Review: "King Lear" on Broadway

Shakespeare plays are always challenging to consume -- they are both thrilling for their gorgeous language and wonderful characters, and sometimes frustrating because the plots can be hard to follow. Not for nothing you watch or read these plays and say to yourself, "This is amazing! I have no idea what's going on!"

This is certainly true for Shakespeare's King Lear.

Unlike the history plays, King Lear is based on a mythical pre-Roman King named Leir i.e. it's basically fiction. The plot revolves around an aging King Lear deciding to divide his kingdom amongst this three daughters -- Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia. He demands that they tell him how much they love him and, based on their answers, he will give them what he thinks they deserve of his kingdom. Goneril and Regan go overboard in telling the old man how much they love him but Cordelia says she cannot describe her love to him in mere words. Enraged, the King banishes her from the kingdom and divides the kingdom amongst her sisters. 

Political intrigue ensues. Goneril and Regan's husbands scheme to oust Lear from the throne, other Dukes get in on the act, the king descends into madness accompanied only by his Fool, there is a French invasion and war, there's eye-gouging, suicide, lots of death and betrayal, all sorts of mean nasty stuff -- honestly, the plot is so exhausting you reach the "I have no idea what's going on!" stage pretty soon. Safe to say, this play is as complete a tragedy as Shakespeare ever wrote. 

King Lear is one of his most challenging plays -- the complicated plot, the numerous characters, as well as its length make it a slog (with intermission, it lasts 3 1/2 hours). That's why, if a production is going to be mounted of this, it needs to be first rate.

The version currently in previews on Broadway mostly is first rate -- you don't get more first-rater than Glenda Jackson playing Lear. She is such a volcanic force, such a massive presences on stage that you almost wish King Lear was a one man (or one woman) show. Her near-equal is Ruth Wilson who alternates as Cordelia and the Fool. Wilson was great on that show The Affair but, in this play, you see that she's an actress of tremendous range. Also good is Pedro Pascal as a scheming Duke -- he's like the character he played on Game of Thrones, a sort of noble playboy, but he has better lines. Finally, Elizabeth Marvel from Homeland plays one of the daughters and, while she's good, it's clear that she's not quite 100% doing Shakespeare. 

This production has, in my opinion, two main weaknesses:

1) The supporting cast, many of whom are making their Broadway debuts, is not that strong. Many of the actors almost seem like they're in another play, you get the sense that they're consciously underplaying their parts, and this is not a play that rewards underplaying. 

2) The production itself is a bit off. Instead making it historical, the set and costumes make it appear that this play is not taking place in pre-Roman Britain or even Shakespearean Britain but in some kind of neo-Fascist future. The set is a garish tinted gold and looks like something between a Scientology Center or Trump Tower. The costumes look like something that might be worn by characters in either The Hunger Games movies or aliens from episodes of Star Trek. I'm sure that the intention is to make the production look as nightmarish as the plot (like the times we're living in) but it just seemed like a distraction. 

Still, if you love Shakespeare and Glenda Jackson, you should go see this production of King Lear -- it's a once in a lifetime experience to see a great actor and cast in one of the great plays. 

S*%*%T New Yorkers Say

"I told her if you gonna talk to me like a man, I'm gonna beat you like a man. That's what I told the cops. Then I smoke crack in the bathroom."

Message to all Fellow NYC Parents

There's an outbreak of measles in Brooklyn right now and this is scary -- it's the worst outbreak in this city in decades.

Can you believe this? Measles! A disease that we once thought was totally eradicated has made a comeback in 2019!

Specifically, it's hitting the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community where, if the reports are true, "anti-vax" ideology is taking hold. The MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine is one of the great life saving medicines of all time and now the "anti-vax" are targeting its usage.

Let's be clear: the anti-vax "movement" goes far beyond NYC and the Orthodox community, it crosses geographic, gender, racial, and socioeconomic lines. Fortunately, at least in Brooklyn, other leaders of the Jewish community are doing their best to educate the Orthodox community about the benefits of MMR. Thank God for that!

The "anti-vax" thing is one of the scariest, most awful retrograde things to come along recently -- along with Trumpism, white nationalism, Brexit, etc. It's an attempt to annihilate progress, to wreck the future, to make the world a scarier, more dangerous place. 

Why is this insanity going on? Why are people actively trying to hurt other people and their communities?

Part of it is racism, part of it is understandable if ill-informed fear of the future, and part of it is a desire to sow chaos in service of established power -- if we can keep people poor, sick, uneducated (or mis-educated), and divided, they won't challenge our authority. It's hard to believe but social as well as economic regression are the same thing -- they're all about keeping the underclass in their place.

After my first kid was born, we got all her vaccinations done. I casually asked her doctor if he had encountered any parents who refused to vaccinate their kids. I was horrified when he said, "Oh yes, this happens all the time." He said that he had "fired" some parents as patients the day before because they refused to vaccinate their baby and he refused to commit malpractice. I was glad that we had such a good doctor -- and scared that this kind of thing is going on.

So please, please, I beg my fellow NYC parents -- vaccinate your kids!  

Transformation

When 9/11 happened, thousands tragically died and the world changed forever. 

And so, physically, did NYC.

The mighty Twin Towers had commanded the city's skyline for nearly 30 years and now -- suddenly, horribly, unthinkably -- they were completely gone. Yet the story of the Twin Towers is a case study of how NYC transforms itself. Certainly, the way they were extinguished is well-known and tragic but what is much less well-known is the scandalous, corrupt, bizarre way that they were built back in the early 1970s. By 9/11/2001, the Twin Towers were of symbols American financial power and nearly beloved icons of NYC. But when they first emerged from the concrete canyons of Lower Manhattan, they were viewed as egregious interlopers, totally out of character with the neighborhood, and monuments to the egos of the Rockefellers who spearheaded their constructions (Governor Nelson Rockefeller and his brother, the banker David). 

How NYC transforms is forever complex and unending.

And massive projects continue change the face of NYC -- and it's not just big buildings like the new Hudson Yards but there are proposals and projects underway that will literally be built into the East and Hudson Rivers. NYC is expanding! Literally! That's one way to transform NYC -- make more of it!  

But the transformation is not just literal, it's also political. NYC used to be a bastion of Irish-American power in the United States but that's changing rapidly. Last year, three prominent Irish American politicians lost their seats to non-Irish challengers (including Joe Crowley to AOC). The city is becoming less Irish, more diverse, and the political establishment is reflecting that. As the city transforms, so does the power elite.

And one final transformation is the death of NYC street photographer Vivian Cherry at age 98. She took photos of NYC life starting back in the 1940s and through the 1950s. She captured a city coming out of the doldrums of the Great Depression and World War II, transforming into the financial and cultural capital of the world. The NYC she photographer is long gone but remains in our memory. Her work is a reminder of what NYC was and of what it's become -- and the transformation of NYC is never complete.

Review: "The Fisher King" (1991)

This isn't a review so much as an appreciation. The Fisher King is one of those movies that, when you see it, stays with you. You never forget it. It might not be your favorite movie (it's not mine) but it touches something in your soul and remains there.

This movie is about forgiveness. It's an NYC fable. 

It concerns a loud mouth radio shock jock named Jack Lucas (Jeff Bridges) who unintentionally inspires one of his callers into deadly violence. We catch up with Jack a couple of years later -- he's lost everything, drunk all the time, living above a video store (remember those?) with his guidette girlfriend (Mercedes Reuhl, who won an Oscar for her performance). Stumbling around the city drunk one night, Jack is attacked by a group of thugs and then saved by an eccentric homeless man named Perry (the late, always brilliant Robin Williams). Perry's mission in life is find the Holy Grail which apparently resides in the home of an Upper East Side billionaire. Jack soon finds out that Perry used to be a college professor but his life was destroyed when his wife was killed in front of him -- by the very same caller Jack inspired. Guilt ridden, clearly seeing that Perry is mentally ill because of him, Jack resolves to help him -- first, to help attract a young lady he has a crush on; second, to retrieve the "Holy Grail." The rest of this movie is a hilarious, often very moving story of friendship, forgiveness, going beyond one's selfishness, and discovering something much more valuable than the Holy Grail -- true human connection.

I remember seeing this movie when I was in high school and enjoying it. But I think, frankly, that I was too young to fully understand or appreciate it -- I hadn't had enough life experience, enough setbacks, enough heartbreak, enough friends. Since then, in the last 28 years since it came out, I've had lots, and this movie has a resonance for me that it didn't back then.

If you haven't seen The Fisher King, you should -- it might just change your life.

And, yes, this is an NYC story -- but it's view of the city from both high and low, it's concentration on the least and most ordinary among us, the surreal world of NYC that director Terry Gilliam creates, is like no other NYC you will see in any other movie. 

See this movie with someone you love -- or someone you want to love better. 

By the way, this movie and his later appearance in The Big Lebowski confirms that nobody in the movies looks cooler lounging around the house in bathrobe than Jeff Bridges.

More Lou Reed!

Hudson Yards is not the only big opening today -- at the New York Public Library, the Lou Reed archive has officially become available. It includes a vast array of Lou's writings as well as 600 hours of recordings. Now I just have to find some precious time to go down and look over all this!

By the way, the first 6000 visitors will get a commemorative Lou Reed public library card. 

He's a New York City Man ... always and forever ...

NYC Has a New Neighborhood!

NYPD Gala Day -- It's More than We Can Handle!

Oh yes, it truly is a "gala day" for the NYPD -- both in the metaphorical and Grouch Marx sense of the term.

First, some NYPD members have been naughty -- one ex-cop and his wife got busted for dealing drugs and another was allegedly caught being frisky with her male partner until, we found out, it was a hoax (it would've given new meaning to NYPD ... Blue). 

Second -- and this is big -- the boss of the Gambino crime family was just gunned down in Staten Island. This is the first "whacking" of a Gambino (or any) crime boss since 1985, when Paul Castellano got hit outside Sparks Steakhouse (this was, of course, engineered by John Gotti who  then took over as boss). This hit must have been ordered by some very high-ups (probably in Sicily) because, as Goodfellas taught us, you don't whack a made guy (let alone a boss!) unless you "have a sit down and get the okay" or else you're the one who's gonna get whacked. The NYPD is going to have a big job ahead investigating this hit and it'll probably make someone's career. 

Third, there's Rudy Giuliani -- the former mayor/Trump lawyer who's going through a nasty divorce. Twenty years ago he was a powerful and popular mayor beloved by the NYPD and all of law enforcement. Now he's a cartoon villain, a sneering buffoon, and he and his ex-wife literally are being ordered not to be in the same room together. How the mighty have fallen.

Fourth -- this is an uplifting one - I just read a great story about a lady named Isabella Goodwin who was the first undercover female cop in the history of the NYPD. She brought down bank robbers and earned a shield through undercover work for over a decade. Truly an inspiring, groundbreaking woman.

The NYPD is a never-ending source of interest. I got one story coming up that'll fascinate you. Stay tuned.

Memo from NYC

The following are my incredibly deep & brilliant thoughts on this whole college admissions scandal which is ballooning from a news story into a dialogue on socioeconomic inequities:

Basically, trying to get a kid into college is like trying to get laid, you have one of two options: 1)  do it honestly by being, as they said on Seinfeld, "sponge worthy" i.e. woo the person, work hard to prove your physical and emotional attractiveness by fitting your l'object d'amour's idea of a good partner and hope you efforts are rewarded; or 2) demonstrate your power, your status, your strength, your awesomeness by buying him or her expensive gifts, taking them to fancy restaurants, sending bouquets and candy to their homes or places of business, introducing them to your big shot friends and co-workers, you know, showing what a "Mr Big" (or, to be PC, "Mrs Big") you are, and, again, hoping your efforts are rewarded. 

The analogy to college admissions: 1) your kid gets in on their merit i.e. test scores, grades, recommendations, extracurriculars, essays, the whole merit-worthy package but the competition is fierce and admission is not guaranteed; or 2) you donate massive sums of money to the school over the course of years, making the school's decision to admit your kid a smart, logical, and relatively easy business decision.

What you don't do, in either case, is engage in a quid-pro-quo, a blatant "this-for-that" transaction. You don't directly buy your admission into either a college or another person's body. Society has deemed that illegal -- "getting in" via merit is legal and "getting in" via status is too, but putting an exact amount on it, turning it into just another things to buy, is not. 

Perhaps this shouldn't be illegal or perhaps we should try to have 100% merit based "admissions" and status-driven "admissions" should be outlawed too -- but human beings are flawed and therefore our systems are too.  

Coming ... Soon

Huge news! Good news! Huge good news in an age of nothing but bad news!

Howard Stern has a new book! For the first time in almost 25 years! 

It's called "Howard Stern Comes Again" and, from what he's saying about, it's based on the wisdom he has learned over the years as well as from the numerous high-profile interviews he's done.

I'm sure it'll be hilarious and it's incentivized me to get a new Kindle ASAP. 

I can't wait to read it! Howard Stern can't come fast or soon enough for me!