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Roya Hakakian |
Dec 13, 2017 2:11 pm
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T. CHARLES ERICKSON PHOTO
Francesca Fernandez MacKenzie and Sohina Sidhu in “Death of Yazdgerd.”
T. CHARLES ERICKSON PHOTO
Shadi Ghaheri, who directed the production.
I went to see Death of Yazdgerd at the Yale School of Drama in the same way I’ve gone to see all other artistic productions by Iranian expats in the last thirty years – for support, not inspiration. For us, exiles, going to such events is a form of community service. More than anything else, we go to allay the pangs of nostalgia, not to experience art.
So imagine my surprise when, after nearly two hours, I walked out of the theatre positively energized and perfectly inspired. Rather than engage in some form of charitable act, I had seen a genuine work of beauty.
Haynes, at center in photo, in a scene from Native Son.
Jerod Haynes lost some of his friends to the streets of Chicago. He reflected on that when reprising the lead role of Bigger in a revival of Richard Wright’s Native Son, which is currently playing — and sparking raw conversation and reflection — at Yale Repertory Theatre.
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Brian Slattery |
Dec 4, 2017 1:21 pm
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Joan Marcus photos
The cast of Native Son.
Just minutes into Yale Repertory Theatre’s kinetic production of Native Son — adapted by Nambi E. Kelley from the novel by Richard Wright — a woman has been smothered in her bed and a man is on the run. And he never stops running.
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Donald Brown |
Nov 30, 2017 8:49 am
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Shadi Ghaheri, a third-year director at the Yale School of Drama, once told me she doesn’t like to direct “new plays.” I reminded her of that comment when talking to her about her thesis project, Death of Yazdgerd, by Bahram Beyzai, which runs Dec. 5 – 9 at the Iseman Theater on Chapel Street. The play dates from 1979, so could be called “new” compared to a classic. Beyzai’s play, Ghaheri pointed out, “is a masterpiece and is the equivalent, at least in its themes, of something like King Lear.” So, while the play is relatively new, the story is very old.
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Cara McDonough |
Nov 16, 2017 2:10 pm
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Cara McDonough Photo
Terreace Riggins and Tenisi Davis Rehearsal for Topdog/Underdog.
The room in Erector Square on Peck Street that houses Collective Consciousness Theater seats 60 at the most, and that’s pushing the limit. Its small size means that during a show audience members — sitting on folding chairs, with the front row just a few feet from the stage — are incredibly close to the actors. And each other.
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Brian Slattery |
Nov 15, 2017 1:10 pm
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Courtesy Photo
Actor George Guidall had grown up receiving his Jewish education from a melamed. He had deeply religious family members. So he knew a lot about the background of the rabbi he plays in Long Wharf Theatre’s upcoming production of The Chosen, which runs Nov. 22 to Dec. 17.
But he also found himself in tension with that character — and possibly, in doing so, practicing his culture and his faith.
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Donald Brown |
Oct 31, 2017 7:43 am
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Donald Brown Photos
Burnett, Nelson, and Singleton.
On a recent rainy night, I arrived at the packed parking lot at Erector Square, then waited outside a glass door to be admitted to hallways and stairs. Two people led me to a double door on the second floor, and the rehearsal and performance space of Collective Consciousness Theatre. My guides were Production Stage Manager Brionna Ingraham and Assistant Stage Manager Eddie Chase. I entered and walked into a down-at-heels bedroom. Cracked plaster, a bed, a mirror, some wall art. A big chair. Jamie Burnett was on a ladder, hanging lights.
It was David Sepulveda’s set for the first CCT production of the new season: Suzan-Lori Parks’ Topdog/Underdog, a play described as “two brothers in a room.” It won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2002, making Parks the first African-American author to win that award.
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Brian Slattery |
Oct 26, 2017 12:21 pm
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T. Charles Erickson Photo
Arndt and Alexander.
Eleanor Bannister and Abel Brown are at odds again. Abel says he’s looking for work, but has also made it pretty clear that his interest in Eleanor goes beyond the professional. Eleanor can’t decide if he’s a con man or just a man with a complicated life, and can’t deny the feelings she has for him, too. They’re both too smart, and a little too stubborn, to just let it go. Abel makes a last pitch to help Eleanor fix up the rundown cottage at the back of her property, which they both know also means they’ll be seeing a lot more of each other. Or, he says, in a moment of counterfactual argument, he could just burn the old cottage down and be on his way.
“If that’s what you want,” Abel says.
Eleanor lets her guard down. “I don’t know what I want, Abel,” she says.
Abel thinks about this. “Seems right to tell you, Eleanor, that those are exactly the words every con man wants to hear.”
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Allan Appel |
Oct 24, 2017 5:18 pm
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Allan Appel Photo
Victoria Johnson as Truvy cuts the hair of Lauryn Darden, as Clairee, in rehearsal.
The male director didn’t know much about the culture of beauty parlors in general, and even less about black women’s salons and their hairstyles and how you use hot tools to achieve those big hairdos popular in the distant past of the 1980s.
The actors — all teenagers — had never operated such an ancient device as a rotary telephone and honestly didn’t know which button to push to send the call. Most also had never seen an old-fashioned coffee table ashtray.
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Brian Slattery |
Oct 16, 2017 12:20 pm
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The bystander stood admiring one of the creations of artist Marcus Schaeffer, aka Markus Surrealius — an insect-like creature the height of a small child with bulging eyes and a long proboscis.
“Is it a bee?”
“The body is a cow skull,” Schaeffer said. “This one’s called LB17. It’s its own thing.”
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Brian Slattery |
Oct 13, 2017 7:57 am
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Joan Marcus Photos
Colantoni and Rogers.
Early in the first act of the Yale Repertory’s production of Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People, Dr. Thomas Stockmann (Reg Rogers) has just had a confrontation with his brother, Peter Stockmann (Enrico Colantoni), who happens to be the mayor of the town where they both live. The mayor has asked his brother to keep an unpleasant discovery under wraps. The doctor agonizes over what to do, then settles on defiance.
“I’ll never bow my neck under their yoke,” he says. He will not be silent.
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Brian Slattery |
Oct 11, 2017 1:52 pm
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Before finishing Fireflies — which has its world premiere at Long Wharf Theatre Wednesday night — playwright Matthew Barber first took a road trip to southern Texas in 2010 to meet an 80-year-old retired schoolteacher named Annette Sanford, who had written a story Barber couldn’t get out of his head.
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Lucy Gellman |
Oct 5, 2017 12:38 pm
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Lisa Daly Photo
Yale-China Fellow Onnie Chan recording her story.
National Parks Service Photo
The original Boardman Building.
A fledgling experiment after the Civil War. A voice, clear as a bell, on the other end of the line. A heartbeat of current and wire. A signal that the only way was onward, through person-to-person communication.
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Andrew Koenig |
Oct 2, 2017 2:54 pm
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Andrew Koenig Photo
Breeden.
The dress forms outside of Civvies, a vintage clothing boutique at 845 Chapel St., change almost daily. In this respect, Civvies is not unlike the block it sits on between Orange and Church, where storefronts can turn over frequently.
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Donald Brown |
Oct 2, 2017 12:07 pm
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Promotional art for Pentecost.
To produce British playwright David Edgar’s Pentecost, the team at the Yale School of Drama talked with a violist who played in damaged churches in war-torn Sarajevo. They involved clergy from multiple religions. So it makes sense that the Yale Repetory’s building — formerly a church itself — is central to the staging, said Lucie Dawkins, third-year director at the school, and Stephanie Cohen, her scenic designer.
The play, which had its U.S. premiere at Yale Rep in 1995, is set in a Romanesque church dating from the late 12th century, and the Rep production “built a church within the church,” Dawkins said. Likewise, Dawkins and Cohen have decided to use the contours of the existing church building as the basis for their design, so that the audience is “also in the church” where the action takes place.
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Karen Ponzio |
Sep 15, 2017 8:10 am
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It was Peter Lehndorff’s first set at Best Video’s new Second Wednesday Open Mic.
“It’s my first time here, and I live in Hamden. And it’s my first time in Hamden,” he said.
Some confusion spread out through the audience before Lehndorff reported that he was from a town called Hampden in Massachusetts. The crowd of performers and patrons responded with laughter and welcomed their new “neighbor” — one example of the congenial tone and community fostered at the beloved video store turned cultural center on Wednesday evening.
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Donald Brown |
Sep 14, 2017 8:22 am
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Courtney Jamison Photo
Josh Wilder, Rachel Shuey, Francesca Fernandez McKenzie, Rory Pelsue (l. to r.)
The 2017 – 18 season is the 50th for Yale Cabaret, the adventurous theater in a basement at 217 Park St. run entirely by students in the Yale School of Drama. Many great names of theater and performance have passed through as students in those 50 years, from Meryl Streep to Lupita Nyong’o, from Christopher Durang to Tarell Alvin McCraney.
And yet the Cab is not about big names. It’s about student-created projects that are not part of the curriculum. These are the shows that School of Drama students feel driven to create.
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Donald Brown |
Sep 12, 2017 1:03 pm
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T. Charles Erickson Photos
The cast of Small Mouth Sounds
In Bess Wohl’s Small Mouth Sounds, six people go to a weekend-long silent spiritual retreat, looking for a chance to change. The idea is that new habits — like not speaking and learning to interact without chatter — will help them foster a different approach to their lives. Their teacher (Orville Mendoza) instructs them by voice-over; his first speech states the rules that will govern the exercise. One participant, Alicia (Brenna Palughi), arrives late and misses out on the instructions. Another, Ned (Ben Beckley), wants desperately to ask for a writing utensil but doesn’t dare.
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Brian Slattery |
Aug 23, 2017 11:48 am
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Ben Arons Photography
The cast (l. to r.): Brenna Palughi, Connor Barrett, Cherene Snow, Edward Chin-Lyn, Ben Beckley, and Socorro Santiago.
Ned, a 39-year-old man who works for a nonprofit, has suffered a series of calamities, from prolonged hospitalization to marital infidelity to rampant alcoholism, and has joined a weekend-long, mostly silent spiritual retreat in the hope that it will help him put himself back together. He’s sitting in a session with a match in his hand.
“The teacher starts to play the recorder,” playwright Bess Wohl writes. “Ned has no idea what he’s supposed to do. He’s slightly worried that he’s supposed to set himself on fire. He half raises his hand, wanting to ask another question. The music stops.”
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Brian Slattery |
Aug 17, 2017 12:19 pm
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Mike Franzmann Photos
On Tuesday afternoon last week, a funeral was taking place in Edgerton Park.
It was for Juliet (Courtney Jamison), who was a part of the procession until she lay down on a bed prepared for her. As musicians played in the background, Juliet’s mother Lady Capulet (Samantha Dena Smith) covered her in a white sheet, then joined the tableau of grief-stricken characters onstage. Director Raphael Massie surveyed the proceedings with approval, making only minor adjustments.
“Sam,” Massie said, “can you have a moment after you put the sheet on her? Something with your daughter.”
They ran the scene again, and this time, Smith knelt down and placed a small kiss on Juliet’s shrouded head. It worked. It made Lady Capulet more human, not simply a noblewoman in a Shakespeare play, but a mother grieving for her child.
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Lucy Gellman |
Jul 21, 2017 7:42 am
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Lucy Gellman
The ensemble.
Scene: The city and the forest, once a single village, have been divided by a railroad that cuts through the land.
Scene: The two halves are now two municipalities. No trade flows between them. Families, then friends, lose touch. The city moves to protect itself with high walls.
Scene: All the trees are dying, one by one. The walls have severed their roots.
