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RICHARD III

Lars Eidinger makes a major announcement as title character in spectacular staging of Richard III at BAM (photo by Richard Termine)

Brooklyn Academy of Music
BAM Harvey Theater
651 Fulton St.
October 11-14, $35-$115, 7:30
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
www.schaubuehne.de

Richard III is one of the greatest characters in William Shakespeare’s canon, a hunchbacked purveyor of pure evil as he rises to power in fifteenth-century England. The deliciously maleficent and vengeful egomaniac has been played on stage and screen by a plethora of master thespians, including Laurence Olivier, Ian McKellen, Kevin Spacey, Al Pacino, Benedict Cumberbatch, Alec Guinness, Peter Dinklage, Mark Rylance, and George C. Scott. But now there’s a new monarch in town, by far and away the best portrayer of the dastardly demon I have ever seen: German actor Lars Eidinger. In Schaubühne Berlin’s ferocious, nonstop version, continuing at the BAM Harvey through October 14 and directed by Thomas Ostermeier (An Enemy of the People, Hedda Gabler, both at BAM), Eidinger is electrifying, literally and figuratively, as the extraordinary last of the Plantagenets. Eidinger speaks most of his dialogue using an old-fashioned bullet microphone that dangles from above, equipped with a light and a camera for extreme close-ups. Eidinger occasionally throws the mic away from him, then grabs it as it circles back in a kind of homage to Roger Daltrey. At one point the night I went, the mic sent out electric shocks right into Eidinger’s face, but he gamely carried on, muttering about “technical difficulties” with a wry smile. Wearing a white T-shirt, black pants and shoes, and a leather-strap helmet, his Richard is part dilapidated Alex from A Clockwork Orange, part steampunk gone wild, in a world of fashionably dressed men and women who, at the beginning, are at a decadent party straight out of a Christian Schad painting. (The fanciful costumes are by Florence von Gerkan.)

Richard (Lars Eidinger) surveys his domain in Thomas Ostermeier’s fast and furious Richard III (photo by Richard Termine)

As he takes care of business with his brothers, Clarence (Christoph Gawenda, also Dorset and Stanley) and Edward (Thomas Bading, also Lord Mayor of London and the Second Murderer), Hastings (Sebastian Schwarz, also Brakenbury and Ratcliff), Buckingham (Moritz Gottwald), Queen Margaret (Robert Beyer, also Catesby and the First Murderer), and Rivers (Laurenz Laufenberg), the hunched, club-footed Richard drags himself around Jan Pappelbaum’s set, which is fronted by a half-circle sandbox, with a two-story metal structure in the back, with poles that characters can slide down. When Richard wonderfully woos Lady Anne (Jenny König), he strips down almost completely, leaving only the black pillow that is fastened to his shoulder to form his hump. (Is it simply Eidinger’s prop, or could it be Richard’s?) Richard also makes his way into the audience several times, grabbing a seat, chatting patrons up, and waking up someone who was dozing off in the front row. He primarily speaks in German, although he ad libs in English, at which points he often looks back at one of the three surtitle screens to see if these words are projected there. He also quotes Tyler, the Creator and raps an Eminem song. But don’t let all of the unpredictable, devilish fun distract you from Richard’s real purpose: systematically dispatching anyone and everyone in his path to the throne, even a couple of puppets. Nils Ostendorf’s loud, furious score is made even more dramatic by Thomas Witte’s live drumming and Sébastien Dupouey’s video projections; Witte sits behind his kit stage left, clearly enjoying Eidinger’s antics. By the time Richard is ready for the final battle scene, there is no one else left onstage; he is fighting himself, as if the whole thing is taking place in his warped, deranged mind. It’s a captivating finale to a rousing version that breathes invigorating life into this always dependable warhorse.

BAM NEXT WAVE FESTIVAL: CROSSING

Matthew Aucoin’s Crossing makes its New York premiere at BAM this week (photo by Gretjen Helene Photography)

BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
October 3-8, $35-$110
718-636-4100
www.bam.org/opera/2017/crossing

Five years ago, BAM presented “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” a three-day multimedia festival celebrating Walt Whitman’s 1856 poem of the same name from Leaves of Grass, in which the New York City native wrote, “Others will enter the gates of the ferry and cross from shore to shore, / Others will watch the run of the flood-tide, / Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and west, and the heights of Brooklyn to the south and east, / Others will see the islands large and small; / Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half an hour high, / A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others will see them, / Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring-in of the flood-tide, the falling-back to the sea of the ebb-tide.” The Brooklyn arts institution is now returning to Whitman with Crossing, Matthew Aucoin’s hundred-minute 2015 chamber opera, which takes off from Whitman’s 1861-63 Civil War diary and these lines from the poem: “What is it then between us? / What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?” The twenty-seven-year-old Aucoin wrote, composed, and conducts the work, which is directed by Tony winner Diane Paulus (Pippin, Eli’s Comin) and features the Boston-based chamber orchestra A Far Cry, with choreography by Jill Johnson, sets by Tom Pye, costumes by three-time Tony nominee David Zinn, lighting by two-time Tony winner Jennifer Tipton, and projection by Finn Ross. Baritone Rod Gilfry, who has previously appeared at BAM in David Lang’s the loser and Mark-Anthony Turnage and Richard Thomas’s Anna Nicole, plays Whitman, a Civil War nurse tending to wounded soldier John Wormley, portrayed by tenor Alexander Lewis. The work, which was produced and commissioned by the American Repertory Theater at Harvard University, runs October 3-8 as part of BAM’s 2017 Next Wave Festival. “Crossing emerges out of my sense that Whitman wrote his poetry out of need,” Aucoin writes, “that his poetry is not, or is not exclusively, a vigorous assertion of what he is, but rather the expression of a yearning to be what he is not, or to reconcile opposing aspects of his identity. The person/persona/personality ‘Walt Whitman, an American, one of the roughs’ is the living product of this need.”

TICKET ALERT: AN EVENING WITH GEORGE TAKEI

George Takei will be at BAM on May 1 to discuss social media, online activism, LGBTQ rights, and his life and career (photo courtesy George Takei)

Who: George Takei, Jay Kuo
What: “Where No Story Has Gone Before”: George Takei in conversation with Jay Kuo
Where: BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, 30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St., 718-636-4100
When: Monday, May 1, $28-$75, 7:30
Why: On April 1, social media sensation and Star Trek favorite George Takei announced that he was running for Congress, moving out of LA and to Visalia, California, with his husband to make a grab for embattled Republican representative Devin Nunes’s seat in 2018. It turned out that it was all an April Fools’ Day setup to endorse Jon Ossoff, who is a candidate in a special election in Georgia on April 18. But it’s no joke that Takei, who will turn eighty on April 20, will be at BAM on May 1 for the special presentation “Where No Story Has Gone Before,” where he will talk about his life and career with theater composer Jay Kuo, who wrote the book, music, and lyrics for Allegiance, the Broadway musical inspired by Takei’s experiences in a Japanese internment camp during WWII. Takei played Sam Kimura in the show; the portrayer of Hikaru Sulu is currently appearing as the Reciter in Classic Stage Company’s revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Pacific Overtures. Takei and Kuo will also explore activism and the internet; with millions of followers, Takei is a major figure in the fight for social justice, marriage equality, and LGBTQ rights. Meanwhile, Kuo (Upwardly Mobile, Insignificant Others, Worlds Apart), the head of Team Takei and the chief creative officer at the Social Edge, recently tweeted, “The Ministry has fallen. Obamadore has left Hogwarts. Bellatrix Conway shrieks lies. Elizabeth McGonnowarren is holding back the Dementors.” As Takei has been known to say, “Oh my!”

A MAN OF GOOD HOPE

Yindy (Pauline Malefane) and Asad (Siposethu Juta) face some hard truths in A MAN OF GOOD HOPE (photo by Rebecca Greenfield)

BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
February 15-19, $24-$80
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

The second time South African writer Jonny Steinberg met Asad Abdullahi, he observed how the Somali refugee became wistful after snapping a twig and smelling its sap. “I felt a whim rising. A man who can break a twig and take me with him to another world, I thought, is a man about whom I ought to write a book,” Steinberg explains in a program note about A Man of Good Hope, a musical drama based on his 2015 book making its U.S. premiere at BAM February 15-19. Presented by London’s Young Vic and Cape Town’s Isango Ensemble, A Man of Good Hope follows Asad from his early childhood in Mogadishu, where his mother (Zanele Mbatha) is shot in cold blood right in front of him, to his attempts to settle in Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and South Africa while dreaming of escaping all the hardships and living in America. Asad is played by Siposethu Juta or Phielo Makitle, Zoleka Mpotsha, Luvo Tamba, and Ayanda Tikolo as he grows into a man, constantly encountering a stream of new people, both friends and enemies, and struggling to survive, always looking over his shoulder, aware of ever-present danger. Many of the people he meets disappear from his life; his acquaintances and relatives end up brutally murdered, and relationships are as evanescent as the cash in his hand. However, despite the serious nature of his story, A Man of Good Hope is filled with humor and joy. “His fear crossed a boundary right then and inhabited me,” Jonny (composer and conductor Mandisi Dyantyis) says early on about Asad. “I saw what he saw and felt what he felt. It was a gift. In that moment he gave me the ink with which I have written this book.”

Cape Town’s Isango Ensemble excels in BAM presentation of A MAN OF GOOD HOPE (photo by Rebecca Greenfield)

The set consists of a central angled wooden platform with two small stairs at the back for entries and exits; along both sides are seven marimbas, played by various members of the twenty-three-person troupe. When they’re not on the platform, the cast watches from the right and left, occasionally chiming in like a Greek chorus. The dialogue is mostly in English with some lines in African languages; in addition, the characters occasionally speak in operatic tones or break into full-fledged songs featuring traditional melodies and movement (by Lungelo Ngamlana). Director Mark Dornford-May uses freestanding doorways to depict border crossings on the characters’ journeys, or attempted journeys, to other countries, evoking the current refugee crisis and xenophobia so prevalent around the world as well as, serendipitously, the new American president’s desire to build a wall between Mexico and the U.S.A. Dornford-May, the cofounder and artistic director of Isango, also employs creative ways to show travel by car and the transformation of Asad as he ages. And the costumes, so colorful in the first half, make a very specific shift after intermission. The fine, barefoot cast also includes Dyantyis as Steinberg and the conductor, music director and Isango cofounder Pauline Malefane as Yindy and Sadicya, Sindiswa Sityata as Yindy’s mother, Ayanda Eleki as Yindy’s father, Khanya Sakube as Tube, Zamile Gantana as Rooda, Busiswe Ngehame as Foosiya (just wait till you hear her ring tone), Luvo Rasemeni as Zena, Sonwabo Ntshata as Kaafi, Cikizwa Ndamase as Zulfa, Sifiso Lupuzi as Madoda, and Thobile Dyasi as Abdi. (We saw Juta as the eight-year-old Asad, and he was exceptional, reaching emotional levels far beyond his years.) The ambiguous ending is followed by exuberant curtain calls, everyone dancing and smiling, a testament to the stubborn persistence of the human capacity for happiness amid the harsh and heartbreaking conditions we continually create for each other and ourselves.

A MAN OF GOOD HOPE

A MAN OF GOOD HOPE looks at the life of a Somalian refugee through music and dance (photo by Keith Pattison)

BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
February 15-19, $24-$80
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

Cape Town’s Isango Ensemble specializes in adapting Western works with a South African sensibility; since 2000, director Mark Dornford-May and music director Pauline Malefane have presented such classics as A Christmas Carol, The Magic Flute, La bohème, and Aesop’s Fables. The troupe has now teamed up with the Young Vic for A Man of Good Hope, based on Jonny Steinberg’s book about Asad, a young man who becomes a refugee because of the civil war in Mogadishu in the early 1990s. “I felt a whim rising. A man who can break a twig and take me with him to another world, I thought, is a man about whom I ought to write a book,” Steinberg explains in a program note about meeting Asad. The protagonist is played by Ayanda Tikolo, Siposethu Juta, Phielo Makitle, Zoleka Mpotsha, and Luvo Tamba at different stages of his life. Directed by May, with musical direction by Malefane and Mandisi Dyantyis, movement by Lungelo Ngamlana, and lighting by Mannie Manim, the show features music and dance built around the marimba. A Man of Good Hope runs February 15-19; on February 18 at 5:30 ($20), Ethiopian American writer Dinaw Mengestu will join Steinberg and Iranian American writer and moderator Roya Hakakian for the PEN America panel discussion “Reflecting on the Refugee Crisis” at BAM Fisher’s Fishman Space.

LAST WORK

Batsheva Dance Company perform exhilarating LAST WORK at BAM through February 4 (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
February 1-4, $25-$65, 7:30
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
www.batsheva.co.il

There’s no need to worry about the title of Ohad Naharin’s latest piece for Batsheva Dance Company; he’s been considering the title Last Work for eight or nine of his previous efforts, merely representing that it’s the latest, not a career-ending finale. And that’s a very good thing, because Last Work, continuing at BAM’s Howard Gilman Opera House through February 4, shows the kibbutz-born Israeli choreographer, who since 1990 has led Batsheva — founded in 1964 by Baroness Batsheva de Rothschild, with Martha Graham as its first artistic adviser — still at the top of his game. For sixty-five minutes, seventeen members of the immensely talented Tel Aviv-based troupe speak to the audience in Naharin’s unique Gaga movement language, employing gesticulations and motion that emphasize body parts, animal instincts, pleasure, freedom, and imagination. “We are turning on the volume of listening to our body, we appreciate small gestures, we are measuring and playing with the texture of our flesh and skin, we might be silly, we can laugh at ourselves,” Naharin explains about Gaga, and Last Work features all that and more. The curtain rises to reveal a woman in a blue dress and sneakers running in place at the back of the stage, seemingly suspended in air. The dancers wear different-colored shorts and tops at the start, changing into dark outfits and, later, off-white undergarments, designed by dancer Eri Nakamura (Naharin’s wife), melding well with Avi Yona Bueno’s (Bambi) lighting.

Batsheva Dance Company reach out and touch one another in LAST WORK (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

Memorable moments abound, including all the dancers placing their hands over one standing man’s body, the company wriggling across the floor on their butts, individual solos with sharp, angular movements of knees and elbows, an emotional pas de deux by Bret Easterling and Zina (Natalya) Zinchenko (the latter in a tutu), and two women slowly reaching their hands out as they tilt back their heads in yearning, all set to Grischa Lichtenberger’s score, which ranges from electronic music to Romanian lullabies. (Three words Naharin, who has a young daughter with Nakamura, told his company to consider when formulating the piece were “baby,” “ballerina,” and “executioner.”) Although there is no specific narrative thread through most of Last Work, it concludes with a series of surprise props that make ambiguous, and funny, political references; Naharin, who was previously at BAM with 2014’s Sadeh21, 2012’s Hora, and 2007’s Three, has been outspoken in his support of peace between Israel and the Palestinians, resulting in protests against Batsheva from both sides because he refuses to denounce either. And then packing tape brings everyone and everything together, even the runner, who has not stopped for a second. Last Work is another exhilarating triumph from one of the world’s most inventive, entertaining, and influential choreographers. (For more on Naharin and Batsheva, you can check out Tomer Heymann’s new documentary, Mr. Gaga, at Film Forum and the Film Society of Lincoln Center, with several screenings followed by Q&As and demonstrations.)

BAM NEXT WAVE FESTIVAL: REQUEST CONCERT

Danuta Stenka (KRUM) returns to BAM in one-woman show, REQUEST CONCERT, at BAM Fisher (photo by Klaudyna Schubert)

WUNSCHKONZERT
BAM Fisher, Fishman Space
321 Ashland Pl.
October 26-29, $25, 7:30
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

Polish companies Laznia Nowa Theater and TR Warszawa (Nosferatu, Festen) have teamed up for Request Concert, a one-character show running at the BAM Fisher October 26-29. Translated by Danuta Żmij-Zielińska from German playwright Franz Xaver Kroetz’s 1971 hyperrealistic play, Request Concert features Danuta Stenka as Fräulein Rasch, an average woman going about her average life, a fifty-year-old stenographer returning home after a day at work. Taking aim at loneliness in modern society, the seventy-five-minute production is directed by Yana Ross, with music by Aśka Grochulska and Tomasz Wyszomirski, lighting by Mats Öhlin, and multimedia set design by Simona Biekšaitė. “Karl Marx defines a time ripe for revolution when the masses are fed up with oppression and the elite is no longer able to control them,” Ross explained shortly before the play’s premiere in Poland. “But what if the financial elite has adapted with the times and worked out a way to keep the masses more or less occupied with consumerism, keeping them busy with enough daily small rewards and pleasures to forget the pain of a senseless cycle of life?” All tickets for the dialogue-free show, being staged in the round at the intimate Fishman Space, are $25, and attendees are encouraged to walk around to experience Fräulein Rasch’s futility from all angles.