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      Review: In ‘California,’ a Road Trip and a Detour Into Darkness

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      The playwright Trish Harnetiaux’s new show, set entirely in a car, follows a family of travelers. It bravely, if not entirely satisfyingly, explores alternate realities.Long ago, in a time before cellphones and overhead video players, a family road trip meant engaging in conversation, listening to the radio together or possibly sitting in more or less companionable silence for hours on end. A road trip could be a bonding experience, or it could become a contemplation of existential boredom.“California,” the playwright Trish Harnetiaux’s new show, bravely, if not entirely satisfyingly, ventures into this setup: Not only does it take place entirely in a car, it also ponders the possibility of a multiverse folding into coexisting realities.Or something. “California” is like a maddening Google Map offering confusing routes from starting point A to destination infinity.The show follows a family of five traveling the 1,300 miles from Spokane, Wash., to Huntington Beach, Calif. “My dad was confident we could drive it in one shot,” says Lizzie (played by Mallory Portnoy, Gertie in Daniel Fish’s “Oklahoma!”). “No stopping.”Lizzie, who is 13 at the time of the trip, is flanked by 14-year-old Tucker (Ethan Dubin) and 17-year-old Rob (Jordan Bellow) in the back seat. The siblings take turns commenting on the action, and at first it seems as if Harnetiaux is setting up a conventionally amusing memory play peppered with nostalgic details: Rob wears guyliner and a Cure T-shirt; the mother (Annie Henk) consults a paper map, before falling asleep underneath it; the father (Pete Simpson), in his plaid shirt, looks like a Trad Dad doll.“California” is certainly amusing, though not conventional, neither of which comes as a surprise from Harnetiaux. She displayed a flair for the dryly surreal in “Tin Cat Shoes” (2018), which was presented, as this new show is, as part of Clubbed Thumb’s Summerworks series (“What the Constitution Means to Me,” “Tumacho”). And her very funny multipart podcast play, “The MS Phoenix Rising,” featured an experimental director trying to stage Eugène Ionesco’s absurdist one-act “The Chairs” aboard a cruise ship.“California” is a particularly good showcase for non sequiturs and dream logic, as when Mom starts humming nonsense words and Lizzie says, “Mom, that’s not, like, a song.”“It could be,” her mother replies.But as with “The Chairs,” which Ionesco described as a “tragic farce,” the show takes on a darker tone as unreliable narrators bend memory and reality into an ominous tangle of confusing chronologies and alternate possibilities. The ground is constantly shifting away from both the characters and the viewers.Will Davis’s production is best when conjuring an ominous mood constantly overshadowed by death — foretold, remembered, alluded to, imagined. It can be the passing of one of the characters. Or it can be the mass deaths of nuclear Armageddon; the road trippers drive by the Hanford nuclear plant, created as part of the Manhattan Project. And the car, evoked with just chairs and the lighting designer Oona Curley’s atmospheric cues, becomes a claustrophobic enclosure traveling across space as well as time.Yet these elements do not jell, and it often feels as if Harnetiaux has an unsure grasp on what she is trying to say, or how to say it. Modern expressions, for example, pop up during the period scenes: Dad remembers that some of his college friends “had Big Halloween Energy” and admonishes his kids to “be better.” Whether these are mistakes, a clue that the reminiscing siblings are projecting into the past or just easy laugh lines, the result is distracting. And the show’s very slipperiness turns against itself: Being hard to pinpoint can be allusively mysterious, or it can come across like obfuscation.CaliforniaThrough May 31 at the Wild Project, Manhattan; clubbedthumb.org. Running time: 1 hour 5 minutes. More

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      Hugh Jackman Is Having Fun Playing as ‘Arrogant as You Possibly Can’

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      “There’s something about this show that buoys me up with an energy that I didn’t think I had,” the Tony nominee said of “The Music Man.”“It was kind of a miracle that I got into musical theater,” the actor Hugh Jackman said the other day, recalling the start of his career in 1995. “I’d just graduated, and my agent said they couldn’t find anyone to play Gaston in [the Australian production of] ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ so I went in and gave it a go. I got the part, but it was in my contract to get singing lessons once a week. I’ve very much felt like an outsider from the beginning.”Now in the running for his third Tony Award, for his portrayal of the all-American con man Harold Hill in a revival of “The Music Man,” the Australian native recounted what it’s been like to return to the stage for his first Broadway musical since 2003. (Though he hasn’t been a total stranger; he starred in “A Steady Rain” in 2009 and “The River” in 2014.) Throughout an afternoon hour at a Midtown hotel, Jackman came across as a curious performer who leads with the affirmative; his is a disarming charm sculpted out of consideration and confidence.Despite his long list of credits and accolades, Jackman, 53, seems as eager to please as he is to jump into the next adventure. He has an inquisitive mind, which I experienced firsthand when he audited a graduate film history course at Columbia University that I also attended in the spring 2020 semester. His friend Annette Insdorf taught the course, and when the pandemic shut down in-person classes, Jackman continued attending the four-hour seminars through Zoom.“I have a layman’s understanding of film. I would ask directors for five films I should see before I die, and almost all of them I’d never seen,” he said. “I asked Annette for help, and she told me to just join her course.”At the time, he was promoting the HBO film “Bad Education,” in which he played a real-life former school superintendent who pleaded guilty to stealing $2 million from his district, and beginning early “Music Man” rehearsals with his future co-star Sutton Foster.Sutton Foster as the librarian Marian Paroo and Jackman as the con man Harold Hill in “The Music Man.” Jackman said of working with Foster: “I certainly have to bring my triple-A game.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThese are edited excerpts from our conversation.You play larger-than-life scammers in both “The Music Man” and “Bad Education.” Did one role inform the other?The 2022 Tony AwardsThis year’s awards, which will be given out on June 12, are the first to recognize shows that opened following the long pandemic shutdown of Broadway’s theaters. Season in Review: Thirty-four productions braved the pandemic to open under the most onerous conditions. Game of Survival: During a time unlike any other, productions showed their resourcefulness while learning how to live with Covid. A Tony Nominee: Myles Frost is drawing ovations nightly on Broadway with his performance in “MJ,” a musical about Michael Jackson’s creative process. The Missing Category: This Covid-stalked Broadway season has made clear that a prize for best ensemble should be added, our critic writes.I’m very fascinated by the collective fascination with con men and scam artists, and there’s some crossover there with P.T. Barnum [whom he portrayed in the film “The Greatest Showman”]. I’m still not 100 percent sure where it comes from, but I think it’s deeply rooted in a very American individualist philosophy of not doing what the man tells you to do.You’ve lived in the United States for about 20 years. Do you consider yourself an American?I’m Australian. I think America’s an extraordinary place, though — there are very few places as generous of spirit.Do you think that generosity is what draws Americans to scammers?It goes back to this sense of individualism, and the ultimate expression of that is the con man, who goes against everything and flips the rules of hierarchy. Australia has got a little bit of that, but we saw during the pandemic that Australians follow the rules. There’s a collective, “We should really be doing this,” and people fall in line. And as we saw here, there’s no falling in line.So is your draw to these characters pure escapism?What I love about acting is exploring the sides of people who choose to live in a way opposite to how we were brought up, and can’t believe everyone around them is still following the rules. So it’s not escapism; it’s just fun to play something I wouldn’t allow or want myself to do in life. I’m glad everyone is not Harold Hill, but it’s great fun to play as arrogant as you possibly can for two and a half hours. Self-deprecating kind of gets boring after a while.How does the role feel six months into the show’s run?For me, this big show with a cast of 47 keeps growing. I’m in a lead role, but it doesn’t feel as exhausting as I’ve experienced [in other shows] in the past. I think it’s the way they built these old shows. I’m onstage a lot, and driving a lot of it, but it’s different: I go on at the beginning, sing the first number, and go off to have a costume change. I’m not a smoker, but it feels like a cigarette break, which I’m pretty sure is what a lot of them were doing back then.There are some days when I go in tired, but by the third scene: “Wow. I’m back.” There’s something about this show that buoys me up with an energy that I didn’t think I had. And when you’re working with Sutton —Has she taught you about stamina? She’s a star who puts in the work of a swing.She’s a marvel. I certainly have to bring my triple-A game. Asking me to tap dance alongside Sutton Foster is like asking me to play Novak Djokovic on the court. Rehearsals with her were fun, but it was kind of dispiriting to spend a year and a half working on that and then watch these kids come in and learn it in three hours.“I want them to still be kids and not lose that joy. I’m protective of them,” Jackman said of his young co-stars in the show.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesYou’d never worked with this many children onstage, let alone in a show with 21 Broadway debuts. Do you find yourself parenting them?It has become a little bit like that, particularly with the youngsters. I guess some of them see me as Wolverine [the superhero character he plays in the “X-Men” film series], so it feels a little paternal. I think, particularly for the kids in their first show, I want them to still be kids and not lose that joy. I’m protective of them.Did you feel a danger of losing your own joy during your rise?There were times when I was doing the first “X-Men,” my first big American movie, when I found it quite lonely. I was mainly from the theater, and you could feel that sense of, “Mmm, it’s a bad smell.” I don’t know exactly when things turned, but when the studio said they liked what I was doing, I could feel everyone coming to me. It made me sad. I realized film was more individual, less of an ensemble. The theater thrives on, and has to have, a feeling of ensemble, or it dies. There’s just no way to get through rehearsals, or eight shows a week, unless you have each other’s backs.Tony Awards: The Best New Musical NomineesCard 1 of 7The 2022 nominees. More

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      Review: In ‘Who Killed My Father,’ an Inquest and an Indictment

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      Édouard Louis grew up scorned by his family for being gay. Now he sees homophobia as part of the portfolio of “humiliation by the ruling class.”It’s natural to wish harm on those who do harm. When “something heavy” falls on Eddy Bellegueule’s father at the factory where he works, leaving his back “broyé, écrasé” — “mangled, crushed” — it may seem a kind of justice. The father has, after all, left his son in approximately the same condition: mangled by homophobia and crushed by unrequited love.Or at least that’s how I felt after reading the takedowns of toxic masculinity, and of the French provincial culture that produced it, in two memoirs by the boy who grew up to be Édouard Louis. “The End of Eddy” details his harrowing childhood in Hallencourt, a village about 100 miles north of Paris, where his father fumed at his son’s femininity, his schoolmates beat and used him sexually, and even his mother used a gay slur to mock him. In “History of Violence” we learn that the capital city, for all its sophistication, offered little shelter from the same forces; after picking up a man on Christmas Eve, Louis writes, he was robbed and raped.But a third memoir, “Who Killed My Father,” implicitly asks readers, and now playgoers, to rethink who’s responsible and reassign the blame. Published in 2018, this one argues that homophobia — like racism, misogyny, transphobia and “all kinds of social and political oppression” — is not a personal failing but a cultural norm enforced by the state. Less a narrative than an indictment, it also brings the receipts.I don’t know that the one-man stage adaptation of “Who Killed My Father” that opened on Sunday at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn — a production of Berlin’s Schaubühne and Théâtre de la Ville in Paris — will ultimately persuade you, though. Directed by Thomas Ostermeier, and featuring Louis himself, it is too eager to show off its avant-garde chic to maintain the prosecutorial force of the narrowly argumentative book.That makes for a strange brew, both riveting and soporific. First comes the soporific: When we enter the theater, Louis is already at a desk, uplit by a laptop, muttering as he types what is evidently this script. On a screen behind him, English translations of the French he speaks share space with grainy, moody imagery, often depicting a ride on an endless, misty highway.At first you may fear that the entire 90-minute play will resemble that ride, and if you saw Ostermeier’s excellent production of “History of Violence,” which St. Ann’s presented in 2019, you will recognize his bag of alienation tricks. Microphones, music, videography and random movement — Louis darts from the desk to two other areas of the stage as he recites — are used not merely to break the audience of lazy theatergoing expectations but also to delay gratification so that it’s richer when it arrives.Yet there’s something to be said for those lazy expectations, including a desire for pleasure even in unpleasant things. Ostermeier gives us tiny appetizers in the form of interstitial dance breaks, when Louis, between heady sections of text, dons a wig or pulls a skirt over his pants to lip-sync the songs he loved as a boy. If “My Heart Will Go On,” “ … Baby One More Time” and Aqua’s “Barbie Girl” once enraged his parents, they now signify a kind of liberation. And Louis makes a delightful Celine Dion.His father is granted no such liberation. After the accident, his life collapsed; unable to work, and yet forced to work anyway to maintain access to welfare, his health deteriorated drastically. By 2017, when the story is set, his heart “doesn’t want to beat anymore.” He is just past 50 and even speaking exhausts him.Louis occasionally curls up in a recliner, meant to represent his absent father.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesNot that we hear him speak, of course; this being a solo act, whatever the father says is refracted through the son — and again through the surtitles, if you’re not a Francophone. Indeed, one of the play’s cagey stratagems reduces the father further, to a piece of furniture: an empty recliner with a blue-check blanket, which Louis, now 29, occasionally talks to or curls up in. This representation of the longed-for parent is sweet but also somewhat creepy: He is deliberately kept out of the play.That was true of the book as well, but narration works differently onstage than in prose. In subsuming his father’s voice, Louis eliminates him. Is he, in effect, the killer of the title?In any case, it’s a complex Oedipal complex, and the play’s navel-gazing doesn’t help. Roughing it up with real instead of stagy difficulty eventually brings it to fuller life, as when Louis switches to English to tell us a story he says is too important not to share in the audience’s primary language. Whether because I simply understood him more directly, or because he, an otherwise indifferent actor, had to work harder to deliver the text, this passage was more thrilling than any that preceded it.Notably, the passage concerns vengeance. As we hear how young Eddy revealed a secret to his father that he’d sworn to his mother to keep forever — thus causing family havoc that delighted the boy — we begin to sense the shape of a larger argument. As Louis frames it, family is the template for, and the creature of, the state, with its brutal leadership, its sycophantic enablers, its goons and its subversives. If he got back at the Bellegueules in his previous works, he proceeds in this one to get back at France.I won’t say too much about how, except that in the final section of “Who Killed My Father” Louis offers specific answers, with detailed evidence, to the title question that is not even a question. Provided with magical powers for the occasion, along with a cape and a bowl of bang snaps, he creates a shrine to the country’s evildoers — the politicians of all stripes who made policies harming the poor and unwell — and, in a kind of childish exorcism, symbolically destroys them.However weird and stunning this is as a theatrical gesture, it left me confused about the play’s underpinnings. Having convincingly explained his father’s medical predicament as a result of anti-proletarian politics — “humiliation by the ruling class,” he calls it — Louis tries to connect his father’s homophobia to the same source.Here the logic becomes murky, and by the time Louis offers a formula connecting the two — “hatred of homosexuals equals poverty” — I felt he was doing anything he could to absolve his father of personal responsibility for his prejudices. And though it’s surely a son’s right to exonerate the man who helped ruin his childhood, those of us who took Louis’s earlier books to heart may not feel as forgiving.That’s the real drama here: Louis’s struggle to rationalize, within his politics, the irrational desire to forgive. Still, “Who Killed My Father” is a strange way to do it, especially if you know (as neither the book nor the play tells you) that his father, despite the title, is alive. Just not onstage.Who Killed My FatherThrough June 5 at St. Ann’s Warehouse, Brooklyn; stannswarehouse.org. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. More

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      Review: ‘Belfast Girls’ Set Sail, but This Isn’t a Pleasure Cruise

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      A historical drama revisits a 19th-century scheme in which Irish girls of “good character” were encouraged to immigrate to Australia.In 1850, it took about three months to travel to Australia from Ireland. Jaki McCarrick’s heartfelt, doubtful “Belfast Girls,” at the Irish Repertory Theater, sets sail with the Inchinnan, bedding down in a windowless cabin with several characters as part of a real-life resettlement plan then known as the Earl Grey Scheme or the Famine Orphan Scheme.A plan to relieve the pressure on Irish workhouses while supplying Australia with workers (and not incidentally, wives), the scheme promised to deliver skilled young women of good moral character. In two years, over 4,000 teenage girls and young women were transported. Few of these women were skilled, some weren’t young, some weren’t orphans and some were prostitutes, which makes the claims to good character somewhat dubious, at least by 19th-century standards. But these young women were willing, with the promise of food and clothing — shifts, stockings, petticoats, two gowns — inducement enough for them to make the crossing and then to face the anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic prejudice that greeted them on arrival.McCarrick’s play, directed with sympathy and occasional silliness by Nicola Murphy, introduces us to five of these women: the tough Judith, a Belfast girl by way of Jamaica (Caroline Strange); the sly Sarah Jane (Sarah Street), a country girl; “Fat Hannah” (Mary Mallen); “Stupid Ellen” (Labhaoise Magee); and the bookish Molly (Aida Leventaki). Each has a secret, or several secrets, some more terrible than others, and in the way of plays like this, all will be revealed before the ship docks.McCarrick does some adept character development and gives the actresses plenty to work with — too much, at times. And the performers are eager, with Mallen and Magee finding moments of nuance even in smaller roles. If Strange finds less texture, she’s a forceful performer and one to keep an eye on. Still the play’s first half, with its focus on circumstance and environment, tends more toward the novelistic than the theatrical. Only in the second act do the dynamics of character and dialogue drive the story, which briefly slides toward melodrama.Like the 1970s and ’80s dramas of David Hare, Caryl Churchill and Howard Brenton, as well as McCarrick’s Irish counterpart, Brian Friel, “Belfast Girls” resembles a state of the nation play, which uses a historical moment to think through larger themes, here how a country treats its most oppressed and least enfranchised citizens.While McCarrick has clearly researched the famine that preceded and encouraged the scheme, “Belfast Girls” only rarely emerges as a convincing portrait of the mid 19th-century. The characters, with their insistence on self-determination, feel too modern, and there are a few infelicities, like the idea that “The Communist Manifesto,” first translated into English toward the end of 1850, would circulate onboard. And some of the dialogue rings anachronistic, as when Judith scolds Sarah Jane for her lack of fellow feeling.“Empathy it’s called,” Judith says. “That thing where ya break out of your own clannish mentality ta do somethin’ for someone else!”But these are momentary annoyances. The greater problem is that Murphy’s production is overly literal, hewing to realism when the script seems to suggest something more abstract. This keeps the play small and overheated, even though the cabin itself — the functional set is by Chika Shimizu and lit with economy by Michael O’Connor — doesn’t feel especially claustrophobic. Until the final moments, when the women stand on deck and contemplate their future, “Belfast Girls” never quite manages to reach out from its world into ours, which is what makes a drama like this feel essential. For a shipbound play, it only rarely raises anchor.Belfast GirlsThrough June 26 at Irish Repertory Theater, Manhattan; irishrep.org. Running time: 2 hours 10 minutes. More

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      What are the Rules About Vaping at Theatres in the UK

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      Watching a movie with friends is an entertaining and relaxing experience. Many add to this experience by sharing a vape while watching the screen. Many gatherings of young people include vaping, whether it’s a game night, movie night, or a party. This is just something fun that doesn’t require any effort or attention and improves the vibe of the place.

      While you have the freedom to vape whenever you want in your house, it’s not the same in public places. There is no blanket ban on vaping in most places, but it is frowned upon.

      For example, it’s unlikely anyone will ask you to stop vaping in a pub, but this might not be the same in restaurants.

      No Theatre Allows Vaping.

      Theatres are a great source of entertainment and people wouldn’t be wrong to want to vape while watching a movie on a big screen. However, no theatre in the UK allows vaping indoors.

      While many people like the smoke and smell of the vapes, not everyone shares the same taste. Even if they were to enjoy the vibe, one wouldn’t want their kids to be influenced by it. If you are vaping around kids in the theatre, it’s likely they would want to do the same.

      There is also talk about how the smoke can worsen the quality of air indoors and that it contains particles of nicotine. This means we can’t blame them if they don’t want vapes around them when sitting in a closed hall. If you want to enjoy a movie while vaping, you should look for a small local theatre that might not have any specific rules.

      Another option, which can be pretty expensive, is to get a home theatre. You will need to buy a big LCD and some good speakers. With the right setup, it can provide a better experience than the theatre.

      Follow the Etiquette.

      Just because you love vaping doesn’t mean that everyone shares the same sentiment. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and they have the freedom to choose their lifestyle. This world is just as much theirs as it is yours.

      If you want to do something that is still a little controversial, and rightfully to some extent, you should be one compromising instead of asking others to live with it.

      You should learn about the etiquettes of vaping indoors and follow them to the best of your ability. Respect others and educate yourself. If someone asks what you are doing or tells you how harmful it is for you and them, stay polite and answer them with facts. This way, they might become more open-minded.

      On the other hand, if you are to misbehave, they will associate this behaviour with vaping and vapers. It will only add to the superstitions and controversies already surrounding the vaping community.

      Vaping is Considered Almost The Same as Smoking

      Many people can’t differentiate between vaping and smoking. Some even consider it worse.

      This is one of the biggest reasons why many people have to avoid vaping in public. While it isn’t something a kid should do, many unjust negative stereotypes have been associated with it.

      The government hasn’t imposed any law on where you can’t vape. It’s the rules created by individual business owners. If we don’t follow their rules while on their property, they have the right to ask us to leave.

      If you are to find yourself in such a situation, it’s best to stay polite and adhere to their rules. If they are providing a good service, you have nothing to complain about. They create these rules to please the majority. If vapers were in the majority, they probably wouldn’t have these rules in the first place. More

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      Kenneth Welsh, Memorable as a Villain on ‘Twin Peaks,’ Dies at 80

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      In a long career onstage (including Broadway), in movies and on television, he ranged across genres, from sketch comedy to science fiction.Kenneth Welsh, a prolific Canadian stage and screen actor who was best known for his portrayal of the murderous, unhinged villain Windom Earle on the hit early-1990s television series “Twin Peaks,” died on May 5 at his home in Sanford, Ontario. He was 80.His longtime agent, Pam Winter, said the cause was cancer.Mr. Welsh appeared in 10 episodes of “Twin Peaks” in its second season, playing Earle, the vengeful, maniacal adversary and former F.B.I. partner of the protagonist, Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan).The series, created by David Lynch and Mark Frost, follows Cooper as he investigates the murder of the high school student Laura Palmer in the seemingly sleepy town of Twin Peaks, Wash.Earle featured in some of the darker, more sadistic scenes and story lines in a series that was known for bending genres, mixing horror and surrealism with soapy and sometimes comic elements.In the years following its cancellation by ABC in 1991 and its cliffhanger ending, “Twin Peaks” developed a cult following and spawned a prequel film, “Fire Walk With Me” (1992) and returned for limited-series that premiered on Showtime in 2017. Welsh’s character did not appear in either project.Mr. Welsh was cast in the role after visiting the set in Washington State and meeting with Robert Engels, one of the show’s producers, and Mr. Frost.Mr. Engels “knew that I was a little eccentric, and he knew that as an actor I would go this way and that way,” Mr. Welsh said in an interview for the entertainment website 25YL, adding: “He just kind of knew that I was crazy and that I was perfect for Windom. I guess?”Mr. Welsh said it was he who successfully pitched the idea of having Earle wear different disguises as he stalked Cooper and various other characters.Mr. Welsh and Stockard Channing in the 1997 Lincoln Center production of Lillian Hellman’s “The Little Foxes” at the Vivian Beaumont Theater.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesMr. Welsh thrived playing off-kilter characters, like Larry Loomis, the Sovereign Protector of the Order of the Lynx, a dying fraternal order at the center of “Lodge 49,” a short-lived comedy-drama series seen on AMC in 2018 and 2019.But in his more than 240 movie and television roles, he ranged widely across genres, including sketch comedy (Amazon’s recent revival of “The Kids in the Hall”), science fiction (“Star Trek: Discovery” in 2020), family fare (“Eloise at the Plaza,” a 2003 Disney TV movie) and historical dramas; he played President Harry S. Truman twice, in the television movies “Hiroshima” (1995) and “Haven” (2001), and Thomas Edison in the 1998 TV movie “Edison: The Wizard of Light,” for which he received an Emmy nomination.His notable film notable roles included the vice president of the United States in Roland Emmerich’s “The Day After Tomorrow” (2004), about the onset of an ecological catastrophe, and the father of Katharine Hepburn (played by Cate Blanchett) in Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-winning “The Aviator” (2004).Mr. Welsh won five Canadian Screen Awards, four for his television work and one for his supporting role in the 1995 film “Margaret’s Museum,” a drama set in a coal-mining town on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. In 2003 he was named a member of the Order of Canada.Kenneth Welsh was born on March 30, 1942, in Edmonton, Alberta, to Clifford and Lillian (Sawchuk) Welsh. His father worked for the Canadian National Railway for more than 35 years, and his mother worked at a dress shop.Kenneth was the inaugural class president at Bonnie Doon Composite High School in Edmonton. He attended the University of Alberta, where he majored in drama, and then the National Theater School of Canada, graduating in 1965.He went on to rack up many credits on the stage, including, early on, in Shakespearean productions at the Stratford Festival in Ontario. Notably, he starred with Kathy Bates in the original Off Broadway production of “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair De Lune” in 1987 and was seen on Broadway in Tom Stoppard’s “The Real Thing” (1984), directed by Mike Nichols, and at Lincoln Center in a production of Lillian Hellman’s “The Little Foxes” (1997), with Glenn Close.His last stage performance was in Dylan Thomas’s “Under Milk Wood” at the Coal Mine Theater in Toronto in 2021.Drawing on his encyclopedic memory of Shakespeare’s works, Mr. Welsh was a creator, with the composer Ray Leslee, of “Stand Up Shakespeare,” a “motley musical,” as it billed itself, that opened Off Broadway in 1987. The production, also directed by Mr. Nichols, involved audience members, who would suggest Shakespeare characters, scenes or plays for Mr. Welsh to recite from memory. In the following decades he would sporadically revive “Stand Up Shakespeare” as a signature piece in various locations in the United States and Canada.Mr. Welsh, right in a 2007 episode of the science fiction series “Stargate: Atlantis” with, from left, Joe Flanigan and David Hewlett. He ranged widely across genres in his long career.Sci Fi ChannelMr. Welsh’s marriages to Corinne Farago and Donna Haley ended in divorce. He is survived by his wife, Lynne McIlvride, a visual artist, and a son, Devon, a musician, from his first marriage.In the final phase of his career, Mr. Welsh shifted his attention to independent projects and young filmmakers. His last film was “Midnight at the Paradise,” a drama directed by Vanessa Matsui, now in postproduction. Alongside Alan Hawco and Liane Balaban, he played the key supporting role of a movie critic nearing the end of his life.On set, Ms. Matsui said, Mr. Welsh captivated his colleagues.“He was always telling the cast and crew funny stories from his life, and he blew us all away with his performance and grace,” she said in an email. “I’ll never forget shooting this one scene with him and Allan Hawco, and you could hear a pin drop because the crew was just so drawn in by his performance. It was one of those special, intangible moments on set where you knew you just captured magic.” More

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      Interview: Delivering For Arcola Outside

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      Director Nico Rao Pimparé on Rainer

      Arcola Outside 1 – 18 June

      We’ve all heard of the gig economy, a labour market characterized by the prevalence of short-term contracts or freelance work as opposed to permanent jobs. It’s certainly not new, but it is something that is becoming more and more normal in today’s ever-changing society.

      One of the big drivers that has grown the gig economy is our desire to have everything delivered immediately. Not just your Amazon parcel, but takeaways and last minute groceries needed for tonight’s dinner. Which leads us nicely to Rainer, a new play coming to Arcola Theatre Outside in June. It’s about a solitary delivery rider called Rainer, the type you probably see passing you on the street all the time but never really think about once out of sight. The play followers Rainer as she cycles from job to job, creating stories in her head to help pass the time. But what happens when someone close disappears, and what effect does such a job have on someone’s mental health?

      We slipped on our lycra shorts, hopped on our bike and headed out to meet up with director, Nico Rao Pimparé to ask more about the play.

      What is it about Max Wilkinson’s writing that attracted you to direct Rainer?

      Max has a unique, poetic and witty approach to text. His plays are as funny and incisive as they are dramatic. Rainer is the story of a young woman who stands for thousands of Millenial Londoners who love the city, but cannot seem to find their place in it. When first reading the script, I felt that Max had captured a very real part of London, that I belong to, and that I never see in TV, film or theatre. His frenetic, non-realistic writing mirrors the cynicism, but also the exuberance of our generation. Its disjointed nature makes it all the more closer to life.

      The play feels as if it is going to be set very much on the streets, and Rainer will be doing a lot of cycling. How do you plan to portray this on a stage?

      Rainer (the name of our protagonist in Rainer), does indeed do a lot of cycling! But I might disappoint you here – we don’t actually have a bike on stage. The story focusses on Rainer’s emotional and mental journey, on her friends, her family, her boss, her therapist and her love life. You will feel like you have travelled from the grimiest streets to the most exclusive parties, to clubs, to parks, and to chicken shops.

      From reading the press release, the play feels a mix between a look at the loneliness of the job and a tale of a missing person, what is it we can really expect when we come to see the play?

      Expect to laugh, cry and be moved by Rainer. The play does not tell you what to think. It is not an academic study. It is simply the story of one woman, struggling to find a direction in life, sometimes struggling to keep on going, and yet finding the resilience and humour to persist. Rainer is much more than a delivery rider – her brazenness and her curious and satirical outlook on life paint an unexpected and rebellious portrait of London. Expect to fall in love with Rainer, and to hate her. I can’t tell you too much without spoilers, but I know for certain you’ll see something you’ve never seen before.

      She is a delivery rider, which Max has experience of doing as a job – have you discussed the job with him so you can get those small details into your directing?

      Of course. And so has our actor, Sorcha Kennedy. But the reality is that most of us, me included, have lived under the poverty line (currently set at £276/week) for many years. That’s the real issue. The mentality and outlook on life that comes with that kind of subsistence living, is the more nuanced and complex thing to look at. You can’t make it up. We have a twisted view of poverty in this country, we don’t realise how eclectic and varied the people who live below the poverty line are. I have lived in squats, eaten food out of bins, and preferred walking to taking the bus to save money. I won’t speak for others, but I can guarantee that that’s the norm in our industry, and for many young people currently living in London. There are too many depictions of Millennials in the culture that romanticise their mode of life, and not enough that give an honest and realistic picture of what their life is really like. Understanding that picture is what I have in common with Max, and what attracted me to this project in the first place.

      Do you have much contact with Max as you rehearse the play, or is their role as writer now done and you keep them at arm’s length? Are writers all different in how they get involved at this stage?

      Max and I do like to discuss and collaborate. This project was first born as a work-in-progress showing last October. The script has gone through many transformations, which I have read and given feedback on. Similarly, I’m keen to get Max’s opinion on my work – he’ll see a couple of run-throughs during rehearsals. But for the most part, he sticks to writing and I stick to directing!

      How are you planning to get Rainer’s daydreaming across to an audience?

      Through the magic of theatre! No – seriously, the whole piece is like a very long daydream. It is monologue, so it lets us into Rainer’s thoughts and lets her dream with her.  But I can’t tell you too much without revealing the plot. Sorry. You’ll have to come and see it!

      It’s probably safe to say delivery riders are almost invisible to most of us, out of our thoughts the moment they are out of sight. Has working on this play given you a new appreciation for them?

      Yes. And I think it does to most people who’ve worked on the play or seen it. The world of delivery drivers is fascinating – you can have anyone from a Colombian PhD student to a mother of three trying to make ends meet. And more broadly the play gives you an insight into the psychology and the intensity of the gig economy, and of what it is like to be young and broke in London.

      The play is going to be on at Arcola Outside – does this space feel appropriate in gicing the impression of being out on the streets of London?

      Yes – the space has been an amazing find for this play. The sights and sounds of London provide the backdrop for our play. Sometimes you won’t even be able to tell whether a sound is sound design or actually a helicopter flying overhead. Also – the sun sets over the course of the play, so you begin in broad day light and end in a much more intimate, dramatic environment. All of these are really very exciting challenges to work with. The play is about the city, and distinctly set in the city. It’s very appropriate. But don’t let the ‘outside’ space worry you too much – it is a gorgeous, covered and very cosy venue!

      Our thanks to Nico for taking time out of his day to chat with us.

      Rainer will play at Arcola Outside from 1 – 18 June. Further information and bookings can be found here. More

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      in Theater

      With the Volt Festival, the Playwright Karen Hartman Comes Home

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      59E59 Theaters is putting a spotlight on a midcareer artist whose work has seldom been seen locally.“I’m feeling a tremendous sense of visibility,” the playwright Karen Hartman said. “And it’s not when I expected to be visible.”Visible through a Zoom window, Hartman was speaking from her Brooklyn home the morning after the world premiere of her play “New Golden Age.” Just a few days before, two of her other plays, “The Lucky Star” and “Goldie, Max and Milk,” had celebrated their New York premieres, as part of Volt, a new festival from 59E59 Theaters. (All three productions are being presented simultaneously through June 12.)Hartman, 51, a playwright with a robust career in regional theater, described being chosen as the inaugural playwright for Volt as “transformative.” The festival, intended to run yearly, is meant to highlight a midcareer artist whose work has seldom been seen locally.“It was really important that the playwright not be a usual suspect,” said Val Day, the artistic director of 59E59, who dreamed up the festival. “It had to be somebody who was more widely produced in the regions, who had a fairly large canon of work, which deserved to have eyes on it in New York.”Claire Siebers, left, and Mahira Kakkar in “New Golden Age,” about two sisters fighting for in-person connections in a big tech dystopia.James LeynseHartman fit the bill. Raised in San Diego, she studied literature at Yale and then enrolled at the Yale School of Drama. Shortly after graduation, several theaters produced her play “Gum,” including New York’s WP Theater, then known as Women’s Project. Reviews were mixed, and while she soon became a regular in the regionals, subsequent New York productions proved rare. In one week, Volt, which Hartman described as a “three-night Hanukkah,” changed that.“It has transformed my own story about what has been going on with my work all these years,” she said.From left, Nina Hellman, Mike Shapiro, Alexandra Silber, Dale Soules, Skye Alyssa Friedman and Alexa Shae Niziak in “The Lucky Star,” which premiered in 2017 as “The Book of Joseph.”Carol Rosegg“The Lucky Star,” which premiered in 2017 as “The Book of Joseph” and is presented here by the Directors Company, animates a trove of real letters written by a Polish Jewish family in the early years of World War II to the one member who escaped to America. “Goldie, Max and Milk,” from 2014 and produced here by MBL Productions, describes the unlikely bond between a queer single mother and an Orthodox Jewish lactation consultant in Brooklyn. “New Golden Age,” produced by Primary Stages and structured like a Greek tragedy, imagines the dark consequences of an extremely online future as two sisters struggle to connect IRL.Day, who had intended to debut Volt in 2020, felt that these plays resonated even more after the theatrical shutdown. “All of her plays are about people desperately trying to connect with each other and the difficulty in doing that, which we all can relate to,” Day said.Hartman put it differently, with a touch of knowing irony.“There is a thread of grief that runs through all these plays,” Hartman said. “It’s not the sexiest sell.”In a spirited hourlong chat, Hartman discussed her career, her plays, what the festival means to her and what it might mean to other writers. “What this festival is going to do over time is create these questions in the minds of people: Who else is out there? Who should be seen in New York? That’s the power of it,” she said.Shayna Small, left, and Blair Baker in “Goldie, Max and Milk,” about an unlikely bond between two women.Carol RoseggThese are edited excerpts from the conversation.How did you become a playwright?This displaced New Yorker named Deborah Salzer started the California Young Playwrights Festival, an offshoot of the National Young Playwrights Festival. She started it when I was 14 years old. I acted in the first season. Then I was like, “Oh, I could write a play.” I wrote two plays in high school that were produced in this festival. I got kind of mainline drugged as a playwright very early.What were the questions that animated you back then?Honestly, I was a kid who liked acting. And when I went to pick scenes for girls, there just weren’t any. I felt like the roles really sucked. And it felt so small, trying to center myself in the girls that existed, that I actually just started writing for there to be parts to play. My first play was about mothers and daughters. My second play was about a girl who gets obsessed with Sylvia Plath.Not long after you finished grad school, regional theaters began to stage “Gum.” The Women’s Project staged it, too. What was that like?I felt very excited and kind of raw. It’s a vulnerable thing to write about anything personal. And that play is about policing the sexuality of girls and women in a violent way. I’d written that play very swiftly, in my last year of graduate school. But it had come out of some real-life people I had encountered when traveling in Egypt, so it was a thrilling level of potential responsibility.You went on to have a thriving career in regional theater, but you had far fewer productions in New York, though you live in New York.Most writers don’t get their plays done at all. And almost nothing I’ve written has gone unproduced. I’ve worked with amazing people and been asked onto incredible projects. But in this sense of the cultural conversation, New York is an amplifier. So if I’m a mission-driven person, and my mission is to amplify voices, especially those of girls and women, and I myself am not amplified, then I am not doing my job. Also my work almost always involves getting on a plane and living by myself in artist housing. This festival is the first time that my own community, my friends, my writers’ group, my colleagues can see my work. On a personal level, that matters tremendously.Why do you think your plays haven’t found a home here?Generally, the one narrow path from the early-career buzz that I was fortunate to enjoy with “Gum” toward a steady midcareer presence in New York is a rave in The Times. “Gum” did not get that rave. So my road has been longer, and further afield. The sense I got was, “We don’t know where to put you.” The stories I tell, which are stories that I think a lot of people want to see, are off base, but not in a particularly cool way, in a way that’s emotional. I live in emotion. That’s my home.What is it like having two New York premieres and one world premiere all at once?The companies are exquisite — the level of artistry, these directors. I’ve described the nitty-gritty of it as like having triplets. They were all in previews at exactly the same time. I called Lucy Thurber, who had this festival of her plays at Rattlestick. She’s the only person I knew who had gone through something like this. She was like, “Trust. And check in with every director every day.”What do you think unites these plays?They’re all plays about how our intimate bonds meet our political moments and meet the laws of our time, but in very radically different times and contexts. How do we become the people in the relationships that we have capacity for? And how do our times work with us and against us? I keep coming back to this question of how do we get the deep, deep closeness that we need. Or maybe I’m the only person who needs this. More