NYU SKIRBALL IN THE NEWS

The magic of Manual Cinema strikes again, in a piece about life during wartime…It feels almost pointless to use words to describe the generally nonverbal work of Manual Cinema, a group that has invented their own defiantly analog form of live performance that sits at the border of film, theater, dance, and in this case, a few nods to opera. (Every time I write about their work, I come up with a new way to describe the hybridization, and am newly impressed by it.)

By: Loren Noveck

Conceived and directed by Drew Dir for the acclaimed Chicago company Manual Cinema, the wordless show is presented as a movie set in a war-torn country shuddering under attacks by a certain Macbeth. After her parents’ death in a bombing, a little girl finds refuge with a mysterious crone in Birnam Wood (another allusion to the Scottish play), where haunting dreams, freaky mushrooms and revenge fantasies — or perhaps it is real revenge? — are juxtaposed in eerie synergy.

By: Elisabeth Vincentelli

"This resting, patience” has been danced in cities ranging from Helsinki to Porto to Venice, and in all of them the crooning vocals of its most-repeated music, Burt Bacharach’s “What the World Needs Now Is Love,” must have been instantly familiar. But in choreographer Ewa Dziarnowska’s hands, the easy-listening classic becomes something radical: an invitation to intimacy in an era of disconnection.

By: Anna Eastman

You have only four chances to see this haunting new work by the virtuosic Chicago collective Manual Cinema (Ada/Ava), which combines shadow puppetry and cinematic techniques to create unforgettable theater experiences. This time, the company imagines a companion piece to Shakespeare's Macbeth in which an orphaned girl bent on revenge receives help from a trio of witches. The show is wordless and accompanied by live music, like a silent film, but you won't miss the verbiage; if Manual Cinema's past works are prologue, you'll be engrossed by the imagery and the visible process through which it is generated.

By: Adam Feldman

Tom (Armando Babaioff), an urban, gay ad copywriter, drops in unannounced at his dead lover’s family on their isolated dairy farm. The dead man’s brother, a hulking, terse farmer, is hiding a stomach-turning crime in his past. Did they know their deceased relative was gay? Is Tom a physically abused hostage (he gets to work milking and calving) or in search of a deeper truth about nature and his own desire? Is the brother a homophobic serial killer or something else? Based on a 2011 French-Canadian play by Michel Marc Bouchard, adapted by Babaioff, and staged as a massive, muddy installation by Brazilian director Rodrigo Portella, Tom at the Farm is a brutal, sadistic descent into erotic chaos that obliterates the senses. Loads of grabbing, spitting, slipping, and howling. The physical and emotional bullishness of the four performers takes your breath away. It makes most American actors look like tame sheep. (In Portuguese with English supertitles) At the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts through October 10.

By: David Cote

About 30 pounds of stage clay adds mystery and even an inherent dramatic tension: The tarp can be slippery, and it bunches when stepped on, which requires the actors to be a little cautious when they move about. “The absence of stability is the base of our work,” Babaioff said. As it becomes splashed with water, the coating on the tarp gets stickier, spattering the actors and eventually covering Babaioff in a thin film (“it’s good for the skin,” he joked).

By: Elisabeth Vincentelli

Brazilian director Rodrigo Portella stages an intense 2011 drama, by Québécois playwright Michel Marc Bouchard, in which a man attending his late boyfriend's funeral discovers that most of the dead man's rural family didn't know he was gay—and that his grieving brother would rather keep them in the dark. The play, which has been traveling the world, has been adapted and translated into Portuguese by Armando Babaioff, and is presented with English supertitles; this being a Skirball Center import, you can expect some degree of nudity and sexual content.

By: Adam Feldman

"For three hours, we observe two women in various states of mutual dependence, sometimes fascination, other times a struggle for independence. There's no overt eroticism, but there are many exchanges of meaningful, emotionally charged glances…The audience is also drawn into the game of gazes. The performers rearrange the chairs several times, adding more and inviting the audience to sit on them. Smaller scenes, as it were, are created within the initial stage area. We are encouraged to observe the artists closely. And our gaze becomes thematized. We are voyeurs, but that's not an accusation."

By: Tomasz Plata

"Children 12 and older are invited to “The 4th Witch,” Manual Cinema’s riff on “Macbeth” that uses overhead projectors, paper puppets and tiny sets, at NYU Skirball from Oct. 15 to 17."

By: Erik Piepenburg

"‘THE 4TH WITCH’ In Manual Cinema’s stylized refraction of “Macbeth,” a witch gives refuge to a girl orphaned by war. Expect intricate shadow puppets, live actors, overhead projectors and a musical underscore…‘DEAF REPUBLIC’ After occupying soldiers kill a deaf boy for not following verbal orders, the people of his town go deaf in this play from the Dublin company Dead Centre, performed in spoken English and American Sign Language by deaf and hearing actors. With captioning."

By: Laura Collins-Hughes