twi-ny recommended events

SCIENCE ON SCREEN: GRIZZLY MAN

Timothy Treadwell learns a rather painful lesson about living with bears in GRIZZLY MAN

GRIZZLY MAN (Werner Herzog, 2005)
BAMcinématek, BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Tuesday, April 29, 7:30
212-727-8110
www.bam.org
www.grizzlypeople.com

For thirteen straight summers, Timothy Treadwell ventured into the wilds of Katmai National Park in Alaska, where he lived among grizzly bears. For the last five of those years, he brought along a video camera and detailed his life with them and his battle to protect the bears (all of which he named) from poachers. “I have no idea if there’s a God, but if there’s a God, God would be very, very pleased with me,” Treadwell says into his camera in Werner Herzog’s brilliant documentary Grizzly Man, “because he can just watch me, how much I love them, how much I adore them, how respectful I am of them, how I am one of them. . . . Be warned: I will die for these animals, I will die for these animals, I will die for these animals. Thank you so much for letting me do this. Thank you so much to these animals for giving me a life. I had no life. Now I have a life.” In October 2003, Treadwell and his girlfriend, Amie Huguenard, were brutally killed and eaten by one of the bears. Herzog, who knows a little something about filming in treacherous locations (Fitzcarraldo, Little Dieter Needs to Fly, Aguirre, the Wrath of God), made Grizzly Man from more than one hundred hours of tape, supplementing that with interviews with Treadwell’s friends and family. They all talk about a much-loved but troubled man who was desperate to be famous. His life with the bears got him onto television with Rosie O’Donnell and David Letterman, but it also got him killed, which some people think was what he deserved for crossing the line and thinking he could survive living with grizzlies. But Herzog shows him to be a thoughtful, compassionate man who just might have found his true purpose in life. (To find out more about Treadwell, check out The Grizzly Man Diaries here.). Although the film, which features a gorgeous score by Richard Thompson, won or was nominated for numerous awards (including editing, directing, and best documentary), it was curiously shut out at the Oscars. Grizzly Man is being shown April 29 at 7:30 as part of the BAMcinématek series “Science on Screen” and will be followed by a Q&A with wildlife journalist Jon Mooallem, moderated by science writer Robert Lee Hotz. The series concludes May 29 with George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, followed by a Q&A with author Sonia Shah.

PEN WORLD VOICES FESTIVAL: ON THE EDGE

PEN WORLD VOICES FESTIVAL OF INTERNATIONAL LITERATURE
Multiple locations
April 28 – May 4, free – $20
www.worldvoices.pen.org

“I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can’t see from the center,” Kurt Vonnegut wrote in his debut novel, 1952’s Player Piano. That sentiment is the theme for the tenth annual Pen World Voices Festival of International Literature, a week of lectures, workshops, readings, debates, conversations, performances, and more celebrating writers who are not afraid to go out on the edge and take risks, both personal and political. Sponsored by the PEN America Center, which supports freedom of expression throughout the world, the festival will feature more than 150 writers from 30 nations participating in nearly five dozen events. “Many of the finest writers in the world, the ones whose voices speak most eloquently to us, are also, all too often, the most exposed and vulnerable, because they are so prominently visible,” festival chairman and founder Salman Rushdie said in a statement. “Yet these are the voices we must listen to, the voices that show us how the world joins up.” Among those taking part in the festival are Colm Tóibín, Noam Chomsky, Elinor Lipman, Saul Williams, A. M. Homes, Bob Holman, Judith Thurman, Shirin Neshat, Paul Muldoon, Eileen Myles, Siri Hustvedt, Martin Amis, Parker Posey, Jay McInerney, Rosario Dawson, Joseph O’Neill, Francine Prose, and Rushdie. There’s always a lot to do and see at this annual celebration of the power of the written word; below are just some of the highlights.

Monday, April 28

Opening Night: On the Edge, with Adonis, Gado, Sofi Oksanen, Colm Tóibín, Noam Chomsky, Salman Rushdie, Judith Butler, and Paul Berman delivering seven-minute orations, the Great Hall of the Cooper Union, $15-$20, 7:00

Tuesday, April 29

A Literary Safari, with Kevin Barry, Eliane Brum, Christopher Farley, Justin Go, Frédéric Gros, Joanne Hillhouse, Barbara Jenkins, Sharon Leach, Geert Mak, Vanessa Manko, Andrés Neuman, Jaap Scholten, Gabrielle Selz, Francesc Serés, Sue Shapiro, Kenan Trebincevic, Igor Stiks, Bae Suah, Elinor Lipman, and Deji Olukotun, taking place in rooms throughout the Westbeth Center for the Arts, $15-$20, 6:30

Obsession: Eileen Myles on Spoilage and Ruination of Other Kinds, with Eileen Myles, hosted by Mike Albo, Chez André at the Standard, $15-$20, 9:00

Wednesday, April 30

The FBI Was Never the Same: 1971 Screening and Discussion, with Johanna Hamilton, Bonnie Raines, John Raines, Larry Siems, and Betty Medsger, NYU Cantor Film Center, $15-$20, 7:00

Literary Death Match, with Kevin Barry, Alona Kimhi, Bae Suah, Parker Posey, Michael Ian Black, and Jay McInerney, Ace Hotel, $15-$20, 7:00

Thursday, May 1

The Nuyorican Poets Café, with Saul Williams, Rome Neal, Jive Poetic, Rosario Dawson, Gado, Natasha Trethewey, participants from Mark Nowak’s workshops with Domestic Workers United and Alliance for Taxi Drivers, Nuyorican Poets Café, $10-$20, 6:00

Obsession: Jennifer Boylan on Lost Loves, with Jennifer Boylan, hosted by Mike Albo, Chez André at the Standard, $15-$20, 9:00

Friday, May 2

The Literary Mews, with Clayton Eshleman, Deji Olukotun, Ed Pavlić, Yacouba Sissoko, Dan Neely, Tine Kindermann, Albert Behar, Paula Deitz, Mark Jarman, RS. Gwynn, Johanna Keller, Jeff Kline, Alexa de Puivert, Eddie Mandhry, Chinelo Okparanta, Godfrey Mwampembwa, Tope Folarin, Mukoma Wa Ngugi, Tarfia Faizullah, Luis Francia, April Naoko Heck, Hieu Minh Nguyen, George Prochnik, Eric Jarosinski, Stacey Knecht, Richard Sieburth, Chuck Wachtel, Jill Schoolman, Sebastian Barry, Maxim Leo, Yascha Mounk, Atina Grossmann, Benjamin Moser, Eric Banks, and Kevin Barry, Washington Mews, NYU, free, 10:00 am – 8:00 pm

Dylan Live: A Tribute to Dylan Thomas, with Paul Muldoon, Aneirin Karadog, Martin Daws, and Daniel Williams, the Auditorium at the New School, $15-$20, 8:00

Obsession: Dan Savage on Plaques and Trophies, with Dan Savage, hosted by Mike Albo, Chez André at the Standard, $15-$20, 9:00

Saturday, May 3

Broken Dreams in Two Acts: 25 Years since the Fall of the Berlin Wall, with Timothy Garton Ash, György Konrád, Geert Mak, Adam Michnik, and Elzbieta Matynia, Frederick P. Rose Auditorium at the Cooper Union, $15-$20, 3:00

Interview Magazine: The Re-Interview with Martin Amis and Michael Stipe, the Auditorium at the New School, $15-$20, 7:30

Sunday, May 4

Sex and Violence in Children’s Books: Where the Wild Things (Really) Are, with Sarwat Chadda, Robie Harris, Susan Kuklin, Niki Walker, and Sharyn November, Frederick P. Rose Auditorium at the Cooper Union, $10-$15, 12:30

In Conversation: Timothy Garton Ash and Salman Rushdie, Anspacher Theater at the Public Theater, $12-$15, 4:00

Arthur Miller Freedom to Write Lecture: Colm Tóibín, the Great Hall at the Cooper Union, $15-$20, 6:00

SPEAKEASY DOLLHOUSE: THE BROTHERS BOOTH

Competitive siblings John Wilkes Booth and Edwin Booth are at center of complex drama in THE BROTHERS BOOTH (photo by Jeremy Daniel)

Competitive siblings John Wilkes and Edwin are at center of complex drama in THE BROTHERS BOOTH (photo by Jeremy Daniel)

The Players Club
16 Gramercy Park South
Saturday, May 3, June 7, July 12, general admission $75, VIP $125, 8:00
www.brothersbooth.blogspot.com

A palimpsest of nineteenth-century theater history, 1920s cabaret, and the storied Players Club, Speakeasy Dollhouse: The Brothers Booth is the second of creator Cynthia von Buhler’s Speakeasy Dollhouse immersive theater pieces. Long fascinated by her family’s bootlegger past and the layers of stories in New York City, von Buhler crafts participatory theatrical evenings unlike any other, in which the actors and the audience inhabit the same set — the dollhouse — with everyone as the dolls. The set in The Brothers Booth is the Players Club on Gramercy Park, the exclusive private organization for thespians founded by Edwin Booth, a superstar of the nineteenth-century stage, son of the preeminent Shakespearean actor Junius Brutus Booth — and brother to the less talented but far more notorious John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Abraham Lincoln. (A statue of Edwin Booth resides in the center of Gramercy Park, across the street from the Players Club.) Von Buhler’s show, directed by Wes Grantom (Eager to Lose), invites ticket holders to dress up — going in costume is highly encouraged and pretty much essential to enjoying oneself — and join a 1920s Prohibition-era party in progress at the club, complete with ukulele players, magicians, singers, and a fabulous emcee, modern burlesque star Tansy.

Speakeasy Dollhouse creator Cynthia von Buhler in the Sargent Room at the Players Club, beneath John Singer Sargent’s portrait of Edwin Booth (photo by Maxine Nienow 2014)

But the party is haunted by the spirits of the brothers Booth (with Ryan Wesen as John and an excellent Eric Gravez as Edwin) and various characters in their lives, who reenact mysterious scenes from different decades in assorted rooms on multiple floors, recalling Sleep No More, involving sibling rivalry, the fight over John Wilkes Booth’s corpse, a traveling circus, a burned tattooed man (Dan Olson), and the murder of the president. There’s a battle over a coffin, a medium (Chrissy Basham) holding a séance, a sword fight, a puppet show, a spirit photographer, and a telling excerpt from Julius Caesar, all taking place over and over again as guests get drinks at various bars (credit cards only), ogle one another’s costumes, mingle with the various performers dressed as taxi dancers and gigolos, and snap photos to post on social media. (VIPs also get to watch Mark Twain [Lord Kat] play cards with Robert Todd Lincoln and hang out in the burlesque performers’ dressing room.) The layering of stories is murkier in this installment; unlike Speakeasy Dollhouse: The Bloody Beginning (which continues April 26 and May 10, 17, and 31 on the Lower East Side), it’s hard to tell who is who and when is when. Most of the guests are there to show off their 1920s garb and to drink, and the scenes are repetitive and often unclear. Still, the evening is theatrically ambitious, absolutely singular, and not to be missed by fans of New York City history willing to take a walk on the strange side, into the Players Club and into the dollhouse.

RANGERSTOWN HOCKEY HOUSE

Blueshirts fans unite at Hockey House at the Garden to cheer on the Rangers in the Stanley Cup playoffs (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Blueshirts fans unite at Hockey House outside the Garden to cheer on the Rangers in the Stanley Cup playoffs (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Madison Square Garden, North Plaza
Seventh Ave. at 33rd St.
April 26 (12 noon – 6:00 pm), 27 (9:00 – 11:30 am), 29 (5:00 – 10:00 pm), 30* (2:00 – 6:30 pm, if necessary), free
www.rangers.nhl.com
rangerstown hockey house slideshow

For the 2014 Stanley Cup playoffs, Madison Square Garden has transformed its North Plaza into Rangerstown Hockey House, a family-friendly interactive free festival of the only sport that matters. After signing a waiver (in which you must divulge various pieces of personal information) and getting patted down and wanded — really, MSG? At least they didn’t make us take off our hat and empty our pockets this time, like they do before hockey games — fans enter a space where they can participate in various skill contests, including stickhandling and accuracy shooting; get Rangers colors and logos shaved or stenciled into their hair as part of the charity Beard-a-Thon; check out historical memorabilia (Wayne Gretzky stuff next to Jay Wells’s!); win free merch; and take photos in a mini-locker room wearing the Broadway hat. Away games are broadcast on several flat-screen monitors and a large projection screen, with commercials superseded by a DJ. Former Rangers are on hand to offer pointers, sign autographs, and take part in between-periods interviews. On Friday night we chatted with Glenn Anderson and Brian Mullen; on April 26, Ron Duguay and Pete Stemkowski will be on hand from 12 noon to 3:00, followed by Jeff Beukeboom and Nick Fotiu from 3:00 to 6:00. Sunday morning will feature Adam Graves, Ron Greschner, and Anderson. The event will continue as long as the Blueshirts remain in postseason action; they are currently tied at two games apiece against the much-loathed Broad Street Bullies, with game 5 scheduled for April 27 at 12 noon at the Garden and game 6 taking place Tuesday night in Philly.

TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL: VENUS IN FUR

The relationship between actor and director becomes an intense psychosexual battle in Roman Polanski’s VENUS IN FUR

VENUS IN FUR (Roman Polanski, 2013)
Saturday, April 26, AMC Loews Village 7, Rush, 7:00
www.tribecafilm.com

For his third stage adaptation in ten years, following 1994’s Death and the Maiden and 2011’s Carnage, Roman Polanski has created a marvelous, multilayered examination of the intricate nature of storytelling, consumed with aspects of doubling. David Ives’s Tony-nominated play, Venus in Fur, is about a cynical theater director, Thomas Novachek, who is auditioning actresses for the lead in his next production, a theatrical version of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s psychosexual novella Venus in Furs (which led to the term “sado-masochism”), itself a man’s retelling of his enslavement by a woman. In the film, as he is packing up and about to head home, Thomas (Matthieu Amalric) is interrupted by Vanda (Emmanuelle Seigner), a tall blond who at first appears ditzy and unprepared, practically begging him to let her audition even though she isn’t on the casting sheet, then slowly taking charge as she reveals an intimate knowledge not only of his script but of stagecraft as well. An at-first flummoxed Thomas becomes more and more intrigued as Vanda performs the role of Wanda von Dunayev and he reads the part of Severin von Kushemski, their actor-director relationship intertwining with that of the characters’ dangerous and erotic attraction.

Roman Polanski directs wife Emmanuelle Seigner in thrilling stage adaptation of Tony-winning play

Roman Polanski directs wife Emmanuelle Seigner in thrilling stage adaptation of Tony-nominated play

Ives’s English-language play, which earned Nina Arianda a Tony for Best Actress, was set in an office, but Polanski, who cowrote the screenplay with Ives, has moved this French version to an old theater (the Théâtre Récamier in Paris, rebuilt by designer Jean Rabasse) where a musical production of John Ford’s Stagecoach has recently taken place, with some of the props still onstage, including a rather phallic (and prickly) cactus. Polanski has masterfully used the machinations of cinema to expand on the play while also remaining true to its single setting. One of the world’s finest actors, Amalric, who looks more than a little like a younger Polanski, is spectacular as the pretentious Thomas, his expression-filled eyes and herky-jerky motion defining the evolution of his character’s fascination with Vanda, while Seigner, who is Polanski’s wife, is a dynamo of breathless erotic power and energy, seamlessly weaving in and out of different aspects of Vanda. Venus in Fur was shot in chronological order with one camera by cinematographer Paweł Edelman, who has photographed Polanski’s last five feature films, making it feel like the viewer is onstage, experiencing the events in real time. Alexandre Desplat’s complex, gorgeous score is a character unto itself, beginning with the outdoor establishing shot of the theater. The film also contains elements that recall such previous Polanski works as The Tenant, Bitter Moon, Tess, and The Fearless Vampire Killers, placing it firmly within his impressive canon. Polanski was handed Ives’s script at Cannes in 2012, and this screen version was then shown at Cannes for the 2013 festival, a whirlwind production that is echoed in Seigner’s performance; perhaps what’s most amazing is that it is only now being presented in New York at the Tribeca Film Festival and will finally have its official U.S. theatrical release June 20.

THE GIRL AND DEATH

Nicolai (Leonid Bichevin) seeks to love and protect Elise (Sylvia Hoeks) in Jos Stelling’s THE GIRL AND DEATH

THE GIRL AND DEATH (HET MEISJE EN DE DOOD) (Jos Stelling, 2012)
Cinema Village
22 East 12th St. between University Pl. & Fifth Ave.
April 18-24
212-924-3363
www.hetmeisjeendedood.nl
www.cinemavillage.com

At first glance, Dutch filmmaker Jos Stelling’s The Girl and Death might seem like a costume drama period piece, but in actuality it’s a timeless and intimate look at true love and overwhelming heartbreak. As the film opens, an aging doctor (Sergey Makovetsky) lays flowers on a footstone in a graveyard, then enters a dilapidated building, casting his memories back to his younger self. A student traveling from Moscow to Paris, Nicolai (Leonid Bichevin) stops in a rural hotel on the outskirts of Leipzig. Upon first setting eyes on the beautiful Elise (Sylvia Hoeks), he becomes instantly smitten, despite her friend Nina’s (Renata Litvinova) warnings to stay away from her. The hotel, owned by an old count (German comedian Dieter Hallervorden), also serves as a brothel, and Elise is a courtesan who “belongs” to him. But Nicolai refuses to give up his pursuit of Elise, leading to real trouble for all concerned. Stelling (The Illusionist, Duska), who cowrote the script with Bert Rijkelijkhuizen, zeroes in on the central conflict, Nicolai and Elise’s desire to be together, avoiding subplots and overt social commentary (aside from the power of money). In fact, much of their relationship is spent gazing at each other, not even saying much; Stelling never shows either one outside the hotel grounds. It is as if they exist only in this singular context, with no past, and no other present save for what is shown on-screen. That conceit also works against the film, as the viewer is too often asked to take certain events for granted or simply accept them without question. But The Girl and Death, a German, Russian, and Dutch coproduction that won three Golden Calves at the Netherlands Film Festival (for Best Picture, Best Sound Design, and Best Cinematography), is gripping nonetheless, a painful, romantic portrait of love, jealousy, loyalty, innocence, dedication, and desperation.

POETRY IN MOTION SPRINGFEST

Grand Central Terminal, Vanderbilt Hall
89 East 42 St.
April 26-27, free, 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
www.grandcentralterminal.com

For more than twenty years, MTA Arts for Transit and Urban Design has been presenting “Poetry in Motion,” posting placards of poetry in subway cars. Since March 2012, the poems, selected in conjunction with the Poetry Society of America, have been pairing poetry with images from the permanent art installations from the Arts for Transit program. This weekend, the MTA and PSA are hosting Poetry in Motion Springfest, a two-day celebration of the written word. The free family-friendly party runs April 26 & 27 in Grand Central Terminal’s Vanderbilt Hall, where attendees can stop by “The Poet Is In” booth and receive a personally created poem from New York State Poet Laureate Marie Howe, Brooklyn Poet Laureate Tina Chang, or Bowery Poetry Club founder Bob Holman; visit “Poetry Projected,” consisting of interactive installations by Yu-Ting Feng (“Dear Deer,” in which you can help a deer get over writer’s block) and Sarah Rothberg (“Vital Signs: Pulse Poems,” where your pulse affects verses) as well as poetry projections by New Media artist and 2014 TED senior fellow Gabriel Barcia-Colombo, who teaches the Poetry Everywhere class with Howe in NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program; take part in “The Poet Is You” workshop (advance RSVP required) or “The Human Mic,” where you can step right up and read works by Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes, and Lucille Clifton; and check out live performances courtesy of the MTA’s Music Under New York program.