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      William Hurt, Oscar-Winning Leading Man of the 1980s, Dies at 71

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      A four-time Academy Award nominee, he starred in such films as “Body Heat,” “The Big Chill,” “Children of a Lesser God” and “Broadcast News.”William Hurt, who burst into stardom as the hapless lawyer Ned Racine in “Body Heat” and won an Oscar for best actor for “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” portraying a gay man sharing a Brazilian prison cell with a revolutionary, died at his home in Portland, Ore., on Sunday. He was 71.A son, Alexander Hurt, said the cause was complications of prostate cancer.Mr. Hurt, tall, blond and speaking in a measured cadence that lent a cerebral quality to his characters, was a leading man in some of the most popular films of the 1980s, including “The Big Chill” (1983), “Children of a Lesser God” (1986), “Broadcast News” (1987) and “The Accidental Tourist” (1988).In later years, Mr. Hurt transitioned from leading man to supporting roles, and was nominated for an Academy Award a fourth time for “A History of Violence” (2005).Janet Maslin wrote in The New York Times in 1985 of the “brilliant achievement” of Mr. Hurt and his co-star, Raul Julia, in “Kiss of the Spider Woman.”“Mr. Hurt won a well-deserved best actor award at the Cannes Film Festival for a performance that is crafty at first, carefully nurtured and finally stirring in profound, unanticipated ways,” she wrote. “What starts out as a campy, facetious catalog of Hollywood trivia becomes an extraordinarily moving film about manhood, heroism and love.”Despite his successes as a leading man in Hollywood, he told The Times in 1990 that “theater is a language I speak better or am more tuned into than English.”“Even one moment onstage is a glacier of comprehension,” he added. “That’s where the work is. And it’s as fascinating to study as any other science.”In a 2009 interview with The Times, he explained: “I don’t have to be the star, physically. My greatest offering is my concept. It isn’t my face.”His approach, he said, was to “basically try to make my body as much a matter of Silly Putty as I can, and in some sense sculpt that to be perfectly appropriate to themes and the metaphors that are in the play at hand.”A full obituary is being prepared.Christine Chung More

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      Radio Drama for a Podcast Age: How Amazon’s Audible Moved Into Theater

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      A company known for audiobooks is mounting starry live productions — and recording them, too.Elizabeth Marvel took off her shoes, stretched out her arms and started describing her horrible dreams. Ato Blankson-Wood offered thoughts on astrology. Bill Camp, cradling a guitar in his lap, asked if someone could go get coffee, while Jason Bowen adjusted his chair.Then, after a bit of banter about the sounds of snacking, the actors nimbly slipped into character, adapting the mien of the four troubled Tyrones in Eugene O’Neill’s Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning classic, “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.”With just a few performances left of their intimate, searing revival at the Minetta Lane Theater, a small Off Broadway house in Greenwich Village, they were now a half mile east, at the Cutting Room Studios, futzing with headsets and repositioning microphones as they recorded the production for the company that had underwritten it: Audible.The cast staged an abridged version of the classic play before live audiences at the Minetta Lane Theater, then recorded an audio version for distribution by Audible.Amir Hamja for The New York TimesIn a move that echoes the radio dramas of yore, and at a moment when audio is enjoying an unexpected boom, Audible, a subsidiary of Amazon, is making a bold push into theater.The company, which created its theater division just five years ago, has already released 93 audio theater works, and this month it added a theater tab to its app.Along the way, it has become a big player in the theater world: commissioning new work from 55 playwrights; presenting 25 shows in person at the Minetta Lane, which it is leasing; and becoming one of the most active commercial producers in the city. In 2020, Audible took on the entire season of the prestigious Williamstown Theater Festival, remotely rehearsing and recording all seven shows when the pandemic made it impossible to stage them in person.It also has producing credits on two Broadway shows, “Sea Wall/A Life” and “Latin History for Morons,” both of which the company also recorded and released on audio.The pace of production has been quickening — Audible released 24 theater works last year, up from nine in 2018 — and the complexity of its theater work is increasing, as the company becomes more technically sure-footed and more confident in its audience’s openness to multicharacter soundscapes.From “Coal Country”This documentary play, written by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen and with songs by Steve Earle, explores the 2010 Upper Big Branch mine disaster through the words of survivors and family members. The Public Theater presented the play in person prior to the pandemic; then Audible recorded and streamed it, and now Audible is producing a return in-person engagement at the Cherry Lane Theater.The Audible effort is a descendant of the old-fashioned radio drama, which began in the 1920s and featured work from playwrights including Samuel Beckett and Arthur Miller and directors such as Orson Welles. The form has continued to thrive in Britain, thanks largely to the BBC, but it faded in America after the mid-20th century, becoming a niche sustained by organizations including National Public Radio, which aired Earplay from the 1970s through the 1990s, and L.A. Theater Works, which has more than 600 audio titles in an expanding catalog featuring works by Dominique Morisseau and Tom Stoppard, as well as Miller and Ibsen.The pandemic renewed flirtation with the form: When theaters were closed to protect public health, many turned to audio, as well as video, to continue making work and reaching audiences. But Audible, which says it has subscribers in 175 countries who listened to 3.4 billion hours of audio last year, has the potential to have much further reach because of its huge base of subscribers, and the deep pockets of Amazon.“There’s a lot of audio drama being made by independent people for love, not money, but Audible is able to invest a lot more than independent productions are,” said Neil Verma, an assistant professor of sound studies at Northwestern University who has written about radio drama. “They have the opportunity to experiment, to attract more expensive talent if they want, and they also have the ability to distribute in a way that other entities don’t.”Audible has released plays in Spanish and Hindi, as well as in English. “Our theater titles have been listened to by millions globally,” said Kate Navin, the artistic producer of Audible’s theater division, which has five full-time employees. “We end up getting in front of a lot of people.”Verma said that one looming question is how long Audible will stay committed to theater. “They’re a tech company, so they try a lot of new things that survive or dissolve,” he said. “Radio drama has never been central to the mandate of any of the entities that have made it — it’s always been a side element of whatever the larger project is — so in that sense it’s always a little vulnerable.”Ato Blankson-Wood, the fourth member of the cast, as seen from the control room.Amir Hamja for The New York TimesHeadquartered in Newark, Audible was founded in 1995 by Don Katz, and was purchased by Amazon in 2008 for $300 million. Katz is an avid theatergoer, and Audible quickly turned to actors to voice audiobooks; then, when Audible started creating original content, Katz thought playwrights were better suited than screenwriters to crafting purely narrative stories. And he knew they could use the money.“There was always a purely aesthetic vision, and also a business idea that lives in parallel, which includes the fact that theater is without a really sophisticated electronic analog to supplement its existence,” he said. “Because we were able to have the person in the seat be multiplied, we could inject a new revenue stream into the world, and one that would go directly to writers and actors.”Katz hired Navin, a former theater agent, to run Audible’s theater division. To begin, the company announced that it would allocate $5 million to commission audio plays from emerging writers; since then it has commissioned plays from established ones as well.From “Evil Eye”“Evil Eye” is one of dozens of audio plays commissioned by Audible. Written by Madhuri Shekar, it is an epistolary dramedy about a woman determined to find a husband for her daughter. Amazon, which owns Audible, adapted the audio play for film.“I had seen firsthand how hard it was for playwrights to stay in theater,” Navin said. “So many playwrights were leaving for film and TV. I was struck that this might be an opportunity that would give them more options.”Audible’s initial audio-bound, in-person productions were starry solo shows, including “Harry Clarke,” featuring Billy Crudup, and “Girls & Boys,” featuring Carey Mulligan. But the Williamstown season forced a faster-than-expected reckoning with complexity — the slate of productions included “Chonburi International Hotel and Butterfly Club,” a 13-performer play, and “Row,” a new musical.Some of Audible’s offerings, like “Long Day’s Journey,” are recorded in studios; others, particularly comedies like Faith Salie’s “Approval Junkie,” are recorded before live audiences.During the pandemic, when theaters were closed, Audible’s theater division employed more than 300 artists, Navin said. Now, she said, it must figure out what role to play in a post-lockdown world. “We don’t want volume for the sake of volume,” Navin said.For now, the company has been upgrading its technology, outfitting the Minetta Lane for 3-D audio recording. And it is beginning to imagine whether it could produce a musical. “Interest is high,” Navin said. “But that’s a post-pandemic conversation.”After the actors recorded the play, sound effects would be added in post-production.Amir Hamja for The New York TimesJason Bowen, shown here, and Ato Blankson-Wood played Jamie and Edmund, the two sons in the Tyrone family.Amir Hamja for The New York TimesAudible is an unusual player in the theater world because it is not primarily a theater company. The company’s main source of revenue is from members who pay to listen to audio titles.That means box office revenue is not a make-or-break factor for Audible’s theater productions, which allows the company to do risky work, and, even more distinctively, to stage short-run productions, which in turn allows them to attract film and television stars who have limited time in their schedules. The economics of most commercial play productions generally require stars to commit to runs of at least 15 weeks; because Audible isn’t looking to recoup costs from ticket sales, it can accept fewer. “Long Day’s Journey,” for example, had planned only a six-week run, which was shortened to five when the start of performances was delayed by concerns about the Omicron variant.“They don’t need to make a profit off of everything they do,” said Oskar Eustis, the artistic director of the Public Theater. “What they need is for each project to elevate the brand, and that means they can look with a less bottom-line-driving frame at the works they create.”The “Long Day’s Journey” director, Robert O’Hara, was piped in to the recording session to give feedback. Amir Hamja for The New York TimesAnother upside: Artists are paid more for shows that are recorded as well as staged in person.“The pay is wonderful, and the reach is grand,” said Robert O’Hara, whose planned Williamstown production of “A Streetcar Named Desire” wound up being made for audio by Audible, and who went on to direct the “Long Day’s Journey” at the Minetta Lane and on audio.O’Hara, like other artists interviewed for this story, said Audible has been admirably hands-off. “I’m not getting dramaturgical notes from Audible,” he said. “They don’t have a take on ‘Long Day’s Journey.’ They allow the artists to be the artists.”His “Long Day’s Journey” staging, although backed by an audio company, had a number of striking visual moments, from its quiet opening to projections used onstage. “For me, audio was not the end destination,” he said. “Audio was the gravy on top. I was doing a stage production.”Marvel, who compared Audible to the Medicis, the historic Italian banking family associated with arts patronage, said the shorter run of an Audible production was a plus for her: “It’s a wonderful time model, where you’re not giving four to six months of your life to a play. It’s a reasonable amount of time to give, which, as an actor who is a parent and has to make income in other ways, is realistic and helpful.”There were other pluses. Marvel said she wanted to be part of trying new forms for theatrical storytelling. “We all have to look forward and just keep opening the iris for new ideas and new ways to work and new ways for people to access work,” she said.Marvel and O’Hara also both said that they weren’t sure other producers, either commercial or nonprofit, would have taken on the risk of the abbreviated, contemporary version of “Long Day’s Journey” that Marvel had long wanted to make. “I don’t think there’s another place I could have gone,” O’Hara said. “No one in their right mind would let me cut this play and modernize it.”Kate Navin, center, the head of Audible Theater, conferred with Erik Jensen, one of the writers of “Coal Country,” as that play, already recorded for audio, rehearsed for an in-person production at the Cherry Lane Theater.Amir Hamja for The New York Times“Long Day’s Journey,” with four actors and a rich soundscape, is being followed by a live production of “Coal Country,” the first show Audible is presenting in-person outside the Minetta Lane. The show is an eight-actor documentary play, with music written and performed by the singer-songwriter Steve Earle, about the Upper Big Branch mine disaster in West Virginia. It was first produced by the Public and opened in March 2020, but a week later the pandemic cut short the run.“It was heartbreaking for us,” Earle said. “It was four years of work, and we got it up and had great reviews and were selling out, and then we opened and closed.”While live performances were almost entirely shut down, Audible reassembled the cast and recorded the show, to the relief of its creators. “For us, it has always been incredibly important that this play be seen, heard and experienced outside of New York, and particularly in Appalachia,” said Jessica Blank, the production’s director. “Audible immediately made the play accessible to people who wouldn’t have had access to it otherwise.”Now Audible is presenting a second in-person run of the Public’s “Coal Country” production at the Cherry Lane Theater, through April 17. Earle, who moved to New York hoping to break into the theater business, and who is working on a musical adaptation of the film “Tender Mercies,” said he was relieved to have Audible’s support.“I have long experience with taking corporate money to make art, because I come from the record business,” he said. “Anything that makes theater available to everybody, I’m all for.” More

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      Oscar Rewind: When Rita Moreno Made History and Thanked No One

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      The actress explains why she gave one of the shortest Academy speeches ever when she became the first Latina to win an acting Oscar 60 years ago.It was the night that cemented her place in history, and Rita Moreno almost skipped it.In February 1962, Moreno, then 30, was in the Philippines, shooting “Cry of Battle” — a black-and-white World War II film in which she played the English-speaking leader of a band of Filipino fighters. So when she found out that she had been nominated for her first Academy Award — for best supporting actress for her performance as Anita in “West Side Story” — she took a moment to celebrate. And then, she got pragmatic.As a star of “Cry of Battle,” she would still be needed on set — 7,300 miles from the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, where that year’s Oscars ceremony would take place in April.“I was absolutely positive Judy Garland was going to win for ‘Judgment at Nuremberg,’” Moreno, now 90 and still vivacious and irreverent, said in a recent phone conversation from Carmel-by-the-Sea, Calif., where she was on a trip with her daughter.But then she won a Golden Globe — and had a change of heart. She bought an airplane ticket.“I flew into California thinking, ‘Hey, if there’s one iota of a chance that I may win, I need to be there,” said Moreno, who was up against Garland, Fay Bainter (“The Children’s Hour”), Lotte Lenya (“The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone”) and Una Merkel (“Summer and Smoke”).It didn’t hurt that the film she was nominated for — “West Side Story,” Robert Wise’s adaptation of the Broadway musical — was a hit both at the box office and among critics, or that it had racked up 11 nominations, including best picture. The New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther called it “a cinema masterpiece.”But leading up to the ceremony, Moreno was so pessimistic about her chances that she practiced her “loser face” and made up speeches about how “it was a lousy movie” and she “didn’t want it anyway.” But her heart wasn’t in it. She did want to win — badly.So on April 9, 1962, when Rock Hudson opened the envelope, paused, then read her name — making Moreno, who is Puerto Rican, the first Latina actress to win an Academy Award — her saucer-size eyes and open mouth said it all.Explore the 2022 Academy AwardsThe 94th Academy Awards will be held on March 27 in Los Angeles.A Makeover: On Oscar night, you can expect a refreshed, slimmer telecast and a few new awards. But are all of the tweaks a good thing?Best Actress Race: Who will win? There are cases to be made for and against each contender, and no one has an obvious advantage.A Hit: Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “Drive My Car” is the season’s unlikely Oscar smash. The director Bong Joon Ho is happy to discuss its success.  Making History: Troy Kotsur, who stars in “CODA” as a fisherman struggling to relate to his daughter, is the first deaf man to earn an Oscar nomination for acting. ‘Improbable Journey’: “Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom” was filmed on a shoestring budget in a remote Himalayan village. In a first for Bhutan, the movie is now an Oscar nominee.“I didn’t expect to win,” Moreno said, then added with a laugh, “No one who’s watched it can argue with that.”But as she walked to the stage in her Pitoy Moreno gown, with a voluminous black-and-gold skirt and black sleeveless top, open-mouthed every step of the way, she had just one thing on her mind. (Well, two: The first, she said, was “Don’t run; it’s not dignified.”)“I remember thinking very clearly, ‘Do not thank anyone,’” she said. “They didn’t give you the part as a favor. They were forced to give it to you because you did the best screen test.”She delivered one of the shortest acceptance speeches in Oscars history: “I can’t believe it! Good Lord! I leave you with that.” It lasted just seven seconds.“I ran out of anything to say once I decided I wasn’t going to say thank you,” she said. “And I’ve been trying to make up for it with long acceptance speeches ever since.”But offstage, her night was only getting started: After accepting the award from Hudson, she ran into Joan Crawford backstage, who was there to present the best actor award and, as Moreno put it, “drunk as a skunk on vodka.”“She hugged me so hard she covered my face entirely,” Moreno said. “She was built like a linebacker. And she’s hugging me and the photographer is saying ‘Miss Crawford, I can’t see your face. Would you please uncover your face?’”Backstage Moreno missed the night’s other most memorable bit of drama: A New York City cabdriver, upset that Bob Hope hadn’t been nominated for his role as a radio host in “The Big Broadcast of 1938,” sneaked in, climbed onstage and announced, “Ladies and gentleman, I’m the world’s greatest gate-crasher and I just came here to present Bob Hope with his 1938 trophy.”He promptly produced a homemade statuette.“Really?” Moreno said when told of the episode. “I don’t recall that at all! I must’ve won the Oscar just before that and been in the press room. That’s the only way I wouldn’t remember that. That’s unforgettable.”Moreno didn’t linger too long after her big win, as she had a 15-hour flight back to Manila the next day. Her early departure also meant she missed all the phone calls, flowers and telegrams that arrived for her in the United States. But a friend told her later that up and down El Barrio in New York — Latinos stuck their heads out their windows the moment Hudson announced Moreno’s name — and screamed.“I was deprived of all of that wonderfulness because I had to go back and make this [expletive] war movie in Manila,” she said.Our Reviews of the 10 Best-Picture Oscar NomineesCard 1 of 10“Belfast.” More

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      in Television

      Rupert Grint of ‘Harry Potter’ Gets His Own Glasses

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      The former child actor, who stars in the creepy drama “Servant,” shops at Moscot.Rupert Grint covered his left eye with his hand and attempted to read the top few lines. “E, D, F, C, E, F,” he said slowly.“Close!” said Marilyn Blumengold, a sales associate at Moscot, the eyewear shop on the Lower East Side.This was on a recent snowy afternoon. Mr. Grint, currently shooting the fourth season of the Apple TV+ horror drama “Servant,” had driven in for the weekend from his temporary home in Philadelphia to take in the sights and maybe also have his eyes checked. He had noticed a blur in the right one, he said.But Moscot, which has been in business for more than 100 years, didn’t have an optometrist on-site on Sundays, so Mr. Grint, 33, improvised his own test, standing about 20 feet away from an eye chart at the back of the store.“Almost 20/20,” Ms. Blumengold said encouragingly.Satisfied for the moment, Mr. Grint turned his attention to picking an eyeglass frame, moving through the store shyly, unassumingly, never asking for help, but also never declining it.“I’m a very private person, an introvert,” he said. He slouched through the store in a black Issey Miyake suit that a stylist had picked out for the outing. “Strange pajamas,” he called them. “Surprisingly, I think they look good.” His red hair flopped over the top of some frames.Mr. Grint seemed overwhelmed. “There’s just so much choice,” he said, as he surveyed the rows of display cases. He said it twice. “It’s quite ‘Harry Potter,’” he added without any prompting. “Like choosing a wand.”Mr. Grint stars in the “Servant,” alongside Lauren Ambrose, left, and Toby Kebbell. The show is in its third season.Apple TV+Mr. Grint should know. He starred as Ron Weasley in all eight “Harry Potter” films. (Ron’s wand? Willow. With a core of unicorn hair.) Ms. Blumengold may or may not have known that — at one point she steered him toward a pair of round black glasses, a $300 model called the Zolman, which looked very Harry-esque.“No,” Mr. Grint said politely.When the “Harry Potter” films ended, Mr. Grint was worried that he may not make it as an adult actor. He knew how to play Ron, Harry’s brave, anxious sidekick. He didn’t know if he could play anyone else. “I definitely did think, ‘Is it too late to pick something else?’” he said.He bought a pink-and-white ice cream van, which he drove back to his family home just north of London on his last day of shooting. He thought briefly that he could make a go of that.But after taking a year off, he tried acting again. He had been sent a lot of “Potter” adjacent material — more sidekicks — but he held on for edgier, more serious, more adult work. He took a part in a Jez Butterworth play, enjoying the discipline of theater, and starred in the Crackle crime dramedy “Snatch.”His most significant post-“Potter” role has been in M. Night Shyamalan’s “Servant,” a creepy drama on Apple TV+ about a Philadelphia couple who hire a nanny to care for a baby that is actually a therapy doll. (The real baby had died in an accident.) Mr. Grint plays Julian, the baby’s supercilious uncle. “It’s quite a difficult subject, especially if you’ve got a baby,” he said.Halfway through the series, in the spring of 2020, his partner, the actress Georgia Groome, gave birth to their daughter, Wednesday G. Grint. “Having a child midway through definitely made me understand what a loss that would be,” he said.Wednesday had made him into a bit of a hypochondriac, he added. (Working on a show in which terrible things happen to bodies in nearly every episode — self-harm, self-flagellation, being buried alive — probably hasn’t helped.)“That’s why I wanted to have an eye test,” he said. “I’m slowly becoming more aware that there’s lots of moving parts in the body.”This season’s finale airs on March 25, but Mr. Grint has already begun filming the show’s fourth and final season. And, no, he has no idea what the twist will be. “It’s quite a thrill to work that way.” (It must be. He has signed on for Mr. Shyamalan’s next film, “Knock at the Cabin.”)Ms. Blumengold started him off with a classic Moscot model, the Lemtosh, a brown acetate oval frame with a slight 1950s vibe. Many of the frames have Yiddish names, though “Lemtosh” just sounds like one. Mr. Grint looked confused as he squinted at himself in the mirror. “It changes your appearance,” he said. “It changes your personality.” Into what, he wasn’t sure. But he felt that he could already see a bit better.“Very nice,” Ms. Blumengold said. “Very handsome.”“I do struggle with making decisions,” Mr. Grint said, as he tried on a pair of sunglasses.Mark Sommerfeld for The New York TimesThen he tried on a dozen more acetate frames, toggling between rounder models including the Genug (Yiddish for “enough”) and Frankie, and rectangular ones like Kitzel (“tickle”) and Shindig, a retro unisex model. Most cost around $300.“I do struggle with making decisions,” he said. “It’s quite a responsibility, choosing.”After 40 minutes, he settled on the Yukel (“buffoon”) a clubmaster style with a thick tortoiseshell browline and a thinner gunmetal bottom.Ms. Blumengold created a customer profile and added it to his file, in case he does end up needing eyeglasses. He could always call in his eye test results and have the glasses made.But Mr. Grint didn’t want to leave empty-handed, so he set his sights on the sunglasses. After flirting with the Boychik (a term of endearment for a little boy), he turned back to the Lemtosh, this one in brown acetate frames and dark brown lens. After all, Mr. Grint is now a man.As he waited for Ms. Blumengold to box the glasses up, he popped outside for a quick vape hit. When he returned, she handed him a chamois cloth to clean them with. “This is your last Yiddish word for the day,” she said. “‘Shmatte,’ a rag.” More

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      An Exiled Theater With a Warning for Europe

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      The Belarus Free Theater’s members fled repression at home. The company’s latest show imagines a nightmare future of authoritarian Russian rule.LONDON — When the players of the Belarus Free Theater began working on “Dogs of Europe” three years ago, they thought it was a play about a dystopia.Set in 2049, it imagines the continent cut in half by a wall. On one side sits a Russian superstate, where a dictator has eliminated almost all opposition, and where people cannot speak their native languages or even perform folk dances. On the other side sits a Europe that failed to realize the Russian threat, or stop it from absorbing Belarus, Ukraine, the Baltic States and beyond.Yet at a rehearsal in London last month, the day before Russia invaded Ukraine, the play’s nightmare world didn’t feel so far-fetched.Maryna Yakubovich, an actor in the production, which opens Thursday at the Barbican theater in London, said that rehearsing the play had sometimes felt like a premonition. “It’s, like, ‘Oh my God, it’s started to happen,” she said.Nicolai Khalezin, left, and Natalia Kaliada, founders of the Belarus Free Theater.Jeremie Souteyrat for The New York TimesNatalia Kaliada, one of the Belarus Free Theater’s founders, said that when she and her husband, Nicolai Khalezin, decided to stage the play, they thought it would be a “warning shot” about the dangers of undemocratic leaders left unchecked. But planned performances in London and New York in 2020 were postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic. Now that warning shot appears to be too late.As the war in Ukraine enters its third week, the Belarus Free Theater’s performance may seem accidentally timely. But it is only the company’s latest attempt in its 17-year existence to warn about rising authoritarianism in Eastern Europe.The company knows those dangers all too well. Since forming in 2005, it has faced repression in Belarus, which is ruled by President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, who is known as “Europe’s last dictator” in part for his government’s clampdown on opposition and its stifling of free expression. The troupe has long been effectively banned from performing in Belarus, but it continued to do so in secret venues in Minsk, the capital, even after Kaliada and Khalezin were forced into exile more than a decade ago. The couple settled in London — where they developed close ties to theaters including the Young Vic and the Almeida — but continued rehearsing with actors in Belarus via Skype.Those clandestine shows, in venues including a converted car garage that once belonged to the American Embassy, also won the troupe high-profile supporters in the United States. In 2015, The New York Times’s chief theater critic, Ben Brantley, visited the company in Minsk, and praised its “spirit of defiant, exultant fraternity” adding that this was something “you rarely find among the young these days in money-driven, shockproof Manhattan.”A rehearsal of “Dogs of Europe” in London this month.Jeremie Souteyrat for The New York TimesNow, even that window to perform in Minsk has closed. The theater’s entire 16-member acting troupe fled Belarus last year to avoid potential jail time for opposing Lukashenko’s regime.The Belarus Free Theater was now homeless, Kaliada said. “We are refugees.”She added that she had hoped its members would be granted asylum in Britain, so they could set up a refugee-led theater there, but the process can take years and asylum applicants are almost always banned from working. After its four-performance run at the Barbican, the company would most likely set up base in Warsaw, a city with numerous refugees from both Belarus and Ukraine, Kaliada said, but added that a final decision had not yet been made.The company’s finances are precarious, Kaliada said, though she had a clear vision for the future. As well as finding a performance space, the company would establish a school where its members could give acting classes to refugee children, she said. All of its future plays would be live-streamed back to Belarus, so the company would keep reaching people there.“It’s a pretty tough time,” Kaliada said. “We’re trying to solve many issues at once.”The company’s experiences over the past two years show how quickly fortunes can change in Eastern Europe. In August 2020, Belarus — a country of some nine million people — looked on the verge of a turning point after Lukashenko declared victory in a vote widely dismissed as fraudulent, leading to mass street protests. It was a “beautiful, powerful,” moment, Kaliada said: It felt like her country was waking from a bad dream, she said.Then a brutal police crackdown against the protesters brought those hopes to an end.Sveta Sugako, left, the Belarus Free Theater’s production manager, and Nadia Brodskaya, its general manager.Jeremie Souteyrat for The New York TimesSeveral of the company’s actors were arrested during the period of repression around the election. Sveta Sugako, the company’s production manager, said she spent five days in prison in a tiny cell with 35 other women. None of them were given any food or drinking water for three days, she added. After Sugako refused to sign a confession saying she had taken part in the demonstrations, a police officer grabbed her and choked her, she said.Sugako said she had not wanted to leave Belarus, even after that experience. “I was ready to sit and wait in jail,” she said, but other Belarus Free Theater members persuaded her to go, pointing out that the company had no future if all of its actors were behind bars.Russia-Ukraine War: Key Things to KnowCard 1 of 4On the ground. More

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      in Television

      Samuel L. Jackson and Walter Mosley Team Up for a Sci-Fi Fable

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      In a joint interview, the actor and writer discuss “The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey,” their “fairy tale” about an old man negotiating dementia and family drama with the help of a wonder drug.Samuel L. Jackson made his name in the movies, Walter Mosley in literature. But when it was time for these two arts legends to collaborate, they knew television was the only medium that would work.“The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey,” a new limited series starring Jackson and written by Mosley, based on his 2010 novel, tells the story of an elderly Atlanta man with dementia and a family that wants his savings. Just when it looks like all Ptolemy has left is to count his remaining days, two people alter the course of his life. One is Robyn (Dominique Fishback), a teenage family friend who decides Ptolemy is worth taking care of. The other is a neurologist (Walton Goggins) working on a new drug that will bring back Ptolemy’s cognizance — but only for a short time, after which he’ll be worse off than ever (shades of the Daniel Keyes novel “Flowers for Algernon” and its film adaptation, “Charly”).In the series, Jackson’s title character reclaims his life with the help of a young caretaker played by Dominique Fishback.Hopper Stone/Apple TV+In his newfound lucidity, Ptolemy comes to terms with events and people from his past, including the one true love of his life, a beauty named Sensia (Cynthia Kaye McWilliams), and Coydog (Damon Gupton), a childhood mentor who left behind an unusual inheritance. As these figures come and go from his mind, Ptolemy also takes it upon himself to solve the murder of a beloved nephew (Omar Benson Miller), a task appropriate to Mosley’s bread-and-butter turf of crime fiction.Jackson and Mosley were also executive producers on the series, which premieres Friday on Apple TV+. The project was personal for both of them: Each has had loved ones who suffered from dementia. During a freewheeling video interview — Jackson was in London (where he’s filming the Marvel mini-series “Secret Invasion”), Mosley in Los Angeles — they discussed the fairy tale quality of “Ptolemy,” why television was the best option for the project, and how the story jumped across the country from Los Angeles to Atlanta, among other subjects. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.“It’s a fairy tale,” Jackson said of his new series. “In reality, there is no cure for Alzheimer’s or dementia, but we get one, however momentarily.”Erik Carter for The New York TimesWho is Ptolemy Grey?WALTER MOSLEY He’s all of us everywhere. This is a destination that either we reach ourselves in our own experience, or with people that we know and love and live with, as far as aging, dementia and death. These things impact everybody’s lives. It’s a great thing to have Sam taking it on and bringing it to a neighborhood that other people don’t seem to think about very much.SAMUEL L. JACKSON As based in reality as we want it to be, he’s actually at the center of a fable. He’s this mythical character that Walter created who has a real-life problem at the beginning, but Walter allows us to circle back and see a life well lived. It’s a fairy tale. In reality, there is no cure for Alzheimer’s or dementia, but we get one, however momentarily, that allows him to be clear about everything that’s happened in his life, in a flash.How does the series address the experience of dementia?MOSLEY A lot of people will see somebody who’s experiencing dementia or Alzheimer’s, and they think, ‘They’re crazy.’ But in reality, there’s something really going on in there, no matter how far gone they are. We allow an audience to identify not only with the character that Sam’s playing, but with our own lives. That was what the book meant to me, to be able to do that.JACKSON Those of us who have had to deal with that know that when those people are sitting there, they may not answer your questions or be present for what you want them to be present for, because they’re busy inhabiting something else that gives them solace in the lost space that they’re in, or that we think they’re in. But they may not be lost at all. They just don’t bother with what you are trying to put on.I talked to my mom when she had dementia and she’d be like, “You’re disturbing me. Stop asking me things that I’m supposed to know the answer to, or you think that I know the answer to, or that I don’t want to be engaged in right now.” When she wanted to engage, she engaged. So this story touched me in a real place.“This is a destination that either we reach ourselves in our own experience, or with people that we know and love and live with, as far as aging, dementia and death,” Mosley said.Erik Carter for The New York TimesAnd through the story, you get to invent a cure, albeit a temporary one.MOSLEY That’s the great thing about imaginative creativity. You look at Jules Verne: He’s the guy who invented the [electric] submarine, who invented the rocket to the moon. He invented all of this stuff in his imagination, and of course, it’s stuff we wanted. I was reading the newspaper yesterday, and they said umbilical cord stem cells have cured a woman of AIDS. This one woman is cured, and they did it from umbilical cord stem cells. If you put the possibility out there, lots of people are going to be thinking about it.Walter, you’ve worked in television quite a bit by now, including as an executive producer on the crime drama “Snowfall.” Sam, you have mostly stuck to movies. What made TV the right medium to tell the story of Ptolemy?MOSLEY Television has the potential to do some amazing things that are good for drama, good for actors, and good for an audience to be able to understand and identify with characters who have real arcs of change. We’re coming up on our final season of “Snowfall,” and we’re going to get to see how things are going to work out or fall apart. That’s what’s been fun.JACKSON There’s a great satisfaction for me to have a character development that allows an audience to go back and say, “OK, that’s where he started. Oh, that’s why he’s this guy. Oh, that’s why he treats women this way.” We watched movies for a very long time before we realized something like “Roots” could come along and be a mini-series. All of a sudden, boom, there’s “Roots,” and you go, “[expletive], that’s the way to tell the story.”The novel takes place in Los Angeles, but the series takes place in Atlanta. Why the move?JACKSON Georgia has better tax breaks.MOSLEY Yes, it wasn’t feasible to do it in L.A. First, we were going to go to Atlanta and try to make Atlanta look like L.A. But Atlanta doesn’t look like L.A.JACKSON There’s not one palm tree in Atlanta.Did setting the series in Atlanta add anything thematically?JACKSON There are certain elements of Atlanta that are historically indigenous to telling a story like this. Anybody who’s lived in any place that’s full of Black people will recognize this. How many white people are in this story? There’s the doctor, and the nurse. A lot of people are going to look at this and go, “Where are the white people?” You didn’t encounter them unless you had to when I was growing up in the South. In Atlanta, they had Black insurance companies, they had Black newspapers. Everything you needed, you could get in the Black community. You didn’t have to go outside of it.MOSLEY I really do think that all of those things are trace elements that impacted the making of the series, with the actors and the crew just being in Atlanta. We would tell the story anywhere we were, but making it in Atlanta was in itself an experience, and that experience had to impart some of its history to the series.Let’s talk a little about the collaboration between you two. Walter, why was it important to have Sam onboard for this?MOSLEY Sam is a great actor, but that’s just a very small part of the answer to your question. I wrote the book 13 years ago. Sam knew the book better than I did. He’d say, “No, no. Don’t you remember? You did this,” and I’d say, “Oh, yeah. OK.” He’s also an executive producer, and his commitment to the book and getting it made is why we got it made. When I was shopping it, people would say, “Sam Jackson doesn’t do television.” Well you’re right, but he’s going to do this. His commitment to it, his talent in doing it, his willingness to play a very different kind of role than he usually does and to make that work so beautifully — it was really great.Sam, what is it about Walter’s work that pulls you in?JACKSON Walter is a very feet-on-the-ground kind of guy that understands and knows his characters and knows the environment that those characters are in. Environment is very important when you’re a reader. I read a lot, two or three books at a time. Descriptions and character development are very important things, no matter what, and Walter has a command of those things that a lot of writers don’t. I read bad novels along with good ones, but I always know that I’m going to get something very satisfying when I’m reading a Walter Mosley book. More

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      in Movies

      Who Will Win This Year’s Wild Best Actress Race?

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      There are cases to be made for and against every contender, and no one has an obvious advantage in this upended season.The best actress category is doing the most.Without a strong front-runner to dominate the field, nearly every awards show is offering a different lineup of ladies as we hurtle toward the March 27 Oscar telecast. Will that make it hard to predict the ultimate winner? Yes, but I’m choosing to revel in the chaos.After all, the only actress who hit every notable awards precursor was the “House of Gucci” star Lady Gaga, who wasn’t even nominated for an Oscar. And while you’d normally look to this weekend’s BAFTA ceremony, the EE British Academy Film Awards, to offer some sort of clarity — as it did last year, when the organization picked the eventual Oscar winner, Frances McDormand for “Nomadland” — not a single one of BAFTA’s best actress nominees made the Oscar lineup this year.Like I said, chaos! But fluid races are often more fun, and each of the five Oscar nominees has some notable pluses and minuses that could keep us guessing until the very end. Here’s my rundown.Jessica Chastain, ‘The Eyes of Tammy Faye’The case for her: A big, prosthetics-laden performance in a biopic is exactly the sort of thing that awards voters tend to go for, but even Chastain seemed shocked when she prevailed over a tough field at last month’s Screen Actors Guild Awards. Another win in the best actress category at the Critics Choice Awards this Sunday could give her some serious momentum, and it doesn’t hurt that she recently starred in the HBO series “Scenes From a Marriage,” offering a prestige-TV display of her range that can help contextualize the work she did as the lavish-lashed evangelist Tammy Faye Bakker. Also, after two previous nominations, you could argue that she’s due for a win.The case against her: “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” came out all the way back in September and failed to make much of a splash with critics or moviegoers. And though that SAG victory gave Chastain a nice, televised bump, only one of the last three best actress winners there also prevailed with Oscar, suggesting a recent trend of academy members going their own way.Explore the 2022 Academy AwardsThe 94th Academy Awards will be held on March 27 in Los Angeles.A Makeover: On Oscar night, you can expect a refreshed, slimmer telecast and a few new awards. But are all of the tweaks a good thing?A Hit: Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “Drive My Car” is the season’s unlikely Oscar smash. The director Bong Joon Ho is happy to discuss its success.  Making History: Troy Kotsur, who stars in “CODA” as a fisherman struggling to relate to his daughter, is the first deaf man to earn an Oscar nomination for acting. ‘Improbable Journey’: “Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom” was filmed on a shoestring budget in a remote Himalayan village. In a first for Bhutan, the movie is now an Oscar nominee.Olivia Colman, ‘The Lost Daughter’The case for her: It isn’t easy to win a pair of best actress Oscars in short succession, but after Frances McDormand snagged two of the past four trophies in this race, why shouldn’t Colman add another to the Oscar she won for “The Favourite”? (I suspect she came very close to winning a best supporting actress Oscar last year for her sympathetic performance in “The Father,” and that will only raise her chances.) It helps, too, that she’s the only best actress candidate from a film with a screenplay that was also nominated — in fact, “The Lost Daughter,” about a conflicted mother, took the screenplay award and two more this past week at the Independent Spirit Awards, including the show-closing trophy for best film.The case against her: Despite all of that love from the Indie Spirits, Colman’s performance wasn’t even nominated by the group, and she was snubbed again by BAFTA even though British actors are ostensibly her main constituency. (I told you this best actress race was screwball!) Some Oscar voters simply aren’t sympathetic to her character’s doll-stealing arc, and there’s always the chance that her co-star Jessie Buckley’s presence in the supporting actress category might dilute Colman’s candidacy, since they play the same woman at different ages.Penélope Cruz, ‘Parallel Mothers’The case for her: The membership of the academy is growing ever more international, which probably helped Cruz leap into this lineup and may even push her toward a win. Sony Pictures Classics is handling “Parallel Mothers,” and Cruz’s late-breaking momentum recalls the studio’s “The Father,” which netted a lead-actor win for Anthony Hopkins last year after it peaked just as his competitors’ films began to fade. And in a field of polarizing performances, Cruz’s well-reviewed work offers a chic choice that Oscar voters can feel good about taking.The case against her: Cruz is the only actress on this list who was snubbed by SAG, BAFTA, the Golden Globes, and the Critics Choice Awards, and though it’s harder to score with those groups when you’re delivering a performance that’s not in English, that still leaves her with no real place to pop before the Oscars.Nicole Kidman, ‘Being the Ricardos’The case for her: Doesn’t Nicole Kidman seem like the sort of movie star who should have two Oscars by now? Her only win came almost 20 years ago, for “The Hours,” and when Colman and Cruz are also vying for a second statuette, Kidman could credibly claim that she’s been waiting the longest for her pair. Kidman’s “Ricardos” co-stars Javier Bardem and J.K. Simmons were nominated, too, suggesting that the academy’s sizable actors branch has real affection for the film. And of all of the best actress candidates who transformed themselves to play a real person, Kidman may have had the highest difficulty curve to overcome, since her character, Lucille Ball, was a once-in-a-lifetime comic genius.Our Reviews of the 10 Best-Picture Oscar NomineesCard 1 of 10“Belfast.” More

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      in Television

      Leslie Jones Gets Revved Up by Vinyl, Live Tweeting and ‘Euphoria’

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      Sometimes even Leslie Jones doesn’t want to be Leslie Jones. That’s why her new comedy series, “Our Flag Means Death,” checks all of the boxes.“I was in as soon as they said, ‘Black pirate,’” Leslie Jones recalled about the offer to play Spanish Jackie in the HBO Max series “Our Flag Means Death.”Even better, Jones — a three-time Emmy nominee during her five audacious years on “Saturday Night Live” and a provocative live-tweeter on everything from Zoom backgrounds to the Olympics — was being asked to leave behind what she called her “crazy, out-there personality.”“We are so happy that Leslie Jones is here, but we don’t want Leslie Jones right now,” the comedy’s creator, David Jenkins, told her, giving Jones the freedom to embrace her inner rogue.“Our Flag Means Death” sends up the historical partnership between Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby), an aristocrat turned pirate, and the legendary Blackbeard (Taika Waititi). The marauders first encounter each other in the Republic of Pirates, where Spanish Jackie, in a Prince-style get-up, is a fearsome bar owner with 19 husbands — and out for revenge for the death of the 20th, her favorite.“She came up hard, and she’s probably had to fight so many men and prove that she is the captain of her ship and the boss of her life,” Jones said. “I’m not saying Leslie don’t have a little of that in her, but Spanish Jackie embodies being a badass.”Jones will soon be transforming into another not-so-Jones character — Mrs. Claus — for an as-yet untitled Christmas movie expected in 2023.“Now, if Santa knows when you’ve been naughty and nice, you definitely know Mrs. Claus knows that, right?” Jones said while discussing her cultural appetite in a recent video call from Los Angeles. “If anything, she’s doing most of the work.”Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.1. Los Angeles Lifestyle I always was in L.A. before I went to New York to do “S.N.L.” But I don’t think I appreciated L.A. until I moved back, because New York is hardcore. If you stay there longer than two years, you’re going to get sinus infections. It’s terrible. I never thought of New York as a place to actually live, but people do. They love it, you know? L.A. is just more personal space, just the sunshine out here. I love how relaxed it is, because the last seven years have been hectic. It’s like a nice breath of fresh air.2. Vinyl Records My dad was a D.J. forever, and he used to collect albums. I think he had up to 2,000 albums and when he passed, I had to sell the collection because I had nowhere to keep it. I was broke at the time. So now I’m collecting a lot of albums back. I got my little private record player in my office. Then I got one for the house that I could play over the speaker. It’s been so fun to have people send me albums because when you see them again, you go, “Oh my God, I thought it was a dream.”3. The Olympics The Olympics were a very important thing [when I was growing up]. I remember us getting school time off. I remember people taking days off of work to support the Games and the athletes. I always loved it, especially the gymnastics and the figure skating. What it’s come to now is great and how beautiful it is. I’ve always thought that this is the one time that all countries put down whatever it is that they have against each other and just compete in the Games. It’s almost a moment of world peace to me. Of course, it’s not now, with the timing and everything. But I always loved it because you had a team to cheer for. It was like, “Yeah, our country! Yeah, U.S.A.!”4. Mental health accountability in sports This is what people need to understand: It’s not enough just to be physically fit for these Games. You have to be mentally fit for these Games. One doesn’t work without the other. And the pressure that is put on these athletes has to be enormous. The way that they attacked Simone Biles, I was ashamed of our country because, first of all, most of the people that complained were sitting on their fat asses on the couch. You’ll never do a cartwheel and you have the nerve to talk about someone and tell them that they let the country down? We have to start taking accountability that they are not actually superheroes. They do make it look like they’re superheroes, but they are humans.5. Live Tweeting It’s a blessing and a curse at the same time, because I’m going be honest with you — I didn’t actually think people were going to catch on to it. The first time I live-tweeted might have been “Breaking Bad.” It had already been off the air for about five years, but it was so good that I was like, “I’ve got to tell people about this.” So it really did start off as fun. Now it is a job. The politics [commentary] started during Covid and sitting on the couch watching TV, and I don’t think people were paying attention to their backgrounds. I was like, “Does she know she’s in front of — what the [expletive] is that?” I’m always trying to find a way to make people laugh when things are bad. It’s relief. That is what a comic’s job is. We’re jesters.6. “Euphoria” Oh my God, it’s just such a great show. It also proved to me I was a [expletive] nerd if that’s really what’s going on in high school. And I thank my parents because this is the worst version of “Charlie Brown” I have ever seen. What in the absolute hell is going on in that town?7. “Bel-Air,” the “Fresh Prince” reboot I got to go to the premiere of “Bel-Air,” and it is sensational the way they did that. TV in the ’80s and ’90s used to be kind of goofy. But behind some of these goofy shows were great plots. So they took the goofiness out of it and made it an actual dramatic story. I told Will Smith, “This is chef’s kiss.” The Fresh Prince on the basketball court wasn’t just some goofy scene of the ball hitting the dude’s head. People got shot. It was like, “Whoa, so that’s why your mama got so scared to send you to L.A.”8. Stand-up I’ve been a comedian since 1987. All those years of hustling, hustling, hustling to be famous. And then when you become famous, the one thing that you’re so good at is not something that you can just go do anymore, because you’re known as a different person. For a long time, people didn’t even know I was a stand-up — they just thought I came on “S.N.L.” And I was like, “Are you kidding me? That used to pay all my bills.” Doing stand-up in its purest form is still something I love, but it’s not something I always get to do now because it’s hard to go into the clubs. I’m not going in as Leslie the comic, “Hey, can I get a spot?” I’m going in as Leslie Jones, “She’s about to bump everybody off the list.”9. Brown Bag Lady Charity in Los Angeles Everybody should know about Jacqueline Norvell. She literally started out on a bicycle with a basket full of lunches that she would give to homeless people. And now it’s turned into a big thing where she goes out every day. Sunday, she does a whole meal. She brings barbers down. She brings beauticians down. She gets some coats. She’s doing this by herself. I mean, everybody thinks that they can solve homelessness. You are not going to solve it. You just really have to be kind and do what you can. She’s taking that to the next level.10. Bryan Buckley, the director of her Super Bowl commercial Usually those commercials are kind of tedious or annoying. People will be asking you for stuff that you just go, “You’re not going to use that.” He was the first guy that I was like, “Oh, this guy knows what he is doing.” He asked specifically for what he wanted, and it’s just like, “Bam!” I think he’s known to be one of the best Super Bowl commercial directors. I was like, “I hope the commercial turns out OK, because it was so easy to do.” Usually when it’s really, really hard and stuff happens, the project turns out beautifully. I was scared that it was so easy. More