twi-ny recommended events

SOCIALLY CONSTRUCTED: A GUIDED HANDS-ON WORKSHOP INSPIRED BY EBONY G. PATTERSON / DANCEHALL QUEEN / SHINE

Ebony G. Patterson’s “Dead Treez” examines dancehall and bling culture and the changing ideals of masculinity and gender in Jamaica (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Museum of Arts & Design
2 Columbus Circle at 58th St. & Eighth Ave.
Socially Constructed: Thursday, March 17, free with pay-what-you-wish admission, 6:30
Dancehall Queen: Friday, March 18, $10, 7:00
Shine: Thursday, March 24, free with pay-what-you-wish admission, 7:00
Exhibit continues through April 3
212-299-7777
madmuseum.org
dead treez slideshow

Upon first seeing the Ebony G. Patterson’s “Dead Treez” at the Museum of Arts & Design, you get sucked in by the artist’s use of distinct colors, shiny accouterments, and sense of humor. But look deeper and you’ll find a lot more to consider in her first solo New York museum show. Patterson, who lives and works in Kingston, Jamaica, and Lexington, Kentucky, explores shifts in male gender identity and power that have become prevalent in dancehall culture, which has embraced a kind of metrosexuality that includes skin bleaching. Utilizing methods generally associated with women, Patterson has created five floor tapestries, wallpaper, and a tableau of male mannequins that could have been pulled from a window on Fifth Ave. Heavily adorned with floral patterns and bling, the tapestries actually depict murder victims, while the mannequins are surrounded by toys, bricks, liquor bottles, and other objects that send mixed messages. Meanwhile, in the Tiffany Jewelry Gallery, Patterson’s “. . . buried again to carry on growing . . .” comprises large glass cases filled with dazzling flowers that are all actually poisonous, while hidden in the vitrines are dead bodies and pieces of jewelry that evoke violence, combining beauty and turmoil in intriguing ways.

On March 17 at 6:30, MAD is hosting a special hands-on workshop concentrating on the social aspects of making tapestries and textile works, long considered women’s work, while also evolving into a way to share important stories; the event takes place in a sixth-floor classroom and is free with pay-what-you-wish admission. On March 18 at 7:00 ($10), MAD will screen Rick Elgood and Don Letts’s Jamaican classic Dancehall Queen in conjunction with the exhibit. And on March 24 at 7:00 (free with pay-what-you-wish admission), Northwestern University art history professor Krista Thompson will discuss her 2015 book, Shine: The Visual Economy of Light in African Diasporic Aesthetic Practice, putting it in context with Patterson’s exhibition, which continues through April 3. “Krista Thompson’s work was very important to me; she was researching the use of light in diasporic cultures, and as I began to think about my work more critically, I started to see glitter for what it is: It is light, it is illumination,” Patterson explains.

DE MATERIE

Heiner Goebbels’s multidisciplinary reimagining of Louis Andriessen’s DE MATERIE runs at the Park Avenue Armory March 22-30 (photo by Wonge Bergmann)

Park Ave. Armory, Wade Thompson Drill Hall
643 Park Ave. between 66th & 67th Sts.
March 22–30, $85-$195
212-933-5812
www.armoryonpark.org

Dutch composer Louis Andriessen’s four-part magnum opus, De Materie, makes its North American stage debut this month at the Park Avenue Armory, in a wildly inventive production directed by Heiner Goebbels, whose Stifters Dinge had its U.S. premiere at the armory in December 2009. Andriessen’s visionary work weaves in dance, spoken text, choral singing, jazz, science, philosophy, poetry, Renaissance music, and more, with Goebbels adding, among other things, one hundred sheep. Among those being referenced in the piece, which explores the relationship between matter and spirit, are Madame Curie, Piet Mondrian, Hadewijch, David Gorlaeus, and the De Stijl art movement. The work will be performed by the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), conducted by Peter Rundel, with the ChorWerk Ruhr, more than two dozen actors and dancers, and others; tenor Pascal Charbonneau is Gorlaeus, soprano Evgeniya Sotnikova is Hadewijch, and Catherine Milliken is Madame Curie. The stage and lighting design is by Klaus Grünberg, with costumes by Florence von Gerkan, sound by Norbert Ommer, and choreography by Florian Bilbao. “This highly imaginative collaboration asks us to appreciate the inherent connections between all manner of innovation throughout society — from the discovery of radioactivity to the creation of a work of art,” new Park Avenue Armory artistic director Pierre Audi said in a statement. In addition to the six performances, there will be four special programs to shed more light on this monumental undertaking. On March 23 at 8:00 ($60), Andriessen will team up with pianist Jason Moran for “Improvisations: Louis Andriessen and Jason Moran,” an exploration of how jazz is used in De Materie while discussing improvisation in general. On March 24 at 6:00 ($15), WNYC’s John Schaefer will host “De Materie: Matter & Spirit,” a conversation with Goebbels, Columbia music professor and musician and composer George E. Lewis, and composer Missy Mazzoli. On March 25 at 6:00 ($15), Schaefer will moderate “Four Different Ways: Celebrating Louis Andriessen,” with Bang on a Can cofounder Julia Wolfe, electronic experimental musician and composer Nathan Michel, and Princeton music professor Donnacha Dennehy. And finally, on March 26 at 6:00 ($15), Audi will lead an artist talk with Goebbels, Rundel, and Andriessen.

THE WILDNESS

Lauren Worsham is the pregnant ringleader of Sky-Pony’s delightful indie-rock fairy tale, THE WILDNESS (photo by Ben Arons)

Ars Nova
511 West 54th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Monday – Saturday through March 26, $36
212-352-3101
arsnovanyc.com
www.sky-pony.com

Brooklyn-based eight-piece collective Sky-Pony presents a captivating treat for adventurous theatergoers with the DIY indie-rock opera The Wildness, which has been extended at Ars Nova through March 26. A collaboration with the Play Company, The Wildness is a multimedia fairy tale that filters such popular musicals as Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell through a Narnia-like aesthetic and video-game narrative that fantasy fans will go ga-ga over. The premise is that a group of “agnostic, generally apathetic millennials” is putting on its fifth annual ritual, known as the Wildness, in order to “purge out doubts and fears.” But their leader and founder, Michael, is missing, so they forge ahead without him. Everyone plays two characters, one a member of Sky-Pony, the other in the fable. Tony winner Lauren Worsham (A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder) serves as the host and plays Zira, a villager who accompanies Ada, the messianic princess (Lilli Cooper), on her dangerous travels through the Wildness, where they discover a mysterious cabin, belonging to “the builder,” filled with strange objects. We are told that the role of Ada is usually performed by Michael, but Lilli, his sister, has stepped in at the last minute, starting off by delivering the invocation: “Here’s to the artists, freaks, and wanderers too, we dedicate tonight to you.” The cast also includes Katie Lee Hill and Sharone Sayegh as handmaidens and backup singers, David Blasher as the cellist and the Powerful But Aging Ruler, and Obie winner Kyle Jarrow as the keymaster and the Voice from the Boombox, with Jamie Mohamdein on bass, Kevin Wunderlich on guitar, and Jeff Fernandes, wearing a Mr. Tumnus headpiece, on drums and playing villagers as well. Over the course of ninety minutes, the story explores faith and doubt, fear of death, sin and forgiveness, temptation and salvation, the coming rapture, wandering blind, and adherence to the old ways, haunted by a prophecy: “The spring turns foul when our faith falters / only the blessed heir can make it pure again. / On sunrise of the second day of the third week of the fourth moon, / Ada will lead us into a rapturous new era.”

Sky-Pony struts its stuff in multimedia indie-rock opera at Ars Nova (photo by Ben Arons)

Religious references abound throughout The Wildness, which is divided into twelve sections, although it is no mere tent revival. Ada is identified as “the blessed heir with the facial hair”; Ada and Zira have names that evoke the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end; several characters and two audience members deliver “overshares,” public confessions with a decidedly twelve-step edge; and Ada and Zira find a book in the cabin that changes everything. The Wildness is also very much about the fear of growing up, of the millennial generation staring adulthood in the face. Tony-nominated director Sam Buntrock (Sunday in the Park with George, Turn of the Screw at BAM) lets Sky-Pony strut its stuff, keeping up a rollicking, frolicking pace. The musical numbers, some of which appear on Sky-Pony’s debut album, December 2015’s Beautiful Monsters, include “The Lost Ones,” “The Waltz of the Inevitable Triumph of Doubt,” “Dragon,” and “Everyone Will Die,” with videos appearing on the many monitors throughout the space, which has been transformed by Kris Stone; a long, narrow stage (reminiscent of a cross?) cuts the theater in two, with the audience seated on both sides, either on ottomans or comfy couches. Tilly Grimes’s costumes are steampunk hip, Chase Brock’s choreography is fun, Sara Morgan’s props are utterly charming (oh, that miniature cabin on the ceiling!), and the clever text, by husband-and-wife Jarrow and Worsham (who, in a neat twist, is pregnant), is playfully self-referential. “I’m doubting whether I can pull off these sequin panties,” Lilli opines at one point. In the fifth section, Lauren says, “Ada’s mind was filled with questions. Her father had taught her about the Wildness that trapped them in their troubled village. But no one had actually seen a dragon. Could it be they weren’t there at all?” Lilli responds, “Zira didn’t wonder this. She knew we believe in many things we don’t see.” It’s a statement that sums up what the Wildness, and life itself, is really all about.

HUGHIE

Frank Wood and Forest Whitaker star in revival of Eugene O’Neill’s HUGHIE (photo by Marc Brenner)

Booth Theatre
222 West 45th St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Wednesday – Sunday (and some Tuesday nights) through March 27, $25- $149
hughiebroadway.com

Written in 1941 but not staged until 1958, five years after his death, Eugene O’Neill’s one-act Hughie features a main character who seems to have walked right out of The Iceman Cometh. In the sixty-minute show’s fourth trip to Broadway, Forest Whitaker portrays Erie Smith, a role previously played by Jason Robards, Ben Gazzara, Brian Dennehy, Al Pacino, Richard Schiff, and Burgess Meredith, who originated the part in English in 1963. Erie is an alcoholic gambler who has returned to the ratty, formerly grand Broadway hotel where he lives following an extended bender, mourning the death of his beloved night clerk and sounding board, Hughie. As embodied by Whitaker, who is taking the stage for the first time since shortly after college, Erie is a hulking presence who speaks in fits and starts, sharing his hopes and dreams, failures and memories with the new clerk, Charlie Hughes (Frank Wood), who is not exactly thrilled at being bothered in the middle of the night. Erie rambles on about whatever comes into his head while Hughes barely says a word. Set in 1928 on the cusp of the Great Depression, Hughie is more a character study than a fully realized play; in fact, it was meant to be part of a cycle of one-acts, called By Way of Obit, that were essentially monologues about a dead person. In a letter to critic George Jean Nathan, O’Neill explained, “Via this monologue you get a complete picture of the person who died — his or her whole life story — but just as complete a picture of the life and character of the narrator.” O’Neill ultimately destroyed all of the other in-process one-acts but saved Hughie.

Forest Whitaker makes his return to the stage in HUGHIE (photo by Marc Brenner)

Oscar winner and UNESCO special envoy Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland, Fast Times at Ridgemont High) was rumored to have had trouble remembering his lines during previews (which has also been said of other recent Hollywood stars on Broadway, including Pacino and Bruce Willis), but he has settled into the role, taking command of the lovable loser, who represents an America about to hit free fall. Tony winner Wood (Side Man, Clybourne Park) is a fine foil for Erie, already onstage when the theater doors open, staring emptily into an abyss. Costume and set designer Christopher Oram, who has won Tonys for Red and Wolf Hall: Parts One & Two, has created a sensational hotel lobby, huge and dim, creaky and musty, its former splendor, perhaps like Erie’s, hovering in the dankness, enhanced by Neil Austin’s lighting and Adam Cork’s original music. Tony-winning director Michael Grandage (The Cripple of Inishmaan, King Lear) keeps it all from becoming boring, although even at a mere sixty minutes it feels repetitive and a little too long. Hughie was scheduled to run into July but recently posted an early closing notice of March 27 because of low advance ticket sales. Perhaps theatergoers were expecting more fireworks, or they were turned off by the preview problems, or maybe they don’t want to spend upwards of $149 on an hour-long show. Of course, we don’t pay to see movies by the minute, nor do we buy art by the yard, to paraphrase Max von Sydow’s character in Hannah and Her Sisters.

REBECCA LAZIER AND DAN TRUEMAN: THERE MIGHT BE OTHERS

Rebecca Lazier makes NYLA debut with world premiere of THERE MIGHT BE OTHERS (photo by Maria Baranova)

New York Live Arts
219 West 19th St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
March 16-19, $15-$40, 7:30
212-924-0077
www.newyorklivearts.org
www.rebeccalazier.com

On the back cover of the new book There Might Be Others, which contains the music and dance score for Rebecca Lazier’s New York Live Arts commission along with collaborator notes, instructions, principles, and more, NYLA director of programs Tommy Kreigsmann says, “Seminal works of the avant-garde become so when the inherent risk at the heart of the experiment catalyzing the vision to its fruition pushes the work’s sphere of influence beyond its original form and often its intended meaning. Intrepid choreographer Rebecca Lazier [has a] penchant for musical interpretation and the infinite aesthetic and physical languages in its breadth, making her among the very best of her generation.” New York-based dancer, choreographer, and teacher Lazier will be making her NYLA debut with the world premiere of There Might Be Others on March 16-19, inspired by Terry Riley’s 1964, fifty-three-part composition, “In C,” one of the first major minimalist works. The live score will be performed by fiddler Dan Trueman and SŌ Percussion and Mobius Percussion (March 16-18) and members of Mantra Percussion (March 19). The piece features dramaturgy and design by Naomi Leonard, Davison Scandrett, and Mary Jo Mecca and will be danced by Simon Courchel, Natalie Green, raja feather kelly, Cori Kresge, Christopher Ralph, Anna Schön, Saúl Ulerio, Agnieszka Kryst, Jan Lorys, Ramona Nagabczynska, Pawel Sakowicz Rhonda Baker, Sara Coffin, and Tan Temel. On March 13 ($20, 1:30), Lazier (Coming Together/Attica, Terminal) and Trueman will host the Shared Practice workshop “Choreographing Being in Action — Staging Negotiation and Interaction,” while the March 17 show will be followed by a Stay Late Discussion with Neil Greenberg.

BOY

Dr. Wendell Barnes (Paul Niebanck) bonds with Samantha (Bobby Steggert) in Anna Ziegler’s BOY (photo by Carol Rosegg)

The Clurman Theatre at Theatre Row
410 West 42nd St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through April 9, $62.50
www.keencompany.org
www.ensemblestudiotheatre.org

Award-winning playwright Anna Ziegler takes a unique and imaginative approach to the timely issue of gender identity in the expertly written, inventively staged drama Boy. A joint production of Keen Company and Ensemble Studio Theatre, Boy was inspired by the real-life case of David Reimer as well as the birth of Ziegler’s first child. Bobby Steggert stars as Adam/Samantha, a twin born in Iowa in 1967. Shortly after a botched, unnecessary circumcision accidentally sears off his penis when he is eight months old, his mother, Trudy (Heidi Armbruster), and father, Doug (Ted Koch), seek out the help of eminent physician Wendell Barnes (Paul Niebanck), a doctor in the relatively new field of gender reassignment. “Sam will never lead a normal life. He will never be a father. He will never be normal,” Doug opines in a letter to Dr. Barnes, while Trudy adds, “We saw you on that program and you said that we are blank slates at birth. You said we are shaped by society and not biology.” Dr. Barnes, who is eager to treat the boy, convinces the parents that it is best for the child to be raised as a girl, receiving hormone shots and ultimately an operation to give her a vagina, but he insists that she must never find out that she was born with male genitalia. The play shifts back and forth between various years from 1968 to 1989 as Samantha learns about great literature from Dr. Barnes and Adam falls for a single working mother, Jenny (Rebecca Rittenhouse). Delivering a lecture in 1977, Dr. Barnes explains, “How do we become who we are? Is it a process that takes place entirely within the dark mysteries of the womb, so we emerge fully formed, our character, our future set? Or do we build ourselves, brick by brick, ‘sufficient to have stood though free to fall’? Do we make our house or do we simply inhabit it?” But as Boy shows, there are no easy answers to those questions, whether it’s 1968, 1977, 1989, or today, when such topics as nature vs. nurture and being born a certain way are still rife with controversy.

Jenny (Rebecca Rittenhouse) and Adam (Bobby Steggert) consider a relationship in BOY (photo by Carol Rosegg)

No matter the age, Adam/Samantha wears the same outfit in every scene, reaffirming that what matters is on the inside. Steggert (Mothers & Sons, Ragtime) does a marvelous job of depicting how uncomfortable Adam/Samantha is in his/her own skin, displaying a jittery awkwardness that keeps the audience on edge. Ziegler (The Last Match, A Delicate Ship) fills the play with a wide array of literary and pop-culture references, but each one has a critical connection to the story, from John Milton’s Paradise Lost, Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre to Robert Zemeckis’s Back to the Future 2 and Marlo Thomas’s Free to Be You and Me. Even when Adam imitates Elmer Fudd, saying, “Shh . . . Be vewwy, vewwy quiet . . . I’m hunting wabbits!,” it relates to Jenny’s first appearance onstage, in a bunny costume at a Halloween party, where Adam quite adamantly tells her that he is not Frankenstein but Frankenstein’s monster. “Frankenstein was the guy who made the monster. I’m just the monster,” he points out. The cast is uniformly excellent, with Armbruster (Time Stands Still, Disgraced) and Koch (The Pillowman, Abundance) bringing just the right confusion to the parents, while Niebanck (A Walk in the Woods, Blood and Gifts) is quietly effective as the doctor who befriends Samantha but also stands to gain fame from their association. And Rittenhouse (The Commons of Pensacola) makes Jenny a kind of onstage representative of the audience, not quite understanding all of what is happening but compelled to find out more about Adam. Evoking such works as John Cameron Mitchell’s Tony-winning Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Emily Bentley Solomon’s award-winning adaptation of Daphne Scholinski’s memoir The Last Time I Wore a Dress, Boy also investigates doctors and parents playing god, which continues as science makes leaps and bounds in genetics. Sandra Goldmark’s living-room set features a close-but-not-exact duplicate of the furniture upside down on the walls and ceiling, as if Adam/Samantha is caught between two worlds, unable to settle into his/her place. Director Linsay Firman (Lucas Hnath’s Isaac’s Eye, Ziegler’s Photograph 51) cleverly navigates through the years, dealing with complex issues concerning traditional gender roles in a gentle, tender manner that threatens to explode at any moment. About halfway through the play, Jenny worries that Adam, who named himself after the first man on earth, is just like all the other men she’s met in her life. “I’m not like them,” he insists. No, he most certainly isn’t.

MARCH MIDNITE & BRUNCH — BARK AT THE MOON: GINGER SNAPS

Ginger (Katharine Isabelle) and Brigitte (Emily Perkins) get involved in some bizarre doings in tasty Canadian treat

GINGER SNAPS (John Fawcett, 2000)
Nitehawk Cinema
136 Metropolitan Ave. between Berry St. & Wythe Ave.
Friday, March 11, and Saturday, March 12, 12:15 am
718-384-3980
www.nitehawkcinema.com
gingersnapsthemovie.com

Ginger Snaps is one sick flick. Ginger (Katharine Isabelle) and Brigitte (Emily Perkins) are inseparable sisters who are morbid, creepy, weird, and suicidal — their story is part Heathers, part Welcome to the Dollhouse, part Daria, part Harold & Maude, and part An American Werewolf in London. Even though they are both over fifteen, the girls have not menstruated yet, an event their mother (Mimi Rogers) is waiting for with nearly uncontrollable excitement. (The scene in which Rogers closely examines a pair of bloody panties in the laundry is bizarrely funny.) For enjoyment — and school projects —the sisters like to take pictures of each other in elaborately realistic suicidal poses. Meanwhile, the Beast of Bailey Downs (a sly reference to It’s a Wonderful Life) has been eviscerating and eating neighborhood dogs, but then it goes after Ginger, and Ginger soon starts to change . . . leading to sex and drugs and lots of blood and violence. In Canadian director John Fawcett’s awesome, original, extremely well made and scored low-budget indie horror film, it’s far from a wonderful life. Ginger Snaps, which was followed by two sequels, is being shown at 12:15 am on March 11 & 12 in the Nitehawk Cinema series “Nitehawk Midnite Screenings” and “March Midnite & Brunch: Bark at the Moon,” which continues with such other animalistic tales as Teen Wolf, An American Werewolf in London, The Howling, and The Wolf Man.