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    ‘Parade’ Review: The Trial and Tragedy of Leo Frank

    City Center’s gala production delves further into America’s history of violence and delivers the best-sung musical in many a New York season.Just six months after its universally beloved Encores! revival of “Into the Woods,” New York City Center returns with another timely, excellent production about collective responsibility and loss. Smartly directed by Michael Arden, City Center’s gala presentation of “Parade,” which opened on Tuesday night and runs through Sunday, delves further into America’s history of violence and delivers the best-sung musical in many a New York season.The book writer Alfred Uhry’s dramatization of the 1913 trial of Leo Frank, and his subsequent imprisonment and 1915 lynching, gave the composer Jason Robert Brown a canvas to paint a complex, nourishing score that captures the entire weight of that fraught history. (Both men won Tonys for their work on the show, which premiered on Broadway in 1998.) Here, a first-rate orchestra, conducted by Brown, and under the music direction of Tom Murray, brings its pomp and pageantry to terrifying life.At the heart of the show is the rich-voiced Ben Platt, successfully transferring his lauded anxious energy from “Dear Evan Hansen” to the role of Leo Frank, a Brooklyn-born Jewish pencil factory manager uneasy in his Atlanta surroundings. His sense of regional superiority is matched by the naïve comfort of his wife, Lucille (a luminous Micaela Diamond), as she plans for a picnic on the day of the town’s annual Confederate Memorial Day parade. Diamond’s expressive face, with large eyes as expressive as those of a silent screen siren, carries the burden of resilience as Leo is wrongly jailed for the murder of a 13-year-old girl who worked at the factory.In an antisemitic kangaroo court under Judge Roan’s (John Dossett) uncaring eye, the prosecutor Hugh Dorsey (a remarkable Paul Alexander Nolan) presents a flimsy case. Adding fuel to the flames are a fundamentalist newspaper publisher (Manoel Felciano) and a sensationalist reporter (the superb Jay Armstrong Johnson, shining as he sings the score’s most fast-paced number, “Real Big News,” made doubly hectic by Cree Grant’s spin-heavy choreography here, which is otherwise lovely).A fully staged “Parade” hasn’t been seen in New York in nearly 25 years, and this revival recalls an era of big casts, big stories and big talent, our critic writes.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesDespite Governor Slaton’s (Sean Allan Krill) belated efforts, Leo’s fate is sealed by false testimonies coaxed out of the murdered girl’s co-workers (Ashlyn Maddox, Sophia Manicone, Sofie Poliakoff) and the factory’s janitor Jim Conley (a phenomenally voiced Alex Joseph Grayson). The cast, which also includes Gaten Matarazzo as a teenager out for vengeance, is uniformly splendid — as adept in the work’s solo outings as in the electric group numbers.But the problems with the book, which lacks some dramatic immediacy, remain. Ben Brantley mentioned the “overriding feeling of disdain, a chilly indignation” in his original review; and, as Vincent Canby wrote shortly afterward, the musical “plays as if it were still a collection of notes.” There is no confusing good and evil here; never any question as to what anyone is thinking or about to do, their personalities and fates as predetermined as those of characters in a children’s Bible. The show, in that respect, is aptly titled.Arden wisely counteracts this by filling the production with deft flourishes that compound American hatred across centuries: A salute by Confederate soldiers’ is slowed down so that their outstretched arms resemble a Sieg Heil salute; Roan and Dorsey’s fishing rods in one scene whip down like switches; revelers crack open Bud Lights in their final celebration.Dane Laffrey’s resourceful set — a raised wooden platform flanked, courtroom-style, by simple chairs — effectively evokes a minstrel stage, soapbox and gallows at once. And the stage under the platform is adorned with stars-and-stripes buntings that hang over mounds of crimson earth — as much the hallowed “old red hills” of Georgia as bloodstained dirt thrown onto a coffin — and a small screen emphasizing the show’s procedural nature by displaying each scene’s time, date, and location, which matches historical photographs projected onto the back wall.Then again, considering Uhry and Brown’s text and lyrics, subtlety need not be the name of the game these days. This country’s ongoing procession of racism, antisemitism and “law-and-order”-screeching politicians comes awfully close to the hate-filled climate of the work’s setting, shedding any pretense of respectability. Arden here fights fire with fire, and his direction is sincere and unambiguous. But no one is let off the hook. I imagine the audience members laughing at the condescending jokes about Southern idiocy in the first act had to at least sit with the second act’s taunting of selective liberal compassion, sung with liveliness by Courtnee Carter and Douglas Lyons.A fully staged “Parade” hasn’t been seen in New York in nearly 25 years, and this revival recalls an era of big casts, big stories and big talent — a time when musicals actually felt like events. Platt and Diamond are fearless performers, and their duet “This Is Not Over Yet” is a powerhouse for the ages. Their commanding vocals are matched by a confident production that revives the best of the original while pointing at the possibility of growth, and hope.ParadeThrough Nov. 6 at New York City Center, Manhattan; nycitycenter.org. Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes. More

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    Mike Birbiglia Can’t Get ‘Hadestown’ Out of His Head

    The comedian, 44, discussed his one-man Broadway show that opens this month, his love for Taylor Swift and why he doesn’t actually hate the Y.M.C.A.Mike Birbiglia has found that he can make a living off a personal crisis. Since 2008, Birbiglia, a longtime comedian and more recently an indie film director and star, has performed stand-up comedy shows on and off Broadway about his struggles with sleepwalking, his recovery from bladder cancer and his path toward fatherhood. But his latest, “The Old Man & the Pool,” a monologue about confronting his own mortality, might be among his most candid. (The show opens on Broadway Nov. 13 at the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center.)“I think I’m inclined toward autobiography because so much is based on passion,” Birbiglia, 44, said in a recent call from his home in Brooklyn. “I’m interested in paying tribute to the bizarre litany of things that have almost killed me.”The idea for the new show, which Birbiglia has been developing since 2018, sprang from an annual medical checkup in 2017, when his results on a breathing test were so weak that his doctor thought he might be experiencing a heart attack right there in the examination room. Birbiglia, whose father and grandfather had heart attacks at 56, was pushed to improve his health; the show details trips to the Y.M.C.A. pool as well as an encounter with an unclothed older man in the locker room when he was 7. “I’m in much better shape now,” said Birbiglia, who is also set to appear alongside Tom Hanks in the upcoming comedy-drama “A Man Called Otto,” in theaters Dec. 25. “I do cardio five days a week. I’m experimenting with the idea of riding a bike from my apartment in Brooklyn to Lincoln Center every day for work.”In an interview last month, Birbiglia discussed what turned him on to Taylor Swift, how reading poetry helps his joke writing, and why he doesn’t actually hate the Y.M.C.A. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1. “Jerrod Carmichael: Rothaniel” Jerrod is a performer who’s not filtering what he’s saying to please you — he’s not holding back from what his truth is. A lot of art will stick with me a week after, but the things I most cherish stick with me a month after, years after. “Rothaniel” had that effect. It feels like “Hadestown” — I saw it a few years ago and still play the cast album all the time.2. Deep Dives This is something my wife, Jenny, and I like to do together — start from a certain point and then follow where it leads you, through various streaming and YouTube rabbit holes. One of my favorite finds is this three-part British documentary series called “Unknown Chaplin” that shows the outtakes of Charlie Chaplin’s movies. He did hundreds of takes of some of his shots! It’s one of those moments when there’s a massive upside to streaming — I don’t think I’d be able to find stuff like this if it weren’t for all the streaming services.3. “Little Astronaut” by J. Hope Stein This is a gorgeous book of poems by my wife about her experience being pregnant and having a child. Jen’s really gotten me into poetry — she’s introduced me to Paul Muldoon, Ada Limón, Paige Lewis. I learn so much from reading poetry that’s helpful when I’m writing films, standup and solo shows. There’s a real focus on the economy of words.4. “Kitbull” My daughter is 7 and not in the head space of wanting to engage with full-on Pixar feature films yet, but there are all these incredible shorts on Disney+. Some of our favorites are “Forky Asks a Question,” “Purl” and Rosana Sullivan’s “Kitbull,” about a kid and a pit bull becoming friends — if you don’t cry during “Kitbull,” I don’t think you’re a human being.5. Sarah Sherman on “S.N.L.” Sarah is an absolutely original voice in comedy. I worked alongside her at the Comedy Cellar, and even as a live performer she’s astonishingly alive and present and goes where the audience takes her. She has a series of guest segments with Colin Jost on “S.N.L.” that are all just excuses for her to roast him. She basically decontextualizes everything he says, then he’ll defend himself and she’ll put up a fake headline that says like “Hamptons Homeowner Colin Jost Mocks Comedian” with a picture of what’s supposed to be his mansion. They’re phenomenal.6. The Comedy Cellar For my money, the Comedy Cellar is the best club in the world. There’s the Olive Tree upstairs, which has phenomenal Middle Eastern food — great hummus and kebabs, a fantastic bar. Then downstairs is an intimate 150-seat club — the other night I was there, and Ray Romano dropped in. You have to make reservations weeks in advance, but it’s worth it.7. Improv is Life The principles of “Yes, and” apply to everything I do: directing movies, making solo shows and working with a director, collaborating with a designer, working on a family trip to Iceland. That spirit of things is what I find to be on a daily basis the most helpful piece of education I’ve ever had.8. rev’pod I talk a lot about my sleepwalking in my shows — I jumped through a second-story window many years ago — and people always ask what I do about the issue. At first my doctor said to sleep in a sleeping bag, and I did that for a while, but then I found this thing! The idea is for a cozier sleep; it’s kind of like a cocoon cloth experience. They recommend it for flying on an airplane to avoid germs. It’s not foolproof, but I find it to be a pretty good solution.9. No More Art Snobbery In my 40s, I’ve vowed not to be snobby about art that’s popular — there are certain things I’ve just missed out on because they were and I didn’t think they could be good. With early Taylor Swift, I was kind of like, “Oh, that’s pop music, that’s maybe not for me.” But her music is wildly personal and evocative and exciting in a way that even if she weren’t the massive pop star that she was, I think she’d have a massive cult following that she would tour from.10. Y.M.C.A. I make fun of it mercilessly in my show — there’s too much chlorine, a lot of cringey nudity in the locker rooms, the towels are too small. But a bunch of the New York Y.M.C.A. administrators ended up coming to the workshop shows a few years ago at Cherry Lane, and they were fans of it! I do a thing on my podcast called “Working It Out for a Cause,” and I’ve given to the Y.M.C.A. a handful of times. Part of it is because the more I researched the Y.M.C.A., the more I realized not only are they a rec facility, they do an extraordinary amount of community outreach and great nonprofit work. I’m very impressed by them; I make fun because I love. More

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    People Love to Hate-Watch Tech Villains. That Won’t Hurt Spotify.

    “The Playlist” resembles other TV dramas that follow founders to their eventual comeuppance — except Spotify isn’t facing any messy implosion.Daniel Ek, a founder of Spotify and its current chief executive, sits in front of a U.S. Senate committee hearing. Or rather: A Swedish actor playing Ek sits in front of a Senate hearing, as imagined by a Swedish production designer. A fictitious senator named Landy is grilling him, hard. “Your business model just doesn’t work for musicians, does it?” she asks. Her tone makes it obvious that she already knows the answer Ek would give if he were willing to tell the truth. As she peppers him with facts and figures about Spotify’s market share and artists’ measly cut of its revenue, Ek tries to fight back, insisting that his streaming service, whatever its shortcomings, is still the best path forward for musicians hoping to make a living from their art. But the more Landy presses, the more shaken Ek looks, as though he didn’t expect the questioning to be so tough. There is a moment in which it seems he might be considering the possibility that her criticisms have merit: Maybe, despite all of his company’s rhetoric about freedom for artists, he really is just a new breed of music-industry monopolist.After Ek, the committee calls Bobbi T, a fictional musician and, coincidentally, a childhood friend of Ek’s. She is appearing as a representative of Scratch the Record, a musicians’ advocacy group calling on Spotify to distribute more of its revenue to the artists whose work constitutes the core of its platform. Her own songs are streamed 200,000 times each month, yet she struggles to get by. She understands, she says, that “in every generation there are winners and losers.” But lawmakers, she insists, should be able to tell “the difference between change and exploitation.” Ek, sitting in the audience, looks as if he would rather be somewhere, anywhere, else.These scenes appear in the sixth and final episode of “The Playlist,” a new Netflix series that chronicles Spotify’s journey from Ek’s brainstorm in Stockholm to a worldwide streaming behemoth. The first five episodes, inspired by a book by two Swedish journalists, have the same narrative shape as basically every show or movie that fictionalizes the real story of a tech start-up. Socially alienated coders with a bold vision? Check. An open-plan office with a foosball table? Check. Stodgy industry executives who just don’t understand the coming sea change (until they’re forced to)? Fund-raising woes? Just-in-time software breakthroughs? Check, check, check.This final episode, though, abandons the source material completely, zooming forward into a fictional near-future: Ek’s big Senate hearing takes place in the year 2025. This future may look a lot like the present, but it is in many ways as fanciful as anything on “Star Trek” or “The Jetsons.” This is a world in which people are moved by the opinions of musicians who aren’t megastars, and there’s some threat of legislative action that could plausibly help bands replace the lost revenue stream of physical albums. It’s a future in which Spotify is bigger than ever — but battle lines are being drawn, and they’re making Daniel Ek sweat.We love stories about underdogs who, armed only with the strength of their vision and perseverance, hit it big and change society. The world of business used to be a little too slow-moving, complex and impersonal for that kind of narrative. But tech start-ups — with their meteoric overnight successes, unconventional young founders and industry-upending products — changed that, creating a new well of David-beats-Goliath stories.Of course, we now know that many of tech’s Davids ended up becoming Goliaths of their own, creating at least as many problems as they ever fixed. Others, we’ve learned, were merely hucksters, plying their trade at the intersection of fad-oriented venture capital and loose regulatory structures. None of this has dimmed our appetite for tech-underdog tales. We still want the fun of seeing David outwit slow, out-of-touch Goliath; it’s just that we also want to congratulate ourselves, along the way, for seeing through David’s every move. So we get stories like “The Dropout,” which shows us Elizabeth Holmes turning an undergraduate hunch into the company Theranos (before being exposed as a fraud), or “WeCrashed,” which lets us tag along as Adam Neumann makes WeWork into an international office-space empire (then gets pushed out as the company becomes a financial mess), or “Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber,” which traces the company’s dramatic transformation of urban transit (while stressing, at every turn, the amoral ruthlessness of one of its founders, Travis Kalanick). We watch these companies dupe and manipulate the world while, sitting at home on our couches, we enjoy the experience of knowing better.More people than ever, I suspect, harbor a vague sense that what Spotify offers must, in the end, be screwing someone over. But the company hasn’t had anything close to a significant moment of public reckoning, let alone been revealed as some scam or house of cards. (If anything, the industry has reveled in the money Spotify brought pouring back to major record labels; it’s musicians who often end up empty-handed.) This is why “The Playlist,” notionally a behind-the-scenes imagining of the past, is forced to lurch into a wholly fictional future. Only there can it give Spotify the comeuppance that the genre has conditioned us to expect, but reality has completely failed to deliver.It’s striking that even after loosing itself from the shackles of the present, the show can’t find its way to giving Spotify more than a slap on the wrist. Bobbi T, the struggling musician, pleads for Congress to pass a law guaranteeing a fixed payment to artists every time one of their songs is streamed. “The Playlist” gives no sign, though, that this will happen, and it has no particular vision of how artists could accumulate the leverage to force the issue. Nor does it suggest that normal people will start paying for albums again. It doesn’t depict the live-music industry reversing the trends making it less and less viable as an income stream, and it certainly doesn’t show masses of people quitting Spotify or other streaming platforms (like, um, Netflix) in protest. All it gives us is the pageantry of a Senate hearing and a few pointed questions, something executives endure all the time without much changing. The show seems to know this: In the end, the fictional future Ek cares what Bobbi T has to say mostly because they went to high school together.Unlike, say, Theranos, Spotify’s product works — just not for most musicians. That’s one reason it hasn’t imploded. Another is the service’s successful colonization of our imaginations. More than once in “The Playlist,” die-hard skeptics are won over by opening Spotify and experiencing the thrill of a seeming infinity of options, all at their fingertips. The app itself tells a visceral story about what’s possible — inevitable, even. Users have largely accepted this story. Anyone looking to challenge it will have to tell a story of their own, and it won’t be enough for this story to be obviously correct or morally right. It will have to somehow feel as powerful and exciting as Spotify itself: the type of thing you could imagine making a whole TV series about.Above: Jonas Alarik/Netflix.Peter C. Baker is a freelance writer in Evanston, Ill., and the author of the novel “Planes,” published by Knopf this year. More

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    Stephen Colbert Isn’t Amused by Elon Musk’s Plan to Monetize Twitter

    Colbert said that Musk’s idea to charge users for verification would lead to “chaos” on Twitter. “I rely on that blue check mark to know which of my butters I can’t not believe!”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.Check, Please!According to a leaked business plan, Elon Musk is trying to figure out ways to monetize Twitter and is considering charging Twitter users monthly for verified blue check marks on their profiles.“But that would be chaos,” Stephen Colbert said on Tuesday. “I rely on that blue check mark to know which of my butters I can’t not believe!”“Yeah, $8 a month for the blue check mark, because I guess he’s hoping that everyone else on Twitter will also make terrible financial decisions like he did.” — TREVOR NOAH“With $8 a month, you can subscribe — you can get like, Netflix, you can get Paramount+, you can get Hulu, or you can pay so that people verify that they’re actually [expletive] on you: [imitating tweeter] ‘Oh, this is the real Trevor Noah? I hate this guy, yeah!’” — TREVOR NOAH“Why are you charging the people? Give it to everyone for free, or give it to no one. Give it to no one, right? But it doesn’t make sense to offer it as ‘equality’ and then put a price on it, do you get what I’m saying? Can you imagine if M.L.K. was out there like, ‘I have a dream. I have a dream, and I’ll tell you all about it for $8.99 a month.’” — TREVOR NOAH“And are you telling me that paragons of authenticity like Papa Johns and Papa Johns U.K. will risk falling to the same level as unverified frauds like Papa Johns Houston? You know it’s bad when Papa Johns says, ‘We cannot in good conscience verify that that is pizza.’” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (One Week From Midterms Edition)“The midterm elections are just one week away. That’s right, in one week, we’ll know who gets the House, the Senate and the upper hand at Thanksgiving.” — JIMMY FALLON“The midterms are only seven days and four secret Herschel Walker abortions away.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“You can tell the midterms are close when the fund-raising emails are in all caps: ‘JIMMY, I NEED $10 NOW!’” — JIMMY FALLON“And the big question for Republicans is when to start claiming fraud. You don’t want to go too early, because what if you win? You don’t want to pull a stop the steal on yourself. It’s tricky, you know?” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Bits Worth WatchingJeff Wright, a “Late Night with Seth Meyers” writer, hosted a support group for some undecided voters on Tuesday’s show.What We’re Excited About on Wednesday NightYvonne Strahovski will chat about the final season of “The Handmaid’s Tale” on Wednesday’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”Also, Check This OutChristina Applegate in the final season of “Dead to Me,” premiering Nov. 17 on Netflix. “This is the first time anyone’s going to see me the way I am,” she said.Saeed Adyani/NetflixThe “Dead to Me” star Christina Applegate was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis during filming of the final season, but she was determined to finish strong. More

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    ‘The Unbelieving’ Review: Life After Faith

    In a probing new play from the Civilians, based on interviews from the book “Caught in the Pulpit: Leaving Belief Behind,” current and former members of the clergy grapple with the reality of losing their religion.For Adam, not his real name, change started with curiosity and critical thinking. A Church of Christ minister and a creationist, he came to realize that his worldview was sheltered, so he set out to educate himself.“In nine months, I read over 60 books, listened to hundreds of hours of lectures and debates, watched 25 documentaries and movies,” he says. “Went through eight online courses on philosophy, evolution.”It didn’t occur to him that what he found would shake his faith. He thought, he tells a researcher, that God “can handle any questions I’ve got.”“Well, he didn’t measure up!” says Adam (David Aaron Baker), his voice rising with emotion that’s more wounded than angry. His belief in God has left him, and that threatens his job, his family, his friendships — every corner of his life. So when he speaks to the researcher, he insists on the protection of a pseudonym. He cannot afford for word to get out.“The Unbelieving,” a probing, interview-based new play from the Civilians, is about people like Adam: current and former members of the clergy who have lost their religion, even if they still publicly practice it.Written by Marin Gazzaniga and based on interviews conducted for Daniel C. Dennett and Linda LaScola’s 2013 book, “Caught in the Pulpit: Leaving Belief Behind,” this smart and slender play listens to its characters without judgment. Not trying to hit its audience over the head with lessons, it is conducive to empathy.Like Linda (Nina Hellman), the researcher, Steve Cosson’s production at 59E59 Theaters is quiet, inquisitive and welcoming. Designed by Andrew Boyce and Se Hyun Oh, the setting for Linda’s interviews is as anonymous as can be: a hotel meeting room with beige walls and vertical blinds, drawn. (The lighting, by Lucrecia Briceño, heightens the atmosphere.)Linda interviews, among others, a Mormon bishop (Dan Domingues), an Orthodox rabbi (Richard Topol), a former Roman Catholic nun (Sonnie Brown) and a former imam (Joshua David Robinson), who allows himself a little smile when he boasts that he won “trophies at Quranic reading competitions” growing up.These are contemplative people, and they were sincere in their devotion once. Now each describes what is, to varying degrees, a crisis. Not a crisis of faith; they’re beyond that. Rather, it’s a crisis about faith: how to go on without it — practically, emotionally, socially.In documenting that dilemma, “The Unbelieving” becomes not only an examination of the power of religion in American culture. It’s also an even-keeled meditation on the link between conformity and community — the enormous fear of being cast out and the frantic desire to continue belonging, even if that means living dishonestly.Take Johnny (Jeff Biehl), an Apostolic Pentecostal pastor who works for his closest friend as a building inspector. His friend, Johnny says, is “a flaming Charismatic Pentecostal,” so Johnny has not confided in him about his own loss of faith.“Everyone knows me as a minister,” Johnny says. “So everybody who sees that he has hired me, they’re like, ‘You have got a jewel. This is a man of God.’ If all of a sudden I become the atheist, as far as they know, I’m going to forge reports and lie about inspections, and cheat people out of money.”To leave his church would be to risk his livelihood, his relationships, his reputation. Then there’s what the shift in his beliefs has already taken from him: the comforting prospect of spending the afterlife with people he loves.“It means,” he says, “that this pact that my grandmother and I made 20 years ago doesn’t mean anything: that we would do everything we could to both be in heaven together.”There’s a lot of anguish in “The Unbelieving.” As it turns out, there’s a lot of courage, too.The UnbelievingThrough Nov. 19 at 59E59 Theaters, Manhattan; 59e59.org. Running time: 1 hour 5 minutes. More

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    Trevor Noah Brings ‘The Daily Show’ to Georgia

    Noah kicked off a week of taping in Atlanta on Monday ahead of next week’s big elections.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.Georgia on My MindTrevor Noah kicked off a week of taping “The Daily Show” in Atlanta on Monday night.“Georgia is the epicenter of America’s elections right now,” Noah said. “It decides everything.” One such race, he said, was the contest between the Democratic senator Raphael Warnock and his Republican opponent Herschel Walker, who he was shocked to report are currently “neck and neck.”“I know Walker is all neck, but what is happening?” Noah said.“Every second thing the man says turns out to be a lie. He walks around with a fake police badge, yeah? He pretended he was an F.B.I. agent, all right? He claimed he was anti-abortion, even though he apparently paid for one. He claimed he had only one kid even though he has, like, 1,000. Oh, and he told people he graduated in the top 1 percent of his class at the University of Georgia, and it turned out he never graduated at all. At all. Like, at this point, I want to meet the Herschel Walker that Herschel Walker thinks he is, right? Because at this point, at this point, everything — like, he treats real life the way we treat dating apps.” — TREVOR NOAHNoah noted the Democrats are bringing out “the big guns” ahead of next week’s election, including “Netflix’s very own Barack Obama.”“This race is so important, it even got Obama off the beach.” — TREVOR NOAHObama spoke in support of Warnock at a rally where he said he wouldn’t trust Walker to pilot a plane.“Wow, really? Really, President Obama, really? You are going to say that about a man who graduated in the top 1 percent of pilot school? How dare you! [imitating Herschel Walker] ‘A lot of people don’t know this about me, Herschel, but I was in “Top Gun.” That movie was about me. My name in the ’80s was Pete Maverick.’” — TREVOR NOAH“I love how Obama roasts you with, like, that signature swag. He makes it sound so polite, but he’s roasting the [expletive] out of you.” — TREVOR NOAHThe Punchiest Punchlines (The Biggest Troll of All Edition)“In other lunatic billionaire news, Elon Musk is the new owner of Twitter, and in the first 12 hours after he took over, promising free, unadulterated speech, use of the ‘n’ word went up almost 500 percent. So, mission accomplished, Elon.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“The company blamed it on trolls, but of all the trolls on Twitter, none are trollier than the troll who just bought it.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Elon Musk tweeted something that was considered misinformation and then deleted it later because it was a false conspiracy theory, which is awkward when you’re the owner of Twitter.” — JIMMY FALLON“Here was the email Musk received. It said, ‘Dear me — I regret to inform me that my tweet violated my terms of service, so I will have to ask me to delete my tweet as soon as me can. If I do not delete my tweet, I will be forced to do it for me. If I-you-me have any questions, you-me should contact me at our-us’s earliest convenience. Yours truly, you.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Today, he fired the entire board, and he’s now floating the idea that verified users may have to pay $20 a month to retain their blue check marks. Not his worst idea. His worst idea would be buying Twitter.” — JAMES CORDENThe Bits Worth WatchingJimmy Fallon announced his new holiday duet with Dolly Parton, “Almost Too Early for Christmas,” on Monday’s “Tonight Show.”What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightThe Broadway cast of “Almost Famous” will perform on Tuesday’s “Tonight Show.”Also, Check This OutThe last record to sell one million copies in a week was Taylor Swift’s “Reputation,” in 2017. Mario Anzuoni/ReutersTaylor Swift’s new album “Midnights” debuted with the biggest weekly total sales for any LP since Adele’s “25” in 2015. More

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    in Theater

    Review: Star-Crossed Lovers in Need of a Divine Assist

    Andrew Rincón’s play about reigniting passions in the heavens and the bedroom is a jumble of genres at 59E59 Theaters.Tired of digesting all the world’s heartbreak, Cupid calls it quits in Andrew Rincón’s “I Wanna F*ck Like Romeo and Juliet.” The play, a New Light Theater Project production having its premiere at 59E59 Theaters, is experiencing a similar existential crisis. Despite appealing performances, smooth direction by Jesse Jou, and some touching moments, this cosmic look at the pains of love aims wobbly arrows at too many marks.Seeing his friend Cupid (Jacqueline Guillén), the goddess of love, so distraught, Saint Valentine (Greg Cuellar) tries to remind her of affection’s earthly charms by taking her to Hackensack, N.J., where a young couple in the middle of a breakup might provide the challenge she needs to get back in the spirit.That couple, Alejandro (a sturdy Juan Arturo) and Benny (Ashton Muñiz, a soothing presence with comedic chops), have decided to separate after six years together, but Valentine thinks the relationship is worth saving. Cupid and Valentine each pick one to take on a journey of self-discovery, with the goal of guiding them back to each other. These pilgrimages, however, lead to hastily mentioned histories of internalized shame and sexual abuse that overburden the play’s final 20 minutes.Rincón dabbles in the poetic, mixing the mortals’ sometimes self-help-sounding domestic discourse with grandiose statements of love everlasting from the divine duo, who are prone to endless arguments. (That said, it is Alejandro who speaks the childish title phrase, a romanticization of Shakespeare’s text not meant to read as satire.) The clash highlights the play’s confusion as to whether it wants to be a comedy about meddling powers, or a drama about a couple whose breakup undergoes divine intervention. Brittany Vasta’s two-level set, nicely split between the heavens and the bedroom, makes a stronger case for this duality.The same can’t be said for the script, which is untidy in its overuse of Spanglish. Aside from a great joke when a character is shocked to discover the love goddess is a Latina (“Did you really think Cupid could be anything but?”), the Spanish in the text, liberally sprinkled throughout, lacks cohesion because its significance hasn’t been established. When it is used to convey meaningful points, I wondered if non-speakers would be able to follow along, or what Hispanic viewers were supposed to gain. It’s maddening when another tongue is used as a crutch, a substitute for personality that winds up exoticizing the language it sets out to exalt, or “normalize.” If a sentiment lacks power when expressed without a show of bilingualism, it does not gain it through translation.At times it seems as if the play could have revolved around Betti (Elizabeth Ramos), a romantically inexperienced dental hygienist Benny befriends and starts dating, somewhat platonically. Ramos’s smallness during her first scene gives way to an explosive physical performance as Betti comes into her own and experiences first love (with Cupid, no less). Through sheer allure, the actress turns a character largely superfluous to the already jumbled story into the production’s most valuable, displaying the irresistibility of earnest hope in a work that too often dips into its bathos.I Wanna F*ck Like Romeo and JulietThrough Nov. 5 at 59E59 Theaters, Manhattan; 59e59.org. Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes. More

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    in Television

    What’s on TV This Week: ‘Dangerous Liaisons’ and ‘Below Deck Adventure’

    A new series based on the classic French novel premieres on Starz. And a spinoff of the popular series begins on Bravo.Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, Oct. 31 — Nov. 6. Details and times are subject to change.MondayHOCUS POCUS (1993) 9 p.m. on Freeform. This film’s original theatrical release can only be described as a flop (it only made $39 million domestically after a $28 million budget). But after years of airing on the Disney Channel and ABC Family, it has become a Halloween favorite. It stars Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy as the Sanderson sisters — three witches who are accidentally conjured back to life by two teenagers. There’s also a talking cat, a zombie and lots of soul sucking. The long awaited sequel was released last month.TuesdayBELOW DECK ADVENTURE 9 p.m. on Bravo. Overbearing guests, boatmances and explosive fights, all while crammed into a couple rooms underwater, are part and parcel of the “Below Deck” franchise. This edition raises the stakes by taking all the glamour of yachting and mixing it with extreme activities — including paragliding, exploring caves and helicopter rides. This season features a whole new roster of yachties — you can be guaranteed to see a “Real Housewives” star onboard.THE DAILY SHOW WITH TREVOR NOAH PRESENTS: JORDAN KLEPPER FINGERS THE MIDTERMS 11:30 p.m. on Comedy Central. With the midterm elections next week, reports of election denial or misinformation are still running rampant. Though there is no evidence of tampering with the 2020 election, 28 percent of voters said they had little to no faith in the accuracy of this year’s midterm election results. In this 30-minute special, Jordan Klepper, doing what he does best, talks to the voters at the heart of these issues along the campaign trail.WednesdayFrom left, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler in “Baby Mama.”K.C. Bailey/Universal StudiosBABY MAMA (2008) 6:30 p.m. on Starz. What happens when Kate (Tina Fey), a 37-year-old, single executive, decides she wants a baby? She hires Angie (Amy Poehler), a less-than-responsible woman who is happy to trade the use of her womb for some extra cash. The duo end up living together after Angie has a fight with her common-law husband, Carl (Dax Shepard). From there comes lots of shenanigans, mishaps but also some moments that tug on your heartstrings.ThursdayTHE SEVENTH VEIL (1945) 8 p.m. on TCM. Ann Todd plays Francesca, a piano player who has a psychiatric disorder that makes it impossible for her to play. Herbert Lom is Dr. Larsen, a psychiatrist specializing in hypnosis, who works with Francesca to unveil her fears one by one — by the end she is able to play piano again and has clarity on whom she loves. “The lifting of the last veil from the burdened brain of the film’s heroine, a concert pianist tortured by complexes, makes for subtle and often exciting drama,” Bosley Crowther wrote in his review for The New York Times.FridayLOPEZ VS LOPEZ 8 p.m. on NBC. In this new sitcom, the comedian George Lopez and his daughter, Mayan Lopez, play characters of their same names with inspiration drawn from their real lives — they aren’t the first ones to do it (see: Miley Cyrus and Billy-Ray Cyrus in “Hannah Montana”). Selenis Leyva and Matt Shively round out the cast as Mayan’s mother and her boyfriend.GREAT PERFORMANCES 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). After a $550 million renovation, David Geffen Hall in Manhattan reopened in early October. To celebrate returning home, the New York Philharmonic will perform Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with its music director, Jaap van Zweden.SaturdayKate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey in “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.”Michael Gibson/Paramount PicturesHOW TO LOSE A GUY IN 10 DAYS (2003) 6:30 p.m. on Pop. Why are the leads from this era of rom-coms always journalists? Here Kate Hudson stars as an advice columnist, Andie, who sets out to write an article about how to make a man leave in you 10 days. Matthew McConaughey plays Ben who, simultaneously, makes a bet that he can get a woman to fall in love with him in 10 days. As fate would have it, they set their respective targets on each other, and both of their plans start to backfire.SundayDANGEROUS LIAISONS 8 p.m. on Starz. Inspired by the classic novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos of the same name, this show tells the origin story of how Marquise de Merteuil (Alice Englert) and the Vicomte de Valmont (Nicholas Denton) met. Taking place in Paris, they use their mutual connections and cunning skills to scale their way up the ranks of society.FAMILY KARMA 9 p.m. on Bravo. Love is in the air on the third season of this reality show, which follows a group of seven Indian Americans as they navigate their careers, family and relationships. This season we see Vishal Parvani and Richa Sadana’s wedding, as well as the lead-up to Amrit Kapai and Nicholas Kouchoukos’s nuptials. With everyone at different stages of life and relationships, there is plenty of tension and celebration.SPECTOR 9 p.m. on Showtime. This four-part docu-series revolves around the night of Feb. 3, 2003, when the actress Lana Clarkson was shot and killed in the music producer Phil Spector’s home. After a night out in Los Angeles, the two went back to his mansion, and then hours later Clarkson was found with a single bullet through her head. Through the lengthy trial, the defense tried to argue that Clarkson had shot herself, but the jury found Spector guilty, sentencing him to 19 years to life in prison, where he died last year of Covid-19 complications. The series shares stories about both Clarkson and Spector, with his conviction as the backdrop. More