A Russian folktale dating back ten generations is revived this season in a fresh retelling. In a forest gone silent, a young Huntsman finds a single golden feather blazing on the path before him — a feather shed from the burning breast of the Firebird, the most extraordinary creature in all the world. Against the counsel of his talking horse, he takes it. And from that one moment of ambition, everything unravels. Task by task, a tyrannical ruler — the ego made sovereign — escalates his demands on the obedient Huntsman who stumbles deeper into complicity with the authoritarian regime. The Huntsman makes one compromise after another, each one more absurd than the last, until he can no longer remember where his own will has ended and the tyrant's began. All the while the caged Firebird watches from the courtyard with eyes full of impossible light. Something is calling to him from the far horizon of his heart. Courage won't be enough to answer that call. Neither will serenity. Only a willingness to be completely undone. This is a thousand-year-old Russian folktale. It is also a story about right now. The ReMemberers bring this ancient tale to life through voice, world percussion, and acoustic strings in a ninety-minute performance that feels equal parts theater and concert. An evening that will remain with you like an old friend returning home.
R
On the hottest day of the year on a street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, everyone's hate and bigotry smolders and builds until it explodes into violence.
Rfor strong/bloody violence and language.
In Is God Is, two sisters embark on an epic quest for revenge, confronting a charged family history that will push them to extraordinary lengths. The film is Aleshea Harris’ directorial debut and is based on Harris’ adaptation of her award-winning play of the same name.
NR
If poetry had a pop icon, Mary Oliver would be it. Celebrated best-selling poet, Pulitzer Prize-winner, lover of dogs and long walks in the woods, openly queer but intensely private, Oliver was America’s unlikely contemporary mystic, stalking the ponds and forests of Cape Cod for nearly fifty years in order to open herself – and her readers – to the known and unknowable world. From a lonely childhood to literary fame, Oliver’s life was shaped by devotion to nature, paying attention, and the long journey toward learning to love and to be loved. Her poems inspire liberals and conservatives, atheists and believers, naturalists and urbanites, speaking directly to contemporary anxieties about attention, presence, and the human relationship with the natural world – issues that feel especially pressing in an era of climate crisis, digital distraction, and social fragmentation. Featuring interviews with her close friends, including John Waters, never-before-seen personal photos, notebooks, and correspondence from her archive, and recitations of her work by Stephen Colbert, Lucy Dacus, Steve Buscemi, and Oprah Winfrey, Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World considers the poet’s long lifetime of work in context, capturing the uniqueness of her world and the natural beauty that inspired her.
Rfor sexual material, language throughout, and drug use.
A middle-aged couple who are feeling stagnant in their relationship invite the younger and livelier couple from the apartment upstairs for a get-together that takes an unexpected turn.
A remote cabin. A rushing river. Two strangers—and secrets as deep as the water below. In Jez Butterworth's mesmerizing The River, an ordinary weekend unfolds into a haunting exploration of love, loss, and the mysteries we keep hidden, even from ourselves.