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    Celia Rowlson-Hall’s Sisyphean Beach Balls

    “I hate large beach balls,” Celia Rowlson-Hall said at the Baryshnikov Arts Center last week.A director, choreographer and performer best known for her quirky and surreal work in film, Rowlson-Hall was rehearsing “Sissy,” an idiosyncratic hybrid of dance and theater. It draws on the Greek myth of Sisyphus, eternally condemned to push a boulder up a mountain only to have it roll back down. The boulder is represented by a giant beach ball, and in rehearsal the performers were having trouble lofting it into a net suspended above the stage. After failing a few times, they succeeded, only to have the ball bounce back out again.This Sisyphean moment was not planned, but it might easily have been part of the choreography. “Sissy,” which runs at the Baryshnikov Center Thursday through Saturday, is the kind of production that playfully blurs the line between real life and make believe. It’s about a director-choreographer (Zoë Winters), a new mother who is making a dance piece that uses the metaphor of Sisyphus to symbolize the difficulties of balancing motherhood with her artistic life. Rowlson-Hall came up with the idea while she was pregnant and working on a feature film.From left, Celia Rowlson-Hall, Ida Saki and Marisa Tomei at the Baryshnikov Arts Center. “Being with the dancers, I’m in heaven,” Tomei said, adding she has relished the opportunity to be physically expressive, “thinking in shapes and body sculpture.”Thea Traff for The New York Times“It was a camera movement in my head,” she said during a rehearsal break. “I saw the camera coming around and revealing this woman who had been hiding behind the rock the whole time. And I was like, ‘Oh, what’s her story?’”Much of the story that Rowlson-Hall wrote is drawn from her life, but it’s nested in layers of fiction and art making. In “Sissy,” which alternates between scenes of dialogue and dance, Winters’s character presents a work-in-progress set in a rock quarry. (Lucas Hedges plays a quarry worker.) A dancer (Ida Saki) pushes the beach ball around, dances out childbirth, then pushes a slightly smaller beach ball (representing the moon) while holding her child — a child played by Saki’s own 1-year-old son.The showing seems to be going fine when it’s interrupted by a paleobotanist, who announces that she has made a “once in a millennium” discovery in the parking lot: the fossilized root system of the world’s oldest forest. It seems the boulder that is the director’s show is rolling down the mountain again, and she will have to adjust to the new circumstances — a process made more farcical because the paleobotanist is played by the gifted physical comedian and actress Marisa Tomei.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

    In ‘Ransom Canyon,’ Minka Kelly Enjoys the Ride

    There were times when Minka Kelly assumed that her acting career was over.Kelly, 44, had never planned on becoming an actress. Before breaking out in her mid-20s as the sassy cheerleader Lyla Garrity in the football weeper “Friday Night Lights,” she worked as a scrub nurse. A decade ago, during a slow period, she graduated from culinary school.So later, when fallow months turned into fallow years, she would tell herself this was fine. If Hollywood had finished with her, she would survive it.But recently, having published a sensitive, unsparing memoir, “Tell Me Everything,” a New York Times best seller, Kelly found herself again in demand. An offer came for “Ransom Canyon,” a Netflix neo-western series with romance elements. Kelly would fill the cowboy boots of Quinn O’Grady, a concert pianist who runs a dance hall in the Texas Hill Country. Quinn’s enthusiasms include soap making, love triangles, looking wistful in prairie skirts.Kelly didn’t think a romantic lead would be available to a woman in her 40s. But it was. And audiences have been enthusiastic: “Ransom Canyon,” based on the novel by Jodi Thomas, has been one of Netflix’s most popular shows since it debuted last week. And there is also more to come. After Kelly finished shooting “Ransom Canyon” in June, she flew to Paris to film her first romantic comedy, “Champagne Problems.” That movie will debut in November, also on Netflix.Josh Duhamel and Minka Kelly in a scene from “Ransom Canyon.” “This is Lyla 20 years later,” Kelly said of her new role, comparing it with the one she played in “Friday Night Lights.”Anna Kooris/Netflix“I’ve gotten to a place in my life where I am my best, and now the best thing has happened,” she said.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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    ‘Macbeth in Stride’ Review: A Leap and Stumble Into a Classic

    One of the most performed and reimagined works of English literature becomes a fourth-wall-breaking musical revue.“You gon’ rework a 400-year-old play just for your ego?” asks one of three witches in the new show “Macbeth in Stride.” Whitney White, who stars as Lady Macbeth in this quasi-feminist concert reimagining of Shakespeare’s Scottish Play, smugly responds: “Yup. Sure did! Sure did!”I don’t fault “Macbeth in Stride,” which is now running at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Harvey Theater, for its ego. We can always use work exploring what it means for a woman to proudly assert herself, to show her agency, to dare to grasp at power in spaces where she is meant to be secondary to a man. In this show, the artist invites us to see her through the role of Lady Macbeth, breaking the fourth wall to bring us into her process of recreating a character from one of the most frequently produced and remade works of English literature. But “Macbeth in Stride” is more ego than execution, more gestures than statements. And White’s heroine is much less substantial than the very character she’s critiquing and reworking in her own image.White, who wrote and performs this piece, is one of the city’s essential director-performers and is having an extended moment on New York stages this spring. Throughout her career she has focused on directing works by and about women and Black artists, including Bess Wohl, James Ijames and Aleshea Harris.In this work, White is centered as a kind-of Lady Macbeth (she’s just called “Woman” in the script) who’s a glam queen, a lead singer in a black bodysuit. She’s on a concert stage with a live band (the effortlessly talented Bobby Etienne on bass; Barbara Duncan, a.k.a. Muzikaldunk, on drums; and Kenny Rosario-Pugh on guitar), and those three witches (played by Phoenix Best, Holli’ Conway and Ciara Alyse Harris) are her backup singers and commentators.The main medium here is song, and “Macbeth in Stride” is an almost perilously eclectic mix of genres. The first song, “If Knowledge Is Power,” features the show’s music director and conductor, Nygel D. Robinson, on piano singing with glossy John Legend-style vocals. The melody suggests something lush and romantic, like a nocturne, but when the witches join in, they evoke the TLC days of 1990s R&B, with matching dance moves courtesy of Raja Feather Kelly.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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    Monsters Plague Japan. But What Do They Mean?

    How ancient history and modern calamities have cultivated a national obsession with menacing creatures.HIROSHIMAON A BLUSTERY afternoon last November, I stood on the esplanade of Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park listening to the solemn gong of the Peace Bell as English and American tourists rang it again and again. A traditional Japanese bell made of oxidized metal, it has a pendular log that strikes at the atomic symbol engraved on its side as if to banish that evil from the earth. A few feet away, a group of Japanese schoolboys stood laughing and gamboling, hanging on each other as schoolboys do everywhere. More

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    in Television

    The Darker Side of Japan’s Love of Cuteness

    From Hello Kitty to Pikachu, the country changed what the world considers adorable. But do these characters represent joy — or rage?To accompany this essay, three Japanese artists created (and named) seven mascots exclusively for T, all inspired by or representing The New York Times in some way.HELLO KITTY STANDS on the balcony like Eva Perón, framed by two great stone pillars and a blue-green dome. At least theoretically she is standing: Save for the round, claw-free paws on the balustrade, she is all giant head, white as a lit-up lamp with sun ray whiskers and the slash of a red ribbon at her left ear, mouthless, her eyes wholly pupils. This little girl — she is not a cat, although not not a cat either (more on this in a bit) — presides over an exhibition at the Hyokeikan, part of the Tokyo National Museum complex in the city’s Ueno Park, celebrating her 50 years of existence and global domination. More

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    in Television

    On ‘Andor,’ All Is Fair in Love and ‘Star Wars’

    What attracts two people to each other? Are they drawn together by a mutual need for companionship, affection and emotional support?Or are they united by their individual yearnings to advance their own positions and consolidate power in a tyrannical empire that is building a moon-size superweapon?In the Disney+ series “Andor,” the answer turns out to be a little from Column A and a little from Column B, at least in the case of one of the stranger — yet undeniably compelling — relationships to emerge in the “Star Wars” fantasy franchise: the frustrated pencil pusher Syril Karn (Kyle Soller) and the ruthless security officer Dedra Meero (Denise Gough).Syril Karn (Kyle Soller) and Dedra Meero (Denise Gough) had an unusual and often awkward relationship in “Andor” Season 1. At the start of Season 2, that relationship has evolved.Des Willie/Lucasfilm and Disney+Their pursuits are often nefarious — against their perceived enemies and also against each other. And although their give-and-take may have lacked the smoldering looks and snappy banter of, say, Princess Leia and Han Solo, Meero and Karn became a subject of fascination for viewers of Season 1, who watched the power dynamics ebb and flow in the characters’ often awkward relationship.As their story continues to unfold in Season 2, the first three episodes of which debuted on Tuesday, the actors portraying them and the show’s creator, Tony Gilroy, are taking stock of the characters’ journeys — what it says about the underlying themes of the series, the nature of couplehood and the possibility that there might be someone out there in the universe for everyone.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

    When Real Life Calls for a Cheesy Rom-Com Gesture

    The big boombox moments in Hollywood films are cliché. Yet they can also sustain love in real life.The second time I fell in love, before it began to go well, it went very badly. After only a couple of conversations over coffee, I showed up at my beloved’s apartment and confessed the depth of my feelings — to which she responded, with heartbreaking nonchalance, “Um … what do you expect me to say?” I was so devastated that, in trying to flee, I inadvertently stormed right past her front door and straight into her hallway closet. On my way home, I almost walked into the path of a moving train, then verbally abused the subway conductor for daring to warn me about it. That night I drank an entire bottle of wine, watched the 2005 film adaptation of “Pride and Prejudice” for the umpteenth time and cursed my sorry fate.Yes, I know. You don’t have to tell me what I looked like.What did I think I would accomplish, pulling some cheesy rom-com move, as if my life were “Say Anything” or “When Harry Met Sally”? Had Hollywood turned me into a tacky derivative? Relationship advice is awash with warnings to not be duped by films. We poor schlubs out in the world don’t have teams of writers scripting our happy endings, experts caution — and so taking inspiration from rom-coms’ corny gestures just sets ourselves up for disappointment.And it’s true that real life does not tolerate clichés. Falling for someone is a highly individual experience. An unassuming widow’s peak, the sound of their vowels when they’re running late — it’s small, specific details that stoke and justify desire (and that sent me marching to my beloved’s doorstep that night). When we are fervently in love, wrote the novelist Stendhal, “everything is a symbol.” If you have ever disapproved of a friend’s partner, then you were not seeing the same symbols your friend was. But so then, if nothing is more unique than a love affair, how come so many of us watch Nicholas Sparks’s films with the same generic scenes of rain-kissing and love-declaring?It’s because underneath a rom-com’s boilerplate narrative structures, there is extreme passion and ardor and desperation — and all of that is very true to what the actual nonmovie experience of falling in love feels like. Rom-coms resonate with us because we do see ourselves in them: They function as mirrors through which we can pinpoint and understand our own amorphous feelings. And their sweeping gestures also provide encouragement for us to turn our passions into concrete action.I have never seen anyone kiss a lover in the pouring rain — in real life, cold rainstorms are no aphrodisiac — but I have witnessed a grown man get down on bended knee and belt out the worst Nickelback cover. His girlfriend, who hates Nickelback, adored it. I was raised by a man who, after a decade of friendship with a woman, got drunk and flew across the country so he could tell her that he couldn’t wait a moment longer to be together. Years later, my mother’s brother was almost arrested for loudly declaiming his regret outside his wife’s window in the middle of the night. (At least he didn’t use a boombox.)As the sociologist Niklas Luhmann put it, “Showing that one could control one’s passion would be a poor way of showing passion.” I may have made a clown of myself when I showed up out of the blue to declare my love, but nothing else I could have done would have demonstrated the bigness of my feelings more clearly. And I don’t think I would have had the courage to try had I not been bred on a steady diet of finely calibrated melodrama.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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    Jimmy Kimmel Praises Pope Francis for Going Out With a Mic Drop

    “Is there anything more Catholic than waiting until Monday to die so you don’t upstage Jesus Christ?” 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.‘The Pope Version of a Mic Drop’Pope Francis died on Monday, just one day after meeting with Vice President JD Vance at the Vatican on Easter Sunday and leading Mass in St. Peter’s Square.“Is there anything more Catholic than waiting until Monday to die so you don’t upstage Jesus Christ?” Jimmy Kimmel said.“I mean, I don’t think there is. It’s the Pope version of a mic drop, really.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Oh, man, what a way to go, huh? I mean, ‘Holy Father, do you have any last wishes?’ ‘Well, not this. Not this. Not a meet and greet with Vice President Maybelline, no thank you.’” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Shortly after his visit, Vance tweeted, ‘Today I met with the Holy Father Pope Francis. I am grateful for his invitation to meet, and I pray for his good health. Happy Easter!’ So now we know JD Vance is bad at praying, too.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Then Trump announced that he will be attending the Pope’s funeral. He said they’re ‘looking forward to being there!’ like he got tickets to Coachella or something. What are the chances Trump declares himself Pope? They’re not zero.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Punchiest Punchlines (Easter Messaging Edition)“On Easter Sunday, President Trump wrote, ‘Happy Easter to all, including the radical left lunatics bringing murderers, drug lords, dangerous prisoners, the mentally insane, and MS-13 gang members and wife beaters back into our country.’ He then deported the Easter Bunny to El Salvador.” — GREG GUTFELD“We have a president who addresses the nation like the Zodiac Killer on Easter Sunday.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Oh, my gosh, my favorite holiday on the Christian calendar: the day when we celebrate Jesus being resurrected from the dead. Or, as Elon Musk sees it, an elaborate scheme to defraud Social Security.” — BILL MAHER“Trump is honoring the day by locking up guys named Jesus, and he pardoned Pontius Pilate.” — BILL MAHER“We see Melania and the Easter Bunny on the same schedule — once a year at this time.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Bits Worth WatchingThe comedian George Wallace and the political commentator Alyssa Farah Griffin weighed in on Bernie Sanders’s surprise appearance at Coachella on Saturday’s “Have I Got News For You.”What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightRepresentative Jasmine Crockett will appear on Tuesday’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”Also, Check This OutSome of the biggest names in American culture have skated, danced or nervously shimmied their way down this corridor.Bethany Mollenkof for The New York Times“The Jennifer Hudson Show” has taken over TikTok with its “spirit tunnel” video clips. More