Eliana Willis

More stories

  • 88 Shares159 Views

    in Television

    ‘Succession’ Season 3, Episode 8: Italian Ice

    Kendall didn’t come out of the last family wedding so well. His mother’s Tuscan nuptials don’t look any more promising.Season 3, Episode 8: ‘Chiantishire’At the end of this week’s episode of “Succession,” Kendall Roy is floating on an inflatable raft in a swimming pool, face down and clearly intoxicated. From underwater, in a shot aimed toward the pool’s surface, we see Kendall drop his bottle of beer into the water. From the camera’s perspective, it appears his face is also submerged. He looks … dead?Whether this is a literal or figurative death remains unresolved when the closing credits roll. (Surely the show wouldn’t kill off a major character in such an ambiguous way?) We do know, though, who is responsible — in a roundabout way — for putting Kendall into that pool. It’s the same people who brought him into this world: his mother, Caroline (Harriet Walter), and his father, Logan.This week, Kendall joined his family in scenic Italy for the wedding of Caroline and her old flame Peter Munion (Pip Torrens). He appears to be on a mission to straighten out his life after last week’s calamitous birthday party. His hair is buzzed down to stubble — “stripping down,” he says — and he seems determined to make peace with his siblings and to settle his Waystar business.But as soon as Kendall arrives, his mother pulls him aside and tells him about Peter’s awful “itinerary of events,” asking if her son can help divvy them up in such a way that he won’t be in the same space as Logan — per Logan’s request. That is the first blow to Kendall’s confidence.The second comes when Kendall is talking with Comfry about some last-ditch opportunities to keep his crusade against corporate malfeasance alive in the media. A popular podcast is investigating “the Curse of the Roys” and would love to have him participate. The problem? The hosts are going to dig deep into all the family scandals … including the death of the cater-waiter whom the media thinks Logan bullied to death but whom Kendall actually drove into a lake at Shiv’s wedding.The third strike to Kendall’s psyche — the finisher — comes when he has dinner with Logan. Kendall has given this meeting a lot of thought. He consulted with Logan’s doctor to make sure the menu fit with his dad’s restricted diet. (“Afraid I’m going to Jim Jones you with an olive?” Kendall jokes.) And he prepared a reasonable proposal. He will cash out of Waystar for two billion dollars while keeping one of the company’s media assets for himself. He also promises to stay out of Logan’s life forever. “I won’t even speak at your memorial,” he says.But Logan won’t play along. He calls in Kendall’s autistic son, Iverson, to taste his food, to make sure it isn’t poisoned. This is icy not only because it demonstrates a lack of trust but also because Logan seems blithely willing to sacrifice his grandson. (In a further dig, he then asks Kendall of Iverson, “Is he getting better?”) And although he seemed willing to buy his son out before, he hesitates now that he has a counteroffer in hand.This whole scene — intense and emotional — neatly encapsulates the whole Logan Roy mentality. He wants his family and his employees at his beck-and-call, but he doesn’t want to grant them any real boon. Whenever someone he is negotiating with seems satisfied, Logan gets restless.Like nearly every other one of his corrosive personality traits, this combination of greed, envy and paranoia has been passed on to his children — and to Shiv, in particular. While Logan is having a miserable dinner with Kendall, Shiv is stuck at a “girls night” with Caroline and some of her future in-laws. The conversation she has with her mother is just as revealing about “the Curse of the Roys.”Shiv has long kept Caroline on the list of childhood disappointments she had to overcome. But Caroline won’t let her get away with this revisionist history. In Shiv’s memory, her mother took a payout from Logan and then pushed her and her brothers to go live with their dad when she was 10 years old, all because Caroline didn’t want to play mommy any more. The real story? Shiv was 13; and she made an active decision to move in with Logan. (“I’ll have the carbonara and daddy,” is how her mother describes her daughter’s casual cruelty.)This revelation fires up Shiv, who heads back to her room and tells Tom that she is ready to fight for the top Waystar job — and to have a baby with him. But their night of passion goes poorly, as she slips into a curious bit of dominatrix-style role play, which sees her seducing Tom while purring, “You’re not good enough for me,” and, “I don’t love you.”The next day he wants to discuss this, wondering, “Should I maybe listen to things you say directly in my face when we’re at our most intimate?” But Shiv insists none of it should be taken seriously. (“What happens in Sex Vegas …?,” she offers weakly.) She also modifies their pregnancy plan, offering to freeze their embryos instead, and then wraps up the conversation with, “I may not love you, but I do love you.” Such is the way a Roy expresses affection.This deep fickleness is evident also in the way Logan handles the continuing negotiations with Lukas Mattson and GoJo. At the start of this episode Logan brings Stewy and Sandi into the office to inform them about the acquisition, pretending it’s a courtesy but really wanting to rub it in their faces a little. But he also insists that he will kill the deal if they don’t like it; and truth be told, he is a little nervous about the way Mattson seems to be driving up his share price with reckless, emoji-filled tweets. (“I’m not used to negotiating via eggplant,” Logan sighs.)So Roman is dispatched to the Mattson compound to find out whether the GoJo boss is mentally unstable or just making “a move.” The two men have an unsettling discussion about the thrill of failure; and Roman may have come away from this meeting with the impression that Mattson is a flake. But he hedges his bets with Logan regardless, telling his dad that their potential business partner really wants “a merger of equals” — something he figures will torpedo the deal.Instead, surprisingly, Logan is open to the idea of letting GoJo be the acquirer while Waystar runs the business — so long as he knows that Mattson is “a serious person” and not “a Twitter panty flasher.” (“I can win any bout with a boxer,” Logan says. “But I don’t know how to knock out a clown.”)What does give the old man pause, though, is that while Roman is celebrating what he thinks is another big win for himself, he accidentally texts a picture of his penis to his father, thinking that he is harassing Gerri. Now Logan has reason to question Roman, Gerri … really his whole command structure.Amusingly, when Roman tries to explain the whole concept of sending photographs of genitalia, Logan reassures him that he is aware of this phenomenon, saying, “We do publish a number of popular newspapers.” This echoes something he says to Kendall as they wrap up their bitter meal together with nothing settled. Kendall tries to deliver a closing statement on his time at Waystar, telling his dad, “You won because you’re corrupt and so is the world,” and, “You’ve turned black bile into silver dollars.” Logan smirks and says, “Just noticed, did you?”Logan counters Kendall’s self-righteousness first by standing up for his revolutionary vision for the news: “A bit of spice, a bit of fun, a bit of truth.” Then he stabs his son through the heart, referencing the dead waiter again by asking, “How long was that kid alive before he started sucking water?”And so, as day follows night, Kendall ends up sucking water himself, mired in self-loathing in a Tuscan paradise. Dead or not, at this moment, he certainly isn’t alive.Due DiligenceGreg’s budding romance with Comfry seems to be stalling as he watches her getting constantly distracted by “phone stuff.” He says to Tom and Shiv, “I do wonder, is there depth there?” Following their suggestion, he decides to use his time with Comfry as a “date ladder” to something better and flirting with an honest-to-goodness European countess who is also the online brand ambassador for a fermented yogurt drink. But he gets flustered while talking to her, and the best he can think to say is that her beverage of choice is “a gut-cleansing treat.”Everyone is very worried about the true intentions of Caroline’s beau, Peter — even the bride-to-be herself, who admits, “He is awful, I can obviously see that.” (Roman, pretending to be indignant: “That’s my stepfather you’re talking about.”)In the past, through Kendall’s many coups and calamities, Roman and Shiv have maintained a special bond, connected by their shared relief that they are not their brother. That rapport now seems to be in jeopardy, thanks to Roman’s open glee at Shiv’s exile from the inner circle. He tries this week to win her back by recruiting her to help him take down Peter, but instead she asks — sincerely and bitterly — what is wrong with Roman. He mutters: “We’re working on it. An ongoing process.”Leave it to Connor to ignore one of the cardinal rules of social etiquette as he drops to a knee in front of Willa: Never propose at a wedding. More

  • 150 Shares139 Views

    in Television

    Eddie Mekka, a Star of ‘Laverne & Shirley,’ Is Dead at 69

    As Carmine Ragusa on the hit sitcom, he got to show off his singing, tap-dancing and gymnastic skills — and to croon “Rags to Riches” many times.Eddie Mekka, the actor best known for his role as the aspiring entertainer Carmine Ragusa on the hit television series “Laverne & Shirley,” died on Nov. 27 at his home in the Newhall area of Santa Clarita, Calif., northwest of Los Angeles. He was 69.His death was announced on Mr. Mekka’s Facebook page. No cause was given.Mr. Mekka was a regular cast member on “Laverne & Shirley” (1976-83), a sitcom about two young single women working at a Milwaukee brewery in the 1950s. His character, known as the Big Ragoo, was the high school sweetheart and on-again, off-again boyfriend of Shirley (Cindy Williams).If anyone was upset with Carmine, all he had to do was sing the words “You know I’d go from rags to riches” — in Tony Bennett style — and all was forgiven. Mr. Mekka got to show off his singing, tap-dancing and gymnastic skills in talent-show and other episodes. In the final episode of the series, Carmine found success: He went to New York, auditioned for the Broadway musical “Hair,” and got the job.Mr. Mekka was the second veteran of the “Laverne & Shirley” cast to die in less than a year. David L. Lander, who played Squiggy, died in December 2020.Mr. Mekka began and ended his real-life career on the stage, even earning a Tony Award nomination. He was nominated for best actor in a musical for his performance as Lt. William L. Calley Jr., who perpetrated the My Lai massacre of civilians during the Vietnam War, in “The Lieutenant” (1975). Mr. Mekka at the 2006 TV Land Awards. In his later years, he appeared in regional theater, playing the part of Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof” and Harold Hill in “The Music Man.”Paul Mounce/Corbis, via Getty ImagesClive Barnes, reviewing the show for The New York Times, said Mr. Mekka displayed “an honesty and openness that proves very attractive” in his portrayal of “a puzzled kid with a gun who has been told to kill.” The musical, with its difficult subject matter, closed after nine performances but received four Tony nominations.He also appeared in more than 50 film and television roles, including small parts in “A League of Their Own” (he jitterbugged with Madonna at a bar) and “Dreamgirls” (as a nightclub manager). His last screen appearance was in the 2018 film “Hail Mary!” (originally titled “Sushi Tushi”), a comedy about a football team that recruits sumo wrestlers.Edward Rudolph Mekjian was born on June 14, 1952, in Worcester, Mass., to Vahe Vaughn Mekjian, an Armenian-born factory worker who served in the U.S. Army in World War II, and Mariam (Apkarian) Mekjian, a dry-cleaning presser.He performed with the Worcester County Light Opera and attended the Boston Conservatory for a year before dropping out to take a job with a regular weekly paycheck in dinner theater.He married the actress DeLee Lively in 1983; they divorced in 1992, and he married Yvonne Marie Grace two years later. His survivors include a daughter, Mia Mekjian, and a brother, Warren Mekjian; complete information on survivors was not immediately available. Mr. Mekka returned to the New York stage in 2008, starring in the one-man Off Broadway comedy “My Mother’s Italian, My Father’s Jewish and I’m in Therapy.” He also continued to appear in regional theater. He was Harold Hill in “The Music Man,” Pseudolos in “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” Seymour in “Little Shop of Horrors” and Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof,” his favorite role, which he said in 2003 he had already played more than 20 times.He had a unique take on the character, as he told The Boston Globe in 2014: “I play him like an older, grumpier and slower Jackie Mason.” More

  • 138 Shares139 Views

    in Television

    Netflix Holiday Movies Ranked, From Tree Toppers to Lumps of Coal

    Is the streaming service delivering goodies in its holiday stockings? We make an assessment.We are back for our third annual ranking of the new original Netflix Christmas films, and the news is good: After last season’s dull vintage, Netflix has gotten back on track and improved its batting average. Still, it’s worth noting that while the top movies are much better than their equivalents from last year, the bottom entries are much, much worse. (Note that more originals are slated to debut after our deadline, but the biggest presents have already come down the chimney). Light spoilers ahead.1. ‘Single All the Way’Hulu scored with the lesbian romantic comedy “Happiest Season” last year, and now Netflix is striking back with a male version. This time, the lead does not shun the right love interest (Team Riley forever!).Michael Urie stars as the serially single Peter, who has dragged his roommate and best friend, Nick (Philemon Chambers), home for the holidays. Once settled in cozy New Hampshire, famine turns to feast as Peter is torn between two lovely suitors — there are no baddies in this movie. One is his mother’s trainer, James (the Hallmark Channel hottie Luke Macfarlane), and the other is the friend-zoned Nick, who had been hiding his true feelings.Directed by Michael Mayer, “Single All the Way” is fast-paced, funny and sweet without being cloying (the HGTV joke is gold). Kathy Najimy and Jennifer Coolidge, as Peter’s mother and aunt, deliver particularly delicious turns — the rehearsal scenes for Coolidge’s Christmas pageant alone could have landed this movie in the No. 1 spot.2. ‘A Boy Called Christmas’Like “Klaus” (No. 2 on our 2019 ranking), this film is a Santa origin story, albeit a live-action one as opposed to animated. A poor Finnish boy, Nikolas (Henry Lawfull), sets off to find his father (Michiel Huisman), who has left him behind to find the village where elves live. Of course that place could merely be the stuff of legends, but since Nikolas has a talking pet mouse (voiced by Stephen Merchant), we know early on that anything is possible.Based on a book by Matt Haig, “A Boy Called Christmas” knows that the best fairy tales have dark undertones, and it drops satisfyingly ominous touches: Dad is far from perfect; the wicked children-hating Aunt Carlotta (Kristen Wiig, in too short a role) does something unspeakable to Nikolas’s beloved turnip doll.Regrettably, the film never goes full Roald Dahl on us — if only Tim Burton had directed it. But kids should enjoy the story while their parents will eat up the sneakier jokes and fully appreciate Sally Hawkins’s stunning performance as the elf leader Mother Vodol.3. ‘Love Hard’This rom-com has such a sketchy premise that its spectacular recovery should count as an Olympics-worthy gymnastics feat.The biggest test is that viewers are asked to not hate Josh (Jimmy O. Yang) after he catfishes Natalie (Nina Dobrev) by using a photo of his hunky friend Tag (Darren Barnet) on a dating app. Not only does Natalie quickly get over the switcheroo, she then agrees to pretend to be Josh’s girlfriend. The film’s main asset is Yang (Jian Yang on “Silicon Valley”), whose Josh miraculously comes across as sweet rather than creepy. Once that battle is won, “Love Hard” — which is funnier than most rom-coms and fully embraces a farcical goofiness — can convincingly sell its central relationship. By the time Natalie and Josh duet on a memorably revised version of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” we are firmly rooting for them.Bonus (likely involuntary) Netflix callbacks: Natalie is said to be a Los Angeles 6 and a Lake Placid 10; in “Single All the Way,” Nick is described as a 10 and Peter is a 10 in New Hampshire.4. ‘A Castle for Christmas’Sophie (Brooke Shields) is a best-selling American romance novelist who travels to Scotland to reconnect with her roots and impulsively decides to buy a scenic castle from its bristly cash-strapped owner, Duke Myles (Cary Elwes). Since a white-knuckle suspense this is not, they fall in love and all ends well.The film supplies the usual rom-com accouterments, in this case an adorable knitting circle that warmly welcomes Sophie, but it really hangs on the chemistry between Shields and Elwes. Fortunately, these two have a comfortable, playful rapport that makes their preposterous circumstances almost feel natural. Sealing the deal for Myles is his dog, Hamish, played by Barley, a natural who is more than ready to lead a spinoff movie. Barley is a 10 anywhere.5. ‘The Princess Switch 3: Romancing the Star’Netflix’s holiday all-star Vanessa Hudgens is back for the third installment of her trademark franchise, and this time everybody seems to have an eye on the clock, waiting for the ordeal to end.Five Movies to Watch This WinterCard 1 of 51. “The Power of the Dog”: More

  • 150 Shares169 Views

    in Theater

    René Pollesch Aims for a ‘Safe Space’ at the Volksbühne in Berlin

    René Pollesch is the fourth boss of the Volksbühne in four years. The Berlin theater is pinning hopes of a return to its former vibrancy on his collaborative approach.BERLIN — This fall, a new era at the Volksbühne theater got off to a curiously muted start. René Pollesch, the theater’s new artistic director, did not deliver a splashy opening salvo or unveil his first season with a flourish. Instead, four actors parlayed the writer-director’s signature banter in the cumbersomely titled “The Rise and Fall of a Curtain and Its Life In Between.” If the low-key chamber piece seemed typical of Pollesch’s work, it was also hardly earth-shattering.Then again, considering all of the recent turbulence at the Volksbühne, maybe a little restraint isn’t such a bad thing.Ever since the storied Berlin theater’s longtime artistic director Frank Castorf was fired in 2017, the Volksbühne has sailed on choppy waters. Castorf had run the playhouse since 1992 and had doggedly kept the theater’s East German spirit alive in the newly reunified Berlin: His leadership style was iron fisted, but he transformed the Volksbühne into one of the most exciting and influential forces in European theater, and he built a cult following for his own punishingly long reworkings of the classics from a Marxist perspective.From Castorf, the torch passed to Chris Dercon, a Belgian who was previously the director of Tate Modern in London, and who planned to turn the Volksbühne into a showcase for visiting performers from around the world.The regime change didn’t go as planned. For many in Berlin, the replacement of a provocateur from the former East Germany with a slick international transplant was an all-too-potent symbol of a city that was losing its edge. Protesters briefly occupied the theater and, after a series of increasingly hostile episodes — including one in which feces were left in front of the artistic director’s office — Dercon quit, only a few months into the job.In 2019, Dercon was succeeded by Klaus Dörr, a veteran theater administrator who was supposed to stabilize the Volksbühne until a permanent artistic director took the reins. But this March, Dörr abruptly resigned after 10 of the Volksbühne’s female staff members accused him of sexual harassment and creating a hostile workplace.Pollesch said the Volksbühne’s spirit came from “the way people interact with each other here, how the entire staff is involved in what’s happening onstage.”Thomas AurinIt was against this stormy backdrop that Pollesch, 59, arrived this summer to lead the house. All of the theater’s hopes for a return to its former vibrancy have been pinned on Pollesch, a veteran of Castorf’s Volksbühne who is considered one of Germany’s most distinctive theatrical auteurs, and whose start here is both a homecoming and a new beginning.In an interview at the theater, Pollesch spoke lovingly of the “spirit of the old Volksbühne” that he had felt since he saw his first play at there at 17. “It’s the way people interact with each other here, how the entire staff is involved in what’s happening onstage,” he said.But he was also quick to dispel the hope, or the fear, that he was a Trojan horse for reinstating the theater’s old guard.“We are not Castorf,” he said. “Castorf ran the theater very differently than we do.”By “we,” Pollesch means himself and a team of actors and theater professionals that he has assembled as an advisory committee. It’s a cooperative model that is rare in the German theater world — and unique for a theater the size of the Volksbühne, which has a large staff and a full-time acting ensemble.Pollesch described how the members of the committee helped him plan his inaugural season: The actor Martin Wuttke, a regular collaborator who is best known for portraying Hitler in the film “Inglourious Basterds,” recommended the Hungarian director Kornel Mundruczo; the actress Lilith Stangenberg proposed the Filipino experimental filmmaker Khavn de la Cruz. The Volksbühne will premiere works by both directors early next year, Pollesch said.With the young French director Julien Gosselin and the Argentine choreographer Constanza Macras also working at the house this season, the Volksbühne’s globe-trotting lineup looks like it could have sprung from one of Dercon’s unrealized seasons. But that program was not the result of any agenda to make the house more international, Pollesch said. It emerged organically from his discussions with the advisory board.That collective approach also mirrors the way the director develops his own quirky plays through intense collaboration with a small group of artists he knows and trusts. A typical Pollesch show is characterized by fluent, chatty dialogue that combines the silly with the philosophical, and by high-energy performances from a group of charismatic actors. Pollesch devises the text of his plays, as well as the staging, for specific performers, whose creative input during the rehearsal process effectively make them co-authors.From left: Franz Beil, Astrid Meyerfeldt, Inga Busch and Christine Gross in “Mr. Puntila and the Giant Thing in Mitte,” a show by Pollesch.Luna Zscharnt“Often, he sets out with nothing more than a theme, a title,” Wolf-Dieter Ernst, a professor of theater studies at the University of Bayreuth, said in an email. He added that performers loved working with Pollesch because his method created a “a kind of safe space for exhausted actors and actresses.” By applying a similar approach to running the Volksbühne, Pollesch was trying to “run a theater in a more democratic, and less toxic, way,” Ernst said.Pollesch, who was born in Friedberg, a small city outside Frankfurt, studied theater at the nearby University of Giessen. In the 1980s, that school was considered the theoretical cradle of “postdramatic theater,” a self-reflexive and deconstructive approach to writing and directing for the stage. Inspired by the theories of Bertolt Brecht and by postmodern artists like the director Robert Wilson, the playwright Heiner Müller and the performing ensemble the Wooster Group, postdramatic theater is less concerned with plot or textual fidelity than with exploring — and exploding — the relationship between a stage presentation and its audience.Postdramatic theater is often dense, difficult and theoretical, yet Pollesch’s work is anything but. The lack of narrative or conventional characters may confound expectations about what theater is, but his plays rarely feel obtuse or obscure. In fact, they’re surprisingly fun and punchy — and rarely exceed 90 minutes.In Pollesch’s first stint at the Volksbühne, he ran its smaller, off-site venue, the Prater, from 2001 to 2007. He also staged shows on the main stage, where his work contrasted sharply with productions by Castorf, whose dark, demanding shows could last up to 12 hours.Since Castorf’s ouster, Pollesch has been a fixture at another storied Berlin playhouse, the Deutsches Theater, and has also worked on main stages in Zurich and in Hamburg, Germany. Last year, Berlin critics and audiences went gaga for a Pollesch show unexpectedly staged at the Friedrichstadt-Palast, a 2,000-seat revue theater.Yet the director’s inaugural work for the Volksbühne has met with a different response.“Rise and Fall of a Curtain” hardly amounted to the grand statement of purpose that many expected. If it was unmistakably Pollesch, it also felt slight, as if the director was up to his old tricks at a time when he was expected to wow everyone with a bold new vision. The critical consensus was that the auteur was writing tired backstage chatter for an audience of his own groupies.Margarita Breitkreiz in “The Rise and Fall of a Curtain and Its Life In Between.”Christian Thiel“Instead of timpani and trumpets and manifestoes to usher in a new start, we get a display of cluelessness,” wrote Peter Laudenbach, a theater critic, in the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper. Reviewing “Mr. Puntila and the Giant Thing in Mitte,” the house’s third new Pollesch production in three months, Laudenbach concluded that it added to the “disappointing picture that the Volksbühne under Pollesch has offered so far.”The director’s flexible and collaborative approach to programming, and the fact that the theater is tight-lipped about its plans, make it difficult to say what the future of the Volksbühne under Pollesch may look like. The director is much clearer about what not to expect. The old Volksbühne’s classic productions won’t be coming back, he said, recalling the disappointment he once felt after seeing a decade-old revival at the theater during the Castorf era.“It had nothing to do with now,” he said. “You can watch movies that were made in a different era,” he added. “Theater ages insanely fast.” More

  • 113 Shares169 Views

    in Television

    ‘And Just Like That’: The Shoe Must Go On

    In the ’90s, “Sex and the City” celebrated single women. Can a new, more nuanced version make a comedy of middle-aged ones?When we last left the ladies of “Sex and the City,” the pathbreaking, cupcake-inspiring HBO series and film franchise, Miranda had joined a new law firm, Samantha had achieved orgasm atop a Mercedes G-Class SUV, Charlotte was hosting a child’s birthday party, and Carrie and Big were snuggling on the sofa as a black-and-white movie played, a happily ever after for everyone.This was the peaceable close of “Sex and the City 2,” the strained 2010 movie that sent its characters into the Middle East and critics into ecstasies of disdain. (Here is A.O. Scott’s comparatively mild pan in The Times: “Your watch will tell you that a shade less than two and a half hours have elapsed, but you may be shocked at just how much older you feel when the whole thing is over.”) Still, another movie was planned, only to fall apart, largely on Twitter, in 2017. Like a Fendi baguette, the series seemed to have gone out of style.But the ’90s are extremely on trend right now, and the women of “Sex and the City” (well, most of them) have returned for another strut down the premium cable runway. “And Just Like That,” a 10-episode limited series, premieres on HBO Max on Dec. 9. Don’t call it a reboot! The characters so rarely wore boots!Like the original, this new version follows the author Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), the lawyer Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) and the former gallerista and current homemaker Charlotte (Kristin Davis). But in the place of Kim Cattrall’s libertine Samantha are four new actors: Sarita Choudhury, Nicole Ari Parker, Karen Pittman and Sara Ramírez. Their presence remedies the original’s blinding whiteness, though if the promotional materials are any indication, not its appetitive glamour and unacknowledged privilege.So here’s a question for Carrie: Can a show adapt to changed characters and changing times while still supplying what fans loved about the original?On break from a shoot at Brooklyn’s Steiner Studios, Michael Patrick King, a “Sex and the City” executive producer and the showrunner of “And Just Like That,” had an enthusiastic answer. “It’s dangerous. It’s exciting. It’s a challenge,” he said, bent forward on the sofa in his office. “It’s not a cash cow. It’s not a cash in.” Besides how else could he get a show about middle-aged women greenlighted?“I don’t think that anybody would take on new women characters at 55 without proof that people will watch,” he said. Which means that ladies might have some new paths to break, if they can walk them in heels.The original “Sex and the City” was always two shows. One was a fidgety, philosophical comedy about single, successful women who didn’t need a man to complete them. Or maybe they did? And really, what is completion anyway? The other was the show as fans received it — and the show that it arguably became — a high-gloss romantic comedy and a fashion romp. What, you think it was the existential crises that motivated the bus tours?New stars like Nicole Ari Parker (center, with Davis and Pat Bowie) keep “And Just Like That” from being as overwhelmingly white as the original.Craig Blankenhorn/HBOThat latter show had long ago reached its conclusion. Because in a romantic comedy, once the girl gets the guy — or as in Samantha’s case, the many guys — where can the story really go? This structural roadblock explains why the second movie spun its wheels. (Those wheels were camels, which King now somewhat regrets.) So it seemed destined to live on only in reruns, rewatches and Instagram accounts devoted to its outfits.But early into New York City’s pandemic lockdown, King and Parker began to chat about making a behind-the-scenes podcast. At some point, those chats turned more imaginative, speculating about what the lives of the characters might look like now. As Parker, speaking by telephone from the set of another sequel, “Hocus Pocus 2,” put it, they began to ask themselves, “Why are we not thinking about the thing that we’ve touched on many times, which is, are there more stories to tell?”Having already resolved the characters’ questions about marriage, partnership and children during the original series — King maintains these weren’t the relevant questions, but few plot lines centered on anything else — the new show claims to look elsewhere and largely inward, just as the first series did in its early seasons. Parker ran down a few of the current interrogations: “Who am I? What will change do to me? Can I change? How do I react to big change?”The show has undergone changes big and small — some thematic, some aesthetic, many structural. King recalled that during the first series, he felt as though he had to tie up each episode with a little bow, a concession to an audience that might not view them sequentially.“Streaming is like, untie the bow,” he said. “Untie it.”That doesn’t mean that “And Just Like That” encompasses much mess. During my visit to Steiner Studios, where I felt extremely underdressed, King took me around the various sets, each immaculate. Miranda’s Brooklyn brownstone and Charlotte’s Park Avenue palace have each received glow-ups. Carrie’s old apartment has lilac paint and statement wallpaper now. Her closet? Sublime.So Carrie still has two apartments, but “And Just Like That”no longer centers her experience. The show has mostly done away with her voice-over, making way for dialogue for its four new main characters: Choudhury’s high-end real estate agent, Parker’s documentarian, Pittman’s professor and Ramirez’s podcast host.Why didn’t the show have more characters of color before? “It was a show that was based on material that was very much of its time,” Sarah Jessica Parker said diplomatically, referring to Candace Bushnell’s New York Observer columns.Though Nixon has stuck with the franchise, she said she had been “horrified” by the lack of racial diversity during the show’s original run. Like Parker and Davis, she said that she insisted that the characters in this new version couldn’t function as trendy accessories for the original cast.“In order to get great actors to do these parts, they would have to be not supporting us,” Nixon said. That meant also insuring that the writers’ room was staffed with several women of color and that their story lines followed these new characters even when Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte headed offscreen.“Each of the episodes, at this point, they’re all around 43 minutes,” King said. “Because there’s seven fully realized people in it.”The new series doesn’t try to reform the characters, Parker said: “We don’t try to make a point of, ‘Look, they’re mature, they’re better, they’re smarter.’”Craig Blankenhorn/HBOOn the day I visited the set, I watched one of Nicole Ari Parker’s scenes. Dressed to the nines or maybe the tens, she performed a marital spat with her series husband, played by Christopher Jackson. A few days later on the phone, I asked her if she had seen the original series — she had — and if its overwhelming whiteness had bothered her.“A little bit,” she said. “But I wasn’t expecting ‘Sex and the City’ to be realistic.” She was talking to me while she shopped for shoes at Nordstrom, which seemed nicely on brand.“I mean, every now and then I felt sorry for them,” she said. “Like, if they had a Black girlfriend, they wouldn’t be having these problems.” But she appreciated how complex a character the show had created for her and that she wasn’t the only character of color.“They understand that one Black friend is not going to cut it,” she said.Still, this new series shouldn’t be seen as a repudiation of the old one or even as a corrective to its oversights — well, some its oversights. Sarah Jessica Parker knows that not everyone liked the original characters, Carrie in particular. This new show doesn’t aim to fix them.“We don’t try to make a point of: ‘Look, they’re mature, they’re better, they’re smarter. See, they’re sorry for the things you didn’t like,’” she said. “I don’t think that’s our best approach.”The occasional tutu aside, “And Just Like That” isn’t intended as fan service either. The series doesn’t pretend that the women haven’t moved on with their lives in the intervening years; it doesn’t deny that they have aged. When some first-look pictures and a teaser trailer emerged, social media briefly blew up with comments about the women’s looks and the cosmetic interventions they had or hadn’t undergone.“And Just Like That” has several scenes that discuss these issues directly. King mimed a bit involving Nixon’s Miranda and her neck. Generally, it aims for stories about women in their 50s as rich and bright and complicated, if not as raunchy, as the ones the original told about women in their 30s. (Same city. Less sex.) Which is to say that it’s trying for just a little more nuance than “The Golden Girls.”“I am a woman in my 50s, so I am well aware that your life does not end whether you find a guy or a girl or not, whether you have kids or not, right?” Davis said. “We can testify to the fact that it’s not over, and it’s not boring. So I was never in doubt that we could tell interesting stories.”What those stories were, no one would spoil. Eager fans have analyzed that 30-second teaser clip with the exegetical rigor typically reserved for ancient hieroglyphs. So here is what I did learn: Big (Chris Noth) is not dead. Samantha is not dead, though Cattrall’s absence means that she doesn’t appear onscreen.“Nobody’s dead,” King said. Nobody? “Nobody.”And yet, Willie Garson, who played Carrie’s gay best friend, Stanford Blatch, died during the filming of “And Just Like That,” a sad reminder of time’s passage and the grief it can bring. His death wasn’t written into the show.“Because it wasn’t charming,” King said. “And I knew that the audience would know.”“And Just Like That” wants to charm. It isn’t the first comedy about middle-aged women. Since “Sex and the City” ended, television has offered “Cougartown,” “Hot in Cleveland,” “Younger.” September brought Julie Delpy’s “On the Verge.” But a few statement necklaces aside, none of those shows had quite the glamour of “Sex and the City” and none were quite as revolutionary — in the frankness of the sex talk, in the insistence on female subjectivity, in the championing of single women, even if it did pair just about all of them off.Will “And Just Like That” exert the same cultural, fashion-forward influence, even in a culture obsessed with youth, even in a world glutted with content? King, predictably but not unreasonably, argues that it might.“If it was aspirational — aspirational apartments, aspirational clothing, aspirational people — it’s still aspirational,” he said. More

  • 113 Shares119 Views

    in Television

    Trevor Noah Says Omicron Might Not Be So Bad

    Noah said that new strains are like streaming new TV shows: “You gotta stick with it the first couple of weeks and see where it goes.”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.Next Week on OmicronThe first Covid cases with the new Omicron strain have been reported in the United States.Trevor Noah encouraged viewers not to freak out just yet, saying, “We have no idea if Omicron is actually that bad.”“And what I mean by that is, we don’t know if it might spread more easily or we don’t know if it will be more deadly. It’s just too early to know. And I hate to sound like someone describing every streaming show right now, but you gotta stick with it the first couple of weeks and see where it goes.” — TREVOR NOAH“Yesterday, we learned the first Omicron case on U.S. soil was found in California, which led the state’s secretary of health and human services to claim Californians were proud to have identified the first Omicron case. Good for you, Golden State. You put that kind of positive spin on all your disasters: ‘Greetings from California, home of extra-crispy trees.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Unfortunately, that’s not the only case. Today, a second case of the Omicron variant was identified in Minnesota. But do not panic — it’s just one person in America’s heartland, who recently traveled to New York City. OK, OK fine but maybe he was here on business, spent most of his time alone in his hotel getting takeout and staring pensively out the window at all the people he wasn’t infecting — right after he attended the 2021 anime convention at the Javits Center.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“That’s right, one of the first U.S. cases of the new Covid variant may be an adult man who attended an anime convention. I mean, which is good. At least we know that it’s not transmitted via eye contact.” — TREVOR NOAH“But people, please remember this, please remember this, we shouldn’t be surprised when we find more and more cases, OK? Because Omicron is like those microscopic bugs that live in your eyelashes: Even if you don’t see them, you know that they’re there. Yeah, laughing at you about all the spiders that crawl into your mouth while you sleep.” — TREVOR NOAHThe Punchiest Punchlines (Getting Lit Edition)“Well, guys, tonight in Washington, D.C., President Biden attended the 99th annual national Christmas tree lighting. Meanwhile, the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree was like, ‘Uh, yeah, sure, that’s the national Christmas tree.’” — JIMMY FALLON“The event was hosted by LL Cool J. Originally Snoop was supposed to host, but he canceled once he found out it wasn’t the kind of tree lighting he was used to.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“And this was special — a real-life Elf on the Shelf made an appearance. Yeah, he got up and said, ‘For the last time, my name is Pete Buttigieg.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Then organizers said, ‘Sorry, here’s the real Elf on the Shelf,’ and then he got up and said, ‘I’m sorry, for the last time, my name is Dr. Fauci.’” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingTracy Morgan talks about why he’s going back onstage on Thursday’s “Desus & Mero.”Also, Check This OutRebecca ClarkeBette Midler shared her love of classics like “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” and Charles Dickens, among others, in this week’s By the Book. More

  • 88 Shares99 Views

    in Theater

    Wajdi Mouawad's 'Mother': Was It Worth It?

    By asking the singer Bertrand Cantat to contribute to his latest show, the director Wajdi Mouawad has overshadowed his own production.PARIS — Traumatized individuals reach a standoff. They talk past each other; the more powerful party is too hurt to mitigate the pain they inflict. Ultimately, no one wins.Recently, this story unfolded both on- and offstage at La Colline — Théâtre National, the Paris playhouse led by the Lebanese-born theatermaker Wajdi Mouawad, one of the biggest names in contemporary French theater. In November, Mouawad unveiled a very personal new play, “Mother” (“Mère”), inspired by his family’s exile from Lebanon during the country’s civil war, which lasted from 1975 to 1990. In the weeks leading up to the premiere, however, “Mother” became embroiled in conflicts of its own.In early October, the hashtag #MeTooThéâtre began trending in France; with it came a wave of testimonies about sexual abuse and harassment in the country’s playhouses and drama schools. A collective of the same name was created to agitate for change, and Mouawad’s programming was quickly singled out for criticism. In 2022, La Colline theater is set to host a production by the director Jean-Pierre Baro, who has been accused of rape, a charge he denies. Additionally, the composer and singer Bertrand Cantat, who was convicted of killing his partner Marie Trintignant in 2003, was commissioned by Mouawad to create the music of “Mother.”It’s not the first time Mouawad has hired Cantat. In 2011, the singer even appeared onstage in one of Mouawad’s shows, a play titled “Women” (“Des Femmes”). The ensuing controversy led to the cancellation of a number of tour dates and Cantat’s withdrawal from the cast when the production played at the Avignon Festival.Wajdi Mouawad and the actress Aida Sabra, who plays his mother in the production.Tong-Vi NguyenMouawad’s response to #MeTooThéâtre has been rigid. In an open letter on Oct. 19, he likened his detractors to “a contemporary form of the Inquisition” and said they were engaged in a “lynching.” He added that claims should be adjudicated only in court. On Oct. 19, a demonstration in front of La Colline delayed the “Mother” premiere by 30 minutes. The protesters called on Mouawad to resign, and booed the audience members walking into the theater.Was it worth it? That question should be asked of Mouawad, who has been known until now as a progressive supporter of multicultural stories and a promoter of young artists. On opening night, when he came out into the auditorium for a preshow announcement, he carried on as if nothing had happened. Yet this stance interferes with the reception of what is otherwise a strong production, to which Cantat actually made a minimal contribution.The French singer Bertrand Cantat, who was convicted of murdering his partner Marie Trintignant in 2003. Mouawad’s inclusion of Cantat’s music in the production has drawn criticism, and it’s not the first time he has hired him.Xavier Leoty/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe play is centered around Mouawad’s own mother, Jacqueline. In 1978, she fled war-torn Lebanon with her three children, while her husband stayed behind. The family landed in Paris, where they spent the next five years anxiously waiting for the phone to ring, with news that they could return home.“Mother” recreates vignettes from their fractured home life amid an unfussy wooden set. Two superb Lebanese actresses, Aida Sabra and Odette Makhlouf, play Jacqueline and Mouawad’s sister Nayla. (His brother is mentioned, but not shown.) While the young Mouawad is played by a child, Dany Aridi on opening night, the director himself is never far away. Throughout, Mouawad observes the proceedings up close onstage, moves furniture and props around and, ultimately, takes the spotlight to confront his mother, who in real life died from cancer in 1987.There is a harrowing amount of raw pain in “Mother.” In a vivid mix of Arabic and French, Sabra perfectly captures Jacqueline’s deteriorating mental health, and the unprocessed anger she projects on to her children. She berates her young son for not learning French faster, yet never really adjusts to life in Paris. On the phone, early on, she cries: “I am in ruins.”Members of the cast, including Makhlouf and Mouawad, at far left. The play is being performed at La Colline — Théâtre National in Paris through Dec. 30.Tong-Vi NguyenFurther weaving reality into fiction, Mouawad cast Christine Ockrent, a well-known news anchor who was a near-daily presence on French television in the 1980s, in her first stage role. In her best broadcast voice, Ockrent reads dispatches from Lebanon, but also becomes an imaginary presence in the characters’ lives, chatting with the children and cooking with Jacqueline.Mouawad’s own meta-dialogue with his mother is both the high point of the show and a clue to his overall state of mind. “I wrote this scene to talk to you,” he tells Sabra, playing Jacqueline. He has been unable to cry since his mother’s death, he adds, before pleading with her to tell his younger self “that you love him, once.”It doesn’t take a therapist to see that Mouawad’s grief, at this point, goes far beyond acting. Onstage, he mentions the loss of his father to Covid last year; his long-term theatrical collaborator and mentor, François Ismert, also died in early September. In a scene near the end of “Mother,” Mouawad pulls out a gun and pretends to shoot himself, seven times.What of Cantat? His contribution amounts to six recorded songs — no more than 15 minutes, over two and a half hours. Several of them are raspy reinterpretations of classic French songs from the era the play is set in, and Cantat is buried down the list of credits. On opening night, unsurprisingly, he didn’t come out for a bow.The young Mouawad is played by a child, Dany Aridi, on opening night, at left, with his mother Jacqueline, played by Sabra. Sabra perfectly captures Jacqueline’s deteriorating mental health, along with her unprocessed anger.Tong-Vi NguyenThe songs are too anodyne, and fleeting, to add much to “Mother.” It is pretty disturbing, however, to hear Cantat sing sensual lines at one point to Makhlouf, as Mouawad’s sister. For those in the audience who are aware of the singer’s identity, and there will be many, moments like this are an obstacle suspending disbelief. Cantat may have served his prison sentence for murder, but that doesn’t mean his presence is neutral; it actively distracts from the story of “Mother,” something no other singer would have done. (As a friend from Lebanon pointed out after the show, a Lebanese composer would also have been a more coherent choice.)Mouawad may be too deep in his feelings to realize this. He has always been hierarchy-averse, and his open letter about #MeTooThéâtre, as well as “Mother,” make it clear that he sees himself as on the side of the oppressed. “I won’t be pitted against the notion of a victim. I was a victim,” he wrote. But two things can be true at once. The traumatized boy who experienced exile grew up to become the powerful artistic director of one of France’s most prestigious theaters. Criticism comes with the territory; an understanding of the zeitgeist in which theater productions come to life should, too.In any other context, “Mother” would have been hailed as an unqualified success. Yet the presence of Cantat on the creative team is the hill on which Mouawad has chosen to die. From the audience perspective, it’s simply not worth it.MèreThrough Dec. 30 at La Colline — Théâtre National in Paris; colline.fr. More

  • 113 Shares179 Views

    in Television

    Jussie Smollett’s Lawyers Dispute Account That Attack Was Staged

    Under questioning by Mr. Smollett’s defense team, two brothers who say they participated in a fake attack denied suggestions they had lied to avoid prosecution.Jussie Smollett’s lawyers suggested in court on Thursday that two brothers at the center of the case attacked the actor to scare him into hiring them as his personal security, and later, to avoid prosecution, falsely told the police that Mr. Smollett had planned it all as a hoax.The brothers, Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo, have each testified that Mr. Smollett gave them detailed instructions on where and how to mildly attack him in January 2019.“You attacked Jussie because you wanted to scare him into hiring you as security,” said a lawyer for Mr. Smollett, Shay Allen, “so you could go back to L.A. and get paid $5,000 a week, didn’t you?”“No, sir,” Abimbola Osundairo replied.During cross-examination, the brothers, both aspiring actors and fitness aficionados, disputed that and other defense contentions about the attack. During more than 11 hours of testimony, which touched on minute details like Mr. Smollett’s grocery list and workout regimen, they told the court that Mr. Smollett instructed them to yell racist and homophobic slurs at him — and say, “This is MAGA country” — during the attack.During one of the brothers’ testimony, the defense asked for a mistrial, suggesting the judge had misspoken during the proceedings and later asked for the judge to acquit Mr. Smollett. But Judge James Linn ruled against Mr. Smollett in both instances.Thursday was a pivotal day in the trial as the prosecution, whose case relies heavily on the brothers’ credibility, rested after each brother told the jury in detail that Mr. Smollett had knowingly made a false police report about the attack.Abimbola Osundairo, 28, testified on Wednesday that Mr. Smollett, who is gay, dreamed up the scheme because he had been disappointed by what he saw as a muted response from the television studio to a death threat he received days earlier.Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo both appear in minor roles in the television show “Empire,” in which Mr. Smollett had starred. Abimbola Osundairo said he had agreed to participate in the hoax because he felt “indebted” to Mr. Smollett for securing him a role as a stand-in on the show, while Olabinjo Osundairo said that, as an aspiring actor, he had agreed because he wanted to “curry favor” with Mr. Smollett.The defense’s efforts to undermine the brothers’ credibility included questions about guns and drugs found in Abimbola Osundairo’s home and accusations that Olabinjo Osundairo had a history of making homophobic comments.Olabinjo Osundairo is not legally allowed to possess a gun because he was convicted of aggravated battery several years ago. But a detective testified earlier in the week that the guns were all Abimbola Osundairo’s and were owned legally and described the amount of cocaine discovered as “very small.”One of Mr. Smollett’s lawyers, Tamara Walker, also cited discrepancies between Olabinjo Osundairo’s testimony and what he had said to the grand jury in the case. He told the grand jury, for example, that he had decided to pour bleach, instead of gasoline, onto Mr. Smollett because he wanted to avoid being seen filling up a gas container on a surveillance camera. In court on Thursday, though, he testified that he had chosen bleach because he thought it would be safer on Mr. Smollett.The brothers remained composed during their sessions on the witness stand even as they were being questioned about several written conversations that Olabinjo Osundairo has had in which he made remarks that the defense cited as homophobic.Olabinjo Osundairo, 30, denied any bias, explained the remarks as mistakes he had made because he was upset and asserted that he had “no hate for anybody.” The prosecution had earlier in the day shown the jury a photo of the brothers at the Chicago Pride Parade in 2015 in which they were dressed as Trojan warriors for a float that centered around the condom brand of the same name.The mistrial request arose from this line of questioning as Judge Linn at one point described Ms. Walker’s questions about Mr. Osundairo’s past comments as “very collateral matters.” She argued, unsuccessfully, that the judge’s remark had discredited a part of the defense argument in front of the jury.A third lawyer for Mr. Smollett, Heather Widell, accused Judge Linn of making “snarling faces” during the defense questioning. The judge objected to Ms. Widell’s characterization and pointed out her own “smiles and frowns.”“There is no mistrial here,” Judge Linn said. “Frankly, I’m stunned you’d consider a mistrial based on that little colloquy.”Jussie Smollett’s trial entered its fourth day as the prosecution wound down its case and the defense challenged the credibility of two brothers who say the attack Mr. Smollett reported was a hoax.Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated PressEarlier in the day, Olabinjo Osundairo testified that during the attack on Jan. 29, 2019, while his brother and Mr. Smollett were on the ground, he put a noose around Mr. Smollett’s face and made sure to pour the bleach on Mr. Smollett’s clothing, not his skin, to avoid severely injuring him.Understand the Jussie Smollett TrialCard 1 of 5A staged hate crime? More