this week in theater

CLOUD NINE

The cast of CLOUD NINE rehearses amid the unusual theater-in-the-round setup at the Atlantic (photo © Doug Hamilton)

Atlantic Theater Company
Linda Gross Theater
336 West 20th St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through November 1, $20-$65
866-811-4111
atlantictheater.org

Caryl Churchill skewers British colonialism, patriarchy, and sexual oppression and obsession while examining intricate issues of gender identity and personal freedom in Cloud Nine, her 1979 play being wonderfully revived at the Atlantic. The first act, in which several characters are played by members of the opposite gender, takes place in the late nineteenth century, in an unnamed African nation where the natives are growing more than a little restless, the threat of revolt against their occupiers in the air. Set designer Dane Laffrey (the new Spring Awakening and Fool for Love revivals) has transformed the space into a theater-in-the-round, with several rows of uncomfortable steep wooden bleachers circling the center stage area. (A limited amount of cushions are available, or you can bring your own.) The play opens with Union Jack-waving British administrator Clive (Clarke Thorell) leading his family in a song praising jolly old England, during which he introduces his oddball clan in rhyme. He is married to Betty (Chris Perfetti, in a spectacular off-white gown, courtesy of costume designer Gabriel Berry), a shy, reserved woman who explains, “I live for Clive. The whole aim of my life / Is to be what he looks for in a wife. / I am a man’s creation as you see, / And what men want is what I want to be.” Their son, Edward (Brooke Bloom), prefers playing with dolls to playing catch, while the aptly named baby, Victoria, is an actual doll that the characters toss around. The children are cared for by Ellen (Izzie Steele), the young governess who is extremely dedicated to Betty. Betty’s mother, Maud (Lucy Owen), is a stern woman who thinks that her daughter has married beneath her. And their servant, Joshua (Sean Dugan, a white man playing a black man), goes about his duties with a blank, deadpan look that is fraught with impending danger; “My skin is black but oh my soul is white. / I hate my tribe. My master is my light. / I only live for him. As you can see, / What white men want is what I want to be,” he says without conviction. The family is visited by intrepid explorer and adventurer Harry Bagley (John Sanders), who apparently has never met a person, man or woman, adult or child, he doesn’t want to have sex with, and the widowed Mrs. Saunders (Steele), an independent, plucky sort. The first act plays out like a twisted comedy of manners with a Monty Python edge as most of the characters reveal their hidden sexual desires while arguing over what is proper in society. It’s both funny and poignant, wacky and incisive, but Churchill turns everything around marvelously in the second act.

The actors switch roles for the second act of CLOUD NINE, which takes place in 1979 (photo © Doug Hamilton)

Following intermission, the play moves to a London park in 1979, the red gravel of Africa replaced by fake green grass. A century might have passed, but the characters have aged a mere twenty-five years. The full cast and most of the characters are back, but they’re played by different actors; Churchill leaves this doubling up to each new production, and her longtime director, James MacDonald (Love and Information, Cock), recasts the second act ingeniously, adding multiple layers to the already complex story. Bloom (You Got Older), who played the effeminate Edward in the first act, is now playing his mother, Betty, a stronger, more determined woman who is considering a life on her own. Owen (The Village Bike), who was the serious, suspicious Maud, now plays her granddaughter, Victoria, formerly a doll, now a modern woman who is thinking about leaving her husband for Lin, a lesbian played by Steele (What I Did Last Summer), who, as Ellen in the first act, declared her love for Betty. Thorell (Annie, Hairspray), previously Clive, the staunch defender of Mother England, is now Lin’s baby daughter, Cathy, prancing around in pigtails and smearing himself in paint, as if Great Britain has not yet grown up, making the same mess as always. Sanders (Peter and the Starcatcher), who was the brave Harry, has become Martin, Victoria’s very practical husband who simperingly supports anything she wants to do. And Edward, now played by Perfetti (Sons of the Prophet), who was Betty in the first act, has come out of the closet, a park worker in love with the gruff Gerry, portrayed by Dugan (Next Fall). Got all that? It makes for a whole lot of curious, surprising, and at times mind-blowing pairings (Freud would have a field day with the shenanigans) if you really delve into what’s happening between the actors and the characters. The latter have been thrust into an era that has witnessed the civil rights and women’s liberation movements and free love, and they’re ready to move on with their lives, determining their own places in the world rather than being limited by societal norms and what is expected, or demanded, of them. They still have their secrets and are haunted by ghosts, and there’s plenty of difficult work ahead for them, but there’s no need to play hide-and-seek again, as they did in the first act. Even when the story turns extremely serious and you, and many others, are shifting around in your cramped seat, you will have a blast trying to follow who is who, and who was who, and what it all says about the state of our world, then and now.

TICKET GIVEAWAY: TINDER ROULETTE

Mel DeLancey and her sisters look at life, love, and taking risks in TINDER ROULETTE

TINDER ROULETTE: A MUSICAL MEMOIR
13th Street Repertory Theater
50 West 13th St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Fridays & Saturdays through October 24, $30 ($24 with code BOOKIE), 9:30
www.tinderrouletteshow.com
www.13thstreetrep.org

So you think you overshare on social media? Just wait till you get a load of Tinder Roulette: A Musical Memoir, Mel DeLancey’s seriocomic look at her life. The divorced daughter of two compulsive gamblers, DeLancey examines the choices she’s made and the risks she’s taken, using cabaret to tell her story. The show features cameos by her sisters, Jennifer and Joslyn, who are also joined by the curiously one-named Moose. The production is directed by Bryan Enk (The Big Bad, the stage serial Penny Dreadful), with Norma Jeanne Curley serving as musical director and arranger as well as accompanist.

TICKET GIVEAWAY: Tinder Roulette is playing Friday and Saturday nights at 9:30 through October 24 at the 13th Street Repertory Theater, and twi-ny has three pairs of tickets to give away for free. Just send your name, daytime phone number, and favorite play or movie about gambling or social media to contest@twi-ny.com by Wednesday, October 7, at 3:00 to be eligible. All entrants must be twenty-one years of age or older; three winners will be selected at random.

CHAMBRE

Jack Ferver channels Lady Gaga and Jean Genet in brilliant CHAMBRE (photo by Jason Akira Somma)

CROSSING THE LINE: CHAMBRE
New Museum Theater
235 Bowery at Prince St.
Installation: through October 4
Performances: October 1-2, 7:00, October 3, 3:00 & 7:00, October 4, 3:00, $15
www.fiaf.org
www.jackferver.org

Writer, actor, dancer, and choreographer Jack Ferver holds nothing back in his electrifying, emotionally charged performances. In his latest piece, Chambre, he took things to the next level, literally bleeding for his art. In a climactic moment during the work’s official New York City premiere last week at the New Museum, Ferver put his hand through a window in Marc Swanson’s set, shattering the glass and apparently cutting his palm. At first the audience was uncertain, wondering if it was part of the show or just more artifice. Ferver has an innate knack for pushing audiences into bouts of uncomfortable laughter and challenging them to separate the real from the imagined, fact from fantasy. Blood seemed to well on his palm, and his fellow performers, Michelle Mola and Jacob Slominski, very carefully navigated around the sea of glass shards on the floor; the mystery of whether it was real or staged continued into a closing monologue in which a diva-like Ferver complained about barely being able to afford health insurance. Not until later that night did it become clear that it was indeed accidental when Ferver posted a photograph of the broken window on Facebook and publicly apologized to Swanson. But it all fit in rather well with the work itself, a slyly playful and inventive reimagining of Jean Genet’s The Maids, which itself was inspired by the true story of two sisters, Christine and Léa Papin, who perpetrated a horrific crime in France in 1933. At the beginning of Chambre, ticket holders can walk around Swanson’s set, which includes unfinished walls, windows, mirrors, a rack of white dresses (designed by Reid Bartelme), and three statues representing the main characters. After the statues are moved out of the way, Ferver emerges in a glittering, glamorous gold-chained outfit and, with the audience still gathered around him, delivers a deliciously wicked monologue taken verbatim from a bitter deposition Lady Gaga gave in 2013 when being sued by a former personal assistant. It’s a classic celebrity rant: “I’m quite wonderful to everybody that works for me, and I am completely aghast to what a disgusting human being that you have become to sue me like this,” Ferver spits out venomously into a microphone.

Jacob Slominski and Jack Ferver take role-playing to a new level in immersive presentation at the New Museum (photo by Jason Akira Somma)

Meanwhile, the audience can watch him, as well as themselves, in a large horizontal mirror hung from the ceiling behind white-draped rows of seats, multiplying the number of visible Fervers, who is not attacking Lady Gaga as much as celebrity culture. It’s also a terrific lead-in for the role-playing done by Ferver as Christine and Jacob as Léa, mocking how they are treated by Madame (Mola), exaggerating how the wealthy take advantage of and abuse the poor. “I know you are necessary, like ditch diggers and construction workers are necessary, but I hate having to see you,” Slominski-as-Léa-as-Madame says. But soon the sisters take their revenge, doing what so many only fantasize about doing to the rich and privileged. “I’m surprised things like this don’t happen more often,” Ferver says shortly after the opening soliloquy. Eventually, the audience gets to sit down and experience Chambre in a more traditional arrangement, although there’s very little that’s traditional about the thoroughly engaging and entertaining production, which also features a subtly ominous score by Roarke Menzies. Ferver examines class division, sibling rivalry, gender, and the “monetization of performance” as only he can, with a wickedly potent sense of humor loaded with hard-to-swallow truths. In his introduction to Genet’s The Maids and Deathwatch, Jean-Paul Sartre writes, “For Genet, theatrical procedure is demoniacal. Appearance, which is constantly on the point of passing itself off as reality, must constantly reveal its profound unreality. Everything must be so false that it sets our teeth on edge.” Ferver (Rumble Ghost, Night Light Bright Light,), Swanson, Slominski, Mola, and Menzies set our teeth and more on edge with the seriously funny Chambre, which continues at the New Museum through October 3 as part of FIAF’s Crossing the Line festival, an apt name for Ferver’s fiendishly clever work.

ANTIGONE

Juliette Binoche fights a chill wind in ANTIGONE at BAM (photo by Stephanie Berger)

NEXT WAVE FESTIVAL
Brooklyn Academy of Music
BAM Harvey Theater
651 Fulton St. between Ashland & Rockwell Pl.
Through October 4, $30-$135
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

A chill runs through Belgian director Ivo van Hove’s adaptation of Sophokles’s classic tragedy Antigone, continuing through October 4 at BAM’s Harvey Theater. The sizzling-hot van Hove, who has dazzled audiences and critics alike with his recent, unusual presentations of Scenes from a Marriage, Angels in America, and Cries and Whispers, has stripped down the tale of power, family, loyalty, and responsibility in a new translation by Canadian poet Anne Carson (Agamemnon, Electra) that emphasizes the story’s relevance to today’s politics. As the play opens, Antigone (Juliette Binoche, who was last at BAM in 2009 in In-I), clad in black, is fighting off a brisk wind with her sister, Ismene (Kirsty Bushell). Their two brothers have killed each other in the Theban civil war fighting on opposite sides, Eteocles a hero, Polyneices a traitor. The new king, Kreon (Patrick O’Kane), has decreed that Polyneices’s body should be left outside to rot, but Antigone is determined to give her sibling a proper burial, although the punishment for doing so is death. Upon discovering that his niece and future daughter-in-law — Antigone’s father was Kreon’s brother, and she is engaged to marry Kreon’s son, Haimon (Samuel Edward-Cook) — has indeed buried Polyneices, Kreon shows no mercy, commanding Antigone’s execution, as well as that of anyone who supports her. Kreon’s chief adviser, Teiresias (Finbar Lynch), wants him to rethink his position, but Kreon is just as stubborn as Antigone, and it doesn’t take long for the bodies to start piling up.

The guard (Obi Abili) and the king (Patrick O’Kane) look over Antigone (Juliette Binoche) at BAM (photo by Stephanie Berger)

Jan Versweyveld’s stage features a giant circle at the top of the back wall that rotates to reveal a projection of sky and clouds, as if the gods are looking down, judging the trials and tribulations of humanity. In the center of the floor is a rectangular platform that sinks to serve as a grave, lowering Polyneices and Antigone down toward hell and rising up again; it is perpendicular to a narrow walkway and opening used by Kreon, as if he is emerging from the lair of the gods. At the front of the stage is a leather couch, congruent with the costumes by An d’Huys — the men are mainly in suits and jackets as if attending a board meeting. Binoche and O’Kane make fine adversaries, though Antigone shouts too much, and Kreon changes moods a little too randomly. All of the actors except for O’Kane also double as the Greek chorus, who never speak as a unit. Carson’s script contains several contemporary phrases that elicit chuckles from the audience at inopportune moments, and Tal Yarden’s projections are hit-or-miss; the scenes of the vast desert work well, while video of ghostly figures making their way through a present-day city is confusing and feels out of place, though the last shot is effective. Meanwhile, the score weaves in and out of music by Morton Feldman, Arvo Pärt, Henryk Gorecki, and Dmitri Shostakovich before concluding with a sonic blast from longtime BAM favorite Lou Reed as van Hove attempts to relate this story of the state vs. the individual to the twenty-first century. Overall, he only partly succeeds, but by never quite providing the audience with an emotional connection to the characters or narrative, this Antigone will leave you feeling a little too cold. (The September 29 performance will be followed by a talk with Binoche and other members of the company, free for same-day ticket holders.)

NEW YORKER FESTIVAL

The recently reunited Sleater-Kinney will sit down with Dana Goodyear at 2015 New Yorker Festival (photo by Brigitte Sire)

Multiple venues
October 2-4, $40-$45
festival.newyorker.com

Sure, programs with Lin-Manuel Miranda, Sigourney Weaver, Jim Gaffigan, Patti Smith, Billy Joel, Toni Morrison, Larry Wilmore, Trey Anastasio, Junot Díaz, Jonathan Safran Foer, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Malcolm Gladwell are already sold out, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t still some pretty cool events you can check out at this year’s New Yorker Festival. Taking place October 2-4 at such locations as the Directors Guild Theatre, SIR Stage37, the Gramercy Theatre, One World Trade Center, and the SVA Theatre, the three-day series of discussions, interviews, preview film screenings, theatrical sneak peeks, and special presentations examines contemporary culture as only the New Yorker can. Talk isn’t necessarily cheap; it will cost you $40-$45 to see chats with Andrew Jarecki, Don DeLillo, HAIM, Ellie Kemper, Jason Segel, Jeffrey Tambor, Jesse Eisenberg, Marc Maron, Reggie Watts, Sleater-Kinney, Adam Driver, Julianna Margulies, and Zaha Hadid in addition to the below highlights.

Friday, October 2
Very Semi-Serious: A Partially Thorough Portrait of New Yorker Cartoonists, with Liana Finck, Emily Flake, Mort Gerberg, and Robert Mankoff, moderated by Roz Chast, Directors Guild Theatre, $45, 9:30

Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson Talk with Emily Nussbaum, SVA Theatre 1, $45, 10:00

The New R&B, with Azekel Adesuyi, Bilal, James Fauntleroy, and Kelela, moderated by Andrew Marantz, Gramercy Theatre, $45, 10:00

Saturday, October 3
Larry Kramer talks with Calvin Trillin, SVA Theatre 2, $40, 10:00 am

Justice Delayed, with Shawn Armbrust, Tyrone Hood, Patrick Quinn, and Ken Thompson, moderated by Nicholas Schmidle, Directors Guild Theatre, $40, 10:00 am

Creating Complicated Characters, with Joshua Ferris, Yiyun Li, and Lionel Shriver, moderated by Willing Davidson, Gramercy Theatre, $40, 1:00

Sneak Preview: The Lady in the Van, starring Maggie Smith and Jim Broadbent, followed by a conversation between Judith Thurman and director Nicholas Hytner, Directors Guild Theatre, $45, 6:30

Sunday, October 4
Cleo: A reading of Lawrence Wright’s new play, directed by Bob Balaban, with Damian Lewis as Richard Burton, Directors Guild Theatre, $40, 11:00 am

Congressman John Lewis talks with David Remnick, Directors Guild Theatre, $40, 2:00

JR talks with Françoise Mouly, Gramercy Theatre, $40, 2:30

ANT HAMPTON: THE EXTRA PEOPLE

The audience takes center stage in Ant Hampton’s THE EXTRA PEOPLE

CROSSING THE LINE
French Institute Alliance Française
Florence Gould Hall, 55 East 59th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
Friday, September 25, and Saturday, September 26, $25
Festival continues through October 4
212-355-6160
www.fiaf.org
www.anthampton.com

Swiss-born British multidisciplinary artist Ant Hampton specializes in creating hard-to-categorize immersive performance installations that take place outside of the usual dynamic between performer and audience, making the latter an active participant in the production. Since 2007, Hampton has been presenting his Autoteatro series, works in which audience members and unrehearsed guest performers are given instructions and act out the pieces themselves. For Etiquette, two people sat across from each other in a public space and followed what they were told to do via headphones. For Hello for Dummies, pairs of strangers were sent to sit and interact on outdoor benches. Hampton’s latest work is The Extra People, premiering at FIAF’s Crossing the Line festival. The site-specific piece will take place in Florence Gould Hall, with fifteen audience members onstage and another fifteen sitting in seats. Each person will have a flashlight, a neon vest, and headphones, which will instruct them what to do and where to go. Hampton’s website advises to “avoid eye contact” and explains that “the overall picture is out of your reach: too big, beyond your comprehension, or simply not your job to know. . . . In a challenge to the assumption (often taken for granted) that collectivity is what you find in the theater, the building here reflects society rather differently, with its audience situated as atomized individuals adrift or even asleep among both seating and stage, plugged into their own audio streams, patiently awaiting their call, and eventually acting upon it.” Some of the slots are already sold out, so act fast if you want to have a rather unusual experience in a theatrical setting.

CROSSING THE LINE: CHAMBRE

Jack Ferver reimagines Jean Genet’s THE MAIDS in performance installation at the New Museum (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

New Museum Theater
235 Bowery at Prince St.
Installation: September 23 – October 4
Performances: September 24-25, October 1-2, 7:00, and September 26-27, October 3-4, 3:00, $15
www.fiaf.org
www.jackferver.org

No one tells a story quite like Jack Ferver. In such deeply personal psychodramas as Rumble Ghost, Night Light Bright Light, and Two Alike, the Wisconsin-born, New York-based performer shares intimate, cathartic memories brought to life through a loving pop-culture lens. Melding dance, spoken word, electronic sound scores, and visual art, Ferver explores suicide, abused queer youth, rape, and other serious topics while incorporating references to Tennessee Williams, Poltergeist, Fred Herko, Cleopatra, Madonna, and the 1985 cult film Return to Oz. In Chambre, which runs September 24 to October 4 at the New Museum as part of FIAF’s Crossing the Line festival, Ferver turns to Jean Genet’s The Maids, the 1947 play inspired by a pair of real-life sisters, Christine and Léa Papin, who committed a horrific crime in France in 1933. For the project, which includes eight live performances, Ferver is working with several of his longtime collaborators; the music is composed by Roarke Menzies, the costumes are designed by Reid Bartelme, the art installation (which is on view during museum hours throughout the show’s run) is by Marc Swanson, and Ferver will be joined onstage by Michelle Mola and Jacob Slominski.

Jack Ferver and Marc Swanson will present CHAMBRE as part of FIAFs annual Crossing the Line festival (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

Jack Ferver and longtime collaborators will present CHAMBRE as part of FIAF’s annual Crossing the Line festival (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

“While I’ve been mulling over the material for Chambre for years, we started our first residency at Baryshnikov [Arts Center] two years ago this month. It’s been exciting, to say the least, for me to see how much it has changed,” Ferver told twi-ny about the evolution of the show. “This iteration of Chambre at the New Museum is very different from our premiere at Bard [last year]. The context of the museum obviously has factored into it. Marc and I also originally envisioned it for the white cube. The space is more intimate than where we have performed it so far. Marc’s installation becomes a room in a room, and it is changing the performance, creating a more nuanced, vulnerable, and frightening experience for me. Michelle, Jacob, and I have already started rehearsing in the space. The script and choreography are changing as the psyche of the piece changes in the space of the New Museum.” Menzies added, “The evolution of the score for this work was interesting. I wrote maybe three separate scores before arriving at the final version. A lot of the first music cues I created really capitalized on the notion that this is a murder story. Originally, the main theme had this very suspenseful beat and dark, brooding piano melodies — very campy, and very much in the language of Friday the 13th or Halloween, which has one of the great horror scores in cinema. But I think I ended up scrapping all of those references in lieu of much more raw, uncomfortable, barely recognizable sounds that I created by manipulating and contorting recordings of my voice. As we got to the core of the work, it became clear that the real source of the horror in this piece isn’t the murder but the horror of being embodied, the horror of having to live in this cruel, terrible world. All we really have to escape that horror are the endless games we play.” Sounds like classic Jack Ferver to us, so we can’t wait to catch this highly anticipated New York City premiere.