6
BROOKLYN WEEKLY, MARCH 17, 2019
NIGHTLIFE: The character
played by Julia Ubrankovics is
trapped in endless darkness,
in the bizarre play running
through April 6.
Photo by Caroline Ourso
It’s a catwalk in the court!
Kings County justices conclude Black History Month
events with fashion show highliting African designers
POWER WALK: Judge Sylvia Ash modeled a fl oor-length dress donated by African designers
at the jurists’ Black History Month fashion show. Photos by Stefano Giovannini
PLAY
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changes to Courier Life, One MetroTech Center North, 10th Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11201.
one of them,” said Yuri Kordonsky,
who also teaches
directing at Yale.
The main character
must fi ght her way through
a world of people infected
by what the playwright
calls “the hunger,” who are
driving to hunt and consume
their loved ones, refl
ecting the selfi sh nature
of real-life human relationships,
said Kordonsky.
“The inhabitants of the
world are hungry, which
manifests in the desire to
eat the person you love. It’s
about relationships and
how selfi sh and possessive
and consuming they might
be,” he said. “Almost everything
we can love has an
element of possession and
consuming, and the pure
act of generous love is an
extremely rare thing in
this world.”
M’s journey seems hopeless
until she meets the
character “Younger Sister,”
and the two break the rules
of the play’s bleak universe
by falling in love in a selfless
way, the director said.
“They discover that relationships
can be something
else, giving rather
than taking,” he said.
The play’s nightmarish
landscape is also occupied
by ravenous stray dogs,
played by human actors.
Rather than make the thespians
crawl on all fours and
bark, Kordonsky and his
team bridged the gap between
man and beast more
subtly.
“We work on movements
that might be reminiscent
of dogs in their movement,
some vocal techniques the
actors use that remind you
of howling and barking,”
Kordonsky said.
The play is violent, but
the director said his rendition
will not be gory. Instead,
the violence is portrayed
in a more abstract
way, which could be even
more unsettling to the audience.
“There’s knives and
multiple stabbings going
on, bleeding wounds. We
take this rather metaphorically
— nothing that we put
on stage is graphic or gory,”
he said. “It’s a story that
unsettles you and should
disturb.”
Kordonsky and his partners
from the production
company Just Toys were
captured by the play’s visceral
power, he said, even
though it was diffi cult to
decipher. The piece’s abstract
nature became an
appealing challenge to the
team, according to the director.
“There was a combination
of a sense of very strong
and attractive mystery, the
gut visceral feeling that it’s
good, and the challenge to
understand it on an intellectual
level,” he said. “But
this is exactly when you
know that you have to do
a play. When you know exactly
from the beginning
how to do a play, there’s no
point in doing it.”
“The Dog, The Night,
and The Knife,” at Irondale
85 S. Oxford St., at Lafayette
Avenue in Fort Greene,
www.irondale.org, (718)
488–9233. March 15–April
6; Mon, Wed–Sat at 7:30
pm. $30.
Continued from page 1
BY NATALLIE ROCHA
They brought high fashion to
the high court!
Local jurists celebrated the
end of Black History Month in
style by swapping their classic
black robes for colorful, Africaninspired
garb at the 21st-annual
Black History Month Fashion
Show at the Kings County Supreme
Court.
“This event is a continuation
of the recognition of African
Americans and the contributions
we’ve made,” said Judge
Sylvia Ash, who sported a fl oorlength
turquoise dress with an
eye-catching pattern on the catwalk.
“It celebrates our heritage
and the colorful colors that go all
the way back to our ancestors.”
Ash walked in the Feb. 28
style showcase alongside colleagues
including Judge Genine
Edwards, who wore a green, red,
and black number and an intricate
beaded necklace, and Judge
Connie Melendez, who modeled
a dashing purple-and-green
dress, as attendees including
District Attorney Eric Gonzalez
and Brooklyn Democratic Party
boss Frank Seddio cheered them
on.
African designers donated
the fashionable garments shown
on the runway, according to
Ash, who said all of the clothes
represented the rich culture of
the continent their makers hail
from.
The event concluded the jurists’
month-long celebration
of African-American history
staged by members of the Kings
County Courts Black History
Month Committee, and drew a
record crowd of celebrants who
came out to recognize those efforts,
Ash said.
“The fashion show is the culmination
of everything we do
for the month,” Ash said. “It gets
larger and larger every year.”
CELEBRATING CULTURE:
(Above) The Kings County
Courts’ Black History Committee
honored Lorraine Curry, Patricia
Willis and Saundra Brown,
from left with plaques, for their
contributions to the month of
celebrations. (Left) Attendees
including District Attorney
Eric Gonzalez, center left, and
Brooklyn Democratic Party
boss Frank Seddio, center right,
cheered the models on.
/www.irondale.org
/www.irondale.org