Eliana Willis

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    Hitting the Right Notes When Setting History to Song

    In the wake of “Hamilton”-mania, critics, creators and historians debate how stage musicals since balance the complexities of the past and the politics of the present. A lot of history is happening in American musical theater right now. (Sorry, last “Hamilton” joke, we promise.) On Broadway, “Paradise Square,” which was just nominated for 10 Tony Awards, tells the story of a mixed Irish and Black community in Lower Manhattan in the 1860s that’s torn apart by the Civil War draft riots. Downtown, at the Public Theater, the sold-out “Suffs” depicts the women’s suffrage movement in the years leading up to the passage of the 19th Amendment.And coming to Broadway in September (now in previews in Cambridge, Mass.), Diane Paulus and Jeffrey L. Page’s revival of “1776” revisits the debate over the Declaration of Independence, with a cast of women, nonbinary and trans actors as the founding “fathers.”This is American history with a capital H — shows that aim to illuminate who we are, who we were, who we want to be. Those questions have only gotten more complicated in the years since 2015, when “Hamilton” took the culture by storm. We’ve been through two elections (and an insurrection), a pandemic, and a broad reckoning on race and racism, including in American theater. All this has changed how we see — and stage — the past.We asked The New York Times critics Jesse Green and Maya Phillips to discuss the phenomenon alongside Paulus, a 2013 Tony winner; Claire Bond Potter, a professor of history at the New School and co-editor of the essay collection “Historians on Hamilton”; and Erica Armstrong Dunbar, a professor of history at Rutgers University and a co-executive producer of HBO’s “The Gilded Age.” Jennifer Schuessler, who covers intellectual life for the Times (and wrote about the creation of “Suffs”), led the conversation. Edited excerpts follow.During its development, “Suffs” came to explore how Black women were marginalized in the movement for women’s suffrage.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesJENNIFER SCHUESSLER What strikes you all about the ways American history is being depicted and invoked onstage right now? Is something new happening?JESSE GREEN Theater, particularly musical theater, has often abetted the distortion and flat-out erasure of inconvenient histories. Now it’s trying to do a better job. That’s a good thing. But you can’t fix the past with broken shows. History may be dramatic but it isn’t necessarily theatrical — and that’s the pitfall. How do you make facts sing?MAYA PHILLIPS There is built-in tension: does one prioritize the narrative of the past or the politics of the present? I’m not saying these necessarily have to be in opposition, but it’s a delicate balance. You don’t want a show with a story that feels squeezed into the frame of our present in a way that’s too obvious or didactic, which was a problem with both “Suffs” and “Paradise Square.”DIANE PAULUS Artists, especially right now, are interested in shifting the gaze — looking to tell stories that need to be told, stories that have not had their due. I also think producers, and we can’t forget that it is the producers who determine what gets on stage, are looking to play their role in how to expand the stories that audiences are exposed to.SCHUESSLER OK, historians: Do you see this as an exciting moment? A frustrating one?CLARE BOND POTTER I think Americans are hungrier for historical explanations, in part because so many historically unprecedented things have occurred in the past 15 years. The first Black president, and the failure to elect the first woman president — twice! Then the Trump presidency, which exploded the idea of what politics is. Americans are digging into the past to find answers for questions about why politics seems to be both producing radically new dynamics — and reproducing old ones.ERICA ARMSTRONG DUNBAR It’s more than political — it’s creative and it responds to the feelings and needs of the public. It reminds me of the moment that [the television mini-series] “Roots” first aired, in 1977. The history wasn’t perfect, and it was overdramatized, but it was new and important and people, Black people in particular, were immediately invested in this new kind of storytelling. The same thing is happening with musical theater.GREEN The opportunities are huge and the stakes are high; popular history has a way of replacing the real kind. (Check out “The King and I,” a gorgeously crafted and hugely influential show that’s almost completely untrue.) Which is why representation is so important. Erica, you work on “The Gilded Age,” which I feel sure is providing, for white people anyway, the first we’ve really heard about the Black middle class of that era, a story somehow omitted from our education and consciousness. But I think you’re saying that it’s not just about “fixing” history but also about artists finding stories that compel them.DUNBAR Exactly! I don’t think any of us go to the theater for a history lesson. We want to be entertained, we want to fall in love, be angry, and learn a bit if we can.SCHUESSLER Wow, a historian saying we don’t go to the theater for a history lesson — you’re really playing against type, Erica!Diane, what you would say from the perspective of an artist? What appealed to you about reviving “1776” — a very familiar history with a very familiar set of (white, male) characters. And how do you see the show as speaking to the present?Crystal Lucas-Perry, center, as John Adams with castmates in a new revival of the musical “1776” that features women, trans and nonbinary actors.Evan Zimmerman for Murphy MadePAULUS I really agree that audiences are interested in looking back to our history to understand the present moment. The theater is uniquely positioned to do this in a way that taps into our imaginations, into empathy, and what I love about the theater is that it can only happen in the presence of an audience. In “1776,” I have been excited to build this production with my co-director and choreographer, Jeffrey L. Page, in a way that actively poses questions to the audience: How can we hold history as a predicament, versus an affirming myth?SCHUESSLER Can you say a little bit about your and Jeffrey’s broader intentions in doing this show with a diverse cast of women, nonbinary and trans actors? Why is that gender-flip interesting to you?PAULUS When taking on a revival, I am always interested in how to make the production speak to a contemporary audience, while respecting the authors’ original intentions. “1776” was written in the late ’60s, during the civil rights movement and at the height of the Vietnam War. There is a critique of our country built into the bones of this musical. Our casting bridges the realities of the past and the present, from who was excluded from Independence Hall to an aspirational vision of an inclusive society.The “1776” revival is co-directed by Diane Paulus, right, and Jeffrey L. Page, who is also the show’s choreographer.Matthew MurphySCHUESSLER This brings up the question of how to balance the historical record with the needs of the present. It’s different with a show like “1776,” where everyone already knows the basic story, versus shows like “Suffs” and “Paradise Square,” where many people will not know the history at all. How should shows confront the ugliest, messiest realities of the past, versus giving us a more uplifting version?POTTER It’s important to emphasize that theater — go back to Shakespeare — has never been historically accurate. It always speaks to questions of the moment. But when we say stories are not well known, I would say the story of the Draft Riots is well known to Black Americans. And the depiction in “Paradise Square” — which ends with a multiracial community coming back together — is emphatically not what occurred. True, “Paradise Square” also presents this moment as a “future yet to be realized” — a turning point where people have choices, and that is an important story to tell about racial division in this country. But Kaitlyn Greenidge’s recent novel “Libertie” frames this event differently, as a 19th century 9/11, where Black New Yorkers flee to Brooklyn, traumatized and covered with ash, and are taken in by the Black residents of Weeksville. Greenidge’s account is also fiction, but better history, in that it conveys what a catastrophe this was for African Americans in New York City.SCHUESSLER Erica, your scholarship has been about free Black women in the urban North before the Civil War. What do you think about the history in “Paradise Square”?Joaquina Kalukango, center, plays a bar owner with a key role in “Paradise Square,” a storytelling choice one historian praises as “powerful.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesDUNBAR I think “Paradise Square” attempted to tell the story of trauma and resistance, and strength within the context of 19th century history. Was it completely accurate? Probably not, and I’m not sure that any show always gets the history right. But once again, it’s about more than facts and figures. It’s about moving people into the center of narratives who have never been there for the public to see. To center a story about the draft riots around a Black woman is fresh, and powerful.PAULUS I completely agree, Erica. In “1776,” some of the most moving parts of the musical are the scenes with the courier — not a founding father. Franklin, Jefferson and Adams are the famous historical characters. The courier, who delivers the dispatches from the battlefield to the Continental Congress, is literally nameless. But this character, who has the least power in the room, gets one of the most powerful songs — “Momma, Look Sharp.”SCHUESSLER Jesse, you were less than enthusiastic about “Paradise Square.” And Maya, I gather you felt similarly. How well do you think that recentering worked?GREEN As an approach, I’m all for what we’re calling recentering. The problem with “Paradise Square” isn’t the perspective from which it is told, but that in attempting to pile the whole history of a community (even the made-up parts) onto a few fictional figures who represent elements of the conflict, the authors created stick people who couldn’t bear the burden. This leaves you with the false impression, as musicals by nature tend to, that there’s one hero and one villain. Only because Joaquina Kalukango was so phenomenal in the leading role was anything richer conveyed. There’s history, and then there’s craft.PHILLIPS Well-put, Jesse. The question of scope is always a tricky one to navigate in these history shows — how large is our lens? In my review of “Suffs,” I argued that a show can’t be everything to everyone; an attempt to do that will end up sacrificing story and character.SCHUESSLER “Suffs” drew a lot of comparisons with “Hamilton,” but there was something fundamentally different about it, starting with its title. It was about a movement, not an individual — which may be truer to history, but also a lot harder to dramatize. Claire, what did you think of how “Suffs” handled the history?POTTER Much like “Hamilton,” “Suffs” tended to reduce both the successes and the flaws of the campaign for the 19th amendment to the personality of one person, Alice Paul. And while I appreciated the elevation of Paul, Ida B. Wells, and others to the status of male “founders,” the risk is simply refocusing on personalities rather than some of the movement’s broader themes: for example, its racist dynamics, tactical differences and generational divides.I also want to speak to Jesse’s point about the reductionism of “Paradise Square.” He’s right, but then the musical also, in a way, addresses the question of contemporary populism: are poor white people entirely to blame when they lash out at women, people of color and the state? How are anti-democratic dynamics promoted and provoked by others — in the case of “Paradise Square,” a Copperhead politician [as those northern Democrats who opposed the Civil War and supported a negotiated peace with the South were called]?SCHUESSLER Suggesting the draft riots (or the Civil War itself!) were driven mainly by the machinations of elite capital is … a strange interpretation. But I think it also connects with the show’s efforts to resonate with today’s politics (and the way people view America’s recent wars). More broadly, do these shows fall into a trap of trying to provide a comfortable, “relatable” place for the audience (especially the white audience)? That was one of the criticisms of “Hamilton” from historians, including some who were huge fans: that by exaggerating (some might say inventing) his credentials as an abolitionist, the show gave us a founding father it was “safe” to like.GREEN The audience can handle the dissonance! It’s white authors’ comfort that seems to be at stake. They come off as terrified of failing to check off every box on the sensitivity list. That’s no way to make a musical.SCHUESSLER When I interviewed the creators of “Suffs,” they talked about how the events of 2020 — the George Floyd protests, and the roiling conversation around the We See You White American Theater letter — prompted a big conversation among the company. They ended up expanding the role of Ida B. Wells, along with other changes. Diane, was there a similar conversation among the “1776” team?PAULUS The process of making theater feels very different to me now. We are centering antiracism as a core value, we make community agreements as a collective across the entire company for how we want to exist together. All of this is a process we are learning from every day.SCHUESSLER Erica, you started working on “The Gilded Age” back in 2019. How has the summer of 2020 affected things?Louisa Jacobson and Denee Benton, right, in the HBO series “The Gilded Age,” which includes a storyline about the Black middle class.Alison Cohen Rosa/HBODUNBAR I’d like to circle back quickly to Jesse’s comment. Jesse mentioned “terrified white authors” or something like that — and how fear has pushed creatives to think more about sensitivity. Well, fear can be a great motivator! And sometimes, it’s for the best. When I began consulting with “The Gilded Age” I was working with an entirely white creative team. A great team, but entirely white and male. There must be diversity in the creative process to produce authentic and powerful entertainment. While there were conversations before the summer of 2020, I believe that moment moved the needle. While I am infuriated that it takes the murder of Black people to move the needle, well, that’s what happened. Because of the changes and additions, we produced a better show.POTTER I’d like to return to the topic of flattering the audience: It is something theater producers must do, to some extent, and it’s something good historians can’t do — and look at the outcomes when we don’t! The massive attack on the 1619 Project is in part a massive refusal of a past that challenges both progressive and patriotic narratives held dear by many white Americans.What even flawed shows like “Suffs” and “Paradise Square” can do, much like historical fiction, is get people interested enough to do their own research and reading. History is a series of choices. People are self-interested, stubborn, brilliant, irritating — they don’t always make the right ones. And that is an important historical dynamic to understand.GREEN True sensitivity comes from deep knowledge and empathy. It welcomes the audience to accept complexity so that characters aren’t just saints or signposts. I’m thinking especially of Arthur Scott, the hard-to-like father of the Black heroine in “The Gilded Age.” What I find unhelpful is signaling one’s sensitivity so vividly that it’s the only thing the audience can see. In a way it defeats the purpose of recentering the narrative.DUNBAR Ultimately, this is about authentic storytelling (which if it’s a period piece must rely on accurate history). When done correctly, it doesn’t feel two-dimensional and we are able to see the complexity of characters.SCHUESSLER I wonder if this isn’t easier in long-form television, or even in straight plays, than in musicals. Maya, you mentioned the other day that you thought “Wedding Band,” the new (old!) play by Alice Childress that recently ended a run in New York, may be a better depiction of history than some of these capital-H History shows. Can you say more?PHILLIPS Writing in the early 1960s, Childress uses a few fictional relationships to tell the story of race in America at the time. It’s an interracial love story that takes place in 1918 South Carolina, and we find Black people — especially Black women — of different means and situations. It’s not just about the rift between whites and Blacks but also the class divides among Blacks. The play isn’t trying to be a history lesson; history is simply happening in and around the story and the characters. And the play doesn’t need to prove to us that it’s relevant. We can read our present racial politics into it.SCHUESSLER “History is happening around the story”: I love that. We talk about “living through history” when something big happens, but we’re always living through history.Maya’s recommendation of “Wedding Band” leads me to ask all of you to speak to a moment of dramatized history — either a show/movie/whatever — that you really loved?POTTER I am practically the only person I know who is digging Showtime’s “The First Lady.”SCHUESSLER OMG! You are canceled.DUNBAR Ha!POTTER I know! But I think it demonstrates the limits and possibilities of gender at different moments in time, but also the ways that First Ladies stretched the limits of what it meant to be a woman in politics at each moment.DUNBAR I’m going to be very liberal with the term dramatized history — meaning history is something that happened yesterday. Sooo …. I think one of the most incredible shows on television right now is “Atlanta.” While it is a show that takes place today (or for this answer, yesterday) it is fresh, brave, and really creative in the ways that it engages everyday life for Black people.PAULUS I recently rewatched [the 2018 film] “The Favourite,” which I think did a brilliant job of taking Queen Anne’s reign and making that history feel raw and immediate. For more recent “history,” I thought [the Hulu mini-series] “Dopesick” was devastating in its examination of the opioid crisis.GREEN The musical that best reframed history for modern audiences this season was “Six” — the “Tudors Got Talent” competition about the women who were married to Henry VIII. The facts were right enough, the characters were hilariously contemporized and, perhaps most important, the tunes were catchy. A song always cuts deeper than a sermon. More

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    ‘Fat Ham’ Review: Dismantling Shakespeare to Liberate a Gay Black ‘Hamlet’

    James Ijames’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, set at a Southern barbecue, gets its first in-person production at the Public Theater.I could begin with the ghost. Or the famous existential question.But I’m not reviewing another run-of-the-mill adaptation of “Hamlet”; “Fat Ham,” James Ijames’s outstanding transformation of Shakespeare’s tragedy into a play about Black masculinity and queerness, both echoes “Hamlet” and finds a language beyond it.So I’ll start with a scene that especially evokes this production’s charms: In the middle of a backyard barbecue, a group of family members and friends sitting around a table covered with plates of ribs, corn on the cob and biscuits is suddenly bathed in a blue spotlight. They break out into an impressionistic dance (choreographed by Darrell Grand Moultrie), curling forward and arching backward in slow motion, arms fanning out, then they slump down into their seats and begin headbanging. All the while, our hero, Juicy (Marcel Spears), whom Ijames characterizes in his script as “a kinda Hamlet,” mournfully croons along to Radiohead’s “Creep.”This is Ijames’s tongue-in-cheek style of wit: Of course the melancholy prince would have sung “Creep” had Thom Yorke and his band been around in 17th-century England. Without undermining its drama, “Fat Ham” pokes fun at the theatricality of Hamlet’s anguish.And Saheem Ali, the director of “Fat Ham,” which opened on Thursday at the Public Theater in a co-presentation with the National Black Theater, can sure throw a party. By adding in the lights and movement, the scene takes on an increased flair. But then again, having directed the similarly vivacious “Merry Wives” at the Delacorte Theater and “Nollywood Dreams” at MCC Theater last year, Ali is at his best when given an occasion to celebrate Blackness.Marcel Spears (singing from the porch) mournfully crooning along to Radiohead’s “Creep.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesJuicy knows about trauma — after all, he’s a gay Black man in North Carolina. But his more immediate concern is this barbecue, which is a wedding celebration for his mother, Tedra (Nikki Crawford), and his uncle Rev (Billy Eugene Jones), who have married just a week after the murder of Juicy’s father, Pap (also played by Jones). When Pap returns in a spiffy spectral form — crisp porcelain-white suit and shoes — to tell him that Rev orchestrated his murder, Juicy must decide whether he’ll seek revenge. And all this in the midst of a party also attended by his family friends, the judgmental Rabby (Benja Kay Thomas) and her adult kids, Opal (Adrianna Mitchell) and Larry (Calvin Leon Smith).Just a few weeks ago “Fat Ham” was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for drama despite having never had an in-person production. In April 2021 the Wilma Theater released a filmed version of the play that my colleague Jesse Green wrote was “hilarious yet profound.” But perhaps that’s no surprise given it’s from the playwright of such critically acclaimed works as “Kill Move Paradise” and “The Most Spectacularly Lamentable Trial of Miz Martha Washington.”So many playwrights and directors try to find the spaces in Shakespeare’s texts that they can squeeze into, strong-arming their personal sensibilities and contemporary politics into some of Shakespeare’s best-known speeches and scenes. Ijames does the opposite in “Fat Ham”; he steals the bones of the original and sloughs off the excess like the fatty bits on a slab of meat. He crafts his own story and then within it makes space for Shakespeare again.That’s to say that there is actual Shakespeare here, with Juicy slipping into Hamlet’s original language now and then. (Spears, who’s no stranger to classic Shakespeare roles, pulls on the old English comfortably, like an old pair of jeans, his line-reading colloquial and unfussed.) In fact, Ijames keenly grants everyone a level of meta-awareness. The effect is stunning, making the play a living text, moving between “Hamlet,” the story happening on the stage and the world beyond the fourth wall.“What you tell them?” more than one character asks Juicy — “them” being the audience. The assumption being that Juicy may mislead us, as if we don’t already know some version of this story and how it ends. “Fat Ham” uses that to its advantage, challenging our expectations of, say, Tedra, who isn’t shy about defending herself against the trope of the weak, unfaithful wife and irresponsible mother. At one point, she says of the audience: “They done already made up they minds about what I’m worth. What I get to feel. What I get to do.”Ijames also opts out of the Hamlet-Ophelia romance, instead making several of the traditionally straight characters gay. And Opal is not the fragile love-stricken girl in so many other “Hamlet” adaptations but strong and tough enough to throw down in a street fight.What would normally be a story about revenge instead becomes one about the toxic masculinity and homophobia that plague the Black community. “You was soft,” Rev says to Juicy with a sneer. “And the men in our family ain’t soft. And I started to think — look at this little pocket of nothing.”Just as “Hamlet” is full of humor, so too is “Fat Ham,” from Juicy’s deadpan sarcasm to Rev’s elaborately singsong sermon of a mealtime prayer. And Chris Herbie Holland as Tio (that’s Horatio), Juicy’s kooky cousin and best friend, shakes up every scene he’s in with raucous comedy.Tensions mount between Jones, left, leading a prayer as Rev, and Spears’s sarcastic Juicy.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“Fat Ham” truly sings in the ensemble scenes, and Ali’s direction crackles in the many instances when there are overlapping jokes, remarks and barbs. If the comedy’s not in the script, then it’s in the controlled chaos, because the cast is talented, though they shine best when the action of the 90-minute show picks up. The pacing in the first few scenes could slow so the beauty of the language and characters don’t get lost in a monotonous tread. And the actors’ mostly mic-less performance occasionally suffers from their attempts to both emote and project; the volume erases much of the tonal modulation and dialogue pauses.Dominique Fawn Hill’s costume design adds another layer of character development: Rabby’s loud Barney-purple ensemble, with its flouncy hat, for the church-loving gossip queen; Juicy’s gloomy all-black ensemble of overalls and a mesh shirt; Tio’s “Goosebumps” T-shirt and coral zebra-print button-down with acid-washed embroidered jeans; and one resplendent explosion of colorful fabrics and accessories that will catch audiences off-guard, in the best way, at the end of the show.Maruti Evans’s smart scenic design — a maroon-red back porch on a thrust stage covered with AstroTurf, in front of a backdrop of the house — is just as vivid as the costumes and the playful lighting (by Stacey Derosier).For all that Ijames dismantles in Shakespeare’s original text, he builds it back up into something that’s more — more tragic but also more joyous, more comedic, more political, more contemporary. It dons the attributes of Shakespeare that make it classic. “To be or not to be” becomes a different kind of existential query. It’s not a question of life or death, but of who we can decide to be in a world that tries to define that for us: Can you be soft? Can you be queer? Can you be brave? Can you be honest?Fat HamThrough July 3 at the Public Theater, Manhattan; publictheater.org. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. More

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    ‘Pistol’ Tells Steve Jones’s Story. With a Touch of Showbiz.

    A new limited series is based on a memoir by the Sex Pistol’s guitarist. Just don’t confuse it with a documentary, he says.LONDON — For Steve Jones, direct has always been best. The Sex Pistols guitarist is known for rejecting what he describes as fancy “Beatle chords” in favor of a sound without frills, and for drunken retorts on prime time British television.This approach is at the fore in his 2016 book, “Lonely Boy: Tales from a Sex Pistol.” In the introduction, he writes, “I’m not gonna come out of this smelling of roses,” before detailing the rampant kleptomania of his late teens and his sex addictions. There are also details of the sexual abuse by his stepfather, his descent into addiction after the band collapsed and the near illiteracy that hampered him until well into his adult life.The book forms the basis for “Pistol,” a six-part series directed by Danny Boyle and arriving on FX/Hulu on Tuesday. The show stars Toby Wallace as Jones and Anson Boon as the Sex Pistols’ lead singer, John Lydon, known as Johnny Rotten.Toby Wallace plays Steve Jones in “Pistol.”Miya Mizuno/FXIn the series, tensions abound between the exceptional and the ordinary, and dramatic license often overcomes fidelity to Jones’s experience. Preparations have been tense, too, with Lydon losing a lawsuit to the rest of the band over the use of Pistols music in the show.In a recent phone interview, Jones discussed what he would do if he ran into Lydon, how his story got changed to fit a TV format and the impact of the band’s manager, Malcolm McLaren. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.What motivated you to write the memoir?There was just a lot of stuff I wanted to get out there, even the dodgy stuff. It was weird at first, but I got such a lot of feedback from it — from men, young guys, who experienced a lot of similar trauma stuff as kids. I didn’t realize that kind of thing happens a lot. Most guys don’t tell anybody, they take it to their grave, and it’s very unhealthy to do that. You can’t carry that stuff around with you, you’ve got to move on.In the book, you say you hadn’t minded playing second fiddle to Lydon, but when Sid Vicious joined the Pistols, you were left playing third fiddle. How does it feel to now be the dominant voice in “Pistol?”I mean, it’s OK. I’m a team player, I don’t really like being the center of attention. I’d rather be playing guitar than singing, I’ve always had that approach. I don’t really like all the spotlight at this stage of the game, at 66 years old. But it is what it is.From left, Louis Partridge, Anson Boon, Jacob Slater and Wallace in the show.Miya Mizuno/FXBut surely that was a consideration when Danny Boyle approached you, that you’d be thrust into the spotlight?Well, of course. But Boyle liked the fact that it was coming from my view. He said I was like the engine room of the Sex Pistols, and liked coming from that angle, as opposed to the obvious angle.Through the eyes of Lydon?Exactly. That’s normally the way it goes. I got a shot at telling my story, based on my book. But you’ve got to remember, it’s not a documentary. It’s a six-part series.“Lonely Boy” is a pretty frank tale that asks for little forgiveness. How well do you think that comes across in “Pistol?”Like I said, it’s based on my book. You’ve got to showbiz it up a little bit, you’ve got to make it interesting — even the relationship between me and Chrissie Hynde, the “love interest.” She watched it the other day, and she was surprised: She said, “I didn’t realize I was about this much.”“Pistol” presents that as a recurring relationship. Is that quite how it happened?I knew Chrissie, we did hang out a bit in the early days, she wanted to be a musician, and I kind of brushed her off, so that is all true. But she was shocked when she saw it last week.But I do think it’s a good story. Even if it wasn’t as long as that, my relationship with her, I just think the way it’s been written makes it interesting. If you’re a train spotter, you’re going to hate it, because it’s not in the timeline, but whatever.In “Pistol,” Chrissie Hynde, played by Sydney Chandler, is the love interest to Wallace’s Jones.Miya Mizuno/FXAnother unexpected narrative is the way Malcolm McLaren (played by Thomas Brodie-Sangster) and Vivienne Westwood (Talulah Riley) are presented as parent figures. What was your relationship with the pair of them like?They had a flat in Clapham, and I used to go and stay over there. They had Ben and Joe [Westwood’s children], but Ben didn’t stay over much, so I would sleep in one of the bunk beds with Joe. I just used to hang out with them, at Cranks, the vegetarian restaurant in Carnaby Street. I used to drive Malcolm around to the tailors in the East End because he couldn’t drive.[Meeting them] was a real turning point for me, and that’s where my loyalty lay. Malcolm showed me a different side of life — that whole avant-garde, Chelsea “posh toffs” scene. And I loved it. I was not headed anywhere good the way I was going, so I’m always grateful for him and Viv for that. Even though you couldn’t trust him, I still didn’t care.Early in your relationship, McLaren helped you avoid a prison sentence. Repaying that debt seems to justify a lot of your actions in “Pistol.” Did that weigh heavily on your relationship?That was only one part of it. I actually liked hanging out with him. One minute he’d be talking like a toff, and the next like a cop. In all honesty, he really made it all happen, and he doesn’t get enough credit for it. I don’t think it would have happened without him.Did it bother you that Lydon didn’t want to be involved in “Pistol?”We wanted him to be involved. It would have been good if he had been on board. If the shoe was on the other foot, we’d have all been thrilled, if it had been his book and Danny Boyle wanted to do something similar. At this stage of the game, we’re grown men, I don’t know why he’s not interested. But it’s par for his personality for him not to want to be involved. Maybe he’ll secretly watch it and have a chuckle.The show includes the disastrous Sex Pistols tour of the United States, which saw the band implode.Miya Mizuno/FXIs the “Pistol” fallout the final straw in your relationship with Lydon?I don’t know, I haven’t thought about it. It’s not like we hang out anyway. I live in L.A., he lives in L.A., I’ve been here 35 years, and he came just after me, and we’ve never been interested in hanging out. The last time I saw him was in 2008, when we played a load of European gigs. We don’t need to hang out, I’m good with that, we don’t need to be pals. But I do have respect for him, absolutely.What would you do if you ran into him at the shops?I’d probably run and hide behind the baked beans.Danny Boyle has said “Pistol” imagines “breaking into the world of ‘The Crown’ and ‘Downton Abbey’ with your mates and screaming your songs and your fury at all they represent.” When did you realize you had the power to shake things up?The Grundy thing [a notorious interview of the Sex Pistols by Bill Grundy on British TV in 1976] took it into a different sphere. The power came from having a label, then them giving us the boot, getting a label, getting the boot again. We were calling it on our terms, which was unheard-of back then.The Grundy thing was the beginning of the end. As far as making any more music, the creative side was out the window. The way I looked at it, then it became the leather-jacket brigade everywhere. It became mainstream, it lost its originality. Before Grundy, you had the Clash, the Buzzcocks, a bunch of bands that were very creative in their own ways.“You don’t want to fall asleep listening to what I’ve been doing after the Pistols,” Jones said.Alex Ingram for The New York TimesThe end of “Pistol” ties things up quite neatly. Were you happy with where the series ended?I did like the way it ended. There were a couple of different endings that I wasn’t keen about; [this one] left you with a feel-good-y kind of way as opposed to not being cheesy about it.What were the other endings?There was one where the cast were interviewed about their experiences, and one of those “Where are they now?” kind of endings, which was horrible to be honest with you. I’m so happy Danny ditched that one.It does leave out the third part of your book though, the fallout of the Pistols and your quite tragic personal aftermath. Were you OK with that?It could have gone on, but it would have started getting boring afterward. You don’t want to fall asleep listening to what I’ve been doing after the Pistols. More

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    ‘Stranger Things’ Is Back. Here’s Where We Left Off in Season 3.

    It’s been three years since we last saw the kids from Hawkins take on the Mind Flayer (and the Russians). This refresher should help jog your memory.When the fourth season of “Stranger Things” kicks off on Netflix on Friday, nearly three years will have passed since the previous season was released, but only six months will have passed in the fictional town of Hawkins, Ind. Viewers may wonder why their favorite young characters are aging like the cast of “Grease,” but when you spend your childhood fleeing predatory humanoid creatures unleashed by an alternate dimension, you tend to grow up in a hurry.The break between hauntings may not leave our heroes much time to catch their collective breath, but three years is an usually long gap between seasons, especially for a serialized show as dense with supernatural mythology, ensemble relationships and open-ended questions as “Stranger Things.” If you don’t have a spare 449 minutes to catch up with the third season in full, here’s what you need to remember.Steve and Dustin (Joe Keery, left, and Gaten Matarazzo) helped intercept and decode Russian communiqués to discover clandestine activities under the Starcourt mall.NetflixRed dawnSet in the summer of 1985, the third season took place at the height of Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union, before glasnost and Rocky Balboa started to thaw out their relationship. Looking for an edge beyond nuclear proliferation, the Soviets sneaked into Hawkins, where they deployed a giant laser beam to crack open the same gate to the Upside Down that Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) and her friends labored so hard to seal up.It was a little like the rationale Paul Reiser, who was introduced as Dr. Owens in the second season, used as a corporate villain in “Aliens”: If this powerful otherworldly force could be harnessed, it could be deployed as an unstoppable weapon of war. Who needs hydrogen bombs when you’ve got the Mind Flayer terrorizing the Heartland?Happily for the citizens of Hawkins, the new Starcourt Mall has opened outside town, a pastel-colored consumer oasis with a Sam Goody, a Jazzercise place and a multiplex showing “Back to the Future.” Unfortunately, all the ma-and-pa businesses downtown are also starting to shutter, including the general store where Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder) clerks. And it turns out, those pesky Russians, through secret dealings with the corrupt mayor (Cary Elwes), have gobbled up the Starcourt and surrounding properties for their nefarious purposes.Through intercepted and decoded Russian communiqués, Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) and Steve (Joe Keery), along with Robin (Maya Hawke), Steve’s co-worker at the Scoops Ahoy ice cream parlor, uncovered the operation under the mall.Billy (Dacre Montgomery) took the bad-boy thing to a whole new level. NetflixRe-animatorAs it prepared to exert its psychic force on Hawkins once again, the Mind Flayer started possessing rats and humans, melting down their biomass and combining it to form a spider-like monster used to wreak havoc on earth. Some of the possessed, including the bad-boy lifeguard Billy Hargrove (Dacre Montgomery), returned to their lives as hallowed-out clones of their former selves, who became “active” at the malevolent entity’s discretion.As interns at The Hawkins Post newspaper — the one downtown business that’s apparently still thriving — Nancy Wheeler (Natalia Dyer) and Jonathan Byers (Charlie Heaton) tried to get the scoop, but their deranged rodent story proved unfit for print.Max and Lucas (Sadie Sink and Caleb McLaughlin) had a few ups and downs. NetflixLove will tear us apartWith the core characters moving deeper into adolescence, marathon sessions of Dungeons & Dragons were set aside for romantic intrigue — much to the annoyance of the dungeon master Will Byers (Noah Schnapp), who would rather have had life return to normal after his time in the Upside Down. Dustin returned from science camp raving about Suzie, who was reportedly “hotter than Phoebe Cates” but whose existence was questioned. (She exists. And loves the theme to “The Neverending Story.”)Eleven and Mike Wheeler (Finn Wolfhard) were playing kissy-face all summer until Chief Jim Hopper (David Harbour), El’s adoptive father, put his foot down. That left Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), who had his own on-again/off-again fling with Max (Sadie Sink), to give terrible advice based on what little he understood about girls. Steve used to understand plenty about girls, but he whiffed with Robin, who is into them herself.It took most of the season for the kids to come together, so they have the Mind Flayer to thank for saving their fractured relationships. Nancy and Jonathan stayed on a low simmer as they investigated the rat-and-human possession story, and the will-they-or-won’t-they vibe between Hopper and Joyce continued, despite their obvious feelings for each other.But they had to put their love on hold, too, after they kidnapped a Russian scientist and recruited Murray (Brett Gelman), the former reporter turned private eye, to translate info on how to infiltrate the Soviet operation and shut down the machine that has opened the transdimensional gate.Lucas’s little sister, Erica (Priah Ferguson) used her diminutive size to her advantage in helping save the world.NetflixFright nightThe climatic episode turned the Starcourt Mall into a multilevel battleground over the Fourth of July, with some of the fireworks moved inside. In the mall atrium, the Mind Flayer, by way of the spider monster, squared off against the wildly overmatched kids.A weakened El summoned every last drop of energy to beat back the monster. At the same time, her friends blasted away at it with a cache of stolen fireworks. For a moment, El manages to loosen Billy from the Mind Flayer’s psychic grip, and in a last-ditch moment of heroism, he sacrifices himself in order to save her.As that was happening, Dustin and Erica (Priah Ferguson), Lucas’s little sister and an ice cream sample enthusiast, used Dustin’s radio to lead Hopper, Joyce and Murray through the tunnel system below the mall, where they posed as Russian agents to gain access to the giant laser. Although Hopper successfully battled a superagent, who was a dead ringer for Robert Patrick’s T-1000 in “Terminator 2,” he was also vaporized in the course of destroying the machine. Or so it seemed …So long, Hopper (David Harbour). Or maybe not?NetflixEvery time you go awayEarlier in the season, Hopper had vowed to make Joyce feel like Hawkins was a safe place for her to call home. With his presumed death putting an end to that promise, Joyce finally decided to move out of the cursed town that had tormented her family so relentlessly. She and her boys moved to California, joined by El, who had lost both her adoptive father and her powers while fighting the Mind Flayer.In a postscript set in a Russian military complex, the guards sought out a prisoner to feed to a Demogorgon, somehow captured from the Upside Down and kept in an enclosure, like a velociraptor in “Jurassic Park.” The guards were told not to pick “the American” for the Demogorgon’s lunch, which left fans with the obvious question: Who is the American? Is it Hopper?A trailer from early 2020 confirmed that it was, indeed, Hopper. Based on Netflix’s release last week of the first scene (a video since taken down), he and El will have a lot of catching up to do if they manage to reunite. More

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    18 Arts Organizations of Color Selected for National Initiative

    The Wallace Foundation will fund up to $3.75 million in support for each organization, spread across the country, over the next five years.In the 1970s, a series of fires — set as arson for profit — rocked the Bronx. This story, acted out against a soundtrack of salsa and hip-hop, is currently being told by Pregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater at Pregones Theater in the Bronx.These are the types of stories and organizations that the Wallace Foundation, which aims to foster equity and improvements in the arts, will support in its new initiative. Eighteen arts organizations of color across the country, including Pregones/PRTT, will each receive up to $3.75 million over the next five years.“One of the things that distinguishes this opportunity is the acknowledgment that organizations of color have a certain history of undercapitalization,” said Arnaldo López, the managing director of Pregones/PRTT. “And that means that, for many years — compared to primarily white-serving organizations in the arts and culture — we worked with a fraction of the money.”The 18 grantees were selected from over 250 applicants and include 1Hood Media in Pittsburgh, Chicago Sinfonietta, the Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project in San Francisco, the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, Mich., and the Union for Contemporary Art in Omaha, Neb.This marks the first phase — aimed at organizations with budgets between $500,000 and $5 million — of a broader national arts initiative by the Wallace Foundation. A future phase will focus on a second, larger group of grantees with budgets below $500,000. In total, the foundation has committed to providing funding of up to $100 million.This iteration, though, was designed around a specific guiding question: How can arts organizations of color use their experience working closely with their communities to stay resilient and relevant?“It’s about: What are the aspirations for their future?” said Bahia Ramos, the director of arts at the Wallace Foundation. “And how might these resources — time and space to breathe and learn together — give them the wherewithal to meet those aspirations?”The first year of the initiative will focus on planning before the next four years of project implementation. Over the next year, grantees will map out their funding in partnership with advisers and consultants, including researchers, ethnographers and financial management planners.One recipient, the Laundromat Project in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, hopes to dig deeper into its work: Helping artists and neighbors become agents of change in their own communities. The Laundromat Project was founded 17 years ago by a Black woman, Risë Wilson, at her kitchen table in Bed-Stuy, said the project’s executive director, Kemi Ilesanmi.“We have residencies with artists, we do community engagement, we have a professional development fellowship,” Ilesanmi said. “And all of this is allowing us to figure out how to do that citywide — and do it in the context of Bed-Stuy.”Grantees will also work with a research team from Arizona State University and the University of Virginia to refine their research questions and approaches. Researchers from the Social Science Research Council will develop “deep-dive” ethnographies of each organization to document their histories and practices.“All of us have a great deal to learn from organizations founded by and with communities of color,” Ramos said, “who have deep legacies of working with and on behalf of their communities.” More

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    Leah McSweeney of ‘Real Housewives’ Takes a Cold Plunge

    The reality TV star and clothing designer has a new memoir about her drug-fueled partying days.“Oh my God, this is insane,” said Leah McSweeney, the reality TV star. “I might die. You might have to call. …” Her voice cut off as her head slipped below the water. It bobbed back up a second later as Ms. McSweeney fled the frigid plunge pool and reached for a towel. “I was honestly afraid you would have to call an ambulance.”­­­This was on a recent afternoon at Wall Street Bath, a Russian bathhouse behind scaffolding, in a basement, on the fringes of the financial district in Manhattan. Ms. McSweeney, 39, a star of the latter seasons of “The Real Housewives of New York City,” has been a regular patron for nearly a decade, enjoying the sauna, the shvitz, the treatments. In the 12th season of “RHONY,” she brought her moneyed co-stars to the spa. Ramona Singer called it “rustic.”But, as Ms. McSweeney told the camera, “This is my oasis for relaxation and detoxing.”Now that Ms. McSweeney is sober, she has fewer toxins to dispose of, but on this breezy spring afternoon, a few weeks after the publication of her first book, “Chaos Theory: Finding Meaning in the Madness, One Bad Decision at a Time,” she returned to steam, sweat and calm herself down.“It’s so nice to be able to disconnect,” she said. “It’s probably good to work that part of your brain.”Ms. McSweeney with Dorinda Medley, left, in a scene from “The Real Housewives of New York City.”NBC, via Getty ImagesAfter signing a waiver, she made her way down to a no-frills locker room, which smelled worryingly of feet. Trading her jeans and black bodysuit for a coral string bikini, she slid into lavender slides and a matching robe from her sleepwear line, Happy Place.She began downstairs, in a hot tub next to a large pool. “Moby used to have ragers here,” she said with a twinge of nostalgia. “My daughter learned how to swim here.”Gingerly, she lowered herself into the hot tub; the water looked less than crystalline. “Me and my sister joke that you can probably get pregnant if you go in here,” Ms. McSweeney said. An employee turned on the bubbles. A mosaic mermaid cavorted above.After a 10-minute warm-up, she entered the shvitz, a wet sauna, deserted except for a middle-age man, his skin the pink of a cooked lobster. Ms. McSweeney arranged herself on the bench and began to sweat.“I like the way I feel after I sweat,” she said. “I don’t enjoy sweating itself.” After a few minutes, she got up and doused herself with a bucket of cold water. She shvitzed again. And doused again. More men entered. One told her to smile more. Her studs had begun to burn her ears, as did the chai necklace on her chest, which she bought to celebrate her conversion to Judaism. She left.Next up was the infrared sauna, though it smelled of something worse than feet. “Is that cedar or some really stinky guy?” she said. She left less than a minute later, entering the dry sauna, with a temperature set to 190 degrees. Two men were already in there, beating each other with oak leaves. Ms. McSweeney sat atop her towel, her skin peaching and pinking.“There’s something about this experience that’s uncomfortable,” she said. “You push yourself to the limit. How high up in the sauna can you go?”“I can’t believe I’m just telling people that I had a crystal meth addiction,” Ms. McSweeney said. Sara Naomi Lewkowicz for The New York TimesJoining a famously contentious reality show is a way of testing limits, too. She was surprised that the Bravo producers were interested in her. She lived downtown. She was a generation younger than most of the other cast members. She lacked their financial resources. Still, she couldn’t refuse. “I’m a sensation seeker, an adventure seeker,” she said. “There was no way I was saying no.”She mostly enjoyed her first season, even if it included a drunken episode involving tiki torches and some gossip at her expense that prompted her indelible declaration, “Don’t talk about my vagina and don’t talk about my mental health!” Yet she made friends — Dorinda Medley and Tinsley Mortimer, chiefly.The publicity for her femme street wear line, Married to the Mob, didn’t hurt either.But her second season, which aired in last year, felt different. And not only because she had quit drinking, a decision motivated by how she saw herself onscreen. “The show is a good mirror,” she said.Returning sober and, in the middle of the pandemic, with her grandmother dying, she struggled to deliver. “The producers were like, ‘Leah, lighten up,’” she said. “I just couldn’t. I’m so new to it. The other women are good at compartmentalizing. I can’t turn that part of myself off.”She persevered and when the season finished, with the fate of “RHONY” undetermined, she began to write her book, which details her mental health struggles and a history of substance abuse. The first version was exceptionally raw. And even after working with an editor, the book remains raw.“I can’t believe I’m just telling people that I had a crystal meth addiction,” Ms. McSweeney said, describing a period in her teenage years when she went in and out of rehab. “This is not something that I talk about openly. It happened a long time ago. It’s kind of a world away. To open up about it was scary.”Scary, but also apparently healing. “I think it just got me in touch with myself,” she said. “I had kind of lost myself.”Ms. McSweeney had no problem finding herself at the spa. After maxing out at 10 minutes in the sauna, she threw herself into the ice-cold plunge pool, then recovered with a warm shower, which left her feeling serene, floaty. “You’re aligning your body mind and soul,” she said.In the brightly lit restaurant, back in her robe, she relaxed with a ginger juice and a bowl of vegetarian borscht. Hurricane Leah, a nickname that became the title of a “RHONY” episode, had been downgraded to a light drizzle. Wall Street Bath had done its work. More

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    A Darker ‘Borgen’ Returns, and Heads to Greenland

    ILULISSAT, Greenland — From the top floor of a hotel here the view of Disko Bay, a vast inlet in western Greenland dotted with icebergs, was captivating.But as the Danish actor Sidse Babett Knudsen stared out the window at what appeared to be a frozen ghost city glinting in the early September sun, she looked more pained than enthralled. Knudsen was in Greenland to shoot scenes for a new season of “Borgen,” the acclaimed series that seemingly came to an end nearly a decade ago.In the intervening years, her character Birgitte Nyborg, Denmark’s first female prime minister, has undergone some changes that were making Knudsen uneasy. “She goes bad places,” the actor said of the revived Birgitte. “Which intellectually is interesting, but is actually a bit hard to do because I feel this incredible responsibility to take care of her.”Sidse Babett Knudsen was initially wary of reviving her beloved “Borgen” character, Birgitte Nyborg.Mike Kollöffel/NetflixThat dilemma of beloved characters going bad places is at the heart of the fourth season of “Borgen,” which, after a long hiatus and a February debut on Danish public television, begins streaming on Netflix on June 2. In its fundamentals, the show is unchanged: It still navigates a surprisingly engaging path through politics’ thicket, and it still focuses on the double bind that women in positions of power face in their public and private lives.But now the stakes are higher: instead of episodic stories of interparty sparring, this “Borgen” follows a single plotline across the entire season: Large reserves of oil are discovered in Greenland, and geopolitical tensions erupt around issues of sovereignty, climate change and decolonization. And all this among characters who themselves have grown not merely older, but darker: less “West Wing,” more “House of Cards.”When “Borgen” aired what seemed like its final episode on Danish television in 2013, the show was already on its way to becoming an international hit; eventually syndicated in 70 countries, it would launch Hollywood careers for several of its stars, including Knudsen, Birgitte Hjort Sorensen and Pilou Asbaek.Knudsen’s immensely likable portrayal of a political idealist who was both a determined leader and a vulnerable woman (the first episode famously had her struggling to fit into the suit she planned to wear to an important debate) may even have helped audiences accept the idea of a female prime minister; Denmark elected its first, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, a year after “Borgen” debuted in 2010. But it also turned Birgitte into a feminist icon globally. “I was in London once,” Knudsen said. “And a woman came up to me and told me that she had something on her refrigerator that said, ‘What would Birgitte Nyborg do?’”Filming in Greenland took place in August and September 2021, and the production had to contend with many logistical difficulties.Mike Kolloffel/NetflixFor all its popularity, the show was never intended to last more than its original three seasons, and Knudsen was initially reluctant, she said, to do a fourth, believing fans would inevitably be disappointed. She was won over by the trajectory for the new season presented by the show’s creator and screenwriter, Adam Price, and her affection for her character.Several other key actors, including Hjort Sorensen, who plays the journalist Katrine Fonsmark, also came back. “What’s brilliant,” Hjort Sorensen said, “is that 10 years have passed, both in real time and for the characters. So when I read the first script, it felt like finding old friends on Facebook: Oh, this is what you’ve been doing!”In the new season, Katrine returns to journalism and becomes head of a newsroom, only to discover that the traits that served her well earlier in her career — her relentlessness and uncompromising nature — make her an unsympathetic boss. “I definitely struggled with my vanity on her behalf,” Hjort Sorensen said. But she also welcomed the chance to explore a character who’s come to understand with age “that the world is less black and white.”Birgitte, now the foreign minister, also compromises on her ideals. “She’s faced with a choice: Are you going to leave the scene gracefully, or are you going to remain in the game?” Price said. “Knowing that remaining in the game means that your hands will be very dirty.” The real action of this “Borgen” happens on the massive, ice-covered island of Greenland, 5,000 miles from Copenhagen. When oil is discovered there, it falls to Birgitte to not only navigate the competing interests of the United States, China and Russia but, even more trickily, to negotiate with the Greenlandic government over its extraction.Everything the production needed for filming was shipped to Greenland by boat from Denmark.Carsten Snejbjerg for The New York TimesGreenland is an autonomous region of the kingdom of Denmark, from which it receives an annual grant.Carsten Snejbjerg for The New York TimesThe harbor in Ilulissat, a town of less than 5,000 people.Carsten Snejbjerg for The New York Times“Borgen” has always winked at real-life political events, and here, too, the corollaries resonate. An autonomous region of the kingdom of Denmark, Greenland has power over several policy areas, but still depends heavily on the Danish government for its operating expenses; an annual grant of more than $600 million comprises about 20 percent of Greenlandic gross domestic product. On the show and in real life, the discovery of valuable natural resources in Greenland could offer a path for ending the country’s dependence on Denmark.Focusing the new season on that arc brought immense challenges. The logistics were daunting: Filming took place in August and September 2021, when Greenland’s strict coronavirus policies had reduced the already sparse number of international flights. Greenland has no roads to connect its settlements, and everything needed for the several weeks of shooting in Ilulissat, Greenland’s third largest city, and Nuuk, the capital, had to be shipped from Copenhagen by boat. This included a full-sized prop submarine and the crates of chemical hand warmers that would keep the team from freezing on set.Even more delicate was the task of representing a country and a people still very much in the process of decolonization. “We have this huge history together,” Price said of the tensions that drew him to the season’s story line. “There’s so much guilt, and there’s so much an undercurrent of anger.”But as a Danish production making a story about Greenlanders, “Borgen” ran the risk of replicating historical patterns. “We are so used to being represented by others,” Nivi Pedersen, an actor who plays the Greenlandic premier’s attaché in the series and is also a documentary filmmaker, said. “And we are only just now starting to tell our own stories, both inward to ourselves and out to the rest of the world.”Nivi Pedersen, who plays the Greenlandic premier’s attaché in the series, said Greenlanders are “only just now starting to tell our own stories.”Mike Kollöffel/NetflixPrice admits that in early drafts, “some of the Greenlandic characters bordered on cliché, because I didn’t know better.” He tried to counteract that with deep research and by giving Greenland “as many voices as possible in the show,” he said. In addition to hiring the novelist Niviaq Korneliussen to handle the translation of the Greenlandic dialogue, the directorial team was influenced by a research trip organized by the prominent local businessman Svend Hardenberg, who said he tried to introduce the team to the real Greenland.While production was underway, the show’s Greenlandic actors expressed concern in interviews that certain cultural elements they considered important for authenticity — the local accents that would make a character’s origins immediately obvious to other Greenlanders; the deeply-ingrained codes that would keep another from making a public outburst — were not being accurately represented. And since the show premiered, reviews in the Greenlandic press have been mixed. “It quickly becomes a caricatured depiction of a beautiful land with noble people who are submissive,” wrote the newspaper Sermitsiaq.But both Danes and Greenlanders involved in the production expect the season to open their audience’s eyes in important ways. “I think it will have an impact on how others see the relationship between Danes and Greenlanders, and maybe on how the Danes perceive themselves,” Hardenberg said. “That’s the wonderful thing about a vehicle like ‘Borgen,’” Price agreed. “We can actually inform and entertain at the same time.”Carsten Snejbjerg for The New York TimesCarsten Snejbjerg for The New York TimesIlulissat looks out over Disko Bay, where the icebergs can look like a frozen ghost city.Carsten Snejbjerg for The New York TimesThat the new season does so in tones darker than previous ones feels like an honest reflection of the last decade. Months after her time in Ilulissat, Knudsen was no longer wondering if she had made the right decision in returning to “Borgen.” Like the others, she felt hopeful that the show would help raise awareness about Denmark’s relationship with Greenland, and she said she felt permanently altered by her encounters with those spectacular icebergs in Disko Bay.Asked what she thought that woman in London would feel about Birgitte now, who the actor portrays again with skillful nuance, Knudsen smiled with the adorable wrinkling of her nose for which her character is known.“There might not be so much advice on her refrigerator from Birgitte Nyborg,” she said. “But I hope she finds the journey interesting.” More

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    A Starry ‘Into the Woods’ Will Play Broadway This Summer

    The fairy-tale musical, with songs by Stephen Sondheim, will feature Sara Bareilles and a cast of much admired theater performers.A production of “Into the Woods” that garnered ecstatic reviews during a sold-out two-week run at New York City Center this month will transfer to Broadway this summer.The Broadway production, scheduled to run for just eight weeks, will again feature the singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles as the Baker’s Wife and Gavin Creel as a prince, but the other lead roles will be played by newcomers to the production — including Patina Miller, a Tony winner for “Pippin,” as the Witch; Brian d’Arcy James (“Something Rotten!”) as the Baker; Phillipa Soo (“Hamilton”) as Cinderella; and Joshua Henry (“Carousel”) as the other prince.“When things don’t make sense anymore, this is the show that holds our hand,” Jordan Roth, the president of Jujamcyn Theaters and the production’s lead producer, said. “That’s why it resonated so profoundly deeply, and why we need to allow more people to have that experience.”“Into the Woods,” which first opened on Broadway in 1987, is one of the great collaborations between the songwriter Stephen Sondheim, who died last fall, and the book writer James Lapine. The show, a cautionary mash-up of various fairy tales, is widely staged, both professionally and at schools, and in 2014 Disney released a film adaptation.This new production, which began as part of the Encores! program at City Center, will start performances June 28 and open July 10 at the St. James Theater. It is again directed by Lear deBessonet, the Encores! artistic director. Writing in The New York Times, the critic Alexis Soloski declared the City Center production “glorious,” and many other critics agreed.The Encores! cast featured several performers who are not joining the Broadway production because of filming commitments, including Heather Headley, who played the Witch; Denée Benton, who played Cinderella; and Neil Patrick Harris, who played the Baker.The Broadway run will be produced by Jujamcyn, Roth, and City Center, as well as Hunter Arnold, Nicole Eisenberg, Michael Cassel Group, Jessica R. Jenen, Daryl Roth, ShowTown Productions, and Armstrong, Gold & Ross.Jordan Roth said that the physical production would be the same as at City Center, with an onstage orchestra and minimal sets and costumes. “The simplicity and poetry of this production delivered this story right to our hearts,” he said.A New York City Center production of “Sunday in the Park With George,” also written by Sondheim and Lapine, followed a similar path to Broadway. That production, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Annaleigh Ashford, had a four-performance run at City Center in 2016, followed by a 10-week run on Broadway in 2017. More