Off-B'way Review: The Disappear

Hamish Linklater and Miriam Silverman in
The Disappear.
Credit: Jeremy Daniel

People who make movies and write novels are terrible at relationships. What’s more they don’t give a hoot about the environment or climate change unless their more mature teenage kids force them to. That’s the take-away from Erica Schmidt’s dark comedy The Disappear, presented by Audible at the Minetta Lane Theater. There are some funny moments in this Virginia Woolf wanna-be, but the entire evening feels like a sitcom version of Noah Baumbach’s 2019 film Marriage Story which handled basically the same material--a show-biz couple splitting--with more subtlety and depth. Schmidt deserves credit for clever dialogue and a few insightful observations on art versus reality and our narcissistic culture, but the characterizations are too often inconsistent and the plot feels overly familiar and forced.

Volatile film director Benjamin Braxton (appropriately obnoxious Hamish Linklater) and his wife, artistically successful novelist Mira Blair (complex Miriam Silverman) are at each others’ throats. He feels belittled, frustrated and desperate for fresh passion after 20 years of marriage while she barely tolerates his selfishness and obliviousness to household duties. Their frayed union is hanging by a thread. The only thing keeping them together seems to be their environmentally-conscious young daughter Dolly (multi-faceted Anna Mirodin) and Mira’s tenacious belief in long-term matrimony. While working on his latest project, Benjamin has become obsessed with flighty actress Julie Wells (Madeline Brewer in a total switch from her submissive Janine on The Handmaid’s Tale). But when hot young star Raf Night (sexy Kevin Harrison Jr.) signs on to co-star with Julie, he makes Mira’s collaborating on the screenplay a condition of his participation. 

Of course, the husband and wife’s working together spells disaster. Their clashes form the meat of the play, but their go-rounds soon become repetitious. In addition, Schmidt’s direction emphasizes broad comedy and screaming matches with little room for nuance. There is a furious onstage sexual encounter between Benjamin and Mira which offers insight into their love-hate bond (kudos to Intimacy Director Alison Novelli), but it’s not enough to make clear why these two have stayed together if they make each other so miserable. Plus the characters’ motivations and objectives shift radically depending on the latest plot twist. Julie is portrayed as an eccentric dimwit, but changes to a take-charge, self-determined feminist by the final curtain. Early in the play, acerbic British producer Michael Bloom (valuable Dylan Baker) angrily claims no one but him will finance Benjamin’s films or put up with his erratic behavior. Later he argues that Benjamin is a genius and must be given his space. 

B'way Update: The Fear of 13 with Adrien Brody, Tessa Thompson

Adrien Brody in The Fear of 13 in London.

Double Oscar winner Adrien Brody (The Pianist, The Brutalist) will make his Broadway debut in The Far of 13 by Olivier nominee Lindsay Ferrentino (The Queen of Versailles), following a run at London's Donmar Warehouse. The play, based on the documentary by David Sington, focuses on the true story of Nick Yarris who spent more than two decades on Death Row for a murder he insists he did not commit. Yarris was the first person to be sentenced to death in Pennsylvania to be exonerated by DNA evidence. Co-starring is Golden Globe nominee Tessa Thompson (Hedda), also making her Broadway debut. Tony winner David Cromer (The Band's Visit) directs in a staging different from that of the London production. This is Cromer's third show this season after Caroline and Meet the Cartozians Off-Broadway. Fear of 13 begins previews at the James Earl Jones Theater on March 19 prior to an April 15 opening. 

Brody lost the Olivier Award to John Lithgow of Giant which will also be opening on Broadway this spring. So we will likely see a rematch at the Tony Awards.

Batman Humor That Went Over My Head as a Kid, Part 3

In honor of the 60th anniversary of the premiere of the Batman series (on Jan. 12), here are some more Bat episodes with humor than went over my head at 6 years old.

Ceasar Romero with Kathy Kersh,
later Burt Ward's wife.

The Practical Jokers/The Jokers' Provokers: This episode was ABC cross-promotion night! Bruce and Dick are settling into watch The Green Hornet, another William Dozier comic-book series, when the Joker interrupts to give Batman and Robin a clue to his next caper. Then when the Dynamic Duo are scaling yet another building, Howard Duff appears in a window. Duff was starring in ABC's Felony Squad (1966-69) and he appears in character as Sgt. Sam Stone. Interestingly, Ben Alexander of Dragnet was also a regular on this series and had earlier made a Batman cameo. (His commitment to Felony Squad prevented him from recreating his Dragnet role on Jack Webb's reboot of the series on NBC.) Duff would appear as the Special Guest Villain in Season 3 with his wife Ida Lupino. They played a pair of hippie-slang-spouting alchemist-scientists types Dr. Cassandra and her hubby Kabala. Interesting that Felony Squad has disappeared without a trace and its only remnant is the star appearing in a window on Batman for a few minutes. There are Felony Squad episodes of YouTube. I watched one for a few minutes. God, it was cliched and boring.

The obligatory gun moll in this episode was played by Burt Ward's later wife, Kathy Kersh, possibly the worst actress to play a villain's love interest/assistant. Terry Moore was pretty bad too as another Joker girl--Venus in The Zodiac Crimes three-parter. Kersh was hired for her gorgeous looks and figure, not her dramatic skills. Unlike Gail Hire (Egghead's Miss Bacon), Leslie Perkins (Minstrel's Octavia), Diane McBain (The Mad Hatter's Lisa), and many other more competent actresses, Kersh gave no depth to her character, the vain Cornelia. Ward divorced her after a few years and married two more times.

Battle, Hamnet Dominate GGs

Teyana Taylor, Timothee Chalamet, Jessie Buckley
and Ryan Coogler at the GGs.
Credit: Rich Polk/GG2026

One Battle After Another and Hamnet were the big winners at the Golden Globes Awards hosted by Nikki Glaser and broadcast on CBS. For her second consecutive year as host, Glaser scored major laughs, particularly against the host network, calling out the recent shift towards the right. "CBS News is now See BS," she quipped. Battle won named Best Picture (Comedy), Director, Screenplay and Supporting Actress (Teyana Taylor). Hamnet triumphed as Best Picture (Drama) and Actress (Drama) for Jesse Buckley. After similar wins at the Critics' Choice Awards last week, Battle is now positioned as the frontrunner for the upcoming Oscars. Sinners, KPop Demon Hunters, and The Secret Agent won two awards each.

In the TV categories Netflix' Adolescence was the big winner, repeating triumphs at the Emmys and Critics Choice Awards with wins for Best Limited/Anthology Series or TV Movie and acting awards to Stephen Graham, Owen Cooper, and Erin Doherty.

Judd Apatow was the best presenter, humorously ripping the GGs for his loss in 2015. His film Trainwreck lost the Best Comedy Award to Ridley Scott's The Martian which wasn't exactly a laugh riot. Wanda Sykes was a close runner-up for Best Presenter by roasting each of the nominees for Best Comedy Special and then declaring she would accept the award for the absent winner Ricky Gervais and thank the trans community on his behalf. Gervais recently made offensive gags about trans women and refused to apologize or take them back.

A list of winners follows:

B'way Review: Bug

Carrie Coon and Namir Smallwood in Bug.
Credit: Matthew Murphy

Since its London premiere in 1996, Tracey Letts’ riveting psycho-thriller Bug has become more relevant and therefore even scarier. Currently revived in a forceful production from Steppenwolf Theater Company and director David Cromer, presented on Broadway by Manhattan Theater Club, Bug explores the paranoid fantasies of a conspiracy theorist and how his fear of phantom big-government forces destroy his life and that of everyone around him. In the years since its London opening and Obie-winning Off-Broadway run in 2004, our national fever dreams have intensified, fed by the ravings of our unhinged president and the unrestrained avalanche of disinformation spewing out of the Internet. Twenty years ago, this was a crackling good horror story. Now it’s all too real. 

Set in a grubby Oklahoma motel room (memorably shoddy set design by Takeshi Kata), the plot focuses on two pathetic loners, beset by tragedy, filling up their empty souls and rationalizing their misery with insane convictions of Big-Brother mind control. Agnes (a magnificently tortured Carrie Coon, Letts’ spouse) is scraping by as a cocktail waitress, contending with an abusive ex-husband just out of stir who wants back in her life. She meets Peter (a haunted and numb Namir Smallwood), a seemingly sympathetic drifter who gradually reveals a dangerous belief system. A persistent toothache and an insect sighting are early warning signs that all is not right with Peter. As Peter draws Agnes into his maze of misconceptions, she abandons all reason and joins him in a demented nightmarescape (Kata’s increasingly spooky set, Heather Gilbert’s unsettling lighting and Josh Schmidt’s eerie sound design complete the Twilight Zone-like environment.)

B'way Update: Titanique Cast; Gay Fantasticks

Jim Parsons, Debrah Cox, Frankie Grande
and Constantine Rousouli
will headline Titanique on Broadway.

Titanique, the long-running Off-Broadway parody musical, has announced new passengers for its Broadway voyage. Joining co-creator Marla Mindelle as Celine Dion will be four-time Emmy Award winner and Tony nominee Jim Parsons (“Big Bang Theory,” Mother Play, Our Town) as Ruth Dewitt Bukater; multi-platinum Grammy-nominated singer and actress Deborah Cox (The Wiz, The Bodyguard Musical) as Unsinkable Molly Brown; original cast member Frankie Grande (Rock of Ages, Mamma Mia) returns as Victor Garber; and Olivier Award-winning Titanique co-creator Constantine Rousouli (Wicked, Cruel Intentions: The Musical) as Jack Dawson, a role he originated off-Broadway. Additional casting will be announced in the coming weeks. 

Previews begin March 26 at the St. James Theater with an opening set for April 26. The limited run engagement will play through July 12.

More Batman Humor That Went Over My Head as a Kid

Loren Ewing, Doodles Weaver (Sigourney
Weaver's uncle) and Art Carney
In the "Shoot a Crook Arrow" episode
of Batman

Shoot a Crooked Arrow/Walk the Straight and Narrow: The second, much campier season of Batman premiered with Art Carney as The Archer, a low-rent, wanna-be Robin Hood. Carney was inspired casting for this role since he was best known for playing the blue-collar, lovable sewer worker Ed Norton on The Jackie Gleason Show. Norton was the opposite of the debonair Errol Flynn image of the noble bandit. In fact, I remember Carney as Norton making a joke about a weirdly dressed fellow cruise ship passenger on the Gleason Show. "He looks like this week's Special Guest Villain," Norton quipped. I remember thinking Carney was a Special Guest Villain just a few weeks earlier. 

As the Dynamic Duo descend the side of police headquarters to pursue the escaping Archer, they encounter this episode's window cameo, Dick Clark, then host of the ABC music series, American Bandstand. (Although what Dick Clark is doing in police headquarters is never made clear.) There's also a reference to The Music Man with Bruce Wayne informing Dick Grayson, "we've got trouble, right here in Gotham City." Veteran character actor Sam Jaffe appears as Zoltan Zorba, the first poor Gotham City resident to receive a $100 bill from the Wayne Foundation (which turns out to be a counterfeit bill courtesy of The Archer). Jaffe was best known for playing Dr. Zorba on Ben Casey. There's also a corny lecture from a police officer who chides a complaining female motorist that Batman gets away with speeding through Gotham City without so much as a ticket. The cop informs the griper Batman is pursuing criminals but under normal circumstances he's the safest driver in GC. The other drivers applaud. Robert Cornthwaite appears as Allan A. Dale (get it?), the fussy, clench-jawed administrator of the Wayne Foundation grants and secret accomplice of the Archer. This character is coded-gay with a handkerchief tucked up his sleeve and creepy admiration of Batman's cowl.