twi-ny recommended events

OF MICE AND MEN

Chris O’Down and James Franco both make their Broadway debut in revival of John Steinbeck classic (photo by Richard Phibbs)

Longacre Theatre
220 West 48th St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through July 27, $37 – $147
www.ofmiceandmenonbroadway.com

Chris O’Dowd steals the show as an endearing gentle giant who doesn’t know his own strength in Anna D. Shapiro’s riveting new production of John Steinbeck’s American classic Of Mice and Men, the first Broadway revival of the 1937 play in forty years. O’Dowd stars as Lennie Small, a large man with the mind of a child who has a penchant for petting nice things. He is out on the road with his best friend, George Milton (James Franco), a stand-up guy who takes care of him and finds work for them as migrant ranch hands. They had to leave their previous job in a hurry after Lennie caused trouble involving a young woman and her pretty dress, and they are now headed for another ranch, where they’re hoping to save up enough money bucking barley bags to get a little plot of land for themselves. George regularly makes Lennie tell them about their best-laid plans: “Some day we’re gonna get the jack together and we’re gonna have a little house, and a couple of acres and a cow and some pigs and . . .” George says before being interrupted by Lennie, who chimes in, “and live off the fat of the land! And have rabbits. Go on, George! Tell about what we’re gonna have in the garden. And about the rabbits.” Among the people they meet at the ranch are Candy (Jim Norton), an older man with a mangy dog; Slim (Jim Parrack), the jerk-line skinner who takes a liking to George and Lennie; Carlson (Joel Marsh Garland), a stout fellow who can’t wait to shoot Candy’s dog; Crooks (Ron Cephas Jones), a bitter black man whose color segregates him from the rest of the men; and the Boss (Jim Ortlieb), who just wants everyone to do their jobs with as few problems as possible. But the biggest danger is the Boss’s son, Curley (Alex Morf), a small, angry man with a chip on his shoulder, both about his size as well as how some of the guys look at his very attractive and flirty wife (Leighton Meester). However, despite trying so hard, Lennie finds himself in trouble yet again, leading to a tragic finale.

George (James Franco) and Lennie (Chris O’Dowd) share a rare laugh in OF MICE AND MEN revival (photo by Richard Phibbs)

Thoughtfully directed by Anna D. Shapiro (August: Osage County, Domesticated) with grace and tenderness, the show focuses on the concept of single-handedness, emphasizing the loneliness experienced by all of the characters. O’Dowd, as Lennie, uses his left hand almost like a conductor’s baton to help express himself and get his words out; while he remains by George’s side, he desperately wants something to pet and take care of, be it a mouse or a dog or other preferably living thing. Candy, played by the ever-dependable Norton, has only one hand, and he can’t imagine facing life alone if he allows Carlson to kill his dog. Crooks, so used to everyone steering clear of him because he’s black, is surprised when first Lennie, then others, suddenly come into his room, which is away from where the rest of the men stay. “You got no right to come in my room. This here’s my room. Nobody got any right in here but me,” he tells Lennie, who comes in anyway. When Curley attacks Lennie, it’s Curley’s hand, the one he keeps extra soft for his wife, that Lennie grabs. Even the “couples” in the play deal with the issue. Curley and his wife are never seen together, always looking for each other. And Slim makes a special note of Lennie and George’s relationship, which he alone seems to understand. “Hardly none of the guys ever travels around together. I hardly never seen two guys travel together,” he says to George. “You know how the hands are. They come in and go on alone. Never seem to give a damn about nobody. Jest seems kinda funny. A cuckoo like him and a smart guy like you traveling together.” Indeed, it’s no coincidence that the nearest town is Soledad, which means “loneliness” in Spanish and is where the men go to seek paid female accompaniment.

Lennie (Chris O’Dowd) and Curley’s wife (Leighton Meester) talk about their dreams in OF MICE AND MEN (photo by Richard Phibbs)

Film and television stars O’Dowd (Bridesmaids, Girls), Franco (127 Hours, Freaks and Geeks), and Meester (Country Strong, Gossip Girl) avail themselves well in their Broadway debuts; Meester adds a deep richness to Curley’s unnamed wife, who is often portrayed as more of a floozy, while Franco is smart and solid alongside O’Dowd’s mesmerizing performance, a pair previously played by such duos as Wallace Ford and Broderick Crawford, Kevin Conway and James Earl Jones, George Segal and Nicol Williamson, Robert Blake and Randy Quaid, Burgess Meredith and Lon Chaney Jr., and Gary Sinise and John Malkovich. The rest of the cast is stellar as well, with particularly fine turns by the ever-dependable Norton (The Mystery of Edwin Drood, The Seafarer) and the Texas-born Parrack (True Blood), Todd Rosenthal’s sets range from the bank of the Salinas River, where George and Lennie take a load off, to the bunkhouse, which looks more like a prison, representing the death of the American dream in the wake of the depression. Seventy-seven years after it first arrived on Broadway, Of Mice and Men is still a powerful, and relevant, examination of loneliness, friendship, and the struggle to survive in hard times.

JAMES FRANCO: NEW FILM STILLS

“I’m getting bored,” James Franco writes in the poem accompanying “Untitled Film Still #58,” his re-creation of the Cindy Sherman original

Pace Gallery
534 West 25th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Through Saturday, May 3, free, 19:00 am – 6:00 pm
212-989-4258
www.thepacegallery.com

Right up front, we need to admit that we consider ourselves to be Francophiles. We have full admiration and respect for the many guises worn by James Franco. From his days as Daniel Desario on Freaks and Geeks to his work in such films as 127 Hours, Milk, and Rise of the Planet of the Apes, from novels and writings to appearances in art films by Paul McCarthy and Isaac Julien, through his current Broadway debut in Of Mice and Men. So at first, we were more than willing to give Franco, who just turned thirty-six, the benefit of the doubt with his latest gallery installation, “New Film Stills,” which continues at Pace through May 3. For the project, Franco re-created (in general, not painstaking detail) more than two dozen of Cindy Sherman’s seminal “Untitled Film Stills,” in which Sherman photographed herself as different female protagonists from 1977 to 1980, as if playing clichéd woman characters in unknown movies, commenting on gender and class identity, power, and the male gaze. Walking through the gallery, we found ourselves entertained by Franco’s homage/appropriation as he, replete with beard and mustache, lounged on a bed in lingerie, examined himself in a mirror, stood outside wearing a hat or kerchief, or walked gingerly down steps. “Cindy is an artist who used cinema as a source for her work; she ‘played’ at being an actress,” Franco has said about the series. “I am an actor who inserts himself into his work. Where Cindy used cinema as a starting place, I use art as a starting place.”

James Franco name-checks D. H. Lawrence, Jack Nicholson, and Dennis Hopper in poem about “Untitled Film Still #42”

But upon further investigation, including perusing the catalog, the cover of which also mimics Sherman’s, we actually grew somewhat agitated and angry at the well-intentioned Franco. Part of the beauty of Sherman’s original photographs were their originality, as well as the mystery and magic that accompanied each one; they were untitled in order to let viewers enjoy and interpret them on an individual basis. In the introduction to the Franco catalog, American academic, poet, and Franco mentor Frank Bidart writes, “To my eye, there’s nothing ‘camp’ about this male figure inhabiting the scenes and tensions and atmospheres in Sherman’s photographs. Just as there is nothing camp or ironic or mocking when he doesn’t imitate them.” They might not be camp, but they lack the magic and mystery — and, of course, originality — of their primogenitors, eventually feeling lazy before unraveling when you read Franco’s accompanying poetry, which is available only in the catalog and comes off more like a school project. Franco has written a poem — four quatrains, some with an additional line — for each of Sherman’s sixty-nine stills. In “Untitled Film Still #27b,” in which Sherman/Franco holds a cocktail glass, a mascara’d tear running down the left side of his/her face, Franco writes, “Living inside one’s skull / Unable to communicate with the outside. / Are we all artists or is a bunch just / Crazy and another bunch just boring? / Tennessee Williams’s sister Rose / Went nuts and was lobotomized / And Tenn put such material into his work. / Did he disrespect her or help us all / By giving us The Glass Menagerie?” In the end, Franco is disrespecting both Sherman, whom he calls “a hero in my pantheon,” and the viewer by deciding what each photograph might or might not mean while name-dropping famous movies, books, and locations. When philosopher and art critic Arthur C. Danto asked Sherman, “Why did you stop doing the untitled film stills?” she responded, “I ran out of clichés.” In the end, “clichés” are exactly where Franco’s misappropriation begins.

TICKET GIVEAWAY: THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOSH

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOSH: A 28-YEAR GENTILE BAR MITZVAH
The Players Theatre
115 Macdougal St. between Bleecker & West Third Sts.
May 16-18, $47.50 ($34.50 with code: FRIENDS)
866-811-4111
www.gospeljosh.com

Rocked by his father’s suicide, actor Josh Rivedal soon found himself on the ledge of a fourth-floor window, considering following his father’s lead. But he was able to right himself and get his life back on track, a journey detailed in his book and one-man show, The Gospel According to Josh: A 28-Year Gentile Bar Mitzvah. A comedy with musical numbers in which Rivedal plays thirty characters, including various family members and Maury Povich, Sammy Davis Jr., and Elvis Presley, the inspirational show has traveled across the country, raising awareness about suicide. It returns to New York City next month, with proceeds benefiting the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

TICKET GIVEAWAY: The Gospel According to Josh: A 28-Year Gentile Bar Mitzvah will be at the Players Theatre for four special performances May 16-18, and twi-ny has two pairs of tickets to give away for free. Just send your name, daytime phone number, and most memorable play or movie that deals with suicide to contest@twi-ny.com by Wednesday, April 30, at 5:00 to be eligible. All entrants must be twenty-one years of age or older; two winners will be selected at random.

BIAN DANG

Nick Lin and Diane Yang serve Taiwanese specialties in Midtown (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

TAIWANESE LUNCH BOX
Monday through Friday, approximately 11:30 am – 2:00 pm
212-695-5995
www.biandangnyc.com

In a few weeks, our offices are moving way downtown, so we’re not sure what we’re going to do without our weekly Taiwanese fix from our favorite food truck, Bian Dang. Originally hitting the street as Cravings in April 2009, Bian Dang, which means “lunch box” in Mandarin, was started by siblings Diane and Thomas Yang, along with silent partner Eric Yu. Diane was not expecting what was an experiment at first to last so long. “We always knew New York City needed a stronger representation of solid Taiwanese food but really didn’t expect to be blessed with so many supportive customers!,” she told me last week. “A lot of these guys have been with us since we opened and now, five years later, they’re still coming back for lunch every week. The food truck game has changed dramatically over the past five years, forcing us to constantly reinvent ourselves and cater to the changing landscape while also trying to stay true to our roots and our classics. I guess that’s been the real challenge.” The truck used to change locations every day, but now it has found a home at the southeast corner of 53rd St. and Park Ave., where Diana, Taipei-born Joanne Wu, Nick Lin, and others dish out large portions of Taiwanese-style fried chicken and fried pork chops over jasmine rice mixed with intensely fabulous pan-fried pickled mustard greens and minced pork sauce, a family recipe created by the Yangs’ grandmother. The menu also includes excellent meat or vegetarian zong-zi (sticky rice in bamboo leaves), tea eggs, pork buns, beef stew (with tendons!), and several awesome new additions, which are available on a rotating basis: pork belly, basil chicken, and panko-crusted chicken and pork cutlets. All main courses are seven to nine dollars; high-fives are free.

The popular Bian Dang food truck has found a home at 53rd St. & Park Ave. (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Lines can get long, but even though they move fast, you can order in advance through Bian Dang’s Twitter feed. They’ve also recently been expanding, first with the Fishing Shrimp truck, then the Fun Buns Cart, which is owned and operated by Lin and will be back on the streets in May, as well as with Domo Taco and Moo Shu Grill (MSG, get it?); the latter serves extremely tasty moo shus in toasted flour wrappers, three for nine dollars, or in rice bowls; you can choose among five-spice pork, basil chicken, XOXO beef, tofu, Peking duck (for an extra buck), and pork belly, with cilantro, hoisin sauce, cucumbers, pickled carrots, daikon, and ginger scallion aioli. Friendly service and a unique menu have kept us, and many, many others, coming back for more; we’re gonna have to figure out how to extend our lunch hour once we move out of Midtown.

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.