twi-ny recommended events

RABIN IN HIS OWN WORDS

Documentary follows personal and professional life of Yitzhak Rabin, told in his own words

RABIN IN HIS OWN WORDS (Erez Laufer, 2015)
Lincoln Plaza Cinema
1886 Broadway at 63rd St.
Opens Friday, May 6
212-757-2280
www.menemshafilms.com
www.lincolnplazacinema.com

“I did my job, especially in terms of striving for peace and ensuring Israel’s security in the best way possible,” Yitzhak Rabin says at the beginning of Erez Laufer’s poignant documentary, Rabin in His Own Words. “I think the State of Israel may have lost the prime minister with a better chance than any other of advancing peace and preventing war.” Rabin was referring to the first time he was prime minister, when he was forced to resign in 1977 because of a financial scandal. But he could have been speaking from the grave following his assassination in 1995 during his second term, shortly after winning the Nobel Peace Prize with Yasser Arafat and Shimon Peres. In fact, Rabin in His Own Words is like a message from beyond, as a dark cloud hovers over the film, which consists of archival footage, press conferences, home movies, broadcast interviews, family photographs, and letters that trace the personal and professional side of Rabin, from how he was raised as a child to his desire to be a farmer, from his rise in the military to his serving twice as prime minister, from his dedication to his beloved wife, Leah, to becoming a grandfather.

Laufer (Mike Brant, Laisse-moi t’aimer), who directed and edited the film, does a superb job of navigating through Rabin’s life, told completely by Rabin himself (except for voice-overs reading his letters). It’s particularly devastating to watch how close Rabin was to achieving some kind of peace in the Middle East, only to be murdered because of that very ideal, by an Israeli; it’s hard not to think about what’s going on in the world today, especially the rise of Donald Trump, in relation to what happened to Rabin, as Laufer shows demonstrators at a Benjamin Netanyahu rally calling for Rabin’s death, and eventually getting what they want. Rabin in His Own Words is also an excellent companion piece to Amos Gitai’s Rabin, the Last Day, which came out earlier this year and is a factual re-creation of the day of the assassination. Named Best Documentary at the Haifa International Film Festival, Rabin in His Own Words also makes one wonder about whether there ever will be other leaders like Rabin who will have a real chance at a lasting peace. “Although this film chronicles the past, it is made for the future of our children,” Laufer notes in his director statement. The film opens May 6 at Lincoln Plaza, and Laufer, who refers to the work as “an autobiography of sorts,” will be on hand for Q&As following the 5:20 screenings on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night.

WAITRESS

Becky (Keala Settle), Jenna (Jessie Mueller), and Dawn (Kimiko Glenn) serve pies and more in WAITRESS (photo by Joan Marcus)

Brooks Atkinson Theatre
256 West 47th St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through January 1, $69-$159
877-250-2929
waitressthemusical.com
www.brooksatkinsontheater.com

Tony-winning star Jessie Mueller has quickly become one of those Broadway sensations you can watch do just about anything, even when she serves up a dish of lukewarm Lifetime schmaltz like Waitress. Mueller, who has risen well above her material in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical and On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, does the same in this American Repertory Theater musical, an adaptation of Adrienne Shelly’s 2007 film, which was accepted to Sundance shortly after Shelly was murdered in Greenwich Village at the age of forty. Mueller plays Jenna Hunterson, a waitress in Joe’s Pie Diner, where every morning she makes such delectable, original delights as Marshmallow Mermaid Pie, Fallin’ in Love Chocolate Mousse Pie, and Jenna’s First Kiss Pie. “You want to know what’s inside? Simple question, so then what’s the answer?” she sings. “My whole life is in here, in this kitchen baking.” Desperate to escape an abusive marriage to Earl (Nick Cordero), she is distraught to learn she’s pregnant. When diner owner Joe (Dakin Matthews) suggests she compete in a pie contest with a prize of twenty thousand dollars, she thinks she may have discovered her way out, but her life gets even more complicated when she becomes attracted to her new gynecologist, the married Dr. Pomatter (Drew Gehling). Her coworkers, the sharp-tongued Becky (Keala Settle) and the wallflower Dawn (Kimiko Glenn, in the role played by Shelly in the movie), provide emotional support and comic relief, while Jenna’s coping skills include memories of baking pies with her late mother and imagining what she’ll make next, creating in her mind such telling desserts as I Don’t Want Earl’s Baby Pie, Betrayed by My Eggs Pie, and I Can’t Have an Affair Because It’s Wrong and I Don’t Want Earl to Kill Me Pie. But Jenna can’t stop spending time with Dr. Pomatter despite knowing better. “It’s a terrible idea me and you,” they sing in a duet. Jenna: “You have a wife.” Dr. Pomatter: “You have a husband.” Jenna: “You’re my doctor!” Dr. Pomatter: “You’ve got a baby coming.” Both: “It’s a bad idea me and you / Let’s keep kissing till we come to.” Unfortunately, by the time they come to, it’s too late.

Dr. Pomatter (Drew Gehling) and Jenna (Jessie Mueller) seek a sweeter life in adaptation of Adrienne Shelly’s 2007 romantic comedy (photo by Joan Marcus)

Mueller shines once again in Waitress, making the most of what is essentially a hard-to-believe contemporary bodice ripper disguised as a romantic musical comedy. She has a comforting stage presence, blending confidence and vulnerability in charming ways, even as we watch her character make absurdly ridiculous decisions. She, Settle (Hands on a Hardbody, Priscilla Queen of the Desert), and Glenn (Orange Is the New Black, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots) share a warm camaraderie, recalling the trio of waitresses from the television series Alice, along with Eric Anderson (Soul Doctor, Kinky Boots) as Cal, the gruff cook. Christopher Fitzgerald (Young Frankenstein, Finian’s Rainbow) nearly steals the show as Ogie, going all out as a stalker-like major nerd who is interested in Dawn and is not afraid to let everyone know about it. His stirring rendition of “Never Ever Getting Rid of Me” is a genuine showstopper. The songs, by five-time Grammy nominee Sara Bareilles, are relatively harmless, mixing in multiple genres, but former waitress Jessie Nelson’s (I Am Sam; Corrina, Corrina) book never really gets cooking, jumping around too much while taking underdeveloped or overdone turns. Director Diane Paulus (The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, Hair, Pippin) does what she can with the mediocre material, wisely making sure that Mueller is front and center as much as possible on Scott Pask’s set, which changes from the diner to the doctor’s office to Jenna and Earl’s home. Waitress serves up a few very tasty slices, but it takes more than that to make a wholly satisfying pie.

ARTIST TALK: NANCY GROSSMAN, MARILYN MINTER, BETTY TOMPKINS, LAURIE SIMMONS

Betty Tompkins. Artistgirl, 2013. Acrylic on canvas, 6 x 12 x 1 1/2 inches. Private Collection. Image courtesy the artist.

Betty Tompkins, “Artistgirl,” acrylic on canvas, 2013 (private collection / image courtesy the artist)

Who: Nancy Grossman, Marilyn Minter, Betty Tompkins, Laurie Simmons, and Glenn Fuhrman
What: Artist talk
Where: The FLAG Art Foundation, 545 West 25th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves., ninth floor, 212-206-0220
When: Tuesday, May 10, free with RSVP, 6:00
Why: In case you haven’t been paying attention, FLAG founder Glenn Fuhrman has been hosting a series of conversations at his Chelsea gallery with some pretty big-time players and up-and-comers, including Jeff Koons, Sean Scully, and Awol Erizku. On May 10, he’ll be convening with a terrifically impressive quartet of artists, Nancy Grossman, Marilyn Minter, Betty Tompkins, and Laurie Simmons, to discuss Tompkins’s exhibition “WOMEN Words, Phrases, and Stories: 1,000 Paintings by Betty Tompkins,” which continues at FLAG through May 14. The exhibition consists of one thousand small-scale, hand-painted acrylic on canvas works that feature words and phrases used to describe women, including “Total Babe,” “Epic Bitch,” “Girly Girl,” “Arm Candy,” “Put a Bag over Her Head,” and “Will She Ever Shut Up?” (In her request for words and phrases from others, Tompkins explained, “They can be affectionate [honey], pejorative [bitch], slang, descriptive, etc.”) You better watch out, because this should be one exciting, illuminating evening.

THE FATHER

André (Frank Langella) doesn’t make it easy for his daughter, Anne (Kathryn Erbe), to help him in THE FATHER (photo by Joan Marcus)

Manhattan Theatre Club at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
261 West 47th St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 12, $70-$150
thefatherbroadway.com
www.manhattantheatreclub.com

In early 2014, Frank Langella played King Lear at BAM, a thought-provoking counterpoint to his latest show, the U.S. premiere of Florian Zeller’s The Father. As Lear, the seventy-eight-year-old Langella, who has won three Tonys and two Obies, battled his failing mind and body while two of his three daughters fought over his wealth and power and the third only wanted to love and care for him. As eighty-year-old André in Zeller’s Olivier-nominated, Molière Award–winning play — not to be confused with August Strindberg’s The Father, currently running at Theatre for a New Audience — Langella is an elegant Paris gentleman dealing with the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease while his loving daughter, Anne (Kathryn Erbe), tries to care for him despite his mistreatment of her. After scaring off yet another home nurse, André yells at Anne, “I don’t need her! I don’t need her or anyone else! I can manage very well on my own!” But it’s becoming more and more apparent that he can’t, as he gets lost in a psychological maze of the past and the present, not knowing who is who and where he is while refusing to acknowledge what is happening to him, instead turning the tables on those around him. “I’m worried about you,” he says to a woman (Kathleen McNenny) who claims to be Anne but he does not recognize. “Don’t you remember? She doesn’t remember. Are you having memory lapses or what? You’d better go and see someone, my dear.” He also mixes up Anne’s significant others, either boyfriends or husbands (Charles Borland and Brian Avers) who may or may not be moving to London with her. And he compares his latest caretaker, Laura (Hannah Cabell), to his beloved other daughter, Elise, whom he wildly praises while disparaging Anne. “You have two daughters?” Laura asks suspiciously. “That’s right,” he says. “Even though I hardly ever hear from the other one. Elise. All the same, she was always my favourite. . . . I don’t understand why she never gets in touch. Never.” In addition, André seems to be forgetting whose apartment he’s in and whether he’s living on his own or with Anne, which makes him angry and upset. “I don’t need any help from anyone and I will not leave this flat,” he firmly declares. But he’s of course in dire need of help.

André (Frank Langella) ponders his frightening future in Florian Zeller play (photo by Joan Marcus)

Translated from the French by two-time Tony winner Christopher Hampton (Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Sunset Boulevard) and directed by Tony winner Doug Hughes (Frozen, The Royal Family), Zeller’s play, a companion piece to The Mother, uses clever stagecraft to depict André’s heartbreaking descent. Scenes sometimes repeat or overlap, and having multiple actors play Anne and her partners transfers André’s confusion to the audience, which is also sometimes not sure who is who or if what is happening is only in André’s fading mind. Each scene ends with a sudden darkness, and when the lights come back on (courtesy of lighting designer Donald Holder), bits of Scott Pask’s fashionable French-flat set, from books to furniture, have disappeared, echoing the cognitive losses inside André’s head. André is also obsessed with time, as if, deep down, he really does understand the fate that awaits him but is unwilling to face the truth. He keeps thinking someone has stolen his watch, and he continually refers to time. “Time passes so fast,” he says wistfully. Later he opines, “If this goes on much longer, I’ll be stark naked. Stark naked. And I won’t even know what time it is.” Langella (Frost/Nixon, Dracula) goes from bold and confused to touchingly gentle as André, imbuing him with a Lear-like regalness and an aristocratic refinement even when tap-dancing; it’s a beautifully moving performance from one of America’s finest actors. Zeller, Hampton, and Hughes avoid genre clichés or sentimentality, using clever subtlety to tell a very sad, unfortunately increasingly common tale.

FRIEZE WEEK 2016

Frieze will feature free tours and conversations on collecting, among other programs

FRIEZE ART FAIR
Randall’s Island Park
May 5-8, $29-$49 per day
friezenewyork.com

There are a ton of art fairs from March through May here in New York City, but the only one we make sure to go to every year is Frieze. Held on Randall’s Island, Frieze has a terrific mix of art, performance, discussion, outdoor sculpture, and food, and it tends not to get too horrifically crowded even at prime times. This year’s fair, taking place May 5-8, features more than five dozen galleries from around the world, divided into four sections: Main, Focus, Frame, and Spotlight. Other works are part of the special programs Frieze Talks, Frieze Sounds (Giorgio Andreotta Calo & MADRIEMA, Liz Magic Laser, GCC), Frieze Education, and Frieze Projects (Alex Da Corte, Anthea Hamilton, David Horvitz, Eduardo Navarro, Heather Phillipson, Maurizio Cattelan). Every day there is a free guided tour with advance RSVP. Beginning on Thursday, the Reading Room will host seven hours of daily talks, live performance, and book signings, including “Prints, Polaroids, and Picassos” at 1:30 on Thurday with Melanie Gerlis, Lisa Schiff, and Nicholas Campbell, Bill Powers in conversation with Nathaniel Mary Quinn at 4:30, and the Brooklyn Museum talk “Ai Weiwei and Bicycles” at 5:30 with Sharon Matt-Atkins and a limited-edition bicycle made by Ai. Also on Thursday, Eileen Myles will deliver the keynote address, “What a Poet Might Be Doing Here,” at 4:00 in the Frieze auditorium. On Friday, the Reading Room schedule includes a book signing by Hans Ulrich Obrist (Conversations in Colombia: ANAÑAM-YOU-REYA) at 11:30, the ArtMag talk “The Stars Were Aligned for a Century of New Beginnings” with Basim Magdy and Omar Kholeif at 2:00, and the Art in America discussion “Comics in America” with Julia Wolkoff in conversation with Dan Nadel and Alexi Worth at 3:30. Also on Friday, Dan Fox and Mark Leckey will team up for the Frieze Talk “Haunted by What” in the auditorium at noon, while Omar Kholeif, Zach Blas, Andrea Crespo, and Jacolby Satterwhite gather at 4:00 for “The Technological Body and Its Discontents.”

Saturday’s Reading Room programming kicks off at 11:30 with “The Captioning Séance,” live aura readings by Wayne Koestenbaum in conjunction with his new book, Notes on Glaze, followed by talks with Evan Moffitt and Carlos Motta at 1:30, W magazine at 2:30 (“Art Heist”), Petra Cortright and Lindsay Howard at 3:30 (“Net Speak”), and Negar Azimi and Ketuta Alexi-Meskhishvili at 4:30 (“Hollow Body”). At 12 noon in the auditorium, Hal Foster and Ben Lerner will delve into the topic “On Hating On . . . ,” while the 4:00 Frieze Talk, “Version Control,” brings together Joanne McNeil, Thomas Demand, Oliver Laric, and Stephanie Syjuco. In the Reading Room on Sunday, Harry Thorne, Harry Burke, and Laura McLean Ferris will discuss “The Fast and the Slow — Writing and Reading On- and Offline” at 1:30, followed by Jason Farago in conversation with Agnieszka Kurant at 2:30, “On Ecstasy” with Rachel Rose and Ryan McNamara at 3:30, and Eli Diner in conversation with Martine Syms at 4:30. The last day’s Frieze Talks consist of Lawrence Abu Hamdan and Holly Herndon discussing sound and surveillance at noon and Jens Hoffmann, Julia Bryan-Wilson, Michelle Grabner, Emiliano Valdés, and Beatrice von Bismarck answering the question “Curator: Autodidact Polymath or Academic Expert?” at 4:00. Below are events at other fairs taking place during Frieze Week.

nada

NADA
Basketball City
299 South St.
May 5-8, $20 per day, $40 run of show
newartdealers.org

Thursday, May 5
Artist DJs: Michael Mahalchick + Melissa Brown, 2:00 –5:00

Performance and ritual blessing by Angie Jennings, 5:30

“Fan Boys,” a performance by Brian Belott and Billy Grant, and “Cold Steel,” by Tyson Reeder, 6:00

“The New Neurotic,” a performance by the Shandaken Project, featuring Childress, 6:30

Friday, May 6
“Extensions,” a performance by Naama Tsabar, 1:00

“The Art of the (Cough) Deal: Why Artist-Gallerists Do It Better,” with Sarah Braman, Max Warsh, Ridley Howard, Margaret Lee, and Elyse Derosia, moderated by Andrew M. Goldstein, 2:00

Artist DJs: Annie Pearlman 2:00 – 4:00

“Go Pro: The Hyper-Professionalization of the Emerging Artist,” with Daniel S. Palmer, Jamian Juliano-Villani, Diane Simpson, and Jayne Johnson, moderated by M. H. Miller, 3:00

“The Event Economy: The Role of Performance in Gallery Programming,” with Emma Hazen, Claire Mirocha, Vanessa Thill, Mike Pepi, Rin Johnson, and Harry Burke, moderated by Nicole Reber, 4:00

Artist DJs: Ben Vida 4:00 – 6:00

“Art Fair,” new video work by Talk Hole (Steven Phillips-Horst & Eric Schwartau), followed by a discussion, 6:00

Saturday, May 7
The NADA Hoops Know Wave 3-on-3 Tournament, court designed by Michael Genovese (pick-up games available Thursday and Friday)

“Daata Editions meets Moran Bondaroff,” with David Gryn, Jessica Witkin, and Rory Padeken, 1:00

“NSK State: Imagined Territories,” with Charles Lewis and David K. Thompson, 2:00

“Models of Practice: New Territories and Frameworks for Public Art,” with Diya Vij, Maayan Strauss, and Brooke Singer, moderated by Mariel Villeré, 3:00

“Alternative Narratives: An exploration of hybrid creative practices,” with Angel Otero, Larry Ossei-Mensah, and Erik Hougen, 4:00

“TURBOFILM and the Uncertain Future of Moving Images” by Alterazioni Video, with live music performance and the U.S. premiere Rosa Perfetto, 5:00

“The Soft Side of Hardcore starring Old Put the Clown,” with performance by Bailey Scieszka, 6:00

Artist DJs: Michael Bauer 2:00 – 4:00

Artist DJs: Andrew Kuo 4:00 – 6:00

Sunday, May 8
Wearable Art Workshop with the Children’s Museum of the Arts, 1:00

Artist DJs: Denise Kupferschmidt 2:00 – 4:00

“Suits You,” sculptural performance by Poncili Creación (Zuleyka Alejandro, Jimena Lloreda, and Pablo & Efrain del Hierro), 3:30

Michelangiolo Bastiani, “Tentativo Impossibile,” 2016 (courtesy of Liquid Art System | Capri3)

CONTEXT New York
Pier 94, 55th St. & West Side Highway
May 4-8, $25 per day, $55 run of show
www.contextnyfair.com

Friday, May 6
Artist Spotlight: Why Are Artists Willing to Starve in New York for Their Art?, with Bruce Helander, 2:00

Trends of the Art World from an Investment Perspective, with Annelien Bruins, Terence Doran, and Madelaine D’Angelo, 3:00

The Habits of Successful Collectors, with Nica Gutman Rieppi and Jessica Davidson, 4:15

Saturday, May 7
Artist Spotlight: Guardians — The Art of Healing and Hope with Kim Sun Tei, 1:00

Artist Spotlight: The Inside Secrets of Art Patronage — Case Study on Yuroz, with Pandora Pang and Bruce Helander, 2:00

The Evolution of Art and Finance Services in Wealth Management, with Phillip Klein and Donald Poster, 3:00

Book signing: The Art of John Keane by Mark Lawson, 4:00

Balance of Power — Who are Today’s Market Makers?, with Heidi Lee-Komaromi, Peter Priede, Amelie Chabannes, and Lenise Logan, 4:15

Sunday, May 8
Artist Spotlight: Pushing the 2-D Boundaries of an Art Collection, with Jennifer Kostuik, 2:00

New Tools of the Trade, with Lucy Redoglia, Connor Williams, and Jenny Park Adam, 3:00

Digits to Digital — Trends in Merging the Handmade with Digital Technologies, with Regine Basha, Kristin Lucas, and Birgit Rathsmann, 4:15

Mickalene Thomas will be at 1:54 to discuss and sign her new book

1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair
Pioneer Works, Red Hook
May 6-8, $10-$20
1-54.com/new-york

Friday, May 6
Welcome & Opening Remarks by Touria El Glaoui and Koyo Kouoh, 1:00

Beyond Cultural Polarities: Africa’s Creative “Repats,”
With Andrew Dosunmu, Nina Keïta, and Elinyisia Mosha, moderated by Claude Grunitzky, 1:30

Media Platforms for the Promotion of the Arts, Visual Cultures, and Social Experiences of and about Africa and the Diaspora, with Claude Grunitzky and Abiola Oke, moderated by Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Nzewi, 3:00

The Politics and Privilege of Play: Dexter Wimberly in conversation with ruby onyinyechi amanze, 4:30

Friday, May 6
and
Saturday, May 7
1:54 PERFORMS, “This ship would set sail, even anchored as it was,” site-specific interactive performance project by Dave McKenzie

Saturday, May 7
Book presentation and signing with Mickalene Thomas in conversation with Lesley A. Martin, Muse: Mickalene Thomas Photographs, 12 noon

Emerging Social Entrepreneurs and Cultural Brokers, with Ifeanyi Awachie, Shimite Obialo, Sharon Obuobi, and Amy Sall, moderated by Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Nzewi, 2:00

Museums and Contemporary African Art, with Karen Milbourne, Kevin Dumouchelle, and Yesomi Umolu, moderated by Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Nzewi, 3:30

Materiality, Storytelling, and Grand Narratives in Contemporary African Art: Dexter Wimberly (independent curator) in conversation with Billie Zangewa, 5:00

Adrienne Edwards in conversation with Dave McKenzie, 6:30

Sunday, May 8
Second Sundays: live performances by Osei Korankye and the Mandingo Ambassadors

Book presentation and signing with Sue Williamson in conversation with Chika Okeke-Agulu, Sue Williamson: Life and Work, 4:00

Collective Design fair showcases innovative design thinking

COLLECTIVE DESIGN
Skylight Clarkson Sq.
550 Washington St.
May 4-8, $16.82 – $36.24
collectivedesignfair.com

Thursday, May 5
Frank de Biasi, 12 noon

Robert Couturier, 3:00

Stteven Gambrel, 5:00

Friday, May 6
Kelly Behun, 12 noon

Brad Ford, 3:00

James Huniford, 5:00

Saturday, May 7
Sandra Nunnerley, 12 noon

Suchi Reddy, 3:00

Sunday, May 8
Christopher Coleman, 12 noon

Robert Stilin, 3:00

COMPAGNIA FINZI PASCA: LA VERITÀ

You can expect the unexpected in (photo by Andrea Lopez)

You can expect the unexpected in Compagnia Finzi Pasca surreal tribute to Salvador Dalí (photo by Andrea Lopez)

BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
Peter Jay Sharp Building
230 Lafayette Ave.
May 4-7, $25-$80
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
finzipasca.com

In November 2012, Daniele Finzi Pasca presented the surreal Donka: A Letter to Chekhov, combining music, dance, storytelling, acrobatics, and circus arts in paying tribute to Russian writer Anton Chekhov. Finzi Pasca and his Swiss troupe, Compagnia Finzi Pasca (Icaro, Bianco su Bianco), are back at BAM this week, honoring Spanish surrealist and master showman Salvador Dalí. Running May 4-7 at the Howard Gilman Opera House, La Verità is a collaboration between Pasca and his fellow company founders, show cocreator Julie Hamelin Finzi; music and sound designer Maria Bonzanigo, who shares choreography credit with Finzi Pasca; set and prop designer Hugo Gargiulo; costume designer Giovanna Buzzi; and artistic consultant Antonio Vergamini. Pasca also designed the lighting with Alexis Bowles, and Roberto Vitalini did the videos. The backdrop for the mayhem is a re-creation of the mural Dalí made for the Metropolitan Opera’s 1944 ballet, Mad Tristan, for which Dalí also designed the sets and costumes. The anonymous owners of the mural approached Finzi Pasca to use it in a production, and what developed was La Verità, an extravaganza in which anything can happen. “The language of acrobatics, of physical theatre may easily conquer a territory where it is neither night or day, where light doesn’t touch reality but designs it, invents it or reinvents it,” Finzi Pasca explains on the company website. “The language of the acrobats titillates our unconscious, making us see inner landscapes that appear truer than reality. Dalí’s landscapes are set during night or day? The answer: neither; Dalí’s images belong to another dimension, the dimension of dreams.”

THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL

Mrs. Candour (Dana Ivey), Lady Sneerwell (Frances Barber), and Lady Teazle (Helen Cespedes) take part in idle chatter in Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL

Red Bull Theater at the Lucille Lortel Theater
121 Christopher St. between Bleecker & Hudson Sts.
Tuesday – Sunday through May 8, $80-$100
212-352-3101
www.redbulltheater.com

Red Bull Theater’s wonderfully playful adaptation of Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s classic 1777 farce, The School for Scandal, offers a master’s course on the subject of malicious idle chatter. The headmistress of this unofficial institution is Lady Sneerwell (Frances Barber), a wealthy widow with an ax to grind. “I am no hypocrite to deny the satisfaction I reap from the success of my efforts,” she tells her vitriolic star pupil, gossip columnist Snake (Jacob Dresch), continuing, “Wounded myself, in the early part of my life by the envenomed tongue of slander, I confess I have since known no pleasure equal to the reducing others to the level of my own injured reputation.” Joined by single heiress Maria (Nadine Malouf) and aristocratic gadfly Joseph Surface (Christian Conn), the group discusses the nature of gossip. “For my part, I confess, madam, wit loses its respect with me, when I see it in company with malice. What do you think, Mr. Surface?” the prim and proper Maria asks, to which Joseph replies, “Certainly, madam. To smile at the jest which plants a thorn in another’s breast is to become a principal in the mischief.” Lady Sneerwell chimes in, “Pshaw, there’s no possibility of being witty without a little ill nature. The malice of a good thing is the barb that makes it stick. What’s your opinion, Mr. Surface?” Joseph again shares his barbed judgment, explaining, “To be sure, madam, that conversation where the spirit of raillery is suppressed will ever appear tedious and insipid.” But the gossip they spread is anything but good-natured teasing, carefully aimed at directly affecting its targets. Referring to the never-seen Mrs. Clackit, Snake boasts, “To my knowledge, she has been the cause of six matches being broken off and three sons being disinherited, of four forced elopements, as many coerced confessions, and two divorces.” One of their current targets is Sir Peter Teazle (Mark Linn-Baker), an older city knight and avowed bachelor who has married the much younger Lady Teazle (Helen Cespedes), who is happily going through his money while flirting with Joseph, who prefers Sir Peter’s ward, Maria, who has a hankering for Joseph’s younger brother, Charles (Christian DeMarais), who is drinking away his fortune. The silly dandy and ersatz poet Sir Benjamin Backbite (Ryan Garbayo) also has his heart set on Maria. The Surface brothers have been receiving funds from their uncle, Sir Oliver (Henry Stram), who has been traveling the world for sixteen years but at last returns, deciding to test his nephews’ loyalty by appearing in disguise to determine whether they are still worthy of his financial support. And ruling over it all is the master gossip herself, Mrs. Candour (Dana Ivey), who declares without a hint of irony, “Tale-bearers are just as bad as the tale-makers — but what’s to be done, as I said before — how will you prevent people from talking?”

Charles (Christian DeMarais) and his disguised uncle, Sir Oliver (Henry Stram), frame their immediate future in THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL

In his directorial debut, Marc Vietor assuredly guides all the delicious madness, but he has to play second fiddle to Andrea Lauer’s sensational period costumes and Charles G. LaPointe’s outrageous wig and hair design; Dresch’s green reptilian getup as Snake is worth the price of admission alone, as is the way he marvelously squirms and slithers onstage, and Ivey’s wig is like a character unto itself. The excellent cast has tons of fun on Anna Louizos’s set, which folds into drawing rooms in various residences. Ivey and Barber are particularly adroit at chomping on the scenery and spitting out their wickedly delicious calumny. Several characters present asides directly to the audience, which works for the most part except for Stram, whose attempts are hard to understand. The Dublin-born Sheridan, who wrote such other plays as The Rivals, A Trip to Scarborough, and Pizarro and was also a politician who served in the British Parliament for more than three decades, doesn’t hold anything back in this consistently engaging satirical comedy of manners, beginning with the names of the characters themselves; in addition to Candour, Snake, Sneerwell, Backbite, Surface, and Teazle, there are Crabtree, Midas, Bumper, and Careless onstage as well as references to Prim, Brittle, Clackit, Knuckle, Kumquat, and Gadabout. In his diary entry for December 17, 1813, Lord Byron wrote, “Lord Holland told me a curious piece of sentimentality in Sheridan. The other night we were all delivering our respective and various opinions on him and other hommes marquans and mine was this: — ‘Whatever Sheridan has done or chosen to do has been, par excellence, always the best of its kind. He has written the best comedy (School for Scandal), the best opera (The Duenna — in my mind, far before that St. Giles’s lampoon, the Beggars’ Opera), the best farce (The Critic — it is only too good for an after-piece), and the best address (Monologue on Garrick); and, to crown all, delivered the very best oration (the famous Begum Speech) ever conceived or heard in this country.” It is with no mere prattle that I say that Red Bull Theater has done us all a service by resurrecting this play that is nearly as old as our country, which itself has never stopped loving and spreading gossip, which can now go viral over the internet in the matter of minutes. “There’s no stopping people’s tongues,” Mrs. Candour says. “The license of invention some people take is monstrous indeed,” Joseph adds. Thank goodness those sentiments are true, for they result in such a rich and savory treat as The School for Scandal.