Chamber-opera adaptation of Willa Cather’s PAUL’S CASE kicks off 2014 Prototype festival
PROTOTYPE: OPERA/THEATRE/NOW
Multiple venues
January 8-19, $15-$25
Proto Packs: $75 for five shows, $90 for seven
866-811-4111
www.prototypefestival.org
Prototype: Opera/Theatre/Now, a festival of classical and postclassical musical-theater and chamber-opera works from around the world, returns for its second year, consisting of seven performances in five venues from January 8 to 19. Presented by Beth Morrison Projects and HERE, Prototype gets under way with the New York premiere of Paul’s Case (HERE, January 8-13), composer Gregory Spears and playwright Kathryn Walat’s chamber-opera adaptation of Willa Cather’s short story. Husband and wife Lauren Worsham and Kyle Jarrow’s Sky-Pony (HERE, January 10-13) investigates the four humors of Ancient Greek medicine, the Melancholic, the Sanguine, the Phlegmatic, and the Choleric, in a multimedia performance over four nights. In Thumbprints (Baruch Performing Arts Center, January 10-18), composer Kamala Sankaram and librettist Susan Yankowitz follow a Pakistani woman’s fight for justice in the aftermath of a so-called honor crime. Composer Jonathan Berger and librettist Dan O’Brien’s Visitations (Roulette, January 11-13) consists of a pair of haunting one-act chamber operas, Theotokia, involving a man taunted by the mother of God, and The War Reporter, based on the real-life experience of journalist Paul Watson. In Du Yun’s multigenre Angel’s Bone (Trinity Church, January 12-15), a couple tries to turn a horrific situation to their advantage. In Have a Good Day! (HERE, January 15-19), composer Lina Lapelytė, librettist Vaiva Grainytė, and director Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė go inside the minds of mall cashiers. And New York-born, Moscow-raised musician Elizaveta will give a special one-night-only performance at Joe’s Pub on January 17. There will also be a series of talkbacks following specific performances, and Prototype, Coil, Under the Radar, and American Realness have joined forces to present free live concerts every night from January 9 to 19 in the Lounge at the Public Theater, including Invincible, Christeene, Ethan Lipton, Heather Christian & the Arbonauts, Sky-Pony, Timur and the Dime Museum, the Middle Church Jerriesse Johnson Gospel Choir, M.A.K.U. Sound System, DJ Acidophilus, and Nick Hallett, Space Palace, and Woahmone DJs.
Take a little bit of Sergio Leone spaghetti Westerns, mix in a bunch of Saturday afternoon Kung-Fu Theater, add a touch of Japanese anime and a pinch of Sam Peckinpah’s “Salad Days,” and toss liberally with blood and guts and you’ll end up with Quentin Tarantino’s awesome gorefest about a wronged woman (Uma Thurman as Black Mamba, the Woman with No Name) seeking revenge against the people (Daryl Hannah, Vivica A. Fox, Lucy Liu, and David Carradine) who tried to kill her on her wedding day but made the fatal mistake of not finishing the job, with the only person apparently on her side being Hattori Hanzo, played by the great Sonny Chiba. Monty Python would be proud of all the limbs that are cut off and the comic blood that flows. Yeah, a lot of the movie is Tarantino just showing off, but there are enough gorgeous shots (Thurman fighting in the dark, silhouetted against a blue background; Thurman and Liu battling in the pristine white snow in a Japanese garden) that it is all worth it. And, of course, the soundtrack is just killer, as is Vol. 2, which followed a six months later. Vol. 1 is screening January 5 at 2:30 as part of the Museum of the Moving Image series “Zoë Bell: From Stuntwoman to Star,” which consists of five films in which the New Zealand actress gets to strut her stuff, not only as a stunt double for Thurman in the two Kill Bill films (Vol. 2 is being shown January 5 at 5:30), but also in more regular, credited roles in Drew Barrymore’s Whip It, Tarantino’s grindhouse flick Death Proof, and in the “Fist and Sword” presentation of Josh C. Waller’s Raze, which will be followed by a Q&A with Bell.