Off-Broadway Review—Amy Berryman’s “Walden” with Emmy Rossum and Zoë Winters

Walden

Written by Amy Berryman; directed by Wendy White

Performances through November 24, 2024

Second Stage Theater, 305 West 43rd Street, New York, NY

2st.com

Rossum and Winters in Walden (photo: Joan Marcus)

Written and first staged during the pandemic, Amy Berryman’s Walden has the scent of lockdowns and quarantines in its dystopian story—set in an isolated cabin in an unidentified but identifiable near-future—of twin sisters, who are poles apart but also alike, whose rocky reunion occurs as human civilization seems to be in its final throes on earth.

Former NASA designer Stella (Emmy Rossum) lives with her fiancée, Bryan (Motell Foster, likably natural), in a remote cabin where they grow their own food, Stella makes her own wine and Bryan traps rabbits and shoots deer. Bryan is an E.A., or earth advocate, part of a burgeoning group militantly opposed to wasting billions on making the moon or Mars habitable instead of using that cash to help save our planet. (We hear ominous reports of tsunamis and climate refugees on Stella’s radio.) 

Then Stella’s twin sister Cassie (Zoë Winters) arrives, having just returned from spending a year working and living at the moon habitat. Since she was able to miraculously grow food from scratch on the moon, she has become a global hero. Cassie and Stella, both brilliant, have lived in the long shadow of their famous astronaut father (their mother died while giving birth), and when Cassie confesses why she’s come to visit, the sisters must wrestle with decisions that may well decide the future of the human race. 

A play that’s titled Walden—which is also explained heavyhandedly in the dialogue—might be short on subtlety, but what Berryman has written is actually a touching examination of complicated family dynamics set off by an ongoing global cataclysm. Although she approaches contrivance by setting up a messy love triangle—one too many times does Stella allow Cassie and Bryan to be conveniently alone—it’s a tiny lapse that’s not followed through, thankfully. 

It also helps that Rossum and Winters are superb as the twins, providing more humanity, complexity and even humor to the sisters’ relationship than I’d think even Berryman might have expected. In their final conversation, which takes place after some time has passed, they discuss their current paths: Cassie is in training for the mission that will take her to Mars for the rest of her life and Stella announces that she is pregnant with Bryan’s child. It’s the perfect distillation of how the play dovetails the expansive with the intimate, beautifully written and acted. 

Directed for maximum emotional effect by Whitney White, Walden is also propped up by Matt Saunders’ set, Adam Honoré’s lighting and Lee Kinney’s sound design, which all contribute to the alternately ominous and reassuring atmosphere.

Broadway Play Review—“Yellow Face” by David Henry Hwang

Yellow Face

Written by David Henry Hwang

Directed by Leigh Silverman

Performances through November 24, 2024

Todd Haimes Theatre, 227 West 42nd Street, New York, NY

roundabout.org

Daniel Dae Kim and Greg Keller in Yellow Face (photo: Joan Marcus)

After Jonathan Pryce was announced as the Eurasian lead for the musical Miss Saigon’s 1991 Broadway run, playwright David Henry Hwang—who won a Tony for writing M. Butterfly a few years earlier—made it his cause célèbre to protest the whitening of Asian characters. Hwang lost that battle, for not only did Pryce play the role but won a best actor Tony for his admittedly brilliant performance.

That skirmish was the genesis for Yellow Face, Hwang’s lacerating if uneven play recounting his professional and personal fallout. Its first Broadway revival is staged by the always resourceful Leigh Silverman; she also helmed the 2007 premiere at the Public Theater, and she gets more laughs than insights—which is more Hwang’s fault than hers. The story revolves around the casting for Hwang’s follow-up to M. Butterfly, a 1993 play titled Face Value, in which DHH (as he calls his stage alter ego) wants a young actor named Marcus—who’s starring in a play about Asian American soldiers but doesn’t look very Asian—for the lead. DHH convinces the director and producer to cast the supposedly Asian but definitely white Marcus, which begins a chain of events that puts his own liberal bona fides in jeopardy. (That Face Value was a huge bomb when it premiered doesn’t help matters.)

Unsurprisingly, Yellow Face is complicated: Hwang laments the lack of Asian representation that’s plagued theater—along with movies and TV—for decades, but his own Marcus problem shows Hwang’s own guilt by association. But, although much of what is shown in Yellow Face really happened, the casting of Marcus is a fiction, a conceit that also calls into question the playwright’s own honesty in his scathing indictment, since one of his biggest mistakes is largely made up. 

More successful are the amusing but uneasy scenes between Hwang and his father HYH, a successful West Coast banker and proud immigrant who loves America. HYH (played with nuance and empathy by Francis Jue) has no patience for those criticizing his adopted country: he even sees himself as John Wayne, a winner in the American dream sweepstakes. HYH is also the ever-disappointed father, however famous his son has become—he asks DHH for tickets to see, of all things, Miss Saigon. 

Later, a New York Times reporter (the agreeably sleazy Greg Keller) speaks with DHH, who was made a bank board member by his father, that HYH’s using Chinese money to expand his bank operations might entangle DHH himself. (Strangely, the Times reporter’s name is redacted when spoken and shown, a silly conceit because anyone can look up his name on Google.) These scenes about Hwang’s father—personal, angry, sorrowful—far outclass the main plot that gives Yellow Face its name.

Despite such imbalances, Yellow Face works handily in Silverman’s sly, dry production. (The witty sets by Arnulfo Maldonado and clever lighting by Lap Chi Chu help give the proceedings a laser focus.) The multicultural supporting cast plays disparate roles—reviewers, actors, activists, producers—that add intriguing and humorous layers on top of what’s in the script. And holding all the strands together as DHH is Daniel Dae Kim, a charismatic and sympathetic stand-in for Hwang.

November '24 Digital Week I

Blu-ray Releases of the Week 

Blink Twice 

(Warner Bros)

In Zoë Kravitz’s stylishly derivative directorial debut, which she cowrote with E.T. Feigenbaum, several women are invited to a private island by tech billionaire Slater King and his friends—one of the women, Frida, discovers unsettling things going on, including her own friend Jess’ disappearance (but no one else remembers her being there), and the realization that Slater and his buddies aren’t benevolent. Kravitz directs with a sure hand that’s held down by her oppressive visuals and enervating storyline that’s another in the “the elites do nasty things to each other” subgenre, like The Menu, Don’t Worry Darling and Infinity Pool. The twisty but nonsensical ending reminds us that Rod Serling did this sort of thing far better in half-hour Twilight Zone episodes. The film’s hi-def transfer looks immaculate; no extras.

The Mad Bomber 

(Severin)

In this little known 1972 police drama, Chuck Connors hams it up entertainingly as William Dorn, the berserk title character whom detective Geronimo Minnelli (Vince Edwards) is urgently tracking down before he can do more damage to people and property in Los Angeles. Director Bert I. Gordon’s effectively grimy atmosphere complements the chases as well as Connors’ persuasively crazed performance, especially in his final, desperate moments. The hi-def image looks good; extras comprise a commentary by author Kier-La Janisse and retired bomb squad detective Mike Digby; isolated score; audio interview with Gordon; interviews with Gordon’s daughter Patricia and actress Cynthia MacAdams; locations featurette; and the TV cut of the film. 

In-Theater Releases of the Week 

Breakfast of Champions 

(Shout Studios)

Alan Rudolph has always been a hit-or-miss director—mostly miss—and he called a “loose” 1999 adaptation of a typically sardonic Kurt Vonnegut novel is an utter mess, trying and failing to replicate Vonnegut’s offbeat tonal changes while looking like an amateurish, incoherent movie that was made on the cheap. Performers as disparate as Bruce Willis, Nick Nolte, Barbara Hershey and the usually indestructible Glenne Headley are reduced to mere stick figures, while Rudolph gives a demonstration in how not to ruin solid source material. 

Chasing Chasing Amy 

(Level 33)

This personal documentary is a labor of love for director Sav Rodgers who, as a queer 12-year-old, watched Kevin Smith’s Chasing Amy over and over again—years later, Rodgers questions not only the film’s premise (a lesbian is “won over” by the perfect straight guy) but also his own relationship to it and how he feels now compared to when he was a confused youngster. Rodgers actually gets Smith himself to discuss Amy’s legacy, and they become friends; Guinevere Turner, who co-wrote and starred in the breakthrough lesbian film Go Fish when Smith made his film, refreshingly gives her witty take on it, while Amy star Joey Lauren Adams opens up more candidly than maybe even she thought. 

Lost on a Mountain in Maine 

(Blue Fox Entertainment)

Donn Fendler’s account of his ordeal, at age 12 in 1939, alone on a treacherous mountain how he survived nine days alone with no food or shelter has become an inspirational if somewhat mechanical feature by director Andrew Boodhoo Kightlinger and screenwriter Luke Paradise, who adapted Fendler’s memoir. Donn’s lonely journey is effectively dramatized, and if at times it feels like an afterschool special done at a snail’s pace, the leading role are taken most persuasively by a trio of superb actors: Caitlin Fitzgerald (mother), Paul Sparks (father) and Luke David Bloom (Donn). Less helpful are new interviews with the actual participants (brother, mother, rescuer, Donn himself), integrated more crudely that necessary.

4K/UHD Release of the Week

Trap 

(Warner Bros)

M. Night Shyamalan has mined similar territory for decades, spinning his wheels with vaguely Twilight Zone-ish subjects that he explores as superficially as possible, but his latest is his most actively unpleasant: a doting dad takes his teenage daughter to an arena pop concert, where he notices a large police presence that signals his possible unmasking as a serial killer. The lazy storyline makes one realizes the movie was made so the director could cast his daughter, Saleka Shyamalan, as pop icon Lady Raven, who assumes a larger role as the movie plays out. Josh Hartnett invests as much humanity as he can into an impossible role; poor Alison Pill is mercilessly wasted as his wife. Be warned: the final scene paves the way for an unwanted sequel. The UHD image looks excellent; extras include interviews and featurettes.

DVD Release of the Week 

On the Wandering Paths 

(Distrib Films)

Jean Dujardin gives a subtly affecting performance as Pierre Girard, a writer who, after recovering from a near-fatal fall, decides to across France, in Denis Imbert’s engrossing drama that follows Pierre as he makes the odd human connection while for the most part sticking to his plan of walking alone. Interspersing flashbacks to his previous happy-go-lucky life, falling in love with a young woman named Anna (luminous Joséphine Japy) and leading to his accident, Imbert’s film lays bare the psychology of one man—Dujardin narrates Pierre’s written-down thoughts—as well as the country he’s traveling through, all set against stunning natural landscapes ravishingly photographed by Magali Silvestre de Sacy. 

CD Release of the Week

Adèle Hugo—Songs 

(Alpha Classics)

Adèle Hugo, troubled daughter of the great novelist Victor Hugo, might be best known through French director François Truffaut’s intimate 1975 biopic, The Story if Adèle H., which propelled 19-year-old actress Isabelle Adjani to international stardom. But Adèle was also a composer, as this lovely survey of vocal works discovered decades after her death demonstrates. If her songs resemble those of composers like Chausson and especially Fauré, they have their undeniable charms, as do several short instrumental pieces for which she never set words. This disc contains 14 songs orchestrated by Richard Dubugnon and played arrestingly by the Orchestre Victor Hugo under Jean-François Verdier and beautifully sung by an array of estimable voices: sopranos Sandrine Piau, Axelle Fanyo and Anaïs Constans, mezzos Karine Deshayes and Isabelle Druet and baritone Laurent Naouri.

October '24 Digital Week IV

In-Theater Releases of the Week 

Black Box Diaries 

(MTV)

This startlingly sorrowful yet ultimately optimistic documentary by Shiori Itō, a Japanese journalist, recounts her struggle after accusing legendary journalist Noriyuki Yamaguchi of a 2015 sexual assault—her bravery is in stark contrast to Japan’s buttoned-down social, sexual and political reticence. Itō bares herself emotionally and psychologically dealing with the slowly turning wheels of justice: the MeToo movement gives her traction, but she must push herself to keep going amid a countersuit by Yamaguchi, who was very close to then prime minister Shinzo Abe. Propelling this incredibly intimate account is Itō’s unflinching honesty as both filmmaker and subject.

Magpie 

(Shout Studios)

Daisy Ridley is credited with the idea for this story of marital betrayal—Ridley plays Anette, who’s married to Ben (Shazad Latif) and whose young daughter Matilda (Hiba Ahmed) is cast in the role of beautiful movie star Alicia’s (Matilda Lutz) daughter in a new film. One parent must accompany Matilda while on the set at all times; when Ben does, he begins a relationship with the glamorous Alicia—or does he? Director Sam Yates and writer Tom Bateman have made an efficient by-the-numbers thriller that leads to an obvious but satisfying twist that justifies sitting through the 90-minute buildup. The uniformly excellent cast is led by Ridley’s frazzled but always protective mother and wife.

Your Monster 

(Vertical)

Poor Melissa Barrera—the breakthrough star of In the Heights and Scream VI is now stuck in a one-note rom-com/Beauty and the Beast mashup. Yes, you read that right: after a cancer diagnosis, Laura is dumped by her longtime boyfriend Jacob (Edmund Donovan) and soon finds herself with a new roommate, the beastly Monster (Tommy Dewey, looking like Ron Perlman in the 1980s TV series), who’s a manifestation of her simmering anger over her current predicament. What could have been a perfectly good short is drawn out by writer-director Caroline Lindy into a repetitive and often risible 95-minute feature; even the usually charming Barrera is misdirected into being as annoying, even enervating, as possible, which is obviously not Lindy’s intention.

4K/UHD Release of the Week

Borderlands 

(Lionsgate)

This latest attempt to translate the mindlessness of playing a video game into a big-screen adventure with actual characters and an interesting plot doesn’t work simply because it’s too reminiscent of the post-apocalyptic elements of the Mad Max series, which does this sort of thing far better. The cast, comprising big names like Cate Blanchett, Gina Gershon, Jamie Lee Curtis and Kevin Hart, is game but turned into a routine and flattened crew by cowriter-director Eli Roth, who at least stages a series of impressive action sequences that, nevertheless, become stale after awhile. The UHD transfer accentuates the stunning visuals; extras include several making-of featurettes.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week 

The Beast Within 

(Well Go USA)

In this intriguing variation on the werewolf theme, young Willow (Caoilinn Springall, giving a miraculously mature performance) and her mom Imogen (Ashleigh Cummings) live in a walled-off compound deep in the forest with her dad Noah (Kit Harington), who undergoes a scary physical transformation that Willow is first traumatized, then increasingly empowered, by. Director Alexander J. Farrell and co-writer Greer Ellison rely more on atmosphere than originality, but the film does have an effective ambiguous ending that makes one look at the previous 100 minutes in a different light. 

Creature with the Blue Hand/Web of the Spider 

(Film Masters)

If you want to see a couple of early features starring the Polish enfant terrible, actor Klaus Kinski, this double bill is for you: 1967’s Creature with the Blue Hand and 1971’s Web of the Spider feature Kinski in relatively subdued mode. In the strangely inert Creature, based on an Edgar Wallace story, Kinski plays an escaped mental patient who might be committing several murders, while Web has him playing none other than Edgar Allan Poe in a stylish haunted house tale. Both films have been resurrected with decent hi-def transfers and an array of extras, including commentaries on each feature; a bonus feature, 1987’s The Bloody Dead, related to the original Creature, with a commentary; and featurettes on Wallace and Kinski.

Don’t Change Hands 

(Severin)

Corsican director Paul Vecchiali, who has been nearly forgotten—if he was remembered at all when he died last year at age 93—made this enjoyably sleazy softcore (with hardcore inserts) comic mystery in 1974—it follows Melinda (the great French actress Myriam Mézières), a private detective who’s hired by an heiress who’s being blackmailed with X-rated flicks starring her estranged son. It’s as goofy as it sounds, but Mézières is always delectable and Vecchiali’s directorial hand is light, even in the plentiful and often amusing sex scenes. The film looks good on Blu; extras include new interviews with Mézières, actor Jean-Christophe Bouvet and screenwriter Noel Simsolo, an appreciation by director Yann Gonzalez and a featurette on Vecchiali’s career. 

Made in England—The Films of Powell and Pressburger

(Cohen Media)

For three decades and 20 films, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger made some of the most enduring works in British cinema, which include many indelible images, from those of The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), A Matter of Life and Death (1946) and Black Narcissus (1947) to The Small Back Room (1948), The Red Shoes (1949) and The Tales of Hoffmann (1951). David Hinton’s informative documentary dissects their partnership and why it ended (Powell made films himself, including the overrated cult item Peeping Tom, in 1960). Then there’s Martin Scorsese, an unabashed Powell and Pressburger fan, who not only narrates but acts as our on-camera host, even comparing what he did in some of his films with what they did in their pictures (a word he loves). Scorsese is always a terrific raconteur and knowledgeable commentator on film history, but Made in England needs a little less Marty and a little more Powell and Pressburger. There’s a solid hi-def transfer, with many of the P&P excerpts newly restored.

October '24 Digital Week III

In-Theater Release of the Week 

Conclave 

(Focus Features)

Based on Robert Harris’ page-turning thriller about the political and moral machinations among a group of cardinals coming together to elect a new pope after the incumbent dies mysteriously, Edward Berger’s adaptation is hampered by its structure—lots of voting and arguing in the Sistine Chapel or the cardinals’ private rooms for much of its two-hour length—but Harris’ wit and ability to enliven routine situations is much in evidence. It helps, of course, when there’s a starry cast like this one: Ralph Fiennes, John Lithgow, Sergio Castellitto, and Stanley Tucci have enormous fun playing various liberal or conservative, pious or impious cardinals—it’s too bad Isabella Rossellini can’t do much with the lone female speaking role. Berger directs a little too close to the vest; a less literal director might have made this cracklingly good, not merely diverting. 

4K/UHD Releases of the Week

Cheeky 

(Cult Epics)

The latest UHD rescue of Italian director Tinto Brass’ not-quite-hardcore but titillating sex comedies is his 2000 entry, rating among Brass’ most enjoyable, again relying on a lovely young lass with refreshing screen presence to shoulder the load, so to speak. He came up aces with Yuliya Mayarchuk, a Ukrainian model-actress who plays the uninhibited Carla, who’s trying to placate her jealous boyfriend about her many sexual adventures; although Brass pours on the heavyhanded sexual symbolism, whenever Mayarchuk is onscreen—either clothed or (most often) nude—her natural freshness is impossible to ignore. There’s a first-rate UHD transfer; a Blu-ray disc also includes the film, the lone 4K extra is a commentary by Eugenio Ercolani and Nathaniel Thompson, while the Blu-ray extras are the commentary, new interview with cinematographer Massimo Di Venanzo, isolated score by Pino Donaggio, and Backstage with Tinto Brass (2000).

Twisters 

(Universal)

The original Twister was a silly but watchable disaster thriller that made tons of money—so it’s surprising that it took nearly three decades to come up with a sequel, which is basically the same story: tornado chasers vs. Mother Nature, with nature winning most of the time. Director Lee Isaac Chung follows the original’s Jan de Bont by combining lousy dialogue, cardboard characters and truly impressive—if overdone—special effects. Of course, technology has improved since 1996, so these killer tornados are even more startling, but the acting of Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Powell and Anthony Ramos can be charitably called competent. On UHD, the detailed images are quite eye-popping; extras include deleted scenes, gag reel, several featurettes and Chung’s commentary.

Streaming Release of the Week

Taboo—Family Secrets 

(Breaking Glass Pictures)

Deborah Twiss wrote and directed this attempt at eroticism as stepmom Amanda and grown stepson Tyler can’t keep their hands off each other, all while her husband/his father Lukas has no interest in her and his younger sister Jillie (whom Amanda also raised) can spot their frolicking a mile away. Twiss herself is a quite winning Amanda, but she saddled herself with a mediocre script, her own routine direction and a trio of inadequate performances by her costars, adding up to less than the sum of its parts. 

Blu-ray Releases of the Week 

About Dry Grasses 

(Janus Contemporaries)

The monumental films of Nuri Bilge Ceylan—lengthy (often clocking in at over three hours) and verbose (consisting almost entirely of long conversations)—are serious, absorbing explorations of the human condition. His humane new film, novelistic in scope, centers on Samet (played with credible weariness by Deniz Celiloğlu), an art teacher at a small village elementary school hoping to land a better job in Istanbul; he and another teacher are accused of inappropriate behavior by two female students, including one Samet thought of as a protégé. Ceylan and cinematographers Kürşat Üresin and Cevahir Şahin work marvels with expansive wintry exteriors and cramped interiors—when the film switches to spring at the end of the school year, the colors burst into vivid life as Samet ties up loose ends before leaving for the city, including a tentative truce with his accuser, who seems more mature in their final encounter than she was earlier. A transcendent image of the girl’s dark eyes staring into the camera, her hair dusted with snowflakes is a distillation of this remarkable film—deeply mysterious and ambiguous but exquisitely human. The Blu-ray image looks tremendously detailed; lone extra is a Ceylan interview.

Exhuma 

(Well Go USA)

Writer-director Jang Jae-hyun’s unnerving horror film is a strangely compelling ghost story of a reawakened family curse that involves grave digging and exorcisms. Although it’s way too long at 135 minutes—after the 90-minute mark, the repetition starts to become damaging to the plot—it’s been made with assurance and style, and it’s acted most convincingly by a large cast; it’s not surprising that this culturally-specific feature became one of the biggest box-office hits in South Korean film history. The hi-def transfer is transfixing; lone extra is a making-of featurette.

Pandora’s Box 

(Criterion)

Louise Brooks became a legend of the silver screen in a trio of films, Miss Europe (1930), Diary of a Lost Girl (1929) and Pandora’s Box (1928), the latter two by German director G.W. Pabst, who knew how to utilize Brooks’ unique Americanness—here, she plays Lulu, who leads men to their ruin before she faces her own moral and mortal downfall. Pabst wisely keeps the focus on his actress, who is irresistible to the camera, which is what keeps this moralizing drama relevant. Criterion’s Blu-ray includes a vastly improved restored transfer and several extras: four musical scores, by Gillian Anderson, Dimitar Pentchev, Peer Raben, and Stéphan Oliva; commentary by film scholars Thomas Elsaesser and Mary Ann Doane; Louise Brooks: Looking for Lulu, a 1998 documentary by Hugh Munro Neely; Lulu in Berlin, a rare 1971 interview with actor Louise Brooks, by Richard Leacock and Susan Steinberg Woll; and interviews with Leacock and Michael Pabst, the director’s son.

Veep—Complete Series 

(Warner Bros/HBO)

Although Julia Louis-Dreyfus won several Emmy awards for best actress in a comedy series as Selina Meyer, the VP who becomes president over the course of the show’s seven seasons, she always was the weakest link of a sublime comedic cast who propped her up: everyone from Tony Hale, Anna Chlumsky and Reid Scott to Matt Walsh, Timothy Simons and Gary Cole are true perfection. Created by Armando Iannucci, Veep has the same flavor of rancid ineptitude in our political systems as his brilliant British series The Thick of It All and the priceless film satires In the Loop and The Death of Stalin, but Veep spun its wheels too often and limped to the finish line. The show’s 65 episodes look pristine on Blu; extras include several featurettes and interviews.

DVD Release of the Week 

The Gilded Age—Complete 2nd Season 

(Warner Bros/HBO)

The second season of Julian Fellowes’ series about haves and have-nots in late 19th century Manhattan pretty much follows the script of the first, with the privileged upper crust trying to fend off a “take over” by upstart Bertha Russell (Carrie Coon), whose husband George (Morgan Spector) is among the city’s newly minted robber barons. This season’s 10 episodes are again dominated by alluring costumes and sets, and only Christine Baranaki, as the sarcastic Agnes, ultimate defender of the status quo, transcends by-the-numbers plotting and characterizations. Too bad that several able New York theater performers—in addition to Coon and Spector, there’s Debra Monk, Cynthia Nixon, Michael Cerveris, Donna Murphy, Kristine Nielsen and Kelli O’Hara—are underwhelming. Extras are on-set featurettes and interviews.

CD Release of the Week

Schnittke—Film Music, Vol. 6: Little Tragedies 

(Capriccio)

Soviet composer Alfred Schnittke (1934-98) was as eclectic as they come—he called it polystylism—and the latest release in Capriccio’s valuable series of his film scores shows his wide-ranging musical interests in spades. For Mikhail Schweitzer’s multipart television miniseries Little Tragedies (1979), based on tragic works by the beloved Russian writer Alexander Pushkin, Schnittke wrote music of varied, and expert, mimicry—from polkas to waltzes to Mozart. These short pieces probably work more effectively alongside the series' episodes (although Jurowski has also recorded music that Schweitzer didn’t use); throughout, Schnittke is never less than original, even in his homages. This superb recording by the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra led by Vladimir Jurowski includes vocal soloists Svetlana Mamresheva and Martha Jurowski in heartfelt songs from The Stone Guest and A Feast in Time of Plague, respectively, while piano soloist Elisaveta Blumina shines in numbers from Mozart and Salieri that allude to both of these composers. 

Broadway Play Review—“McNeal” with Robert Downey Jr.

McNeal

Written by Ayad Akhtar

Directed by Bartlett Sher

Performances through November 24, 2024

Vivian Beaumont Theatre, 150 West 65th Street, New York, NY

lct.org

Robert Downey Jr. and the cast of McNeal (photo: Matthew Murphy-Evan Zimmerman)

After Disgraced, a critical self-examination of Islam in the 21st century; The Invisible Hand, which dramatized how Islamic terrorism and our money-obsessed world converge; and Junk, a sprawling but meticulous look at the roots of our current financial culture, Ayad Akhtar returns with his latest play, McNeal, about A.I. and ethical honesty that’s provocative and pertinent but a distinct dropoff from those earlier works.

American novelist Jacob McNeal (Robert Downey Jr. in his Broadway debut) has just won the Nobel Prize for literature and is finishing a new novel. His art is at its pinnacle, but his personal life is a shambles: his wife Jessica committed suicide, which his adult son Harlan (Rafi Gavron) blames him for. And, as the play starts, his doctor Sahra (Ruthie Ann Miles) admonishes him that, after decades of alcohol abuse, liver failure is imminent. 

However, McNeal treats his messy—and unwoke—personal life as a small price to pay for a successful career. When his loyal agent Stephie (the always lively Andrea Martin) secures a New York Times Magazine cover profile about his new book, McNeal flippantly raises the ire of his interviewer, the young, hungry Natasha (Brittany Bellizeare), by namedropping Harvey Weinstein, calling her a diversity hire, and generally acting like an arrogant, entitled prick. 

That he also brazenly stole from his dead wife’s unpublished manuscript and used ChatGPT to barf out reams of pages under his name unmasks the biggest flaw in Akhtar’s play. Although again choosing a subject ripe for dissection in our endlessly fragmented world—A.I. centers many breast-beating discussions about artistic originality and ownership—Akhtar has placed at McNeal’s center someone undeserving such a spotlight.

There’s intelligence, humor and occasional insight in McNeal, alongside a nagging feeling that Jacob McNeal himself could have been coughed up by ChatGPT itself. Epigrams from Sophocles and Nietzsche introduce the play’s script—too bad contrivance and caricature rule. When McNeal shockingly suggests Jessica’s love for Harlan may have been incestuous, this weird accusation is immediately dropped, unconvincingly making it just another example of how nasty McNeal can be. Downey, in his Broadway debut, infuses McNeal with a charming roguishness, but his sardonic edge is blunted by conventional writing. 

Bartlett Sher’s slick staging is dominated by Jake Barton’s excellent projections, which envelop us in the overwhelming virtual world. Barton also collaborated with Michael Yeargan on the sleekly clever set design, and Donald Holder’s exquisite lighting and Justin Ellington and Beth Lake’s inventive sound design also contribute to the frame that more effectively illustrates what McNeal has become than Akhtar’s script. 

Aside from Martin, the supporting cast is underutilized; even Gavron’s Harlan has one angry gear. By play’s end, these characters are reduced to hovering in the background, as in a meeting between McNeal and Francine (Melora Hardin), veteran Times reporter and Natasha’s mentor, with whom he had an affair. That scene, in which Francine berates McNeal for mining their intimate relationship for his book, feels like an uncertain, tacked-on attempt to give closure to a meandering story. McNeal is a rare misfire for a playwright who’s usually strongly attuned to our complicated present moment.

October '24 Digital Week II

In-Theater/Streaming Releases of the Week 

The Apprentice 

(Briarcliff Entertainment)

If you’re expecting this to be a risible takedown of Donald Trump—after all, the poster tagline is “An American Horror Story”—think again: director Ali Abbasi and writer Gabriel Sherman have, with some success, made an amusingly and terrifyingly entertaining ride through the beginnings of Trump World, when Donald hitched his wagon to the revolting Roy Cohen, eventually outfoxing the master himself. There’s an authentic ’70s “NYC is dying” vibe whenever the material degenerates to mere melodrama or rom-com parody, but front and center are three on-target performances. Maria Bakalova is a razor-sharp Ivana, Sebastian Stan a surprisingly sympathetic Donald and Jeremy Strong an outsized, wonderfully villainous Cohn.

Omni Loop 

(Magnolia)

Mary-Louise Parker is her usual delightful self in this otherwise aggressively dull sci-fi fantasy by writer-director Bernardo Britto, who steals brazenly from Groundhog Day to create a silly story of a dying scientist with a black hole in her chest who hopes that time travel with cure her. (No—seriously.) Parker and Ayo Edebiri (who’s so good in The Bear) have terrific chemistry, and Harris Yulin contributes a fun bit as an ornery old professor, but the movie spins its wheels in a desperate attempt to find Meaning, when simply lowercase coherence would be enough.

4K/UHD Release of the Week 

A Nightmare on Elm Street 

(Warner Bros)

Wes Craven’s 1983 horror entry has gained stature over the past four decades despite being mainly a crudely effective horror film about a teenage girl’s nightmares getting intruded on by the now-legendary Freddy Krueger, who enters the real world and starts a killing spree. Craven directs with a sledgehammer, but it works for the most part, particularly the ending, which makes up for many other shortcomings (mainly the script and acting). Both the theatrical and uncut versions look excellent in UHD; extras are two commentaries, interviews, three featurettes and alternate endings.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week

Maxxxine 

(Lionsgate)

Writer-director Ti West and actress Mia Goth reunite for another go-round, this time following porn actress Maxine (from their 2022 collaboration X) looking for legitimate stardom as the lead in a Hollywood horror flick, circa 1985. There’s an intriguing if contrived premise here, yet the problem is that West and Goth are so busy trying to evoke a specific era that there’s rarely room for anything original—it’s a jumble of nods to VCRs, pornos and slasher flicks, with amusing overacting by Kevin Bacon, Michelle Monaghan, Lily Collins, Elizabeth Debicki and Goth herself. There’s a fine hi-def transfer; extras include three featurettes and a West Q&A.

Meeting the Beatles in India 

(Unobstructed View)

Canadian director Paul Saltzman retraces his steps back to 1968 India, when he there at the same time as the Beatles during their legendary stay with the Maharishi—he took a series of intimate photographs of them that were forgotten for decades until his daughter discovered them, leading to this documentary about the importance of that earthshaking visit musically and in the world of meditation. Saltzman interviews several individuals related to India (Patti Boyd) or meditation (David Lynch), and it comes across as self-indulgent, real Beatles fanatics (like me) will eat it up. The film looks quite good in hi-def; extras include nearly an hour of extra footage. 

The West Wing—Complete Series 

(Warner Bros)

When Aaron Sorkin was on, there was no better dialogue writer in TV, the movies and theater in the 1990s (remembering that his breakthrough play, A Few Good Men, opened on Broadway in 1989), as the first four seasons of this beloved series about a liberal White House filled with progressive idealism demonstrates. Sorkin left after the fourth season, and the final three seasons get less interesting, even if Sorkin’s sanctimony is toned down—luckily, the complete series set has been packaged so that Sorkin’s seasons and the other three are in separate boxes. The buzzy cast is led by Martin Sheen, Allison Janney, Bradley Whitford and Rob Lowe. The series, whose 154 episodes are included on 28 discs, looks good in hi-def; extras include interviews, deleted scenes, making-of featurettes and commentaries.

Blu-ray/CD Release of the Week 

Def Leppard—One Night Only: Live at the Leadmill 

(Mercury Studios)

British rockers Def Leppard return to their stomping grounds for a 2023 benefit concert at the Leadmill nightclub in Sheffield, where they began more than 45 years earlier, for a raucous hour-plus set surprisingly heavy on earlier tunes—especially from their 1981 release High ’n’ Dry—alongside their anthemic MTV-era hits. This version of the band still has four members from its late-’80s heyday, led by vocalist Joe Elliott, still in fine voice; vets Vivian Campbell and Phil Collen make up the blistering two-guitar attack. Best songs of the night are the pair of slow burners, “Too Late for Love” and “Bringing on the Heartbreak.” The entire concert is included on CD as well; the hi-def video and audio are topnotch.

DVD Release of the Week

Curb Your Enthusiasm—Complete Series 

(Warner Bros/HBO)

After 12 seasons over a quarter-century, Larry David’s irascible alter ego finally rode off into the sunset, always getting into as much trouble as he possibly can—nearly always self-inflicted, of course, but David was always self-aware enough not to care. For me, at least, a little of David’s clever but narrow observational comedy goes a long way, so most viewers’ comic mileage will obviously vary widely. Still, there are many priceless moments throughout: the ultimate highlight for me will always be the first episode of the penultimate season 11, when Larry ruins Albert Brooks’ “living funeral” by discovering that Brooks has been (oh horror of horrors!) an unrepentant COVID hoarder of hand sanitizer and toilet paper. The 24-disc set includes all 120 episodes; the many extras include a gag reel, interviews and featurettes.

CD Releases of the Week 

Braunfels—Jeanne d’Arc: Scenes from the Life of Saint Joan 

(Capriccio)

German composer Walter Braunfels (1882-1954) is best known for his playful opera The Birds (1913-19), based on ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes’ play—along with other music by the half-Jewish Braunfels, it caused enough of a stir that the Nazis banned it. This opera, composed in 1938-43, is an often gripping account of Joan of Arc: war hero, convicted heretic burned at the stake, and eventual Roman Catholic saint. The most memorable writing is for the chorus, especially in the final scenes of Joan’s death, while other sequences of Joan with the men she leads to battle and those who condemn her for heresy, are intelligently but conventionally written. This excellent recording is from a 2013 Salzburg production, with Juliane Banse as a strong Joan, the Salzburg Bach Chorus is in impressive form and Manfred Honeck conducts the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra in a fine reading of Braunfels’ serious, sober score.

Woolf/Vavrek—Jacqueline 

(Pentatone)

British cellist Jacqueline du Pre was legendary for her intensely emotional performances until multiple sclerosis cut her down in her prime—she died at age 42, in 1987. In Canadian-American composer Luna Pearl Woolf’s 2020 chamber opera, du Pre is represented by two performers, a soprano and a cellist, both embodying fractured aspects of Jacqueline’s life and artistry in an effective conceit captured by Royce Vavrek’s libretto. In this captivating recording, soprano Marnie Breckenridge sings with honesty and intimacy, while Matt Haimovitz’s cello equals her in musical strength, making for quite a powerful duet. The main problem is that an audio recording presents only half the opera, as it were; video would allow us to see as well as hear the fascinating intertwining of singer and musician.

Concert Review—Suzanne Vega at Queens College

Suzanne Vega

Kupferberg Center for the Arts, Queens College, Flushing, Queens

September 27, 2004

suzannevega.com

Suzanne Vega at Queens College

When I first saw Suzanne Vega, on the 1987 Solitude Standing tour at Massey Hall in Toronto, I was struck not only by her pinpoint songs, which tell personal stories in a fresh and direct way with that crystalline conversational voice, but also by her natural stage presence and amusingly deadpan anecdotes, which were as illuminating as those sharply cutting songs.

That dual ability was still on display at Queens College’s Lefrak Concert Hall—the first time, the longtime Manhattan resident said, she’s ever played a concert in Queens, a borough she remembered as the destination for holiday visits to her aunt’s place in Jamaica—for a stop on Vega’s latest tour, titled Old Songs, New Songs and Other Songs. 

Although those of us who’ve seen Vega many times (this was my ninth time, in nine different venues in New York State and Canada—plus the two times I saw her perform off-Broadway, in Carson McCullers Talks About Love and Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice) have heard these stories before, she always makes them sound fresh and new, even when recounting for the umpteenth time the genesis of her lovely paean to young love, “Gypsy.”

Unsurprisingly, her durable “Old Songs” were the primary focus, right from the opening “Marlene on the Wall,” from her eponymous debut album and one of Vega’s signature tunes; Vega donned a top hat as she sang, in a tip of the hat to Marlene Dietrich. Next up were the bouncy title track from her 99.9 F° album and the somber ballad “Caramel.” Throughout the evening, as Vega alternated between playing acoustic guitar and simply singing, her longtime musical collaborator Gerry Leonard contributed both atmospheric and stinging lead guitar lines.

Gerry Leonard (left) and Vega

The rest of the show mixed songs from her debut (“Small Blue Thing,” “The Queen and the Soldier,” “Some Journey”), her two hits (“Luka” and “Tom’s Diner,” forever ruined by the NDA remix, like Clapton turning “Layla” into a comatose ballad) and a handful of songs from the ‘90s, 2000s and 2010s (“In Liverpool,” “Tombstone” and the haunting final encore “Rosemary”). 

Among the “Other Songs” was Vega’s surprisingly faithful cover of Lou Reed’s downtown classic, “Walk on the Wild Side,” which she has been performing live on several tours. The “New Songs” comprised two tunes, so new that Vega sang them reading from lyric sheets: the nicely observational “Speaker’s Corner,” which tackled free speech; and the sardonic but crudely metaphorical “Rats,” about rodents overwhelming New York City.

Among the many gems in Vega’s set, standing out was “Penitent,” from her criminally overlooked 2001 album Songs in Red and Gray, which had the misfortune of being released a couple weeks after the September 11 terrorist attacks. One of her most beautiful but heartbreaking songs about a broken relationship, it was performed with the mournful passion that is Vega at her most compelling. 

October '24 Digital Week I

In-Theater Releases of the Week 

Lee 

(Roadside Attractions/Vertical)

Kate Winslet gives her usual fierce performance in this conventional biopic of Lee Miller, an American free spirit who made her name in Europe and became one of the most important WWII correspondents/photographers. Director Ellen Kuras, best known for her gritty cinematography in films by Spike Lee and Sam Mendes, brings a weary verisimilitude to the horrors Miller witnessed and recorded, including the first glimpses of the Nazi death camps. Winslet is unafraid to bare herself—histrionically and physically—and there’s excellent support by Alexander Skarsgård, Marion Cotillard, Noémie Merlant, Andrea Riseborough and Josh O’Connor, who plays Miller’s adult son in a not entirely successful subversion of the standard biopic interview arc. Too bad Andy Samberg, as a fellow war photographer, is merely adequate.

Daaaaaalí! 

(Music Box Films)

French director Quentin Dupieux is a one-man wrecking crew, writing, directing, photographing and editing his parodic films but also running his flimsy ideas into the ground relentlessly so that, even though they’re short (this one clocks in at 77 minutes), his films feel stretched beyond endurance. His latest, a fake biopic about the Spanish surrealist painter, has a germ of an idea—a young Frenchwoman tries to get Dalí to participate in a documentary about his life, but everything goes wrong—but does nothing with it. Dupieux’s desperate attempts at cleverness—Dalí is played by five different actors, none of whom makes an impression; and there’s brazen thievery galore from Dalí’s occasional cinematic collaborator, Luis Bunuel—add up to little. Holding it together is Anaïs Demoustier, whose natural likability keeps a modicum of interest, but even she (in her fourth Dupieux appearance) can’t conjure laughs where they are none.

Streaming Release of the Week 

Mother Nocturna 

(Buffalo 8)

In Daniele Campea’s portentous psychological drama, wolf biologist Agnese has been recently discharged from a mental hospital, which has not retarded the progress of her transformation, both physically and mentally, due to the moon’s pull on her. Needless to say, her husband Riccardo and their daughter Arianna are worried about what’s happening to Agnese and have to deal with their own emotional difficulties. Campea writes and directs with more bluntness than finesse, his dark visuals and dream/nightmare sequences only occasionally giving the material a coherent dramatic shape. It’s up to the actors to provide the heavy lifting, and Susanna Costaglione (Agnese), Edoardo Oliva (Riccardo) and especially Sofia Ponente (Arianna) do their considerable best to make this self-serious drama less risible than it would otherwise have been.

4K/UHD Release of the Week

Despicable Me 4 

(Universal)

One of Dreamworks’ biggest hits, the latest entry in the Despicable Me franchise balances those irritating minions with the amusing adventures of a family whose ex-supervillain father, Gru, is trying to go straight. Director Chris Renaud finds the requisite humor in the situation that will simultaneously appeal to the kids and their parents equally. The visuals are vibrant, the voice cast is often hilarious (although Steve Carell is too hammy as Gru), and the laughs and sappiness coexist happily. The UHD transfer looks sumptuous; extras include two new mini-movies (Game Over and Over, Benny’s Birthday), deleted scenes and making-of featurettes.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week 

The Creature 

(Severin)

A pair of ’70s Spanish features, which are crude if effective examples of filmmaking under Franco as well as just after his dictatorship was toppled in 1976, feature canines in lead roles as potent symbols of Franco’s inhumane regime that considered its enemies no better than wild animals.  Director Eloy de la Iglesia’s unsettling 1977 drama focuses on a couple who adopt a stray dog after the wife miscarries; soon she shows an unhealthily close attachment to it, which her conservative husband discovers may have included unusual intimacy. De la Iglesia milks this creepy plot device for all that it’s worth—including as a metaphor for Franco’s Spain—and actress Ana Belén persuasively plays the besotted wife. The film has a superbly grainy transfer; extras comprise an interview with assistant director Alejo Loren as well as an intro by and interview with French director Gaspar Noé, who’s a big fan.

A Dog Called Vengeance 

(Severin)

Director Antonio Isasi’s post-Franco 1977 revenge flick follows Ungria, an escaped political prisoner who is relentlessly pursued by the title canine after Ungria kills his master in self-defense. Isasi follows the fugitive’s fate as relentlessly as the dog does, and the climax is a showdown between wronged man and vengeful beast. As the unfortunate Ungria, Jason Miller provides the necessary gravitas, while the great Italian actress Lea Massari is equally good as Muriel, a willing stranger who helps Ungria whether in or out of bed. The film looks impressive on Blu-ray; extras comprise an interviews with actress Marisa Paredes (who was married to Isasi) and Maria Isasi, daughter of the director and Paredes. 

CD Releases of the Week 

Antonín Dvořák—Symphonies 6-9; Works by Smetana and Janáček 

(LSO Live)

This four-disc collection—celebrating the 25th anniversary of the London Symphony Orchestra’s label, LSO Live—brings together the seminal recordings Sir Colin Davis made between 1999 and 2005 with the LSO of the final four symphonies of Czech master Antonín Dvořák, culminating with his masterpiece, No. 9, the New World Symphony. A terrific version of Dvořák’s contemporary Bedřich Smetana’s monumental Má Vlast rounds out the stellar contributions by Davis and the LSO; also included is a wonderful 2018 recording brass-heavy Sinfonietta by another Czech composer, the great Leoš Janáček, by Sir Simon Rattle and the LSO.

Vagn Holmboe—String Quartets Vol. 3 

(Dacapo)

Vagn Holmboe (1909-96) did not reach the storied heights of his compatriot Carl Nielsen as Denmark’s preeminent composer, but he still accumulated a solid, very impressive body of work. His 13 symphonies are a formidable accomplishment in their own right, and his 17 string quartets encompass a terrain as wide as the 15 quartets for which another contemporary, Dmitri Shostakovich, is justly celebrated. In the third volume of its journey through Holmboe’s quartets, the Nightingale String Quartet performs two of his middle-period quartets (No. 4, from 1953-54, and No. 5, from 1955) alongside his penultimate quartet (No. 16, from 1981). Holmboe’s musical language is often pared down to the essentials in these works; as the Nightingale members demonstrate, these quartets never lack intensity or intimacy.