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Off-Broadway Play Review—“The Ally” at the Public Theater

The Ally
Written by Itamar Moses; directed by Lila Neugebauer
Performances through April 7, 2024
Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street, NYC
publictheater.org
 
Josh Radnor in Itamar Moses' The Ally (photo: Joan Marcus)
 
In a perceptive program note for his new play The Ally, Itamar Moses describes his feelings as a “left-wing, American Jew with Israeli-immigrant parents” when tackling important current issues. He admits that he is unafraid to say certain things, but when it came to more fraught subjects, he “didn’t know where to begin because what I had to say was too confused, too contradictory, too raw.”
 
Such honesty is present on every page of The Ally, which is also confused, contradictory and raw in its story of Asaf, a left-wing, American Jew with Israeli-immigrant parents who is not a playwright but a university professor. After he agrees to sign a petition blaming the local police for the death of a young black man, other students convince him to advise their nonpartisan group to host a controversial anti-Israeli speaker on campus. He becomes the center of a storm where he is accused of being anti-Palestinian, anti-Israeli and a white supremacist.
 
Moses incisively paints Asaf as the face of the inherent contradictions in a strain of American liberalism: he wants to get involved but doesn’t really stick his neck out while worrying about hurting the very people he hopes to help. But Moses stacks the deck dramatically (if almost surely purposely): Asaf is married to Gwen, who’s Asian; his ex-girlfriend Nakia is not only Black but author of the petition that starts Asaf’s troubles since it also uses the term “genocide” in reference to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; and Baron, the student who first asks Asaf to sign that petition, is also Black and the cousin of the cops’ victim.
 
These characters are joined by pivotal supporting roles—the students who ask Asaf to sponsor their new organization, the Palestinian Farid and the liberal Jew Rachel; and Reuven, a right-wing Jewish student who berates Asaf for his weak-kneed liberalism—who form the core arguments of The Ally.  
 
Most of the play’s scenes show Asaf with one or more of these characters, their arguments constantly colliding. It’s often thrilling to watch, as Moses’ dialogue has real bite and never condescends, while director Lila Neugebauer astutely keeps the focus on the interactions as well as the words. Take an early conversation between Asaf and Gwen as he becomes more reluctant about signing the petition:
 
GWEN: I’m not telling you what to do. But if one sentence is your only problem with a, like you said, a 20-page document, then maybe—
ASAF: Well, except there is one other thing.
GWEN: What? 
ASAF: They use the word genocide.
GWEN: What?
ASAF: Here. “Failure to do so will leave the United States complicit in the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people.” Which, again, so much of what happens there is terrible, truly. But: genocide? That’s a term you really can’t just throw around. Especially ... Well: you know.
 
After awhile, these discussions, however elegantly written and performed, start to sound like haranguing, like reading a particularly densely written op-ed or even the rare closely argued comment on Facebook. That’s all part of Moses’ point about responding to urgent issues, but even the two tensest scenes come off as strident and singleminded, detracting from their power: Farid’s moving climactic Act 2 speech describing his West Bank family’s hurtful losses loss and, below, Reuven’s forceful Act 1-ending explanation for why Asaf has been duped.
 
ASAF: I thought it meant “Never Again” for anyone, not just us.
REUVEN: That’s right. It means “Never Again” for anyone. Including us.
ASAF: So you’re saying we can’t even discuss how Israel deals with the Palestinians because to do so will trigger a series of events that will lead inevitably to a second holocaust.
REUVEN: No. What I’m saying is the entire so-called “conversation” around this issue is nothing more than propaganda designed to create the conditions for a second holocaust.
ASAF: I think that’s alarmist.
REUVEN: And I think the people who sounded the alarm last time were also told they were being alarmist.
ASAF: Last time we were a tiny minority scattered across Europe! We didn’t have an army! We didn’t have a nuclear weapon! This time the Israelis are the majority, they have the power, they—!
REUVEN: Compared to who?
ASAF: The Palestinians!
REUVEN: But this conflict is not between the Israelis and the Palestinians!
ASAF: What? Of course it is!
REUVEN: No! It’s only framed this way so one can conclude that Israel is the oppressor! But this is not now, nor has it ever been, an Israeli-Palestinian conflict in which a Palestinian minority is surrounded by millions of Jews. It is and has always been a Jewish-Arab one in which a Palestinian minority is surrounded by millions of Jews who are themselves surrounded by hundreds of millions of other Arabs not to mention the Persians of Iran! Don’t you see? This is how antisemitism works! Why it is invisible to the left unless someone shouts “kill the Jews” and sometimes even then! Because the only xenophobia the left understands is the kind that paints the other as inferior. Jew-hatred depends upon the opposite: a myth of dangerous superiority. “Yes, they are small in number, but they pull all the strings.” Antisemitism adopts the trappings of a strike against the powerful so that it can masquerade as part of a struggle for social justice! As a progressive cause! So when you say we redefine all criticism of Israel as antisemitism you have it backwards: antisemitism was intentionally disguised as criticism of Israel, by our enemies, as a response to the founding of the state! And you can see how effective it has been! It is now impossible for left-wing Western intellectuals to assign any responsibility at all to the Arabs for what goes on in a region they dominate completely! But no one forced the Arab League to invade in ’48, or again in ’67 …
 
Yet despite its built-in limitations as living, breathing drama, The Ally remains an intelligent two hours in the theater, its superb cast anchored by Josh Radnor’s formidable Asaf. As the center of all the arguments and as Moses’ stand-in, Radnor gives a beautifully shaded portrayal that humanely embodies the raw contradictions and confusions that make up the playwright’s stalwart liberalism. 

March '24 Digital Week I

4K/UHD Releases of the Week 
Wonka 
(Warner Bros)
In this colorful but pretty soulless prequel, Timothee Chalamet makes a charming young Willy Wonka who’s surrounded by a bunch of supporting characters who are less silly sidekicks than major annoyances—actors like Olivia Colman, High Grant (as a sullen Oompa Loompa!), Sally Hawkins and Rowan Atkinson are all made forgettable by Paul King’s mediocre direction.
 
 
There’s garishness and bright colors galore, but the songs try too hard to match those from the original Gene Wilder classic (a couple of those, of course, return) and Chalamet, for all his energy, can only do so much. But since this was a huge hit, it will certainly generate more prequel sequels. The film looks ravishing in UHD; extras include several making-of featurettes.
 
 
 
Migration 
(Universal)
Director Benjamin Renner and writer Mike White have made a cute cartoon fable about a family of birds who migrate from New England to Jamaica with a pit stop in Manhattan along the way.
 
 
The animation is impressive, the jokiness and sappiness both land in equal measure, and the large voice cast—including Kumail Nanjiani, Elizabeth Banks, Keegan-Michael Key, Awkwafina and Danny DeVito—makes the most of the snappy dialogue, which might be enough for most families, and especially parents. It looks terrific on UHD; extras are making-of featurettes.
 
 
 
In-Theater/Streaming Release of the Week 
Poor Things 
(Searchlight)
In his latest insufferably smug feature, Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos has freely adapted Scottish author Alasdair Gray’s 1992 novel, a Candide-like journey from innocence to adulthood for a woman who has been reanimated by a lunatic Dr. Frankenstein-ish scientist. In Lanthimos’ hands, however, Gray’s sharp satire has been reanimated so crudely and ham-fistedly that its 140 minutes drag on like 140 hours. It’s set in a steampunk version of Europe and, although the sets and costumes are initially intriguing, soon rigor mortis sets in, and we’re left with Lanthimos’ gregariously ugly visuals: he returns again and again to fisheye-lens shots like a baby playing with his favorite rattle.
 
 
Lead actors Emma Stone and Mark Ruffalo give scandalously broad performances that should be shunned instead of showered with awards. Crazily enough, Willem Dafoe, never known for his subtlety, is the least obnoxious performer here, which is a win of sorts, I guess.
 
 
 
Blu-ray Releases of the Week
Dr. Cheon and the Lost Talisman 
(Well Go USA)
In this weirdly compelling fantasy, Dr. Cheon makes his living performing fake exorcisms online takes on the case of a possessed young girl: and lo and behold, all his beliefs—and disbeliefs—about the spirit world come into question.
 
 
First-time director Kim Seong-sik has fun conjuring the mysterious goings-on that affect his protagonist, and the special effects complement, rather than overwhelm, the supernatural storyline. There’s an excellent hi-def transfer.
 
 
 
The Moon 
(Well Go USA)
After the first South Korean mission to the moon goes spectacularly wrong, a second mission also malfunctions, leaving one brave astronaut stranded in space while a disgraced mission-control director is brought in to try and salvage the nation’s lunar dreams in director Kim Yong-hwa’s far-fetched but simplemindedly entertaining sci-fi epic.
 
 
It ends as a sentimental paean to Korean ingenuity—high (or low) lighted by a bunch of kids worshiping the spaceman—but before that Kim keeps losing focus by intercutting between the continuous (anti)climaxes in space and the predictably worried reactions of those on earth. It all looks impressive on Blu-ray; the lone extra is a making-of featurette.
 
 
 
CD Release of the Week
Britten—Violin and Double Concertos 
(Orfeo)
Two youthful works by English composer Benjamin Britten (1913-76) make up this superb new recording, but “youthful” doesn’t mean “immature”—on the contrary, Britten’s Violin Concerto, written when he was 26, is one of his masterpieces, a vigorous and incisive workout for the instrument; soloist Baiba Skride is more than up to the task throughout.
 
 
Skride also deftly plays the violin part in the Double Concerto, which Britten wrote when he was 19. Although not as memorable as the later Violin Concerto, it’s still a singularly attractive work, and Ivan Vukčević is an inspired partner on the viola. Marin Alsop leads the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra in perfect accompaniment for both works.

Off-Broadway Play Review—“Russian Troll Farm” with Christine Lahti

Russian Troll Farm
Written by Sarah Gancher; directed by Darko Tresnjak
Performances through March 1, 2024
Vineyard Theatre, 108 East 15th Street, New York, NY
vineyardtheatre.org
 
Christine Lahti and Haskell King in Russian Troll Farm (photo: Carol Rosegg)
 
Sarah Gancher’s Russian Troll Farm began life online during the COVID-19 lockdown, showing workers at the (real) Internet Research Agency during the 2016 presidential elections, posting disinformation while posing as Americans interacting on Facebook and Twitter.
 
Four years later, its themes of election interference and fake news are unfortunately still with us, but the play itself seems to be in limbo. Gancher writes fast-paced dialogue and director Darko Tresnjak has dressed up his slick staging with visuals that feature lots of video overlays to complement Alexander Dodge’s amusingly antiseptic set, but the commentary on social media is less insightful than perfunctory.
 
The main problem is that the characters are stereotypes. There’s nerdy whiz kid Egor; annoying reactionary Steve; dullard Nikolai; disillusioned journalist Masha; and their strict supervisor Ljuba, who at least gets a solid backstory—she worked for the KGB as well as Putin—but is just another chessboard piece for the author to manipulate. 
 
Tresnjak allows his actors to play into those stereotypes, especially Haskell King (Egor) and Renata Friedman (Masha), who are unable to find any subtlety in characters already flattened on the page. John Lavelle (Steve), conversely, yells his way through many of his lines, playing to the audience as a combination of Jack Black and Zach Galifianakis at their most obnoxious. It’s sometimes funny, but often not. 
 
That leaves Christine Lahti, who provides the play’s high point in a stunning 15-minute monologue describing Ljuba’s hellish life in the Soviet Union and then the new Russia. As written, it’s melodramatically bathetic—yet Lahti, through a combination of her winning stage presence and forceful acting, squeezes the soliloquy for whatever juice of humanity she can, throwing into relief the metaphorical trolling of the rest of the play.

February '24 Digital Week II

In-Theater Releases of the Week 
Kiss the Future 
(Fifth Season)
The Bosnian War waged in the mid ’90s in the former Yugoslavia not only destroyed lives and neighborhoods but also shook ordinary citizens’ souls to their core. Nenad Cicin-Sain’s riveting documentary looks at that fraught time through the lens of music—first through the ordinary people who used it as a mechanism to have some sort of normalcy during the war but also through the Irish band U2, whose ZOO-TV tour captured the zeitgeist of the 24-hour news cycle, which was exploited by American aid worker Bill S. Carter (on whose memoir this film is based).
 
 
He managed to interview Bono, get comments from Sarajevo residents played on stadiums’ video screens via satellite during U2’s European tour to raise awareness and finally get the band to come to the beleaguered city for the a concert that would bring together thousands of jubilant fans. New, emotional interviews with many of the those involved—Bono, the Edge, Carter, news correspondent Christine Amanpour, and several Bosnian journalists and citizens—are contrasted with vividly horrific archival footage of the murderous siege of Sarajevo to paint an unforgettable picture of how music helps heal the worst wounds.
 
 
 
Io Capitano 
(Cohen Media Group)
In Italian director Matteo Garrone’s intensely dramatic—if slightly manipulative—new feature, Senegalese teens Seydou (Seydou Sarr) and Moussa (Moustapha Fall) take what little funds they have and try to get to Europe, little realizing the horrors that await them. They are captured, separated and tortured in Libya, abandoned but reunited in North Africa, and finally go via the Mediterranean to southern Italy—but only if 16-year-old novice Seydou can pilot the boat filled with dozens of migrants. Garrone captures the humanity of these people desperate for a new start alongside the inhumanity of many others.
 
 
If manipulation and contrivance didn’t intrude, Io Capitano would be a masterpiece, not simply a superior melodrama. But there’s that staggeringly moving final shot of Seydou, the face of non-actor Sarr going through so many conflicting emotions that he should be in the running for every award there is.  
 
 
 
Veselka—The Rainbow on the Corner at the Center of the World 
(Fiore Media Group)
The famed Ukrainian restaurant on Second Avenue in Manhattan’s East Village is the subject of Michael Fiore’s engaging but often enraging documentary narrated by David Duchovny that shows how the current owner Jason and his father Tom, the previous owner, allow their place to double as a safe haven for locals after the COVID-19 lockdown and for fellow Ukrainians after Putin’s forces invaded their home country in February 2022. Fiore perceptively follows Tom, Jason and several of their employees as they first navigate COVID and its aftermath, then find themselves worrying constantly about family members still in Ukraine when the invasion starts.
 
 
Some are able to leave and arrive in New York, where they must acclimate to a new country and culture, even though the familial feel of Veselka itself and their loved ones who are already working there helps. 
 
 
 
Blu-ray Releases of the Week
Twilight
(Arbelos)
Hungarian director György Fehér, an associate of Béla Tarr—whose use of slow tracking shots and stark B&W camerawork became ubiquitous in his films—made his debut in 1990 with this strikingly composed procedural. Although he only made one more film (Passion, a fiery if convoluted 1998 adaptation of The Postman Always Rings Twice) before his death in 2003 at age 63, the accomplished Fehér has made a resonant exploration of a detective who investigates horrific child murders.
 
 
Instead of Tarr’s existential dread, Fehér zeroes in on society’s alienation; there are several extraordinary sequences—shot by master cinematographer Miklós Gurbán, who also did the grading of this brand-new, beautifully restored hi-def transfer—including very unsettling close-up “interviews” with two young girls. Extras include interviews with Gurbán and film editor Mária Czielik, along with two early Fehér shorts: 1969’s Öregek and 1970’s Tomikám.
 
 
 
Tchaikovsky—None But the Lonely Heart 
(Naxos)
The music of Russian composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky is inherently theatrical—witness his operas and ballets that are centerpieces of the modern stage repertoire—but his songs are less well-known; but even resourceful director Christof Roy comes to grief trying to stitch together several of the master’s songs and a few chamber pieces into a workable narrative.
 
 
In this 2021 staging in Frankfurt, Germany, the music is lovely, the singing (especially by soprano Olesya Golovneva and mezzo Kelsey Lauritano) is gorgeous, but it comes off as a stylized recital, the performers moving robotically onstage while two pianists alternate in their accompaniment. It’s certainly nice to hear, but not so much to see. There’s first-rate hi-def video and audio.
 
 
 
Wagner—Das Rheingold 
(Naxos)
The first opera of Richard Wagner’s epic Ring cycle is also by far the shortest: he himself refers to it as a “prelude,” a 2-1/2-hour set-up of the story to come in the next three mammoth-length music dramas. In this 2021 Berlin Opera staging by director Stefan Herheim, the setting is modernly nondescript, which to my eyes loses some of the grandeur of a timeless conflict among gods and humans.
 
 
But the music making by the Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin conducted by Donald Runnicles is first-rate and the singing by a hugely capable cast is led by Derek Welton’s Wotan, the supreme god, and Markus Brück as the dwarf Alberich, whose curse fatally haunts the rest of the tetralogy. There’s excellent hi-def video and audio.
 
 
 
4K/UHD Release of the Week 
Contagion 
(Warner Bros)
Steven Soderbergh’s nail-biting 2011 suspense drama, which realistically paints a horrifying glimpse at the outbreak of an unknown disease that engulfs much of the planet, has only grown in stature since the COVID-19 pandemic. In a series of plausibly shot, edited and acted sequences, the movie scarily shows how our globally connected 21st-century world looks like when it’s affected in such a monstrous way.
 
 
A superb ensemble cast, from Matt Damon and Kate Winslet to Laurence Fishburne and Jennifer Ehle, make this a most entertaining but truly frightening film as well as an uncanny predictor in its final scenes. On UHD, Soderbergh’s stark, documentary-like style has brilliantly preserved; the extras comprise archival featurettes about the film and the science behind it, including interviews with cast, crew and experts.
 
 
 
CD Release of the Week
Neave Trio—A Room of Her Own 
(Chandos)
This superlative disc comprises piano trios by four important women composers of the late 19th and early 20th century—Ethel Smyth from England and three Frenchwomen, Lili Boulanger, Cécile Chaminade and Germaine Tailleferre—and although all were written when they were in their 20s, the moods are vastly different, from the strikingly dramatic Deux pièces of Boulanger (she would die within a year of completing the work) to the attractively lyrical Chaminade trio.
 
 
But for my money, it’s the Smyth trio (clocking in at 31 minutes) that’s the most substantial work, both in its length and artistry. All four works have been given lovely and restrained performances by the always compelling Neave Trio.February

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