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THE 2023 HARLEM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

Ryan Dickie and Abigail Horton’s Blow Up My Life opens the 2023 Harlem Film Festival

THE 2023 HARLEM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
AMC Magic Johnson Harlem 9 Theatres, 2309 Frederick Douglass Blvd.
The Forum, 601 West 125th St.
Maysles Documentary Center, 343 Malcolm X Blvd.
May 18-28
harlemfilmfestival.org

The eighteenth edition of the Harlem International Film Festival kicks off May 18 with the New York premiere of Ryan Dickie and Abigail Horton’s Blow Up My Life, a pharmaceutical thriller starring Jason Selvig, Kara Young, Ben Horner, Davram Stiefler, and Reema Sampat, followed by a filmmaker Q&A and preceded by Eunice Levis’s InVade, a short that mixes undocumented immigration and environmental disaster. InVade is one of four films in the Harlem Spotlight section, along with Hans Augustave’s eight-minute I Held Him, with Brian Teague Williams, Alphonso Walker Jr., and Malik Yoba; Ryan Fenson-Hood’s twenty-one-minute The Obituary of Jasper James, about an unhoused man who moves into a mausoleum; and Patrick Heaphy’s feature-length documentary The Sacred Space Between Earth and Space, about Harlem Stage’s Afrofuturism series produced during the pandemic.

“This year we are celebrating over a century of Harlem Renaissance and Resilience with an amazing slate of films from the area,” HI program director Nasri Zacharia said in a statement. “Music runs throughout our schedule with amazing documentaries, very special honorees, culminating in a big day of music films and a special live performance. This film festival has always emphasized the idea of being a festival with exciting and entertaining events inspired by the films we screen, and this year really underlines that idea.”

Reggie Austin will perform live following NC Heikin’s Life & Life documentary about Austin’s experience in prison; other music docs look at bluesman James Cotton, jazz pianist Arturo O’Farrill, trumpeter Roy Hargrove, and double bassist Ron Carter, who will be honored with the Renaissance Award.

On May 20, Columbia University’s Forum presents free showings of Ashwin Chaudhary’s documentary Blind Eye Artist, about painter Justin Wadlington, whose art will be on display; Jenny Mackenzie’s documentary The Right to Read, about an NAACP activist, a teacher, and two American families dealing with literacy issues; and a special collection of Harlem shorts by local filmmakers.

Other in-person films include Tamika Miller’s Honor Student, David Bell and Mecca Medina’s #Brokeboi paired with William Alexander Runnels’s The Closet B!tch, Clayton P. Allis and Doug E. Doug’s In the Weeds with Doug in person, and Christina Kallas’s Paris Is in Harlem. In addition, STARZ will host the world premiere of the first two episodes of season two of Run the World, with stars Amber Stevens West, Bresha Webb, and Corbin Reid participating in a panel discussion after the Friday Night Spotlight screening. There will also be an extensive virtual section of the festival; keep watching this space for more information.

ARTISTS ON CAMERA — BEYOND THE VISIBLE: HILMA AF KLINT

Beyond the Visible profiles the life and work of master abstractionist Hilma af Klint

BEYOND THE VISIBLE: HILMA AF KLINT (Halina Dyrschka, 2019)
Metrograph
7 Ludlow St. between Canal & Hester Sts.
Opens Friday, May 19
metrograph.com
zeitgeistfilms.com

In 2013, a new hero burst onto the art scene, despite being dead for nearly seventy years. First came “Hilma af Klint — A Pioneer of Abstraction,” by all accounts an eye-opening show that toured Europe, followed five years later by the smash Guggenheim exhibit “Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future,” which propelled the extraordinary work of the Swedish abstractionist into the mainstream. I fondly remember making my way through the show, mouth agape at the many wonders I was seeing. German director Halina Dyrschka continues the celebration of this previously little-known painter in the documentary Beyond the Visible — Hilma af Klint, which is screening May 19-25 at Metrograph, with art historian Max Rosenberg, contributor to the book Hilma af Klint: Tree of Knowledge, on hand for an extended introduction to the 3:00 screening on May 21.

In her debut full-length film, Dyrschka digs deep into who af Klint was, what inspired her unique achievements, and why she had been overlooked until the 2010s. “Now we have a real scandal,” German art critic and af Klint biographer Julia Voss says. “Suddenly, more than fifty years after history was written, completely out of the blue, at least for the general public, we discover this woman who painted abstract works before Kandinsky, creating this huge oeuvre, fully independently, and by a kind of miracle it’s all stayed together. It’s like finding a time capsule in Sweden. And now we have to ask: How should we integrate it?”

Born in Stockholm in 1862, af Klint incorporated physics, mathematics, the natural world, and spiritualism into her paintings, abstract canvases that predated Wassily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian, who both, like af Klint, died in 1944. She didn’t exhibit any of her work until 1906, and after that only sparingly. Upon her death, her estate was not permitted to show anything for twenty years; her first posthumous exhibition was held in LA in 1986.

“We are not here forever,” Dyrschka narrates early in the film. “So it is not at all astonishing that someone once wondered about what it means to be in the world and how everything fits together — and came up with a huge answer. The strange thing is I only found out about it more than one hundred years later. Art history has to be rewritten.” Among the others lobbying for af Klint’s ascension into the art canon are artists Josiah McEhleny and Monika von Rosen, novelist Anna Laestadius Larsson, art historians Ernst Peter Fischer and Anna Maria Bernitz, Eva-Lena Bengtsson of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm, collector Valeria Napoleone, and gallerist Ceri Hand, offering different perspectives of the value and legacy of her her work. Lending more personal insight are Ulla af Klint, the widow of Hilma’s nephew Erik (from a 2001 interview); Johan af Klint, Ulla’s son, who ran the Hilma af Klint Foundation, which oversees the artist’s 1,500 paintings and 26,000 pages in notebooks; and Marie Cassel and Brigitta Giertta, descendants of two of Hilma’s closest friends. Together they paint a compelling portrait of the iconoclastic af Klint, who filled her work with cutting-edge and fringe philosophy and science. But you don’t have to agree with her offbeat world view to fall in love with her gorgeous canvases, many of which are displayed in the film.

The extraordinary canvases of Swedish artist Hilma af Klint are on view in Beyond the Visible

Curator Iris Müller-Westermann explains, “Never in her lifetime did she put any of her abstract work on show. Hilma af Klint’s project was something much grander than what we today call ‘art.’ It was all about seeing the world we live in in a larger context, to understand who we really are in a cosmic perspective.”

Cinematographers Alicja Pahl and Luana Knipfer often let the camera linger on peaceful shots of water, flowers, the sky, and other natural elements that morph into Klint’s paintings and reenactments of af Klint working on a large-scale painting on the floor of her studio. Petra van der Voort reads excerpts from af Klint’s writings in voice-over, narrating from books that we can follow along with, zooming in on her penmanship, while Damian Scholl supplies a wide-ranging, eclectic score.

“She was well educated, she had a mind of her own, and she painted like nobody else,” Johan af Klint says. McElheny points out, “In order to tell the history of abstraction now, you have to rewrite it.” Beyond the Visible confirms that it’s time for a new history.

A TALE OF TWO SHAKESPEARE ADAPTATIONS: THE COMEDY OF ERRORS / ROMEO AND JULIET

A fab cast sings and dances its way through exuberant production of The Comedy of Errors (photo by Peter Cooper)

PUBLIC THEATER MOBILE UNIT: THE COMEDY OF ERRORS
Multiple locations in all five boroughs
Through May 21, free (no RSVP necessary)
Shiva Theater, May 25 – June 11, free with RSVP
publictheater.org

Last Saturday, I did a Shakespeare doubleheader. In the afternoon, I saw the Public Theater’s Mobile Unit touring production of The Comedy of Errors, followed in the evening by NAATCO’s off-Broadway premiere of Hansol Jung’s Romeo and Juliet. The former turned out to be the most fun I’ve ever had at a Shakespeare play. The latter, by a writer whose previous show was wildly exhilarating and utterly unforgettable, started strong but couldn’t quite sustain it, ending up being not so much fun.

The Mobile Unit is now in its twelfth year of bringing free Shakespeare to all five boroughs, presenting works in prisons, shelters, and underserved community centers as well as city parks. On May 13, it pulled into the Richard Rodgers Amphitheater in Marcus Garvey Park, where part of the audience sat on the stage, on all four sides of a small, intimate square area where the action takes place; attendees could also sit in the regular seats, long concrete benches under the open sky.

Emmie Finckel’s spare set features a wooden platform and a bright yellow stepladder that serves several purposes. Lux Haac’s attractive, colorful costumes hang on racks at the back, where the actors perform quick changes. Music director and musician Jacinta Clusellas and guitarist Sara Ornelas sit on folding chairs, performing Julián Mesri’s Latin American–inspired score; Ornelas is fabulous as a troubadour and musical narrator, often wandering around the space and leading the cast in song. The lyrics, by Mesri and director and choreographer Rebecca Martínez, who collaborated on the adaptation, are in English and Spanish and are not necessarily translated word for word, but you will understand what is going on regardless of your primary tongue. As the troubadour explains, “I should mention that most of / this show will be performed in English / though it’s supposed to / take place in two states in Ancient Greece. / But don’t be surprised / if these actors switch their language.”

Trimmed down to a smooth-flowing ninety minutes, the show tells the story of a pair of twins, Dromio (Gían Pérez) and Antipholus (Joel Perez), who were separated at birth. In Ephesus, Dromio serves Antipholus, a wealthy man married to the devoted Adriana (Danaya Esperanza) but cheating on her with a lusty, demanding courtesan (Desireé Rodriguez). The other Dromio and Antipholus arrive in Ephesus and soon have everyone running around in circles as the mistaken identity slapstick ramps up.

Adriana (Danaya Esperanza) and Dromio (Gían Pérez) are all mixed up in The Comedy of Errors (photo by Peter Cooper)

Meanwhile, the merchant Egeon (Varín Ayala) is facing execution because he is from Syracuse, whose citizens are barred from Ephesus, per a decree from the Duchess Solina (Rodriguez); the goldsmith Angelo (Ayala) has made a fancy gold rope necklace for Antipholus but gives it to the wrong one; the Syracuse Dromio is confounded when Adriana’s kitchen maid claims to be his wife; the Syracuse Antipholus falls madly in love with Luciana (Keren Lugo), Adriana’s sister; and an abbess (Rodriguez) is determined to protect anyone who seeks sanctuary.

In case any or all of that is confusing, the troubadour clears things up in a series of songs that explain some, but not all, of the details, and the Public also provides everyone with a cheat sheet. Again, the troubadour: “In case you missed it / or took a little nap / Here’s what’s been happening / since we last had a chat / We’ll do our best / but we confess / this plot is really putting our skills to the test.”

It all comes together sensationally at the conclusion, as true identities are revealed, conflicts are resolved, and love wins out.

Martínez (Sancocho, Living and Breathing) fills the amphitheater with an infectious and supremely delightful exuberance. The terrific cast interacts with the audience, as if we are the townspeople of Ephesus. Gían Pérez (Sing Street) and Joel Perez (Sweet Charity, Fun Home) are hilarious as the two sets of twins, who switch hat colors to identify which brother they are at any given time. Esperanza (Mary Jane, for colored girls . . .) shines as the ever-confused, ultradramatic Adriana, Lugo (Privacy, At the Wedding) is lovely as Luciana and the duchess, Rodriguez is engaging as Emilia and the courtesan, and Ayala (The Merchant of Venice, The Taming of the Shrew) excels as Angelo, Egeon, and Dr. Pinch.

But Ornelas (A Ribbon About a Bomb, American Mariachi) all but steals the show, switching between leather and denim jackets as she portrays minor characters and plays her guitar with a huge smile on her face, words and music lifting into the air. Charles Coes’s sound design melds with the wind blowing through the trees and other people enjoying themselves in the park on a Saturday afternoon. There are no errors in this comedy.

The Mobile Unit continues on the road with stops at A.R.R.O.W. Field House and Corona Plaza in Queens and Johnny Hartman Plaza in Manhattan before heading home to the Shiva Theater at the Public for a free run May 25 through June 11.

Romeo (Major Curda) and Juliet (Dorcas Leung) have a tough time of it at Lynn F. Angelson Theater (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

ROMEO AND JULIET
Lynn F. Angelson Theater
136 East Thirteenth St. between Third & Fourth Aves.
Monday – Saturday through June 3, $40
naatco.org

In February, I called Hansol Jung’s Wolf Play at MCC “the most exhilarating hundred minutes you will spend in a theater right now.” Alas, her follow-up, a profoundly perplexing adaptation of Romeo and Juliet making its off-Broadway premiere at the Lynn F. Angelson Theater through June 3, is unable to decide whether it is a wacky farce or a serious drama, ending up as its own kind of comedy of errors.

The confusion starts as the audience enters the space, where a handmade sign says to pick one side; the stage is a circular platform cut in half by a muslin curtain. Every person stops to consider which of the two sides might be better, asking the usher and looking back and forth at the possibilities. I watched as one woman, after selecting one side, got up several times to question whether she had chosen correctly. In this case, assigned seating might have been better, or instead dividing the sections into “Montague” and “Capulet.”

The play, a collaboration between the National Asian American Theatre Company and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Play On Shakespeare Project that debuted at Red Bank’s Two River Theater, begins with some funny slapstick as Daniel Liu fumbles with opening the curtains, which are tied by thick white rope to opposing scaffolds. Liu provides comic relief throughout the two-and-a-half-hour show, portraying multiple characters, including Lady Capulet in a white gown. (She’s later played by a coatrack.)

While a chorus delivers the prologue — “Two households, both alike in dignity / (In fair Verona, where we lay our scene), / From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, / Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. / From forth the fatal loins of these two foes / A pair of star-cross’d lovers” — Capulet servants Sampson and Gregory engage in a conversation that makes sure we realize that this is not going to be a traditional production. “Gregory, I swear, man, we can’t be no one’s suckers,” Sampson says. “There’s some people I’d be happy to suck on,” Gregory responds. “Well, they can suck my cum and then succumb to my sword,” Sampson adds. The wordplay may be in the spirit of ribald Elizabethan theater, but it can feel like a pretty harsh divergence from the actual text. Jung and codirector Dustin Wills aren’t able to balance the juxtapositions as the story meanders; this adaptation assumes that the audience essentially knows what’s going to happen so necessary plot development can be skipped.

Juliet’s father has picked Count Paris (Rob Kellogg) to be her husband, but she has fallen head-over-heels for Romeo (Major Curda), scion of the Capulets’ sworn enemy, the Montagues. A swordfight between Romeo’s cousin, Mercutio (Jose Gamo), and Juliet’s cousin, Tybalt (Kellogg), lays the groundwork for more blood to follow, along with heartbreak and a classic finale that has never made complete sense.

But Jung (Wild Goose Dreams, Cardboard Piano, Human Resources) and Wills (Montag, Plano) get so caught up in theatrical hijinks — the actors climb the scaffold to operate spotlights, random props that had been tucked under the circular platform are suddenly crowding the stage, a soundboard spits out digital beats (the music is by Brian Quijada), the fourth wall is inconsistently broken — that it is hard for the audience to maintain focus and care about the characters. Junghyun Georgia Lee’s set also echoes NAATCO’s recent production of Edward Albee’s A Delicate Balance, in which rows of hundreds of glasses and books were visible underneath the stage but were not used in the play.

Peter (Daniel Liu), Potboy (Jose Gamo), and Servingman (Purva Bedi) engage in some silliness in Hansol Jung’s adaptation of Romeo and Juliet (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

The mood goes from an irreverent send-up with contemporary language to a serious interpretation using Shakespeare’s original words; it’s like Jung is unable to decide which way to go, much like the audience entering the theater. It’s a shame, because the show has its clever moments of inspiration. Mariko Ohigashi’s random costumes include Juliet’s sweatshirt that says “Abbondanza” on two lines, while Romeo’s T-shirt proclaims, “Count Your Fucking Rainbows”; Juliet wears cute and fluffy animal slippers; Friar Laurence (Purva Bedi) is dressed in oversized pants with suspenders; and Mercutio is styled like a boy band star. (However, the Groucho glasses are confounding.) Two trapdoors allow Romeo and Juliet to escape from everyone else. When things get tense, Romeo often strums a few notes on his guitar, which elicits laughter.

Even with a makeout scene, Leung (Miss Saigon, Snow in Midsummer) and Curda (KPOP!) never catch fire. Kellogg (Red Light Winter, Twelfth Night) is stalwart as Paris, Bedi (Dance Nation, India Pale Ale) is an adorable Friar Laurence, and Lee Huynh (War Horse, A Clockwork Orange) is fine as Capulet, but NAATCO cofounder Mia Katigbak (Awake and Sing, A Delicate Balance) seems to be in an alternate version of the play, Gamo (The Great Leap, The Heart of Robin Hood) overdoes it as Mercutio and Potboy, and Zion Jang is too goofy as Benvolio, while poor Liu’s (You Will Get Sick, GIRLS) shtick grows repetitive by the second act as he alternates between Lady Capulet and Peter and screams in agony a lot.

The play completely loses its already tenuous focus when Peter inexplicably insists that the musicians play “Purple Rain,” which is more than just head-scratchingly bizarre but downright annoying. It’s as if Jung and Wills were so phenomenally successful with Wolf Play that nobody wanted to just tell them no, that the Prince song makes no sense in the context of this Romeo and Juliet. Unfortunately, it’s all too representative of what ends up being a lost opportunity, a would-be comedy of too many errors.

LOUISE BONNET SELECTS: KUNG-FU MASTER!

Julien (Mathieu Demy) and Mary-Jane (Jane Birkin) fall for each other in Agnès Varda’s Kung-Fu Master!

KUNG-FU MASTER! (LE PETIT AMOUR) (Agnès Varda, 1988)
Metrograph
7 Ludlow St. between Canal & Hester Sts.
Friday, May 19, 7:30
Sunday, May 21, 1:00
Thursday, May 25, 5:15
Series runs May 19-25
metrograph.com

“These movies have all given me something that I remember and think about since seeing them and have also made my own body react; to some of them because of sounds, joy, horror, or all of it. These films have somehow challenged the part of my brain that judges and second guesses,” LA-based Swiss artist Louise Bonnet says about the works she has chosen for the Metrograph series “Louise Bonnet Selects.” Presented with Gagosian, it runs May 19-25 and consists of seven films, from Steven Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence and Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz to Takashi Miike’s Audition and André Øvredal’s The Autopsy of Jane Doe. Bonnet will be at Metrograph on May 20 at 7:00 for a screening of David Cronenberg’s The Brood, after which she will discuss the 1979 cult favorite with cultural critic Naomi Fry.

“Louise Bonnet Selects” includes a genuine family affair, Agnès Varda’s curiously compelling 1988 drama Kung-Fu Master!, the French title of which is the more appropriate Le petit amour, or “The Little Love.” Written by Varda and English actress, model, and singer-songwriter Jane Birkin from Birkin’s idea, the film stars Birkin as Mary-Jane, a divorced forty-year-old woman living with her fourteen-year-old daughter, Lucy, portrayed with wide-eyed innocence by Charlotte Gainsbourg, Birkin’s real-life daughter with French superstar Serge Gainsbourg, and her younger child, Lou, played by Lou Doillon, Birkin’s daughter with French director Jacques Doillon.

Mary-Jane falls in love practically at first sight with one of Lucy’s classmates, fourteen-year-old Julien, portrayed by Mathieu Demy, Varda’s son with French auteur Jacques Demy. Birkin’s parents, actress and playwright Judy Campbell and fine artist and actor David Birkin, play Mary-Jane’s mother and father, while Birkin’s brother, screenwriter Andrew Birkin, plays her brother. And Varda’s daughter, costume designer, actress, and producer Rosalie Varda, will be at the Walter Reade Theater on January 6 to introduce the screening. Varda often liked to blur the line between fiction and nonfiction, but don’t let all that reality confuse you: Kung-Fu Master! is most certainly not a documentary, thank goodness.

Mother and daughter Jane Birkin and Charlotte Gainsbourg star as mother and daughter in Kung-Fu Master!

Somewhat reminiscent of Bertrand Blier’s 1981 Beau-père, in which thirty-year-old Rémi (Patrick Dewaere) falls for his fourteen-year-old stepdaughter, Marion (Ariel Besse), Kung-Fu Master! treads in dangerous territory, exploring a taboo love, even as it does so with care and sensitivity and a tender performance by Birkin. Mary-Jane is well aware that she should not be considering a relationship with a young boy, but she has a yearning to explore the furthest boundaries of desire.

However, her choice of Julien is beyond strange, as he is an ordinary teen, who plays Dungeons and Dragons and the arcade game Kung-Fu Master! and has banal conversations with his peers; he is not some hulking, mature figure who is smart and sophisticated for his age. “I know I won’t be around when you start shaving,” Mary-Jane tells Julien. The film also refers repeatedly to the AIDS crisis, which the teenagers are only just learning about and dismiss as somebody else’s problem. Varda never brings the AIDS subplot full circle; perhaps it’s there primarily to emphasize the dangers sex can bring, but she leaves that thread hanging. You’re likely to feel dirty watching Kung-Fu Master!, but you also won’t be able to look away.

NEWSDAY LIVE WITH STAN NEWMAN: CELEBRATING 35 YEARS OF CREATING CROSSWORD PUZZLES

Who: Stan Newman, Joye Brown
What: Celebration of Newsday puzzle maven
Where: Newsday Studio 2, 6 Corporate Center Dr., Melville
When: Thursday, May 18, $10-$15, 7:00
Why: One of my favorite parts of being in trade book publishing some twenty-five years ago was when puzzle expert and former Wall Street bond analyst Stan Newman would come into my office with a bunch of trivia questions and brain games that were always fun but never easy. Winner of the first US Open Crossword Championship in 1982 and holder of the Guinness record for fastest completion of a New York Times Sunday crossword (134 seconds), Newman has written and/or edited more than a hundred books, including Cruciverbalism: A Crossword Fanatic’s Guide to Life in the Grid, Hard as a Rock Crosswords: Quite Hard Indeed, Stanley Newman’s Literary Crosswords: A Fine Romance, Movie Mania Crosswords, and Mind Stretchers: Crosswords, Word Searches, Logic Puzzles, and Surprises!

Stan Newman won $112,000 on The Challengers quiz show hosted by Dick Clark in 1990

Born in Brooklyn in 1952, Newman has been creating puzzles since 1983 and has been editing crosswords at Newsday since 1988, and he recently became Chief Brain Games Mastermind at Arkadium. Every Sunday in Newsday, in addition to the crossword, he contributes “Stan’s Brain Games,” featuring such tests of skill as “Betweeners,” “Common Sense,” “Two by Fours,” “National Treasure,” and my favorite, “Three at a Rhyme.”

On May 18 at 7:00, Newsday will celebrate Newman’s thirty-fifth anniversary at the paper with a special live conversation between him and associate editor Joye Brown, discussing his life and career and sharing puzzle-solving tips. All guests will receive an exclusive free puzzle book, and there will also be a meet-and-greet, a Q&A, giveaways, and more. Tickets are only ten to fifteen dollars, and a portion of the proceeds will benefit Newsday Charities. Good luck!

NEW YORK, NEW YORK

Beowulf Boritt’s New York, New York set is best thing about new musical (photo by Paul Kolnik)

NEW YORK, NEW YORK
St. James Theatre
246 West 44th St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through July 30, $49-$259
newyorknewyorkbroadway.com

Start spreading the news: You’re not going to want to be a part of this.

The new Broadway musical New York, New York is a mostly tone-deaf tale inspired by Martin Scorsese’s 1977 flop, in which Robert De Niro starred as troubled sax man Jimmy Doyle and Liza Minnelli played the object of his affections, singer and actress Francine Evans. David Thompson and Sharon Washington’s book for the musical is built on the mere shell of that plot, and they proceed to craft a supremely dull love story as the two protagonists seek success in the big city, with or without each other. The whole mess feels like one giant excuse to feature the massively popular title song in a show, teasing the tune early before blasting it out in a fantastical grand finale.

World War II has just ended, and Colton Ryan is Jimmy, an Irish piano player known as Kid Wonder who keeps losing jobs because he can’t control himself (or his drinking). Anna Uzele is Francine, a Black singer from Philadelphia who was a USO star during the war, now looking to make a brand-new start of it in old New York. It’s love at first sight for Jimmy but not for Francine, who wants to prove herself on her own. Jimmy’s best friend is Tommy Caggiano (Clyde Alves), who provides comic relief as a tough-talking Italian with a heart of gold. “Listen, New York City is the greatest social experiment ever,” Tommy tells Francine upon meeting her. “Everybody lives here. And everybody’s natural enemy lives here. And we manage not to kill each other. For the most part.”

Jimmy cuts in, “Tommy, Tommy, let me. New York is a major chord! Not like Philly. That’s a minor chord. A major chord is when everything in your life works out perfectly. When you have everything in the right order. One is music. Two is money. And three is love.” Unfortunately, that weak metaphor comes back to haunt us later.

Francine Evans (Anna Uzele) and Jimmy Doyle (Colton Ryan) search for love in Broadway musical inspired by film (photo by Paul Kolnik)

Thompson and Washington populate this social experiment with a diverse mix of minor characters attempting to build, or rebuild, their lives in postwar 1946 New York City. Mateo Diaz (Angel Sigala) is a gay Cuban bongo player whose mother, Sofia (Janet Dacal), is abused by her always-angry husband, Luis (Leo Moctezuma), who carries a baseball bat with him wherever he goes. Jesse Webb (John Clay III) is a Black soldier and trumpet player who can’t find a music gig because of his race. Alex Mann (Oliver Prose) is a young Polish violinist desperate to study with master teacher Madame Veltri (Emily Skinner), whose son is missing in action. And Gordon Kendrick (Ben Davis) is a wealthy British producer who is interested in Francine, but not just for her vocal talent.

“Little dreams, little life. Big dreams, big life,” Francine tells Jimmy, speaking for all the people pouring into the melting pot that is New York, trying to better their lives but too often trapped by racism, classism, and misogyny.

New York, New York has big dreams itself, but it meanders all over the place. Lexington, Kentucky, native Ryan (Girl from the North Country, Dear Evan Hansen) is unconvincing as a New York jazzman and has no chemistry with Uzele (Six, Once on This Island), who lights up the stage when she sings, belting out “But the World Goes ’Round” and reminding us that Minnelli’s version of the title track is far superior to Frank Sinatra’s. An exceptional Jim Borstelmann (Chicago, The Producers) wins the hearts of the audience in multiple roles, from newspaper vendor to bassist. Tony nominee Skinner (Side Show, Billy Elliot) beautifully portrays the heartbroken violin virtuoso, but the other characters are lost in stereotypical, uninteresting plot devices.

Dance scene atop construction I-beam is highlight of New York, New York (photo by Paul Kolnik)

However, the show looks fantastic; Beowulf Boritt’s set ranges from clubs, Times Square, and a radio station to streets and alleyways laden with low-rent apartments and fire escapes; a highlight is a dance performed on a construction I-beam that references the famous photo “Lunch atop a Skyscraper,” in which eleven construction workers enjoy a break sitting on a beam that appears to be floating above the city.

Susan Stroman’s (POTUS, Crazy for You) direction and choreography are surprisingly inconsistent, either lackluster or over the top. That lack of consistency extends to Sam Davis’s arrangements, Davis and Daryl Waters’s orchestrations, and Alvin Hough Jr.’s music direction, which is not surprising given how many hands stirred this melting pot, with songs by John Kander, Kander and Fred Ebb (who passed away in 2004), Kander and Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Kander, Ebb, and Miranda.

Ken Billington’s lighting and Kai Harada’s sound make sure we stay awake, while Boritt and Christopher Ash’s projections add to the metropolitan vibe, although a scene involving what is now known as Manhattanhenge feels anachronistic.

In the film, “Happy Endings” is a fantasy sequence, but in the show it is a tired trope; the actual ending onstage is a different kind of fantasy, meant to melt away those little town blues, but, like too much of this musical, it just burns credulity.

MATTHEW BARNEY: THE CREMASTER CYCLE AND SELECT EARLY WORKS

Marti Domination squeezes into a tight space in Cremaster 1

MATTHEW BARNEY: THE CREMASTER CYCLE AND SELECT EARLY WORKS
Metrograph
7 Ludlow St. between Canal & Hester Sts.
Opens May 17
212-660-0312
metrograph.com
www.cremaster.net

Matthew Barney’s Cremaster is so much more than five essentially incomprehensible films totaling seven hours made over the course of eight years out of chronological order; it’s a state of mind, a whole other level of consciousness. The complete series, which will never, according to Barney, be available on DVD or cable or any other salable personal format, is rarely shown in its entirety; the last times it was seen in New York City were the world premiere in 2003 at Anthology and in 2015 at IFC. Ostensibly following the ascension and descension of the cremaster muscle, which raises and lowers the testicles as sexual differentiation takes place inside the human body, the films feature strange characters in odd metaphorical situations that are rarely immediately apparent; watching the films, I found myself continually referring to Cremaster Fanatic, which offers excellent meta-descriptions of each work, breaking down each bizarre symbol. But that doesn’t mean the narrative is impossible to follow or overly convoluted; instead, part of the fun is trying to figure out just what the heck is going on.

In conjunction with the opening of Barney’s latest exhibit, the free five-channel video installation “Secondary,” continuing in the artist’s Long Island City studio through June 25, Metrograph will be presenting the full cycle beginning May 17. On June 4, Barney, whose other films include the five-and-a-half-hour River of Fundament and the Drawing Restraint series, will be at Metrograph for a conversation with American writer Maggie Nelson following a special screening of remastered early works.

Artist Richard Serra plays the Architect in Cremaster 3

In Cremaster 1 (1995), the Goodyear blimp hovers over a stadium where the young Barney, a former quarterback, played football. Bright colors dominate as four flight attendants peer out the window, unaware that beneath a table topped with a Vaseline centerpiece a platinum blonde (Marti Domination) is stealing grapes. A beautifully choreographed Busby Berkeley-like dance ensues. In Cremaster 2 (1999), Barney plays Gary Gilmore, re-creating the murder of Mormon gas station employee Max Jensen. There’s also a séance led by Baby Fay La Foe, graphic sex, a queen bee and her drones, the Bonneville Salt Flats, the Mormon Tabernacle, and Norman Mailer, who wrote The Executioner’s Song about Gilmore, as Harry Houdini at the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893.

At three hours, Cremaster 3 (2002) is the longest and easiest to follow of the series. It details the heated 1929 fight between the Chrysler Building and the Bank of Manhattan (40 Wall St.) to be the tallest structure in New York, framed by the Irish legend of Fionn and Fingal and the Giant’s Causeway. The cast features Barney as the Entered Apprentice climbing up the Guggenheim’s spiral walls, conceptual artist Richard Serra as the Architect (Hiram Abiff) and himself (melting Vaseline that drips down the length of the museum), amputee Aimee Mullins as the Entered Novitiate, singer Paul Brady as the Cloud Club maitre d’ serving a small group of gangster-like Masons, Terry Gillespie as a bartender with a bit of a Guinness problem (in the series’ funniest scene), and punk bands Agnostic Front and Murphy’s Law engaged in a musical battle.

In Cremaster 4 (1994), the Ascending and Descending motorcycle sidecar teams race for the Tourist Trophy on the Isle of Man while the Loughton Candidate (Barney) carefully combs his hair (he has four potential horns on his head) and tap-dances as a trio of faeries bandy about. And in Cremaster 5 (1997), the Queen of Chain (Ursula Andress) belts out a Hungarian opera above the Gellert Baths, where Fudor Sprites swim and Jacobin pigeons are prepared for a special purpose, with Barney appearing as the Queen’s Diva, the Queen’s Magician, and the Queen’s Giant.

Matthew Barney plays multiple roles in his experimental epic The Cremaster Cycle

Watching The Cremaster Cycle is an unforgettable experience, a thrilling foray into experimental film at its finest. It’s both mind-blowing and infuriatingly confusing, stunningly gorgeous and utterly ridiculous. Everything in it is laden with meaning, though you’ll be hard-pressed to know what much of it is about. And there are more references to male genitalia than in any teen sex comedy ever made. The films will screen at select times at Metrograph over several weeks, with tickets, which will sell out quickly, available seven days in advance. The Cremaster Cycle is more than just a cinematic art project; it’s an event that has to be seen to be believed.