David Tennant stars as Richard II in Royal Shakespeare Company production coming to BAM (photo by Keith Pattison)
Brooklyn Academy of Music
BAM Harvey Theater
651 Fulton St.
March 24 – May 1, $30-$200
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
In a letter to his mistress, Lady Emma Hamilton, in 1800, Admiral Horatio Nelson wrote, “My greatest happiness is to serve my gracious King and Country, and I am envious only of glory; for if it be a sin to covet glory, I am the most offending soul alive.” BAM references that famous quote in its glorious program “King and Country: Shakespeare’s Great Cycle of Kings,” and it would be a sin not to covet it. In honor of the quadricentennial of the passing of William Shakespeare, who died in 1616 at the age of fifty-two, BAM has teamed up with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Ohio State University to present the Henriad, four Shakespeare plays in repertory at the BAM Harvey over the course of thirty-nine days, concentrating on Kings Henry IV and V. All four works are directed by RSC artistic director Gregory Doran, with sets by Stephen Brimson Lewis, lighting by Tim Mitchell, music by Paul English, sound by Martin Slavin, movement by Michael Ashcroft, and fights by Terry King. David Tennant (Doctor Who, Broadchurch, Jessica Jones), who played the title character in Doran’s 2008 staging of Hamlet with Patrick Stewart as his father, has the lead role in Richard II, with Julian Glover as John of Gaunt, Leigh Quinn as the queen, Oliver Ford Davies as the duke of York, Sarah Parks as the duchess of York, and Jasper Britton as John of Gaunt’s son, later to become Henry IV. Britton continues his role in Henry IV, Part I, and Henry IV, Part II, with Alex Hassell as Prince Hal, Martin Bassindale as Peto and Prince John, Antony Sher (Doran’s longtime partner) as Sir John Falstaff, Parks as Mistress Quickly, and Sam Marks as Ned Poins. And Hassell then takes the throne in Henry V, with Jim Hooper as the archbishop of Canterbury, Simon Thorp as King Charles VI of France, Jane Lapotaire as Queen Isobel, Quinn as lady-in-waiting Alice, and Marks as the French constable.
HENRY IV, PART I is one of four RSC plays running at BAM through May 1 (photo by Keith Pattison)
“The Henriad plays are a contemplation of power and leadership — how they are acquired, maintained, and lost,” BAM publicist Christian Barclay writes in a program essay. “A host of historical and fictional characters — both high- and lowborn — revolve around the monarchs in shifting alliances. . . . The Henriad is a study of the difficult personal and ethical choices that accompany political life.” In conjunction with the plays, the Mark Morris Dance Center is hosting the master class “Embodying Shakespeare” on April 5 with Owen Horsley, Hassell, and Quinn ($25, 2:00), Doran will be in conversation with Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro on April 7 at BAMcafé ($20, 6:00), Neil Kutner, Ryan Gastelum, and Ben Tyreman will participate in the seminar “Behind the Scenes: King and Country” at BAM Fisher on April 20 ($35, 5:00), astronomer Summer Ash will lead guided tours of the sky with telescopes in “A Look at the Stars: Shakespeare and the Cosmos” April 15-17 on the BAM Fisher rooftop terrace (free, 8:30 or 9:30), and the exhibition “King and Country: Treasures from the Folger,” consisting of rare paper artifacts from the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, will be on view at the Harvey during the run of the performances. Tickets for the shows and the special events are going quickly, so act now if you want to catch any or all of what should be a glorious Shakespeare spectacle to covet.
The third jewel in Universal’s horror crown (following 1931’s Dracula and Frankenstein), The Wolf Man stars Lon Chaney Jr. in his signature role, the goofily charming Larry Talbot, who just happens to have a problem on certain evenings when there is a particularly bright, full moon. Talbot has returned home to the family mansion after the sudden death of his brother, who appeared to have been mauled by some kind of wild animal. Reunited with his erudite father, Sir John (The Invisible Man’s Claude Rains), Larry quickly gets the hots for local antiques dealer Gwen Conliffe (Evelyn Ankers), but when their first date involves the tragic death of Gwen’s friend Jenny (Fay Helm) and Bela the Gypsy (Bela Lugosi), Larry becomes a suspect in the murders. And when he keeps waking up with ripped clothing and blood on him, he begins to think that maybe he has indeed done some very terrible things. The Wolf Man is the only one of Universal’s three primary horror classics that is not based on a popular novel; instead, Curt Siodmak wrote a fascinating original script that delves deep into the psyche of its protagonist, whose physical and mental transformation echoes the rage inside us all. The all-star cast also features Ralph Bellamy as Colonel Montford, the town constable; Patric Knowles as Frank Andrews, Gwen’s fiancé; and the great Maria Ouspenskaya as the mysterious Gypsy woman Maleva. The Wolf Man might not have the chills and thrills of Dracula and Frankenstein, but it still more than holds its own after all these years. (Oh, and if you’re expecting the famous scene when Chaney’s face goes all hairy, that actually occurs in the sequel, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man.) The Wolf Man is being shown at 11:45 am on March 26 & 27 in the Nitehawk Cinema series “Nitehawk Brunch Screenings” and “March Midnite & Brunch: Bark at the Moon,” which also includes Joe Dante’s The Howling on March 25 & 26 at 12:15 am.
Controversial outlaw filmmaker Nagisa Oshima takes a unique, poignant look at the continuing problems in postwar Japan in the underseen 1969 drama Boy. After a major search for an actor to play the nameless title character, Oshima found Tetsuo Abe in an orphanage, and the young boy delivered one of the most memorable performances ever by a child. Inspired by actual events, the film follows wounded war veteran Takeo Omura (Fumio Watanabe), his second, common-law wife, Takeko Taniguchi (Akiko Koyama), their baby (Tsuyoshi Kinoshita), and Omura’s son from his previous marriage, played by Abe and referred to only as “kiddo.” The family travels across Japan, surviving by means of a classic con: First the stepmother, then the boy pretend to be hit by cars so they can extort money from the drivers. Meanwhile, the boy creates an alternate fantasy life that he shares with his baby brother, involving aliens and monsters, the only time he gets to be like a real kid. Otherwise, he is often by himself, never going to school, wandering lonely through the snow or walking down an empty path on one side of the screen as children play boisterously on the other side. As the authorities close in on the family, tragedy awaits.
