this week in theater

WHO’S THERE: HAMLET AND BLACK LIVES

Chukwudi Iwuji will discuss the 2016 Public Theater Mobile Unit production of Hamlet in virtual program on November 10 (photo by Joan Marcus)

Who: Karen Ann Daniels, Chukwudi Iwuji, Patricia MacGregor, James Shapiro, Praycious Wilson-Gay
What: Discussion about race, Shakespeare, community, and the Public Theater’s Mobile Unit
Where: The Public Theater website and YouTube channel
When: Tuesday, November 10, free with RSVP, 7:00
Why: In the fall of 2016, the Public Theater’s Mobile Unit, after traveling across New York City, brought Patricia McGregor’s contemporary production of Hamlet to the Shiva Theater; I called the show “a playful adaptation highlighted by a superior performance by Olivier Award winner and Royal Shakespeare Company associate artist Iwuji, who is both inspired and inspiring as Hamlet. Iwuji, who has never played the role before, jumps in feet first, giving his all, often making direct eye contact with the audience to bring them further into the story. He does a lot of shouting, but he balances that with beautifully rendered soliloquies that (almost) feel like they could have been written today.” With the Public Theater and the Mobile Unit shut down because of the pandemic, the downtown institution will be presenting the virtual program “Who’s There: Hamlet and Black Lives,” a free discussion with Iwuji and McGregor on November 10 at 7:00. It is exciting to watch the actor talk about Shakespeare; on June 29, he delivered an impassioned reading of the “Homely Swain” speech from Henry IV and then waxed poetic about the play for a Red Bull Theater RemakaBULL Podversation, which can be viewed here. The Public presentation will explore Hamlet and the Mobile Unit itself within the context of the Black Lives Matter movement and the state of our divided nation, with Iwuji and McGregor joined by Mobile Unit director Karen Ann Daniels, Mobile Unit community programs manager Praycious Wilson-Gay, and Shakespeare scholar in residence James Shapiro.

MTC VIRTUAL THEATRE: TED SNOWDON READING SERIES

Charlie Oh’s Long kicks off MTC virtual spring reading series/

Who: Manhattan Theatre Club
What: Virtual fall reading series
Where: MTC YouTube channel
When: Tuesdays, November 10 – December 15, free, 2:00 (available for viewing through the following Saturday at 2:00)
Why: During the pandemic, Manhattan Theatre Club has featured such online programming as mini-modules about dramatic openings, family stories, creating strong characters, earned endings, and other topics; #TalkbackTuesdays; artist conversations; Stargate Theatre; student monologues; and other virtual presentations that can be viewed here. In addition, the Ted Snowdon Reading Series in the spring consisted of online readings of Good Time Charlie and The Collapse.

The fall reading season comprises five new plays (including some commissions), kicking off November 10 with Charlie Oh’s Long, directed by Dustin Wills and starring Christian DeMarais, Raymond Lee, Daniel Liu, and Tara Summers, followed November 17 by Julia Izumi’s (An Audio Guide for) Unsung Snails and Heroes, directed by Natsu Onoda Power; December 1 by Brittany K. Allen’s Ball Change, directed by Margot Bordelon; December 8 by Stacey Rose’s As Is: Conversations with Big Black Women in Confined Spaces, directed by Tiffany Nichole Greene; and December 15 by Penelope Skinner’s Friendly Monsters, directed by Nicole Charles. The series, which focuses on developing innovative new work, is named for and supported by theater producer Ted Snowdon and began back in 1999 (when Cherry Jones appeared in David Auburn’s Proof); among the playwrights whose work has been presented in the past are Theresa Rebeck, Adam Rapp, Mike Daisey, Amy Herzog, Alfred Uhry, Matthew Lopez, Ayad Akhtar, Jocelyn Bioh, and Lauren Yee. Each free reading will be livestreamed at Tuesday at 2:00 on YouTube and will be available for viewing through the following Saturday at 2:00. MTC will also be inaugurating “The Show Goes On,” looking back at its history, later this month, and its annual gala will go virtual in December.

PERSPECTIVES ON PLAYWRITING: MASTER CLASSES

Raja Feather Kelly, Jaclyn Backhaus, and Heather Christian are latest to participate in Playwrights Horizons’ free, virtual master classes

Who: Jaclyn Backhaus, Heather Christian
What: Playwrights Horizons virtual master classes
Where: Playwrights Horizons YouTube channel
When: Monday, November 9 & 16, free with RSVP (donations accepted), 7:00
Why: On October 26, Playwrights Horizons continued its virtual series, “Perspectives on Playwriting: Master Classes,” with a livestreamed, interactive YouTube conversation with director and choreographer Raja Feather Kelly (A Strange Loop, If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must Be a Muhfucka). On November 9, the free program welcomes playwright Jaclyn Backhaus (Wives, Men on Boats), followed November 16 with author, composer, musician, and performer Heather Christian (Animal Wisdom, Prime). Each seventy-five-minute class is free with advance registration and offers attendees a chance to participate in the discussion. The series has previously featured Will Arbery (Heroes of the Fourth Turning), Clare Barron (Dance Nation), Michael R. Jackson (A Strange Loop), Larissa FastHorse (The Thanksgiving Play), and Aleshea Harris (What to Send Up When It Goes Down); those classes can be viewed here. During the pandemic, Playwrights Horizons has also been presenting the podcast Soundstage, with audio works by Robert O’Hara, Qui Nguyen, Lucas Hnath, and others; the second season includes commissions from Eboni Booth, Agnes Borinsky, Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig, the Debate Society, Sarah Gancher, David Greenspan, Miranda Rose Hall, Dave Harris, Julia Izumi, Kit Yan, and Melissa Li.

LUNA ECLIPSE

The online immersive Luna Eclipse takes the audience through an Upper West Side church and back to the fourteenth century

spit&vigor
The Center at West Park
November 4-8, livestream, $20, 8:00
Prerecorded encores through December 13, $15
www.spitnvigor.com

In May 2018, I saw Linked Dance Theatre’s immersive production Beloved/Departed, which led the audience through virtually every nook and cranny at the West Park Presbyterian Church on Eighty-Sixth St. Now New York City’s spit&vigor company is taking audiences virtually through the church with Luna Eclipse, performed live nightly through November 8, after which you will be able to watch a recorded version on demand through December 13. The ninety-minute show is written and directed by artistic director Sara Fellini, who also has the lead role as Princeton professor Aine Luna, a thirty-something woman embroiled in a creepy mystery that takes her back to the fourteenth century. Early on she explains, “I have a doctorate in phenology, and a special interest in the study of paleobotany, which is the study of life that has come before us — through fossil records and the like. Frankly, and quite bluntly, they tell me that I have lost my mind.”

As the camera travels around the cool spaces, each room with its own unique character, we are introduced to witch Maurice (troupe executive producer Adam Belvo), dancer and activist Babs Lockhart (Caitlin Murphy), Tarot card reader Ida Lunigiana (Christine Kim), nun Sofonisba (Kim), warrior Roland (Nicole Orabona), woman from the past Louisa DeMarco (Clara Kundin), ailing father and husband Lee Doherty (Eamon Murphy), the fortysomething Rebecca Luna (Becca Musser), her overdressed son, Joseph (Pete Oliver), student Heloisia de Lunigiana (Xandra Leigh Parker), an Orange (Kundin), and a serial killer known as the Axeman of New Orleans (Nicholas Thomas). The play is built around ruminations, a series of set pieces that Aine explains “could be an imagined argument, or an internal monologue, or one side of a meaningful conversation. They aren’t necessarily true or real, but they are how the person remembered and ruminated upon them. It’s their perspective.” She also quotes from T. S. Elliot’s “The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock” and shares a story about a canary that is based on actual events experienced by puppeteer Pandora Gastelum. Luna Eclipse is part of spit&vigor’s residency with the Center at West Park; you can also watch the company’s prepandemic production of The Brutes, written by Casey Wimpee, directed by Fellini, and recorded at the historic Players Club, about a performance of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar that featured brothers Edwin, Junius Jr. and John Wilkes Booth, here.

CHICHESTER FESTIVAL THEATRE: CRAVE LIVESTREAM

Alfred Enoch, Erin Doherty, Wendy Kweh, and Jonathan Slinger perform Crave in front of a live audience (photo © Marc Brenner)

CRAVE LIVE STREAM
Chichester Festival Theatre
October 31 – November 7 (in person through November 4), £10-£20
www.cft.org.uk

The words come flying out at a furious pace, like machine-gun fire: torture, horror, death; rape, murder, suicide; blood, despair, pain; depression is inadequate. But as dark and unrelenting as Chichester Festival Theatre’s adaptation of Sarah Kane’s Crave is, it is also thrilling and triumphant, a bold statement, live and livestreamed in the age of corona, complete with a masked audience.

In an August 1998 article in the Guardian entitled “Why can’t theatre be as gripping as footie?,” English playwright Kane compared theatrical performance onstage to the athleticism of British football on the pitch in conjunction with the premiere of her fourth play, Crave. “We had a nasty injury scare,” she wrote, equating theater and sports. “During the second preview, Paul Hickey had to stop the performance due to sudden paralysis on one side of his face. The entire company was aghast, fearing he’d had a stroke. The doctor assured us it was merely hyperventilation (read ‘overacting’) caused by the ludicrous demands set by my text and [director] Vicky [Featherstone]’s insistence on performance. But it’s only by making such demands that there’s a chance of accurate expression of ideas and emotion, and direct intellectual, emotional, and physical contact with the needs of the audience. There are some wonderful performers in Edinburgh this year who are prepared to take risks in order to meet those demands and needs.”

C (Erin Doherty) reveals her demons in Chichester revival of Sarah Kane play (photo © Marc Brenner)

There are also some wonderful performers in Chichester today who are taking risks in order to meet the demands and needs of director Tinuke Craig’s fierce, indefatigable production. Originally scheduled for the Spielgeltent, it was postponed because of the pandemic, then began in-person shows on the main stage with a masked audience for an October 31 – November 7 run, with each performance livestreamed around the world, a first for the company. But when Prime Minister Boris Johnson reinstated the lockdown, it was quickly announced that the show would continue only through November 4 with an audience, after which the play will be performed live to an empty house through November 7, seen only by people at home. That’s a shame, because at the end of the November 2 show I watched from my apartment across the pond in New York City — where Kane wrote most of Crave — it was genuinely stirring to see a real audience stand and applaud at the end as the four exhausted actors took their well-deserved bows.

Crave consists of four monologues with no stage directions; after three plays — Blasted, Phaedra’s Love, and Cleansed — for which Kane gave specific instructions about performance, Kane left her fourth work up to the director and company to do with as they see fit. And what Craig (random/generations, dirty butterfly) has done with it is a marvel. The fifty-minute play stars Erin Doherty as C, Alfred Enoch as B, Wendy Kweh as M, and Jonathan Slinger as A. Each actor is positioned on their own narrow black conveyor belt, parallel to one another, moving them backward and forward, sometimes in unison, other times at different paces. At the front of each belt is a camera that occasionally projects live images onto screens on three sides of the stage; those visuals mix with prerecorded video of the actors, in addition to mysterious scenes of smokey fog and the universe. The actors, dressed in drab gray, white, and black clothing, stand and sit as they call out their lines one at a time, talking about love and loss, beauty and fear. (The wardrobe is by Loz Tait, with movement choreography, approximating modern dance, by Jenny Ogilvie.) “What have they done to us?” one character asks. “No one can hate me more than I hate myself,” another says.

Technical innovation is one of the stars in Crave livestream (photo © Marc Brenner)

The text was inspired by T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land and biblical passages, and it’s hard not to hear it without considering Kane’s fate. “Why did I not die at birth?” one character wonders. In February 1999, shortly after completing her fifth and last play, Psychosis 4.48, Kane killed herself, a few weeks after her twenty-eighth birthday. But that does not cast a pall over the proceedings. Crave is an intense and satisfying piece of theater, in many ways a celebration of life. The cast is phenomenal, each actor developing their own personality as they share the inner souls of characters trying to break free. The technical aspects are outstanding, with a vibrant and powerful revolving set by Alex Lowde, haunting imagery by film designer Ravi Deepres, eerie lighting by Joshua Pharo, and stark music and sound by Anna Clock. Additional cameras follow the action from multiple angles, offering closeups and side views and even revealing the audience. The livestream can only be experienced in real time; there is no rewinding, no watching later, and if you pause the feed, you will rejoin it in progress.

At its deepest heart, Crave is about making connections, an endeavor that has changed dramatically around the world in 2020, and none of us knows what exactly lies ahead, either in real life or onstage. At Chichester, the four actors never touch. The seats, temporarily filled with a masked audience, will again be empty as the pandemic rages on. But theater is necessary, especially at a time like this, and especially in an electrifying production that will get you through the bleakest night.

SAN FRANCISCO PLAYHOUSE: ‘ART’

The cast of ‘Art’ rehearsed in masks before filming Tony-winning play onstage together

‘ART’
San Francisco Playhouse
Through November 7, $15-$100
www.sfplayhouse.org

Perhaps the two most important members of the crew of San Francisco Playhouse’s streaming revival of ‘Art’ are production manager Maggie Johnson and general manager Danika Ingraham, who also served as the Covid compliance officers. SFP is one of the first companies in the country to get permission from Actors’ Equity to use its physical theater space to stage a play, albeit without an audience, but filmed with three actors and a full, professional crew. The ninety-minute show was rehearsed with masks and regular testing, then filmed with three cameras over three days, following strict guidelines. Yasmina Reza’s play, which won a Tony in 1998, is a natural for the pandemic, with organic social distancing; the cast spends most of the time more than six feet away from one another, in and around three chairs, with very limited touching of any kind. Yet SFP artistic director Bill English was already considering putting on the play prior to the lockdown, as the work’s central conceit serves as an apt metaphor for what is going on in America today.

Originally written in French and translated by Christopher Hampton (Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Savages), ‘Art’ focuses on a white painting purchased for $200,000 by the erudite Serge (Johnny Moreno). His best friend, the cynical Marc (Jomar Tagatac), thinks it’s a “piece of shit.” Their other friend, the more middlebrow Yvan (Bobak Bakhtiari), who is about to get married, is caught in the middle; Marc desperately wants him to admit to Serge that the painting is terrible, but Yvan doesn’t want to offend Serge, regardless of what he really thinks of the work. Their fifteen-year friendship threatens to crumble as they all start saying things they are likely to regret.

Serge (Johnny Moreno), Marc (Jomar Tagatac), and Yvan (Bobak Bakhtiari) argue over more than just a painting in SFP revival

But there’s a reason the title, ‘Art,’ is in quotes. It is not really about whether an abstract painting by a supposedly famous artist is any good, about what qualifies as ‘art.’ It’s about how difficult it has become to remain civil with people who do not share the same likes and dislikes, the same beliefs, you do. Marc is so upset that Serge has bought the white painting that he is ready to lose him forever. Although Reza (God of Carnage, Life x 3) wrote the play in 1994, it has a timeless quality; the white painting is essentially a blank canvas for the audience to fill in as they please. In 2020, for example, you can imagine it as an electoral map of blue and red states, with three friends arguing over what’s best for the country, willing to end their relationships if they are not voting for the same candidate. During the coronavirus crisis, it’s happening every day over social media, with former high school classmates, family members, and best friends fighting over the virus, immigration, health care, foreign policy, and the economy; they might block one another on Facebook, but they also might not be so willing to meet face-to-face once this crisis is over and go to a museum together.

The English-language version was originally performed by three white men, Albert Finney, Tom Courtenay, and Ken Stott, in London in 1996; the 1999 Broadway premiere featured Alan Alda as Marc, Victor Garber as Serge, and a Tony-nominated Alfred Molina as Yvan. SFP’s diverse casting adds an innate twist to the proceedings as Moreno, Tagatac, and Bakhtiari form a quick camaraderie even amid their characters’ growing displeasure with one another. (It also answers the rhetorical question director English asks in a program note: “Why open our 2020/2021 season with a play written for three white men and their petty upper-middle-class quarrel over a work of art?”)

It’s truly wonderful to finally see a fully staged production, with actual costumes (by Randy Wong-Westbrooke), sound (by Teddy Hulsker), lighting (by Heather Kenyon), and a real set; in addition to the three comfy armchairs, there is a three-sided wall that spins around in the back before stopping to delineate which man’s apartment we are at in each scene. Both Marc and Yvan have small, framed paintings on their wall, while Serge’s is empty, perhaps to be covered by his five-foot-by-four-foot investment. The final stream is effectively edited by Wolfgang Wachalovsky, who puts you onstage with the actors; it was not shot to make you feel like you are sitting in the theater. And until we are allowed back into theaters to see live forms of “art,” this is about as close as we’re going to get.

KAREN, I SAID

Eliza Kent portrays Karyn, Karen, and Karin in interactive one-woman online show

October Surprise Edition
New Georges
Monday, November 2, $15-$30, 6:00
newgeorges.org
www.afo.nyc

I was initially hesitant to check out Karen, I Said. One of our best friends is named Karen, and at a recent socially distanced and masked lunch she talked with us about how annoying and infuriating it is that her name has become such an awful meme, representing so many things she is against. But word of mouth about Eliza Bent’s one-woman show was too much to ignore, so I was able to finally experience an October Surprise Edition during its extended run, which ends November 2. And I now get what all the fuss is about — and even think our friend Karen might actually enjoy it as well. Or maybe not.

Karen, I Said takes place in three parts over forty-five minutes. In the first section, Bent, whose previous solo works include Toilet Fire and Aloha, Aloha, or When I Was Queen, is Karyn, a thirty-eight-year-old white mother who is sending messages about her friend Karen over Instagram, filmed in claustrophobic spaces in her apartment, primarily a crowded closet. (The design is by Erma Fiend.) “My name’s Karyn. With a y. I’m not that kinda Karen,” she tells 911 when she calls to report a “non-emergency,” that her friend Karen has contacted 911 to complain that her vegetarian goddess lasagna came covered in meat sauce. “Karen, you’ve got rage turned outward on the delivery guy. It’s ‘misplaced anger.’ You’re not mad at the delivery guy; you’re mad about—”

Karyn’s frenzied stream of words are occasionally accompanied by emojis, funny facial close-ups, and pop-culture images (from The Simpsons to Biscoff biscuits to The Sopranos), putting a playful stamp on her declarations as she chastises her bestie since seventh grade, talking about rage, depression, pandemic marketing, “micro-aggravations,” and who’s more woke. After letting Karen know that her name has gone viral, now standing for “a racist white lady who tries to police bodies of water / bodies of color! / black and brown bodies,” Karen is upset. “We’re all racist,” Karyn says. “Admitting that is the first step.”

In the second part, Karen, portrayed by Bent in a more suburban style, shares her side of the story as she Zooms in from her relatively spacious kitchen. “For the record — I am SORRY I yelled at the delivery dude. And I DID apologize to him after I cooled down,” she says. “We even HUGGED. He’s single and he hadn’t been hugged since MARCH. I just REALLY WANTED that vegetarian goddess lasagna.” Also a thirty-eight-year-old white mother, Karen refers to Karyn as her “ex-friend,” sharing her thoughts on progressives, coastal elites, animal rights, and the Rohingya.

In the final, longest section, a thirty-eight-year-old white woman named Karin (she/her/hers/they/them/we/us) with a more professional demeanor, also played by Bent, is hosting an interactive Zoom meeting called “Consciousness Raising, Health & Wellness as Regards to Anti-Racism, Racial Healing, and Historic Macro-Injustices in the Workspace and Beyond.” The audience is encouraged to open the chat window and participate, in addition to unmuting to recite the Liberal Progressive Creed: “On this Zoom / we believe / Black Lives Matter / Women’s rights are human rights / No human is illegal / Science is real / (and really hard) / Love is Love. / NPR is King. / Kindness . . . *or Else!* / Home has no hate here.” Karin speaks directly to the audience, addressing postings in the chat from regular attendees Randy, Hannah, Zeke, and Kaaron as well as those from audience members as they debate acknowledging the native ancestors of the land they are on, virtue signaling, holding space, personal pronouns, book clubs, and the weaponization of language.

In this third part, Bent, who also wrote the script, and director Tara Ahmadinejad (Leap and the Net Will Appear, Lunch Bunch) wrap up everything that was said and alluded to in the first two segments and tie it all up in a little bow that might not look so pretty in the mirror. Presented by bentertainment and New Georges in association with All for One Theater, Karen, I Said is a satirical examination of anti-racism and white privilege from the point of view of white men and women who want to be allies but are not always sure what that entails, or what it even means. They might want to do good, but they have a lot of learning to do. Of course, so do we all, so-called Karens or not.