this week in theater

QUIETLY

Ian (Declan Conlon), Robert (Robert Zawadzki), and Jimmy (Patrick O’Kane) do more than just watch the match in Owen McCafferty’s QUIETLY

Irish Repertory Theatre
132 West 22nd St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through September 11, $50 – $70
212-727-2737
www.irishrep.org

Owen McCafferty’s searing, sharp-edged, fictional Quietly might be set in a Belfast pub in 2009, but its theme is so frighteningly universal that it could be describing real events in any part of the world today. Polish émigré and barman Robert (Robert Zawadzki) is watching a World Cup qualifier between Poland and Northern Ireland when everyday regular Jimmy (Patrick O’Kane) comes in for a few pints. A bitter, angry man with a massive chip on his shoulder, Jimmy claims not to care about the game, or the news about a pub that was smashed up by some Poles. He warns Robert that there is likely to be a different kind of trouble when a man he is waiting for arrives. “But it’s nothin for you to worry about,” Jimmy says. Robert: “No trouble — can’t afford for trouble — I get the blame.” Jimmy: All a meant was just in case there was a bit a shoutin — don’t panic.” Robert: “A bit of shouting.” Jimmy: “Yes, a bit a shoutin — nothin for you to get involved in — ya understan — stay out of it — nothin to do with you.” Robert: “A bit of shouting — everyone shouts here — it’s the national sport.” Jimmy: “We all need to be heard at the same time.” The soft-spoken Robert is in Northern Ireland trying to make a new life for himself but is stuck in the same rut. “I didn’t come over here to be a barman — Belfast isn’t barman mecca — not the fucking capital of the barman world — I came over to work and ended up a barman because I was one before,” he tells Jimmy, who is lost in his own drama. The situation explodes almost immediately when Ian (Declan Conlon) enters the pub. Although both Ian and Jimmy are fifty-two and well aware of each other’s existence, they have never met before, despite their involvement in an event thirty-six years earlier that profoundly altered both their lives. “I’m here because we’re the same age,” Ian says. “You’re not my fuckin age — my age has to do with the life I’ve led — you haven’t led my life,” Jimmy responds, to which Ian adds, “I led a life — my life.” As the facts slowly start coming out on what happened on that fateful day of July 3, 1974, the tension builds to a shattering conclusion.

The award-winning Abbey Theatre production, being staged at the Irish Rep in association with the Public Theater, is a sizzling drama zeroing in on how politics, religion, status, and birthplace can tear people apart, leading to senseless violence no matter what side you’re on. It’s also very much about forgiveness, specifically referencing the controversial truth and reconciliation process. Conlon (The House, Terminus) is rock solid as Ian, carefully balancing pride and regret, and Zawadzki (The Shoemakers, Who Is That Bloodied Man?) is calm as Robert, who is caught in the middle. But Quietly belongs to the Belfast-born O’Kane (The House, As the Beast Sleeps), who won several UK best actor awards for his compelling performance. O’Kane commands the stage, whether sitting with crossed arms on a barstool, drinking a pint of Harp, or confronting Ian face-to-face. (Catherine Fay’s set is based on a real pub that McCafferty used to live near and which was blown up by the Ulster Volunteer Force.) You can almost see the heat rising from O’Kane’s bald pate. It’s a memorable performance in a gripping play, tautly directed by Lyric Theatre executive producer Jimmy Fay (The Risen People, Here Comes the Night). And it ends with a final reminder that, in this increasingly polemic, xenophobic world, anyone could be next.

TICKET ALERT: BAM 2016 NEXT WAVE FESTIVAL

Mikhail Baryshnikov channels Nijinsky in Robert Wilson’s LETTER TO A MAN (photo by Lucie Jansch)

Who: Performers and/or creators Mikhail Baryshnikov, Isabelle Huppert, Ivo van Hove, Robert Wilson, Peter Brook, John Jasperse, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Alarm Will Sound, Howard Fishman, David Lang, Jonah Bokaer, Daniel Arsham, TR Warszawa, Cheek by Jowl, the Magnetic Fields, So Percussion, Wordless Music Orchestra, Shen Wei Dance Arts, Kyle Abraham / Abraham.In.Motion, Faye Driscoll, Mark Morris Dance Group, and many more
What: Annual fall interdisciplinary performance festival
Where: BAM Harvey Theater (651 Fulton St.), BAM Howard Gilman Opera House (30 Lafayette Ave.), BAM Fisher (321 Ashland Pl.)
When: September 7 – December 3
Why: Tickets for BAM’s 2016 Next Wave Festival have just gone on sale to the general public, but you better hurry if you want to see some of the hottest shows of what is always a great collection of innovative dance, music, film, theater, and hard-to-describe hybrid presentations from around the world. This year there are more than five dozen events, including performances, talks, and master classes. We don’t know about you, but we’ll be practically living at BAM this fall. Below are five of our don’t miss favorites.

Isabelle Huppert stars as a modern-day mythical queen in PHAEDRA(S) (photo by Pascal Victor/ArtComArt)

PHAEDRA(S)
BAM Harvey Theater
September 13-18, $30-$95
Isabelle Huppert is back at BAM, following her stunning turns in Sarah Kane’s 4.48 Psychosis in 2005 and Robert Wilson’s Quartett in 2009. This time she stars as the mythological queen in Phaedra(s), in which director Krzysztof Warlikowski and Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe incorporate texts by Kane, Wajdi Mouawad, and J. M. Coetzee to tell the three-and-a-half-hour story of love and tragedy. On September 18, BAM will host the related panel discussion “Phaedra Interpreted” at Borough Hall as part of the Brooklyn Book Festival.

REMAINS
BAM Harvey Theater
September 21-24, $20-$45
John Jasperse, who presented the exhilarating Canyon at BAM in 2011, now looks back at his thirty-year career as well as toward the future in Remains, featuring dancers Maggie Cloud, Marc Crousillat, Burr Johnson, Heather Lang, Stuart Singer, and Claire Westby and music by John King. On September 22 at 2:00 ($30), Jasperse will teach a master class for intermediate to professional dancers at the Mark Morris Dance Center, and on September 23 at 6:00 ($25) he will participate in a talk with Tere O’Connor at BAM Fisher.

LETTER TO A MAN
BAM Harvey Theater
October 15-30, $35-$120
BAM regular Robert Wilson reteams with Mikhail Baryshnikov in this multimedia staging of the diaries of Vaslav Nijinsky; the two collaborated at BAM in 2014 with The Old Woman. Baryshnikov recently paid tribute to his friend Joseph Brodsky in Brodsky/Baryshnikov, while Wilson has presented such aural and visual spectacles at BAM as Quartett, The Black Rider, and Woyzeck. On October 24 at 7:00 at NYU’s Center for Ballet and the Arts, “Inside Nijinsky’s Diaries” will consist of an actor reading from the diaries, followed by a discussion (free with advance RSVP).

Ivo van Hove merges multiple Shakespeare plays into KINGS OF WAR (photo by Jan Versweyveld)

KINGS OF WAR
BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
November 3-6, $24-$130
In-demand director Ivo van Hove and Toneelgroep Amsterdam return to BAM for a four-and-a-half-hour adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry V, Henry VI Parts I, II & III, and Richard III. Van Hove has previously staged such works as Angels in America, Cries and Whispers, and Antigone (with Juliette Binoche) at BAM, in addition to the double shot of A View from the Bridge and The Crucible on Broadway.

THANK YOU FOR COMING: PLAY
BAM Fisher
Judith and Alan Fishman Space
November 16-19, $25
Choreographer Faye Driscoll follows up Thank You for Coming: Attendance with this new work, which we got a sneak peek at this past weekend on Governors Island. Driscoll’s presentations (There is so much mad in me, 837 Venice Blvd.) are always involving and unpredictable, and this piece is no exception. Driscoll will also be teaching a master class on November 18 at 2:00 ($30) for performers at all levels.

PRIVACY

A closed-down writer (Daniel Radcliffe) has trouble opening up to a psychiatrist (Reg Rogers) in PRIVACY at the Public (photo by Joan Marcus)

Newman Theater, the Public Theater
425 Lafayette St. at Astor P.
Tuesday through Sunday through August 14, $100
212-539-8500
www.publictheater.org

Tickets to James Graham and Josie Rourke’s Privacy come with a unique set of terms and conditions, advising “Privacy is a unique theatrical production that involves interactive moments with the audience, designed to explore how public many details of our lives have become. In order to better explore these issues, information that you provide when purchasing ticket(s) to the production of Privacy at the Public Theater will be used to inform some moments during your performance.” As far as “involving” theater goes, this coproduction with London’s Donmar Warehouse takes it to the next level, especially when, right before the show begins, the prerecorded voice of Public Theater artistic director Oskar Eustis asks audience members to leave their phone on, and then an address is given where they can send photos and texts to. Daniel Radcliffe stars as the Writer, a young man obsessing over his recent breakup with his boyfriend, who accused him of being too closed off. He is too scared to open up and share his innermost thoughts even with a psychiatrist (Reg Rogers), who guides him into situations in which he mentally faces his divorced parents (Rachel Dratch and Michael Countryman) and meets experts on information technology, cybersecurity, surveillance, social media, and personal privacy in the age of the iPhone. Among those he speaks with are Harvard professor Jill Lepore, journalists Ewen MacAskill and James Bamford, OKCupid cofounder Christian Rudder, MIT professor Sherry Turkle, former Facebook marketing director Randi Zuckerberg, FBI director James Comey, and U.S. senator Ron Wyden. These experts and family who enter the Writer’s mind are played by De’Adre Aziza, Raffi Barsoumian, an excellent Countryman, a terrific Dratch, and an outstanding Rogers and are identified by a projection of their faces and credentials on a large rear wall; all of their words are based on original interviews conducted by Graham and Rourke. As the Writer considers sharing more of his life with the psychiatrist as well as online, the audience is asked numerous times to text information or photos that are processed by onstage researcher Harry Davies and, within minutes, are incorporated into the show in clever ways. It’s almost like magic, but instead of pulling a rabbit out of a hat, Davies reveals surprisingly easy-to-access details about audience members. It’s both funny and frightening, but to say much more would give away too many of the show’s “tricks,” including a video appearance by a very special guest near the end.

Privacy concerns, with the onstage actors as well as audience members, are at the heart of James Graham and Josie Rourke’s participatory show (photo by Joan Marcus)

The casting of Radcliffe (The Cripple of Inishmaan, Equus) to play the shy, reserved Writer works on two major levels; first, he is excellent in the role, his unwillingness to talk about himself and his hesitant body movements beautifully capturing his character’s fears. In addition, Radcliffe became such an international star from the Harry Potter movies that he probably enjoys very little privacy in real life. He is particularly effective in a scene that may or may not be mostly improvised. When he is not the main subject of attention in the show, it drags significantly, but fortunately that is never for too long. Lucy Osborne’s uncomplicated set design allows Duncan McLean’s creative projections to often steal the audience’s attention, especially when — well, you’ll have to find that our for yourself, but don’t be surprised if you discover something rather personal about various people seated around you. Meanwhile, you won’t learn much about the cast in the Playbill, as numerous words and sentences have been redacted. And if you’re wondering who is providing the voiceovers, it’s British actors Simon Russell Beale and Harriet Walter. The first half of the show, which focuses on the Writer, is much stronger than the second half, which occasionally gets lost in the marvels of technology and the implications of sharing private information online. Also, if you already closely follow the ongoing controversies about government surveillance, drones, hacked email servers, smartphone protections, social media and online shopping algorithms, and other such privacy concerns, you might not learn much that is new. But writer Graham (This House, Finding Neverland) and director Rourke (Les Liaisons Dangereuses, City of Angels), who have also collaborated on The Vote at the Donmar Warehouse, maintain just enough drama to keep all of the data from overwhelming the story. (Radcliffe will be taking part in a TimesTalk with director Daniel Ragussis at the TimesCenter on August 8 at 7:00, discussing their upcoming film, Imperium; tickets are available here.)

EUDORA WELTY — MISSISSIPPI STORIES

Jenny Odle Madden and Alice Rainey Berry bring Eudora Welty and one of her most beloved stories to life in MISSISSIPPI STORIES (Fowler Photography)

Jenny Odle Madden and Alice Rainey Berry bring Eudora Welty and one of her most beloved tales to life in MISSISSIPPI STORIES (Fowler Photography)

The Studio Theatre at Theatre Row
410 West 42nd St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
Thursday – Sunday through August 7, $35
www.summonersensemble.org
www.theatrerow.org

Summoners Ensemble Theatre and Memphis-based Voices of the South pay tribute to Pulitzer Prize-winning southern writer Eudora Welty in Eudora Welty — Mississippi Stories, a pair of minimalist one-acts, adapted and directed by Gloria Baxter and starring Jenny Odle Madden and Alice Rainey Berry, running at the small gray box Studio Theatre at Theatre Row through August 7. The show begins with a delightful interpretation of one of Welty’s most beloved short stories, “Why I Live at the P.O.” Published in the 1941 collection A Curtain of Green, the tale is narrated by Sister (Berry) as her family (all played by Madden) gathers for a July 4 celebration. Sister’s younger sibling, Stella-Rondo, spends the day turning everyone against Sister in shameful ways. “Stella-Rondo is exactly twelve months to the day younger than I am and for that reason she’s spoiled,” Sister explains. “She’s always had anything in the world she wanted and then she’d throw it away. Papa-Daddy gave her this gorgeous Add-a-Pearl necklace when she was eight years old and she threw it away playing baseball when she was nine, with only two pearls.” Stella-Rondo has left her husband, Mr. Whitaker, and returned home with a two-year-old daughter whom she insists is adopted despite the child’s highly suspicious resemblance to both Stella-Rondo and the absent Mr. Whitaker. As the women’s long-simmering rivalry heats up, Sister’s standing in the family grows more and more dire. Berry is spectacular as Sister, delivering Welty’s slyly uproarious words with the poetry and grace they deserve, the lines just flowing off her tongue as she walks around the three chairs that form all the scenery on the stark stage and maintains nearly continual direct eye contact with the audience, making sure no one misses a single instant. Fluidly shifting among multiple eccentric characters, Madden overplays her roles with exaggerated gestures and cartoony facial movements, but Berry manages to bring it all back home every time.

In the second act, Berry and Madden both portray Welty in “Listening,” the first chapter from Welty’s 1984 memoir, One Writer’s Beginnings. The chairs are removed and replaced by a trunk and a long spread of fabric on the floor, which occasionally come into play as Welty recounts scenes from her childhood that put her on her career path. (Madden:) “In our house on North Congress Street in Jackson, Mississippi, where I was born, the oldest of three children, in 1909,” (Berry:) “we grew up to the striking of clocks.” (Madden:) “There was a mission-style oak grandfather clock standing in the hall,” (Berry:) “which sent its gong-like strokes through the living room, dining room, kitchen, and pantry, and up the sounding board of the stairwell. Through the night, it could find its way into our ears; sometimes, even on the sleeping porch, midnight could wake us up.” Welty remembers discovering the moon and sun and stars, listening to her mother tell stories to her friends, and hearing such expressions as “Well, I declare,” “You don’t say so,” and “Surely not.” Madden then adds, “Years later, beginning with my story ‘Why I Live at the P.O.,’ I wrote reasonably often in the form of a monologue that takes possession of the speaker,” to which Berry finishes, “How much more gets told besides!” The second work lacks the drama of the first, but it still tantalizes with Welty’s glorious language and observations about time. Once again Berry is excellent, displaying a natural acting ability that helps distract from Madden’s grander tendencies, which are calmer here than in “Why I Live at the P.O.” The theater world is often overloaded with Shakespeare, Williams, Albee, Shepard, Miller, etc.; Eudora Welty — Mississippi Stories offers a splendid literary alternative. (Note: Ten percent of all ticket sales goes to the Mississippi Center for Justice, which seeks is dedicated to advancing racial and economic justice.)

OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES

Evelyn (Estelle Parsons), Evvie (Judith Ivey), and Janice (Angelina Fiordellisi) don’t like what they see in OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES (photo by Carol Rosegg)

Cherry Lane Mainstage Theatre
38 Commerce St.
Last performance July 6; closing announced July 14
212-989-2020
www.cherrylanetheatre.org

Four women gather in a Paris apartment to mourn the death of the hundred-year-old love of their lives in Israel Horovitz’s hilarious comedy Out of the Mouths of Babes. (The show’s very successful run had been extended at the Cherry Lane through July 31 but abruptly closed after one of its stars, Estelle Parsons, fell ill on July 6. Parsons was later declared to be in good health but was advised by her doctor not to continue in the show.) Eighty-eight-year-old Evelyn (Parsons), sixty-eight-year-old Evvie (Judith Ivey), and fifty-eight-year-old Janice (Angelina Fiordellisi) arrive one by one at the elegant Paris apartment where each used to live with the never-named Don Juan, a professor at the Sorbonne, and are soon joined by thirty-eight-year-old Marie-Belle (Francesca Choy-Kee), who was his current lover. As the funeral approaches, Evelyn and Evvie lace into each other in a skillful heavyweight verbal boxing match while the dour, depressed Janice considers jumping out the window again and the bright and cheery Marie-Belle claims that the deceased keeps visiting her, plying her with kisses and tickles. “Uh uh. Never got married,” the perpetually single Evvie says, to which Evelyn responds, “Nobody ever asked?” Evvie: “That’s kinda bitchy, don’t you think? Or did you mean it in a bitchy way?” Evelyn: “No, I meant it in a bitchy way.” The four women share various stories about their relationships with the dead man, which get a wee uncomfortable since Evvie had a long-term, on-and-off affair with him during his marriages to both Evelyn and Janice; meanwhile, his first wife, whom he called Snookie, his nickname for Evvie as well, committed suicide after finding out that he was cheating on her with Evelyn. Evelyn, Evvie, and Janice want to hate him, but they just can’t, especially with all of the positive energy emanating from Marie-Belle. “I’m getting zero sleep! What is this screaming match?” Evelyn cries out at one point. “I didn’t fly halfway around the world to die from no sleep before his funeral! This is a funeral I plan to enjoy!”

Marie-Belle (Francesca Choy-Kee) shares her stories of love and sex in OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES (photo by Carol Rosegg)

Out of the Mouths of Babes was commissioned by Cherry Lane founding artistic director Fiordellisi and written specifically for Ivey (Hurlyburly, Steaming) and Parsons (Bonnie and Clyde, Miss Margarida’s Way), who have an absolute field day hurling biting insults at each other. (Two-time Tony winner Ivey was also nominated for her performance in Horovitz’s Park Your Car in Harvard Yard, while five-time Tony nominee and Oscar winner Parsons starred in Horovitz’s 2014 play My Old Lady, which with Babes forms the first two parts of a trilogy about Americans in Paris.) Longtime Horovitz director Barnet Kellman wisely just stands back and lets the two stars go at it, and it’s a joy to behold, which makes it even sadder that the production had to close early. Choy-Kee’s (Disgraced) and Fiordellisi’s (Zorba, Nunsense) characters tend to veer into caricature, not feeling quite as real as Evelyn and Evvie. Neil Patel’s Paris apartment set is filled with competent artwork by some relatively famous people, including Rosie O’Donnell, Joel Grey, Tina Louise, Billy Dee Williams, Clive Barker, Eve Plumb, and Patel himself (as well as two pieces by noted French artist Sonia Delaunay). A bit of physical comedy involving Evelyn and Evvie holding Marie-Belle out a window doesn’t quite work, but just about every other moment is utterly delightful, from Joseph G. Aulisi’s costumes to the loud French rap music that blasts out between scenes. The play also has an intriguing subtext about doubling, from character names and nicknames to subtle parallels (involving suicide, twins, and mirrors), as if everyone has another side that they keep hidden. It’s no coincidence that the first Snookie wrote a popular book called The Voice Inside. Now seventy-seven, Horovitz (The Indian Wants the Bronx, Sunshine), who lives in New York City but spends a lot of time in Paris, does not present many plays here anymore, preferring the less-hectic pace out of town, so it’s unfortunate that this fabulous world premiere, one of the best, and funniest, new plays of the year, had to cut short its run. “We love Estelle and want her to have the rest and peace of mind she needs,” Fiordellisi said in a statement about the closing. We couldn’t agree more.

HOT! FESTIVAL: HYPERBOLIC! (THE LAST SPECTACLE)

Friends party like it’s 2033 in Monstah Black’s HYPERBOLIC! (photo by Manchildblack)

Dixon Place
161A Chrystie St. between Rivington & Delancey Sts.
Friday, July 22, and Saturday, July 23, $15-$22, 7:30
212-219-0736
dixonplace.org

If you thought the world was going to end on an August day in 2033, what would you do the night before? Performance artist Monstah Black decides to throw a truly strange farewell party in the chaotic but fun Hyperbolic! (The Last Spectacle). The centerpiece of Dixon Place’s twenty-fifth annual Hot! Festival: The NYC Celebration of Queer Culture is a pre-apocalyptic nightmare, possibly taking place completely in the dreaming mind of the blond-wigged Tucker (Joey Cuellar). As the audience enters the downstairs theater, there are five bodies on the floor and one on a bed; it’s difficult to tell if they are real or mannequins. Something truly awful has happened, as furniture and other objects pin the figures to the floor, glittering red fabric oozing off their bodies like blood. Eventually they rise and slowly get up and start prepping for the festivities, choosing their outfits, putting on makeup, and getting the food and drink ready. For a little over an hour, Tucker, Decay (Alicia Dellimore), Geez Louise (Shiloh Hodges), Dezi and Trigger (Johnnie “Cruise” Mercer), Bubbles (Benedict Nguyen), Goddess #1 (Marilyn Louis), Goddess #2 (Yuko “Uko Snowbunny” Tanaka), and Holiday Tahdah (Monstah Black) create themselves and construct their personas, working on makeup, striking poses, and primping in mirrors while also considering what the end means. Sprightly anarchic vanity is on glorious display: Dezi, for example, spends much of the early part of the show making love to his selfie stick, while Holiday frets: “I’ve been spending the last three days trying to figure out how I’m going to fit my shoes into my suitcase. How am I going to fit my shoes into my suitcase, Tucker? How? I know that sounds crazy considering the chaos and disorder we live in, but I have priorities.”

Chaos and disorder abound as the utterly confusing non-narrative piece of unique dance theater rages on, celebrating bodies, desire, glam fashion, cocktails, hair, style to the max, and Madonna-style voguing while evoking Jennie Livingston’s Paris Is Burning. And that’s all before the masks come out. Black is credited as conceptual designer, movement generator, costume designer, theatrical director and camera operator with Ashley Brockington, and music producer with his group, the Illustrious Blacks; his husband, Manchildblack, is musical consultant. (You can follow the couple’s adventures on their YouTube show, At Home with the Blacks.) Under his given name, Reginald Ellis Crump, Black wrote the script in addition to collaborating on the lyrics with Derek D. Gentry. In order to spread the word about Hyperbolic! Dixon Place encourages the audience to take photos and video and post them to social media; however, try not to film nearly the entire production, as the person sitting in front of me did, causing a major distraction, and don’t use your flash, as a man in the first row did. Instead, just let Black and his cast and crew lead you on one wild, unpredictable ride as doomsday approaches. The Hot! Festival continues through August 29 with such other works as Mike Nelson’s If You Want to See the Devil, Ry Szelong’s Interabang, and Dandy Darkly’s Myth Mouth!

YIDDISH THEATER’S LEGACY IN AMERICAN PERFORMANCE

Panelists will be at the Museum of the City of New York to discuss legacy of Yiddish theater in America

Who: Tovah Feldshuh, Adam Kantor, Michelle Slonim, Jackie Hoffman, David Chack
What: Panel discussion
Where: Museum of the City of New York, 1220 Fifth Avenue at 103rd St., 212-534-1672
When: Monday, July 18, $25, 6:30
Why: Yiddish theater is on the rise again, with the successful revival of The Golden Bride by the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, which is back at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, and the Drama Desk-nominated Death of a Salesman by the New Yiddish Rep. On July 18, Adam Kantor (Motel in the current revival of Fiddler on the Roof), stand-up comedian Michelle Slonim (Date Me!), Tovah Feldshuh (Golda’s Balcony), Jackie Hoffman (Once upon a Mattress), and moderator David Chack (past president of the Association for Jewish Theatre) will gather at the Museum of the City of New York to discuss “Yiddish Theater’s Legacy in American Performance,” being held in conjunction with the exhibition “New York’s Yiddish Theater: From the Bowery to Broadway,” which continues through August 14.