live performance

THERE WILL BE BLOOD: RED BULL’S TITUS ANDRONICUS SPURTS AND SPLATTERS AT THE SIGNATURE

Patrick Page stars as the title war hero in Red Bull’s Titus Andronicus (photo by Carol Rosegg)

TITUS ANDRONICUS
The Pershing Square Signature Center
Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre
480 West 42nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through May 3, $49-$129
www.redbulltheater.com

On my way into the Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre at the Signature Center to see Red Bull’s adaptation of William Shakespeare’s rarely performed Roman play Titus Andronicus, I saw the company’s always-smiling founding artistic director, Jesse Berger, who was greeting ticket holders by the doors. I told him how much I had enjoyed the troupe’s 2016 production of Coriolanus at Barrow Street, a bloody and violent retelling of another of the Bard’s seldom-staged plays, and how terrific Patrick Page was in it, portraying the peace-seeking mediator Menenius Agrippa.

I pointed at the poster for Titus Andronicus, which depicts Page, who plays the title character, in a chef’s hat, surrounded by blood.

I said to Jesse, the director of the new show, “Looks like you’re promising sharp knives and lots of blood again.”

He responded, “I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.”

I wasn’t.

The Goths seek revenge after an execution in bloody Shakespeare adaptation (photo by Carol Rosegg)

Red Bull’s Titus Andronicus is a glorious triumph, a bloody and violent — and hilarious — tale of power and revenge involving two warring sides, the Andronici and the Goths. A handy family tree is included in the program to help identify who’s who, although the narrative makes that clear as well.

The plot unfolds in an indeterminate time; the language is all Shakespeare’s, but there are guns, Budweiser tallboys, wristwatches, military and modern dress, sneakers, a paperback of Ovid’s Metamorphosis, and a hardbound copy of Alexandre Dumas’s 1846 novel The Count of Monte Cristo, one of the most famous revenge tales ever written. Beowulf Boritt’s set features about a dozen rounded pillars; the actors occasionally bring chairs and tables on and off and wander through the aisles and in the balcony, and there is a small trapdoor that serves multiple purposes.

The emperor has died, and his eldest son, Saturninus (Matthew Amendt), declares to the people that he will assume the throne, but his younger brother, Bassianus (Howard W. Overshown), believes that there should be a free and fair election, and the tribune Marcia Andronicus (Enid Graham) makes a case for her brother, Titus, a returning war hero, to become emperor. Bassianus is engaged to Titus’s only daughter, Lavinia (Olivia Reis), and knows that his brother is a vain, childish man unlikely to be a worthy ruler.

Titus then arrives with his three remaining sons, who all fought bravely in the war: Lucius (Anthony Michael Lopez), Mutius Valentine (Anthony Michael Martinez), and Quintus (Zack Lopez Roa). They are followed by five chained prisoners: Tamora (Francesca Faridany), queen of the Goths; her three sons, Alarbus (Blair Baker), Chiron (Jesse Aaronson), and Demetrius (Adam Langdon); and her secret lover, Aaron (McKinley Belcher III), a Moor. Titus announces that Alarbus, the queen’s eldest son, will be sacrificed as punishment for the Goths’ treachery and the death of three of Titus’s sons.

Tamora begs for mercy with a heart-wrenching plea: “Sufficeth not that we are brought to Rome, / To beautify thy triumphs and return / Captive to thee and to thy Roman yoke, / But must my sons be slaughtered in the streets / For valiant doings in their country’s cause? / O, if to fight for king and commonweal / Were piety in thine, it is in these. / Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods? / Draw near them then in being merciful. / Sweet mercy is nobility’s true badge. / Thrice noble Titus, spare my first-born son.”

Alarbus is then slain, his blood spurting on one of the pillars.

Titus surprises everyone by declining to seek the throne, throwing his support to Saturninus, who immediately accepts and proclaims that Lavinia will be his bride, even though she is betrothed to his brother. Titus agrees to give her to the new emperor, but Lavinia and Bassianus refuse, and Saturninus instead chooses Tamora for his bride, setting in motion a series of brutal, vengeful atrocities, each side trying to outdo the other in violent displays that splatter the pillars and floor with more and more blood.

Titus Andronicus (Patrick Page) leads a hunt for the Goths in Jesse Berger’s revelatory adaptation (photo by Carol Rosegg)

Titus Andronicus, which Shakespeare may have cowritten with George Peele and is not based on real history, has been adapted into a major film only once, the 1999 Titus, directed by Julie Taymor and starring Anthony Hopkins as Titus, Jessica Lange as Tamora, Alan Cumming as Saturninus, and Harry Lennix as Aaron. The Public has presented it at the Delacorte as part of its Shakespeare in the Park series only twice, in 1967 and 1989, the former with Jack Hollander, David Birney, Olympia Dukakis, Charles Durning, Moses Gunn, David Clennon, and Raul Julia, the latter with Donald Moffat, Bill Camp, Keith David, Kate Mulgrew, and Rainn Wilson.

Berger (The Government Inspector, Volpone) brings it back to life, directing with a sly hand while mixing a healthy dose of comedy into the fierce carnage, which involves rape and numerous body parts being disconnected from their owners. Amendt (Coriolanus, ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore) plays Saturninus as a whiny fool; Belcher, who just starred in Coriolanus at TFANA, winks knowingly several times at the audience, eliciting much-needed and unexpected laughter; Page (All the Devils Are Here: How Shakespeare Invented the Villain, Hadestown) imbues Titus’s descent into madness with an occasional Looney Tunes glee; and the spurting of blood and chopped-off limbs are reminiscent of Monty Python’s “Salad Days” sketch, in which a garden party turns into a hilarious massacre as directed by Sam Peckinpah.

But that doesn’t mean that this Titus Andronicus is easy to watch; the rape scene is among the most savage and intense I have ever seen onstage, and no character emerges squeaky clean. Berger has trimmed it down to a lean two hours (plus intermission), and there are a couple of weak links in an otherwise exemplary cast led by the majestic Page, a true New York City treasure, a boldly ferocious Belcher, and a fine Overshown in two roles.

The full design crew deserves kudos, from Boritt’s set, Emily Rebholz’s costumes, and Jiyoun Chang’s lighting to Adam Wernick’s music, Wernick and Shannon Slaton’s sound, and Anya Kutner’s props.

In Taylor Mac’s fun, frenetic 2019 Broadway debut, Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus, Santo Loquasto’s Tony-nominated set was highlighted by a tremendous mound of corpses and body parts. After seeing Red Bull’s Titus Andronicus at the Signature Center, you’ll understand that all the more — and might even be able to identify some of the dead bodies and detached limbs.

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

MARTHA CLARKE, BETH HENLEY, AND JOHN KELLY BRING HENRY DARGER TO LIFE: BUGHOUSE AT THE VINEYARD

John Kelly stars as Outsider artist Henry Darger in Bughouse (photo by Carol Rosegg)(photo by Carol Rosegg)

BUGHOUSE
Vineyard Theatre
Gertrude and Irving Dimson Theatre
108 East 15th St. between Union Square East & Irving Pl.
Tuesday – Sunday through April 5, $63.72-$118.80
www.vineyardtheatre.org

“Just because there’s questions, that does not mean there are answers,” Kiyoko Lerner, Henry Darger’s last landlady and caretaker of his art, says in Jessica Yu’s 2004 documentary In the Realms of the Unreal: The Mystery of Henry Darger.

The same can be said about Bughouse, an intriguing play about Darger (pronounced with a hard g) conceived and directed by Martha Clarke, written by Beth Henley, and starring solo specialist and downtown legend John Kelly.

An isolated, reclusive, hard-edged man, Darger died in a Chicago nursing home on April 13, 1973, at the age of eighty-one. He never married and had no children. His mother died when he was three after giving birth to a daughter who was put up for adoption. His disabled father, an easygoing tailor, was moved to a poorhouse when Henry was eight; the boy was first sent to an orphanage, then to the Illinois Asylum for Feeble-Minded Children.

He later worked as a hospital janitor and seems to have had only one friend, an immigrant named William Schloeder.

But he left behind a remarkable legacy in his cramped Chicago apartment. Amid piles and piles of newspapers, magazines, books, religious icons, clippings, a crank record player, a radio, a handmade “No Smoking” sign, and art supplies, Kiyoko and her husband, Nathan, discovered large-scale watercolors, a five-thousand-page memoir, a six-volume weather journal, and the fifteen-thousand-page illustrated novel The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What Is known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion, an epic fantasy set on a different planet, where the Abbieannians, led by the seven Vivian Girls, battle the Glandelinians over their enslavement of children. It was in part inspired by the 1911 abduction of Elsie Paroubek, who Darger transforms into the heroic Annie Aronburg.

Two-time Obie winner Clarke (Angel Reapers, The Garden of Earthly Delights) and Pulitzer winner Henley (Crimes of the Heart, The Miss Firecracker Contest) incorporate those elements and more into Bughouse, which includes Darger sharing his story directly with the audience, typing out his autobiography to prerecorded dialogue, and talking to visions he sees in windows and mirrors. He trudges around his apartment with a slight limp, muttering to himself about history and the weather and relating tales from his past. “Why have you not answered my prayers?” he asks God at the very beginning.

The voices of the Vivian Girls often deliver quotes from Darger’s novel. “I have received warnings that I am in danger of assassination, but as horrible as it is to be murdered in cold blood, I defy my enemies before God to do it,” Annie says. One of the other girls tells him, “All Blengiglomenean Serpents are the greatest lovers of children of all nations, whether good or bad, and children of bad nations have been carried away by these enormous creatures so that their souls would not be ruined by the sinful ways of the government or their parents.”

When Darger talks about his life, black-and-white footage of the Chicago street outside are projected in the back windows. When the girls speak, animated depictions of them, based on Darger’s art, float around the set, their voices emanating from speakers placed throughout the theater. Storms occasionally rattle the space. The lighting is by Christopher Akerlind, with sound by Arthur Solari, projections by John Narun, cinematography by Fred Murphy, and animation by Ruth Lingford. The exquisite set and props are by Neil Patel and Faye Armon-Troncoso, re-creating the controlled chaos of Darger’s strange world.

Bughouse re-creates a day in the life of Henry Darger (John Kelly) (photo by Carol Rosegg)

Kelly, a multimedia artist and performer who has portrayed Egon Schiele in Pass the Blutwurst, Bitte, Caravaggio in The Escape Artist, Joni Mitchell in Paved Paradise, Antonin Artaud in Life of Cruelty, and Samuel Steward in Underneath the Skin, embodies Darger with an air of creepy mystery and unsettling angst; Darger is not a man most people would want to spend a lot of time with, and mercifully the play is barely more than an hour.

But as creative as Clarke, Henley, and Kelly are, the play is likely to be difficult for those who don’t know much about Darger. In the lobby are cards that share information about the Vivian Girls and Darger’s life, which are recommended reading for audience members who know little or nothing about either. We never get to see the real images Darger drew, only animated versions, nor his handwriting, which lends insight into his character. The play also forces connections between Darger’s personal experiences and his art, but they are not as direct as Clarke and Henry posit.

I’ve been to several Darger exhibitions and saw the documentary when it came out, and they all left me feeling a combination of disgusted, confused, and blown away by Darger’s sheer talent; unfortunately, the play does not zero in enough on his extraordinary artistic abilities.

The show’s art history consultant, Michael Bonesteel, contributes a biographical program note in which he writes, “Henry Darger is viewed today as probably the greatest Outsider artist in the art brut canon. He was an autodidactic world-builder of the first order and the ultimate poster child for savant syndrome. He will be remembered as an indomitable creative genius who, single-handedly and against all odds, imaginatively transformed his tragic, impoverished life into a mythic wonderland within the confines of his one-and-a-half-room boardinghouse flat.”

You won’t learn much of that from the play itself, but spending an hour in the presence of Kelly is always worthwhile.

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

KILLING AN EVENING WITH EDGAR ALLAN POE: JOHN KEVIN JONES RETURNS TO MERCHANT’S HOUSE WITH SPECIAL GUESTS

John Kevin Jones pays tribute to Edgar Allan Poe at historic Merchant’s House Museum (photo by Joey Stocks)

KILLING AN EVENING WITH EDGAR ALLAN POE
Merchant’s House Museum
29 East Fourth St. between Lafayette St. and the Bowery
March 25 – April 5, $65-$75
merchantshouse.org
summonersensemble.org

John Kevin Jones is back for his annual residency at the historic Merchant’s House Museum on East Fourth St. with Killing an Evening with Edgar Allan Poe: Murder at the Merchant’s House. Jones has gained a kind of cult fan club for his unique one-man shows, which also include his unique version of A Christmas Carol at the historic museum, a home built in 1831-32 that was occupied continuously by the Tredwell family from 1835 to 1933. The nineteenth century feels very present in the house, which was one of the first twenty buildings to gain landmark status under the city’s 1965 law and functions as a museum, preserving the Tredwell family’s furnishings as they would have appeared when Poe, coincidentally, lived nearby for a time at 85 West Third St. and later in a cottage in the Bronx. Dressed in nineteenth-century-style jacket, vest, top hat, and ascot, Jones celebrates Edgar Allan Poe with three of his most popular writings, preceded by short introductions about each work and Poe’s career.

Forty people are squeezed into the Tredwells’ candlelit double parlor — with a coffin at one end and a dining table at the other — and Jones walks up and down the narrow space between, where the audience is seated on three sides, boldly delivering several classic Poe tales of treachery and murder, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Angel of the Odd,” and “The Cask of Amontillado,” from memory. His deep, theatrical voice resonates through the room as he catches the eye of audience members, adding yet more chills and thrills to the mystery in the air. He then sits down with a book for the long poem “The Raven,” evoking the great Poe actor Vincent Price. Jones, director Dr. Rhonda Dodd, and stage manager Dan Renkin, the leaders of Summoners Ensemble Theatre, keep the focus on Poe’s remarkable narrative technique; you might be watching one man, but you’ll feel like you’re seeing each of Poe’s characters in vivid detail.

Killing an Evening with Edgar Allan Poe runs March 25 through April 5, and for select performances there will be a “Raise a Glass to Edgar” preshow reception option ($30) in which Jones will recite “Annabel Lee” and “Alone,” Natalia “Saw Lady” Paruz will perform, and the kitchen, family room, and garden will be open. In addition, medium Heather Carlucci will give psychic readings after both Sunday shows.

There is also a concerted public effort to save the Merchant’s House from construction next door that could negatively impact its structural future; find out how you can help here.

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

ALL IN THE TELLING: SAUL RUBINEK AT THE MUSEUM OF JEWISH HERITAGE

Saul Rubinek will be at the Museum of Jewish Heritage for two very special, deeply personal evenings

Who: Saul Rubinek, Annette Insdorf, Caroline Aaron
What: “All in the Telling — a somewhat true story”
Where: Museum of Jewish Heritage, Edmond J. Safra Plaza, 36 Battery Pl.
When: Wednesday, March 25, and Thursday, March 26, $18, 7:30
Why: Last fall, Genie Award winner Saul Rubinek brought his one-man show, Playing Shylock, a melding of the Bard’s Merchant of Venice and Rubinek’s own life, to the Polonsky Shakespeare Center in Fort Greene. The Jewish Canadian Rubinek, who was born in a German refugee camp in 1948 and later raised in Canada — and whose parents were Holocaust survivors — is now coming to Manhattan to present two special evenings at the Museum of Jewish Heritage. On March 25 and 26, he will perform excerpts from and sign copies of his new novel, All in the Telling: a somewhat true story (Redwood, $24.99), described as “a true story of miraculous survival, a murder mystery, an operatic family drama, and undying romance,” inspired by his parents’ real-life experiences.

The reading will be accompanied by clips from his 1987 documentary, So Many Miracles, in which Rubinek takes his mother and father back to Poland to reunite with the farmers who hid them during the Holocaust. The first night will be followed by a conversation with Columbia University School of the Arts film professor Annette Insdorf (Indelible Shadows: Film and the Holocaust), while the second night will conclude with a discussion with actress Caroline Aaron (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Between the Temples). Rubinek, who has starred in such films as Joel and Ethan Coen’s The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven, Tony Scott’s True Romance, and Ralph L. Thomas’s Ticket to Heaven, is a master storyteller who knows how to command an audience, so these programs promise to be memorable events.

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

TAKING ACTION TO SAVE DEMOCRACY: ART AT A TIME LIKE THIS SIXTH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION

Who: Janet Biggs, Mary Lucier, Shaun Leonardo, Marka27, Pablo Helguera
What: Public art campaign benefit for Art at a Time Like This
Where: Cristin Tierney Gallery, 49 Walker St.
When: Thursday, March 27, minimum donation $150 ($75 for artists), 6:00 – 9:00
Why: Only a few days into the pandemic lockdown in March 2020, independent curator and author Barbara Pollack and artist agent Anne Verhallen took action, starting the nonprofit Art at a Time Like This (ATLT), dedicated to the idea that “art can make a difference and that artists and curators can be thought-leaders, envisioning alternative futures for humanity.” Art at a Time Like This has presented two dozen online and in-person exhibitions and programs since then, including “Dangerous Art, Endangered Artists,” “Rupture: Interventions of Possibility,” and “Don’t Look Now: A Defense of Free Expression.”

On March 27, ATLT will be celebrating its sixth anniversary, at the Cristin Tierney Gallery on Walker St., with a three-hour evening of cocktails, conversation, and a call to action, featuring four impressive speakers: artists Janet Biggs, Mary Lucier, Shaun Leonardo, and Marka27, with Pablo Helguera serving as moderator. The event is hosted by Leonardo Bravo, Andy Cushman, Helina Metaferia, Marilyn Minter, Gina Nanni, Megan Noh, Eric Shiner, and Cristin Tierney.

“At the very beginning of a worldwide pandemic, we asked a simple question: How can you think of art at a time like this?” Pollack tells twi-ny. “The question is now more relevant than ever, which presents both a tragedy and an opportunity for creative solutions.”

The next creative solution for ATLT is the exhibition “Take One Action,” which the organization considers “an antidote” for what is happening around the globe today. All artists are invited to submit one artwork, along with a suggested action to help protect and preserve our democracy — with an eye toward the midterm elections. Select contributions will be printed and wheatpasted across the city and/or appear in an ever-growing digital exhibit.

“Barbara and Anne responded to the pandemic with amazing speed, care, and inclusiveness by asking a question: ‘How can you think of art at a time like this?’ The overwhelming response was: ‘How can you not?’” explains Biggs, a research-based interdisciplinary artist known for her immersive work in video, film, and performance. “They have continued to ask that question in the face of ongoing trauma, injustice, and upheaval, and artists have continued to answer with work that is engaged, compassionate, and necessary. That is why Art at a Time Like This — and its programming — is so essential.”

Admission is a minimum donation of $150 ($75 for artists) for what should be a fascinating gathering of thought-leaders who will not just be honoring the success of ATLT but continuing the fight to use art to make a difference.

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

STOP THAT PIGEON: BIDDING A FOND ADIEU TO DINOSAUR ON THE HIGH LINE

Iván Argote’s Dinosaur will be flying off from the High Line soon (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

FAREWELL, DINOSAUR
High Line Plinth on the High Line Spur
Thirtieth St. at Tenth Ave.
Friday, March 21, free, noon – 4:00
www.thehighline.org

It promises to be the biggest send-off for a New York City pigeon ever.

On June 14, 2025, the High Line welcomed Iván Argote’s High Line Plinth commission, Dinosaur, with “Pigeon Fest,” a festival celebrating pigeons, urban ecology, and public art on National Pigeon Appreciation Day. The High Line is now saying goodbye to the seventeen-foot-tall, one-ton aluminum pigeon sculpture on March 21 with another party, “Farewell, Dinosaur,” consisting of games, photo ops, and more, with Argote, DJ Tommy Sparks, and Miriam Abrahams, the British multidisciplinary artist who won the Pigeon Impersonation Pageant at the opening. Visitors are encouraged to again come in feather-brained costumes as they play bingo and have Argote sign limited-edition posters.

“The name Dinosaur makes reference to the sculpture’s scale and to the pigeon’s ancestors who millions of years ago dominated the globe, as we humans do today,” the Colombia-born, Paris-based Argote said in a statement. “The name also serves as a reference to the dinosaur’s extinction. Like them, one day we won’t be around anymore, but perhaps a remnant of humanity will live on — as pigeons do — in the dark corners and gaps of future worlds. I feel this sculpture could generate an uncanny feeling of attraction, seduction, and fear among the inhabitants of New York.”

The attraction, seduction, and fear will continue through early April, when Dinosaur will go extinct on the High Line, replaced by Tuan Andrew Nguyen’s The Light That Shines Through the Universe.

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

CELEBRATING WIFREDO LAM AT MoMA WITH DANCE, MUSIC, AND POETRY

Wifredo Lam with the unfinished Bélial, empereur des mouches in his garden, Havana, 1947 (courtesy Archives SDO Wifredo Lam, Paris / photo by Ylla © Pryor Dodge)

Who: Ballet Hispánico New York, Aruán Ortiz, Yaissa Jimenez
What: A Special Evening Celebrating “Wifredo Lam: When I Don’t Sleep, I Dream”
Where: Museum of Modern Art, 11 West Fifty-Third St. Between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
When: Thursday, March 19, free with advance RSVP, 6:30
Why: “I knew I was running the risk of not being understood either by the man in the street or by the others,” Cuban-born artist Wifredo Óscar de la Concepción Lam y Castilla said, “but a true picture has the power to set the imagination to work, even if it takes time.” The wide-ranging MoMA retrospective “Wifredo Lam: When I Don’t Sleep, I Dream” paints a fascinating portrait of Lam, the son of a Chinese immigrant and the grandson of a Congolese former slave mother. It’s a marvelous collection of paintings, drawings, archival photographs, sketches, books, and ephemera tracing Lam’s career, which took him from Cuba, Spain, and France to Martinique, Haiti, and New York as his imagination turned to Spanish modernism, Surrealism, and Afro-Cuban tradition. Among the highlights of the exhibition, which runs through April 11, are the 1943 gouache on paper masterpiece The Jungle, a trio of dazzling abstracts, and a collection of plates.

On March 19 at 6:30, MoMA will be hosting “A Celebration of ‘Wifredo Lam: When I Don’t Sleep, I Dream,’” as Ballet Hispánico New York, Cuban-born, Brooklyn-based pianist, violist, and composer Aruán Ortiz, and Dominican writer and poet Yaissa Jimenez will perform specially commissioned new works in the exhibition galleries, paying tribute to Lam and his legacy. Admission is free with advance RSVP.

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