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    in Television

    “Curb Your Enthusiasm” Was Larry David’s Book of Manners

    Suppose you’re out at brunch and find yourself in a buffet line that a fellow diner does not appear to have noticed. He casually approaches with his plate and tries to serve himself. Do you A. join the hangry mob cursing him or B. rise to this man’s defense, because you can see that he’s holding a plate, which means he already waited in line and is now returning for another helping? If you’re Larry David, not only is the answer B. but the misunderstanding warrants, in your scratchy Brooklyn accent, a triumphant clarification: “That’s not how we do things here in America! We don’t wait for seconds! Never!”Listen to this article, read by Ron ButlerOpen this article in the New York Times Audio app on iOS.Larry knows from buffet breaches. He once caught someone pulling what he termed a chat-’n’-cut, gaining proximity to food by talking to someone with a choicer position in line. He doesn’t like it but is impressed anyway. (“I respect your skills.”) Another time, when a restaurant employee accuses him of violating its buffet policy by sharing his plate with his manager and main man, Jeff, a lawyer magically appears to clarify for the employee that after a diner purchases a meal what he does with it is his business. Justice — and brunch — have been served.But now let’s suppose that you’re a serious, middle-aged woman named Marilyn, and you’ve decided to host dinner for your new beau’s closest friends, and the guests include this Larry David, whom you’ve already had to shoo from the arm of one of your comfy chairs. The group raises a glass and toasts your hospitality — well, everybody except you know who. Susie, who is married to Jeff and clearly finds Larry as much of an irritant as you’ve begun to, asks, “You can’t clink, Larry?” Why should he? “Because it’s a custom that people do, which is friendly and nice.” Larry takes a sip of water and asks the most peculiar question: “What is this, tap?” It is. His response? “Surprised you don’t have a filter.” Do you A. serve him your coldest glance and witheringly reply, “You have no filter,” or B. ask him to leave your home? If you’re Marilyn, you do both.Susie Essman, who has been the show’s true superego, and Larry David in Episode 5 of Season 12.Warner Brothers DiscoveryThese stories hail from “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” which is scheduled to deliver its final episode on April 7, after 12 seasons and 24 years on HBO. In each incident, bald, bespectacled, wiry, wealthy Larry has stepped out of line, once physically, to defend or offend. I went back and watched the whole series and would like to report that television has never had anything like this show, nothing as uncouth and contradictory and unhinged and yet somehow under a tremendous amount of thematic control, nothing whose calamity doubles as a design for living. It presents the American id at war with its puritanical superego. Sometimes Larry is the one. Sometimes he’s the other. The best episodes dare him to inhabit the two at once, heretic and Talmudist.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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    in Theater

    Howard Atlee, Showman Who Promoted Dramas and Dogs, Dies at 97

    As a press agent, he had his first big hit with “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” In dog competitions, his first big hit was a dachshund named Virginia.Howard Atlee, an eclectic publicist who represented award-winning shows during a now bygone Broadway era and, as an avocation, also bred dachshunds that won best in show at dog competitions, died on March 15 in Silver Spring, Md. He was 97.His death, in a hospital, was announced by his friend and caretaker, Harpreet Singh.Transplanted from an Ohio city of 10,000, Mr. Atlee set his sights on Broadway after attending his first professionally staged production while serving in the Navy in Boston. After he was discharged, he was a theater major in college.As a publicist, he would help launch the career of the playwright Edward Albee by promoting his first full-length play, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,” at the Billy Rose Theater in 1962. Some critics dismissed it as salacious, but Howard Taubman raved in The New York Times that it was written by “a born dramatist” and “marks a further gain for a young writer becoming a major figure of our stage.”Mr. Atlee also helped found the Negro Ensemble Company, which offered opportunities to fledgling Black actors and other theater professionals, including would-be publicists.In 1956, when he was 30 and working as a press agent for a summer theater in Camden, Maine, Mr. Atlee began what became more or less a behind-the-scenes gig, even for a press agent accustomed to operating backstage.“One day driving to the theater I saw a kennel,” he told The New York Times in 1970. “I stopped, and when I left I owned a smooth dachshund.”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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    With ‘Succession’ Complete, the Roys’ Next Takeover Is the Stage

    Audiences are flocking to shows with Jeremy Strong, Sarah Snook and other alums of the acclaimed HBO series.There seems to be a secret ingredient to stage success this season: a stint on “Succession.”So many “Succession” alums are onstage in New York and London that the show’s creator, Jesse Armstrong, has been dashing from theater to theater, trying to catch the work of his colleagues. On a recent trip to New York, he saw four shows featuring “Succession” alums, including a revival of Henrik Ibsen’s “An Enemy of the People,” one of the hottest tickets on Broadway thanks to its star performer, Jeremy Strong, and “The Effect,” an Off Broadway play written by Lucy Prebble, who is also among the producers and writers of “Succession.” In London, Armstrong saw “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” a critically-acclaimed, one-woman adaptation of the Oscar Wilde classic starring Sarah Snook, and is booked to see “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” starring Brian Cox.“We took a lot from New York theater,” Armstrong said, nodding to the many stage actors and playwrights who helped make “Succession” a success, “and I hope this season we are giving something back.”Arian Moayed, who played the investor Stewy Hosseini in “Succession” and starred in a Broadway revival of Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” last year, theorized that the show had some theater-like attributes. “Part of what was cool about the show was that we shot it in a very one-act-y kind of way,” said Moayed. There are so many “Succession” alums onstage that one small downtown theater company in New York, Bedlam, advertised its current show, “The Assassination of Julius Caesar as told by William Shakespeare and George Bernard Shaw,” as “STARRING NO ONE FROM SUCCESSION.”Here is a look at where the Roys and their retainers are onstage now.Brian CoxBrian Cox as James Tyrone in “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” left, and as the distant patriarch Logan Roy in “Succession.”From left: Johan Persson; Graeme Hunter/HBOIn “Succession,” Cox played Logan Roy, the merciless media mogul at the heart of the series. Cox, a veteran stage actor (his résumé includes five Broadway shows), is now starring in London’s West End in a revival of Eugene O’Neill’s “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.”Jeremy StrongJeremy Strong as Dr. Thomas Stockmann in “An Enemy of the People,” left, and as Logan’s ambitious, wounded son Kendall in the HBO series.From left: Sara Krulwich/The New York Times; HBO, via Associated PressWe 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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    Willy Wonka’s Unknown Lands a New Acting Gig in London

    The internet latched on to 16-year-old Felicia Dawkins’ performance as The Unknown at a shambolic Willy Wonka-inspired event. This weekend, she’s heading to a bigger and scarier stage in London.On one chilly evening in March, after the sun had set and when most school-aged children were begrudgingly starting their homework, Felicia Dawkins, 16, enthusiastically hopped on the phone from Scotland to share that her life had changed — for the better.She introduced herself with the kind of bubbly energy and giddiness that only a teenager can radiate. It is the same energy that drew millions of viewers to her TikTok account, where she unveiled herself as a key participant in a Willy Wonka-themed event that had gone so poorly that its memes briefly took over large portions of the internet and international news coverage went on for days.That event, in Glasgow in late February, failed to create the dazzling experience it promised. The fallout — in true internet fashion — was swift and brutal. Organizers quickly shut down the event and promised full refunds to disgruntled families.In the aftermath, the internet latched on to one of the event’s more inexplicable characters, known only as “The Unknown,” played by Felicia. Footage of her performance as an evil chocolate maker who lives in the walls of the factory, which included emerging from behind a mirror to the cries of children, spread widely online, kicking off the teenager’s 15 minutes of fame.She’s capitalizing now, taking her scaring talents south for a guest appearance at the London Dungeon, a theatrical thrill attraction in the shadow of the city’s London Eye, this weekend. The company reached out to Felicia shortly after her viral moment to invite her to train with the performance team and appear in the attraction. “We could see she has a real passion and talent, for theater and interactions with guests,” Richard Quincey, the head of performance at London Dungeon and South Bank Attractions, said in a statement.Felicia’s mother, Janet Dawkins, said she had mixed emotions about the Wonka event failing so miserably, and so publicly. “Everything led to her getting all of this, all these opportunities,” Ms. Dawkins said. “So, I can’t really say that I’m mad about anything that went down, if I’m honest.”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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    in Television

    ‘Sugar’ Review: In a Lonely Place With Colin Farrell

    This Apple TV+ mystery celebrates and subverts film noir.This much I can tell you: Colin Farrell plays a private detective in “Sugar.” He has a license. We see it being handed to him and everything.I can also tell you that his character, John Sugar, is not an ordinary private detective, in ways that go beyond his fetishization of the film noir heroes he emulates. But I can’t really get into it because “Sugar” — which premieres Friday on Apple TV+ with two of its eight episodes — is a show with a congenital vulnerability to spoilers.The show is the first television project of Mark Protosevich, whose short list of screenplays across more than two decades includes “I Am Legend” and Spike Lee’s remake of the South Korean revenge drama “Oldboy.” Based on “Sugar,” it is fair to guess that he shares his protagonist’s obsession with noir.The show opens with a short black-and-white preamble, set in Tokyo, that echoes the premise of Akira Kurosawa’s great 1963 crime thriller “High and Low.” Then Sugar returns to his home base in Los Angeles and steps into the plot of Roman Polanski’s “Chinatown,” agreeing to look for the missing granddaughter of a legendary Hollywood producer, Jonathan Siegel. The intimidating mogul is played by James Cromwell, who serves as a living link to another obvious influence, Curtis Hanson’s “L.A. Confidential.”The genre worship goes beyond that kind of easy homage, however. Sugar is an acolyte of classic noir, watching the old films at every opportunity and discussing them in Farrell’s genre-obligatory voice-over narration. Bolder yet, scenes of Sugar in action are intercut with clips from iconic films. A threat of violence is carried out, in tandem, by Farrell and Robert Mitchum (“The Night of the Hunter”); a nighttime drive across Los Angeles by Farrell and Amy Ryan, who plays a woman caught up in Sugar’s case, is shared with Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame (“In a Lonely Place”).These frequent past-in-present moments are probably not as exciting or sensual as they were in Protosevich’s imagination, but they do the job thematically: We see that the codes of noir and the lonely heroism of the private eye have shaped what it means to be a man for Sugar, a do-gooder with an aversion to gunplay.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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    Stephen Colbert Says Trump’s ‘April Trials Bring Me Smiles’

    “The Late Show” host changed up the adage about spring after Donald Trump had a bad day in court.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.‘April Trials Bring Me Smiles’Former President Donald Trump has suffered setbacks in court the last few days, including a ruling against him on Thursday in his classified documents case.Stephen Colbert said he’s changing up the “April showers” adage: “Because from now on, it’s April trials bring me smiles.”Late night hosts were also thrilled that, on Wednesday, the judge in Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial refused his proposed delay until after the Supreme Court rules on whether he is immune from prosecution in another case.“Starting April 15, we get to see Donald Trump having to see Stormy Daniels testify about having to see Donald Trump naked.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“[imitating lawyer] Your honor, for reasons that will be all too apparent during her testimony, I’d like to submit into evidence this baby Bella mushroom.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Don Provolone has a long list of charges against him, but I feel like we all want to see him taken down by the porn star one, right? I mean, that’s the fun one. Grab him by the mushroom, Stormy!” — JIMMY KIMMEL“April 15’s going to be a big day for Donald Trump. It’s the first time in history a former president will be held accountable for cheating on his taxes and his wife the same day.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Punchiest Punchlines (Eclipse Edition)“Next Monday, a solar eclipse will totally block out the sun over parts of America, and we’re all looking forward to having one brief moment when you can look up into the sky and see something besides the door of a Boeing airplane plummeting to the ground.” — DESI LYDIC, guest host of “The Daily Show”“But it’s not just a moment for humans. An eclipse offers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Rudy Giuliani to come out and feed during the day.” — DESI LYDIC“It’s really exciting because we haven’t had total darkness outside since November through March.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingThe stand-up comedian Alex Edelman discussed his new HBO special, “Just for Us,” on Thursday’s “Tonight Show.”Also, Check This OutA scene from the documentary “Kim’s Video,” directed by David Redmon and Ashley Sabin.Drafthouse FilmsA new documentary about Kim’s Video tracks a beloved movie collection from downtown New York City to small-town Italy. More

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    What to Watch This Weekend: A Riveting True-Crime Drama

    “Mr. Bates vs. the Post Office,” premiering Sunday on PBS, is a shattering mini-series about a real-life injustice.Toby Jones stars in “Mr. Bates vs. the Post Office.”ITV StudiosLegal thrillers and true-crime sagas often succeed at generating momentum but fail at conveying genuine humanity. “Mr. Bates vs. the Post Office,” debuting Sunday at 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings), succeeds at both; it is a tender and shattering drama and a tense, twisty legal story.Toby Jones stars as Alan Bates, a British sub-postmaster who radiates decency and integrity. He’s convinced — as are we, immediately — that his new Post Office-issued kiosk is the source of grave accounting errors, but dozens of calls lead him nowhere. He is told, repeatedly, that he’s the only person encountering any problems, and the Post Office fires him and accuses him of theft. With the support of his thoughtful wife, Suzanne (Julie Hesmondhalgh, superb), he vows to clear his name.Thus begins a 20-year saga, one of baffling malfeasance by the British Post Office that led to widespread suffering, with hundreds of people falsely accused of crimes. The sub-postmasters were contractually responsible for the perceived shortfalls, which sometimes amounted to tens of thousands of pounds. Some, like Jo (Monica Dolan), pleaded guilty just to avoid jail time. Some served prison sentences not just for crimes they did not commit, but crimes that did not even occur. Some filed for bankruptcy; some died from suicide.“We just gotta trust in the British justice system, and everything’ll be all right,” says Lee (Will Mellor), one of the victims. He might as well be the guy in the horror movie who asks “what’s the worst that could happen?” before walking into a chain saw. When Alan finally manages to organize an advocacy and support group, we get our first glimmers of hope and relief barely poking through the Kafkaesque, viciously punitive morass.“Mr. Bates vs. the Post Office” is true story, but in tabloid parlance, it is an unbelievable true story — the injustice it depicts is so outrageous that it defies comprehension. The show’s real sense of reality, then, flows forth from precise portraiture by the show’s writer, Gwyneth Hughes, and from intimate, grounded performances by Jones and Dolan. By the end of the four episodes, I knew all the characters so well I swear I could pick out birthday presents for them, the heroes and villains both. More

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    Kate Shindle on Why She’s Stepping Down as Actors’ Equity President

    After nine years in the role, she has decided not to seek re-election in May. Her departure comes amid significant turnover in the theater industry.Kate Shindle, who has served as president of Actors’ Equity Association for nine years, is stepping down after a tenure dominated by the coronavirus pandemic that for a time idled all of the labor union’s members.Shindle, 47, said she expected to remain active in the labor movement, but that she was eager to resume working as an actor. The Equity presidency, leading a union that represents more than 51,000 theater actors and stage managers nationwide, is an unpaid, volunteer position. Because of the time required to manage the crises facing the union’s members, Shindle has worked so little as an actor that she hasn’t even qualified for her own union’s health insurance coverage.Her departure comes amid significant turnover in the theater industry. Charlotte St. Martin recently left her position as president of the Broadway League, which is the trade association most often on the opposite side of the bargaining table with Equity, and the heads of many nonprofit theaters are also leaving their positions.“It feels like it’s time,” Shindle said. “We’ve accomplished a lot. And I think turnover is good for organizations. I’ve never been one who wanted to stay until the members threw me out.”Shindle, a former Miss America, will wrap up her third and final term on May 23. These are edited excerpts from an interview.Equity imposed very strict rules during the pandemic that had the effect of limiting performance around the country. In hindsight, how do you think about Equity’s role in the state of theater over those years?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