Review: “You Can’t Kiss a French Movie”

A multi-media show by Shelley Farmer and Alex Hare creates a dialogue between theater and independent filmmaking, borrowing its style from French New Wave.

An awkward production assistant Agness (Erin Healani Chung) dressed in all black, makes her way in front of the audience and delivers the usual theater announcements about the fire exits and cell phones. Her badly hidden nervousness and excitement puzzle me for a moment. Is this for real? Or have the You Can’t Kiss a French Movie already began? This experimental play by Shelley Farmer and Alex Hare is designed like a Russian nesting doll: it’s a movie shot on a theater stage, and is inspired by French New Wave films.   

Shelley Farmer and Greg Balla in You Can’t Kiss a French Movie. Photo by photo by Emma Wainwright.

Lola (Shelley Farmer) is a cabaret singer in love with Michel (Greg Balla). Introduced to us through the camera in the hands of the Cameraman/Director (Adam Weppler), they first appear offstage behind the curtain and on the screen in front of us. Cinephilia has a voyeuristic nature, which the director Alex Hare cleverly emphasizes by staging some of the scenes in the spaces fully or partially obscured from the audience and faithfully streaming everything on the big screen. But is the camera gaze objective or objectifying? 

Farmer eventually takes the initiative in her hands and overthrows the authority of almighty Director/Cameraman. You Can’t Kiss a French Movie, styled after the films of Godard, tries to be less of a nostalgic sentiment of the past and more of a cautionary tale for modern filmmakers. It teaches us to take matters into our own hands in order to tell our own stories. Unfortunately, the feminist message of the finale feels forced.   

The cinematic beauty is the play’s strongest feature. Even though the few elements of the sets, designed by An-Lin Dauber, are right before our eyes, they come alive on screen anew, touched by movie magic. Lighting design by Jennifer Fok and camera work by Adam Weppler make the picture on the big screen irresistibly delicious.

The only movie scene that is pre-filmed as opposed to live-streamed takes place on a train platform on a beautiful, snowy day. Farmer and Balla are recording a voiceover for it. The slight discrepancy between the lip movement and actor’s voices doesn’t allow us to slip into somnambulistic film-watching mode. This encourages watching and listening critically. But the beautiful black-and-white image draws us in, making a strong argument for the artistic craft that filmmaking requires. Having the noble intention behind the beautiful picture is perhaps more important, but You Can’t Kiss a French Movie doesn’t make a very strong argument in the ideological department.

However, the show is a success in facilitating the dialogue between theater and film. In most multi-media productions, video projections are merely a tool, a window to a different time (Dodin’s Cherry Orchrd, where home films illustrate how happy the life once was), space (Van Hove’s Kings, where the entire labyrinth of backstage is only visible through the live-stream) or the depths of human soul in the actor’s close-up (Thomas Ostermeier’s Richard III, where the power of final monologue is doubled by the blown up video of Richard’s face).

You Can’t Kiss a French Movie, being a theater show about movie making, takes the capabilities of live-streaming even further in the scenes where the interaction between the actors and the projection are simultaneously unfolding next to each other. The intimacy of HERE’s downstairs theater allows for the similar reality-to-screen scale ratio, which essentially means that you see the same scene twice in the mirror-like effect. Except that the reflection is subjective and represents the vision of a person behind the camera. This is where the show makes its strongest argument even before any of the words of rebelling feminism are spoken.

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You Can’t Kiss a French Movie played at HERE, 145 6^th Ave, Manhattan, on December 15-17, 2017. The running time is 70 minutes with no intermission.

You Can’t Kiss a French Movie is by Shelley Farmer and Alex Hare. Directed by Alex Hare. Produced by Madeleine Goldsmith. Set and costume design is by An-Lin Dauber. Lighting design is by Jennifer Fok. Original Music is by Michael Gildin. Sound Design is by Gabriel Lozada. Film Consultation is by John Zhao.

The cast is Shelley Farmer, Greg Balla, Erin Healani Chung, and Adam Weppler

Review: “Farmhouse/Whorehouse: an Artist Lecture by Suzanne Bocanegra starring Lili Taylor”

Suzanne Bocanegra speaks though Lili Taylor delivering a lecture on the dual perception of woman as a Mother and a Whore.

New York conceptual artist Suzanne Bocanegra often visited her grandparents’ farm in Texas as a kid. Across from it, you guessed it, was a brothel. And not just any brothel, but the infamous Chicken Ranch that inspired the 1978 Broadway musical, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and its 1982 film adaptation. Combining her childhood memories, latter life events, anthropological research and popular culture references, Bocanegra reflects on womanhood at large in Farmhouse/Whorehouse: an Artist Lecture by Suzanne Bocanegra starring Lili Taylor.    

Suzanne Bocanegra and Lili Taylor in Farmhouse/Whorehouse. Photo by Richard Termine.

As announced in the title, the show stars the film and stage actress Lili Taylor (most recently seen on Broadway in Marvin’s Room). For the duration of one hour, Taylor stands in a square of light, flipping slides on the large screen above and delivering “the lecture”. Farmhouse/Whorehouse might be seen as a solo show, not of Taylor though, but of Bocanegra, who is also present on stage on the opposite corner from the actress. Bocanegra monotonically reads her notes into a microphone, bent above the desk lit with a single lamp. Taylor, who has an earplug (?), repeats what she hears with the dexterity of a seasoned news broadcaster or simultaneous interpreter, handling every word with great care.

The actress wears a black skirt over black pants, a style inspired by the mid 19th-century Oneida community. The lecture is seemingly organized by the principle of free association as Bocanegra mentions other utopian socio-agrarian projects, like the one of 18th century philosopher Charles Fourier, or hippy communes spread across the US in 1960s and 70s. Another cluster of topics concerns prostitution and is illustrated by paintings of French surrealists and photographs of the brothel, Chicken Ranch.

Whether speaking about women pioneers, paintings of peasants by Jean Francois Millet or prostitution in Paris in 19th century, Bocanegra ties her findings to her own experiences. And vice versa, the events in her own, life like interactions with her grandparents, being pregnant, or climbing up five flights of stairs loaded with groceries and kids, fuel the artist’s thoughts. It might be difficult to follow the non-linear narrative accompanied by slides pulled from all over the place. Among them: pregnant belly cakes found on the Internet, Monet paintings, and video fragments of popular movies. It also takes time to get used to the echoing speech of the writer and actress.

Farmhouse/Whorehouse is deeply personal yet not too sentimental and, being a lecture, teaches you a thing or two. Bocanegra humanizes the experiences of marginalized and heroic women alike. She uses the duality of woman as saint or whore to structure the presentation and show the inadequacy and limitations of these categories.

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Farmhouse/Whorehouse: an Artist Lecture by Suzanne Bocanegra starring Lili Taylor played at BAM Fisher, 321 Ashland Pl, on December 12-16, 2017. The running time is 1 hour with no intermission.

Farmhouse/Whorehouse  is by Suzanne Bocanegra. Directed by Lee Sunday Evans. Produced by Sandra Garner and Lingua Franca Arts. Lighting design by Eric Southern.  

The cast is Lili Taylor and Suzanne Bocanegra.

Review: “Suddenly”

The Tel-Aviv based Cameri Theatre combines puppetry, live action and video streaming to tell a series of touching stories about human experiences.

Suddenly, a Knock on the Door is the name of the short story collection by the Israeli writer, Etgar Keret. It is also how Suddenly begins, a PuppetCinema show brought to BAM’s Next Wave by The Cameri Theatre of Tel-Aviv.       

Suddenly. Photo by Ed Lefkowicz.

"It's either a story or a bullet between your eyes" - demands a stranger (Simcha Barbiro) and points a gun at the writer's head, not a very relaxed setting for storytelling. The situation gets only more intense when two other "assassins" (Yuval Segal and Neta Plotnik) sneak into the apartment under the pretense of conducting a survey and delivering pizza. Caught in this absurd and dangerous situation, the writer (Nadav Assulin) is not unlike Scheherazade from One Thousand and One Nights, forced to keep his abusers entertained in order to prolong his life.

This scenario is the framing device to act out about half a dozen vignettes with puppetry. As the three mysterious figures engage in the stories, they enthusiastically make suggestions, stand in for characters, and even assist a puppeteer (Gony Paz) and two cinematographers (Ilya Kreines, Dani Halifa) in moving mini sets and props around.

Window frames and shutters become building facades and staircases, settings for the Puppet Cinema. Two cameras alternate live-streaming action on a big screen above the stage. The video itself might be looked at as an experimental film combining puppetry and real people. But it is the “behind the scenes” process unfolding on stage from which you cannot look away. The attention to detail in the design is incredible and endearingly relatable.      

Actors, two camera operators and a puppeteer, all dressed in black, romp amidst the grove of light stands, playfully bringing to life the stories about human vulnerability. You might only see the character below his thighs (one of the puppets is actually just two legs) but thanks to the inventive staging, clever framing and, of course, the poignant writing by Keret, the entire human soul opens up in front of you.

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Suddenly played at BAM Fisher, 321 Ashland Pl, on December 6-9, 2017. The running time is 1 hour with no intermission. Tickets are $25.

Suddenly is based on stories by Etgar Keret, adapted by Zvi Sahar and Oded Littman. It is produced by The Cameri Theatre of Tel-Aviv. Directed by Zvi Sahar. Set and costume design by Aya Zaiger. Music by Gai Sherf. Lighting design by Ofer Laufer.

The cast is Nadav Assulin, Simcha Barbiro, Yuval Segal, Neta Plotnik, Gony Paz (puppeteer), Ilya Kreines (Cinematographer) and Dani Halifa (Cinematographer).

Review: “Diaspora”

In a new play by Nathaniel Sam Shapiro, a Birthright trip of American Jews interweaves with a mass suicide on Masada two thousand years ago.

Hannah (Serena Berman), one of the participants of the Birthright trip, admits to her BFFs, that visiting a Holocaust museum made her horny, and later jumps on her group-mate yelling: “We need to continue the Jewish people! Come in me!” Nathaniel Sam Shapiro, the author of Diaspora, rightfully acknowledges the alternate purpose of Birthright, a free “heritage trip” to Israel with matchmaking, but he takes it a bit too far. A disproportionately large part of the 90-minute production is spent by Jewish American youth discussing sex, contraceptives, and crushes.

The cast of Diaspora. Photo by Mati Gelman

In parallel to the young Americans’ trip to the mountain, Masada, the tragic events that took place on this historic sight on 73 CE unfold. Romans sieged Masada fortress, forcing 960 Jews to commit suicide. Shapiro is controversial to the official government vision of the mass suicide as an act of bravery. He condemns it as “decision made by a few powerful men” in his program note and ultimately makes two women who hid and escaped the mass suicide the new heroines of the story.                

Rethinking a state’s political identity is no easy task; so is figuring out yourself in your early 20s. But clashing the two plot lines together seems forceful, especially in the scenes with rapid cuts between the past and present. The cast portrays both the participants of the trip and the citizens of the besieged Masada. Thin strips of video screens above the stage help to identify the time period and the character. Color-coded projections by Caite Havner and the rusted ledges reminiscent of the fortification walls (scenic design by Maruti Evans) elevate the entire production. They create a beautiful frame to the otherwise confusing and uneven production.  

Costumes by Oana Botez are puzzling. Dressing Americans in all denim would be more appropriate for a 90s sitcom poster. Two actresses are wearing skirts so short that I physically felt how uncomfortable they must have been moving around. The over the top, caricature performances of modern day characters are contrasted with the “dignified” behavior of the ancient Jews. Actors, directed by Saheem Ali, deliver the majority of monologues, and even dialogues, facing the audience as well as staring at the back wall of the theater. The occasional “physical” scene comes as a relief from stillness but is often overdone. For example, some kind of “massage orgy” between the 1^st century hero of Masada, Eleazar (Joe Tapper), and two of his accomplices, rabbi Binyamin (RJ Vaillancourt) and Reuben (Quinn Franzen).    

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Diaspora plays at The Gym at Judson, 243 Thompson Street, through December 23, 2017. The running time is 1 hour 45 minutes with no intermission. Performances are Tuesdays at 7, Wednesdays at 3 and 7, Thursdays at 3 and 8, Fridays at 3 and 8, Saturdays at 3 and 8, and Sundays at 3 and 7. Tickets are $55.50 - $79.50 and are available at diasporatheplay.com or by calling 866-811-4111.

Diaspora is by Nathaniel Sam Shapiro. Directed by Saheem Ali. Set Design by Maruti Evans. Lighting Design by Eric Southern. Sound Design by Miles Polaski. Costume Design by Oana Botez. Projection Design by Caite Hevner. Stage Manager is Angela Perez.

The cast is Serena Berman, Connie Castanzo, Ava Eisenson, Quinn Franzen, Tom McVey, Maggie Metnick, Joe Tapper, and RJ Vaillancourt.