News and reviews from New York City's off-Broadway and independent theater scene
News: Blessed Unrest and Teatri ODA of Kosovo present "Refuge," April 29-May 11
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Photo Credit: Maria Baranova
Baruch Performing Arts Center, in conjunction with Teatri ODA of Kosovo and the consistently excellent Blessed Unrest present the world premiere of Refuge, a devised physical-theater piece based on events in Albania during the Second World War, a time in which Albanian families, many of them Muslim, took in thousands of Jewish refugees. Refuge follows the journey of a young Jewish woman to a remote Albanian village, where she discovers truths about her family history.
Refuge, with text by Matt Opatrny and Florent Mehmeti and music by the Metropolitan Klezmer, and co-directed by Jessica Burr and Florent Mehmeti, plays at Baruch Performing Arts Center (55 Lexington Ave [25th St. between Lexington and Third], Manhattan, NYC) from April 29 through May 11, 2019.
Unsex Me Here: The Tragedy of Macbeth
Written by William Shakespeare
Directed by Maggie Cino
Presented by Obvious Volcano at The Brick Theater
579 Metropolitan Ave, Brooklyn, NYC
November 8-23, 2019
William Shakespeare's Macbeth is no stranger to productions that experiment with gender. Fab Marquee Productions' 2015 Macbeth (of the Oppressed) (reviewed by us here), which gave Macbeth a husband and cast several of the other lead characters as women, and Red Bull Theater's 2019 Mac Beth, in which all the roles were played by a small cast of young women, come to mind as recent examples. No doubt the play's strong gender-oriented throughlines invite such reimaginings: from the start, for instance, Lady Macbeth—never identified other than by her title and her husband's last name—leverages constructions of masculinity against her husband and famously wishes to renounce the expectations of her sex. It is from this request, Lady Macbeth's invocation of spirits to repla…
ray gun say0nara
Written by Steven Mark Tenney
Directed by Janet Bentley
Presented by Nylon Fusion Theatre Company at New Ohio Theatre
154 Christopher Street, Manhattan, NYC
December 4-22, 2019ray gun say0nara, Steven Mark Tenney's new "sci-fi play with songs" has evil twins, interstellar portals, immortal beings, and alien princesses, as well as rampant in-universe cosplay, cosmically significant proms, and, yes, ray guns. What we're saying is, ray gun is a lot of fun. But its pulp sci-fi adventure trappings are also a conduit for themes about storytelling, mythologizing, and existential duality. Playing in repertory with The Listening Room (reviewed by us here) at New Ohio Theatre, ray gun say0nara takes audiences on a retro-futurist journey to the stars in which dreams are as important as spacecraft and connection as important as conflict.
In the universe (or Metaverse) of ray gun say0nara, aliens called Nadirians first came to Earth in the 1950s (a boom-time for…
Bad Penny
Written by Mac Wellman
Directed by Kristan Seemel
Presented by The Flea Theater
20 Thomas St., Manhattan, NYC
August 24-October 7, 2019 [extended through October 13, 2019]
A woman ponders the ontology of the sky. Later, she delivers a florid and impassioned oration about a yet-to-be-discovered cheese. A confrontational man with Montana roots carries a whitewall tire. On the margins of other conversations, a trio of women speak quietly in unison. Welcome to the Central Park of Mac Wellman's Bad Penny, a place that one character characterizes as a place of lunacy that provides an escape from the even greater lunacy of city life. The Flea Theater's current production of Bad Penny makes up part of its Mac Wellman: Perfect Catastrophes, A Festival of Plays, a celebration of the work of Wellman, award-winning playwright, novelist, professor, and co-founder of the Flea. In addition to Bad Penny, the festival will feature productions of Sincerity Forever (reviewed by us her…
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