Liars and Saints

 I fired the behavioral therapist. Here was the craziest moment in this chapter--the moment that made me think of Amanda Seyfried in the upcoming psychological thriller, "The Housemaid." After the "termination text," I had visions of this therapist arriving at my front door, wielding an axe. Job termination is like a breakup, at least for me. In the ensuing minutes, I felt giddy. I had taken action! I never had to see this person again. But then regret set in. Had she really been that bad? She was--she is!--a human being. It was I--I!--who seemed to be monstrous. This made me recall that great scene in Disney's "Tangled" when Rapunzel detaches from Gothel; one minute, Rapunzel is euphoric, and the next, she is despondent. And so on. (For the next five to seven years, all of my allusions will include a moment or two from Rapunzel's story in "Tangled.") Now, I'm in my Cardi B phase. Said, lil bitch, you can't fuck with me if you wan...

  Sometimes, an idea is so shrewd, the movie seems to write itself. In "Rebuilding," Josh O'Connor lives somewhere west of the Rockies. A wildfire destroys his ranch; he relocates to a trailer on FEMA-owned land. This, then, is a migration story; it brings Tony Kushner to mind. She was.. ...not a person but a whole kind of person, the ones who crossed the ocean, who brought with us to America the villages of Russia and Lithuania - and how we struggled, and how we fought, for the family, for the Jewish home, so that you would not grow up here , in this strange place, in the melting pot where nothing melted. Descendants of this immigrant woman, you do not grow up in America, you and your children and their children with the goyische names. You do not live in America. No such place exists. Your clay is the clay of some Litvak shtetl, your air the air of the steppes - because she carried the old world on her back across the ocean, in a boat, and she put it down on Grand Conc...

  Mary Roy feels ambivalent about child-rearing. We know this because she has harsh words for her son, when he fails a class: "You are ugly and stupid. If I were you, I would kill myself." Also, Mary Roy berates her daughter, Arundhati, for having failed to impress a visiting architect. "You couldn't think of one intelligent thing to say?" When Arundhati publishes her Booker-winning debut, "The God of Small Things," Mary says, "I struggle to imagine what all the fuss is about...." Arundhati initiates a seven-year period of estrangement--"not so I could escape my mother, but so that I could continue to love her." Mary never asks about these seven years; Arundhati doesn't dwell on this. "I lived. I was fine." Arundhati feels admiration for Mary--"my gangster"--because Mary starts an astoundingly successful school and actually wins a feminist legal battle. Mary changes an important law in India. She teaches boys...

  We're watching HBO's "Heated Rivalry," which is basically soft-core porn featuring two hockey players. The affiliated studio is called CRAVE--a name that leaves very little to the imagination. When I saw an ad for the show, I immediately noticed the frenzied groping and shirtlessness. It would be difficult not to notice. "There's something about the cinematography," I said to my spouse. "Or maybe the lighting? I just think you'll enjoy this. It's a true technical achievement." Call me crazy, but the "stakes" are somewhat mysterious to me. The rival hockey players love each other--but they cannot be forthright about their love, because it's a feeling that dare not speak its name. But aren't we in 2025? The current climate is different from that of Victorian England, right? Maybe I'm being obtuse. But we have Tom Daley in the world. And we have Nico Keenan, the Olympic field hockey player. No one is trying to burn ...

The NYT recently highlighted "There's a Boat" as one of the apex moments in musical theater history. People say this really belongs to an opera, but lines can be blurry. "Boat" is a sales pitch. Sportin' Life wants Bess's company. He is trying to win her away from Porgy. He lures her with promises of an exciting new life in Manhattan; the promises are purely superficial. There will be nothing meaningful in New York City, but there will be sequins and bright lights. I'll buy you the swellest mansion-- Up on upper Fifth Avenue. And to Harlem we'll go struttin'.... We'll go a struttin'..... And there'll be nothin' too good for you. I'll dress you in silks and satins-- And the latest Paris styles-- And all your blues you'll be forgettin'... You'll be forgettin'.... There'll be no frettin'..... Just nothing but smiles.... Sportin' Life shows his contempt at the end of the song. "Don't be a f...

  If there is one substantial flaw in "Merrily We Roll Along," it's the failure to look closely at the character of Frank, Jr. Yes, Jr. is approximately six years old in his final scene--but six-year-olds have wild and colorful interior lives. Ask Beverly Cleary. Since we don't get to know Frank, Jr., we have to do our own work to imagine what it's like to experience Junior's absence (year after year after year). I blame George Furth. The omission is important, because a big part of Mary's final meltdown has to do with Frank, Jr. In a sharp exchange, Mary "casually" mentions that Junior has thanked her for attending "the big high-school graduation." When Frank, Sr., peevishly observes that he wasn't invited, Mary has the right response: "Neither was I." She doesn't have to say anything more. This particular moment is the "apex" moment: It's the height of Senior's monstrosity. The entire show is an eff...

 Jen Hatmaker is gifted with a computer; hand her a laptop, and interesting things happen. In her recent memoir, she recalls a moment of discovery; at some point, she just understood that she could make other kids laugh. This was a superpower--it pointed her toward her adult life. (A similar event happens in Patti LuPone's memoir. In high school, LuPone is singing. Her teacher bluntly says, "You have a gift, and your entire life will be about the exploration of this one gift.") Hatmaker has another powerful memory from childhood. She remembers a male teacher caressing her shoulders in a way that makes her recoil. In this memory, she is an obedient member of an evangelical church; she believes that her duty is not to make waves. She doesn't say anything. Years later, she learns that the teacher in question assaulted at least one child. This discovery imparts a lesson: Occasionally, my body "knows" things, and I should pay attention. But the obvious set-piece ...

  We tried Tot Shabbat--but it involved a long drive, and it wasn't a "homerun." The central text was the Noah story--which, like most of the rest of the Bible, is essentially a horror film. But, at Tot Shabbat, the story became a cute opportunity for a song about animals. Something was left to be desired. The reason I like Judaism much more than Catholicism is that--at least in my memories of college--certain forms of Judaism involve doubt, skepticism, questioning. I had a terrific literature professor who invited me to his home for Rosh Hashanah; what followed was a kind of seminar about the Bible, in which people basically said, "We don't have any answers, and that's fine." In the Noah story, God becomes a homicidal maniac because He is irritated by His own creations. Whose fault is it that humans are bratty? One would have to assume it's God's fault. And yet the answer is murder and mass destruction? Some people say that an answer to despair ...

  Is it possible to invent a new plot in 2025? Ann Packer's late-career opus, "Some Bright Nowhere," has a startling setup. A couple has been reasonably happy for decades. The wife--Claire--is now dying of cancer. She asks her husband to move out; she wants to spend her final weeks with two female friends. Is Claire a monster? It's not really a question that can be answered. Oprah has said this: "I was totally annoyed by her, and by her lack of empathy for her spouse." I agree. But people in the real world do annoying things. They are annoying and self-absorbed all the time. How surprising to take this particular case of self-absorption and mold it into a novel. What results is sort of a divorce and sort of a non-divorce. Eliot continues to visit Claire in her house. He tries to be patient with her faux-doula friends. Sometimes, he eavesdrops on them. He attempts to defend his spouse when one child--Abby--raises loud and forceful objections to the new living...

  Joshua Henry contributed a terrific mini-essay to the NYTimes. In that essay, Henry argues that the key to all musical theater is Victoria Clark's "Fable." This is, of course, correct. Adam Guettel has limitations--but one thing he can do is write an outstanding 11:00 number. He did this with "How Glory Goes," and he did this again with "Fable." (The producers of "Chess" might learn from this. One problem with "Someone Else's Story" is that it doesn't belong at the end of "Chess." There is literally no reason why Florence would sing these words at this moment in the show. By contrast, "Fable" is like an eruption. It has to happen when it happens. Context is everything.) "Fable" has a simple premise. A woman has been damaged by love; she still has to accept that her unusually vulnerable daughter is going to attempt her *own* love story. Victoria Clark's character is now permanently cynical:...

 Long ago, I wrote about a contractor who made inventive speeches about why he could not work: "My bowels are malfunctioning," "I've injured my eye," "Terrible traffic en route to the post office..." This man, Eddie, is gone from my life, but now I feel I'm meeting his spiritual twin. Her name is Y, and she is a kind of teacher/governess for my son. Except that she often can't do her job, for the following reasons: *"I need to pack a suitcase for my trip to the Philippines." "Changing diapers is out of the question because I've just applied eczema cream." *"Changing diapers is out of the question because I dropped one of my nitrile gloves." *"My husband has a cold, so whaddaya suggest as a plan for looking after *my* baby?" *(Perhaps my favorite) ... "Another client asked to boot you from your timeslot tomorrow. Is that cool with you?" Y is captivating to my spouse and me--and it feels crumm...