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    Netflix’s ‘Squid Game’ Reinvigorates Dalgona Candy

    Interest in the South Korean treat has spiked since the debut of the Netflix drama “Squid Game.”One of Maddy Park’s earliest memories of street food was when vendors set up a portable stove outside her elementary school in Seoul, South Korea, to sell a candy for about a dime. It was part sweet treat, part game.Candy makers melted sugar and frothed it up with a pinch of baking soda to make this dalgona candy, Ms. Park recalled. They then pressed the mixture flat and pushed shapes like a circle, triangle, square, star or umbrella into the center. Ms. Park’s classmates determinedly tried to pick out the stamped shape using a needle without breaking it — a game called ppopgi. If the children successfully removed the shape from the brittle candy, they won another treat for free.“Dalgona was one of the cheapest, unhealthiest, yet the most addictive gamble for 7-year-old me,” said Ms. Park, now 28 and living in Downtown Brooklyn, N.Y.Ms. Park is one of many Koreans whose memories of dalgona candy, also called ppopgi, have surfaced thanks to the release last month of “Squid Game” on Netflix. The fictional series follows a group of cash-strapped people willing to die playing childhood games for a chance to win a jackpot. Episode 3 is all about ppopgi.Read more about “Squid Game” on Netflix.“There’s a gambling sort of element to it, kind of like in the ‘Squid Game’ but without life or death,” JinJoo Lee, 55, the Korean food blogger behind Kimchimari, said about ppopgi. Her recipe for dalgona candy, which she posted online in 2018, has had a 30 percent increase in traffic in the past few days. Similar candies are popular around the world, she said, but they go by different names.Dalgona candy filled a sweet void in postwar South Korea for children who had grown accustomed to the free chocolates given away by American soldiers, said Albert Park, an associate professor with expertise in Korean history at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, Calif. Dalgona was inexpensive and accessible, he said.At first, glucose was used because raw sugar was expensive, Mr. Park said. But vendors likely began using sugar after the Korean War, when companies began to process it from its raw form, he said. The toffee-colored honeycomb candy became common in the 1960s, and was sold outside elementary schools and toy stores.Dalgona vendors started to disappear in the early 2000s as online shopping became more popular and toy stores began to close, Mr. Park said. It’s also likely that South Korea’s booming candy industry, and its proliferation of other types of inexpensive candies, put many of the mom-and-pop dalgona candy makers out of business.Contestants on the “Squid Game” pick out shapes from their dalgona candy, also known as ppopgi, in a life-or-death contest that featured challenges with childhood games.NetflixBut because of the popularity of “Squid Game,” the candy has made a comeback as a retro, nostalgic snack, Mr. Park said. “For some of these young Koreans, I don’t think they consciously think it’s Korean candy, but it’s a way to connect to their history that they don’t want to necessarily do in a history book,” he said.Social media has shepherded its leap to worldwide fame, introducing the candy to people outside South Korea.The name dalgona became more familiar to Americans in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic because of the popularity of the whipped coffee also known as dalgona. The beverage gained fame in January 2020 after the actor Jung Il-woo tried it in Macau on “Stars’ Top Recipe at Fun-Staurant,” a South Korean television show. He said it reminded him of the dalgona candy, unofficially naming the drink in the process. It then feverishly spread to South Korea’s coffee shops and eventually made its way to the United States.Some people, though, say dalgona candy’s spread through social media can divorce it from its cultural significance. “Dalgona candy is representative of fetishizing K-pop and K-dramas, and seeing one thing and saying, ‘Wow I’ve discovered Korean culture,’” said Nancy Wang Yuen, a sociologist and expert on race and racism in Hollywood, “when in fact the candy, the cinema, the television series, all of these things, have been in existence.”Fans love the candy’s blend of bitter, nutty and sweet tastes. “The flavor, for some reason, stays with you,” said Annie Yoo, 46, of Düsseldorf, Germany.Ms. Yoo’s most vivid memories of South Korea are those of foods like dalgona candy, as she was only 6 years old when she immigrated to the United States. She remembers the dirt roads she took to get to the dalgona street vendors under their tarps.“I really miss that candy,” she added. “In the midst of all the stuff we were going through, you barely get any treats. It was really magical.”In a YouTube video in which the “Squid Game” cast reacts to some of the scenes, Chae Kyung-sun, the show’s art director, reveals that dalgona candy was the trickiest prop to work with. Behind the scenes, she said, there was a professional who kept making the candy as they were filming.Those who have played the candy game approach it with different strategies. Hwang Dong-hyuk, the show’s writer and director, incorporated his own into the series: The show’s main character, Seong Gi-hun, repeatedly licks the candy to loosen the umbrella shape from the middle. It’s a trick the director said he used to win prizes when he was younger.But Ms. Park, who ate the candy outside her elementary school in Seoul, never did manage to win a free candy.Follow NYT Food on Twitter and NYT Cooking on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Pinterest. Get regular updates from NYT Cooking, with recipe suggestions, cooking tips and shopping advice. More

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    Alan Kalter, Longtime Voice of Letterman’s ‘Late Show,’ Dies at 78

    Far more than just an announcer, he contributed all sorts of outlandish, incongruous comic bits to “Late Show With David Letterman.”Alan Kalter, the announcer for the “Late Show With David Letterman” for some 20 years and a participant in a ridiculous array of comic bits during that run, died on Monday at a hospital in Stamford, Conn., where he lived. He was 78.The death was announced by Rabbi Joshua Hammerman of Temple Beth El in Stamford, the synagogue Mr. Kalter attended. No cause was given.Mr. Kalter would welcome viewers with an opening quip (“From New York, home of mad cab disease … ”) and a recitation of the guest list. He would introduce the nonsensical “secret word” of the day and tell Mr. Letterman what was to be put to the “Will It Float?” test, a recurring comic bit. He would work himself into a lather over this or that and run off down the street shirtless.But, just as incongruously, he once sang a heartfelt version of “Send In the Clowns” for no particular reason, bolting offstage afterward overcome with emotion as the audience stood and applauded. Another time, he turned what at first seemed like some fatherly advice about attending the prom into a painful confessional about going to the prom with his own mother, “her middle-age body squeezed like a sausage into a sequined gown, her makeup and perfume a cruel mockery of the womanhood your hormones crave.”His transformation from announcer to all-purpose comic started early. On his first day, he said, Mr. Letterman, who had an Olympic diver as a guest, had Mr. Kalter jump into a pool while wearing his best suit.“I’m floating on my back, looking up at the cameraman, going, ‘This is what it’s like to announce on Letterman,’” he recalled in an interview on CBS New York in 2015, when Mr. Letterman ended the show.“If you’re going to have a talk show,” Mr. Letterman said on Tuesday in a telephone interview, “you’ve got to have a strong announcer, and he filled that way beyond what is required.”Mr. Kalter replaced Bill Wendell in September 1995, after Mr. Wendell retired. Mr. Letterman said that Mr. Kalter’s audition tape had left no doubt when he and his producer at the time, Robert Morton, heard it.“It was like, ‘Oh, my God, here we go,’” Mr. Letterman said.Mr. Kalter’s voice was already familiar to television viewers by then; he had announced on game shows like “To Tell the Truth” and “The $25,000 Pyramid” and provided voice-overs for numerous commercials. Mr. Letterman’s “Late Show,” though, brought him an entirely different kind of fame. His red hair and rumpled good looks made him instantly recognizable, and Mr. Letterman gave him ample opportunities to display his aptitude for both deadpan and over-the-top comedy.Mr. Kalter in 2015. “I don’t recall the guy ever saying no to anything,” David Letterman said in an interview.John Palmer/MediaPunch /IPX via Associated PressBarbara Gaines, the longtime “Late Show” producer, said Mr. Kalter had fit right into the show’s zaniness.“Alan would good-naturedly do almost anything we asked of him,” she said by email, “which is how we like our people.”Mr. Kalter said that he had always been given the option of declining to do a particularly nutty stunt or asking that it be modified, but Mr. Letterman remembered him as being perpetually game.“I don’t recall the guy ever saying no to anything,” he said, “and I guess that tells us something about his judgment.”And, he added, “it wasn’t begrudgingly — it was, ‘I’m all in.’”But Mr. Letterman also noted that, for him, Mr. Kalter and his music director, Paul Shaffer, were steadying influences.“He and Paul, to me, they were fixtures every night,” he said. “You’d look over and see Alan and see Paul and know that it’s going to be OK just like last night.”Guests, too, found Mr. Kalter to be a calming force.“Appearing with Dave triggered its own unique set of nerves,” Brian Williams, a frequent “Late Show” guest, said on Monday night on his MSNBC news program. “But seeing the smiling face of a nice man like Alan Kalter backstage was always the tonic needed in that moment.”The show may have made Mr. Kalter a celebrity, but he kept a low profile when off the set and at home in Stamford, where he had lived since the 1970s.“I played cards in a poker group for a year and a half,” he told The Stamford Advocate in 2003, “before somebody said, ‘Somebody told me you were in broadcasting.’”As for his “Letterman” job, Mr. Kalter was grateful for the opportunity and the long run.“I loved what they let me be,” he told The Pulteney Street Survey, the magazine of Hobart and William Smith Colleges, where he was once a student, “a 10-year-old, paid for doing stuff my mom would never have let me get away with.”Alan Robert Kalter was born on March 21, 1943, in Brooklyn. He started announcing on WGVA radio in Geneva, N.Y., while at Hobart. The radio job had a fringe benefit.“In my off hours,” he said, “I would create the music tapes for all our fraternity parties from the 45’s that came in to the radio station.”After graduating in 1964 he studied law at New York University, then taught high school English for three years, at the same time recording educational tapes and working weekends in radio in the New York suburbs. The pull of radio eventually proved irresistible.“I left teaching for an afternoon radio show at WTFM,” he told the college magazine, “and was hired to be a newsman at WHN Radio in New York, which quickly became a four-year gig interviewing celebs who came into town for movie and Broadway openings, as well as covering nightclub openings three or four nights a week.”When WHN went to a country format in 1973, he turned to making commercials, and then got into game shows.He is survived by his wife, Peggy; a brother, Gary; two daughters, Lauren Hass and Diana Binger; and five grandchildren.Mr. Kalter’s do-almost-anything commitment to “Late Show,” Mr. Letterman said, was a nice counterpoint to Mr. Letterman’s more laid-back style.“I never liked to put on funny hats,” he said. “Alan would dress like a Martian and make it work.”“He filled in so many blanks on that show,” Mr. Letterman added, joking, “he probably deserved more money.” More

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    Stephen Colbert Kicks Facebook While It’s Down

    “As the panic grew, Facebook did not say what might be causing the outage. Now, I’m no computer expert, but my theory is a just god?” Colbert joked.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.Face(book) DownFacebook, Instagram and WhatsApp were down for several hours on Monday.“So if you wanted to share photos, you had to go door-to-door with Polaroids of your brunch,” Stephen Colbert joked.Colbert mocked audience members who admitted to trying to reload their accounts throughout the day, telling them to “seek help.”“For hours, users were left in suspense about whether their second cousin thinks the vaccine gives your pancreas Wi-Fi.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“People started noticing something was wrong this morning when they felt happy for more than 30 minutes.” — JAMES CORDEN“As the panic grew, Facebook did not say what might be causing the outage. Now, I’m no computer expert, but my theory is a just god?” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Now, clearly, this is the day the machines have risen up and are taking over, but don’t panic: They only know our thoughts, feelings, family, friends, location, facial patterns and banking data.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Meanwhile, people who couldn’t use Instagram spent the day posting their weekend pumpkin-patch selfies on LinkedIn.” — JIMMY FALLON“It was so bad that the only way Facebook could let the world know what was going on — and this is true — was by posting a message on Twitter. ” — STEPHEN COLBERT“That must hurt. Facebook communicating problems on Twitter? That’s like Burger King running out of fries and having to announce it on a Big Mac.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (Social Outing Edition)“Yes, Facebook’s entire site crashed. They were like, ‘Oh, my god, this is the best press we’ve had in months!’” — JIMMY FALLON“Facebook was only down for a day and in that short time, everyone got the vaccine.” — JIMMY FALLON“Before Facebook, I had no problems with any of my aunts or uncles. It was all — all birthday checks in the mail.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“I gotta check out Facebook one of these days. I hear bad things.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“With no social media, I ended up spending most of the day talking to my son. He’s really nice!” — JAMES CORDENThe Bits Worth WatchingThe “Daily Show” correspondent Dulcé Sloan argued with New Yorkers over trivial things like pizza, golf and reality television in her new segment “Prove Me Wrong.”What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightQueen Latifah will pop by Tuesday’s “Tonight Show.”Also, Check This Out“If you can’t eat and enjoy food,” Stanley Tucci said, “how are you going to enjoy everything else?”Charlotte Hadden for The New York TimesThe actor Stanley Tucci has a new career as a foodie. More

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    The Best Movies and TV Shows New to Netflix, Amazon and Stan in Australia in October

    Our picks for October, including ‘Colin in Black & White,’ ‘Poltergeist’ and ‘Diana: The Musical’Every month, streaming services in Australia add a new batch of movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our picks for October.New to NetflixOCT. 1‘Diana: The Musical’The writing and composing team of David Bryan and Joe DiPietro — who won four Tonys, including Best Musical, for their show “Memphis” — reunite for this high-energy, rock ’n’ roll fueled version of the Princess Diana saga. Jeanna de Waal plays the popular, scandal-plagued royal, in a story about her seemingly storybook romance with Prince Charles (Roe Hartrampf) and its unhappy ending. “Diana: The Musical” officially opens on Broadway later this year, but the cast and crew taped a performance over the summer, giving theater fans who can’t make it to New York a chance to see the show.‘The Guilty’In this taut mystery-thriller, Jake Gyllenhaal plays a dedicated but overzealous police officer, who is stuck working at a dispatch desk when he gets a call from a woman (Riley Keough) who claims to be in fear for her life. The director Antoine Fuqua and the screenwriter Nic Pizzolatto follow the lead of the intense 2018 Danish film on which “The Guilty” is based, telling the story mostly from inside the police station. The hero scrambles to use all the investigative resources available to him from his computer and his phone, to try to figure out how to stop what may or may not be a crime in progress.‘Maid’Netflix‘Maid’Based on Stephanie Land’s memoir, the mini-series “Maid” stars Margaret Qualley as a broke single mother named Alex, with very few viable options for work, child-care or safe housing. When she takes a job working for a cleaning service catering to wealthy families in the Pacific Northwest, Alex becomes acutely aware of how much her survival depends on a steady paycheck and a lot of good luck. Qualley gives an outstanding performance in this riveting drama, which turns something as simple as having gas money (or a functioning car) into a source of nail-biting tension.OCT. 6‘There’s Someone Inside Your House’The director Patrick Brice (best-known for the offbeat genre films “Creep” and “Corporate Animals”) and the screenwriter Henry Gayden (who co-wrote the lively superhero movie “Shazam!”) have adapted Stephanie Perkins’s young adult novel “There’s Someone Inside Your House” into a different kind of teen horror movie. Sydney Park plays Makani, the new girl at a Nebraska high school where students with dark secrets are being stalked by a serial killer who wears a mask that resembles the victims’ faces. While these kids try to dodge murder, they also hustle to avoid having their deepest regrets made public.‘The Baby-Sitters Club’ Season 2One of 2020s most delightful surprises returns for a second season of family-friendly television. Based on Ann M. Martin’s beloved book series, “The Baby-Sitters Club” is about a circle of industrious teenage friends who run a child-care business while also helping each other with their problems. The show uses the plots of the novels as a starting point for modern stories about school, parents, relationships and responsibility.‘Colin in Black & White’NetflixOCT. 29‘Colin in Black & White’The Colin in the title of “Colin in Black & White” is Colin Kaepernick, the former NFL quarterback and social activist who sparked controversy across the United States when he started kneeling before football games during the singing of the national anthem. Here, Kaepernick and the producer-director Ava DuVernay tell the athlete’s story by looking back at his childhood, revisiting moments when the biracial Colin (Jaden Michael) came into conflict with his coaches, his classmates and his adoptive white parents (played by Nick Offerman and Mary-Louise Parker) as he tried to embrace his cultural roots.Also arriving: “On My Block” (Oct. 4), “Backing Impossible” Season 1 (Oct. 6), “Pretty Smart” (Oct. 8), “Bright: Samurai Soul” (Oct. 12), “Convergence: Courage in a Crisis” (Oct. 12), “The Movies That Made Us” Season 3 (Oct. 12), “The Four of Us” (Oct. 15), “Karma’s World” (Oct. 15), “You” Season 3 (Oct. 15), “Found” (Oct. 20), “Night Teeth” (Oct. 20), “Stuck Together” (Oct. 20), “Sex, Love & goop” (Oct. 21), “Inside Job” (Oct. 22), “Locke & Key” Season 2 (Oct. 22), “Maya and the Three” (Oct. 22), “Hypnotic” (Oct. 27), “Army of Thieves” (Oct. 29).New to Stan‘Sort Of’StanOCT. 6‘Sort of’ Season 1This Canadian dramedy stars Bilal Baig as Sabi, a gender-fluid child of Pakistani immigrants. While working as a nanny by day and a bartender by night, Sabi tries to maintain meaningful relationships with both their traditionalist family and their L.G.B.T.Q. friends — two very different factions who are sometimes equally confounded by what it means to be nonbinary. This is a show about a person making a space for themselves, outside of the conventional categories.Oct. 8‘One of Us Is Lying’ Season 1Like the Karen M. McManus young adult mystery novel on which it’s based, the teen drama series “One of Us Is Lying” is part “The Breakfast Club,” part “Gossip Girl” and part Agatha Christie whodunit. When five students are framed by a troublemaking peer and stuck in after-school detention, four of them become murder suspects after one of their group — an incorrigible gossip named Simon (Mark McKenna) — drops dead under strange circumstances. To clear their names, the other kids work together, forming an “us against the world” bond as their secrets become public.OCT. 16‘Boogie Nights’The cinephile favorite writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson has a new movie coming out later this year: “Licorice Pizza,” a teen dramedy set in Los Angeles’s San Fernando Valley in the 1970s. So now is the perfect time to revisit Anderson’s breakthrough film, 1997’s “Boogie Nights,” also set in the Valley in the ’70s (and ’80s). Ostensibly the story of a fast-living, sweet-natured porn star named Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg), “Boogie Nights” is really about L.A. misfits forming a makeshift family and then fighting to hold it together as drugs, money, fame and changing cultural attitudes start pulling everything apart.OCT. 21‘Poltergeist’Looking for some classic horror this October? You can’t go wrong with 1982’s “Poltergeist,” a witty and frightful tale about ancient spirits terrorizing a pristine new suburban subdivision. Directed by Tobe Hooper (best-known for “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre”) and produced and co-written by Steven Spielberg (riding high at the time from the success of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “E.T.”), “Poltergeist” starts out as a dryly funny portrait of a pleasant middle-class family. Then all hell breaks loose, turning an ordinary American neighborhood into a village of the damned.OCT. 28‘Love Life’ Season 2The romantic comedy anthology series “Love Life” returns for a second season with a new story, featuring a few of the first season’s characters in smaller roles (including last year’s protagonist Darby, played by the show’s co-producer Anna Kendrick). This time out, William Jackson Harper takes the lead as Marcus, a New Yorker still reeling from a recent divorce from the woman he thought would be his partner for life. As he re-enters the dating world, which has changed drastically since the last time tried to find a mate, Marcus takes the opportunity to re-evaluate what he really wants from a relationship.Also arriving: “A Good Man” Season 1 (Oct. 13), “Canada’s Drag Race” Season 2 (Oct. 15), “Hightown” Season 2 (Oct. 17), “All American” Season 4 (Oct. 26), “The Last O.G.” Season 4 (Oct. 27), “Sisterhood” Season 1 (Oct. 29), “Walker” Season 2 (Oct. 29).New to Amazon‘Welcome to the Blumhouse’ Season 2AmazonOCT. 1‘Welcome to the Blumhouse’ Season 2The second round of original feature-length horror films for Blumhouse Productions’ anthology series “Welcome to the Blumhouse” follows a slightly different formula from last year’s batch. The movies “Bingo Hell” (about senior citizens protecting their gentrifying neighborhood from a demonic villain), “Black as Night” (about a New Orleans teen hunting vampires who prey on the homeless), “Madres” (about Mexican American migrant workers plagued by terrifying premonitions), and “The Manor” (about a nursing home under siege from supernatural forces) put unique twists on conventional genre fare, telling stories about people on society’s margins who battle insidious evils.OCT. 15‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ Season 1Based on a 1973 Lois Duncan horror novel (and its hit 1997 movie adaptation) the teen slasher series “I Know What You Did Last Summer” follows a group of high school friends and acquaintances whose lives change after a terrible accident. As a serial killer targets the kids involved in a fatal car wreck, they realize they have to abandon their carefully crafted public personas so they can solve the mystery of who knows their terrible secret.OCT. 29‘Fairfax’ Season 1In this edgy animated satire, the voice actors Skyler Gisondo, Kiersey Clemons, Peter Kim and Jaboukie Young-White play a group of Los Angeles teens who dedicate most of their energy and talent to becoming social media influencers. “Fairfax” is partly a knowing look at plugged-in American youth in the 2020s, and partly an absurdist comedy in which the pursuit of clout frequently turns into surreal adventures.Also arriving: “All or Nothing: Toronto Maple Leafs” (Oct. 1), “My Name Is Pauli Murray” (Oct. 1), “Justin Bieber: Our World” (Oct. 8). More

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    Jillian Mercado on ‘Generation Q’ and the Importance of Joyful Stories

    This interview contains minor spoilers for Episode 9 of Season 2 of “The L Word: Generation Q.”In its five years on air, “The L Word” brought lesbian romances, drama and many, many sex scenes to the small screen. (One hundred eleven, to be exact, but who’s counting?)But Jillian Mercado — the 34-year-old actress and model who plays Maribel in the show’s reboot, “Generation Q” — never thought she would be in one of those sex scenes. Growing up with muscular dystrophy, she rarely saw physically disabled actors on TV at all.A Dominican American Bronx native who attended New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology, Mercado began making her name as a model back in 2014, when she landed her first ad campaign with Diesel. Since then, she has signed with Creative Artists Agency; founded an initiative called Black Disabled Creatives; and joined the cast of “Generation Q,” her first acting role.Although the original “L Word” notably lacked major characters who weren’t cisgender lesbians (or really anyone who fell outside of the narrow scope of straight, white beauty standards), the reboot, which debuted in late 2019, welcomed Mercado into a notably more diverse cast. And this season, as a romance blossomed between Maribel and Micah (Leo Sheng), Mercado got to become the kind of character she wanted to see when she was younger.Mercado began making her name as a model in 2014, when she landed her first ad campaign with Diesel. Her character on “Generation Q” is her first major acting role.Bethany Mollenkof for The New York Times“Intimacy and sex for the disability community was never something I literally ever saw on TV until now,” Mercado, who uses a wheelchair, wrote last month on Instagram after her first sex scene aired in Episode 5. “My heart is so FULL of gratitude that I am able to say that I am one of the first people to show you how that looks like on national television, for millions of people to see.”In the show, Mercado plays a sharp-witted lawyer who often acts as the voice of reason, doling out advice to her younger sister, Sophie, along with their mutual friends. But a more vulnerable side of her character is revealed when Maribel’s friendship with Micah, a transgender man, grows into something more complicated. As Maribel and Micah sleep together and ultimately fall in love, it gives viewers an opportunity to celebrate the two characters’ joy rather than highlight their past traumas.“Honestly, the only thing that we want is for people to understand that we’re human,” Mercado said.In a video interview from Los Angeles, where “Generation Q” is filmed, Mercado discussed queer dating and the importance of telling joyful stories about disabled people. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.Were you a fan of the original series?I actually used to watch it under my covers when I was younger because my parents thought it was a little too risqué for me to watch, which got me even more curious.Did you identify with any of the characters?I don’t think there was a specific person that I identified with. I picked parts of every character. I mean, Shane was always such a badass; she was a troublemaker. Her plots were always so chaotic and interesting.I come from a Dominican household, and we love drama. We love mixing things up. So I always leaned more toward her character. But I think that everyone just had a different aspect of what life is about. Each character highlighted the best and the worst qualities of the human experience in the dating world, and specifically the queer world.Do you think the show has done a good job deepening its representation of characters who aren’t white cisgender lesbians?I mean, I’m on the show, so that says a lot! There’s not one specific way to be queer, and that’s why “Generation Q” has been making sure that everyone is seen and heard.How did you incorporate your experiences as a queer, Hispanic person with muscular dystrophy into Maribel’s character while also being sensitive to your own boundaries and privacy?My character — and my work in general — always feeds into my real life and my personal life. But what I’ve learned, as I enter the adult world, is to really make sure that you do take time for yourself and make sure you’re aligned with what you believe in. But I also love being an advocate for my community, and I’ve been privileged to talk in my work about different things that have been lacking in my community.You’ve mentioned before that seeing Aimee Mullins open Alexander McQueen’s spring 1999 show in custom wooden prosthetic legs was formative for you as an aspiring model; were there any actors on the big or small screen who gave you a similar moment of inspiration?I think the only representation where there was with someone who had a physical disability was always in a hospital. It was always very medical, like, “Save this person from whatever their disability is.” But we’re not just all about medical devices or medical situations. We’re so much more than that. And on television, if there was representation, it was always played by somebody who didn’t have a disability. And their narration of what I was watching was not even remotely close to my lived experience or to what most disabled people live.Episode 5 of Season 2, which aired in September, contained an intimate scene between Mercado’s character, Maribel, and Micah, a transgender man played by Leo Sheng.Liz Morris/ShowtimeMaribel’s sex scene with Micah is one of few TV sex scenes involving a physically disabled person; what felt important to keep in mind as that scene was developed?The writers of the show were amazing and so communicative about what would make me feel comfortable and what was most important for me. But I know that I have never seen a sex scene with someone who is actually disabled, onscreen. And I was excited because I was like, ‘Oh, I get to do this for millions of people who’ve never seen it.’ But it also kind of hurt me that that was a reality.Yeah, it’s hot, and of course it’s “The L Word,” so everything looks amazing and beautiful, but for me, it was so much more than that. It was having the conversation that is such a taboo for people who have disabilities, where people think that we don’t go out; we don’t have relationships; we don’t have intimacy with anybody, because they think that nobody will ever love us because we look different or we live life differently. We all have different ways of being intimate with each other, and just because ours is more visibly different, it doesn’t make it less-than.“I think the only representation where there was with someone who had a physical disability was always in a hospital,” Mercado said of onscreen depictions growing up. “We’re so much more than that.”Bethany Mollenkof for The New York TimesMaribel’s relationship doesn’t blossom without friction, but her romantic plotline is notably healthy and positive this season. Why do you think the writers went in that direction with Maribel, as opposed to the complicated (and sometimes very messy) relationships that the show usually creates?It’s really special to have a story line where it’s not messy and not chaotic — because trust me, I love a good chaotic moment, but I’m a sucker for a love story. I’m such a hopeless romantic. I also think that because Leo is trans and I’m disabled, that’s already a story line in itself. People can just feel like these are just two people who really love themselves, and it doesn’t have to be messy because maybe society views them as messy.What would you like to see next for your character?Maribel is such a strong, boss character, so I’m curious to see where she goes because this is the first time that she’s really let her guard down. She’s been hurt so many times. But she’s such a stubborn, determined person that I’m curious to see if she’s going to be the one to mess it up. I know Micah is the sweetest character on this show, so there’s no way that he’s going to do anything like mess that up. But I feel like Maribel might. More

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    An Acclaimed Playwright on Masks and the Return to the Stage

    Sarah Ruhl, after a long struggle living with Bell’s palsy, knows the feeling of being masked among the unmasked.In the theater, we smile. We smile because the show must go on. We smile, to quote Nat King Cole, even when our hearts are breaking. Unless we are performers in a tragedy, we put on some glitter and we sail out into the night, toward the theater district. Even writers, the least performative of the lot, smile. I didn’t want to be an opaque, judging playwright at auditions; I wanted to mirror the actors’ joy, or sadness, and partake of the strange communion between performers and their first audience. I never expected that one day, during a pandemic, we would all come to the theater masked.About a decade ago, I was nominated for a Tony Award for my play “In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play.” I was thrilled with the news, but you wouldn’t have known it from looking at my face. A month earlier, after giving birth to twins, I’d been diagnosed with Bell’s palsy, a paralysis of the seventh cranial nerve. I quite literally could not smile. When I went to a photo shoot to celebrate the Tony nominees, a phalanx of photographers shouted at me, “Smile!” When I tried and failed, one photographer looked up from his camera at me and said, “What’s wrong with you? Can’t you smile for your Tony Award?”“No,” I said, “my face is paralyzed.” Chagrined, he quietly took my photo and the next dazzler in line on the red carpet stepped forward.FOR MOST people with Bell’s palsy, relief comes relatively quickly, the vast majority recovering their smiles in three months. But for the unlucky minority that I was in, there was a slow and uncertain path to moving facial muscles again, and for years, an unfamiliar person stared back at me in the mirror.I was, to overuse a metaphor, masked, even to myself. I felt lucky to be a playwright rather than an actor, whose canvas is his or her face. But, at least before the pandemic, I was around actors constantly, and longed to mirror their expressions in a rehearsal room. I didn’t want to be only an opaque judging playwright at auditions; I wanted to inhabit the actors’ joy, or sadness, and partake of the strange communion between performers and their first audience. I never expected that one day, during a pandemic, we would all come to the theater masked.After my diagnosis, the doctor told me I’d most likely be better in only a couple of months. The realization that one is dealing with a chronic condition rather than a temporary one is painful. I know how dislocating, and disappointing that can be. Denial is one method of grappling with an in-between state, and I used it well for many years. But looking in the mirror, unmasked, is another method, which I finally tried, in the form of writing about my experience.I resisted writing about Bell’s palsy for many years because it seemed to belong to the land of the private, the disappointing, rather than the narrative structure I was used to — which has a catharsis in the third act. But I decided that the disappointing, and the chronic, was worth investigating, partly because it’s so often invisible in a culture that prefers neat arcs.The chronic illness narrative is one that many of us would rather not wrap our minds around. Our cultural preference is, I think, for an illness narrative that offers a complete return to health in the last chapter — an apotheosis — the chronic condition banished to the shadows. But there are so many illnesses that offer an incomplete recovery, and give us, instead, a messy in-between state of being to contend with, whether we’re talking about paralysis, pandemics, or even social upheavals. A neat resolution, a neat return to the old person, the old status quo, is often not possible. In certain cases, a return to what came before is not even desirable.AS WE COME BACK to the theater with our masks on, I find myself thinking about covered-up smiles. When I went to “Pass Over,” my first Broadway show after 18 months of longing, the performers were unmasked in every sense of the word. They revealed themselves with all the bravery demanded by the beautiful and honest language of Antoinette Nwandu’s extraordinary play. In a sharp reversal of Greek antiquity, the audience was masked and the performers were not.Greek masks in ancient theater were both practical and ritualistic; they allowed performers to change roles and genders, and also to let an immortal howl out of a face that became more than mortal with artifice. From African masks in theater and dance, to Tibetan masks in ceremonial traditions, to commedia dell’arte masks in 15th-century Italy, masks were thought to unleash an almost supernatural power in the actor. But masked theater in the West is now rare, and the particular genius of most New York actors is they can make us believe that they are revealing themselves fully while they are in fact masked by a role. So, two weeks ago, we in the audience sat in actual masks, in reverent silence, seeing the actors’ naked faces once again, feeling the incredible warmth of communal theater.Finally being together again in an audience felt miraculous, and also — if I am being completely honest — a little strange, and unfamiliar. There was a time many of us thought we’d hunker down for a couple months, perhaps learn a new hobby or two, and come back neatly to doing what we’d been doing before. In my case, that was writing plays and being in a rehearsal room. I know I’m not the only one in the theater community who feels oddly dislocated now; the quarantine itself was awful but had a glacial clarity about it; at least one knew what to do — one stayed put. Now that theater, dance and music (our secular New York City worship rituals) are back, there is celebration, and, I find, a sense of floating oddly — in a landscape that should feel like home.If I thought there would be a knife-edged clarity to the return to the theater, as though I could walk in the door of my childhood home and pick up right where I left off, the warm mug still on the table where I left it — I was mistaken. The liquid in the mug needs to be warmed. The mirrors need to be dusted. Can we still recognize our faces in those same mirrors we’ve been accustomed to using, to confirm our identities in the eyes of the people we trust and work with?I SUSPECT that, behind our masks right now, some of us don’t even feel ready to smile yet. How to return to life after a long illness as an individual, or as a theater community, or as a body politic, especially when there is not a clear return to health? And how to acknowledge the losses, the transformations, the seismic gaps?When I ran into colleagues at the theater recently, most of whom I hadn’t seen in 18 months, all of us masked, partially revealed, the simple question, “How are you?” hovered with new weight. I didn’t know who, in the last year and a half, had had a marriage break up; or a teenager going through a mental health crisis; or lost a parent, an aunt, a cousin, a spouse; who was suffering from long Covid; who might not be able to afford paying the rent. So to ask “How are you?” no longer felt like small talk. We relied on our eyes above our masks to make connections. And then the theater darkened, the curtain went up, and we reveled in the unmasked actors giving us their full-throated artistry. If actors have always been avatars for what we cannot express, they seemed even more so now.I think we all want to come back into our old rehearsal rooms, studios, and offices with confidence and gleaming smiles; but for some of us, right now, a half-smile is a more accurate expression of our emotional states. We are learning to be a work in progress together again. Unfinished, masked, and hopeful. As we slowly take our masks off in the coming months, let us be tender with one another. Let us be patient as we relearn the beautiful, and once automatic, act of smiling face to face.Sarah Ruhl is a playwright, essayist and poet living in Brooklyn. Her new book is “Smile: The Story of a Face,” published by Simon & Schuster. More

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    in Television

    How the ‘Many Saints of Newark’ Stars Remade Key ‘Sopranos’ Roles

    Actors in the prequel had to put their stamp on favorite characters from the original series, whether they had watched it or not.From its debut in 1999 to its blackout finale in 2007, “The Sopranos” set a seemingly unsurpassable benchmark for acting. The cast members of that HBO crime drama, leading players and supporting performers alike, became synonymous with the menacing mobsters and manipulative family members they portrayed. When it was all over, you couldn’t imagine anyone else playing those roles.This posed a problem for the creators of “The Many Saints of Newark,” the cinematic prequel that explores the origins of “The Sopranos” during the 1960s and ’70s, and that enlists new actors to play younger versions of those indelible characters.It also a presented a challenge for the actors in “The Many Saints of Newark” — some of whom were “Sopranos” fans and others who had never watched the series — and who had to walk a careful line between preserving what audiences already expected from their characters and putting their own stamps on the roles.Vera Farmiga, who plays the film’s Livia Soprano, explained that their task was complicated by the typical time constraints of making a movie. “We didn’t have the luxury that a series allows you — that indulgence to get to know your character and get multiple tries at them,” she said. “I could do the ‘Saturday Night Live’ version, but you have very little time to get it right. And what does right even mean?”Here, five stars from “The Many Saints of Newark” discuss how they landed their roles and prepared to live up to the standards of “The Sopranos.”Vera FarmigaRole: Livia SopranoOriginated by: Nancy MarchandWatched original run of “The Sopranos”? NoWhen Farmiga, a star of “Up in the Air” and the series “Bates Motel,” was approached to play the role of Tony Soprano’s controlling mother, Livia, she knew that it was significant — but only by proxy. “There were loads of giddy responses around me,” Farmiga said. “My husband was freaking out. My agents were freaking out.” Though she hadn’t seen the series when it first aired, she said, “I understood that it was a cultural phenomenon. I understood it came with a legacy.” Farmiga also found it meaningful that David Chase, the “Sopranos” creator and “Many Saints” co-screenwriter, did not require her to audition: “All he wanted to do is meet up at a really beautiful spot and eat together,” she said. “So we blasted through a couple bottles of white wine at dessert. We got loaded and jacked up on sugar.” For her performance, Farmiga studied the work of Marchand, who died in 2000, and requested a prosthetic nose to more closely resemble her. Farmiga also sought guidance from Chase, who based Livia on his own mother. But the screenwriter proved to be characteristically tight-lipped, as Farmiga recalled: “I would press David — let’s talk about your mother. ‘Nah, she just was.’ But why? Was she dissatisfied with maternity? She wanted a career? ‘Nope. She just was. That’s who my mother was.’” Eventually, Farmiga said she found her answers in the screenplay: “You know what? Just give me the words,” she said.Corey StollRole: Corrado “Uncle Junior” Soprano Jr.Originated by: Dominic ChianeseWatched original run of “The Sopranos”? YesStoll, the ubiquitous star of television (“Billions,” “House of Cards”) and film (“Ant-Man”), was a “Sopranos” devotee who watched the series to its conclusion, then binged it again with his wife, Nadia Bowers, when she was pregnant with their son and yet again in preparation for this film. But Stoll said he may have gained just as much from catching a serendipitous revival-house showing of “The Godfather Part II,” in which Chianese, then in his 40s, played the mobster Johnny Ola. As Stoll explained, “It was super-helpful to see that Dominic Chianese, kind of like me, was always a little bit older than his years. I’ve been playing old men since I was 11. It was good to see that I didn’t have to do back flips to make him a young man. Just being in my body and in my voice, that is different enough.” His key to Uncle Junior, Stoll said, was listening to Chianese’s rhythmic speech patterns: “He has this staccato — he can speak very quickly and ratatat — and then he also has this wistful, lyrical mode that he goes into.” For extra motivation, before a scene Stoll would utter an obscene phrase favored by Junior that can’t be fully reproduced here — the first two words are “your sister’s.” “Sometimes shouting it, sometimes whispering it,” Stoll said. “But there’s something about those three words that just brought me right into character.”John MagaroRole: Silvio DanteOriginated by: Steven Van ZandtWatched original run of “The Sopranos”? YesMagaro (“First Cow”) became close with Chase when he starred in the writer’s 2012 directorial debut, “Not Fade Away.” As their friendship progressed, Chase shared a crucial piece of information: “David said that he was going to do a ‘Sopranos’ prequel,” recalled Magaro, who had no expectation he would be involved. “Then a couple of years passed and he and his producing partner Nicole Lambert, started mentioning, would you be willing to shave your head? Would you be willing to gain a lot of weight? It seemed like there was an idea of someone I could play in the film.” That turned out to be Silvio, created by Van Zandt, whom Magaro also knew from “Not Fade Away.” And there was plenty of source material that Magaro could study from the guitarist’s performances and interviews with the E Street Band: “There’s a confidence, there’s an ease to his language,” Magaro explained. “Even the way he carries his shoulders raised a bit from years of playing guitar. I kept an eye on that stuff and let it inform where I would go with the young Silvio.” The movie also confirms what some “Sopranos” viewers suspected about the older Silvio: that he is bald and wears a hairpiece. “To achieve that,” Magaro said, “I agreed to shave the horseshoe shape in my hair. For the ’60s version we would shave that every morning and make it look like a balding man. For the ’70s we would throw on a really crappy toupee.”From left, Samson Moeakiola as Big Pussy, Corey Stoll as Junior Soprano and Billy Magnussen as Paulie Walnuts.Barry Wetcher/Warner Bros.Billy MagnussenRole: Paulie “Walnuts” GualtieriOriginated by: Tony SiricoWatched original run of “The Sopranos”? NoMagnussen, a dashing star of films like “Aladdin,” “Into the Woods” and “No Time to Die” and TV’s “Made For Love” may not immediately strike you as a young Paulie Walnuts, but he was just flattered to be a part of “The Many Saints of Newark.” As he explained, “I had the opportunity to audition for a different role” — he did not say which one — “and so I did an audition that way.” Through exaggeratedly clenched teeth, he added, “I guess I didn’t get that role. But they came back and they were like, hey, what do you think about trying Paulie? Would you want to do that? Knowing the ‘Sopranos’ legacy, I would be honored. Because, yeah, I think it’s a stretch. But isn’t that what acting is about?” To get into his role, Magnussen used a prosthetic nose (“My nose isn’t that wide, is it?”) and watched Sirico’s speech patterns on the TV series: “I had noticed how he talked out of the side of his mouth. And then it’s just sitting there with it, over and over again, to where you don’t have to think about it.” Magnussen may have undertaken other efforts to get to know his predecessor, too: “I broke into his house,” he said. “I went through his trash. I’m sure I slept in his underwear.”Samson MoeakiolaRole: Salvatore “Big Pussy” BonpensieroOriginated by: Vincent PastoreWatched original run of “The Sopranos”? NoMoeakiola, who is appearing in his first Hollywood film, didn’t have the benefit of a full immersion in the “Sopranos” TV series (“My parents wouldn’t let me sit around to watch it as a 7-year-old,” he said) or even know quite what he was auditioning for when he tried out for what he was told was called “Untitled New Jersey Project.” But as he remembered, “on the breakdown you can see who’s directing and who’s producing. I saw Alan Taylor and then I saw David Chase, and I was like, oh, this is ‘The Sopranos.’” But once he landed the role, Moeakiola got a leg up from Pastore, who befriended him and helped him practice dialogue. “We were on the phone at first and he was like, ‘Let me hear you, you do it first,’” Moeakiola said. “Finally I was like, just record it, bro.” Moeakiola also visited an acting class that Pastore teaches, but had to maintain strict omertà about his involvement in the film. “He was like, this is my nephew — don’t bother him, he’s not even here,” Moeakiola said. “Some students were like, you know, they’re making a prequel to ‘The Sopranos,’ you should play Vinny. I’m like, ah, I’m not an actor.” More

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    in Theater

    A New ‘Pal Joey’ Is Broadway Bound

    The show will be rewritten for a production set on the South Side of Chicago in the 1940s, directed by Tony Goldwyn and Savion Glover.“Pal Joey” is coming back to Broadway.The 1940 Rodgers and Hart musical about a caddish nightclub performer will be rewritten, re-set, and then revived for the next Broadway season, a producing team led by Jeffrey Richards announced Monday.The production will be set in a Black community — the South Side of Chicago in the 1940s — with a new book by Richard LaGravenese, a screenwriter and director who was nominated for an Oscar for “The Fisher King,” and who both adapted and directed a 2014 film version of “The Last Five Years.” The show was originally set a decade earlier, in the 1930s, and the main characters were played by white performers.Tony Goldwyn and Savion Glover will direct the new production. Goldwyn is best known as an actor, who starred in the television series “Scandal” and the Broadway adaptation of “Network,” while Glover is best known as a tap dancer and choreographer. He won a Tony Award for “Bring in ’da Noise, Bring in ’da Funk.”The directors: Tony Goldwyn, left, and Savion Glover.Walter McBride/Getty Images; Michael Loccisano/Getty Images“Pal Joey,” with a book originally by John O’Hara based on stories he had written for The New Yorker, is the rare Broadway musical that centers on an antihero, and is often described as cynical. Brooks Atkinson, a New York Times theater critic, wrote of the original production, “If it is possible to make an entertaining musical comedy out of an odious story, ‘Pal Joey’ is it,” and then concluded his review by posing a rhetorical question that has bedeviled the show over the decades, “Can you draw sweet water from a foul well?”The original, starring Gene Kelly and Vivienne Segal, ran for less than a year, but some of its songs, particularly “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered,” became standards; a 1952 revival was more successful, and prompted a 1957 film adaptation that starred Frank Sinatra, Rita Hayworth and Kim Novak (but Hollywood turned Joey into a nice guy and gave the story a happy ending).By 1961, another critic for the Times, Howard Taubman, was pronouncing the musical “wonderful” and “vivid proof of what a great musical can be,” declaring that “its disenchanted, acidulous mood conforms well with the realism, if not cynicism, of our day.”There have been three subsequent Broadway revivals, all short-lived; the most recent, in 2008, was panned by New York Times critic Ben Brantley as “a production in mourning for its own lifelessness.”Of course, that history leaves room for reinvention, and that’s what the new team is hoping to do. Among other anticipated changes: In addition to an original score best known for “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered” and “I Could Write a Book,” they plan to add other songs by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, including “Where or When,” “The Lady Is a Tramp,” “It Never Entered My Mind,” “My Heart Stood Still,” “Falling in Love With Love” and “There’s a Small Hotel.”The music is being overseen by Daryl Waters, who won a Tony for the orchestrations in “Memphis.” Also, one of the women treated poorly by Joey — Linda — will be portrayed as an aspiring singer, rather than as a stenographer, which will facilitate the use of the new songs; a parallel shift was made in the film, which also added some songs.In addition to Richards, the producing team for the upcoming revival includes Funny World Productions, Willette Klausner and Irene Gandy, a longtime theater publicist who this year received a Tony honor for excellence in theater. The producers said they expect to bring the revival to Broadway during the 2022-2023 season; they did not announce any casting. More