18 THENEWYORKER,FEBRUARY 17 &24, 2020
(a former Sunday school), in Fort Greene,
Brooklyn, the director Jim Niesen makes Ber-
tolt Brecht’s 1941 play, about the difficulty of
being neighborly, feel, in a warm and winning
way, like a neighborhood show. Using David
Harrower’s translation, but with new music
(by Sam Day Harmet, played charmingly by a
three-piece house band), on a set (by Ken Roth-
child) made to look like Brecht’s workroom, the
cast of six pretends to use whatever’s at hand
as costumes and props: hats from the office
coatrack, pretzel sticks for cigars. They play it
so loose that the show starts to flag a bit around
the middle, but it’s enchanting to watch it come
together.—R.R. (Through Feb. 22.)
Mac Beth
Frederick Loewe Theatre
In “Mac Beth,” adapted from Shakespeare’s
play and directed by Erica Schmidt, for the
Hunter Theatre Project, a group of schoolgirls
perform the drama in a junk-strewn forest
clearing as a high-concept joke among friends.
As Shakespeare’s story unspools, we see the
girls trying on poses, finding in words several
centuries old a strangely neat container for
feelings that they only faintly knew could be
expressed. When Lady Macbeth (an ardent,
intelligent Ismenia Mendes) wishes to be
“unsexed,” and Macduff (Camila Canó-Flaviá)
declares a need to “feel” her child’s death “like
a man,” we hear these as desires for yet more
expressive range, as imagined extensions of
what it means to act. Brittany Bradford is as-
tounding as Macbeth. She’s got a hard job: she
has to be the paranoid Scot and a nervously
charismatic kid, an old mask and a naked face,
fact and fiction, all at once. She’s looking for
the kind of control that we all grasp at, and fail
to hold on to for long.—Vinson Cunningham
(Reviewed in our issue of 2/10/20.) (Through
Feb. 22.)
Medea
BAM Harvey Theatre
In this new “Medea,” based on Euripides’ clas-
sic, written and directed by Simon Stone,
Anna (the subtly soulful Rose Byrne) and
Lucas (Bobby Cannavale) are a married cou-
ple, both scientists by trade, reunited when
Anna is released from a mental institution.
She was sent there after being caught trying to
gradually kill Lucas by slipping trace amounts
of poison into his dinner. Returned home,
Anna is anxious to win Lucas back, but her
desire is delusional: this whole cycle started
when Anna found a bouquet of sexts—to Clara
(Madeline Weinstein), the young daughter of
Anna and Lucas’s boss, Christopher (Dylan
Baker)—on Lucas’s phone. A solid, surpris-
ingly graceful presence onstage, Cannavale
moves like a linebacker with a background
in modern dance. Byrne’s Anna feels as real
and as horrifying as the evening news, ready
to do something she can’t undo, make a stain
you could never scrub out.—V.C. (2/10/20)
(Through March 8.)
Stew
Walkerspace
The kitchen as a communal space has been
done before—dramas about women cooking
while tensions bubble to the surface. And
yet Page 73’s “Stew,” by Zora Howard, feels
familiar without being cliché, delivering a
captivating story that’s intimate, funny, and
heartbreaking in equal measure. Mama (Por-
tia) is making a huge stew for a church gath-
ering; a domineering presence, she snaps and
purses her lips, micromanaging her daugh-
ters, Lillian (Nikkole Salter) and Nelly (Toni
Lachelle Pollitt), and her granddaughter, Lil’
Mama (Kristin Dodson). The men—fathers,
sons, husbands, boyfriends—are mentioned
but conspicuously absent, and each woman
is avoiding something. The actors’ perfor-
mances are well matched to Howard’s agile
dialogue; Portia’s matriarch is magnetic,
with impressive command. Colette Robert’s
energetic direction captures the chaos of a
home, full of overlapping voices and gusts
of movement, all leading up to the moment
when the play’s façade snaps, delicately and
definitively, like a bean into a bowl.—Maya
Phillips (Through Feb. 22.)1
CLASSICALMUSICMelaine Dalibert
Areté Venue and Gallery
The French composer and pianist Melaine
Dalibert is best known for performing his own
creations, many of which are pellucid reveries
derived from algorithmic sequences. But he is
also a compelling interpreter of works by other
composers—a point proved by his new album,
which is devoted to elegantly plainspoken
miniatures by Anastassis Philippakopoulos.
Dalibert’s recital program features that music
alongside his own and pieces by Sébastien
Roux and Michael Vincent Waller. (He pre-
sents a second recital on Feb. 14, at 167 Spring
St.)—Steve Smith (Feb. 13 at 7:30.)Bridget Kibbey and Avi Avital
Church of the Intercession
The harpist Bridget Kibbey and the man-
dolinist Avi Avital test the notion that their
instruments can make just about any music
sound sweet and romantic. Their Valentine’s
Day concert, which takes place in a candlelit
crypt below the Church of the Intercession,
features arrangements of a Bach flute sonata,
song cycles by Joaquín Rodrigo (“Cuatro Mad-
rigales Amatorios”) and Manuel de Falla (the
dreamy and tangy “Siete Canciones Populares
Españolas”), and Marc Lavry’s “Three Jewish
Dances.”—Oussama Zahr (Feb. 14 at 7.)Jay Campbell & Conor Hanick
92nd Street Y
It boggles the mind that Jay Campbell, who
plays cello for the tirelessly innovative JACK
Quartet, somehow manages to find time for
even more intrepid adventures outside the
group’s confines. Here, he partners with the
superb pianist Conor Hanick for a program
of world premières by Marcos Balter, Natacha
Diels, and John Zorn. Also playing: The dis-
tinguished pianist Julius Drake has his hands
full this week, accompanying a recital by the
lustrous mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke (Feb. 13)and a duo program with the soprano Amanda
Majeski and the bass-baritone Philippe Sly
(Feb. 19).—S.S. (Feb. 14 at 9.)“Così Fan Tutte”
Metropolitan Opera House
“Così Fan Tutte” is the most cynical of Mo-
zart’s mature operas: two friends disguise
themselves to see if they can woo each other’s
girlfriend. Phelim McDermott’s Met pro-
duction, set at Coney Island, plays into the
idea that love is a game, but it leaves the job
of communicating the more profound senti-
ment of arias like “Per pietà” and “Un’aura
amorosa” to the singers. Harry Bicket leads
an estimable ensemble cast, including Ben
Bliss and Luca Pisaroni as the friendly rivals
and Heidi Stober and Gerald Finley as the
couples’ worldly confidants.—O.Z. (Feb. 15
at 12:30, Feb. 18 and Feb. 21 at 7:30, and Feb.
23 at 3.)Orchestre Révolutionnaire
et Romantique
Carnegie Hall
For the two-hundred-and-fiftieth anniver-
sary of Beethoven’s birth, Carnegie Hall has
programmed two complete cycles of the com-
poser’s nine life-affirming, genre-defining
symphonies. First up is John Eliot Gardin-
er’s Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Roman-
tique, which, over six days, plays the pieces in
chronological order using period instruments,
including gut strings, valveless horns, and
wooden flutes.—O.Z. (Feb. 19-21 and Feb. 24
at 8 and Feb. 23 at 2.)Kirill Gerstein
Zankel Hall
A commanding pianist whose playing deftly
balances physicality and personality, Kirill
Gerstein comes to Carnegie Hall for a re-
cital filled with novelty, spirit, and song. His
program includes major works by Schubert
(“Wanderer Fantasy”) and Liszt (Sonata in
BMinor), compositions based on lively Hun-
garian folk tunes, and a new piece extracted
from Thomas Adès’s opera “The Exterminat-
ing Angel.”—S.S. (Feb. 20 at 7:30.)Oscar Bettison
Miller Theatre
The dynamic chamber ensemble Alarm Will
Sound returns to its old stomping ground at
Miller Theatre for a “Composer Portrait” de-
voted to Oscar Bettison’s kinetic music. Betti-
son, a British-American composer based at the
Peabody Institute, in Baltimore, specializes
in works of refined ferocity; this program
includes two substantial examples, “Livre des
Sauvage” and “Pale Icons of Night,” the latter
in its New York première.—S.S. (Feb. 20 at 8.)Charles Curtis
Issue Project Room
Charles Curtis, a cellist whose work combines
spellbinding intensity and beguiling beauty, is
having a moment: in December, he anchored a