twi-ny recommended events

YO-HO-HO! A PYRATE MUSICAL ON A RED HOOK BARGE

Black Sam Bellamy (Danny Hayward) and Paulsgrave Williams (Lauren Molina) anticipate trouble ahead in The Royal Pyrate (photo by Geve Penaflor)

THE ROYAL PYRATE
Lehigh Valley Railroad Barge No. 79
Waterfront Museum, 290 Conover St., Red Hook
Saturday & Sunday through August 31, $35-$65
www.theroyalpyrate.com

“Ahoy there, maties! I know we all be feelin’ the weight o’ the world crushin’ down on us of late: a system which only seems to serve thems already on top, where ye’re afraid that if ye get hurt, or sick, ye’ll never find o’ way o’ diggin’ yer way outta the grave,” Paulsgrave Williams (Lauren Molina) says at the beginning of The Royal Pyrate. “There always be gold for wars, but never for our strugglin’ families. Life sure is difficult in 1715! But . . . that ain’t no reason we can’t have a bit o’ fun together tonight, eh?”

There’s more than a bit o’ fun to be had aboard Lehigh Valley Railroad Barge No. 79 in Red Hook, where the world premiere musical, featuring music and lyrics by Jason Landon Marcus and a book by Chas LiBretto, continues Saturday and Sunday nights through August 31.

Home to the Waterfront Museum owned and operated by Captain David Sharps, the barge has presented such previous shows as the Drama Desk–nominated The Wind and the Rain: A story about Sunny’s Bar, which related the true tale of the next-door Red Hook institution Sunny’s Bar, and Port Cities NY, which explored the sociocultural and –economic impact of the seventeenth-century Dutch trade routes via a game called “The Settlers of Manahatta.”

The rousing opening number, “Roll the Bones,” sets the tone for the hundred-minute show, which starts out in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, in 1715. Paulsgrave, Tommy Toothacher (accordionist Charley Layton), Ferguson (bassist Charlie Bennett), and Crabby Conrad (guitarist Marcus) are gambling when they are joined by their former colleague, master smuggler Black Sam Bellamy (Danny Hayward). Sam has returned because his girlfriend, Mary Hallet (Maggie Likcani), is pregnant and he needs fast money. Luck is not going his way, so he reveals a treasure map he has obtained that gives the location of where sixteen Spanish trips carrying riches have sunk.

Mary enters, disappointed that instead of getting a real job, Sam has opted to go back to his merry band of pirates, a word that offends Paulsgrave. “Pirates . . . attack ships. Kill the captain. Steal the cargo,” she explains. “Smugglers . . . selflessly distribute that cargo to the poor folks that needs ’em.” Tommy adds, “For a price.”

After Mary delivers the didactic song “New World,” which includes such lyrics as “If you really want a new world / Make sure you’re fighting the right fights. / We need inalienable rights. / Monetary compensation / Breeds corruption in a nation. / Citizens will need to have an independent core / And stop wasting time fighting a rich man’s war,” Simone Van Vorst (flutist Tais Szilagi) announces that Rev. Treat (Korie Lee Blossey) is looking for Sam, claiming he stole a corpse from the harbor; Treat is also upset with Mary because of her determination to change the status quo and expand the rights of the common people.

On their search for the treasure, they are accosted by a pirate ship captained by Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard (Blossey), an imposing figure who deliciously declares, “Who’s got the beard that be most feared? Who to the mouth of the devil hath steered? . . . Pipe ye down then, shake a leg! / Seek me the captain and roll out a keg / Drop anchor, cut out the sails, I say / Stir not ye rascals or it’s hell ye’ll pay!” In addition, Sam and his ship, the Whydah, have made another enemy in Captain Beer (Layton) and his god-fearing crew, who want to see Sam hanged.

Meanwhile, Treat, Henrietta Hinkley (Marcus), Deidre Dimmock (Layton), Gilda Gilpen (Bennett), and the rest of the villagers in Wellfleet have accused Mary of witchcraft, wanting to see her hanged as well.

Thus, treasure might await some, a noose others.

Blackbeard (Korie Lee Blossey) is not about to back away from sunken treasure in musical aboard Red Hook barge (photo by Geve Penaflor)

The Royal Pyrate is based on the true story of Black Sam Bellamy, Mary “Goody” Hallet, Edward “Blackbeard” Teach, Paulsgrave Williams, the Rev. Samuel Treat, and the sunken Spanish treasure ships. In 1980, lifelong Cape Codder Barry Clifford discovered the Whydah and began salvaging it. However, far more is known about Bellamy, for example, than Hallet, so LiBretto (Melville on the Shore, Cyclops: A Rock Opera) and director Emily Abrams (Eeeeeeeee, Superfeats) try to fill in the gaps, although the pacing can sometimes be as choppy as the water outside. The night I went, it was windy and raining, so the barge occasionally lurched this way and that, which actually enhanced the overall immersive experience.

The audience, some of whom are asked to participate in small ways, is seated in two rows on three sides of the center space, the band occupying the fourth. Among the playful props are barrels, oars, swords, guns, playing cards, a small telescope, doubloons, and skeletons. Juli Abene and Alex Abene’s period costumes depict scalawags, rapscallions, buccaneers, and sea wolves — which are also the four levels of ticket prices — and are highlighted by Hallet’s petticoats, several cool pirate hats, and numerous vests. Marcus’s (Sally May, Cyclops: A Rock Opera) score melds English ballads, Irish folk, sea shanties, and West African and Caribbean melodies, with such standouts as “Roll the Bones,” “The Beard,” belted out by Blossey with operatic grandeur, and the rollicking finale, “Tell No Tales.”

The band crafts a jaunty sound while some members double as minor characters. Molina is an engaging host, and Blossey’s booming baritone and large physical presence can barely be contained by the rocking barge. Likcani is understated as Hallet, complementing the more boisterous Hayward as Bellamy.

And yes, there are plenty of Aaarrrr!s throughout, along with a healthy dose of self-referential humor.

Also, be sure to get there early — taking the ferry is highly recommended — and soak in the barge itself, as Sharps has lovingly preserved it, with fascinating details galore.

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

HOLLYWOOD BABBLE-ON: CHANNELING AVA GARDNER, GENE WILDER, AND GILDA RADNER OFF-BROADWAY

Elizabeth McGovern wrote and stars in off-Broadway premiere of Ava: The Secret Conversations (photo by Jeff Lorch)

AVA: THE SECRET CONVERSATIONS
New York City Center Stage I
131 West 55th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through September 14, $63-$219
avagardnerplay.com
nycitycenter.org

There are currently two off-Broadway premieres that feature fine performances by actors portraying film and television royalty, but each play struggles to get past frame stories that detract from the overall production.

Oscar-nominated actress Elizabeth McGovern wrote and stars in Ava: The Secret Conversations, a touring show running through September 14 at New York City Center Stage I. It’s based on the 2013 biography Ava: The Secret Conversations by British journalist Peter Evans and Oscar-nominated Hollywood legend Ava Gardner, compiled from interview sessions between the two in Gardner’s lavish London apartment initiated in 1988. Gardner had suffered a stroke in 1986 and had not appeared on camera since.

The play opens with Gardner (McGovern) in silhouette, calling Evans (Aaron Costa Gani) on the phone, talking about possibly ending her life. The narrative then cuts back to the first time they spoke; Gardner had chosen Evans to ghostwrite her memoir for Dick Snyder at Simon and Schuster. Evans, who wants to move away from celebrity gossip and instead work on his novel, thought it was a gag and insults her, but he soon realizes from his agent, Ed Victor (John Tufts), that the project is the real deal. While Evans gets excited about the prospect of exploring the Golden Age of Hollywood, Gardner just wants to barrel through it without making it a kiss-and-tell.

“I gotta write a book, or sell the jewels. I’m kinda sentimental about the jewels,” she admits to him.

He wants to start the memoir with her childhood on a farm in North Carolina, but she wants to talk about her recent stroke. Meanwhile, Victor, in voice-over, advises him, “Dick Snyder says he wants you to ask her about it. Frank’s penis. . . . I can get close to 800K if she talks Sinatra.”

Evans and Gardner quickly get down to business; she reveals the details of meeting and marrying Mickey Rooney, Artie Shaw, and Sinatra and enjoying a lot of sex. They touch on such films as The Killers, Mogambo, The Sun Also Rises, and The Barefoot Contessa and such key figures as Marlon Brando, John Ford, Howard Hughes, and Omar Sharif. Alex Basco Koch’s projections range from archival news footage to clips from Gardner’s films, immersing the audience in her glamorous world.

As she recounts her past relationships, Gani morphs into Rooney, Shaw, and Sinatra, re-creating scenes from Gardner’s past, focusing on her three husbands; none of whom were saints. Evans, who was married with two kids, spends a lot of time with Gardner, who does not hide her flirtatious nature from him. Although she doesn’t have full use of her left arm because of the stroke, she smokes and drinks and curls up seductively on the couch, which initially bothers Evans — until it doesn’t.

Just as Gardner is really opening up, outside forces suddenly stop the interviews and put the kibosh on the book. Gardner went on to publish the 1990 memoir Ava: My Story without Evans’s input; it took more than twenty years for Evans to acquire the rights to the interviews and release them in the 2012 book Ava: The Secret Conversations, which is credited to him and Gardner.

“When you get blown up so big, Peter, you end up paper thin,” she tells him late in the play, summarizing her life as well as her attempts to tell her story her way.

British journalist Peter Evans’s (Aaron Costa Gani) life is turned inside out when he is hired to ghostwrite Ava Gardner’s memoir (photo by Jeff Lorch)

McGovern (Time and the Conways, Downton Abbey) is lovely as Gardner; her accent may waver in and out, but her facial gestures, hair (by Matthew Armentrout), and costumes (by Toni-Leslie James) help her transform into the glamorous silver screen star in a mesmerizing performance. Ganis (Bernhardt/Hamlet, Homos or Everyone in America) does not fare as well, primarily because his characters — Evans, Rooney, Shaw, Sinatra — basically steal time away from Gardner, who merits all the attention.

McGovern the writer and Tony-nominated director Moritz von Stuelpnagel (Hand to God, The Thanksgiving Play) are exploring the creative process, but we learn only so much about Evans and instead want to know everything about Gardner. The pace comes to a screeching halt whenever Peter is not speaking with Ava and is instead talking to Ed or someone else; it’s a shame it couldn’t have been a one-woman show, but that would have been a different play.

In addition, there are bothersome plot holes; for example, Evans has a tiny notebook and only occasionally jots down notes, so it seems impossible for him to have gotten so many direct quotes; in actuality, he used a tape recorder, which would have been useful to point out so we don’t wonder about it.

Ava: The Secret Conversations might not be The Killers, Mogambo, or The Night of the Iguana, but it’s also not Ghosts on the Loose, The Sentinel, or The Naked Maja, falling somewhere in the middle of Gardner’s diverse oeuvre.

The whirlwind romance between Gilda Radner (Jordan Kai Burnett) and Gene Wilder (Jonathan Randell Silver) comes to life in off-Broadway premiere (photo by Carol Rosegg)

GENE & GILDA
59E59 Theaters
59 East 59th St. between Park & Madison Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through September 7, $66-$86
212-279-4200
www.59e59.org

Cary Gitter’s Gene & Gilda, a Penguin Rep production running through September 7 at 59E59, details the whirlwind romance between Saturday Night Live superstar Gilda Radner (Jordan Kai Burnett) and comedy legend Gene Wilder (Jonathan Randell Silver). The show opens as Wilder is sitting down for his first interview since Radner’s tragic death. He’s hesitant to discuss his personal life with talk show host Dick Cavett, who appears here only in voice-over.

“I thought we agreed we wouldn’t discuss that,” Wilder says, but Cavett pushes him. “I’d rather keep that off limits,” Wilder answers, but is then interrupted by the sudden apparition of Radner, who declares, “Off limits? You wanna keep me off limits? . . . We can tell our story together. The good, the bad, and the ugly. The whole megillah.” The rest of the eighty-five-minute show flashes between the interview and reenacted scenes from Radner and Wilder’s relationship.

The two met on August 13, 1981, on the set of Hanky Panky, a 1982 comic thriller directed by Sidney Poitier that did not fare very well. At the time, Radner, who was born in 1946 in Detroit, was married to future SNL bandleader G. E. Smith, who had worked on her 1979 one-woman Broadway show, Gilda Radner — Live from New York. Wilder, who was born in 1933 in Milwaukee, had been divorced twice and was coming off the huge success of Stir Crazy, the second of his four collaborations with Richard Pryor. Although Radner knew in advance that she was going to fall in love with Wilder, he took a bit of convincing before being swept away by the gale force that was Gilda Radner. “But — but what about my vertigo, and the comfort handkerchief, and the praying?” he says to her, referring to some of his neuroses. She replies, “I love all of it. We complement each other’s craziness. A match made in meshugas.”

They both suffer creative crises but find solace in each other and their home away from home, the south of France, where they wed in 1984. At one point, Wilder complains that he is only being offered parts in “Crap! Trash! Garbage!,” telling Radner, “I’m seeing clearly for the first time in years! I wanted to be a thespian. When I was a kid, I saw Death of a Salesman on Broadway, and it changed my life. That was art. I studied at the Actors Studio. I wanted to impact people. And now I’m nothing but a, a cheap Hollywood commodity, making stupid comedies like Hanky Panky! No offense.”

Radner reassures him that making people laugh is his gift. “What do you think people would rather do on a Saturday night — watch me give a speech about the hardships of life, or crack up over Roseanne
Roseannadanna? What we do is a — it’s a public service.”

But their idyllic life is turned upside down when Radner falls ill, experiencing mysterious symptoms that doctors cannot diagnose — until it’s too late.

Gene Wilder (Jonathan Randell Silver) looks back at his life with Gilda Radner (Jordan Kai Burnett) in Gene & Gilda (photo by Carol Rosegg)

Christian Fleming’s set features all-white furniture, from a two-section couch and a desk with a typewriter to luggage and a big box (perhaps to make the room seem ghostly or to keep the spotlight more on the couple — except at least twice, the night I went, when the spotlight loses Wilder). Wilder occasionally sits in a black director chair when being interviewed by Cavett; those segments slow down the pace dramatically.

The backdrop is a wall of television monitors where Brian Pacelli’s projections range from hearts and flowers to a shot of the south of France and live video of Wilder answering Cavett’s questions; at the center is a door marked “On the Air,” a constant reminder that we’re watching a TV show. Gregory Gale’s costumes put Wilder in relatively conservative suits and Radner in frumpy yet wacky outfits, while Bobbie Zlotnik’s hair and wigs hit their mark. Sound designer Max Silverman’s treacly score evokes telephone hold music.

In the script, Gitter (The Steel Man, The Sabbath Girl) explains that Gene & Gilda “is a work of fiction, based freely on fact.” Among his sources were Wilder’s 2005 memoir, Kiss Me Like a Stranger, Radner’s posthumous 1989 autobiography, It’s Always Something, and Lisa Dapolito’s 2018 documentary, Love, Gilda, as well as archival footage; although Wilder did sit down with Cavett for an interview in 1991, they did not delve into detail about Radner, instead talking about how ovarian cancer could and should be diagnosed earlier. Director Joe Brancato (The Devil’s Music, The Sabbath Girl) can’t quite find the balance between fact and fiction, fantasy and reality. There is too much telling, describing what happened, and not enough showing.

Burnett (Found, Romy & Michele the Musical), who previously portrayed Radner in a December 2023 workshop reading of Not Ready for Prime Time, a play about SNL’s first five years that is scheduled to debut in New York City in October, is adorable as the determined star, who is not afraid to say what she wants and go after it, although a brief skit in which she channels Roseanne Roseannadanna, Emily Litella, Baba Wawa, Judy Miller, and Candy Slice is a tough challenge.

Silver (Please Continue, Shear Madness!), who portrayed Richard Dreyfuss in regional productions of The Shark Is Broken for the fiftieth anniversary of Jaws, captures the essence of the mild-mannered, tentative Wilder. A scene in which they re-create one of the funniest bits from The Producers — when Max Bialystock (Zero Mostel) attempts to calm down a hysterical Leo Bloom (Wilder) — is another challenge, but there are several lovely moments between them, especially when they dance together.

Gene & Gilda is reminiscent of an episode of Saturday Night Live, with some good sketches, some okay ones, and some, well, not so memorable. It might not be Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Young Frankenstein, or Silver Streak, but it’s also not Hanky Panky, Haunted Honeymoon, or Rhinoceros. It’s more like The Frisco Kid, The Woman in Red, and Quackser Fortune Has a Cousin in the Bronx. And no need to worry; you won’t need your comfort hankie.

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

THE SITE WHERE IT HAPPENED: HAMILTON SING-A-LONG AT THE OLD STONE HOUSE

Fans can sing along to the Hamilton movie at the place where the Battle of Brooklyn happened

HAMILTON SING-A-LONG
Old Stone House & Washington Park
336 Third St., Brooklyn
Thursday, August 14, free with RSVP, 7:30
theoldstonehouse.org

Every summer, the Old Stone House commemorates the August 27, 1776, Battle of Brooklyn, the first military engagement following the signing of the Declaration of Independence on August 2 at the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia. This year the historic site will be hosting “Revolutionary Brooklyn,” including walking tours, a short theatrical farce, a remembrance ceremony, a Constitution handwriting session, and a screening of the 2020 film Hamilton, a live stage recording of the smash 2015 Broadway musical that won eleven Tony Awards and is still running at the Richard Rodgers Theatre.

Directed by Thomas Kail and written by Lin-Manuel Miranda, the film features Miranda as Alexander Hamilton, Leslie Odom Jr. as Aaron Burr, Phillipa Soo as Eliza Hamilton, Renée Elise Goldsberry as Angelica Schuyler, Christopher Jackson as George Washington, Daveed Diggs as Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson, Anthony Ramos as John Laurens and Philip Hamilton, Okieriete Onaodowan as Hercules Mulligan and James Madison, and Jonathan Groff as King George III. On August 14 at 7:30, fans can come to Washington Park and sing along to such favorite numbers as “My Shot,” “Non-Stop,” and “The Room Where It Happens.” Attendees can bring their own lawn chair or blanket and party on the exact place where the Battle of Brooklyn happened 249 years ago; admission is free with advance RSVP.

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

TIME IS ON HIS SIDE: CELEBRATING OLIVIER ASSAYAS AT METROGRAPH

OLIVIER ASSAYAS: OUT OF TIME
Metrograph
7 Ludlow St. between Canal & Hester Sts.
Series begins August 8
metrograph.com

In conjunction with the theatrical release of his latest film, the semiautobiographical Suspended Time, Metrograph will be screening a half-dozen of French writer-director Olivier Assayas’s works, which range from ultracool flicks to boring dramas, but they’re almost always visually stunning, filled with cinematic references and hip music — as well as such stars as Juliette Binoche, Kristen Stewart, Mathieu Amalric, Maggie Cheung, and future director Mia Hansen-Løve, who was Assayas’s partner for fifteen years. The series kicks off August 8 with a sneak preview of the new film in addition to 2018’s Non-Fiction and continues with such other tales as 1998’s Late August, Early September and 2000’s Les Destinées sentimentales.

Metrograph is celebrating the work of Olivier Assayas in retrospective including Summer Hours

SUMMER HOURS (L’HEURE D’ÉTÉ) (Olivier Assayas, 2008)
Friday, August 15, 6:15
Sunday, August 17, 5:35
metrograph.com
www.summerhours.com.au

At their annual family gathering, Frédéric (Charles Berling), Adrienne (Juliette Binoche), and Jérémie (Jérémie Renier) are celebrating their mother’s seventy-fifth birthday. But Hélène (Edith Scob) does not care about the present; instead, she is more concerned with preserving the past and preparing for the future. She pulls aside her oldest, Frédéric (Assayas’s on-screen alter ego), to tell him what to do with her belongings after she’s gone, but he is not ready to think about that. Her house is more like a museum, filled with valuable works of art and furniture that were collected by her uncle, a famous painter who died thirty years before. Frédéric would prefer to keep the house intact, donating a few items to the Musee d’Orsay and saving the rest for the next generation, but Adrienne and Jérémie don’t necessarily feel the same way, and Frédéric’s and Jérémie’s kids fail to see any value in the pieces, including two oil paintings by Camille Corot, begrudgingly noting that they’re from a different era. While Frédéric, a professor who has written a controversial book about the state of the economy, attaches personal memories to each object, Adrienne, a successful designer in New York, is more interested in the functionality of things, and Jérémie, who manages a company that profits from cheap labor in China, sees only monetary value. As the three siblings discuss what to do with their mother’s estate, relationships come into focus, and a long-held secret emerges.

Written and directed by Olivier Assayas (Clean, Demonlover), Summer Hours, which was selected for the 2008 New York Film Festival, is a thoughtful, intelligent slice-of-life story that avoids overbearing cliches and melodramatic moments; there are no blow-ups or overemotional scenes. Instead, the family deals with its situation directly and matter-of-factly, a sort of French Cherry Orchard for the twenty-first century. However, Assayas does include far too many red herrings, little flourishes of cinematic language that seem to set something up that never comes full circle. The project was initiated by the Musee d’Orsay, which had commissioned a group of international directors to make short films related to the institution’s holdings. Assayas’s friend and colleague Hou Hsiao Hsien ended up making the full-length Flight of the Red Balloon, which also starred Binoche. Although the project later fell apart, Assayas combined the idea with the worsening condition of his mother, resulting in a bittersweet and very personal work.

CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA

Juliette Binoche and Kristen Stewart mix fact and fiction in Olivier Assayas’s Clouds of Sils Maria

CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA (Olivier Assayas, 2014)
Friday, August 15, 8:15
Saturday, August 16, 5:25
metrograph.com

The related concepts of time and reality wind through Olivier Assayas’s beautifully poetic, melancholy Clouds of Sils Maria much like actual snakelike clouds slither through the twisting Maloja Pass in the Swiss Alps, as life imitates art and vice versa. Juliette Binoche stars as Maria Enders, a famous French actress who is on her way to Zurich to accept an award for her mentor, playwright Wilhelm Melchior, who eschews such mundane ceremonies. But while en route, Maria and her personal assistant, the extremely attentive and capable Valentine (Kristen Stewart), learn that Wilhelm has suddenly and unexpectedly passed away, and Maria considers turning back, especially when she later finds out that Henryk Wald (Hanns Zischler), an old nemesis, will be there to pay homage to Wilhelm as well, but she decides to go ahead after all. At a cocktail party, Maria meets with hot director Klaus Diesterweg (Lars Eidinger), who is preparing a new stage production of Wilhelm and Maria’s first big hit, The Maloja Snake, but this time Maria would play Helena, an older woman obsessed with ambitious eighteen-year-old Sigrid, the role she originally performed twenty years earlier, to great acclaim. Klaus is planning to cast Lindsay Lohan-like troublemaking star and walking tabloid headline Jo-Ann Ellis (Chloë Grace Moretz) as Sigrid, which does not thrill Maria as her past and present meld together in an almost dreamlike narrative punctuated by the music of Handel and cinematographer Yorick Le Saux’s gorgeous shots of vast mountain landscapes.

CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA

Valentine (Kristen Stewart) and Maria (Juliette Binoche) go in search of the Maloja Snake in the Swiss Alps

Clouds of Sils Maria resonates on many levels, both inside and outside of the main plot and the film itself. Assayas (Boarding Gate, Something in the Air) cowrote André Téchiné’s 1983 film, Rendez-Vous, which was Binoche’s breakthrough; Assayas and Binoche wouldn’t work together again until his 2008 film Summer Hours, similar to the relationship between Wilhelm and Maria. Meanwhile, the story of the play-within-the-film is echoed by the relationship between Maria and Valentine, who are having trouble separating the personal from the professional. It is often difficult to know when the two women are practicing lines and when they are talking about their “real” lives. Binoche (Blue, Caché) is simply extraordinary as Maria, a distressed and anxious woman who is suddenly facing getting older somewhat sooner than expected, while Stewart (The Twilight Saga, On the Road) became the first American woman to win a French César, for Best Supporting Actress, for her sensitive portrayal of Valentine, a strong-willed young woman who might or might not be holding something back. The scenes between the two are riveting as they venture in and out of the reality of the film, their onscreen chemistry building and building till it’s at last ready to ignite. Art, life, cinema, theater, fiction, and reality all come together in Clouds of Sils Maria, as Maria, Assayas, and Binoche take stock of where they’ve been, where they are, and where they’re going.

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

HEROES AND VILLAINS: WELL, I’LL LET YOU GO KEEPS YOU GUESSING

Well, I’ll Let You Go takes place in a reconfigured Space at Irondale (photo by Emilio Madrid)

WELL, I’LL LET YOU GO
The Space at Irondale
85 South Oxford St. between Fulton St. & Lafayette Ave., Brooklyn
Monday to Saturday through September 12, $64 to $141
www.letyougonyc.com

Director Jack Serio turns the vast 6,000-square-foot Space at Irondale, which has 28-foot-high ceilings and can accommodate up to 250 people, into an intimate theatrical venue in his latest sublimely staged drama, Well, I’ll Let You Go, actor Bubba Weiler’s moving playwriting debut about grief and community.

Frank J. Oliva creates a narrow, horizontal set in the large former church nave. An unpainted wooden floor is flanked by the audience of ninety-nine, seated in two rows of folding chairs (the second on risers) on the two long sides. Curtains at either end delineate what we’re told is the family room, which has plain and imaginary furniture that an Our Town–like narrator (Michael Chernus) explains actually consists of a glass-topped circular table, a piano, a television, a fireplace, a big recliner, and an old sectional couch.

The narrator starts things off with a Thornton Wilder–esque introductory monologue.

“The house is in a medium-sized town in the Midwest. Thirty thousand people. One of many towns — nearly identical — that popped up in the early 1800s along the banks of a strong and wide river. Once home to the most fertile farmland in the country, it was slowly and steadily paved
over to become an unremarkable but nice American suburb. Two high schools, a community college. Strip malls, chain restaurants, gravel bike path, riverboat casino. You know the kind of place. Maybe you’re from one. A lot of us are,” he says with great casualness. “The town’s economy — for a long time — was propped up by a factory that manufactured farming equipment and was hit hard when those jobs moved abroad sometime in the early 2000s. Now everyone works at the newly opened Amazon Fulfillment Center. It’s a get-by kind of town and most people do.”

The 1934 farmhouse was purchased in the 1990s by Maggie (Quincy Tyler Bernstine), a teacher, and her husband, Marv, a lawyer who has just died in a tragic situation at a local college. He quickly goes from hero to possible villain as Maggie learns more about what he did in his free time, through a series of one-on-one conversations she has with others who believe they are comforting her.

Michael Chernus serves as a welcoming narrator in Bubba Weiler’s debut play (photo by Emilio Madrid)

Wally (Will Dagger) is a whiny ne’er-do-well with a strange world view who Marv, his cousin, took in when he was down on his luck. “Where would I go anyhow?” he asks at the beginning, having given notice at his Amazon job. When he tells Maggie he is going to sell the car to raise some much-needed cash, she has to remind him that he can’t because it’s actually their car; they just let him use it.

Joanie (Constance Shulman) is a funeral director who needs to plan Marv’s service, presenting Maggie with balloons and samples of carpeting, potpourri, and a photo easel. When Maggie points out that she might not want to have a public funeral, Joanie is flabbergasted. “You can’t just dump the body in the backyard!” she barks. “He’s a figure — now — your husband — a hero. He’s not just, you know, a man — he’s not just yours anymore. He’s yours, of course, but he’s ours.”

Julie (Amelia Workman), Maggie’s sister-in-law — she’s married to Marv’s younger brother, Jeff — shows up with flowers and apologies. The two were best friends growing up but some distance has clearly developed, as Julie discusses Marv’s sacrifice and hints at scandalous gossip surrounding his death.

Jeff (Danny McCarthy), a former navy man, shuffles in next, assuring Maggie that Marv had no secret life and advising that she needs to decide how to proceed. “It’s just there’s a timing to these things,” he says. “The longer we wait the crazier people are gonna get.”

The mysterious Angela (Emily Davis), who has been calling Maggie constantly and not leaving messages, shows up unexpectedly, with yet more shocking news for her. “I don’t know what I’d do,” Angela tells her, if she were in the same situation. That statement is at the heart of Maggie’s dilemma as she gets ready to bury Marv and face life alone.

And then Ashley (Cricket Brown), a waitress at the local club Marv frequented, comes by, wondering what it all means. “Everything we do when a person dies is so weird,” she ponders. “It’s like people have been dying for thousands of years — How have we not figured out how to not be so weird about it always.”

Maggie (Quincy Tyler Bernstine) faces an uncertain future after the tragic death of her husband (photo by Emilio Madrid)

Obie winner Chernus (In the Wake, The Aliens) is warm and inviting as our host, sharing information in a friendly, caring way and watching the action with us, occasionally sitting down in one of two empty chairs in the audience; I could have listened to him all night. Tony nominee Bernstine (Doubt: A Parable, The Amateurs) weaves a complex web as Maggie, who is unpredictable as she contemplates her past, present, and future, searching for her path to grief as others question why she isn’t following societal protocol. In a loose-fitting gray hoodie and baggy pants, Bernstine is onstage the whole hundred minutes, along with Chernus; you can’t take your eyes off either of them. (The costumes are by Avery Reed, with lighting by Stacey Derosier, sound by Brandon Bulls, and original music by Avi Amon).

Serio knows how to put a cast together, and he has another superb ensemble here, even if they are never onstage together, save for a breathtaking surprise as the conclusion approaches. Workman (The Antiquities, Fefu and Her Friends), Dagger (The Antelope Party, Uncle Vanya), Davis (Is This a Room, Singlet), McCarthy (The Minutes, The Antipodes), Shulman (Shhhh, The Best We Could), and Brown (Lobster, This House Is Not a Home) all do their part, eliciting different emotions in every scene.

Drama Desk nominee Weiler, who has also written The Saviors and This Room Is for Everybody and appeared in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and Swing State, shows a keen ear for dialogue and relationships, keeping the audience guessing as the plot intensifies. Drama Desk and Obie winner Serio (Grangeville, Danger and Opportunity, Uncle Vanya, The Animal Kingdom) expertly builds the pace as revelations emerge, balanced by Chernus’s calm demeanor and Bernstine’s poignant depiction of Maggie’s unease and disbelief. Grief has been a popular theater topic since the pandemic, but Serio and Weiler offer a unique perspective. [ed. note: Marin Ireland replaces Bernstine for the last two weeks of the run, due to a previous commitment.]

At the preview I saw, there was an issue with the sound; we found it difficult to understand what the actors were saying when their backs were to us and they were farther away — we could hear them speaking but not make out the words. Hopefully that has been dealt with. Otherwise, Well, I’ll Let You Go is a sparkling triumph.

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

FREEDOM FROM THE YOKE OF LANGUAGE: THE MUSICIANS

Astrid (Valérie Donzelli) is determined to stage a special one-of-a-kind concert in The Musicians

THE MUSICIANS (LES MUSICIENS) (Grégory Magne, 2024)
Cinema Village
22 East 12th St. between University Pl. & Fifth Ave.
Opens Friday, August 8
212-529-6799
www.cinemavillage.com
www.outsiderpictures.us

“Music is alive. To play it, you need to live it,” composer Charlie Beaumont (Frédéric Pierrot) says in Grégory Magne’s beautiful French comedy-drama The Musicians, a cinematic symphony not just for classical music lovers.

The film opens with a pan of what appears to be a regular-size interior wooden room but turns out to be the inside of a cello, soon confirmed by luthier François (François Ettori) to be the cherished Stradivarius San Domenico, which is up for auction. Determined to carry out her deceased father’s longtime wish, Astrid Carlson (Valérie Donzelli) wants to acquire the instrument to add to the two Stradivarius violins (including the 1713 Wodyka) and viola the family already owns and organize a concert in which four of the best musicians in the world will perform a specially commissioned piece as a kind of one-time-only string quartet supergroup, to be broadcast live around the world from a relatively undistinguished church chosen by her father. Her brother (Nicolas Bridet) is against it from the start, claiming the foundation cannot afford the cello and should instead be selling off the other three instruments, but Astrid won’t take no for an answer.

She pursues violinist George Massaro (Mathieu Spinosi), a lone wolf who plays by his own rules; blind second violinist Peter Nicolescu (Daniel Garlitsky) and cellist Lise Carvalho (Marie Vialle), who have a past that might prevent them from teaming up; and violist Apolline Dessartre (Emma Ravier), a sexy young social media starlet. The four instruments may have been made from the same tree, but that doesn’t mean it will be easy for Astrid to get the musicians on the same page. Things go so poorly at first that she tries to enlist Charlie for help; the reclusive, dour composer is initially not interested but eventually comes around, although he has his doubts from the start that this is a good idea.

A temporary classical supergroup faces professional and personal challenges in symphonic film

Although the four musicians are exceptional, the concert is primarily about the Stradivari. At one point, when the quartet is off to a rehearsal, Charlie is surprised to see a motorcade pulling away. “A car for each musician . . . Quite a heavy carbon footprint,” he says. Astrid responds, “They can’t travel together. Request from the insurance companies.” Charlie ponders, “Just like royalty. Two heirs should never fly on the same flight.” To which Astrid clarifies, “I meant the instruments.”

Over the course of one week before the concert, egos clash and tempers explode, making it seem like this impossible performance might indeed be impossible.

The Musicians features a marvelous original score by Grégoire Hetzel, who has composed music for films by Arnaud Desplechin, Mathieu Amalric, and Kiyoshi Kurosawa, cowrote the opera La Chute de Fukuyama, and penned the novel Le Vert Paradis. The soundtrack is supplemented with pieces by Mozart, Bach, Fauré, and Lead Belly.

French actress, director, and screenwriter Donzelli (Martha . . . Martha, The Queen of Hearts) is tender and vulnerable as Astrid, the emotional center of the narrative; everything is seen through her eyes. But César-nominated French film, television, and theater star Pierrot is sensational as Charlie, a deeply conflicted man who is uncomfortable in his own skin. “I started making music to free myself . . . from the yoke of language,” he says poetically even as he appears trapped. (His character is perhaps named after jazz saxophonist Charlie Beaumont, as Pierrot is a jazz aficionado who plays the clarinet, and there are elements of jazz in the way Charlie approaches his music.)

Moscow-born violinist and pianist Garlitsky (Paul and Paulette Take a Bath, Chez Maupassant), French equestrian, mezzo-soprano, and violinist Ravier (Two Sons, A Private Life), French violinist Spinosi (La Mélodie, Les Souvenirs), and French theater director Vialle (Julie est amoureuse, La parenthèse enchantée) form a wonderful, fully believable foursome, each of them a classically trained musician in real life; the youngest of the group, Ravier, is in fact active on social media, posting photos of herself in a bikini, just like her character does in the movie, upsetting the more private George.

Magne (Vingt-quatre heures par jour de mer, Perfumes) conducts the proceedings with expert precision, using his experience making fiction films and documentaries to give the film a naturalistic air. Lovingly photographed by Pierre Cottereau and intricately edited by Béatrice Herminie with exquisite sound design by Nicolas Cantin, Daniel Sobrino, Fanny Martin, and Olivier Goinard, The Musicians is a mellifluous, affectionate, sweet-natured tale that encourages audiences to free themselves from the ever-present yoke of language.

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

FACING ONE’S FEARS: LORD NIL AND THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS

Italian escapologist Lord Nil faces seven of his fears at Stage 42

LORD NIL: SEVEN DEADLY SINS
Stage 42
422 West 42nd St. at Ninth Ave.
Thursday – Tuesday through August 31, $48-$154
www.lordnil.com
shubert.nyc

In the 1966–68 Batman television series, the first of each two-part episode ended with a cliffhanger in which the Caped Crusader and the Boy Wonder were ensnared in a bizarre deathtrap devised by such ruthless cartoon villains as the Joker, the Riddler, Mr. Freeze, the Penguin, and King Tut; Batman and Robin would survive each time with ingenuity and Batman’s utility belt.

Lord Nil: 7 Deadly Sins is set up much like Batman, as a villain, Vice (Steph Payne), challenges illusionist and escapologist Lord Nil to conquer seven death-defying scenarios to preserve his life. However, unlike Batman, Lord Nil’s show appears to be neither camp nor parody but instead more resembles a midbudget magic show in a late-night Atlantic City casino lounge, filtered through a heavy metal video. Which doesn’t necessarily mean it does not have its entertaining moments.

Lord Nil kicks off things by explaining in a filmed voiceover that following a water-tank trick twelve years ago that went awry, landing him in a hospital and suffering from PTSD, “That was the day I became Lord Nil. The first of the forgotten. The Lord of nothing. Just a man who turned pain into strength. Why? To chase an insane dream. I face fear, night after night, because if I can face it, maybe you will too.”

Born in Italy as Simone — his full real name is unknown, and he has done a thorough job of keeping his previous life a secret — Lord Nil made the quarterfinals of the thirteenth season of America’s Got Talent and is now displaying his skills at Stage 42 through August 31. For seventy-five minutes, he battles the four elements — earth, water, fire, and air — via execution machines involving an ax, a circular saw, sizzling bacon, an enclosed maze filled with smoke, a crossbow, and a descending spiked ceiling. Each stunt is linked to one of the seven deadly sins — pride, envy, gluttony, greed, lust, sloth, and wrath — but don’t try too hard to figure out the connection, because most of them are a bit of a stretch.

“Do I scare you? Don’t you recognize me?” Vice purrs at the crowd. “I’m the villain from all your childhood fairy tales, the monster from your nightmares: Call me whatever you wish. Tonight, I am the mirror that reflects all of Lord Nil’s fears back at him.” In between the daring feats, the Lost Souls, consisting of Reba Bartram, Michele Castelli, Christian Hariga, Alina Radu, Derrion Swan, Khy-Felipe Pasamonte Vitug, Kortney Warren, Erika Zilli, Kris Ivy Haynes, and Chance Hoover, slink and slither across the stage, dancing to loud music featuring the Lord of Evil (composer Erik Ventrice) shredding away on electric guitar.

Most of the magic is mediocre, the contraptions can be confusing, and Lord Nil’s celebrations are right out of professional wrestling. There’s not a whole lot of suspense, as evidenced by the less-than-enthusiastic applause after each deed and no unanimous standing ovation at the curtain call. The audience is encouraged to take photos and video; one audience member is chosen to participate in the final caper, which adds a bit of fun to an otherwise silly trick that even Batman might sniff at.

Lord Nil battles the wrath of fire in finale as Vice (Steph Payne) and the Lost Souls watch closely (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Directed by Alberto Oliva, the dark, splashy production is bumpy and uneven, enlivened with sexy choreography by Stefano Alessandrino, goth costumes by Guiseppe Magistro, flashy lighting by Tudor Micu for the Light Guy and Jamie Roderick, piercing sound by Drew Levy and Kevin Sweetser, and faux-demonic animation and projections by Dan Mitrea for Digital Maverick. Lord Nil himself is a somewhat opaque figure, and there is little chemistry between him and Payne.

You might not call out, “Holy Houdini!” as Robin did at the beginning of the second season of Batman, in the “Shoot a Crooked Arrow” episode, but Lord Nil’s production would not feel out of place on the great vaudeville stages of yore that hosted Houdini and pleased the crowds who could suspend disbelief — and perhaps their better judgment — to enjoy some thrills and chills on a hot summer night.

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