twi-ny recommended events

RICHARD TOPOL ON ABRAM, SHYLOCK, AND ANTISEMITISM: OUR CLASS / THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

Rich Topol first played Abram Baker in Our Class at BAM this past January (photo by Pavel Antonov)

OUR CLASS / THE MERCHANT OF VENICE
Classic Stage Company, Lynn F. Angelson Theater
136 East Thirteenth St. between Third & Fourth Aves.
Our Class: Tuesday – Sunday, September 12 – November 3, $89-$139
The Merchant of Venice: Tuesday – Sunday, November 22 – December 22, $59-$129
www.classicstage.org
www.arlekinplayers.com

Earlier this year, Arlekin Players Theatre and MART Foundation’s timely new adaptation of Polish playwright Tadeusz Słobodzianek’s 2008 drama, Our Class, sold out a three-week run at the BAM Fisher as part of the Under the Radar festival. Inspired by actual events that occurred in the small village of Jedwabne, Poland, the three-hour play, directed by the endlessly inventive Igor Golyak, focuses on antisemitism among a group of ten Polish students, five Jewish, five Catholic, all born in 1919–20, from childhood to young adulthood to old age, although several don’t make it through a horrific 1941 pogrom.

In my January 30 review, I wrote, “The cast and crew, who hail from Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Israel, Germany, and the US, are superb. . . . Perhaps the best thing about Our Class is that it doesn’t preach at the audience; it has a message and a point of view but is not teaching us about good and evil.”

The show, which was nominated for Drama League, Outer Critics Circle, and Drama Desk Awards, is back for a return engagement September 12 – November 3 at Classic Stage, with the same cast and crew. One thing that will be at least somewhat different is the staging, as Classic Stage is smaller and more intimate than the Fisher (199 seats vs. 250), and the audience sits on three sides of the action. Arlekin’s residency continues there November 22 – December 22 with the New York debut of its unique and unusual production of Shakespeare’s The most excellent historie of the Merchant of Venice with the exxtreame cruelitie of Shylocke the Jewe, featuring much of the same team as Our Class, including director Golyak and actors Richard Topol, Gus Birney, José Espinosa, Tess Goldwyn, Stephen Ochsner, and Alexandra Silber.

Topol, who has starred as Jewish characters on and off Broadway in such works as Indecent, The Chosen, Awake & Sing, Prayer for the French Republic, and King of the Jews, plays Abram Baker in Our Class, a student who leaves Poland and becomes a rabbi in America. In The Merchant of Venice, he will play Shylock, the Jewish moneylender previously portrayed by Edmund Kean, Edwin Booth, Jacob Adler, Orson Welles, Al Pacino, Laurence Olivier, John Douglas Thompson, Andrew Scott, and many others.

In my January 8 Substack post “‘class consciousness’: we are not safe. again.,” exploring Our Class and antisemitism in relation to Hamas’s brutal attack on Israel on October 7 and the aftermath, Topol explained, “Certainly the violence that is occurring in both Ukraine and Israel/Gaza is impacting my relationship and understanding of the play. And it’s making Our Class a story that feels even more important to tell. Because it’s based on true events that occurred not far from Ukraine. And because it’s about cycles of hate. And the violence that can come from that hate.”

As the company began rehearsals for the Classic Stage transfer, I asked Topol several questions about the two plays and his characters.

twi-ny: What similarities do you see between Abram and Shylock?

rt: Well, for starters, they are both Jews living through perilous times filled with antisemitism. They are both fathers who love their children deeply. They are both connected to their religion fully. And they both face moments where they struggle with how to respond to people who treat them with indignity.

twi-ny: What are their main differences?

rt: I think their main difference is how they respond to being treated with indignity. Shylock seeks revenge. He can’t see straight once he’s been broken. Abram is treated less harshly but he also is a kinder man who tries to come to terms with the world as it is in a way that allows for forgiveness or redemption or understanding. And I think that is because Abram is a rabbi who feels the blessings of his G-d around him, even as he suffers harm. Shylock is a businessman, a moneylender, and though he is connected to his Jewish faith, he isn’t as grounded in its teachings as Abram is. Abram creates this gigantic family, these generations of descendants whom he loves and cherishes. Shylock feels like he’s alone in the world, with only his one daughter as his ally. And once she’s gone he has nobody he can lean on, live for, or help him see straight.

Also, because of Abram’s inherent kindness, he sees the best in people, the hope for the world, the possibilities for the future. Maybe Shylock had some kindness in him somewhere but we certainly don’t see much if any of it during the course of the play. Maybe it was snuffed out when his wife died. But bottom line there is a hardness in Shylock’s soul as opposed to a kind of softness in Abram’s.

twi-ny: How might Abram have fared as the Venetian moneylender in Merchant, and how might Shylock have done as the rabbi in Our Class?

rt: That’s a great question and a fun thing to try to imagine. Abram seems like a pretty smart guy, so maybe he would have figured out how to make a successful go of it as a Venetian moneylender. He’s good with languages, he’s a hard worker, and he has a kind of can-do attitude that would have stood him in good stead. I like his chances.

Shylock as a rabbi . . . hmm . . . I’m thinking no way. At least not the kind of rabbi I’d like to hear at synagogue! He definitely feels strongly about his tribe, his people, his religion. But I don’t see him as having the right temperament to be a leader to his fellow Jews.

twi-ny: What would they think about the state of the world if they were alive today, with the same jobs?

rt: Shylock as a modern-day moneylender — a banker in this world of global capitalism — he might be just fine. I think most of the Jews of this time live with greater freedoms, respect, and opportunity than during Shylock’s time in Venice. He’d certainly recognize the antisemitism of our time, but if he were a banker in Venice now I think he might be thriving and might feel like a true equal to his Christian counterparts.

Abram, well, he was alive not that long ago. But I think he’d be heartbroken to see the rise of antisemitism in this country. My sense of him is of someone who loved and seized on the promise and opportunity of America, symbolized by the Statue of Liberty. An immigrant who was always thankful for the chance to make a new and full life here. And he would be as disturbed by the hate and divisiveness of our time right now as many of us are.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

TICKET ALERT: THE VOICES IN YOUR HEAD ENCORE ENGAGEMENT

The Voices in Your Head is back for an encore run in a storefront Brooklyn church (photo by HanJie Chow)

THE VOICES IN YOUR HEAD
St. Lydia’s Dinner Church
304 Bond St., Brooklyn
September 9 – October 11, $39.72-$55.20
stlydias.org/events
www.eggandspoontheatre.org

In January, The Voices in Your Head offered a unique view of grief counseling, taking place at St. Lydia’s Dinner Church in Brooklyn. The sixty-minute play sold out quickly, extending its run and adding seats. It’s now back for a return engagement September 9 – October 11, and some nights are already fully booked. For other nights, there are either $39.72 or $55.20 Pay It Forward tickets available, but not both. Christian Caro, Marcia DeBonis, Tom Mezger, Daphne Overbeck, Erin Treadway, and Jehan O. Young reprise their roles in this Egg & Spoon remount, with Alex Gibson, Jamila Sabares–Klemm, and Molly Samson joining the cast.

Below is my original review of the January 2024 edition of this thoroughly involving and entertaining experience.

————————————

Lately I’ve been thinking more than ever about grief and death. I’m not a support group kinda guy, but when I heard about The Voices in Your Head, I knew I had to go.

I found solace — and nearly nonstop laughter — in Those Guilty Creatures’ immersive, site-specific group therapy black comedy, which continues at St. Lydia’s storefront dinner church in Brooklyn through January 29.

The space has been renamed St. Lidwina’s, after the Dutch patron saint of chronic pain and ice skating. The church has a large front window and door, looking more like a cozy shop than a place of worship. When you arrive, you are asked to check off your name on a sign-in sheet; to protect your anonymity, there are no last names, although people passing by outside can peek in and see you.

In the center of the room are more than two dozen unmatched chairs arranged in a large oval. In the back is a working kitchen where the facilitator, Gwen (Vanessa Kai), greets everyone while making tea and cookies. Several attendees engage in friendly conversation and chitchat. Shortly after Gwen calls the meeting to order, it becomes apparent that a handful of the participants are in the cast.

“It’s funny, when I was at my lowest, I was going to all these different meetings; it felt like dating, trying to find the right match, and they were all so . . . maudlin? I thought, there has to be another way. So, I started this group,” Gwen says. “Evidently, there was a need. So, we’re all here, we’ve met the criteria, but, broadly, I like to think of this as a place to share a sensibility. Laughter comes easier for me in here than out there. Everyone has their own relationship to grief; I’ve been considering mine, but what about anti-grief? We seek that through shared stories, activities, and discussions. . . . We aim to hear three stories each week, which, hopefully, helps us exchange some weird-ass joy.”

The audience becomes immersed in the grief of others in The Voices in Your Head (photo by HanJie Chow)

Sharing their sensibilities are the vivacious and outgoing Regina (Daphne Overbeck); Vivian (Marcia DeBonis), who believes in “Death, Embarrassment, Trauma”; Caleb (Christian Caro), who doesn’t want to be sad in college and can’t stop texting; the ultraserious Sandra (Erin Treadway); and the practical Hadiya (Jehan O. Young), who loves “the morbid stuff.”

They are eventually joined by first-timer Blake (Patrick Foley), who is determined to turn his story of loss into a Netflix special, and Ted (Tom Mezger), who actually attends the church and saw a flier.

Over the course of sixty fun, lively minutes, the group discusses Kelly Clarkson, hot cater waiters, self-care, vacuuming, exfoliating, sand, and other items and issues as they explore their personal misfortunes. A role-playing session that puts some of the group members in specific social situations doesn’t go quite as expected. During a break, the characters gossip, revealing more about who they are.

At the center of it all is the arbitrariness of death and Gwen’s assertion that we should “just approach the nature of the loss with a sense of humor. It helps us hold a certain space.”

The Voices in Your Head takes place in the storefront of a Brooklyn dinner church (photo by HanJie Chow)

The cast is uniformly excellent, led by Kai (The Pain of My Belligerence, KPOP) as the not-necessarily-so-stable Gwen, the always terrific DeBonis (Mary Page Marlowe, Small Mouth Sounds) as the chatty but caring Vivian, Treadway (Spaceman, War Dreamer) as the dour Sandra, Young (Speech, The Johnsons) as the purposeful Hadiya, Overbeck (Typed Out: A Princess Cabaret, Nightgowns) as the wonderfully over-the-top Regina, and Caro making his off-Broadway debut as the inattentive Caleb, but Foley (Circle Jerk, The Seagull/Woodstock, NY) nearly steals the show with his unforgettable Christmas story.

Created by Grier Mathiot and Billy McEntee and gleefully directed by Ryan Dobrin, The Voices in Your Head is as smart as it is hilarious. It’s not so much about how we deal with death than how we deal with life. Everyone reacts differently to tragedy and loss, but, as Gwen points out, “We need to hear each other’s laughter.”

The Voices in Your Head is not interactive — the audience should leave the talking to the actors — but feel free to mingle afterward and share your own thoughts about this engaging and involving experience.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

YANIRA CASTRO: EXORCISM = LIBERATION

EXORCISM = LIBERATION
Multiple locations
September 6-28, free
www.acanarytorsi.org

Yanira Castro is a fearless creator always ready to challenge herself and fully engage the audience. Born in Puerto Rico and based in Brooklyn, Castro and her company, a canary torsi (an anagram of her name), have presented such involving, complex, and entertaining multidisciplinary works as Dark Horse/Black Forest, a dance installation for public restrooms; the Jean-Luc Godard–inspired Paradis, a site-specific performance outdoors at twilight at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden; Performance | Portrait, an interactive video installation at the Invisible Dog Art Center; now.here.this, a meditative march of resistance in Prague; and Last Audience, a live communal laboratory at New York Live Arts, a performance manual, and a three-part space-opera podcast.

“Yanira Castro is a structural obsessive. She is an art scientist. She sees the rules and patterns lurking just beneath the surface of things,” Chocolate Factory Theater cofounding artistic director Brian Rogers has written. “The stuff that’s easier not to see . . . chaos staring at itself in the mirror, finding order.”

The Chocolate Factory is one of several venues hosting Castro’s latest project, Exorcism = Liberation, which explores climate change, immigration, land rights, colonialism, and self-determination in activations modeled around political campaigns. Kicking off September 6 and continuing each Saturday this month, the programs, seen through a Puerto Rican lens, include listening sessions, live music, food, and posters, stickers, banners, lawn signs, and pins. (There will also be activations in Chicago, and Western Massachusetts.)

Exorcism = Liberation asks participants to examine three slogans: “I came here to weep,” “Exorcism = Liberation,” and “What is your first memory of dirt?” Conceived, written, and directed by Castro, the project features audio design by Erica Ricketts, graphics by Alejandro Torres Viera and Luis Vázquez O’Neill, voice performances by Melissa DuPrey, josé alejandro rivera, and Steph Reyes, a bomba danced by Michael Rodríguez, and live musical performances by devynn emory and Martita Abril.

In a 2014 twi-ny talk about Court/Garden at Danspace Project, Castro explained, “It is not that I want to challenge the audience. I want to create a scenario for them and to be in conversation with them and I want them to form the picture, craft their experience. Their presence dynamically changes what is occurring. That is what ‘live’ means for me. It is dynamic because of the people in the room.”

In addition to the below events, installations at Abrons Arts Center, the Center for Performance Research (with a November activation date TBD), and the Chocolate Factory will continue into November.

Yanira Castro will present activations of Exorcism = Liberation in multiple locations this month

Friday, September 6, 6:00
I came here to weep: immersive group audio experience with movement score performed by Martita Abril, light refreshments prepared by Castro, stickers and pins available, Abrons Arts Center, 466 Grand St. at Pitt St., Manhattan

Saturday, September 7, 6:00
What is your first memory of dirt?: activation and collective listening session, followed by movement score “Clearing Practice” performed by devynn emory, light refreshments prepared by Castro, stickers and pins available, the Invisible Dog garden, 51 Bergen St., Brooklyn

Saturday, September 14, 7:00
CATCH 76: collective action, followed by a movement score performed by Martita Abril, with ice pops and limbers de coco y limon, the Chocolate Factory Theater (outside), 38-33 24th St., Long Island City

Saturday, September 21, 2:00
I came here to weep: activation and long table discussion with Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste, Sami Hopkins, and Theodore (ted) Kerr, ISSUE Project Room, 22 Boerum Pl., Brooklyn

Saturday, September 28, 2:00-4:00
Exorcism = Liberation: activation with ice pops, limbers de coco y limon, the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center, 107 Suffolk St., Manhattan

Friday, October 25, 1:00 – 9:00
OPEN LAB: What is your first memory of dirt? Aural Archiving with Yanira Castro / a canary torsi, advance RSVP required, the Center for Performance Research, 361 Manhattan Ave., Brooklyn

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

PEMA TSEDEN

An old man (Lochey) would rather sell himself than his canine companion in Pema Tseden’s Old Dog

OLD DOG (LAO GOU/KHYI RGAN) (Pema Tseden, 2011)
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Saturday, September 7, 5:00
Series runs September 6-15
718-777-6888
movingimage.org

In June 2016, Tibetan filmmaker Pema Tseden, who lived and worked in Beijing, was arrested by Chinese authorities at Xining airport in western China for “disrupting social order” supposedly over a luggage dispute, then was admitted to a local hospital with various injuries and illnesses. He was shortly freed following international outcry, and he went right back to making films about Tibet. Tseden died in May 2023 at the age of fifty-eight, and the Museum of the Moving Image will be paying tribute to him with a ten-day, ten-film retrospective running September 6-15. The series kicks off with a double feature of The Silent Manistone and The Grassland and will be followed by such works as The Silent Holy Stones, The Search, Balloon, and Snow Leopard.

Screening September 7 at 5:00 is Tseden’s 2011 drama, Old Dog, a beautifully told, slowly paced meditation on Buddhism’s four Noble Truths — “Life means suffering”; The origin of suffering is attachment”; “The cessation of suffering is attainable”; and “There is a path to the cessation of suffering” — that ends with a shocking, manipulative finale that nearly destroys everything that came before it. In order to get a little money and to save the family’s sheep-herding dog from being stolen, Gonpo (Drolma Kyab) sells their Tibetan nomad mastiff to Lao Wang (Yanbum Gyal), a dealer who resells the prized breed to stores in China, where they’re used for protection. When Gonpa’s father (Lochey) finds out what his son has done, he goes back to Lao Wang and demands the return of the dog he’s taken care of for thirteen years. “I’d sell myself before the dog,” he tells his son.

And so begins a gentle tale of parents and children, set in a modern-day Tibet that is ruled by China’s heavy hand. Gonpa’s father doesn’t understand why his son, a lazy man who rides around on a motorized bike and never seems to do much of anything, doesn’t yet have any children of his own, so he pays for Gonpa and his wife, Rikso (Tamdrin Tso), to go to the doctor to see what’s wrong. Meanwhile, the old man keeps a close watch on his dog, wary that Lao Wang will to try to steal it again. Writer-director Tseden (Jinpa, Tharlo, The Sacred Arrow) explores such themes as materialism, family, and attachment in a lovely little film that sadly is nearly ruined by its extreme final scene.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

EDRA SOTO: GRAFT

Edra Soto’s Graft will tantalize Central Park visitors through next August (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

GRAFT
Doris C. Freedman Plaza, Central Park
Sixtieth St. at Fifth Ave.
Opening: Wednesday, September 4, 6:00
September 5 – August 24, free
www.publicartfund.org
edrasoto.com
online slideshow

During the Olympics, I was surprised to see Puerto Rico taking on the United States in men’s basketball, since Puerto Rico is a US territory and all Puerto Ricans are American citizens. For some reason, I hadn’t realized that Puerto Rico has been competing as its own entity in the Summer Olympics since 1948 and in the Winter Olympics since 1984. Unfortunately, when I think of Puerto Rico, one of the things that first comes to mind is Donald Trump throwing rolls of paper towels at Puerto Ricans in the aftermath of the destruction wrought by Hurricane Maria in 2017.

That separation between Puerto Rico and the United States is forefront in Edra Soto’s new Public Art Fund commission, Graft, a red terrazzo concrete and corten steel barrier at the Scholars Gate entrance to Central Park. Soto, who was born and raised in Puerto Rico and has lived and worked in Chicago since 1998, has placed architectural interventions at several previous indoor and outdoor locations. This latest iteration, situated on Doris C. Freedman Plaza, looks like a wrought-iron fence that can let people in — and keep them out, referencing immigration, fear of crime, and the prison system.

On the park side of the physical boundary, there are three sets of tables and chairs where people can grab a seat but have no privacy, as they can be seen through the grating, which features an intricate design inspired by rejas, fences that are incorporated into middle-class Puerto Rican houses, based on Caribbean palm leaves and Yoruba symbols from West Africa.

“The rejas make perfect sense to me, as an expression of self. They exist and are understood as a formality in art, but they can live in invisibility because they are not meant to be contemplative,” Soto said in a statement. “As decorative patterns from a common house, they are meant simply to be pleasant enough to be a part of living spaces.”

Graft feels right at home in New York City, with its proud past of rampant corruption and large Puerto Rican communities; the sculpture resides among tall buildings and large, lovely trees, where people from all around the world will pass by, while nearby is Augustus Saint-Gaudens’s golden statue of Civil War general William Tecumseh Sherman astride his horse, Ontario, led by Victory. “Fear is the beginning of wisdom,” Sherman, who was born in Ohio and died in New York City, once said.

Fear is often the reason why walls are built. The inclusion of floral motifs also may be referencing botanical grafts, the process of cutting a branch of one plant and joining it to the stem of another so that they grow together, generating a more robust and beautiful tree or shrub.

“Graft at Central Park invites viewers to contemplate the resilience of cultural identity and the diasporic experiences which have infused New York City’s history and present day,” Public Art Fund senior curator Melanie Kress explained in a statement. “Soto’s installation will encourage connection in a communal space where people can reflect on their shared histories and celebrate their diverse cultural heritage.”

The opening celebration takes place September 4 at 6:00 and is open to everyone; future programs will include dominoes tournaments held in conjunction with the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural and Educational Center, and the Public Art Fund usually hosts an artist talk about its commissions. No paper towels necessary.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

RABBIT ON THE MOON: FOLK TALES, TALL TALES, AND LOCAL MYTHS

RABBIT ON THE MOON
Metrograph
7 Ludlow St. between Canal & Hester Sts.
September 6-29
212-660-0312
metrograph.com

The Metrograph series “Rabbit on the Moon: Folk Tales, Tall Tales, and Local Myths” consists of a dozen international films inspired by folklore from around the world. The works explore traditional stories from Sweden, Japan, Thailand, Georgia, Ireland, Germany, Italy, and South Korea, by some of the most important auteurs of the last seventy-five years.

Among the films are Pier Paolo Pasolini’s The Decameron, Federico Fellini’s Fellini Satyricon, Sergei Parajanov and Dodo Abashidze’s The Legend of Suram Fortress, Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Mysterious Object at Noon, Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu the Vampyre, Tomm Moore’s Song of the Sea, Na Hong-jin’s The Wailing, and Lois Patiño’s Red Moon Tide. Below is a look at several favorites.

Antonius Block (Max von Sydow) sits down with Death (Bengt Ekerot) for a friendly game of chess in Bergman classic

THE SEVENTH SEAL (Ingmar Bergman, 1957)
Friday, September 6, 2:50
Sunday, September 8, 5:30
metrograph.com

It’s almost impossible to watch Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal without being aware of the meta surrounding the film, which has influenced so many other works and been paid homage to and playfully mocked. Over the years, it has gained a reputation as a deep, philosophical paean to death. However, amid all the talk about emptiness, doomsday, the Black Plague, and the devil, The Seventh Seal is a very funny movie. In fourteenth-century Sweden, knight Antonius Block (Max von Sydow) is returning home from the Crusades with his trusty squire, Jöns (Gunnar Björnstrand). Block soon meets Death (Bengt Ekerot) and, to prolong his life, challenges him to a game of chess. While the on-again, off-again battle of wits continues, Death seeks alternate victims while Block meets a young family and a small troupe of actors putting on a show. Rape, infidelity, murder, and other forms of evil rise to the surface as Block proclaims “To believe is to suffer,” questioning God and faith, and Jöns opines that “love is the blackest plague of all.” Based on Bergman’s own play inspired by a painting of Death playing chess by Albertus Pictor (played in the film by Gunnar Olsson), The Seventh Seal, winner of a Special Jury Prize at Cannes, is one of the most entertaining films ever made. (Bergman fans will get an extra treat out of the knight being offered some wild strawberries at one point.)

Genjurō (Masayuki Mori) makes his pottery as son Genichi (Ikio Sawamura) and wife Miyagi (Kinuyo Tanaka) look on in Ugetsu

UGETSU (UGETSU MONOGATARI) (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1953)
Friday, September 13, 2:00
Sunday, September 15, 9:30
metrograph.com

The Metrograph series includes one of the most important and influential — and greatest — works to ever come from Japan. Winner of the Silver Lion for Best Director at the 1953 Venice Film Festival, Kenji Mizoguchi’s seventy-eighth film, Ugetsu, is a dazzling masterpiece steeped in Japanese storytelling tradition, especially ghost lore. Based on two tales by Ueda Akinari and Guy de Maupassant’s “How He Got the Legion of Honor,” Ugetsu unfolds like a scroll painting beginning with the credits, which run over artworks of nature scenes while Fumio Hayasaka’s urgent score starts setting the mood, and continues into the first three shots, pans of the vast countryside leading to Genjurō (Masayuki Mori) loading his cart to sell his pottery in nearby Nagahama, helped by his wife, Miyagi (Kinuyo Tanaka), clutching their small child, Genichi (Ikio Sawamura). Miyagi’s assistant, Tōbei (Sakae Ozawa), insists on coming along, despite the protestations of his nagging wife, Ohama (Mitsuko Mito), as he is determined to become a samurai even though he is more of a hapless fool. “I need to sell all this before the fighting starts,” Genjurō tells Miyagi, referring to a civil war that is making its way through the land. Tōbei adds, “I swear by the god of war: I’m tired of being poor.” After unexpected success with his wares, Genjurō furiously makes more pottery to sell at another market even as the soldiers are approaching and the rest of the villagers run for their lives. At the second market, an elegant woman, Lady Wakasa (Machiko Kyō), and her nurse, Ukon (Kikue Mōri), ask him to bring a large amount of his merchandise to their mansion. Once he gets there, Lady Wakasa seduces him, and soon Genjurō, Miyagi, Genichi, Tōbei, and Ohama are facing very different fates.

Lady Wakasa (Machiko Kyō) admires Genjurō (Masayuki Mori) in Kenji Mizoguchi postwar masterpiece

Written by longtime Mizoguchi collaborator Yoshitaka Yoda and Matsutaro Kawaguchi, Ugetsu might be set in the sixteenth century, but it is also very much about the aftereffects of World War II. “The war drove us mad with ambition,” Tōbei says at one point. Photographed in lush, shadowy black-and-white by Kazuo Miyagawa (Rashomon, Floating Weeds, Yojimbo), the film features several gorgeous set pieces, including one that takes place on a foggy lake and another in a hot spring, heightening the ominous atmosphere that pervades throughout. Ugetsu ends much like it began, emphasizing that it is but one postwar allegory among many. Kyō (Gate of Hell, The Face of Another) is magical as the temptress Lady Wakasa, while Mori (The Bad Sleep Well, When a Woman Ascends the Stairs) excels as the everyman who follows his dreams no matter the cost; the two previously played husband and wife in Rashomon. Mizoguchi, who made such other unforgettable classics as The 47 Ronin, The Life of Oharu, Sansho the Bailiff, and Street of Shame, passed away in 1956 at the age of fifty-eight, having left behind a stunning legacy, of which Ugetsu might be the best, and now looking better than ever following a recent 4K restoration.

Tōru Takemitsu “wanted to create an atmosphere of terror” in Masaki Kobayashi’s quartet of ghost stories

KWAIDAN (Masaki Kobayashi, 1964)
Saturday, September 21, 9:30
metrograph.com

Masaki Kobayashi paints four marvelous ghost stories in this eerie collection that won a Special Jury Prize at Cannes. In “The Black Hair,” a samurai (Rentaro Mikuni) regrets his choice of leaving his true love for advancement. Yuki (Keiko Kishi) is a harbinger of doom in “The Woman of the Snow.” Hoichi (Katsuo Nakamura) must have his entire body covered in prayer in “Hoichi, the Earless.” And Kannai (Kanemon Nakamura) finds a creepy face staring back at him in “In a Cup of Tea.” Winner of the Special Jury Prize at Cannes, Kwaidan is one of the greatest ghost story films ever made, four creepy, atmospheric existential tales that will get under your skin and into your brain. The score was composed by Tōru Takemitsu, who said of the film, “I wanted to create an atmosphere of terror.” He succeeded.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

R.O.S.E.

R.O.S.E. premiered last year at the Manchester International Festival (photo by Johan Persson)

R.O.S.E.
Park Ave. Armory
643 Park Ave. at Sixty-Seventh St.
September 5-12, $65
www.armoryonpark.org

Park Ave. Armory’s massive Wade Thompson Drill Hall has been turned into a flashy nightclub for the North American premiere of the immersive R.O.S.E., running September 5-12.

There are no seats for the three-hour production, so the audience will be on their feet and on the move, shaking and grooving to the show, which features cutting-edge choreography by Sharon Eyal, direction by Gai Behar and Caius Pawson of the record label Young, musical curation by Mattis With of Young, stage and creative design by Daphnée Lanternier, lighting by Alon Cohen, costumes by Maria Grazia Chiuri, and music by DJ Ben UFO. (Audience members can take a break on lounge seating in adjoining reception rooms.)

An armory commission that previously played at New Century Hall in Manchester, R.O.S.E. explodes with freedom, energy, and intimacy as audience and performers meld together as one.

There are several special programs being held in conjunction with R.O.S.E. On September 7 at 7:00, there will be a SLINK rave ($35) with DJs Currency Audio, Laenz, Simisea, rrao, and Enayet, while on September 8 at 6:00 the STUNT QUEEN!!! rave will be led by DJs Kilopatrah Jones, MORENXXX, madison moore, and TYGAPAW, hosted by Xander C. Gaines Aviance and with a poetry reading by Abdu Mongo Ali. And on September 8 at 3:00, “Day for Night: A Salon on Art and Nightlife” ($35) features “Music and Deejaying” with madison moore, Kevin Aviance, and Xander C. Gaines Aviance; “Dance and Club Culture” with Ariel Osterweis and MX Oops; and “The Art of Queer Worldmaking” with Gage Spex, Raúl de Nieves, Dosha, and Jacolby Satterwhite.

Some shows are already sold out, so act fast if you want to catch what should be one of the hottest shows of the year.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]