Meet your doom--maybe--with Split Britches at La MaMa

Above: Lois Weaver
Below: Peggy Shaw
Split Britches brings Unexploded Ordnances (UXO)
to La MaMa for its US premiere.
(photo: Matt Delbridge)

Unexploded Ordnances (UXO), a US premiere from famed lesbian theater duo Split Britches (Lois Weaver and Peggy Shaw), takes inspiration from Stanley Kubrick's political satire Dr. Strangelove (1964). It works from a similar wackadoodle take on the threat of nuclear disaster within reach of itchy Twitter--I mean, trigger--fingers. A top-flight general (Shaw) is stationed by a desk and computer monitor where he keeps track of time and apparently takes calls from gal pals. Weaver, referred to by Shaw as "Madame Mr. President Sir," initially slumbers at a far curve of circled "Situation Room" tables. They communicate via landline phones, although sometimes the phone rings, it's not Weaver, and Shaw breaks into randy old pop songs.

The situation at La MaMa, then, is less tense than Shaw's tracking of the countdown clock might suggest. Yes, the show itself must finish by the end of sixty minutes, but Billy Ward and the Dominoes's "60 Minute Man" is one of those randy songs, and there seems to be plenty of time for studly Shaw to bop out to that. Yes, something must be done about the impending doom we're trying to track on confusing overhead monitors, but there's lots of time to field a council of elders from among the oldest of us in attendance. And, no, although lined up with other greyheads, I failed to make the cut.

Directed by Weaver and written by the pair with Hannah Maxwell, the show contains clever text aligned like precision-cut puzzle pieces (best delivered by saucy Shaw) and room for whatever unpredictables the elders might bring to the table. (One woman seemed obsessed with the mysterious whereabouts of one Tiffany Ariana Trump, offspring of Marla Maples and POS...oops, I mean, POTUS. Now that I think about it, Tiff does seem to have been out of the public eye for a suspiciously long time...hmmm.)

Unexploded Ordnances (UXO) is more chuckle-provoking and captivating than Kubrick--well, of course! it's lesbian!--with the additional benefit of encouraging the audience to determine not only how the play will go but also, you gotta hope, how the rest of our lives will go. Folks came up with some really good stuff!

Part of The Public Theater's now-closed Under the Radar Festival, and originally scheduled to end last weekend, Unexplode Ordnances (UXO) fortunately continues tonight, Saturday, at 8pm and Sunday at 4pm. For information and tickets, click here.

La MaMa -- Ellen Stewart Theatre
66 East 4th Street (between Bowery and Second Avenue), Manhattan
(map/directions)

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SPAC's "Mugen Noh Othello" at Japan Society in sold-out run

Japan Society, celebrating its 110th anniversary,
and The Public Theater's Under the Radar Festival
present Satoshi Miyagi's Mugen Noh Othello.
(photo: Takuma Uchida)

Front left, Micari (Desdemona)
Front right, Maki Honda (Pilgrim from Venice)
with chanters (l-r): Kotoko Kiuchi, Yoneji Ouchi, Asuka Fuse,
Kazunori Abe, Fuyuko Moriyama and Haruyo Suzuki
(photo: Richard Termine)

Mugen Noh Othello

North American premiere

presented by Japan Society (NOH-NOW SERIES, PART IV)

part of The Public Theater's Under the Radar Festival

Satoshi Miyagi and his acclaimed Shizuoka Performing Arts Center center and elevate the role of Shakespeare's Desdemona in Othello in Mugen Noh Othello. Seen through the tradition of mugen noh theater, the warrior Othello's wife and victim becomes the potentially disruptive shade trapped between life and definitive death until she can work through her story in front of the living. This crucial process for moving on and finding ultimate rest is, in a real sense, a form of theater as ritual to release her soul. Unlike most otherworldly beings in mugen noh, though, Miyagi's Desdemona is a more humble than formidable figure, appealing to the audience's sympathy.

As the tragic ghost, Micari, silkily, eerily skims the stage on feet we never see, voluminous robes concealing what surely must be casters bearing a body that admits no articulation, drawn forward as if by magnetic force. In her thin, delicate crown, she's a doll, the very model of perfection, but our final sight of her--oh, that parting gesture!--might reveal how much her devastating fate will always define her.

The full-bodied percussive music has power. As kneeling members of the superb chorus, arranged at stage left, chant the story, you will have to scan and stare hard at each mouth to determine the source of each utterance. Supertitles provide English translations, but I bet you'll find it tough to tear your eyes from the stately beauty on stage.

Script: Sukehiro Hirakawa
Original music: Hiroko Tanakawa (arranged by the actors)
Costume design: Kayo Takahashi
Lighting design: Koji Osako

Remaining shows of Mugen No Othello (tonight and Sunday) are sold out. Wait list lineup starts one hour prior to curtain. For information, click here.

Japan Society
333 East 47th Street (between 1st and 2nd Avenues), Manhattan
(map/directions)

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Under The Radar: The furious diaspora of "Panorama"

Above: Perry Yung
Below: Maura Nguyen Donohue
in Panorama at La MaMa Downstairs
(photo courtesy of La MaMa)

Panorama
presented by La MaMa and Motus as part of The Public Theater's Under The Radar Festival


We can look at the word panorama in two ways: One offers an immediate, seamless view of an entire field of vision--a landscape, say, or a seascape; the other breaks that view into its components, revealing a piece at a time, gradually delivering the whole. In the case of Panorama--an evening created by Enrico Casagrande and Daniela Nicolò, directors of Italy's Motus Theatre Company, with actors of the Great Jones Repertory Company at La MaMa--numerous components scroll or zoom into view, overlap, masquerade as one another, tumble together, bombard the senses and wreak dizzying, amusing, endearing confusion. The whole, we might conclude, is far more interesting than any single part, though the parts can also be fascinating.

How you look at the panorama of Panorama is part of the puzzle and the fun, with live players before you and a number of video monitors showing recorded or live action with actors playing themselves or adopting the biography of someone else in the cast or taking over live from where they began presenting themselves on screen in intimate close-ups. It's eye-popping and colorful and only grows more so--all the way from distracting to hallucinogenic--as the allotted 80 minutes roll out.

The fabric of this panorama interweaves threads of diverse cultures, genders, sexual orientations and life histories--some exceedingly dramatic--of being uprooted, replanted in unfamiliar territory and, of necessity, reinventing one's self. Through vivid performances and visual excess, the show celebrates theater as model for how we all might survive and thrive--"inclusive and 'migrant'...a real space of welcoming and freedom." It charms us into feeling and understanding the method of its madness as further laid out in the company's program notes:

Panorama puts to the test every attempt at irrevocably fixing people, nationalities, genders, professions in hierarchical and unchangeable categories. It is a furious diaspora.

Furious, yes. Self-indulgent, yes--often and without reservation. And yes, ultimately, a panorama of joy.

Performers: Maura Nguyen Donohue, John Gutierrez, Valois Mickens, eugene the poogene, Perry Yung and Zishan Ugurlu; on video: Billy Clark, George Drance, Gian Marco Lo Forte, Onni Johnson, Julia Martin, Matt Nasser, Patrick Ssenjovu, Shigeko Suga, Christopher Wild and Mia Yoo

Dramaturgy: Erik Ehn and Daniela Nicolò
Music: Heather Paauwe
CultureHub and Seoul Institute of the Arts Production Team 
Video Design: Bosul Kim, Sangmin Chae and Billy Clark
Set Design: Seungho Jeong
Illustration and Animation: Bosul Kim 
Technical Direction: Yarie Vazquez 
Production Assistant: Youngsun Lim

Panorama continues through Sunday, January 21 with performances Wednesdays through Saturdays at 7pm, Sundays at 2pm. For schedule and ticket information, click here.

For schedule and ticketing information of other events in The Public Theater's Under The Radar Festival, click here.

La MaMa (The Downstairs)
66 East 4th Street (between 2nd Avenue and Bowery), Manhattan
(map/directions)

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Financial crisis hits Europe's arts

The Euro Crisis Is Hurting Cultural Groups
by Larry Rohter, The New York Times, March 24, 2012

APAP Diary: "Word Becomes Flesh"

Okay, so this video of spoken word artist B. Yung at a 2009 poetry conference is here because, thanks to Marc Bamuthi Joseph/The Living Word Project's Word Becomes Flesh, I have now become a B. Yung fan. Word Becomes Flesh (2003)--running now at The Public Theater's Under The Radar Festival in association with 651 Arts--takes an audience deep into the experiences, thoughts and feelings of a young Black man dealing with realities of the streets, the system, sexuality, relationships and fatherhood. All six men who deliver Joseph's "choreopoem" or "spoken world" are talented and committed performers. But Yung, from his first moment on stage, takes command with an immediate "on" and firm grounding in the material and emotional roots of the work. It's a smooth and beautiful performance arising from the rough, complex context set out in the piece--strife, anger, alienation, self-doubt, self-delusion, longing, wild hope.

Scene from Marc Bamuthi Joseph's Word Becomes Flesh
Photo (c)Jati Lindsay

Some sections of Word Becomes Flesh have more punch than others, but the whole work and its individual performers gain authority as they proceed, and the fiercely assertive movement and acting rock steady. So go meet Yung and his five colleagues Dahlak Brathwaite, Daveed Diggs, Dion Reiner-Guzman, Khalil Anthony and Michael Wayne Turner III.

Word Becomes Flesh runs through January 15. For information and ticketing, click here.

The Public Theater
425 Lafayette Street (just below Astor Place), Manhattan
(map/directions)

Brantley hails courageous Belarus troupe

I deeply regret that I was not able to get in to see this show, as the run is completely sold out. But here is an interesting review from the Times's theater critic, Ben Brantley.

‘Being Harold Pinter’ by Belarus Free Theater

by Ben Brantley, The New York Times, January 6, 2011

"...a startling and shaming presence in these United States, where the only work of theater regularly making headlines is a delay-plagued $65 million musical about a comic-book character."

Suzan-Lori Parks: She better werrrk!

SUZAN-LORI PARKS: WATCH ME WORK

Under The Radar Festival at The Public Theater

This performance piece, a meditation on the artistic process and an actual work session, features Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks working on her newest writing project in the main lobby of The Public Theater. The audience is invited to come and watch her work and/or to share the space and get some of their own writing work done. During the last fifteen minutes of the performance Parks will answer any questions the audience might have regarding their own work and their creative process.

Watch Me Work will take place on select weekdays for 75 minutes each day in the Main Lobby of The Public Theater. As the schedule and start times will vary, please check our website daily for the latest schedule. The performances are free and open to the public.

Suzan-Lori Parks is the Master Writer Chair at the Public Theater. Her work includes Topdog/Underdog, 365Days/365Plays and the novel Getting Mother's Body.

Wednesday, January 5 at 4pm
Friday, January 7 at 4pm
Saturday, January 8 at 2:30pm
Friday, January 14 at 4pm
Saturday, January 15 at 2pm
Sunday, January 16 at 4pm

Belarus on our radar

Belarus Free Theater Makes It to Under the Radar Festival
by Larry Rohter, The New York Times, January 4, 2010

Belarus Free Theatre Statement

Belarus Free Theatre Statement

posted by Under The Radar Festival on Vimeo

Belarus chaos threatens artists

Leaders of Belarus Free Theater Are Forced Underground
by Larry Rohter, The New York Times, December 21, 2010

Theater artists jailed in Belarus

A Call to Help Support Detained Members of the Free Theater in Belarus
by Jeremy M. Barker, Culturebot, December 20, 2010