this week in theater

SPECIAL EVENT BENEFIT READING AND BULL SESSION: THE WOMAN HATER

Who: Red Bull Theater company
What: Benefit reading of The Woman Hater and live Q&A
Where: Red Bull Theater website and Facebook Live
When: Monday, January 25, free (suggested donation $25), 7:30 (available on demand through January 29); Bull Session on Thursday, January 28, free, 7:30
Why: For its previous livestream benefit reading, Red Bull Theater, known for its exquisite stagings of Jacobean plays — the company was named after an English playhouse that produced works between 1604 and 1642, not after an energy drink — dipped its toes into the contemporary era with Carlyle Brown’s The African Company Presents Richard III, which was written in 1994 and set in 1821. Red Bull heads to the turn of the eighteenth century with a benefit reading of Frances Burney’s rarely performed The Woman Hater, a protofeminist satire of romance, misogyny, and high society. “The discovery of Frances Burney’s stage plays is a wonderful revelation, and it is a joy for us to be able to share what just might be her funniest play with audiences online,” artistic director Jesse Berger said in a statement. Directed by Everett Quinton and featuring Bill Army, Arnie Burton, Veanne Cox, Rebecca S’Manga Frank, Cherie Corinne Rice, Matthew Saldivar, Jenne Vath, and Nick Westrate, with visual design by David M. Barber and costumes by Sara Jean Tosetti, the work will be performed live January 25 at 7:30 and will be available on demand through January 29.

David M. Barber designed the visual backdrops for Red Bull reading of The Woman Hater

In addition, Red Bull is hosting a Bull Session on January 28 at 7:30 with Quinton, members of the cast, and scholar Tara K. Menon, who in a statement explained, “Frances Burney wrote The Woman Hater between 1796 and 1801. Although the play was never performed in public, Burney drew a cast list of prominent actors from Drury Lane, including Sarah Siddons, the best known tragedienne of the day, as Eleonora. The play shares its title with the 1607 play by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, which also lampoons misogyny. Burney’s play first came to light in 1945 when the Berg Collection of the New York Public Library acquired a collection of her writing. Her plays were published for the first time in 1995. The Woman Hater is best characterized as a sentimental comedy, but it contains elements of several other genres including gothic drama, farce, and comedy of manners.” It also has echoes of Burney’s 1779 comedy, The Witlings. Tickets to both events are free, but there is a $25 suggested donation for the reading if you are able to contribute.

ORIGINAL CAST BENEFIT READING SERIES: GLORIA

Who: Kyle Beltran, Catherine Combs, Michael Crane, Jennifer Kim, Jeanine Serralles, Ryan Spahn
What: Livestreamed benefit reunion reading
Where: Vineyard Theatre
When: January 19-24, $25
Why: In May 2015, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s Gloria premiered at the Vineyard Theatre, a dark, satirical drama set in a Manhattan magazine office where a sudden, tragic event upends the normalcy of the everyday work environment forever. The original cast is reuniting January 19 at 7:00 for a benefit reading, with Kyle Beltran as Miles, Shawn, and Rashaad, Catherine Combs as Ani, Sasha, and Callie, Michael Crane as Lorin, Jennifer Kim as Kendra and Jenna, Jeanine Serralles as Gloria and Nan, and Ryan Spahn as Dean and Devin; many of the characters dream of becoming famous before they reach thirty, but. . . . The Pulitzer Prize finalist received multiple nominations for outstanding play and supporting actress (Serralles); the reading, which can be viewed through January 24, will also bring back original director Evan Cabnet. Jacobs-Jenkins is one of America’s sharpest playwrights; his other shows include Girls, Everybody, War, Appropriate, An Octoroon, and Neighbors, each of which made a significant impact on the theater community. Up next in the Vineyard’s Original Cast Benefit Reading Series is Cornelius Eady’s Brutal Imagination, directed by Joe Morton and starring Morton and Sally Murphy, reprising their roles from the 2001-2 Vineyard production helmed by Diane Paulus.

THE APPROACH

Mark O’Rowe’s The Approach will be streamed live from Dublin for three performances (photo by Patrick Redmond)

Who: Cathy Belton, Derbhle Crotty, Aisling O’Sullivan
What: Livestreamed production of Mark O’Rowe’s The Approach from Dublin
Where: St. Ann’s Warehouse
When: January 21 (2:30 am), 23 (2:30 am), 24 (4:00 pm), €25-€50 (live), January 25-31 on demand, €20
Why: As theater companies continue to adapt to presenting works during the pandemic lockdown, audiences have had to adapt as well. Most of the online productions have been either previously recorded versions of pre-coronavirus stage productions or Zoom readings, which lack the urgency of live theater. But some shows, primarily from across the pond, have been performed live from indoor theaters, resulting in a joyous excitement as people from all over the world experience the work in real time, together, with no pausing or rewinding, a story unfolding as it happens. On January 21, 23, and 24, St. Ann’s Warehouse and Landmark Productions have teamed up to stream three live performances of Mark O’Rowe’s 2018 sold-out Edinburgh Fringe Festival hit, The Approach, broadcast from the Project Arts Centre stage in Dublin; the play will then be available for on-demand viewing January 25-31.

The hourlong show is also directed by O’Rowe (DruidShakespeare, Howie the Rookie), who wrote the emotion-packed play specifically for Irish stars Cathy Belton (The House, Women in Arms), Derbhle Crotty (DruidShakespeare, The Home Place), and Aisling O’Sullivan (The Beauty Queen of Leenane, Big Maggie), who have reunited for this virtual revival. They portray two sisters and a best friend who have drifted apart but reexamine their relationships through three conversations over five years, which can feel particularly relevant while we are all sheltering in place, having Zoom calls with friends and family, including those we might not have seen in a long time. “It takes a crisis of some sort sometimes, or an upheaval, for people to really evaluate how they feel about one another, doesn’t it?” one character says. The production features set and lighting by Sinead McKenna, costumes by Joan O’Clery, and sound by Philip Stewart, attempting to bring as much of the real theater experience as possible to our small screens. (The January 23 show will be followed by a talkback with members of the cast and crew.)

SOME OLD BLACK MAN

Son (Wendell Pierce) and father (Charlie Robinson) fight it out in James Anthony Tyler’s Some Old Black Man

SOME OLD BLACK MAN
UMS Digital Presentation
Through January 18, free with RSVP
ums.org

Back in early 2018, I was supposed to see the off-Broadway premiere of Berkshire Playwrights Lab’s Some Old Black Man, but it didn’t work out because one of the actors in the two-character play, Tony winner Roger Robinson, had taken ill; the August Wilson regular passed away later that September. But his costar, Wendell Pierce, has carried on with the show, now bringing it to the University of Michigan’s UMS as part of his digital artist residency, dedicated to presenting works following all Covid-19 protocols during the pandemic lockdown.

In the play, written by James Anthony Tyler and directed by Joe Cacaci, Calvin Jones (Pierce) has just moved his elderly father, Donald (Charles Robinson), from the family home in Greenwald, Mississippi, to Calvin’s Harlem penthouse, since the son thinks his ailing father is unable to take care of himself anymore. Donald resents his son’s assumption and is ornery and disagreeable, while the even-keeled Calvin tries to manage this rearrangement of his household. It’s a kind of twist on the classic Odd Couple setup (coincidentally, Pierce was a regular in the 2015 Odd Couple reboot, as a friend of Oscar Madison’s); when Donald tosses a vibrantly colored afghan onto a couch so he can watch television comfortably, Calvin argues that it ruins the subdued décor of the living room. When Calvin prepares breakfast, he makes a healthy dish, which Donald refuses to touch. Their verbal battles bring up both good and bad memories along with some long-hidden secrets, impacted by pride, systemic racism, downright stubbornness, and misconceptions that might not be easy to heal.

Costars Wendell Pierce and Charlie rehearse Some Old Black Man with director Joe Cacaci

Pierce (The Wire, Treme) and Robinson (Sugar Hill, Mac in Night Court) — both of whom recently portrayed Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman onstage, the former in London, the latter at South Coast Rep in California — are completely in tune with one another in Some Old Black Man, their deep, distinct voices rattling your bones as if you were in the theater with them, not watching at home on a screen. There are plenty of laugh-out-loud lines amid the growing tension, and the intimacy is palpable; it doesn’t feel like you’re watching a movie but a live broadcast. The actors enhanced their emotional connections through personal touches; Pierce spent time sheltering in place with his father in New Orleans, while Robinson uses a picture of his adoptive mother as the photo of his character’s late wife, the prop placed on the piano so he can always see it.

To put on the play, which Pierce has called a “public health case study” for how to make theater amid the coronavirus crisis (you can watch a cool behind-the-scenes video here), Pierce, Robinson, Tyler, Cacaci, and stage manager Tiffany Robinson quarantined together in a home in west Ann Arbor, with plans to travel to the Jam Handy performing arts center in Detroit and rehearse in masks. They had to hold the start of those rehearsals on Zoom when Cacaci tested positive for the virus, but they eventually were able to move to the Jam Handy and ultimately film three complete performances over three days in November on Justin Lang’s elegant set, using multiple cameras but, of course, no audience. The result is a powerful, poignant piece of theater that, although written in 2010, resonates with what’s happening with today’s social justice movement as America takes a long, hard look at the continuing, devastating effects of racism. Available on demand through January 18, the play is followed by an illuminating talkback with the cast and crew. For more on Tyler (Artney Jackson, Dolphins and Sharks), you can catch a work-in-progress reading of his Talkin’ to This Chick Sippin’ Magic Potion performed by Theaterworks Hartford streaming February 7–26.

LIVELABS — ONE ACTS: BETWEEN THE TWO HUMPS

Halley Feiffer offers a new twist on an old story in Between the Two Humps

Who: MCC Theater
What: LIVELABS: One Acts
Where: MCC Theater online
When: Through January 17, $10 (free to subscribers)
Why: Playwright Halley Feiffer and director Trip Cullman, who previously teamed up on Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow, an uproarious version of Chekhov’s Three Sisters, return to MCC virtually with the eighteen-minute LIVELABS presentation Between the Two Humps, a different take on the story of Mary and Joseph. The Zoom production features Noah Robbins as Joseph, Kara Young as Mary, Peppermint as the angel Gabriel, and Portia as the voice of God. Instead of a reverent look at the birth of Jesus, in this case the foul-mouthed parents-to-be are dealing with teen pregnancy and questioning their faith as they make their way through the desert, accompanied by live set drawing courtesy of Clint Ramos. The show, which was written before the pandemic and has been reimagined for virtual viewing, also comes with a thirty-three-minute talkback with the cast and crew and is available on demand through January 17.

2021 ORIGIN 1st IRISH THEATRE FESTIVAL

Michelle Dooley Mahon’s The Scourge tells of a woman reliving her mother’s battle with Alzheimer’s (photo by Carol Rosegg)

2021 ORIGIN 1st IRISH THEATRE FESTIVAL
January 11-31, free – $10 per event
www.origintheatre.org

The thirteenth annual Origin 1st Irish Theatre Festival has been reimagined for its 2021 iteration, a three-week collection of theatrical dramas ($10), fiction and nonfiction films ($5), and free panel discussions shedding light on the current state of Irish theater. Curated by actors Mick Mellamphy and Sarah Street, the festivities kick off January 11 with the opening ceremony on Zoom and Fishamble’s Mustard, Eva O’Connor’s one-woman Edinburgh Fringe play about a woman who falls hard for a Tour de France competitor. “The cyclist knows nothing of the madness in my bones or the mustard in my mind,” the character says. The other plays are the Wexford Arts Center’s production of Michelle Dooley Mahon’s one-woman The Scourge, an Alzheimer’s story directed by Ben Barnes; Darren Murphy’s deeply moving The Gifts You Gave to the Dark, the Irish Rep tale told over a smartphone, one of the first live works dealing with Covid-19; Origin’s Under the Albert Clock, comprising monologues by five playwrights from Northern Ireland (Emily Dedakis, Gina Donnelly, Sarah Gordon, Fionnuala Kennedy, and Alice Malseed) set around the historic Albert Clock in Belfast in 2050; About Face Ireland’s Zoom presentation Transatlantic Tales, eight original works by Matthew Cole Kelly, Melissa Annis, James McLindon, Rachel White, Emily Bohannon, Krystal Sweedman, Seamus Scanlon, and Neil Sharpson, each pairing one actor in Ireland and one in America (Amie Tedesco, Kathleen Warner Yeates, Brandon Jones, Helena White, Kevin Collins, Darina Gallagher, Orlagh Cassidy, Mark Tankersley, Erin Healani Chung, Michael Rhodes, David Ryan, John Keating, Megan Day, Kate Grimes, Paul Nugent, Richard Topol, and Maureen O’Connell); and Origin’s Stay Home and Stay Safe, four short pieces by Geraldine Aaron, Honor Molloy, Derek Murphy, and Ursula Rani Sarma about domestic violence during the pandemic, with Angel Desai, Alan Kelly, Niamh Hopper, David Spain, and Jade Jordan.

Richard Topol and Maureen O’Connell star in one of five short Zoom plays that comprise Transatlantic Tales

In addition to three showings of each play, there will be two screenings of each film, which explore unemployed actors going on a camping trip (O’Connell’s Spa Weekend), a possible miracle (Aislinn Clarke’s The Devil’s Doorway), what happens when your horse comes in (Seanie Sugrue’s Misty Button), the 1998 Good Friday Agreement (Rory Duffy’s A Fragile Peace), an incident in the Irish War of Independence (Conal Creedon’s The Burning of Cork), and a 1905 journey across Connemara by John Millington Synge and Jack B. Yeats (Margy Kinmonth’s To the Western World). There will also be five panel discussions that will stream twice; the full schedule is below.

Monday, January 11
Opening Ceremony, 3:00

Friday, January 15
“Irish Redemption — An Irish Invasion into the World of Video Games,” with Roger Clarke and Penny O Brien, 8:00

Sunday, January 17
“Producing in a Pandemic,“ offering first looks at new works, with Aoife Williamson, Derek Murphy, Tim Ruddy, David Gilna, and Lorna Fenenbock, 8:00

Monday, January 18
“Black&Irish,” focusing on diversity and inclusion in Irish arts and culture, with Femi Bankole, Leon Diop, Bonni Odoemene, Jade Jordan, and Zainab Boladale, 8:00

Wednesday, January 20
“Casting and the Irish Perspective,” with Christine McKenna Tirella, 3:00

“The Irish Tunes of Tin Pan Alley,” with Mick Moloney and Larry Kirwan, 8:00

Friday, January 22
“Irish Redemption — An Irish Invasion into the World of Video Games,” with Roger Clarke and Penny O Brien, 3:00

Saturday, January 23
“Producing in a Pandemic,“ offering first looks at new works, with Aoife Williamson, Derek Murphy, Tim Ruddy, David Gilna, and Lorna Fenenbock, 3:00

Monday, January 25
“Casting and the Irish Perspective,” with Christine McKenna Tirella, 8:00

Wednesday, January 27
“The Irish Tunes of Tin Pan Alley,” with Mick Moloney and Larry Kirwan, 3:00

Saturday, January 30
“Black&Irish,” focusing on diversity and inclusion in Irish arts and culture, with Femi Bankole, Leon Diop, Bonni Odoemene, Jade Jordan, and Zainab Boladale, 3:00

Saturday, January 31
Closing Ceremony, 5:00

THE AFRICAN COMPANY PRESENTS RICHARD III

Who: Red Bull Theater company
What: Livestreamed benefit reading of The African Company Presents Richard III
Where: Red Bull Theater website and Facebook Live
When: Monday, January 11, free with RSVP (donations accepted), 7:30 (available on demand through January 15 at 7:00); “Bull Session” Thursday, January 14, free with RSVP, 7:30
Why: As winters go, this one has been pretty chock-full of discontent. Thankfully, after a much-deserved holiday hiatus, Red Bull Theater is back with its next live benefit reading, Carlyle Brown’s 1994 play The African Company Presents Richard III, a tale of a battle of Shakespearean proportions. In 1821, the nation’s first Black theater troupe, the African Company of New York, started by William Henry Brown, was staging Richard III downtown, starring James Hewlett. Angry that the production was attracting Black and white audiences, Park Theatre manager and duelist Stephen Price produced a competing version while trying to stop the African Company’s.

“Exactly two hundred years ago, the real events that form the plot of The African Company . . . took place not much more than a stone’s throw from where I’m sitting typing these words at this moment in New York City, isolated. Carlyle’s play gives us a personal and poetic window through which to look in on our ever-present racially charged past, helping us better understand our own times — and how we all might think about who gets to tell whose stories,” Red Bull founder and artistic director Jesse Berger said in a statement. The reading is directed by Carl Cofield and features Clifton Duncan, Edward Gero, Dion Johnstone, Paul Niebanck, Antoinette Robinson, Craig Wallace, and Jessika D. Williams. The reading will premiere live on January 11 at 7:30 and will be available on demand through January 15; on January 14 at 7:30, Red Bull will host a live “Bull Session” discussion with Brown, Cofield, scholar Marvin Edward McAllister, and members of the company. The two programs should help bring some of solace during this “weak piping time of peace.”