featured

MJ THE MUSICAL

Myles Frost stars as the King of Pop in MJ the Musical (photo by Matthew Murphy)

MJ THE MUSICAL
Neil Simon Theatre
250 West Fifty-Second St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through December 30, $84-$299
mjthemusical.com

The most important official line about MJ does not come from two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage’s book or fifteen-time Grammy winner Michael Jackson’s lyrics; instead, it can be found on the title page of the Playbill: “By special arrangement with the Estate of Michael Jackson.”

The jukebox musical features a star turn by former Voice contestant Myles Frost as the King of Pop. The show opens at his Neverland Ranch as MJ is preparing for a world tour in support of his eighth solo album, 1992’s Dangerous. The extensive, exhausting rehearsals — Jackson is a perfectionist, making demands on the dancers and designers — are being documented by music journalist Rachel (Whitney Bashor) and cameraman Dave (Joey Sorge) for MTV, including occasional access to Jackson himself.

The plot quickly glosses over child abuse allegations — the LAPD would begin investigating Jackson in August 1993 — and has a brief scene dealing with his addiction to painkillers. (Jackson’s death in June 2009 at the age of fifty was attributed in large part to his overdependence on prescription medication.)

The main conflict, and it’s a big stretch, is whether Jackson is willing to put Neverland up for collateral in exchange for a loan that will pay for his spectacular entrance sequence at the start of his concerts. It’s a paper-thin narrative even as we root for Jackson not to lose his beloved home, where many of the alleged abuses purportedly took place. More time is given to talk of his Heal the World Foundation, a charity to help disadvantaged children, than to any accusations. Although one certainly gets invested in seeing just how close the company comes to re-creating Jackson’s songs and movement, that can’t sustain a 150-minute show (with intermission).

Director-choreographer Christopher Wheeldon cuts between rehearsals and key scenes from Jackson’s childhood in the Jackson Five, with the young Michael (Walter Russell III, Christian Wilson, Tavon Olds-Sample) joined by his brothers Marlon (Devin Trey Campbell, Zelig Williams), Jermaine (Lamont Walker II), Tito (Apollo Levine), Randy (Raymond Baynard), and Jackie (John Edwards) as they are discovered and nurtured by Motown founder Berry Gordy (Antoine L. Smith) and producer Quincy Jones (Levine) as parents Katherine (Ayana George) and, especially, the controlling Joe (Quentin Earl Darrington) carefully watch their career.

The songs are terrifically orchestrated and arranged by musical supervisor David Holcenberg and musical director Jason Michael Webb, regularly igniting the crowd. And what a setlist it is: “ABC,” “Bad,” “Beat It,” “Billie Jean,” “Black or White,” “Dancing Machine,” “Man in the Mirror,” “Smooth Criminal,” “Thriller,” and “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’,” among others. The show is a tech success, with sets by Derek McLane, lighting by Natasha Katz, costumes by Paul Tazwell, sound by Gareth Owen, and projections by Peter Nigrini; Charles Lapointe does a great job with hair and wigs.

Darrington (Once on This Island, Ragtime) stands out doing double duty as tour manager Rob and Joe Jackson, as Nottage (Sweat, Ruined) and Tony winner Wheeldon (An American in Paris, Cinderella) make direct comparisons to the two men’s influences on Michael’s personal and professional lives and how they protect him. But it’s not enough to offset everything that is left out of the story, which looms over the production like a dark cloud.

In the song “Keep the Faith” from the Dangerous album, Jackson sings, “If you call out loud / Will it get inside / Through the heart of your surrender / To your alibis / And you can say the words / Like you understand / But the power’s in believing / So give yourself / A chance.” MJ the Musical feels like a chance for the Michael Jackson Estate to exploit those alibis without really looking at the man in the mirror.

AMERICAN BUFFALO

Sam Rockwell, Darren Criss, and Laurence Fishburne star in latest Broadway revival of David Mamet’s American Buffalo (photo by Richard Termine)

AMERICAN BUFFALO
Circle in the Square Theatre
1633 Broadway at 50th St.
Tuesday – Sunday through July 10, $79.50 – $299.50
americanbuffalonyc.com

In 1981, at the downtown Circle in the Square on Bleecker St., a high school classmate of mine named Rich and I saw David Mamet’s American Buffalo, a searing three-character drama starring Al Pacino, Clifton James, and Thomas G. Waites as a trio of luckless losers in a Chicago junk shop plotting a low-level heist. Last month, Rich and I saw the third Broadway revival of the play, at Circle in the Square in the Theater District, a still-sizzling play with another all-star cast: Sam Rockwell, Laurence Fishburne, and Darren Criss.

A lot has changed over the last forty-one years. Rich and I both moved out of Long Island; he is a married insurance defense lawyer in Queens with two kids, while I’m a married culture writer and managing editor in Manhattan. Mamet, for decades celebrated as one of the country’s most important and talented playwrights and filmmakers — he’s been nominated for two Oscars, three Emmys, and two Tonys and won the Pulitzer Prize for 1983’s Glengarry Glen Ross — has now been turned into a pariah by the left because of his Trumpist political views and condemnation of liberalism, which dates back to around 2011, along with the toxic masculinity and misogyny that appear throughout his work.

The last decade has witnessed a quartet of disasters by Mamet — the oh-so-brief Broadway debuts of The Anarchist and China Doll, an ill-fated revival of Glengarry Glen Ross, and the world premiere of the disappointing The Penitent — but all of that has little to do with Neil Pepe’s powerful new staging of American Buffalo; my only quibble is that the intermission gets in the way of the flow of the drama, which is only eighty-five minutes without the break. (Most of Mamet’s works are between sixty and one hundred minutes, so he certainly has a way of getting right to the point.)

Donny (Laurence Fishburne) gets an earful from Teach (Sam Rockwell) in American Buffalo (photo by Richard Termine)

American Buffalo takes place in an impossibly crowded downstairs junk shop. It’s a Friday morning, and middle-aged store owner Donny Dubrow (Laurence Fishburne) is talking with Bobby (Darren Criss), a young simpleton who helps him out on occasion. In this case, Donny has asked Bobby to keep watch on a guy who had come into the store and purchased a buffalo nickel from him for ninety bucks. Donny compares the stranger to their friend Fletcher, who just won a stash playing cards.

“You take him and you put him down in some strange town with just a nickel in his pocket, and by nightfall he’ll have that town by the balls,” Donny says. “This is not talk, Bob, this is action. . . . Skill. Skill and talent and the balls to arrive at your own conclusions.”

While Donny goes out of his way to teach Bobby about life, their friend Walter Cole (Sam Rockwell), better known as Teach, isn’t seeking out any teaching moments. He whirls into the shop, complaining about this and that, finding offense in minor incidents, lashing out with a slew of curses as he recounts supposed wrongs done to him. “Someone is against me, that’s their problem,” he barks. “I can look out for myself, and I don’t got to fuck around behind somebody’s back, I don’t like the way they’re treating me. Or pray some brick safe falls and hits them on the head, they’re walking down the street. But to have that shithead turn, in one breath, every fucking sweetroll that I ever ate with them into GROUND GLASS — I’m wondering were they eating it and thinking ‘This guy’s an idiot to blow a fucking quarter on his friends‘’ . . . this hurts me, Don. This hurts me in a way I don’t know what the fuck to do.” When Donny tries to calm him down, the bloviator says, “The only way to teach these people is to kill them.”

Amid a series of Pinteresque discussions, each more absurd than the last as they talk about English muffins, bacon, the weather, coffee, cheating at cards, pigirons, and loyalty, they plot a heist, deciding to rid the buffalo nickel customer of all of his coins later that night. What could possibly go wrong?

American Buffalo is a character-driven masterpiece about low-level dreams gone awry, about people who started with nothing and have no idea how to get their piece of the pie, or at least not legally. It’s field day for three actors; past productions have featured such trios as Robert Duvall, Kenneth McMillan, and John Savage; William H. Macy, Philip Baker Hall, and Mark Webber; John Leguizamo, Cedric the Entertainer, and Haley Joel Osment; and Damian Lewis, John Goodman, and Tom Sturridge.

Daren Criss holds his own with big-timers Sam Rockwell and Laurence Fishburne in Mamet revival (photo by Richard Termine)

The current Broadway revival, staunchly directed by Neil Pepe (Hands on a Hardbody, Dying for It), who has helmed many of Mamet’s works — including the 2000 revival at the Donmar Warehouse and the Atlantic Theater, which was cofounded by Mamet and Macy and where Pepe has been artistic director for thirty years — is another acting tour de force, with Criss (How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying, Hedwig and the Angry Inch) sublime as the gentle Bobby, Fishburne (Two Trains Running, Riff Raff) steadfast as the straightforward Donny, and a mustachioed Rockwell (A Behanding in Spokane, Fool for Love) right on target as the unsettling, unpredictable Teach, his polyester slacks practically a character unto themselves. (The costumes are by Dede Ayite.)

Scott Pask’s set is like a character unto itself as well, consisting of hundreds of items cluttering the floor and filling the ceiling over the men’s heads; these pieces of junk are like parts of their brain, all the thoughts and desires swimming around their skulls, likely to never come to fruition, just taking up space in these ne’er-do-wells who can’t see clearly ahead of themselves.

Right before the show started, Rich reminded me that when he had taken a stab at acting and stand-up comedy after college, his go-to audition speech was from American Buffalo, Teach’s first words: “Fuckin’ Ruthie, fuckin’ Ruthie, fuckin’ Ruthie, fuckin’ Ruthie, fuckin’ Ruthie.” After experiencing the play with him again after four decades, that choice made perfect sense to me.

JIM FLETCHER ON SCREEN

Jim Fletcher played Frankensteins monster in Tony Ourslers Imponderable (photo courtesy Museum of Modern Art)

Jim Fletcher plays Frankenstein’s monster in Tony Oursler’s Imponderable (photo courtesy Museum of Modern Art)

Who: Jim Fletcher
What: Film series
Where: Anthology Film Archives, 32 Second Ave. at Second St.
When: June 11-16
Why: In a January 2020 twi-ny talk, actor, writer, and editor Jim Fletcher, who is beloved in the experimental theater scene, said of his working with such companies as the New York City Players (NYCP), the Wooster Group, and Elevator Repair Service, “I’m working with people I love. It seems I never asked myself what kind of work I wanted to do, and also never the follow-up question, who best to do it with. In that sense I’m not a productive person. I think when you get close to people, you spontaneously start working in some way . . . out of sheer energy or whatever it is. Surplus.” Fans of Fletcher’s stage work (Pollock, Isolde, Why Why Always) might not realize just how productive the deep-voiced actor is, but they can find out in the Anthology Film Archives series “Jim Fletcher On Screen,” running June 11-16.

The mini-festival consists of eight programs comprising sixteen shorts, documentaries, and features starring the tall, bold Fletcher, from Roland Ellis’s ten-minute Break Down, Nicholas Elliott’s Icarus, and Laura Parnes’s Blood and Guts in High School (an adaptation of the book by Kathy Acker) to Shaun Irons’s Standing By: Gatz Backstage (a behind-the-scenes look at the eight-hour Gatz), Zoe Beloff’s Glass House (based on an unrealized science fiction project by Sergei Eisenstein), and Ellen Cantor’s Pinochet Porn (an episodic narrative that was completed after her death). NYCP founder Richard Maxwell is represented with The Feud Other, The Darkness of This Reading, and Showcase, the latter promising, “Gradually getting dressed, [Fletcher’s character] discusses life on the road, memories, moron jokes, the conference he is attending, business strategies, and a pivotal deal that went down recently under intimate circumstances. He sings.” Yes, Fletcher sings!

The celebration of all things Fletcher concludes June 16 with visual artist Tony Oursler’s 3D Imponderable, which was the centerpiece of a MoMA exhibition in 2016-17 and in which Fletcher portrays his dream role, Frankenstein’s monster. Fletcher will be at Anthology to talk about his work at several screenings, bringing along some of his friends and colleagues. Be prepared to join the ever-growing Fletcher faithful; we are legion.

THE BEDWETTER

Zoe Glick is delightful as a young girl with an embarrassing problem in world premiere musical at the Atlantic (photo by Ahron R. Foster)

THE BEDWETTER
Atlantic Theater Company
Linda Gross Theater
336 West 20th St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through July 10, $111.50 – $131.50
866-811-4111
atlantictheater.org

Sarah Silverman is a superhero comedian, actress, and activist, and the new musical The Bedwetter is her origin story — and it’s more fab than we could ever have hoped, no mere trickler.

In her 2010 memoir, The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee (HarperCollins, April 2010, $19.99), Silverman detailed how she dealt as a child with nocturnal enuresis, mixing comedy with heartfelt poignancy as she openly and honestly examined the shame she suffered through. While the world premiere musical, which opened Tuesday night at the Atlantic for a limited run through July 3, also has its tender, emotional moments, it’s mostly a jubilant, hysterically funny tale about a unique young girl (Zoe Glick) and her dysfunctional family as she begins fifth grade in a new school.

Sarah’s parents have recently divorced. Her severely depressed mother, Beth Ann (Caissie Levy), spends all day and night in bed, watching her favorite movie and TV stars, never venturing outside. Sarah’s philandering father, Donald (Darren Goldstein), is the owner of Crazy Donny’s Discount Clothing Store and loves telling Sarah and her older sister, eighth grader Laura (Emily Zimmerman), dirty jokes utterly inappropriate for children. Meanwhile, Sarah’s beloved nana (Bebe Neuwirth) speaks without a filter, smokes like a fiend, and has Sarah regularly mix her Manhattans.

“I’m just really really fucking excited to be here!” Sarah cries out in class on her first day of school, angering her teacher, Mrs. Dembo (Ellyn Marie Marsh), who says, “Sarah! We don’t use language like that!” Sarah responds, “Sorry, Mrs. Dembo! I know that’s an ‘at home’ word.” Well, not at most suburban homes with young kids.

Sarah is a happy-go-lucky girl who manages to smile through all her family weirdness; she is ridiculously cute in her tight black bangs and shiny eyes. (The hair and wig design is by Tom Watson.) When she tries to make friends with a trio of mean girls — Ally (Charlotte Elizabeth Curtis), Abby (Charlotte MacLeod), and Amy (Margot Weintraub) — she has an unusual take on their verbal attacks on her.

“Your arms are so hairy!” Ally sings. “I couldn’t agree more! You should see my back!” Sarah responds. “Your teeth are enormous!” Abby declares. “I couldn’t agree more! To keep them this yellow takes extra plaque!” Sarah joyfully admits. “You’re short and dark and strange and eww-y!” the three girls say. “I know what you mean! I’m totally Jew-y!” Sarah replies with a big grin.

Sarah Silverman (Zoe Glick) and her father (Darren Goldstein) visit the doctor in The Bedwetter (photo by Ahron R. Foster)

At school, Laura prefers to ignore her little sister, but Sarah can’t help but stick around her. Laura explains, “Like do you know the type of person that like wants to smell all the bad smells? Like when the milk goes bad she’s like let me smell it and you say why would you want to and she says she just ‘wants to know’? Or like . . . do you know the type of person that’ll wake you up at 1 am and say, ‘Laura, does the pee come out the baby hole, or its own hole? . . . And how many holes do we have?’” To which Sarah says, “Yeah! And like, do you have a period hole now?”

But as with all superheroes, she has her own personal Kryptonite, in this case the severe shame of wetting the bed every night. When one of her worst nightmares comes true, Sarah’s father takes her to see a hypnotist, Dr. Grimm, then a pill-crazed screwball, Dr. Riley (both played by Rick Crom), but that only makes matters worse as she struggles, like any preteen, to fit in. She tries to find solace in her own superhero, Bedford native Jane Badler, aka Miss New Hampshire (Ashley Blanchet), who shows up at various times as a goddess of perfection, offering tidbits of wisdom in her beauty-pageant costume.

The Bedwetter is a sparkling adaptation of Silverman’s memoir, ready, willing, and able to pull no punches and hold nothing back. It might be about a ten-year-old, but it is most definitely not for kids; a group of children were sitting around us, and they looked rather uncomfortable through much of the show, particularly during Donald’s “In My Line of Work,” in which he proudly proclaims numerous times to several kids, “I fucked your mom!” It’s reminiscent of Silverman’s innovative cable sitcom The Sarah Silverman Program, which ran from 2007 to 2010 and approached her life with a wicked sense of humor as she brilliantly, and often controversially, complete with ferociously funny cringe-worthy moments, faced such issues as racism, anti-Semitism, abortion, and same-sex marriage. (It was a family affair, as her older sister, Laura, portrayed her younger sister.)

A nontraditional musical that brings to mind Fun Home, The Bedwetter features a jaunty pop score by three-time Emmy and Grammy winner and Oscar and Tony nominee Adam Schlesinger (Cry-Baby, “That Thing You Do!”), a founding member of Fountains of Wayne (Utopia Parkway, “Stacy’s Mom”) who died of Covid-19 complications in April 2020 at the age of fifty-two; the playful lyrics, which toy with genre cliches and regularly go to unexpected places, are by Schlesinger and Silverman, set to perky orchestrations by David Chase.

Nana (Bebe Neuwirth) has some choice advice for Sarah (Zoe Glick) in rousing musical (photo by Ahron R. Foster)

But it’s the book that really glows, written by Silverman and Joshua Harmon, one of today’s best playwrights; his recent work includes the extraordinary epic Prayer for the French Republic, the dazzling black comedy Bad Jews, and the moving relationship drama Significant Other. Harmon and Silverman tell the story with charm, incorporating just the right amount of tsuris. And only Sarah Silverman could get away with saying, “Oh, John Lennon. This might sound weird, but your senseless murder has made one little girl very happy.” Bedwetting becomes instantly relatable, resonating with any shame anyone in the audience may be holding inside.

Obie-winning director Anne Kauffman (The Nether, Mary Jane) has a firm grasp of the unusual material, unfolding on Laura Jellinek’s graceful sets, which morph from bedrooms to school hallways to doctors offices. Byron Easley’s choreography nearly brings the house down in a number involving dancing pills.

Glick (Frozen, Les Misérables) is a delight as young Sarah, bursting with confidence in a challenging role; she’s actually fourteen, so it’s a little easier to accept many of the words and ideas that come out of her character’s mouth. Goldstein (The Little Foxes, Continuity) and Levy (Frozen, Caroline, or Change) make a fine pair of dueling exes, while Neuwirth (Chicago, Cheers) is like a queen holding court as Nana. Crom (Urinetown, Merrily We Roll Along) nearly steals the show as the doctors (among other minor roles) when Blanchet (Waitress, Beautiful) isn’t taking center stage as the cryptic Miss New Hampshire. [Ed. note: Jessica Vosk will play Beth Ann and Elizabeth Ward Land will take over the role of Nana from July 5 to 10.]

But mostly, The Bedwetter is about discovering and accepting who you are, making necessary changes as you grow, and becoming part of the world around you. As Phyllis Campbell (Marsh), Amy’s mother, says to the kids at her daughter’s birthday party, “May all your dreams come true! Mine did not!” In The Bedwetter, Silverman dares us to face our fears, and beat them silly.

PARADISE SQUARE

Races and dance styles mix it up in Paradise Square (photo by Kevin Berne)

PARADISE SQUARE
Ethel Barrymore Theatre
243 West 47th St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through July 17, $39 – $250
www.paradisesquaremusical.com

Paradise Square gets off to a rousing start, with exciting choreography by Bill T. Jones, a fabulous set by Allen Moyer, a terrific cast led by Joaquina Kalukango, splendid period costumes by Toni-Leslie James, historical projections by Wendall K. Harrington and Shawn Boyle that establish the time and place, and thrilling music by Jason Howland and Larry Kirwan. But once Nathan Tysen and Masi Asare’s lyrics and the book, by Christina Anderson, Craig Lucas, and Kirwan, kick into full gear, the whole thing falls apart, leaving us to wonder what could have been. Not even two-time Tony-nominated director and National Medal of Arts recipient Moisés Kaufman can put it back together.

It’s 1863, the middle of the Civil War, and Nelly Freeman (Kalukango) is running the (fictional) Paradise Square pub in Five Points, at the corner of Baxter and Worth Sts., what she proudly calls “the first slum in America!” It’s a place where everyone, regardless of race, gender, or religion, can come for a “little bit of Eden.” As she sings, “All we have is what we are / Inside here we all feel free / We love who we want to love / With no apology / If you landed in this square / Then you dared to risk it all / At the bottom of the ladder / There’s nowhere left to fall.”

Nelly is married to Willie O’Brien (Matt Bogart), an Irishman who is captain of the Fighting 69th Infantry. Willie’s right-hand man is Lucky Mike Quinlan (Kevin Dennis); Nelly runs the saloon with Willie’s sister, Annie (Chilina Kennedy), who is married to the Reverend Samuel Jacob Lewis (Nathaniel Stampley). Willie and Mike are about to head back to the war. “We’ll be back before ya blink,” Mike promises. “On me word, Nelly. I’ll bring him to ya with all his workin’ parts still workin’.”

Annie’s nephew, Owen Duignan (A. J. Shively), arrives, looking to make a fresh start in a new land where the streets are supposedly paved with gold. Also showing up is Washington Henry (Sidney DuPont), an escaped slave seeking shelter until he is reunited with his wife, Angelina Baker (Gabrielle McClinton), who was separated from him in the woods. Meanwhile, a drunk piano player named Milton Moore (Jacob Fishel) comes in looking for a job; Nelly does not realize that he is actually Stephen Foster, who has already written some racist anthems (and who really did live — and die — in Five Points).

Broadway musical looks at slavery, immigration, war, and personal sacrifice (photo by Kevin Berne)

Keeping a close watch on everything that happens at the Paradise is uptown party boss Frederic Tiggens (John Dossett), who wants to close the establishment because it is the center of Black and Irish anti-South and anti-business voters, “a haven of social depravity and political ascension.” He confronts Nelly, calling her “a facilitator of prostitution, gambling, and drunken mayhem.” She humbly replies, “I am just one woman who runs a saloon.” He bites back, “Don’t play coy. A degenerate who somehow wields power in New York politics doesn’t get to be coy.” To which she responds, “But enough about you —.”

It all devolves quickly once Nelly decides to hold a dance-off in which the winner will get three hundred dollars, the exact amount needed to buy one’s way out of President Lincoln’s newly implemented draft for the Union army. “Three hundred dollars?! That’s more than a year’s wage!” an Italian longshoreman declares. “I won’t go,” a German longshoreman adds. “If you do not go, you will be considered a deserter and a criminal,” a provost marshal explains. “This is a rich man’s war that the poor and immigrant will have to fight,” an Irish longshoreman says. When two Black longshoremen are ready to sign up, the marshal tells them, “No coloreds. Only citizens and immigrants.”

The contest and its aftermath turns what was a compelling drama about immigrants, slavery, poverty, and war into a cliché-ridden narrative that will leave you exasperated, as Tiggens becomes more and more like cartoon villain Snidely Whiplash and the lines between good and evil might as well be drawn with a giant crayon, eliminating any nuance or subtlety. It really is a shame, since so many of the individual elements are outstanding; Anderson, Lucas, and Black 47 leader Kirwan don’t have enough faith that the audience will be able to weave its way through a more complex and realistic story, instead opting for the lowest common denominator. I nearly screamed at a plot development late in the show that still has me seeing red.

Two-time Tony nominee Kalukango (Slave Play, The Color Purple) is almost reason enough to see Paradise Square, but I had to wonder whether the showstopping standing ovation she received for her blazing solo “Let It Burn” was genuine or was at least partly egged on by an excerpt of a review on the theater’s facade that highlights the standing O from the Chicago production. The song includes such mundane lyrics as “I know why you have come here / What you want to erase / But I know that our spirit / Is bigger than this place.”

Paradise Square wants to make serious statements about issues that are still relevant a century and a half after the Civil War, but it can’t stop stepping on its own toes, unable to leap beyond the obvious.

WORLD SERIES OF DARTS

Peter Wright is among the throwers seeking the darts championship at the Hulu Theater

Who: Peter Wright, Michael van Gerwen, Gerwyn Price, Gary Anderson, Jonny Clayton, James Wade, Michael Smith, Rob Cross, Jose De Sousa, Dimitri Van den Bergh, Fallon Sherrock
What: World Series of Darts
Where: Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden
When: June 3-4, $37.50 – $250
Why: The Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) is making a bull’s-eye for the Hulu Theater at MSG for the Bet365 US Darts Masters and Bet365 North American Championship. Among the sharpshooters going after the trophy are reigning world champion Peter Wright, 2021 world champion Gerwyn Price, Michael van Gerwen, Gary Anderson, Jonny Clayton, James Wade, Michael Smith, and Fallon Sherrock. The US Darts Masters takes place on June 3 at 7:00, followed by the North American Darts Championships on June 4 at 1:00 before concluding the masters that night at 7:30.

BLACK DOLLS

Topsy-turvy doll, mixed fabrics, paint, 1890-1905 (photo by Glenn Castellano)

BLACK DOLLS
New-York Historical Society
170 Central Park West at Seventy-Seventh St.
Wednesday – Sunday through June 5, $6-$22
www.nyhistory.org

The New-York Historical Society explores the sociocultural history of black dolls, particularly in regard to slavery and racism, in the revelatory exhibit “Black Dolls,” on view through June 5. The show features more than two hundred items, including more than a hundred handmade dolls dating back to the 1840s. Cynthia Walker Hill’s “Doll representing an enslaved man” depicts a fugitive slave with a slave collar still around his neck. There are several dolls crafted by Harriet Jacobs, author of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Written by Herself, for the children of white author Nathaniel Parker Willis. There are several topsy-turvy dolls, a Black figure on one side, a white figure on the other; an old advertisement makes a clear distinction between the two.

A row of Black dolls forming a family are lined up in front of photographs of girls with dolls of a different color. Disturbed at seeing two Black girls playing with a white doll, Sara Lee Creech worked with Eleanor Roosevelt and Zora Neale Hurston on a line of Black dolls with positive images, not stereotypes, but they didn’t sell well. In 1908, Richard Henry Boyd and his National Negro Doll Company began manufacturing “Negro Dolls for Negro Children.” In the 1990s, American Girl introduced Addy Walker, a Black doll with her own, smaller Black doll.

“While the names of the women who created these dolls are largely unknown, every stitch that they sewed into place is invaluable evidence of their lived experience, as well as a reflection of the larger historical forces of slavery and its legacy,” New-York Historical Society president and CEO Dr. Louise Mirrer said in a statement. There’s a folk-art quality to the dolls, reminiscent of story quilts, each one forming its own narrative.

In its landmark 1954 decision Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, the Supreme Court cited Dr. Kenneth Clark’s doll tests, in which he asked questions of Black and white children between the ages of three and seven to find out which doll they felt represented them and which were the good ones. The results were a window into how kids viewed racial stereotypes and their own self-esteem; most of the children preferred the white dolls. “To separate [Black children] from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone,” Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote in the opinion. The exhibit demonstrates more than a century and a half of quiet efforts to resist that damage and the resilience of the Black community and a few allies in the ongoing fight to represent themselves.

There will be guided gallery tours on May 29 and June 1 at 1:00. While at the museum, be sure to check out such other exhibits as “Title IX: Activism On and Off the Field,” “Picture the Dream: The Story of the Civil Rights Movement Through Children’s Books,” and “Scenes of New York City: The Elie and Sarah Hirschfeld Collection.”