this week in theater

NEXT WAVE THEATER: NOSFERATU

Grzegorz Jarzyna adds to the vampire legend in multimedia NOSFERATU running this week at BAM (photo by Stefan Okolowicz)

Brooklyn Academy of Music
BAM Harvey Theater
651 Fulton St. between Ashland & Rockwell Pl.
October 30 – November 2, $20-$65
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

Halloween is quickly upon us, so arts organizations across the city are turning to horror to try to scare the hell out of us this week. Over at BAM, you can catch the frightening “Puppets on Film” series, which includes Godzilla, Aliens, and the terrifying The Great Muppet Caper; Alfred Hitchcock’s Family Plot and The Lodger, the latter with live music by Morricone Youth; and the twelfth annual BAMboo!, a free, child-friendly block party with music, candy, games, workshops, and more. But the strangest of them all is likely to be TR Warszawa and Teatr Narodowy’s multimedia production of Nosferatu, inspired by Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula — which was also the inspiration for F. W. Murnau’s 1922 horror classic, Nosferatu, a film that had to change its title, character names, and plot details because the Stoker family would not authorize the rights. Written and directed by Grzegorz Jarzyna, who brought Thomas Vinterberg’s Dogme 95 film The Celebration to mesmerizing life as Festen at St. Ann’s Warehouse last year, Nosferatu has an original score by John Zorn, with sets and costumes by Magdalena Maciejewska, lighting by Jacqueline Sobiszewski, and video design by Bartek Macias. The cast consists of Sandra Korzeniak, Katarzyna Warnke, Wolfgang Michael, Jan Englert, Jan Frycz, Krzysztof Franieczek, Marcin Hycnar, Lech Łotocki, and Adam Woronowicz. The show runs October 30 through November 2 at the BAM Harvey; on November 1 at 6:00 in the Hillman Attic Studio ($15), New Yorker journalist Joan Acocella will give the related talk “On Vampires.” In addition, Film Forum is showing Werner Herzog’s remake Nosferatu the Vampyre through November 7, with a bonus screening of Murnau’s original on November 4 at 7:30.

A CELEBRITY BENEFIT READING: CRIMES OF THE HEART

A ONE-NIGHT-ONLY READING TO BENEFIT THE NEW GROUP: BETH HENLEY’S CRIMES OF THE HEART
The New Group @ Theatre Row
The Acorn Theatre
410 West 42nd St. between Eighth & Ninth Sts.
Monday, October 28, $100, 7:00
212-244-3380 ext308 / jamie@thenewgroup.org
www.thenewgroup.org

Since 1995, the New Group has been staging contemporary, adventurous shows, including productions of Kenneth Lonergan’s This Is Our Youth with Josh Hamilton and Mark Ruffalo; the Tony-winning Avenue Q; Joe Orton’s What the Butler Saw with Dylan Baker and Chloë Sevigny; David Rabe’s Hurlyburly with New Group mainstay Ethan Hawke, Bobby Cannavale, Parker Posey, Wallace Shawn, Catherine Kellner, and Hamilton; Jonathan Marc Sherman’s Things We Want with Peter Dinklage, Paul Dano, Hamilton, and Zoe Kazan; and Sam Shepard’s A Lie of the Mind with Keith Carradine, Marin Ireland, Laurie Metcalf, Frank Whaley, and Hamilton, directed by Hawke. The company, founded by artistic director Scott Elliott, who helms many of its productions, has won or been nominated for multiple Obie, Lucille Lortel, Drama Desk, and other awards during its eighteen seasons. On October 28, in conjunction with its brand-new production, Beth Henley’s eagerly awaited The Jacksonian, starring Ed Harris, Glenne Headly, Amy Madigan, Bill Pullman, and Juliet Brett, the nonprofit New Group is holding a benefit reading of Henley’s Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning Crimes of the Heart, the southern tragicomedy that was also turned into a film directed by Bruce Beresford. The reading, directed by Elliott, will feature Ireland (Homeland, Marie Antoinette) as Lenny, Natasha Lyonne (Orange Is the New Black, Slums of Beverly Hills) as Chick, Zosia Mamet (Girls, Really Really) as Babe, Sebastian Stan (Gossip Girl, Picnic) as Doc, Raviv Ullman (Phil of the Future, Russian Transport) as Barnette, and Allison Williams (Girls, The Mindy Project) as Meg. Tickets are $100 and are fully tax deductible.

ALL FOR ONE THEATER FESTIVAL: ANOTHER MEDEA

Tom Hewitt gives an unforgettable performance in Aaron Mark’s mesmerizing ANOTHER MEDEA (photo by Aaron Mark)

Tom Hewitt gives an unforgettable performance in Aaron Mark’s darkly mesmerizing ANOTHER MEDEA (photo by Aaron Mark)

Cherry Lane Studio Theatre
38 Commerce St.
Saturday, October 26, 4:00, and Wednesday, October 30, 7:00, $26 ($5 off with code LEGENDARY)
Festival runs through November 9
www.afofest.org
www.aaronmark.webs.com

Aaron Mark’s Another Medea is as intense and gripping a show as you’re ever likely to see, a harrowing examination of Euripides’ Medea myth, set in modern-day New York City. The eighty-minute one-man show is spectacularly acted by Tom Hewitt, in a 180-degree turn from his Broadway resume, which includes such villainous musical characters as Dr. Frank N Furter in The Rocky Horror Show, Billy Flynn in Chicago, Scar in The Lion King, and Pontius Pilate in Jesus Christ Superstar. Hewitt plays an actor determined to meet fellow thespian Marcus Sharp, who is in prison for committing a horrific crime. For most of the show, Hewitt is seated behind a small table, retelling the story that Sharp told his onetime understudy when they finally met. Sharp shares his tale in precise, exacting detail, using multiple voices as he talks about his relationship with a wealthy British doctor named Jason, one that ends in heartbreaking tragedy. Writer-director Mark (Commentary, Failed Suicide Attempts, Random Unrelated Projects) wrote the show specifically for Hewitt, who is performing it at the third annual All for One Theater Festival at the Cherry Lane Studio Theatre (and for the first time without the script in front of him). Hewitt is nothing short of breathtaking, immersing himself in the role of an extremely complex and conflicted character whose crime is unfortunately all too familiar in these difficult times. His mastery of the material is stunning, poetically delivered without calling attention to itself. Brutal and beautiful at the same time, Another Medea is a one-of-a-kind theatrical experience that deserves to have a longer life in a bigger venue.

(Mark and Hewitt, who originally produced Another Medea earlier this year at the Duplex in the West Village and then New York Theatre Workshop at Dartmouth, will be participating in the All for One panel discussion “Something Wicked: Writing and Performing Dangerous Characters” on October 26 at 11:00 am.)

MARIE ANTOINETTE

Marie Antoinette (Marin Ireland) discusses the state of her sheltered world in Soho Rep. production (photo by Pavel Antonov)

Soho Rep.
46 Walker St. between Broadway & Church St.
Tuesday – Sunday through November 3, $35-$50; November 5–17, $55-$75; November 19—24, $55-$80; Sunday, October 27, $0.99, first come, first served
212-352-3101
www.sohorep.org

Following more lavish productions at American Repertory Theater and Yale Repertory Theatre, David Adjmi’s Marie Antoinette gets the stripped-down, minimalist treatment at Soho Rep., where it’s just been extended through November 24. The staging is stark; the seventy-three-seat general admission audience sits in two long, horizontal rows of chairs, facing a white wall that announces the name of the play, and its main character. The story begins in 1776, as Marie (the always wonderful Marin Ireland) is gossiping over tea and macarons with her friends Yolande de Polignac (Marsha Stephanie Blake) and Therese de Lamballe (Jennifer Ikeda), discussing Rousseau, revolution, and the height of their hair. “I do like to disport myself,” the Valley Girl-like Antoinette says. “I’m sorry, even buffeted by the outcries of peasants — I’m a queen. I cannot simply forfeit my luxuries.” Among her luxuries is a dazzling red dress designed by Anka Lupes and a fab blonde wig courtesy of Amanda Miller. (The previous productions featured bigger hair and numerous costume changes, but Ireland now remains in the same dress until it’s nearly ripped off of her in act two.) She wants to have children, but her husband, the diminutive and hapless King Louis XVI (Steven Ratazzi), is scared of getting an operation on his member that would help them conceive.

Hapless King Louis XVI (Steven Ratazzi) is at a loss as revolution threatens (photo by Pavel Antonov)

Eventually, the regal Antoinette is singing a very different tune after being imprisoned by revolutionaries. “I wasn’t raised, I was built: I was built to be this thing; and now they’re killing me for it,” she says. Ireland (The Big Knife, Reasons to Be Pretty) has a ball as Antoinette, and her enthusiasm is infectious. She exhibits the queen’s fall from grace with just the right amount of pathos, especially as the peasants start their vicious personal attacks on her, centered around a pseudo-autobiography that declares her a sex-addicted whore. Director Rebecca Taichman’s spare staging turns both wacky and sublime when Antoinette, who thought of herself as a shepherdess, is visited by a talking sheep (manipulated by David Greenspan). The cast also includes Chris Stack as Marie’s would-be lover, Axel Fersen; Aimée Laurence as the dauphin; and Will Pullen as an unsympathetic revolutionary. With its swift and elegant tongue placed firmly in its stylishly made-up cheek, this Marie Antoinette is an engaging, seriocomic look at a legendary historical figure who has become an unlikely pop-culture icon.

(There will be several special events associated with the play. The October 27 show will be followed by the discussion “What Is a History Play?,” the talk “How to Grow a New Play with David Adjmi” is scheduled for October 28 at 6:00, and the 7:30 performance on November 2 will be followed by the program “The Queen’s Room: French Interior Design and the State of the Nation.” In addition, Barbara Schulz will star in the one-woman show Les correspondances de Marie-Antoinette on October 24 at FIAF, and Perrin Stein will lead tours of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s “Artists and Amateurs: Etching in 18th-Century France” display on October 25 and November 1.)

QUEER NEW YORK INTERNATIONAL ARTS FESTIVAL

Sineglossa’s REMEMBER ME is part of second Queer New York International Arts Festival

Abrons Arts Center and other venues
466 Grand St. at Pitt St.
October 23 – November 3, free – $18 (many shows $10 suggested donation)
212-598-0400
www.queerny.org
www.abronsartscenter.org

In a 2012 Huffington Post blog about the first Queer New York International Arts Festival, artistic codirector André von Ah wrote, “Queerness, in perhaps its barest and most basic concept, is about breaking the rules, shaking things up, and challenging preconceived ideas.” The second QNYIA continues to shake things up with twelve days and nights of performances, panel discussions, film screenings, workshops, and other events at such venues as Abrons Arts Center, the Invisible Dog, La MaMa, Joe’s Pub, and New York Live Arts, but sadly, it will be proceeding without von Ah, who curated this year’s programming with artistic director Zvonimir Dobrović but sadly passed away suddenly last month, still only in his mid-twenties. This year’s festival, which is dedicated to von Ah, opens October 23 with the U.S. premiere of Ivo Dimchev’s P-Project at Abrons Arts Center, the Bulgarian artist’s interactive piece that uses words that begin with the letter P to investigate societal taboos. Italy’s Sineglossa uses mirrored screens in Remember Me, based on Henry Purcell’s opera about Dido and Aeneas. Audience favorite Raimund Hoghe pays special tribute to von Ah with An Evening with Judy, in which he channels Judy Garland, Maria Callas, and others. Poland’s SUKA OFF investigates skin shedding in its multimedia Red Dragon. Brazil’s Ângelo Madureira plays “the dreamer” in his contemporary dance piece Delírio. Croatia’s Room 100 presents the U.S. premiere of its dark, experimental C8H11NO2. Dan Fishback offers a concert reading of The Material World at Joe’s Pub, the sequel to You Will Experience Silence; Fishback will also participate in the October 26 panel discussion “Creating Queer / Curating Queer” at the New School with Carla Peterson, Tere O’Connor, TL Cowan, Susana Cook, and Dobrović. The Club at La MaMa will host the New Music Series, featuring M Lamar, Shane Shane, Enid Ellen, Nath Ann Carrera, and Max Steele. The festival also includes works by Bojana Radulović, Elisa Jocson, Guillermo Riveros, Daniel Duford, Bruno Isaković, Gabriela Mureb, Heather Litteer, CHOKRA, Antonia Baehr, and Antoni Karwowski, with most shows requiring advance RSVPs and requesting a $10 suggested donation.

A NIGHT WITH JANIS JOPLIN

Mary Bridget Davies channels Janis Joplin in disappointing Broadway musical (photo by Joan Marcus)

Lyceum Theatre
149 West 45th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through March 30, $28- $140
anightwithjanisjoplin.com

Mary Bridget Davies was seemingly born to play Janis Joplin. When she was a teenager in Cleveland, she dressed as Joplin for Halloween. Later, she toured as a singer with Joplin’s band, Big Brother and the Holding Company. And now she has the lead role in the Broadway musical A Night with Janis Joplin. Davies looks like Joplin, she moves like Joplin, and, most impressive, she sounds like Joplin. Unfortunately, writer-director Randy Johnson barely glosses over the personal aspects of Joplin’s life, never really delving into necessary details, instead concentrating ad nauseam on her love of the blues and her musical influences. The show is arranged as a one-night concert in which Joplin, backed by a trio of singers and a live band, blasts out classic songs, with in-between patter that quickly grows repetitive. As she talks about her heroes, they take the stage and perform, including Bessie Smith (Taprena Michelle Augustine), Nina Simone (De’Adre Aziza), Aretha Franklin (Allison Blackwell), Etta James (Nikki Kimbrough), and Odetta (Aziza again), but these numbers seem to be an excuse for Davies to rest her voice, as they add nothing to the Joplin legend. In fact, A Night with Janis Joplin occurs in a vacuum, set in no particular time period. There is no mention of the civil rights movement, sex, drugs, alcohol (Davies does take a single swig from a bottle, sans commentary), Monterey Pop, Woodstock, Jimi Hendrix, or Jim Morrison, although F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald show up twice, even once projected onto a screen in the back. The setlist is, of course, sensational, although too many songs are heard in incomplete versions: “Summertime,” “Down on Me,” “Piece of My Heart,” “Try (Just a Little Bit Harder),” “Cry Baby,” “Ball and Chain,” etc., in addition to the unfortunately prophetic “I’m Gonna Rock My Way to Heaven,” which Joplin was working on when she died and has never been previously performed or recorded. Set and lighting designer Justin Townsend fills the stage with dozens of lamps of all shapes and sizes, along with a row of vertical fluorescent lights in the back and yet more long, narrow fluorescent bulbs arranged askew around the front, but it’s not exactly clear why. But it does fit in with the general feel of the production, which ends up being a whole lot more style than substance. Johnson has claimed that this is not a tribute show, but it would fit in better at a venue such as B.B. King’s Blues Club, which hosts regular tributes to the Beatles, James Brown, Motown, Simon & Garfunkel, the Doors, Santana, Bruce Springsteen, and others, than at a Broadway theater, where a lot more depth is expected.

THE GLASS MENAGERIE

Cherry Jones and Zachary Quinto play mother and son in glorious revival of Tennessee Williams’s THE GLASS MENAGERIE (photo by Michael J. Lutch)

Booth Theatre
222 West 45th St. between Broadway & Eighth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through February 23, $42 – $147
theglassmenageriebroadway.com

In the past eighteen months, two of America’s greatest playwrights have experienced glorious Broadway revivals — Mike Nichols’s version of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Pam MacKinnon’s Steppenwolf production of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, with Tracy Letts and Amy Morton battling it out for three hours — but Tennessee Williams has not fared nearly so well. Until now. On the heels of disappointing adaptations of A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, John Tiffany’s The Glass Menagerie, which originated at Harvard’s American Repertory Theater earlier this year, is a spectacular celebration of one of Williams’s best plays, a haunting examination of a fragile family and the concept of memory. In depression-era St. Louis, Tom Wingfield (Zachary Quinto, of American Horror Story and the Star Trek reboot) and his sister, Laura (two-time Tony nominee Celia Keenan-Bolger), live in a small apartment with their caring yet domineering mother, Amanda (two-time Tony winner Cherry Jones). Tom works in a local warehouse but dreams of becoming a writer and traveling the world. Laura has a lame foot that has turned her into a shy, mousey girl who collects glass animal figurines and treats them like friends. Amanda, who has never quite gotten over the departure of her husband, is desperate for Laura to entertain “gentleman callers” and get married. So when Tom brings home a coworker, Jim (Stargate Universe’s Brian J. Smith), Amanda jumps all over the sudden opportunity to make sure things are just right for this potential suitor.

Amanda Wingfield (Cherry Jones) will do anything she can to find her daughter (Celia Keenan-Bolger) a suitor (photo by Michael J. Lutch)

The story unfolds on Bob Crowley’s relatively spare set, which includes a refrigerator and a small kitchen table on the left, a couch in the middle, and a Victrola and a fire escape on the right, the latter seemingly rising to the heavens. Front and center is a small table on which Laura keeps a single figurine that stands in for her larger collection, which is occasionally represented by glittering specs on a reflecting pool of water that surrounds the stage. Every so often the neon shape of a shark’s fin rises ominously above the surface, psychologically threatening the proceedings. Natasha Katz’s lighting demarcates the past (memory) from the present (reality), and Nico Muhly’s music adds texture between scenes. While Quinto, in his Broadway debut, and Smith are both exceptional, Jones and Keenan-Bolger virtually redefine these long-familiar characters, Jones delivering a performance for the ages as Amanda, words rolling off her tongue as if they were written just for her, Keenan-Bolger embodying Laura’s fears in subtle ways that offer a kind of catharsis for the audience. It’s heartbreaking when she kneels down in front of her figurine and its glow spreads across her face as if illuminating her soul. In his opening monologue, Tom explains that the “play is memory,” and that relates to both the story and Williams himself, as Laura is based on Williams’s sister, Rose (at one point, Laura remembers a high school boy calling her “Blue Roses” after mishearing her say that she has “pleurosis”), and Williams’s given name is Thomas. Tiffany’s version of this deeply personal play is indeed unforgettable, a sparkling example of the power of live theater and a mesmerizing examination of the conflicting emotions that complicate memory.