Eliana Willis

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    ‘Dune: Prophecy’ Season 1 Premiere Recap: Sick Burn

    The first installment of HBO’s “Dune” prequel series suggests there is a “burning truth” very few are capable of seeing. It may be too hot to handle.Season 1, Episode 1: ‘The Hidden Hand’“Humanity’s greatest weapon is the lie,” says Reverend Mother Tula Harkonnen of the Sisterhood (Olivia Williams). “Human beings rely on lies to survive. We lie to our enemies, we lie to our friends, we lie to ourselves. Lying is among the most sophisticated tasks a brain can perform.”The acolytes under Tula’s tutelage in this first episode of “Dune: Prophecy,” the new prequel series developed by Diane Ademu-John and Alison Schapker, are learning to lie more effectively in order to better control the people they supposedly serve. As recipes for political success go, it’s hard to argue with the results.As related in a lengthy flashback at the beginning of Episode 1, the Sisterhood’s story begins over 10,000 years before the birth of the messianic Paul Atreides, the antihero of the “Dune” films, played by Timothée Chalamet. Humans have won a hard-fought victory in a universe-wide war against the “thinking machines” they built, overthrowing their robotic would-be masters. Known in the source novels as the Butlerian Jihad, this successful struggle against artificial intelligence birthed heroes and villains among its human participants. (The source novel for the movies, “Dune,” was written by Frank Herbert; this series is based on both “Dune” and “Sisterhood of Dune,” a prequel novel by Herbert’s son Brian and Kevin J. Anderson.)Here, as we learn in a voice-over by Emily Watson, is where the great rivalry between House Atreides and House Harkonnen, the warring families at the heart of the “Dune” saga, began. According to the commonly accepted history, an Atreides led the fight while a Harkonnen slunk away from it. That act of cowardice led the triumphant emperor to banish the Harkonnens to a remote and desolate world.But not all the Harkonnens — notably Tula and her fierce older sister, Valya (Watson) — accepted that version of history, or exile. As the exposition continues, we watch Tula and Valya (played as young women by Emma Canning and Jessica Barden) leave home to join an organization of women founded by the legendary war hero Raquella Berto-Anirul (Cathy Tyson). The group is called simply the Sisterhood — known later as the Bene Gesserit, a name familiar to fans of the “Dune” books and movies. Through intense mental and physical training, Raquella and her acolytes hope to harness powers that will enable them to guide the rulers of the various great houses.At this early stage, the Sisterhood’s primary power is “truthsaying,” an inerrant ability to detect lies that makes them invaluable to any emperor or aristocrat who can convince the increasingly powerful organization to send such a human polygraph their way.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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    Elf on Broadway Review: Grey Henson Is on the Nice List

    The musical, starring Grey Henson, has gotten Buddy delightfully, entirely right. But he is trapped inside a creaky adaptation.Santa Clauses are pretty interchangeable. The real Santa’s close friend Buddy the elf would disagree, but it’s true: Put on the red costume, hide behind the glossy beard, manage a few ho, ho, hos and anyone will do.Buddy, though? That’s a much tougher role to cast — and not only because Will Ferrell made him such an indelibly adorable doofus in the 2003 movie “Elf.” In “Elf the Musical,” Buddy is the one character in whom we must absolutely believe: a full-grown man in a green elf suit with curl-toed boots, naïve and wonder-struck in the big city.Get it wrong and it’s a recipe for cringe. Get it right and you’ve cracked the code of all-ages comedy, the kind that will leave children and grown-ups equally helpless with laughter.In its latest Broadway outing, starring an exuberant Grey Henson in the title role, “Elf the Musical” has gotten Buddy delightfully, entirely right. From his first spoken line — the word Santa, cried joyously with what sounds like at least five exclamation points — he is enchanting in his silliness.He cartwheels across the stage because why wouldn’t he? A trusting, uninhibited goofball, he lives in his body the way children do, nearly bursting with eagerness. But Buddy is 30; he can show you how many that is on his fingers, flashing what look like boneless jazz hands.Directed by Philip Wm. McKinley, “Elf” is loaded with playful, energetic dance numbers.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWe 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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    On ‘S.N.L.,’ a Peaceful Transition to Trump’s Cabinet of Curiosities

    Sarah Sherman plays Matt Gaetz as well as the widow of P’Nut, the conservative darling of the rodent world, while Charli XCX and pals serenade a mom-to-be.An amicable White House transition meeting between President Biden and President-elect Donald J. Trump provided the template for the opening sketch of this weekend’s “Saturday Night Live,” and it also gave “S.N.L.” another opportunity to rearrange its musical chairs of who’s playing whom in the Trump administration, with new roles for Sarah Sherman (as Matt Gaetz) and Alec Baldwin (as Robert F. Kennedy Jr.).Dana Carvey, the “S.N.L.” alum who has lately been impersonating Biden on the show, returned to play the part, promising a “respectful conversation” with Trump, played by James Austin Johnson.“Yeah, get a load of me,” Johnson said. “Instead of being rude and crazy like usual, I’m doing quiet and serene. Which, in many ways, is a lot scarier.”After shooing away the reporters who were covering their meeting, Johnson said forlornly to Carvey that he was not looking forward to returning to the White House. “So many of the carpets are stinky and sticky at the same time,” he explained. “Sort of like being at a Regal Cinemas. Now I have to live here for the next four years. Possibly longer.”Carvey responded that he had many wonderful memories of his time there: “Dr. Jill hosting foreign leaders,” he said. “My dog attacking every single one. I brought my party together so much they teamed up and kicked me out. Wait a minute — maybe I hate it here, too.”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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    Why ‘Tammy Faye’ the Musical Feels Like a Redemption

    The televangelist defended gay men during the AIDS crisis. Now she’s getting perhaps the gayest tribute: a Broadway show led by Elton John.Anyone interested in Tammy Faye Bakker — the chirpy televangelist queen of the ’80s — can watch a documentary and a biopic about her, both called “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” or read the autobiography “Tammy: Telling It My Way.”There’s also plenty out there about Bakker’s bonds with gay men, which was exhibited most poignantly in 1985, when on Christian television she did what many conservatives considered unthinkable: She interviewed a gay man who had AIDS, the Rev. A. Stephen Pieters. She admonished Christians — “we who are supposed to be able to love everyone,” as she put it — for not embracing the dying.Now the most famous daughter of International Falls, Minn. — who died of cancer in 2007 at 65 — is getting perhaps the gayest tribute a person can have: a Broadway musical.“If you were an outcast or pariah, Tammy Faye loved you even more,” said Elton John, the composer of “Tammy Faye,” which opened Thursday at the Palace Theater in Manhattan. “That’s what happened with her and gay people.”Through bald farce, earnest biography and a pop-country score, “Tammy Faye” details how she and her husband, Jim Bakker, started the television program “The PTL Club” in the 1970s and became highly successful televangelists, only to have a fall from grace in the late 1980s, amid sex and financial scandals, and later divorcing.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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    Bronwyn Newport’s Style Stands Out on ‘Real Housewives of Salt Lake City’

    The addition of Bronwyn Newport to the cast of “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” has added a maximalist approach to a series known for its understated aesthetic.When Bronwyn Newport, a fashion blogger, joined the cast of Bravo’s “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” for its fifth season, she immediately caused a stir among a cast of compelling reality TV veterans, and not just because she was quickly drawn into the drama.The typical Salt Lake City fashion aesthetic is relatively casual — one popular uniform is jeans, a neutral-colored sweater and a designer bag — replete with “Utah curls” in which waist-length hair is styled into beach waves. With her dark, blunt-cut bob and her loud, whimsical outfit choices, Ms. Newport couldn’t have blended in among her Salt Lake peers even if she wanted to (she didn’t, of course).“I just think that — almost to a fault — my goal is to look different,” Ms. Newport, 39, said in a recent phone interview. “When people don’t get it or don’t like it or look at it weird or misunderstand where I’m coming from, from a style perspective, it almost spurs me on in a really immature way.”Ms. Newport’s maximalist approach to style has its roots in the Netherlands, where she lived as a child, as well as in the rest of Europe, where she says fashion leans architectural, edgy and is less directed at the male gaze. She considers every day an occasion for dressing up — ordering Chinese food calls for pajamas printed with Chinese takeout containers, for example — and would not be caught dead in jeans.Ms. Newport, left, is easy to spot among her “Real Housewives” co-stars like Meredith Marks.Joshua Applegate/Bravo“If you see me in jeans, you should be concerned,” she said jokingly. “We’re at the beginning of a spiral of some kind where I am unwell, mentally or physically or emotionally somehow.”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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    11 Broadway Shows to See Before They Close This Winter

    Many Tony Award-winning musicals and starry plays (Robert Downey Jr., anyone?) are wrapping up their runs in January. Catch them while you can.McNealRobert Downey Jr. makes his Broadway debut in this new drama by the Pulitzer Prize winner Ayad Akhtar (“Disgraced”), playing an esteemed novelist dangerously fascinated by artificial intelligence. This Lincoln Center Theater production, directed by Bartlett Sher, has a cast that includes Ruthie Ann Miles and a scene-stealing Andrea Martin. (Through Nov. 24 at the Vivian Beaumont Theater.) Read the review.Critic’s PickYellow FaceDavid Henry Hwang’s 2007 satire stars Daniel Dae Kim (“Lost”) as DHH, a fictional version of the playwright, navigating anti-Asian racism in the theater and culture, while — whoops — mistakenly casting a white actor in an Asian role. With Francis Jue sublimely reprising his Obie-winning performance as DHH’s father, Leigh Silverman directs this Roundabout Theater staging. (Through Nov. 24 at the Todd Haimes Theater.) Read the review.critic’s pickOnce Upon a MattressSutton Foster stars as the intrepid swamp creature and formidably delicate sleeper Princess Winnifred, opposite Michael Urie as her man-toddler love interest, Prince Dauntless, in this revival of the composer Mary Rodgers’s musical comedy riff on “The Princess and the Pea.” Adapted by Amy Sherman-Palladino, and directed by Lear deBessonet. With Ana Gasteyer as Queen Aggravain. (Through Nov. 30 at the Hudson Theater.) Read the review.Critic’s PickWater for ElephantsThe world of the circus springs into three dimensions in this musical adaptation of Sara Gruen’s 2006 novel about a young man who joins a traveling circus during the Great Depression and bonds with an elephant. This is a spectacle, incorporating circus design and performers. (Through Dec. 8 at the Imperial Theater.) Read the review.The NotebookTwenty years after Nicholas Sparks’s debut novel became a silver-screen romance, its latest incarnation is this musical. The story of a couple, Allie and Noah, it stretches from their adolescence to old age, when she has dementia and he reads to her, hoping to rouse her memory. With a book by Bekah Brunstetter (“This Is Us”) and a score by the singer-songwriter Ingrid Michaelson. (Through Dec. 15 at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater.) Read the review.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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    Uncovering Gay and Lesbian History in a 1941 ‘Sex Variants’ Study

    The Civilians theater group has adapted a study of homosexuality into a work that explores the lives of lesbians and gay men in the early 20th century.In the 1930s, Jan Gay, a sex researcher and journalist, made the tough decision to publish material from hundreds of in-depth interviews she had done with fellow lesbians in a medical study written by a straight male psychiatrist.Though she had hoped her work might be used to curb the criminalization of homosexuality, the final study ended up further pathologizing “sexual deviance.” Yet Gay knew that without it, the interviews, which provide an intimate look at gay and lesbian life in the early 20th century, might never have been published at all.That history has inspired the Civilians theater company to create “Sex Variants of 1941: A Study of Homosexual Patterns,” which takes its name from the study. The show seeks to breathe Gay’s sense of humanity back into a problematic text through a blend of songs and scenes, many of them taken verbatim from the report. The piece, directed by Steve Cosson, will be performed at N.Y.U. Skirball through Nov. 24.Cosson conceived the work along with the visual artist Jessica Mitrani, and wrote the book with James La Bella. A cast of six performs the material as a sort of animated lecture, allowing for a kaleidoscopic look at the interviews as conducted, original music inspired by the lives of the subjects, and imagined stories dramatizing the creation of the study itself.“A good part of the contemporary conversation we’re having with this show is saying queer people need a history,” Cosson said in an interview. The study, he added, “became such a useful thing to make theater out of because they approached it as documenting these people’s lives, interviewing them and doing every scientific test that could be done at the time.”Jo Lampert and Robert Johanson in the show.Greg KesslerWe 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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    When Garrett Hedlund’s Friends Call at 3 a.m., He Picks Up

    To have people like that in your life “is a damn special thing,” said the actor, one of the stars of “Tulsa King.”Garrett Hedlund knows the allure of chaos — both onscreen in the television series “Tulsa King” as Mitch, a former bull rider and recovered addict, and offscreen as a restless Minnesotan who made his way to Hollywood and into movies like “Troy,” “Tron: Legacy” and “Friday Night Lights.”“The silence, peace, serenity, isolation, the chores that pushed you away — it’s everything that eventually pulls you back,” he said in a video call from the Connecticut farm, circa 1738, that he now owns, with its apple orchard, big pond, old barn and wooded trails.Now that Rhodes, his son with the actress Emma Roberts, is turning 4, “I get to share with him a little slice of the beauty of what I got to be raised with — even though at the time I didn’t see it as the beauty my father saw it as,” Hedlund said before expressing gratitude for his Gibson guitar, the music of Blaze Foley and Moleskin notebooks.These are edited excerpts from the conversation.My SonMe and his mother, we co-parent, and I feel we co-parent quite wonderfully in this job. It’s not always the easiest. There’s a lot of sacrifices, but our sacrifices tend to be out of love for him. There’s rarely a day that goes by that one of us isn’t completely 100 percent there for him and with him.My 27-Inch Gibson L1I found it at a guitar shop in Birmingham, Ala. I was just looking for a travel guitar, and then I saw this 27 L1 hanging on the wall, and I fell in love instantly. Then this owner said goodbye in his own personal way. It was a guitar that he was selling of sentimental value, and I received it in a very parallel manner.My PassportI’ve always been an “I can fit my life in a carry-on” kind of guy, and a passport was always a bonus to extend a little bit of reach of freedom and possibility.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