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

By The Arts Fuse Staff

Film

Boston Area Film Schedules — What is playing today, Where and When

The Great Man
September 2-11
Museum of Fine Arts Boston

The film is an intimate drama that depicts the traumas of war and emigration and how they fester. Set in Afghanistan, the narrative is divided into chapters with titles that denote the shifting identities of the film’s three main characters. It proffers “an acute style marked by lengthy tracking shots and crisp natural cinematography.” The film explores “the extraordinary obstacles faced by France’s anonymous underclass as they navigate a society that leaves them little room for maneuver.” (source: Hollywood Reporter)

A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence
September 2
Brattle Theatre, Cambridge, MA

This is a second chance to see the latest film from the quirky and brilliant Swedish director Roy Andersson. From the Arts Fuse review: “Andersson’s latest offering (2014) is not for the faint of heart. It is a comedy in that it is as dark and ironic about existence as anything Jonathan Swift could whip up. Taking the form of a series of vignettes, the storyline, if one could call it that, follows a pair of astonishingly bad travelling salesmen as they attempt to sell shopworn novelties to apathetic customers.”

In addition to Best of Enemies, Amy, Trainwreck, and End of the Tour, here are two movies well worth seeing before the onset of the fall releases.

Straight Outta Compton: This edgy and informative film has been fashioned with great style. While it glosses over chunks of history, it doesn’t compromise on the anger that generated the music of NWA and their huge influence and popularity. The subject is timely and the acting strong. The film is well worth seeing on a big screen because the pumped-up soundtrack is a vital part of the experience. Screening at the Somerville Theater and elsewhere around New England

The Diary of a Teenage Girl: This is a bold, honest film — an empowering coming-of-age story directed by Marielle Heller. Minnie Goetze is a teenager living in 1970s San Francisco who has an affair with her mother’s boyfriend. This inevitably controversial subject becomes the inspiration for a brilliant performance by Bel Powley as the sex-obsessed but insecure teen. Fine casting (including another wonderful performance by Kristen Wiig as her bohemian mother) and a dark style minimize the intimations of exploitation and needless comic elements.

The film is a faithful adaptation of the powerful novel by Pheobe Gloeckner, who incorporated her own comic art into the narrative. (Above all else, Minnie is a gifted artist inspired by Aline Kominsky, R. Crumb’s wife.) The film also cleverly weaves illustrative elements into what turns out to be a feminist storyline: men are ultimately clueless and weak and the young protagonist, despite her circumstances, will rise. At the Kendall Square, Coolidge, and Landmark Embassy Theaters.

— Tim Jackson

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Dance

Harburlesque
September 2 at 7:30 p.m.
Aboard the Music City Queen
Rowes Warf, Boston, MA

The Boston Babydolls celebrate ten years as one of Boston’s leading burlesque companies with this 45-minute show, performed to a live jazz quartet aboard the Music City Queen. Enjoy a full bar and light refreshments on this 2.5-hour cruise.

TWA
September 3 & 4 at 7:30 p.m.
Boston Center for the Arts
Boston, MA

This Jean Appolon Expressions’ show highlights work by revered Haitian American artists Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR), Lenelle Moise, and Jean Appolon.

24-Hour ChoreoFest
Saturday, September 5 at 2 p.m. & 4 p.m.
Dance Complex
Cambridge, MA

The annual 24-Hour ChoreoFest in Cambridge locks seven brave local dance companies into the historic Dance Complex overnight, where they create new work for two shows that will be performed the next afternoon. Guests are also encouraged to watch the process unfold from 8 p.m. on Friday, September 4th through 8 a.m. on Saturday, September 5th by watching the live video stream posted at luminariumdance.org.

— Merli V. Guerra

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Visual Art

Corita Kent and the Language of Pop
September 3 – January 3, 2016
Harvard Art Museum, Cambridge, MA

Thousands probably pass Corita Kent’s largest and most famous work every day without realizing it. The splashes of bright color on the gas tank on Commercial Point, visible, over the years, to millions driving along Morrissey Boulevard and the Southeast Ex-pressway, or on boats in Dorchester Bay, was commissioned by Boston Gas in 1971. Since then, the original tank has been replaced and Boston Gas found itself swallowed up by bigger fish. Yet Corita’s Boston landmark endures.

Francis Elizabeth Kent, as Corita was born, already had a long backstory before she went to work for Boston Gas. Born in 1918 in Fort Dodge, Kansas, she entered the Roman Catholic order of the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary at the age of 18. Kent spent the next thirty years in California as Sister Mary Corita who, under the liberalizing winds of Vatican II, sailed into a career as a working nun, as a print-making artist, and as a celebrated teacher at the Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles, where she eventually headed the art department. Her inspiring classes allegedly drew such local luminaries as John Cage, Buckminster Fuller, and Alfred Hitchcock.

Corita’s serigraph prints are an improbable blend of Andy Warhol, holy scripture, 1960s advertising slogans, progressive Christian theology, California color, and left-wing, Vietnam Era politics (some people even saw a heroic profile of Ho Chi Minh in her Boston Gas design). As the Vatican’s liberal heartbeat began to cool, Corita left her order for a final avatar in Boston as Corita Kent. She died there in 1986, at the age of 67.

The Harvard show places Corita squarely — perhaps a little too squarely — within the American pop movement. To make the point, some 60 of her serigraphs hang alongside the work of such pop contemporaries as Andy Warhol, Edward Ruscha, Roy Lichtenstein, Jim Dine, and Robert Indiana. Revisionist art history or not, the show promises to be a thoughtful, lingering look at a complex and engaging modern American artist who worked during some of the nation’s most challenging decades.

Mare Liberum: or, The Other Island
September 1 – 27
Visiting Faculty: 2015-16
September 1 – 27
Karel Martens: Monoprints
September 1 – November 1
Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Cambridge, MA

Next door to the Corita Kent exhibition, the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts is open-ng three shows featuring, in particular, this year’s visiting artists and faculty in Harvard’s Department of Visual and Environmental Studies (VES).

Mare Liberum (“Free Seas”) is a Brooklyn, NY-based artist collective focused on the environments and histories of waterways. The all-hands-on-deck-work encompasses everything from boating workshops to river voyages, usually actively involving its viewers. Mare Liberum’s Carpenter Center residency will include public boatbuilding workshops (register on the Center website), lunchtime artist talks, a reception, and a public boat launch and voyage on the Mystic and Chelsea Rivers (also register on the website).

Since 2012, Dutch graphic artist and typographer Karel Martens has become internationally known for his monoprints (prints made in an edition of one copy only), built up from found objects like blank documents and packing paper, sometimes over an entire year. The Carpenter’s informal installation of Martens’ work is intended to reflect the “open-ended and speculative method of its production.”

“Visiting Faculty: 2015-18” includes, as the title suggests, four artists who are visiting VES faculty this year. They are Berlin-based Jennifer Bernstein, VES alumna Liz Glynn, photographer and filmmaker Betsy Schneider, and German installation artist Nor Schultz.

John Lafarge and the Recovery of the Sacred
September 1 – December 13
McMullen Museum, Boston College

Born in New York City into a wealthy French Catholic family, John Lafarge made his reputation creating lavish, richly-colored, highly Romantic decorations for the interior of Boston’s Trinity Church in Copley Square. He later designed stained glass windows for the building and devoted years to inventing new approaches and techniques in his stained glass work. His innovations eventually led to a patent clash with Louis Comfort Tiffany over priority in the use of opalescent glass.

Occasioned by the gift to the museum of an important La Farge stained glassed triptych, the McMullen show is a large one — 85 works, including paintings and works on paper as well as stained glass. The exhibition casts La Farge’s career as a “spiritual inquiry” that took him through many genres and subjects, including religious figures, still lifes, nature, and book illustrations of “romantic fantasy.”

The Ceramic Presence in Modern Art: Selections from the Linda Leonard Schlenger Collection and the Yale Art Gallery
September 4 – January 3, 2016
Yale Art Gallery, New Haven, CT

Featuring over 80 works from what has been called one of the most important collections of contemporary ceramics in the United States, this Yale Gallery show takes as its theme the symbolic graduation of ceramics from “studio crafts”” to full-fledged membership in the media constellation of modern art. To underscore this art historic unification, the installation will display works by leading 20th-century ceramicists like Ken Price, Peter Voulkos, and Lucie Rie against pieces by established fine art modernists including Willem de Kooning, Isamu Noguchi, Mark Rothko, and Ed Ruscha. How could anyone have ever thought they weren’t all on the same team?

In Tandem: Inspirations and Collaborations
September 1 – January 3, 2016
Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA

A broad survey of artistic friendships and collaborations among American artists, this exhibition at the Addison Gallery presents 19th- and 20th century work “in the contextual framework of artistic inspiration, influence, and dialogue.” Artists on view include Winslow Homer, Abbott Henderson Thayer, George de Forest Brush, Maud Morgan, Michael Silver, Jim Dine, and Lee Friedlander working in a variety of media

— Peter Walsh

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Jazz

Bert Seager’s “Why Not”
September 2, 7:30 p.m.
Lily Pad, Cambridge, MA.

Pianist and composer Seager offers up a variation on his chamber-jazz group the Why with the Why Not: the superb saxophonist Rick DiMuzio, bassist Brian Farias, and percussionist Brian O’Neill.

Glenn Zaleski
September 8, 7:30 p.m
Regattabar, Cambridge, MA.

Pianist Glenn Zaleski put out a little gem of a trio album last spring, My Ideal. Zaleski (whose brother is saxophonist Mark) is openly indebted to Bill Evans, but the stories he tells in his mix of originals and standards are his own – and they really are stories, group-improvised narratives. He brings the trio from the album to the Regattabar —rounded out by bassist Dezron Douglas and drummer Craig Weinrib.

Justin Kauflin
September 9, 8 p.m.
Scullers Jazz Club, Boston, MA.

Pianist Justin Kauflin was introduced to the larger jazz audience (and beyond) through the documentary “Keep on Keepin’ On,” a look at his relationship with his mentor, the late trumpet great Clark Terry. Since then, he’s gone on to make a CD with Quincy Jones. His other teachers have included Harold Mabern, James Williams, and Mulgrew Miller.

Mary Halvorson/Ches Smith
September 10, 7:30 p.m.
Lily Pad, Cambridge, MA.

Mary Halvorson, who as composer and player is extending the language of jazz guitar – and of jazz – offers up a solo set based on her new Meltframe (Firehouse 12), her first solo guitar collection, in which she covers a variety of composers and tunes, both familiar and obscure, from Duke Ellington, Oliver Nelson, and Ornette Coleman, to Roscoe Mitchell, Carla Bley, and one of her regular collaborators, the drummer and composer Thomas Fujiwara. The inventive drummer and percussionist Ches Smith opens the evening with his own “Congs for Brums” solo set.

Jane Bunnett and Maqueque
September 10, 8 p.m.
Scullers Jazz Club, Boston, MA.

The longtime Canadian saxophonist, flutist, composer, and Cuban-music specialist Jane Bunnett a few years ago put together a sextet of young Cuban women, and the results the last time they played Scullers were explosive. This is probably the last tour for this project for a while, so don’t miss them.

— Jon Garelick

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Classical Music

Historical Piano Concerts: Chamber Music Festival
September 5 at 4 p.m.
at the Ashburnham Community Church, 84 Main Street, Ashburnham, MA

Ensemble members will present a program titled “New England Legacy: Sounds of our Heritage.” On the bill: a Violin Sonata by Amy Beach, a Piano Quartet by Arthur Foote, and arrangements and improvisations on Shaker hymn tunes and American folk songs. The ensemble includes Yi-heng Yang (piano), Tricia Park (violin), Sarah Darling (viola), Steuart Pincombe (cello), Maxwell Zeugner (double bass), and Michelle Pincombe (vocalist).

Historical Piano Concerts: Chamber Music Festival
September 6 at 4 p.m.
at the Ashburnham Community Church, 84 Main Street, Ashburnham, MA

Clarinetists Charles Neidich and Ayako Oshima Neidich, accompanied by pianist Yi-heng Yang, will present “Rare & Beautiful Music for the Historical Clarinet,” a program played on a variety of historical clarinets from the Neidich Collection and the ca. 1830 Tröndlin and the 1877 Blüthner pianos from the Frederick Collection.

— Susan Miron

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Roots and World Music

Jim Lauderdale
Sept 3
Johnny D’s, Somerville, MA

The renaissance man of twang was last seen in these parts at the Joe Val Bluegrass Festival. Now he’s back in singer/songwriter mode playing the songs that have made him an Americana mainstay. He talked to the Arts Fuse last winter. Long running local treasures of alt-country The Darlings open the night.

Rhythm and Roots Festival
Sept. 4-6
Ninigret Park, Charlestown RI

While this prestigious gathering’s origins lie in the old Labor Day Cajun & Zydeco Festival, the Rhythm and Roots Festival continues to expand well beyond Louisiana dance music. This year’s highlights include the Mavericks, Los Lobos, and a rare local date spotlighting the shuffle blues specialists the Cash Box Kings. Jim Lauderdale will appear with bluegrass combo Della Mae and then host an Americana songwriting showcase. Dance lessons and family activities round out the weekend.

José Manuel Calderón
Sept. 5
Kay’s Oasis, 1125 Blue Hill Ave, Dorchester, MA

Born in 1941, Dominican guitarist Calderón is credited with recording the first bachata records in the early ’60s. He’s been largely out of the spotlight in recent years, but he still appears at the occasional dance.

— Noah Schaffer

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Theater

Waitress, Book by Jessie Nelson, Music and Lyrics by Sara Bareilles. Directed by Diane Paulus. Choreography by Chase Brock. Staged by the American Repertory Theater at the Loeb Drama Center, Cambridge, MA, through September 20.

The world premiere of a musical based on the motion picture written by Adrienne Shelly. “Jenna, a waitress and expert pie maker, is stuck in a small town and a loveless marriage. When a baking contest in a nearby county offers her a chance at escape, Jenna must weigh her commitments against a rare shot at freedom and recognition.” Tony Award winner Jessie Mueller (Beautiful) stars as the food server at the center of it all.

Detroit by Lisa D’amour. Directed by Daisy Walker. Staged by the Harbor Stage Company, Wellfleet, MA, through September 5.

A strong cast (Stacy Fischer, Jonathan Fielding, Allen Kennedy, Robert Kropf, and Brenda Withers) tackles the Boston premiere production of “this fiercely funny, Pulitzer Prize-nominated take on the dissolving American Dream, two very different couples try to bridge the gap between suburban civility and our hearts’ desires.”

Thoroughly Muslim Millie by Ryan Landry. Performed by The Gold Dust Orphans. At the Provincetown Theater, 238 Bradford Street, Provincetown, MA, through September 6.

Leave it to Landry to take musical parody where most American theaters fear to tread. Seen many plays about the Middle East lately? With music? The satiric set-up: “A young girl from a Canadian convent! Thrust across the border into the Middle East and straight into the arms of the Prince of Persia! And what do Dick and Lynne Cheney have to do with all this?” WARNING: This is an ADULT parody! DO NOT BRING YOUR CHILDREN!

Red Velvet by Lolita Chakrabarti. Directed by Daniela Varon. Staged by Shakespeare and Company at the Tina Packer Playhouse, Lenox, MA, through September 13.

A powerhouse line-up, featuring OBIE Award-winning actor John Douglas Thompson, presents the American premiere production of a play about the legendary Ira Aldridge, the first African-American actor to play Othello on the English stage in 1833. Aldridge played a number of roles in Shakespeare’s plays (including King Lear, Macbeth, Shylock, and Richard III), but Othello was his signature part. In his fine new book Great Shakespeare Actors, Stanley Wells writes that “he continued to develop [the role] over the course of his career. Aided (like Paul Robeson after him) by a powerful physique and noble voice, he played Othello with deep self-identification and at times terrifying passion.” Arts Fuse preview Arts Fuse review

The Lion, Written and performed by Benjamin Scheuer. Directed by Sean Daniels. In the Nancy L. Donahue Theatre at the Merrimack Repertory Theatre, 50 East Merrimack Street, Lowell, MA, through September 20.

“After highly-praised runs in Edinburgh and London, two Off-Broadway productions, and several awards, The Lion is beginning a two-year national tour at the MRT. The gripping musical takes the audience on one man’s musical journey from boyhood to manhood, through pain and healing, to discover the redemptive power of music.”

The Unexpected Man by Yasmina Reza. Translated by Christopher Hampton. Directed by Seth Gordon. Staged by Shakespeare & Company at the Tina Packer Playhouse, Lenox, MA, through September 6.

The production stars Corinna May and, making his S&Co. debut, John Woodson in a story that “follows a middle-aged man and woman who sit opposite each other in the detached intimacy of a train compartment on a journey from Paris to Frankfurt. He is a world famous author; she, one of his biggest fans, carries his latest novel in her handbag and ponders the dilemma of reading it in front of him.”

The Flick by Annie Baker. Directed by Bridget Kathleen O’Leary. Staged by the Gloucester Stage Company, 267 East Main Street, Gloucester, MA, through September 12.

The Pulitzer prize-winning script is “a hilarious and heart-rending cry for authenticity in a fast-changing world.” Cast members Nael Nacer, Melissa Jesser, Marc Pierre, and James Wechsler are all making their Gloucester Stage debut in this production. Arts Fuse review Fuse interview with director Bridget Kathleen O’Leary

The Overtakelessness Circus, written and performed by Bread & Puppet Theater. Staged outdoors on Sunday, September 6, at Magazine Beach Park, Cambridge, MA. The show will also be performed on September 7 in Lawrence, MA, as part of the city’s 31st Annual Bread & Roses Heritage Festival.

The Overtakelessness Circus “presents the most popular races and competitions of modern life and its economy, including the race between the proletariat and the CEOs, and the race between the limping city pedestrian and the sports car in a typical traffic jam. The Circus will also commemorate several historic events that do or do not influence modern life, such as the 800th Anniversary of the Magna Carta and the 30th Anniversary of the federally supported firebombing and destruction of the MOVE Family in Philadelphia.”

Boston Babydolls’ 10th Anniversary Blow-out
September 2 at 7 p.m.
At Rowes Wharf, Boston, MA

The Boston Babydolls celebrate a decade of practicing the art of burlesque. The performers will “be cruisin’ Boston Harbor on the beautiful Music City Queen,” which they have been doing every Wednesday this summer. But this evening will be special: it will feature “a fabulous 45-minute burlesque show to a live jazz quartet featuring Shaun Wolf Wortis and members of The Vudu Krewe — plus, when you’re not watching The Boston Babydolls do their thing, you can dance the night away on the upper deck to the surf sounds of The Waveriders!”

My Fair Lady Book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner. Music by Frederick Loewe Adapted from George Bernard Shaw’s play and Gabriel Pascal’s motion picture Pygmalion. Directed by Scott Edmiston. Musical Director, Catherine Stornetta. Choreographer, David Connolly, Presented by the Lyric Stage at 140 Clarendon Street, Copley Square, Boston, MA, September 4 through October 10,

What looks to be a powerhouse production of the classic musical adaptation of GBS’s tragicomedy, featuring Jennifer Ellis as Eliza Doolittle and Christopher Chew as Henry Higgins.

Broken Glass by Arthur Miller. Directed by Jim Petosa. Staged by New Repertory Theatre in the Charles Mosesian Theater at the Arsenal Center for the Arts, Watertown, MA, September 5 through 27.

The Boston area premiere of Miller’s 1994 script about Jewish assimilation, self-hatred, and the rise of Nazism features an impressive cast that includes Benjamin Evett, Anne Gottlieb, Christine Hamel, Michael Kaye, and Jeremiah Kissel. The staging is part of a national celebration of the centennial of the birth of the playwright.

Radium Girls by D.W. Gregory. Directed by Lindsay Eagle. Staged by Flat Earth Theater at the he Charlestown Working Theatre, Charlestown, MA, September 4 through 19.

The first all-female professional production of “a moving play” inspired by the true story of the factory workers at U.S. Radium. “Once considered a miracle cure and scientific marvel, by the 1920s the radium used to paint luminous watches has triggered fatal health problems for Grace Fryer and other dial painters. As their health deteriorates, Grace must fight the ruthless U.S. Radium Corporation for rightful compensation even while radiation poisoning destroys her body and life.”

— Bill Marx

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Author Events

Sylvie Tissot: In conversation with Jim Vrabel
Good Neighbors: Gentrifying Diversity in Boston’s South End
September 1 at 7 p.m.
Harvard Book Store, Cambridge MA
Free

Tissot is a feminist scholar and sociologist whose latest work deals with the ever-present issue of gentrification, specifically as it applies to Boston’s historically diverse South End. She sits down with Harvard sociologist Jim Vrabel to discuss whether or not gentrification will benefit the diversity of Boston neighborhoods or sweep it up and away in its economic wake.

Christopher Moore
Secondhand Souls
September 2 at 6 p.m.
Coolidge Corner Theatre, Brookline MA
Tickets are $26.99 with book included

NY Times bestselling author of Fool and Lamb returns with the sequel to A Dirty Job. The witty humorist will read in the venerable Coolidge Corner Theatre and it promises to be a sold-out reading, so better get your tickets and a copy of the new book while you still can.

Ari Berman
Give Us The Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America
September 2 at 7 p.m.
Harvard Book Store, Cambridge MA
Free

This year marked the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, a legendary piece of legislation that pushed civil rights forward. Now that several decades have passed, there’s been a concerted effort to disenfranchise voters who are already struggling for get representation. The Nation‘s Ari Berman comes to town to discuss this disturbing trend.

Caroline Bicks and Michelle Ephriam
Shakespeare, Not Stirred: Cocktails for Your Everyday Dramas
September 3 at 7 p.m.
Brookline Booksmith, Coolidge Corner, Brookline MA
Free

Two Shakespeare Phds come to Brookline to discuss Shakespeare’s ability to help put your everyday dramas into perspective. Mixing scholarship and irreverent humor, the authors serve their insights fresh with a garnish of entertainment. Free sample cocktails will be served courtesy of Winestone in Chestnut Hill.

Leon Neyfakh
In conversation with Greg Klee
The Next Next Level: A Story of Rap, Friendship, and Almost Giving Up
September 3 at 7 p.m.
Harvard Book Store, Cambridge MA
Free

Neyfakh is journalist and Slate reporter who has followed the career of the puck rock/ DJ/ rapper Juiceboxxx, ever since he set up a basement gig for him a decade ago. His book tells the story of a driven, committed artist who followed his dreams, with success always managing to be somewhere just out of reach.

Tipsy Tour: Dram Shop and Drunken Sailors
September 5 from 6 – 7:30 p.m.
Meet at 290 Congress St, along the fort point channel, Boston MA
$15 general admission, $5 to Boston by foot members

Come listen to a tour guide regale you with stories of dipsomania in the Hub, with tales harkening back to Prohibition days and the rowdy bunch of characters who skirted the law, such as the Ice King, King Solomon, and Admiral Edward Vernon. This rogue’s gallery includes Declaration-signing John Hancock, who got himself into trouble with Madiera wine, but not in the way one might think.

— Matt Hanson