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    in Theater

    ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’ Gets a Folk-Musical Makeover

    The decade-spanning story of a man aging in reverse comes to the West End, transformed into a thoughtful fable opening on the English coast.Benjamin Button is born onto the West End stage with a hunch, a walking stick and venerable observations more suitable to a wizened man than a newborn.“You’re only as old as you feel,” Button quips to his parents, who are aghast that their long-awaited baby seems to be a 70-year-old man. “Do you mind if I smoke?”Age aside, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” a folk-rock musical adaptation of the F. Scott Fitzgerald short story opening Wednesday at the Ambassadors Theater in London, explores earnest and existential questions of how and where to live. The broad strokes of the story might be most familiar from David Fincher’s 2008 film of the same name, which starred a backward-aging Brad Pitt and opened in New Orleans.But this onstage Button lives a different life altogether. He’s born in 1918 in a blustering, harbor village in Cornwall, at the southwestern tip of England, as something of a shut-away, before breaking free in search of romance and adventure. A 13-person cast of actor-musicians is onstage nearly the entire time, giving the show the feel of a fable merged with a Mumford & Sons concert.In the show, time moves in quick jumps, but for the creators behind this fairy tale retelling, Jethro Compton and Darren Clark, the project has been a long endeavor. The show, their first to open in the West End, started life about eight years ago as a project that Compton called “Untitled Cornish Musical.”Jethro Compton and Darren Clark, the creators of the musical.Sam Bush for 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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    in Television

    ‘English Teacher’ Gets TikTok Boost from Brian Jordan Alvarez

    Brian Jordan Alvarez’s career started on social media. His mastery of the form, and a ridiculous dance trend, have drawn viewers to his show, “English Teacher.”The start of a new TV show is a fraught time for its creators and stars. Years of work have gone into its debut, yet the window of time in which to attract viewers is brief. Add a splintered media environment and an oxygen-sucking presidential election, and the chances for cultural relevancy slip further.Most showrunners make the press rounds and hope for the best. Brian Jordan Alvarez unwittingly came up with another strategy: becoming a meme.In September, shortly after the debut of “English Teacher,” an FX show that Mr. Alvarez created and stars in, a TikTok user with the handle @clozvr posted a clip from an old “Gilmore Girls” episode mashed up with the song “Breathe” by Olly Alexander.In the “Gilmore” clip, Kirk Gleason, the awkward character played by Sean Gunn, has made a black-and-white art-house movie. In it, Kirk tells his girlfriend’s father, “I love your daughter.” When the father says, “What do you have to offer her?” Kirk replies, “Nothing. Only this,” before breaking into a goofy break dance.Mr. Alvarez saw another TikTok user dancing in an apartment to the clip and found it “weirdly captivating,” he said. He decided to film his own version in the Nashville airport, lip-syncing to the dialogue and the song and dancing as he rolled his suitcase.

    @brianjordanalvarez Wow ♬ afilmbykirk – ꫂ ၴႅၴ

    @brianjordanalvarez ♬ afilmbykirk – ꫂ ၴႅၴ 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

    Late Night Addresses Your Election Eve Anxiety

    “It feels like the whole country is waiting to get the results of a biopsy,” Jimmy Kimmel said.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.Performance AnxietyThe late-night hosts seem to be as anxious about the election as you are.“It feels like the whole country is waiting to get the results of a biopsy,” Jimmy Kimmel said on Monday.“These polls — they’re mood rings. That’s all they are. They bring you up, they bring you down. Poll is short for ‘bipolar.’” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Tomorrow is Election Day and ‘Late Night’ is officially endorsing Xanax 0.5 milligram, twice a day as needed.” — SETH MEYERSOn “Real Time” on Friday, Bill Maher made one last appeal to undecided voters, or as he called them, “the Christmas Eve shoppers of politics — they know the big day is coming, but they just can’t get themselves to do anything about it until the last minute.”“The phrase I hear so much that makes me just want to un-alive myself is, ‘How’s she going to help me?’ Like the president is your personal genie. It’s Kamala, not ‘Kazam.’” — BILL MAHER“And so, dear Christmas Eve voter, I say to you: Things aren’t that bad, but they might get a hell of a lot worse under the rule of a mad king. Do I love everything about Kamala? No. Who told you you get to love everything? Do I wish she came up with a better reason to be president than ‘I’m not Trump’? Yeah, it would have been very helpful. But let’s not forget, ‘I’m not Trump’ is still a really great reason.” — BILL MAHER“But things look so good for Trump, Democrats have already impeached him.” — GREG GUTFELD“The Harris campaign is cautioning against getting too excited. Too late! I have to be excited because I’ve only got two other choices: absolute terror or Absolut vodka.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“If you see someone in the fetal position drenched in sweat, they either just ran the New York City Marathon or they’re waiting for tomorrow’s election.” — JIMMY FALLON“Look, I love this country. I’m an immigrant — I chose to be here. In the words of the late Lee Greenwood, I’m proud to be an American. And I’d argue there is nothing more American than having a healthy adversarial relationship with those in power, even if you voted for them.” — JOHN OLIVERWe 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

    Election Night, Plus Five Things to Watch on TV This Week

    Tune into the major networks’ election coverage, catch up on the teen drama “The Outer Banks” and dive into a bunch of true-crime docuseries.Between streaming and cable, there is a seemingly endless variety of things to watch. Here is a selection of TV shows and specials that are available to watch live or stream this week, Nov. 4-10. Details and times are subject to change.Pick your flavor for election night: comedy? satire? graphics?It is the first Tuesday in November, and it might be hard to think about — or watch — anything other than the election. Luckily, you have a plethora of options.“Saturday Night Live” is airing its annual special of political moments from the past year. We’ve seen Maya Rudolph embody Vice President Kamala Harris, Dana Carvey as President Joe Biden and James Austin Johnson as former President Donald J. Trump. Before what is likely to be an exhausting vote count, why not fit in some laughs? Monday at 10 p.m. on NBC and streaming on Peacock.Election Day will heat up in the evening as the polls close. Every major network will cover the election, but if you want to relive one of the more meme-able moments of the 2020 election, CNN’s John King will be back in front of his Magic Wall, zooming in on U.S. voting districts and telling us more about Maricopa County than we ever thought we needed to know. Tuesday on ABC, NBC, MSNBC, CNN and Fox.“The Daily Show” will go live later at night for an hour with Jon Stewart at the helm. He and his team, including Ronny Chieng, Jordan Klepper, Michael Kosta and Desi Lydic, will give takes on the election and tips for surviving the uncertainty of the coming days. Tuesday at 11 p.m. on Comedy Central.A medium, a celebrity and a professional audio team walk into a Netflix studio …Tyler Henry, left, on his weekly show on Netflix.NetflixWe 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

    Alan Rachins, ‘L.A. Law’ and ‘Dharma & Greg’ Actor, Dies at 82

    He became recognizable as a performer whose specialty was difficult men, in both absurd comedies and tense dramas.Alan Rachins, who delighted TV watchers by playing two very different kinds of histrionic middle-aged men in two hit shows, “L.A. Law” and “Dharma & Greg,” died on Saturday in Los Angeles. He was 82.The death, at a hospital, was caused by heart failure, his family said.After spending decades trying to break through as an actor, Mr. Rachins (pronounced RAY-chins) became widely recognizable for his roles on the two shows. Each character, an officious lawyer and an aging hippie, was acerbic and eccentric, but in extremely different ways.Mr. Rachins first came to public attention by appearing on nearly every episode of “L.A. Law,” which ran on NBC for eight seasons, from 1986 to 1994.The show was created by Terry Louise Fisher and Steven Bochco, who a few years earlier had helped create “Hill Street Blues,” a critically acclaimed police drama. “L.A. Law” used a similar formula: It mixed drama and comedy, employed an ensemble cast and was generally credited as being more realistic and daring than the average show.“L.A. Law” was popular enough that several lawyers at the time worried how recent episodes would affect juries’ behavior. In 1990, one lawyer told The New York Times, “Any lawyer who doesn’t watch ‘L.A. Law’ the night before he’s going to trial is a fool.”The show concerned a law firm called McKenzie, Brackman. Mr. Rachins played Douglas Brackman Jr., a senior partner whose father had helped found the firm. He was eloquent, mercenary and obnoxious — traits that set up the character for frequent humiliations.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

    Don’t Make Kelly Reilly Go Beth Dutton on You

    If Beth Dutton were Kelly Reilly’s friend, if she were sitting here, in the garden of a SoHo hotel, Reilly would worry. She would urge Beth to stop smoking, to drink less, to give therapy a try.“If she were my best friend, I’d be like, ‘Give yourself an easier time,’” Reilly said.But Beth Dutton is no one’s friend. She is the brutal, wounded, savagely funny heroine of the Montana-set Paramount Network drama “Yellowstone.” Reilly, 47, has played her since the show began in 2018. The second half of the fifth and apparently final season arrives on Paramount and CBS on Nov. 10. They will be the show’s first episodes without its star Kevin Costner, who departed the series, citing scheduling issues, amid reports of tensions between him and the creator, Taylor Sheridan.During the series, Beth has faced down attempted rape, attempted assassination, professional back stabbing, personal betrayal. Through it all, Reilly has played her with a kind of animal ferocity (take, for example, a Season 1 scene of Beth scaring off a wolf) shot through with unexpected tenderness. Hers is the rare performance that feels authentically dangerous — for the actor, for the character, for anyone watching at home.Reilly, with Cole Hauser in “Yellowstone,” plays Beth with a mix of ferocity, tenderness and sex appeal. “Her femininity is to be celebrated,” Reilly said. “It can intimidate and it can seduce and it can terrify.”Emerson Miller/Paramount NetworkThat the Emmys haven’t recognized Reilly suggests that there is something at least a little wrong with Emmys. But Beth remains a favorite among the show’s fans. There are TikToks and supercuts of Beth’s most vicious comebacks, mugs and T-shirts emblazoned with slogans like “Don’t make me go Beth Dutton on you” and “You are the trailer park, and I am the tornado.”Reilly is no Beth Dutton. She is English by birth and a redhead. In person, she is softer, more thoughtful, profoundly empathetic in a way that Beth would find embarrassing. When I met her at that boutique hotel, on an afternoon in mid September, Reilly wore loose silk separates, not an out-for-blood business suit, and ordered tea for us (regrettably) in place of Beth’s preferred bourbon.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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    How ‘Yellowstone’ Captured America

    When the television series “Yellowstone” began in 2018, it was with a chip on its shoulder. HBO had passed on the show, pitched by its writer-director-executive producer Taylor Sheridan as “The Godfather” on horseback, for not quite fitting its prestige-oriented lineup. It was picked up instead by the fledgling network Paramount, which greenlit 10 episodes, to be broadcast on a rebranded version of Spike TV.Since that relatively low-profile debut, “Yellowstone,” now in its fifth season, has gone from cable underdog to becoming one of the most-watched scripted shows on TV, one that has spawned prequels and spinoffs, a cottage industry of merch and a bit of internal drama among its cast members and producers. Most notably, its best-known actor, Kevin Costner, will not return as John Dutton, Yellowstone’s taciturn patriarch, for the show’s final episodes when they begin airing on Nov. 10.The neo-Western wrapped contemporary ideas of rugged individualism inside the soapy drama of a land-hoarding family’s succession planning. As “Yellowstone” prepares to finally reveal whether one of John Dutton’s kids — Beth (Kelly Reilly) or Kayce (Luke Grimes) or Jamie (Wes Bentley) — can take over the family business, we look back at how the series became both a chronicle of America’s culture wars and appointment viewing across the United States.Filling a Red State VoidFor millions of Americans, “Yellowstone” tapped into a deep unease they have about their changing communities.Emerson Miller/Paramount NetworkSometime in summer 2018, my phone rang in Los Angeles. It was my brother calling from Montana, where we both grew up and he still lives. He wanted to talk about a new Western television show called “Yellowstone.”For the first time ever, he said, Hollywood had gotten something right. Everyone in Montana was abuzz about it — his fishing buddies, the local radio hosts, the waitress at Pay’s Cafe down by the livestock auction yards in Billings. What did I think?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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    Book Review: ‘Carson the Magnificent,’ by Bill Zehme with Mike Thomas

    Johnny Carson dominated late-night television for decades, but closely guarded his privacy. Bill Zehme’s biography, “Carson the Magnificent,” tries to break through.CARSON THE MAGNIFICENT, by Bill Zehme with Mike ThomasMaybe late-night TV shouldn’t be called “late-night TV” anymore, with so many viewers consuming it in clips the morning after, on their phones. Yet the genre’s hallmarks — the avuncular host, the sidekick, the band, the monologue, the desk, the guests — linger. Most were stamped on America’s consciousness by Johnny Carson.A new biography about an old reliable, Bill Zehme’s “Carson the Magnificent” harks back to an era when doom and scroll were biblical nouns and Carson’s “Tonight Show” was a clear punctuation mark to every 24-hour chunk of the workweek — less an exclamation point, maybe, than a drawn-out ellipsis. “They want to lie back and be amused and laugh and have a nice, pleasant and slightly … I hate the word risqué … let’s say adult end to the day,” is how a producer in 1971 described the millions tuning in from home, to Esquire.Carson went off the air in 1992, after three decades on “Tonight,” and left this Earth in 2005. Zehme, a journalist known for his chummy celebrity profiles, struck a book deal almost immediately but struggled to get purchase on his subject— “the ultimate Interior Man,” he despaired to a source, “large and lively only when on camera” — and then was diagnosed with late-stage cancer. He died himself last year at 64, and a former “legman” and friend, Mike Thomas, has finished the project, giving it a doubly valedictory feel.Short but florid, “Carson the Magnificent” is a memorial of the monoculture; a steady parade of mostly men chatting companionably to one another on a padded sectional.Carson was a white whale for Zehme (he’d managed to harpoon Hugh Hefner, Frank Sinatra and the “Tonight” successor Jay Leno, though rather delicately, as if with cocktail toothpicks). After months of faxes and some time backstage inhaling the “cloud of spiced cologne that trails him like an entourage,” Zehme formally met Carson in 2002 and the two men, both said to have unusual professional empathy, had a long lunch at Schatzi on Main, the Santa Monica restaurant owned by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Over the years Zehme amassed piles of Carsonia, like a paisley polyester necktie, and interviewed scores of his intimates, including two of his four wives. (The first was named Joan, though she went by Jody, and the next two Joanne and Joanna. “The man just won’t go for new towels,” Bob Newhart joked.)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