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    Raging Prince and Simpering King: A Tale of Two Shakespeares

    Livestreamed productions of “Hamlet” and “Macbeth” from London reflect the vital role directors have in redefining these classic characters.I’ve seen Hamlet cry. And pout. And waffle. And jest. And rave. But I haven’t seen Hamlet rage the way Cush Jumbo’s Hamlet does in a new production of Shakespeare’s tragedy at the Young Vic in London. It’s the kind of determinate rage that convincingly powers him through his revenge.Yet this production gets its spark from the politics of having a Black woman in the role, directing her anger at an injustice.What this “Hamlet” — and its fellow Shakespeare tragedy “Macbeth,” which is also onstage in London right now, at the Almeida Theater — reminds us of is the important role that a director can play in molding these central characters who are defined by their resolve, or lack thereof. Their choices may not only render a classic new again, but also make space for contemporary gender and racial politics.These plays, running in person and via livestream — which is how I saw them — show two different approaches to directing Shakespearean tragedies. Greg Hersov’s “Hamlet” has a compelling, well-defined protagonist inhabiting a not-quite polished production; while Yaël Farber’s “The Tragedy of Macbeth” is an appealing production with bland lead performances.Farber typically has a strong command of her stages; her productions are often dark, and hung with a polished, ornate melancholy. (Her gracefully haunting take on “Hamlet,” starring an electric Ruth Negga, felt stolen from the dreams of Edgar Allan Poe.) This “Macbeth” is bleak, spare and gritty. (Soutra Gilmour is the set designer.)The play opens with an overturned wheelbarrow full of soldiers’ boots and a man bathing in a bucket of blood. And yet it’s also delicate, with Tom Lane’s cello score (performed by Aoife Burke); and stately, with the three elder Weird Sisters (Diane Fletcher, Maureen Hibbert and Valerie Lilley) dressed in handsome gray suits that David Byrne would envy. (Joanna Scotcher designed the costumes.)Farber takes a political stance in her direction, making the war imagery brutal and heavy-handed. But the largest surprise, and slip-up, in this otherwise charismatically styled and beautifully filmed production is that the central couple, played by James McArdle and Saoirse Ronan, are rather conventional and unremarkably defined.James McArdle and Saoirse Ronan in Yaël Farber’s “The Tragedy of Macbeth” at the Almeida Theater in London.Marc BrennerI say central couple, though Macbeth was never the most interesting part of the play; he is ambitious but irresolute. He must be goaded on by Lady Macbeth, one of the most fearsome, emasculating — and fascinating — women in English literature. Though undoubtedly a great performer with a gleam of Hollywood celebrity, Ronan feels miscast in the role. Even as a murderer, Ronan has a jejune, effervescent quality that’s at odds with the base evil of the character.Farber sometimes positions Lady Macbeth as a sexual figure, her body sprawled in bed or on the floor draped in gauzy cloth, and her legs wrapped around Macbeth’s waist in greeting. But Ronan and McArdle lack chemistry, and this Lady Macbeth is also presented as oddly virginal; Ronan, wearing a playful white-blond bob, and mostly white attire, is the brightest image in this gloomy production.This Lady Macbeth could also represent a certain dangerous white female power that comes at the expense of men and women of color; in one scene, Macduff’s wife (Akiya Henry) and children, who are all played by Black actors, are viciously murdered as Lady Macbeth guiltily stands to the side. It’s an overly violent scene, punctuated by Lady Macduff’s jagged screams, that drags on for an excruciatingly long time.As for McArdle, he gives a believably shocked and earnest portrayal of Macbeth, and, later in the production, manages to deliver a rabid version of the murderous Scottish king. But he bumbles through the steps in between. Ultimately, we’re left with a murderous couple that somehow manages to be forgettable.On the other hand, in Hersov’s “Hamlet,” the trappings of the production are less lively: The music and costumes have an early 1990s vibe, though the reason is unclear. The livestream is, impressively, very accessible. You can watch from various camera angles, and captions and British Sign Language are also provided. Still, the video and audio quality leaves more to be desired.Where Hersov does provides a decisive interpretation is in the melancholy prince — and his suicidal lover. This Hamlet is not the desperate, confused young man so many productions present, but a prince empowered by his feelings. Jumbo gives a fiery, vitriolic performance; this Hamlet’s grief passes through a sieve of righteous anger. His wit is barbed with sneers and eye rolls. Even his jokes are delivered with an acerbic bite.Norah Lopez Holden as Ophelia, with Jumbo as Hamlet, in the production that is streaming through Saturday.Helen MurrayThe decision at the heart of the play — “to be or not to be,” that famous meditation on living and dying — seems less of an open question in this production. Jumbo’s prince philosophizes almost for the sport of it; he always seems resolved to what he must do.Ophelia (Norah Lopez Holden), who so often is just a girlfriend tragically lost to hysterics, is here as clear and confident as Jumbo’s Hamlet. In her first scene, she seductively sways her hips while listening to music, and she fantasizes a sexy Latin dance with Hamlet before she’s jolted back to reality. She isn’t a receptacle of Hamlet’s desire, but a young woman with sexual agency and desires of her own. Holden’s Ophelia has attitude, telling off her elder brother for his hypocrisy and firing back at Hamlet when she’s had enough of his gibes and babble.And when she descends into madness, it does not seem like the insanity of a girl who’s heartbroken and grieving; it seems as much an act as Hamlet’s, and her suicide appears to be a rejection of the world she inhabits.For Ophelia to show such agency within the bounds of the character as written is quietly extraordinary. And to see a Black woman reframe Hamlet as confident and righteously enraged is a political take unusual for the play. Hersov’s “Hamlet” remakes its main man from the ground up. After all, what a piece of work is a man — or a Black woman — on a fresh stage.The Tragedy of MacbethThrough Nov. 27 (streaming through Saturday) at the Almeida Theater in London; almeida.co.uk.HamletThrough Nov. 13 (streaming through Saturday) at the Young Vic in London; youngvic.org. More

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    Kristina Wong’s Pandemic Story: Sewing With Her Aunties

    The performance artist ran a mask-making operation during the pandemic. That inspired her new comedy at New York Theater Workshop.Kristina Wong is an in-your-face performer who, until this month, hadn’t performed for an in-person audience since March 2020. The thought of looking into dozens of eyes, not just the little green light on her laptop, made her feel, well, weird.So her stage manager, Katie Ailinger, came up with a plan to ease her back into the rhythms of live performance: She taped stock photos of people’s faces around the rehearsal room at New York Theater Workshop, where in September Wong began to prepare “Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord,” a one-woman show about running a sewing group during the pandemic.“Just turning my head and having a range of motion is a whole thing — and having eye contact again is huge!” Wong, 43, a comedian, performance artist and community activist, said recently during a phone interview from her dressing room. She was about to run through an afternoon technical rehearsal of the 90-minute production, a hybrid of stand-up, lecture and performance art that is scheduled to open Nov. 4.“I feel like I got more done for the world by running a mutual aid group than as an elected official,” Wong said, who is also a member of the Wilshire Center Koreatown Neighborhood Council.Calla Kessler for The New York TimesWhile Wong was stuck at home in Los Angeles, she stayed busy leading the Auntie Sewing Squad, a volunteer group of mostly Asian American women she founded in March 2020 to make face masks for health care workers, farm workers, incarcerated people and others. She recruited 6-year-old children, her 73-year-old mother and others for the operation, which ballooned to more than 800 “Aunties,” a cross-cultural term of respect and affection for women, as well as “Uncles” and nonbinary volunteers in 33 states. Together, they distributed more than 350,000 masks.“I feel like I got more done for the world by running a mutual aid group than as an elected official,” said Wong, a third-generation Chinese American from San Francisco. (She’s served as an unpaid elected representative of the Wilshire Center Koreatown Neighborhood Council in Los Angeles since 2019, an unusual electoral journey that is the subject of her one-woman show “Kristina Wong for Public Office,” whose national tour was interrupted by the pandemic.)After disbanding the sewing squad (she hosted a retirement party for the Aunties in Los Angeles in September), Wong shifted her focus to bringing the tale of her 504 days leading the group to the stage in a production directed by Chay Yew. And a streaming version of the show ran at New York Theater Workshop in May.In a conversation a few days before previews began, Wong discussed her journey from an out-of-work artist to the leader of hundreds of volunteers, her mother’s changed opinion of her performing arts career and how she hoped the show would reshape people’s perceptions of Asian Americans. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.In March 2020 your tour for “Kristina Wong for Public Office” was postponed. What made you want to start a mask-making group?I was home without income feeling sorry for myself, and I stumbled across some articles that said there was a need for homemade masks. It started with me taking my Hello Kitty sewing machine and fabric and making a naïve offer to the internet: “If you need masks and don’t have access to them, I will help you!” But my ego wrote a check my body couldn’t cash, and within four days I was inundated with requests, so I started a Facebook group of people whom I knew could sew. We had Aunties cutting the elastic off their fitted sheets, the straps off their bras. It was a Robinson Crusoe situation.Why did you call yourself a “sweatshop overlord”?My first volunteers were all Asian women, and I was like, “Oh, my God, this is the sickest moment, we are a modern-day sweatshop.” Our mothers and grandmothers did garment work — my grandmother and grandfather did laundry work as part of their rite of passage to America — and now we find ourselves doing this work again, for free, because the government hasn’t prepared us for this moment. So it was this gallows humor joke that I was the sweatshop overlord — also humor about child labor because I was ordering children around.At what point did you realize this was a show?Within the first 40 days, one of the Aunties — my first mentor, Leilani Chan of TeAda Productions [a Los Angeles-based theater company] — was like, “We’re going to try to figure out how to make work online.” So I’d get a booking from a college or a theater and then would just create new sections up to that point in the pandemic.The shows, which were all [streamed] live, became an event for the Aunties. I would post in our Facebook group “I’m doing a performance about us now,” and they would all change their name to “Auntie So and So” in Zoom. They’d openly chat with audience members during the performance and be there for the Q. and A. afterward, usually at their sewing machines. So it was me half-entertaining them, but also trying to bring our story into existence.“With this show,” Wong said, “I wanted to find a way to tell the story that’s more than us just being beat up, beat up, beat up, but also about how we survived.”Calla Kessler for The New York TimesWhat changes did you make for the in-person production?Doing the show from my home on Zoom — and the fact that we were all in a pandemic — was a great shorthand for the audience, but now I’m moving into a neutral space that is a representation of my home. So I realized I’d have to spend more time laying out context that we might’ve forgotten, and also trying to think about the bigger meaning of all this, rather than just putting moments to memory.You use comedy as a way of talking through micro- and macro-aggressions against Asian Americans. How did anti-Asian sentiment affect you personally?The great irony is that I didn’t even wear a mask for the first few weeks I was sewing them, because I felt like the mask I permanently wear on my face was already a sign to the world: “I’m a foreigner. I’m an immigrant. I brought the virus here. Come get me.” With this show, I wanted to find a way to tell the story that’s more than us just being beat up, beat up, beat up, but also about how we survived.Were you concerned that people wouldn’t want to relive the pandemic?We need to figure out how to visibly see Asian Americans and culture. During the pandemic, I saw Asian American women not as quiet, subservient virus passers but as warriors behind sewing machines doing the work of protecting Americans. If there’s a museum one day about this moment in history, please let there just be a little footnote that remembers our work. And I’ve learned that, especially as an artist of color, I can’t wait for someone else to write that footnote, so this show is really me screaming at people to know how to respect our labor.As recently as 2015, your mother was still sending you newspaper articles with the average pay for careers like doctors and government officials to try to dissuade you from pursuing a performing arts career. Is she more supportive now?My mom called me when I first started this and told me, “You’ve got to stop making those masks; stay inside!” I got really mad at her, but then she completely surprised me — she was like, “OK, mail me some fabric, get me the patterns.” Then she recruited all her friends and got really into it. I think she feels really proud.Is she coming to see the show?She was really scared to come to New York because of hate crimes and the Delta variant, but she and my dad are coming to watch the show. I’m really happy she gets to see it, and I think she’ll be surprised because she doesn’t know how much she’s in it. My shows have been my way to have honest conversations with my parents from a distance — they learn more about me from watching my shows than us sitting at the dining room table, where I’m mostly just lying to them and hiding stuff. And I think they know this!How much of the show is just you, Kristina Wong, on that stage, and how much is you playing a character?This is my great dilemma! I play a character named Kristina Wong who’s mostly me, but highly dramatized. Did I really crawl on my belly to go to the post office? No, but it did feel like life or death a lot of the time. More

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    Cobie Smulders Communes With Sharks

    She plays a deliciously coldblooded Ann Coulter in “Impeachment.”A white shark nudged closer, gliding just above the actress Cobie Smulders, like a fan asking for a selfie. Ms. Smulders welcomed the intrusion. “This is cool,” she said, rapt, as the shark slid past in the waters of the New York Aquarium.Ms. Smulders, adored for her nine seasons on the sitcom “How I Met Your Mother,” has loved aquariums for as long as she can remember. As a mermaid-obsessed child in British Columbia, she visited the Vancouver aquarium often and spent weekends on her father’s sailboat, wondering about the life below the water’s surface. The University of Victoria accepted her to its marine biology program.But a few months before school began, she fell in with some theater actors and deferred for a year. And then another year. And then another.An avid scuba diver and an ambassador for Oceana, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting and restoring the world’s oceans, Ms. Smulders never gave up on the water. She participates in beach cleanups near the Los Angeles home she shares with her husband, the actor Taran Killam, and their two daughters. And she campaigns against the single-use plastics that clog waterways.“It’s a human conversation that needs to be talked about more loudly,” she said.She still has mermaid fantasies. “I still think it could be a possibility,” she said. And she still loves aquariums, though only those that favor conservation.Ms. Smulders studied marine biology before she became an actress.  Daniel Dorsa for The New York TimesOn a recent trip to New York City to promote the FX limited series “Impeachment: American Crime Story,” she took a car to Coney Island to visit the aquarium’s shark exhibit.She breezed in from the boardwalk just before noon, showing her vaccine card to a giddy employee. “I thought I recognized you!” the woman said as she checked Ms. Smulders’s ID. Rather than dressing for the beach, Ms. Smulders had chosen a monochrome look: belted black Chanel blazer, black jeans and black boots with stamped metal buckles that shone in the October sunlight. Pearls plucked from some very talented oysters hugged her neck.In the first building, she cooed over yellow snappers and pointed out some angelfish, then admired the stripes on some zebrafish. “Mother Nature knows what’s up,” she said approvingly.A cow nose ray caught her eye, as did a yellow rose goby. “I want to be the person who gets to name these,” she said. “You can have a lot of fun with that job.”Ms. Smulders, 39, seems to have fun with most jobs. On “Impeachment,” which revisits the impeachment of Bill Clinton, she plays the right-wing pundit Ann Coulter, a member of the Elves, a group of conservative lawyers who advised Paula Jones’s team.With hair like a Westminster-winning Afghan hound, legs like the Eiffel Tower and a voice as clipped and polished as a high-end manicure, her version of Ms. Coulter finds pleasure everywhere she goes, usually because she brings multiple bottles of wine along. And yet she remains as coldblooded as the aquarium’s sharks.“You’re all too nice,” her Ms. Coulter says of her fellow Elves during a late-night strategy scene.Initially, Ms. Smulders had resisted the role. The “Impeachment” producers had approached her a few weeks before the 2020 presidential election, the first in which Ms. Smulders, a proud Canadian who recently became an American citizen, could vote. Ms. Smulders votes a liberal ticket, so sharing head space with Ms. Coulter, who has written books such as “Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism,” didn’t seem healthy or fun.But Mr. Killam was already attached to the series as Steve Jones, Paula Jones’s husband. And “Stumptown,” the moody procedural on ABC in which Ms. Smulders starred, was canceled because of the pandemic, freeing up her schedule.“Isn’t it just so peaceful here?” Ms. Smulders said of the shark exhibit.  Daniel Dorsa for The New York TimesSo after Donald Trump lost the election, Ms. Smulders taped an audition. Playing an ultraconservative — especially an ultraconservative with a miniskirt wardrobe and a champagne habit — no longer felt so dark to her.“She’s the only one who can actually have any fun,” Ms. Smulders said of her character. “This confidence that this woman has, to be able to walk into a room and think you’re the smartest person in the room, that you’re the most powerful person in the room, that is the polar opposite of me and my life.”In the shark building, which Ms. Smulders had entered after passing a harbor seal (“Hi, friend!”) and a waddling penguin (“You can do it, buddy!”), it was clear where the power lay. Crawling into a tunnel just past the coral reef section, she marveled at the zebra sharks and bamboo sharks swimming just inches away. “I want to set up a little cot in there,” she said when she emerged. “Waking up to that? Heaven! Heaven!”Not everyone enjoys intimate encounters with fish that might find you delicious, but Ms. Smulders does. On a recent family trip to Oahu, she went for a cage dive with huge Galápagos sharks. “That was a crazy thing,” she said. She enjoys humbler marine life, too. Polyps are an obsession, as is algae, which has a mutualistic relationship with reefs.Further into the shark exhibit, past a re-creation of a shipwreck, Ms. Smulders stopped at Hudson Canyon’s Edge, a dramatic wall of water. She admired the rays, floating past like cheerful ghosts, and a whiskered fish that swam beneath them. “I love a little mustache on a fish,” she said. A loggerhead cruised by, pausing to admire her Tod’s bag. Sharks surrounded her, some of them grinning toothily. Ms. Smulders smiled at each predator.“Isn’t it just so peaceful here?” she said. More

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    Late Night Savors What’s Left of Biden’s ‘Build Back Better’ Plan

    Trevor Noah said the excision of family leave meant that “America will remain the only nation in the world where women try to give birth during their lunch break.”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.Built to ScaleLate-night hosts covered the latest in President Biden’s “Build Back Better” plan on Thursday, or what is left of it.“A lot of what was originally there is now gone,” Trevor Noah said. “Like free community college is out, and so is paid family and medical leave, which means America will remain the only nation in the world where women try to give birth during their lunch break.”“Oh, and Medicare won’t cover the cost of dental or vision care for seniors but it will cover hearing. Which makes sense. You know Biden made sure that that stayed in. When you got a president that whispers as much as he does, you’ve got to make sure people can at least hear him.” — TREVOR NOAH“But don’t worry, moms, you don’t have to go into work while you’re in labor — just Zoom in from the birthing room.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“President Biden met today with House Democrats to discuss his health care spending proposal in the infrastructure bill, which is now down to a 30-day trial for WebMD plus, and they’re going to paint some tunnels on a rock, like Wile E. Coyote.” — SETH MEYERS“The plan features subsidies for child care and universal preschool for more than six million 3- and 4-year-olds, to which parents everywhere replied, ‘But what about 2-year-olds who could pass for 3? Please — I can’t watch any more ‘Peppa Pig.’ My toddler has adopted an English accent, and won’t let me eat bacon.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“It’s insane. Everyone deserves the right to be at home with their families and children. And besides, in my experience, the more time you spend with your kids, the more desperate you are to go back to work.” — SETH MEYERS“Free vision care for anyone with perfect 20/20 eyesight. A 1 percent tax hike on billionaires for each trip to outer space. Guaranteed child care for children ages 3 to 4, provided by children ages 5 to 6. For anyone who wants to attend community college, a free copy of ‘Community’ Season 1 on DVD. If anything falls off of a crumbling bridge or overpass and hits you, you get to keep it. For women who have just given birth, a big scoop of Turkey Hill’s Rocky Road ice cream. In lieu of paid leave, they added two more take-your-child-to-work days. Any 12 albums for just one penny. Student-loan forgiveness: You still have to pay it back, but we’ll forgive you for making the mistake of taking one out. Universal wealth care: one extra digit in each American’s Social Security number. Guaranteed pre-K for wacky adult children whose hotel-magnate fathers paid their way through elementary and high school but now would like to prove themselves as competent, functioning adults in order to take over the family business. You can use the bathroom if you asked nicely. Everyone is eligible to receive $1 million from a billionaire, in exchange for just one night with your wife. One free month of Tubi. They’ll throw a traffic cone next to the pothole on your street if you quit whining about it. And finally, a new houseboat for Joe Manchin.” — SETH MEYERSThe Punchiest Punchlines (Meta Edition)“Yeah, Facebook changed their name. In response, Spectrum was like, ‘We used to be Time Warner; people still hate us.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Yeah, ‘Meta,’ as in when I joined Facebook, I ‘Meta’ lot of crazy people.” — JIMMY FALLON“That’s right, ‘Meta,’ as in your Aunt Gloria saying, ‘I Meta guy on Facebook who says the vaccine made his balls magnetic.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“This feels like when there’s an E. coli outbreak at a pizza place and they just change the name from Sal and Tony’s to Tony and Sal’s. Same gross owners.” — JIMMY FALLON“Companies often change their name to help their image and since it’s up for grabs, Johnson & Johnson is now Facebook & Facebook.” — JIMMY FALLON“The company says, ‘The name Facebook is not going away, but from now on, we are going to be Metaverse first, not Facebook first.’ But don’t worry — the self esteem of teenage girls will always be last.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Bits Worth WatchingDesus and Mero get to the bottom of why Black people love Dave Grohl, with guest Dave Grohl.Also, Check This OutAnya Taylor-Joy, left, and Thomasin McKenzie in “Last Night in Soho.”Parisa Taghizadeh/Focus FeaturesTwo young women from different eras form a psychic bond in Edgar Wright’s thriller “Last Night in Soho.” More

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    Val Bisoglio, Oft-Cast Character Actor, Dies at 95

    He was seen on “Quincy, M.E.” and “The Sopranos.” He also memorably played John Travolta’s father in “Saturday Night Fever.”By 1986, after 30 years in the business, Val Bisoglio had made such an impression as a character actor that Danny Arnold, a producer casting a new police series called “Joe Bash,” wrote in a casting notice for a particular part simply that he was looking for “a Val Bisoglio-type.”Mr. Bisoglio saw the notice and figured that he was probably as good a Val Bisoglio-type as anybody. He called Mr. Arnold and landed the role, a desk sergeant.“Joe Bash” was short-lived, but the anecdote shows just how much Mr. Bisoglio was able to do with an Everyman-ish face, a distinctive voice and a versatility that enabled him to play cops, tough guys, bartenders, judges, fathers.He was perhaps best known for portraying the father of John Travolta’s character in the film “Saturday Night Fever” in 1977 (he whacks Mr. Travolta upside the head several times in a memorable dinner scene) and the owner of a restaurant preferred by the title character, a medical examiner played by Jack Klugman, on the television drama “Quincy, M.E.” from 1976 to 1983. But from the 1960s through the ’80s, television viewers were likely to encounter him in a seemingly endless list of guest roles.“If it was a popular TV show,” his wife, Bonnie (Ray) Bisoglio, said in a phone interview, “he was on it.”Mr. Bisoglio, right, with Jack Klugman in an episode of “Quincy, M.E.” He played the owner of a restaurant, and Mr. Klugman played a medical examiner. “Whenever the writers find they’re a little short of time after they wrap up the case,” he explained, “they write in a little scene at the restaurant.”United Archives via Getty ImagesMr. Bisoglio died on Oct. 18 at his home near Los Olivos, Calif. He was 95.His wife said the cause was late-onset Lewy body dementia, which had been diagnosed a year ago.In an interview with The Daily News of New York in 1977, when he was early in his run on “Quincy” (he eventually appeared in the vast majority of the show’s 148 episodes), Mr. Bisoglio gave himself a nickname of sorts that was a reference to his “Quincy” role but could well have applied to much of a career in which he specialized in making a memorable impression in a brief amount of time.“Whenever the writers find they’re a little short of time after they wrap up the case,” he explained, “they write in a little scene at the restaurant. It’s only one minute or two, at the most. So I’m the one- or two-minute man.”Italo Valentino Bisoglio (pronounced bee-ZOL-yoh) was born on May 7, 1926, in Manhattan. His father, Mario, was a greengrocer during the Depression, then worked in construction, and his mother, Virginia (Gallina) Bisoglio, did piecework sewing. Both had emigrated from the Piedmont region of northern Italy.Growing up in New York, he said, he was more interested in going to vaudeville and other theaters than in going to school; he dropped out after 10th grade and at 16 made his way to Los Angeles, where he lived for a while, also spending time in Las Vegas. But he came to acting late; first he worked at various jobs, including, in his early 20s, selling water-softening devices, which made him a significant amount of money.“It went through my hands faster than water could soften it,” he told The News, largely because he developed a fondness for gambling.Ms. Bisoglio said that migraine headaches helped drive her husband to take acting classes as a form of tension-relieving therapy. He studied with Jeff Corey, a character actor who after being blacklisted in the 1950s became a well-regarded acting teacher, and by the early ’60s Mr. Bisoglio was back in New York and establishing himself as a theater actor.At the Off Broadway Sheridan Square Playhouse in 1965, he was part of a production of Arthur Miller’s “A View From the Bridge” that also included Robert Duvall, Jon Voigt, Susan Anspach and Richard Castellano, all then still early in their careers. The next year he made his only Broadway appearance, in Frederick Knott’s “Wait Until Dark,” playing a con man (Mr. Duvall played another).He began to find television work as well, appearing in episodes of “Bonanza” and “Mayberry R.F.D.,” among other shows, and in 1969 he landed a recurring role on the soap opera “The Doctors.” By the ’70s he had residences on both coasts to accommodate his increasingly busy TV and stage careers.Mr. Bisoglio tended to be offered roles as mobsters and other heavies — he held up Archie Bunker and family in a 1972 episode of “All in the Family” — but, as his wife said, “he yearned for roles where he could show something else,” and he turned down the thug parts when he could. Partly, he said, that was because they stereotyped a particular sort of Italian, one not representative of his family’s origins; his mother bristled whenever he took such a part.“She doesn’t cook much pasta,” he told United Press International in 1977. “We northern Italians in the Po Valley area eat mostly rice. We’re from peasant stock.”But, he told The Daily News, he also disliked such roles because they reminded him of his time as a gambler.“When I was a New York gambler I had to mix with those tough guys,” he said. “God, they were tough. Their arms were like iron. Their necks were like iron. Now it’s embarrassing for me to play them.”That said, his final credits were in three episodes of “The Sopranos” in 2002, playing a character named Murf who was part of Junior Soprano’s crew. But Mr. Bisoglio said he always enjoyed the chance to play comic roles.In the early 1980s, for instance, he was in several episodes of “M*A*S*H,” playing a cook named Pernelli. In one, Alan Alda’s Hawkeye lectures him at length on how to delicately prepare the perfect French toast. Mr. Bisoglio then ignores him and dumps all the ingredients, including the bread, into a giant pot.Another role that took Mr. Bisoglio a long way from Italian stereotypes came in 1979, when he played an erudite Indian chief named Gray Cloud in the comic western “The Frisco Kid,” with Gene Wilder and Harrison Ford. George American Horse, an actual American Indian, was an adviser on the film, and in 1978 he told The New York Times that, the uncomfortable cross-cultural casting notwithstanding, Mr. Bisoglio’s portrayal was a welcome change from “the stoic Indian sitting on his pony with his arms crossed and wearing war paint.”Mr. Bisoglio’s marriage to Joyce Haden was brief and ended in divorce. He and Ms. Bisoglio married in 1996. In addition to his wife, he is survived by two sons, Joseph Bisoglio and Scott Chapman. More

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    Two Theaters, Different Worlds

    Munich is throwing off a provincial reputation to become a global cultural powerhouse. Yet tensions between local and cosmopolitan impulses in the city’s playhouses remain.MUNICH — This month, hundreds of elegant Bavarians, many decked out in the region’s traditional dress of lederhosen and dirndls, gathered for the festive opening of the new Volkstheater, a striking and luxurious performing arts complex built into the cobbled courtyards of a 19th-century abattoir.That the Volkstheater was inaugurated a week after the opening of Isarphilharmonie, a world-class concert hall, seemed a further signal that Munich is throwing off its provincial reputation and growing into a global cultural powerhouse.Yet tensions between local and cosmopolitan impulses in the city’s arts scene remain, and nowhere are they clearer than in the different approaches of the Volkstheater and another state-funded playhouse, the Münchner Kammerspiele. Once described as Munich’s “unloved child,” the Volkstheater was willed into existence in 1983 by a conservative mayor who wanted a more traditional alternative to the artistically and politically provocative Kammerspiele.The Volkstheater’s $150 million venue is a vindication of the artistic course that its longtime leader, Christian Stückl, has charted for the house. In 2002, Stückl arrived as the artistic director and set about building an ensemble of young actors, including many fresh out of drama school. Nearly two decades later, the theater is known far and wide as an incubator of talent. The company’s “Radical Young” festival, founded in 2005, showcases productions by up-and-coming directors from theaters throughout the German-speaking world.The Kammerspiele — whose history stretches back more than a century and includes world premieres by the dramatic titans Bertolt Brecht and Frank Wedekind — is also in the midst of a new beginning. It recently kicked off its second season under its artistic director, Barbara Mundel, who has brought in a mostly new (and greatly expanded) acting ensemble and a diverse team of artistic collaborators.Jan Meeno Jürgens, left, and Alexandros Koutsoulis in the Volkstheater’s “Edward II.” Arno DeclairStarting in the middle of a pandemic, however, has not been easy, and the Kammerspiele has often struggled to define or articulate its vision. So I wouldn’t be too surprised if the theater is eying the Volkstheater, whose splashy opening is still making headlines and generating excitement here, with something like envy.With a swanky home for its tried and tested model of traditional theater performed by young players, the Volkstheater seems in the ascendant. But it remains to be seen whether the company can appeal to a public beyond its mostly local base.Stückl’s production of Christopher Marlowe’s “Edward II,” which inaugurated the stage, seems the sort of stylish yet conventional staging that could attract wider audiences. The production is sensitively acted and poignantly illustrates the medieval English king’s passionate and heedless love for Gaveston, the earl of Cornwall, which the monarch pursues as his court plots against him.With its sizable dramatis personae, “Edward II” proves a good opportunity to show off the Volkstheater’s fresh-faced ensemble, as well as the technical capacities of the stage. The costumes and the minimal props — including a bathtub and throne — vibrate with electric pinks and purples against the black expanse of the neon-lit stage, whose frequent rotations facilitate seamless entrances and exits over two intermissionless hours.“Edward II” is the first of 15 premieres that the house has planned for this season, along with works by George Orwell and Oscar Wilde and several new plays. Yet the company’s repertoire leans heavily on the classics, from Shakespeare to foundational German works.Pascal Fligg in “Felix Krull,” an adaptation of the Thomas Mann novel at the Volkstheater.Andrea HuberA brilliantly acted chamber version of Thomas Mann’s “The Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man” is the Volkstheater’s first revival in its new home. Presented in the house’s second, smaller theater, the 2011 staging, adapted from the novel by the show’s director, Bastian Kraft, feels remarkably fresh considering its age. Kraft succeeds in conjuring the colorful life and globe-trotting adventures of Mann’s charming confidence man with limited means.The cast remains unchanged from a decade ago: Pascal Fligg, Nicola Fritzen and Justin Mühlenhardt give heroic performances, dividing the role of Krull among them. The three bring the rakish trickster to life through a series of fast, witty and sweaty performances that are triumphs of bravura acting.“Felix Krull” is one of the Volkstheater’s classic productions, and it still sells out. Things look very different over at the Kammerspiele, which is building up its repertoire pretty much from scratch. (Almost none of the company’s productions from before Mundel’s tenure have been retained.) The program includes few famous plays or recognizable titles. Instead, the Kammerspiele is taking a gamble on recent and freshly commissioned works by international artists, dramatists and theater collectives.The cast of Sivan Ben Yishai’s “Like Lovers Do (Memoirs of Medusa),” directed by Pinar Karabulut at the Kammerspiele in Munich.Krafft AngererOne young author working at the theater is the Israeli writer Sivan Ben Yishai, whose “Like Lovers Do (Memoirs of Medusa)” recently received its world premiere there. This provocative play is a ferocious and uncompromising dramatic treatise about sexual violence, abuse, self-harm and the psychologically damaging expectations placed on girls and women in a sexist society. The playbill contains a trigger warning that may be tongue-in-cheek. (“Trigger warnings sell,” a character tells us.)Thankfully, Pinar Karabulut’s stylishly campy and colorful production does not put any violence or cruelty onstage. The spirited five-member cast, drawn from the house’s ensemble, recite (and occasionally sing) the X-rated dialogue while decked out in wacky comic-book costumes by Teresa Vergho. Karabulut’s whimsical dollhouse aesthetic provides a much-welcome contrast to the play’s relentless brutality; the production’s irony and dark humor help the audience get through what would otherwise be an unremittingly grim evening.The Kammerspiele’s terrific ensemble is also front and center in “The Politicians,” a dramatic monologue by Wolfram Lotz. It’s a lengthy poetic manifesto that feels outraged and urgent — though what it means isn’t always clear. In its incantatory power and rhythmic flow, it can be mesmerizing on a purely aural level, and its mix of sense and nonsense opens up an infinite number of theatrical possibilities.Bekim Latifi in “Like Lovers Do (Memoirs of Medusa)” at the Kammerspiele. Krafft AngererWhen performed for the first time, embedded inside a Berlin production of “King Lear” at the Deutsches Theater, the entirety of “The Politicians” was entrusted to a single actress; in Munich, the director Felicitas Brucker distributes Lotz’s text among three performers. For a little over an hour, Katharina Bach, Svetlana Belesova and Thomas Schmauser declaim the agitated text with white-hot intensity. Performing from isolated cubbyholes that resemble a bedroom, a workshop and a kitchen in one, and whose walls often crawl with video-game-like animation, the agile actors inject hilarity and disquiet into their absurd speeches.The single weirdest, most wonderful moment in this dizzying evening is when Bach — who delivers the most impressively unhinged performance — pauses briefly amid a fiery torrent of nigh-incomprehensible babble to ask the audience, with deadpan directness, “Any questions?”Based on the evidence so far, the Kammerspiele under Mundel is more interested in art that poses questions rather than provides answers. I hope Munich’s theater lovers rise to the challenge of discovering the untested repertoire that she is introducing to this storied house. By comparison, the more popular and crowd-pleasing Volkstheater, installed in its state-of-the-art home, finds itself in a better position than ever before to convince audiences — including those skeptical about a more traditional approach — of its theatrical vision.From left, Katharina Bach, Svetlana Belesova and Thomas Schmauser in “The Politicians,” directed by Felicitas Brucker, at the Kammerspiele.Judith BussEdward II. Directed by Christian Stückl. Münchner Volkstheater, through Nov. 25.Felix Krull. Directed by Bastian Kraft. Münchner Volkstheater, through Nov. 6.Like Lovers Do (Memories of Medusa). Directed by Pinar Karabulut. Münchner Kammerspiele, through Nov. 15.The Politicians. Directed by Felicitas Brucker. Münchner Kammerspiele, through Nov. 24. More

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    6 TV Tie-In Podcasts to Enhance Your Next Binge

    Who’ll be the last one standing in “Succession”? Is “The Good Place” heaven or hell? These are the audio companions to keep the conversation going around some of your favorite shows.For a true TV devotee, watching the latest episode is just the beginning. Depending on the show at hand, there are plot twists and character revelations to dissect, theories to discuss and historical context to plumb. Fans have been gathering online to do all this since before the turn of the century, but in recent years, shows have started producing their own post-episode debriefs.Starting in the early 2010s, the TV “after-show” became a subgenre. Immediately after a new episode aired, a host would interview the stars and creators about what just happened, in programs like AMC’s “Talking Dead” and “Talking Bad,” HBO’s “After the Thrones,” and more recently Netflix’s “The Netflix Afterparty.” But as Hollywood seems to be realizing, the format works just as well (if not better) in audio form.As a result, there’s now a huge selection of official tie-in podcasts for your favorite TV shows. Some of these offer real added value, while others are skippable puffery. These six are worth your time.‘HBO’s Succession Podcast’Since fans of HBO’s towering, dramatic family tragicomedy have had to wait a full two years for new episodes, audio stepped in to fill the void. Beginning last summer, the host Roger Bennett (best known for the soccer podcast “Men in Blazers”) conducted interviews with the “Succession” ensemble, diving into the psychology of the power-hungry, emotionally stunted Roy clan. Now that the long-awaited third season has finally debuted, the podcast has switched up its format, swapping out Bennett for the veteran Silicon Valley journalist Kara Swisher (host of The New York Times podcast “Sway”). The focus now is less on the show itself, and more on the realities of the kind of power it depicts — Episode 1 features a conversation with Jennifer Palmieri, a former White House communications director, who weighs in on a politically charged moment from the season premiere. Though it may not please every fan, this shift in focus sets it apart from other tie-in podcasts.Starter episode: “Rich Doesn’t Equal Smart (With Jennifer Palmieri)”‘The Crown: The Official Podcast’One of the great pleasures of watching Netflix’s richly drawn royal drama “The Crown” is looking up the real historical events portrayed in each episode, and identifying what’s fact versus fiction. Hosted by the Scottish broadcaster Edith Bowman, this companion podcast helps to scratch that itch, offering additional context on the research that goes into depicting figures like Princess Diana and the divisive British prime minister Margaret Thatcher. Each episode features Bowman alongside a variety of guests from the cast and creative team, who share behind-the-scenes stories and insights into the vast scale of the production. Sadly for fans of Claire Foy’s era, the podcast didn’t debut until Season 3 of the show, but will continue through its already-confirmed fifth and sixth seasons.Starter episode: “Episode 1: Goldstick”‘Better Call Saul Insider Podcast’Way back in 2009, when podcasts were still niche and held no interest for TV networks, the team behind AMC’s then under-the-radar drama “Breaking Bad” started putting out a roundtable podcast called “Breaking Bad Insider Podcast.” As the series gradually snowballed to become one of the most iconic series of all time, the podcast remained charmingly unchanged — with Kelley Dixon, an editor on both dramas, and Vince Gilligan, the creator of both, hosting an affable weekly chat about every aspect of the production. This dynamic continued with the introduction of the also acclaimed prequel series “Better Call Saul.” The hosts genuine warmth and camaraderie distinguishes this from many similar roundtable-style podcasts, and their insights into the nitty-gritty of production are invaluable for fans and aspiring creatives alike.Starter episode: “101 Better Call Saul Insider”‘The Good Place: The Podcast’There are layers upon layers to peel back in Michael Schur’s existential NBC sitcom “The Good Place,” which follows a ragtag group of recently deceased characters trying to navigate a zany afterlife where the rules keep changing. So it’s not surprising that the show makes ideal fodder for a podcast, which is hosted by the actor Marc Evan Jackson (best known to fans for playing a mysterious demon named Shawn). Offering episode-by-episode conversations spanning the entire series, the podcast features a revolving door of actors, writers and producers, as well as set decorators, props masters, and costume and production designers.Starter episode: “Ch. 1: Michael Schur”‘Late Night With Seth Meyers Podcast’Late-night talk shows aren’t generally first in line to get the podcast treatment, but this is less of a companion show than an alternative way to enjoy Meyers’s incarnation of “Late Night,” on NBC. New episodes typically drop two or three times a week, and feature highlights from the satirical nightly show, including Meyers’s opening monologues, interviews and signature recurring segments like “A Closer Look.” Guests run the cultural gamut — interviews from the last few weeks include Senator Elizabeth Warren, the cast of “Ted Lasso,” and Meyers’s onetime “SNL” colleague Colin Jost. Some episodes of the program are devoted to a sub-podcast, “Late Night Lit,” which features the “Late Night” producer Sarah Jenks-Daly discussing books and interviewing authors. Throw in the odd behind-the-scenes segment with Meyers and the producer Mike Shoemaker, and there’s something here to entertain just about anyone.Starter episode: “Sen. Elizabeth Warren | Southwest Contradicts Fox News, Says Chaos Not Caused by Vaccine Mandate: A Closer Look”‘The Chernobyl Podcast’If you devoured HBO’s riveting 2019 mini-series “Chernobyl” but skipped the tie-in podcast, you’re missing out on the full experience. Peter Sagal, best known as the host of NPR’s beloved quiz show “Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me!,” led this five-part conversation with the “Chernobyl” writer Craig Mazin, who co-hosts the long-running screenwriting podcast “Scriptnotes.” Their combined audio experience is evident in their effortless back-and-forth, which blends behind-the-scenes anecdotes with fascinating historical insights into the 1986 nuclear disaster and its fallout. Mazin’s enthusiasm for the subject matter is palpable, and the episode-by-episode discussion allows for a detailed breakdown of key moments. If you’re the kind of die-hard TV fan who pines for DVD audio commentaries, this is the next best thing.Starter episode: “1:23:45” More

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    Late Night Supports Democrats’ Plan to Tax the Richest of the Rich

    “So that includes Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Flo, the Progressive Insurance lady,” Jimmy Fallon joked of the billionaires’ tax.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.Champagne ProblemsOn Wednesday, Senate Democrats introduced a tax proposal targeting America’s 700 richest people: billionaires.“So that includes Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Flo, the Progressive Insurance lady,” Jimmy Fallon joked.“It’s tough for billionaires. If you’d like to sponsor one, you can make a difference for just $34 million a day.” — JIMMY FALLON“You know cash is tight for billionaires when their flights in space have to lay over in Cleveland.” — JIMMY FALLON“But by this afternoon, Democrats scrapped the tax on billionaires and now they might tax millionaires instead. When they heard that, Kim and Kylie were like, ‘Yes!’ while Khloe, Kourtney and Kendall were like, ‘No.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Senator [Ron] Wyden wants to pay for the Biden agenda with something called the billionaires’ income tax. Now the details are a little complex. Let me try to explain it: Billionaires, there’s this thing called taxes, and you should pay any.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“The proposal affects only people with a billion dollars in assets or those earning more than $100 million in income three years in a row. OK, here’s a simple way to see if it affects you: Take your spare super yacht to your third house that’s on the private island shaped like your own head; look in your garage. If there isn’t a spaceship in there, you’re fine.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Calling it a ‘billionaire income tax’ was smart branding by the Democrats, because Republicans are going to sound pretty out of touch if they oppose it, which they immediately did.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (Shots for Kids Edition)“Last night, an F.D.A. panel gave the green light to the Pfizer vaccine for kids between the ages of 5 and 11. That’s right. That’s right, kids’ vaccines are the best way to prevent the two things parents fear the most: Covid and home-schooling.” — JIMMY FALLON“In a few weeks, you’re going to see bouncers outside Chuck E. Cheese checking vaccine cards.” — JIMMY FALLON“Hey, kids, guess who gets to go to the doctor twice in the space of three weeks? And, don’t worry, he will stab you!” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Kids could get the shot as soon as next week. Great timing, right after they go door to door on Halloween.” — JIMMY FALLON“Now kids can forget about Covid and worrying about that and go to spreading every other disease known to man.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Here’s how the vaccine will work: Older kids can get Pfizer, younger kids can get Moderna, and the middle child can get Johnson & Johnson.” — JIMMY FALLON“Some parents said that they aren’t sure if they’re comfortable giving their kids the vaccine, then they went back to feeding them Dunkaroos for breakfast.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingSamantha Bee touched on the big business of death and funerals on this week’s “Full Frontal.”What We’re Excited About on Thursday NightJohn Leguizamo will catch up with Stephen Colbert on Thursday’s “Late Show.”Also, Check This OutAbba in 1979; the band members’ digital avatars will be modeled on their looks from that year.Sobli/RDB and ullstein bild, via Getty ImagesAfter 40 years, Abba is releasing a new album, which all four original band members somehow made in secret. More