this week in theater

THE ASSEMBLED PARTIES

Julie (Jessica Hecht), Jeff (Jeremy Shamos), and Faye (Judith Light) share a Christmas toast in THE ASSEMBLED PARTIES (photo by Joan Marcus)

Manhattan Theatre Club at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
261 West 47th St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 16, $67-$120
www.theassembledpartiesbroadway.com

Throughout Richard Greenberg’s splendid new play, The Assembled Parties, characters comment on how easy it is to get lost in the Bascovs’ fourteen-room Upper West Side apartment. It is also easy for the audience to get lost in Greenberg’s compelling story and well-drawn characters as the Jewish clan celebrates Christmas first in 1980, then twenty years later, with things having substantially changed. Jessica Hecht (A View from the Bridge, After the Fall) is captivating as the family matriarch, Julie, speaking in an elegant, drawn-out voice that instantly reveals her character’s unique take on the world. As the play opens, she is joined by Jeff (Jeremy Shamos), her son Scotty’s (Jake Silberman) college friend, who appears smitten with her as he helps chop vegetables in the kitchen. Soon Julie’s older sister, Faye (Judith Light), arrives, with her gruff husband, Mort (Mark Blum), and their somewhat simple daughter, Shelley (Lauren Blumenfeld). “What is all this goyisha hazarai?” Faye declares upon seeing the spread in the living room, firmly establishing her character in a mere six words. As Santo Loquasto’s superb revolving set roams from room to room (to room to room), Faye tries to set Jeff up with Shelley; Jeff throws around a basketball with Scotty while discussing Scotty’s gorgeous, unseen girlfriend; Faye demands a pill from Julie to help her get through the evening; Jeff can’t break free of the telephone-umbilical cord, obsessed with calling his mother; and Mort has quite a surprise for Julie’s husband, Ben (Jonathan Walker). “God is bogus,” Julie says over dinner, “and religion a scourge. Still, I believe in something, though I’m not sure what.”

Twenty years later, things are vastly different, the only constant being Jeff’s unending dedication to Julie. Although so much of the story is built around Julie and her Jewish family, the centerpiece of the story is really Jeff, who serves as the onstage proxy for the audience. He interacts with all the characters but often does so from an observational distance, so glad to be among such unique and intriguing people. The audience is likely to feel the same way, glad to be among such unique and intriguing characters in Greenberg’s highly entertaining and extremely clever play.

JACK FERVER: ALL OF A SUDDEN

Jack Ferver delves into Tennessee Williamsʼs SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER in new multidisciplinary piece (photo by Al Hall)

Abrons Arts Center Playhouse
466 Grand St. at Pitt St.
May 2-4, $20, 8:00
212-598-0400
www.abronsartscenter.org
www.jackferver.org

In our May 2012 interview with the great Jack Ferver, he tantalizingly described what he was working on next, a piece entitled All of a Sudden. “It is loosely inspired by Tennessee Williamsʼs Suddenly, Last Summer and explores the similarities between the artist/dramaturg and the patient/therapist relationship,” he said. “ Of course, it was a play before the film, but having played Cleopatra this past year [in Me, Michelle], I feel I am being haunted by Liz in some way.” Ferver has previously brought his unique interpretation, melding dance, theater, confessional, psychoanalysis, and multimedia elements, to such disparate films as Notes on a Scandal, Poltergeist, Black Swan, and Return to Oz. This time he has set his sights on the steamy story about an institutionalized woman and her sordid southern family, which debuted on Broadway in 1958 and was made into a film the next year by Joseph L. Mankiewicz with an all-star cast that included Elizabeth Taylor, Montgomery Clift, Katharine Hepburn, Albert Dekker, and Mercedes McCambridge. Ferver collaborated with Joshua Lubin-Levy on the new show, which will be performed by the two men along with Jacob Slominski; music and sound design is by regular Ferver composer Roarke Menzies, with set design by Marc Swanson (Ferver’s Two Alike) and costumes by Reid Bartelme (Mon Ma Mes). Ferver has an endlessly inventive imagination that is thrilling to watch onstage; he’s never afraid to take chances as he opens up his heart and soul — and injects ample amounts of his wicked sense of humor — in fabulously entertaining and deeply personal ways. All of a Sudden runs May 2-4 at Abrons Arts Center, and you’d be doing yourself a great disservice if you missed it.

Update: Jack Ferver blurs the lines between audience and performer, creation and execution, and straight and gay in All of a Sudden, his latest multimedia work to use film as a way to tell a more personal story. This time Ferver focuses in on Tennessee Williams’s 1959 melodrama Suddenly, Last Summer, in which Catherine, a southern woman played by Elizabeth Taylor, is in a mental institution, being treated by a doctor (Montgomery Clift) who is trying to get her to remember a tragic event before her aunt (Katharine Hepburn) forces her to get a lobotomy. The show opens with Ferver, as Catherine, overemoting and Jacob Slominski, as the doctor, underemoting, as Joshua Lubin-Levy sits in a chair across the stage, carefully watching and taking notes. It soon becomes apparent that the three men are in the midst of creating the piece, which is far from done, discussing various elements and possible changes. At one point Slominski goes off to call his wife while Ferver and Lubin-Levy look at clips from Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s film on an old television set that mimics a theatrical dressing-room mirror, and later Ferver and Slominski break off into duets that include lots of kissing. They also at times directly address the audience, acknowledging that they are being viewed while still, in essence, rehearsing. It’s all great fun, but with more than a touch of seriousness to go with the humor. The set, designed by Marc Swanson, features a group of ropes dangling from above in one corner, evoking death and suicide, while Reid Bartelme’s costumes for Ferver are spectacularly beautiful, from ridiculously tight and tiny green body-hugging shorts to an elegant, sparkling red sequined dress. As always, Ferver adds an occasional level of discomfort to the fanciful proceedings, keeping the audience on edge, never knowing quite what is going to happen next as fantasy morphs into reality and back again, art and life becoming one and the same.

A MARRIAGE: 1 (SUBURBIA)

Nick Vaughan and Jake Margolin use sugar to add to a white picket fence as part of performance installation examining same-sex marriage and the America dream (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

HERE
145 Sixth Ave. at Dominick St.
Through May 4 (Tuesday – Sunday, 8:30), $10 in advance, $20 within twenty-four hours
Installation free Tuesday – Sunday 2:00 – 10:00
212-647-0202
www.here.org
a marriage: 1 (suburbia) / sugar cube picket slideshow

American dream or suburban nightmare? Nick Vaughan and Jake Margolin, who got married in 2008, take a sharp but playful look at the institution, examining domestic bliss from the 1950s to the present in their immersive multimedia performance piece A Marriage: 1 (Suburbia). Vaughan and Margolin have transformed nearly every room at HERE into a marital landscape that includes twists on such suburban mainstays as the garden hose, the ironing board, a pair of comfy armchairs surrounding an old radio, shirts hanging on a clothesline, the Game of Life, and a white picket fence. Now that same-sex marriage is legal in so many states, is this really what gays want? “The suburban ideal, the traditional nuclear family, emerald lawns and Betty Crocker . . . is now part of our heritage as well, and for better or worse we have to deal with it,” they write at the entrance to the exhibit. “This is our attempt to unpack those structures as we continue to construct our own.” In “First Seasons,” they’ve compiled thematically linked clips of scenes from four classic family sitcoms — The Cosby Show, Roseanne, The Dick Van Dyke Show, and Leave It to Beaver — laying the groundwork for what is considered the ideal in American society. Meanwhile, in a two-channel video, Deb Margolin, Joe Stackell, Lisa Kron, Yoshiko Chuma, and Penny Arcade share their opinions on same-sex marriage, and Vaughan and Margolin read the full transcript of the Perry v. Schwarzenegger Prop 8 case into plastic bags that form a floating balloon sculpture. Each night at 8:30, Vaughan and Margolin put on a sixty-minute performance, from typing pithy sayings on wallpaper (“There is something so deep and so comfortable in this version of living”) to making a Welcome mat out of bubblegum. On April 30, they added a picket to a white fence using sugar cubes and vanilla icing, then painting one side with red food coloring, questioning the supposed sweetness of suburbia. Purchasing a ticket allows you into the performance and to return for any of the others, which continue through May 4; admission to the exhibition itself is free. Be sure to get there well before 8:30 in order to take it all in; there’s a lot to see — even in the unisex bathrooms — running the gamut from the sublime to the ridiculous, in thought-provoking and very funny ways. (To read our interview with Nick and Jake, go here.)

TICKET GIVEAWAY: THE MEMORY SHOW

A mother (Catherine Cox) and daughter (Leslie Kritzer) redefine their relationship in THE MEMORY SHOW

THE MEMORY SHOW
The Duke on 42nd St
229 West 42nd St. between Seventh & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through May 18, $65
646-223-3010
www.transportgroup.org
www.dukeon42.org

In the two character musical The Memory Show, a daughter (Leslie Kritzer) moves back home to take care of her mother (Catherine Cox), who has just been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s. Blending humor and tragedy in charming, touching ways, the musical deals with the changing relationship between mother and daughter in such songs as “Me and My Mother,” “You Remember Him Wrong,” and “Who’s the President of the United States?” The Memory Show, which originated in the graduate musical theatre writing program at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and is now having its New York premiere at the Duke on 42nd St., features book and lyrics by Sara Cooper and music by Zach Redler; it is directed by Joe Calarco for the Transport Group Theatre Company, which is also holding a series of special events in conjunction with the show, including “Dark Nights: Mary Testa and Michael Starobin” on May 5 and a Mother’s Day brunch at Chez Josephine on May 12.

TICKET GIVEAWAY: The Memory Show runs through May 18 at the Duke on 42nd St., and twi-ny has three pairs of tickets to give away for free. Just send your name, daytime phone number, and all-time-favorite movie or play about a mother-daughter relationship to contest@twi-ny.com by Friday, May 3, at 12 noon to be eligible. All entrants must be twenty-one years of age or older; three winners will be selected at random. All responses will be kept confidential.

IDEAS CITY: UNTAPPED CAPITAL

Markus Kayser’s “SolarSinter” is part of “Adhocracy” exhibit opening at New Museum during Ideas City festival

The second biannual Ideas City festival takes place May 1-4, with more than one hundred programs featuring conferences, workshops, seminars, panel discussions, walking tours, live music and dance, interactive art installations, a street festival, and other events tackling urgent urban issues at home and around the globe. Following up on 2011’s Festival of Ideas for the New City, this year’s theme is “Untapped Capital,” exploring ways to better use available resources to provide better infrastructure and general societal needs. On May 1, the keynote address will be delivered by MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito at the Great Hall of the Cooper Union, who will examine the internet’s role in untapped capital. On May 2 at the Great Hall, four prestigious panels will examine “Ad Hoc Strategies,” “Waste,” “Play,” and “Youth,” with such impressive guests as Jeffrey Inaba, Emeka Okafor, Thaddeus Pawlowski, Nancy Lublin, Barry McGee, Charles Renfro, and Carlos Motta. On May 3, the Old School at 233 Mott St. will host a series of workshops, including “A Discussion about the Armed Forces and the Arts,” “Social Mirroring,” “Hack City,” “Wherefore Store and Designing for Future Economies,” and “Revitalizing Space — Unlocking Creativity,” while “Pitching the City: New Ideas for New York” will be held at St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral. Among the projects on view throughout the four-day presentation are the Uni Portable Library, “TrafficCom” by Tomorrow Lab and Change Admin, “In Art and Cooperation We Trust!” by Trust Art, and “The Plastic Bag Mandala” by what makes you move. On May 4, the Basilica of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral will host “Music of the Invisible”; the talk and performance “Big Art in All Spaces” occurs at Dixon Place; Downtown Art will stage the roaming outdoor opera The Great Struggle for Cheap Meat; and First City Green will screen the multichannel video Urban Exquis III. Also on Saturday, Streetfest offers dozens of fascinating presentations downtown, including Art in Odd Places 2013: “NUMBER,” “Ask a Prisoner,” “Dance for DNA,” “Raw Candy Innovation,” “Sewer in a Suitcase,” “SUSTAIN: Steering Urban Sustainability through Action, Innovation & Networks,” “Truck Farm,” “Unboxed,” and “The Urban Habitat Project.” Home base for the festival is the New Museum, where you can catch “The Money Shot: Roundtable with Karen Finley” on May 3 at 1:00, “Performance Beyond the Limits: Short Works” with Erin Markey, Sally May, Brigham Mosley, and Tobaron Waxman on May 3 at 7:00, a screening of Robert Garcia and Kevin Couliau’s Doin’ It in the Park, followed by a Q&A with the director on May 4 at 8:00, “Change of State” video projections on the facade of the museum on Saturday night, and other special events.

THE NANCE

Nathan Lane is devilishly delightful as a burlesque performer in THE NANCE (photo by Joan Marcus)

Lyceum Theatre
149 West 45th St. between Sixth & Seventh Aves.
Through June 17, $37- $132
www.lct.org

As Douglas Carter Beane’s enjoyable new play, The Nance, opens, Chauncey (Nathan Lane) is sitting in a Greenwich Village Automat, looking for someone to go home with. He sets his sights on an attractive young man, Ned (Jonny Orsini), but they have to hide their potential rendezvous for fear of being arrested — because, yes, being or acting gay in public could land you in jail in 1930s New York City. But after their very funny one-night stand, Chauncey, a local burlesque performer who stars as the Nance (short for Nancy Boy) in a show at the Irving Place Theatre, cannot seem to shake the mysterious Ned, who keeps hanging around, which both delights and annoys Chauncey, a conservative Republican who cherishes his privacy. But as the cops close in on them, they both have to examine who they really are deep down and what they want out of life. Playwright Beane (The Little Dog Laughed, Xanadu) and award-winning director Jack O’Brien (The Coast of Utopia, Hairspray) keep the action moving across John Lee Beatty’s rotating set, which turns from Chauncey’s apartment to backstage and then onstage at the Irving Place Theatre, where Chauncey performs naughty sketches with his partner, Efram (Lewis J. Stadlen), that are filled with deliciously devious and supremely silly double entendres. The troupe also includes bawdy strippers Carmen (Andréa Burns), Joan (Jenni Barber), and Sylvie (Cady Huffman), who tantalize the audience with yet more haughtiness. The play is at its best when Chauncey delves into the political implications of his personal life and career, particularly in an inventively staged courtroom scene. But while the play celebrates the boundary-defying, envelope-pushing burlesque defended so eloquently by Chauncey, it actually features far too many examples; while several of the skits are memorable, at certain points it would have been more interesting to continue with what was going on behind the scenes rather than depicting yet another burlesque bit. The Nance was written with Lane in mind, and Lane is terrific in the role that, well, was tailor made for him. Huffman, who won a Tony playing opposite Lane in The Producers, is also outstanding as a stripper who is smarter than she initially lets on. If you love old-fashioned burlesque, you’re likely to love The Nance, while if you don’t care much for that type of entertainment, you’re still in for a solid night of quality theater.

MATILDA THE MUSICAL

Miss Trunchbull (Bertie Carvel) declares that “children are maggots” in MATILDA (photo by Joan Marcus)

Shubert Theatre
225 West 44th St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through April 6, 2014, $32-$157
www.matildathemusical.com

The best musical to hit the Great White Way since The Book of Mormon, the Royal Shakespeare Company production of Matilda is a dazzling spectacle, a sensational gift from across the pond. Based on Roald Dahl’s 1988 children’s novel, Matilda follows the trials and tribulations of young Matilda Wormwood (played alternately by Sophia Gennusa, Oona Laurence, Bailey Ryon, and Milly Shapiro), an extraordinarily gifted nine-year-old who loves to read books and tell stories. But her sleazy car-salesman father (Gabriel Ebert), who is involved in a shady deal with some Russians, and her self-obsessed mother (Lesli Margherita), who is training for a dance competition with hot-to-trot partner Rudolpho (Phillip Spaeth), want her to give up books and instead be more like her older brother, the dim-witted Michael (Taylor Trensch), who spends his days watching TV and grunting. At school, her teacher, Miss Honey (Lauren Ward), recognizes Matilda’s promise and wants to escalate her education, but the headmistress, Miss Trunchbull (Bertie Carvel in magnificent drag), prefers to punish kids — by sending them off to the terrifying Chokey — rather than promote learning. Meanwhile, Matilda tells an intriguing story to Mrs. Phelps (Karen Aldridge), the school librarian, about a doomed relationship between an acrobat (Samantha Sturm) and an escapologist (Ben Thompson) that is a metaphor for Matilda’s awful family life. But with the help of her remarkable self-possession and unending determination, Matilda is not about to give up her unquenchable thirst for knowledge.

Matilda (Molly Shapiro) tells illuminating, and very adult, stories to Mrs. Phelps the librarian (Karen Aldridge) in MATILDA (photo by Joan Marcus)

Winner of seven Olivier Awards, Matilda is a complete triumph from start to finish, from the opening “Miracle” scene, in which the kids are all introduced at a birthday party, to the closing ensemble piece, “Revolting Children.” Every detail is filled with magic, from Rob Howell’s letter-laden sets, which spell out various words that appear during the course of the show, and his inventive, very funny costumes, particularly for Miss Trunchbull and Matilda’s father, to Peter Darling’s choreography, which reaches jaw-dropping proportions when the stage turns into a three-dimensional Scrabble board. Shapiro is extraordinary as the title character, employing just the right mix of wry cynicism and childhood wonder, as Dennis Kelly’s book and Tim Minchin’s music and lyrics capture Dahl’s unique tone and spirit. “So you think you’re able to survive this mess / by being a prince or a princess / you will soon see / there’s no escaping tragedy,” the kids sing in the bouncy but ominous “School Song,” continuing, “And even if you put in heaps of effort / you’re just wasting energy / ’cause your life as you know it / is ancient history.” The large cast also includes Frenie Acoba as Lavender, who develops a delightfully devilish little plan, and Jack Broderick as Bruce, who has a thing for chocolate cake, but even with all the cute and talented kids around, it’s Carvel as the hunchbacked Miss Trunchbull who steals the show, declaring that “children are maggots” as she takes delight in destroying even the tiniest bits of happiness they might find. Impressively directed by Matthew Warchus (God of Carnage, Boeing-Boeing), Matilda creates a world of pure imagination, yet one with darkness hovering around every corner, the must-see musical of the season.