Diana, Princess of Wales

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    Leave the Poor Princess Alone

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    There she is in her pink suit, pearl earrings and feathered shag.There she is with her upcast eyes, unknowable sorrow and perfect sympathy.There she is, that candle in the wind someone keeps relighting.Though killed in a car crash in 1997, Diana, Princess of Wales, turns up everywhere today, in plays, on television, in movies and even musicals. She’s entertainment gold: the perfect combo of stardom, tragedy and unanswerability.Which makes her, like a Dickens novel, public domain.In the last two years alone, I’ve spent more time with her than I did in the 36 she was alive. I saw her in a play called “Casey and Diana,” produced by the Stratford Festival in Ontario and now available to stream on Stratfest@Home. She was a spectral presence Off Broadway in “Dodi & Diana,” a marital drama that hijacked her story to lend oomph to its own.The 2021 film “Spencer,” which I rewatched on Hulu over New Year’s, did much the same thing, trying to wring some ichor of glamour out of her corpse. On television, “The Crown” hung the breathless first half of its final season on the buildup to the crash, blithely making stuff up where the record is thin. (Netflix justified it as “fictional dramatization.”) And what can one say about “Diana, the Musical,” which had a brief run on Broadway in 2021 (but an ongoing one on Netflix), except that it, too, died in a disaster?Reader, I cried at them all. (The musical because it was so bad.) I am thus part of the problem of her exploitation, seeking out more Diana content when there’s little left to say. Doing so establishes a kind of contract with the culture: In return for feeding my “feelings” about a celebrity, the culture has my proxy to do so however it pleases.But what right do I or any of us have to feelings about Diana in the first place? Quite profoundly we did not know her, any more than most of us knew pop-biography grab bags like Elvis Presley, Judy Garland, J. Robert Oppenheimer and Leonard Bernstein, all of them falsified, fudged or “interpreted” in recent movies. History is not the point in such efforts, it is the impediment.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      ‘The Princess’ Review: An Unsparing Look at Princess Diana

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      The director Ed Perkins uses only found footage to create a harrowing account of Diana’s life and death.The first clue that “The Princess” will not be your standard-issue Diana Spencer documentary is that the director is Ed Perkins. Perkins’s last film, “Tell Me Who I Am” (2019), which was also his first feature, told a painful true story of identical twins whose lives were upended by abuse and memory loss. While its perspective was compassionate, its revelations were presented in a way that could best be called unsparing.There are few revelations in this picture, which chronicles Diana’s life from right before the announcement of her engagement to Prince Charles up until her death in a car accident in Paris in 1997. Actually, the movie, made up entirely of archival footage, begins with careening video taken while she and her companion, the businessman Dodi Fayed, were fleeing paparazzi on the evening of her death.This is a harrowing movie that depends on our collective hindsight to underscore its manifold and particular ironies. For instance, in joint interviews with Prince Charles shortly after the marriage, Princess Diana seems maybe very reserved — or maybe depressed. As it turns out, it was depression. Viewing this now makes one shudder.Perkins doesn’t editorialize overtly; the movie’s editing and a tense music score by Martin Phipps (with additional music by Rutger Hoedemaekers) do that work, a subtle but ultimately indignant skewering of celebrity culture.One of the picture’s final images is of a young Prince Harry at his mother’s funeral; the pain in his eyes is moving. But it indirectly reminds us that Diana’s life and death have taught the world precisely nothing.The PrincessNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 49 minutes. Watch on HBO and HBO Max. More

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      Jeanna de Waal Has Already Forgotten About That ‘Diana’ Film

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      The British actor Jeanna de Waal is obviously not the first person to play the part of Diana, Princess of Wales, or even the first person to do it this year. “When we started, it was a lot less populated, the pool of people who played her,” said de Waal, who stars as the title character in “Diana, the Musical,” which opens on Wednesday after a long pandemic delay.She is not disconcerted by the Diana-Industrial Complex. “I watch them all, and I can see what they’re doing,” she continued, speaking of the other Dianas in circulation — currently, Emma Corrin in “The Crown” and Kristen Stewart in “Spencer” (there’s also Diana herself, who appears in the CNN documentary series “Diana”). “What I mean is, we all got the same homework, and we all have the same sources, but we all do it differently,” de Waal said. “There are two million ways you could tell her story.”“Diana, the Musical” tells it in song. The tale of Diana’s ill-fated marriage to Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne, the production is a frothy, peppy, archly exuberant trip through the familiar byways of this tragic royal relationship, from the couple’s blundering courtship to the recrimination-filled conclusion of their marriage. (There’s a sad coda at the end, foreshadowing Diana’s doomed future.)Roe Hartrampf, center left, as Prince Charles and Jeanna de Waal as Diana in the musical, which is in previews at the Longacre Theater.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesIt’s been a long road to Broadway, and de Waal has been there for all of it, since the production’s first workshop, at Vassar College, in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., back in 2017. The musical opened at La Jolla Playhouse in 2019, moved to Broadway the following year, and shut down after nine previews in March 2020. The set was locked up at the Longacre Theater; the cast and crew scattered.In person, de Waal, 33, doesn’t immediately evoke Diana. For one thing, she dyed her dirty-blond hair dark during lockdown, and has kept it that way since. (She wears a series of increasingly dramatic Diana wigs for the show.) She is also forthright and un-self-conscious in a way that Diana, who always seemed brittle beneath the glitter, never was.De Waal is onstage for almost the whole musical, portraying a sheltered, unworldly young woman whose hidden gifts — charisma, sex appeal, a knack for publicity, an extraordinary common touch — turn her into a global celebrity and a stealth influencer. “Sometimes, though, it’s best,” she sings, “to be underestimated.”“What we have now is a much more juicy and titillating story of what this marriage was,” de Waal said.Josefina Santos for The New York TimesIn taking on the part, de Waal has had to contend not just with all the other dramatic Dianas, but also with legions of opinionated Diana fans who bring their own preconceptions to new depictions of her. Then there is the problem of lowered expectations. In October, a version of the musical, filmed in an empty theater late last year, was released on Netflix. The response, to put it mildly, was very bad.The New York Post called it “the flop of the year.” The Guardian gave it one star and said it was “a Rocky Horror Picture Show of cluelessness and misjudged Judy Garlandification.”On Twitter, mesmerized viewers seemed to be hate-watching the show as they would a terrible camp classic. “I’m so sorry but the Diana musical might be the best worst musical ever written,” one viewer tweeted.The good-natured de Waal responds to questions about this awkward situation with what appears to be constitutional equanimity. (“She’s so centered,” is how the musical’s director, Christopher Ashley, put it.) Even as the mean tweets came in, her direct messages were filled with enthusiastic responses from people who loved the musical, she said. In addition, the broadcast got people talking, she said, and put the production on lists of shows to watch on Broadway.“Look, we didn’t film this for Netflix because we thought it was bad,” she said. “We thought it was fantastic.”Ashley said in an interview that the production had made numerous changes since filming the Netflix special. The theater’s emptiness — the lack of laughter, of applause, of an audience’s ineffable energy — drained the production of its high-octane metabolism, he said. “Having an audience changes what it feels like.” From left, de Waal, Hartrampf and Erin Davie (as Camilla Parker Bowles) in what de Waal calls, “the story of a woman’s revenge.” Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesEarly Broadway audiences appear not to have heard, or not to care, about the unfortunate publicity. At a preview the other night, the theater was filled with Diana-philes eager to bask once more in a story they know so well. They wore “Diana” face masks; they applauded the cunningly staged, lightning-quick royal costume changes; they queued to buy mugs, hoodies and other merchandise. There was applause for iconic outfits; gasps at the appearance of the princess’s love rival, Camilla Parker Bowles; and a standing ovation at the end. In the line for the bathroom, women debated the relative evilness of Charles and Camilla.The producers always promised that the show would make it to Broadway after the pandemic. But they had no idea what that would entail. “I remember the phrase ‘flattening the curve,’” Ashley said, referring to the city’s coronavirus lockdown. “We thought it would be for a few weeks. The possibility that it would be 600 days before we were back in production on Broadway — that was something we didn’t plan for.”As the days without pay stretched on, the cast and crew had to find other sources of income. For de Waal, that came from running Broadway Weekends at Home, a remote version of the musical theater camp that she founded with her sister, Dani, a former actor who works for Google. Hundreds of people signed up during the pandemic, paying a subscription fee to be taught by Broadway and West End performers.Born in Germany and raised in England, De Waal was always obsessed with musical theater. “I became a fanatic,” she said. “For birthdays and Christmases, I would ask for CDs of original cast recordings.” After earning a degree at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, she got a job in the ensemble of, and as an understudy in, “We Will Rock You” on the West End. “It was a baptism of fire,” she said. “I had never done any mic technique work. You know that old thing where singers just sang really loud? You don’t need to do that with a mic. I bought a microphone, and I practiced at home.”In the late aughts, she moved to New York. “I had no agent, no job, and I started doing Times Square open calls,” she said. “I knew no one, and I felt very grown-up and free.” But soon the work was rolling in: parts in “American Idiot,” “Carrie,” the “Wicked” national tour, “Finding Neverland,” “Waitress” and “Kinky Boots,” to name a few.She had a steady string of gigs until her late 20s, when the parts began to dry up. She worked as a caterer and kept going to auditions. She was one of the first people to read for the part of Diana in the workshop; she was hired virtually on the spot.De Waal was one of the first people to read for the part of Diana, and she was hired virtually on the spot.Josefina Santos for The New York Times“Jeanna has been an extraordinary partner in the process,” Ashley said. “She’s really used these couple of years to deepen her feelings about Diana, to make individual moments more and more specific in terms of the emotion of the scene. Even how she holds herself and her mannerisms have gotten more layered.”Back in New York, mid-pandemic, the long, strange delay gave the production the incidental gift of time.“New musicals can make use of the wealth of response you get from that preview period,” Ashley said. “How are the audiences responding? Where do they get quiet? Where do they get restless?” Two new songs were added; changes were made to dozens of pages of the script and lyrics.The story also shifted. Originally it focused on Diana’s disillusionment at the shattering of her happily-ever-after childhood dream. Now it is a sharper, spicier tale about a love triangle that sabotages a marriage. As Diana once said, referring to Camilla: “There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.”“What we have now is a much more juicy and titillating story of what this marriage was, with Charles and Camilla orchestrating the whole thing and continuing to see each other,” de Waal said. “It’s also the story of a woman’s revenge.”De Waal was just a child when her father came into her room one morning in late August 1997 and told her that Diana had been in a serious (and ultimately fatal) car accident. But in studying her for the part, de Waal has come to love and admire the princess — the way she tried to make something of her life, the way she made a difference.“Every single aspect of this show has come from a place of wanting to celebrate this person,” de Waal said. “She did a hell of a lot more than most people. Who knows where her life would have gone?” More

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      6 Faces of Diana, Princess of Wales, to Stream Online

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      The film “Spencer” is the latest in a long line of TV and movie depictions of Diana. Here’s a selection.LONDON — Nearly 25 years after her death, Diana, Princess of Wales, remains a fixture in British culture and on screens both sides of the pond.Her life is often remembered as tragic: an unhappy marriage to Prince Charles, a complex private life hounded by paparazzi, a shocking death in a car crash at the age of 36. But she was also, truly, beloved, earning the moniker “the people’s princess” for her charity work and candor.This complexity has inspired countless television and film adaptations of her life. The latest, in theaters Friday, is “Spencer.” Starring Kristen Stewart as Diana and directed by Pablo Larraín, the film takes place over one Christmas holiday with the royal family, as Diana’s marriage (and possibly her mental health) unravel. Each Diana production — made in every decade since she became a public figure — takes a different perspective on the princess. Here’s a list of six varied examples, all available to watch online.‘Diana: Her True Story’ (1993)Serena Scott Thomas in “Diana: Her True Story,” which aired on NBC in 1993.NBCIn the early 1990s, U.S. television networks scrambled to make small-screen movies depicting Charles and Diana’s much-publicized unhappy marriage.Andrew Morton’s explosive biography “Diana: Her True Story” was published in 1992, and a year later NBC aired a movie adaptation of the book, starring Serena Scott Thomas as Diana and David Threlfall as Charles.This is a soapy rendering of Diana’s marriage, but the plot generally sticks to the story that “The Crown” later explored with more nuance, and the differences between the couple are evident from the start. Charles is explicit that he doesn’t see love as a prerequisite for marriage, seeing it as a “partnership.” Scott Thomas’s Diana, meanwhile, believes that her role is to support her husband and that, with time, she can make Charles love her.Scott Thomas doesn’t quite embody Diana’s looks or mannerisms, but she does capture the personable nature that made her so popular. Her portrayal of the princess is sympathetic and she frequently reacts to Charles’s mistreatment, screaming at him after she finds a photograph of Camilla on their honeymoon and throwing herself down the stairs while pregnant with her first child. Sticking to revelations in Morton’s book, Diana’s struggle with an eating disorder is also depicted. (Stream via Amazon Prime Video; rent or buy on Amazon.)‘Diana: The Musical’ (2021)In Netflix’s “Diana: The Musical,” Jeanna de Waal plays the princess. Netflix“Diana: The Musical,” written by Joe DiPietro and Bon Jovi’s David Bryan, had its Broadway run swiftly shuttered because of the pandemic. Earlier this year a filmed version landed on Netflix.Starting with her initial courtship of Prince Charles, the two-hour musical flies through notable events in Diana’s life at a dizzying pace. There are numbers on her paparazzi intrusion (with lyrics like “Ain’t nothin’ like the hunt, Ain’t nothin’ like the thrill. Find the right bird, Then go in for the kill”) and contrasting Diana’s common touch with the public with the royal family’s stuffiness (“All right, I’m no intellect,” she sings while watching a cello performance with Charles. “But maybe there’s a discotheque, where the prince could hear some Prince and we’d all get funkadelic.”)This version of Diana (played by Jeanna de Waal) is particularly one-dimensional. There isn’t much of an opportunity to dwell on her emotions, or provide insight on her mental state, and the filmed musical was not well received. “This is a Rocky Horror Picture Show of cluelessness and misjudged Judy Garlandification,” wrote Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian. (Stream on Netflix.)‘King Charles III’ (2017)Katie Brayben plays the ghost of Diana in “King Charles III.”BBCBased on the play of the same name by Mike Bartlett, “King Charles III” is set following the death of Queen Elizabeth II and sees Charles (Tim Pigott-Smith) grappling with the death of his mother and his transition to king.In the vein of a Shakespearean tragedy, the ghost of Diana (Katie Brayben) appears several times in the made-for-TV movie. Always kept distant from other characters and wearing white, she reassures a stubborn Charles (“You think I didn’t love you. It’s not true”) and a pained William, upset at his rebellious father (“You’re now the man I never lived to see”).The ghost of Diana sparked a British tabloid storm, particularly when it was set to be broadcast soon after Prince Harry spoke about the impact losing his mother had on his mental health. Bartlett defended her inclusion: “It’s a genuine investigation of what it is to be that family and in that role in the country,” he told the TV magazine Radio Times. “Diana is part of that.” (Rent or buy on Amazon and iTunes.)‘The Crown’ (2020)When we meet Emma Corrin’s Diana in Season 4 of “The Crown,” she is a teenager.NetflixThe posters for the fourth season of “The Crown” marked the show’s arrival in the 1980s by sandwiching the face of the queen (now played by Olivia Colman) between two new characters: Margaret Thatcher (Gillian Anderson) and Diana (a newcomer, Emma Corrin).We meet Diana as a teenager, and while Corrin perfectly captures the future princess’s look and subtle mannerisms, the show also emphasizes the down-to-earth quality that made Diana so popular with the public through scenes of her roller skating through the palace and going out dancing with friends.We see her struggling with an eating disorder, and with feeling isolated from Charles and the rest of his family, as well as with the complicated social rules around interacting with royalty.Corrin received a Golden Globe for her portrayal, and as is typical on “The Crown,” the role of Diana will be taken over by a new actress, Elizabeth Debicki, for the show’s fifth season.Five Movies to Watch This WinterCard 1 of 51. “The Power of the Dog”: More

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      Kristen Stewart’s Princess Diaries

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      Kristen Stewart has sometimes been accused of just playing variations on herself, as if that isn’t half the reason we’re drawn to movie stars. In “Twilight” (2008), she brought a specific and sullen appeal to a heroine conceived as a blank slate for female readers; later, in “Personal Shopper” (2017), when Stewart traded her polo shirts for a rich client’s shimmering dress, you could see both the star and the character regarding her new look in the mirror: Is this me? Could I make it me?At first, her new drama “Spencer” would appear to be a sop for the sort of moviegoer who’d demand a more rigorous transformation from the “Twilight” actress: Directed by Pablo Larraín (“Jackie”), the movie is a psychological portrait of Princess Diana as she unravels, then rallies, over a three-day Christmas holiday. Instead of hiring a British actress, Larraín chose Stewart, a contemporary figure of California cool who met me on the day of our interview wearing a brick-red pinstripe suit, her jacket sleeves rolled up to reveal a small constellation of tattoos.The 31-year-old actress who sat opposite me on a balcony at the Sunset Tower Hotel in West Hollywood may not have looked like the obvious pick to play the people’s princess, but a funny thing happens as you watch “Spencer”: The distance that initially seemed so vast between the two women will close to the point where it seems like the canniest casting ever. Stewart, after all, knows a thing or two about a life lived in the public eye, the scrutiny leveled at a high-profile romance, and the private moments snatched away by paparazzi.Stewart gave her all to the movie, studying Diana’s posture, mannerisms and accent; the resulting performance, potent and provocative, has thrust her to the front of this year’s crop of best-actress Oscar contenders. “I used to think that I needed spontaneity and anxiety to propel me into something truthful and that if I had too much control over it, it was immediately going to become fabricated,” Stewart said. “I just didn’t have the confidence to hold that and be like, ‘No, you can design something.’”But Larraín had that confidence in her.“She’s like an actress from the ’50s or ’60s,” the director said. “What she’s doing for the story can be at a very grounded character level, but it’s elevated to a poetic level that creates an enormous amount of mystery and intrigue. And that’s probably the best cocktail you could ever find for a performance on camera.”Stewart as Princess Diana (opposite Laura Benson) in a scene from “Spencer.”NeonStewart knew that taking on “Spencer” would be a challenge, and in the days leading up to the shoot, she even developed lockjaw as she ceaselessly practiced her British accent. But once she was on set, finally channeling Diana, her fears melted away: “At the end of week one, I was like, ‘This is the best thing I’ve ever done. This is the most alive I’ve ever felt.’”Here are edited excerpts from our conversation.What was your first impression when Pablo pitched “Spencer” to you?He was so sure that I should do this, and I thought that was audacious and crazy because it just doesn’t seem like the most instinctive, immediate choice.Did he tell you why it had to be you?He was like, “There’s something about Diana that we’ll never know. You make me feel like that. I’ve seen your work, and I never really know what you’re thinking.” And I feel that way about Diana as well. Even though I feel this overwhelming attraction to her spirit and her energy, there’s something that’s disarming about her. I want to hang out with her. I want to race her down a long hallway. I want to, like, meet her kid.Still, was it a natural step to say yes to this movie?The only reason that you work as an actor for this long is to try and outdo yourself every time. This one was just the proper step up that I couldn’t really say no to. It was ambitious and attractive, and I was like, “If I can’t do that, then I’ll just stop and direct movies instead.” And it’s fun to imagine a larger conversation. It’s fun to imagine if you’re capable of holding that.What emerged of Diana as you researched her?There were so many layers to read. There were so many ways in which she tried to reveal herself, that weren’t necessarily in the form of a direct sentence. She wasn’t allowed to be like, “I’m dying, and he doesn’t love me.” I think the way she expressed herself is so interesting because there are so many lenses between you and that communication.It’s like, to not acknowledge that every single person in the world is sitting here on this balcony with us is wild. We have to pretend they’re not because we’re being nice to each other. Which is nice! But also, we’re talking to everyone in the whole world right now.And I’m asking you to be vulnerable with me, as though what you say won’t be chopped up, reblogged and retweeted by people who aren’t here.You roll the dice, definitely. One could write a very long paper on the exchange between a journalist and an actor. That’s obviously not why we’re here, but yeah.Though Stewart knows something of what Diana experienced with paparazzi, the actress said she was never told “to sit and stay in the way that was so damaging and dishonest.”Ryan Pfluger for The New York TimesBut it kind of is. Diana had to be incredibly savvy about her image and the way it was used, while still radiating utter authenticity. Actors are required to do the same.Every way that we reach out toward each other has to be designed from an interior place. Therefore, it’s a form of manipulation. You want someone to understand you; you want to make someone feel the way that you feel. It’s sad to think about her in general because she’s just the most coveted, loved and also rejected, self-hating person. Those things shouldn’t go together.Unless some of it is cause and some of it is effect. Do we respond to her in a way that causes a little bit of that? When she’s called the people’s princess, does that imply a form of ownership?Of course, which I think she probably tried to cultivate. I think she had to reach out to get any sort of warm acceptance, when obviously at home she felt invisible and unheard and stifled and cold. She was looking sort of everywhere she could for that kind of love. She was the first royal in the entire history of them to reach out and touch people physically, in their face, without gloves on. That rocked people to their core.How did you square some of her contradictions?There were people that were like, “She would never use profanity.” And then other memories would be like, “Oh, gosh, she just came in swearing.” So you can’t know her. With famous people, you hear someone go, “I met them once and they’re not very nice,” but it’s like, “Were you asking them how their day went when they were coming out of the pisser? Maybe they weren’t nice to you in that moment.” People love to have one experience sort of sum up an entire human’s personality. You just have to take everyone’s perspective and shove them together and kind of figure out your own.You’re clearly speaking from personal experience. But in other interviews I’ve read, you demur when asked to draw a direct line between your time in the public eye and Diana’s.Five Movies to Watch This WinterCard 1 of 51. “The Power of the Dog”: More

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      Princess Diana and Michael Jackson Anchor New Biographical Musicals

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      In new musicals about Princess Diana, Cary Grant and Michael Jackson actors get a chance to embody icons while spotlighting their individual talents.Just before the pandemic I ambivalently attended a performance of “Tina: The Tina Turner Musical.” I knew some Tina Turner songs, and I was vaguely aware of her marriage to the abusive Ike Turner. I was only barely acquainted with her global celebrity, and skeptical about the depth a biographical jukebox musical could offer.Though I had qualms about the show — particularly the depictions of violence — I left the theater feeling ebullient. I sneaked out near the end of what turned out to be essentially a postshow concert, but I hung on to the image of Adrienne Warren, as Turner, onstage.What resonated with me was her spectacular star power — what most people would call presence. This is always what draws me in to Broadway productions about iconic figures: how an actor’s impersonation can also be a way to showcase their own star quality.Whether or not the show can live up to the legend, however, is often a different story.With the resurrection of Broadway this fall will come another handful of impersonations to test the hypothesis. Starting Nov. 2, we will see Jeanna de Waal as the Princess of Wales in “Diana,” who, thanks to her style, charisma and, ultimately, tragic death, became a mythic figure.Diana is once again front and center in the cultural conversation, whether in “The Crown”; as a shadow figure in the royal drama between Buckingham Palace and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle; or in the forthcoming biopic “Spencer,” with Kristen Stewart in the title role. (Naomi Watts played the part too, in the 2013 film “Diana.”)Starting Nov. 2, Jeanna de Waal, above with Roe Hartrampf as Prince Charles, will star as the Princess of Wales in “Diana” at the  Longacre Theater.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesIn the musical’s initial run at La Jolla Playhouse, critics noted how de Waal nailed Diana’s coquettishness, though the character’s ballads (music and lyrics by the Tony Award winners David Bryan and Joe DiPietro) do lean toward an unrestrained earnestness. And despite de Waal’s performance, the show was criticized for zipping so quickly through so many moments of a shortened life that the emotional impact was dulled.Will “Diana” capture the audience’s hearts on Broadway? And what impact will the Netflix recording of the show, which will be available for streaming before the theatrical opening, have on the prospects of the live production? As someone who’s been eating up “The Crown” (especially Emma Corrin’s performance as the princess), I look forward to finding out.Also in November, Lincoln Center Theater’s “Flying Over Sunset” will bring the beloved Hollywood leading man Cary Grant to life in the tap-dancing person of Tony Yazbeck.The musical, with a score by Tom Kitt and Michael Korie, imagines Grant; the playwright and politician Clare Boothe Luce; and the novelist Aldous Huxley sharing an acid trip in 1950s California. (All three were public about experimenting with L.S.D., but their cosmic connection is a product of the writer-director James Lapine’s script.)“He was one of the most famous Hollywood movie stars of all time,” Yazbeck said of Grant in a video preview for the show. “When you get offered this, you have to rise to that level, but also put your own stamp on it.”He seems poised to pull it off, and turning Grant (a child acrobat) into a former tap dancer plays to his strengths. Yazbeck already exudes charm; a well-pressed suit, a classic side sweep and the chance to dance should allow him to do more than imitate the beloved film star.From left, Tony Yazbeck as Cary Grant, Harry Hadden-Paton as Aldous Huxley and Carmen Cusack as Clare Boothe Luce in “Flying Over Sunset.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThen it’s Michael Jackson’s turn.“MJ the Musical,” with direction and choreography by Christopher Wheeldon and a book by Lynn Nottage, begins performances on Dec. 6.Like “Diana” and “Flying Over Sunset,” it was delayed by the pandemic. But this show faced further upheaval when Ephraim Sykes, the Tony-nominated star of “Ain’t Too Proud,” dropped out of the title role.The producers still promise 25 hits from the King of Pop, and you have to expect we’ll see that cherry red “Thriller” jacket and bedazzled glove. But now it’s up to the largely unknown Myles Frost to bring to life that instantly recognizable voice and dance genius.The musical as biography is a challenging form. How do you pair pop hits from an existing catalog to significant events in a life without undercutting the drama or underselling the songs?Michael Jackson’s life, of course, poses its own set of challenges. What will the script make of allegations of abuse on the part of this megastar, which dented his reputation without dulling the affection for his music?And will the qualities that make Myles Frost special be able to shine through when he is playing Michael Jackson? For “MJ” to succeed, the performer’s individual flair shouldn’t be swamped by the icon’s.There is no shortage of screen biopics — two about Aretha Franklin came out this year alone. But they don’t entice me the way the stage equivalents do.Adrienne Warren as Tina Turner in “Tina – The Tina Turner Musical” at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater in 2019.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe stage feels more upfront about its masquerade. No matter how accurately an actor playing Michael Jackson may moonwalk while singing “Billie Jean,” the very immediacy of your interaction with him in, say, a sold-out show on a Saturday night, forces you to sit in the uncanny valley: This isn’t the Michael you know, of course, but the real-time likeness — and unlikeness — both showcase the celebrity and reveal the talents of the performer.What emerges is a hybrid, an approximation of a person that takes into account the public image — the legend and mythos — reflected through the prism of an actor’s experience, understanding and, finally, ability.Here’s another way to think about it: I accompanied a friend to a locksmith kiosk recently where we were informed in advance that the keys being copied wouldn’t look exactly like the originals.When I consider the impersonators coming this fall, I think of her new set of keys — perfectly imperfect clones. Their look is different, their shape is different, but the mechanics still work. It’s all about the job well done. More

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      ‘Diana’ Musical Sets Netflix Run — and Broadway Opening Night

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      In an unprecedented move, a recording of the show will start streaming in October, while audiences can see it live (if theaters reopen) in December.“Diana,” a new musical about the idolized but ill-fated British princess, managed to get through nine preview performances before Broadway shut down last March.Now, one year, one pandemic, and one Oprah interview later, the show is ready to try again, with a new strategy and a new context.In a first for a Broadway show, a filmed version of the stage production will start streaming before the musical opens. “Diana,” which was shot over a week last September in an audience-less Longacre Theater, will begin streaming on Netflix on Oct. 1, and then two months later, on Dec. 1, will resume previews on Broadway.The musical’s producers announced Tuesday that they intend to open Dec. 16, which is 625 days after its originally scheduled, but pandemic-postponed, opening night. The producers are putting their Broadway tickets on sale now, and counting on the Netflix film, which will have an open-ended run, to boost interest in the stage production.“I think people will see the movie and will say, that’s a show I want to see in person,” said Frank Marshall, a prominent filmmaker who is one of the musical’s lead producers. Another lead producer, the Broadway veteran Beth Williams, acknowledged that the plan involves “a slightly more complicated rollout,” but added “we feel like it’s an incredible opportunity to put ‘Diana’ in front of the global Netflix audience, and then give them an opportunity to see it live.”Broadway, of course, remains closed in an effort to contain the spread of the coronavirus, and producers expect that most full-scale plays and musicals won’t attempt to start performances until after Labor Day. “Diana,” which chronicles the life and death of the Princess of Wales, who was the first wife of Prince Charles, is among the first shows to put tickets on sale and to choose a specific date for a target opening.The scheduling, Marshall said, was a matter of trying to anticipate how the country’s post-pandemic reopening will unfold, and trying to coordinate the two projects to strengthen them both. “We wanted to make sure our marketing plans aligned,” he said. “I’m very optimistic about the fall, for both movies and for Broadway.” (A spokesman for the show declined to say how much Netflix paid for the streaming rights.)The musical, featuring Jeanna de Waal in the title role, is directed by Christopher Ashley and choreographed by Kelly Devine, who previously collaborated on “Come From Away”; it was written by Joe DiPietro and David Bryan (the Bon Jovi keyboardist), who created the Tony Award-winning “Memphis.”Through virtual and in-person work, the show, which had a pre-Broadway production at La Jolla Playhouse, was revised early in the pandemic. The producers said they do not expect further revisions, and expect their cast to remain intact.Diana has remained an object of public fascination in the years since her death in a 1997 car crash. But her story also has a contemporary sequel, as her younger son, Harry, and his wife, Meghan, stepped away from their royal duties, and, in an interview this month with Oprah Winfrey, he said that “my biggest concern was history repeating itself.”The lives of Diana’s children are not the subject of the new show. “You see Diana become a mother, but her children are not in the musical,” Williams said. “We’re telling the story of a complicated marriage, and at the same time we’re telling a coming-of-age story, and we’ve always seen it as a celebration of Princess Diana, whose legacy will live forever.”The producers said they don’t yet know what sort of safety protocols might be required for cast, crew, or ticket holders at the in-person production. Will there even be an opening night party? “There will be a celebration,” Williams said. “It’s too soon to know what that will look like.” More