twi-ny recommended events

NASSIM

Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour says hello to guest actor Kate Arrington in autobiographical play at City Center (photo by Joan Marcus)

New York City Center, Stage II
130 West 56th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through April 20, $69-$90
212-581-1212
www.barrowstreettheatre.com
www.nycitycenter.org

Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour has followed up his international hit, White Rabbit Red Rabbit, in which each show was performed by a different actor reading a script that they hadn’t rehearsed or seen before, with another twist on the standard theatrical experience. Nassim, which opened tonight at City Center’s intimate Stage II, is a delightful and moving autobiographical work about language, heritage, and the deep need for artists to tell stories. And, as with White Rabbit Red Rabbit, the less you know about it going in, the more wonderful the surprises are. Soleimanpour, who was born and raised in Iran and now lives in Berlin, arrived in the United States on a working artist visa on December 4; the play, presented by Barrow Street Theatricals, began the next night and is scheduled to run through April 20. Rhys Jarman’s set is quite simple, consisting of a microphone stand on one side, a chair and a desk on the other, and a white screen at the back. A box on the desk contains information for the guest actor, whose name is not revealed until you enter the theater; among those who either have already performed or are scheduled to are Kate Arrington, Reed Birney, Michael Chernus, Cush Jumbo, Tracy Letts, Jennifer Lim, Tedra Millan, Brad Oscar, Annie Parisse, Michael Shannon, and Michael Urie. I saw three-time Tony nominee and Obie winner Linda Emond (Homebody/Kabul, Cabaret), who was fabulously warm and engaging, throwing herself fully into the show, which is cheerfully directed by Omar Elerian (The Mill — City of Dreams, Misty).

A guest actor and the playwright take a look at themselves and each other in Nassim (photo by Joan Marcus)

For seventy-five minutes, Emond does what she is told with wit and verve, getting so deeply involved in the proceedings that she was wiping away tears near the end. She doesn’t actually have the script in hand; instead, it is projected onto the screen, a pair of hairy hands turning the pages live. Although she is not supposed to go off-script, she did so a few times, which even Soleimanpour got a kick out of. The central focus is that Soleimanpour has never been able to stage one of his plays in Iran in his native Farsi, a language he has lost contact with; thus, his mother has never seen one of his works. “I’ve become a foreigner in my own mother tongue,” he writes. But by putting this play on in the States, he learns some English while reconnecting with Farsi.

Nassim holds myriad surprises for both the audience and a guest actor (photo by David Monteith-Hodge)

Soleimanpour has mastered this format, incorporating Q&As, photos, and audience interaction, quickly improvising while also cleverly anticipating many reactions. Originally presented at London’s Bush Theatre in July 2017, Nassim feels right at home at City Center; even the producer, the stage manager, and an usher get involved. While a significant part of the fun is watching how the guest actor deals with being put on the spot time and time again — Emond was such a joy, clearly relishing this unusual opportunity — Soleimanpour, whose father was a novelist and his mother a painter, is also sharing an intimate story that we can all relate to, tackling such ideas as human communication, family connection, and the international power of theater. It very much reminded me of Iranian auteur Jafar Panahi’s This Is Not a Film, in which the writer, director, editor, and actor defied a government edict putting him under house arrest and banning him from producing any further movies for twenty years by making a documentary with Mojtaba Mirtahmasb and having colleagues smuggle it out of the country on a USB thumb drive. (Panahi has made several other remarkable films since.) Although Soleimanpour is not under that kind of political scrutiny, his zeal for writing a play in Farsi is inspiring. Ultimately, you’ll leave City Center knowing a little more about the guest actor, a lot more about Soleimanpour, and even a few things about yourself, along with a hunger for tomatoes. Oh, and you’ll also immediately want to call your mother.

BODYS ISEK KINGELEZ: CITY DREAMS

Bodys Isek Kingelez, “Ville Fantôme,” paper, paperboard, plastic, and other various materials, 1996 (CAAC — The Pigozzi Collection, Geneva / photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Through January 1, $25
212-708-9400
www.moma.org

“If you succeed in building a model, you visualize what is living inside you so that the outside world can adapt it, study it, discover it, see it,” Congolese artist Bodys Isek Kingelez says in a promotional video for the dazzling exhibition “Bodys Isek Kingelez: City Dreams,” continuing at MoMA through January 1. The deservedly popular show consists of buildings, plazas, and urban areas that sprung from Kingelez’s vast imagination, using paper, paperboard, plastic, and such found materials as soda cans and bottlecaps, that practically beg visitors to study them, discover them, see them. And as playful and colorful as they are, with an infectious, childlike quality, they also comment on economic inequality, the importance of community, and a government’s responsibility to its citizenry. Kingelez, who was born in Kinshasa in 1948 and passed away in 2015, built an urban utopia that included such fantastical architectural structures as “Kinshasa la Belle,” “U.N.” “Miss Hotel Brussels,” “The Scientific Center of Hospitalisation the SIDA,” and “Palais d’Hirochima,” reimagining urban renewal and the social contract while referencing the AIDS crisis, international diplomacy, tourism, and nuclear war. Most impressive are several large areas that resemble gigantic game boards, such as “Ville Fantôme,” “Ville de Sète 3009,” and “Kimbembele Ihunga,” but they are more than just massive toys or maquettes for the future. “Without a model, you are nowhere. A nation that can’t make models is a nation that doesn’t understand things, a nation that doesn’t live,” Kingelez said.

Bodys Isek Kingelez, “Ville de Sète 3009,” paper, paperboard, plastic, and other various materials, 2000 (Collection Musée International des Arts Modestes (MIAM), Sète, France / photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Curators Sarah Suzuki and Hillary Reder organize the show with plenty of room to wander around the installations, as well as adding ceiling mirrors to better experience the remarkable details on several of the bigger works. In a back room, “Ville Fantôme” comes alive in a large-scale, sophisticated virtual reality experience that allows the viewer to navigate through one of Kingelez’s creations as if life-size. The exhibition, the first American retrospective of his work, also features a soundtrack selected by Carsten Höller and Kristian Sjöblom, with songs by Franco & Le T.P.O.K. Jazz, Docteur Nico & l’African Fiesta Sukisa, Pepe Ndombe & L’Orchestre Afrizam, M’Pongo Love, and Ndombe Opetum, Pepe Ndombe & Zing Zong Personnel, among others, bringing music into these inviting spaces. In search of a “better, more peaceful world,” Kingelez described himself as “a designer, an architect, a sculptor, engineer, artist.” He might have saved “artist” for last, but he is finally being recognized for his bold, imaginative artistic expression. On December 10, MoMA will host “An Evening with Bogosi Sekhukhuni,” with the South African artist presenting video works dealing with technology and the diaspora, followed by a conversation with Sekhukhuni, poet manuel arturo abreu and MoMA curatorial fellow Hanna Girma. On December 5 (11:30), 12 (1:30), and 19 (11:30), Angela Garcia will lead the Gallery Sessions tour “Bodys Isek Kingelez’s Extreme Maquettes”; on December 15 and 31 (1:30), Maya Jeffereis will lead “Drawing in Bodys Isek Kingelez”; and on December 22 (11:30) and 27 (1:30), Petra Pankow will lead “Bodys Isek Kingelez’s Urban Dreamscapes.”

TICKET GIVEAWAY: PBR UNLEASH THE BEAST AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN

Austin Meier on Robinson's Mac-Nett's El Presidente at NYC Times Square final five showdown PBR. Photo by Andy Watson.

The Professional Bull Riders will Unleash the Beast in New York City for annual season kickoff at the Garden (photo by Andy Watson/BullStock Media)

PROFESSIONAL BULL RIDERS MONSTER ENERGY BUCK OFF AT THE GARDEN
Madison Square Garden
31st – 33rd Sts. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
January 4-6, $28-$226 ($551 for PBR Elite Seats)
www.pbr.com
www.msg.com

There are a lot of traditions in New York City tied to the New Year, and one of the most exciting is the Professional Bull Riders opening its season at the World’s Most Famous Arena the first weekend of January. The sport’s twenty-sixth season, dubbed Unleash the Beast, gets under way January 4-6 with the Monster Energy Buck Off at the Garden, as thirty-five riders attempt to hold on to hard-battling bulls for eight damn-tough seconds. Among the anticipated competitors are PBR legend and two-time world champion J. B. Mauney, a three-time MSG winner and all-around badass cowboy; 2016 world champ Cooper Davis, who we introduced you to three years ago; and 2017 Garden victor and world champion Jess Lockwood. Due to injuries — bull riding is one of the most dangerous sports on the planet — 2018 world champion Kaique Pacheco and 2018 MSG winner Gage Gay will have to sit out the contest.

PBR riders and bulls first invaded New York City in 2007, and the event keeps getting bigger and better, with pyrotechnics, cowboy hats worn the wrong way by Brooklyn hipsters, and a barrel of laughs from PBR “Exclusive Entertainer” Flint Rasumussen, who we interviewed in 2017. In addition to the competition, PBR will be hosting a Cowboy Brunch on January 5 at the Renaissance Hotel ($75, 10:00 am), with Rasmussen, such riders as Stetson Lawrence, and other special guests; you can also join PBR and Boot Barn as it rings the morning bell at the New York Stock Exchange on January 4 at 8:00 ($225), including a continental breakfast and photo ops with PBR CEO Sean Gleason and Canadian superstar Tanner Byrne, who we profiled with his brother Jesse two years ago. (Yes, we kind of have a thing for this crazy event at the home of the Knicks and Rangers.)

Fire and Pyro in the opening during the first round of the New York City Built Ford Tough series PBR. Photo by Andy Watson

Professional Bull Riders are all fired up for the Monster Energy Buck Off at the Garden January 4-6 (photo by Andy Watson/BullStock Media)

TICKET GIVEAWAY: PBR Unleash the Beast bursts through the gates of Madison Square Garden January 4-6, with such participants as Ryan Dirteater, Chase Outlaw, Dakota Buttar, Stetson Lawrence, and Keyshawn Whitehorse, which are their real, given names, and twi-ny has a pair of tickets to give away for free for Sunday afternoon’s finale. Just send your name and what your cowboy alias would be if you were insane enough to get on a one-ton bucking bull to contest@twi-ny.com by Monday, December 17, at 3:00 pm to be eligible. All entrants must be twenty-one years of age or older; one winner will be selected at random.

THE PRISONER

A woman (Hayley Carmichael) visits a convicted man (Hiran Abeysekera) facing an unusual sentence in The Prisoner (photo © Joan Marcus)

Theatre for a New Audience, Polonsky Shakespeare Center
262 Ashland Pl. between Lafayette Ave. & Fulton St.
Tuesday – Sunday through December 16, $90-$115
866-811-4111
www.tfana.org

Peter Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne and their C.I.C.T. — Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord return to Theatre for a New Audience’s Polonsky Shakespeare Center with the existential parable The Prisoner, a meditative, minimalist adult fable about crime and punishment, forgiveness and forgetting. Inspired by an experience Brook had in Afghanistan more than sixty years ago, the seventy-minute piece is set in an unnamed land, on a mostly bare set (by David Violi) save for a tree stump and some scattered twigs and branches. Mavuso (Hiran Abeysekera) has committed an “unspeakable act,” and his sister, Nadia (Kalieaswari Srinivasan), and uncle, Ezekiel (Hervé Goffings), prepare his punishment, according to both ancient laws and the court system. He is ultimately sentenced to twenty years on a hill by himself, facing a prison, with no guards watching him, no barriers to walking away except those in his own mind. “There are no cells, no bars, and you will always have the temptation to leave,” Ezekiel instructs him. He also tells Mavuso that whenever someone asks him why he is there, he must answer, “I am here to repair.” Over the years, he is visited by a woman traveler (Hayley Carmichael), a man from a nearby village (Omar Silva), his uncle, and a few drunk guards. “You are disturbing the system!” one of them declares, but nothing can change Mavuso’s intention to carry out his sentence.

The prisoners sister, Nadia (Kalieaswari Srinivasan), speaks with their uncle, Ezekiel (Hervé Goffings), in new work by Peter Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne (photo © Joan Marcus)

The story includes bits of magic and such philosophical statements as “Everything is in the past” and “We want to possess everything without seeing that we have nothing,” but there is no moralizing. There is also no score but instead long silences. The passage of time is indicated by Philippe Vialatte’s lighting softly going down, then coming back up. Brook never found out what crime the man in Afghanistan had committed to receive such a fate, but Mavuso’s misdeed is named, and it serves to further complicate his sentence. The time period and place are also left ambiguous, made more so by a cast of diverse actors with different accents and heritages, leaving plenty of space for each audience member’s individual imagination. Only the traveling woman wears shoes; everyone else is barefoot, walking over the wood (and hopefully avoiding splinters). Written and directed by Tony, Emmy, and Obie winner Brook and Estienne (Samuel Beckett’s Fragments, The Valley of the Astonishment, Can Themba’s The Suit), The Prisoner raises issues of tolerance and hate, love and judgment, birth and rebirth, fathers and sons, and the prisons that we all build for ourselves. When Mavuso — who wanted to be judged for his actions, since he judged the actions of others — sits quietly and stares out at the jail, he is looking over the audience, almost as if we are all in a prison as well and need to repair something in our lives as we sit still, looking back at him. Seeing such beautifully engaging and thoughtful works as The Prisoner is not a bad place to start that reparation process.

WILLIAM KENTRIDGE’S THE HEAD & THE LOAD

William Kentridge’s massive spectacle The Head & the Load continues at Park Avenue Armory through December 15 (photo by Stephanie Berger)

Park Avenue Armory, Wade Thompson Drill Hall
643 Park Ave. at 67th St.
December 4-15, $40-$90, 2:00/7:00/8:00
212-933-5812
armoryonpark.org
www.theheadandtheload.com

In 2012, MoMA hosted “Five Themes,” a major, wide-ranging retrospective of the work of South African artist William Kentridge. Virtually everything Kentridge has done since then — the public procession Triumph and Laments: A Project for Rome, the multimedia chamber opera Refuse the Hour, adaptations of Berg’s Lulu and Shostakovich’s The Nose at the Met, “The Refusal of Time” installation at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the gallery exhibition “Second-Hand Reading” at Marian Goodman, and a performance of Kurt Schwitters’s Ursonate at Harlem Parish — has merely been a prelude to The Head & the Load, a massive multidisciplinary spectacle that could only be put on in New York City in the Park Avenue Armory’s Wade Thompson Drill Hall. Taking place on a stage nearly two hundred feet long, the presentation employs a jagged, abstract narrative to explore the fate of hundreds of thousands of black Africans forced into service by colonialist European countries, primarily Germany, France, Belgium, and Britain, as porters and carriers during World War I. Kentridge uses live music, choreographed movement, video projections, and dialogue in multiple languages to relate the tragic tale. A trio of military men (Hamilton Dlamini, Nhlanhla Mahlangu, and associate director Luc De Wit) speak in nonsense words from Ursonate. Ann Masina delivers gorgeous arias with objects on her head. Joanna Dudley, wearing an eagle on a Nazi helmet, is pushed across the stage on a ramshackle cart, pronouncing edicts. Sipho Seroto stands atop a tower, wearing an evil-looking gas mask. The Knights play in a surprise confined space. Mncedisi Shabangu, in a bright yellow jacket, serves as narrator, guiding us through the complex story. A procession of men and women parades across the length of the stage, many wearing or carrying stencil cutouts of human faces and animals that show up as silhouetted shadows on the back wall, mixing with previously photographed video.

Ann Masina sings as four men look on in The Head & the Load (photo by Stephanie Berger)

In a program note, Kentridge asks, “Can one find the truth in the fragmented and incomplete? Can one think about history as collage, rather than as narrative?” Commissioned by 14-18 NOW and the armory along with Ruhrtriennale and MASS MoCA as part of the centenary of the end of WWI, The Head & the Load is a thrilling eighty-five-minute cacophony of sound, images, and movement, a performance collage that reveals little-known facts about African involvement in the war. The title comes from the Ghanaian proverb “The head and the load are the troubles of the neck,” representing the physical and psychological burdens thrust onto Africans. The production is divided into three acts, “Manifestos,” “Paradox,” and “War,” with such scenes as “Morsecode / Swahili Phrasebook,” “Orders & Commands,” “Troubles of the Body,” “Playing Against History,” “Kaiser Waltz,” and “Coda & Deathlist.” Composers Philip Miller and Thuthuka Sibisi’s score was inspired by Maurice Ravel, Erik Satie, Paul Hindemuthy, Arnold Schoenberg, and Fritz Kreisler, while Kentridge incorporates text, either spoken or projected onscreen, from Frantz Fanon, Tristan Tzara, Wilfred Owen, Aimé Césaire, the conference of Berlin, phrases from a handbook of military drills, Setswana proverbs from Sol Plaatje’s 1920 collection, and a letter from John Chilembwe.

The Head & the Load is highlighted by a multimedia procession across a two-hundred-foot-long stage (photo by Stephanie Berger)

The choreographer is Gregory Maqoma, with cinematography by Duško Marović, costumes by Greta Goiris, sets by Sabine Theunissen, lighting by Urs Schönebaum, and sound by Mark Grey, all coming together in exciting ways. Although Kentridge himself does not appear, his hands are evident throughout, particularly when cutting up maps and other documents on filmed segments, evoking the feel of the entire piece, which is really more of an experience than a show. When the audience enters the drill hall, they pass by several lights that project their shadows onto the back wall of the stage, a sly way of making everyone complicit in this colonialist world of war, ethnocentricity, and cultural suppression. It’s a critical message for the modern era, sent by an extraordinary artist and his marvelous team.

WHAT THE DICKENS? NINTH ANNUAL A CHRISTMAS CAROL MARATHON READING

what the dickens

Who: The New York City Master Chorale, Megan Abbott, Scott Adsit, Mike Albo, Jami Attenberg, Sandra Bauleo, Tara Isabella Burton, Alexander Chee, Vinson Cunningham, Maria Dahvana Headley, Marcy Dermansky, Jo Firestone, Angela Flournoy, Alice Gregory, Jill Hennessy, Suki Kim, Maris Kreizman, Victor LaValle, Min Jin Lee, Lisa Lucas, Noreen Malone, Leon Neyfakh, Max Read, Rosie Schaap, Elissa Schappell, Rob Spillman, J. Courtney Sullivan, Sarah Weinman, and more
What: “What the Dickens?”
Where: Housing Works Bookstore Cafe, 126 Crosby St., 212-334-3324
When: Saturday, December 15, free with advance RSVP, 12 noon – 4:30 pm
Why: On December 15, Housing Works will present its ninth annual marathon reading of Charles Dickens’s 1843 holiday classic, a ghost story about a poor family and a wealthy miser. “Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that,” the novel begins. “The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge’s name was good upon ’Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.” The event kicks off at 12 noon with Christmas carols sung by the New York City Master Chorale, followed by dozens of performers reading passages from the book. Seasonal treats will be available for purchase, and everything in the store will be ten percent off. Admission is free and you can come and go as you please, but advance RSVP is recommended.

PERSON PLACE THING: GARY SHTEYNGART

Gary Shteyngart will present his latest book at the JCC on December 12 (photo by Brigitte Lacombe)

Who: Gary Shteyngart
What: Arts + Ideas — Conversations
Where: Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan, 334 Amsterdam Ave. at 76th St., 646-505-4444
When: Wednesday, December 12, $20, 8:00
Why: Leningrad-born author Gary Shteyngart will be at the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan on December 12 for the latest “Person Place Thing” event, being held in conjunction with the publication of his most recent book, Lake Success (Random House, September 2018, $28). Shteyngart, whose previous novels include Super Sad True Love Story and Absurdistan, will discuss the book and sign copies; there will also be live klezmer music by Brooklyn-based new traditionalists Tsibele. “Barry Cohen, a man with 2.4 billion dollars of assets under management, staggered into the Port Authority Bus Terminal. He was visibly drunk and bleeding. There was a clean slice above his left brow where the nanny’s fingernail had gouged him and, from his wife, a teardrop scratch below his eye. It was 3:20 a.m.” So begins Lake Success, the first chapter of which is titled “Destination America.”