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    in Theater

    Review: ‘Becoming Eve’ Offers Testaments Old and New

    A trans woman comes out to her Hasidic Jewish father in this Off Broadway play that tussles with faith and family bonds.A few minutes into “Becoming Eve,” an inventive, sympathetic Off Broadway play produced by New York Theater Workshop at Abrons Arts Center, Chava (Tommy Dorfman), a college student, executes an abrupt costume change. Though she bursts onto the set, the makeshift sanctuary of a synagogue on the Upper West Side, in a cropped pink sweatshirt and flowered minidress, she soon runs into a side room and emerges in loose jeans and a drab, body-camouflaging hoodie. From her original look, only a pair of pink sneakers remain.Even this outfit (Enver Chakartash designed the costumes) is daring in its way. Chava was raised in a Hasidic Jewish community in Brooklyn. So if these jeans are comparatively modest, they remain far more modern than the clothes that Chava grew up in, which were men’s clothes. Chava is trans, and she has arrived at this sanctuary to come out to her father, Tati (Richard Schiff), an ultraorthodox rabbi.“Becoming Eve,” written by Emil Weinstein and directed by Tyne Rafaeli, is based on Abby Chava Stein’s memoir of the same name. In her 20s, Stein left her community and her religion, then she came out as trans. (Stein has since returned to Judaism, and is a rabbi at a progressive congregation in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn.) Though mostly set within that sanctuary (designed by Arnulfo Maldonado, with dramatic lighting by Ben Stanton), the play also includes flashbacks of Chava as a child and adolescent and as a young husband. In these sections, Chava is played by a series of puppets (expertly designed by Amanda Villalobos and deployed by two puppeteers). Dorfman, standing nearby, voices these scenes.Because Chava knows that her father lives untouched by the modern world (with heavy restrictions on the internet and most media) and that he is allergic to sentiment, Chava has found biblical commentary that seems to argue her case. To help her, she has enlisted Jonah (Brandon Uranowitz), the chatty, empathetic rabbi of this progressive synagogue. The play allows for heady scriptural dialogue, which speaks to Weinstein and Rafaeli’s faith in the audience’s intelligence. (One reasonable concession: These Yiddish conversations are rendered in English.)But the show is perhaps too intellectual and careful. Weinstein and Rafaeli, in a laudable effort to be fair to all, exercise perhaps too light a touch. (Regarding the women in Chava’s life, Judy Kuhn as her mother, Mami, and Tedra Millan as Fraidy, her wife, that touch is feather light; they are given little to do.) There are no villains here, no victims, which seems right and yet it results in a reticence that extends to Dorfman’s performance.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    in Television

    Comedian Josh Johnson Talks ‘The Daily Show,’ Specials and More

    He doesn’t have a tight five minutes like most stand-ups, but his up-to-the-moment, thoughtful sets are winning legions of fans.Josh Johnson is exactly who you think he is.Or at least very close to the wry, deeply thoughtful, country-mouse-turned-city-mouse persona of his standup sets. In real life, which in this case is a sushi restaurant around the corner from the Comedy Cellar, he’s wearing his stage uniform — fitted gray hoodie, jeans, sneakers, twists pulled back into a ponytail — and he’s speaking in circles, only to arrive at a sometimes funny but always poignant conclusion.After a decade of “up-and-coming” accolades, sets at major comedy venues, two hourlong specials and writing jobs on “The Tonight Show” and “The Daily Show,” the 35-year-old comedian is arriving right on time. Where once Johnson might have occasionally crossed your screen — take his superviral “Catfishing the KKK” set from 2017, about a brief online friendship with a white supremacist — his timely, topical material and fast-growing fan base are now inescapable.“I think a lot of stuff is kind of coming together,” said Johnson over lunch. “Some of it is me choosing to read certain things, learn certain things and pull from different people in my life. And some of it is just the accident of luck.”His sudden rise can’t be attributed solely to relentless touring or his ability to make people laugh. The fact is that no other working comedian is currently releasing the equivalent of new standup specials at the same clip: In 2024 alone, Johnson uploaded the equivalent of 28 hourlong specials to his social channels, and is on track to exceed that number this year, to the slight shock and complete awe of those who know him well.The comedian Jon Stewart returned to host “The Daily Show” last year around the same time Johnson became a correspondent on the program, and sums up the younger comic’s style this way: “You know the things that are bouncing around in your mind that you have neither the time nor maybe the facility to draw together into coherent and then really funny and surprising thoughts? Yeah, this guy’s doing it. He’s doing it actually for you.”Johnson draws on bizarre, terrifying or downright silly encounters that he gets involved in through no fault of his own.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    in Television

    Late Night Taps Into Trump’s Preoccupation With Water Pressure

    Jimmy Fallon said the good news is that “more powerful shower heads are on the way. Bad news: They’re all made in China.”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.Making Showers Great AgainPresident Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday repealing Biden-instituted restrictions on water flow in shower heads.On Thursday, Jimmy Fallon said the good news is “more powerful shower heads are on the way. Bad news: They’re all made in China.”“America was, like, ‘What are you doing in our 401(k)?’ And Trump was, like, ‘Stronger shower nozzles.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Stronger showers are better than what Trump does now, which is lying on the hood of a Cybertruck and going through a carwash.” — JIMMY FALLON“That’s right, President Trump signed an executive order titled ‘Maintaining Acceptable Water Pressure in Shower Heads.’ And tomorrow he’s signing another important one called ‘Installing the Toilet Paper So It Rolls Off the Top, Not the Bottom.’” — SETH MEYERS“Ah, yes, the war on showers: a fight Steve Bannon has been on the front lines of his whole life.” — DESI LYDIC“Now, most people probably didn’t even realize we were in a war on showers, because no one in the Biden administration ever accidentally added a reporter to the ‘war on showers’ group chat.” — DESI LYDIC“But, in all seriousness, I know the war on showers very well, OK? My uncle actually lost his leg from stepping on a bath bomb — it’s never been the same.” — DESI LYDIC“Trump is literally making it rain, removing limits on water pressure from shower heads.” — GREG GUTFELD“Trump said that he has to stand under the shower for 15 minutes before he gets wet. I think the problem is Trump wears so much bronzer, he made himself waterproof.” — JIMMY FALLON“Why does Donald Trump even need a shower? You’d think the three-hour tongue bath he gets every morning from ‘Fox & Friends’ would be sufficient.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Punchiest Punchlines (Another Perfect Physical Edition)“Tomorrow, the president is scheduled to get his annual physical. They should do that in front of the cameras, too. They should have a public weigh-in. How much fun would that be? March him on a scale in a jockstrap like he’s about to fight Jake Paul.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Yep, Trump’s very excited. Today, he was handed a giant chart to pick what he’d like his weight to be.” — JIMMY FALLON“The physical is tomorrow, which means we should have the results tonight.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“It’s not easy taking care of Trump. About halfway through, his doctor will be like, ‘Forget the tariffs — I think I need to pause for 90 days.’” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingThe “Saturday Night Live” star Bowen Yang discussed his new role in “The Wedding Banquet” while on Thursday’s “Daily Show.”Also, Check This OutFor the series “Next Gen NYC,” Bravo will follow the children of some of the network’s stars along with some of their influencer friends.Bronson Farr/BravoBravo’s Gen Z nepo babies star in the network’s new “Real Housewives” spinoff, “Next Gen NYC.” More

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    in Television

    Has Disney+ Changed ‘Doctor Who’? U.S. and U.K. Fans Discuss.

    The show has a bigger budget since the streaming behemoth got involved. Has that pleased its devotees?Last year, when Disney+ was spending big to promote “Doctor Who” on the New York subway, an advertising campaign wrapped trains with images of the incoming Doctor, Ncuti Gatwa, and his time traveling police box, the TARDIS.“Your cosmic joyride awaits,” the train wrapper read, and Gatwa’s hand stretched out to invite prospective viewers — many of whom would likely be new to the show — to join him.The BBC had been making “Doctor Who” since the 1960s, and it had been shown in the United States on BBC America and HBO Max in recent years. When Disney+ came onboard as a distribution partner and co-producer in 2023, it pumped up the budget for the show, whose special effects had become painfully outdated, and brought it to a wider audience in the U.S.This revamped “Doctor Who” returns for a new season on Friday, with Gatwa once more playing a modern kind of Doctor, who is in touch with his feelings. The Welsh screenwriter Russell T Davies, who also oversaw an earlier revamp in 2005, is also back again, as the showrunner.Like last season, the episodes will be available simultaneously for British viewers on the BBC’s streaming service, iPlayer, and on Disney+ for the rest of the world. This time around, that drop has been pushed back by eight hours, so that new episodes land at 3 a.m. Eastern time — perhaps in response to complaints from British fans, who had to stay up until midnight last season to watch it online. Britons who prefer to see a TV broadcast of “Doctor Who” (a Saturday night BBC staple) will have to avoid social media for a day if they want to avoid spoilers.Gatwa plays a modern kind of Doctor who is in touch with his feelings.Maxine Howells/BBC Studios/Disney/Bad WolfWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    in Television

    ‘Her Majesty’ Is Glamorous and Salty Fun

    A badly behaving princess is suddenly forced to take on more responsibility than she is ready for in this cynical Spanish comedy.The Spanish comedy “Her Majesty,” on Amazon Prime Video (in Spanish, with subtitles), is set within the fictional, scandal-plagued royal family of Spain. It centers on Princess Pilar (Anna Castillo), who probably should have outgrown her party-girl ways by now. She can be surly and resentful, and she isn’t as comfortable in the public eye as she’ll need to be. She’s no dummy: She knows she’ll be queen one day. But she has to step into the role much earlier than she expected.The event that precipitates her rise — if not quite an official ascension — turns out not to be her father’s death. King Alfonso (Pablo Derqui) is alive, but he has to flee to Latin America for a bit because of shady, possibly criminal financial dealings — ones the palace can’t cover up this time, despite Pilar’s pleas. Pilar isn’t the queen queen, of course, but she needs to take over the major duties of the crown. Nobody thinks she is ready for a bigger role, but there isn’t anyone else. Her mother died when Pilar was a little girl, and she is an only child. The show, and the monarchy, must go on.Suddenly she has a new attaché (Ernesto Alterio) coaching her on where to go and what to say, whom to be and whom to trust. They spar; she is prickly; he is prim; they bond. Pilar rises to the occasion, pulling the various levers of influence and even partying with the high-ranking judges as her father once did. She has an aha moment, though, when some of the justices pass her cocaine, and as she rolls up the bill, she sees her father’s face staring back at her.“Majesty” has the makings of a pop fairy tale or princess fantasy, but it is a lot saltier, more cynical and more fun than that. It’s closer to “Gossip Girl” or “Scandal,” fizzy and glamorous, with rich people behaving terribly — and illegally, and corruptly — but oh so charismatically.The show is also gorgeous. Palaces: They’re nice! Pilar’s outfits in particular have real flair, and the whole show is drenched in (crown) jewel tones, gold fixtures, glittering rhinestones and thick crystal. Even in its depictions of more modest environs, the sun still streams through the windows with enough glow to practically ache. More

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    in Theater

    ‘Amm(i)gone’ and ‘A Mother’: Sons Calling for Their Mothers

    The maternal embrace of young men and their battles figures in two very different plays, one a solo work and the other a Brechtian riff starring Jessica Hecht.In Adil Mansoor’s “Amm(i)gone,” a tender solo play about the ache he feels for his lost closeness with his mother, we, the audience, never glimpse her clearly. That is not a criticism, only a truth, and it has nothing to do with a lack of love on his part or hers.Soul-baring and sweetly funny, “Amm(i)gone” — whose title blends “ammi,” the Urdu word for mom, with “Antigone” — is in fact remarkably respectful. As an adult, Mansoor has never found a way to be his whole gay self with his piously Muslim mother. But she held him in her lap when they emigrated from Pakistan when he was 3 months old, and as a young child in suburban Chicago, he clung to her, his best and sole friend.He remains protective of his mother’s privacy. When he shows us projections of family photographs from before the late 1990s, when she started wearing a hijab, he shields her image from us; in some pictures with darling little him, we see only her embroidered-over outline. But he is now, we sense, just as shrouded from her, albeit metaphorically.“If coming out to your mom means that you call her and you say, ‘Ammi, I’m gay,’ that is a thing I have never done,” he says. “I have never directly spoken to my mother about my queerness.”Which is not the same as saying that his mother — a social worker who, he tells us, “holds theater accountable” for changing him — doesn’t know.Directed by Mansoor and Lyam B. Gabel at the Flea, in TriBeCa, this is a richly designed co-production by PlayCo, Woolly Mammoth Theater, the Flea and Kelly Strayhorn Theater. (Set and lighting are by Xotchil Musser, sound design by Aaron Landgraf and media design by Joseph Amodei and Davine Byon.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    in Television

    ‘The Pitt’ Captures the Real Overcrowding Crisis in Emergency Rooms

    From the “chairs” to the hallway medicine, the show’s depiction of an emergency medicine system that is beyond capacity rings true for medical experts.The emergency department waiting room was jammed, as it always is, with patients sitting for hours, closely packed on hard metal chairs. Only those with conditions so dire they needed immediate care — like a heart attack — got seen immediately.One man had had enough. He pounded on the glass window in front of the receptionist before storming out. As he left, he assaulted a nurse taking a smoking break. “Hard at work?” he called, as he strode off.No, the event was not real, but it was art resembling life on “The Pitt,” the Max series that will stream its season finale on Thursday. The show takes place in a fictional Pittsburgh hospital’s emergency room. But the underlying theme — appalling overcrowding — is universal in this country. And it is not easy to fix.“EDs are gridlocked and overwhelmed,” the American College of Emergency Physicians reported in 2023, referring to emergency departments.“The system is at the breaking point,” said Dr. Benjamin S. Abella, chair of the department of emergency medicine at Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine in New York.“The Pitt” follows emergency room doctors, nurses, medical students, janitors and staff hour by hour over a single day as they deal with all manner of medical issues, ranging from a child who drowned helping her little sister get out of a swimming pool to a patient with a spider in her ear. There were heart attacks and strokes, overdoses, a patient with severe burns, an influencer poisoned by heavy metals in a skin cream.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    in Television

    What to Expect From Bravo’s Nepo Baby Reality Show, ‘Next Gen NYC’

    “Next Gen NYC” is a big bet on the Gen Z offspring of the cable network’s “Real Housewives” franchise.Bravo is making a big bet on the Gen Z offspring of some of the most famous stars from its “Real Housewives” franchise. The network released a trailer this week for “Next Gen NYC,” a show that will follow the lives of four young reality scions and their influencer peers as they navigate work, life and love in Manhattan.For the reality connoisseurs among us, try to imagine “Rich Kids of Beverly Hills” meets “NYC Prep.”For everyone else, here’s a primer.Who’s on the show?The cast features the offspring of four “Real Housewives”: Ariana Biermann and Riley Burruss, the daughters of the former “Real Housewives of Atlanta” stars Kim Zolciak-Biermann and Kandi Burruss; Brooks Marks, the son of the “Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” favorite Meredith Marks; and Gia Giudice, the daughter of the “Real Housewives of New Jersey” legend Teresa Giudice.The rest of the cast is made up of a handful of influencers and so-called nepo babies, including Ava Dash, a daughter of the record executive Damon Dash and the fashion designer Rachel Roy; Emira D’Spain, a model and influencer who will be Bravo’s first full-time trans cast member; Georgia McCann, a creative strategist Bravo describes as “New York’s ultimate Gen Z It girl”; Charlie Zakkour, a crypto trader and club kid; Hudson McLeroy, Ms. Biermann’s on-again, off-again boyfriend and the heir to the fast-food chain Zaxby’s; and Shai Fruchter, an assistant at the Wall Group.What kind of drama can be expected?“Next Gen NYC” looks relatively restrained compared with the high-stakes drama on some of the editions of “Real Housewives.” (Legal battles! Shocking divorces! Physical altercations!) But the show has teased Ms. Dash and Ms. Biermann feuding over fashion, and Ms. Biermann cursing out Mr. Marks as Ms. Giudice deadpans, “This is so stupid.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More