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KEN LOACH

KEN LOACH
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
April 19 – May 2
212-727-8110
filmforum.org

British filmmaker Ken Loach’s The Old Oak opened at Film Forum on April 5, the conclusion to his Northeast England trilogy, following I, Daniel Blake, and Sorry We Missed You. Loach, a social realist who turns eighty-eight in June, has said that The Old Oak will be his final work, which would mark the end of a brilliant career that included twenty-eight films. Film Forum will be presenting twenty-one of those films in a retrospective tribute running April 19 through May 2, from his debut, 1967’s Poor Cow to 1991’s Riff-Raff, 1996’s Carla’s Song, 2000’s Bread and Roses, and 2013’s The Spirit of ’45. Below is a look at two of the highlights.

Cillian Murphy stars in Ken Loach’s The Wind that Shakes the Barley

THE WIND THAT SHAKES THE BARLEY (Ken Loach, 2006)
Saturday, April 20, 5:20
Thursday, April 25, 3:00
Saturday, April 27, 7:40
Tuesday, April 30, 8:10
filmforum.org

Winner of the 2006 Palme d’Or at Cannes, The Wind that Shakes the Barley is a brutal masterpiece from director Ken Loach (Family Life, Raining Stones). It’s 1920, and the English black and tans are running roughshod through Ireland, leaving broken and dead bodies in their wake as they keep the population frightened and in poverty. But poorly armed yet determined local guerrilla armies are forming, prepared to fight for freedom in their homeland. In one small town, Damien (Cillian Murphy) is getting ready to move to London to train as a doctor, but he decides instead to join the burgeoning Irish Republican Army after seeing one too many bloody beatings.

Swearing their loyalty to the cause and led by Damien’s brother, Teddy (Padraic Delaney), they set up ambushes of British forces, gathering weapons in a desperate attempt to win back their country. Damien also falls for Sinead (Orla Fitzgerald), one of many women who work as messengers and spies and run safe houses. But when a questionable treaty is signed, loyalty is tested and families torn apart. Written by Paul Laverty and also featuring Liam Cunningham, Mary Riordan, Myles Horgan, and Mary Murphy, The Wind that Shakes the Barley is a fierce, no-holds-barred, if one-sided, look at a violent conflict that has lasted for centuries.

Eric Bishop (Steve Evets) gets some advice from his hero, football star Eric Cantona (Eric Cantona)

LOOKING FOR ERIC (Ken Loach, 2010)
Sunday, April 21, 7:50
Friday, April 26, 8:20
filmforum.org

With his life in freefall, postal employee Eric Bishop (Steve Evets) gazes up at his poster of soccer legend Eric Cantona and wonders what the Manchester United star would do – and then, like magic, Cantona (played by Cantona himself) appears in his room, to lend advice and help him through his myriad problems. Reminiscent of how Bogie (Jerry Lacy) guides Allan (Woody Allen) in Play It Again, Sam, Cantona hangs out with Bishop, talking about how he dealt with adversity on the field and off and sharing joints while discussing life. Bishop’s stepsons don’t listen to him, his second wife has left him, and he ends up in the hospital after driving the wrong way through a traffic circle. But his close group of motley friends – Spleen (Justin Moorhouse), Jack (Des Sharples), Monk (Greg Cook), Judge (Mick Ferry), Smug (Smug Roberts), Travis (Johnny Travis), and leader Meatballs (John Henshaw) – stick by him through thick and thin, especially when his son Ryan (Gerard Kearns) gets into serious trouble with a local gangster (Steve Marsh).

A light-hearted, tender comedy that turns somewhat goofy at the end, Looking for Eric was directed by British iconoclast Ken Loach, who has previously offered up such tales as Kes, Riff-Raff, Carla’s Song, and The Wind That Shakes the Barley. Loach and screenwriting partner Paul Laverty were looking for a sweet, innocent film to make when Cantona actually approached them with an idea that they turned into Looking for Eric, a nod to such charmers as Waking Ned Devine and The Full Monty that includes clips of many of Cantona’s most spectacular goals as well as his infamous farewell press conference.

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

MARTHA GRAHAM DANCE COMPANY: AMERICAN LEGACIES

Agnes de Mille’s Rodeo is part of Martha Graham’s New York City Center season (photo by Carla Lope / Luque Photography)

Who: Martha Graham Dance Company
What: GRAHAM100
Where: New York City Center, 131 West 55th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
When: April 17-20, $55-$155
Why: The Martha Graham Dance Company returns to City Center for the first part of its three-year centennial celebration, “GRAHAM100,” consisting of six works that explore the past, present, and future of the troupe. “American Legacies” takes place April 17-20, consisting of a new production of Agnes de Mille’s 1942 classic, Rodeo, with music by Aaron Copland, reorchestrated with bluegrass flair by Gabe Witcher, costumes by Oana Botez, and visual design by Beowulf Boritt; Graham’s 1990 Maple Leaf Rag, set to music by Scott Joplin, with costumes by Calvin Klein; Graham’s 1944 classic, Appalachian Spring, with music by Copland, scenic design by Ismau Noguchi, and costumes by Graham; Hofesh Shechter’s 2022 CAVE, with music by Shechter and Âme; Graham favorite The Rite of Spring (1984), with music by Igor Stravinsky, set by Edward T. Morris, costumes by Graham and Halston, projections by Paul Lieber, and a new production concept from artistic director Janet Eilber; and the world premiere of Jamar Roberts’s We the People, with music by Rhiannon Giddens. Music for the Graham classics will be performed live by the Mannes Orchestra.

The gala on April 18 comprises Maple Leaf Rag, The Rite of Spring, and Graham’s 1932 Satyric Festival Song, which was reconstructed in 1994 by Diane Gray and Eilber to music by Fernando Palacios and will feature special guest FKA twigs, who is one of the gala honorees, along with Adrienne Holder and Dr. Donna E. Shalala. “As part of ‘GRAHAM100,’ we are interested in reframing iconic works of the twentieth century in ways that expand our views of that time and offer a more inclusive history,” Eilber notes in the program. “We hope our new production of Rodeo, which also features the most diverse cast to have ever performed the work, will resonate with today’s conversations about gender and inclusion while celebrating Agnes’s timeless and timely story about a young person who feels unable to fit in finding community on their own terms through dance.”

In a statement, Eilber added, “We’re thrilled to be working with Rhiannon Giddens, whose work often celebrates Black and immigrant artists who are foundational to American folk music. Pairing her with choreographer Jamar Roberts on programs with our new bluegrass production of Agnes de Mille’s Rodeo puts twentieth- and twenty-first-century Americana side by side and offers audiences a more expansive and inclusive way to understand our past. And our remarkable dancers somehow move seamlessly and brilliantly between styles and techniques that span decades.” Those dancers are Lloyd Knight, Xin Ying, Lorenzo Pagano, Leslie Andrea Williams, Anne Souder, Laurel Dalley Smith, So Young An, Marzia Memoli, Jacob Larsen, Alessio Crognale-Roberts, Richard Villaverde, Devin Loh, Antonio Leone, Meagan King, Ane Arrieta, Zachary Jeppsen, Matthew Spangler, Justin Valentine, Jai Perez, and Amanda Moreira.

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

CITY WINERY DOWNTOWN SEDER 2024

Who: Alex Edelman, Judy Gold, Peter Yarrow, David Broza, Dr. Benjamin Chavis Jr., AC Lincoln, Terrance Floyd, Brad Lander, Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie, Rabbi Tamar Manasseh, Laurie Anderson, Steven Bernstein, Jared Freed, Richard Kind, Nicki Richards, more
What: Downtown Seder 2024
Where: City Winery, 25 Eleventh Ave. at Fifteenth St.
When: Wednesday, April 17, $75-$180 (livestream free), 7:00
Why: For more than three decades, Michael Dorf has been hosting all-star seders to celebrate Passover, concentrating on freedom and justice. The latest iteration takes place on Wednesday, April 17, at City Winery, which Dorf opened on Varick St. in 2008 and moved to Hudson River Park’s Pier 57 in 2020. Attendees will be treated to a plant-based meal with four glasses of wine as they go through the Haggadah, the illustrated text that tells the story of the Jewish people’s exodus from Egypt. This year’s participants include multidisciplinary artist Laurie Anderson, musicians David Broza, AC Lincoln, Peter Yarrow, Steven Bernstein, and Nicki Richards, comedians Alex Edelman, Jared Freed, and Judy Gold, activist and author Dr. Benjamin Chavis Jr., activist Terrance Floyd, NYC comptroller Brad Lander, Rabbis Amichai Lau-Lavie and Tamar Manasseh, and actor extraordinaire Richard Kind. The setlist is likely to include “The Four Questions,” “Dayenu,” “Chad Gadya,” “Go Down Moses,” and “The Ten Plagues.” If you can’t make it to City Winery on April 17, you can follow the livestream for free here.

“Every year has local and international issues which resonate with the Passover story, and the Palestinian/Israeli conflict — which has historical connections — could not make this year’s seder conversations any more intense,” Dorf writes on the event website. “However, as José Andrés eloquently stated in his recent NYT op-ed, ‘Let People Eat,’ we all share a culture that values food as a powerful statement of humanity and hospitality — of our shared hope for a better tomorrow. City Winery’s seder takes these ancient symbols of life and hope and transcends the normal script using art, music, and humor to bring back some joy while inspiring and feeding our soul.”

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

CHARLES BUSCH IN CONVERSATION WITH MELISSA ERRICO

Who: Charles Busch, Melissa Errico
What: Book talk
Where: The National Arts Club, 15 Gramercy Park South
When: Monday, April 15, free with advance RSVP, 6:30
Why: In the first chapter of his memoir, Leading Lady: A Memoir of a Most Unusual Boy (Smart Pop, September 2023, $27.95), Charles Busch is writing about meeting up with Joan Rivers. “Dining with a group of friends at Joe Allen, Joan expressed wistfully, ‘I wish I had a gay son I could phone at midnight and discuss whatever movie was on TCM.’ Everyone laughed. I fell silent, but inside I was pleading, Take me. I’ll be your gay son. Joan was the most prominent in a long line of smart, bigger-than-life mother figures I’ve attached myself to. All my life, I’ve been in a search for a maternal woman whose lap I could rest my head on.”

New York native Busch has been part of the entertainment scene in the city since the late 1970s, writing and appearing in numerous plays and films, often in drag. The Tony nominee and Drama Desk Award winner has dazzled audiences with such plays as The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife, Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, The Tribute Artist, and The Confession of Lily Dare as well as Psycho Beach Party and Die, Mommie, Die!, both of which transferred from stage to the big screen. He currently can be seen in Ibsen’s Ghost at 59E59 through April 14.

On April 16, Busch will be at the National Arts Club to talk about his life and career, in conversation with Manhattan-born, Tony-nominated actress and singer Melissa Errico, who has starred in such shows as My Fair Lady, High Society, Dracula the Musical, Amour, Sunday in the Park with George, and Aunt Dan and Lemon. Expect lots of great stories featuring many all-time theater greats.

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

JERUSALEM QUARTET AT 92NY

The Jerusalem Quartet will perform works by Haydn, Brahms, and Shostakovich on April 16 at 92NY

Who: Jerusalem Quartet
What: Marshall Weinberg Classical Music Season concert
Where: The 92nd Street Y, Kaufmann Concert Hall, 1395 Lexington Ave. between Ninety-First & Ninety-Second Sts.
When: Tuesday, April 16, $25-$55 in person, $25 online (available for 72 hours after performance), 7:30
Why: The 92nd St. Y’s Marshall Weinberg Classical Music Season continues on April 16 with a live performance by the Jerusalem Quartet. Now in its twenty-ninth season, the quartet consists of first violinist Alexander Pavlovsky, second violinist Sergei Bresler, violist Ori Kam, and cellist Kyril Zlotnikov; founding members Pavlovsky and Bresler are from Ukraine, third cofounder Zlotnikov is from Belarus, and Kam was born in California and raised in Israel. The program at Kaufmann Concert Hall features Haydn’s Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 76, No. 6; Brahms’s Quartet No. 3 in B-flat Major, Op. 67; and Shostakovich’s, Quartet No. 2 in A Major, Op. 68. Tickets are $25-$55; the concert will also be available online ($25) for seventy-two hours after the performance.

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

CORRUPTION

Toby Stephens stars as “Hatchet Man Watson” in J. T. Rogers’s Corruption (photo by T. Charles Erickson)

CORRUPTION
Lincoln Center Theater at the Mitzi E. Newhouse
150 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through April 14, $108
www.lct.org

In the last ten years, a handful of plays have successfully taken on the financial industry, the media, and politics in intriguing and involving productions often based on real-life events. In such works as Ayad Akhtar’s The Invisible Hand and Junk, Sarah Burgess’s Dry Powder, and James Graham’s Ink, capitalism trumps basic humanity in pursuit of money and power.

Brooklyn-based playwright J. T. Rogers follows the money and power in the provocative thriller Corruption, making its world premiere at Lincoln Center’s Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater.

Rogers delved into the Rwandan genocide in The Overwhelming, the Soviet war in Afghanistan in Blood and Gifts, and the Middle East peace process in the Tony-winning Oslo. Inspired by Tom Watson and Martin Hickman’s 2012 book, Dial M for Murdoch: News Corporation and the Corruption of Britain, he now turns his attention to the ripped-from-the-headlines true story behind the News International phone hacking scandal, in which the British tabloid News of the World was accused of breaking into thousands of people’s phones, from average citizens to politicians, celebrities, law enforcement, competitors, and the royal family, in order to get dirt and, essentially, blackmail them in order to sell more papers and gain further influence.

At the center of it all is Rebekah Brooks (usually portrayed by Saffron Burrows but I saw her understudy, Eleanor Handley), the ruthless editor of the paper and the company’s CEO. The show begins at her gala wedding, where she marries socialite and former horse trainer Charlie Brooks (John Behlmann); among the guests at the Sarsden Estate in Oxfordshire are Prime Minister Gordon Brown (Anthony Cochrane), Tory leader David Cameron, and freshly promoted News Corp head James Murdoch (Seth Numrich), the younger son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who remains unseen in the play but is a key figure throughout.

“Newspapers are a relic, Rebekah,” James says. Rebekah argues, “Now, James, the News of the World and the Sun are the backbone of this company. They are the engine that powers everything else.” James responds, “Save that speech for my father. You two can continue your newsprint romance when I’m not around. I’m here to grow this company. Going forward, change is the order of the day. From now on, our focus is television and new media. Everything else is expendable.”

Rebekah Brooks (Saffron Burrows) in under the microscope in ripped-from-the-headlines play (photo by T. Charles Erickson)

Meanwhile, after being excoriated in the Sun as a “hatchet man” for Prime Minister Brown, Watson (Toby Stephens), a member of Parliament, tells the PM that he needs a less visible role because the newspaper’s vitriol is affecting his wife, Siobhan (Robyn Kerr), and their young son. He instead accepts what is supposed to be a lackluster position on the Culture, Media, and Sport Select Committee. But when it is revealed that Gordon Taylor, president of the Professional Footballers’ Association, accepted a seven-figure payoff from News International to keep quiet about phone hacking, the committee starts investigating the case, which leads them to Brooks, former News of the World editor Andy Coulson (Numrich), and assistant police commissioner John Yates (T. Ryder Smith).

Despite pleas from his wife to let it go, Watson is driven to expose the corruption at nearly any cost, working with Guardian journalist Nick Davies (Smith), political foe Chris Bryant (K. Todd Freeman), New York Times reporter Jo Becker (usually Eleanor Handley but I saw a fine Doireann Mac Mahon), tainted multimillionaire Max Mosley (Michael Siberry), Independent journalist Martin Hickman (Sanjit De Silva), lawyer Charlotte Harris (Sepideh Moafi), and Paul (Behlmann) and Karie (Mac Mahon) from Watson’s staff. Leading the charge against them is News International chief counsel Tom Crone (Dylan Baker), who has Uncle Rupert’s ear, which enrages James, who thinks he is now running his father’s business.

Many of the key players risk their careers — and the lives of themselves and their families — as Watson can’t stop digging for the truth.

Paul (John Behlmann), Jo Becker (Eleanor Handley), and Tom Watson (Toby Stephens) uncover damning evidence in Corruption (photo by T. Charles Erickson)

Corruption is a taut cloak-and-dagger-style drama that makes a bold statement about where we are as a society as technology offers opportunities for abuse in the name of leverage, control, and domination. Cover-ups abound as strong-willed and determined men and women maneuver themselves, unable, or unwilling, to see the damage they are causing, personally and/or professionally. It’s the kind of story you wish couldn’t be true, but it’s all too real.

Michael Yeargan’s set consists of distressed walls evoking long-faded newsprint; movable, rearrangeable curved tables; and, above the stage, a circle of television monitors delivering a barrage of actual reports from multiple channels. Projections on the walls by 59 Productions reveal breaking news, social media posts, and important evidence. Jennifer Moeller’s costumes capture the essence of the characters, while Justin Ellington’s sound immerses the audience in the gripping narrative. Donald Holder’s lighting features three pairs of dazzling crisscrossing horizontal lines on the floor that change color, particularly as scenes shift, accentuating the fast pace as startling details emerge.

Tony-winning director Bartlett Sher (South Pacific, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone) builds the tension with skill and precision; even if you’re familiar with the story, there are many surprises in Rogers’s razor-sharp script, which feels economical even with a running time of more than two and a half hours (with intermission). The ensemble is excellent, led by Stephens (The Forest, Oslo), who refuses to quit regardless of the consequences; Handley (The Hard Problem, Jericho), who is superb as Brooks, a woman obsessed with expanding her influence; Kerr (The Great Society, Dark Vanilla Jungle) as Siobhan, who doesn’t understand why Tom cannot choose his family over his job; and Baker (La Běte, Not About Horses) as both the smarmy, egotistical lawyer Crone and the mysterious investigator Glen Mulcaire. Siberry seems right at home as Mosley, following his appearances in such other hard-hitting financial works as Ink and Junk.

The one-word title is not as simple as it may at first seem; the play is specifically about the News International phone hacking scandal, but it also alludes to rampant business and political crime that is growing throughout so many sectors of society, with no end in sight, particularly because the media itself is among the guilty.

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

(UN)SILENT FILM NIGHT: METROPOLIS IN CONCERT

Workers change shifts in the lower depths in Fritz Lang’s futuristic masterpiece, Metropolis

METROPOLIS (Fritz Lang, 1927)
New School Tishman Auditorium
63 Fifth Ave. at Fourteenth St.
Wednesday, April 10, free with advance RSVP, 7:30
www.newschool.edu

Fritz Lang’s 1927 silent epic, Metropolis, has been shown over the years in various versions and with different music, most famously Giorgio Moroder’s 1984 score. On April 10, the New School’s College of Performing Arts will present the world premiere of a new score by Mannes School of Music student Amir Sanjari, performed live to the film by the Mannes Orchestra, conducted by Robert Kahn. “Among the many things that are magical about masterpieces of the silent film era is the possibility of creating new musical sound worlds for extraordinary moving images. This is just what our student composer Amir Sanjari has done with Fritz Lang’s legendary Metropolis, where the brilliant young composer of 2024 joins forces with the 1927 thunderbolt of silent film history,” executive dean Richard Kessler said in a statement. The event is part of the (Un)Silent Film series, which has featured new scores for such works as Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush and The Immigrant and Buster Keaton’s Sherlock Jr., with such hosts as Matthew Broderick, Bill Irwin, and Rob Bartlett.

Set one hundred years in the future, Metropolis pits man vs. machine, the corporation against the worker, and sin vs. salvation in a technologically advanced society run by business mogul Joh Fredersen (Alfred Abel). While Fredersen rakes in the big bucks on the surface, the workers are treated like slaves way down below, in a dark, dank hell where they perform their automaton-like jobs. When Fredersen’s son, Freder (Gustav Fröhlich), starts feeling sympathy for the workers and falls for Maria (Brigitte Helm), an activist who is trying to convince the men, women, and children of the lower depths that they deserve more out of life, Fredersen has mad inventor Rotwang (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) create a man-machine version of Maria to steer his employees to a revolution that will lead them to self-destruct, although things don’t quite turn out as planned. Written by Lang and his wife, Thea Von Harbou, Metropolis is a visual marvel, featuring jaw-dropping special effects by Eugen Schüfftan (who was developing his Schüfftan process of using miniatures) and a stunning man-machine designed by sculptor Walter Schulze-Mittendorff.

Walter Schulze-Mittendorff’s man-machine stirs up plenty of trouble among the workers in 2026

The complex story incorporates biblical elements, from direct references to the Tower of Babel to other allusions, including fire and flood, while focusing on the relationship between father and prodigal son that evokes both God and Jesus and Abraham and Isaac. A parable that also relates to the battle between employers and unions, the film features a series of doppelgängers: There are two Marias, the real one, who is loving and genuine, and the cold and calculating man-machine; Freder and worker 11811, Georgy (Erwin Binswanger), who temporarily switch places; and Fredersen’s wife, Hel, who died while giving birth to Freder but has been revived into the initial man-machine by Rotwang, who was also in love with her. The massive achievement was shot by Karl Freund (Dracula, Key Largo) with Günther Rittau and Walter Ruttmann, who give it a dazzlingly dramatic look in every scene, accompanied by a soaring score by Gottfried Huppertz that incorporates snippets of Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle’s “La Marseillaise.” The film declares, “The mediator between head and hands must be the heart!” Lang explores all three in this remarkable film.

“Fritz Lang got the idea for Metropolis when he was in Manhattan in the 1920s promoting another movie of his. Knowing this, I took inspiration from the city itself,” Sanjari said in a statement. “The buildings, the art, and many other things in New York City inspired me to write the score. In addition, I was very inspired by minimalism and the repetition of musical ideas, so I tried to incorporate that.” Admission is free with advance RSVP.

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