this week in literature

THE BEDWETTER

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LOWER EAST SIDE FESTIVAL OF THE ARTS: ARTISTS EMBRACE LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL

Who: Nearly two hundred performers
What: Lower East Side Festival of the Arts
Where: Theater for the New City, 155 First Ave. at Tenth St.
When: May 27-29, free (donations accepted)
Why: The twenty-seventh annual Lower East Side Festival of the Arts, a wide-ranging, indoor and outdoor celebration of the vast creativity of the neighborhood over the decades, will feature nearly two hundred performers, at Theater for the New City and on Tenth St. Taking place May 27-29, the festival, with the theme “Artists Embrace Liberty and Justice for All,” includes dance, spoken word, theater, music, visual art, and more from such familiar faves as David Amram, the Thunderbird American Indian Dancers, Shakespeare in the Parking Lot, James Rado, La MaMa, Akiko, Folksbiene National Yiddish Theater, Malachy McCourt, KT Sullivan, Eduardo Machado, Austin Pendleton, the Rod Rodgers Dance Company, Melanie Maria Goodreaux, Chinese Theater Works, New Yiddish Rep, Eve Packer, 13th Street Rep, and Metropolitan Playhouse.

The event will be emceed at the various locations by Crystal Field, Robert Gonzales Jr., Danielle Aziza, Sabura Rashid, David F. Slone Esq., and Joe John Battista. There will also be vendors and food booths and special programs for children curated by Donna Mejia and hosted by John Grimaldi, film screenings curated by Eva Dorrepaal, a “poetry jam with prose on the side” curated by Lissa Moira, and an art show curated by Carolyn Ratcliffe. Select performances will be livestreamed here.

OUR LAUNDRY, OUR TOWN: MY CHINESE AMERICAN LIFE FROM FLUSHING TO THE DOWNTOWN STAGE AND BEYOND

Who: Alvin Eng
What: Book launch of Our Laundry, Our Town: My Chinese American Life from Flushing to the Downtown Stage and Beyond
Where: City Lore, 56 East First St., Yu & Me Books, 44 Mulberry St., Hudson Park Library, 66 Leroy St.
When: Friday, May 20, free, 5:30 webinar, 7:00 in person; Wednesday, June 8, 5:00; Saturday, June 25, 2:00
Why: “While I have been blessed to have always had a roof over my head and the honor of living with loved ones, when I was growing up, homelessness was a constant spiritual state. A child’s longing to belong is one of the most powerful forces and relentless muses on Earth. In every culture, belonging has many different nuances of meaning and resonance. What and who exactly constitutes that destination of longing changes with every age and, in childhood, with every grade. What never seems to change is the feeling that we never quite arrive, and when or if we do, it only lasts for a fleeting time and was never quite what we expected. These memoir portraits are an attempt to decode and process the urban oracle bones from growing up as the youngest of five children in an immigrant Chinese family that ran a hand laundry. Our family was born of an arranged marriage, and our laundry was in the Flushing, Queens, neighborhood of that singular universe that was New York City in the 1970s. Like many children of immigrant or ‘other’ family origins in late-twentieth-century America, I was constantly seeking American frames of reference with which to contextualize my own ‘outsider’ experiences and sensibilities.”

So begins Alvin Eng’s Our Laundry, Our Town: My Chinese American Life from Flushing to the Downtown Stage and Beyond (Fordham University Press | Empire State Editions, May 17, $27.95), in which the New York City–based playwright, performer, acoustic punk rock raconteur, and educator explores the history of his family, immigration and assimilation, and the Chinese American experience and makes pilgrimages to his ancestral homeland. The book features such chapters as “The Urban Oracle Bones of Our Laundry: Channeling China’s Last Emperor and Rock ’n’ Roll’s First Opera,” “Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting . . . or Faking It,” “A Sort of Homecoming: But Where Are You Really From,” and “Life Dances On: Our Town in China.” Eng, whose previous work includes such solo shows as Here Comes Johnny Yen Again (or How I Kicked Punk) and The Last Emperor of Flushing and such plays and musicals as Portrait Plays and The Goong Hay Kid, will be launching Our Laundry, Our Town with a series of free events around the city.

On May 20 at 5:30, Eng will lead a webinar hosted by CUNY’s Asian American / Asian Research Institute, followed at 7:00 by an in-person appearance at City Lore on First St., where he will read from the new book and speak with City Lore codirectors Molly Garfinkel and Steve Zeitlin, then sign copies. On June 8 at 5:00, Eng will give a talk and sign books at Yu & Me on Mulberry St., and on June 25 at 2:00 he will at the Hudson Park Library on Leroy St. for an author talk.

WHO KILLED MY FATHER (QUI A TUÉ MON PÈRE)

Édouard Louis’s Who Killed My Father makes its US premiere at St. Ann’s this week (photo by Jean-Louis Fernandez)

WHO KILLED MY FATHER (QUI A TUÉ MON PÈRE)
St. Ann’s Warehouse
45 Water St.
Tuesday – Sunday, May 18 – June 5, $49-$59
718-254-8779
stannswarehouse.org
www.schaubuehne.de

In November 2019, St. Ann’s Warehouse presented History of Violence, a radical, highly inventive multimedia interpretation of the 2016 nonfiction novel by activist and artist Édouard Louis, directed by Thomas Ostermeier for Schaubühne Berlin. Ostermeier and Louis return to St. Ann’s with the US premiere of Who Killed My Father (Qui a tué mon père), an adaptation of Louis’s 2018 book, starring the twenty-nine-year-old Paris-based Louis himself in his debut as a professional performer. A coproduction of Schaubühne Berlin and Théâtre de la Ville Paris, Who Killed My Father deals with how the French government’s treatment of the working class broke Louis’s alcoholic, conservative, homophobic father. “Throughout my entire childhood, I hoped you’d disappear,” Louis writes. “You can no longer get behind the wheel, are no longer allowed to drink, can no longer shower unaided without it presenting an enormous risk. You’re just over fifty. You belong to the precise category of people for whom politics has envisaged a premature death.”

Ostermeier always brings something new to the table, as displayed in such works as Returning to Reims and Richard III, so prepared to be awed in many ways. Who Killed My Father features video design by Sébastien Dupouey and Marie Sanchez, stage design by Nina Wetzel, costumes by Caroline Tavernier, lighting by Erich Schneider, and music by Sylvain Jacques.

VOICES FROM THE GREAT HALL WITH SAM WATERSTON

Who: Sam Waterston, the New York Philharmonic, the Resistance Revival Chorus, Harold Holzer
What: A celebration of the Cooper Union’s new Voices from the Great Hall Digital Archive
Where: The Cooper Union, 7 East Seventh St. between Third & Fourth Aves.
When: Tuesday, May 17, free with advance RSVP, 7:00
Why: The Cooper Union celebrates the opening of its Voices from the Great Hall Digital Archive with a special free program on May 17 at 7:00, hosted by actor Sam Waterston; several times, the Emmy winner and Oscar nominee has portrayed Abraham Lincoln, who delivered one of his most memorable speeches in the Great Hall on February 27, 1860, in which he declared, “Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.” Waterston reprised that speech in the Great Hall in 2004. The program will feature multimedia excerpts of original recordings of politicians, Supreme Court Justices, and others, with live presentations from the New York Philharmonic, the Resistance Revival Chorus, and Lincoln expert and author Harold Holzer. The archive goes back as far as 1859 with a copy of Frederick Douglass’ Paper and includes lectures, commencement addresses, music exhibitions, political pamphlets, campaign speeches, memorials, drawings, forums, audio and video recordings, and much more.

I LOVE THIS POEM: AN ONLINE READING

An all-star cast celebrates the power of poetry in online benefit for Literacy Partners

Who: Common, Julianne Moore, Liev Scheiber, Danai Gurira, Ethan Hawke, John Leguizamo, Tayari Jones, Cleo Wade, Kiese Laymon, Tommy Orange, Dinaw Mengestu, Kevin Kline, John Lithgow, Megha Majumdar, Zibby Owens, Mira Jacob, more
What: Online poetry reading benefiting Literacy Partners
Where: Literacy Partners online
When: Thursday, April 28, free with RSVP (donations accepted), 8:00
Why: On April 28 at 8:00, Literacy Partners will stream an encore presentation of “I Love This Poem: An Online Reading,” consisting of short works read by such actors as Common, Julianne Moore, Liev Scheiber, Danai Gurira, Ethan Hawke, John Leguizamo, Kevin Kline, and John Lithgow, hosted by Zibby Owens and Mira Jacob. Part of the organization’s literary and social justice series, the event, which was held on May 20, 2021, also features favorite poems read by two students, Angie and Monica. “We present this public reading in celebration of the power of poetry to heal, connect, and inspire us to advocate for a more just and equitable world,” Literacy Partners explains.

The evening includes poems by Fion Lim, Langston Hughes, Natalie Diaz, Billy Collins, Rabindranath Tagore, Lucille Clifton, John Keats, Alice Walker, William Shakespeare, Kim Addonizio, Pablo Neruda, Adrienne Rich, Rodolfo Gonzalez, and Maya Angelou. Literacy Partners was founded in 1973 to “emphasize support for individuals excluded from education because of racial or ethnic segregation and discrimination, economic challenges, sexism, or immigration status.”

THE EDUCATION OF CORPORAL JOHN MUSGRAVE BOOK EVENT

Who: John Musgrave, Oscar Isaac, Greg Gadson, Ashleigh Byrnes, David Strathairn, Bryan Doerries
What: Book launch of war memoir
Where: Theater of War Productions online
When: Wednesday, April 13, free with RSVP, 7:00
Why: Theater of War Productions regularly produces live readings of classic and classical plays, tying them to what is happening in the world today. On April 13 at 7:00, they will be presenting something a little different, a free event built around John Musgrave’s 2021 memoir, The Education of Corporal John Musgrave: Vietnam and Its Aftermath (Knopf, $27, November 2021). Musgrave (Notes to the Man Who Shot Me: Vietnam War Poems) is a permanently disabled war veteran who has been awarded two Purple Hearts and two Vietnamese Crosses of Gallantry.

He writes in the first chapter: “Service was in my DNA from the very beginning. I was born because of my parents’ service, and I was born to serve. World War II brought my mother and father together, compelling them both to join the effort right after the United States declared war against Japan. My father served as a pilot and my mother as a secretary at a nearby aviation plant, where they first met. So, in a very real way, my older brother, Butch, and I both owe our lives to the bombing of Pearl Harbor. My first conscious memory of our nation being at war was forged when I was just three or four years old, around 1951.”

Actors Oscar Isaac, Greg Gadson (a retired colonel), and David Strathairn will read excerpts from the book, along with Musgrave and Ashleigh Byrnes, the deputy national communications director of Disabled American Veterans (DAV). The readings will be followed by a panel discussion and audience Q&A about war and healing; the evening is directed and facilitated by Theater of War artistic director Bryan Doerries.