Eliana Willis

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    In a City of Monuments, History Lives Onstage and in the Streets

    Three new plays at theaters in Washington explore how the past is both erased and inescapable.Although James Ijames does not specify the setting of his new play “Good Bones,” it sure seems like Washington. For one thing, a character says it “used to be a swamp.”That checks out; when I paid a visit to the capital last week, the summer humidity was already settling in. And hasn’t Washington become, as Ijames writes of the play’s locale in an introduction to the script, one of those places “that is now too expensive for most people to live”? It has: My older son, an elementary schoolteacher in D.C., is just squeaking by.Well, lots of cities are wet and pricey. But when two characters in “Good Bones” — one a new homeowner renovating a townhouse and the other a contractor intimately familiar with its former incarnations — discover that they both grew up in a nearby project called Dunbar Gardens, local bells may ring. The Paul Laurence Dunbar apartments are less than a mile from the Studio Theater, where the play is running through June 18.Of course, there are apartment complexes named for Dunbar, one of the country’s first Black poets to gain widespread recognition, in several American cities. Still, anyone who spends even a little time observing Washington’s glassy new high-rises squeezed up against its squat Federal piles, many built by enslaved people, will recognize Ijames’s spiritual geography: a place where history is both erased and inescapable.So even if it was a coincidence that the tension between past and present informed all three plays I saw during my visit, it was a telling one. “Good Bones,” Ijames’s follow-up to his Pulitzer Prize-winning “Fat Ham” (now on Broadway), examines the theme through the lens of contemporary gentrification — though the gentrifiers and the gentrified are, in this case, both Black. The familiar knots of privilege and appropriation become even more tangled when the people raising the property values grew up in the same neighborhood as the people they’re pricing out.From left: Joel Ashur, Johnny Ramey and Cara Ricketts in “Good Bones” at Studio Theater in Washington.Margot SchulmanThe other plays look further back, and at other forms of erasure. “Here There Are Blueberries,” which I saw at the Shakespeare Theater Company, concerns the discovery in 2006 of an album of 116 photographs that depict daily life among the residents of Auschwitz. Mind you, these are not the concentration camp’s prisoners, who are never seen, but the jolly-looking Nazis who ran it. Why such an album survived, and what should be done with it, are questions that bedevil the archivists who narrate the story.Our responsibility to the past is also the crux of Kenneth Lin’s “Exclusion,” at the Arena Stage. The title refers, in part, to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which prohibited the immigration of Chinese laborers; designed to last 10 years, it was not repealed until 1943. The law, as well as the anti-Asian violence it in essence sanctioned, is, in the play, the subject of a celebrated book by a Chinese American historian named Katie who sells the television rights to Hollywood.You could almost write the next beat yourself: Katie finds herself participating in egregious falsifications, as a terrible injustice is turned into entertainment by the dumbing-down machine. It’s a heavy if sadly believable irony that the mini-series created by a smarmy producer sidelines its historical conscience (Katie gets fired) and eventually excludes the Exclusion Act itself.But because Lin’s play, running through June 25, is a satire, the curtain does not come down on that downer. In a comic turnaround that could be motivated more clearly, Katie comes to believe that the producer’s rewrites are justified. Yes, he has turned a doctor who in real life was lynched by a mob into a kung fu expert who lynches the mob instead. And yes, he has transformed a humble seamstress into a prostitute to make the role more attractive to the actress who will play the role. Still, when the show becomes a huge critical and popular success, providing visibility to Asian actors and a boost to her career, Katie accepts the strange trade-off of being seen by being erased.As directed by Trip Cullman with the bright colors and swift pacing of situation comedy, “Exclusion” is instantly legible and accessible. Still, its emotional high point is just the opposite: a halting conversation between Katie and the actress that takes place in unsubtitled Cantonese. And though what they say is thus incomprehensible to those who do not speak the language, it dramatizes with great poignancy the power of what we can sense but not understand.Tony Nam, right, and Karoline in “Exclusion” at the Arena Stage in Washington.Margot SchulmanThere are moments like that in “Good Bones,” too. The homeowners, Aisha and Travis, hear sounds in their house they cannot explain. Are they the voices of ghosts whose lives are being painted over by the beautiful pale blue of their new kitchen?Yet the plot turns, somewhat squeakily, on sounds they can explain all too well: booming music from a late-night party nearby. When Travis, over Aisha’s objections, calls the police to complain about his neighbors, the conflict is set in motion, pitting the entitlement of new wealth against the traditions of old community.The questions Ijames raises in “Good Bones,” directed by Psalmayene 24, are profound: How can cities feel welcoming to people whose ideas of welcome are incompatible? What is the responsibility of newcomers to the surviving structures, both physical and emotional, of the past? And though those questions do not yet coalesce into a tight narrative — the tacked-on happy ending is a carpentry job their contractor would redo immediately — “Good Bones” is a house in progress. By the time it gets to New York (the Public Theater plans to present it in an upcoming season) it may well look and feel completely different.“Here There Are Blueberries,” a Tectonic Theater project conceived and directed by Moisés Kaufman, also approaches history as a living process. Like previous Tectonic works, including “The Laramie Project” and “Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde,” it proceeds in the form of an investigation based on interviews and relevant documents.In this case, the interviews begin with archivists at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum — not far from the theater — as they process the astonishing trove of photographs sent to them by a possible donor who says little about how he got them. The images of Auschwitz leaders and workers enjoying outings and singalongs and rewards for their “accomplishments,” including bowls of fresh blueberries, seem to say almost too much.By the time the play introduces another Auschwitz album — one that fills the historical and emotional gaps of the first with images of inmates — you understand why, as a former Nazi propagandist explains, “One must harden oneself against the sight of human suffering.”Yet I’m not sure plays should. “Blueberries,” which closed on Sunday in Washington but will be presented next spring at New York Theater Workshop, is so brisk and unsentimental it sometimes feels merely clinical, or perhaps surgical, its unbearable topic opened up for autopsy.That’s effective, but the more powerful moments for me are those in which characters vitally and morally involved in the story — descendants of Nazis, a survivor of the camp — speak from painful experience about the ways history implicates them, and all of us, even as it starts to fade from collective memory. The procedural mysteries of the albums are, after all, less important than the living fact of their irrefutable testimony.Theater is its own kind of testimony. “Blueberries,” like “Exclusion” and “Good Bones,” uses drama (and comedy) to extend our thinking about the legacies of prejudice and resistance, power and deprivation. But then so does any tour of this history-rich, antihistorical city. As our teacher son walked us back to our hotel after seeing “Blueberries,” I asked him about a particularly impressive Beaux-Arts building we passed. “The Carnegie Library,” he said. “It’s now an Apple store.”Good BonesThrough June 18 at the Studio Theater, Washington D.C.; studiotheatre.org. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes.ExclusionThrough June 25 at Arena Stage, Washington D.C.; arenastage.org. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. More

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    ‘Succession’ Finale Drew 2.9 Million Viewers Sunday, a Series High

    The acclaimed HBO drama ended on a high note, with its largest audience for a season closer.The series finale of “Succession” drew 2.9 million viewers on Sunday night, a viewership high for the decorated HBO drama, the network said on Tuesday.That audience was a considerable improvement from the Season 3 finale, which had 1.7 million viewers on the night it premiered, in December 2021. For the fourth and final season, HBO said that “Succession” was averaging 8.7 million viewers per episode, including delayed viewing, also a new high for the show.The ratings put an exclamation point on an improbable 39-episode run for “Succession,” which debuted in 2018 to modest expectations and turned into a critics’ favorite and an awards show beast. In addition to multiple Golden Globes wins, “Succession” has won 13 Emmys, including best drama (2020 and 2022), acting honors (Jeremy Strong, Matthew Macfadyen) and best writing (three times for the show’s creator, Jesse Armstrong).Even with those highs, “Succession” remains somewhat of a niche series, particularly compared with some of HBO’s other recent hits. The second season of “The White Lotus,” which concluded in December, averaged 15.5 million viewers per episode, nearly double the viewers for the final season of “Succession.” The second season of “Euphoria,” which premiered in early 2022, averaged 19.5 million viewers. And mega-hits like “House of the Dragon” and “The Last of Us” averaged roughly 30 million viewers per episode, according to the network.But “Succession” is already the early favorite to take best drama honors at this year’s Emmy Awards for a third time. Shows eligible for this year’s Emmys had to premiere between June 1, 2022, and May 31, 2023. Voting for the Emmy nominations begins on June 15, and the nominees will be announced in July.The viewership figures are compiled by HBO and tallied up from a combination of views from Max, HBO’s streaming service, and of ratings from the live airing and repeat telecasts on traditional cable television. Many entertainment companies, like Netflix, release internal numbers to tout the popularity of their biggest series, though they are difficult to verify. During the live 9 p.m. broadcast of “Succession” on the HBO cable network, for instance, 789,000 viewers tuned in, according to Nielsen. More

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    ‘Succession’ Clears the Air: Here’s What to Read

    Still sorting through the finale? Here’s a broad range of hard and soft takes to help you out.This article includes spoilers for the series finale of “Succession.”When a great and wealthy brute of a man such as Logan Roy dies, one expects there to be some kind of reading — a last will and testament, formal instructions to the executor of the estate, something that tells the family about his feelings. But Logan, never big on feelings, didn’t update his will, leaving in doubt his thoughts on a worthy successor and leaving his friends, family and associates to do “Sticker Perambulating Circuits,” or SPCs, to lay claim to any physical inheritance. (As for the Waystar Royco company itself? None of his children could manage to put a sticker on that.)In lieu of a reading of a will, we are instead treated to a variety of readings from the “Succession” Thinkpiece Industry, as Daniel Fienberg, a TV critic at The Hollywood Reporter, called it. Below, we put stickers on some of the noteworthy recent features on the series coming to its end.‘“Succession” Is Over. Why Did We Care?’ [NY Times]The “billon-dollar question,” as Alexis Soloski puts it, has been answered — none of the Roys won the prize. A companion question, however, is why did we care so much?“Writers have argued that we love ‘Succession’ because of what it says about America, what it says about class, what it says about money, family, trauma and abuse,” Soloski writes. “These characters are just like us. They’re not like us at all. They’re fake. They’re real. We hate them. We love them. We’re rooting for them. Are we? Did we? Why?”‘The Great Genius of “Succession” Was Hovering Two Inches Above Reality’ [NY Times]“Succession” did something none of its prestige-TV predecessors did, Kurt Andersen writes. In blurring fiction and reality in a fictional world, it created spot-on commentary about the same dance of fact and fantasy in the real world at a pivotal and disorienting time.‘Critic’s Notebook: The “Succession” Series Finale Was a Brilliant Family Nightmare’ [The Hollywood Reporter]The reason “Succession” will endure is because of things like “Sticker Perambulating Circuits,” argues Daniel Fienberg. “You might think you relate to the comic tragedy of their lives, to the quaint process of adhering stickers to the things that helps you remember the things and people you love, but their stickers aren’t your stickers and their tragedy isn’t your tragedy.”‘Can You Have a Powerful Career and Still Be a Good Parent? “Succession” Has a Clear Answer’ [Politico]When Tom unwittingly tells a pregnant Shiv, “I think you are maybe not a good person to have children,” it speaks to a recurring theme in “Succession” that “power and parenthood are incompatible,” writes Joanna Weiss.“Ultimately, ‘Succession’ suggests that an intergenerational transfer of power is doomed by definition,” Weiss writes.‘In the “Succession” Series Finale, the Poison Drips Through” [The Ringer]Logan Roy didn’t just promise each of his kids — well, except for Connor — the chance to inherit his throne. He also made sure that they never could, Miles Surrey writes. “If anything, all Logan did was poison them — just as he poisoned the world.”‘Who Was Bill Wambsganss, and Was He a “Succession” Spoiler?’ [NY Times]Thanks in part to a viral video on TikTok, Tom’s surname — Wambsgans — became a talking point before the finale. Was Shiv’s husband named for an otherwise unremarkable second baseman known for making an unassisted triple play in a World Series?“Whether the connection was intentional or not,” Benjamin Hoffman writes, “it shined a light on a player who has been all but forgotten beyond one outrageously good play.”‘What Was ‘Succession’ Actually Trying to Tell Us?’ [Vox]Did “Succession” show us how to be rich, the way Tom showed his protégé Greg? Whizy Kim argues that it did so, but in a cynical way that revealed the collateral damage.“Many popular TV shows have portrayed the lives of the wealthy as glitzy and glamorous,” Kim writes, “but few have so deftly used the real symbols and language of wealth to tell a story of greed and abuse of power that’s also a microcosm of a society suffering under the weight of an increasingly unequal, undemocratic economic landscape.”‘“Succession” Finale Review — A Perfect, Terrible Goodbye’ [The Guardian]“Perhaps the success of an ending can best be judged by how much it seems, as the credits roll, that it could have turned out no other way,” Lucy Mangan writes. The series finale succeeds on that front.‘“Succession” Season 4 Was a Mess — Until the Series Finale’ [Variety]The show’s final season had problems with pacing and focus, but “Succession” righted itself at the end, writes Daniel D’Addario. “These are, finally, not characters who are endlessly adaptable, easily able to be plugged into just any dramatic scenario; when Kendall pleads in the finale that he doesn’t know what he was meant to do beyond work at Waystar, we believe him.”‘What Was “Succession” About?’ [Vulture]Vulture has a few fun riffs on the ultimate meaning of “Succession,” ranging from Wolfgang Ruth’s opinion that the show was about “Stewy being bi all along” to Choire Sicha’s art-inspired observation that “Succession” was really a bunch of “noisy large-scale public art” of the characters’ “interior landscapes.”“Succession” is also about the “linguistic baubles” that emerged, profane, profound and otherwise, according to Genevieve Koski. Or, as Jackson McHenry writes, “Succession,” like “Seinfeld” is about nothing.‘Miss “Succession” Already? Here’s What to Watch Next” [NY Times]It’s been less than a day since the series finale, but “Succession” addicts could suffer withdrawal symptoms already. To ease the pain, Margaret Lyons curates a watch list for every possible “Succession” craving, including series like “The Righteous Gemstones,” “I Hate Suzie” and “Quiz.” More

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    Rosalind Franklin’s Role in DNA Discovery, Once Ignored, Is Told Anew in Song

    “Double Helix,” at Bay Street Theater, illuminates the British scientist’s contributions, which became the basis for James Watson and Francis Crick’s 1953 breakthrough.During the summer of 2020, the composer and lyricist Madeline Myers spent hours at the piano in her Manhattan apartment as she struggled to write three songs for her new musical, “Double Helix,” about the British chemist Rosalind Franklin. The challenge wasn’t strictly about marrying words to a score, but conveying the science of a crucial moment in the discovery of DNA’s structure — and making the songs entertaining.Franklin’s experiments, in which she successfully used X-ray crystallography to create images of DNA, became the basis for James Watson and Francis Crick’s groundbreaking 1953 discovery of the double helix structure. The breakthrough underpins our modern understanding of genetics and biology, but for years Franklin received none of the credit. (She died of cancer in 1958 at the age of 37; her male colleagues were later awarded the Nobel Prize.)Fast forward to a recent afternoon, when Myers and the show’s director, Scott Schwartz, were in a rehearsal room high above 42nd Street facing a new hurdle: how to stage those science-focused songs, including one number fittingly called “The Problem.” In this scene, six actors are in a lab using an X-ray crystallography machine to try to capture an image of DNA. As they turned their focus from a makeshift cardboard contraption to a screen positioned upstage, Schwartz called out: “We’re suspending reality in making the photograph immediately show up on the projection screen.”Schwartz and Myers faced a hurdle: how to stage those science-focused songs.Lenny StuckerThey were just weeks away from the first previews of “Double Helix,” which begin May 30 at Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor, N.Y. And though a certain level of make-believe is intrinsic to theater, getting this illusion right was especially tricky: Myers and Schwartz are trying to balance history and science with an emotional and multidimensional portrait of Franklin, who attacked her work with zealous dedication while being subjected to misogyny and antisemitism.While Myers knew “the play should not be about science,” she was committed to science being “the vehicle for this story.” That was Franklin’s worldview, after all. “There were dramatic liberties I could take with the history, but I just felt like I could not fudge the science.”Yet she also needed “the science to be simple because what we’re trying to show is the emotional conflict,” she added, “and all the power dynamics and the gender dynamics.”The production team also enlisted a few advisers, including Sonya Hanson, a research scientist at the Center for Computational Biology, to provide feedback on the script and the staging.“They’re doing a lot of work really incorporating the lab environment into the set,” Hanson said. Which is important, she explained, because “Rosalind was an amazing experimentalist” and any portrait of her life should make that clear.Massell, who plays Rosalind Franklin, was Hodel in the 2015 Broadway revival of “Fiddler on the Roof.”Lenny StuckerAlthough Franklin (portrayed onstage by Samantha Massell, who played Hodel in the 2015 Broadway revival of “Fiddler on the Roof”) was involved in the race to discover the structure of DNA, she was the only scientist not to write her own version of the story. “All of these accounts of what happened are certainly filtered through the biases that these people had,” Myers said. “And the only voice that we really just don’t hear from is Rosalind’s.”Myers began reading about the scientist in 2018, and felt an immediate kinship. “We’re both women. We’re both Jews. We’re both about the same age,” she said. But the biggest connection “was the way she felt about her work as a scientist was how I felt about my own work as a musical dramatist.”From left, Anthony Joseph Costello, Massell, Thom Sesma and Tuck Sweeney in the show.Lenny StuckerThis isn’t Myers’s first experience with bringing history to the stage. She was an original member of the “Hamilton” music department, and witnessed Lin-Manuel Miranda’s approach to creating an “arresting and moving” show about a historical figure, Myers explained. So when she started writing “Double Helix,” she wanted to ensure “the emotional stakes were greater than the actual historical stakes.”A central question: “Is life definable as biological matter or is life what we live and what we experience? And is Rosalind Franklin sacrificing what we live and what we experience in order to find that biological matter?” To heighten the choices that Franklin has to make in the musical, Myers turned what might have been, in real life, just a crush on the scientist, Jacques Mering, into a relationship. Franklin then has to choose whether to prioritize the relationship or her work.Schwartz, Bay Street Theater’s artistic director, said he was drawn to the project for its potential to fill in the blanks of Franklin’s inner world. “That’s what musicals are for,” he said. To use songs “to crack open the psychology of a character.”As for Franklin’s scientific snub, Myers isn’t looking for the audience to be “up in arms.” Instead, she wants people to leave the theater thinking: “What are the two strands in my own life that are competing for my time?” she said. “That is what the play is about. It’s about how we use our time not knowing how much of it that we have.” More

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    Sarah Goldberg on the ‘Barry’ Finale and Bad Decisions

    “I signed up for a comedy,” the actress Sarah Goldberg said of her role in “Barry.” “I never thought I’d have to cry so much in a comedy.”This was on a recent morning at Joe Allen, a theater district mainstay. Goldberg, dry-eyed and graceful in a relaxed take on a power suit, was stirring a Shirley Temple, angling for the cherry. The wall behind her was decorated with the posters of famous Broadway flops: “Rockabye Hamlet,” “Home Sweet Homer,” “Carrie.” Yet Goldberg, who spent the first decade of her career in theater, is currently enjoying a generous pour of success.“Sisters,” the comedy she created with Susan Stanley, debuted earlier this month on IFC. (In solidarity with the Writers Guild strike, she would not discuss it.) She is now shooting a substantial role for Season 3 of the Max series “Industry.” And the cherry at the bottom is “Barry,” the HBO not-quite-a-comedy that earned Goldberg an Emmy nomination in 2019 and aired its violent, mordant, wrenching final episode on Sunday night. (Titanic spoilers follow.)The log line of “Barry,” which began in 2018, sounds like the setup to a joke that increasingly held its punchlines: A hit man (Bill Hader’s Barry) walks into an acting class. Goldberg was cast as Sally, a fellow student and Barry’s love interest.Season 4 jumps ahead to a time when Sally (Goldberg) and Barry (Bill Hader, right) have a son, John (Zachary Golinger).Merrick Morton/HBOWith the blessing of the series creators, Hader and Alec Berg, Goldberg, 37, conceived Sally as a social experiment: Could she take the girl next door and restyle her as a gaping maw of narcissism and need? Yes, she could. In her hands, Sally became a sunlit catastrophe of a person. And in a pattern familiar to other prestige series (“Breaking Bad,” “The Sopranos”), online commenters seemed to judge Sally more harshly than her antihero partner. Did that ever feel bad?“Only in the way that every single day as a woman can feel bad,” she said.Over its four seasons, the dark Hollywood satire of “Barry” gave way to something even darker: a catalog of hungry, damaged people playing pretend. But while the finale left Barry dead and the acting guru Gene Cousineau (Henry Winkler) jailed for life, Sally broke good. Having finally left Barry in an effort to protect their son, the one-time actress and showrunner is shown years later, directing high school theater somewhere snowy.“It is as close to a happy ending for Sally as possible,” Goldberg said.Over mocktails, Goldberg discussed the finale, the series’s tonal leaps and how Sally survived. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.So what was “Barry” about?“Barry” was a morality tale. “Am I a good person?” Every character has that question. It’s the crux of the show. Every character is up against that. It’s like, how many bad decisions or bad choices make you that person?What was the show ultimately saying about acting?It’s a real cautionary tale, isn’t it? I wouldn’t watch that show and think: You know what? I’m going to pack my bags and drive to L.A.! In Cousineau’s classes, he gets people to bring their trauma to the forefront. The whole thing becomes this game of competitive grief.Goldberg wanted Sally “to be as morally bankrupt as the men on the show,” she said. “I wanted her to remain complex.”Merrick Morton/HBOWas “Barry” a show that believed that people can change?For the most part, no. But for Sally, in the finale, she finally makes an unselfish choice. She chooses this child that she didn’t even want and walks away from Barry. She still needs the reassurance from her child the same way she needed it from Barry. That narcissism and insecurity is still there. However, she’s up there with the students getting real joy out of having made this show. It’s not about fame or huge applause. It’s about having done something joyful with these kids. If she had become incredibly famous, things might have gone a lot worse for her. I don’t think it would have worked out.Why did Barry have to die?I always felt he was going to die. And I wondered who was going to kill him. I wondered if it was going to be Sally for a while. And if this is a morality tale, then there’s the question of consequences or repercussions. It’s brave storytelling to kill your lead. There’s a fun finality to it. It’s really over.Redemption never really worked for him. He tried. Became a “nice” guy, went to church. But in the end, he still went back to Los Angeles to kill Gene.All that redemption was on such a superficial level. None of it was going deep. Because ultimately, if he felt threatened, he would make the selfish choice. So it was just more performance.Was this really a comedy, especially in this final season?It was definitely a comedy when we started. The tone became really expansive. This season, particularly in the latter half, we changed genre almost every episode: thriller, horror, drama. I was surprised that the show could hold that. I laugh out loud, still, watching the show, but “comedy” doesn’t sum it up.How much say did you have in shaping Sally?I had a lot to say, which I never took for granted, because it’s rare. I’ve always said that with Sally, you don’t have to like her. You just have to know her. Likable? Dislikable? That’s a barometer we really only use for women. I wanted her to be as morally bankrupt as the men on the show. I wanted her to remain complex. I asked for that from Season 1. I find it interesting to play characters who are making bad decisions. I’m not interested in playing nice people.Sally attracted a lot of online hate, which reminded me of the reactions to female characters on other series. Why do people hate these women so much?I wish I had an answer that made any logical sense. I feel like there’s just this undercurrent of cultural misogyny — the sexism involved in how we view those characters is wild to me. “Barry” was no exception. I was curious how that would go. My hunch was correct that we were met with the same type of misogyny, but that only made me want to double down and go harder.Did any of it feel bad?Only in the way that every single day as a woman can feel bad. When I was growing up, I was taught that we lived in an equal world, and I believed it. When I went to theater school, in my year, there were 20 boys to eight women. We were told: “Well, this is a model of the industry. It’s representative of what kind of roles are available to you.” And we all just nodded along like, “Oh, that makes sense.” I have a lot of latent rage around those things. Some of it I was able to channel through Sally’s outbursts, but I felt so frustrated as an actress when I was starting out at what was available. I’d have this litmus test of like, Does she only ask questions? Does she say, “I’m so worried about you, babe”? Does she have a point of view? Does she have a job?”My hunch was correct,” Goldberg said about the misogyny aimed at her character online. “But that only made me want to double down and go harder.”Lanna Apisukh for The New York TimesWhat can you tell me about the character you’ll play in “Industry”?Petra, she’s the polar opposite of Sally. That was the draw. She’s an incredibly contained woman who is very successful and wickedly smart. While Sally was many things, contained was not one of them. Sally is always searching or floundering. Actually sitting still and taking the higher status is harder for me. So that’s why I’m enjoying it. It’s been a lovely job so far.How has “Barry” changed your career?Well, it changed my life. There’s only so long one can survive on a theater salary. Opposite to Sally, I’m someone who very much enjoys anonymity. The people who watch “Barry” seem to really love the show. If I’m approached in the street, it’s usually someone very kind who shyly wants to say, “I love the show.” And that’s lovely. Honestly, my life hasn’t changed all that much. Especially in London, nobody cares. I just feel lucky that the material I’ve been able to do has been stuff that I want to do. I haven’t had to compromise. As long as I can sustain that, I think I’ll be happy.You can just play nice girls from now.Yes, that will be my question: Is she likable, though? More

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    Succession Finale: Was Tom Wambsgans a Reference to Bill Wambsganss?

    When Tom Wambsgans outmaneuvered the Roy siblings, getting himself named as the U.S. executive running Waystar Royco for GoJo at the end of a rollicking finale of the HBO series “Succession,” it likely came as a shock to many of the viewers at home. But to fans of baseball’s early days, and internet conspiracy theorists, the signs were there for Tom to come out on top, besting three competitors at the same time.“It’s me,” Wambsgans said to his wife, Shiv Roy.The clues were there for some, thanks to Bill Wambsganss, a second baseman for Cleveland from 1914 to 1923. Wambsganss didn’t hit much, and there’s little indication he was a stellar base runner or a top-notch fielder. But he had one moment of pure glory, turning the first — and only — unassisted triple play in World Series history.Tom Wambsgans also did not stand out to many ahead of the finale for much beyond his poor treatment of Cousin Greg and his destructive relationship with his wife. But his unusual surname, and the notion that he would have to knock out three opponents at once, caught fire on social media in recent days, thanks to a viral TikTok by Sophie Kihm, the editor in chief of Nameberry, an online catalog of baby names.Thanks to her video, people began to speculate if the show’s writers had tipped their hands as to who would come out on top — and how. The theory had existed in various places for awhile — some believe it explained the ending of Season 3 — but, as the series began to wrap up, the idea that Tom could end up winning, just like Wambsganss, started to feel more and more plausible.Whether the connection was intentional or not, it shined a light on a player who has been all but forgotten beyond one outrageously good play. Sean Forman of Baseball Reference reported on Sunday night that there had been a surge of traffic on Wambsganss’ player page in the wake of the show’s finale.What people are finding is an unremarkable player who made a play that is worth all the attention.Wambsganss and Cleveland were facing Brooklyn in the 1920 World Series. In the fifth inning of Game 5, with Cleveland leading by 7-0, Brooklyn’s Pete Kilduff and Otto Miller both singled. Clarence Mitchell then hit a liner that looked as if it could score a run or more.In a breathless story about the game the next day, which ran on page A1, The New York Times recounted what happened once the ball left Miller’s bat. Wambsganss, who had been playing fairly far from second base, “leaped over toward the cushion and with a mighty jump speared the ball with one hand,” the paper reported.“Wamby’s noodle began to operate faster than it ever did before,” the article continued. “He hopped over to second and touched the bag, retiring Kilduff, who was far down the alley toward third base.”With two outs already having been recorded on the play, Wambsganss turned his attention to Miller.“Otto was evidently so surprised that he was just glued to the ground, and Wamby just waltzed over and touched him for the third out,” the paper reported.The play gave Wambsganss a level of notoriety that eclipsed anything else about his career, or even his life despite his having gone on to manage in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.“Funny thing, I played in the big leagues for 13 years, 1914 through 1926, and the only thing that anybody seems to remember is that once I made an unassisted triple play in a World Series,” he said in the 1966 baseball oral history, “The Glory of Their Times.” “Many don’t even remember the team I was on, or the position I played, or anything. Just Wambsganss-unassisted triple play! You’d think I was born on the day before and died on the day after.”With “Succession” having completed its wildly popular run on television, we will never know if Tom Wambsgans was able to thrive after completing a triple play of his own, or if he would come to be defined only by the one moment, as Wambsganss was.In Wambsganss’s defense, it has been more than 100 years since the unassisted triple play, and people are still talking about him. You would have to assume Tom Wambsgans would be OK with having the same fate. More

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    What’s on TV This Week: ‘The Idol’ and ‘Dave’

    HBO premieres its new series from the creator of “Euphoria,” and the show starring Lil Dicky wraps up.Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, May 29 — June 4. Details and times are subject to change.MondayWHITE HOUSE PLUMBERS 9 p.m. on HBO. This mini-series starring Woody Harrelson and Justin Theroux, based on the Watergate scandal, is wrapping up its run this week. Over the course of the five-episode run, Harrelson and Theroux play E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy, who bug the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee during the 1972 presidential election. From there, we all pretty much know the rest of the story.From left: Josh Hamilton, Sydney Sweeney and Marchant Davis in “Reality.”Courtesy of HBOREALITY 10:05 p.m. on HBO. Set in 2017 and based on a true story, this new show follows Reality Winner, an Air Force veteran and National Security Agency contractor as she is questioned by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for leaking a classified report about election interference. The dialogue in the show, starring Sydney Sweeney, is taken from the real F.B.I. transcripts from Winner’s questioning.TuesdayAMERICA’S GOT TALENT 8 p.m. on NBC. Entering its 18th season, the show that celebrates talents and strange party tricks of all kinds is back with its first round of auditions this week. Terry Crews is returning as the host and Simon Cowell, Heidi Klum, Howie Mandel and Sofía Vergara will all be back as judges.WednesdayDAVE 10 p.m. on FXX. This semi-autobiographical show about the rapper Dave Burd, a.k.a. Lil Dicky, is wrapping up its third season this week with Dave ending his quest to find love. The show, which originally started as a story about a man in his late 20s who believed he was destined to become one of the greatest rappers of all time, has slowly turned into a show about Dave actually being a rapper, touring around and finding modest success.SECRETS OF THE DEAD: ABANDONING THE TITANIC 10 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). The sinking of the R.M.S. Titanic has had countless retellings; from the 1997 film to many documentaries, there is not a lot left unknown or uncovered. But in this documentary, investigators talk about a lesser-known detail: When the Titanic was sinking, another ship in sight sailed away instead of helping the people freezing to death in the water. Who was on the ship that sailed away? This documentary finds out.ThursdayElvis Presley and Ann Margaret in “Viva Las Vegas.”Agence France-PresseVIVA LAS VEGAS (1964) 6:30 p.m. on TCM. Elvis Presley plays a musically gifted racecar driver (naturally), who goes to Las Vegas to win enough money to buy a new car so he can enter the Grand Prix, but he ends up loosing all his earnings. While trying to make his money back, he falls into a love triangle with a swimming instructor (Ann-Margret) and another racecar driver (Cesare Danova). “Whatever it isn’t, ‘Viva Las Vegas’ remains friendly, wholesome and pretty as all get-out,” Howard Thompson wrote in his 1964 review for The New York Times.FridayOCEAN’S 11 (2001) 7:30 p.m. on TNT. If you’ve seen these films, starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and lots of other big names, you know the three rules: “Don’t hurt anybody, don’t steal from anyone who doesn’t deserve it, and play the game like you’ve got nothing to lose.” That’s how Danny Ocean (Clooney) and his accomplices pull off one of the most elaborate casino heists that Vegas has ever seen. “For those not so taken by the star power, this new ‘Ocean’s Eleven’ is the equivalent of a domineering team you can’t stand that enters the Super Bowl,” Elvis Mitchell wrote in his review for The Times. “Even if you don’t like the players, the odds are so good that it’s tough to bet against them.”SaturdayThe Carolina Hurricanes played the Florida Panthers during Game Four of the Eastern Conference Final during the Stanley Cup Playoffs.Bruce Bennett/Getty ImagesSTANLEY CUP FINALS 8 p.m. on various networks. After a long hockey playoff season with lots of ups and downs (see: the Seattle Kraken beating the Colorado Avalanche), we have arrived at the finals, with the Florida Panthers playing either the Vegas Golden Knights or the Dallas Stars in Game 1.SundayLeonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet in “Titanic.”Paramount Home EntertainmentTITANIC (1997) 6 p.m. on VH1. After watching the Titanic documentary, tune in for this whooping 3-hour-plus fictionalized account, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet as Jack and Rose, lovers who meet on the ship. Come for the love story and decadence, stay for the harrowing scenes of characters meeting terrifying deaths. “Beyond its romance, ‘Titanic’ offers an indelibly wrenching story of blind arrogance and its terrible consequences,” Janet Maslin wrote in her review for The Times.THE IDOL 9 p.m. on HBO. The production of this show, starring Lily-Rose Depp and Abel Tesfaye (a.k.a The Weeknd), got a rocky start and was eventually taken over by the “Euphoria” creator Sam Levinson. Now it is finally coming to small screens. The show, which has been marketed by HBO as the “sleaziest love story in all of Hollywood,” follows an aspiring pop star (Depp) and her relationship with Tedros (Tesfaye), a self-help guru. “There’s a lot of dirty talk so grossly delivered by the Weeknd that you may need to mute and switch to closed captioning,” the Times reporter Kyle Buchanan wrote about the show after seeing the first two episodes at Cannes Film Festival. More

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    George Maharis, TV Heartthrob of ‘Route 66,’ Is Dead at 94

    He appeared in Off Broadway roles before starring on CBS as one of two young men who find adventure crossing the country in a Corvette convertible.George Maharis, the ruggedly handsome New York-born stage actor who went on to become a 1960s television heartthrob as a star of the series “Route 66,” died on Wednesday at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif. He was 94.His longtime friend and caretaker, Marc Bahan, confirmed his death.Mr. Maharis’s greatest fame arose from the role of Buz Murdock, one of two young men who traveled the country in a Corvette convertible, finding a new adventure and drama (and usually a new young woman) each week on CBS’s “Route 66.”In a 2012 reappraisal of the show, the New York Times critic and reporter Neil Genzlinger praised the literary quality of the scripts and commented, “This half-century-old black-and-white television series tackled issues that seem very 21st century.”Several actors who went on to greater renown appeared on the show, including Martin Sheen, Robert Redford, Robert Duvall and Barbara Eden.“Route 66” began in 1960, and Mr. Maharis left the show in 1963. His co-star, Martin Milner, got a new partner, played by Glenn Corbett, and the series continued for one more season.Mr. Maharis attributed his departure to health reasons (he was suffering from hepatitis), but Karen Blocher, an author and blogger who interviewed Mr. Maharis and other principal figures on the show, wrote in 2006 that the story was more complex.Herbert B. Leonard, the show’s executive producer, “thought he’d hired a young hunk for the show, a hip, sexy man and good actor that all the girls would go for,” Ms. Blocher wrote. “This was all true of Maharis, but not the whole story, as Leonard discovered to his anger and dismay. George was gay, it turned out.”Ms. Blocher attributed Mr. Maharis’s departure to a number of factors. “The producers felt betrayed and duped when they learned of Maharis’s sexual orientation, and never trusted him again,” she wrote, adding, “Maharis, for his part, started to feel that he was carrying the show and going unappreciated.”Mr. Maharis was arrested in 1967 on charges of “lewd conduct” and in 1974 on charges of “sex perversion” for cruising in men’s bathrooms.He did not discuss his sexuality in interviews, but he proudly described being the July 1973 nude centerfold in Playgirl magazine to Esquire in 2017.“A lot of guys came up to me,” he said, “and asked me to sign it for their ‘wives.’”Mr. Maharis had done well-received work in theater before becoming a television star. In 1958 he played a killer in an Off Broadway production of Jean Genet’s “Deathwatch.” Writing in The New York Times, Louis Calta described Mr. Maharis’s performance as “correctly volatile, harsh, soft and cunning.”Two years later, Mr. Maharis appeared in Edward Albee’s “Zoo Story” in its Off Broadway production at the Provincetown Playhouse. That year he was one of 12 young actors given the Theater World Award. The other winners included Warren Beatty, Jane Fonda, Patty Duke and Carol Burnett. In 1962, he received an Emmy Award nomination for his work on “Route 66.”In 1963, Mr. Maharis told a writer for The Times that he treated the TV series like a job in summer stock theater.“The series taught me how to maintain my integrity and not be sucked in by compromise,” he said.George Maharis was born in the Astoria section of Queens on Sept. 1, 1928, the son of a Greek restaurateur. He attended Flushing High School and later served in the Marines.Before succeeding as an actor, he told interviewers, he had worked as a mechanic, a dance instructor and a short-order cook. But he had aspired to a singing career first, and after he became a television star he recorded albums including “George Maharis Sings!,” “Portrait in Music” and “Just Turn Me Loose!” At least one single, “Teach Me Tonight,” became a hit.“The series taught me how to maintain my integrity and not be sucked in by compromise,” Mr. Maharis said of his role on “Route 66.”Silver Screen Collection/Getty ImagesAfter leaving “Route 66,” Mr. Maharis appeared in feature films including “Sylvia,” with Carroll Baker, and “The Satan Bug,” a science-fiction drama (both 1965). He tried series television again in 1970 as the star of an ABC whodunit “The Most Deadly Game,” with Ralph Bellamy and Yvette Mimieux, but the show lasted only three months.In the 1970s and early ’80s, he made guest appearances on other television series, including “Police Story,” “The Bionic Woman” and “Fantasy Island.” He did occasional television films, including a poorly reviewed 1976 “Rosemary’s Baby” sequel. He worked infrequently in the 1980s and made his final screen appearance in a supporting role in “Doppelganger,” a 1993 horror film starring Drew Barrymore.Information about his survivors was not immediately available.Because of his filming schedule when the shows aired, Mr. Maharis did not have a chance to watch “Route 66” until it was rereleased on DVD in 2007, he told the website Route 66 News that year.“I was really surprised how strong they were,” he said. “For the first time, I could see what other people had seen.”In an interview the same year with The Chicago Sun-Times, he reflected on his “Route 66” days and on how the country had changed since then. “You could go from one town to the next, maybe 80 miles away, and it was a totally different world,” he said. “Now you can go 3,000 miles and one town is the same as the next.” More