live performance

twi-ny talk: HARRIET STUBBS / LIVING ON MARS

Harriet Stubbs will perform at Joe’s Pub on June 2 (Drew Bordeaux Photography)

HARRIET STUBBS
Joe’s Pub
425 Lafayette St. by Astor Pl.
Sunday, June 2, $32.50 (plus two drink or one food item minimum), 6:00
212-539-8778
www.joespub.com
www.harrietstubbs.com

“If you feel safe in the area that you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area,” David Bowie said in a 1990s video interview. “Always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth, and when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.”

British classical pianist, William Blake scholar, and Bowie aficionado Harriet Stubbs has built her career on such advice, as evidenced by her latest album, the exciting Living on Mars; the record is the follow-up to 2018’s Heaven and Hell: The Doors of Perception, a title inspired by Aldous Huxley’s autobiographical 1954 book The Doors of Perception and 1956 essay Heaven and Hell and Blake’s 1793 tome The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.

Now based in London, Los Angeles, and the East Village, the British-born Stubbs took to the keys when she was three and has performed at such prestigious venues as Carnegie Hall, Le Poisson Rouge, St Martin-in-the-Fields, the Cutting Room, Tibet House, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. On June 2, she will play Living on Mars in its entirety at her Joe’s Pub debut; be sure to get a good look at her shoes, which are always spectacular.

The eclectic record features Stubbs’s unique solo adaptations of the Thin White Duke’s “Space Oddity” and “Life on Mars” as well as Nick Cave’s “Push the Sky Away,” Paul McCartney’s “Blackbird,” and Beethoven’s “Pathétique” in addition to homages to the duos of J. S. Bach/Glenn Gould and Frédéric Chopin/Leopold Godowsky.

My wife and I first became interested in Stubbs when Cave gave her a shout-out at an October 2023 show at the Beacon; earlier this month my wife saw Stubbs perform a private Coffee House Club concert at the Salmagundi Club on Fifth Ave., and then we bumped into her on the street by Sheridan Square. Clearly, our paths were destined to cross.

In this exclusive interview, Stubbs talks about Blake and Bowie, the pandemic, swimming with Cave, and playing in New York City.

twi-ny: You started your career early, first performing publicly as a pianist at the age of four and performing piano concertos as soloist at the age of nine. Growing up immersed in classical music performance, when did you become interested in contemporary pop music?

harriet stubbs: My love of music outside of classical really developed as a teenager and as I was transitioning from a career as a child prodigy to that of an adult artist: what I wanted to do with classical music, how I wanted to remain in it, why, and how these were going to come together to inform my professional adult life. A moment that I remember in particular was hearing the Verve live at Glastonbury in 2008 and realizing that it would always be music that I wanted to dedicate my life to. The thrill of a shared moment in music where everyone has been moved by the same thing is simply extraordinary.

twi-ny: That thrill was changed when the pandemic hit. During the Covid-19 crisis, you played live daily, from your London flat — 250 twenty-minute concerts. Do you have any favorite memories from that rather dark time? How did it feel to get back in front of larger audiences in person again after the lockdown ended?

hs: I think that period was so bleak that every concert in its own way was a deeply moving experience, whether it was two people in the pouring rain or two hundred. Pre-vaccine it was outside of a small window, attached to an amp attached to an upright at a busy intersection of traffic, with people very distanced and masked — who I waved at through the window.

At the time there was no end in sight, so just to have a shared experience in that way — however tentative — was needed more than ever. The two hundredth concert was in December of 2020 and the last at that address and under those circumstances in the dark and the rain. When the spring came, people were starting to be vaccinated, and as they were, I was able to offer them drinks outside; the weather was beautiful (mostly), there was a grand piano, a bay window, and a quiet, residential street where people could hear properly. Being awarded a British Empire Medal [in 2022] by the late Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II was very special, as was Nick Cave showing up to hear “Push the Sky Away”! Those concerts were made by the regulars who came right up until the border opened back up for me to return to New York.

twi-ny: Speaking of Nick Cave, we recently saw him play the Beacon, and he raved about you. Your cover of “Push the Sky Away” is on your new album, Living on Mars. How did the Nick Cave connection come about?

hs: Nick and I met in a park in London a few years ago and became fast friends and swimming partners, and eventually Nick became an integral part of how the album came to be. We swam in a lake together every day and would talk about everything from philosophy to music, politics, literature, and what we were working on as the seasons changed around us.

These are some of my happiest memories. If Nick hadn’t insisted under the moon on a dark New Year’s Day swim that I “get on with” the new album — just as he was starting his [Wild God will be released August 30] — I would never have been on a plane to LA three weeks later to record it. Mike Garson wrote the arrangement of Nick’s “Push the Sky Away” as a thank-you to Nick, and it became the centerpiece.

twi-ny: I’m glad you brought that up. How does a classical pianist end up recording one album with Russ Titelman, who has worked with Randy Newman, Rickie Lee Jones, James Taylor, the Monkees, and Eric Clapton, and then Garson, who’s produced and played with the Smashing Pumpkins, Nine Inch Nails, and, primarily, David Bowie?

hs: I have been in New York for fifteen years now and over that time have had so many adventures, many of which were not directly related to classical music. Russ and I met at Barney Greengrass on the Upper West Side through our mutual friend, author Julian Tepper. Russ wrote his number on a Barney receipt and we would meet for milkshakes. Two years later we were on a train to Pleasantville to “try out” recording together, which then turned into Heaven and Hell: The Doors of Perception, recorded at Samurai NYC.

·

Russ invited Marianne Faithfull because of my love of William Blake — I recently wrote the lead editorial article for The Journal of the Blake Society, “Invisible Women in Blakean Mythology” — and really the point of the record was just that, to bring together the worlds of rock and roll, literature, classical, and popular music, to see all of them in each other and to have as Blake would have referred to it an “illuminated” experience. Living on Mars continues this threading of the worlds together, just a little more literally.

[ed. note: Stubbs also participated in a January 2022 panel discussion at the Global Blake conference that you can watch here. Faithfull narrates Blake text over John Adams’s “Phrygian Gates” to open Heaven and Hell: The Doors of Perception.]

twi-ny: There are Blakean influences throughout Bowie’s work, particularly in the 1970s. What makes his music so translatable to classical?

hs: I have always been a Bowie fan, and over the years there have been many ways in which our worlds seemed to collide serendipitously. I loved Bowie as a teenager and through my friendship with May Pang became friends with [producer] Tony Visconti and later Mike Garson, who produced and arranged Living on Mars. Before the Bell Canyon wildfires I went to Mike’s home there and played for him, and we started to conceive of the album. We finally got to record it in 2023 in LA, entirely live, which was a thrilling experience.

twi-ny: Who are your favorite classical composers?

hs: It depends who I am at any given time of the day but usually somewhere between late Beethoven’s final piano sonatas living on the border between life and death or dancing through some gothic Prokofiev.

twi-ny: Besides Bowie and Cave, what other contemporary performers or songwriters do you listen to? Who’s doing things that you find musically intriguing?

hs: I have recently started listening to the Last Dinner Party. My rotation at the moment seems to be some [Krystian] Zimerman Brahms B flat piano concerto, the Magnetic Fields, [Marc-André] Hamelin’s late Busoni, Rob Zombie, Judas Priest, Alter Bridge, and the National, but that’s just this week. Always a mix!

twi-ny: Yes, that is quite a mix. Having performed on both sides of the Atlantic for years, do you notice any difference between American and British or European concertgoers, especially over time, pre- and postpandemic?

hs: I think that location is becoming less relevant to those that consume their music entirely through platforms such as TikTok. I think that the US has been more open to contemporary reimagining of classical music than other locations around the world, but social media has changed that concentration, as has the growing need for audience development. Anywhere that there is a live, enthusiastic audience is the same thrill, but there’s nothing like playing to my adopted hometown of New York; it’s electrifying.

twi-ny: You’ll be in New York on June 2 at Joe’s Pub. Have you ever been there before?

hs: I am so excited to perform at Joe’s. This will be my first show there and I can’t wait!

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

TICKET GIVEAWAY: DANGEROUS ART / ENDANGERED ARTISTS

DANGEROUS ART / ENDANGERED ARTISTS
BRIC
647 Fulton St. at Rockwell Pl., Brooklyn
Friday, June 7, and Saturday, June 8, $30 per day, $50 for both days
artatatimelikethis.com
artistsatriskconnection.org

“Our goal is dialogue, not divisiveness,” Art at a Time Like This (ATLT) cofounders Anne Verhallen and Barbara Pollack say about their latest event, a two-day summit featuring panel discussions, live performances, illustrated lectures, and more.

“Dangerous Art/Endangered Artists” takes place June 7–8 at BRIC in Brooklyn, hosted by ATLT and Artists at Risk Connection (ARC). ATLT started on March 17, 2020, as an online community focusing on art as a direct response to what was happening in the world, from the pandemic lockdown to racial injustice. ARC began in 2017, helping international artists and cultural professionals of all disciplines connect to such resources as emergency funds, legal assistance, temporary relocation programs, and fellowships.

Among the summit participants are Iranian artist Shirin Neshat, American journalist and author Nikole Hannah-Jones, Cuban American interdisciplinary artist, writer, and curator Coco Fusco, Kenyan rapper Henry Ohanga aka Octopizzo, Native American artist and activist Demian DinéYazhi’, Pakistani American artist Shahzia Sikander, and Vietnamese singer and sound artist Mai Khôi. “I was born in Vietnam, where freedom of expression and artistic freedom have always been suppressed,” Mai Khôi, who recently performed her autobiographical show Bad Activist at Joe’s Pub, said in a statement. “I have had to become an activist to protect my right to be an artist because the artist inside me doesn’t want to be killed by the censorship system.”

TICKET GIVEAWAY: “Dangerous Art / Endangered Artists” takes place June 7-8 at BRIC in Brooklyn; tickets are $30 for one day and $50 for both, but twi-ny has two pairs to give away for free. Just send your name and favorite sociopolitical artist to contest@twi-ny.com by Monday, June 3, at 3:00 pm to be eligible. All entrants must be twenty-one years of age or older, and all information will be kept confidential; two winners will be selected at random.

Here is the full schedule (times and participants subject to change):

Summit Day 1: Challenges Facing Artists in Authoritarian Regimes

Opening Remarks, with Anne Verhallen, cofounder and codirector, ATLT, 5:00

Keynote Speaker: Shirin Neshat in conversation with ARC artistic director Julie Trebault, 5:05

Performance: Henry Ohanga aka Octopizzo, 6:00

Artists at the Forefront of Social Movements, with Dread Scott and Samia Halaby, moderated by ATLT cofounder and codirector Barbara Pollack, 6:15

Resiliency in Exile: Rania Mamoun and Mai Khôi, moderated by Ethiopian American writer Dinaw Mengestu, 7:15

Closing Remarks: ARC artistic director Julie Trebault, 7:50

Reception, 8:15

Summit Day 2

Registration + Coffee, 10:30

Here and Now: Censorship as a Political Tool in the United States, with Nikole Hannah-Jones and Aruna D’Souza, 11:00

Global Censorship: What It Looks Like, Who Does It, How to Combat It, with Coco Fusco, Omaid Sharifi, Khaled Jarrar, and Henry Ohanga AKA Octopizzio, moderated by Mari Spirito, 12:15

Is Censorship Discriminatory?, with Lorena Wolffer, Demian Diné Yazhi, and Shahzia Sikander, moderated by Jasmine Wahi, 3:30

Performance: Mai Khôi, 5:15

GO PUBLIC! THE COMEDY OF ERRORS AND MORE

PUBLIC THEATER MOBILE UNIT: THE COMEDY OF ERRORS
Multiple locations in all five boroughs
May 28 – June 30, free (no RSVP necessary)
publictheater.org

Last year the Public Theater’s Mobile Unit presented Rebecca Martínez and Julián Mesri’s terrific bilingual adaptation of William Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors. The production is back for the 2024 summer season, on the road May 28 through June 30, making stops in all five boroughs: the New York Public Library/Bryant Park, Wolfe’s Pond, J. Hood Wright Park, Hudson Yards, Roy Wilkins Park, A.R.R.O.W. Field House, the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, Sunset Park, Travers Park, Maria Hernandez Park, Astor Place, St. Mary’s Park, and the Peninsula at Prospect Park.

No advance reservations are necessary, but you should get there early if you want to get up close and personal with the show; last year I caught it in the Richard Rodgers Amphitheater in Marcus Garvey Park, where some audience members sat on the stage, surrounding the action. If you’re not familiar with the Mobile Unit, you need to be; the program is now in its thirteenth year of bringing free Shakespeare to all five boroughs, presenting works in prisons, shelters, and underserved community centers as well as city parks.

With the Delacorte undergoing renovation, the Mobile Unit is part of “Go Public!,” a festival of free Shakespeare events that includes The Comedy of Errors, outdoor screenings of Kenny Leon’s 2019 Shakespeare in the Park production of Much Ado about Nothing starring Danielle Brooks, Chuck Cooper, Margaret Odette, and Billy Eugene Jones, online streaming of that show as well as 2021’s Merry Wives, 2022’s Richard III, and 2023’s Hamlet, and a block party on July 28.

Below is my review of The Comedy of Errors from last year; I cannot recommend it highly enough.

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

The Public Theater’s Mobile Unit touring production of The Comedy of Errors is the most fun I’ve ever had at a Shakespeare play.

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, to be played in 2024 by Glendaliris Torres-Greaux) 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.

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

THE FRIEL PROJECT: MOLLY SWEENEY

Rufus Collins, Sarah Street, and John Keating star in Irish Rep revival (photo by Carol Rosegg)

MOLLY SWEENEY
Irish Repertory Theatre, Francis J. Greenburger Mainstage
132 West Twenty-Second St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Wednesday – Sunday through June 30, $60-$95
212-727-2737
irishrep.org

Early on in Irish Rep’s riveting revival of Brian Friel’s 1994 three-character play Molly Sweeney, Mr. Rice (Rufus Collins), an ophthalmologist, recounts his first meeting with Molly Sweeney (Sarah Street), who has been blind since she was ten months old, and her husband of two years, Frank Sweeney (John Keating). “I liked her. I liked her calm and her independence; the confident way she shook my hand and found a seat for herself with her white cane. And when she spoke of her disability, there was no self-pity, no hint of resignation. Yes, I liked her,” he tells the audience. “She had a full life and never felt at all deprived.”

He then describes the irrepressible Frank’s constant interruptions, insisting that there was some hope to restore her eyesight because she could detect shadows when Frank passed his hand in front of her face. Mr. Rice recalls agreeing with Frank, saying, “If there is a chance, any chance, that she might be able to see, we must take it, mustn’t we? How can we not take it? She has nothing to lose, has she? What has she to lose? — nothing! — nothing!” But they come to this conclusion without Molly’s input, two males deciding what is best for a woman.

At a party the night before her surgery, Molly realizes that she is not doing it for herself. “With sudden anger I thought: Why am I going for this operation? None of this is my choosing. Then why is this happening to me? I am being used,” she says. “Of course, I trust Frank. Of course, I trust Mr. Rice. But how can they know what they are taking away from me? How do they know what they are offering me? They don’t. They can’t. And have I anything to gain? — anything? — anything?”

In her 2019 Missouri Medicine article “Hear Me Out,” Amelia Cooper explores the controversy over cochlear implant devices; while some members of the deaf community and their families celebrate, in online videos, people being able to hear for the first time, others find them “oppressive and offensive. For these critics, deafness is not defined by the lack of ability to hear, but, rather, by a distinct cultural identity of which they are proud.” Much like deaf people who get implants and regain at least some of their ability to hear, Molly realizes that if she were to regain at least some of her sight, she may have plenty to lose, something that Mr. Rice and Frank could never understand.

John Keating again proves himself to be one of New York’s finest actors in conclusion of the Friel Project at Irish Rep (photo by Carol Rosegg)

In fact, the play was inspired by a real-life case that British neurologist Oliver Sacks documented in his May 2, 1993, New Yorker article “To See and Not See,” later included in his 1995 book An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales. He writes, “The rest of us, born sighted, can scarcely imagine such confusion. For we, born with a full complement of senses, and correlating these, one with the other, create a sight world from the start, a world of visual objects and concepts and meanings. When we open our eyes each morning, it is upon a world we have spent a lifetime learning to see. We are not given the world: we make our world through incessant experience, categorization, memory, reconnection.”

Molly’s father had taught her how to experience a world they thought she would never see. He encouraged her to touch and smell objects, especially the plant species Nemophila, better known as Baby Blue Eyes. “I know you can’t see them but they have beautiful blue eyes, just like you. You’re my nemophila,” he told her. She remembers the smell of whiskey on his breath, which made her giddy; she does not feel the same when she smells whiskey on Mr. Rice’s breath.

In the second act, the bandages are taken off Molly, and she, her husband, and her doctor each has a different reaction to what happens next.

Molly Sweeney concludes Irish Rep’s four-part Friel Project, preceded by lovely productions of Translations, Aristocrats, and Philadelphia, Here I Come! The company previously staged Molly Sweeney in person in 2011 with Jonathan Hogan, Geraldine Hughes, and Ciaran O’Reilly and virtually in May 2020. Like those versions, this revival is intricately directed by founding artistic director Charlotte Moore (Aristocrats, The Streets of New York). (A 1996 Roundabout production starred Catherine Byrne, Alfred Molina, and Jason Robards.)

Molly (Sarah Street) dreams of a better life in Brian Friel’s Molly Sweeney (photo by Carol Rosegg)

Charlie Corcoran’s set consists of three chairs on a fake stone-paved floor, each with a slightly different rectangular wall and window behind it; Mr. Rice’s has a chest with folders and a bottle of whiskey, Molly’s has a vase of flowers on the windowsill, and Frank’s has a shelf with books and random objects. Linda Fisher’s costumes are in a muted Irish palette. Michael Gottlieb’s lighting is razor sharp; while focusing on one character, the others are bathed in shadow. In addition, abstract projections in blue, red, and purple morph on the rear horizontal wall, evoking what might be going on inside Molly’s head. Hidenori Nakajo’s sound envelops the audience in Molly’s auditory realm.

The actors are exceptional. Collins (Translations, The Quare Land) brings a cool serenity to Mr. Rice, who has not had an easy life; his wife left him for another ophthalmologist, and he eventually found himself working at a small hospital in Ballybeg in County Donegal, the fictional town where many of Friel’s plays take place. When Mr. Rice speaks, he stands up, sometimes holding a book or folder, and talks succinctly.

New York City treasure Keating (Translations, Autumn Royal) gives the unemployed Frank a harried demeanor, his tall, wiry frame flitting about as he relates his fondness for getting involved in charity cases — he’s been asked to supervise a food convoy in Ethiopia — but he has no conception of how he can help his wife.

Sitting in between them is Street (Aristocrats, Belfast Girls), who gazes into the audience, making eye contact when she or the others speak, as opposed to Collins and Keating, whose characters appear to rest their eyes or doze off, not listening to what Molly is saying; they choose, essentially, not to see or hear her and concentrate on their own future. Molly shares her story matter-of-factly, not getting wrapped up in emotion but not cold and distant either.

She could be any woman, fighting for personal freedom of any kind in a country that was still struggling with women’s rights in the late twentieth century. It’s a complex performance in a complex play that will make you think twice before offering certain types of medical advice to friends and loved ones.

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

DanceAfrica 2024: CAMEROON

Who: DanceAfrica Spirit Walkers, Women of the Calabash, the Billie’s Youth Arts Academy Dance Ensemble, Siren — Protectors of the Rainforest, DJ YB, more
What: DanceAfrica Festival 2024
Where: BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, BAM Rose Cinemas, 30 Lafayette Ave.
When: May 24-27, many events free, Gilman dances $22-$95, film screenings $16
Why: The coming of summer means the arrival of one of the best festivals of every year, BAM’s DanceAfrica. The forty-seventh annual iteration focuses on Cameroon, with four companies performing “The Origin of Communities / A Calabash of Cultures” in BAM’s Howard Gilman Opera House: DanceAfrica Spirit Walkers, Women of the Calabash, the Billie’s Youth Arts Academy Dance Ensemble, and Siren — Protectors of the Rainforest, highlighting movement and music from the Central African nation. Curated by artistic director Abdel R. Salaam, the festival also includes the DanceAfrica Bazaar with more than 150 vendors, dance workshops and master classes in Brooklyn Bridge Park and the Mark Morris Dance Center, Salifou Lindou’s art installation La course 2, the Council of Elders Roundtable: Legacy & Preservation, and a late night dance party with DJ YB.

This year’s FilmAfrica screenings and cinema conversations range from Jean-Pierre Dikongué Pipa’s 1975 Muna Moto and Mohamed Challouf’s The Many Moods of Muna Moto to Jean-Marie Téno’s Colonial Misunderstanding, Jean-Pierre Bekolo’s 2005 Les Saignantes (The Bloodettes), and Gordon Main’s 2023 London Recruits, all followed by Q&As with the directors.

“This year’s DanceAfrica is a journey into the heart of Cameroon, driven by a quest to explore the ancient roots of African culture and answer profound questions about humanity’s earliest origins,” Salaam said in his mission statement. “How timeless is Africa, and was it the land of the most ancient beings? What were the origins of humanity, thought, consciousness, art, culture, creativity, and civilization?”

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

HOW TO SURVIVE AN APOCALYPSE

Who: Judah Friedlander, Aasif Mandvi, Manolo Moreno, Kyle Marian, Dominique Nisperos, Nat Towsen, surprise guests
What: Climate crisis comedy show
Where: St. Mark’s Comedy Club, 12 St. Marks Place
When: Saturday, May 25, $12 plus two-drink minimum, 5:00
Why: St. Mark’s Comedy Club is promising surprise guests at its May 25 show, “How to Survive an Apocalypse,” but the scheduled lineup is already pretty darn impressive, with Judah Friedlander, Aasif Mandvi, Manolo Moreno, Kyle Marian, Dominique Nisperos, and Nat Towsen. They will be cracking wise about climate change and rising sea levels, two of the funniest topics on the comedy circuit. Tickets are only $12 plus a two-drink minimum to laugh your head off as we face the end of the planet.

THREE HOUSES

Dave Malloy’s Three Houses takes place inside a magical nightclub (photo by Marc J. Franklin)

THREE HOUSES
The Pershing Square Signature Center
The Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre
480 West 42nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Tuesday-Sunday through June 16, $59-$115
212-244-7529
www.signaturetheatre.org

In Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, composer, writer, performer, and orchestrator Dave Malloy took audiences inside one section of Leo Tolstoy’s epic 1867 novel, War and Peace. In Octet, he invited everyone into an intimate meeting of internet addicts. In his latest work, Three Houses, he welcomes visitors to an open-mic night where the children’s fable “The Three Little Pigs” is reimagined as an adult parable about emerging from the pandemic, with the Big Bad Wolf salivating at the door.

In the “Pleasure Principle versus Reality Principle” chapter of his 1976 book The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales, Dr. Bruno Bettelheim writes, “‘The Three Little Pigs’ teaches the nursery age child in a most enjoyable and dramatic form that we must not be lazy and take things easy, for if we do, we may perish. Intelligent planning and foresight combined with hard labor will make us victorious over even our most ferocious enemy — the wolf!”

The dots collective has turned the Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre at the Signature Center into a dark, cozy nightclub with the audience sitting on three sides. In the back is a bar on a raised platform, surrounded by framed pictures, animal heads mounted on a wall, and other homey objects. A small chamber orchestra plays at the four corners of the floor: conductor Mona Seyed-Bolorforosh on piano and organ, Yuko Naito-Gotay on violin, Blair Hamrick on French horn, and Maria Bella Jeffers on cello. Wolf (Scott Stangland) makes the drinks and runs the open mic; two waiters (Henry Stram and Ching Valdes-Aran) serve the customers, each of whom will get their chance to share their personal saga in long, dramatic songs, taking them back to the houses, seen in projections behind the bar, where they stayed when the world closed down.

Susan (Margo Seibert) recounts her escape to her grandmother’s house in the Latvian woods, Sadie (Mia Pak) moves to her aunt’s adobe home outside Taos, and Beckett (J. D. Mollison) finds a tiny studio basement apartment in a red brick building in Brooklyn. Each song begins with a similar opening, first by Susan: “during the pandemic, / when the lockdown hit, / i had just separated from my husband / and i had fled to the baltics. / i was alone in a new home: / my grandmama’s giant ranch house / in the middle of a white forest in latvia. / so this is the story / of how i went a little bit crazy / living alone in the pandemic.” Sadie goes a little bit crazy with an online game, Beckett with online ordering, hearkening back to the obsessions in Octet.

As one of them sings, the other two sit at their tables and watch, participate, or dance. At several points, all three sing in unison: “declining social and professional opportunities / with a vague whisper of retreat and interiority: / i’m in a quiet place right now”; “99.4% of the population / wiped clean. / burn it all down, / start anew”; and “that’s death out there!”

They find ways to occupy their time: organizing bookshelves, drinking wine, playing video games, engaging in physical activity, developing rituals to fight loneliness, and encountering their grandparents (Stram and Valdes-Aran) in flashbacks. Each of the protagonists is accompanied by one of James Ortiz’s puppets: Susan’s is a slinking Latvian household dragon named Pookie (voiced and operated by Pak), Sadie’s a cushy badger named Zippy (voiced and operated by Mollison), and Beckett’s a giant marionette spider named Shelob (voiced and operated by Seibert) after the Lord of the Rings creature.

It all comes to a head when Wolf starts knocking at Beckett’s door, representative not just of covid but of the scary world outside, pandemic or not. Shelob lays it out: “the wolf slowly circled, / devising various schemes / to try to get in and devour beckett whole.”

Beckett (J. D. Mollison), Susan (Margo Seibert), and Sadie (Mia Pak) share their pandemic stories in Signature Theatre world premiere (photo by Marc J. Franklin)

In “Pleasure Principle versus Reality Principle,” Dr. Bettelheim also writes, “The story of the three pigs suggests a transformation in which much pleasure is retained, because now satisfaction is sought with true respect for the demands of reality.” In their third collaboration, following Octet and Ghost Quartet, Malloy and director and choreographer Annie Tippe blend fact and fiction, fantasy and reality as three human beings struggle to survive in an apocalyptic scenario. Alone with their memories, they are desperate for connection but terrified of where that may lead. “look, we need access, buddy!” the Wolf shouts at Beckett through a locked door; Beckett responds, “go away go away go away!”

The hundred-minute Three Houses is filled with pleasure. Haydee Zelideth’s costumes, particularly Susan’s gorgeous green dress, are nightclub-chic, while one of the Wolf’s sweaters is a true delight. Christopher Bowser’s pinpoint lighting moves with a compelling rhythm that matches Nick Kourtides’s enveloping sound. Or Matias’s music direction and supervision of Malloy’s lovely score is beautifully lush and visceral.

Mezzos Seibert (Octet, The Thanksgiving Play) and Pak (Suffs, In the Green) bring an infectious warmth to Malloy’s doomsday lyrics, while baritone Mollison (Octet, Iphigenia 2.0) serves as an exceptional anchor, not unlike the third little pig. Stangland (Cyrano, Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812) is temptingly charming as the hirsute Wolf, who, in case you didn’t know, has ulterior motives. Stram (The Elephant Man, The Hairy Ape) and Valdes-Aran (Aying, Mother Courage) provide fine support in multiple roles.

There might not be any “Not by the hair on my chinny chin chin” or “Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house in,” but there are still morals to be found in this adult fairy tale, starting with the need for courage enough to venture outside, especially to see such dazzling works as Three Houses.

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