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    ‘Terce’ Review: How the Other Half Prays, in a Reimagined Mass

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    Heather Christian’s latest exploration of the religious sublime is a musical spectacle about the often overlooked “caregivers and makers.”When I’ve had the opportunity, as a wandering Jew, to visit the houses of worship of friends, I’ve never felt much in danger of conversion. But if I did, it would surely be the music that got me.That’s also been true for me when visiting the church of Heather Christian: I’m not sure what faith she’s selling, but I’m a sucker for the way it sounds. In “Terce: A Practical Breviary,” which opened on Sunday at the Space at Irondale in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn, she offers a new installment in what is evidently a plan to remake the Catholic Mass of her childhood in egalitarian if cryptic new terms.She’s doing so one rhapsodic service at a time. In 2020 she offered “Prime,” her version of the 6 a.m. liturgy. “Terce,” produced by Here as the centerpiece of this year’s Prototype festival, advances three hours to midmorning. (The title derives from the Latin for “third.”) By then, a congregation would presumably be awake enough to absorb its sunlit richness.That richness does not depend on the usual elements of plays or prayer: characters and narratives, pipe organs and priests. “Terce” is not theater except to the extent that religious ritual, being a parent of theater, bears a family resemblance.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?  More

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      Ukrainian Children Bring a Play From a Bomb Shelter to Brooklyn

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      The group recently arrived in New York to perform “Mom on Skype,” first staged in April in Lviv, at the Irondale Center this weekend.In a converted Sunday school space in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn on Monday, eight children, who recently arrived from Ukraine, gathered on a pair of risers and broke into song.Hanna Oneshchak, 12, on the accordion, accompanied the other seven as they sang a Ukrainian folk song, “Ta nema toho Mykyty,” about a man who decides to leave the country to seek better work, but then looks to the mountains and, struck by their beauty, changes his mind.“Whatever the grief we have,” they sang in Ukrainian, “I won’t go to the American land.”The children, students at the School of Open-Minded Kids Studio Theater in Lviv, were rehearsing the song ahead of two weekend performances of the play “Mama Po Skaipu” (“Mom on Skype”) at the Irondale Center in Brooklyn. This will be the American premiere of the 80-minute show, being presented on Saturday and Sunday night.“We share our emotions with Americans,” Anastasiia Mysiuha, 14, said of the group’s play.Calla Kessler for The New York Times“We share our emotions with Americans,” Anastasiia Mysiuha, 14, said in English. And, she said, she hopes that audience members will “better understand what’s happening in Ukraine.”The show, which will be performed in Ukrainian with English subtitles, is a series of seven monologues about family separation told from the perspective of children. Written by contemporary writers from Lviv, the true stories were inspired by the mass exodus from Ukraine in the 1990s after the fall of the Soviet Union. At that time, many men and women went to other countries to work so they could provide for their families back home.“Mom on Skype” was first staged in a warehouse-turned-bomb shelter in Lviv, in western Ukraine, in April, just two months after the Russian invasion began. There it was directed by an arts teacher turned active-duty Ukrainian soldier, Oleg Oneshchak, who is the father of two of the children in the play: Hanna and Oleksii, 7. It was one of the few cultural events to take place in Ukraine at that time.“Lots of people were crying when we did it in Ukraine,” said Khrystyna Hniedko, 14, one of the performers.Now, the children, ages 7 to 14, are performing for audiences in Brooklyn this weekend.The idea for the visit came about when Jim Niesen, artistic director of the Irondale Center, the home of the nonprofit Irondale Ensemble Project theater company, saw a photo essay in The New York Times in late April about the performance in Ukraine.“I was so inspired by them,” Niesen said in an interview at the theater this week. “There was this horrific war going on, and here they were, doing a play.”He and the theater’s executive director, Terry Greiss, tracked down Oneshchak on Facebook Messenger and proposed an idea: Would he and the children consider bringing the show to Brooklyn?The students, from left: Sofiia Goy, Marharyta Kuzma, Khrystyna Hniedko, Anastasiia Mysiuha (foreground center), Nikol Bodiuk, Valeriia Khozhempa, and the siblings Hanna Oneshchak and Oleksii Oneshchak (seated).Calla Kessler for The New York TimesOneshchak, the children and their families were all enthusiastic about the idea, and Greiss and the team at Irondale began raising money to pay for travel and accommodation costs — the total bill for the monthlong stay for the eight children and their three chaperones, which will also take them to Connecticut and Massachusetts, is around $40,000, he said. (Oleg Oneshchak wasn’t able to make the trip, but his wife, Mariia Oneshchak, who is also an actor and educator at the theater program, was.)A majority of the group’s meals have been donated, and many of them are staying in the homes of Irondale board members and others. The offices of Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Hakeem Jeffries also helped the group book visa appointments, which are difficult to secure because so many people are trying to leave Ukraine, ahead of their arrival on July 22.The generosity of other donors meant that the itinerary for the trip quickly ballooned to include a weeklong performing arts summer camp in Connecticut, where the children taught American campers three Ukrainian folk songs; an outing to see “The Lion King” on Broadway; visits to the Guggenheim Museum and Coney Island; a Russ & Daughters bagel factory tour; and a private tour of the Statue of Liberty.When we spoke at Monday’s rehearsal, Valeriia Khozhempa, 12, said she had been immediately struck by one thing: the absence of air-raid sirens.“It’s a really beautiful life,” she said. “In Ukraine, there are so many air alarms.”There was also a humorous attribute, Khrystyna said: American politeness. “People always say ‘Sorry’ and ‘Excuse me,’” she said. “It’s surprising because everyone is really polite.”Hanna Oneshchak, left, and Nikol Bodiuk in Brooklyn.Calla Kessler for The New York TimesThe children began working on the show in January before being forced to halt rehearsals when Russia invaded Ukraine. Even though the play was originally about stories from the 1990s, families are being separated again because men are fighting in the war. (Most Ukrainian men ages 18 to 60 — of conscription age — are not allowed to leave the country.)The theme of each of the show’s monologues is that parents do not realize how detrimental their decisions, even if financially prudent, can be to their children’s happiness. “Money can never compensate you for losing your connection to the people you love,” a character says in one of the stories, titled “Through the Eyes of Children.”All of the children are anxious about whether American audience members will understand their message, because of the language barrier and having to read subtitles.“I know it will be hard,” Anastasiia said. “But if they will come, I hope they will try to understand.”All of the proceeds from this weekend’s shows — as well as performances in Hartford, Conn., and Boston next week — will go toward a fighter jet that the group hopes to help purchase for the Ukrainian military. (A used jet costs approximately $1 million, Oleg Oneshchak said.)Hanna Oneshchak, who sings a patriotic Ukrainian song she wrote, said she hoped the audience would see not just the play, but the underlying message about the war that the performers embody.“The world sees this like a film,” she said. “I want them to remember us.” More

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      ‘Mother Courage’ Review: Selling Her Wares Amid the Havoc of War

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      Irondale Ensemble’s adaptation of Brecht’s antiwar epic captures some of its spirit but lacks any real philosophical or political heft.There’s no virtue in war. But there is profit — for those ruthless enough to get it.So preaches Bertolt Brecht in his play “Mother Courage and Her Children,” a new adaptation of which is now running as part of Irondale Ensemble’s Brecht in Exile series. This production, directed and adapted by Jim Niesen, using John Willett’s classic translation, captures some of the spirit of Brecht’s cynical war fable but none of the philosophical or political heft.Mother Courage (an appropriately brusque Vicky Gilmore, in a knit hat, leather jacket and combat boots), traveling with her three children, is selling goods from a cart during the Thirty Years’ War. There’s Eilif (Nolan Kennedy), her pugnacious elder son who’s recruited as a soldier; Swiss Cheese (Terry Greiss), her honest but dimwitted younger son who becomes an army paymaster; and Kattrin (Jacqueline Joncas), her mute daughter. While peddling her wares over the course of several years, this mother and her family meet soldiers, a cook, a chaplain, a prostitute and a spy, and ultimately her children become direct or indirect casualties of the war she aimed to get rich on.“Mother Courage” is being produced and staged by Irondale at its space in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, a former Sunday school auditorium with chipped walls and giant plaques announcing the Beatitudes, which would have worked for this no-frills play if it weren’t undermined by what precedes it. Before the show, which has been marketed as an immersive experience, audience members can have a drink in the makeshift lobby set up with picnic tables; beer and soft pretzels, courtesy of DSK Brooklyn, are served from a cart in the corner. It’s meant to recall a biergarten, but is more a gimmick than an actual part of the show.In other words, it looks and feels like any other hipster hangout in Brooklyn.In his staging, Niesen retains Brecht’s title cards, the expository bits of narrative announcing what will transpire in each of the 12 scenes in this tedious two-and-a-half-hour epic.There are songs, too, as in Brecht’s original text — exegetic tunes that the characters break into — set to new music by Sam Day Harmet, who performs here with Erica Mancini and Stephen LaRosa. The score — incorporating banjo, guitar, drums, accordion and a synthesizer — begins with a war march before shooting into different genres, from bluegrass to ’80s synth pop and garage rock.The music’s too chic and eccentric for the production and the actors, who perform on, in and around an unsightly two-level scaffolding structure draped with blankets and curtains (scenic design is by Ken Rothchild).As for the actors: How can they be critiqued when Brecht wrote an unsentimental play with characters who aren’t meant to be empathized with, who don’t appeal to our hearts but our minds? Of the show’s central brood, the women are most memorable — Gilmore’s despicable Mother Courage and Joncas’s skittish Kattrin, who communicates through a series of fearsome croaks. The rest of the cast — all of whom play several characters — appear most comfortable when they tap into the production’s absurd sense of humor, such as Stephen Cross’s indulgent performance as a clucking, mischievous capon and Michael-David Gordon’s huffing and griping as a weary prostitute named Yvette. Many of the performances feel lethargic, and the cast awkwardly hiccups through the dialogue of even the smallest bits of improvised comedy.Niesen’s direction flattens an already challenging work of theater that, despite its influence, didn’t quite catch on in the United States, where agitprop and other kinds of homiletic plays are less popular. This “Mother Courage” feels like pedagogy encased in a bubble, isolated from, say, an overseas war — not to mention the political warmongering and consumptive capitalism in our own country.This production then reads as an indelicate transcription, because Brecht may be stone cold, but that doesn’t mean his work lacks spark. The spark of revolution, that is — though Brecht pioneered the Lehrstück, or “learning play,” his aim wasn’t just to educate but to incite audiences to make change in their society. He wanted his plays to “knock them into shape,” Brecht wrote. Unfortunately, this “Mother Courage” fails to pack a punch.Mother Courage and Her ChildrenThrough June 5 at Irondale, Brooklyn; irondale.org. Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes. More