twi-ny recommended events

THE BEAUTY QUEEN OF LEENANE

Mother (Marie Mullen) and daughter (Aisling O’Sullivan) go at it tooth and nail in THE BEAUTY QUEEN OF LEENANE (photo by Richard Termine)

Brooklyn Academy of Music
BAM Harvey Theater
651 Fulton St.
Through February 5, $35-$110
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

Galway’s Druid Theatre Company is celebrating the twentieth anniversary of one of its biggest successes, Martin McDonagh’s Olivier- and Tony-nominated The Beauty Queen of Leenane, with a searing revival running at the BAM Harvey through February 5. Written in a week and a half when the playwright, who was born and raised in London to Irish parents, was twenty-four, Beauty Queen is set in a ramshackle house in rural Connemara, where disillusioned forty-year-old virgin Maureen Folan (Aisling O’Sullivan) takes care of her bitter, nasty seventy-year-old mother, Mag (Marie Mullen). The two are at each other’s throats constantly, fighting like married couple George and Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and sisters Jane and Blanche Hudson in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? “You’re oul and you’re stupid and you don’t know what you’re talking about. Now shut up and eat your oul porridge,” Maureen says to her mother, who spends most of her day sitting in a rocking chair, waiting for the news to come on the television, surviving on lumpy porridge, biscuits, and the nutritional drink Complan. Early on, Maureen, after being called a “whore” by Mag, tells her mother about a daydream she has about her mother’s death, which would free her to finally have a life of her own and find a man who loves her. “Not at all is that a nice dream. That’s a mean dream,” Mag says, to which Maureen replies, “I don’t know if it is or it isn’t. I suppose now you’ll never be dying. You’ll be hanging on forever, just to spite me.” Mag: “I will be hanging on forever!” Maureen: “I know you will!” Mag: “Seventy you’ll be at my wake, and then how many men’ll there be round your waist with their aftershave?” Maureen: “None at all, I suppose.” Mag: “None at all is right!” But when Ray Dooley (Aaron Monaghan) invites Maureen to a party and she comes home with his older brother, Pato (Marty Rea), who spends the night, both women up the ante as Maureen thinks Pato, who just got a job in Boston, is her way out while Mag is determined not to be left alone to rot away.

Pato Dooley (Marty Rea) and Maureen Folan (Aisling O’Sullivan) explore love and escape in THE BEAUTY QUEEN OF LEENANE (photo by Richard Termine)

Part of a trilogy with A Skull in Connemara and The Lonesome West, The Beauty Queen of Leenane is a sizzling black comedy, with nary a word or movement out of place. Original director Garry Hynes, who cofounded the Druid in 1975 with Mullen and Mick Lally, once again does a spectacular job with McDonagh’s (The Cripple of Inishmaan, The Pillowman) sharp, focused writing, which was inspired by American films; there’s a cinematic aspect to the play, as if the audience can visualize the scenes that are only referred to in the dialogue, occurring outside Francis O’Connor’s run-down kitchen set, its sides torn off as if psychologically ripped away from reality. (McDonagh has also written and directed several movies, including In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths.) In addition, the set features metal rods hanging from above like crosses and depictions of Mary and Jesus, which stand in sharp contract to mother Mag and daughter Maureen, neither of whom is a saint. The 1998 Broadway production was nominated for seven Tonys, including Best Play and nods for all four actors, and won four awards, for Best Leading Actress (Mullen as Maureen), Best Featured Actor (Tom Murphy as Ray, who beat out costar Brían F. O’Byrne as Pato), Best Featured Actress (Anna Manahan as Mag), and Best Director (Hynes, the first woman to win a Tony in that category). The four cast members of this blistering revival, who appeared together in Druid’s 2014 production of Dion Boucicault’s The Colleen Bawn, also directed by Hynes, give award-worthy performances as well. O’Sullivan is magnificent as Maureen, a nearly beaten woman who suddenly comes to life when potential love walks through the door; even her outfits, by O’Connor, are spectacular, from a sexy black dress to a slim slip. Mullen, who portrayed Maureen in the original production, is phenomenal now as Mag, who is no mere grumpy old hypochondriac. Rea is gentle and touching as Pato, wonderfully delivering the long, beautiful letter-soliloquy that opens the second act, while Monaghan serves up fine, frantic comic relief as Ray, whose wacky ramblings actually are realistic interpretations of contemporary Ireland. The heart of the story might be the relationship between mother and daughter, but Ray adds references to the state of the nation, referencing unemployment, emigration, the financial crisis, the media, and other current events that still ring true today, as does the age-old struggle for dominance in the never-ending mother-daughter battle.

NEW YORK JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL — WILLIAM KENTRIDGE: TRIUMPHS AND LAMENTS

Documentary follows ambitious William Kentridge project along Tiber River in Rome

WILLIAM KENTRIDGE: TRIUMPHS AND LAMENTS (Giovanni Troilo, 2016)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th St. at Amsterdam Ave.
Tuesday, January 17, 6:00, and Thursday, January 19, 4:15
New York Jewish Film Festival runs January 11-24
212-875-5601
www.nyjff.org
www.filmlinc.org

South African multimedia artist William Kentridge has made animated short films, designed and directed operas, performed one-man shows, delivered the Norton Lecture at Harvard, and exhibited works (including drawing, video, sculpture, and installation) around the world. Italian director and photographer Giovanni Troilo documents one of Kentridge’s grandest, most ambitious projects in William Kentridge: Triumphs and Laments, having its world premiere at the New York Jewish Film Festival this week. For more than a dozen years, Kentridge and site-specific artist and curator Kristin Jones were involved in planning “Triumphs and Laments: A Project for Rome,” a mural and live procession along a more-than-five-hundred-yard stretch of the Tiber River celebrating the history of the Eternal City. But Kentridge adds his own subtle sociopolitical twist, as he has done throughout his career with such works as his series of films about Soho Eckstein and Felix Teitlebaum. “The glories of imperial Rome were only possible through unbelievable and unbearable acts of cruelty, enacted on a massive scale,” he explains in the documentary, noting that he will link such disparate characters as Romulus and Remus with Pier Paolo Pasolini among the ninety figures. “Every colonial empire is there only through enormous acts of violence. The great things that were built, they’re always on the back of other people.” Part of Tevereterno, “a multidisciplinary cultural project for the revival of Rome’s Tiber River,” founded by artistic director Jones in 2001, “Triumphs and Laments” becomes enmeshed in a labyrinth of bureaucracy as an ever-more-emotional Jones fights for permits amid an ever-changing local government while Kentridge battles to get every detail just right, from the large-scale stencil drawings to the pacing of the procession. Wearing his trademark black pants and white button-down shirt, Kentridge is shown driving around his hometown of Johannesburg, describing his process in his studio, taking a boat ride along the Tiber, listening to longtime collaborator Philip Miller’s orchestration, and continually worrying about the potential realization of the project, up to the very last minute. At one point Jones and Kentridge bump into the mayor, who is riding his bike in the area; the chance meeting seems serendipitous until scandal forces the municipal head from office.

A fascinating theorist with an unpredictable sense of humor, Kentridge explains that his main goal is to “try to find the triumph in the lament and the lament in the triumph,” saying that “it only works if it’s possible to have an irreverence for the history.” Troilo also speaks with Miller, co-composer Thuthuka Sibisi, and others who offer their thoughts about working with Kentridge and the specifics of the project, one that will be temporary, since the procession is a one-time-only event and the stencils will eventually fade away, much like parts of Roman history. Kentridge, who was the subject of a major retrospective, “Five Themes,” at MoMA in 2010, is always a joy to watch, and that is as true as ever here in Rome, as he conducts another unique and unusual work as only he can. William Kentridge: Triumphs and Laments is screening on January 17 and 19 at the Walter Reade Theater, with producer Andrea Patierno participating in Q&As following each show. The twenty-sixth annual New York Jewish Film Festival, a joint production of the Jewish Museum and the Film Society of Lincoln Center, continues through January 24 with more than three dozen programs, from new fiction and nonfiction films to special tributes to Valeska Gert and the duo of Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder and a master class with Israeli documentarian Tomer Heymann.

GOD OF VENGEANCE (GOT FUN NEKOME)

Brothel owner Yankl (Shane Baker) believes paying for a new Torah scroll will protect his daughter’s innocence in controversial GOD OF VENGEANCE (photo by Ronald L. Glassman)

La MaMa, First Floor Theatre
74A East Fourth St. between Bowery & Second Ave.
Wednesday – Sunday through January 22, $36
212-475-7710
www.newyiddishrep.org
lamama.org

On March 6, 1923, between acts of God of Vengeance, which had begun its Broadway run at the Apollo Theatre on February 19, detectives informed the twelve actors and the producer that they had been indicted for “unlawfully advertising, giving, presenting, and participating in an obscene, indecent, immoral, and impure drama or play.” The cast of the show, which was written by Sholem Asch in Yiddish in 1906 but performed in English at the Apollo following a downtown engagement at the Provincetown Playhouse, included Morris Carnovsky, Sam Jaffe, and director and star Rudolph Schildkraut, who had originated the role of Yankl in the 1907 German version; the producer was First Amendment lawyer Harry Weinberger, who fought the charges and ultimately won on appeal. God of Vengeance is currently running at La MaMa, in a fine, if bumpy, New Yiddish Rep production that continues through January 22. One of the main reasons the play is being revived now is that the controversy that swirled around it almost a century ago is the subject of Rebecca Taichman and Pulitzer Prize winner Paula Vogel’s Indecent, which is transferring to Broadway in April after playing the Vineyard Theatre last spring. It also feels necessary as anti-Semitic rhetoric increases around the world; in fact, there is often debate whether the play itself contains anti-Semitic sentiment. Performed in Yiddish with English supertitles, God of Vengeance is a tale of family and responsibility in a Jewish Orthodox community. Yankl (Shane Baker) operates a brothel out of his basement, which makes him nervous about the future of his teenage daughter, Rifkele (Shayna Schmidt), so the less-than-virtuous businessman decides to pay for a new Sefer Torah for his daughter, believing the deed will protect her innocence and help find her a good husband despite what goes on downstairs, which is no secret. Even rabbi and matchmaker Reb Eli (New Yiddish Rep artistic director David Mandelbaum) knows what goes on below, but as long as there’s money in it for him and the Torah scribe (Eli Rosen), he is willing to look the other way. At a party for some local destitute people, Yankl declares, “Poor or rich, let the whole town know! What I am, I am. What she is, she is. It’s all true — everything. But if they say a word against my daughter . . . I’ll split their heads with this bottle!” Later, when pimp Shloyme (Luzer Twersky) suggests that Rifkele would “do good business” as a prostitute, Yankl explodes, crying out, “If you mention her name, I’ll slit your guts. She doesn’t know you, and you don’t know her!” Yankl is also upset with his wife, Sarah (director Eleanor Reissa), who has encouraged Rifkele to become friendly with one of the prostitutes, Manke (Melissa Weisz). “I don’t want my home mixing with downstairs! Keep them separate from each other. Like kosher and treyf!” he demands. But the friendship grows into something more when Rifkele and Manke declare their love for each other in a beautiful, heartwarming scene that leads to a lesbian kiss. It’s an unforgettable moment, gorgeously staged — and the one that resulted in the indictments and arrests back in 1923.

The relationship between virginal Rifkele (Shayna Schmidt) and prostitute Manke (Melissa Weisz) leads to a stunning moment in New Yiddish Rep revival of Sholem Asch play (photo by Ronald L. Glassman)

God of Vengeance also features Caraid O’Brien as Hindl, Rachel Botchan as Reyzl, and Mira Kessler as Basha, three other prostitutes, who share memories of what led them to sex work. Reissa sets the story in an indeterminate time period, which occasionally gets confusing, and the acting is inconsistent, although Schmidt, who played Miss Forsythe in New Yiddish Rep’s Death of a Salesman, and Weisz, in her off-Broadway debut, are both terrific, eliciting an exciting chemistry. Billy Martin’s music curiously lets the audience know when a new character is about to enter Vicki Davis’s crowded set. Neither Baker (NYR’s Waiting for Godot) nor O’Brien, who is also a playwright and author, is Jewish, yet they have appeared in numerous Yiddish productions; Twersky and Rosen are former Hasids, while Reissa is the daughter of Holocaust survivors. The play, known as Got Fun Nekome in Yiddish, was first presented to the public in a German version directed by Max Reinhardt and starring Schildkraut; in 2002, Donald Margulies wrote an English-language adaptation that starred Ron Leibman, Diane Venora, and Marin Hinkle. And in 2013, a production in Poland, where the play was originally banned, has an audience age restriction: No one under sixteen is allowed. Asch himself was ostracized from the Jewish community when, between 1939 and 1949, he wrote a trilogy about Christianity, The Nazarene, The Apostle, and Mary. Thus, God of Vengeance returns to New York City with quite a history. The New Yiddish Rep version is an admirable, if not wholly successful, revival, but one that is well worth seeing, especially for those theatergoers planning on going to Indecent when it arrives at the Cort Theatre in April.

PIRANDELLO 150: SIX CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF AN AUTHOR

Who: Stacy Keach, Norman Lloyd
What: Free screening and Skype Q&A
Where: Film Forum, 209 West Houston St., 212-727-8110
When: Sunday, January 15, free, 1:20
Why: In 1976, actor Stacy Keach directed a modern-day version of Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author, set in a television studio. Adapted by soap opera writer Paul Avila Mayer (Ryan’s Hope), the PBS TV movie starred Julie Adams as the Mother, Andy Griffith as the Father, Patricia Hitchcock as the Character Lady, John Houseman as the Director, Beverly Todd as the Stepdaughter, and James Keach as, appropriately enough, the Son. The film is getting a rare public showing on Sunday, January 15, at 1:20, at Film Forum, and admission is free. And as an even more special treat, Stacy Keach (Fat City, Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer) and executive producer Norman Lloyd — yes, that Norman Lloyd, the 102-year-old stage and screen actor, director, and producer who played the villain in Alfred Hitchcock’s Saboteur, starred as Dr. Daniel Auschlander on St. Elsewhere, was the fool in the 1950-51 National Theatre production of King Lear directed by Houseman, was a Cavalcade of America radio regular during WWII, and was most recently seen as Amy Schumer’s father’s hospice friend in Judd Apatow’s Trainwreck — will be taking part in a live Skype Q&A following the screening, which is part of the Film Forum series “Pirandello 150,” a celebration of the 150th birthday of the Nobel Prize-winning dramatist that continues through January 19 with such other rarities as Paolo & Vittorio Taviani’s Kaos and Tu Ridi, Marcel L’Herbier’s The Late Mathias Pascal, Marco Bellocchio’s The Nanny and Henry IV with Marcello Mastroianni, and Alessandro Blasetti’s Liolà.

THE SON OF JOSEPH

Vincent (newcomer Victor Ezenfis) is desperate to put his family back together in Eugène Green’s SON OF JOSEPH

THE SON OF JOSEPH (LE FILS DE JOSEPH) (Eugène Green, 2016)
Film Society of Lincoln Center
Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, Howard Gilman Theater
144 West 65th St. between Eighth & Amsterdam Aves.
Opens Friday, January 13
212-875-5050
www.filmlinc.org
www.kinolorber.com

Eugène Green returned to the New York Film Festival in 2016 with the glorious French satire / black comedy / biblical parable The Son of Joseph, a masterful blending of sound, image, and story that is as stunning to listen to as it is to watch. Newcomer Victor Ezenfis stars as Vincent, an intractable young teen who is desperate to discover who his father is, no matter how hard his single mother (Natacha Regnier), a nurse, tries to keep that information from him. “I don’t want to help people,” he says. “I love no one.” His sneaky ways finally reveal the man’s name, and Vincent tracks him down only to discover that the man, Oscar Pormenor (Mathieu Amalric), is a boorish, self-obsessed publisher who is cheating on his wife with his sexy secretary, Bernadette (Julia de Gasquet). At a party for his company’s latest book, The Predatory Mother, ever-so-chic critic Violette Tréfouille (Maria de Medeiros) mistakes Vincent for an up-and-coming novelist, with Oscar cluelessly declaring him the next Céline before finding out who the boy really is. Soon a disappointed Vincent is befriended by Oscar’s brother, Joseph (Fabrizio Rongione), but neither is aware of the connection. As Vincent is introduced to art and literature, he attempts to manipulate everyone around him in order to form the family he’s always wanted.

A single mother (Natacha Regnier) has her hands full with son Vincent (Victor Ezenfis) in extraordinary biblical parable

Green, an American expatriate living and working in France — and who appears in the film as the grizzled hotel concierge — divides The Son of Joseph into five chapters named for major biblical events, including “The Sacrifice of Abraham,” “The Golden Calf,” and “The Flight to Egypt.” Vincent is mesmerized by a poster in his room of Caravaggio’s “The Sacrifice of Isaac”; at the Louvre, Joseph shows him religious paintings such as Philippe de Champaigne’s “The Dead Christ” and Georges de la Tour’s “Joseph the Carpenter.” Ever the absurdist, Green (Toutes les nuits, Le monde vivant) turns to the surreal for the finale, which features a revelation that elicited an audible gasp of wonder from the audience when I saw it, an exhalation in which I heartily participated. As in 2014’s architectural wonder La Sapienza, which also starred Rongione, each frame is composed like a work of art, courtesy of longtime Green cinematographer Raphaël O’Byrne, along with editor Valérie Loiseleux, set designer Paul Rouschop, and costume designer Agnès Noden. The entrancing color schemes and long two-shots in addition to spectacular sound by Benoît De Clerck immerse you in Green’s unique and unusual fantasy world.

The actors, who speak in Green’s trademark overly mannered and stiff style, occasionally look directly into the camera, speaking lines to the viewer, but The Son of Joseph, coproduced by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, never gets preachy. It’s a bizarrely entertaining tale of family, of fathers and sons, and mothers and sons, where all the details matter. Inside a church, Vincent witnesses musical ensemble Le Poème Harmonique perform a work in Latin by Domenico Mazzocchi about a mother dealing with the death of her son. Earlier, when Vincent turns down a friend’s offer to join his sperm-selling operation, it’s not merely because he might find the job distasteful; deep down, he doesn’t want any other kid to go through life not knowing who his father is. He might say, “I don’t want to help people. I love no one.” But he proves himself wrong in this stunner.

VINCE GIORDANO: THERE’S A FUTURE IN THE PAST

Vince Giordano will be at Cinema Village for QAs this weekend after 7:00 9:00 screenings of new doc

Vince Giordano will be at Cinema Village for Q&As this weekend after 7:00 and 9:00 screenings of new doc

VINCE GIORDANO: THERE’S A FUTURE IN THE PAST (Dave Davidson & Amber Edwards, 2016)
Cinema Village
22 East 12th St. between University Pl. & Fifth Ave.
Opens Friday, January 13
212-529-6799
www.cinemavillage.com
www.firstrunfeatures.com

Nearly twelve years ago, I met with bandleader, musician, archivist, and historian Vince Giordano for a profile I was writing for the now-defunct New York Sun. “It’s really sad to say, but America has been a culture of, ‘If it’s old, it’s no good anymore.’ And I think that’s unfortunate,” the Brooklyn-born Giordano carefully explained. “A lot of stuff just gets swept aside. For many, many years, I was kind of the lone wolf out there, just plugging with this music. It’s a shame. Classic things don’t get outdated or old; they’re still great.” Giordano’s celebration of and dedication to the classic Jazz Age music of the 1920s and 1930s is on full display in Dave Davidson and Amber Edwards’s documentary, Vince Giordano: There’s a Future in the Past, which opens January 13 at Cinema Village. The film follows Giordano and his band, the Nighthawks, as they play live concerts and perform music for major Hollywood films. Giordano also shows off his vast collection of more than sixty thousand musical arrangements. Giordano, Davidson, and Edwards will be at Cinema Village for Q&As following the 7:00 and 9:00 screenings January 13, 14, and 15; in addition, Davidson will be joined by sound designer Paul Kozel for Q&As January 13 at 3:00 and January 18 at 7:00. You can also catch Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks every Monday and Tuesday night at 8:00 doing their swing thing at Iguana NYC on West Fifty-Fourth St. Keep watching this space for a full review of the documentary.

NEW YORK JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL: THE WOMEN’S BALCONY

The women have a bone to pick with a new rabbi in Emil Ben-Shimon’s THE WOMEN’S BALCONY

THE WOMEN’S BALCONY (Emil Ben-Shimon, 2016)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th St. at Amsterdam Ave.
Saturday, January 14, 7:00, and Tuesday, January 17, 3:30
New York Jewish Film Festival runs January 11-24
212-875-5601
www.nyjff.org
www.filmlinc.org

Judaism may be matrilineal, but that doesn’t mean that women are treated as equal to men, especially among sects espousing fundamentalist religious beliefs, although women are considered holier than men in Orthodox communities. In Emil Ben-Shimon’s absolutely wonderful debut feature, The Women’s Balcony, that all comes to a head when wives, mothers, girlfriends, and daughters, relegated to a balcony in the back of a small, local shul — as if on a pedestal, farther away from the Torah but closer to G-d — come crashing down when the structure breaks, suddenly putting them on the same level as the men. It’s no coincidence that this happens during an Orthodox bar mitzvah, when a boy becomes a man, which is much different from an orthodox bat mitzvah, when a girl becomes a woman. When a fundamentalist rabbi from a nearby congregation offers to help rebuild the Mizrahi synagogue, the place of women in the shul are far from his main concern, leading to a furious and delightful battle of the sexes. With the elderly Rabbi Menashe (Abraham Celektar) flustered because the accident has left his wife in a coma, Rabbi David (Avraham Aviv Alush) is only too happy to step in, demanding further separation between the men and the women, which causes problems for such couples as gabbai Aharon (Itzik Cohen) and Tikva (Orna Banai); mild-mannered Nissan (Herzi Tobey) and Margalit (Einat Sarouf); and warmhearted shopkeeper Zion (Igal Naor) and Etti (Evelin Hagoel), who have a terrific marriage and equal partnership until things start changing at the shul. Meanwhile, everyone is hoping that Yaffa (Yafit Asulin) finds the right man as she expands her dating search, until she and Rabbi David’s assistant (Assaf Ben Shimon) take an interest in each other, a potential Romeo and Juliet romance.

Not even the Passover seder can bring order to the chaos surrounding the reconstruction of a synagogue in THE WOMEN’S BALCONY

The Women’s Balcony was written by first-time screenwriter Shlomit Nehama, Ben-Shimon’s ex-wife, who was inspired by the religious extremism she saw in an Israeli neighborhood where she had once lived. The film evokes such sweet-natured favorites as Local Hero and Waking Ned Devine as well as Aristophanes’s Lysistrata as the women fight for their rights. Ben-Shimon (Mimon, Wild Horses) maintains an infectious pace throughout, as cinematographer Ziv Berkovich puts the audience right in the middle of the action, accompanied by Ahuva Ozeri and Shaul Besser’s playful, Jewish-flavored score. Naor and Hagoel are outstanding as Zion and Etti, the emotional center of the film, a lovely couple with a bright view of life, at least until exclusion and sexism get in the way. Asulin is excellent as Yaffa, the young woman who is part of the next generation of Judaism — and who is not extremely knowledgeable about her religion. But even when situations are at their most tense, Nehama and Ben-Shimon keep it all lighthearted; if only more religious (and marital) disputes could be handled with such grace and wit.

Nominated for five Israeli Academy Awards, including Banai for Best Supporting Actress, Rona Doron for Best Costume Design, Vered Mevorach for Best Makeup, the late Ozeri (who passed away last month at the age of sixty-eight) and Besser for Best Score, and Alush for Best Supporting Actor, The Women’s Balcony is screening January 14 and 17 at the New York Jewish Film Festival, with Ben-Shimon participating in a Q&A after both shows. The twenty-sixth annual New York Jewish Film Festival, a joint production of the Jewish Museum and the Film Society of Lincoln Center, runs January 11-24, with more than three dozen programs, from new fiction and nonfiction films to special tributes to Valeska Gert and the duo of Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder and a master class with Israeli documentarian Tomer Heymann.