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    Sam Waterston Is Still the Face of ‘Law & Order’

    The actor originally signed on for only one season as Jack McCoy but became synonymous with the series, which returns Feb. 24. “It’s nice to come back and just witness the thing we made,” he said.“Law & Order” premiered on NBC in 1990. A procedural that was really two procedurals conjoined, the first half of each episode focused on the investigation of a crime, the second on the prosecution of the accused. Among the original cast members was Michael Moriarty, who played an assistant district attorney. During the fourth season, under clouded circumstances, Moriarty left.As Dick Wolf, who created “Law & Order,” tells it, Warren Littlefield, NBC’s president, questioned whether the show could continue. Wolf thought that it could. “I’ve got two words for you,” he says he told Littlefield. Those words? “Sam Waterston.”Waterston, who had just wrapped the NBC civil rights drama “I’ll Fly Away,” hadn’t been looking for a procedural. Having begun his career as a classical actor, he never really expected to work in television. Still, he agreed — in the short-term, anyway — signing a one-year contract in 1994 to play the principled assistant district attorney Jack McCoy.“I didn’t think I’d be there long,” Waterston recently told me. He stayed for 16 seasons. In those years, “Law & Order” became a cultural touchstone and an extensive franchise (back before seemingly every procedural franchised). Waterston — as his hair silvered and his face cragged — remained its dependable face.When NBC canceled the show, in 2010 — its ratings by then less than half of its early ’00s peak — he went back to classical theater and took prominent roles in Aaron Sorkin’s HBO media drama, “The Newsroom,” and in the Jane Fonda-Lily Tomlin Netflix comedy “Grace and Frankie.” He made a few movies. And then in a twist that even a late-season “Law & Order” writers room might have considered too much, “Law & Order” suddenly returned after a decade away, with Waterston’s McCoy along for the prosecutorial ride.Waterston, center, as District Attorney Jack McCoy, is joined by series newcomers Hugh Dancy and Odelya Halevi as assistant D.A.s.NBCThe first episode will premiere on Feb. 24 on NBC (and available to stream the following day on Peacock and Hulu). And on March 3, Hulu will debut “The Dropout,” a limited series based on the Theranos scandal, in which Waterston plays the former Secretary of State George Shultz. The seventh and final season of “Grace and Frankie” arrives in April, which means that Waterston will have three shows on simultaneously, showcasing his talents for drama, sophisticated impersonation and light comedy.“This is a really sweet time,” he said, as he tidily sipped a bowl of chicken soup. “I’ve always wanted to prove that I can do all kinds of things.” His motto, he told me, is a lyric from the musical “A Chorus Line” about an actor’s desire to do it all: “I can do that! I can do that!” Now he has.This was on a recent weekday afternoon. The forecast had predicted rain — correctly. But Waterston, 81, had still insisted on meeting in Central Park, armed against the wintry mix in a broad-brimmed hat, a leather jacket and an umbrella that he mostly left furled. He had brought me and a photographer to the Delacorte Theater, the longtime home of Shakespeare in the Park and the site of his early career triumphs: Benedick in “Much Ado About Nothing,” the Duke in “Measure for Measure,” Hamlet in “Hamlet.”“His love of that place, you could feel it very tangibly,” Michael Greif, who directed him there in “The Tempest,” told me. It was true. Waterston strode around stage — cheeks reddening, eyes crinkling — like it was summer already, seeming to see not the slush but the work he had done over the past 60 years.“The Delacorte just got the green light to be completely rebuilt,” he said in a nearby Italian restaurant, where we had retreated, damply. “It’s simply too great.”Waterston began his career on the stage but soon branched into television and film, taking on drama and comedy. “I’ve always wanted to prove that I can do all kinds of things,” he said.Mark Sommerfeld for The New York TimesCentral Park’s Delacorte Theater, the home of Shakespeare in the Park, was the site of early career triumphs like the Duke in “Measure for Measure” and Hamlet in “Hamlet.”Mark Sommerfeld for The New York TimesWaterston — plain-spoken, twinkly, wistful — has never needed much in the way of renovation, though he has reinvented himself as an actor several times over. His trip to the Delacorte suggested a man trying to trace a through-line in a hectic career.“What’s cool about this age is that you can look back at all that and appreciate that it actually was worth doing,” he said.Precocious, he started early, playing a small part in a play directed by his father, who taught at a preparatory school in northwest Massachusetts. At Yale, he continued acting; he can still recall a magical night in which he played Lucky in “Waiting for Godot” and felt that he and the audience “were in this kind of incredible bubble of communication and understanding of each other.” (This was after the Yale Daily News had argued he was too smart for the part, Waterston recalled.)He couldn’t imagine a career in show business — “a crazy business,” he called it. At Yale, he studied more sensible subjects like French and history. He spent a year at the Sorbonne. But somehow he couldn’t stop himself.“It’s endless fun,” he said. “When you compare it to other kinds of work, why would you want to do anything else?”At first the roles that came to him were mostly comic, owing perhaps to his gangling figure and pilgrim looks — long face, sharp nose, superb eyebrows. He looks a lot like a handsome Abraham Lincoln. Waterston disputes the “handsome” part.Dramatic roles came a few years later. Then there were movies, then television, where he often played parts based on real people — Lincoln and others. (“People knew by then that I like to do Shakespeare. And if I liked to do Shakespeare, I must be serious,” he said.) Even as he angled to show his range, some constants remained, like a keen interest in characters in the midst of a moral quandary and a flair for the theatrical leavened by a natural gravitas.Over 20 seasons, the “Law & Order” format was far more enduring than the show’s cast. From left, Benjamin Bratt, Jerry Orbach, Waterston and Jill Hennessy in 1996.Jessica Burstein/NBC“For all his training, he has this incredible ability to be quiet onscreen,” said Elizabeth Meriwether, the showrunner of “The Dropout.” “You can tell he’s thinking onscreen, which is really rare.”And no matter the role, he seemed like a man you could trust. Stephen Colbert at one point introduced him as “the most reasonable seeming man in America.”“Law & Order” came around just as he was worrying how we would pay for four college educations. (He has one child, the actor James Waterston, with his first wife, Barbara Rutledge Johns; and three children, the actresses Elizabeth Waterston and Katherine Waterston and the filmmaker Graham Waterston, with his current wife, Lynn Louisa Woodruff.) The salary was decent and the show filmed in New York City, not too far from his Connecticut farmhouse.“It was just exactly the right moment,” he said. “And it kept me out of trouble. Kept me from doing really dumb stuff.”What dumb stuff, exactly?“Well, who knows what the dumb stuff would have been,” he said. “But we all know that there’s a lot of dumb stuff.”Of course, “Law & Order” did more than preclude Waterston’s midlife crisis. Popular, influential and respectful of its audience, it made stars of many of its cast members. Even its scene break sound effect — the gavel-like “dun-dun” — became famous.Within a decade, it had birthed a litter of spinoffs, including one show, “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” that went on to displace “Gunsmoke” as the longest running television drama ever. (If there’s one thing America loves more than crime, it seems, it’s sex crime.) It helped to reestablish New York City as a viable hub for scripted series, drawing on its deep bench of theater actors. Everyone who’s anyone can list at least one “Law & Order” credit in a Playbill bio.The two-part format of “Law & Order,” which Wolf has described as a murder mystery followed by a moral mystery, proved indestructible. Every member of the original cast departed and still “Law & Order” kept going. (Even after cancellation, the original never really left. On TNT, it runs and runs in syndication.) Still, certain characters — Waterston’s McCoy, Jerry Orbach’s Lennie Briscoe (12 seasons), S. Epatha Merkerson’s Anita Van Buren (17 seasons) — became metonyms for the show itself: hardworking, upstanding, bent on justice.The format depends on fixed structures and rhythms. In the early seasons, McCoy had similar scenes in nearly every episode: cross-examinations, in-chambers meeting, closing arguments. That could have made for repetitiveness, but in Waterston’s hands, the formula rarely felt formulaic.“He makes the role and the words unendingly interesting,” Wolf told me in an all-caps email. “That takes a level of skill and humanism that not many people possess.”After 12 seasons, the pace had worn him down, and he was happy enough, in 2007, to move into the less demanding role of district attorney, leaving the trial scenes to younger actors. Sometimes, during those late seasons, Waterston regretted not leaving altogether. “I wondered if I had stayed too long at the fair,” he said. Then the show did the leaving for him.Yet, when “Law & Order” came back, so did Waterston — partly as a courtesy to Wolf, partly as a kind of victory lap. “It’s nice to come back and just witness the thing we made,” Waterston said. Walking through the rebuilt sets, now housed in Long Island City, felt like a waking dream, he said. (Still, as in the ’90s, he has signed only a one-year contract.)Anthony Anderson, a veteran of earlier seasons, has also returned, but otherwise the co-stars — including Hugh Dancy and Odelya Halevi as the assistant district attorneys — are all new. Halevi grew up watching Waterston; she used to pretend she was “the female McCoy,” she wrote in an email. When she arrived on set — excited, nervous, occasionally forgetting her lines — he reminded her that they were there to have fun.Waterston has reinvented himself as an actor several times over a 60-year career. “What’s cool about this age is that you can look back at all that and appreciate that it actually was worth doing,” he said.Mark Sommerfeld for The New York TimesFor Waterston, a lot of the fun has been in that moral mystery Wolf described, in the ways in which each episode’s crime connects to a pertinent social issue. “We’ve done three shows now,” Waterston told me happily as he finished his soup. “Every one of them is about something that’s tearing this place apart. And in the current atmosphere, I think it’s pretty darn cool.”The current atmosphere includes eroded trust in government institutions, particularly the police. While some viewers would probably argue the point, Waterston believes that a critique of the police was embedded within “Law & Order” all along.“If you go back and look at how the cops behaved in the past, there were plenty of times when the audience was invited to disapprove of how they were behaving,” he said. “Now, there’s more.”The show addresses this tension in its season premiere. Halfway through the episode, District Attorney Jack McCoy appears — his voice reedier, his hair and eyebrows more silver — telling a younger colleague, “Like it or not, the big bad police department is our partner.”After all of these years, this seems like the kind of scene Waterston could play in his sleep, or a fitful doze at the very least. But he can’t work that way.“I guess there would be a way to just put on the old suit,” he said. “But I think it’s good for you as an actor — and it’s my nature anyway — to be on the edge of uncertainty.”Besides, Waterston has changed in the intervening decade — grown older, welcomed more grandchildren — which means that Jack McCoy might have changed a little, too. Think of it as one more mystery, maybe the ultimate mystery, for this revived “Law & Order.” Waterston is already on the case.“If all the questions about how to play Jack McCoy are resolved and settled and done with,” he said, “why do it?” More

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    Looking Straight at the Struggles of Old Age

    In two Paris theater productions, there’s no sugarcoating the physical decline that comes at the end of a long life.PARIS — There is something piercing, almost brutal, about watching someone struggle to walk, eat or even sit down. When faced with the physical decline that often comes with old age, many of us instinctively avert our eyes. In Paris, however, two theater artists are forcing audiences to look.In “A Century — Life and Death of Galia Libertad,” a new play by the writer and director Carole Thibaut, the members of an extended family gather around their ailing matriarch — who may or may not have passed away. And mortality looms even larger in “A Death in the Family,” a new play by the British playwright Alexander Zeldin, which is primarily set in a French nursing home.If there is such a thing as an overly naturalistic play, “A Death in the Family,” which had its premiere at the Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe, may represent it for some people. In truth, nothing much happens for long stretches. Zeldin convincingly portrays daily life, down to the bland furniture and wall colors, in an institution for residents at the end of their lives: The most dramatic event of all awaits, but in the meantime, the days must be filled.There are slow, silent meals, and group activities to make viewers in good health wince — especially those closest to the actors, in seats onstage. Is it compassion we feel as we watch the residents working hard to follow basic dance movements to a children’s song? Or panic, at the thought of a potential future we would rather ignore?Zeldin has experience when it comes to discomfort. The “Inequalities” trilogy he created between 2014 and 2019 (composed of “Beyond Caring,” “Love” and “Faith, Hope and Charity”) turned the spotlight on casualties of government austerity policies in Britain, including workers with insecure contracts and homeless families. His work found eager audiences abroad, and an invitation from the Odéon led him to stage his first production in French — a language he speaks fluently.Marie-Christine Barrault in the foreground with, from left, Mona, Ferdinand Redouloux and Catherine Vinatier in “A Death in the Family,” written and directed by Alexander Zeldin at the Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe.Simon GosselinThe realities of old age have been in the spotlight lately in France. This month, the government began an investigation into one of the country’s largest nursing home providers after a journalist published a book accusing the company of mistreating residents.For the theater world, the upheaval caused by the pandemic has provided unlikely opportunities to reconnect with older audiences. In summer 2020, the first professional performance after France’s stringent initial lockdown was held at a nursing home in Chalon-sur-Saône, in the east, and a number of performers have brought readings and small-scale performances to hospitals.With “A Death in the Family,” Zeldin has done the reverse, bringing older people to perform in one of Paris’s most prestigious playhouses. He and his team did extensive research in local nursing homes, and out of 13 roles in the play, a handful are taken by older amateur performers. (Eight actors alternate in these parts.) This is no walk in the park in a pandemic: The premiere had to be postponed three times because of coronavirus safety measures.Other than the fact that the amateurs have fewer lines than their experienced colleagues, it is nearly impossible to tell the two groups apart, with strong performances across the board. On the night I attended, Francine Champion — making her stage debut at the age of 93 — caught the eye as one of the nursing home residents. So did the veteran actor Annie Mercier, while Nicole Dogué and Karidja Touré brought touching empathy to their roles as nursing assistants.One resident serves as the main character: Marguerite Brun, who is introduced at her overwhelmed daughter’s home. Zeldin’s typically sharp and economical dialogue fails him in some scenes involving Marguerite’s family, with lines that don’t land quite as naturally in French as they do in his English-language productions. Still, casting Marie-Christine Barrault, an Oscar nominee in 1977 for the film “Cousin Cousine,” as the initially prickly Marguerite was an inspired move. Her radical vulnerability as the character declines, especially in the nearly silent scene in which Dogué gives her a bed bath with a kind, unspoken sense of intimacy, is likely to linger in many people’s minds.“A Century — Life and Death of Galia Libertad” attempts to portray many generations at once.Jean-Pierre Estournet“A Century — Life and Death of Galia Libertad” lacks the laser directorial focus of “A Death in the Family,” but it is far less bleak. The imminent death of the main character, Galia, is treated as an opportunity for her family to rally and find meaning in their shared history, however painful.As Galia, Monique Brun is the glue that holds the cast — and the performance — together. She spends much of the show in a red armchair center stage. Her deep, exuberant voice projects no self-pity, even when she may be speaking from beyond the grave, since the timeline is blurred. Yet she is deeply affecting, too, when she gets out of the chair at night and walks slowly and stiffly, reminiscing quietly with one of the loves of her life.“A Century — Life and Death of Galia Libertad” is a little chaotic when it comes to the rest of the characters, perhaps because it attempts to portray so many generations at once — and to tie them to real historical events, like the rise and decline of the local coal industry. The production has been in Paris at the Théâtre de la Cité Internationale, but it was inspired by the history of the city of Montluçon, in central France, where Thibaut has been the director of the Théâtre des Îlets since 2016.Years of research went into this ambitious project, and plenty of details ring thoughtfully true, like the death of Galia’s fictional parents during World War II. During one interlude about the city’s economy, tiny bottles of local wine are even handed out to the audience. But the dialogue doesn’t quite flow, with tonal changes, heavy-handed voice-over commentary and tangential stories about, for instance, one granddaughter’s anger at the casual misogyny of the older men in the family.It’s all believable, and Thibaut has been a major voice for feminism in the French theater for years. Yet “A Century — Life and Death of Galia Libertad” has more emotional heft when it focuses on the rite of passage underway for Galia and her family. Like Zeldin, Thibaut doesn’t shy away from portraying death, and however hard it is to look, there may be closure in following them down that path.A Death in the Family. Directed by Alexander Zeldin. Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe, through Feb. 20.A Century — Life and Death of Galia Libertad. Directed by Carole Thibaut. Théâtre de la Cité Internationale, through Feb. 26. More

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    Jimmy Kimmel Critiques Donald's Trump's Financial Claims

    “Only Donald Trump would defend himself against charges that he overvalued his assets by re-overvaluing his assets,” Kimmel said.Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Poor ResponseDonald Trump responded on Tuesday to being dropped by his longtime accounting firm Mazars USA with a four-page statement, writing, among other things, that the Trump brand is worth more than he previously claimed.On Wednesday, Jimmy Kimmel joked that Trump’s response is the longest thing he’s written “since he threatened to sue Gritty for stealing his look.”“Trump wrote at length: ‘We have a great company with fantastic assets that are unique, extremely valuable and, in many cases, far more valuable than what was listed in our financial statements.’ Only Donald Trump would defend himself against charges that he overvalued his assets by re-overvaluing his assets.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“He also lashed out at the New York attorney general and D.A., who happen to be Black. He wrote, ‘After five years of constant bombardment, this political and racist attack must stop.’ Now that’s a good one: rich white guy claiming racism. You almost have to hand it to him. That’s like — that’s like Hawaii claiming tourism. That’s ridiculous.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Punchiest Punchlines (Holy Moly Edition)“Since we were young, many of us have been taught the same story, right? Be good, pray every day and you’ll get into heaven. What your grandmother probably didn’t mention is that a paperwork issue could send you to hell.” — TREVOR NOAH“Here’s what happened: For two decades, Father Andres Arango performed the sacrament with the words, ‘We baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’ However, the Vatican instructs priests to say ‘I baptize.’ Why can’t it be ‘we’? If anyone would understand, it’s God — he’s three persons in one god. I’m sure he gets it mixed up all the time.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“[imitating God] Hello, hi, hi. Could I get a reservation for three? No, it’s just me.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Wait, wait, I’m sorry, what? All the baptisms are invalid because of one — no, one word? This is like the worst thing a Catholic priest has ever done.” — TREVOR NOAH“Saying the wrong word during a baptism seems like a fun goof-them-up, but according to the local diocese, if you get the words wrong, ‘the baptism is deemed invalid, and if an individual was improperly baptized and later received other sacraments, they may need to repeat some or all of those sacraments.’ That’s right, you’re going to have to redo first communion, so squeeze that fat [expletive] back into that tiny suit, get back up there and stay in the suit, because you’re getting remarried.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Church leaders investigated and found that Father Arango had incorrectly performed thousands of baptisms over more than 20 years. Of course, this was just a priest at a baptism. It could be worse — it could have been a rabbi at a bris.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Like, don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to hear that the Catholic Church cares about people’s pronouns, but this seems like a minor mistake to me.” — TREVOR NOAH“You know, like I would understand if the priest accidentally cleansed their souls in White Claw, that I would get. But this doesn’t seem like a huge deal.” — TREVOR NOAH“And what’s going to happen to all the people who weren’t actually baptized — what happens to them now, huh? Are they going to go to hell for someone else’s mistake? That’s so unfair. Everyone else who gets to go to hell goes there because they got to have some fun first, you know?” — TREVOR NOAHThe Bits Worth WatchingDaniel Craig talked with Stephen Colbert about providing 2,022 New York students with free tickets to see him in “Macbeth” on Broadway.What We’re Excited About on Thursday NightThe “Zola” director Janicza Bravo will appear on Thursday’s “Daily Show.”Also, Check This OutMelanie Metz for The New York TimesTwenty-five largely unseen works said to be by Jean-Michel Basquiat are on display in Orlando, Fla., but some question their authenticity. More

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    5 Monologues, Each a Showcase for Asian American Actors Over 60

    “Out of Time” at the Public Theater is intended to showcase the talents of older actors. “People want to dismiss your stories,” the show’s director says. Not here.They might be asked to play a person lying in bed, dying of a stroke, or someone’s horrible mother, or a beloved grandparent struggling with dementia.“Commercially speaking, ‘old Asian lady’ is a huge amount of my opportunity,” the actor Natsuko Ohama said recently. “I like being ‘old Asian lady.’ But it has its limitations.”The director Les Waters became even more acutely interested in those kinds of limitations as he was watching a dance performance choreographed by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker at the Skirball Center in 2020. The dancers in it, he recalled, were “older than usual.” He was struck by what he saw.Waters, who most recently directed Lucas Hnath’s “Dana H.” on Broadway, and Mia Katigbak, the co-founder of the National Asian American Theater Company, had met a few years back at a festival and had agreed to work together at some point. Three years later, they were together at dinner, and Waters could not help but share what he called “an insane directorial megalomaniac’s vision.”What if there was a show that started at night, ran until the morning, and featured a succession of talented older actors telling stories — demonstrating just how much they were capable of?“Out of Time,” which began performances Feb. 15 at the Public Theater, is not quite as ambitious as that original vision. But it is intended to showcase the talents of older actors all the same. It will feature five performers delivering five new monologues — centered on themes like memory, parenthood, and identity — in a show that will run roughly 150 minutes. All the playwrights and all the actors are Asian American. And all the performers are over 60.Ohama is performing a 40-minute monologue by the playwright Sam Chanse.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesKubota will perform Naomi Iizuka’s monologue, about a man much like the playwright’s father.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesIt is a first, officials at the Public maintain, even if the first is a tad specific: The first production in New York theater to be written by five Asian American playwrights for Asian American actors over the age of 60.“This is to say: ‘Older people in the theater exist,’” Waters, 69, said of the production’s purpose. “We’re here, we’re underused and we have experience.”“As an old person myself, I find people want to dismiss your stories — I did it to my parents all the time,” he added.“Hyper-consciousness” in casting these days means you’ll often see one old person featured in an ensemble, making for “its own kind of tokenism,” said Katigbak, who is 67.“This project addresses that,” she added, “because it centers the old character, the old actor.”The message will be purposefully reinforced by the fact that the actors will be giving long, demanding monologues, some of which run more than 40 minutes and approach 5,000 words.In her monologue, Anna Ouyang Moench, who wrote the 2019 Off Broadway play, “Mothers,” captures a grieving documentary filmmaker dealing with both personal loss and professional rejection.Naomi Iizuka’s piece features an elderly Japanese man who loves Scotch and hates jazz, while Sam Chanse introduces audiences to a novelist who is giving a speech at her alma mater despite (or in spite of) having apparently been canceled by the students she is addressing.“We’ve always had limitations — at every age — just being Asian American,” Leong said.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesThe playwrights also include Jaclyn Backhaus, whose breakout work “Men on Boats” was a 2015 Off Broadway hit; and Mia Chung, whose “Catch as Catch Can” will return next season, after a 2018 New York premiere.Waters and Katigbak said the playwrights were not given specific prompts, except that their monologues should be “of the moment.” Given that they were created during the pandemic, isolation — and an examination of how loneliness metastasizes and manifests when family and friends all but abandon you — pervades almost all of the works.In a round-table discussion earlier this month, the actors said that living through the last few years has made them intimately familiar with the feeling.“My mother, who turned 97 in August, sits at home and watches TV all day because all her friends are gone,” said Glenn Kubota, who will appear in Iizuka’s monologue. “To see what she has to do on a daily basis just to amuse herself is really eye opening. I’m getting a glimpse of what maybe I will be facing 10, 20, years from now.”Many of the works are also at least somewhat autobiographical. And a few of the playwrights, who are all younger than 60, have created characters that resemble one of their parents. In some cases, in the process of acting, editing and rehearsing, the characters have evolved as their creators have reflected more deeply on themselves and those close to them.The monologue by Iizuka, whose well-regarded “36 Views” opened at the Public almost two decades ago, features a Japanese man who, in peeling back the layers of his life, recounts the time a bomb fell on his house leading him to wander around Tokyo and end up inside a candy shop.Iizuka said the character is strongly influenced by her father, who died in December 2020. “It’s about trying to find joy and pleasure, but also running up against your own mortality,” she said.She shared photos of him with the show’s creative team, who in turn provided them to Kubota. Iizuka said the actor has an “uncanny ability” to capture her father’s “feisty, tart-tongued humor.”“I’ve found this process incredibly nourishing,” she said.Kubota noted that the script had changed considerably — from a first draft he felt was filled with anger to the one he is now performing that mostly expresses love.“Hopefully I can do her work justice,” Kubota said, “because I’m going to be talking about her father in front of all of these people.”As co-founder of the National Asian American Theater Company, Katigbak helped get the project off the ground.Nina Westervelt for The New York Times“Every time I work on something new,” said Wolf, “I do think about generations of minority performers who, for whatever reason, were marginalized.”Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesSince the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic roughly two years ago, the number of documented episodes of race-based hate toward people of Asian descent have soared, leaving Asian Americans in New York and beyond to endure what has at times been daily dread about their own safety and also the well-being of their older parents.The monologues mostly avoid racial animus and lean toward more universal themes. Even still, Katigbak emphasized that in “Out of Time,” audiences will hear the universal stories through Asian American voices — a rarity in the theater, even in 2022.“We’ve always had limitations — at every age — just being Asian American,” Page Leong, who last performed at the Public in “Too Noble Brothers” in 1997, said of the roles that come to members of her community. “It’s also connected to being relegated to being the surgeon or the lawyer.”Rita Wolf, who has had roles in Richard Nelson’s recent plays, including “The Michaels,” said, “So much of it is about opportunity.” She added: “Every time I work on something new, I do think about generations of minority performers who, for whatever reason, were marginalized. And I think about how they did not have opportunities to do something like this.”Ohama is performing Chanse’s work, “Disturbance Specialist,” which recently clocked in at 40 minutes and 21 seconds and 4,998 words. She joked about doing such a piece at her “advanced age,” since it takes hours and hours of memorization.“When you are our ages, life is there inside of you, so we don’t have to worry about the acting so much,” Ohama said. “But what is concerning to the older actor generally is: Do I know my lines?”“We have dedicated ourselves to this art form,” she added, “and the thing about us older people is we don’t get a chance to show that very often.” More

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    Mamoudou Athie Gets Switched On by TV on the Radio and ‘Cowboy Bebop’

    The actor reveals his feelings about his new Netflix series, “Archive 81,” the inspiration of David Bowie and the real reason he bought a bike.Mamoudou Athie speaks unabashedly about tenderness, humanity and humility, and doing the right thing.In other words, he’s what you might call a romantic, and so are a lot of the characters he falls in love with these days.“But it doesn’t have to be romantic in the traditional sense,” Athie said. “That heart-forward kind of energy, I’m a sucker for it. It just really gets me every time.”And his latest role, as the tortured videotape restorer Dan Turner in the supernatural Netflix hit “Archive 81,” definitely got him. Critics have swooned, too.“He lost his family tragically at a very young age and he’s chosen this profession that gives back people a little bit of their lost past,” he said. “I was like, ‘What a heart this guy has.’”Athie — Mauritania-born, Maryland-raised and a 2014 graduate from the Yale School of Drama — has played a deceased husband in “Sorry for Your Loss,” a punk rocker in “Patti Cake$” and a hardware-store employee in “Unicorn Store.” For the role of Grandmaster Flash in “The Get Down,” he was taught how to D.J. by the legend himself.“I’m not sure fear exists for me in the same way anymore,” he laughed.In a call from Los Angeles, Athie talked about the cultural forces that have shaped his flourishing career.“I could probably start crying when I think about it, but I’ve been fortunate,” he said. “When I’ve been working with like-minded people that feel the same way I feel about them, it’s like, ‘OK, I’m on the right path here.’”Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.1. Jenny Holzer’s “It Is in Your Self-Interest to Find a Way to Be Very Tender” Installation The head of my program at Yale, Ron Van Lieu — this guy is amazing — he was directing Stephen Adly Guirgis’s play “In Arabia We’d All Be Kings,” and it was on the program. I had no idea who Jenny Holzer was, but it really struck me. And honestly, it’s how I approach every project. For me, it’s so important to have that kind of openness and to try to affect another person in that way. It’s something that feels like it’s at the core of a lot of the characters that I’ve been drawn to lately.2. Anime Shinichiro Watanabe, Makoto Shinkai, Hideaki Anno — they’re really interested in the human condition, whether there’s supernatural elements or just truly simple stories about people relating to one another in the face of great adversity. Shinichiro Watanabe is probably best known for “Cowboy Bebop,” which is my favorite show. Period. Makoto Shinkai’s “Your Name” was a big reason I was drawn to “Archive 81,” actually, because it’s kind of a love story separated by space and time. I don’t use this word lightly: I do think they’re geniuses.3. Victor Hugo’s “Les Misérables” In high school I was always walking past that book, but I was like, “Man, that’s a tome. I don’t want to commit.” Then a teacher put some adaptation with Liam Neeson on, and I was like, “I’ve got to stop watching this right now and just read this book.” Jean Valjean, I mean, who doesn’t love that guy? He’s a true definition of a hero. And Victor Hugo — the thing that struck me about that book was that he would describe the prison walls for 20 pages. I’ve really grown to appreciate that level of detail and painstaking dedication to painting a crystal-clear picture of what you want to share.4. David Bowie I remember reading something [at “David Bowie is,” the 2018 Brooklyn Museum exhibition] that said he was involved in every single bit of what was onstage, what was being worn, down to the curtains. It reminded me, “There are ways to cut corners, and it’s never worth it. You have the time. If you have anything left to give, you should really just give it all.”5. His Bikes I used to ride my sister’s bike when I was a kid, because that was the one bike that we had. I never got another bike until this summer. I was working out with this trainer and I was always admiring his array of bikes. He sold me a bike that he had secondhand. And I was like, “Mamoudou, what the [expletive] is the matter with you? You can afford a bike now. Buy a bike.” I now have this specialized Aethos that I’m obsessed with. And also a Crux and an All-City Cosmic Stallion, which I bought because of the name. It happens to be a great bike, but I would be lying to you if I didn’t tell you that.Five Movies to Watch This WinterCard 1 of 51. “The Power of the Dog”: More

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    Irma Thomas, a Soul Queen Far Beyond New Orleans

    As she turns 81, the singer whose intimacy matches her grandeur is the subject of a PBS documentary, “Irma: My Life in Music.”The singer Irma Thomas has long been known as the Soul Queen of New Orleans, a title that feels both richly deserved and far too provincial. Her songs never topped the Billboard pop chart, but they did climb it. And even today, they’re covered by bar bands and in blues jams across the country.Still, if the title suggests a mix of regality and relatability, it makes decent sense. Irma Thomas is, first and foremost, a straight shooter. You feel it in conversation, where she’s neither unduly humble nor conceited. And you can hear it in her singing, which achieves the grandeur often expected from R&B singers in the early 1960s, but has always retained a special kind of intimacy; she often sounds a bit like a more plain-spoken Etta James.“Straight From the Heart,” from her breakthrough 1964 album, “Wish Someone Would Care,” is a demand for sincerity that might be a manifesto, and a standout in a catalog studded with gems. As is made clear in “Irma: My Life in Music,” a documentary debuting on PBS stations across the country this month, Thomas has treated baring her soul as serious work for the past six decades. And she has her rules, rooted in faith and practice: Gospel doesn’t belong in an R&B set. One ought to take requests, she said in a recent interview, to be sure an audience “won’t leave disappointed.”It’s the same attitude that made Thomas an indispensable musical partner for the famed producer and songwriter Allen Toussaint: “He knew he could depend on me,” she said.Thomas, who turns 81 on Friday, began singing professionally in her teens, while already raising four children, and by the mid-1960s her career was taking off. A stint in Los Angeles in the late ’60s and ’70s resulted in frustration — as did watching the Rolling Stones score a smash hit off “Time Is on My Side” after they’d heard her version. But she returned home in the mid-70s to a hero’s welcome, and has been a fixture at nearly every New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival since it began more than half a century ago.More recently, she’s found a new generation of fans through Netflix’s “Black Mirror,” where her haunting doo-wop hit, “Anyone Who Knows What Love Is (Will Understand),” frequently cameos. In a phone conversation this month from her home in New Orleans East, Thomas was amicable and down-to-earth as ever — “You ask the questions, and I’ll answer ’em,” she said as we began — as she talked about growing up and thriving in New Orleans, and revealed which of her many songs she treasures the most. These are edited excerpts from the interview.Thomas said she got her start singing in church, and noted, “I’m in the choir at church even now.”Michael Ochs Archives/Getty ImagesWhen did you begin to realize that you really had a passion and a talent?Well, singing was something I did all the time. I mean, I can’t remember when I wasn’t singing. From a wee child, even living in Greensburg, La., I sang “The Tennessee Waltz” for my elementary schoolteacher’s play, “Cinderella.” I thought everybody did it. I didn’t think it was anything unusual.We did a lot of singing, keeping each other company or entertaining each other on the front porch during the week, when we weren’t working in the field. That was in the country. Then when I came to the city, we used to play and sing in the complex where we were. There were several kids who were playing music in school, and on weekends they would be playing music and we were singing whatever the most recent record that was out at the time. To me, I didn’t have such a big deal of a voice. Everybody around me was, you know, musically inclined to sing or play whatever instrument they were playing.You didn’t feel like you got a special response when you sang?Well, they applauded — they didn’t boo me! [Laughs]Your love for singing actually cost you work early in life, correct?I enjoyed singing for pleasure, so I was singing to keep myself company when it got me fired the first time, working the 11-to-7 shift. The second time I got fired for singing on the job, I was supposed to be waiting tables. So rather than waiting tables — or, in between waiting tables — I would get up and sing with the band that was playing at the club.How did your relationship with Allen Toussaint take shape? Was it clear immediately that you two had a special connection?It grew over time. There was just no hardships involved whenever I was working with him. He would have me sing a lot of his demos for people that he was writing songs for. I was a quick learner. When he wanted something done, he knew he could depend on me to sing it the way he wanted it sung. I never knew who he was presenting these songs to, I was just doing the demos for him.But you also made some special records together.Oh yeah, of course. He was one who wrote songs specifically for the artists: He knew my vocal ability and he would write a song that he knew would fit. And there was never a song he wrote that I turned down.One thing we haven’t talked about yet is your relationship to gospel music.I grew up in the church, so naturally I would be singing gospel music. Every Sunday when I’m not working, I still sing in church. I’m in the choir at church even now. Most of us grew up in the church, and a lot of us got our influences in the church. So it would be a natural progression to sing and to be a part of the gospel scene, whenever you could.After Katrina, Quint Davis decided that he would like for me to do a tribute to Mahalia Jackson, which I started doing. And I’m still doing the gospel set at JazzFest every year. I do a gospel set, then I do an R&B set. That’s just the natural thing to do. [Laughs]“He knew my vocal ability and he would write a song that he knew would fit,” Thomas said of working with the famed producer Allen Toussaint. “And there was never a song he wrote that I turned down.”Camille Lenain for The New York TimesHow big was Mahalia Jackson’s influence on you?I grew up listening to Mahalia Jackson’s music as a child. My parents had some of her records, back when it was 78s, and then in New Orleans we had radio stations that had gospel programming during the day. But we heard all kinds of music locally on the radio back then, because the radio stations were owned by local producers and owners. So they played a lot of local music as well as a lot of national music.So people who are my age, who grew up here in New Orleans, we had the best of both worlds because we were hearing it all. And then we didn’t have to fight to have a local record played. Nowadays, you’re lucky to hear your record once a year, because it’s not owned by local people. It’s, you know, ClearChannel or something like that, and they couldn’t care less. When you hear one hour, that’s what you’re going to hear all day long. So you don’t get a chance to call in and request what you would like to hear.Hurricane Ida had a big impact on New Orleans. It was nothing like Katrina, but the city appears to still be struggling in the wake of it.Yeah, because now supplies are hard to come by, because of the problems with shipping replenishing them. And so many people lost the roofs on their houses, so you have to wait in line, I guess. But New Orleans is a city that, you know, we’re resilient. We don’t run away. We stay here, and we snap back and move on.I’m sure almost everyone who interviews you must ask about “Time Is on My Side.” But could you talk about why you gave up playing it for a while in the middle of your career?Well you know, after a while, when you sing something that you know you’ve recorded, and you did the first national version of it, and when you’re singing, somebody tells you: “Oh, you’re doing a Rolling Stones song,” I got tired of explaining that I did it before the Rolling Stones. After a while that gets to be old. And so I stopped doing it, because I got tired of explaining that. They didn’t do their homework, they made assumptions. And so at some point you get tired of repeating yourself. Even now, I don’t do it as much as I do others. I sing it, but a lot of times it’s requested before I think about doing it, because I have so many other songs I can do.I have a large enough repertoire that by choice I can either do all of my own material or I can do a few cover songs that I like. And by taking requests, it makes it simpler, because then you are doing what your audience wants to hear. And I’ll put it this way: Most folks leave satisfied that they’ve heard their favorite song.In fact, “Anyone Who Knows What Love Is” — I recorded that back in 1964. I was at a show on the East Coast somewhere, and somebody in the audience asked me to play “Anyone Who Knows What Love Is.” I said, “Wow, I haven’t heard that request in a long time.” I sang it for them, and then when I got through, I asked them: “What album did you get that from?” They said, “We didn’t get it off an album. We heard it on ‘Black Mirror.’” You never know where you’re going to get a request from, or where they heard the song. And so I prepare — I put as much of my own material in my iPad, lyrically, so in case someone asks for it, I’ll do my best to do it for them.Is there one song that you consider nearest to your heart?The only one that I could say I’m closest to would be the one that got me my first big hit, which was “Wish Someone Would Care.” It became No. 17 in the nation, and if it hadn’t been for the British Invasion, it might have gone a little higher in the charts. There were some personal things going on in my life and I wrote the song because of those things. So that would be the closest to me. More

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    ‘Law & Order’ Is Having an Identity Crisis

    The franchise has always portrayed the police as flawed but ultimately good. The latest spinoff does away with that ambivalence.If you were going to watch a police procedural — which, for the record, I don’t particularly recommend — you could do worse than NBC’s “Law & Order” franchise. Across 32 years and more than 1,200 episodes, the original series and its six American spinoffs have offered a gentle critique of law enforcement, presenting a parade of flawed individuals navigating a byzantine justice system. Detectives are stymied by bureaucrats and squabble with lunkhead patrol officers, who reliably contaminate crime scenes. Idealistic prosecutors grow disillusioned and leave for nonprofit work. And yet the franchise still hinges on a lesser-of-two-evils logic: The institutions may be imperfect, and the cops imperfect, but their vocation is, by definition, good. There are always more victims to avenge, and none better equipped to do it than the New York Police Department.This cautiously optimistic view of policing was once embodied by Elliot Stabler, the detective played by Chris Meloni since the 1999 premiere of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.” A hotheaded ex-Marine, Stabler initially clashed with authority and struggled to adapt to married life, receiving reprimands from his captain and consulting a shrink. But paired with his compassionate partner, Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), he proved an exemplary cop and father. He was dogged and intuitive, a man who gave more than he took, rough around the edges but heroic nonetheless.And yet the franchise’s latest spinoff, “Law & Order: Organized Crime,” has done away with all that fortitude. In the pilot, Stabler’s wife is killed by a car bomb, leading him to contemplate violent retribution. He grows a goatee. He goes undercover. He has a rockin’ good time. In a scene from the second season, airing now, we find him training in a boxing gym, where he’s approached by a sultry mob wife — a suspect in a sex-trafficking sting — who presents him with a pair of carnation-pink panties and invites him to her home. Once there, Stabler spikes her drink with an incapacitating agent, and they kiss until she passes out. Stabler hustles into her bedroom and riffles for evidence, escaping through a back door when her husband arrives.Stabler’s wife is killed by a car bomb, leading him to contemplate violent retribution. He grows a goatee.Never mind how implausible this sequence feels, especially given Stabler’s background as a sex-crimes detective. The tone is sleazy, owing more to 1980s action flicks than the trademark “Law & Order” grit. It’s a far cry from the franchise’s origins: middle-aged cops and attorneys plagued with lousy diets and troubled families, a dour but lively metropolis teeming with nosy neighbors and wisecracking witnesses. Instead, “Organized Crime” depicts a backlot version of New York, its desolate cityscapes almost devoid of pedestrians. Stabler’s task force targets deep-pocketed warlords and ethnic outfits, armed traffickers who hijack shipping containers and vaccine supplies. Officers meet informants on abandoned waterfronts, and everybody drives around in a giant black S.U.V. Cruising gang-controlled neighborhoods, Stabler is anxious, adrift and thirsty for vengeance. Whatever happened to America’s dad?While Stabler busies himself with mobsters and madams, the long-running “Special Victims Unit,” whose fictional plots often riff on real-world headlines, has become a lugubrious public-service announcement on modern policing. Now a captain, Benson has been elevated to virtual sainthood, leading an understaffed unit and deflecting misogyny from her superiors. In the aftermath of George Floyd, even her pristine character is tested by institutional bias and dysfunction — and her commanding officer, a Harvard-educated Black man, is replaced by a chauvinistic white man prone to victim-blaming.Benson’s relentless drive for justice remains. An arc in the 22nd season recalls the 2020 Central Park bird-watching incident, in which a white woman filed a false report against a Black man. (The charge against her was later dismissed.) The show’s stand-in for the bird-watcher is arrested; after he’s exonerated, Benson apologizes. “We both want the department to own up to their mistakes and to make changes moving forward,” she tells him. “We can get rid of the worst cops.” Her promise echoes Mayor Eric Adams’s campaign claim that he once worked to “reform the police” from the inside, and it’s a stretch even by “Law & Order” standards. The franchise once focused on good work done by flawed people, but now even “S.V.U.” takes a more evangelistic stance. Police departments may abuse their power, it concedes, but they are redeemed by the likes of Olivia Benson.Stabler is an avenger, Benson a heart-of-gold administrator.What’s jarring about the way “Organized Crime” and “S.V.U.” have diverged is how thoroughly both shows sacrifice realism to preserve optimistic attitudes toward policing. The original “Law & Order,” which aired from 1990 to 2010 (a revival begins this month), took pains to establish its characters as public servants, not superheroes. On the job, the detectives and attorneys wore drab, rumpled suits and worked desk phones from cramped offices. Off the job, they drank and avoided their families, because dealing with predators makes for a harrowing day. For some of them — Sam Waterston’s Jack McCoy, S.Epatha Merkerson’s Anita Van Buren — the lack of glamour suggested selflessness: Clearly they could’ve made more money elsewhere.Judging by the show’s longevity, this vision was a palatable one, a big-tent philosophy that allowed the show to celebrate the justice system while acknowledging its failures. A tone of knowing cynicism lent the writing credibility; a wariness of machismo and bureaucracy gave it tension. It maintained a certitude that New Yorkers needed protection from their neighbors, and that those who provided it merited sympathy.But in a time of skyrocketing funding and increased attention on police brutality, that big tent has collapsed. “Organized Crime” and “S.V.U.” face a new hurdle: They must demonstrate that cops are indeed the good guys. Both have cagily staked their territory. “S.V.U.” pays lip service to reform without seriously considering it; “Organized Crime” looks the other way entirely, supposing a wasteland of a city overrun by militant thugs. Stabler is an avenger, Benson a heart-of-gold administrator who could maybe be talked into some additional sensitivity training.It bears mention that another spinoff, “Law & Order: Hate Crimes,” was announced and then put on hold in 2019. Given the franchise’s expositional method and penchant for moral ambiguity, it’s unsettling to contemplate what that show might have looked like. In interviews, the franchise’s creator, Dick Wolf, has stressed that the shows maintain a nonpolitical lens on current events. But the incoherence of the new installments is a statement in itself. The shows could not ignore that millions of Americans were so shaken by police violence that they took to the streets in 2020. But it’s also true that some share of “Law & Order” fans must have thin-blue-line flags draped from their porches. Two roads diverged in a wood, and “Law & Order” pretends to take them both.Opening page: Screen grab from YouTube. Above: Virginia Sherwood/NBC; Chandan Khanna/Agence France-Presse, via Getty Images; Heidi Gutman/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank, via Getty Images. More

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    Late Night Dunks on Trump for Getting Dumped During Tax Season

    “It’s like getting divorced on Christmas Eve,” Jimmy Kimmel joked.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.‘H&R Cellblock’Last week, Donald Trump’s longtime accounting firm Mazars USA cut ties with the former president and his family, saying financial statements they prepared for him from 2011 to 2020 should “no longer be relied upon.”“In other words, ‘We are not going to prison with you, Mr. Trump,’” Jimmy Kimmel joked on Tuesday night.“So, for those nine years, no one should trust any of his financial statements, or any of his statements.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Good for them, standing up and doing the right thing 10 years too late.” — JAMES CORDEN“The New York attorney general and Manhattan district attorney have been trying to determine whether the insurers, lenders and others Trump dealt with were misled about the strength of his finances. Let me save you guys some trouble: They were.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“If there’s any karma in this world, they dropped him for a younger, hotter client.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“What new information could have come to light right now? Were they like ‘Wait a minute — Trump organization? As in Donald — does that have something to do with Donald Trump?’” — JAMES CORDEN“Now he’s going to need someone else to do his taxes. I suggest H&R Cellblock.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“I tell you, there’s nothing more depressing than getting dumped by your accountant during tax season. It’s like getting divorced on Christmas Eve.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“I like the idea of Donald Trump angrily now setting up a TurboTax account to get his taxes done.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“A lot of people believe this could be it for Donald Trump — this could be the one. I don’t know. How many ‘the ones’ have we had now. We’ve had like 400 or something?” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Punchiest Punchlines (Kamila Valieva Edition)“I also know that nobody believes her excuse, right? That she accidentally took her grandfather’s heart medication, but I do. I believe her, because I know what it was like growing up me and my family — we always had a big bowl of loose pills all mixed together. It’s an easy mistake to make.” — TREVOR NOAH, on the Russian Olympic skater Kamila Valieva testing positive for a banned substance called trimetazidine“She tested positive for three substances that can be used to treat heart problems. Imagine how devastating that must be: You train your whole life to be in the Olympics, follow all the rules, put in all the hours, eat the right things. Last minute, you accidentally take your grandfather’s heart medicine.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“No one is focusing on the fact that her grandpa took her medication, now he’s dominating bingo at the old folks home.” — TREVOR NOAH“But again, I’m not saying Russia did it on purpose; I’m not saying that. I’m just saying don’t be shocked when later this week they use 15-year-olds to invade Ukraine.” — TREVOR NOAH“Her lawyer said maybe her grandfather drank something from a glass, saliva got in and this glass was somehow later used by the athlete. Ah, the old ‘must be from Grandpa’s saliva’ defense, huh?’” — JIMMY KIMMEL“We’ve all shared a big, wet cup of water with Granddad, haven’t we?” — JIMMY KIMMEL“I think the real question is, how much of your grandfather’s saliva are you coming in contact with and why?” — JIMMY KIMMEL“And why does this keep happening to Russia? These poor people. Will you leave them alone?” — JIMMY KIMMEL“I can’t believe they caught someone cheating and they’re still letting her compete while they investigate more. Like guys, it almost feels like the investigation is not about whether she cheated or not, it’s almost like the real investigation here is ‘OK, let’s see what the drugs can do — let it rip! Come on, let’s just see. We want to know, right? Everybody wants to know.’” — TREVOR NOAHThe Bits Worth WatchingRoy Wood Jr. dived into the history of Black athletes at the Winter Olympics on his “Daily Show” segment “CP Time.”What We’re Excited About on Wednesday NightRebecca Hall, the director of “Passing,” will appear on Wednesday’s “Late Late Show.”Also, Check This OutAudra McDonald, Denée Benton and John Douglas Thompson in “The Gilded Age.”Alison Rosa/HBOHBO’s “The Gilded Age” seeks to depict an elite class of 19th-century Black New Yorkers with historical accuracy. More