Eliana Willis

More stories

  • 125 Shares149 Views

    in Television

    After ‘Game of Thrones,’ Can TV Get Big Again?

    After “Game of Thrones,” many said the blockbuster series was dead. Maybe not — but the future of TV epics may look more like the movies’ recent past.In spring 2019, as “Game of Thrones” aired its final season, the talk among TV-industry pundits was that the age of dragons was not the only era coming to an end. “Thrones,” the thinking went, might just be the last big TV series ever: That is, the last blockbuster-level behemoth that would dazzle and focus the obsession of a mass audience.I don’t know if anyone’s told you this, but a lot has changed since spring 2019.The pandemic, obviously, bolstered TV’s status as a virtual arena. “Tiger King” was a TV event, and so was “Hamilton” and “Godzilla Vs. Kong.” If theaters’ strength is to bring audiences together, TV’s is to bring audiences together, apart. And as with the shift to working from home, it’s not clear how much of this ground TV will cede back, now that we know how much it’s possible to do without leaving your couch. “Dune,” when it’s released this fall, will be partly a TV event too, via HBO Max, even though theaters have reopened.But if we focus just on the TV part of TV — that is, series made for home-and-device distribution rather than for theaters — the post-“Thrones” question remains: Can any one program, in an age of bingeing, streaming and thousands of choices, bring together a mass audience?This fall and later, several high-profile genre spectacles — from sci-fi to fantasy to dystopian fiction — are betting on yes. On Sept. 24, Apple TV+ premieres “Foundation,” based on the Isaac Asimov novels about the attempt to use “psychohistory” to shape the future of a galactic empire. Earlier this month, FX unveiled the ambitious and long-gestating “Y: The Last Man,” about an apocalypse that kills every human with a Y chromosome save for one.Later in the fall: Amazon’s “The Wheel of Time,” another long-in-the-making epic, based on the sprawling fantasy series by Robert Jordan. Next year: also from Amazon, a series based on one of the few remaining megamythologies not to get a major series adaptation, “The Lord of the Rings”; plus HBO’s “Thrones” prequel, “House of the Dragon,” about Westeros’s messiest platinum blondes, the Targaryen family.From left, Emmy D’Arcy and Matt Smith in HBO’s “Thrones” prequel, “House of the Dragon.” HBO MaxIf the age of blockbuster TV is over, the coming season has not been informed.And there is evidence that event TV is not dead, even if “events” no longer involve us all gathering around our TV sets at 9 p.m. on Sundays. Since the end of “Thrones,” we’ve seen the rise of the next generation of streaming platforms, which provided a direct pipeline from the biggest megatainment companies to the screens in your living room and in your pocket.Disney in particular has driven this change. Its engulfing of the Star Wars and Marvel franchises put two of the movies’ biggest universes into one company, and Disney+ promptly started turning them into TV. It was not long ago that the appearance of a Star Wars or superhero entertainment was a rare treat; now it’s a Wednesday. (Still to come this year: a series built around Star Wars’ Boba Fett and one about the Avengers’ Hawkeye.)The platform showed that, even in the difficult-to-quantify world of streaming, the right TV series can get a mass audience chattering. But Disney+ shows got big by aiming small. That is, they worked best when they fit their big-screen universes into packages that worked for serial TV — intimate, conversational or (relatively) quiet — rather than two hours of movie-house pyrotechnics.Amazon’s “The Wheel of Time” is based on the sprawling fantasy series by Robert Jordan. Amazon StudiosSo “WandaVision” moved a peripheral “Avengers” story line onto a series of classic-TV sets, recreating period sitcoms from half a century to tell a story of grief. (It was less effective, in fact, when it built to an action climax — that is, when it tried to be a Marvel movie.) “The Mandalorian” built on the old-time Western element already present in Star Wars to make a gunslinger-and-sidekick bromance. “Loki” portioned out the superpowered ham of Tom Hiddleston’s film performance in a playful sci-fi story that prioritized talk over effects.Of course, Disney had the advantage of making big TV from already-big intellectual property that it owned. It’s pointless by now to distinguish whether Marvel and Star Wars are movie universes that extend to TV or vice versa; the shows and films are just tributaries in a giant network of content, each promoting the other.The drawback of TV’s new blockbusters, then, may be that they’re doomed to become more like the movies’ blockbusters: dragon-like in scale, mouse-like in creative ambition, at least when it comes to anything that doesn’t involve an established brand. Efforts by other outlets to world-build original genre franchises, like HBO’s labyrinthine steampunk serial “The Nevers,” have been less successful.On the one hand, the fact that the next “The Lord of the Rings” expansion is coming to your living room rather than your local multiplex is a sign of a more TV-centric entertainment future. On the other hand, that future, at least for high-profile TV, may be more and more like the movies’ recent past: big-budget but cautious renderings of stories with built-in followings, endless revisits of corporate properties that you already like.If we’re stuck with old stories expensively retold, the hope is that they at least have something to say to a new moment. From what we know of the new season’s genre epics (most of which, at press time, critics have yet to see), it’s nothing cheerful.Alfred Enoch in “Foundation” on Apple TV+, which is based on the Isaac Asimov novels.Helen Sloan/Apple TV+If there’s a common thread to many of them, it’s world-changing catastrophe. Granted, that’s often a given in high fantasy and sci-fi, but the disasters at the core of these series — the revenge of nature, self-destruction through hubris — could speak loudly now (if you can hear them over the extreme weather alerts).Even the series that aren’t prequels are often preludes to a fall. “The Lord of the Rings” movies, for instance, arrived through an accident of timing as a kind of rallying call after the 9/11 attacks. The new series takes place thousands of years before the events of the films, in Middle-earth’s Second Age — which, if you know your Tolkien, ended with the fabled kingdom of Númenor being swallowed by the sea in a cataclysm it brought on itself.Likewise, “Foundation,” telling the story of a pending man-made disaster that cannot be stopped, only mitigated, could have a lot to say to a society that has been through and is looking ahead to [gestures at everything]. We have a doomed royal house in “Dragon”; in “Y,” a pandemic story that combines apocalyptic political intrigue with a more sex- and gender-conscious version of “The Walking Dead.”And “The Wheel of Time,” already renewed for a second season before its first has appeared, is built on a mythology that involves a repeating cycle of renewal and destruction. That theme may mirror not just an anxious world, but the rise and fall of media trends that produced this series and its peers.The epic TV event, that most elusive and awe-inspiring of fabulous beasts, may well have been pronounced dead. But that doesn’t mean it can’t rise again — even if it’s in a too-familiar form. More

  • 125 Shares99 Views

    in Television

    ‘Ted Lasso’ Season 2, Episode 8 Recap: Fathers and Sons

    Also: Where are Rebecca and Sam headed? And how should we feel about it?Season 2, Episode 8, ‘Man City’“Fathers and sons, so tricky,” Higgins tells Jamie, before continuing on with an irony the latter doesn’t catch: “They should really write songs about it.”Indeed! Also, perhaps, television shows?Here we are, at last, with the revelation about Ted that we have been waiting for: His father killed himself when Ted was 16 years old. We don’t yet know anything much beyond that.We’ve been building toward this moment all season. Episode 2 had so many references to fathers and sons (remember “The Prince of Tides”?) that some astute readers guessed this was where the show was headed all the way back then.Sure, we’ve had our distractions along the way, some of them marvelous — Roy doing his “Sleepless in Seattle” crosstown sprint; Roy and Phoebe doing their “Love Actually” door-to-door search for a dentist; Roy doing pretty much anything else.But the theme of fathers has been lurking beneath the show’s typical good cheer for a while now: Jamie’s dad. Nate’s dad. Sam’s dad (though in a quite different way). Even Rebecca’s dad, whom we did not actually meet, but who sounds like no Prince Charming.But let’s start from the beginning. On the phone with her own therapist, Sharon is offended at the idea that she’s behaving like Ted: “Me and Ted Lasso are nothing alike,” she complains. This feels like a deliberate inversion of last week, when Sharon was explaining to a reluctant Ted that their two jobs are actually quite similar.And then: blammo. Riding her bike to work as usual, Sharon is hit by a car. As the actress who plays Sharon, Sarah Niles, explained to me in an interview at the beginning of the season, one of her challenges was that when she got the role she didn’t yet know how to ride a bike. So, with the help of friends, she learned. And how do the writers reward her? They have her character run over by a car! Cruel? Ironic? You be the judge.Fortunately, the damage is not too extreme: a concussion, some stitches, and a brief period of confusion during which Sharon sent Ted some 32 voice messages, including one in which she sang the first act of “West Side Story.”But later on the phone, Sharon is serious: “I was scared today. Really scared.” Brushing away Ted’s usual chirpy banter, she tells him, “I don’t need a pep talk. Ted, I just wanted to tell you how I was feeling … And I’m glad I did.” Sharon can’t know it yet, but this is the moment of total honesty that Ted will later reciprocate.Stuck somewhere in there — fathers and sons! — is another call to Sam from his lovely father. Cerithium Oil (a fictionalized stand-in for Shell) is being forced to stop work in Nigeria, thanks to Sam’s taking a stand in Episode 3! Sam’s father congratulates Sam; Sam congratulates his father for inspiring him; Sam’s father congratulates Sam for rightly giving him credit.It honestly seems as though the two men might keep lobbing congratulations back and forth indefinitely. It’s an international call, though, so eventually they stop. But if Sam’s dad is supposed to be the show’s standard for good male parenting, well of course everyone else is going to come up short.Everyone, that is, except Roy Kent, who is effectively the surrogate dad to his niece, Phoebe. (Her biological father, like so many others on the show, is evidently not a good one.) Roy is called in for a meeting with Phoebe’s teacher, at which she informs him that Phoebe “has been swearing, a lot,” followed by an example too extravagantly obscene ever to be printed in this newspaper.The ensuing pantomime between the teacher and Roy — in which she tries to convey that Roy’s fondness for language as salty as the Dead Sea could be contributing to Phoebe’s overdeveloped vocabulary, and Roy only gradually comprehends the accusation — was one of my favorite moments of the episode.Roy and Phoebe’s later conversation in the car is a good one, too, with him explaining that people expect pro athletes like himself to curse all the time, but it is unacceptable in anyone who seeks to be a “veterinarian for wild animals.” I loved the closing of the scene, too, in which Roy agrees to play one game of “Princess and Dragon” with Phoebe, and then asks, a perfect beat later, “Can I be the dragon this time?”Sarah Niles learned how to ride a bicycle for “Ted Lasso.” And this is how the show repays her?Apple TV+And then, we go from good parenting to bad parenting, possibly the worst parenting. James Tartt, the execrable father of Jamie, is back on the scene for the two things he seems to do best: cadging free tickets to a big game, and berating/bullying/humiliating his son for — well, it hardly seems to matter what.The game in question is a semifinal of the FA Cup to be held in revered Wembley Stadium. (I enjoyed Ted’s confusion about the fact that professional soccer fields are not all the same size, and that the Wembley where he long ago saw Queen perform on TV was the “old Wembley,” not “this” Wembley.)The game is against the powerhouse Manchester City, the same team that knocked AFC Richmond into relegation 11 months ago. The outcome is a brutal, 5-0 blowout by Man City (even if, because of some error, we still see the scoreboard registering “4-0”).Cue Tartt the Elder, a rabid Man City fan, who barges into the AFC Richmond locker room to gloat and belittle as only a thug with too much drink in him can. This leads to two extraordinary moments.First, Jamie’s dad receives one of the most well-earned punches in television history, courtesy of his son, before Coach Beard escorts him out roughly.And then, after a stretch of silence so long and painful it feels like it may never end, Roy hugs Jamie, gently at first but with growing ferocity. In spite of himself, and in spite of their long history of enmity, Roy, in this one moment, is being precisely the father figure Jamie needs.First, Phoebe. Now, Jamie. By the start of Season 3, Roy Kent may be a surrogate father to all of us.And then, Ted’s anguished admission to Sharon about his own father’s suicide. I don’t think there’s a lot more to be said about this yet, though I’m sure there will be plenty to say in the future.So keeping in mind that this recap is running long — the episode itself was, at 45 minutes, the longest of the season so far — I’ll move on to the other principal story line.Though we learned about it two episodes ago, Rebecca and Sam have only now discovered that the Bantr flirtations they have been conducting are in fact with one another. Rebecca is understandably perturbed, especially when she learns Sam is just 21. (“All these messages, I was grooming you.”) But Sam takes it in stride.He pushes forward romantically — though gently, this is Sam we’re talking about — and she pushes back: about dinner (eventually, a yes), about a kiss (they share one), and about whether she will invite him in (a solid no). “I mean it,” she tells Sam. “I have to mean it.”This seems to me a perfect way to end the story line. An anonymous flirtation, a comic recognition at the restaurant, an enjoyable dinner, and a single kiss — all happy semi-romantic memories, but none that involve launching an improbable-bordering-on-impossible (and some would argue inappropriate) relationship.But one thing Hollywood has true difficulty comprehending is that a romantic relationship — even a genuine love affair — can go unconsummated, but still be worthwhile and moving. This was, I think, the central insight of “Once.”Is it wistful and bittersweet that the stars of the film, Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, don’t end up together? Of course. But it’s not a tragedy. Just a road not taken, and for very compelling reasons. (The real-life romance between the stars, who by contrast did consummate their relationship, seems sadder to me than their onscreen one.)I wish this had been how the Rebecca-Sam quasi-romance had played out: in mutual recognition that there was a spark, but also that there were excellent reasons not to pursue it.But no. As usual in Hollywood — even “Ted Lasso”!—a relationship in which those involved don’t fall into the sack, preferably quickly, is hardly considered a relationship at all.So Rebecca, changing her mind after watching Sam interviewed on television, sends him a text. He texts back his address. But when she comes out her front door moments later, he’s already standing there!I mean, isn’t this a tad stalker-y? He didn’t know she was going to text him; in fact she had made exceptionally, repeatedly clear that she didn’t want to date him. So why’s he standing on her doorstep at night, not merely uninvited but specifically told to stay away?I mean, all he’s missing are the creepy, “Love Actually” poster boards. But perhaps there were no more left in London after Roy bought them up in Episode 4.Sam’s line that he gave Rebecca his address for “next time” also seems a bit presumptive/possessive/premature. What if she only wanted to do it once, if at all? And wanted it to be at his place, not hers, as suggested by her note? (She could have invited him over. She didn’t.)I’m sure there will be a variety of strong opinions about the Rebecca-Sam connection. And I think everyone — myself included! — should wait to see how it proceeds before coming to firm conclusions. But it may be that I exaggerated (ever so slightly?) the degree to which Sam’s father raised him to be a gentleman.Brett Goldstein and Elodie Blomfield in “Ted Lasso.”Apple TV+Odds and EndsNate’s ongoing decline seems to have slowed, at least for the moment and at least relative to his extraordinary abuse of Colin and Will last week. But it’s clear that space has been developing between him and the other coaches. He repeatedly seems like the odd man out, whether it’s his enthusiasm to be a spokesman (in polar contrast to Roy and Beard) or his having to be lectured that other people’s life emergencies are not necessarily his business. Things aren’t as bad as they’ve been, but I’m pretty sure they will get worse again. (If you haven’t already, read this intriguing interview.)As Isaac gives Sam a haircut, the first act is set to Arturo Sandoval’s “La Virgen de la Macarena,” and the second to Mahalia Jackson’s “Down by the Riverside.” This kind of highly produced musical number, which I can’t recall seeing in the first season, has been a staple this season. (Success has its advantages.) My favorite example remains “She’s a Rainbow” from Episode 5.Doesn’t Colin ever catch a break? For two weeks, he was subjected to a torrent of abuse from Nate. Tonight, he almost asphyxiates. Why? Because Isaac, pondering whether to cut Sam’s hair, forgets to lift the barbell off his throat.“Ain’t no policy like a hospital policy, ’cause a hospital policy don’t stop” — Ted at his best/worst (but mostly best). If, like me, you were trying to remember the original line and where it came from, you’re in luck. This piece, which contains a hilarious number of variations on the theme over the years, will answer all your questions.Pop culture references tonight included Kyrie Irving, Liev Schreiber, and “Sling Blade” — though I strongly suspect there are others that I missed. Let me know in comments. Thanks to the several folks who confirmed that, yes, Holiday Inn does have a big U.K. presence.Thanks, too, to everyone who pointed out an oversight on my part last week that has smitten me to the core: the “Groundhog Day” reference implicit in any use of “I Got You, Babe.” No apology is sufficient, but I can offer in reparation this marvelous piece on the film by my friend James Parker.A quick personal anecdote related to this week’s Roy-Phoebe story line. Years ago, before I had children, I too had a spicy vocabulary. At one point, I was on a profane diatribe about something with my boss, who was a little older and already had kids. His eyes grew wide, and he pointed at me. He said, with a tone of revelation, “It’s you. It’s all you.”It turned out he had been swearing more in front of his children, and his wife had pointed it out. And he believed — and I have no reason to doubt — he was swearing more because he spent hours a day in the presence of my colorful verbiage. So be forewarned: You should not only be careful with your words around kids but, at least sometimes, around their parents, too. Swearing is apparently infectious, and you never know what vectors your potty-mouth might travel. More

  • 113 Shares149 Views

    in Television

    Jimmy Kimmel: Herd Immunity Doesn’t Mean Taking Horse Medicine

    “Vaxxed and waxed. He wants his mailmen smooth,” Kimmel joked of President Biden’s new vaccine requirements for federal employees on Thursday.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.‘The Variants Are Coming!’On Thursday, President Biden announced new vaccine requirements for federal employees and contractors, health care workers and those working at companies with more than 100 employees.“And, of course, a lot of people are upset about this,” Jimmy Kimmel said. “They don’t want to be told what to do — not even by the doctors who they will eventually rush to to beg for help when they get sick.”“Vaxxed and waxed. He wants his mailmen smooth.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“This really does feel like when your dad stops threatening and actually does turn the car around.” — JAMES CORDEN“But you know, there’s a reason pandemic movies end when the hero finds the cure for the disease. There’s no ‘Contagion’ sequel with Matt Damon running around trying to convince everyone to take the vaccine — they just take the vaccine. And thank God, by the way — he sucks. We don’t need more movies with him.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Vaccine mandates have a proud history in this country. During a smallpox outbreak in 1777, George Washington required his troops to be immunized. And who can forget the immortal words of Paul Revere: ‘One if by J.&J., two if by Pfizer. The variants are coming! The variants are coming!’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“But, still, I don’t know, like a quarter of the country thinks herd immunity means they should be taking livestock medicine instead of the vaccination.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Biden said it’s time to stop horsing around — and then he was like, ‘No, seriously, stop taking horse medicine.’” — JAMES CORDENThe Punchiest Punchlines (She’s Back Edition)“The Biden administration yesterday removed 18 military academy board members that were appointed by Trump, including haunted Dollar Store Barbie doll Kellyanne Conway. Which, there’s a name I haven’t said in a while: Kellyanne Conway. I’m not gonna say it any more times. I’ve seen ‘Candyman.’ I know what might happen.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Why were there still any Trump holdovers anyway? That’s like moving into a rent-controlled apartment the last guy died in and keeping all the expired whitefish in the refrigerator.” — SETH MEYERS“And why was Kellyanne Conway on an Air Force advisory board? If she ever flew an F-16 or what she probably calls an F-17, I guess we would end up in a ravine, her standing on a tarmac in a parachute claiming it was a successful landing.” — SETH MEYERSThe Bits Worth WatchingStephen Colbert spoke with Steve Burns from “Blues Clues,” who went viral this week with a heartfelt video that addressed his abrupt departure from the beloved children’s show close to 20 years ago.Also, Check This OutSeth Meyers was among Kelly Clarkson’s guests during a string of New York episodes taped at Jazz at Lincoln Center.Weiss Eubanks/NBCAfter two years of her daytime show, much of that during a pandemic, Kelly Clarkson has hit her stride as a talk show host. More

  • 138 Shares169 Views

    in Theater

    Elizabeth McCann, 90, Dies; Broadway Producer With a Formidable Track Record

    In a career that began in 1976, she won nine Tony Awards and helped bring “Equus,” “Amadeus” and the work of Edward Albee to the New York stage.The veteran Broadway producer Elizabeth McCann with Jed Bernstein, president of the League of American Theaters and Producers, in 2001.Gabe Palacio/Getty ImagesElizabeth McCann, a theater producer known for what one journalist called her “steel and wit” who in a dizzying four-decade career won nine Tony Awards, many of them as half of McCann & Nugent Productions, and gave New York audiences more than 60 Broadway productions, including such hits as “Equus,” “Amadeus” and “Les Liaisons Dangereuses,” died on Wednesday in the Bronx. She was 90.Her death, in a hospital, was announced by her longtime associate and friend Kristen Luciani, who said Ms. McCann had cancer.McCann & Nugent, which Ms. McCann formed in 1976 with Nelle Nugent, had a remarkable five-year winning streak, taking the Tony for either best play or best revival every year from 1978 to 1982. The first was for “Dracula,” a sexy variation on the classic vampire story; the rest were for dramas or satires.These included “The Elephant Man” (1979), the story of a physically disfigured man in Victorian England; “Amadeus” (1981), about the composer Antonio Salieri’s bitter musical rivalry with Mozart in 18th-century Vienna; and “The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby” (1982), an eight-and-a-half-hour adaptation, imported from London, of Charles Dickens’s 19th-century social satire.After her partnership with Ms. Nugent ended in the mid-1980s, Ms. McCann won four more Tonys: best revival for productions of Arthur Miller’s “A View From the Bridge” (1998) and “Hair” (2009), one of the few musicals she produced, and best play for Michael Frayn’s “Copenhagen” (2000) and Edward Albee’s “The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?” (2002).Her producing relationship with Mr. Albee also included Off Broadway productions of “Three Tall Women,” “Painting Churches” and “The Play About the Baby.”“Getting ahead in business means having an ability to compromise your conscience, and you get better at it the older you get,” Ms. McCann told the business newspaper Crain’s, at least partly tongue in cheek, in 2007. At the same time, she said in several interviews, she still felt a childlike thrill in being able to walk into theaters without a ticket.Ms. McCann was honored by the Tony Awards as part of a “60 Years of Excellence” celebration in 2006. She won nine Tonys in her career, many of them as half of McCann & Nugent Productions.G. Gershoff/WireImageElizabeth Ireland McCann was born on March 29, 1931, in Manhattan, the only child of Patrick and Rebecca (Henry) McCann. Her father was a subway motorman, her mother a homemaker. Both her parents were born in Scotland.Though the McCanns lived in Midtown Manhattan — Elizabeth recalled roller-skating throughout the garment district as a child — they were not a theatergoing family. Elizabeth was 14 when she saw her first Broadway show, “Cyrano de Bergerac,” starring José Ferrer; she went only because a cousin from New Jersey had an extra ticket and her mother insisted that she go. Luckily and fatefully, she said decades later, the play, for which Mr. Ferrer won a Tony, “blew me away.”Giving some thought to teaching drama, she graduated from Manhattanville College in 1952 and earned a master’s degree in English literature from Columbia University two years later. She worked in theater for about 10 years, beginning as an unpaid intern for Proscenium Productions, a company based at the Cherry Lane Theater in Lower Manhattan. (“Eventually they paid me $25 a week,” she recalled.) Frustrated with her lack of advancement, she decided that practicing theatrical law might be a way to go.“By the time I got out of law school, I was 35,” she recalled in 2002 in a CUNY-TV interview. After receiving her law degree from Fordham University in 1966 and passing the New York bar, she briefly worked for a Manhattan law firm and took some jobs in theater management.Her big break was not a legal job: In 1967, she was hired by James Nederlander as managing director of the Nederlander Organization. Ms. Nugent was a co-worker there.After teaming up to found their own firm, Ms. McCann and Ms. Nugent became general managers of six productions in their first two years together, including the original Broadway staging of “The Gin Game.” They then tried their hand at producing.Ms. McCann with, from left, the television journalist Pia Lindstrom, former Mayor David N. Dinkins and Woodie King Jr., the founding director of the New Federal Theater, at a benefit for the theater in New York in 2011.Walter McBride/Corbis via Getty ImagesTheir first show, “Dracula” (1977), starring Frank Langella, ran two and a half years and won two Tonys, one for costume design and one for best revival. (The category was called “most innovative revival” that year.) Ms. McCann considered it a sign of good luck when she learned that her mother, who had immigrated from Glasgow in her youth, had sailed on the passenger liner Transylvania.Another notable Broadway hit was “Morning’s at Seven” (1981), about four elderly sisters in the Midwest. Though seemingly bucolic, the production had its dark side. As Ben Brantley wrote in The New York Times, the play might have looked like a Norman Rockwell painting, but its soul was Edward Hopper’s.When Ms. McCann and Ms. Nugent began their business, they were casually referred to in the industry as “the girls.” After their successes started rolling in, that changed to “the ladies.” But Ms. McCann saw gender as just one facet of a complicated picture.“Sure, we’re women. But you could look at it another way,” she said in an interview with The Times in 1981. “Most of the men in the theater business are Jewish, and I’m Irish Catholic. You could say, ‘How the hell did an Irish Catholic — or a New Jersey Protestant like Nelle — ever get in?’”In an industry “desperate for success and product and ideas,” she concluded, “I don’t think anybody cares as much where those things come from as they think they care.”There were bumps along the way. Investors sued Ms. McCann and Ms. Nugent for fraud after their 1985 show “Leader of the Pack” failed to recoup its investment (the fate of some 80 percent of Broadway productions). A federal jury found the producers not guilty, and a relieved Ms. McCann told the news media afterward: “Nobody’s out to cheat investors. God knows it’s hard enough to find them.”After the partners went their own ways — Ms. Nugent pursued a solo career as well and went on to produce many shows on Broadway — they had a brief reunion in 2002, jointly producing the dark comedy “The Smell of the Kill” at the Helen Hayes Theater. It was not a success and closed after 60 performances.In the early 2000s, Ms. McCann also produced six Tony Awards telecasts, three of which won Emmys.She never married and leaves no immediate survivors.Her last producing credit was Martin McDonagh’s “Hangmen,” which had been scheduled to open on Broadway on March 19, 2020, but closed after 13 previews, along with every other Broadway production, because of the Covid-19 pandemic.Ms. McCann’s producing philosophy was simple. “Producing is really about insisting that everybody pay attention to detail,” she told The Times in 1981. “The Titanic probably sank because nobody ordered binoculars for the crow’s nest.” More

  • 150 Shares129 Views

    in Television

    Michael Constantine, Father in ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding,’ Dies at 94

    He won an Emmy for his role on the TV series “Room 222” and played other many characters over the years before becoming known as the hit film’s patriarch.Michael Constantine, an Emmy-winning character actor known as the genially dyspeptic school principal on the popular TV series “Room 222” and, 30 years later, as the genially dyspeptic patriarch in the hit film “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” died on Aug. 31 at his home in Reading, Pa. He was 94.His agent, Julia Buchwald, confirmed the death.Mr. Constantine, who began his career on the Broadway stage, was endowed with fierce eyebrows, a personal warmth that belied his perennial hangdog look, and the command of a Babel of foreign accents. Of Greek extraction, he was routinely cast by Hollywood to portray a welter of ethnicities.He played several Jewish characters, winning an Emmy in 1970 for the role of Seymour Kaufman, who presided with grumpy humanity over a fictional Los Angeles school on “Room 222.” Broadcast on ABC from 1969 to 1974, the show centered on an idealistic Black history teacher, played by Lloyd Haynes, who contended with a variety of issues, social and otherwise, at the racially diverse Walt Whitman High School.He also played Italians, on shows including “The Untouchables” and “Kojak”; Russians, as in the 1980s series “Airwolf”; a Gypsy, in the 1996 horror film “Thinner,” adapted from a Stephen King novel; and, on occasion, even a Greek or two.Mr. Constantine was possessed of a gravitas that often led to him being cast as lawyers or heavies. He played the title role, the night-court judge Matthew Sirota, on “Sirota’s Court,” a short-lived sitcom shown on NBC in the 1976-77 season.Mr. Constantine with Lloyd Haynes in the TV series “Room 222,” seen on ABC from 1969 to 1974. He won an Emmy for his portrayal of a principal who presided over a high school with grumpy humanity.ABCHe had guest roles on scores of other shows, including “Naked City,” “Perry Mason,” “Ironside,” “Gunsmoke” and “Hey, Landlord” in the 1960s, and “Remington Steele,” “Murder, She Wrote” and “Law & Order” in the ’80s and ’90s.On film, he appeared in “The Last Mile” (1959), a prison picture starring Mickey Rooney; “The Hustler” (1961), starring Paul Newman; the 1969 comedies “If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium” and “Don’t Drink the Water”; and “Voyage of the Damned” (1976).Mr. Constantine became known to an even wider, younger audience as Gus Portokalos, the combustible, tradition-bound father whose daughter is engaged to a patrician white Anglo-Saxon Protestant, in the hit 2002 comedy “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.”An immigrant who made good as the owner of a Chicago diner, Gus is an ardent amateur etymologist who can trace any word to its putative Greek origin. (“Kimono,” he concludes after pondering the matter, surely comes from “cheimónas” — Greek for winter, since, he explains in his heavily accented English: “What do you wear in the wintertime to stay warm? A robe!”)Gus is also a fervent believer in the restorative power of Windex, applied directly to the skin, to heal a panoply of ailments, including rashes and boils.“He’s a man from a certain kind of background,” Mr. Constantine said of his character in a 2003 interview with The Indianapolis Star. “His saving grace is that he truly does love his daughter and want the best for her. He may not go about it in a very tactful way. So many people tell me, ‘My dad was just like that.’ And I thought, ‘And you don’t hate him?’”“My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” which was written by its star, Nia Vardalos, and also starred Lainie Kazan as Gus’s wife and John Corbett as the man she marries, was a surprise international hit. It took in more than $360 million worldwide, becoming one of the highest-grossing romantic comedies of all time.Mr. Constantine reprised the role on television in “My Big Fat Greek Life,” a sitcom that appeared briefly on CBS in 2003, and on the big screen in “My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2” in 2016.The son of Andromache (Fotiadou) and Theoharis Ioannides Efstratiou, Mr. Constantine was born in Reading on May 22, 1927. His parents were Greek immigrants, and his father was a steelworker.He settled on an acting career early, an idea reinforced after a youthful visit to a friend who was studying acting in New York.“I just knew I belonged there,” Mr. Constantine told Odyssey, an English-language magazine about Greek life, in 2011. “They could make fun of this hick from Pennsylvania, but I just belong here — this is me.”The young Mr. Constantine studied acting with Howard da Silva while supporting himself with odd jobs, among them night watchman and shooting-gallery barker. He became an understudy to Paul Muni in the role of the character modeled on the famed defense lawyer Clarence Darrow in “Inherit the Wind,” which opened on Broadway in 1955.In “Compulsion” — a 1957 Broadway dramatization of Meyer Levin’s novel about the Leopold and Loeb murder case — Mr. Constantine took over the role of another defense lawyer from Frank Conroy just before opening night. (Mr. Conroy withdrew after suffering a heart attack during previews.)“Michael Constantine gives an excellent performance,” Brooks Atkinson wrote in The New York Times. “He avoids the sentimentality that the situations might easily evoke and plays with taste, deliberation, color and intelligence.”Mr. Constantine’s other Broadway credits include Anagnos, the director of the Perkins Institute for the Blind, in the original cast of “The Miracle Worker” (1959), and Dogsborough in Bertolt Brecht’s antifascist satire “Arturo Ui” (1963).Mr. Constantine’s first marriage, to the actress Julianna McCarthy, ended in divorce, as did his second, to Kathleen Christopher. His survivors include two sisters, Patricia Gordon and Chris Dobbs. A complete list of survivors was not immediately available.For all Mr. Constantine’s credits, for all his critical acclaim, it was for a single role — and for a single prop wielded in the course of that role — that he seems destined to be remembered.“I can’t tell you,” he said in a 2014 interview with his hometown paper, The Reading Eagle, “how many times I’ve autographed a Windex bottle.”Alyssa Lukpat More

  • 125 Shares129 Views

    in Television

    How a TV Ad Enticed Broadway Crowds Right After 9/11

    Rudy Giuliani was meant to appear; Elaine Stritch arrived just in time. Recalling the “I Love New York” spot that helped dispel the fear in Times Square.Following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Broadway suspended performances for just two days, reopening on Sept. 13, 2001. But audiences were hesitant to return, and many shows performed to near-empty houses for weeks.To encourage attendance, the theater’s brightest stars — many in costume — gathered in a mostly deserted Times Square on Sept. 28 to perform the John Kander and Fred Ebb song “New York, New York.” (A studio recording session was held the day before to capture audio).Book ended by two of Broadway’s best-known voices, Bernadette Peters and Nathan Lane, the performance had the Phantom rubbing shoulders with the Beast, while “Lion King” puppets bobbed overhead. Brian Stokes Mitchell and Brooke Shields were there; so were the preteen urchins from “Les Miserables.”The footage was used for a 30-second commercial that ran on major television networks, as well as in movie theaters across the country. The goal of the ad, according to its director, Glenn Weiss: “I want people to not be afraid to come and see a show.”The week of the attacks, Broadway altogether grossed an anemic $185,490. After the commercial’s release, ticket sales steadily increased, and for the week of Nov. 11, shows brought in $470,845.Twenty years later, as Broadway braces for another nervous reopening, there are striking parallels to that morning in late September. Indeed, on Aug. 30, the industry set in motion its own post-pandemic marketing campaign, including a clip-filled video entitled “This is Broadway,” narrated by Oprah Winfrey.Here, those who were in front of the camera and behind the scenes for the 2001 ad reflect on the experience. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.JAN SVENDSEN FRIEDLANDER, then-marketing director of the Broadway League On the 12th, I did go to work. I went to the League offices and all these members — producers and theater owners and general managers — started coming. No one knew what to do. And then midday, the mayor’s office called and they said, “You’ve got to get Broadway reopened.” So we agreed to reopen on Thursday the 13th.Jan Svendsen Friedlander, the former marketing director of the Broadway League, with a poster signed by many of the participants in the Broadway-boosting 2001 commercial.Rozette Rago for The New York TimesRozette Rago for The New York TimesNATHAN LANE, performer Everybody was shaken by what happened. And people were concerned it might happen again. “The Producers” had opened and played through summer and then it was the fall. We went back on a Thursday, all because of [then Mayor] Rudy Giuliani — this is before he was a raging [expletive]. It felt wrong to be going back so quickly. And yet we were trying to do something positive.DREW HODGES, founder, SpotCo advertising agency Something like five days later we were back in the office and trying to figure out what to do. We had this idea of doing a TV commercial, getting everybody into Times Square. Barry Weissler, the “Chicago” producer, he was a friend. We went to him and said, “We have this idea, help us rock and roll it forward and get it to more powerful people.” And I believe he said, “I was thinking the same thing.”BARRY WEISSLER, producer We knew we wanted to sing “New York, New York.” What else? It was an idea that grew out of my meeting with Jed [Bernstein, former Broadway League president], saying we should bring the entire Broadway community together in one place to celebrate humanity — the tragedy aside, 9/11 aside. Let’s celebrate Broadway, humanity and life.BERNADETTE PETERS, performer Of course, New York was afraid. We were concerned: Is it going to happen again? But we just had to be brave and let people know that it was time to take back New York.JERRY MITCHELL, choreographer Drew Hodges called me and said, “We’re getting ready to do a commercial. We’re filming in Times Square. I’m going to get all the actors before their matinee. Will you choreograph it?” I said, “Absolutely, what do you need?” He sent me the song, and I had 12 dancers, I think, with me. I choreographed a little something for them that night. And the next morning, we met at the Booth Theater [functioning as a green room]. I went onstage, and there was the Broadway community, in costume, sitting in the audience.CHRIS BONEAU, publicist [Producers] were told, “We need two people to do this, and it has to be Nathan and Matthew [Broderick].” Or: “It can be three costumed characters, and these are the ones who we would like to get.” You got to hand it to the people who wrangled the whole thing. I mean, there were so many people behind the scenes who were doing every single thing they could to get this moment right, because you only had one shot at it.HODGES We were standing in Shubert Alley, waiting to go into the Booth while the shows filed in. And we heard this jangling sound, and we couldn’t figure out what it was. And it got louder and louder. And then around the corner came all the Rockettes. And they were in costume, in formation in one line, tap dancing, literally, across an empty Times Square.Faces in the crowd, from left: Tony Roberts, Peters, Betty Buckley, Joel Grey, Dick Cavett, Stritch and Cady Huffman.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesJOEL GREY, performer Everybody you ever knew in the theater all of a sudden was there, shiny and bright and ready to take on the world. Theater people believe in dreams, so we were all dreamers saying, “Everything is going to be all right.” We all needed to tell a story.MITCHELL I was standing onstage [at the Booth] and said, “This is the choreography; everybody stand up.” I think I played the tape three times. And then as each group went to their place, I put an assistant with them. They took them out to the platform and started reviewing it. Then I went out front, and I climbed the George M. [Cohan] statue, and I was standing on the statue yelling at everybody over a megaphone.PETER GALLAGHER, performer I remember Jerry, he couldn’t have been a more embracing and vibrant life spirit. And, frankly, it was just really reassuring to see everybody — just to see a lot of people you had known or worked with.HODGES The last line is, and Nathan says it in the spot, “Come to New York and let’s go on with the show.” But it was supposed to be Giuliani.FRIEDLANDER We kept hearing, “He’s coming, he’s coming. Don’t let anybody go, he wants to be in it.” So while we were waiting, a lot of the restaurants in Times Square came running out, and they were handing [out] cases of water and croissants and pastries and sandwiches and drinks.GLENN WEISS, director Fire trucks were heading right past us. And literally every cast from every Broadway show stopped, turned and applauded. The people who get applause were giving applause, and it was for our first responders. That vision will stick with me forever.PETERS We had our passion and our power and our love for New York and what it represents. Everyone was there. Of course Elaine Stritch, my dear friend, she just made it at the last minute, because she always would run just a little late.HARVEY FIERSTEIN, performer We were told to wear anything we wanted except white. That was emphasized a bunch of times. So we were ready to shoot and a cab pulls up through the police line and out steps Stritch, all in white. And then of course, everybody’s already in place, so the only place she can possibly stand is dead center — in white.LANE She thought, I think because of the success of “The Producers,” I would be in the front row and that if she stood next to me, she would definitely be on camera. She said, “Oh, no, no, no, I’ll be right here next to Nathan.” That I remember was very amusing. And very typical of her.Nathan Lane recalled how Elaine Stritch jostled for a prime position at the shoot.Jesse Dittmar for The New York TimesWEISSLER A few performers, when we placed them, insisted on pushing through to the front. I’m not going to name names. So take a look at who’s in front. She was a dear friend.HODGES We had to plan where everybody stood, and it was a grid of 40 shows. So people like Susan Lucci and Alan Alda [both had previously been on Broadway] were in the front, as they did not have a show to stand with. And of course, they were recognizable.FRIEDLANDER The concept was always to start really small with Bernadette. Bernadette symbolizes Broadway. And then the idea was just to go wider and wider and wider, so that you see Times Square, and you see that there was life there.PETERS Although I started it and I’m the first voice, it’s all of us. That’s what was important. The feeling of the love between us made us all stronger.HODGES Every single person did it for not a penny, which is kind of miraculous.FRIEDLANDER Seth Popper [the League’s director of labor relations] was my counterpart; he managed to get all the unions to give us concessions, so that we could actually shoot this spot. In the real world, if we had tried to pay for that spot, it would have been millions of dollars.GREY It was impossible to not want to be a part of it, to be somehow part of the solution. God, who would believe that there even was a solution?GALLAGHER Fortunately, none of us are accustomed to certainty in any aspect of our lives. And so it’s the kind of pluck: We don’t stop performing in a show just because it doesn’t work, or it’s going to close. You don’t stop because there’s a threat. You just keep going. More

  • 150 Shares179 Views

    in Television

    As a Daytime Host, Kelly Clarkson Has No Fear of Being Vocal

    Kelly Clarkson had just come striding through an aisle of the Appel Room one afternoon in late August, accompanied by Kristin Chenoweth and a troupe of dancers as they sang the final bars of the uplifting Imagine Dragons ballad “On Top of the World.”In the minutes between catching their breath and performing the number for a second time — part of an elaborate musical sequence that will open the third season of “The Kelly Clarkson Show” — the host called out from her stage here at Jazz at Lincoln Center and offered a tongue-in-cheek apology to Chenoweth and the ensemble if she had missed any steps in this earlier take of the routine.“I was freaking out,” Clarkson said. “You do not want your entrance to depend on me.”Though she has already been many things in her career — the winner of the inaugural season of “American Idol”; a best-selling, Grammy Award-winning pop and country musician; a coach and adviser on “The Voice” — Clarkson will gladly admit she is still a novice when it comes to starring in her own syndicated daytime talk show.Throughout a day spent taping segments for her show’s premiere week, which begins on Monday, the spirited, self-deprecating Clarkson had been telling her studio audience she felt rusty after coming back from a scheduled filming break of about three months. But there was not much time for her to get back up to speed and, as she has gotten used to, she would have to figure things out on her feet.Seth Meyers was among the guests during a string of New York episodes taped at Jazz at Lincoln Center.Weiss Eubanks/NBCAt a moment like this, much is expected of “The Kelly Clarkson Show,” a blend of celebrity interviews, games and slice-of-life segments informed by the 39-year-old host’s pop-cultural sensibilities. The program is coming off its first Daytime Emmy win for best entertainment talk show, a category in which Clarkson has vied with established competitors like Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest (the longtime “Idol” host) and newcomers to the field like Drew Barrymore.NBCUniversal, which produces “The Kelly Clarkson Show,” has renewed the series through the 2022-2023 season and has said it will give Clarkson’s program the slot now held by “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” when its veteran host steps down next spring after 19 years.These decisions provide added incentive for Clarkson while significantly raising the stakes: At a time when her show is still finding its footing — and has yet to have anything resembling a normal season — she is already being groomed as DeGeneres’s heir.This coming season of “The Kelly Clarkson Show” was supposed to be the one where she and her colleagues would show off the full potential of the program, unencumbered by growing pains or pandemic restrictions; by opening it in New York, they hoped to spotlight a city, a host and a TV series that were fully restored and back to business as usual.The recent resurgence of the coronavirus has put a cloud over much of that. But as Clarkson prepared to forge ahead in New York — before returning to the show’s home in Los Angeles for another week’s worth of season-premiere programming — she said she had gotten accustomed to the uncertainty that has so far epitomized her talk-show experience.“It’s kind of been like that from the get-go,” Clarkson said. “From Season 1, we’ve had to reinvent it. We’ve never had, really, a moment with our show where it’s like everything’s going to plan.”A few days before shooting her season premiere, Clarkson was speaking in a video interview from Los Angeles, comfortably dressed down with her hair held back in a ponytail while her dog Henry played at her feet. “I appreciate that I can do this in sweats and no bra,” she said with delight.That relentless candor has a lot to do with how Clarkson got this gig — it’s a quality that her fans and advocates find relatable. But it also gave her the freedom to nearly turn down the show. Thinking back to the period a few years ago when she was being sought as a host, she said: “Everybody was like, Oh man, you would be great at doing a talk show — except for me, I wasn’t one of those everybodies. I’m just like, Where do I fit in there? Why would I? No one will watch that.”She added, “I’m very honest with myself.”Alex Duda, the showrunner and an executive producer of “The Kelly Clarkson Show,” said that she was among those early recruiters who were impressed by Clarkson’s energetic, unpredictable appearances on “The Voice.”Duda, who previously produced daytime talk shows for Steve Harvey and Tyra Banks, said that Clarkson was also distinguished by her formative “American Idol” victory in 2002, a process in which millions of viewers witnessed and participated in her ascent to fame.Clarkson was initially unconvinced that she should host a talk show. “I’m just like, Where do I fit in there? Why would I? No one will watch that,” she said.Justin J Wee for The New York Times“We chose her,” Duda said. “She connects with us in a way that nobody does because we helped with that. People are rooting for her in a different way.”Clarkson, who was 20 when she won, said she had also come to realize how “Idol” had unexpectedly prepared her for a future in daytime television.“We were on TV all the time,” she said wearily. “Doing random things — being interviewed, interviewing other people, doing skits.” To this day, she said, she never worries about having something to say when a camera is pointed at her: “I don’t really feel pressure from that. That can be scary for other people sometimes, like, Oh God, what’s she going to say?”With a blueprint that allowed her to perform a new cover song in every episode (or Kellyoke, in the show’s parlance), and a guest list that enabled her to share a stage with musical heroes like Trisha Yearwood, Reba McEntire and Garth Brooks, Clarkson embarked on the first season of her program in September 2019.In March 2020, in-studio production of the show was halted by the pandemic. But Clarkson, who had left Los Angeles with her two young children to hunker down in a cabin in Montana, continued to produce new segments for the program that she recorded on an iPhone.Clarkson said she had found the experience as invigorating as it was frustrating. “We were in the middle of nowhere,” she said. “The dryer broke. We’re going to the bathroom in the woods at some point. I’m 5’3” and a half, dude. I’m in snow up to my thighs. And I’m like, well, I have a camera.”She added: “I’m trying to be America’s cheerleader. And I never completely broke down about it, but I definitely laughed hysterically at several moments.”In its second season, “The Kelly Clarkson Show” was able to return to its Los Angeles studio with pandemic protocols in place: Panel discussions were socially distanced, and audience members could participate only virtually, appearing as heads and torsos on flat screens. (A limited studio audience will be allowed to return in Season 3.)These circumstances were not ideal for a fledgling program still trying to find its footing. “You’re trying to build on momentum,” Duda said. “For us, it was difficult being a show about connection when you can’t connect physically. We haven’t been able to realize our mission.”Jason Halbert, who is the show’s musical director and has worked with Clarkson for almost 20 years, said that he has seen her thrive in fluctuating settings, as a musician and as a host.When he is touring with Clarkson, Halbert said, “There’s a new text every morning of a great new idea she has.”“I wake up in Vegas and she’s like: ‘You know what? I want a harp player for my show today. I want a kids’ choir.’ I love those challenges.”When Chris Martin appeared on the show, Clarkson brought out her son, Remington, and daughter, River Rose, so that they could hear Martin perform.Weiss Eubanks/NBCHalbert said he had experienced a similar volatility on the talk show. “Scripts are being written, reviewed, at 11:00, 11:30, midnight the night before,” he said. “There’s rewrites, there’s a new surprise or a new guest. My morning starts with about three or four requests, every single day, of some new music that has to be created. There’s nothing routine about it at all.”But over their years together, Halbert said he had seen Clarkson go from a plucky neophyte to a star, a mother and a leader. “Her voice has grown, her stage presence — everything about her has grown,” he said.By the end of last spring, “The Kelly Clarkson Show” was drawing an average daily audience of about 1.3 million viewers, frequently putting it ahead of “Ellen” and other competitors like “The Rachael Ray Show,” though it doesn’t surpass category leaders like “Dr. Phil” or “Live With Kelly and Ryan.”Despite the obvious indicators that Clarkson is being positioned to step in as successor to DeGeneres (whose show is produced by Warner Bros.), no one is quite ready to talk about this explicitly while DeGeneres is still on the air.Tracie Wilson, the executive vice president of NBCUniversal’s syndication studios, praised DeGeneres for her lengthy, innovative tenure. “Nineteen years — what a milestone, that’s incredible,” Wilson said.Even so, Wilson said that the coming season of “The Kelly Clarkson Show” was an important opportunity to reintroduce the show to viewers.“We are treating Season 3 like a launch,” she said. “We’re putting everything behind it. Because we’re still an infant of a show and we have so much more to do. We’ve had so many stops and starts with the pandemic.”Clarkson — who has featured DeGeneres as a guest on her show and appeared several times on “Ellen” — played down comparisons between them. “No one can take over for Ellen. It’s an iconic show,” she said.She argued that her efforts as a talk-show host shouldn’t be measured against those of her illustrious predecessors, any more than she should be gauged as a singer in comparison to the vocalists who inspired her.“I’m never going to be Whitney Houston — I’m never going to be Cyndi Lauper, Reba or Trisha or Mariah,” she said. “I’m going to be me. I think that’s fine. There’s room for everyone at the table.”Clarkson credits her time on “American Idol” with making her comfortable on-camera. “I don’t really feel pressure from that,” she said.Justin J Wee for The New York TimesClarkson — who is simultaneously preparing a new Christmas album for release later this year — said there was still value in trying to produce positive, uplifting entertainment. It is a goal that hasn’t been deterred by the many months of coverage that her continuing divorce from her onetime manager Brandon Blackstock has yielded for celebrity sites like TMZ and Us Weekly.Clarkson said she was generally unaware of how she is portrayed in the tabloids, given that her own internet usage is limited mostly to Friday night sessions of “Zillow porn” and that these sites were off her radar, even if they had generated large readerships.“It’s supply and demand,” she said. “People demand it, so they supply it, unfortunately. I’m not mad at it. But I don’t have to subscribe to it.”Clarkson spent much of an afternoon taping in New York trading enthusiastic repartee with Chris Martin, the lead singer of Coldplay and a personal fave she was meeting for the first time. She swooned over his accent and contributed vocals as he played her an acoustic-guitar cover of Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me).”During a question-and-answer segment, Martin sheepishly said he was nervous. “I’ve never been interviewed by someone who’s a better singer than me,” he explained.Clarkson threw up her hands and pretended to walk off the stage. “I’ve achieved greatness,” she said triumphantly.Later, Clarkson brought out her 7-year-old daughter, River Rose, and 5-year-old son, Remington, so that they could hear Martin play a solo performance of the Coldplay song “Green Eyes.”Martin had gotten only a few bars in when Remy motioned to his mother and said, loud enough for the audience to hear: “I need to go to the bathroom.”It was one of those unscripted moments that Clarkson lives for, and she seized it. As her son trotted off the stage, the delighted host told the crowd that she never seems to have this problem herself.“I always go right before my show starts,” she said. “Because I’m panicked about it.” More

  • 100 Shares129 Views

    in Theater

    On London Stages, High Ambitions and Mixed Results

    In “Rockets and Blue Lights” and “Once Upon a Time in Nazi Occupied Tunisia,” British playwrights make grand gestures. Sometimes too grand.LONDON — It seems reasonable to expect fireworks from a play called “Rockets and Blue Lights,” a vivid title for an overstuffed, if intriguing, drama with no shortage of things to say.Running through Oct. 9 at the National Theater here, Winsome Pinnock’s play may require a chart to help track the action: Ten actors play 24 roles. But if the intricate plotting takes a while to flare, the ambition of the piece is welcome throughout. In a theatrical climate defined over the last year by solo or small-cast plays, here is writing that thinks big. It also brings Pinnock back to the National, where the author, now 60, made history in 1994 as the first Black British woman to have a play at that address.“Rockets and Blue Lights” was seen briefly in March 2020 at the Royal Exchange Theater in Manchester before the pandemic intervened; a subsequent radio version was adapted for the BBC. The director Miranda Cromwell’s current production tethers a strong cast to a play in which present and past collide. Pinnock’s principal theme is how artists illuminate (or betray) the world around them, and her way in is the work of the English Romantic painter J.M.W. Turner.The reference in the title is to one of two oil paintings by Turner that were exhibited at the Royal Academy in London in 1840. The other, “The Slave Ship,” might depict the infamous 1781 Zong massacre, which resulted in the deaths of more than 130 African slaves at sea. (Scholars are divided over the work’s inspiration.) The same painting is also known by an explanatory alternate title, “Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying — Typhoon Coming On,” and Pinnock traveled to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston to see the picture for herself.The drama begins in 2007, with two women debating Turner’s achievement. How can such an ugly scene be so beautiful, Lou (Kiza Deen), asks of a painting in which she has a vested interest. An actress, she has signed on for a film in which she will play one of the drowning slaves — an assignment a far cry from her previous starring role, on a TV sci-fi series called “Space Colony Mars.”The action in “Rockets and Blue Lights” plays out on a set designed by Laura Hopkins.Brinkhoff-MoegenburgPinnock then rewinds to the 19th century to address the rapport that develops between Turner himself (a feisty Paul Bradley) and a Black sailor, Thomas (an excellent Karl Collins), whom Turner encounters by the docks. “I can tell by your blistered hand that you’re a man of the sea,” Thomas notes admiringly of the artist. Thomas, though, comes to grief, as befits a play in which the dead haunt the living: The film Lou is making is called, significantly, “The Ghost Ship.”The drama ricochets through enough themes — enslavement, artistic integrity, personal responsibility, among many others — for a play double its two-and-half-hour running time. Through it all, Laura Hopkins’s set allows water to lap at the edges: an apt visual for a play in which the sea is of more than passing interest.That our attention is riveted throughout is due not just to Pinnock but also to Cromwell, a 2020 Olivier Award winner for “Death of a Salesman,” who locates the human pulse in an often dizzying text. The play ends with a moving roll call of the dead and a reminder that art can ennoble the deceased and, in a certain way, give them life.Death also hovers over a second, though vastly different recent London opening: “Once Upon a Time in Nazi Occupied Tunisia,” at the Almeida through Sept 18. This play by Josh Azouz filters World War II through the lens of the German occupation of Tunisia, a onetime French protectorate, which began late in 1942. In thrall to France’s Vichy regime at the time of the Nazis’ arrival, Tunisia, a useful program essay informs us, was home not just to a predominantly Muslim population but to 90,000 Jews, many of whom did not make it to the protectorate’s liberation, in May 1943.Adrian Edmondson as Grandma, left, and Yasmin Paige as Loys in Josh Azouz’s “One Upon a Time in Nazi Occupied Tunisia” at the Almeida.Marc BrennerAs his title suggests, Azouz has taken an obvious leaf from Quentin Tarantino and exhibits the Oscar-winning filmmaker’s taste for folding unexpected levity into tales of depravity. The result shares with Pinnock’s play a gratifying appetite for chronicling history anew, but wears out its welcome much faster: After a while, the gallows humor just seems glib.“Once Upon a Time in Nazi Occupied Tunisia’s” defining character is a cruel yet smiley Nazi officer who has taken charge of the local community: The opening scene, set in a labor camp outside the city of Tunis, finds an impassioned young Arab, Youssef (Ethan Kai), forced by one of this villain’s minions to urinate on his longtime friend Victor (Pierro Niel-Mee), a Jew. Youssef advises Victor to move to New York after the war, and the talk soon turns to dispossession, and what it even means to call a place home.The two men and their wives exist at the mercy of the tactically cheerful Nazi, who is improbably nicknamed Grandma because he likes knitting and refers to himself as an “old woman” — albeit one unafraid to float the prospect of gouging out the eyes of Victor’s wife, Loys (Yasmin Paige, eloquently furious).The power games unfold on a deceptively drab wooden set by Max Johns that springs open as required, and features holes for characters to poke their heads through, as in Beckett. Yet the more Azouz recalls one forebear or another, the more you register the difficulty he has in navigating shifts in tone; the director Eleanor Rhode brings a comparatively prosaic eye to material that might benefit from some stage wizardry.It’s good to see the charismatic Kai back onstage after his electric performance in “Equus” a season or two ago, and the comic actor Adrian Edmondson deserves credit for never soft-pedaling Grandma’s dark impulses. But for all its laudable intentions, the play sits suspended between historical inquiry, sendup and cautionary fable: audacious, to be sure, but not fully realized.From left, Laura Hanna, Ethan Kai, Yasmin Paige and Pierro Niel-Mee in “Once Upon a Time in Tunisia,” directed by Eleanor Rhode.Marc BrennerRockets and Blue Lights. Directed by Miranda Cromwell. National Theater, through Oct. 9.Once Upon a Time in Nazi Occupied Tunisia. Directed by Eleanor Rhode. Almeida Theater, through Sept. 18. More