Brooklyn's Brave New World Repertory Theatre Kicks Off 2024 with World Premiere LENI'S LAST LAMENT

Brooklyn's acclaimed Brave New World Repertory Theatre has announced its 2024 season debut with the world premiere of Leni's Last Lament, a new play that took three top honors at the one-night-only presentation at United Solo Festival in March 2023.

 

BNW Rep reunites the three award winners for its production of Leni's Last Lament at The invisible Dog Art Center in Boerum Hill for a three-week run, March 15-30. The work of playwright Gil Kofman will be performed by OBIE Award winner Jodie Markell as Leni with Richard Caliban bringing his award-winning direction to BNW's production. (Ticket information below.)

 

In Leni's Last Lament, Hitler's controversial filmmaker, Leni Riefenstahl, poses as a misunderstood victim as she attempts to edit and reassemble her notorious past. Set in Leni's editing room in bardo/purgatory and presented as a macabre, comic cabaret with a live accordionist, the play is a wild ironic ride full of hard-to-believe insights into this provocative figure as she attempts to reassemble her life to create a more palatable portrait.

 

Riefenstahl is a controversial subject, says BNW Rep founder/Producing Artistic Director Claire Beckman. “She can be considered the original influencer whose brilliantly manipulative propaganda films made Hitler into the ‘savior' the German people believed they needed after years of economic turmoil. Leni's films promised them a leader who would make Germany great again, in ways that feel hauntingly familiar. She was a woman of contradictions. She aligned herself with Hitler for fame, was blacklisted for the alliance, yet also recognized as a genius by the film community throughout her long life.”

 

Beckman notes that the production is set to coincide with the March observance of Women's History Month where she says the tendency is to avoid telling stories about women who are complicated and controversial. “Women won't be truly equal until we can see them for all their complexities, and in the 1930's women with Leni's talent and ambition had very few opportunities. Those with true genius, especially if they were also very beautiful, were discounted. Leni's genius and ambition drove her to make the absolute worst choice in a collaborator, and Leni's Last Lament is both biting and hilarious in its telling of her fascinating story.”

 

In Kofman's appraisal of Riefenstahl, he says, “Some say that without Leni there'd be no Hitler; others say that without Leni there'd be no Star Wars. A controversial filmmaker who directed Triumph of the Will for Hitler at his 1934 Nuremberg Rally, Leni Riefenstahl's work is often credited with creating the Nazi brand and promoting its aesthetic. Despite that, her work is considered groundbreaking and innovative, and is still studied at film schools today.”

 

Says director Richard Caliban, “Gil's script and Jodie's performance have created a multi-layered Leni who is absurdly comic, tragic — and yet human.”

  

 

 

LENI'S LAST LAMENT

 

By Gil Kofman

Director: Richard Caliban

Cast: Jodie Markell

Accordion: Spiff Weigand

 

Performance schedule:

March 13, 14 (Previews)

Friday, March 15 (Opening Night)

March 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 (Closing Night)

All Performances at 8pm

The Invisible Dog Art Center, 51 Bergen Street, Brooklyn 11201

 

Tickets:

Café Tables in front row: $50 (with complimentary wine or beer)

General Admission: $35

Discounted: $25 under 25 years of age with photo ID

Tickets available here: https://www.bravenewworldrep.org/lenis-last

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