twi-ny recommended events

FLEET WEEK 2019

Fleet Week will feature celebrations, commemorations, and memorials May 24-30 in all five boroughs (photo courtesy Fleet Week New York)

Fleet Week will feature celebrations, commemorations, and memorials May 22-28 in all five boroughs (photo courtesy Fleet Week New York)

Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum and other locations in all five boroughs
Pier 86, 12th Ave. & 46th St.
May 22–28
www.intrepidmuseum.org
militarynews.com

The U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard will be pouring into New York City for Fleet Week, which takes place May 22-28 at the Intrepid, in Times Square, and at other locations. The annual celebration, which began in 1982, leads into Memorial Day weekend, reminding everyone that the holiday is not just about barbecues and beaches. Below are only some of the highlights, all free and open to the public. Admission to the museum, which is hosting many indoor demonstrations, exhibitions, and performances, is $24-$33 but free for all U.S. military and veterans.

Wednesday, May 22
Parade of Ships, New York Harbor, Pier 86, 8:00 am

Musical Performance: U.S. Fleet Forces “Brass Band,” South Street Seaport, 12 Fulton St., 12:30

Musical Performance: Navy Band Northeast’s “Ceremonial Band,” Washington Square Park arch, 4:00

Thursday, May 23
USNA Yard Patrol Squadron, visiting ship tour, Pier 86, 10:00 am – 3:00 pm

USCGC Lawrence Lawson, visiting ship tour, Pier 86, 10:00 am – 3:00 pm

Musical Performance: U.S. Fleet Forces “Brass Band,” Union Square Park, noon

Thursday, May 23
through
Saturday, May 25
Navy Dive Tank, Military Island, Times Square, 10:00 am – 5:00

Friday, May 24
USNA Yard Patrol Squadron, visiting ship tour, Pier 86, 10:00 am – 3:00 pm

USCGC Lawrence Lawson, visiting ship tour, Pier 86, 10:00 am – 3:00 pm

USCG Silent Drill Team, Military Island, Times Square, 2:30

USMC Martial Arts Program demonstration, Military Island, Times Square, 3:15

Summer Movie Night: Top Gun (Tony Scott, 1986), Intrepid Flight Deck, 7:00

Musical Performance: U.S. Fleet Forces “Brass Band,” Military Island, Times Square, 7:30

Saturday, May 25
U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Air Force Auxiliary/Civil Air Patrol, LEGOLAND New York Resort, U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary, Intrepid Education, American Red Cross, Restored and Antique Military Vehicle Clubs, Guide Dog Foundation/America’s Vet Dogs — The Veterans K-9 Corp, American Legion and FDNY, Pier 86, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm

USCGC Lawrence Lawson, visiting ship tour, Pier 86, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm

Musical Performance: RamCorps, University of Mobile, Pier 86 main stage, noon

Facepainting: Faces by Derrick, Pier 86, noon – 4:00

Musical Performance: Latin Giants of Jazz, Pier 86 main stage, 1:00

USCG Silent Drill Team, Rockefeller Center Plaza, 2:00

Musical Performance: USMC Battle Color Detachment, including the USMC Silent Drill Platoon and Drum and Bugle Corps, Marine Day at Prospect Park, 3:30

Musical Performance — America’s Sweethearts: Vintage Vocal Trio, Pier 86 main stage, 3:00 & 5:00

Musical Performance: 78th Army Band, Pier 86 main stage, 4:00

Musical Performance: Navy Band Northeast’s Rock Band “Rhode Island Sound,” Military Island, Times Square, 6:00

Musical Performance: USMC Battle Color Detachment, including the USMC Silent Drill Platoon and Drum and Bugle Corps, Father Duffy Square, Times Square, 8:00

Sunday, May 26
U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Air Force Auxiliary/Civil Air Patrol, U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary, Intrepid Education, American Red Cross, Restored and Antique Military Vehicle Clubs, Guide Dog Foundation/America’s Vet Dogs — The Veterans K-9 Corp, LEGOLAND New York Resort, American Legion, and FDNY, Pier 86, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm

USCGC Lawrence Lawson, visiting ship tour, Pier 86, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm

Facepainting: Faces by Derrick, Pier 86, noon – 4:00

Musical Performance: RamCorps, University of Mobile, Pier 86 main stage, noon & 2:00

Musical Performance — America’s Sweethearts: Vintage Vocal Trio, Pier 86 main stage, 1:00 & 3:00

Musical Performance: singer, songwriter and Marine Corps veteran Laura Rice, Pier 86 main stage, 4:00

Musical Performance: Navy Band Northeast’s Rock Band “Rhode Island Sound,” Military Island, Times Square, 5:00

Monday, May 27
U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Air Force Auxiliary/Civil Air Patrol, Intrepid Education, LEGOLAND New York Resort, and FDNY, Pier 86, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm

Memorial Day Ceremony, Pier 86, 11:00 am

Facepainting: Faces by Derrick, Pier 86, noon – 4:00

USCGC Lawrence Lawson, visiting ship tour, Pier 86, noon – 6:00 pm

USCGC Silent Drill Team Performance, Pier 86, 2:00

Gazillion Bubble Show: Interactive Bubble Garden, Pier 86, 2:00 – 6:00

American Cornhole League: Games and Challenges, Pier 86, 2:00 – 6:00

USCGC Search and Rescue Demonstration, West End Pier 86, 3:00

MoCA FILMS PRESENTS THE LOST ARCADE WITH IRENE CHIN

The Lost Arcade follows the story of the rise and fall of the last old-fashioned arcade in New York City

THE LOST ARCADE (Kurt Vincent, 2015)
The Museum of Chinese in America
215 Centre St.
Thursday, May 23, $15 (includes museum admission), 6:30
855-955-MOCA
www.mocanyc.org
www.arcademovie.com

New York City has seen a dramatic rise in the closing of long-beloved institutions in the twenty-first century as gentrification and rent hikes soar. When filmmaker Kurt Vincent heard rumors that the Chinatown Fair arcade game haven was on the way out, he brought his camera to the Mott St. spot to document what it meant to him and the community that has been built around it since it opened back in 1944. “After all these years, the path to the arcade was ingrained, even in dreams,” he narrates at the beginning of The Lost Arcade, describing a dream he had. “As I stood in front of the doors, I could smell the arcade. The smell was a primordial memory hidden deep in my mind, somewhere beyond time and space, and somehow, in my dream, I connected with this distant and abstract memory.” Director-producer-editor Vincent and producer-writer Irene Chin, who previously collaborated on the experimental short The Bachelorette Party, have created a love letter to Chinatown Fair, affectionately known as CF, which has seen its ups and downs over the years, including a boom during the golden age of arcades in the 1980s and a problematic drop in the 2000s as kids stayed home to play video games on their computers and televisions. Vincent speaks with Anthony Cali Jr., who practically grew up in CF; former CF employees Henry Cen, Norman Burgess, Derek Rudder, and Akuma Hokura and their boss, Sam Palmer, who bought the place after visualizing it in a dream; and Lonnie Sobel, who attempted to resurrect it after its initial closure.

Teenagers and adults went to CF to play such old-fashioned games as Pac-Man, Ski Bowl, Space Invaders, Defender, Frogger, and Centipede, marvel at the dancing, tic-tac-toe-playing chicken, and visit the so-called museum in the back. Ol’ Dirty Bastard even filmed his 1995 “Brooklyn Zoo” video there. “All my pride and my disappointment and my joy was held in that quarter,” Hokura says, describing the importance of playing arcade games, which used to cost twenty-five cents. The film also has a very cool video-game-inspired score by Gil Talmi. Much like the analog games that lined each side of the narrow CF, the film has an analog feel to it, along with a sweet-natured sentimentality for the way things used to be in an ever-changing New York City. The Museum of Chinese in America is screening The Lost Arcade on May 23 at 6:30, followed by a Q&A with Chin; the evening also includes wine and admission to the museum, which currently has on display the exhibits “With a Single Step: Stories in the Making of America” and “The Moon Represents My Heart: Music, Memory and Belonging.”

HAPPY TALK

Marin Ireland and Susan Sarandon star in Jesse Eisenberg’s Happy Talk for the New Group at the Signature (photo by Monique Carboni)

The New Group at the Pershing Square Signature Center
The Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre
480 West 42nd St. between between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 16, $40-$125
thenewgroup.org

Susan Sarandon is delightful as a suburban New Jersey housewife with a flexible connection to reality in Jesse Eisenberg’s superb Happy Talk, which opened last week at the Signature Center. The actor and writer’s fourth play, second for the New Group (following The Spoils), and first in which he does not appear is also his first non-autobiographical work, although it is infused with his childhood love for musical theater. Sarandon is Lorraine, a dedicated, longtime actress — dedicated to community theater, to be precise. Her current role is Tonkinese vendor Bloody Mary in the local JCC production of South Pacific, which has apparently taken over her life. Eisenberg makes clear that is her usual modus operandi as she immerses herself in the part, waxing poetic about her craft while a Serbian home-care aide deals with the prosaic details of Lorraine’s ill, grumpy husband, Bill (Daniel Oreskes), who spends most of his time sitting uncomfortably in a chair, reading a Civil War tome, and refusing to partake in conversation, and her dying mother, Ruthie, who is never seen but is often heard via a loud buzzer she presses repeatedly to demand help. It is soon clear that the relentlessly cheerful aide, Ljuba (Marin Ireland), is an undocumented immigrant saving money to buy an American husband so she can get her green card and bring her daughter to the States.

Ljuba (Marin Ireland), Lorraine (Susan Sarandon), and Jenny (Tedra Millan) share a rare moment of smiles in New Group world premiere (photo by Monique Carboni)

The narcissistic Lorraine is desperately frightened about being left alone and demands to be the center of attention and action. To cement her control of all around her, she arranges a potential fake marriage between Ljuba and a young gay man, Ronny (Nico Santos), who is playing Lt. Joseph Cable alongside Lorraine in the Rodgers & Hammerstein show. “Darling, I’m an artist. We live in the shadows, we bend the rules,” she tells Ljuba. “Now I want you to stop worrying. I will take care of everything.” Lorraine sees the “marriage” like a scene from a play she is writing, directing, and starring in, further establishing her preference for theater fantasy over real-life situations. Speaking about facilities for aging parents, she says, “It’s just horrible, all due respect. No one touches them. No one talks to them. It’s horrid the way we treat the elderly in this society. But Ljuba — she’s just incredible. She actually sleeps in the room with her. Can you imagine?” she explains even though she never goes in to see or speak with her mother. She later adds, “I trust a computer far more than a person to take care of me!” Meanwhile, Lorraine and Bill’s estranged daughter, Jenny (Tedra Millan), is an angry young woman with a surprise announcement to make — although maybe it’s not so surprising given her mother’s attitude toward her own responsibilities as both a mother and a daughter.

Ljuba (Marin Ireland) has some unhappy words for Lorraine (Susan Sarandon) as Ronny (Nico Santos) looks on in Happy Talk (photo by Monique Carboni)

Happy Talk is astutely directed by New Group head Scott Elliott (The True, Mercury Fur), capturing Eisenberg’s sharp, snappy dialogue as Lorraine and company careen around Derek McLane’s impeccably rendered suburban kitchen/living room set. Tony nominee and Obie winner Ireland (On the Exhale, Marie Antoinette), a genuine New York City theater treasure, and Oscar winner Sarandon (Atlantic City, The Rocky Horror Picture Show), in her first stage appearance since 2009’s Exit the King on Broadway with Geoffrey Rush, make a dynamic duo, Ireland going toe-to-toe with Sarandon as her character mutters asides that reveal she’s a lot smarter than others might think. Sarandon occasionally channels Bette Davis (think All About Eve) — perhaps not coincidentally, she was recently nominated for an Emmy for her portrayal of Davis in the FX series Feud, opposite fellow Emmy nominee Jessica Lange’s Joan Crawford; the implication works terrifically in a twisted plot turn.

Eisenberg (Asuncion, The Revisionist) fills the play with references to such musicals as Fiddler on the Roof, Sunset Boulevard, Once Upon a Mattress, Evita, Oliver! and Oklahoma! that add to the fun while also exploring such topics as cultural appropriation, elder abuse, and immigration. About halfway through the show, which continues at the Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre through June 16, Lorraine says with rare clarity, “I always thought that my lot in life was to help people en masse. Through my work. People see me on stage. They see the human condition — it filters through me — and maybe they learn a little something about themselves. And if they’ve walked away with a new sense of understanding, of being able to look at their fellow man and not just see a husk, but a soul? Well then, I’ve done my job.” Here, Eisenberg and Happy Talk accomplish just that.

OCTET

Eight characters share their fears of being unconnected in Dave Malloy’s Octet (photo by Joan Marcus)

The Pershing Square Signature Center
The Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre
480 West 42nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 23, $35 through June 9, $85 after
212-244-7529
www.signaturetheatre.org

Dave Malloy’s Octet is a brilliant chamber choir musical about our obsession with technology, primarily the internet and smartphones. The Brooklyn-based Malloy, the Obie-winning, Tony-nominated mastermind behind Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812, Ghost Quartet, and Beardo, and scenic designers Amy Rubin and Brittany Vasta have transformed the Signature’s malleable Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre into a church basement where eight addicts gather to share their personal dilemmas. The audience enters through a hallway with a bulletin board and announcements, then walks down a few stairs and across the stage, where several people are removing bingo tables and setting up a circle of chairs for the meeting. But it’s not alcohol, drugs, or sex that has brought these people together; it is their overdependence on digital connection with the rest of the world.

Friends of Saul gather in a church basement to talk about their smartphone addictions in Signature world premiere (photo by Joan Marcus)

Their meeting begins with a hymn that poetically sums up their predicament, as they sing in unison, “There was a forest / One time some time / I walked through a forest / One time some time / The forest was beautiful / My head was clean and clear / Alone without fear / The forest was safe / I danced like a beautiful fool / One time some time. . . . But now / The woods are dark and cold / Clogged with nettles and roots / There is a monster / And I am a monster / Addiction, obsession / Insomnia, depression / And the fear that I’ve wasted too much of my self / On rapid and vapid click-clicks / Isolation, anxiety / Inability to assimilate with society / And the fear that the monster will find me / Infect me and blind me / Butcher my heart and distort my soul.” Next, each addict reads aloud one of the Eight Principles (“There is a deep emptiness,” “Content is not connection is not consensus is not conformity is not contentment”), each principle foreshadowing that character’s emotional state of mind. Over the course of the next ninety minutes, which unfold in real time, each of the eight addicts gets the opportunity to sing about their personal strife, all performed in gorgeous a cappella melodies arranged by Malloy, who also wrote the sensational book, lyrics, and music.

They have been invited to the meeting, which takes place at a different location every time, by the unseen yet apparently all-seeing Saul, who may or may not exist. Each song is introduced by a blow into a pitch pipe, preparing everyone for the next confession, another journey into the troubled mind, body, and spirit. Henry (Alex Gibson) can’t break away from Candy Crush; Karly (Kim Blanck) keeps swiping on sex and dating apps; Toby (Justin Gregory Lopez) is hooked on conspiracy theories; Jessica (Margo Seibert) is an ego-surfer; Marvin (J. D. Mollison) is a scientist who thinks the World Wide Web might be God; first-timer Velma (Kuhoo Verma) has gone cold turkey for two days; Ed (Adam Bashian) loves porn; and Paula (Starr Busby) is haunted by the “stale pale glow” of the screen while in bed with her husband.

Splendidly directed by Annie Tippe (Ghost Quartet, Cult of Love), who doesn’t allow the audience to let its guard down for even a second in the relatively tight, intimate quarters, Octet delves into humanity’s psychological makeup and the neurological circuits that tie us to our phones, desperate for the constant connection that we think will alleviate our deep-seated fear of missing out and of being trapped inside our own heads for any period of time whatsoever. Karly explains, “Well, I would love to pay attention to you / But I simply can’t / I might have an invite / I might have a coupon / I might have a snippet / There might be a morsel or a nugget / A factoid, a zinger / A recap, a blurb / Why, there might be a tidbit! / I simply must check my tidbits / What if there’s a pause? / What if there’s a lull? / At dinner, at a movie / My God, even at the theater!” (Thankfully, no cell phones went off during the performance I attended.)

But it’s not just about technological addiction; it’s about all our obsessions, the things that keep us up at night, the inner and outer elements that prevent us from reaching our full potential as individuals and as an interdependent society. “I feel my body stretched between two cliffs / One side is fantasy / The other reality / I feel my fingers start to lose their grip / And I can’t hold on,” Karly sings, a feeling everyone has experienced. In writing the libretto, Malloy researched scientific and religious texts, Sufi poetry, and online comment boards, going far beyond mere social media to take a look at who we are today, and how we got to be that way. Christopher Bowser’s lights never go all the way down, as if we are part of the group; in fact, some audience members sit on the floor, in the same folding chairs the actors do. Octet is a mesmerizing work of genius, the first of three plays Malloy will be producing for his five-year residency at the Signature — and the company’s first musical in its thirty-year history. I have my pitch pipe at the ready for the next one.

REICH RICHTER PÄRT

A flash mob sings Arvo Pärt’s “Drei Hirtenkinder aus Fátima” in room of Gerhard Richter wallpaper and tapestries (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

The Shed
Level 2 Gallery in the Bloomberg Building
545 West 30th St. at Eleventh Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 2, four times daily, $25
646-455-3494
theshed.org

The Shed, the new performance space at Hudson Yards, has made a rather inauspicious debut. The experimental play Norma Jeane Baker of Troy, inaugurating the five-hundred-seat black-box Griffin Theater, is a critical and popular flop, with bad reviews, walkouts, and lots of empty seats. The first art installation, an untitled work by Trisha Donnelly, initially cost ten dollars but was made free after a less-than-enthusiastic reaction to the exhibit, which consists of trees on gurneys in a dark room where Leontyne Price’s rendition of “Habanera” from Carmen repeats over and over. But the immersive Reich Richter Pärt is a bit more on track, though it too has its drawbacks. “We’re only getting started,” artistic director Alex Poots told me after a recent performance; Poots previously did wonderful things at the Manchester Festival and Park Ave. Armory.

Curated by senior program advisor Hans Ulrich Obrist and Poots, Reich Richter Pärt is a two-room, fifty-minute multidisciplinary collaboration between eighty-two-year-old American composer Steve Reich, eighty-seven-year-old German visual artist Gerhard Richter, and eighty-three-year-old Estonian composer Arvo Pärt. The audience is first let into an expansive white space with high ceilings; the walls feature vertical wallpaper and jacquard woven tapestries that emulate Rorschach-like strips that are supposed to resemble stained glass, as if the room is a cathedral. Visitors are given too much time to walk around and look at the images; many break off into conversations and take out their cell phones until a group of men and women starts singing, a flash mob performing Pärt’s lovely choral work “Drei Hirtenkinder aus Fátima,” about three Portuguese shepherd children who claimed to see an apparition of the Virgin Mary in 1917. The choral work, which is dedicated to Richter and was inspired by Psalms 8.2 (“From the mouths of children and infants you create praise for yourself”), is performed by either the Choir of Trinity Wall Street Performing Ensemble or Brooklyn Youth Chorus.

Gerhard Richter and Corinna Belz’s abstract film screens with live score by Steve Reich (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

The crowd is then led into a second large room, where people can grab folding chairs and sit wherever they like in the empty space between a wall on one side with a screen and a small orchestra on the other, either the Ensemble Signal or the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), depending on the date. (I saw the former, conducted by Brad Lubman. Poots suggested sitting very close to the musicians for the optimal experience, so I joined such visitors as Marina Abramovic and Francis Ford Coppola.) The orchestra plays Reich’s newly commissioned score, created specifically for an approximately half-hour film by Richter and Corinna Belz, which brings to life Richter’s algorithmic processing of his 2016 abstract painting Abstraktes Bild (946-3), using a computer to fold it in half and half again, dividing it into 1/4096ths and then proceeding in the other direction, creating a hypnotic, kaleidoscopic animation in which the painting morphs from bands of bold color, which also line two walls, into yet more Rorschach-like shapes and figures slowly marching across the screen until it all double back to the color strips. (The original work is on view as well.) The film follows the principles Richter employed in his “Patterns” series, which Reich adapted for his thrilling score. As with the first part of the presentation, the second goes on too long, but it’s still a wonder to behold, an example of the kind of fascinating promise the Shed holds.

DINE AROUND DOWNTOWN 2019

Dine Around Downtown offers signature samples for no more than seven bucks in Liberty Plaza (photo courtesy Downtown Alliance)

28 Liberty Plaza
Between Liberty & Pine and Nassau & William Sts.
Tuesday, May 21, 11:00 am – 3:00 pm
Admission: free, all dishes $3-$7
212-566-6700
www.downtownny.com

Sponsored by the Downtown Alliance, the eighteenth annual Dine Around Downtown will feature signature dishes from more than three dozen Lower Manhattan restaurants, from pizza places and burger joints to steak and seafood houses. The participating eateries (and what they will be serving) are Aahar Indian Cuisine (Chicken Tikka; Vegetable Samosa; Mango Lassie), Adrienne’s Pizza Bar (Cheese or Pepperoni Pizza; two Slices and a Soda), Atrio Wine Bar (Atrio Meatballs; Chicken Sliders), the Bailey Restaurant & Bar (Kobe Burger, Black Truffle Cream, Red Onion Jam; the Impossible Burger [Vegan], Roasted Peppers & Onions), Bay Room (Panzanella Salad), Beckett’s Bar & Grill (Lobster Mac and Cheese; Lobster Salad Slider with Potato Chips), Bill’s Bar & Burger (Mini B’s Burger), Blue Park Kitchen (Turkey Meatballs, Blistered Grape Tomatoes & Lemon Ricotta), Blue Smoke BPC (Burnt Ends Sandwich; Macaroni and Cheese; Key Lime Pie), Bobby Van’s Steakhouse (Roast Beef Sandwich; Crab Mac and Cheese), Capital Grille (Ribeye Steak Sandwich with Caramelized Onions & Havarti Cheese; Chilled Lobster Salad in a Lettuce Wrap), Cedar Local (Tuna Poke Taquitos; Pretzel Bites with Pimento Cheese), Cowgirl SeaHorse (Mac and Cheese; House-Smoked Pulled Pork Mac and Cheese), Crown Shy (Charred Carrots, Razor Clams, and Lemon Thyme), Delmonico’s (Grilled Steak Sandwich; Lobster Bisque Soup), the Dubliner (Pulled Pork Mac and Cheese; Lobster Salad Lettuce Wrap with Avocado Puree), Eataly (Crunchy Housemade Cannoli filled with Local Cow’s Milk Ricotta), Financier Patisserie (Amaretto; Apricot Lemon Tart; Chocolate Éclair; Lemon Meringue Tart; Tiramisu; Coffee), Harry’s (Grilled Cumin-Citrus Spiced Baby Lamb Chops; Lobster Stuffed Mushrooms), Harry’s Italian (Eggplant Parmesan or Meatball Hero; Cannoli), Insomnia Cookies (Warm Chocolate Chunk Cookies), Ketch Brewhouse (Citrus Salmon Salad; Crab Cake Sandwich; Lobster and Shrimp Roll), Le District (Lobster Mac and Cheese; Macarons), Mad Dog & Beans Mexican Cantina (Grilled Mexican Corn; Guacamole), the Malt House (Blackened Alaskan Salmon Sliders; Buffalo Brisket Sliders; Mexican Corn), Manhatta (Cucumber Gazpacho; Pastrami Reuben Sandwich), Morton’s the Steakhouse (Petite Lamb Chop; Tuna Taco; Shrimp Cocktail), Northern Tiger (Charcoal Grilled BBQ Char Siu Pork & Peashoot Salad; Cascun Farm Chicken & Mushroom Dumpling), Parm Battery Park (Chicken Caprese Sandwich; Tomato Mozzarella Sandwich), Route 66 Smokehouse (Mac and Cheese; Pulled Pork Sandwich), Sky 55 Bar & Grill (Tuna Tartare; Avocado Edamame Salad; Ancient Grain Salad), Stone Street Tavern (Roasted Garlic Mac & Cheese; Spicy Chicken Sandwich), Stout NYC FIDI (Carved Slow Roasted Beef w/ Truffled Horseradish Sauce and Crispy Onion Straws; Creme Brulee Donut), Temple Court (Porchetta Sandwich; Tuna Salad with Wasabi Arugula and Heirloom Radish; Gateau Basque with Strawberry), the Tuck Room (Tuck Room Signature Crab Cake; Heizenberg Farmer’s Market Rhubarb-Berry Lemonade), Underdog (Watermelon Mint Lemonade; Lemon Ginger Lemonade; Pineapple Tarragon Lemonade), and Wei West (Sesame Chicken; Vegetable Maifun; Chicken Fried Rice; Thai Iced Tea). There will also be live music and a raffle. Each plate goes for no more than $7, with proceeds benefiting the Downtown Alliance, which “is striving to make Lower Manhattan a wonderful place to live, work, and play by creating a vibrant multi-use neighborhood.”

ASHITA NO MA-JOE: ROCKY MACBETH

Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
May 15-18, $28
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org
www.kpr.tokyo

Theater Company Kaimaku Pennant Race founder Yu Murai’s Ashita no Ma-Joe: Rocky Macbeth is silly fun, a goofy comic mash-up of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth and the late 1960s manga Ashita no Joe (“Tomorrow’s Joe”). Continuing at Japan Society through May 18, it’s a riotous twist on both stories that creates something fresh and new — and completely wild and unpredictable. The show takes place in and around a light-blue boxing ring onstage, open on two sides, along which the audience of no more than sixty sits. Inside the ring is a second, much smaller ring, with a malleable, flexible mat that occasionally is lifted to reveal various characters, bits of scenery, and video of a koi pond by Kazuki Watanabe. To get you in the mood as you enter the empty theater, audio plays of Steve Albert, Dr. Ferdie Pacheco, and former champ Bobby Czyz calling the November 1998 championship bout between Ricardo “Finito” Lopez and Rosendo Alvarez. Beer, wine, and popcorn is available for purchase and can be consumed during the performance, as if you’re in a boxing arena. The three actors, Takuro Takasaki (Macbeth), G. K. Masayuki (Banquo), and Kazuma Takeo (Lady Macbeth), wear absurdly tight head-to-foot costumes that are a mix of wrestling uniforms and the sperm characters from Woody Allen’s Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex.

The dialogue can be seen on two monitors — unfortunately placed at angles that make it difficult to read and follow the action onstage simultaneously — but it’s not critical to catch every word, as there is a lot of repetition and exposition. The sixty-minute show features key plot points and quotes from Macbeth, including the witches’ prophecies and Macbeth’s rise to the top — to become both king and yokozuna — as he goes after King Duncan, Banquo, and Macduff; however, in this version, Lady Macbeth is not as central to his quest. There are also elements of Ashita no Joe, with such characters as Woolf and Joe, as well as tips of the hat to legendary sumo wrestler Kitanoumi and boxer Wajima Koichi. Along the way, Macbeth displays his boxing skills with the “back-spinning uppercut,” “triple cross counter,” and other punches and jabs and starts seeing apparitions of the men he has vanquished. “The boxing ring howls and calls for fresh blood,” one declares. There are also anachronistic pop culture references, a shaky-looking scaffold that serves as the castle (and where writer-director Murai runs things), and a battle scene in which six members of the audience need special protection. (We strongly suggest you sit in the seats warning about pebbles.) As with even the best boxers, not everything hits its mark, but more than enough does to score a knockout, a crazy, unusual immersive Shakespeare adaptation from a company that previously brought us Romeo and Toilet and King Lear, Sadaharu. There’s no telling what wonderful nonsense they’ll be up to next, but we’ll be there.