Tag Archives: Jay O. Sanders

HUNTER THEATER PROJECT: UNCLE VANYA

Uncle Vanya is presented in new streamlined adaptation at Hunter’s Kaye Theater (photo by Joan Marcus)

The Kaye Theater, Hunter College
East 68th St. between Lexington & Park Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through November 18, $37 ($15 for students)
www.huntertheaterproject.org

Tony- and Obie-winning playwright Richard Nelson gives Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya the Apple and Gabriel family treatment in the inaugural production from Gregory Mosher’s Hunter Theater Project, which has been extended several times at the Kaye Theater at Hunter College, now running through November 18. In such plays as That Hopey Changey Thing and Sweet and Sad about the Apples and Hungry and Women of a Certain Age about the Gabriels, writer-director Nelson tells family stories often centered around important events, taking place in the kitchen as everyone comes together to eat. This new adaptation of Chekhov’s 1898 play, translated by Nelson with Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, is set in the kitchen of the Serebryakóv country estate. As the audience enters the small theater, where they sit on all four sides, chairs and tables are piled at the center of Jason Ardizzone-West’s intimate set. The characters enter and, before speaking, arrange the room; it’s almost as if we’re sitting with them as food is served and the plot unfolds. Ványa (Jay O. Sanders), who manages the estate, is preparing for the visit of elderly professor Alexánder Serebryakóv (Jon DeVries) and his much younger wife, Eléna (Celeste Arias). A soft-spoken man, Ványa has feelings for Eléna, as does Mikhaíl Ástrov (Jesse Pennington), a local doctor. Sónya Alexándrovna (Yvonne Woods), the professor’s daughter by a previous marriage, assists Ványa; she is interested in the doctor, who is taken with Eléna. The household is run by Sónya’s former nanny, Marína (Kate Kearney-Patch), who is watched over by Sónya’s grandmother, Márya (Alice Cannon), Ványa’s mother. They calmly discuss life and beauty, love and happiness as well as finances, which are not in good shape. And then it all explodes.

Mikhaíl Ástrov (Jesse Pennington) and Ványa (Jay O. Sanders) share a passion in Chekhov classic (photo by Joan Marcus)

Shakespeare in the Park regular Sanders (The Sinner, Unexplored Interior), one of New York’s finest character actors and who played Richard Apple and George Gabriel in Nelson’s family plays, is a hulking, heartfelt, forthright, and decidedly American Vanya in this tender production; a bear of a man, he gently waits for his moment to erupt in a classic role previously played by such British royalty as Michael Redgrave, Ralph Richardson, Nicol Williamson, Tom Courtenay, Derek Jacobi, and Anthony Hopkins. And when he does finally let it out, his fury is something we can all identify with, the rage and anger we keep buried inside, desperate to release. Woods (Goodnight Children Everywhere, Franny’s Way) portrays Sónya with a haunting sadness, while Arias, who played Masha in Jaclyn Backhaus’s The Three Seagulls, or MASHAMASHAMASHA!, is a sweet-natured Eléna, who is not looking to stir up gossip or hurt anyone. The translation is direct and straightforward, streamlined to 110 minutes without intermission. Time and place are not essential here; Nelson instead focuses on the characters and the relationships, keeping it all right on point. With Uncle Vanya, the egalitarian Hunter Theater Project has gotten off to quite a start: There are no membership programs or VIP access; all tickets are $15 for students and $37 for everyone else. And don’t be misled by the affiliation with the college; the project is a fully professional venture, with students working the front of the house and ushering.

MEMORIAL FOR FRITZ WEAVER

The life and career of Tony-winning, Emmy-nominated, Theatre Hall of Fame inductee Fritz Weaver will be honored at Symphony Space on January 23

Symphony Space, Peter Jay Sharpe Theatre
2537 Broadway at 95th St.
Monday, January 23, free, 6:30
212-864-5400
www.symphonyspace.org

One of the very first actors I felt a real bond with was Fritz William Weaver, the Pittsburgh-born star of stage, screen, and television who passed away in November at the age of ninety. On January 23 at 6:30, a very informal memorial service will be held at Symphony Space, the Upper West Side institution where he was a regular participant in the “Selected Shorts” series and the annual “Bloomsday” reading of James Joyce’s Ulysses. Speakers will include Sherrill Milnes, Jay O. Sanders, Barbara Barrie, Peter Maloney, Harold Holzer, and several family members. I first saw Weaver in such films as The Day of the Dolphin, Marathon Man, and Black Sunday before being blown away by his Emmy-nominated performance in 1978’s Holocaust, which, following on the heels of 1977’s Roots, helped redefine what a miniseries could be. In 1979, I was breathless with anticipation at seeing Weaver on Broadway in Arthur Miller’s The Price, in which Weaver portrayed Walter Franz. I even stuck around to have him sign the program. Comfortable with being the star or as a character actor, in a Shakespeare play or strange films (Demon Seed, The Maltese Bippy), the Tony winner (Child’s Play) and Theatre Hall of Fame inductee appeared in more than one hundred movies and television shows, from Rawhide, The Fugitive, and Gunsmoke to The X-Files, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Murder, She Wrote. He also starred in two of the best Twilight Zone episodes, Third from the Sun and The Obsolete Man. The late Isaiah Sheffer, one of the founders of Symphony Space, referred to Weaver as “Symphony Space’s leading man,” so it is only fitting that the celebration will occur there, where he also made his last public appearance.

SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARK: KING LEAR

John Lithgow stars as an emotional King Lear in Shakespeare in the Park production that also features Annette Bening as Goneril and Christopher Innvar as Albany (photo by Joan Marcus)

Central Park
Delacorte Theater
Tuesday – Sunday through August 17, free, 8:00
shakespeareinthepark.org

Fut! Another day, another Lear. Over the last several years, New York City has been inundated with major productions of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy. There’s been Michael Pennington at Theatre for a New Audience, Sir Ian McKellen, Sir Derek Jacobi, and Frank Langella at BAM, and Kevin Kline and Sam Waterston at the Public. And now Rochester native John Lithgow, at the age of sixty-eight, has taken on the role of the king and father descending into madness. First performed at Shakespeare in the Park in the Delacorte’s inaugural season, 1962, with Frank Silvera and last seen there in 1973 with James Earl Jones, this latest Public Theater presentation of King Lear features two-time Tony winner Lithgow (The Changing Room, Sweet Smell of Success) as an emotional Lear as he deals with the betrayal of his two conniving older daughters, Goneril (Annette Bening) and Regan (Jessica Hecht), after casting aside his beloved youngest, Cordelia (Jessica Collins). He also exiles his loyal friend, the Earl of Kent (Jay O. Sanders), who reappears in disguise as Caius to protect his lord, the fading king. Meanwhile, the Earl of Gloucester (Clarke Peters) is misled by his bastard son, Edmund (Eric Sheffer Stevens), into believing his first-born, Edgar (Chukwudi Iwuji), is plotting patricide.

The Fool (Steven Boyer), Caius (Jay O. Sanders), and Lear (John Lithgow) are surprised by Poor Tom (Chukwudi Iwuji) in Public Theater presentation in the park (photo by Joan Marcus)

One of the most fascinating things about King Lear is how adaptable it is, that even when the same dialogue is being used, focus can shift dramatically from one character to another in different productions. In this case, veteran Shakespeare in the Park director Daniel Sullivan (The Comedy of Errors, The Merchant of Venice) highlights Goneril and Regan, but Bening, in her return to the New York stage for the first time in a quarter-century, is too stolid as the former, and Hecht (The Assembled Parties, A View from the Bridge) adds too much ironic humor as the latter. Jeremy Bobb’s laconic Oswald is stronger than Stevens’s fanciful Edmund, which is usually the other way around, while Iwuji transforms from carefree Edgar to the pathetic Poor Tom very well. Lithgow is a sad, heart-rending Lear, but Sullivan too often leaves him virtually alone on John Lee Beatty’s set, a large wooden platform backed with a tall screen covered with metallic rods that are like sharp sticks; Lear loses his grandeur too quickly, his minions peeling away as his mind goes. Shakespeare in the Park mainstay Sanders nearly steals the show as Kent/Caius, the only one who truly stands by his king. Steven Boyer is a fine Fool, but there’s not enough of him. The blinding scene is disappointingly tame, but Tal Yarden’s video projections enhance the storm, there’s an exciting sword fight near the end that draws gasps, and percussion played by two men on either side of the stage intensifies the overall ominous mood, resulting in a worthwhile, if not stellar, version of an oft-seen play that, amazingly, rarely bores even after repeated viewings. However, just when it seemed safe to put Lear to bed for at least a little while, it’s been announced that English actor Joseph Marcell will be starring in a production at the NYU Skirball Center this fall by Shakespeare’s Globe, the company that just performed Twelfth Night and Richard III on Broadway to such great acclaim. Fut! indeed. . . .

(In addition to waiting on line at the Delacorte, the Queens Museum, Snug Harbor Cultural Center, Lehman College, the Brooklyn Children’s Museum, and the Public Theater to get free tickets, you can also enter the daily virtual ticketing lottery online here.)

TWI-NY TALK: JAY O. SANDERS

Jay O. Sanders will present UNEXPLORED INTERIOR at Museum of Jewish Heritage on May 11 as part of twentieth anniversary commemoration of Rwandan genocide

UNEXPLORED INTERIOR
Museum of Jewish Heritage — A Living Memorial to the Holocaust
Edmond J. Safra Plaza, 36 Battery Pl.
Sunday, May 11, 12 noon, free with advance RSVP
www.mjhnyc.org
www.theflea.org

In 2004, struck by the world’s continued indifference to the 1994 Rwandan genocide, actor Jay O. Sanders attended the ten-year commemoration of the start of the mass killings in Kigali, the African nation’s capital. Moved by what he saw, Sanders, the Austin-born son of activist parents, decided to do something about it. A Shakespeare in the Park regular who has appeared in such films as JFK, The Day After Tomorrow, and Revolutionary Road and has played recurring characters on such series as True Detective, Person of Interest, and Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Sanders began writing Unexplored Interior, a fictionalized play that takes place immediately following the 1994 genocide, as a Hutu man and Tutsi woman fall in love, a Rwandan student in New York City sets out to make a film about what happened, and a UN peacekeeper contemplates his own life in the wake of the tragic events. The play will have its latest staged reading on May 11 at 12 noon at the Museum of Jewish Heritage (admission is free with advance RSVP) as part of the official Kwibuka20 events commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, calling for people to “remember — unite — renew.” An all-star cast will be directed by James Glossman (Trouble Is My Business; Smiling, the Boy Fell Dead), and the production in New York will be broadcast live at the new outdoor amphitheater at the Kigali Genocide Memorial Center courtesy of Google+ Hangout on Air, followed by an international panel discussion and Q&A session.

twi-ny: What was the genesis of Unexplored Interior and your interest in Rwanda?

Jay O. Sanders: Let me give you the short answer. In April of 1994, my wife and I, both working actors, were cloistered in our West Village apartment with our five-week-old, first-and-only child, reflecting on what it meant to be the guardians of a life, when President Habyarimana’s plane was shot down in Kigali and the start of genocide hit. We watched the news as reports of this horrific event unfolded and repeatedly told us it was beyond our understanding. Stories began to flow of brutal, neighbor-on-neighbor mass killings and a Canadian U.N. peacekeeping commander who was calling for help but no one was being sent, and all without pictures, as no press was inside the country. Until they began to show video of hundreds and hundreds of bloated bodies floating down the rivers along the borders, caught on the rocks, going over falls. It was a mind-numbing, grotesque, and totally infuriating circus of ignorance and failure of the world to respond.

I got it in my head that if I could just see out through the peacekeeper’s eyes, as a fellow Westerner, I might at least be able to understand. I thought, I need to play him (as actors do). I watched every report I could find, yielding reports of that same man refusing to order a full withdrawal and managing to save the lives of some tens of thousands of refugees while bearing witness to the 800,000 whom he couldn’t, and finally, on returning home, attempting suicide numerous times, unable to process what he’d been through. After ten years of germination and finding myself still as ignorant as before, I was overcome with the need to find an answer I could give my son. To arm him with an understanding of this genocide of his lifetime. I felt I owed him an answer.

twi-ny: You’re a well-respected actor, familiar for your work in numerous films and plays and on television. How did your acting experience inform your writing of the play?

JOS: I started out to write a one-man show for myself as [Roméo] Dallaire, the peacekeeper. It seemed like an obvious, straightforward way to enter the story and bring it to others. So I found him in Rwanda at the ten-year commemoration, flew myself over to see for myself where all this had happened and be among those who had experienced it. I had discovered that, fortunately, he was still alive and now the author of a book about his experiences, Shake Hands with the Devil.

Again, the short version: I met him there, then spent time with him later in Quebec, and proceeded to write that play. But I soon discovered, the more I knew about what had happened, that Dallaire was actually my White Rabbit who led me into the situation, and the larger story was among the people themselves. So, I continued to study and write and emerged with a twenty-six-character play for fourteen actors which weaves many stories together, including Dallaire’s, with crossing themes on a much larger canvas.

twi-ny: How did you hook up with Google+, the Museum of Jewish Heritage, and the Kigali Genocide Memorial Center?

JOS: My wife, Maryann Plunkett, and I had done a reading down at the museum several years ago and I had noted the beauty of both this center of record for not only the Holocaust but all related genocide, as well as the beauty of the theater [Edmond J. Safra Hall] itself. When I began to think about where my play began, this was perfect. When I flew over for the ten-year commemoration in 2004, I was recognized by members of the CNN team, who invited me to join them for the week, which I did, gladly, finding myself front and center at all the major official events, including the official opening of the Aegis trust Kigali Genocide Memorial. I was there as President Kagame, General Dallaire, and many, many others witnessed the lighting of the eternal flame, above a mass grave holding 250,000 victims of the genocide.

So, when I was thinking about where I wanted to connect with our event, that, again, was obvious. Then, one of my producers, my dear friend Daniel Neiden, introduced me to Paula Gil Rodriguez, who had, herself, produced several large Google+ Hangouts on Air and knew a number of people at Google. She loved the idea of the project and she and her husband, Nick Lopez, came on board. My friend James Glossman has been my director from the moment the idea hit me to write this. It all just grew and grew.

twi-ny: Who are some of the people who will be participating in the reading?

JOS: We have a brilliant family of actors — some well known to you, others who you should know. Michael McKean, presently in All the Way on Broadway, plays Dallaire; Sharon Washington, award nominated for Wild with Happy at the Public and on Broadway with The Scottsboro Boys; Arthur French, who has been in everything and most recently of The Trip to Bountiful on Broadway; Fritz Weaver, one of the most distinguished stage and film actors of his generation; Charles Parnell, whose TV series The Last Ship premieres soon; Owiso Odera, Marlyne Barrett, Clark Jackson, Craig Alan Edwards, Irungu Mutu, Matthew Murumba, Benjamin Thys, and our youngest at thirteen, Nile Bullock, lately also of The Scottsboro Boys — all fantastic, deeply dedicated to this project, and each one a reason to see the play.

twi-ny: Is a full production of the play in the works?

JOS: We are still looking for a production. I’m hoping this presentation grabs the imagination of some brave producer or producers!

twi-ny: As opposed to last year’s presentation, this one will use social media in a fascinating way. What’s your personal experience with social media? Are you a Facebook/Twitter/Google+ junkie?

JOS: My personal experience is everyday. I use Facebook regularly as an international bulletin board and have just recently ventured over to Google+ as well, because of this project. I have a Twitter account but am not very fluent with it yet. These online forums have afforded me connections beyond anything I might have come upon otherwise — people out of my past, which included a lot of traveling, so that reaches a very long way, and those I’m just now meeting with common friends and/or common interests. Also, I regularly give master classes out at my alma mater, SUNY Purchase, and social media is a place we can all stay in touch for mutual news, project updates, and personal encouragement. It has been a godsend.

twi-ny: At any given moment, there is some kind of brutal civil war or genocide going on somewhere in the world, and more often than not, the U.S. government opts not to get involved. What can we as individual, peace-loving Americans do to try to change things?

JOS: Learn. Understand as much as you can. It’s always evolving — it requires regular effort — but there are ways to make a difference through awareness, voting, challenging the machine, humanizing world issues, applying compassion in your own life. Kindness begins with each one of us, at home, at work, in our communities, with the homeless, in our voices lifted against apathy — it ripples out and grows from those seeds into and across the world.

PEN WORLD VOICES FESTIVAL OF INTERNATIONAL LITERATURE

Multiple venues
April 29 – May 5, free – $30
www.worldvoices.pen.org

“Without literature, it’s all just words,” PEN America president Peter Godwin writes in his opening letter to the ninth annual PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature. The organization that fights for freedom and first amendment rights this year celebrates the idea of bravery in art, politics, and personal everyday life during the weeklong festival comprising more than fifty readings, live performances, discussions, workshops, master classes, and more. Below are just some of the many highlights for this annual tribute to the power of the written word and how it can and does make a difference throughout the world, featuring such participants as Martin Amis, Joy Harjo, Paul Auster, Ai Weiwei (via Skype), Salman Rushdie, Sapphire, Sonia Sotomayor, Lewis Lapham, Amy Wilentz, Naomi Wolf, Fiona Shaw, Oskar Eustis, Fran Lebowitz, Edna O’Brien, Colm Tóibín, Lynne Tillman, and many more at such venues as Joe’s Pub, the New School, the Standard, and NYU.

Monday, April 29

Opening Night Reading: Bravery, with A. Igoni Barrett, David Frakt, Darrel Vandeveld, Joy Harjo, Jamaica Kincaid, Ursula Krechel, Earl Lovelace, Vaddey Ratner, Mikhail Shishkin, and Najwan Darwish, hosted by Baratunde Thurston, the Great Hall of the Cooper Union, $20, 7:00

Tuesday, April 30

2013 PEN Literary Gala, with Philip Roth, American Museum of Natural History, $1,000, 7:00

An Evening with McSweeney’s, with Francisco Goldman, Clancy Martin, Wyatt Mason, José Luís Peixoto, Francesco Pacifico, and others, Joe’s Pub, $15, 9:00

Wednesday, May 1

Bravery in Poetry, with Hilton Als, Paul Auster, Henri Cole, Edward Hirsch, Mary Karr, Yusef Komunyakaa, Eileen Myles, Sapphire, and others, Tishman Auditorium, the New School, $30, 7:30

Speaking in Languages on the Edge, with Gillian Clarke, Joy Harjo, Natalio Hernandez, Bob Holman, and others, Joe’s Pub, $15, 9:30

Thursday, May 2

Master/Class: Jamaica Kincaid with Ru Freeman, Tishman Auditorium, the New School, $20, 6:30

Master/Class: Sapphire with Nicole Sealey, Tishman Auditorium, the New School, $20, 8:30

Obsession: Andrew Solomon on Sleep, with Andrew Solomon and Joan Golden-Alexis, hosted by Katie Halper, the Standard, East Village Hotel, $20, 9:00

Friday, May 3

African Writers Workshop with Igoni Barrett, NYU Africa House, 10:00 am

The Literary Mews: Outdoor Indie Book Fair (with readings by Epiphany magazine, Four Way Books, St. Petersburg Review, Gigantic magazine, and Open Letter Books), presentation by photographer Nancy Crampton, Irish Song Workshop with Pádraig Ó Cearúill, Magically Grimm: German Folk Songs with Tine Kindermann & Band, Kasperl-Puppet Theater, The Griot: African Storytelling, and Chapbook Binding, Washington Mews, NYU, free, 10:00 am – 4:00

The Testament of Mary: A Discussion on the Broadway Show, with star Fiona Shaw, writer Colm Tóibín, and director Deborah Warner, moderated by Jeremy McCarter, Tishman Auditorium, the New School, free, 1:30

The Novelist as Truthteller: The Achievement and Legacy of Vasily Grossman, with Agata Tuszynska and Martin Amis, moderated by Edwin Frank, the Public Theater, $15, 6:30

A Literary Safari, with Michal Ajvaz, Nadeem Aslam, Loree Burns, Dror Burstein, Gillian Clarke, Mia Couto, Eduardo Halfon, Natalio Hernandez, Nick Holdstock, Randa Jarrar, John Kenney, Tararith Kho, Jaime Manrique, Margie Orford, Jordi Punti, Noemi Szecsi, Padma Venkatraman, Gerbrand Bakker, James Kelman, Téa Obreht, and others, Westbeth Center for the Arts, $15, 6:30

Master/Class: Fran Lebowitz with A. M. Homes, Tishman Auditorium, the New School, $20, 6:30

Saturday, May 4

Asia Society Presents: Monkey Business, with Paul Auster, Mina Ishikawa, Genichiro Takahashi, and Charles Simic, facilitated by translators Motoyuki Shibata and Ted Goossen, Asia Society, $12, 2:00

Revitalizing Endangered Languages, with Gillian Clarke, Natalio Hernandez, Daniel Kaufman, and Lorna Williams, moderated by Nick Holdstock, the Public Theater, $15, 3:00

An Evening with Lapham’s Quarterly, with Lewis Lapham, Oskar Eustis, Maryann Plunkett, Jay O. Sanders, and others, Joe’s Pub, $15, 7:00

Obsession: Naomi Wolf on Truth, with Naomi Wolf and Ben Schrank, hosted by Katie Halper, the Standard, East Village Hotel, $20, 9:00

Sunday, May 5

Granta: 2013 Best of Young British Novelists, with Hari Kunzru, Sigrid Rausing, John Freeman, and several 2013 Best Young British Novelists, Joe’s Pub, $15, 2:00

Burma: Bones Will Crow, with Khin Aung Aye, James Byrne, and Zeyar Lynn, moderated by Phillip Howze, the Public Theater, $15, 3:00

Arthur Miller Freedom to Write Lecture: Sonia Sotomayor, the Great Hall of the Cooper Union, $30, 5:00

PROJECT SHAW: MISALLIANCE

The Players Club
16 Gramercy Park South
Monday, January 28, $30, 7:00
www.projectshaw.com

“All this damned materialism: what good is it to anybody?” Tarleton says in George Bernard Shaw’s Misalliance: A Debate in One Sitting. “Ive got a soul: dont tell me I havnt. Cut me up and you cant find it. Cut up a steam engine and you cant find the steam. But, by George, it makes the engine go. Say what you will, Summerhays, the divine spark is a fact.” The New York-based Gingold Theatrical Group has been keeping Shaw’s divine spark lit since January 2006, when founder and artistic director David Staller began Project Shaw with the mission “to carve a permanent niche for the work of George Bernard Shaw within the social and cultural life of New York — to bring his canon and humanist precepts to larger audiences and encourage people to practice these ideals in their daily lives.” By December 2009, Project Shaw had performed all sixty-five of Shaw’s plays, but that didn’t stop them, as they continue to present Shaw to the public at the Players Club on monthly Mondays. The 2013 season kicks off on January 28 with the sociopolitical comedy Misalliance, featuring Richard Easton as Lord Summerhays, Jay O. Sanders as John Tarleton, Maryann Plunkett as Mrs. Tarleton, Alison Fraser as Lina, Robert Creighton as Julius “Gunner” Baker, Wesley Taylor as Bentley, Hannah Cabell as Hypatia, Jon Fletcher as Johnny Tarleton, Zachary Spicer as Joey Percival, and Maggie Buchwald as the Narrator. The season continues with Caesar and Cleopatra on February 25, a St. Patrick’s Day Gala on March 17, Admirable Bashville on April 29, Mrs. Warren’s Profession on May 20, and Too True to Be Good on June 24. All tickets are $30 and should be reserved in advance. “We are made wise not by the recollection of our past but by the responsibility for our future,” Shaw once explained, and in many ways that is precisely what Project Shaw is all about.