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      in Theater

      A Director Returns (Uncomfortably) to His Working-Class Roots

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      Christophe Honoré’s latest work, for the Paris stage, is part of a recent wave of stories in France about the complex aftereffects of social mobility.PARIS — The French director Christophe Honoré, best known for films including “Love Songs” and “Sorry Angel,” has been making exceptional work in recent years — and international audiences have been missing out on it. The reason? It’s happening on theater stages in his home country.From “The Idols,” a play dedicated to a series of French artists who died at the height of the AIDS crisis, to “The Guermantes Way,” his Proust adaptation for the Comédie-Française, Honoré’s storytelling onstage has a kind of tragicomic immediacy that is instantly recognizable. His latest production, “The Sky of Nantes” (“Le Ciel de Nantes”), applies this sensibility to Honoré’s own family. The resulting journey, back to his working-class roots in the Brittany region of northern France, is fraught, yet poignantly astute.The starting point of the play, running through April 3 at the Odéon – Théâtre de l’Europe in Paris, is an aborted film. Honoré had long wanted to tell the story of his grandmother Odette and her 10 children — eight of them fathered by an abusive Spaniard, Puig. Honoré went so far as to cast actors and do screen tests; at one point, some videos of these tests are projected on a scrim in “The Sky of Nantes.” Yet the project never came to fruition. Instead, it became a play about the sticky nature of autobiography.Honoré has a stand-in in “The Sky of Nantes”: a young actor, Youssouf Abi-Ayad, who introduces himself as the director in the first line. The play is set in a timeworn movie theater, faithfully recreated on the Odéon stage, its red seats facing the audience. Around Abi-Ayad, six of Honoré’s relatives — Odette and Puig; his mother, Marie-Dominique; and three of her many siblings — have gathered to hear him talk about their family history and the film he is (supposedly) making about it.Honoré’s staging style is playful enough that this meta self-reflection doesn’t weigh the show down. He makes no attempt to recreate things as they might have happened: Instead, “The Sky of Nantes,” like “The Idols,” brings its characters back from the dead and invents new, casual conversations between them. (They are fully aware of their demise but seem unfazed by it.) Regularly, the actors use microphones on stands to deliver pensive monologues, or a song, to the audience, only for others to interject and draw them into spontaneous-seeming banter.And Abi-Ayad, as Honoré, gets interrupted more than anyone else. Fascinatingly, the play makes space for the other characters to disagree with the polished, screen-ready version of their lives he attempts to recount at the beginning. His boorish uncle Roger objects to a poetic description of him contemplating ladybugs on his father’s tombstone, saying indignantly: “I’m not gay!” Soon after, Odette — whose age is superbly conveyed by the much younger Marlène Saldana — offers her take on her marriage to Puig. When Abi-Ayad corrects a word she uses, she berates him for suggesting she doesn’t speak “well enough.”From left, Stéphane Roger, Marlène Saldana, Chiara Mastroianni, Jean-Charles Clichet, Harrison Arévalo and Julien Honoré in “The Sky of Nantes.”Jean-Louis FernandezThe effect is one of dynamic contrast: As in his other plays, it allows Honoré to reconcile impulses — his penchant for literary self-indulgence on the one hand; his love of fantasy and surprise on the other — that film critics have occasionally found contradictory. But the back-and-forth between the director and his unruly characters serves another purpose in “The Sky of Nantes”: It highlights how difficult it can be to narrate the stories of a world one has left behind.Trauma runs deep throughout the play, from violence against women to suicide, and memories of France’s war in Algeria. The life of Honoré’s aunt Claudie is especially tragic and sensitively portrayed by Chiara Mastroianni (a longtime collaborator of Honoré’s, making her stage debut here). Honoré doesn’t shy away from the casual racism and homophobia of some characters, yet he also shows what gave them joy, too, like their fierce, relatable attachment to Nantes’ soccer team.“The Sky of Nantes” adds to a recent wave of stories in France about the complex aftereffects of social mobility, led by writers like Édouard Louis and Didier Eribon. In the role of Honoré — the gay, upwardly mobile grandson who moved to Paris — Abi-Ayad cuts a pained, melancholy figure. He is often seen smoking on the sidelines while the family quarrels, at once detached yet intermittently drawn back to the fold. “I’m mad at myself for changing,” he tells the others when he admits that he couldn’t complete his film. His focus on bourgeois characters throughout his screen career is no coincidence, Honoré says through Abi-Ayad: “I can only betray you.” Without anger, his uncle Jacques replies: “You’re ashamed of us. We’re not chic enough to put into your films.”Honoré allows his mother, Marie-Dominique, the only member of the family who is still alive, to have the last word. Her role is gender-swapped in “The Sky of Nantes,” and affectionately played by Honoré’s own brother, Julien Honoré.At the very end, however, the real Marie-Dominique appears in a short video clip, and reveals her discomfort with the retelling of family stories. “They’re a pain,” she says of her two sons, with a laugh. Here, and elsewhere, “The Sky of Nantes” captures the thorny reality of autobiography — and its heartbreak, too.Bboy Junior, left, and Djamil Mohamed in Julie Berès’s “Tenderness.”Axelle de RusséSo does another new Paris production, Julie Berès’s “Tenderness,” at the Théâtre Gérard Philipe, in the suburb of Saint-Denis. With a cast of eight young people, Berès explores masculinity in the #MeToo era, through a mix of real stories and fiction. Onstage, the diverse cast members appear to be drawing from their lives, yet “Tenderness” (“La Tendresse”) was based mostly on research: Together with her co-writers, Kevin Keiss and Lisa Guez, with additional help from Alice Zeniter, Berès surveyed around 50 young men about their relationship to masculine norms.The result illuminates the reality of men’s experiences without requiring the actors to share their own intimate stories, as other theater projects sometimes do. With the help of the choreographer Jessica Noita, Berès also matches movement to the text, and many in the cast are accomplished dancers. Bboy Junior (Junior Bosila Banya), an astonishing slow-motion break dancer, holds impossible-looking handstands as he speaks, while the ballet-trained Natan Bouzy recounts a youthful addiction to online pornography while on pointe.There are scenery-chewing group dances, too, which unleash extraordinary energy, but like “The Sky of Nantes,” “Tenderness” is strongest when it acknowledges the contradictions and complexity of its characters. Both productions speak to larger realities of French society, and just like Honoré’s best films, they deserve to be seen widely.Le Ciel de Nantes. Directed by Christophe Honoré. Odéon – Théâtre de l’Europe, through April 3.La Tendresse. Directed by Julie Berès. Théâtre Gérard Philipe, through April 1. More

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      in Movies

      ‘All My Friends Hate Me’ Explores British Social Anxiety

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      The film “All My Friends Hate Me” satirizes anxiety and paranoia among upper-class British millennials. Its writers say they are laughing at themselves most of all.LONDON — Seven years ago, Tom Stourton, 35, received a wedding invitation from two college friends. He was surprised, having drifted apart from the couple. But he attended the event, arriving hung over and sleep deprived from another party the night before.“Over the course of the day, I became increasingly paranoid that I had been invited as a joke,” Stourton recalled in a recent video interview. He feared the groom would reveal the prank during the speeches.Looking back more recently, “it seemed like a funny idea,” he said, “being somewhere where you should be having fun with your friends, but there’s this undertone of something hostile.”The writer, actor and comedian wove this setup into a screenplay with his co-writer, Tom Palmer, also 35. The resulting film, “All My Friends Hate Me,” opens in limited theaters Friday, before coming to streaming platforms later this month.Stourton plays Pete, an anxious, self-involved 31-year-old who corrals a group of college friends to celebrate his birthday in the countryside. Over the course of the boozy weekend, he becomes increasingly worried that they secretly despise him. In a video interview, the film’s director, Andrew Gaynord, described its world as “manor houses and posh people and rolling fields — very British.”For Pete and his “mates,” the equally British social norm of keeping a stiff upper lip conceals contemporary anxieties about class, wealth and privilege. Insecurities are deeply felt but never discussed, and over the course of the weekend, Pete’s mental state starts to unravel. The film is part black comedy, part psychological thriller. “I liked the idea of a guy blowing things out of proportion in his head — and that playing like a horror film,” Gaynord said.Social anxiety like this is one aspect of a constellation of mental health issues impacting young British people, and its effect on young men has been getting more attention in recent years. Twenty percent of men in Britain aged 16 to 29 are likely to experience some form of depression, according to a recent report from the Office for National Statistics. The BBC recently announced a new documentary about men’s mental health, which is centered on the singer James Arthur, and, in Arthur’s words, “our reliance as a nation on anti-depressants.”In 2019, Prince William helped introduce a campaign, Heads Together, to tackle stigma around mental health. Last year, his younger brother, Prince Harry, discussed his own struggles in “The Me You Can’t See,” a documentary series for Apple TV+ that he co-produced with Oprah Winfrey.When they were writing the script, Palmer and Stourton wanted to make sure they were depicting anxiety authentically within this wider cultural context. So Palmer consulted with the author Olivia Sudjic, whose 2018 book, “Exposure,” discusses modern anxiety. According to Sudjic, millennials, in particular, can be on high alert, policing their own behavior. In a recent video interview, she described this anxiety as a “ripple effect” of “paranoia around ‘cancel culture’ and vigilance online” that afflicts a generation of adults who grew up on the internet.Pete (Stourton), left, and Archie (Graham Dickson) both struggle with fragilities in the film.Super LtdBut in the four years since “Exposure” was published, the ways that anxiety is discussed have shifted, Sudjic said. Before the pandemic, there was a “stigma,” she said, around being open about your mental health issues if your life looked more comfortable than other people’s. Then, during Britain’s lockdowns, even the wealthy struggled. Since then, it’s become more “OK to talk about mental health even if you feel like you’re very privileged,” she said.In “All My Friends Hate Me,” which was filmed in late 2019, the discomfort of acknowledging your own wealth and privilege needles the characters, a familiar thread in much of Stourton and Palmer’s work. The pair met at Eton College, an elite all-boys boarding school known for educating princes and prime ministers. After university, they formed the comedy duo “Totally Tom,” and in 2010, a YouTube video they made went viral. In it, Stourton plays a student at the University of Bristol, or as Palmer put it to The Spectator newspaper, a “posh buffoon” trying incredibly hard to be cool. The following year, they were nominated for best newcomer at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe for a show directed by Gaynord, who the pair had met on the British comedy circuit.The character of Pete is a continuation of these themes.“They’re sort of fair game, aren’t they?” Palmer said in the video interview, referring to “posh people.” The pair wrote the film with a focus on trying to make fun of themselves, Stourton said.Gaynord, however, comes from a different background. “I grew up in a council house,” he said. “My mum’s a cleaner, my dad’s a taxi driver, in Manchester. My school wasn’t particularly good.” What he and “the Toms” had in common, he said, was a tendency toward anxiety and overthinking.Material circumstances are at the root of the “existential dread” plaguing many young British men, according to Alex Holmes, the author of “Time to Talk: How Men Think About Love, Belonging and Connection.”In a recent video interview, Holmes described turning 30 as “the benchmark age where everything has to change dramatically.” Not meeting certain milestones — like acquiring a mortgage, getting married and starting a family — can lead men to a lot of anxiety around a “feeling of catching up,” he said.In “All My Friends Hate Me,” Pete finds himself in his friend’s parents’ house, drinking his friend’s parents’ whiskey. As the weekend goes on, his friends also mock him in a scathing “comedy roast” that Pete finds deeply unfunny. It’s a nod to the cruel humor Stourton was surrounded by as a student, which was really “a way to get one up on someone, so the jokes don’t end up being angled toward you,” he said.The infantilizing nature of the weekend becomes an additional source of stress for Pete, as does the presence of Harry (Dustin Demri-Burns), a new addition to the group, and his ex and current girlfriends. The film finds comedy in the tension between the intensity of Pete’s suffering at all this and the possibility it’s all in his head.“It’s particularly funny,” Stourton said, “watching the white privileged man experiencing being gaslit.”After all, “he doesn’t have any real problems in his life,” Gaynord said. “I think it’s quite cathartic to laugh at that.” More

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      in Music

      Vicente Fernández, the King of Machos and Heartbreak

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      The singer’s brand of machismo may have frayed, but for many, he was the ideal of what it means to be hard-working, hard-loving Mexican man.The singer Vicente Fernández was “El Ídolo” and “El Rey” — the idol of Mexico and the king of ranchera music. These lofty titles reinforced his profound cultural influence, which spanned decades and countries far beyond Mexico.Fernández, who died on Sunday at 81, long represented the ideal of the Mexican man, proud of his roots and himself. His music often centered on love and loss, though also with a high degree of confidence and attitude. His iconic rendition of the song “Volver Volver” propelled him to fame, but it’s in another major hit, “Por Tu Maldito Amor,” that his agony and longing are on full display.In 2016, Fernández, known as Chente, recorded “Un Azteca en el Azteca,” a live album featuring some of his biggest hits, at the Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, the largest venue in the country, which holds over 87,000. It was billed as his farewell concert, and it also turned out to be the last before he experienced a series of health problems.During his performance of “Por Tu Maldito Amor” (“Because of Your Damn Love”), the sea of fans sing the chorus back to him.Por tu maldito amorNo puedo terminar con tantas penasQuisiera reventarme hasta las venasPor tu maldito amorIt’s become a musical standard at any special occasion hosted by someone of Mexican descent — everyone knows the lyrics. The night doesn’t begin to end until someone starts pouring tequila, plays this song, and belts out a grito in their best Chente voice — operatic and soaring with a tinge of melancholy.Despite the subject matter of his music, it was always tempered by his manly persona — he dressed in full charro regalia, took swigs from fans’ bottles and performed atop his horses. Fernández’s brand was this: a brawny, mustachioed man gallantly fighting for the woman he loves.And his persona was not unlike the idols that preceded him, Pedro Infante and Jorge Negrete, Mexico’s earliest ranchera stars who rose to fame in the 1930s with their interpretations of love songs. And like them, he parlayed his music career into acting roles. Fernández starred in more than 30 films with titles like “El Macho” and “Todo Un Hombre,” in which he plays hard-living rancheros who romance beautiful women.To be sure, after so many decades of influence, Fernández and his work will remain beloved. His music will endure in the Mexican songbook. But his brand of machismo has frayed — at least for a younger generation less interested in a narrow view of what it means to be a man.In 2019, Fernández gave an interview to “De Primera Mano,” a Mexican entertainment news show, where he described receiving a cancer diagnosis in 2012 after doctors found a tumor on his liver. He said they suggested he get a liver transplant, which he rejected, saying: “I’m not going to sleep next to my woman with the organ of another man, not knowing if he was a homosexual or a drug addict.”There was an outcry on social media over the homophobic remarks, and even his son, Vicente Fernández Jr., tried to walk back his father’s interview, asserting that his father’s music was for everyone.Regardless of Fernández’s views on sexuality — though they seem to be pretty apparent — Vicente Jr. might be right. After decades in the spotlight, Chente’s music no longer belongs just to him — it belongs to the people. His musical influence extends far beyond Mexico, permeating much of Latin America and the United States. Fernández’s popularity hasn’t waned, as demonstrated by the memorials and outpouring of condolences on Sunday, ranging from the likes of President Biden to that other “king,” the country singer George Strait.Fernández wasn’t one to shy away from politics. In Mexico, he was a known supporter of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which long held power in the country. And his influence extended into U.S. politics. He performed at the 2000 Republican National Convention, where George W. Bush secured the nomination. But more recently he supported Democratic candidates in the U.S., even writing a corrido for Hillary Clinton during her 2016 presidential run.Though he is emblematic of a type of dated machismo, many people will still choose to listen to his music and belt out his songs at karaoke or at a cousin’s wedding. Perhaps another one of his memorable songs, “El Rey,” explains this dichotomy.You might say you never loved meBut you will be very sadAnd that’s why you will have to stayWith money and without moneyI always do what I wantAnd my word is the lawI don’t have a throne nor a queenNor anyone who understands meBut I’m still the kingYou probably don’t remember the first time you heard one of his songs because they were always a part of the soundscape, imprinted in your mind. His music is imbued in the fabric of American Latino culture, much like in the rest of Latin America. More

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      in Theater

      Dudes on Ice: A Play About Hockey Tackles Masculinity, Too

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      “Islander,” a skewed look at a New York Islanders season, examines extreme fandom, violence and the thrill of sports.Hockey is a brutal game: In what other sport are missing teeth a badge of honor? Not that Liza Birkenmeier and Katie Brook were in any danger of losing Chiclets as they stared down a puck: Not only were they playing air hockey instead of the ice-rink version, but they also seemed to prefer huddling on the same side of the table rather than face each other.Clearly Birkenmeier, a playwright, and Brook, a director, like being on the same team. They started working together almost 10 years ago and their fruitful collaboration includes the well-received “Dr. Ride’s American Beach House” and the new “Islander,” a skewed look at the New York Islanders’ fateful 2017-18 season, when the team failed to make the playoffs and its star, John Tavares, was about to become a free agent. (The show was originally slated for March 2020 and opened Saturday at HERE Arts Center.)There have been quite a few sports-themed plays by women in recent years, most notably Sarah DeLappe’s soccer-centric hit “The Wolves” and Lydia R. Diamond’s portrait of a barrier-shattering baseball player, “Toni Stone,” but they have focused on the female athletic experience.“Islander,” on the other hand, zeros in on “dudes doing dude stuff,” as Birkenmeier put it. An extreme version of dude stuff: Professional hockey is “unhinged and violent and white,” she said. In other words, it provides a fine lens through which to look at modern masculinity and its discontents.John Tavares playing for the New York Islanders in 2017. He was the team’s star and was about to become a free agent.Nick Wass/Associated PressTo do so, Birkenmeier, 35, and Brook, 39, pulled lines from game commentary and analysis, and podcasts like “Islanders Anxiety.” Then those sources were edited into a quasi-monologue for a composite character referred to simply as Man (David Gould) — so “Islander” is also a sly reflection on solo shows by the likes of Eric Bogosian and Spalding Gray.There is a certain affection, too, as Birkenmeier and Brook enjoy watching hockey, not just using it as a decoder ring for male behavior. A few days before previews started, the two women turned up at a Brooklyn games emporium for a chat about pucks and violence. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.The show’s narrator is obsessive, whiny, triumphant, analytical, bellicose, despondent — all the stages of fandom. What impression are you trying to create?LIZA BIRKENMEIER We’re highlighting the ridiculousness of his struggle as opposed to empathizing with it.KATIE BROOK We’re leaning into the haplessness of it: It’s not a hero’s journey, although he thinks it is. The dance we do is to engage the audience enough that you think you’re going along with him and then you kind of back off.Do you think professional sports foster a kind of stereotypical masculinity, or do they help channel it so the rest of us are a little bit safer?BROOK [Laughs] It’s a good outlet but it also reinforces things that I think are bad. Amateur sports are actually wonderful and must be kept separate in some ways, but professional sports, in part just because of the basics of capitalism, have to be violent and extreme. Basketball is not that way.BIRKENMEIER Or baseball. Hockey really points to a sort of dignity culture: If somebody gets in your goalie’s way, it’s part of the game to go up and punch that guy. It’s part of the sensationalism. I do think it’s very poisonous. The ideas of legacy and dignity and loyalty come up so violently.According to Birkenmeier, right, “Hockey really points to a sort of dignity culture: If somebody gets in your goalie’s way, it’s part of the game to go up and punch that guy.”Amy Lombard for The New York TimesWhy do you think theater hasn’t really tackled hard-core fandoms, either in sports or pop culture, considering the huge part they play in modern life?BROOK I don’t think there’s a lot of satire in theater these days. That may be part of it. Also a well-made play is based on things that we should all be able to relate to, like real estate. A lot of them hinge on the loss of the family home or whatever — some big events that everyone can agree is a big deal. But people can’t really relate to most obsessions. Those people are all on the same page about how important it is — it’s for them, not for us.BIRKENMEIER Sometimes we underestimate that sports is better theater: It’s so much like a play except you literally don’t know what’s going to happen and somebody has to win. A hockey game as a community event is potentially more exciting than a play.BROOK Well, most people think that.What was it like researching the show?BIRKENMEIER Watching the games at bars, I would sit and take notes and men would quiz me. They wouldn’t believe that I was into it. They would ask, “Who’s your favorite player?”BROOK That’s a softball question.BIRKENMEIER It is, and often they’d be like, “Is your favorite player John Tavares?” Or ask me what I thought of the last game. Or ask me what I thought of the new or old management, or whose contract was going to be up.BROOK Insulting flirting: They want to show that they’re smarter than you, but it’s supposed to be a flirtation.BIRKENMEIER Oh my God, I never took it as flirtation! I would have been more flattered. One guy was really excited about the play.Did you go to many games as well?BROOK We went to a bunch of games in Brooklyn and no one was there. After John Tavares left the [Islanders] and joined the [Toronto] Maple Leafs, I went to Nassau Coliseum at the first game against the Leafs and it was horrific. The fans were so angry, they kept yelling “We don’t need you!” every time John came on the ice. It was scary, actually. It’s not a show about violence but there is a sort of underlying fear that this guy [the narrator] is threatening, somehow.BIRKENMEIER I generally think it’s important to be funny. It’s very easy to take this and to take a serious skewering look at it.BROOK No one needs to suffer right now.BIRKENMEIER Let’s have fun, you know? More