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    Review: In ‘Dear World,’ Donna Murphy Leads a Righteous March

    Jerry Herman’s rarely seen 1969 musical is revived in an Encores! production at New York City Center.If the composer-lyricist Jerry Herman loved one thing, it was a brassy dame who bulldozes past all obstacles in her quest for the best possible life for herself. The women at the center of his best-known shows, “Hello, Dolly!” and “Mame,” are pathologically positive, speaking directly to our vanities and vulnerabilities — and are celebrated for it.Who better to teach a larger-than-life lesson than a strident diva in a bold headpiece? Such is the case with Countess Aurelia, the protagonist of his 1969 flop, “Dear World,” which New York City Center’s Encores! has revived in a blissed-out concert production that opened on Wednesday.Led by Donna Murphy, and directed and choreographed by Josh Rhodes with laissez-faire humor, it presents a smaller, looser, but still effective Herman elixir.Based on a fable-like Jean Giraudoux play, “The Madwoman of Chaillot,” Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee’s book follows the Countess Aurelia (Murphy), a Parisian eccentric who spends her days al fresco at the Cafe Francis, learning to love all before her “through the bottom of the glass.” When clouds (whimsically rendered by Paul Tate dePoo III as sparse hangings above his bohemian set of chaises, trunks and old clocks) threaten her outdoor seating, she simply wills them away with folksy charisma.But her peace is disturbed when a young official, Julian (Phillip Johnson Richardson), is sent by the President (a swaggering, delectably petulant Brooks Ashmanskas) to blow up the cafe so they can drill into oil recently discovered beneath. With the water supply already affected, Aurelia leads the charge against the bureaucrats, aided by the friendly Sewerman (Christopher Fitzgerald) and her bosom buddies, Gabrielle (Ann Harada) and Constance (Andréa Burns), the Madwomen of Montmartre and of the Flea Market.From left: Andrea Burns, Murphy and Ann Harada in the revival of Jerry Herman’s 1969 musical.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesIt’s easy to see how this fantastical musical could float away from a less confident, cleareyed director. Here, Rhodes (who helmed Herman’s “Mack & Mabel” for Encores! in 2020) emphasizes the kookiness of his well-sketched characters in a spacey way that makes everything feel, if not logical, then natural. His choreography is similarly simple, and works well for the ensemble, save for a vaguely anti-war, ballet-inspired solo performed during the entr’acte by Kody Jauron, who shines in a miming role.The score is by far Herman’s most relaxed; if “Dolly” is a bottle of Champagne and “Mame” a speedball, “World” is a Shirley Temple (Aurelia herself only ever takes one sip of wine a day). It’s perhaps a side effect from having written new material for the film adaptation of “Hello, Dolly!” that same year, with songs tailored for the close-up rather than the chorus line.The new Encores! music director Mary-Mitchell Campbell’s conducting is mostly swooning and enlivens the work, though she often opts for arrangements that warmly dissolve each number into a Parisian haze rather than charge up a triumphant belt. (Campbell, who did extensive research on the score’s many variations, has directed Philip J. Lang’s orchestrations toward a calmer phrasing than the original.) Only the crystal-clear voiced Samantha Williams, as the yearning waitress Nina, is allowed to soar vocally past the end of her stunning “I’ve Never Said I Love You.”But the intoxicating strength of the show’s leading lady still pulsates throughout — even when, as is often the case with these concert stagings, Murphy had her book in hand for the dramatic scenes. (She had to miss the first five days of rehearsal after testing positive for Covid.) Before curtain, the Encores! artistic director Lear deBessonet made the announcement, almost anxiously, but it certainly didn’t alter Murphy’s ability to deliver what she always does: an endlessly reinvigorating voice at once worldly, incredulous, curious and confident.Murphy’s Countess is a dotty, conscientious woman awoken from her comfort and determined to claim it back. If anything, Murphy’s consulting of the script amounted to a more organically astonished character, searching for the best words of affirmation in the face of encroaching danger. She first breaks through that slumber in the frenzied “I Don’t Want to Know,” which Murphy sings with captivating vulnerability.Christopher Fitzgerald, center, leads the ensemble in a tale that pits locals against the “hoards of pretentious, power-hungry, self-serving men consumed by greed.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAnd Burns nearly steals the second act in her brief solo, “Memory,” a coquettish dream of past flames. She looks dazzling, as does everyone else, in Toni Leslie James’s lovingly fussy, belle epoque-tinged costumes, and Matthew Armentrout’s wigs, the best of which being Murphy’s powder-white hair to match her blanched makeup.Everyone’s a little loopy in “Dear World” (Aurelia feels the touch of her former beau, Constance hears voices, Gabrielle walks around an imaginary dog), but not as mad as the incoming corporate forces. In Sandy Rustin’s concert adaptation, and under Rhodes’ direction, these aren’t the dust-ridden old biddies for which the original script seems to call for — the three of them look radiantly alive, for starters — but headstrong women who rather mean it when they offer to kill the “hoards of pretentious, power-hungry, self-serving men consumed by greed.”Considering our current climate of reactive, out-loud politics, the melodramatic straightforwardness of Lawrence and Lee’s story doesn’t seem as far-out as it once did. Now, as then, Herman’s tuneful, yes-we-can score holds a steady beat for all to march to.Dear WorldThrough Sunday at New York City Center, Manhattan; nycitycenter.org. Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes. More

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    The Female Artisans Honoring, and Reinventing, Japanese Noh Masks

    ONE OF THE world’s oldest surviving theatrical arts, Japanese Noh grew out of various forms of popular entertainment at temples, shrines and festivals, including seasonal rites offered by villagers giving thanks for a bountiful harvest. During the Muromachi period (1336-1573), those varied productions were codified into an elaborately contrived entertainment for military leaders, some of whom, like the 16th-century warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi, also acted in Noh. Presented using minimal props on a stage comprising a roof, four pillars and a bridge way, the plays dramatize myths and tales from traditional Japanese literature with monologues, sparse bamboo flute melodies, periodic percussion and tonal chanting. Often, supernatural beings take human form. The pace can be almost hypnotically slow, with the colors and elaborate embroidery of the actors’ costumes indicating their characters’ age and status.But perhaps the most distinguishing feature of Noh is the carved masks worn by performers. Of the hundreds of masks produced during the Muromachi period, about 40 to 50 form the archetypes for the masks made today, says the historian Eric Rath, who specializes in premodern Japan; many represent different characters, depending on the play. Master mask carvers have long been celebrated for their ability to create a static face that seems to come alive, its expression changing with the angle of the performer’s head and the way the light hits its features. While many Japanese people today have never seen a live Noh performance, the white visage and red lips of a Ko-omote mask (one of a few denoting a young woman) or the bulging golden eyes of the horned Hannya (one of the most famous of the demon masks, representing a wrathful, jealous woman) are both intrinsic to Japan’s visual culture.Nakamura in her Noh-inspired mask “Okina” (2022).Before World War II, only men were allowed to perform Noh professionally; now, some women play leading roles. But until recently, mask making, in which blocks of hinoki cypress carved in high relief are hollowed out, then primed with a white mixture of crushed oyster shells and animal glue — with mineral pigment for lips and cheeks, and gold powder or copper to give the teeth and eyes of masks depicting supernatural beings an otherworldly glow — was a craft largely handed down from father to son.THAT’S CHANGED SOMEWHAT in the years since the Kyoto-based Mitsue Nakamura, 76, started learning the craft in the 1980s. When she began, she knew of only one other woman in the field, but this year, all four of her current apprentices, some of whom study for as long as 10 years, are female. Some adhere to the traditional archetypes and techniques, while others radically reinterpret them.For purists, Nakamura says, a true Noh mask is never entirely decorative: It has to be used onstage, and its maker must hew precisely to a narrow set of centuries-old parameters. Today, Nakamura says, actors prize masks that are antiques or appear to be. Her pieces, each of which takes about a month to complete, often look older than they are thanks to the shadows she smudges into the contours of the face, or a weathering she achieves by scratching the paint with bamboo.Nakamura wearing her mask “Ikkaku Sennin” (2020).In 2018, the Kanagawa-based playwright and screenwriter Lilico Aso, 48, came to see Nakamura’s process firsthand because she was interested in developing a character who was a Noh mask carver; instead, she became a mask carver herself, drawn, she says, to the idea of being “both a craftsman and an artist.” She’s been studying with Nakamura ever since and, last fall, in a show titled “Noh Mask Maker Mitsue Nakamura and Her Four Disciples” at Tokyo’s Tanaka Yaesu gallery, she exhibited a series of four masks called “Time Capsule” inspired by celebrities and fictional characters. Rihanna became an earth goddess with pearlescent blue lips and eye shadow. Ariana Grande morphed into the moon princess Kaguya, who, in an ancient tale, rejects all her mortal suitors and returns to her lunar home; in Aso’s rendering, she has the high, soft eyebrows of a Noh beauty.For some female Noh artisans, subtle changes to traditional forms emerge from a deep personal connection. Keiko Udaka, 43, who also works in Kyoto, grew up steeped in Noh, with a father who was both a performer and a mask maker. She began studying with him when she was a teenager; in 2021, after he died, she took over an unfinished Noh play he was working on, commissioned by a town in Ehime prefecture, on the island of Shikoku. While one of her brothers completed the script, Udaka created a mask for the main character, a folk hero who starved to death while cultivating barley for future generations, imbuing it with the features of their late father. Such homages aren’t an uncommon practice among Noh artisans, and the allure is obvious: As Udaka says, a painstakingly crafted carving is more indelible than a photo. “Memories can be recorded too easily in many places now,” she says, “and they don’t remain in our minds.”Nakamura in her “Ryoshuku no Tsuki” (2022) mask.While Udaka’s departures from tradition are subtle, those of the Tokyo-based Shuko Nakamura (no relation to the Kyoto mask maker), 34, are unignorable. Inspired by Noh history, folklore and her own imagination, she makes masks out of modeling clay and paper rather than wood. One mask depicts an old woman, a crown of blue-black crows circling above her forlorn face, alluding to the ubasute story — which appears in both folk tales and Noh — of an elderly family member abandoned in the forest. With deep smile lines, a long horsehair beard and bushy pompom eyebrows, another mask honors the form of Okina, a spirit who appears as an old man. A gnarled pine tree sprouts from the mask’s head in place of hair; at the roots nestle a pair of turtles. The conifers and reptiles, she says, are references to the characteristic illustrations on the fan Okina holds when he dances.Out of respect for the ancient art, Shuko Nakamura refers to her creations as “creative masks” rather than Noh masks, but the tribute is clear. And even a traditional mask maker like Mitsue Nakamura sees the place for works that expand the boundaries of Noh’s conservative culture. “Of course, the best masks are those used onstage,” she says, “but I think we should also make Noh masks that can stand on their own.”Photo assistants: Megan Collante, Orion Johnson More

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    ‘The Mandalorian’ Season 3, Episode 3: Amnesty Intergalactic

    Now that the Empire is dead, the New Republic allows its citizens to live freely. Or does it?Season 3, Episode 3: ‘The Convert’The planet Coruscant is an ecumenopolis: a city-covered world with a trillion residents, where after thousands of years of civilization and construction, only the peak of the mountain Umate is still visible from the original lands and seas. This outcropping juts up in Coruscant’s Monument Plaza, and when the former Imperial scientist Dr. Penn Pershing (Omid Abtahi) strolls by it — while enjoying a glowing ice pop and watching the street performers roaming about — the former Imperial communications officer Elia Kane (Katy O’Brian) suggests he touch the mountain. After all, the Empire is dead and the New Republic allows its citizens to live freely. Right?So Pershing reaches out toward Umate. But then a droid buzzes by and stops him. Startled, he drops his dessert. The droid picks it up and whisks it away, sternly saying, “No littering.” Meet the new boss … maybe the same as the old boss.About three-fourths of this week’s hourlong “The Mandalorian” is about Pershing, a familiar face whom you may recall was tasked in past episodes with extracting and studying Grogu’s blood, as part of a cloning program. Pershing always seemed conflicted about his work; and indeed helped Din rescue Grogu in the Season 2 finale.As this episode begins, Pershing has been accepted into the New Republic’s amnesty program. He has been assigned the alphanumeric identity code L52 and put to work cataloging all the Imperial spacecraft and machinery about to be destroyed by the government. He works in a nondescript cubicle in a huge office, and barely gets through one tray of electronic files before a droid plops another on his desk. He is a brilliant scientist who once did groundbreaking work, and if allowed to he knows he could help the New Republic make use of the Empire’s discarded bones. But all of the supervisors and droids assigned to his case are too busy — and too wary — to listen to him.Pershing is “The Convert” of this chapter’s title, though this episode is mostly about his creeping doubts. Out in the Outer Rim, where various Imperial remnants still operate — including the one led by his old boss Moff Gideon — times were hard but the various factions were at least still fighting for something. On Coruscant, on the other hand, one of the first people Pershing meets is a wealthy snob who admits that the change in regime has not affected him, because he and his wife try to stay out of politics. Their only cause is staying rich.It is no wonder then that Pershing’s head is turned by Elia, another Moff Gideon survivor who secretly supplies him with some of the biscuits they both used to enjoy from their Imperial rations. Elia knows Coruscant because she trained there when it was still under the Empire’s control. (“We thought we were doing good,” she says.) She encourages him to continue with his research regardless of what the New Republic says, noting — not incorrectly — that “following orders blindly is how we got in trouble in the first place.”In one of this week’s big adventure set pieces, Pershing and Elia defy their allowed travel zones by sneaking onto a train — avoiding the officious droid ticket-takers — and making their way to an old Imperial ship, to steal one of the mobile lab stations that the New Republic is thoughtlessly intending to scrap. But the heist turns out to be a setup. When the authorities arrive, Elia joins with them and lets Pershing get arrested.In custody, Pershing is subjected to the brainwashing device commonly referred to as a “mind-flayer,” although the pleasant doctor in charge of the procedure insists that his version is much less intense than its reputation. (“You’ll see some pleasant colors, hear some light buzzing.”) But when the doctor leaves, Elia stays behind and cranks the mind-flayer dials into the red, while stoically munching on one of those Imperial biscuits.There is a real “Andor” feel to this unsentimental depiction of the Empire-versus-Republic dynamic, where everyone has their own agendas and is advancing them by exploiting whatever systems are in place. Elia’s motivations are still unclear (though they probably involve Moff Gideon). But in terms of what this week’s story is about, what matters here is that neither “the good guys” or “the bad guys” are doing right by Dr. Pershing.Initially, this Coruscant interlude seems a bit out of line with the rest of the episode, which begins with Din and Bo-Katan shooting down TIE fighters on Kalevala (though not before the armada destroys Bo-Katan’s palatial home). The long opening action sequence is old-school “Star Wars,” full of “pew pew” sound effects, slick aerial maneuvers through narrow passages, and the comic relief of R5-D4 falling down repeatedly. It is thrilling and thematically uncomplicated.But the writers Jon Favreau and Noah Kloor bring their pieces together at the end, by returning to Din and Bo-Katan after they escape Kalevala. Din wants to hide out for a while with the Mandalorian covert led by the Armorer; after he proves to the assembled tribe that he and Bo-Katan have bathed in the Living Waters beneath Mandalore’s mines, they are both cleared of their apostate status and accepted back into the fold.Is this really a happy ending though for Bo-Katan, who resents these fundamentalist Mandalorians for helping to destroy her family’s reign? Unlike Pershing, she is not the sort to follow rules for their own sake. She does what she likes, whenever she likes, no matter what human, alien or droid says no. In other words: This covert is probably not welcoming in another convert.This is the wayThis week’s director is Lee Isaac Chung, making his “Mandalorian” debut. Chung received Oscar nominations for best director and best original screenplay for his 2020 movie “Minari,” a lovely and muted drama about immigrant farmers. He has a real knack for getting subtle and engaging performances from his casts, and this episode is no exception.Dr. Pershing becomes a part of a great “Star Wars” tradition when he tries to defend his theft by shouting — to a Mon Calamari, no less — “It was a trap!” (If only he had added, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”)After Din and Bo-Katan say “this is the way” to each other while flying away from Mandalore, Grogu makes a little mewling noise that almost sounds he is repeating the words. The little guy is getting so, so close to talking.Note that the Mandalorian covert has what appears to be a Mythosaur skull hanging in one of its chambers — perhaps the skull of the Mythosaur that Mandalore the Great was supposed to have killed, but which Bo-Katan may have seen still alive in the Living Waters. How long until she suggests to Din that his people have been lying to him about their history?After the Armorer accepts Din and Bo-Katan into the covert, everyone gathers around to give them hearty claps on their shoulders. This, apparently, is the way? More

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    ‘Star Trek: Picard’ Season 3, Episode 5 Recap: Old Friends Return

    In this week’s “Picard,” Jean-Luc encounters a familiar face. And he must contain his anger.Season 3, Episode 5: ‘Imposters’I am rarely truly surprised when it comes to television, but my jaw literally dropped when Ro Laren, played by Michelle Forbes, appeared as one of the Federation officers sent to upbraid Jean-Luc and Riker for their antics.A genuinely stunning callback. The last time we saw Ro, she had become a traitor to the Federation by joining the Maquis in their fight against the Cardassians. This was a betrayal so cutting that it left Captain Picard speechless in one of Patrick Stewart’s stronger acting moments. That wasn’t supposed to be the last we saw of Ro, one of the more storied occasional characters in Trek lore. “Deep Space Nine” wanted Forbes to resurrect Ro as part of the cast, but she turned it down.What made Ro a brilliant character is that she was one of the rare figures in “Next Generation” who didn’t automatically buy the righteousness of Starfleet hook, line and sinker.She notes to Jean-Luc during their tense reunion: “Blind faith in any institution does not make one honorable.” Ro questioned the status quo and valued her personal identity — as was signified by her insisting on wearing her Bajoran earring, which Jean-Luc astutely notes is missing when we see her again. This makes her the perfect person to tell the captain she once turned on that Starfleet is compromised at the highest level. Ro, on some level, has always believed that Starfleet is corrupt — just not as blatantly as it is now.It falls somewhere between appropriate and ironic that Ro wants to question her former commanding officers about committing treason. Jean-Luc, understandably, is still enraged that Ro betrayed him all those years ago, though it’s a bit rich at the moment, given why he is in trouble.“Empathy is one thing; betraying a commanding officer is another,” Jean-Luc rages, though we should remember that Jean-Luc just stole a shuttle from the Titan and put the entire crew in danger. But let’s move past that.In the “Picard” version of Ro, she is a commander now, not an ensign. I was mostly fine with the story of how she got there. She was court-martialed, did some time and was recruited to Starfleet Intelligence, which included an “arduous rehabilitation program.” One small quibble: At no point during this process did Starfleet let Jean-Luc know that Ro had turned herself in.Jean-Luc is able to vent his frustrations to Ro directly, though he does it at gunpoint in the holodeck. Historically, Jean-Luc’s family has always been his crew, not his actual family. So to be betrayed by someone he took under his wing is the deepest shiv someone could stick in him, especially on a Starfleet mission. But he has always fundamentally misread Ro: Jean-Luc wanted Ro to be Starfleet’s finest — as she notes — whereas Ro just wanted to be Ro.But even so, Picard’s crew is still family. So when Ro asks Jean-Luc if he trusts her, he immediately says yes. Changelings are everywhere within Starfleet, Ro tells Jean-Luc; and as it turns out, they are right next to her, planting a bomb on her shuttle and thus bringing a closure to Ro’s character that she never properly received on “Next Generation.” That Ro was the behind-the-scenes handler of Worf and Raffi was a nice touch. The three of them have much in common as outsiders who never quite fit the Starfleet mold. Using Ro’s earring as a data chip that could reunite Worf with Riker and Jean-Luc was innovative — and it tells us something else about Ro: She knew she was going to die when she handed the earring to Jean-Luc.This was the best episode in what is turning out to be a strong season for “Picard.” Odds and EndsGenuinely loved the shots showing the Titan being repaired in space. Good example of how much the visuals of Trek have advanced over the decades.Even after all this, Jean-Luc still insists on trying to get his Jack to join Starfleet. “Perhaps you might consider choosing a more honest vocation,” Jean-Luc says. The elder Picard, at his core, is a company man through and through, and even in trying to guide Jack, all roads lead back to Starfleet, despite its being obviously not a good fit. And as we find out later in the episode, the honesty of that vocation is up for debate at the moment.The ship that Starfleet uses to bring its investigators is the U.S.S. Intrepid, a descendant of a ship that appeared on the original series.Ro tells Jean-Luc that she has transferred most of the Titan crew to the Intrepid. Why would they need to be reassigned? If Ro didn’t trust anybody on her own ship or in the rest of Starfleet, wouldn’t she be putting those crew members in danger? This is borne out when Ro crashes her shuttle into the Intrepid to give the Titan time to run, but that also presumably hurt the Titan crew members that were beamed to the Intrepid.I was also surprised that Jean-Luc and Riker encouraged Shaw to take the Titan and run so quickly with Titan crew members on board the Intrepid. Let’s assume the corrupted Starfleet ship wants to frame the Titan for Ro’s death. And lets assume that everyone knows the changelings aren’t afraid to murder.  It stands to reason that Picard, Riker and Shaw would want to take their crew with them.I’m enjoying the show’s willingness to offer fresh takes on members of certain species, like Krinn, a villainous Vulcan, or Sneed, the gangster Vulcan. But this story line is turning out to be unintentionally hilarious. How exactly did Worf and Raffi come up with their plan to capture Krinn? Worf: “OK, Raffi. You set up with your rifle up top while a hologram version of you stands next to me on the ground. Then they’ll discover that. Then Krinn will make us fight each other. Then you stab me, but not too hard. Then when they think I’m dying, I’ll surprise them.” Raffi: “That seems complicated. What if they shoot us on sight?” Worf: “Trust me.” A mea culpa: Last week, I wrote that Picard, while having his haddock, “blithely discusses the accident” that killed Jack Crusher Sr. Multiple readers noted that Picard was talking about a different incident, not the one that killed his old friend. My apologies, a changeling took over my body.   More

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    Kamala Harris Stops By to Chat With Stephen Colbert

    The vice president visited “The Late Show” on Wednesday for the first time since the 2020 election.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.Executive Branch ExclusiveVice President Kamala Harris visited with Stephen Colbert on “The Late Show” on Wednesday. It was her first live appearance on the program since the 2020 election.Colbert asked Harris about recent comments made by Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, in which he referred to the war in Ukraine as a “territorial dispute.”“So, as vice president, I have now met with over 100 world leaders. Presidents, prime ministers, chancellors and kings. And when you’ve had the experience of meeting and understanding the significance, again, of international rules and norms, and the importance of the United States of America standing firm and clear about the significance of sovereignty and territorial integrity, the significance of standing firm against any nation that we tried to take by force another nation, if you really understand the issues, you probably would not make statements like that.” — VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS.@VP Kamala Harris shares her thoughts on Gov. Ron DeSantis calling the war in Ukraine a “territorial dispute.” #Colbert pic.twitter.com/ig1vPFEXRI— The Late Show (@colbertlateshow) March 16, 2023
    Harris also weighed in on former Vice President Mike Pence’s assertion that he should not have to answer a federal grand jury subpoena to testify about Jan. 6. Pence has argued that the vice president’s role as president of the Senate means he is protected by the Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause, which shields members of Congress from law enforcement scrutiny over their legislative duties.She quickly answered Colbert’s question over whether the vice president is in the executive or legislative branch of government. “I am in the executive branch,” Harris said, laughing.The Punchiest Punchlines (Droning On Edition)“After Russian fighter jets forced down an unmanned Air Force surveillance drone yesterday over the Black Sea, the White House said Russia’s actions were ‘unsafe, unprofessional and reckless.’ Well, yeah, I mean, it’s Russia. Of course they’re reckless — they think the ‘Jackass’ movies are meditation videos.” — SETH MEYERS“Here’s what we’re told: that there’s nothing to worry about. Yesterday, a Russian fighter jet collided with a U.S. drone. Even worse, after the collision, the Russian plane didn’t even leave a note on the windshield. Now our insurance is going to go up. Of course, all of our drones are insured by the General.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“After a U.S. drone was forced down yesterday by a Russian fighter jet, Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. denied that the two aircraft collided, and Putin is claiming the drone just fell out a window.” — SETH MEYERS“We haven’t seen this kind of hazing on a hunk of metal since the Cuban missile wedgie.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Bits Worth WatchingDave Letterman sat down with “Dave Jr.,” Jimmy Kimmel, on Wednesday.What We’re Excited About on Thursday NightKeanu Reeves will talk about the latest chapter of his John Wick franchise on Thursday’s “Tonight Show.”Also, Check This OutHelen Mirren as Hespera and Lucy Liu as Kalypso in “Shazam! Fury of the Gods.”Warner Bros. PicturesThe “Shazam!” stars Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu say they signed on for their first superhero movie because the roles are a leap forward for women. More

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    The Unsinkable Marilyn Maye

    Turning the corner of 54th Street in a New York City taxi, the peerless nightclub singer Marilyn Maye is reminded of an early moment in her career. Sixty years ago, while performing on national television, she was also singing at a nightclub. “This was on Broadway,” she says, quickly adding, “on Broadway, I mean, in Kansas City.” (She still lives there. “The closets,” she explains.)But there was no advertising or publicity pointing tourists toward her show. So she found out from local hotel concierges which cabdrivers worked at the airport, and did a free concert for 20 of them. “I told them: When somebody gets off a plane and says, ‘Where is this Kansas City singer?’ — now you know!”“That was enterprising,” she twinkles.Still enterprising and still twinkling at nearly 95, Marilyn Maye is the last of a great generation of American Songbook singers. She is both the endurance runner and the mystical Sphinx, a “consummate master of the stage,” the trumpeter Wynton Marsalis says, on the brink of her birthday and her solo debut at Carnegie Hall, where she will perform with the New York Pops, conducted by Steven Reineke, on March 24.Maye is famous for many things: She made 76 television appearances (the most of any singer) on “The Tonight Show,” and was a friend and favorite of Ella Fitzgerald’s. She works nonstop all over the country, and has had hit runs with birthday concerts, including 10 sold-out nights at 54 Below in Manhattan called “94, Of Course, There’s More.”Michael Feinstein, the singer and founder of the Great American Songbook Foundation, calls her “more than an entertainer and a great musician — she is a life force that awakens something in other people.” For her fans, Carnegie Hall marks a long-awaited opportunity to see her celebrated in high style after eight decades of commitment to the strange, confounding world of cabaret singing, which has as many casualties as queens.Maye on the stage of Carnegie Hall, where she will perform with the New York Pops on March 24.Clark Hodgin for The New York TimesWhat really astounds her colleagues, though, is not only that she has survived and remains committed, but that Maye’s humor, spirit and above all her voice are in the best shape of her career. Shining octogenarians in saloon singing, like the great Mabel Mercer, were seated and largely speaking their songs; Maye never sits down, and her delivery has never been as effortless.One secret may be her equanimity: Carnegie Hall will be the most important night of her life … and just another gig in a year, like all her years, jammed with travel, devoted audiences, parties, mentoring, master classes and a steady rush of concerts on any and all-sized stages. She is omnipresent: a photograph of last year’s edition of “Broadway Bares,” the annual midnight benefit for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, reveals her smiling in the front row.Another secret might lie, perhaps, in her eclectic approach: Maye sings jazz, but she acts jazz too. She enters a song, her life experience coloring every phrase. One admirer, the actress Tyne Daly, calls Maye’s “an evolved technique” that is “emotionally smart.” “She’s totally in the room,” Daly says, “and to tell the story, she uses everything she knows, so far.”A typical Maye set list — she is famous for putting it together at the last moment — might begin with “Look for the Silver Lining,” a song introduced by the 1920s star Marilyn Miller, for whom Maye was named by her stage-struck mother. It will then often curve into a long set of medleys — she is known in the trade as “Medley Maye” — in which, say, six songs about smiling, from the 1928 “When You’re Smiling” to James Taylor’s “Your Smiling Face,” might intertwine.“It’s got to be happy, happy, happy in the beginning,” she says. “Don’t get into heavy ballads on your third tune.”The voice that stitches the set together has superb intonation (inspired by the singer Jo Stafford), with a velvet cushion at the bottom, elastic rhythm and bluesiness she can call on at will. In a set, she almost always sings two signature songs about adulterous love affairs, “Guess Who I Saw Today” and “Fifty Percent.” And she often climaxes with two hymns to survival, Stephen Sondheim’s “I’m Still Here” and Jerry Herman’s “It’s Today,” punctuated with high kicks.Onstage, she favors a huge glittering brooch, shell-shaped curvaceous rhinestone earrings and trademark elastic cuff bracelets. She holds her microphone stand with ease or slides it behind her to stroll — “Never turn your back,” she insists — and knows exactly where her bass player, drummer and the pianist are.Even offstage, she seems ready for the spotlight. “She stayed in my house at different times,” says her frequent designer Bob Mackie, “and she gets out of bed in the morning, and you go, ‘Did you just have your hair done?’”Her many rules of the cabaret art form, which she proudly teaches any chance she gets, include these: wear big lashes, never sit and never close your eyes. (If you require water, take sparing sips from a wine glass: “It has to have a long stem.”)She describes her work philosophy this way: “They came to have fun. They’re giving up their evening, and their money, to be entertained. You’re not the star. They’re the star.”‘I Was Never a Child’Maye has long fascinated me as the most accomplished figure in our shared and perilous profession. I am not sure that cabaret singing is as dangerous as driving nitroglycerin trucks, but it is a demanding, often dispiriting vocation, leaving one at the mercy of nightclub owners and changing crowds and fickle pianists.Is Maye a jazz singer? A show-tunes singer? She doesn’t draw a firm distinction. “The lyric is the phrasing, see. It’s the story,” she says. Her current accompanist, Tedd Firth, has this answer: “Is she improvising? A little bit. But does she swing as hard as any singer I’ve ever worked with? Absolutely. The crucial thing is that her understanding of the music is a first-generation understanding. She was singing this music when it was still new.”Not long ago, Maye and I met at a rehearsal studio near Lincoln Center, where she was working with two protégés. Each stood at attention in a small practice room, accompanied by a quartet, facing Maye, who gestured to her sheet music like a doctor explaining the results of an MRI, pointing out shadings and shadows that might be significant.Maye carefully watching a student, Susie Clausen, perform for the first time at a New York club.Clark Hodgin for The New York TimesWhen one student, Susie Clausen, practiced a spoken greeting — “I’m so glad you are enjoying the show” — Maye stopped her short. “Don’t say that! Just say you are glad they are here. Don’t assume they are enjoying it.” She added a classic Mayeism: “If you don’t take yourself seriously, others will.”For someone who began singing at age 3, Maye regards herself as a late bloomer. Born in Wichita, Kan., on April 10, 1928, she won an amateur talent contest in Topeka at age 9, for which she earned $3 and 13 weeks on the radio. When her parents divorced, she moved with her mother to Des Moines, Iowa, and at 13 was singing big band at dance ballrooms; her mother kept a little book “so we could remember what age we had said I was to different clubs and agents.”“I was never a child,” she says frankly. “That’s why I am one now.”Maye honed her craft in Kansas City, working five nights a week for 11 years at the Colony nightclub, the place on Broadway. Demos recorded at that time got the attention of Steve Allen, who put her on his prime-time television variety show.Maye with the television show host Steve Allen in 1961.ABC Photo Archives/Disney Entertainment, via Getty ImagesThis led to two career developments: the unfailing support of Johnny Carson and attention from RCA Records, for whom she recorded seven albums. As an RCA “commitment singer” introducing show tunes before their cast albums were released, Maye had her biggest radio hit with the title song of “Cabaret.”She received a 1966 Grammy nomination for best new artist; Tom Jones won. Music styles were changing: “I never got into rock ’n’ roll,” she says. “The Beatles hit when my first albums were released. That’s what went wrong with my career. Goddamn Beatles.”Maye has been married three times and had a fourth long-term partner. Her first marriage, to a hard drinker and a gambler, lasted a year. Her second (“I don’t know if he died or if I divorced him”) was to a dancer with whom she had a daughter. Her third husband, who adopted her child, was a genius pianist, she says, but “very abusive.”“I had to leave him, but I didn’t want to leave his fingers,” she recalls. Their daughter, Kristi Tucker, a singer herself, agrees that “it was a beautiful collaboration,” but often unhappy. “What she has been through in her life,” Tucker says, “she needed to be strong.”It is no accident that pianists and husbands flow together for her. “My pianist has always been the most important man in my life, above lovers, husbands, anybody,” she ruminates.Billy Stritch, her pianist of 40 years, accompanied her on her triumphant return to New York. She’d been doing musicals out of town, playing the leads in shows like “Mame” and “Hello, Dolly.” (Never appearing on Broadway in New York remains a regret.) But Stritch and her lawyer, Mark Sendroff, insisted that, after 14 years away, she perform at the now closed Metropolitan Room in 2006.She blew the roof off, winning a whole new audience at 78. “Once she sold out one time, she’d go back, eight shows, three times a year,” Stritch says. “There was no turning back. She was off and running. It began a fantastic third act.”‘Because It’s Fun’How has Maye kept on going, singing so well? I talked to voice teachers and doctors, and heard about “vocal folds” and “breath support” and “agility,” and the likelihood that she has a strict exercise and warm-up regimen.She doesn’t: “She loves to go out to dinner and have her one drink” — an apple martini — “after the show,” reports Mackie.Mackie credits her playfulness, how she once left behind her false eyelashes on the chandelier when staying at his home. I’ve seen it, too. She does little kicks walking down a staircase, not because it helps her avoid tripping, but, she brightly says, “because it’s fun.”A classic Mayeism: “If you don’t take yourself seriously, others will.”Clark Hodgin for The New York TimesPeople who love and admire Maye think she might have become a bigger star sooner. Put that question to her, however, and the playfulness — the twinkle — momentarily slips away.“I am 95 f-ing years old,” she tells me, confidently surveying Carnegie Hall from its stage. “I don’t have time to be a larger star. I don’t have time to be any more than this night.” She stares at the empty seats, soon to be full, and gently hums.Perhaps she became the kind of star she was fated to be. Or, maybe, she has become something better. There remains an unequaled intensity of intimacy when you are singing in a nightclub to a rapt audience. Carnegie Hall won’t make Marilyn Maye bigger; she’ll make Carnegie Hall smaller. More

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    ‘Ted Lasso,’ Season 3, Episode 1 Recap: Can the Center Hold?

    There’s a lot going on in the season premiere, and most of it is not good.Season 3, Episode 1: ‘Smells Like Mean Spirit’Wow.The first episode of the third season of “Ted Lasso” — and I’m trying to summon my own inner Ted here — is a humdinger.Savvy viewers of (or readers about) the show will know that one of its minor gimmicks is that each of its three seasons have begun and ended with close-ups on the character who will undergo the most substantial evolution.The first season, it was Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham), the newly divorced owner of her ex-husband’s football (i.e., soccer) team, the fictional AFC Richmond. In an effort to cause him very appropriate pain, she hired an apparent clown from Kansas—Ted Lasso (Jason Sudeikis) — to come to the United Kingdom and coach a sport he scarcely comprehended. The point, obviously, was to have the team always lose and thus infuriate her grotesque ex, Rupert. But Ted’s extreme decency and generosity (he made her biscuits every day!) won her over, and she became fully Team Ted by the end of Season 1.The second season had an opposite evolution, with the likable kit boy Nate (Nick Mohammed) getting promoted to assistant coach, growing a swollen head over his professional emergence and (in part because he has a horrible father), turning into an abominable jerk. He left the team to be the new coach for a different team, West Ham United (an actual team, unlike AFC Richmond), which has been purchased by the awful Rupert. (The fact that Rupert is played by Anthony Stewart Head, who played one of my half-dozen favorite characters ever, as Giles on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” has created more emotional confusion for me than I prefer to admit.)The new season opens with a close-up of, of course, Ted Lasso. But his trajectory is far more unclear. Rebecca went from mostly evil to mostly good, and Nate took the opposite track. (Although it’s worth saying that both could still be up in the air.) Ted, by contrast, can’t become any more decent. And a show in which he turns into a villain? That might be the worst idea for a show in the history of television.Two more final reminders: Ted is recently divorced, and that was a large part of his decision to move across the pond. And last season, which had a very strong emphasis on fathers and sons, we learned that Ted’s dad killed himself when Ted was 16. (If any of this isn’t ringing a bell, feel free to refer to my recaps of Season 2.)So here we are: We see Ted in close-up at the airport. His teenage son, Henry (Gus Turner), has been over for a six-week visit and is now returning home to his mother in Kansas City. Ted is visibly bereft, squeezing out every last instant, to the point that Henry almost misses his flight. Underlining his sadness, Ted has Henry’s phone in his hand, and sees a text from his ex-wife, Michelle, saying “Have a safe flight! I love you!”Most of the episode doesn’t have much to do with Ted, though, so as with last season, I’ll go through the individual story lines. But we’ll return to Ted by the end.A return to bitter form? Hannah Waddingham and Jeremy Swift in “Ted Lasso.”Apple TV+RebeccaNow that AFC Richmond is back in the Premier League, after last season’s mild heroics — they got in via a tie — the team has been universally picked to land at the very bottom of the standings. With West Ham, her ex-husband’s new team, picked to potentially win it all, the Rebecca of Season 1 re-emerges. She repeatedly refers to West Ham as “he” (i.e., Rupert) and demands that Ted “fight.” Not to be unkind, but if your entire concept of owning a professional team revolves around your relationship with your ex, sports-franchise ownership might not be the healthiest thing for you.Later, Rebecca goes further: “Everyone is laughing at us, Ted,” she berates him. “At you, at our team, at me. Rupert is laughing at me. And I am begging you, please, fight back.”And yet, as she confides in Keeley, she believes she has made progress: “The now me doesn’t need to destroy Rupert’s life. It just needs to beat him. To win.” Will this season see good Rebecca or bad Rebecca? I’m betting on the former, eventually. But right now she is somewhere in the middle, a work in progress.Nothing, really, on her and Sam’s last-season romance at all. Is that story line concluded? Time will tell.NateLike Rebecca, Nate is showing signs of both his earlier and later selves, even if the evolution, as noted, is reversed. As the manager of West Ham, he behaves as a bully and a thug. He ignores co-workers or tells them bluntly to get out of his office. He puts his players on the “dumb-dumb line” when they screw up and tells an assistant coach to run them “ ’til they drop.”He ridicules a reporter at his news conference and, learning that Ted has taken AFC Richmond on a metaphor-rich tour of the London sewers, explains that they had to do that because “their coach is so [expletive].”And yet. While he has earned the admiration of Rupert (plus a new car!), he clearly knows that Rupert is a bad human being. And he is reminded that Ted is quite the opposite when, rather than take the bait and lash back at him — as Rebecca had explicitly requested — Ted instead praises him at his own news conference. Ted won, not by fighting but by refusing to fight.And Nate’s “The King and I” reply at the news conference, when asked about his relationship with his players was remarkable: “Getting to know them. Getting to know all about them. Getting to like them, getting to hope they …” And he can’t finish the line. Because on some level, he knows what he has become.There’s hope for Nate yet.Nate (Nick Mohammed) has a new job but the same old resentments.Apple TV+Roy and KeeleyThe show did it, the one unforgivable thing: Roy (Brett Goldstein) and Keeley (Juno Temple) have broken up. More unforgivable — if such a thing is even possible — is that they did so little to set it up this episode. Yes, obviously, they were on the precipice last season. But the episode in which they actually break up should be a big Roy and Keeley episode, and instead they both had small roles this week and the explanation for their breakup goes no deeper than that they are both working too hard, especially as Keeley now has her own PR firm.When Roy’s niece, Phoebe (Elodie Blomfield), asks why, they scarcely have an answer — for her or for viewers. This is narrative malpractice. And Phoebe’s response to the breakup, “One of my core beliefs is that nothing lasts forever” — what are you doing “Ted Lasso”? You’re supposed to be our feel-good show. We have “The Last of Us” for when we want to go the other way.TedAnd then, having already pulverized us once, you close with Henry’s Thanos-gauntlet gift from “Mommy’s friend,” Jake. What are you trying to do to us, “Ted Lasso”?Odds and EndsIt’s lovely to see that Sharon (Sarah Niles) and Ted are still in touch even after her departure from the team. And nice to see, too, that she seems to have found someone to make her happy.Ted’s brief story about the time he was left at school “until my dad remembered to come pick me up” is a pretty strong suggestion that his father may not have been the most reliable parent. Given the show’s very strong emphasis last season on fathers and sons, this is worth keeping an eye on.I don’t think I’d previously encountered the Goethe quote (which Sharon offers), “Doubt can only be removed by action.” What a tremendous line.I enjoyed the sneaky quick reference to Rupert’s vacation with “the Sacklers” and the need to stay offshore.Ted’s line about being “Ned Flanders doing cosplay as Ned Flanders” — also precious.Any scene ever shot in a sewer anywhere in Europe is automatically a reference to “The Third Man,” one of the greatest films of all time. The last shot is probably my favorite in the history of cinema. If you haven’t seen it — or even if you have — do yourself a favor.If you didn’t enjoy the gag about Keeley’s mascara ruining the shirts of everyone she’s ever hugged, well, that is where we part ways. More

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    Micaela Diamond, From Broadway’s ‘Parade,’ Sings Her Favorite Joni Mitchell Song

    The actor, who learned to love music at her local temple, has developed a different relationship to her Judaism onstage.Micaela Diamond once thought she might make a good cantor. The 23-year-old actor loved singing with the congregation at the conservative synagogue she attended as a child in Margate, N.J., just outside Atlantic City. Much has changed since then, notably that you can now hear Diamond’s powerful soprano on Broadway stages. But she’s still, in a way, performing Jewish music: the songs of Jason Robert Brown’s “Parade,” the Broadway revival of which opens March 16.The musical, which first premiered in 1998 with a book by Alfred Uhry, is based on the life of Leo Frank, an Atlanta Jew who in 1915, while imprisoned after the murder of a young girl he employed at a factory, was pulled from jail by a mob and lynched. Diamond was first cast for the revival’s brief run at New York City Center last fall; she stars opposite Ben Platt as Frank’s wife and fiercest advocate, Lucille.It’s an intense role vocally, with forceful numbers like “You Don’t Know This Man” and “Do It Alone,” sung by Carolee Carmello in the original Broadway production before Diamond was even born. But another difficulty is handling the emotional exhaustion that stems from the themes of violence and antisemitism coursing throughout the piece. “Being able to tell this story to other Jews, to non-Jews, to start nuanced discussions … about what it means to be a Jew and how hatred is inherited is what I want my life’s work to be,” Diamond says. “So much of my identity lives in this show.”Diamond grew up steeped in Margate’s large Jewish community, but stopped attending services when she moved to New York City with her mother while in middle school. She later found other ways to explore her religion, like joining fellow classmates in the Jewish community club at Manhattan’s LaGuardia High School, one of the country’s most prominent public training grounds for artists. “I just started asking more questions, which, in the end, is a very Jewish thing to do,” Diamond says. “I think my Judaism is Sarah Silverman and a bagel with schmear.”Diamond had planned to join the musical theater program at Carnegie Mellon University when she got her final callback (while jet-lagged after a Birthright trip to Israel, no less) for her first Broadway production, “The Cher Show,” in which she played a young version of the singer in 2018. That nearly yearlong run was an educational experience of its own — particularly, Diamond says, in learning how to take care of herself while doing eight shows a week. (“Like, does a leading lady have to go to Equinox … every single day?”)For “Parade,” perhaps unsurprisingly, Diamond is prioritizing “more care for my heart than my body” — in part by gathering with other Jewish cast members to pray together backstage before each performance. “It just feels like honoring Leo and Lucille and remembering how lucky we are to be Jews telling this story,” she says. “It does feel like this kind of centering, and a way to connect to them, before we go through some Jewish trauma onstage.”Ahead of opening night, T asked Diamond to sing and discuss one of her favorite songs, Joni Mitchell’s “Cactus Tree” (1968), above. More