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    ‘Star Trek: Picard’ Recap: A Chateau of Convenience

    In the penultimate episode of this season, anything the crew needs from the plot to move forward, it gets.Season 2, Episode 9: ‘Hide and Seek’The most interesting revelation in this week’s “Picard” comes in a throwaway line from Seven, in which she tells Raffi that she tried to join Starfleet after Voyager returned from the Delta Quadrant. That Captain Janeway — or possibly Admiral, depending on the timing of her promotion that we saw in “Star Trek: Nemesis” — went to bat for her. Starfleet said no, because of her Borg background.This is the first concrete hint about Seven’s immediate post-Voyager ambitions. It was a remarkable decision by Starfleet, given that Seven accomplished more on Voyager than many Starfleet officers ever did. She saved lives — Starfleet lives, but it wasn’t good enough to be seen as anything more than a former Borg drone. It shows that bigotry is still alive and well within the Federation. It also established why Seven became a Fenris Ranger. (Compare this to Picard and the crew’s handling of Hugh, the former Borg drone, whom we are reintroduced to in last season of “Picard.”)It also ran counter to previous Starfleet policy: Remember that Picard himself was once a Borg drone. The Enterprise crew rescued him and Picard got his command back, like, the next day. (And why was Icheb — who was also part of the Voyager crew — allowed to join Starfleet then?)Aside from that, this episode was — to put it charitably — disjointed.If there’s been a consistent trend in how the “Trek” universe has handled the Borg, it’s that their pursuit of perfection is consistently undermined by their rank incompetence — something Jurati brings up in the episode’s bizarre climax. The episode starts with an army of Borg drones, led by the Borg Queen, trying to take over La Sirena. Should be easy: After all, the Borg Queen alone can take over an entire computer system.But it’s not easy, because it appears that the Queen assimilated stormtroopers who can’t shoot straight rather than professional mercenaries. And The Watcher procures very futuristic weapons to aid the crew in their fight.With every deus ex machina, an angel grows its wings — and there are many wings coming out of “Picard.” How did The Watcher get those weapons? From where? Why have they never come up before? Also, wasn’t her whole thing to stay out of events? Suddenly, the Watcher can beam Rios away after being shot? And then later, Rios is able to beam back because he has a screwdriver? And then when Soong tries to use Rios’s gun, it has a DNA lock on it? And it explodes if it’s being held too long?Probably best not to ponder any of the above too deeply and just keep moving.So when the Borg Queen is finally close to taking over the ship’s computer — something that shouldn’t have been difficult for her to do — Jurati tries to moralize her.“Why haven’t you killed me?” Jurati asks the Queen, asking a question that every audience member has asked by now. In the meantime, Jurati puts something called a “fractal lock” on the computer. How? When? Without the Queen noticing? Ah, nevermind. And wait, Jurati didn’t remember the key? And she left it with a holographic Elnor?Like the Queen, we’re all confused by what is going on. (I did enjoy several of the Queen’s drones trying to shoot a gun at a hologram, because IT’S A HOLOGRAM.) Later, when Raffi reunites with Hologram Elnor, he says that he shared Real Elnor’s last thoughts.“I share the recollection of Elnor’s final breath — enough to know that his last thoughts of you were not of blame but of love,” the hologram says. Why would Hologram Elnor know that? He was presumably created before Real Elnor died.Seven’s comes up with the brilliant plan of beaming the drones off board and into a wall in Chateau Picard. Given The Watcher’s beaming capability, how was this not the first thing they thought of? I feel like I’m asking a lot of questions.The peak of the episode comes when the Queen stabs Seven, and then her life is saved because Jurati trash-talks the Queen by saying the Borg consistently stink at achieving their aims across several timelines. Good point. In one of the most baffling plot points in “Trek” history — and I’m pretty sure I’ve written this about previous “Picard” plot lines — Jurati says the better way for them to do things is by asking species’ permissions to be assimilated.“What if we take this ship and build a better Borg? A real collective based not on assimilation but on salvation?” Jurati says to the Queen.Is salvation different than assimilation? And there is no reason for the Queen to accept this proposal. She has all the leverage! The Borg’s brand is that resistance is futile. and they can’t be negotiated with. Now they change everything they are because of one conversation with Jurati?Odds and EndsRios decides to show Teresa and Ricardo a glimpse of the future — when he didn’t have to — and then leaves them behind in the 21st century. Surely it will have some future effect on the timeline for the two of them to have this much knowledge about futuristic technology.The action sequences were a lot of fun in this episode. They were made less effective by the distracting plotting.The revelation about Picard’s mother was notable, but felt cheapened because it was used mostly as a device to help Picard and The Watcher escape a homicidal Soong. More

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    Olive Gray, an Actor Since the Age of 10, Stars in ‘Halo’

    The nonbinary actor grew up around a lot of famous people, including the Spice Girls, who would hang out in the living room.Name: Olive GrayAge: 27Hometown: Cambridge, EnglandNow lives: In a three-story loft in the Southgate neighborhood of London with their parents, three siblings and two cockapoos.Claim to fame: Mx. Gray is a musician and actor who stars in “Halo,” a Paramount+ adaptation of the hugely popular video game franchise. “We filmed in front of the biggest blue screen in Europe, so the whole time I was completely awe struck and mesmerized by working in this big expanse of space,” Mx. Gray said. “I remember thinking, ‘This must be how an ant feels every day.’” Mx. Gray is also known for roles in various British productions, including the BAFTA-winning TV thriller “Save Me” and the bawdy comedy “Sex Education.”Big break: Mx. Gray’s father, David Grant, was one half of the 1980s funk-pop duo Linx, and Mx. Gray’s mother, Carrie Grant, represented Britain at the 1983 Eurovision contest as part of the pop group Sweet Dreams. “I grew up around a lot of people that I was also a fan of, which is kind of weird looking back on it,” they said. “I would run around the house and scream Spice Girls songs at the top of my lungs, and then sit with actual members of the Spice Girls in my living room.”At the age of 10, Mx. Gray landed a recurring role on “The Story of Tracy Beaker,” a TV show about a girl in foster care. “As a kid, ‘fame’ was never really that big of a deal,” Mx. Gray said. “I know that sounds like not a terribly normal thing to say.”Paramount+Latest project: Mx. Gray will release a five-track EP this year, which they described as “jazz and indie rock” with a little bit of pop. “You have to be very technical as a session singer when it comes to things like breathing and tone,” Mx. Gray said. “So even when I’m recording my own music, I still tend to hyper-analyze the quality of the sound like it’s a different person’s voice.”Next thing: “Halo,” in which Mx. Gray plays Commander Miranda Keyes, has been renewed for a second season. “There is nothing quite like the scale of a big American sci-fi, is there? Everything just happens so quickly.”Bad reviews: Mx. Gray grew up “obsessed” with obscure French cinema, often downloaded from the internet. “I only watched French independent films, even though a lot of them were really bad,” they said. “There was one about this party where every guest was from a different time period. It was very strange — probably one of the worst films I’ve ever seen.” More

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    James Corden Announces He’s Leaving Late Night

    Corden made an emotional address on Thursday night, saying he never wanted to overstay his welcome.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.One More YearJames Corden announced on Thursday that he would be leaving “The Late Late Show” in 2023 after eight years.“When I started this journey, it was always going to be just that — it was going to be a journey, an adventure. I never saw it as my final destination, you know?” Corden said. “And I never want this show to overstay its welcome in any way. I always want to love making it, and I really think in a year from now, that will be a good time to move on and see what else might be out there.”“We still have a year to go, and we are all determined to make this the best year we have ever had making this show. We are going to go out with a bang; there is going to be ‘Carpools’ and ‘Crosswalks’ and sketches and other surprises.” — JAMES CORDEN“And there will be tears; there will be so many tears. Because this has been the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make. It really has. I’ve never taken this job for granted, ever, not once. And if you — the fact that you watch us at home or you watch us online, wherever you are, all over the world, the fact that we get to try to entertain you and spend time with you is an absolute privilege for me and every single person who makes this show. Here’s to the next 12 months, and it’s going to be a blast, I promise you that.” — JAMES CORDENThe Punchiest Punchlines (Rotten Tomatoes Edition)“In newly released excerpts from a deposition taken last year, former President Trump said that he was worried that protesters might throw fruits and vegetables at him. This is just more proof that Trump only thinks in cartoons.” — SETH MEYERS“It’s like the homeland security threat level: red’s tomato, yellow’s for banana, and green is for avocado. And you know what they say if you get hit with an avocado: You’re toast.” — SETH MEYERS“I will say this — he’s not wrong about being hit with a pineapple being dangerous, you know? I mean that’s got spikes built in. And the banana, too. It might not seem dangerous, but remember, someone throws a banana, it comes right back at them.” — TREVOR NOAH“You know what I think is the worst fruit to get hit with? A honeydew. Yeah, no, not because it’s hard; just because you can get some of it in your mouth, and that [expletive] is disgusting. I hope it hits me in the head and kills me so I don’t have to taste it.” — TREVOR NOAHThe Bits Worth WatchingOn Thursday’s “Tonight Show,” Christina Ricci responded to fan theories about her Showtime hit, “Yellowjackets.”Also, Check This OutA scene from “Sheryl,” which arrives on Showtime on May 6.ShowtimeSheryl Crow tells her story of battling sexism in the music industry and personal darkness in the new Showtime documentary “Sheryl.” More

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    James Corden Says He’ll Leave His CBS Show Next Year

    The British-born host, who was a successful actor and comedian before joining the network’s late-night lineup, has been signaling for some time that he was considering leaving.James Corden, the British theater actor and comedian turned late-night TV host in the United States, said on Thursday that he would leave his 12:30 a.m. nightly show on CBS next year. Mr. Corden made the announcement during a taping of his talk show in Los Angeles.Mr. Corden, the host of “The Late Late Show” since 2015, has been signaling for some time that he was strongly considering leaving the show.Five months ago, Mr. Corden told Variety that he never saw his late-night perch as “a final destination.” In a previous interview with The Sun, Mr. Corden said he and his family were “homesick.”Mr. Corden’s contract was set to expire in August, but he signed an extension that will keep him on CBS through next spring.“We wish he could stay longer, but we are very proud he made CBS his American home and that this partnership will extend one more season on ‘The Late Late Show,’” George Cheeks, the president of CBS, said in a statement.James Corden’s Run on ‘The Late Late Show’The British actor and comedian turned late-night TV host, announced he would leave his CBS show in 2023.His Debut: James Corden was “amiable and cheerfully self-assured, but not particularly special,” our critic wrote of the comedian’s first night as host in 2015.A Bit of Controversy: In a recurring gag on the show, Corden portrayed foods from cultures around the world as disgusting. The segment drew the ires of some viewers. On Stage: Corden started out as an aspiring stage performer. Here is what he said about his long love affair with theater.Mr. Corden’s impending departure is one of the most significant changes for the late-night comedy lineup since 2014 and 2015, when veteran hosts like David Letterman, Jay Leno and Jon Stewart left their shows, and a new generation of stars, including Mr. Corden, Comedy Central’s Trevor Noah and HBO’s John Oliver, went on the air.There is a feeling of uncertainty in late night beyond Mr. Corden’s departure. Jimmy Kimmel, the longtime ABC host, has a contract that will end soon and has said publicly that he was unsure if he would renew. Stephen Colbert, whose show precedes Mr. Corden’s on CBS, also has a contract that expires next year. Chris Licht, the longtime executive producer of “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” left last month to become the chairman of CNN. And Jimmy Fallon’s “Tonight Show” recently went through yet another showrunner change, the fourth in four years.There are questions throughout the entertainment industry over the longtime viability of the late-night talk show genre. Over the last few years, as viewing habits have rapidly changed, ratings for the shows have nose-dived. Five years ago, roughly 2.8 million people were tuning into Mr. Corden’s show as well as NBC’s 12:30 a.m. show, “Late Night With Seth Meyers.” By 2022, that figure had dropped to about 1.9 million, according to Nielsen’s delayed viewing data.Talk shows — which depend on topical relevance and audiences who make it a daily habit to tune in — have also not fared well on streaming services like Netflix and Hulu.Mr. Corden entered the late-night fray in a big way when his show debuted in 2015. Mr. Corden, who had a successful theater career but was still relatively unknown in the United States, became an overnight star. “Carpool Karaoke,” a signature of his show, featured him singing along with stars like Lady Gaga, Michelle Obama and Adele, and clips routinely went viral.“Seven years ago, James Corden came to the U.S. and took television by storm, with huge creative and comedic swings that resonated in a big way with viewers on-air and online,” Mr. Cheeks said.But Mr. Corden’s brand of comedy — focused on games and musical sketches — soon found itself out of step with the zeitgeist.The landscape changed considerably after Donald J. Trump entered the White House. Late-night audiences began devouring biting political humor. Within weeks of Mr. Trump’s inauguration, Mr. Fallon’s fun-and-games approach at “The Tonight Show” fell steeply in the ratings, and Mr. Colbert became the No. 1 late-night host, thanks to his more topical approach. He has held that lead for more than five years. Like Mr. Fallon, Mr. Corden favored a lighter show.Mr. Corden parlayed his late-night perch into other high-profile ventures, including hosting the Tony Awards and Grammy Awards. He has also appeared in several movies, including the critically gnawed-on “Cinderella” and “Cats.”Seated behind his “Late Late Show” desk, Mr. Corden called his decision to leave the hardest “he ever had to make.”“I never want this show to overstay its welcome in any way,” he said. “I always want to love making it. And I really think in a year from now that will be a good time to move on and see what else might be out there.” More

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    Holland Taylor Plays Ann Richards One Last Time

    Taylor, 79, first performed her solo play “Ann,” about the former governor of Texas, in 2010. Now, she’s saying goodbye to the white suit.The actress Holland Taylor had long been a fan of Ann Richards, the Democratic firebrand and former governor of Texas, and so she was “strangely overcome,” as she put it, when Richards died in 2006.“I was in mourning for months and months,” Taylor said. “I wanted to do something creative about her to use these feelings, and it just came to me in a flood that I was going to write a play about her and I was going to perform it. It was aberrant behavior for me: I am a supremely practical person, but I launched into this at 65 or [6]8 or something, absolutely blind to any of the pitfalls, any of the dangers, any of the impossibilities.”After a few years of extensive research, Taylor first performed her solo play, “Ann” (its title at the time was “Money, Marbles and Chalk”), in 2010 at the Grand 1894 Opera House in Galveston, Texas. Several productions followed, including one on Broadway that earned her a Tony nomination in 2013.“She’s not a Texan, but I think she captured the part of Texas that I am proud of — that kind of iconoclastic, funny, laconic storytelling,” said Julie White, who was raised in the Lone Star State and recorded the lines delivered by Richards’s assistant Nancy that we hear in the show.Holland slipped into Richards’s drawl and her tailored white suit for the last time during a monthlong run of the one-woman show at the Pasadena Playhouse that concluded this past Sunday. (A version of the play recorded at ZACH Theater in Austin, Texas, can be streamed on PBS and BroadwayHD.)Two days after her final performance as Richards, Taylor, 79, in a video conversation from her Los Angeles home, spoke about dark jokes, the stress of closing performances and the meaning of politics. These are edited excerpts from video and email conversations.“When you say ‘politics’ in our culture today, it has kind of a negative tone to it,” Taylor said.Alex Welsh for The New York TimesDid you ever consider including other people in “Ann”?No, because it is not a play that takes place in time — I never thought of it as being about events. I imagined the circumstances and the dialogue, but the play is very true. In the back of my mind, this is a visitation. This is what the theater allows: The theater allows you to do any [expletive] thing you want.Up to a point, since you were writing in character, based on a real person.Well, 95 percent of this play — the words, the language, the sayings — are totally my invention. So many lines emerge from the pudding of stuff in one’s brain from research. I know a joke that she told on the morning of 9/11 that was so dark. I said to the person who told me that, “Wow, that’s almost gothic.” And that person said, “Nothing was off-limits for her.” So I wrote a joke that was equally shocking. I know what she would say in given circumstances and my own ability to write funny stuff was in some way absolutely elevated. What I wrote for her is funnier than anything I could ever write for myself.Did you ever think about using more of her own words?What would be the point of that? It wasn’t like she was Abraham Lincoln. She was a very accessible speaker — even her greatest speeches are very conversational, and they’re tied to her kind of homespun, hardscrabble roots. There’s probably 10 sentences that I sliver in, like, for instance, “Why should your life be just about you?” How simple is that?How did you approach the Pasadena run?One of the reasons I did it was, I’ve always worn so many hats and had to work so hard during every production. With Broadway, the work I had to do was not onstage: There’s no one who can do press for the show but me. I’m the only actor, and also the creator behind the whole production in every way. And so on Broadway I barely had time to think, and I was executing the play at the highest level I could. Because I was not doing many other chores this time around, I thought, At last I will deal with this text as an actress. I really explored how she gets from this flagstone to the next flagstone to the lily pond to the bridge to the puddle to the stone — jumping from thing to thing. Because to have written a play is not to have prepared to perform it at all. Very different tasks.Has “Ann” changed the way you think about politics?This show is really not about politics at all.But at the end, for example, she talks about government and public service, which is — or should be — a key aspect of politics.I think it’s about participation. When you say “politics” in our culture today, it has kind of a negative tone to it. She had a practical sense of how things worked; she wanted people to be involved in their lives, where they had agency. You’re giving a [expletive] about what happens around you and to other people. So it’s all about participation: “If you don’t participate, you’re jus’ lettin’ other people make some big ol’ decisions for you.” That was political in that sense. Absolutely.What was it like to perform in front of masked audiences?It’s daunting at first but believe me, while I’m performing I have a lot of things on my mind. And I had been living for months in surgical wrapping: I was terrified of getting Covid, not for my own health but that I would shut down the production. So I had a lot of generalized anxiety and from the minute I agreed to do this, I lived behind a mask. Each day would go by and I’d say, “One more down.” We made it through and my relief was just immeasurable from not having that show close.How did the last performance go?I found the last day very stressful. Final performances have so much riding on them. I myself would never go to see an actor’s last performance, the same way I try to avoid going to opening nights, because I feel the actors’ anxiety. Openings and closings are so stressful, they’re just hard. But I think it went very, very well. People said so. I felt complete.So this was really the last rodeo for “Ann”?I could have a pang, I suppose, and maybe I will, but I don’t think I’ll ever say, “Gee, I wish I could do it again.” I am turning 80 this winter and what I do in this show is unquestionably the hardest thing I’ve ever done onstage. I don’t have that kind of confidence in my constitution any longer to say, “I’ll do another one of that.” Learning the text takes me two hours every day with someone on FaceTime, six days a week, for two months. To do this again means I have to carve five months out of my life, and there is no five months like that I can carve out of my life. A wonderful producer-director asked me on Instagram how I feel, and I said “satisfied.” I’ve achieved what I wanted to achieve. More

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    ‘Cost of Living’ Will Come to Broadway This Fall

    Manhattan Theater Club will stage the Martyna Majok play, which explores disability and caregiving, at its Samuel J. Friedman Theater.Martyna Majok’s “Cost of Living,” a play that explores disability and caregiving and which won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 2018, will be staged on Broadway this fall.Manhattan Theater Club, one of the four nonprofits that operate Broadway houses, said it would stage a production of the play at its Samuel J. Friedman Theater this fall.The play has two parallel plots, one about a man with cerebral palsy and his hired caregiver, and the other about a double amputee and her estranged husband. The Pulitzer board described the play as “An honest, original work that invites audiences to examine diverse perceptions of privilege and human connection.”Manhattan Theater Club previously staged the play, in 2017, at its Off Broadway space at New York City Center, where it won praise from the New York Times critic Jesse Green, who wrote, “If you don’t find yourself in someone onstage in ‘Cost of Living,’ you’re not looking.”The Broadway production, like the Off Broadway production, will be directed by Jo Bonney, and it will feature two of the same performers, Gregg Mozgala and Katy Sullivan.In 2018, the Williamstown Theater Festival, which staged the first production of the play, said it had commissioned a musical adaptation from Michael John LaChiusa; a Williamstown spokesman said those plans are now “on hold.” More

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    The Carnage of War, in Punchdrunk’s New London Show

    The immersive theater company’s production invites up to 600 spectators to roam freely around a loose re-creation of the siege of Troy’s aftermath.LONDON — It’s unusual in a live performance to construct your own narrative, shaping the event as you see fit. But that has long been part of the appeal of Punchdrunk, the ambitious immersive theater company whose latest show, “The Burnt City,” opened here last week.There are no assigned seats, or even spoken words, in the company’s first London project in nine years. Instead, the co-directors, Felix Barrett and Maxine Doyle, encourage up to 600 spectators to roam two onetime munitions factories (and a new structure conjoining them) and make of the occasion what they will. In my case, that meant being enthralled more often than I was baffled; others may well have the opposite response.Taking as its topic the fall of the ancient city of Troy, the show includes in its cast of characters Agamemnon, Clytemnestra and Cassandra, and it dramatizes the cycle of vengeance that follows Paris’s abduction of the famed beauty Helen.The characters, played by a hard-working company of 28 who perform their scenes in a loop, aren’t identified, so you’re left to work out who might be the Trojan queen, Hecuba, or her ill-fated son Polydorus, whose murder is one of several in a narrative full of grief. If you happen recently to have read “The Iliad” or the tragedies by Euripides and Aeschylus that underpin this venture, so much the better.Wearing masquerade masks, as is the Punchdrunk norm, we begin in a hall of display cases filled with artifacts from a 19th-century excavation of supposed Trojan ruins by the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann — pottery, libation bowls, headgear and other items. They form what Barrett has described as a “decompression zone” to help us shake off the outside world and plunge us into a bygone civilization. (To that end, cellphones are placed in sealed bags during the performance.)Leaving the dimly lit gallery, we embark on our chosen journey: Turn one way for Troy, the other for Mycenae, the Greek military stronghold that vanquished the smaller city around 1250 B.C.“The Burnt City” is the first London project in nine years from Punchdrunk, which also created “Sleep No More.”Julian AbramsMost of the action plays out in the capacious, high-ceilinged rooms of the warehouse representing Mycenae, including Agamemnon’s sacrifice of his daughter Iphigenia and his eventual murder — here graphically depicted in a shower. (Nudity is presumably one of several reasons that playgoers ages 16 and 17 are allowed entry only with “a responsible guardian.”) Stephen Dobbie’s mood-setting sound design thrums ominously throughout, and at several points we encounter some frenzied, furious dancing in which Doyle, a noted choreographer, lets her performers cut loose.Troy, by contrast, is a deliberate mash-up of eras and references, and the exemplary design team of Barrett, Livi Vaughan and Beatrice Minns get to have some macabre fun. This neon-lit labyrinth features a department store called Alighieri’s that evokes the underworld of Dante, and piles of bones to remind us of the siege of Troy’s carnage. An illuminated sign advertises “finest fake flowers,” for anyone who might want to pay respects.In contrast to previous Punchdrunk shows — like the company’s signature New York success, “Sleep No More” — there is little buttonholing of individual playgoers for one-on-one encounters (perhaps not so desirable in the age of social distancing), and the proceedings don’t build to the usual galvanic finale. You depart impressed by a concerted appeal to the imagination, though maybe another go-round is needed to fill in the gaps.Punchdrunk asks audiences to expect the unexpected, and so, in its way, does “Daddy: A Melodrama,” the Jeremy O. Harris play running through Saturday in its London premiere at the Almeida Theater. Directed, as in New York in 2019, by Danya Taymor, the production places an infinity swimming pool downstage — not the first thing you expect to see upon entering an auditorium.Terique Jarrett and Sharlene Whyte in Jeremy O. Harris’s “Daddy: A Melodrama,” directed by Danya Taymor at the Almeida Theater.Marc BrennerSpectators in the first few rows shield themselves as the actors splash about, with frontal nudity, as in “The Burnt City,” presented unselfconsciously. The frolics serve a story that grips across nearly three hours, even as it tilts after the intermission toward the melodrama of the title. Telling of a Black American male artist and the older white “daddy” who acts as the younger man’s patron and lover, Harris’s play is a parable of possession, in which people can be owned, just as art can.The charismatic Danish actor Claes Bang (now onscreen in “The Northman”) plays Andre, a European art collector based in Los Angeles, and the hugely gifted Terique Jarrett, handed the driving part, plays Franklin, the mid-20s boytoy who makes dolls of varying sizes — and who may represent a doll of sorts to Andre.Complications arise when Franklin’s deeply religious mother, Zora (Sharlene Whyte, commendably fierce), arrives for a visit only to voice displeasure with the lifestyle her boy has chosen. “What happened?” she demands to know of the Bible-quoting son who once sat on her lap in church. Franklin’s chums take their own poolside view of events: “So I guess since Mom’s a no-go,” says Max (the musical theater actor John McCrea, in waspish form), “Daddy has to suffice.”Whyte’s Zora faces down her son with an outsize grandeur worthy of Punchdrunk at its most heightened. The male leads, meanwhile, expertly chart the changing dynamics of a liaison at risk of burning itself out. Franklin, for all the fuss made over him, looks poignantly set on a path toward loneliness, left with not so much a burnt city as a scorched soul.The Burnt City. Directed by Felix Barrett and Maxine Doyle. One Cartridge Place, through Dec. 4.Daddy: A Melodrama. Directed by Danya Taymor. Almeida Theater, through April 30. More

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    A Look at ‘Ten Percent,’ a British ‘Call My Agent!’ Remake

    The remake of the French show “Call My Agent!” is far more preoccupied with American influences and unspoken emotion than the original.LONDON — About five minutes into the first episode of “Ten Percent,” the British remake of the hit French show “Call My Agent!,” the partners and their assistants at the fictional talent agency Nightingale Hart are debating how to tell a famous actor that she has been deemed too old for a movie role.“I can’t lie to her, obviously,” Dan (Prasanna Puwanarajah) says. “No, no, no,” the other agents chime in. “But obviously I can’t tell her the truth,” he continues, prompting another horrified chorus of “nooo.”“That’s the narrow edge along which agents must inch every day of their lives,” said John Morton, an executive producer and scriptwriter who developed the series, which premieres on Amazon’s Prime Video on April 28 in Britain and on Sundance Now and AMC+ on April 29 in the United States. “The relationship with the truth is a fascinating juggling act in this world,” he said. “It’s a problem not much understood outside the industry — and not even by clients inside it — and a really interesting area to have fun with.”The very British style of understatement and indirection that pervades the dialogue is a notable tonal difference from the French series.Rob Youngson/Sundance NowThe connections, dependencies and emotional ties between four agents and their clients are at the comic heart of “Ten Percent,” just as they were at the fictional Parisian agency in “Call My Agent!” (“Dix Pour Cent” in French).That series was a hit in France after its 2015 debut there, but it received little international attention until the coronavirus pandemic hit, when the show became a word-of-mouth phenomenon. (Turkish and Indian versions have been released, and South Korea, Italy, Malaysia and Poland all have adaptations in development.)Prasanna Puwanarajah plays the slightly bumbling, likable Dan.Kalpesh Lathigra for The New York TimesLydia Leonard is Rebecca, a tough career woman.Kalpesh Lathigra for The New York TimesMaggie Steed’s Stella is an old-guard patrician.Kalpesh Lathigra for The New York TimesJack Davenport plays the self-deceiving Jonathan.Kalpesh Lathigra for The New York TimesWhen Morton — the award-winning writer and director of the British shows “Twenty Twelve” and “W1A” — had his first meeting about “Ten Percent” in 2019, the French series was still “a cult hit with a number of very loyal followers,” he said. “I was a huge fan, and my first thought was, ‘the bar is already so high, how do you not mess this up?’ Then the bar got higher.”Morton has retained much of the structural framework of “Call My Agent!,” with four central characters who are at least superficially similar to their French counterparts. There is the tough career woman Rebecca (Lydia Leonard); the slightly bumbling, likable Dan; the old-guard patrician Stella (Maggie Steed); and the controlling, self-deceiving Jonathan (Jack Davenport), who in this rendition is the son of Richard Nightingale (Jim Broadbent), a founder of the agency.There is also Misha (Hiftu Quasem), the daughter Jonathan is keeping a secret, who bags a job as Rebecca’s assistant early in the first episode. And the catnip factor of the original series remains: a plethora of big-name actors (Kelly MacDonald, Helena Bonham Carter, Dominic West, Phoebe Dynevor, David and Jessica Oyelowo among them) playing themselves in story lines that touch on ageism, stage fright, pay parity and the cost (for actresses) of having children.Helena Bonham Carter, left, is one of the celebrities playing a version of themselves in the show in story lines that touch on ageism, pay parity and the cost of having children.Rob Youngson/Sundance NowSo far, so familiar. But after a first episode that closely follows the opening of the French series, the show’s plotlines gradually begin to differ, and to cater more closely to the specific preoccupations of the British cultural industry, with its greater ties to — and anxieties about — American partnerships and influences.Unlike the British cultural industry, and partly because of the language factor, Morton said: “the French entertainment and creative world does not feel secondary or beholden to Hollywood, and in fact celebrates that it isn’t. But if you are British and in this industry, whatever you think about it, you feel that the mother ship, the big factories, are over there. To fold that into the show felt true.”After Richard’s unexpected death, Jonathan sells a majority share to a large American agency, which promptly sends an executive, Kirsten (Chelsey Crisp), to London to oversee Nightingale Hart. “She might be nice,” Dan says hopefully. “I’ve met some perfectly normal Americans.”There is plenty of humor to be had through the clash of cultures, a perfect vehicle for Morton’s trademark brand of dry humor, as the British team mutter “yes,” “no” or “right,” while the Americans tell them repeatedly how excited they are about the new relationship.The very British style of understatement and indirection that pervades the dialogue is a notable tonal difference from the French series. This is taken to a masterly height in the character of Julia (Rebecca Humphries), Jonathan’s assistant, who rarely utters more than “yes” or “no” but manages to infuse the words with a repressed intensity that conveys her obsession with her boss.“We all adored the French series, but weirdly it never came on set with us because every scene was a John Morton scene,” Puwanarajah, far right, said of the British show and a producer.Kalpesh Lathigra for The New York Times“The French do everything stylishly and passionately and articulately,” Davenport said. “And our characters have to be hyper-articulate, professionally. But personally, they are as inarticulate as the average Brit. We are not a culture which is encouraged to say what we think or feel.”Morton’s writing, said Puwanarajah, reveals how fast the characters’s “legs are paddling under the surface under ‘yes, yes, I mean, maybe, carry on.’ It’s funny and real and dissonant in a Chekhovian way. We all adored the French series, but weirdly it never came on set with us because every scene was a John Morton scene.”Like the French series, the show uses its guest stars to evoke the realities and vulnerabilities of those who seem most successful. When MacDonald’s real-life agent called to tell the actress about her character being informed that she was too old for a role, the agent “was struggling a bit to find the right words,” MacDonald said. “I realized that it was a bit awkward for her to say that, just like in the show, which was quite funny.”In an episode featuring the married actors Jessica and David Oyelowo, the relevant issue of pay parity and its accompanying complexities are evoked: “Your market rate is higher,” Jonathan tells David; but “Jess has given me her life!” David replies — a line he suggested, he said in a joint video interview with his wife.Jessica Oyelowo and David Oyelowo play versions of themselves in the show.Rob Youngson/Sundance Now“It made me cry when I read the script,” Jessica said. “Because if you are an actress and you have babies, you feel that career loss. It was lovely that they added those personal tweaks.”Playing yourself isn’t easy, David said humorously. “I tried to think of myself as a character, but every time someone said ‘David and Jess’ on set, my brain short-circuited. There was a moment when the director asked me to play ‘him’ as more pathetic, and I was like, is David Oyelowo pathetic, or is the character pathetic?” When Jessica said she found it easier to separate the real and onscreen self, her husband nodded. “She was never asked to be pathetic,” he said.The show gives time to these issues in the cultural workplace, but Morton said this wasn’t his primary intention. “The French did something which I admire them for, something kinder and more nuanced, which I hope we captured,” he said. “There is a kind of dysfunctional family here, who we care about.”As Simon (Tim McInnerny), an aging, alcoholic actor, puts it to a politely smiling Bonham Carter: “However tragic one’s own life might seem, in the end it does become funny.” More