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    ‘Fargo’ Season 5, Episode 1 Recap: Back to the Basics

    After drifting steadily away from its source of inspiration over the years, “Fargo” appears to be creeping back.Season 5, Episode 1: ‘The Tragedy of the Commons’After drifting steadily away from its source of inspiration — Joel and Ethan Coen’s 1996 neo-noir thriller about the bloody unraveling of a criminal scheme in Minnesota and North Dakota — “Fargo” appears to be creeping back.Over its past few seasons, the series has been mostly a regional crime show with period trappings, seasoned with references to “Fargo” and a host of other Coen brothers movies. (Last season, set in the gangland Kansas City of the early 1950s, tipped its fedora most frequently at “Miller’s Crossing.”) Now we open in Minnesota in 2019, a setting contemporary enough that the politically-connected pose for Christmas photos with assault rifles.The new episode begins, inauspiciously, by citing the end of “Fargo,” when Marge Gunderson, the pregnant small-town sheriff played by Frances McDormand, philosophizes with the dead-eyed pancake enthusiast (Peter Stormare) in back of her squad car. Only here, the cop is Deputy Indira Olmstead (Richa Moorjani) of the Scandia police department and the perp is Dorothy Lyon (Juno Temple), more commonly known as Dot, who has been picked up for tasing a police officer during a melee at the middle-school board meeting. Dot claims it was a case of “wrong place, wrong time” for her victim — and she appears to be right about that — but Olmstead is unmoved. “What’s the world coming to?” she wonders, before adding a quote lifted directly from Gunderson: “It’s a beautiful day.”Moments like these are when the TV “Fargo” is at its worst, glibly referencing a scene that takes moral stock of all the pointless tragedy that had unfolded for, as Gunderson put it, “a little bit of money.” In the movie, Gunderson’s lament follows a bloody and stupefying sequence of events spinning out from a ransom plot. But here, Olmstead is shaking her head over a P.T.A. dust-up that climaxed with an accidental tasing, which gives it no resonance beyond adding another Coens homage to an episode that is absolutely loaded with them.The series’s creator, Noah Hawley, who wrote and directed this first hour, has been oddly undiscerning about his quotations throughout the show’s run. But “Fargo” is most effective when it pivots unexpectedly off the Coens rather than merely tipping its hat.In the season premiere, Hawley pulls off a sequence that lifts directly from the daytime abduction in the movie, which leans into the serio-comic folly of a housewife scrambling to evade two subprofessional kidnappers. Many details are the same, but Dot is far more capable than was poor Jean Lundegaard, whose desperate terror was mostly played for laughs. Beyond their Midwest domestic habit of knitting while watching talk shows, Dot and Jean have little in common.We got a sense of Dot’s capabilities in an earlier scene at the police station, when she frets about her fingerprints pinging some national database. She seemed content to let her mother-in-law, Lorraine Lyon (Jennifer Jason Leigh, using her haughty accent from the Coens’ “The Hudsucker Proxy”), clean up the cop-tasing incident, but the kidnapping later makes clear that Dot is capable of handling things on her own.So as her colorful past finally catches up to her in the form of her abductors, she’s ready to fight back with a lighter, a can of hair spray and an ice skate. Later, she improvises an escape from them during a showdown at a gas station convenience store.More intriguing than Dot’s ability to wriggle out of such a dangerous scenario is her determination to pretend that it never happened. During the time she was under capture, her ineffectual husband, Wayne (David Rysdahl), had contacted the police and enlisted his deep-pocketed mother, who assumes she will be on the hook for ransom money. (“I don’t know why they think I’d break the bank for some low-rent skirt my son knocked up,” Lorraine says bitterly.)Yet when Dot returns home in the wee hours and immediately sets to whisking the Bisquick for her daughter Scotty’s breakfast, she acts as if nothing is amiss. She’d gone away to clear her head, she tells Wayne, and she doesn’t even suggest an explanation for the two different blood types, neither hers, the police found on the floor.Dot’s behavior connects back to the definition of “Minnesota nice” offered in the beginning of the episode, in which “a person is chipper and self-effacing, no matter how bad things get.” What’s missing from that definition is the fact that “Minnesota nice” also can refer to the passive-aggressive hostility that is often nestled beneath the surface sweetness, though perhaps that is a side of Dot we will discover later.For now, she’s a question mark to everyone who knows her, despite her desperate desire to return to the Jean Lundegaard-style role she had fashioned for herself. But she can’t play the chipper Minnesotan for long.Sam Spruell in “Fargo.”Michelle Faye/FX3-Cent StampsAmong the many Coen references: Dot’s booking at the police station is scored with “Gloryland” by the bluegrass musician Ralph Stanley, whose rendition of “O Death” is featured in “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”References to the Coens’ “Fargo,” specifically, are even more strikingly abundant: Leigh’s accent may recall her performance in “The Hudsucker Proxy,” but she is filling in the role of Jerry Lundegaard’s rich, tightfisted father-in-law. “Scotty” is the name of Jerry and Jean Lundegaard’s only son, but here she’s a girl. While Olmstead seems to be the series’s equivalent to Marge, her husband is into playing golf rather than designing postage stamps; he also seems far more self-absorbed than the solicitous Norm Gunderson. The goon dabbing his severed ear with a paper towel recalls the injured kidnapper played by Steve Buscemi and, in perhaps the funniest nod, the tourniquet Dot uses on the wounded cop (Lamorne Morris) is secured by an ice scraper, which is a source of great frustration for Jerry.How much you like this episode may relate to how funny you find the word “commode,” because it is used as a punchline three times. Another colloquialism to watch: “hoosegow.”Wayne joking about voting twice for the attorney general is another hint that this season of “Fargo” may be engaging with contemporary politics in a way previous installments have not. More

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    Who’s That Wonderful Girl? How “Nanalan’” Found New Success on TikTok

    She’s Mona, the puppet heroine of “Nanalan’,” an old Canadian children’s show that has found a new audience on TikTok.“Nanalan’” hasn’t been on TV in years, but it’s the hottest show on TikTok.A Canadian children’s program that made its debut in 1999, it has had a resurgence in recent weeks, thanks to its growing popularity on the social media platform, where it has been watched millions of times.A big part of the show’s appeal lies in its fiendishly catchy songs. One of them includes the lines: “Who’s that wonderful girl? Could she be any cuter?”The girl in question is Mona, a little green puppet with pigtails sticking out from both sides of her head. No, she could not be any cuter.The “who’s that wonderful girl?” earworm comes from a scene in which Mona enters a room dressed as a princess. Her grandmother, Nana, is singing the song while accompanying herself on organ. Nana’s dog, Russell, then appears in the garb of a royal courtier.The clip took off in mid-October, after a TikTok user posted it with the caption “When the clothes you ordered arrive and you treat the family to a fashion show.” The video has been viewed over 9.5 million times.

    @nanalanofficial Thewhole video can be viewed on Nanalan Official yu Tube #whosethatwonderfulgirl #wonderfulgirl #nanalan #princess #barbie ♬ original sound – nanalan’ official “Nanalan’” joined TikTok, YouTube and other social media platforms this year. But it didn’t make much of an impression until the video of Mona in her princess regalia began circulating, said Jamie Shannon, who created the show with Jason Hopley. The pair started making “Nanalan’” shorts in 1999, and the series ended up airing on CBC, Nickelodeon and PBS for Kids.In addition to reposting old content, Mr. Shannon, 51, has started making new videos with the “Nanalan’” puppets for social media. He discussed the show’s newfound audience and weighed in on why nostalgia reigns supreme online. The conversation has been edited and condensed.How did you get into the puppet business?I was traveling in Europe, I think it was 1990, and Jim Henson passed away. He was such a big part of my childhood. And I was like, “Well, that’s exactly what I want to do.” I was already kind of a puppet maker and an actor. So I kind of combined it all.For many people online, this is their introduction to your show. What should they know?It’s wild. Fifty-two percent of our audience on TikTok is American. “Nanalan’” is short for Nana Land, which is what I called my nana’s backyard. It’s about a little girl in that backyard. Mom drops Mona off at her nana’s everyday and goes to work, just like a lot of people’s situations. We were so lucky to do it without scripts, improvised.When did the show end?In 1999, we made the original set of three-minute shorts. We did that again in, I think, 2000. In 2003, we made a bunch of half-hour episodes, and that was it.Jason Hopley, left, and Jamie Shannon, the creators of “Nanalan’,” film a scene featuring the puppets Nana and Mona.via Jamie ShannonUntil social media discovered “Nanalan’.”We had a huge viral breakout in 2016 as well. Somebody did this hilarious thing. In one of the three-minute episodes, Mona’s describing the garden to Russell: “There’s a cooshie and a peepo.” Someone put the words up on the screen, just the silly words and then it went crazy on Tumblr. It became one of these things where people were like, “Try not to laugh.”Sorry — a peepo?A pea pod. I’m trying to imitate a kid imitating what a parent told them, but they don’t quite remember the word.Why do you think TikTok has embraced Mona?The world is so, so difficult and scary right now, and the show’s very comforting. Everything looks soft. There’s no special effects. It heralds to what I think people want to see, which is just something that’s real and authentic in the, you know, fake, fake, fake world. Everything’s A.I., and people don’t know what’s real.

    @nanalanofficial Replying to @Brooke backyard dance party #nanalan #dance #puppets #deli #delidancechallenge ♬ original sound – BREANNA🩷 Mona recently joined Cameo, a platform that allows celebrities to send video messages to fans for a fee. What’s that like?I was trying to join Cameo so long ago, and I guess they weren’t accepting puppets. It’s great, I love it. It’s like four or five videos a day. Touching stuff, too. People say, “Grandma died, can you …?” So I do a lot of pep talks. More

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    BBC’s ‘Top Gear’ Will Stop Production

    The BBC decision to halt production of the car show came after a presenter, Andrew “Freddie” Flintoff, was seriously injured in a crash during filming last year.The British car show “Top Gear,” one of the BBC’s most profitable and popular shows, will stop running after a presenter, Andrew “Freddie” Flintoff, was seriously injured in a crash during filming last year, the BBC said on Tuesday.“Given the exceptional circumstances, the BBC has decided to rest the U.K. show for the foreseeable future,” the broadcaster said in a statement, adding that it was excited about new projects that it was developing with the presenters of “Top Gear.” “We will have more to say in the near future on this. We know resting the show will be disappointing news for fans, but it is the right thing to do.”After the car crash, which happened in December at the show’s test track in Surrey, England, the BBC halted production of the series, its 34th season. An independent company then conducted a safety and health review of the show, but the findings were not published, according to the BBC.“Top Gear” has faced criticism of its safety protocol before. In 2006, Richard Hammond, then a “Top Gear” presenter, was in a coma for two weeks after crashing a vehicle going more than 288 miles per hour on a Yorkshire airfield during a “Top Gear” stunt.Mr. Flintoff, a former England cricket captain, reportedly reached a settlement with the BBC that was worth 9 million pounds ($11.3 million), according to The Sun and other news outlets. The Sun published photos of Mr. Flintoff taken in September showing facial injuries. The tabloid, citing Mr. Flintoff’s legal team, reported that he was still recovering from “life-altering” injuries. Mr. Flintoff did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The TV show, which debuted in 1977 as a regional show about cars and road safety and relaunched in 2002, is a cultural phenomenon. It is one of the BBC’s most widely watched shows worldwide. The BBC did not say whether the show would be revived at some point in the future.The show’s most recent season attracted 4.5 million viewers, according to the BBC, and the show generated about £20 million ($25 million) in profit each year as of 2015. Mr. Flintoff became the presenter of the show in 2019, co-starring with the actor and comedian Paddy McGuinness and the automotive journalist Chris Harris.“Top Gear” was also in the headlines in 2015, when the BBC suspended Jeremy Clarkson, the popular host at the time, after he attacked a producer after a night of drinking. More

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    Full Exposure? Four Solo Shows Ponder the Art of True Nature.

    Lameece Issaq’s “A Good Day to Me Not to You” strives for intimacy, but that is not necessarily the aim of works by Alexandra Tatarsky, Milo Cramer and Ikechukwu Ufomadu.Two years of post-shutdown theater has brought to New York stages a slew of solo performers wrestling with subjects like grief, death and the apocalypse — and those are just the comedies. Solo shows are inexpensive to produce and relatively low-lift endeavors for an industry still on shaky ground.There has been no shortage this fall, and now four solo shows running Off Broadway demonstrate a range of approaches to the form, proving, at least for this round, that baring your inner thoughts and fears pays off. “A Good Day to Me Not to You,” at the Connelly Theater in the East Village, and “Sad Boys in Harpy Land,” at Playwrights Horizons in Midtown Manhattan, opt for all-out vulnerability, dissecting the psyche as if the stage were an operating table. “School Pictures” and “Amusements,” also at Playwrights Horizons, take the opposite tack, with performers who hold themselves at a distance to direct attention elsewhere, but with devices that can be distracting and evasive.The middle-aged narrator of “A Good Day to Me Not to You” divulges intimate details from the start: She is nursing a surprise case of genital warts, she tells the audience, that has been dormant for the decade since she last had sex.In this wryly candid confessional, presented by Waterwell, the writer and performer Lameece Issaq plays a New Yorker with a mordant sense of humor who is weathering a downswing: She was forced to to quit orthodontics school because of her bouts of vertigo, and then she was fired from a dental lab for filing away the imperfections in patients’ plaster molds. Now she is nursing HPV and moving into a convent boardinghouse named for St. Agnes, the patron saint of virgins and sexual abuse survivors. (The weathered sanctuary set by Peiyi Wong shifts locales under Mextly Couzin’s dynamic lighting.)Directed with graceful sensitivity by Lee Sunday Evans, the artistic director of Waterwell, Issaq’s performance is both tender and frank, flipping with ease between directly addressing the audience as the narrator and voicing succinctly sketched characters (everyone’s teeth tell a story). Driven by her maternal impulse, first toward her nephew and then a potential child of her own, the narrator is betrayed by what she cannot control, but always returns, by some elliptical path, to the care she owes herself.Alexandra Tatarsky, a self-described “anxious clown,” inhabits a graduate seminar’s worth of German literary characters in “Sad Boys in Harpy Land.”Chelcie ParryIn “Sad Boys in Harpy Land,” a thrilling and frenetic mental breakdown of a show, Alexandra Tatarsky, who uses they and them pronouns, inhabits a graduate seminar’s worth of German literary characters like kindergarten drag (the scenic, costume and especially inventive prop design is by Andreea Mincic). A self-described “anxious clown,” they so frequently disrupt their own act with reflexive interrogation that the interruptions become the point. With vibrating eyes, Tatarsky sips from proliferating coffee cups, and they appear locked in a discursive effort to come of age, create something new and reckon with their death drive. (No pressure.)Tatarsky continues circling back to Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister, an affluent boy toiling in his bedroom struggling to write a play about self-loathing and inaction. Occasionally, Tatarsky’s madness is expressed in deranged melodies (sound composition is by Shane Riley). How is anyone supposed to create art that makes their identity legible? And why be legible at all?Directed with bracing invention by Iris McCloughan, “Sad Boys” has the delirious effect of twisting you into communion with a live-wire artist, even if it is hard to tell whether they are laughing, crying or both. Tatarsky’s cumulative argument seems to be that, like the character of the Wandering Jew, whom she plays with a gray beard that trails on the floor, identity exists in process rather than as a fixed set of signifiers.Milo Cramer’s “School Pictures” is a mostly sung-through collage of impressions gathered from tutoring New York City students.Chelcie ParryFirst names scrawled on pieces of colored construction paper form a set list for “School Pictures,” a mostly sung-through collage, written and performed by Milo Cramer, of impressions gathered from tutoring New York City students. Cramer, who uses they and them pronouns, aims to assemble brief snapshots of the privileged youth: their naive clarity, rowdy insecurity and mandate to excel in a system rigged in their favor. (Cramer notes in the script that the subjects here are fictionalized.)These portraits of middle schoolers whose parents could afford the tutoring fees are presented, under the direction of Morgan Green, with the sonic equivalent of a crude crayon: a ukulele and atonal talk-singing. Twee? Yes. And grating once it becomes clear that this will be Cramer’s sustained mode of expression for most of the show’s 60 minutes. Sounding out syllables and striking chaotic notes invokes a youthful spirit, but makes a trying task out of tracing artistic intent in the lyrics. A lecture about systemic inequality in the city’s education system comes as a welcome recess, and finally allows Cramer to level with the audience as adults.In “Amusements,” Ikechukwu Ufomadu offers inoffensive punchlines while conveying an erudite exterior and simple-minded affect.Chelcie ParryThere is a childlike quality to the persona assumed by Ikechukwu Ufomadu in “Amusements,” despite the writer and performer’s shawl-collar tuxedo and gentleman’s demeanor. The humor in this stand-up set is, as the title suggests, airy and mild nearly to a fault. In the chasm between Ufomadu’s erudite exterior and simple-minded affect comes a steady breeze of inoffensive punchlines (“Happy Friday to all who celebrate!” “How many of you are alumni of school?”). The resulting eye-roll-to-chuckle ratio will come down to a matter of taste.As directed here by Nemuna Ceesay, Ufomadu has the gracious and charming sensibility of a spiffed-up Mr. Rogers, never more so than when he ventures into the audience to ask if anyone needs a volunteer and then offers his services. Ufomadu is suave, but also halting and unpolished; his set floats along on a stream of appealing humility.It’s an act, of course; how much performers reveal of their true nature onstage may be impossible to know. At its most profound, Ufomadu’s brand of literalism indicates the extent to which we all stand on common ground. Where would we be without clothes or shoes? At home, probably, not brave enough to show our naked selves.A Good Day to Me Not to YouThrough Dec. 16 at the Connelly Theater, Manhattan; waterwell.org.Sad Boys in Harpy Land; School Pictures; and AmusementsAll through Dec. 3 at Playwrights Horizons, Manhattan; playwrightshorizons.org. More

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    ‘Fargo’ Goes Back to the Basics in Its New Season

    The new season of FX’s Coenverse crime drama goes back to the basics. Here is a look at the various chapters that came before it.The Emmy-winning FX limited series “Fargo” returns Tuesday with a new season, its fifth, that stars Juno Temple and Jon Hamm and goes back to the basics: Minnesota cops, North Dakota bad guys and plenty of snow-covered landscapes.Created by Noah Hawley in 2014, “Fargo” is named after the Oscar-winning ’90s film by Joel and Ethan Coen and often repeats that film’s character archetypes: kind but determined police officers that echo Frances McDormand’s Marge Gunderson; greedy, conniving husbands like William H. Macy’s Jerry Lundegaard; and bumbling bad guys à la those played in the original film by Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare. But the series takes as its inspiration the whole of the Coenverse, referencing and remixing characters, themes and aesthetics from films like “Raising Arizona,” “Miller’s Crossing” and “No Country for Old Men” — as well as “Fargo,” of course — in original stories the tend to center on the evil deeds of stupid men.It has been three years since the last season of “Fargo.” With the new one about to premiere and the other four available on Hulu, here is a look at the who, what, where and you betcha of “Fargo,” season by season.Billy Bob Thornton was nominated for an Emmy for his role in the first season of “Fargo.”Chris Large/FX, via Associated PressSeason 1(April–June 2014)“Your problem is you spent your whole life thinking there are rules. There aren’t.” — Lorne MalvoSet in 2006, Season 1 shifts the Jerry character into the form of Lester Nygaard (Martin Freeman), an insurance salesman who crosses paths with a sociopathic hit man named Lorne Malvo (Billy Bob Thornton), shades of Javier Bardem’s terrifying Anton Chigurh in “No Country for Old Men.”After Lester kills his wife and Lorne helps cover it up, Deputy Molly Solverson (Allison Tolman) of the Bemidji, Minn., police department, investigates the increasingly violent case, assisted by the wonderfully named officer Gus Grimly (Colin Hanks) of Duluth. All four of the lead actors received Emmy nominations and “Fargo” won best limited series, the only season so far to do so.Bokeem Woodbine, right, was part of an impressive cast in the second season (with Brad Mann).Chris Large/FXSeason 2(October–December 2015)“And isn’t that a minor miracle? State of the world today and the level of conflict and misunderstanding. That two men could stand on a lonely road in winter and talk. Calmly and rationally. While all around them, people are losing their minds.” — Mike MilliganThe second season of “Fargo” was more ambitious than the first, moving the action back to 1979 and expanding the scope of the show. With shots that echo “No Country for Old Men” and “Barton Fink,” and even an alien subplot that recalls “The Man Who Wasn’t There,” this season uses the entire Coen filmography as a sandbox while maintaining a centerpiece that is still very “Fargo.”The protagonists are again ordinary people caught in a violent world when Peggy (Kirsten Dunst) and Ed Blumquist (Jesse Plemons) cover up her hit-and-run accident. The problem is the guy Peggy hit is the son of Floyd Gerhardt (Jean Smart), the new head of a North Dakota crime family in a battle of wills with a Kansas City crime syndicate looking to expand their reach. (The role helped to return Smart to prominence.) Patrick Wilson plays Lou Solverson, the Minnesota state trooper who stumbles into all of it, assisted by his father-in-law, Sheriff Hank Larsson (Ted Danson).Bokeem Woodbine, who plays the Kansas City enforcer Mike Milligan, leads an exceptional supporting cast that also includes Cristin Milioti, Brad Garrett, Jeffrey Donovan, Rachel Keller, Angus Sampson, Nick Offerman and Zahn McClarnon. The second season of “Fargo” received 18 Emmy nominations.Ewan McGregor, left, played twin brothers in the third season. With Michael Stuhlbarg, center, and David Thewlis.Chris Large/FXSeason 3(April–June 2017)“The problem is not that there is evil in the world, the problem is that there is good. Because otherwise, who would care?” — V.M. VargaIs it still “Fargo” if none of it takes place in North Dakota? The third season moves the action to 2010-11 and takes place entirely in Minnesota. The protagonist lawman this time is the wonderful Gloria Burgle (Carrie Coon), who gets caught in a battle between twin brothers Ray and Emmit Stussy, both played by Ewan McGregor.When Ray, a probation officer, collaborates with his girlfriend, Nikki (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), to steal a rare postage stamp from his brother, mistaken identity leads to a bystander getting murdered. Emmit, powerful businessman, has his own problems as he tries to escape from a mysterious stranger named V.M. Varga (David Thewlis). Michael Stuhlbarg, Shea Whigham, Hamish Linklater, and Scoot McNairy co-star.Tommaso Ragno, left, and Chris Rock played rival crime bosses in the fourth season, which moved the action to Kansas City.Elizabeth Morris/FXSeason 4(September–November 2020)“You know why America loves a crime story? Because America IS a crime story” — Josto FaddaThe most ambitious season of “Fargo” also arguably feels the least like the others, moving south all the way to Kansas City and unfolding in 1950-51. More interested in the structures that allow for abuses of power, it serves as a kind of origin story for the crime syndicates seen in previous seasons. But it is also a commentary on race, privilege and the kind of criminal operations that destroy basic decency.Chris Rock stars as Loy Cannon, a new crime boss who goes to war with Kansas City’s Italian mafia. Jessie Buckley gives one of the season’s strongest performances as Oraetta Mayflower, a nurse who commits a murder that sets fire to the entire turf war unfolding between the two syndicates. Jason Schwartzman also stands out as Josto Fadda, the heir to the Italian crime family, and other co-stars include Ben Whishaw, Jack Huston, Andrew Bird, Glynn Turman and Emyri Crutchfield.In the new season, Juno Temple, left, plays a crafty housewife and Jennifer Jason Leigh plays her mother-in-law.Michelle Faye/FX, via Associated PressSeason 5(November 2023–January 2024)“With all due respect, we’ve got our own reality.” — Danish GravesThe 10-episode new season of “Fargo” returns to the show’s roots, both physically and narratively. The premiere includes more direct references to the film than any other episode in the show’s history, including masked intruders attempting a home invasion, a criminal with a giant face wound and even a cop who speaks of a “beautiful day.”With this season, Hawley inverts the victim role of the film, making Temple’s endangered housewife, Dot, someone who is capable of fending for herself. Hamm plays against type as a vicious sheriff with a grudge. Jennifer Jason Leigh, who starred in the Coens’ “The Hudsucker Proxy,” is all cruel calculation as Dot’s wealthy mother-in-law, Lorraine Lyon, and Dave Foley plays the family’s lawyer and fixer, Danish Graves. Lamorne Morris and Richa Moorjani team up as investigating officers who get stuck in the violent middle. More

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    David Letterman Reclaims His Desk at ‘The Late Show’

    Eight years after retiring from the CBS show, the former late-night host sat down with his successor, Stephen Colbert.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.Better Late Than NeverDavid Letterman returned to the Ed Sullivan Theater on Monday night for the first time in eight years.“My guest tonight certainly needs no introduction,” Stephen Colbert said before bringing Letterman out. The former “Late Show” host received extended cheers and enthusiastic chants of “Da-vid!” from the crowd.“I will say this is the most enthusiastic audience I have been near since the night I announced I was quitting,” Letterman said.Colbert asked Letterman if there was anything he missed, and the former host answered, “everything.”“Mostly, it’s fun. Very few things in life provide one the opportunity — and I can’t speak for you on this topic — but for me, if you muck one up, 24 hours later, you get to try again. And that’s a pretty good device.” — DAVID LETTERMANThey both recalled a meeting before Letterman handed over the reins to Colbert in 2015, and the former “Late Show” host shared his admiration for Colbert and his team’s tenure thus far, saying they made the job look easy.“I will pass that on to the entire staff, but you and I both know it’s really the host,” Colbert joked.At the end of the interview, Letterman asked if he could take a photo behind the old desk, and Colbert acquiesced before snapping a selfie of the two, who shared both a handshake and a hug by the end.“By the way, in my day, I never would have let this happen,” Letterman said, assuming his former seat. “I’m sorry. Thank you.”The Punchiest Punchlines (HBD, President Biden Edition)“President Biden turned 81 today despite his campaign staff specifically advising him not to.” — SETH MEYERS“Every time Joe Biden has a birthday, it feels like a — like a political misstep. It’s like, why would you do that? You’re old enough!” — JIMMY KIMMEL“That’s right, President Biden today celebrated his 81st birthday, but not as much as Republicans did.” — SETH MEYERS“Joe Biden’s 60th birthday is now old enough to drink.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“There were so many candles on his cake, I thought it was another Canadian wildfire.” — DULCÉ SLOAN, guest host of “The Daily Show”The Bits Worth WatchingThe security-guard-turned-sidekick Guillermo Rodriguez took on the red carpet and the racetrack at the Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix for a segment on Monday’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightThe fashion designer and “Real Housewives of New York” star Jenna Lyons will appear on Tuesday’s “Tonight Show.”Also, Check This OutDanielle Brooks, left, and Sam Jay.Daniel Terna“The Color Purple” star Danielle Brooks and the comedian Sam Jay discussed impostor syndrome and women in comedy for T: The New York Times Style Magazine. More

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    ‘Gardens of Anuncia’ Review: The Broadway Star and the Women Who Molded Her

    Michael John LaChiusa’s beautifully sung tribute to sisterly admiration, starring Priscilla Lopez, was inspired by the early life of the show’s director, Graciela Daniele.At the heart of “The Gardens of Anuncia,” Michael John LaChiusa’s sweet reverie of a musical, is a respect and recognition for the renowned Broadway choreographer Graciela Daniele, a longtime friend and collaborator.The show, which opened on Monday at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater, debuted in 2021 at the Old Globe Theater in San Diego. It arrives in a Lincoln Center Theater production with its original cast mostly intact, and Daniele back directing and sharing choreography duties with Alex Sanchez. But now the acclaimed stage veteran Priscilla Lopez is the star, and her knowing performance as Anuncia (a present-day version of Daniele) enriches this lovely, slightly repetitive, but beautifully sung tribute to sisterly admiration.While tending to her garden on the day she’s set to receive a lifetime achievement award, Anuncia thinks back to the women who raised her in Buenos Aires during the Perón regime. She’s ambivalent about the prize (“Who needs an award for living so long?”) and jokes that her decades of work in the theater (Daniele has received 10 Tony Award nominations and, yes, one career-spanning award in 2021) simply dominoed from the first English word she ever learned: “OK.”A gifted dancer from an early age, she was hired by a major national dance company before moving on to international success.But she’s passionate when conjuring up her Mami (Eden Espinosa), Tía (Andréa Burns), and Granmama (Mary Testa). In the show we watch this matriarchal triumvirate, which Anuncia credits for her resilience and compassion, interact with her younger self (Kalyn West). Each woman details for Anuncia her particular relationship with men. Granmama is “agreeably separated” from her seafaring husband (Enrique Acevedo), whom she met while working as his housekeeper and still allows to woo her whenever he is in port. Tía, a gal’s gal, entertains lusty advances from the “Moustache Brothers” (Acevedo and Tally Sessions), but also prefers her independence.It’s Mami who presents this work’s richest complexities. Anuncia cannot understand why her mother, after years of sordid abuse from her husband (Acevedo again), tries to steer her daughter away from hating the man. Nor can she reconcile her mother’s distaste for the government even though she works as a gubernatorial secretary.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?  More

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    in Theater

    ‘United States v. Gupta’ Review: Father’s Trial, Daughter’s Song

    Deepali Gupta offers a meandering and muddled take on the trial of Rajat Gupta, a former head of McKinsey & Company.“The problem with exposition is, why would you want a map when you’re trying to get lost?” asks Deepali Gupta near the start of “United States v. Gupta.”Lost is certainly how one feels at several points of this meandering production about the trial and conviction for insider trading of Rajat Gupta — Deepali’s father and a former head of the global consulting firm McKinsey & Company. Over the course of its three hours, what is billed as a “musical tragedy” attempts to use Rajat’s trial as a dramatic trampoline for other topics: Deepali’s involuntary commitment in a psychiatric ward, the legacy of her grandfather (a freedom fighter and journalist), and the biases of business reporters.Confusion is immediately sown when Deepali tells us, by way of introduction, “I am writing a play, and I am making an appeal. The appeal is a play. I am appealing to your humanity. I am appealing to you. I am trying to make your humanity seem appealing.” The last line throws us back on our heels: Why is it our humanity that needs to be upholstered into something appealing?This question is never answered. And confusion reigns throughout the performance. Though based on an actual trial, characters’ identities are collapsed or otherwise destabilized. Arti Gollapudi plays all three of Deepali’s older sisters, for example, differing mainly by degrees of uptightness. To further complicate matters, Deepali addresses each of them as “Didi,” an honorific of endearment, so that it’s impossible to tell exactly which sister she’s seated next to while they watch their father’s trial.As the musical lurches from topic to topic — the show, directed by Caitlin Sullivan, is seasick with non sequiturs — it continually defers judgment about her father. It ends on the biggest unresolved question of all: whether Rajat Gupta was “a good man.” The jury has by then made its decision, but Deepali, a songwriter and performance artist, primes us to reconsider. When she sings, about a map of India, “how malleable are our borders, how permeable are our boundaries,” she could by hymning the boundary-free nature of not just her own existence, but her father’s, encouraging us to see him as a fallible being.Genre-wise, the play is also at war with itself. Despite its billing as a musical tragedy, it struggles to become either of those things. None of the tunes stuck out as particularly memorable, and many could be safely excised, including a nonsensical duet about SweeTarts sung by Deepali and one of her sisters.The inclination of “Gupta” toward digression merely distracts from the main point, which becomes increasingly muddled as the work inches along. By the end, the show is stuck somewhere between takedown and tribute, between reflecting on what a daughter stands to inherit from her father’s convictions, in both senses of the word, and ceding space to the patriarch to tell his own story. “Gupta” would have benefited, no question, from a map, but even more from a compass.United States v. GuptaThrough Nov. 28 at Jack, Brooklyn; jackny.org. Running time: 3 hours.This review is supported by Critical Minded, an initiative to invest in the work of cultural critics from historically underrepresented backgrounds. More