twi-ny recommended events

LATIN HISTORY FOR MORONS

John Leguizamo looks back at his cultural heritage in LATIN HISTORY FOR MORONS (photo by Joan Marcus)

Anspacher Theater, the Public Theater
425 Lafayette St. at Astor Pl.
Tuesday through Sunday through April 28, $50-$100
212-539-8500
www.publictheater.org

Last July, Iowa Republican congressman Steve King claimed that only white Christians have made significant contributions to Western civilization throughout time. Emmy- and Obie-winning actor and comedian John Leguizamo sets King — and the rest of us — straight in his latest one-man show, Latin History for Morons, running at the Public’s Anspacher Theater through April 28. In such previous works as Mambo Mouth, Spic-O-Rama, Freak, Ghetto Klown, and Sexaholix . . . A Love Story, the Colombia native inhabited multiple characters to explore what it was like growing up in Queens and, eventually, reaching success as an actor. He also plays numerous roles in Latin History, but for the most part he’s just himself, a concerned father, upset that he knows so little about his heritage. His shy, sensitive teenage son, who is being bullied by a white classmate, is assigned to write a paper on a hero, and Leguizamo decides he will help find a historical Latino the boy can be proud of. Dressed like a professor, Leguizamo stomps around Rachel Hauck’s messy set, laden with boxes of books, papers and articles taped and pinned to the back wall, and, in the center, a two-sided blackboard where he shares surprising facts about the Taíno, the Aztecs, the Incas, and the Maya as well as Christopher Columbus, Hernán Cortés, and Moctezuma II. Meanwhile, he keeps trying to help his son, whom he affectionately calls “honey” and “buddy.” Leguizamo is embarrassed that he has no quick comebacks when he confronts the bully’s father, who has some bully tactics of his own, so the project is as much for himself as for his son.

John Leguizamo sets the record straight on the impact of Latinos throughout history in latest one-man show (photo by Joan Marcus)

Leguizamo, who has also appeared in such films as Carlito’s Way, Super Mario Bros., Summer of Sam, and To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar in addition to voiceover roles in such children’s movies as the Ice Age series, occasionally breaks into choppy native dances when discussing older civilizations, and his interactions with the audience are hit or miss. (Some audience members chime in on their own when they hear something specific about their heritage.) He talks about the importance of books and education, using chalk and an eraser to keep things lively; in fact, when he dances or pounds himself in the chest, a white chalk residue disperses into the air, as if he’s getting rid of the dust surrounding these facts. This is a more mature Leguizamo, though no less unpredictable and funny, as at home referencing Howard Zinn and George Santayana as he is making a Kardashian joke (and a darn good one it is). As in his previous shows, he’s not afraid to get deeply personal; he even portrays his own psychiatrist as he deals with some difficult issues. He’s also more conscious than ever about word choice, carefully avoiding certain terms now considered insensitive and derogatory. Directed by Tony Taccone (Bridge & Tunnel, Brundibar) of Berkeley Repertory Theatre, where the show was workshopped as part of the Ground Floor incubator program, Latin History for Morons is another triumph for Leguizamo, who once again displays his unique way of looking at the world. “I’m getting too old for this shit,” the still-youthful fifty-two-year-old Leguizamo says at one point. As his latest one-man show ably displays, he is most certainly not too old for this, and neither are we.

SLOW ART DAY

Slow Art Day encourages museumgoers to spend more time with select works (courtesy Rubin Museum)

Rubin Museum, 150 West 17th St. at Seventh Ave., $10-$15, 212-620-5000, 11:00 – 6:00
American Folk Art Museum, 2 Lincoln Square, free, 11:30 – 7:00
Saturday, April 8
www.slowartday.com

It’s a push push world out there, with everybody always on the move, rushing from place to place, face-deep in cell phones, not paying attention to their environment. Even when they do go to museums for a much-needed respite, many people are more interested in snapping selfies than actually taking a moment and looking at the art they’ve paid to see. The average museumgoer spends approximately seventeen seconds with a work of art, the equivalent of reading a tweet instead of in-depth articles about topics they’re interested in. That’s essentially why Slow Art Day began back in 2009, initiated by Phil Terry, who was the CEO of Creative Good then and now heads Collaborative Gains. The idea is simple: On April 8, participating institutions around the world, which include the Rubin Museum and the American Folk Art Museum in New York City, encourage visitors to spend between five and ten minutes looking at five preselected works of art, then talk about the experience with a host or other museumgoers. “To view art slowly is to take the time to be fully present and to initiate a meaningful conversation between one’s own mind and heart and that of the artist,” Rubin Museum docent Jiawen explains in a statement. At the Rubin, which is currently showing “Masterworks of Himalayan Art,” “OM Lab,” “Sacred Spaces: Himalayan Wind and the Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room,” and “Gateway to Himalayan Art,” there will be Slow Art Day tours at 1:00 and 3:00, as well as a new mindfulness audio tour narrated by Sharon Salzberg and Kate Johnson. At the American Folk Art Museum, where “Carlo Zinelli (1916–1974)” and “Eugen Gabritschevsky: Theater of the Imperceptible” are on view, Slow Art Day offers visitors the opportunity to not only spend more time with artworks but to sketch them. Of course, you can take the Slow Art Day concept to any museum or gallery of your choosing, and you don’t have to do it only one day a year; it’s a fascinating way to get inside a work, and inside yourself, while understanding more about the world at large, which is what art is all about, all the time.

BEYOND GODZILLA: ALTERNATIVE FUTURES & FANTASIES IN JAPANESE CINEMA

Gamera marches into Japan Society for conclusion of “Beyond Godzilla” film series

GLOBUS FILM SERIES
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Saturday, April 8, $13, 4:00 & 7:00
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org

Japan Society’s three-weekend, seven-film “Beyond Godzilla: Alternative Futures & Fantasies in Japanese Cinema” Globus Film Series concludes on Saturday, April 8, with two more tokusatsu kaiju eiga (special-effects-heavy monster movies) that are not about that fire-breathing superstar of postwar madness. At 4:00, Kihachi Okamoto (Sword of Doom, Japan’s Longest Day) goes sci-fi with 1978’s socially conscious Blue Christmas, as UFOs land on earth and have an unusual plan. Then, at 7:00, Gamera, who first trashed cities in 1965, returns in the third film in Shusuke Kaneko’s 1990s reboot, Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris, involving a cool cat and special effects by Shinji Higuchi (Shin Godzilla). “Ever since Ishiro Honda’s 1954 Godzilla first rampaged across screens around the world, its title monster has become both Japan’s best-known pop culture export and a universal symbol of mass destruction. But Godzilla has also cast a long, scaly shadow obscuring Japan’s other live-action contributions to the sci-fi/fantasy genre,” guest curator Mark Schilling says in a program note in which he also explains, “I curated a section of classic sci-fi and fantasy films sourced from Toho and elsewhere to show that the Japanese cinematic imagination extended beyond Godzilla in ways entertainingly rich and strange.” The series previously screened such cult classics as The H-Man, Invisible Man, and Latitude Zero (with Joseph Cotten!). On April 28, “Godzilla Legend — Music of Akira Ifukube” will feature Hikashu and guest musicians such as Charan-Po-Rantan performing works by Akira Ifukube, who composed scores for tons of films, including Godzilla, The Burmese Harp, Rodan, 13 Assassins, Frankenstein Conquers the World, King Kong Escapes, and Zatoichi the Fugitive, which Japan Society is showing April 7 in its Monthly Classics series.

HOW TO TRANSCEND A HAPPY MARRIAGE

Polyamory is front and center in Sarah Ruhl’s HOW TO TRANSCEND A HAPPY MARRIAGE (photo by Kyle Froman)

Lincoln Center Theater at the Mitzi E. Newhouse
150 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.
Tuesday – Saturday through May 7, $87
212-362-7600
www.lct.org

“I think in the polyamory movement, you sort of just — accept — the person’s sexual predilections,” Jane (Robin Weigert) says early on in Sarah Ruhl’s How to Transcend a Happy Marriage. “Is it a movement now?” Paul (Omar Metwally) asks. “I think so. There’s a book — called The Ethical Slut. It tells you how to do it,” Michael (Brian Hutchison) replies (referring to an actual book). Two New Jersey couples learn quite a lesson about the “movement” when a polyamorous triad comes over for New Year’s Eve in this extremely clever play, running at Lincoln Center’s Mitzi E. Newhouse through May 7. Married breeders Jane and Michael and George (Marisa Tomei) and Paul are best friends, but they’re not exactly Bob and Ted and Carol and Alice. When legal aid lawyer Jane tells the others about a polyamorous temp in her office who lives with two men and slaughters her own meat, they all decide that they have to meet. So on New Year’s Eve in a quaint suburban home, the beautiful, free-spirited Pip (Lena Hall), brash mathematician David (Austin Smith), and stoned slacker Freddie (David McElwee) discuss hunting, Pythagoras, music theory, Twelfth Night, “radical honesty,” impenetrable pistachios, harmony, and mermaids over vegan hash brownies that soon have Jane, Michael, George, and Paul so enraptured with the alluring Pip that they’re ready to do just about anything with her and her two lovers — but they’re not prepared for what they have to face the next morning, and potentially the rest of their lives.

Lena Hall stars as a polyamorous ingénue in new Sarah Ruhl play at Lincoln Center (photo by Kyle Froman)

As the audience enters the theater, a skinned animal hangs from the ceiling of David Zinn’s living-room set. A woman, whom we later learn is Pip, walks up to the sacrificial object, takes it down, and carries it offstage, cradling it like it’s a baby. It’s an apt metaphor for what follows, as the conventional world of straight married couples gets butchered, in a way. Paul is an architect relegated to bathroom renovation. George (short for Georgia) became a junior high school teacher instead of getting her PhD in classics. Michael used to be in a rock band but now writes jingles. And Jane regrets losing what she once was. “Life with a teenager is a series of reprimands until your personality disappears,” she says. Believing they’re all stuck in a rut, they are fascinated by the seemingly carefree world that Pip, David (pronounced dah-VEED), and Freddie live in, even if they don’t understand it. “Our language is limited and so our imagination is limited,” David explains, referring to most of humanity. George is particularly ready to break out; she wants to sing “Wild Thing” and compares the New Year’s Eve party to the “wild rumpus” in Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, telling the audience directly, “It was dirty but I felt sort of gloriously clean.” George and Paul and Michael and Jane might have thought they were happy, but Pip represents a spirituality that has evaded them. (Even the brand name of the bow George uses in the forest is Spirit.) Pip is studying to be a body worker, but she gets inside people’s minds as well, with a touch of magic.

Two couples deal with the fall-out from a crazy New Year’s Eve party in HOW TO TRANSCEND A HAPPY MARRIAGE (photo by Kyle Froman)

“Really polyamory takes all the fun out of adultery,” Paul says playfully, but two-time Pulitzer finalist Ruhl (Stage Kiss, In the Next Room or the vibrator play) digs much deeper than that relatively simplistic aside. Ruhl and director Rebecca Taichman (Marie Antoinette, The Oldest Boy), who have previously collaborated on Stage Kiss, The Clean House, Dead Man’s Cell Phone, and Orlando, neither defend nor attack polyamory while dealing with such issues as personal and familial responsibility, shame, and sexuality throughout one’s life. The cast is uniformly strong, but Tony winner Hall (Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Kinky Boots) does the heavy lifting with an infectious lightness; in order for the play to work, the audience must fall in love with her just as all the characters do, and she makes it nearly impossible not to be drawn into her youthful enthusiasm. The second act is much darker than the first and sometimes goes astray, particularly when Pip takes George hunting and things don’t turn out quite as planned, and thank goodness the show doesn’t immediately end after Michael sings one of his songs. Ruhl still has a bit more to say, bringing it all back home with a sweetly meaningful finale.

TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL 2017 SPECIAL EVENTS

TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL
Multiple locations
April 20-30, free – $365 (most events $23.88 – $43.45)
tribecafilm.com/festival

Tickets are still available for most of the special screenings, talks, and live performances at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival, taking place at such locations as the BMCC Tribeca PAC, the SVA Theatre, the Beacon, Regal Cinemas Battery Park, Radio City, the Town Hall, Cinépolis Chelsea, and the Festival Hub at Spring Studios. The guest list is pretty impressive, including Dustin Hoffman, Barbra Streisand, Philip Glass, Common, Scarlett Johansson, Michael Moore, Kathryn Bigelow, Johnny Lydon, Lena Dunham, Kobe Bryant, Aretha Franklin, Errol Morris, Faith Evans, Zac Posen, Lil’ Kim, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Julian Schnabel, a Flock of Seagulls, Christopher Plummer, Taj Mahal, Jennifer Hudson, Quentin Tarantino, and Bruce Springsteen with Tom Hanks (which is sold out), among many others. Oh, and how about this gathering, celebrating the forty-fifth anniversary of The Godfather: Francis Ford Coppola, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, Talia Shire, and Robert De Niro.

Wednesday, April 19
Gala — Clive Davis: The Soundtrack of Our Lives (Chris Perkel, 2017), followed by live performances by Aretha Franklin, Jennifer Hudson, Earth Wind & Fire, Barry Manilow, Carly Simon, and Dionne Warwick, Radio City Music Hall, $56-$281, 7:00

Thursday, April 20
After the Movie: Bowling for Columbine (Michael Moore, 2002), followed by fifteenth anniversary conversation with Michael Moore and others, SVA Theatre 2 Beatrice, $23.88, 7:00

Retrospective Special Screenings: La Belle et la Bête (Jean Cocteau, 1942), with live musical accompaniment by members of the Philip Glass Ensemble, preceded by a conversation with Philip Glass and Errol Morris, Town Hall, $55-$85, 8:00

Friday, April 21
Tribeca Talks: Directors Series — Jon Favreau with Scarlett Johansson, SVA Theatre 1 Silas, rush, 5:00

Special Screenings: The Public Image Is Rotten (Tabbert Fiiller, 2017), followed by a conversation with director Tabbert Fiiller and John Lydon, Tribeca Festival Hub, sixth floor, $23.88, 8:45

Saturday, April 22
Shorts: Blues Planet: Triptych (Wyland, 2017), with live performance by Taj Mahal and the Wyland Blues Planet Band, Tribeca Festival Hub, sixth floor, $23.88, 2:00

Tribeca Talks: Directors Series — Alejandro González Iñárritu, SVA Theatre 1 Silas, rush, 2:30

Special Screenings: The Third Industrial Revolution (Eddy Moretti, 2017), followed by a conversation with director Eddy Moretti and Jeremy Rifkin, Tribeca Festival Hub, sixth floor, limited, 5:00

Special Screenings: House of Z (Sandy Chronopoulos, 2017), followed by a conversation with director Sandy Chronopoulos and film subject Zac Posen, SVA Theatre 1 Silas, $43.45, 8:00

Tribeca Talks: Virtual Reality — Kathryn Bigelow & Imraan Ismail: The Protectors: A Walk in the Ranger’s Shoes, screening and conversation with Kathryn Bigelow and Imraan Ismail, Tribeca Festival Hub, sixth floor, $43.45, 8:15

After the Movie: Awake, a Dream from Standing Rock (2017), followed by a conversation with filmmakers Josh Fox, James Spione, and Myron Dewey and special guests, Cinépolis Chelsea 7, rush, 8:30

Nelson George will team up with Common for a screening, discussion, and live performance at Tribeca on April 23

Sunday, April 23
Tribeca Talks: Master Class — Dolby: Image and Sound Master Class with Imogen Heap, Dolby Cinema at AMC Empire 2, free, 12 noon

Tribeca Talks: Storytellers — Kobe Bryant and Glen Keane with Michael Strahan, BMCC Tribeca PAC, $43.45, 4:30

Tribeca Talks: Podcasts — Live from the Tribeca Film Festival: Gilbert Gottfried’s Amazing Colossal Podcast!, with Gilbert Gottfried and Frank Santopadre, Regal Cinemas Battery Park 11-4, $43.45, 5:30

Tribeca Talks: Storytellers — Common with Nelson George, screening of Letter to the Free, followed by a conversation with Nelson George and a live performance by Common, Tribeca Festival Hub, sixth floor, $43.45, 8:00

Monday, April 24
Tribeca Talks: Directors Series — Noah Baumbach with Dustin Hoffman, BMCC Tribeca PAC, $43.45, 6:00

Tuesday, April 25
Tribeca Talks: Storytellers — Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner, Tribeca Festival Hub, sixth floor, $43.45, 6:00

Tribeca Talks: Directors Series — Paul Feig, BMCC Tribeca PAC, $43.45, 6:00

Special Screenings: Paris Can Wait (Eleanor Coppola, 2016), followed by French food pairings inspired by the film, BMCC Tribeca PAC, $43.45, 8:00

Pen pals Barbra Streisand and Robert Rodriguez will join together in conversation at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 29

Wednesday, April 26
Special Screenings: The Exception (David Leveaux, 2017), followed by a conversation with director David Leveaux and actor Christopher Plummer, BMCC Tribeca PAC, $23.88, 6:00

Special Screenings: From the Ashes (Michael Bonfiglio, 2017), introduced by Michael Bloomberg and followed by a discussion with director Michael Bonfiglio and special guests, Tribeca Festival Hub, sixth floor, rush, 6:00

Thursday, April 27
Gala — Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: The Bad Boy Story (Daniel Kaufman, 2017), followed by a live concert featuring Combs and Mase, Lil’ Kim, and Faith Evans, Beacon, $71-$356, 8:00

Special Screenings — Warning: This Drug May Kill You (Perri Peltz, 2017), followed by a conversation with Dr. Nora Volkow, Dr. Andrew Kolodny, film subject Gail Cole, and producer Sascha Weiss, moderated by director Perri Peltz, SVA Theatre 2 Beatrice, $23.88, 8:45

Friday, April 28
Tribeca Talks: Storytellers — Bruce Springsteen with Tom Hanks, Beacon Theatre, 5:00

After the Movie: Reservoir Dogs (Quentin Tarantino, 1992), followed by twenty-fifth anniversary conversation with Quentin Tarantino and members of the cast, Beacon Theatre, $71-$356, 8:00

Special Screenings — Julian Schnabel: A Private Portrait (Pappi Corsicato, 2017), followed by a a conversation with director Pappi Corsicato and Julian Schnabel, SVA Theatre 1 Silas, $43.45, 8:30

The forty-fifth anniversary of THE GODFATHER will be celebrated at Radio City as part of the Tribeca Film Festival, with James Caan, Francis Ford Coppola, Al Pacino, and others

Saturday, April 29
Before the Movie: Aladdin (Ron Clements & John Musker, 1992), twenty-fifth anniversary, preceded by a live performance by Aladdin singing voice Brad Kane, BMCC Tribeca PAC, free, 10:00 am

After the Movie: The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972) and The Godfather Part II (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974), followed by a forty-fifth anniversary conversation with Francis Ford Coppola, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, Talia Shire, and Robert De Niro, moderated by Taylor Hackford, Radio City Music Hall, $46-$131, 1:00

Tribeca Talks: Master Class — Production and Costume Design, with Kristi Zea, SVA Theatre 2 Beatrice, free, 3:00

Tribeca Talks: Storytellers — Barbra Streisand with Robert Rodriguez, BMCC Tribeca PAC, $43.45, 6:00

Tribeca N.O.W. Special Screenings — Out of This World: Female Filmmakers in Genre, screening and conversation with filmmakers Nicole Delaney, Vera Miao, and Arkasha Stevenson, Cinépolis Chelsea 7, $23.88, 6:00

After the Movie — Chris Gethard: Career Suicide (Kimberly Senior, 2017), followed by a conversation with Chris Gethard and fellow comedians Pete Holmes, Abbi Jacobson, and others, SVA Theatre 1 Silas, $23.88, 8:15

Sunday, April 30
Tribeca Talks: Master Class — Cinematography, with Ellen Kuras, SVA Theatre 2 Beatrice, free, 4:00 PM

Special Screenings: Dare to Be Different (Ellen Goldfarb, 2017), followed by live tribute to WLIR with a Flock of Seagulls, Dave Wakeling of the English Beat, and the Alarm, Tribeca Festival Hub, sixth floor, rush, 6:00

Tribeca N.O.W. Special Screenings: The New York Times’ Op-Docs (2017), followed by a conversation with filmmakers Andrea Meller, Megan Mylan, Marisa Pearl, and Gina Pollack, SVA Theatre 2 Beatrice, $23.88, 6:15

Tribeca Talks: Podcasts — Live from the Tribeca Film Festival: Slate’s Trumpcast, with Jamelle Bouie and Virginia Heffernan, hosted by Jacob Weisberg, SVA Theatre 1 Silas, $43.45, 8:15

POLK AWARDS: HOOLIGAN SPARROW

Hooligan Sparrow risks her freedom and her life for protesting for women’s rights in China

HOOLIGAN SPARROW (Nanfu Wang, 2016)
BAMcinématek, BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Wednesday, April 5, $14, 7:30
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
hooligansparrow.com

The 2016 Human Rights Watch Film Festival kicked off last year with Nanfu Wang’s alarming debut feature documentary, Hooligan Sparrow, for which she won the annual Nestor Almendros Award for courage in filmmaking. On April 5, it will have a special screening and Q&A at BAM in honor of its latest accolade, the George Polk Documentary Film Award, an annual presentation from LIU. The film is a brave, disquieting look at Chinese activist Ye Haiyan, better known as Hooligan Sparrow, an advocate for sex workers’ rights, as she leads protests against a school principal who sexually abused six elementary school girls. “If you film us, we’ll smash your camera,” a man tells Wang at the beginning. Later she’s told she will be beaten if she doesn’t hand over her equipment. But she’s determined to keep telling the story any way she can. Sparrow, who gained notoriety for a project in which she offered free sex to migrant workers, is joined by Shan Lihua, Tang Jitian, Jia Lingmin, Wang Yu, and lawyer Wang Jianfen as she battles law enforcement, the government, and brothel owners, her safety and freedom in constant jeopardy. “If I believe something is right and I’m obliged to do it, they can’t stop me by arresting me or even killing me,” she defiantly says. She and her daughter, Lan Yaxin, keep getting evicted from their homes and banned from numerous provinces, but that doesn’t prevent her from protesting with such signs as “All China’s Women’s Federation Is a Farce. China’s Women’s Rights Are Dead” and “You Can Kill Me, But You Can’t Kill the Truth.” Born and raised in a remote Chinese farming village and currently based in New York City, Wang, who directed, produced, photographed, and edited Hooligan Sparrow, never backs down even as she meets with Chinese officials and is followed everywhere she goes, forced to become suspicious of nearly everyone she encounters. “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you,” Joseph Heller wrote in Catch-22. Wang clearly has reason to be paranoid.

The film is executive produced by Andy Cohen and Alison Klayman, who collaborated on the award-winning documentary Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry; the Chinese artist and activist, who had been under long-term house arrest, took up Hooligan’s cause, and he included her belongings in an installation in his 2014 Brooklyn Museum retrospective, “According to What?” Wang, who has three master’s degrees, cowrote the film with Mark Monroe, who wrote the Oscar-nominated documentary The Cove and numerous Sundance winners. Hooligan Sparrow also features a subtly ominous score by Nathan Halpern and Chris Ruggiero that helps keep you on the edge of your seat as Hooligan and her group continue to fight the power, despite each of them being detained and imprisoned at one point or another — and some still are. Hooligan Sparrow is being shown April 5 at 7:30 at BAM, followed by a Q&A with the Brooklyn-based Wang and Polk Awards screening committee co-chair Richard Pearce. “Hooligan Sparrow is a remarkable and courageous work,” Polk Awards curator John Darnton said in a statement. “In filming it, in the face of intimidation by undercover security thugs, Ms. Wang herself turns into a dissident. She begins somewhat nervously, even timidly, and then becomes emboldened before our very eyes, employing wily devices like hidden-camera glasses and secret audio to get the documentation she needs.” The Polk Awards are named for CBS correspondent George Polk, who was brutally murdered while covering the Greek civil war in 1948; last year’s George Polk Documentary Film Award went to Matthew Heineman’s Oscar-nominated Cartel Land.

ARTHUR MILLER’S THE PRICE

Gregory Solomon (Danny DeVito) seeks to make a deal with brothers Victor (Mark Ruffalo) and Walter Franz (Tony Shalhoub) in THE PRICE (photo by Joan Marcus)

American Airlines Theatre
227 West 42nd St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through May 14, $69-$169
212-719-1300
www.roundabouttheatre.org

The past looms over a family like so much old furniture in Terry Kinney’s edge-of-your-seat adaptation of Arthur Miller’s 1968 drama, The Price. The last few years have seen a resurgence of Miller’s work in conjunction with the 2015 centennial of the native New Yorker’s birth, including Ivo van Hove’s dual versions of The Crucible and A View from the Bridge on Broadway in 2016 and Signature’s Incident at Vichy and New Yiddish Rep’s Death of a Salesman off-Broadway in 2015 (not to mention Mike Nichols’s 2012 Great White Way revival of Salesman with Philip Seymour Hoffman). Underrated and underseen, The Price is a powerhouse family tale that, in the hands of Kinney and a superb cast, proves to be one of Miller’s masterpieces. It’s 1968, and patrolman Victor Franz (Mark Ruffalo) has returned to the Manhattan home where he grew up. The building is being torn down, so he is selling off the old furniture, much of which holds deep-set memories for him, especially as he approaches fifty and considers retirement. The room is packed with tables, chairs, dressers, lamps, sofas, and more, with dozens of pieces hanging on the walls and from the ceiling, as if ghosts with their own stories to tell. (Miller’s introductory note explains, “The room is monstrously crowded and dense, and it is difficult to decide if the stuff is impressive or merely overheavy and ugly,” a concept that is nailed by set designer Derek McLane.) Victor is joined by his wife, Esther (Jessica Hecht), who presses him to bargain for a good deal and not just give the furniture away; although she loves him, she is disappointed in the choices he has made, especially involving money and career, and now, with their son off at MIT, she wants more out of life. “Just because it’s ours why must it be worthless?” she says to Victor, who does not think the furniture has much financial value, like the rest of his life.

Tony Shalhoub, Jessica Hecht, and Mark Ruffalo listen to director Terry Kinney at rehearsal of THE PRICE (photo by Jenny Anderson)

Soon, making his way up the steps, is eighty-nine-year-old Russian-Yiddish furniture appraiser Gregory Solomon (Danny DeVito), a shrewd businessman who can’t help but share his unique insights about existence. “It was very good stuff, you know,” Victor says about the furniture, to which Solomon replies, “Very good, yes . . . I can see. I was also very good; now I’m not so good. Time, you know, is a terrible thing.” A moment later he adds, “When do they call me? It’s either a divorce or somebody died. So it’s always a new story. I mean it’s the same, but it’s different.” Victor says, “You pick up the pieces.” Solomon adds, “That’s very good, yes. I pick up the pieces. It’s a little bit like you, I suppose.” In the middle of their negotiation — with Victor growing more and more frustrated while Solomon cannily avoids naming a price — Victor’s long-estranged brother, Walter (Tony Shalhoub), a dapper, erudite, pristinely dressed surgeon, enters, throwing a wrench into the proceedings as the siblings try to relate to each other after sixteen years of silence between them following their father’s death. Solomon serves as a kind of intermediary, even when Esther returns and they all start reaching deep inside and arguing over past events that shaped their very different lives.

Estranged siblings Walter (Tony Shalhoub) and Victor (Mark Ruffalo) reconnect as Ester (Jessica Hecht) looks on (photo by Joan Marcus)

As in Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie, the absent family patriarch hovers over everyone and everything; in Menagerie, it’s an unseen portrait of Amanda Wingfield’s husband, while in The Price, it’s the chair, front and just off center, where Mr. Franz would sit. Over the course of the play, each character sits in it, feeling its power, and its lacking. McLane’s imposing set allows the cast to weave through it intricately as they come upon items that spark remembrances, from an old laughing record to an épée to a harp. The nimble Hecht (A View from the Bridge, The Assembled Parties), the ever-elegant Shalhoub (Act One, Golden Boy), and the brusque Ruffalo (This Is Our Youth, Awake and Sing!), Tony nominees all, form an intimate trio, three pros at the top of their game, each character burdened with faded dreams, while DeVito makes an impressive Broadway debut, hanging right with them, injecting humor and smart sarcasm as the old dealer who just might be in it for the thrill of the battle more than any potential profit. Steppenwolf cofounder Kinney (One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, reasons to be pretty) gets right to the heart of the play, examining the choices we all make and the costs, visible and hidden, that come with them, the prices, both financial and not, we pay as we continue through life with differing views of what is of value and what is worth sacrificing. In the first act, just as Solomon and Victor have apparently reached an agreement, a price, Solomon has trouble parting with the money, while Victor keeps getting distracted as the bills are slowly put into his hand. He spends the rest of the play grasping an incomplete sum, as if he is perpetually caught in the middle, agonizing over the choices he made when he was younger as well as those he is making today, a lost soul who has still not come to grips with his past. The price is both literal and figurative, haunted by the ever-present shock of buyer’s remorse. “What have you got against money?” Solomon asks Victor just before naming his price. In this glorious revival, money, of course, is never the answer.