twi-ny recommended events

TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL: NETIZENS

Lawyer Carrie Goldberg fights cyber harassment and digital abuse in Netizens

NETIZENS (Cynthia Lowen, 2018)
Tuesday, April 24, Regal Cinemas Battery Park 11-6, 5:15
Friday, April 27, Cinépolis Chelsea 4, free with advance ticket, 7:30
www.tribecafilm.com
www.netizensfilm.com

In its April 24 newspaper, the New York Daily News reported a story about former Queens high school principal Annie Seifullah, who was suspended for a year without pay after X-rated pictures of her were found on her school computer. Seifullah lost her job even though the photos were allegedly placed there by an ex-boyfriend as an act of revenge porn — something city investigators did not dispute. Seifullah, represented by attorney Carrie Goldberg, is now suing the city over gender discrimination. The situation could have come straight out of Cynthia Lowen’s new documentary, the gripping, eye-opening Netizens, which is having its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, with upcoming screenings on April 24 and 27. The film follows the work of three women — including Goldberg — who are leading the fight against cyber harassment, revenge porn, and digital abuse. Lowen explores not only the invasion of privacy but the financial, professional, and psychological effects of these cyber attacks, which remain with the victim for a long time. “There’s not moving on beyond the trauma because the trauma is your shadow,” the Brooklyn-based Goldberg says. Goldberg, who also suffered cyber abuse at the hands of a man she dated for only four months, later adds, “The nonconsensual distribution of sexually graphic images and videos causes immediate, irreparable harm to its victims.” The virulent hatred with which environmental commodities trader Tina Reine has been attacked online by her ex is absolutely terrifying. The man has built myriad websites condemning her and continues to stalk her to prevent her from restarting her career. “I just want to move on and have a normal life,” Reine says. “And that’s not really expecting that much. So I will do whatever it takes to get this solved, but I’m tired.”

Anita Sarkeesian exposes online gender, race, and sexual discrimination in Tribeca Film Festival documentary

Even though the legal system can identify the responsible party, there are no clear legal channels for Reine to pursue. She was unable to get an order of protection, and her abuser uses the First Amendment to protect his legal right to continue the harassment. “It’s two different rules for men and women when it comes to sex,” Reine explains. Meanwhile, media critic Anita Sarkeesian has received death threats for decrying the depiction of women in video games, leading her to establish Feminist Frequency, which exposes gender, race, and sexual discrimination via The Freq Show and public appearances. “What do these platforms stand for and what do they want their platforms to be? Do they want it to be a cesspool of hate or do they want to actually make it something that users want to participate in and engage in?” Sarkeesian, who has also experienced cyber harassment, asks. “The thing about being attacked for four years is it takes away your humanity. You don’t get to feel to the extent of a human range of emotions because you can’t or else you’d be floored all the time. You have to be hypervigilant, and you can’t make jokes, and you can’t be human, and you can’t exist in the world like everyone else.”

In her directorial debut, Emmy-nominated writer and producer Lowen also speaks with Ordinary Women producer Elisabeth Aultman, University of Miami law professor Mary Anne Franks, Feminist Press executive director and publisher Jamia Wilson, Hate Crimes in Cyberspace author Danielle Keats Citron, Feminist Frequency managing editor Carolyn Petit, and Women’s Media Center Speech Project director Soraya Chemaly; the only man interviewed in the film is former assistant U.S. attorney and chief of cyber and intellectual crimes unit Wesley Hsu, who points out with regard to the cases, “The harm is immense. That’s why they’re worthy of prosecution.” Throughout the film, Lowen revisits the case of Celia, a young Mexican woman who doesn’t know who is stalking her. The resolution of her situation is frightening, representative of why it’s so difficult to arrest and imprison the perpetrators of these digital crimes. Perhaps Sarkeesian puts it best, however, placing cyber harassment in historical context: “It’s not like misogyny started when the internet started or when Twitter was developed.” It’s the monstrous amplification of misogyny that these platforms permit that takes one’s breath away — and all too often the victims’ lives as functioning human beings, on- and offline.

JETS DRAFT PARTY 2018

New York Jets fans can attend draft party at MetLife Stadium on Thursday night

MetLife Stadium
East Rutherford, NJ
Thursday, April 26, free with advance RSVP, 6:30
www.newyorkjets.com

It has been a long-standing tradition for New York Jets fans to boo the team’s big draft picks year after year, especially when it comes to quarterbacks. Remember Troy Taylor, Browning Nagle, Jeff Blake, Glenn Foley, Chuck Clements, Kellen Clemens, Brooks Bollinger, Brad Smith, and Greg McElroy? More recently, Geno Smith, Bryce Petty, and Christian Hackenberg are lost causes. Gang Green did have temporary success with Mark Sanchez and Chad Pennington, but the team hasn’t drafted a dependable QB since Ken O’Brien at number 1 in 1984 — three picks before their hated rivals, the Miami Dolphins, selected a guy named Dan Marino. This year the Jets have traded up to snare the third choice in a class that includes four potential franchise signal callers: USC’s Sam Darnold, Oklahoma’s Baker Mayfield, Wyoming’s Josh Allen, and UCLA’s Josh Rosen. GM Mike Maccagnan and the Jets brain trust better grab the right guy or the organization will continue its ineptitude; it’s going on half a century that they haven’t been to the Super Bowl, beating the Baltimore Colts in 1969 behind a dude named Joe Namath. On April 26, the Jets are holding a free draft party at MetLife Stadium in hopes of crowning a new king. There will be locker-room tours, access to the EY Coaches Club, the Jets Experience, Jets Fest, and player appearances by Terrence Brooks, Brandon Copeland, Isaiah Crowell, Jordan Leggett, Mike Pennel, Terrelle Pryor, Brandon Shell, Buster Skrine, ArDarius Stewart, Avery Williamson, and Brian Winters. Who? We’re not sure either, but maybe with just the right quarterback, this team can turn things around and finally get back on the winning track. J-E-T-S! Jets! Jets! Jets!

MLIMA’S TALE

Sahr Ngaujah is extraordinary as an endangered elephant in Mlima’s Tale (photo by Joan Marcus)

Martinson Hall, the Public Theater
425 Lafayette St. at Astor Pl.
Tuesday through Sunday through June 3, $85-$150
212-539-8500
www.publictheater.org

In 2015, a Minnesota dentist became an international pariah when he shot and killed a beloved thirteen-year-old lion named Cecil in Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park, purely for sport and a photo op. In the 2017 documentary Trophy, Shaul Schwarz and Christina Clusiau went deep inside the big business of trophy hunting, focusing on the industry surrounding the hunting of the Big Five: buffalo, leopards, elephants, lions, and rhinos. In Mlima’s Tale, which was just extended through June 3 at the Public’s Martinson Hall, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage follows the money after a treasured elephant is killed for his magnificent tusks in a national park in Kenya. Nottage, who traveled to Democratic Republic of Congo for Ruined to tell the harrowing story of rape and sexual abuse there, and went to Reading, Pennsylvania, to look at a factory town in trouble in Sweat (which began in Martinson Hall before transferring to Broadway), now takes theatergoers to the African savannah, where the mighty Mlima is facing death. The mammal is sensationally portrayed by the tall, powerfully built Sahr Ngaujah, who displays an impressive, chiseled chest and a deep, dark stare, his movements a kind of contemporary dance.

As the play opens, Mlima is on a spare stage, a full moon projected behind him. His speech is accompanied by elephant sounds in the background. “You must listen with your entire body, feel how the earth shifts when there’s the slightest disruption, because how you listen can mean the difference between life and death. It’s the truth of the savannah, something we all learn at a very young age,” he says, remembering what his grandmother taught him, echoing words spoken by many African and black American parents and grandparents to their children and grandchildren. Two hunters, the impatient Rahman (Ito Aghayere) and the older, wiser Geedi (Jojo Gonzalez), approach the fatally wounded Mlima, waiting for him to die so they can cut off his tusks. Geedi believes the proud animal should be treated with the respect he deserves, while Rahman recalls a Maasai legend, saying, “If you not give elephant proper burial, he’ll haunt you forever.” Just before dying, Mlima calls out to his brother, “Let reason rule your anger, and don’t come to mourn me! Run! Run!” Geedi then removes the unseen tusks and brings them to police chief Githinji (Kevin Mambo), setting in motion a La Ronde-like narrative structure in which one character from each scene continues into the next (with two exceptions) as the tusks, now represented by Ngaujah with white streaks across his face and body, are illegally transported by a series of corrupt men, each one taking his cut. Along the way, the spirit of Mlima is alive in the tusks, leaving a white mark of complicity and shame on everyone involved.

Sahr Ngaujah stands tall as Mlima as Kevin Mambo, Ito Aghayere, and Jojo Gonzalez portray characters debating the fate of the elephant’s tusks (photo by Joan Marcus)

Nottage (By the Way, Meet Vera Stark; Intimate Apparel) was inspired to write Mlima’s Tale after a conversation she had with Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow, an animal-rights activist who directed and produced the three-minute 2014 documentary Last Days, about the human and financial cost of the illegal ivory trade and its ties to terrorism. Aghayere (Familiar, Three Days to See), Gonzalez (F**king A, Small Mouth Sounds), and Mambo (The Color Purple, Fela!) play multiple roles, from warden and ship captain to ivory dealer and artist, often changing costumes (by Jennifer Moeller) in less than a minute. Director Jo Bonney (Father Comes Home from the Wars; By the Way, Meet Vera Stark) uses inventive staging for the quick transitions, as a large rectangular board moves horizontally across the front of the stage like a cinematic wipe as such basic props as chairs and tables are changed on Riccardo Hernandez’s set. Each new scene begins with a projected quote, including “Even the night has ears,” “No matter how full the river, it still wants to grow,” and “A single stick might smoke, but it will not burn.” Composer and music director Justin Hicks stands on the floor, next to the stage, effectively mixing music and natural sounds to maintain the stark atmosphere. (The sound design is by Darron L West.)

Tony and Olivier nominee Ngaujah (The Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek, Fela!) is spectacular as Mlima, his accusing eyes penetrating through the other characters as well as the audience, implicating all of us, his breathtaking movement seeking to regain power that might never return. (The choreography is by Chris Walker.) When he stands high on a table and is examined by prospective tusk buyers, it is like he is an African slave being sold at auction. But Nottage and Bonney don’t overplay that connection, instead focusing attention on the plight of the elephants, whose population has dropped from 1.3 million to 400,000 over the last several decades. “There are more elephants being killed than are being born, which means that in less than twenty years they may well be extinct,” a white Kenyan says in the play. Coincidentally, around the corner from the Public Theater, in Astor Plaza, is Gillie & Marc’s “The Last Three,” a bronze sculpture depicting three northern white rhinos, one atop the other, symbolizing the potential extinction of the species because of the rhino horn trade; sadly, right after the work was installed, one of the three remaining rhinos died. Mlima’s Tale is a gorgeously rendered, heartbreaking reminder of humanity’s place in the world, how greed and consumption trample over the natural environment and how every choice we make, as individuals and as a society, has an impact on the future of the planet, which is far too heavy with white markings everywhere.

TRIBECA TWI-NY TALK: JEFF KAUFMAN / EVERY ACT OF LIFE

Producer and director Jeff Kaufman on the set of Every Act of Life (photo courtesy Jeff Kaufman)

EVERY ACT OF LIFE (Jeff Kaufman, 2018)
Tribeca Film Festival
Monday, April 23, SVA Theater 2 Beatrice, 8:00
Tuesday, April 24, Cinépolis Chelsea 6, 5:00
Wednesday, April 25, Cinépolis Chelsea 2, 6:15
Thursday, April 26, Cinépolis Chelsea 9, 4:00
everyactoflifedocumentary.com
www.tribecafilm.com

Four-time Tony winner Terrence McNally and his husband, producer Tom Kirdahy, appeared in the 2015 documentary, The State of Marriage, about marriage equality, but director-producer Jeff Kaufman and producer Marcia Ross were surprised to learn that no one had made a film about McNally himself. So they did. The result is Every Act of Life, an intimate portrait of the Texas-born activist and playwright, who has also won two Obies, four Drama Desk Awards, and an Emmy and has been a fixture in the theater community for six decades, writing such popular and influential works as Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune; The Lisbon Traviata; Lips Together, Teeth Apart; Master Class; Kiss of the Spider Woman; and Love! Valour! Compassion!

Kaufman and Ross combine archival footage of many of McNally’s works with personal photos and new interviews with an all-star lineup that includes Angela Lansbury, Nathan Lane, Audra McDonald, Larry Kramer, Edie Falco, F. Murray Abraham, Tyne Daly, Billy Porter, Chita Rivera, John Slattery, Rita Moreno, Joe Mantello, and Christine Baranski, among many others. The film follows McNally through every act of his life, from his childhood in Texas living with abusive, alcoholic parents to his homosexuality, from his relationships with Edward Albee, Wendy Wasserstein, and others to his bout with lung cancer and marriage to Kirdahy. Every Act of Life is having its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 23, with Kaufman, Mantello, Abraham, Lane, and McNally participating in an “After the Screening” conversation moderated by Frank Rich. (The film is also being shown April 24, 25, and 26.) Just as the festival got under way, Kaufman, who has also directed Father Joseph, The Savoy King: Chick Webb and the Music That Changed America, and Brush with Life: The Art of Being Edward Biberman, discussed the project via email in this exclusive twi-ny talk.

twi-ny: You first interviewed Terrence McNally and his husband, Tom Kirdahy, for The State of Marriage. How familiar were you with him and his work at that time?

Jeff Kaufman: Marcia grew up in Mt. Vernon, just outside of NYC, and the great love of her youth was coming into the city to go to the theater. It shaped much of her life that followed. I grew up near Seattle with a love of classic movies and art, so my discovery of the theater came a bit later (in part by subscribing to the Fireside Theatre Book Club). We both loved Terrence’s work but also made some lasting discoveries through making this film.

Every Act of Life is an intimate look at the life and career of award-winning playwright and activist Terrence McNally

twi-ny: Do you have a favorite play of his?

JK: For Marcia, her favorite play by Terrence (of many) is Love! Valour! Compassion! She says it speaks so beautifully about relationships. There are many characters and moments and plays of Terrence’s that keep reverberating for me, but I would mention (so others can look them up) the spiritual moments in A Perfect Ganesh and Corpus Christi, the sense of family and scope of life in L! V! C!, and the deep connection to the power of the arts in Master Class.

twi-ny: What made you think he would be a good subject for a full-length documentary? Was it difficult to get him to agree to the film?

JK: When we interviewed Terrence and Tom for The State of Marriage, we were so impressed with how direct and open and full of feeling Terrence could be. His life and work have changed many lives, and launched many careers, so his story is about a community of remarkable people as well. Through Terrence’s life and work we connect to a history of the theater, the struggle for LGBTQ rights (as Nathan Lane says, “Terrence has always been ahead of his time”), overcoming addiction (thanks in large part to Angela Lansbury), and what it means to keep searching and growing (and loving) throughout your life. So, for us Terrence, like his plays, speaks to a lot of important concerns.

And since we worked well together in the previous film, it wasn’t hard to get him and Tom to agree. They’ve been great to work with throughout the project.

twi-ny: Terrence gives you remarkable access to his life. Did that happen early on in the process, or did you have to establish a rapport?

JK: Our first conversation about doing this film was with Tom Kirdahy, a theater producer and former AIDS attorney who is also Terrence’s husband. Tom understood completely that honesty and access are essential. None of us wanted a fawning tribute. Terrence wasn’t comfortable with every aspect of our interviews, but he was remarkably forthcoming and unvarnished. I’ve interviewed hundreds of people, but Terrence is unique.

twi-ny: Were there any times he asked for the camera to be turned off?

JK: When he decides to open the door, he opens it all the way. There may have been a few things he pushed back on a bit, but we always got what we needed.

twi-ny: Terrence is known for being a perfectionist and, at times, demanding, yet he is very relaxed throughout the film. Did the making of the film actually go that smoothly? Whose idea was it to have numerous scenes in which two characters speak very comfortably to each other?

JK: I always try to put interview subjects in a positive frame of mind (even while asking a lot, on several levels). Marcia is a great ally in this as well. Often when I’m working with the film crew to set up the shot, Marcia engages in her singular way (and depth of theater knowledge) to help keep the subject engaged and relaxed. Then I conduct the interview. Since you asked, I came up with the idea for the various sequences (Edie and Murray talking about Frankie and Johnny, etc.).

Jeff Kaufman interviewed a vast array of theater people for documentary about Terrence McNally (photo courtesy Jeff Kaufman)

twi-ny: You have amassed a terrific cast of characters from both his personal and professional life for the film. What was that experience like, “casting” the documentary? Was there someone you really wanted to interview but was unavailable?

JK: Casting is key in documentaries, narrative films, and the theater. Also important for our work is to get people to tell stories that put the audience in a scene with the subjects of our films. We were pretty much able to talk to everyone on our list . . . but I would have loved to go back in time and film Terrence with some of the people who are no longer living. We got as close as possible to that by finding unseen footage of Edward Albee and Wendy Wasserstein, having Bryan Cranston read an amazing letter to Terrence about what a writer needs to keep going, and getting Meryl Streep to read a letter from Terrence’s beloved high school English teacher.

twi-ny: In the film, Terrence and the actors talk about the importance of collaboration, which even extended to many of the documentary participants helping the Kickstarter campaign by contributing special rewards for donors. How does collaboration in theater compare with collaboration in film?

JK: Both are essential, and as Terrence says, life is about collaboration as well. I have a strong vision for what I want the documentary to be and say. So does Marcia. However, that only comes together through the work and vision and talent of many people.

twi-ny: What was the single most surprising thing you learned about theater and Terrence McNally while making the film?

JK: I don’t know if this qualifies as a surprise, but Marcia and I were both impressed by finding in Terrence, and others in the film, great artists who could easily rest on their laurels but who instead are still inspired, still learning, and still striving to do new and better work.

KING LEAR

Kent (Antony Byrne) is at the ready as Lear (Sir Antony Sher) enters in Royal Shakespeare production at BAM (photo by Richard Termine)

Brooklyn Academy of Music
BAM Harvey Theater
651 Fulton St.
April 7-29, $35-$125, 7:30 (plus weekend matinees)
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

Sir Antony Sher bids adieu to Shakespeare in a dark version of the already dark King Lear, continuing at BAM’s Harvey Theater through April 27. The Royal Shakespeare Company production takes place in a dank, dreary, dismal world reminiscent of Akira Kurosawa’s The Lower Depths, where poverty and disillusionment reign. As the audience enters the theater, robed and hooded figures slowly walk onstage from the wings and sit on a vinyl tarp covering the ground, which is strewn with black gravel, while hellish mist floats in. After several minutes, they leave and a door in the back wall opens; Lear, wearing an enormous, brutal, bearlike fur coat, makes his entrance, sitting on his throne atop a large box with transparent sides. The members of the court are all dressed in black, some with gold adornments, except for one woman, who we soon learn is Cordelia (Mimi Ndiweni). Prepared to divide his kingdom into thirds, Lear listens as first Goneril (Nia Gwynne), who is married to the Duke of Albany (Clarence Smith), then Regan (Kelly Williams), wed to the Duke of Cornwall (James Clyde), profess their undying love for their father, and each is rewarded with their share of the kingdom. But when Cordelia, the youngest daughter, tells Lear she loves him as a child should love a parent, refusing to damn him with faint praise, he disinherits her. Lear’s trusted friend and adviser, the Earl of Kent (Antony Byrne), questions the king’s decision, so he is exiled. Afterward, another of Lear’s advisers, the Earl of Gloucester (David Troughton), is tricked by his illegitimate son, Edmund (Paapa Essiedu), into believing that his older son, Edgar (Oliver Johnstone), has plotted against him, leading Edgar to run away and disguise himself as Poor Tom, a crazy wanderer. Things don’t go well from there for anyone in the play, which was inspired by Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland and Sir Philip Sidney’s Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia.

The Brooklyn Academy of Music has been presenting Lear for more than 150 years, with a wide range of actors portraying the king, from Ernesto Rossi and Edwin Booth to Frank Langella and Sir Derek Jacobi. “It’s all Ian McKellen’s fault,” Sher writes at the beginning of his latest book, Year of the King: The Lear Diaries; McKellen played Lear at BAM in 2007. Directed by RSC artistic director Gregory Doran, Sher’s longtime partner, this Lear is more subtle than most, if that word can be used at all to describe the Bard’s monumental tragedy. The sixty-eight-year-old Sher plays Lear as a sad, gentle, at times spoiled child who is already in decline before completely unraveling. With great understatement he towers over everyone in the storm scene, high atop the box, video of a rushing waterfall raging behind him, but he has already lost it all. Byrne is a fine, forceful Kent, boasting a shaved head with a warriorlike tattoo; he’s determined to bring the king back to reality, but he knows it’s too late. Troughton is magnificent as Gloucester, a pathetic figure on his way to certain doom, his hair so disheveled you want to go onstage and hug him (and comb his dreary locks). Johnstone’s Edgar is heartbreaking as well, a kind of sprite who has been beaten down by a cruel world he can’t understand. And Graham Turner is a memorable Fool, a tall, strong clown whose mind and body break down over time.

Kent (Antony Byrne) attends to a failing Lear (Sir Antony Sher) as the Fool (Graham Turner) looks on (photo by Richard Termine)

Niki Turner’s set is mostly spare, with various objects, from small trees to chairs and tables to large circles on poles representing the sun and the moon, carried by the cast. The large box is a curious addition that might not completely work — perhaps it’s a metaphor for peering inside the minds of the characters, particularly Lear’s, or else is a sign of being trapped — but it is eerily effective in the blinding scene, blood spurting and splashing onto the transparent sides. Doran focuses on the act of seeing throughout the play, giving prominence to lines about sight and eyes. “What, art mad? A man may see how this world goes with no eyes,” Lear tells Gloucester. “’Tis the times’ plague, when madmen lead the blind,” the Fool says to the old man (Edward James Walters). Tim Mitchell’s lighting, Jonathan Ruddick’s sound design, and Ilona Sekacz’s music, performed by musicians on balconies on the right and left of the stage, combine for a threatening atmosphere; the goings-on grow so somber that a surprising amount of the audience did not return after intermission for the second act, although I’d like to think that was more because those patrons were not prepared for nearly three and a half hours of gloom and doom. But this is Lear, after all, in this case featuring one of the world’s greatest Shakespearean actors taking his final Bard bow. It might be more of a whisper than a scream, but it is majestic and monumental nonetheless.

TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL RETROSPECTIVE SPECIAL SCREENING: TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF IN THE SOUP

Steve Buscemi stars as a New York City nebbish with big dreams in Alexandre Rockwell’s In the Soup

IN THE SOUP (Alexandre Rockwell, 1992)
SVA Theater 1 Silas
333 West Twenty-Third St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday, April 24, $25.94, 7:30
Tribeca Film Festival runs April 18-29
www.tribecafilm.com
www.factorytwentyfive.com

The 2018 Tribeca Film Festival might be hosting gala anniversary screenings of Scarface and Schindler’s List at the Beacon with impressive rosters of superstar guests and high price tags, but the one to see is Alexandre Rockwell’s 1992 black-and-white indie cult classic, In the Soup, which is being shown April 24 at the SVA Theater. The twenty-fifth anniversary screening is a case of life imitating art (imitating life): The black comedy is about the fabulously named Adolpho Rollo (Steve Buscemi), a ne’er-do-well New Yorker living in a run-down apartment building, working on his master opus, a five-hundred-page screenplay called Unconditional Surrender that he believes will change the face of cinema itself. A familiar New York story? Perhaps, but the film was largely unfamiliar to almost everyone but the most dedicated enthusiasts, since it has been out of circulation for most of its existence. A few years ago, In the Soup was down to one last, damaged archival print, but distribution company Factory 25 began a Kickstarter campaign to restore the film in time for its quarter-century anniversary, somewhat mimicking Adolpho’s efforts to get his movie made — which, in turn, is based on Rockwell’s attempts to make In the Soup in the first place, as many of the characters and situations in the film are based on real people and actual events. With wanna-be gangster brothers Louis Barfardi (Steven Randazzo) and Frank Barfardi (Francesco Messina) breathing down his neck for the rent, Adolpho decides to sell the last thing of value (at least in his mind) that he owns, his screenplay. (In real life, Rockwell sold his saxophone to help get In the Soup financed.) His first offer is not quite what he imagined, involving a pair of cable TV producers played by Jim Jarmusch and Carol Kane. But next he meets Joe (Seymour Cassel), an older, white-haired teddy bear of a man who may or may not be connected. Joe is so excited about making a movie that he can’t stop hugging and kissing — and even getting in bed with — a confused Adolpho, who really has nowhere else to turn. Adolpho wants his next-door neighbor, Angelica (Jennifer Beals, who was married to Rockwell at the time), to star in his film, but she wants nothing to do with him, although he does succeed in making Angelica’s estranged, and plenty strange, husband, Gregoire (Stanley Tucci), mighty jealous. Adolpho is also terrified of Joe’s mysterious, apparently rather dangerous, brother, Skippy (Will Patton). Little by little, the money starts coming in, but Adolpho and Joe start having creative differences about fundraising and moviemaking, leading to a series of even odder situations with more bizarre characters.

Adolpho Rollo (Steve Buscemi) meets a strange bedfellow (Seymour Cassel) in indie cult classic

A kind of cousin to Jarmusch’s 1984 gem, Stranger than Paradise, Rockwell’s third feature (following Hero and Sons) was made on a shoestring budget, shot in color by cinematographer Phil Parmet but then transferred to black-and-white to obtain a stark, drenched look. Veteran character actor and Cassavetes regular Cassel and up-and-coming actor/fireman Buscemi form a great comic duo, Cassel filling Joe with an unquenchable thirst for all life has to offer, Buscemi imbuing Adolpho with a rigid, sheltered view of existence, a young man lost in his own warped reality. “My father died the day I was born. I was raised by Fyodor Dostoevsky and Friedrich Nietzsche,” Adolpho says, as if that’s a good thing. Patton is a riot as the menacing Skippy, while Beals and Tucci have fun with their accents. The fab cast also includes Debi Mazar as Suzie, Elizabeth Bracco as Jackie, Sully Boyar as the old man, Pat Moya as Joe’s companion, Dang, Ruth Maleczech as Adolpho’s mother, Michael J. Anderson as a drug dealer, and Sam Rockwell (no relation to Alexandre) as Angelica’s brother, Pauli. In the Soup is also a great New York City film, with several awesome locations. The film won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, beating out Allison Anders’s Gas Food Lodging and Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs (Cassel also won for acting), but the distribution company handling the picture went bankrupt shortly after releasing it, resulting in its scarce availability, which was a shame, because it’s an absolute treasure. But now it’s back and looking better than ever. (Coincidentally, Rockwell, Anders, and Tarantino were three of the quartet of directors who made the 1995 omnibus Four Rooms, along with Robert Rodriguez.) Alexandre Rockwell, who went on to make such other films as Somebody to Love, 13 Moons, and Pete Smalls Is Dead (with many of the actors from In the Soup), will take part in a conversation following the Tribeca Film Festival screening, joined by Buscemi, Beals, Sam Rockwell, and Parmet.

FEEDING THE DRAGON

Sharon Washington shares her childhood tale of living inside the New York Public Library in Feeding the Dragon (photo by James Leynse)

Cherry Lane Mainstage Theatre
38 Commerce St.
Tuesday – Sunday through April 27, $72
212-989-2020
www.feedingthedragontheplay.com
primarystages.org

Amid all the high-profile theatrical extravaganzas that are trying to capture Tony buzz this spring, a small gem opened last month, a must-see, particularly for the literary-minded. From 1969, when she was ten, until 1973, Sharon Washington lived on the fifth floor of the St. Agnes Branch of the New York Public Library on the Upper West Side with her mother, Connie, a native New Yorker; her father, George, the Charleston-born library custodian; Connie’s mother, Gramma Ma; and their dog, Brownie. Washington, an actress who has appeared in such films as Die Hard with a Vengeance and Michael Clayton, such series as The Looming Tower and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and such plays as While I Yet Live and The Scottsboro Boys, is now sharing her poignant story in Feeding the Dragon, a Primary Stages production continuing at the Cherry Lane through April 27. Washington is a warm, eminently likable storyteller, moving across Tony Ferrieri’s welcoming set with grace, ease, and humor. The two-level stage features five glass windows in the back, with multiple rectangular panels of different colors, a wooden table and chair and desk lamp at the center, and several rows of library books and card catalog drawers, in addition to one pile of books piled high on the lower level, next to a stool. For eighty minutes, Washington keeps the audience riveted as she relates her engrossing tale, which for viewers of a certain age provides a similar thrill to E. L. Konigsburg’s From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, the classic children’s novel about a brother and sister who essentially live at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Actress Sharon Washington stars in one-woman show about her childhood at the Cherry Lane (photo by James Leynse)

During the day, Sharon would go to school, but when she got home and the library was closed, she voraciously read through the endless stacks of books, absorbing as much as she possibly could. She had free rein, except for the basement, where the furnace was. Her mother told her not to go down there because it was dangerous, but Sharon didn’t listen. “To me the furnace room was an enchanted cave where I could watch Daddy feed the Dragon,” she says, describing how the furnace looked like a monster to her. “I loved watching Daddy work. He was like a knight from my Blue Fairy book — St. George and the Dragon.” Sharon talks about the owners of the store next door, Mr. Sam and Miss Sophie; wonders how her parents got a baby grand piano into the apartment; discusses getting into Dalton; reenacts scenes from books with her best friend, Esther; and searches for Brownie when the dog escapes the apartment and runs into the library. When she discovers something about her father that her parents kept from her, she is sent to Queens for a few weeks to stay with Connie’s siblings, Aunt Sis and Uncle Gene, then goes on a road trip with her father to visit, for the first time, his family in Charleston, experiencing aspects of the real world that she couldn’t find in books, including Jim Crow. Sharon seamlessly flows from character to character, each with a distinct voice, while also reading passages from books by W. E. B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and James Baldwin. But life there was far from idyllic for the Washingtons. “Let me tell you something, baby. Folks say all the time it must be so nice to live rent-free. Shoot . . . this ain’t free,” says her father, who had to shovel coal into the furnace to keep it constantly burning. “I work hard. Seven days a week. Don’t bother me . . . worth it to keep a roof over my family’s head. I ain’t scared of no hard work. That ain’t nothing new to me.” Director Maria Mileaf never allows the show to become stagnant; in addition to Sharon’s movement — and mad dancing skillz — lighting designer Ann Wrightson keeps the colors on the back windows changing, and sound designer Lindsay Jones adds offstage music and subtle audio effects. Sharon was inspired to tell her fairy-tale story — yes, she begins by saying, “Once upon a time, there was a little girl who lived in a library” — when journalist Jim Dwyer wrote a 2009 article about the family in the New York Times.. Of course, no one else could tell it as the girl who lived it. So forget those big-budget blockbusters and instead hurry down to the Cherry Lane before this library closes.