this week in theater

I’M GONNA PRAY FOR YOU SO HARD

Ella (Betty Gilpin) and David (Reed Birney) share an unusual father-daughter relationship in new Halley Feiffer play (photo by Ahron Foster)

Atlantic Stage 2
330 West 16th St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through March 1, $20-$45
www.atlantictheater.org

Theater critics are taking quite a beating these days. In Terrence McNally’s It’s Only a Play, F. Murray Abraham portrays a snarky critic who wants to feel included at an opening-night part for a new Broadway show. In Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Oscar-nominated Birdman, Lindsay Duncan plays a vicious New York Times critic who can’t wait to eviscerate a former Hollywood star’s (Michael Keaton) big debut on the Great White Way. And now in Halley Feiffer’s I’m Gonna Pray for You So Hard, a playwright father (Reed Birney) and his actor daughter (Betty Gilpin) skewer critics right from the start. “They are a sick cadre of pathetic, sniveling, tiny men with micropenises and no imaginations who write out of their asses and who love to tear you down because in truth they know that you are doing exactly what they could never do — that you are doing the only thing they have ever wanted to do — and they are fucking jealous,” David, winner of a Pulitzer and two Tonys for such plays as Gavalt! and Four Questions, lashes out. “You know that, don’t you? How jealous they are? They’re boiling with envy. They want a piece of you. They want in. They wanna get inside you! They wanna climb right in!” That mini-soliloquy, which of course contains more than a morsel of truth, is part of a kind of vitriolic halftime locker-room pep talk David is giving to Ella, who has been passed over for the role of Nina in The Seagull, losing out to a sexy ingénue who, David argues, uses her assets to get what she wants. (Ellas is cast as Masha instead.) Smoking and drinking with a passion, David rips apart theater as a whole, not just critics, barely leaving room for Ella to sycophantically scream back at him such words of shock and agreement (and ecstasy) as “Whoa!” “Wow!” “Right!” “Yes!” and “Oh god!” It’s not a pleasant conversation to listen in on — and one can only hope it’s not based on fact, as Feiffer is an actress (The House of Blue Leaves, The Substance of Fire) as well as a playwright (How to Make Friends and Then Kill Them) and the daughter of Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist and writer Jules Feiffer.

Father and daughter investigate the state of their lives and careers in I’M GONNA PRAY FOR YOU SO HARD (photo by Ahron Foster)

I’m Gonna Pray for You So Hard takes place on Mark Wendland’s cluttered Upper West Side apartment set, which runs three rooms deep instead of across, creating a narrow, claustrophobic space that barely contains the fiery emotions streaming out of David and Ella. The second scene is far shorter than the first, almost more of a coda, taking place on the floor instead of the stage, as the set is now the black box theater itself, a transition that is wholly successful. But Birney (Casa Valentina, Circle Mirror Transformations), one of New York’s most deservedly busiest actors — he’s also starring in Feiffer and Ryan Spahn’s upcoming web series What’s Your Emergency? — and Gilpin (Heartless, Nurse Jackie) make for a rather odd couple, forming an unsettling and hard-to-believe father-daughter dynamic that is often difficult to watch. But then Feiffer and director Trip Cullman (Punk Rock, Murder Ballad) tear it all apart in a brash, brutal finale that is actually a disappointing cop-out. I’m Gonna Pray So Hard for You is a relentlessly nasty and bitter play, and although often that works, in this case, by the end, you’ll be praying for someone, anyone, to just lighten up.

JACK FERVER: NIGHT LIGHT BRIGHT LIGHT

AMERICAN REALNESS
Abrons Arts Center Playhouse
466 Grand St. at Pitt St.
Sunday, January 18, $20, 7:00
212-598-0400
www.americanrealness.com
www.jackferver.org

In 1964, dancer, actor, and choreographer Fred Herko, a native New Yorker, took a bath at a friend’s house, then danced naked right out the window, committing suicide at the age of twenty-eight. A half century later, dancer, actor, and choreographer Jack Ferver, born in Wisconsin fifteen years after Herko’s death, uses Herko’s story to examine his own life, which includes battling depression and suicidal thoughts. The bare-bones show, which premiered this past week at the Abrons Arts Center Playhouse as part of the American Realness festival, begins with Ferver prancing around an empty stage while glancing at himself, and the audience, through an oval mirror in his hands, immediately announcing that while Night Light Bright Light might ostensibly be a tribute to Herko, it is very much about Ferver. In such previous works as Two Alike, Rumble Ghost, and All of a Sudden, Ferver has employed pop-culture references, awkward and inventive movement, experimental music, and public confession with a bold intimacy that makes his devoted audiences burst out in laughter as well as squirm uncomfortably in their seats — often at the same time — and that’s very much the case with this latest piece. Joined by friend and costume designer Reid Bartelme, who displays a fine balletic grace and wry sense of humor, Ferver apologizes for Night Light Bright Light being so spare while his previous piece, Chambre, which debuted at Bard in November, was so elegant and fancy; reenacts a memory from his childhood, force-feeding himself imaginary pudding; delves into the nature of therapy and rehab, wondering if they could have helped save Herko; channels Madonna and Blanche DuBois; talks about the surprise suicide of a young costar in a 1999 film; and playfully performs several pas de deux with Bartelme, featuring some very funny choreography. Ferver ends the nearly hour-long show with a video that gets to the heart of what his work is all about, combining extreme highs and devastating lows in riotous yet heartbreaking ways that will have some people in stitches, others praying that it ends quickly. Fortunately, there seems to be no end to Ferver’s unique brand of creativity.

SECOND STAGE THEATRE: BETWEEN RIVERSIDE AND CRAZY

BETWEEN RIVERSIDE AND CRAZY is making a return engagement at Second Stage (photo by Kevin Thomas Garcia)

Who: Second Stage Theatre
What: Between Riverside and Crazy
Where: Tony Kiser Theatre, 305 West 43rd St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
When: January 16-31, $79-$125
Why: One of the best plays of 2014, the Atlantic Theater Company’s splendid production of Between Riverside and Crazy is back for another run, transferring to Second Stage January 16-31. Nearly the entire cast is returning for the play, written by Stephen Adly Guirgis and directed by Austin Pendleton, which deals with an ornery former beat cop who was shot by a fellow police officer and is refusing to accept a settlement from the city. The wonderful Stephen McKinley Henderson is back as Pops, with Victor Almanzar as Oswaldo, Rosal Colón as Lulu, Elizabeth Canavan as Audrey, Michael Rispoli as Lt. Caro, and Liza Colón-Zayas as the new church lady; the always excellent Ron Cephas Jones replaces Ray Anthony Thomas as Junior. The first time around, we noted that “Between Riverside and Crazy again demonstrates [Guirgis’s] sharp ear for dialogue and his keen sense of characterization as he creates complex, realistic situations filled with surprise twists and turns.” You can read our full review of the original production here.

TICKET GIVEAWAY: 20AT20

The Irish Rep revival of DA is among more than three dozen shows participating in 20at20 promotion

Multiple venues
January 20 – February 8, $20
www.20at20.com

It’s once again time for off-Broadway’s annual 20at20 promotion, in which theater lovers can score $20 tickets to more than three dozen productions twenty minutes before curtain by going up the box office and saying, “20at20.” Among this year’s participants are the revival of Da at the DR2 Theatre, A Beautiful Day in November on the Banks of the Greatest of the Great Lakes at City Center, Men and Women Talking Love and Sex at the Davenport, Churchill and Nevermore: The Imaginary Life and Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe at New World Stages, The Lion at the Lynn Redgrave Theater, The Road to Damascus and The Woodsman at 59E59, Wiesenthal at the Acorn, Rasheeda Speaking with Tonya Pinkins and Dianne Wiest at the Signature, Fashions for Men at the Mint, Application Pending at the Westside, and Film Chinois at the Samuel Beckett.

TICKET GIVEAWAY: In case that deal isn’t good enough, we’ve got an even better one for you. We have vouchers for three of the shows participating in 20at20 that will score you a pair of free tickets in advance. To be eligible to win, just send your name, daytime phone number, and which show you’d like to see to contest@twi-ny.com by Monday, January 19, at 12 noon. All entrants must be twenty-one years of age or older; winners will be selected at random.

OTRO TEATRO: THE PLEASURE PROJECT

Luciana Achugar’s OTRO TEATRO moves indoors for AMERICAN REALNESS festival at Abrons Arts Center (photo by Alex Kangangi)

AMERICAN REALNESS
Abrons Arts Center Playhouse
466 Grand St. at Pitt St.
Thursday, January 15, 6:30, and Saturday, January 17, 4:30, $20
212-598-0400
www.lachugar.org
www.americanrealness.com

There’s a lot of pleasure to be had in Otro Teatro: The Pleasure Project, the culmination of luciana achugar’s three-month exploration of public intervention, individual and collective ritualized movement, and the relationship between performer and spectator. As its title suggests, it is “other theater,” an unusual, experimental approach to dance and performance, part of the American Realness festival at Abrons Arts Center. But first things first: It’s best to know as little as possible about this eighty-minute evening-length work. If you like nontraditional, challenging, immersive dance theater, then just buy your tickets and go. They don’t even hand out the programs until you’re on your way out; instead, you’re given a small piece of paper with a quote about the body, including: “a body in pleasure with eyes that see without naming, they see without knowing….” But if you truly need to know more and don’t want to experience the numerous surprises that achugar (The Sublime Is Us, A Supernatural Return to Love) has in store for you — and there are surprises galore every step of the way in this unconventional, invigorating theatrical premiere — then read on.

Luciana Achugar explores the relatioship between performer and spectator, as well as the venue itself, in OTRO TEATRO: THE PLEASURE PROJECT (photo by Ian Douglas)

Luciana Achugar explores the relationship between performer and spectator, as well as the performance space itself, in OTRO TEATRO: THE PLEASURE PROJECT (photo by Ian Douglas)

Spoilers Galore: Otro Teatro takes place in the Abrons Arts Center Playhouse, but instead of sitting in the cushiony red seats in the audience, you’re led through a hallway onto the stage itself, where you can sit or stand anywhere on the four sides of what has now become a small black box space. The lights are on and the curtain is closed as several bottles of Old Taylor are passed around, with everyone invited to take repeated swigs of the “Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey of Topmost Class.” Slowly, a few people break away from the mingling and start moving determinedly. One pounds her feet on the floor. Another kicks an aluminum gate. A third slithers like a snake. A fourth bangs against a post. At times it evokes a group of zombies waking up, getting their brain-hungry day started. As the performers, one of whom might be right next to you, continue to reveal themselves, it becomes confusing; someone stretching might just be someone stretching and not part of the show. Then again, you start wondering if anyone can participate, as it appears to be so random, and the performers come in all different shapes and sizes. Eventually, the lights go out, and in the darkness the sound and movement continue until the curtains are being pushed back and forth, opening up onto a whole new world. A few of the performers squiggle toward the rim of the stage and tumble over, reversing the usual stage-star dynamic as the audience, onstage, watches a handful of dancers making their way over chairs and up and down the aisles, pounding doors and creeping through the rows. The crowd follows the dancers toward the front of the stage, a few audience members even walking down the steps and finding a seat as action keeps going on all around them. Soon clothes start coming off as well. It’s part zombie apocalypse (evoking Bruce High Quality Foundation’s short film Isle of the Dead, about zombies heading toward a theater on Governors Island), part 1960s happening, with Old Taylor still making the rounds. The show never really ends; it just peters out, as ushers start asking the audience to grab their things and head for the exits, even as naked dancers are not quite done yet, scratching the walls and hiding beneath some seats. So, what was it all about? You won’t find the answer in the program, which is three pages of bios of the cast and crew and acknowledgments; they even left the fourth page blank, leaving it up to you to figure out what you’ve just experienced. Which, of course, is always the way it should be.

UNDER THE RADAR: A (radically condensed and expanded) SUPPOSEDLY FUN THING I’LL NEVER DO AGAIN — AFTER DAVID FOSTER WALLACE

David Foster Wallace’s love of tennis informs unique production based on his readings and interviews (photo by Brian Rogers)

Anspacher Theater at the Public Theater
425 Lafayette St.
Through January 16, $25
212-967-7555
www.publictheater.org
www.danielfish.net

Daniel Fish returns to the Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival with an ingenious take on the work of Infinite Jest author David Foster Wallace, who committed suicide in 2008 at the age of forty-six. But A (radically condensed and expanded) Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again isn’t about the life or death of the Ithaca-born writer, nor is it a theatrical adaptation of the title short story. It’s not even a celebration of the written word; instead, the ninety-minute show, continuing at the Public’s Anspacher Theater through January 16, focuses on the spoken word, inspired by the way Wallace vocalized, whether narrating an audiobook, giving an interview, or making a speech. Moved by the rhythm, tone, and pattern of Wallace’s voice, Fish, who presented Eternal at last year’s Under the Radar Festival, scoured the archives of the David Foster Wallace Audio Project for essays, short stories, excerpts, and interviews with Wallace and created various setlists of the pieces over the last few years; one stretched to a four-hour marathon. But the audience doesn’t actually hear Wallace; instead, Fish sends Wallace’s audio recordings into headphones worn by performers Mary Rasmussem (Trade Practices), Jenny Seastone Stern (Our Planet), Therese Plaehn (Family Play), and John Amir (All Your Questions Answered), who repeat the words out loud. Fish often changes speeds in the recordings he feeds them, resulting in the actors’ sometimes having to speak very fast, using their bodies to help them keep up.

The current iteration of the show includes such Wallace writings as his outrageously funny 1996 Harper’s piece “Shipping Out: On the (Nearly Lethal) Comforts of a Luxury Cruise”; “Forever Overhead,” which takes place at a swimming pool as a boy turns thirteen; and “How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart,” an essay/book review that delves into Wallace’s longtime love of tennis. In fact, the sport plays a central role in the production. As the audience enters the theater — seating is general admission — a tennis machine is shooting yellow balls at a picture of Tracy Austin taped to the wall. The tennis balls remain on the stage throughout the show. The actors, who at one point move all the balls to the back of the stage, are in a kind of tennis match themselves, waiting for the words to come to them (they don’t know which parts Fish will send them or how fast he’ll make them) as if preparing for the next tennis shot, ready to volley Wallace’s words at the audience, but it goes beyond mere repetition and into a sheer love of language. Even at ninety minutes, A (radically condensed and expanded) Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again feels a little too long — when you’re reading a short story or listening to an audiobook, you have the ability to stop for a while and ponder what you’ve read or heard, but in this case there’s no off switch — but it’s most definitely a fun thing, even if we haven’t decided whether we’ll ever do it again. But one thing we’ll definitely do is read or listen to a whole lot more by Mr. Wallace.

BURQ OFF!

Nadia P. Manzoor plays twenty-one characters in deeply personal one-woman show (photo courtesy of Dan Demello Public Relations)

Teatro Circulo
64 East Fourth St. between Bowery & Second Ave.
January 14-18, 425-$30
www.nadiapmanzoor.com
www.teatrocirculo.org

Writer and performer Nadia P. Manzoor, who was born in Chicago, moved to Singapore and Dubai as a toddler, then was raised primarily in a Pakistani immigrant community in North London, lifts the veil off her struggle to break free of the cultural norms that envelop her in her one-woman show, Burq Off!, running through January 18 at Teatro Circulo. Mitchell Ost’s set features a table and three chairs surrounded by a crescent-shaped wall draped with heavy, brightly colored, elaborately designed fabrics, the only opening a small, sparkling window in the center back, offering Nadia the hint of a bigger world outside. Over the course of eighty minutes, Manzoor symbolically removes the layers of cloth that metaphorically obstruct Islamic women from living lives of freedom, using stories from her childhood as a microcosm for women around the world. Manzoor plays twenty-one people in the production, changing accents and twisting and folding a red scarf to create costumes to depict such characters as her mother, Ammi, and her father, Abbu, who both adhere to the old Pakistani ways; her annoying twin brother, Khurram; family friend Aunty Ji; Katy, her sexually liberated English schoolmate; her teacher Molvisaab; her first cousin and first crush, Mustafa; and her bartender boyfriend, Brendan. The modern-day Nadia, who serves as narrator, introduces the play with a memory of herself at five years old, when she wanted to be an astronaut. “Lying in bed, time would disappear as I gazed into the night sky. Mesmerized by the infinite, I would just begin to float, like smoke, far away from my bedroom, from my family, from my house in Hertfordshire, England, and towards I didn’t know what.” But her parents immediately shoot down her dreams. “How can you be an astronaut,” her father says. “Women can’t be astronauts. Who will cook? Who will clean? Who will feed your husband if you are floating about in space?” Her mother adds, “One day you will make a man very very happy.”

Nadia P. Manzoor uses various accents and a red scarf to differentiate among friends and family in BURQ OFF! (photo courtesy of Dan Demello Public Relations)

The setting shifts from her family’s dining room to her school dorm to her mother’s hospital bed as Nadia attempts to overcome the ties that bind her, experiencing love and loss as she considers options that go against the dictates of the society in which she was born and raised, including a set of strict, old-fashioned rules her father gives her as a college present. She talks about the influence of Bollywood movies, how her mother referred to her vagina as “shame shame,” and the hypocrisy of her culture. Manzoor has an easy way about her, immediately drawing the audience onto her side. Although some of the vignettes are fairly familiar for the coming-of-age genre, the bits about Mustafa and Brendan are particularly effective and unique. Directed and developed by Tara Elliott, Burq Off! recalls Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel Persepolis, about a young girl growing up during the Islamic Revolution in Iran, and Anna Khaja’s one-woman show, Shadeed: The Dream and Death of Benazir Bhutto, in which Khaja portrays eight characters with differing views of the prime minister on the day she was killed. Manzoor, who is also preparing the online series Shugs & Fats, never gets quite so overtly political, but her personal liberation is political in and of itself, as it is for so many women in so many cultures around the world.