this week in theater

FREE UPTOWN SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARK: A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM
Classical Theatre of Harlem
Richard Rodgers Amphitheater, Marcus Garvey Park
18 Mt. Morris Park W.
Tuesday – Sunday through July 28, free (advance RSVP recommended), 8:30
www.cthnyc.org

The Classical Theatre of Harlem (CTH) celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary with a rip-roaring adaptation of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, at the Richard Rodgers Amphitheater in Marcus Garvey Park through July 28.

The action shifts between a glitzy two-level club during the Harlem Renaissance and a fairy woodland that feels right at home in the park, amid the setting sun, the wind blowing through the trees, the sounds of the birds and insects, and, the evening I went, a few minutes of light rain that felt like fairy dust.

In the club setting, Theseus (Victor Williams), the duke of Athens, is preparing to wed Hippolyta (Jesmille Darbouze), the queen of the Amazons. He is approached by a nobleman, Egeus (Allen Gilmore), who has promised his daughter, Hermia (Ra’Mya Latiah Aikens), to Demetrius (Brandon Carter), but Hermia is in love with Lysander (Hiram Delgado); at the same time, Helena (Noah Michal) pines for Demetrius, who spurns her. Egeus invokes an ancient law in which Hermia either marries Demetrius or is put to death; Theseus attempts to circumvent that potential fate, with no success.

“Relent, sweet Hermia: and, Lysander, yield / Thy crazed title to my certain right,” Demetrius declares, but Lysander, taking the argument lightly, responds, “You have her father’s love, Demetrius; / Let me have Hermia’s: why not marry him?”

Ultimately, Theseus, against his personal preference, rules in favor of Egeus, giving Hermia three options: accept Demetrius’s hand, be exiled as a nun, or suffer execution. “Then I will die if these are my choices, / But I will never consent to marry a man I love not,” she concludes.

Hermia and Lysander decide to run away together; they share their plan with Helena, who betrays them, believing, “My love for Demetrius is so strong it makes me weak! / And in the woods my true love I will seek!”

In those very woods, a troupe of amateur actors known as the rude mechanicals are rehearsing a play they will be putting on for the duke and queen’s wedding, the tale of doomed lovers Pyramus and Thisbe from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The cast features weaver Nick Bottom (Jaylen D. Eashmond) as Pyramus, bellows-mender Francis Flute (León Tak) as Thisbe, joiner Snug (Olivia London) as the lion, tinker Tom Snout (Carson Elrod) as the wall, and tailor Robin Starveling (Deidre Staples) as Moonshine, directed by carpenter Peter Quince (Allen Gilmore). All serve as comic relief, as their rehearsals do not go very smoothly.

Meanwhile, Oberon (Williams) and Titania (Darbouze), the king and the queen of the fairies, are looking forward to attending the wedding but they are in the middle of a fight over a young boy (Langston Cofield) they have taken in.

Oberon has his hobgoblin, the sprite Puck (Mykal Gilmore), fetch a purple flower whose juices, when dripped on a sleeping creature’s eyes, make them fall in love with the first living thing they see when they awaken. To prank his wife, Oberon does so with Titania and orders Puck to drizzle the juice on the eyes of Demetrius so he will love Helena, but Puck makes a mistake, and soon Lysander is mad for Helena, Titania is cuddling with a donkey-headed Bottom, and there is chaos everywhere.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream was previously performed by CTH at the Richard Rodgers Amphitheater in 2013; this new production sparkles under the direction of Carl Cofield. The club scenes include fanciful dancing expertly choreographed by Dell Howlett, using both levels of Christopher and Justin Swader’s glittering set, lit with excitement by Alan C. Edwards; a large ensemble, dressed in Mika Eubanks’s colorful period costumes, shakes and bakes to the Jazz Age score. (The hot sound and music are by Frederick Kennedy, with projections of the moon, forest, and other elements by Brittany Bland.)

Cofield focuses on the importance of eyes in Shakespeare’s romantic comedy. Early on, Hermia says, “I would my father looked but with my eyes,” to which Theseus replies, “Rather your eyes must see things as your father sees them!” Helena opines, “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; / And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.” In the play-within-the-play, Pyramus, upon encountering something that does not please him, cries, “What dreadful sorrow is here! / Eyes, do you see?” And Bottom, waiting for a cue, says, “The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man’s hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was.” When Oberon and Puck use the flower juice, there are giant projections of eyes.

The nightclub scenes burst with life, and everything involving the four lovers is spirited fun. Aikens, Delgado, Michal, and Carter are a formidable quartet, Gilmore is a delightful Puck (and revels master Philostrate), and Williams and Darbouze bring a regal posture to the proceedings. However, the rude mechanicals cannot maintain the pace, occasionally dragging down the momentum. Several scenes go on too long, and the acting is more scattershot, led by an over-the-top, repetitive performance by Eashmond, who alternates as Bottom with comedian Russell Peters. But there is more than enough merriment to make that a minor quibble.

This Midsummer Night’s Dream is just the right play to set your eyes upon to make an already lovely midsummer night that much more dreamy.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

LEGENDS & LEGACIES: ELEVENTH ANNUAL STooPS BED-STUY ART CRAWL AND BLOCK PARTY

STooPS 2024 SUMMER FESTIVAL
Stuyvesant Ave. & Decatur St., Brooklyn
Saturday, July 27, free (advance registration recommended), 1:00 – 7:00
www.stoopsbedstuy.org
www.eventbrite.com

The eleventh annual STooPS Arts Crawl and Block Party takes place July 27 from 1:00 to 7:00, with live music and dance, spoken word, workshops, theater, and visual art on the stoops and shared spaces of Bedford–Stuyvesant. This year’s theme is “Legends & Legacies,” honoring the history of the community. Among the legacies participants are textile artist Aaliyah Maya, singer-songwriters Amma Whatt and YahZarah, poets Carmin Wong, Kai Diata Giovanni, and Keys Will, storyteller Christine Sloan Stoddard, musicians BSTFRND, DJ Toni B, and Zardon Za’, dancer-choreographer Kendra J. Bostock, healer Renee Kimberly Smith, and artists Ladie Ovila Lemon (Mūt’ Sun) and Shanna Sabio. Representing the legends are Black Girl Magic Row; Monique Greenwood of Akwaaba Mansion; Sincerely, Tommy founders Kai Avent-deLeon, Mama Jelani deLeon, and Ms. Doreen deLeon; Chief Baba Neil Clarke; Ms. Cathy Suarez of the Decatur St. Block Association; and organizer and educator Lumumba Akinwole-Bandele of the East.

“STooPS is a living legacy — the bridge that connects the artists, movements, organizations, and neighbors who transformed Bed-Stuy into a Black Cultural Hub with the new artists, residents, and visitors in order to forge the future of this neighborhood and Black culture,” STooPS founding director Bostock said in a statement. “For our 2024 annual summer festival we honor the national and hyperlocal hero/sheros and imagine and inspire their posterity with our theme, Bed-Stuy: Legends and Legacies.“

The festivities begin at 1:00 with a block party lasting all afternoon, including a Kiddie Korner; there will be art crawls at 1:30 and 4:30, led by playwright and poet Wong. All events are free but advance registration is recommended.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

THE JOURNALS OF ADAM AND EVE: THE WORLD’S FIRST LOVE STORY

Hal Linden and Marilu Henner play Adam and Eve in new play at Sheen Center (photo by Paul Aphisit)

THE JOURNALS OF ADAM AND EVE
Loreto Theater, the Sheen Center for Thought & Culture
18 Bleecker St. at Elizabeth St.
Wednesday – Sunday through July 28, $39-$99
212-925-2812
www.sheencenter.org

In September 2022, nine-time Emmy-winning writer and producer Ed. Weinberger presented Two Jews, Talking at the Theatre at St. Clement’s, a two-character play in which television icons Hal Linden and Bernie Kopell played a pair of old Jewish men, first in the desert escaping slavery in Egypt, then sitting on a park bench, complaining about the state of the modern world.

Weinberger has followed that up with The Journals of Adam and Eve at the Sheen Center, a two-character play in which television icons Linden and Marilu Henner portray the planet’s first couple. The ninety-minute show is an adaptation of two short stories written by Mark Twain late in his career, 1904’s “Extracts from Adam’s Diary” and 1906’s “Eve’s Diary,” hilariously retold in the style of Borscht Belt comedians (and with a nod to John Milton’s Paradise Lost).

Although it is a staged reading with the actors at music stands, they know most of the lines, allowing them to gesticulate, whether speaking to the audience or to each other. They do regularly refer to the script, but only to pick up a word or phrase. Behind them, a projection of the sky turns from blue skies to clouds to the sun and the moon.

“Much to my amazement, I was born a full-grown man. How old exactly I never knew,” Adam says at the beginning. “But I was made on the sixth day after G-d created everything else in the world. I like to think of myself as G-d’s ‘big finish.’ After me, He rested.”

Discussing being the only man on Earth, Adam explains, “My first day was one damn thing after another. Figuring out what was edible and what was not. Which fruit to eat as is and which fruit I had to open or peel took serious concentration. My first banana almost choked me to death.” He discovers a pleasing herb that gives him the munchies, realizes that the figure looking back at him in a brook is himself, and wonders what the two dangling objects between his legs are for.

He is tasked with naming everything, but he fails miserably. He asks for an assistant, and G-d gives him Eve. “Now, there have been those — poets mostly — who have described our first meeting as ‘love at first sight.’ Nothing could be further from the truth,” he says. Eve responds, “You can say that again.” The gender wars have begun.

Eve is not so willing to accept G-d’s word as sacrosanct; she doesn’t believe that she was made from Adam’s rib, and she refuses to be Adam’s inferior. She declares, “Well, it just so happens that this living thing that ‘moveth’ is not one of your birds, fishes, or any other animal you have dominion over. So maybe you and this G-d ought to have another little talk about who is whoest and what is whateth.”

Eve shows an immediate talent for doling out names, starting with herself, as she recognizes the beauty of the Garden of Eden, but she also wonders what those two dangling objects between Adam’s legs are for. When Adam takes her to the brook, she sees her reflection and opines, “I must do something about my hair,” then asks Adam, “You think this makes me look fat?” In the skillful hands of Linden and Henner, these old jokes still elicit laughter. (Oddly, the joke that fell the flattest is a retread from Two Jews, Talking, where it fell flat as well.)

Weinberger details their initial sexual encounter, which is both romantic and humorous as it explores classic tropes. “Was it as good for you as it was for me?” Adam asks. Eve replies, “Better,” then tells the audience, “I lied.”

But their idyllic existence is turned upside down after Eve is lured by a snake to take a bite of an apple from the Tree of Knowledge, leading to Adam and Eve’s exile from the Garden of Eden. They must make a new life for themselves, experiencing guilt and shame, fighting like husbands and wives do, raising two boys, Cain and Abel, and learning to fear death. But amid it all, Adam tells the world’s first joke.

Director Amy Anders Corcoran (Christmas in Connecticut, Unexpected Joy) gives plenty of space for Bronx-born ninety-three-year-old Tony and Emmy winner Linden (Barney Miller, The Rothschilds) and Chicago-born seventy-two-year-old Henner (Taxi, Madwomen of the West, Gettin’ the Band Back Together) to strut their stuff, delighting in the words of Philly-born seventy-eight-year-old Weinberger (The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Taxi, The Cosby Show).

Linden, in casual gray slacks and a brown shirt that probably came from his closet, and Henner, in dazzling form-fitting black spandex, have a lovely camaraderie. (In the Los Angeles version of the play earlier this year, two-time Emmy winner Sally Struthers was Eve.) You can feel their warmth as Adam and Eve poke fun at each other, argue, and make love. Their relationship echoes a battle of the sexes that has been going on since, well, creation, especially as depicted in television sitcoms, from Ralph and Alice and Lucy and Ricky to Sam and Diane and Homer and Marge.

Even though the play is at the Sheen Center, a venue “where art and spirituality meet” — the program features a welcome that includes Bible verses — it does not proselytize. Instead, it is a very funny comic look at the ups and downs of life on Earth between men and women, asking eternal questions while (barely) skirting clichés and, most important, making us all laugh, at Adam and Eve and ourselves.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

BILL’S 44th

Bill, operated by Dorothy James and Andy Manjuck, hosts a party to remember at HERE Arts center (photo by Richard Termine)

BILL’S 44th
HERE Arts Center
145 Sixth Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday through July 28, $35-$100
here.org

Bill’s 44th is the must-attend party of the summer, and everyone is invited. Although it looks like his friends, relatives, and colleagues have something else to do, their loss is our gain.

Bill is all prepared for his forty-fourth birthday. He puts out the hors d’oeuvres, makes the punch, and gets out the party hats. The music is flowing — it starts with Burt Bacharach’s bright and buoyant theme song from the comic 1967 James Bond film Casino Royale, performed by Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass — and Bill is ready to celebrate.

He keeps checking the clock and the door, but as time passes, no one shows up.

There’s a knock at the front, but when he answers it, he sees only a small box on the floor all by itself, from his mother, who apparently has sent a package but will be skipping the festivities as well. Growing sadder by the second, Bill becomes even more dejected when his mother’s present breaks. Bill draws a happy face on a balloon, but, magically, the smile turns upside down into a frown.

Nothing is going right for poor Bill; we feel his pain, his loneliness, his disappointment. We’ve all been there at one point or another, desperate to make a connection with anyone, anything.

Oh, did I mention that Bill is a puppet?

The protagonist is a puppet with a bald head, empty eye sockets, bushy eyebrows, a thick black moustache, two long arms, and a paunchy stomach. He is operated by sound designer Andy Manjuck and puppet designer Dorothy James, who created the piece together; dressed all in black and wearing black masks over their mouths, James handles Bill’s right side, while Manjuck takes care of the left. They each have one arm in a sleeve of Bill’s sweater, using their other arm to move Bill’s head and torso. It takes only a few minutes to get used to the setup and believe that Bill is just another human being, trying to enjoy life and beat the ticking clock.

But with faith in people, trust in oneself, and a boundless imagination, even potential disasters can become moments to treasure.

Bill is afraid that no one is coming to his party in the ingenious Bill’s 44th (photo by Ben Wright Smith)

Running at HERE through July 28 as part of the Dream Music Puppetry Program, Bill’s 44th is a fifty-five-minute rollercoaster of emotions that will both break your heart and lift your spirits. There is no dialogue, evoking the silent films of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton in addition to Jacques Tati’s beloved 1950s and ’60s character Monsieur Hulot, who never speaks as he encounters unusual situations in the city, at the beach, and other places.

Eamon Fogarty’s playful score picks up where Bacharach left off, accompanied by M. Jordan Wiggins’s mood-enhancing lighting and Peter Russo, Joseph Silovsky, and Taryn Uhe’s props, which range from balloons and birthday cakes to an unforgettable carrot stick and a dazzling scene in miniature. Jon Riddleberger joins in by operating surprise puppets that are utterly delightful.

With Bill’s 44th — which next travels to the Edinburgh Fringe — Manjuck and James have delivered a marvelously inspired gift, an involving and infectious experience that explores the human condition in ingenious ways that, well, will turn that frown upside down.

This is one party you truly do not want to miss.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

OPEN THROAT

Chris Perfetti is one of three actors who portray a queer mountain lion in Open Throat on Little Island (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

OPEN THROAT
The Amph at Little Island
Pier 55, Hudson River Park at West Thirteenth St.
July 10-14, $25, 8:30
littleisland.org

In the theater, an actor is said to be “on book” if they are using the script onstage. Most often this occurs in previews because they are still working on their lines. A performer can also be on book if they are a last-minute replacement or, as in the case of the protagonist in Marin Ireland’s current Pre-Existing Condition, as a directorial choice relating to the character’s state of mind.

The full cast is on book — literally — in Henry Hoke’s expert adaptation of his highly acclaimed 2023 novel, Open Throat. Throughout the eighty-minute play, the actors read from either the hardcover or paperback edition as they walk across the spare set at the Amph on Little Island, the 687-seat open-air theater that borders the Hudson River. Because of rights issues, and probably also because there are only five performances of the piece, which was commissioned for the space, it had to be a staged reading with scripts in hand, but director Caitlin Ryan O’Connell uses that to her advantage, as the play becomes a celebration of the written word as well as clever stagecraft.

The story is narrated by a queer mountain lion (portrayed first by Chris Perfetti, then Calvin Leon Smith and Jo Lampert) living under the Hollywood sign in the Los Angeles hills, avoiding confrontations with humans, unwilling to be the hunter or the hunted, instead surviving on bats and small animals. “I’ve never eaten a person but today I might,” the lion says early on. The lion, who was inspired by P-22, a puma who lived for ten years in Griffith Park in LA, has no name; a young man in a homeless tent city calls the lion “fucker cat,” “shitfuck cat,” or “goddamn fuck cat.” His mother gave him a name he cannot share and people would be unable to pronounce, while his father gave him a name he won’t repeat. It’s all part of his search for his identity and his place in a foreign world he is trying to understand.

As the lion ventures closer to humans and vice versa, impeding on each other’s territory, the lion encounters a scary man who cracks a whip, a gay couple having sex in a cave, a woman yapping away on a phone, and various hikers and tourists. The lion listens as the people discuss capitalism, therapy, veganism, and dating. But the lion’s life changes dramatically when taken in by a young woman named slaughter who has domestication on her mind.

Henry Hoke’s Open Throat begins just as the sun sets over the Hudson River (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

Open Throat is a beguiling parable about personal identity, family, language, and being part of a community. It feels right at home in the Amph, surrounded by grassy hills, wind whipping through trees, and, on the west side, a beckoning river. At one point, just when the lion is describing how a young man in town refers to machines flying in the sky as “fucking helicopters,” a helicopter actually flew over the water. Unfortunately, many more did, creating loud distractions. The lion often refers to the “long death,” which is a busy street where many animals have met their end, being hit by cars; it’s hard not to compare that to the West Side Highway, which must be crossed in order to enter Little Island. And there are numerous mentions of “a deep forest on the edge of the water,” which is an apt description of the environment encircling the Amph.

Noah Mease’s set features a large, octagonal “O” on the floor; the missing center is represented twice as an object on which Steven Wendt makes shadow puppets with his hands, depicting moments from the lion’s past with his parents, including a poignant kill. Wendt also makes ingenious analog sound effects from atop a scaffold balcony. Perfetti, Smith, and Lampert each brings a different flavor to the lion, involving gender, color, and sexuality, as if any one of us could be the crafty animal. The rest of the characters are played by Marinda Anderson, Alex Hernandez, Layla Khoshnoudi, Ryan King, and Susannah Perkins, moving from the wings to the aisle steps to a balcony; rising star Perkins — she’s excelled in such plays as Grief Hotel, The Welkin, The Wolves, The Low Road, and The Good John Proctor — is particularly effective as the young slaughter, adding depth and nuance while having clearly memorized many of her lines.

Mease also designed the props and masks — each lion portrayer has a small costume element that identifies them as a cat — although they are kept to a minimum. Most of the props are imaginary, and cast members’ appearances do not change in order to match the text. The superb lighting, which emerges as the sun sets, is by 2024 special Drama Desk Award winner Isabella Byrd, with playful choreography by Lisa Fagan and immersive sound and music by Michael Costagliola. O’Connell (King Philip’s Head Is Still on That Pike Just Down the Road, Twin Size Beds) directs with a sure hand, whether depicting a tragic fire, an animal fight, an earthquake, or a road trip; a Disney dream sequence is the only scene that felt out of place. Even the actors using the script becomes organic to the tale.

Not only is the Amph itself a kind of character in the narrative but so is New York City. “they talk about new york a lot in ellay / in new york you don’t need a car,” the lion says. (The book contains no punctuation, and only the pronoun “I” is capitalized, furthering the idea of establishing one’s identity.)

“is new york where I have to go,” the lion asks. The answer is a resounding yes, as Open Throat could not have happened quite like this anywhere else.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

WEST SIDE FEST 2024

The High Line will host special programming at West Side Fest (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

WEST SIDE FEST
July 12-14, free
Multiple locations between Bank & West Thirtieth Sts.
www.westsidefest.nyc

Every June, the Upper East Side hosts the Museum Mile Festival, when seven or eight arts institutions, including the Met, the Guggenheim, the Cooper Hewitt, the Jewish Museum, and El Museo del Barrio, open its doors for free and turn Fifth Ave. into an arts-based street fair.

The West Side is getting in on the action with its own celebration with the weekend-long West Side Fest, running July 12-14, featuring live performances, guided tours, open studios, interactive workshops, special presentations, and free entry at many locations between Bank and Thirtieth Sts., including the Rubin, Poster House, the Whitney, Hudson Guild, Little Island, the Shed, Dia Chelsea, and the Joyce. Below is the full schedule; a map is available at the above website.

Friday, July 12
NYC Aids Memorial, 7:00 am – 11:00 pm

The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center, 8:00 am – 10:00 pm

Hudson Guild: Déflorée History Series, with panels by Valerie Hallier, 10:00 am – 5:00 pm

Hudson Guild: Triennial Children’s Art Show, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm

Poster House, free admission, 10:00 – 6:00

Little Island: Creative Break, art workshops, 11:00 am – 1:00 pm

Dia Chelsea, noon – 6:00

Whitney Museum of American Art: Open Studio for Teens, 1:00 – 3:00

IndieSpace/West Village Rehearsal Co-Op: Open Rehearsal by Divine Riot Company of Five Times in One Night, 2:00 – 5:00

Hill Art Foundation: Sound Bath, with musician Daren Ho, 5:00 – 7:00

The Joyce Theater at Chelsea Green Park: Pop-Up Dance Performances by Pilobolus and Dorrance Dance, 5:00 & 6:30

The Shed: Summer Sway, 5:00 – 8:00

White Columns: Exhibition Opening Reception, with works by Michaela Bathrick, Ali Bonfils, Joseph Brock, Eleanor Conover, and Donyel Ivy-Royal, 5:00 – 8:00

Whitney Museum of American Art: Free Friday Nights, advance RSVP required, 5:00 – 10:00

Print Center New York: Print Center After Hours, 6:00 – 8:00

Westbeth Artists Housing x the Kitchen Kickoff Celebration & Poster Sale, 6:00 – 8:00

Rubin Museum of Art: K2 Friday Night, 6:00 – 10:00

Little Island: Teen Night, 7:00 – 8:00

“Wonder City of the World: New York City Travel Posters” is on view at Poster House

Saturday, July 13
High Line: Family Art Moment: Dream Wilder with Us, ages 5–12, 10:00 am – noon

IndieSpace/West Village Rehearsal Co-Op: Open Rehearsal by Divine Riot Company of Five Times in One Night, 10:00 am – 1:00 pm

Poster House, free admission, 10:00 – 6:00

Hudson River Park: Explore & Play, 14th Street Park, 11:00 am – 1:00 pm

Little Island: Creative Break, 11:00 am – 1:00 pm

Westbeth Artists Housing: Penny’s Puppets, 11:00 am – 1:00 pm

Rubin Museum of Art, 11:00 am – 5:00 pm

Center for Art, Research, and Alliances, Javier Téllez: Amerika, 11:00 am – 6:00 pm

High Line: A Celebration of High Line Wellness, 11:30 am – 1:00 pm

The Kitchen: Tai Chi Workshop, 11:30 am – 1:00 pm

Hudson Guild: Triennial Children’s Art Show, noon – 3:00

Poster House Block Party, noon – 5:00

Dia Chelsea, noon – 6:00

Hudson Guild: Déflorée History Series, with panels by Valerie Hallier, 1:00 – 4:00

The Kitchen Poster Sale, 1:00 – 6:00

Westbeth Artists Housing: Art & Craft Market, 1:00 – 6:00

IndieSpace/West Village Rehearsal Co-Op: Open Rehearsal by Ali Keller, 2:00 – 5:00

Print Center New York: Print Activation with Demian DinéYazhi’, 2:00 – 5:00

Westbeth Artists Housing Open Studios, 2:00 – 5:00

Dia Chelsea Soil Sessions: Earth Sounds with Koyoltzintli, advance RSVP required, 2:30

Westbeth Artists Housing: You Are Never Too Old to Play, 7:00 – 9:00

The Rubin reimagines its collection in grand finale (photo byt twi-ny/mdr)

Sunday, July 14
The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center, 8:00 am – 8:00 pm

Poster House, free admission, 10:00 – 6:00

Whitney Museum of American Art: Free Second Sundays, 10:30 am – 6:00 pm

Hudson River Park Community Celebration, with Ajna Dance Company, henna, and community groups, Pier 63, 11:00 am – 1:00 pm

Center for Art, Research, and Alliances, Javier Téllez: Amerika, 11:00 am – 6:00 pm

Rubin Museum of Art: Family Sunday, 1:00 – 3:00

Westbeth Artists Housing Open Studios and Art & Craft Market, 1:00 – 5:00

Westbeth Artists Housing: Art Take-Over, curated by Valérie Hallier, Claire Felonis, and Noah Trapolino, 1:00 – 6:00

Whitney Museum of American Art: STAFF ONLY, Westbeth Gallery, 1:00 – 6:00

Chelsea Factory: Ladies of Hip-Hop’s Ladies Battle!, 1:00 – 10:00

IndieSpace/West Village Rehearsal Co-Op: Open Rehearsal by Felice Lesser Dance Theater of I AM A DANCER 2.0, 2:00 – 4:00

High Line: The Death Avenue Posse, by the Motor Company, 5:30 & 7:00

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

EMPIRE: THE MUSICAL

Empire: The Musical follows the construcion of the Empire State Building in head-scratching ways (photo by Matthew Murphy)

EMPIRE: THE MUSICAL
New World Stages
340 West Fiftieth St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Wednesday – Monday through September 22, $58-$144
empirethemusical.com
newworldstages.com

In March 1965, Andy Warhol released Empire, an eight-hour film consisting of a single, static shot of the 102-story Empire State Building, on Fifth Ave. and Thirty-Fourth St., taken from the forty-first floor of the Time & Life Building on Sixth Ave. between Fiftieth and Fifty-First Sts. Some years ago, I recall reading about how at one screening, a theater, in an effort to encourage audience members to sit through the whole black-and-white silent film, offered to return some of the cost of the ticket based on how long people stayed; patrons who made it to the end got all their money back.

Alas, that is not the case with the shockingly drab and clueless Empire: The Musical, which opened tonight at New World Stages on West Fiftieth St., just a few blocks away from the former Time & Life Building and the Empire State Building (ESB) itself.

Caroline Sherman and Robert Hull started writing the show in 1999, and it debuted at the Hudson Backstage Theatre in Hollywood in 2003. A revised version ran at La Mirada Theatre in California in 2016. This latest iteration is scheduled to continue through September 22, testing the audience’s patience to make it through all two and a half interminable hours, without the possibility of getting any money back.

In a 1964 discussion recorded in filmmaker Jonas Mekas’s journal, Warhol declared, “The Empire State Building is a star!” Sherman and Hull, who previously collaborated on such shows as Goodney’s Ghost, Byzantium, and Diggy Hoffen Pepper Zee and the Colors of the Rainbow, essentially leave the ESB out of the musical. Never once is their any indication of its Art Deco majesty, and although they mention photographer Lewis Hine, none of his famous photos documenting the development are shown.

Instead, the narrative focuses on individuals involved in the construction of the skyscraper, which began in March 1930 in the midst of the Great Depression. Former New York State governor and presidential candidate Alfred E. Smith (Paul Salvatoriello), business executive and Smith supporter John J. Raskob (Howard Kaye), and New York City mayor Jimmy Walker (Devin Cortez), who are real, appear along with a bevy of invented characters who are meant to represent various issues that arose during the 410 days it took to build the structure.

The frame story introduces three generations of a Mohawk family: Sylvie Lee (Jessica Ranville, but we saw understudy Julia Louise Hosack), who is onstage the entire show, watching, commenting on, and participating in the action across eras, from 1930 to 1976; her father, Joe Pakulski (Cortez), who died while working on the building; Joe’s wife, Rudy Shaw (Kiana Kabeary), who disguises herself as a man so she can work next to her husband; and Sylvie’s daughter, Rayne (Kiana Kabeary), who wants to follow in her grandparents’ footsteps. It feels forced, turning the show into a private quest and a way to deal with the inherent prejudice against the immigrants on the crew: the Italian Paolo De Caprio (Ethan Saviet), the Polish Pakulski, and the Irish Ethan O’Dowd (J Savage), regularly insulted by the bigoted Matteo Menzo (Robbie Serrano).

The mundane dialogue also overuses the metaphor of each story of the ESB relating to each worker’s story. As Charles needlessly explains, “We write stories, we build stories. It’s no coincidence, you know. Folk tales were passed down verbally so as a memory device, chapters were rooms of a house and each story a floor.” Sylvie responds, “Stories and stories.”

One of the main figures, Frances Belle “Wally” Wolodsky (Kaitlyn Davidson), Smith’s impressive right-hand assistant, is invented, an amalgamation of Frances Perkins, the first woman to serve in a presidential cabinet, and trailblazing civic reformer Belle Moskowitz. Architect Charles Kinney (Albert Guerzon) is a combination of designers from the firm of Shreve, Lamb & Harmon, including Japanese American Yasuo Matsui. There appears to be no evidence that a woman pretended to be a man in order to work on the Empire State Building. And although at least five men were killed while the site went up, none of them was named Pakulski and married to a Native American woman. All of this fiction detracts from the story, which barely mentions the historic “Race to the Sky” between the ESB and the Chrysler Building; instead, we get tons of metaphors about going up and going down.

Empire: The Musical is not quite a “ring-a-ding-zing” show (photo by Matthew Murphy)

The forgettable songs, played by a seven-piece band led by conductor and keyboardist Gillian Berkowitz, have such titles as “Don’t Look Down When You’re Going Up,” “Touch the Sky,” and “Castles in the Air,” featuring such lyrics as “Why must I justify who I am / Don’t they see, this is me, they don’t give a damn / I have tried to dignify our battle cry / To reach so high we’d touch the sky, why wouldn’t I,” “You just need to understand that I’m not the kind of man / Who can live my life on the ground / When here and now I’ve finally found / My place up in the air, don’t worry I hear you,” and “Heyday, we’ll have our say day / Our ring-a-ding-zing day will light the night.”

And then there’s Smith’s secret to success, “Moxie”:

Raskob: I’ll get you back up on top.
Smith: My new building will be la crème de la crop.
Charles: Right, my — your — building will make the skyline pop / What’s the hullabaloo?
Smith/Raskob/Charles: It’s not just ballyhoo / We’ve got moxie and a melting pot of can do.

Empire: The Musical is flatly directed by Cady Huffman, who has been nominated for two acting Tonys, winning Best Featured Actress in a Musical in 2001 for her role as Ulla in The Producers. Lorna Ventura’s choreography and Tina McCartney’s costumes lack imagination, while Walt Spangler’s scenic design is a mix of erector set and Lego blocks; a vertical window at the center rear of the stage sometimes tilts down at a forty-five-degree angle, then goes back up, for no apparent reason. There are no visual clues that this is the Empire State Building; it could be any large tower anywhere.

Every night, when I tuck myself into bed, I can see the top of the ESB, which is currently the fifty-sixth tallest building in the world. There must be a lot of great stories to be told about it, but Empire: The Musical is not one of them. In the meantime, I might just try to find Warhol’s 485-minute masterpiece online and see how much of it I make it through.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]