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      Gabriel Byrne’s ‘Walking With Ghosts’ Is Heading to Broadway

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      The play, adapted from his memoir of the same name, will run for 75 performances starting in October.To Gabriel Byrne, his play “Walking With Ghosts,” adapted from his memoir of the same name, doesn’t refer to haunting phantoms but the lost people and places that we carry within us.“Who we are now is the result of what we were,” Byrne said in a video interview.In this autobiographical solo show, he tackles identity as an immigrant separated from his Irish homeland, along with memories of love and failure as people age. The play, directed by Lonny Price, will begin performances in October on Broadway at the Music Box Theater.The show premiered in January at the Gaiety Theater in Dublin and will continue from Sept. 7 to Sept. 16 in London’s Apollo Theater before it begins 75 performances in New York.Byrne described the feeling of returning to the New York City stage as a soup of nerves and excitement. As both a writer of and performer in the show, he said he wants the message surrounding the human experience to be and feel universal.He makes reference to what it means to be an immigrant and to be home.“As soon as you leave your place of belonging, in a strange way, you don’t belong anywhere else,” Byrne said.Although Byrne lives in Rockport, Maine, he grew up outside Dublin, in Walkinstown, the oldest of six. He left Ireland at age 11 to enroll in a Catholic seminary in England, but renounced his faith after he said he was sexually abused by a priest.He later joined an acting troupe in college. Byrne was most recently on the New York City stage as James Tyrone in “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” in 2016. He played a survivor in a BBC adaptation of H.G. Wells’s “War of the Worlds” in 2019.Lonny Price first directed Byrne in the New York Philharmonic’s “Camelot” in 2008. Impressed with Byrne’s performance, Price, who directed “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill” and “Sunset Boulevard,” said he was thrilled to work alongside Byrne again, as the actor embodies the friends, teachers, religious figures and family members that influenced his life.“I think the play has a kind of healing quality to it where people look at their own lives and find peace,” Price said.Byrne said that in the play, he aims to provoke the audience into thinking about their lives, their parents and their decisions.“My own belief is that every single person has an extraordinary story to tell and what I’ve done is I’ve put mine down, not because I want people to think or look at my life,” he said. “I want people to look at their own.” More

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      Interview: What Should We Wear for The King of Nothing?

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      Ben Glasstone on Monstro Theatre’s The King of Nothing

      This autumn, Monstro Theatre present The King of Nothing at the Little Angel Theatre. Promising musical madness and puppets aplenty, this is a reimagined version of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Emperor’s New Clothes; a popular story, often staged – but perhaps not like this. We donned our finest outfit to chat with Artistic Director Ben Glasstone to find out why this production is somewhat different from all the rest.

      Ben, there have been a billion trillion versions of The Emperor’s New Clothes over the years, but I suspect that Monstro’s will be somewhat distinctive. It’s a puppet musical version of the classic story to start with, so not a stuffy morality tale as we might sometimes see it?

      It’s a long way from stuffy! Yes, it’s full of rollicking songs, clowning and lovably daft puppets, so that helps. But also, any ‘morality tale’ that’s survived as long as this one is bound to have a lot more to it than a simple lesson-to-be-preached. As I discovered years ago when adapting various Aesop’s fables to make Monstro’s first co-production The Mouse Queen, what might seem to be a story with a moral often turns out to be a lot more complex and ambiguous than that…

      Our version of Hans Christian Andersen’s tale explores the way the story seems to have two, quite opposed, protagonists: there is the King, who is vain and neglectful of his subjects and has a journey to go on, as he is literally exposed and must somehow brazen it out and (we hope) take his responsibilities more seriously; then there are the Swindlers, who, on the face of it are total scoundrels – but then don’t we all love a scoundrel…? We have made the whole show into a kind of game with the audience where the two Swindlers are constantly making us question what is true and who is in charge of telling the story.  There’s also an upstart puppet mouse who, to the surprise of the main characters, takes it upon herself to be the narrator of the story.  

      What kind of puppets do you use in the show?

      As the story moves rapidly between characters and is told by two performers, the puppets need to be simple enough to be operated by a single puppeteer. To keep a variety and playfulness within that constraint, we have given different puppets different qualities in terms of their movement and construction, depending on their different characters and roles. So, for example, there is a Courtier with the title of Keeper of the Royal Trousers, whose main feature is her legs – it’s a type of glove puppet where the fingers are placed in the legs, which can then cross and uncross and flick around expressively. Another character has a muppet-like lip-synching style with a hand in the mouth, and makes use of a performer’s real hand as its hand – creating a very pleasing illusion.

      The great thing about puppetry is that it is so far from the literal, that you can mix scales and styles at will, and no-one is going to say “you’re breaking the rules”. Or if they are: bring it on, I say.

      How about the music and songs? Have you devised them yourselves?

      Song-writing is my bread-and-butter. As well as the Puppet Musicals I’ve written with Monstro, Little Angel, Polka etc I write actual human-sized musicals and I also do a lot of song-writing teaching. So I wrote the songs, because no-one else was going to.

      Tell us a bit about the performers. What skills do they bring to the stage?

      Gilbert Taylor and Karina Garnett are highly skilled puppeteers but are both also wonderful improvisers and clowns, which is exactly what this particular show needed. And, of course, they can sing. And play the ukulele. It does take a very particular sort of multi-skilled performer to be able to deliver a show like this.

      We reviewed director Steve Tiplady (who’s practically puppetry royalty!) at Little Angel earlier this year in his hilarious version of Pinocchio: can we expect to enjoy some of his bonkers audience engagement?

      Absolutely! I’ve been working with Steve on shows for nearly 20 years now and have been very much influenced by his sense of humour, inventive approaches and total lack of shame!

      Steve was very much in mind when I first had the idea for this show: I remember telling him: “imagine a puppet version of The Emperor’s New Clothes, with NO puppets! Instead, the swindler-performers keep telling the audience there are puppets and the audience believes them!”  I knew he would share my enthusiasm for this preposterous idea and it’s been a delight to go on this journey with him.  (Spoiler alert: there ARE actual puppets in the show, but we have gone to town on playing with this idea of the Performers-as-Swindlers-Fooling-the Audience….as you will see when you come to the show!)

      The King of Nothing is targeted at ages 5-11, but you’re known for productions with very universal appeal, enjoyable both for children and their adults as well: is this going to be a fun day out for the whole family?

      Is the Pope a Catholic? Is there dog poo on the streets of London? Of course it’s going to be a fun day out for the whole family! Monstro Theatre’s whole philosophy is about making shows that appeal regardless of age. Making shows that work for children requires a discipline in story-telling that a lot of grown-up shows could do well to learn. And once you know how to tell a story with humour and energy and keep the kids engaged, the world is your oyster: you can pack in all the wit and sophistication and thoughtfulness you want.

      Some of it will go over the kids’ heads, but the great thing to me is: we can’t really know what they will understand or not understand or question or think about in the future. We have all forgotten what it is to be a child and what thrills me is to put a piece of work in front of a young audience and let their wild imaginations transform it in ways we can never fathom. Sure there’s a 5-11 tag on the show, but to me theatre is social and to be enjoyed in the most inter-generational and multi-layered spirit.

      Thanks so much to Ben Glasstone for taking the time to chat with us. You can enjoy The King of Nothing at the Little Angel Theatre from 24 September until 20 November 2022.

      Further information and tickets can be found here. More

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      Interview: Where Next For Wolf?

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      Cameron Corcoran on taking Wolf to Camden Fringe 2022

      Normally here at ET Towers we tend to do interviews before a show starts its run. We like to have a chat with some of the people involved and we hope you like the results. But this time we have something a little different. We reviewed Wolf at Camden Fringe and by chance exchanged a couple of emails with author Cameron Corcoran afterwards. Out of this we thought it might be interesting to talk with him after Wolf had finished its short run for a slightly different perspective than usual.

      First, let’s talk Wolf, how would you describe it and what can audiences expect?

      Wolf is a play about domestic and sexual abuse; it considers the more realistic likelihood of these crimes: that they’re committed in the home and it is often the father and not some imagined stranger. I think audiences can expect to feel uncomfortable and also reflect on our ideas of abuse and how complicit people can be/feel for their actions, whether it be ignoring it or acting against it.

      Wolf has finished its short Camden Fringe run, how do you think it went? Did anything surprise you about the audience reception?

      Given that we only performed it twice, I think it’s fair to say we were all gutted we couldn’t do it at least one more time – you discover things in the room that weren’t present in rehearsals and things also come across differently to a live audience, so it would have been nice to have a few more performances. I think we forgot just how uncomfortable and awful the situation in the story is: we’ve sat with this information for a while and as soon as we finished the first performance we noticed a quiet in the audience, which informed us just how dark the story is.

      As well as writing Wolf, you play the character of Sam. Did you write Sam with the intent to also take on the role or did that come later in the process?

      For me, I’m starting an MA in acting at Rose Bruford College in October and I wanted to do a play before I start so I could get back into the swing of things. I did always envision playing Sam because I knew it was really outside of my comfort zone as a performer, so felt it was the best experience before October. I felt I could do the role competently enough not to sabotage the other actors too, so it was very early into writing I knew I’d be playing Sam.

      Wolf is at times quite heavy, with a lot of tension early on. Our review mentions it’s the only show where it was so tense the reviewer didn’t end up taking a single note. When you are on stage with the lights on and the audience around, were you aware of this?

      That’s very kind of you to say and very humbling too. Our director (Naomi Wirthner) and assistant director (Polly Waldron) worked very hard to trim the fat on the script, to keep the tension high and sustained. The original script was an hour long but after cuts it was just 32 minutes. They’re both experts in creating tension so I can’t really take the credit for that. Certainly, I felt I had written a few lines, small little bits of humour that received a muted response from the audience. Maybe they weren’t funny, but it felt like the stakes in the scenes were far too serious for laughter. I felt that too, it all seemed very real and we could sense how engaged the audience were with what was happening in the scene.

      When you kindly invited us to see Wolf, you said you had invited some theatres along in the hope of finding a run for it. How is that process going, have you had any nibbles?

      I think with theatre nowadays it’s extremely difficult to get theatres to come and watch a play. I often get replies asking to provide them with a recorded version of the play, which doesn’t seem to add any further dialogue… It can be quite frustrating getting little feedback from theatres. I know there are lots of plays on and resources are limited, so it is a godsend to have Camden Fringe because otherwise it’s very difficult to get plays on, even for extremely limited runs. Nevertheless, we are toying with the idea of performing Wolf locally. I’ll have to let you know.

      Camden Fringe is over and we reviewed 38 productions: did you have a chance to see any other shows?

      Regrettably not this time! I think the cost of living is affecting everyone. We had liaised with a number of companies on social media; however, both sides were unable to attend each other’s plays. I think in these times the theatre industry does have to fight very hard to get an audience in. I’m not cynical, I’m sure things will get better – it just felt like a bit of a perfect storm to hinder access to watching theatre this summer.

      Finally, while I imagine your main focus is on Wolf at the moment, are you working on anything else? Might we see another piece of writing or acting from you or Off Main Stage in the near future?

      Notwithstanding a potential performance of Wolf locally, I’ve been under strict instructions to focus on the MA for the next 12 months. However, after a run of our play Mosquito at the Seven Dials Playhouse (a truly amazing venue), I have been writing a new play called Nook, which focuses on family relations, and I’d like to approach Seven Dials with the hope of putting the play on there. It does feel like my best work to date.

      Thanks to Cameron for taking the time to chat to us. We wish you the best of luck with the MA and with Wolf. We are also big fans of Seven Dials Playhouse and would love to see Nook make an appearance there down the line.

      You can keep up with Off Main Stage via their website and Twitter More

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      Review: A Faithful ‘Kinky Boots,’ With All Its Pizazz and Pitfalls

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      The Cyndi Lauper and Harvey Fierstein musical, in which the drag queen Lola saves a provincial shoe factory, makes an Off Broadway return at the spacious Stage 42.You can’t keep a drag queen down, at least not for long. It was only April 2019 that the Cyndi Lauper and Harvey Fierstein musical “Kinky Boots” closed on Broadway after a six-year run, and already it’s back in town. The Britain-set show, in which the statuesque performer Lola saves a provincial shoe factory by inspiring a line of toweringly outré footwear, is now running Off Broadway.But unlike the comebacks of shows such as “Jersey Boys” and “Rock of Ages,” which both reopened at the underground theatrical mall New World Stages, “Kinky Boots” is at the spacious Stage 42, which stands on 42nd Street and is large enough to accommodate a 25-person company and a minimally downsized version of the director Jerry Mitchell’s va-va-voom production.But enough about real estate: How is Lola?This, after all, is the role for which Billy Porter won a Tony in 2013, and it is a textbook Fierstein creation — bold and brassy, with big hair, bright nail polish and quick-fire quips barely concealing the scars of pain and rejection. There are expectations.Happily, Callum Francis, who has played the part in Britain, Australia and, briefly, on Broadway, meets them. He is a delight not just as Lola but as her alter ego, Simon — it is hard to tell who the real person is, what real means in this context and whether it even matters. Unlike Porter, whose physical intensity often came across as combative swagger, Francis moves with a dancer’s grace, and Lola’s confidence has a slinky playfulness that is especially fun to watch in her early scenes with Charlie (Christian Douglas, whose performance is a little stiff).Charlie is the earnest bloke trying to save his late father’s failing shoe company because the jobs of people he has known since he was a child depend on it. Lola provides him with life coaching and the idea that will eventually reinvent the business — to create and build “tubular sex,” that is, boots that are simultaneously strong and sexy. Both characters have complicated relationships with their fathers, and Lola shows not just Charlie but everyone onstage that there are many ways to be a man. That thread was also in the 2005 movie that inspired the musical, but here, the message feels super-Fiersteinian.Simon’s wounded vulnerability is never too far underneath the glitter and takes center stage in the 11 o’clock power ballad “Hold Me in Your Heart.” The reveal of that song’s context hit harder in the original production because we had seen a little more of Lola’s back story — the roles of Young Simon and Young Charlie have been cut here. More subtle are tiny tweaks such as Lola’s welcome greeting, which has been expanded to “Ladies, gentlemen, theys, them and those who have yet to make up their minds!”But, overall, the show looks and feels like a slightly sized-down photocopy of the original. Danielle Hope, for example, is very funny as Lauren, an employee at the factory, and her big solo, “The History of Wrong Guys,” is perfectly calibrated, but the rendition faithfully duplicates Annaleigh Ashford’s, who originated the role on Broadway. It looks as if Hope might be capable of coming up with her own shtick, and it would have been interesting to see the supporting cast receive a little more agency. But don’t worry, the conveyor belts still turn into treadmills for the exhilarating “Everybody Say Yeah” — a sterling example of Mitchell’s showmanship.Considering this faithfulness to the original template, it is not surprising that the story’s less successful moments remain, too. Among them are the slightly preachy tone as well as Charlie’s sudden dark turn. According to Fierstein’s recent memoir, “I Was Better Last Night,” the show took nearly five years to complete, so you have to wonder how nobody could find an hour to refine this temporary personality transplant. The book also suggests an intriguing line of thought when Fierstein writes that the number “What a Woman Wants” expresses Lola’s “daring sexuality — as a cross-dressing heterosexual male.” You will have to stare extra-hard and perhaps do a bit of projecting to see that onstage, where Lola essentially manifests as a magical being. “The sex is in the heel,” as one song proclaims, but it would have been nice to transfer some from the boot to the character.One seemingly big change that turns out not to matter is the shrinking of the band to half of its Broadway size. But here it is perfectly fine to go big on synthesizers because Lauper’s songs, packed with hooks, and Stephen Oremus’s sharp arrangements and orchestrations always made terrific use of electronics. This is the only score in recent Broadway history that sounds as if it were written by people who had set foot in a nightclub within the past 40 years, and the hi-NRG finale, “Raise You Up/Just Be,” sounds like it’s booming out of a float at a Pride parade. That’s a compliment, of course.Kinky BootsAt Stage 42, Manhattan; kinkybootsthemusical.com. Running time: 2 hours 25 minutes. More

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      In a Small Mountain Town, a Beloved Theater Company Prevails

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      CREEDE, Colo. — Last summer, I stumbled onto one of the most singular — and joyful — experiences of my life: a small community, high in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado, that has been sustaining a thriving professional theater company since 1966. And I did not even see the regular version of Creede Repertory Theater — because of the pandemic, it had put on a smaller season of down-to-basic productions on a makeshift outdoor stage.Not only were the people uncommonly nice and the shows good, but here was a place where theater was an integral part of the civic fabric. As soon as I left, I dreamed of returning.So there I was last month, on vacation. I wanted to introduce the region to my spouse, but I was also curious to see a normal season, done indoors and in repertory (meaning that the resident acting company alternates shows). And I was really looking forward to seeing Creede Rep’s reigning divas, Christy Brandt and Anne F. Butler, do “Steel Magnolias.” (Brandt’s first season was in 1973, and this is Butler’s 19th season.)John DiAntonio, the producing artistic director at Creede Rep, spoke of the additional expenses the company endured during a Covid-19 surge.Ramsay de Give for The New York Times“This company is founded on everybody working together,” said Kate Berry, the associate artistic director.Ramsay de Give for The New York TimesNestled in the San Juan Mountains of Southern Colorado, Creede is a former mining town whose residents decided to start a theater festival after falling on hard times in the 1960s.Ramsay de Give for The New York TimesWe came really close to that plan tanking.On July 18, I received an email from the theater informing me that all performances had been canceled because of a coronavirus outbreak. The shows would “return in full swing on Tuesday, July 26” — just two days before our arrival. Admittedly, my stress level was nothing compared to what those on the ground were experiencing.“I’m glad I’m not in charge,” Brandt said when I caught up with her in Creede. “Especially this summer.”Ironically, the very thing that has kept Creede Rep going for decades also helped fuel the Covid surge: “This company is founded on everybody working together,” Kate Berry, the associate artistic director, said. “This becomes your community and your friendship circle.”Berry and the producing artistic director, John DiAntonio, looked visibly weary when I met with them, maybe because they have had to solve one problem after another for months on end. Since some of the staff members live in shared accommodations, for example, isolating during the latest crisis was difficult. “The community really stepped up to help us in that regard,” DiAntonio said. “People went to guest rooms, apartment garage, hotels in South Fork,” he continued, referring to a town 25 minutes away. “Some of these were favors, but some were just additional expenses.”Anne F. Butler, left, with her dog Hercules, and Christy Brandt. The two actresses have been performing with the company for decades.Ramsay de Give for The New York TimesEventually the shows resumed, with a mask requirement for audience members. (Keep in mind that Creede draws many visitors from states like Texas and Oklahoma, where mandates don’t go over well.) Brandt said that one night, before “Steel Magnolias,” a couple of women had yelled, in her recollection, “We wouldn’t have come to this stupid theater if we’d known we were going to have to wear a mask!” They ended up staying for the show, but not before screaming out choice expletives in the restroom, making sure everybody heard.But they have been in the minority. DiAntonio pointed out that most audience members had gone along. “These are folks that maybe haven’t worn a mask much in the last year, or ever,” he said, “but they’re like, ‘I’ve seen a show every year for 35 years, you bet I’m going to see one with my family this trip, and I’ll wear a mask if I have to.”Lavour Addison in “Sherwood: The Adventures of Robin Hood.”Ramsay de Give for The New York TimesThe biggest casualty was Marco Ramirez’s boxing drama “The Royale,” which was supposed to hold its technical rehearsals during the temporary shutdown. Things became so logistically complicated that the show had to be pushed to the 2023 season.At least I was able to catch five performances during my three-night stay, a minimarathon not uncommon among Creede Rep’s patrons.John Gress, 59, and Gwen Farnsworth, 56, from Boulder, Colo., were in town in 2017 to hike the nearby San Luis Peak, when they stumbled onto an unexpected sight. “I was like, ‘Oh, my God, there’s a theater here. Let’s go!’” Farnsworth said. “And the play was so amazing. I immediately wanted to come back.” The couple’s return was delayed by the pandemic, but the pair made up for it by seeing four shows in a weekend; they even brought along Farnsworth’s 87-year-old mother and a 91-year-old friend.After a temporary shutdown because of a Covid-19 outbreak, the shows resumed with a mask requirement for audience members, which has mostly gone over well.Ramsay de Give for The New York TimesPacking one’s schedule is a great reminder of the joys of rep theater. I watched Brandt play half of a genteel couple battling their neighbors in the Karen Zacarías comedy “Native Gardens” at a matinee, then smoothly switch to the witty Clairee from “Steel Magnolias” that evening. Butler was also excellent as the perpetually cranky Ouiser in that show, but she truly killed as Prince John in Ken Ludwig’s rambunctious “Sherwood: The Adventures of Robin Hood,” in which she delivered one flamboyant comic flourish after another.In other signs of a halting return to normal, Creede Rep’s Headwaters New Play Festival is back in person (Aug. 26-28), and the hope is that the actors in the Young Audience Outreach program will perform unmasked, unlike last year. (The latter initiative is expected to bring an original bilingual musical to rural and historically neglected schools in at least seven states.)Where the old normal is not welcome anymore, however, is in some work practices. Like many other companies, Creede Rep is reconsidering the way it makes theater: The company now has a free child care program, and it is trying to shrink the workweek — a challenge in the demanding rep format, but one dear to DiAntonio.“Our vision statement is ‘CRT will be a haven for artistic excellence, belonging and intrinsic joy,’” he said. “It’s that mountain up there in the distance that we’re working toward.” More

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      At Salzburg Festival, Directing Slow and Fast

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      Thorsten Lensing takes years between shows; Ewelina Marciniak puts on several each season. Both theater makers are presenting new work in Austria.SALZBURG, Austria — The German director Thorsten Lensing has astonished and provoked for the past three decades, but he feels like one of theater’s best-kept secrets.In the fast-paced world of German theater, where hundreds of playhouses churn out productions by the dozen, Lensing develops his works gradually and in intensive collaboration with his actors and artistic team. His deliberate method makes him a rare practitioner of what might be called slow theater. A new Lensing staging is a big deal — and worth waiting for.“Crazy for Consolation,” which premiered this month at the Salzburg Festival, is only Lensing’s 16th production in 28 years. The previous one, in 2018, was a towering adaptation of David Foster Wallace’s epic novel “Infinite Jest”; before that he tackled works by Dostoyevsky, Chekhov and William Carlos Williams.Like “Infinite Jest,” “Crazy for Consolation” unfolds on a mostly empty stage. The four actors, all Lensing regulars, perform in front of, and on top of, a massive steel roller. With minimal props (a swinging rope, fizzing cans of beer, hundreds of walnuts raining down onto the stage), the play sketches a series of vignettes centered on the siblings Charlotte (Ursina Lardi) and Felix (Devid Striesow), who are orphaned at an early age and go through life processing (or failing to process) their trauma and grief.In the opening scene, sister and brother, aged 10 and 11, play their favorite game at the beach: pretending to be their dead parents. They kiss, lather each other with sun lotion and bark at their (imaginary) children not to swim too far out. A deep-sea diver (Sebastian Blomberg) surfaces and startles the children out of their fantasy world and into even stranger realms where books and dreams come to life. As the play’s narrative becomes increasingly surreal and fragmented, the actors inhabit a variety of roles, not all of them human.The production is full of unpredictable developments and arresting metamorphoses. The adult Felix, incapable of feeling pleasure or pain since his parents’ death, enters into a sexual relationship with an older man (André Jung) who tries to break through Felix’s protective shell. Charlotte, transformed into an octopus, confronts the deep-sea diver with a rancor-filled monologue about life as a cephalopod. What good are her nine brains and three hearts, she asks, when an octopus’s average life span is only four years?Ursina Lardi and Devid Striesow as unhappy siblings in “Crazy for Consolation.”Armin Smailovic/Salzburg FestivalIn this very talky play, Lensing and his actors tackle serious issues with a light touch. Even while examining grief and the craving for human connection, the production lands with ease, modesty and warmth. Throughout, the actors switch fluently between registers, from emotional rawness to slapstick to absurdist comedy, in performances that are closely observed, credible and moving.As a freelance director, Lensing works outside Germany’s subsidized theater system and relies on producing partners. “Crazy for Consolation” has no fewer than eight, including theaters and arts organizations in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Luxembourg. The show’s next stop, in late September, will be the Sophiensaele, in Berlin.The leisurely pace at which Lensing works is the main exception in the German theater landscape. It’s not unusual for in-demand theater makers to take on heavy workloads — and even the most gifted are likely to stumble from time to time.A contemporary update of“Iphigenia” at Salzburg caps an enormously productive year for the young Polish director Ewelina Marciniak. It’s a co-production with the Thalia Theater in Hamburg, where Marciniak has directed acclaimed adaptations of recent Polish novels, including the Nobel Prize winner Olga Tokarczuk’s “The Books of Jacob.” This year, Marciniak’s feminist deconstruction of Schiller’s “The Maid of Orleans” was invited to two of Germany’s most important theater festivals — Theatertreffen, in Berlin, and Radikal Jung, in Munich — and the director made her Deutsches Theater Berlin debut with a cheeky and energetic production of Goethe’s “Werther.”Yet I was disappointed that Marciniak’s Salzburg Festival debut lacked the freshness and verve of her earlier productions. The play, a reworking of Euripides and Goethe by the Polish writer Joanna Bednarczyk, strives to reinterpret the character of Iphigenia, whose father, the Greek king Agamemnon, sacrifices her to appease a vengeful goddess.In constructing her contemporary parable about victimhood, Bednarczyk draws on Soren Kierkegaard, the #MeToo movement and debates around cancel culture. The play’s excruciatingly long first half plays out as a dysfunctional family drama in which Iphigenia is a budding pianist in an intellectual household. She grows up surrounded by hotshots: her father, a professor of ethics who is about to publish his magnum opus; her mother, Clytemnestra, “the best actress in town”; and her uncle, Menelaus, “the best lawyer in town.” Her parents are dismissive of her boyfriend, the athletic Achilles, who is all muscle and no brains. And her aunt, Helen, is such a nymphomaniac that she needs to periodically be kept in isolation.“Iphigenia,” directed by Ewelina Marciniak. Krafft Angerer/Salzburger FestivalEarly in the production, Bednarczyk subjects us to a lengthy lecture drawn from Kierkegaard’s “Fear and Trembling” to establish the family’s intellectual credentials (and perhaps her own) and set up the play’s moral stakes. Shortly after, Agamemnon’s high-minded ethical ideas and his research into the psychology of perpetrators and victims are put to the test after Iphigenia makes a bombshell revelation: For the past decade, her uncle has been molesting her. Agamemnon insists on her silence to save face and protect his career.Agamemnon’s willingness to sweep the abuse under the rug should outrage, but Bednarczyk’s depiction of him as a spineless pseudo-intellectual makes it difficult to feel even a tremor of indignation. The father’s subsequent confrontation with Menelaus is so stilted and jumbled that it nearly derails the play. Only the scene where Clytemnestra counsels her daughter to grit her teeth and bear it is persuasive and sobering.The eight-person cast, drawn largely from the Thalia’s acting ensemble, is uniformly committed, but there’s only so much they can do with such weak dramatic material. The production’s final act, set 20 years later on an island where Iphigenia has fled, is full of poetic monologues and imagery, including a piano on fire in the middle of an onstage pool, but after slogging through the twisted soap opera of the first half, it’s difficult to focus on these scenes that seem to belong to a different production entirely.Part of what makes this “Iphigenia” so awkwardly unconvincing is that moral psychology is a poor substitute for the fury of the gods and the vicissitudes of fate. (Similar problems plagued Maja Zade’s recent version of “Oedipus” at the Schaubühne Berlin.) There have been more successful recent attempts to update the saga of the house of Atreus, the calamity-stricken clan at the center of “Iphigenia,” including a campy sitcom version, by Christopher Rüping, and Robert Icke’s straight-faced rewrite. For all their differences, though, neither of those stagings fully rejected the ancient Greek belief in deities who meddled in human affairs.It’s understandable that emerging directors like Marciniak want to make a splash by staging as many productions as they can each season, but maybe slowing down isn’t the worst thing in the world.Verrückt nach Trost. Directed by Thorsten Lensing. Sept. 30 through Oct. 9 at Sophiensaele Berlin.Iphigenia. Directed by Ewelina Marciniak. Salzburg Festival until Aug. 28; Sept. 22-25 at Thalia Theater Hamburg. More

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      With ‘As You Like It,’ Public Works Aims for a Reflection of Humanity

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      The musical adaptation, part of Free Shakespeare in the Park, is a remounting of an acclaimed production that had a short run in 2017.Eric Pierre, a pastor who teaches fifth-grade English in the Bronx, has taken up an additional title this summer: royal duke. At least that’s the role he’s playing onstage in the Public Works production of “As You Like It.”He’s one of dozens of community members, ages 7 to 81 and from all five boroughs, performing alongside several professional actors in the 90-minute musical adaptation of Shakespeare’s comedy. The show, now in previews, is set to open on Tuesday at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park.Pierre plays the cruel Duke Frederick, who banishes his brother, among others, to the Forest of Arden in this tale of camouflage, love and self discovery.The role was not a natural fit for Pierre, who described the difficulty of channeling his nefarious character and trying to identify the pain associated with his quest for power. “We all have a Duke Fred inside of us,” said Pierre, 49, who, through his Public Works performances, has been able to join Equity, the professional actors’ union.The show’s composer and lyricist Shaina Taub, center, also stars as Jaques.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThis production, a remounting of an acclaimed one that ran in 2017, is part of the Public Theater’s Public Works program, which has produced streamlined and musicalized versions of works — like “The Tempest” in 2013 and “Hercules” in 2019 — that feature amateur performers from eight partner groups, including the Fortune Society and Children’s Aid Society. These productions usually have a short run in September after the regular season of Shakespeare in the Park. But this one was scheduled to have a longer run during the summer of 2020, before being delayed by the pandemic. Now, it is finally onstage, through Sept. 11, as Public Works celebrates its 10th anniversary.Laurie Woolery, the director of the show and Public Works, called the diverse experiences and authenticity of the community cast members their secret sauce.“Theater is a reflection of humanity,” Woolery said, “and if we only reflect a portion of humanity, we aren’t doing our job as cultural workers and citizen artists. We need to be speaking to the world that we’re living in — and that includes everybody.”As the musical begins, families of twos and threes — made up of the community performers — walk on a stage filled with cherry blossom trees and a bridge illuminated by a violet-purple light. Shaina Taub, the show’s composer and lyricist, also appears onstage as an inquisitive yet cynical Jaques who provides a bird’s-eye view and additional context for audience members. As she sings “All the World’s a Stage,” her character contemplates the journeys of the young lovers Orlando and Rosalind (played by Ato Blankson-Wood and Rebecca Naomi Jones, well-known professional actors returning to the roles they played in the 2017 production) to their authentic selves as they shed their disguises.“A process of healing and growth is letting go of all those expectations of the role you’re supposed to play,” Taub said.Ato Blankson-Wood as Orlando, fighting a lion in the Forest of Arden.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe musical drives home themes of love and optimism, a message especially important amid social division, disease and unrest, Taub said.“Still, we’re going to get together and sing and dance on the stage of the Delacorte,” she added. “Still, we’re going to show up every day and tell the story and be kind to each other. It really feels like this beautiful act of resistance.”One of the other community performers, Lori Brown-Niang, who has also obtained an Equity card, has built a second family with Public Works over the last decade. She said she remembered feeling relieved when women from Domestic Workers United, a partner organization that uplifts and mobilizes domestic workers of color, watched over her young son, JonPaul Niang, as she rehearsed her speaking roles. In other instances, her son, whom she described as a “good mover,” worked with older cast members on the dance moves and continued rehearsals in their Bronx backyard.“Are we doing this?” Brown-Niang recalled having asked her son. “Yes, Mommy, we have to get used to singing and dancing outside.”In “As You Like It,” Brown-Niang and her son, now an 18-year-old Hostos Community College sophomore, are working together as puppeteers steering the head and front leg of a lion who challenges Orlando in the Forest of Arden.“It’s been a blessing to be able to raise my son, as a single mother, in this community,” she said.Nestor Eversley joined Public Works this year as a member of the Fortune Society, a partner organization that helps the formerly incarcerated re-enter society. Eversley, who was incarcerated for 17 years, became interested in the Public Works program after watching its 2019 production of “Hercules” and said he wondered what it would feel like to step onstage. (He admits underestimating the time commitment for rehearsals.)“In the streets, you have to be defensive, watch your back, all that kind of stuff,” Eversley said. “Here, it’s a different world.”In a pristine white suit, Eversley emerges as an older version of Orlando, marrying an older version of Rosalind. The two walk unified, showing off their defiant, timeless love, below a decorative arch.In the final number, the stage is bathed in a rainbow of colors, with cast members swaying while singing “Still I Will Love.” It’s a lively celebration and testament to the power of community strength and devotion.“Hopefully people leave the theater with their hearts a little more open,” Woolery said. More

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      This Season at La MaMa: Dance-Theater and a Puppet Rock Opera

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      The experimental theater company’s 2022-23 season will showcase a packed lineup under the theme “Remake a World.”For its 61st season, La MaMa Experimental Theater Club will present more than 40 productions from eight countries, including the in-person stage debut of a pandemic-era virtual play, several puppetry productions and a dance-theater-music work.“This artistic community is coming out of a time of huge limitation, of deep questioning,” said Mia Yoo, the artistic director of La MaMa. With “Remake a World” as its theme, she said, the season asks, “What are the paradigm shifts that will help us reimagine?”The 2022-23 offerings include the return of the acclaimed 2021 large-scale puppet production “Lunch With Sonia” (March 16-26), which Laura Collins-Hughes, a New York Times theater critic, called “achingly beautiful”; the U.S. premiere of “Radio 477!” (March 9-19), a Yara Arts Group production inspired by songs by the Ukrainian composer Yuliy Meitus and adapted from the 1979 revue “Hello, This is Radio 477!”; and “Last Gasp: Recalibration” (Oct. 13-30), a version of a piece that the theater duo Split Britches created and recorded on Zoom and premiered digitally in 2020, which will have its live stage debut at the Ellen Stewart Theater.Also on the lineup after pandemic postponements is the world premiere of Elizabeth Swados’s musical “The Beautiful Lady” (dates to be announced). Directed by Anne Bogart, the poetry-heavy piece is set in an artists’ cafe during the Russian Revolution.Come winter, John Kelly will present a new dance-theater work, “Underneath the Skin” (Dec. 1-18), about the fantastical life of Samuel Steward, a gay novelist and tattoo artist, combining movement with Steward’s words, tattoo designs and illustrations.The Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theater will present “The Conference of the Birds” (Feb. 2-19), a rock opera about humans yearning to fly, as part of La MaMa’s February Puppet Slam.“Broken Theater” (April 20-30), by Bobbi Jene Smith — formerly a member of Batsheva Dance Company — considers a performer’s dissolving boundaries when an audience leaves.And the original home of La MaMa, at 74A East Fourth Street, where a multiyear $24 million renovation is underway, will open temporarily on Nov. 10 for a gala. Until the reopening, all La MaMa performances will be staged at 66 East Fourth Street, in the Ellen Stewart Theater and the Downstairs Theater.Attendees are no longer required to show proof of vaccination; masks, however, are required. For more information, visit lamama.org. More