twi-ny recommended events

CHRONICLES OF A WANDERING SAINT

Argentine writer-director Tomás Gómez Bustillo’s Chronicles of a Wandering Saint is a glowing debut

CHRONICLES OF A WANDERING SAINT (Tomás Gómez Bustillo, 2023)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Opens Friday, June 28
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
www.chroniclesofawanderingsaint.com

About thirty-five minutes into Tomás Gómez Bustillo’s gorgeous, elegiac debut feature, Chronicles of a Wandering Saint, a meditative dark comedy on love, faith, and the afterlife, a deeply sad tragedy occurs and the credits begin to roll. But just as the protagonist is reborn at that moment, so is the film itself.

In a small, religious Argentina town, Rita (Mónica Villa) spends much of her time at Saint Rita church, either praying with her three friends, Viviana (Noemí Ron), Beba (Silvia Porro), and Alicia (Ana Silvia Mackenzie), or cleaning, mopping the floors until they glisten. She and her husband, Norberto (Horacio Marassi), live a simple life; they have no children and don’t travel. While Norberto still has a lust for life, Rita looks tired. When Norberto suggests that they go back to the waterfalls they visited on their honeymoon forty years earlier, Rita doesn’t understand why.

“Well, the waterfalls are still the exact same,” she says. He responds, “But we’re not.”

Rummaging through the church basement, Rita comes upon an object she believes to be a statue of Saint Rita, missing for thirty years. Before even seeing it, Father Eduardo (Pablo Moseinco) declares it must be a miracle. However, when, after further research, Rita realizes it’s not Saint Rita, she and Norberto decide to fake it, proceeding with her claim nonetheless. It all goes well, until it doesn’t. But that’s only part of this tender and touching magical realism tale.

Chronicles of a Wandering Saint is built around the concept of a spiritual glow, as stated in Proverbs 13.9: “The light of the righteous shines brightly, but the lamp of the wicked is snuffed out.”

Early on, Rita is cleaning the floor of the church, and Beba tells her, “Quit mopping so much or those shiny floors will end up blinding us.” Several parishioners gather in the back and sing, “The light from your shining face will illuminate all the paths that lead to eternity.” And when people die, they eventually transform into a blinding white light; one person is actually reincarnated as a lightbulb. In one of the most surreal moments, Luchito (Iair Said), now a moth, can’t keep away from Quique (Mauricio Minetti), a bulb over a woman’s front door.

The film is reminiscent of Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s 2010 Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, which is another fascinating integration of the human, animal, and spirit worlds. Bustillo maintains a similar slow pace but adds hilarious scenes beautifully photographed by Pablo Lozano, with spectacular production design by Doriane Desfaugeres, wonderful costumes by Margarita Franco, and a gentle, melancholic score by Felipe Delsart. The film is composed of still shots; the camera moves only once, zooming in on a piano, an instrument we later learn that Rita’s mother played.

When Norberto and Rita are in their kitchen talking about the waterfalls, they are both wearing yellow raincoats, the color echoed in the scrambled eggs and lemon wedge on their plates and the spray bottle on the table. Through the door is an old television set, furthering the idea that the couple, and the other parishioners, are living in an uncluttered, old-fashioned past despite Rita’s use of Facebook and a smartphone. Their old car has a cassette player; when she’s driving, Rita puts on a homemade mix tape that includes a dance-pop cover of Bryan Adams’s “Heaven.”

A shot of Rita sitting alone in a tiny bus shelter, looking downtrodden, surrounded by green grass and trees, a light pole rising behind her, is stunning; next to the shelter is a sign pointing out three nearby locations, but right then Rita has nowhere to go, unsure of which path to take. Not even the book she was reading about el Camino de Santiago, detailing the popular Christian pilgrimage itinerary, can help her now.

Villa (Wild Tales, The Holy Girl) is mesmerizing as Rita, a pious, devoted woman who wants to live up to her namesake. Her performance, especially her eyes, recalls Fellini wife and muse Giuletta Masina, who lit up such films as Nights of Cabiria and La Strada. Rita is not seeking much out of life, only a miracle. But as Norberto tells her, “If you want it to be a miracle, then it is.”

The multi-award-winning Chronicles of a Wandering Saint runs June 28 – July 11 at IFC Center; the LA-based Bustillo will be on hand for Q&As on Friday and Saturday at 7:05, joined by executive producer Samir Oliveros, producers Gewan Brown and Amanda Freedman, and moderators Taylor A. Purdee and Isabel Custodio.

Oh, one last note: Beware those unexpected sneezes. . . .

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

GLASS CLOUDS ENSEMBLE: LIKE THE FEATHER TIP OF A GIANT BIRD

Glass Clouds Ensemble rehearse for special site-specific performance at Earth Matter farm on Governors Island (photo courtesy Glass Clouds Ensemble)

Who: Glass Clouds Ensemble
What: Live performance and farm tour
Where: Urban Farm, Governors Island
When: Saturday, June 29, free with advance RSVP, 2:00
Why: On June 29 at 2:00, New York–based contemporary chamber music collective the Glass Clouds Ensemble will be on Governors Island performing “Like the Feather Tip of a Giant Bird,” a program featuring a piece inspired by Earth Mat­ter NY’s Compost Learning Center and Soil State Farm, next to the Oval and Hammock Grove; the concert will be followed by a tour of the farm, which “seeks to reduce the organic waste misdirected into the garbage stream by encouraging neighbor participation and leadership in composting.” The trio, consisting of violinists Raina Arnett and Lauren Conroy and soprano Marisa Karchin, recently performed at Green-Wood Cemetery in Jody Oberfelder’s moving And Then, Now; the Governors Island program will include a new commission by guest composer Hannah Selin inspired by the farm as well as works by John Downland and Barbara Strozzi, Conroy, and Arnett, joined by special guest Alex Vourtsanis on theorbo.

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

EIKO AND MARGARET LENG TAN: STONE I

Eiko Otake and Margaret Leng Tan will perform Stone I at Green-Wood Cemetery June 26-29 (photo by Maria Baranova)

Who: Eiko, Margaret Leng Tan
What: Site-specific performance
Where: Green-Wood Cemetery, Fifth Ave. and 25th St., Brooklyn
When: June 26-29, $30 (use code 10off to save $10), 8:30
Why: “Deep deep below I saw the machine-scarred surfaces of stones that I was not supposed to be seeing,” interdisciplinary artist Eiko Otake said about her exploration of the Gylsboda Quarry during her residency in Sweden last June. For Stone I, taking place June 26-29, Eiko will be joined by Margaret Leng Tan, Queen of the Toy Piano, for a site-specific performance at Green-Wood Cemetery that incorporates video taken by Thomas Zamolo at the quarry and Green-Wood with live movement and sound at the Historic Chapel, investigating time, tension, and density in relation to the stone, the planet’s natural resources, and the environment. Tickets are $30 (use code 10off to save $10) to experience what promises to be a unique and memorable event at a spectacular location.

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

CATS: “THE JELLICLE BALL”

André De Shields makes the grandest of grand entrances as Old Deuteronomy in Cats: The Jellicle Ball (photo by Matthew Murphy)

CATS: “THE JELLICLE BALL”
Perelman Performing Arts Center (PAC NYC)
251 Fulton St.
Tuesday – Sunday through September 8, $68-$309
pacnyc.org

The Pride celebration of the summer and, hopefully, beyond is happening seven times a week at PAC NYC, where Zhailon Levingston and Bill Rauch’s electrifying reimagining of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats — yes, that Cats — is running now through September 8, not quite forever, but not bad.

I have never before seen Cats, in any version — not the original 1982–2000 musical (which won seven Tonys and a Grammy), the 1998 film version, the 2016 Broadway revival, or the 2019 movie that not even Taylor Swift could save (and earned six Golden Raspberries). I haven’t read T. S. Eliot’s 1939 source book, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, either. When I told two friends of mine, longtime Cats haters, that I was going to The Jellicle Ball, they looked at me like they’d rather watch paint dry. Which is unfortunate for them, because Cats: “The Jellicle Ball” is an absolute blast.

Rachel Hauck has transformed the John E. Zuccotti Theater into a fashionable immersive ball, with a central catwalk, the audience sitting on three sides, and cabaret tables along the runway. A DJ (Capital Kaos) finds a dusty copy of the Cats soundtrack and puts it on, a clever nod to the original. Munkustrap (Dudney Joseph Jr.), the master of ceremonies, keeps things moving at a fast pace. The crowd is encouraged to be loud, and they hoot and holler as a cast of nearly two dozen parade up and down and all around the space, looking fabulous in Qween Jean’s spectacular costumes, which range from fluffy and colorful to raw and raunchy, from playful and funny to sexy and scary, topped off by Nikiya Mathis’s outrageous hair and wigs. Adam Honoré sprays colored spotlights across the room and incorporates a disco ball, while sound designer Kai Harada turns up the volume. Brittany Bland’s projections take us from day to night with cool visuals and pay tribute to early BIPOC LGBTQIA+ heroes.

Arturo Lyons and Omari Wiles meld hip-hop and queer Ballroom culture into their vibrant choreography, with touches of traditional musical theater, since, of course, this is still Cats, following the same structure as the original and making very few tweaks to the story and lyrics; there are nods to Jennie Livingston’s 1990 documentary Paris Is Burning, the television series Pose and RuPaul’s Drag Race, The Wiz, and a dash of Hair in its throwback counterculture vibe.

Cats: The Jellicle Ball is an intoxicating mélange of music and movement (photo by Matthew Murphy)

At the Jellicle Ball, dancers compete for trophies in such categories as Old Way vs. New Way, Voguing, Opulence, Hair Affair, and Butch Queen Realness. The preliminaries are judged by two people selected from the audience — and clearly chosen because of their wild outfits. (A few brought handheld fans, knowing just when to snap them open to match what was happening onstage.)

But it’s Old Deuteronomy (André De Shields) who will decide which furry feline will ascend to the Heaviside Layer. Among those making their case for top cat are Victoria (Baby), cat burglars Mungojerrie (Jonathan Burke) and Rumpleteazer (Dava Huesca), the curious Rum Tum Tugger (Sydney James Harcourt), virgin voguer Electra (Kendall Grayson Stroud), the mysterious Macavity (Antwayn Hopper), and housemother Jennyanydots (Xavier Reyes).

Emma Sofia stands out as Cassandra and Skimbleshanks, shaking the joint as an MTA conductor in “The Railway Cat.” Robert “Silk” Mason is in full glory mode as the conjurer Magical Mister Mistoffelees. Ballroom icon “Tempress” Chasity Moore brings heart and soul to Grizabella, the formerly glamorous gata who now lives off the street, delivering a powerful “Memory.” And Ballroom legend and Paris Is Burning emcee Junior LaBeija — the inspiration for Billy Porter’s Pose character, Pray Tell — gets duly honored as Gus the theater cat, carried out in a makeshift throne as he sings his eponymous song. LaBeija is one of numerous Trailblazers whose brief bios can be found on panels in the hall surrounding the theater, including Dorian Carey, Pepper LaBeija, Octavia St. Laurent, and Rauch.

But this is André De Shields’s world; we only live in it. The Tony, Obie, and Grammy winner (Hadestown, Ain’t Misbehavin’) makes the grandest of grand entrances, emerging from behind a glittering doorway and suddenly appearing before us in a plush purple suit and a lionlike cloud of silver, purple, and white hair, marking him as King of Pride. He floats slowly down the catwalk, basking in the tremendous adoration and adulation, then takes his royal seat at the end, a uniquely supreme being who is the ultimate judge of us all.

The music is performed by a crack eight-piece band: conductor Sujin Kim–Ramsey, Lindsay Noel Miller, and Eric Kang on keyboards, Justin Vance and Amy Griffiths on reeds, Andrew Zinsmeister on guitars, Calvin Jones on electric bass, and Clayton Craddock on drums, bringing funk and plenty of ’70s synth pop to the score, under William Waldrop’s direction.

Of course, this is still Cats, so not everything makes sense — what does “jellicle” even mean? — a few elements are repeated, and utter mayhem threatens at any second in this ferocious production, which is as unpredictable and entertaining as, well, cats.

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

THE EMPLOYEES: A WORKPLACE NOVEL OF THE 22nd CENTURY

The Employees is set aboard a spaceship with strange objects in tow (Pelenguino Photo)

THE EMPLOYEES
Theaterlab Gallery
357 West Thirty-Sixth St., between Eighth & Ninth Aves., third floor
Through June 30, $25-$50
www.themilltheatre.org

“I don’t think we as a category are going to survive,” one of the characters says in Jaclyn Biskup and Lauren Holmes’s fantastical adaptation of Danish poet and author Olga Ravn’s futuristic 2020 book, The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century. It’s not clear whether she is talking about humans or humanoids.

The play consists of statements made by four members of the crew of the Six Thousand Ship, comprising humans and humanoids who have collected mysterious objects from the planet New Discovery. Paul Budraitis, Molly Leland, Christopher McLinden, and Aurea Tomeski, wearing white space uniforms, sit on chairs in the four corners of a small, white room; behind each of them hovers a ghostly, floating sheet, while in front of them is a narrow fluorescent light, as if they’re under investigation. The audience of no more than twenty sit along three walls in the same white chairs, equating everyone; at the front, production stage manager Sam Kersnick operates the light and sound, bathing the room in soft, glowing colors and sonic tones. The four crew members occasionally get up and switch seats while a strange object gleams in the middle, radiating like a beating heart.

The narrative unfolds in abstruse, nonlinear testimony that is not always easy to decipher but builds a cryptic, provocative environment as the characters discuss dreams, crying, memories, the unconscious, and death.

“I don’t like to go in there. The three on the floor seem especially hostile. I can’t understand why I feel I’ve got to touch them,” Chris admits. “Two of them are always cold, one is warm. You never know which is going to be the warm one.”

“I hope the work is progressing. I hope you’re doing it well, the work you have to do. I hope he’s not going to die, even if I do know it’s likely,” Molly says.

Aurea reports, “Do you think of me as an offender? I like to be in the room. I find it very erotic. The suspended object, I recognize my gender in it. Or at least the gender I have on the Six Thousand Ship. Every time I look at the object, I can feel my sex between my legs and between my lips. Maybe that’s why you think of me as an offender. Half human. Flesh and technology. Too living.”

“You can still save yourselves. I don’t know if I’m human anymore. Am I human? Does it say in your files what I am?” Paul asks.

These are thoughts we all have at one point or another, even if we don’t use those exact words as we try to find and establish our place in a quickly changing world dominated by big corporations, one in which continued technological advancement and the prospect of ever-more-pervasive AI fill us with both hope and fear.

Four characters share their thoughts on their mission in futuristic play (Pelenguino Photo)

Nora Marlow Smith’s brilliantly white set traps the actors and audience together in the room; when the door is closed, there is no way out, as if we are all on the space ship with no egress. Kristy Hall’s costumes add to the antiseptic atmosphere as Jackie Fox’s lighting and Sabina Mariam Ali’s sound enhance the sci-fi feel.

The worthy ensemble does a convincing job of walking the fine line between human and humanoid; although they are more realistic than Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation, just as Data searches for his godlike creator, Dr. Noonien Soong, the four crew members aboard the Six Thousand Ship refer several times to Dr. Lund and his “children.” Molly, who met Dr. Lund before the ship departed, explains, “I didn’t know who I belonged to in his view. Whether I was human or just something that was animate. Even though I was born and brought up and my documents all said human, there was something about his behavior that made me think he didn’t consider me to be an equal, and for a few brief and terrifying seconds I felt I was artificial, made, nothing but a humanoid machine of flesh and blood.”

Seamlessly directed by Biskup (Venus, The Private of Lives of Eskimos [Or 16 Words for Snow]), The Employees is an intimate and intriguing look at where we might be heading a hundred years from now; whether escape will be possible has yet to be decided.

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

BREAKING THE STORY

Bear (Louis Ozawa) and Marina (Maggie Siff) risk their lives to get to the truth in Breaking the Story (photo by Joan Marcus)

BREAKING THE STORY
Second Stage Theater
Tony Kiser Theater
305 West 43rd St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 23, $42-$82
2st.com/shows

“If it bleeds, it leads,” William Randolph Hearst purportedly said in the 1890s, during the golden age of yellow journalism.

Foreign correspondent Marina Reyes (Maggie Siff) uses that phrase early on in the hard-hitting Breaking the Story, but in this case, the blood is her own. “I’m bleeding. I’m bleeding,” she says repeatedly throughout the eighty-five-minute play.

Marina is a popular television reporter who has suddenly decided to retire and announce her decision in her speech accepting the Distinguished Achievement in Conflict Journalism award. She has recently returned to the United States after nearly getting blown up covering a dangerous story in an undisclosed country; the headlines initially proclaimed, “American Journalist Missing, Presumed Dead.” She tells Bear (Louis Ozawa), her longtime cameraman, “Distinguished Achievement. It’s like they wanna give me a Lifetime Achievement Award in case I die out there next time, but they don’t want to be obvious about it. Anyway, joke’s on them ’cause there won’t be a next time.”

Her return begins a series of life-altering decisions: She buys a big house in an expensive suburb of Boston near her daughter Cruz’s (Gabrielle Policano) new college, Wellesley, and decides to marry Bear that weekend, at the new house, which is more of a vacation home.

Alexis Scheer’s Breaking the Story features a talented ensemble (photo by Joan Marcus)

The wedding brings together Marina’s best friend, socialite and philanthropist Sonia (Geneva Carr), who takes charge and designs a more elaborate affair than anyone seems to want; Marina’s freewheeling mother, Gummy (Julie Halston); Cruz, an aspiring pop star whose most recent song, “Yesterday’s Revolution,” has just gone viral; and Nikki (Tala Ashe), a young, Peabody-winning ladder climber who wants to interview Marina for her podcast even though Marina considers her to be her archenemy. Showing up later is her ex-husband, Fed (Matthew Saldívar), a reporter who now anchors his own show and wants to win Marina back.

New journalism and established reporting face off in Nikki and Marina’s exchanges: At one point Nikki accuses Marina of giving a platform to fascists and dictators, and Marina argues, “It’s our job to tell the whole story, Nikki! Not just the part of the story we agree with! . . .” Nikki responds, “Objectivity is a myth.” A perturbed Marina answers, “Of course it is! Objectivity has never been the point! We’re here to represent facts and ask questions so that people can make up their own mind. Balance. Fairness. Accuracy. All perspectives. The whole story.”

But even as she prepares for this new life, Marina is haunted by PTSD nightmares and the whole story of what happened at the Sapphire Hotel.

Bear (Louis Ozawa) and Marina (Maggie Siff) discuss their past and future in Breaking the Story (photo by Joan Marcus)

Myung Hee Cho’s set is an expanse of grass with miniature hills and a pair of silhouetted houses that serve as doorways; Elaine J. McCarthy’s projections of news reports and peaceful flowers fill several screens in the back. Darron L West’s sound shifts suddenly from conversation to explosions to live music written by Dan Ryan and performed by Policano, although it is difficult to make out all the lyrics.

Written by Alexis Scheer, whose previous works include Our Dear Dead Drug Lord, Christina, and the Broadway adaptation of the book of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Bad Cinderella, and astutely directed by Obie winner Jo Bonney (Cost of Living Fucking A), Breaking the Story has some shaky scenes, including a surreal cake tasting, but they’re countered by touching moments of connection, highlighted by a moving heart-to-heart between Marina and Gummy, who makes a surprising confession.

Theater gem Halston (Hairspray, You Can’t Take It with You) sparkles as she quickly morphs from a troubled refugee who is looking for her daughter into the hilarious Gummy. Ozawa (The Tutors, Warrior Class) is cool and calm as Bear, eminently likable even when he considers working with Nikki.

But the show belongs to Siff (Curse of the Starving Class, The Ruby Sunrise). Whether out in the field in the middle of a bombing or walking around barefoot on the green grass of her new home, she is magnetic as Marina tries to balance and make sense of the disparate parts of her life. The choices she faces are ones we all must deal with in our relationships with parents and children, colleagues and rivals, friends and lovers, and career and retirement, except, in Marina’s situation, danger is front and center, a violent and bloody death an imminent possibility.

“You’re like this sacred artifact I’ve stolen from the temple and now this ancient monster curse has been unleashed until I put you back,” Bear tells Marina, who replies, “And you only have ’til the stroke of midnight until I disintegrate and the whole world turns to ash.” It’s not exactly a Cinderella story.

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

HOW LONG BLUES

Whirling dervishes light up Little Island in Twyla Tharp’s How Long Blues (photo by Nina Westervelt)

HOW LONG BLUES
The Amph, Little Island
Pier 55, Hudson River Park at West Thirteenth St.
Wednesday – Sunday through June 23, $25
www.littleislandtickets.com
www.twylatharp.org

On opening night of Twyla Tharp’s How Long Blues at the 680-seat outdoor Amph on Little Island, a storm threatened. At one point, as rain began to fall, a dancer slipped on the stage, and project funder Barry Diller looked over at Tharp and wondered if they should stop the performance. Tharp shook her head, and the show went on, the weather adding a touch of magic and menace.

Little Island has hosted live music, dance, and storytelling the past several summers, but How Long Blues is the first work specifically commissioned for the sculpted oasis on the Hudson River, near the Whitney, kicking off a season of such pieces. The eighty-two-year-old Tharp incorporates her signature melding of contemporary movement and classical ballet into a rough-hewn narrative inspired by Albert Camus’s 1947 novel The Plague, a parable about fascism set against an epidemic. The book begins, “The unusual events described in this chronicle occurred in 194– at Oran. Everyone agreed that, considering their somewhat extraordinary character, they were out of place there.” How Long Blues might be a bumpy ride, but it feels like it belongs in the space, particularly as the wind swept through and the percussion was mistaken for thunder.

The sixty-minute premiere features two-time Tony winner Michael Cerveris (Fun Home, Assassins) as Nobel Prize–winning French philosopher and playwright Jean-Paul Sartre (Being and Nothingness, Existentialism and Humanism) and longtime ABT and Tharp dancer and choreographer John Selya as Camus (The Stranger, The Rebel); the two were close friends — Camus at one point was going to star in and/or direct Sartre’s play No Exit — until ideological differences over communism and freedom led to a public falling out. None of that is apparent in How Long Blues.

Cerveris spends most of the show walking around Santo Loquasto’s set with a copy of Le Figaro, smoking a pipe, wearing a headset, and watching the action, occasionally sitting on one of the audience benches. Selya, in a dapper suit, wanders back and forth across the stage, pursuing nearly every woman after one of his lovers jumps into the Hudson. Camus was a well-known philanderer who cheated on his wives; his second spouse, pianist and mathematician Francine Faure, was hospitalized with depression and attempted suicide.

How Long Blues features surprising props and set changes (photo by Nina Westervelt)

The score, by thirteen-time Grammy-winning singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer T Bone Burnett and composer, musician, and violinist David Mansfield, who were both part of Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue in the mid-’70s, is a curious thing. Much of it is prerecorded even though there is a seven-piece band (John Bailey on trumpet and fugelhorn, Justin Goldner on guitar, tenor banjo, and bass, Wayne Goodman on trombone, Mark Lopeman on sax and clarinet, Jay Rattman on saxophone, George Rush on bass and tuba, and Paul Wells on percussion) in addition to underutilized vocalist Andromeda Turre, all of whom are placed in two balconies at the west corners of the space. The song selections are also not particularly illuminating.

An unhoused man plays “My Way” on a trumpet. There’s an excerpt of the Sound of Feeling’s cover of Donovan’s “Hurdy Gurdy Man,” along with Mardi Gras Indian group the Wild Tchoupitoulas’s “Meet de Boys on the Battlefront” and “Brother John” and music by Jelly Roll Morton, Muddy Waters, Cab Calloway, and Count Basie. Cerveris eventually puts the headset to good use, delivering beautiful versions of the blues classic “St. James Infirmary” and Leonard Cohen’s ubiquitous “Hallelujah.”

Dancers Piper Dye, Jourdan Epstein, Oliver Greene-Cramer, Kyle Halford, Colin Heininger, Daisy Jacobson, Claude CJ Johnson, Pomme Koch, Skye Mattox, Nicole Ashley Morris, Hugo Pizano Orozco, Ryan Redmond, Victoria Sames, Frances Lorraine Samson, and Reed Tankersley bound about the stage in Loquasto’s ever-changing costumes as the choreography moves from the turn of the twentieth century to the turn of the twenty-first, from lavish, glittering parties and vaudevillian shtick to whirling dervishes and working-class drama at the docks. Props include a piano, a Sisyphus-like rock (Camus wrote The Myth of Sisyphus in 1942), a trio of doors, and a soccer ball (Camus loved European football and was a goalie in his younger days). Adding to the bizarreness is a group of cartoonish characters in oversized costumes with giant heads.

It might not be Pina Bausch, but Tharp’s How Long Blues is an entertaining start to Little Island’s summer of commissions, which continues with such presentations as Davóne Tines in Robeson, Henry Hoke’s Open Throat, Pam Tanowitz’s Day for Night, and Anthony Roth Costanzo in The Marriage of Figaro.

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