Television

Subterms

    More stories

    • 113 Shares169 Views

      in Television

      Branden Jacobs-Jenkins Revisits His ‘Illusion of Suffering’ on Broadway

      by

      As with so many family reunion plays, the squabbling Lafayette siblings in Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s “Appropriate” dislodge their share of skeletons from the closets of their childhood home, a former plantation in southern Arkansas. But here those secrets, hovering over everything and everyone, may be actual skeletons, and worse. The increasingly unsettling revelations power what The New York Times’s Ben Brantley called a “very fine, subversively original new play” at its Off Broadway premiere in 2014 at the Signature Theater.So subversive and so original that it took almost a decade to reach Broadway. Jacobs-Jenkins, a MacArthur “genius” grant recipient whose works include bold reimaginings of “The Octoroon” and the 15th-century play “Everyman,” got there a bit earlier when he contributed original material to a 2022 revival of Thornton Wilder’s “The Skin of Our Teeth.” Second Stage’s production of “Appropriate,” which is in previews at the Helen Hayes Theater and opens on Dec. 18, is his first original work on Broadway after nearly a half-dozen New York productions.As it happens, two of the three actors playing the siblings had their own shared history. Sarah Paulson (“American Horror Story”) and Corey Stoll (“Billions”) were a year apart at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts in New York, but they didn’t work together until Stoll briefly joined the cast of the Paulson-led TV series “Ratched” in 2020. (She fantasized about sawing his leg off during sex, he squashed a leech with his bare hand, and she tried to boil him alive in a hydrotherapy tub — all in the span of two episodes.)The two actors joined Jacobs-Jenkins and the director, Lila Neugebauer (“The Waverly Gallery,” Jacobs-Jenkins’s “Everybody”), backstage at the Helen Hayes last month to discuss catharsis, sibling rivalry and the tyranny of stage directions. These are edited excerpts from our conversation.Michael Esper, Stoll, Natalie Gold and Paulson in the Broadway production at the Helen Hayes Theater in Manhattan.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesLila didn’t direct “Appropriate” Off Broadway, but the two of you have been in each other’s orbit for a while.BRANDEN JACOBS-JENKINS We actually met at the Humana Festival, where the show premiered in 2013.LILA NEUGEBAUER I was there with a different play.JACOBS-JENKINS Shortly after “Appropriate” happened at the Signature, Lila directed a production of it at Juilliard. I just knew instantly that she had grasped something about the undercurrents and the essential energies of the play.Sarah and Corey, when did you come on board?SARAH PAULSON I read the play in September of 2021. I hadn’t read anything as complicated and deep and funny in a very, very long time, and I said yes almost immediately.COREY STOLL Right in the depth of the pandemic, my agent sent me a stack of plays. It was like: “Since you’re not doing anything, I just want you to read all these plays.” And this one was so clearly the one to do.One character alludes to “the universality of suffering,” but there’s suffering and then there’s suffering. You’ve got these three siblings and all the bad things they’ve done, even criminal things …PAULSON It’s not me who’s done the criminal things. Write that down.STOLL Sarah is a real advocate for her character. You [to Paulson] cannot stand people talking ill of her.PAULSON It’s easy to do when a person isn’t thinking critically or deeply about who she is.My point is that these actions pale in comparison to the suffering inflicted on the play’s Black characters, whom we never meet. It feels almost like that line of dialogue is trying to level a playing field that ought not be leveled. Am I reading too much into the text?JACOBS-JENKINS When I wrote it, I was really interested in this writer named Dion Boucicault. He has this essay, “The Art of Dramatic Composition,” where he says the sole purpose of everything in the theater is to create an illusion of suffering that then creates something cathartic in the audience. I believe that everyone onstage is suffering. They all believe they are suffering. But how do we judge — how can we judge — someone else as suffering or not? I think that’s one of the games that the play is trying to get us to play.Have these ideas also evolved for you, Lila, now that you have directed “Appropriate” twice?NEUGEBAUER The first time, the play struck me on more theoretical terms. Now I feel more of an invitation to have complicated feelings about these characters. Every character has done something that someone in the audience or someone onstage might feel is questionable or strange or other. Every person walking the planet is the star of their own lives. Therefore, it feels like the thing that’s happening to them is the most significant thing that could ever be happening to anyone.“The play does a lot of that work in terms of how to create the sibling dynamic,” said Paulson, center, with Alyssa Emily Marvin, left, and Esper.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe presence of siblings can be a pretty quick reminder that there are other people in the world. Is it hard creating that rapport?PAULSON It doesn’t hurt that we know each other and have worked together, but I would argue that the play does a lot of that work in terms of how to create the sibling dynamic.STOLL There’s a momentum to the arguments between these two. At first, it just seems like these are two people who despise each other. Then you get to the second act where the whole play downshifts a bit, and we can find an intimacy. Even though that conflict is still very hot, and there is still a whole lifetime of resentment, that intimacy is there.PAULSON And I want to stress that we are missing Michael Esper, the third end of the triangle, who is wonderful.I remember Larissa FastHorse said “The Thanksgiving Play,” with its all-white Broadway cast, was a response to what she had been told about who was castable. Young Jean Lee has written great works, and “Straight White Men” was the one to reach Broadway. Now “Appropriate” has an all-white cast. Does this say anything about the American theater today?JACOBS-JENKINS There’s a phenomenon that’s been written about in academia called the “white life novel.” “Giovanni’s Room” by James Baldwin is an example. Zora Neale Hurston has a book called “Seraph on the Suwanee.” It’s this thing where Black writers or Black-identified writers will write one thing that’s all white people. I think this is often an experiment in trying to get the viewer or even an industry to own its own blind spots.I’ve talked a lot about reading The Times’s review of “Stick Fly” by Lydia Diamond, which is an amazing family drama that was critiqued for not being enough about race and class in America and for being melodramatic. And then an equally wonderful play by Tracy Letts called “August: Osage County” was praised for being familiar by the same critic. There was no mention of the way that I think Tracy was actually engaging in very smart ways with whiteness and Indigenous presence. That double standard was very informative to me as a young writer who is constantly asked to do articles for The Times about Black drama.Honestly, everybody onstage is a political statement. Nobody’s a neutral body. And until you can talk about that, there’s nothing to pat ourselves on the back about as an art form in terms of how we do or don’t deal with these issues. I love Tennessee Williams. I love “The Piano Lesson” by August Wilson. No one calls “The Piano Lesson” a family drama. They call it about the Black experience in America. No one ever talks about “A Raisin in the Sun” as one of our best family dramas. I want to be able to love and own these things equally. And I feel like even this question is part of that continuum of things I have to address that no one else has to address when we make work in America.Can I ask about the stage directions in the script? They are ——JACOBS-JENKINS Chaos.They do sometimes go on for a page and a half. It reminded me of reading Eugene O’Neill and Tennessee Williams.JACOBS-JENKINS When I started writing this, I was drunk on Williams and O’Neill. The reading experience is different than the experience of seeing the piece in a theatrical space. Your task as a playwright is to light up the things inside of people that lead them to the most electric choice. And that’s just as true for the reader. You’re trying to inspire the reader to bring more than just something schematic or familiar to the script.And when the script reaches the three of you, do you see those directions as marching orders?PAULSON It depends. Most of the plays I’ve done have been by people like Tennessee Williams or Lanford Wilson, people who were already dead. I’ll read a Williams stage direction and think, “Is that what Laurette Taylor did? Because I definitely want to do that if she did it.” For me, they can be incredibly evocative and other times they feel almost directorial.STOLL I tend to bristle against them in film and television because I think they’re often overprescribed, but here I’ve found them to be really helpful. Look, I’m happy with any help I can get.“At first, it just seems like these are two people who despise each other. Then you get to the second act where the whole play downshifts a bit, and we can find an intimacy,” Stoll said of the characters that he and Paulson portray. Erik Tanner for The New York TimesHow about you, Lila? If they can be overly directorial, where does that leave you?NEUGEBAUER This is a bit of a spoiler, but there’s a bunch of information in the script about what might happen at the end of the play. I feel that the writer is spell casting with that text. He is giving me and the designers this spectacular provocation to use our imaginations, to make that spell manifest. It’s within the power of our theatrical machinery to show pretty much anything, but everything that happens onstage also has emotional information. It’s not just a literal event.In other words, Branden, I don’t think they’re listening to you.JACOBS-JENKINS Actors love to say, “The first thing I do is cross out all the stage directions.” And I’m like, “If we’re in the erasure business, I just take my delete button and now you have nothing to say.”A lot has happened in the 10 years since “Appropriate” premiered. How has that affected either the play itself or the way you think it will be received?JACOBS-JENKINS We definitely didn’t transfer to Broadway 10 years ago. So that’s a sign that something has shifted, maybe? The play was originally set in 2011, and there was a big debate about whether to update it. I didn’t think I could, because these people would look like true idiots if they had not paid attention to what everyone else has paid attention to since then.NEUGEBAUER I do think there has been a semi-mainstreaming of a certain degree of race consciousness in America that would make the events in this play not quite make sense if it were set in 2023. My suspicion is that audiences will bring a somewhat more nuanced vocabulary to it now. They have a different tool kit. And that’s going to be very interesting. More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in Television

      Jimmy Kimmel Calls Hunter Biden ‘the Son Donald Trump Never Had’

      by

      Biden is accused of living extravagantly while evading taxes. Kimmel described his alleged spending as an “early 2000s Charlie Sheen-caliber performance.”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.Prodigal SonLast week, a federal grand jury charged Hunter Biden, the president’s son, with scheming to evade taxes on income from foreign businesses. The indictment accuses him of spending millions on “drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing and other items of a personal nature, in short, everything but his taxes.”On Monday night, Jimmy Kimmel said Biden was “like the son Donald Trump never had.”“They say Hunter made more than $1.6 million in A.T.M. withdrawals. He spent around $683,000 on payments to various women; over $237,000 on health, beauty and pharmacy, which, you thought you had a long receipt at CVS.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“One hundred and eighty-eight thousand on adult entertainment, and a little over $71,000 on rehab and re-rehab and re-rehab for a grand total of almost $5 million, which is, I mean, that’s like an early 2000s Charlie Sheen-caliber performance. It’s impressive.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“No presidential family member in recent memory comes with as much baggies — uh, I mean, baggage — as Hunter, and now the law has finally caught up with him. ” — KAL PENN, guest host of “The Daily Show”“It’s shocking to think the presidential race might come down to who goes to jail first: Hunter Biden or Donald Trump. Although, maybe if we’re lucky, the two of them might end up in a cell together? Like, you throw George Santos in there, and I am watching that show.” — KAL PENN“The White House has reiterated, which, they reiterated that President Biden will not pardon Hunter if he is convicted of any crime, although they didn’t say anything about not dressing him up as a turkey next Thanksgiving and pardoning him then.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Punchiest Punchlines ($700 Million Investment Edition)“The L.A. Dodgers signed superstar Shohei Ohtani to the biggest contract in all of sports history, $700 million. Wild, right? That is $1 for every minute it takes to watch one single baseball game.” — KAL PENN“The Dodgers will pay him $700 million over the next 10 years. Hot dogs, from now on, will be priced at $500 apiece.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Ohtani is leaving the Angels organization, which was a tough decision, but, ultimately, he’s saying he just wanted to explore a different part of the freeway and now he’s coming here.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“And also, let me just say, it is so great that Asian kids have another athlete to look up to, am I right? But let’s acknowledge it’s also a lot of pressure: [imitating child] ‘Dad, I got 100 on my chemistry test.’ [imitating parent] ‘But only 80 on your fastball — go outside and practice!’” — KAL PENNThe Bits Worth WatchingAfter three weeks off-air, Stephen Colbert told the story of his burst appendix on Monday’s “Late Show.”What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightThe pop singer Tate McRae will perform on Tuesday’s “Tonight Show.”Also, Check This OutMargot Robbie in “Barbie.”Warner Bros. (“Barbie”)“Barbie,” “Oppenheimer,” and “Succession” are among this year’s top Golden Globe nominees. More

    • 75 Shares159 Views

      in Television

      Golden Globes to Announce 2024 Nominations

      by

      New owners have beefed up the voting pool in an effort to move the prizes past scandals of recent years.To many, the Golden Globe Awards are a perfect example of Hollywood’s two faces.In public, the entertainment capital plays along: It’s an honor just to be nominated, giggle tee-hee, this event is an absolute delight.In private, smiles drop and eyes roll: The prizes are not seen as meaningful markers of artistic excellence, but there is no way around them. From a business perspective, the Globes represent a crucial marketing opportunity for winter films and TV shows.The nominations for the 81st ceremony, which will be televised by CBS on Jan. 7, will be announced on Monday morning by Cedric the Entertainer and Wilmer Valderrama.The Golden Globes have long been positioned as an important campaign stop for Oscar hopefuls. Nomination voting for the 96th Academy Awards begins on Jan. 11.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

    • 150 Shares109 Views

      in Television

      What’s on TV This Week: Christmas Specials and a ‘Vanderpump Rules’ Recap

      by

      Several networks present holiday-themed specials, and Bravo airs “A Decade of Rumors and Lies,” hosted by Lisa Vanderpump.Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, Dec. 11-17. Details and times are subject to change.MondayBIG BROTHER REINDEER GAMES 8 p.m. on CBS. I honestly can’t think of another time where a reality show dedicated a season to creating a holiday vibe. On this spinoff of the long-running competition show, nine previous contestants will come back to play six episodes of holiday-themed games, and the winner will walk away with a $100,000 stocking stuffer — it doesn’t get much more holly and jolly than that.BARRY MANILOW’S A VERY BARRY CHRISTMAS 10 p.m. on NBC. Manilow will be joined by a 24-piece band to perform his greatest hits and a couple of holiday songs at the Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino, where Manilow regularly performs. Rumor has it that Santa will make an appearance — as long as he can pull himself away from the roulette table at the Bellagio.TuesdayFrom left: Tom Schwartz, Lisa Vanderpump, Ariana Madix and Tom Sandoval in a 2022 episode of “Vanderpump Rules.”Nicole Weingart/BravoVANDERPUMP RULES: A DECADE OF RUMORS AND LIES 10:15 p.m. on Bravo. It is hard to believe that these restaurant employees have been providing endless drama and entertainment for an entire decade. Ahead of the premiere of the 11th season in January, Lisa Vanderpump (the reason we are all here) narrates this special, which looks back at some of the previous seasons’ best moments.WednesdayCMT PRESENTS: A CODY JOHNSON CHRISTMAS 9 p.m. on CMT. Christmas is headed to Texas this week: Cody Johnson is joined by his family on this special to discuss holiday memories and traditions. He will also perform some classic holiday songs with a country flair.ThursdayTHE CLIP SHOW: HOLIDAY EDITION 8 p.m. on NBC. There’s nothing that can bond a family together quite like laughing at people getting humiliated on TV. Matt Iseman and Akbar Gbajabiamila host this show that is a bit like “American’s Funniest Home Videos,” but all the mishaps have to do with ice- and snow-related accidents or awkward presents being given and received.FridayNATIONAL CHRISTMAS TREE LIGHTING 8 p.m. on CBS. It was December of 1923 when President Calvin Coolidge held a celebration outside of the White House with a decorated Christmas tree and a performance from the U.S. Marine Band. The tradition carries on 100 years later with performances from Darren Criss, Dionne Warwick and St. Vincent, to name a few.SaturdayWill Ferrell, left, in “Elf.”Alan Markfield/New Line ProductionsELF (2003) 7 p.m. on AMC. Be warned, you should have waffles, maple syrup and marshmallows on hand while watching this movie because it has been known to induce that craving (or, if you don’t have a problematic sweet tooth, it might just turn you off those things). Will Ferrell stars as Buddy, the human who thought his whole life that he was an elf. He ventures to New York City to find his real dad, but on the way gets some tough reality checks and somehow charms a very sweet and blond Zooey Deschanel.DIE HARD (1988) 9 p.m. on MTV. It is officially that time of the year for the annual fight with your weird uncle about whether or not “Die Hard” is a Christmas movie. In the film, John McClane (Bruce Willis) goes to a holiday party to try to reconnect with his estranged wife (Bonnie Bedelia). During the party, terrorists take over the building and hold everyone hostage — and John has to spring into action. It does take place on Christmas Eve, and there wouldn’t have been a plot if there weren’t an office holiday party, so my vote is that it is a Christmas movie. (But I also watch “Love Actually” and “The Holiday” all year long, so I don’t know if my opinion should be trusted.)SundayWILLIE NELSON’S 90TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION 8 p.m. on CBS. Recorded at the Hollywood Bowl in April 2023, this celebration of Willie Nelson’s 90th birthday will finally be broadcast to let those of us who couldn’t make it to the live show join in. The event is hosted by Jennifer Garner, Chelsea Handler, Woody Harrelson, Ethan Hawke, Helen Mirren and Owen Wilson. Nelson performs along with Sheryl Crow, Snoop Dogg, Norah Jones and the Chicks.Matt Bomer, left, and Jonathan Bailey in “Fellow Travelers.”Ben Mark Holzberg/ShowtimeFELLOW TRAVELERS 9 p.m. on Showtime. This is the new show of the fall that I’m surprised that we aren’t all talking about. The story is, at its core, a love story between Hawkins Fuller (Matt Bomer) and Tim Laughlin (Jonathan Bailey). But on the side, it is also a political thriller that dives into the policies and public narratives that were affecting gay communities throughout the second half of the 20th century. The story jumps back and forth in time, from the 1980s, when Tim is sick and is reconnecting with Hawkins, to a different past decade every episode, to explain the intricacies of their relationship. More

    • 125 Shares169 Views

      in Television

      ‘S.N.L.’ Invites University of Phoenix to the House Antisemitism Hearing

      by

      The satire was only slightly less awkward than the real thing, in a freewheeling episode hosted by Adam Driver. Olivia Rodrigo was the musical guest.Sometimes even an up-to-the-minute comedy show like “Saturday Night Live” can’t quite stay ahead of the news cycle. Hours after it was announced that Elizabeth Magill, the president of the University of Pennsylvania, was resigning after an appearance before Congress in which she appeared to evade questions about whether students should be punished for calling for the genocide of Jews, “S.N.L.” led its broadcast with a satirical recreation of the Tuesday hearing.The result was a sketch that was only somewhat less uncomfortable than the real-life event it was mocking.This week’s broadcast, hosted by Adam Driver and featuring the musical guest Olivia Rodrigo, opened by spoofing a C-SPAN broadcast of a House committee hearing in which university presidents had testified about antisemitism on their campuses. Heidi Gardner, playing Magill, was joined by Chloe Fineman as Sally Kornbluth of M.I.T. and Ego Nwodim as Claudine Gay of Harvard.Chloe Troast, playing Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, the House Republican who grilled the university presidents, told the presidents: “Now I’m going to start screaming questions at these women like I’m Billy Eichner. Antisemitism, yea or nay?”Troast added, “Yes or no: Is calling for the genocide of Jews against the code of conduct for Harvard?”Nwodim replied, “Well, it depends on the context.”Following an equally unsatisfying answer from Gardner, Troast announced to Fineman: “M.I.T. Lady, chance to steal. And keep in mind, if you don’t say yes, you’re going to make me look good, which is really, really hard to do.”“Could I submit an answer in writing at a later date?” Fineman answered.“Am I winning this hearing?” Troast said in disbelief.Bowen Yang, playing Representative Mark Takano, Democrat of California, posed further questions to the panelists. What if someone on campus yelled, “I poisoned the water supply?” he asked.Nwodim answered, “If they poisoned it with diversity, that could be wonderful.”What if they yelled, “Fire!” in a crowded theater?Gardner replied, “I’d be excited the theater was crowded because I support the arts.”Breaking from reality, the “S.N.L.” sketch added Kenan Thompson, who was playing the president of the online University of Phoenix.Asked if he would condemn antisemitism, Thompson said, “Well, my campus is the internet, so antisemitism is kind of our most popular major. And our mascot is porn.”But he told Troast that his school would consider offering a course on the subject. “Lady, we’ll offer a course on anything,” he said. “The only mandatory courses we have are how to login to the University of Phoenix online and how to set up autopay.”Opening monologue of the weekTrue fans of Adam Driver — Driverheads, we call ourselves — don’t appreciate him only for his breakthrough roles in “Girls” and the “Star Wars” franchise but also for unexpected moments like when he sang “Being Alive” in “Marriage Story.”In his fourth monologue as “S.N.L.” host, Driver didn’t break into song, but he did play a lovely piano as he shared his year-end wish list with Santa Claus. Among the things he asked for were five pairs of Chinos (for having just turned 40) and for “Star Wars” fans to stop blaming him for killing Han Solo. (“I didn’t kill Han Solo,” he said. “Wokeness killed Han Solo.”) Maybe next year we’ll get our wish and Driver will sing another Sondheim number.’Tis the season of the weekTechnically, the big year-end “S.N.L.” Christmas episode isn’t until next week, but the show didn’t waste any time getting into the Yuletide mood with a slew of sketches that were holiday-themed — and very, very weird. If any of them could be described as down-to-earth, there was this one in which Driver and Dismukes play the mustachioed host and guest at a dinner party where neither will budge when the other one holds out a tray of food and declares: “Beep beep.”Then there’s the filmed segment in which the seasonal spirit inspires Mikey Day to contact a friend he lost touch with (Driver), only to find that the old acquaintance has grown very crazy and now has a companion named Big Filthy (Devon Walker). And finally there’s the sketch set at a TV shopping channel, where Driver plays a confectioner selling a Santa Claus chocolate that takes on an unfortunate shape when it is unwrapped. Happy holidays (until next week, when we wish you happy holidays again)!Weekend Update jokes of the weekOver at the Weekend Update desk, the anchors, Colin Jost and Michael Che, riffed on Hunter Biden’s indictment for tax evasion and on the congressional hearing on antisemitism on college campuses.Jost began:A federal indictment issued this week against Hunter Biden alleges that he evaded paying over $1 million of taxes between 2016 and 2020. And they’re only catching him now? Man, this is super embarrassing for whoever was president from 2016 to 2020. The indictment claims that instead of paying taxes, Hunter Biden spent his money on drugs and escorts. But honestly, it would have been more surprising if he remembered to do his taxes during that time. No one finishes doing cocaine with a hooker and is like, could I get a receipt?Che continued:Speak for yourself. If convicted, Hunter Biden could be sentenced to up to 17 years in prison, which would be the first time any Biden has successfully completed a sentence.Later, Jost added:The president of the University of Pennsylvania has resigned after appearing to dodge questions about genocide during a Congressional hearing on campus antisemitism. She will be replaced by literally anyone who knows you say genocide is bad. The whole crazy part is that the whole point during her speech was that free speech on campus should never be punished. And then she was immediately punished for her speech.Weekend Update dance number of the weekIn still another peculiar segment inspired by the year-end holidays, Fineman stood in front of the Weekend Update desk and told the anchors, “The sexiest gift you can give your partner is trying something new in the bedroom.” Before things could get much weirder, Fineman explained that she meant the hybrid hip-hop/ballet dance performed by Julia Stiles at the end of her 2001 romantic drama “Save the Last Dance.”While explaining the film, Fineman delivered a faithful rendition of this dance — no small feat — and apparently earned the approval of the real-life Stiles, who joined her at the end. Now can we get an equally heartfelt tribute to Stiles’s TV debut on “Ghostwriter”?Parental instincts of the weekIf only because it was funny and as weird as anything else from this week’s show (and maybe because my editor just recently became a parent himself: Congratulations, Austin), here’s a sketch in which Driver plays a visually disturbing and yet somehow surprisingly plausible baby accompanying his mother (Sarah Sherman) on his first-ever plane ride.If the sight of Driver’s adult head placed on a baby’s body doesn’t haunt your dreams, the sound of his scream when he believes his teddy bear has disappeared surely will. More

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Television

      ‘The O.C.’ Creators Are Right Back Where They Started From

      by

      With the publication a new book about their influential teen drama, which debuted in 2003, Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage have learned to love “The O.C.” again.“We didn’t know anything,” Josh Schwartz said. “We didn’t know the rules and we were making it up as we went along. That’s something that you learn from.”“But you can’t repeat it,” he continued. “You can only do that once.”Schwartz and his producing partner, Stephanie Savage, have created many coming-of-age series, including “Gossip Girl,” “Looking for Alaska” and “City on Fire.” But he was referring to their first show, which he dreamed up at 26: “The O.C.”A hybrid of a glossy nighttime soap and a quirky teen comedy, “The O.C” aired its first episode on Fox in summer 2003. This story of a boy from the wrong side of the tracks (though how wrong is Chino, Calif., really?) taken in by a wealthy Newport Beach, Calif., family became a sensation among younger viewers, and it made stars and tabloid phenomena of the actors Mischa Barton, Rachel Bilson, Adam Brody and Ben McKenzie.That first season burned through stories as though they were beach bonfire kindling. It blazed less brightly in the second season, and by the third (20-year-old spoilers follow), which culminated in the death of Barton’s poor-little-rich-girl Marissa, that flame had guttered. Following a shorter fourth season, the series ended in 2007.“I personally felt like I had failed,” Schwartz recalled.This was during a recent joint video call with Savage, but the mood was celebratory, not remorseful. Because in a twist worthy of the show’s first season, “The O.C.” has lived on, admired by a new generation and at least partly responsible for introducing idiosyncrasy and quirk into the conventional network formula.Now with the publication of “Welcome to the O.C.: The Oral History,” a collaboration among Savage, Schwartz and the Rolling Stone TV critic Alan Sepinwall, its legacy also includes a book. In conversation with all of the main cast as well as network executives and members of the crew, the book explores the audacity, challenge and often painful compromise of making an hourlong show in the decade before streaming began to dominate.“Welcome to the O.C.: The Oral History,” a collaboration with the critic Alan Sepinwall, includes interviews with cast and crew members and network executives.HarperCollins PublishersDuring an hourlong chat, Schwartz and Savage discussed bikinis, burnout and what they learned about killing off young, attractive leads. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.What was the original pitch for the show?JOSH SCHWARTZ I had gone to U.S.C. As a Jewish kid from the East Coast, I felt like an outsider. The original pitch was centered around a character named Lucy Muñoz, whose father was the gardener and house manager of the Atwood Estates in Newport Beach. Ryan Atwood was a wealthy kid. Lucy Muñoz was our fish out of water. There was still a Seth character, though he was much nerdier. That was the pitch until we went into Warner Brothers.What did Warner Brothers have to say?SCHWARTZ Warner Brothers said: “We love everything about the world of the show. Can you just change the entire concept?” There were multiple shows that year that centered around a white guy-Latina Romeo and Juliet love story. So they said: “Could you reconfigure the premise of your show? In three days?”What were those three days like?STEPHANIE SAVAGE They were intense. We came out of that meeting feeling like we were dead in the water, but we were determined to keep going. The core of what Josh and I originally talked about was, How do you do something that felt like “The Breakfast Club” in a gated community in Orange County? We changed the chairs that these characters were sitting in but still kept that core idea.In the book you talk about the show as a Trojan horse. What’s the horse, and what’s inside it?SCHWARTZ The horse is a glossy nighttime soap in the tradition of “Beverly Hills 90210,” with bikinis and bonfires and fistfights at galas. The soldiers inside were our characters. We were inspired, as Stephanie said, by John Hughes movies and by “My So-Called Life” or “Freaks and Geeks” — beloved, short-lived TV series that were very soulful and had great humor.Did you feel you achieved that?SCHWARTZ The first eight episodes were a perfect distillation of that Trojan horse. That was the horse breaching the gates. We were in!SAVAGE That was a really fun run. The show launched in the summer, which was very unusual. We did those episodes with no feedback coming from the outside world. We were making them in a bubble, which was a really freeing and rewarding experience.Was this a comedy? A drama? A teen soap?SCHWARTZ We were calling it a soapedy at some point. I’m not sure that caught on.When you cast the younger actors, did you know that it would change their lives?SAVAGE No. You hope that your show is successful enough to stay on the air and satisfy audiences and be a good creative experience. You just have no clue of how big a show can be and what fame will mean. It was an era before social media, thankfully, but it was an era of high paparazzi. Mischa was one of the young women stalked by photographers and treated unkindly by online bloggers. Fame hit in a certain way that would have been very hard for anyone to predict.Mischa Barton and Ben McKenzie in “The O.C.” Barton’s character controversially was killed off in the third season.J. Trueblood/FoxIs there anything you now do to prepare or protect younger actors?SAVAGE On our shows subsequent to “The O.C.,” we were able to have nice conversations about things that they could possibly expect to happen in the future and about how to comport themselves through that storm. But at the time, we were really clueless.SCHWARTZ Our No. 1 piece of advice since “The O.C.” is: Stay off the internet. Obviously with the advent of social media, that’s become challenging. But we’ve always tried to caution people, “Don’t read what people are writing about the show while you’re making it.” Just trust in the work that you’re doing. It’s advice that we can’t take ourselves.SAVAGE Exactly: Stay off the internet. Be kind to the crew. Sleep a lot.You have a strong first season and a second season that mostly sticks the landing. Then what happens?SCHWARTZ By the time we hit Season 3, there were a number of factors at play. I was burned out. Steph probably feels the same. We had blown through a lot of story and were challenged to keep creating new story. A lot of our characters had left the show — that was on us as well. And some of the other actors were ready for that next level, movie offers or what have you. So there was frustration there. Ratings inevitably start to soften; people tried to fix that. Sometimes you can just leave the burners on for too long and overcook story. We lost our sense of irony, our sense of fun. We became the type of melodrama we would have made fun of in Season 1.If you had to do it over again, would you still kill Marissa?SCHWARTZ There was a vocal minority online that had grown frustrated with the Marissa story line. That in conjunction with a lot of network pressure to kill a main character as a way to spike viewership drove the decision to kill Marissa. The night that the show aired, we heard from a whole other swath of the audience that loved the show, watched every week, didn’t feel the need to log into a forum to analyze it. For a lot of people, Marissa was the character they were watching for, Mischa was the actress they found the most exciting and Ryan and Marissa were endgame. We violated that in one fell swoop. It’s now part of the legacy of the show. We’ve had to accept it. It hasn’t stopped us from killing other young women in other shows that we’ve done.Have you learned nothing?SCHWARTZ We haven’t. But here we are: It’s 20 years later; people still want to talk to us about the show. The legacy feels really secure to us now, and we can appreciate it.Do you see the influence of “The O.C.” on subsequent shows?SCHWARTZ “Laguna Beach: the Real Orange County” was a result of the show, which then led to “The Real Housewives of Orange County,” which has now spawned an entire franchise, which we should have seen coming and gotten a piece of.SAVAGE Marc Cherry has told us that he doesn’t think he would have been able to do “Desperate Housewives” if it weren’t for the success of “The O.C.,” in that regard of doing something that had a lot of humor and voice to it.Nearly all of your subsequent projects are about adolescents and young adults, and “Looking for Alaska” and “City on Fire” are set in the same time period as “The O.C.” Did you get a little stuck?SCHWARTZ We love coming-of-age stories. Fashions change, technology changes, vernacular changes, but emotionally, they are truly universal. When you make something for an audience of that age, they love that forever and love it deeply. It’s just a really exciting time. Everything is heightened. Everything feels like life or death, and sometimes it is. And probably we’re still subconsciously working through some [expletive].How do you feel about “The O.C.” now?SCHWARTZ Grateful and proud. Which sounds simplistic, but it was a 20-year journey to get there. More

    • 100 Shares149 Views

      in Television

      Norman Lear Reshaped How America Saw Black Families

      by

      “Good Times,” “The Jeffersons” and “Sanford and Son” brought a wave of Black characters to TV, even as the shows opened up tensions over stereotypes.As a birthday present for Tyler Perry last year, a mutual acquaintance arranged for him to meet one of his heroes, Norman Lear. Perry grew up watching Lear’s groundbreaking television shows, and was awed by how several presented a fuller version of Black lives onto American television screens for the first time.Long ago, Perry had hoped to have a storied career that would emulate a speck of what Lear’s shows such as “Good Times” and “The Jeffersons” displayed: that Black people can share opinions, fall in love, laugh and be fearful just like anyone else.“Had it not been for Norman, there wouldn’t have been a path for me,” said Perry, whose film and TV empire has made him one of the most powerful figures in Hollywood. “It was him bringing Black people to television and showing the world that there’s an audience for us.”Perry departed his meeting with Lear, who was 100 years old at the time, with a deeper appreciation for the craftsmanship of the pioneering television writer and producer who died at 101 on Tuesday. The reality of Lear, a white man, being responsible for bringing a fuller picture of Black lives to American TV screens was a product of the era, when most doors were still closed to Black producers and creators. Some characters in his shows were the source of flare-ups, particularly when some Black cast members complained about stereotypical portrayals, which are still debated today.Yet despite those tensions, it’s hard to find anyone in the medium of television who is held in such high regard, including by many Black writers and showrunners now creating and running today’s shows.“It’s like asking someone who played basketball if Michael Jordan influenced them,” said Kenya Barris, the creator of “black-ish.” “He changed the way contemporary storytelling was told in the genre that I was doing it in.”Barris said that Lear was an early champion of “black-ish” and even visited its writers’ room in 2016.“It’s about as impactful in modern media as a legacy could be,” Barris said of Lear’s body of work that made him a defining figure of ’70s TV.Lear’s shows touched on hot-button issues such as civil rights activism, alcoholism and abortion, going far beyond the one-dimensional existence that Black characters were previously relegated to. His shows depicted television’s first two-parent Black family, an upwardly mobile Black family and the other side of the coin to his most famous character, “All in the Family’s” Archie Bunker, in Redd Foxx’s portrayal of the oft-bigoted Fred Sanford in “Sanford and Son.”This full-rounded view of Black life in America — through characters who had failures and triumphs, struggles and aspirations — helped usher in what historians call the era of “social relevance” in television, in which TV shows and sitcoms offered more authentic depictions of Americans’ lives, said Adrien Sebro, an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin and author of “Scratchin’ and Survivin’: Hustle Economics and the Black Sitcoms of Tandem Productions,” a book about Lear’s many television productions.Redd Foxx, left, and Desmond Wilson on “Sanford and Son.”NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal, via Getty ImagesBeverly McIver, an artist and professor of art history and visual studies at Duke University, remembers watching Lear’s shows every week as a child. Growing up in a housing project in Greensboro, N.C., she identified with J.J. Evans, the teenage aspiring artist who grows up in Chicago public housing, portrayed by Jimmie Walker on “Good Times.”“These shows gave me hope that I could rise out of the project, not continue the cycle of poverty, and that I could be an artist,” she said.Walker, in an interview, said Lear always looked to deliver a message through his shows, which initially threw Walker.“Norman, if you want to deliver a message, go work for Western Union,” Walker, 76, recalled telling Lear. “I’m here to work. I’m here to have fun, baby. I’m here to do comedy.”But Walker eventually grew to appreciate Lear’s stance in delivering social commentary through comedy.“He wasn’t a funny-joke writer guy,” Walker said. “He believed that both sides needed to be heard.”Fresh from the Civil Rights era, Hollywood had yet to open itself to Black shows, let alone Black showrunners.“There wasn’t a Black person who could have made that happen,” Perry said of the fuller portrayal of Black life onscreen. “It had to be Norman Lear.”He added: “It had to be a person who understands humanity and people and who we all are at our core and the things we all appreciate and care about, which are family and love and that we all feel pain.”Lear and other producers held tight to creative control of the series. As groundbreaking as the shows centering Black characters were, the creative decisions were still being made by white people who did not share the experiences of the cast onscreen.Two Black writers, Eric Monte and Mike Evans, are credited with creating “Good Times,” but have struggled to receive recognition for their contributions. Monte also argued that Lear stole his idea for “The Jeffersons.” He received a $1 million settlement and said he was eventually blacklisted from Hollywood.“Everything they wrote was stereotypic,” Monte told The Philadelphia Inquirer in 2006.But many who worked with Lear credited him with changing their lives.”I’ve had a very interesting life being on ‘Good Times,’” said BernNadette Stanis, who played Thelma Evans. “My whole life as an adult has been attached to ‘Good Times.’”Other actors who worked on Lear’s shows recalled him extending an open ear to their ideas and thoughts. Marla Gibbs once asked Lear why he seldom showed up on the set of “The Jeffersons.” Gibbs recalled Lear saying that the cast and show were doing just fine without him.But if she ever needed him, Lear added, he’d be there.Gibbs, who played the Jeffersons’ wisecracking maid, Florence Johnston, requested him shortly after. The show’s actors lobbied Lear for a more rounded depiction of the Willises, portrayed by Roxie Roker and Franklin Cover as television’s first interracial marriage between Black and white partners. As a result, the pair exchanged a kiss in a landmark 1974 episode.From left, Marla Gibbs, Isabel Sanford and Sherman Hemsley in “The Jeffersons.” CBS, via Getty ImagesBeginning in 1972, NBC aired Lear’s “Sanford and Son,” which starred Foxx and Demond Wilson as a father and son in Los Angeles, and in 1974 CBS aired “Good Times,” which focused on the Evanses — the first time a Black nuclear family appeared on television.The show was originally envisioned as starring a one-parent matriarchal household, but Esther Rolle, argued that her character, Florida Evans, should be married. Stanis recalled Lear listening to Rolle and, soon after, hiring John Amos to play her husband, James.“He was lenient in that way,” Stanis said.With Rolle’s backing, Stanis talked to Lear and the show’s other producers and writers about establishing more of a voice for Thelma, the daughter of the household.“We were the first Black family show,” Stanis said. “You would have 50-, 60-year-old Caucasian men writing for a teenager and they didn’t have much to say about me.”She added: “Norman was there, the producers and the writers, all of them, the director, everybody was there. They received my viewpoint very well.”That was not the case with every conflict. A 1975 article in Ebony magazine titled “Bad Times on the ‘Good Times’ Set” described a “continuing battle among the cast members to keep the comedic flavor of the program from becoming so outlandish as to be embarrassing to Blacks.”The actors grew particularly frustrated with the outsized role of Walker’s J.J. as the loud and often lazy son with the famous catchphrase of “dyn-o-mite!” who became enormously popular with audiences.Cast members believed the performance portrayed Black Americans in a stereotypical lens. Despite these concerns, the show’s writers transformed J.J. from a minor character into one of the show’s central figures.“I thought too much emphasis was being put on J.J. and his chicken hat and saying ‘dy-no-mite’ every third page,” Amos said in a 2014 interview with the Television Academy. He added that producers resolved the conflict by getting rid of Amos’s character. “So they said, ‘Tell you what? Why don’t we kill him off and we’ll all get on with our lives?’”In addition to Amos’s firing, Rolle also left the show for a season before returning.“When we found out that John wouldn’t be back, we read the script and I thought it was mistaken identity,” Stanis said, adding that when Rolle, who died in 1998, briefly left, “I don’t think that she was very happy with having to leave the show the way it was designed.”In his 2014 autobiography, “Even This I Get to Experience,” Lear wrote that members of the Black Panthers came to his office to complain that “Good Times” perpetuated stereotypes about Black poverty. Lear responded with “The Jeffersons,” which debuted on CBS in 1975. The show featured Sherman Hemsley as George Jefferson, a Black man with a successful dry-cleaning business and a luxury apartment in Manhattan, and Isabel Sanford as his beleaguered wife, Louise.Gibbs broke out as Florence before going on to a long career that included roles on series like “227” and “The Hughleys.” When she received her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2021, Lear accompanied her to the ceremony. She remembered him saying that laughter adds years to one’s life and thanked her for adding years to his.“I’d say without Norman, people would not know my name,” said Gibbs, 92. “He hired me and because of the affiliation, everybody knows Marla Gibbs and they know Florence, so I’d say he definitely added years to my life.”Susan Beachy contributed research. More