twi-ny recommended events

INGMAR BERGMAN CENTENNIAL RETROSPECTIVE: SHAME / THE PASSION OF ANNA (WITH LIV ULLMANN PRESENT)

Eva (Liv Ullmann) and Jan (Max von Sydow) struggle to preserve their love during a brutal civil war in Ingmar Bergman’s Shame

SHAME (Ingmar Bergman, 1968)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
February 28, March 1-3
Series runs February 7 – March 15
212-727-8110
filmforum.org

Longtime Ingmar Bergman muse Liv Ullmann will bet at Film Forum on March 2 for a Q&A following the 6:15 screening of Shame, part of a five-week retrospective celebrating the hundredth anniversary of the Swedish director’s birth. Shame is a brilliant examination of the physical and psychological impact of war, as seen through the eyes of a happily married couple innocently caught in the middle of the brutality. Jan (Max von Sydow) and Eva Rosenberg (Liv Ullmann) have isolated themselves from society, living without a television and with a broken radio, maintaining a modest farm on a relatively desolate island a ferry ride from the mainland. As the film opens, they are a somewhat ordinary husband and wife, brushing their teeth, making coffee, and discussing having a child. But soon they are thrust into a horrific battle between two unnamed sides, fighting for reasons that are never given. As Jan and Eva struggle to survive, they are forced to make decisions that threaten to destroy everything they have built together. Shot in stark black-and-white by master cinematographer Sven Nykvist, Shame is a powerful, emotional antiwar statement that makes its point through intense visual scenes rather than narrative rhetoric. Jan and Eva huddle in corners or nearly get lost in crowds, then are seen traversing a smoky, postapocalyptic landscape riddled with dead bodies. Made during the Vietnam War, Shame is Bergman’s most violent, action-filled film; bullets can be heard over the opening credits, announcing from the very beginning that this is going to be something different from a director best known for searing personal dramas. However, at its core, Shame is just that, a gripping, intense tale of a man and a woman who try to preserve their love in impossible times. Ullmann and von Sydow both give superb, complex performances, creating believable characters who will break your heart. Shame is also being shown February 28, March 1, March 2 at 2:00 and 10:15, and March 3.

Andreas Winkelman (von Sydow) and Anna Fromm (Liv Ullmann) seek love, companionship, and the truth in Ingmar Bergman’s The Passion of Anna

THE PASSION OF ANNA (Ingmar Bergman, 1969)
Film Forum
March 2, 3, 7, 13
filmforum.org

Liv Ullmann will also be at Film Forum on March 3 for a Q&A following the 12:30 screening of The Passion of Anna, the conclusion to Ingmar Bergman’s unofficial island trilogy that began with Hour of the Wolf and Shame, each work filmed on Fårö island and starring Ullmann and Max von Sydow as a couple. Bergman throws caution to the wind in The Passion of Anna, the Swedish title of which is the more direct and honest The Passion. The 1969 film was made while Bergman and Ullmann’s personal relationship was ending, and it shows. The film opens with Andreas Winkelman (von Sydow) trying to repair his leaking roof. A divorcé, he lives by himself on the island, treasuring his isolation as he smokes his pipe and goes about his basic business. But when Anna Fromm (Ullmann) stops by to use his phone, he gets swept up into Anna’s drama — her husband and child were recently killed in an accident that left her with a bad leg — and that of her best friends, Elis Vergerus (Erland Josephson) and his wife, Eva (Bibi Andersson). Suddenly Andreas is going to dinner parties, taking in a puppy, and getting involved in the mysterious case of a rash of animal killings, whom some are blaming on off-kilter local resident Johan Andersson (Erik Hell). And the more his privacy is invaded, the worse it all could become.

For the first time, Bergman, a perfectionist of the highest order, allowed improvisation in several scenes. He gives each actor a few minutes to describe their characters during the film, breaking the fourth wall, while also adding his own narration. “Has Ingmar Bergman made a picture about his cast, or has his cast made a picture about Ingmar Bergman?” the original American trailer asks. Cinematographer extraordinaire Sven Nykvist uses a handheld camera while switching between black-and-white and color, occasionally focusing on dazzling silhouettes and close-ups that are challenged by the stark reds of a blazing fire and Anna’s hat and the bold blues of the sky and Anna’s penetrating eyes, all splendidly edited by Siv Lundgren. Bergman tackles such regular subjects as God, infidelity, dreams, war, and loneliness with a slow build that threatens to explode at any moment. The film is also very much about the search for truth, both in real life and cinema. It might be called The Passion of Anna, but there is an overarching coldness that pervades everything. The finale is sensational, the scene going out of focus until virtually nothing is left. The Passion of Anna is screening in Film Forum’s “Ingmar Bergman Centennial Retrospective” on March 2, 3, 7, and 13.

HANGMEN

Martin McDonagh’s Hangmen is set primarily in a Lancashire pub run by a government executioner (photo by Ahron R. Foster)

Atlantic Theater Company
Linda Gross Theater
336 West 20th St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through March 25, $90-$110
866-811-4111
atlantictheater.org

British-Irish writer and filmmaker Martin McDonagh further establishes himself as one of the finest storytellers in all the land with the exquisitely rendered, Olivier Award–winning Hangmen, which has just been very deservedly extended through March 25 at the Atlantic. McDonagh is already riding high with Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri, which he wrote, produced, and directed and has been nominated for seven Academy Awards; the film is a razor-sharp investigation of one mother’s determination to find out who raped and killed her daughter in a small town that wants to move on from the tragedy. Hangmen begins in 1963, when master executioner Harry Wade (Mark Addy) and his somewhat hapless assistant, Syd Armfield (Reece Shearsmith), are preparing to hang convicted child rapist and murderer Hennessy (Gilles Geary), who is fighting to stay alive. “You’re hanging an innocent man! I never even met the girl! I’ve never even been to Norfolk!” Hennessy insists. “That’s all just the whys and wherefores. That’s nowt to do with me,” the burly Harry explains shortly before pulling the lever and hanging Hennessy. “Now where’s our bloody breakfast? I, for one, am fucking starved,” Harry says after Hennessy is officially declared dead. To Harry, hanging is his job, and he is simply going to carry out the orders of the government to the best of his ability.

Harry Wade (Mark Addy) and his wife, Alice (Sally Rogers), worry about their daughter in gripping play at the Atlantic (photo by Ahron R. Foster)

Two years later, Harry is at the pub he runs with his wife, Alice (Sally Rogers). Also there are four regulars, the daft Bill (Richard Hollis), the old and deaf Arthur (John Horton), Charlie (Billy Carter), who repeats everything for Arthur, and Fry (David Lansbury), a policeman who looks the other way whenever necessary. Capital punishment, including hanging, has just been outlawed in Britain, and young reporter Clegg (Owen Campbell) is trying to get a quote from Harry, who refuses to talk — until Clegg brings up Albert Pierrepoint (Maxwell Caulfield), the most famous of Britain’s executioners and Harry’s archnemesis and former boss. They are soon joined by the mysterious Peter Mooney (Johnny Flynn), a suspicious character who appears to have an ulterior motive. After Mooney violates pub protocol, Alice says to Harry, “Don’t mind him, love. He just don’t know the ropes, does he?” to which Harry responds, “There’s ropes and there’s ropes, though, int there?,” one of several rope jokes McDonagh uses. Mooney turns more menacing as he seeks to rent a room above the pub and takes an interest in Alice and Harry’s extremely shy fifteen-year-old daughter, Shirley (Gaby French), setting up a thoroughly unpredictable, wickedly funny second act.

Hangmen is loosely inspired by the exploits of the real-life Harry Allen, an English hangman who at first assisted Pierrepoint (the subject of the excellent 2005 biopic Pierrepoint — The Last Hangman) and later, as chief executioner, hanged a man named James Hanratty who professed his innocence to the very end. The Royal Court production is expertly directed by Matthew Dunster (The Lightning Child, Mogadishu), who never allows the play to pause for a breath; none of the actors are ever just standing around, waiting, even as the action takes place elsewhere. Anna Fleischle’s set marvelously morphs twice, including a gripping scene between Mooney and Armfield in a café. Addy (Game of Thrones, The Full Monty) is utterly charming as the boisterous and blustery Harry, a bigger-than-life figure who has no regrets, except for declining an invitation to hang convicted Nazis. In his relatively brief appearance, Caulfield (Grease 2, Class Enemy) is a hoot as Pierrepoint, a serious man who brings down the house. But the success of the narrative depends on Mooney, played with devilish charm by Flynn (Richard III / Twelfth Night, Jerusalem); the questions surrounding who Mooney is, what he wants, and what he might have done are central not only to the play but to the overall debate over the effectiveness of the death penalty as justice and deterrent. And through it all, the real star is McDonagh, whose skill at writing dialogue and putting well-drawn, unique characters in emotionally and psychologically (and physically) challenging situations is unparalleled. McDonagh’s plays have won three Olivier Awards (The Lieutenant of Inishmore, The Pillowman, and Hangmen), earned two other Best Play nominations (The Beauty Queen of Leenane, A Skull in Connemara), and garnered four Best Play Tony nods; meanwhile, he was nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for his 2008 thriller, In Bruges. The man can just plain write. Hangmen is a sizzling black comedy, one of the best plays of the season. It’s not going to hang around forever — although a Broadway transfer would be most welcome — so book your tickets now.

RELEVANCE

Dr. Kelly Taylor (Molly Camp) moderates a discussion with Dr. Theresa Hanneck (Jayne Houdyshell) and Msemaji Ukweli (Pascale Armand) in Relevance (photo by Joan Marcus)

MCC Theater at the Lucille Lortel Theatre
121 Christopher St. between Bleecker & Hudson Sts.
Tuesday – Sunday through March 11, $49-$99
212-352-3101
www.mcctheater.org

“What you hear underneath it is hate. It’s pure, unadulterated hate,” Dr. Theresa Hanneck (Tony winner Jayne Houdyshell) says at the beginning of JC Lee’s electrifying Relevance, which opened this afternoon at the Lucille Lortel Theatre. The timely and topical MCC world premiere takes place at the fictional American Conference for Letters and Culture, where Theresa, a white woman in her late fifties, is being honored with the Alcott lifetime achievement award for her influential career as an outspoken feminist writer and teacher. As the play opens, she is on a panel with up-and-coming writer and activist Msemaji Ukweli (Tony nominee Pascale Armand), a twentysomething African American woman who quickly reveals that she is not afraid to take down her idols to prove a point. The talk is being moderated by vice committee chair Dr. Kelly Taylor (Molly Camp), a white woman in her thirties who desperately wants to avoid controversy, especially involving race, gender, and age. After Theresa brings up the concept of privilege, Msemaji fires back, and the two women go for each other’s throat as Kelly tries to calm things down.

David (Richard Masur) and Theresa (Jayne Houdyshell) have a lot to talk about in MCC world premiere at the Lucille Lortel (photo by Joan Marcus)

Theresa is livid about how she was treated by Msemaji; her longtime agent and former lover, David (Emmy nominee Richard Masur), thinks she should let it go, but Theresa is dead-set on revenge, belittling her new rival. “You pick a topic people are afraid to confront, you feign bravery with a cursory glimpse, and everyone showers you with accolades for showing them a touchstone they already knew was there,” she says, convinced that Msemaji is a phony. Meanwhile, Msemaji is not going to back off just because of Theresa’s history. “Her work is a clarion call from the past, a touchstone for my generation as we move the conversation forward, unmarked by the same scars that are tokens of her survival,” Msemaji explains. The ever-widening generation gap is also evident in social media; whereas Msemaji spreads her message on Twitter and on such sites as Jezebel, Theresa has never tweeted and doesn’t even know how to scroll on her smartphone. “Twitter is hardly Vidal versus Buckley,” a defiant Theresa says. “It’s people climbing on top of one another to see what the kids at the cool table are talking about. Who can ‘out woke’ who. It’s as much a debate as a Fox & Friends panel.” But when she digs up some dirt on Msemaji, Theresa becomes digitally literate on the spot while she decides how far she is willing to go to protect her legacy and not be shoved aside.

Msemaji Ukweli (Pascale Armand) knows just what she wants in Relevance (photo by Joan Marcus)

Relevance is gripping theater, focusing on many of the key hot-button issues that have led to rising hatred on the streets, in the government, and, of course, across social media. Lee (Luce, Looking) and director Liesl Tommy (Eclipsed, The Good Negro) zero in on the bickering that exists among liberals with views not that different from each other but who find themselves at odds regarding their methods. Houdyshell (The Humans, A Dolls House, Part 2), one of the leading ladies of New York theater, is a force of nature as Theresa, a strong, determined woman who is not about to yield her place as a major figure in the women’s rights movement. Armand (Eclipsed, The Trip to Bountiful) is tough as nails as Msemaji, a bold, future-thinking woman who knows it’s her time to shine. Camp (The Heiress, Close Up Space) strikes just the right note as Kelly, whose conflict-avoidant perkiness covers a steely ambition to excel in a position long dominated by men. And Masur (Transparent, One Day at a Time) is subtle and gentle as David, a seemingly reasonable man who has his own personal agenda.

Tony winner Clint Ramos’s (Eclipsed, Sunday in the Park with George) revolving set goes from conference stage to hotel bar to bedroom, with such songs as Joan Armatrading’s “Drop the Pilot” — which includes the line “Don’t use your army to fight a losing battle” — accompanying the changes. However, Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew’s projections, mostly depicting what is happening “live” on social media, can be overwhelming and distracting. Relevance unfolds like a classic courtroom drama, with Theresa and Msemaji evoking Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan going at it back and forth, each one making salient, hard-hitting points, taking on hypocrisy while also serving their own substantial egos. Lee and Tommy do a superb job navigating the deeply intellectual and philosophical arguments being made, which easily could turn to the pedantic and pretentious but instead are thought-provoking and eye-opening. In a world fraught with oversensitivity and political correctness, Relevance also stands as a cogent reminder of what could possibly be accomplished if some people could just come together and fight on the same side — and the tremendous cost incurred when they don’t.

WORK UP 4.0

The White Box at Gibney Dance
Gibney Dance Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center
280 Broadway between Chambers & Reade Sts.
March 2-3, 9-10, 16-17, $10, 8:00
646-837-6809
gibneydance.org

The fourth annual “Work Up” series at Gibney Dance takes place the first three Friday and Saturday nights in March, with shared programs by emerging dance and performance artists. Tickets are only ten dollars to get a sneak peek at some up-and-coming dancers and choreographers in a very cool space. On March 2-3, “Work Up 4.1” consists of Ainesh Madan’s Phantasies, Evelyn Lilian Sanchez Narvaez’s okay, I’m gunna start now…, and Marion Spencer’s Rosalie. On March 9-10, “Work Up 4.2” features Babay L. Angles’s May Malas Sa Loob Pero May Datating Pa (There’s been wickedness within but something else is coming).: An exploration of the Pinay Psyche in process of Decolonization, J. Bouey’s The Space Between Words, and Rourou Ye’s Phantom Duet. And on March 16-17, “Work Up 4.3” brings together Melanie Greene’s Sapphire, Summer Minerva’s Femminiello/Belonging, and EmmaGrace Skove-Epes’s in search of mirrors, and catch the light just right. Each Friday night performance is followed by a reception, and each Saturday night show concludes with a discussion with the artists. In addition, there is a free multimedia gallery exhibit, running through March 18, consisting of works by the participating artists.

VICTOR SJÖSTRÖM — THE SCREEN’S FIRST MASTER: HE WHO GETS SLAPPED

Lon Chaney stars as a scientist-turned-clown in Victor Sjöström’s He Who Gets Slapped

HE WHO GETS SLAPPED (Victor Sjöström, 1924)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Monday, February 26, 6:20
Series continues through March 5
212-727-8110
filmforum.org

In conjunction with its Ingmar Bergman Centennial Retrospective, Film Forum is presenting “Victor Sjöström: The Screen’s First Master,” five films by the Swedish master who was Bergman’s mentor and appeared in two of his films, To Joy and Wild Strawberries. The mini-festival continues February 26 with Sjöström’s second English-language film and MGM’s first-ever picture, He Who Gets Slapped, which Sjöström wrote and directed under the Americanized last name Seastrom. Lon Chaney stars as scientist Paul Beaumont, who is excited when he makes a major discovery about the origins of humankind, but his wealthy benefactor, Baron Regnard (Marc McDermott), steals his work and presents it to the Academy, slapping Beaumont’s face to great hilarity and applause when the scientist claims it is actually his theory. After Regnard also steals Beaumont’s wife, Maria (Ruth King), the sad-sack scientist runs off and joins the circus, rising in stature as He, a clown who gets slapped over and over and over as a kind of self-flagellation, much to the delight of audiences everywhere. “Over a hundred slaps last night, He,” fellow clown Tricaud (Ford Sterling) tells him. “You lucky fellow! Soon you’ll be getting famous! But you know what they like — there’s nothing makes people laugh so hard as seeing someone else get slapped!” The distraught clown perks up when Consuelo (Norma Shearer) joins the circus as a bareback rider who will team up with Bezano (John Gilbert), but He — Beaumont doesn’t even exist anymore — gets mad when he finds out that Consuelo’s father, Count Mancini (Tully Marshall), has sold her to the circus because he is nearly broke — and shortly after that the Count is pimping his daughter off to none other than the Baron, something that neither Bezano nor He is about to let happen.

he who gets slapped poster

Based on Leonid Andreyev’s 1914 Russian play, He Who Gets Slapped is a taut psychological drama in which Sjöström and cowriter Carey Wilson explore the mind of a smart, talented man who loses his sanity, choosing to let himself be continually humiliated instead of fighting for what’s right. Sjöström (The Wind, The Phantom Carriage) and cinematographer Milton Moore add several cinematic tricks to reveal He’s mental state, including a circle of miniature clowns surrounding a globe as well as an early morphing effect that would be later developed to change Lon Chaney Jr. into a killer beast in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man. Chaney, the Man of a Thousand Faces, would also play a clown opposite Loretta Young in the 1928 silent film Laugh, Clown, Laugh. It is thrilling to see Gilbert and Shearer together, shortly before their stardom took off; they would also both appear in Edmund Mortimer’s The Wolf Man and Monta Bell’s The Snob that same year. Coincidentally, He Who Gets Slapped is the first film introduced by Leo the Lion, and a circus lion plays a key role in the story. Chaney will break your heart, especially when he has to deal with his own fake heart that is part of his act; even if you hate clowns, you won’t hate this one. The film, which asks the question “What is it in human nature that makes people quick to laugh when someone else gets slapped — whether the slap be spiritual, mental, or physical?” is screening February 26 at 6:20 and will be accompanied by live music by pianist Steve Sterner. The series continues with Lillian Gish in The Scarlet Letter on March 4 and The Outlaw and His Wife on March 5, both also with Sterner.

TOM WESSELMANN: STANDING STILL LIFES

Tom Wesselmann’s “Standing Still Lifes” are brought together for the first time at Gagosian (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Gagosian Gallery
555 West 24th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Through February 24, free, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
212-741-1111
www.gagosian.com

For the first time ever, Gagosian has gathered all nine of Tom Wesselmann’s large-scale “Standing Still Lifes,” made between 1967 and 1981, joined by drawings, maquettes, magazines, photographs, and other paraphernalia associated with the dynamic, colorful works. Melding Pop art with hyperrealism, each work consists of multiple freestanding pieces that depict basic objects, from lipstick, a telephone, sunglasses, and keys to a toothbrush, a framed picture, a cigarette, and an orange. Other subjects include his wife, Claire Selley, and actress Mary Tyler Moore. “In all of my dimensional work I use the third dimension to intensify the two-dimensional experience,” the Ohio-born Wesselmann, who died in New York in 2004 at the age of seventy-three, explained under a pseudonym, Slim Stealingworth. “It becomes part of a vivid two-dimensional image. The third dimension, while actually existing, is only an illusion in terms of the painting, which remains by intent in a painting and not a sculptural context.” The show continues through February 24 at Gagosian’s Twenty-Fourth St. space.

SERGE ALAIN NITEGEKA: PERSONAL EFFECTS IN BLACK

Painting and sculpture merge in Serge Alain Nitegeka exhibit in Chelsea (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Marianne Boesky Gallery
507-509 West 24th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Through February 24, free, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
347-296-3667
www.marianneboeskygallery.com

Burundi-born, Johannesburg-based artist Serge Alain Nitegeka explores space and volume, flatness and depth in “Personal Effects in BLACK,” continuing at both Marianne Boesky Galleries in Chelsea through February 24. Seen from different angles, many of the works seems to have a three-dimensionality — and in fact, several do. His “Colour & Form” series consists of geometric shapes in soft blues, sunny yellows, sharp whites, and dense blacks that seem to emerge from and go deep into the unprimed plywood. A pair of “Form Ephemeral” pieces actually do extend off the wood like wall sculptures. And in one of the two galleries, the five objects that comprise “Personal Effects” are like unfinished paintings gathered on the floor. Nitegeka has connected the two galleries with a site-specific installation through a narrow corridor filled with black bars partially blocking the way, a kind of maze.

Serge Alain Nitegeka links the two Boesky Galleries with immersive site-specific installation in corridor (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

“Black is brute darkness,” Nitegeka explains about the exhibit. “An intangible destructive mass that is dense and viscous, weighing me down deep into silence. It puts me into a state of overwhelming appreciation and meditation — a space of unknown emptiness and depth. There is an uninterrupted silence, and nothing is familiar. It is there as I drift in and out of sleep, where I wander blindly, arms stretched outwards trying to clutch onto something. I move about in a majestic solitude of colors and forms. My mind blank and hands busy. The once straight lines bend evenly into curves as I learn to surrender.” Nitegeka develops his pieces spontaneously rather than planning out every detail, resulting in shapes and colors that are unexpected and abstract. In several works the raw plywood shows through, acting like a floor or a table. “I know that no one is exempt from the heaviness of the unknown,” he adds. “At the end of the day, while we close our eyes asleep in the black, the heaviness catches up. No one is spared. Black is ever constant.”