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      In ‘Yuletide Factory,’ Cirque Mechanics Manufactures a Family Holiday Show

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      It’s Christmas at the sweatshop, but the mood fluctuates between ho ho ho and ho hum.Since the 1840s, some people have complained about the commercialization of Christmas. Others have embraced it. “Yuletide Factory,” a circus show at the New Victory Theater, splits the difference, locating its cheer inside a sweatshop churning out seasonal doodads. Nothing says Christmas like a repetitive stress injury?Cirque Mechanics, a troupe with a giddy steampunk aesthetic, has produced five previous shows at the New Victory. This wordless entertainment is an adaptation, not especially inspired, of its first, “Birdhouse Factory (2008).” The holiday version, conceived by the Cirque Mechanics creative director, Chris Lashua, stages its circus acts on and around the factory floor — and the ceiling and occasionally a back wall. While the performers are all indisputably on the nice list, there’s a certain lack of spirit to the show, Christmas or otherwise. The mood fluctuates between ho ho ho and ho hum.In the first act, the workers arrive at a Depression Era plant. They’re an exuberant bunch, especially Chase Culp’s shambling clown. But their somber boss (Steven Ragatz, also a writer and a co-director) quashes any holiday revelry. (This is the 1930s, which means that human resources departments that can address religious discrimination haven’t been invented yet.) Still, the employees sneak in a rope act (Jeremy Cifonie and Erika Radcliffe) and a contortionist routine (Mariama Kouyate). And the boss might not be such a killjoy after all. In a sweet sequence — and the rare circus act that kids absolutely should try at home — he juggles several balls and then his own hat, briefcase and cane. Alas, juggling skills don’t guarantee solvency and the factory goes under, which allows for an intermission.Still, this is a circus, so bankruptcy doesn’t last long. In the second act the clown has bailed out the factory (too flexible to fail?) and the unusually nimble workers can now celebrate without fear of management reprisal. Some of the subsequent routines too closely echo the ones in the first act, though there is a delightful German wheel number (Cifione again), the only sequence that meaningfully exploits the eclectic machinery that Cirque Mechanics is known for.Apparently it’s hard to be the boss. There are a couple of entr’actes in which the clown, teased by his former supervisor, inclines toward the Grinchy. If this sophisticated critique of the corrupting power of capitalism goes over the heads of some of the New Victory’s littler attendees, they may yet intuit that seizing the means of production is even better with a few back handsprings.Jeremy Cifonie, on the German wheel, in the Cirque Mechanics’ production.Maike SchulzWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Review: ‘We Are Your Robots,’ Still Tuning Up

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      In Ethan Lipton’s musings on A.I., Mozart has a place alongside humpback whales.Are they not men? The members of the onstage combo in Ethan Lipton’s new show are, in fact, robots, despite looking like middle-aged male representatives of the human species. They may play tunes for the benefit of the audience members, but their main purpose, Lipton informs us, is to find out “what you want from your machines, so we can make your lives better.” (Lipton narrates the show and performs lead vocals.) The purpose of the evening, it appears, is for these sophisticated high-tech creatures in gray suits to undergo deep learning.And as the title “We Are Your Robots” implies, our humble servants are respectful of boundaries. “I know, for example, that it is illegal for a robot to tell a human being what to do with their own body,” Lipton says. “Because only other humans are allowed to do that.”That line is sneakily effective because Lipton’s wry delivery and hangdog mien have a way of softening blows and prompting double takes. The agreeable, light-on-their feet songs, have a similar effect, lulling us into the kind of complacent comfort that tech companies gamble on. But taken as a whole, the show, which is directed by Leigh Silverman, feels stifled by slightly monotonous whimsy.Produced by Theater for a New Audience and Rattlestick Theater, “We Are Your Robots,” which just opened at Polonsky Shakespeare Center, is described as a musical. But it is closer to a loosely articulated song cycle that feels like a souped-up evening at Joe’s Pub.Over the past couple of decades, Lipton has carved an idiosyncratic niche of one in the New York theatrical ecosystem with such shows as “No Place to Go” and “The Outer Space.” He is at his best with a firmer narrative structure, as in the zany western “Tumacho,” which had the tough luck of reopening in March 2020 after a short earlier run.“We Are Your Robots,” on the other hand, is held together not so much by its theme as by its retrofuturist space-age aesthetic; a clean-cut art pop redolent of They Might Be Giants and David Byrne’s literate, faux-naïf sensibilities; and Lipton’s turn as a ham-on-wry narrator. (Lee Jellinek did the set, dominated by a stylized visual that recalls both a face and a cassette tape; Alejo Vietti conceived the costumes; Nevin Steinberg handled the sound design.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Emma Corrin and Maggie Nelson on the Strength in Vulnerability

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      Admiration Society brings together two creative people from two different fields for one wide-ranging conversation.Emma Corrin first encountered Maggie Nelson’s work three summers ago, when the actor was in Brighton, England, filming 2022’s “My Policeman,” a British drama about postwar sexual repression. At the time, Corrin, now 28, was grappling with their gender identity, and a friend recommended “The Argonauts” (2015), Nelson’s memoir about queer desire and making a family with her partner, the artist Harry Dodge. The book appealed so deeply to Corrin that, when that production ended, they decided to remain at the flat they’d rented during filming to finish reading it.Nelson, 51, was born in Northern California and moved in the 1990s to New York, where she worked as a waitress, trained as a dancer and took workshops with the poet Eileen Myles before getting her Ph.D. in English at the City University of New York. In addition to “The Argonauts,” Nelson, who’s now based in Los Angeles, is the author of “Bluets” (2009), a meditation on love and loss in the form of a treatise on the color blue; “Like Love” (2024), her latest collection of essays and conversations; and eight other books that include scholarly criticism, autobiography, true crime and poetry.Corrin’s career has also spanned genres. After earning a degree in education, English and drama at the University of Cambridge, the London-based actor gained sudden acclaim as Princess Diana on “The Crown” in 2020, and then went on to star in the historical romance “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” (2022), the psychological thriller “A Murder at the End of the World” (2023) and in the 2022 stage adaptation of “Orlando: A Biography,” Virginia Woolf’s 1928 novel. Once billed as an ingénue, Corrin brings a fierce physicality to their roles, the next of which will be in Robert Eggers’s gothic horror film “Nosferatu,” an update of the vampire classic that will be released next month.For Corrin, who recently wrote a screenplay with a friend, Nelson’s work remains a touchstone. After wrapping “A Murder at the End of the World,” the co-creator Zal Batmanglij presented the actor with a copy of “The Red Parts,” Nelson’s 2007 memoir of following a murder trial. Earlier this year, Corrin saw the playwright Margaret Perry’s adaptation of “Bluets,” starring Emma D’Arcy, Kayla Meikle and Ben Whishaw, in London. It was the first time that Nelson’s work had been performed onstage.This past summer, Corrin, who was in Los Angeles to promote their turn in “Deadpool & Wolverine,” met Nelson for the first time in a Hollywood photography studio, where the actor and the writer discussed vulnerability, the dangers of self-editing for social media and the pleasure of bringing a sense of play to their work.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Wicked’ and the Merchandising Juggernaut That Eclipses ‘Barbie’

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      The new movie’s tie-ins are the logical endpoint for a Broadway show that always intended to be huge. The “Wicked” product line ranges from Mattel versions of Glinda and Elphaba, far left, to tumblers and Crocs, all sticking to the green-and-pink color scheme of the show and film.Mattel; Stanley; CrocsIt started with the dolls.As a longtime fan of “Wicked” who grew up collecting Barbies, I was immediately intrigued by the Mattel creations resembling Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo in the movie version of the Broadway musical. They were perfectly rendered in likeness and even sang snippets of “Popular” and “Defying Gravity.” I’ll admit, I coveted them.But that was just the beginning of the “Wicked” merchandise. Soon my Instagram and X feeds were inundated with pink and green collaborations. Some made sense in the context of both the movie and the stars. Why, of course Grande’s R.E.M. Beauty brand would feature a line of “Wicked”-inspired goods. She might as well promote both her performance and her entrepreneurial venture at the same time.Other “Wicked” products ranged from the functional to the positively ridiculous, but they all contributed to the sense that “Wicked” was absolutely everywhere, making it perhaps one of the most marketed movies in recent memory, surpassing even the hot pink inundation of “Barbie” last year.I discovered many of these via the X account Wicked News Hub, which posts every tiny update about the film and its promotional path. It is run by a lawyer in Manchester, England, who started it out of a love of all things Grande. (He asked to keep the identity behind the account private.) “Although I expected a lot of collaborations, from tracking ‘Wicked’ news over the years, even I was surprised by the incredible amount of collaborations and goodies,” he wrote in an email.There are “Wicked” versions of the TikTok-popular Stanley Cups, which according to some reports caused pandemonium when they were released in Target. They seem like your standard drinking vessel, but the film promotion capitalized on the fervor. There are “Wicked”-themed Crocs. (The Glinda ones have heels.) There are “Wicked” clothing lines for the Gap, H&M, Bloomingdale’s and Forever 21. You can buy “Wicked” Legos and “Wicked” Monopoly. There are even “Wicked” hair dryers. (The Mattel dolls weathered a minor controversy when the packaging accidentally bore the URL for a porn site, not the movie.)Starbucks has an enormous “Wicked” line that includes bedazzled tumblers and two themed drinks: Glinda’s Pink Potion and Elphaba’s Cold Brew. While getting a boring plain latte, I sampled the Elphaba, assuming the Glinda would hurt my teeth. It was minty.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Blue Man Group to End New York Run After Three Decades Off Broadway

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      The troupe is also closing its Chicago company, but continues to perform in Berlin, Boston, Las Vegas and, soon, Orlando.Blue Man Group, the wordless theatrical troupe of drum-beating, paint-splattering, bald blue performers, will end its run in New York on Feb. 2, more than three decades and 17,000 performances after it began.The troupe, which started as experimental street theater and is now a subsidiary of the global circus behemoth Cirque du Soleil, will also end its Chicago run on Jan. 5.But the show will continue to run elsewhere, with long-running companies in Berlin, Boston and Las Vegas, and a forthcoming run in Orlando, where it is scheduled to reopen next spring after a four-year closure prompted by the coronavirus pandemic. There have also been touring productions.The end of the New York production was announced in a news release by Jack Kenn, the company’s managing director; the release did not say why the show was closing, and a spokeswoman for the company declined to provide any further information.The closing at Astor Place Theater in Lower Manhattan comes at a challenging time for theater, as production costs are higher, and audience sizes generally lower, than before the pandemic.Blue Man Group, which began performing at Astor Place in 1991, will conclude its New York run two years after the end of “Stomp,” another wordless, percussion-heavy show that had been an Off Broadway staple since 1994. And “Sleep No More,” an immersive riff on Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” that opened in 2011, says its final performance will be Jan. 5. (It has previously postponed closing dates several times.)Off Broadway has been a mixed bag since the 2020 shutdowns — many nonprofits are struggling, staging fewer shows and employing smaller casts than before. But in the commercial Off Broadway arena, there has been a rebound, as a number of shows have found ways to break through and succeed.Some producers now believe that limited run shows have better odds of success, because consumers are more motivated to buy tickets when they know it’s now or never.A new generation of long-running Off Broadway shows has arrived, although generally not with the longevity of Blue Man Group. A few examples: “The Play That Goes Wrong” transferred from Broadway to New World Stages in 2019 and is still running there; a revival of “Little Shop of Horrors” has been running at Westside Theater, also since 2019; and “Titaníque,” now at the Daryl Roth Theater, has been running Off Broadway since 2022. More

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      Stratford-Upon-Lake-Michigan: Royal Shakespeare Company Plays Chicago

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      The Royal Shakespeare Company, which keeps the plays of William Shakespeare alive in the town of his birth, was long a regular presence in the United States. It brought Ian McKellen to Brooklyn as King Lear, built a replica of its main theater in an Upper East Side drill hall and sent a stream of shows to Broadway.But in recent years the renowned troupe has taken fewer overseas trips from its home in Stratford-upon-Avon, England.Now, for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic, the company has returned to the United States — but not to New York, where some of the main importers of European work remain diminished and disoriented. It has struck up a partnership with Chicago Shakespeare Theater, which is led by Edward Hall, whose ties to the Royal Shakespeare Company run unusually deep: His father, Peter Hall, the eminent British director, founded it.“My love of Shakespeare grew up from my father talking to me about Shakespeare, and why he was passionate about Shakespeare, and why he thought Shakespeare endured, and quoting Shakespeare,” he said. “I watched him work a bit, and then, like every child, you go off into a corner and find your own way, which is what I did.”His earliest memory of Shakespeare is watching “The Wars of the Roses,” directed by his father, when he was 4 or 5, and “seeing a lot of people in armor with very exciting-looking weapons.”Edward Hall, the artistic director of Chicago Shakespeare Theater, is the son of Peter Hall, the founder of the R.S.C. He’s also the human for a dog named Dennis.Lyndon French for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      6 Minutes. 62 People. 1 Epic ‘Sunset Boulevard’ Sequence.

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      A group of young men and women, all dressed in black, marches down a busy street in the heart of Times Square. Walking in formation, they dodge parked cars, bicycles and pedestrians, as the man leading them belts out a song.“Sunset Boulevard, ruthless boulevard / Destination for the stony-hearted.”This ambitious scene from the director Jamie Lloyd’s Broadway revival of “Sunset Boulevard” hinges on a live tracking sequence that goes backstage and spills onto West 44th Street. It’s shown in real time on a massive LCD screen to the audience inside the St. James Theater, but passers-by — both unsuspecting and calculating — get a front-row view, at least during the number’s three-minute outdoor portion.“We’re sort of crossing our fingers a bit every night,” said Nathan Amzi, who designed the scene with Joe Ransom and Lloyd. Everyone, he added, “has to have laser focus to make it work.”Through rain, bone-chilling temperatures and the crush of crowds from neighboring shows, this scene, which takes 62 people to pull off, goes on.The title song, “Sunset Boulevard,” which is sung by the hapless young screenwriter Joe Gillis (played by Tom Francis), functions as a sort of dream sequence in the musical. The character contemplates the circumstances that led him to take up residence at a Los Angeles mansion as the boy toy of the faded silent film star Norma Desmond — and tries to justify them.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘The Blood Quilt’ Review: An Elaborate Tapestry

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      Katori Hall’s new play about sisters gathering after their mother’s death features standout performances but an overabundance of themes.Quilting is about more than just fabric and stitches; it’s about blood, love, memory and trauma. That’s the premise at the center of Katori Hall’s “The Blood Quilt” at Lincoln Center, about four sisters gathering to complete a quilt three weeks after their mother’s death. The play itself a beautiful patchwork of themes and ideas that feel packed to the seams.It’s the first weekend of May, which means it’s time for the Jernigan sisters to convene at their family home at Kwemera, an island off the coast of Georgia where the Jernigan clan have lived for generations. But Kwemera isn’t what it used to be, and more change is imminent; there are plans for a bridge that will connect the mainland to the island, which means locals are being bought out by developers. Still, Clementine (Crystal Dickinson, with perfect gravitas), the eldest sister, remains staunchly a Kwemera woman, having lived her whole life there, where she nursed their mother in the last years of her illness.Clementine is the fierce guardian of family traditions, including the annual quilting ritual, so Gio (a riotous Adrienne C. Moore), the heavy drinking second oldest, has reported for duty, as has Cassan (Susan Kelechi Watson, perfectly demure), who has brought her teenage daughter Zambia (Mirirai) for her first quilting circle. And there’s an unexpected guest — Amber (Lauren E. Banks), the youngest, who’s a successful entertainment lawyer in California and has been absent for the last few years.Quilting is a days long project, with each sister assigned her own separate duties. But the quilt isn’t the only reason for this reunion: there’s the matter of their inheritance, if any, and the financial loose ends remaining after their mother’s death. The money issues stir up the women, but it’s their contrary, complicated and self-contradictory ways of grieving, along with their long-held grudges against one another, that truly unleashes the storm of drama inside the home.The world of “The Blood Quilt,” which opened Thursday, is inviting: Hall’s characters are fully formed and clearly motivated, the family’s history is rich and Kwemera feels alive, in part thanks to the eclectic homespun set design by Adam Rigg. Quilts are draped everywhere in this tiny cabin, which is so close to the water that the front of the stage drops off into a grassy basin.Hall, who won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play “The Hot Wing King,” uses the same level of artistry and meticulousness in crafting a metaphor that the sisters do in crafting their quilts. Their roles and quilting preferences mirror their places within the family. Zambia, caught in the messy adolescent process of defining her identity, takes the role of stitching the centerpiece — an apt, if heavy-handed, representation of a younger generation taking the baton in a family tradition. And the quilts themselves embody memories and even a bit of magic. A Jernigan story about a family matriarch who gave a quilt square away to each of her children sold off to slavery isn’t just emotionally resonant; it proves that these quilts are literal scraps of history.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More