THEATER
24-Hour
Party People
With an all-day performance,
a new work challenges
the conventions of theater.
It wasn’t all that long ago that dental-care
products languished on dusty drugstore
shelves: Waxed green floss and ho-hum tubes of
toothpaste sat destined for the back of the medicine
cabinet. Now even regular brushing has been transformed
into an Instagram-worthy experience. Kendall Jenner
has lent her name (and flashbulb smile) to Moon’s
on-the-go whitening pen; Twice—a line of toothpastes
infused with essential oils—counts Lenny Kravitz as
a cofounder; and start-ups such as Goby and Quip are
trying to master the direct-to-consumer game. This
mouthy moment is hardly news to Jon Marashi, D.D.S.,
BEAUTY
whose practice in Los Angeles
serves regulars like Justin
Timberlake, Halsey, and Kate
Hudson. Square-jawed and
with a skateboarder’s spirit,
Marashi is something of a trade
secret—but that stands to
change with the recent launch
of M Sonic, an intuitively
designed electric toothbrush
inspired in large part by patient
requests. “They’d say, ‘Isn’t
there anything better, anything
nicer-looking?’ ” Marashi recalls. The result blends
minimalism with high performance (at a fittingly luxurious
$275). Its one-button interface pays homage to
Apple’s original iPod, while the four settings provide a
personalized approach. As for the bristles—brilliant
white instead of green or blue—that design element was
a suggestion from celebrity makeup artist Jillian
Dempsey, a longtime patient. The toothbrush is an
extension of the idea that the best work should go
unnoticed. “If Mother Nature wouldn’t make them like
that,” Marashi says of exaggerated, too-perfect teeth,
“then why should I?”—RACHEL FELDER
Brush With Fame
A Holly wood-favorite dentist joins the wave of elevated oral
care lines, introducing his own streamlined toothbrush.
ALL SMILES
A BOOM IN SLEEK DENTAL
PRODUCTS IS REVITALIZING
EVERYDAY TEETH-CLEANING.
HIT REPEAT
GENA ROWLANDS
AND JOHN
CASSAVETES
IN THE 1977 FILM
OPENING NIGHT.
VLIFE
76
BEAUTY: CSA IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES. THEATER: HERBERT DORFMAN/CORBIS/GETTY IMAGES.
NOVEMBER 2019 VOGUE.COM
Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival,
part of a series of productions making
their American debut under BAM’s new
director, David Binder.
A two-person play, the work is
essentially a repetition of one scene,
inspired by John Cassavetes’ 1977 cult
film Opening Night, in which a man and a
woman come together in an apartment
to converse, laugh, and dance. In a feat
of astounding endurance, the actor
playing the woman—Alia Shawkat in this
version—remains the same, while the
actor playing the man steps in anew each
time the scene resets. As Randall
understatedly puts it to me, it’s a work
that “doesn’t rely on plot or narrative.”
Instead, the power derives from
the conceptions of masculinity that the
(mostly) amateur actors inject into
the scene. Sometimes the relationship
onstage is about power and struggle;
sometimes it’s about connection and
gentleness. “There are many moments
where it expresses something beautiful
about humanity,” Breckon says. “You can
see how people can be kind to each other
and unexpectedly generate a relationship
within a few minutes,” Randall adds. And
the force of the work is also kindled by the
temporal energy that the audience brings—
very different at 3 a.m. versus 7 p.m.
If this Groundhog Day meets Sleep No
More scenario sounds more like grad school
seminar than fun night out, Randall insists
that as much as conceptual performance art
offered inspiration, so did reality TV, where
tension comes from personalities more
than narrative arc. Watching it “can become
addictive,” says Randall. “What is the
potential of the next performer who will
come through the door?”—chloe schama
Let’s outline the obvious:
A production begins
with casting, continues with rehearsal,
then the audience arrives, and it all
happens again the next night. But what
if 101 actors were cast, rehearsals were
nonexistent, and the performance (on
loop) was extended for 24 hours? Such is
the sui generis format of Nat Randall
and Anna Breckon’s The Second Woman,
which arrives this fall at the Brooklyn
