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    ‘Bus Stop’ Review: Travelers Find Shelter From a Storm

    Intimacy is at the heart of this rare revival of William Inge’s 1955 play, about stranded passengers learning from one another and about themselves.When a blizzard strands stagecoach passengers in a lodge in Quentin Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight,” violence and mayhem erupt. Death looms.Eight people are also marooned by a snowstorm in William Inge’s 1955 play “Bus Stop,” but what looms for them is life: Some take stock, others try to figure out what awaits.Best known for its movie adaptation starring Marilyn Monroe, “Bus Stop” isn’t seen much in New York these days, so Classic Stage Company, the National Asian American Theater Company and Transport Group should be thanked for this revival.The director Jack Cummings III staged Inge’s “Come Back, Little Sheba” and “Picnic” in repertory for the Transport Group in 2017, and is familiar with the delicate bard of the Midwest, whose deceptively plain work captures the lives of working people. The most consequential decision here is to forgo amplification, creating a sense of intimacy at the Kansas diner where four bus passengers and their driver (David Shih) wait out the weather. The diner’s owner Grace (Cindy Cheung) and a waitress, the high school student Elma (Delphi Borich), are used to parades of customers, but maybe not for such extended stays. Conversations stop and start as the visitors chat among themselves and with the locals, who include the sheriff, Will (David Lee Huynh). Elma, for example, is fascinated by Dr. Gerald Lyman (Rajesh Bose), a former professor whose flowery verbiage evokes a broader, more literate world than hers — and a more perverse one, too, as he has a taste for underage women.But the most striking of the newcomers is Cherie (Midori Francis), a nightclub singer who has been whisked away by Bo (Michael Hsu Rosen), a smitten young cowboy who plans to take her to his Montana ranch, whether she likes it or not.The story line is rattling to a contemporary audience. But the beauty, humanity and complexity of Inge’s writing is that he makes us understand what drives Bo and, even more important, who Cherie is, and why she stays with Bo.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 6 Mitford Sisters, Their Jewelry and a New TV Series

    The costume designer for “Outrageous” talks about finding designs that the women would have worn.The Mitford sisters, known for their 20th-century aristocratic glamour and political scandal, were not among England’s most gem-laden women. But jewelry did play a role in their outsize public profiles.“Diana the fascist, Jessica the communist, Unity the Hitler-lover, Nancy the novelist, Deborah the duchess and Pamela the unobtrusive poultry connoisseur” is how Ben Macintyre, a writer for The Times of London, once described the six women.Now they are the subjects of “Outrageous,” a six-part series scheduled to debut June 18 on BritBox in the United States and Canada and June 19 on U and U&Drama in Britain. The series is set in the 1930s, the era in which they became famous — and infamous — and arrives on the heels of the discovery of a diary kept by Unity, who was obsessed with Hitler and, by her own account, was his lover. Excerpts were published this year by The Daily Mail.A childish prank involving Unity and Jessica was most likely one of the sisters’ earliest jewelry episodes. “A diamond ring was used to etch both the image of a hammer and sickle and swastika on a window in their childhood home,” Sarah Williams, the writer of “Outrageous,” said in a recent video interview. “They had such a young bond as kids, but they were both rebels, and that bond of rebellion was stronger than their political beliefs. They were absolute extremes.”The sisters — there also was one brother, Thomas, who was killed in World War II — were the children of David Freeman-Mitford, the second Baron Redesdale, and his wife, Sydney Bowles. While the family was not particularly wealthy, the sisters were schooled at home and then entered society.“As part of our research, we specifically collected images of jewelry pieces worn by the Mitford girls,” Claire Collins, the costume designer for “Outrageous,” said by email, “and although we couldn’t replicate certain pieces, we were able to use them as a guide.”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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    Trump’s Kennedy Center Comes Into Focus With Theater and Dance Plans

    Some big shows and troupes will perform, while others will stay away. And in a shift, the center will present some Broadway shows with nonunion casts.As the Kennedy Center reinvents itself for the Donald J. Trump era, it announced on Monday that its next season would feature some big names in theater and dance, but also some conspicuous absences. And, in a break with the past, the center said it would present several touring Broadway shows with nonunion casts.Artists have been divided about whether to perform at the center since President Trump became its chairman after purging its previously bipartisan board of members appointed by Democrats.The upcoming theater season will feature “The Outsiders,” which won last year’s Tony Award for best musical, but not “Hamilton,” which canceled a planned run there, citing dismay over Mr. Trump’s takeover. And its dance season will include performances by American Ballet Theater, New York City Ballet and the Stuttgart Ballet but not by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, an annual fixture at the center in recent years, which said in a statement that it would pursue another opportunity next season.Mr. Trump, who continues to play a big role in trying to reshape the center, was expected to meet Monday evening with Kennedy Center board members and executives for dinner at the White House. He attended a board meeting at the center in March, recently requested $257 million from Congress to help with capital repairs and plans to attend a gala fund-raiser performance of “Les Misérables” in June.The upcoming theater season underscores some of the changes unfolding at the center. In addition to “The Outsiders” it will include tours of “Back to the Future,” “Moulin Rouge!” and “Spamalot,” all of which feature unionized casts, as has been standard at the center in recent years.But two of the tours coming to the Kennedy Center next season will feature nonunion casts, which tend to be paid less and cost less to present: “Chicago” and “Mrs. Doubtfire.”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 Best of ‘S.N.L.’ Season 50: Trump, Biden and Domingo

    The just-completed 50th season of “Saturday Night Live” was dominated by anniversary hype, but the new episodes managed to create some memorable moments, too.In a season so heavily focused on celebrating the 50th anniversary of “Saturday Night Live,” it was easy to forget that there were also 21 regular episodes of the show this year.While not every sketch from this run will go down in history, this year “S.N.L.” did cover a contentious presidential election and reckon with the re-election of Donald Trump; create an unexpected online trend by ruining a couple’s impending marriage; and allow Timothée Chalamet to appear as both a host and a musical guest.Will we someday talk about these segments with the same reverence we reserve for the Coneheads or “Mister Robinson’s Neighborhood”? That will be the job of some future recapper to decide. (Hopefully.) For now, join us as we look back at the most memorable moments of the past season of “S.NL.”Political impressions of the seasonAfter abundant speculation about who would play the Democratic presidential and vice-presidential nominees, the results — with Maya Rudolph as former Vice President Harris and Jim Gaffigan as Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota — were mostly lackluster. The performances were too amiable and not particularly satirical (much like the real-life Harris’s own appearance on the show).James Austin Johnson has remained a dependable President Trump. But we’ll give the edge this season to the “S.N.L.” alums Dana Carvey, who finally found a funny way to play President Biden, and Mike Myers, who seemed to be having the time of his life skewering Elon Musk. Two ’90s-era “S.N.L.” stalwarts remaining relevant? No way! Way.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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    ‘We Are Gathered’ Promises to Love, Honor and Cherish

    When JaDonna Harris and Marquian Harris married in 2015, they did it alone, before a justice of the peace. As their 10th anniversary approached, they contemplated a do-over that would include friends and family. But the cost was an issue, as was agreeing on a venue. Then JaDonna Harris received an email from Arena Stage. An upcoming play was looking for real couples interested in getting married or renewing their vows. She and her wife replied immediately.“We were like, this is kismet,” JaDonna Harris recalled.That play, “We Are Gathered,” is a new work by Tarell Alvin McCraney that began Friday, overlapping with Washington’s World Pride festivities. A celebration of love, each performance will culminate with what Arena Stage is calling “Love Takes Center Stage,” an immersive experience in which one or more couples will join the actors for a real marriage ceremony or vow renewal. One of the stars, Craig Wallace, has been ordained. Over the course of the show’s 30 scheduled performances, several dozen couples will participate. After each show, Arena Stage will hold a reception with cake, champagne and dancing.“We’re going to be discovering a great deal each night,” said the director Kent Gash, right, with the playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney.Maansi Srivastava for The New York TimesThe Harrises can’t wait.“We are happy to celebrate queer love, to celebrate the love in general all over the world and everybody’s ability to find a person that they are attached to,” JaDonna Harris said. “That’s all that matters.”McCraney began to dream up “We Are Gathered” during World Pride in Sydney, Australia, in 2023. A theater there was staging a revival of his 2012 play “Choir Boy,” a drama about a young gay man at an all-Black preparatory school. McCraney admired the production, but he wished that the play, which deals with anti-gay prejudice, didn’t feel quite so relevant. He decided that by the time the next World Pride came around, two years later, he would offer actors a script that felt more playful, more joyful.In searching for a subject, McCraney, now 44 and the artistic director of the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, kept returning to the idea of marriage. When he was growing up, marriage wasn’t available to gay men, but a 2015 Supreme Court decision had changed that. Now friends were asking him why he wasn’t married and he was beginning to ask that question of himself. Recent opposition to gay rights and transgender rights — including book bans and a Florida law nicknamed “Don’t Say Gay” — had made that question feel more urgent. “Those things were happening pretty regularly and beginning to remind me there isn’t a lot of time and nothing is promised,” he said. “I decided, OK, I’m going to find out what this means to me.”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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    ‘Sirens,’ Plus 7 Things to Watch on TV this Week

    A mini series starring Meghann Fahy comes to Netflix. Two HBO shows wrap up their seasons.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 airing or streaming this week, May 19-25. Details and times are subject to change.Something here isn’t right …If we know one thing about Meghann Fahy, it’s that she’s good at playing characters who go to stunning locations where the interpersonal vibes are … bad (see: “The Perfect Couple” and “The White Lotus”). And that is exactly the setup of the new mini-series “Sirens.” Fahy plays Devon, whose billionaire boss is developing a too-close relationship with her sister, and she heads to a seaside estate where to suss out the situation. Off-putting energy and gorgeous locations, what could be better? Streaming Thursday on Netflix.And if we know anything about Nicole Kidman, it’s that she loves to put on a chic wig and act as a cold, slightly unagreeable but somehow charming matriarch or leader (see: “The Undoing,” “Big Little Lies,” and also “The Perfect Couple”). And that is the setting for “Nine Perfect Strangers,” which is coming back for its second season. Masha (Kidman), the director of a resort in the Austrian Alps, hosts a 10-day retreat where things go, well, not exactly as planned because participants are actually signing up for psychedelic therapy. Henry Golding, Annie Murphy and Christine Baranski are joining the cast this season. Streaming Tuesday on Hulu.Nicole Kidman in “Nine Perfect Strangers.”Reiner Bajo/DisneyThough fans of the video game knew the brutal death in store for the second season of the series “The Last of Us,” it still created waves with viewers. Now the season is wrapping up with characters forging ahead across post-outbreak America to try to avenge that death. Don’t get your hopes up for a quick Season 3 release, though; one of the show’s stars Isabela Merced said that they don’t plan to begin to filming until 2026. Streaming Sunday at 9 p.m. on HBO and Max.Nathan Fielder’s expertise is making viewers uncomfortable. And in Season 2 of his series “The Rehearsal,” he has continued to succeed in doing just that. In the show, Fielder directs staged scenarios with the help of construction crews and willing talent. If you’ve seen “The Office” episode “Scott’s Tots,” this show tends to elicit that same type of pearl-clutching cringe. And sometimes Fielder’s bits seemingly goes too far — the musician Lana Love told Variety she spent $10,000 (travel, lodging, hair and makeup) to audition for a new singing competition show “Wings of Voice,” which ended up being just a part of Fielder’s ruse. (Neither representatives HBO or Fielder responded to Variety’s request for comment.) The second season is wrapping up this week. Sunday at 10:30 p.m. on HBO and streaming on Max.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 Last of Us’ Season 2, Episode 6: Like Father

    A series of flashbacks traced the evolution of Joel and Ellie’s relationship in Jackson, Wyo., filling in some blanks about her current state of mind.Season 2, Episode 6What is the opposite of a love story? A disenchantment story, perhaps?That may be the best way to describe this week’s haunting and heartbreaking “The Last of Us,” which features a years-spanning flashback. The episode functions a lot like the award-winning episode “Long, Long Time,” from Season 1, except in reverse. We follow Joel and Ellie from their early days living in Jackson, closely bonded; and then, over time, we see how that bond weakened and broke.This episode begins with a prologue, set in 1983 in Austin. We learn that Joel and his younger brother, Tommy, were the sons of a cop (played by the great Tony Dalton of “Better Call Saul”) who was quick to smack them around whenever they stepped out of line. One night — after Tommy was caught buying pot — Joel tried to shoulder the punishment, telling his dad to leave Tommy alone. In a moment of bracing self-awareness, Officer Miller admits that he may be following in the footsteps of his own father, who once beat him so hard he had to be hospitalized.“But I’m doing a little better than my father did,” he says to Joel. “When it’s your turn, I hope you do a little better than me.”Post-prologue, the episode cycles through five vignettes — four set on Ellie’s birthdays, and one on the New Year’s Eve night we saw in the Season 2 premiere.The first vignette catches Joel and Ellie at a somewhat awkward place in their relationship: still recovering from the trauma of Salt Lake City, and in the first few months of living in a normal domestic situation, as a surrogate father and a daughter. Nevertheless, Joel makes what might be his first grand parental gesture (besides saving her life) as he rebuilds a guitar for her for her 15th birthday, using real bone for the saddle and carving a moth design from one of her notebooks into the neck.But these two have not really found a relaxed family groove yet. Joel can’t figure out how hard to play “dad” when Ellie intentionally burns her arm, trying to hide a bite mark. And when he describes how he fixed up the guitar, he becomes adorably awkward, going deep into the weeds on the machinery. (“Used a Dremel. That’s a rotary drill. Or it could be a saw, depending on the tip. Actually it’s a pretty versatile tool.”)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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    ‘Creditors’ Review: Who Pays the Price for a Bankrupt Marriage?

    Liev Schreiber stars in an update of the bleak Strindberg classic about a husband and wife and the man who seeks to destroy them.If a man hates women but also everyone else, is he still a misogynist?I ask for an acquaintance: August Strindberg, the Swedish playwright whose three tempestuous marriages were not enough to exhaust his fury at wives, muses, temptresses and others. Also, it would seem, at himself.His excess of rage found its way into plays — “Miss Julie” (1888) and “The Dance of Death” (1900) are today the most famous — that feature male characters only slightly less awful than the women in their lives. That ought to be unbearable, and not just as an affront to feminism; his pox-on-both-your-genders cussedness can sometimes feel self-canceling as drama. Still, Strindberg sticks to the canon of European classics like a tick: ugly, bloodthirsty, alive.The contradiction is at its most vexing in “Creditors,” a follow-up to “Miss Julie” that flips the earlier play’s love-triangle geometry so that one woman and two men stand at its vertexes instead of one man and two women. Believe me, two men are worse: The lone woman, in this case a writer named Tekla, is literally outmanned. When Adolph, her second husband — having fallen under the influence of Gustav, his new friend — prosecutes Tekla for the theft of his happiness, Strindberg barely allows a defense.That “Creditors” is nevertheless wretchedly compelling has previously been sufficient to keep it onstage. Perhaps in a post-#MeToo age no longer. At any rate, the production that opened Sunday at the Minetta Lane Theater — starring Liev Schreiber as Gustav, Maggie Siff as Tekla and Justice Smith as Adolph, now called Adi — sets out to shift the play’s balance of power and mostly succeeds. In Jen Silverman’s thoroughgoing adaptation, Tekla is given full voice, and the men are finally held to account.The new version, set in a vague present, opens like the original in the parlor of an out-of-season seaside hotel. There, Adi, a young painter, and Gustav, a teacher of “dead languages,” are discovered in the depths of a whiskey-enhanced discussion of women and art. At first idly, then with what appears to be solicitude, and finally with the glee of a cat cornering a mouse before killing it, Gustav pokes into Adi’s professional failures, connecting them to Tekla’s galling success. Having dumped her first husband after humiliating him in a popular roman à clef, what’s to stop her from doing the same to her second?The author of dramedies that foreground women — among them “The Roommate,” “The Moors” and “Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties” — Silverman is not about to let that wife-as-witch framing stand. Still, Strindberg’s three-part structure, with its bear-trap teeth, is too ingenious to mess with. In the second part, Adi, empowered or perhaps just empoisoned by Gustav, confronts Tekla with his newfound and possibly bogus insights into what he had thought was a happy marriage. Because Smith is so sincere and appealing, his vulnerability reading as openness instead of petulance, we are at first willing to allow his line of thought.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