THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 9, 2020 19
West Side Story
Broadway Theatre
An infuriating example of what happens when
a powerful style calcifies into shtick. For his
fourth outing on Broadway, the Belgian direc-
tor Ivo van Hove has given himself a gorgeous,
youthful, diverse cast to work with—Isaac Pow-
ell as a lithe and jittery Tony and the spirited
Shereen Pimentel as Maria are highlights, as
are Yesenia Ayala’s Anita and Dharon E. Jones’s
Riff—only to dwarf them with video footage
streamed on billboard-size screens above their
heads. As a metaphor—for the insignificance
of these characters’ lives in a hostile world,
perhaps?—the technique is banal; as a theatrical
device, it is a ludicrous waste. As is his wont,
van Hove has amplified the play’s darker ele-
ments and snuffed out any lightness that might
temper its tragedy. (Farewell, “I Feel Pretty.”)
This is all the more disappointing considering
all that is promising here, including Anne Te-
resa De Keersmaeker’s choreography, which
closes the gap between modernist construc-
tivism and TikTok preening, and the exquisite
rumble scene, which offers a startling glimpse
of what van Hove could do were he to return
to eye level and reground himself in the idiom
of the stage.—A.S. (Reviewed in our issue of
3/2/20.) (Open run.)1
MOVIESBacurau
The title of Kleber Mendonça Filho’s boldly in-
ventive political fantasy, set in the near future,
refers to a fictitious small town in rural Brazil
that’s at the center of a hotly contested election
and a fierce dispute over natural resources.
The village’s idiosyncratic and temperamen-
tal characters are held together by a web of
memories and traditions. Their water supply
has been cut off by a huge dam, which serves
business interests represented by a politician
named Tony Junior (Thardelly Lima). After
the townspeople mock him and his campaign,
they find themselves under attack from an in-
ternational group of mercenaries; they suspect
that the timing isn’t coincidental, and, despite
being vastly outgunned, they fight back. Men-
donça deftly sketches the personalities and
the passions of Bacurau’s besieged residents
while also examining the mercenaries’ cruel
power; the light touches of science fiction
evoke present-day depravities, and the vision
of local unity offers a thrillingly imaginative
playbook for resistance. With Sônia Braga,
Barbara Colen, and Udo Kier. In Portuguese
and English.—Richard Brody (In limited release.)The Call of the Wild
Jack London’s novel returns to the screen,
though whether any movie can capture the es-
sence of the book—so earthy in its hunger for
sensation yet so grandly spirited—is open to
debate. This new attempt, written by Michael
Green and directed by Chris Sanders, goes easy
on the wildness, perhaps in the hope of corral-
ling a family audience. The principal human
roles are taken by Dan Stevens, as an overheated
villain who’s ill equipped for the icy rigors of the
Far North, and by Harrison Ford, as the grizzled
adventurer John Thornton, who also narrates
the film and gets saddled with a heftier back-much play Dr. Frankenstein as stand in for the
character while providing incongruous musical
accompaniment on the banjo and mandolin.
In repertory with “Dracula.”—A.S. (Through
March 8.)
The Headlands
Claire Tow
Henry (Aaron Yoo) works as an engineer in
Google’s San Francisco office, but he’s not in-
terested in talking about that; his passion is
amateur sleuthing, and he’s especially eager to
solve a murder that took place when he was ten
years old. Elegantly directed by Knud Adams,
Christopher Chen’s ingeniously constructed
new drama—a novel blend of twisty whodunnit,
family mystery, immigrant tale, and memory
play—finds ample humor early on, in the con-
trast between Henry’s upbeat affability and
his grim hobby, but then turns unexpectedly
and profoundly haunting. The design elements
all work in satisfying unity, and a standout is
Ruey Horng Sun’s unusually excellent projec-
tions, which take their cue from Henry’s love
of film noir and generate a gorgeously gloomy
mood from the story he uncovers.—Rollo Romig
(Through March 22.)
Tumacho
Connelly
Leigh Silverman directs this revival of Ethan
Lipton’s silly, kindhearted 2016 musical West-
ern, about “a one-horse town / where the horse
broke down” presided over by an ostentatiously
useless mayor (John Ellison Conlee). Among
his dwindling constituents is a traumatized
gunslinger (Phillipa Soo) whose revenge
mission against a casually murderous outlaw
(Andrew Garman) is diverted by the terrible
return of an insatiable demon-ghost. David
Zinn’s sunset-saturated saloon set is a work
of beauty, and Lipton has a winning way with
rhymes (“It takes practice / to love a cactus”).
In the end, it’s maybe too gentle a fable of
forgiveness and reconciliation; it could have
had a bit more bite if it had found a way to
link those notions more deliberately to the
Western’s quintessential Americanness.—R.R.
(Through March 21.)
We’re Gonna Die
Second Stage
Young Jean Lee wrote the script and lyrics of
this hilarious, wrenching, and wise monologue
interspersed with fine, bright songs about
loneliness, sickness, aging, and death. It’s a
show in which a song with a chorus of “When
you get old / All your friends will die / And
you will be a burden to the world” is a full-on
banger and, weirdly, makes you feel better.
In its original production, in 2011, a lot of its
charm emanated from its indie spareness and
from Lee’s own unstudied performance as the
lead. Here that role goes to Janelle McDer-
moth, who’s a total star, with endless charisma
and a magnificent voice. As directed and cho-
reographed by Raja Feather Kelly, this ver-
sion’s staging is sleeker (Tuce Yasak designed
the dazzling lighting) and its arrangements
poppier. But it works just as well because Mc-
Dermoth never plays it falsely.—R.R. (Through
March 22.)
Contact Jane Wilton at
(212) 686-0010 x363
or giving@nyct-cfi .org
http://www.giveto.nycTogether, we cantransform yourcommitmentto making adiff erence into alasting legacy.Yourcauses.Yourcharitable gift.Yourlegacy.