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    Ed Bullins, Leading Playwright of the Black Arts Movement, Dies at 86

    He wrote not for white or middle-class audiences, but for the strivers, hustlers and quiet sufferers whose struggles he sought to capture in searing works.Ed Bullins, who was among the most significant Black playwrights of the 20th century and a leading voice in the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and ’70s, died on Saturday at his home in Roxbury, Mass. He was 86.His wife, Marva Sparks, said the cause was complications of dementia.Over a 55-year career in which he produced nearly 100 plays, Mr. Bullins sought to reflect the Black urban experience unmitigated by the expectations of traditional theater. Most of his work appeared in Black theaters in Harlem and Oakland, Calif., and perhaps for that reason he never reached the heights of acclaim that greeted peers like August Wilson, whose plays appeared on Broadway and were adapted for the screen (and who often credited Mr. Bullins as an influence).That was fine with Mr. Bullins. He often said that he wrote not for white or middle-class audiences but for the strivers, hustlers and quiet sufferers whose struggles he sought to capture in searing works like “In the Wine Time” (1968) and “The Taking of Miss Janie” (1975).“He was able to get the grass roots to come to his plays,” the writer Ishmael Reed said in an interview. “He was a Black playwright who spoke to the values of the urban experience. Some of those people had probably never seen a play before.”Though Mr. Bullins was a careful student of white playwrights like Arthur Miller and Eugene O’Neill, he rejected many of their conventions, pursuing a loose, rapid style that drew equally on avant-garde jazz and television — two forms that he felt put him closer to the register of his intended audiences.He won three Obie Awards and two Guggenheim grants, and in 1975 the New York Drama Critics’ Circle named “The Taking of Miss Janie” the best American play of the year.Not everyone was enamored of his work. Some critics, including some in the Black press, believed he focused too heavily on the violence and criminality he saw in working-class Black life, and reflected it too brutally — “The Taking of Miss Janie,” for instance, opens and closes with a rape scene.But most critics, especially in the establishment, came to respect Mr. Bullins as an artist who was both passionately true to his source material and nuanced enough in his vision to avoid becoming doctrinaire.“He tackled subjects that on the surface were very specific to the Black experience,” the playwright Richard Wesley said in an interview. “But Ed was also very much committed to showing the humanity of his characters, and in doing that he became accessible to audiences beyond the Black community.”Genia Morgan, left, and Alia Chapman in a 2006 production of Mr. Bullins’s “The Taking of Miss Janie,” which was named the best American play of the year by the New York Drama Critics’ Circle in 1975.Gerry GoodsteinEdward Artie Bullins was born on July 7, 1935, in Philadelphia and grew up on the city’s North Side. His father, Edward Bullins, left home when Ed was still a small child, and he was raised by his mother, Bertha Marie (Queen) Bullins, who worked for the city government.Though he did well in school, he gravitated toward the North Side’s rough street life. He joined a gang, lost two front teeth in one fight and was stabbed in the heart during another.Mr. Bullins dropped out of school in 1952 and joined the Navy. He served most of the next three years as an ensign aboard the aircraft carrier Midway, where he won a lightweight boxing championship.He returned to Philadelphia in 1955 and, three years later, moved to Los Angeles. He attended night school to earn a high school equivalency diploma, then attended Los Angeles City College, where he started a magazine, Citadel, and wrote short stories for it.In 1962 he married the poet Pat Cooks. She accused him of threatening her with violence, and they divorced in 1966. (She later remarried and took the surname Parker.)Mr. Bullins’s later marriage, to Trixie Bullins, ended in divorce. Along with his third wife, he is survived by his sons, Ronald and Sun Ra; his daughters, Diane Bullins, Patricia Oden and Catherine Room; and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Four other children, Ameena, Darlene, Donald and Eddie Jr., died before him.Restless and unhappy with his work in Los Angeles, Mr. Bullins moved in 1964 to San Francisco, where he plugged into a growing community of Black writers. He also switched from writing prose to writing plays — in part, he said, because he was lazy, but also because he felt that the theater gave him more direct access to the everyday Black experience.His first play, “How Do You Do,” an absurdist one-act encounter between a middle-class Black couple and a working-class Black man, was produced in 1965 to favorable reviews. But he remained unsure of his decision to write plays until a few months later, when he saw a dual production of “The Dutchman” and “The Slave,” two plays by Amiri Baraka, then known as LeRoi Jones, a leading figure of the Black Arts Movement.“I said to myself, I must be on the right track,” Mr. Bullins told The New Yorker in 1973. “I could see that an experienced playwright like Jones was dealing with these same qualities and conditions of Black life that moved me.”In 1967, Mr. Bullins became artist in residence at the New Lafayette Theater in Harlem. The work he produced, mostly there, over the six years represented the peak of his career.The Black Arts Movement, then still primarily an East Coast phenomenon, was a loose affiliation of novelists, playwrights and poets whose work sought to reflect the modern Black experience on its own terms — written and produced by Black people in Black spaces for Black audiences.Mr. Bullins had found his community and, through it, his voice. He fell in with a circle of Bay Area writers, actors and activists, who began performing his work in bars and coffeehouses.Among them was Eldridge Cleaver, who, after his release from prison in 1966, used some of the proceeds from his memoir “Soul on Ice” to found Black House, an arts and community center in San Francisco, with Mr. Bullins as its chief artist in residence.Black House also became the city’s headquarters for the Black Panther Party, founded by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton. Mr. Bullins became the party’s minister of culture.But his role in the Black Panthers was short-lived. The party, from his perspective at least, saw art solely as a weapon, and he chafed at Mr. Seale’s insistence that he create didactic, often explicitly Marxist plays. He also grew frustrated over the party’s interest in building a coalition with radical white allies, when what he sought was a movement wholly independent of white culture.“I have no Messianic urge,” he told The New York Times in 1975. “Every other street corner has somebody telling you Christ or Mao is the answer. You can take any Ism you want and be saved by it. If you’re part of some movement and it fulfills you, that’s cool, but I like to look at it all.”He left the party in late 1966, just before Black House shut down.Mr. Bullins considered moving to Europe or South America, but he changed his mind when Robert Macbeth, the founder of the New Lafayette Theater in Harlem, invited him to be the artist in residence there.He arrived in New York in 1967, and the next six years of work, mostly at the New Lafayette Theater, represented the peak of his career. The theater was a complete package: a 14-member acting troupe, 14 musicians, several playwrights and directors, and an affiliated art gallery, the Weusi Artist Collective, that produced sets.Mr. Bullins also led workshops for aspiring playwrights, many of whom, like Mr. Wesley, went on to become significant voices among the next generation of Black theater artists.Kim Sullivan and Shirleen Quigley in the New Federal Theater’s 2013 production of “In the Wine Time.”Gerry GoodsteinA year after arriving, he completed “In the Wine Time,” his first full-length play and the first of a series he called his “Twentieth Century Cycle” — 20 plays that told the story of postwar urban life through a set of friends. In 1971 he won his first Obie, for “The Fabulous Miss Marie” and “In New England Winter.”He left the New Lafayette Theater in 1973, shortly before it closed for lack of funding. His work in the 1970s appeared in the New Federal Theater, La MaMa Experimental Theater Club, the Public Theater and elsewhere.In 1972 he got into a war of words with the Repertory Theater of Lincoln Center, which was putting on his play “The Duplex.” Though he had initially endorsed the production, he later said in an interview that “the original Black intentions” of the play had been “thwarted” and “its artistic integrity stomped on,” turning it into a “minstrel show.”He traded attacks with the producer, Jules Irving, and the director, Gilbert Moses, in The Times and elsewhere, but in the end the play went on. It received mixed reviews.That episode, fairly or not, gave Mr. Bullins a reputation for being hard to work with, one of the reasons he cited for returning to the West Coast in the 1980s. He continued to write plays, but he also produced work by others, including Mr. Reed, at his Bullins Memorial Theater in Oakland, named for his son Eddie Jr., who died in a car crash in 1978.Mr. Bullins returned to school, receiving a bachelor’s degree in English from the San Francisco campus of Antioch University in 1989 and a master’s in fine arts in playwriting from San Francisco State University in 1994.Mr. Bullins in 1999, when he was a professor in the theater department at Northeastern University in Boston.Wendy Maeda/The Boston Globe via Getty ImagesThe next year he moved to Boston, where he became a professor in the theater department at Northeastern University. He retired in 2012.By then he had long since changed his mind about his audience, in large part because he and others in the Black Arts Movement had succeeded in their mission to build a Black cultural canon.“Of course Black writers can write for all audiences,” he told The Times in 1982. “My feeling is that the question of whether Black theater should appeal to whites was more valid a decade ago. Since then, Black theater has taken off in all directions.” More

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    Late Night Shares Juicy Passages From 'Betrayal'

    Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers reported some of the most interesting items from Jonathan Karl’s new book.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.Best of ‘Betrayal’Jonathan Karl’s “Betrayal” was published on Tuesday, and late night shared a few of that book’s juicier items regarding former President Trump and Jan. 6, including some tidbits about Michael Flynn and his call for the military to stop Joe Biden from taking office.“Remember, this was a former general making a call to the military demanding they support a fascist coup. What is wrong with him? It’s 2021 — just text!” — STEPHEN COLBERT“According to a new book, former Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller purposely offered, then presented, Trump extreme military scenarios in the final week of his presidency to prevent him from choosing to attack Iran. Unfortunately, he opted for the craziest one — attacking the U.S.” — SETH MEYERS“After the election, [Sidney] Powell contacted a Pentagon official to push the claim that the C.I.A. director had been hurt and taken into custody in Germany while ‘on a secret mission to destroy evidence of voter fraud on a computer server that belonged to a company named Scytl.’ Where did Powell get this urgent news? From a false conspiracy theory that had been gaining steam among QAnon followers. Oh, yeah, that theory is definitely steaming.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (Antique Roadshow Edition)“Yesterday, President Biden signed his bipartisan infrastructure bill into law, and to tell everyone about it today, he kicked off a road show to showcase the benefits of the bill. It’s like ‘The Antiques Road Show’ if the road was the antique.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“And, guys, why do they have to sign the bill in public? I mean, I know this is important legislation, but as a spectator sport, it’s pretty boring. Where’s the drama? ‘Ooh, maybe the pen will run out of ink!’” — TREVOR NOAH“Also, why are they even having a bill-signing celebration? Passing laws is their job. Nobody else gets to do that at their job. Like, after you make photocopies for your boss at the office, you don’t get to pose for pictures while shaking hands: [imitating boss] ‘I didn’t think you could get it double-sided. Well done, Billy, well done.’” — TREVOR NOAH“During the signing ceremony yesterday for the bipartisan infrastructure bill, President Biden twice referred to Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema as ‘Kristen.’ And that’s the worst thing you can call her besides a Democrat — she hates that.” — SETH MEYERSThe Bits Worth WatchingJimmy Fallon showed off pets that pack suitcases and chug beers better than he can.What We’re Excited About on Wednesday NightAdam Driver, a “House of Gucci” star, will appear on Wednesday’s “Late Show.”Also, Check This OutLisa Law/Apple TV+ Todd Haynes’s “The Velvet Underground” is a deep dive on the New York demimonde that birthed the band, and also a reflection on the cinema and art of the day. More

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    ‘Medicine’ Review: One Dose Reality, Two Doses Absurdity

    Domhnall Gleeson is surrounded by an eccentric cast of characters in Enda Walsh’s surreal play at St. Ann’s Warehouse.Mary, a woman dressed as an old man. Another Mary, a woman in a lobster suit. John Kane, a nervous mental patient in blue pajamas. And a nameless drummer who never speaks. These eccentric characters come together in Enda Walsh’s often baffling yet always arresting new play, “Medicine,” a presentation of Landmark Productions and the Galway International Arts Festival that opened at St. Ann’s Warehouse on Tuesday.John (Domhnall Gleeson) wanders onto the set, a drab room with the look of a community center hall (design by Jamie Vartan). It’s a mess — the aftermath of a staff party, with streamers and balloons — and John is concerned about it. He putters around, fidgeting and picking things up haphazardly.He’s preparing for the arrival of the two Marys (Aoife Duffin and Clare Barrett) and the drummer (Sean Carpio). They’re there at the institution to run through a script of John’s life, presumably as a kind of drama therapy.Once they arrive and their routine gets underway, the Marys don different costumes and lip sync a recording of dialogue from the people in John’s life, beginning with his parents on the day he was born. As John narrates, the Marys interrupt, to share notes and perform random dances while the drummer scores the scenes. But as John’s story unfolds, he becomes increasingly frazzled.Walsh, a celebrated playwright and director whose enigmatic works include “Grief Is the Thing with Feathers,” “Arlington” and “Rooms,” also writes and directs this play, which feels like a psychosexual absurdist fantasy. How long has John been here? What parts of this are real? Walsh is less concerned with providing answers than he is with making us sit with John’s mounting sense of desolation and shame. In this way, the work resembles a poem or an interpretive dance, resonating with symbols and gestures and feelings, and the rest is for the audience to puzzle through.Aoife Duffin as one of the Marys.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesJohn recounts abuse by his parents and peers when he was a child, and maltreatment at the hands of a worker at the institution. He scrutinizes his mother’s negligence and overt sexuality, and conflates his budding erotic desires as a teen with his yearning for maternal love and attention. All the while the narcissistic Lobster Mary (or Mary 2, as the script calls her) controls the performance: She harasses Mary 1 and bullies John.If that weren’t Freudian enough, Walsh plants recurring images and themes throughout, implying connections between John’s version of his past and the present moment with the actors.What the two Marys are doing here is its own theater — a production that Mary 1 starts to suspect is cruel. As they step into and out of the personalities in John’s life, the lights shift with Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September” playing. (Adam Silverman handles the mercurial lighting.)Barrett gives a menacing performance as Mary 2, who embodies some of the more brutal characters in John’s tale and aims her own shots of hostility at Mary 1 (Duffin, who appeared as Ophelia opposite Ruth Negga in “Hamlet” at St. Ann’s Warehouse in 2020). Duffin’s Mary is empathetic, so much so that she inhabits John’s story, and at some point the voice-over of a character she’s playing overlaps with her voice as she speaks the same lines. The language here — which Walsh writes with aureate poeticism, full of vivid imagery and pointed symbolism — is what gives the show its melancholic beauty.Clare Barrett as the other Mary.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesThen there’s Gleeson himself, with his impressive performance. He is a chameleonic TV and film star (“Harry Potter,” “Star Wars,” “Run”) who can convey anything from a villainous sneer to a sensitive whimper with his entire physical bearing. Despite his height, Gleeson seems to wilt like a flower in want of sun. He nervously shuffles around the stage or gets worked into a frenzy — huffing and flailing with explosive bravado, seamlessly accompanied by Carpio’s percussion. (Helen Atkinson handily controls the layered sound design.)There could easily be more Gleeson — and by that I mean more of John’s perspective, because we get only snapshots of his life. By the end, John reasserts that he’s “not like other people” and belongs in the institution. It seems John is a victim of a kind of manipulation; the drama therapy isn’t to help him but to gaslight him into believing he mustn’t ever try to seek freedom. Beneath all the oddities of Walsh’s script is a criticism of the ways in which society fails the mentally ill.It’s unclear whether Walsh is also indicting theater — this is, after all, a play in which a play is used toward devious ends. So perhaps “Medicine” is simply a work of fanciful mysteries. Honestly, it doesn’t really matter. The emotional core of the show is always prevalent.By the end, John’s dejection feels as familiar as a phantom pain. He may still be within the same sad four walls where he began, but Walsh’s production transforms the space from one of isolation into one of empathy that even the audience can share. Because ultimately, a couple of doses of human connection is the best medicine anyone can ask for.MedicineThrough Dec. 5 at St. Ann’s Warehouse, Brooklyn; stannswarehouse.org. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. More

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    On the Scene: ‘Spring Awakening’ Returns 🎭

    On the Scene: ‘Spring Awakening’ Returns �� Matt Stevens��Reporting from BroadwayMatt Stevens for The New York TimesTickets for the benefit, ranging from $50 to $5,000, sold out quickly. The line to enter the theater, on 45th Street near Eighth Avenue, would eventually stretch down the block.Because of delays seating attendees, the show started over an hour late. More

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    Lucy Hale’s Happy Place Is Graceland

    The actress, who stars in the gritty British crime drama “Ragdoll,” also has a soft spot for “Grease” and “I Love Lucy” reruns.When most kids try to swipe something while their parents aren’t looking, it’s a cookie or a bar of chocolate.For Lucy Hale, it was her mom’s nursing books.“Even as a little kid, I gravitated toward the darker things in life,” said Hale, 32, who stars in the gritty new British crime drama “Ragdoll,” which premieres on AMC+ on Nov. 11. “My mom was in nursing school, and I would steal her nursing books because I wanted to know about diseases and ailments. I was a very strange child.”Though she’s best known for teen dramas like “Pretty Little Liars” and the short-lived “Riverdale” spinoff, “Katy Keene,” her new venture into the macabre sees her starring as a recently recruited American detective — Lake Edmunds — tasked with tracking down a serial killer in London who sews parts of his victims’ dismembered bodies together into a grotesque creation referred to as “the Ragdoll.” The six-part series is based on Daniel Cole’s 2017 novel.“I’ve never played a detective,” she said. “But I had written in journals that I had wanted to play a character like this, so it definitely felt natural.”In a Zoom audio call from her home in Los Angeles earlier this month, Hale shared her admiration for Lucille Ball and “Forensic Files,” and explained why Graceland is her happy place. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1. “Grease”Everyone always asks me, “Where did you get the bug for performing?” And it goes back to sitting on my grandmother’s living room table. She put on “Grease” for the first time when I was 6 or 7, and I was hypnotized. I’ve probably seen the movie 100 times, and even as an adult, I still enjoy it the way I did when I was a little kid — the music, the chemistry between John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, the hair and the makeup. I heard a rumor that they’re remaking it — I’ll keep an open mind, but it’s so classic.2. The Pattern AppI first heard about it a couple of years ago when Channing Tatum posted about it on Instagram, and it’s now the most-used app on my phone. You type in the city where you were born, your name, your birth date, your birth year and the time of day. Then it calculates a birth chart for you, which is almost like a personality reading. It’s the most accurate one I’ve ever read. If you’re dating someone new, you can plug in their information and then compare how you guys are similar or different. It also gives you reminders; I checked mine first thing this morning, and it says I identify with being the giver in my relationships, and I derive my self-worth and identity from being the provider. And so today, my reminder is that I need to be sure to check in with myself.3. The Rose Bowl Flea MarketImagine the Rose Bowl, but with thousands and thousands and thousands of people with suitcases ready to buy vintage items. It’s incredible. It happens the second Sunday of every month at the Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena, and you have to get there at like 6 or 7 a.m. to find parking. There are hundreds of vendors; they have a clothing section categorized by era, and there’s an amazing vendor who has the most beautiful turquoise jewelry I’ve ever seen. You definitely have to devote a day to it, and you have to be willing to dig and be patient.4. “Jagged Little Pill” by Alanis MorissetteThis was the first album that I bought with my own money. I remember seeing the cover for the first time when I was really young, in vivid red and green and blue with her hair blowing everywhere. I would have been around 7, so I was too young to understand the angst. But I would put her CD in my boombox, and I just loved the tone of her voice — the honesty and the passion.5. “I Love Lucy” RerunsThere will never be anyone like Lucille Ball. She was big and bold and not afraid to make crazy faces and be physical, be wild and wacky. During that time, that just wasn’t what a lot of women entertainers were doing — she’s truly a comedic genius. And her and Ethel are one of my favorite duos of all time, so much so that I named my puppy for her. So we’re Lucy and Ethel. (I’m actually named after a grandmother of mine.)6. IkoyiThis is an African-inspired restaurant in London that was rated one of the top 50 restaurants in the world last year. I know about it because a friend’s brother, Jeremy [Chan], is the chef. I went there for the first time about a month ago, and it is, without a doubt, the most extraordinary culinary experience of my life. I’m just blown away by how people can think, like, “Oh, this would taste great with this.” For instance, there was a really nice white fish with vanilla bean foam. And another dish with a paste on the side that he said was inspired by Warheads candy. All these out-there flavors, but it all seamlessly works together, and the presentation is truly art.7. Frances BerryFrances Berry is this extraordinary painter out of Memphis, where I’m from. A lot of her paintings are these gorgeous female bodies with wacky colors and stripes and different textures. But she also does these cool Pop Art paintings — I have a custom Elvis Presley one here. A lot of her work is very feminist and supportive of women. She does sayings, like “Smokin’ Naked,” and then she has a female form with a cigarette. She’s just very cool — she wears roller skates to do her art in.8. GracelandMy grandmother was a huge Elvis Presley fan, as am I, and you definitely get a feel for the type of person he was walking through this home. There’s a room with like 10 TVs in it because he liked to watch different things at the same time, and there’s the animal room, which is all animal prints — floor, ceiling, furniture. It’s just very ’70s, very tacky in the best way.9. “Forensic Files”It was nighttime over 10 years ago, and I’m flicking through the channels, and I hear that creepy intro music — the “Forensic Files” theme song. I love the show because it’s not scripted — it’s purely about how detectives find the people who do horrible things to people. There’s hundreds of episodes, and you can always find “Forensic Files” on any given channel at nighttime. In a weird way, it’s like a comfort show for me.10. Yosemite National ParkThis is the place I go to when I feel like I need a break from everything. It’s five or six hours north of L.A., and for the last couple of years, I’ve taken these solo hiking trips there. You look at these waterfalls, and these mountains, and these cliffs, and it truly looks like a painting. More

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    Seth Meyers: Steve Bannon Fancies Himself to Be Logan Roy

    Meyers said Bannon was more like “a coked-up flunky who would get hired to help cousin Greg shred some documents and accidentally screw it up.”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.More Like Cousin SteveSteve Bannon turned himself in to the F.B.I. on Monday morning after refusing to provide information related to the events of Jan. 6. Bannon made a statement in which he referred to himself as “Captain Bannon” and promoted his political podcast.Seth Meyers, referring to the hit HBO series “Succession,” joked that Bannon “definitely likes to think of himself as a Logan Roy type, but he’s more like a coked-up flunky who would get hired to help cousin Greg shred some documents and accidentally screw it up.”“Right now, a congressional committee is trying to determine if President Trump and allies were involved in the violent attempt to overturn the election, and one of the people they most want to hear from is Steve Bannon, former Trump adviser and the only person who maybe should try horse dewormer. I mean, it couldn’t hurt.” — TREVOR NOAH“Steve Bannon might finally face justice and, if he goes to prison, take a shower.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Bannon was indicted Friday on two charges of criminal contempt after he refused to show up for a deposition ordered by the House Jan. 6 committee. When he turned himself in, the F.B.I. were like, ‘Oh, really, do we have to? We have to take him?’” — JAMES CORDEN“And like any innocent person, Trump told his people not to cooperate with law enforcement at all. So Bannon defied a congressional subpoena to testify, and this morning, he turned himself in, arriving at an F.B.I. office looking like he’d already served 10 years in prison.” — TREVOR NOAH“Also, it really undercuts your attempt at defiance and bravado when there’s a guy right behind you holding up a sign that says ‘Coup plotter.’” — SETH MEYERS“Steve, did you hear what he said about you the second it was convenient? Respect yourself and move on!” — STEPHEN COLBERT, on Trump’s disparaging comments about Bannon“Bannon, though, already has a plan if he does get sent to prison. His first day there he is just going to go up to the biggest, meanest, worst guy in the entire yard and help him get elected president in 2024.” — JAMES CORDENThe Punchiest Punchlines (The P Word Edition)“Wow, Trump is gangster. [imitating Trump] ‘Why would I dispute it? The guy is a total [expletive] — why would I dispute it?’” — TREVOR NOAH, on Trump’s refusal to dispute that he told Mike Pence he “could be a patriot or he could be a [expletive]” on the morning of Jan. 6“Well, we all know the word for someone who does exactly what their bully tells them to do: patriot.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“You know what I love about Trump is that even if he didn’t say it, he’s the type of guy that would pretend he said it just because it sounded cool. [imitating Trump] ‘Yeah, yeah, that’s a good line. I totally said it, I said it. Patriot or [expletive], I love it.’” — TREVOR NOAH“Also, I love how the reporter says, ‘Excuse my language; excuse my language, sir,’ as if Donald Trump is going to be offended. My man, it’s Donald Trump — if anything, he would be like, [imitating Trump] ‘[Expletive], my favorite topic. Thank you for bringing this up, let’s talk about it.” — TREVOR NOAH“Sometimes it’s good to be a [expletive]. Oftentimes history is made by [expletive]. I mean Gandhi? total [expletive]. Yes. Britain was, like, ‘Are you going to fight us or are you a [expletive]? And Gandhi said, ‘I am a [expletive]. You must be the [expletive] you wish to see in the world — that is what we need more of.’” — TREVOR NOAH“What if he tried to grab Mike Pence by the patriot?” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Mike Pence now claims he has no problems at all with his former boss, so I guess Trump was right.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Bits Worth WatchingBill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Ernie Hudson talked with Jimmy Fallon on Monday’s “Tonight Show” about reuniting for the newest movie in the “Ghostbusters” franchise.What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightThe retired N.B.A. star Dwyane Wade will talk about his new memoir on Tuesday’s “Late Show.”Also, Check This OutIn “The Sex Lives of College Girls,” Alyah Chanelle Scott, Pauline Chalamet and Amrit Kaur play three suite mates from diverse backgrounds at a prestigious university.HBOMindy Kaling’s new HBO Max series, “The Sex Lives of College Girls,” treats undergraduate intimacy with the friendly skepticism it deserves. More

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    First Asian American Muppet to Debut on ‘Sesame Street’

    Whether it’s reporting on conflicts abroad and political divisions at home, or covering the latest style trends and scientific developments, Times Video journalists provide a revealing and unforgettable view of the world.Whether it’s reporting on conflicts abroad and political divisions at home, or covering the latest style trends and scientific developments, Times Video journalists provide a revealing and unforgettable view of the world. More

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    Review: ‘Morning’s at Seven’ Awakens Again, Only to Hit Snooze

    Paul Osborn’s 1930s play is revived, with its thin psychology, predictable structure and somewhat bitter slice of small town life intact.Paul Osborn’s “Morning’s at Seven” debuted on Broadway in 1939, and has clung to the fringes of the theatrical canon ever since. A dyspeptic example of American realism, like an apple pie lightly dusted with arsenic, it plunks its audience into the adjoining backyards of two modest Victorian houses that a few sisters in their 60s and 70s call home. During a late afternoon and the following morning, marriages crumble, siblings quarrel, a brief affair surfaces, an engagement breaks, a mother smothers. Just one big not especially happy family.Old fashioned even when it opened, “Morning’s at Seven” became a regional theater darling and yielded two Broadway revivals, likely because it provides hefty roles for aging actors. Now, it is being staged at the Theater at St. Clement’s, where a new production by Dan Wackerman for his Peccadillo Theater Company opened Monday evening. It has a typically imposing cast — including Lindsay Crouse, Alma Cuervo, John Rubinstein, Tony Roberts — that would have been a bit starrier, but Judith Ivey tore a tendon during previews. Luckily, Alley Mills sidled in, reuniting with Dan Lauria, her spouse on “The Wonder Years.”Peccadillo provided the last show I saw, “Sideways: The Experience,” in March 2020, before theaters closed for the pandemic. It was a work written and staged with such casual and thoroughgoing sexism, I started to think that maybe shutting down some theater wasn’t so bad after all. So to say that “Morning’s at Seven” is an altogether more pleasurable experience is maybe not saying very much. With its thin psychology, predictable structure and characters to laugh at, not with, the play serves a snoozy, somewhat bitter slice of small town life. Imagine Thornton Wilder without the radicalism, William Inge without the melancholy, Lillian Hellman without the flash.Those neighboring Gibbs sisters — living with their husbands, except for Arry (Mills), who remains unmarried — have enjoyed relative contentment for 40 or so years. But one afternoon, Homer (Jonathan Spivey), the 40-year-old, failed-to-launch son of Ida (Cuervo), has come for an overnight visit and brought Myrtle (Keri Safran), his girlfriend of a dozen years. Somehow, that triggers the temporary cave-in of at least two marriages and considerable unrest in the home that Cora (Crouse) shares with her husband, Thor (Lauria), and kid sister, Arry.As expected, these practiced actors perform with relish and finesse. Crouse is nicely sour as Cora, the villain of the piece until she isn’t. And Cuervo neatly represses some of Ida’s hysteria. Roberts, as David — the husband of Esty (Patty McCormack), the eldest Gibbs sister and the only one who doesn’t effectively live with them — earns outsize laughs for some of the play’s meanest speeches. As the younger couple, Spivey and Safran overplay their roles, but seemingly with Wackerman’s encouragement.Mild yet ungentle, “Morning’s at Seven” — which borrows its title, ironically, from a cheery Robert Browning lyric — lets its characters politely abrade each other for the first two acts before tying up the story in a tidy comedic bow. What’s most distinct about the play is the acidity that runs through it, and the suggestion that maturity doesn’t necessarily breed content.“I always thought of getting old sort of like going to bed when you’re nice and drowsy,” Arry says. “But it isn’t that way at all.” In its grimmer moments, the play hints at something wormy at the heart of this American pastoral. But instead of offering a wake up call, it repairs its broken family and just goes back to sleep.Morning’s at SevenThrough Jan. 9 at Theater at St. Clement’s, Manhattan; morningsat7.com. Running time: 2 hours 10 minutes. More