this week in music

NORDIC UTOPIA: BLACK ARTISTS FINDING FREEDOM IN SCANDINAVIA

William Henry Johnson paintings are a highlight of “Nordic Utopia?” show at Scandinavia House (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

NORDIC UTOPIA? AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE 20th CENTURY
Scandinavia House
58 Park Ave. at 38th St.
Tuesday – Saturday through March 8, free
212-847-9740
www.scandinaviahouse.org

One of the best gallery shows right now in New York City is the small but revelatory “Nordic Utopia? African Americans in the 20th Century” at Scandinavia House, which explores the surprising connection between African American jazz musicians and Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. Continuing through March 8, “Nordic Utopia?” comprises painting, drawing, photography, ceramics, sculpture, music, and video by and about Black artists who left the United States for calmer pastures in Scandinavia.

“It was the first time in my life that I felt a real, free man,” visual artist and collector Howard Smith said in a 1976 interview about moving to Finland in 1984 after teaching at Scripps College in California. “So much so that one day I was walking down the street, I panicked because I suddenly realized that I had no further need for armor. I felt absolutely naked. In the United States you could not possibly walk down the street feeling free, spiritually unclothed, because you always felt that you are subject to attack. Well, here I am walking and I suddenly realize I have no armor whatsoever. I felt light as a feather — and it was frightening.” Smith, who died in 2021, has ten works on view, including several depictions of flowers, the small stoneware sculpture Female, the white porcelain Frida, and the 1986 Calligraphy Plate.

Sweet jazz floats in the air as visitors make their way through the three sections: “Creative Exploration & Cross Pollination,” “Lifelong Residency & Lasting Careers,” and “Travels & Sojourns,” encountering photos of Josephine Baker (including one by Helmer Lund-Hansen of the Black Venus in a white fur, cradling black and white baby dolls), Babs Gonzales, Fats Waller, Coleman Hawkins, and Dexter Gordon, who settled in Scandinavia from 1962 to 1976; “Since I’ve been over here, I felt that I could breathe, you know, and just be more or less a human being, without being white or black, green or yellow,” the LA-born saxophonist told DownBeat magazine.

Dexter Gordon at Jazzhus Montmarte, silver gelatin print, 1964 (photo by / courtesy of Kirsten Malone)

In Hans Engberg’s 1970 two-part documentary Anden mands land, an ex-pat writer explains, “I’m in a new man’s land. Here, I’ve found friends, buddies, and allies.” Eight surrealist paintings by New York City native Ronald Burns take viewers on a fantastical journey involving floating women, complex grids, a carousel, “Mental Costumes,” and a pair of dizzying renderings of “The Triumph of Nature.” The highlight of the show are six oil paintings by William Henry Johnson, three portraits, two gorgeous landscapes (Sunset, Denmark and A View Down Akersgate, Oslo), and the captivating Boats in the Harbor, Kerte-minde.

As the exhibition approaches its final weeks, there are a handful of special programs happening. On February 22 at 3:00, cocurators Ethelene Whitmire and Leslie Anne Anderson and scholars Denise Murrell and Tamara J. Walker will gather for a free two-hour symposium. On February 25 at 2:00 ($5), Sámi author and journalist Elin Anna Labba will discuss her book The Rocks Will Echo Our Sorrow!, about the expulsion of the Sámi from northern Norway and Sweden, in a virtual talk with moderator Mathilde Magga. On February 26 at 6:30 ($13), Scandinavia House will screen Bertrand Tavernier’s 1986 film about Dexter Gordon, ’Round Midnight, followed by a conversation with New Yorker film critic Richard Brody and Gordon’s widow, Maxine, author of Sophisticated Giant: The Life and Legacy of Dexter Gordon. And on March 5 at 5:30, ASF’s Emily Stoddart will lead a free guided tour of the show.

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

A BITCHIN’ MUSICAL JOURNEY AT THE WILD PROJECT

Karen Mould, aka Bitch, shares her intimate story in dazzling multimedia show (photo by Eric McNatt)

B*TCHCRAFT
the wild project
195 East Third St. between Aves. A & B
Through March 1, $36
thewildproject.com
bitchmusic.com

“I was a quiet child,” Karen Mould, aka Bitch, says numerous times in her not-quite-solo show, the scorching and endearing B*tchcraft: A Musical Play, continuing at the wild project through March 1. She whispers the phrase, sings it, and screams it, echoing her transition from a young girl resented by her parents to a fierce performer not afraid to stand up for what she believes in.

Born in 1973, Bitch was raised in suburban Michigan by an English father and mother who let her know that she kept them from living out their dreams. “My dad wanted to be a painter / But as an only child / Destined to take care of his parents / And then three daughters / He had to get a real job / So my job is to pour him the perfect beer,” she sings in the opening number. “My mom didn’t want to be a mom / She wanted to be a musical theater legend / But Michigan was as far off Broadway as you could get / Plus she had three girls to raise / And we all know whose job that is.”

“You’re bloody useless,” the voice of her father screams out.

“You’re a bull in a china shop,” the voice of her mother complains, referring to her daughter’s size and clumsiness.

“Up in my bedroom, I was NOT a quiet child,” Bitch tells the audience.

She imagines that the broom she uses to sweep the house can help her fly away. She writes heart-rending stories in her notebook that she reads to her bestie, a stuffed beaver named Beavy (Francesca) that comes to life. She falls in love with the violin. When she has her first period, dozens of tampons fall from the sky. She goes to college, takes theater and feminist courses, and meets Danny, with whom she forms a band, Bitch and Animal (Francesca). They build a following, but an incident at the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival involving transphobia and TERFs alters her future dramatically.

B*tchcraft: A Musical Play continues at the wild project through March 1 (photo by Eric McNatt)

B*tchcraft was conceived by Bitch and director Margie Zohn, who wrote the impressive book together; the music and lyrics are by Bitch, with contributions from Faith Soloway, Melissa York, Jon Hyman, and Greg Prestopino. The intimate ninety-minute tale is accompanied by Bitch’s drawings, first black-and-white, then color, projected on the back and side walls (with framed works on paper in the lobby). The images change from her father’s angry eyes, swirling stairs, and a magical hillside to a tsunami of blood and such terms as “Male Gaze,” “Patriarchy,” “Misogyny,” and “Camp Twat: ‘Tenacious Women and Transfolk.’” The fun projection design is by Brian Pacelli, with lighting by Amina Alexander.

The immersive audio, by sound designer Sean Hagerty and engineer Gregory Kostroff, is virtually a character unto itself, from soft and tender to loud and aggressive, including a crackling fire, tinkling chimes, violin and guitar, a shower, a highway, crickets, and disembodied voices (by Seth Bodie, Ian Brownell, Amy Goldfarb, Ron Goldman, Jenna S. Hill, Mal Malme, Soloway, and Zohn). Samantha Tutasi’s set and props, which are brought on- and offstage and moved around by two crones (Cary Curran and Donovan Fowler), feature a wooden pentagonal covered box that morphs from a cauldron and bed to a sandbox and truck. Andrea Lauer’s costumes both contain and free Bitch as she goes from a little girl to a grown woman.

The musical numbers feature such powerful and engaging songs as “Pussy Manifesto,” “Hateful Thoughts,” and “Fallen Witch,” guiding us from her childhood to road trips to facing cancellation, with playful tap choreography by Michelle Dorrance. Through it all, Bitch stands tall; in “Be Bitch,” she declares, “I could be bitch / It rhymes with witch / I’ll wear the badass drag of it / Reclaim that word it sounds absurd / I’m gonna be bitch I’m gonna let it rip / You can call me bitch / This whole world can suck my tit.”

Bitch has released such solo albums as Make This Break This, In Us We Trust, and Blasted! and, with Animal, What’s That Smell and Eternally Hard, establishing herself as a queer music icon, including opening for Indigo Girls and Ani Difranco. In B*tchcraft, she stirs it all together in an exciting multimedia cauldron that should lift her career to a new level — although the specter of the Trump administration’s attack on the arts hovers over the production.

“At some point I had actually believed that coming out, we would be embraced into this big happy gay world utopia. But patriarchy was alive and well in most gay spaces because they were mostly run by men. If I had a nickel for every drag show we sat through at prides that ripped on women, or said hateful things about lesbians or our genitalia, I’d be richer than Oprah right now!” she says in the show, holding nothing back.

But more than anything else, B*tchcraft is a clarion call for everyone to keep writing, to keep singing, to keep sharing, and, hopefully, to keep making shows like this.

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

FROM NASHVILLE TO NEW ORLEANS: TWO JUKEBOX MUSICALS HEADING IN DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS

Louis Armstrong (James Monroe Iglehart) waves goodbye to Broadway in A Wonderful World (photo by Jeremy Daniel)

A WONDERFUL WORLD: THE LOUIS ARMSTRONG MUSICAL
Studio 54
254 West 54th St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through February 23, $69-$278
louisarmstrongmusical.com

Jukebox musicals generally come in two basic kinds of flavors: somewhat-fact-based accounts of superstars (Tina Turner, Cher, the Temptations, Michael Jackson, Neil Diamond, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, Carole King) and original narratives based on the work of one composer, performer, or era (Alanis Morissette, Jagged Little Pill; Britney Spears, Once Upon a One More Time; Max Martin, & Juliet; the Go-Go’s, Head Over Heels; the 1970s, Rock of Ages).

A pair of current shows use contrasting approaches, but while one has been extended several times, the other has posted an early closing notice.

At Studio 54, A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical tells the fact-based story of the American trumpeter and singer known as Satchmo (James Monroe Iglehart), concentrating on the songs he performed throughout his career, while at the West End Theatre, Music City relates a fictional contemporary tale of the search for fame and love, consisting of tunes by country songwriter J. T. Harding, who has penned hits for Uncle Kracker, Kenny Chesney, Keith Urban, Blake Shelton, Dierks Bentley, Darius Rucker, and others.

A Wonderful World features nearly thirty jazz and jazz-adjacent tunes as the narrative divides Armstrong’s story into four sections, each with a different woman by his side: tough-talking prostitute Daisy Parker (Dionne Figgins) in New Orleans, jazz pianist Lil Hardin (Jennie Harney-Fleming) in Chicago, dancer Alpha Smith (Kim Exum) in Hollywood, and Cotton Club performer Lucille Wilson (Darlesia Cearcy) in New York. Although the song list is impressive, with such numbers as “Basin Street Blues/Bourbon Street Parade,” “Up a Lazy River,” “Black and Blue,” “Heebie Jeebies,” “Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans,” and “After You’re Gone,” many of them are given short shrift rather than full renditions, matching the lack of insight into what made Armstrong the larger-than-life figure he was.

Aside from finding out about his four wives, there is little new audiences will learn about Louis; even when it deals with racism, the focus gets lost, outshone by Armstrong’s huge showmanship and popular success and all his preening. Adam Koch and Steven Royal’s heavily blue sets are glitzy and Toni-Leslie James’s costumes are flashy, but the book, by Aurin Squire, conceived by Andrew Delaplaine and Christopher Renshaw, merely brushes the surface, and the direction, by Iglehart and Christina Sajous, is worshipful where it should be articulate.

Figgins (Memphis, Motown), Harney-Fleming (Hamilton, The Color Purple), Exum (The Book of Mormon), and Cearcy (The Color Purple, Ragtime) steal the show from Tony winner Iglehart (Aladdin, Hamilton), who seems to be playing a caricature of Armstrong, never reaching the necessary depth. Dewitt Fleming Jr. (The Tap Dance Kid, Pearl) gives nuance to Lincoln Perry, better known as Stepin Fetchit, while Gavin Gregory (The Gershwins’ Porgy & Bess, The Color Purple) plays hard-luck bandleader “King” Oliver.

A Wonderful World recently announced that it will be closing early, on February 23; overall, it was a missed opportunity.

Music City brings Nashville to the Upper West Side (photo by Ashley Garrett)

MUSIC CITY
West End Theatre
Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew
263 West Eighty-Sixth St. at West End Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through March 2, $68 – $130.50
bedlam.org

Despite an exciting, promising first act, Bedlam’s Music City: A New Musical, which opened on November 17 and has been extended three times, the latest until March 2, also ends up being a missed opportunity.

Last year, I visited Nashville with friends and fell in love with the live music pouring out of every bar, club, and honky tonk and into the crowded streets, where people were partying well into the night. Director Eric Tucker and book writer Peter Zinn capture that energy on Clifton Chadick’s lifelike set, which transforms the theater at the Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew on the Upper West Side into the Wicked Tickle, a seedy watering hole in East Nashville. The audience sits at small tables as if they are guests at the club, where they can get drinks, check out the (fake) memorabilia on the walls, and whoop it up as the narrative unfolds around them.

About a half hour before curtain, an open mic begins, introducing some of the characters, so get there early and soak in the realistic atmosphere. The show proper begins with brothers TJ (Stephen Michael Spencer) and Drew (Jonathan Judge-Russo) performing their rousing “Y’allsome,” in which they declare, “Y’all ain’t scared to have a little fun. / Whiskey shots from a water gun. / Ain’t slowing down — / And here comes the sun! / Y‘allsome party people. / Y’allsome crazy mothers. / Y’allsome freakin’ good lookin’ country music lovers! / Hankin’ and drankin’ all wrecking ball shaking the walls.”

When they’re done, Drew, who comes up with the titles and ideas for the songs, and TJ, who writes the music and lyrics, are approached by Leeanne (Leenya Rideout), a slick record executive who wants to hear their demo, as she’s scouting tunes for country superstar Stucky Stiles’s (Andrew Rothenberg) next tour and album.

They don’t have a demo, so Drew decides to ask local drug dealer and open-mic regular Benjamin Bakerman (Rothenberg) to invest two grand in their band so they can afford studio time. Bakerman instead offers them the opportunity to earn the cash by delivering “cookies” for him. TJ is initially against the plan, but Drew talks him into it.

Soon TJ is handing off bags of meth to such junkies as Tammy (Rideout), a former wannabe country star. “Bet you think you’re gonna be a big ol’ star one day just like everyone else in this shithole town,” she says, lighting up her pipe. “I remember when I used to walk around Nashville with a guitar on my back. I wish somebody woulda told me back then how ridiculous I looked.”

At the next open mic, TJ instantly falls for a young woman named 23 (Casey Shuler) as she plays a deeply personal ballad, singing, “Like soldiers coming home from war / Who am I to want something more?”

With money in their pockets, TJ and Drew start working on their demo in drummer Newt’s (Drew Bastian) studio. Meanwhile, Stucky wants to be recording his own songs instead of party tunes written by others, but Leeanne tells him that ship has sailed.

TJ and 23 connect and start writing together, Stucky comes to the Wicked Tickle, and relationships get twisted and complicated as Bakerman keeps putting pressure on TJ to sell his product.

Drew (Jonathan Judge-Russo) and TJ (Stephen Michael Spencer) contemplate a shot at the big time in Music City (photo by Ashley Garrett)

Unfortunately, Tucker (Uncle Romeo Vanya Juliet, Sense and Sensibility) and Zinn (Rumspringa, Somewhere with You) throw in the kitchen sink in the second act, heaping on trauma after trauma, leading to a mind-boggling finale that comes out of nowhere and pulls everything that happened before down with it. In addition, John Heginbotham’s choreography, performed by Corry J Ethridge and Holly Wilder, seems to have come from a completely different show.

It’s a shame, because nearly all the other elements are in place: The backup band, featuring Ann Klein on guitars, Tony Tino on bass, Bastian on drums, and emcee and music director Julianne B. Merrill on keyboards, is excellent, keeping things hopping throughout, and the cast is charming and engaging, especially Spencer (Clyde’s, Julius Caesar) and Shuler (Titanic, Robin Hood), who make an adorable couple. The twenty songs, which include “Smile” (a hit for Uncle Kracker), “Somewhere with You” (Chesney), and “Alone with You” (Jake Owen), range across the country spectrum like a live jukebox, although “Sangria” (Shelton), which gets the spotlight, doesn’t carry enough weight here.

Then again, the PBRs are cheap, the staging is fun, and, hey, it’s Nashville in New York, which is some kind of wonderful.

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

A WILD[E] SALOME FROM HEARTBEAT OPERA

Heartbeat Opera’s English-language Salome continues at the Space at Irondale through February 16 (photo by Russ Rowland)

SALOME
The Space at Irondale
85 South Oxford St., Brooklyn
February 4-16, $21.79-$114.25
www.heartbeatopera.org/salome

“When it premiered, it was extremely shocking to its audiences because it was dangerous and there were so many taboos that get broken in it,” co-adaptor and director Elizabeth Dinkova says about Richard Strauss’s Salome, which Heartbeat Opera is presenting this month in a rare English-language version at the Space at Irondale. In the promotional video, she continues, “There are a few core mysteries at the center of this piece around what it means to be in love, and the great terror and violence that erupts when you’re not.”

Oscar Wilde’s 1891 play about the first-century Jewish princess who was the daughter of Herodias and stepdaughter of Herod II was translated into German by Hedwig Lachmann and became the libretto for Strauss’s opera, which debuted in Dresden in 1905. Tom Hammond translated the work into English in the late 1980s for the English National Opera, and now Dinkova and co-adaptor, music director, and conductor Jacob Ashworth have collaborated on a new version for seven singers, eight clarinetists, and two percussionists. The cast features Summer Hassan as Salome, Patrick Cook as Herod, Nathaniel Sullivan as Jokanaan (John the Baptist), Manna K Jones as Herodias, David Morgans as Narraboth, Jaharis as Page Melina, and Jeremy Harr as a soldier; Francesca Federico will perform the title role on February 9.

Heartbeat has previously staged unique versions of such classics as Eugene Onegin, Tosca, and Fidelio as well as the original The Extinctionist. Up next is a one-hundred-minute retelling of Charles Gounod’s Faust at Baruch Performing Arts Center in May.

In the video, music arranger Dan Schlosberg explains, “This was a scandal, this piece; [Strauss] wrote it, and he knew that people were going to be scandalized.”

Heartbeat Opera attempts to bring back that sense of shock and scandal in its take on Salome, which promises, among other things, a “Dance of the Seven Veils” like you’ve never seen before.

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

TO THE MOON AND BEYOND: LUNA LUNA AT THE SHED

“Luna Luna: Forgotten Fantasy” features large-scale amusement-park installations by Kenny Scharf, Jean-Michel Basquiat, David Hockney, Arik Brauer, and many others (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

LUNA LUNA: FORGOTTEN FANTASY
The McCourt at the Shed
The Bloomberg Building
545 West 30th St. at Eleventh Ave.
Through March 16, $25-$49
theshed.org
lunaluna.com
luna luna online slideshow

In the summer of 1987, a one-of-a-kind art-musement park delighted audiences in Hamburg, Germany. Curated by Viennese artist André Heller, it boasted contributions from more than thirty international artists, who Heller enticed with the following pitch: “‘Listen, you are constantly getting the greatest commissions, everyone wants your paintings or sculptures, but I am inviting you to take a trip back to your own childhood. You can design your very own amusement park, just as you think would be right today,’ and really without exception everyone answered by saying, sure, that’s a nice, pleasant challenge.”

The park opened for several months during a rainy European summer and was scheduled to travel to the Netherlands and San Diego, but the stock market crash of October 1987 and legal entanglements shelved that plan, and the works were eventually packed away in containers and stored in a Texas warehouse. In 2022, rapper Drake and his DreamCrew team bought the forty-four containers, sight unseen, put the surviving pieces back together, and opened “Luna Luna: Forgotten Fantasy” in Los Angeles, consisting of about half of the original attractions.

Visitors can enter Roy Lichtenstein’s Luna Luna Pavilion glass labyrinth (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

“Luna Luna” is now open at the Shed’s McCourt space in Hudson Yards through February 23, and it is a barrel of fun, for art lovers, amusement park fans, and just about anyone else willing to take a joyful and thoroughly entertaining trip back to their childhood — and the 1980s.

Although you can’t go on any of the rides because of their fragility and for safety reasons, you can marvel at the dazzling installations: Jean-Michel Basquiat’s white Ferris wheel, which rotates to Miles Davis’s “Tutu,” is decorated with familiar Basquiat visual tropes and such words and phrases as “Pornography,” “Jim Crow,” and “Skeezix.” Kenny Scharf’s chair swing ride has panels of his trademark cosmic characters, some of whom also hang out around the piece. Keith Haring’s carousel is populated by his unique stencil caricatures and silhouettes. Birds, fish, animals, and hands (the grune welt, pferdehand, nixe, wolfin) spin on Arik Brauer’s carousel.

You can wander into David Hockney’s Enchanted Tree, a shadowy silo with music by the Berlin Philharmonic; carefully navigate Roy Lichtenstein’s dark glass labyrinth to the sounds of Philip Glass; walk through Sonia Delaunay’s painted entrance archway and under Monika Gil’Sing’s twenty-eight flags; saunter along several large-scale horizontal tarp murals by Keith Haring; stop by Manfred Deix’s Palace of the Winds, an orchestra of butt blasts; and linger in Salvador Dalí’s geodesic Dalídom, a mirrored infinity room with ever-changing hues.

Unfortunately, you cannot test your romantic future (damage, madness, tenderness, magic, embrace, touch) with Rebecca Horn’s Love Thermometer, but you can renew your vows — or marry anyone, or anything, you’d like — in Heller’s Wedding Chapel, where you’ll receive a certificate and Polaroid of the ceremony. You can also dance and interact with Poncili Creación’s costumed performers and giant puppet people who pop up from time to time, ranging from an elephant trainer and her pachyderm to strange, tall creatures, as music by André 3000, Floating Points, Jamie xx, Daniel Wohl, and others waft over the space. (You can listen to a “Luna Luna” playlist here, with songs by Eric B. & Rakim, Kraftwerk, Madonna, Art of Noise, Talking Heads, Neneh Cherry, and others.)

Among the original installations that are not part of this revival are Erté’s Mystère Cagliostro, Gertie Fröhlich’s gingerbread booth, Jörg Immendorff’s and Wolfgang Herzig’s shooting galleries, Susanne Schmögner’s spiral-shaped labyrinth, Patrick Raynaud’s Playground, August Walla’s circus wagon, Günter Brus’s Universe of Crayons, Christian Ludwig Attersee’s boat swing ride, Jim Whiting’s Mechanical Theater, Heller’s Dream Station, and pavilions by Roland Topor, Hubert Aratym, and Georg Baselitz. You can find elements of Daniel Spoerri’s Crap Chancellery in a side room that documents some of the history of “Luna Luna,” with a wall of twenty of the moon paintings Heller asked the artists to make. A timeline details the complicated history of “Luna Luna,” with video of the restoration.

Be sure to visit the upstairs Butterfly Bar, where an overlook offers a sensational view of Scharf’s, Basquiat’s, and Brauer’s rides, which turn on one by one while the Philip Glass Ensemble’s “In the Upper Room: Dance II” booms through the hall and lights flash, unveiling an audiovisual sensation.

Moon paintings can be found in history room (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

“Art should come in unconventional guises and be brought to those who might not ordinarily seek it out in more predictable settings,” Heller, who is not affiliated with this reboot, said of the project.

“Luna Luna: Forgotten Fantasy” is a must-see adventure, filled with exciting art in unconventional guises for all ages, although it’s an especially poignant bit of time travel for Gen Xers who remember the glee and whimsy of a time before AIDS and addiction had ravaged the creators of New York’s downtown scene, before digital photography, cell phones, and email became always available in your pocket, when discovering new art wasn’t quite so easy and perhaps a lot more thrilling. Yet “Luna Luna” is much more than a journey into the past; it’s a vibrant presentation of art that can inspire today — and in the future.

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

THE HARRIET ZONE: LIFE ON AND OFF MARS

Who: Harriet Stubbs
What: City Vineyard Sessions
Where: City Vineyard at City Winery, 223 West St. at Pier 26
When: Tuesday, January 21, $22 in advance, $28 day of show, 7:30
Why: “There’s nothing like playing to my adopted hometown of New York; it’s electrifying,” Harriet Stubbs told twi-ny in a May 2024 interview. The British classical pianist, William Blake scholar, and Bowie aficionado was preparing for a show at Joe’s Pub, where she played her latest album, Living on Mars; the record includes Stubbs’s unique adaptations of such songs as David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” and “Life on Mars,” Nick Cave’s “Push the Sky Away,” Paul McCartney’s “Blackbird,” and Beethoven’s “Pathétique” in addition to homages to the duos of J. S. Bach/Glenn Gould and Frédéric Chopin/Leopold Godowsky. It all makes for an eclectic and unpredictable setlist.

Stubbs is an intoxicating pianist, performing in spectacular glittery outfits and exuding warmth and charm; Paul Cavalconte, the renowned DJ at New York’s classical radio station, WQXR (as well as WFUV and WNYC), calls it the Harriet Zone. On January 21, she’ll be at City Vineyard at City Winery, promising to play “a mix of Living on Mars and some core classical, with maybe a few surprises!” General admission tickets are $22 in advance and $28 at the door. Be prepared for a special, unusual evening of fabulous music, with a touch of magic.

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

DUKE BLUEBEARD’S CASTLE IS “SO THRILLING!!!” AT JAPAN SOCIETY

Sujin Kim reimagines Shūji Terayama’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle as macabre Harajuku burlesque at Japan Society (photo © Ayumi Sakamoto)

DUKE BLUEBEARD’S CASTLE
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
January 15-18, $36-$48
www.japansociety.org
utrfest.org

Korean-Japanese director Sujin Kim’s macabre Harajuku burlesque adaptation of Shūji Terayama’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle is an exhilarating two hours of nonstop fun, a wildly imaginative celebration of all that angura, or Japanese underground, unconventional theater, has to offer. For the show, which runs January 15–18 at Japan Society as part of the Under the Radar festival, Kim has brought together an inspiring multidisciplinary cast of more than thirty, including the tantalizing cabaret duo Kokusyoku Sumire, consisting of soprano vocalist and accordionist Yuka and violinist Sachi, who wear adorable outfits with light-up rabbit ears; magician Syun Shibuya, who, in a sharp-fitting tux, does card tricks, pulls doves out of a hat, and dazzles with mind-boggling costume changes; the delightful aerialist Miho Wakabayashi, who has been detailing her New York City trip here; and the experimental Japanese company Project Nyx, which was founded in 2006 by Kim’s wife, Kanna Mizushima, and specializes in “entertainment Bijo-geki, all-female cross-dressing theater.”

We get a taste of what’s to come when, early on, the stage manager (Misa Homma) tells Judith (Rei Fujita), who is portraying Bluebeard’s prospective seventh wife and closely checking the script, “You know what? — Things don’t always follow the script, y’know? Let’s see your improv muscles!”

The narrative regularly pops in and out of the Bluebeard fairy tale, which was written in 1697 by French author Charles Perrault; the self-referential story of the staging of the show; and the acknowledgment that it is being held at Japan Society, maintaining an improvisatory feel throughout.

“Wait, you’re saying the stage manager is doubling as the costume designer’s assistant in this production?” Bluebeard’s first wife (Miki Yamazaki) says to the stage manager while Carrot the Prompter (Ran Moroji) rubs her feet. Carrot had just amateurishly spoken a stage direction out loud: “Whistles dramatically and pretends to be a bird flying away.”

The play unfolds at a furious pace, so fast that it’s sometimes difficult to read the English surtitles, which are projected on small, raised monitors at the left and right sides; it can get a little frustrating, as you don’t want to miss a second of what’s happening onstage.

Asuka Sasaki’s kawai costumes and the far-out, colorful wigs are spectacular, like the best cosplay comic-con contest ever, with circuslike lighting by Tsuguo Izumi + RISE and enveloping sound by Takashi Onuki. Choreographer Taeko Okawa takes advantage of every piece of Satoshi Otsuka’s set, highlighted by seven white doors that flip to seven mirrors held by the seven wives in slinky black. As they dance with the mirrors, reflections shimmer throughout the space.

Kokusyoku Sumire’s songs are charming and engaging, including “[Doppelgänger],” in which they explain, “Even if I hide perfectly / There are times when misfortune finds me. / If I were to suppress this tormenting pain, / Would I be allowed to wish for your happiness?,” and poetic, as when they sing, “Walking in shadows, careful not to stumble, counting to nine, who are you? / The moonlight is full, playing the song of joy. If I close my eyes, I should be able to see everything.”

Dance with seven door-mirrors is a highight of Duke Bluebeard’s Castle (photo © Ayumi Sakamoto)

The scene titles in the script are not projected on the monitors but give a good idea of what audiences are in store for, including “The Bride in the Bathtub,” “A Goblin Peeks from Behind the Curtain,” “Don’t ruin my script with your life,” and “The Maestro of the Puppet Killers.” In “A Pig and a Rose,” which features some of the most hilarious dialogue in the play, Copula the Attendant (Chisato Someya) complains to the second wife (Yoshika Kotani) that the seventh wife has been miscast: “Her expressions are our hand-me-down, her heart is like a plastic trash can, and oh, her face — is the stuff that splashes out from an overflowing pit latrine. . . . She is Madam’s used tampon! Madam’s vomit — her face is fit for a manhole cover in a sewer!” The second wife is overjoyed, proclaiming, “So thrilling!!! Insults are divine, don’t you agree, Judith?”

Fujita and Homma stand out in the fantastic cast, which also features Ruri Nanzoin as Coppélius the puppeteer, You Yamagami as the costume designer, Haruka Yoshida as the debt collector, Nozomi Yamada as the actor, Yume Tsukioka as Aris, Hinako Tezuka as Teles, Kaho Asai as the magician’s assistant, Wakabayashi as the fourth wife, Mizushima as the fifth wife, Sayaka Ito as the third wife, and Mayu Kasai as wife number six. Don’t worry if you can’t keep it all straight; just let the extravaganza dazzle you time and time again.

Kim has a dream of presenting Terayama’s work in a tent along the New York City waterfront. Here’s hoping that’s next for this immensely talented creator.

[There will be a preshow lecture on Terayama by UCLA professor emerita Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei at 6:30 on January 17. Ticket holders on January 17 and 18 are invited to see the current exhibit, “Bunraku Backstage,” in the Japan Society Gallery; there is also a display of rare Terayama artifacts on view, including scripts, letters, photos, and more from the La MaMa Archive.]

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