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      Generational Divides Emerge Onstage in Germany

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      At newly reopened playhouses, once-legendary and younger directors take very different approaches to their mammoth productions.BERLIN — Theatergoers know what to expect from a Frank Castorf production. The director, who helped shape the last 30 years of German theater, favors a deconstructive approach to the classics, reams of dialogue barked like manifestoes and manic performances over a marathon running time.All these Castorf hallmarks — and others — are on display in “Fabian, or Going to the Dogs” at the Berliner Ensemble, but they can’t help but feel old hat, especially when viewed alongside premieres from some of Germany’s most distinctive young theater artists.Scheduled to premiere in spring 2020, but delayed by the pandemic, “Fabian,” at five hours, is roughly two hours shorter than initially expected. I’m glad that the director, who is 69, used the extra rehearsal time to trim some fat. Perhaps the former enfant terrible has mellowed with age.Castorf ran the Berlin Volksbühne for 25 years before being fired in 2017, and this is his third production at the Berliner Ensemble since. It was loosely inspired by Erich Kästner’s 1931 novel about Berlin’s infernally decadent tailspin in the years before the Nazi takeover, but aside from some period details in Aleksandar Denic’s intricate set, there is little Weimar flavor to the production.Instead, Castorf treats the audience to a grim parade of high-octane acting and complicated, often messy, stagecraft that doesn’t seem to refer to anything outside itself.In typical Castorf style, there’s an off-kilter stage that rotates nonstop and actors performing out of sight and captured live via video. The show also features many of the director’s signature props, including gallons of stage blood (for bathing) and potato salad (for dancing in).Probably many of the graying spectators seated in the theater saw Castorf’s revolutionary productions in their youth. But by this point, he’s gone from legend to relic. I found myself wondering (and not for the first time) if his once radical brand of deconstructive theater is now an aesthetic dead end.As often with his work, one detects a strong misogynistic undercurrent, with female characters brutalized or presented as sexually available objects of gratification. So it was refreshing to see the cast’s five actresses transcend their limited roles by giving self-assured performances, especially the Russian-born Margarita Breitkreiz, who projected a feverish intensity, and the young French actress Clara De Pin, who recited Baudelaire and crawled into the audience as part of her physically adroit, courageous performance.Castorf’s quarter-century tenure at the Volksbühne was without parallel in modern Berlin theater history, but Thomas Ostermeier’s 21-year reign as the head of the Schaubühne comes close. “Vernon Subutex 1” is this 52-year-old director’s 41st show at the theater, and it suggests that Ostermeier’s verve-filled productions, which place a more traditional emphasis on the author’s text and on acting, may also be losing their bite.Joachim Meyerhoff in Thomas Ostermeier’s “Vernon Subutex 1.”Thomas Aurin“Vernon” is drawn from the French author Virginie Despentes’s kaleidoscopic trilogy of novels about contemporary French society. Published between 2015 and 2017, the books quickly became a pop cultural phenomenon and earned the author comparisons to Balzac. They have inspired numerous stage adaptations and deserve to be better known in the United States, where the final volume was recently published.The cycle’s title character is a down-on-his-luck former record store owner who embarks on an odyssey through Paris after he is evicted from his apartment. The Schaubühne production is largely faithful to the structure of the novels, where a large cast of highly opinionated characters narrate the chapters in a dazzling merry-go-round of storytelling. But what’s so alive and fresh on the page falls flat here, especially given Ostermeier’s dutiful expository approach and the show’s four-hour length.Despite some inspired performances — particularly from Joachim Meyerhoff as Vernon and Stephanie Eidt as the ex-groupie Sylvie and the reputation-destroying Hyena — the hours drag by. An onstage band, fronted by Taylor Savvy, performs at the earsplitting volume typical of Broadway musicals and is unable to ignite the dramatic spark missing from the production.Like “Fabian’s,” “Vernon’s” premiere was repeatedly delayed by the pandemic. Finally onstage this summer, they arrived around the same time as plays by young German directors who have been reared on a steady diet of Castorf and Ostermeier.The first thing you notice about productions by Ersan Mondtag, one of this group, is their visual flair. He designs his own sets (and sometimes the costumes), which frequently recall German Expressionism or Pee-wee’s Playhouse, while his actors perform with the mannered rigor favored by Robert Wilson.Mondtag’s “wagner — der ring des nibelungen (a piece like fresh chopped eschenwood),” also at the Berliner Ensemble, is an irreverent reworking of Wagner’s “Ring” cycle, written by Thomas Köck with music by Max Andrzejewski.From left, Philine Schmölzer, Peter Luppa and Emma Lotta Wegner in Ersan Mondtag’s “wagner — der ring des nibelungen (a piece like fresh chopped eschenwood).”Birgit HupfeldSurprisingly, the music is one of the less exciting parts of the show, in which Wagner’s gods, dwarves and hapless humans cavort in an oversize kitchen. Or perhaps the set is a collective delusion created by Wotan, the head god, who keeps everyone confined to an asylum.Following the general contours of Wagner’s tetralogy, Köck’s version seems inspired by “Rein Gold,” the Austrian Nobel Prize-winner Elfriede Jelinek’s Marxist deconstruction of the “Ring.” Köck also puts an environmental gloss on the epic, while interrogating the nature of myth and history.Like “Fabian” and “Vernon Subutex,” this production lasts more than four hours. And though it does drag here and there, it never did when Stefanie Reinsperger’s Brünnhilde or Corinna Kirchhoff’s Wotan was onstage.In late June, Mondtag had three new shows running in Berlin, including his first dance piece, “Joy of Life.” Next season, he is scheduled to make his debut at Deutsche Oper Berlin with a staging of Rued Langgaard’s “Antikrist.”Like Mondtag, Pinar Karabulut, 34, is one of today’s most pointedly idiosyncratic young German theater directors.“The Leap From the Ivory Tower,” at the Münchner Kammerspiele in Munich, feels more mature than some of the director’s other recent productions. At two-and-a-half hours without intermission, it’s a fascinating deep dive into the life and wide-ranging work of the German writer Gisela Elsner, who committed suicide in 1992.Gro Swantje Kohlhof, left, in Pinar Karabulut’s “The Leap From the Ivory Tower.”Emma SzabóIn one striking scene, German children in a bombed-out city play at being concentration camp guards and prisoners. In another, former Nazis set out for a hunt in the Bavarian forest. Later, the writer finds herself attacked by a clueless West German TV anchor during a cringe-worthy interview.The show blends grotesque and unsettling humor with energetic performances and surreal touches. One of the few missteps is a film screened as part of the production about sad bourgeois couples engaging in orgies, the subject of Elsner’s novel “The Touch Ban.” Overlong and meandering, it recalls the sordid exuberance of the copious live video in “Fabian.”Nevertheless, there is something liberating about Karabulut and Mondtag that audiences here respond to. I’m convinced that we’ll be seeing more of their stylish aesthetic as the once avant-garde provocations of the past become nostalgia-laden chestnuts.Fabian, or Going to the Dogs. Directed by Frank Castorf. Berliner Ensemble.Vernon Subutex 1. Directed by Thomas Ostermeier. Berlin Schaubühne.“wagner — der ring des nibelungen (a piece like fresh chopped eschenwood).” Directed by Ersan Montag. Berliner Ensemble.The Leap From the Ivory Tower. Directed by Pınar Karabulut. Münchner Kammerspiele.All shows will return next season. More

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      Taylour Paige on ‘Zola,’ Grace and Being Kinder to Herself

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      For the stripper tale, the actress was mindful of the real Zola’s voice: “We’re in service of the bigger truth, the way we as Black women go through the world.”By her own estimate, Taylour Paige has about 48 voices inside her, at the ready for any situation.“I got an auntie voice, my educated, white-school voice, my high school,” she begins on a video call from Bulgaria, where she’s shooting “The Toxic Avenger.” Before she continues, one of those voices stops to clarify her statement. “When I say ‘white-educated,’ I’m not saying that being white is educated. I’m saying I went to a very white college. I was around a lot of white people, so that was a voice.” Then there was the voice observing her white friends doing wild things “where I’m like, ‘Oh, hell no. You white people are crazy.’”Code-switching — or “assimilating and survival,” as the actress described it — came in handy throughout her portrayal of the title character in “Zola,” the director Janicza Bravo’s new dramedy. In the film, inspired by the real-life Zola’s viral tweet thread, Paige plays a stripper who quickly vibes with Stefani, a white stripper (Riley Keough) with cornrows and a blaccent.“I think Zola was like, ‘OK cool, I got a new friend,’” Paige said. “‘She’s fun. We both hustle.’”But when Stefani whisks Zola to Florida to earn extra money dancing, things slip dangerously out of the latter’s control: there’s a sex-work scheme, an unhinged pimp (Colman Domingo) and other shady dealings. Zola navigates these increasingly chaotic circumstances while sharing her inner dialogue about how disturbing this all is.“I think, ultimately, the tragedy in this film is there’s a betrayal,” the actress said, referring to how Zola’s so-called friend has set her up.Paige, 30, is now known for her acting (her film credits include “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”) but growing up in Inglewood, Calif., she was a dancer under the tutelage of Debbie Allen, and later worked as a Los Angeles Laker Girl. She looks back on those years as a self-conscious young woman grappling with “generational self-loathing” with more compassion now. “Because I’ve given myself grace, I have a different availability to the roles that I always wanted. Before I was auditioning for my personality and auditioning for a role. So, everybody was lying.”Paige talked about “Zola” and how it helped her tap into her true identity. These are edited excerpts from our conversation.Paige with Riley Keough in “Zola.” The real Zola wasn’t “some ghetto buffoon that just went on Twitter,” Paige said. “She was very strategic.”Anna Kooris/A24Paige, center, appeared opposite Viola Davis and Dusan Brown in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.”David Lee/NetflixSince last year, you’ve appeared in several movies — “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” “Boogie” and now “Zola.” How does it feel to be a bona fide movie star?I’m still this human being trying to figure it out day by day. I’m trying to live my truth in my storytelling and in my life, my spirituality. There’s no stop and start to what I feel like I’m trying to learn as a human.When I hear “breakthrough,” it is like, “OK, but what’s expected of me? What’s expected of Black women?” I just want to be a bridge for what happens when you stay focused and patient and kind and tell the truth.Where does your spirituality come from?I’ve always been a seeker and a philosopher and a deep thinker. Like, “What am I doing here?” Since I was 5, I was very much thinking about death and my existence. My mom had me at almost 40, so it’s a completely different generation and very much fear-based thought. My own insecurities were projected onto me from my mom’s own self-loathing. I just wish I was kinder to myself sooner and I was able to distinguish which voice was mine. Seeing the way my mom asserted herself and lived [affected] me in a good way and a bad way. Because I thought, “Time is ticking, and I have to figure this out.” I’ve changed that fear to “Time is eternal, but what are you going to do with it?”Did playing Zola help you realize anything about how you previously moved around the world in your own body as a dancer?I’ve been dancing since I was really little. I loved it. But I got to an age where there’s pressure and I was tired. I wanted to stop. But I had a scholarship. My mom wouldn’t let me. Your butt all of a sudden is growing and you’re going through puberty, and you need to be super skinny like everybody else.Dance, as much as it was my escape from my home, would start to be something I resented. It started to feel like something I was doing for my mom or because some people thought I was good. I still was involved with Debbie Allen, but I stopped a little bit. With “Zola,” it’s like a return home to the innate ability of shaking that ass. It’s not so technical, so overthought. It’s like a Black girl getting down in her bedroom, but at a club. How do you get back to that without it needing to be perfect? I wanted to undo all that for her and for myself.Paige said she had “Laugh” tattooed on her arm. “When you’re laughing, you’re like, ‘I’m still alive, I’m still here.’”Chantal Anderson for The New York TimesDid you have any reservations about how your body would be seen on the screen?I was of course really nervous and scared. Zola is such a force and so comfortable and confident in her body, and I’ve been self-conscious but I have been ready to be like, “Enough with the self-hatred. I’m never going to be this age again. My body works, my heart beats without assistance, I got 10 fingers, 10 toes. I’m just over it.” So I use that.That’s how Zola moved through the world. We’ve talked about how she’s been scared. But she does it anyway because she’s a Black woman and the bills got to be paid. Nobody’s going to do it for you. Also, Janicza was super protective from the jump. Like, “We’re not going to see your boobs.” I was like, “Hey, if it’s the right storytelling.” We show murders and violence on TV. I don’t know what the big hoorah is around boobs and our natural bodies.It does fit into the film’s voyeurism. Zola engages viewers with pithy commentary as her shocking experience unfolds. What was it like telling this kind of story while inside of it?I knew that this movie existed as hyperbolic, that this was Janicza’s interpretation. I don’t mean “interpretation” in a condescending way. But when we are processing and observing something that happened to us, there’s multiple truths. It’s Zola’s interpretation of what happened to her, Janicza’s interpretation from Zola’s brilliant writing. You living through it is different than when you’ve had time to process it and put it on Twitter. So, it’s multiple things happening at once when you’re watching it.Janicza was super clear that I’m the straight man. She treated this like a play or a comedy: there’s a straight man, and there’s a buffoon. Riley is like the minstrel in blackface. I’m observing it, so we don’t need two buffoons for us to be able to take in this type of atmosphere and react to it. You’re watching it through my eyes. So, a lot of my acting in the movie, my dialogue, is in my head.Paige said the director Janicza Bravo was protective when it came to nudity. But the actress was willing to take a chance if it was right for the story: “I don’t know what the big hoorah is around boobs and our natural bodies.”Chantal Anderson for The New York TimesI imagine it puts some pressure on you to convey the multiple layers of the story in a way that is tongue-in-cheek yet critical at the same time.It was like, “Am I doing enough?” But I get that I’m serving Zola. I’m serving Black women. White women, Black women — it’s satirical, psychological. It’s the systems in place. It’s racism. It’s on a white body. But on a Black body, you don’t really believe her. Even when she’s being gentle and tender, you’re going to question if she’s telling the truth. We’re in service of the bigger truth, the way we as Black women go through the world and the [stuff] that’s put on us. That’s why I thought it was so brilliant, because it was protective of Zola’s voice. Zola isn’t some ghetto buffoon that just went on Twitter. She was very strategic and knew exactly what she was doing and saying.“Zola” is also funny at times. Black women often use humor to protect ourselves, process things. Because of your own experiences, was it easy for you to embrace the comedic moments?I find humor in the most mundane things. Most things, even when they’re bad, are pretty funny. Like, “Wow, life is outrageous. This is ghetto.” I have “Laugh” tattooed on my arm because, man, laugh often. When you’re laughing, you’re like, “I’m still alive, I’m still here.” More

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      Rita Moreno: Pathbreaker, Activist and ‘A Kick in the Pants’

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      The actress discusses being the subject of a new documentary, and spending eight-plus decades in the spotlight.Rita Moreno was all of 6 when she made her professional debut, duetting with her Spanish dance instructor on a stage in Greenwich Village. “I remember every detail,” she said. She wore a traditional, resplendently ruffled dress. “We danced a jota — that was a country dance. And we played castanets. My mom let me put on lipstick — I was so thrilled.” It was 1937.For the next eight-plus decades, Moreno, who will turn 90 in December, has found her way to the spotlight. And she is still dancing, as we see in the opening moments of a new documentary, “Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It,” which shows her kicking up her strappy heels at her own Cuba-themed birthday party.She also set up the party. “Boy, I hate doing this,” she says in the film, unwrapping silverware by the chafing dishes. “You can tell I’m not a real star, because somebody else would be doing this.”“That’s why you must never really believe anything about your fame,” she continues, with a curse. “It goes up and down.”Moreno, who is Puerto Rican by birth and Hollywood by steely determination, occupies a singular place in the cultural firmament. The joy, and the luck of it, is not lost on her. “I damn near peed my pants!” she told me, describing a rarefied moment in her career. (Irreverence keeps her afloat.) She is indisputably well-crowned: She had minted her EGOT status by 1977, including being the first Latina actress to win an Oscar, for her indelible turn as Anita in “West Side Story.” The trophies haven’t stopped piling up; if there were an EGOT for lifetime achievement awards — Kennedy Center Honors, Presidential Medal of Freedom — she would have earned that too.The actress is the subject of the documentary, “Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It.”Act III ProductionsThose accolades were largely for Moreno’s triple-threat talent. What has been less heralded is her depth as a pathbreaker — as a person of color, as a mother (and now grandmother), and as an irrepressible (sometimes ignitable) activist and personality.“She’s obviously an icon for all the noteworthy reasons — but she’s a kick in the pants too,” said Representative Jackie Speier, the California congresswoman and her friend of two decades.And as Moreno’s career propels forward — she will next be seen in Steven Spielberg’s remake of “West Side Story,” which she also executive produced — her unorthodox status only grows. There are few compatriots whose longevity stretches from before the studio era (Louis B. Mayer signed her to her first contract, calling her the “Spanish Elizabeth Taylor”) to reboots, the meme age and beyond.For Mariem Pérez Riera, the Puerto Rican filmmaker who directed the documentary, Moreno was foundational. “I’ve known about Rita since I’ve known about movies,” she said.On-screen and off, Moreno is the first to giddily admit that she loves attention. And she wields it expertly, with a burnished supply of boffo Showbiz stories and zingy one-liners, even if she sometimes forgets a word (at her age, “nouns and I have become mortal enemies” — that’s one of the zingers). The bellowing voice that welcomed a latchkey generation with “Hey you guys!” on “The Electric Company” is still supple enough to sing, pull off an accent, and toggle between profane and poetic; she narrated Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s memoir, at the justice’s request, and then they became friends. There is categorically no wilt in her game.“She really is a born performer,” said her daughter, Fernanda Gordon Fisher. “She doesn’t have to try at all, it just happens — that’s her substance, that’s what she needs. It feeds her soul, it feeds her energy.”Moreno, center, in the 1961 film “West Side Story.”United ArtistsAnd in Steven Spielberg’s 2021 version of the film.Niko Tavernise/20th Century StudiosStill, convincing Moreno to do the documentary took nearly a year. “I just didn’t know if I wanted to entrust anyone with my life,” she said. “Because if I was going to do this, I was prepared to be completely truthful.”During the yearlong production, she added, “That’s one of the things I remember reminding myself of: Rita, don’t try to charm the camera.”She agreed to be filmed without makeup — and even more reluctantly, without a wig. She gave the documentary team a key to her home in Berkeley, Calif., so they were there when she woke up, and followed along as she drove herself to the studio for “One Day at a Time,” the sitcom on which she starred as the scene-stealing Cuban grandmother. (Her grandson on the show was played by Pérez Riera’s son, and the documentary was the brainchild of Brent Miller, a producing partner of Norman Lear, the series’ creator.) More

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      Ilana Glazer on the Terror of the Modern Birth System and ‘False Positive’

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      The “Broad City” co-creator starred in and co-wrote a horror film about pregnancy. It’s being released just as she is becoming a mother.Ilana Glazer was trying without much success to think of movies devoted to the experience of conceiving and carrying a child.“There’s not a lot from the pregnant person’s point of view,” Glazer said. She pointed, for example, to “Knocked Up,” the 2007 comedy that starred Seth Rogen and Katherine Heigl, but that was told “from the inseminator’s perspective,” she said.There was “Rosemary’s Baby,” the 1968 thriller adapted by Roman Polanski, which fit the narrative bill but was still difficult to endorse. As Glazer succinctly summarized: “Great movie — not a great guy.”And the 1987 comedy “Three Men and a Baby” definitely didn’t make the cut. “How many men do we need to tell about how this baby got here?” Glazer exclaimed.The topic was especially personal for Glazer, a creator and star of the Comedy Central series “Broad City.” She was 36 weeks pregnant during this phone conversation in late May and apologetic for the fact that she was eating while she spoke.“I’m stuffing my face,” she said. “I have no choice. I’ve got to be eating this pita and dip right now.”Glazer with Justin Theroux in a scene from the film.Anna Kooris/HuluThe subject of childbirth is also of particular interest to Glazer because she is the star and co-writer of a new film, “False Positive,” that casts her as a woman whose efforts to have a child draw her into a nightmarish spiral of uncertainty and deceit. The movie, which is directed and co-written by John Lee, made its debut last week at the Tribeca Film Festival and was released by Hulu on June 25.In reviews of the film, The Hollywood Reporter praised “False Positive” as a “juicy genre entry about how women’s reproductive systems are treated like coveted real estate,” and The Wrap called it a “smart, sharp shocker.”Glazer, 34, started working on “False Positive” long before she became pregnant, and while it is one of the most prominent projects she has appeared in since “Broad City” ended in 2019, it is by no means a comedy.It is an unapologetic work of body horror — one that begins with the image of Glazer’s character disoriented and awash in blood as she wanders the streets of New York. The provocations escalate from there.This onscreen version of Glazer is very different from the one audiences have grown accustomed to seeing — not happy-go-lucky, but frantic and fighting for her life — and writing and filming the movie tested her in ways that comedy had not entirely prepared her for.But Glazer said these efforts were necessary to tell a story about a modern childbirth process that she fears has become debased and commodified, particularly in the United States — fears she had held well before she became acquainted with it firsthand.“I’m really obsessed with how in-plain-sight evil the system that we live in is,” she said. “It’s absurd and it’s funny, even though it’s horrible, the way we are stripped of our humanity. Everyone is gaslit into thinking it is normal.”Glazer wanted to tell a story about the modern birth process and how it has become commodified: “Everyone is gaslit into thinking it is normal.”Justin J Wee for The New York TimesGlazer and Lee started working together when Lee, a creator of subversive TV comedies like “Wonder Showzen” and “Xavier: Renegade Angel,” was hired to direct episodes of “Broad City” beginning with its first season in 2014.They bonded over a shared worldview and talked about their work outside the show, including an amorphous narrative piece that Lee was writing with the author and TV creator Alissa Nutting (“Made for Love”).Lee, who described that piece as a “tone poem,” said that it drew inspiration from tragic events in his life: his wife and frequent collaborator, Alyson Levy, had had a miscarriage and his father had died. More

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      Christian Slater Is a Still-Life Artist

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      The former teen idol actor talks about his career comeback, being a father again and sketching his wife.John Varriano, an instructor at the Art Students League, stood behind Christian Slater’s easel, studying the lines that the 51-year-old actor had sketched. “You have chops, man,” Mr. Varriano said. “You have got to keep practicing, man.”On a steamy June morning, Mr. Slater, spruce in a white denim jacket, black slacks and green sneakers, had arrived at the art school’s home in Midtown Manhattan for a still-life tutorial.A movie star from the 1980s and ’90s — “Heathers,” “True Romance,” “Pump Up the Volume” — Mr. Slater now wears glasses and his stubble has gone gray. Behind those glasses, his eyes still have that signature twinkle — a twinkle like a floodlight — that made him crush material for misunderstood girls everywhere. When he chatted with Mr. Varriano about New York City in the 1970s or Matisse’s paper cuts, that daredevil grin surfaced, too.Back when he lived in New York, Mr. Slater wandered into the art school for the occasional drawing class. He began to pursue visual art more seriously a few years ago, at the suggestion of his wife, Brittany Lopez, who signed him up for art classes (watercolors and pastels) at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, near their Miami home.“I was in between jobs and my wife was like, ‘You’ve got to do something,’” Mr. Slater said, his voice like finely milled gravel. “And I loved it. It’s great. It’s definitely meditative and relaxing.” He has to do something creative on a regular basis, he said, “or else I’ll lose my mind.”Mr. Slater never quite lost his mind, between jobs or during them, but he did have a wobbly decade or two, when the bad-boy roles he booked bled into his daily life. “You travel down certain roads,” he said. “And you realize that maybe those aren’t the roads that you want to continue to travel.”Victor Llorente for The New York TimesVictor Llorente for The New York TimesSo Mr. Slater chose other ones. He got sober 16 years ago. (When Mr. Varriano offered beer, at 11 a.m., Mr. Slater politely declined, asking for a water.) He divorced and remarried and again became a father. After years of taking whatever parts he could get (“I was working a lot but, spending a lot of time in places like Bulgaria,” he said), he is now experiencing something of a career Renaissance, thanks to his Golden Globe-winning turn on “Mr. Robot.”“I’m at a place of such utter gratitude to have people interested in hiring me again,” he said.For his latest project, he has traded a bad-boy role for a good-guy one in “Dr. Death,” a limited series on Peacock based on a true-crime podcast. Mr. Slater stars as Randall Kirby, a vascular surgeon who drives a sports car, loves opera and wears flashy surgical wraps. When he discovers that a neurosurgeon, Christopher Duntsch (Joshua Jackson), has maimed several patients, he fights to expose him.“It’s definitely not the type of character that I would typically play,” Mr. Slater said. “Like, typically, I would be Dr. Death, right? I would be the killer.” But Randall Kirby, who is quirky and ethical, is the type of character he gravitates toward now.In the paint-scarred studio, Mr. Varriano presented various options for a still life. “The flowers maybe?” Mr. Slater said, pointing at a bouquet. “Give that a go?”After arranging the flowers atop a wooden block, Mr. Varriano added a curly-haired bust to the tableau and handed Mr. Slater an assortment of charcoal sticks.“This charcoal’s nice,” Mr. Slater said.“See,” Mr. Varriano said, proudly. “He knows his stuff!”With a swooping motion, Mr. Slater laid down his first line. “That’s it,” Mr. Varriano said. “The first one is always the hardest. Well, actually the second, third, fourth and fifth are equally hard.”Victor Llorente for The New York TimesHe observed that Mr. Slater drew with his left hand (“A southpaw, I wouldn’t box him”) and gently encouraged him to rethink a few angles. Then he stepped back. “I’m not saying a word,” Mr. Varriano said. “No, no, just roll, man. Just keep rolling. Make believe no one’s in the room.”Mr. Slater laughed. “Draw like nobody’s watching,” he said, smudging a line with his middle finger.Mr. Slater sketched for 10 minutes or so. He adjusted the angles of the block and made a first pass at the spherical shape of the head. He then took a break to show Mr. Varriano some of his early work. He pulled out his phone to show his version of Matisse’s “Bather” rendered in blue painter’s tape, then Michelangelo’s “Pieta” drawn with pencils, and a sketch of his wife in charcoal. “She hates this one, he said.­Mr. Varriano didn’t. “That’s actually really good,” he said. “I’m not just saying that. I can understand why she wouldn’t like it. But so what?”The phone disappeared back into a pocket, and Mr. Slate returned his focus to the bust. The head began to take shape, the brow ridge, the nose, the ears, the curls. He drew with quick, precise strokes, squinting, chin thrust forward, a half-smile ghosting his face.“I’m wiping and drawing and having a grand old time,” he said. He added that he was renovating an apartment nearby, “so I can start to come more often.”Mr. Varriano approved. “You’ll go down the rabbit hole like the rest of us,” he said cheerfully. “You’ll ruin your life.”Mr. Slater thought that was a fine idea. The hour zipped past. Mr. Slater never made it to the flowers. He seemed pleased with what he had accomplished, though he left his sketch clipped to the easel. Until the next time. More

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      Three Hollywood Stars Recast Their Lives Deep in the Heart of Texas

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      As the pandemic upended Tinseltown, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Haylie Duff and Becca Tobin made a pact to abandon Los Angeles and join the mass migration from California to Texas.During the blockbuster plot twist that was 2020, three Los Angeles-based actors and longtime friends wrote themselves a scene that was playing out in cities across the United States. Early into lockdown, Becca Tobin, best known for her role as Kitty Wilde on the Fox series “Glee,” formed a pandemic pod with her fellow actors Haylie Duff and Jamie-Lynn Sigler, gathering for regular backyard confabs about shifting priorities, family demands and their future in Hollywood.“We had been able to work from home successfully and set up our careers from anywhere,” Ms. Tobin said. “And we were all kind of ready for a change.”Ms. Tobin, 35, Ms. Duff, 36 and Ms. Sigler, 40, had all moved to Los Angeles in their 20s for work and, like so many others, spent much of 2020 wondering if they wanted to live somewhere else. Hollywood the town and Hollywood the job had been cleaved apart, with acting classes going online, self-tape auditions replacing in-person, and the offscreen demands of the job — red carpets, award shows, interviews — going virtual or extinct.“We found our conversations shifting more toward life,” said Ms. Sigler, who made her mark playing Meadow Soprano on “The Sopranos.” “And then we started to fantasize about what it would be like to live in different cities, and would we ever want to leave L. A.?”They were far from alone. For the first time in more than a century, California lost people last year, according to population estimates released by the state in May. Some of that was a result of Covid-19 deaths, falling birthrates and the Trump administration’s efforts to limit immigration. But for many, it was simply a matter of finding better prices in greener pastures.The three made a pact to relocate their “quaranteam,” leaving Hollywood together for a new city where they could keep working but enjoy a less hectic, and less expensive, life.“It reminded me of being in high school and being like, ‘You’re gonna go home tonight and shave your legs, right? Because I’m going to do it, too,’” Ms. Tobin said of the agreement. “Like adult peer pressure.”During the summer, Ms. Duff, the native Texan in the group, had visited her parents in Houston and felt the pull back home. The older sister of the actress Hilary Duff, she has been acting since she was a teenager and had always planned to move back to Texas eventually, and after the trip, she cut her family’s five-year plan to a five-month plan. As more friends relocated, there was “an energy around people choosing to make a change in their life, for a positive reason, for a self-care reason,” she said.The friends considered different cities they had heard of people moving to, like Nashville or Atlanta, but they kept coming back to Texas. “We liked the idea of being in a progressive city, but not necessarily something so overly populated,” Ms. Tobin said.The obvious choice was Austin, the booming southern crossroads of culture and technology, where they could more or less split the distance between Los Angeles and New York. It was a madcap move in the rush of a red-hot sellers market, a once-in-a-century chance to pause, then fast-forward.Austin’s housing market, already in a decade-long development frenzy, wound up defying the pandemic and roaring back to life. In May 2021, the median sale price in the Austin metro area hit an all-time high of $465,000.Stacy Sodolak for The New York Times“Even though we were together so much during quarantine and Covid, it really chipped away at us as a family, like many families,” said Ms. Sigler, who had only been to Austin once, for a film premiere at the South by Southwest festival. “Coming to this new city all together on this adventure offered a lot of repair for us, as well.”Ms. Tobin, a Georgia native who had lived in Los Angeles for 12 years, said of Tinseltown: “As easy as it was to come, it was as easy for me to say goodbye.”The three families made a common checklist, headlined by ample outdoor space and good public schools. They “hit the Zillow hard,” Ms. Sigler said, lobbing listings at one another from film sets and playgrounds. In October, they embarked on a house-hunting tour with partners and children in tow (Ms. Duff has two daughters; Ms. Sigler has two sons), and settled on a neighborhood about 20 minutes northwest of downtown Austin.When they arrived in the spring, the culture shock came by way of small-town hospitality and everyday conveniences. “You mean I can get in my car, drive five minutes and not fight people when I’m in the grocery store to get in a lot?” said Ms. Tobin, who arrived in April after filming a TV reboot of the 1989 film “Turner & Hooch” in Vancouver, British Columbia. “Oh, and you don’t pay for parking anywhere.”In decamping to Austin — home to an ever-expanding ecosystem of film festivals and production studios — they were joining a wave of high-profile Californians like Tesla founder Elon Musk and podcaster Joe Rogan, as well as the other roughly 70,000 people who moved to the area last year, according to U.S. census data, making it the fastest-growing metro area in the United States.“Once you come here, it’s hard to leave,” said Ms. Duff, whose film roles include “Napoleon Dynamite” and “The Wedding Pact,” and who spent time this year shooting a movie in Fort Wayne, Ind. She noted that each of the friends booked gigs not long after closing on their Austin homes, which felt like a nod from the universe.“I almost feel more connected to my craft and why I love acting,” said Ms. Sigler, who had just returned from recording dialogue at a studio in downtown Austin for an ABC pilot she shot in Los Angeles. “When the calls come in, it’s a beautiful surprise. I’m still on things and I’m still a businesswoman and it’s still my career, but I don’t feel the pressure around it because we took a stand for ourselves and we made decisions for our families.”With its bohemian charms, natural splendors and lack of state income taxes, Austin has been courting California’s twin economic engines, Hollywood and Silicon Valley, for years, all while trying to maintain its cherished “Keep Austin Weird” credibility. According to Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research, about 90,000 Californians moved to Texas in 2018 and 2019. The pandemic has only deepened the romance. Austin enjoyed a P.R. blitz of high-profile corporate relocations and expansions last year, with tech giant Oracle moving its headquarters there from Redwood Shores, Calif., and Mr. Musk announcing Tesla’s $1 billion “gigafactory” on the southeast edge of town.The housing market, already in a decade-long development frenzy, wound up defying the pandemic and roaring back to life. In May 2021, the median sale price in the Austin metro area hit an all-time high of $465,000, according to the Austin Board of Realtors. High-end home prices spiked 24 percent, according to Redfin, the most of any area in the country.Still, anyone used to California prices sees Texas as a bargain, said Scott Michaels, an Austin real estate agent with Compass, who described cutthroat, all-cash bidding wars that drew 40 to 60 offers on a single property. “It’s a challenge because we’re competing with people moving from out-of-state, and there’s just not a lot of inventory on the market,” he said.For Ms. Sigler, who is from Long Island, Austin’s square footage and outdoor space were revelatory. “There was a lot of like, ‘Oh my God, look what we can get for this. Look at the life we can give ourselves,’ you know, compared to what we’re able to afford here in L.A.,” she said. “I just feel like we’re taking a big, deep breath since we got here.”Apartment towers sprout on the shores of Lady Bird Lake, luring workers in entertainment, tech and other high-profile industries from cities across the U.S. “It’s an incredible burst of prosperity for the city, but it’s also just terrifying from a housing affordability standpoint, what that means for people living here,” said Jake Weggman, an associate professor of community and regional planning at the University of Texas at Austin.Stacy Sodolak for The New York TimesMs. Sigler and Ms. Duff started their careers as teens but wanted a different lifestyle for their children in Austin, where space and nature are plentiful, and paparazzi aren’t. “That was a big choice for us, wanting our kids to stay young,” Ms. Duff said.Austin has been contending with growing pains since the early 1980s, during its first hint of what locals call Silicon Hills, said Natasha Harper-Madison, the city’s Mayor Pro-Tem. Born and raised in East Austin, Ms. Harper-Madison said the changing cityscape was best described by her mother: “She said, ‘I really like my neighbors. I just wish I didn’t have to lose so many of the old ones to get new ones.’ And I think, in large part, that’s how folks feel. It’s not any sort of absence of the desire to welcome people to our communities. It’s the exact opposite. In fact, people want to preserve and sort of steward the evolution of their communities.”Despite some natal cries of “Don’t California My Texas” from both ends of the political spectrum, what’s fueling the migration are the states’ similarities. Sitting on the border with relatively sunny climates, “they’re both super diverse, in every possible way — ethnically, economically, geographically,” said Jake Weggman, an associate professor of community and regional planning at the University of Texas at Austin.“It’s an incredible burst of prosperity for the city, but it’s also just terrifying from a housing affordability standpoint, what that means for people living here,” Mr. Weggman said.Ms. Tobin has sensed some side-eye when she tells locals where she’s from, but she tries to put them at ease. Voting and donating are two ways to do it, she said, and she has contributed to causes that support homeless outreach and abortion rights through local nonprofits like Mobile Loaves & Fishes and the Lilith Fund.“I get it, they don’t want us to L.A. their Austin,” she said. “My husband and I personally are going to really try to do our best to help out in the community and get involved where we can.”For weekly email updates on residential real estate news, sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @nytrealestate. More

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      Graham Norton Comes Around

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      The Irish entertainer is known for his freewheeling talk show, but in his novel “Home Stretch” he explores what it’s like for a gay man to return to his home and find both it and himself wholly transformed.Graham Norton has been a saucy mainstay of British entertainment for so long that it is hard to imagine him doing anything else. Talk-show host, radio presenter, Eurovision Song Contest frontman, “RuPaul’s Drag Race UK” judge, he is known for being quick, empathetic and outrageous, and for relishing nothing more than a good dirty anecdote. More

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      Frank Bonner, Brash Salesman on ‘WKRP in Cincinnati,’ Dies at 79

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      He played the memorably obnoxious Herb Tarlek for all four seasons of the popular sitcom set at a radio station, and reprised the role on a sequel show a decade later.Frank Bonner, the actor best known for playing Herb Tarlek, the brash salesman with an affection for plaid polyester suits, on the popular television comedy “WKRP in Cincinnati,” died on Wednesday at his home in Laguna Niguel, Calif., south of Los Angeles. He was 79.His daughter, Desiree Boers-Kort, said the cause was complications of Lewy body dementia. He had learned he had the disease, which leads to worsening mental and physical complications, about three years ago.“WKRP in Cincinnati,” seen on CBS from 1978 to 1982, was set at a struggling radio station trying to reinvent itself with a rock format. The cast included Gary Sandy as the embattled station manager and Tim Reid and Howard Hesseman as disc jockeys. Mr. Bonner’s character, the station’s sales manager, was known for his obnoxious behavior, his general incompetence and his garish wardrobe.Loni Anderson, who played Jennifer Marlowe, the station’s super-efficient receptionist — and the frequent object of Herb’s heavy-handed flirting — said in a statement that Mr. Bonner was “one of the funniest men I had the pleasure of working with” and “the nicest man I have ever known.”Ms. Boers-Kort said that Mr. Bonner valued his time acting on “WKRP in Cincinnati” in part because it led him toward the career he preferred: directing. After serving as the director of six episodes of “WKRP,” he went on to direct episodes of more than a dozen other shows in the 1980s and ’90s, including “Who’s the Boss?,” “Saved by the Bell: The New Class” and “Just the Ten of Us” (on which he also had a recurring role).Mr. Bonner reprised the role of Herb on the syndicated sequel “The New WKRP in Cincinnati” in the early 1990s. He was also seen on “Scarecrow and Mrs. King,” “Night Court” and many other shows.Frank Bonner was born Frank Woodrow Boers Jr. on Feb. 28, 1942, in Little Rock, Ark., to Frank and Grace (Delahoussay) Boers, and raised in the city of Malvern. His Hollywood career began in 1967 and picked up steam in 1970 with roles in the film “Equinox” and on the TV series “The Young Lawyers” and “Nancy.” He appeared on “Mannix,” “Police Woman,” “Fantasy Island” and other shows before landing the career-defining role of Herb Tarlek.In addition to Ms. Boers-Kort, his daughter, Mr. Bonner is survived by his wife, Gayle Hardage Bonner. She had been his high school sweetheart in Malvern, his daughter said, and they reunited and eventually wed four decades later. His four previous marriages ended in divorce.His survivors also include two sons, Matthew and Justin; a stepdaughter, DeAndra Freed; seven grandchildren; and a great-grandchild. Another son, Michael, died before Mr. Bonner.Mr. Bonner got a kick out of Herb’s ill-advised wardrobe, his daughter said, because he knew that the character’s style was “one of the things that people loved about him.” She said he kept some of Herb’s distinctive white belts when the show ended.The New York Times contributed reporting. More