twi-ny recommended events

TEN CHIMNEYS

Real-life couple Byron Jennings and Carolyn McCormick play real-life couple Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne in exhilarating TEN CHIMNEYS (photo by Carol Rosegg)

Theatre at St. Clement’s
423 West 46th St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
Wednesday – Sunday through October 27, $65
www.thepeccadillo.com

One of the best plays of the new season is taking place off Broadway, set in a Wisconsin country home but firmly entrenched on the Great White Way. Real-life husband-and-wife acting couple Byron Jennings and Carolyn McCormick do a splendid job starring as real-life husband-and-wife acting couple Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne in the Pecadillo Theater Company’s rollicking Ten Chimneys. It’s 1937, and Alfred and Lynn are beginning rehearsals for their upcoming Broadway production of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull, with Lunt playing Trigorin, Fontanne playing Arkadina, Uta Hagen (Julia Bray) as Nina, and Sydney Greenstreet (Michael McCarty) as Sorin. Also joining them at the farmhouse are Alfred’s demanding mother, Hattie (Lucy Martin); his half-sister, Louise (Charlotte Booker), who does all the cooking and cleaning (and complaining); and his half-brother, Carl (John Wernke), a handyman who moonlights as a pool shark. As they delve into the play, as well as the play within a play, jealousy breaks out in many forms — between siblings, between lovers, between parents and children, between actors, and between fictional characters, resulting in a multilayered story that is simply exhilarating.

Jeffrey Hatcher’s razor-sharp dialogue is fanciful and whip smart, wonderfully playing with theatrical conventions and revealing tantalizing secrets. Dan Wackerman’s direction is breezy and inviting, while Harry Feiner’s rustic stage design provides just the right setting for the proceedings. Ten Chimneys is a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at Lunt and Fontanne’s working process, particularly when Greenstreet commandingly directs the couple through one scene and when Lunt and Hagen examine another run-through that ends in a kiss. The actors’ deconstruction of The Seagull stokes the fires of Ten Chimneys, a thrilling play about the theater that celebrates itself without becoming pedantic or melodramatic. Instead, it’s great fun, romantic and insightful, a must-see for lovers of theater. Don’t be surprised if after the show, which continues at the Theatre at St. Clement’s through October 27, you see Jennings and McCormick dashing down West 46th St. and jumping into a taxi together, just as Lunt and Fontanne must have done so many times during their long careers.

CROSSING THE LINE — RAIMUND HOGHE: PAS DE DEUX

Raimund Hoghe and Takashi Ueno examine the history of the duet in PAS DE DEUX (photo by Rosa Franks)

Baryshnikov Arts Center, Howard Gilman Performance Space
450 West 37th St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
October 10-12, $20, 7:30
866-811-4111
www.bacnyc.org
www.fiaf.org

German dancer and choreographer Raimund Hoghe made his U.S. debut at FIAF’s 2009 Crossing the Line festival with Boléro Variations and L’Après-midi, followed in 2010 by Sans-titre, his collaboration with Faustin Linyekula, and his site-specific Skyroom Project, in which he examined his blossoming relationship with New York City. Hoghe is back in New York for the 2012 CTL festival, teaming up with Japanese dancer Takashi Ueno for Pas de Deux, another unusual exploration of the art form from one of the dance world’s most iconoclastic characters. (Hoghe and Ueno performed an excerpt from Pas de Deux at the the Cultural Services of the French Embassy as part of the free Fiction & Non-Fiction opening day at the 2011 CTL festival.) Hoghe’s unique sense of stagecraft was influenced by his ten years serving as dramaturge for Pina Bausch’s Tanztheater Wuppertal, based in his hometown; he has been creating his own pieces for more than twenty years now, primarily in collaboration with fellow German artist Luca Giacomo Schulte. For Pas de Deux, running October 10-12 at the Baryshnikov Arts Center, Hoghe and Ueno don black and yellow costumes and perform alone and together in a minimalist tribute to the centerpiece of classical ballet.

KOREAN MOVIE NIGHT: CHOKED

Kwon Youn-ho (Um Tae-goo) seems disinterested in life in Kim Joon-hyun’s CHOKED

GEMS OF KOREAN CINEMA: CHOKED (KASHI) (Kim Joong-hyun, 2011)
Tribeca Cinemas
54 Varick St. at Laight St.
Tuesday, October 9, free, 7:00
212-759-9550
www.koreanculture.org
www.tribecacinemas.com

After his mother’s (Kil Hae-yeon) get-rich-quick scheme doesn’t quite work out as planned, she disappears, leaving her laconic son, Kwon Youn-ho (Um Tae-goo), to continually fight off her ever-more-crazed business partner, Seo-hee (Park Se-jin), a divorced mother desperate to get back the money she claims she is owed. Meanwhile, Youn-ho is trying to make a life for himself and his fiancée, Se-kyung (Yoon Che-yong), but her mother doesn’t approve of his job in reconstruction — he convinces people to leave their homes with small payments so that buildings can be knocked down and fancier residences put up in their place. But neither Youn-ho nor Seo-hee is evil; both have been cast in difficult situations that lead to extreme measures that they regret as they try to put their lives back together. Kim Joon-hyun’s first feature film is a patiently paced drama that subtly examines how the global financial crisis affects families in both large and small ways. Everyone in the film is seeking to maintain or renew a relationship with a loved one, be it a parent, a child, a sibling, or a lover, but money complicates their situations. Um is excellent as Youn-ho, a young man seemingly disinterested in his own existence, letting life just happen to him, a fine counterpart to Park’s Seo-hee, a woman willing to do just about anything to prevent her life from getting completely away from her. Choked is screening for free October 9 at 7:00 at Tribeca Cinemas as part of the Korean Cultural Service film series “Gems of Korean Cinema,” which looks at recent independent works from South Korea.

DOUG VARONE AND DANCERS: TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY SEASON

The New York premiere of CARRUGI is part of Doug Varone and Dancers’ twenty-fifth anniversary celebration at the Joyce (photo by Cylia von Tiedeman)

Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Ave. at 19th St.
October 9-14, $10-$49
212-645-2904
www.joyce.org
www.dougvaroneanddancers.org

For twenty-five years, New York City-based choreographer Doug Varone has been creating works for opera, theater, film, fashion, and his company, Doug Varone and Dancers, which he started back in 1986. He’ll be celebrating his silver anniversary with a series of events that kick off this week with a six-day stand at the Joyce, where last year he brought his riveting Chapters from a Broken Novel. This time around he’s presenting a pair of programs, the first featuring the New York premiere of Carrugi, a dance opera with singers and musicians that examines duplicity and myth inspired by the pathways and labyrinths of Liguria in Italy, set to Mozart’s La Betulia liberate; 2001’s Ballet Mécanique, a groundbreaking twenty-six-minute multimedia piece for eight dancers that intertwines movement and technology, set to George Anthreil’s 1925 score and with projections by Wendall Harrington; and 1994’s Aperture, a work for three dancers that imagines life outside the frame of a photograph, set to Shubert’s Moments Musicaux, No. 2. The second program is highlighted by the world premiere of Able to Leap Tall Buildings, a duet with movement based on that of superhero dolls, set to Julia Wolfe’s “Cruel Sister”; 2006’s Bessie Award-winning Boats Leaving, with images adapted from photos in the New York Times and reproductions in an art book, set to Arvo Pärt’s “Te Deum”; and a reconstruction of 1993’s signature dance Rise, an investigation of structure built around John Adams’s “Fearful Symmetries” that changed the nature of Varone’s choreography. There will be a Dance Chat following the October 10 performance and a preshow discussion led by Amy Kail on October 11. In honor of the anniversary, Varone has created a series of videos, “Uncovering the Archives,” looking back at his repertoire; you can watch them here.

TATZU NISHI: DISCOVERING COLUMBUS

Visitors can get up close and personal with Gaetano Russo’s statue of Christopher Columbus in fab installation by Tatzu Nishi (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Columbus Circle
59th St. at the intersection of Broadway, Columbus, and Eighth Aves.
Extended through December 2, free with timed ticket
www.publicartfund.org
discovering columbus slideshow

For one hundred and twenty years, Sicilian sculptor Gaetano Russo’s Carrara marble statue of Christopher Columbus has towered high in the air in the middle of Columbus Circle, far from view atop a seventy-foot granite column. But now German-based Japanese artist Tatzu Nishi makes the Italian explorer much more accessible inside a customized American living room in the genius installation “Discovering Columbus.” Over the last decade, Nishi has created temporary structures built around existing architectural monuments in Guatemala City, Hamburg, Singapore, Basel, New South Wales, and, most famously, Liverpool, where he designed “Villa Victoria,” a functional hotel suite constructed around a statue of Queen Victoria. For his first project in the United States, Nishi has chosen to bring Russo’s thirteen-foot-tall statue, which was presented to New York City in honor of the four-hundredth anniversary of Columbus’s famous voyage, face-to-face with visitors, who can climb up six flights of stairs to enter an idealized, temporary American room replete with chairs, couches, a mirror, framed prints, a bookshelf — and the Columbus statue standing in the center, atop a coffee table. Everything was carefully selected by Nishi, from the newspapers, furniture, and artworks (by the likes of Andy Warhol, Willem de Kooning, and Jackson Pollock) to the flat-screen television and specially designed wallpaper, which features cartoon images of such American icons as Michael Jackson, Mickey Mouse, Elvis Presley, and McDonald’s. Visitors, who enter with free timed tickets that must be reserved in advance, can look but not touch (photos are allowed) as they walk around the statue, examining every nook, cranny, and crevice of the extremely weathered work; be sure to check out under Columbus’s cloak for a section that has not been nearly as ravaged by snow, rain, heat, wind, and bird droppings. And be sure to check it out from the ground on the southern side as well, where it appears as if Columbus is standing at the window, enjoying the remarkable view. It’s a spectacular opportunity to see such a landmark up close and personal, no matter your feelings about Columbus, whose discovery of America and treatment of the native population seem to increase in controversy every year. Nishi did not choose this specific monument for political reasons; instead, the Public Art Fund project is a joint venture with the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, which will begin a major restoration of the statue after the installation closes to the public on November 18 [ed. note: now extended through December 2], keeping the stairs and scaffolding in place for the conservation team, which will work to maintain the promise made at the statue’s dedication on October 12, 1892: “in imperishable remembrance.” Tickets are going fast, so don’t hesitate to book a time now for this once-in-a-lifetime experience.

COLUMBUS DAY PARADE

Italian heritage will be celebrated at annual Columbus Day Parade (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Fifth Ave. from 44th to 72nd Sts.
Monday, October 8, free, 11:30 am – 3:00 pm
www.columbuscitizensfd.org

More than one hundred groups and thirty-five thousand marchers will make their way up Fifth Ave. today in celebration of the Italian heritage and the spirit of Christopher Columbus for the sixty-eighth annual Columbus Day Parade. Grand Marshal Mario J. Gabelli will lead a contingent of politicians, high school marching bands, military organizations, celebrities, and more; past grand marshals have included Paul Sorvino, Bobby Valentine, Dan Marino, Henry Mancini, Danny Aiello, Vincent Gardenia, Yogi Berra, and Frank Capra.

DOCUMENTARY IN BLOOM: IN MY MOTHER’S ARMS

Saif Slaam is one of the orphans facing life back out on the street in the Al-Daradji brothers’ moving IN MY MOTHER’S ARMS

NEW FILMS PRESENTED BY LIVIA BLOOM: IN MY MOTHER’S ARMS (Atia and Mohamed Jabarah Al-Daradji, 2011)
Maysles Cinema
343 Malcolm X Blvd. between 127th & 128th Sts.
October 8-14, $10, 7:30
212-582-6050
www.mayslesinstitute.org
www.facebook.com/InMyMothersArms

“I’m too young for this pain,” seven-year-old Saif Slaam sings repeatedly in the heartbreaking documentary In My Mother’s Arms. Making its exclusive U.S. theatrical debut October 8-14 at the Maysles Cinema, In My Mother’s Arms follows the story of a makeshift orphanage battling for survival in Baghdad’s dangerous Al-Sadr neighborhood. Largely because of the wars and terrorist activities, there are 800,000 Iraqi orphans in two-dozen state-run facilities that are riddled with abuse. Trying to protect children from those horrors, Husham Al-Dhbe runs a bare-bones two-room orphanage that cares for thirty-two boys, relying on donations from local small businessmen to stay afloat. Stressing the importance of education, Husham is adamant about keeping the kids off the streets, where they can be captured and turned into child soldiers (and suicide bombers) by al-Qaeda. But when the landlord tells Husham that he’s selling the building they’re in and they have to vacate in two weeks, Husham desperately seeks a new home to prevent the children, a mix of Sunni, Shiite, Kurd, and Turkuman, from being sucked into the corrupt state system. The film focuses on three of the most troubled boys: Saif, who is haunted by the terrorist bombing that claimed the life of his mother and plastered his face all over television; ten-year-old Salah Abass, a loner who doesn’t speak or go to school; and the older Mohamed Waael, a diver and musician who regularly taunts Saif. “I won’t give them up,” Husham declares, and he won’t give up on them, either. Sibling filmmakers Atia and Mohamed Jabarah Al-Daradji, who previously collaborated on such documentaries as Ahlaam, Son of Babylon, and Iraq: War, Love, God, & Madness, with Atia directing and Mohamed producing, codirect In My Mother’s Arms, shooting it on film with handheld cameras that give it the look and feel of a fictional narrative, except it’s all too true. The brothers include no talking heads or so-called experts examining the situation and don’t pull at the heartstrings by manipulating emotions, instead telling the story like a mini-thriller as Husham tries every avenue possible to help preserve a better future for the children under his care. Interestingly, the film, produced in association with Al-Jazeera English, has taken some heat for not providing information on how people who see it can help, opening a debate as to the purpose and function of such socially relevant and important documentaries.