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WU TSANG: ANTHEM

Beverly Glenn-Copeland bares his heart and soul in Guggenheim installation Anthem (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

RE/PROJECTIONS: VIDEO, FILM, AND PERFORMANCE FOR THE ROTUNDA
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
1071 Fifth Ave. at 89th St.
Thursday – Monday through September 6, $18 – $25 (pay-what-you-wish Saturday 5:45-7:45)
212-423-3587
www.guggenheim.org
anthem online slideshow

Philly-born Canadian composer and Black trans activist Beverly Glenn-Copeland has had quite a wild ride the last few years. In 2017, his 1986 cassette, Keyboard Fantasies, melding ambient, jazz, classical, folk, world, and New Age sounds, was rediscovered and rereleased, followed by his 2004 album, Primal Prayer, originally recorded under the name Phynix. In 2019, Posy Dixon’s documentary Keyboard Fantasies: The Beverly Glenn-Copeland Story came out, followed by a brief tour that brought Glenn-Copeland and his band, Indigo Rising, to MoMA PS1 that December. Despite the newfound popularity, in 2020, shortly after the pandemic lockdown began, Glenn-Copeland — the musician added the last part of his name in honor of American composer Aaron Copland, and he prefers to go by Glenn — and his wife, artist Elizabeth Paddon, were nearly homeless, resorting to a GoFundMe page to raise nearly $100,000.

This year, a projection of the seventy-seven-year-old musician is appearing on an eighty-four-foot diaphanous curtain hanging from the top of the Guggenheim Museum to nearly the base of the rotunda, like an enormous living tapestry. Glenn-Copeland, a Buddhist, performs the century-old spiritual “Deep River” along with additional a cappella vocalizations; he also plays percussion and keyboards in the film-portrait, titled Anthem. A live version of the song appears on his 2020 compilation, Transmissions; it has previously been sung by Marian Anderson, Paul Robeson, Johnny Mathis, Bobby Womack, and many others — Chevy Chase delivered an excerpt in the first Vacation movie, and Denyce Graves sang an operatic version at the Capitol memorial service for Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Anthem is one of several projects in the Guggenheim series “Re/Projections: Video, Film, and Performance for the Rotunda,” which has also featured works by Ragnar Kjartansson, Christian Nyampeta, and others as the institution reconsiders how to present shows to the public during the coronavirus crisis and beyond.

Tsang bathes Glenn-Copeland in a warm blue light as she depicts the performer in full view as well as in close-up, singing into an old-fashioned microphone, playing the piano, and holding out his hands as if trying to embrace us. The Guggenheim’s bays are empty except for occasional small vertical speakers, which broadcast different sections of the music, and in a few places the projection passes through the translucent curtain and can be seen against the back wall. (Musician Kelsey Lu and DJ, producer, and composer Asma Maroof collaborated on the piece, with assistant curator X Zhu-Nowell.) Thus, as you make your way up and down the Guggenheim’s twisting path, you get different audio and visual perspectives, like Glenn-Copeland is wrapping his arms around you with a spiritual lullaby: “Deep River / My home is over Jordan / Deep River, Lord / I want to cross over into campground,” he sings.

“When I first heard Glenn’s music, I remember thinking to myself, it sounded like an anthem. And then I was — I immediately corrected myself,” Tsang, who calls the installation a “sonic sculptural space,” says in a Guggenheim video. “Like, oh, what kind of — it’s not that I’m so patriotic. It’s just his voice was sort of conjuring a place I wish I lived. It was giving me this tonal quality of, like, I wish that there was an anthem of a place that we could all exist in. And that, for me, is the world that Glenn kind of puts out there as a possibility.”

Continuing through September 6, Anthem is accompanied by a documentary that concentrates on the intimate personal relationship between Glenn and Elizabeth, but it doesn’t feel organic in conjunction with the installation. Also on view at the Guggenheim are “Off the Record,” consisting of works by Sarah Charlesworth, Glenn Ligon, Lisa Oppenheim, Adrian Piper, Lorna Simpson, Hank Willis Thomas, Carrie Mae Weems, and others inspired by official documentation; “The Hugo Boss Prize 2020: Deana Lawson, Centropy,” featuring the Rochester native’s sculpture, holograms, and photography exploring the African diaspora; and “Away from the Easel: Jackson Pollock’s Mural,” anchored by Pollock’s 1943 Mural, his largest painting ever, commissioned for Peggy Guggenheim for her East Sixty-First St. townhouse.

PROJECT NUMBER ONE: NO PLAY

IFE OLUJOBI: NO PLAY
Digital download $10, print copy $20
sohorep.org
theaterworknow.com/the-book

During the pandemic lockdown, Soho Rep. created Project Number One, a series of eight presentations about artistic expression for which theater makers were paid a salary and provided with health insurance. The program ran from May through July and included David Ryan Smith’s autobiographical The Story of a Circle, an online journey to his childhood home in the Blue Ridge Mountains; Carmelita Tropicana’s That’s Not What Happened, a podcast tracing her queer Cuban roots; David Mendizábal’s Eat Me!, constructed around the Ecuadorian ritual of consuming guaguas de pan; Stacey Derosier’s Peep Show and Becca Blackwell’s The Body Never Lies, both of which took place at Soho Rep.’s Walker St. space; Jillian Walker’s The Orange Essays, consisting of readings and a live discussion; and an excerpt from Shayok Misha Chowdhury’s upcoming Public Obscenities.

Project Number One concluded with Ife Olujobi’s No Play, a book that explores the impact the coronavirus crisis has had throughout the artistic community. Olujobi is a Nigerian American playwright whose play Jordans was a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize; during the lockdown, she contributed two pieces to “The 24 Hour Plays: Viral Monologues!,” If you can see it with Javier Muñoz and Run Me Over with Ato Blankson-Wood. For the book, she surveyed and/or interviewed more than one hundred writers, directors, artists, teachers, critics, composers, administrators, technicians, producers, and others whose work is connected to theater, including the seven other Project Number One creators and me.

I first filled out the online survey, which asked such questions as “How did you make money before the pandemic? If that has changed, how do you make money now?,” “Has your creative working process changed at all during quarantine? Has your relationship to your creative work changed in light of COVID and the events of the last year?,” and “How does ‘doing the work’ of advancing racial and social justice intersect with the other forms of work you engage in, if at all? Does this work impact your ability to complete other forms of work? Do your other forms of work impact your ability to engage in this work?” It made me instantly realize that I was probably in a different situation from most of the others who would be taking the survey, as I am a straight white male with a full-time job outside the theater industry; twi-ny is really a labor of love.

Olujobi understands this is not a scientific undertaking. “This endeavor is not, and was never meant to be, any kind of demographically comprehensive or definitive statement on ‘how theater people are feeling right now,’” she writes. “I have never taken on a project quite like this before, and my information gathering methods were unofficial and imprecise and resulted in a fascinating, if not always easily contextualized, array of responses from participants. . . . Despite the inherent faults of my process, I am thankful for the connections I made and can stand behind the relative diversity of the voices included across race, age, gender identity, disability, vocation, and career level.”

I was somewhat surprised when Olujobi later asked if I wanted to be interviewed, but I immediately agreed and was glad I did. (I was one of eleven participants who filled out the survey and were interview subjects.) We had an eye-opening talk on Zoom in which we did a deep dive into my privilege, exploring such questions as “How much time do you spend working for money?,” “How has the pandemic affected your creative working process?,” “How have you engaged with Zoom and ‘virtual’ theater, either as a creator or a viewer?,” and “What does ‘doing the work’ mean to you?” I responded openly and honestly, and Olujobi never let me off the hook if I unintentionally skirted the issue. All along the way, Olujobi made it clear that there are no wrong answers.

Now that the book is out, it is even more eye-opening to read the other participants’ answers. “COVID shut everything down, and when I couldn’t work I found myself losing my purpose. Losing my identity. Which made me look at my creative work differently. It was difficult. Lots of sleepless nights,” actor-artist Alana Bowers says. Playwright-actor Jake Brasch explains, “I’m collecting unemployment and I’m teaching a section of fifth-grade playwriting and I’m under a couple of commissions. [Pre-pandemic] I was a birthday party clown on the weekends, and also lived in a work-trade situation that fell apart because of COVID in which I walked the dogs for discounted rent.” And playwright Dan Giles admits, “I guess my job is twenty-eight hours a week, or twenty to twenty-eight hours depending on the week. And then the writing stuff sometimes feels like I’m writing for money and sometimes not. And that can either be all-consuming or it can be like half-an-hour working and then four hours of staring at a wall, full of despair.”

There are not a lot of fans of Zoom theater. While I fully engaged with online shows, having watched more than a thousand since March 2020 (theater, dance, music, art, film, food), I was in the minority. “I have not watched any Zoom theater, and am not that interested in seeing theater virtually,” one anonymous respondent says. Artist-researcher Janani Balasubramanian replies “I honestly have not, with the exception of work made by my friends, logged on or watched a lot of livestreams or Zooms. I basically don’t have the capacity after my work days to do additional online commitments because I already have so many during day-to-day work. I kinda wanna throw my computer in the Gowanus Canal, is a real feeling I have on certain days.”

But Olujobi goes beyond the pandemic, also delving into why the participants got into theater in the first place, what they love about it, and what they would change going forward. Reading other people’s origin stories is energizing, summed up by writer-actor Harron Atkins remembering the exact moment he decided, “I’m gonna do this for the rest of my life.”

When it comes to “the most pressing work that needs to be done right now,” theater maker Mattie Barber-Bockelman gets straight to the point: “Redistribution of wealth.” Writer Melis Aker says, “Tackling income inequality and segregation that has only reinforced racist segregation. Divesting and reinvesting. Money flow needs to change for corporations to change their values.” Playwright Joshua Young declares, “Erasing the way capital informs primacy. It’s not enough to have more diverse boards or employees. We’ve done all this work to dismantle the systems of power. We can’t stop now.”

Ife Olujobi explores the effects of the pandemic lockdown on theater professionals in No Play

Diversity and equality are at the heart of what comes next. Actor-singer Jenna Rubaii advises, “Everyone in the world needs to start looking at each other as equals.” Set designer and educator Carolyn Mraz says, “Getting white people to shut up (me included) and decenter themselves, so that we can listen, step back, and figure out how to give our support where it can be useful in support of BIPOC voices and leaders.” Writer, actor, and comedian Obehi Janice declares, “People need to leave Black women alone and figure out their own shit.” And artistic director RJ Tolan concludes, “We have to try to renovate the story that America tells itself about itself. If there’s one thing that theater is, it’s sitting in a room and telling some stories and hopefully you have an influence on people. That’s definitely moving the sand dune with tweezers.”

As Olujobi explains in her introduction, “The confluence of the gig economy and the era of identity politics has caused an increasingly consequential melding of personal and professional identities, so that the question is no longer just ‘what do you do?’ but, ‘who are you?’ and therefore, ‘what can you do?’ or, more directly, ‘what are you doing?’ Of course these questions are not exclusive to the performing arts, but as a result of the complete shuttering of theater as we knew it since March 2020, they feel acute, almost violent to pose to anyone who, at one point or another, has called themselves a theater artist.” She adds, “What was meant to be an excavation of the present ended up being just as much about the past and future of financial stability, physical and mental health, survival for marginalized peoples, and the ways that a career in theater presents these necessities as luxuries.” (Proceeds from the sale of the book, available in a print or digital edition, and the accompanying Generator zine go to Lenape Center, Black Trans Liberation, See Lighting Foundation, and Access Acting Academy.)

With Broadway and off Broadway reopening, these issues are more relevant than ever, not only in theater but in the world outside as we (too slowly?) emerge from the pandemic. The coronavirus crisis has forced us all to look deep inside ourselves, figure out who we are and what we want — or, more important, what we need. Olujobi has done a great service by putting this book together and investigating this moment in time, just as the best theater does, even if the work is called No Play.

ISLANDER

David Gould steers through a treatise on toxic white masculinity in Islander (photo by Maria Baranova)

ISLANDER
HERE Arts Center
145 Sixth Ave. at Dominick St.
Through September 4, $25
212-647-0202
here.org/shows/islander

The New York Islanders ruined an important part of my coming-of-age. Going to high school on Long Island in the 1980s was not a home-ice advantage for true-blue Rangers fans. The Fish Sticks dynasty was shortly followed by the early, unexpected death of my father — who, I’m ashamed to admit, was one of those inexplicable people who rooted for both teams — making a bad time even worse. Although I don’t blame the Islanders for his passing, I see it as the culmination of a hellish nightmare that still haunts me today.

So the prospect of watching a play built around the Islanders’ disastrous 2017–18 season filled me with so much hope and joy that I wore my Mark Messier captain’s jersey to the show, Islander, which runs at HERE Arts Center through September 4. It didn’t even bother me that the Rangers actually finished below the Islanders that year, coming in last in the Metropolitan Division by a single but harrowing point.

However, I was soon to learn — after the singing of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” for which I was the only one standing — that the seventy-five-minute play is not really about hockey but is instead a thinly disguised treatise on toxic white masculinity that never mentions the sport and doesn’t bring up the last name of the key player and team or even use such terminology as “stick,” “puck,” and “neutral zone” till the end, when the protagonist (David Gould) is joined by an older fan (Dick Toth) and a young child (Aksel Latham-Mitchell) embodying that star player.

Gould, portraying a fictional amalgamation of Islanders players structured mostly around goaltender Jaroslav Halák, declares early on, “You can feel my breathing / you can feel my excitement / rough transitions through the decades / half-empty promises / a twenty-three-year-long drought / getting endlessly pushed around by my crosstown rivals / worst of all, I had to say goodbye to my home of forty-three years / forced out / some friends abandoned ship / and those that remained were tried, time and time again — / My friends have been through a lot / Life as my friend hasn’t been easy.”

The dialogue has been taken verbatim from television and radio broadcasts, interviews, blog posts, and podcasts but stripped of its hockey specificity, so it comes across as a privileged white man who believes he deserves to be successful, that it’s in his blood. “I’m good, I’m good. I’m exciting. I’m . . . sure, I’m a little bit lucky but I tend to look at luck as a surface level,” he tells us. “I’m the benefactor of the, of last . . . there’s a little bit of luck. But if you’re a good guy, you’re gonna create your own luck. Looking back on when I was bad, you could be like: oh, he’s a little unlucky. Because I was bad, you know? But like . . . so bad guys tend to do stuff . . . like that . . . but. I think I’m good. The system the . . . system is definitely working. Which is nice.” The “system” is not so much the Islanders’ method of play but the systemic problems in society that impact race, gender, and income inequality. When he adds, “Good is the enemy of great. No more good; it’s time to be great. Watch me,” he sounds like a finance bro determined to rake in mounds of cash.

An unnamed man (David Gould) and a fan (Dick Toth) talk hockey in Islander (photo by Maria Baranova)

You don’t have to understand anything about hockey to get the show, but it might help to know that the 2017–18 campaign was the Islanders’ third season at Barclays Center in Brooklyn; they had skated at Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale from their inaugural 1972–73 season through 2014–15 before moving back temporarily in 2018. The “John” referred to in the play is captain and team star John Tavares, who will become a free agent after that season. And hockey is by far the least diverse of the major sports, with very few people of color on the ice, behind the bench, or in the front office. The title, Islander, is as much a sly reference to colonialism as it is to hockey.

Compiled by Liza Birkenmeier and directed by Katie Brook, who previously collaborated on the terrific Dr. Ride’s American Beach House, and presented by Televiolet and New Georges, the show works best when Gould is directly addressing the audience and expounding on his abilities. “I need to come out on top. There’s no way around it. I need to come out on top,” he declares. He takes off his shirt to reveal his relatively hot bod, whispers confusing self-affirmations into a microphone in front of a mirror, performs interpretive movements that are more like ice dancing than hockey, and sits down with a fan and talks turkey over a cooler.

Once the narrative turns its attention to the details of hockey, it loses its flow and suddenly becomes about something specific instead of being a more abstract study of white male fragility. It’s like the power play is over and now the team is skating with a wing in the penalty box. As the fan explains, “I know exactly what you’re talking about. No one else does.” The spare set design — I’m still trying to figure out why a mattress was brought onstage — and lighting are by Josh Smith, with choreography by Katie Rose McLaughlin and sound by Ben Williams. Projections on the back screen keep track of the month of the season and ask such questions as “Do you believe that performance matters?,” “What do you think of natural selection?,” and “Have you ever been blindsided?,” the last being a hockey term for being caught unawares by a heavy body check.

“I think I’m the only one who understands the enormity of this historical moment,” the man says, adding later, “Why can’t I just win.” We are now in the midst of an enormous historical moment, one in which white men are not going to win like they used to. Islander is having a good season, better than the Islanders had in 2017–18, although it might not go far in the playoffs. Seating for the show at HERE is half capacity, so it should feel like a real Islanders game. The Islanders’ 2021–22 hockey season kicks off October 14, with the first thirteen games on the road before they christen the brand-new UBS Arena in Elmont with a home contest against Calgary on November 20. I do not wish them well.

FRICK MADISON AND THE SLEEVE SHOULD BE ILLEGAL

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Comtesse d’Haussonville, oil on canvas, 1845 (Purchased by the Frick Collection, 1927)

FRICK MADISON AND THE SLEEVE SHOULD BE ILLEGAL
945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street
Thursday – Sunday, $12-$22 (includes free guide), 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
www.frick.org/madison

For the first twelve months of the pandemic, the Frick, my favorite place in New York City, was my “virtual home-away-from-home” when it came to art. And I mean that in a different way than Lloyd Schwartz does in his piece on Johannes Vermeer’s Officer and Laughing Girl in the recently published book The Sleeve Should Be Illegal & Other Reflections on Art at the Frick, in which the poet and classical music critic uses that phrase to describe what the museum, opened to the public in 1935 at Fifth Ave. and Seventieth St., meant to him when he was growing up in Brooklyn and Queens. The book features more than sixty artists, curators, writers, musicians, and philanthropists waxing poetic about their most-admired work in the Frick Collection.

A native of Brooklyn myself, I am referring specifically to the institution’s online presence during the coronavirus crisis. It had closed in March 2020 for a major two-year renovation, moving its remarkable holdings to the nearby Breuer Building on Seventy-Fifth and Madison, the former home of the Whitney from 1966 to 2014, then host to the Met Breuer for an abbreviated four years. Starting in April 2020 and continuing through last month, chief curator Xavier F. Salomon (and occasionally curator Aimee Ng) gave spectacular prerecorded illustrated art history lectures on Fridays at 5:00 focusing on one specific work in the museum’s holdings; thousands of people from around the world tuned in live to learn more about these masterpieces. Two questions added a frisson of excitement for devoted fans: What cocktail would the curator select to enjoy with the painting, sculpture, or porcelain/enamel object that week? And which smoking jacket would Xavier be rocking? These sixty-six marvelous “Cocktails with a Curator” episodes can still be seen here.

For more than half my life, the Frick has been the spot I go to when I need a break from troubled times, a respite from the craziness of the city, a few moments of peace amid the maelstrom. Going to the Frick, which was designed by Carrère and Hastings and served as the home of Pennsylvania-born industrialist Henry Clay Frick from 1914 until his death in 1919 at the age of sixty-nine, was like visiting old friends, reflecting on my existence among familiar and welcoming surroundings. There is still nothing like sitting on a marble bench in John Russell Pope’s Garden Court, with its lush plantings, austere columns, and lovely fountain, in between continuing my intimate, personal relationships with cherished canvases. In Sleeve, philanthropist Joan K. Davidson writes about Giambattista Tiepolo’s Perseus and Andromeda, “Entering the Frick, the visitor tends to head to the galleries where the Fragonards, Titians, El Greco, the great Holbeins, and other Frick Top Treasures are to be found. Or, perhaps, you turn left to the splendid English portraits in the Dining Room. But not so fast, please. You could miss my picture!” I am not nearly so generous as Davidson, not at all ready to share my prized works with others, preferring alone time with each.

After being teased by Salomon’s discussion of Rembrandt’s impossibly powerful 1658 self-portrait, which gave a glimpse of where it is on display at Frick Madison, it was with excitement and more than a little trepidation that I finally ventured toward Marcel Breuer’s Brutalist building, worried it would feel like seeing friends in a hotel where they’re staying while their kitchen is being remodeled. As artist Darren Waterston admits in his piece on Giovanni Bellini’s St. Francis in the Desert, about his first pilgrimage to the museum, “I remember feeling a nervous anticipation as I approached the Frick, as if I were meeting a lost relative or a new lover for the first time.” He now makes sure to return at least once every year.

In addition, I was poring over Sleeve, a cornucopia of Frick love. Many of the rapturous entries are just as much about the institution itself and how the pieces are arranged as the chosen object. Writing about the circle of Konrad Witz’s Pietà, short story writer and translator Lydia Davis explains, “Because of the reliable permanence of the collection — the paintings usually hanging where I knew to find them — they became engraved in my memory. Over time, of course, I changed, so my experience of the paintings also changed.” Fashion designer Carolina Herrera, praising Goya’s Don Pedro, Duque de Osuna, notes, “I would love to move in. And, as one does, I would like to move the furniture around, hang the paintings in different places, and put some of the objects away, to change them from time to time.”

While I had contemplated moving in, I had never considered rearranging anything, although I was blown away when, after decades of seeing Hans Holbein the Younger’s portrait of Sir Thomas More in the Living Hall, where it looks over at Holbein’s portrait of More’s archnemesis, Sir Thomas Cromwell, well above eye level and separated by a fireplace and El Greco’s exquisite painting of St. Jerome, I was able to belly up to the canvas at my height when it was displayed temporarily in the Oval Room, leaving me, as curator Edgar Munhall pointed out on the audio guide, “weak in the knees.” Entering Frick Madison, my thoughts zeroed in on my impending rendezvous with Holbein and More.

Unknown artist (Mantua?), Nude Female Figure (Shouting Woman), bronze with silver inlays, early 16th century (Henry Clay Frick Bequest)

Five people melt over the More portrait in Sleeve; in fact, the title of the book comes from novelist Jonathan Lethem’s foray into the work. Nina Katchadourian raves, “Every time I visit the Frick, I go to the Living Hall to look at Holbein’s portrait of Sir Thomas More. I love it as a painting, but I also see it as the first spark in a series of chain reactions that happen among objects in the room. . . . It is a staging of masterpieces that is itself a masterpiece of staging.” I quickly found the canvas, in its own nook with Cromwell, as if there were nothing else in the world but the two of them. You can get dangerously close to the breathtaking canvases, glorying in Holbein’s remarkable brushwork, his unique ability to capture the essence of each man in a drape of cloth, a ring, a stray hair, a bit of white fabric sticking out from a fur collar.

Utterly pleased and satisfied with the placement of the Holbeins — while I did miss all the finery usually surrounding them, seeing them both so unencumbered just felt right — I continued my adventure to track down other old friends and make new ones. St. Francis in the Desert, a work that demands multiple viewings, with new details emerging every time, usually hangs across from More, but here it has its own well-deserved room. Referring to St. Francis’s position in the painting, hands spread to his sides, looking up at the heavens, artist Rachel Feinstein writes, “That moment of isolation is fascinating in the context of the situation we are in now because of COVID-19. Our family of five may not be living alone in a cave right now, but due to the current circumstances, we have turned more inward, like St. Francis. Looking at this image and its sharp clarity during this time of fear and uncertainty is very soothing and inspirational.”

Trips to the Frick bring up childhood memories for many Sleeve contributors (Lethem, Moeko Fujii, Bryan Ferry, Stephen Ellcock, Julie Mehretu); describing seeing Rembrandt’s Polish Rider for the first time in high school, novelist Jerome Charyn remembers, “He could have been a hoodlum from the South Bronx with his orange pants and orange crown. . . . I left the Frick in a dream. I had found a mirror of my own wildness on Fifth Avenue, a piece of the Bronx steppe.” Donald Fagen and Abbi Jacobson recall lost love, while Frank, Edmund De Waal, and Adam Gopnik bring up Marcel Proust. Arlene Shechet and Wangechi Mutu find the feminist power in the early sixteenth century sculpture Nude Female Figure (Shouting Woman). “Making a small work is an unforgiving process,” Shechet writes. “There is no room for missteps, and the Shouting Woman is an example of exquisite perfection, her bold demeanor wrought with great feeling and delicacy. The plush palace that is the Frick becomes eminently more compelling when I visit with this giant of a sculpture.”

Artist Tom Bianchi gets political when delving into Goya’s The Forge, a harrowing canvas that depicts blacksmiths hard at work as if in hell. “The presence of The Forge in the collection is an anomaly,” Bianchi explains. “Frick’s fortune was built on the labor of steelworkers, whose union he infamously opposed. His reduction of the salaries of his workers resulted in the Homestead strike in 1892, in which seven striking workers and three guards were killed and scores more injured. Ultimately, Frick replaced the striking workers, mostly southern and eastern European immigrants, with African American workers, whom he paid a 20 percent lower wage. One wonders if Frick appreciated the irony of the inclusion of this painting among his Old Masters.”

Agnolo Bronzino (Agnolo di Cosimo di Mariano), Lodovico Capponi, oil on panel, 1550–55 (The Frick Collection; Henry Clay Frick Bequest)

I’ve always had a minor issue with how the Frick’s three Vermeers, Officer and Laughing Girl, Mistress and Maid, and Girl Interrupted at Her Music, are displayed; two of the three can usually be seen in the South Hall, above furniture, in a narrow space that is easy to pass by, especially if you are checking out the opposite Grand Staircase, which will at last be open to the public when the Frick reopens in mid-2023.

There are no such obstacles at Frick Madison, where all three are in the same room on the second floor. Together the Vermeers are feted by Fujii, Frank, Vivian Gornick, Gregory Crewdson, Susan Minot, Judith Thurman, and Schwartz. Meanwhile, various artists are completely shut out of Sleeve accolades, including Hans Memling (Portrait of a Man), Frans Hals (Portrait of an Elderly Man and Portrait of a Woman), François Boucher (The Four Seasons), Edgar Degas (The Rehearsal), John Constable (Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishop’s Grounds), Carel Fabritius (The Goldfinch), François-Hubert Drouais (The Comte and Chevalier de Choiseul as Savoyards), Paolo Veronese (Wisdom and Strength), and Pierre-Auguste Renoir (La Promenade). Rembrandt’s aforementioned self-portrait receives five nods (Roz Chast, Rineke Dijkstra, Diana Rigg, Jenny Saville, Mehretu), while Ingres’s Comtesse d’Hassuonville nets three (Jed Perl, Firelei Báez, Robert Wilson).

But the biggest surprise for me was the popularity of Bronzino’s Lodovico Capponi, chosen by Susanna Kaysen, David Masello, Daniel Mendelsohn, Annabelle Selldorf, and Catherine Opie. When I saw it at Frick Madison, I had no recollection whatsoever of the 1550s vertical oil painting of a page with the Medici court; it felt like I was seeing it for the very first time. It’s an arresting picture, highlighted by loose background drapery, the curious position of the fingers of each hand, the privileged look in his eyes, and, of course, the ridiculously funny codpiece/sword. As I stood in front of it, it did not strike me the way other portraits at the Frick do; in her “Cocktails with a Curator” entry on the piece, Ng says with a big smile, “This one really is one of my most favorite, if not favorite, works at the Frick. . . . I know I’m not the only one. . . . This is a painting that’s at the heart of many people who are close to the Frick.” When I go back to Frick Madison, which will be very soon, I’m going to spend more time with Lodovico, and I am already preparing myself to make a beeline for it when the original Frick reopens. I clearly must be missing something, as Lodovico has taken a brief sojourn to the Met, where it is not only included in the major exhibition “The Medici: Portraits and Politics, 1512–1570,” which runs through October 11, but is the cover image of the catalog.

Selldorf writes in her piece on Lodovico, “Art informs the space, but the space also informs the art.” Whether it’s the Frick Madison or the Frick on Fifth, “The genius, beauty, and mystery behind its doors may change your life,” Herrera promises. It’s changed myriad lives over its nine-decade existence, from other artists’ to just plain folks’ like you and me. You’re bound to fall in “love at first sight” — as New York Philharmonic principal cellist Carter Brey describes his initial encounter with George Romney’s Lady Hamilton as “Nature” — with at least one work at the Frick, something that will stay with you for a long time, an objet d’art you’ll visit again and again and develop a meaningful relationship with over the years. Just be sure to stay out of my way when I’m reconnecting with Sir Thomas More.

ALMA BAYA

Edward Einhorn’s Alma Baya can be seen in person or online (photo by Arthur Cornelius)

ALMA BAYA
A.R.T./New York, Jeffrey and Paula Gural Theatre
502 West Fifty-Third St. at Tenth Ave.
August 13-28, $25 in person ($15 until August 25 with code UTC61); available on demand through September 19, $25
www.untitledtheater.com

Writer-director Edward Einhorn’s Alma Baya is a claustrophobic, vastly entertaining sci-fi parable for this moment in time, an absurdist look at what comes next. The play can be seen in person through August 28 at A.R.T./New York’s Jeffrey and Paula Gural Theatre, or two recordings can be accessed online; the August 14 and 15 performances, featuring different casts, were livestreamed for on-demand viewing. I saw the show with Ann Marie Yoo as Alma, Sheleah Harris as Baya, and Rivera Reese as a mysterious stranger; the second cast consists of Maggie Cino, Nina Man, and JaneAnne Halter.

In a not-too-distant future in an undefined part of the universe, the stern, ultraserious Alma and the wide-eyed, innocent Baya are living in a self-contained, highly sterile white pod, following instructions word-for-word as laid out in a series of white books. Alma is the alpha woman, in charge, while Baya is her obedient, willing assistant.

Like pushing the button at the underground swan site in the TV series Lost, Alma and Baya must twist and turn various handles and wheels when alarm bells sound, even though they don’t know what any of it means. Their controlled existence becomes threatened when a shadowy figure appears outside the pod and they debate whether to let it in. “It’s terrible. It’s helpless. Waiting. It thinks it’s being rescued,” Baya argues. “Don’t you dare,” Alma shoots back. “It’s either it or us. . . . If it gets in, it will kill us.”

Alma ultimately relents and they open the airlock, inviting in an unnamed naked, feral woman with a protective suit who needs food and water and promises she’s not dangerous. Alma insists she is a threat, but Baya wants to help her. The stranger also says she can help maintain their crops in return for being able to stay with them; Alma and Baya had thought the crops were dead — they have no working suit and haven’t been outside in months — and so are intrigued by the prospect of more sustenance. However, as the stranger tells stories about how her pod was so different from this one and begins questioning the many rules and the very purpose of it all, Alma grows more suspicious of her intentions, calling her a liar who is cleverly plotting against them. “I’m too hungry to be clever,” the stranger says. “That’s too bad. I thought you were too clever to be hungry,” Alma responds.

Two casts alternate in futuristic parable Alma and Baya

All the while, Alma and Baya expect the eventual arrival of the original Alma and Baya, as predicted in the books, evoking the New Testament and the return of Jesus as well as Vladimir and Estragon in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. “When?” the stranger asks. “Someday,” Baya answers. Alma explains, “That’s why we’re here. That’s the reason that we’re here. All of us. Even you.” A moment later, the stranger asks, “How do you know whether they’ll come or not?” Alma: “Why else are you here?” The stranger: “I don’t know if there is a reason.” Ultimately, they all might be right, or they all might be wrong.

Staged by Untitled Theater Company No. 61 — which playwright, novelist, filmmaker, and podcaster Einhorn (The Marriage of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein, The Iron Heel) cofounded with his brother, David, who died of cancer during rehearsals — the seventy-five-minute Alma Baya adeptly tackles such topics as faith and religion, the refugee crisis, Covid-19, and others without ever mentioning them by name. The stranger could represent a manifestation of Jesus or the devil or a political refugee desperate for asylum; she even is a gardener, a profession that employs myriad people from other countries. There is also the much clearer comparison to the pods we all formed during the height of the coronavirus crisis, allowing only our live-in partner/families into our homes, afraid that anyone else could introduce Covid and kill us.

The fun, DIY set is by Mike Mroch, with flashy lighting by Federico Restrepo, effective sound by Mark Bruckner, and costumes by Ramona Ponce. The cast performs its job well, with Reese standing out as the stranger, a juicier role that keeps the audience guessing whether she’s good or bad. It’s an escapist play about how we are all trapped by something, including by ourselves, and that blind trust and faith are not always the best way out.

WALDEN

TheaterWorks Hartford adaptation of Amy Berryman’s Walden is set on edge of woods (photo by Christopher Capozziello)

WALDEN
TheaterWorks Hartford
RiverFront Recapture, 100 Meadow Road, Windsor, $95-$150
Livestream at Dunkin’ Donuts Stadium, Downtown Hartford, $15
Available on demand through August 29, $25
twhartford.org

One of the best new plays of the last eighteen months, Amy Berryman’s superb Walden is a cogent and timely exploration of loss, loneliness, and reconnection in an indeterminate near-future. Berryman started writing the play five years ago, concentrating on the devastating effects of climate change, and it debuted onstage at the Harold Pinter Theatre on London’s West End in May. It has now been ingeniously reimagined by TheaterWorks Hartford, taking place in a specially built wood-and-glass cabin on the edge of the woods by the Connecticut River at a location known as Riverfront Recapture in Windsor. The very small house has a sustainable vegetable garden on one side, a hammock on the other, and a cozy outdoor front porch.

There are three unique ways of experiencing the hundred-minute show: You can watch it in person, wearing masks, in socially distanced chairs on the grass, listening on headphones; see it with other people streaming at Dunkin’ Donuts Stadium in downtown Hartford, home of the minor league baseball team the Yard Goats; or check it out online, where it is available on demand. Do choose one, because Walden is an absolute must-see.

Bryan (Gabriel Brown) and Stella (Diana Oh) are living together in this wilderness; he is a staunch EA (Earth Advocate), a radical movement that believes the government must exhaust all possibilities of saving the planet before considering establishing habitats on the moon or Mars. Stella is a former prominent NASA architect who is adapting to her more private life with Bryan; they have a solar car, a flush toilet, and electricity, and Stella follows the news on a portable device, but Bryan refuses to use any kind of screen, living a Henry David Thoreau–like existence. Recently engaged, they each suffered different kinds of losses a year ago and are still dealing with the effects.

Cassie (Jeena Yi), Bryan (Gabriel Brown), and Stella (Diana Oh) spend time in the garden in Walden (photo by Christopher Capozziello)

After spending the last twelve months on the moon, where she miraculously made something grow out of the ground, Stella’s twin sister, Cassie (Jeena Yi), is coming for a visit. Their fathers were astronauts who also taught them about Walden, often quoting Thoreau. They remember him repeating to them, from the Solitude chapter, “This whole earth which we inhabit is but a point in space. How far apart, think you, are the two most distant inhabitants of yonder star, the breadth of whose distance cannot be measured by our instruments. Why should I feel lonely? Is not our planet in the Milky Way?”

Over the course of an evening, Bryan, Stella, and Cassie drink wine, share secrets, argue over technology, and debate not only the future of the blue marble but their own individual destinies as they contemplate where they belong in the universe. “It’s too late to turn things around!” Cassie declares. She’s right in more ways than one.

TheaterWorks Hartford’s first outdoor production in its thirty-five-year history, Walden is a seductive and charming play, no matter which side of the climate crisis discussion you are on. The isolation the characters feel, whether living in the woods or on the moon, is even more palpable in this time of Covid. When Cassie first arrives, she has a mask on. “You know, you don’t have to wear that,” Bryan says. “I wasn’t sure,” Cassie responds. “Within a hundred miles the air is totally safe. You don’t need a mask,” Bryan assures her. That’s something we would all like to hear.

The future of the planet is hotly debated in powerful new play (photo by Christopher Capozziello)

Walden is beautifully directed by Mei Ann Teo (SKiNFoLK: An American Show, Where We Belong) with a relaxed, easygoing pace that befits its lovely surroundings. I watched it online, where the cameras take you inside the house, into the garden, and onto the grass, where you can see some members of the masked audience sitting in front of you, making you feel part of set designer You-Shin Chen’s stunningly real and inviting environment. Jeanette Oi-Suk-Yew’s lighting evolves organically as darkness falls, while Hao Bai’s sound design immerses you in the action.

Berryman, a playwright, filmmaker, and actor who has written such shows as The New Galileos and The Whole of You and appeared in such works as Jessica Dickey’s The Convent and Greg Kotis’s Lunchtime at the Brick — her coronavirus microplay Pigeons for Eden Theater Company’s “Bathroom Plays” Zoom trilogy earned star LeeAnne Hutchison twi-ny’s Best Actor in a Short Play award during the pandemic lockdown — has given us an extraordinary treat in these difficult times, a splendidly constructed, wholly believable tale about where we are as a species today, and where we might be tomorrow.

Oh ({my lingerie play}, The Infinite Love Party), Yi (Judgment Day, Network), and Brown (Bobbie Clearly, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone) form a terrific trio, their well-drawn characters expressing serious contemporary concerns without becoming preachy or didactic. When it’s over, you’ll feel exhilarated by the return of live theater — and sincerely worried for the future of humanity.

THE MAGNIFICENT MEYERSONS

Kate Mulgrew and Barbara Barrie play mother and daughter in NYC-set The Magnificent Meyersons

THE MAGNIFICENT MEYERSONS (Evan Oppenheimer, 2021)
Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan
334 Amsterdam Ave. at West Seventy-Sixth St.
On demand: August 20-26, $15
Rooftop screenings with Q&As: August 22 & 24, $15, 8:00
argotpictures.com

The dysfunctional Manhattan family in Evan Oppenheimer’s new drama The Magnificent Meyersons might not be quite as quirky and off the beaten path as the off-the-wall dysfunctional NYC clan in Wes Anderson’s dark-comedy cult favorite The Royal Tenenbaums, but the trials and tribulations of brothers, sisters, and mothers in each are set in motion by a long-absent father.

Available on demand August 20-26 from the Marlene Meyerson JCC in addition to a pair of in-person rooftop screenings on August 22 and 24 featuring Q&As with writer-director Oppenheimer and several of the stars, The Magnificent Meyersons consists of a series of two-character discussions, examining love and loss, responsibility and faith, until the family ultimately comes together to face some hard truths. Oldest daughter Daphne (Jackie Burns) and her husband, Alan (Greg Keller), talk about whether they want more than one child; later, Daphne examines her career with friend and publishing colleague Joelle (Kate MacCluggage). Oldest son Roland (Ian Kahn), a successful businessman, shares his bleak pessimism about the state of the world with his finance pal Percy (T. Slate Gray). Youngest son Daniel (Daniel Eric Gold), who is studying to become a rabbi, delves into the existence of a supreme being first with his friend Lily (Lilli Stein), then with Father Joe (Neal Huff).

Youngest daughter Susie (Shoshannah Stern), a rising real estate agent, meets with her girlfriend, Tammy (Lauren Ridloff), in a cafe. And the siblings’ mother, Dr. Terri Meyerson (Kate Mulgrew), an oncologist, goes for a walk with her mother, the widowed Celeste (Barbara Barrie). Seen in flashbacks is Terri’s husband and the kids’ father, Morty (Richard Kind), who left the family he loves decades ago for a hard-to-explain reason involving his mental well-being. He has been missing from their lives ever since, though his psychological presence hovers over everyone.

Oppenheimer (A Little Game, Alchemy) avoids making heroes or villains, culprits or victims out of any of his characters; they are all complex individuals who, above all else, have ordinary problems over the course of an ordinary day. One of the concepts that is central to the narrative is that no one is special and that nothing is extraordinary; in fact, a major event, breaking news that pings across the city (and the world), does not create the impact one would expect. It’s just another thing in people’s lives.

Several of the subplots go nowhere, including one involving Roland’s wife, Ilaria (Melissa Errico), and their daughter, Stefania (Talia Oppenheimer, Evan’s daughter), or are unfulfilling. Most of the action takes place in and around Union Square Park, City Hall Park, and other familiar outdoor locations, with repetitive drone shots introducing new scenes. Oppenheimer seems to go out of his way to make sure nothing of too much consequence ever happens; even when Dr. Meyerson tells a couple that their young child has only three months to live, the father refuses to accept it, and Terri can only watch, offering nothing further. Don’t expect fireworks, because you’re not going to get them. Even when confrontation appears to be inevitable, when the finale tosses yet one more twist at us, Oppenheimer does not even try to close it all up neatly. It’s just another average day for an average family in a grand city.

“Why would a reviewer make the point of saying someone’s not a genius? Do you especially think I’m not a genius?” Eli Cash (Owen Wilson) says over the phone in The Royal Tenenbaums, which is a work of genius. “You didn’t even have to think about it, did you?” The same can be said about the characters in The Magnificent Meyersons.