Who:The Civilians What: Livestreamed music, art, and performance Where:Civilians online When: Friday, April 16, free with RSVP (suggested donation $15), 7:30 Why: In the spring of 2020, award-winning photographer Accra Shepp began taking pictures of Black Lives Matter activists on the front lines, posting them to Instagram; his Covid Journals started with “Contagion,” with “Hunger” and “Justice” to follow. Those portraits are now the basis for Showing Up, a livestreamed event led by Brooklyn-based “investigative theater” specialists the Civilians in which four actors (Becca Blackwell, Cecil Blutcher, Sheldon Best, and Marsha Stephanie Blake) and a group of musicians and singers (bassist Rashaan Carter with vocalist Anaïs Maviel; composer Jacinth Greywoode and singer-songwriter Rebecca Hart; Jamie Lozano, with Javier Ignacio; and Katie Madison and composer-musician Jarret Murray, with Deborah Cowell) will perform new material inspired by the New York City native’s photos and by interviews with some of his subjects conducted by Blake, Jesse Baxter, Bailey Jordan Garcia, Dee Harper, Matt Maher, and Riley Tollen.
“I was introduced to Shepp’s Covid Journals this past fall and was moved by his striking ability to connect with each subject,” Civilians artistic director Steve Cosson said in a statement. “In Shepp’s photos, I saw an individual assert their presence on his or her own terms, giving a human-scale dimension to these larger, collective events. I’m delighted that Shepp agreed to work with us on this project, offering an opportunity for the voice of the individuals in these photos to ‘show up’ through their conversations with our company of interviewers and the interpretation of their words by actors and musicians.” Copresented with the International Center for Photography and Alice Austen House and with the collaboration of the Alfred Stieglitz Society at the Met, Showing Up is directed by Colette Robert, with video direction by Sadah Espii Proctor; Nidra Sous la Terre serves as host. Admission is free with advance RSVP; a talk with Shepp bookends the evening. Up next for the Civilians is Black Feminist Video Game April 27 to May 9.
San Francisco Ballet presents a dazzling virtual production of Balanchine’s Emeralds (photo by Erik Tomasson)
JEWELS
SF Ballet online
Available on demand through April 21, $29 www.sfballet.org
You’re likely to let out a gasp when the curtain rises on San Francisco Ballet’s newly filmed production of George Balanchine’s Emeralds, the first section of the legendary choreographer’s three-part masterpiece, Jewels. I know I did. Onstage are a dozen dancers, the most I’ve seen at any one time together since the pandemic lockdown started. Then Gabriel Fauré’s score kicks in — consisting of extracts from Pelléas et Mélisande Suite, Op. 29 and incidental music to Shylock, Op. 57, conducted by Martin West — and principals Misa Kuranaga and Angelo Greco touch hands, leading to another gasp. I’ve watched a lot of dance pieces made during the current health crisis, but it’s mostly been solos or works outdoors, with no contact between performers. To see a full ensemble dance without restrictions for thirty glorious minutes is exhilarating, especially every lift, throw, and turn involving physical human connection. (Of course, SFB followed all Covid-19 protocols.)
The floor of the War Memorial Opera House reflects the dancers, who are wearing dark tops with necklaces, the women in green calf-length tulle skirts. A chandelier laden with faux emeralds hangs above, while stars dot the back wall, melding inside and outside. Balanchine considered Emeralds to be “an evocation of France — the France of elegance, comfort, dress, and perfume,” and that’s precisely what comes across in this glittering production, staged by the late Elyse Borne and Sandra Jennings, with additional decor by Susan Touhy and costumes by Karinska (re-created by Haydee Morales).
The camera slowly zooms in and out and pans right and left but always stays at orchestra level while concentrating on two couples, a trio, and a corps de ballet of ten women. The many stunning moments include a line of four women in attitude position, with three men on their knees, their right leg flat behind them, all holding hands; a gorgeous solo by Kuranaga; duets first with Kuranaga and Greco, then with Sasha Mukhamedov and Aaron Robison; and a concluding trio with Greco, Robison, and Esteban Hernandez, the three men left all alone at the end, their arms reaching out dramatically.
As the curtain descends, something strange and unexpected happens; applause can be heard, getting louder as the dancers take their bows. The work was filmed on January 28 without an audience, and there was no piped-in applause at intermediary points of beauty. It’s a bit unnerving, since we know that the seats are empty, though the show is well worthy of high praise.
Emeralds debuted at the New York City Ballet on April 13, 1967, followed by Rubies and Diamonds, a sparkling trilogy inspired by Claude Arpels’s designs for jeweler Van Cleef & Arpels. For both of the latter pieces, applause is heard as the curtain rises and throughout; the former was recorded February 2, 2016, the latter March 12, 2017, both at the War Memorial as well, giving the full program an added visual continuity, making it feel as if it is all occurring over the course of one evening. It also might explain why SFB decided not to add more camera angles to the 2021 performance; it would have been exciting to see closeups as well as views from the mezzanine, but it would not have matched the next two works.
The featured trio for Rubies are Mathilde Froustey, Pascal Moulat, and Wanting Zhao; the cast is dressed in tight red bejeweled tops with frills at the waist, the women with red hair accessories. Set to Stravinsky’s Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra,Rubies is passionate and exuberant; in one pas de deux, Froustey, wearing a flowery red tiara, and Moulat run, bounce, and spin around the floor. The focus is on the movement itself; there is no chandelier, and the stars on the backdrop are muted.
An homage to Marius Petipa, Diamonds is an opulent, luxurious climax, taking place in an icy blue world with two chandeliers and Tchaikovsky’s lovely Symphony No. 3 in D major, Op. 29, movements 2, 3, 4 & 5, conducted by Ming Luke. It begins with a glorious seven-minute scene with first twelve, then fourteen women, in glistening white tutus, followed by a pas de deux between De Sola and Tiit Helimets. In the finale, more than thirty dancers come together for a grand ball, intersecting and weaving among themselves with an infectious romanticism as the music builds to a thrilling crescendo.
And then, one last surprise; as the dancers take their bows, audience members rise to give a standing ovation, their heads partially blocking our view. It is an apt reminder that ballet — and theater, music, opera, et al. — is meant to be seen live and in person, in a crowd of people all there for one purpose, to share an experience that is happening right then and there, in real time. May it soon be so again.
(For more on SFB’s Jewels, you can stream a virtual discussion about “three composers, three styles, three moods” with De Sola, Helimets, Mukhamedov, and Molat here; there is also extensive background information available here.)
John Cullum shares a life in the theater in one-man show (photo by Carol Rosegg)
JOHN CULLUM: AN ACCIDENTAL STAR
Available on demand through May 6, $28.75 – $81 (pay-what-you-can)
Live watch party: Saturday, April 17, 2:00 irishrep.org www.vineyardtheatre.org
“Most of the shows I’ve done – and the parts I’ve played – have come to me through the back door, by accidents, you might say, or coincidence, or just plain luck. And tonight, I’d like to share with you some of my lucky accidents,” two-time Tony winner John Cullum says at the start of his wonderful one-man show, An Accidental Star, streaming on demand through April 21. Copresented by three theaters that have played an important role in Cullum’s long, distinguished career, the Vineyard, the Irish Rep, and Goodspeed Musicals, the eighty-minute production takes viewers behind the curtain as Cullum relates funny and poignant anecdotes and sings songs from throughout his more than sixty years in the business.
Cullum, who turned ninety-one last month, was born in Tennessee and had dreams of making it as an actor. When he arrived in New York City in 1956, he was ready to do whatever it took to land an audition and get an acting job. Through a series of lucky accidents, he soon found himself cast in three summer plays for Joe Papp’s Shakespeare in the Park, even though he had zero experience with the Bard. That led directly to auditioning for Moss Hart for Camelot on Broadway, where Cullum would meet Richard Burton, who became a lifelong friend.
Julie McBride plays piano as John Cullum reflects on his long career in An Accidental Star (photo by Carol Rosegg)
Cullum, who won Tonys for Shenandoah and On the Twentieth Century, was nominated for On a Clear Day You Can See Forever,Urinetown, and 110 in the Shade, and scored an Emmy nomination for his role as Holling Vincoeur in Northern Exposure, also chronicles experiences involving Maximilian Schell, Louis Jourdan, Lerner & Lowe, Hal Prince, Robert Preston, Robert Goulet, Madeline Kahn, The Scottsboro Boys, and his wife of more than sixty-one years, choreographer and writer Emily Frankel. Filmed by Carlos Cardona in January onstage at the Irish Rep, An Accidental Star was conceived by Cullum and Jeff Berger, written by David Thompson (The Scottsboro Boys; Priscilla, Queen of the Desert), and directed by Lonny Price and Matt Cowart (110 in the Shade,Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill), with music supervision by Georgia Stitt and music direction by Julie McBride, who accompanies Cullum on piano. The cameras shoot Cullum, dressed in an unbuttoned vest, purple shirt, and brown pants, from all sides as he sits on a stool, gets up and spreads his arms for a big finale, and walks over to the piano to join McBride. He’s an engaging raconteur who is deservedly proud of what he’s accomplished yet humble enough to understand how fortunate he’s been on this amazing journey, which includes a live watch party on April 17 at 2:00.
Dr. Bruce Miller (Leo Marks) meets with Anne Adams (Lucy Davenport) and her husband, Robert (Rob Nagle), in Jake Broder’s UnRavelled (photo by Corwin Evans)
UNRAVELLED
The Global Brain Health Institute / Trinity College Dublin
Available on demand through April 30, free www.gbhi.org/unravelled
One of the most fascinating plays of the Zoom era comes to us from an unlikely source: the Global Brain Health Institute at the University of California, San Francisco. Jake Broder’s UnRavelled is a deeply affecting ninety-minute play that shares the true story of Canadian scientist Anne Adams, who, in 1994, at the age of fifty-three, became obsessed with Maurice Ravel’s “Bolero” and made a remarkable painting based on the 1928 musical work, which Ravel composed for dancer Ida Rubenstein in 1928, when he was fifty-three. As it turns out, both Adams and Ravel had the same serious brain disease that affects memory while lighting a creative fuse.
Directed by Nike Doukas and edited by Corwin Evans in Zoom boxes, UnRavelled stars Lucy Davenport as Anne, a mathematician, chemist, and biologist, and Rob Nagle as her husband, Robert, a traffic architectural engineer. They are trying to hold together following a serious accident involving their son, but when they continue to have trouble communicating and Anne starts spending more time by herself in her studio, listening to “Bolero” and painting, Robert begins to suspect something else is going on, and Dr. Bruce Miller (Leo Marks) ultimately confirms that.
Doukas cuts between the current reality, in color, and Anne’s imaginary conversations with Ravel (Conor Duffy) about art, love, and science, usually in black-and-white. The play not only traces the intricate details of Anne’s illness but the effects it has on Robert, a gentle, caring man whose world has also been turned upside down. Prior to her submersion into “Bolero,” Anne is painting strawberries over and over, which upsets Robert. “You aren’t a painter,” he tells her. Anne responds, “You’re going to tell me what I can and can’t do?” Robert: “You’d be wasting your gifts, your experience in your field. And you will leave the world a poorer place, let alone our family.” Anne: “You don’t get to take a spiritual high ground. . . . I don’t need my choices mansplained to me, thank you. . . . I’m stopping to paint strawberries for a while, but that should be all I have to say.” Robert: “Yes, that’s true if you were some normal person and it didn’t matter, but you’re not and it does.” Later, after Anne considers leaving her chair at the university, Robert says to himself, “Seriously, who are you and what have you done with my wife?”
Anne Adams (Lucy Davenport) and Maurice Ravel (Conor Duffy) have something in common in fascinating new play (photo by Corwin Evans)
Broder includes interstitial scenes in which Dr. Miller, a neurologist who becomes Anne’s physician, is giving an intriguing lecture about modern art, while Ravel also speaks with Rubenstein (Melissa Greenspan), who has commissioned “Bolero,” which Ravel detests and can’t believe he actually wrote. “It just dumped itself into my lap all at once,” Ravel tells Anne. “At the premiere, the crowd roared. And I knew that this would be the first line of my obituary, and there is not a note of music in it.” The merging of the different aspects of science and the artistic process in the two distinct time periods works well as more information comes out about Anne’s condition. Nagle stands out among the cast, representing a kind of everyperson suddenly having to face a difficult, unexpected situation that he can’t control; he’s the character the audience can most identify with. The power of the play, which features the London Symphony Orchestra’s version of “Bolero” as well as French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard performing Ravel’s “Jeux d’eau, M.30,” lies in how it develops organically, like a work of art or, sadly, an untreatable disease.
Copresented by GBHI and Trinity College Dublin, UnRavelled is streaming for free through April 30. In conjunction with the play, there are several talkbacks and panel discussions available on demand, with Broder (Our American Hamlet,His Royal Hipness Lord Buckley), Doukas UnRavelled (Red Ink,The Hothouse), GBHI codirector and UCSF Memory and Aging Center director Miller, neurologists Bill Seeley and Adit Friedberg, neuroscientist Francesca Farina, theater and dementia specialist Nicky Taylor, GBHI alumni relations manager Camellia Latta, as well as a related dance choreographed by Magda Kaczmarska.
The Javaad Alipoor Company’s Rich Kids: A History of Shopping Malls in Tehran is a virtual production of, by, and for its time like no other. Previously presented at the Public Theater’s Under the Radar festival in January, the immersive online experience, now livestreaming from DC’s Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company through April 18, takes on capitalism, consumerism, climate change, government corruption, income inequality, colonialism, the collapse of civilization, geopolitics, and just about everything else under the sun as it relates to the past and future of the Anthropocene Epoch, all stemming from a fatal car accident in Iran in 2015.
On May 1 of that year, the New York Times reported that twenty-year-old Parivash Akbarzadeh and twenty-one-year-old Mohammad Hossein Rabbani-Shirazi were killed when his brand-new yellow Porsche, which she was driving, crashed after reaching speeds of more than 120 miles per hour. The focus of the story, however, went beyond the tragedy and instead zeroed in on the public reaction in the aftermath, particularly how people took to social media to lambast Parivash and Hossein, the latter described by the Times as “the nouveau riche grandson of an ayatollah,” for their carefree, luxurious lifestyle, which they and those like them show off on Instagram, flaunting the country’s rigid Islamic laws.
The follow-up to 2017’s multimedia The Believers Are But Brothers, about the birth of Islamic radicalization over the internet and WhatsApp, Rich Kids was previously staged at the Edinburgh Festival and various venues in England but has been reimagined for online viewing. Written by Alipoor, created by Alipoor and Kirsty Housley, and performed by Alipoor and Peyvand Sadeghian, the seventy-minute show goes backward in time from the crash itself to the specific events leading up to it as well as to the decades and centuries before that impacted the development of current Iranian culture, including the role of American politics and capitalism. The narrative toggles between Instagram Live, where text and photos tell the story of Parivash and Hossein with hashtags to such other pages as #richkidsoftehran and #mallwave and the internet, where Alipoor and Sadeghian go on a deep dive into the anthropological annals of the world using animation, archival footage, European and traditional Safavid painting, and video of a burning planet bathed in dripping red. “History isn’t linear,” they point out. “No past. No future. There’s no reason why time as we feel it should be a physical thing.”
In its nine-part manifesto, the Javaad Alipoor Company declares, “Every work we make should say something directly about politics,” “Every project needs to speak to history, and find something new about how we got here,” and “Things have to be fun,” among other statements of purpose. Rich Kids accomplishes that and more, although it can at times be bumpy as you switch screens and technological elements overlap. Along the way it makes hard-hitting observations about who and where we are in the twenty-first century, not just Iranians or the wealthy children of the elite filled with contempt but every one of us. “We’re not the first people to feel like our world is ending,” they explain. “We spend a lot of time thinking about how the world will end, but we almost never think to ask those whose worlds have already ended.” They also make note of how “we now upload more pictures to Instagram every day than existed in total a hundred years ago.”
The play is perhaps best summed up by an image of a huge fireball exploding as Alipoor and Sadeghian wonder “why we find it easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of humanity.” To keep the investigation going, performances on Friday will be followed by community conversations with such facilitators as Héctor Flores Komatsu, Adam A. Elsayigh, and Trà Nguyễn, while Sunday shows will conclude with talkbacks featuring Alipoor and journalists and cartoonists, moderated by Cynthia Schneider.
I’ve had several opportunities to see Mike Bartlett’s play Cock, which ran at the Duke on 42nd St. as well as a Spanish version at the Producers Club, but for one reason or another I passed. I’m sorry I did, now that I’ve seen Studio Theatre’s sizzling virtual adaptation, streaming through April 18.
Originally staged by James Mcdonald at the Royal Court Theatre in 2009, Cock uniquely approaches questions of identity by exploring personal responsibility, love, and sexuality. John (Randy Harrison), a nice guy who lacks the inner strength to make important decisions, is living with M (Scott Parkinson), an acerbic, irritable stockbroker, but has surprisingly fallen for W (Kathryn Tkel), a sweet-natured young divorcee. While M endlessly belittles John, W appreciates him for exactly who he is, even if John’s not exactly sure what that is. When M and W meet, neither one is about to give up, ready to fight to be with John. John is soon put into a position where he must choose either M or W, so his longtime partner enlists the help of his father, F (Alan Wade), a working-class man who wants the two men to stay together.
Directed by David Muse (The Remains,The Effect), the play was filmed with three cameras in one day following Covid-19 protocols by video director Wes Culwell at Studio Theatre, on a large dirt-filled circle surrounded by a rope, evoking a wrestling ring where the four characters, barefoot, wearing everyday clothes, engage in conversation and do verbal battle. Scene changes are indicated by a dimming of the octagonal light fixture dangling above and a sharp sound, as if another round in a championship fight has concluded; the lighting is by Colin K. Bills, with sound by James Bigbee Garver. Bartlett was inspired to write the play after watching Mexican cockfights; the title refers to roosters, the male organ, and several other American and British usages, from moving a part of one’s body to getting a gun ready to fire to a slang term for a friend and nonsense.
Film director Wes Culwell, artistic director David Muse, and lighting designer Colin K. Bills collaborate during Cock rehearsal (photo by Annabel Heacock)
The actors remain at least six feet apart at nearly all times. There are no props, no costume changes; activities such as eating, drinking, and removing clothes are mimicked by the actors. Culwell often uses split screens, putting characters in their own vertical boxes, which can be confusing, since they are acting together onstage at that moment, not Zooming in from wherever they are sheltering in place. It takes us out of the rhythm of the play, which is otherwise brilliant. Early on, when John is telling M that their relationship might be ending, he tries to keep them physically apart. M reaches out, but John rebuffs him. “No. Don’t. Just stand over there,” John says, motioning for M to stay away. M walks a few feet back, then says, “An illustration, showing me the distance between us. . . . But you’re not showing me the distance. You’re creating it. You put me over here, put that thing there between us.”
Bartlett’s (Love, Love, Love; King Charles III) writing is sharp and intuitive, sexy and funny. The cast is uniformly excellent; Harrison (The Habit of Art, Cabaret), who earned a Helen Hayes nomination for his performance as John in Studio Theatre’s original 2014 production, displays a cautious, tender vulnerability as John. Parkinson (The 39 Steps,Our Town) is a bundle of energy as M, his body, head, and hands in near-constant motion, while Tkel (An Octoroon,Jefferson’s Garden) is alluring and affecting as the positive-thinking W, and Wade (Choir Boy,Scenes from an Execution) is stalwart as a father who just wants his son to be happy. John — the only character with a full name but the one who least understands himself — isn’t really deciding on whether he’s gay or straight; his conundrum could be about any one of us, faced with choices about who we are and who we want to be. “Him and me, we must both be stupid,” W tells John, who is not necessarily such a great catch, for a man or a woman. “What is it about you?” It’s a question we’ve all asked at one time or another, and Bartlett and Muse are not about to offer any easy answers.
Maulik Pancholy stars in George Street Playhouse’s virtual production of Fully Committed (cinematography by Michael Boylan)
FULLY COMMITTED
George Street Playhouse
Twenty-four-hour stream available on demand through April 11, $33 georgestreetplayhouse.org
In my review of the 2016 Broadway premiere of Becky Mode’s Fully Committed at the Lyceum, in which Jesse Tyler Ferguson portrayed a struggling actor taking phone reservations at a hot New York City restaurant as well as forty other characters, I wrote, “It might work in small, intimate theaters, but on Broadway it feels more like an interesting comedy sketch that never ends.” The one-person show has now found just the right table setting in the George Street Playhouse’s tasty virtual adaptation, running online through April 11.
One of the most produced plays in America since its debut in 1999 at the Vineyard Theatre and subsequent long transfer at the Cherry Lane, Fully Committed requires an immensely talented, intrinsically likable actor, and director David Saint has found that in Maulik Pancholy, who embodies the protagonist, Sam, as well as dozens of other characters, including the hotheaded chef; Sam’s coworker, Bob, who is supposed to be helping him on the phones but is stuck in traffic; such demanding VIP customers as Bunny Vandevere and Carolann Rosenstein-Fishburn; Bryce, Gwyneth Paltrow’s assistant, who is arranging a special party with unusual requests; and his friend Jerry, who is often up for the same parts as Sam. He also portrays his own father, who desperately wants him to come home for the first Christmas the family will celebrate after the loss of Sam’s mother, although Sam is scheduled to work that day. For each character, Pancholy, wearing a headset and a blue zippered sweatshirt over a button-down shirt, adopts a different voice as well as body movement, shifting back and forth smoothly.
The ninety-minute show takes place in a cluttered, messy downstairs office filled with file cabinets, trashcans, a coat rack, a Boston Red Sox pennant, music posters, and Broadway memorabilia, which in 2021 reminds us what we are all missing. (The appropriately crowded art direction is by Helen Tewksbury.) It was shot by cinematographer and editor Michael Boylan in the basement of George Street Playhouse board member Sharon Karmazin’s home on a lake in New Jersey; the company also filmed its previous online play, Theresa Rebeck’s Bad Dates, in the house, as well as its next production, Nia Vardalos’s Tiny Beautiful Things, streaming May 4-23.
Boylan’s camerawork provides an intimacy and connection that was lost in the Broadway staging. Pancholy, who has appeared in such television series as 30 Rock and Weeds and on Broadway in Grand Horizons in addition to writing the award-winning middle grade novel The Best at It (for which I served as managing editor), is seen in closeup and longer shots that help define the claustrophobia and loneliness Sam is experiencing, from his mother’s death and his breakup with his boyfriend to his inability to snare a quality acting job and the abandonment of his colleague, Bob, who has left him all by himself to handle crisis after crisis. Although the play has not been rewritten to incorporate a much more significant crisis, the coronavirus, the pandemic hovers in the dank air, particularly at a time when restaurants are only just opening up for indoor dining and actors are hoping to get back to work now that some venues are beginning to experiment with limited-capacity in-person shows.
Fully Committed might not satiate your hunger for food — the chef’s complicated “molecular gastronomy” doesn’t sound very appetizing — but the play will quench your thirst for high-quality theater in these difficult times.
