this week in theater

MLIMA’S TALE

Sahr Ngaujah is extraordinary as an endangered elephant in Mlima’s Tale (photo by Joan Marcus)

Martinson Hall, the Public Theater
425 Lafayette St. at Astor Pl.
Tuesday through Sunday through June 3, $85-$150
212-539-8500
www.publictheater.org

In 2015, a Minnesota dentist became an international pariah when he shot and killed a beloved thirteen-year-old lion named Cecil in Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park, purely for sport and a photo op. In the 2017 documentary Trophy, Shaul Schwarz and Christina Clusiau went deep inside the big business of trophy hunting, focusing on the industry surrounding the hunting of the Big Five: buffalo, leopards, elephants, lions, and rhinos. In Mlima’s Tale, which was just extended through June 3 at the Public’s Martinson Hall, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage follows the money after a treasured elephant is killed for his magnificent tusks in a national park in Kenya. Nottage, who traveled to Democratic Republic of Congo for Ruined to tell the harrowing story of rape and sexual abuse there, and went to Reading, Pennsylvania, to look at a factory town in trouble in Sweat (which began in Martinson Hall before transferring to Broadway), now takes theatergoers to the African savannah, where the mighty Mlima is facing death. The mammal is sensationally portrayed by the tall, powerfully built Sahr Ngaujah, who displays an impressive, chiseled chest and a deep, dark stare, his movements a kind of contemporary dance.

As the play opens, Mlima is on a spare stage, a full moon projected behind him. His speech is accompanied by elephant sounds in the background. “You must listen with your entire body, feel how the earth shifts when there’s the slightest disruption, because how you listen can mean the difference between life and death. It’s the truth of the savannah, something we all learn at a very young age,” he says, remembering what his grandmother taught him, echoing words spoken by many African and black American parents and grandparents to their children and grandchildren. Two hunters, the impatient Rahman (Ito Aghayere) and the older, wiser Geedi (Jojo Gonzalez), approach the fatally wounded Mlima, waiting for him to die so they can cut off his tusks. Geedi believes the proud animal should be treated with the respect he deserves, while Rahman recalls a Maasai legend, saying, “If you not give elephant proper burial, he’ll haunt you forever.” Just before dying, Mlima calls out to his brother, “Let reason rule your anger, and don’t come to mourn me! Run! Run!” Geedi then removes the unseen tusks and brings them to police chief Githinji (Kevin Mambo), setting in motion a La Ronde-like narrative structure in which one character from each scene continues into the next (with two exceptions) as the tusks, now represented by Ngaujah with white streaks across his face and body, are illegally transported by a series of corrupt men, each one taking his cut. Along the way, the spirit of Mlima is alive in the tusks, leaving a white mark of complicity and shame on everyone involved.

Sahr Ngaujah stands tall as Mlima as Kevin Mambo, Ito Aghayere, and Jojo Gonzalez portray characters debating the fate of the elephant’s tusks (photo by Joan Marcus)

Nottage (By the Way, Meet Vera Stark; Intimate Apparel) was inspired to write Mlima’s Tale after a conversation she had with Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow, an animal-rights activist who directed and produced the three-minute 2014 documentary Last Days, about the human and financial cost of the illegal ivory trade and its ties to terrorism. Aghayere (Familiar, Three Days to See), Gonzalez (F**king A, Small Mouth Sounds), and Mambo (The Color Purple, Fela!) play multiple roles, from warden and ship captain to ivory dealer and artist, often changing costumes (by Jennifer Moeller) in less than a minute. Director Jo Bonney (Father Comes Home from the Wars; By the Way, Meet Vera Stark) uses inventive staging for the quick transitions, as a large rectangular board moves horizontally across the front of the stage like a cinematic wipe as such basic props as chairs and tables are changed on Riccardo Hernandez’s set. Each new scene begins with a projected quote, including “Even the night has ears,” “No matter how full the river, it still wants to grow,” and “A single stick might smoke, but it will not burn.” Composer and music director Justin Hicks stands on the floor, next to the stage, effectively mixing music and natural sounds to maintain the stark atmosphere. (The sound design is by Darron L West.)

Tony and Olivier nominee Ngaujah (The Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek, Fela!) is spectacular as Mlima, his accusing eyes penetrating through the other characters as well as the audience, implicating all of us, his breathtaking movement seeking to regain power that might never return. (The choreography is by Chris Walker.) When he stands high on a table and is examined by prospective tusk buyers, it is like he is an African slave being sold at auction. But Nottage and Bonney don’t overplay that connection, instead focusing attention on the plight of the elephants, whose population has dropped from 1.3 million to 400,000 over the last several decades. “There are more elephants being killed than are being born, which means that in less than twenty years they may well be extinct,” a white Kenyan says in the play. Coincidentally, around the corner from the Public Theater, in Astor Plaza, is Gillie & Marc’s “The Last Three,” a bronze sculpture depicting three northern white rhinos, one atop the other, symbolizing the potential extinction of the species because of the rhino horn trade; sadly, right after the work was installed, one of the three remaining rhinos died. Mlima’s Tale is a gorgeously rendered, heartbreaking reminder of humanity’s place in the world, how greed and consumption trample over the natural environment and how every choice we make, as individuals and as a society, has an impact on the future of the planet, which is far too heavy with white markings everywhere.

KING LEAR

Kent (Antony Byrne) is at the ready as Lear (Sir Antony Sher) enters in Royal Shakespeare production at BAM (photo by Richard Termine)

Brooklyn Academy of Music
BAM Harvey Theater
651 Fulton St.
April 7-29, $35-$125, 7:30 (plus weekend matinees)
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

Sir Antony Sher bids adieu to Shakespeare in a dark version of the already dark King Lear, continuing at BAM’s Harvey Theater through April 27. The Royal Shakespeare Company production takes place in a dank, dreary, dismal world reminiscent of Akira Kurosawa’s The Lower Depths, where poverty and disillusionment reign. As the audience enters the theater, robed and hooded figures slowly walk onstage from the wings and sit on a vinyl tarp covering the ground, which is strewn with black gravel, while hellish mist floats in. After several minutes, they leave and a door in the back wall opens; Lear, wearing an enormous, brutal, bearlike fur coat, makes his entrance, sitting on his throne atop a large box with transparent sides. The members of the court are all dressed in black, some with gold adornments, except for one woman, who we soon learn is Cordelia (Mimi Ndiweni). Prepared to divide his kingdom into thirds, Lear listens as first Goneril (Nia Gwynne), who is married to the Duke of Albany (Clarence Smith), then Regan (Kelly Williams), wed to the Duke of Cornwall (James Clyde), profess their undying love for their father, and each is rewarded with their share of the kingdom. But when Cordelia, the youngest daughter, tells Lear she loves him as a child should love a parent, refusing to damn him with faint praise, he disinherits her. Lear’s trusted friend and adviser, the Earl of Kent (Antony Byrne), questions the king’s decision, so he is exiled. Afterward, another of Lear’s advisers, the Earl of Gloucester (David Troughton), is tricked by his illegitimate son, Edmund (Paapa Essiedu), into believing that his older son, Edgar (Oliver Johnstone), has plotted against him, leading Edgar to run away and disguise himself as Poor Tom, a crazy wanderer. Things don’t go well from there for anyone in the play, which was inspired by Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland and Sir Philip Sidney’s Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia.

The Brooklyn Academy of Music has been presenting Lear for more than 150 years, with a wide range of actors portraying the king, from Ernesto Rossi and Edwin Booth to Frank Langella and Sir Derek Jacobi. “It’s all Ian McKellen’s fault,” Sher writes at the beginning of his latest book, Year of the King: The Lear Diaries; McKellen played Lear at BAM in 2007. Directed by RSC artistic director Gregory Doran, Sher’s longtime partner, this Lear is more subtle than most, if that word can be used at all to describe the Bard’s monumental tragedy. The sixty-eight-year-old Sher plays Lear as a sad, gentle, at times spoiled child who is already in decline before completely unraveling. With great understatement he towers over everyone in the storm scene, high atop the box, video of a rushing waterfall raging behind him, but he has already lost it all. Byrne is a fine, forceful Kent, boasting a shaved head with a warriorlike tattoo; he’s determined to bring the king back to reality, but he knows it’s too late. Troughton is magnificent as Gloucester, a pathetic figure on his way to certain doom, his hair so disheveled you want to go onstage and hug him (and comb his dreary locks). Johnstone’s Edgar is heartbreaking as well, a kind of sprite who has been beaten down by a cruel world he can’t understand. And Graham Turner is a memorable Fool, a tall, strong clown whose mind and body break down over time.

Kent (Antony Byrne) attends to a failing Lear (Sir Antony Sher) as the Fool (Graham Turner) looks on (photo by Richard Termine)

Niki Turner’s set is mostly spare, with various objects, from small trees to chairs and tables to large circles on poles representing the sun and the moon, carried by the cast. The large box is a curious addition that might not completely work — perhaps it’s a metaphor for peering inside the minds of the characters, particularly Lear’s, or else is a sign of being trapped — but it is eerily effective in the blinding scene, blood spurting and splashing onto the transparent sides. Doran focuses on the act of seeing throughout the play, giving prominence to lines about sight and eyes. “What, art mad? A man may see how this world goes with no eyes,” Lear tells Gloucester. “’Tis the times’ plague, when madmen lead the blind,” the Fool says to the old man (Edward James Walters). Tim Mitchell’s lighting, Jonathan Ruddick’s sound design, and Ilona Sekacz’s music, performed by musicians on balconies on the right and left of the stage, combine for a threatening atmosphere; the goings-on grow so somber that a surprising amount of the audience did not return after intermission for the second act, although I’d like to think that was more because those patrons were not prepared for nearly three and a half hours of gloom and doom. But this is Lear, after all, in this case featuring one of the world’s greatest Shakespearean actors taking his final Bard bow. It might be more of a whisper than a scream, but it is majestic and monumental nonetheless.

FEEDING THE DRAGON

Sharon Washington shares her childhood tale of living inside the New York Public Library in Feeding the Dragon (photo by James Leynse)

Cherry Lane Mainstage Theatre
38 Commerce St.
Tuesday – Sunday through April 27, $72
212-989-2020
www.feedingthedragontheplay.com
primarystages.org

Amid all the high-profile theatrical extravaganzas that are trying to capture Tony buzz this spring, a small gem opened last month, a must-see, particularly for the literary-minded. From 1969, when she was ten, until 1973, Sharon Washington lived on the fifth floor of the St. Agnes Branch of the New York Public Library on the Upper West Side with her mother, Connie, a native New Yorker; her father, George, the Charleston-born library custodian; Connie’s mother, Gramma Ma; and their dog, Brownie. Washington, an actress who has appeared in such films as Die Hard with a Vengeance and Michael Clayton, such series as The Looming Tower and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and such plays as While I Yet Live and The Scottsboro Boys, is now sharing her poignant story in Feeding the Dragon, a Primary Stages production continuing at the Cherry Lane through April 27. Washington is a warm, eminently likable storyteller, moving across Tony Ferrieri’s welcoming set with grace, ease, and humor. The two-level stage features five glass windows in the back, with multiple rectangular panels of different colors, a wooden table and chair and desk lamp at the center, and several rows of library books and card catalog drawers, in addition to one pile of books piled high on the lower level, next to a stool. For eighty minutes, Washington keeps the audience riveted as she relates her engrossing tale, which for viewers of a certain age provides a similar thrill to E. L. Konigsburg’s From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, the classic children’s novel about a brother and sister who essentially live at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Actress Sharon Washington stars in one-woman show about her childhood at the Cherry Lane (photo by James Leynse)

During the day, Sharon would go to school, but when she got home and the library was closed, she voraciously read through the endless stacks of books, absorbing as much as she possibly could. She had free rein, except for the basement, where the furnace was. Her mother told her not to go down there because it was dangerous, but Sharon didn’t listen. “To me the furnace room was an enchanted cave where I could watch Daddy feed the Dragon,” she says, describing how the furnace looked like a monster to her. “I loved watching Daddy work. He was like a knight from my Blue Fairy book — St. George and the Dragon.” Sharon talks about the owners of the store next door, Mr. Sam and Miss Sophie; wonders how her parents got a baby grand piano into the apartment; discusses getting into Dalton; reenacts scenes from books with her best friend, Esther; and searches for Brownie when the dog escapes the apartment and runs into the library. When she discovers something about her father that her parents kept from her, she is sent to Queens for a few weeks to stay with Connie’s siblings, Aunt Sis and Uncle Gene, then goes on a road trip with her father to visit, for the first time, his family in Charleston, experiencing aspects of the real world that she couldn’t find in books, including Jim Crow. Sharon seamlessly flows from character to character, each with a distinct voice, while also reading passages from books by W. E. B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and James Baldwin. But life there was far from idyllic for the Washingtons. “Let me tell you something, baby. Folks say all the time it must be so nice to live rent-free. Shoot . . . this ain’t free,” says her father, who had to shovel coal into the furnace to keep it constantly burning. “I work hard. Seven days a week. Don’t bother me . . . worth it to keep a roof over my family’s head. I ain’t scared of no hard work. That ain’t nothing new to me.” Director Maria Mileaf never allows the show to become stagnant; in addition to Sharon’s movement — and mad dancing skillz — lighting designer Ann Wrightson keeps the colors on the back windows changing, and sound designer Lindsay Jones adds offstage music and subtle audio effects. Sharon was inspired to tell her fairy-tale story — yes, she begins by saying, “Once upon a time, there was a little girl who lived in a library” — when journalist Jim Dwyer wrote a 2009 article about the family in the New York Times.. Of course, no one else could tell it as the girl who lived it. So forget those big-budget blockbusters and instead hurry down to the Cherry Lane before this library closes.

MEAN GIRLS

August Wilson Theatre
245 West 52nd St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through July 7, $99 – $199
meangirlsonbroadway.com

Last year the August Wilson Theatre was home to Groundhog Day, an outstanding, underappreciated musical based on Harold Ramis’s 1993 hit comedy. It’s nearly déjà vu all over again as the theater is now the residence of another outstanding musical version of a beloved film, Mean Girls; however, with tickets currently available through March 2019, it may be there a whole lot longer than Groundhog Day was. And like its predecessor, Mean Girls gets just about everything right; the only thing clearly missing are cheese fries at the concession stand. Mark Waters’s 2004 film about a new girl experiencing all the awful trials and tribulations of high school was written by Tina Fey, who also wrote the book of the musical, doing a superb job of reimagining and updating the story for the Broadway stage, at least until the disappointingly sappy ending. The show opens with outcasts Damian Hubbard (Grey Henson) and Janis Sarkisian (Barrett Wilbert Weed) warning the audience about what they are going to see. “It’s a cautionary tale / of fear and lust and pride, / based on actual events / where people died,” the proudly gay Damian sings. Offbeat artist Janis adds, “No one died. / But how far would you go / to be popular and hot? / Would you resist temptation?” After growing up in Kenya with her crunchy archaeologist parents and a vast array of animal friends, Cady Heron (Erika Henningsen) is thrilled to go back to the States for high school with other teenagers — but she quickly learns that it’s survival of the fittest, not all that less brutal than the animal kingdom, as packs are formed, turf is defended, and prey is attacked. When Cady is asked to sit with the Plastics — the cool-chick clique run by the vain and nasty Regina George (Taylor Louderman), with her loyal sidekick Gretchen Wieners (Ashley Park) and the not-too-bright sexpot Karen Smith (Kate Rockwell) — Damian and Janis try to convince her not to. “Regina George is not cool! She’s a scum-sucking fart-mouth life ruiner!” Janis declares, then asks Cady to spy on the Plastics for them. Cady doesn’t want to be a mole, but she’s so desperate to be accepted at school that she decides to go along with it. And the more she learns about the Plastics, the more she learns about herself, and life, and not always liking what she discovers.

Mean Girls is a bittersweet, raucous tale of fitting in, whether child or adult. “Where do you belong?” Damian sings early on. “We all get a box / That’s where we go / It’s stifling / But at least you know / So, where do you belong?” The lyrics, by Tony nominee Nell Benjamin (Legally Blonde, The Explorers Club), don’t fit in a box either, nor does the music, by Emmy winner Jeff Richmond (Fey’s husband), ranging from rock to rap. (The orchestrations are by John Clancy.) Fey brings the classic tale of the new girl into the present, incorporating environmentalism and cyber bullying as well as a modern-day feminist angle, with her trademark fresh but sharp sense of humor. Henningsen (Les Misérables, Dear World) is delightful as Cady, the role famously played by Lindsay Lohan in the film, making it her own. Louderman (Kinky Boots, Bring It On), plays the devilish Regina to the hilt, with outrageously funny support from Park as Gretchen, who brings down the house with “What’s Wrong with Me?,” trying to find her own identity, and Rockwell (Bring It On, Rock of Ages) as Karen, who gives a nice twist to the dumb blonde stereotype. Tony nominee Kerry Butler (Xanadu, Disaster!) does triple duty as Cady’s mom, calculus teacher Ms. Norbury (played by Fey in the film), and Regina’s ultrachic mother, who gets to utter, “We haven’t had new meat in our little lady taco in so long!” Weed (Lysistrata Jones, Cabaret) and Henson (The Book of Mormon) make a great team as Janis and Damian, guiding Cady, and the audience, through the horrors of high school; the two characters would fit right in if there were a remake of The Breakfast Club. The all-around strong cast also includes Kyle Selig as Aaron Samuels, Regina’s ex-boyfriend who takes a liking to Cady; Cheech Manohar as Kevin Gnapoor, Mathlete extroardinaire; and Rick Younger as Mr. Duvall, the beleaguered principal.

Fey leaves in most of the key quotes from the film without merely rehashing the movie. Tony-winning director and choreographer Casey Nicholaw (The Book of Mormon, Aladdin) maintains a frenetic pace with near-constant movement as background characters don’t just stand still and two-time Tony winner Scott Pask’s (The Book of Mormon, The Pillowman) fab set keeps changing, from schoolrooms to bedrooms, bathrooms to locker rooms. The video design, by Tony winner Finn Ross and Adam Young, wonderfully captures the tumult and gestalt of the modern-day teenager, as updated references ring true and secrets and shaming are shared on social media. “It’s just . . . sometimes I feel like an iPhone without a case,” Gretchen explains. “Like, I know I’m worth a lot, and I have a lot of good functions, but at any time I could just shatter.” But there are also plenty of truths that have not changed over the years, regardless of technological advances or changing sociopolitical standards and mores. “I just wish we could all get along like we used to in elementary school,” a teary girl says. “I wish that I could bake a cake made out of rainbows and smiles, and we could all eat it and be happy.” (Good luck with that.) Oh, and, of course, watch out for that bus, and if you’re going on a Wednesday, be sure to wear pink.

FROZEN

Elsa (Caissie Levy) becomes Queen of Arendelle as sister Anna (Patti Murin) looks on in wonder in Frozen (photo by Deen van Meer)

St. James Theatre
246 West 44th St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through July 2, $99 – $199
frozenthemusical.com

It’s ice cold at the St. James Theatre, and I’m not talking about the air-conditioning inside or the weather outside the venerable Broadway venue. I’m referring to what is happening onstage, where Disney has turned its Oscar-winning 2013 animated film into a special-effects-laden musical. Attempting to capture the runaway success of such other animation-to-Broadway hits as Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, and The Lion King, Disney has instead made a mess of the plot, which was inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s story “The Snow Queen,” and added nothing memorable in the expanded score. In case you’re not familiar with the story: In a faraway kingdom, King Angarr (James Brown III) and Queen Iduna (Ann Sanders) have two young daughters, Anna (Audrey Bennett or Mattea Conforti) and Elsa (Brooklyn Nelson or Ayla Schwartz). Elsa is gifted (the gift is a curse, of course) with icy magic she can’t control. One day Elsa freezes part of Anna, so Pabbie (Timothy Hughes) and Bulda (Olivia Phillip) of the Hidden People save Anna but cannot remove the magic from Elsa, who despairs of her power. The parents separate the children to avoid another incident, but the adults are soon lost at sea — this is Disney, after all, where parents rarely fare well. Ten years later, Elsa (Caissie Levy) is ready to be queen of Arendelle; at the coronation ceremony, the sisters are reunited. The Duke of Weselton (Robert Creighton) makes a play for the queen, while Anna (Patti Murin) falls madly in love with Prince Hans (John Riddle) of the Southern Isles. Queen Elsa once again loses control of her magic and this time dooms Arendelle to an eternal winter. Unable to reverse the spell, she returns to her northern castle, where she plans to live alone so she can never harm anyone again. Anna is determined to brave the brutal cold and get to her sister, joined by ice seller Kristoff (Jelani Alladin), his trusted sidekick, Sven the reindeer (Andrew Pirozzi), and Olaf (Greg Hildreth), the girls’ childhood snowman come to life. Danger awaits along their treacherous journey, even with a brief respite supplied by Oaken (Kevin del Aguila), who offers them hot drinks and the use of a sauna. But the closer they get to the castle, the more it looks like they’re not going to make it alive.

Kristoff (Jelani Alladin) and Sven the reindeer (Andrew Pirozzi) take a break in Disney musical (photo by Deen van Meer)

The Broadway musical features a book by Jennifer Lee, who wrote the screenplay and codirected the movie with Chris Buck, and music and lyrics by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, who wrote the eight songs for the film and an additional dozen for the show. “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?” is still fun, and Levy gets to belt out the Oscar-winning “Let It Go” as the first-act closer, but many of the other songs don’t fall in sync with the narrative, bringing everything to a stop as the orchestrations soar just because they can. Murin (Lysistrata Jones, Wicked) has a goofy charm as Anna and bonds well with Riddle (The Visit, The Little Mermaid), but she and Alladin (Sweetee, Choir Boy) never generate the necessary heat between them. Hildreth (The Robber Bridegroom, Peter and the Starcatcher) nearly steals the show as Olaf, who manually operates the puppet from behind, when it is not already being stolen by Pirozzi (Movin’ Out, Hairspray Live!), who portrays Sven by arching over and using stilts inside the reindeer suit. (The reindeer’s blinking is creepy in a good way.) The costumes are by Tony winner Christopher Oram (The Cripple of Inishmaan, Evita), who also designed the ever-changing set, ranging from the girls’ bedroom to an ornate room in the castle, from a mountain trading post to ice daggers rising out of the floor. Levy (Les Misérables, Ghost) is in strong voice but gets overwhelmed by the special effects (designed by Jeremy Chernick, with lighting by six-time Tony winner Natasha Katz, sound by four-time Tony nominee Peter Hylenski, and projections by Tony winner Finn Ross), as does Tony winner Rob Ashford’s (Thoroughly Modern Millie, Cry-Baby) choreography and Tony winner Michael Grandage’s (Red, Merrily We Roll Along) direction. The cracking sounds and images as the ice spreads across the stage and even onto the walls of the theater are impressive, but they also grow more and more distracting, but perhaps that was done on purpose as the story grows holes that you can drive an ice truck through.

LIVE IDEAS: RADICAL VISION

“Public Reading on Democracy” at Live Ideas festival features Tamar-kali, Aisha Tandiwe-Bell, Greg Tate, Liz Abzug, and others reading works by Medgar Evers, Ida B. Wells, Muhammad Ali, Shirley Chisholm, Harvey Milk, Bella Abzug, and more

New York Live Arts
219 West 19th St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
April 18-22, free – $30
212-924-0077
newyorklivearts.org

The annual Live Ideas festival at New York Live Arts has previously explored the legacies of Dr. Oliver Sacks and James Baldwin, examined social, political, artistic, and environmental issues (curated by Laurie Anderson), and looked into a nonbinary future (curated by Mx Justin Vivian Bond). The five-day 2018 festival, “Radical Vision,” asks such questions as “How do we not simply protect democracy but make it stronger?,” “What are new (radical) ways forward — ways that go to the roots of our current democratic crisis?,” “What is your radical vision of Democracy?,” and “What would you give up to make it real?” New York Live Arts will host live performances, panel discussions, special presentations, and participatory events addressing these issues, kicking things off on April 18 with a gala at Irving Plaza honoring Elizabeth A. Sackler and Bryan Stevenson, with performances by Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, Samora Abayomi Pinderhughes, Abby Z and the New Utility, and Esperanza Spalding. The festivities then move to New York Live Arts, with three days of free public readings on democracy, the forum “Bending Towards Justice?,” “The Press + the Resistance,” “By the People?,” and “How Do We Prepare for Trump’s Second Term?,” with such creators and thinkers as Xenobia Bailey, Lawrence Lessig, Alicia Hall Moran, Roger Berkowitz, Emily Johnson, Max Kenner, and Erin Markey. Live Ideas 2018 concludes April 22 at 7:30 ($10) with the Democrazy Ball, with DJ JLMR and performances by Daphne Always and the Dauphine of Bushwick. Below are some of the other highlights of “Radical Vision.”

Wednesday, April 18
Contents Under Pressure: Democracy in Crisis, keynote conversation with Sherrilyn Ifill and Professor Lawrence Lessig, moderated by Bill T. Jones and with an opening performance by mezzo-soprano Alicia Hall Moran with artist and puppeteer Matt Acheson, $15-$30, 6:30

Thursday, April 19
Dahlak Brathwaite: Spiritrials, one-man multidimensional play written by and starring Dahlak Brathwaite, with a score by Brathwaite and Dion Decibels, directed by Marc Bamuthi Joseph and Sean San Jose, $15-$30, 8:00

Friday, April 20
Mike Daisey: The End of Journalism, monologue, $15-$30, 8:00

Saturday, April 21
Zephyr Teachout: Hands-on Politics, workshop with Zephyr Teachout, free with advance RSVP (suggested donation $5-$10), 1:00

Dahlak Brathwaite will perform Spiritrials at New York Live Arts’ Live Ideas festival

Resistance & Friends, with live performances by vocalist and composer Like a Villain (Holland Andrews), singer Joseph Keckler, choreographer and dancer Marguerite Hemmings, drag queen and performance artist Ragamuffin, poet and performer Saul Williams, the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, and choreographer and dancer Keely Garfield (Mandala), hosted by drag king Elizabeth (Macha) Marrero, $15-$25, 8:00

Sunday, April 22
Cynthia Hopkins: Learn a Song of Resistance, free with advance RSVP (suggested donation $10), 11:00 am

The Secret Court, staged reading by Abingdon Theatre Company, written by members of the Plastic Theatre and conceived by Tony Speciale, $12-$15, 12:30

Kenyon Adams: Prayers of the People, a secular liturgical performance of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” participatory ritual/performance conceived by Kenyon Adams (little ray), directed by Bill T. Jones, featuring Cynthia Hopkins, Padraic Costello, Vinson Fraley, Rebecca L. Hargrove, Walker Jackson, and Adams, $15-$25, 6:00

LOBBY HERO

Michael Cera and Brian Tyree Henry star in Broadway debut of Kenneth Lonergan’s Lobby Hero (photo by Joan Marcus, 2018)

The Hayes Theater
240 West 44th St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through May 13, $99 – $169
2st.com

Kenneth Lonergan is en fuego. In 2014, the playwright and filmmaker’s 1996 work, This Is Our Youth, debuted on Broadway. Lonergan’s first play to make it to the Great White Way earned a Tony nod for Best Revival. Two years later, his off-Broadway play Hold on to Me Darling had an extended run at the Atlantic Theater, and the Bronx-born Lonergan’s indie film Manchester by the Sea was nominated for six Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay; Lonergan won the latter. And no sooner did Lonergan’s 2001 play, Lobby Hero, start accumulating accolades for its current Broadway revival than it was announced that his Pulitzer Prize–nominated 2000 work, The Waverly Gallery, will make its Broadway bow in the 2019 season. Lobby Hero also has the honor of being the first play produced at Second Stage’s first home on Broadway, the newly remodeled Hayes Theater on West Forty-Fourth St., where the show continues through May 13.

Chris Evans makes his Broadway debut as a tough-talking cop opposite Bel Powley at the Hayes Theater (photo by Joan Marcus, 2018)

In Lobby Hero, Lonergan explores personal and professional responsibility while addressing police brutality, sexual harassment, misogyny, the prison system, militarism, lust, and racism; he made only minor tweaks to the original play, and more than a decade after he wrote it, it still fits in extremely well in this #MeToo, Black Lives Matter era. Michael Cera, who starred in the revival of This Is Our Youth and will be in The Waverly Gallery with Elaine May, plays the title character, Jeff, a wisecracking, ne’er-do-well security guard at a Manhattan apartment building. Jeff, who is trying to get his life on track, works for William (Brian Tyree Henry), known as the Captain, a straightforward boss who likes to think he is tough but fair. After Jeff fails to have a police officer who entered the building sign the book, William tells him, “Look, if you stick to the rules, then you never have to have a discussion about whether or not you were justified not sticking to the rules.” Jeff, who thinks he deserves a break, responds, “I am like the most conscientious guy in this whole building. The rest of these guys are like a bunch of crack addicts and degenerates.” The cop who refused to sign in is the hard-headed Bill (Chris Evans), who is in line for a gold shield. He comes by often to call on Mrs. Heinvald in 22J, making his new partner, Dawn (Bel Powley), wait downstairs while he conducts his business. Jeff develops an instant crush on Dawn, who is still on her probationary period after graduating from the academy, but William, a practical man who admits he is “no fun,” puts the kibosh on that. “Whatever you do, you’re just an imitation cop and she’s a real cop. And if you get involved with some lady policewoman, it is a sure bet you’re gonna end up feeling outranked and outclassed,” he says. Ever the jokester, Jeff replies, “I always feel that way. My last girlfriend was a tollbooth collector, and she intimidated the shit out of me. At least if I was going out with a cop, I’d feel, you know, somewhat safe.” When William has a difficult decision to make regarding his brother’s arrest for a gruesome crime, it sets in motion a series of truths and lies that impacts all four of the characters’ lives, changing the power dynamic as they each search for answers to some dangerous situations.

David Rockwell’s set gives the audience different angles on potent situations (photo by Joan Marcus, 2018)

Lobby Hero takes place on David Rockwell’s open, revolving set, which offers several different angles of the lobby as well as the street outside on the cops’ beat. Cera (Juno, Superbad) and Emmy nominee Henry (Atlanta, The Book of Mormon) have an immediate chemistry onstage, like the classic comic and straight man act; Cera is fun as the quipster who seems to really be a good if goofy guy, while Tyree is sensational as the oh-so-serious William, who just wants himself, and everyone he comes into contact with, to do the right thing all the time. Oddly, while Cera and Henry fill their roles with believability and honesty, Evans (Captain America, Snowpiercer), in his Broadway debut, and Powley (Arcadia, The Diary of a Teenage Girl) feel like stereotypes, often going too far over the top, Evans overplaying Bill’s self-importance, Powley using a distractingly childish voice as Dawn. (Cera and Evans also appeared together as adversaries in the 2010 film Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.) Fortunately, director Trip Cullman (Six Degrees of Separation, Significant Other) doesn’t let the characterizations get too far out of hand, as Cera and Henry — both worthy of Tony nominations — bring it all back down to earth. Lonergan (You Can Count on Me, Margaret) writes incisive, riveting dialogue that makes its points with intelligence as it touches on key issues. “You don’t worry about if the world is bad or good, because I know goddamn well it’s bad,” William tells Jeff. “You just do your best and let the chips fall where they may.” But Lonergan takes it just that much further, pointing out that we all have a part to play in our destinies. “I feel a little bit responsible for the mess you’re in,” Jeff says to Dawn, who responds, “You’re not responsible. I’m responsible. I’m totally responsible.” And once again, the hotter-than-hot Lonergan is responsible for shining a light on our everyday foibles as well as the current state of our country.