It’s a rare chance to see two reimaginings of a Shakespeare classic in a single week.
Macbeth 1969 is director Eric Ting’s updated, downsized, Vietnam-era revision of Shakespeare’s Scottish war play. The multi-racial, six-actor production plays Tuesdays through Sundays until Feb. 12 at the Long Wharf Theatre (222 Sargent Dr., New Haven; 203-787-4282). Tickets are $52-$72, with discounts for students and seniors. www.longwharf.org
There’s another relocated Macbeth this week, presented by Yale undergrads Feb. 2-4 at the Whitney Humanities Center (53 Wall St., New Haven) and set in “a timeless landscape of American mythmaking shaped by everything from the horror of Edgar Allan Poe to the glamour of the Kennedy White House.” www.yaledramacoalition.
Other happenings in New Haven this week:
Monday, Jan. 30
Mondays always mean smooth jazz from ace guitarist Rohn Lawrence in the upstairs Lilly’s Pad at Toad’s Place (300 York St., New Haven). 9:30 p.m. $5. www.toadsplace.com/
Tuesday, Jan. 31
Local dobro legend Stacy Phillips and His Bluegrass Characters resonate on resonator guitar and fiddle at the Outer Space, just over the New Haven line at 295 Treadwell St., Hamden. 9:30 p.m. Free. (If you crave more bluegrass and roots tunes, head back into Outer Space on Friday, Feb. 3 for Five in the Chamber, which covers country classics and also does contemporary pop tunes in a bluegrass style.) www.thespace.tk/shows/
Wednesday, Feb. 1
Happy February! Start the month with a guided, family-friendly “Wednesday Walk” through Edgewood Park with a New Haven park ranger. Free. Meet at the Parks Administration Office, 720 Edgewood Ave. (203) 946-6559.
Thursday, Feb. 2
Two free film screenings on the Yale campus tonight.
The Matchmaker showing 6:30 p.m. at Luce Hall Auditorium, 34 Hillhouse Ave., New Haven, is not the Thornton Wilder comedy which begat Hello, Dolly; this is the 2010 drama directed by Avi Nesher about an Israeli teen in the 1960s, reconciling the Holocaust stories of his employer with the civil rights revolution changing the world around him. There’s a discussion afterward by Ayala Dvoretzky and Shiri Goren of Yale’s Hebrew Studies Program. www.yale.edu/macmillan/
Hamlet at Elsinore is a BBC production from 1964, filmed at the actual site of Shakespeare’s most famous play—Elsinore Castle in Denmark—and starsChristopher Plummer as Hamlet, Michael Caine as Horatio and Robert Shaw as Claudius. This free screening of a rare film print of this three-hour TV movie, not shown for decades, is part of the semester-long campus-wide Shakespeare at Yale celebration. 7 p.m. at the Whitney Humanities Center (53 Wall St., New Haven) www.yale.edu/whc/
Friday, Feb. 3
Jenny Dee and the Delinquents, the sassy Boston-based 21st century reenvisioning of classic 1960s girl group sounds and attitudes, bounces back to Café Nine (250 State St., New Haven). Local pop treasures The Shellye Valauskas Experience (whose leader is Jennie’s sister-in-law) and Jeremy Lichter open the 9 p.m., $6 show. www.cafenine.com/
Saturday, Feb. 4
It’s “Rock the World! Family Day” at the New Haven Museum & Historical Society. Children will create art projects to be displayed alongside the museum’s new exhibit on the vaunted New Haven neighborhoods of East Rock and West Rock. Admission is $4 for adults, $3 for seniors and $2 for children. 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at 114 Whitney Ave., New Haven. www.newhavenmuseum.org
Sunday, Feb. 5
Relax in the distant, melodious past this weekend at the Yale Collection of Musical Instruments. The London Haydn Quartet is performing not just Haydn quartets—in G Major (Opus 33) and D Major (Opus 20)—but also Mozart’s Quintet in A Major for clarinet and strings. The performers and the venue share a love for period instruments and historical context; we’re talking catgut strings and century-old clarinets here. The (as advertised) London-based ensemble arrives in New Haven for two performances, 8 p.m. Saturday 2/4 and 3 p.m. Sunday 2/5, in the YCMI’s second floor gallery at 15 Hillhouse Ave., New Haven. $20, $10 students. www.yale.edu/
