Oscar Predix

For the past few Oscars seasons, I've made it a point to see as many of the nominees as possible including documentaries, foreign films, animated and shorts. Since I was in Ecuador for two weeks, I was not able to see as many Oscar contenders as usual. I wasn't as enthused about this year's crop anyway. The front runner, One Battle After Another did not particularly impress me. Paul Thomas Anderson will undoubtedly win for his direction and adapted screenplay (from Thomas Pynchon's novel Vineland). His long, tracking shots and suspenseful chase scenes are indeed riveting, but I didn't really care about the cardboard characters and their nutty conspiracies. Sinners which shattered the record for most nominations seems to be surging and I enjoyed it more than Battle. Michael B. Jordan who triumphed over early favorite Timothee Chalamet at the SAG Awards could benefit from the Marty Supreme star's oafish comments on nobody caring about ballet or opera. Chalamet is seen as arrogant and too eager for his first Oscar at age 30. The reasoning seems to be let him win one when he's older and more humble. 

Anyway here are my predictions in all categories for the Oscars on this coming Sunday:

Off-Broadway Reviews: Antigone (This Play I Read in High School); Marcel on the Train

Celia Keenan-Bolger and Susannah Perkins
in Antigone (This Play I Read in High School).
Credit: Joan Marcus

There have been numerous attempts at updating Greek tragedy. This season alone the tale of Oedipus has seen a new modern version from Robert Icke and a revival of the gospel musical adaptation. Anna Ziegler has taken on the shattering narrative of Oedipus’ equally benighted daughter Antigone in a searing retelling through a modern lens. Subtitled (This Play I Read in High School), this Antigone is still a devastating portrait of female defiance of male oppression but goes several steps further. 

In Sophocles’ original, Antigone is condemned to death for giving her brother a decent burial in defiance of the king, her uncle Creon who wants the body to be left to the vultures for political reasons. In Ziegler’s skillful melding of myth and modern issues, the heroine is to be killed by the state for having an abortion. This is a chillingly relevant adjustment since so many states have made such an operation illegal since the overturning of Roe V. Wade and some have gone so far as to equate abortion with homicide, punishable by lengthy prison sentences. (The state of Tennessee just unsuccessfully attempted to make execution the penalty.) How many Antigones are there in America today?

Ziegler answers that query by combining a contemporary woman’s story with a version of the original that takes place simultaneously in the past and the present. Celia Keenan-Bolger compassionately plays the Chorus who interweaves her 2026 story of an unwanted pregnancy with Antigone’s tale after meeting a punky, self-possessed teenager (the magnificently spiky Susannah Perkins) who happens to reading the play across the aisle from her on an airplane. We then travel to a Thebes not unlike our contemporary society where the new king Creon (a searingly self-doubting Tony Shalhoub) strives to bring rigid order to the moral chaos left behind by his predecessor Oedipus, who had unwittingly married his own mother. 

Book Review: Holy Fire

(Read on my phone on the Libby app): I heard about this Bruce Sterling sci-fi favorite on a series of lectures on Prime: How Great Science Fiction Works (Prof. Wolfe). It sounded interesting. In the year 2092, a 92-year-old woman undergoes experimental life extension treatments which cause her personality to go somewhat haywire. She escapes from the San Francisco government medical facility where she is recooperating and launches onto a Candide-like trek across Europe. She hits Stuttgart, Prague, Rome as a model and photographer, falling in with a gang of radical anti-agist rebels. There's something important about a digital cache of memories called a "palace" she has inherited from a former lover, but I couldn't figure out why everybody is after her for its secrets. There was a talking dog in the palace and it escapes to menace our heroine, Mia or Maya depending on if we are referring to her old or new self. There's also something called holy fire, a kind of divine inspiration which apparently has affected the new pope and maybe Mia/Maya.

Mia/Maya's adventures seemed rather random and arbitrary. She just bounces from incident to incident with no strong objective or goal. We do get a fascinating picture of late 21st century life with analyses of public life, fashion, art, and intergenerational conflict. Older people called geronticrats stack the deck in their favor and keep younger people impoverished. 

There were individual sequences I found compelling such as a talking dog called Aquinas (not the other talking dog) with his own intellectual TV chat show and a touching scene where Mia visits an actress who has transformed into a Neanderthal version of herself to get away from the stresses of modern life. A mixed bag.

Ecuadorean Adventure--Galapagos

Ready to snorkel in the Galapogos.

For two weeks in frigid February, we escaped a major snowstorm to visit friends who have an apartment in Quito, Ecuador. This is my first time in South America. The city is surrounded by mountains and it is so highly elevated I feel out of breath after only a few minutes of walking. The first day we took a tour of the old town with its colonial-style churches and then drove out to the Equator monument where you can stand in the exact center of the Earth. The location was originally designated by French scientists in the 18th century but advanced technology has determined the exact location about 20 meters away. There are gimmicky attractions like standing with one foot in the Eastern hemisphere and another in the Western. 

The highlight of the trip has been a four-day travel package to the Galapagos Islands which I found on line. The $700 package included transfers from the airport (which involved a bus, a ferry boat and a long cab ride), meals, and four excursions. I was excited about going by myself but a little nervous. I managed to find a direct flight from Quito to Baltra, the one airport on the island chain, but there were several hoops to be jumped through at the Quito airport. First you have to buy a travel permit to visit the islands ($20, Ecuadorean currency is the same as US), which you must download to your phone. Then you have to have to bags inspected to make you're not carried anything that will disturb the ecosystem, fill out a declaration form and that has to be downloaded to your phone too. Once in Galapagos airport, who have show both docs as well as your passport and a $200 visitor's fee in cash. 

B'way Update: Much Ado About Nothing

Hayley Atwell, Tom Hiddleston, and company
in Jamie Lloyd's staging of
Much Ado About Nothing.
Credit: Marc Brenner

Tony nominee Tom Hiddleston and Olivier nominee Hayley Atwell will recreate their starring roles in Jamie Lloyd's staging of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing transfers from London's West End to Broadway this coming fall for a limited-ten week engagement at a Shubert theater to be announced. Hiddleston collaborated with Lloyd previously on Harold Pinter's Betrayal which played Broadway and London. Atwell is making her Broadway debut. She appeared in Lloyd's staging of The Pride and received an Olivier nomination. 

Both stars are probably best known for their recurring roles in the Marvel Comics Universe film and TV franchise. Hiddleston has played Loki, the evil brother of Thor and Atwell portrayed Agent Peggy Carter in Captain America: The First Avenger and the Agent Carter TV series.

This will be the 16th Broadway production of the Bard's comedy of clashing wills between combatants Beatrice and Benedick. Previous stagings have starred John Gielgud and Margaret Leighton (1959), Sam Waterston and Kathleen Widdoes (1972) and Derek Jacobi (Tony Award) and Sinead Cusack (1985). Memorable Central Park version were headlined by Kevin Kline and Blythe Danner in 1988 and by Danielle Brooks and Grantham Coleman in 2019. Kenneth Branagh directed and starred in a film version in 1993 opposite his then-wife Emma Thompson.

Off-B'way Review: The Dinosaurs

April Matthis, Mallory Portnoy,
Maria Elena Ramirez, and Elizabeth Marvel
in The Dinosaurs.
Credit: Julieta Cervantes

Jacob Perkins’ The Dinosaurs at Playwrights Horizons starts out like a straightforward depiction of a weekly support group modeled on Alcoholics Anonymous. (The play’s Sisters in Sobriety has some significant differences. Only women are allowed to participate and time rules for sharing individual stories and reflections are strictly enforced.) While the structure at first seems linear, gradually time shifts back and forwards as the members suddenly appear at different points in their struggle to deal with their demons. The sterling performances, Les Waters’ precise direction and Yuki Link’s sensitive lighting help us to clearly navigate the tides of Perkins’ constantly changing river of time. (The design team of dots created the realistic meeting space and Oana Botez’s costumes subtly tell us much about each character.) What emerges is a fluid portrait of women in crisis and how they support each other.

April Matthis, Kathleen Chalfant, and
Elizabeth Marvel in The Dinosaurs.
Credit: Julieta Cervantes

It’s a compassionate profile of the recovery process. The title probably refers to the veterans in the program who pass on their coping mechanisms and wisdom. All but one of the characters have similar names—Jolly, Joan, Jane, Janet, Joane—suggesting they may be aspects of the same personality or that their stories are similar and they are all following paths towards sobriety. Rayna, the only one with a different monicker, enters at the beginning as a potential new member, chatting about cupcakes with early arrival Jane. But she leaves in a panic before the others arrive and then comes in and out as a visitor from the future but never completely joins in. It’s significant that she also goes by the nickname Buddy, indicating she can stand in for a variety of identities within the group. 

The time and character shifts can be a trifle confusing at first, but once the rhythm is established, we get to know the women’s stories, feelingly relayed by six brilliant actresses. April Matthis conveys unspoken depths as Jane who doesn’t get to tell her complete narrative but feels a connection to Rayna, played with similar reams of subtext by Keilly McQuail.  

Keilly McQuail in The Dinosuars.
Credit: Julieta Cervantes

Elizabeth Marvel is spiky and jagged as the tightly wound Joan, meticulously managing coffee and pastries while clinging desperately to sanity. Kathleen Chalfant as the aptly named Jolly is bubbly and full of compassion. Mallory Portnoy as Janet and Maria Elena Ramirez as Joane deliver shattering monologues on harrowing experiences which test their sobriety. Janet’s is a surrealistic dream and Joane’s reveals an uncomfortable family secret. Both are beautifully written and performed as is the whole of this sensitive play. 

Feb. 16—March 1. Playwrights Horizons, 416 W. 42nd St., NYC. Running time: one hour and 15 mins. with no intermission. playwrightshorizons.org. 

Book Review: Anagrams

(Read on my phone on the Libby app.) At about 100 pages into Lorrie Moore's first novel, I said to myself, "What the hell is going on here?" There are four sections and the first three are short vignettes with three main characters, recurring in each section but with different relationships and circumstances. Then the final long, novella-length section is the "reality" of their shared situation (I guess). Then I remembered the title and realized what Moore was doing--rearranging the plots and characters like anagrams in a puzzle. I won't reveal too much of the multiple, shifting storylines, except they revolve around Benna, who is either an amateur nightclub singer or a community college professor of art history or poetry. Musician-singer Gerard may or may not be in love with her. Benna's friend Eleanor is the third point of a triangle or maybe she's not. 

I've enjoyed Moore's short stories and her other novel Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? Here, the characters may like wordplay a bit too much. They are always making clever puns. But I did feel the emotions for which the jokes act as a shield. Benna, Gerard, Eleanor, and other characters Darrel and Louis are all desperately lonely with tragedies impacting them. Their aches comes across in their eccentric actions and Moore depicts them with compassion.

Off-B'way Review: The Monsters; High Spirits

Aigner Mizzelle and Okieriete Onaodowan
in The Monsters.
Credit: T. Charles Erickson

The two-actor cast of Ngozi Anyanwu’s The Monsters at the intimate Stage II at City Center in a Manhattan Theater Club production, go through quite a workout in its 90-minute running time, both physically and emotionally. So does the audience. Anyanwu’s tight and devastating script rings some familiar bells in the estranged-family division, but her script is honest and heartfelt. Her direction is well-paced and, with the aide of Cha See’s lighting, creatively transforms Andrew Boyce’s simple gym setting into a myriad of locales.

As the play opens, Big and Lil (short for Little) are disconnected African-American siblings, survivors of an abusive father. Big, whose real name is not revealed until the end of the play, is a champion mixed-martial arts fighter. His half-sister Lil (actual name: Josephine) attempts to resume their once close relationship after 15 years of silence. Gradually, their severed bond is knit back together as Big trains Lil in MMA. As she raises in the ring ranks, long buried resentments and secrets are revealed and their conflict erupts in a grueling grudge match. (Gerry Rodriguez is the masterful fight director.)

B'way Update: Galileo Musical

Raul Esparza in Galileo: A Rock Musical 
at Berkeley Rep.
Credit: Kevin Berne

According to Playbill.com, Galileo, a rock musical based on the life of the 17th century astronomer, will open on Broadway this fall after a run at the Berkeley Rep in 2024. Performances begin Nov. 10 at the Shubert Theater where Hell's Kitchen is running through Feb. 22. Opening is Dec. 6. The cast will be headed by Tony nominee Raul Esparza (Company), Jeremy Kushnier and Joy Woods. Tony winner Michael Mayer (American Idiot, Spring Awakening) directs. The book is by Emmy winner Danny Strong (Chess) with music and lyrics by Michael Weiner and Zoe Sarnak.

Book Review: The Pursuit of Love

(Borrowed from the Mid-town NYPL at 40th St.): Nancy Mitford's comic novel is funny and disconcerting. I found myself laughing hysterically at the antics of the heroine's eccentric landed-gentry family, but then recoiling at their disgusting traits. The patriarch Uncle Matthew is a violent, bigoted bully but he's so funny. Kind of like Archie Bunker with an upper-crust accent. Matthew dominates his family, beats his children, harbors racist attitudes towards all foreigners, yet he's riotously unfettered by the constraints of mannered society. He is described as a "cardboard ogre." The heroine, his daughter Linda, is totally amoral and self-absorbed, drifting from marriage to marriage, and finally ending as the kept mistress of a charming French Duke. She marries a Nazi-sympathizing Tory politician, then a Communist freedom fighter, neither of whom she really loves. She does throw herself into refugee service work while married to the radical, but as soon as she leaves him she spends her days in pre-war Paris shopping for clothes. 

Mitford based the characters on her own illustrious family and the book offers a fascinating look at life in England among the gentry between the wars. I did laugh out loud several times but also cringed as often. 

Off-B'way Review: The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

The cast of The 25th Annual
Putnam County Spelling Bee.
Credit: Joan Marcus

In a program interview, director-choreographer Danny Mefford reveals he never saw The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee before taking on its first-ever NYC revival playing now Off-Broadway at New World Stages. His virgin encounter with William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin’s adorable 2005 tuner about a crew of misfit kids vying for the top prize at the titular academic event, is a blessing. He sees the material with fresh eyes and delivers a sparkling, warm, and intimate production. The original production opened Off-Broadway at Second Stage and later transferred to Circle in the Square where it won two Tonys and played 1,138 performances. 

Sheinkin’s quirky book and Finn’s tuneful yet innovative songs combine compassion and humor so that we are laughing with the odd characters but never at them. Mefford’s staging is economical and swift, giving equal weight to all six tween spellers, three supervisory adults and the four audience members recruited to join the contestants. Teresa L. Williams’ colorful and funny school auditorium set, with the aide of David Weiner’s imaginative lighting, accommodates shifts in tone and flashback settings. Emily Rebholz’s delightfully off-kilter costumes delineate character. 

Jason Kravitz and Lilli Cooper in
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.
Credit: Joan Marcus

The excellent ensemble skillfully imparts their characters’ eccentricities and displays impressive musical liming (Carmel Dean is credited with the vibrant musical supervision and vocal arrangements). The six spellers are also quite believable as middle schoolers. Most impressive is Jasmine Amy Rogers whose shy Olive Ostrovsky, longing for a deeper connection with her distant parents, is the exact opposite of the bubbly cartoon Betty Boop Rogers played on Broadway last season. Her sweetly aching rendition of “My Friend the Dictionary” is both heartbreaking and heartwarming. Kevin McHale exposes nasally-challenged William Barfée’s arrogance and his vulnerability. He shines in Mefford's hilarious staging of “Magic Foot,” William’s celebration of his secret spelling weapon. Justin Cooley is adorably off-kilter as self-doubting but ultimately self-affirming Leaf Coneybear, drowning in a sea of siblings. 

The cast of The 25th Annual Putnam
County Spelling Bee.
Credit: Joan Marcus

Philippe Arroyo is a riot as Chip Tolentino whose distracting hormones disastrously interfere with his spelling performance. Lana Rae Concepcion delightfully explodes as the high-achieving Marcy Park, finally giving weight to the idea that she doesn’t have to be the top at everything. Autumn Best is enchantingly desperate to please as Loraine Schwartzandgrubenuerre, a frazzled loner eager to be a winner for her two gay dads. Lilli Cooper, Jason Kravits and Matt Manuel bring depth to the spelling bee officials, each with their own neuroses and conflicts. 

This fun and fuzzy production originated at the Kennedy Center, now the center of a political storm. There are some new jokes about the controversy of the President’s involvement with the Center and the COVID pandemic, perhaps provided by Jay Reiss who is credited with “Additional Material.” The topical references add bite, but they are not the main reasons for this revival. It’s the charm, the compassion for outsider kids who enjoy learning and the snappy wit that makes this Bee buzz. 

Nov. 17—Sept. 6. New World Stages, 340 W. 50th St., NYC. Running time: one hour and 45 mins. with no intermission. telecharge.com.

Horror Makes a Comeback in Oscar Films

Amy Madigan as Aunt Gladys in Weapons.
Credit: Warner Brothers

This year, I'm not as driven to see ALL of the Oscar-nominated films in every categories as I have been in previous years. For the past few seasons, I obsessively followed all the award nominations and ceremonies and gone to the movies in cinemas or streamed them. Remember Barbenheimer? This time I'm not as enthused about the choices. One Battle After Another, the frontrunner for Best Picture, did not grab me emotionally. It struck me as a brilliant technical achievement by Paul Thomas Anderson (all those long tracking shots with hundreds of background players), but the story and characters were extreme cartoons. Battle looks like the likely winner for Picture, Director and Adapted Screenplay. Sinners will take Original Screenplay. Treyana Taylor of Battle could take Supporting Actress, but there is a lot of support for Amy Madigan for Weapons. Timothee Chalamet and Jessie Buckley are the favorites for Actor and Actress, probably Stellen Skarsgaard for Supporting Actor.

Horror is a prevalent genre this year with Sinners (16 noms, the most ever), Weapons, and Bugonia prominently featured. Perhaps this is a metaphorical response to our national trauma. Jessie Plemmons' character is a victim of abuse in Bugonia as are the missing children in Weapons and the juke joint patrons in Sinners are victims of racism. 

Oscar contenders seen:

Frankenstein (Netflix)

Nuremberg (Kaufman-Astoria)

Blue Moon (Kew Gardens Cinema)

One Battle After Another (Amazon Prime)

Train Dreams (Netflix)
Wicked: For Good (Regal Union Square in 3D, 4DX)

Hamnet (Kew Gardens Cinema)

If I Had Legs I'd Kick You (Amazon Prime)

Sentimental Value (Angelika Cinema)

Jay Kelly (Netflix)

Sinners (HBO Max)

Familiar Touch (Amazon Prime)

Marty Supreme (Kew Gardens Cinema)

Bugonia (Apple TV)

Weapons (HBO Max)

Come See Me in the Good Light (Apple TV)

Short Film Docs

All the Empty Rooms (Netflix)

Armed Only with a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud (HBO Max)

The Devil Is Busy (HBO Max)

Book Review: Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?

(Downloaded on my Kindle for $6): I loved the title of Lorrie Moore's early novel and enjoyed this quirky story of two teen girls' summer of verging on adulthood in upstate New York. The narrator is Berrie, reflecting back on her girlhood friendship with the pretty and somewhat dangerous Sils, while accompanying her husband to a medical conference in Paris. In her recollection, Berrie and Sils work at an amusement park and skirt the edges of bad behavior. They rescue frogs tortured or injured by callous boys, hence the title. Moore captures their yearning for maturity and freedom in their dreary little town. The adult Berrie is not quite as well developed. It's not clear why she is slightly dissatisfied with her marriage. Her friendship with Sils fades as they move apart and Berrie regrets the lost connection. The evocation of lost youth is affecting.

Book Review: I Like to Watch: Arguing My Way Through the TV Revolution

(Bought at the Strand Book Store for $10): Pulitzer Prize winning critic Emily Nussbaum's collection of reviews and profiles from the New Yorker forms a fascinating history of the evolution of TV in the early 21st century. From the rise of cable to the current state of streaming, Nussbaum digs deep into the meaning of such cult and pop hits as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Americans, Law and Order: SVU, Jane the Virgin, and many others. Her take on David Chase's love-hate relationship with his audience in The Sopranos brings up several interesting points like the moral ambiguity of Dr. Melfi helping Tony not to be a better man but a more efficient gangster. She says Chase makes us love Tony but then makes us hate ourselves for loving him and watching him every week.  I haven't watched ALL of these shows, but Nussbaum makes me want to. 

Her extended profiles of prolific show-runners Kenya Barris (black-ish), Jenji Kohan (Weeds, Orange Is the New Black) and Ryan Murphy (Glee, Pose, Feud, etc.) offer a glimpse into the shifting power struggle in entertainment as these black, female and gay voices become more powerful. There are also views of the past with ruminations on Norman Lear, Joan Rivers, and Sex and the City.

Nussbaum recently was reassigned to cover theater for the New Yorker and I'm looking forward to her perspectives.

Bowl EP and David Greenspan Among Obie Winners

Oghenero Gbaje and Essence Lotus in Bowl EP,
Obie Award winner for Best New Play.
Credit: Carol Rosegg

Bowl EP, Nazareth Hassan's play about two wanna-be rappers set in an empty swimming pool made into a skateboarding park, and performer-playwright David Greenspan were among the winners of the 69th annual Obie Awards, announced on NY-1 by Frank DiLella and Michael Urie on Jan. 31. Bowl EP was named Outstanding New Play and won for its three-person Ensemble Cast and Greenspan won two awards--for his performance as part of the ensemble of Prince Faggot and for the solo show I'm Assuming You Know David Greenspan. He previously won six Obies.

Originally presented by the Village Voice newspaper, the Obies are now presented by the American Theater Wing who also co-presents the Tonys. The Obies honor excellence in Off and Off-Off-Broadway theater. Instead of a ceremony, the Wing presents winners with cash grants totaling more than $250,000. A private reception for the winners will be held on Feb. 23. 

David Greenspan in I'm Assuming You Know
David Greenspan.
Credit: Ahron R. Foster

This year's judging panel comprised Stephanie Berry, Modesto "Flako" Jimenez, Jonathan McCrory, Santiago Orjuela-Laverde, Aya Ogawa, Barbara Samuels, and Whitney White, led by co-chairs Wilson Chin and Ryan J. Haddad. More than 300 productions were evaluated.

Drama Desk and Outer Critics Announce 2026 Dates

Two major theater award dispensing groups, the Drama Desk and the Outer Critics Circle, have announced their dates for nominations and ceremonies. The 70th annual Drama Desk Awards will be held on Sun. May 17 at Town Hall. The ceremony will celebrate the organiztion's 70-year history. This marks a return to the venue for the first time since the 2020 theater shutdown. The DDs had been presented at NYU's Skirball in recent years. The nominations will be announced on April 29. This year’s awards will be produced by Drama Desk Awards Productions, a venture of Scene Partners in partnership with the Season. Chaired by the Martha Wade Steketee (UrbanExcavations.com), the 2026 nominating committee includes Linda Armstrong (Amsterdam News), Daniel Dinero (Theater Is Easy), Peter Filichia (Broadway Radio), Kenji Fujishima (freelance, Theatermania), Margaret Hall (Playbill.com) and Raven Snook (TDF).  Charles Wright and David Barbour are co-presidents. The Drama Desk considers Broadway, Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway in each of its multiple categories. The acting categories are not gender-specific and the top two vote-getters are the winners. Multiple awards may be presented in the case of ties. The awards are voted on by about 100 DD members who are NY-based theater critics, reporters, and editors.

Nominations for the Outer Critics Circle Awards will be announced on April 21. The winners will be made public by press release on May 11 with a ceremony to be held on May 21 at a venue yet to be announced. Previous OCC presentations have been held at the Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts' Bruno Walter auditorium and before that at Sardi's restaurant where a meal was included. The OCCs honor on and Off-Broadway. Some of their categories are divided between Broadway and Off-Broadway while others put them together. Like the DDs, the OCCs have eliminated gender-specific acting categories. The Outer Critics Circle is an organization of writers on New York theatre for out-of-town, national, and digital publications. Led by President David Gordon (Theatermania), the OCC Board of Directors which is also the Nominating Committee includes Vice President Richard Ridge, Recording Secretary Joseph Cervelli, Corresponding Secretary Patrick Hoffman, Treasurer David Roberts, Cynthia Allen, Harry Haun, Dan Rubins, Janice Simpson and Doug Strassler. Simon Saltzman is president emeritus and a non-nominating board member, and Stanley L. Cohen serves as financial consultant and a non-nominating board member.

Off-B'way Review: Ulysses

The company of Ulysses.
Credit: Joan Marcus

The innovative theater collective Elevator Repair Service has tackled such literary giants as Fitzgerald (Gatz, its day-long version of The Great Gatsby), Faulkner (The Sound and the Fury) and Hemingway (The Sun Also Rises). The 35-year-old company is now taking on the greatest challenge in its history by brining to the stage what is generally regarded as one of the most confounding literary masterpieces, James Joyce’ Ulysses. The 1922 massive tome chronicles a single day—June 16, 1904—in Dublin, following the wanderings of Leopold Bloom, his wife Molly and the young Stephen Dedalus, paralleling Homer’s epic The Odyssey. Joyce experiments with style and form, switches genres with each chapter and has the characters express their inner thoughts. We are told in an onstage intro that one critic famously said that not much happens in Ulysses, apart from everything you can possibly imagine. 

Is it even possible to stage such a work which relies so heavily on interior monologues and so little on plot in theatrical terms? Burgess Meredith directed an adaptation of the phantasmagoric Nightgown section (Bloom venturing into Dublin’s red-light district and his own imagination) Off-Broadway in 1958 starring Zero Mostel which was revived on Broadway in 1974. Here director John Collins and co-director Scott Shepherd are taking on the work as a whole, or at least an edited version. While some of the sections are bogged down in attempts to dramatize Joyce’s literary excesses and tend to drag, this adaptation does capture the vital energy of the author’s vivid characters, his deep themes of sexuality, religion and literature, and the emergence of Dublin itself as a life force.    

Off-B'way Review: Data

Sophia Lillis, Karan Brar, and Justin H. Min
in Data.
Credit: T. Charles Erickson

Matthew Libby’s Data could have easily become like one of those made-for-streaming spy thrillers in which attractive young techies steal vital software and wind up running through the streets of LA or London after bedding each other. But what the playwright delivers is a thoughtful, complex work exploring scary issues of government overreach and technological eradication of human rights. With the inflammatory national debate over immigration raging on our streets, Data is an important and gripping indictment of the Trump administration’s authoritarian policies and the digital industry’s complicity.

We begin innocently and almost comically with low-level programmers Maneesh and Jonah playing ping pong in the break room of the giant programming corporation Athena. They are interrupted by Riley who works on the higher-up Data Analytics team. At first Libby seems to be steering us into rom-com territory with the alpha-dog Jonah moving in on the aloof Riley—who isn’t interested—and Maneesh attempting to minimize his college relationship with her. (Libby confounds our expectations with dexterity, casually revealing Maneesh is gay and treating this information as a detail and not a vital plot development.) But as we learn more about the secret project Riley is working on and for which she wants to recruit Maneesh, the play takes on dark and dangerous dimensions. 

Book Review: Self-Help

(Borrowed from the NYPL on 40th St.): Lorrie Moore's early collection of short stories follows confused and unhappy women in frayed relationships. I liked the first one, How to Be an Other Woman best. Written in the second person, it follows a single woman navigating an affair with a married man as she tries to value herself and not sell herself so cheaply. The prose is fragmentary in places with short sections of no more than a paragraph, like a tightly edited indie film. The Kid's Guide to Divorce is brief and shattering as a young girl recounts a night with her mom, watching old movies and dancing. The final story, To Fill, is longer and almost a novella. Another depressed woman deals with an unfaithful husband, her ailing mother, and the urge to steal from her department-store sales job. Quirky and compassionate. I liked these better than the one in Bark, a later collection.

Batman Humor That Went Over My Head as a Kid, Part 4

Catwoman is about to steal Chad and Jeremy's
voices. Notice how they could just walk right
on stage with no one to to stop them.

The Cat's Meow/The Bats Kow Tow--This second season episode was chock full of real-life celebrities and 1960s cultural references. The main plot involves delicious Julie Newmar as the Catwoman stealing the voices of pop duo Chad and Jeremy who also appeared as essentially themselves on The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Patty Duke Show. They broke up only two years later and Jeremy Clyde pursued an acting career. (He appeared on Broadway in A Patriot for Me, The Importance of Being Earnest opposite Wendy Hiller, and in the Downton Abbey movie.) Also appearing are comedian/talk show host Steve Allen as Allen Stevens, Hawaiian singer Don Ho in the window cameo, and celebrity hairstylist Jay Sebring as Jay Oceanbring (get it?) Catwoman and her crew are hiding out in Oceanbring's salon. The Dynamic Duo arrive and are attacked by Catwoman's henchman. Sebring delivers his only line, "Watch the antiques" as the combatants threaten to destroy his expensive furnishings. 

Sebring was a top hairstylist for Hollywood stars including Peter Lawford, Frank Sinatra, Warren Beatty and Steve McQueen. He dated Sharon Tate. They remained friends after breaking up and Tate married Roman Polanski. He was murdered along with Tate by the followers of Charles Manson and was a character in Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Ho appears in the window as Batman and Robin are climbing down from the British Ambassador's office. (BTW, the British Ambassador's dialogue references both My Fair Lady and Winston Churchill.) Also appearing in this episode is Joe Flynn, best known as the petty, incompetent Capt. Binghampton on McHale's Navy, as the manager of a dance instruction studio, again a front for Catwoman's nefarious operations. For some reason, Flynn and Allen were unbilled. 

Sinners Shatters Oscar Nom Record

Michael B. Jordan and Miles Caton in
Sinners, which now holds the
record for the most Oscar noms with 16.
Credit: Warner Brothers

Sinners, Ryan Coogler's vampire-horror film, broke the record for most Oscar nominations of any film with 16. The previous record of 14 was shared by All About Eve, Titanic, and La La Land. Nominations were announced by Danielle Brooks and Lewis Pullman at the Academy's Goldwyn Theater on Thurs. morning Jan. 22. The awards will be presented on March 15 in a ceremony broadcast on ABC and Hulu, hosted by Conan O'Brien. Sinners' nominations include Best Picture, Director, Actor, Supporting Actor and Actress, Original Screenplay, and the newly created categories of Best Casting. 

One Battle After Another which has won the vast majority of pre-Oscar awards including the Golden Globes, Critics Choice, National Board of Review and film critics' awards from NY and LA, follows with 13. Frankenstein, Marty Supreme, and Sentimental Value have nine each. Surprisingly, the big-budget sequel Wicked: For Good and the George Clooney vehicle Jay Kelly were frozen out.

Conventional wisdom has it that Battle will continue its winning trajectory to Oscar's top prizes with Sinners copping the consolation prize of Original Screenplay for Coogler, its director. But Battle may have peaked too early and Sinners' top nominations grab could move the needle in its direction. Charges of underreprestentation of the African-American community among Oscar winners may also play a role in voters' minds. 

A complete list of the nominees follows: 

Off-B'way Review: An Ark

An Ark.
Credit: Marc J. Franklin

Billed as a “new play with mixed reality,” Simon Stephens’ An Ark begs the questions “Is it theater?” and “Does the technology make up for a lack of conflict, character or clear purpose?” Audience members remove their shoes (although the reason for this is never explained) and enter an open space at The Shed. Folding chairs surround a large, illuminated globe suspended above the center of the room. You are shown to a seat and instructed by the friendly staff to put on a headset with goggles. The headset allows you to see virtual versions of four empty chairs. When the “play” begins, four actors or rather their video images, enter, sit down and advise you not to panic. They then deliver a series of verbal sensory images and fragments of memories in the second person, repeatedly asking us to savor what it’s like to be alive. At one point, we can hear raindrops. Perhaps that’s why it's called An Ark? After about three-quarters of an hour, we have been taken through a lifetime’s worth of touching and sensing. The headsets come off, we reclaim our shoes and return home. 

The quartet of virtual performers have soothing voices and speak their lines like tender lullabies. Ian McKellen, Golda Rosheuvel (Queen Charlotte from Bridgerton), Arinzé Kene, and Rosie Sheehy are all expert at keeping us calm and relaxed. It’s a thrill to see Sir Ian (or his avatar) who could make reciting the telephone book compelling and the other actors are proficient at conveying snippets of experience and feelings.

But what’s the point here? There is very little drama or conflict. The one moment of potential confrontation arrives when one of the characters (Kene) confesses he was at the wheel during an automobile accident resulting in the death of his passenger. Sheehy objects to his being present and he walks out of the frame in shame. He returns a few minutes later but with no change to his demeanor or evidence that the confession has changed him. This is the only hint at character development. Sarah Frankcom is listed as director, but her contribution is difficult to judge with so little action.

Audience members at An Ark.
Credit: Marc J. Franklin

The piece’s raison d’être seems to be that with the goggles, the characters appear to be talking directly and intimately to each individual audience member. The same experience could have been achieved in a movie theater or in one’s own home through streaming on your TV. So what makes this strange event theater with no live actors? Viola’s Room, a similar experiment with no people in the cast told its tale through sets, lighting and sound at The Shed a few months ago, and was more engrossing. Unlike An Ark, it had a story to tell.

Technology in service of riveting material can enhance the theatrical experience. But An Ark feels like an example of tech for its own sake.

The cast of An Ark:
Golda Rosheuvel, Ian McKellen, Rosie Sheehy,
Arinzé Kene.
Credit: Rachel-Louise Brown

Jan. 21—March 1. The Shed and Tin Drum at The Shed, 545 W. 30th St., NYC. Running time: 47 mins. with no intermission. theshed.org.

State of the Oscar Race

Timothee Chalamet is the frontrunner
for Best Actor in the Oscar race.

After the GGs, CCs, SAG and Independent Spirit noms, BAFTA long-list, and critics' awards from NY, LA and national groups, the Oscar race is solidifying. (Nominations will be announced on Jan. 22.) One Battle After Another is the favorite to win Best Picture, Director and Adapted Screenplay (both by Paul Thomas Anderson). Sinners will probably take Original Screenplay. The leading actress and actor awards will probably go to Jessie Buckley (Hamnet) and Timothee Chalamet (Marty Supreme). Supporting Actor and Actress are up in the air since each major award has gone to a different person. In the Supporting Actress category, Amy Madigan of Weapons won the Critics Choice while Tayana Taylor of One Battle won the GG. Stellan Skarsgaard of Sentimental Value won the GG but Jacob Elrodi (Frankenstein's monster) took the CC. Benicio Del Toro was awarded the majority of the critics' groups' accolades. 

We saw Marty Supreme last night. Timothee was intense and charismatic as the narcissistic table-tennis hustler. There was also some interesting casting with Shark Tank's Kevin O'Leary, filmmaker Abel Ferrara, Fran Drescher, Sarah Bernhardt, Penn Jillette (who I didn't even recognize), and David Mamet in supporting roles.

Oscar contenders seen:

Frankenstein (Netflix)

Nuremberg (Kaufman-Astoria)

Blue Moon (Kew Gardens Cinema)

One Battle After Another (Amazon Prime)

Train Dreams (Netflix)
Wicked: For Good (Regal Union Square in 3D, 4DX)

Hamnet (Kew Gardens Cinema)

If I Had Legs I'd Kick You (Amazon Prime)

Sentimental Value (Angelika Cinema)

Jay Kelly (Netflix)

Sinners (HBO Max)

Familiar Touch (Amazon Prime)

Marty Supreme (Kew Gardens Cinema)

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 Kelvin 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: