twi-ny recommended events

ELIZABETH CATLETT: “I AM THE BLACK WOMAN”

Installation view of “Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist and All That It Implies,” including Target Practice, Political Prisoner, and Black Unity (photo by Paula Abreu Pita)

ELIZABETH CATLETT: A BLACK REVOLUTIONARY AND ALL THAT IT IMPLIES
Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway at Washington St.
Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, Morris A. and Meyer Schapiro Wing, fourth floor
Through January 19, $14-$20 ($17-$25 including “Solid Gold”)
www.brooklynmuseum.org

“Unfortunately, for me, I was refused [a visa to enter the United States] on the grounds that, as a foreigner, there was a possibility I would interfere in social or political problems, and thus, I constituted a threat to the well-being of the United States of America,” Washington, DC-born artist Elizabeth Catlett said in 1970. “To the degree and in the proportion that the United States constitute a threat to Black People, to that degree and more, do I hope I have earned that honor. For I have been, and am currently, and always hope to be a Black Revolutionary Artist, and all that it implies!”

This is the last weekend to see “Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist and All That It Implies” at the Brooklyn Museum, a revelatory show that traces Catlett’s extraordinary career as an artist, teacher, and activist. Divided into ten sections, including “I Am the Black Woman,” “Roots and Awakening,” “Motherhood and Family,” and “The Black Woman Speaks,” the exhibit features more than two hundred objects, from sculpture, painting, and drawing to linocuts, lithographs, political posters, and ephemera (documents, archival photographs, scrapbooks, postcards, pamphlets).

Elizabeth Catlett, three versions of Sharecropper (photo by Paula Abreu Pita)

Born in 1915, Catlett earned degrees from Howard and the University of Iowa, studying with Loïs Mailou Jones, James A. Porter, James Lesesne Wells, Grant Wood, H. W. Janson, and Henry Stinson. In 1946, her Rosenwald Fellowship, to work on a “series of lithographs, paintings, and sculptures on the role of the Negro woman in the fight for democratic rights in the history of America,” led her to Mexico, where she joined the revolutionary art collective Taller de Gráfica Popular, became a Mexican citizen, and married artist Francisco “Pancho” Mora, her partner for fifty-five years.

Catlett, known informally as Betty, amassed a remarkable output that is wonderfully organized by Dalila Scruggs of the Smithsonian, Catherine Morris of the Brooklyn Museum, and Mary Lee Corlett of the National Gallery, spread across numerous rooms. Among the works to watch out for are poignant oil on canvas and linocut renderings of Sharecropper, perhaps her most famous image; the “I Am the Black Woman” series, which unfolds in a poetic narrative; a trio of heads on a horizontal plinth; several heart-wrenching depictions of a mother and child; Target Practice, a bronze bust of a head with a circular target in front of it; Black Unity, a cedar sculpture with two faces on one side and a large, clenched fist on the other; a foil screenprint and life-size sculpture of Angela Davis, each bursting with shocking color; bronze maquettes for public art statues of Mahalia Jackson and Sojourner Truth; and the stunning Floating Family, created for the Chicago Public Library, in which a mother and daughter, carved from the trunk of a primavera tree, reach out and join hands, floating horizontally so people can walk under them. There are also three videos of her at work.

In her “Statement of Plan” for the Rosenwald Fellowship, Catlett wrote, “Negro women in America have long suffered under the double handicap of race and sex. Because of subtle American propaganda in the movies, radio and stage, they have come to be generally regarded as good cooks, housemaids and nurses and little else. At this time when we are fighting an all out war against tyranny and oppression, it is extremely important that the picture of Negro women as participants in this fight, throughout the history of America, be sharply drawn. . . . It is my earnest desire to portray this history of Negro womanhood in lithography, painting and sculpture and to send these portrayals to Negro and white colleges so that young men and women, especially in the south, can get some idea of the contributions of Negro American women.”

EInstallation view of “Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist and All That It Implies,” including Bather, Floating Family, Mahalia Jackson, New Orleans, and Sojourner (photo by Paula Abreu Pita)

Catlett — who died in 2012 in her home studio in Cuernavaca at the age of ninety-six and is survived by three sons, ten grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren — concluded her Rosenwald statement by explaining, “As to my future plans, I want to establish myself as an artist so that I can develop, as I feel that my greatest contribution to the forward progress of the Negro can be made in this field. The opportunity to devote one year to painting and sculpture would be of extreme importance in realizing this aim.”

As “Elizabeth Catlett: A Black Revolutionary Artist and All That It Implies” displays, Catlett made the most of that opportunity, leaving behind a legacy of extreme importance.

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

DUKE BLUEBEARD’S CASTLE IS “SO THRILLING!!!” AT JAPAN SOCIETY

Sujin Kim reimagines Shūji Terayama’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle as macabre Harajuku burlesque at Japan Society (photo © Ayumi Sakamoto)

DUKE BLUEBEARD’S CASTLE
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
January 15-18, $36-$48
www.japansociety.org
utrfest.org

Korean-Japanese director Sujin Kim’s macabre Harajuku burlesque adaptation of Shūji Terayama’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle is an exhilarating two hours of nonstop fun, a wildly imaginative celebration of all that angura, or Japanese underground, unconventional theater, has to offer. For the show, which runs January 15–18 at Japan Society as part of the Under the Radar festival, Kim has brought together an inspiring multidisciplinary cast of more than thirty, including the tantalizing cabaret duo Kokusyoku Sumire, consisting of soprano vocalist and accordionist Yuka and violinist Sachi, who wear adorable outfits with light-up rabbit ears; magician Syun Shibuya, who, in a sharp-fitting tux, does card tricks, pulls doves out of a hat, and dazzles with mind-boggling costume changes; the delightful aerialist Miho Wakabayashi, who has been detailing her New York City trip here; and the experimental Japanese company Project Nyx, which was founded in 2006 by Kim’s wife, Kanna Mizushima, and specializes in “entertainment Bijo-geki, all-female cross-dressing theater.”

We get a taste of what’s to come when, early on, the stage manager (Misa Homma) tells Judith (Rei Fujita), who is portraying Bluebeard’s prospective seventh wife and closely checking the script, “You know what? — Things don’t always follow the script, y’know? Let’s see your improv muscles!”

The narrative regularly pops in and out of the Bluebeard fairy tale, which was written in 1697 by French author Charles Perrault; the self-referential story of the staging of the show; and the acknowledgment that it is being held at Japan Society, maintaining an improvisatory feel throughout.

“Wait, you’re saying the stage manager is doubling as the costume designer’s assistant in this production?” Bluebeard’s first wife (Miki Yamazaki) says to the stage manager while Carrot the Prompter (Ran Moroji) rubs her feet. Carrot had just amateurishly spoken a stage direction out loud: “Whistles dramatically and pretends to be a bird flying away.”

The play unfolds at a furious pace, so fast that it’s sometimes difficult to read the English surtitles, which are projected on small, raised monitors at the left and right sides; it can get a little frustrating, as you don’t want to miss a second of what’s happening onstage.

Asuka Sasaki’s kawai costumes and the far-out, colorful wigs are spectacular, like the best cosplay comic-con contest ever, with circuslike lighting by Tsuguo Izumi + RISE and enveloping sound by Takashi Onuki. Choreographer Taeko Okawa takes advantage of every piece of Satoshi Otsuka’s set, highlighted by seven white doors that flip to seven mirrors held by the seven wives in slinky black. As they dance with the mirrors, reflections shimmer throughout the space.

Kokusyoku Sumire’s songs are charming and engaging, including “[Doppelgänger],” in which they explain, “Even if I hide perfectly / There are times when misfortune finds me. / If I were to suppress this tormenting pain, / Would I be allowed to wish for your happiness?,” and poetic, as when they sing, “Walking in shadows, careful not to stumble, counting to nine, who are you? / The moonlight is full, playing the song of joy. If I close my eyes, I should be able to see everything.”

Dance with seven door-mirrors is a highight of Duke Bluebeard’s Castle (photo © Ayumi Sakamoto)

The scene titles in the script are not projected on the monitors but give a good idea of what audiences are in store for, including “The Bride in the Bathtub,” “A Goblin Peeks from Behind the Curtain,” “Don’t ruin my script with your life,” and “The Maestro of the Puppet Killers.” In “A Pig and a Rose,” which features some of the most hilarious dialogue in the play, Copula the Attendant (Chisato Someya) complains to the second wife (Yoshika Kotani) that the seventh wife has been miscast: “Her expressions are our hand-me-down, her heart is like a plastic trash can, and oh, her face — is the stuff that splashes out from an overflowing pit latrine. . . . She is Madam’s used tampon! Madam’s vomit — her face is fit for a manhole cover in a sewer!” The second wife is overjoyed, proclaiming, “So thrilling!!! Insults are divine, don’t you agree, Judith?”

Fujita and Homma stand out in the fantastic cast, which also features Ruri Nanzoin as Coppélius the puppeteer, You Yamagami as the costume designer, Haruka Yoshida as the debt collector, Nozomi Yamada as the actor, Yume Tsukioka as Aris, Hinako Tezuka as Teles, Kaho Asai as the magician’s assistant, Wakabayashi as the fourth wife, Mizushima as the fifth wife, Sayaka Ito as the third wife, and Mayu Kasai as wife number six. Don’t worry if you can’t keep it all straight; just let the extravaganza dazzle you time and time again.

Kim has a dream of presenting Terayama’s work in a tent along the New York City waterfront. Here’s hoping that’s next for this immensely talented creator.

[There will be a preshow lecture on Terayama by UCLA professor emerita Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei at 6:30 on January 17. Ticket holders on January 17 and 18 are invited to see the current exhibit, “Bunraku Backstage,” in the Japan Society Gallery; there is also a display of rare Terayama artifacts on view, including scripts, letters, photos, and more from the La MaMa Archive.]

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

TALKING RICE COOKERS EXPLORE TWENTY YEARS OF KOREAN HISTORY

Jaha Koo teams up with Hana, Duri, and Seri in Cuckoo (photo by Radovan Dranga)

CUCKOO
Perelman Performing Arts Center (PAC NYC)
251 Fulton St.
January 16-18, $78-$82
pacnyc.org
utrfest.org

On its website, the Korean appliance and electronics company known as Cuckoo explains that it “hopes to continue to reach diverse audiences and captivate them with products that make life simpler.”

For nearly eight years, South Korean artist Jaha Koo has been reaching diverse audiences and captivating them with his inventive play Cuckoo, in which he traces the last twenty years of Korean history with the help of three talkative Cuckoo rice cookers, Hana, Duri, and Seri, who speak to him in the isolation, or golibmuwon, that he is experiencing.

Cuckoo, which debuted in 2017, is the middle section of Koo’s Hamartia Trilogy, which began with Lolling and Rolling in 2015 and concluded with The History of Korean Western Theatre in 2020.

“Conceptually, it focuses on how the inescapable past tragically affects our lives today,” the forty-year-old Koo says about the three works in total.

Koo is now bringing the fifty-five-minute Cuckoo to PAC NYC for four shows January 16–18 as part of the Under the Radar festival; the 7:00 performance on January 17 will be followed by a discussion moderated by South Korean playwright Hansol Jung, whose daring works include Wolf Play and Merry Me.

Koo is responsible for the concept, direction, music, text, and video and performs with the cookers; the Cuckoo hacking is by Idella Craddock, with scenography and media operation by Eunkyung Jeong.

In case Cuckoo makes you hungry, Cuckoo the company promises, “Whether you enjoy sticky rice, soft grains, or the ability to whip up an array of dishes with minimal effort — we’ve got a rice cooker to meet any need!”

Update: Jaha Koo’s Cuckoo is an intimate, deeply personal investigation of grief and loss, as seen through the lens of colonialist capitalism. Divided into four sections, “Cuckoo,” “Jerry,” “Robert Rubin,” and “Screen,” the fifty-five-minute multimedia performance focuses on the $55 billion bailout of South Korea by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 1997, orchestrated in part by Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin. In a press release at the time, Rubin wrote, “South Korea and the IMF reached an agreement today on an economic reform program that commits Korea to important policy adjustments aimed at restoring stability.”

It didn’t turn out quite as planned.

Jaha Koo links rice cookers, the financial crisis, isolation, and suicide in Cuckoo (photo by Radovan Dranga)

One of the results of the bailout was the success of the Cuckoo brand rice cooker, as well as a rising suicide rate. After video of social and political unrest is projected on a large screen, Koo sits down at a table with three Cuckoo rice cookers: Hana, Duri, and Seri, which have been hacked so they can play music and, in the cases of Duri and Seri, talk to Koo and each other, including hilarious insults, complete with four-letter words.

Switching between English and Korean, Koo discusses the tragic death of his best friend, Jerry; “The Happiness Project” espoused by Robert Rubin’s daughter-in-law, Gretchen Rubin; a solitary worker responsible for fixing broken protective screens in the Seoul Metropolitan Subway; his relationship with his father, who asks, “Hello, my son, did you have a good meal?”; and the vast number of suicides in South Korea, with graphic footage of actual attempts.

He also shares the term “golibmuwon,” which essentially means helpless isolation.

It’s a bittersweet tale that blends in a strong dose of humor until a haunting darkness prevails, sadly as relevant today as it was when Koo first performed it in 2017, with South Korea currently experiencing economic and political distress, its highest suicide rates ever, and even, for a moment, martial law.

The best rice cooker in the world might be able to provide a consistent, dependable base for a good meal, but it can’t build a strong-enough foundation to guarantee a solid future for a nation in turmoil.

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

SAILING UNDER THE RADAR: BLUEBEARD AT JAPAN SOCIETY

Sujin Kim reimagines Shūji Terayama’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle at Japan Society (photo by Yoji Ishizawa)

DUKE BLUEBEARD’S CASTLE
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
January 15-18, $36-$48
www.japansociety.org
utrfest.org

In his 1697 book Histoires ou contes du temps passé, French author Charles Perrault adapted such famous folktales as “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Cinderella,” “Puss in Boots,” and “Sleeping Beauty.” Though not quite as well known, particularly when it comes to children, Perrault’s “Bluebeard,” about a duke who has a penchant for moving on from wife to wife in not the most legal of ways, has been turned into plays, short stories, novels, ballets, operas, and movies.

Multidisciplinary Japanese artist Shūji Terayama, who died in 1983 at the age of forty-seven, was obsessed with the story of Bluebeard. “The Japanese countercultural icon Terayama Shūji produced three projects in the years 1961–1979 that rework the legend of Bluebeard, often intermixing the folkloric narrative with contemporary lived reality,” Steven C. Ridgely wrote in Marvels & Tales in 2013. “This was a countervailing tendency to the tide of texts emerging at the time that demythologize Bluebeard by means of historical figures such as Gilles de Rais. Terayama’s work on Bluebeard might best be understood as an effort to frustrate the mapping of folklore and legend to practices of the past and to insist on the liberational potential of taking possession of narratives in the folkloric mode.”

Adding a macabre Harajuku burlesque touch to the proceedings, which take place backstage at a Japanese theater, Korean-Japanese director Sujin Kim has reimagined Terayama’s version in Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, running January 15–18 at Japan Society as part of the Under the Radar festival. The North American premiere of this new production is performed by Project Nyx, an all-female avant-garde ensemble led by Kanna Mizushima; avant-garde cabaret duo Kokusyoku Sumire; and magician Syun Shibuya.

There will be a reception following the January 15 show, an artist Q&A after the January 16 performance, and a preshow lecture on Terayama by UCLA professor emerita Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei at 6:30 on January 17. Ticket holders on January 16, 17, and 18 are invited to see the current exhibit, “Bunraku Backstage,” in the Japan Society Gallery; there is also a display of rare Terayama artifacts on view, including scripts, letters, photos, and more from the La MaMa Archive.

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

BLIND JUSTICE: RUNNING FOR LIBERATION AT ST. ANN’S

A woman (Ainaz Azarhoush) and her husband (Mohammad Reza Hosseinzadeh) contemplate freedom in Blind Runner (photo by Amir Hamja)

BLIND RUNNER
St. Ann’s Warehouse
45 Water St.
Tuesday – Sunday through January 24, $49-$69
stannswarehouse.org
utrfest.org

In September 2022, Iranian journalist Niloofar Hamedi was incarcerated for reporting on the controversial death of Mahsa Amini, a twenty-two-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman who died in a hospital shortly after being arrested for not wearing a hijab; the case was followed around the world. While in prison, Hamedi began running while her husband, Mohamad Hosein Ajoroloo, ran outside the building, preparing for a marathon. In June 2023, he told the New York Times, “Niloofar believes that enduring prison is like training for a marathon. Daily suffering. But imagining the joy of the finish line cancels out all the pain.”

That story, and others involving political imprisonments, served as inspiration for Iranian writer-director Amir Reza Koohestani’s haunting Blind Runner, continuing at St. Ann’s Warehouse through January 24 as part of the Under the Radar festival.

Éric Soyer’s set is a deep, dark area with two long, horizontal lines of light. At either side is a small camera, the projections of which appear on the large screen in back. The sublime video design is by Yasi Moradi and Benjamin Krieg, with stark lighting by Soyer, tense music by Phillip Hohenwarter and Matthias Peyker, and contemporary costumes by Negar Nobakht Foghani.

As the audience enters the space, actors Ainaz Azarhoush and Mohammad Reza Hosseinzadeh are already onstage, standing in concerned poses. Soon they each approach stanchions on opposite sides where they alternately write and erase such morphing phrases as “Based on a true story,” “Based on an actual story,” “Based on true history,” “Based on an actual history,” “Based on a factual history,” “Based on fiction history,” “Fact,” and “Fiction” before the husband concludes, “This is a theater.” Thus, we are instantly reminded that while what we are about to experience is artifice, it has been born out of fact, but whose facts? The playwright’s? The Iranian government’s? Ours in New York City, in America?

At first, the husband visits the wife once a week and they talk every day on the phone; in between their meetings, they run across the stage, each in a different strip of light, moving in opposing directions that signal the growing gap between them. She points out to him that everything they are saying and doing is being closely watched and recorded, like they are trapped in a spiderweb. While he values the visits and phone calls, she is becoming tired of them, as she has to carefully parse her words so as not to get him — or her — in trouble. This lack of communication frustrates him, since he wants to know the truth about how she is being treated and is adamant that he will get her released. “False hopes are worse than despair,” she admonishes.

Running is at the center of Amir Reza Koohestani’s Blind Runner at St. Ann’s Warehouse (photo by Amir Hamja)

He asks her, “Why don’t you just give me a ring to say that you’re fine?” She quickly answers, “Why should I lie?”

At her request, he meets with a blind marathoner named Parissa (Azarhoush) who lost her sight during a political protest and wants him to be her guide runner for an upcoming competition in Paris. He is apprehensive about it, but his wife thinks it is a good opportunity. “It’s not just running,” he explains. “It’s a matter of rhythm. You need to be in sync together.”

It’s clear he is not just talking about his potential professional relationship with Parissa, especially when his wife is not worried that he his traveling to Europe with another woman as the contentious Illegal Migration Bill is about to be passed in England.

Presented by the Mehr Theatre Group in Persian with English supertitles, the sixty-minute Blind Runner is a bleak, mysterious, and deeply involving play about the physical, psychological, and emotional choices we make as individuals and as a society and the consequences that result. Justice around the world can be blind, but the answer is not running away, or remaining silent, even as the risks grow and private and public freedom is jeopardized.

Koohestani himself started running after the Green Movement in Iran was suppressed, an activity he considered “an alternative to the demonstrations that were no longer being held and the freedom that had left us again for the umpteenth time,” he writes in a program note. His hypnotic play, also inspired by the case of imprisoned student activist Zia Nabavi, captures that feeling, with its hard-hitting dialogue and striking visuals that zoom in on the characters’ faces and merge their bodies when they are running, leading to a powerful conclusion. It is sometimes difficult to know where to look — at the two actors, at their projections on the screen, or at the supertitles above — but Azarhoush and Hosseinzadeh deliver beautifully human performances that ground the narrative.

In conjunction with Blind Runner, St. Ann’s is hosting the exhibition “Unseen Iran: A Celebration of Iranian Art & Culture,” featuring works by Tahmineh Monzavi (street photography), Shirin Neshat (the Villains triptych and Divine Rebellion related to the Arab Spring riots), Bahar Behbahani (Warp and Woof from her “Through a Wave, Darkly” series ), and Safarani Sisters (the video painting Awake) in addition to a Persian Tea Room where you can sip tea and relax before the show.

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

FORTY YEARS OF EVIDENCE: RONALD K. BROWN AT THE JOYCE

Ronald K. Brown/EVIDENCE returns to the Joyce for the company’s fortieth anniversary

Ronald K. Brown/EVIDENCE, a Dance Company
The Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Ave. at 19th St.
January 14–19 (curtain chat January 15), $52-$72
www.joyce.org
www.evidencedance.com

One of the highlights of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s recently completed winter season at New York City Center was a new, even more exhilarating twenty-fifth anniversary production of Ronald K. Brown’s 1999 Grace The piece will now be performed by Brown’s Brooklyn-based Evidence, a Dance Company, as part of its winter season at the Joyce — and the troupe’s fortieth anniversary. Running January 14-19, it consists of two programs, both beginning with the company premiere of 2001’s Serving Nia, a sequel to Grace, set to music by drummer Roy Brooks and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and performed by eight dancers. That will be followed by 2005’s Order My Steps, a work for nine dancers, with music by Terry Riley, Bob Marley, and David Ivey and text by the late actor Chadwick Boseman, delivered live by his brother Kevin.

Program A concludes with the spectacular Grace, which features twelve dancers moving to a melding of modern dance and West African idioms as only Brown and co-choreographer Arcell Cabuag can do, with music by Duke Ellington, Roy Davis Jr., and Fela Aníkúlápó Kuti and live vocals by Gordon Chambers; the beats will stay with you long after the show is over. Program B ends with 2001’s High Life, a work for eight dancers, set to music by Oscar Brown Jr., Nikki Giovanni, Nikengas, Kuti, and Wumni.

Evidence’s spectacular costumes, by Omotayo Wunmi Olaiya, are always a treat all their own, as is the lighting, by Tsubasa Kamei, helping make every evening with Ronald K. Brown a special event, as it has been across its forty-year history.

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

SELF-REALIZING PROGNOSES: LOST IN SPACE WHILE STUCK IN A CLOSET

The 7th Voyage of Egon Tichy [Redux] is a dazzling multimedia theatrical experience (photo by Maria Baranova)

THE 7th VOYAGE OF EGON TICHY [REDUX]
New York Theatre Workshop Fourth Street Theatre
83 East Fourth St. between Second & Third Aves.
Through February 2, $30-$50 (Sunday livestreams $19)
utrfest.org
www.nytw.org

During the pandemic, Joshua William Gelb transformed his eight-square-foot closet in the East Village into a pristine white digital stage, where he presented awe-inspiring productions he christened Theater in Quarantine, using cutting-edge digital technology for such livestreamed shows as Heather Christian’s I Am Sending You the Sacred Face: One Brief Musical Act with Mother Teresa, Footnote for the End of Time based on a story by Jorge Luis Borges, and Nosferatu: A 3D Symphony of Horror in addition to smaller works that displayed the wide range of performance he and his collaborators could do with the space.

It was an ingenious concept that captured the feelings so many of us experienced when theaters were closed and many of us started working remotely from home, cut off from seeing friends and relatives for long periods of time. One of the shows, The 7th Voyage of Egon Tichy, adapted from sci-fi author Stanislaw Lem’s The Star Diaries, explored that loneliness in the extreme, introducing the audience to an astronaut on a solo mission who needs to repair his ship’s rudder, a two-person job. Along the way he encounters vortices that result in multiple versions of himself who have to team up if the spacecraft is to be fixed.

Created by director Jonathan Levin, playwright Josh Luxenberg, and actor Gelb, the thirty-six-minute online Tichy has now been reimagined as The 7th Voyage of Egon Tichy [Redux], a staggeringly inventive hourlong multimedia play running through February 2 at New York Theatre Workshop’s intimate Fourth Street Theatre, as part of the Under the Radar festival.

Joshua William Gelb plays multiple versions of an astronaut in technological marvel (photo by Maria Baranova)

Peiyi Wong’s set consists of two large screens on either side of a replica of Gelb’s closet, with various small doors that open and close inside. A smartphone on a tripod focuses on the closet, which has a slit in the back that allows outer space to be visible via a green screen. Marika Kent’s lighting setup and M. Florian Staab’s sound and original music immerses the audience in the action. All of the technical elements may be visible, but that doesn’t mean you’ll have any idea how they pull off their dazzling magic, mastered by video designer Jesse Garrison.

Tichy’s ship has been damaged by a meteor the size of a lima bean, putting him parsecs off course, and he is unable to repair it by himself. Thinking he is having a dream, he encounters a second version of himself, but he has traveled through a time vortex and it is actually him one day in the future. “I need your help,” Tuesday Tichy tells Monday Tichy, who says, “You look so realistic.” Tuesday explains, “I am! This is all real.” Monday: “This room looks just like my room.” Tuesday: “It is! I was you yesterday. And I didn’t listen. But if you do exactly what I —”

The scene is startling for several reasons. First, the real Gelb is in the closet, standing against the wall, his head on a pillow, but on the screens, he is lying down on the floor, as the video has turned the closet horizontal. Second, the real Gelb is interacting with a prerecorded Gelb; while there are two Gelbs in the video closet, only one is live, and it quickly becomes clear that it requires precision timing to make it work, including the use of such props as a wrench, pliers, the spacesuit, a frying pan, and a bloody towel. And third, it echoes the solitary nature of the pandemic, when we often lost track of time and ached to be with others, an emotion that is furthered when the vortex adds more future Tichys and the plot moves from the sleeping quarters and the kitchen to the vestibule, bathroom, and main cabin.

Lem, who also wrote such novels as Solaris, The Invincible, and Fiasco, constructed a fantastical universe for Tichy that spans numerous tales. Gelb is hilarious as multiple Tichys, using the doors to magically disappear, go up and down between floors, and angle his body so it might be awkward in the vertical closet but makes sense in the horizontal video. He never misses a beat as more and more Egons (spelled Igons by Lem) join him in the cramped space. It’s a tour de force for everyone involved, both as it relates to the pandemic and the world finally getting on with life outside and lending insight into how each of us tries to understand and substantiate our identities and our place with others in a forever-changed environment that we cannot survive on our own.

In an introduction to one of the Tichy books, Professor A. S. Tarantoga of the Associated Institutes of Tichology, Tichography, and Tichonomics Descriptive, Comparative, and Prognostic posits, “In conclusion I should like to announce the establishment in our Association of a special futurological section, which, in keeping with the spirit of the times, will make available — using the method of so-called self-realizing prognoses — those star journeys of I. Tichy which as yet he has not undertaken, nor indeed intends to.”

It’s an uncanny way to meld past, present, and future, which forms the core of who we are as humans, in print, online, and in person.

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