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Covid Restrictions Are Back at Some of Europe's Theaters
Strict controls on playhouses and music venues are returning as the continent deals with a new coronavirus wave.For months, Europe’s opera, music and theater fans have been flocking to packed venues as if the coronavirus pandemic was fading from view. Now that feeling of freedom is receding for many.In Vienna, all performances are now banned until at least Dec. 13, after Austria imposed a lockdown to deal with a rise in coronavirus cases. The Dec. 5 premiere of the Vienna State Opera’s new production of “Don Giovanni,” directed by Barrie Kosky, will be televised from an empty house.In Munich, performances are still taking place at the city’s storied Bavarian State Opera despite a surge in cases in Bavaria. Only vaccinated patrons or those who have recovered from Covid-19 are allowed in, and they must also all show proof of a negative coronavirus test and wear a medical-grade mask. According to new rules announced Tuesday, venues in Bavaria can admit only 25 percent of their maximum capacity.In Milan, there are no restrictions on audience numbers at venues including La Scala, and no social distancing requirements — but only vaccinated audience members are allowed in.The confusing picture across the continent has been getting more complicated by the day in recent weeks as national and regional governments respond to a new wave of cases and as an alert about a new variant prompts concern. On Wednesday, Germany reported 79,051 new cases — its highest daily number since the pandemic began.After months of relative normalcy, Europe’s opera houses, concert halls and theaters are reintroducing measures all too familiar from earlier phases of the pandemic, restricting audience numbers and mandating testing, if not canceling shows outright. Some cultural workers at venues where the doors are still open are concerned that they might not stay that way for long.Leipzig Opera’s production of “Hänsel and Gretel” has been canceled for the rest of the company’s season because of coronavirus measures.Oper LeipzigDespite the new prevention measures, the mood was “very different” from previous lockdowns, said Ulf Schirmer, the general music director of Leipzig Opera, in eastern Germany. All performances in the city of Leipzig are banned until Jan. 9.“We’ve learned so much from past lockdowns,” Schirmer said, “we now know what to do.”Leipzig Opera would lose 1 million euros, about $1.1 million, by refunding tickets for canceled performances across all shows, Schirmer added. The company could cope with that, he said, because it receives a significant government subsidy and has sufficient reserves.Other venues throughout the continent, where the pace of cancellations and restrictions has been accelerating since last month, might not be in such a secure position. Latvia was one of the first countries to impose new restrictions on cultural life, when it ordered performance venues shut from late October as part of a national lockdown. Since then many other countries and regions have imposed new, if varied, restrictions. This month, the Netherlands went into a partial lockdown that let performances continue in front of seated audiences but forced other venues such as bars and restaurants to close by 8 p.m. Austria initially introduced a lockdown for unvaccinated people that included barring them from attending cultural events, before announcing a nationwide lockdown days later.Some venues that remain open in Europe are putting in place extra safety measures, even without government mandates. In Berlin, performance venues are allowed to operate at full capacity, as long as attendees show proof that they are vaccinated, recovered or provide a negative test, and wear a mask. But Sarah Boehler, a spokeswoman for the Sophiensaele, a theater in the city, said her venue would also require a negative test in addition to either proof of vaccination or recovery. The theater expected that city officials would require such a measure “in a week or two anyway,” she said, adding it was better to get ahead of the curve.There is one place that looks unlikely to see new restrictions on cultural life: Britain, where governing lawmakers have spoken since July of the need to live with the virus. New coronavirus cases have averaged around 40,000 a day for the past month, and one of the government’s leading scientific advisers this week said the country was “almost at herd immunity.”In England, theater and opera goers are not required to wear masks, or show proof of vaccination. Instead, each venue can decide its own requirements. Many West End theaters ask for proof of vaccination, and most encourage spectators to wear masks, but enforcement varies.This month, a revival of “Cabaret,” starring Eddie Redmayne at the Playhouse Theater, went further than other London shows by requiring attendees to show a negative test result to gain entry. The Ambassador Theater Group, which owns the venue, said in a statement that “the intimacy of the production,” in which the audience sits close to the actors, was behind the decision. But no other theaters have appeared to follow its lead.The composer and theater impresario Andrew Lloyd Webber on Tuesday told the BBC he would be happy to mandate masks and proof of vaccination at the six theaters he owns in London. “If that was what was necessary to keep our theaters open without social distancing, I think that’s a very small price to pay,” he said.Even if few in Britain’s theater world anticipate new restrictions, elsewhere in Europe, where governments are weighing actions to curb rising case numbers, industry figures are worried that more closures are on the way.“Everyone is still very concerned there will be another lockdown soon,” said Boehler of the Sophiensaele. “We just hope vaccinated people will be in a position to keep going to the theater.” More
- in Theater
Review: Getting a Moral Fix From ‘Approval Junkie’
The radio and television journalist Faith Salie stars in a one-woman show about the perils of striving for achievement and affirmation.A loosely drawn girl eyes a gold star near the top of an illustrated tree. She climbs up to reach it but tumbles to the ground and lands on her feet. The brief animation serves to introduce “Approval Junkie,” a one-woman Audible production that opened Tuesday at the Minetta Lane Theater, neatly encapsulating the whole of its familiar, and repeated, moral fable about chasing the highs of success.By some measures, the subject in this case is exceptional. “Approval Junkie” is written and performed by the radio and television journalist Faith Salie, in collaboration with the director Amanda Watkins. Fans may recognize Salie’s bright, even demeanor from her roles as a regular panelist on the NPR news quiz show “Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me!” and as a contributor to “CBS News Sunday Morning,” positions that reward gentle, authoritative relatability.But the anecdotes from her life that Salie recalls here, of striving for achievement and affirmation, reflect gendered expectations and social pressures that many women will recognize.After four years of competing in her high school pageant, Salie finally won by performing a Barbra Streisand song in a rainbow-sequin mini. She still has the tiara. (“It’s missing some stones … aren’t we all?”) Pursuit of the spotlight drew her to Los Angeles, where an acting coach once asked, “Why aren’t you as pretty as I want you to be?” adding that motherhood would soften her features.Salie’s quest for thinness led to early struggles with anorexia and a lasting fixation on appearance. “I don’t know who could tell me enough that I’m beautiful,” she says.Perhaps it’s no surprise then that Salie is not exactly an unselfconscious performer. With the exception of one truly unrestrained outburst (at an Ayurvedic healing center, no less), onstage she is poised and polished, watchfully reserved. This is not an unruly takedown of conventional womanhood’s narrow strictures from someone on the outside. In a navy silk jumpsuit and beige heels (the costume design is by Ivan Ingermann), Salie could stroll into an advertisement for no-makeup makeup, pointing to the beauty ideals she embodies as a trap.The production has an amiable, anodyne quality well tailored to its release as an Audible Original recording (“Approval Junkie” is based on Salie’s 2016 book of essays of the same name). Watkins’ minimal staging marks Salie’s incidental transitions with as little as the spin of a bar stool or a few steps to one side. A backdrop of fractured panels glows in shades of pastel (the set design is by Jack Magaw, and lighting by Amanda Zieve), and a buoyant piano composition by the sound designer Brandon Bush comforts listeners like a plush love seat.“Approval Junkie” wants to suggest a certain self-awareness about the fallacy of craving outside validation. But for all its pat wisdom — “Don’t change yourself for someone else,” Salie tells her kids, “change yourself for you” — the play still demonstrates the value of caring what other people think.“Seeking approval has not undone me,” Salie says. “It’s built me.” Even so, being put together is not nearly as interesting onstage as falling apart.Approval JunkieThrough Dec. 12 at the Minetta Lane Theater, Manhattan; audible.com/theater. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. More
- in Theater
Tomfoolery With the Classics? Play It Straight, Please.
Two London productions that play fast and loose with their literary sources lack the theatrical magic of another show that gives viewers the original, unadorned.LONDON — If you’re going to revisit a classic novel by a woman, you should probably give that task to women. That’s the conceit behind “Pride and Prejudice* (*sort of),” a play that’s now at the Criterion Theater here for an open-ended run. The production, a success at the Edinburgh Festival in 2018, will most likely appeal to those with no time to actually read Jane Austen: Let the five gifted performers of the all-female cast relay the novel in their own larky, irrepressible way.The parenthetical in the title sets the cheeky tone. Written by Isobel McArthur “after Jane Austen,” as the playbill puts it, the show gives us all the time-honored characters, from the self-dramatizing Mrs. Bennet to her five matrimonially challenged daughters. Nor are the men excluded: McArthur, the author, doing triple duty as the play’s co-director (with Simon Harvey) and as one of the hard-working cast, drops her voice as required to play Fitzwilliam Darcy, the book’s abiding heartthrob.Putting a contemporary spin on a Regency-era tale, the play co-opts music to make a point: Barely has the bride-to-be, Elizabeth Bennet (a gleaming-eyed Meghan Tyler), fallen under the sway of Mr. Darcy before she launches into the Carly Simon standard “You’re So Vain.” In the let’s-try-everything spirit of the venture, the cast members also play musical instruments, and there’s a reference to “The Phantom of the Opera,” which is playing around the corner, in an opening sight gag involving a falling chandelier.The intention is to play fast and loose with the source while honoring its spirit, which for the most part succeeds. Mr. Darcy’s eventual confession of his desire for Elizabeth is accompanied by the swelling sounds of the Partridge Family’s “I Think I Love You.” The overbearing Lady Catherine de Bourgh (Christina Gordon) enters to the music of the sound-alike Chris de Burgh, and we hear expletives that would surely have made Austen herself blush.The all-female cast brings a party vibe to Jane Austen’s iconic love story.Matt CrockettI wish more had been made of the suggestion at the outset that we will be viewing these characters from the perspective of the servants, whose employment enables the Bennets’s leisurely lives. At the beginning, the performer Hannah Jarrett-Scott galumphs about in Doc Martens, busy with her cleaning chores and not quite ready for the show to begin. (“We haven’t started yet,” she exclaims.)But any sort of class commentary soon disappears. This is “Pride and Prejudice” with a party vibe. “Are you having a good time?” we’re asked late on, to which the audience members at a recent matinee responded at the curtain call by leaping to their feet.Playfulness with a resilient source also informs “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike,” a play by Christopher Durang that draws three of its title characters from Chekhov. A hit on Broadway, where it won the 2013 Tony for Best Play, the comedy is at the Charing Cross Theater through Jan. 8. The production, originally scheduled just as the pandemic took hold, is directed by Walter Bobbie, whose Broadway staging of “Chicago” recently marked its 25th anniversary.In Durang’s telling, Vanya and Sonia are no longer the uncle and niece of Chekhovian renown. Instead, they are siblings sharing discontented lives in rural Pennsylvania while their more glamorous sister Masha (Janie Dee), an actress, is off gathering toy boys like Spike (Charlie Maher).The cast of “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike,” from left: Charlie Maher, Rebecca Lacey, Lukwesa Mwamba, Janie Dee and Michael Maloney.Marc Brenner The first half consists largely of extended chat about what costumes this trio should wear to a party: The spinsterish Sonia (Rebecca Lacey) isn’t sure whether to go as Jean Harlow or Marlene Dietrich, though we soon discover that she can do a spot-on vocal impersonation of Maggie Smith. The tone darkens, somewhat, after the intermission, with a series of monologues in which, as in “Uncle Vanya,” the characters address their psychic turmoil. “I’m worried about the future, and I miss the past,” says this play’s Vanya (a morose Michael Maloney), who turns out to be gay and is given to adoring the toned Spike in various states of undress.Dee’s feisty Masha has been married five times but isn’t beyond fretting about an outfit that doesn’t go down well with the locals: At such moments, the play lapses into the comparatively cheesy realm of sitcom (a genre unknown to Chekhov). Additional characters include Nina (Lukwesa Mwamba), the name referencing someone from another Chekhov play, “The Seagull,” and an emphatic seer named — you got it — Cassandra (Sara Powell). The literary forebears may be there, but the play doesn’t so much pay tribute to Chekhov as leave you pining for his wit and wisdom.After two shows that riff on (and in the case of the Durang, sometimes cheapen) an illustrious source or two, along comes Ralph Fiennes to give us the real thing, unadorned and unedited. The protean actor, rarely long absent from the stage, is directing himself in a theatrical performance of T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets,” at the Harold Pinter Theater through Dec. 18. The production, lasting 75 minutes with no intermission, represents a decidedly highbrow alternative to the japery on view nearby.Ralph Fiennes in T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets.”Matt HumphreyEliot’s masterwork was written in four parts while the poet was also evolving as a playwright, and Fiennes treats this writer’s often abstruse language as the stuff of drama, as potent in its way as the Shakespeare texts to which this actor regularly returns. I doubt I’m alone in not knowing what Eliot meant by the words “deliberate hebetude” from “East Coker,” the second of the quartets. But there’s no denying the mesmeric spell of a performer who can make even the opaque sound immediate. (I looked it up later: “Hebetude” means lethargy, or dullness.)Appearing barefoot, pausing to sip water or move the gray slabs that make up the designer Hildegard Bechtler’s elegantly austere set, the actor guides us through Eliot’s extended meditation on consciousness and hope, exploration and loss. Fiennes commits himself physically to an agile performance in which his body often writhes in response to Eliot’s images. And at a time when other London stages are filtering great work through a revisionist lens, here is the thing itself, ceaselessly and restlessly alive.Pride and Prejudice* (*sort of). Directed by Isobel McArthur and Simon Harvey. Criterion Theater, open-ended run.Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike. Directed by Walter Bobbie. Charing Cross Theater, through Jan. 8.Four Quartets. Directed by Ralph Fiennes. Harold Pinter Theater, through Dec. 18. More
- in Movies
They Adapted ‘Mrs. Doubtfire,’ and Their Personal Beliefs
Wayne and Karey Kirkpatrick have come a long way from their beginnings in Christian rock, but they’re glad to be creating a family-friendly musical comedy.Wayne and Karey Kirkpatrick “could spend hours discussing the psychology” of growing up the sons of a Louisiana pastor and ending up in show business.Wayne, 60, the older brother, made this remark with all due seriousness, during a break from polishing a musical version of the 1993 comedy “Mrs. Doubtfire” ahead of its Dec. 5 opening at the Stephen Sondheim Theater. That will be nearly 21 months after the show closed three performances into previews, shuttered by the pandemic.Karey, 56, is more talkative, but the brothers complete each other’s sentences with the rapport of siblings who began recording pretend radio shows as kids. Over two hours in a hotel lobby in Manhattan, he and Karey recounted their religious Southern upbringing, their early careers and how they went from singing in Southern Baptist churches to writing Broadway musicals.And yet, as they shared colorful anecdotes, one could draw parallels between their own professional and personal evolutions, and the changes they’ve made to their source material for “Mrs. Doubtfire.”“The sensibilities of the world we live in today are different than 1993 as we relate to all kinds of things,” Karey said. For example, the show’s producer Kevin McCollum interjected, “a man in a dress.”Three decades ago, Robin Williams raked in box office receipts by donning fake boobs and plaid skirts. As Daniel Hillard, Williams played a newly divorced father so desperate to spend time with his children he disguised himself as a Scottish nanny and became a housekeeper for his ex-wife.With help from John O’Farrell, a British satirist and co-writer of the book, the stage version of “Mrs. Doubtfire” has been updated to reflect the cellphone era, greater racial diversity and our 21st-century understanding of gender. The adaptation was seven years in the making, and along the way, further changes were necessary in the wake of the #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter movements, O’Farrell said.Rob McClure as the title character.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesIn the film, Sally Field portrayed the ex-wife, an imperious interior designer prattling on about Regency-style tables and Flemish tapestries. The musical finds her character, Miranda (Jenn Gambatese), designing sleek orange-and-pink athleisure wear for women who “work hard and then work out.”With Rob McClure, who plays Daniel, sitting next to her onstage, Miranda plays a confessional piano ballad, called “Let Go,” about her unfulfilling marriage. That spotlight moment supplants a less sympathetic number, “I’m Done,” which was cut after the 2019 Seattle tryout. Reviews for that production were mixed, though McClure’s performance was roundly praised.To better contextualize the man-in-a-dress schtick, the costume designer Catherine Zuber helped create the contrasting character of Andre, Daniel’s gender nonconforming brother-in-law (played by J. Harrison Ghee, who took over Billy Porter’s role in “Kinky Boots”).Andre wears flowy caftans as fashion rather than a joke. And he saves the day by distracting a court-appointed social worker who shows up at Daniel’s ramshackle apartment.McClure, meanwhile, changes in and out of his Doubtfire costume and winds up with a pie in his face, reprising an iconic image from the film. “This is all going to end badly. You do know that, right?” Andre deadpans after the ordeal.Championing families and fatherhood is what drew the Kirkpatricks to the “Doubtfire” story.Their first Broadway musical, the 2015 show “Something Rotten!,” about an Elizabethan theater troupe struggling to compete with Shakespeare’s Globe, was completely original.They had hoped their second would be too, but McCollum persuaded them to choose from a library of 20th Century Fox films he’d been hired to work on. The team settled on “Mrs. Doubtfire” because “we could relate to this story of a dad who would do anything to be with his kids,” Karey said. (Collectively, the three writers and their producer are fathers to 10 children.)The Kirkpatricks’ own father was a Southern Baptist music minister later called to the pulpit himself. He moved the family from Alexandria, La. to Baton Rouge to lead a nondenominational church.Household routines included hymn singing, piano practicing and no cursing. To this day, their mother will voice her displeasure with one of the brothers’ projects with a single word: “Language.”“I used to write everything knowing our parents would read it, and not swear or do anything offensive,” Karey said. “I had to liberate myself from that.”Brian d’Arcy James, second from left, in “Something Rotten!,” the Kirkpatrick brothers’ first Broadway musical.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWayne added, “Growing up in that environment, there was so much taboo.” But thankfully, their parents had long been supportive of their artistic interests, even dressing their young sons in matching outfits to perform patriotic numbers like “Yankee Doodle.” As adolescents, they took guitar lessons at Bible camp and came home begging for a Sears catalog guitar.As soon as Wayne learned how to change chords, he was transcribing songs and writing his own. Karey craved the spotlight more, acting in shows at their arts magnet high school. Yet he said he sensed that his older brother was the greater musical talent.“At age 18, I decided I was going to be his manager,” Karey recalled. His chance to play impresario came in 1983, when as a freshman studying music business at Belmont University in Nashville, he was assigned to interview someone from the industry. He picked Amy Grant, the first solo Christian music recording artist to have an album certified gold.“But I had ulterior motives,” he said. He had a crush on Grant and wanted to promote Wayne, so after the interview, he invited the secretary from Grant’s office to lunch and slipped her a three-song cassette.Sure enough, Grant’s manager called. He liked the songs. Were there more?Karey returned with another tape. The manager called again, and this time he said, “Can I meet your brother?”“I’m not a self promoter,” Wayne said, admitting that were it not for his loquacious brother, the duo might never have embarked on their parallel careers. Karey soon dropped out of Belmont to pursue acting. By 1993, the year “Mrs. Doubtfire” came out, Wayne had written more than 200 contemporary Christian songs, including multiple chart toppers for Grant (like “Good for Me” and “Every Heartbeat”) and Michael W. Smith (“Place in this World” and “Go West Young Man”).Five Movies to Watch This WinterCard 1 of 51. “The Power of the Dog”: More
- in Theater
‘Clyde’s’ Review: Sometimes a Hero Is More Than Just a Sandwich
In Lynn Nottage’s bright new comedy, cooks at a greasy spoon dream of remaking the menu — and their lives.We are living in Greek times — or so you might conclude from the preponderance of Greek tragedies turned out by today’s playwrights. The world they show us is too dark for anything but the cruelest of tales, the bleakest of forms.And no wonder. The systems that control our lives — institutional racism, predatory capitalism, the prison-industrial complex — seem as powerful and implacable as gods. What can humans do about fate, these playwrights suggest, but submit to it and hope to preserve the story?Lynn Nottage has sometimes been one of them. Her two Pulitzer Prizes are for works in which the world and its people are trapped in an abusive relationship. In “Ruined,” women prove to be the real targets in the Congolese civil war. In “Sweat,” steelworkers resisting their union-busting management inexorably wind up busting one another.But Nottage’s delightful new play, “Clyde’s,” which opened at the Helen Hayes Theater on Tuesday, dares to flip the paradigm. Though it’s still about dark things, including prison, drugs, homelessness and poverty, it somehow turns them into bright comedy. In Kate Whoriskey’s brisk and thoroughly satisfying production for Second Stage Theater, we learn that, unlike Oedipus and his mom, people who may have little else nevertheless have choices.Which is not to say the choices are easy. In the kitchen of the truck stop diner that gives the play its title, the cooks making the sandwiches have all served time. Letitia (Kara Young) “got greedy” and stole “some oxy and addy to sell on the side” after breaking into a pharmacy to obtain “seizure medication” for her daughter. Rafael (Reza Salazar) held up a bank but (a) with a BB gun, and (b) only because he wanted to buy his girlfriend a Cavalier King Charles spaniel. We don’t at first get the story of how Montrellous (Ron Cephas Jones) wound up behind bars, but he is so saintly that Letitia, called Tish, believes it must have been elective.In any case, like the others, he has paid the price, and keeps paying it. As the joint’s proprietor, Clyde (Uzo Aduba), enjoys pointing out, she’s the only employer in Reading, Penn., who will hire “morons” like them. She does so not because she too was once incarcerated; don’t accuse her of a soft heart. (Of the crime that landed her in prison the only thing she says is that the last man who tried to hurt her “isn’t around to try again, I made damn sure of that.”) Rather, Clyde has shady reasons to keep the overhead low and the morale even lower.Aduba, far left, as the shady restaurant proprietor Clyde, and her cooks, from left: Reza Salazar, Kara Young, Jones and Edmund Donovan.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesIn Aduba’s hilarious and scalding performance, Clyde, wearing a succession of skintight don’t-mess-with-me outfits by Jennifer Moeller, is a shape-shifting hellhound, all but breathing fire. (The pyrotechnics are by J&M Special Effects.) Though “not indifferent to suffering,” she tells Montrellous, she doesn’t “do pity,” which is an understatement. Popping up like a demon in a small window between the front and the back of the restaurant, she roars orders and insults; when she emerges, in full glory, among her minions, it is only to exert her fearful, foul-mouthed dominance.Into this uncomfortable equilibrium comes Jason (Edmund Donovan), recently out of prison and covered with white supremacist tattoos. (The other characters, in this production, are Black and Latino.) At first it seems that Jason’s integration into the kitchen will form the story’s spine: Tish quickly warns him that she knows all about “breaking wild white horses.” But it turns out to be less of a spine than a rib. Despite his tats and defenses, Jason is a puppy, fully domesticated before the play is half over.This conception of Jason worried me at first. People who have seen “Sweat” will recognize him as one of the perpetrators of a heinous attack on a Colombian American busboy at the climax of that play, also set in Reading. (Another character suffers a traumatic brain injury in the process.) If Nottage’s aim was to keep “Clyde’s” a comedy, even one about redemption, Jason had to be rebuilt; in the writing though not the performance — Donovan faultlessly negotiates the contradictions — the seams sometimes show.Even if you don’t know “Sweat,” though, “Clyde’s” may slightly cloy. The three other cooks, with their softball crimes, begin to seem a pinch too adorable. Tish, in Young’s superb performance, is a smart, sharp, heavily defended kitten; Rafael, a huggable romantic; Montrellous, an impeccably kind sage — “like a Buddha,” Rafael says, “if he’d grown up in the hood.” Jones fulfills that description perfectly, correcting for the character’s Zen imperturbability with subtle dashes of pain and sacrifice.Still, where’s the action? Another underdeveloped plotline explores the possibility of the diner becoming a destination restaurant. In yet another, a pro forma (but totally heartwarming) romance buds between two of the characters. And the series of fantastical sandwiches Montrellous creates, inspiring the others to make their own as a way of dreaming big, threatens to convert from a leitmotif into an annoyance when it is forced to bear too much meaning. All the cooks have served time. Young, left, plays Tish who stole “some oxy and addy to sell on the side.” And Salazar, as Rafael, held up a bank to buy his girlfriend a Cavalier King Charles spaniel.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesYet in “Clyde’s,” Nottage does something shrewd with the obvious underlinings that can sometimes make her meticulously researched plays feel didactic. By putting them into a character whose goal is in fact to educate, and by blowing them up into amusing overstatements, she keeps the play itself from becoming gassy. When Montrellous says that sandwiches like his grilled halloumi on home-baked herb focaccia are “the most democratic of all foods” — or that “this sandwich is my freedom” — we see something about his personality, not just the playwright waving semaphore flags.It also helps that Takeshi Kata’s cleverly expanding set, lit for comedy by Christopher Akerlind, allows Whoriskey to hit the ground running and barely pause for 95 minutes. She leans beautifully into the sweetness of the cooks but also, bending the other way, into the sourness of Clyde, for whom Nottage has written great zingers. When Rafael complains about the rotting Chilean sea bass she expects him to cook, she responds, approximately, “You think Colonel Sanders didn’t fry up a couple of rats to make ends meet?”Playwrights sometimes do the same. In this case the shortcuts were totally worth it; that “Clyde’s” is a comedy does not mean it doesn’t have tragedy baked in. (It was originally called “Floyd’s” — until George Floyd was murdered.) Though it ultimately rejects the Greek model, it is still about gods and mortals. What is Clyde but a greasy-spoon Satan, the diabolical voice seductively whispering “Don’t get too high on hope” to people trying to escape their past?Still, the cooks are in purgatory, not hell. They are not merely victims of fate; they can use their moral imagination to resist the Clydes of this world. That they discover the power of that imagination in the most unlikely way, by making food, is what makes the play funny. The point would be much the same, though, if it weren’t: Sometimes, there’s a good reason you can’t stand the heat. When that happens, get out of the kitchen!Clyde’sThrough Jan. 16 at the Helen Hayes Theater, Manhattan; 2st.com. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. More
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‘Moulin Rouge!’ Has a New Satine. She’s Amazed She’s Back on Broadway.
Natalie Mendoza walked away from “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark,” and figured she would never work on Broadway again.That was 11 years ago, and now the 45-year-old Australian actress is back, starring in “Moulin Rouge! The Musical,” a title with which she has a singular history: Mendoza, who succeeds Karen Olivo in the role of Satine, had a small part in the 2001 film from which the Tony-winning show is adapted; she is the only member of the film’s cast performing in the stage musical.Born in Hong Kong to a Filipino jazz musician and an Australian dancer and television personality, Mendoza grew up in Sydney and Melbourne, with five artistically inclined siblings, and has led a nomadic life. She has lived in Asia, Europe and America; worked in music, film, television and theater; and has repeatedly left the performing arts for school (most recently, she studied French and French history at the Sorbonne) and spirituality (she has spent time at Vedic and other monasteries).Mendoza as the doomed Parisian chanteuse in “Moulin Rouge! The Musical.”Matt MurphyAnd as the villainous Arachne in “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.” She left the ill-fated show before opening night. Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesIn 2010, she was cast in the ill-fated “Spider-Man” as Arachne, a villainous spider, but left during previews after suffering a concussion and then witnessing an actor injured in a fall. That was not her only difficult experience with the entertainment industry; in 2017 she said that 15 years earlier Harvey Weinstein had groped her while she was working on a film he was producing.But in an interview earlier this month at the apartment tower where she is staying, she said she loves being onstage, and hopes to become a director.These are edited excerpts from the conversation.We’re talking in a conference room because, citing Covid, “Moulin Rouge!” won’t let me backstage. So let’s just pretend we’re in your dressing room. What would I see?They have this tradition here where you’re allowed to paint your dressing room. First, I felt a little ridiculous, and then I went for a light violet. I wanted something very peaceful and tranquil. There’s a prayer of St. Francis, to remind me to be a better person every day. And beautiful art. I collect art.“You think you’re enlightened on top of a mountain, and you go back into the city and you’re like, ‘How awake am I in this stressful setting?’”Mark Elzey for The New York TimesAnd do you keep a good-luck charm, or mementos?Not really. I’ve checked out of my career many times. I became a seeker very early. I learned meditation, and on and off I’ve been a monk, so when I say I’ve left, I really left. And so to re-engage with the world is always a little bit of a shock. It’s sort of Larry Darrell in “The Razor’s Edge.” You think you’re enlightened on top of a mountain, and you go back into the city and you’re like, “How awake am I in this stressful setting?”I want to come back to spirituality, but let’s start with “Moulin Rouge!” How did you wind up in the film?Many, many moons ago, when I was still living in Australia, I had been cast as Eponine in “Les Misérables.” Baz [Luhrmann] came to see “Les Miz,” because he was wanting to cast Satine, and I ended up at the final audition at his house in Sydney with his whole crew of creatives and bohemians. And we basically workshopped the role.A couple of weeks later, I heard that the glorious Nicole Kidman got the role, which didn’t surprise me. But Baz kept calling me, and saying, “Listen, we want you involved; we’re going to create a character for you,” and sure enough, that’s what happened. He created China Doll. It set my career in a different direction. All the people I met on that film set helped shape my tastes. This girl from the suburbs of Australia suddenly started dreaming about the streets of Paris, and life in London.You had taken a break from performing when you were cast in the London production of “Here Lies Love,” which is how you met Alex Timbers.Being an Asian actress, I would see other young actresses careers take this very clear trajectory, [but] I would play a really interesting role, and then all of a sudden I’d drop off because there wasn’t another role to continue that upward trajectory. Rather than wait around, I’d just go off to India, or go off and study something, and then I’d pop back in. The National Theater contacted me just when I’d left a monastery that I’d been at for a year. So that was a dream come true. And it was hugely successful, and then I just disappeared again.Mendoza and Aaron Tveit in “Moulin Rouge!” She replaced Karen Olivo, who originated the role of Satine onstage.Matt MurphyNow it’s six years later; Timbers is directing “Moulin Rouge!” and he reached out to you again.It had been so long. I just thought, “Can I do this?” Even when I’m not in a monastery, I still very much live that lifestyle. I’m very quiet. I teach meditation. I don’t speak a whole lot. I certainly don’t sing. But I just threw caution to the wind. And I realized I knew this character, because I was there right at the beginning.Karen Olivo, who originated the role of Satine onstage, left citing abuses in the industry. Did that concern you?I messaged her, before opening night, and I just thanked her, because she’s part of this character. I’m benefiting from a lot of the work that she did. And it’s always wonderful when a woman wants to take a stand based on her principles. I know that she cared deeply about the company and the cast, and she was incredibly gracious in saying that she was happy to leave the show in my hands.You had your own experience speaking up, about Harvey Weinstein.It was actually incredibly clumsy of me. The way it was portrayed in the press was far more heroic than the truth. I was reading an article about an actress [who was describing her] experience, and he sort of had a script, and I had encountered the same script. My initial impulse was to comment [on Facebook], and somehow it got leaked.He affected the arc of your career?I had signed a three-picture deal. But after that first movie, I decided Hollywood’s not for me, because I could see the cost. I never see myself as a victim. The thing is Harvey can only be Harvey because there’s a collective agreement that allows it to happen. We’re now seeing these collective shifts, these waves of a change, which is so beautiful. But at that time, that wasn’t going to happen. And so I just went off and kept being an artist in the way that I knew how. But of course, it affected my career. My career was full of potential at that point — I was young and I had some great opportunities, but I took the quieter road.You’re sort of a child of the world. How do you think about your own identity?I do think of myself as a citizen of the world. Growing up in Australia, I was literally like one of two Asian girls in my school year. So I never identified with being Australian. I couldn’t relate to the culture. I would look in the mirror and I would see an Asian girl. And I was drawn to all things Asian. I then left. I started touring and living all over Asia by the age of 16. I was connecting with the different spiritual traditions. And this is what piqued my interest early and then I just started seeking out my own path.“It’s always those devastating blows that propel you, if you allow them to,” Mendoza said.Mark Elzey for The New York TimesSpeaking of your path, I looked through your Instagram and you mention Transcendental Meditation, Christ, the Divine Mother, the Buddha, Lao Tzu, Ram Dass, Rumi, a Hindu god, Saint Francis of Assisi. What’s going on?I really honor the essence that permeates all the great faiths, including the faith of quantum mechanics. The intelligence that allows a flower to bloom. That invisible essence that connects and permeates all. We see the crema on top of every great faith. There’s just this commonality that they all share, which is love and peace and compassion. I’m a fan of all of them and a devotee of all of them.Your last Broadway appearance was “Spider-Man.” You left after a concussion. Tell me what your thinking was about coming back.I realized there’s some unfinished business here, because it brought up some strange feelings, like, “Do I want to revisit that?” And I didn’t think I’d ever get a chance to perform on Broadway again, because sometimes when things like that happen, you become untouchable. “Oh, you know, she was part of that production.” And so the opportunity to be given this chance, and to change the narrative, because I’m certainly not a quitter — it is the last thing I would ever have expected, but it’s incredibly beautiful to be doing this.How do you view “Spider-Man” in the rearview mirror?It’s its own Greek myth, isn’t it? It was a really powerful turning point for me. To get that close, and to suddenly not be doing it, was a pretty devastating blow. And at the same time, it’s always those devastating blows that propel you, if you allow them to, in a direction spiritually that can be the greatest gift of your life, and certainly that’s what happened. I am so thankful to have gone through that experience, and also to carry so many of the lessons from that experience into this experience. It’s all beautiful.When I heard you got this role, the first thing that occurred to me is that Satine flies. Did that freak you out?Not at all. People thought I left that show because I was scared, and I wasn’t. I was making a stand. People’s safety is important, and it wasn’t my safety I was concerned about. I’m a rock climber. I’m not scared of heights. I’m not afraid. I don’t think any show is worth putting anybody’s life at risk, particularly these dancers that have spent their entire lives training to be up on that stage. You have to treat those bodies with so much respect, because that’s their livelihood. I would never want stardom so much that I would compromise my own integrity. And I have no problem taking a stand for anybody. More
- in Music
N.Y.U. Skirball Season Reinvigorates the Classics
Elevator Repair Service will premiere a show inspired by Chekhov’s “The Seagull,” and the Classical Theater of Harlem’s hip-hop-infused “Seize the King” gets an encore.Numerous high-profile Shakespeare productions will fill New York stages next year.Among them will be “Seize the King,” Will Power’s contemporary spin on “Richard III” that was staged by the Classical Theater of Harlem in Marcus Garvey Park last summer, which is likely the only production that has a courting scene in a bathtub and that sprinkles in references to birth control and eating sushi with a fork.The 95-minute, hip-hop-infused reinterpretation of Shakespeare’s classic will return from March 3 to March 13, as part of New York University’s Skirball Center for the Performing Arts’s new season, which was announced on Tuesday. Carl Cofield, who directed the summer production, will return as director.In her review of last summer’s outdoor staging, the New York Times critic Laura Collins-Hughes deemed the show a Critic’s Pick, praising its humorous reimagining of the classic characters. The production “contained multitudes of beauty,” she wrote.Before “Seize the King,” the Skirball will kick off its season with the world premiere of Elevator Repair Service’s “Seagull,” inspired by Anton Chekhov’s classic drama “The Seagull” and directed by John Collins (Feb. 2-20). Elevator Repair Service, a veteran theater company known for its unconventional takes on classic literary texts, staged “Gatz,” an eight-hour reading of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel “The Great Gatsby” at the Skirball in 2019.“‘Seagull’ isn’t a marathon” like “Gatz,” Jay Wegman, Skirball’s director, said of the new production, which runs about two and a half hours. “But it’s going to be whacked out in a wonderful way.”The Skirball has also lined up the world premiere of an interactive online experience called “I Agree to the Terms” (March 25-April 3), created by the theater company Builders Association with input from “microworkers” who develop Amazon’s algorithms. Audiences will complete virtual training sessions with these workers — taking them inside a sprawling and largely unregulated industry of people who earn pennies per click while completing assignments that are repetitive, boring, maddening and sometimes disturbing.“They’ve done a few workshops, and it’s anxiety-provoking in these sessions,” said Wegman, who added that the show becomes a competition among audience members. “You’re constantly being watched and counted and manipulated by the algorithm, so it’s very timely.”Rounding out the Skirball’s season are a concert by the Spanish flamenco singer Miguel Poveda, who will make his New York City solo debut (April 7-8); the world premiere of David Dorfman Dance’s “(A)Way Out Of My Body” (April 22-23); the New York premiere of the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Du Yun’s “Zolle” and “A Cockroach’s Tarantella,” presented with International Contemporary Ensemble (April 29-30); and another New York premiere, the choreographer and MacArthur fellow Eiko Otake’s “The Duet Project: Distance is Malleable” (April 14-17).A full season lineup is available at nyuskirball.org. More
