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    ‘Agreement’ and ‘Philadelphia, Here I Come!,’ Two Irish Imports

    “Agreement,” at Irish Arts Center, and “Philadelphia, Here I Come!,” at Irish Repertory Theater, have a timeless feel, rooted in their eras and resonant in ours.In more placid times, it would be downright bizarre to classify Owen McCafferty’s political drama “Agreement” as feel-good entertainment.In these fraught, belligerent times, though, there is comfort, even a twinge of hope, in the play’s retelling of the knotty negotiations that finally made an enduring peace possible in Northern Ireland. Part of the United Kingdom, it was long violently divided between Catholics and the Protestant majority, with republicans wanting the region to join the predominantly Catholic Republic of Ireland and unionists vehemently opposed. After decades of blood-soaked warring — and bitter, sectarian score-keeping about who did what to whom — the Good Friday Agreement pointed a different way forward.It sounds like the makings of theater for wonks, doesn’t it? Seven politicians holed up together in Belfast in April 1998, battling their way toward consensus as the clock ticks down. Tony Blair, the British prime minister, has a family vacation to get to in Spain, so they need to complete the deal by Thursday. In Charlotte Westenra’s impeccably acted production for Lyric Theater, Belfast, the group blows past that deadline and a delirious dream ballet erupts — all of these exhausted people suddenly dancing.“Agreement,” at Irish Arts Center in Manhattan, is generally less colorful than that, and its barrage of contentious details can be overwhelming. But really, negotiations are stuck on the same few specifics: power sharing, economic cooperation, the decommissioning of paramilitary weapons and the release of prisoners.The show’s most teasing joke is having the career pacifist John Hume (Dan Gordon), the gentlest pol in the room, ask the audience whether there’s any need for him to explain an elusive central point yet again. Whereupon he does not clarify.“You all get it, don’t you?” Hume says, moving briskly along. “And if you haven’t — pay attention!”In the rushing current of this play, what buoys us isn’t the particularities but rather the personalities. Mo Mowlam (Andrea Irvine), the flagrantly unpretentious British secretary of state for Northern Ireland and the only woman in the mix; Gerry Adams (Chris Corrigan), the leader of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, who turns out to be good for a wisecrack at a urinal; Bertie Ahern (Ronan Leahy), the Irish premier, freshly in mourning for his mother and showing up anyway — this is a charismatic bunch.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    ‘Shogun’: Anna Sawai on Her Character’s Final Transformation

    In an interview, the actor discusses the most recent episode of the FX drama and how her Lady Mariko “wants to fulfill her purpose.”This interview includes spoilers for the ninth episode of “Shogun.”Her character on “Shogun” has just died, but Anna Sawai doesn’t seem to mind much. If anything, she’s glad we’ve hit the sweeping period drama’s high point. “The last two episodes are very special,” she said, smiling, during a video chat earlier this week. “The men have been physically fighting. The women are fighting their own battles.” Sawai’s character, Lady Mariko, has just fought her last.As a vassal of the powerful Lord Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada), Lady Mariko serves as the translator for Toranaga’s unlikely ally, the shipwrecked English navigator John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis). But her reputation has been in tatters ever since her father violated Japanese feudal law and slew the tyrant he was sworn to serve.When she is held captive by the scheming Lord Ishido (Takehiro Hira), Lady Mariko threatens ritual suicide — demanded by tradition, yet an anathema for a devout Catholic such as herself — until her release is granted. When assassins intervene, she makes one last defiant protest, calling herself by her father’s name and blocking a door rigged with explosives. It’s the moment to which the series, and Mariko’s entire life, has built.This explains Sawai’s fondness for such a dark moment. “We get to see Mariko transform,” said the actor, who also currently stars in the generational family drama “Pachinko” and the Godzilla spinoff series “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters.” “She really makes a difference.” These are edited excerpts from the conversation.In her dying declaration, Lady Mariko refers to herself using her father’s surname, Akechi, for the first time in the series. Why was now the moment?In the book, it was “Toda Mariko” — Toda is [her husband] Buntaro’s last name — but we really wanted to feel the presence of her father in why she was doing this. She’d learned that her father wanted her to continue the journey he could not live to do. Until then, she doesn’t really realize what that is.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Reality Stars Share Their Hopes of Joining ‘The Traitors’ Cast

    Reality stars and other people with some degree of fame are making no secret of their hopes to join the next cast of the hit show “The Traitors.”The American version of the reality game show “The Traitors,” after the release of its first season on Peacock last year, won an Emmy Award for its casting.The debut season of the whodunit-style competition, in which contestants are eliminated by banishment or by being “murdered,” featured a cast of reality stars and less famous people like nurses and sales executives. For its second season, which ended in March, the cast was reconfigured to include mostly people from reality shows like “Survivor,” “Big Brother,” “The Bachelor,” “Dancing With the Stars,” “The Real Housewives,” “Below Deck,” “Shahs of Sunset,” “Bling Empire,” “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and “The Challenge.”In the days after Season 2 premiered in January, “The Traitors” became the most viewed unscripted series in the country on streaming platforms, according to Nielsen statistics. A third season was greenlit in February.As interest in “The Traitors” has intensified, former reality stars — along with other people with some degree of celebrity — have been clamoring for a chance to appear on the show set at a Scottish castle, hosted by Alan Cumming and offering a prize of up to $250,000. (The American version, like its British, Canadian, Greek and Australian counterparts, is a spinoff of a show originally produced in the Netherlands.)“I would assume that a lot of people who have managers and agents are sending out the emails to ‘Traitors’ casting and production trying to get their foot in the door,” said Jemmye Carroll, 35, who, after appearing on “The Real World: New Orleans” in 2010, went on to join the casts of several seasons of “The Challenge.”“I’m using my one resource, which is Trishelle,” she continued, referring to Trishelle Cannatella, a winner of “The Traitors” Season 2 and another cast member of “The Real World” and “The Challenge” franchises. Both women live in New Orleans and when they have run into each other around town, Ms. Carroll said, she has encouraged Ms. Cannatella to put in a good word for her with the production staff of “The Traitors.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Video Games Are a Playwright’s Muse, Not Her Hobby

    In Bekah Brunstetter’s new play “The Game,” women withhold sex from their partners who are obsessed with a Fortnite-like game. Her previous work includes “The Oregon Trail.”The writer Bekah Brunstetter is decidedly not a video game aficionado. Her personality type — “psychotically obsessed with productivity,” as she put it — has sealed off all gaming rabbit holes for the past 25 years.And yet Brunstetter, perhaps best known for her television work on “This Is Us” and the book for the current Broadway adaptation of “The Notebook,” has now written not one but two plays about the ways that video games can hinder or facilitate human connection.“The Game,” which is currently having its world premiere, is about a fictionalized version of Fortnite Battle Royale, a third-person shooter where each round ends with only one survivor. It comes seven years after Brunstetter’s “The Oregon Trail,” inspired by the game that condemned countless 1990s middle schoolers to an array of awful deaths (cholera, dysentery, snake bites, etc.) as they tried to replicate the grueling 19th-century passage west from Independence, Mo.In “The Oregon Trail,” Brunstetter paralleled the modern-day struggles of a young woman with the higher-stakes perils of her video game counterpart. With “The Game,” she is taking the outsider perspective, focusing on a support group of wives who decide to withhold sex to get their partners off Fortnite — or The Game, as it is called here. (The play is a very loose adaptation of “Lysistrata,” the ancient Greek comedy in which the sex strike is designed to end the Peloponnesian War.)Brunstetter, 41, spoke over a video call about “The Game” the day after its final dress rehearsal at Playmakers Repertory Company in Chapel Hill, N.C. She discussed the two plays, her learning curve and the TV show that might lure her back into the world of gaming.Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.Megan Ketch and Lucas Dixon in “The Game,” in which a group of women try to get their partners to stop playing a video game that resembles Fortnite.HuthPhoto, via PlayMakers Repertory CompanyWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Jimmy Kimmel Notes ‘Another Stormy Day’ in ‘The Orange People’s Court’

    Kimmel said that former president Donald J. Trump is starring “as the defendant in his first of many criminal trials to come.”Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Jury’s Still OutJury selection continued in former President Donald Trump’s criminal trial on Tuesday.Jimmy Kimmel called it “another Stormy day in New York in the new episode of ‘The Orange People’s Court’ today starring Donald J. Trump as the defendant in his first of many criminal trials to come.”“Now yesterday, more than half the group was excused for telling the judge they could not be fair and impartial. That’s pretty vague — might as well ask ‘Who wants to leave?’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“I wouldn’t blame them. After all, the job description is ‘Wanted: impartial juror, four days a week, $40 a day, benefits include free Wi-Fi and unlimited death threats.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“One potential juror was an older woman who said she believes ‘no one is above the law.’ And Trump’s lawyers were like, ‘Get her out of here right now!’” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Yo, this court is roasting Donald Trump. I thought this was a courthouse, not a high school cafeteria.” — DULCÉ SLOAN, guest host of “The Daily Show”“He’s got thick skin. He’s basically a hunk of beef jerky with a layer of bronzer.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“At that rate, they’re going to burn through every available New Yorker. By the end, the jury’s going to include a Times Square Buzz Lightyear, 40 rats in a trench coat, and Lin Manuel Miranda.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (‘Sleepy Crime Tea’ Edition)“Yesterday, Trump fell asleep during the proceedings — he took a little white power nap. But today he was sharp, focused and he fell asleep again.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“The Trump campaign also pushed back on reports that he fell asleep in court yesterday. They said that was ‘fake snooze.’’” — JIMMY KIMMEL“He’s very sleepy. Is it possible his lawyers are tranquilizing him to keep the outbursts at a minimum?” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Trump must have snoozed for a while, because the court sketch artist had time to draw him. Well, I think we found a new mascot for Celestial Seasonings Sleepy Crime Tea.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Bits Worth WatchingThe singer-songwriter Maggie Rogers performed her song “The Kill” on Tuesday’s “Late Show.”What We’re Excited About on Wednesday NightOrlando Bloom will promote his new Peacock series “Orlando Bloom: The Edge” on Wednesday’s “Daily Show.”Also, Check This OutFKA twigs rehearsing Martha Graham’s “Satyric Festival Song” at the Graham studios in Manhattan on Monday. The dress was designed by Graham.Caroline Tompkins for The New York TimesRecording artist FKA twigs will make her debut with the Martha Graham Dance Company on Thursday. More

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    Review: In ‘Sally & Tom,’ Plantation Scandal Meets Backstage Farce

    The 30-year relationship between Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson is the basis for Suzan-Lori Parks’s hilarious and harrowing nesting doll of a play.If I were reviewing “The Pursuit of Happiness,” produced by a “low-budget-no-budget” troupe called Good Company, I might note that the subtlety, cleverness and humanity with which it approaches the story of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson come as quite a surprise. After all, Good Company is best known for “politically charged,” “finger-waggy” provocations like “Patriarchy on Parade” and “Listen Up, Whitey, Cause It’s All Your Fault” — work that leaves audiences running for the exits while casts bid them farewell with the bird.But “The Pursuit of Happiness” isn’t real: It’s the play within Suzan-Lori Parks’s backstager “Sally & Tom,” which opened on Tuesday at the Public Theater.Still, my review stands — except for one thing. The subtlety, cleverness and humanity with which “Sally & Tom” approaches the story of Hemings and Jefferson, dazzlingly doubled in the story of the troupe putting it on, come as no surprise at all. They are the hallmarks of an author incapable of writing a line unfilled with the bewildering burden — or is it the treasure? — of human contradiction.Indeed, Parks begins with an unprovable yet also undisprovable thesis. She has Luce, the author and star of “The Pursuit of Happiness,” decree: “This is not a love story.”Luce (Sheria Irving) feels compelled to say so because her boyfriend, Mike, the show’s director — and also its Jefferson — wants a happier ending than the one she has written. As a proper white ally, Mike (Gabriel Ebert) understands that love is, at best, a problematic notion when one of the lovers is owned by the other. Even after 30 years together, Jefferson did not free Hemings in his will.But would it be so awful, he wonders, to make more money and draw a wider audience — which Luce mishears as a “whiter” one — by introducing just a bit of recognizable romance at the curtain? Can the not-yet-third president and the teenager who would soon bear six of his children at least hold hands?We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    ‘Shogun’ Episode 9 Recap: an Army of One

    Lady Mariko is bound to her orders, which force the hand of Lord Ishido of Lady Ochiba.Season 1, Episode 9: ‘Crimson Sky’It’s a deception by which even the ingenious Lord Toranaga would be impressed. Step one: Spend several episodes of your prestige-drama period piece touting “Crimson Sky,” a battle plan for an all-out assault on a medieval castle the brutality of which frightens even Toranaga himself.Step two: Use “Crimson Sky” as the name for the penultimate episode of your 10-episode mini-series, when both you and the audience know that the penultimate episode is where massive battles tend to happen in prestige-drama period pieces.Step three: Don’t have a battle.Put that way, “Crimson Sky” is a bit of a bait and switch. But to deride it as such is to ignore all the episode delivered in exchange for putting off a climactic confrontation of samurais. It is a riveting look at a woman in extremis, channeling a lifetime of pain into one final incandescent act of strength and sacrifice.After opening with a flashback that shows young Lady Mariko’s desperate to follow her family in death, the episode proper begins with Mariko, Lord Yabushige and John Blackthorne’s arrival in Osaka. The rascally Yabushige continues playing each side against the other, to mixed results, while deepening his unlikely friendship with Blackthorne.Mariko, it soon becomes clear, is there on a very specific mission. Addressing the shocked Council of Regents, led by Lord Ishido but ruled by his fiancée Lady Ochiba, Mariko declares her intention to leave the city the next morning, with Lord Toranaga’s consorts and infant son in tow. Ishido comes up with procedural reasons to delay their departure, or at least he tries to, largely based on Mariko’s own shockingly indecorous behavior in court.Proudly declaring herself the daughter of the disgraced Lord Akechi Jinsai and heir to a thousand years of samurai tradition, she declares, “I will never be captive, or hostage, or confined. I am free to go as I please, as is anyone.” She says this from the center of the frame, with her eyes pointed at the camera. The staging is clear: It all comes down to her.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Late Night Savors Day One of the Trump Trial

    After the ex-president seemed to fall asleep in court, Jimmy Kimmel said it was “nice to see even Donald Trump is exhausted by Donald Trump.” Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.‘Dozo the Clown’Donald Trump’s trial kicked off with jury selection in New York on Monday.“The trial began at 10 a.m. with the court clerk announcing, ‘The People of the State of New York vs. Donald J. Trump,’ followed by 15 minutes of thunderous applause,” Jimmy Kimmel said on Monday.“‘The People of the State of New York?’ That’s us!” — STEPHEN COLBERT“The trial is expected to last six weeks — or until the courtroom sketch artist runs out of orange, whichever comes first.” — JIMMY KIMMELLate night hosts were amused by the reports of Trump nodding off during the proceedings.“Imagine committing so many crimes you get bored at your own trial.” — JON STEWART“If Biden is Sleepy Joe, I guess that makes you Dozo the Clown.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Imagine if Joe Biden fell asleep in the court on the first day of his trial. Trump would be calling him ‘Comatose Joe.’ Fox News would be talking about this until Christmas. But not old Donny Nappleseed.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Multiple reports said Trump’s head drooped until his chin hit his chest, which, I don’t know, maybe he was just following the price of his Truth Social stock. Either way, it’s nice to see even Donald Trump is exhausted by Donald Trump.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Punchiest Punchlines (‘Gettysburg: Wow’ Edition)“This weekend, our former president and illustrious historian Donald J. Trump spoke near one of America’s most hallowed battlefields, and if you thought Lincoln consecrated Gettysburg with his soaring rhetoric, well, buckle up.” — JON STEWART“You have to hand it to this guy: On the weekend before his unprecedented criminal trial begins, he somehow manages to overshadow it with this broken-brained interpretation of what happened at Gettysburg during the Civil War.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“That is plagiarized almost directly from my seventh-grade book report, ‘Gettysburg: Wow.’” — JON STEWART“What a stirring orator. I look forward to Ken Burns’s updated documentary.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“He always sounds like a kid who forgot he had an oral report due on that day.” — JIMMY KIMMEL”Get that man on ‘Drunk History,’ will you?” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Bits Worth WatchingThe author Salman Rushdie talked to Colbert about his memoir, “Knife,” which recounts the attempt on his life in 2022.What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightOn Tuesday’s “Daily Show,” Mayan Lopez will discuss working with her father, George, on Season 2 of their NBC sitcom, “Lopez vs. Lopez.”Also, Check This OutA tour of historically Black colleges and universities by the cast of “A Different World” includes, clockwise from top left, Kadeem Hardison, Cree Summer, Charnele Brown, Darryl M. Bell, Dawnn Lewis and Glynn Turman.Schaun Champion for The New York TimesFormer cast members from the sitcom “A Different World” have reunited in support of historically Black universities. More