Eliana Willis

More stories

  • 213 Shares169 Views

    in Television

    ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ Season 1, Episode 7: Out of the Ashes

    This ancient version of Middle-earth is starting to look a little more like the one we know. Here are five takeaways from this week’s episode.Season 1, Episode 7: ‘The Eye’The title of this week’s “The Rings of Power” episode seems a lot like a wink toward even the most casual of Tolkien fans. It’s called “The Eye,” a name that could refer to the Eye of Sauron: the imposing symbol of the Dark Lord’s all-seeing, all-knowing power in “The Lord of the Rings” books and movies. After six episodes of merely teasing connections — by hinting that Adar may be Sauron, or that the Stranger may be a wizard, or that the Southlands may be Mordor — the show’s writers may be ready to start definitively answering some questions.But are they? This episode opens with an image of an actual eye. It’s Galadriel’s, as she wakes up covered in ash after the volcanic explosion triggered by Adar’s minions. Later, we learn that the Queen-Regent Míriel was blinded while trying to save as many as possible in the wake of the eruption. There seems to be a motif here. Does the title of “The Eye” literally refer to eyes, and not to Sauron?As it happens, very little of this week’s action involves Adar, the orcs or Sauron (whomever or wherever he may be). Instead, we see the Númenóreans and the Southlanders regroup after last week’s disastrous events; and we catch up with the dwarves and the Harfoots. The episode does end with the orcs settling into their new homeland, where the sun has been blotted out by the volcano’s smoke and ash. And there, the “Rings” writers do clarify something viewers have been wondering, as the word “Southlands” is erased from the screen and replaced with the region’s new name: “Mordor.” This ancient version of Middle-earth is starting to look a little more like the one we know.Here are five takeaways and observations from this season’s penultimate episode:Galadriel and her little buddyAfter her enormous setback in the previous episode, Galadriel is a much humbler elf — although “humble” is a relative term for an immortal who still believes, more often than not, that her choices are absolutely right. Still, there are some (so to speak) humanizing moments for Galadriel this week, as she helps Theo find his way out of his ravaged village and to the spot near the shore where the Númenóreans and the Southlanders are resting. As the two ride, they talk. She shares some personal stories that make her seem less forbidding, including describing dancing with her late husband, a soldier whom she says resembled “a silver clam” when he rode off to battle because his armor didn’t fit properly.More important, Galadriel talks Theo out of thinking he is solely responsible for Adar’s victory, or that he belongs alongside Waldreg and the other humans on the path of darkness. She insists that the wise understand a person’s true intentions. And she urges him — and perhaps herself — not to dwell on mistakes, or to be consumed by revenge. “What cannot be known hollows the mind,” she says. “Fill it not with guesswork.” (One thing this show’s writers do particularly well is invent new aphorisms.)Explore the World of the ‘Lord of the Rings’The literary universe built by J.R.R. Tolkien, now adapted into a new series for Amazon Prime Video, has inspired generations of readers and viewers.Artist and Scholar: Tolkien did more than write books. He invented an alternate reality, complete with its own geography, languages and history.Being Frodo: The actor Elijah Wood explains why he’ll never be upset at being associated with the “Lord of the Rings” movie series.A Soviet Take: A 1991 production based on Tolkien’s novels, recently digitized by a Russian broadcaster, is a time capsule of a bygone era.From the Archives: Read what W.H. Auden wrote about “The Fellowship of the Ring,” the first volume of Tolkien’s trilogy, in 1954.The Elrond and Durin ShowAfter the heartwarming moment two episodes ago when Elrond admitted to Durin that the elves actually do need the dwarves’ supply of mithril to survive — and Durin seemed eager to help — the plan hits a huge snag in this episode when the dwarves’ king, Durin III (Peter Mullan), nixes it. Even though the elves promise to furnish the city with game, grain and timber for the next five centuries, King Durin’s general distrust of elves and his fear of digging too deep scotches the deal. In the fiery arguments that follow, Prince Durin has his title stripped by his father.Markella Kavenagh and Lenny Henry in “The Rings of Power.”Prime VideoThis only strengthens the bond between Elrond and Durin, who have become this show’s most likable pair. These boys can be heart-on-the-sleeve sincere, as when Durin comes very close to revealing the secret name he only shares with his closest family members. Or they can bust each other’s chops, as when Elrond suggests he intentionally lost their big contest back in Episode 2. As with the meaningful conversations between Galadriel and Theo this week, it’s nice to see characters on this kind of heavy, epic series just enjoying each other’s company.Whom the gods favorOne of the juiciest recurring themes this season has involved the preoccupation with — and disagreement over — various signs and omens. How does anyone know when the gods want a call of opportunity to be answered? Think of Elendil, whose ship happened upon the raft Galadriel and Halbrand were clinging to in Episode 2. Was that divine providence, offering a chance to change the Númenóreans’ lives for the better? Elendil certainly doesn’t think so in this episode, given that Galadriel’s mission to Middle-earth seems to have led to his son’s death.The Harfoots are the most uncertain about what anything really means. Like: Is the arrival of the Stranger good luck or bad luck? There is evidence of both. This week, as they arrive at their favorite grove to find it destroyed by the nearby volcanic spew, the Harfoots’ leader Sadoc tells “the big fella” he needs to leave. But when the trees the Stranger passes start coming back to life and yielding a bumper crop of apples, it looks like Sadoc sent him away too hastily. Then again, immediately after this revelation the white-clad creatures tracking the strange visitor show up and burn the clan’s carts. What are the gods saying here?Which brings us back to King Durin III, who refuses to believe that his kingdom’s unique ability to save the elves is a boon. He thinks it may be the gods’ will for the elves to disappear. (“The fate of the elves was decided many ages ago by minds much wiser, much farther-seeing than our own,” he tells his son.) Even when he sees with his own eyes how mithril heals the elves’ poisoned leaf, it moves him only to drop that leaf into the depths of Khazad-dûm … where it catches fire and stirs the attention of a deeply buried balrog. Whose will is being done?History is written by the winners … eventually.Given how roundly our heroes have been beaten both in this episode and last week’s, one would expect them to be in a glum, hopeless state of mind. Not so! When Galadriel kneels before Míriel to offer her penitence, the Queen-Regent tells her, “Do not spend your pity on me, elf. Save it for our enemies, for they do not know what they have begun.” Sure, the Númenóreans are sailing home (minus a garrison to help the Southlanders resettle), but Míriel pledges their return. It’s hard not to be stirred at the end of this episode, as Galadriel escorts the deeply wounded Halbrand to Lindon for medical treatment and the people seeing them off, at Theo’s urging, shout, “Strength to the Southlands!”It’s even more moving when the Harfoots respond to the cart-burning by deciding they need to warn the Stranger about these dangerous folk pursuing him. “Weeping? Is that all you think we have left in us?” Nori’s father Largo (Dylan Smith) asks, in a speech so rousing that it spurs Sadoc to help Nori on her quest. Even the skeptical elder Malva (Thusitha Jayasundera) joins the search party, saying, “What’s the good of living if we aren’t living good?” (Sadoc’s rueful but no less determined reply: “Doesn’t matter anyway, we’re all gonna die.”)Daniel Weyman in “The Rings of Power.”Ben Rothstein/Prime VideoColor and lightLast week I expressed mild disappointment that two-thirds of the episode’s battle scenes were set in darkness, which was necessitated by the plot (given that orcs burn in sunlight) but also seemed to me to ape the dimly lit battles of “Game of Thrones.” Then, a few days later, the “Thrones” prequel series, “House of the Dragon,” aired an episode so murky that social media exploded with frustration and incredulity. Afterward, I rewatched those nighttime “Rings” battles and I must say, the visual differences between this show and the “Thrones” franchise are actually pretty pronounced. At least in this series, the torches everyone carries at night illuminate the action.So let me re-up my past praise of “The Rings of Power” for how much brighter and more colorful it is than most modern prestige television. Even in this week’s episode, as Middle-earth is coated in dust and smog, there are striking images: a burning horse, an ominous oversized footprint, the devastation wrought by flaming fireballs, and so on. This show is never simplistic about “light” versus “darkness” when it comes to the locations and the characters. But neither are the writers and directors building a world of morally ambiguous characters in shadowy gray landscapes. There are differences here between good and evil — and the frame is lit up enough to see them. More

  • 75 Shares149 Views

    in Theater

    ‘Complicity’ Review: A Muddled #MeToo Drama

    A new play by Diane Davis at the New Ohio Theater addresses the topic head-on, but clumsily, our critic writes.It has been about five years since the rise of the #MeToo movement. Debate remains on the cultural shifts it has wrought and whether these shifts will last.More laws are on the books now, more men have been jailed or fined. Others have been swiftly canceled. And then uncanceled almost as quickly. But what of the people who enabled these men?This is the subject of “Complicity,” a new play by Diane Davis at the New Ohio Theater in Greenwich Village, which addresses the topic head-on, but very clumsily, as in mismatched heels. The drama concerns, though never shows, Harry Wickstone, a legendary producer, and the hold he maintains over the women and men unlucky enough to orbit him. Two of them are Tig (Katie Broad), a naïve ingénue, and Lilia (Christian Paxton), her more seasoned co-star. Five terrible minutes in a luxury hotel room send these two women on radically different paths before the play forces them back together and then tragically apart.This brief description renders “Complicity” as a more coherent work than it truly is. Its story arcs need smoothing, its characters clarifying, even in their basic details. Tig has a sister, Sima (Nadia Sepsenwol), equally inexperienced, who somehow acts as her agent. What official role does Nigel (Zach Wegner), Harry’s fixer, play at the studio and what does he want of Lilia? (Tonia E. Anderson plays a television host: Christian Prins Coen and Ben Faigus appear in several small roles.) Davis struggles to illustrate how Hollywood works, how people work. But it’s less of a struggle than a slap fight, without clear winners.Katie Broad, left, and Nadia Sepsenwol, as sisters. The play is less of a struggle than a slap fight, without clear winners.Ashley Garrett PhotographyUnder Illana Stein’s direction, little gels. Some scenes, like a talk show sequence, are played for realism. Some, like the women’s various breakdowns, are played with an embarrassing expressionist bent. Rarely do these scenes convince. Overacting is rampant, presumably with Stein’s encouragement. Even when the actors aren’t speaking, they cycle through various expressions. At times the actors seem to be in entirely different productions — one playing a scene sincerely, one archly.It is an unhappy irony that in a play about collusion they could not collude on a house style. The design is more coherent, but only in the slapdash sense that the producers seem to have skimped on budget and time. Scenes are underlit, projections of time and place appear and disappear before they can be read. The cheap costumes are a puzzle with few satisfying solutions, the sets wincingly flimsy.Here is one more irony. Five years on, amid the noisy and bad-faith hand-wringing of whether the movement has gone too far or not far enough, the producer Harvey Weinstein’s case stands firm. So many women came forward and their stories were presented with such lucidity and compassion by journalists — New York Times journalists among them — that his guilt was substantiated, despite his great power.Women, finally, were believed. Punishment was meted out. As stories like these go, this stands as the surest, plainest, least ambiguous story imaginable. And even so, “Complicity” blunders so much in its telling.ComplicityThrough Oct. 15 at the New Ohio Theater, Manhattan; newohiotheatre.org. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. More

  • 125 Shares169 Views

    in Television

    Stephen Colbert Calls Biden’s Marijuana Pardon a ‘Green New Deal’

    Colbert celebrated Biden’s announcement on Thursday that people convicted of marijuana possession under federal law would be pardoned.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.‘Green New Deal’President Joe Biden pardoned people convicted of marijuana possession under federal law on Thursday.“Ladies and gentlemen, that is a hell of a green New Deal,” Stephen Colbert said.“He’s pardoning federal marijuana simple-possession offenses — all of them, from the dankest nugs to the harshest ditch weed. I’m talkin’ pot, grass, Mary Jane, reefer, the sweet sticky icky, ganja, choom-choom, lime pillows, sticks n’ stems, herb, chronic, Yemen, the devil’s lettuce, wacky tobacky, Acapulco gold, jazz cigarettes and the right honorable reverend Al Green.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Can you imagine how many people are incarcerated? Even worse, can you imagine getting pardoned for this after seeing how mainstream weed has become in America? I bet witches probably feel the same way, you know? It’s like, ‘Oh, so these hipster chicks can walk around Brooklyn with their candles and crystals, but when I did it in Salem, I got burned!’” — TREVOR NOAH“This will affect more than 6,000 Americans. Their criminal records will be cleared. He also encouraged governors to do the same on the state level, promised that his administration will review whether marijuana should still be classified as a schedule 1 drug and gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to a bag of Funyuns.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Punchiest Punchlines (High Point Edition)“The move stops short of full decriminalization, which will probably have to wait until we have a President Woodrow Harrelson or something.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“I’m pretty sure Biden’s approval rating is about to get high for the first time.” — JIMMY FALLON“It is the most cannabis-friendly decision by a U.S. president yet, and I, for one, am just glad Willie Nelson is alive to see this happen.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Yeah, the president canceled student loan debt and now he’s pardoning people for weed. I think Biden’s going to be able to get into any frat he wants right now.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingThe rapper Jack Harlow co-hosted “The Tonight Show,” sharing in Thursday night’s edition of #Hashtags with Jimmy Fallon.Also, Check This OutOndi Timoner filmed her father’s last days. “I wanted to bottle him up,” she said. “I was terrified to not hear his voice again.”Brad Torchia for The New York Times“Last Flight Home,” by Ondi Timoner, is a documentary about her terminally ill father, who chose to end his life by medically assisted suicide. More

  • 138 Shares179 Views

    in Theater

    Review: ‘1776,’ When All Men, and Only Men, Were Created Equal

    A revival of the musical about the Declaration of Independence underlines the gender imbalance among the Founding Fathers — and everything else.A transformation that’s either wondrous or scandalous, depending on your taste, occurs less than a minute into the Roundabout Theater Company’s otherwise disappointing Broadway revival of “1776.”Barely a line has been uttered or a note sung when the performers, who identify as female, transgender and nonbinary, and are wearing more-or-less contemporary streetwear, hike up their black tights and white socks to simulate breeches, don buckle shoes in place of clunky boots, step into frock coats of various colonial cuts and become (thanks to Emilio Sosa’s outstanding costume design) our Founding Fathers. That includes Elizabeth A. Davis, who makes a very visibly pregnant Thomas Jefferson.Though some will see the casting — which is diverse not just in gender but also in race and ethnicity — as a stunt and a travesty, I’m in the wondrous camp. Neither the 1969 musical nor (as “Hamilton” has proved) history itself is so frail as to crumple under new ways of looking at our theatrical and national past. Anyway, if you prefer, you can simply ignore the fact that these fathers aren’t men, and focus — or try to — on the plot, which encompasses nothing less than the months of negotiations and maneuverings that led, just barely, to the Declaration of Independence.But if you are willing to allow yourself a double vision, as the directors Jeffrey L. Page and Diane Paulus clearly hope, you can take independence a step further. The white maleness of the characters becomes a semi-translucent screen through which we see the many other people, including people like the cast, whom the Declaration never even considered.Sara Porkalob, center, as the pro-slavery Edward Rutledge, who dissects John Adams’s hypocrisy in the song “Molasses to Rum.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesFor me, that double vision is the best thing about the production, which opened on Thursday at the American Airlines Theater. In theory, it deepens the ideas being batted about in the hot, fetid, fly-infested Philadelphia summer. So the “obnoxious and disliked” John Adams, as played by Crystal Lucas-Perry, who is Black, is not just an abolitionist on principle but in essence. And when Sara Porkalob, as the pro-slavery Edward Rutledge, dissects Adams’s hypocrisy in the song “Molasses to Rum” — showing how the North benefits from the slave trade as well as the South — the fact that she is Filipino American both intensifies and complicates the argument.If that sort of complication were itself great theater and not just a promising premise, this “1776” might be amazing. That the production is instead so overpumped and overplayed as to be hardly comprehensible is the result of a fundamental misunderstanding of the musical, which is plenty complicated as written — if not so much in its few and often trite songs, by Sherman Edwards, then at least in Peter Stone’s book, a masterpiece of condensation without diminishment.At first dismissed as Bicentennial-era pageantry, “1776” has survived all the ensuing upheavals of American history precisely because it is, within the confines of the genre, remarkably sophisticated about the forces at play in forging a nation from colonies harboring antithetical philosophies — and in forging a musical from similarly unlikely and conflicting raw materials. An Encores! production in 2016, which featured a racially diverse cast but the usual gender assignments, showed it could be modern and yet thoughtful and moving.But the current revival seems interested in the cast’s experience at the expense of the audience’s. I can understand that impulse, especially when creating space on a major stage for actors who rarely get it.Still, the best interpretations are those that, regardless of the performer’s professional history, find feeling in the specific actions of the text rather than in their personal feelings of exclusion from it. The Broadway veteran Carolee Carmello thus creates the character of the Pennsylvania holdout John Dickinson mostly by holding back on the outrage and offering smiles and politesse in its place. And as Abigail Adams, the Broadway newcomer Allyson Kaye Daniel is gently firm and dryly touching, achieving a lovely, modest balance in those contradictions.Carolee Carmello, center, as the Pennsylvania holdout John Dickinson. She’s joined by, from left: Oneika Phillips, Gisella Adisa, Porkalob, Sushma Saha, Nancy Anderson and Eryn LeCroy.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesMore often, though, the performances are so vastly histrionic and unchecked by the social situation (this is Congress, after all) that they seem inside-out. Adams jumps on tables to make points. Patrena Murray so emphasizes Benjamin Franklin’s winky sententiousness that he seems like a joke, not a brilliant tactician. Eryn LeCroy makes of “He Plays the Violin” — a dainty minuet in which Martha Jefferson sings of her love for Thomas — a full-on psychodrama.It does not help that the new arrangements and orchestrations, aiming to refresh the songs’ profiles in the way the casting is meant to refresh the story, merely make them muddy — and make many of the lyrics unintelligible.If that’s not always a great loss, it certainly detracts from the show’s most powerful number, “Momma, Look Sharp.” A simple minor-key air sung from the point of view of a dead young soldier, it is performed here (by Salome B. Smith) as a belty anthem, complete with a moaning and heaving ensemble and a figure apparently representing Momma. (She’s looking! She’s crying!) When performers mime the emotions we should be having, the storytelling contract has been broken.Nor do Page (who is also the show’s choreographer) and Paulus (who has directed Broadway revivals of “Pippin” and “Porgy and Bess”) show much interest in the show’s humor. As some of it is ribald and sexist — probably accurately so — they prefer to defuse it by winking as if to say: Don’t worry, we don’t mean any harm. What a wasted opportunity! In dealing with such material, a nonmale cast might mean harm in the best way, forcing us to think about the character of men in their time and ours, and providing the kind of added value a regendered revival seemed to promise.Instead we get subtracted value. I don’t mean for the cast, who deserve the opportunity, or even for the theater as an industry and an ecosystem. As the historian Erica Armstrong Dunbar said in a New York Times round-table discussion about putting history onstage, there is merit in “moving people into the center of narratives who have never been there for the public to see.” I agree. And if those narratives sometimes fail, well, so do most others; we might as well be open to everything.But underlining one’s progressiveness a thousand times, as this “1776” does, will not actually convey it better; rather it turns characters into cutouts and distracts from the ideas it means to promote. The musical even shows us that. It’s only when Adams stops yelling and starts plotting that he begins to turn the tide toward ratification. Just so, theater makers should have enough faith in the principles of equity and diversity to let them speak for themselves. Are they not, as someone once put it, self-evident?1776Through Jan. 8 at the American Airlines Theater, Manhattan; roundabouttheatre.org. Running time: 2 hours 40 minutes. More

  • 150 Shares159 Views

    in Television

    What to Know About Kevin Spacey’s Civil Trial: Lawyers Make Opening Statements

    In a lawsuit, the actor Anthony Rapp said Mr. Spacey made a sexual advance when Mr. Rapp was 14. Mr. Spacey is accused of battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress.Five years ago, as the #MeToo movement saw a growing number of high-profile men face accusations of sexual misconduct, a claim against Kevin Spacey emerged while he was starring in the Netflix show “House of Cards.”In an interview with BuzzFeed News, Anthony Rapp, best known for his role in the musical “Rent,” alleged that in 1986, when he was 14, Mr. Spacey picked him up, placed him on a bed and laid down on top of him, making a “sexual advance.”Mr. Rapp told the publication that the encounter occurred around the time both actors were in Broadway shows and that Mr. Spacey, then 26, invited him to a gathering at his Manhattan apartment. Mr. Rapp told BuzzFeed he was able to “squirm” away and leave.Mr. Spacey has denied the allegation.In 2020, Mr. Rapp sued Mr. Spacey, accusing him of assault, battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress. A judge dismissed the assault claim, but on Thursday, lawyers delivered their opening statements about the other claims before a 12-person jury in Federal District Court in Manhattan. Testimony begins on Friday.Mr. Spacey, who faces criminal sexual assault charges in Britain in a separate case, has been accused of sexual misconduct by more than a dozen men. This is the first time one of those claims has reached a trial.After Mr. Rapp’s public accusation, TV and film producers quickly dropped Mr. Spacey from projects. His character was written out of “House of Cards,” and he was ultimately ordered to pay the studio $31 million for breach of contract. Mr. Rapp currently stars in the TV show “Star Trek: Discovery.”Mr. Spacey, now 63, initially released a statement saying he did not recall the encounter that Mr. Rapp, now 50, had described, saying, “But if I did behave then as he describes, I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior.” In court papers submitted following the lawsuit, Mr. Spacey has vehemently denied that the incident ever occurred.Anthony Rapp said Spacey made a “sexual advance” when Rapp was 14.Slaven Vlasic/Getty ImagesWhat is Mr. Rapp’s side telling the jury?In opening statements on Thursday, a lawyer for Mr. Rapp, Peter J. Saghir, described how Mr. Spacey invited Mr. Rapp to a party at his apartment in 1986, after they met while performing in separate Broadway shows. Mr. Rapp, who was 14 at the time, decided to sit on the edge of Mr. Spacey’s bed watching television instead of mingling with strangers who were older than him, Mr. Saghir told the jury.Mr. Rapp then saw Mr. Spacey enter the bedroom and realized the other guests had left, his lawyer said. Mr. Spacey picked Mr. Rapp up in his arms, Mr. Saghir said, describing the position like a groom carrying a bride over the threshold. According to Mr. Rapp’s account, Mr. Spacey appeared drunk and laid down on top of him, pressing his pelvis into the side of Mr. Rapp’s hip.“I recall being frozen and shocked and upset and scared,” Mr. Rapp said in an earlier deposition.As Mr. Rapp left Mr. Spacey’s apartment, Mr. Saghir told the jury, the older actor leaned into the doorway and asked, “Are you sure you want to go?”Mr. Rapp’s lawyers have argued that this account constitutes battery and that Mr. Rapp suffered severe emotional distress, including depression and anxiety. Battery is legally defined as “the unjustified touching of another person, without that person’s consent, with the intent to cause a bodily contact that a reasonably prudent person would find offensive.” The plaintiff’s side is expected to tell the jury about accounts Mr. Rapp gave to others in the years after the alleged incident. In opening statements, Mr. Saghir also homed in on Mr. Spacey’s statement after the BuzzFeed article, noting that he did not strongly deny Mr. Rapp’s account until his lawsuit was filed.How is Mr. Spacey’s side defending the actor?A lawyer for Mr. Spacey, Jennifer L. Keller, described Mr. Spacey’s initial statement concerning the allegations as the product of a “panic” among his managers and advisers, who advised him to take a certain tone to avoid the “social media mob.”Behind the scenes, Ms. Keller said in court, Mr. Spacey was saying he had no memory of what Mr. Rapp described. In court papers, Mr. Spacey’s lawyers said that he had flatly denied Mr. Rapp’s account, that he had recalled meeting Mr. Rapp on a few occasions but that those interactions were “peripheral and limited.” When seeking to dismiss the case, Mr. Spacey’s lawyers emphasized in court papers that “by plaintiff’s own admission, there was no groping, no kissing, no undressing, no reaching under clothes, and no sexualized statements or innuendo.”Ms. Keller accused Mr. Rapp of making the allegations to benefit his own career and attract public attention. “It’s not a true story, but he did tell it a lot,” she said, acknowledging that there were people who would recall Mr. Rapp’s telling them about Mr. Spacey in the following years.Ms. Keller alleged that Mr. Rapp had fabricated the story by borrowing details from “Precious Sons,” the Broadway play he was in that year. She said that in the play a character drunkenly mistakes his son, played by Mr. Rapp, for his wife, picking him up and laying on top of him in a way that mirrors Mr. Rapp’s allegations.Mr. Spacey’s team has also focused on his apartment at the time, presenting a floor plan that did not align with details in Mr. Rapp’s account.Who is expected to testify?Mr. Rapp’s lawyers have asserted that Mr. Rapp was not the only victim of sexual misconduct by Mr. Spacey, and Judge Lewis A. Kaplan has agreed to allow another accuser to testify.That accuser, Andy Holtzman, says that in 1981, Mr. Spacey groped his genitals and rubbed his groin on Mr. Holtzman. In a deposition, Mr. Spacey denied Mr. Holtzman’s allegations, saying he did not recall any dealings with him.Mr. Spacey’s lawyers have indicated that one of their key witnesses may be John Barrowman, an actor known for his role in the TV show “Doctor Who.” He was an acquaintance of Mr. Rapp when they were teenagers and visited him in New York in 1986 to see “Precious Sons.” Mr. Barrowman and Mr. Rapp met Mr. Spacey backstage at a play, Mr. Spacey’s lawyers said, asserting that Mr. Barrowman’s account of events that year do not align with Mr. Rapp’s.Both sides are likely to call witnesses who have said that Mr. Rapp told them about the allegations, and Mr. Spacey’s lawyers may call Adam Vary, the BuzzFeed journalist who wrote the initial article.Why is Mr. Rapp able to bring this claim now?Because Mr. Rapp’s claims extend beyond the statute of limitations, he is relying on a law called the Child Victims Act, which New York State passed in 2019. It included a “look-back window” — a limited period of time in which people who say they were sexually abused as children could sue.The plaintiff and the defense dispute whether the law applies in this case.Mr. Spacey’s lawyers assert that based on the legislation, a plaintiff can revive claims only if they constitute a “sexual offense” that violates penal law, and they argue that Mr. Rapp’s allegations do not meet that threshold. Mr. Rapp’s lawyers have said that sexual contact, under the law, can include touching over the clothing or forcefully holding the victim, as their client alleges. What has become of other legal claims against Mr. Spacey?Mr. Rapp originally sued with an anonymous plaintiff, who alleged that he was a teenager when Mr. Spacey sexually assaulted him while working as an acting coach in the 1980s. Judge Kaplan ruled that the plaintiff would have to identify himself publicly if he wanted to continue on to trial, which he declined to do.In another case, in 2019, prosecutors in Massachusetts dropped a sexual assault charge after the accuser was warned that he could be charged with a felony if he had deleted phone evidence. The man, who had accused Mr. Spacey of fondling him at a Nantucket restaurant when he was 18, refused to continue his testimony.Later that year, a separate lawsuit in California that had accused Mr. Spacey of sexually assaulting a massage therapist was dropped after the plaintiff died.In Britain, Mr. Spacey is facing four charges of sexual assault as well as one of causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent. He pleaded not guilty, and a trial is expected to start next summer. More

  • 125 Shares99 Views

    in Theater

    Things To Do in New York: Halloween Events and Activities

    Haunt the streets at Halloween parades. Dance at a “Zombie Prom.” Or find your way through a corn maze. We’ve got you covered on how to celebrate.During Halloween, it’s OK — even encouraged — to frighten your neighbors and devour mounds of Twizzlers and candy corn without judgment. This tradition was partially halted by the pandemic, as walk-through haunted houses mutated into drive-throughs and theaters shut out viewers, while streaming services welcomed them.As in-person programming bounces back, here’s a guide to pumpkin picking, drag shows, haunted houses and more to enjoy throughout New York City with friends and family. All scare levels are welcome.Frights for the FamilyIn its 49th year, the Village Halloween Parade returns on Halloween Day with hundreds of puppeteers, dancers, artists and musicians marching — or crawling — along Greenwich Village. The parade, which begins at 7 p.m. on Sixth Avenue between Spring Street and 16th Street, encourages thousands of costumed New Yorkers to walk alongside the performers.At the annual Bronx Halloween Parade, beginning Oct. 22 at noon, Halloween enthusiasts can enjoy a similar experience as the New York Police Department marching band, the Philadelphia 76ers drum line and dozens of community organizations haunt the streets for about a half mile, from Southern Boulevard and Westchester Avenue to Dawson Street and Rogers Place, adjacent to Bill Rainey Park. The comedian Radel Ortiz will host the post-parade festivities, and all ages are encouraged to participate in a costume contest for a cash prize.Run as you are, whether in a witch costume or your racing attire, during the NYCRuns Haunted Island 5K and 10K. The race takes place early on Oct. 29, wrapping around Governors Island — twice for 10K runners — and provides age and gender-specific awards. All racers can enjoy a ferry ride, a post-race breakfast and Halloween candy. Governors Island will also host Pumpkin Point, its annual pumpkin patch and fall festival at Nolan Park (Oct. 22-23 and Oct. 29-30), where guests can enjoy pumpkin picking with a suggested donation, arts and crafts, pumpkin painting and trick-or-treating. Pumpkins that don’t find a home will be composted or donated locally to organizations combating hunger.At the Amazing Maize Maze at the Queens County Farm Museum, visitors can join a scavenger hunt through acres of towering cornstalk.Matthew BorowickAt the family-run Decker Farm on Staten Island, visitors can handpick the perfect pumpkin, hop on a tractor-towed hayride exploring the 11 acres of farmland, wander through the children’s hay maze and even chuck a gourd (exactly what it sounds like) on October weekends and Oct. 10. The farm, established in the 19th century and a designated New York City landmark, also welcomes guests for fall-themed family portraits and pumpkin painting.In the Amazing Maize Maze, located at the Queens County Farm Museum, visitors can embark on a scavenger hunt through acres of towering cornstalk on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays in October and on Oct. 10. For an added challenge, Maze by Moonlight allows visitors to venture through the path at night on four select dates, using only a flashlight to guide them.If you’re in search of a different leafy plant this season, watch “Little Shop of Horrors” Off Broadway at the Westside Theater/Upstairs, Tuesday through Sunday on select afternoons and evenings. The 40-year-old musical, created by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, follows a bloodthirsty plant, Audrey II, that catapults a geeky flower shop assistant, Seymour, to stardom. The musical, inspired by Roger Corman’s 1960 black comedy, has since grown into one of the most produced shows in high schools nationwide. As the plant’s size multiplies, so does Seymour’s prominence. The story reminds viewers “of the special potency of grisly things that come in small, impeccably wrapped packages,” the former New York Times critic Ben Brantley wrote in a 2019 review.The streaming service Disney+ has resurrected the cult classic that follows three kooky sisters who cast spells on the unfortunate youth in the city of Salem, Mass. In Anne Fletcher’s “Hocus Pocus 2,” Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy reprise their witchy roles as they zap into the 21st century, summoned by a charmed candle. The sisters run amok using Roombas instead of flying broomsticks and chug anti-aging creams in a local pharmacy. A treat for the whole family, the film embraces existing fans and attracts new ones.“RuPaul’s Drag Race Night of the Living Drag” in Los Angeles last year. On Oct. 30, the drag queen Yvie Oddly will lead the show at Kings Theater in Brooklyn.Emma Mcintyre/Getty ImagesHorror With a Hint of GlamHouse of Yes, a club in Bushwick, Brooklyn, known for theatrical, sky-high performances and pulsating rhythms, has a full slate of Halloween-themed events such as “Vampire Ball” (Oct. 20) and “Zombie Prom” (Oct. 27), where guests are encouraged to dress as “bloody (bat)dies” and “gory ghouls.” A Halloween edition of the venue’s popular variety show “Dirty Circus” will begin Oct. 26 and conclude with “Absolutely: A Halloween Drag Spectacular” on Halloween night.Kings Theater will also host a night of drag queen royalty with “RuPaul’s Drag Race Night of the Living Drag,” led by Yvie Oddly, the absurdist drag queen and Season 11 winner, and featuring eight other performers in an interpretation of Dante’s “Divine Comedy.”Particularly PetrifyingThe NYC Ghosts tour visits eight to 12 locations throughout the city, including the Morris-Jumel Mansion, which served as Gen. George Washington’s headquarters during the Revolutionary War, and a Revivalist Greek brownstone called the House of Death, where Mark Twain lived for about a year. Tours range from an hour to 90 minutes and are held nightly throughout the year.For a true bloodcurdling experience, Blood Manor, a 10,000-square-foot haunted house in TriBeCa with clowns, corpse brides and cannibals, would be a good place to start. The renowned Halloween destination, where Kevin Hart and Jimmy Fallon shrieked in terror in 2016, has welcomed the fearful and fearless for more than a decade. This year, the house brings attractions like “Maggot Invasion” and “Hannibal’s Hell” as well as killer clowns and a paranormal battlefield. Attend at your own risk on weekends and select weekdays through Nov. 5.For those willing to venture outside the city, Headless Horseman Haunted Attractions, upstate in Ulster Park, guarantees a horrifying immersive experience along its 65-acre property with escape rooms, haunted houses, a corn maze and a new walk-through trail. More sinister than the special effects are the masked serial killers and squealing clowns in each dimly lit, blood-smeared room. It’s open Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings, with Children’s Days, which tone down the thrills, from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. on the second and fourth Saturday in October. More

  • 150 Shares119 Views

    in Theater

    In ‘Heart Strings,’ the Ties That Bind a Family (and a Culture)

    Atlantic for Kids’ new play explores sibling relationships, using the delicate weavings of a Hawaiian craft.Every good story requires a thread. Some writers have difficulty finding theirs, but not Lee Cataluna. The line that runs through her latest play, “Heart Strings,” comes from the real knots and tangles of a centuries-old Hawaiian craft.That technique, known as hei (pronounced HAY), consists of creating figures and patterns by manipulating a single loop of string. Although often compared to cat’s cradle, hei is more than a children’s game; it is a symbolic language. Each design has meaning: for instance, a star, the moon or the night becoming day.Seated at an outdoor cafe table on a recent afternoon in Manhattan, Cataluna, who is of Portuguese and Indigenous Hawaiian ancestry, placed a cord around her hands. Deftly moving her fingers, she transformed the string into a narrow rectangle with two triangles at its center.“So this is the house, right?” she said of the rectangle. “Then it breaks apart, and the two children run away.” She pulled her hands wide, and the triangles shot in opposite directions, then disappeared. “That’s the story I have to write,” she said she thought when, during research, she discovered this traditional hei. “I have to figure out what that means.”Different characters create that hei and others in “Heart Strings,” which runs through Oct. 23 at the Linda Gross Theater in Chelsea. Presented by Atlantic Theater Company as the first Atlantic for Kids production since the pandemic lockdown, it welcomes young audiences — the public on weekends and school groups on weekdays — with a drama that is both culturally specific in its details and universal in its themes.“I thought about what kind of issues would resonate with kids and their parents,” Cataluna said. Sibling rivalry immediately sprang to mind.But in “Heart Strings,” the meaning of “sibling” is complicated by another cultural tradition. The play’s central characters — Hoku, 10, and Mahina, 6 — are sisters according to hanai (huh-NYE), a Hawaiian custom in which couples take in children who are not their own. Hoku’s grandparents are raising both girls, and the reserved, studious Hoku, who once welcomed the infant Mahina into the family, now resents the high-spirited, questioning kindergartner she has become.“You’re not my real sister,” Hoku says, shutting out the younger girl with a force that threatens to shatter their household as utterly as that hei collapsed in Cataluna’s hands.Born on Maui, Cataluna remembered hei, but she did not choose it as a recurring motif to dazzle New Yorkers. She originally wrote “Heart Strings” for her teenage son’s theater group in Honolulu. His school had requested a play incorporating something tangibly Hawaiian, much as Kathryn Schultz Miller’s “A Thousand Cranes,” which the students had previously performed, celebrates Japanese culture through origami.When the coronavirus pandemic ended the school’s plans to present “Heart Strings” at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Cataluna successfully submitted her work to ReImagine: New Plays in TYA. (TYA stands for Theater for Young Audiences.) Established by a consortium of theatrical organizations, ReImagine awarded grants in 2021 to playwrights who were Black, Indigenous or people of color. As a grant winner, Cataluna could also select a participating theater company to workshop her play.She felt immediately drawn to Atlantic, which was also eager to acquire “Heart Strings” and is now giving it its world premiere: Here was a play that highlighted a culture that was part of America but that was almost never explored onstage.“It’s so three-dimensional, the storytelling that happens in the hei,” Alison Beatty, the artistic director of Atlantic for Kids, said in a post-rehearsal interview. After the pandemic’s isolation, she added, “having something that was tactile — that you could feel with your hands, and that was such an integral part of how the story is told — really appealed to me. And then, I think, just the questions that are asked by the play: what it means to be family, what it means to be at home.”Aczon, far left, in a scene from the Atlantic for Kids production, with, clockwise from top left, Jeremy Rafal, Kristi Donna Ng and Un Joo Christopher.Julieta Cervantes“Heart Strings,” which is directed toward children over 6 — an older audience than most Atlantic for Kids offerings — also gave the company a rare opportunity to help shape a playwright’s vision instead of importing a finished production. Beatty, for instance, suggested adding hula gestures, another form of choreographed storytelling, to the production. John-Mario Sevilla, a hula scholar, then taught some movement to the cast.The script also evolved. Cataluna had set her earliest drafts in the present, but after her son’s classmates asked why the characters were playing with string when they had cellphones, she switched the action to the 1930s. She also wanted to highlight the pressure on Indigenous peoples to assimilate. Hoku, played by Sienna Aczon, doesn’t mind using an English name and words at school; Mahina, portrayed by Un Joo Christopher, rebels against those rules. (Almost all the actors in the Atlantic production have lived in Hawaii.)“In my father’s era, and before his, Hawaiian was not allowed to be spoken in the public schools,” Cataluna said. She drew on her family’s past again in a scene in which Hoku’s friend Josiah (Aaron Banes) reflects on his love for his Hanai sister, as Cataluna’s father once did.But she has resisted acknowledging another autobiographical detail as more than mere coincidence: She has a younger biological sister from whom she is estranged.“One of my best friends keeps calling me on it,” Cataluna said, noting that he pointed out parallels to her play. She and her sister haven’t reconciled, but, Cataluna added, “if she ever needed a kidney, I would give her my kidney.”Audiences, however, don’t need to have siblings to recognize how vulnerable — or how steadfast — the bonds of love are, Kat Yen, the production’s director, said in the same conversation.In families or friendships, “we delve into struggle, we delve into confrontations, but you never lose the love,” Yen said. “Somewhere in there is a message that I’m interested in for the audience.”But that isn’t all that children take home: The company provides instructions on how to make a hei. More

  • 125 Shares99 Views

    in Theater

    Oscar Isaac and Rachel Brosnahan to Star in Hansberry Revival

    “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window,” a rarely revived play by Lorraine Hansberry, will be presented at BAM starting in February.Oscar Isaac and Rachel Brosnahan will star in a rare revival of Lorraine Hansberry’s “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window” starting in February at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.The play, about a pair of bohemian artists struggling to preserve their marriage at a time of political upheaval, was first staged on Broadway in 1964, five years after the arrival of Hansberry’s far better known work, “A Raisin in the Sun.” In 2018, writing in The New York Times Book Review, the playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins called “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window” “a shattering study of liberal self-delusion and whiteness as an existential crisis” and declared the play “criminally neglected.”The revival, which is scheduled to begin performances Feb. 4 and to open Feb. 23, will be directed by Anne Kauffman, who previously directed it in 2016 at the Goodman Theater in Chicago. Reviewing that production for The Chicago Tribune, the critic Chris Jones called the play “a masterpiece lost in plain sight” and “a drama so infused with emotional intelligence, linguistic treasures and the human conditions of dread and longing that it keeps you bolt-upright in your seat for nearly three hours.”The artistic director of BAM, David Binder, said he read “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window” while he was working as the lead producer of a 2004 Broadway revival of “A Raisin in the Sun.” He and Kauffman have been talking about mounting a New York production ever since.Isaac and Brosnahan are best known for their work onscreen — he for “Star Wars” sequels (he played Poe Dameron) and she for “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” (she plays the title character). But both have stage credits as well; Isaac played Hamlet at the Public Theater in 2017, and Brosnahan played Desdemona in a production of “Othello” at New York Theater Workshop in 2016.Before the pandemic, Isaac had been planning to appear in a new production of “Three Sisters,” directed by Sam Gold at New York Theater Workshop. That production, which has been repeatedly postponed, now appears on the theater’s website as part of the current season, but with no date, and the note, “We are working hard to confirm the cast for the 2023 production of ‘Three Sisters’ and we hope that the full original cast will be available to continue on with the production.” (Representatives for Isaac and New York Theater Workshop offered no further details.)Hansberry died in 1965, at the age of 34, and in recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in her life and work, with productions and books, a documentary and even a sculpture that is touring the country. A new revival of “A Raisin in the Sun,” directed by Robert O’Hara, is now in previews at the Public Theater. More