Arts Fuse critics select the best in theater, visual arts, film, music, author events, and dance for the coming weeks.

By The Arts Fuse Staff

Film

Boston Area Film Schedules—What Is Playing Today, Where, and When

Busby Berkeley Babylon
through January 23
Harvard Film Archive, Cambridge, MA

Berkeley understood that film choreography was about more than just fixed viewpoints — the camera had to move with the movement of dancers. He set his cameras into motion on custom built booms and monorails. Warner Brothers gave him the leeway to film numbers on a grand scale: sweeping views, geometrically arranged dancers, kaleidoscopic patterns of uniformly costumed chorus girls, elaborate sets. The result generated bizarre touches that were often blatantly erotic and always fascinating. Berkeley was wild well before the MTV style. Here is a great opportunity to experience a wealth of Berkeley’s work as it should be seen. Arts Fuse Feature

The Boston Festival of Films from Iran
through January 29
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA

This year’s lineup includes Asghar Farhadi’s The Salesman, which won Best Screenplay and Best Actor for Shahab Hosseini at Cannes. The film follows a young couple whose relationship begins to deteriorate during their performance in a local production of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. Schedule.

Arrival
January 26 at 7 p.m.
Bright Lights Screening Room, Paramount Theater, Boston, MA

When mysterious spacecrafts touch down across the globe, an elite team – led by expert linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams) – is brought together to investigate. As mankind teeters on the verge of global war, Banks and the team race against time for answers – and to find them, she will take a chance that could threaten her life, and quite possibly humanity. Discussion with producer Aaron Ryder to follow via Skype. Free.

An Aquarium in the Sea: The Story of the New York Group of Poets
January 23 at 7 p.m.
Brattle Theatre, Cambridge, MA

This premiere is the latest documentary feature film crafted by the exciting Ukrainian film director Oleksandr Fraze-Frazenko. It tells the story of the New York Group of Poets, pioneers of Ukrainian modernism, fugitives from the deadly regime of the USSR. The group was founded in the early 1950s in New York, where its poets worked alongside the beatniks. Because Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union at that time, so this kind of free-wheeling poetry would have been censored by the KGB. But the free world offered these poets an opportunity to build and develop their own lyrical language. The film includes reminiscences from the poets as well as readings. Q&A follows with the director and poet Yuriy Tarnawsky in person.

O.J.: Made In America
January 28 – 30
Brattle Theatre, Cambridge, MA

The winner of the Boston Society of Film Critics Best Documentary covers far more than just its titular subject. While it provides a superb history of O.J. Simpson’s life and career, it also touches on areas that still hit a nerve: domestic violence, American race relations, our overzealous media, and the taint of celebrity culture. Here is a chance to binge on the entire series in the comfort of the Brattle Theatre.

The 7.5 hour film has been broken out into three viewing sessions:

Saturday, January 28: Part One / 1 p.m. – 4 p.m. (screens with Good White People)
Sunday, January 29: Part Two / 1 p.m. – 4 p.m. (screens with 137 Bullets)
Monday, January 30: Part One / 12 p.m. – 3 p.m., Part Two / 3:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m., Part Three / 7 p.m. – 8:47 p.m. + Filmmaker Q&A (Part 3 screens with Good White People and 137 Bullets)

Jonas Mekas Short Films
January 29 at 7 p.m.
Harvard Film Archive, Cambridge, MA

A illuminating gathering of short films from a larger program (running January 20 through February 18) that spotlights the work of  Jonas Mekas (b. 1922), legendary filmmaker, writer, poet, artist, and “godfather” of American avant-garde “New American Cinema.” “After six decades of filmmaking and writing poetry, he is the living embodiment of self-determination, perseverance and dedication.” (HFA)

The evening includes:

Scenes From the Life of Andy Warhol: Andy Warhol shot Jonas for a screen test, and Jonas cobbled together footage of Andy taken from 1965 to 1982, concluding with Mass being read at his funeral in St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
Happy Birthday to John captures an exhibition of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s work at the Syracuse Museum of Art; a subsequent birthday celebration, including a jam session with John, Yoko and Ringo; and other fascinating ephemera from Mekas’ files.
Zefiro Torna or Scenes From the Life of George Maciunas: The organizer of the John/Yoko exhibition was Lithuanian-American artist George Maciunas, author of the proto-punky, officially art-destabilizing Fluxus Manifesto, a vital influence on Mekas, and the subject of his Zefiro Torna, a capering elegy sewn together from footage taken between 1952 and 1978 and set to the strains of Monteverdi and Mekas’ readings from Maciunas’ diaries.

Birth Of A Movement
January 30; Doors open at 6 p.m.
Somerville Theater, 55 Davis Square, Somerville, MA

In 1915, African-American newspaper editor and activist William Monroe Trotter waged a battle against D.W. Griffith’s notoriously Ku Klux Klan-friendly blockbuster The Birth of a Nation. The public confrontation kicked off a passionate fight that’s still raging today about race relations and representation, as well as the power and influence of Hollywood.

The documentary Birth of a Movement features the contributions of familiar names like Spike Lee, Reginald Hudlin, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and DJ Spooky (who created a new score and remix of the original Griffith film), as well as numerous clips from the technically groundbreaking but racially problematic epic. The film will be introduced by the filmmakers Susan Gray and Bestor Cram at 6:45 with the screening at 7 p.m.

A discussion will follow. The panel will include: Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Vincent Brown of Harvard University, Robert Bellinger of Suffolk University, Lolita Cathcart of Wheaton College, and Dick Lehr, author of The Birth of a Nation: How a Legendary Filmmaker and a Crusading Editor Reignited America’s Civil War. Free, though reservations are recommended.

— Tim Jackson

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Dance

Jessica Lang Dance
January 27 at 7:30, January 28 at 8 p.m.
Shubert Theater
Boston, MA

Former Twyla Tharp dancer and recipient of a 2014 Bessie Award, Jessica Lang is a NYC-based choreographer. Her work, performed by Jessica Lang Dance, is a beautiful melding of visual elements and classical ballet.

Something Else
January 27 & 28 at 8 p.m.
Deborah Mason School of Dance
Somerville, MA

Tap dance company Subject: Matter collaborates with The Factory Quartet for an evening of tap and live jazz. With a malleable program, the show promises to be different each night, giving its performers room for on-the-spot improv.

Catalysts
through January 28
Dance Complex, Cambridge, MA

Enjoy tap, modern, and flamenco at the latest Catalysts performance presentation. Artists Ryan Casey, Lorraine Chapman, Junichi Fukuda, Yosi Karahashi, and Doppelgänger Dance Collective grace the stage as the 2016-17 featured artists.

— Merli V. Guerra

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Theater

The Scottsboro Boys, music and lyrics by John Kander & Fred Ebb. Book by David Thompson. Directed by Paul Daigneault. Music direction by Matthew Stern. Choreography by Ilyse Robbins. Staged by SpeakEasy Stage Company at the Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, MA, through January 22.

“In this, their final collaboration, legendary songwriting team John Kander and Fred Ebb (Cabaret, Chicago) bring to light one of the most infamous events in American history: the shocking true story of nine African American boys jailed in Alabama in 1931 for a crime they did not commit.” Arts Fuse review

The Making of a Great Moment, by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb. Directed by Sean Daniels. Staged by the Merrimack Repertory Theater, 50 East Merrimack Street, Lowell MA, through January 29.

World premiere of a new show-biz comedy: “Actors Mona and Terry are on an ambitious quest: tour their play Great Moments in Human Achievement across the country… by bicycle. Surely they’ll bring inspiration to millions! But as they pedal across the nation reenacting history’s high points, finding laundry facilities proves just as tough as their unruly audiences.” Art Fuse review

Imogen Says Nothing, by Aditi Brennan Kapil. Directed by Laurie Woolery. Staged by Yale Rep at the Yale Repertory Theatre, 1120 Chapel Street, New Haven, CT, through February 11.

World premiere of an intriguing attempt to deal with Shakespeare and gender:”All the world’s a stage, but in Elizabethan England, all the roles are given to men. Enter Imogen, who seizes a wordless walk-on in Shakespeare’s new comedy and recasts herself in a ferocious real-life leading role.” Yale Rep claims the script “is the wildly theatrical and subversively funny tale of an unforgettable creature refusing to let history erase her part.”

Hand to God by Robert Askins. Directed by David R. Gammons. Staged by SpeakEasy Stage Company at the Wimberly Theatre, Calderwood Pavilion, Boston, MA, through February 4.

Nominated for five Tony Awards including Best Play, this comedy “tells the story of an awkward Texas teen named Jason, who spends his afternoons at his local church, practicing for the Christian Puppet Ministry run by his widowed mother. All hell literally breaks loose, however, when Jason’s puppet Tyrone takes on a shocking and dangerously irreverent personality all its own. The New England premiere of a script that “explores the startlingly fragile nature of faith, morality, and the ties that bind.” Arts Fuse review

A Doll’s House, by Henrik Ibsen. adapted by Bryony Lavery. Directed by Melia Bensussen. Staged by the Huntington Stage Company at the B.U.Theatre, Avenue of the Arts, Boston, MA, through February 5.

Another version of Ibsen’s great 19th century barn burner about the dehumanizing constraints of marriage: “Nora and Torvald Helmer are living their dream life: happily married with children and security. When Nora risks her reputation to save her husband’s life, the consequences test the limits of their love. In an acclaimed new translation by Bryony Lavery, Ibsen’s powerful, groundbreaking classic about marriage, money, and equality remains as compelling and relevant as ever.”

Incident at Vichy by Arthur Miller. Directed by Hatem Adell and Daniel Boudreau. Staged by Praxis Stage at Inner Sanctum, 1127 Harrison Ave, Roxbury, MA, through January 26.

This is new theater company “formed on 11/9, 2016, as a response to the disaster of Trump’s election. Our vision is to link theater with activism, producing plays that enter contemporary political crisis points and ongoing cultural conversations in the service of inciting dialogue to foment change.” This adaptation of Miller’s script focuses on “the need to stand up to fascism and the challenge of finding the courage in repressive times to affirm the commonalities of all people and to fight for them and against those seeking to destroy the Othered.”

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee. Directed by Scott Edmunson. Staged by the Lyric Stage Company of Boston at 140 Clarendon Street, Boston, MA, through February 12.

A very timely reminder of the brilliance of the late Edward Albee. The cast features Steven Barkhimer as George and Paula Plum as Martha.

Winter Panto 2017: The Princess & the Pea Staged by imaginary beasts at the Boston Center for the Arts, 539 Tremont Street, Boston, MA, through February 4.

This playful production turns “Hans Andersen’s fairy tale right on its ear. A prince seeking the perfect wife, a maid fighting for her very life, and a forgetful vegetable sprite, who can’t seem to do anything right – not to mention one very nasty woman – these are just a few of the magical characters you will meet.”

Thurgood by George Stevens, Jr. Directed by Benny Sato Ambush Staged by the New Repertory Company at the Black Box Theater, Arsenal Center for the Arts, 321 Arsenal Street, Watertown, MA, through February 5.

No surprises here, dramatically speaking, but a chance to see actor Johnny Lee Davenport strut his stuff as Justice Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American to sit on the Supreme Court.

The Atheist, written and directed by Ronan Noone. Staged at the Boston Playwrights’ Theatre
949 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA, through February 5.

This is a solo piece centering on crooked tabloid journalist Augustine Early. Originally created for a male actor, Noone readdresses the piece here with a female protagonist played by Georgia Lyman. The script enjoyed an off-Broadway run (with Chris Pine in the titular role) in 2006. The play was also produced by the Huntington Theatre Company in 2007 and at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in 2008; both productions starred Campbell Scott. The play has also been produced in the U.K. (London and Edinburgh), Spain, Canada, the Philippines and Ireland.

Our Secrets by Béla Pintér and Company. A presentation of Arts Emerson, The Baryshnikov Arts Center, and Dartmouth’s Hopkins Center. At the Moore Theater, Hopkins Center, Hanover NH, January 13 and 14. Also presented by Arts Emerson at the Emerson/Paramount Center, Robert J. Orchard Stage, Boston, MA, through January 22.

New Hampshire is the first stop of this US tour by Béla Pintér and Company, a celebrated Hungarian theater troupe that “makes vastly engaging theater that challenges that country’s repressive rightward regime.” This script “follows a group of folk-dancing friends in early ’80s Budapest who are blackmailed into spying on one another. The drama unfolds, with wit and heartbreak, between dashes of live music and dancing, one of Pintér’s strengths.” In Hungarian with English supertitles. Adult language, graphic sexual content.

Intimate Exchanges by Alan Ayckbourn. Directed by Olivia D’Ambrosio. Staged by the Nora Theatre Company at the Central Square Theater, Cambridge, MA, through February 12.

What is it with the Alan Ayckbourn resurgence? Here’s another production this season of one of his genial farces.  “Two actors. Six characters. Four different courses of action. What will happen next? Alan Ayckbourn’s script follows marriages and love affairs in a London suburb. Meet Celia Teasdale, the wife of the drunken headmaster of the local school. And then, there’s Sylvie Bell, to whom there is more than meets the eye. In the opening scene, Celia steps into her backyard and eyes a pack of cigarettes. Her choice leads to one of four possibilities. On alternating performances, you can follow either Celia or Sylvie in their path throughout the play. At intermission, place your vote on how you want the play to end. And, if you don’t like the result, you’ve nobody to blame but yourself!”

Trans Scripts, Part I: The Women by Paul Lucas. Directed by Jo Bonney. Staged by the American Repertory Theater at the Loeb Drama Center, Cambridge, MA, through February 5.

“Drawn from dozens of interviews conducted around the world, Trans Scripts uses the real words of women to shed light on the rich and diverse experiences within the transgender community. Jo Bonney (Father Comes Home From the Wars (Parts 1, 2 & 3)) directs a cast of seven in the US premiere of this moving, humorous, and timely work that received a Fringe First Award for new writing at the 2015 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.”

“A series of complementary work, the I.D. Festival, will be presented at OBERON in January and February, 2017.” Here is a full listing of events.

— Bill Marx

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Jazz

Ari Hoenig Trio
January 25 at 7:30 p.m.
Regattabar, Cambridge, MA.

The accomplished drummer and composer Ari Hoenig likes to mix up his grooves with sharp angles, propulsive stop-starts, and a leavening of jazz swing. He’s joined for this show by pianist Nitai Hershkovitz, and bassist Or Bareket.

Lookie Lookie
January 26 at 7:30 p.m.
Regattabar, Cambridge, MA.

The eight-piece Lookie Lookie throws one of the best dance parties in town, digging deep into ’60s boogaloo: Ricardo Ray, Joe Cuba, Pete Rodriguez, Johnny Pacheco and the lesser-known George Guzman. It’s all good. And with a few band originals thrown in besides. The crew includes saxophonist/arranger Russ Gershon, of the Either/Orchestra, trumpeter Scott Getchell, flutist/saxophonist Ted Decolo, bassist Chris Mclachlan, conguero Vicente Lebron (also of the E/O), timbales player Rick Barry, bongo player/percussionist Jorge Arce, and percussionist/conguero Ken Winokur.

Dominique Eade and Aryeh Kobrinsky
January 26 at 8 p.m.
Outpost 186, Cambridge, MA.

One of the finest jazz singers alive, Dominique Eade ventures to the living-room sized Outpost 186 for a show with bassist Aryeh Kobrinsky. The set will open with a solo set by Kobrinsky, whose solo explorations have favored alternate tunings — that is, 5ths instead of 4ths, giving him access to “new sounds, timbres, and harmonic possibilities.”

Ralph Peterson
January 26 at 8 p.m.
Scullers Jazz Club, Boston, MA.

The great powerhouse drummer and bandleader Ralph Peterson has put together a “Reunion Band” of the “kids” who came up with him: trumpeter Sean Jones, saxophonists Tia Fuller and Walter Smith III, and brothers Zaccai Curtis (piano) and Luques Curtis (bass).

Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol
January 27 at 7:30 p.m.
Lilypad, Cambridge, MA

The composer, keyboardist, and multi-instrumentalist Mehmet Ali Sanlikol, a longtime Boston resident, has been breaking thrilling ground with large-band compositions combining modern jazz and Ottoman folkloric strains. (Think of Gil Evans fronting a raucous Janissary band.) At the Lily, he’ll go small-scale, with percussionist George Lernis and bassist Yaman Akdoğan.

Club d’Elf
January 27 at 8 p.m.
Café 939, Boston, MA.

Club d’Elf concludes its barnstorming tour in support of its latest release, the double-CD “Live at Club Helsinki,” with this show at Berklee’s Club 939. For this show, the “Moroccan-dosed dub-jazz collective” will include guitarist David Tronzo, keyboardist Paul Schultheis, turntablist Mister Rourke, drummer Dean Johnston, guitarist Randy Roos, and Club d’Elf bassist-sintir player-ringmaster Mike Rivard.

Ambrose Akinmuire
January 28, 7:30 p.m.
Regattabar, Cambridge, MA.

Ambrose Akinmusire matches a dark, hefty trumpet sound with probing, unpredictable compositions and a free-collective spirit in his ensembles. His quartet this time out is pianist Sam Harris, bassist Harish Raghavan, and drummer Justin Brown.

— Jon Garelick

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Classical Music

Kremer plays Weinberg
Presented by the Boston Symphony Orchestra
through January 24
Symphony Hall, Boston, MA

Any time Gidon Kremer comes to Boston, take note: the Latvian virtuoso is back for the first time since 2011, this time playing Moisey Weinberg’s Violin Concerto. Juanjo Mena leads the rest of the program: Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony and Tchaikovsky’s Fourth.

Orpheus Chamber Orchestra
Presented by Music Worcester
January 22, 4 p.m.
Mechanics Hall, Worcester, MA

The conductor-less OCO brings three pieces and violinist Vadim Gluzman to Worcester. Gluzman is the soloist in Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto; Mendelssohn’s Scottish Symphony (no. 3) and Michael Hersh’s End Stages fill out the program.

Dohnanyi Returns
Presented by the Boston Symphony Orchestra
January 26-29, 8 p.m. (1:30 p.m. on Friday)
Symphony Hall, Boston, MA

The great German conductor, sidelined from Tanglewood this summer due to health problems, returns to the BSO podium with a largely Teutonic program (Schumann and Schubert) plus the American premiere of Julian Anderson’s short Incantesimi.

Mozart and Haydn
Presented by the Handel and Haydn Society
January 27 (at 7:30) and 29 (at 3 p.m.)
Symphony Hall, Boston, MA

H&H concertmaster Aisslinn Nosky is the soloist in Mozart’s Violin Concerto no. 3, which is heard between three Haydn scores: two symphonies (nos. 26 and 86) and the Overture in D major.

— Jonathan Blumhofer

Larry Bell Faculty Recital
January 25 at 8 p.m.
At the New England Conservatory/Williams Hall, 290 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA

On the program: Persichetti’s Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird and Infanta Marina, Op. 83; Brahms’s Prelude and Fugue for Organ in A minor; Bell’s Dazzling Duo and Water Music.

Danish String Quartet
January 28 at 8 p.m.
At Jordan Hall/New England Conservatory, 290 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA

Presented by Celebrity Series. On the program: Beethoven’s String Quartet, Op. 18, no. 2; Schnittke’s String Quartet No. 3; Beethoven’s String Quartet, Op. 130; Beethoven String Quartet No. 13, Op. 130, with original finale Grosse fuge, Op. 133.

Concord Chamber Music Society
January 29 at 3 p.m.
At the Concord Academy Performing Arts Center, 166 Main Street, Concord, MA

On the program: Beethoven’s Sonata No. 9, Op. 47 for Violin and Piano; Wyner Tants un Maysele for Clarinet, Violin, Cello and Piano; Zemlinksy Trio in D Minor, Op. 3 for Clarinet, Cello and Piano; Schoenfield’s Trio for Clarinet, Violin and Piano.

— Susan Miron

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Rock, Pop, and Folk

Adam Ant with Glam Skanks
January 24 (show at 8)
The Wilbur, Boston, MA

New wave icon Adam Ant is currently prepping for a U.S. tour commemorating the 35th anniversary of 1980’s Kings of the Wild Frontier, which he will be performing top to bottom. Like the D.C. show before it and the Philly and New York ones that follow, the Boston date is sold out. Although this limits one’s chance of getting into The Wilbur on January 24, it does not preclude it from actually happening.

Denny Laine
​January 27 (show at 8 p.m.)
Regent Theatre, Arlington, MA

Denny Laine sang lead for the first line-up of The Moody Blues, who scored a huge hit in 1964 with “Go Now.” That band went on to enjoy massive success with a different singer and a more prog-rock vision. In 1971, meanwhile, Laine joined a musician named James “Paul” McCartney—who had recorded two solo albums following the dissolution of the quartet with whom he had spent the whole of the 1960s—and his wife Linda in a group called Wings. On January 27 in Arlington, Laine will perform the 1973 album that was arguably McCartney’s greatest post-April 10, 1970 achievement, Band on the Run.

Mogwai
​January 27 (show at 8)
Berklee Performance Center, Boston, MA​

If you are a fan of concerts in which artists present one of their works in their entirety, then the latter half of January will be a good time for you to get out. In addition to Adam Ant and Denny Laine, Scotland’s Mogwai will be perform the whole of its 2016 offering at Berklee Performance Center. Titled Atomic, the original versions of the album’s songs served as the soundtrack to the BBC documentary Atomic: Living in Dread and Promise.

Rhett Miller with Abbie Barrett
January 28 (doors at 8, show at 9)
ONCE Ballroom, Somerville, MA

Rhett Miller must love Somerville. Having performed several times at Johnny D’s in the final few years of that venue’s existence, the Old 97’s singer played his last Boston-area solo gig at ONCE Ballroom and will return there on Saturday, January 28. Opening for Miller will be Boston-based singer-songwriter Abbie Barrett, whose most recent release is last year’s That Shame.

— Blake Maddux

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Roots and World Music

Joan Shelley
January 24
Club Passim, Cambridge, MA
January 25
Columbus Theatre, Providence, RI

The exceptional singer/songwriter Shelley recorded her last album, Over and Even, in a barn in her native Kentucky, but her Appalachian trappings pretty much end there. In performance, it’s her bold voice and lyrics that take center stage.

Bettye Lavette
January 27
Narrows Center for the Arts, Fall River, MA
January 28
Shalin Liu Performance Center, Rockport, MA

It took deep soul goddess Lavette decades of working under the music biz radar before she won her current devoted audience. But her lack of ’60s hits is actually a blessing, because it frees her to create a setlist of whatever she fancies. Her intensely personal live shows work best in small performing arts centers, and as it happens she’s performing in two of them this weekend.

Crashfest
January 28
House of Blues, Boston, MA

World Music/CRASHArts’ indoor festival is back for a second year. The enticing three-room lineup includes Niger guitar god Bombino, Brooklyn indie rockers San Fermin collaborating with new chamber music Now Ensemble, Malian icon Salif Keïta, and the local debut of Calexico member Sergio Mendoza’s experimental cumbia big band Orkestra Mendoza.

— Noah Schaffer

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Author Events

Ottessa Moshfegh
Homesick for Another World: Stories
January 26 at 7 p.m.
Harvard Book Store, Cambridge, MA
Free

Moshfegh’s debut novel, Eileen, was named one of the year’s best books by a number of critics. Her highly anticipated short story collection is said to contain satire whose the caustic wit recalls the work of Flannery O’Connor.

Melissa Fleming
A Hope More Powerful Than The Sea: One Refugee’s Incredible Story of Love, Loss, and Survival
January 29 at 6 p.m.
Harvard Book Store, Cambridge MA
Free

The Head of Communications and Chief Spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refuges comes to discuss her latest book, which tells the harrowing story of young Syrian refugee Doaa Al Zamel, whose family left Syria for an Egypt whose political climate rapidly became dangerous and unstable. She falls in love with a former Free Syrian fighter and escapes to Europe, only to face the dangerous journey across the sea for the chance of asylum.

— Matt Hanson