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    in Television

    Graham Norton Comes Around

    The Irish entertainer is known for his freewheeling talk show, but in his novel “Home Stretch” he explores what it’s like for a gay man to return to his home and find both it and himself wholly transformed.Graham Norton has been a saucy mainstay of British entertainment for so long that it is hard to imagine him doing anything else. Talk-show host, radio presenter, Eurovision Song Contest frontman, “RuPaul’s Drag Race UK” judge, he is known for being quick, empathetic and outrageous, and for relishing nothing more than a good dirty anecdote. More

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    in Theater

    ‘Liminality’ Is Theater of the Mind That Explores the In-Between

    A new virtual reality experience in Williamsburg marries wondrous production values with banal narratives.The word “liminality,” which broadly refers to intermediate or transitional spaces, evokes visions of New Age-y women with flowing scarves, armchair psychologists or insidious miracle drugs in Burgess-esque dystopias. There’s a bit of all three in “Liminality” at the Museum of Future Experiences (MoFE), a venue and production studio in Williamsburg for virtual reality and immersive audio storytelling. Meditation meets philosophy meets sound bath meets gaming meets Lululemon yogic retreat in a sprawling, enveloping experience that’s inviting and eye-catching, but too conceptually broad and self-satisfied for its own good.You enter the space through a nondescript doorway off Grand Street, which leads to a lobby that offers a few micro-exhibitions for audiences waiting to embark into the liminal realm. On one side a “Virtual Boy” VR headset sits on display and on another, a chest of drawers invites audience members to explore its contents at their leisure. Issues of old pulp fiction magazines sit on top, along with magnifying glasses, and drawers reveal Rorschach tests and books on psychology and surreal art.A guide who is reminiscent of a flight attendant greets the audience, preparing them for a sojourn into a place of “uncertainty, chaos and metamorphosis.” The room where “Liminality” takes place, with its walls of thick curtains, Ambisonic speakers set in towering obelisks and lounge chairs — each with a VR headset — set up in four rows around a central aisle, feels less like a theater than the antechamber of an Epcot ride.Though is this even theater? Theater is perhaps the closest term to describe the experience, but even that is poorly suited; “Liminality” evades any one category or definition, though what else could we expect from a show that’s all about the in-between spaces in perceptions and realities?So let’s just say it’s a theater of the mind. The 70-minute production is split into different segments, some of which are immersive soundscapes and audio performances, and others that are more guided meditations. These are interrupted by three short films that the audience watches via the VR headsets.Stately gongs and dreamy swells of sound announce an introspective performance tailored by each audience member’s imagination. A narrator talks you through a guided visualization where you’re meant to find a field, trees and your own childhood self before floating off into ethereal realms. Warning: Your mileage may vary. Whether the exercise grants you enlightenment or a short nap depends on your own mental performance (my experience skewed closer to a siesta). Either way, the segment, which bookends “Liminality,” is the most pedantic and least interesting part of the show.That’s more the fault of the script than the technical elements of “Liminality,” which don’t disappoint. The sounds are succulent and otherworldly; even the thunder and rainfall of a storm during an audio segment called “The Doldrums,” about a captain and crew stranded in the ocean, are rendered with such sonic dimension that I was surprised to find myself still perfectly dry and sheltered at the scene’s conclusion. The lighting, from the room’s shifting hues to the soft beams of the Edison bulbs in the overhead lamps to the ultraviolet gleam that gave the lettering of my T-shirt an iridescent nightclub glow, is phantasmagoric.But it’s the VR-based segments that are most transporting. The first VR short film, “Life-Giver,” created by Petter Lindblad and Alexander Rönnberg, follows a family on a journey to catch the last transport ship off a dying, post-apocalyptic Earth. The second, “Mind Palace,” written and directed by Carl Krause and Dominik Stockhausen, is a sensual, impressionistic examination of the end of a relationship. The final VR film is “Conscious Existence,” created by Marc Zimmerman in collaboration with MoFE. It’s a sumptuously illustrated existential journey through earthly landscapes and the far reaches of space.The vibrancy of the visuals, combined with the tactile vibrations of the VR device — rendering crashes and quakes — make for an experience that combines the immediacy of theater, the visual dialect of film and the technological rush of gaming. It all adds up to a strikingly immersive feat of world-building: You can survey a sky full of constellations overhead or turn around to see the rubble of a broken Earth extend toward a horizon. (Audience members who wear glasses, however, along with those prone to vertigo, may find all this Matrix-esque exploration tiring and discombobulating.)The narratives are hit and miss. “Mind Palace” is gorgeously executed, but the elegant scenes don’t provide enough narrative context. A sentient pool of blood that ebbs and gushes around the two men implies violence, but what kind of violence? Literal? Metaphorical? It isn’t clear.The sublime landscapes of “Conscious Existence,” with the purple and pink nebulae, swaying forests and carnivalesque pops and whorls of light, recall the transcendental filmmaking of Terrence Malick. The voice-over narratives are less impressive; the didacticism of the monologues exacerbate the self-consciously meditative style of the performances.For all of the technical originality of “Liminality,” what ends up staying with you is the banality of the stories and themes. “Life-Giver” gave me flashbacks of every post-apocalyptic sci-fi film from the past few decades. An audio segment called “Death of a Cave Allegory,” a modern retelling of Plato’s famous parable, felt like an unremarkable excerpt from an undergraduate philosophy class.That’s also indicative of the larger problem of “Liminality”: It aims to tackle a concept so vast and multifaceted, it has no clear definition of its subject or focus for its intentions. A liminal space can be twilight or purgatory or the realm of dreams. It can be the middle ground between immigration and citizenship, or a trans or nonbinary way of identifying sexuality. “Liminality” is both too large and too narrow, its smattering of narratives and sonic explorations only revealing all the other routes the show could take.Though that’s the problem with liminality, isn’t it? The innate paradox: It can be everything and nothing all at once.LiminalityAt the Museum of Future Experience, Brooklyn; mofe.co More

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    Frank Bonner, Brash Salesman on ‘WKRP in Cincinnati,’ Dies at 79

    He played the memorably obnoxious Herb Tarlek for all four seasons of the popular sitcom set at a radio station, and reprised the role on a sequel show a decade later.Frank Bonner, the actor best known for playing Herb Tarlek, the brash salesman with an affection for plaid polyester suits, on the popular television comedy “WKRP in Cincinnati,” died on Wednesday at his home in Laguna Niguel, Calif., south of Los Angeles. He was 79.His daughter, Desiree Boers-Kort, said the cause was complications of Lewy body dementia. He had learned he had the disease, which leads to worsening mental and physical complications, about three years ago.“WKRP in Cincinnati,” seen on CBS from 1978 to 1982, was set at a struggling radio station trying to reinvent itself with a rock format. The cast included Gary Sandy as the embattled station manager and Tim Reid and Howard Hesseman as disc jockeys. Mr. Bonner’s character, the station’s sales manager, was known for his obnoxious behavior, his general incompetence and his garish wardrobe.Loni Anderson, who played Jennifer Marlowe, the station’s super-efficient receptionist — and the frequent object of Herb’s heavy-handed flirting — said in a statement that Mr. Bonner was “one of the funniest men I had the pleasure of working with” and “the nicest man I have ever known.”Ms. Boers-Kort said that Mr. Bonner valued his time acting on “WKRP in Cincinnati” in part because it led him toward the career he preferred: directing. After serving as the director of six episodes of “WKRP,” he went on to direct episodes of more than a dozen other shows in the 1980s and ’90s, including “Who’s the Boss?,” “Saved by the Bell: The New Class” and “Just the Ten of Us” (on which he also had a recurring role).Mr. Bonner reprised the role of Herb on the syndicated sequel “The New WKRP in Cincinnati” in the early 1990s. He was also seen on “Scarecrow and Mrs. King,” “Night Court” and many other shows.Frank Bonner was born Frank Woodrow Boers Jr. on Feb. 28, 1942, in Little Rock, Ark., to Frank and Grace (Delahoussay) Boers, and raised in the city of Malvern. His Hollywood career began in 1967 and picked up steam in 1970 with roles in the film “Equinox” and on the TV series “The Young Lawyers” and “Nancy.” He appeared on “Mannix,” “Police Woman,” “Fantasy Island” and other shows before landing the career-defining role of Herb Tarlek.In addition to Ms. Boers-Kort, his daughter, Mr. Bonner is survived by his wife, Gayle Hardage Bonner. She had been his high school sweetheart in Malvern, his daughter said, and they reunited and eventually wed four decades later. His four previous marriages ended in divorce.His survivors also include two sons, Matthew and Justin; a stepdaughter, DeAndra Freed; seven grandchildren; and a great-grandchild. Another son, Michael, died before Mr. Bonner.Mr. Bonner got a kick out of Herb’s ill-advised wardrobe, his daughter said, because he knew that the character’s style was “one of the things that people loved about him.” She said he kept some of Herb’s distinctive white belts when the show ended.The New York Times contributed reporting. More

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    André De Shields Isn’t Done With ‘King Lear’ (or ‘Hadestown’)

    The actor is performing the coveted role for a second time, and is already aiming for a third. But first: He’s returning to Broadway in September.A throne fit for André De Shields: The actor is portraying “King Lear” at the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival. “The lesson we learn about empathy is for 21st-century America still going through the woes of the pandemic,” he said of the play.Whitney Curtis for The New York TimesST. LOUIS — It takes André De Shields two and a half hours to lose his mind.His turbulent descent into madness, as King Lear at the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival in Forest Park here, comes with the moments of grandiosity we now expect from the man who won a Tony Award for playing a god, Hermes, in “Hadestown” on Broadway. He dances onto the stage in one early scene, jubilantly waving an automatic weapon in the air alongside the Afrofuturistic soldiers of his North African nation; later he stumbles through the park in a leafy makeshift crown, hollering in the face of an unsuspecting patron seated in the grass.But De Shields’s towering presence is somehow more captivating in the quiet beats — perhaps most strikingly when he carries the corpse of his daughter in his arms, unwavering, halfway across the stage.“André has a natural majesty and regality in his being that to me denotes majesty and command, just the way he moves through time and space,” the director, Carl Cofield, said in an interview. “And I’m happy to report that he brings it.”De Shields, 75, has kept remarkably busy through the pandemic: When Broadway theaters were shuttered, he portrayed Frederick Douglass in a one-man performance at Flushing Town Hall in Queens, starred in “Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical,” did a virtual reading at Red Bull Theater, narrated a Greek mythology-inspired audio series. And between his closing-night performance of “King Lear” on June 27 and his return to “Hadestown” on Broadway on Sept. 2, he has concert performances lined up at the Cabaret in Indianapolis and Feinstein’s/54 Below.During a recent phone interview, De Shields discussed returning to Broadway, the importance of believability in storytelling and playing Lear a second time. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.How do you have the strength and stamina to pull off the kind of physically demanding performance you’re giving in “King Lear”?We had a long discussion about, first of all: Was André De Shields fit enough, strong enough, to carry his daughter Cordelia, who is actually taller than he is? I convinced my collaborators that is not the question to be asked — because I am strong at 75, I’m physically fit.The real question is: Considering the emotional roller coaster that King Lear has to ride in this play, how could you even consider that he wouldn’t have the delicious burden of having to carry the corpse of his daughter that he so mistreated? To have the king not carry the body, you’d have the entire audience questioning the validity of the performance. I use as my evidence the film version of King Lear that was done by the master Lear, Sir Laurence Olivier. He does the “howl, howl, howl” speech, and he’s holding Cordelia in his arms, but cinematic technology had not advanced so much then that if you looked very hard, you could see the piano wires holding up the body.Even then as a young person, I thought, this is outrageous. It absolutely undoes the excellence of the performance to know that any part of it is false. Now, I had no dreams of doing “King Lear” at the time, but it was a lesson that I took into my toolbox about the believability of storytelling. So when it came for my first experience in assaying the role of Lear, which was in 2006 with the Classical Theater of Harlem, the director said to me, “As much as I want you to play the role, if you cannot carry Cordelia’s body onstage, I can’t cast you.” And I said, “Well, you’ve chosen the right guy. Because not only can I carry her body onstage; I can do the entire monologue with her in my arms.”That was during the marking of my 60th birthday, and I thought then, I’d like to revisit Lear in about 10 years. So this was 15 years later, and the question comes up again. And my response was the same. I must. I can, but it must happen.From left, Brian McKinley, André De Shields, Nicole King and Michael Tran in an Afrofuturistic “King Lear.”Phillip Hamer PhotographyIt is believed that Shakespeare wrote this play on the heels of a pandemic. Has that been on your mind in preparing for this show during such a unique time?Yes. It is informed by that bubonic plague, where the ordinary citizen, if you will, was reacting to the same things we were reacting to: fear, outrage, chaos, stasis, all of the rules of society that come to bear when the playing field has been finally leveled. What the pandemic did was to create a kind of society where everyone had to obey the same rules — whether you’re rich or poor or white or Black, you have to wear the face mask, you have to practice physical distancing, you have to shelter in place. And this drove people nuts. It drove me nuts.So part of what we are revealing here is that the king that we are encouraged and taught to have so much empathy for is probably one of the most specific illustrations of unmitigated white male supremacy, and all of the evils that go with it — like homophobia, misogyny — that’s all part of the king’s character. You can’t see it immediately because it’s hidden by so much language. But when you strip that language away, you see exactly that this is a man, to put it mildly, who does not like womanhood and blames everything on what he sees as the evil of his daughters. So the lesson that he knows at the end, when he bemoans the death of Cordelia, is a lesson for us in the 21st-century world. The lesson we learn about empathy is for 21st-century America still going through the woes of the pandemic.Did you approach this role differently than you did 15 years ago?The first thing I did was to forget that I had done “King Lear” before. I had to look at this man through the eyes of someone who was now closer to his specific age. That’s why I mentioned that the first time I did it, I was 60. The second time I’m doing it, I’m 75. So the next time I do it, I will be age-specific: King Lear is remembered to be 83. And I am going to do it a third time.But what is more important than the relativism of age is the curiosity that is lodged by doing the play a second time. One of the things we lose as we mature is curiosity: being interested in things other than yourself, other than your corner of the world. But returning to “King Lear” during a pandemic has actually opened me up. And that muscle of curiosity is stronger than it’s ever been — which is one of the reasons why, for two and a half hours, I can assault the stage the way I do.“I want to get to the pinnacle of ‘Hadestown’ and then look up and keep climbing,” André De Shields said of why he’s eager to return to Broadway in September.Whitney Curtis for The New York TimesIn a year in which many of us have struggled with staying productive and creative, how have you kept this busy?I’ve been answering the call that is obvious, to me anyway, that the zeitgeist, the paradigm, is changing. And it’s calling for healers, those of us who see the malady, who want to look for the people who understand that this is the time for coordination, cooperation, communication, collaboration. We need one another.The need now is those of us who want to build bridges, not destroy them. Those of us who want to help the new world come to life, not those of us who look over our shoulders and say, “Oh, wasn’t that a better time.” And that would keep you busy. There’s a lot of work to be done.How does it feel to be coming back to “Hadestown”?I don’t know if you’re familiar with my Tony Award acceptance speech — I received my award and shared with the audience what I called my three cardinal rules for sustainability and longevity. Because they tell you if you’re fortunate enough to receive the award, you have only 90 seconds to speak — and I’ve seen too many of my colleagues try to thank 100 people in 90 seconds. You can’t do it. So I thought, let me drop a wisdom bomb.The first thing I said was, surround yourself with people whose eyes light up when they see you coming. Rule No. 2 was: Slowly is the fastest way to get to where you want to be. And then the third, which is why I’m bringing this whole thing up: The top of one mountain is the bottom of the next. As you achieve different pinnacles, don’t ever think you’ve made it. Don’t ever think you’ve arrived. Take a few moments, take in the view, the vista, the panorama, then lift your chin and see there is another mountain that you have to ascend. That’s called life.The pandemic interrupted the timing of that particular mountain. So I want to get to the pinnacle of “Hadestown” and then look up and keep climbing. Now I’ve already mentioned, but one of the other mountains is the third time that I play the role of King Lear — and then I want to direct it.But here’s my mountain of mountains: I want to break the Methuselah Code. Methuselah is the longest living individual in the history of mankind. He lived to be 969 years. I want to live to be 970. More

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    With ‘In the Heights,’ Jimmy Smits Sings a Little but Gave It a Lot

    He doesn’t have a musical theater background, so he worked hard to make one line — “Good morning, Usnavi” — ring out. Now that’s how he’s being greeted.Why shouldn’t your morning stop at a bodega be worthy of a break-into-song moment? That’s the winning way “In the Heights” introduces Jimmy Smits’s character: He strolls into the corner store run by Usnavi (Anthony Ramos) to pick up his café con leche while cheerfully crooning, “Good mooorning, Usnavi!” In a musical filled with all sorts of twisty wordplay from the lyricist Lin-Manuel Miranda, somehow this simple line is the most sublime — and hey, who knew the Emmy-winning actor from “N.Y.P.D. Blue” and “L.A. Law” could carry a tune?Directed by Jon M. Chu, the screen adaptation of the Broadway show casts Smits in the supporting role of Kevin Rosario, a car-service owner who’s determined to put his wavering daughter, Nina (Leslie Grace), through an expensive college education. But is that his dream and not hers? The characters have an awfully complicated clash that Smits was eager to take on, but first he had to make it through “Good morning, Usnavi,” the line that loomed above all others. Last month over Zoom, Smits told me just how much went into that brief moment.These are edited excerpts from our conversation.Are you prepared to have people singing “Good morning, Usnavi,” to you for the rest of your life? Have people already started?I’m actually OK with that! On the family text thread that my kids and everybody’s on, that’s the way they’ll say hi now: Instead of, “Hey tio” or “Yo pops,” they’ll go, “Good morning, Usnavi.”That’s your very first line in the movie. I would imagine there was a lot of pressure to nail that moment in cast read-throughs, since people don’t really know you as a singing actor.That’s when you get, “Have you been in a musical before? I didn’t know you sang.” And I don’t! I don’t sang with the S-A-N-G. There’s some people in that cast, they can sang — I just tried to hold my own. All I know is that when I got through those first couple of lines, everybody was smiling. There were no people looking down at the scripts.Still, you’ve done a little bit of in-character singing before in episodes of “N.Y.P.D. Blue” and “The West Wing.” And I know you did a cameo on “Cop Rock” back in the day, but I couldn’t find out whether they made you sing or not.You’re embarrassing the hell out of me. No, I didn’t sing on that.Jimmy, you appeared on “Cop Rock” and you didn’t sing? What’s the point?That’s exactly right. Oh, man! Even on this, I had six lines that were musical, and I had four different vocal coaches. Warner Bros. was telling my agents like, “Really? Does he have to have two vocal coaches on each coast?” Yeah, because I wanted to be on point as much as possible!And even though it’s just a few sung lines, they do convey a lot.I appreciate you saying that because even with the three lines that are in that song, we did this whole character-based, psychological approach. It’s a switch-up from the rhymes that are happening, and it’s more your traditional thing. Originally I was like, “I’m going to make this count, and I want it to be big!” And they were like, “No, no, no. Let’s talk about the character and what’s going on there.” It was part of the exact same things that I had to do with the back-and-forth dramatic scenes in the family.Smits grew up in Brooklyn, but from age 10 to 12, he lived in Puerto Rico: “Everything that I am now as an adult relates to that experience.”Ryan Pfluger for The New York TimesWhat did you do on set to get yourself into that musical mode?I like to use music a lot, especially when I’m in prep for something, and I was playing my boy Carlos Gómez [who originated the role onstage]. I was playing “Inutil” over and over again, which is the song he sings from the Broadway version. So Carlos, he was with me the whole time.And he does a pretty great “Good morning, Usnavi,” too.Pretty great? It’s incredible!Do you remember when you first met Lin-Manuel Miranda?There was a friend of mine who worked at the Drama Book Shop who told me, “There’s these kids from Wesleyan doing stuff in the basement here. Jimmy, they’re the real deal.” And then a couple years later, I was at 37 Arts with my lady, seeing “In the Heights” Off Broadway, and we realized, “Oh, this is the kid that Stu was talking about. This is the new wave.” Next thing I know, he’s spitting rhymes for Barack and Michelle.I remember telling them when they went to Broadway, “Anything you need from me …” He gave me a call one day and said, “We’re going to do the commercial for the show. Could you do the voice-over?” “Come on, man. Yes, I’m there!” During my first meeting with Jon, I actually referenced Michelle Yeoh in terms of “Crazy Rich Asians,” and I was saying, “I want to do what she did for that film. I want to help in any way I can.”You grew up in New York. Could you relate to what these characters are going through?I grew up in Brooklyn, but I lived all over New York, and we moved to Puerto Rico from 10 to 12. I went from listening to Motown and R&B and the Beatles to boom, I’m in Puerto Rico listening to Trio Los Panchos. Everything that I am now as an adult relates to that experience: Where do you fit in? I think all of the moving around has something to do with me doing what I do.Smits in “In the Heights.” He didn’t even get to sing when he appeared in a cameo on “Cop Rock.”Macall Polay/Warner Bros.You had to learn how to play different sides of yourself to different types of people.Absolutely. And in Puerto Rico, it was traumatic because I was the Yankee! But everything that I hold dear to me in terms of culture comes from that time that I can trace back. The speech that Kevin has about shining shoes? I shined shoes in the plaza in Ponce, I know what that was like as a kid and how it resonates. Even when I do Shakespeare and Shaw and Pinter, there are parts of me culturally that make all of those roles unique, but here there are things that I can really relate to because I can channel my tios, my uncles, and my parents and all their expectations and hopes and dreams on a wonderful level.How did your family feel about you becoming an actor?Well, I don’t come from a musical or theatrical kind of background. It’s not like my parents took me to the movies — I wound up doing the bulk of my work on television, and I think it has something to do with the fact that the TV set was the thing that we coalesced around as a family. But they were always very supportive, and I joke around about the fact that they would come see me do something like a Shakespearean play and go, “That was nice. Why does everybody talk like that?”Did you know as a kid that you wanted to do this?I knew pretty early. I went to George Gershwin Junior High School in Brooklyn, and if you did good in school, you could be part of the musical — “Damn Yankees” and “Carousel” and all of that stuff. After that, I went to Thomas Jefferson High School in a not-great neighborhood in East New York, and there happened to be this English literature teacher who I’m still very friendly with and he took us to plays. Seeing Raul Julia and James Earl Jones for the first time, they probably were the most inspirational to me, because I saw the parallels there: “That guy is from the same place Mom is from, and he speaks with an accent!”And then there was another professor who was working at Brooklyn College, Bernie Barrow, who encouraged me. He said, “You’re showing this interest in the classics and you probably could go to L.A. and be the crook of the week on ‘Hill Street Blues,’ but you should think about graduate school and adding some tools to the toolbox.” So he helped me navigate applying to all these schools and I wound up at Cornell, which had a very small, almost monastic M.F.A. program. But for me, that was joy. That was the right thing to do, even when it was 6 a.m. and I was at the ballet bar, wondering if I made the right decision.If you were singing and dancing at Cornell and aspiring to be in those musicals in junior high, then this is something of a full-circle moment for you.Absolutely. This is the whole thing about the business, you’ve got to keep your instrument in tune. When I took all those dance and voice classes, it’s not like it went to the wayside, but I wasn’t using that as much here in L.A. because I was doing television. But I should have still been doing it. I kick myself about that now.See, that’s just more proof that they should have let you sing on “Cop Rock.”Exactly! More

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    Comfort Viewing: 3 Reasons I Love ‘Recovery of an MMO Junkie’

    During a pandemic year in isolation, our critic found solace in this anime rom-com about the ways we avoid or ultimately give in to intimacy.At this point, I’m pretty good at faking my way through social interactions. There are no external signs of discomfort, no indications that I spent the route there debating, Hamlet-style, whether or not to bail. No evidence of the way a post-meeting panic attack can start me on an apartment cleaning spree. I’m notorious for my disappearing acts. And my apartment is always spotless. More

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    Stephen Colbert Celebrates America’s New Holiday, Juneteenth

    June 19 is “also known as Macklemore’s birthday, but haven’t Black Americans suffered enough?” Colbert joked on Thursday night.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. Looking for more to watch? Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.156 Years LaterStephen Colbert was among those celebrating as Juneteenth became a national holiday with President Biden’s signature on Thursday.“And long overdue,” Colbert said. “Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, the day the last group of enslaved people in America learned about the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation that had taken place two and a half years earlier. Then, it only took 156 more years until the idea finally reached Washington that maybe we should celebrate this.”“My understanding is that they’re giving it the full holiday treatment — a day off, community gatherings, and, one assumes, 50 percent off all Tempur-Pedic California Kings.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“June 19, known by many names. June 19, also known as Macklemore’s birthday, but haven’t Black Americans suffered enough?” — STEPHEN COLBERTColbert and Jimmy Fallon also pointed out that the 14 Republicans who voted against the bill in the House had something in common.“That looks like the white paint sample section at Home Depot: ‘What do you think, honey, should we paint the bathroom Mike Rogers or Thomas Massie?’” — JIMMY FALLON“Ah, yes, it’s the SPF 700 club.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (Walled Off Edition)“There was a big announcement from Texas-governor-and-man-breathing-easier-thanks-to-Allegra Greg Abbott. Abbott says he’s going to solicit donations from the public to fund the construction of Texas’ border wall. Hear me out — it’s about time. Somebody’s got to keep those Texans out of the U.S. Do Florida next!” — STEPHEN COLBERT“That’s right, Texas is building a wall, and New Mexico’s going to pay for it.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Maybe the wall is to keep Ted Cruz from fleeing to Mexico the next time there’s an emergency.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“OK, so, one state can do its own foreign policy? It reminds me of that famous headline after Pearl Harbor: ‘Delaware Declares Dela-war.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Abbott was clear on wanting money and wanting wall, but the other details were pretty fuzzy. As one reporter put it, ‘He says Texans can donate their private land and money to the project, but he can’t say what the project will look like, how many miles will be built or where it will be built.’ So it’s less of a border policy and more of an improv show.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Bits Worth Watching“The Daily Show” correspondent Jordan Klepper went inside a Wisconsin rally hosted by Mike Lindell (a.k.a. the My Pillow guy).Also, Check This OutRose Byrne stars in “Physical” as an ’80s woman who finds meaning in aerobics.Apple TV+Rose Byrne stars as a bitter woman who finds inspiration in aerobics on the new 1980s-based Apple TV+ series “Physical.” More

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    Father and Son Return to the Stage, Together. Again. No Regrets.

    Reed and Ephraim Birney are in the Berkshires, reprising their roles in “Chester Bailey.” They discuss what it’s like to play off — and fight — each other.In his Instagram profile, Ephraim Birney describes himself as “the black sheep out of work actor in a family of black sheep working actors.” Born and raised in New York, the 24-year-old actor is the elder child of Reed Birney (a Tony winner in 2016 for his performance in “The Humans”) and Constance Shulman (“Doug,” “Orange Is the New Black”). His little sister, Gus Birney, has appeared in the TV series “The Mist” and “Dickinson.” Ephraim Birney has booked jobs, too — “Gotham,” “The Americans” — but not quite as many.“The weird thing isn’t that I’m an actor,” he said during a recent video call. “The weird thing is that I’m not working as an actor.”But Ephraim Birney, who was seated next to his father in the kitchen of their summer home in the Catskills, is working now. On Friday, the father-son actors begin performances indoors (indoors!) of “Chester Bailey,” Joseph Dougherty’s heart-raking two-hander at Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield, Mass. (The show, running through July 3, is being advertised as this summer’s first indoor theater event in the Berkshires approved by the Actors’ Equity Association.) Ephraim Birney stars as the title character, a Navy Yard worker who suffers a devastating injury in 1940s Brooklyn, and his father plays the doctor assigned to his care. The drama explores illusion, reality and the comfort imagination can provide.“As sad as this play is, and it is deeply sad,” Reed Birney, 66, said, “there’s something so beautiful about how these two men have affected each other.”The Birneys first took on these roles two years ago, for the Contemporary American Theater Festival in West Virginia. After a long pandemic-prompted break, spent mostly swimming and gardening at their upstate house, they have returned to them, with the same director, Ron Lagomarsino. During our hourlong call, the Birneys spoke about the vagaries of the business, learning to treat each other as colleagues and getting back to theater, together. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.For “Chester Bailey,” were you recruited as father and son?EPHRAIM BIRNEY No, it was a thing that I had auditioned for, on my own.REED BIRNEY I knew Ron Lagomarsino, the director, because I’d done “Hay Fever” with him in 1982 at the Kenyon Festival Theater. We’d stayed friends. So I wrote Ron, and I said, “My boy’s coming in for your show.” Suddenly I got an offer. I was not really interested in doing a play again for a while. But then I thought, if I say no to working with Ephraim, I will regret it for the rest of my life.EPHRAIM And you’ve regretted it ever since.When you started rehearsing the play in 2019, what was it like to encounter each other as co-stars?REED We were both nervous about that. But we both were really impressed at how very quickly we became colleagues.EPHRAIM It’s like your second home, a rehearsal room. It’s what you’ve always said. And it feels very, very cool that I get to play in that same room.REED One of the last days we were in West Virginia, we were driving back from the theater. And he said to me, “Thank you for treating me as an equal.” He’s so beautiful in the play. It’s really something to see. It’s a beautiful, beautiful performance, really simple and heartbreaking.Reed, when did you know you wanted to be an actor?REED I was about 5. I remember saying to a group of grown-ups that I wanted to be an actor. They all laughed nervously and exchanged looks like, oh dear, oh dear. There might have been a week where I wanted to be a fireman. But the rest of the time, it was an actor.EPHRAIM I’m still looking forward to being a fireman.When you knew that Ephraim wanted to be an actor, did you ever try to talk him out of it?REED Not ever. Because everybody had tried to do that to me. Anybody who wants to do it should try it. They’ll figure it out on their own. If there comes a point where they say, “Oh, this isn’t for me,” I don’t think there’s any shame in leaving. But I also know it’s one of the greatest professions in the world. Ephraim and Gus, they were always aware of the times when you don’t work or you lose a part or you get a bad review. Certainly, they saw that stuff. But I think they also saw how fantastic the community is.EPHRAIM When I started expressing interest in acting, you said, “Well, don’t you see how miserable I am?” And I said, “But I see that you’re still doing it, despite being so miserable.”The father-son duo first performed “Chester Bailey” in West Virginia in 2019. For their return engagement, they will perform at Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield, Mass., starting Friday.Lauren Lancaster for The New York TimesDid you try to give Ephraim any advice?REED Even now, I haven’t gotten that television series that suddenly takes me over the brink. So it’s an ongoing thing. If my career is an example, it’s a long ride. You have to keep your eye on the prize.EPHRAIM I remember getting [an audition] for that Hugh Jackman movie with the robots, “Real Steel.” I remember coming to you, and I was like, “I don’t think there’s a world where I get this. How do I even attempt to try?” And I remember you saying, “Because that’s the job, and one of those times, it’ll be your turn.Were there parts your dad played that really stood out for you?REED Most of the plays I did when they were little, they couldn’t come see. They never saw “Blasted” [a famously upsetting play by the English playwright Sarah Kane that involves nudity, rape and cannibalism]. Connie saw it and told them all about it. When I came home from the theater, our daughter said, “Do we see your heinie in that play?”EPHRAIM I was like, “I want to eat a baby in a play!”What is it like going back to “Chester Bailey”?REED Once we were finally back, I was like, “Oh, this feels incredibly familiar.” But I also am very aware that because the world has changed so much, the resonance of the play has changed, too, and the need for imagination and the need for the arts and the need for human contact, those things are much more profound in the production than they were before.“Chester Bailey” involves a physical altercation. What’s that like to perform?EPHRAIM That’s just a regular Tuesday for us!REED I don’t think Ephraim and I have ever had a fight. So it’s really interesting to suddenly be in the middle of one. That’s one of the things that acting does — it takes you places you don’t usually go. He’s pretty good at it, too. I wouldn’t want to get in a fight with him.What do Connie and Gus think of the play?EPHRAIM They love it. They really do. Mom is not someone who will pretend to like something.REED Yeah, Mom is a tough critic. And Gus couldn’t stop crying. There were a lot of tears.Is there a play the whole family could do together?REED People weirdly say, “You guys should do ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’” That would be incredibly weird. That’s kind of gross.EPHRAIM People forget what that play’s about. We could do a fun version of “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.” But I don’t think anyone wants to see us to do that.REED I don’t think the play has been written, honestly. More