16 THENEWYORKER,FEBRUARY 17 &24, 2020
ILLUSTRATION BY NATHAN GELGUD
The last time Broadway contemplated
the music and the mood of Bob Dylan
was in 2006, when Twyla Tharp directed
and choreographed the surreal dance-
driven piece “The Times They Are
A-Changin’,” set at a circus. (It opened
and closed in less than a month.) A new
Dylan musical, “Girl from the North
Country,” is similarly detached from
direct biography, as perhaps befits an
artist so resistant to categorization. But
its tone is defiantly not circus-like. The
playwright Conor MacPherson sets the
story at a boarding house in Depres-
sion-era Duluth—Dylan’s birthplace,
before his birth—where money and luck
are in short supply. The show, which
McPherson also directs, has played in
London’s West End and downtown, at
the Public Theatre. It will be at the Be-
lasco starting Feb. 7.—Michael Schulman
ONBROADWAY
1
THETHEATRE
Beyond Babel
Gym at Judson
The choreographers Keone and Mari Madrid, a
married couple based in San Diego, have show-
cased their “urban dance” style—essentially a
flowing variation of hip-hop—on television and
in Justin Bieber’s slyly poetic music video for
“Love Yourself.” But this new production, which
the Madrids co-created (with Josh and Lynd-
say Aviner) and star in, is an evening-length
dance-theatre work set to contemporary songs,Hungarian” and “Voices and Light Footsteps,”
set to Monteverdi. “Shine On,” Alston’s final
work for the troupe, is set to Britten’s early
song cycle “On This Island,” performed live
by the soprano Gelsey Bell and the pianist
Jason Ridgway.—B.S. (Feb. 20-23.)
Jaewoo Jung
92nd Street Y
The 92nd Street Y’s Harkness Dance Festival
kicks off with this rising Korean choreogra-
pher. An alum of the innovative company
Bereishit, Jaewoo has founded his own collab-
orative, Braveman. In the solo “uninhabited
island,” you can see his admiration for Buster
Keaton, as he mimes inflating himself and
being blown about or makes two of his fingers
into runaway puppets. Impressively lithe,
Jaewoo is not quite funny, but the ensemble
piece “Perfect Skill,” in which the dancers of
Braveman irregularly illuminate one another
with flashlights, tumbles into farce.—B.S.
(Feb. 21-22.)
Florentina Holzinger
N.Y.U. Skirball
“Apollon,” by this Vienna-born, Nether-
lands-based provocateur, riffs in part on
George Balanchine’s 1928 work “Apollo” and
its balletic ideals; the original male god and
three female muses are replaced by a cast
that’s all female and in the buff. But that’s
merely one scene among many in this femi-
nist freak show. Here Apollo is a mechanical
bull that the women ride for pleasure and
dismantle. There’s also treadmill running,
weight lifting, playful self-mutilation, dildo
use, defecation, and coprophagia—all to
show how badass these bare-assed women
can be.—B.S. (Feb. 22-23.)
Works & Process
Guggenheim Museum
Two days offer two different presentations
at this behind-the-scenes series. In 2015, the
former American Ballet Theatre star Angel
Corella took over the Pennsylvania Ballet.
The Spanish-born dancer has been busily
transforming the troupe’s repertory; his latest
addition is a new version of “La Bayadère,” a
late-nineteenth-century ballet set in an exotic
version of ancient India and centered on the
love between a temple dancer and a handsome
warrior. How does one stage such a ballet in
2020? On Feb. 23, Corella will discuss this
question with the diversity advocate Phil Chan,
and a handful of dancers from the company
will show excerpts of the new production.
The following day, the choreographer and tap
dancer Caleb Teicher offers a peek at “Swing
2020,” a new show he is developing for the
Joyce Theatre. The project explores the Lindy
Hop, the swinging American social dance born
in Harlem in the late twenties. This lively Gug-
genheim program will include Lindy-hoppers
and a six-piece jazz band.—M.H. (Feb. 23-24.)and it quickly gets repetitive. The creators and
their ten-member ensemble are stunning danc-
ers and athletes, but the narrative—very loosely
inspired by “Romeo and Juliet”—is as slack as
the movements are precise. The performers
use props until the second act, climbing and
jumping off boxes and movable chain-link-fence
panels. (The scenic design is by London Kaye.)
Ultimately, it’s the Madrids who shine bright-
est, especially in a falling-in-love sequence, set
to alt-J’s “Warm Foothills,” and, toward the end
of the show, in a tragic pas de deux.—Elisabeth
Vincentelli (Through March 29.)Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice
Pershing Square Signature Center
It’s 1969, the sexual revolution is in full bloom,
and Bob (Joél Pérez) and Carol (Jennifer Dami-
ano) are undergoing a spiritual metamorphosis
at a clothing-optional retreat in California.
A weekend of Tai Chi, hypnotic massages,
and primal-scream therapy has propelled the
married couple to heretofore unknown peaks
of self-discovery. Newly enlightened, they
embrace polyamory. This does not sit well
with Ted (Michael Zegen) and Alice (Ana
Nogueira), their buttoned-up best friends,
who view the au-courant relaxing of conjugal
boundaries with a mixture of pity and alarm.
The transgressive and funny movie version,
directed, fifty years ago, by Paul Mazursky, is
reborn here as a deliciously zany musical, di-
rected by Scott Elliott for the New Group, with
deliberately groovy tunes by Duncan Sheik
and Amanda Green (featuring Suzanne Vega
as the Band Leader) and a book by Jonathan
Marc Sherman. The perennial questions the
work explores—about love, desire, and com-
mitment—still resonate, and remain unan-
swered, even if the subject matter no longer
shocks. In the age of cuddle parties and swiping
right, are we laughing at Mazursky’s New Age
libertines or celebrating them?—David Kortava
(Through March 22.)Border People
A.R.T./New York Theatres
In this one-man show, directed by Nicole A.
Watson, Dan Hoyle depicts a series of peo-
ple—including a Saudi man in Canada, an Iraqi
woman in Pennsylvania, and many men who
have been deported from the U.S. to Mexico—
whose experiences relate to borders (although
it’s unclear how several African-American char-
acters from Hoyle’s own Bronx neighborhood
fit into that concept). Hoyle’s script, based on
interviews, broadly resembles the approach
of such writer-performers as Anna Deavere
Smith and Nilaja Sun, who take on a big cast
of characters with a wide variety of voices and
backgrounds. But this sort of thing comes
across very differently when the performer is
white, as Hoyle is. And he makes a meal out
of accents and body language, in a hyperbolic
style that doesn’t just undermine his good
intentions but verges, unfortunately, on min-
strelsy.—Rollo Romig (Through Feb. 22.)The Good Soul of Setzuan
Irondale Centre
In this Irondale Company production, per-
formed at the troupe’s ramshackle space