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    Review: ‘Tammany Hall’ Votes the Party Line

    An immersive show at the SoHo Playhouse takes theatergoers back to a speakeasy in 1929, when New York was also in a mayoral race.On Tuesday, New York’s citizens weighed in on a mayoral race between a vegan former police captain and a beret-wearing cat enthusiast.Despite those cats — all 16 of them — the fun seems to have gone out of our local electoral politics recently. If you find yourself longing for a return to a time of grift and scandal, you could do worse than “Tammany Hall,” an immersive theatrical event at SoHo Playhouse.After patrons present their vaccine cards and power down their phones, they are led up a staircase and into Election Day, 1929, at the Huron Club, a speakeasy controlled by Tammany Hall, New York City’s infamous political machine. (The Huron Club was a real establishment and it really stood at 15 Vandam Street, SoHo Playhouse’s current address.)In 1929, the mayoral race was between Jimmy Walker, known as Beau James, the Tammany-backed incumbent, and Fiorello La Guardia, a petite Republican reformer. Before the night is through, ticket holders are asked to cast a ballot for one or the other. Or several ballots. That’s the Tammany way.At 90 minutes, that night is brief, maybe too brief, and feels less like an immersive soak in Prohibition New York than a slug of bathtub gin. The evening begins with a quick debate, set in a boxing ring since Walker helped to legalize boxing. Walker (Martin Dockery), a rangy charmer, delivers a swift K.O. to Christopher Romero Wilson’s blustery La Guardia. And no surprise there, as Walker was a man who enraptured even The New York Times editorial board, who praised “his great personal charm, his talent for friendship, his broad sympathies.”But unless you have pickled yourself in the minutiae of Depression-era party politics in advance of the evening, the debate won’t make much sense. I wish this weren’t so, because while Walker benefited from immense corruption, he also created the Department of Sanitation, expanded the subway and improved parks and playgrounds — a complexity that seems worth probing.Created by Darren Lee Cole, SoHo Playhouse’s artistic director, and Alexander Flanagan-Wright, who directed an immersive version of “The Great Gatsby,” the piece seems most interested in delivering short scenes and louche vibes. Walker, a songwriter and theater lover, was a good-time guy who sanctioned Sunday movies and baseball games, as well as vehemently opposing Prohibition. Perhaps honoring his legacy, “Tammany Hall” seems less interested in political platforms than in making sure you’re merrily voting a party line, drink in hand. (And it doesn’t really matter how you do vote. As in recorded history, Walker wins by a landslide.)Marie Anello as Betty Compton, Chloe Kekovic as KiKi, Charly Wenzel as Ritzi and Sami Petrucci as Smarty in “Tammany Hall.”Maria BaranovaYou know those parties where you feel like the real action is just one room away? That was my experience of “Tammany Hall.” As the debate ended, my date and I were hijacked by a showgirl, Sami Petrucci’s Smarty, and taken downstairs to the theater for a preview of “Violet,” a new show starring Walker’s lover and future wife Betty Compton (Marie Anello). As my date was dragooned into a kickline, elsewhere, other groups and individuals went off to join other scenes, which may have been heavier on intrigue. What’s 1920s slang for the fear of missing out? I had that.An immersive show asks you to escape reality, surrendering to a 360-degree fictional world. The fiction of “Tammany Hall,” indifferently acted, doesn’t entirely convince or offer much depth, and the environs (with wallpaper-heavy sets by Dan Daly, period costumes by Grace Jeon and subdued lighting by Emily Clarkson) feel low-budget. Maybe the real Huron Club was low-budget, too? But at just 90 minutes, “Tammany Hall” shoves you back onto the street before you can surrender to the celebration.While patrons are masked and must show proof of vaccination, those masks come down for drinking — it is a speakeasy after all — and the actors don’t socially distance, making it that much harder to leave our current world behind. Do we really want the ’20s to roar? Think of all of those airborne droplets.Tammany HallThrough Jan. 9 at the SoHo Playhouse, Manhattan; sohoplayhouse.com. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. More

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    At the Radio City Christmas Show, Some Workers Worry About Covid Rules

    Employees must all be vaccinated, but some are upset that the upcoming show is not also testing them for the virus, as is done on Broadway and at other major performing venues.Some of the people who put on the Radio City Music Hall Christmas show are expressing concerns about the Covid-19 protocols in place for workers as the show prepares to open on Friday night.All the employees for the “Christmas Spectacular Starring the Radio City Rockettes” must be vaccinated. But other aspects of the annual Christmas pageant’s policy are not in line with those put in place by Broadway theaters, the Metropolitan Opera and some other live performance spaces across the city, according to email correspondence and a policy document reviewed by The New York Times.Unlike on Broadway, at the New York Philharmonic and the New York City Ballet, for example, the Madison Square Garden Entertainment company that produces the show and owns the theater is not requiring employees to be tested for the virus. Unions representing some of the employees of the show have raised the matter of testing to the show’s management, according to an email reviewed by The Times.Management at the Music Hall says the protocols it has in place are completely safe, were developed in conjunction with health and safety experts and have been used successfully at a roster of shows in the venue since late summer.“We believe our protocols are more than adequate to protect people in our building,” a spokeswoman for Madison Square Garden Entertainment, Kimberly Kerns, said. “The show has more than 1,000 employees. While there are a vocal few that don’t agree, the vast majority are excited about coming to work.”Under the Music Hall’s policy, masks are recommended but not required for artists, cast and crew members, which differs from the protocol at many performing arts institutions like Carnegie Hall. In addition, at Radio City, not all audience members must wear masks as is the case with all Broadway shows. (The “Christmas Spectacular” is admitting audience members with one dose of a two-dose vaccine, and they will have to wear masks. But fully vaccinated audience members who are 12 or older will not be required to wear a face covering.)Kerns emphasized that Radio City Music Hall is a vastly different kind of venue than a Broadway theater. It is far bigger, with 6,000 seats and more space between the stage and the audience, she said. And, importantly, she said, company officials believe the venue’s air filtration system is “just as good — and most likely better” than any system at any performance venue in the city.The spokeswoman also noted that management does recommend wearing a mask. She said the show has provided information on where and how to get a test off site. And she reiterated that the company is using the same protocols for the “Christmas Spectacular” that it has used effectively for other events at Radio City and other properties the company owns. (Madison Square Garden, another of its venues, has been home to Knicks games and concerts at which vaccinated audience members did not have to wear a mask.)Four unions representing the show’s musicians, stagehands, dressers and its dancers, the Rockettes, did not respond to requests for comment.The “Christmas Spectacular” runs for roughly eight weeks, employs more than 1,000 people, and delights several thousand audience members at each show. On some days during the run, the “Christmas Spectacular” is performed four times in a single day..css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-k59gj9{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;width:100%;}.css-1e2usoh{font-family:inherit;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;border-top:1px solid #ccc;padding:10px 0px 10px 0px;background-color:#fff;}.css-1jz6h6z{font-family:inherit;font-weight:bold;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.5rem;text-align:left;}.css-1t412wb{box-sizing:border-box;margin:8px 15px 0px 15px;cursor:pointer;}.css-hhzar2{-webkit-transition:-webkit-transform ease 0.5s;-webkit-transition:transform ease 0.5s;transition:transform ease 0.5s;}.css-t54hv4{-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-1r2j9qz{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-e1ipqs{font-size:1rem;line-height:1.5rem;padding:0px 30px 0px 0px;}.css-e1ipqs a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}.css-e1ipqs a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}.css-1o76pdf{visibility:show;height:100%;padding-bottom:20px;}.css-1sw9s96{visibility:hidden;height:0px;}.css-1in8jot{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;font-family:’nyt-franklin’,arial,helvetica,sans-serif;text-align:left;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1in8jot{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-1in8jot:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1in8jot{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}What to Know About Covid-19 Booster ShotsThe F.D.A. has authorized booster shots for millions of recipients of the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines. Pfizer and Moderna recipients who are eligible for a booster include people 65 and older, and younger adults at high risk of severe Covid-19 because of medical conditions or where they work. Eligible Pfizer and Moderna recipients can get a booster at least six months after their second dose. All Johnson & Johnson recipients will be eligible for a second shot at least two months after the first.Yes. The F.D.A. has updated its authorizations to allow medical providers to boost people with a different vaccine than the one they initially received, a strategy known as “mix and match.” Whether you received Moderna, Johnson & Johnson or Pfizer-BioNTech, you may receive a booster of any other vaccine. Regulators have not recommended any one vaccine over another as a booster. They have also remained silent on whether it is preferable to stick with the same vaccine when possible.The C.D.C. has said the conditions that qualify a person for a booster shot include: hypertension and heart disease; diabetes or obesity; cancer or blood disorders; weakened immune system; chronic lung, kidney or liver disease; dementia and certain disabilities. Pregnant women and current and former smokers are also eligible.The F.D.A. authorized boosters for workers whose jobs put them at high risk of exposure to potentially infectious people. The C.D.C. says that group includes: emergency medical workers; education workers; food and agriculture workers; manufacturing workers; corrections workers; U.S. Postal Service workers; public transit workers; grocery store workers.Yes. The C.D.C. says the Covid vaccine may be administered without regard to the timing of other vaccines, and many pharmacy sites are allowing people to schedule a flu shot at the same time as a booster dose.Several company members, who asked not to be named because they said they were concerned about possible retaliation, said they worried about working in cramped spaces backstage; they also noted that they have family members at home who are at risk.Infectious-disease experts say the best way to protect the health and wellness of theater cast and crew members involves a combination of vaccination, air filtration, frequent testing and mandatory masking backstage.At some other venues, employers are requiring, providing and paying for Covid tests for their vaccinated arts workers. Broadway employees are currently being tested at least twice a week. People who work regularly at the Met Opera are expected to take one weekly test between Saturday and Tuesday and another between Wednesday and Friday. The New York Philharmonic tests members of its orchestra as well as crew and staff members who interact with the orchestra once per week.“Not having people mask in a full theater — I’m not ready for that yet,” said Dr. Danielle Ompad, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at New York University. “For a group of employees who are walking around without masks because that’s part of the performance — I would still want to be able to get tested.”Though transmission has been rare at live performance venues so far this fall season, Broadway productions like “Aladdin” caught positive cases within its company through testing and were able to resume performances in relatively short order. More

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    'Big Mouth' and Other Adult-Animation Series Worth Watching

    In a rising tide of animated series, Netflix’s “Big Mouth,” Funimation’s “Sonny Boy” and HBO Max’s “Ten Year Old Tom” are worth catching.There are many growth areas in television these days, but few are as busy or offer as much variety as adult animation. Already the format for more than a few of the recent past’s most richly entertaining shows — “Bojack Horseman,” “Bob’s Burgers,” “Rick and Morty,” “Archer,” “Tuca & Bertie” — it has only gained momentum. New series arrive every week (and that’s not counting the quarterly infusion of anime), perhaps driven by a combination of evolving tastes and pandemic-induced production shifts.They can take the form of superhero and science-fiction genre stories, like Amazon Prime Video’s “Invincible,” HBO Max’s “Gen:Lock” (premiering Thursday) or Adult Swim’s “Blade Runner: Black Lotus” (Nov. 13). Many still crop up in the broad category of wacky-family comedies, like Fox’s “The Great North” or “The Harper House” on Paramount+. Some lean into animation’s license for transgression, like Adult Swim’s “Teenage Euthanasia,” Netflix’s “Chicago Party Aunt” or Tubi’s “The Freak Brothers” (Nov. 14). Others, you suspect, might require too much courage to try to pull off with live actors, like “Fairfax,” Amazon’s satire of teen influencers and hypebeast culture, or “Q-Force,” Netflix’s irreverent comedy about a cadre of L.G.B.T.Q. spies.Inspired by the return of Netflix’s “Big Mouth,” here are three excellent adult-animation series that take very different approaches to the same goal: Whether it’s through theatrical smuttiness, minimalist degradation or surreal fantasy, each has something to say about the real lives of young people.‘Big Mouth’The most unrelentingly and entertainingly dirty show on the small screen returns with a fifth season on Friday. Like neurotic New Yorkers in a Sondheim musical, its adolescent characters are endlessly talkative when it comes to their obsessions: masturbation, the dimensions of the organs involved in masturbation, the likes and dislikes of the classmates they think about while they’re masturbating.The show continues to use the sexual and romantic panic of its perpetual middle schoolers as a frame for commentary that is earnest but mercifully unpedantic; early episodes of Season 5 take on subjects like body image and the shame-free universality of being a teenage perv. And the rapid-fire jokes are as sharp as those on many shows better known for their topical humor. (The budding activist Missy, voiced by Ayo Edebiri, leads a campaign against the school’s problematic mascot, the Scheming Gypsy.)Nick Kroll, a creator of the show, and John Mulaney give vivid life to the central characters, the neurotic nerd Nick and the brash nerd Andrew. But what sets “Big Mouth” apart is its collection of shaggy hormone monsters, sleek love bugs and other beings sent from an alternate dimension to help guide the human teenagers through their difficult years, spicing questionable advice with insults and raunchy one-liners. It’s as if adolescence had a particularly gamy lounge act as its soundtrack, a conceit made literal in the Shame Wizard, a master of dispensing shame because he can’t feel it himself; David Thewlis wraps the character in glorious layers of smarm. (Stream it on Netflix.)In “Sonny Boy,” lost middle schoolers must learn to work together in order to return home.Funimation‘Sonny Boy’As coming-of-age allegories go, this recently completed anime series, on Funimation, is right on the nose. A school building suddenly drifts out of our world and is suspended in a black void; the 36 middle schoolers trapped inside must overcome their anxieties and jealousies and work together to find a way back, a process commonly known as growing up. The voyagers also acquire strange new powers, as teenagers tend to do. The coolest kid can fly; an antagonistic outsider can order whatever she wants from her own magical version of Amazon, and has to keep the community supplied with material goods.The challenges they face are also easy to parse as Japanese social critique: the student-council types institute rules that keep everyone constantly working; students who freeze in place like statues turn out to have disappeared into “Twin Peaks”-style curtained rooms where they can play video games or lift weights in solitude. (A girl is chastised for calling them hikikomori, the Japanese term for extreme recluses.) Western viewers won’t have too much trouble following along, even though the story is told in the elliptical, fragmentary style typical of science-fiction anime.A healthy appetite for teenage romanticism can get you through “Sonny Boy” despite the middling writing, but the real reason to watch the 12-episode season is the striking animation overseen by the director Shingo Natsume — minimalist but evocative in the character designs, and lusciously detailed and inventive in the psychedelic succession of worlds the travelers pass through. The animation studio Madhouse has a proud tradition in feature anime, and the work of Natsume and his artists (including the manga veteran Hisashi Eguchi) recalls some Madhouse landmarks: the elegant frenzy of Satoshi Kon’s “Paprika,” the languorous melancholy of Mamoru Hosoda’s “The Girl Who Leapt Through Time.” (Stream it on Funimation.)“Ten Year Old Tom” follows a nervous boy and his shady role models, including an ice cream truck driver voiced by David Duchovny.HBO Max‘Ten Year Old Tom’In 2008 HBO premiered “The Life and Times of Tim,” a roughly animated (the characters looked Etch A Sketched), quietly raunchy workplace cringe comedy that built a small but devoted following. Weighing the show’s insider cred against its paltry viewership, HBO canceled “Tim” after two seasons, changed its mind, and then canceled it for good after Season 3.But that was before HBO Max, which is now the home of the first season of “Ten Year Old Tom,” the writer and director Steve Dildarian’s follow-up to “The Life and Times of Tim.” If you were part of the earlier series’ cult, you’ll be happy to know that “Tom” is largely the same show. The animation and the dialogue are as crude as you remember, and the 10-year-old hero is a mini-Tim, downtrodden and subject to constant embarrassment but more bemused than upset. Being slightly more sane than everyone around him is no defense against the elaborate scenarios of humiliation that Dildarian constructs.Tom, voiced by Dildarian in a diffident monotone that slides into strangled alarm, is a wised-up Charlie Brown; he talks like an adult but his ignorance of things like condoms or how to start a fire without burning down the house gets him into trouble. His moral compass is wider than those of the adults around him, but he’s easily led astray. The cast of bad role models includes David Duchovny as a sketchy ice cream truck driver, Jennifer Coolidge (returning from “Tim”) as the loudly entitled mother of one of Tom’s friends and a highly amusing John Malkovich as Mr. B, the tyrant in charge of band, yearbook, the spelling team and who knows what else at Tom’s school. (Stream it on HBO Max.) More

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    Stephen Colbert: Biden Got the Pope’s Blessing

    “The pope telling you you’re a good Catholic is like a bear telling you you’re good at pooping in the woods,” Colbert said of President Biden, who visited the Vatican over the weekend.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.90 Minutes With the PopePresident Biden over the weekend visited the Vatican, where he gave Pope Francis a coin and parted ways by saying, “God love ya.”“Yeah, he does,” Stephen Colbert joked on Monday’s “Late Show.” “Pretty sure that’s the papal job description on LinkedIn: ‘God love ya. Must be good with crowds. Some Latin required. Five to 10 years’ waving experience.’”“That is the most unnecessary ‘God love ya’ in history. You don’t need to say ‘God love ya’ to the pope — he knows God loves him. He had dinner with him last night.” — TREVOR NOAH“You’ve got to give it to Joe Biden. It took everything in his power to not make the coin appear behind the pope’s ear.” — TREVOR NOAH“But I think the meeting was cool for him to see because it’s nice. Because even though these two men are some of the most powerful leaders in the world, when it comes down to it, they’re just a couple of old guys hanging out, showing off their coin collection, talking about alcohol, making inappropriate ethnic jokes.” — TREVOR NOAH“Biden has gotten flack from right-wing Catholic bishops for being pro-choice, but during the meeting, the pope said he should keep receiving communion, and called Biden ‘a good Catholic.’ OK, that’s legit. That’s legit. That’s the stamp of approval right there. The pope telling you you’re a good Catholic is like a bear telling you you’re good at pooping in the woods.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Much of Biden’s visit was confidential, but parts were broadcast on Vatican television, home of hits like, ‘Say Yes to the Vestment,’ ‘The Prodigal Brothers’ and ‘Bob Covets Abishola.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“I mean I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that Biden’s meeting with the pope was three times as long as Trump’s. I mean, knowing Biden, he puts in a good 40 minutes with the barista when he pops into Starbucks.” — SETH MEYERSThe Punchiest Punchlines (Sometime This Century Edition)“All right, now, after President Biden exchanged Irish jokes with the pope, he caught an Uber to Rome for the G20 summit where he and other world leaders got down to business.” — TREVOR NOAH“They agreed to create a global minimum corporate tax rate of 15 percent, which is expected to raise hundreds of billions of dollars until the corporations find a different loophole about five minutes afterwards.” — TREVOR NOAH“The first time you see people in person post-pandemic is always awkward. It explains the G20 itinerary: ‘See another world leader approaching; wonder if they’re going for a handshake; notice they’re actually coming in for a hug; hug them, only to realize maybe they weren’t and you just made it awkward; call out the fact that you made it awkward and joke about how you’ve forgotten how to interact with other humans; solve climate change?’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Climate change was one of the main things on the agenda, and the G20 leaders took a bold stand, pledging to achieve global net-zero greenhouse-gas emissions by or around midcentury. That doesn’t sound very urgent. It’s like calling 9-1-1 and having the operator tell you the E.M.T.s will be there sometime between the hours of noon and the funeral.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“I’m sorry, guys, but how is climate change the most pressing issue facing humanity but then your plan is to do something about it by more or less 2050? Like that’s a pretty good sign something isn’t going to actually get done. If somebody says, ‘Yeah, yeah, we should hang out sometime. What’s your schedule looking like in 2050?’ You’ll never see the person again.” — TREVOR NOAH“Not to mention, I’m looking at the people making the pledge — half of them aren’t even going to be around in 2050. That’s genius — ‘When are we fixing this? How much time do I have left? Yeah, yeah — around then!” — TREVOR NOAH“So basically what they’ve done is said, ‘I want to lose 100 pounds by the summer so I’m going to do five push-ups by the day and then I don’t know, maybe I’ll get tapeworm. We’ll see what happens.’” — TREVOR NOAHThe Bits Worth WatchingJimmy Kimmel didn’t ask for videos of adults tricking their kids into believing they ate all their Halloween treats for his annual challenge this year, but some parents just couldn’t resist.What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightTom Hanks will talk about his latest film, “Finch,” on Tuesday’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”Also, Check This Out“Every woman I know — doesn’t matter what they look like, or if they’ve commodified their image or not — knows what it feels like to be looked at, to be rejected, to get attention for how they look,” Emily Ratajkowski said.Caroline Tompkins for The New York TimesIn her debut essay collection, “My Body,” the model and influencer Emily Ratajkowski writes about cashing in on her image for a living. More

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    Review: Embodying Justice in ‘Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992’

    Anna Deavere Smith’s one-woman play about the aftermath of the Rodney King case gets a cast of five in an updated Off Broadway revival.For Anna Deavere Smith, the transcript is the tool. A fine tool, certainly: Her brand of verbatim theater, perfected in a series of documentary plays since the early 1980s, duplicates the expressive peculiarities of real speech, making every defensive stammer and evasive curlicue count.But thrilling as it is, mere mimicry is never the point. In an essay Smith describes actors as “cultural workers” reaching out, through words, into “that which is different from themselves.” Her goal is ambitious: to undo tribalism by modeling the innately human ability to empathize even with enemies.This makes for some very complex drama when you don’t know who the enemy is. In “Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992,” which opened in a watered-down yet still urgent revival by the Signature Theater Company on Monday evening, Smith juggles excerpts from 320 interviews with people on all sides of the riots that broke out in the city’s South Central neighborhood that year. Arranging them in kaleidoscopic patterns, she keeps your sympathies switching so fast you find yourself experiencing a kind of moral whiplash.Smith often plays every character in the first major productions of her plays. In “Twilight,” that means swiftly embodying some 40 people of various ages, genders and ethnicities. Talking about the uprising that followed the acquittal of the police officers who viciously beat King in 1991, they try to explain what happened, no two having the same point of view.Some see the events through a professional lens, whether as politicians, reporters, academics or activists. But most of the interviewees are emotional rather than analytical, as members of the Black, white, Hispanic and Asian American communities — whether they participated in the post-verdict mayhem or were beaten as bystanders or hid out in horror in Beverly Hills — poke through the rubble for clues to the cause. Is it to be found as far back as the Watts riots of 1965? Or as recently as the fatal shooting of a local 15-year-old Black girl by a Korean American store owner two weeks after King was beaten?When the store owner receives a sentence of five years’ probation, and then King’s attackers are likewise let off without prison sentences, justice seems like a zero-sum game to the play’s Black characters: What privileges one community is taken from another. Yet when everyone is embodied by one actor, as was the case when “Twilight” debuted in Los Angeles in 1993, followed by runs at the Public Theater and on Broadway in 1994, the audience is led to a different conclusion: Justice is all or nothing. It can’t exist anywhere if it doesn’t exist everywhere.Unfortunately, the power of that idea is attenuated in the Signature production, directed by Taibi Magar in the 294-seat Irene Diamond auditorium. As part of Smith’s multiyear residency at the theater, “Twilight” has been staged as an ensemble piece, the roles divvied among five actors. Smith has also revised the script heavily, mostly in ways that support the casting at the expense of the drama.This is less noticeable when, in the more substantial monologues, characters describe, with pathos and unintentional poetry, what they saw or what they felt. Among several others, King’s aunt (Tiffany Rachelle Stewart), a city clerk who witnessed the beating (Elena Hurst) and the wife of a Korean American shopkeeper shot during the unrest (Francis Jue) get enough time to create affecting portraits.But when the script calls for shorter snippets and quicker alternation, too much energy is dissipated in the handoffs, sometimes involving the donning or shedding of Linda Cho’s sociologically precise costumes. Even so, they remind you how Smith could switch sides in milliseconds, with the help of just a scarf or a tie or a cup of tea.From left, Tiffany Rachelle Stewart, Francis Jue, Elena Hurst, Karl Kenzler and Jones.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesIt is something of a paradox that the divided casting also results in caricature, as the actors overcompensate, in a way Smith never did, for the difficulty of achieving contrast. The story told in the published script by a juror in the federal trial of the King assailants is here reframed as a self-conscious scene involving the whole cast; it still has powerful elements, to be sure, yet unintentionally broad results. And in a passage called “A Dinner Party That Never Happened” — projections by David Bengali help keep the audience oriented on an otherwise neutral stage — the piercing opinions of characters at an imaginary soiree hosted by the chef Alice Waters now come off as bon mots.Also not helping: the appearance of a cheap-laugh Charlton Heston, twitting his liberal friends who suddenly want a gun.Experimentation in the production of classics is crucial, especially in that difficult passage after their debut when most new works disappear. Smith, who is 71, no doubt hopes to see her work performed in the future as much as possible and is exploring ways to ensure that.Still, I found myself wondering why she, and Magar, whose staging is caught between the simplicity of the original premise and an unachieved larger one, chose this form of experiment.In light of recent discussions about representation in the theater, perhaps it seemed wise to give actors whose identities in some ways match that of the characters the chance to portray them. This is handled well by being handled unstrictly: Jue, the great-grandson of Chinese immigrants, plays several Asian American characters, both male and female, but also (with great depth) the Black soprano Jessye Norman. Yet other times, the matchups feel too obvious or, as in the mostly similar roles performed by Karl Kenzler and Wesley T. Jones, too blurry.Jue plays several Asian American characters, both male and female, and also Jessye Norman.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesAnd perhaps there was concern that the story itself, now nearly 30 years old, needed the punch of physical confrontation that more bodies allow. That too strikes me as a mistake. The Signature’s 2019 revival of Smith’s “Fires in the Mirror,” about the unrest between Blacks and Hasidic Jews in Crown Heights in 1991, proved that her plays are vigorous enough to stand as written, and that one very flexible and compelling actor — in that case, Michael Benjamin Washington — could walk in Smith’s shoes as successfully as she walked in her characters’.Though I wish “Twilight” had taken the same approach, it nevertheless demands attention in any format. Its nuanced portrayal of the cycle of violence — and its exploration of the means of breaking it — are obviously just as necessary now as when Los Angeles was actively smoldering. If the production makes the play more of a lesson than it needs to be, Smith’s notion that history depends on individuals more than groups, a notion best dramatized with one body, still comes through with five.Or with 294; we are all, in a way — and whether we want to be or not — cultural workers. “Twilight” doesn’t just ask us to build empathy but also demonstrates how.Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992Through Nov. 14 at Signature Theater, Manhattan; signaturetheatre.org. Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes. More

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    in Theater

    Changing of the Guard at Williamstown Theater Festival

    Mandy Greenfield has resigned and Jenny Gersten will be interim artistic director. The festival gave no reason for the move, but it follows complaints about working conditions.The artistic director of the prestigious Williamstown Theater Festival has stepped down after complaints by some employees about working conditions there.The festival said Monday that Mandy Greenfield, who has been the artistic director since 2014, had resigned late last month. Jenny Gersten, who had led the festival from 2010 to 2014, will return as interim artistic director during the search for a new leader.The summer festival, which runs in the Berkshires region of Western Massachusetts and has traditionally relied in part on a pool of young seasonal workers, did not offer a reason for the change of leadership. But it follows a pair of reports in The Los Angeles Times detailing concerns by employees — sound crew members who objected to working outdoors, on a show set in a reflecting pool, during rainy weather, and former employees, many of them onetime interns, who expressed other safety concerns.The festival said in a news release that the leadership change “will ensure a future vision that not only expands on the Festival’s well-respected legacy, but one that is accountable, safe and equitable for all.”In a statement, Greenfield said that her “goal as artistic director was to swing for the fences, make art and try to improve and evolve every day.”“In 2019, I declined to renew a multiyear contract offered to me by the Festival; while flattered to be asked to continue, I agreed instead to stay on for two years, on a year-to-year basis,” she said. “I also publicly committed to leadership transition as I deeply believe, influenced by the British tradition, that theatrical institutions must empower new, diverse leaders in regular, shorter intervals than is the custom in the United States.”Jenny Gersten, who had led the festival from 2010 to 2014, is returning as interim artistic director.Stewart Cairns for The New York TimesGreenfield’s tenure featured a notable number of artistic successes, including Broadway transfers for “Grand Horizons,” “The Sound Inside,” “The Rose Tattoo,” “Fool for Love” and “Living on Love,” as well as multiple Off Broadway transfers.Gersten has held a variety of positions in the theater world. Currently, she is producer of musical theater at New York City Center, and is a line producer of “Beetlejuice,” which is returning to Broadway next spring. She plans to continue in both of those roles. More

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    in Television

    The Best Movies and TV Shows Coming to Amazon, HBO, Hulu and More in November

    Every month, streaming services add movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our picks for some of November’s most promising new titles.(Note: Streaming services occasionally change schedules without giving notice. For more recommendations on what to stream, sign up for our Watching newsletter here.)Rosamund Pike, center, as the mystic Moiraine escorting the young heroes of “The Wheel of Time.”Jan Thijs/Amazon Studios New to Amazon‘The Wheel of Time’ Season 1Starts streaming: Nov. 19Robert Jordan’s “The Wheel of Time” saga spans 14 fantasy novels plus various supplemental works, with the last of the books having been completed posthumously by the author’s colleague Brandon Sanderson. So if Amazon’s TV version of catches on, there’ll be enough story to tell to keep the show running longer than the “Game of Thrones” series and “The Lord of the Rings” movies combined. “The Wheel of Time” starts as simply as the novels do: with the tale of the mystic Moiraine (Rosamund Pike) who helps a group of young people escape the shadow forces pursuing them, while knowing that someone in her charge may be their land’s long-prophesied champion in an ancient, eternally recurring battle against civilization-destroying chaos agents. As with the books, the TV series is as much character-driven as it is lore-driven.Also arriving:Nov. 5“The Electrical Life of Louis Wain”“A Man Named Scott”“Tampa Baes”Nov. 12“Always Jane”“Mayor Pete”Nov. 19“Everybody Loves Natti”Nov. 29“Burning”Jeremy Renner and Hailee Stanfield in “Hawkeye.”Chuck Zlotnick/Marvel StudiosNew to Disney+‘Hawkeye’Starts streaming: Nov. 24The recent run of Marvel Cinematic Universe TV series have featured some real departures, with shows like “WandaVision,” “Loki” and “What If…?” sporting unusual narrative structures and stories that ventured into the more mystical areas of Marvel Comics. But the six-part mini-series “Hawkeye” promises to be more of a grounded action-adventure, in the vein of “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” (and with some of the same characters). Jeremy Renner reprises his role as the Avengers’ resident archer and family man Clint Barton, who finds himself training a protégée, Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld), in hopes that he can take care of his latest crisis and get home in time for Christmas. “Hawkeye” was inspired in part by comic book stories penned by Matt Fraction, who brought a playful quality to the title character that should carry over well to television.‘The Beatles: Get Back’Starts streaming: Nov. 25The 1970 documentary “Let It Be” captured both the recording of one of the Beatles’ final albums and the personality conflicts that ultimately led to the band’s breakup. The director Peter Jackson’s three-part docuseries “Get Back” takes the original footage from that documentary (supervised at the time by the director Michael Lindsay-Hogg) and refashions it into a larger story: about the making of the original film, and about what was really happening in the Beatles’ lives back then that even a fly-on-the-wall camera couldn’t catch. Jackson’s version is meant to be a more nuanced take on the band circa 1970, catching the passive-aggressive sniping but also the genuine pleasure these musicians took in working together on classic songs like “Don’t Let Me Down” and “The Long and Winding Road.”Also arriving:Nov. 12“Ciao Alberto”“Home Sweet Home Alone”“Olaf Presents”“The World According to Jeff Goldblum”From left, Douglas Hodge, Elle Fanning and Sacha Dhawan in “The Great.”Gareth Gatrell/Hulu New to Hulu‘The Great’ Season 2Starts streaming: Nov. 19Season one of “The Great” introduced the “occasionally true” story of Catherine II (Elle Fanning), who marries the cruel and capricious Russian emperor Peter III (Nicholas Hoult) and then begins trying to wrest power from him in ways both subtle and overt. The second season picks up not long after the events of last year’s finale, in which the two headstrong aristocrats reached a wary rapprochement, for the sake of their unborn child and for their own private agendas. The series’ creator Tony McNamara was one of the Oscar-nominated screenwriters of “The Favourite,” another unapologetically anachronistic historical dramedy. Expect more of McNamara’s sensibility in year two — along with an exciting new cast addition in Gillian Anderson, playing Catherine’s mother.Also arriving:Nov. 4“Taste the Nation With Padma Lakshmi: Holiday Edition”Nov. 5“Animaniacs” Season 2Nov. 11“3212 Un-Redacted”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-m80ywj header{margin-bottom:5px;}.css-m80ywj header h4{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:500;font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.5625rem;margin-bottom:0;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-m80ywj header h4{font-size:1.5625rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Nov. 17“Marvel’s Hit-Monkey”Tom Hanks as Finch and Caleb Landry voicing Finch’s creation in the film “Finch.”Apple TV+New to Apple TV+‘Dickinson’ Season 3Starts streaming: Nov. 5Although the dramedy “Dickinson” is based on the life of the poet Emily Dickinson, it’s impossible to predict what will happen in the show’s third and final season. “Dickinson” has always been proudly off-kilter, with its creator, Alena Smith, taking the proven facts of writer’s life and then spinning whimsical and at times humorously impossible fantasies about the historical figures Dickinson might have met in mid-19th century Massachusetts, as well as the decadent parties she might’ve attended as a young woman with a thirst for independence. However the series eventually ends, its star, Hailee Steinfeld, continues to bring wit and passion to the role of an artist who wants badly to leave a lasting legacy, but a stubborn patriarchy and the looming threat of Civil War have her fearing that she’ll never get the chance to be heard.‘Finch’Starts streaming: Nov. 5Tom Hanks gets back into “Cast Away” mode in the science-fiction drama “Finch,” playing the title character: a resourceful scientist who is one of the few survivors of an Earth ravaged by environmental disasters. Fearing he is dying of radiation poisoning, Finch builds a robot named Jeff (voiced by Caleb Landry Jones) and fills it with as much useful knowledge as he can, hoping Jeff will help him drive from St. Louis to San Francisco — and that the machine will take care of Finch’s dog after his master is dead. The road trip is filled with surprises and dangers, but most of the movie is just a long conversation between a man and his well-meaning but frequently bumbling creation, as Finch tries to explain to Jeff both how and why to survive tough times.‘The Shrink Next Door’Starts streaming: Nov. 12The journalist Joe Nocera’s true-crime podcast “The Shrink Next Door” tells the story of Dr. Isaac Herschkopf, a psychiatrist who allegedly took control of his patient Martin Markowitz’s life, moving into his ritzy Hamptons estate and eventually guiding his financial decisions. In the TV adaptation, Paul Rudd plays the doctor and Will Ferrell plays Marty. The two actors lean into both the comic and the dramatic possibilities of the codependent relationship that develops between these two men: One who is pushy and the other a pushover. The mini-series’s narrative stretches across decades, as the writer Georgia Pritchett and the director Michael Showalter seek to explain how this situation got out of hand, between a charming opportunist and a person who desperately needed his approval.Also arriving:Nov. 3“Dr. Brain”Nov. 5“Hello, Jack! The Kindness Show”Nov. 19“Harriet the Spy” Season 1“The Line”The cinematographer John Wilson as seen in “How to With John Wilson.”Thomas Wilson/HBONew to HBO Max‘How to With John Wilson’ Season 2Starts streaming: Nov. 26Uniquely strange and sweet, this comic docuseries is built around the eccentric worldview of the persistently upbeat but profoundly confused videographer John Wilson, who tries to make sense of modern human existence by filming the mundane chaos of daily life in New York City and then commenting on it in halting voice-overs. In Season 1, Wilson tried to get a handle on basic concepts like friendship, ownership, security and memory. By the end of the run, he (like everyone else on the planet) saw his life upended by disease and death. It should be exciting — if that’s the right word for a show as gentle as “How to” — to see how Wilson and his crew capture and interpret everything that’s happened in the world since 2020.Also arriving:Nov. 4“Aida Rodriguez: Fighting Words”“Head of the Class” Season 1Nov. 9“Dear Rider”Nov. 16“Simple as Water”Nov. 18“The Sex Lives of College Girls”Nov. 19“King Richard”Nov. 23“Black and Missing” More

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    in Theater

    Audra McDonald to Star in ‘Ohio State Murders’ on Broadway

    The production brings the world of the playwright Adrienne Kennedy, 90, to Broadway for the first time.The actress Audra McDonald has agreed to star in a Broadway production of “Ohio State Murders,” bringing the work of the eminent experimental playwright Adrienne Kennedy to the nation’s most prominent stage for the first time.The play, first staged in 1992 at the Great Lakes Theater Festival in Cleveland, is about a Black writer who returns to her alma mater, Ohio State University, to talk about violence in her work. Set in the 1950s, the play is a compact exploration of the destructive power of racism, with six roles and a usual running time of 75 minutes.Kennedy, 90, is both acclaimed (in 2008 she was honored for lifetime achievement at the Obie Awards) and also unfamiliar to the general public; the New York Times critic Maya Phillips wrote this year that Kennedy “is often shelved among the ranks of the ‘celebrated’ and the ‘influential’ who are rarely produced.”The Broadway production is to be directed by Kenny Leon, and produced by Jeffrey Richards, Rebecca Gold, Jayne Baron Sherman and Irene Gandy. On Monday, Richards announced that the production is in development, but did not specify the timing.Earlier this year, McDonald and Leon collaborated on a streamed reading of “Ohio State Murders.” The play had an Off Broadway production, with a different cast and creative team, in 2007, presented by Theater for a New Audience.McDonald, with six Tony Awards, has won more competitive Tony Awards than any other performer in history. She last appeared on Broadway in a 2019 revival of “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune.”One of McDonald’s Tony Awards was for her performance in a 2004 revival of “A Raisin in the Sun,” which Leon directed. Leon then won his own Tony Award in 2014, when he directed another revival of “A Raisin in the Sun.” More