Liars and Saints

 Niagara-on-the-Lake is a posh tourist town that traces its origins to the Revolutionary War. According to my husband, Loyalists fled the colonies and built a new life in Canada. But the rebels sought revenge in the War of 1812. Niagara-on-the-Lake was then reconstructed. The town hosts the Shaw Festival--although, in my experience, no one actually likes the plays of George Bernard Shaw. I've yet to meet someone who can't stop talking about "Mrs. Warren's Profession." Those indifferent to Shaw include the Shaw's own former creative director, who turned down the Shaw Festival's job offer several times before saying yes. Over time, the Festival's mandate has become slightly watery; there is now a vague understanding that a Festival play should have a setting that overlaps with Shaw's own era (roughly 1850 to 1950). But Marc and I just saw "Sleuth," which seemed to take place in the 1970s? So who knows. As I grow old, I find myself wishing j...

 The George Cross mysteries feature a detective "on the spectrum." He seems to have no interest in dating or sex, so his family life is centered on his parents. (By contrast, "The Tunnel," a TV series, features a neurodivergent detective who seems to have a robust sex life. I wonder if Tim Sullivan--author of the Cross novels--is aware of "The Tunnel.") George Cross grew up without a mother. For a long while, it was his belief that Christine, his mother, couldn't handle the challenge of living with a "special needs" child. But, in fact, Christine left for unrelated reasons. She discovered that her husband, Raymond, was gay; in that era, the "cleanest" solution seemed to be the act of disappearing. I think Sullivan could dig deeper here. There was really no other way for Christine to cope with complications? The author's "blurriness" around the Christine question is one of the weakest aspects of the George Cross books. ...

  The reason I felt drawn to Dolly Parton was that she seemed to follow the Stephen Sondheim playbook. One of the Sondheim rules was that form should match content. And there I was last night in a restaurant, listening to "Jolene": Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene. Please don't take him just because you can. Dolly's speaker does not need to explain to us that she is obsessed--because Dolly's use of *form* conveys the message. Those four "Jolenes"--on ascending notes--create the feeling of obsession. We know what it is like to be inside the speaker's ruminating head. Another note from Sondheim was that every song should function as a one-act play, with exposition, development, and a conclusion. Recall that Dolly was just in high school when she wrote "The Bridge." It's a little bit overheated and predictable--but it's still nothing like the writing you would expect from a teenager. A kid appears on a bridge and recalls that this was he...

  I have no idea how carefully the writers of "Six" were thinking about Ariana Grande. There is of course the link between Catherine Howard's hairstyle and Grande's iconic ponytail. There is also the choice of song structure. Howard's solo is a kind of resume: the verses walk us through the story of her love life. Grande uses the same trick in "Thank U, Next": we hear about each and every major ex (rather than focusing on just one). I can't help but notice an additional parallel. When a pop star addresses a crush, she is also (covertly) addressing her audience: A little less conversation and a little more TOUCH MY BODY. Cuz I'm so into you, into you, into you. We would be naive to pretend that the music industry isn't--on one level--selling sex. "All you wanna do--all you wanna do, Baby, is touch me, squeeze me, birds and the bees me." At some point, the relationship becomes toxic. Some of Grande's recent songs have been "a...

  We flew to another country — then drove a long way — to see a revival of “Guys and Dolls.” Is this odd? I don’t care. Loesser’s musical, one of the all-time greats, is essentially a Shakespearean comedy, and so it “works” at the Stratford Festival. In a Shakespeare story, a young man or woman travels to an enchanted place (a forest or island), assumes a false identity for bizarre reasons, then makes a mess. That’s also Sky Masterson. He begins wooing Sarah by pretending certain things are true: a Havana “milkshake” doesn’t really have alcohol, a certain flight to Cuba is really just about finding a decent lunch. Complications ensue. Amazingly, Sky’s conscience begins to wake up. He finds that he cares too much about Sarah to continue pulling the wool over her eyes. At the same time, Sarah notices she has a “well of forgiveness” deeper than the well she’d imagined for herself. A casual remark from a third party points the way toward resolution — just in time. Generally, a succ...

  Before Mac Barnett “fell from grace,” he wrote a blog called “Looking at Picture Books.” This did exactly what it claimed to do. Barnett and his friend, Jon Klassen, analyzed old masterworks. They weren’t afraid to touch a nerve; they criticized Barack Obama for repeatedly reading “Where the Wild Things Are” at high-profile events (when other books could have profited from the Obama spotlight). Barnett really, deeply thought about Maurice Sendak. For example, he pointed out that Max, the hero of “Where the Wild Things Are,” doesn’t have any toys. His bedroom is joyless. It’s a bedroom designed by a parent who is struggling. (Indeed, the parent has just sent Max to sleep without having eaten dinner.) Second, Barnett pays attention to Sendak’s use of scale. The initial images are small; we see a good deal of white space. When Max escapes to the land of the Wild Things, the white space disappears. The image even seems to spill *off* the page. Max has found freedom within his ima...

  Raul Esparza is returning to Broadway. I don't have trust in Esparza's ability to select good material, but I do think his co-star, Joy Woods, has often made wise choices ("Little Shop," "Six," "Gypsy"). Could this be the year that Joy Woods wins a Tony Award? I'm ready. The Katherine Parr (Joy Woods) character in "Six" is the clearest link to the musical "Hamilton." With its goosebump-inducing conclusion, "Hamilton" reveals that Eliza has a massive Second Act, packed with political advocacy, editorial work, and business management. Something similar happens with Katherine Parr. After the death of Henry VIII, Parr writes books, fights for the education of women, and recruits a female painter for a high-profile job. I see Katherine Parr as a comment on Sara Bareilles. When told to write a love song for financial reasons, Bareilles felt repelled--and turned her repulsion into a hit ("I'm Not Gonna Write Yo...

 Sometimes, I think about my life in relation to "The Sopranos." There is that moment when Carmela barks, "AJ needs his routines!" That could easily be yours truly--talking about a different little boy. The dispute with the neighbors. If I bake rigatoni for your in-laws, that means my daughter *will* win a spot at Georgetown . My family has a similar arrangement where we back school board candidates in exchange for basic civility from our school principal. (This sometimes works!) The final scene of "The Sopranos" is treated as a kind of Rosetta Stone--what can it tell us about the mob storyline? But I'm not sure that the mob is of paramount importance in this scene. Before the nebulous final seconds, AJ offers advice to his father. "You need to relax. Remember the good times. OK? You told me that once." This is a specific observation about family life--your child will repeat your own words in front of you. (If I'm visibly stressed, my son...

 "Mother Simpson" has a terrific mystery plot: The Simpson children must reconstruct Mona's past even as events in the present become distracting. Mona's elaborate story spills out. But the core of the episode is how Homer relates to his mother. Homer is mortified to ruin a tender moment after a hyperactive fish falls from the sky and lands in his underpants. Mona (appropriately) soothes Homer. Later, Mona tries to have a serious conversation with Lisa while occasionally reassuring Homer that his cartwheels are "very impressive." A detail I love is that Mona uses the word "rapport" with Lisa. Lisa doesn't bother to brag that she knows what the word means. Instead, she expresses her delight that Mona--unlike so many other adults--has not tried to condescend to Lisa by searching for a monosyllabic synonym. Condescension is belittling *both* to the teacher *and* to the student. Of course Lisa would understand this. Finally, the episode carries its...

  One of the nicest touches in "Tony" is Mrs. Bourdain, who pounces when her son mispronounces the word "Bildungsroman." She trashes a bag of records that her husband has left in the living room -- then disingenuously says that a bag on the floor is always, categorically, just a piece of trash. When her son goes missing, she quickly gets lost in a marital fight; somehow, she forgets to keep her eyes on the prize, which is the chance to locate her son. The script doesn't "dig in" to Mrs. Bourdain's standard-variety misery. It just lightly touches on a few odd moments -- and this is enough to let us know that we have certainly met (and maybe lived next door to) someone very much like Mrs. Bourdain. There are other surprises. In an American coming-of-age movie, we might expect the flawed main characters to have hearts of gold. But Leo Woodall's character is mostly reprehensible. He seems to be cruising close to "self-destruction" territo...

 "The Amateur" is the story of Mira, who will almost certainly be a character on the big screen within the next few years. Like Christina Ricci in "The Ice Storm," Mira is a teen in an affluent suburb in the 1970s. No one watches her very closely (and this is a problem). Having survived an attempted assault, Mira goes after her attacker. She is a skilled golfer; she destroys the guy's car with a 9-iron. She does not explain the context surrounding her behavior--the world has never been very welcoming to victims of assault, and the world of the 1970s is especially problematic. So Mira acquires a reputation for being "troubled." Then the story takes a turn unlike any other turn I've seen in any novel. Mira is practicing her swing in one of those enormous "golf tents" you see here and there--next to a row of batting cages. The owner of the tent has not followed instructions. A tent should be installed in an area that adjoins a wall; instead,...

  There is that peculiar strain of masochism -- the strain that leads parents to host kiddo parties free of alcohol, free of sunlight, free of food. Last weekend, my family went to "the Funplex," a kind of dungeon in which small children assault one another with foam bricks. "You can tell times have changed," said one dad. "Now, all the arcade games are, like, virtual reality games." I would rather eat glass than participate in this conversation. "So crazy!" I said. "Times change!" What a relief it is to have pop music. At some point, Carly Rae Jepsen's breakout hit began to play. Really charming. What people fail to note is that the music video is icing on the cake -- Carly Rae falls for a local guitarist but discovers, in the climactic moments, that he is gay. I would cross a lake of fire for Carly Rae Jepsen. She is now working on a musical with Lena Dunham. At the party, Sunday, there were exactly zero dads who could discuss thi...

  Nothing matters except character development. In "The Widow's Broom," an actual broom takes center stage. It once belonged to a witch. But it lost its power to fly. That doesn't mean it has fully lost its magic--it can still sweep on its own, play the piano, and chop wood. It can also feed the chickens. At least from Salem onward, stories involving witches have tended to touch on gender politics. In "The Widow's Broom," the men among the townspeople despise the broom. They find it unnerving. By contrast, the women notice that the broom is quite helpful with domestic chores. The broom's new owner--Minna, a widow--becomes inspired by the broom's resourcefulness. She plays a "witchy" trick to ensure that she will have the future that she actually wants. I live in a small town, and I sometimes deal with meanness and stupidity (and this is often when I'm communicating with someone who works within my son's school district). To me, ...

  The Times had a terrific piece about Madonna's dance career this weekend. A friend of Madonna's--Stephen Sondheim--was especially fond of Madonna's sense of self-discipline. The NYT supports Sondheim's verdict. For me, the Times helped to "reposition" one of the classic Madonna numbers, "Express Yourself." (It's stunning to me that--for four music videos--Madonna's team selected a director who would go on to make "Panic Room," "Mindhunter," and "Zodiac." Can any other pop star claim anything like that?) The film for "Express Yourself" was--in its day--among the most expensive music videos ever made. It is a "dystopian industrial pop epic influenced by Fritz Lang." On its surface, the song seems to borrow from Merry Clayton: "If you wanna know if he loves you so...it's in his kiss." But it's a bit less passive than Merry Clayton. "He" has to express himself--but ...

I love this painting at the Met. I know nothing about Georges de La Tour. I do know that this painting was completed sometime around 1630. The reason I love it is that it is a narrative about transgression. Like the writer Patrick Radden Keefe, I think a story is useless unless it involves a crime. (Maybe that's overly dramatic, but it's pretty close to what I think.) A crime involves role-playing--you have to feign being someone you're not, if you want to stage a coverup--and role-playing leads to odd behaviors. I will always have fond memories of "Better Call Saul" because of Kim Wexler. Wexler's criminal ambition takes her farther and farther from "the truth"--then, after a massacre, she has to try to atone for what she has done. Georges de La Tour's "Fortune Teller" has a straightforward story. An elderly woman offers to read a palm. While the "mark" is distracted, a band of thieves gets to work on a pocket-picking mission...

  Arthur Miller wrote "Death of a Salesman" in a kind of dream-state; the play seemed to spill out of him. This was *not* a product of years and years of toil. Charley's famous speech is an analysis of Willy's career. A salesman doesn't have a practical skill--a salesman is really selling himself. In a superficial world, appearance and youth have great weight. There can be a moment when the world decides it does not want you; you become invisible. (This seemed to happen to a neighbor of mine--who could no longer afford the house she grew up in. She was falling behind with her taxes; the town chose to drum her out of her home, and she attempted suicide. It's still strange to me that there was no other "solution" to the problem.) Oddly, Charley's speech seems to be about Arthur Miller himself. After the Marilyn Monroe fiasco, Miller lost his standing in American culture. "The Crucible" and "A View From the Bridge" found some Ame...

 Beyonce is not my favorite performer; I quickly grow bored with songs of empowerment. I prefer singers who are more openly messy. Bonnie Raitt, Amy Winehouse, Adele. That said, I acknowledge that Beyonce does what she does very well. I particularly like "Irreplaceable," which casts Bey as a kind of all-powerful God: So go ahead and get gone-- Call up that chick and see if she's home. Oops! I bet you thought that I didn't know. What did you think I was puttin' you out for? Because you was untrue-- Rollin' her round in that car I bought you. Baby, drop them keys. Hurry up before your taxi leaves. It's this song that "Six" seems to borrow from (via "No Way")--especially in the bridge section. Because the writers are witty, "Six" inverts the Beyonce theme: Catherine of Aragon is wielding power *not* to evict a man but to preserve her own queendom. Then the stutter of the chorus--"n-n-n-n-no way"--seems to recall "C...

  I think this will be my last post about "Hadestown." My admiration is really centered on Eurydice's "I Want" solo: I was alone so long-- I didn't even know that I was lonely. Out in the cold so long-- I didn't even know that I was cold. Turned my collar to the wind-- This is how it's always been. All I've ever known is how to hold my own-- But now I want to hold you, too. Is it possible to invent new twists in a love song? Here, the writers push us "on to" an exciting bridge by dropping the last syllable in the refrain: "Now I want to hold you, too." Now I want to hold you--NOW. I want to hold you--hold you CLOSE. I don't wanna ever let you go. Now I wanna hold you--hold you TIGHT. I don't wanna go back to the lonely life. The other part I admire is the odd discordant passage at the end. Eurydice demands that Orpheus make several promises. Orpheus immediately complies; he is naive, and he believes that the promises a...

  We took our child out of the YMCA camp. I'm not very interested in the specifics of the camp. Other people seem to have a good time there.   What I did notice was that the camp was frequently calling, mentioning moments of aggression, poop accidents, penis waving. The head of the camp was exceedingly nice and a bit passive, and instead of giving me instructions, she would murmur about her need to "locate Joshua's triggers." Finally, I asked her what she would do if she were in my shoes, and she said, "I can't answer that, but I can tell you that I worry about Josh at my camp. I worry every single day." There was no need to hear anything more.     The *new* camp is both more expensive *and* more demanding. They tell me to send a trained babysitter -- someone to monitor Josh *in addition* to the counselors who are paid to monitor him. A part of me resents this. Isn't the camp getting enough money to solve its own problems? On the other hand, I apprec...

  One gift of Alice McDermott's is to invent characters who are both weird and recognizable; you feel you've met these people. Theresa, a tenth grader on Long Island, is semi-aware that her little cousin might be dying. But Theresa is in a kind of hormonal haze--and the death of a child is too much to think about--so Theresa lies to herself. At the same time, she is drawn to an elderly local artist whose work may or may not be "immortal." It's interesting--and scary--to feel that you have power over a Great Man. Theresa starts showing off around the artist; she shares her thoughts about Shakespeare (and about his villain Macbeth). Theresa's parents have moved to Long Island, to a groundskeeper's cottage, because they think that Theresa's proximity to wealthy people is a good thing. They encourage her to mingle with rich neighbors; at the same time, they feel wary around her, because they know she will not remain close to home. (In this way, McDermott i...

 In high school, I became interested in the Vietnam War--American failures, American atrocities. I wrote a paper on the Kent State Massacre and listened to the soundtrack from "Miss Saigon." There is Kim, singing about Bob Kerrey: Do you want one more tale of a Vietnam girl? Want to know how I'm bound to a man I don't love? Do you want to be told how my village was burned? Want to hear how my family was blasted away? How I ran from the rice fields and saw them in flames? How my parents were bodies whose faces were gone... This is unusual material for a Broadway show. Like Frank Rich, I think that the European mega-musicals are a mixed bag--and that "Miss Saigon" is the best of the bunch. This structurally bizarre spectacle establishes a bond between Kim and a white GI--but then flashes forward by three years. The GI has abandoned Kim (and a small child, a son). Kim has been hiding from her cousin, Thuy, who wants an arranged marriage. In the show's stran...

  My children don't do amusement parks; the parks have not been a top priority. But we have one "ride" nearby. It's the Turtle Back Train experience. The train does several things--it does its tasks very well. You get themed topiary. (The black bear is dressed in a patriotic hat around the Fourth of July.) You get African vistas; real giraffes seem to wander close to your train. (You can also spot sanga cattle. To me, these descendants of aurochs are the unsung heroes of almost any zoo.) ....After speeding through "African grassland," the train makes a sharp turn and soars above a manmade lake (so you may feel you are chugging along the perimeter of Lake Victoria). There are inevitably pedestrians wandering by the lake, and my son, in Princess Di mode, likes to shout, "Enjoy your day!" The final part of the "set" is a model of a ghost town, and here I do think the engineers could have slowed down a bit. They have hastily labeled one build...

  Francine Prose describes Caravaggio and his interest in miracles. Caravaggio made us aware: that these miracles had transpired neither in primary colors, nor in brilliantly hued paintings of sanitized saints and celestial fireworks, but in dusty streets and dark rooms much like the streets and rooms in which he himself lived. With Caravaggio, we see the Biblical scene, but we also see Renaissance-era Europeans in the act of posing. Caravaggio wants us to know that he is painting "actors" or performers. Many Renaissance images of Mary Magdalene are at least partly erotic; Caravaggio goes another way. His penitent Magdalene is not a Hollywood pinup. She wears contemporary clothing, and her image "avoids pathos and languid sensuality."  Caravaggio's earthiness makes me think of Sondheim: You can pull all the stops out Till they call the cops out-- Grind your behind till you're banned... But you gotta get a GIMMICK... If you want to get a hand... There are cur...

  Gregg Araki's "I Want Your Sex" is not history's most original movie, but it's nice to see writers and actors having fun. Olivia Wilde works as a conceptual artist in a noisy, cavernous studio. The noise is a recording of Wilde in the act of masturbating. She believes that the sound is inspirational.  Wilde hires young people to chew gum and stick the sugary detritus on a sketch of Wilde's private parts--this is a work-to-be-auctioned. When interviewed about her art, Wilde says, "I think this entire world is ridiculous, and my reason for working is just that I like money." Wilde hires Philip Seymour Hoffman's son. Hoffman has a vague desire to start a podcast about art--but he feels blocked. (His girlfriend, neurologist Charli XCX, sees art as frivolous--but Hoffman chooses *not* to worry that this is a major problem.) Hoffman occasionally wonders if his world might expand after anal sex; specifically, he might find some philosophical/cosmic ...

  The heavy-hitters who have played Dot: Audra McDonald, Bernadette Peters, Annaleigh Ashford, Melissa Errico, Ashley Park, Maryann Plunkett, Carmen Cusack, Andrea Burns, Maria Friedman, Talia Suskauer, Jenna Russell. Heather Headley and Michaela Diamond have done portions of the show in concert.  These are big names! One thing that people tend to miss about "Move On." Sondheim was always talking about the marriage of content and form. HOW it's said matters more than WHAT it is. Sondheim's duets were unlike other duets; SS did things beyond the "you sing a verse, I'll sing a verse" format. In Sondheim, voices overlap and become dissonant and then harmonious and then dissonant again. "Move On" begins with an argument. We're used to this. Dot and George cannot see eye to eye. "I've nothing to say." "You have MANY things." But something shifts. D and G begin to articulate thoughts that *complement* one another. From Dot...

  Very early in life, my daughter began calling me Mom. Or Mama. Or Mommy. Her brother picked up the habit. The behaviorist who comes to our house finds this troubling. She always issues corrections. Papa. That's Papa. And I'm reminded of a colleague from an elementary school. This colleague would always demand that children use realistic colors in coloring assignments. Flesh could never be green or hot pink. Hair could never be tangerine-colored. I found this tyrannical--and I think I did not make much of an effort to disguise the rolling of my eyes. My daughter seems (at times) to want a world in which everyone is slightly more flexible about gender--and I'm on board. I believe I have persuaded her to wear a dress that advertises prime numbers. A break from the unicorns and princesses. The dress is called "Prime Twins," and it "celebrates" certain pairs. 11 and 13. 41 and 43. Pairs of primes that are separated by exactly one composite number. When my d...