Stranger Things (TV Program)

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    From Winona Ryder to Jenna Ortega, a Goth Girl Timeline

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    From “Beetlejuice” to its sequel, these are the actresses and roles that made us embrace the darkness.Is it just fashion? No, it’s an attitude, a lifestyle. And a beloved character type. The goth girl is the lovable-yet-scary outcast whose grim and ghastly exterior belies wit, smarts and a dry sense of humor that never fails to cast an honest light on the disappointing world around her. As “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” brings together two generations of legendary goth girls — Winona Ryder and Jenna Ortega — we look at some of the actresses and roles that have defined the archetype since the original “Beetlejuice” in 1988.1988Winona Ryder Sets the Standard“My whole life is a dark room. One big dark room.”Winona Ryder in “Beetlejuice.”Warner Bros.When Lydia Deetz appears in her family’s new Connecticut home early in “Beetlejuice,” she glances around curiously, her eyes wandering beneath her short, spiky black bangs, stopping at the sight of a spider in a web along the stairwell. Unlike her shallow, distracted parents, Lydia is clued in to the supernatural happenings of her new surroundings and has no trouble befriending the undead residents of the house.The role was one of Winona Ryder’s earliest in a career largely defined by goth girls and dark-attired outsiders. In the black comedy “Heathers,” Ryder played Veronica Sawyer, the reluctant friend to the popular girls, who prance around in bright matching outfits. Veronica, however, dresses in blacks and grays and gets drawn into a string of homicides that leaves multiple teenagers dead.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

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      Remember ‘Severance’ and ‘Stranger Things’? TV Is Making Us Wait.

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      Remember “Severance”? Remember “Stranger Things”? Today’s leisurely TV schedules are taxing memories and changing the experience.Time moves slowly in Middle-earth. Ages last for millenniums. Elves are immortal. Villains menace the land, are defeated, then are nearly forgotten before they re-emerge eons later.By this measure, it has been a blink of an eye since we last saw “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” on Amazon Prime Video. But in terms of our brief mortal lives and the traditional calendar of TV, it has been a while. Galadriel and company will return for Season 2 on Thursday, nearly two years to the day since Season 1 began in 2022.This is the Ent-like pace at which TV moves these days. The “Game of Thrones” prequel “House of the Dragon” took nearly as long to come back for its second outing. “Severance,” likewise a member of the debut class of ’22, will return in January, almost three years since we last saw it. The teen drama “Euphoria,” whose second season began in January 2022, will start shooting a third season … sometime in 2025. By the time it airs, one assumes its characters will be eligible for Social Security.More and more, rejoining a favorite series is like trying to remember the details of high school trigonometry. Which hobbit did what to whom? What did they do all day in that “Severance” office again? Was “Stranger Things” set in the 1980s, or was it actually made then?From left, the director Shawn Levy with the actors Noah Schnapp and Finn Wolfhard during production of “Stranger Things,” whose episodes are sometimes movie length now.Tina Rowden/Netflix, via Associated PressThere are, of course, different reasons for shows to take their time returning. We had a pandemic. There were labor strikes in Hollywood. Streaming platforms have been retrenching. Individual shows can have creative or staffing issues. Ambitious productions take longer.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

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      in Movies

      Maya Hawke Doesn’t Want to Let the Vibe Die

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      She just finished playing Flannery O’Connor and released a new album. Next up: “Inside Out 2” and a new season of “Stranger Things.”The actress and singer-songwriter Maya Hawke is on a self-awareness kick.Lately, she has been mindful of how she communicates, making an effort to be sincere and open. Career wise, she said, she’s been striving to foster collaboration and “no-bad-ideas energy.”Hawke, 25, plays Flannery O’Connor in “Wildcat,” a film released last month that is co-written and directed by her father, Ethan Hawke. In 2023, she acted alongside her mother Uma Thurman in the cinematic caper “The Kill Room.”Hawke has also been checking in with herself, making body scans part of her bedtime ritual. “It’s like a meditation thing where you tense all the different muscles in your body individually and try to let out your feelings,” she said during a video interview.Stress abatement is crucial as she focuses on back-to-back projects. She’s filming the final season of “Stranger Things” in Atlanta, her third album, “Chaos Angel,” dropped on May 31, and Pixar’s “Inside Out 2” — she voices a new character, Anxiety — opens June 14.Hawke got introspective as she talked about being “a little bit of a hypochondriac,” her habit of losing things and her love of a loose fit. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1Voice MemosI’m a person who’s pretty constantly creative. That doesn’t mean all of the things I create are good. They’re mostly bad. But I try to keep track of them because I never know the difference in the moment. I always try to take voice memos of little melodies that I’ll come up with or an idea for a scene I’m writing or something I think my character should say that came to me randomly.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

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      in Theater

      Review: Onstage, the ‘Stranger Things’ Franchise Eats Itself

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      “Stranger Things: The First Shadow,” a London theater show based on the Netflix series, pummels the audience with sensory overload and its lavish budget.As theatergoers took their seats, a buttery waft of popcorn in the auditorium was an indicator of what was to come. “Stranger Things: The First Shadow” — a spinoff of the hit Netflix series, “Stranger Things” — brings a high-octane, TV-movie sensibility to the stage, pummeling the audience with horror-show frights and sensory overload: eerie smoke effects, mind-boggling levitations, scary vocal distortions reminiscent of “The Exorcist” and noise — so much noise.Directed by Stephen Daldry (“Billy Elliot: The Musical”; “The Crown”) and written by Kate Trefry and Jack Thorne in collaboration with the TV show’s creators, the Duffer brothers, the show runs at the Phoenix Theater, in London, through Aug. 25, 2024. It’s a gaudy, vertiginous fairground ride of a play, exactly what you’d expect from a show co-produced by Netflix: Cheap thrills, expensively made.“Stranger Things: The First Shadow” is billed as a prequel to the Netflix series, which is set in the fictitious town of Hawkins, In., during the mid-1980s. The location is the same, but the year is 1959, and the play tells the origin story of Henry Creel, who appears as a malevolent sociopath in Season 4. We meet him here as a troubled, withdrawn adolescent (played with great aplomb by Louis McCartney) burdened with psychic, clairvoyant and telekinetic powers of unknown provenance.Henry, a newcomer to Hawkins, strikes up a tentative friendship with another oddball, Patty Newbie, played with a winning blend of naïve compassion and halting self-doubt by Ella Karina Williams. The two youngsters bond over their shared, deeply uncool, love of comic books and, somewhat improbably, land the lead roles in their high-school musical. When several of its cast members find their household pets mysteriously killed, Henry appears to be implicated. His peers take it upon themselves to investigate, and stumble, “Blair Witch”-style, into a baroque nightmare.Henry and Patty Newbie, played by Ella Karina Williams.Manuel HarlanAmid the horror, the play carries a sentimental message about young misfits finding solace and community. Patricia, an adoptee, never knew her mother (“My whole life I’ve been the girl from nowhere,” she laments,) and feels a kinship with Henry because he is misunderstood. He reassures her by pointing out that many of their favorite comic book characters are orphans: “Having no parents is basically a prerequisite to being a superhero.” Similarly, Henry is desperate not to let his strange powers define him. (He insists: “I’m not a freak! I’m normal!”)In these respects the tale is redolent of Young Adult fiction, but the can-do vibes are served up with a bleak twist, since the odds — as we know from Season 4 — are stacked against Henry. A research scientist, Dr. Brenner (Patrick Vaill), ostensibly enlisted to help him, has nefarious motives; the influence of Henry’s father, Victor (Michael Jibson), who has severe PTSD from World War II, is also a source of intrigue. All avenues lead, inexorably, to a big conspiracy involving a secret government program. The supporting cast comprise a panorama of recognizable social types — dumb jocks, deadbeat boyfriends, vapid bimbos, oafish policemen — whose antics provide light relief.Miriam Buether’s set evokes 1950s small-town life with a nostalgic, homey touch: a crescent of school locker rooms for the high school scenes, the community church and a local liquor store are elegantly rendered. Later on, a government psychiatric facility is a neon-lit, white brickwork affair, cold and clinical.In the show, Henry meets with Dr. Brenner (Patrick Vaill), right, a research scientist with questionable motives.Manuel HarlanSome of the backdrops are staggeringly elaborate. The opening scene, depicting a nautical disaster, is like something from a Hollywood action movie. In keeping with this aesthetic, the sound, by Paul Arditti, is quite simply relentless. Thunderously loud crashing sounds occur with nerve-shredding frequency — the “jump scare” technique beloved of horror movies. Henry’s paranormal powers are obscurely connected to electromagnetic energy, so there are lots of buzzing electrical noises whenever he has one of his moments.In its totality, the production is lavish to the point of embarrassment, and the sheer scale of the thing is hard to reconcile with the play’s rather modest intellectual aspirations and lack of originality. One is left simultaneously impressed and a little bewildered. Haven’t television and cinema already got these bases covered? Is this what theater is for?“Stranger Things” first aired in 2016. It’s over four years since Mike Hale suggested, in his Times review of Season 3, that the show might be suffering from “franchise fatigue.” The original concept had a certain straightforward appeal — weird goings-on in a backwoods town, sinister machinations of shady state agencies, sympathetic nerds getting a chance to shine — but it was never quite strong enough to sustain serious longevity. The show powered on regardless, because there was money to be made.“Stranger Things: The First Shadow” achieves what it sets out to do, and die-hard fans will surely lap it up — but it may well prove to be a death throe. The real spectacle here is that of a franchise eating itself.Stranger Things: The First ShadowThrough Aug. 25, 2024 at the Phoenix Theater, in London; uk.strangerthingsonstage.com. More

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      in Television

      For $18,500 (and Up), You, Too, Can Travel Like James Bond

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      When the (real) world is not enough, new luxury tours offer fans a chance to engage with their favorite film and TV worlds.From the post-apocalyptic bleakness of the TV show “The Last of Us” to the glamorous European destinations in the sprawling James Bond movie franchise, one source of travel inspiration is taking on fresh appeal as pandemic restrictions recede: the fictional worlds of film and television.“Set-jetting” — a play on “jet-setting” — will, travel analysts say, heavily influence the choice of destinations this year. With search traffic surging for the filming locations of the most popular streamed movies and television shows, that entertainment is expected to overtake social media as the top source of inspiration for travelers, according to research from online travel companies like Expedia.In response, destinations, tour operators and even film and TV production companies are striving to offer ever more experiential ways for people to engage with their favorite fictional worlds. The government of Alberta, Canada, is even assembling a map of filming locations for “The Last of Us” devotees to follow on a road trip. (The series was shot in the province.)But perhaps none are so immersive — and extravagant — as a new series of James Bond-themed private tours. They include a high-speed race down the River Thames in the same Sunseeker Superhawk 34 speedboat used in “The World Is Not Enough”; a sail on a vintage yacht along the Côte d’Azur to the Casino de Monte-Carlo, featured in “GoldenEye” and “Never Say Never Again”; and a helicopter ride above the snow-capped Ötztal Alps in Austria, where “Spectre” was filmed, accompanied by the special effects veteran Chris Corbould.People are as drawn to the places in the movies as they are to the plots, said Tom Marchant, a co-founder of Black Tomato, a travel company based in New York and London that was enlisted by the Bond movie producer, EON Productions, to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the first Bond film, “Dr. No.”The goal of the tours, Mr. Marchant said, was “unparalleled” immersion into the 007 world. The cost? From $18,500 per person for a five-night experience, and from $73,500 per person for the full 12-day experience.The Four Seasons in Cap-Ferrat, the location of a scene in the Netflix series “Emily in Paris,” is offering a themed travel package.Stéphanie Branchu/Netflix‘Transported to the set’For many travelers, the high price of immersion is worth it. Inspired by the bucolic hills and lofty Alps in “The Sound of Music,” the 1965 musical film starring Julie Andrews, Natalie McDonald, an entrepreneur in New York, was willing to pay about 10,500 pounds, or about $12,900, for Black Tomato to plan a cross-country railway trip in Switzerland in 2019 with her daughter, then 12.“It quite literally felt like we were transported to the set,” she said, adding that memories of the journey lingered long after they returned home. “In so many ways it extends the trip in our subconscious.”That desire to be immersed in fictional worlds has also been noted by streaming companies like Netflix, which is expanding its slate of interactive (and much more affordable) events. From Regency-era balls in cities like New York to uncovering a secret government lab at a Los Angeles event, attendees are given the opportunity to dress up and engage with plotlines of shows like “Bridgerton” (from $59 a person) and “Stranger Things” (from $39 for an adult).“We want people to leave feeling like they really got to experience this ‘hero’ moment within a world or a story that they’ve loved,” said Josh Simon, the vice president for consumer products at Netflix. Some three million people have attended such immersive events in 17 cities, and the company is planning more experiences linked to series like “Squid Game.”Other operators are paying attention. The Four Seasons in Cap-Ferrat, the location of a scene in the Netflix series “Emily in Paris,” is offering a Girls Trip on the French Riviera package (rates vary, but can run at least $2,000 for a two-person room). Fans of the series “The Last of Us” are flocking to the show’s locations in Alberta, despite the show’s pessimistic premise of a world inhabited by survivors of a global pandemic.Among the most obvious winners of screen tourism this year, travel advisers say, is the cliffside town of Taormina, Sicily, where the second season of the HBO show “The White Lotus” takes place. One $7,500 weeklong “White Lotus” tour was so in demand that it sold out months in advance, according to Quiiky Travel, a tour operator catering to L.G.B.T.Q. clients.Among the popular destinations for travel this year is the cliffside town of Taormina, Sicily, where the second season of the HBO show “The White Lotus” takes place.Fabio Lovino/HBOWeb traffic for the Four Seasons San Domenico Palace, the show’s location, surged more than 60 percent after the first episodes aired, and bookings are set to be stronger this year compared to last year, the hotel said.“‘The White Lotus’ worked as a business accelerator for us,” said Lorenzo Maraviglia, the hotel’s general manager, adding that the sudden interest after the show was something he had never witnessed before. Like their fictional counterparts, guests at the hotel can visit local wineries, cruise on a Vespa around the Sicilian streets and sip an aperitivo in its restaurant (though the underlying tensions are not guaranteed).Bow ties and bubblyAs they wait to learn who will replace the actor Daniel Craig, whose last appearance as James Bond was in 2021’s “No Time to Die,” Bond superfans willing to pay for one of Black Tomato’s 60 custom tours will have the opportunity to peruse Bond costumes and props, with tales from the Bond archive director, Meg Simmonds, in London. If they’re looking for an adrenaline rush, they can learn fight sequences with Lee Morrison, a stunt coordinator and former stunt double for Daniel Craig, also in London. Or they can listen to insider tales over a Parisian dinner with Carole Ashby, the British actress who appeared in “Octopussy” and “A View to Kill.”They will also be able to indulge in the brands featured in the Bond world, including an Aston Martin workshop (the spy’s car of choice) in Millbrook, England, and a private tour of the Bollinger vineyards (the spy’s Champagne of choice) in the village of Ay, France.And then there is the tour’s most lavish offering: the 12-night journey called “The Assignment,” from $73,500 per person, which begins in London and takes travelers on a five-location European tour ending in Venice. A narrative component is potentially in development, Mr. Marchant said, so attendees can live out a Bond plot of their own.For Bond fans on a budget, there are other options. Rob Woodford, a former taxi driver in Britain who runs tours based on popular film and television series, is anticipating a busy year ahead. His James Bond-themed tours try to include an element from most of the 25 films in the series. This year, he is thinking of teaming up with a speedboat company to recreate the breathless scene from “The World Is Not Enough.”“Wouldn’t that be a good idea — to recreate Pierce Brosnan shooting down the River Thames?” he said, adding: “You’ve got to reinvent yourself a bit.”Follow New York Times Travel on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. And sign up for our weekly Travel Dispatch newsletter to receive expert tips on traveling smarter and inspiration for your next vacation. Dreaming up a future getaway or just armchair traveling? Check out our 52 Places to Go in 2023. More

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      in Television

      In ‘Stranger Things,’ He Delivers Pizza and Stoned Comic Relief

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      Eduardo Franco, who joined the Netflix hit this season, has carved out a role as the show’s addled but reliably hilarious tension-release valve.The “Stranger Things” gang in Lenora Hills, Calif., is in danger — shots are being fired, and an agent is bleeding out. The camera switches abruptly to a view of an unknowing Argyle, played by Eduardo Franco, pulling up to the Byerses’ home as the catchy reggae hit “Pass the Dutchie” blares from his pizza delivery van.“Byers man, having a party and not inviting me, man?” he says. “That is so not cool.”As the group’s wheelman who “smokes smelly plants,” as Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) puts it, Argyle serves as comic relief in the show’s most horrifying season, his lighthearted energy offsetting the dark forces bedeviling the gang.“Argyle delivers pizzas and he dwells in the psychedelics sometimes,” Franco said in a recent video interview. “That’s the perfect combination: to always have hot and ready food, and a little tree.”As one of the most prominent cast additions in Season 4 — the final episodes arrive Friday on Netflix — Franco has carved out a role as the show’s addled but reliably hilarious tension-release valve. But Argyle transcends the stoner-pal stereotype and adds a little heart to the story as well, primarily in the form of his sweet friendship with Jonathan Byers (Charlie Heaton) — though admittedly this often involves the duo being stoned out of their minds.Franco’s most prominent role before Argyle came in Olivia Wilde’s coming-of-age comedy “Booksmart,” as a 20-year-old high school senior named Theo who was recruited to code for Google. That performance led to his current gig — Finn Wolfhard, who plays Mike Wheeler in “Stranger Things,” saw Franco in the movie and suggested him for the role.Franco spoke from Biarritz, France, where he was visiting as part of a “Stranger Things” branding partnership with the surf culture label Quiksilver, which supplied much of Argyle’s wardrobe. In conversation, he was clearly more astute than his character but similarly funny and informal, indulging in f-bombs as freely as Argyle does his smelly plants.In the interview, Franco discussed his inspirations for the character and “marinating in the awkwardness” that comes with life as the show’s designated burnout. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.What was it about Argyle’s character that appealed to you?I loved that I could hopefully bring a breath of fresh air to the chaos that ensues in the show. It tends to get crazy, and I was hoping I could serve as “let’s laugh it off now, because I’ve been tense for the last 45 minutes.”Argyle provides reliable comic relief, but he transcends the stoner-pal stereotype.NetflixDid you take inspiration from any past cinematic potheads?Sean Penn in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” is always in the back of my mind. My initial approach was to just completely be blown out of my mind all the time — as the character, not Eduardo the actor! I wanted Argyle to be completely clueless: When someone says “Oh my god, Argyle, we gotta get out of here!” I’ll be like, “Huh?” But I know that for the sake of the energy and the adrenaline in the scenes, that wouldn’t always work.How old is the van you drive in the show?It was touchy, an 80-something. I was taught how to drive that van by this professional stunt driver — I’d never driven a stick shift before and it was the worst thing to learn on, because it was just so old. But he was always in the van with me when I was driving, hiding in the car just in case.Was there a scene that was particularly fun to film?The dinner table scene was my personal favorite. Eleven is bummed out. Mike is also concerned. Joyce and Murray [played by Winona Ryder and Brett Gelman] are lying about going to Alaska. And me and Jonathan are blown out of our minds.It was so fun sitting there, marinating in the awkwardness. When it was time for me and Charlie to do our lines, sometimes we would stall while everyone was waiting for us, and we’d be sitting there just eating slowly. It was hilarious, and it was awesome to be able to get Brett and Winona to laugh. I love going to work and making people laugh — the camera man, the crew, the people hauling things up and down all day. And everything felt so organic, sharing the screen with Charlie, Finn and everyone.What did Argyle’s relationship with Jonathan bring to the show’s dynamic?Jonathan is in pain. I think they became instant friends because Jonathan needed a set of ears, and Argyle happened to be right there. Argyle’s character is what we all wish we could be: completely judgment-free. He’s there to have a good time with his bud, and to listen to Jonathan and help him out, no matter what he says.Do you think Argyle is capable of handling whatever danger is coming his way?I can’t tell you anything, but geez, he’s out of his mind for sure. Poor guy.“I loved that I could hopefully bring a breath of fresh air to the chaos that ensues in the show,” Franco said.Ryan Lowry for The New York TimesHow has joining an enormous global phenomenon like “Stranger Things” changed your life?At the Season 4 premiere in New York, when we sat down to screen the first episode, I got mad emotional and started crying in my seat. I was glad it was dark and nobody could see anything. To be a part of something this massive was overwhelming, and I hope people can accept my character as a new guy in the show. I hope he does serve his purpose as a breath of fresh air from all the crazy madness.Have you started getting recognized in public?Yes! For an example, when I got to France last week, I was riding a bike down the street to grab some stuff from a market. My bike had no brakes, and as I’m pulling up, I put my feet down to try to stop, and there was this guy pointing and laughing. Then he double-takes and he was like, “You’re the guy from ‘Stranger Things’? What are you doing here, man?” I was like, “I came to get some chocolate croissants and an adapter to plug my phone charger in the wall.” It was so funny, but that’s just how massive this show is.A series like this generally provides a significant career boost. What kinds of things do you hope to work on in the future?I got a couple movies under my belt, but to be in a movie where people are going to the theater and I’m rockin’ people’s socks off is my dream. I don’t know if that era is already out the window, but I just recently watched “Top Gun,” and it was amazing. So I have hope.And I’d love to be a part of creating the projects, but I don’t know necessarily how to do all that yet. I’m trying to figure all this stuff out. I don’t know a [expletive] thing, but we’re all learning. More

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      in Television

      Immersed in ‘Stranger Things,’ Then Strolling to Beckett

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      Our writer checked out two very different experiences in New York. In Netflix’s TV re-creation, you fight Demogorgons. In “Cascando,” you walk off your existential angst.Before the pizza parlor, before the arcade games, before the ice cream shop and the merch kiosks (so many merch kiosks!) and the photo op with a fiberglass-and-silicone Demogorgon, “Stranger Things: The Experience,” at the Navy Yard in Brooklyn, puts on a show.Netflix, which has created other immersive entertainments based on its “Bridgerton” and “Money Heist” properties, co-produced this 45-minute experience with Fever. Based on the teen-horror pastiche “Stranger Things,” it plunks participants, many of them dressed in 1980s finery, into tens of thousands of square feet of Hawkins, Ind. Some rooms have an unfinished feel (did the budget not include ceilings?); others suggest a theme-park-quality buildout. The most fully realized ones are nestled inside Hawkins’s cheery state-of-the-art lab. Ostensibly, ticket holders have signed up for a sleep study. An interdimensional rift soon complicates study protocols. Will these test subjects survive? Of course. They have tote bags to buy afterward.“Stranger Things: The Experience” is a piece of fan service that adopts the vocabulary of immersive theater. While legible, barely, for those unfamiliar with the series, this story has been built for devotees, allowing them to enter into the fictional world. Enterprises like this used to be lower-budget affairs of the do-it-yourself variety, the province of live-action role-players and tabletop gamers. Now for about $58 — less for gutsy under-17s, more if you book on a weekend — Netflix and its partners will do the doing for you.“We look at live experiences as providing fans another way to see themselves more in the stories they love,” Greg Lombardo, the head of live experiences at Netflix, told me in an interview a couple of days after my visit.This show, which runs for about 45 minutes, chugs along like a reasonably well-oiled machine. What eldritch fluids comprise that oil? Best not ask. The cast members who circulate are trained improvisers, skilled at eliciting responses, practiced at batting those responses back. At one point I was harangued by a journalist character — sweaty, anxious, overconfident. Ow.The Upside-Down World of ‘Stranger Things’After a three-year wait, Netflix’s sci-fi series returns with a fourth season.Season 4 Guide: As in seasons past, this go-round is full of nods and Easter eggs to 1970s and ’80s pop culture. Here are the major highlights.Review: “Stranger Things” has gone from lovingly echoing 1980s touchstones to industriously copying itself, our critic writes of the show’s fourth installment.The Duffer Brothers: The “Stranger Things” creators seem to share a brain. But they could never lock themselves in a writing cabin together.David Harbour: While “Stranger Things” was on hiatus, the actor tackled a string of strangely compelling deadbeat characters.While immersive, “The Experience” doesn’t really depend on you. The Demogorgons will eventually explode, whether or not you deploy your extrasensory powers. Which is a letdown. Because there is a fantasy that many of us entertain about the art we love — that we might matter to the art as much as it matters to us. Still, the teenagers and young adults in the room gasped and screamed and unleashed their psychic abilities with apparent delight.“We’re trying to give fans a chance to be the hero of their stories,” Lombardo said. This is pushing it. Eleven, the psychokinetic phenom played by Millie Bobby Brown, who appears via hologram, is the real hero here. The motivating factors of “The Experience” owe less to art than to marketing, and its ultimate goal suggests a branding ouroboros: devotion to the show encourages consumption of the experience, consumption of the experience urges re-engagement with the show.After “The Experience,” with the rift safely sealed, you can consume without the distractions of a plot — which is when “Stranger Things: The Experience” achieves its final and ideal form. There is pizza to be eaten and ice cream to be licked and cocktails to be drunk. Bertolt Brecht used to rail against the culinary theater, a theater that delivered only emotion and sensation, rather than intellectual engagement. Brecht probably never had a drink with a stroopwafel as garnish. I didn’t buy a tote bag, but I did play through the “Stranger Things”-branded pinball game. I think I did pretty well.“Cascando,” an adaptation of a Beckett radio play, comes courtesy of Pan Pan Theater. Upon arrival each ticket holder is outfitted in a black-hooded robe and handed a pair of headphones.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesTo wander the streets of Manhattan dressed as a high-fashion druid, a goth garden gnome, is fun of a kind.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesNo amusement genius has yet made a Samuel Beckett pinball machine — I imagine a gloomy palette, defective flippers and a high-score list that reads GODOT GODOT GODOT. But those eager for a Beckett brand extension can instead arrive at New York University’s Skirball Center for “Cascando,” an adaptation of a Beckett radio play from the early 1960s. It comes courtesy of Pan Pan Theater, an Irish company with an insouciant approach to the classics.Originally created in conjunction with the composer Marcel Mihalovici, “Cascando” is intended as a passive audio experience. But this “Cascando,” directed by Gavin Quinn and designed by Aedin Cosgrove, adds a participatory element.Upon arrival each ticket holder is outfitted in a black-hooded robe and handed a pair of headphones. Loosed onto La Guardia Place, a quiet street adjacent to Washington Square Park in Manhattan, participants begin a single-file walk around and through the neighboring blocks. As they stroll, they listen to the text, prerecorded here by Andrew Bennett and Daniel Reardon.To wander the Village dressed as a high-fashion druid, a goth garden gnome, is fun of a kind. But there are no stops along the way, no interactions, no activations. The choreography — a sharp turn here and there — is minimal. At one point, I wondered, with almost breathless excitement, if we would sit. We did not sit.While it makes sense to encounter Beckett’s text via headphones — there are references throughout to a story existing only in someone’s head — the alone-together walk doesn’t illuminate or galvanize the text, which is, like so much of Beckett’s work, heavy on repetition and ellipses. On the rainy sidewalk, meaning slid away.In another city, at another moment, a show like “Cascando” might at least have ornamented the street life. But New York’s typical street life is already a variety of theater, druids or no. As we re-entered the park, I saw a clump of skateboarders look us up and down. We had become part of their story, I thought for a moment, part of their experience. Then they shrugged and returned to their conversation. Just another Wednesday in the Village, bro.Stranger Things: The ExperienceThrough Aug. 21 at Duggal Greenhouse, Brooklyn; strangerthings-experience.com. Running time: 45 minutes for the show, then mingling.CascandoThrough July 3 at N.Y.U. Skirball, Manhattan; nyuskirball.org. Running time: 30 minutes. More

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      in Music

      Kate Bush Rides ‘Stranger Things’ to a New High on the Singles Chart

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      “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” hit No. 4 on the U.S. singles chart this week, 37 years after its release. Harry Styles’s “As It Was” is still No. 1.Thirty-seven years ago, the British singer-songwriter Kate Bush released the song “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” as part of her album “Hounds of Love.” The single went to No. 3 in Britain and No. 30 in the United States, and took its place as a signature piece of Bush’s catalog — an intense ballad with a driving beat, a playful synthesizer melody and Bush’s dramatic vocals.Then came “Stranger Things.”After “Running Up That Hill” was featured prominently in the latest season of “Stranger Things,” the 1980s-period horror-drama on Netflix, the song began to climb the charts again, posting huge numbers on streaming services and catching fire on TikTok. It has now reached No. 2 in Britain — held off only by Harry Styles’s “As It Was” — and this week climbed four spots to reach No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100, the standard U.S. pop singles chart, Bush’s highest position ever. It was Spotify’s most streamed track throughout the world last week, with 57.2 million clicks (about a million more than “As It Was”), and is showing no signs of slowing down.While “Running Up that Hill” has been big on streaming services, radio stations have been slow to play it, giving Styles an advantage when it comes to the Billboard chart. “As It Was” holds at No. 1 on the Hot 100 — which is computed from a song’s success in streaming, sales and airplay — for a sixth week.“Running Up That Hill” is the latest example of a decades-old song finding surprising success. In 2020, Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” became a streaming hit after an Idaho potato worker made a TikTok video of himself listening to it while drinking Cran-Raspberry juice. And this year, Nirvana’s 31-year-old “Something in the Way” made its first appearance on the Hot 100 after the song was used in “The Batman.”In a note on her website, Bush, who rarely gives interviews, wrote, “How utterly brilliant!” in response to the song’s chart success. “So many young people who love the show, discovering the song for the first time.” She added:The response to “Running Up That Hill” is something that has had its own energy and volition. A direct relationship between the shows and their audience and one that has stood completely outside of the music business. We’ve all been astounded to watch the track explode!On this week’s album chart, the Puerto Rican reggaeton star Bad Bunny jumps one spot to claim his second week at No. 1 with “Un Verano Sin Ti,” beating out Post Malone’s new “Twelve Carat Toothache,” which opens at No. 2 with the equivalent of 121,000 sales, including 128 million streams. Styles’s “Harry’s House,” the top seller for the last two weeks, fell to No. 3. Future’s “I Never Liked You” is No. 4, and Kendrick Lamar’s “Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers” is in fifth place. More

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      in Television

      ‘Stranger Things’ Is Back. Here’s Where We Left Off in Season 3.

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      It’s been three years since we last saw the kids from Hawkins take on the Mind Flayer (and the Russians). This refresher should help jog your memory.When the fourth season of “Stranger Things” kicks off on Netflix on Friday, nearly three years will have passed since the previous season was released, but only six months will have passed in the fictional town of Hawkins, Ind. Viewers may wonder why their favorite young characters are aging like the cast of “Grease,” but when you spend your childhood fleeing predatory humanoid creatures unleashed by an alternate dimension, you tend to grow up in a hurry.The break between hauntings may not leave our heroes much time to catch their collective breath, but three years is an usually long gap between seasons, especially for a serialized show as dense with supernatural mythology, ensemble relationships and open-ended questions as “Stranger Things.” If you don’t have a spare 449 minutes to catch up with the third season in full, here’s what you need to remember.Steve and Dustin (Joe Keery, left, and Gaten Matarazzo) helped intercept and decode Russian communiqués to discover clandestine activities under the Starcourt mall.NetflixRed dawnSet in the summer of 1985, the third season took place at the height of Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union, before glasnost and Rocky Balboa started to thaw out their relationship. Looking for an edge beyond nuclear proliferation, the Soviets sneaked into Hawkins, where they deployed a giant laser beam to crack open the same gate to the Upside Down that Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) and her friends labored so hard to seal up.It was a little like the rationale Paul Reiser, who was introduced as Dr. Owens in the second season, used as a corporate villain in “Aliens”: If this powerful otherworldly force could be harnessed, it could be deployed as an unstoppable weapon of war. Who needs hydrogen bombs when you’ve got the Mind Flayer terrorizing the Heartland?Happily for the citizens of Hawkins, the new Starcourt Mall has opened outside town, a pastel-colored consumer oasis with a Sam Goody, a Jazzercise place and a multiplex showing “Back to the Future.” Unfortunately, all the ma-and-pa businesses downtown are also starting to shutter, including the general store where Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder) clerks. And it turns out, those pesky Russians, through secret dealings with the corrupt mayor (Cary Elwes), have gobbled up the Starcourt and surrounding properties for their nefarious purposes.Through intercepted and decoded Russian communiqués, Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) and Steve (Joe Keery), along with Robin (Maya Hawke), Steve’s co-worker at the Scoops Ahoy ice cream parlor, uncovered the operation under the mall.Billy (Dacre Montgomery) took the bad-boy thing to a whole new level. NetflixRe-animatorAs it prepared to exert its psychic force on Hawkins once again, the Mind Flayer started possessing rats and humans, melting down their biomass and combining it to form a spider-like monster used to wreak havoc on earth. Some of the possessed, including the bad-boy lifeguard Billy Hargrove (Dacre Montgomery), returned to their lives as hallowed-out clones of their former selves, who became “active” at the malevolent entity’s discretion.As interns at The Hawkins Post newspaper — the one downtown business that’s apparently still thriving — Nancy Wheeler (Natalia Dyer) and Jonathan Byers (Charlie Heaton) tried to get the scoop, but their deranged rodent story proved unfit for print.Max and Lucas (Sadie Sink and Caleb McLaughlin) had a few ups and downs. NetflixLove will tear us apartWith the core characters moving deeper into adolescence, marathon sessions of Dungeons & Dragons were set aside for romantic intrigue — much to the annoyance of the dungeon master Will Byers (Noah Schnapp), who would rather have had life return to normal after his time in the Upside Down. Dustin returned from science camp raving about Suzie, who was reportedly “hotter than Phoebe Cates” but whose existence was questioned. (She exists. And loves the theme to “The Neverending Story.”)Eleven and Mike Wheeler (Finn Wolfhard) were playing kissy-face all summer until Chief Jim Hopper (David Harbour), El’s adoptive father, put his foot down. That left Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), who had his own on-again/off-again fling with Max (Sadie Sink), to give terrible advice based on what little he understood about girls. Steve used to understand plenty about girls, but he whiffed with Robin, who is into them herself.It took most of the season for the kids to come together, so they have the Mind Flayer to thank for saving their fractured relationships. Nancy and Jonathan stayed on a low simmer as they investigated the rat-and-human possession story, and the will-they-or-won’t-they vibe between Hopper and Joyce continued, despite their obvious feelings for each other.But they had to put their love on hold, too, after they kidnapped a Russian scientist and recruited Murray (Brett Gelman), the former reporter turned private eye, to translate info on how to infiltrate the Soviet operation and shut down the machine that has opened the transdimensional gate.Lucas’s little sister, Erica (Priah Ferguson) used her diminutive size to her advantage in helping save the world.NetflixFright nightThe climatic episode turned the Starcourt Mall into a multilevel battleground over the Fourth of July, with some of the fireworks moved inside. In the mall atrium, the Mind Flayer, by way of the spider monster, squared off against the wildly overmatched kids.A weakened El summoned every last drop of energy to beat back the monster. At the same time, her friends blasted away at it with a cache of stolen fireworks. For a moment, El manages to loosen Billy from the Mind Flayer’s psychic grip, and in a last-ditch moment of heroism, he sacrifices himself in order to save her.As that was happening, Dustin and Erica (Priah Ferguson), Lucas’s little sister and an ice cream sample enthusiast, used Dustin’s radio to lead Hopper, Joyce and Murray through the tunnel system below the mall, where they posed as Russian agents to gain access to the giant laser. Although Hopper successfully battled a superagent, who was a dead ringer for Robert Patrick’s T-1000 in “Terminator 2,” he was also vaporized in the course of destroying the machine. Or so it seemed …So long, Hopper (David Harbour). Or maybe not?NetflixEvery time you go awayEarlier in the season, Hopper had vowed to make Joyce feel like Hawkins was a safe place for her to call home. With his presumed death putting an end to that promise, Joyce finally decided to move out of the cursed town that had tormented her family so relentlessly. She and her boys moved to California, joined by El, who had lost both her adoptive father and her powers while fighting the Mind Flayer.In a postscript set in a Russian military complex, the guards sought out a prisoner to feed to a Demogorgon, somehow captured from the Upside Down and kept in an enclosure, like a velociraptor in “Jurassic Park.” The guards were told not to pick “the American” for the Demogorgon’s lunch, which left fans with the obvious question: Who is the American? Is it Hopper?A trailer from early 2020 confirmed that it was, indeed, Hopper. Based on Netflix’s release last week of the first scene (a video since taken down), he and El will have a lot of catching up to do if they manage to reunite. More