Set to 27 songs by Sting—with the Police and from his solo career—Message in a Bottle is a story of the global refugee crisis told through the mesmerizing movement of choreographer Kate Prince’s brilliant dance company, ZooNation. Although it does get cheesy entwining the music and the dancers, as jukebox shows go, it’s much closer to Twyla Tharp’s take on the Billy Joel catalog, Movin’ Out, than to something like the Abba megahit, Mamma Mia.

 

In an unnamed desert country (hence the unsurprising opener, “Desert Rose,” with its North African feel), a family of five—father, mother, two sons and a daughter—becomes separated when a civil war throws the entire region into turmoil. Happy events like the marriage of one son are soon overtaken by awful 21st-century realities: abuse, trafficking, displacement, death. Prince and dramaturg Lolita Chakrabarti have fashioned a narrative of sorts from which to hang Sting’s words and music, which, with a few exceptions, have been extensively rearranged and rerecorded (with Sting’s and others’ solo and ensemble voices).

 

As the songs and the tale unfold, musical motifs from “Fields of Gold” and “Brand New Day” hover over the proceedings, hinting at the happy ending to come. There are times when the relationship of Sting’s lyrics to what’s happening onstage is tenuous—several men sexually abuse a young woman to “Don’t Stand so Close to Me,” which narrates a completely different kind of inappropriate relationship—or, conversely, too on the nose—the second act opens in jail as a chorus intones “Free, free, set them free” and, later on, the married son discovers his bride, forcibly separated from him, works in a brothel, so on comes “Roxanne.” (When she rejects him, we get “So Lonely,” of course.)

 

But the marriage of music and movement is spot on in several spots, notably in the show’s most affecting number, a tender pas de deux between the younger son (Deavion Brown) and the man (Harrison Dowzell) he’s fallen in love with, set to one of Sting’s loveliest songs, “Shape of My Heart.”

 

Whatever one thinks of the way Prince and her excellent music supervisor and arranger Alex Lacamoire have manipulated Sting’s tunes to fit into the contrived narrative—sometimes it’s a disservice to the songs and at others it’s a disservice to the story—the breathtaking dancing of Prince’s company, which specializes in effortlessly combining contemporary and hip-hop styles, is beyond reproach. Although the entire ZooNation is magnificent in its athleticism—the leaps, the flips, the freestyling, even the break dancing—the main dancers (as the children) are particularly dazzling.

 

Brown, Natasha Gooden and Lukas McFarlane convey as much with simple gestures as they do in the more athletic movements (too often, the stage is filled with busyness just for its sake). At those moments, the music and the stunning visuals—Anna Fleischle’s costumes, Ben Stones’ sets, Natasha Chivers’ lighting and Andrezjh Goulding’s projections—take over. 

 

But however bumpy the journey, when the final healing strains of “They Dance Alone” arrive, Message in a Bottle delivers its message.

 

 

It was inevitable that Alicia Keys’ semiautobiographical musical would jump from downtown to uptown—now that it’s on Broadway, it’s playing right near the neighborhood in which it’s set. Hell’s Kitchen comprises songs Keys had already written, recorded and turned into hits as well as new songs created specifically for the show. It introduces a rebellious 17-year-old, Ali (short for Alicia), who lives with her harried single mom in a high-rise apartment building a few blocks from the Schubert Theatre, where the show is now playing: Ali pines for a romance with an older street drummer and begins a burgeoning musical career that might give her a way out of a neighborhood she considers stifling. 

 

Hell’s Kitchen is your garden-variety generation-gap musical comedy-drama, as Ali’s mom—whose name is, no lie, Jersey—tries to protect Ali from the temptations Jersey herself fell prey to as a teenager, finding herself pregnant with Ali while she was too young and immature to handle it. Ali’s dad is a musician named Davis (the fiery Brandon Victor Dixon) who’s charming but extremely unreliable. Of course, Ali fights back at every turn, complaining that whatever her mom wants or says are simply unfair restrictions. 

 

Fortuitously, one day while seething over something her mom is making her do (or not do), Ali wanders into her building’s music room—seemingly for the first time, which is kind of strange in this context—and immediately becomes spellbound by wise old Miss Liza Jane (the scene-stealing and vocally formidable Kecia Lewis), who becomes a sort of surrogate mother to her, teaching her to play the piano along with other needed life lessons. 

 

Despite the material’s shopworn quality, which has been accentuated on the larger Broadway stage, Hell’s Kitchen is always energetic and nearly as often exuberant, thanks to Keys’ rhythmically propulsive songs, which include those (sort of) showstoppers she has already written—and had huge hits with: a smart reconceiving of “Girl on Fire” is perfectly placed near the end of act one, and (no surprise) “Empire State of Mind” is the show’s big finale, even if, in this context, it’s somewhat anticlimactic. A song that wasn’t in the original Public Theater incarnation, “Kaleidoscope,” has been shoehorned into the middle of the first act, neither hindering nor improving its surroundings.

 

Since everything is bigger in the move to Broadway, it’s to director Michael Grief’s credit that his staging retains an impeccable proportion of the visual and the dramatic, thanks to Robert Brill’s multi-tier, multi-use fire-escape sets, Peter Nigrini’s clever projections of various areas of Manhattan and Natasha Katz’s always inventive lighting. As ever, Camille A. Brown’s dazzling choreography both complements and roars past Keys’ catchy tunes.

 

But Hell’s Kitchen is, ultimately, a vehicle for two remarkable leads. Although Maleah Joi Moon (Ali)—who made a stupendous professional debut when the show premiered at the Public—was unfortunately out the night I saw the show on Broadway, her understudy Gianna Harris was a more than capable singer, actress and especially dancer. 

 

But the center of the show—which she wasn’t in the original incarnation—is Ali’s mom, Jersey, and Shoshana Bean runs with it, not only acting the hell out of the standard role of the difficult but loving mom but also lending her powerhouse voice to several songs. If Hell’s Kitchen settles in for a long Broadway run, it will be interesting to see who may replace Bean as Jersey—Idina Menzel? Sutton Foster? Sierra Boggess? In the meantime, run to the Schubert Theatre to see Shoshana Bean at the top of her game.

In-Theater Releases of the Week 

If a menage a trois among a female tennis player turned coach and the tennis pros in her life, each on opposing career trajectories, sounds like fun, director Luca Guadagnino and writer Justin Kuritzkes make sure it’s anything but. The flimsy, impossibly cutesy rom-com is crammed with flashbacks within flashbacks to try and present some variety, but even that doesn’t help—something that Guadagnino is obviously aware of, since he uses a surfeit of camera tricks and ridiculous angles to keep things bouncing.

 

 

Then there’s the awful use of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ pounding electronic score, which always seems to begin and end at the wrong time, as if the music cues are slightly but obviously off. The threesome enacted by Zendaya, Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist is impressive on the court (they all look and move like tennis players) but off the court the trio is saddled with stilted dialogue and must deal with desperate symbolism like a windstorm of Biblical proportions that actually happens twice. It’s all about as sexy as a celebrity doubles match.

 

 

 

The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed 

Lena Dunham’s shallow confessional fingerprints are all over this feature debut by Joanna Arnow, which is both self-effacing and extremely self-absorbed in its leaden look at Ann, a 30ish Brooklynite, whose boring life is also meaningless.

 

 

It’s one thing for Arnow to show Ann’s roundelay of overbearing parents, dull corporate job, robotic S&M play with male doms and a tentative new romance quite different from her other relationships—but it’s quite another to provide neither insight into nor an explanation for how Ann ended up here. Maybe a 15-minute short would have handled the material more succinctly and less tediously than 85 minutes do.

 

 

 

Terrestrial Verses 

In this daring piece of advocacy filmmaking, writer-directors Alireza Khatami and Ali Asgari brilliantly dramatize how Iranian officialdom (governmental, cultural, even religious) tamps down individualism through several self-contained vignettes that pit ordinary persons—a man registering his baby’s name with the authorities; a woman wearing a hijab and a tattooed man each interviewing for a job; a young girl in a store who must wear a school uniform that completely covers her—against a person of authority.

 

 

Each segment is shot with a fixed, unmoving camera and begins normally, even informally, then soon morphs into a theater of the absurd as the invisible interlocutor pushes back at each individual’s individuality. The resulting horror grows cumulatively until the end, when an impending, if symbolic, event becomes all too awfully real.

 

 

 

Uncropped 

The life and career of photographer James Hamilton—whose masterly portraits were done mainly for the Village Voice but also other publications like Harper’s Bazaar and the New York Observer—are recounted in D.W. Young’s richly entertaining documentary, in which Hamilton narrates his own fascinating story from his beginnings at the Voice to the esteemed elder statesman he is considered today, an influential chronicler of pop culture and alternative journalism in New York.

 

 

There are interviews with his wide circle of friends and admirers, from Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore and director Wes Anderson to journalists Joe Conason and Alexandra Jacobs, all adding anecdotal detail to his legendary journey, along with a copious amount of his classic photos.

 

 

 

4K Release of the Week 

Italian director Tinto Brass, in his titillating, not-quite-hardcore sex comedies, relied on finding a young beauty with screen presence to shoulder the load, so to speak.

 

 

For this 1998 entry, he cast the beguiling Italian actress Anna Ammirati as the free-spirited Lola, a magnet to every man in town, from her boyfriend to local priests; Ammirati’s refreshing naturalness unsurprisingly dominates this slight but amusing film, whether she’s clothed or unclothed. The UHD transfer looks excellent; a Blu-ray disc also includes the film, and extras comprise an interview with Brass and an audio commentary.

 

 

 

Blu-ray Releases of the Week

In Jason Statham’s latest revenge flick, he plays Adam, who takes care of the bees on the farm of retired teacher Eloise, who kills herself after an online scam robs her of her considerable life savings and charity funds. Adam immediately jumps into action, tracking down the scammers and destroying their offices—but that’s just the beginning, for he is part of a dangerous group, the Beekeepers, secret and highly skilled operatives.

 

 

It’s all risible, which Statham and director David Ayer know, so they keep upping the ridiculous ante as the hero takes care of wave upon wave of bad guys—including the corrupt son of the U.S. president. There’s a first-rate hi-def transfer, but no extras.

 

 

 

Stigmata 

In this creepy 1999 horror entry, Father Andrew (Gabriel Byrne) fights the church hierarchy as he tries to help atheistic hairdresser Frankie (Rosanna Arquette), whose mystifying stigmata stems from a rosary she got from her mother.

 

 

Director Rupert Wainwright puts his cast through its paces well enough; Nia Long, Jonathan Pryce and Rade Šerbedžija lend able support, while Byrne and Arquette intermittently make this silliness—Frankie tries to seduce Andrew at one point—watchable. There’s a fine hi-def transfer; extras include Wainwright’s commentary, making-of featurette, deleted scene and an alternate ending.

 

 

 

Tormented 

The definition of a guilty pleasure, Bert I. Gordon’s 1960 B-movie take on Edgar Allan Poe’s chilling short story, The Tell-Tale Heart, follows jazz pianist Tom Stewart, who sees his ex Vi fall to her death and is haunted by her ghost (in the form of her disembodied head) as he tries to resurrect his music career and marry Meg, his current girl.

 

 

It’s borderline inept at times—and the cheesy effects don’t do justice to Vi’s ghostly presence—but those who are the target audience for this sort of thing will get something out of it. The film looks decent on Blu; extras include Mystery Science Theatre 3000’s 1992 version of the film, archival Gordon interview, documentary about Gordon, visual essay on the film and an audio commentary.

 

 

 

CD Release of the Week 

If Hungarian composer György Ligeti (1923-2006) is best known for the otherworldly music so memorably used by Stanley Kubrick in three of his most unsettling films—2001, The Shining and Eyes Wide Shut—the composer’s genius consists of an unclassifiable oeuvre whose singular vision always looked forward even while it nodded to the past.

 

 

And the magnificently curated works on this splendid two-disc set brilliantly demonstrate Ligeti’s musical ethos; in fact, the three concertos on disc one—for violin (1990-92), cello (1966) and piano (1985)—may lay claim to the most astounding concerto set of the second half of the 20th century. Of the five striking works on disc two, the pair of early ones for piano only give a hint of the shattering sounds to come. Then there are the Chamber Concerto (1969-70), Solo Viola Sonata (1991-94) and the Horn Trio (1985), each marvelously unique in their sound world, all innovative and vital. The performances by members of Ensemble Intercontemporain led by Pierre Bleuse are thrillingly intense, especially the concerto soloists: Hae-Sung Kang (violin), Renaud Déjardin (cello) and Dimitri Vassilakis (piano).