What’s in Our Queue? Theater and More

Some children grow up with nursery rhymes. My parents played the soundtrack to “The Harder They Come.” A theatrical version of that 1972 movie is at the Public Theater and features all the classics the Lacey children grew up on, like “You Can Get It If You Really Want” and “Sweet and Dandy.” The set will transport you to Kingston, Jamaica.

I wrote frequently about migration when I was a correspondent based in East Africa. On Netflix, “His House” tells the story of two South Sudanese refugees seeking asylum in Britain. Their dwelling turns out to be haunted by others who fled their homelands. Get ready to tremble.

One word in Spanish that gives someone away as Venezuelan is “chamo.” It means “dude” or “bro” and is heard more and more on the streets of New York these days. There’s a new chamo arriving soon, Gustavo Dudamel, and I love the energy he shows with the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra performing Ginastera’s “Estancia.”

I’m plowing my way through J.M. Coetzee’s “El Polaco” (“The Pole”), about a Polish pianist who communicates with his lover through poems she must translate to understand. Coetzee, a Nobel laureate from South Africa, wrote this in English, but only the Spanish-language edition has been released so far, a commentary on the hegemony of English and the Global North.