The cozy and blessedly air-conditioned HERE Arts Center in Soho is presenting Johanna S. Meyer’s Bearshow for one more night as part of The American Living Room annual festival of emerging arts. Bearshow is described as a “humorous and allusive work that explores images of real women, from courtesans to movie stars, while focusing on the Roman myth of the Big Dipper, in which a jealous god’s wife turns his mistress into a bear.” Sandwiched between two brief one-act plays, this avant-garde duet of poetic scrambles and nonsequitors features absorbed and absorbing performances by fake-fur-clad Alejandra Martorell and Jennifer Monson, both looking as scrubbed down and down-to-earth as can be, a few indicators of the trappings of lust and luxury notwithstanding. Watching them wind their way through this dance is like linking all the stars in a constellation.
Despite New York’s rain-wracked transit troubles, the theater was packed, and seats might be once again hard to get this evening. Call 212-352-3101 after 4pm today or click HERE.