this week in (live)streaming

JOHN EARLY SELECTS: MAPS TO THE STARS

Jerome Fontana (Robert Pattinson) and Agatha Weiss (Mia Wasikowska) look to the Hollywood hills in Maps to the Stars

MAPS TO THE STARS (David Cronenberg, 2014)
Metrograph
7 Ludlow St. between Canal & Hester Sts.
Wednesday, March 9, 4:45 and 7:15
Metrograph at Home, March 12-14
www.focusfeatures.com
nyc.metrograph.com

Actor and comedian John Early’s latest selection for Metrograph is an underrated gem. Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg and American novelist and screenwriter Bruce Wagner, a match made in Hollywood Babylon, paint a savage portrait of celebrity culture in the absolutely incendiary and off-the-charts satire Maps to the Stars. The darkly funny comic drama centers on Agatha Weiss (Mia Wasikowska), a young woman who returns to Hollywood after having been put away for a long time for a dangerous deed, her face and body marked by burns. Befriending limo driver Jerome Fontana (Robert Pattinson), who is an aspiring actor and writer, Agatha gets a job working for disgruntled actress Havana Segrand (Julianne Moore), who is desperate to star in the remake of Stolen Moments, playing the role that made her mother, Clarice Taggart (Sarah Gadon), famous, but Havana fears that according to Hollywood she is much too old. Havana undergoes regular intense physical and psychological therapy to deal with her mommy issues with television healer Stafford Weiss (John Cusack), Agatha’s father, who has banished his daughter from ever contacting the family again. Meanwhile, Agatha’s younger brother, thirteen-year-old child star Benjie Weiss (Evan Bird), is a Bieberesque character fresh out of rehab who is negotiating the sequel to his massive hit, Bad Babysitter, with his very serious stage mom, Cristina (Olivia Williams). Slowly but surely, everyone’s lives intersect in a riot of fame and misfortune, drugs and guns, ghosts and incest.

Havana Segrand (Julianne Moore) screams for success in dazzling collaboration between David Cronenberg and Bruce Wagner

Cronenberg, who has made such cult favorites as Scanners, The Fly, Naked Lunch, and A History of Violence, and the L.A.-based Wagner, author of such stinging novels as I’ll Let You Go, Still Holding, The Empty Chair, and I’m Losing You, which he also turned into a film, leave nothing and no one unscathed in this thoroughly brutal depiction of Hollywood as a haunted La La Land of dreams and nightmares, both literally and figuratively. Rising star Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland, In Treatment, Jane Eyre) is superb as Agatha, her inner and outer scars revealing more and more of themselves as she reinserts herself into the life of her crazy family, with Cusack channeling a bit of Nicolas Cage as the overprotective patriarch, a self-help guru who could use a little help himself. Moore was named Best Actress at Cannes for her harrowing portrayal of an actress teetering on the edge of reality.

Shooting for the first time ever in the United States, Cronenberg captures the sights and smells of Los Angeles and its environs; most of the film was shot in Canada, however, but Cronenberg kept Wagner, a former Hollywood limo driver himself, close by, trying to attain as much authenticity as possible. Twilight hunk Pattinson, who spent all of Cronenberg’s previous movie, Cosmopolis, in the back of a limo, gets in the driver’s seat here, playing an alternate, reimagined version of Wagner. The severely screwed-up Weiss family serves as a microcosm for Hollywood’s own severely screwed-up dysfunction, as Cronenberg melds the ridiculous with the sublime, the tragic with the comic, the bizarre with the, well, more bizarre, creating a modern-day fairy-tale mashup of Shakespeare and Williams, Sunset Boulevard and Less than Zero, a caustic, cautionary tale of the price you pay for getting what you wish for. Maps to the Stars, with an introduction by Early (Search Party, The Afterparty), is screening March 9 at 4:45 and 7:15 at Metrograph, then will be streaming March 12-14 as part of Metrograph at Home.

A BENEFIT FOR UKRAINE

Who: Eugene Hütz, Gogol Bordello, Craig Finn & Franz Nicolay, Jesse Malin, Lady Lamb, Marc Roberge, Matisyahu, Patti Smith, Stephin Merritt, Suzanne Vega, more
What: Benefit concert for Ukraine and the Come Back Alive Foundation
Where: City Winery on Mandolin
When: Thursday, March 10, $20, 8:00
Why: City Winery’s all-star benefit for Ukraine sold out almost instantly, but you can still catch it from the comfort of your own home while donating to help a sovereign nation deeply in need of support, with nearly two million refugees seeking new places to live. City Winery will be livestreaming the show, raising funds for Ukraine and the Come Back Alive Foundation, an organization, founded in 2014, that declares: “Ukraine is the Shield of Europe. We believe that a threat to freedom anywhere is a threat to freedom everywhere. We are here defending the values we share across Europe and the world. We are doing our best to make sure Putin’s values do not spread further, even beyond our borders. Our Army is strong and determined, but they are underequipped.”

For a mere twenty bucks, you can watch a parade of musicians take the stage at the Far West Side venue, hosted by Eugene Hütz and his band, Gogol Bordello; Hütz was born in Ukraine to a Russian father and a Ukrainian mother. “Ukraine belongs to Ukrainians! We are an ancient independent nation distinctly and forever different from this criminally insane neighbor,” Hütz said in a statement. “The proof you all see now in the fierce mind-blowing battle that the world is witnessing, a battle of Ukrainian people’s choice of freedom and democracy against a psychotic totalitarian regime next door. Please help us to win this battle, help us to end this catastrophe immediately and bring the intruder to justice. Please stand with Ukraine in the battle for its democracy and freedom. Please donate and fundraise with us. Ukraine needs all of you. All your support counts.”

The lineup, so far, includes Craig Finn and Franz Nicolay of the Hold Steady, Jesse Malin, Lady Lamb, Marc Roberge of O.A.R., Matisyahu, Patti Smith, Stephin Merritt of the Magnetic Fields, and Suzanne Vega. You can also join the waitlist to see the concert live and in person. Хай живе, вільна Україна!

CELEBRATING MOLIÈRE’S 400th BIRTHDAY

Who: Lisa Gorlitsky, Margaret Ivey, Postell Pringle, Adam Gopnik, Erica Schmidt, Comédie-Française
What: Celebration of Molière’s quadricentennial
Where: FIAF, Florence Gould Hall and Skyroom, 55 East 59th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
When: March 10-12, 24, 30, $20-$45 (three-event package $75)
Why: Jean-Baptiste Poquelin was born into a bourgeois family in early 1622 in Paris. Nicknamed “le Nez” because of his relatively large proboscis, he eventually became better known as poet, playwright, and actor Molière. In celebration of the four hundredth anniversary of his birth, the French Institute Alliance Française is hosting a trio of special events. Taking place March 10-12 at 7:30 ($45) at FIAF’s Florence Gould Hall, “Molière Turns 400: 17th Century Paris Meets 21st Century New York” consists of staged excerpts, complete with sets, costumes, and live music, from The Misanthrope, The School for Wives, and Tartuffe, with Lisa Gorlitsky, Margaret Ivey, and Postell Pringle and directed by Lucie Tiberghien, the founding artistic director of Molière in the Park, which performed livestreamed adaptations of all three works during the pandemic lockdown. The March 10 presentation will be followed by a reception.

Ivo van Hove’s adaptation of Molière’s uncensored Tartuffe screens at FIAF March 24

On March 24 at 7:00 ($25), New Yorker staff writer Adam Gopnik and director Erica Schmidt will be at the FIAF Skyroom for the talk “Modernizing Molière,” available in person and via livestream. Gopnik contributed the foreword to Molière: The Complete Richard Wilbur Translations, while Schmidt directed Molière’s The Imaginary Invalid at Bard SummerScape in 2012, starring her husband, Peter Dinklage. The fête concludes March 30 at 7:00 ($35) in Florence Gould Hall with a screening of Molière’s uncensored Tartuffe or the Hypocrite by Comédie-Française, directed by Ivo van Hove from the original script, which was censored by Louis XIV in 1664; the filmed version stars Christophe Montenez and features a score by Oscar-winning composer Alexandre Desplat.

THIS BITTER EARTH

Jesse (Damian Jermaine Thompson) and Neil (Tom Holcomb) face several crises in This Bitter Earth (photo by Mike Marques)

THIS BITTER EARTH
TheaterWorks Hartford online (and in person)
March 7-20, $20 virtual, $25 – $65 in person
twhartford.org

“This bitter earth / Well, what a fruit it bears / What good is love / Mmh, that no one shares? / And if my life is like the dust / Ooh, that hides the glow of a rose / What good am I? / Heaven only knows,” Dinah Washington sings in her 1960 number one hit, “This Bitter Earth.” The song plays at the end of TheaterWorks Hartford’s production of Harrison David Rivers’s This Bitter Earth, being performed onstage and streamed on demand through March 20.

The tender and moving, if earnest, play stars Damian Jermaine Thompson and Tom Holcomb as a mixed-race thirtyish couple facing different kinds of trauma in New York City and St. Paul, Minnesota, between March 2012 and December 2015. The serious Jesse Howard (Thompson) is a Black playwright with a burgeoning career; the more outgoing Neil Finley-Darden (Tom Holcomb) is a white Black Lives Matter activist from a wealthy family. While Neil feels grounded in his life and confident in his purpose, Jesse is much more on edge; in fact, he has a troubled relationship with gravity.

“Sometimes — and scientists may refute this, but fuck them — sometimes I can feel the Earth move. And not like tremors or earthquakes, tornados or hurricanes. This is not a matter of wind or tectonic plates but rather a matter of chemistry. Body chemistry. My body chemistry,” Jesse says in one of numerous short monologues he delivers directly to the audience. “I find it strange that others can’t feel it — the rotation. Strange and a bit lonely.”

The play takes place in their spacious Harlem bedroom, with large windows that often show snow falling, a coldness hovering over everything. (The attractive set is by Riw Rakkulchon.) “It’s the way that history isn’t history at all. Or, at least, the way that it doesn’t stay in the past. The way that the past fucks the present,” Neil tells us. The narrative goes back and forth in time, from when Jesse and Neil first meet and fall for each other, to the current day, amid several tragedies. Each flashback adds a bit more to the story, further developing the characters and certain key aspects of the story, which revolve around the murders of innocent Black men at the hands of white police officers and other citizens, from Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown to Jamar Clark and the Charleston church shooting.

Tom Holcomb and Damian Jermaine Thompson star as lovers who look at the world differently in TheaterWorks Hartford production (photo by Mike Marques)

But Rivers offers a neat twist on expectations, as Neil seems more intent on doing something about it than Jesse does. “You know, you accuse me of my white guilt, but what about yr apathy?” Neil declares as he prepares to take a van to a protest in Ferguson, Missouri. Jesse explains that he can’t go because he has rehearsals. “You know, yr not the center of the universe, Jesse. No one has that kind of gravitational pull. Not even you,” Neil says before leaving.

Their fights, which are no different from those of straight couples of the same race, often end in loving embraces, with clothes coming off as they roll around on the bed; their passion is evident throughout, even with their distractions. (There’s plenty for fight and intimacy director Rocío Mendez to do, as well as costume designer Devario D. Simmons.) But a common theme keeps arising, that of Jesse’s desire to live life like a regular person, whatever that is these days. “Yr a fucking double minority, Jesse,” Neil says, to which Jesse responds, “What does that have to do with anything?” Be sure to bring tissues for the conclusion.

Affectionately directed by David Mendizábal (Tell Hector I Miss Him, On the Grounds of Belonging) with almost too much thoughtful understanding, This Bitter Earth is a sensitive story of love in difficult times. The stream is well shot with multiple cameras in front of an audience, feeling like a theatrical work and not a film. The show, which premiered in 2017 at San Francisco’s New Conservatory Theatre Center, is even more cogent today, with the murders of Elijah McClain, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and so many others occurring since the play’s debut. Rivers (Broadbend, Arkansas; When We Last Flew) has Jesse quote extensively from gay Black poet and activist Essex Hemphill, a hero of Jesse’s and, apparently, the playwright’s; the story works much better when Jesse speaks for himself.

Thompson (Fly, The Brother/Sister Plays) and Holcomb (London Assurance, Transport) have a sweet chemistry; you can’t help but root for Jesse and Neil through their hardships, trying to survive, as individuals and as a couple, in a world that needs to be seen as more than just black or white, straight or gay, male or female. As Washington sings, “Oh, this bitter earth / Yes, can it be so cold? / Today you’re young / Too soon you’re old / But while a voice / Within me cries / I’m sure someone / May answer my call / And this bitter earth, ooh / May not, oh, be so bitter after all.”

SACRED SCREENS AND SCROLLS: DECODING BUDDHIST SYMBOLS IN SHIKŌ MUNAKATA’S PRINTS

D. Max Moerman will lead a virtual walkthrough of Japan Society exhibition on March 8

Who: D. Max Moerman, Ramona Handel-Bajema, PhD
What: Virtual discussion and walkthrough of “Shikō Munakata: A Way of Seeing,” on view at Japan Society through March 20
Where: Japan Society YouTube
When: Tuesday, March 8, free with RSVP (suggested donation $5-$20), 6:00
Why: On March 8 at 6:00, Barnard College professor and Columbia University Seminar in Buddhist Studies cochair D. Max Moerman will give the online lecture “Sacred Screens and Scrolls: Decoding Buddhist Symbols in Shikō Munakata’s Prints,” a deep dive into the current Japan Society exhibition “Shikō Munakata: A Way of Seeing.” Joined in conversation by Japan Society chief program officer Ramona Handel-Bajema, PhD, Moerman will walk through the show, which features nearly one hundred works by Munakata (1903-75), comprising woodblock prints, calligraphy, sumi ink paintings, watercolors, lithography, and ceramics.

“How does the artist breathe life into his work? By summoning the spirit of the art that lives inside him. . . . Power comes from the artist’s spirit, warmth from his tenderness, and serenity from his prayers,” Munakata explained in Hanga no Hanashi in 1954. Five years later, he came to New York City as a fellow in Japan Society’s Print Artists Program; several of the pieces he created for the institution are also part of the show. Moerman will focus on religious aspects of Munakata’s work, including the six-panel screen Eulogy to Shōkei and the twelve-set hanging scrolls The Ten Great Disciples of Buddha. The exhibit, which will have extended days and hours because of its popularity, also is highlighted by the newly rediscovered Tōkaidō Series from 1964, arranged at Japan Society to evoke the coastal road between Kyoto and Tokyo.

RED BULL THEATER CELEBRATES MARGARET CAVENDISH

Who: Red Bull Theater company
What: Livestreamed Zoom conversation, benefit reading, and Bull Session surrounding Margaret Cavendish’s The Convent of Pleasure
Where: Red Bull Theater website, Facebook Live, and YouTube
When: Conversation Monday, March 7, suggested donation $25, 7:30; benefit reading Monday, March 14, suggested donation $25, 7:30; Bull Session Thursday, March 17, free on YouTube with live chat, 7:30
Why: “Nature is material, or corporeal, and so are all her Creatures, and whatsoever is not material is no part of Nature, neither doth it belong any ways to Nature,” wrote duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and polymath Lady Margaret Lucas Cavendish. Red Bull Theater is turning to the seventeenth-century poet, philosopher, aristocrat, scientist, fiction author, and playwright for Women’s History Month, presenting an online reading and discussions about her 1668 comedy, The Convent of Pleasure. The play, a closet drama not intended to be performed onstage and dealing with women who believe they can live a fulfilling life without men, features wealthy noblewoman Lady Happy, her friend the widow Madam Mediator, the anti-convent Monsieur Take-Pleasure, the married Lady Amorous and Lady Vertue, Mimick the fool, and a cross-dressing prince/princess suitor.

Lady Margaret Cavendish’s The Convent of Pleasure will be explored extensively by Red Bull

“Let me tell you, that Riches ought to be bestowed on such as are poor, and want means to maintain themselves; and Youth, on those that are old; Beauty, on those that are ill-favoured; and Virtue, on those that are vicious: So that if I should place my gifts rightly, I must Marry one that’s poor, old, ill-favoured, and debauch’d,” Lady Happy says early in the play. “Put the case I should Marry the best of Men, if any best there be; yet would a Marry’d life have more crosses and sorrows then pleasure, freedom, or hapiness: nay Marriage to those that are virtuous is a greater restraint then a Monastery. Or, should I take delight in Admirers? they might gaze on my Beauty, and praise my Wit, and I receive nothing from their eyes, nor lips; for Words vanish as soon as spoken, and Sights are not substantial. Besides, I should lose more of my Reputation by their Visits, then gain by their Praises. Or, should I quit Reputation and turn Courtizan, there would be more lost in my Health, then gained by my Lovers, I should find more pain then Pleasure; besides, the troubles and frights I should be put to, with the Quarrels and Brouilleries that Jealous Rivals make, would be a torment to me; and ’tis only for the sake of Men, when Women retire not: And since there is so much folly, vanity and falshood in Men, why should Women trouble and vex themselves for their sake; for retiredness bars the life from nothing else but Men.”

On March 7, Red Bull will host the Zoom discussion “The Closet or the Stage? A Conversation about Margaret Cavendish’s The Convent of Pleasure,” with University of Tennessee professor and author Misty G. Anderson; University of Toronto associate professor Liza Blake, editor of Margaret Cavendish’s Poems and Fancies: A Digital Critical Edition; Columbia University professor Julie Crawford, author of the upcoming Margaret Cavendish’s Political Career; and Carnegie Mellon professor emeritus, curator, and author Kristina Straub.

The reading, directed by Kim Weild (American Moor, Paradise Now), will be held the following Monday at 7:30, in association with the R/18 Collective, which “believes the theatrical repertoire from the 1660s to the 1830s provides insights into the deep histories of race, gender, sexuality, ability, nation, and capital that continue to shape anglophone culture and the world.” The cast includes Heidi Armbruster, Becca Ayers, Talley Gale, Cloteal Horne, Rami Margron, Anthony Michael Martinez, Maria-Christina Oliveras, and Josh Tyson. And then, on March 17, a free Bull Session with Weild, cast members, and scholars will take place on YouTube, with a live chat.

THE 35th ANNUAL TIBET HOUSE US BENEFIT CONCERT

Who: Philip Glass, Keanu Reeves, Trey Anastasio, Patti Smith, Laurie Anderson, Cyndi Lauper, Gogol Bordello, Nathaniel Rateliff, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, Angélique Kidjo, Margo Price, Punch Brothers, the Fiery Furnaces, Jesse Paris Smith, Tenzin Choegyal, Rubin Kodheli, Camerata — Queensland’s Chamber Orchestra, the Scorchio Quartet, Paul Simon, Stephen Colbert, Iggy Pop, Bernard Sumner
What: Annual benefit concert for Tibet House US
Where: Mandolin streaming platform
When: Thursday, March 3, $25-$250, 8:00
Why: The annual Tibet House US benefit fundraiser always features a wide-ranging group of special guests, gathering under the leadership of artistic director Philip Glass. The thirty-fifth annual event is no exception, with the added celebration of Glass’s eighty-fifth birthday. This year’s performers will once again be streaming in live and prerecorded from around the world instead of joining together at Carnegie Hall. The roster includes Glass, Trey Anastasio, Patti Smith, Laurie Anderson, Cyndi Lauper, Gogol Bordello, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, Angélique Kidjo, Punch Brothers, the Fiery Furnaces, and others as well as greetings from the Scorchio Quartet, Paul Simon, Stephen Colbert, Iggy Pop, and Bernard Sumner.

All proceeds benefit Tibet House US, “a nonprofit educational institution and cultural embassy that was founded at the request of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who at the inauguration in 1987 stated his wish for a long-term cultural institution to ensure the survival of Tibetan civilization and culture, whatever the political destiny of the six million people of Tibet itself.” Tickets start at $25, with additions of a Katak blessing scarf, limited edition benefit poster, event T-shirt, mala beads, and more at higher levels.