Books

Offering Thanks to Caring Community for Thanksgiving Baskets for HomeFront Families

To the Editor:

Thanksgiving is a very special day in many ways. It is not a religious, patriotic, or commercial holiday, but rather a time for families to gather over a special meal and count the blessings in their lives. While this year looked different for so many, the families that HomeFront serves that are homeless or very low-income were especially thankful. Thankful to have a safe place to sleep at night, to have food on their table — and grateful for our caring community.

For the past 30 years HomeFront has called on all of you to provide these families with “baskets” filled with all the ingredients for a wonderful celebration. The response has been overwhelming, and this year was no exception! Donors even included gift cards for turkeys, Thanksgiving decorations, and groceries for the following week.

On behalf of all the families who were blessed with a very special meal we thank all the individuals, congregations, and corporations who made it possible, and hope their Thanksgivings were equally special. KELSEY ESPADA Volunteer Coordinator, HomeFront MEGHAN CUBANO Director of Community Engagement, Homefront Princeton Avenue, Lawrenceville

Behrend Thanks Voters, Looks Forward To Continued Dialogue, Collaboration

To the Editor:

I write to express gratitude to Princeton voters for reelecting me to a second term on the Princeton Board of Education.

We have important work ahead, as a Board of Education and as a community, as we navigate through the pandemic and chart a path forward. I look forward to continuing, together with my dedicated Board colleagues, the work of securing a permanent superintendent, providing focused and impactful oversight, and ensuring that all of our children receive an equitable and effective education.

I’ve been inspired and touched by those who have supported my past service, provided frank feedback about what we can do better for our kids, and encouraged me to run again. You supported my candidacy in so many ways — hosting Zoom calls, writing letters, speaking with friends and colleagues, and spreading the word about what the Board has accomplished so far and the importance of experience for the challenges ahead. Thank you.

It will be an honor to continue serving the 32,000 residents of Princeton. We are all in this together, and I look forward to continued dialogue and collaboration as we work together to prepare our children and our community for the future. BETH BEHREND Riverside Drive

Beware of Traffic Studies When Considering Witherspoon Pedestrian Zone

To the Editor:

I’m writing to express my support for Princeton opening Witherspoon Street to walkers and shoppers to create a distinctive and vibrant place that benefits merchants and local residents alike. I offer two thoughts for Princetonians to consider about this.

First, other communities in New Jersey have overcome their nervousness to create just such places, and have learned that direct experience is the best teacher.

Just before Thanksgiving, I spoke with the town administrator of Red Bank, New Jersey, about his experience converting two full blocks of Broad Street to a fully pedestrian-focused plaza through the summer and fall.

Red Bank’s first steps pedestrianizing Broad Street were tentative, experimental, and time-limited, and all town communications emphasized this. But as merchants and residents gained direct experience, positive reviews came thick and fast.

Now Red Bank is gearing up to make even more pedestrian-supporting changes. Next year, the town plans to expand the pedestrian plaza one block more, and will also make physical improvements to calm traffic and create a better pedestrian environment on nearby streets. Direct experience, and learning from that, has been the most important factor in making progress.

REFINED INTERIORS

HELPING FAMILIES AT HOME SINCE 1991

Second, beware of “traffic studies.” A family that improves a kitchen or bathroom in their home does so because of the benefits they expect and the enjoyment they will experience. They know there will be costs over time — just as they know there will be disruption during construction. But they also know the cost and disruption are part of the process.

Think of traffic studies as the precise quantification of disruption; and as the elevation of disruption as the most important issue to consider, rather than the creation of desirable places to live, shop, and recreate. Traffic studies turn our reasoning upside down, making us ask if we can we get the benefits we want without any disruption to the experience of one narrow slice of people, those who drive cars through our downtown.

The reason Princeton is contemplating a pedestrian zone for Witherspoon Street is to create a safe, desirable, distinctive place for residents, visitors, and local merchants to thrive. A traffic study of pedestrianizing Witherspoon Street will almost certainly show that drivers will be slowed down somewhat, and there will be precise measurements of that slowing down. But what there won’t be is any measurement of the pleasure that residents will get in exchange, the business that merchants will get, or any of the myriad other benefits.

Direct experience for ourselves is what we need to move forward; confidence gained from the experience of others who have made the same journey; and firmness to reject the nervousness that traffic studies dignify with quantitative, but narrow, analysis. NAT BOTTIGHEIMER White Pine Lane

Witherspoon Street Should Be Open to Two-Way Traffic, Parking

To the Editor:

I‘m a longtime resident. I’m in town at least three times a day. I walk in at least once and I drive in. I drink coffee here. I buy lunch here. I buy clothes here. I buy lottery tickets here. I eat dinner here. You get the point. I’ve been doing this for 25 years. I use town. I really use town. I don’t wish it was somewhere else, I use it, I know it, I like it. I’ve also led large projects, deployed computer technology globally, and developed urban planning concepts that are still in use by the state of New Jersey. I have a feel for how things work and how things don’t work.

Princeton is at its worst when solving problems with a “known” solution. Think about this time last year when we couldn’t park because of our new parking solution. We don’t seem to know how it happened, it just appeared and it didn’t work—really didn’t work.

Now we are getting ready to apply the “known” solution to the Witherspoon Street problem. I’ve never quite understood “the Witherspoon Street problem” but nonetheless, we have a solution. The “known” solution is Witherspoon Street should have no cars and be for pedestrians only. I know there are other alternates, but that’s the “known” answer.

Plans for projects as complex and strategic as changing a north south arterial road require significant planning. It’s hard. Planning during a pandemic is fraught with problems. It’s harder. You’re measuring an artificial construct. Through traffic is off. Pedestrian traffic is off. University traffic is off. Everything is off. But wait, I’m falling into a trap, the trap of defending against the “known” solution.

I’ve seen suggestions that we follow the lead of other towns. Other towns strive to be a place like Princeton. We got here organically. It took centuries. We shouldn’t be so anxious to fix Witherspoon Street.

Have you turned left on to Nassau from Chambers? We‘ve eliminated a north-south arterial road. Where will traffic go? Have you seen those poor devils on Witherspoon trying to unload trucks during the day? We’re a vibrant town because our shops and restaurants have in-town and further-from-town visitors. People drive to Princeton, park and walk. Princeton is already a walkable town. There is even an EPA walkability designation.

What do we really need? We need to keep parking. We need to keep Witherspoon two way. We need to make the most of what we have. The COVID configuration is empty during most weekday mornings and afternoons. It certainly needs to be prettier and cleaner.

Let’s not make Witherspoon Street a place of privilege that can only be used if you are lucky enough to be able to walk or cycle into town. Princeton should be open to everyone.

Importantly, we need to keep our remaining merchants whole and attract new merchants to join them. Closing the main shopping street is not in their or our best interest. LOU VALENTE Hunter Road

Princeton Area Community Foundation Offers Guidance for Giving This Holiday Season

To the Editor:

So many of you continue to generously support your favorite nonprofits as they navigate unprecedented challenges. You continue to help feed our neighbors, support childcare services, and fund many other important causes, including the arts and the environment. Thank you.

As we approach the season of giving, and you think about supporting the charitable organizations that mean so much to you, my organization, the Princeton Area Community Foundation wants to provide you with the expert giving guidance that we have already offered to so many of our Donor Advised Fundholders:

For COVID relief in particular, support organizations that serve vulnerable populations that were disproportionately 13 • TOWN TOPICS, PRINCETON, N.J., affected by the pandemic, including low-income families, seniors, and people of color. Support existing funds that pool gifts for great impact and quickly distribute grants, such as our COVID-19 Relief and Recovery Fund and our New Jersey Arts and Culture Recovery Fund. Learn more at www.pacf.org. Give unrestricted support because that allows nonprofits to cover their most urgent expenses, enabling them to pivot quickly when needs change. Continue to support your favorite charities. Many nonprofits are struggling economically because of the pandemic. From food pantries and social service agencies to arts and environmental organizations, these nonprofits continue to do work that makes our communities stronger. WE d NES day, d Plan for the long-term, ensuring support for future needs. While the pandemic has brought about many immediate needs, also consider your mid- and long-term giving goals. Find your personal balance between short- and longer-term ECE mb ER 2, 2020 philanthropy. As the cases of COVID-19 continue to increase in our region, many more of our neighbors need your support, putting a strain on local nonprofits as they struggle to provide the help that is so desperately needed. We believe that thriving philanthropy leads to thriving communities. This holiday season, please consider making a gift to one of the many charitable organizations or pooled funds working to help make sure our region thrives. JEFFREY M. VEGA President and CEO, Princeton Area Community Foundation

Books

LALDEF Sponsors Event With Acclaimed Author

Donna Barba Higuera will read from her new novel Lupe Wong Won’t Dance and participate in a Q&A session on December 8 at 4 p.m. in a free online event sponsored by the Latin American Legal Defense and Education Fund (LALDEF).

“This book is very important for our communities because it shows characters of color with whom our youth can identify,” wrote LALDEF Development and Communications Associate Jhasmany Saavedra in an email.

In commenting on her new book, Higuera noted, “I realized with Lupe how important it is for readers to have books with characters and families in which they can see bits of themselves. I didn’t have this [kind of book] as a child.”

Lupe Wong, like Higuera’s other Young Adult and Middle Grade books, features “characters drawn into creep situations, melding history, folklore, and her own life experiences into reinvented storylines,” according to a LALDEF press release.

The book is the story of a determined middle school girl who needs an A in all her classes in order to meet her favorite pitcher, Fu Li Hernandez, “who’s Chinacan/ Mexinese, just like she is,” the press release states. But square dancing as part of the P.E. curriculum is something that Lupe just can’t relate to.

Participants in the event should register attfaforms. com/4862645.

Peter Singer Discusses “Why Vegan” Dec. 8

Peter Singer will be discussing his new book, Why Vegan? Eating Ethically (Liveright $15.95) with Andrew Chignell in a Labyrinth and Library Livestream program at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, December 8.

From his 1973 manifesto for Animal Liberation to his personal account of becoming a vegetarian in The Oxford Vegetarians, Singer traces the historical arc of the animal rights, vegetarian, and vegan movements from their embryonic days to the present, when climate change and global pandemics threaten the very existence of humans and animals alike.

Peter Singer is professor of bioethics at Princeton University. The best-selling author of Animal Liberation and The Ethics of What We Eat, among other works, he also teaches at the University of Melbourne. Andrew Chignell is a professor at Princeton University with appointments in religion, philosophy, and the University Center for Human Values. Co-editor of Philosophy Comes to Dinner, he teaches a course at Princeton on “The Ethics of Eating.”

This event is presented in partnership with the Princeton Public Library, Princeton University’s Center for Human Values; the Princeton University Humanities Council; the High Meadows Environmental Institute at Princeton University; and the Food, Ethics, Psychology Conference.

Fund for Irish Studies Hosts Poetry Reading

Princeton University’s Fund for Irish Studies will present a reading by Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, award-winning poet and translator, Ireland Professor of Poetry 2016-19, and Professor emeritus in the School of English at Trinity College Dublin, on December 4 at 4:30 p.m. online via Zoom Webinar. The reading is free and open to the public.

Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin is the author of numerous poetry collections including The Mother House (2020); The Boys of Bluehill (2015), which was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection; The Sun-fish (2010), which won the International Griffin Poetry Prize; Selected Poems (2009); The Magdalene Sermon (1989), which was selected as one of the three best poetry volumes of the year by the Irish Times/Aer Lingus Poetry Book Prize Committee; and Acts and Monuments (1966), which won the Patrick Kavanagh Award. Since 1975 she has edited the literary magazine Cyphers, and she has also edited Poetry Ireland Review.

Born in Cork in 1942, educated at University College, Cork, and at Oxford, she is a fellow and professor emeritus in the School of English, Trinity College, Dublin.

Information about the Fund for Irish Studies series virtual events can be found at fis. princeton.edu.

BOOK REVIEW

“Great Expectations” — Charles Dickens in Performance

On December 2, 1867, Charles Dick- “Two Macbeths!” Addressing the audience of his farewell the fact that readers missed his characens gave the first of 80 public read- In an article on the 2012 Dickens bicen- reading at St. James’s Hall on March 15, teristic verve and comic energy, Dickens ings in America, a grueling tour un- tenary, I compared the excitement created 1870, Dickens announced, “In but two made sure to infuse the opening chapdertaken in spite of pleas from friends and by Dickens in the 1860s with that roused short weeks from this time I hope that you ter of Great Expectations with the life colleagues concerned about his health. by the Beatles in the 1960s, where in- may enter, in your own homes, on a new or death devotion he gave to his public Arriving in Boston, he was welcomed by person appearances by the “Fab Four” series of readings at which my assistance performances. He has everything working adoring crowds and the mid-19th-centu- were greeted by tearful, screaming multi- will be indispensable; but from these gar- for him in the first scene: the mood, the ry equivalent of paparazzi; in New York tudes. Dickens had been warned by a doc- ish lights I vanish now for evermore, with a time of day, the churchyard cemetery with City people began lining up at three in the tor “that if one woman cries out when you heartfelt, grateful, respectful, affectionate the gravestones of Pip’s parents, “a memomorning for tickets, waiting in two lines, murder the girl, there will be a contagion farewell.” By the “new series of readings” rable raw afternoon towards evening” with each almost a mile long. In Charles Dickens, A Critical Study, novelist George Gissing refers to the “disastrous later years” that show Dickens as a “public entertainer ... shortening his life that he might be able to live without pecuniary anxiety.” The American readings ended in late April 1868, earning him $250,000. He died of a stroke in early June 1870. He was only 58. “A Dreadful Locomotive” After attending one of the Boston readings, Ralph Waldo Emerson told the wife of Dickens’s American publisher, James T. Fields: “He has too much talent for his genius; it is a dreadful locomotive to which he is bound and can never be free from nor set at rest. You would persuade me that he is a genial creature, full of sweetness and amenities and superior to his talents, but I fear he is harnessed to them. He is too consummate an artist to have a thread of nature left. He daunts me! I have not the key.” The locomotive analogy is especially prescient since what inspired it was the performative energy Dickens gave to comic passages that had left Emerson “convulsed with laughter,” according to As They Saw Him, a volume published on the 1970 centenary of Dickens’s death. Imagine Emerson’s response had he been present at the public readings a year later in England featuring the author/actor’s sensational recital of the murder scene in Oliver Twist during which he impersonated Bill Sikes “beating out the brains of the pathetic Nancy, as she cowered beneath the blows of his pistol-butt, blinded with her own blood and shrieking ‘Bill! dear Bill!’ “ According to his reading tour manager George Dolby, Dickens had become convinced that “the powerful novelty” of the Sikes-Nancy murder would help “keep up the receipts.” While his close friend and eventual biographer John Forster “strongly disapproved of such a macabre subject,” Dickens nevertheless “threw himself violently into ‘getting it up’ with every posof hysteria,” as in fact happened when “readings of the Murder” led to a “contagion of fainting with as many as a dozen to 20 ladies taken out of the auditorium on stretchers.” The Shakespearean actor William Macready gave Dickens a Victorian variation on “two thumbs up,” dubbing “the Murder the equal of two Macbeths.” Such “grisly success” only spurred Dickens on; “the horrible perfection” he’d achieved made him all the more determined to continue “come what might.” The damage inflicted was immediately evident. After the first reading of “Sikes and Nancy,” tour manager Dolby found Dickens “in a state of great prostration.” Given the context and the timing, it’s hard to ignore Emerson’s “dreadful locomotive” metaphor when reading Dolby’s account of a railway accident during the tour: “We received a severe jolt which threw us all forward in the carriage, the brakes were suddenly applied, a lumbering sound was heard on the roof of the carriage, and the plate-glass windows were bespattered with stones, gravel, and mud.” Dickens was shaken not so much by the relatively minor mishap as by the memory of his brush with death on June 9, 1865, when his train plunged into a ravine near Staplehurst, killing 10 passengers. The next chapter in As They Saw Him is titled, “The Iron Will of a Demon: After Staplehurst,” the symbolic implications of the event having motivated him to make the most money in the shortest time “without any regard to the physical labor and risk.” Thus his obsessive commitment to the readings. In March 1866 he admitted as much, saying “I have just he meant the anticipated completion of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, left unfinished when he died on June 9, 1870, five years to the day of the Staplehurst accident. “Great Expectations” According to history’s timetable, the Dickens Express arrived in 1812 and departed in 1870. Now, with less than a month remaining in the sesquicentennial year of his departure, there’s another reason to celebrate the first week of December, since it was on December 1, 1860, 160 years ago yesterday, that the first installment of Great Expectations appeared in All the Year Round, the journal he owned and edited. In his new book The Mystery of Charles Dickens, A.N. Wilson calls Great Expectations the “apogee” of the author’s achievement, “the only novel in which there is no wasted paragraph, no waffle, no padding, no dud or redundant characters and no illustrations [Wilson’s emphasis]. It did not need illustrations because it is the most devastating and the most inward of all his psychodramas. Every page hits you like a heart attack.” If Wilson’s analogy held, any reasonably susceptible reader would be dead by the end of the opening chapter. And although subsequent editions did come with illustrations, they were of a darker, more realistic order than the charming Dickensian cartoons of Leech, Cruikshank, and Phiz. Wilson is right, however, in suggesting that mere imagery can’t match so “devastating and inward” a narrative. Magwitch Speaks Given the disappointing sales of A Tale “the dark flat wilderness” of the marshes “beyond the churchyard, intersected with dykes and mounds and gates, with scattered cattle feeding on it,” and “the low leaden line beyond” of “the river,” and “the distant savage lair” of the sea “from which the wind was rushing.” While David Lean’s 1946 film does justice to the prose, and while the actor playing the convict (Finlay Currie) and the boy playing Pip (Anthony Wager) are excellent, no one except perhaps Dickens himself could give you what you experience as a reader when Magwitch sends Pip home to bring him some food and drink and a file: “You bring me, to-morrow morning early, that file and them wittles. You bring the lot to me, at that old Battery over yonder. You do it, and you never dare to say a word or dare to make a sign concerning your having seen such a person as me, or any person sumever, and you shall be let to live. You fail, or you go from my words in any partickler, no matter how small it is, and your heart and your liver shall be tore out, roasted and ate. Now, I ain’t alone, as you may think I am. There’s a young man hid with me, in comparison with which young man I am a Angel. That young man hears the words I speak. That young man has a secret way pecooliar to himself, of getting at a boy, and at his heart, and at his liver. It is in wain for a boy to attempt to hide himself from that young man. A boy may lock his door, may be warm in bed, may tuck himself up, may draw the clothes over his head, may think himself comfortable and safe, but that young man will softly creep and creep his way to him and tear him open. I am a-keeping that young man from harming of you at the present moment, with great difficulty. I find it wery hard to hold that young man off of your inside. Now, what do you say?” Pip says he’ll get the file and what food he can find and so he does and then some (a pork pie and a bottle of sherry filched at risk of a beating). What does the reader say of that speech? This reader thinks Shakespeare would approve. —Stuart Mitchner sible dramatic effect.” sold myself to the Powers of Evil.” of Two Cities in All the Year Round and

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Sleep Deprivation Chamber

McCarter Presents Round House Theatre’s “Sleep Deprivation Chamber”;

Video Continues Online Festival Honoring “The Work of Adrienne Kennedy”

McCarter is partnering with the Early in the play we see Suzanne Al- in the chest and stomach, and dragged in The central narrative, which is presented Round House Theatre (based in exander (a character infused with impas- the mud” by Holzer. with the realistic urgency of a docudrama, Bethesda, Maryland) to present sioned resolve by Kim James Bey’s por- Suzanne notes that Teddy is a student at is interspersed with scenes that are overtly an online festival, The Work of Adrienne trayal) drafting the first of many letters. Antioch, and that he wants to be a theater theatrical. These include a dream sequence Kennedy: Inspiration and Influence. The “Dear Governor Wilder,” she writes, “I director, writer, and actor. We learn that involving Teddy’s uncle, March Alexander four-part series continues with a Round have written you once before in Febru- his original offense is a malfunctioning (portrayed with grim introspection by Marty House video of Sleep Deprivation Cham- ary. I am writing to you again about the taillight, but that a charge of assault and Lamar); and segments involving an ensember, which became available to view as of Arlington, Virginia Police Department.” battery has been concocted. ble that functions rather like a Greek choNovember 22. The edgy production is directed by Raymond O. Caldwell. Maboud Ebrahimzadeh is the director of photography, returning from the festival’s production of He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box. In a press release, McCarter’s Artistic A siren punctuates the next sequence, which is presented as a split screen. As affably as possible, Teddy nervously asks the menacing Officer Holzer (Rex Daugherty), “What seems to be the problem? Can I help you?” Holzer snaps at Teddy to “get back in the car:” Teddy protests, In the subsequent scene Teddy is bombarded with questions about his encounter with the police. His interrogators are condescendingly unsympathetic — and unseen. A flashlight is shined in his face; although he is the victim, he is clearly the one being investigated. rus. In one such scene the ensemble reads from a “police manual” containing disparate rules of decorum that society expects white and African American people to follow. (The ensemble includes Imani Branch, Sophia Early, Janelle Odom, Moses Princien, and Kayla Alexis Warren.) Director Sarah Rasmussen praises Kennedy — an African American playwright whose accolades include Obie Awards and an induction into the Theater Hall of Fame — for breaking “convention in the face of traditional barriers that prevented a much-deserved spotlight.” Round House Theatre’s Artistic Director Ryan Rilette adds that Kennedy’s plays are “beautiful, poetic conversations on race and power that are just as necessary now as they were 50 years ago.” Sleep Deprivation Chamber premiered in 1996, presented by the Signature Theatre Company at the Public Theater. That year it won an Obie Award for Best New American Play (which it shared with another Adrienne Kennedy play, June and “I live here; this is my house.” The scene returns to Suzanne’s letter, which makes clear the considerable extent to which the character is based on Adrienne Kennedy: “We are an outstanding Black American Family,” she writes. “My plays and stories are published and taught widely.” (Later, Suzanne is named as the author of Kennedy’s Ohio State Murders, which is the next play that will be presented as part of this festival.) In her letter Suzanne compares the police department’s treatment of Teddy to “the Deep South in the 1930s, or during Emmett Till’s time.” She goes on to describe how he was “knocked to the ground and beaten in the face; kicked repeatedly Deimoni Brewington’s intense performance is outstanding here, as it captures Teddy’s frantic efforts to process and remember all the facts of his ordeal. The segment’s eeriness is enhanced by Tosin Olufalabi’s sound design, which adds a pained breathing noise; and by Sherrice Mojgani’s lighting. Later, Teddy’s father, David Alexander (Craig Wallace) also faces an unseen questioner: one of the lawyers for the prosecution. Eventually, Teddy’s case is argued by his lawyer, Mr. Edelstein (David Shlumpf); Holzer and the police are championed by the opposing attorney, the haughty and manipulative Ms. Wagner (Jjana Valentiner). These poetic segments are a bit of a double-edged sword. Teddy’s story commands attention, and some viewers may find the scenes that interrupt it to be a bit intrusive. On the other hand, they give the play an artfully disorienting feel — evocative of sleep deprivation. The playwrights seem to want the audience to experience a taste of the disruption that Teddy and David endure when they are being questioned. On that level the rapid intercutting of scenes, aided by Caldwell’s steady pacing, is effective. For this festival honoring Adrienne Kennedy’s work, Sleep Deprivation Chamber is an apt successor to He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box, because we get a chance to observe some hallmarks of her style. Letter writing is a crucial method of communicaJean in Concert). tion in both plays, and each reminds the

Kennedy co-authored Sleep Deprivation audience of the racism in America’s past. Chamber with her son, Adam P. Kennedy. Additionally, each play opens with a literThe harrowing drama, which examines po- ary quotation or reference. Sleep Deprivalice brutality and racial injustice, is based tion Chamber contains a number of alluon real events in the playwrights’ lives. sions to Hamlet, including the ensemble’s A New York Times review published at the time of the 1996 premiere notes that Adam Kennedy “was beaten by a policeman who had stopped him for driving with a broken taillight and later charged him with resisting arrest and assaulting an officer.” opening line, “Ophelia, betrayal, disillusionment.” In Hamlet the title character is faced with the task of avenging his father’s murder; in Sleep Deprivation Chamber David attempts to help fight the injustice that is done to his son. In the published script Adam Kennedy credits “two great lawyers who outsmarted the police and the district attorney’s office at every turn.” In a dedication he also acknowledges that other African American men shared “their own horrible experiences with the police — it is a sobering reality that my experience is such a common one.” A line of dialogue underlines the excruciating relevance of the play’s discussion of police brutality. Teddy Alexander, the character serving as an onstage surrogate for Adam Kennedy, inescapably echoes George Floyd when he pleads, “I can’t breathe.” Round House Theatre’s production of Sleep Deprivation Chamber will be available to view online through February 28, 2021. The Work of Adrienne Kennedy: Inspiration and Influence will continue with Ohio State Murders (available to view on December 5); and the world premiere of Etta and Ella on the Upper West Side (December 12). For tickets, festival passes, and further information visit mccarter.org. “SLEEP DEPRIVATION CHAMBER”: Round House Theatre and McCarter Theatre Center are presenting “Sleep Deprivation Chamber.” Produced in partnership with the Department of Theatre Arts at Howard University, and directed by Raymond O. Caldwell, the video will be available online through February 28, 2021. Suzanne Alexander (Kim James Bey, left) and her son Teddy (Deimoni Brewington) discuss Suzanne’s efforts to ensure justice for Teddy. (Video still courtesy of Round House Theatre) Although helmed by different directors, the festival’s productions appear to be sharing certain elements as well. Like Nicole A. Watson’s staging of He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box, Caldwell’s direction of Sleep Deprivation Chamber economically takes place on a bare stage; both productions use music stands, giving the appearance of a staged reading. Like Watson, however, Caldwell takes full advantage of the medium of video. 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Member of New Jersey Bar 609.737.3683 Phone 609.737.3687 fax alisandracarnevale@gmail.com www.abcarnevalelaw.com • Real Estate Transactions (Buyer/Seller) • Last Will & Testament • Living Will (Healthcare Proxy Directive) • Power of Attorney ALISANDRA B. CARNEVALE, LLC • Family Law • Divorce • Wills/Living Wills/POA • Municipal Court/ Traffic & Criminal Violations • Expungements • Real Estate Transactions Alisandra B. Carnevale, Esq. Member of New Jersey Bar 609.737.3683 Phone 609.737.3687 fax alisandracarnevale@gmail.com www.abcarnevalelaw.com 134 South Main Street | Pennington, nJ 08534 • Family Law • Divorce • Wills/Living Wills/POA • Municipal Court/ Traffic & Criminal Violations • Expungements • Real Estate Transactions Alisandra B. Carnevale, Esq. Member of New Jersey Bar 609.737.3683 Phone 609.737.3687 fax alisandracarnevale@gmail.com www.abcarnevalelaw.com • REAL ESTATE TRANSACTIONS • WILLS/LIVING WILLS/POA • MUNICIPAL COURT/ TRAFFIC AND CRIMINAL VIOLATIONS 134 South Main Street | Pennington, nJ 08534 • Family Law • Divorce • Wills/Living Wills/POA • Municipal Court/ Traffic & Criminal Violations • Expungements • Real Estate Transactions Alisandra B. Carnevale, Esq. Member of New Jersey Bar 609.737.3683 Phone 609.737.3687 fax alisandracarnevale@gmail.com www.abcarnevalelaw.com

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