10 THENEWYORKER,DECEMBER2, 2019
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THETHEATRE
A Christmas Carol
Lyceum
The Dickens classic receives a warm, solici-
tous production, directed by Matthew Warchus
(“Matilda”) and adapted by Jack Thorne (“Harry
Potter and the Cursed Child”), with a wild-
haired, wild-eyed Campbell Scott as Ebenezer
Scrooge. (His father, George C. Scott, played
the role in the 1984 movie.) The topnotch cast
includes the delightful Andrea Martin, impishly
foreboding as the Ghost of Christmas Past, and
the golden-voiced LaChanze, as a reproachful,
Caribbean-inflected Ghost of Christmas Pres-
ent. Scrooge’s misery gets a passionate backstory
in scenes with his drunken, angry father and
a lost love. In a modern twist, when Scrooge
decides to turn it all around, his ghosts implore
action over fantasy, and the ensuing feast set
piece becomes a giddy free-for-all. Tiny Tim is
played alternately by Jai Ram Srinivasan and
Sebastian Ortiz, both of whom have cerebral
palsy; at a recent matinée, Ortiz brought the
house down with his natural depiction of gen-
erous humanity. Arrive early for pre-show live
music and to catch clementines and cookies
tossed by performers to theatregoers, nearly
every one.—Shauna Lyon (Through Jan. 5.)The Half-Life of Marie Curie
Minetta Lane Theatre
It’s hard to beat a dynamic duo, and the two
brilliant ladies in this Audible production, ILLUSTRATION BY CHRIS KINDREDThe premier tap dancers Jason Samuels Smith, Derick K. Grant, and the
now single-named Dormeshia have been friends and colleagues for decades.
In their gold-standard production “And Still You Must Swing,” which gets
its New York début at the Joyce Theatre, Dec. 3-8, that shared history glows,
as does what they’ve been up to all these years, mastering tap like very few
others. Now in their thirties and forties, these hoofers are in their prime, still
technically unassailable but more refined than younger guns, with deeper
access to the fruits of experience and the knowledge of how to express that
experience elegantly. The show is intended as a reminder of tap’s historical
link to jazz, and the three dancers, accompanied by a jazz trio in electrifying
solo improvisations and tasty unison routines, resemble a classic tap act.
(Camille A. Brown, in a guest appearance, gestures even further back into
African-American history.) But there is nothing retro about the evening. In
reconnecting with tap’s past, these dancers push tap forward.—Brian SeibertTA P DANCE
company today. In “George Balanchine’s The
Nutcracker,” fun and coziness are tinged with
terror, and the world of the imagination is
just as real as the Biedermeier furniture and
the dancing children.—Marina Harss (Nov.
29-Dec. 1. Through Jan. 5.)Noche Flamenca
Joyce Theatre
“Entre Tú y Yo” (“Between You and Me”),
Martín Santangelo’s evening of Spanish fla-
menco, is a stripped-down exploration of love
in its various guises, expressed through solos,
duets, and ensemble pieces. The company, led
by Soledad Barrio, a dancer of burning inten-
sity, is a real unit, made up of four dancers,
two guitarists, and three singers. There’s little
more to it than this: dancers responding to
the words of the songs, the rhythm of palmas
(handclapping), and the urgent call of guitars
and the human voice.—M.H. (Nov. 26-27 and
Nov. 29-Dec. 1.)The Chase Brock Experience
Theatre Row
Fresh off the social-media-fuelled success of
the young-adult sci-fi musical “Be More Chill,”
the choreographer Chase Brock brings back his
2008 production of “The Four Seasons.” Set to
the eponymous Vivaldi score, it’s a tale about
global warming that’s both bright and gloomy,
broadly comic and apocalyptic.—Brian Seibert
(Nov. 29-Dec. 2. Through Dec. 8.)participating in a two-year residency program,
turns a welcome spotlight on the distinguished
composer Shulamit Ran. Her handsome “Bach-
Shards” is matched with the Bach work it
was designed to partner—Contrapunctus X
from “The Art of Fugue”—and her melan-
choly, haunting “Lyre of Orpheus” prefaces
Messiaen’s sublime “Quartet for the End of
Time.”—S.S. (Dec. 3 at 7:30.)
Orchestra of St. Luke’s
Merkin Hall
Program music in the Baroque period was
vivid and emotional, meant to express the-
atrical contrasts through variances in tex-
ture, harmony, and key. The Orchestra of
St.Luke’s continues its chamber-music season
with works by Baroque-era composers from
England, France, Bohemia, Germany, and
Italy. Some are famous, others not as well
known, but all summoned their talents to
paint pictures in sound. The last movement
of Rameau’s Concert No. 4, from “Pièces de
Clavecin,” offers a charming portrayal of the
Rameau household, and Biber vivifies the
Crucifixion in a selection from “The Mys-
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DANCE
New York City Ballet
David H. Koch
This time of year, Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker”
music becomes ubiquitous. It’s easy to roll your
eyes, but, once you sit in the theatre and hear
the first notes of the overture, a thrill inevi-
tably kicks in. Boris Asafiev, an early-twen-
tieth-century Russian musicologist, called
it “a symphony of childhood”: many of the
sensations we feel as children—fear, extreme
excitement, an attraction to things we don’t
understand, the desire to grow up and the
simultaneous desire to remain a child forever—
are reflected in the music. The choreographer
George Balanchine understood this and made
a ballet, in 1954, that is still performed by thetery Sonatas.” Telemann’s seven-movement
overture-suite “Burlesque de Quixotte” caps
the evening with the daring adventure and
peaceful repose that characterize the sprawling
epic.—H.W. (Dec. 3 at 7:30.)