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Theater for every taste, Yiddish /Wongo-ish..It’s all Fun
Talk about diversity. New York is certainly the land of plenty. Just this week alone, I spent time in an Irish/Yiddish world and the next day was transported by intergalactic forces to the Planet Wongo. All this for a subway token.
The Bespoke Overcoat
Wolf Mankowitz, British/Jewish polyglot is being represented by New Yiddish Rep at the Cell Theatre on West 23rd Street. In two one-act plays “2 by Wolf,” we get a sampling from the prolific pen of Mankowitz. “The Irish Hebrew Lesson” perhaps the only tri-lingual play of its kind written in English, Irish and Yiddish, is followed by “The Bespoke Overcoat,” performed in a Yiddish. (Supertitles are used in the latter play.) The director is Romanian Moshe Yassur, who has had a long career as actor/director here and in Israel.
The Irish Hebrew Lesson pits a religious Jew with a penchant for languages next to a young Irish rebel, hoping to rid Ireland of the British as St. did with the snakes. The rebel is too young to realize the fragility of life and so the older man takes the opportunity to protect the boy and himself by teaching him a little Hebrew and a little philosophy. That the rebel shares the same anti-Semitic joke that the interrogating English soldiers do is just another reminder of the how the pecking order of prejudice works.
The second play is about labor, money and the need to stay warm; as well as the need for dignity, even after death. A tailor negotiates with a poor man to make him a new, warm coat, but (at least as I understood), he only truly offers after he has heard the man died. That it takes a ghost to readdress charity makes sense…you don’t know what you’ve lost till it’s gone. The ghost suffers like all poor but in the end (or in the afterlife) takes his retribution from the greedy employer while the tailor relies on his schnapps to make sense of his own life.
Both plays are beautifully acted by Menachem Fox, Stuart Cullen, Lev Herskovitz, Ilan Kwittken, Shane Baker and Fergal O’Hanlon. Mr. Baker was also the translator.
http://www.NewYiddishRep.org. Show runs till July 2.
WONGO TIME
From Yiddishkeit to Wongolite…composer Dave Ogrin has taken his wonderful Wild Women of Planet Wongo which originally was presented in a classic theatrical setting and moved it to the outer galaxy of Bushwick for a cosmic immersive experience in space. With the feel of a 60’s B movie, two astronauts, delivering CheesyMoon Crater Chips to hungry space stations, find themselves after three long years on a planet in habited only by women. Though hesitant at first, the captain finally joins his crewmate in tasting the delicacies of the Wongo Flesh, in his case, the Queen. But sex isn’t the only thing the Wongettes have in mind…they are also starved –and have very different plans for their male guests.
It’s great fun to interact with the Amazonian Wongo girls and drink Wongotini’s made fresh at the Brooklyn Fireproof bar. The book by Steve Mackes, lyrics by Ben Budick, Steve Mackes, and Dave Ogrin is witty, sexy and very feel good. (The Wongotinis help with that, too). The cast of young singer dancers is joyful and lovingly directed by David Rigano. Musical director is Rachel Dean with choreography by Juson Williams.
The show runs Thursday, Friday and Saturday until July 4, with a Wongo dance party after the late show on weekends. If you can’t get to Joshua Tree this summer to make contact with the aliens, I’d happily settle for Bushwick and Wongo World.
New York Music — Pink Floyd to Strayhorn…It’s All Good
New York Spring may be resembling London Fog but the great New York music scene keeps the air warm and even a little hot.
A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to see Brit Floyd, the top Pink Floyd cover band from the UK in their Space & Time World Tour. I’ve always liked the band, and perhaps I’m just feeling it deeper now, but this concert was bloody amazing. From the moment Damian Darlington hits the first chord to the resounding finale with simple stringed instruments, Brit Floyd gives a powerhouse show doing great songs from The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals, The Wall and The Division Bell. All the musicians were terrific, with bassist and vocalist Ian Catrell sounding like both Roger Waters and David Gilmour.
Angela Cervantes knocked it out of the park with her solo. The band was so tight, all of the vocalists so strong and the music…well what can you say about the music of Pink Floyd? Extra huge kudos to the brilliant media director Bryan Kolupski, born on Salvador Dali’s birthday! His marching hammer men was so 1984.
This concert was faithful to a Pink Floyd show… a mélange of great sound and light technology. I wish I were on tour with the band to hear them over and over.
On a completely different planet, Monday night at Metropolitan Café brought the virtuoso team of happily married couple singer and pianist Eric Comstock and vocalist Barbara Fasano in their new show, Shoulder Season. These two songbirds have been trilling together for ten years, and lucky for us they do. Eric is all boy next door while Barbara sizzles with sultry and they play beautifully off each other.
Their songlist was an interesting one….well- chosen numbers from Jimmy Van Heusen to Billy Strayhorn to Yip Harburg. With bassist Sean Smith whose played with Rosemary Clooney and Peggy Lee, the trio delivered an evening of melodies that told different types of summer stories like Mancini’s Two for The Road and Jerry Herman’s Ribbons Down My Back.
I loved all the repartee and innuendoes…and then when they do Paul Simon’s April Comes She Will, a wave of gentle nostalgia for summers past wafted through the crowd.
This is a show by two MAC winning artists who give their hearts to music and to their audience. They will be performing June 1 to 4 and June 8 and 9 at 7 P.M.
Please Stay Out of My Vagina Government, Unless…
You are planning to buy me dinner with Non-GMO organic fairly grown, kindly raised food under a non-chemical trailed sky for the rest of my life.
You will send me fresh flowers that are grown in humanistic and fair farms and nurseries where there is decent pay and benefits and no harmful sprays and sexual terror for the female and children who are working there.
You agree that I am beautiful whether I’ve gained 30 pounds or 60 and have no need to trade me down for a younger version of my former self which wouldn’t match your present self in the least.
You do not buy the charms of pre-pubescents who are forced into flirting with you because they need to put food in their belly, pay for their children, or pay for the medicine that they may be addicted to until they can be treated in a humane situation which will help them break the chain. In other words: Don’t f–k kids.
You believe that all children have the right to life once they are born, which includes decent homes, moms who aren’t exhausted, time with parent figures that build self-esteem, food that is nourishing, education that isn’t completely embarrassing and a belief in the promises of the Constitution.
You don’t stand in the way of me getting a raise in my hourly shepherdess rate which is actually something someone can live on.
I realize that as a future date you have a lot to accomplish…but aren’t I worth it?
Eulogy to Don Draper
I will stuff myself with protein bars and carob shavings until I can swallow the truth.
Tequila may help it go down but nothing will dull the edge
Perhaps a walk in the forest, but who am I kidding… Forest Hills is not the woods.
Embarrassed, realizing the pain isn’t worthy of real Pen writers, I will nonetheless cry in the dark when the last episode reaches my heart.
I have been tricked, seduced and won over by his masters; how did they know me so well?
A latecomer to the party, I made up for lost time, ignoring all others, reserving my time for HIM.
It’s almost over now and I predict my grief.
But his seat in my house will remain empty, until, like Elijah, or another wishful guest, he returns, claiming the night as his own.
Pen Writers on Stage with Nostradamus for World Voices Fest
If writers and artists could run the world, well, the budgets might not balance but everything else most certainly would. Pen International proved tonight that Vaclav Havel wasn’t a one –off. All of the writers who kicked off the Pen World Voices Festival of International Literature get my vote. If there had to be a one world government, then please have it be run by the people who live in the shadow of their own minds, trying to make sense of a mad world, and bringing that clarity to the reader.
The assignment for this group of writers was to present their best and worst case scenarios for 2050. Each presenter used their own style, often with a great deal of humor but also capturing the horrors of today and trying to imagine them either becoming more intense or by some miracle of human achievement, shifting towards peace.
There were activist-writers and writers who are most certainly activists. The lesbian bias in Africa with its accompanying atrocities was described by Zanele Muholi from South Africa along with a short film.
Aminatta Forna, Scottish and raised in Sierra Leone, poetically shared her personal emails about Ebola and the great loss of life. Two of the funniest (until they predicted their versions of the worst scenarios were Richard Flanagan (One Hand Clapping) and Egyptian writer and ardent feminist Mona Eltahawy. I think it was she who suggested that non-feminists will be grateful that others recognized the need to act while they are still asleep. (though much better said than I’m doing here)
The lead speaker of the night was Tom Stoppard who talked about a boat that suffered great losses of personnel because each man was only working for himself and not until they worked together were some of them saved. A true story for our times. But try and tell that to the corporations.
Poet Jackie Wang asked us to close our eyes and think of a place where we feel safe and the people we feel safe with. When we opened them, she assured us that no one had thought of police.
Writers dream of a better place and what they can do to right the wrongs that artists feel so deeply. These readings could have taken place in a San Francisco cellar with Lenny Bruce and George Carlin waiting in the wings. The medium is different, but the voice is the same…perhaps politicians just don’t dream.
The festival runs from May 5 to 10. http://www.penworldvoices.org
The Aviator’s Wife, Rohmer’s Addled Bow
Relations and film, film and relationships. So hard to separate. The big mirror that reflects all of our warts and cross hairs right back to us. And one of the most charming soothsayers of the human heart, Eric Rohmer, is being showcased at Lincoln Center.
Each of the Comedies & Proverb films begins with a proverb and in The Aviator’s Wife “it is impossible to think of nothing.” That implies that the film has passive action but the real activity is in the obsessive thinking of its characters.
I had seen all of Monsieur Rohmer’s Comedies except Aviator’s Wife. This is a story that shows how the art of rejection can create more rejection; how a little information can burn like a hole in a pocket until all the data is discovered, and usually the original premise is wrong; and how playing with the emotion of another is such a sweet, albeit unconscious power trip.
Like all of Rohmer’s films, the acting is natural, the scenes go on as if you’re really sitting in a conversation with a friend, witnessing the perils are of the heart. Girl (Marie Riviere) gets upsetting news, boyfriend (Phillippe Marlaud) gets upsetting sighting and the story begins. What is particularly striking in this 1981 film is the exquisite absence of cell phones. The story couldn’t be told in a cell phone world. There is nothing as mysterious with a text (ask Anthony Weiner) as a letter. Little notes left in little slots can open up a story, with more possibilities for interpretation than even the most venal email… less is certainly more in the case of this film and the meaning of whether to hand deliver a card or gain distance with a stamp is beautifully executed by Rohmer. The film predates Charley Hebdo –notice the black and white keffiyah Riviere wears jauntily around her throat and the lovely young Anne-Laure Meury plays with her prey by joking about her Muslim Black street sweeper boyfriend.
The politics and technology have certainly changed, but not the dance between men and women. Rohmer knows well the steps; the missteps are endearing.
The theme song is sung by Arrielle Dombasle, stunning as Pauline at the Beach (also playing) and now the wife of philosopher Bernard Henri-Levy.
The selection of films including The Green Ray, A Good Marriage, Boyfriends and Girlfriends and Full Moon in Paris will screen at Lincoln Center until April 30.
Pompie’s Place Blues is Red Hot
Immersive theatre is the new buzz word for theatrical experiences that simply put, merge the audience with the show. It removes the trappings of pure voyeurism and encourages a participatory adventure that may be the future of theater.
Pompeii’s Place, the new blues show running on a special schedule at Don’t Tell Mama, has all the makings of what could be a time machine; step back to the early days of this country and find yourself immersed in the world of blues’ evening. It won’t be a smoky joint in Harlem; but a backroom in a favorite New York cabaret club, where a fun sense of the blues world is beautifully created. and where you can step on board for great time.
The host, Arthur Pomosello, who had an eighteen year stint at the Algonquin Club, looks like Kirk Douglas and delivers a patter about the singers that’s Mad Man sexism with fatherly overtones. This of course, gives the fantastic singers, a chance to prove him wrong and show how singing the blues gave the singers and all of us a healing outlet…not victimhood.
When the lights drop, out swings alto Lezlie Harrison, with a big voice, getting it all started with W.C. Handy’s St. Louis Blues. Next up is Brianna Thomas, a frequent performer at Dizzy’s Club and The Kennedy Center. She’s a large gal with a gorgeous sound and knows how to act as demonstrated in “I Keep My Stove in Good Condition.”
The third chanteuse, Hilary Gardner has humor and a terrific voice and style. Her Ten Cents a Dance had diners wanting to ask her to join them on the floor. She has sung with Frank Sinatra…what else is there to say?
The musicians behind, in front and sideways are great…Ehud Asherie is musical director, using everything he learned at Small’s., The inimitable Ken Peplowski is on reeds, David Wong, bass and the legendary Jackie Williams on drums.
What’s missing for me…and this is a compliment, is a longer show. I just wanted the evening to go on and on. I’d like to see people get up and dance…they’re doing it in their chairs… the music calls for it.
Given the time to ‘do’ up the space with a little design (tiny lamps on the tables instead of candles) and costumes for the waiters…Pompie’s Place could easily become the event for blues lovers.
Beck Lee is a consulting producer and he certainly knows his audience. The show runs May 11, 28 at 7pm and May 10 at 1 pm at Don’t Tell Mama’s on 46th Street. Delicious dinner is served with the show
Music To Soothe the Lonesome Traveler
There is nothing about feeling lonely in Lonesome Traveler, a musical playing at 59E59 Theaters that spans the history of American folk music from the dust bowl days to the present. It’s the kind of music that represented a country able to recognize its own suffering and injustice and express that recognition through song. Of course, folk music couldn’t by itself resolve the problems of unfair wages, unjust wars, and racism, but it went a long way in helping to reduce the pain. Folk music helped bolster the creation of communities, including the unions, and in rallying support against war.
The U.S. was a less populated country when singers like Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie and Odetta brought the news to the people through song. And people were spread out… riding box cars, moving west to look for work…always hoping to better their lives. Songs helped tell their stories and help relieve the pressures of life’s challenges.
In this wonderful production, a group called the Lonesome Traveler folds and unfolds on itself, portraying the different periods of folk music and the bards who led the songs. The narrator, a brilliant Justin Flagg playing guitar, banjo and stand-up bass, portrays the music of Pete Seeger, Dave Guard, Peter Yarrow and others. This is the style of the show. Whether singing as Woody Guthrie or Joan Baez, they are all extremely accomplished performers who bring the different periods of musical history alive.
We learn a little bit about the lives of each of these singers and writers, and what inspired them to write what they did, some literally lifting old songs that were long part of musical history and updating them for the time. The audience is encouraged to join in, and This Land is Your Land started the ball rolling.
The video projections help convey the different periods, from dust bowls to mountain shacks to the March on Selma. We see how the tunes corresponded to our lives, from union busting, Talkin’ Union, to Hitler and Pete Seeger’s, Last Night I had the Strangest Dream.
Two of my favorites were represented, Judy Collins and Joan Baez, but I missed hearing “Joanie Mitchell” sing Big Yellow Taxi’s folk rock anthem to gentrification.
By the second half, tears stared to flow. Ian and Sylvia’s beautiful tune Someday Soon was like stepping into a time machine. “The Kingston Trio” sang Where Have All the Flowers Gone, so poignant after all these years of lost lives in the Middle East and other wars.
Lonesome Traveler is the kind of show that should play college campuses and music schools and certainly PBS. It is an oral history of our country…with music. As the performers are all so great, I will mention them by name: Matty Charles, Sylvie Davidson, Jamie Drake, Justin Flagg, Sam Gelfer, Anthony Manough, Nicholas Mongiardo-Cooper, Jennifer Leigh Warren and Trevor Wheetman. The show is directed by its writer, James O’Neil, with Trevor Wheetman as musical director. Mr. Wheetman’s bio sweetly gives thanks for the job which also led to meeting his now fiancé, musician Syvlie Davidson. Ah, the power of music.
Lonesome Traveler runs till April 19th @ 59E59 Theatres.
Danny Schecter, You Told Me So
Like the rest of Danny Schecter’s admirers, I was shocked and saddened to hear he died. It seems that my whole relationship with this mighty thinker was about unfinished business.
When my film on Abbie Hoffman, <em>My Dinner With Abbie,</em> played up in Boston, Danny the News Dissector was the MC at the theater. Unfortunately, I wasn’t at the screening but heard from friends in attendance that Danny made a joke that I was too busy to be there. Well, the truth was I didn’t have the fare…not something an up and coming filmmaker likes to admit, but Danny didn’t know that, so I always thought he had a grudge against me.
Years later when he was living in New York, we reached a sort of detente. He understood that I was a softy in comparison to his political acumen and that I was mostly always broke and mostly always told the truth. I was so glad he was now on my side and introduced him to my partner Howard Katzman, who was swept up in Danny’s South Africa world… a sweep that forever changed Howard’s life for the good.
Danny and I had dinner a few times and saw a couple of films, but our tracks more recently collided when I found myself way over my head in the Fabrice Tourre computer mix up. I, by some ill luck, owned the Goldman Sachs’ brilliant prodigy and sniper’s trashed laptop and had spent over a year trying to figure out how to do DIY interpol work from my east village hovel. I was ill suited for the tension and when I finally presented the case to Danny, he wanted to run with it. He took my personal comedy tale of computer confusion and placed it inside his own storyline. It was great, but I got chicken shit, not having lawyers at my disposal and insisted on waiting before going public.
When I did, it was with the New York Times who got a front page story out of it but left me high and dry and feeling pretty stupid. Danny tried hard not to do a ” I told you so”, but he had and I hadn’t listened.
I will miss his spark on the planet and his clear eyed gaze into what’s wrong with the world. That he died near the solar eclipse is poignant… two forces of nature at a cosmic meet-up.
I promise to stay open to his communication skills pushing through the fourth wall of my dreamscape and will not only listen this time, but report the findings. RIP Danny Boy.
Women’s Rights are Human Rights and Why is that So Hard to Figure?
The Conference on the Status of Women, 20 years since Beijing, is both great and awful. It’s great because it brings strong and vital women from all corners of the globe to learn, research and share information on the status of women worldwide. It is bad because a great deal of the information is heartbreaking.
Forget the paucity of female leaders in the world… Before colonialism, there were many more female heads of community and tribe. But that all changed when patriarchy dug its boots in and as we all know, even the US still hasn’t had a female head of state.
What is more disturbing to me than the economic imbalance (which of course, ultimately affects everything else) is the continuing level of violence against women. In so called civilized world, human trafficking is a huge business…it is organized crime and women for the most part are its more constant victims. I think I know good and sane men, but there are plenty of men in the world who wouldn’t think twice about the background of a girl they hire for casual sex…what got her into the spot in the first place, who is controlling her money and her life, and what of the truth that she actually hates having sex with him. This is possibly too much for a John to consider. After all, the world has been much more his oyster than it has women’s and the imbalance of power is quite a hard thing first to face, and secondly to give up.
That there are thirteen year old girls who are being trafficked is deplorable. These young girls are so young they can’t even get a hotel room. They are everyone’s daughter, niece and sister…truths that are forgotten in the heat of sexual commerce.
On the plus side of trafficking, there are organizations like the Jewish Coalition to end Human Trafficking among others, who work diligently to help the victims and global organizations ready to prosecute the perpetrators of this form of modern slavery. And there are other aspects of the organizations like Caravan Studios that work on giving the victims a chance to heal from the trauma.
Another infuriating topic is elder abuse. This subject interested me because I once made a film about Celtic witches. It was about the state of mind of witches, both men and women when they are thinking magically and the history of witches in England. But many elders in Papua New Guinea, and Africa and India, are accused of being witches, because they are old, disabled, or without family protection. These are innocent women who are being tortured today. They are being blamed for a huge assortment of community maladies – a family without a son, bad economic times, etc. the ancient role of sacrifice has never finished. Children who are a little different are also the scapegoat for the troubles of others and are tortured in ways too offensive to describe here. These are human right issues. It is the women who are pointing them out because it’s mostly women and children who suffer.
In India, where so much violence against women has been recorded in the last year, the rate of witch calling and torturing of poor, rural women is growing daily. How much work must be done to get the police and authorities, first to care and secondly to do something?
When I leave these events, I’m exhausted. Tired from the horrific tales of global truths that are shocking –and incredibly unjust. And tired from the energy it takes to not think about them all the time. But I do try and remember that at least these truths have shown up in New York City 2015 and that the first step in eradicating the problems is recognition. And that women, despite all the travails of sexism are ultimately unbroken and more courageous than any sniper. And that there are even a few good men in attendance. Still, I won’t sleep well tonight or for a long while after.
notjustaboutsex 