this week in (live)streaming

ALMA BAYA

Edward Einhorn’s Alma Baya can be seen in person or online (photo by Arthur Cornelius)

ALMA BAYA
A.R.T./New York, Jeffrey and Paula Gural Theatre
502 West Fifty-Third St. at Tenth Ave.
August 13-28, $25 in person ($15 until August 25 with code UTC61); available on demand through September 19, $25
www.untitledtheater.com

Writer-director Edward Einhorn’s Alma Baya is a claustrophobic, vastly entertaining sci-fi parable for this moment in time, an absurdist look at what comes next. The play can be seen in person through August 28 at A.R.T./New York’s Jeffrey and Paula Gural Theatre, or two recordings can be accessed online; the August 14 and 15 performances, featuring different casts, were livestreamed for on-demand viewing. I saw the show with Ann Marie Yoo as Alma, Sheleah Harris as Baya, and Rivera Reese as a mysterious stranger; the second cast consists of Maggie Cino, Nina Man, and JaneAnne Halter.

In a not-too-distant future in an undefined part of the universe, the stern, ultraserious Alma and the wide-eyed, innocent Baya are living in a self-contained, highly sterile white pod, following instructions word-for-word as laid out in a series of white books. Alma is the alpha woman, in charge, while Baya is her obedient, willing assistant.

Like pushing the button at the underground swan site in the TV series Lost, Alma and Baya must twist and turn various handles and wheels when alarm bells sound, even though they don’t know what any of it means. Their controlled existence becomes threatened when a shadowy figure appears outside the pod and they debate whether to let it in. “It’s terrible. It’s helpless. Waiting. It thinks it’s being rescued,” Baya argues. “Don’t you dare,” Alma shoots back. “It’s either it or us. . . . If it gets in, it will kill us.”

Alma ultimately relents and they open the airlock, inviting in an unnamed naked, feral woman with a protective suit who needs food and water and promises she’s not dangerous. Alma insists she is a threat, but Baya wants to help her. The stranger also says she can help maintain their crops in return for being able to stay with them; Alma and Baya had thought the crops were dead — they have no working suit and haven’t been outside in months — and so are intrigued by the prospect of more sustenance. However, as the stranger tells stories about how her pod was so different from this one and begins questioning the many rules and the very purpose of it all, Alma grows more suspicious of her intentions, calling her a liar who is cleverly plotting against them. “I’m too hungry to be clever,” the stranger says. “That’s too bad. I thought you were too clever to be hungry,” Alma responds.

Two casts alternate in futuristic parable Alma and Baya

All the while, Alma and Baya expect the eventual arrival of the original Alma and Baya, as predicted in the books, evoking the New Testament and the return of Jesus as well as Vladimir and Estragon in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. “When?” the stranger asks. “Someday,” Baya answers. Alma explains, “That’s why we’re here. That’s the reason that we’re here. All of us. Even you.” A moment later, the stranger asks, “How do you know whether they’ll come or not?” Alma: “Why else are you here?” The stranger: “I don’t know if there is a reason.” Ultimately, they all might be right, or they all might be wrong.

Staged by Untitled Theater Company No. 61 — which playwright, novelist, filmmaker, and podcaster Einhorn (The Marriage of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein, The Iron Heel) cofounded with his brother, David, who died of cancer during rehearsals — the seventy-five-minute Alma Baya adeptly tackles such topics as faith and religion, the refugee crisis, Covid-19, and others without ever mentioning them by name. The stranger could represent a manifestation of Jesus or the devil or a political refugee desperate for asylum; she even is a gardener, a profession that employs myriad people from other countries. There is also the much clearer comparison to the pods we all formed during the height of the coronavirus crisis, allowing only our live-in partner/families into our homes, afraid that anyone else could introduce Covid and kill us.

The fun, DIY set is by Mike Mroch, with flashy lighting by Federico Restrepo, effective sound by Mark Bruckner, and costumes by Ramona Ponce. The cast performs its job well, with Reese standing out as the stranger, a juicier role that keeps the audience guessing whether she’s good or bad. It’s an escapist play about how we are all trapped by something, including by ourselves, and that blind trust and faith are not always the best way out.

WALDEN

TheaterWorks Hartford adaptation of Amy Berryman’s Walden is set on edge of woods (photo by Christopher Capozziello)

WALDEN
TheaterWorks Hartford
RiverFront Recapture, 100 Meadow Road, Windsor, $95-$150
Livestream at Dunkin’ Donuts Stadium, Downtown Hartford, $15
Available on demand through August 29, $25
twhartford.org

One of the best new plays of the last eighteen months, Amy Berryman’s superb Walden is a cogent and timely exploration of loss, loneliness, and reconnection in an indeterminate near-future. Berryman started writing the play five years ago, concentrating on the devastating effects of climate change, and it debuted onstage at the Harold Pinter Theatre on London’s West End in May. It has now been ingeniously reimagined by TheaterWorks Hartford, taking place in a specially built wood-and-glass cabin on the edge of the woods by the Connecticut River at a location known as Riverfront Recapture in Windsor. The very small house has a sustainable vegetable garden on one side, a hammock on the other, and a cozy outdoor front porch.

There are three unique ways of experiencing the hundred-minute show: You can watch it in person, wearing masks, in socially distanced chairs on the grass, listening on headphones; see it with other people streaming at Dunkin’ Donuts Stadium in downtown Hartford, home of the minor league baseball team the Yard Goats; or check it out online, where it is available on demand. Do choose one, because Walden is an absolute must-see.

Bryan (Gabriel Brown) and Stella (Diana Oh) are living together in this wilderness; he is a staunch EA (Earth Advocate), a radical movement that believes the government must exhaust all possibilities of saving the planet before considering establishing habitats on the moon or Mars. Stella is a former prominent NASA architect who is adapting to her more private life with Bryan; they have a solar car, a flush toilet, and electricity, and Stella follows the news on a portable device, but Bryan refuses to use any kind of screen, living a Henry David Thoreau–like existence. Recently engaged, they each suffered different kinds of losses a year ago and are still dealing with the effects.

Cassie (Jeena Yi), Bryan (Gabriel Brown), and Stella (Diana Oh) spend time in the garden in Walden (photo by Christopher Capozziello)

After spending the last twelve months on the moon, where she miraculously made something grow out of the ground, Stella’s twin sister, Cassie (Jeena Yi), is coming for a visit. Their fathers were astronauts who also taught them about Walden, often quoting Thoreau. They remember him repeating to them, from the Solitude chapter, “This whole earth which we inhabit is but a point in space. How far apart, think you, are the two most distant inhabitants of yonder star, the breadth of whose distance cannot be measured by our instruments. Why should I feel lonely? Is not our planet in the Milky Way?”

Over the course of an evening, Bryan, Stella, and Cassie drink wine, share secrets, argue over technology, and debate not only the future of the blue marble but their own individual destinies as they contemplate where they belong in the universe. “It’s too late to turn things around!” Cassie declares. She’s right in more ways than one.

TheaterWorks Hartford’s first outdoor production in its thirty-five-year history, Walden is a seductive and charming play, no matter which side of the climate crisis discussion you are on. The isolation the characters feel, whether living in the woods or on the moon, is even more palpable in this time of Covid. When Cassie first arrives, she has a mask on. “You know, you don’t have to wear that,” Bryan says. “I wasn’t sure,” Cassie responds. “Within a hundred miles the air is totally safe. You don’t need a mask,” Bryan assures her. That’s something we would all like to hear.

The future of the planet is hotly debated in powerful new play (photo by Christopher Capozziello)

Walden is beautifully directed by Mei Ann Teo (SKiNFoLK: An American Show, Where We Belong) with a relaxed, easygoing pace that befits its lovely surroundings. I watched it online, where the cameras take you inside the house, into the garden, and onto the grass, where you can see some members of the masked audience sitting in front of you, making you feel part of set designer You-Shin Chen’s stunningly real and inviting environment. Jeanette Oi-Suk-Yew’s lighting evolves organically as darkness falls, while Hao Bai’s sound design immerses you in the action.

Berryman, a playwright, filmmaker, and actor who has written such shows as The New Galileos and The Whole of You and appeared in such works as Jessica Dickey’s The Convent and Greg Kotis’s Lunchtime at the Brick — her coronavirus microplay Pigeons for Eden Theater Company’s “Bathroom Plays” Zoom trilogy earned star LeeAnne Hutchison twi-ny’s Best Actor in a Short Play award during the pandemic lockdown — has given us an extraordinary treat in these difficult times, a splendidly constructed, wholly believable tale about where we are as a species today, and where we might be tomorrow.

Oh ({my lingerie play}, The Infinite Love Party), Yi (Judgment Day, Network), and Brown (Bobbie Clearly, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone) form a terrific trio, their well-drawn characters expressing serious contemporary concerns without becoming preachy or didactic. When it’s over, you’ll feel exhilarated by the return of live theater — and sincerely worried for the future of humanity.

CFT AT HOME: SOUTH PACIFIC

Nellie Forbush (Gina Beck) and Emile de Becque (Julian Ovenden) have a complicated relationship in South Pacific (photo by Johan Persson)

SOUTH PACIFIC
Chichester Festival THeatre
Through September 3, £20 – £30
www.cft.org.uk

Beloved Broadway musicals, just like other art forms, are undergoing a reckoning when it comes to such issues as racism, slavery, gender, class, sexuality, cultural appropriation, and colonialism. In recent years, revivals of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel, The King and I, and Oklahoma! as well as Lerner and Loewe’s My Fair Lady (a show Rodgers and Hammerstein attempted) have all been seen through a new lens, with tweaks that have annoyed purists but delighted those seeking equality and consciousness in all walks of life.

Traditionalists and progressives alike should be in agreement on Chichester Festival Theatre’s rousing revival of South Pacific, being performed in London through September 5 but also available to stream, recorded live onstage with an audience, on select days through September 3. Featuring music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, and book by Hammerstein and Joshua Logan adapted from James A. Michener’s Pulitzer Prize–winning Tales of the South Pacific, the show takes place in 1943 on an archipelago in the South Pacific, where US troops have not been called on to fight yet. As they wait to enter the war and do their duty, they mix with the local people, which doesn’t necessarily please the higher-ups.

Ensign Nellie Forbush (Gina Beck), the head nurse, falls for French ex-pat Emile de Becque (Julian Ovenden). Bloody Mary (Joanna Ampil) will sell just about anything to GIs, including shrunken human heads, in order to make a better life for her beautiful young daughter, Liat (Sera Maehara), whom steadfast Lt. Joseph Cable (Rob Houchen) takes a shine to. Fast-talking Seabee Luther Billis (Keir Charles) provides comic relief while also initiating several key plot twists. The central love story between Nellie and Emile is at the heart of the show, but it’s not a standard romance. Rather, it is one that challenges the viewer, as Nellie reveals her surprising underlying racism, while Emile, who owns a plantation, is haunted by having killed a man back home. They are not your typical hero couple.

CFT artistic director Daniel Evans (This Is My Family, Quiz) directs a cast of more than thirty on the circular stage, which occasionally rotates slowly. The production looks and sounds phenomenal, with sets and costumes by Peter McKintosh, who nails scene after scene, from Billis’s laundry business to a USO show (with drag) to the nurses at a beach. Howard Harrison’s lighting is superb, particularly during Liat’s expressive and poignant solo dance. (Ann Yee is the choreographer and movement director, with sound by Paul Groothius.) New orchestrations by David Cullen, with musical supervision by Nigel Lilley and musical direction by Cat Beveridge, inject new life into old favorites, including “Some Enchanted Evening,” “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair,” “Honey Bun,” “There Is Nothin’ Like a Dame,” and “Bali Ha’i.” There are a lot of reprises, which get, well, too repetitive for me, but why limit a good song?

CFT revival of Sout Pacific is chock-full of wonderful set pieces (photo by Johan Persson)

Beck, who is pregnant (she shares the role with Alex Young live at CFT but is on the stream), is lovely as Nellie; we root for her even when she makes the racist statement that shocks us, while Ovenden is beguiling as Emile, his booming, operatic voice dominating the stage. The characters were originated on Broadway by Mary Martin and Ezio Pinza and have also been portrayed onstage by Florence Henderson and Giorgio Tozzi in 1967 and Kelli O’Hara and Paulo Szot in 2008 and on the big screen by Mitzi Gaynor and Rossano Brazzi in 1958 and Glenn Close and Rade Sherbedgia in 2001. Without their chemistry, the show would be a series of set pieces and subplots, some better than others. The romance between Cable and Liat has always been troublesome, and Billis’s overenthusiasm can be grating.

But Rodgers and Hammerstein knew what they were doing from the very start, not afraid to take on difficult issues. “You’ve got to be taught / Before it’s too late / Before you are six / Or seven / Or eight / To hate all the people / Your relatives hate,” Cable sings in a controversial song that was occasionally removed from some presentations. Emile responds, “This is just the kind of ugliness I was running away from / It has followed me all this way / All these years / And now it has found me.”

In “A Cockeyed Optimist,” Nellie sings, “I hear the human race is falling on its face / And hasn’t very far to go.” That might be true, especially these days, but with productions such as CFT’s South Pacific, there’s reason to be hopeful and optimistic about the future.

RE: CARRIE MAE WEEMS

Carrie Mae Weems, Portrait of Myself as an Intellectual Revolutionary, gelatin silver print, 1988 (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from the Photography Committee / © Carrie Mae Weems)

Who: Carrie Mae Weems, Jarrett Earnest
What: Live virtual discussion and Q&A
Where: National Academy of Design Zoom
When: Tuesday, August 17, free with RSVP, 7:00
Why: The National Academy of Design continues its “RE:” video series August 17 with Oregon-born artist Carrie Mae Weems, who will be speaking with show creator and host Jarrett Earnest. A National Academician and MacArthur Genius, Weems has been busy during the pandemic, making the hypnotic short film The Baptism with Carl Hancock Rux and hosting a podcast for the Whitney, “Artists Among Us,” in which she speaks with a wide range of artists, curators, and writers, including Glenn Ligon, Bill T. Jones, Luc Sante, Jessamyn Fiore, An-My Lê, and Adam Weinberg, focusing on David Hammons’s Day’s End, an homage to Gordon Matta-Clark.

Weems is best known for such highly influential photographic projects as “The Kitchen Table Series,” “Family Pictures and Stories,” “The Louisiana Project,” “Constructing History,” and “Museums,” several of which are currently on view in the Gagosian exhibition “Social Works.” Author, editor, curator, and educator Earnest has previously talked with Harmony Hammond, William T. Williams, Kay WalkingStick, Dorothea Rockburne, and Alison Saar, with David Diao scheduled for September 14; all episodes can be seen here after their initial broadcast.



HANDS UP: 7 PLAYWRIGHTS, 7 TESTAMENTS

Who: The National Black Theatre (NBT)
What: American radio play premiere
Where: NBT Vimeo
When: August 16-23, $10 for forty-eight-hour on-demand viewing
Why: In 2015, the New Black Fest premiered the specially commissioned presentation Hands Up: 7 Playwrights, 7 Testaments, a collection of seven monologues, between ten and fifteen minutes each, in response to the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, as well as other such murders. From August 16 to 23, the National Black Theatre (NBT) will be streaming the US radio play debut of Hands Up, featuring Kamal Bolden, Nuri Hazzard, Isaiah Johnson, Crystal Lucas-Perry, Eden Marryshow, Warner J. Miller, and J. D. Mollison, helmed by NBT executive artistic director Jonathan McCrory, with sound and music by Kathy Ruvuna and illustrations by Jaimee Todd.

The seven autobiographical monologues, which explore the Black experience in America, consist of Superiority Fantasy by Nathan James, Holes in My Identity by Nathan Yungerberg, They Shootin! Or I Ain’t Neva Scared by Idris Goodwin, Dead of Night . . . The Execution of . . . by Nambi E. Kelley, Abortion by NSangou Njikam, Walking Next to Michael Brown by Eric Micha Holmes, and How I Feel by Dennis A. Allen II. “There is a need for a reform!” McCrory declared in a statement. “There is a new government-sanctioned genocide happening to Black folxs by the police. And unless we change how they serve and protect, we will continue to have these testimonies housed in Hands Up resonate as present pulse narratives that articulate the terror that is running rampant within our communities.” Access to a forty-eight-hour on-demand stream is $10.

BATTERY DANCE FESTIVAL FORTIETH ANNIVERSARY

BATTERY DANCE FESTIVAL
Robert F. Wagner Jr. Park, Battery Park City
20 Battery Pl.
August 12-14 online, August 15-20 in person, free, 7:00
batterydance.org

The Battery Dance Festival has a lot to celebrate this month. Not only is the free summer festival celebrating its fortieth anniversary, but it will be doing so with a series of live, in-person presentations in addition to virtual performances from around the world. “Dancing in the open air, with the river and sky in the background, is always a blissful Battery Dance Festival experience,” Battery Dance president and artistic director Jonathan Hollander said in a statement. “This year, it will be even more exhilarating as people come out of isolation to witness the entrancing performances at Wagner Park. Before the action starts onstage, three nights of truly riveting dance films from many corners of the globe will be screened. Creativity was running high during the pandemic, and we have harvested a heady mix from voguing on a mountaintop in Lebanon to swing dancing in South Korea, from commedia dell’arte in Mexico to birdlike flocking in the Netherlands.”

The festival will screen sixteen dance films online August 12-14 at 7:00, followed by forty live and livestreamed performances taking place August 15-20 at Robert F. Wagner Jr. Park in Battery Park City, including thirty-two premieres from fifty-three companies. Below is the full schedule.

International Dance Film Festival: Online Only at 7:00

Thursday, August 12
We Arnhem, Chapter II, Introdans, Jurriën Schobben & Alberto Villanueva Rodríguez (the Netherlands)

Uninhabited Island, Dance Troupe Braveman (South Korea)

MI blanco, MI Negro, Chilaquiles Rojos Colectivo, Vladimir Campoy (Mexico)

A Moment — Wakati, Nantea Dance Company (Tanzania)

Los Perros del Barrio Colosal, Boca Tuya, Omar Román De Jesús (Puerto Rico/NYC)

Friday, August 13
As Part of Lindy Hop Evolution, Team AJC, Andy Seo (South Korea)

WalkINN, Jiva Velázquez (Paraguay)

Downriver, Bollwerkfilm (Switzerland)

Our Stories, Arabesque Dance Vietnam (Vietnam)

The Circadian Cycle, Australian Dance Theatre (Australia)

Saturday, August 14
The Bait, Chenglong Tang (China)

Free Pita & Nilydna, Jill Crovisier (Luxembourg)

Fall Back, Abhilash Ningappa (India)

Groundworks Alcatraz (excerpts), Dancing Earth Creations (United States)

Goat & Al Jurd, Hoedy Saad (Lebanon)

Näss (People) (excerpt,) Massala Company, Fouad Boussouf (France)

Fortieth annual Battery Dance Festival will take place outside in Wagner Park and online (photo by Darial Sneed)

In-Person and Livestreamed Festival Performances at 7:00

Sunday, August 15: India Independence Day
Kathak: Parul Shah Dance Company

Bharatanatyam: Kasi Aysola & SaiSantosh Radhakrishnan, Water
Kuchipudi: “Ananda Tandavam”

Bharatanatyam: Maya Kulkarni presents two world premieres

Musical Interludes: Eventually Epic, with musicians Sachin Premasuthan and Debarun Bhattacharjya

Sutradhar (Narrator): Rajika Puri

Monday, August 16: Young Voices in Dance
The Stoic Bridge, Kate Louissaint & Nhyira Asante

ニ時二分 (2:02), Imani Gaudin

Repentino, Spencer Everett & Isabella Aldridge

This Is 22!, Brian Golden

Shiva Panchakshara Stotram, Ramya Durvasula

Mine, Yours, Ours, Lily Summer Gee

Garden Tongues, Grace Yi-Li Tong

Untitled, Kanyok Arts Initiative

Tuesday, August 17
A Little Old, a Little New, Luke Hickey

Warsaw, Graciano Dance Projects

Voila Viola, Company | E

John 4:20, Baye & Asa

The Underground, Rohan Bhargava/Rovaco Dance Company

Solstice, Jon Lehrer Dance Company

Observatory, Battery Dance

Wednesday, August 18
Od:yssey, Dancing Wheels

Donor, Will Ervin — Erv Works Dance

Radio Days, Demi Remick & Dancers

On the Waterfront, MorDance

The Liminal Year, Battery Dance

Honky Tonk Angels, William Byram

Thursday, August 19
Virtuoso, CHR Project

Deliver Us, Christian Warner

846 (Rite of Spring), Jamal Jackson Dance Company

Rondo & Size of the Sky, New York Theatre Ballet

Full Stop. Start Again., Akira Uchida, Maddy Wright, Joshua Strmic

The Prayer of Daphnis, Christopher Williams

It will happen again tonight, Dolly Sfeir

Ode to Yma, Battery Dance, Razvan Stoian & Jillian Linkowski

Friday, August 20
Alegrías, Flamenco Vivo II

Maps, Ohiole Dibua

Michoacán Suite, Ballet Nepantla

Flower, Stasis

Cuesta Abajo, Galletto y Guzmán

Yemaya: Rebirthing to Existence, Beatrice Capote

Untitled, Battery Dance

NOT A MOMENT, BUT A MOVEMENT: THE DUAT

Gregg Daniel plays a man facing judgment day in world premiere of The Duat

THE DUAT
Center Theatre Group
Available on demand through August 12, $10
www.centertheatregroup.org

Gregg Daniel is electric as a man caught between heaven and hell, defending the choices he made in his life, in the world premiere of Roger Q. Mason’s one-man show, The Duat, streaming from Center Theatre Group through August 12. Daniel plays Cornelius “Neil” Johnson, a Black man who, when we first see him, is blindfolded and barefoot. “If I’m in hell, I want to know. I want to see the fire before it takes me down,” he calls out, dancing as if the floor is burning hot. He’s actually in the Duat, the Egyptian underworld where the god Anubis weighs the hearts of the dead to determine where they will spend the afterlife.

Over the course of forty-five minutes, Johnson shares his story, starting with his birth in Texas in 1948 and the tragic death of his father, a railroad porter, four years later. Johnson visits his grandmama, attends a liberal integrated elementary school, excels at UCLA, and becomes a driver for a wealthy white woman. Daniel seamlessly switches between characters, from his angry mother to his brash father to his sensible, soft-spoken grandmother, performing brief, urgent interpretive dance movements at the end of each scene (choreographed by Michael Tomlin III). He is haunted by his father’s fate, dying “a colored death,” and is determined to have his own, unique identity. “I am somebody,” he says in different ways throughout the play, as if Johnson is trying to convince himself that he matters, that he will be seen. But trouble brews when he recounts his time with the US organization, a rival to the Black Panthers, as Johnson does something that he regrets.

Presented in association with the Fire This Time Festival and Watts Village Theater Company, The Duat is part of the third episode of the “Not a Moment, But a Movement” series; the first episode was introduced by Vanessa Williams and featured Angelica Chéri’s one-person play Crowndation; I Will Not Lie to David, while the second episode explored “Black Nourishment” with spoken word artists. The Duat is preceded by a conversation with Watts co-artistic director Bruce A. Lemon Jr. and LA-based visual artist Floyd Strickland and is introduced by Wayne Brady.

The Duat unfolds in the tradition of such solo-show geniuses as Anna Deavere Smith, Dael Orlandersmith, and Charlayne Woodard, as Daniel (Insecure, Urban Nightmares) portrays multiple characters detailing the Black experience in America. He doesn’t change costumes but alters his tone of voice as the narrative sometimes repeats itself from different points of view. Director Taibi Magar (Is God Is, Blue Ridge) zooms in for closeups of Daniel’s face and feet, then pulls back to reveal percussionist David Leach playing several instruments in the background, the spotlight behind him casting him in silhouette. (The effective lighting is by Brandon Baruch, with sound design and original music by David Gonzalez.) Mason (The White Dress, Onion Creek) pulls no punches as Johnson looks back at his life, warts and all, trying to understand who he is and what awaits him.