18 THENEWYORKER, AUGUST 26, 2019
and one gratuitous face slap to the opera
stage almost two centuries before Bravo
put “The Real Housewives” on television.
Jonathon Loy directs Craig Colclough,
Deanna Breiwick, Matthew Grills, and
Emmett O’Hanlon in a traditional produc-
tion of the vivacious, slightly mean-spirited
comedy at the Berkshire Opera Festival;
Brian Garman conducts.—Oussama Zahr
(Aug. 24 at 1 and Aug. 27 and Aug. 30 at 7:30.)
Summer HD Festival
Lincoln Center
The Met sets up thousands of chairs in Lincoln
Center Plaza for its Summer HD Festival,
which plays on a big screen affixed to the opera
house’s façade. The ten-day outdoor movie
series kicks off with the volcanic pairing of
Anna Netrebko and Anita Rachvelishvili in
last fall’s “Aida,” then pivots to a celebration
of the company’s new music director, Yannick
Nézet-Séguin, with replays of his first-ever
HD simulcast (“Carmen,” from 2010) and
his most recent (“Dialogues des Carmélites,”
from May). No tickets are required, and seats
are first come, first served. Also playing: The
company tips its hat to Hollywood with a
pre-festival screening of the Golden Age mu-
sical “Funny Face” (Aug. 23), starring Fred
Astaire and Audrey Hepburn.—O.Z. (Aug.
24-Sept. 2.)
“Carmen”
Bryant Park
Perhaps inspired by August’s Sevillian heat,
New York City Opera takes Bizet’s sultry
Iberian drama, “Carmen,” outdoors with
an hour-long concert at Bryant Park. The
abridged, fully costumed presentation should
still give the cast, led by the mezzo-soprano
Lisa Chavez and accompanied on piano, ample
opportunity to work its way through the op-
era’s best-loved melodies. Chairs and picnic
blankets are provided, and a concession stand
serves beer, wine, and cheese plates for audi-
ence members looking to live out their alfresco
opera fantasies; no tickets are required.—O.Z.
(Aug. 26 at 6.)
Taka Kigawa
Le Poisson Rouge
A pianist of unshakable technique and
considerable imagination, Taka Kigawa is
most closely associated with the modern
composers whose works he champions so
persuasively: Boulez, Carter, Ligeti, Mes-
siaen. Here, though, he turns his attention
to modernism of another era, performing
Beethoven’s last five sonatas, including the
formidable “Hammerklavier” (Op. 106).—S.S.
(Aug. 26 at 7.)
1
THE THEATRE
Bat Out of Hell
City Center
In this garish, hyper-colorful, and sort of
stressful musical, directed by Jay Scheib, with
Make Believe
Second Stage
The four Conlee kids have an attic playroom
that serves as both an escape and a refuge in
this quietly unsettling play by Bess Wohl. As
in her acclaimed “Small Mouth Sounds,” Wohl
creates fleshed-out characters from seemingly
little—an impressive feat, considering that the
characters are preteens (played by child actors)
in the show’s first half. “We are not even going
to remember most of this stuff when we grow
up,” the boisterous Chris (Ryan Foust) sooth-
ingly tells his siblings in a time of crisis. “Make
Believe” explores trauma and its legacy, brought
into the open when the Conlees’ adult selves turn
up. At eighty minutes, this is the rare show that
feels too short, and Michael Greif’s production,
for Second Stage, has moments that are a little
too big, a little too emphatic. Still, Wohl has a
voice all her own, especially when suggesting the
unsaid.—Elisabeth Vincentelli (Through Sept. 15.)Midsummer: A Banquet
Café Fae
Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,”
with its whimsy and good-natured chaos, is
already a sweet, toothsome morsel of theatre.
This makes Food of Love Productions and Third
Rail Projects’ immersive production of the play,
accompanied by a multicourse tasting menu, de-
lectable in more ways than one. Though it’s still
set in the fairy forest, this “Midsummer,” staged
in a French café, works a narrow, cumbersome
space. It’s no easy feat, but the director and cho-
reographer, Zach Morris, keeps everything tight,
so, even as the central quartet of confused lovers
goes into peak farce mode, with a zany mess of
swoons, fisticuffs, and tumbles, it all comes off
flawlessly. The entire cast is uproariously on
point with its comic cues and mugging, from
Adrienne Paquin’s spastic Helena to Charles
Osborne’s side-splitting Bottom, his comic style
like that of an overinflated Nathan Lane. If that
weren’t enough, the cast also serves the feast—
smoked mushrooms, garlicky white beans, fresh
fruit—and there are no bad bites.—Maya Phillips
(Through Sept. 7.)Sea Wall/A Life
Hudson
The monologues that make up this show, di-
rected by Carrie Cracknell, are not so much
acted as presented by Tom Sturridge and Jake
Gyllenhaal. In “Sea Wall,” by Simon Stephens,
a youngish photographer named Alex (Stur-
ridge) talks adoringly about his family—a wife
too good to be deserved, a beautiful little girl,
and a father-in-law, Arthur, with whom he has
gently antagonistic conversations about the
existence of God. Stephens braids these talks
with Alex’s meditations on the nature and power
of water; we see the heavy ending coming from
a nautical mile away. In “A Life,” by Nick Payne,
Gyllenhaal plays a man grieving for his father
as he expects his first child. Payne flits between
the two cataclysms, first with slow precision, and
then, as the cruxes approach, back and forth cin-
ematically, the borders showing some slippage.
The scene is nicely done, but it doesn’t lead to
much of a revelation. You might just shrug if
the anvil of these plays’ shared desire weren’t so
obvious: Cry. Feel.—V.C. (Reviewed in our issue
of 8/19/19.) (Through Sept. 29.)a book, lyrics, and music by Jim Steinman—
based on songs that the singer Meat Loaf
made famous—the kids have it rough. Strat
(Andrew Polec) leads a gang of perpetual
youths, all stuck at age eighteen, and loves
Raven (Christina Bennington), whose father,
Falco (Bradley Dean, who barrels around
like Andrew Cuomo), is a post-apocalyp-
tic despot. Think Peter Pan made up like
Edward Scissorhands, with ample aesthetic
borrowings—the costumes are wild; confetti’s
a constant—from “Mad Max” and “The Rocky
Horror Picture Show.” The slender plot is
beside the point. The songs are what they’ve
always been—if you’ve heard them, you’ve
heard them—and the singing’s just fine. “Bat
Out of Hell” is a bit like Meat Loaf’s florid
and inimitable career, and also like some eigh-
teen-year-olds, cooped up in their intensely
private minds: either you’ll totally get it, or
you really, really won’t.—Vinson Cunningham
(Through Sept. 8.)Into the Woods
Boscobel House & Gardens
OUT OF TOWN For its first foray into full-out
musical theatre, Hudson Valley Shakespeare
Festival tackles Sondheim. James Lapine’s
book is a mashup of fairy tales—Little Red
Riding Hood (Kayla Coleman), Cinderella
(Laura Darrell), beanstalk Jack (Brandon
Dial), and others—that goes on to darkly
imagine what follows “happily ever after.”
Stephen Sondheim’s music and lyrics pre-
sent unique challenges, including wordy,
hairpin turns, odd harmonics, syncopation,
counterpoint, and daunting intervals. Under
the direction of Jenn Thompson, the cast
acquits itself magnificently—comedically,
dramatically, and, especially, vocally. Also
playing, in repertory: “Cyrano,” directed
by Meredith McDonough, stars the ter-
rific Jason O’Connell, sporting a nasty
gash across his nose instead of the usual
elongated proboscis. This adaptation, which
O’Connell co-wrote with Brenda Withers, is
freewheeling but ultimately true to the orig-
inal’s deep romanticism. Britney Simpson is
a spirited Roxane, Luis Quintero a touching
Christian.—Ken Marks (Through Sept. 8.)Love, Noël
Irish Repertory
In addition to being a playwright (“Pri-
vate Lives,” “Blithe Spirit”), a performer,
a songwriter, and an author, the English-
man Noël Coward was a voluminous letter
writer. The Coward scholar Barry Day has
used that correspondence to charming ef-
fect in the ninety-minute diversion “Love,
Noël: The Songs and Letters of Noël Cow-
ard,” directed by Charlotte Moore. Two of
the city’s most prominent cabaret artists,
Steve Ross, as Coward, and KT Sullivan,
playing a wide range of the author’s lead-
ing ladies—including Gertrude Lawrence,
Beatrice Lillie, Elaine Stritch, and Marlene
Dietrich—read the letters, sing the songs,
and dish the dirt. Of the two dozen Coward
songs performed, in snippet or in full, only a
few have entered the popular canon (among
them “Mad About the Boy” and “Someday
I’ll Find You”), but they’re all terribly clever
and amusing.—K.M. (Through Aug. 25.)