Who: Laura Marling
What: New album and tour
Where: The Town Hall, 123 West 43rd St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves., 800-982-2787
When: Monday, August 3, $30-$40, 8:00
Why: Just in case you missed twenty-five-year-old British folk singer-songwriter Laura Marling when she played Warsaw on March 23, celebrating the release of her fifth full-length album, Short Movie (Ribbon, March 23), you can catch the three-time Mercury Prize nominee again this summer, when she’ll be at Town Hall on August 3. In the meantime, you should check out her latest video, “Gurdjieff’s Daughter,” which is, essentially, a short movie itself, featuring such friends of hers as Rostam Batmanglij, Jonathan Wilson, Marika Hackman, Rhian Rees, and Hanne Steen. Among the other songs on the record are “False Hope,” “I Feel Your Love,” and the title track. The album closes with “Worship Me,” to which we can only say, “Okay.”
twi-ny recommended events
LIVE IDEAS: S K Y — FORCE AND WISDOM IN AMERICA TODAY
Laurie Anderson and Bill T. Jones will join forces for third annual Live Ideas festival at NYLA
New York Live Arts
219 West 19th St.
April 15-19
212-691-6500
newyorklivearts.org
In April 2013, New York Live Arts held its inaugural Live Ideas multidisciplinary festival, celebrating the life and career of Oliver Sachs through dance, music, film, theater, panel discussions, and scientific investigation, with Sachs participating in multiple events. Last year, Live Ideas paid tribute to writer James Baldwin, whom NYLA artistic director Bill T. Jones called “another multifaceted generator of and magnet for ideas.” This year, NYLA has handed the reins over to Laurie Anderson, who is curating the third Live Ideas festival, “S K Y – Force and Wisdom in America Today.” From April 15 to 19, more than two dozen programs will examine social, political, artistic, and environmental issues, taking stock of the state of the country in the twenty-first century. The free Noon-Time Talk Series consists of “Timothy Ferris: Beyond Belief”; “Arvo Pärt, Journeys in Silence,” with Anderson, Peter Bouteneff, James Jordan, and William Robin; “Marjorie Morrison: Proactive Military Mental Health,” with Marjorie Morrison, Mateo H. Romero, and Joseph Mauricio; the multimedia presentation “Vito Acconci: WORD/ACT/SIGN/DE-SIGN”; and the three-hour installation “Lou Reed: DRONES,” introduced and operated by Reed’s longtime guitar tech, Stewart Hurwood. Every evening will conclude with the free “Blue Room” DJ party either in the NYLA lobby or G Lounge right down the street, with King Britt, Drew Daniel, Glasser, Yuka C. Honda, and Jonathan Toubin and Geo Wyeth.
Vittorio De Sica’s MIRACLE IN MILAN will help shed some light on NYLA Live Ideas festival
Film will play an important role, with Robert Milazzo introducing Chris Marker’s seminal La Jetée; Julian Schnabel’s Before Night Falls, followed by a conversation with Anderson and Schnabel; Vittorio De Sica’s Miracle in Milan; Dorian Supin’s 24 Preludes for a Fugue, introduced by Bouteneff; and a selection of Anderson’s films, including Hidden Inside Mountains, What You Mean We?, Carmen, and excerpts from The Personal Service Announcements, with Anderson on hand to talk about the works. Among the live musical events are Eyvind Kang’s “Time Medicine,” with Kang and Anderson; John Zorn’s “Music for Piano, Strings and Percussion,” with “In the Hall of Mirrors” performed by pianist Steve Gosling, bassist Greg Cohen, and drummer Tyshawn Sorey and “CERBERUS” featuring Kinan Idnawi on oud, Erik Friedlander on cello, Cohen on bass, and Cyro Baptista on percussion; a pop-up show by the Symptoms (John Colpitts, Tony Diodore, and Anderson); a concert of chamber works by Pärt including Solfeggio, Da Pacem, Fratres, Spiegel im Spiegel, and Für Alina; and a two-part evening starting with a performance by Reverend Billy & the Stop Shopping Choir and ending with Hal Willner and Chloe Webb’s “Doing the Things We Want To,” a tribute to the late Reed and Kathy Acker.
Beth Gill and Deborah Hay will present new works on April 15 at multidisciplinary NYLA festival
Dance, NYLA’s bread and butter, will be represented by New York choreographer Beth Gill’s specially commissioned Portrait Study, paired with an advance look at legendary experimental choreographer Deborah Hay and Anderson’s Figure a Sea. The former is built around short autobiographical solos by such dancers as Neal Beasley, Eleanor Hullihan, John Jasperse, Jodi Melnick, Stuart Singer, David Thomson, Meg Weeks, and Emily Wexler, set to live music by Eliot Krimsky and Ryan Seaton, with a transitioning lighting and color design by Thomas Dunn. The latter is a sneak peek at Hay and Anderson’s evening-length piece for the Cullberg Ballet, premiering in Stockholm in September. There’s a whole lot to take in at the 2015 Live Ideas festival, but Anderson and Jones will get right to the point — and explain how they came up with the name “S K Y – Force and Wisdom in America Today” — in their opening-day discussion, aptly titled “Where Are We Going?” To Jones, the sky is “a multidimensional symbol of aspiration, vastness, change, threat, and now information storage,” while Anderson will explore why we live in “a society that is deeply divided, unjust, and often toxic.” And if all of that isn’t wide ranging enough for you, on April 17, Master Ren will lead a Taijiquan martial arts demonstration, accompanied by Lou Reed’s DRONES.
REUNION READING: HURLYBURLY
Ethan Hawke and Parker Posey are among the New Group actors reuniting for a benefit reading of HURLYBURLY on April 26
Who: Bobby Cannavale, Josh Hamilton, Ethan Hawke, Parker Posey, Wallace Shawn, Scott Elliott
What: Benefit reading for the New Group
Where: The New Group at the Pershing Square Signature Center, the Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre, 480 West 42nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves., 212-244-3380 x308
When: Sunday, April 26, $50-$250, 6:00
Why: As part of its twentieth anniversary celebration, the New Group will be holding a one-night-only benefit reading of David Rabe’s Hurlyburly, reuniting the original cast and director Scott Elliott. The reading will take place in the New Group’s new home at the Signature Center, with Bobby Cannavale as Phil, Josh Hamilton as Mickey, Ethan Hawke as Eddie, Parker Posey as Darlene, and Wallace Shawn as Artie; the parts of Bonnie and Donna are yet to be finalized. The 2005 production was nominated for five Lucille Lortel Awards, with Posey winning as Best Featured Actress. This past fall, the New Group mounted a successful revival of Rabe’s Sticks and Bones, with Elliott at the helm. The New Group is also holding a bonus fundraiser in which the highest bidder will get to be onstage and read the stage directions, in addition to meeting the cast and crew and attending the VIP reception with a guest following the performance. The current bid is $3,000, but it can be all yours for ten grand right now.
THE ORCHID SHOW: CHANDELIERS
Orchids are beautiful from up close and from far away in lovely show at the New York Botanical Garden (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
The New York Botanical Garden
Enid A. Haupt Conservatory
2900 Southern Blvd., Bronx
Tuesday – Sunday through April 19, $8-$10 children two to twelve, $20-$25 adults, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
718-817-8700
www.nybg.org
chandeliers slideshow
“They lean over the path / Adder-mouthed / Swaying close to the face / Coming out, soft and deceptive / Limp and damp, delicate as a young bird’s tongue / Their fluttery fledgling lips / Move slowly / Drawing in the warm air.” So begins Theodore Roethke’s 1946 poem “Orchids,” one of many poetic works that accompany the New York Botanical Garden’s thirteenth annual Orchid Show. This year’s edition is titled “Chandeliers,” as curator Francisca Coelho, who has been at the garden for three decades, has designed a gorgeous display with orchids everywhere — at floor level, on trees, in large pots, and especially hanging from the glass ceilings of the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory. Thousands of orchids are on view, in mixes of white, purple, blue, yellow, red, and other colors and in varying shapes, as well as a few aromatic flowers. It’s an orchid heaven wherever you look, but the most glorious sections are at the beginning, with a series of orchids atop the conservatory’s reflecting pool, and near the middle, where a giant star-shaped chandelier of orchids hangs above a walkway so viewers can gather underneath and take in yet more beauty from an unexpected angle. There are even orchids more naturally posed, in the Tropical Rain Forest Galleries.
NYBG Orchid Show offers visitors a chance to reflect on the beauty of nature (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Occasional signage shares facts about the history and conservation of orchids, and phone numbers with codes to punch offer for more detailed information. The rooms can get crowded — especially in particularly resplendent areas that provide a profusion of Kodak moments — but everything is calm and lovely, the orchids’ charm spreading to all comers, even when that kid won’t get out of the way as you try to snap a photo. Numerous programs are being held in conjunction with the show, including free orchid care demonstrations on Sundays at 2:00 & 3:00, the ticketed class “Divide, Repot, Rejuvenate!” on April 18 at 10:00 ($59), and “Orchid Evenings” on April 17 & 18. In addition, a large selection of orchids are for sale in the shop; we make sure to bring a plant home every year.
CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA
Juliette Binoche and Kristen Stewart mix fact and fiction in Olivier Assayas’s CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA
CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA (Olivier Assayas, 2014)
IFC Center, 323 Sixth Ave. at Third St., 212-924-7771
Lincoln Plaza Cinema, 1886 Broadway between 62nd & 63rd Sts., 212-757-2280
Opens Friday, April 10
www.ifcfilms.com
The related concepts of time and reality wind through Olivier Assayas’s beautifully poetic, melancholy Clouds of Sils Maria much like actual snakelike clouds slither through the twisting Maloja Pass in the Swiss Alps, as life imitates art and vice versa. Juliette Binoche stars as Maria Enders, a famous French actress who is on her way to Zurich to accept an award for her mentor, playwright Wilhelm Melchior, who eschews such mundane ceremonies. But while en route, Maria and her personal assistant, the extremely attentive and capable Valentine (Kristen Stewart), learn that Wilhelm has suddenly and unexpectedly passed away, and Maria considers turning back, especially when she later finds out that Henryk Wald (Hanns Zischler), an old nemesis, will be there to pay homage to Wilhelm as well, but she decides to go ahead after all. At a cocktail party, Maria meets with hot director Klaus Diesterweg (Lars Eidinger), who is preparing a new stage production of Wilhelm and Maria’s first big hit, The Maloja Snake, but this time Maria would play Helena, an older woman obsessed with ambitious eighteen-year-old Sigrid, the role she originally performed twenty years earlier, to great acclaim. Klaus is planning to cast Lindsay Lohan-like troublemaking star and walking tabloid headline Jo-Ann Ellis (Chloë Grace Moretz) as Sigrid, which does not thrill Maria as her past and present meld together in an almost dreamlike narrative punctuated by the music of Handel and cinematographer Yorick Le Saux’s gorgeous shots of vast mountain landscapes.
Valentine (Kristen Stewart) and Maria Enders (Juliette Binoche) go in search of the Maloja Snake in the Swiss Alps
Clouds of Sils Maria resonates on many levels, both inside and outside of the main plot and the film itself. Assayas (Irma Vep, Demonlover) cowrote André Téchiné’s 1983 film, Rendez-Vous, which was Binoche’s breakthrough; Assayas and Binoche wouldn’t work together again until his 2008 film Summer Hours, similar to the relationship between Wilhelm and Maria. Meanwhile, the story of the play-within-the-film is echoed by the relationship between Maria and Valentine, who are having trouble separating the personal from the professional. It is often difficult to know when the two women are practicing lines and when they are talking about their “real” lives. Binoche (Blue, Caché) is simply extraordinary as Maria, a distressed and anxious woman who is suddenly facing getting older somewhat sooner than expected, while Stewart (The Twilight Saga, On the Road) became the first American woman to win a French César, as Best Supporting Actress, for her sensitive portrayal of Valentine, a strong-willed young woman who might or might not be holding something back. The scenes between the two are riveting as they venture in and out of the reality of the film, their onscreen chemistry building and building till it’s at last ready to ignite. Art, life, cinema, theater, fiction, and reality all come together in Clouds of Sils Maria, as Maria, Assayas, and Binoche take stock of where they’ve been, where they are, and where they’re going.
DIOR AND I
Documentary follows Raf Simons as he becomes new creative director of Christian Dior
DIOR AND I (Frédéric Tcheng, 2014)
Film Forum, 209 West Houston St., 212-727-8110
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater, 165 West 65th St., 212-875-5601
Opens Friday, April 10
www.diorandimovie.com
After working on two previous fashion-related films, Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel and Valentino: The Last Emperor, Frédéric Tcheng makes his solo directorial debut with Dior and I. In April 2012, fashion designer Raf Simons was named the new creative director of Christian Dior, bringing along his right-hand man, Pieter Mulier. Tcheng goes behind the scenes to follow Simons as he prepares his first-ever haute couture collection, which is due in a mere two months. Tcheng zooms in on the Belgian designer’s working methods and general anxiety as he takes over at the legendary company, developing important relationships with Dior CEO Sidney Toledano, première atelier flou Florence Chehet, première atelier tailleur Monique Bailly, the seamstresses, the models, and other employees. Simons chooses to pay homage to Dior’s past with his new collection while attempting to rid himself of the designation of “minimalist designer.” One of his most fascinating directions is attempting to incorporate the work of artist Sterling Ruby into his designs. All the while he is haunted by the ghost of company founder and New Look creator Christian Dior, who is shown by Tcheng in archival footage accompanied by a voice-over of Omar Berrada reading from Dior’s memoirs. Dior and I is a slight but affecting race against time, as one man in the present honors the past while laying the groundwork for a bright future. Dior and I opens April 10 at Film Forum and the Film Society of Lincoln Center, with Tcheng and Berrada appearing at Film Forum for the 7:30 show April 10 and the 5:20 show April 11; Tcheng will also be at the Walter Reade Theater for a Q&A following the 7:00 show April 11.
BUZZER
Jackson (Grantham Coleman), Suzy (Tessa Ferrer), and Don (Michael Stahl-David) test the limits of love and friendship in BUZZER (photo by Joan Marcus)
Martinson Hall, the Public Theater
425 Lafayette St. at Astor Pl.
Tuesday – Sunday through April 26, $55-$65
212-539-8500
www.publictheater.org
Tracey Scott Wilson’s Buzzer is a sizzling drama about gentrification, class, race, and white privilege. In modern-day Brooklyn, rising young black lawyer Jackson (Grantham Coleman) is moving back to his old neighborhood, purchasing a large, impressive apartment across the street from a corner populated by drug dealers and crack whores. “The wave is sweeping through here, and before they build another coffee shop, before they build another gym, before the wave swallows up another person here, I want in,” he says to an unseen Realtor. “I know this neighborhood. I know what it’s worth and I know what it can be.” Next he has to convince his girlfriend, Suzy (Tessa Ferrer), a white teacher, to move in with him. Suzy is being disciplined at her job for yelling at one of her students, telling him to “put the mother-fracking book down.” But Suzy and Jackson’s love is severely tested when his longtime best friend, Don (Michael Stahl-David), a white screw-up who has been in and out of rehab for years, comes to stay with them as he tries to get his life back together. “I’m horny, broke, and nearly homeless,” he says at an AA meeting, “so if I just had a job, a woman, and a house, Popsicle beer would not be so appealing.” The apartment might be big, with two hallways, a pair of walk-in closets, and a vast central living space, but it’s tight quarters for the three of them, especially after Suzy is harassed by some of the guys on the corner, a confrontation that Don and Jackson want to handle in very different ways, sparking trouble that threatens the relationships among the three of them.
A couple deals with race and gentrification in Tracey Scott Wilson’s scorching drama at the Public (photo by Joan Marcus)
Despite garnering good notices since Buzzer premiered at the Pillsbury House Theatre in Minneapolis in 2012 and went on to the Guthrie and then the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, Wilson (The Good Negro, The Story) has tweaked it significantly for its New York run at the Public, cutting about a half hour out, streamlining it down to a fast-moving ninety minutes without intermission. Like the spacious apartment, the play is uncluttered, and Wilson avoids getting preachy or clichéd in a play that evokes such recent Broadway successes as Clybourne Park and Disgraced. The cast is uniformly excellent, each of their characters introduced with a soliloquy while facing the audience directly, an intimate conceit. Coleman is stalwart as Jackson, who does not want to become the “Magical Negro”; Ferrer is a whirling dervish of powerful emotions as the complicated, unpredictable Suzy; and Stahl-David is quirky and compelling as the uneasy, desperate Don. Obie-winning director Anne Kauffman (The Nether, Detroit) keeps everything going at a swift but determined pace as scenes morph into one another seamlessly. Laura Jellinek’s set is open and dark on one side, while the other is populated by a maze of sparkling white walls and a kitchen; the back holds a surprise as the ending nears. The title refers to the apartment’s buzzer; the intercom system doesn’t work, so whenever the buzzer is pushed, the residents have to go downstairs to see who’s at the door. It’s fraught with danger; every time the buzzer sounds, the tension grows thicker while providing a clever sonic alternative to Jackson’s unusual ring tone, which keeps going off. Jackson, who grew up in Newark and later moved to a gentrifying neighborhood in Crown Heights, where she was living when she wrote the play, has a sharp ear for realistic dialogue and creates well-drawn characters caught up in believable situations, despite one ultimately forgivable misstep. Buzzer, which continues at Martinson Hall through April 26, is not afraid to push buttons, resulting in a taut, gripping experience.