The New Yorker - USA (2020-05-18)

6 THENEWYORKER,M AY18, 2020

ILLUSTRATION BY MAX DALTON

Among the places I wish I could go right now are the Public Theatre,

downtown theatre’s usually buzzing hub, and its Central Park outpost,

the Delacorte. Fortunately, the Public has been putting what it can on-

line (at publictheater.org). Shakespeare in the Park is cancelled, but last

summer’s spiky, Georgia-set “Much Ado About Nothing,” starring Dan-

ielle Brooks and Grantham Coleman (and featuring a timely “Stacey

Abrams 2020” sign), is streaming for free, via WNET. Richard Nelson’s

plays chronicling two fictional families in Rhinebeck, New York, make

for low-key binge-watching. (Nelson recently wrote a pandemic edition

of his Apple-family plays, which was performed on Zoom.) And Joe’s

Pub, the Public’s in-house cabaret, is sharing live-streamed shows and

selections from its archives. This week: The composer Samora Pinder-

hughes, the jazz band the Hot Sardines, and Stephanie Chou’s “Comfort

Girl,” a musical study of the Chinese women forced into sexual slavery by

the Japanese Army during the Second World War.—Michael Schulman

STREAMINGTHEATRE

1

MUSIC

Aril Brikha: “Prisma”

TECHNO The Swedish techno producer Aril

Brikha has long been inspired by the soulful

terrific cast. Sarah Stiles (“Tootsie”), with

her customary verve, portrays a lovelorn cel-

list, and Marc Kudisch, Rebecca Naomi Jones,

Annie Golden, Taylor Trensch, and Tony Vin-

cent feel so alive that you almost don’t miss

seeing them.—Elisabeth Vincentelli

Soundstage

In 2018, Playwrights Horizons started working

on a podcast series titled “Soundstage.” The

timing turned out to be critical, as we are now

exploring new ways to experience theatre—and

rediscovering old ones, as these shows feel like

radio productions. The first episodes are all

over the stylistic map. “PRIME: A Practical

Breviary” is a meditative ten-song cycle by

the rising composer Heather Christian (“An-

imal Wisdom”), who conceived it for a collec-

tive 6A.M. Mass. It’s saying something that

“PRIME” is the most traditional of the initial

three podcasts. “Gather,” written and directed

by Robert O’Hara (“Bootycandy,” “Barbecue”),

sets up a thriller atmosphere, then springs the

kind of pointed, surreal twist at which he ex-

cels. Jordan Harrison’s “Play for Any Two Peo-

ple” is exactly that: a show for two listeners to

perform together (they speak lines and act out

1

THETHEATRE

Bleeding Love
You may be forgiven for thinking that the plot
of “Bleeding Love” is a little on the nose: the
book writer Jason Schafer transposed elements
of the Oscar Wilde story “The Nightingale
and the Rose” to a future wrecked by climate
change, with folks afraid to leave their houses.
Yet the romance-minded musical premièred
in Denmark in 2015—the post-apocalypse
never goes out of style. “Bleeding Love” is
now getting wide exposure thanks to an audio
production on the Broadway Podcast Network,
delivered in three installments of about thirty
minutes each. The eclectic score (music by Ar-
thur Lafrentz Bacon, lyrics by Harris Doran),
ranging from Broadway to classical and rock,
is agreeable enough, but the main draw is the

1

DANCE

New York City Ballet

The original “Pulcinella” was premièred by the

Ballets Russes in Paris, in 1920, with designs by

Picasso and music by Stravinsky. The composer

later turned his melodious, refined score into a

series of orchestral suites; Justin Peck used one

of them for his “Pulcinella Variations,” created

for City Ballet in 2017. (It will be broadcast on

May 15.) Peck jettisoned the commedia-dell’arte

narrative, but, by dressing his dancers in the

whimsical costumes of Tsumori Chisato, he kept

some of its original witty flavor. Colorful tutus

sport giant eyes and daisy petals; tights are dec-

orated with checkered or zigzag patterns. The

ballet is crisp and bright, playful but rigorously

structured. It’s one of Peck’s finest. On May 19,

the company will show Balanchine’s regal and

elegiac “Diamonds,” set to three movements of

Tchaikovsky’s Third Symphony. Sara Mearns

and Russell Janzen lead the cast.—Marina Harss

(nycballet.com)

Alvin Ailey

Robert Battle, the director of Alvin Ailey

American Dance Theatre since 2011, is a cho-

reographer of note. His main interest seems

to lie in building architectural forms—shapes

that shift, expand, and contract with near-math-

ematical precision. His 2004 piece “Mass,”

which the company will broadcast on its Ailey

All Access Web page on May 14, was inspired

by a performance of Verdi’s Requiem. What

struck Battle was less the music than the way

that the rows of chorus members entered and

exited, their robes swishing around them. In

this dance, he plays with that idea, dissolving

and recombining the ensemble—also dressed in

robes—creating parallel and intersecting path-

ways. The percussion-heavy score is by John

Mackey.—M.H. (alvinailey.org/ailey-all-access)

JoyceStream: Stephen Petronio

The Joyce Theatre’s streaming series continues

on YouTube, May 15-21, with Stephen Petronio’s

“American Landscapes.” A meditation on the

state of the nation, the 2019 work has as its

backdrop a not so subtle slide show of images by

Robert Longo: flags, soldiers, Rosie the Riveter,

kneeling football players, marchers, explosions.

Much as the score, by Jim Jarmusch and Jozef

van Wissem, cuts gentle lute with electric

grunge, the dance spikes melancholy with anger,

the torqued elegance of Petronio’s signature

style expressing both strength and confusion.

On May 19, there’s an artist talkback.—Brian

Seibert (joyce.org/engage/joycestream)

witty installation is a display of stoneware arms,
legs, chests, and torsos—modelled on those of
the artist and her family—marked with tattoos,
which she re-created from memory.—A.K.S.
(sculpture-center.org)

movements by following cues on a pair of audio

tracks). New “Soundstage” episodes, which

come out every other Thursday, will include

works by Lucas Hnath, Kirsten Childs, and

Jeremy O. Harris.—E.V. (soundstagepodcast.org)