Headland, Leslye

Subterms

    Latest story

    125 Shares99 Views

    ‘Cult of Love’ Review: We Wish You a Wretched Christmas

    by

    A hilarious, harrowing holiday gift from Leslye Headland, who brings another unhappy family to Broadway. Zachary Quinto and Shailene Woodley star.Though figgy pudding is on the menu, Evie Dahl has a different Yuletide horror in mind. “Christmas is exactly the time to talk about the things we never talk about,” she tells her reluctant siblings.No, Evie, no!Alas, despite the happy presence of stars including Zachary Quinto, Shailene Woodley and Mare Winningham, the annual ritual dinner of the Dahls is doomed from the start of Leslye Headland’s “Cult of Love,” a rip-roaring home-for-the-holidays dramedy that opened on Thursday at the Helen Hayes Theater. What begins as a cheery reunion in a New England farmhouse decked out like Santa’s workshop ends as a collective meltdown with carols.Because Evie, even if she’s bossy, is right. The four Dahl children, now in their late 20s through early 40s, have plenty of grudges that urgently need airing. But how? Ginny, their passive-aggressive control freak of a mother, will not admit into her home any problems, doubts or identities that violate her sense of upbeat Christian propriety. So what if her husband, Bill, is hovering on the edge of the abyss of Alzheimer’s? Ignore it, excuse it; it will go away.The same applies to the couple’s firstborn, Mark, a divinity student turned lawyer who has lost his faith in both callings. (When he says he’s no longer a Christian, Ginny responds, “That’s not true.”) Evie, their second, a chef, is a lesbian. (“Or not,” Ginny adds.) Johnny, their third, of no known profession, is a recovering drug addict. (“If you all say so,” Ginny allows.) And Diana, the youngest? She’s either a Christmas miracle, complete with baby on board, or just psychotic, espying the devil and speaking in tongues.If that setup doesn’t exactly sound funny, there’s a reason. Though “Cult of Love,” like many unhappy family reunion plays, draws big buckets of humor from the toxic brew of religion and repression, those buckets also draw blood.Headland knows just how to get there, suggesting deep familiarity with the territory. But she also has a gift for complication and construction, as was already evident in “Bachelorette,” her Bridezillas Gone Wild breakthrough play of 2010. (That play, like this one, was a Second Stage Theater production, and later became a movie.) Loading pattern on pattern — a holiday-season design don’t for most — is for her an opportunity to dizzy us down to hell.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? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    More stories

    • 150 Shares99 Views

      in Theater

      Leslye Headland’s ‘Cult of Love’ to Open on Broadway in the Fall

      by

      The play will be produced by Second Stage, which is also planning an Off Broadway production of a two-character drama by Donald Margulies.“Cult of Love,” a play about a fractious holiday gathering of a Christian family, will come to Broadway this fall via Second Stage Theater, one of the four nonprofits with Broadway houses.The announcement on Tuesday is a further sign that the current season is shaping up to be a robust one for plays, which had been considered an endangered species on Broadway, but which seem to be proliferating as the economic climate for musicals worsens.“Cult of Love” is written by Leslye Headland, a creator of the Netflix series “Russian Doll” and the Disney+ series “The Acolyte.” She has also written and directed films including “Sleeping With Other People.”The play is scheduled to begin previews Nov. 20 and to open Dec. 12 at the Hayes Theater.“Cult of Love” is Headland’s final work in a series, called “Seven Deadly Plays,” that is inspired by the seven deadly sins; this one is about pride. The play was staged in 2018 at IAMA Theater Company in Los Angeles and there was a run early this year at Berkeley Repertory Theater in California. (A planned 2020 production at Williamstown Theater Festival in Massachusetts was canceled because of the pandemic.)The Broadway production, like the Berkeley production, will be directed by Trip Cullman. The play has 10 characters and casting has not been announced.Second Stage also said on Tuesday that it would stage an Off Broadway production of “Lunar Eclipse,” a two-character play by Donald Margulies (a Pulitzer winner for “Dinner With Friends”) that had a run last year at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Mass.The new production, directed by Kate Whoriskey, is to star Reed Birney (a Tony winner for “The Humans”) and Lisa Emery as a long-married couple. It is to begin previews Oct. 9 and to open Oct. 30 at the Tony Kiser Theater.“Lunar Eclipse” is expected to be Second Stage’s final production in that space, which the company is exiting at the end of the year, citing financial considerations. Second Stage expects to present its spring season at the Pershing Square Signature Center while it explores options for an Off Broadway home. More

    • 125 Shares139 Views

      in Television

      ‘The Acolyte’ Review: ‘Star Wars’ an Even Longer Time Ago

      by

      The franchise’s latest series on Disney+ is set before there was even an empire to strike back.“The Acolyte,” the latest product off the Lucasfilm assembly line (it premieres Tuesday night on Disney+), enters territory unfamiliar to the casual follower of “Star Wars.” It is set during a prehistorical period known as the High Republic, until now depicted primarily in short stories, novels and comic books read only by serious fans. (The High Republic stories are to George Lucas’s central works somewhat as “The Silmarillion” is to “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings.”)Moving a “Star Wars” story out of the main time stream — no Empire, no R2-D2, a century before Luke Skywalker — has not liberated it from the franchise’s oldest conventions and clichés, however. “The Acolyte” tweaks the formulas here and there, but, to a greater degree than other Disney+ shows like “The Mandalorian” and “Andor,” it falls back on signature moves: the electronic whoosh of the light saber; the outstretched hand summoning the Force; lovable droids and fuzzy holograms; dark masters and chosen children.Created by a newcomer to the franchise, the writer and director Leslye Headland (“Russian Doll”), the show is focused on twin sisters in their mid-20s, Osha and Mae, both played by Amandla Stenberg. They share a tragedy in their childhoods that has left them with very different feelings about the Jedi knights, who in the High Republic time frame are comfortably ascendant across the galaxy, before their later tribulations in the “Star Wars” films.That critical moment, revealed in the season’s first half (four of eight episodes were available for review), involves one of Headland’s more noticeable creations: a coven of witches who tap into the Force with a holistic, communitarian ethos. (They feel borrowed from an early episode of “Star Trek,” with a swerve into unintentionally hilarious musical theater when they perform one of their ceremonies.) The nature-principle witches and the power-principle Jedi converge, spawning a vendetta plot centered on the grown twins that allows for plenty of planet hopping action. The fights are copious, and in another new twist for “Star Wars,” many of them take the form of balletic martial arts face-offs.But the storytelling force is not strong. Putting more female characters, and a stronger female point of view (even if it is sometimes redolent of 1960s earth mother), into an otherwise traditional “Star Wars” framework is worth the attempt. “The Acolyte” doesn’t bring enough energy or invention to the task, though.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? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares109 Views

      in Television

      ‘Star Wars: The Acolyte’ Goes Back to the Beginning

      by

      Her new “Star Wars” show is a dream come true, but she knows it carries enormous expectations. “I would be lying if I said I wasn’t scared,” she said.Leslye Headland has been telling “Star Wars” stories onscreen since she was a teenager. Ostracized at school for being different, she retreated inward, making stop-motion films starring her action figures.So when she found success as an adult in Hollywood — Headland helped create “Russian Doll,” the 2019 Netflix comedy starring Natasha Lyonne — and got the chance to create an actual “Star Wars” show, it was the realization of a lifelong dream.And a chance for humiliating failure. On a galactic scale.“I essentially cold-called Lucasfilm and, after a lot of conversations, found myself pitching a show — utterly elated, my ultimate career goal, the culmination of my fandom,” Headland said. “At the same time, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t scared. There is so much pressure. It’s extreme. I had never done anything this big before.”Headland’s show, “The Acolyte,” will debut on Disney+ on June 4. Costing roughly $180 million (for eight episodes) and taking four years to make, it attempts two feats at once: pleasing old-school “Star Wars” fans — who can seem unpleasable — while telling an entirely new story, one that requires no prior knowledge of “Star Wars” and that showcases women and people of color.For the faithful, “The Acolyte” serves up scads of Jedi, a franchise fundamental that the other live-action “Star Wars” TV shows have depicted sparingly or not at all. The opening scene in “The Acolyte” takes place in an eatery crowded with colorful aliens, a callback to the Mos Eisley cantina from the first “Star Wars” movie, in 1977.Other shout-outs to core fans — we see you, we haven’t forgotten about you — are sprinkled into the dialogue: “May the force be with you” and “I have a bad feeling about this” makes an early appearance.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? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More