277. “Nowhere in Africa,” Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, May 5: Have they made every Holocaust film under the sun? Perhaps now they have, with this gentle, relaxing film about a Jewish husband, wife and daughter who flee Nazi Germany for the otherworldliness of Kenya before it’s too late. What’s remarkable about the film is the complexity of the relationship between husband and wife: Walter (Merab Ninidze) knows that he loves Jettel (Juliane Kohler) more than she loves him – and over the years, they coexist on a slightly uneasy basis because of it. But they’re bound together, farming in Africa and grieving for the relatives left behind in Germany. Because Holocaust films are such a part of our culture, it’s possible in a film like this to use shorthand – all we need is the letter from the Red Cross, say, to evoke the horror of learning that your relatives were sent to a concentration camp. We don’t need to see the showers or shudder at the Jews crammed into terrible quarters to feel the horror of it all; we’re already programmed. This shorthand makes it possible to explore an entirely different slant on the Holocaust – namely the people who fled to new lives overseas – without spending any time in Germany.
278. “The Swing (Selkinchek),” Walter Reade Theatre, May 6: This mostly wordless 1993 film from Kyrgzstan is about a young boy in a village whose days are spent in the company of an older, retarded man with a mouse. Part of Lincoln Center’s “Films From Along the Silk Road” series. Also on the program: “Stairway in the House With an Elevator,” about two old women bickering on the way up the stairs; the short “Assan-Ussen,” about two bickering brothers carrying water whose fight is broken up by a bemused old man; and the delightful “The Dog Was Walking By,” who traverses the length of a city and bumps into the pampered and manicured dogs of the rich and the bedraggled strays fighting for survival. There weren’t any subtitles on any of these films – not that you’d need them, except for the old-women-bickering film. It was relaxing simply to sit back and let the images of a different world wash over me.
279. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, May 6: The library itself as I searched for a journal article was a disaster; it’s like China, what with filling out all sorts of slips and forms and having them stamped three times, and then I waited an hour and 15 minutes only to learn that my book was misshelved. But … I did get a chance to check out the library’s special exhibition of original cast albums.
280. “A Conversation with Margaret Atwood,” Low Library rotunda, May 6: Atwood’s new book is called “Oryx and Crake,” and from her description, it sounds like a dystopia novel in the vein of “The Handmaid’s Tale.” Though it has grim elements (hazards of genetic engineering, bioterrorism, child pornography), Atwood insisted “it’s quite a funny book.” (Talk about timing: There’s even a virus in the book – but not SARS.) Atwood is a slight, soft-spoken person but definitely has an edge – her face is angled, just like her prose. She said that the basic structure of “The Iliad” serves her well: You start in the middle, go forward into the future, but also delve into the past to explain how the characters got there. Writing has to be a process of discovery for her; with a book like “The Blind Assassin,” for example, she wrote it pretty much in order. “If I already have the whole thing in my mind, there’s no real point to writing a novel,” she said. Atwood recommended several young Canadian writers: Anne Michaels and Wayne Johnson.
281. Van Cortlandt House Museum, Van Cortlandt Park, May 7: This was actually my first visit to the Bronx during my stay here; the quaint, three-story structure is a throwback to colonial days, when the Bronx was just a few big family farms.
282. “Romola and Nijinsky: Deux Marriages,” Primary Stages, May 8: A world premiere by Lynne Alvarez focusing on the dancer Vaslav Nijinsky (David Barlow) and his affair and subsequent 1913 marriage to Romala de Pulszky, (Kelly Hutchinson) a fellow dancer in the Ballets Russes. This eclectic dance company broke with tradition and made its male dancers as sexy as its female ones (prior to this the men pretty much served as people movers for the women), and Nijinsky oozed charisma. He had a long-standing affair with Sergei Diagheliff, the head of the Ballets Russes, but Diagheliff didn’t accompany the dancers on a tour of the New World – and this is where most of the play’s action is set. (They flirted and soon wed, much to the shock of the company – and to Diagheliff.) Nijinsky and Romola remained married for 30 years, though he suffered from mental illness. Deciding to focus on a narrow part of Nijinsky’s life was a good decision for the playwright – too often in biographical outings such as these, the scope is too broad. But the direction is a bit too dreamy and oblique – lots of affected use of three secondary dancers constantly commenting on the action – and doesn’t give us a strong enough point of view. And the awkward epilogue, in which we see Nijinsky in 1919 in full throes of mental illness (claiming to be married to God), seems arbitrary and tacked on.
283. Group discussion with Rob Kapilow, apartment of Michael Wise, May 9: Wow. If classical music were a religion, then Kapilow would be its most enthusiastic missionary: He’s intent on convincing audiences that its worth their while to simply listen. Kapilow is a conductor, scholar, pianist, historian and lecturer – and was the host of NPR’s “What Makes It So Great?” Most of the time, he said, all it takes is pointing out the complexity of a chord – to get people to really listen to that chord for the first time – that can get them excited about classical music. I’m not entirely sure about all his assumptions – there’s a slightly elitist tinge to some of his shtick, as if all that is truly glorious about music needs to be imparted by someone more knowledgeable than you – but you can’t help but be bowled over by Kapilow’s sheer, charismatic force of personality. Heck, this guy could get Mozart on MTV if he tried.
284. “The Lion King,” New Amsterdam Theatre, May 10: Time for standing room for one of Broadway’s most popular shows. For sheer stagecraft, this razzle-dazzle Disney production is incredible. Everything I’d heard about Julie Taymor’s direction and Garth Fagan’s imaginative choreography is true; the depiction of the various animals – from giraffes to hyenas – is stunning. So is some of the staging, such as when young Simba gets caught up in a thundering stampede. As for the book and songs – well, they serve their purpose, you could charitably say, and even though the Disney stamp is all over this production, you have to bow in the direction of the Great Mouse for putting together an artistic event rather than shlocky kid’s fare.
285. Museum of Arts and Design, May 11: A small, spare little museum (formerly the American Craft Museum). I was taken with “Libensky and His Students: 44 Czech Glass Artists,” which featured some beautiful work by the students of Stanislav Libensky, who revolutioned the field of modern Czech glass art over a period spanning four decades.
286. “The Play What I Wrote,” Lyceum Theatre, May 11: Ah, those wacky Brits. This comic event strutted to Broadway like a proud English peacock after rapturous reviews in the West End; I suspect a little something has been lost in the translation, but it’s still jolly good fun in a Monty Python meets “Laugh In” sort of way. The premise is that comic duo Sean Foley and Hamish McColl want to go to Broadway – but only if Hamish can perform in his “serious” play. Of course, producer Mike “Tickles” only wants the wacky stuff. (At times it plays like one big Broadway in-joke; Mike Nichols is the real producer.) Loaded with sight gags, bad puns and slightly raunchy humor, the laughs keep coming, and the announcement of the “mystery guest” – which we were told was going to be Sir Ian McKellen but turned out to be “Will & Grace” star Eric McCormack – added some luster to the occasion.
287. Lark public rehearsal, CUNY Graduate Center, May 12: My last public Lark event for my practicum – this one featuring selected scenes from “Waxing West” and “Undone.”
288. Metropolitan Museum of Art, May 13: In one of the most auspiciously timed exhibitions in years, the Met’s “Art of the First Cities” opened just days after the ransacking of the Baghdad Museum. Some gorgeous items on display, and a fascinating peek at what’s been called the Cradle of Civilization. I was particularly interested in the Giant Death Pit of Ur, in which archaeologists discovered the remains of 68 female sacrificial victims buried along with their ruler. For this visit to the Met, I also tried to catch up with some of the paintings I’d always wanted to see in the permanent collections: Turner’s “The White Ship,” the sinister trombonist in Seraut’s “Circus Sideshow,” Modigliani’s “Reclining Nude,” “Juan Gris” and “Boy in a Striped Sweater,” and an interesting discovery for me: John Stewart Curry’s “Wisconsin Landscape,” with its evocation of the sublime in a scene of the sun fiercely shining through a raging blue sky and bouncing off a blood-red barn – terror and beauty in the heartland.
289. Rennie Harris’ “Facing Mekka,” Joyce Theatre, May 13: An evocative, energetic celebration of hip-hop and its African roots. While the head-spinning was impressive, I was much more moved by the slower, grief-stricken moments of quiet amidst the pounding beat.
290. “The Producers,” St. James Theatre, May 14: Yes, I finally got to see it – and even with all the hype, I was caught up in the joy of Mel Brooks’ clever, amusing ode to that most American of art forms: the book musical. This was one of those cases where I knew the music and lyrics so well beforehand that the experience became almost purely visual – not that the music is all that memorable, but it certainly is fun. So my favorite moment was in the incomparable finale of “Springtime for Hitler” in which the dancers form a water-ballet-style swastika, complete with raked mirror in the background. It was a complete surprise to me, one of the most brilliantly over-the-top moments I’ve ever seen staged. The cast I saw was just fine: Lewis J. Stadlen, Roger Bart and original cast member Cady Huffman. Plus John Treacy Egan was a scream as Roger De Bris.
291. “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” New Victory Theater, May 14: Quite simply one of the best stagings of a Shakespeare comedy I’ve seen. This Aquila Theatre Company production was far superior to the group’s “Comedy of Errors” I saw in the fall. It practically glided. The New Victory Theater is oriented toward family performances, and there were lots of kids in the crowd, so it’s easy to see why the production emphasized physical comedy and pratfalls. Yet there was something tender and lovely at the heart of the play – when the two couples finally are united at the end after their madcap escapades in the woods, it was touching. Also impressive was the staging: To depict those woods, the director used large, colorful umbrellas, some of them hanging above, some opened on the ground, giving the characters something to hide under. It was a nice, dreamy effect that fit in perfectly with the mood of the play.
292. “Rain Dance,” Signature Theatre Company at the Peter Norton space, May 15: This was the fourth and last play in Signature’s all-Lanford-Wilson season, and it easily ranked as the least successful. It’s a play about ideas – it’s set in Los Alamos the night of the test of the first nuclear bomb – than about the people on stage, and it sags under the weight of all that significance. James Van Der Beek, as the idealistic scientist Hank, competently doled out a thick Bronx accent, but he didn’t seem naïve enough to miss the point that this bomb he helped build would ultimately be put to use. Randolph Mantooth (of “Emergency” fame) had a few nice moments as a Native American military policeman.
293. Lower East Side Tenement Museum, May 16: From 1863-1935, more than 7,000 people lived in the four floors of this average tenement building on Orchard Street. It’s been lovingly restored – with the exception of one room, which has been left as is – and what strikes you when you walk in are some of the beautiful small details: tile floors, pressed-metal walls, ornate ceilings. A tenement (which wasn’t always a word with a negative connotation) wasn’t designed as a slum; it was a place where middle-class people flocked as housing prices soared. Still, the quality of life was different back then (from the privy in the back to the number of people crammed into a small space), and it’s sobering in this museum to see how people used to live.
294. “HereAfter,” American Ballet Theatre, Metropolitan Opera House, May 16: This strangely juxtaposed evening came in two parts: the first act, with choreography by Natalie Weir, was set to John Adams’ “Harmonium”; while the second act, with choregraphy by Stanton Welch, was set to the stalwart “Carmina Burana.” Both ballets were about death by way of memory, and both radiated a sense of darkness, from the dimly lighted choir to the ever-present reminder of mortality. I enjoyed the “Carmina Burana” portion more than the Adams, probably because I know the music so well; I’d have to say that the dancing was stubbornly literal to the accompaniment.
295. Limner Gallery, May 17: The opening of the gallery's Spring Salon Art Show, which featured an intriguingly dark, moody work by Eileen Corrigan (Anchorage pal Scott Lacy's girlfriend). Also featured: a naked woman who wrapped herself in plastic and hid in the corner as an installation art piece.
296. New York Philharmonic, Avery Fisher Hall, May 17: Works in the first half of the program were by Takemitsu (“Ceremonial: An Autumn Ode for Orchestra with Sho”) and Henri Dutilleux (“Symphony No. 2 Le Double”). The second half was the incomparable Brahms Violin Concerto in D major with Kyung-Wha Chung as soloist. She gave a thrashing, emotional performance, flinging her hair about and planting her feet so firmly on the stage it’s almost as if she’d been riveted there; when she wasn’t playing, it was almost like she was a surfer riding the orchestra’s wave. This is what live music is all about.
297. Bronx Zoo, May 18: I made it! I loved the Gorilla Congo Exhibit the best; it’s funny that the gorillas get a big, fancy enclosure, yet most of them choose to sit right next to the window and watch the people. (Maybe we’re the ones who are in a zoo.) It’s hard to believe that there are people who don’t believe that humans descended from the apes; their mannerisms and facial expressions are so like ours that it’s almost creepy. The new tiger exhibit was fine if a bit overhyped, and the bears were a lot of fun to watch. I was happy to see that the old ornate cages have been abandoned; I remember going to the zoo in the ‘80s and peering at the poor tigers and snow leopards pacing back and forth in their tiny concrete enclosures.
298. “The Shape of Things,” Lincoln Square Cinemas, May 18: In Neil Labute’s latest scathing indictment of human sexuality, he gives us a venomous woman for a change: Rachel Weisz as a conniving graduate student who makes over the hapless Paul Rudd into her “boyfriend” in the name of performance art. It’s an intensely interesting film and also infuriating; the fact that there are only four speaking roles, and that much of the film is shot ping-pong style with an in-your-face theatricality, gives the whole outing an artificial sheen. But at the core, Labute is exploring fascinating territory: When we “change” for our partner, which is inevitable, how much is too much? When does accommodation end and manipulation occur? And does the transition from nerd to almost-stud for Rudd’s character justify the way Weisz used him?
299. Metropolitan Museum of Art, May 20: After a fine walk through sunny Central Park, I popped in for one last Met visit – and one of the exhibits I wanted to catch was “Central Park: A sesquicentennial Celebration.” (It wasn’t very impressive; the alternative plans for the park brought to mind the World Trade Center architectural competition, but I was surprised how small the exhibit was.) So I checked out my favorite Sargent painting one more time in the Manet/Velasquez exhibit (“The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit”) and “Roy Lichtenstein on the Roof.”
300. “Forbidden Broadway,” Douglas Fairbanks Theater, May 20: This 20th anniversary show poked fun at both the old and the new – from a chain-smoking “Annie” to Mel Brooks in “The Producers.” Among my favorite sketches: a voice-challenged, disco-outfitted Julie Andrews drafted into “Mamma Mia”; a spoof of the ubiquitous turntable in “Les Miserables”; the “I Hate Julie Taymor” song from “The Lion King”; and a dead-on parody of “Aida.” A fun, light-hearted evening (especially if you’ve seen most of the plays in question, like me), and impressive comic performances from Donna English, Ben Evans, Valerie Fagan and Michael West.
301. “I Am My Own Wife,” Playwrights Horizons, May 21: Playwright Doug Wright set out to write a play about the real-life Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, a defiant German transvestite who survived both the Nazis and the Communists. It’s obvious Wright had an idea in mind even before he started his research – that Charlotte’s stoic defiance in surviving two of the most repressive regimes the world has ever known made her a true hero. But as his research progressed, Wright started learning more about his subject, and he discovered that her story wasn’t as black-and-white as first appeared. (It turned out that she worked for the Stasi, the German secret police.) What Wright decided to do was turn the play into as much about his rocky road to the finished product as about Charlotte’s life; he throws the Stasi twist in near the end of the first act, which really was a jolt. (He uses lots of primary source material, including news accounts and the Stasi files themselves.) I found myself liking “I Am My Own Wife” more and more as it progressed: It wraps itself around the universal truth that people are more complicated than they seem, and it’s the very messiness of life that gives it much of its raw energy. Jefferson Mays, in a one-man (and woman, of course) performing, was highly compelling as he flitted from Charlotte’s character to a bunch of secondary figures, including the antique dealer that she may (or may not) have betrayed to the Stasi.
302. Dia:Beacon, May 22: It isn’t every day that you get the chance to go to a museum the first week of its opening – but that’s the case with the Dia:Beacon, which is situated on the picturesque banks of the Hudson River about an hour north of Manhattan. The size and scale of the place is amazing – there are rooms (each devoted to one contemporary artist) larger than small museums. Among the highlights: Andy Warhol’s “Shadows” in 102 parts; Michael Heizer’s huge excavations focusing on negative space shaped in circles and rectangles; Robert Smithson’s jagged glass sculpture “Map of Glass (Atlantis); and most especially Richard Serra’s spectacular “Torqued Ellipses,” which are an incredible spatial experience. As you wander through the ellipses, it’s as if you’re being squeezed by the towering, twisted metal – an almost disorienting feeling that made me feel like a modern dancer. Some of the art is downright silly, too – including Sol Lewitt’s “designs” (executed by trained assistants) and Imi Knoebel’s set of wooden sculptures, which looks like an Unfinished Oak Furnishings Warehouse. Knoebel speaks of how the work “restricts metaphoric and referential content.” Huh?
303. “La Fille mal gardee,” American Ballet Theatre, Metropolitan Opera House, May 24: An entrancing , old-fashioned, delectable production of a classic ballet. What I liked best is how the production evoked the timeless feel of a Constable English countryside.
304. New York Philharmonic, Avery Fisher Hall, May 24: On the program: Sibelius’ “The Oceanides,” “Kaija Saariaho’s “Chateau de l’ame” and the fiery Rachmaninoff Symphonic Dances.
305. “Last Dance,” Manhattan Theatre Club, May 25: This is the latest from Marsha Norman “Night, Mother.” On the surface it’s a much frothier outing: Charlotte (Jobeth Williams), a successful author, lives an idyllic existence in a little French country house. She has a handsome young boyfriend, Cab (Lorenzo Pisoni) who wants to marry her. But she resists, and she tells her goddaughter, Georgeanne (Heather Goldenhersh), she wants her to have Cab. For the first half of the play, it seems little more than a romantic farce. But it gets more complex; it turns out Charlotte simply wants to disentangle herself from love and friendship and be alone so she can write poetry. What an anti-love statement – instead of pining for companionship, Charlotte resents how much time out of life a relationship takes. I liked how unpredictable, and potentially unpopular, this theme is – it certainly goes against the Hollywood romantic grain. (Can you imagine how the movie version would have to be rewritten?)
306. John Jasperse Company, Dance Theater Workshop, May 25: The weirdest dance performance I’ve ever attended. When I walked in the theater, I noticed that platforms had been constructed at audience eye-level over many of the seats. I was given a mirror so I could watch the action taking place behind me or to the side. For an hour, the two dancers (John Jasperse and Juliette Mapp) postured through various post-industrial-like movements. At one point, Mapp got down on the platform next to me and practically put her head in my lap; she dangled her feet in front of me and looked in my mirror. (It’s probably the closest I’ll ever get to a lap dance.) Weird, weird, weird, and more than a little pretentious.
307. “L’auberge Espagnole,” Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, May 26: Sometimes timing is everything, and it’s remarkable that I chose this film without knowing that it’s about a French student who travels to Barcelona for a year to go to the university – and develops a strong bond with his roommates, who are all part of the same Erasmus exchange program. And at the end, they have to say good-bye to each other! Obviously, in the last week of my own fellowship, there was a poignancy here that couldn’t be escaped. It was a funny movie, too.
308. New York Philharmonic, Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, May 26: The free annual Memorial Day concert by the philharmonic was well attended – we could only get standing room for the first half. Though the acoustics in the cathedral were mushy, the setting was magnificent as we listened to Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D major and Symphony No. 5 in E Minor.
309. Coney Island, May 27: My last New York sight I had to see: I climbed aboard the W train and made the trek to the edge of Brooklyn. The boardwalk was smaller and not as ratty as I remembered it before; there’s a new baseball stadium on the site and other signs of renewal. But there’s still a sleaze factor; one of the new “attractions” is a paint-ball game called “Shoot the Freak.”
310. Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Joyce Theatre, May 28: An energetic performance with a couple of amazing dances, including “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off” in which a couple fights (and blathers) and then makes up. I was entranced by the first half of the program, but after a while, the relentless athleticism seemed to take on a sort of sameness – I wish the quiet moments had been a bit more quiet, for example. But still, there were moments in this evening that had great resonance.