10 THENEWYORKER,DECEMBER6, 2021
ILLUSTRATION BY LEONARDO SANTAMARIA
The plight of the Afghan civilians who helped U.S. forces during the past
two decades—and were repaid with life-endangering apathy—dominated
the headlines all too briefly earlier this year, as many Afghans scrambled
to escape the country amid the war’s turbulent end. But Americans should
have paid more attention all along—and we still should. “Selling Kabul,”
in previews at Playwrights Horizons, is a tense drama by Sylvia Khoury, a
New York-born playwright of French and Lebanese descent. Set during the
military drawdown in 2013, the play follows Taroon (Dario Ladani Sanchez),
a former interpreter for the U.S. military who is hiding from the Taliban at
his sister’s apartment, as his relatives and neighbors cover for him and his
wife is about to give birth. Tyne Rafaeli’s production, which originated at
the Williamstown Theatre Festival, opens on Dec. 6.—Michael SchulmanOFFBROADWAY
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DANCE
New York City Ballet
If the angels in Act II of “George Balanchine’s
The Nutcracker” look a little taller this year,
fear not—your eyes do not deceive you. For
everyone’s safety, the youngest ballet studentsto keep some last shred of her mystery and
celebrated glamour. When, in the first act,
Diana considers ditching her wedding, it’s too
late; her name and image, as one character says,
are already being used to sell tea towels and
mugs. Now they’re being used to sell tickets
on Broadway. One odd new perspective that
this show has to offer is its take on victimhood.
Diana is presented as a victim of circumstance,
naturally, but so are Prince Charles (Roe Har-
trampf) and, weirdly, Queen Elizabeth (Judy
Kaye), who is given an eleventh-hour number
in which she gets to feel sad about abandon-
ment issues in her own marriage. The show’s
villains are the paparazzi, who are dressed like
Inspector Gadget and do some twirly dances
(choreographed by Kelly Devine) involving
flashbulbs and flaring trenchcoats, and Ca-
milla Parker Bowles (Erin Davie, bringing
subtle feeling to the bland proceedings), who
manages to once again upstage Diana by being
infinitely more interesting.—A.S. (11/29/21)
(Longacre; open run.)
A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing
The set of this one-act play, designed by Chen-
Wei Liao, is made up of hard, gray walls, with
no visible way in or out; it is an impenetrable,
inescapable dungeon. It’s a fitting metaphor for
the plight, and the mind, of the Girl, played
by Jenn Murray. She may be the only actor
onstage, but the Girl is not the show’s sole
character. In a challenging monologue, Murray
voices both sides of conversations between the
Girl and her mother, her brother, her uncle, her
grandfather—and a number of other figures
in her young, troubled life—and it demands a
good deal of one’s attention to keep the speak-
ers straight. Annie Ryan’s adaptation of Eimear
McBride’s book, directed by Nicola Murphy,
is a tough, dark exploration of abuse—sexual
and psychological, sadistic and self-inflicted.
The Girl doesn’t actually beat her head against
those rock-hard walls, but descriptions of head
injuries crop up again and again, forming a
painful theme. The language is vivid, harsh,
and unsparing.—Ken Marks (Irish Repertory
Theatre; through Dec. 12.)taking part in this year’s “Nutcracker” are
twelve, old enough to have been vaccinated
when rehearsals began in the fall. Besides that,
the production, which premièred in 1954, is
comfortingly unchanged, with its gargantuan
tree, travelling bed, and pretty pastel shepherd-
esses. So, too, are the rotating casts, which in-
clude the crisp, quick-footed Megan Fairchild,
the high-flying Tiler Peck, and the dramatic
Sara Mearns (among others), dancing the roles
of the Sugarplum Fairy and Dewdrop.—Marina
Harss (David H. Koch Theatre; through Jan. 2.)Alvin Ailey American
Dance Theatre
This season is the tenth since the choreographer
Robert Battle took over the company from the
larger-than-life Judith Jamison. (Running Dec.
1-19, it’s a bit shorter this year, three weeks rather
than five.) Battle has brought greater variety to
the repertoire and, more recently, found a new
choreographer-in-residence, the übertalented
Jamar Roberts. Both Battle and Roberts have
created a new work for Ailey’s City Center run,
to be unveiled on Dec. 3. That program closes,
as do so many of this company’s programs, with
Ailey’s great masterpiece “Revelations.” The
Dec. 7 performance, a celebration of Battle’s
tenure, is an all-Battle evening that includes
“Mass,” from 2004; Ella, from 2008; and the new
“For Four.”—M.H. (Through Dec. 19.)Raja Feather Kelly
A distinguishing feature of the bank-robbery
film “Dog Day Afternoon,” from 1975, was the
motive for the crime—paying for gender-con-
firmation transition. In “Wednesday,” Raja
Feather Kelly and his company, the feath3r the-
ory, investigate the real-life story that inspired
the film and address questions of representa-
tion in a piece that’s part dance-theatre, part
live theatre-vérité documentary. Postponed
from last year, it glams up New York Live
Arts—the culmination of Kelly’s tenure as the
theatre’s resident commissioned artist.—Brian
Seibert (Dec. 1-4 and Dec. 8-10.)Jordan Demetrius Lloyd
Like all the entries in Baryshnikov Arts Cen-
ter’s fall season, “Trip Gloss” is digital. But
the emerging choreographer Jordan Demetrius
Lloyd’s short film, available for free on the
center’s Web site through Dec. 13, is uncom-
monly preoccupied with that fact, even angry
about it. It’s a collage of rehearsal footage that’s
chopped up and interrupted and plastered with
text pointing out how it isn’t live dance. Fortu-
nately, “Williamson,” another short film that
Lloyd made this year, is also discoverable, at
jordandlloyd.com. Shot and edited simply, it
reveals an artist of unsettling beauty.—B.S.
(bacnyc.org)“Nutcracker Rouge”
Opulent, hyper-decorative, and naughty, Com-
pany XIV’s “Nutcracker Rouge” reinterprets
the classic holiday story as a voyage of sexual
awakening for a young ingénue, Marie-Claire.
It does this with style and skill, integrating
elements of burlesque, circus arts, drag, and
ballet, culminating in an acrobatic pas de deux
that leaves little to the imagination.—M.H.
(Théâtre XIV; through Jan. 30.)