and director, or maybe a work put on by people in prison. Morbidita does say at one point, “Let’s start an open rebellion among the prisoners.” In either case, it deals with people who are not in control of their lives, like living in a fascist state. Composer Kamala Sankaram’s rollicking score ranges from pop to hip-hop to opera in such songs as “The New Truth Serum,” “Let the Phantom Dim,” and “Grandpa’s Been Converted,” with words and lyrics credited to “Lyons — from Witkacy.”

Late in the play, the writer says, “This is the End. There’s Nothing Left. / Actually, there is one thing. / The absurdity of life in-and-of-itself. / In and of itself. / That’s something you won’t see on the stage of any theater.” If My Onliness is about anything, it’s about the absurdity of life, brought to compelling madness on the stage of the New Ohio Theatre. And I cannot confirm whether peyote was involved in any way.