Dallas-based singer-songwriter Sarah Jaffe will be at the Northside Festival on June 16, highlighting songs from her latest record, 2012’s The Body Wins, which includes such tracks as “Mannequin Woman,” “The Way Sound Leaves a Room,” and “Sucker for Your Marketing,” in addition to her previous Kirtland Records disc, Suburban Nature. She’ll be at Europa at 10:00, followed by WHY?
Charles Pfaff (Everett Quinton, at back) serves thirsty drinkers mugs of beer at the Vault in MANNA-HATTA (photo by Dan Lane Williams)
The James A. Farley Post Office
425 Eighth Ave. at 31st St.
Thursday – Sunday through June 23, $18, 7:00
www.peculiarworks.org
Now in its twentieth year, Obie-winning theater company Peculiar Works Project has taken on quite a task for its latest immersive, site-specific show, telling the long, complex history of New York City in Manna-Hatta. Written by Barry Rowell and directed by Rowell and Kathleen Amshoff, Manna-Hatta features twenty actors playing more than one hundred roles as the production moves through a series of rooms and hallways on the third and fourth floors of the historic James A. Farley Post Office. The audience is divided into four sections, led by either presidential candidate Shirley Chisholm (Cherrye J. Davis), poet Walt Whitman (Christopher Hurt), author-activist Jane Jacobs (Catherine Porter), or Lenape chief Easanques (Tina Chilip). Examining power and corruption, immigration and corruption, city planning and corruption, business and corruption, and culture and discrimination, the show’s goal is stated at the very beginning when one of four men simultaneously playing W. Parker Chase announces, “We love New York and want everybody, everywhere, to know what a truly wonder city New York really is.” The four Parker Chases appear as a quartet throughout the show, including a terrific turn as the “Four Peters (Well, Three and a Half),” as they perform a song-and-dance number about Peter Stuyvesant, Peter Minuit, Peter Schagen, and Peter Cooper; Eric C. Bailey also plays Boss Tweed, Bradley Wells plays Robert Moses, J. Kelly Salvadore plays Jimmy Walker, and Everett Quinton plays Charles Ignatious Pfaff, among other characters. Quinton, the former artistic director of Charles Ludlam’s Ridiculous Theatrical Company, is particularly effective, radiating an infectious humor and energy that helps drive the show even during its slow patches, of which there are too many. Clocking in at about three hours and fifteen minutes (with a free-beer-and-pretzels intermission), Manna-Hatta is very long, especially since the audience is standing most of the time, although it’s fascinating to wander through the abandoned spaces, where plaques still identify employees and their positions, as if the workers all disappeared one night, leaving behind a kind of ghost town. Rowell and Amshoff try to squeeze in too much of New York’s history, and it gets confusing why they emphasize certain moments while giving short shrift to others, but it’s a still a rousing triumph, a lighthearted and fun if exhausting trip through Gotham, with some of the highlights being the unique way the troupe portrays the development of Manhattan’s street grid, the building of the Brooklyn Bridge, and the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire. Manna-Hatta continues Thursday–Sunday through June 23, with tickets only $18, but be prepared to do a lot of standing, walking, and stair climbing.
“Tiny Trifecta” offers small works of art by some big artists for a mere hundred bucks each at Cotton Candy Machine (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Cotton Candy Machine
235 South First St. at Roebling St.
Saturday, June 15, free admission, each artwork $100, 7:00 – 11:00 pm
Exhibit continues Tuesday – Sunday through July 7
718-387-3844
www.thecottoncandymachine.com
The line started forming on Thursday for “Tiny Trifecta,” Cotton Candy Machine’s third annual “tiny group show,” which opens on Saturday night at 7:00 (with preregistration beginning at 4:00). The exhibition features three small works of art apiece by more than eighty artists, each miniature drawing, painting, or sculpture available for a flat one hundred bucks on a first-come, first served basis — hence the line. The participating artists include many whose work sells for a whole lot more than a C-note, so this really is one heckuva great deal. Among those who will be selling a trio of very small works are Heather Benjamin, Victor Castillo, Becky Cloonan, Ron English, Gris Grimly, David Mack, Buff Monster, Martha Rich, Souther Salazar, Jeff Soto, Diana Sudyka, and Tara McPherson, who co-owns Cotton Candy Machine with Sean Leonard. You can preview many of the works online here; there’s a limit of two pieces of art per customer, and we’re telling you now to keep your hands off those Scrabble-tile superheroes, because they’re ours.
Father and son examine a possible new addition to their world-renowned restaurant in STEP UP TO THE PLATE
STEP UP TO THE PLATE (ENTRE LES BRAS) (Paul Lacoste, 2012)
Symphony Space, Leonard Nimoy Thalia
2537 Broadway at 95th St.
Sunday, June 16, 23, 30, $14, 5:00
212-864-5400
www.symphonyspace.org
www.cinemaguild.com
Culinary documentarian Paul Lacoste details the handing over of a world-renowned restaurant business from father to son in the appetizing if not wholly satiating Step Up to the Plate. In 1999, Lacoste kicked off his “Inventing Cuisine” series with an inside look at gourmet chef Michel Bras, followed by episodes focusing on Pierre Gagnaire, Gérald Passédat, Michel Troisgros, Olivier Roellinger, Michel Guérard, Pascal Barbot, Alain Passard, and Nadia Santini. Ten years later, when he learned that Michel was retiring and his son, Sébastien, would be taking over, Lacoste asked if he could document the transition, resulting in the Bras family welcoming the director into their restaurants and homes, although the results are sometimes surprisingly distant and empty rather than intimate and revealing. Over the course of four seasons, Lacoste follows Michel and his wife, Ginette, and Sébastien and his wife, Véronique, and their two kids from their franchise three-Michelin-star restaurant in the Aubrac region in the south of France to the glorious, stunning Michel Bras Toya Japon situated atop a mountain in Japan. Much of the film focuses on Sébastien creating a new dish, a special request from the director; the deeply intent chef stares at the plate, knowing something is missing but not sure what it is, the camera lingering, a bit too long, on his consternation. When he ultimately brings the dish to his demanding father, Sébastien declares, “Stop looking, taste it! Food is for eating,” to which Michel responds, “But you look at it first, you know.” It is fascinating to watch just how central a role food as both reality and concept plays in this close family’s life, especially as they entertain thoughts of a fourth generation someday grabbing the reins. But while Step Up to the Plate will leave you hungry to eat at their restaurants, it will also leave you hungry for more from the film itself. Step Up to the Plate is screening June 16, 23, and 30 at 5:00 as part of the ongoing Symphony Space series Thalia Docs.
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Illustrator Tomi Ungerer talks about his fascinating life in compelling documentary (photo by Sam Norval / Corner of the Cave Media)
FAR OUT ISN’T FAR ENOUGH: THE TOMI UNGERER STORY (Brad Bernstein, 2012)
Lincoln Plaza Cinema
1886 Broadway at 63rd St.
Opens Friday, June 14
212-757-2280
www.faroutthemovie.com
www.lincolnplazacinema.com
“I am a self-taught raving maniac, but not as crazy as Tomi, or as great as Tomi,” Maurice Sendak says early on in Brad Bernstein’s engaging documentary, Far Out Isn’t Far Enough: The Tomi Ungerer Story, adding, “He was disarming and funny and not respectable at all.” Another children’s book legend, Jules Feiffer, feels similarly, explaining, “Tomi was this wonderfully brilliant, innovative madman.” Born in Alsace in 1931, Tomi Ungerer developed a remarkably diverse career as an illustrator, incorporating the emotional turmoil he suffered after losing his father when he was still a young child and then living under Nazi rule. In Far Out Isn’t Far Enough, Ungerer takes Bernstein and the audience on a fascinating journey through his personal and professional life, traveling to Strasbourg, Nova Scotia, New York City, and Ireland, which all served as home to him at one time or another as he wrote and illustrated such picture books as The Three Robbers and Crictor for editor Ursula Nordstrom, made bold political posters in support of the civil rights movement and against the Vietnam War, and published a book of erotic drawings, Fornicon, that ultimately led to a twenty-three-year exile from America during which he stopped making books for children. “I am full of contradictions, and why shouldn’t I be?” the now-eighty-one-year-old Ungerer says in the film. Ungerer discusses how he uses fear, tragedy, and trauma as underlying themes in his stories, trusting that kids can handle that amid the surreal nature of his entertaining tales. He opens up his archives, sharing family photographs and old film footage, which reveal that he’s been pushing the envelope for a very long time, unafraid of the consequences. He also visits the Eric Carle Museum to check out a retrospective of his work for children, appropriately titled “Tomi Ungerer: Chronicler of the Absurd.” Meanwhile, Rick Cikowski animates many of Ungerer’s drawings, bringing to life his characters, both for children and adults, adding another dimension to this wonderful documentary. Far Out Isn’t Far Enough is a lively, engaging film about a seminal literary figure with an infectious love of life and art, and a unique take on the ills of society, that is a joy to behold. The film opens June 14 at Lincoln Plaza, with writer, editor, and curator Steven Heller, who appears in the documentary, leading intros and Q&As with Bernstein and Cikowski at several screenings on Friday and Saturday night.
David Kato fights for justice for members of the LGBT community in powerful CALL ME KUCHU
CALL ME KUCHU (Katherine Fairfax Wright & Malike Zouhali-Worrall, 2012)
Quad Cinema
34 West 13th St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
June 14-20
212-255-2243
www.quadcinema.com
www.callmekuchu.com
Later this month, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and other cities will celebrate gay pride as millions of marchers and spectators come together in parades, marches, and other events in which no one has to hide their sexuality. Such is not the case in Uganda, where many believe that being gay should lead to being executed — and that not turning in a gay friend or relative should result in life in prison. In the heartbreaking yet stirring Call Me Kuchu, codirectors Katherine Fairfax Wright, who also served as editor and photographer, and Malike Zouhali-Worrall, who also produced the award-winning documentary, go deep inside the LGBT community in Kampala, meeting with such gay and lesbian LGBT activists as Naome Ruzindana, Stosh Mugisha, John “Longjones” Abdallah Wambere, and movement leader David Kato, the first openly gay man in Uganda, who risk their lives on a daily basis as they fight for freedom and battle against the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, a draconian measure being strongly pushed by Member of Parliament David Bahati that threatens the lives of anyone and everyone involved in homosexual acts. As white American evangelicals come to Uganda to support the so-called Kill the Gays legislation, expelled Anglican Church bishop Senyonjo becomes a staunch defender of the LGBT community, the only religious leader to do so. Meanwhile, Giles Muhame, managing editor of Uganda’s popular Rolling Stone newspaper, proudly explains his mission of outing gays on the front cover of his publication, hoping that they get arrested, tried, convicted, and hanged by the government. But the activists won’t let that stop them. “If we keep on hiding,” Kato says, “they will say we are not here.” When tragedy strikes, everything is put into frightening perspective. Call Me Kuchu is a powerful examination of personal freedom and individual sexuality, a film that delves into the scary nature of repression, homophobia, and mob violence in an unforgiving, bigoted society. Call Me Kuchu, which was the closing-night selection of last year’s Human Rights Watch Film Festival, opens June 14 at the Quad, with many of the screenings followed by Q&As with Fairfax Wright and Zouhali-Worrall along with such special guests as Sanctuary NYC reverend Karen Osit, activist Frank Mugisha, Judson Memorial Church’s Micah Bucey, Believe Out Loud’s Joseph Ward, and others.
New York quartet the Young Things will be playing the Northside Festival on June 14, celebrating the release of their debut album, Hello Love/Goodbye Sexual (Battle Worldwide, June 4). On the record, Mike, Josh, Neil, and Jon channel the Beatles circa 1966-68, with some Queen and Pink Floyd thrown in for good measure, creating a garage-based kind of NYC Britpop — the LP was produced by Lenny Kaye — on such tracks as “No One Taught You How to Fall in Love Alone,” “All Human Life,” and “Sore Eyes.” On “Hello Love,” they sing, “Hello, love, I’m writing you to tell you how I’ve been / Money’s tight and times are tough across the Brooklyn Bridge.” They’ll be on the Brooklyn side of the (Williamsburg) bridge Friday night at the Grand Victory with the Boxing Lesson, Purple, Spires, and headliners Har Mar Superstar, who make a guest appearance on the Young Thing’s “Goodbye Sexual.” (For a look at Mike playing two acoustic tracks from the record on Jon Chattman’s “A-Sides Sessions” Huffington Post video show, go here and here.)