this week in theater

LORCA IN NEW YORK: A CELEBRATION

Multiple locations
April 5 – July 21, free – $25
www.lorcanyc.com

In 1929-30, Spanish poet and playwright Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca (1898-1936) lived in New York City, where he studied at Columbia, writing the surrealist play The Public (El público) and the seminal book Poet in New York, which includes “Nocturne of the Brooklyn Bridge”: “No one sleeps in the sky. No one. / No one sleeps. / The creatures of the moon sniff and circle their cabins. / Live iguanas will come to bite the men who don’t dream / and he who flees with broken heart will find on the corners / the still, incredible crocodile under the tender protest of the stars.” In the preface to Pablo Medina and Mark Statman’s translation of the book, Edward Hirsch concludes, “The testament he left behind is a fierce indictment of the modern world incarnated in city life, but it is also a wildly imaginative and joyously alienated declaration of residence.” The great writer’s time in Gotham is being honored with “Lorca in NY: A Celebration,” more than three months of some two dozen special literary events being held in the city that was, for a brief time, Lorca’s home. The festival kicks off April 5 with the opening of “Back Tomorrow: Federico García Lorca / Poet in New York” in the New York Public Library’s Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III Gallery; running through July 20, the free exhibit features original manuscripts, letters, photos, drawings, and more. On April 7 at 7:00 ($10), La Bruja, Simply Rob, Los Gitanos Juveniles, Anthony Carrillo, Raphael Cuascut, Angel Rodriguez Sr., Julio Rodriguez, Mario Rodriguez, and Alex La Salle will gather together for “Lorca Extravaganza” at Bowery Poetry Club for an evening of musical and spoken-word interpretations of Lorca’s writings and his personal favorite songs. On April 8 at 6:00, Gonzalo Sobejano will deliver the free lecture “Memoria de Lorca, A través de mis años en la Universidad de Columbia (Memory of Lorca, Through My Years at Columbia University)” at Columbia, followed by a cocktail reception.

The legacy of Federico García Lorca and his book POET IN NEW YORK will be celebrated in wide-ranging multidisciplinary festival

On April 9 at 7:00 ($15), Instituto Cervantes will host “Lorca’s Universe,” a concert with guitarist José María Gallardo del Rey and violinist Anabel Garcia del Castillo. On April 16 (and continuing through May 30), “Lorca in Vermont” opens at the CUNY Graduate Center, examining Lorca’s time spent in Vermont with Philip Cummings; in conjunction with the opening, Joan Jonas, Caridad Svich, Christopher Maurer, Ben Sidran, Mónica de la Torre, and Eliot Weinberger will come together on April 16 at 6:00 (free) for the panel discussion “Interpreting Lorca” in CUNY’s Martin E. Segal Theatre. On April 19 at 7:00 (free), Jose García Velasco will deliver the lecture “Lorca, Dalí, Buñuel & Eternal Youth: Life in the Residencia de Estudiantes” at Instituto Cervantes. On May 1 from 2:00 to 9:00 (free), “After Lorca: A Day of Poetry and Performance” at CUNY features LaTasha Diggs, Rob Fitterman, Eileen Myles, Judah Rubin, Sara Jane Stoner, Aynsley Vandenbroucke, and the Aynsley Vandenbroucke Movement Group offering their own responses to Lorca’s legacy. On June 4 at 7:00 ($25), Live from the NYPL director Paul Holdengräber hosts “Celebrating Federico García Lorca.” Overnight on June 4-5 (free), David Bestué will make his way through the streets of the city, creating “an echo to Lorca’s poems” in honor of the 115th anniversary of the poet’s birth. On June 5 ($25), “Words and Music: Patti Smith and Friends” will present “A Birthday Concert for Lorca” at Bowery Ballroom. On June 10 at 8:00 ($8), an all-star group of writers will gather at the Poetry Project for “Poet in New York: Reading Lorca”; among the participants reading from the book will be Paul Auster, Aracelis Girmay, John Giorno, Wayne Koestenbaum, Rowan Ricardo Phillips, Mónica de la Torre, and Frederic Tuten. On July 9 at 1:15 at the NYPL (free), Sharonah Fredrick will discuss “Lorca, Jews, and African-American: From Romance to Racism or Simple Misunderstanding?” And if that weren’t enough, there are other events as well, including a walking tour, a film series, and more, all organized by the Fundación Federico García Lorca, which is run by Lorca’s family, and Acción Cultural Española.

ANN

Holland Taylor stars as Ann Richards in one-woman show she also wrote

Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center Theater
150 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.
Tuesday – Saturday through June 9, $75-$125
212-362-7600
www.lct.org
www.theannrichardsplay.com

Fiery politician Ann Richards was a true star, giving a memorable keynote address at the 1988 Democratic National Convention and later serving as governor of Texas. Emmy-winning actress Holland Taylor (The Practice, Two and a Half Men) embodies the dedicated reformer in the one-woman show Ann, which she also wrote. Based on six years of intensive research, Ann opens with Taylor, wearing an eye-catching white suit and Richards’s trademark white coiffure, as Ann delivering an address at a fictional college, the audience standing in for the student body. She depicts Richards as an engaging, entertaining, very smart, and open and honest woman not afraid to speak her mind about her professional and personal life, including discussing her severe alcoholism and painful divorce. The play, directed by Benjamin Endsley Klein (resident director of War Horse), slows down considerably when Richards is in her gubernatorial office, answering multiple phone calls, yelling for her assistant, and shuffling through papers. Although it’s meant to show her as a bold and brash administrator fighting for the little person, it’s repetitive and not nearly as interesting as when she’s reflecting on her life and career directly with the audience. The play comes alive again when she returns to the podium, discussing her battle with cancer and hope for the future of America. Taylor is dazzling as Richards, capturing the spirit and dedication of a sharp, brave woman who was determined to make a difference and did. In an author’s note, Taylor writes that Richards is “someone I do think of now as a friend I know pretty well, and love”; after two hours, the audience is bound to feel the same.

SCOTLAND WEEK 2013

David Eustace’s captivating “Highland Heart” exhibit will be on view at Hudson Studios April 5-7 (© David Eustace)

SCOTLAND WEEK / TARTAN WEEK
Multiple venues
Through April 21
www.scotland.org
www.scotlandshop.com

The sixth annual Scotland Week, also known as Tartan Week, kicks into high gear this weekend, celebrating Scottish art and culture with a diverse group of events taking place all over the city. On Friday, former minesweeper and prison guard David Eustace will unveil a new collection of photographs, “Highland Heart,” stunning black-and-white images of the Western Islands, at Hudson Studios in Chelsea. On Saturday morning at 8:00, some ten thousand people are expected to take part in the 10K Scotland Run in Central Park, followed by the Kirkin o’ the Tartan and Pre-Parade Brunch at the Church of Our Saviour and the Tartan Day Parade, which will make its way up Sixth Ave. from Forty-Fifth to Fifty-Fifth Sts. with bagpipers, Scottish clans, music groups, Scottish terriers, and more. On Saturday night, the Caledonia Collective at Webster Hall will consist of Stanley Odd, Rachel Sermanni with Louis Abbott of Admiral Fallow, and Breabach. Stanley Odd will also share a bill with the View Saturday night at the Knitting Factory and Sunday night at Bowery Ballroom. On April 7, Alan Cumming begins a three-month Broadway run starring as the title character in the one-man National Theatre of Scotland production of Macbeth, set in a mental ward. On April 8, Scottish fashion will be on display at “From Scotland with Love: The Scottish Lion Meets the Asian Dragon,” a cocktail party and fashion show at Stage 48. On April 9, Ian Gow, curator of the National Trust for Scotland, will receive the Great Scot Award at the black-tie “Celebration of Scotland’s Treasures” dinner at the Metropolitan Club. On April 12, Ken Loach’s Cannes Jury Prize winner The Angels’ Share opens at Lincoln Plaza and the Landmark Sunshine. And on April 14, the Scottish Ensemble, a string orchestra highlighted by trumpeter Alison Balsom, will perform at Town Hall with a program that includes the U.S. premiere of James MacMillan’s “Seraph.” A h-uile la sona dhuibh ’s gun la idir dona dhuibh!

THE REVISIONIST

Second cousins Maria (Vanessa Redgrave) and David (Jesse Eisenberg) are living in cramped quarters in THE REVISIONIST (photo by Sandra Coudert)

Cherry Lane Theatre
38 Commerce St.
Extended through April 27, $85
212-989-2020
www.therevisionistplay.com
www.cherrylanetheatre.org

Oscar-nominated actor Jesse Eisenberg, who has starred in such films as The Social Network, The Squid and the Whale, and Adventureland, continues his writing/acting double-play foray into off-Broadway with The Revisionist. The follow-up to his 2011 drama, Asuncion, which also was produced by Rattlesticks Playwright Theater at the Cherry Lane, The Revisionist features Eisenberg as David, a self-obsessed novelist who arrives at the claustrophobic apartment of his septuagenarian second cousin, Maria (Vanessa Redgrave), a Holocaust survivor who is so excited to see him that she has filled her cramped home with old family photographs and has plans to take him all around her Baltic port city of Szczecin. But it turns out that David has not come to Poland for a friendly visit but instead to get over a case of writer’s block and make revisions to his next novel, which is on a very tight deadline. He just wants to be left alone in the bedroom, where he can get high and type away on his laptop. He’s rude, selfish, and obnoxious, but Maria takes it all in stride, dropping in surprisingly wry and funny comments that sometimes get past David, who eventually realizes there is more to life than just him and his book. Inspired by actual events, The Revisionist, directed by Kip Fagan, is an intriguing, if not wholly successful, character study, the central story rather slight, and Eisenberg overplays — and overwrites — David’s unlikability and lack of understanding, especially in the first half of the show. Although it’s always great to see the talented Daniel Oreskes (The Twenty-Seventh Man, Russian Transport), who plays a taxi driver who regularly helps out Maria, the part is mostly unnecessary, save for one hysterical scene involving leg shaving. But Redgrave is masterful throughout as Maria, injecting just the right touch of irony and mystery to her witty dialogue, each line delivered with a charming magic. It’s an absolute thrill to see such an accomplished actress at the top of her game in such a small theater. The sold-out run has been extended through April 27, although there is a stand-by line every night; in addition, there are rumblings that the producers are investigating moving the production to Broadway in the near future.

OLD HATS

Bill Irwin, Nellie McKay, and David Shriner clown around in Signature Theatre’s OLD HATS (photo by Joan Marcus)

The Pershing Square Signature Center
The Irene Diamond Stage
480 West 42nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Through May 9, $75
212-244-7529
www.signaturetheatre.org

Full Moon clowns Bill Irwin and David Shiner are back together again, transforming the Irene Diamond Stage at the Signature Theatre into a rollicking vaudeville house in Old Hats. Irwin, who graduated from Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College and cut his teeth with the Pickle Family Circus, and Shiner, a Cirque du Soleil veteran, have teamed up with London-born composer, performer, activist, and satirist Nellie McKay for a wildly funny two-hour show made up of comic sketches, live music, and a little mayhem. Irwin, the 2003-04 playwright-in-residence at the Signature, and Shiner alternate solo and duo skits with new and old songs by McKay, who plays piano and ukulele leading her band, which features Alexi David on bass, Mike Dobson on percussion, Tivon Pennicott on sax and flute, and Kenneth Salters on drums. Over the course of the night, Irwin and Shiner run from a boulder chasing them down on a back screen à la Indian Jones (courtesy of projection designer Wendall K. Harrington), participate in a silly magic act and an even sillier political debate, and turn into their own funhouse mirrors while waiting for a train. In “The Businessman,” Irwin interacts with his own small image on an iPhone and iPad and much larger depiction on the back screen, wonderfully integrating modern technology into a riotous little tale that holds some delicious surprises. In “Cowboy Cinema,” the longest piece, Shiner picks out a group of people from the audience to enact an old-fashioned silent Western movie scene, with uproarious results. Meanwhile, McKay plays such tunes as “Mother of Pearl,” “Bodega,” and “Dispossessed” in between sketches, her delightfully high-pitched voice and wickedly bold sense of humor putting her on equal footing with Irwin and Shiner instead of just being a time killer during set changes and intermission. “If you would sit oh so close to me / That would be nice like it’s supposed to be / If you don’t I’ll slit your throat / So won’t you please be nice?” she sings on “Won’t U Please B Nice?” Directed by Tina Landau (Superior Donuts, A Civil War Christmas), Old Hats flows virtually seamlessly, providing lots of laughs and “Can you top this?” moments generated by a pair of very clever clowns and a sly and sassy chanteuse.

THE DANCE AND THE RAILROAD

Ma (Ruy Iskandar) and Lone (Yuekun Wu) discuss immigration, unions, life, and opera in THE DANCE AND THE RAILROAD (photo by Joan Marcus)

The Pershing Square Signature Center
The Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre
480 West 42nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Through March 24, $75
212-244-7529
www.signaturetheatre.org

David Henry Hwang’s Residency One season at the Signature continues with an engaging revival of his second work, the short historical one-act The Dance and the Railroad. Written specifically for actors John Lone and Tzi Ma in 1981, the play was originally performed for children at the New Federal Theatre, but a rave review by Frank Rich helped it move to the Public, where it ran for six months to a more adult audience. The seventy-minute piece is set in California in 1867, where transcontinental railroad employees Lone (Yuekun Wu) and Ma (Ruy Iskandar) are taking a break on a mountaintop during a bold workers strike. The older, more experienced Lone, a master of Chinese opera, is practicing his discipline, which intrigues Ma, who only recently came over from China and thinks he can quickly learn to play Gwan Gung, a heroic mythical figure from the epic novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms. But Ma will have to learn a whole lot more about life, not just opera, before being able to earn such a challenge and honor. Mimi Lien’s set consists of rocks that offer numerous platforms at different heights — evoking architect Frank Gehry’s design of the Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theater itself — allowing director May Adrales (In the House, Whaddabloodclot!!!) to have the actors on the same level or above or below each other, changing the dynamic of their evolving relationship. Jiyoun Chang’s lighting changes night to day with projections on the background, while Huang Ruo’s score emphasizes the Chinese folk music tradition. The dance movements were choreographed by Chinese opera consultant Qian Yi, the star of the famous twenty-hour 1999 Lincoln Center Festival production of The Peony Pavilion. Wu and Iskandar make an excellent team in the two-person show, the former appropriately sly and serious, the latter wide-eyed and innocent. Despite its being more than three decades old and about an event that took place nearly 150 years ago, The Dance and the Railroad holds up extremely well, given America’s current battles over immigration and unions. Hwang’s residency at the Signature, which began with the disappointing Golden Child, will conclude next year with the world premiere of Kung Fu, about a Hong Kong martial artist who comes to America in the 1960s to become a movie star.

THE (*) INN

Strange things are happening in the shtetl in centennial production of Peretz Hirschbein’s THE (*) INN (photo by Erik Carter)

Abrons Arts Center Playhouse
466 Grand St. at Pitt St.
Thursday – Sunday through March 30, $25
212-598-0400
www.abronsartscenter.org
www.targetmargin.org

In the foreword to the 1921 English version of Peretz Hirschbein’s Yiddish-language play The Haunted Inn, translator Isaac Goldberg explains, “So much of the drama is written with Mr. Hirschbein’s sensitivity to subdued tones; . . . here color tends to subside into nuance, and action . . . is refined into the suggestions of impulse and mood.” Target Margin Theater has wonderfully captured that nuance, impulse, and mood in its hundredth anniversary presentation of the experimental Yiddish play, which they call The (*) Inn, the asterisk meaning “empty, vacant, abandoned; usually translated as ‘Haunted.’” Directed by David Herskovits (who also handles the sound design), the play, running at Abrons Arts Center through March 30, is set in a shtetl where local farmers are preparing for an arranged wedding while also contemplating the future of a nearby shuttered inn that might just be home to spirits. The show opens with a hyper-stylized scene in which characters in overemphasized accents discuss life and love while a man and a woman playfully pass by with cutouts of farm animals, evoking amateur high school productions.

Meg MacCary and David Greenspan consider the crazy goings-on in avant-garde Yiddish theater revival (photo by Erik Carter)

But things get a whole lot more adult during a wedding scene in which the bride, Meta (Rachel Claire), runs off with Itsik (Sam T. West) instead of marrying her arranged beau, Leibush (Susan Hyon), and winds up in a mysterious area, exploring both their lust and their fears. Meanwhile, Meta’s father, Bendet (Amir Darvish), begins to lose his mind as the show grows ever-more abstract, with nuance, impulse, and mood taking center stage. The (*) Inn is beautifully unconventional, offering unexpected surprise after unexpected surprise, with creative sets by Carolyn Mraz and intense lighting by Lenore Doxsee, ranging from the overly bright opening to the deep, dark conclusion. Performed by a cast that also includes Ugo Chukwo, David Greenspan, Meg MacCary, Julia Sirna-Frest, and J. H. Smith III, The (*) Inn is not your grandfather’s Yiddish theater. As dramaturg Debra Caplan writes in a program note, “When The (*) Inn first premiered in Vilna in 1913, critics and audiences had never seen anything quite like it before. One hundred years after the original production of this seminal Yiddish play, we at Target Margin are willing to bet that you’ve never seen anything quite like it either.” Target Margin Theater wins that bet, with a show that is part of its two-year “Beyond the Pale” exploration of Yiddish theater. (There will be a free panel discussion, “Yiddish Theater Lives!,” prior to the March 23 show, moderated by Caplan, as well as a discussion with Herskovits and other cast and crew members after the March 28 performance.)