(718) 260–2500 Brooklyn Paper’s essential guide to the Borough of Kings May 3–9, 2019
THEATER
Queer ‘Desire’
After all, a woman’s charm is 50 percent
illusion.
A new production of the Tennessee Williams
play “A Streetcar Named Desire,” opening in
Crown Heights on May 7, puts a spotlight on the
play’s gender roles by casting a genderqueer actor
as troubled female protagonist Blanche DuBois.
Actor Russell Peck (pictured above, right) has
long identified with Blanche’s complex character
and fight for love, they said.
“As young queer people, we’re often drawn
to characters that are a little damaged,” said
Peck, who lives in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens.
“I definitely saw a lot of myself in her and her
struggle to find love.”
The drama, written in 1947, recounts the tragic
downfall of Blanche, who leaves her home in Mississippi
to stay with her pregnant sister, Stella
Kowalski, in New Orleans. The delicate character,
who famously “depends on the kindness
of strangers” soon clashes with her sister’s brutish
husband Stanley. Blanche and Stanley each
exemplify a certain very traditional gender role,
said Peck, which makes them fascinating foils.
“From the moment they meet, Blanche and
Stanley are kind of these polar opposite forces:
he’s kind of written as this archetype of a blue-collar
alpha male who asserts his masculine energy,
and Blanche is painted as the opposite — she’s
very soft, feminine, privileged, and delicate,” said
Peck. “Blanche brings out things in Stanley that
he is not used to dealing with, and he also kind
of awakens this beast in Blanche as well.”
Peck felt a connection to Blanche ever since
studying Williams in college, and they brought a
passion to interrogate the roles that gender plays
in the show, according to the director.
“They have been the engine of this production
from the beginning, and the source of all
of the initial artistic impulses that have come
through,” said Kevin Hourigan.
Hourigan and the cast had to secure permission
from the Williams estate to stage this production,
and the play is faithful to the playwright’s original
text. But the non-traditional casting highlights
how gender dictates the power dynamics
among the characters, the director said.
“We’re not trying to deconstruct gender as
much as hold it up to the light and examine how
it’s working,” he said.
“A Streetcar Named Desire” at Mister Rogers
(231 Rogers Ave. between President and Union
streets in Crown Heights, www.wearemisterrogers.
com). May 7–25, Tue–Sat at 8 p.m., May
19 at 2 p.m. $30 ($35 for reserved seating).
— Julianne McShane
By Colin Mixson
Brooklyn Paper
It’s Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club
Dance! We hope you will enjoy the
show!
Members of a Fort Greene dance troupe
will pirouette, jump, and groove to the tunes
of the Beatles in a show opening at Brooklyn
Academy of Music on May 8, giving fans
young and old a chance to relive the sensation
from Liverpool — with dance!
“Their music is beloved even now, and
this helps audiences hear, feel, and see the
music in a deeper way all these decades
later,” said Lauren Grant, one of the piece’s
15 dancers.
The Beatles-inspired dance bonanza
“Pepperland” features six Fab Four classics
from the “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts
Club Band” album, including the title track,
“With a Little Help From My Friends,” “A
Day in the Life,” “When I’m Sixty-Four,”
and “Within You Without You,” along with
“Penny Lane” — originally slated for the
album, but released separately. Those songs
will be matched by an equal number of original,
Pepper-inspired tunes crafted by jazz
composer Ethan Iverson, all performed live
by a quirky ensemble featuring the sax, trombone,
keyboard, vocals, and a theremin, the
psychedelic electronic instrument played
without any physical contact.
The odd assembly propels the dancers in
Mat Hayward
a unique direction, said Grant.
“This is not the type of band we typically
work with. To have these sounds accompany
our movement is super fun and atypical, it
really feeds us on stage,” she said.
The show started when the city of Liverpool,
home of the Beatles, contracted choreographer
DANCE
Mark Morris, founder of Fort
Greene’s Mark Morris Dance Group, to
create a dance piece celebrating the 50th
anniversary of the 1967 album. The show
premiered at Liverpool’s “Sgt. Pepper at
50 Festival” in 2017, and has since toured
the world. The May 8 opening will be its
first appearance in New York City.
Morris’s choreography incorporates
an eclectic variety of dance styles, which
reflects the inspiration that the Beatles
found in music throughout the world,
said Grant.
“There’s a pop dance feel in some of
this, there’s ballet, and Indian dance, especially
during the ‘Within You, Without
You’ section, which has some basis in Indian
music,” she said.
BOOKS
Reading picks
Community
Bookstore’s
pick: “Dark
Constellations,” by
Pola Oloixarac
Pola Oloixarac’s follow
up to her widely acclaimed
first novel is a
time-jumping, post-human,
science-fiction fever
dream. Moving deftly
between the 19th century
and a near-future surveillance
state, Oloixarac forgoes linear narrative
in favor of impressionistic sketches of the colonial
wreckage of the Americas, post-industrial
environmental collapse, and mythical hallucinogenic
plants that “break down the barriers
between one species and another.”
— Samuel Partal, Community Bookstore 43
Seventh Ave. between Carroll Street and Garfield
Place in Park Slope, (718) 783–3075, www.
commu nityb ookst ore.net .
Greenlight
Bookstore’s pick:
“Birthday,” by Cesar
Aira
This memoir by Argentine
writer Cesar Aira,
written for his 50th birthday,
is his strongest work
to come out in a while
— subtle and masterful,
though very different
from a lot of his other
books in its intimate, more direct personal narrative.
He finds an access route to the deepest
regions of a passing thought without overworking
anything. With Aira, you always want to go
along for the ride.
— Jarrod Annis, Greenlight Bookstore 686
Fulton St. between S. Elliott Place and S. Portland
Avenue in Fort Greene, (718) 246–0200,
www.greenlightbookstore.com .
Word’s picks:
“I Miss You When
I Blink,” by Mary
Laura Philpott
If you are experiencing
anxiety, burnout, an
identity crisis, or all of
the above, Mary Laura
Philpott’s memoir is a
must-read. She writes
about everything from the
“dreaded 80” she got on a
fourth grade test to the house-sitting job she accepted
to temporarily escape her busy schedule.
Her essays are personal but also relatable. Overachievers
of any age will feel understood.
Victoria Rodriguez, Word 126 Franklin St. at
Milton Street in Greenpoint, (718) 383–0096,
www.wordbookstores.com .
Catch “Pepperland” at Brooklyn
Academy of Music 30 Lafayette Ave.
at Ashland Place in Fort Greene, (718)
636–4100, bam.org. May 8–11 at 7:30
p.m. $30–$100.
By Aidan Graham
Brooklyn Paper
It’s an art installation, apparently!
A handball court with a colorful
paint job has popped up in Cadman
Plaza Park in America’s Downtown.
But this is no ordinary ball-smacking
surface: the 16-foot high structure
is actually an interactive sculpture
titled “Subliminal Standard.” It
is the brainchild of Brooklyn artist
Harold Ancart, who painstakingly
modeled his creation after the varied
color scheme used by the Zen-like
maestros of the City’s Department
of Parks and Recreation.
“Walking around, I notice the
walls, that are graffitied, and then
the Parks Department appoints people
to repaint them, and it’s as if they
ART
have a point of honor in using a color
that is slightly different,” said Harold
Ancart. “When the process repeats
itself over the years, it gives
birth to these incredible natural paintings.
And they’re really good because
the people who paint them are extremely
nonchalant, and have no intention
at all.”
The sculpture, officially unveiled
on April 30, stands starkly in the center
of a grass field like an extraterrestrial
artifact from a sci-fi story.
Despite its vibrant color scheme, Ancart
says that the ubiquity of the city’s
2,000-plus handball courts makes
his work of high art something you
might completely overlook.
“You can almost put a handball
court anywhere, even though it’s like
this massive whale, and it will blend
perfectly in the landscape because it’s
Public Art Fund
already everywhere,” he said.
Ancart developed his installation
in concert with the Public Art Fund,
which brought the interactive “Bridge
Over Tree” to Brooklyn Bridge Park .
The group gave Ancart the opportunity
to re-imagine the court as an
artistic blank canvas, he said.
“What is wonderful about a handball
court, from the point of view of
a painter, is that it is the only structure
that offers free standing walls,”
he said. “So basically, whatever is
going on in there is already perfectly
framed in midair.”
Ancart said he felt liberated to
“perfectly frame” a series of yellow,
red, light blue, and grey rectangles,
because the installation barely felt
like art at all.
“It’s good that you can almost engage
with this abstract painting, as a
painter, without having to care about
the weight of the history of art, or
anything on your shoulders, because
it’s a playground. It’s fun,” he said.
To the surprise of no-one who
views the work, Ancart took inspiration
from the creative chaos of the
city and began his piece without plotting
it in advance.
“If you really want to pay tribute
to what happens naturally in the
city, in general, I think it was very,
very important not to come up with
a plan,” he said.
The artist said that the sculpture
will evolve as it deteriorates during
its 11-month exhibition.
“Something fantastic about this is
that it’s outside, the weather changes,
the light changes, shadows get cast
on it, so they start participating in the
painting. Things will wear out, dirt
will mix with the rest of the painting,”
he said. “It’s good to decay.”
“Subliminal Standard” at Cadman
Plaza Park (North Lawn between
Cadman Plaza East and
Cadman Plaza West, Downtown,
www.publicartfund.org). On display
daily, May 1–March 1, 2020.
Free.
Rosie Soko
We got the Beat!
Mark Morris presents a Sgt. Pepper’s-inspired dance at BAM
Court is out
Handball ‘sculpture’ bounces
into Cadman Park Downtown
Tall wall: A sculpture in the form of a handball court, designed by
contemporary artist Harold Ancart, will stand in Cadman Plaza Park
until March 2020.
Robbie Jack
Wouldn’t you like to be a pepper, too: “Pepperland,” a dance performance
inspired by the music of the Beatles, will float into the Brooklyn Academy of
Music on May 8.
/www.wordbookstores.com
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/www.wearemister-rogers.com
/www.commu
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/www.greenlightbookstore.com
/www.wearemister-rogers.com
/www.publicartfund.org
/ore.net
/www.greenlightbookstore.com
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/bam.org
/www.publicartfund.org)