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BAD CINDERELLA

Bad Cinderella (Linedy Genao) rises up in Andrew Lloyd Webber Broadway musical (photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)

BAD CINDERELLA
Imperial Theatre
249 West 45th St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 4, $48-$298
badcinderellabroadway.com

At last Friday night’s performance of Bad Cinderella at the Imperial, a boisterous trio of big men sat behind us, their belly laughs and rousing cheers shaking our row throughout the first act. During intermission, I turned to my friend and said, “I want to watch what they’re watching.”

Indeed, what show were they watching?

I am not going to jump on the bandwagon and take advantage of the American retitling of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cinderella, which has added the word Bad, but it’s hard not to. I found the two-and-a-half-hour musical more insulting and embarrassing than downright bad; I knew we were in trouble when my musical-loving friend wasn’t giving even perfunctory applause after songs. “You’ve ruined theater for me forever,” she told me outside at intermission, as if it was my fault for taking her. “I might never see another show.”

Bad Cinderella is everything you’ve heard and worse.

Lloyd Webber, whose composer son Nick tragically died from gastric cancer on March 25 at the age of forty-three, has some fierce competition in the alt-fairy-tale Broadway musical realm. Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman’s Wicked has been packing them in on the Great White Way since 2003. The recent limited-run revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods was spectacular. And musical minions are still kvelling over Douglas Carter Beane’s 2013 family-friendly adaptation of Rodgers + Hammerstein’s more traditional Cinderella.

Bad Cinderella is ostensibly about being proud of one’s personal identity and defying the populist adherence to conventional ideas of beauty and success. But in its attempts to be clever, unpredictable, and, dare I say, woke, it steps all over itself, fumbling its themes and confusing its basic principles.

The Queen (Grace McLean) and the Stepmother (Carolee Carmello) do battle in Bad Cinderella (photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)

The show opens with the innocuous “Buns ’n’ Roses / Beauty Is Our Duty,” in which random characters at the Belleville Market revel in their hotness amid garish sexual innuendo. “Hot buns! Check out my hot buns!” the hunky baker declares. “True, there are not buns / Equal to mine.”

Various townspeople blast out, “Our town Belleville is a place so picturesque, / Makes every other town jealous. / So exquisite, every other seems grotesque. . . . Every single citizen’s a cut and chiseled god, / Beauty is our duty. / Everyone among us has a ripped and rockin’ bod. . . . We’re quite shallow, / We’re obsessed with how we look. / It’s quite OK if you’re dumb here. / Every lawn is manicured / As well as every hand.”

“Wrinkles are not tolerated, torsos must be tanned. / Acne is a misdemeanor, / Cellulite is banned. . . . So what if we’re a bit snooty” is about as sophisticated as Tony winner David Zippel’s lyrics gets.

The book, by Oscar winner Emerald Fennell and adapted by playwright Alexis Scheer for the Broadway run, is a “hot mess,” which is what the townspeople call Cinderella. Cinderella is ripe for interpretation; the Brothers Grimm and Rodgers & Hammerstein are only two of thousands who have told a similar tale going back two millennia. The most famous version was written in 1697 by Charles Perrault, the basis for the 1950 animated film by Walt Disney, a rags-to-riches story of magic, abuse, discrimination, misogyny, and outmoded ideals of what makes a person attractive and desired.

Director Laurence Connor and choreographer JoAnn M. Hunter hit a brick wall just a few minutes in, after the unveiling of a statue in honor of the missing Prince Charming (Cameron Loyal) reveals that Cinderella (Linedy Genao) has defaced it with a graffiti-esque banner declaring, “Beauty Sucks.” The townspeople call her a “psychopath” who “should be arrested,” but a moment later the hunky men are lifting her up as if she’s a hero, not a villain, and she proudly proclaims, “I’m a loner, I’m a freak, a rebel. . . . a girl from the gutter, unpleasant peasant, no one, a nutter, unwelcome present.”

Cinderella is badly mistreated by her stepmother (Carolee Carmello) and two gorgeous but hollow and dimwitted stepsisters, Adele (Sami Gayle) and Marie (Morgan Higgins). Her only friend is Prince Sebastian (Jordan Dobson), now heir to the throne, a shy young man with no kingly aspirations who the women in the town deride, complaining, “What a disappointment is this prince! / Look at him! My heart can’t help but wince! / He’s not the type on which girls set their sights.”

It doesn’t help that Sebastian is handsome, even in his militaristic outfit, even if he is dour, unhappy to be thrust into the limelight, while Cinderella, in her long black leather jacket, tight-fitting shirt, and maroon pants, is not only cool but hot, at least to the audience if not to the vain citizens of Belleville. “I’m the opposite of ev’rthing you are!” she sings. So why, about halfway through the show, does she go to Godmother (Christina Acosta Robinson), a nasty plastic surgeon, wanting her to transform her into a beauty, to be just like everyone else so the prince will choose her for his bride at the ball?

“The damsel wants to save the prince in distress. How very modern
of you,” Godmother says, but there’s nothing modern about it. No longer a fairy, Godmother doesn’t work magic, so her assertion that Cinderella’s makeover will last only until midnight is absurd, as is Sebastian’s inability to recognize Cinderella at the dance.

Bad Cinderella is laden with huge plot holes and incongruities galore; while there’s no need to stick close to any of the familiar versions, it feels like Connor (Les Misérables, School of Rock), Lloyd Webber (Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats, The Phantom of the Opera), Fennell (Promising Young Woman, Killing Eve), Scheer (Our Dear Dead Drug Lord, Laughs in Spanish), and Zippel (City of Angels, The Woman in White) choose the least reasonable turn at each crossroad as they teeter back and forth between old-fashioned values and contemporary mores.

Gabriela Tylesova’s sets, dominated by the forest’s ominous tree branches, serve their purpose, although her costumes leave something to be desired, specifically, men’s shirts, as several male dancers are bare-chested every step of the way. Luc Verschueren’s hair and wigs are fun, Bruno Poet’s lights are bright, and Gareth Owen’s sound is loud. The title song might stick with you for a while, but you’ll try hard to get it out of your head; the British show earned a Grammy nomination for Best Musical Theater Album, naming Andrew, Nick, and Greg Wells as producers.

Carmello (Scandalous, Lestat) and McLean (Cyrano, Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812) go too far over the top, especially in what should have been a classic duet in which they battle each other (“I Know You”). Dobson (Hadestown, West Side Story) lacks style and energy as Sebastian but is still likable, while Genao (On Your Feet, Dear Evan Hansen) fares well as Cinderella despite the inconsistencies built into the character.

Ultimately, Bad Cinderella is unable to figure out what story it wants to tell and who its audience is. The creative team should talk to those three men sitting behind me, even if they did quiet down significantly in the second act.

PATTIE BOYD PRESENTS MY LIFE IN PICTURES

Pattie Boyd will be discussing and signing copies of her new book at Rizzoli (photo courtesy Reel Art Press)

Who: Pattie Boyd, Dave Brolan
What: Book talk and signing
Where: Rizzoli Bookstore, 1133 Broadway at 26th St., 212-759-2424
When: Monday, April 3, $59.87 (includes admission, signing line access, and book), 6:00
Why: “I decided very early on that there never needed to be a dull moment in life. If you find yourself feeling dull, just change your mind,” model, photographer, and muse Pattie Boyd proffers in her new book, My Life in Pictures (Reel Art Press, December 2022, $49.95).

Born in England in March 1944, Boyd has not had a very boring life. She went to boarding school in Nairobi, began modeling as a teenager, and married and divorced George Harrison and Eric Clapton. She was the muse behind Harrison’s “Something” and Clapton’s “Layla” and “Wonderful Tonight” and appeared on an endless stream of magazine covers. But all the while she was dazzling people in front of the camera, she was also taking her own photographs.

On April 3 at 6:00, Boyd will be at Rizzoli to discuss her life and career, joined by photo editor, curator, and archivist Dave Brolan from Reel Art Press. My Life in Pictures features photographs of Boyd by such lensmen as David Bailey, Eric Swayne, Norman Parkinson, Terence Donovan, Robert Freeman, and Robert Whitaker; photos by Boyd of Twiggy, Mick Jagger, Billy Preston, and the Beatles; and diary entries, artifacts, artworks, and other memorabilia, including letters from John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Tickets are still available with a copy of the book and come with access to the signing line. (Boyd will only be signing books purchased at Rizzoli.)

“I liked the idea of being independent and working but not all the time,” Boyd, who married real estate developer Rod Weston in 2015, writes in the book. “I wasn’t pinned down to anything nine to five. I thought that would be an incredibly boring thing to do.”

ROBYN HITCHCOCK AT BOWERY BALLROOM

Who: Robyn Hitchcock
What: Live concert with full band
Where: Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey St. between Bowery & Chrystie St., 212-260-4700
When: Saturday, April 1, $25, 8:00
Why: Throughout a long career that has included leading the Soft Boys, the Egyptians, and the Venus 3 in addition to extensive solo work, Paddington-born singer-songwriter and raconteur Robyn Hitchcock has regaled concertgoers with hilarious stories about the music business and wry views on the human condition while putting out a bevy of terrific albums and memorable songs. During the pandemic, Hitchcock took to Facebook in a big way, posting memories, promoting new material, and suddenly going live, playing short, impromptu online gigs from his hotel room or at home. On the Mandolin streaming platform, which lets performers get paid by fans, Hitchcock has also been performing longer living room concerts, known as “Live from Tubby’s House,” named after one of his beloved Scottish Fold cats, Tubby Vincent, who often makes an appearance, along with Ringo M. Stardust the cat, Perry the lobster, and Hitchcock’s partner, fellow singer-songwriter Emma Swift.

Emma Swift and Robyn Hitchcock are psyched to be back out on the road and not just dreaming of trains (photo by Kelley Stolz)

But live audiences are irreplaceable, and Hitchcock is beyond thrilled to be touring again, traveling the world in support of his latest record, the fabulous Shufflemania! (Tiny Ghost Records, October 2022), and sharing his journey every day on Facebook. The album is a jangly mélange of pure pop psychedelia, highlighted by such songs as “The Shuffle Man,” “Socrates in Thin Air,” “The Sir Tommy Shovell,” and “The Raging Muse.” Hitchcock explains on Bandcamp, “What is Shufflemania!? It’s surfing fate, trusting your intuition, and bullfighting with destiny. It’s embracing the random and dancing with it, even when it needs to clean its teeth. It’s probably the most consistent album I’ve made. It’s a party record, with a few solemn moments, as parties are wont to supply. Groove on, groovers!” (On April 23, Hitchcock will release the all-instrumental Life After Infinity, boasting such titles as “Plesiosaurs in the Desert,” “Tubby Among the Nightingales,” and “Mr Ringerson’s Picnic.”)

On the tour, he has played solo acoustic and electric and with different band configurations depending on where he is and which friends of his are available; on April 1, he was supposed to be joined by Kelley Stolz and Bart Davenport at Bowery Ballroom, but they both have just contracted Covid. Instead, he’ll be accompanied by Kurt Bloch (Fastbacks, the Young Fresh Fellows) on guitar, Julia Rydholm (Ladybug Transistor, Essex Green) on bass, and Patrick Berkery (the War on Drugs, the Pernice Brothers) on drums, promising that “the show will start quietly and finish loud. . . . We’ll condense forty-five years of music into ninety minutes as best we can.” In addition to Hitchcock gems, be on the lookout for witty repartee and classic covers, from Dylan, the Beatles, the Psychedelic Furs, and unexpected surprises, especially because it will be April Fools’ Day.

THE DOWNTOWN SEDER

Who: David Broza, BETTY, Bettye LaVette, Paul Shapiro’s Ribs & Brisket, Basya and Saadya Schechter, Mark Vincent, Gary Lucas and the Golem, Modi, Resistance Revival Chorus, Dr. Ruth, Mayor Eric Adams, Congressman Max Rose, Terrance Floyd, Vince Warren, Jason Flom, Lorenzo Johnson, more
What: Downtown Seder 2023
Where: City Winery, 25 Eleventh Ave. at Fifteenth St.
When: Sunday, April 2, $85-$125 (livestream free), 1:00
Why: For more than three decades, Michael Dorf has been hosting all-star seders to celebrate Passover, concentrating on freedom and justice. The latest iteration takes place on Sunday afternoon, April 2, at City Winery, which Dorf opened on Varick St. in 2008 and moved to Hudson River Park’s Pier 57 in 2020. Attendees will be seated at long, communal tables and have a vegetarian meal with four glasses of wine as they go through the Haggadah, the illustrated text that tells the story of the Jewish people’s exodus from Egypt. This year’s participants include musicians David Broza, BETTY, Paul Shapiro’s Ribs & Brisket, Basya and Saadya Schechter, Mark Vincent, Resistance Revival Chorus, and Gary Lucas and the Golem, comedian Modi, Dr. Ruth, Mayor Eric Adams, Congressman Max Rose, Vince Warren of the Center for Constitutional Rights, and Jason Flom and Lorenzo Johnson of the Innocence Project. Terrance Floyd, George Floyd’s brother, will be asking “The Four Questions”; the setlist is also likely to include “Dayenu,” “Chad Gadya,” “Go Down Moses,” and “The Ten Plagues.”

“It says in the beginning of the Haggadah that one should recount and retell the story of the exodus from Egypt in the language that you understand. The ancient Israelites didn’t know Hebrew, so they told the story in Armenian. Americans read it in English,” Dorf said in a statement. “Our interpretation is to tell the story in the language of the arts, in ways we can relate and truly empathize with what it would be like to be in bondage, to be emancipated, and the universal civil rights we need to continually remind ourselves.” During the pandemic, City Winery livestreamed its Downtown Seders; you can check out the 2021 virtual event above. And it was just announced that the 2023 seder will be streamed live for free here.

black odyssey

Ulysses Lincoln (Sean Boyce Johnson) searches for a way back to Harlem in black odyssey (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

black odyssey
Classic Stage Company, Lynn F. Angelson Theater
136 East 13th St. between Third & Fourth Aves.
Through March 26, $77
classicstage.org

Marcus Gardley’s black odyssey is one of those genius ideas you hope will pay off. It turns out to be a mixed bag, as poet, playwright, assistant professor, actor, and screenwriter Gardley and director Stevie Walker-Webb have so many takes on the story that it sometimes feels like they’ve thrown everything but the kitchen sink at the audience, and the message feels clogged in the end.

A reimagining of Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey through the lens of African American history, the play premiered in Denver in 2014 and was revised three years later for the California Shakespeare Theater. Revised again for its New York premiere, it is now completing a run at Classic Stage, taking place on David Goldstein’s minimalist set, a glossy black rectangular platform, the only props two halves of a wooden boat.

The 150-minute show (with intermission) opens with a chorus, representing chess pieces, delivering a fourth-wall-breaking prologue.

“Let us begin at the beginning so we may end at the end / Shake off the cares of this day, my friend. Close your eyes / Breathe in the perfume of mother nature: her still waters run deep / As do her blue skies. There is no griot greater. / And like her, we have come to sow and season and play/ But don’t get too excited, this part here is just . . . foreplay,” they announce with a Shakespearean touch.

“You are the true star in our galaxy. / Only you can guide our ship through this tale we call ‘black odyssey.’ / It is by the light of your smile, the sparkle in your eyes / That we compass our way to the end. So, hold on tight, my friend. / Yet get loose: let the music move you some. Sing if you feel like singing / And if you can’t hold a tune then baby hold a hum. Sway. / Dance if your feet can’t stand you. Clap or stomp even if it scares you. / Shout out when the spirit gets in your bones. But please, for the love of the gods turn off your beeping cellphones.”

Harriett D. Foy brings the house down as Aunt Tee in black odyssey at Classic Stage (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

Deus (James T. Alfred), the god of the sky, and Paw Sidin (Jimonn Cole), the god of the sea, are playing chess with mortals’ bodies. Paw Sidin is determined to exact revenge on Ulysses Lincoln (Sean Boyce Johnson), who killed Paw Sidin’s son, Poly’famous (Marcus Gladney Jr.), in battle. Aunt Tee (Harriett D. Foy), the goddess of war who is Deus’s daughter and Ulysses’s aunt, is ready to do whatever is necessary to protect her nephew.

In Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus endures many trials as he attempts to return to his wife, Penelope, and son, Telemachus, in Ithaca after the Trojan War; here, Ulysses is struggling to get home to his wife, Nella P. (D. Woods), and son, Malachai (Gladney Jr.), in Harlem after fighting overseas. “I went to war to make a better life for myself,” he explains. “I wasn’t supposed to serve. I signed up during peacetime but then 9/11 happened, the World Trade Center came down, and before I knew it . . . I was in Afghanistan.”

When Ulysses joined the navy, Nella P. was eight months pregnant. Sixteen years later, Nella refuses to believe that her still-missing husband is dead while she raises Malachai and is beguiled by a suitor (Cole). Over the years, Paw Sidin has put on disguises to trick Nella, punishing her and Malachai. “Revenge is a meal best served raw,” the sea god declares with relish.

The story goes back and forth between the present and flashbacks of Ulysses’s adventures, in which he encounters characters revamped from Homer’s original, including sea creatures Scylla (Foy) and Carib’diss (Adrienne C. Moore), Ulysses’s grandmother Calypso (Foy), the Soul Siren (Lance Coadie Williams), Circe (Moore), Benevolence Nausicca Sabine (Tẹmídayọ Amay), and shagadelic prophet Super Fly Tireseas (Alfred).

A Black family fights for survival in New York premiere at Classic Stage (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

Ulysses’s adventures range from a powerful section in which he joins a Black family floating on their roof in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to being serenaded by Carib’diss, Scylla, and the Soul Siren channeling some of the greatest Black stars of the 1960s and ’70s.

Although the show has several fine performances and terrific individual scenes, Gardley overstuffs the narrative with too many historical and contemporary references, from comical to serious, dating between 1619 and 2017, as Ulysses battles four hundred years of racial injustice. Among the kaleidoscopic references are Sylvia’s Restaurant, Rosa Parks, the Studio Museum in Harlem, James Baldwin, the Schomburg Center, Jay Z, the Hamptons, the subway, Langston Hughes, Famous Fish Market, Malcolm X, JFK, MLK Jr., and The Color Purple.

The play works best when it focuses on the undying love between Ulysses and Nella and Ulysses’s desperate attempts to rejoin his family. Otherwise, it’s all over the place, as are the performances. The standouts are Woods, who gives heart to Nella; Cole as the ever-evil Paw Sidin; Foy as the scene-stealing Aunt Tee; and Johnson, who is marvelous as Ulysses, who represents four centuries of continuing suffering and oppression as well as the unconquerable spirit of Blacks in America.

Gardley (The House That Will Not Stand) and Walker-Webb (one in two, Ain’t No Mo’) try too hard to make black odyssey epic; the whole is not greater than the sum of its parts, as captivating and powerful as some of those parts are.

EVERY OCEAN HUGHES: RIVER

Every Ocean Hughes’s River will be performed March 24–26 in conjunction with photography exhibit (photo courtesy Every Ocean Hughes)

Who: Every Ocean Hughes
What: Live performance
Where: Whitney Museum of American Art, the Susan and John Hess Family Theater, 99 Gansevoort St.
When: March 24, 7:00; March 25, 4:00 & 7:00; March 26, 4:00, $25; exhibition continues through April 2
Why: Multidisciplinary artist Every Ocean Hughes activates her Whitney photography exhibition “Every Ocean Hughes: Alive Side” with four live performances this weekend in the Susan and John Hess Family Theater. Formerly known as Emily Roysdon, Hughes investigates legacy, loss, and inheritance in “Alive Side,” consisting of photographs of the west side piers right outside the Whitney; Hughes calls them “unmarked memorials, found monuments to the lives that needed that unregulated space. To those who died living queerly. Those who died of neglect, poverty, AIDS, violence, and politics. And to those seeking life by crossing West Street.” The black-and-white photos of the dilapidated wooden piers sticking out of the water, some works sliced diagonally in half, are framed in bright pastel colors that evoke the rainbow pride flag. The exhibit also features the forty-minute video One Big Bag, in which a death doula portrayed by Lindsay Rico describes and enacts rituals surrounding the end of life; “the whole process is a creative process,” she says.

Every Ocean Hughes, The Piers Untitled (#12 collaged, #9, #14 collaged, #4), 2009-23 (photo by Ron Amstutz)

On March 24–26, the Maryland-born Hughes, who lives and works in her home state and Stockholm, will present River, a thirty-minute live performance incorporating song, text, choreographed movement, and set design exploring the crossing that takes place at death, the descent into the underworld. The cast includes Rico, Geo WyeX, Æirrinn, and Nora Brown, with movement direction by Monica Mirabile, costumes by Montana Levi Blanco, and lighting by Timothy Johnson. Tickets are $25; it is recommended they be purchased in advance.

THE HUNTING GUN

Josuke Misugi (Mikhail Baryshnikov) watches Shoko (Miki Nakatani) from above in The Hunting Gun (photo by Pasha Antono)

THE HUNTING GUN
Baryshnikov Arts Center, Jerome Robbins Theater
450 West 37th St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through April 15, $35-$150
646-731-3200
thehuntinggun.org
bacnyc.org

Miki Nakatani is so mesmerizing in the US premiere of The Hunting Gun that even her costar, in a building named after him, can barely take his eyes off her.

Running in the Jerome Robbins Theater at Baryshnikov Arts Center through April 15, the haunting, heart-wrenchingly poetic play was adapted by Serge Lamothe from Yasushi Inoue’s 1949 novel centered around an illicit love affair that deeply affects four people. In a devastating, award-winning performance, Nakatani plays three roles: a girl named Shoko whose mother, Saiko, has just died; Midori, Saiko’s cousin and best friend; and Saiko herself, essentially communicating from the grave.

BAC founding artistic director Mikhail Baryshnikov is Josuke Misugi, a hunter who is married to Midori and had a long tryst with Saiko. The story unfolds as the three female characters read letters they’ve written to Misugi, who witnesses everything from an elevated platform at the back of the stage, behind three black translucent vertical screens with excerpts from the letters in Japanese on them. Each of the female characters wears a different outfit — the gorgeous clothing is by Renée April, with costume changes taking place onstage — while the floor of François Séguin’s eerie, mystical set magically changes for the three women, incorporating the elements of water, earth, and wood. David Finn’s lighting has a supernatural feel, as does Alexander MacSween’s music.

The premise is that Misugi has been moved by a poem he read in The Hunter’s Companion, a magazine not known for its literary prowess. “What made him cold, armed with white, bright steel, / To take the lives of creatures? / Attracted by the tall hunter’s back, / I looked and looked,” it says in part. “As the glittering of a hunting gun, / Stamping its weight on the lonely body, / Lonely mind of a middle-aged man, / Radiates a queer, austere beauty, / Never shown when aimed at life.”

Midori (Miki Nakatani) shares her deep pain in darkly poetic show at BAC (photo by Pasha Antono)

Misugi writes to the poet, believing that he, Misugi, is the lonely hunter the man describes in the poem. He tells him he is going to send him three letters he has received, which he was going to burn. “I would be happy if you would read them at your leisure,” he explains to the author. “It seems to me that a man is foolish enough to want another person to understand him. After you have read them, I hope you’ll burn the three of them for me.” The trio of women then perform the poems while Misugi watches closely from above and carefully cleans his Churchill shotgun.

At first Shoko thanks Misugi for his help after her mother’s death, writing, “I’ve thought and thought about how to say all this, and I have finished, so to speak, the preparation for this letter. But when I pick up my pen, all sorts of sorrows come rushing upon me from every direction, like the white waves at Ashiya on windy days, and these sorrows confuse me.” Her world has been turned inside out since she read her mother’s diaries and found out about the affair. “That love which can’t be kept without being sinful must be a sorrowful thing,” she opines.

Demonstrating her inner strength, Midori begins her letter, “When I write your name in this formal way, I feel my heart throbbing with emotion as though I were writing a love letter. I have written scores of such letters during the last thirteen years, sometimes secretly, sometimes openly, but among all of them not one has been addressed to you. Why? That realization makes me feel an oddness I can’t explain logically. Don’t you also think this is funny?”

Saiko’s letter retraces some of the adventures she and Misugi had together while also explaining, “Many hours or many days after I’m gone and have turned into nothing, you will read this letter. And living after me, it will tell you the many thoughts I had when I was alive. As though I were speaking to you, this letter will tell you what I thought and felt — things you don’t yet know. And it will be as though you were talking to me and hearing my voice.”

Josuke Misugi (Mikhail Baryshnikov) cleans his rifle throughout The Hunting Gun (photo by Pasha Antono)

Nakatani (When the Last Sword Is Drawn, Memories of Matsuko, Zero Focus) cautiously roams across the stage as if a butoh dancer, moving almost exasperatingly slowly, delivering the words from the letters like they’re the lily pads or stones beneath her feet. At times it’s like she’s floating, a ghost reliving her characters’ past tinged with a wide range of conflicting emotions.

Baryshnikov (Brodsky/Baryshnikov, The Orchard) sits in a chair, rises, and turns his attention from the Churchill to Nakatani with a master’s touch, his eyes and body understanding precisely how Misugi’s actions impacted Shoko, Midori, and Saiko. He might not speak a word, but his minimal gestures depict anguish and contrition with the skill of an exquisite dancer as Misugi, disengaged from reality, finally sees the pain he has caused others and raises the now pristine rifle.

François Girard, who has made such films as The Red Violin, Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould, and Silk (costarring Nakatani) in addition to helming numerous operas and theater productions, directs The Hunting Gun with the discipline of a Zen master, allowing the details of the story, which has previously been made into a 1961 melodrama by Heinosuke Gosho and a 2018 opera by Thomas Larcher, to unfold like a butterfly or a bee flitting across a blossoming garden. It is a profoundly sad tale, filled with regret, revenge, and remorse, told with an otherworldly elegance and grace.

It is also a fitting prelude to “Mikhail Baryshnikov at 75: A Day of Music and Celebration,” in which Misha will be honored by Laurie Anderson, Diana Krall, Regina Spektor, Kaoru Watanabe, Mark Morris, and Anna Baryshnikov (his daughter) at Kaatsbaan Cultural Park on June 25; tickets ($75-$500) are available here.