featured

TIME IS ON HIS SIDE: CELEBRATING OLIVIER ASSAYAS AT METROGRAPH

OLIVIER ASSAYAS: OUT OF TIME
Metrograph
7 Ludlow St. between Canal & Hester Sts.
Series begins August 8
metrograph.com

In conjunction with the theatrical release of his latest film, the semiautobiographical Suspended Time, Metrograph will be screening a half-dozen of French writer-director Olivier Assayas’s works, which range from ultracool flicks to boring dramas, but they’re almost always visually stunning, filled with cinematic references and hip music — as well as such stars as Juliette Binoche, Kristen Stewart, Mathieu Amalric, Maggie Cheung, and future director Mia Hansen-Løve, who was Assayas’s partner for fifteen years. The series kicks off August 8 with a sneak preview of the new film in addition to 2018’s Non-Fiction and continues with such other tales as 1998’s Late August, Early September and 2000’s Les Destinées sentimentales.

Metrograph is celebrating the work of Olivier Assayas in retrospective including Summer Hours

SUMMER HOURS (L’HEURE D’ÉTÉ) (Olivier Assayas, 2008)
Friday, August 15, 6:15
Sunday, August 17, 5:35
metrograph.com
www.summerhours.com.au

At their annual family gathering, Frédéric (Charles Berling), Adrienne (Juliette Binoche), and Jérémie (Jérémie Renier) are celebrating their mother’s seventy-fifth birthday. But Hélène (Edith Scob) does not care about the present; instead, she is more concerned with preserving the past and preparing for the future. She pulls aside her oldest, Frédéric (Assayas’s on-screen alter ego), to tell him what to do with her belongings after she’s gone, but he is not ready to think about that. Her house is more like a museum, filled with valuable works of art and furniture that were collected by her uncle, a famous painter who died thirty years before. Frédéric would prefer to keep the house intact, donating a few items to the Musee d’Orsay and saving the rest for the next generation, but Adrienne and Jérémie don’t necessarily feel the same way, and Frédéric’s and Jérémie’s kids fail to see any value in the pieces, including two oil paintings by Camille Corot, begrudgingly noting that they’re from a different era. While Frédéric, a professor who has written a controversial book about the state of the economy, attaches personal memories to each object, Adrienne, a successful designer in New York, is more interested in the functionality of things, and Jérémie, who manages a company that profits from cheap labor in China, sees only monetary value. As the three siblings discuss what to do with their mother’s estate, relationships come into focus, and a long-held secret emerges.

Written and directed by Olivier Assayas (Clean, Demonlover), Summer Hours, which was selected for the 2008 New York Film Festival, is a thoughtful, intelligent slice-of-life story that avoids overbearing cliches and melodramatic moments; there are no blow-ups or overemotional scenes. Instead, the family deals with its situation directly and matter-of-factly, a sort of French Cherry Orchard for the twenty-first century. However, Assayas does include far too many red herrings, little flourishes of cinematic language that seem to set something up that never comes full circle. The project was initiated by the Musee d’Orsay, which had commissioned a group of international directors to make short films related to the institution’s holdings. Assayas’s friend and colleague Hou Hsiao Hsien ended up making the full-length Flight of the Red Balloon, which also starred Binoche. Although the project later fell apart, Assayas combined the idea with the worsening condition of his mother, resulting in a bittersweet and very personal work.

Juliette Binoche and Kristen Stewart mix fact and fiction in Olivier Assayas’s Clouds of Sils Maria

CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA (Olivier Assayas, 2014)
Friday, August 15, 8:15
Saturday, August 16, 5:25
metrograph.com

The related concepts of time and reality wind through Olivier Assayas’s beautifully poetic, melancholy Clouds of Sils Maria much like actual snakelike clouds slither through the twisting Maloja Pass in the Swiss Alps, as life imitates art and vice versa. Juliette Binoche stars as Maria Enders, a famous French actress who is on her way to Zurich to accept an award for her mentor, playwright Wilhelm Melchior, who eschews such mundane ceremonies. But while en route, Maria and her personal assistant, the extremely attentive and capable Valentine (Kristen Stewart), learn that Wilhelm has suddenly and unexpectedly passed away, and Maria considers turning back, especially when she later finds out that Henryk Wald (Hanns Zischler), an old nemesis, will be there to pay homage to Wilhelm as well, but she decides to go ahead after all. At a cocktail party, Maria meets with hot director Klaus Diesterweg (Lars Eidinger), who is preparing a new stage production of Wilhelm and Maria’s first big hit, The Maloja Snake, but this time Maria would play Helena, an older woman obsessed with ambitious eighteen-year-old Sigrid, the role she originally performed twenty years earlier, to great acclaim. Klaus is planning to cast Lindsay Lohan-like troublemaking star and walking tabloid headline Jo-Ann Ellis (Chloë Grace Moretz) as Sigrid, which does not thrill Maria as her past and present meld together in an almost dreamlike narrative punctuated by the music of Handel and cinematographer Yorick Le Saux’s gorgeous shots of vast mountain landscapes.

Valentine (Kristen Stewart) and Maria (Juliette Binoche) go in search of the Maloja Snake in the Swiss Alps

Clouds of Sils Maria resonates on many levels, both inside and outside of the main plot and the film itself. Assayas (Boarding Gate, Something in the Air) cowrote André Téchiné’s 1983 film, Rendez-Vous, which was Binoche’s breakthrough; Assayas and Binoche wouldn’t work together again until his 2008 film Summer Hours, similar to the relationship between Wilhelm and Maria. Meanwhile, the story of the play-within-the-film is echoed by the relationship between Maria and Valentine, who are having trouble separating the personal from the professional. It is often difficult to know when the two women are practicing lines and when they are talking about their “real” lives. Binoche (Blue, Caché) is simply extraordinary as Maria, a distressed and anxious woman who is suddenly facing getting older somewhat sooner than expected, while Stewart (The Twilight Saga, On the Road) became the first American woman to win a French César, for Best Supporting Actress, for her sensitive portrayal of Valentine, a strong-willed young woman who might or might not be holding something back. The scenes between the two are riveting as they venture in and out of the reality of the film, their onscreen chemistry building and building till it’s at last ready to ignite. Art, life, cinema, theater, fiction, and reality all come together in Clouds of Sils Maria, as Maria, Assayas, and Binoche take stock of where they’ve been, where they are, and where they’re going.

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

HEROES AND VILLAINS: WELL, I’LL LET YOU GO KEEPS YOU GUESSING

Well, I’ll Let You Go takes place in a reconfigured Space at Irondale (photo by Emilio Madrid)

WELL, I’LL LET YOU GO
The Space at Irondale
85 South Oxford St. between Fulton St. & Lafayette Ave., Brooklyn
Monday to Saturday through September 12, $64 to $141
www.letyougonyc.com

Director Jack Serio turns the vast 6,000-square-foot Space at Irondale, which has 28-foot-high ceilings and can accommodate up to 250 people, into an intimate theatrical venue in his latest sublimely staged drama, Well, I’ll Let You Go, actor Bubba Weiler’s moving playwriting debut about grief and community.

Frank J. Oliva creates a narrow, horizontal set in the large former church nave. An unpainted wooden floor is flanked by the audience of ninety-nine, seated in two rows of folding chairs (the second on risers) on the two long sides. Curtains at either end delineate what we’re told is the family room, which has plain and imaginary furniture that an Our Town–like narrator (Michael Chernus) explains actually consists of a glass-topped circular table, a piano, a television, a fireplace, a big recliner, and an old sectional couch.

The narrator starts things off with a Thornton Wilder–esque introductory monologue.

“The house is in a medium-sized town in the Midwest. Thirty thousand people. One of many towns — nearly identical — that popped up in the early 1800s along the banks of a strong and wide river. Once home to the most fertile farmland in the country, it was slowly and steadily paved
over to become an unremarkable but nice American suburb. Two high schools, a community college. Strip malls, chain restaurants, gravel bike path, riverboat casino. You know the kind of place. Maybe you’re from one. A lot of us are,” he says with great casualness. “The town’s economy — for a long time — was propped up by a factory that manufactured farming equipment and was hit hard when those jobs moved abroad sometime in the early 2000s. Now everyone works at the newly opened Amazon Fulfillment Center. It’s a get-by kind of town and most people do.”

The 1934 farmhouse was purchased in the 1990s by Maggie (Quincy Tyler Bernstine), a teacher, and her husband, Marv, a lawyer who has just died in a tragic situation at a local college. He quickly goes from hero to possible villain as Maggie learns more about what he did in his free time, through a series of one-on-one conversations she has with others who believe they are comforting her.

Michael Chernus serves as a welcoming narrator in Bubba Weiler’s debut play (photo by Emilio Madrid)

Wally (Will Dagger) is a whiny ne’er-do-well with a strange world view who Marv, his cousin, took in when he was down on his luck. “Where would I go anyhow?” he asks at the beginning, having given notice at his Amazon job. When he tells Maggie he is going to sell the car to raise some much-needed cash, she has to remind him that he can’t because it’s actually their car; they just let him use it.

Joanie (Constance Shulman) is a funeral director who needs to plan Marv’s service, presenting Maggie with balloons and samples of carpeting, potpourri, and a photo easel. When Maggie points out that she might not want to have a public funeral, Joanie is flabbergasted. “You can’t just dump the body in the backyard!” she barks. “He’s a figure — now — your husband — a hero. He’s not just, you know, a man — he’s not just yours anymore. He’s yours, of course, but he’s ours.”

Julie (Amelia Workman), Maggie’s sister-in-law — she’s married to Marv’s younger brother, Jeff — shows up with flowers and apologies. The two were best friends growing up but some distance has clearly developed, as Julie discusses Marv’s sacrifice and hints at scandalous gossip surrounding his death.

Jeff (Danny McCarthy), a former navy man, shuffles in next, assuring Maggie that Marv had no secret life and advising that she needs to decide how to proceed. “It’s just there’s a timing to these things,” he says. “The longer we wait the crazier people are gonna get.”

The mysterious Angela (Emily Davis), who has been calling Maggie constantly and not leaving messages, shows up unexpectedly, with yet more shocking news for her. “I don’t know what I’d do,” Angela tells her, if she were in the same situation. That statement is at the heart of Maggie’s dilemma as she gets ready to bury Marv and face life alone.

And then Ashley (Cricket Brown), a waitress at the local club Marv frequented, comes by, wondering what it all means. “Everything we do when a person dies is so weird,” she ponders. “It’s like people have been dying for thousands of years — How have we not figured out how to not be so weird about it always.”

Maggie (Quincy Tyler Bernstine) faces an uncertain future after the tragic death of her husband (photo by Emilio Madrid)

Obie winner Chernus (In the Wake, The Aliens) is warm and inviting as our host, sharing information in a friendly, caring way and watching the action with us, occasionally sitting down in one of two empty chairs in the audience; I could have listened to him all night. Tony nominee Bernstine (Doubt: A Parable, The Amateurs) weaves a complex web as Maggie, who is unpredictable as she contemplates her past, present, and future, searching for her path to grief as others question why she isn’t following societal protocol. In a loose-fitting gray hoodie and baggy pants, Bernstine is onstage the whole hundred minutes, along with Chernus; you can’t take your eyes off either of them. (The costumes are by Avery Reed, with lighting by Stacey Derosier, sound by Brandon Bulls, and original music by Avi Amon).

Serio knows how to put a cast together, and he has another superb ensemble here, even if they are never onstage together, save for a breathtaking surprise as the conclusion approaches. Workman (The Antiquities, Fefu and Her Friends), Dagger (The Antelope Party, Uncle Vanya), Davis (Is This a Room, Singlet), McCarthy (The Minutes, The Antipodes), Shulman (Shhhh, The Best We Could), and Brown (Lobster, This House Is Not a Home) all do their part, eliciting different emotions in every scene.

Drama Desk nominee Weiler, who has also written The Saviors and This Room Is for Everybody and appeared in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and Swing State, shows a keen ear for dialogue and relationships, keeping the audience guessing as the plot intensifies. Drama Desk and Obie winner Serio (Grangeville, Danger and Opportunity, Uncle Vanya, The Animal Kingdom) expertly builds the pace as revelations emerge, balanced by Chernus’s calm demeanor and Bernstine’s poignant depiction of Maggie’s unease and disbelief. Grief has been a popular theater topic since the pandemic, but Serio and Weiler offer a unique perspective. [ed. note: Marin Ireland replaces Bernstine for the last two weeks of the run, due to a previous commitment.]

At the preview I saw, there was an issue with the sound; we found it difficult to understand what the actors were saying when their backs were to us and they were farther away — we could hear them speaking but not make out the words. Hopefully that has been dealt with. Otherwise, Well, I’ll Let You Go is a sparkling triumph.

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

FREEDOM FROM THE YOKE OF LANGUAGE: THE MUSICIANS

Astrid (Valérie Donzelli) is determined to stage a special one-of-a-kind concert in The Musicians

THE MUSICIANS (LES MUSICIENS) (Grégory Magne, 2024)
Cinema Village
22 East 12th St. between University Pl. & Fifth Ave.
Opens Friday, August 8
212-529-6799
www.cinemavillage.com
www.outsiderpictures.us

“Music is alive. To play it, you need to live it,” composer Charlie Beaumont (Frédéric Pierrot) says in Grégory Magne’s beautiful French comedy-drama The Musicians, a cinematic symphony not just for classical music lovers.

The film opens with a pan of what appears to be a regular-size interior wooden room but turns out to be the inside of a cello, soon confirmed by luthier François (François Ettori) to be the cherished Stradivarius San Domenico, which is up for auction. Determined to carry out her deceased father’s longtime wish, Astrid Carlson (Valérie Donzelli) wants to acquire the instrument to add to the two Stradivarius violins (including the 1713 Wodyka) and viola the family already owns and organize a concert in which four of the best musicians in the world will perform a specially commissioned piece as a kind of one-time-only string quartet supergroup, to be broadcast live around the world from a relatively undistinguished church chosen by her father. Her brother (Nicolas Bridet) is against it from the start, claiming the foundation cannot afford the cello and should instead be selling off the other three instruments, but Astrid won’t take no for an answer.

She pursues violinist George Massaro (Mathieu Spinosi), a lone wolf who plays by his own rules; blind second violinist Peter Nicolescu (Daniel Garlitsky) and cellist Lise Carvalho (Marie Vialle), who have a past that might prevent them from teaming up; and violist Apolline Dessartre (Emma Ravier), a sexy young social media starlet. The four instruments may have been made from the same tree, but that doesn’t mean it will be easy for Astrid to get the musicians on the same page. Things go so poorly at first that she tries to enlist Charlie for help; the reclusive, dour composer is initially not interested but eventually comes around, although he has his doubts from the start that this is a good idea.

A temporary classical supergroup faces professional and personal challenges in symphonic film

Although the four musicians are exceptional, the concert is primarily about the Stradivari. At one point, when the quartet is off to a rehearsal, Charlie is surprised to see a motorcade pulling away. “A car for each musician . . . Quite a heavy carbon footprint,” he says. Astrid responds, “They can’t travel together. Request from the insurance companies.” Charlie ponders, “Just like royalty. Two heirs should never fly on the same flight.” To which Astrid clarifies, “I meant the instruments.”

Over the course of one week before the concert, egos clash and tempers explode, making it seem like this impossible performance might indeed be impossible.

The Musicians features a marvelous original score by Grégoire Hetzel, who has composed music for films by Arnaud Desplechin, Mathieu Amalric, and Kiyoshi Kurosawa, cowrote the opera La Chute de Fukuyama, and penned the novel Le Vert Paradis. The soundtrack is supplemented with pieces by Mozart, Bach, Fauré, and Lead Belly.

French actress, director, and screenwriter Donzelli (Martha . . . Martha, The Queen of Hearts) is tender and vulnerable as Astrid, the emotional center of the narrative; everything is seen through her eyes. But César-nominated French film, television, and theater star Pierrot is sensational as Charlie, a deeply conflicted man who is uncomfortable in his own skin. “I started making music to free myself . . . from the yoke of language,” he says poetically even as he appears trapped. (His character is perhaps named after jazz saxophonist Charlie Beaumont, as Pierrot is a jazz aficionado who plays the clarinet, and there are elements of jazz in the way Charlie approaches his music.)

Moscow-born violinist and pianist Garlitsky (Paul and Paulette Take a Bath, Chez Maupassant), French equestrian, mezzo-soprano, and violinist Ravier (Two Sons, A Private Life), French violinist Spinosi (La Mélodie, Les Souvenirs), and French theater director Vialle (Julie est amoureuse, La parenthèse enchantée) form a wonderful, fully believable foursome, each of them a classically trained musician in real life; the youngest of the group, Ravier, is in fact active on social media, posting photos of herself in a bikini, just like her character does in the movie, upsetting the more private George.

Magne (Vingt-quatre heures par jour de mer, Perfumes) conducts the proceedings with expert precision, using his experience making fiction films and documentaries to give the film a naturalistic air. Lovingly photographed by Pierre Cottereau and intricately edited by Béatrice Herminie with exquisite sound design by Nicolas Cantin, Daniel Sobrino, Fanny Martin, and Olivier Goinard, The Musicians is a mellifluous, affectionate, sweet-natured tale that encourages audiences to free themselves from the ever-present yoke of language.

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

FACING ONE’S FEARS: LORD NIL AND THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS

Italian escapologist Lord Nil faces seven of his fears at Stage 42

LORD NIL: SEVEN DEADLY SINS
Stage 42
422 West 42nd St. at Ninth Ave.
Thursday – Tuesday through August 31, $48-$154
www.lordnil.com
shubert.nyc

In the 1966–68 Batman television series, the first of each two-part episode ended with a cliffhanger in which the Caped Crusader and the Boy Wonder were ensnared in a bizarre deathtrap devised by such ruthless cartoon villains as the Joker, the Riddler, Mr. Freeze, the Penguin, and King Tut; Batman and Robin would survive each time with ingenuity and Batman’s utility belt.

Lord Nil: 7 Deadly Sins is set up much like Batman, as a villain, Vice (Steph Payne), challenges illusionist and escapologist Lord Nil to conquer seven death-defying scenarios to preserve his life. However, unlike Batman, Lord Nil’s show appears to be neither camp nor parody but instead more resembles a midbudget magic show in a late-night Atlantic City casino lounge, filtered through a heavy metal video. Which doesn’t necessarily mean it does not have its entertaining moments.

Lord Nil kicks off things by explaining in a filmed voiceover that following a water-tank trick twelve years ago that went awry, landing him in a hospital and suffering from PTSD, “That was the day I became Lord Nil. The first of the forgotten. The Lord of nothing. Just a man who turned pain into strength. Why? To chase an insane dream. I face fear, night after night, because if I can face it, maybe you will too.”

Born in Italy as Simone — his full real name is unknown, and he has done a thorough job of keeping his previous life a secret — Lord Nil made the quarterfinals of the thirteenth season of America’s Got Talent and is now displaying his skills at Stage 42 through August 31. For seventy-five minutes, he battles the four elements — earth, water, fire, and air — via execution machines involving an ax, a circular saw, sizzling bacon, an enclosed maze filled with smoke, a crossbow, and a descending spiked ceiling. Each stunt is linked to one of the seven deadly sins — pride, envy, gluttony, greed, lust, sloth, and wrath — but don’t try too hard to figure out the connection, because most of them are a bit of a stretch.

“Do I scare you? Don’t you recognize me?” Vice purrs at the crowd. “I’m the villain from all your childhood fairy tales, the monster from your nightmares: Call me whatever you wish. Tonight, I am the mirror that reflects all of Lord Nil’s fears back at him.” In between the daring feats, the Lost Souls, consisting of Reba Bartram, Michele Castelli, Christian Hariga, Alina Radu, Derrion Swan, Khy-Felipe Pasamonte Vitug, Kortney Warren, Erika Zilli, Kris Ivy Haynes, and Chance Hoover, slink and slither across the stage, dancing to loud music featuring the Lord of Evil (composer Erik Ventrice) shredding away on electric guitar.

Most of the magic is mediocre, the contraptions can be confusing, and Lord Nil’s celebrations are right out of professional wrestling. There’s not a whole lot of suspense, as evidenced by the less-than-enthusiastic applause after each deed and no unanimous standing ovation at the curtain call. The audience is encouraged to take photos and video; one audience member is chosen to participate in the final caper, which adds a bit of fun to an otherwise silly trick that even Batman might sniff at.

Lord Nil battles the wrath of fire in finale as Vice (Steph Payne) and the Lost Souls watch closely (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Directed by Alberto Oliva, the dark, splashy production is bumpy and uneven, enlivened with sexy choreography by Stefano Alessandrino, goth costumes by Guiseppe Magistro, flashy lighting by Tudor Micu for the Light Guy and Jamie Roderick, piercing sound by Drew Levy and Kevin Sweetser, and faux-demonic animation and projections by Dan Mitrea for Digital Maverick. Lord Nil himself is a somewhat opaque figure, and there is little chemistry between him and Payne.

You might not call out, “Holy Houdini!” as Robin did at the beginning of the second season of Batman, in the “Shoot a Crooked Arrow” episode, but Lord Nil’s production would not feel out of place on the great vaudeville stages of yore that hosted Houdini and pleased the crowds who could suspend disbelief — and perhaps their better judgment — to enjoy some thrills and chills on a hot summer night.

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

HARLEM PRESENTS: OPERA EBONY IN MARCUS GARVEY PARK

Who: Opera Ebony
What: The Harlem Opera Festival
Where: Richard Rodgers Amphitheater, Marcus Garvey Park, Fifth Ave. at 124th St.
When: Saturday, July 26, free (advance RSVP recommended), 7:00
Why: Now in its fifty-first season, the nonprofit Opera Ebony is the longest continually operated Black opera company in the world. Founded in 1973 by bass baritone Benjamin Matthews with mezzo-soprano Sis. Elise Sisson (SBS), music director Wayne Sanders, and conductor Margaret Harris, the troupe has staged works around the globe, from Carmen, Aida, and La Traviata to Porgy & Bess, Faust, and Cosi Fan Tutte in addition to such original pieces as Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, The Meetin’, and O’Freedom.

As part of Harlem Presents, Opera Ebony is holding a pair of concerts prior to the Classical Theatre of Harlem’s production of Will Power and Carl Cofield’s Memnon at the Richard Rodgers Amphitheater in Marcus Garvey Park. The forty-five-minute concerts start at 7:00, the play at 8:30; arriving early to see the music has the added benefit of garnering you an excellent seat for Memnon, as the amphitheater fills up pretty quickly.

On July 19, baritone Shavon Lloyd sang “Silvio’s Aria” from Pagliacci, the spiritual “Ride on King Jesus,” H. Leslie Adams’s “Prayer,” and “Make Them Hear You” from Ragtime, while mezzo soprano Daveda Browne performed “Seguidilla” from Carmen, “Mon Coeur” from Samson and Delilah, “When I Am Laid” from Dido and Æneas, and the spiritual “Wade in the Water.” They were both accompanied by pianist Kyle P. Walker; the program for July 26 will feature soprano Linnesha Crump and tenor David Morgans performing pieces by Wagner, Bizet, Puccini, Cilea, and Gershwin and duetting on William Still’s “Calm as the Bayou Waters.” Be sure to check out the pop-up market with community outreach booths, fashion and beauty boutiques, and food and drink from Creole Soul, Lizzy’s Treats, Kiki’s Cookies, Greensicle, Campbell & Carr, and Bee Favored. (The preshow music and market will be different on July 25 and July 27.) The concert and play are free; advance RSVP is recommended.

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

LEGACY, MEMORY, AND IMPERMANENCE: CELEBRATING MEREDITH MONK AT IFC

Meredith Monk looks at her past, present, and future in Billy Shebar’s celebratory and deeply affecting documentary

MONK IN PIECES: A CONCEPT ALBUM (Billy Shebar, 2025)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
July 24–31
www.ifccenter.com
monkinpieces.com

Near the beginning of Billy Shebar’s revelatory documentary, Monk in Pieces, composer Philip Glass explains that Meredith Monk “was a self-contained theater company. She, amongst all of us, I think, was the uniquely gifted one — is the uniquely gifted one.” It’s an important correction because Monk, at eighty-three, is still hard at work, creating live performances and films that defy categorization.

While several of her earliest projects were met with derision in critical circles, today she is revered for her remarkable output, although it is still impossible to put her into any kind of box. At one point in the documentary, a chorus of Monk scholars sings her praises; one says, “She’s achieved so much, has received so many accolades, and yet she’s this unknown,” a second notes, “She kind of falls through the cracks of music history,” and a third admits, “We don’t know how to talk about her.”

Written, directed, and produced by Shebar — whose wife, coproducer Katie Geissinger, has been performing with Monk since 1990 — and David Roberts, Monk in Pieces does a wonderful job of righting those wrongs, celebrating her artistic legacy while she shares private elements of her personal and professional life. Born and raised in Manhattan, Monk details her vision problem, known as strabismus, in which she is unable to see out of both eyes simultaneously in three dimensions, which led her to concentrate on vocals and the movement of her physical self. She studied Dalcroze Eurhythmics: “All musical ideas come from the body; I think that’s where I’m coming from,” she says. All these decades later, her distinctive choreography and wordless tunes are still like nothing anyone else does.

Meredith Monk shares a special moment with her beloved turtle, Neutron

Unfolding at a Monk-like unhurried pace, the ninety-five-minute documentary is divided into thematic chapters based on her songs, including “Dolmen Music,” “Double Fiesta,” “Memory Song,” “Turtle Dreams,” and “Teeth Song,” while exploring such presentations as Juice (1969), the first theatrical event to be held at the Guggenheim; Education of the Girlchild (1973), in which a woman ages in reverse; Quarry (1976), a three-part opera about an American child sick in bed during WWII; Impermanence (2006), inspired by the sudden death of her partner, Mieke von Hook; and her masterwork, Atlas (1991), in which the Houston Grand Opera worries about her numerous requests and production costs, whether the piece will be ready in time, and if it even can be considered opera. There are also clips from Ellis Island, Book of Days, Facing North, and Indra’s Net, her latest show, which was staged at Park Ave. Armory last fall. In addition, Monk reads from her journals in scenes with playful animation by Paul Barritt.

Monk opened up her archives for the filmmakers, so Shebar, Roberts, and editor Sabine Krayenbühl incorporate marvelous photos and video from throughout Monk’s career, along with old and new interviews. “It was her voice that was so extraordinary, not only the different kind of sounds she could make, but the imagination she was using in producing the sound . . . totally individual,” Merce Cunningham says. WNYC New Sounds host John Schaefer gushes, “I don’t know when words like multimedia and interdisciplinary began to become in vogue, but Meredith was all of those things.” Her longtime friend and collaborator Ping Chong offers, “She had to fight to be acknowledged in the performing arts world because critics were saying that what she was doing was nonsensical, was crazy, was not serious; in a way, it’s a fight to survive. Pain is where art comes from. . . . Art has to come out of need. And now she’s an old master.”

And Björk, who recorded Monk’s “Gotham Lullaby,” touts, “Meredith’s melody making is like a timeless door that’s opened, like a gateway to the ancient is found. It definitely affected my DNA. . . . Her loft that she has lived in for half a century is an oasis in a toxic environment.” Among the other collaborators who chime in are longtime company member Lanny Harrison; composer Julia Wolfe; and David Byrne, for whom she created the opening scene of his 1986 film, True Stories, and who says he learned from Monk that “you can do things without words and it still has meaning, it still has an emotional connection.”

Some of the most beautiful moments of the film transpire in Monk’s loft, where she tends to her beloved forty-two-year-old turtle named Neutron, puts stuffed animals on her bed, meditates while staring at windows lined with Tibetan prayer flags, composes a new song, looks into a mirror as she braids her trademark pigtails, and sits at her small kitchen table, eating by herself. Surrounded by plants and personal photographs, she moves about slowly, profoundly alone, comfortable in who she is and what she has accomplished, contemplating what comes next.

“What happens when I’m not here anymore?” Monk, who received the 2014 National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama, asks while working with director Yuval Sharon, conductor Francisco J. Núñez, and performer Joanna Lynn Jacobs on a remounting of Atlas for the LA Philharmonic in 2019. “It’s very rare that anybody gets it.”

Monk in Pieces goes a long way toward rectifying that, filling in the cracks, helping define her place in music history.

Monk in Pieces runs July 24-31 at IFC Center; there will be Q&As following the 6:45 screenings on July 24 with Monk, Shebar, and producer Susan Margolin, moderated by Schaefer; on July 25 with Monk, Shebar, and Margolin, moderated by violist Nadia Sirota; and on July 26 with Shebar.

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

MEMNON: THE MISSING BATTLE OF THE TROJAN WAR

Eric Berryman resurrects a Greek hero in Classical Theatre of Harlem’s Memnon (photo by Richard Termine)

UPTOWN SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARK: MEMNON
Classical Theatre of Harlem
Richard Rodgers Amphitheater, Marcus Garvey Park
18 Mt. Morris Park W.
Tuesday – Sunday through July 27, free (advance RSVP recommended), 8:30
www.cthnyc.org

Writer Will Power and director Carl Cofield follow up their 2021 Richard III reimagination, Seize the King, with Memnon, a bold antiwar missive about a key battle in the legendary fight between the Achaeans and the Trojans about eight hundred years ago.

Presented by the Classical Theatre of Harlem at the Richard Rodgers Amphitheater in Marcus Garvey Park through July 27 at part of its Uptown Shakespeare in the Park series, Memnon zeroes in on the little-known title character, an Ethiopian king, in the mold of Black Panther, who appears in some ancient texts (Virgil’s Aeneid, the extant Aethiopis) and on cups, vases, and mirrors. Priam (Jesse J. Perez), the king of Troy, is mourning the death of his son Hector, a warrior who was killed by Achilles (Jesse Corbin). Priam believes that Hector was “Troy’s last hope,” while Polydamas (David Darrow), Priam’s trusted adviser, declares, “So now without him, our hero gone, our men / Soon slaves to Hades or other men / Our wives violated / And children’s bones crushed by boots.”

But then Polydamas suggests that Priam turn to his nephew, Memnon (Eric Berryman), who self-exiled to Ethiopia many years before under mysterious circumstances. “Never will I call this man of which you speak. Never, I say! / He is us only in lineage, not in spirit / No, his treacherous soul belongs to others / And he has proven that,” Priam argues vociferously. “He is nothing to me!”

Helen (Andrea Patterson), the queen of Troy, entreaties Priam to reconsider; she left her husband in Sparta, abducted or of her free will, as various tales have it, with Paris, Hector’s brother, and the Greek cuckold’s furor led to the Trojan War. “In Troy Helen is Helen at home Helen is hell / In Troy Helen has choice at home no free will / So the place that is home may be truly foreign / And the new place foreign may be true indigen,” Helen says, adding, “Caught up you are in who is foreign / And who is citizen. / Why not who is true and what false?”

Priam eventually relents, and, though hesitant at first, Memnon arrives with his army, although he first speaks of a peaceful resolution to the war. “In Ethiopia, able we are / To speak through disagreements and sidestep bloodshed,” Memnon explains. Priam wants to know how many enemies he has killed, and by what methods, but Memnon tells him, “We didn’t kill we captured to calm them. . . . Once I slaughtered two hundred men myself, in one single battle / Not proud of that.”

Soon Memnon is facing off with Antilochus (David Darrow), son of Nestor (Jesse J. Perez), the king of Pylos. “Your father Nestor, an old man in a young man’s game / He should not be here at war, and neither should you / I see through your brave mirage, men should not slay boys,” Memnon, holding a shield made by the god Hephaestus, warns Antilochus. “Vacate now as I will not attack but, if you should be so bold / To use sword, javelin, and shield against me / Young man, no choice will I have but to end you / Think on this, Antilochus, and think well.”

He doesn’t think well enough.

Next, Nestor appeals to Achilles to fight Memnon, not only to defend the Achaeans, but to seek revenge for his childhood friend Patroclus, who was killed by Hector. Achilles initially does not want to get involved. “To kill again I could easily do, summon the dark and blanket battle fields / With slumbering, lifeless men. But to what end, Nestor?” Achilles asks. “I despise not the Trojans, but gods that play chess with souls of men / These devilish immortals are set on us as their light amusements.” However, Nestor convinces Achilles to take up arms against Memnon, so the two heroic figures, neither of whom wants to shed more blood, are face-to-face in heated battle.

Memnon (Eric Berryman) and Helen (Andrea Patterson) consider their fate as battle awaits (photo by Richard Termine)

Told in iambic hexameter, Memnon is laced with references to immigrants that ring true with what is happening in America today. In response to Helen’s statement about who is foreign and who is citizen, Priam answers, “Is this a man true who loves Troy? That makes the citizen.” Polydamas notes, “Helen became not foreigner but blood to us.” And Memnon, when deciding whether to return to Troy and join his uncle’s cause, considers, “Now times there were when reminded I was / That Troy and I were not the same, that I / Was Troy but not fully Trojan, kin and / Not kin, still would I tuck feelings away. . . . I am of the east and yet / This Troy still calls. I cannot abandon her fully / Though I have tried. / It makes no sense, to fight for that which has proven / Time and time again that you will forever be other.”

Riw Rakkulchon’s set is a multilevel crumbling castle with stairs leading to platforms within scaffolding. Yee Eun Nam’s projections are primarily atmospheric abstractions that morph from black and white into color. Frederick Kennedy’s sound and music has to contend with loud noises in the park but ultimately prevails. Celeste Jennings’s costumes range from regal to battle armor to Memnon’s African-influenced garb, accompanied by white sneakers. The lighting, by Alan C. Edwards, adjusts to the setting sun and the shifts in narrative style, from extended dialogues to rousing dance interludes choreographed by Tiffany Rea-Fisher and performed by Jenna Kulacz, Madelyn LaLonde, Alyssa Manginaro, Caitlyn Morgan, Erik Penrod Osterkil, Tiffany “2Ts” Terry, and Travon M. Williams.

Berryman (Primary Trust, Get Your Ass in the Water and Swim Like Me) is captivating as Memnon, a thoughtful man, strong in mind and body, who favors peace but is thrust into war. His diction is initially heavy with broken English but becomes smoother as he spends more time with Priam and Helen. Perez (Party People, Informed Consent) moves smoothly between Priam and Nestor, both of whom speak loudly, fathers seeking revenge no matter the cost. Patterson (cullud wattah, Confederates) makes the most of her moments as Helen, while Darrow (All Is Calm, the Revival) excels as Polydamas and Antilochus, with several of his longer scenes receiving well-deserved exit applause, and artist, musician, and fitness trainer Corbin (The Lion . . . & the Wardrobe) shows off his muscles as Achilles.

The play unfurls almost too rapidly, with a few plot holes and a lot of exposition that at times makes it feel like something is missing, and some of the contemporary language sticks out like a sore thumb — for example, when Memnon says, “We will always be a nation sliced apart / Haves and have nots, belongs and kind of belongs.” But Power (Flow; Fetch Clay, Make Man) and Cofield (The Bacchae, King Lear) have done Greek tragedy a service by resurrecting a true hero with a unique understanding of glory.

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