Pre-Oscar Film Catch-Up

A scene from Flow.
Credit: Dreamwell/SacreBleu/Take 5

As 2024 draws to a close, I'm trying to catch up with potential award nominated and winning films before the Golden Globes are dispensed on Jan. 5 and the Oscar nominations come out on Jan. 17. Just yesterday, I took in the Latvian animated film Flow at the Angelika Center, killing two birds with one stone since it is on the Oscar shortlist for Best Animated Feature and Best International Film. It's a beautifully silent work chronicling the adventures of a cat as it copes with a natural disaster in what seems to be a post-human world. The images are breathtaking as the feline escapes a flood and makes friends with various other animals in their quest for survival. 

As noted in an earlier blog, this year is a bit different because it seems not as many high-profile films are available on the various streaming services as previous years. It was so easy to catch so many of them in 2022 and 2023, but now it seems the studios have wised up post-pandemic and not released their big projects for home viewing so soon. 

In Praise of Linda Lavin

Jonathan Silverman and 
Linda Lavin in
Broadway Bound

Just saw that Linda Lavin died. She was best known for a so-so but long-running sitcom Alice (1976-85), based on Martin Scorsese's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1976-85), but she was a brilliant stage actress. She got her start in musicals, delivering the stand-out solo numbers in The Mad Show ("The Boy From..." (music by Mary Rodgers and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim under the pen name of Esteban Ria Nido) and It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Superman ("You've Got Possibilities," music by Charles Strouse, lyrics by Lee Adams). She won a well-deserved Tony Award for Neil Simon's Broadway Bound. The highlight was her monologue describing the night her character, based on Simon's mother, danced with George Raft. Every performance of hers was so precise, insightful, full of details revealing characters such as The New Century (Drama Desk Award), Collected Stories, Death-Defying Acts, The Lyons (Obie Awards for those two), Hollywood Arms, Other Desert Cities, The Tale of the Allergist's Wife, Cakewalk (as Lillian Hellman), and The Diary of Anne Frank. In the early 70s before Alice, she made numerous entertaining guest shots on Rhoda, Barney Miller, and Phyllis. More recently, she appeared in Netflix's No Good Deed and Hulu's Mid-Century Modern.

I once encountered her on the street and told her I was just thinking of her performance in Broadway Bound and the desperate, intense way she said "I need to talk to you" to Phyllis Newman who played her sister. That one line conveyed everything that was going with the character. Her husband was having an affair and her marriage was breaking up. I went on to tell her her Nana in Carol Burnett and Carrie Hamilton's Hollywood Arms reminded me so much of my own grandmother, particularly when she yelled at her granddaughter for forgetting to take her muddy shoes off on the newspaper on the floor and then tapping her brain to indicate that the girl must think before acting. My grammy would do the same gesture.

In Collected Stories, she brought new life to a role already played by Maria Tucci and Uta Hagen, that of a famous writer in conflict with her former protege who has taken intimate details from her mentor's past and incorporated them into her own novel. In the climactic confrontation scene, Lavin's character has a cold and she uses that condition to perform specific tasks such as finding tissues and cough syrup so the scene is not just angry confict. She is doing something specific. That's what made Lavin's work so special she was always specific.

Saturday Morning Memories: 80s Edition

Laurence Fishburne and Paul Reubens in
Pee Wee's Playhouse.

With the new year soon approaching, I've been waxing nostalgic about Saturday mornings. Ever since the networks eliminated their cartoon and kiddie blocks since the cable networks provide such fare non-stop, I reminisce about sitting in front of the set from 7AM to 1PM when our Mom would kick us out of the house. Even though I was in my 20s and 30s in the 1980s, I still enjoyed watching Saturday morning programming on network TV. Several of the shows at the time had a weird adult sensibility. These were led by Pee Wee's Playhouse (1986-90), an absurdist spoof of old-time kiddie shows filled with double entendres and surrealism. Pee Wee Herman was the brainchild of Paul Ruebens, created at the LA improv troupe The Groundlings. A child in a man's body, Pee Wee lived in a cuckoo, pop-art clubhouse filled with anthropomorphic objects and animals. 

I actually met cast member Shirley Stoller and S. Epatha Merkerson on the street. Both were fun and said they enjoyed doing the show. By a weird coincidence, I met Epatha in the post office and she played Reba the Mail-Lady on the show. Future stars Laurence Fishburne, Phil Hartman, and Natasha Lyonne also appeared in regular roles as Cowboy Curtis, Captain Carl, and a member of the Playhouse Gang. Reubens' career was sidelined after the show ended when he arrested for indecent behavior in a Florida movie theater. (I rushed out and bought a doll of Playhouse character The King of Cartoons played by William Marshall thinking it would become valuable.) Reubens continued playing odd roles here and there such as the Penquin's father in a Batman movie, a reporter on The Conners, and a recurring character on Murphy Brown, He did revive the Pee Wee character including a run on Broadway in 2010 and in a Netflix film in 2015. He died in 2023 at age 70.

Martin Short also had a bizarre cartoon show during this period. The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley (1988-9) featured another manic man-child, the title character created by Short and played in sketches on SCTV and SNL. The humor employed was definitely above the heads of most kids. There were numerous allusions to classic Hollywood films allowing Short and fellow cast members Andrea Martin, Catherine O'Hara, Jonathan Winters and Joe Flaherty to perform imitations of stars of the era. My favorite episode was "E.G., Go Home" in which Ed was trapped in a rocket and landed on an alien planet ruled over by a Queen who sounded exactly like Bette Davis (Short) in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex. I recall references to The Misfits, It's a Wonderful Life, and The Wizard of Oz. Flaherty would reprise his Count Floyd character from SCTV in live-action sequences. The show was brilliantly satiric and a cut above the usual Saturday morning fare.

Another grown-up comedy series was CBS's Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures (1987-8), which I believe came on right after or before Pee-Wee's Playhouse. Ralph Bakshi (Fritz the Cat, Heavy Traffic) created this revival/satire of the Terrytoons kiddie series and the superhero genre in general. Zany villains and characters from Mighty's

past and other Terrytoons would appear in a bizarre universe. The film Fantastic Voyage was satirized as Mundane Voyage and the 1978 Superman movie was replayed with mice recreating Mighty Mouse's origin. There were also appearances by Bat-Bat and his sidekick Tick the Bug Wonder, a goof on Batman, and the Mighty Heroes, the parody superhero group Bakshi created in the 1960s. Here they were aged accountants rounding up escaped numbers. The show got into trouble when in one episode Mighty is sniffing a flower and it appears to be cocaine because he acts drugged afterwards. That resulted in the show being cancelled because of complaints from right-wings watchdogs.

Another cartoon superhero group from the 80s was Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends (1981-3), but I will save that for a blog specifically on Superheroes so I can include Underdog, Batman, Superman and the Super-Friends.

Radio and Cartoon Voice Actors

Two recent events have demonstrated the convergence of two entertainment media. 1) I watched one Flintstones video on Facebook and now I'm inundated with them. 2) I've been listening to old radio shows on Spotify. Thanks to both of these events, I noticed that many radio actors from the 1940s and 50s later did cartoon voice-overs in the 1960s. Their abilities to create multiple, distinct characters with their voices led them from one defunct medium to a new thriving one. Alan Reed who played the rough, plebian Fred Flintstone, also enacted the patrician poet Falstaff on Fred Allen's Allen's Alley segment of his various radio broadcasts.

Prolific radio actor Gerald Mohr
voiced Reed Richards on
Hanna-Barbera's Fantastic Four...

Gerald Mohr had a distinctive, masculine voice which led to many radio roles as detectives and tough guys. He played Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe on a continuing series and was named Radio Actor of the Year in 1949. I often listened to his adventures while driving to work at 6 in the morning to teach school. I first thrilled to his manly voice when he played Reed Richards aka Mr. Fantastic on Hanna-Barbera's adaptation of The Fantastic Four on ABC (1967-68) and Hal Jordan alias the Green Lantern on CBS's Aquaman on CBS the same season. Mohr voiced the Green Gladiator in three solo adventures and three outings with the Justice League of America. His segments were incorporated in the Superman/Batman/Aquaman Adventure Hour and lived on in syndication. The actor died of a heart attack the following year at age 58. He had also appeared on dozens

...and Mohr also played Green Lantern (far right)
on CBS' Aquaman Show

of live-action TV shows including both I Love Lucy and The Lucy Show as well as Lost in Space (I have to find that episode.) He had a small role in Funny Girl opposite Barbara Streisand and starred in the infamous Grade-Z sci-fi epic Angry Red Planet.

Frank Nelson was another radio vet who made the transition to TV toons. He became famous on the Jack Benny radio series as the omnipresent annoying waiter, doctor or salesman who would greet Jack with an exaggerated "Yeeeeeeeeeees!" Nelson later appeared on several episodes of The Flintstones

Frank Nelson on The Flintstones

similarly bedevelling Fred as a clerk selling bowling balls, pianos, or credit for jewelry. He later showed up on the 1980s iteration of The Jetsons as a smart-aleck robot. (Both Jetsons series are on available on Max. I will have to catch those episodes.)

Howard McNear was best known as the dithery, chatty barber Floyd on The Andy Griffith Show, but to an earlier generation he was the town doctor on the radio version of Gunsmoke as well as appearing on various other shows including Jack Benny's where he played a multitude of slow-moving government officials. On The Flintstones, he was an incompetent doctor who made Barney invisible.

Of course Bea Benaderet was famous as Betty Rubble, the Flintstones' second female lead. She also did numerous Warner Brother's animated shorts opposite her future Flintstones' spouse Mel Blanc (Barney Rubble). The only short I could find where she played the lead was the screamingly funny Wild Wife (1954) in which an oppressed homemaker recounts her stressful day to her hubby who accuses women of having all the time in the world and accomplishing little. After detailing endless humiliations and inconveniences, she

A scene from Wild Wife (1954)

clobbers him with a rolling pin. I only recently saw this short on MeTV's Toon in With Me, as it never showed up in previous syndication packages.

Bea later starred opposite Lucille Ball on her radio show My Favorite Husband and would have reunited with the redhead as Ethel Mertz on I Love Lucy but she was already contracted for The Burns and Allen TV Show. So the role went to Vivian Vance. Bea was a regular as Aunt Pearl on the first seasons of the Beverly Hillbillies and starred on Petticoat Junction. (She passed away while the series was still filming and her role as maternal figure to three gorgeous young women was filled by June Lockhart. Bea's character's absence was never fully explained. She was "out of town" for good.) On The Flintstones, Benaderet showed her versatility by playing many other roles in addition to Betty such as nosy neighbors, tough-talking waitresses or secretaries, and harried nurses. 

B'way Review: All In: Comedy About Love by Simon Rich

John Mulaney and Fred Armisen in
All In: Comedy About Love by 
Simon Rich.
Credit: Emilio Madrid

If you’re looking for the perfect date night show—or just want a massive injection of laughs—then head over to the Hudson Theater for All In: Comedy About Love by Simon Rich, by far the happiest and cleverest evening on or Off-Broadway in many years. The advertising proclaims the cast will feature “different combinations of the funniest people on Earth.” That hyperbolic claim may be hard to verify, but author Simon Rich is definitely on the short list. His pieces and sketches have appeared in the New Yorker and on Saturday Night Live and his witty vignettes here have the ingenuity of Woody Allen, with a gentler touch. 

This is not an evening of Hallmark TV-movie rom-coms. The seven segments celebrate different forms of love in the most surprising ways. The format is simplicity itself, staged with a deft hand by Alex Timbers. The four cast members—comedian John Mulaney, SNL and Portlandia veteran Fred Armisten, Tony winner Renee Elise Goldsberry (Hamilton) and Drama Desk winner Richard Kind (The Big Knife) at the performance attended—are seated on comfy lounge chairs and narrate the various delightful love stories, all heavy on fantasy and satire. Lucy MacKinnon’s cartoonish video designs perfectly illustrate the tales which are punctuated by infectious rock-folk music by Stephin Merritt of the Magnetic Fields, performed by Bengsons, whose lead singers are (appropriately) a married couple. David Korins’ warm-toned set resembles the lobby of a friendly ski lodge. The perfect place to spend a winter evening.

Richard Kind, Rene Elise Goldsberry,
John Mulaney and Fred Armisen in
All In: Comedy About Love by
Simon Rich.
Credit: Emilio Madrid

Mulaney starts the show off on the right quirky, off-kilter note with a monologue, “Guy Walks Into a Bar,” which is essentially a shaggy dog story about a hearing-impaired genie and a one-foot tall pianist. What begins as a hilarious one-note gag develops into a tender story of unexpected connection. There follows parodistic, yet well-observed stories on the love of parents, siblings, husbands and wives. Rich places contemporary conflicts in mismatched settings, creating bizarre jigsaw puzzle plots. A pair of pirates clash over how to raise an orphan stowaway. Should she be instilled with a defiance of land-loving convention or is an established sleep schedule more important? A Victorian physician grows insanely jealous when his wife spends too much time with his patient, the Elephant Man. Canines search for amour in the personal ads.

Sometimes it’s a bit of a stretch to fit the stories under the umbrella theme of love. “The Big Nap” is an extended spoof of film noir detective yarns as played out by a pair of toddlers. “A New Client” is a riff on Woody Allen’s “Death Knocks,” itself a goof on Bergman’s The Seventh Seal, only the Grim Reaper is distracted by a game of gin rummy rather than a chess match. In Rich’s iteration, Death has come to claim a has-been agent who manages to postpone his demise with promises of getting Death an interview with Martin Scorsese. Not exactly on topic. But it doesn’t matter, they’re all riotously funny.

Richard Kind in All In: Comedy About
Love by Simon Rich.
Credit: Emilio Madrid

Mulaney’s dry delivery precisely fits Rich’s sharp wit. Armisten has a marvelous time impersonating a pirate trying to be a daddy, Death shyly admitting he did Shakespeare in high school, and a sensitive Elephant Man. Kind is deliciously enraged as the jealous doctor and subtly crafty as the scheming agent. Goldsberry shines as a baby who can’t remember anything, the innocent pirate child, and the narrator of “History Report,” a dispatch from the future detailing how even a climate-challenged Earth itself is not as important as two people finding each other. A loving and sweet finish to an wondrous holiday treat.

Dec. 22—Feb. 16, 2025. Hudson Theater, 141 W. 44th St., NYC. Running time: 90 mins. with no intermission. thehudsonbroadway.com.

B'way Review: Gypsy

Joy Woods and Audra McDonald in
Gypsy.
Credit: Julieta Cervantes

The sixth Broadway production of Gypsy, the classic musical based on the memoirs of legendary stripper Gypsy Rose Lee, is a theatrical miracle. Not only does it outfit an oft-produced warhorse with totally new, shining armor, but also provides Audra McDonald, the winner of six Tony Awards, with the means to achieve an unprecedented seventh by  delivering a towering interpretation of the King Lear of female musical theater roles, the unstoppable Mama Rose. Both were thought to be impossible feats, but director George C. Wolfe and McDonald have done the impossible.

Let’s tackle the first accomplishment. Gypsy (1959) is the Holy Grail of Broadway musicals. Every leading lady worth her salt has tackled it. But up until now, all five previous reproductions have largely employed Jerome Robbins’ original direction and choreography. The late book-author Arthur Laurents, recreating Robbins’s work, has directed every Main Stem restaging with the exception of the 2003 production which was helmed by Sam Mendes. All of five have employed Robbins’ 1959 dance steps. George C. Wolfe has applied his prodigious theatrical imagination to the smart and insightful book by Laurents and evergreen score by Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim, while retaining Robbins’  basic flow of scenes and framing them as acts in a vaudeville show. Wolfe has placed his own clever stamp on such iconic moments as the transition between Baby June and Her Newsboys from tots to teens, the riotous “You Gotta Get a Gimmick,” Rose and company’s trek from Seattle to L.A., employing a delightfully delapidated vintage automobile, and many others. Santo Loquasto’s suggestive backstage sets, Toni-Leslie James’ versatile costumes, and Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer’s jazzy lighting all contribute to creating the atmosphere of an endless series of one-night stands and cheap boarding houses.

Audra McDonald and Joy Woods in
Gypsy.
Credit: Julieta Cervantes

Camille A. Brown has the distinction of being the first new choreographer for the show since Robbins and she also plants her own flag on familiar territory. Her dances are inventive and fresh, particularly her staging of Gypsy’s racy interpretation of “Let Me Entertain You,” climaxing in an erotic rite set in the Garden of Eden, marking her arrival as the star of the strip tease. Brown’s quirky, angular moves, sensuously executed by Joy Woods as Gypsy (Louise) and a lively chorus, evoke Josephine Baker’s eccentric banana dance that made her the toast of Paris in the 1920s. Brown’s staging of “All I Need Is the Girl” is more elaborate than Robbins’, and Kevin Csolak as Tulsa makes it in a show-stopper in an evening of musical explosions. Brown even incorporates Woods as Louise into the number correctly. She is still clumsy, but joyfully joining Tulsa in the big finish, not immediately picking up the steps but following along as best she can. (Woods and Csolak are prime candidates for the 2025 Chita Rivera Awards for Best Broadway dancers.)

B'way Update: Dead Outlaw to Transfer

Trent Saunders, Andrew Durand, and 
Eddie Cooper in Dead Outlaw.
Credit: Matthew Murphy

Dead Outlaw, which had an award-winning run Off-Broadway earlier this year, will transfer to Broadway in time for the Tony Awards, beginning previews at the Longacre Theater April 12 in advance of an April 27 opening. The fact-based musical about a petty criminal in the Wild West whose corpse found its way onto a 20th century California amusement pier, features a book by Itamar Moses and a score by David Yazbeck and Erik Della Pinna. David Cromer repeats his direction from the Off-Broadway run at the Minetta Lane Theater. Dead Outlaw received Best Musical Awards from the Drama Desk and the New York Drama Critics Circle, as well as Best Off-Broadway Musical from the Outer Critics Circle. 

The Longacre will soon become vacant due to the early closing of Swept Away, another musical involving dead bodies.

Politics Not as Usual

Trump and Musk:
The new Tsar and Rasputin?

I've been avoiding writing about the political scene because it's so damned depressing. Trump is not even in office yet and he is already sowing seeds of sedition and destruction. He and his Rasputin Elon Musk are trying to sink a budget deal and shut down the government. He won a settlement from ABC over George Stephanopoulos's calling him an adjudicated rapist. (I guess George should have said he was gulity of sexual assault and left it at that.) Trumpy is suing an Iowa newspaper for publishing a poll putting Kamala Harris slightly ahead of him during the last months of the election. These last two are the most dangerous. ABC settled the suit for $15 million, fearing reprisals and a possible loss of their license from Trumpy once he was in office. Trump is now emboldened and ready to sue any press outlet that made him look bad (as the Iowa poll did.) This will have a chilling effect on a free and open press. If you're worried about revenge from the President, you tend not to criticize him. Trumpy is probably hoping one of these cases may go to the dictator-friendly SCOTUS and they'll reverse the Sullivan v. NYTimes decision, making it easier to sue unfriendly journalists. Also Trump and his minions are making noises about charging Liz Chaney with something. What did she do that was illegal except oppose Trump? As Anne Applebaum of the Atlantic has continually reminded us, these are the first baby steps towards authoritarianism.

But Trump supporters don't seem to care about that. They want lower grocery prices and tighter borders. (Those were the two big issues which put Trumpy over the top and defeated Harris, according to a relative visiting over the holidays, reporting what his Trump-voting friends said.) But what will happen when the Orange Hitler imposes his tarriffs and deports everybody and their grandma? Prices for eggs and gasoline are probably not going to go down any time soon. Even Trump admits that. And when millions of undocumented workers are snatched away from the labor market, who will pick the crops, clean our hotel rooms, build and renovate our buildings, and mow our lawns?

Maybe our democracy can weather four more years of Trump's fascistic tendencies, but with everyone from Morning Joe to Jeff Bezos to even some Dems such as Fetterman caving in to him to one degree or another, what will be left when he's finished in 2028?

 

State of the 2024 Film Awards Race

Kieran Culkin in A Real Pain is
the only sure-thing front runner
for the 2024 Oscars.

This year I have not seen as many Oscar contenders as last year. With the summer of Barbieheimer in 2023, there were two clear front-runners for the top awards (Barbie and Oppenheimer). This year, we've only got Glicked--Gladiator 2 and Wicked--as top blockbusters and Gladiator 2 is receiving only lukewarm praise. Neither is a lock for the Oscar Best Picture. Wicked might triumph on the strength of its box office, but several independent critics' darlings who have who scribblers' awards could sneak in. These include Anora, The Brutalist, Emilia Perez, 

The acting categories are almost all wide open. The only candidate who seems to have the Oscar all wrapped up is Best Supporting Actor front-runner Kieran Culkin in A Real Pain. The Succession star has won a majority of pre-Oscar awards and nominations and is this year's Da'vine Joy Randolph whose Supporting Actress performance in The Holdovers totally dominated the 2024 field. Lead actor is a four-way race between Adrian Brody (The Brutalist), Timothee Chamalant (A Total Unknown), Coleman Domingo (Sing Sing), and Ralph Fiennes (Conclave). Best actress probable nominees include Cynthia Erivo (Wicked), Marianne Jean-Bapiste (Hard Truths), Angelina Jolie (Maria), Mikey Madison (Arona), and Karla Sofía Gascón (Emilia Perez). The Supporting Actresses include Ariana Grande (Wicked, in the supporting field to avoid competition with Erivo), Isabella Rosellini (Conclave), Danielle Deadwyler (The Piano Lesson) and Zoe Saldana (Emilia Perez). Although Rosellini's possible nomination is a mystery to me. I didn't think she was that impactful.

Still to come are the SAG and BAFTA nominees and the National Society of Film Critics which always goes their own way.

Below is a list of potential 2024 award-winning films I've seen so far and a breakdown of winners and nominees (so far). I have not included every single regional critics award because I have a life. In recent years the number of such movie reviewers' groups has proliferated to a ridiculous extent. It seems every major city in the US has one and some have two (one for traditional media and the other for online scribes.) Maybe I will get to including more of them eventually.

B'way Review: Eureka Day

Bill Irwin and Jessica Hecht in
Eureka Day.
Credit: Jeremy Daniel

When Jonathan Spector’s Eureka Day opened Off-Broadway in 2019, the dark comedy about the vaccination debate at a high-toned private school in Berkeley, California, was alarmingly relevant. Now, a new equally funny and moving Broadway production from Manhattan Theater Club at the Samuel J. Friedman (after a London staging in 2022) is ever more timely. Between the two NYC productions, we’ve had the COVID pandemic which shuttered schools nationwide and notorious vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been nominated by President-elect Donald Trump to head Health and Human Services. The question of to vax or not to vax has never been more impactful.

Spector’s script and Anna D. Shapiro’s staging are equally hilarious and moving. Each of the five characters has a stake in the outcome of the conflict over the school’s vaccination policy and all are fully-fleshed-out people, not spokespeople for particular viewpoints. “No one is a villain,” as principal Don (a comically on-edge Bill Irwin) says. That’s true here and the clash of ideologies reaches giddy satirical heights in a brilliantly staged remote meeting where the bubbled comments of parents sent via computer are blown up on a giant screen (David Bengali is credited with the effective projection design.) The only problem was the audience was laughing so hard at the comments, I couldn’t hear much of the spoken dialogue.

Thomas Middleditch, Amber Gray, Bill Irwin,
Chelsea Yakura-Kurtz and Jessica Hecht 
in Eureka Day.
Credit: Jeremy Daniel

The play begins with some easy laughs at the school’s executive board meeting. (Todd Rosenthal designed the primary-color school library set.) In attendance are Don and four parents, each of the five competing to be the most socially aware, woke and politically conscious. The action really take off in the next scene when there is a reported case of the mumps in the student body and the board of health orders the school closed for quarantine. The school’s policy of optional observance of recommended vaccinations comes under fire. The earnest camaraderie among the board soon deteriorates as each makes their pro or con stance known, often for very personal reasons.

Irwin is riotous as the principal attempting to please all sides and gradually becoming unglued as the emotions escalate. Jessica Hecht is particularly outstanding as the seemingly all-smiles parent Suzanne. Every word and gesture is loaded with meaning as she offers links to websites to support her opinions and unwittingly exposes her own prejudices despite her liberal platitudes. Her matter-of-fact delivery of a shattering monologue explaining her anti-vax views is heartbreaking.

Thomas Middleditch,
Amber Gray and
Bill Irwin in
Eureka Day.
Credit: Jeremy Daniel

Amber Gray is equally strong as a mother taking the opposite side of Suzanne and Thomas Middleditch and Chelsea Yakura-Kurtz give off sparks as clandestine lovers, setting up playdates to conceal their trysts. Yakura-Kurtz also has a very funny scene where she knits with increasingly intensity to conceal her suppressed rage. 

Eureka Day is that rare production filled with equal parts laughs and pathos while addressing a contentious issue which concerns all audiences.

Dec. 16—Feb. 2, 2025. Manhattan Theater Club at Samuel J. Friedman Theater, 261 W. 47th St., NYC. Running time: 100 mins. with no intermission. telecharge.com

Book Review: Tommy's Tale

(Given by friends once they were finished reading it. Free.) Actor Alan Cumming (Cabaret, The Good Wife) wrote this amusing novel in 2002. Tommy is a 29-year-old bisexual London party boy teetering on the edge of maturity as he must start to take responsibility for his relationships beyond casual sex and constant drug use. About to turn 30, he suddenly realizes he wants to be a father but has no idea how to go about it. Former girlfriend India wants to meet up again. Current boyfriend Charlie and his young son Finn want more of a commitment. Whimsical roommates Sadie and Bobby offer support. 

The story is punctuated with metaphorical fairy tales, commenting on the main action. It's funny and involving. An excerpt of Cumming's memoir Not My Father's Son and a new introduction for this 2014 edition is included. This volume proves Cumming is as inventive a writer as he is an actor.

B'way Review: Sunset Blvd.

Nicole Scherzinger and Tom Francis in
Sunset Blvd.
Credit: Marc Brenner

While appearing on The View talk show, Patti LuPone described Sunset Boulevard (or Blvd. as it is titled in the current Broadway revival) as a “lumbering” musical. LuPone originated the role of Norma Desmond in London in 1993 for this adaptation of Billy Wilder’s 1950 film classic and was subsequently replaced by Glenn Close for the Broadway premiere. The “lumbering” adjective is an accurate description of Trevor Nunn’s original staging of this mammoth show which heretofore has mainly been a vehicle for whoever played the leading role of a faded, mad silent film star desperate for a comeback. Lonny Price’s 2017 revival, also starring Close in a totally different performance, stripped down the elaborate set and got closer to the raw emotions of Don Black and Christopher Hampton’s book. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s symphonic music which captures the creamy film-score style of Hollywood’s Golden Age and the snappy, pop-jazz of the 1950s, also emerged more vibrantly. Jamie Lloyd’s inventive, multi-media production, now at the St. James after winning several Olivier Awards in the West End, goes even further than Price’s and makes Lloyd and the production itself the real stars.

Tom Francis and Nicole Scherzinger in
Sunset Blvd.
Credit: Marc Brenner

To be sure, former Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger delivers an electric, galvanizing performance as Norma, but Lloyd’s staging is so fresh, startling and gripping, he deserves equal praise. Eliminating conventional scenery and props, the action takes place on a mostly bare stage apart from a few chairs and a giant screen. Jack Knowles’ noirish lighting design creates the proper shadowy atmosphere. Costume designer Sutra Gimour who also designed the starkly minimalist set, has dressed the company in black and white to evoke the monochromatic tones of the original film and the noir efforts of its era. Cast members with cameras and lighting equipment intermittently film the principals and their images are simultaneously projected on the screen. (Nathan Amzi and Joe Ransom are credited with the impressive video and projection design.) There are even opening and closing credits, just like in the movies.

B'way/Film Reviews: Cult of Love; Hard Truths

The cast of Cult of Love.
Credit: Joan Marcus

Here we go again. It’s time for yet another dysfunctional family reunion. Cult of Love, presented by Second Stage at the Hayes Theater after a production at Berkeley Repertory Theater, is the third play this season (following The Hills of California and The Blood Quilt) to dissect the familial ties that bind. Once again estranged siblings gather and squabble over past hurts and present estrangements. The difference between Cult and the previous two is the parents are still living and providing an additional source of conflict. Despite the familiarity of the territory, Leslye Headland’s solid script avoids melodramatic cliches, Trip Cullman’s direction admirably juggles several storylines simultaneously while building suspense, and the cast couldn’t be better.

It’s Christmas Eve at the Dahl house. The family name is not insignificant given that John Lee Beatty’s comfy-cozy-Christmas-crazy set resembles a domicile for domestic playthings or dolls. One of the adult children’s spouses even sarcastically refers to the family manse as “Santa’s workshop.” Like Nora in Ibsen’s similarly named A Doll’s House, the Dahl house kids are struggling to grow up. As Bill the near-senile father (David Rasche skillfully navigating the cognition waters) relates, he and his wife Ginny (Mare Winningham beautifully balancing affection and manipulation) both came from abusive backgrounds and have vowed to be different. But as a result, they have created a “cult of love” (hence the title) where their offspring are suffocated and unable to completely stand on their own. Religion, a topic rarely addressed in modern American drama, is also on the table with the senior Dahls’ unquestioning embrace of rigid Christianity causing problems for the second generation.

Shailene Woodley, Christopher Sears, 
Rebecca Henderson, and Zachary Quinto
in Cult of Love.
Credit: Joan Marcus

The eldest child Mark (Zachary Quinto, expert at suppressing inner turmoil) is conflicted about his faith, legal career, and marriage to sharp-tongued Rachel (spiky, funny Molly Bernard) who happens to be Jewish. Lesbian daughter Evie (equally edgy Rebecca Henderson) still bristles at her deeply religious family’s qualified acceptance of her marriage to Pippa (Roberta Colindrez, strongly supportive). Johnny (a buoyant Christopher Sears) uses jolly energy to deal with his drug addiction and has brought his sponsor, the hip Loren (Barbie Ferreira, making the most of a small role) along for the holidays. Youngest child Diana (Shailene Woodley in a shattering portrayal of mental short-circuiting) is pregnant with her second child and together with her husband James, an Episcopal priest (Christopher Lowell, a keenly observed liming of confused weakness) is trying to start a new church. But Diana appears to be suffering from delusions of divine visitations. 

Conclave and Wicked Top Critics Choice List

Ralph Fiennes in Conclave
Credit: Focus Features

Conclave and Wicked topped the list of nominees for the Critics Choice Award film categories with 11 each. Dune Part 2 and Emilia Perez followed with 10 each. The 30th annual Critics Choice Awards will be presented on Jan. 12 at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica. Chelsea Handler will repeat her hosting duties from last year and the show will be broadcast on E! The nominations for Best Picture, Actor and Actress were announced on Dec. 12 on the Today Show by host Carson Daly. Formerly known as the Broadcast Film Critics Association, the Critics Choice Association, like the Golden Globes, also give out TV honors. Those nominations were announced last week with Shogun leading the list with six. Abbott Elementary, Disclaimer, Hacks, The Diplomat, The Penguin and What We Do in the Shadows followed with four nods each.

I'm grateful that Marianne Jean-Baptiste of Hard Truths and Danielle Deadwyler of The Piano Lesson were not snubbed here are they were for the Golden Globes. Unlike last year when Oppenheimer and Barbie were clear front-runners, the race for film awards is wide open, so it's difficult to predict winners.

A complete list of the film nominees follows:

B'way Update: Glengarry and Purpose Set Dates, Theaters, Etc.

Kieran Culkin

Two Broadway productions have set dates, theaters and casting to nail down the spring 2025 season. The star-studded revival of David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross will begin previews at the Palace Theater on March 10 with an opening set for March 31. The play about ruthless Chicago real-estate salesmen will star Kieran Culkin (currently the Best Supporting Actor Oscar front-runner for A Real Pain), Bob Odenkirk, Bill Burr, Michael McKean, Donald Webber Jr., Howard W. Overshown and, in his Broadway debut, John Pirruccello. Tony winner Patrick Marber (Leopoldstadt) directs. The Palace is an unusual choice since its large size normally calls for large-scale musicals rather than intimate straight plays. The only straight plays to play the theater have been Frankenstein (1981) which closed after one performance, and Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra (1977) with Rex Harrison and Elizabeth Ashley, which ran 12 performances. Musicals such as Sweet Charity, Applause, La Cage Aux Folles, and Woman of the Year had longer runs.

Tony winner Kara Young (Purlie Victorious) will star in

Kara Young

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' Purpose set to begin previews at the Hayes Theater Feb. 25 with an opening set for March 17. Tony winner Phylicia Rashad (A Raisin in the Sun, Skeleton Crew) will make her Broadway directing debut, reprising her staging work with the play's world premiere at the Steppenwolf Theater of Chicago. LaTanya Richardson Jackson will also join the cast. Harry Lennix, Jon Michael Hill, Glenn Davis and Alana Arenas will repeat their Steppenwolf roles. The play centers on a prominent African-American family with each member hiding secrets. 

This accounts for all previously announced Broadway productions, but with the closing of Swept Away, the Longacre is available and a show might snap that one up before spring.

Emilia Perez Tops GG Noms List

Karla Sofia Gascon and Zoe Saldana in
Emilia Perez.
Credit: Page 114/Why Not Productions/Pathe Films/
France 2 Cinema/Netflix

Emilia Perez, the drug cartel-transgender musical (yes, that is a thing) from Netflix, dominated the Golden Globe nominations with ten including Best Motion Picture--Comedy or Musical. This is the most nominations for a comedy or musical, breaking the record of nine held by last year's Barbie. Lead actress Karla Sofía Gascón could become the first transgender performer to receive an Oscar nomination. She is nominated for Best Actress--Comedy or Musical (the Globes divide their categories between Drama and Comedy/Musical). The Brutalist, which won Best Picture from the New York Film Critics Circle, was next with seven nods. Conclave follows with six.

There were a few noticeable snubs including Marianne Jean-Baptiste of Hard Truths and Danielle Deadwyler from The Piano Lesson who both have won recognition from several critics' groups.

Comedienne Nikki Glaser will host the 82nd Golden Globes on CBS Jan. 5. Tony-Oscar-Emmy winner Viola Davis (Fences, How to Get Away with Murder) will receive the Cecil B. DeMille Award for career achievement. Ted Danson (Cheers, The Good Place) will be honored with the Carol Burnett Award for TV excellence. He's also nominated for the comedy series A Man on the Inside.

A complete list of Golden Globes nominees follows:

Washington for Wicked

Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande
in Wicked.
Credit: Giles Keyte / Universal Pictures

The Washington DC Area Film Critics Association voted Wicked Best Picture during its annual voting meeting to chose the top cinema efforts of 2024. The musical based on the still-running Broadway hit about the early days of the witches of Oz also won Best Picture from the National Board of Review and is a front-runner for the upcoming Oscar noms. Mikey Madison of Anora was named Best Actress. She also won top honors from the LA and Boston critics. Coleman Domingo of Sing Sing, who already won at the Gotham Awards, took Best Actor. Best Supporting Actor Kieran Culkin of A Real Pain continued his winning ways, having previous taken the NBR, NY Film Critics Circle and Los Angeles Film Critics. Danielle Deadwyler of The Piano Lesson was voted Best Supporting Actress. 

A complete list of winners and nominees follows:

LAFCA Votes Anora Best Picture

Mikey Madison in Anora.
Credit: Neon

Anora is pulling ahead in the 2024 film award race. The Los Angeles Film Critics Association voted the Sean Baker comedy Best Picture for its 50th annual awards. The group also awarded Best Leading Performance for the film's star Mikey Madison who shared the honor with Marianne Jean-Baptiste for Mike Leigh's Hard Truths. Anora had won in the Best Picture award from the Boston Society of Film Critics earlier the same day (Dec. 8). Madison was also named Best Actress by the Beantown reviewers. The LA scribes present their performance awards in gender-free categories. Anora's Yura Borisov and A Real Pain's Kieran Culkin won Best Supporting Performances. Culkin is emerging as the front runner for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar, having also won the NYFCC and NBR awards. (Note: Unlike the other award-dispensers previously documented in this blog, the LA group included their runners-up).

A list of the 50th Los Angeles Film Critics Association winners follows:

Beantown Scribes Choose Anora Best Pic

Mark Eydelshteyn and Mikey Madson in
Anora, Boston critics' choice for Best Picture

The 2024 film award sweepstakes just blew wide open. The Boston Society of Film Critics parted ways from their New York counterparts and the National Board of Review by voting Anora, the comedy about a sex worker hitching up with the son of a Russian oligarch, Best Picture Actress, and Best Director and Original Screenplay (both Sean Baker). The New York Film Critics Circle chose The Brutalist best and the NBR went with Wicked. Both groups voted the directors of best their top choice as best of the year. This widens the field for Hollywood's Biggest Prize, the Oscars. (Note: The Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the Washington DC Area Film Critics Association will also announce their winners today. More in separate blog posts.)

The Boston scribes' acting choices also did not match up with those of the NYFCC or the NBR. The Beantown acting champs are: Actor: Timothee Chalamet, A Complete Unknown; Actress: Mikey Madison, Anora; Supp. Actor: Edward Norton, A Complete Unknown; Supp. Actress; Danielle Deadwyler, The Piano Lesson. (We did catch The Piano Lesson on Netflix. Deadwyler was fabulous and I hope she get more recognition since she was robbed of an Oscar nom for Till.)

A complete list of winners follows:

B'way/Film Reviews: Death Becomes Her; Wicked

Megan Hilty and Jennifer Simard in
Death Becomes Her.
Credit: Matthew Murphy and 
Evan Zimmerman

Get ready for the most ghoulish Broadway fun you’ve had in years. The stage version of Death Becomes Her, based on Robert Zemeckis’ outlandish 1992 film comedy, now at the Lunt-Fontanne, is a riotous romp with something for everyone. Hardcore Main Stem fans get to see two legitimate musical-comedy divas clash and ascend to their rightful places in the theater firmament. Those who revel in special effects will get their fill of incredible, credulity-defying twists and turns (literal and figurative). If you just want a good laugh, this show has them in cascades.

The two divas are a pair of hard-working pros who have long toiled in the Broadway vineyards and are finally getting their due at the top of the bill. Jennifer Simard has excelled in numerous supporting roles in Once Upon a One More Time, Hello, Dolly!, Company and Disaster (who can forget her ballad to a slot machine as a gambling-addicted nun?) Megan Hilty suffered through the bizarre TV series Smash and the near-miss 9 to 5, as well as playing replacement lead in Wicked. Here, in roles originated on film by Goldie Hawn and Meryl Streep respectively, the ladies rise to the occasion as two battling frenemies, sparring with insults and jabs supplied by razor-sharp book writer Marco Pennette. 

Jennifer Simard and Chrisopher Sieber
in Death Becomes Her.
Credit: Matthew Murphy and
Even Zimmerman

Anyone who’s seen the movie will not need much of a plot summary. For novices, here’s a brief recap. Film star Madeline (Hilty) and aspiring novelist Helen (Simard) battle over the same man, plastic surgeon Ernest (Christopher Sieber brilliantly holding his own), and dominance in their decades-long relationship. Once the duo have imbibed of a mysterious youth-rejuvenation formula supplied by a vampirish villainess (Michelle Williams of Destiny’s Child, magnificently devious), they become immortal and impossible to bump off. But the guffaws start even before that ingenious plot device is introduced at the end of the first act.

Pennette’s laugh-a-minute book starts with a perfect parody of a Broadway number for Madeline to headline. In this version, she is a theater as well as a movie star blatantly catering to gays and paying tribute to every queer icon from Liza to her mom Judy in a musical spoof-show called “Me! Me! Me!” The effervescent, sparkly satire by composer-lyricists Julia Mattison and Noel Carey is perfectly on-target, staged with equal wit and dynamism by director-choreographer Christopher Gatelli. This joy and snap provided by the writers and stager carry through the entire evening.