Justin Jain is one restless soul.
He can’t keep from multitasking even when he’s concentrating on one of his numerous vocations. The urge to create just takes over. At any given time, Jain can work in local theater as an actor, writer, director, dancer, or combination of all the above. He is also working on adegree in ceramics, a craft he has worked in for years.
Lately, his sights have been set on the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, who was a doctor as well as a writer. By his own admission, an obsessive writer,.
Over the next two weeks, Jain will give six performances of his adaptation of Chekhov’s “The Dangers of Tobacco,” alternating with two other pieces by other local performers for Theatre Exile’s Philly GRIT program at the South Philadelphia theater through March 29.
‘Adaptation’ doesn’t totally connote what Jain is doing. It’s more about personalizing Chekhov’s rambling one-act in which a smoker, is forced by his wife to lecture on the harm of tobacco but drifts hilariously into all kinds of revealing digressions, including complaints about his wife.
Jain wanders into aspects of his own life, focusing on being a queer first-generation Filipino-American who is pan-artistic and engaged ina life that is different from most people’s, let alone his family’s and his ancestors’.
Jain’s familiarity and interest in Chekhov developed this decade when he appeared in “Minor Character,” Yury Urnov’s kickily kaleidoscopic look at “Uncle Vanya,” and Dmitry’ Krymov’s emotive adaptation of “The Cherry Orchard,” both as a member of the WilmaTheater’s resident company, The HotHouse.
These productions “methodically exploded” Chekhov and Jain’s idea of him, Jain said as he discussed his own takeoff on the Russianmaster.
“I’d always enjoyed Chekhov, but I was encouraged to do more research about him and to explain his place in the contemporary theater,” he said. “‘Why Chekhov?’ ‘Why now?’ were my questions.
As most actors would, I read everything I could about Chekhov, including all of his plays. I found a wealth of texture and detail. It was exciting for me. In 16 years, I’d been in six different Chekhov plays with six different directors. They were enlightening, but in reading the plays, I saw not much happens, but Chekhov and his characters know and express so much about life They are so profoundly human. I learned a lot about life, and my life, as I went from play to play.
“In ‘The Dangers of Tobacco,’ I saw an opportunity. Something clicked. I saw how to experiment in a direct way. It spoke to where I was as artist, Just as Nyukhin, the man forced by a wife to lecture on tobacco went off into tangents about his life, I could do the same with mine.
“I’d been thinking for a long time about doing a solo show about identity, being the child of immigrants, and being a minority. ‘The Dangers of Tobacco’ showed me a format for how I could achieve that.
“The lecture in Chekhov’s play disentangles. The lecturer starts talking about one thing and suddenly is digressing from his stated topic and talking about life. ‘The Dangers of Tobacco’ provided a great model for what I could do. It provided the skeleton for it. The lecturer talked about his domestic problems and things that interested him, only occasionally returning to the subject of tobacco. I could interrupt my purported lecture in a similar way. Interjecting ‘Oh, you know what?’ can take me anywhere I want to go.”
Chekhov and Jain share credit for the piece Jain will do for Philly GRIT on March 19-29 (details and tickets at theatreexile.org). You can hear Jain’s liveliness and enthusiasm as he talks about his show.
Jain is from Florida. He was a kid that loved performing and crafting. Art classes were his favorite, and he studied ballet. Dancing brought him to Philadelphia. Performing and creating led him to the bygone University of the Arts.
“I came originally to study dance, but when I got here, I saw all of the choices available to me. I had done some community theater in high school and enjoyed it. At UArts, I could have majored in acting or dance or even art, ceramics for instance. I opted for acting. I could still take classes in my other interests, but acting seemed new and more encompassing, The theater includes dance and design. So that’s where I headed. I could do all I wanted while concentrating on that.
“The visual arts were always a part of my life. Remember my favorite class was art class. I began making and selling ceramics. Now I’m in an MFA program at the Art Institute of Chicago for ceramics.
“I started out as a functional potter who worked at the wheel making tableware. I slowly shifted away from that and work now primarily in sculpture. I have been rendering lots of figures lately, as well as abstract design.”
Wending back to “The Dangers of Tobacco,” Jain says the work is cathartic. It gives him a chance to communicate who he is and what he’s experienced.
“Fresh ideas come daily. It seems like my thoughts and memories are open-ended, but it feels good to express myself,” he said.
Philadelphia 76ers public address announcer Matt Cord is retiring from that job. (AP Photo/Chris Szagola)
Sixers announcer retires
This season will be the last Matt Cord intones “Maxey for two!” or any other basketball lingo as the announcer for Philadelphia 76ers home games. Cord has been the voice of the Sixers for 28 years, which means he’s been the team’s only full-time court announcer in this century.
Cord continues to be the host of WMMR (93.3 FM)’s midday show. Cord stepped into that slot after the death of his friend Pierre Robert in late October.
Stars, from left, Tim Roth, Cillian Murphy, Rebecca Ferguson and Barry Keoghan attend the premiere of “Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man.” (Photo by Andy Kropa/Invision/AP)
‘Peaky Blinders’ movie
Good news for “Peaky Blinders” fans. The strong vintage crime series has spawned a feature film, “Peaky Blinders: TheImmortal Man,” that streams beginning March 20 on Netflix.
Recent award recipient Cillian Murphy (“Oppenheimer”) returns as Tommy Shelby, who leads a street gang in Birmingham, England, after World War I. Another who has been garnering awards, Stephen Graham (“Adolescence”), joins him along with Barry Keoghan, Tim Roth, and Rebecca Ferguson.
Six seasons of “Peaky Blinders” took viewers from the aftermath of World War I to the early 1930s. The movie takes the story to World War II. The plot involves the Nazis using Jewish concentration camp inmates to counterfeit British currency in an attempt to stagger England’s economy. A Luftwaffe bombing of Birmingham also figures into the plot at a time when Thomas Shelby is in relativeseclusion attempting to write a novel.
The movie is expected to lead to a new six-episode season of “Peaky Blinders” set in the ’50s.
Michelle Pfeiffer and Kurt Russell star in “The Madison,” a “Yellowstone” spinoff. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
Another ‘Yellowstone’ spinoff
“Yellowstone” can match “Law & Order” or “NCIS” for television mitosis. It keeps splitting off into new series, either in a different time period from the original Taylor Sheridan opus starring Kevin Costner or in a different locale that was somehow close enough tobe affected by or related to Costner’s Dutton Ranch.”
First came “1883.”Then came “1923. In February “Marshals” began on Paramount+. This week brings “The Madison” with Michelle Pfeiffer and Kurt Russell as a New York couple who moves to Montana’s Madison Valley following a disruption in their city life. Italso streams on Paramount+.
Another series, “Dutton Ranch,” is set to premiere this year with “Yellowstone” characters Rip Wheeler and Beth Dutton, played by Cole Houser and Kelly Reilly, moving to Texas to start their own dynasty. Annette Bening and Ed Harris will join the cast.
Who knows? Maybe “Yellowstone” series will have one night to themselves like the “Chicago” shows do on NBC.
Pianist returns
Last week I had the pleasure and excitement of hearing pianist Haochen Zhang play two Robert Schumann pieces in a recital in the Montgomery County suburbs.
Schumann figures prominently in three concerts Zhang performs this weekend with the Philadelphia Orchestra Friday through Sunday, but Zhang will be favoring a different composer this time. He will be the featured soloist for Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini,” a piece Rachmaninoff himself debuted with the orchestra in 1934. Marin Alsop conducts.
What I enjoyed about Zhang’s playing, especially after hearing the orchestra perform Mahler’s 2nd Symphony on March 6, was how he balances dramatic intensity with softer, subdued passages. Playing Schumann’s “Piano Sonata No. 1,” Zhang’s attack reminded me ofthe boldness of the angry cellos that begin the Mahler opus. His range and sensitivity in that piece and Schumann’s more lyrical “Fantasie in C Major” made it clear how the Curtis graduate won the 2009 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.
In addition to the Rachmaninoff, Alsop leads the Orchestra in Schumann’s “Symphony No, 2 in C Major.”