Eliana Willis

More stories

  • 100 Shares129 Views

    in Television

    In ‘Reboot,’ Everything Old Is New, to Streaming

    This new Hulu comedy pokes fun at TV’s obsession with bringing back past shows.At a recent meeting at Hulu’s offices, over coffee and luxury bottled water, half a dozen executives entertained a pitch for a new series. Well, not exactly new. The idea: Reboot the beloved early ’00s comedy about a blended family, “Step Right Up.” Though it ended abruptly after its lead departed, the show has, surprisingly, found a robust audience on streaming, particularly among, an analytics specialist notes, the family and “live-to-laugh” quadrants.“Are we sure that’s not just people leaving it on for their dogs?” a colleague asks.Her boss voices a further concern: Are reboots still a thing? His team answers him with a very long list, which includes “Fuller House,” “How I Met Your Father,” “Veronica Mars,” “Gilmore Girls,” “Gossip Girls,” “The Wonder Years,” “Party of Five,” “Party Down” and on and on and on.“What the hell,” the boss says, convinced. “Let’s remake something original.”This is the opening scene of “Reboot,” a Hulu half-hour comedy from the showrunner Steven Levitan (“Modern Family,” “Just Shoot Me!”) with a premise so flawless it seems bananas that no one has thought of it before. A turducken of a show, it features a multicamera family comedy, nested inside a single camera workplace comedy, shoved into a behind-the-scenes Hollywood spoof. The series is also a referendum — a pretty fun one — on the way that the sitcom has advanced in the past several decades and its migration from network to cable and streaming.“This really is an affectionate look at our business,” Levitan said, speaking from a home office with “Modern Family” cutouts in the background. “The bizarre characters, the weird situations, the important meetings you have over something that’s unbelievably trivial and embarrassing. It’s really such great fodder for comedy.”Levitan first had the idea for “Reboot” several years ago when “Roseanne” returned and then disappeared, following a racist tweet posted by its star, Roseanne Barr, and then returned again, sans Barr, as “The Conners.” The presumed backstage drama intrigued him.“I remember thinking to myself, Well, that’s the show I want to watch,” he said. “Modern Family” still had a few seasons to go. He assumed that someone else would dream up the same idea in the meantime, but no one did. Or no one was greenlit, anyway. So he took his pitch to Hulu. (He has an overall deal with 20th Television, which is, like Hulu, part of the Walt Disney Company.)Rachel Bloom, left, and Krista Marie Yu in “Reboot,” a show about a show reviving an old show.Michael Desmond/HuluI asked Karey Burke, the president of 20th Television, who helped to develop “Reboot,” if Hulu’s real-life executives had ever expressed any qualms about the show’s satire. (There’s a dazzling swipe at “The Handmaid’s Tale” in the pilot, for example.)“They love it,” she said. “And I don’t know that other platforms would be able to handle the zingers as gracefully as they have.”Craig Erwich, the president of ABC Entertainment, Hulu and Disney branded television streaming originals, confirmed this, saying that he and his real colleagues enjoyed being in on the joke. “We loved it,” he said. “It’s funny. And it’s funny because it probably rings true.”Not all of these jokes target streaming services. A bunch take aim at networks, where Levitan spent most of his career. Others go after changes within the form of the sitcom itself. Many of these last are voiced in the form of arguments between Paul Reiser’s Gordon, who created “Step Right Up,” and Rachel Bloom’s Hannah, the millennial writer-director who pitched the reboot.“Comedy has evolved since you last wrote for television,” says Hannah, tartly. “I mean, honestly, whole species have evolved.”Some of that evolution has pushed sitcoms away from the live-audience multicamera style, the province of a studio comedy like “Step Right Up,” to more visually sophisticated single-camera formats. The move from network to streaming, a move that “Reboot” explores, has wrought other changes. This new “Step Right Up” no longer need to adhere to a 22-minute format with A, B and C story lines and pauses for commercial breaks. More sexually explicit material is now permissible, as are obscenities.“It’s the world of sitcom, but it’s streaming,” Reiser said in an interview, speaking of the move to streaming generally. “So you can say whatever you want, and you’re not going for the laugh, necessarily.”But old constraints die hard. Though “Step Right Up” has taken on a new look, most of the episodes of “Reboot” do still honor a three-act structure. And if the set-up-punchline, set-up-punchline form has given ground, A, B and C plots remain. “It’s inherent,” Levitan said. “It’s baked into my bones right now that shows will have a certain sense of structure and plot.”And yet, as “Reboot” demonstrates, and as a rewatch of most ’80s, ’90s and ’00s comedies will prove, content has changed. Jokes that punched down at women, queer people, disabled people, people of color — rarely make it to air now. Levitan framed this as a limitation, if a good one.“The whole #MeToo, woke culture, it has changed where you can go, and by and large, in a positive way,” he said. “Where it gets tricky is when everybody is so scared of offending somebody that you don’t even go anywhere near the line anymore.”Bloom, who cocreated the sitcom “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” sees this new sensibility as an opportunity rather than a curb or a cause for angst. “There’s a mindfulness that’s being asked of people now that wasn’t being asked of people before,” she said. “I think it’s making us all better people, better comedians.” And she enjoys playing Hannah, even in her occasional humorlessness.“A girl who wears baggy sweaters with anxiety?” Bloom said. “I know that person.” Reiser, who described himself as “a little bit more aware than Gordon” agreed with his co-star. “I never understand people who say, ‘You couldn’t make that joke anymore,’” he said. “I go, ‘Why would you want to? How much do you want to make a joke?’ It’s kind of not cool and insensitive.”Levitan first had the idea for “Reboot” during the controversy in which Roseanne Barr was fired from her own revived sitcom.Devin Oktar Yalkin for The New York TimesSome of the strongest scenes of “Reboot” are the ones set in the writers’ room that dramatize this tension. The writers whom Hannah has hired — a queer man and two women of color — clash openly with the older Jewish writers of Gordon’s acquaintance. In one scene, a younger writer critiques a joke pitched by the TV veteran Selma (Rose Abdoo, the series’s stealth M.V.P.).“I thought gay people were supposed to be fun,” Selma snaps back. But eventually they find a joke everyone likes. It involves a pratfall. Pratfalls are funny no matter what.But “Reboot” isn’t only funny. There’s a persistent sweetness to it and a sense that people can change, usually for the better.“That’s something that’s quite thrilling about the show,” said Keegan-Michael Key, a “Step Right Up” star. “It’s a Steve Levitan hallmark, isn’t it, that sense of people being open?”“Step Right Up” is the reboot at the center, but nearly all of the characters are rebooting themselves in one way or another, recovering from divorce, addiction, regional theater. Levitan mentioned how fans had told him how “Modern Family” had helped them work through difficult moments in their own lives. He hopes that “Reboot,” a show about Hollywood elites with Bentleys and real estate portfolios and connections to Nordic royalty, can do the same.“Bringing a little laughter into people’s lives is a really joyous thing to do,” he said.“Reboot” remains agnostic on the question of the worth of reboots themselves. Many real-world ones seem like little more than cheap intellectual-property grabs, and few improve on the original. Some are so dismal that they actually poison their predecessors, retroactively. The creators and stars of “Reboot” had varying opinions on the form. Or no opinion at all.“I don’t think that’s for me to say,” Levitan said. “Yeah, I would rather not draw the ire of comedy writers.” Reiser survived the reboot of “Mad About You” pretty much intact and seemed optimistic about the form. Bloom was less so.“The most exciting part of a reboot for me is the headline of a reboot coming up,” she said. The reboot itself was usually a disappointment.Key sounded more hopeful. He thought that reboots might work, at least notionally, and could even be innovative if the animating idea were persuasive enough. “I really think that is possible,” he said. “It’s all about angles.”Until Hollywood figures out those angles, we’ll just have to make do with something original. Like “Reboot.” More

  • 75 Shares179 Views

    in Television

    Late Night Recaps the Queen’s Funeral

    “There is no iPhone at the end of that line, all right?” Trevor Noah said of the long lines of mourners on Monday.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.Fit for a QueenQueen Elizabeth’s funeral took place on Monday, with crowds waiting in line for up to 24 hours to pay their respects.Trevor Noah called the wait “no joke,” saying, “There is no iPhone at the end of that line, all right? It’s just a box and you don’t even get to open the box.”“The line to see the queen’s coffin stretched for miles, similar to what goes on here in America when Popeye’s comes out with a new chicken sandwich.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“The procession was lengthy, with King Charles and siblings walking behind the coffin for nearly one and a half hours. That’s not easy. For years, the royal family’s only form of exercise has been walking back statements from Andrew.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“And it was a three-mile march from Westminster Abbey to Windsor Castle, also known as the long walk. Yeah, or as Kylie Jenner calls it, ‘Why didn’t they take the jet?’” — TREVOR NOAH“Leaders, dignitaries, and politicians from around the world gathered in London for the funeral of Queen Elizabeth. Meanwhile, Trump showed up at a Burger King and said, ‘Sorry for your loss.’” — JIMMY FALLONThe Punchiest Punchlines (Freddy Krueger Edition)“In an interview yesterday, President Biden said while we still have a problem with the virus, quote, ‘The pandemic is over.’ Yes. Yeah. But I get why Biden said this. I mean, he just had Covid. Everyone — everyone who gets Covid is over Covid.” — TREVOR NOAH“Biden then announced that skinny jeans, neutral tones, and chrome nail polish are also over.” — JAMES CORDEN“He said ‘the pandemic is over,’ which is weirdly not reassuring at all. It’s like saying ‘Freddy Krueger is dead and he’s never coming back!’” — JIMMY KIMMEL“It’s kind of huge news to mention so casually, you know? I wasn’t expecting the end of a two-and-a-half-year nightmare to be announced on the floor of the Detroit Auto Show.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingJimmy Fallon and his “Tonight Show” guest Margot Robbie got blasted in the face with an air cannon for every wrong answer in a guessing game called “Blow Your Mind.”What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightBilly Eichner will talk about his new movie “Bros” on “The Late Show.”Also, Check This Out“M*A*S*H,” which debuted in September 1972, feels both ancient and current. With Jamie Farr, seated, and, from left, Mike Farrell, David Ogden Stiers, Alan Alda, Loretta Swit, Harry Morgan and William Christopher in a later season.CBS Photo Archive/Getty ImagesAfter 50 years, “M*A*S*H” holds up as a precursor to modern-day comedies that are more than just funny. More

  • 113 Shares99 Views

    in Television

    Chris Redd Is Latest Cast Member to Leave ‘S.N.L.’

    Redd, who contributed impersonations of Kanye West and Mayor Eric Adams, is leaving “Saturday Night Live,” where four new featured players are joining the show.The number of departing “Saturday Night Live” cast members has now risen to eight: Chris Redd, who has been with “S.N.L.” since fall 2017 and has played characters including Kanye West and Mayor Eric Adams of New York, will not be returning this season, NBC said on Monday night.Redd said in a statement: “Being a part of ‘S.N.L’ has been the experience of a lifetime. Five years ago, I walked into 30 Rock knowing that this was an amazing opportunity for growth. Now, with friends who have become family and memories I will cherish forever, I’m grateful to Lorne Michaels and to the entire ‘S.N.L.’ organization. From the bottom of my heart, I can’t thank you all enough.”Redd has also co-starred in the NBC sitcom “Kenan,” with the longtime “S.N.L.” cast member Kenan Thompson; in the Peacock comedy series “Bust Down”; and in movies like “Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping.” His standup special “Chris Redd: Why Am I Like This?” will be released on HBO Max later this year, NBC said. Redd is one of several “S.N.L.” veterans who have exited the show ahead of its coming 48th season. Kate McKinnon, Aidy Bryant, Pete Davidson and Kyle Mooney all left “S.N.L.” at the conclusion of its 47th season in May. Earlier this month, Melissa Villaseñor, Alex Moffat and Aristotle Athari also departed the cast.Last week, NBC announced that “S.N.L.” had hired four new cast members. Those performers — Marcello Hernandez, Molly Kearney, Michael Longfellow and Devon Walker — will all begin as featured players when the new season begins on Oct. 1. More

  • 88 Shares149 Views

    in Television

    One Last Broadcast for Queen Elizabeth II

    Television introduced Queen Elizabeth II to the world. It was only fitting that television should see her out of it.The queen’s seven-decade reign almost exactly spanned the modern TV era. Her coronation in 1953 began the age of global video spectacles. Her funeral on Monday was a full-color pageant accessible to billions.It was a final display of the force of two institutions: the concentrated grandeur of the British monarchy and the power amassed by television to bring viewers to every corner of the world.“I have to be seen to be believed,” Elizabeth once reportedly said. It was less a boast than an acknowledgment of a modern duty. One had to be seen, whether one liked it or not. It was her source of authority at a time when the crown’s power no longer came through fleets of ships. It was how she provided her country reassurance and projected stability.The last funeral service for a British monarch, King George VI, was not televised. For one last time, Elizabeth was the first. She entered the world stage, through the new magic of broadcasting, as a resolute young face. She departed it as a bejeweled crown on a purple cushion, transmuted finally into pure visual symbol.Americans who woke up early Monday (or stayed up, in some time zones) saw striking images aplenty, on every news network. The breathtaking God’s-eye view from above the coffin in Westminster Abbey. The continuous stream of world leaders. The thick crowds along the procession to Windsor, flinging flowers at the motorcade. The corgis.Viewers also saw and heard something unusual in the TV news environment: long stretches of unnarrated live action — the speaking of prayers, the clop of horse hooves — and moments of stillness. This was notable in the golf-whisper coverage on BBC World News, which let scenes like the loading of the coffin onto a gun carriage play out in silence, its screen bare of the usual lower-thirds captions.The commercial American networks, being the distant relations at this service, filled in the gaps with chattery bits of history and analysis. News departments called in the Brits. (On Fox News, the reality-TV fixtures Piers Morgan and Sharon Osbourne critiqued Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s media ventures.) “Royal commentators” broke down points of protocol and inventoried the materials and symbolism of the crown, scepter and orb like auction appraisers.The queen was the first British monarch to have a televised coronation, in June 1953.AFP via Getty ImagesBut even American TV fell still during the funeral ceremony. The cameras drank in the Gothic arches of Westminster Abbey, bathed in the hymns of the choirs, goggled at the royal jewels, lingered on the solemn face of Charles III during the performance of — it still sounds strange — “God Save the King.” Finally, we watched from above as bearers carried the coffin step by step across the black-and-white-diamond floor like an ornate chess piece.The quiet spectating was a gesture of respect but also a kind of tourist’s awe. We had come all this way; of course we wanted to take in the sights.Elizabeth’s reign was marked by unprecedented visibility, for better or worse. Her coronation in 1953 spurred the British to buy television sets, bringing the country into the TV age and inviting the public into an event once reserved for the upper crust.This changed something essential in the relation of the masses to the monarchy. The coronation, with its vestments and blessings, signified the exclusive connection of the monarch to God. Once that was no longer exclusive, everything else in the relationship between the ruler and the public was up for negotiation.The young queen resisted letting in the cameras. The prime minister Winston Churchill worried about making the ritual into a “theatrical performance.” But Elizabeth could no more stop the force of media than her forebear King Canute could halt the tide.TV undercut the mystique of royalty but spread its image, expanding the queen’s virtual reach even as the colonial empire diminished. There were other surviving monarchies in the world, but the Windsors were the default royals of TV-dom, the main characters in a generational reality-TV soap opera. They became global celebrities, through scandals, weddings, deaths and “The Crown.”The coronation had worldwide effects too. It began the age when TV would bring the world into your living room live — or at least close to it. In 1953, with live trans-Atlantic broadcasts still not yet possible, CBS and NBC raced to fly the kinescopes of the event across the ocean in airplanes with their seats removed to fit in editing equipment. (They both lost to Canada’s CBC, which got its footage home first.)The next day’s Times heralded the event as the “birth of international television,” marveling that American viewers “probably saw more than the peers and peeresses in their seats in the transept.” Boy, did they: NBC’s “Today” show coverage, which carried a radio feed of the coronation, included an appearance by its chimpanzee mascot, J. Fred Muggs. Welcome to show business, Your Majesty.The one limit on cameras at Elizabeth’s coronation was to deny them a view of the ritual anointment of the new queen. By 2022, viewers take divine omniscience for granted. If we can think of it, we should be able to see it.The hearse was designed to allow spectators to see the coffin as it passed by.Molly Darlington/Getty ImagesSo after Elizabeth’s death, you could monitor the convoy from Balmoral Castle in Scotland to London, with a glassy hearse designed and lit to make the coffin visible. You could watch the queen’s lying-in-state in Westminster Hall on live video feeds, from numerous angles, the silence broken only by the occasional cry of a baby or cough of a guard. The faces came and went, including the queen’s grandchildren joining the tribute, but the camera’s vigil was constant.After 70 years, however, television has lost its exclusive empire as well. Even as it broadcast what was described — plausibly but vaguely — as the most-watched event in history, traditional TV shared the funeral audience with the internet and social media.Elizabeth and the medium that defined her reign were both unifiers of a kind that we might not see again. Though not all of the British support the monarchy, the queen offered her fractious country a sense of constancy. TV brought together disparate populations in the communal experience of seeing the same thing at once.Now what? Tina Brown, the writer, editor and royal-watcher, asked on CBS, “Will anyone be loved by the nation so much again?” You could also ask: Will Charles’s coronation next year be nearly as big a global media event? Will anything? (You could also ask whether an event like this should be so all-consuming. While American TV news was wall-to-wall with an overseas funeral, Puerto Rico was flooded and without power from Hurricane Fiona.)Monday’s services felt like a capstone to two eras. For one day, we saw a display of the pageantry that the crown can command and the global audience that TV can.American TV spent its full morning with the queen. (Well, almost: CBS aired the season premiere of “The Price Is Right.”) The day’s pomp built toward one more never-before-broadcast ceremony, the removal of scepter, orb and crown from the coffin, which was lowered into the vault at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor. Then followed something almost unimaginable: A private burial service, with no TV cameras.Television got one final spectacle out of Elizabeth’s reign. And the queen had one final moment out of the public eye. More

  • 75 Shares189 Views

    in Theater

    Waving Goodbye to ‘Dear Evan Hansen’

    Sam Primack almost made it.“All I see is sky …” he sang. Then the actor, who was playing Evan Hansen on Broadway, paused, looked out at the 1,025 faces in the sold-out Music Box Theater. He shifted. Choked up. Looked down.“… for forever,” he finished, wiping back a tear as he let out the final two words of the show. It was the closing night of “Dear Evan Hansen,” the musical about a socially awkward teenager who tells a terrible lie.The audience — including superfans in striped blue polos; a handful of first-timers with suitcases who’d arrived straight from the airport; the musical’s creators, Benj Pasek, Justin Paul and Steven Levenson; and its director, Michael Greif — broke into a thunderous round of applause. (Five Evans — Andrew Barth Feldman, Stephen Christopher Anthony, Jordan Fisher, Michael Lee Brown and Zachary Noah Piser — arrived onstage later for a final bow.) Since its Broadway debut on Nov. 14, 2016, and with Sunday’s performance, “Dear Evan Hansen” had been seen by more than 1.5 million theatergoers and played 1,699 total performances.“I feel very loved,” a smiling Primack, 21, said in his dressing room after the show. Looking dapper in a maroon suit, he was clutching one of the bouquets of white hydrangeas given to cast members onstage after the performance.“It’s been unexpectedly short, but also, I’m happy that this is the way that it’s ending,” said Primack, who took over the titular role earlier this month.Calla Kessler for The New York Times“Dear Evan Hansen,” which won the Tony Award for best new musical in 2017, had its world premiere at Arena Stage in Washington in 2015, followed by an Off Broadway run at Second Stage Theater before a Broadway transfer. It went on to win six Tonys, as well as a Grammy Award for its cast album, and the Olivier Award for best new musical for the London production.But, like other long-running shows that restarted after the pandemic, it faced a new challenge: Tourists and international audiences that had not yet fully returned. In June, its producers announced that the curtain would soon come down for the final time; the West End production in London will also close in October, but the North American tour will continue. (Most recently, “The Phantom of the Opera” announced on Friday that it would close next year after 35 years.)“I’d like to blame it on Covid, I really would,” Stacey Mindich, the musical’s lead producer, wrote in an essay for American Theater magazine earlier this week. “But perhaps our story was too emotional for these already difficult times. Perhaps the poorly reviewed film of the same name diminished our audience. Perhaps it was just our time.”It was a bit of a cruel twist for Primack, whose casting was announced in February — before the show had set a closing date — and who took over the role less than two weeks ago, on Sept. 6. Though he began his career, when he was 17, as an understudy in the Broadway production for all three of the male leads — Evan, Connor Murphy and Jared Kleinman — and then joined the national tour as the Evan alternate, he got to play Evan just 12 times on the Broadway stage this month before clearing the rack of polo shirts out of his dressing room.Five actors who had previously played the socially awkward teenager in “Dear Evan Hansen” appeared onstage with the cast for a final bow on the show’s closing night. Calla Kessler for The New York Times“It’s been unexpectedly short, but also, I’m happy that this is the way that it’s ending,” Primack said before the show, seated in his dressing room surrounded by a red Upstate & Chill sticker, the book “Creativity, Inc.,” by the Pixar Animation co-founder Ed Catmull, and a closet cracked open to reveal a rack of striped blue polos.In an interview before that performance, and then in a brief conversation afterward — he had an after-party to get to, after all! — Primack, who grew up in Scottsdale, Ariz., reflected on being the final actor to play Evan on Broadway, how his own experiences with bullies informed his performance and whether Evan is a good person. These are edited excerpts from the conversations.You clearly had a lot of supporters in the house tonight. Who all did you invite?My whole family — my grandparents, my whole team, some of whom had never seen me perform before. And my teachers from high school are here.Were you a fan of the show before you were cast?I remember staying up until midnight knowing that the cast recording was going to come out, not even knowing what the show was about. I had heard “Waving Through a Window” and I was intrigued. I begged my mom to come to New York to see it, and I saw it with the original cast and got to meet Ben [Platt] afterward. I remember saying to all my friends, “I would love to be in this show more than anything,” so closing it feels like coming full circle.What’s the most challenging part of the show?The last 30 minutes, Evan gets to a real desperate and ugly and scary place that every night is a challenge. He is at a point where he will really do anything.What’s the best advice a former Evan has given you?Just breathe. Because you’re out there by yourself a lot of the time in these really dark scenarios, your mind can wander into really dark places.The musical was one of several long-running shows that restarted after the pandemic. “Perhaps our story was too emotional for these already difficult times,” wrote Stacey Mindich, the musical’s lead producer.Calla Kessler for The New York TimesCan you personally relate to Evan?I was in high school when the show came out, so I know what it was like, and what it’s still like, to go through this age of social media where everyone feels disconnected and people are putting on a front online. And I also have family members — and myself — who go through anxiety.How did you put your own stamp on the role?In middle school, I used to wear these really big shirts and I would pull on them a lot to hide myself from the bullies at school. And I fidget with my hands a lot, both of which are things I tried to bring in.Would you be friends with Evan?I would hope so — I was a theater kid in high school, so I always felt like I was on the outside looking in.Is he a good person?I don’t think people are good or bad. I think all people are flawed, and so is Evan.Why do you think the show resonates with people?People see themselves in the characters, and not just Evan. This is the first time a piece of theater has really touched on suicide and mental health and the stigmas around them. After the show, I have gotten a copious amount of “Thank you for seeing me, thank you for understanding me” messages. Or “This show has made me open up conversations with my own family.” That’s what kept me going for the last three and a half years.What’s next for you?I don’t know! I have to, for the first time since I got this, go back to auditioning, go back to all the hardships of being a working actor. But I’m really excited for the future and am just really happy that this show has propelled me to be able to get in some doors.Asked what’s next, Primack said that he was “just really happy that this show has propelled me to be able to get in some doors.”Calla Kessler for The New York TimesIf we looked in on Evan on his 27th birthday, what would he be doing?I hope that he’s still writing; I hope that he’s at a place in life where he knows that he can keep going forward. I think he ends the show in a place where he starts to learn that, but I hope that, 10 years down the line, he does really understand that things can get better.Let’s do a quick round of confirm or deny.OK!Evan is a Hufflepuff.Confirm.You have a striped polo in your closet.I do own a polo, but I don’t know if it’s striped.You use a saw to get the cast off your arm at intermission.Yes, thank goodness the dressers are also good at their jobs because we haven’t had an injury yet.The best song in the show is “You Will Be Found.”Oh, no, I think the best song is “For Forever.” It’s the first time we get to see Evan let go and be happy.When you saw the trailer for the film, you thought Ben Platt was wearing a wig.No comment!Given a choice, you would see “Hamilton” over “Dear Evan Hansen.”You can’t do that! But, I mean, I’d love to see “Hamilton” again — I’ve seen this show a thousand times. [Laughs] More

  • 138 Shares139 Views

    in Television

    Jennifer Bonjean, the Lawyer Who Defended R. Kelly and Bill Cosby

    Jennifer Bonjean has become known for her aggressive approach as she has defended men accused of sexual misconduct in several of the highest profile cases of the #MeToo era.Jennifer Bonjean, a defense lawyer who has the words “not guilty” tattooed on her right arm, called one woman who accused R. Kelly of sexual abuse a “pathological liar.” She accused another of extortion. She tried to pick their accounts apart, and attacked prosecutors for stripping her client, the former R&B star, of “every single bit of humanity that he has.”Ms. Bonjean, who was Mr. Kelly’s lead lawyer during the criminal trial in Chicago that ended with his conviction last week, has become known for her aggressive tactics in representing men accused of sexual misconduct in several of the highest profile cases of the #MeToo era.She helped Bill Cosby get his sexual assault conviction overturned last year, which led to his being freed from prison. She has also represented Keith Raniere, once the leader of the Nxivm sex cult, as he appealed his conviction on sex trafficking and other charges, for which he was sentenced to 120 years in prison.“Everyone’s entitled to a vigorous defense,” Ms. Bonjean, 52, said in an interview last week shortly before Mr. Kelly’s conviction on sex crimes involving minors was announced.Her theatrical, knock-down-drag-out style is hardly atypical in the world of criminal defense, but it has attracted attention at a time when #MeToo-era cases are reaching trial, as she has urged jurors to be skeptical of women who have testified, often through tears, about being sexually abused.“We are in an era of ‘believe women’ and I agree, but not in the courtroom,” Ms. Bonjean said during closing arguments in the Kelly case. “We don’t just believe women or believe anything. We scrutinize. There’s no place for mob-like thinking in a courtroom.”That perspective and her relentless cross-examination of accusers, which typically involves drilling them on any inconsistencies in their accounts and questioning their motives, has drawn criticism from those who say it could scare abused women from coming forward.Ms. Bonjean accompanied Bill Cosby when he returned to his home in Pennsylvania last year after she worked to overturn his conviction, and he was freed from prison.Mark Makela/ReutersLili Bernard, who has sued Mr. Cosby and accused him of drugging and sexually assaulting her in 1990, said she was upset by Ms. Bonjean’s behavior earlier this year where she defended Mr. Cosby in a civil case brought by a woman who said he had sexually assaulted her when she was a teenager. Ms. Bernard, who attended the trial in California, called the lawyer’s cross-examination of that woman, Judy Huth, and other accusers “victim blaming and victim shaming.”Originally from Valparaiso, Ind., Ms. Bonjean (pronounced bon-JEEN) is a classically trained opera singer who earned a master’s degree in music and once worked at a rape crisis center in Chicago, advocating for victims of sexual violence — a stint, she said, that some might now see “as ironic.”That job led her to study at Loyola University Chicago’s law school with the intention of becoming a prosecutor, but she ended up going into defense work after gravitating toward “underdog” clients. As a lawyer who views prosecutorial overstep as her driving force, she gained prominence by focusing on so-called wrongful conviction cases.Russell Ainsworth, a staff attorney at the Exoneration Project at the University of Chicago Law School, has worked with Ms. Bonjean on civil rights cases for a decade and said that typically, he plays the “straight guy,” while she “comes out swinging.”“If I needed a lawyer to go to the mat for me, that’s the lawyer I would choose,” he said.Her approach was on display earlier this year in the civil suit brought by Ms. Huth, who accused Mr. Cosby of sexually assaulting her at the Playboy Mansion in 1975, when she was 16.During Ms. Bonjean’s cross-examination of Ms. Huth, she challenged her on why it had taken her decades to come forward with her accusation. At one point she suggested that Ms. Huth had kept quiet about the trip to the mansion, not because she had buried painful memories, but because she was uncomfortable telling people that she had gone there with Mr. Cosby because he is Black. Ms. Huth strongly denied that.During the trial, Ms. Bonjean turned her attention to Ms. Bernard, and accused her in court of speaking with a juror during a break. She argued for a mistrial. (The judge denied Ms. Bonjean’s request.)“In that little moment that she tried to falsely accuse me, I felt the wrath of her, the depths she would go to,” Ms. Bernard said in an interview.Ms. Bonjean, whose firm is based in New York, said that she considers herself a feminist, insisting that the label is not inconsistent with her work as a defense lawyer for accused men. Her responsibility, she explained, is to exercise every legal lever at her disposal for her client, noting, “that will not always be consistent with sensitivity to a victim’s feelings.”And she contends that if she were a male lawyer, people wouldn’t think twice about her approach, simply chalking it up to a lawyer doing his job.“I’m supposed to be some type of ambassador — a vagina ambassador,” she said, “Seriously, I get a lot of those questions, like somehow I am traitorous to women by taking on these cases.”During Mr. Kelly’s Chicago case, Ms. Bonjean was boldly combative at every turn. She fought to keep as much of the video footage away from the jury as possible, maintained a steady stream of objections and sometimes kept the fight for her client going on Twitter.At one point, prosecutors complained to the judge about a tweet she posted in which she accused them of playing dirty tricks. Ms. Bonjean offered to refrain from tweeting about the court proceedings, she said, and the judge agreed. A few days later, Ms. Bonjean posted: “I’m not allowed to tweet but I think I can retweet,” sharing someone else’s tweet that quoted her from the trial, calling one of the government’s key witnesses “a liar, a thief and an extortionist.”“I had to find what worked for me,” Ms. Bonjean said of her approach. “My aggressive style — some people call it fiery, some people call it, whatever words you want to use to describe it, that was the way that I could be effective.”Debra S. Katz, a lawyer who has represented high-profile sexual misconduct accusers, said that defense tactics seeking to shred a woman’s credibility or impugn her character run the risk of failing with a jury, citing Harvey Weinstein’s conviction in New York, during which she represented one of the women accusing the producer of sexual assault.“Everybody deserves a defense, but to attack women in this way is, in my view, absolutely unconscionable,” Ms. Katz said.Ms. Bonjean’s highest profile success has been her role in appealing Mr. Cosby’s sexual assault conviction. She and her co-counsels persuaded the Pennsylvania Supreme Court that prosecutors violated Mr. Cosby’s rights by reneging on an apparent promise not to charge him on allegations that he drugged and sexually assaulted Andrea Constand in 2004.Mr. Cosby’s more recent civil trial ended with a jury finding against him that awarded Ms. Huth $500,000 in damages.In Mr. Kelly’s recent case, he was found guilty of some of the most serious charges, including of coercing minors into sexual activity and producing child sexual abuse videos. He was acquitted on several other charges, including that he had sought to obstruct an earlier investigation.In both cases, Ms. Bonjean has pledged to mount a vigorous appeal.Robert Chiarito contributed reporting from Chicago. More

  • 125 Shares99 Views

    in Television

    Sean Hayes to Star in Broadway Play About Oscar Levant

    “Good Night, Oscar,” by Doug Wright, explores the life of a pianist who became famous as a witty guest and host of midcentury radio and television shows.It was two decades ago when a friend first suggested to Sean Hayes that he consider playing Oscar Levant. He still remembers his reaction: “Who the hell is Oscar Levant?”Levant, he quickly learned, was a pianist who in the mid-20th century became famous for the mordant wit he displayed as a guest and host on radio and television talk shows, but had a life that was challenged by struggles with mental health and addiction. When another friend suggested Hayes think about Levant as a character, he got serious — watching archival footage, reading Levant’s books, and imagining some kind of performance.There were detours along the way — at one point, Hayes hoped to play Levant in a Steven Spielberg movie about George Gershwin, but the movie never happened — though the suggestion led to an idea which led to a script which led to a production, and next spring that show, called “Good Night, Oscar,” is coming to Broadway with Hayes in the leading role.“If I had nothing to do with this show, I would be absolutely enthralled with this human being that is Oscar Levant — he’s just incredible,” Hayes said in a telephone interview. “I’m just surprised how famous he was, and now nobody knows who he is. So another thrill for me is to reintroduce him to people, because he deserves to be remembered.”The show, by Doug Wright, had a first run earlier this year at the Goodman Theater in Chicago, where the Chicago Tribune critic Chris Jones raved about the play, and about Hayes.“It’s a stunner of a lead performance: moving, empathetic, deeply emotional and slightly terrifying,” Jones wrote. “Once this show arrives on Broadway, as it surely will, Hayes’ work here will be the talk of New York. So will the show, a piece with enough guts to take on the you-must-not-offend-me crew that now seems to run an industry actually founded on creative freedom.”The play, directed by Lisa Peterson, is scheduled to begin previews April 7 and to open April 24 at the Belasco Theater. The lead producers are Grove Entertainment (Beth Williams and Mindy Rich) and Barbara Whitman.Hayes, 52, is best known for his starring role on the television show “Will & Grace” (he played Jack). He has appeared on Broadway twice previously, scoring a Tony nomination in 2010 for his work in a revival of the musical “Promises, Promises,” and then in 2016 starring in a return engagement of the comedic play “An Act of God.”Hayes said he and Levant, although quite different in many ways, share traits that make the role interesting.“I know how it feels to have performance anxiety when playing piano — that was my major in college, I studied for 20 years, I thought I was going to be a conductor and a concert pianist, and that didn’t work out, and it didn’t work out for Oscar either,” he said. “It worked out that he was second banana in a bunch of movies, and I think I’m perceived as that even though the dream is always to lead and not follow.”And there’s more, Hayes said.“I don’t have any drug addiction, like he did, but the anxiety — I’m riddled with it, and some of the depression I have, so that’s kind of interesting,” Hayes said. “It’s just a dream come true for an actor to play a character with so many different facets and levels to him — you wish every part that you ever played in your life was as colorful.”Wright won both a Tony and a Pulitzer in 2004 for his play “I Am My Own Wife,” and he has written the book for four Broadway musicals, including “The Little Mermaid” and “Grey Gardens.” Wright also happened to be the screenwriter for the unproduced Spielberg film about Gershwin, who for a time was a close collaborator with Levant.“The Chicago run was exhilarating — we learned that Oscar’s humor isn’t dated, that it still feels topical, that it still has the power to shock and delight, and that, as one of the first historical figures to openly talk about his own battles with mental illness, we found audiences really responded to not only his humor but his vulnerability, as well,” Wright said.“One reason he has been so interesting to explore in the moment is he provokes a lot of questions about the role of humor in a culture — and, when a culture is under siege, what role can humor play,” Wright said. He added, “What are tenable subjects for humor, and doesn’t humor have a certain duty to, at times, rile and offend and invite change?” More

  • 138 Shares99 Views

    in Television

    ‘House of the Dragon,’ Season 1, Episode 5 Recap: Wedding Crashers

    The repercussions of Rhaenyra and Daemon’s illicit adventures continue to reverberate throughout the realm.Season 1, Episode 5: ‘We Light the Way’It’s not a real Westeros wedding until somebody starts screaming.Actually the wedding of Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen and Ser Laenor Velaryon hadn’t even begun when the wailing started, as the Rehearsal Dinner from Seven Hells erupted into paramour-on-paramour violence. By the time it was over, Joffrey (Solly McLeod), Laenor’s portentously named sparring partner, lay dead on the ballroom floor with a face like a collapsed Jell-O mold, and Ser Criston was ready to fall on his blade.They were the latest victims of Rhaenyra and Daemon’s big night out on the Street of Silk, the repercussions of which continue to reverberate throughout the realm. Last week, the fallout enveloped Otto, fired for revealing the transgressions to the king; Rhaenyra, finally cornered into a forced marriage; and Daemon, banished yet again (only to return yet again).This week the toll was more lethal. Ser Joffrey was joined in death by the bronze bride, Lady Rhea (Rachel Redford), after Daemon decided killing his wife was preferable to settling down with her. (Contrary to what we’ve heard, she was quite comely, but Targaryens prefer blondes. And relatives.) Those losses, in turn, upended the lives of Laenor, the grieving groom, and Rhea’s cousin, Ser Gerold Royce.Meanwhile, the slithery Larys Strong (Matthew Needham), who might as well have been wearing a sign around his neck that said “Sinister Schemer,” was igniting the embers of Alicent’s suspicion in the royal garden. I heard the princess was delivered some definitely-not-morning-after tea the other day, he told her, I hope she’s OK.The revelation and Ser Criston’s ensuing admission sent Alicent in search of a Hightower Green wedding-crashing dress, which she debuted with a resolute elegance that seems sure to make her father proud. Her strut through the ballroom, in the middle of the king’s speech, doubled as a statement of allegiance in the Iron Throne derby at the heart of this story. Spoiler alert: it’s not to the side that was hosting the wedding.Return to Westeros in ‘House of the Dragon’HBO’s long-awaited “Game of Thrones” prequel series is here.A Fantasy Face-Off: A few episodes into “House of the Dragon” and Amazon’s “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” here’s an early comparison between the two prequel series.The Sea Snake: Lord Corlys Velaryon, one of the most powerful people in the Seven Kingdoms, is a fearless sailor. Steve Toussaint, the actor who plays him, does better on land.A Rogue Prince: Daemon Targaryen, portrayed by Matt Smith, is an agent of chaos. But “he’s got a strange moral compass of his own,” the actor said.A Violent Birth Scene: Was the gory C-section in the show’s premiere the representation of a grim historical reality, an urgent political statement or a worn cultural cliché?All of which is to say: The scandal that began in that pleasure house is well on its way to enveloping everyone in the realm.One thing I’ve always enjoyed about George R.R. Martin’s storytelling is the way its momentous, world-changing events erupt from recognizable human impulses and flaws — jealousy, lust, insecurity, the desire to protect your family or conceal your shameful secrets. The sordid but genuine love between Cersei and Jaime Lannister animated “Game of Thrones”; the Red Wedding was revenge for a broken engagement; Daenerys’s sense of deep grievance drove her to traverse the globe and commit mass murder. (OK, her impulses and flaws were less recognizable than others …)Similarly, the current throne battle was set up by Viserys’s stubborn, perhaps misguided loyalty to his daughter, borne of his grief over his wife. Now the fallout from Daemon’s lust and desire to strike back at his brother, paired with Rhaenyra’s selfish recklessness and dishonesty, has seemingly deepened the primary rift to an irreparable degree.A vision in green: Emily Carey in “House of the Dragon.”Ollie Upton/HBODid you buy it? Alicent’s stridency seemed extreme in someone who has so far been circumspect and accommodating, particularly since it seemed motivated by the fact that Rhaenyra misled her — hardly a capital offense, but perhaps it represented the final break between the former friends. Otto also terrified her on his way out of town, with his warnings about the near future and the safety of her children, should Rhaenyra remain heir. Apparently all of the above, combined with the stark reality of Viserys’s ongoing circling of the royal drain, compelled her to conspicuously stand tall, as her uncle put it.Less convincing was the collapse of Ser Criston, who went from stalwart defender to violent basket case within a week or so. (The timeline was a little fuzzy this episode.)I guess we’re supposed to believe that Criston had been pushed past his limit: His dalliance with Rhaenyra, in breaking his Kingsguard chastity oath, shattered his self-image, and the princess compounded matters by rejecting his marriage plan and dismissing his dreams of Essos as little more than “a bushel of oranges.” The queen already knows all about his soiled cloak, thanks to his sitcom-level misunderstanding of her query about the Silk Street night. Perhaps learning that the snide Joffrey knew too, that this secret would hang over him forever, was more than Criston could bear. The only solution, apparently, was to beat the man to death on the dance floor.The speed and scale of Criston’s decline strained credulity. Maybe he was just that desperate to keep the secret hidden, though the mania of his attack suggested a kind of psychic break. Maybe another motivating factor will be revealed in the future. But from a narrative standpoint, the bludgeoning foreshadowed future bloodshed as it illustrated the unintended consequences of the royals’ actions and heedlessness.Based on Daemon’s advice, Rhaenyra thought she’d be able to have her wedding cake and boy-toy too. (She promised Laenor something similar.) What she got instead was a marriage ceremony that was terrible even by Westeros standards, with rotting food on the tables, a passed-out dad and rats licking up the blood of her new husband’s freshly murdered lover. And said boy-toy has now been claimed by her rival, who presumably plans to turn him into a different kind of plaything.So … congratulations?Viserys: monarch and medical mystery.Ollie Upton/HBOA few thoughts while we ask our doctor about …What do we think Viserys actually has, anyway? Any guesses? I tried entering “nose bleeds, fatigue, fainting, shortness of breath, nausea, open lesions and fingers falling off” into WebMD but no dice. Whatever he’s suffering from, thank goodness the Grand Maester was around to reject the maester intern’s herbal poultice in favor of another leeching. (For what it’s worth, Paddy Considine has said the king has “a form of leprosy.”)Now I feel bad about joking about Lady Rhea’s invisibility last week — no doubt she preferred it to what befell her on Sunday. While Daemon’s bloody campaign against King’s Landing criminals was cruel in its extremes, his apparent murder of his wife revealed a capacity for calculated evil.Rhea’s mocking question about whether Daemon was ready to finally consummate their marriage raised a couple of additional questions: One, does that mean his, uh, performance issues are a longstanding condition? I attributed his abandonment of Rhaenyra last week to a “crisis of conscience,” but in the aftershow segment, the “Dragon” creative team blamed impotence. We also saw his frustrations in the brothel in the premiere. Two, if Daemon never consummated the marriage, is he still entitled to Runestone and whatever else comprises the bronze bride’s estate?Somebody should probably warn Laena Velaryon (Savannah Steyn), last seen flirting with Daemon on the dance floor. She’s grown up, somewhat, and when wheezy old Viserys showed up at her house, she had to be thinking she dodged a bullet by not marrying him back when she was 12. She should dodge this one, too. (But probably won’t.)I assume the awful, rat-infested state of the ballroom during Rhaenyra and Lenore’s nuptials symbolized the bloody wreckage that will continue to result from this pairing, as predicted by Rhaenys. (“We are placing our son in danger,” she told the Sea Snake.) But come on, a castle full of servants couldn’t tidy up a little for the princess’ sad pop-up wedding?In case it wasn’t clear, Larys Strong is the son of Lyonel Strong (Gavin Spokes), the new Hand of the King, and brother to Harwin (Ryan Corr), the strapping fellow who carried Rhaenyra away from the wedding melee. Given Larys’s apparent Hightower loyalties and his father’s obligations to Viserys, things in House Strong could get complicated.“So you want me to be your whore,” Ser Criston said, incredulously if succinctly boiling down Rhaenyra’s post-wedding plans. Taking things out of their usual context invites you to consider them anew. Criston’s shock and shame reminds us about all the times we’ve unthinkingly watched women be used in similar fashion on “Game of Thrones” and a hundred other shows.Finally, Sunday’s episode was the last one for Milly Alcock and Emily Carey, who will be replaced next week by Emma D’Arcy, as Rhaenyra, and Olivia Cooke, as Alicent. Consider the job these young women were given: To anchor, alongside far more seasoned actors, the high-stakes follow-up to the biggest hit HBO has ever had, in front of a global audience of many millions. They handled it with an impressive amount of talent and grace. I’m excited to see what they do next.What do you think? Do Rhaenyra and Laenor have any future at all? Is Alicent officially off on her own Hightower power trip? How many fingers would you have to lose before alerting Westeros’s Centers for Disease Control? Fire away with whatever remaining digits you have in the comments. More