this week in (live)streaming

INDEPENDENCE DAY AT FRAUNCES TAVERN: THE PATH TO LIBERTY

Henry Hintermeister, Retreat to Victory, oil on canvas (gift of Charles Lauriston Livingston, Jr. / courtesy of Fraunces Tavern Museum)

Who: Scott Dwyer, Lisa Goulet, Peter Hein, Seth Kaller, Charles (Chuck) Schwam, Lloyd S. Kramer, Louise M. Joy, George Bruton Delaney, Moses L. Delaney, Richard Sylla, more
What: Independence Day open house and “The 1700s: The Path to Liberty” symposium
Where: Fraunces Tavern Museum, 54 Pearl St.
When: Friday, July 4, $1 in person, free virtually, 1:00 – 5:30
Why: The Lower Manhattan Historical Association’s It Happened Here turns to the founding of America on July 4 with an Independence Day open house and afternoon symposium at Fraunces Tavern Museum, home to a banquet on June 18, 1776, honoring General George Washington’s military victories. “The 1700s: The Path to Liberty,” which can be attended in person or online, features members of the Sons of the Revolution, the American Friends of Lafayette, history professors, collections managers, military veterans, descendants of James Armistead Lafayette, and others. Visitors can explore such exhibitions as “Path to Liberty: The Emergence of a Nation,” “Fraunces Tavern: Over 300 Years of Building History,” and “Lafayette: A Hero’s Return” before attending the symposium prelude “Liss and the Culper Spy Ring in Historic Lower Manhattan” at 1:00, followed at 1:30 by the symposium itself.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

CATS ARE EVERYTHING: PROCESSING GRIEF AND LOSS THROUGH FELINE FRIENDS

Documentary subject Eshete hunkers down in his makeshift Brooklyn home with his beloved cats

THE CAT MAN ESHETE (Laura Checkoway, 2025)
Brooklyn Film Festival
Windmill Studios
300 Kingsland Ave.
Wednesday, June 4, $18, 6:00
Festival runs May 30 – June 8
www.brooklynfilmfestival.org

“I admire myself for surviving all this,” Eshete says as he rides his bike over the Brooklyn Bridge at the end of Oscar winner Laura Checkoway’s sweet-natured, gently moving documentary The Cat Man Eshete, making its Brooklyn premiere June 4 at the Brooklyn Film Festival.

Eshete, which means harvest, was born and raised in Gondar, Ethiopia, in August 1960, part of a large and happy family. Following the overthrow of Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974, he became a member of the underground Ethiopian Revolutionary Party but had to flee after being tortured. He spent five years in a refugee camp in Sudan before arriving in America. Trying to build a life for himself, he suffered a construction accident that put him on disability for twenty years, until his structured settlement ran out. He’s been living outside ever since, in a small spot on the side of a street, in front of a chainlink fence; behind the fence is an industrial area on the East River, with views of Lower Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty.

“Homeless bum, that’s how they see me,” he says. “They don’t know what I’ve been through.”

But Eshete is not looking for sympathy or handouts; he seems to be okay existing how he does, surrounded by his beloved cats, which he has been taking care of for more than a dozen years.

His grizzled face and childlike eyes are nearly hidden by his overgrown, unkempt gray, white, and black beard and mustache. He sits and sleeps on a ratty red armchair with cardboard on which he has scrawled a manifesto about “racist madness.” His friends Robert and Diane, who live in the apartment building Eshete was evicted from, have been feeding him for two decades. People from the neighborhood stop by and say hello, wishing him well.

But all that matters to him are his kitties.

“I have tremendous love for them. So deep, you know?” he explains. “My cats are everything.”

His created family consists of Horizon, Gorgeous, George Washington, Doodles, Junior, Frank Sinatra, Jesse Jackson, Winston Churchill, Castro, Patrice Lumumba, Princess Diana, Albert Einstein, Oprah, Squirt, Nubia, Sheba, Piggy, Animation, Dragon Lady, Ms. Ethiopia the Rocket Girl, Damascus, and Rico. He has a fraught relationship with Jeneane, a married woman who likes to feed the cats and talk to them, but Eshete thinks she is only bothering them; it might be jealousy, as the cats are more than just stray animals to Eshete.

As the twenty-six-minute documentary continues, Eshete delves into grief and loss, mentions the plans he had for himself and his relatives. But those dreams turned into nightmares, as memories of home flood his mind.

“It look like heaven, like a fairy-tale land,” he remembers as shots of Gondar, taken by director of photography Greg Harriott, appear onscreen.

The story also resonates as the current administration seeks to deport legal and illegal immigrants and cuts the budgets for homeless services.

But none of that concerns Eshete, who admits, “I am a traumatized person. I don’t like medication, though. My grief — I listen to music, I love nature. You know, the cats . . . Cats are great. Out of darkness give you light.”

The Cat Man Eshete is screening at Windmill Studios on June 4 at 6:00 in the “Protecting the Family” section of the festival, along with Chris Peters’s It’s Expensive to Be Poor, Nicholas Stachurski’s Land of Lost Toys, and Jesse Samos Leaman and Maite Martin Samos’s Mother of Chooks.

In addition, it will begin streaming June 16 on the Al Jazeera English series Witness in conjunction with World Refugee Day, June 20.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

PERSEVERING FOR THE TRUTH: THEATER FESTIVAL HONORS VÁCLAV HAVEL

REHEARSAL FOR TRUTH INTERNATIONAL THEATER FESTIVAL: PERSEVERANCE
Bohemian National Hall (unless otherwise noted)
321 East 73rd St. between First & Second Aves.
May 26 – June 15, free – $15
rehearsalfortruth.org

Founded in 2017, Rehearsal for Truth is an annual festival that honors the legacy of Czech playwright, dissident, and president Václav Havel. Presented by the Václav Havel Center and the Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association, This year’s iteration features theater, opera, music, poetry, and more from Czechia, Bulgaria, Belarus, Romania, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, and other nations.

“Rehearsal for Truth is a rare opportunity to hear artistic voices from Central and Eastern Europe,” festival artistic director Edward Einhorn explained in a statement. “The theme of the 2025 edition is Perseverance. The worldwide turn towards autocracy and war is both current and historically familiar for the artists from this region, and their responses have a deep resonance now for Americans, as we experience our own crises. My hope is that the work presented in the festival can connect our experiences and help us guide us as we all try to persevere through difficult times.”

The centerpiece is the US premiere of Blood, Sweat, and Queers, a seventy-five-minute piece about intersex Czech track star Zdenek Koubek (1913–86) and fascism, coproduced by Einhorn’s Untitled Theater Company No. 61. Other highlights include Belarus Free Theatre’s King Stakh’s Wild Hunt, Alexander Manuiloff’s interactive The Decision, and an evening of music and poetry with Marketa Foukalova, Jan Zábrana, and Martin Brunner.

Havel (1936–2011) wrote such plays as The Garden Party and The Memorandum and such books as Living in Truth and Toward a Civil Society; he also wrote and directed the 2011 film Leaving. In a 1968 letter to Alexander Dubček, the first secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, Havel explained, “Even a purely moral act that has no hope of any immediate and visible political effect can gradually and indirectly, over time, gain in political significance,” words to live by in today’s international maelstrom.

Tickets for most events are free (with a suggested donation of $10-$15) and require advance RSVP. Below is the full schedule.

Hura Collective’s Erben: Vlasy is part of Rehearsal for Truth festival honoring Václav Havel

Monday, May 26
through
Sunday, June 15
Blood, Sweat, and Queers, coproduced by Untitled Theater Company No. 61, by Tomas Dianiška, translated by Edward Einhorn and Katarina Vizina, directed by Edward Einhorn, starring Craig Anderson, Herschel Blatt, Jean Marie Keevins, Alyssa Simon, Katarina Vizina, and Hennessy Winkler, followed by a talk with Chris Harwood on May 26 and Michael Waters on May 30, $10-$20

Tuesday, May 27
Marketa Foukalova, featuring vocalist Markéta Foukalová, with poems by Jan Zábrana and music by Martin Brunner, followed by a discussion with Chris Harwood, free ($15 suggested donation), 7:00

Thursday, May 29
The Decision, interactive theater created by Alexander Manuiloff, directed by Irina Kruzhilina, Bohemian National Hall, followed by a discussion with the author, free ($15 suggested donation), 7:00

Sunday, June 1
King Stakh’s Wild Hunt, by Belarus Free Theatre, from the book by Uladzimir Karatkievich, adapted by Nicolai Khalezin, with music by Olga Podgaiskaya, directed by Natalia Kaliada, free ($10 suggested donation), 2:00

Connection, solo livestream from Salzburg, created and performed by Maryna Yakubovich, followed by a discussion and reception, free ($15 suggested donation), 5:00 – 9:30

Wednesday, June 4
The Pit, written by Matei Visneic, directed by Ana Margineanu, starring Owen Campbell, Vas Eli, and Perri Yaniv, followed by a discussion with the artists, free ($15 suggested donation), 7:00

Friday, June 6
Staged Reading: Show Trial, about Czech politician and resistance leader Milada Horáková, written by Laura Zlatos, directed by Tom Costello, followed by a discussion with the author, $15, 7:00

Saturday, June 7
Furiozo: Man Looking for Trouble, created by Piotr Sikora, followed by a reception with the artist, free ($15 suggested donation), 7:00

Sunday, June 8
Erben: Vlasy, by Hura Collective, with direction, set, puppets, and music by Hza Bažant, starring Hza Bažant and Leona Bažant Telínová, followed by a demonstration of puppetry techniques and history, free ($15 suggested donation), 5:00 & 7:00

Stella Abel will perform Psyche June 12 & 13, in English then Hungarian

Wednesday, June 11
The Amateurs, written by Lenka Garajová, directed by Šimon Ferstl, starring Šimon Ferstl, Jakub Jablonský, Lenka Libjaková, Martin ISO Krajčír, Kriss Krimm, and Tomáš Pokorný, followed by a discussion with the artists, free ($15 suggested donation), 7:00

Thursday, June 12, in English, 7:00 & 9:00
and
Friday, June 13, in Hungarian, 7:00
Psyché: Writings of an Erstwhile Poetess, from poems by Sándor Weöres, translated by David Cseh, directed by Mark Tarnoki, performed by Stella Abel, the Hungarian House, 213 East 82nd St., free (donations encouraged)

Friday, June 13
Kafka’s Ape, adapted by Phala Ookeditse, performed by Tony Miyambo, Bohemian National Hall, followed by a discussion with the artists, free ($15 suggested donation), 7:00

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

ANANSI’S GOLD: YEPOKA YEEBO AT THE AFRICA CENTER

Who: Yepoka Yeebo, Stuart A. Reid
What: Anansi’s Gold: In Conversation with Yepoka Yeebo and Stuart Reid
Where: The Africa Center, 1280 Fifth Ave. between 109th & 110th Sts., and online
When: Wednesday, April 30, free with advance RSVP, 6:30
Why: “In a castle by the sea in Accra, our man was telling his story. Outside, the sky was so bright it was almost white. In the shallows next to the castle, the waves were pale gray with white caps. Farther out to sea, they turned a shimmering blue. Huge fishing canoes rocked gently, close to shore. On the horizon, container ships lined up, waiting to dock. The air smelled of salt and smoke and brine. The castle — Osu Castle — was cut off from the rest of Accra by palm trees and checkpoints. It was a maze of archways and staircases and parapets, patched together over four centuries. Some of its walls were brightly whitewashed. Others were gray concrete, slick with algae. Ancient cannons and soldiers with assault rifles lined the castle’s walls. Even without stepping into its underground dungeons, you could tell that unspeakable things had happened here. In a heavily guarded room at the heart of the castle, a haze hung in the air as our man began. The history of Ghana, he said, had a secret chapter. Kwame Nkrumah, the country’s first president, had revealed it on his deathbed in 1972.”

So begins British-Ghanaian journalist Yepoka Yeebo’s true-crime bestseller, Anansi’s Gold: The Man Who Swindled the World (Bloomsbury, April 2025, $19.99), which tells the story of con artist supreme John Ackah Blay-Miezah, who perpetrated a long, complicated financial fraud that involved a CIA-funded military junta, Ghanaian statesman Ako Adjei, former Nixon attorney general John N. Mitchell, and several of Kwame Nkrumah’s cabinet ministers, among others, stretching from Ghana to Philadelphia.

In conjunction with the release of the paperback edition of the book, which won the Jhalak Prize and the Plutarch Award for Biography, Yeebo will be at the Africa Center on April 30 at 6:30, speaking with writer and editor Stuart A. Reid, author of The Lumumba Plot: The Secret History of the CIA and a Cold War Assassin.

Admission is free with advance RSVP; the event will also be livestreamed on YouTube and Facebook.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

HELEN AND THE BEAR: ONE OF THE GREAT LOVE STORIES

Helen V. Hooper examines her complex, unexpected life in moving documentary (photo by Alix Blair)

HELEN AND THE BEAR (Alix Blair, 2024)
Cleveland International Film Festival
Streaming April 6–13, $15.74
helenandthebear.us
www.clevelandfilm.org

“They’re really one of the great love stories. Maybe it doesn’t make sense all the time, but I think Helen taught him how to love,” Kathleen McCloskey says about the more-than-forty-year relationship between her father, Paul “Pete” McCloskey Jr., and his second wife, Helen V. Hooper, in the deeply touching and intimate documentary Helen and the Bear.

Beautifully directed and photographed by Alix Blair, Hooper’s niece, and edited with a sweetly poetic grace by Katrina Taylor, the film follows the daily life of Pete, aka Bear, a Korean War veteran, lawyer, and longtime Republican California Congressman who became a Democratic activist in 2007, and Helen, whom he calls Eaglet, an artist who has grappled with her sexuality, depression, and independence since she was very young.

Primarily told in a cinéma vérité style, the eighty-one-minute doc goes back and forth between Helen’s and Pete’s pasts and the present, where Pete, who is about a quarter century older than Helen, is showing signs of physical and mental aging. “I can remember when I was six years old, but I can’t remember yesterday,” he tells her. While Pete makes phone call after phone call and meets with Democratic political operatives — he was the first Republican to call for the resignation of Richard Nixon, came out against the Vietnam War before the public protests, and was a leader on such bills as the Endangered Species Act and the Wilderness Protection Act — Helen, feeling despair and depressed, toils on the farm by herself, taking care of their bird, roosters, pigs, horses, cats, goats, chickens, and turkeys. “Is this what I want to spend my day doing?” she asks.

“Originally, I wanted to make a film about Pete’s history as a renegade Republican and activist. But soon, my focus shifted to Helen: my wild, loving, enigmatic aunt,” Blair explains in her director’s statement. “As I came to see Helen and Pete as two people who were madly in love, and yet, also hurt each other, the film became an investigation into how one negotiates love-of-self and love-of-partner when those forces are at odds with each other. What had their love, heartache, betrayal, and forgiveness cost them and what did it give them in return? And particularly for Helen, as a woman, what does it mean to be selfish?”

The film is supplemented with terrific archival political footage — a verbal battle between William F. Buckley Jr. and Pete on Firing Line is a highlight, as is Pete telling reporter Gabe Pressman, “That’s what this country needs: Politicians willing to lose” — but it is the home movies, personal photos, and revealing drawings and quotes from Helen’s journals that serve as its anchor: “Pete’s on the road again. I feel restless and unfree.” “I can’t deny all that I am. I guess I want everything.” “I feel loved by many people, but I still don’t really feel known.” “I just so love life; everything awes me.” And “I am realizing how lonely everyone often is — so many kinds of loneliness, of needs unmet.”

Pete and Helen take a road trip in their small camper, read a Tintin comic book, play with their dogs Jake, Mickey, and Tita, cuddle, stop to pluck the quills off a dead porcupine, and get high. One of the most poignant moments comes when Helen, who has never been a fan of the institution of marriage, wonders about life after Pete. “What will it feel like being in this bed without him,” she asks while petting one of the dogs.

The original score and sound design, by Troy Herion and J. R. Narrows, add to the overall visceral, involving experience as Blair (Farmer/Veteran, Documentary Happy Hour) invites us inside the world of a unique couple who enjoyed a special life together. “I will fucking kill you if you don’t take this seriously,” Helen tells Pete at one point, encapsulating their relationship.

Helen and the Bear premiered in April 2024 at the Hot Docs Festival; Pete passed away that May at the age of ninety-six. If you missed the film’s recent screening at IFC, you can stream it April 6–13 as part of the Cleveland International Film Festival.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

DHARMA FRIENDS: NUALA CLARKE AT TIBET HOUSE

Who: Nuala Clarke, Crystal Gandrud, Rob Ward, Megan Mook, Kevin Townley
What: “Alchemy and Art on the Spiritual Path”
Where: Tibet House NYC and online, 22 West Fifteenth St.
When: Monday, March 24, free – $20 – $225, 6:30
Why: “I swim in the sea, and my experience of cold has changed. I can no longer be trusted with the question ‘Is it cold out?’ I experience it without the tightening of torso muscles and raising of shoulders. It has become separate from the whole, less readily identifiable. In my hands it feels like leanness, the appendages pared away to the essential; in my back and around my ribs it tingles; it is fresh on my lips; in my toes it is clear and my chest, above my heart, accepts it as youngness, in need of care. I am an effervescent being.” So writes Irish artist Nuala Clarke in her new book, Irish Moss of a Dead Man’s Skull (the Owl Circus, March 18, $33).

Influenced by the work of Irish alchemist and natural philosopher Robert Boyle (1627–91), author of Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours, with Observations on a Diamond that Shines in the Dark, as well as by installation artist Robert Irwin, serigrapher and ceramicist Robert Brown, and spiritual coach and meditation teacher Robert Chender, Clarke has spent nearly five years “thinking about whether a painting could be prescribed for an ailment.” The result is a work that Clarke calls “an ode to light, color, loss, and the elements.” The 224-page book features 86 full-color images and details the impact each of the four Roberts has had on her art and her meditation practice.

On Monday, March 24, Clarke will launch the book at Tibet House as part of the Dharma Friends series, joined by experimental writer and acquiring editor Crystal Gandrud, Food Will Win the War violist, songwriter, and lead vocalist Rob Ward, and monthly Dharma Friends hosts Megan Mook and Kevin Townley, who will lead guided meditations. Having participated back in 2010 with composer Roarke Menzies, Gandrud, my wife, and others in a performance Clarke curated for her show “You Delight Me” on Shelter Island, I can vouch for how terrific her events are, and this one should offer its own numerous pleasures.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

BOXED IN: JOSHUA WILLIAM GELB’s [untitled miniature] AT HERE

Joshua William Gelb spends three hours a night in a tiny box at Here through March 25 (photo by Maria Baranova)

[untitled miniature]
HERE Arts Center
145 Sixth Ave.
March 18-25, $27-$102 (livestream only $10), 7:00, 8:00, 9:00
here.org
theaterinquarantine.com

In January, Joshua William Gelb, who had transformed his eight-square-foot closet in the East Village into a pristine white digital stage during the pandemic, escaped the safety of his home in order to present The 7th Voyage of Egon Tichy [Redux], a staggeringly inventive hourlong multimedia play performed in a replica of his closet, accompanied by live and prerecorded video segments interacting with each other.

Gelb, whose collaborative virtual productions, dubbed Theater in Quarantine, include I Am Sending You the Sacred Face: One Brief Musical Act with Mother Teresa, Footnote for the End of Time, and Nosferatu: A 3D Symphony of Horror, now steps further into the technological avant-garde with the hybrid [untitled miniature], running through March 25 at Here. Each evening from 7:00 to 10:00, Gelb, nude and covered in white talcum powder, will perform in a white box measuring only 35″ wide by 19.5″ tall. His actions, which begin with him seemingly asleep, can be seen on an iPhone facing the box, a screen on the back of the box, three video monitors in the hallway, and a wall around the corner with nine screens that alternate between live and prerecorded scenes of Gelb in the box, sometimes bathed in yellow, pink, or other colors, along with television test patterns, the SMPTE color-bar grids that, sixty years ago, appeared on television sets after broadcasters shut down for the night — and which, if they came on today, would signal the end is near.

Audience members can relax on the vivid blue floor in the central space, sit in a chair, or walk around the room, following the show on an app that shares different views of Gelb and encourages everyone to participate in a chat that is read out loud by a female AI voice, audible to both the audience and Gelb. The only other items in the room are a red fire extinguisher and an old metal first-aid kit on the wall; after I accidentally knocked my head against it, one of the black-clad stage managers silently came over, opened it up, took out a small package that said “bandages,” and offered me a brown Tic Tac.

[untitled miniature] features a live video feed broadcast to numerous screens and online (photo by Maria Baranova)

In an Instagram post, Gelb delves into the nature of the work, explaining, “Why am I naked? . . . The naked body is the foundation of art. . . . I’m trying to see if it’s possible to find a real impression of tactility in the digital medium. I wanted to make a piece that really felt distilled down to its most essential elements, the smallest performance space possible and a human body. That shouldn’t be controversial, but try putting a naked body on the internet outside of OnlyFans and you hit a wall — algorithmic sensors, AI moderators, the corporate infrastructure that decides what is and is not acceptable. . . . Art isn’t about comfort or what’s acceptable. And artists need a digital space where they can push boundaries, even ones that make us uncomfortable.”

Gelb certainly looks uncomfortable as he wiggles, turns, squirms, and reconfigures his limbs; often, when he bumps into or purposely strikes the box, harsh, loud sounds reverberate blast out, a cacophonous symphony. At times the audience is enveloped in the much more rewarding sounds of chirping birds and a gently rushing river. Gelb occasionally lets out a grunt but is mostly quiet as he struggles inside the claustrophobic box.

Durational performance offers numerous ways to experience it (photo by Maria Baranova)

Gelb is clearly not enjoying himself, grimacing, staring out blankly, seemingly unable to get out of his predicament. Although one side of the box is open, he is trapped, in a cage he has built for himself. It’s as if he’s been sent to solitary confinement for an unnamed crime. Maybe he wakes up, wrestles with another difficult day, and goes back to bed — or perhaps has decided, once awake, to eventually stay under the covers, avoiding facing the world. He could be stuck on a social media platform on which he no longer wants to reveal himself. Or maybe he has experienced an entire lifetime in forty-five minutes, being birthed from the womb and later laid to rest in a grave.

The piece can also be taken more literally, applied to how we were all penned in at home during lockdown, terrified of leaving, spending too much time with our little electronic boxes that kept warning us of impending doom — and with which Gelb has carved out a unique and fascinating career.

At the show’s conclusion, there are no bows, no applause. Some members of the audience gingerly leave, and others stay, no one sure whether anything else is going to happen, sort of like life itself, before, during, and after a pandemic.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]