twi-ny recommended events

SHAKESPEARE BIRTHDAY BASH

Jonathan Slaff reads from HENRY VI at 2014 birthday bash for the Bard in Bryant Park (photo by Claire Taddei)

Jonathan Slaff reads from HENRY V at 2014 birthday bash for the Bard in Bryant Park (photo by Claire Taddei)

Who: The Drilling Company, with artistic director Jonathan Eric Foster, managing director Sarah George, and more than fifty actors, including company members Kyle Acheson, Sam De Roest, Nyssa Duchow, and Corley Pillsbury
What: Second annual Shakespeare Birthday Bash
Where: Bryant Park, 40th to 42nd Sts. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
When: Wednesday, April 23, free, 12:30 – 2:30
Why: The Drilling Company, those creative folks behind Shakespeare in the Parking Lot and who brought Hamlet to Bryant Park last year, will celebrate the Bard’s 451st birthday with a free party in the park on Thursday afternoon. At 12:30, a flash mob of actors will be roaming the area, presenting “Wonderful Words,” consisting of famous speeches, sonnets, and lines. At 1:00, folk band Thicket & Thistle will perform original music based on Shakespeare sonnets on the Fountain Terrace. At 1:30, anyone can join the festivities by reading a speech from a Bard play to win a T-shirt. Finally, at 2:00, banners will be raised, filled with quotations that people have been adding to all afternoon. The Drilling Company will be back in the park later this spring and summer, presenting Two Gentlemen of Verona May 15-31, followed by Romeo and Juliet July 10-26 and The Taming of the Shrew September 4-20; they will also perform As You Like It July 9-26 and Macbeth July 30 to August 15 in their new parking lot home on Norfolk St. behind the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural and Educational Center.

MICHIKO GODAI: YOKOHAMA ROSA

Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Saturday, April 25, 7:30, and Sunday, April 26, 2:30, $35
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org

Japan Society’s multidisciplinary “Stories from the War” series continues with the one-woman show Yokohama Rosa, about the transformation of a Japanese woman, known as Merii-san, before, during, and after WWII. The play is written and performed by Michiko Godai (Death Note, Pride), who puts on the production every year in Yokohama on the anniversary of the end of the war. The Saturday-night performance will be followed by a Meet-the-Artists reception, while the Sunday matinee includes admission to the exhibition “Life of Cats: Selections from the Hiraki Ukiyo-e Collection.” In conjunction with the show, Japan Society will be holding The Life of Yokohama Merii Language Workshops on Saturday and Sunday, taught by Kazue Kurahara ($105, including theater ticket).

GIGI

GIGI is set in the extravagant high-society world of fin de siècle Paris (photo © Margot Schulman)

Neil Simon Theatre
250 West 52nd St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 21, $67-$147
gigionbroadway.com

In the Oscar-winning title song of Gigi, Gaston Lachaille asks, “When did your sparkle turn to fire / and your warmth become desire?” In the new Broadway revival at the Neil Simon Theatre, there is plenty of sparkle and warmth, but little fire and desire, making for a perfectly pleasant evening that never quite hits the high notes of this story of love and extravagance in fin de siècle Paris. Gigi began life as a 1944 novella by Colette, which was turned into a 1949 French comedy starring Danièle Delorme as the sixteen-year-old girl on the brink of womanhood. It then became a Broadway hit written by Anita Loos in 1951 and starring Audrey Hepburn, followed by Vincente Minnelli’s smash 1958 Lerner and Loewe musical, which was nominated for nine Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Score, and won them all. Twenty-five years later it was turned into a Broadway musical by Alan Jay Lerner (book and lyrics) and Frederick Loewe (music) that won a Tony for Best Score but failed to catch on with the public. Which brings us to the current, first-ever Broadway revival, a modestly entertaining if not exactly illuminating version adapted by British screenwriter and playwright Heidi Thomas (Cranford, Call the Midwife), who has scrubbed clean this tale of accepted high-society prostitution, significantly lessening the age difference between the main characters, Gigi and Gaston, portrayed by former Disney stars Vanessa Hudgens (High School Musical) and Corey Cott (Newsies), respectively. In fact, Hudgens is fifteen months older than Cott; in comparison, ten years separated Leslie Caron and the older Louis Jourdan in the movie musical. In addition, the signature song, “Thank Heaven for Little Girls,” is no longer sung by Gaston’s uncle, Honoré, who was most famously played by Maurice Chevalier, but instead by Gigi’s grandmother, Mme. (Mamita) Alvarez (Victoria Clark), and great-aunt, Alicia (Dee Hoty), completely eliminating any hint of lewdness. As far as the plot goes, Gaston is a very wealthy steampunk bon vivant who dreams of flying. He is experiencing problems with his mistress, Liane d’Exelmans (Steffanie Leigh), and might soon be in search of his next lover, which excites Aunt Alicia, who has been grooming Gigi to prepare her to become a gentleman’s courtesan, one of the class of Parisian women who get rewarded handsomely for their “services.” The idealistic Gigi might not be all about girl power, but she still believes she can make her own choices, setting up the major conflict of the show.

Honoré Lachaille (Howard McGillin) and Mamita (Victoria Clark) remember it well in GIGI (photo © Joan Marcus)

Gigi has a delightful score, featuring such memorable songs as “The Parisians,” “Thank Heaven for Little Girls,” and “The Night They Invented Champagne.” Hudgens sings and dances well, although she strains at overpronouncing her “t”s in dialogue. Hoty (Footloose, The Will Rogers Follies) overplays Aunt Alicia; the scenes in which she trains Gigi in the art of being a mistress fall flat. Former Phantom of the Opera McGillin is fine as Honoré, delivering a lovely “I Remember It Well” with Clark (The Light in the Piazza, Cinderella), who is the strongest part of the show. The weakest is Cott, who lacks the charm and elegance necessary for the role of the man every woman in Paris wants; the program lists his only experience other than Newsies as university productions, so he might need more time to blossom. Derek McLane’s flashy set is structured around the base of the Eiffel Tower as it changes from posh nightclub to fashionable beach resort to Mamita’s and Alicia’s very different living quarters. Director Eric Schaeffer (Follies, Million Dollar Quartet) never really achieves a flow to the narrative, resulting in a bumpy progression of set pieces. It might never all quite gel, and the production magnifies the dated nature of the central story, but it still makes for a nice show. It’s not a bore, but you might not remember it very well either.

SHORE IN LENAPEHOKING (NYC)

Emily Johnson / Catalyst’s SHORE consists of dance, story, volunteerism, and feast

April 23-25, New York Live Arts, 219 West 19th St., 212-691-6500, $15-$30, 7:30
April 24-26, multiple locations, free with preregistration
newyorklivearts.org
www.catalystdance.com

In our 2011 twi-ny talk with Emily Johnson, the Alaska-born, Minneapolis-based choreographer, performer, and director said, “I want the feeling of ‘home’ to lead to a kind of intimacy so that people feel comfortable, responsible even, for it. I think we tend to look at things as static when, in reality, our bodies and places house past, present, and future, at once. It’s anything but static.” The concluding piece of the trilogy Johnson was referring to, which began with The Thank-you Bar and continued with Niicugni, is happening this week: Shore is a multiday four-part work that brings together people and the land, performer and audience, art and community, celebrating the interdependence of all living things and emphasizing our responsibility to the planet and one another. (It seems particularly fitting that Johnson and her Catalyst company are here in New York during Earth Week.) Shore began on April 19 with a volunteer community action program in the Rockaways, helping restore dunes, as well as a curated reading with Ben Weaver, Sahar Muradi, Chris Moore, Emmanuel Iduma, Tim Carrier, and Live Linesat at the Two Bridges Neighborhood Council on Rutgers Slip. On April 24, Emily Johnson/Catalyst, Gibney Dance, the Lenape Center, and the Billion Oyster Project will team up for another community action volunteer initiative, restoring an estuary on Governors Island to reintroduce oysters (and eat some as well).

On April 23-25, the performance aspect of Shore will begin on the outdoor basketball court at PS 11 on West Twenty-First St. and make its way into New York Live Arts; the piece is conceived, choreographed, and written by Johnson, with direction by Ain Gordon, music direction and lead collaboration by James Everest (who composed the soundscore with Nona Marie Invie and Fletcher Barnhill), costumes by Angie Vo, and a cast that includes Johnson, Invie, Barnhill, Aretha Aoki, Krista Langberg, Christina Courtin, Julia Bither, the Shore Choir, and twenty local dancers. The Thank-you Bar and Niicugni were both unusual, unpredictable works that challenged traditional relationships between performer and audience while making creative use of light, sound, and space, so we’re expecting this piece to be rather unique and special as well. Shore comes to a close April 26 with a potluck feast at the North Brooklyn Boat Club, where preregistered participants will bring dishes and stories to share, listen to live music by Weaver, go on a guided canoe trip on Newtown Creek under the Pulaski Bridge, and learn about ecology and the environment. Bicyclists can meet up earlier and ride over to the feast together. Another part of Shore, which was previously presented last June in Minneapolis, are essays that are being posted on the Catalyst website. “At each event, our attention was redirected back to the earth, to our relationship with the land, with plants and animals, with water and air,” writes Diane Wilson. “I imagined Shore as a place where all of these elements were brought back together in harmony with people, just as they were when our ancestors used the ceremony of art to convey our relationship with the natural world. On the podium set up on the grass, Emily asked, ‘What was the most joyful day of my life? It just might be today.’” Shore should be another memorable performance from a dazzlingly gifted talent.

HUMAN KINETICS MOVEMENT ARTS: FACETS OF TIME

The striking FACETS OF TIME takes place in the Urban Garden Room near Bryant Park (photo by Harry Schnitzler)

Who: human kinetics movement arts
What: Facets of Time
Where: Urban Garden Room, 1095 Sixth Ave. at 43rd St.
When: Wednesday, April 22 & 24, and Friday, April 29, free, 9:00
Why: Yana Schnitzler’s human kinetics movement arts specializes in site-specific dance installations in public places. In the past, they have performed at the Hudson River, on Wrightsville Beach, in a storefront on Maiden Lane, at Ground Zero, in the windows of a bank, and outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Their latest work, Facets of Time, finds them in the lovely Urban Garden Room in Midtown, a glassed-in public plaza with a quartet of living green sculptures. The trilogy of slow-moving pieces, which explores the nature of perception, features a seemingly endless sheet of colorful fabric that daringly connects with the area; the audience watches from outside on the street, looking in. “Each movement installation is inspired by and created for a specific environment,” Schnitzler has written. “By utilizing elements of surprise and (dis)integration, the installations become an integral part of that environment, and at the same times give it new meaning. In their often sculpturesque character, the installations expose the hidden poetry of public spaces.”

TWI-NY TALK: ETHAN NICHTERN AND THE ROAD HOME

Shastri Ethan Nichtern will be celebrating the release of THE ROAD HOME with events on April 21 & 28

Shastri Ethan Nichtern will be celebrating the release of THE ROAD HOME with special events on April 21 & 28

ABC Carpet & Home, 888 Broadway at 19th St., 212-473-3000
Tuesday, April 21, $30 (includes copy of book), 7:00
Shambhala Meditation Center of New York, 118 West 22nd St., 212-675-6544
Tuesday, April 28, $5-$10 suggested donation, 7:00
www.ethannichtern.com
us.macmillan.com

I first met Ethan Nichtern about ten years ago, when my wife started studying at the Interdependence Project (IDP), a nonprofit organization dedicated to secular Buddhist meditation practice and community activism; its motto is “Change your mind to change the world.” Nichtern, a Brown grad and the son of Buddhist teacher and songwriter David Nichtern, was not at all what I expected; he was wise beyond his twentysomething years, a big sports and indie rock fan, a beer lover, and a pop-culture junkie with a playful sense of humor. The IDP has grown significantly since its humble beginnings in 2006, with a popular podcast, satellite meditation groups around the country, and such online and in-person classes as “Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction,” “Tools for Living: Practical Buddhism for Work and Relationships,” and “Core Texts of Buddhism: Essential Writings from the Pali Canon to Today” (as well as a recently completed six-week course that Nichtern taught with my wife, a longtime student of his, a former IDP board member, and a recent graduate of the IDP Immersion Teacher Training program).

This week, Nichtern will publish his third book, The Road Home: A Contemporary Exploration of the Buddhist Path (North Point Press, April 21, $25), in which he takes readers on a journey into self-awareness and redefining the nature of home. “Where is your home? Is your address your home? Is your body your home? Do you feel at home in your own mind? Where, oh, where is home?” he asks in the introduction. “In many ways, these have been the central questions of my life. The quest to answer these questions — or at least to feel more capable of understanding them — is the primary reason I have chosen the path of Buddhism and the primary reason I practice and teach the path to others.”

In celebration of the release of the book, the follow-up to One City: A Declaration of Interdependence and Your Emoticons Won’t Save You, Nichtern will be at ABC Carpet & Home on April 21 and the Weekly Dharma Gathering at Shambhala on April 28; in addition, he will be leading the eight-week online series “The Road Home” on Thursday nights at 7:00 from April 23 to June 11, examining “The Path of Awakening in Four Stages.” While preparing for all of these events, Shastri Ethan Nichtern answered some questions about Buddhism, Radiohead, the Mets, and meditation.

twi-ny: The Road Home is your third book. What is the writing process like for you? Are you like the rest of us, panicking as deadlines loom, or are you able to incorporate your meditation practice to create a more calm environment?

Ethan Nichtern: I mean, meditation definitely helps, but it doesn’t cure any of the anxiety of having to complete a project. My writing process is fairly nonlinear. In a way, The Road Home is the first book I’ve written, because the ideas in the book cover the thirteen years that I have been teaching Buddhism in the contemporary world. It definitely feels like the most complete thing that I’ve written. Even though I’ve only really been putting it together the last few years. So I think mindfulness is about being in the process and letting the words and chapters emerge when they need to.

When a deadline looms it feels similar to having an object of mindfulness, a date by which you have to finish which helps to anchor you, just the same way the breath can anchor you in mindfulness meditation. However, if you expect your meditation practice to stop anxiety, you’ll probably be disappointed. Meditation is calming, yes, but primarily because it helps you deal with difficult emotions like anxiety, not stop them.

twi-ny: You’ve become a kind of Buddhist meditation rock star, and now you’ll be going out on the road, on a twenty-four-city tour in which people will be lining up to hear you talk, take pictures with you, and have you sign their books. Meanwhile, in the book itself, Sharon Salzberg writes in the foreword, “Ethan is the future of Buddhism.” How do you control your ego under such circumstances and high praise?

EN: Well, being well known for Buddhism is probably about the same level of popularity as being a roadie for a real rock star! Much of the time when I lead a retreat or workshop it’s just a small group of people who really want to come to terms with their own minds and also benefit others. So it’s very human and very humbling to share tools and discuss with people these very helpful humanistic processes that Buddhism offers. No glow sticks, no stage. It’s definitely true that when I give a talk more people come in then used to, and it’s amazing to think that I have something to offer them that is both very, very modern and very ancient, but the whole thing is so simple and down to earth that there’s really not a ton of room to let your “ego” run wild.

twi-ny: In the new book, you explore the nature of karma. What is the most misunderstood part of karma by the general population?

EN: I’m really happy that I went into karma in depth in The Road Home because it is so important and so misunderstood. I think the biggest misunderstanding, which has actually come up throughout history, but might be more pronounced by our consumer capitalist culture, is that karma is some kind of cosmic bank account. So the thinking is if I do something good, it’s like money goes into my hidden bank account in the cosmos, and then the universe owes me one. This leads to all sorts of weird and manipulative moral positions, and it leads us to resent the very real fact that most of the time we can’t get what we want. It’s a complicated conversation, but it’s much better to think of karma as the study of our habitual conditioning and acquired mental filters that cause us to perceive and react to our experience in certain ways. It’s not a commodity; it’s a study of habit.

twi-ny: In 2009, you led the IDP in a twenty-four-hour sit in the display windows of ABC Carpet, with you making it through the entire period. What was that experience like? I remember seeing you at one point on a break, looking kind of wobbly as you took in some fresh air.

EN: It was super tiring, because twenty-four hours was really a day and a half of waking time, which I didn’t think about beforehand, but it was amazing to be right there on Broadway with all the crowds passing by, being present with the city, and all the living people passing, especially the kids! It was so cool! The way I was sitting for most of the time was with my eyes open but slightly downward cast, which is often the way it is done in my tradition, the Shambhala tradition, but the window box I was sitting in was a little elevated from the street so I was at perfect eye level to make eye contact with children as they passed. It was a powerful experience for all the meditators involved. I hope we get to do it again soon.

twi-ny: You’ll be back at ABC Home for the April 21 launch of The Road Home. What can we expect from the gathering?

EN: A fun evening and a great conversation. I love how beautifully designed the hardcover version of the book turned out, and am very thankful to the folks at FSG for being so good at what they do. I’m sad the launch sold out so quickly, but I’ll be doing another event April 28 at the Shambhala Center. At ABC Carpet on April 21, which is a really cool spot, I will be joined by Sharon Salzberg, one of the best meditation teachers anywhere, who is a dear friend and mentor, and Dan Harris, the ABC news anchor who is an awesome guy and really down to earth, and has really stepped onto the path of Buddhist meditation wholeheartedly, and creates a great voice for skeptics about the whole practice. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone.

twi-ny: You love sprinkling your writing and talks with pop-culture references, from Radiohead to Star Wars. Are you looking forward to Star Wars: Episode VII?

EN: I am looking forward to the new Star Wars. I feel like J. J. Abrams is really good at sci-fi. He proved it with the new Star Trek movies, so I doubt there will be any Jar Jar Binks type of screenplay mistakes made. I do wish that the Jedi practices were more developed in their meditative and emotional dimensions. I love the early movies, but the spiritual dimension of them always strikes me as a little superficial, like a fortune-cookie version of Eastern thought, and I wish the Jedi practices were unveiled in a more contemplative way. But despite Star Wars feeling a bit superficial as a spiritual text, it’s always a ton of fun! So who really cares at the end of the day if it’s only quasiprofound?

Ethan Nichtern leads a twenty-four-hour sit at ABC Carpet & Home in 2009 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

twi-ny: What’s your favorite Radiohead album?

EN: It would be really hard to not call OK Computer the best Radiohead album, because it is now a classic of the 1990s, maybe the best complete album of the last twenty years. I like all of their albums, but I would say that my other favorite is Kid A. One of the chapter titles in The Road Home is “Where I End and You Begin,” which is so related to the Mahayana teachings, which is also one of my favorite songs from Hail to the Thief, which I think is an underrated album. I like them all.

twi-ny: If I’m not mistaken, you are, like me, a Mets fan. How can we use Buddhist meditation to help us through such annual disappointment come September?

EN: I mean, if we even make it to September before disappointment sets in, it means they are having a relatively good season. 🙂 It’s amazing how quickly we can identify personally with sports, but then when the season ends we have to let it go either way. And it’s that process of intense identification and hopefulness mixed with the annual need to just let go that I think makes being a sports fan in general a really good practice, especially when your team is perennially mediocre. Identify, hope, then let go! Then do it again next year. It’s beautiful.

twi-ny: Both you and my wife have tried to get me to meditate, but I’ve failed miserably. On a very general level, what is the most important first step for someone like me, who could probably benefit greatly from a more relaxed approach to life?

EN: I just think you have to keep it simple and short, like five minutes to start of just settling in with the breath. Everyone seems to be supportive of meditation now, but most people think it’s too hard for them to do personally. They usually have crazy expectations from a more idealistic spiritual standpoint about what is supposed to happen for them, like no more thoughts! And then they just confront their normal busy neurotic mind. So I would just let go of any expectations. You aren’t going to stop thinking! Classes on a regular basis can provide support and accountability, and you also realize that everyone is struggling in their own version the same way that you are, and I think the group environment can help overcome strange ideas about practice, of which there are so many. If I were you, I would just do it a little bit and not worry about how your thoughts feel while you aren’t doing it but instead focus on how you feel throughout the day after doing it for five minutes in the morning.

FUN HOME

Circle in the Square Theatre
1633 Broadway at 50th St.
Tuesday – Sunday through September 13, $75-$150
funhomebroadway.com

The best off-Broadway musical of last season is now the best Broadway musical of this season. Fun Home hasn’t merely transferred from the Public’s Newman Theater downtown to Circle in the Square on the Great White Way; it has been positively transformed, with returning director Sam Gold and set designer David Zinn making ingenious use of the small, intimate space, the audience surrounding the famed Circle in the Square stage. Nominated for eight Drama Desk Awards last year, Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron’s magical adaptation of Alison Bechdel’s genre-defining graphic memoir is even better the second time around. The deeply personal story delves into the dysfunction of the Bechdel family: father Bruce (Michael Cerveris) is a high school English teacher, a restorer of old houses, and a funeral home director (which leads the kids to call it Fun Home); mother Helen (Judy Kuhn) plays the piano and has a yen for the theater; and younger children Christian (Oscar Williams) and John (Zell Steele Morrow) look up to their older sister, Alison, who is played as an eight-year-old by Sydney Lucas, as an eighteen-year-old by Emily Skeggs, and as a forty-three-year-old adult by Beth Malone. Malone is onstage for the full hundred minutes, watching her character’s life unfold before her. “I don’t trust memory,” she says early on, explaining why she is constantly drawing. When she goes off to college, she finds out something about herself that confuses and scares her — as well as a dark family secret that shakes her already complicated world.

The staging is simply sensational, although there’s nothing simple about it. Furniture, from doors and tables to a console television, a bed, and a casket, rises up and down from beneath the floor as the scenes change, keeping the narrative flowing at a calm, even pace despite the building angst and turmoil. Tesori’s (Violet; Caroline, or Change) music and Kron’s (2.5 Minute Ride, Well) book and lyrics continue to soar, from the outrageously funny “Changing My Major” to the Partridge Family homage “You Are Like a Raincoat,” from the incredibly clever “Ring of Keys” to the mellifluous “Welcome to Our House on Maple Avenue,” with the crack band onstage (and enjoying the show as well when they’re not playing). The cast, once again, is outstanding, with Cerveris just the right bit on edge as Bruce; Kuhn splendidly tentative and nervous as Helen; Lucas a powerhouse as the creative small Alison; Skeggs terrific as the wide-eyed, curious middle Alison; Roberta Colindrez delightful as Joan, a lesbian who catches Alison’s eye at Oberlin; and Joel Perez as multiple characters, including Roy, a handyman who helps out around the house. But Gold’s (The Realistic Joneses, The Flick) revamped staging sheds more light on the adult Alison and Malone’s subtly beautiful performance; instead of existing on the periphery as an observer, she is now right in the middle of everything, sometimes sitting down next to one of her younger selves, getting a much more close-up look into her childhood without getting overly sentimental. (The same can practically be said about the audience.) The Broadway version of Fun Home is so extraordinary, it’s made me nearly forget about the marvelous original production.