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    ‘New York, New York’ Review: The Big Apple, Without Bite

    Based loosely on the 1977 film, a show about performers making it in the big city comes to St. James Theater with the sharper edges of its source material sanded off.There’s a big new Broadway musical called “New York, New York,” and it’s based on the Martin Scorsese film bearing the same title.Sort of.Both the movie and the show have lead characters named Jimmy Doyle and Francine Evans, both are set immediately following World War II and both prominently feature a certain anthem by John Kander and Fred Ebb. You know, the one whose first five notes, plunked on a piano, are enough to automatically prompt the brain to fill in the rest.And it is that title song alone, rather than the movie, that is the true inspiration for the sprawling, unwieldy, surprisingly dull show that opened on Wednesday night at the St. James Theater.Extrapolating from its lyrics, “New York, New York,” directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman, is about the people wearing those “vagabond shoes,” the ones who “want to wake up in the city that doesn’t sleep.” Jimmy (Colton Ryan) and Francine (Anna Uzele) now rub elbows with characters dreamed up by the book writer David Thompson with Sharon Washington. They are musicians and singers, strivers and dreamers. And sadly, none make much of an impression, mired as they are in a syrupy muck of good sentiments and grating civic cheerleading.As the various story lines move toward their inevitable intersection, any sign of wrinkle or kink has been smoothed out. The most prominent victims are the reimagined Jimmy and Francine, who have been flattened into cardboard figures. The film’s Jimmy, portrayed by Robert De Niro, was an obnoxious, abusive, narcissistic jerk of a sax player who fell for Liza Minnelli’s Francine, a passionate singer who worked her way up from canary in big bands to solo star; their volatile relationship would not pass the smell test with 2023 audiences.The new Jimmy is merely a minor irritant who has graduated from good saxophonist to brilliant multi-instrumentalist equally at ease playing jazz with the African American trumpeter Jesse (John Clay III) and Latin grooves with the Cuban percussionist Mateo (Angel Sigala), whose own stories are delineated in broad strokes. That Jimmy ends up as a human bridge between the musical styles of Harlem and Spanish Harlem is quite a feat for a white-bread Irish kid. (A Jewish violinist played by Oliver Prose mostly exists on the sideline.)Meanwhile, Francine comes across as a spunky, empowered free spirit plugged into a 21st-century outlet. A Black woman, she overcomes the treacherous waters of the music scene with relative ease, and setbacks seem to glide off her.Ryan (“Girl From the North Country,” Connor in the film of “Dear Evan Hansen”) and Uzele (“Once on This Island,” Catherine Parr in “Six”) are technically fine, but they don’t fill characters drawn as sketches. They never find the ache that drives both Francine and Jimmy, nor the sexual attraction between them.This creates a central void that further restrains the overly polished book — friction feeds fiction.And if anybody knows that, it’s John Kander. An effective mix of louche syncopation, unabashed romanticism and biting sarcasm long set Kander and Ebb apart on Broadway, from “Cabaret” to “Chicago” to their brilliant earlier collaboration with Stroman, “The Scottsboro Boys.”The score for “New York, New York” juxtaposes new songs Kander wrote with Lin-Manuel Miranda, like the propulsive “Music, Money, Love,” with older ones set to lyrics by Ebb. Of those, the best known (you-know-what and “But the World Goes ’Round”) were pulled from the Scorsese movie, while others were repurposed, such as “A Quiet Thing” from the 1965 show “Flora the Red Menace,” and “Marry Me” from “The Rink” (1984).But no matter when or who they were written with, too many of the songs lack Kander and Ebb’s signature serrated edge. Partly this has to do with Sam Davis’s arrangements and music direction, which have a deficit of oomph, and thus further reinforce the show’s sexlessness — there is no pulse when there is no swing. (Kander and Ebb were capable of that more than most Broadway creators: Just listen to, say, the fantastically driving “Gimme Love” from “Kiss of the Spider Woman.”)Francine, who comes across as an empowered free spirit, seems to overcome the treacherous waters of the music scene and racial animosities of the 1940s with relative ease, our critic writes.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe new show’s rah-rah tone eventually becomes numbing. This is all the more frustrating because ambivalence is baked into the title song, which alludes to the city’s mercurial temperament. “If I can make it there/I’d make it anywhere” — we’re in a tough town — is followed by “It’s up to you/New York, New York,” which deprives the singer of agency. But the show follows the triumphant template set by Frank Sinatra rather than the more ambiguous one imparted by Minnelli. In this rose-colored vision, trials are temporary, everybody gets along, and nobody runs up against New York’s bad side.Stroman has a rare affinity for classic Broadway showmanship, as illustrated by her work on “Crazy for You” and “The Producers,” but she can also veer into radical stylization, as in “The Scottsboro Boys.”Here, the flashes of inspiration are few and far between. A highlight is a tap number staged on high beams, with a couple inscribed with “JK 3181927” and “FE 481928” — Kander and Ebb’s birth dates, and two of the Easter eggs lurking in Beowulf Boritt’s vibrant set, dominated by towering fire escapes. The magical moment known as Manhattanhenge is evoked with a terrific assist from the lighting designer Ken Billington. And there is, as always, the visceral thrill of watching a big band rise up to the stage, when Jimmy’s combo kicks off the title song at the end.It is not much to remember from a show that clocks in at nearly three hours and had such formidable potential. “You can be anyone here,” Jesse says at one point, “do anything here.”If only “New York, New York” had interpreted that line not as a reassurance, but as a challenge to dare.New York, New YorkAt the St. James Theater, Manhattan; newyorknewyorkbroadway.com. Running time: 2 hours 40 minutes. More

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    ‘Fatal Attraction’ Review: Here’s Why She Did It

    A somber, psychology-heavy series tries to take the “erotic thriller” out of the erotic thriller.When is a rabbit an Easter egg? When it hops onscreen in “Fatal Attraction,” the oddly tranquil new series inspired by the infamous, bunny-boiling 1987 film of the same title.It’s not a major spoiler to report that this little white cutie avoids the stockpot. Gentle homage to the tawdry, garishly effective original — one of the primary reasons no one calls their productions “erotic thrillers” anymore — is the rule. No one is drowned in a bathtub, but there is a joking reference to the inadvisability of having a tub in the house.Nearly everything about this new “Fatal Attraction,” whose eight-episode season premieres Sunday on Paramount+, has been toned down, often to the point of torpor. The only thing that retains the original’s raciness is the new version of the echt-’80s title font — the “Fatal” still looks like a signature scrawled on a bar tab between bumps of cocaine.Major surgery was inevitable for source material that turned a single, sexually active woman into a horror-movie monster who threatened the sanctity of a suburban family. If that weren’t sufficiently toxic by 2020s standards, the film also cleverly framed the woman’s psychosis as feminism run amok, generating sympathy for the poor upper-middle-class, white male sap who stumbled into an affair with her.So Alexandra Cunningham (“Dirty John,” “Desperate Housewives”) and Kevin J. Hynes (“Perry Mason”), working with the film’s writer, James Dearden, have reimagined “Fatal Attraction” in myriad ways, none of which are erotic and few of which are thrilling. From the moment Dan Gallagher — played by a disheveled, halting Joshua Jackson, subbing in for the sleek Michael Douglas of the film — kicks off the series by shuffling into a parole hearing, the show feels as if it’s shouldering a responsibility, weighed down by the need to apologize for Hollywood’s past misconduct.Dan is up for parole because in this new universe, he has served 15 years for the murder of his stalker, Alex Forrest (Lizzy Caplan). Responding not just to shifting mores but also to the demands of serial storytelling — the show runs close to a full eight hours — Cunningham and Hynes have turned “Fatal Attraction” into a murder mystery, as Dan, a former Los Angeles prosecutor, tries to figure out who really killed Alex while awkwardly reconciling with his ex-wife, Beth (Amanda Peet), and daughter, Ellen (Alyssa Jirrels).The mystery plays out in leisurely L.A.-noir style, introducing clouds of suspects as the show jumps back and forth in time and stretches out its thin narrative by replaying entire episodes from different points of view. The temporal shifts also serve to educate both Dan and the audience about the noxious privilege and entitlement that precipitated his downfall. (This portion of the show benefits greatly from the presence of Toby Huss as Mike, Dan’s best friend and a former cop who was collateral damage in Dan’s debacle.)But apparently converting “Fatal Attraction” into a reasonably diverting crime drama wasn’t enough to remove the stain of the original. So the series also offers an elaborate psychodramatic narrative embellishment — a sort of study guide — expressed in frequent discussions of the work of Carl Jung and his collaborator Toni Wolff. Ellen, in the present, is a psychology student, and we also hear recitations of the fairy tales she delights in as a child. The allegorical, slightly metafictional notions are rammed home: a character who gives Ellen a book of tales is called “an actual fairy godmother”; a pet dog is named Ziggy, short for Sigmund.Ellen’s research leads her to reassess the behavior of her father’s murdered nemesis, and the greatest labor this “Fatal Attraction” takes on is its effort to turn Alex into an understandable, even sympathetic, character. Dan is a chastened version of the narcissistic jerk Douglas played in the film, but the vivid hysteria of Glenn Close’s Oscar-nominated performance as Alex is mostly replaced in Caplan’s version by a jumpy vulnerability, and Alex now gets a back story to explain her sociopathic obsessiveness.This virtue-signaling therapy noir manages, in its peculiarly studious way, to meld the racy ’80s and the censorious ’20s, and it’s not exactly hard to watch. It is competently made and nice to look at, it has a knockoff version of a languorous Southern California vibe, and Caplan and Jackson are both engaging. (Jackson gets extra credit — he has to compensate for hideous haircuts in both the past and present time lines.) They get good support from a large cast that includes Huss, Toks Olagundoye as one of Dan’s former co-workers, Vivien Lyra Blair as the young Ellen and the scream queen Dee Wallace as the owner of the rabbit.What’s missing is the metabolism, the transgressive energy and — at least in the context of its time — the glossy sexiness that the director Adrian Lyne brought to the film. The thing you wonder as you watch the series isn’t why they made the changes they did, but why they bothered making the show at all. Wasn’t there other intellectual property in the Paramount vaults that would have made the jump more easily? (It worked for “Top Gun,” after all.)And what’s noticeable is that despite all the modifications, Cunningham and Hynes didn’t change the basic emotional and psychological architecture: The crucial moments are still Alex’s bursts of antisocial behavior and Dan’s violent reaction to them, and the story is still strung on those slasher-film tentpoles. (If you’ve seen the original, you’ll know exactly when a particular pair of eyes is going to pop open, even though the moment is campy and completely out of character with the rest of the series.) They did their best to scrub the misogyny out of “Fatal Attraction,” but at the end of the day it’s still about the fear of a crazy lady. More

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    ‘Ted Lasso’ Season 3, Episode 7 Recap: Restaurant Week

    Nate pursues a crush, Sam endures a lesson in politics, and the team discovers the cost of “Total Football.”Season 3, Episode 7: ‘The Strings That Bind Us’The episode opens upon a sunny London morning, with stores opening to the lovely song “Dreams” by the Cranberries. And not just any stores: a bakery featuring a rainbow of macaroons in the window; a florist shop whose fragrant, colorful wares are being laid out for the day.An ever-training Jamie is pulling Roy on (of course!) a bicycle, while the latter growls “Mush!” And Nate, whom we didn’t see at all in last week’s Amsterdam episode, pauses as he passes his favorite restaurant, A Taste of Athens. He waves to Jade, the once-hostile hostess with whom he shared some conciliatory baklava and wine two episodes ago, after his model-date ditched him. Jade is surprised at the attention but waves back, and Nate smiles more happily than we’ve seen him since, a season ago? Longer? Oh, the heck with it, let’s go on directly from here.NateI won’t lie. It’s nice to see Nate smile again, and not just any smile: the smile of innocence and insecurity that all but defined his character in Season 1. Jade’s abrupt transformation over baklava may have strained credulity, but it was nonetheless the kind of understated feel-good moment that has long been a “Ted Lasso” specialty. My ongoing prediction that Good Nate would ultimately overcome Bad Nate is looking more and more likely. (A bit more on this — and on what was arguably missing from this episode — in a moment.)Later, Nate’s mother texts to urge him not to forget his sister’s birthday, and he recommends A Taste of Athens, his treat. Now, he would almost certainly have done this under any circumstances: He has made abundantly clear that the restaurant is his family’s default for celebrations of any kind. But now it’s also clear that he has another motive in addition.No such luck, however. Mom has decided to cook at home. “Please don’t be late. You know how your father gets,” she texts, in a brief reminder that Nate’s dad is one of the show’s many problematic fathers.So Nate distracts himself like any lovestruck fool in the age of smartphones, asking Siri, “How can you tell if a girl likes you or is just being kind to you?” The succinct answer supplied by Apple’s engineers: “You can’t.”This is not, of course, how Siri responds to this particular query in real life — I asked my own iPhone the same question and was presented with multiple websites on the topic. And yes, I now fear that some distant corporate subroutine will begin inundating me with ads for dating sites.But back to Nate, who asks his mother and sister the same question at dinner and receives precisely the same response. But after his father, niece and brother-in-law have left, Nate’s sister cajoles his mother into sharing with him the “map” his father had made for her before their first date, showing how they had been growing closer — in geographic terms, to be clear — for years. It’s settled. Nate will ask Jade out.His first effort, however, is abortive. “There’s something I’d like to ask you,” he stammers, “umm … would you … excuse me one moment?” He takes a quick trip to the bathroom — I can’t be the only one who was pleading “Please don’t spit on the mirror!” — where he has an epiphany. Like his father, he will construct a grand gesture-cum-visual-aid to woo Jade.So he puts the decorative-shoebox skills he has honed with his niece to work. And though the box is crushed in the street, Jade says yes to dinner and, despite Nate’s fears, does not stand him up.So, what, as I suggested above, did I think was missing? We only saw half of Nate’s ongoing evolution. He is apparently reverting back toward Good Nate but what does that look like at work, particularly in relation to his boss, the Mephistophelean sleazeball Rupert? We don’t know. Glimpses of what remains of Bad Nate will have to wait for another episode.SamWe first see Sam visiting his own restaurant, Ola, where he asks his chef, Simi (Precious Mustapha), whether there’s an open table on Friday. After a rowdy laugh, she replies that the place is “booked for months. The ‘waiting list’ is a lie we tell people.” But when told that Sam’s “very special guest” is his father, traveling all the way from Nigeria, she agrees to work something out. Yes! Sam’s dad, whom we’ve only heard over the phone to date! The best father — with the possible exception of Higgins, whose parenting of five boys we rarely witness — on a show full of lousy ones!Juno Temple, left, and Hannah Waddingham in “Ted Lasso.”Apple TV+Simi, meanwhile, is furious that the (fictional) U.K. Home Secretary, Brinda Barot, is turning away a boatload of Nigerian refugees from English shores. So Sam being Sam, he sends a mild tweet intended to appeal to her “better angels.” Barot’s Twitter reply, however, falls decidedly short of angelic: “Footballers should leave the politics to us and just shut up and dribble.” For those who may not recall, the show is directly channeling a 2018 quote from the Fox News host Laura Ingraham, who said the NBA stars LeBron James and Kevin Durant should leave politics alone and “shut up and dribble.”The tweets escalate on both sides, until Sam, on the day of his father’s arrival, goes by the restaurant to find it in ruins: the door smashed in, mirrors shattered, tables and chairs broken into kindling. But Sam’s father (played by Nonso Anozie, whom I remember best as the actor saddled with the line “I invoke Sumai” in Season 2 of “Game of Thrones”) preaches patience and forgiveness. “Don’t fight back, fight forward,” he counsels.At the end of the episode, Sam takes his father to see the fractured restaurant, only to find his teammates hard at work repairing it. Now, I confess I’d spent much of the episode trying to remember why Sam had named the restaurant “Ola”; I was planning to recheck Episode 3 and even last season for clues. But no need. When Simi introduces herself to “Mr. Obisanya,” he is having none of it. “Call me ‘Ola,’” he tells her. The look on his face when Bumbercatch re-illuminates the restaurant’s sign is utterly endearing, but still less endearing than the groove he gets into with Sam in the kitchen just before the credits roll.Keeley and JackPresumably having Aurora-Borealised to their hearts’ content last episode, Keeley and Jack mostly limit themselves to coffee this time around, even if those coffees involve signed Jane Austen first editions and jewelry-filled pastry. In between, Keeley — who’d confided to Jack her love of daisies — returns to an office overflowing with them. She is being “love-bombed,” as Rebecca explains, overwhelmed with grand, expensive gestures.A brief aside: When Rebecca compares this love-bombing by Jack to her own wooing by Rupert so many years ago, it is surely a bad sign, no matter how quickly it is waved away. But it also paints Rebecca, deliberately or not, in a somewhat less than appealing light. She accepted a Jaguar from Rupert on their second date? And upon learning that Jack is paying for her and Keeley’s dinner, Rebecca — who is, of course, herself fabulously rich — puts two bottles of 1934 Chateau Cheval Blanc St. Emilion Premier Grand Cru on the tab to go? They sell online for about $2,000 a pop! (Also, is it just me or is it a tad stalker-y for Jack to secretly pay for Keeley and Rebecca’s dinner?)Earlier, in Keeley’s office — the on-again, off-again gag about the opacity of Keeley’s window was a bit much — she wondered about the nature of having a relationship with her boss. (This was the scene for which I waited in vain during last season’s Rebecca-Sam relationship; more on that later.) Jack replies, “We can’t get in trouble because we’re two consenting adults” — this is quite untrue — “and because I’m get-away-with-murder rich.” Which is probably true, but not terribly becoming. And when Keeley presses and Jack compares herself to “everyone connected with Epstein” — well, that’s not the comparison I would be looking for in a romantic partner.Is it just me, or do Rebecca’s Jaguar and Keeley’s Jane Austen, flowers and diamond ring (however quickly returned) stand in stark and probably deliberate contrast to Nate’s grand gesture of a shoe box with glued-on glitter and stars? I see red flags aplenty here — I hadn’t even mentioned Rebecca’s “Sometimes shiny things can tarnish” line — and I’m not sure that any level of love-blindness will ultimately turn them green.The TeamThis was the episode’s weakest link. Following Ted’s hallucinatory reinvention of the Dutch star Johan Cruyff’s 1970s strategy “Total Football” last episode, the coaching staff begins drilling the team in its principles in preparation for their very next match.The first practice, on “conditioning,” is fine. Ditto the second one, on “versatility,” although no matter how “total” Total Football may be, it does not involve swapping out your goalkeeper, especially not in favor of the team’s shortest player. (The Beard-Will swap was modestly amusing, though, and kept to the requisite small dose.)But the “awareness” practice in which the players used red string to tie themselves to one another’s man parts? Count me out. Humor this broad — see also Isaac’s corner kick into Higgin’s office window — has never been a strong suit for “Ted Lasso.” (Given that the show based its episode title on this gag, the writers evidently disagree.)Total Football proves to be a disaster during the first half of the team’s match against Arsenal, with Richmond players colliding all over the field. But at halftime, Good Jamie — who’s beginning to prompt the question “How good can he get?” — suggests he become a facilitator rather than a scorer. And though the team still loses, this plan unleashes a “symphony,” in the words of the match commentators, “with Tartt in the role of conductor.”That said, my favorite part of this story line was Ted’s response when an incredulous Trent asked him if he really intended to swap strategies midseason: “It’s kind of like going on a hike with Robert Frost. It could go either way.”From left, Cristo Fernández, Toheeb Jimoh, Phil Dunster and Moe Hashim in “Ted Lasso.”Apple TV+Odds & endsSee? I’m not alone in doubting the propriety of last season’s Sam-Rebecca relationship. Sam’s father clearly agrees, and I’ll happily be on Team Ola any day of the week.Speaking of Rebecca: She confirms that she and last episode’s mysterious Dutchman did not have sex but shared something that “transcended sex.” It was “Gezelligheid.” Alas, that’s all we get this episode. I, for one, still hope for more.For all of Nate’s positive evolution this episode, it’s still a little disturbing to discover that he’s programmed Siri to address him as “Wunderkind.” He still has a ways to go.I’m sorry, but going back to the early-ish scene of Beard and Ted in the pub: There is no way Ted Lasso knows what “pegging” is. If you don’t know either, feel free to look it up, with caution.In response to Ted’s suggestion that if he’d kept an early beard, he and Coach Beard would look like a ZZ Top cover band, Roy dubs them “Sharp Dressed Men,” before catching himself: “God, I hate what you’ve done to me.” His Sasquatch-themed pun is even better, if unrepeatable here.I mentioned the Cranberries’ “Dreams”.” This was a particularly musical episode, also featuring (among others) the Monkees’ relatively obscure “Sometime in the Morning,” Ray Charles’s “What Would I Do Without You,” Smokey Robinson’s “You Really Got a Hold on Me,” John Fogerty’s “Centerfield,” Primal Scream’s “Rocks,” Supergrass’s “Alright,” and Snoh Aalegra’s “Find Someone Like You.” More

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    Late Night Reacts to Biden’s Bid for Re-Election

    “If the economy collapses, he could just find a never-ending supply of quarters behind your ear,” Desi Lydic joked on the “Daily Show” on Tuesday.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.Gives New Meaning to ‘Eighty-Sixed’On Tuesday, President Biden announced he will run for re-election, and late night responded with some bristling about his age.“The Daily Show” guest host Desi Lydic joked that he wasn’t exactly “running” — he was more accurately “stair lifting for re-election.”“If Joe Biden does win, he would be 86 years old when he reaches the end of his second term, hopefully, which is one reason why 70 percent of Americans don’t think he should run again. And to be fair, 86 is old — not just for president, but for any job. If my Lyft driver rolled up and was 86 years old, I’d be like, ‘Do you need help getting home?’” — DESI LYDIC“But I don’t know, maybe it would be good to have an old man president. If the economy collapses, he could just find a never-ending supply of quarters behind your ear.” — DESI LYDIC“His face could be on money while he is still in office.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Yep, Biden will be the oldest person to ever run for president. So, in two years, he’ll either be leader of the free world or a greeter at Walmart.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Punchiest Punchlines (‘Finish the Job’ Edition)“Biden’s campaign slogan is ‘Finish the job.’ Finish the job. Americans said they’d be happy if he could just finish a story.’” — JIMMY FALLON“President Biden announced today that he will run for a second term and said, ‘Let’s finish the job.’ Yeah, good idea. It would be nice to have a country where a guy could safely retire before he’s 86.” — SETH MEYERS“‘Finish the job’ — it sounds like something your fighter yells in a knockoff version of ‘Mortal Kombat.’” — JIMMY FALLON“According to polls, most Democrats don’t want Biden to run again. Then Biden said, ‘Hey, none of you wanted ‘Avatar 2’ either, but look how that turned out.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Can you imagine if it’s Biden versus Trump again? That’s like going into a diner, and the only things on the menu are 2-day-old egg salad and Donald Trump. I guess I’ll take my chances with the egg salad.” — SETH MEYERSThe Bits Worth WatchingThe actor Natalie Portman recreated iconic roles from her career alongside the host James Corden in his final installment of “Role Call” on “The Late Late Show.”What We’re Excited About on Wednesday NightThe author Judy Blume will talk about the long-awaited film adaptation of her best-selling novel “Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret” on Wednesday’s “Tonight Show.”Also, Check This OutAnne Pasternak, who was appointed director of the Brooklyn Museum in 2015, is part of a wave of women who have risen to lead roles at major museums.Hilary Swift for The New York TimesMore than ever, women are running major museums like the Louvre, the Vatican Museums and the National Gallery of Art. More

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    ‘Summer, 1976’ Review: The Path to Freedom Starts With a Friendship

    Two mothers make a life-altering connection during a play date in this production for the Manhattan Theater Club.Holly and Gretchen. Those are the little girls’ names, so dissimilar in the way they hit the ear: one soft, warm and breathy; the other sharp-edged and cramped. Just like their mothers.The children are 5, maybe 6, when they first play together and hit it off, instant pals suddenly eager to see each other every day. In “Summer, 1976” — David Auburn’s bittersweet, comic memory play — that means their mothers, diametric opposites, will be hanging out a lot, too.This is a fortunate thing for us, the audience. Because in Daniel Sullivan’s sun-dappled Broadway production for Manhattan Theater Club, Laura Linney plays the austere, censorious Diana to Jessica Hecht’s vastly chiller Alice — or, as Diana describes this fresh acquaintance, a “sleepy-eyed little hippie with her shorts and her coconut oil.”“I sort of immediately hated her,” Alice tells us in narrator mode, which she and Diana slip in and out of as they recall the time when they were new to each other.But when Alice reaches into her macramé purse and retrieves a joint (“I only took it out because it was the only way I could imagine getting through the next 10 minutes,” she says), Diana tokes prodigiously to prove she’s not a square. On John Lee Beatty’s lyrically midcentury modern set, summer-lit by Japhy Weideman at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater, the two women get the munchies and have a feast. Nearly by chance, a life-changing friendship takes root.They are a gorgeous duo, these friends: bickering lifelines for each other, vulnerable and too proud. In one narrated stretch, with Hana S. Kim’s projection design aiding our imaginations, Diana and Alice embark on a cross-country road trip, terminating in San Francisco — which seems ideal, not least because it brings to mind Linney’s ’70s heroine Mary Ann Singleton in the mini-series “Tales of the City.”Auburn, a 2001 Pulitzer Prize winner for “Proof,” another richly female-centered drama directed by Sullivan in its premiere, isn’t breaking any ground with theatrical form here. And the white, college-educated, Midwestern young women at the center of this play are a very particular slice of the culture. Stretching from 1976 to 2003, this is a story of profound connection and awakening disquiet, which Sullivan directs with his customary unostentatious lucidity.If “Summer, 1976” feels too comfortable to be fashionable, it’s sharply observant, too, and subtly, insistently feminist — more than the wisp of a two-hander that it might first appear to be. Auburn, who at 53 was about Holly and Gretchen’s age during the Bicentennial, has once again sown a script with riches for actors. Linney and Hecht mine them for all they’re worth.A frustrated artist who teaches at Ohio State University, Diana is a single mother — the kind with family money as a cushion and a rule against Gretchen watching any TV shows that aren’t on PBS. An inveterate snob who judges the worth of her fellow humans by their design choices and the books they read, Diana is harder to like than Alice is — though in Linney’s hands, no less funny or affecting. The second line out of her mouth gets a laugh with its withering disdain for Alice’s daughter.“I didn’t like her child, actually,” Diana says.Diana’s off-puttingness is partially strategic; it keeps her safe from the harm that other people might cause by getting close. But her brittle-perfectionist facade conceals a deep well of insecurity and loneliness, and a reserve of compassion that’s more capacious than we’d guess.Alice, in her flowing peasant dress (costumes are by Linda Cho), is the kind of fluttery, gentle-voiced woman who is routinely underestimated. She’s smarter and more resilient than she lets on, though, and, like Hecht’s terrific performance, admirably sly. A stay-at-home mother with almost zero interest in cooking, cleaning or decorating, Alice is married to Doug, an economist who’s up for tenure at the university and spends the summer buried frantically in his papers. Invested in believing that she’s happy, and that her marriage is, too, Alice looks after Holly, sunbathes in the yard of their modest house and indulges in best-selling paperbacks.One of those novels, Robin Cook’s “Coma,” not published until 1977, is a slight, seemingly calculated cheat on Auburn’s part in a show that’s otherwise meticulous about period accuracy. (See, for glorious example, Diana’s impeccably turquoise-shadowed eyelids — as well as her hair, styled by Annemarie Bradley, and Alice’s, styled by Jasmine Burnside.)A medical thriller, “Coma” is also about a woman who enters an overwhelmingly male professional world and faces sexist pushback. Not that the play gets into this; it’s just a signal that’s there for picking up.But both Alice and Diana, who meet through a campus child care co-op designed by Doug as an economic model, have seen their creative and career ambitions derailed. They belong to a generation of women who came of age in time for the sexual revolution and took advantage of that freedom pre-Roe v. Wade. Still, there remained the practical matter of how pregnancy could permanently rearrange their lives, and the entrenched expectation that a married woman puts her husband’s career first.Diana got pregnant in art school during a fling with a glassblower; Alice dropped out of graduate school to marry Doug, then had Holly. Columbus — a staid heartland city named for that avatar of heedless white male adventuring — was never the aim for either of them.“Great things were promised me, Alice,” Diana says. “I promised them to myself.”In that red, white and blue summer, they question what’s gone wrong with their American dreams. And they start, with poignant imperfection, to put things right.Summer, 1976Through June 10 at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater, Manhattan; manhattantheatreclub.com. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. More

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    ‘The Shark Is Broken,’ a ‘Jaws’ Comedy, Plans Broadway Run

    The play stars Ian Shaw, whose father, Robert Shaw, played a shark hunter in the movie.“The Shark Is Broken,” a comedy about the making of “Jaws” that stars the son of one of the film’s main actors, will open on Broadway this summer.The play is the brainchild of Ian Shaw, whose father, Robert Shaw, played Quint, the psychotic shark hunter, in the film. Its film set was plagued by problems, some exacerbated by Robert Shaw’s drinking, and the play depicts the fraught relationship between him and his co-stars, Richard Dreyfuss and Roy Scheider.In the play, set in 1974, the three men are trapped together on a boat, managing bad weather, (fake) shark troubles and alcohol.The play began its life at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2019, opened in London’s West End in 2021 after a pandemic-related delay, and had a production in Toronto last fall. The Broadway run is to begin previews on July 25 and to open on Aug. 10 at the Golden Theater.The play received a number of strong reviews in London, including from The Evening Standard, which said Ian Shaw “gives what is undoubtedly one of the best theatrical performances of the year.” (The Guardian was more restrained, saying that “too much of the humor hinges on 21st-century hindsight” but also praising Ian Shaw’s “loving and eerily evocative portrayal of his own father.”)Ian Shaw wrote the play with Joseph Nixon; the production is being directed by Guy Masterson and produced by Sonia Friedman and Scott Landis.The play joins what is shaping up to be an unusually busy summer on Broadway. There is already horror (“Grey House”) and farce (“The Cottage”) represented, along with three big musicals (“Once Upon a One More Time,” “Here Lies Love,” “Back to the Future”) and a solo comedy (Alex Edelman’s “Just for Us”). More

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    in Television

    Late Night Responds to Fox News’s Ouster of Tucker Carlson

    Seth Meyers joked it would be funny if Fox News “replaced him at 8 p.m. with the new green M&M.”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.With ‘Fox and Friends’ Like TheseFox News announced on Monday that its star host Tucker Carlson was out, effective immediately.Seth Meyers joked it would be funny if the network “replaced him at 8 p.m. with the new green M&M.”“And, honestly, with ‘Fox and Friends’ like these, who needs enemies?” — JAMES CORDEN“Fox really knows how to disappear someone. I’m shocked they didn’t just go with this as their statement: ‘Tucker Carlson has not now and has never been employed by this network. We don’t know who that is, and we’ve never even heard the name. Tune in tonight at 8 p.m. for our nightly newscast hosted, as always, by Fox News stalwart, white, blond lady, blue dress.’” — SETH MEYERS“Now, apparently, Tucker was forced out by Rupert Murdoch, which is pretty ironic. Tucker spent so many years saying that Mexican people were coming to take our jobs away. Turns out, he should have been worrying about Australians.” — DESI LYDIC, guest host of “The Daily Show”“They say Rupert Murdoch made this decision, so this is more like an episode of ‘Succession’ than last night’s episode of ‘Succession.’” — JIMMY KIMMEL“And we still don’t know exactly what led Rupert Murdoch to fire his network’s biggest star, but, reportedly, he was concerned over Carlson’s conspiracy theories about Jan. 6. So let this be a lesson to everybody: If you try to topple America’s democracy, you can stay on TV for two more years and that’s it!” — DESI LYDIC“At least when he had a show, we knew where he was. It’s creepy trying to fall asleep with a ventriloquist’s dummy in your room, but it’s way creepier when you wake up and it’s not there anymore.” — SETH MEYERSThe Punchiest Punchlines (When Life Hands You Lemons Edition)“By the way, Tucker Carlson isn’t the only cable news anchor to get the ax. CNN just fired Don Lemon after 17 New Year’s Eve blackouts — sorry, years of service.” — DESI LYDIC“Don Lemon and Tucker Carlson — for those of you who don’t follow cable news, this is like if Ronald McDonald and the Burger King got fired on the same day.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Fox knows their viewers are going to miss Tucker, so until they find a replacement, his show will be hosted by a golf shirt with the collars popped.” — JIMMY FALLON“Some people aren’t sure what led to his exit, but Fox says they can think of almost of a billion reasons why.” — JIMMY FALLON“Yep, Tucker Carlson is out. When he heard, Vladimir Putin was like, ‘Damn, we need a new P.R. guy.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Tucker Carlson has now worked at and left MSNBC, CNN and Fox News. He’s running out of options now. Like soon he’s just going to be on the Weather Channel, saying that hurricanes are caused by drag queens.” — JAMES CORDENThe Bits Worth WatchingRomeo Santos, the “king of bachata,” performed his songs “Solo Conmigo” and “Suegra” on Monday’s “Tonight Show.”What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightThe actress Natalie Portman will take a seat on the couch across from James Corden on Tuesday’s “The Late Late Show.”Also, Check This OutLizzy Caplan and Joshua Jackson in “Fatal Attraction,” which updates the 1980s erotic thriller and relocates the story to Los Angeles.Michael Moriatis/Paramount+Lizzy Caplan takes on the lethally dangerous role first made famous by Glenn Close in the new Paramount+ television adaptation of the film “Fatal Attraction.” More

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    in Television

    ‘Perry Mason’ Season 2 Finale: Case Closed

    The season finale offered some comeuppance and well-deserved praise, but if you thought this story would end with the world set to rights, you’re mistaken.Season 2, Episode 8: ‘Chapter Sixteen’Camilla Nygaard lies back silently as yellowjackets, held by tweezers, sting her repeatedly under the eyes. A filmy mask is laid atop her face, “American Psycho”-style. Flowers are placed upon her eyes, making her look like a horticultural horror straight out of “The Last of Us.” If it wasn’t clear already, the opening scene of this season finale makes it so: She’s a monster, and here, she finally looks the part.But if you thought this story would end with the monster safely defeated and the world set to rights, you’re mistaken. Just as the first season of “Perry Mason” hinged on the myth-busting idea that no one confesses on the witness stand, this one bursts the happy-ending bubble.Granted, things could be a lot worse. Utilizing Camilla’s attorney, major-domo, and hitman-hiring go-between, Phippsy, as an erstwhile ally, Perry and his team recover her cache of incriminating photos on all of Los Angeles’s major players, neutralizing her blackmailer’s hold over the closeted district attorney Hamilton Burger. (Not to mention averting the potential extortion of the similarly situated Della, who finds and hides the pictures of her and her lady friend Anita before anyone else can see them.)With that out of the way, Burger is finally free to hash out a plea deal with Perry on behalf of the Gallardo brothers. The older sibling, Mateo, who pulled the trigger on Brooks McCutcheon, takes the rap all by himself and is sentenced to 30 years without parole; not great but better than the noose. His artistically gifted kid brother, Rafael, walks out of the courtroom a free man.At Perry’s insistence, Della is feted as a hero on the courthouse steps. Deservedly so! Thanks to her expert performance in court, Brooks has been exposed for the sexual predator he was and the McCutcheon name is in the mud. (“She’s better at that than you,” Paul says to Perry, correctly, of Della’s post-trial news conference on the courthouse steps.)The McCutcheon patriarch, Lydell, is in the wind: The FBI is onto his and Camilla’s illegal oil trade with Japan, so he’s stuck in that imperial island nation for the foreseeable future.As a bonus, the ambitious, unethical assistant district attorney, Tommy Milligan, has been neutralized, yanked from the case by his boss, Burger. His impotent rage alone is worth the price of your soon-to-be-Max subscription.But that’s where the good news ends.Mateo will spend the best years of his life in jail. Everyone further up the food chain than he in the murder plot, most notably Camilla and Phipps, walk free without their guilt even being brought up in court.Scarred by the beating he was forced to dole out during the investigation, Paul pays off the victim — still alive, despite earlier appearances to the contrary — and quits the team. He then goes to work for Perkins, the very gangster who ordered the beating; he’ll be gathering blackmail material himself now, albeit for the worthy cause of forcing city councilmen to grant Perkins permits for a park and pool for the city’s Black residents.Thanks to his buddy Pete Strickland’s bit of B&E, Perry is on the hook for hiding the murder weapon, and agrees to a four-month prison sentence in exchange for being able to see the case to its conclusion. Both his partner, Della, and his girlfriend, Ginny Aimes, will be waiting for him when he gets out, but he’s clearly concerned his young son won’t be so understanding.Our old pal Holcomb, the crooked cop who worked with Brooks, decides to beat a retreat from the casino-boat business, torching the ship with a Molotov cocktail using his own black tie for a wick.The times being what they are, Ham, Della and Anita still have to live in the closet; Anita looks on smilingly as Ham and Della pose as a happy couple for the public.But before that, Della confronts Camilla, a woman she once greatly admired, about her rampant criminality: the murder, the extortion, the smuggling, all the ugly things beneath her glittering surface of power, glamour and sophistication — the monster behind the mask. As the FBI approaches, Camilla promises Della they’ll meet again. As with Milligan, Team Perry has made a potentially formidable enemy.And Team “Perry” has made an indisputably formidable show. It’s true that this season was less dark and psychologically rich than its predecessor, with its themes of religion and infanticide. But it’s really no less successful a work of art on its own terms. With its murderers’ row of a cast — a hugely enjoyable performance seems to have been waiting around every corner Perry Mason turned — and its sordid, surprising and frequently sexy story from the new showrunners Jack Amiel and Michael Begler, it is a period crime drama done right.It’s a dual mystery: More than just a question of whodunit and why, “Perry Mason” entices the viewer with the riddle of the title character. How can a damage case with a melancholic temperament save himself, much less anyone else?We get our answer in his final scene with Della, I think. Using the secretly water-inflated melons peddled by his grocer client Sunny Gryce as a metaphor, Perry tells Della, “It’s not justice that’s an illusion; it’s the system.”“OK,” she replies. “So what are we supposed to do with that?”“We fight,” he says simply. He says this even as he’s preparing to go to prison over that fighting spirit.That’s the message I’m taking away from this season: If you’ve got that fight in you at all, then fight you must.Paul Raci and Hope Davis in “Perry Mason.”Merrick Morton/HBOFrom the case filesMilligan to Burger, on the plea deal: “Why would you go behind my back?” Burger to Milligan, seemingly shocked he even needs to say it: “I’m the D.A.” In two lines you have a portrait of Milligan as a self-aggrandizing grasper and Burger as the justifiably confident voice of authority.Another great Burger-related exchange comes when Perry and Della present him with Camilla’s incriminating negatives. “So now you know,” he says to Perry. “I don’t care,” Perry reassures him. “I do!” Burger retorts. It’s not that he distrusts Perry, with whom he’s maintained a cordial relationship despite their professional opposition; it’s that he resents having control of this personal information taken away from him, even when done by someone who’s got his back.In an image that echoes Holcomb’s use of expensive booze and a black tie to burn the boat, Pete confides in Perry that he urinated in Milligan’s expensive bottle of Napoleon-owned cognac before quitting his job with the district attorney’s office. I guess that’s one way to say you’re sorry for landing your one-time best buddy in the clink on behalf of a jerk like Milligan.Considering how recognizable the composer Fred Steiner’s original Raymond Burr–era “Perry Mason” theme is, you might think it a mistake for this reboot not to use it every week. Then it drops it on you over the closing credits of the season finale and the weight of recognition hits you like an anvil. It’s the sound of “We fight.”As a pretty much miserable guy who’s sincerely angry about injustice, Perry Mason is a hero for our time. More