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      Review: In ‘Who Killed My Father,’ an Inquest and an Indictment

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      Édouard Louis grew up scorned by his family for being gay. Now he sees homophobia as part of the portfolio of “humiliation by the ruling class.”It’s natural to wish harm on those who do harm. When “something heavy” falls on Eddy Bellegueule’s father at the factory where he works, leaving his back “broyé, écrasé” — “mangled, crushed” — it may seem a kind of justice. The father has, after all, left his son in approximately the same condition: mangled by homophobia and crushed by unrequited love.Or at least that’s how I felt after reading the takedowns of toxic masculinity, and of the French provincial culture that produced it, in two memoirs by the boy who grew up to be Édouard Louis. “The End of Eddy” details his harrowing childhood in Hallencourt, a village about 100 miles north of Paris, where his father fumed at his son’s femininity, his schoolmates beat and used him sexually, and even his mother used a gay slur to mock him. In “History of Violence” we learn that the capital city, for all its sophistication, offered little shelter from the same forces; after picking up a man on Christmas Eve, Louis writes, he was robbed and raped.But a third memoir, “Who Killed My Father,” implicitly asks readers, and now playgoers, to rethink who’s responsible and reassign the blame. Published in 2018, this one argues that homophobia — like racism, misogyny, transphobia and “all kinds of social and political oppression” — is not a personal failing but a cultural norm enforced by the state. Less a narrative than an indictment, it also brings the receipts.I don’t know that the one-man stage adaptation of “Who Killed My Father” that opened on Sunday at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn — a production of Berlin’s Schaubühne and Théâtre de la Ville in Paris — will ultimately persuade you, though. Directed by Thomas Ostermeier, and featuring Louis himself, it is too eager to show off its avant-garde chic to maintain the prosecutorial force of the narrowly argumentative book.That makes for a strange brew, both riveting and soporific. First comes the soporific: When we enter the theater, Louis is already at a desk, uplit by a laptop, muttering as he types what is evidently this script. On a screen behind him, English translations of the French he speaks share space with grainy, moody imagery, often depicting a ride on an endless, misty highway.At first you may fear that the entire 90-minute play will resemble that ride, and if you saw Ostermeier’s excellent production of “History of Violence,” which St. Ann’s presented in 2019, you will recognize his bag of alienation tricks. Microphones, music, videography and random movement — Louis darts from the desk to two other areas of the stage as he recites — are used not merely to break the audience of lazy theatergoing expectations but also to delay gratification so that it’s richer when it arrives.Yet there’s something to be said for those lazy expectations, including a desire for pleasure even in unpleasant things. Ostermeier gives us tiny appetizers in the form of interstitial dance breaks, when Louis, between heady sections of text, dons a wig or pulls a skirt over his pants to lip-sync the songs he loved as a boy. If “My Heart Will Go On,” “ … Baby One More Time” and Aqua’s “Barbie Girl” once enraged his parents, they now signify a kind of liberation. And Louis makes a delightful Celine Dion.His father is granted no such liberation. After the accident, his life collapsed; unable to work, and yet forced to work anyway to maintain access to welfare, his health deteriorated drastically. By 2017, when the story is set, his heart “doesn’t want to beat anymore.” He is just past 50 and even speaking exhausts him.Louis occasionally curls up in a recliner, meant to represent his absent father.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesNot that we hear him speak, of course; this being a solo act, whatever the father says is refracted through the son — and again through the surtitles, if you’re not a Francophone. Indeed, one of the play’s cagey stratagems reduces the father further, to a piece of furniture: an empty recliner with a blue-check blanket, which Louis, now 29, occasionally talks to or curls up in. This representation of the longed-for parent is sweet but also somewhat creepy: He is deliberately kept out of the play.That was true of the book as well, but narration works differently onstage than in prose. In subsuming his father’s voice, Louis eliminates him. Is he, in effect, the killer of the title?In any case, it’s a complex Oedipal complex, and the play’s navel-gazing doesn’t help. Roughing it up with real instead of stagy difficulty eventually brings it to fuller life, as when Louis switches to English to tell us a story he says is too important not to share in the audience’s primary language. Whether because I simply understood him more directly, or because he, an otherwise indifferent actor, had to work harder to deliver the text, this passage was more thrilling than any that preceded it.Notably, the passage concerns vengeance. As we hear how young Eddy revealed a secret to his father that he’d sworn to his mother to keep forever — thus causing family havoc that delighted the boy — we begin to sense the shape of a larger argument. As Louis frames it, family is the template for, and the creature of, the state, with its brutal leadership, its sycophantic enablers, its goons and its subversives. If he got back at the Bellegueules in his previous works, he proceeds in this one to get back at France.I won’t say too much about how, except that in the final section of “Who Killed My Father” Louis offers specific answers, with detailed evidence, to the title question that is not even a question. Provided with magical powers for the occasion, along with a cape and a bowl of bang snaps, he creates a shrine to the country’s evildoers — the politicians of all stripes who made policies harming the poor and unwell — and, in a kind of childish exorcism, symbolically destroys them.However weird and stunning this is as a theatrical gesture, it left me confused about the play’s underpinnings. Having convincingly explained his father’s medical predicament as a result of anti-proletarian politics — “humiliation by the ruling class,” he calls it — Louis tries to connect his father’s homophobia to the same source.Here the logic becomes murky, and by the time Louis offers a formula connecting the two — “hatred of homosexuals equals poverty” — I felt he was doing anything he could to absolve his father of personal responsibility for his prejudices. And though it’s surely a son’s right to exonerate the man who helped ruin his childhood, those of us who took Louis’s earlier books to heart may not feel as forgiving.That’s the real drama here: Louis’s struggle to rationalize, within his politics, the irrational desire to forgive. Still, “Who Killed My Father” is a strange way to do it, especially if you know (as neither the book nor the play tells you) that his father, despite the title, is alive. Just not onstage.Who Killed My FatherThrough June 5 at St. Ann’s Warehouse, Brooklyn; stannswarehouse.org. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. More

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      Review: ‘Belfast Girls’ Set Sail, but This Isn’t a Pleasure Cruise

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      A historical drama revisits a 19th-century scheme in which Irish girls of “good character” were encouraged to immigrate to Australia.In 1850, it took about three months to travel to Australia from Ireland. Jaki McCarrick’s heartfelt, doubtful “Belfast Girls,” at the Irish Repertory Theater, sets sail with the Inchinnan, bedding down in a windowless cabin with several characters as part of a real-life resettlement plan then known as the Earl Grey Scheme or the Famine Orphan Scheme.A plan to relieve the pressure on Irish workhouses while supplying Australia with workers (and not incidentally, wives), the scheme promised to deliver skilled young women of good moral character. In two years, over 4,000 teenage girls and young women were transported. Few of these women were skilled, some weren’t young, some weren’t orphans and some were prostitutes, which makes the claims to good character somewhat dubious, at least by 19th-century standards. But these young women were willing, with the promise of food and clothing — shifts, stockings, petticoats, two gowns — inducement enough for them to make the crossing and then to face the anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic prejudice that greeted them on arrival.McCarrick’s play, directed with sympathy and occasional silliness by Nicola Murphy, introduces us to five of these women: the tough Judith, a Belfast girl by way of Jamaica (Caroline Strange); the sly Sarah Jane (Sarah Street), a country girl; “Fat Hannah” (Mary Mallen); “Stupid Ellen” (Labhaoise Magee); and the bookish Molly (Aida Leventaki). Each has a secret, or several secrets, some more terrible than others, and in the way of plays like this, all will be revealed before the ship docks.McCarrick does some adept character development and gives the actresses plenty to work with — too much, at times. And the performers are eager, with Mallen and Magee finding moments of nuance even in smaller roles. If Strange finds less texture, she’s a forceful performer and one to keep an eye on. Still the play’s first half, with its focus on circumstance and environment, tends more toward the novelistic than the theatrical. Only in the second act do the dynamics of character and dialogue drive the story, which briefly slides toward melodrama.Like the 1970s and ’80s dramas of David Hare, Caryl Churchill and Howard Brenton, as well as McCarrick’s Irish counterpart, Brian Friel, “Belfast Girls” resembles a state of the nation play, which uses a historical moment to think through larger themes, here how a country treats its most oppressed and least enfranchised citizens.While McCarrick has clearly researched the famine that preceded and encouraged the scheme, “Belfast Girls” only rarely emerges as a convincing portrait of the mid 19th-century. The characters, with their insistence on self-determination, feel too modern, and there are a few infelicities, like the idea that “The Communist Manifesto,” first translated into English toward the end of 1850, would circulate onboard. And some of the dialogue rings anachronistic, as when Judith scolds Sarah Jane for her lack of fellow feeling.“Empathy it’s called,” Judith says. “That thing where ya break out of your own clannish mentality ta do somethin’ for someone else!”But these are momentary annoyances. The greater problem is that Murphy’s production is overly literal, hewing to realism when the script seems to suggest something more abstract. This keeps the play small and overheated, even though the cabin itself — the functional set is by Chika Shimizu and lit with economy by Michael O’Connor — doesn’t feel especially claustrophobic. Until the final moments, when the women stand on deck and contemplate their future, “Belfast Girls” never quite manages to reach out from its world into ours, which is what makes a drama like this feel essential. For a shipbound play, it only rarely raises anchor.Belfast GirlsThrough June 26 at Irish Repertory Theater, Manhattan; irishrep.org. Running time: 2 hours 10 minutes. More

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      What are the Rules About Vaping at Theatres in the UK

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      Watching a movie with friends is an entertaining and relaxing experience. Many add to this experience by sharing a vape while watching the screen. Many gatherings of young people include vaping, whether it’s a game night, movie night, or a party. This is just something fun that doesn’t require any effort or attention and improves the vibe of the place.

      While you have the freedom to vape whenever you want in your house, it’s not the same in public places. There is no blanket ban on vaping in most places, but it is frowned upon.

      For example, it’s unlikely anyone will ask you to stop vaping in a pub, but this might not be the same in restaurants.

      No Theatre Allows Vaping.

      Theatres are a great source of entertainment and people wouldn’t be wrong to want to vape while watching a movie on a big screen. However, no theatre in the UK allows vaping indoors.

      While many people like the smoke and smell of the vapes, not everyone shares the same taste. Even if they were to enjoy the vibe, one wouldn’t want their kids to be influenced by it. If you are vaping around kids in the theatre, it’s likely they would want to do the same.

      There is also talk about how the smoke can worsen the quality of air indoors and that it contains particles of nicotine. This means we can’t blame them if they don’t want vapes around them when sitting in a closed hall. If you want to enjoy a movie while vaping, you should look for a small local theatre that might not have any specific rules.

      Another option, which can be pretty expensive, is to get a home theatre. You will need to buy a big LCD and some good speakers. With the right setup, it can provide a better experience than the theatre.

      Follow the Etiquette.

      Just because you love vaping doesn’t mean that everyone shares the same sentiment. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and they have the freedom to choose their lifestyle. This world is just as much theirs as it is yours.

      If you want to do something that is still a little controversial, and rightfully to some extent, you should be one compromising instead of asking others to live with it.

      You should learn about the etiquettes of vaping indoors and follow them to the best of your ability. Respect others and educate yourself. If someone asks what you are doing or tells you how harmful it is for you and them, stay polite and answer them with facts. This way, they might become more open-minded.

      On the other hand, if you are to misbehave, they will associate this behaviour with vaping and vapers. It will only add to the superstitions and controversies already surrounding the vaping community.

      Vaping is Considered Almost The Same as Smoking

      Many people can’t differentiate between vaping and smoking. Some even consider it worse.

      This is one of the biggest reasons why many people have to avoid vaping in public. While it isn’t something a kid should do, many unjust negative stereotypes have been associated with it.

      The government hasn’t imposed any law on where you can’t vape. It’s the rules created by individual business owners. If we don’t follow their rules while on their property, they have the right to ask us to leave.

      If you are to find yourself in such a situation, it’s best to stay polite and adhere to their rules. If they are providing a good service, you have nothing to complain about. They create these rules to please the majority. If vapers were in the majority, they probably wouldn’t have these rules in the first place. More

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      Kenneth Welsh, Memorable as a Villain on ‘Twin Peaks,’ Dies at 80

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      In a long career onstage (including Broadway), in movies and on television, he ranged across genres, from sketch comedy to science fiction.Kenneth Welsh, a prolific Canadian stage and screen actor who was best known for his portrayal of the murderous, unhinged villain Windom Earle on the hit early-1990s television series “Twin Peaks,” died on May 5 at his home in Sanford, Ontario. He was 80.His longtime agent, Pam Winter, said the cause was cancer.Mr. Welsh appeared in 10 episodes of “Twin Peaks” in its second season, playing Earle, the vengeful, maniacal adversary and former F.B.I. partner of the protagonist, Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan).The series, created by David Lynch and Mark Frost, follows Cooper as he investigates the murder of the high school student Laura Palmer in the seemingly sleepy town of Twin Peaks, Wash.Earle featured in some of the darker, more sadistic scenes and story lines in a series that was known for bending genres, mixing horror and surrealism with soapy and sometimes comic elements.In the years following its cancellation by ABC in 1991 and its cliffhanger ending, “Twin Peaks” developed a cult following and spawned a prequel film, “Fire Walk With Me” (1992) and returned for limited-series that premiered on Showtime in 2017. Welsh’s character did not appear in either project.Mr. Welsh was cast in the role after visiting the set in Washington State and meeting with Robert Engels, one of the show’s producers, and Mr. Frost.Mr. Engels “knew that I was a little eccentric, and he knew that as an actor I would go this way and that way,” Mr. Welsh said in an interview for the entertainment website 25YL, adding: “He just kind of knew that I was crazy and that I was perfect for Windom. I guess?”Mr. Welsh said it was he who successfully pitched the idea of having Earle wear different disguises as he stalked Cooper and various other characters.Mr. Welsh and Stockard Channing in the 1997 Lincoln Center production of Lillian Hellman’s “The Little Foxes” at the Vivian Beaumont Theater.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesMr. Welsh thrived playing off-kilter characters, like Larry Loomis, the Sovereign Protector of the Order of the Lynx, a dying fraternal order at the center of “Lodge 49,” a short-lived comedy-drama series seen on AMC in 2018 and 2019.But in his more than 240 movie and television roles, he ranged widely across genres, including sketch comedy (Amazon’s recent revival of “The Kids in the Hall”), science fiction (“Star Trek: Discovery” in 2020), family fare (“Eloise at the Plaza,” a 2003 Disney TV movie) and historical dramas; he played President Harry S. Truman twice, in the television movies “Hiroshima” (1995) and “Haven” (2001), and Thomas Edison in the 1998 TV movie “Edison: The Wizard of Light,” for which he received an Emmy nomination.His notable film notable roles included the vice president of the United States in Roland Emmerich’s “The Day After Tomorrow” (2004), about the onset of an ecological catastrophe, and the father of Katharine Hepburn (played by Cate Blanchett) in Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-winning “The Aviator” (2004).Mr. Welsh won five Canadian Screen Awards, four for his television work and one for his supporting role in the 1995 film “Margaret’s Museum,” a drama set in a coal-mining town on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. In 2003 he was named a member of the Order of Canada.Kenneth Welsh was born on March 30, 1942, in Edmonton, Alberta, to Clifford and Lillian (Sawchuk) Welsh. His father worked for the Canadian National Railway for more than 35 years, and his mother worked at a dress shop.Kenneth was the inaugural class president at Bonnie Doon Composite High School in Edmonton. He attended the University of Alberta, where he majored in drama, and then the National Theater School of Canada, graduating in 1965.He went on to rack up many credits on the stage, including, early on, in Shakespearean productions at the Stratford Festival in Ontario. Notably, he starred with Kathy Bates in the original Off Broadway production of “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair De Lune” in 1987 and was seen on Broadway in Tom Stoppard’s “The Real Thing” (1984), directed by Mike Nichols, and at Lincoln Center in a production of Lillian Hellman’s “The Little Foxes” (1997), with Glenn Close.His last stage performance was in Dylan Thomas’s “Under Milk Wood” at the Coal Mine Theater in Toronto in 2021.Drawing on his encyclopedic memory of Shakespeare’s works, Mr. Welsh was a creator, with the composer Ray Leslee, of “Stand Up Shakespeare,” a “motley musical,” as it billed itself, that opened Off Broadway in 1987. The production, also directed by Mr. Nichols, involved audience members, who would suggest Shakespeare characters, scenes or plays for Mr. Welsh to recite from memory. In the following decades he would sporadically revive “Stand Up Shakespeare” as a signature piece in various locations in the United States and Canada.Mr. Welsh, right in a 2007 episode of the science fiction series “Stargate: Atlantis” with, from left, Joe Flanigan and David Hewlett. He ranged widely across genres in his long career.Sci Fi ChannelMr. Welsh’s marriages to Corinne Farago and Donna Haley ended in divorce. He is survived by his wife, Lynne McIlvride, a visual artist, and a son, Devon, a musician, from his first marriage.In the final phase of his career, Mr. Welsh shifted his attention to independent projects and young filmmakers. His last film was “Midnight at the Paradise,” a drama directed by Vanessa Matsui, now in postproduction. Alongside Alan Hawco and Liane Balaban, he played the key supporting role of a movie critic nearing the end of his life.On set, Ms. Matsui said, Mr. Welsh captivated his colleagues.“He was always telling the cast and crew funny stories from his life, and he blew us all away with his performance and grace,” she said in an email. “I’ll never forget shooting this one scene with him and Allan Hawco, and you could hear a pin drop because the crew was just so drawn in by his performance. It was one of those special, intangible moments on set where you knew you just captured magic.” More

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      Interview: Delivering For Arcola Outside

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      Director Nico Rao Pimparé on Rainer

      Arcola Outside 1 – 18 June

      We’ve all heard of the gig economy, a labour market characterized by the prevalence of short-term contracts or freelance work as opposed to permanent jobs. It’s certainly not new, but it is something that is becoming more and more normal in today’s ever-changing society.

      One of the big drivers that has grown the gig economy is our desire to have everything delivered immediately. Not just your Amazon parcel, but takeaways and last minute groceries needed for tonight’s dinner. Which leads us nicely to Rainer, a new play coming to Arcola Theatre Outside in June. It’s about a solitary delivery rider called Rainer, the type you probably see passing you on the street all the time but never really think about once out of sight. The play followers Rainer as she cycles from job to job, creating stories in her head to help pass the time. But what happens when someone close disappears, and what effect does such a job have on someone’s mental health?

      We slipped on our lycra shorts, hopped on our bike and headed out to meet up with director, Nico Rao Pimparé to ask more about the play.

      What is it about Max Wilkinson’s writing that attracted you to direct Rainer?

      Max has a unique, poetic and witty approach to text. His plays are as funny and incisive as they are dramatic. Rainer is the story of a young woman who stands for thousands of Millenial Londoners who love the city, but cannot seem to find their place in it. When first reading the script, I felt that Max had captured a very real part of London, that I belong to, and that I never see in TV, film or theatre. His frenetic, non-realistic writing mirrors the cynicism, but also the exuberance of our generation. Its disjointed nature makes it all the more closer to life.

      The play feels as if it is going to be set very much on the streets, and Rainer will be doing a lot of cycling. How do you plan to portray this on a stage?

      Rainer (the name of our protagonist in Rainer), does indeed do a lot of cycling! But I might disappoint you here – we don’t actually have a bike on stage. The story focusses on Rainer’s emotional and mental journey, on her friends, her family, her boss, her therapist and her love life. You will feel like you have travelled from the grimiest streets to the most exclusive parties, to clubs, to parks, and to chicken shops.

      From reading the press release, the play feels a mix between a look at the loneliness of the job and a tale of a missing person, what is it we can really expect when we come to see the play?

      Expect to laugh, cry and be moved by Rainer. The play does not tell you what to think. It is not an academic study. It is simply the story of one woman, struggling to find a direction in life, sometimes struggling to keep on going, and yet finding the resilience and humour to persist. Rainer is much more than a delivery rider – her brazenness and her curious and satirical outlook on life paint an unexpected and rebellious portrait of London. Expect to fall in love with Rainer, and to hate her. I can’t tell you too much without spoilers, but I know for certain you’ll see something you’ve never seen before.

      She is a delivery rider, which Max has experience of doing as a job – have you discussed the job with him so you can get those small details into your directing?

      Of course. And so has our actor, Sorcha Kennedy. But the reality is that most of us, me included, have lived under the poverty line (currently set at £276/week) for many years. That’s the real issue. The mentality and outlook on life that comes with that kind of subsistence living, is the more nuanced and complex thing to look at. You can’t make it up. We have a twisted view of poverty in this country, we don’t realise how eclectic and varied the people who live below the poverty line are. I have lived in squats, eaten food out of bins, and preferred walking to taking the bus to save money. I won’t speak for others, but I can guarantee that that’s the norm in our industry, and for many young people currently living in London. There are too many depictions of Millennials in the culture that romanticise their mode of life, and not enough that give an honest and realistic picture of what their life is really like. Understanding that picture is what I have in common with Max, and what attracted me to this project in the first place.

      Do you have much contact with Max as you rehearse the play, or is their role as writer now done and you keep them at arm’s length? Are writers all different in how they get involved at this stage?

      Max and I do like to discuss and collaborate. This project was first born as a work-in-progress showing last October. The script has gone through many transformations, which I have read and given feedback on. Similarly, I’m keen to get Max’s opinion on my work – he’ll see a couple of run-throughs during rehearsals. But for the most part, he sticks to writing and I stick to directing!

      How are you planning to get Rainer’s daydreaming across to an audience?

      Through the magic of theatre! No – seriously, the whole piece is like a very long daydream. It is monologue, so it lets us into Rainer’s thoughts and lets her dream with her.  But I can’t tell you too much without revealing the plot. Sorry. You’ll have to come and see it!

      It’s probably safe to say delivery riders are almost invisible to most of us, out of our thoughts the moment they are out of sight. Has working on this play given you a new appreciation for them?

      Yes. And I think it does to most people who’ve worked on the play or seen it. The world of delivery drivers is fascinating – you can have anyone from a Colombian PhD student to a mother of three trying to make ends meet. And more broadly the play gives you an insight into the psychology and the intensity of the gig economy, and of what it is like to be young and broke in London.

      The play is going to be on at Arcola Outside – does this space feel appropriate in gicing the impression of being out on the streets of London?

      Yes – the space has been an amazing find for this play. The sights and sounds of London provide the backdrop for our play. Sometimes you won’t even be able to tell whether a sound is sound design or actually a helicopter flying overhead. Also – the sun sets over the course of the play, so you begin in broad day light and end in a much more intimate, dramatic environment. All of these are really very exciting challenges to work with. The play is about the city, and distinctly set in the city. It’s very appropriate. But don’t let the ‘outside’ space worry you too much – it is a gorgeous, covered and very cosy venue!

      Our thanks to Nico for taking time out of his day to chat with us.

      Rainer will play at Arcola Outside from 1 – 18 June. Further information and bookings can be found here. More

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      With the Volt Festival, the Playwright Karen Hartman Comes Home

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      59E59 Theaters is putting a spotlight on a midcareer artist whose work has seldom been seen locally.“I’m feeling a tremendous sense of visibility,” the playwright Karen Hartman said. “And it’s not when I expected to be visible.”Visible through a Zoom window, Hartman was speaking from her Brooklyn home the morning after the world premiere of her play “New Golden Age.” Just a few days before, two of her other plays, “The Lucky Star” and “Goldie, Max and Milk,” had celebrated their New York premieres, as part of Volt, a new festival from 59E59 Theaters. (All three productions are being presented simultaneously through June 12.)Hartman, 51, a playwright with a robust career in regional theater, described being chosen as the inaugural playwright for Volt as “transformative.” The festival, intended to run yearly, is meant to highlight a midcareer artist whose work has seldom been seen locally.“It was really important that the playwright not be a usual suspect,” said Val Day, the artistic director of 59E59, who dreamed up the festival. “It had to be somebody who was more widely produced in the regions, who had a fairly large canon of work, which deserved to have eyes on it in New York.”Claire Siebers, left, and Mahira Kakkar in “New Golden Age,” about two sisters fighting for in-person connections in a big tech dystopia.James LeynseHartman fit the bill. Raised in San Diego, she studied literature at Yale and then enrolled at the Yale School of Drama. Shortly after graduation, several theaters produced her play “Gum,” including New York’s WP Theater, then known as Women’s Project. Reviews were mixed, and while she soon became a regular in the regionals, subsequent New York productions proved rare. In one week, Volt, which Hartman described as a “three-night Hanukkah,” changed that.“It has transformed my own story about what has been going on with my work all these years,” she said.From left, Nina Hellman, Mike Shapiro, Alexandra Silber, Dale Soules, Skye Alyssa Friedman and Alexa Shae Niziak in “The Lucky Star,” which premiered in 2017 as “The Book of Joseph.”Carol Rosegg“The Lucky Star,” which premiered in 2017 as “The Book of Joseph” and is presented here by the Directors Company, animates a trove of real letters written by a Polish Jewish family in the early years of World War II to the one member who escaped to America. “Goldie, Max and Milk,” from 2014 and produced here by MBL Productions, describes the unlikely bond between a queer single mother and an Orthodox Jewish lactation consultant in Brooklyn. “New Golden Age,” produced by Primary Stages and structured like a Greek tragedy, imagines the dark consequences of an extremely online future as two sisters struggle to connect IRL.Day, who had intended to debut Volt in 2020, felt that these plays resonated even more after the theatrical shutdown. “All of her plays are about people desperately trying to connect with each other and the difficulty in doing that, which we all can relate to,” Day said.Hartman put it differently, with a touch of knowing irony.“There is a thread of grief that runs through all these plays,” Hartman said. “It’s not the sexiest sell.”In a spirited hourlong chat, Hartman discussed her career, her plays, what the festival means to her and what it might mean to other writers. “What this festival is going to do over time is create these questions in the minds of people: Who else is out there? Who should be seen in New York? That’s the power of it,” she said.Shayna Small, left, and Blair Baker in “Goldie, Max and Milk,” about an unlikely bond between two women.Carol RoseggThese are edited excerpts from the conversation.How did you become a playwright?This displaced New Yorker named Deborah Salzer started the California Young Playwrights Festival, an offshoot of the National Young Playwrights Festival. She started it when I was 14 years old. I acted in the first season. Then I was like, “Oh, I could write a play.” I wrote two plays in high school that were produced in this festival. I got kind of mainline drugged as a playwright very early.What were the questions that animated you back then?Honestly, I was a kid who liked acting. And when I went to pick scenes for girls, there just weren’t any. I felt like the roles really sucked. And it felt so small, trying to center myself in the girls that existed, that I actually just started writing for there to be parts to play. My first play was about mothers and daughters. My second play was about a girl who gets obsessed with Sylvia Plath.Not long after you finished grad school, regional theaters began to stage “Gum.” The Women’s Project staged it, too. What was that like?I felt very excited and kind of raw. It’s a vulnerable thing to write about anything personal. And that play is about policing the sexuality of girls and women in a violent way. I’d written that play very swiftly, in my last year of graduate school. But it had come out of some real-life people I had encountered when traveling in Egypt, so it was a thrilling level of potential responsibility.You went on to have a thriving career in regional theater, but you had far fewer productions in New York, though you live in New York.Most writers don’t get their plays done at all. And almost nothing I’ve written has gone unproduced. I’ve worked with amazing people and been asked onto incredible projects. But in this sense of the cultural conversation, New York is an amplifier. So if I’m a mission-driven person, and my mission is to amplify voices, especially those of girls and women, and I myself am not amplified, then I am not doing my job. Also my work almost always involves getting on a plane and living by myself in artist housing. This festival is the first time that my own community, my friends, my writers’ group, my colleagues can see my work. On a personal level, that matters tremendously.Why do you think your plays haven’t found a home here?Generally, the one narrow path from the early-career buzz that I was fortunate to enjoy with “Gum” toward a steady midcareer presence in New York is a rave in The Times. “Gum” did not get that rave. So my road has been longer, and further afield. The sense I got was, “We don’t know where to put you.” The stories I tell, which are stories that I think a lot of people want to see, are off base, but not in a particularly cool way, in a way that’s emotional. I live in emotion. That’s my home.What is it like having two New York premieres and one world premiere all at once?The companies are exquisite — the level of artistry, these directors. I’ve described the nitty-gritty of it as like having triplets. They were all in previews at exactly the same time. I called Lucy Thurber, who had this festival of her plays at Rattlestick. She’s the only person I knew who had gone through something like this. She was like, “Trust. And check in with every director every day.”What do you think unites these plays?They’re all plays about how our intimate bonds meet our political moments and meet the laws of our time, but in very radically different times and contexts. How do we become the people in the relationships that we have capacity for? And how do our times work with us and against us? I keep coming back to this question of how do we get the deep, deep closeness that we need. Or maybe I’m the only person who needs this. More

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      Broadway Theaters Will Require Masks at Least Through June 30

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      Broadway theaters will continue to require ticketholders to wear masks at least through June 30, industry leaders said Friday.The Broadway League, a trade association representing theater owners and producers, said the owners and operators of all 41 theaters had agreed to the extension of the mask policy. The decision comes at a time when New York City has declared a “high Covid alert.”Earlier this week, city officials strongly recommended medical-grade masks in public indoor settings, but Mayor Eric Adams has rejected reimposing mask mandates. But a number of performing arts venues have opted to stick with more restrictive policies in an effort to limit the spread of the virus.“The safety and security of our cast, crew, and audience has been our top priority,” the League’s president, Charlotte St. Martin, said in a statement. “By maintaining our audience masking requirement through at least the month of June, we intend to continue that track record of safety for all, despite the Omicron subvariants.”Most Broadway theaters this month stopped checking whether patrons are vaccinated; only a handful of Broadway theaters operated by nonprofits are continuing to enforce a vaccine requirement for patrons.But mask requirements have been in place in Broadway theaters since they reopened last summer, and the industry has been renewing that requirement on a month-by-month basis. There have been occasional confrontations over the policy — earlier this month the actress Patti LuPone, who is starring in a revival of the musical “Company,” rebuked an attendee at a post-show talkback for the patron’s refusal to fully cover her mouth and nose with a mask. But for the most part, compliance has been high.There are 35 shows running on Broadway, and last week 246,003 people attended a performance. And if this year follows prepandemic patterns, attendance will pick up over the next few weeks with an increase in tourism after Memorial Day. More

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      Lorraine Hansberry Statue to Be Unveiled in Times Square

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      A life-size likeness of the pioneering playwright will be unveiled in June as part of a new initiative to honor her legacy.When the Los Angeles-based artist Alison Saar was commissioned a little over four years ago to sculpt a statue of the playwright Lorraine Hansberry, she had just one thought: “Am I the right person for the job?”“I don’t really work with likenesses,” said Saar, 66, whose artwork focuses on the African diaspora and Black female identity. “But they said, ‘No, no, we want it to be more of a portrait of her passion and who she was beyond a playwright.’”The request had come from Lynn Nottage, the two-time Pulitzer-winning playwright, as part of an initiative she was developing with Julia Jordan, the executive director of the Lilly Awards, which recognize the work of women in theater. The Lorraine Hansberry Initiative was designed to honor Hansberry, who was the first Black woman to have a show produced on Broadway.“She’s just part of my foundational DNA as an artist,” Nottage said in a phone interview on Wednesday. “Throughout my career, if I needed to look to structure, or storytelling, or inspiration, I could go to ‘A Raisin in the Sun,’ this perfect piece of literature.”The statue, a life-size likeness of Hansberry surrounded by five movable bronze chairs that represent aspects of her life, and, Saar said, invites people “to sit and think with her,” will be unveiled in Times Square on June 9. The event will include performances and remarks from Nottage and Hansberry’s 99-year-old older sister, Mamie Hansberry. It will remain in Times Square through June 12, and then begin a tour of the country over the next year or so on its way to its permanent home in Chicago, Hansberry’s birthplace.Lorraine Hansberry in 1959, the year she made history when she became the first Black woman to have a play reach Broadway. David Attie/Getty ImagesBut, Nottage said, they also wanted a more forward-looking way to honor Hansberry, leading to the initiative’s second prong: A scholarship to cover the living expenses for two female or nonbinary graduate student writers of color who create for the stage, television or film. Beginning next year, the $2.5 million scholarship fund will give its first recipients $25,000 per year, generally for up to three years — the typical length of a graduate program. (LaTanya Richardson Jackson, who was nominated for a Tony Award for her role as Lena Younger in the 2014 Broadway revival of “Raisin,” the Dramatists Guild and the National Endowment for the Arts are among the initial donors.)“So many graduate programs for writers at elite institutions like Juilliard, Yale and Brown now offer free tuition,” Nottage said, “but you see people not taking a place because they can’t afford to take three years off to pay for rent, computers, food and travel, which could be, on average, anywhere from $15,000 to $35,000 per year.”“It would’ve made a huge difference for me,” Nottage said of the scholarship fund. “When I was at the Yale School of Drama, one of the actors told me I could get public assistance to pay for groceries and electricity, and when I showed the welfare department in New Haven my financial aid package — I was doing work-study — they were like, ‘Oh, yeah, you’re living below the poverty line.’”Hansberry, who was just 34 when she died of pancreatic cancer in 1965, is best known for “Raisin,” a semi-autobiographical family drama that tells the story of an African American family living under racial segregation on the South Side of Chicago. The play, which opened on Broadway in 1959 with Sidney Poitier in the cast, would go on to win the New York Drama Critics’ Circle award for best play, making Hansberry, at 29, the youngest American and first Black recipient of the award.The life-size statue shows Hansberry holding a flame. It will be surrounded by five movable bronze chairs that represent aspects of her life and work. Nolwen Cifuentes for The New York TimesHansberry was also active in political and social movements, including the fight for civil rights, regularly writing articles about racial, economic and gender inequality for the Black newspaper Freedom. She also wrote letters signed “L.H.N.” or “L.N.” — for Lorraine Hansberry Nemiroff (her husband’s last name) — to The Ladder, a monthly national lesbian publication. In those letters, she wrestled with issues she faced as a lesbian in a heterosexual marriage and the pressure on some lesbians to conform to a more feminine dress code.Her older sister, Mamie, recalls Lorraine being bookish from a young age. Their parents allowed them to sit out on the sun porch during visits from prominent individuals, such as the poet Langston Hughes and Paul Robeson, the singer, actor and activist. “Daddy wanted us to be able to listen to some of the distinguished people who came by the house,” she said.Lorraine Hansberry would write letters to congressmen — “My mother would find them when she was cleaning her room,” Mamie Hansberry said. “She was free to write to anyone,” Mamie said, “and they would answer!”It is that spirit that Nottage and Jordan said they hope to cultivate in the next generation of playwrights. The statue’s tour will begin with stops at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem (June 13-18) and Brooklyn Bridge Park (June 23-29) before traveling to cities like Atlanta, Detroit and Los Angeles. It is also set to make stops at historically Black colleges and universities, including Spelman College in Atlanta and Howard University in Washington.Jordan said the initiative will also work with local theaters and artists to present Hansberry’s work, as well as the work of contemporary writers of color, in conjunction with the sculpture’s placement. New 42, the nonprofit organization behind the New Victory Theater, has also created a resource guide to teach middle- and high-school students about Hansberry and “Raisin,” which will be free for schools and organizations to use.“I do think that if Hansberry had continued to write and develop as an activist, one of the things she would’ve done was amplified voices of other women of color,” Nottage said.Jordan said she and Nottage had already raised $2.2 million of their $3.5 million goal for the statue construction costs, tour and scholarship fund. By 2025, Jordan said, they expect to support a total of six playwrights per year.“Everyone wants to produce these women,” Nottage said. “But we want to make sure people are prepared — that they’re secure in their voices and secure in their craft — so they don’t fail when they get that opportunity.” More