“The Wild Party” Returns

A shakedown opens Lauren Yee’s “Mother Russia,” directed by Teddy Bergman. Evgeny (Adam Chanler-Berat), deputized by his fixer father, arrives astatine a St. Petersburg store to extract wealth from its proprietor, Dmitri Petrovich (Steven Boyer). A weapon is raised, past lowered; boyhood designation floods in. Soon, the puerility acquaintances are embarking connected a surveillance caper, eavesdropping connected a dissident popular prima (Rebecca Naomi Jones). Yee stretches the drama successful each country similar taffy, but she keeps a scalpel up her sleeve: Mother Russia (David Turner), who embodies the weary psyche of her country, hilariously relates the saga of a federation everlastingly ricocheting betwixt tsars and strongmen, purges and pageants.—Rhoda Feng (Pershing Square Signature Center; done March 22.)

Art

Like galore of the outstanding shows that the Morgan puts on, this exhibition, centered connected the aboriginal Caravaggio masterpiece “Boy with a Basket of Fruit” (c. 1595), is fixed a fantastic context, the amended for the spectator to recognize the artist, his methods, and wherefore the enactment continues to resonate. Caravaggio, calved and trained successful Lombardy, had a originative boldness based connected confronting reality. Also included present are superb examples of however different sixteenth- and seventeenth-century masters provided samples from the earthy world—among them Giuseppe Arcimboldo, successful his inactive scary “Four Seasons successful One Head” (c. 1590). It’s a treasure trove of a show, with a batch of accent connected pleasure.—Hilton Als (Morgan Library & Museum; done April 19.)

Classical

The philosopher Adam Smith, successful his 1776 text, “The Wealth of Nations,” wrote that musicians person “some of the astir frivolous professions.” He would possibly shudder to larn that, 2 100 and 50 years later, his classical-economics opus would beryllium rendered into frivolity by the Bang connected a Can co-founder David Lang. Lang’s oratorio of the aforesaid sanction draws lines from Smith’s treatise, and besides from Ralph Waldo Emerson, Frederick Douglass, and Edith Wharton—all synthesized to ask, What does it mean to worth something? The piece, performed by the Singaporean-British mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron, the bass-baritone Davóne Tines, and the New York Philharmonic Chorus, has its satellite première nether the baton of the orchestra’s soon-to-be manager Gustavo Dudamel. Frivolous? I deliberation not.—Jane Bua (David Geffen Hall; March 19-22.)

On and Off the Avenue

Rachel Syme explores a Japanese stationer-café.

In 2019, a teeny sliver of a store, specializing successful Japanese stationery, opened connected Tenth Street successful the East Village. The button-size shop, called niconeco zakkaya (fashioned, purposefully, successful each little case), was founded by a paper-goods obsessive named Siming Vautin, who had spent astir a decennary surviving successful Japan; it had grown retired of a palmy Etsy store that trafficked successful each things kawaii (the Japanese word for cute, or, much specifically, heart-squeezingly adorable). Niconeco zakkaya sells a neatly curated enactment of precious small items, including washi portion printed with cats and ladybugs, pastel pencil pouches, diminutive watercolor palettes, rubber stamps of teapots and insubstantial cranes, green-tea-infused penning paper, handmade scented candles, and galore much irresistible, if self-consciously twee, impulse purchases. But the shop, which I started visiting regularly a fewer years agone arsenic a surefire Sunday comfortableness activity, tin rapidly go truthful crowded with quality postulation jams that 1 tin hardly determination done it. Fortunately, past summer, Vautin opened a brand-new outpost successful Williamsburg, Loaf connected Paper by niconeco zakkaya (64 Grand St.), which is 4 times the size of the archetypal location. The beforehand fractional of Loaf connected Paper serves arsenic an all-day café, wherever customers tin sip black-sesame lattes, station up speechmaking a novel, and acquisition a assortment of upscale foods (artisanal berry jams, Brightland olive oil, dark-chocolate-covered medjool dates). The backmost fractional of the store, however, is wherever the amusive truly begins. Vautin has created a existent stationery smorgasbord, stuffed with creamy notebooks, wax seals, fountain pens and inks, wee porcelain bowls, mini-colored-pencil sets, acquisition wrap, highlighter pens, Hobonichi planners, a bounty of illustrated stickers, and washi-tape rolls by the dozen. I find it intolerable to permission empty-handed.

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