this week in theater

WOMEN WITHOUT MEN

Miss Wade (Emily Walton) and Miss Willoughby (Aedin Moloney) get into it in Hazel Ellis’s WOMEN WITHOUT MEN (photo by Richard Termine)

New York City Center Stage II
131 West 55th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through March 26, $27.50 – $65
minttheater.org
www.nycitycenter.org

Two of the best shows of the 2015–16 season are currently running at City Center; one is a brand-new memory play from an award-winning male writer, while the other is a seventy-eight-year-old work by a little-known female writer that is being performed in America for the very first time. On Stage I is John Patrick Shanley’s (Doubt) wonderfully bittersweet Prodigal Son, set in a boys boarding school in New Hampshire in the 1960s. On the much smaller Stage II is Hazel Ellis’s thoroughly delightful Women without Men, set in a girls boarding school in Ireland in 1937. (City Center is the Mint’s new home after the real estate market forced them out of their longtime space on West Forty-Third St.) Another brilliant discovery by Mint Theater producing artistic director Jonathan Bank, Women without Men, which debuted at Dublin’s Gate Theatre in 1938, takes cattiness to a whole new level, making George Cukor’s The Women seem like child’s play. It’s the first day of term at Malyn Park Private School — inspired by the French School, Bray, that Ellis attended — and one by one the teachers show up in their sitting room, where they carry on about the students, the endless rules, and one another, and not just behind each other’s backs. The faculty consists of Madamoiselle Vernier (Dee Pelletier), an elegant, older French woman who enjoys brewing tea and sewing; Miss Ruby Ridgeway (Kate Middleton), a flirty, would-be party girl who likes to show off how much the young girls adore her; Miss Margaret Willoughby (Aedin Moloney), a shrewish disciplinarian who has no patience for anyone who doesn’t fall in line with the system; Miss Connor (Kellie Overbey), a nasty tattletale who has been writing a book about the nature of beauty for twenty years; Miss Marjorie Strong (Mary Bacon), a steadfast, cynical educator who just wants to do her job and avoid controversy and idle chatter; and Miss Jean Wade (Emily Walton), a newcomer who believes that a caring teacher can actually make a difference in the girls’ lives.

But it doesn’t take long for this wide-eyed dreamer to figure out how dastardly her coworkers are. “All day, every day, it’s bicker, bicker, bicker. Everyone talking maliciously about the others all in turn. There isn’t one of them I haven’t wanted to murder — except you,” Miss Wade says to Miss Strong, who replies, “After eighteen years of it, one manages to become detached from one’s surroundings.” Wondering how Miss Strong tolerates the nastiness, Miss Wade asks, “Why should we all unite in making each other’s lives a little hell of trivial tortures?” Miss Strong answers, “What else could you expect? Look at us. A small group of women all cooped up together with no release from each other save in the privacy of our bedrooms. Women brought together not by choice, not by liking, but by the necessity of earning our living. No outside interests, no outside friends, nothing to talk about but the pettifogging details of the school and all that therein is. . . . Dullness, dullness, dullness, and the blighting knowledge that you’ll never get any further, that your life will continue for ever in the same old round and the most you can hope for is to save enough to keep you from want in your old age.” When someone commits a heinous act, all hell breaks loose as suspicious fingers are pointed and things are said that can never be unsaid, with verbal barbs that do a whole lot more than just sting.

Miss Wade (Emily Walton) tries to find a kindred spirit in Miss Strong (Mary Bacon) amid a never-ending barrage of wicked barbs (photo by Richard Termine)

Ellis, an actress who had written only one previous play, 1936’s Portrait in Marble, was in her late twenties when she penned Women without Men, at a time when women in Ireland were losing many of the scant rights they actually had. The 1937 Constitution of Ireland included article 41.2, which declared, “The State recognises that by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved. The State shall, therefore, endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home.” The Mint counteracts that decree by producing Women without Men with a primarily female crew; the show is directed with a fluid grace by Jenn Thompson (Abundance, Lost in Yonkers), with spot-on costumes by Martha Hally, effective lighting by Traci Klainer Polimeni, excellent sound design by Jane Shaw (listen for the girls singing outside and for the pitter-patter of rain), and simply fab wigs and hair design by Robert-Charles Vallance. The set is always a highlight of Mint productions, and this one by Vicki R. Davis is no exception; the teachers’ sitting room opens to the audience on two sides, but its claustrophobic feel echoes the way women were trapped at the time. The cast, which also includes Joyce Cohen as the head of the school, Amelia White as the matron, and Shannon Harrington, Alexa Shae Niziak, and Beatrice Tulchin as three girls putting on a play with Miss Wade, is simply grand, delivering Ellis’s laser-sharp lines with passion and zeal. “You’re a nasty-minded, old mischief maker,” Miss Wade tells Miss Willoughby, who immediately shoots back, “Really, Miss Wade, I will not stay here and listen to such wicked language. When you see fit you may apologise to me. Until then I am afraid we cannot remain on friendly terms.” You might not want to become friends with any of these women, but you should not pass up the opportunity to spend two glorious hours in their wicked presence.

MAKE HISTORY WITH “THE GOLDEN BRIDE”

The National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene is bringing back THE GOLDEN BRIDE to the Museum of Jewish Heritage this summer, with your help (photo by Ben Moody)

Museum of Jewish Heritage — A Living Memorial to the Holocaust
Edmond J. Safra Plaza, 36 Battery Pl.
Sunday-Monday and Wednesday-Thursday, July 4 through August 28, $30-$50
866-811-4111
nytf.org
www.rockethub.com

This past December, the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene brought back the wonderful operetta The Golden Bride for a celebrated, though too-short, run at its new home at the Museum of Jewish Heritage. In the show, which had not been seen in seventy years and required extensive detective work to reassemble, the title character is suddenly left a small fortune when her long-absent father dies. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that any unexpected windfall is coming NYTF’s way, so the nonprofit organization, now in its 101st season, has taken to RocketHub to raise funds for the show’s return to MJH this summer, from July 4 to August 28. The company is seeking to raise thirty thousand dollars by March 16; it recently passed the twenty-percent mark with twenty-two days left. You can become a “supporting producer” with a donation of ten bucks; as your donation increases, so do your rewards, which range from your name printed in the program and an audio or video file of a song from the show ($18) to a print of original costume design sketches ($25) to one ticket to the show and a backstage tour ($100), from a feast with the creative team at the Second Ave. Deli ($100) to two tickets to the show and a one-hour private voice lesson with music director Zalmen Mlotek ($200) to two tickets and a walk-on part in the show ($1,000), among others. “Never before in my eighteen years as artistic director has NYTF had such a public outpouring of demand for one of its productions,” Mlotek said in a statement. “It’s truly humbling and exciting to be able to bring back the show.” The Golden Bride is a genuine treat, and with your help more people will get to partake in its splendiferousness.

WOMEN ON THE RISE: SLEEP

Haruki Murakami fans can get a sneak peek at the work-in-progress version of SLEEP this weekend at Japan Society

Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
February 26-28, $20
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org

“This is my seventeenth straight day without sleep. I’m not talking about insomnia.” So begins Haruki Murakami’s short story “Sleep,” which can be found in his 1993 collection of short stories, The Elephant Vanishes. The tale of a Japanese housewife who is “both a body on the verge of sleep and a mind determined to stay awake” is being adapted into a stage production by Obie-winning troupes Ripe Time (The World Is Round, And Suddenly a Kiss . . .) and the Play Company (Abyss, The Wildness); a work-in-progress will be shown February 26-28 at Japan Society. Although only two of his novels (Hear the Wind Sing and Norwegian Wood) and one of his short stories (Tony Takitani) have been turned into feature films, two of his books (The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Kafka on the Shore) and many of his short stories have been adapted for the stage, including three tales from The Elephant Vanishes that were combined in Simon McBurney’s production for the 2004 Lincoln Center Festival. An investigation into roles and boundaries, Sleep is part of Japan Society’s “Women on the Rise” initiative, highlighting works by women who are making a difference in their field. Sleep is directed and devised by Ripe Time founder Rachel Dickstein, adapted by Naomi Iizuka (Language of Angels, 17 Reasons [Why]), and performed by Akiko Aizawa, Brad Culver, Takemi Kitamura, Paula McGonagle, Jiehae Park, and Saori Tsukada. The original score is composed and played live by Katie Down and NewBorn Trio (Down and Miguel Frasconi on glass objects and Jeffrey Lependorf on shakuhachi), with set design by Mimi Lien, projections by Hannah Wasileski, lighting by Jiyoun Chang, and costumes by Ilona Somogyi. Although the three-show run is sold out, keep checking the box office should tickets become available on February 24; otherwise, you’ll have to wait until 2017 when the final version comes to New York City. The February 26 performance will be followed by a reception with the artists.

THE CHERRY ORCHARD

Lev Dodin and the Maly Drama Theatre of St. Petersburg inject the comedy back into THE CHERRY ORCHARD (photo © Stephanie Berger)

Brooklyn Academy of Music
BAM Harvey Theater
651 Fulton St. at Ashland Pl.
Through February 27, 7:30
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

In 1904, shortly after witnessing the premiere of what would be his last play, The Cherry Orchard, directed by Konstantin Stanislavski at the Moscow Art Theatre, Anton Chekhov wrote to his wife, Olga, who was playing Madame Ranevskaya, “Stanislavski has ruined my play. Oh well, I don’t suppose anything can be done about it.” Although the play was a hit, Chekhov believed it to be a comedy with farcical elements, while Stanislavski, who later became famous for his method acting system, staged it as a tragedy. But now innovative Siberian-born Russian theater director Lev Dodin has indeed done something about it, something wonderful, presenting The Cherry Orchard in all its (tragi)comic glory, continuing at BAM through February 27. Dodin and his St. Petersburg-based Maly Drama Theatre previously brought Uncle Vanya to BAM in 2010, followed by Three Sisters in 2012. For their version of The Cherry Orchard, which was named Best Large Scale Drama at Russia’s prestigious Golden Mask festival last year, Dodin and set designer Aleksander Borovsky have transformed the charmingly pseudo-dilapidated environment of the BAM Harvey into the formerly extravagant home of Madame Lyubov Ranevskaya (Ksenia Rappoport). Every seat is wrapped in a linen seat cover, evoking the ghostly white sheets draped over the family’s furniture gathered on the floor at the foot of the stage, from a billiards table, a bed, a piano, and a bookcase to chairs for some of the audience members, who occasionally find members of the cast sitting next to them. Lyubov has just been called home from Paris because the estate’s centerpiece, a lush, beautiful, well-known cherry orchard, is being put up for auction to help pay off the family’s debts. While Lyubov, her brother, Gayev (alternately played by Igor Chernevich and Sergei Vlasov), her biological daughter, Anya (Danna Abyzova), and her adopted daughter, Varya (Elizaveta Boiarskaia), go on about the past, don’t seriously consider the future, and flirt around with perpetual student Petr Trofimov (Oleg Ryazantsev), clerk Semen Yepikhodov (Andrei Kondratiev), and merchant Yermolai Lopakhin (Danila Kozlovskiy), only Lopakhin has come up with a plan of action. Lopakhin, a wealthy man whose father was a serf on the cherry orchard, tries to convince the family to chop down the trees and turn the area into summer rental cottages, or dachas, but Lyubov and Gayev fail to recognize what’s happening in the present, and throughout Russia, stuck in their old aristocratic ways and ignoring the oncoming revolution. Even when they lose the orchard and the estate at auction, they don’t truly understand the consequences as the victor celebrates his spoils.

Madame Lyubov Ranevskaya (Ksenia Rappoport) and her brother, Gayev (Igor Chernevich) face the end of an era in fabulous new production of Chekhov classic (photo © Stephanie Berger)

In his 2005 book, Journey without End: Reflections and Memoirs, the Siberian-born Dodin wrote in a chapter entitled “Why I Don’t Direct Comedies”: “I am interested not in comic situations but in the amusement of self-recognition, even when it is tinged with anguish.” That is precisely how he approaches The Cherry Orchard, which boasts grand comic gestures amid the sadness. The uniformly outstanding cast — some of whom make their way up and down the orchestra steps at the Harvey, delivering lines while standing right next to audience members, Damir Ismagilov’s lighting illuminating sections of the crowd — also features Tatiana Shestakova as the governess, Charlotta; Andrei Kondratiev as Semen Yepikhodov, a clerk; Arina Von Ribben as Dunyasha, the piano-playing housemaid; Stanislav Nikolskii as Yasha, the young manservant; and a fabulously funny Sergei Kuryshev as Firs, the aging manservant who shuffles about ever-so-slowly while moaning about the good old days when he was an abused and mistreated slave. Rappoport is superb as Madame Lyubov, always dressed in black, in constant mourning for the drowning death of her son but occasionally getting caught up in silent slapstick, but the dapper Kozlovskiy steals the show, roaming the Harvey in his brightly colored outfit and yellow shoes, at one point dancing up and down the aisles and breaking out into a decidedly non-early-twentieth-century-Russian song. Another way Dodin injects fresh life into the old theatrical warhorse is by using film projections; when Lopakhin first presents his plan to the family, he does so by showing haunting footage of the orchard, as if bringing their fading memories, and their virtually unbreakable bond to the past, right out in the open. Although Chekhov was inspired by real-life situations when writing the play, including the story of an actual cherry orchard, the symbolism is still apparent, though subtle; cherry blossoms signal the coming of spring, but their brief existence reminds us of the impermanence of beauty, of material desires, of life itself. “My life’s gone by as if I’d never lived at all,” the doddering, elderly Firs mumbles at the start of the play. With their version of The Cherry Orchard, Dodin and the Maly Drama Theatre evoke all of that and more while making sure we have plenty of time to laugh at life’s endless foibles. The Cherry Orchard continues through February 27; on February 24 at 6:00 ($25) in BAM Rose Cinemas, Ethan Hawke, who played Trofimov in Sam Mendes and Tom Stoppard’s 2009 version of the play, and David Hyde Pierce, who was Yasha in Peter Brook’s 1988 production, both of which were seen at BAM, will participate in the discussion “Into the Archives: The Cherry Orchard” with BAM Hamm Archives director Sharon Lehner.

THE BURIAL AT THEBES

The Irish Rep’s version of Seamus Heaney’s adaptation of ANTIGONE continues at the DR2 Theatre through March 6 (photo © Carol Rosegg)

Irish Repertory Theatre
DR2 Theatre
103 East 15th St. between Irving Pl. & Park Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through March 6, $70
212-727-2737
www.irishrep.org

In 2003, Dublin’s Abbey Theatre asked poet and translator Seamus Heaney to do a new version of Sophocles’ Antigone, a kind of follow-up to the Irish Nobel laureate’s only other play, The Cure at Troy, a 1990 adaptation of the Greek playwright’s Philoctotes. Heaney, who passed away in August 2013 at the age of seventy-four, hesitated in accepting the request until he found an angle that intrigued him: focusing on the treatment of the body of Polyneices, one of Oedipus’s two sons who killed each other while fighting on opposite sides of battle. King Creon decided to give Etocles a proper hero’s burial, while he ordered that Polyneices was to rot in the desert and that anyone who attempted to bury him would be executed. Heaney was ultimately inspired by his memories of the death of hunger-striking IRA prisoner Francis Hughes in 1981 as well as President George W. Bush’s determination to invade Iraq following 9/11. “Basically Creon turns Polyneices into a non-person, in much the same way as the first internees in Northern Ireland and the recent prisoners in Guantanamo Bay were turned into non-persons,” he said in a 2004 Jayne Lecture he gave at Harvard. “By refusing Polyneices burial, Creon claims ownership of the body and in effect takes control of his spirit, because the spirit will not go to its right home with the dead until the body is buried with due ceremony. When Antigone refuses Creon’s ruling and performs the traditional rites, her protest is therefore a gesture that is as anthropological as it is political, and it was only when I saw it in this light that I found a way out of the cat’s cradle of political arguments and analogies the play has become and could re-approach it as a work atremble with passion, with the human pity and terror it possessed in its original cultural setting.”

Unfortunately, the Irish rep’s current production, its last at the troupe’s temporary home at the DR2 Theatre, doesn’t take full advantage of Heaney’s powerful, poetic words in a staging that is woefully given short shrift, as if cobbled together at the last minute. Three-time Tony winner Tony Walton’s set feels like an afterthought, a tiny space with a couple of rocks, twelve strands of frayed rope descending from above, and a backdrop that changes colors throughout the show’s eighty minutes, occasionally oddly displaying an audience watching from behind. Linda Fisher’s drab costumes and Charlotte Moore’s barely there direction don’t add anything to what should have been a compelling investigation of honor, loyalty, and family. The ethical and moral conflict between Antigone and Creon fails to catch fire; Rebekah Brockman is too meek as the former, while Paul O’Brien, who stepped in late for the previously announced John Cullum and then Larry Bryggman in the role of Creon, never captures the poetry of Heaney’s words. The cast, who all seem to speak in different accents, also features Ciaran Bowling as Haemon, Creon’s son, who is engaged to marry Ismene (Katie Fabel), Antigone’s sister; Winsome Brown as Eurydice, Creon’s wife; Robert Langdon Lloyd as Tiresias, the blind soothsayer; Rod Brogan as the messenger; and Colin Lane, who fares the best as the squirmy guard. “What are Creon’s rights / When it comes to me and mine?” Antigone asks her sister at one point. The same can be asked of Heaney and the audience’s rights from this usually reliable troupe, which has done much better work in its twenty-six-year history.

FIDDLER ON THE ROOF

FIDDLER ON THE ROOF is back on Broadway in a toned-down yet still rousing version from Bartlett Sher (photo by Joan Marcus)

The Broadway Theatre
1681 Broadway at 53rd St.
Tuesday – Sunday through September 4, $35 – $157
fiddlermusical.com

One of Broadway’s genuine treasures is back where it belongs, on the Great White Way, in a wonderful production that breathes new life into the old chestnut. Based on stories by Sholem Aleichem, the musical version of Fiddler on the Roof debuted on Broadway in September 1964, where it ran for 3,242 performances through July 1972. The show was directed and choreographed by Jerome Robbins, with a cast that included Bea Arthur, Bert Convy, Austin Pendleton, Maria Karnilova, and, of course, Zero Mostel as Tevye the milkman, an honest, hardworking husband and father who is balancing his religious beliefs and Jewish tradition with raising five daughters who are developing modern minds of their own in the small village of Anatevka in early-twentieth-century imperialist Russia. Over the years, Tevye has been portrayed as a larger-than-life figure with a special relationship with the Almighty; in addition to Mostel, the dairyman has been portrayed by Herschel Bernardi, Topol (onstage and in the Oscar-winning film), Alfred Molina, Paul Michael Glaser (who was Perchik in the movie), and even Harvey Fierstein. Taking the reins this time around is the terrific Danny Burstein, the fifty-one-year-old Mount Kisco native and five-time Tony nominee (Cabaret, Follies), who walks onto the stage from the audience, immediately announcing that Tevye is one of us, just another human being facing life’s adversities. Burstein’s scaled-down Tevye allows six-time Tony nominated director Bartlett Sher (The King and I, South Pacific with Burstein) to let Joseph Stein’s sterling book shine. The people of Anatevka are struggling to make ends meet, always fearful that the next pogrom could be waiting right around the corner. Tevye’s horse is lame, so he is pulling his cart by himself, adding to his stress and strain. Yente the matchmaker comes by to tell Tevye’s wife, Golde (Jessica Hecht), that she has chosen the much older butcher and wealthy widower Lazar Wolf (Adam Dannheisser) to marry their oldest daughter, Tzeitel (usually played by Alexandra Silber, but we saw a fine Tess Primack in her stead), who is madly in love with the poor tailor, Motel (Adam Kantor). Soon two more of Tevye and Golde’s daughters are trying to bypass the traditional arranged marriage: Hodel (Samantha Massell) falls for Bolshevik revolutionary and teacher Perchik (Ben Rappaport), while Chava (Melanie Moore) is courted by non-Jewish Russian officer Fyedka (Nick Rehberger). Through it all, Tevye looks to the heavens, continuing his ongoing conversation with God, wondering when things are going to get better.

Golde (Jessica Hecht) and Tevye (Danny Burstein) discuss a dark “dream” as Grandma Tzeitel (Lori Wilner) looks on in FIDDLER (photo by Joan Marcus)

Sher’s heartwarming version of Fiddler takes place on Michael Yeargan’s relatively spare sets, which drop down from above and roll in from the sides, facades of houses and storefronts and a local bar in brown wood palettes. Israeli-born, UK-based choreographer Hofesh Shechter adds modern-dance flourishes to Robbins’s original choreography that keep things fresh and moving. Despite Ted Sperling’s overly standard and uninventive musical orchestrations, the songs, with music by Jerry Bock and lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, hold up marvelously, boasting such rousing set pieces as “Tradition,” “Matchmaker, Matchmaker,” “To Life,” and “Tevye’s Dream,” the last an always delightful moment that lets the creative team sparkle and show off as Grandma Tzeitel (Lori Wilner) and Fruma-Sarah (Jessica Vosk) share their thoughts on Tzeitel’s upcoming nuptials to Lazar Wolf. “Sunrise, Sunset,” which can easily become treacly, is tender and beautiful here, and Sher and Burstein tone down “If I Were a Rich Man” into a more solemn musing than a bold demand. And we dare you not to shed a tear when Burstein and Hecht ask the deeply touching question: “Do You Love Me?” They could address the same question to the audience, which would answer back with an enthusiastic yes. Every decade has its Fiddler, which has previously been revived on Broadway in 1981, 1990, and 2004, and now the 2010s has one it can call its own. Sher, Burstein, and the rest of the cast and crew have done a fantastic job of delivering a thrilling Fiddler on the Roof that upholds tradition — while celebrating life and love in the face of dark times that are as relevant today as they were way back when.

INSPIRATIONAL BROADWAY

A bevy of Broadway favorites will gather at B. B. King’s to benefit BIV on February 15

Who: Michael McElroy & the Broadway Inspirational Voices with special guests Billy Porter, Joshua Henry, Marcus Paul James, Adam Pascal, Telly Leung, Jarrod Spector, La Chanze, Lindsay Mendez, Chad Kimball, and Norm Lewis
What: All-star benefit for Broadway Inspirational Voices
Where: B. B. King Blues Club & Grill, 237 West 42nd St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave., 212-997-4144
When: Monday, February 15, $30-$175, 7:30
Why: Founded in 1994, Broadway Inspirational Voices is a nonprofit dedicated to “providing hope to inspire and transform youth in need through music and the arts.” On Presidents Day, B. B. King Blues Club & Grill will host a benefit for the organization’s outreach programs; the evening will be led by BIV founder Michael McElroy (Big River) and members of the BIV choir ensemble, joined by a sensational group of special guests comprising Tony winners, nominees, and other Broadway favorites. The diverse cast features Billy Porter (Kinky Boots), Joshua Henry (The Scottsboro Boys), Marcus Paul James (Motown the Musical), Adam Pascal (Rent), Telly Leung (Allegiance), Jarrod Spector (Beautiful), La Chanze (The Color Purple), Lindsay Mendez (Wicked), Chad Kimball (Memphis), and Norm Lewis (Porgy & Bess), performing Broadway, Gospel, pop, and rock songs under the musical direction of James Sampliner (Honeymoon in Vegas).