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      At the Ruhrtrienniale, Industrial Ruins Become Stages

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      The best productions at the Ruhrtriennale festival created a sense of unity with their unique, often vast, settings.For six weeks each year, the Ruhrtriennale festival transforms the economically depressed Ruhr region of northwest of Germany into ground zero for cutting edge art and performance.Since 2002, this lavishly funded event, which puts on roughly 30 productions each summer, has lured artists and audiences to Germany’s rust belt with its robust and unexpected programming. And whereas many of Europe’s summer arts festivals can feel interchangeable, the Ruhrtriennale is devoted to works that can’t be experienced the same way anywhere else. Many have been created specifically for the postindustrial sites that dot the region.Earlier this month, the Ruhrtriennale’s artistic director Barbara Frey inaugurated her third and final festival program with her own staging of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” presented in the Kraftzentrale, the cavernous former power station of a disused steel and coal plant. It was the opening salvo in an interdisciplinary program, running through Sept. 23, that includes an immersive production of a Janacek opera and an art installation in a Brutalist church.The desolate set for “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” designed by Martin Zehetgruber, features rusting cars half-sunken in the earth and sparse trees that suggest Shakespeare’s enchanted forest is on the verge of collapse. This is a gloomy “Midsummer,” both visually (thanks to Rainer Küng’s lighting) and atmospherically, and while it is enlivened by fine acting by a troupe of 10 performers, the production itself is oddly sterile and detached. Dorothee Hartinger’s wry and insouciant Puck and Oliver Nägele’s gruff and bittersweet Bottom are standouts. However, most of the time, the actors, drawn largely from the permanent ensemble at the Burgtheater, in Vienna, recite Shakespeare’s text with fine, crisp diction, but without truly inhabiting their characters.Cast members from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” from left: Meike Droste, Marie-Luise Stockinger, Sabine Haupt, Markus Scheumann, Sylvie Rohrer, Gunther Eckes, Oliver Nägele and Langston Uibe.Matthias Horn/Ruhrtriennale 2023For a play that dances on the threshold between dream and waking, and art and reality, Frey’s production feels like a slow waltz. (The frequent music box-like tinkering by an onstage musician quickly grew tiring.) There is much to admire, but little to quicken the pulse.I missed the site specificity of the festival’s most memorable productions. When Florentina Holzinger staged “A Divine Comedy” at the Kraftzentrale, in 2021, she made fuller use of the space to create an infernal cabaret-variety show. Although I was not a fan of that production, I must admit that Holzinger’s spectacularly overstuffed staging, featuring joyriding motorcycles and cars, and even a grand piano suspended from the ceiling, was visually stunning. By contrast, Frey’s production, which will transfer to the Burgtheater in September, seems designed for any theater with a rotating stage.There was greater sense of unity between the production and the venue at the world premiere of Gisèle Vienne’s “Extra Life,” at the Salzlager, in the city of Essen.Two years ago Vienne, a distinctive French choreographer and director, was at the Ruhr with her clammy and hallucinatory chamber piece “L’Étang” (“The Pond”). While that previous work was insistently small-scale, with two actors playing 10 roles on a mostly bare set, “Extra Life” embraces the vastness of a former salt storage facility.From left: Theo Livesey, Katia Petrowick and Adele Haenel in “Extra Life,” at the Ruhrtriennale in Essen, Germany.Katrin Ribbe/Ruhrtriennale 2023Like “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Vienne’s latest creation is a nocturnal piece. In the vast, often fog-shrouded confines of the Salzlager, she unspools a simple yet enigmatic tale about two estranged siblings (Adèle Haenel and Theo Livesey), who reunite at a party and rekindle their relationship, sifting through a painful family history. A third character (Katia Petrowick), who emerges during their long night of the soul, might be a kindred spirit who follows them from the party into the woods. Or perhaps she is a composite of figures from the siblings’ past, or of unconscious wishes.This is a demanding and elliptical production, in which much is implied, but little is ever settled. Vienne and her fellow artists achieve uncanny and cathartic effects through pared-down dialogue, controlled slow-motion choreography and dazzling laser stage lighting (by Yves Godin) that suggests both being at a club and inside a video game. Immersed in the swirl of fog, lasers and a synthesizer score by Caterina Barbieri, the audience seems bathed in postindustrial electricity.With its disquieting blend of surreal and blandly quotidian elements, “Extra Life” can be an exasperating puzzle. It’s best to just surrender to its visual and sonic rhythms over the course of its unhurried 140 minutes. Over the coming months, the production will travel to Germany, Belgium, Switzerland and France.This is Frey’s last summer leading the Ruhrtriennale. Her time at the festival has widely been judged a success, especially next to the troubled reign of her predecessor, Stefanie Carp. But the creators Frey championed were often extreme, or obscure.From next year, the Belgian director Ivo van Hove will be in charge. Like his predecessors, he is sure to put his stamp on the festival, and there is no doubting that van Hove has a questing and disruptive bent. The Ruhrtriennale will give him his biggest canvas yet. I’m curious to see how he chooses to fill the Ruhr region’s majestic cathedrals of industry.RuhrtriennaleThrough Sept. 23 at various venues in northwestern Germany; ruhrtrienniale.de. More

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      Feminist Stories Are Being Set to a Pop Beat. But Are They Empowering?

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      Our critics debate how well shows like “Six,” “& Juliet” and “Once Upon a One More Time” engage with the inner worlds of women onstage.During the first act of “Once Upon a One More Time,” the Broadway jukebox musical that grooves to the Britney Spears oeuvre, a fairy godmother arrives with a present for Cinderella. A gown? No. Glass slippers? No. Cin has enough already. Instead, her godmother gifts her a copy of Betty Friedan’s 1963 best seller, “The Feminine Mystique.”It’s a clumsy gesture in the show, which plans to close next month. (Feminist thought has advanced in 60 years!) And arguably emblematic of a recent spate of Broadway musicals that set feminism to a pop beat, including “Six,” a zippy modern retelling of the lives of Henry VIII’s six wives; “& Juliet,” whose protagonist, miraculously alive, embarks on a girls’ trip of self-discovery; and “Bad Cinderella” (now closed), a chaotic rejiggering of the classic fairy tale. Aimed at girls and women (historically the majority of Broadway ticket buyers), these shows may be sincere attempts to engage with women’s issues — or they’re hollow efforts to capitalize on calls for change. Empty political gestures on Broadway? To quote a song used in two of these shows: “Oops! … I did it again.”On a recent morning, Laura Collins-Hughes, contributing theater critic and reporter; Salamishah Tillet, critic at large; and Lindsay Zoladz, pop music critic, gathered to debate facts and fairy tales. They discussed how narrowly these shows define empowerment, if they define it at all, and why Prince Charming gets the best song. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.The recent musicals “Six,” “& Juliet,” “Bad Cinderella” and “Once Upon a One More Time” take female empowerment as their central theme. Are these shows actually empowering or legibly feminist?LAURA COLLINS-HUGHES I wouldn’t say any of them are feminist.SALAMISHAH TILLET Some are empowering, others are not. “Six” is partly feminist, because it shows the impact of King Henry VIII’s misogyny. With the exception of Anne Boleyn, most of his wives have been relegated to the margins. My 11-year-old daughter really loved that these women finally reclaimed their stories and did it with style! But I felt like I was at a fun pop concert rather than at a big Broadway musical.COLLINS-HUGHES “Six” drives me completely up the wall. It wants to have a good time in the neighborhood of spousal murder and abandonment, singing “I don’t need your love.” As if Henry’s love had anything to do with it. As if abuse is what a man’s love for a woman looks like.Lauren Zakrin, second from left, as Little Mermaid gets her voice back upon reading “The Feminine Mystique” in “Once Upon a One More Time.” Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesLINDSAY ZOLADZ I like “Six,” but probably for the reason Salamishah doesn’t — it’s basically a pop concert. I do think the overarching problem with these musicals is the way they fail to define terms, presenting “empowerment” and “feminism” as given, unexamined virtues. Instead of the marriage proposal that supposedly leads to the happily ever after, it’s … empowerment ever after? “Once Upon a One More Time” provided the clearest distillation of the trend. Cinderella’s “feminist awakening” is spurred by her fairy godmother giving her “The Feminine Mystique.” Seriously. The book is treated like a magical talisman throughout the rest of the show, but its actual content is never engaged with. That seems beyond the show’s grasp. Though the book is on sale for $20 in the lobby gift shop.TILLET I gasped when she discovered the book.ZOLADZ Not in a good way, I’m guessing.Doesn’t Cinderella know that women’s studies syllabuses have moved on?TILLET Or that Friedan was heavily criticized for her bourgeois feminism back in the day? Is it weird that we are still locating the beginnings of feminism exclusively in the sexual liberation of straight, white, middle-class, stay-at-home 1950s wives? But that’s an ongoing problem, not just on Broadway.Why do you think we’re seeing these shows now? Is it a cynical attempt to appeal to female ticket buyers or something more organic?TILLET These shows, despite their best intentions, seem limited by their source material. There was a lot of Cinderella this year! The publicity appeal of anything Cinderella is obvious, so for Broadway theaters struggling to get audiences back into the theater, of course it is a ploy.From left: Justin David Sullivan, Melanie La Barrie, Lorna Courtney and Betsy Wolfe in “& Juliet.” With its thoughtful casting of a Black Juliet and the nonbinary character May, the show enables us to see Shakespeare differently, one critic said.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesCOLLINS-HUGHES “Bad Cinderella” could have been so much more than it was. It is a messy show, it’s always been a messy show, but in London it was actually fun. It had a bit of substance to it. And magic. The feminism, which was so clear and so dramatically propulsive in the London version, was wiped away for Broadway.I took my daughter to “Bad Cinderella” and afterward we had a conversation about the show’s messaging, which was confused at best. Is it asking too much of a musical to also have great messages?COLLINS-HUGHES This question makes me think we all live in fear of that riposte that often greets girls and women who won’t laugh along at a joke that’s not funny: “Where’s your sense of humor?” It’s perfectly legitimate to recoil from a show whose message bugs you, and all the more if it’s at odds with its girl-power, you-be-you marketing.And yet if a show is successful enough in other ways, the messaging may not matter. That was my delighted experience of “& Juliet.”TILLET This was definitely my favorite pop feminist musical of the year. I was genuinely intrigued by the conceit of what happens if Juliet doesn’t die. What life does she make for herself beyond the formula prescribed for her? The musical opens up possibilities for her as a protagonist. And with its thoughtful casting of Lorna Courtney as a Black Juliet and Justin David Sullivan as the nonbinary character, May, it enables us to see Shakespeare differently, too.COLLINS-HUGHES When it has a top-notch cast, “& Juliet” is a blast. But I am baffled that people perceive it as feminist. It really is not.ZOLADZ Say more!COLLINS-HUGHES I don’t mean that it’s anti-feminist, but I don’t think it’s particularly female-centered — not on Juliet, nor on Anne Hathaway [Shakespeare’s wife], who gets one of the subplots.“Bad Cinderella,” starring Linedy Genao, had a brief run this spring. “The feminism, which was so clear and so dramatically propulsive in the London version, was wiped away for Broadway,” one critic said.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWith the exception of “Six,” these shows are largely created by men. Does that explain anything?COLLINS-HUGHES Of course. It’s not that men can’t and don’t write women well or can’t imagine women’s lives. And it’s certainly not that artists should stick to writing only about people just like them. But they are writing from the outside. That can come with a lot of blind spots and a lot of misapprehensions.All of these musicals use a pop vernacular, “Bad Cinderella” somewhat less so. Is pop, particularly pop written and produced by men, a useful form for feminist discourse?ZOLADZ Something I’ve been thinking about regarding “Once Upon a One More Time” and especially “& Juliet,” which uses the songs of the massive millennial hitmaker Max Martin, is the lyrical limitation of a lot of modern pop music. Martin and the generation of pop architects who followed him treat lyrics almost as an afterthought. Martin has referred to his method of songwriting as “melodic math.” “& Juliet” was fun and more cleverly written than “Once Upon a One More Time,” but a lot of that had to do with the ironic distance between the lyrics themselves and the winking, metatextual way the characters employed them — like when “I Want It That Way,” by the Backstreet Boys, becomes not so much a love song as a narration of an argument between Shakespeare and his wife, who have conflicting opinions about how his latest play should end.TILLET I hated a lot of those pop songs and found them anti-feminist when they originally came out, but when I sang along with the “& Juliet” audience and my tween daughter, I found that they aged better than I had expected. Or maybe, because I’m now middle-age, I’m mistaking nostalgia for progress.COLLINS-HUGHES Inattention to lyrics is a limitation of jukebox musicals, but it doesn’t hold for original pop songs, which can be whatever the writer makes them. It would help, though, if more of the songwriters getting musicals produced were women.ZOLADZ I generally pay more attention to pop music than Broadway musicals, so I found the sound of these shows to be quite striking. Modern pop’s influence is everywhere, especially in a show like “Six,” which is full of electronic beats, hip-hop cadences and direct nods to artists like Beyoncé and Ariana Grande. Is that a trend you have observed over time? And given that this is such a golden age for female pop stars, do you think that crossover appeal has something to do with the rise of these empowerment musicals?COLLINS-HUGHES Musically, “Hamilton” changed Broadway, but it is very much a guy story. Having proved the hunger for modern pop musicals, it left a lot of room for female artists to fill.Do these shows do that filling?COLLINS-HUGHES Musically? Sometimes. But in terms of storytelling, generally no. There are such blinders on imagination, and there’s such an aversion to nuance. It’s a question of whom you’re trying to please. The perception of risk is about displeasing men, not the women and girls who might want to see smart, muscular new musicals.Megan Hilty, left, and Shoshana Bean in “Wicked,” which is partly about a girl learning to harness the power of her outrage to fight against injustice in the world.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesDoes the success of the Barbie movie, directed and co-written by a woman, with its several song and dance numbers, point a way forward?COLLINS-HUGHES Absolutely, if the idea is to give the best numbers to the guys.ZOLADZ And the charisma! That’s what ultimately sank “Once Upon a One More Time” for me: Cinderella was often the least compelling character onstage. Juliet didn’t fare much better. I don’t know if blandly “empowered” female characters are the answer. Too often it just feels like a shortcut. Writing flawed, idiosyncratic and more interesting female characters seems like a worthier goal, but most of these shows don’t want to take the risk.TILLET If song choice in a musical is any indication of narrative priorities, “Once Upon a One More Time” had difficulty sustaining its attention on Cinderella and her awakening. Prince Charming got “Oops! … I Did It Again” and her stepmother had “Toxic.” When I watched “Barbie,” I realized how seductive patriarchy is onscreen or onstage, even when we say we are trying to smash it. Why do the Kens get that massive and amazing dance scene?COLLINS-HUGHES A story about or aimed at women is so seldom deemed interesting enough on its own. But Hollywood, like commercial theater, is often in the business of blandification. And who’s blander than Ken? I’d like to think audiences want more than that.These recent shows define empowerment narrowly, restricting it to questions of romantic and sexual relationships with men rather than any broader political awakenings. Why can’t these stories dream bigger or attempt something more intersectional?TILLET I do think a lot of these producers feel that they are being intersectional, simply through casting. But while I appreciate so much more diversity onstage, it is still not enough. The musicals would really have to try to dismantle various forms of oppression at once. That takes nuance, patience and a really radical imagination. An older musical, “The Color Purple,” was successful at this, which brings us back to the strength of the source material, Alice Walker’s novel, and then a sizable female team behind its Broadway staging. It is an understatement to say that the evolution of Celie, who endured such abuse and trauma, is far more compelling than Cinderella’s!ZOLADZ What I find missing from a lot of contemporary art about female empowerment is the way it focuses on the attainment of power and then stops there. What about stories about how easily power can corrupt those who have it? Yes, even women!COLLINS-HUGHES This is a thing that “Wicked” imagines. And two decades on, it’s still packing houses and making loads of money. That show is partly about a girl learning to harness the power of her outrage to fight against injustice in the world.TILLET I’ve seen “Wicked” twice recently. The depth of the storytelling — when the villain and heroine aren’t what they seem — it is just so good. Is it feminist? Maybe. Does it reveal the power and heartbreak of female friendship as the ultimate love story? Very much so. For that alone, it provides a wonderful model for how to really revel in the inner worlds of women onstage. More

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      ‘El Mago Pop’ Review: Antonio Díaz’s Magic Show Is Charming

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      In his Broadway debut, the illusionist Antonio Díaz does levitation and teleportation. But it’s simple tricks, with cards and balls, that really wow.Not so long ago, landing a helicopter on a Broadway stage was kind of a big deal. In “El Mago Pop,” the charming, thrilling, silly Broadway show by the Spanish illusionist Antonio Díaz, it is one of the more minor stunts. The stage is empty. Then it’s ornamented by a red and silver copter. Then it’s empty again, except for lights and sparks.Díaz grew up on the outskirts of Barcelona, Spain. Like most professional magicians, he discovered magic early and worked at it obsessively, a process he details in a long video sequence that begins the brief show. (Excluding the video and a padded curtain call, the live action runs perhaps an hour.) At 37, he claims to be the youngest illusionist to present a show on Broadway, but as with many of his effects, that’s a tricky thing to verify. Doug Henning seems to have been the same age.Díaz bops onto the stage of the Ethel Barrymore Theater in a white shirt, skinny black pants and a skinnier black tie, the outfit of an excitable 1960s mod. He is short and slight, with long, nimble fingers — watch those fingers when you can, the precision and economy are gorgeous — and a high, fast voice. In contrast with the heavy eyeliner and gothic fripperies of magic’s 2000s efflorescence, he seems indefatigably nice and bountifully cheerful as he bounces up and down in his sneakers, which seem to have helium lifts. He is a prestidigitator you could take home to mother.As if to underline that sweetness, each ticketholder receives a candy jar upon entering. The jars feature in a fairly modest mathematics-focused magic trick. Still the gesture is nice. This boy-next-door persona sometimes feels at odds with the director Mag Lari’s extravagant staging, a symphony of blinding lights and so very many open flames. A day later I am still picking confetti out of my clothes. But maybe that’s what happens when the boy next door comes to Broadway. And yet his skills are never in doubt.“I intend for you to see impossible things tonight,” Díaz says. Fairly often, he delivers.There is a recent trend in magic, popularized by performers like Derek DelGaudio and Helder Guimarães, to weave tricks into some larger narrative, often a personal history. Díaz gestures toward that, but he doesn’t actually share much of himself. The video suggests the story of a boy who dreams of achieving the incredible. And Díaz tells the audience that this brief stint on Broadway culminates those dreams, which nods to an emotional undercurrent. But there’s little narrative here, just the sense of a canny and dexterous performer checking off another box on a “Become an International Sensation” to-do list.Díaz’s rise, like his stage maneuvers, is presented as unfailingly smooth, with doubt, quirk and adversity scrubbed away. In place of narrative, there are cartoon video interludes — Díaz as a superhero, Díaz as an old man — and a relentlessly basic playlist Díaz relies on: “Power of Love,” “Shut Up and Dance,” the “Star Wars” theme, multiple Coldplay numbers. (Díaz and Jesús Díaz are credited with the music selection; they are not related.) There is also, absurdly, an extended clip from “Forrest Gump.”Díaz’s best tricks were simple — achieved by practice, determination and flabbergasting dexterity.Emilio Madrid“El Mago Pop” alternates between large-scale illusions and smaller ones, performed in the aisles of the orchestra and shot by roaming cameramen. This means that if you are seated in the back of the theater or in the upper tiers, you will see the show mostly onscreen, which has a way of diminishing awe. Most of us have been spoiled by too many special effects, editing tricks and filters to trust the evidence of screens. For me, the close-up stunts performed in the opposite aisle felt far less astonishing than one that happened just a few feet away, in which a volunteer’s ring shot through the air and landed, rattling, inside a covered shot glass.Levitation is one of Díaz’s specialties. Teleportation is another. The teleportation tricks are probably his best. When assistants or ostensible audience members appear, in a blink, in a vitrine on the opposite side of the stage, it produces a giddy feeling of wonder.His audience interaction is less certain. For one trick, he selected a very young child, who looked uncomfortable, even terrified, to be brought onstage. The child didn’t speak, but when Díaz asked, “Do you like magic?” a vigorous shake of the head was given: No. That got a laugh, so Díaz repeated the question. The child squirmed. Was this worth it for a routine with a wristwatch?Díaz’s best routine was performed alone to a peppy Jacques Brel song. Breathlessly, Díaz manipulated a ball (a tribute to Cardini’s classic billiard ball routine), many cards, even his own right shoe. His hands would be empty. His mouth would be empty. You would swear to it on any available Bible. Then they would be full, cards raining to the floor. He sent a few cards whizzing through the air in a way that reminded me of Ricky Jay, the scholar and magician, who died in 2018. I may have teared up a little. This was Díaz’s simplest sequence and also his most beautiful. Who needs a helicopter when you can make magic like that?El Mago PopThrough Aug. 27 at the Barrymore Theater, Manhattan; elmagopop.com. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. More

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      In ‘The Effect,’ Paapa Essiedu and Taylor Russell Delight

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      In a revival of Lucy Prebble’s play at the National Theater, in London, Paapa Essiedu and Taylor Russell are terrific as a couple who meet during a pharmaceutical trial.Are you in love, or are you merely experiencing a giddy dopamine rush? Are those two states even meaningfully different? Is there a true, innermost “you” that is distinguishable from your neurochemistry?These are some of the tricky questions explored by Lucy Prebble’s thought-provoking play, “The Effect,” first staged in 2012 and now revived in a slick new production directed by Jamie Lloyd at the National Theater, in London, running through Oct. 7.“The Effect” revolves around two young people, Tristan and Connie, who take part in a trial for a dopamine-based psychiatric drug with powerful antidepressant properties. Initially, they seem to have little in common — he’s a working class lad from East London; she’s a bougie psychology student from Canada — but as the trial progresses, a tender rapport develops.Throughout the study, the participants are monitored by two psychiatric doctors, Lorna and Toby, who debate their findings: Is the drug pulling their subjects together, or are their feelings organic? And if one of the trial participants was actually receiving a placebo the whole time, what then? Prebble keeps us guessing.Paapa Essiedu — best known for his role in the hit TV show, “I May Destroy You” — is a delight as Tristan, whose roguish charm wins over the audience within minutes. Taylor Russell’s Connie is equally engaging as she slides from steely indifference to caring devotion, almost in spite of herself.Throughout, the pair’s gradual transition from wary awkwardness to intense mutual magnetism is convincingly rendered, in large part thanks to the actors’ terrific onstage chemistry.Things get messy in the latter stages of the experiment, as both the doses and the emotional stakes increase, leading to a fraught and affecting denouement.The stiltedly ambivalent friendship between the two middle-aged doctors provides an intriguing subplot. We learn that Lorna (Michele Austin) and Toby (Kobna Holdbrook-Smith) were once romantically involved, many years ago. Lorna is prone to bouts of depression, but refuses to take medication; Toby, on the other hand, is a true pharmaceutical believer.Austin plays Lorna with a dry, matter-of-fact fatalism that, though somewhat gloomy, is altogether more sympathetic than Toby’s myopic zealousness. Holdbrook-Smith approaches the role with a brooding aplomb, delivering his lines in a suave, sociopathic drawl.Michele Austin as Dr. Lorna James. Marc BrennerFor most of the production, the two doctors are seated at opposite ends of the stage — a long strip, designed by Soutra Gilmour and sandwiched between tiered banks of audience seating — while their two guinea pigs occupy the center. During Lorna and Toby’s conversations, they are illuminated by square, pure-white spotlights and the center stage is plunged into darkness. Most of the time, though, it is the doctors who sit in darkness, while we focus on the trial participants in the center. (The lighting design is by Jon Clark.) Lighting alone marks the scene changes, which, along with the audience’s perched vantage point, makes for a suitably clinical ambience.“The Effect” is healthily skeptical about scientifically deterministic approaches to emotional well-being, channeling a dissenting tradition that dates back to the anti-psychiatry movement of the 1960s; its moral sensibility recalls Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” The play’s revival is particularly timely as a new generation of wellness gurus have, in recent years, latched onto the idea that much of human behavior can be explained away as neurotransmitters or hormones simply doing their thing.Prebble invites us to ponder the implications of such thinking. Connie is initially uncomfortable with the notion that two people can fall in love just like that (“It takes work,” she insists), and wary of her attraction to Tristan. He, in response, makes the case for mystery, and thus articulates the play’s key message: That a world in which all feeling is viewed as a matter of chemistry would be a bleak one indeed.The dialogue is deftly composed, and the ethical dilemmas teased out, rather than bludgeoned. This tautness of the writing, together with the strength of the actors’ performances, and its impressive visual aesthetic, elevates this play above the ordinary rung of sociopolitical parables.At its heart is a deep and fertile agnosticism about the true source of emotional connectedness — a bracing antidote to the specious certainties peddled by the self-help industry and Big Pharma. Sure, everything is contingent, but when something feels real, it feels real.At one point in the trial, Tristan declares: “I feel almost holy, like life’s paying attention to me.” Who are we to contradict him?The EffectThrough Oct. 7 at the National Theater, London; nationaltheatre.org.uk. More

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      Ron Cephas Jones, Emmy Winner for ‘This Is Us,’ Dies at 66

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      After facing homelessness in his youth, he became an admired theater and television actor, playing tough and weathered but vulnerable characters.Ron Cephas Jones, an admired actor in New York theater and on several television shows, including “This Is Us,” a family drama for which he won two Emmy Awards — drawing on his troubled youth of drug addiction and temporary homelessness for inspiration — has died. He was 66.The writer and creator of “This Is Us,” Dan Fogelman, posted about Mr. Jones’s death on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. Mr. Jones’s manager, Dan Spilo, told The Associated Press that Mr. Jones died from “a longstanding pulmonary issue,” but did not specify where and when he died.Mr. Jones received a double-lung transplant in 2020, after years of living with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.Ron Cephas Jones in 2021. Though he gained fame and two Emmy Awards for his work on television, he said, “My whole life has been the stage.”Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesMr. Jones was known for playing characters who, like him, wrenched from past experiences of personal desperation a hard-won toughness and emotional vulnerability.On “This Is Us,” which ran on NBC from 2016 until last year and featured appearances from Mr. Jones in every season, he frequently made speeches. He played William “Shakespeare” Hill, a former drug addict with terminal cancer who connects at the end of his life with a son, Randall Pearson (played by Sterling K. Brown), whom he had left outside a fire station at birth.“On a series with no shortage of weepy story lines, William is a figure of singular pathos,” Reggie Ugwu wrote in a 2021 profile of Mr. Jones for The Times, adding, “But Jones’s soulful performance — the weather-beaten brow, the voice like brushed wool — confers a lived-in texture and depth.”Mr. Jones told the Hollywood news site Gold Derby in 2017, “I realized that so much of the man is inside of me, and my history.”For “This Is Us,” Mr. Jones received Emmy nominations for outstanding supporting actor in a drama series in 2017 and outstanding guest actor in a drama series in 2018, 2019 and 2020. He won the guest actor award in 2018 and 2020.His most recent star turn in the theater was in “Clyde’s,” which was written by Lynn Nottage and ran on Broadway from the fall of 2021 to the winter of 2022. It concerned a crew of ex-convicts working as sandwich makers at a truck stop. Mr. Jones played Montrellous, an elder of the group who finds a passion in his job that inspires his beleaguered colleagues.The Times called Mr. Jones “the show’s transfixing center of gravity,” capable of blending “Zen imperturbability with subtle dashes of pain and sacrifice.” He was nominated for a Tony Award for best featured actor in a play and won awards from the Drama Desk and the Drama League.In 2012, Mr. Jones played the lead in a production of Shakespeare’s “Richard III” by the Public Theater that appeared in prisons and homeless shelters in addition to the company’s base near Astor Place in Manhattan.“No character in Shakespeare is as hungry for power as Richard III,” Charles Isherwood wrote in a review for The Times. “And it’s hard to think of an actor with a naturally hungrier look than Ron Cephas Jones, the tall, beanpole-thin, snakelike actor who portrays the title character.”Mr. Isherwood said Mr. Jones made “a strikingly sinister-looking Richard” and described his depiction of Richard’s mendacity as “hypnotically persuasive.”Characterizing Mr. Jones’s place in the theater world, The Times labeled him in 2012 “a stalwart New York actor” equally comfortable playing Othello or Caliban as he was playing a serial killer in a contemporary drama set on Rikers Island.Mr. Jones, right, as Caliban in the 2010 Bridge Project production of “The Tempest” at the BAM Harvey. With him are Anthony O’Donnell, left, as Trinculo and Thomas Sadoski as Stephano.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesRon Cephas Jones was born on Jan. 8, 1957, in Paterson, N.J., where he grew up. He graduated from Ramapo College with a theater degree in 1978. In his youth, he had gone to Harlem to see jazz shows and plays, and he returned to New York after graduating to find a place in the art scene. He developed a heroin addiction that stalled his ambitions.He attempted to get clean during a series of moves and career changes — for four years, he was a bus driver in Los Angeles — but for a long time, nothing stuck. At one point he was arrested with 10 small bags of heroin and, he told The Times in 2021, he barely escaped serving a five-year prison sentence.He relapsed again and again, eventually prompting his mother to stop answering his phone calls. In the mid-1980s, he slept on a bench in Paterson’s Eastside Park. An uncle invited Mr. Jones to stay with him at his Harlem apartment. In 1986, he succeeded in sobering up. In 1990, he starred in his first play, “Don’t Explain” by Samuel B. Harps, at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.He had a daughter, Jasmine Cephas Jones, in 1989 with the jazz singer Kim Lesley. Ms. Jones also became a successful actress. In the original 2015 Broadway production of “Hamilton,” she played Peggy Schuyler, Alexander Hamilton’s sister-in-law, and Maria Reynolds, his mistress. In 2020, she won an Emmy for her role in the web series “#FreeRayshawn.” In 2021, she and Mr. Jones announced the Emmy nominations together.Mr. Jones with his daughter, Jasmine Cephas Jones, in 2021 at the series premiere of “Blindspotting,” in which she appeared.Chris Delmas/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesA complete list of survivors was not immediately available.Mr. Jones smoked two packs a day for most of his life, and he kept smoking even after his emphysema diagnosis.“I was in total denial,” he told The Times in 2021. “I told myself that it would pass, or that I was just getting older. I was afraid and didn’t want to change what I wasn’t ready to change.”Other TV shows in which he made notable appearances include “Mr. Robot,” “Luke Cage” and “Lisey’s Story.” New York Times reviews of his theater work were usually enthusiastic. In 2012, Mr. Isherwood called him “commandingly grave” in John Patrick Shanley’s play “Storefront Church,” and in 2015, Laura Collins-Hughes described his performance as Prospero in “The Tempest” as “moving” and “understated.”“He moves through the world like a cool jazz man, but is also generous and a nurturer,” Ms. Nottage told The Times in 2021. “The same qualities that he brings to his acting are the qualities that he embodies in real life.”He managed to evoke that sensibility in Ms. Nottage’s play despite having recently spent two months in the hospital recovering from his lung surgery.“My whole life has been the stage,” Mr. Jones told The Times. “The idea of not performing again seemed worse to me than death.” More

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      Inga Swenson, Who Went From Stage to ‘Benson,’ Dies at 90

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      She had success on Broadway in “110 in the Shade” and other shows, but a later generation knew her from a sitcom.Inga Swenson, whose acting talent, striking looks and versatile singing voice brought her success on the Broadway stage in the 1950s and ’60s, and who years later rode a phony German accent to sitcom stardom as the cook on the long-running sitcom “Benson,” died on July 23 at a care facility in Los Angeles. She was 90.The Television Academy posted news of her death. Ms. Swenson, who studied theater at Northwestern University, started out as a stage actress. In 1953 and 1954 she and her husband, Lowell Harris, whom she had met and married while at Northwestern, appeared in productions at the Playhouse, Eagles Mere, in north central Pennsylvania, including Clifford Odets’s “The Country Girl,” in which they played a husband and wife. In November 1954 Ms. Swenson made her New York debut with an Off Broadway troupe called the Shakespearewrights, playing Olivia in Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night.”“I had these gorgeous gowns because I was fun to costume,” Ms. Swenson told the podcast “Behind the Curtain: Broadway’s Living Legends” in 2019. “They loved a 5-foot-10 skinny woman with narrow shoulders.”That performance landed her an agent, and in 1956 she made her Broadway debut in the musical revue “New Faces of 1956.” Also in the cast was Maggie Smith, who was just beginning her storied career.Ms. Swenson’s biggest Broadway success came in 1963 when she was cast in a leading role in “110 in the Shade,” which had music by Harvey Schmidt and lyrics by Tom Jones, the duo responsible for the long-running musical “The Fantasticks.” The book was by N. Richard Nash, based on his play “The Rainmaker.” Ms. Swenson was Lizzie Curry, a supposedly average-looking young woman who is beginning to think she will never find love.“The tears seem to fall interminably from the big blue eyes of Inga Swenson,” Howard Taubman wrote in his review in The New York Times, “who has to pretend that she is Lizzie, the plain Curry girl, too honest to use female wiles and too homely to attract a man. It’s quite a job of make-believe for Miss Swenson, who is attractive and talented.”Ms. Swenson in 1967 with Ivor Emmanuel, left, and Stephen Douglass, her castmates in the 1967 London production of “110 in the Shade.” She was nominated for a Tony for her performance in the show on Broadway.Getty ImagesThe show ran for 330 performances, then went on the road. It earned Ms. Swenson a Tony Award nomination for best actress in a musical. It also pitted her against the Broadway hitmaker David Merrick, who produced the show.“110 in the Shade” ended with an onstage rainstorm, and during the curtain call at a performance in April 1964 Ms. Swenson slipped on a puddle and seriously injured an ankle. The injury troubled her for months afterward, and she filed a million-dollar lawsuit against Mr. Merrick, contending that the puddle was a result of faulty set construction.Later that year, when the show traveled to San Francisco, she told The San Francisco Examiner that she and Mr. Merrick remained friends and that the suit was aimed not at him but at his insurance company. How the matter was resolved is lost in the mists of time.In any case, Ms. Swenson returned to Broadway in 1965 in “Baker Street,” a musical Sherlock Holmes yarn, earning another Tony nomination for best actress in a musical. By that point she had also begun working occasionally in the movies, including roles in “Advise & Consent” in 1962 and “The Miracle Worker,” in which she played the mother of Helen Keller, Patty Duke’s character, the same year.In 1978 she landed a recurring role in a season of the television comedy “Soap,” and when the same producing team was casting the sitcom “Benson,” a “Soap” spinoff whose title character (played by Robert Guillaume) ran a governor’s household, she auditioned, using a German accent.“I went in there, read with an accent and they fell off their chairs,” she said on the podcast. She won the role of Gretchen Kraus, a cook and perpetual thorn in Benson’s side. The show ran for eight seasons, and Ms. Swenson was nominated for the supporting-actress Emmy three times.Inga Swenson was born on Dec. 29, 1932, in Omaha to A.C.R. and Geneva Swenson. Her father was a prominent lawyer and an honorary Swedish consul, and her mother was prominent in social circles in Omaha.Her parents attended a Congregational church that had five choirs, and her performing life began when she tried out for one as a child, impressing church officials.“They learned that I had a pretty voice and I could make the parishioners weep,” she said on the podcast.Her father died in a car crash in 1948. Soon after, she landed the role of Maid Marian in her high school’s production of the operetta “Robin Hood,” which helped her through her grief.“Giving me that role saved my life,” she said. “I had something to do. I had something to think about. I had people telling me I was wonderful.”Fifteen years later, her singing was good enough to get her cast in “110 in the Shade,” despite some tough competition.“Everybody wanted to play Lizzie,” she said on “Behind the Curtain.” “When I went to audition, Barbra Streisand was there.”Ms. Swenson’s survivors include her husband and a son, Mark Harris.Ms. Swenson said she didn’t often get considered for comic roles because of her elegant looks.“People take one look and say: ‘You’re not funny,’” she said in a 1983 interview. “‘You don’t even have a funny face.’”She proved such assessments wrong on “Benson,” which was filmed in front of a live audience.“That was not phony laughter,” she said on “Behind the Curtain.” “There wasn’t a sign that went up and said ‘Laugh.’ People laughed because we were funny.” More

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      PlayStation and BTS Help Lea Salonga Clear Her Head

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      The “Here Lies Love” actress finds inspiration in Alex Newell’s “Shucked” performance and a good night’s sleep in the sounds of “Forensic Files.”Lea Salonga was feeling under the weather earlier this month.“I had to miss shows, which is unfortunate,” she said before one of her final performances in the Broadway disco musical “Here Lies Love.” “But I was still able to stand over a stove and cook this soup that had a lot of garlic and a lot of ginger,” she recalled during a phone interview from her Manhattan home. “It’s called tinola, which is a Filipino chicken soup. It’s what would be cooked every time I was sick at home.”That connection to the Philippines — where Salonga was born and raised — is one she also feels with “Here Lies Love,” which recounts the rise and fall of the country’s ousted leader and first lady, Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos.“Normally, if I’m watching a theater piece, I could just feel whatever feelings there are, or that the show wants me to feel,” said Salonga, 52, who on Saturday finishes her guest run as Aurora Aquino, the mother of Benigno Aquino Jr., Ferdinand’s political rival. “But with something like this, where there is actual history of my country entwined in the story, my brain didn’t know what to do.”Though Salonga has had a long and distinguished Broadway career, winning a Tony Award in 1991 for her performance in “Miss Saigon” as the doomed Vietnamese mother Kim, “Here Lies Love” is the first time she has played a Filipino onstage and the first time she has served as a producer.Salonga, who next heads to London to begin rehearsals for the West End musical revue “Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends,” discussed 10 of her cultural essentials, including her surprise love affair with BTS and how Alex Newell turned her world upside down in “Shucked.” These are edited excerpts.1PlayStation 5It’s a great way for me to escape after a show, to kind of cleanse my mind, especially if I’m doing a show that’s exhausting mentally and emotionally. Lately I’ve been playing Horizon Forbidden West; I still have to finish the downloadable content.2BTSAbout six months into the pandemic, I saw “Dynamite.” I can’t remember how I stumbled onto it, but I couldn’t move and I was like, “I have to finish this now.” The dancing and the synchronization and the charm — obviously, they’re beautiful people. It was a great way to find joy and something to look forward to when I woke up for the day in the midst of the world falling apart.3Leche FlanWhen I was growing up in the Philippines, my grandma would make leche flan, which was always so creamy and so delicious. So over the pandemic, when I was living in the Philippines, I learned how to make it. I would send samples of it over to my mother’s house to taste-test, and she would say, “No, that’s too sweet, can you bring down the sugar content?” When I finally got it right, I had to make sure I had written the recipe down!4Essential OilsThey help make me feel relaxed and grounded. You can choose different ones depending on what you feel you need — sometimes I need a little respiratory help, so there are certain oils I’ll either diffuse or massage or rub onto my body, which calm my mind. I gifted everyone in the company of “Here Lies Love” with a little vial of something to remind everyone to just breathe.5Cute PajamasSometimes I don’t really want to dress in a pair of jeans and a shirt to go down and pick something up from the communal pantry in a hotel. If I’m wearing cute pajamas, I can throw on a hoodie or a jacket, and I’ll still look presentable. My cousin gifted me “Family Guy” pajamas — a Stewie T-shirt and matching pants.6Portable PeripheralsI bring a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse to use when I’m traveling, which make it much easier to type. Because I text bilingually sometimes, a voice memo is not able to grab everything.7Over-the-Ear HeadphonesAs much as I love the portability of my earbuds, my ears tend to get irritated after lengthy use. I have the Apple AirPods Max in light green, which are over-the-ear, Bluetooth-enabled and comfortable. I like that there’s a button you can just push so you can hear what’s going on around you.8‘Forensic Files’I find things like chromatography and DNA analysis fascinating. But also, Peter Thomas’s voice has lulled me to sleep more times than I can count.9‘Steven Universe’I just adore it for its themes of queer acceptance and girl power. Not to mention the number of musical theater folks that voice characters on it, including Patti LuPone and Christine Ebersole.10Alex Newell in ‘Shucked’Dear God, Alex Newell is every single thing. That is a cultural reset to see what it’s like when this superstar stops the show and commands a standing ovation in the middle of the first half. But it’s Alex Newell — of course the show’s going to stop! More

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      An Arabic Adaptation of ‘Chicago’ Razzle Dazzles Lebanon

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      Reimagining the Broadway musical for audiences near Beirut meant new character names, choreography and lyrics.As the orchestra began vamping for roughly a thousand festivalgoers at a 19th-century palace in a mountainous town in Lebanon, Selma Fehmi — the Velma Kelly character in a new Arabic version of the musical “Chicago” — started to croon lyrics to the tune of “All That Jazz.”But this reimagining of the show’s opening song quickly provided a Lebanese twist: “Hurry, pick me up and let’s take a drive/to a small place hidden in the center of Beirut.”The Arabic adaptation of “Chicago,” the longest-running show currently on Broadway, debuted at the Casino du Liban in May with a sold-out run that extended to five nights. The team returned with three performances in August at an art festival in Beiteddine, a town some 20 miles southeast of Beirut — where this adaptation takes place — and now hopes to take the show abroad, within the Middle East and beyond.Despite dealing with American cultural references and wildly different syntax, translating the musical into Arabic came pretty smoothly, said Roy ElKhouri, the writer, choreographer and director of the adaptation. The context particularly speaks to present-day Beirut, said Anthony Adonis, who adapted the lyrics.“It’s like it was written to be a commentary on the judicial system in Lebanon,” Adonis said, referring to the mismanagement and corruption that spurred the nation’s economic crisis and an investigation into the 2020 port explosion in the capital that has been muddied by obstruction and interference.In addition to an acting role, Roy ElKhouri wrote, choreographed and directed the adaptation.Chicago the MusicalThat ability for a show set in 1920s Chicago to speak to modern affairs in the Middle East was attractive to ElKhouri. “You can relate to it in every aspect,” he said, pointing to its universal themes of corruption, media manipulation and the power of showbiz.Barry Weissler, who produced the 1996 Broadway revival alongside his wife, Fran, was not surprised that artists in Lebanon were revisiting the story. “Everyone gets it,” Weissler said. “It doesn’t matter which language it’s in — the reaction’s still the same.”Yet even with the commonalities, reinterpreting the musical was a complicated process because of the strict guidelines that accompany licenses from Concord Theatricals. The Arabic version had to stay true to the original story line. Characters could not be added nor removed, and neither could songs. And the Lebanese team was required to give the adaptation entirely new choreography — originally by Bob Fosse — and direction.Once those parameters were laid out, ElKhouri’s team got to work.The first step was coming up with relevant Arabic names for characters, including Selma (Mirva Kadi), whose name rhymed with Velma. Roxie Hart, whose killing of her lover sets the story in motion, became Nancy Nar (Cynthya Karam), alluding to the Lebanese pop star Nancy Ajram.Other changes involved wordplay: The smooth-talking lawyer Billy Flynn, who frees murderers from prison, became Wael Horr (ElKhouri), his last name meaning “free.” Roxie’s loyal husband, Amos, became Amin (Fouad Yammine, who helped adapt the script), which means “faithful.” And the sympathetic journalist Mary Sunshine became Nour El Shams (Matteo El Khodr), whose full name translates to “the light of the sun.”Translating the songs was a bigger challenge. The legal and showbiz jargon of “Razzle Dazzle” — “Shubeik Lubeik” in Arabic (“Your Wish Is My Command”) — were especially tricky. Adonis wrote at least three versions until the team settled on the one that most aligned with the music. “It was like doing very, very complicated math,” he said.The team that adapted the musical did not shy away from its sensuality, whether it was the wide-open legs in the dance numbers or the revealing costumes.Chicago the MusicalThe Arabic version had to stay true to the original story line, but entirely new choreography — originally by Bob Fosse — was required.Chicago the MusicalLebanese references were trickled throughout the musical. In “Cell Block Tango,” or “Kan Yistahal” (“He Deserved It”), the prisoners’ dialects reflected the country’s diversity. The character of Hunyak, who is Hungarian in the original, became Armenian, a reference to Lebanon’s Armenian population.Though the country is considered one of the most liberal in the Arab world, many pockets of society lean conservative. But the team did not shy away from the musical’s sensuality, whether it was the wide-open legs in the dance numbers or the revealing costumes and suggestive squeals.ElKhouri did have other fears, though, primarily that “Chicago” would not find an audience in the country. The sold-out shows proved otherwise.“You rarely see this in Lebanon — this level of performance,” said Yahya Fares, a nurse who watched the first performance at the festival. His girlfriend, Maribelle Zouein, was also impressed.“They incorporated Lebanon’s culture,” she said. “They made it relatable.”Both Fares and Zouein lamented that Lebanese theater, and art in general, is growing more difficult to produce despite its cultural reputation in the region.In the mid-1800s, Maroun Naccache introduced Western-style theater to Lebanon by adapting European plays into Arabic musicals, said Aliya Khalidi, the founder of the Foundation for Arab Dramatic Arts. After the arrival of the Baalbeck International Festival in 1956, theater flourished. And even during Lebanon’s civil war, from 1975 to 1990, the composers and playwrights known as the Rahbani brothers, the singer Fairuz and her son Ziad produced musicals and plays that remain cultural mainstays.The past few years have delivered a setback because of the coronavirus pandemic, the financial meltdown and the port explosion, Khalidi said. “Usually, in times of crisis, the most affected medium is the theater,” she said.In the past year, more and more modest productions have begun to pop up in Lebanon, Khalidi and ElKhouri said. But the “Chicago” adaptation stood out for its scale, even though financial constraints meant the cast and crew had only two months to rehearse before the debut. Some actors and dancers had to keep their day jobs.“We’ve done this out of pocket,” Nayla El Khoury, the producer of the show, said. “Imagine what they can do if they had the proper resources and the proper support from the country.”Adonis said the adaptation was a statement in and of itself: No matter what the country endures, culturally, “Lebanon’s still on the map.” More