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    Amy Schneider Beats Matt Amodio’s Streak on ‘Jeopardy!’

    The category is: game-show legends.The current “Jeopardy!” phenom, Amy Schneider, surpassed Matt Amodio’s 38-game streak on Monday’s episode, making her the contestant with the second-highest number of consecutive wins in the show’s history.Schneider, an engineering manager from Oakland, Calif., often seems unbeatable with buzzer in hand. According to statistics published by the show, of the clues that she has answered, she has given the correct response 95 percent of the time, and she has answered Daily Double clues correctly 86 percent of the time. She became the first woman to surpass $1 million in winnings on the show, and in the 39 games she has won so far, Schneider has amassed $1.3 million.Her next goal post is far away: beating Ken Jennings’s 74-game streak from 2004, which remains the longest in history. Her new target would be particularly poignant if she meets it when Jennings is the host. (The former champion is currently trading off duties with the sitcom actress Mayim Bialik.)Schneider’s success has spurred discussion among fans and internally among the show’s producers and writers about the recent pattern of streaks. Since 2003, when “Jeopardy!” got rid of a rule that had limited contestants to no more than five wins in a row, only a dozen contestants have managed to win 10 or more consecutive games. Schneider is the third contestant this season to do so.Possible explanations for the unusual number of streaks abound. They include a wealth of online resources that contestants such as Schneider have used to study with, and a new entrance test that hopeful contestants can take anytime. Because of pandemic-related delays in taping the show, some contestants, including Schneider and Amodio, also had an unusual amount of time to study in between when they were initially told that they would be on the show and when they walked into the studio.As a sudden game-show celebrity who is also a transgender woman, Schneider has had a whirlwind of a month, fielding a barrage of questions about her life and her preparation for this moment while also countering anti-trans attacks online. In an interview with the L.G.B.T. advocacy organization Glaad last year, Schneider said she had been unsure of how to discuss her identity on the show initially because she wanted her skill at the game to be the primary focus, but that she then decided to address it by wearing a trans flag pin.“I didn’t want it to seem like something that was secret or that was shameful or anything, or that I was unaware of the significance of it,” Schneider said in the interview, “because I knew that trans people — trans ‘Jeopardy!’ fans — were watching my episodes extra carefully, just as I did with the previous trans contestants.” More

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    ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’ Fires Its Harry Potter

    The Broadway production of “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” has fired the actor playing the title character, citing unspecified concerns about his conduct.The show on Sunday issued a statement saying that James Snyder, who played the title role for about a year before the pandemic and then rejoined the show when it restarted last fall, had been terminated following a complaint by Diane Davis, the actress playing his wife, Ginny. (The play begins 19 years after the conclusion of the Harry Potter novels, by which point the boy wizard has become a married man, with children of his own.)The show said that Davis had made a complaint “regarding the conduct of fellow cast member James Snyder” Nov. 19, a week after it had resumed performances following the lengthy pandemic shutdown. A spokesman declined to provide any further details, but the statement noted that the show has “strict prohibitions against harassment in any form.”The production said that, once it received the complaint, it suspended Snyder and commissioned “an independent investigation by a third party,” and that when the investigation was completed “the producers decided Mr. Snyder should not return to the production and terminated his contract.” Steve Haggard has been playing Harry Potter during Snyder’s suspension, and will continue doing so. Davis has taken a leave of absence, the producers said.Snyder, 40, previously starred in “Cry-Baby” and “If/Then” on Broadway, and also appeared in “In Transit.” He did not respond to an email seeking comment. More

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    On ‘S.N.L.,’ Donald Trump Tries His Hand at Wordle

    Colin Jost and Pete Davidson provided an update on their purchase of a retired Staten Island Ferry boat, in this episode hosted by Will Forte.It’s the viral phenomenon that gets picked apart on social media, where you throw out random words and see what gets a response — but first, the “Saturday Night Live” opening sketch.This weekend’s broadcast, hosted by the “S.N.L.” alumnus Will Forte and featuring the musical guest Måneskin, began with a parody of the Fox News program “The Ingraham Angle,” with Kate McKinnon as its host, Laura Ingraham.She lamented the first year of the Biden administration, which she said had been a disaster, citing rising inflation, high gas prices and the green M&M’s getting canceled. She added that the nation “is still mourning from the sudden loss of America’s dad, Robert Durst.”McKinnon introduced her first guest, Senator Ted Cruz, played by Aidy Bryant. Bryant explained that her beard was “like Jan. 6: shocking at first, but sadly it’s been normalized.”Bryant’s Cruz went on to deliver a warning to her constituents in Texas: “February’s going to be a cold one, so you might want to book your vacay to Cancún now,” she said. “Live más, everybody.”After offering shout-outs to her remaining sponsors (including Covid Negs, “the Covid test that’s guaranteed to be negative, even if you have it”), McKinnon brought out Pete Davidson as Novak Djokovic, the unvaccinated tennis star who was recently deported from Australia.“People love to tear you off your pedestal, just because you’re really rich or you’re the best at tennis or you go to a charity event with 200 kids even though you’re dripping with Covid,” Davidson said.Ego Nwodim appeared as the conservative commentator Candace Owens (“It’s my greatest honor to continue to fight for African Americans,” she said, “no matter how many times they ask me to stop”), followed by James Austin Johnson in his recurring role as former president Donald J. Trump.“I’m back just like ‘Tiger King 2,’” Johnson said. “You had fun the first time, but now you’re like, how are more people from this not in jail yet?”This time, his Trump-style free associations were accompanied by a round of Wordle, the popular online word game (as well as a boast that he would beat Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida if he opposed him for the presidential nomination). After rambling about the booster shot, John Mayer, Hilary Duff and Jason Momoa, Johnson landed at the correct Wordle answer which turned out to be — what else? — Trump.Opening monologue of the weekForte, who was a “Saturday Night Live” cast member from 2002 to 2010, made his first appearance as a host this weekend. And to hear him tell it, he was not at all bitter that he finally got to do it after hosting duties had previously been handled by his fellow alums Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, Andy Samberg and Fred Armisen. (Then Wiig again, then Hader again, as well as Jason Sudeikis, Seth Meyers and John Mulaney four times.)But Forte didn’t exactly welcome an onstage appearance from Wiig. (“I flew in for this,” she explained as he shooed her away. “Oh, great, so you know where the airport is,” he replied.) Nor was he pleased to see next week’s host, Willem Dafoe, in the house when the “S.N.L.” boss Lorne Michaels claimed that Forte’s booking had been a mistake: “I texted Willem and, you know, autocorrect,” Michaels said.MacGruber of the weekC’mon, you didn’t think you would get a Forte-hosted episode without a return appearance (or three) from MacGruber, the hapless MacGyver wannabe he originated on “S.N.L.”?It’s been more than a decade since Forte last played MacGruber in an “S.N.L.” sketch (though the character went on to have his own movie and a streaming TV series). But rest assured that MacGruber is still an overconfident blowhard who finds himself trapped in rooms with ticking time bombs that spell his imminent demise.Oh, and now he’s an unrepentant conspiracy theorist and anti-vaxxer. Did we mention he was joined by Wiig and Ryan Phillippe, and he also believes in QAnon?Weekend Update jokes of the weekOver at the Weekend Update desk, the anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che continued to riff on President Biden’s recent news conference and the Senate’s defeat of a voting-rights bill.Jost began:President Biden marked the end of his first year in office with a two-hour press conference. Because that’s how long it took to list everything that’s gone wrong. It was actually the longest presidential press conference in history. But as I’ve been told many times before, just because you went for a long time doesn’t mean you did a good job.Che continued:Senate Republicans lined up to shake Kyrsten Sinema’s hand after she voted against changing the filibuster to pass voting rights. Ah, the U.S. Senate. Keeping Black folks down with a quiet handshake since 1787. Senator Bernie Sanders suggested that he supports replacing fellow Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. Damn, Bernie, stab your own co-workers in the back? That’s unforgivable. I would never suggest Colin should be fired, no matter how much better I think Bowen would be. [The screen shows an image of Che anchoring Weekend Update with his “S.N.L.” co-star Bowen Yang]Most important news development of the weekWhat started as a not-so-innocent visit to the Weekend Update desk by Alex Moffat as his recurring character Guy Who Just Bought a Boat turned into a timely opportunity to roast Jost about this week’s news that he and Davidson were among the investors who won an auction for a decommissioned Staten Island Ferry boat.Joining Jost and Moffat at the desk, Davidson declared in a deeply chagrined tone, “We bought a ferry — the windowless van of the sea.”Jost replied: “Yes, it’s very exciting. We thought the whole thing through.”To which Davidson added, in disbelief: “Even the mayor tweeted about it. Which is how I found out we have a new mayor? What happened to Bloomberg?” More

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    Louie Anderson, Genial Stand-Up Comic and Actor, Dies at 68

    He won an Emmy Award for his work on the series “Baskets” and two Daytime Emmys for his animated children’s show, “Life With Louie.”Louie Anderson, the genial stand-up comedian, actor and television host who won an Emmy Award for his work on the series “Baskets” and two Daytime Emmys for his animated children’s show, “Life With Louie,” died on Friday in Las Vegas. He was 68.His death, in a hospital, was confirmed by his longtime publicist, Glenn Schwartz, who said the cause was complications of diffuse large B cell lymphoma, a form of blood cancer.In an entertainment career that spanned more than four decades, Mr. Anderson had a self-deprecating style that won him legions of fans, among them Henny Youngman and Johnny Carson, whose early support catapulted him to stardom.In 1981, Mr. Anderson was among the top finishers in a comedy competition hosted by Mr. Youngman, who subsequently hired him as a writer.Mr. Anderson made his national television debut in 1984 on “The Tonight Show.” After his set, Johnny Carson brought him out for a second bow, a rarity for comics and especially for ones making their debut.Joseph Del Valle/NBCUniversal via Getty ImagesMr. Anderson made his national television debut on “The Tonight Show” with Mr. Carson in 1984, and, as comedians say, he killed. The routine was heavy on jokes about his own weight (which topped 300 pounds at times), and he had the audience roaring from his opening deadpan line: “I can’t stay long. I’m in between meals.”Afterward, Mr. Carson brought him out for a second bow, a rarity for comics and especially for ones making his debut. As Mr. Anderson told it, Mr. Carson later paid him another high compliment.“He came by my dressing room on the way to his, stuck his head in and said, ‘Great shot, Louie,’” he told The St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 2002. “Because comics call that a ‘shot’ on ‘The Tonight Show.’ And that was huge for me.”Mr. Anderson went from earning $500 a week for his stand-up work to making twice that in one night, he said. And film and television work started coming his way, including small roles in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” (1986) and “Coming to America” (1988). In 1987, Showtime broadcast a comedy special that captured him in performance at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis.Reviewing the show for The New York Times, John J. O’Connor wrote, “In an age when comedians rely on desperation measures to establish a performing identity — think of Howie Mandel indulging in infantile screaming or Sam Kinison feigning a nervous breakdown — Mr. Anderson has developed a low-keyed act that could fit comfortably into the category of family entertainment.”He added, “At a time when stand-up comedy is trafficking heavily in insult, hysteria and sexual obsessions, Mr. Anderson seems to have come up with something truly different — old-fashioned, heartwarming humor.”That would be his bread and butter for his whole career, although he took it in interesting directions. “Life With Louie,” which ran from 1994 to 1998 and won him Daytime Emmys in 1997 and 1998 as outstanding performer in an animated program, was a savvy children’s show that also had an adult following; its title character, a child, dealt with an assortment of problems at home and on the playground.Mr. Anderson won an Emmy for his performance as Zach Galifianakis’s mother on the comic drama “Baskets.”Colleen Hayes/FXOn “Baskets,” an acclaimed comic drama that ran from 2016 to 2019 and starred Zach Galifianakis, Mr. Anderson, in drag, played the mother of twin brothers played by Mr. Galifianakis. Mr. Anderson was nominated for the supporting actor Emmy for the role three times, winning in 2016.In a 1996 interview with The Orlando Sentinel, he reflected on his appeal.“People are comfortable with me onstage,” he said. “There’s nothing hateful about my comedy. I look at it from the humanity standpoint. I’m just kind of like ‘Hey, we’re all in this together,’ and so they feel comfortable inviting me into their living rooms.”Louis Perry Anderson was born on March 24, 1953, in St. Paul, Minn. His mother, Zella, was a homemaker, and his father, Louis, was a jazz musician.He graduated from high school in St. Paul and had a job counseling troubled youths when his career path changed as a result of a dare.“I went out one night with some guys from work and we saw a couple of comedians,” he recounted in a 1987 interview with The Post-Standard of Syracuse, N.Y. “I remarked that neither one of them was very funny, and everybody began telling me to get up there myself if I thought I could do it better.“The joke kind of escalated over time,” he continued, “and finally one night, I did get up onstage. Once I did, I discovered that I liked it a lot. I have been doing it ever since.”He began working comedy clubs in Minnesota, then branched out to Chicago and other mid-American cities. At the 1981 Midwest Comedy Competition in St. Louis he did well enough to impress the show’s host, Mr. Youngman, who hired him as a writer and boosted his confidence.“He helped me learn to write really good material, and he encouraged me to stay in comedy,” Mr. Anderson said of Mr. Youngman. “I was at that point where I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do next.”The Carson appearance in 1984 helped make him a headliner, and he worked regularly in Las Vegas and other top comedy cities, touring for a time with Roseanne Barr. A 1996 sitcom, “The Louie Show,” on which he played a psychotherapist. lasted only six episodes despite a supporting cast that included Bryan Cranston, but Mr. Anderson frequently played guest roles on other series and was a fixture on late-night talk shows. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, he was host of the game show “Family Feud.”He was also an author. His stand-up comedy drew heavily on his family in lighthearted ways, but his books had a more serious element. “Dear Dad: Letters From an Adult Child” (1989) was a series of letters addressed to his father that dealt with, among other things, his father’s alcoholism.“I can remember coming home from school and knowing when I walked in the door whether or not you had been drinking — without even seeing anyone,” he wrote. “That’s how sensitive I think I became.”As his stand-up career progressed, Mr. Anderson dialed back on the jokes about his weight, and his book “Goodbye Jumbo … Hello Cruel World,” published in 1993, was an honest look at his food addiction. “The F Word: How to Survive Your Family” (2002) and “Hey Mom: Stories for My Mother, but You Can Read Them Too” (2018) also had serious intent.Mr. Anderson was one of 11 children. His survivors include his sisters Lisa and Shanna Anderson, Mr. Schwartz said. Mr. Anderson said he based parts of his “Baskets” character on his mother. In “Hey Mom,” he addressed her directly.“I guess I must believe in the afterlife if I’m writing to you and I talk to you and my face is always turned up to the sky,” he wrote. “If there is an afterlife, I hope there’s a big comfortable chair, because I know you like that, and good creamer for your coffee, and a TV showing old reruns.”Neil Vigdor contributed reporting. More

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    Another Peloton Heart Attack on TV? ‘Billions’ Says It’s a Coincidence.

    Peloton’s stock dropped last month after the premiere of the “Sex and the City” reboot, which ended with Mr. Big dying after riding one of the company’s bikes.This article includes mild spoilers for the Season 6 premiere of “Billions.”Mr. Big wasn’t the only one.In an early scene of the Season 6 premiere of the Showtime white-collar crime drama “Billions,” a main character on the show, Mike Wagner (played by David Costabile), has a heart attack while riding a Peloton, the high-end stationary bike.Television viewers may well experience déjà vu after seeing the character dismount his Peloton and react to a wave of chest pain amid luxury furnishings. In the premiere episode last month of HBO Max’s “Sex and the City” revival, “And Just Like That …,” Carrie’s husband, known as Mr. Big (Chris Noth), dies of a heart attack after finishing his 1,000th Peloton ride.One difference in the bizarrely similar plot points is that Costabile’s character, an executive at the hedge fund at the center of the show, survives. And when he returns to the office after his heart attack, the show took a chance to address the plot parallel head on.“I’m not going out like Mr. Big,” Wagner, better known as Wags, says triumphantly to his employees.Peloton said in a statement that the company had not agreed to the use of its brand or intellectual property on the show, and that it had not provided equipment for the episode.“As referenced by the show itself,” the statement said, “there are strong benefits of cardiovascular exercise to help people lead long, happy lives.”The Season 6 premiere was given a surprise early release on Friday morning ahead of its scheduled on-air premiere Sunday night. The episode will be available free until April 10 across multiple streaming platforms, including on Showtime’s own website, Showtime.com, and on YouTube.In a statement, the show’s executive producers said the scene was written and shot last spring, months before Mr. Big’s onscreen demise. The line of dialogue about Mr. Big was overdubbed only recently in postproduction.“We added the line because it was what Wags would say,” they said in the statement. Showtime did not immediately respond to a question about whether Peloton was aware of the cameo before the episode debuted.The ill-fated “Sex and the City” cameo became a problem for Peloton: After the episode debuted, the company’s stock dropped.The company tried to turn the unflattering cameo around by quickly filming an online ad featuring Noth, who lounges cozily with his Peloton instructor by the fire. But that move backfired when, later that week, The Hollywood Reporter published an article in which two women accused him of sexual assault. Peloton deleted the ad from its social media accounts. (Noth called the accusations “categorically false” and has since been accused of and denied sexual misconduct by multiple others.)The company has already been facing challenges this week. After CNBC reported that the company planned to pause the production of its bikes, Peloton’s chief executive released a statement denying the report but saying that the company is considering laying off some workers. Peloton’s stock dropped 24 percent on Thursday.The scenes were devised as restrictions kept people exercising at home during the pandemic, but demand for Peloton’s equipment has been waning as the country returns to old routines. More

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    ‘Billions’ Season 6 Premiere Recap: Fire in the Hole

    Chuck goes to war with a billionaire, but probably not the one audiences expected. Prince tries his best to be different from his predecessor.The Season 6 premiere of “Billions” was given a surprise early release on Friday morning, available free across multiple streaming platforms, including Showtime.com and YouTube. Future recaps will publish after episodes air on Sunday nights.Season 6, Episode 1: ‘Cannonade’A new season of “Billions” is upon us, and with it comes a new billionaire on Chuck Rhoades’s to-do list. It just isn’t the man you think it is — at least, not yet.Oh, sure, Mike Prince has conquered the business empire of his and Chuck’s one-time rival Bobby Axelrod, who has fled the country one step ahead of the law. (Damian Lewis, who played Axe, left the show at the end of Season 5, with the actor Corey Stoll taking over as Paul Giamatti’s co-protagonist.)But Prince and Chuck are currently in a sort of détente phase at the moment. Chuck has temporarily stepped away from his duties as New York Attorney General, vowing to return only if and when he can line up a big victory to offset his failure to collar Axelrod; by the end of this week’s episode, it’s not clear if he’ll return to the job at all. Prince, meanwhile, literally offers to become Chuck’s ally; the offer is rebuffed, but the fact that it was made says something about the man’s temperament.No, the filthy rich creep currently in Chuck’s cross hairs is Melville Revere, a descendant of a Revolutionary War hero played with magnificent snootiness by Michael McKean. (Anyone who witnessed McKean’s turn as Chuck McGill on “Better Call Saul” knows nobody in the biz does self-righteousness better.) Revere’s ancestral property — brought back into the family by the money Melville made as a security contractor, selling pepper spray and rubber bullets — is adjacent to the upstate farm to which Chuck has semiretired.The two blue-bloods might have gotten along just fine if it weren’t for the twice daily fusillade from Revere’s collection of antique cannons every morning and evening, disturbing Chuck’s peace. Unfortunately for Chuck, who has handed the reins of the attorney general’s office to his protégé Kate Sacker (Condola Rashad), he has nothing to do but perseverate on the irritating explosions, day in and day out.Chuck tries a variety of methods to shut the cannons down. Direct diplomacy with Revere fails, as does Chuck’s initial attempt to rally the townspeople to his side; many of them are just as irritated by the noise as he is, but they feel helpless because Revere’s largess has benefited everyone from the fire department to the local Boy Scout troop. So he gets creative and opens up a sluice on the creek that runs through both of their properties, flooding out Revere’s supply of gunpowder.In a fortuitous coincidence (or a storytelling sleight-of-hand, take your pick), Revere is an investor in the firm formerly known as Axe Cap, now Michael Prince Capital. Knowing that Chuck’s ex-wife, Wendy, is a macher in the company, he reaches out to see if she can somehow call off the dogs. This sets Mike Prince’s mind to work about what it means to keep his investors happy, though a sit-down with Chuck over glasses of Glenlivet — set to “Jurassic Park” — style shaking by the cannonade — fails to yield the alliance Prince was hoping for.In the end, Chuck’s path to victory is an easy one. After learning from an environmentalist that the creek into which Revere’s cannonballs land is an ideal habitat for endangered bog turtles, though none actually live there, he orchestrates the transfer of several of the reptiles to the site. This provides him with the legal basis he needs to shut down the cannons, though he makes a grand show of the thing by enlisting a mob of townspeople literally armed with pitchforks and torches. (Well, lanterns, anyway.)It’s then that Chuck makes a statement that could have huge ramifications for the future of his character, and the show. Speechifying to the assembled crowd and members of the press, he effectively writes off the law as toothless when it comes to reining in the lawless excess of the billionaire class. Does this mean he’ll relinquish his attorney generalship permanently, in favor of a more grass-roots approach to taking down Revere, Prince and their ilk? Stay tuned!And what of Prince? His name is now on the wall of what used to be Axe Cap’s hallowed halls, but his comparatively mellow, even vaguely do-gooding approach is a hard sell to Axelrod’s hard-charging staff. True, he saves the life of Axe’s former right-hand-man, Mike Wagner (David Costabile), by calling 911 when Wags’s high-tech heart-monitoring ring reveals that Wags is having a heart attack while using his Peloton.Wags is grateful for the save; “I’m not going out like Mr. Big,” he declares, in reference to another major TV character’s heart attack on a Peloton last month — and in what appears to be a brilliant bit of last-minute sound editing. But Wags is understandably resentful that he was being spied on through the ring, a gift from Prince to everyone in Axe Cap and Mase Cap. The incident only worsens relations between Prince and his new employees.Prince’s dilemma is twofold. Not only must he either win over the existing employees or fire them en masse and start anew, he also has to persuade the Securities and Exchange Commission that he, unlike his predecessor, is on the up-and-up. He contemplates firing Wags until the fiendishly clever reveals his indispensable in-depth knowledge of the firm’s traders. He turns to the unctuous compliance officer Ari Spyros (Stephen Kunken) for guidance in identifying borderline-illegal maneuvers from the company’s past that he can give up to the S.E.C. to prove his good faith. Spyros points to a wall of file boxes: Turns out the vast majority of Axe Cap’s wheelings and dealings fall under this umbrella.So, acting partially on the advice of Wendy Rhoades (Maggie Siff), he does what would have been unthinkable to Bobby Axelrod. He gathers all his employees and investors, including Revere and Charles Rhoades Sr. (Jeffrey DeMunn), and announces that he’s firing … the investors! From now on, he says, investors will have to prove themselves to the firm, not the other way around. Only the most pristine clients need apply to what he calls “The Prince List.” This is obviously a financial and reputational bloodletting in the short term, but Prince expects it to pay dividends in the end, both with the investor class and with his most recalcitrant, and most talented, employee, Taylor Mason (Asia Kate Dillon).Which brings us to the big question asked by the episode, and perhaps by the entire show: Is there such a thing as an ethical billionaire? “Billionaires break the laws of decency, even while obeying the letter,” says Chuck. “By definition, having that much is criminal.” Prince disagrees; he’s a billionaire himself, so what did you expect?But as a character, he represents a unique challenge to Chuck Rhoades’s entire raison d’être: He believes that, even as a billionaire, he can effectively police himself and his peers on the Prince List in the bargain. Somehow I doubt that the newly minted torches-and-pitchforks Chuck will agree.Loose change:The episode starts with Buffalo Springfield’s epochal protest anthem “For What It’s Worth” and ends with Public Enemy’s late-90s interpolation of that song, “He Got Game,” from the Spike Lee film of the same name. “Billions” never shies from big needle drops; this is a clever way of incorporating one of the most recognizable classic rock songs in the catalog.Also on the music tip: One of the episode’s funniest moments comes during a scene in which Wags and Prince haggle over what it will cost for Wags to quit the firm. Instead of making a deal, Wags simply says “Nope!,” and at that moment the composer Brendan Angelides’s score cuts out entirely. All it’s missing is a needle-scratch sound effect.It felt great to see the usual Axe Cap suspects throughout the show, but much missed were Kelly AuCoin as Dollar Bill and Dan Soder as Mafee. Will they resurface to make trouble for Prince?As interesting as Prince’s decision to sack his investors was, it’s hard to believe that all of them — except Melville Revere, who gets in high dudgeon about it — would simply take it on the chin and leave the office without saying anything in protest. For that matter, it’s hard to believe that all of them would come when summoned.The episode ends with Chuck firing one of Revere’s cannons himself as a sort of kiss-off. To me, this says a lot about Chuck: The rules are meant to be followed, unless it makes him feel good to break one. More

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    Brian Cox Takes Stock of His Eventful Life on Stage and Screen

    I’m such a fan of the HBO series “Succession,” about a morally depraved, megarich media family, that I hum its theme song in the shower and have taken to wearing commanding pantsuits. So when I picked up “Putting the Rabbit in the Hat,” the new memoir by Brian Cox, who plays the family’s tyrannical patriarch, Logan Roy, I was desperate for tidbits to tide me over during the long wait for Season 4.Well, there aren’t many. Cox writes gruffly of a newcomer director on the show giving Kieran Culkin, who plays his youngest son and is an ace at mixing up the script, notes to “slow down.” “Now, this is an actor who’s calibrated the patterns of his character’s delivery over the course of two previous seasons,” the author thunders, or so I imagine (as Roy, he’s a big thunderer). “He’s not going to suddenly slow down just because you’ve given him a note.”Brian Cox, whose new memoir is “Putting the Rabbit in the Hat.”Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesCox confides furthermore that he doesn’t really relate to the intense, Method-like “process” that Jeremy Strong uses to get into the character of Kendall, Logan’s middle son. Fans already knew about Strong’s tactics from a profile of him in The New Yorker that was chewed over for weeks after it was published in December. Some perceived condescension in the article toward Strong’s working-class background, including an anonymous Yale classmate having marveled at his “careerist drive.”The heated discussion was fascinating and perplexing. When did acting become so bougie and aspirational? Wasn’t a working-class background once a key element of the Hollywood success narrative — getting yanked out, discovered and made over by the savior figure of agent or studio executive? Think Cary Grant (born Archibald Leach, son of a tailor’s presser), Lana Turner (miner’s daughter), Ava Gardner (child of sharecroppers) and all those other glamour figures of yesteryear.A humble background didn’t hinder Cox, who has gone from leading man of the British stage to one of America’s most prolific and consistent character actors — what is sometimes called a “jobbing actor,” though he now has the clout to negotiate a chauffeur, nice hotels and a double-banger trailer. Nobody rescued Cox, the consummate utility player. “I knew that simply wasn’t my ballpark,” he shrugs, on the subject of Hollywood stardom. “Besides, I’m too short.” He’s written two previous memoirs, one that tracks him to Moscow to direct “The Crucible” and another about the challenges of “King Lear.” Taking stock at 75, he’s not so much a lion in winter (indeed, he was fired as the voice of Aslan in the Narnia movies) as a seasoned workhorse finally able to enjoy a victory gallop.Cox writes eloquently about his origins in Dundee, Scotland, as the youngest of five children who occasionally had to beg for batter bits from the local chip shop. His parents met at a dance hall; his mother had been a spinner at jute mills and suffered multiple miscarriages and mental illness; his father, a shopkeeper and socialist, died when Brian was 8. Getting plunked in front of the telly rather than taken to the funeral was formative. So were later escapes to the movies, particularly ones like “Saturday Night and Sunday Morning” (1960), starring Albert Finney: “a film that wasn’t all about the lives of posh folk in drawing rooms, or struggling nobly in far-off places, or having faintly amusing high jinks on hospital wards,” Cox writes. “It was all about working-class people — people like us.” A kind teacher told him about a gofer gig at the local repertory theater and boom, he was home.Brian Cox and his fellow cast members of the HBO show Succession.Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesCox went on to attend the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and perform in esteemed halls like the Royal Court, learning the classics but also grooving nicely with the rise of the angry young man and kitchen-sink realism led by the playwright John Osborne, with whom he became friends. Before very long he was working with his gods, including Finney.At a time when theater, the fabulous invalid, is straitjacketed by the pandemic, it’s heartening and a little wistful-making to have it recalled in all its messy midcentury glory. Cox fluffed a flustered Lynn Redgrave’s wig; got felt up by Princess Margaret backstage; narrowly escaped dying in a plane crash on his way to audition for Laurence Olivier. Years later, as Lear in a wheelchair, he “frisbeed” his metal crown into the first row at the National Theater, injuring an audience member. He once compromised his testicles during a naked yoga scene. In the leaner years, he booked bikini waxes and cohabited with an army of cockroaches in a sublet apartment. There was drunkenness aplenty; one actor playing the priest in “Hamlet” got so soused he tumbled into Ophelia’s grave.Cox, who prefers cannabis to drink, can ramble on a bit. If times ever get lean again, it’s easy to imagine him doing bedtime stories for a sleep app. He salts all the idolatry with disdain. On Kevin Spacey: “A great talent, but a stupid, stupid man.” On Steven Seagal: “As ludicrous in real life as he appears onscreen.” On Quentin Tarantino: “I find his work meretricious. It’s all surface.” (Though he’d take a part if offered.) He’s softer on Woody Allen, owning up to himself dating an 18-year-old when he was in his 40s. “It seems that everybody in this book is either dead or canceled,” he notes with some rue. He’s preoccupied with making a “good death,” cataloging friends’ ends with an almost clinical relish (cancer, emphysema, suicide, a heart attack so massive it threw the victim “clean across the pebbles”).Like many actors, Cox treads more nimbly on the boards than in his personal life. He admits he wasn’t fully present for family tragedies, like his first wife’s stillborn twins and their daughter’s anorexia. “And that’s my flaw,” he declares. “It’s this propensity for absence, this need to disappear.” He loves the part of Logan partly because, when not thundering, he’s “reined in and bottled up.” But on the page, at least, he is present, lively and pouring forth, though the hints of his distinctive burr may send you heading for the audiobook instead. More

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    A Reimagined ‘Long Day’s Journey Into Night’ for the Covid Era

    Robert O’Hara directs a trimmed-down revival of Eugene O’Neill’s classic, with a colorblind cast and a weary eye on the pandemic and the opioid crisis.Of the time-honored classics of American theater, Eugene O’Neill’s “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” is one that usually takes its own concept of time seriously. A four-act work based on the playwright’s own dysfunctional parents, it follows the disintegration of the Tyrone family — by disease, ego, addiction and codependency — through the course of a claustrophobic August day at their seaside home in Connecticut. Widely considered O’Neill’s masterpiece, it typically runs just under four hours.The writer and director Robert O’Hara, a Tony nominee for his direction of “Slave Play,” is doing it in under two.Presented without an intermission by Audible at the Minetta Lane Theater, “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” has reunited O’Hara with fellow “Slave Play” alums, the actor Ato Blankson-Wood and the designer Clint Ramos, for a shortened production that confronts the play’s themes head on and brings them into 2022.“There is so much velocity in the writing that it moves at a fast clip, and with so much richness,” O’Hara said after a rehearsal last week. “The family doesn’t get an intermission throughout this one long day, so it’s quite interesting to get to sit with them in real time.”The decision to trim the material happened early and organically, O’Hara explained. “Once you put the knife in, you’re just like, ‘Are we going to pretend that we’re not editing this?’” he quipped. It was then bolstered by his wariness of having people gather for too long, given the latest Covid-19 variant.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“For me, it feels like a Covid production of ‘Long Day’s Journey Into Night,’ built for right now,” he said. “We didn’t want to ask an audience to sit for four hours in a theater, just because that’s the way it’s usually done. If anyone’s coming in looking for that experience, they should know that it’s not this.”He began conceiving the production, now in previews and opening Jan. 25, before the pandemic. Initially he was hesitant to tackle the play because of the demands placed upon producing classics.“It’s difficult to get these big chestnuts if you’re going to do it Off Broadway,” he said, referring to the challenges of securing production rights. “You can ask, but someone’s usually holding them in order to bring them back in a big way.”O’Hara credits the actress Elizabeth Marvel, who portrays the morphine-addicted mother, Mary, as instrumental to getting the production off the ground.“We started just talking about this play, but then the world made its urgency all the greater,” Marvel said. “I’ve seen probably 11 or 12 productions in my lifetime, and it’s always the same: in the same drawing room with billowing curtains, and with period corsets.“But there’s absolutely no reason,” she continued, “it can’t be right here, right now. It very much speaks to this moment, when a lot of people are having to return home to their families, dealing with addiction and codependency during a crisis, while not being able to get out.”In addition to contemporary allusions to the opioid crisis, reflecting Mary’s own addiction, the production is set amid the coronavirus pandemic. The youngest Tyrone son, Edmund (Blankson-Wood), afflicted by what is traditionally hinted to be tuberculosis, now wears a face mask. Projections at the beginning of the play display C.D.C. announcements and news footage from the early days of the pandemic, including surreal revelations like the Bronx Zoo tiger testing positive for the virus.“We wanted projections to be a dreamlike window into Mary’s psychological space, especially when she succumbs to her addiction,” Ramos said on a video call. “The visual landscape, through Yee Eun Nam’s projections, gets very dreamy and dense to directly represent that.”Marvel, left, as the morphine-addicted mother, Mary, and Blankson-Wood as her sickly son Edmund.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesMarvel’s husband, the actor Bill Camp, plays the family’s patriarch, James, and he was cast as the eldest son, Jamie, in a 1996 production at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass. The edited script, he said, “became about distilling the story’s actions rather than experiencing the longness of the situation.”“The family’s desires and dysfunctions are streamlined in a way that is already in the writing; we just hit it really fast,” he added. “It’s in your face, just like everything that is happening is in our faces now, and we don’t have time to sit around and meander our way into those things; they’re immediate.”Jason Bowen rounds out the Tyrone clan as Jamie: a colorblind casting choice (Bowen and Blankson-Wood are Black, Camp and Marvel are white) that O’Hara said is intentional, though not one he wanted to factor into the DNA of the production.“I was never going to do this play with all white people; it wasn’t anything that I had to think about,” O’Hara said. “Elizabeth had mentioned Ato, being a fan of his, so we only held auditions for Jamie, and Jason killed it. There was no manufacturing of the cast’s racial dynamics for any reason other than wanting the best actors we could find.”Bowen notes that the heft of the story’s themes, as written, override any possible racial interpretation the cast could’ve envisioned.“It’s a play about a family as they navigate addiction, and that’s something that transcends any racial aspect that we could even attempt to investigate,” Bowen said. “The play’s not about that. Robert could’ve come in with some conceptual idea he wanted to introduce, but it’s still going to boil down to these relationships.”Blankson-Wood, who was performing a return engagement of his Tony-nominated role in “Slave Play” while rehearsals for “Long Day’s Journey” took place during the day, said that being able to act in a production that did not take his own race into account was “liberating.”“The fact that I do not have to carry how I, as a Black person, fit into this family is just pure acting to me, because it focuses only on the imaginative truth of the work,” he said. “From an outsider’s perspective, I get the impulse to want to understand the racial dynamic, but that’s something I’m excited for the audience to do; that’s their job.”O’Hara, who directed an audio production of another American classic, “A Streetcar Named Desire,” as part of Williamstown Theater Festival’s Audible season in 2020, will direct an audio presentation of the production once the Minetta Lane run closes Feb. 20. He said Audible’s expansive reach helped in securing the rights to the radically altered production, which might have been denied to a regional theater.“What’s amazing about this turn to streaming and digital is the democratization of theater, so more people will be able to access it,” Blankson-Wood said. “Though I do feel pretty strongly about sitting in a dark room with other human beings. But, with an audio production like this, when you take all the scenery and stuff away, and there’s only talking and listening, it deepens the work.” More