Eliana Willis

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    Review: ‘The Counterfeit Opera’ on Little Island Falls Short

    At Little Island, “The Counterfeit Opera” falls short of its wildly successful historical models.After weeks of rain that interrupted rehearsals, conditions seemed perfect at the start of “The Counterfeit Opera” Wednesday on Little Island, with balmy temperatures and zero chance of precipitation. As members of the cast swarmed the stage shouting questions into the steeply raked rows of the amphitheater, conditions also seemed ripe for some political rabble-rousing.After all, this show with a libretto by Kate Tarker and music by Dan Schlosberg was billed as a new take on John Gay’s “Beggar’s Opera,” which punctured the cultural pretensions of 18th-century London and inspired Brecht’s darker indictment of social inequality in “The Threepenny Opera” (1928).“Can you afford your rent?”“No!” the audience shouted back.“Can you afford health insurance?”“No!”“Can you afford to support a lawless, self-serving government of con men?”This time, the “no” came out as a roar.At that point, it almost seemed possible that a revolution might start up right here on this artificial island developed by the billionaire Barry Diller. But as the sun set, the heat drained out of the day and with it the performance. With toothless satire, goofy humor and an absence of memorable tunes, “The Counterfeit Opera” falls short of its wildly successful historical models.The closing chorus — “Class wars repeat. Con men don’t sleep. Fight to break the dark spell of a world made of deceit!” — was met with mild-mannered applause and a version of a standing ovation that masks competition for the exits. The meteorological chance of political action breaking out was back to zero.More unforgivably, perhaps, the piece fails to infuse the material with a distinct New York flavor. Aside from a few quips at the expense of Boston and New Jersey, this self-declared “Beggar’s Opera for a Grifter’s City” feels like it could unfold anywhere.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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    Review: Jean Smart, Gritty and Poetic in ‘Call Me Izzy’

    The “Hacks” star returns to Broadway after 25 years in a triumph for her, if not for the old-fashioned, flowery play about spouse abuse.Two things can happen when a big star appears in a small play. She can crush it, or she can crush it.The first is almost literal: She leaves the story in smithereens beneath her glamorous feet. The second is colloquial: She’s a triumph, lifting the story to her level.Returning to Broadway after 25 years in “Call Me Izzy,” which opened Thursday at Studio 54, Jean Smart crushes it in the good way.Naturally, Smart plays the title character, a poor Louisiana housewife who writes poems on the sly. In the manner of such vehicles, she also plays everyone else, including Ferd (her abusive husband), Rosalie (a nosy neighbor), Professor Heckerling (a community college instructor) and the Levitsbergs (a couple who have endowed a poetry fellowship).You could probably write the play from that information alone, but I’m not sure you’d achieve the level of old-fashioned floweriness and deep-dish pathos that the actual author, Jamie Wax, has achieved.For this is quite self-consciously a weepie, one that with its allusions to Melville’s lyrical prose (“Moby-Dick” begins with the phrase “Call me Ishmael”) aspires to poetry itself. The play’s first words are an incantation: six synonyms for “blue” as Izzy drops toilet cleaner tablets in the tank. (“Swirlin’ cerulean” is one.) Shakespeare comes next, after a visit to a local library she didn’t know existed. Ears opened, she is soon devising sonnets of her own.This she does in secret, lest Ferd, who sees her hobby as a betrayal, should discover the evidence and beat her up. (He has been doing that with some regularity since their infant son died years earlier.) In a detail that’s a few orders of magnitude too cute, Izzy’s sanctum is the bathroom, where she scratches out her lines in eyebrow pencil, on reams of toilet paper.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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    ‘And Just Like That …’ Season 3, Episode 3 Recap: An Expensive Date

    Carrie flies to Virginia for a lunch with her “boyfriend,” Aidan. Seema tags along. It is unclear why either is really going.Season 3, Episode 3: ‘Carrie Golightly’They say Virginia is for lovers. They do not say Virginia is for casual lunches and sleeping alone in a guesthouse.In Episode 3, it is Carrie who visits Aidan at his home, but not because her “boyfriend” (I’m still using quotes around that word and you can’t stop me) did something crazy like invite her. It is because Virginia is on a list of locations Carrie could go to promote her work, along with sexier options like Google’s Palo Alto office and Austin’s South by Southwest festival.First of all, why does Carrie even have to choose? She is a childless cat lady with no looming deadlines. What is stopping her from hitting up all three to boost her clout in preparation for an upcoming foray into historical fiction?But Williamsburg, Va. is the only place our gal wants to go because it’s vaguely near Aidan, and she thinks that if she pops down south, cool as a cucumber, “easy breezy,” with no expectations, Aidan might be willing to meet her for a quick meal. Because the bar for this relationship is in the basement.The saddest part about all this is that Carrie feels she needs a cover story in the first place. She can say, “I love you,” to Aidan, but apparently, she can’t simply say, “I want to see you.” And that’s really Aidan’s fault; she is just playing by his rules. But this game sucks.Thankfully, Miranda is in touch with her judgy side, as she can’t stop cracking jokes about Carrie venturing over the river and through the woods for merely a bite to eat with her beau. Yet, Miranda is concocting a cover story of her own. After some bad luck in the romance department this season that included a tryst with a nun and a snub from a straight “guacamole girl,” Miranda is finally sweet on someone she would make sense with: Joy (Dolly Wells) the BBC producer.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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    ‘The Survivors’ Is a Polished and Potent Murder Mystery

    Based on the book by Jane Harper, this six-part Australian drama takes place in a coastal Tasmanian town, where the bodies keep surfacing.Perhaps all of streaming television is one giant conspiracy to persuade us not to dream of beach town living. They’re the murder capitals of TV, these towns, with their craggy shores and generational secrets, their prodigal sons and nosy outsiders. Stay away from the water! Reject those quaint houses and majestic vistas! This is not a place of honor!“The Survivors,” a six-episode Australian murder mini-series on Netflix, is a tasty, polished instantiation of the form. Based on the book by Jane Harper, the coastal misery here takes place in Tasmania, where Kieran (Charlie Vickers) is returning home to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the night of a terrible storm. Kieran himself nearly drowned, and his brother and a friend died trying to save him.Those were not the only two people who died that night. A teen girl, Gabby, also disappeared and presumably drowned, but she is rarely acknowledged in all the public grieving. In the present day, a young woman who was conducting her own investigation into Gabby’s death turns up dead, and now a whole other mystery is crying out to be solved.Though it covers a lot of familiar angles, “The Survivors” outshines most of its brethren. The relationships here are knotty, the characters multidimensional in intriguing, moving ways. People can be both wonderful and cruel, loving but maybe not loving enough, loyal but also dishonest.Mia (Yerin Ha), Kieran’s wife, was Gabby’s best friend, and now she isn’t sure how to relate to Gabby’s bereft mom and sister, who disagree with each other about the need to investigate Gabby’s death further. Kieran’s mother, Verity (Robyn Malcolm), struggles with grief and blame — and care taking. Kieran’s father, Brian (Damien Garvey), has worsening dementia, and when the police grill him about what he might have witnessed, his recollections are fractured, mixed up.But who doesn’t struggle with painful memories? Doesn’t everyone have something he or she wants to forget? There’s plenty of sorrow to go around, even as the characters argue about who has it the worst, desperate for their suffering to be beheld, to be legitimized.The show picks up as it goes, and its plot lines nest like Russian dolls, giving the story a real sense of heft and potency. More

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    Trump’s New ‘Apprentice’ Boardroom: The Oval Office

    The stately room has long been a site of diplomacy. But the reality-star president often does not come there to make friends.“This is going to be great television, I will say that.”So concluded President Trump after a stunning Oval Office confrontation in February, in front of live cameras, in which he and Vice President JD Vance took turns castigating President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and held out the prospect of withholding support for the country invaded by Russia.At a May meeting with President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, Mr. Trump brought his own television, playing video clips to support his false claims that white South African farmers have been the victims of genocide. The ambush, which also found Mr. Trump showing a news image actually taken from the Democratic Republic of Congo, left Mr. Ramaphosa scrambling to respond. But again, the cameras broadcast it all.The confrontations were shocking compared with how diplomacy has long been conducted in that stately office. But they were not surprising — at least, not to anyone who had watched Mr. Trump during his 14 seasons as the capricious, demanding host of the NBC business-competition series “The Apprentice.”In his high-drama Oval Office meetings, carried live on cable news, Mr. Trump has created himself a reality show right inside the White House. It is a serial production, tailored to his tastes for attention and drama, in which his guests submit to judgment and win a blessing or a tongue-lashing.The dynamic in these showdowns is oddly similar to the climactic “firings” Mr. Trump conducted on the NBC show. Then, as now, Mr. Trump was installed in a set designed to magnify his power — in “The Apprentice,” it was a sleek “boardroom” custom-built to improve on Trump Tower’s underwhelming real-life offices.Reality competition shows and Mr. Trump’s politics operate on the same principles: shock value, conflict, shows of dominance. Escalating a fight is almost always better for ratings than defusing one. So it was in Mr. Trump’s TV career; so it is in his administration, whether the tussle is with a world leader or Elon Musk.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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    Ananda Lewis, ’90s MTV Star, Dies at 52

    She said last year that her breast cancer, which she was diagnosed with in 2019, had progressed to Stage 4.Ananda Lewis, a former MTV host who was one of the network’s most popular stars, has died after a long battle with breast cancer. She was 52.Her death was announced by her sister, Dr. Lakshmi Emory, in a social media post late Wednesday. The post did not say when or where Lewis died or give a specific cause.Lewis said last year that her breast cancer, which she first learned she had in 2019, had metastasized and reached a late stage that most doctors would consider incurable.She rose to television stardom in the 1990s as a V.J., or “video jockey,” on MTV, hosting shows including “Hot Zone,” in which she interviewed stars and gave style advice between introducing music videos.In 1999, The New York Times described her as “the hip-hop generation’s reigning It Girl.” “Hot Zone” had made Lewis one of the network’s two most popular stars, the other being Carson Daly, the network said at the time. She also sometimes hosted the network’s hugely popular show “Total Request Live” as well as its “Spring Break” programs.Lewis first gained recognition in the 1990s when she was hired to host “Teen Summit,” a long-running weekly live show on BET that was intended to speak to Black teenagers about current issues. In 1996, she interviewed Hillary Clinton, who was the first lady at the time.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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    Desi Lydic Wants Trump to Leave the Troops Alone

    Hosts ripped into his comment during a speech to troops about former President Joe Biden never having been “the sharpest bulb.”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.‘Two Tacos Short of a Happy Meal’President Donald Trump visited soldiers at Fort Bragg on Tuesday, where he delivered a speech to “his favorite men in uniform who aren’t in the Village People,” Desi Lydic said on Wednesday’s “Daily Show.”“Oh, my God, give these troops a break already! They have to sit through your show, they have to invade Los Angeles, and now they have to parade for you?” — DESI LYDICDuring his speech, Trump attempted to criticize former President Joe Biden’s intelligence, saying, “He’s never been the sharpest bulb.”“He was there to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the army, so, of course, he ended up discussing Joe Biden.” — DESI LYDIC“What a wordsmith. See, see, most people would’ve gone with ‘brightest bulb,’ or ‘sharpest tool,’ but Donald Trump took half of both and smushed them together. That is what makes him the cream of the litter.” — DESI LYDIC“But that’s Trump — he’s not the brightest knife in the drawer. Some say he’s two tacos short of a Happy Meal.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“He wasn’t the sharpest bulb, no. He wasn’t the brightest knife in the drawer.” — JIMMY FALLON“When Trump’s staff told him that he misquoted the idiom, he was, like, ‘Hey, who are you calling an idiom?’” — JIMMY FALLON‘Nothing $300 Million Couldn’t Fix’Elon Musk addressed last week’s tweets concerning President Trump on Wednesday, posting on X: “I regret some of my posts about President @realdonaldtrump last week. They went too far.”Jimmy Fallon said he was shocked: “I didn’t know Elon was programmed to feel human emotion.”“Yeah, apparently, Trump and Elon spoke over the phone on Monday night. Trump was very gracious. He was, like, ‘This is nothing another $300 million donation couldn’t fix.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Which ones went too far? Was it the one where you called for him to be impeached and replaced by JD Vance? Was it the one where you said his big, beautiful bill was a disgusting abomination? Was it the one that said he wouldn’t have won the election without you buying it for him? Or the one where you insinuated he is a pedophile on the Epstein list? I really would like to know.” — JIMMY KIMMELWe 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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    ‘Angry Alan’ Review: John Krasinski Explores the Manosphere

    In an Off Broadway play, the former Jim Halpert of Dunder Mifflin dives into a darker world of male grievance.Roger is jazzed. He’s spent money he doesn’t have, including the child-support payment he owes, on a gold ticket to a men’s rights conference. Nor does the gathering disappoint. The Detroit hotel where it takes place is brimming with guys taking back their power. But guess what’s best? Angry Alan, the internet personality who opened Roger’s eyes to the evils of the gynocracy, is scheduled to speak. This is going to be great!For Roger, anyway. Not so much for us.It is perhaps a clue to the over-thick ironies of Penelope Skinner’s “Angry Alan,” which opened Tuesday at the new Studio Seaview, that the horde of inspired men at the conference is represented by, count ’em, two dummies and some faceless paintings on a backdrop. Offered in Sam Gold’s staging as a joke, like the rest of their gender, they are mere markers in a loaded argument. Even Roger, though played exceedingly well by John Krasinski, is a place holder: a straw man incarnate.Krasinski works hard to disguise that. As he proved during nine seasons as the gemütlich Jim Halpert on “The Office,” he performs charm, titrated with a satire of charm, very well. Here, in a role that runs to more than 10,000 words, some of them Roger’s and some of them his unflattering imitations of the women around him, that good-guy appeal has a lot of work to do.Because Roger is not a good guy. Though he believes himself to be supportive and reliable, the play keeps dropping heavy hints to the contrary. His first wife got uncontested custody of their son. The son doesn’t speak to him. He lost his BMW-level job at AT&T under unexplained circumstances, and is now the dairy manager at Kroger. Perhaps worst, he is paranoid about his girlfriend, Courtney, who has enrolled in a nude life-drawing class at a community college. Her classmates wear T-shirts that say things like Mind Your Own Uterus.Courtney’s recent behavior and new friends are the immediate cause of Roger’s descent into the manosphere. There, Angry Alan teaches him that women, far from being victims of a male-dominated society, run the world and have done so for decades. Men must fight back to restore the proper balance.Perhaps these loathsome ideas seemed like news in 2018, when “Angry Alan” premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. (Don Mackay, credited with creating the play with Skinner, played Roger there and, later, in London.) The title character might have introduced audiences to recently emerged manopshere figures like the Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson, who advocates a return to traditional gender roles, and the British influencer Andrew Tate, a self-proclaimed misogynist with millions of followers.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