Heretic

The second movie in my double feature at the Broadway last night was Heretic and to say that I was excited to see it would be an understatement.  It is deeply unsettling but I found it very entertaining (for reasons).  Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East) are missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints who are invited in to give their message to Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant).  They are initially hesitant because the rules stipulate that they cannot be alone with a man without a woman present but they are told by Reed that his wife is there baking a blueberry pie and are reassured when they smell it baking.  They begin a discussion with him but soon become uncomfortable when he mentions some problematic points of doctrine.  When Sister Barnes realizes that the smell of the blueberry pie is coming from a candle, they try to leave only to discover that Reed has locked them inside.  Thus begins a terrifying cat-and-mouse game in which Reed forces them to examine their beliefs.  This is psychological horror at its best and I found Reed's thesis that all religions are just iterations of the same idea to be fascinating (the use of "The Air That I Breathe" by the Hollies and "Creep" by Radiohead to prove his point is brilliant) and his assertion that belief is really a surrender of control is disconcerting (to say the least) because it is so true.  The production design (I loved all of the religious iconography), lighting design, and sound design are all incredibly atmospheric and the cinematography emphasizes the claustrophobia.  Grant is so menacing as Reed because he is playing against type (I am really enjoying his villain era) and delivers the most disturbing monologues with his usual charm and charisma.  Thatcher and East also give outstanding performances because their escalating dread is entirely believable.  Watching this with a crowd in Utah was absolutely wild and I highly recommend it.

The Piano Lesson

There are so many movies playing at the Broadway right now that I want to see so I decided on a double feature last night (I have another one planned for tonight).  I started with The Piano Lesson and, even though I found it to be uneven, I enjoyed it.  It is a sprawling story about several generations of the Charles family beginning in rural Mississippi with the purchase of a piano by James Sutter (Jay Peterson) for his wife Ophelia (Melanie Jeffcoat).  He trades two of his slaves, Bernice and her young son Boy Charles, to buy it but Ophelia misses them so he has Willie Boy Charles (Malik J. Ali) carve the faces of his wife and son on the piano.  The grown up Boy Charles (Stephan James) and his brothers Wining Boy and Doaker eventually steal the piano but Boy is caught and burned alive.  Years later the piano belongs to Boy's daughter Berenice (Danielle Deadwyler), who lives in Pittsburgh with Doaker (Samuel L. Jackson) and Wining Boy (Michael Potts), but his son Boy Willie (John David Washington) wants to sell it to buy the land in Mississippi once owned by the Sutters.  Berenice and Willie Boy clash over the piano because she believes it is an important reminder of her past and refuses to sell it while he sees it as a way to secure his future.  This exploration of one family's legacy is very powerful but, in my opinion, a supernatural subplot involving the haunting of the piano by the ghost of James Sutter, including a dramatic exorcism by Berenice's boyfriend Avery Brown (Corey Hawkins), is less compelling.  There are a lot of characters to keep track of (I was sometimes confused about who was who as well as the relationships between everyone) and a few extraneous scenes that create some strange tonal shifts (my mind often wandered when the action strayed from the central conflict).  However, I loved the performances, particularly the juxtaposition between the wild and exuberant Washington and the restrained Deadwyler.  I really liked this but not as much as I thought I would and I recommend waiting for it to stream on Netflix.

Small Things Like These

Last night my nephew and I saw Small Things Like These and I was incredibly moved by its theme of quiet heroism.  Bill Furlong (Cillian Murphy) is a coal merchant in a small town in Ireland in 1985.  He is the hard-working father of five daughters and his wife Eileen (Eileen Walsh) considers him to be too kind-hearted because of his concern for the less fortunate.  When he makes an earlier than usual delivery to the local convent, he discovers a young pregnant girl named Sarah (Zara Devlin) locked in the coal shed.  He brings her inside the convent and is taken to meet Sister Mary (Emily Watson), the Mother Superior, who implies that his younger daughters will not be admitted to the the convent school if he reveals what he saw and then gives him a "tip" for his services.  He begins to suspect that the many pregnant girls living at the convent are there against their will and are mistreated but he is conflicted about what to do.  Eileen and several townspeople want him to forget what he saw because he can't do anything about it but he has flashbacks to when his unmarried mother Sarah (Agnes O'Casey) was taken in by her employer Mrs. Wilson (Michelle Fairley) when she became pregnant with him (the young Bill is played by Louis Kirwan) and wonders what might have happened to him if someone hadn't intervened.  He spontaneously returns to the convent in the middle of the night and, when he finds Sarah locked in the coal shed once again, he makes a decision.  This is definitely a slow burn but I was so riveted by the story that I was genuinely startled when the screen went to black (my nephew mentioned that he could have kept watching for another hour).  I actually really enjoyed all of the subtle symbolism (the ringing of a church bell is especially ominous and the scenes of Bill scrubbing his hands at the end of the day are portentous) and the use of a bleak color palette to represent the hardship of Bill's life makes his small act of kindness even more powerful.  Murphy gives an incredible performance because you see everything he is feeling with very little dialogue (the one tear falling from his eye almost undid me) but Watson gave me chills with the malevolence she conveys over a cup of tea.  This is a haunting character study about man who refuses to turn a blind eye to wrongdoing and I highly recommend it.

National Theatre Live: Present Laughter

Yesterday I went to a National Theatre Live screening of Present Laughter and I absolutely loved this hilarious comedy by Noel Coward.  It was filmed in 2019 during its run at the Old Vic and was presented by the Tanner Humanities Center and Salt Lake Film Society at the Broadway.  Garry Essendine (Andrew Scott) is a petulant and self-absorbed actor known for starring in light comedies on the stage.  He has a tight-knit group of minders, including his housekeeper Miss Erikson (Liza Sadovy), his valet Fred (Joshua Hill), his secretary Monica Reed (Sophie Thompson), his estranged wife Liz Essendine (Indira Varma), his manager Morris Dixon (Abdul Sallis), and his producer Helen Lyppiatt (Suzie Toase), who all attempt to curb the self-indulgent behavior that his fame enables.  Chaos ensues when he becomes entangled with two of his admirers, Daphne Stillington (Kitty Archer) and Roland Maule (Luke Thallon), and when he begins an affair with Joe Lyppiatt (Enzo Cilenti), the husband of his producer.  When everyone turns on him, he reminds them that he is the sun around which they all revolve and that they enjoy both the reflected fame they get from him and all of the percentages they get from his income (the way Scott says "percentages" is one my favorite line readings).  While it is laugh out loud funny, this version leans heavily into Essendine's neediness and almost everything he does is a bid for attention.  I loved Scott's brilliant performance (he won the Olivier Award for it) because he is hilariously overwrought and melodramatic with a physicality that is fun to watch (at one point he keeps spinning around because he has people ensconced in every room and doesn't know what to do).  He has charisma to spare but he also has a vulnerability that is often displayed with just a fleeting look and I found the ending to be quite poignant (it is different from other versions I've seen).  The rest of the cast is also really good and I especially enjoyed watching Varma and Thompson interact with Scott because they treat him like a lost little boy (they both deliver some great one-liners) and I also loved Thallon's frenetic energy.  The staging of this show is very clever because, even though the set for Essendine's London flat is static, it features a large main area with multiple doors (through which characters come and go endlessly) that circle around it and this mimics the relationship he has with everyone in his life.  I am a huge fan of Andrew Scott and I enjoyed every minute of this production!

Note:  The next National Theatre Live screening at the Broadway is Nye on January 11.

Prayer for the French Republic at PTC

Last night I saw Prayer for the French Republic at PTC and it is incredibly powerful and thought-provoking. The narrative revolves around the Salomons, a Jewish family who have sold pianos in Paris for five generations. In 2016 Marcelle Salomon Benhamou (Judith Lightfoot Clarke) lives with her husband Charles (Alok Tewari) and her two adult children Daniel (Japhet Balaban) and Elodie (Kim Taff). While hosting their distant American cousin Molly (Maggie Goble), Daniel is severely beaten for wearing a yarmulke in an antisemitic attack. Charles, fearing for his family's safety at a time of growing antisemitism in France, believes that they should all move to Israel just as he was once forced to flee Algeria as a child for the same reason. The decision to leave is not an easy one for Marcelle because of the piano store currently managed by her ailing father Pierre (Joel Leffert) and the situation is exacerbated by Molly's opinions about Israel as a privileged American. Interspersed with this timeline is that of Marcelle's great-grandparents who live in the same apartment and manage the same piano store in 1944. Irma (Jayne Luke) and Adolphe (Joel Leffert, who also plays the older version of his son) stay in Paris during the war but the consequences of that decision become apparent when their son Lucien (Matthew McGloin) and grandson Pierre (True Leavitt) eventually return. The show is narrated by Marcelle's brother and Pierre's son Patrick (Robert Mammana) and he often speaks directly to the audience, posing complex questions about identity, assimilation, persecution, and fear. The narrative offers few answers to these questions, which is why it is sometimes difficult to watch, but I know that I will be thinking about them for a long time. The entire cast is outstanding but my favorite performance was from Taff, especially an incredible monologue where Elodie criticizes the people who post their strong opinions about Israel and the Middle East on social media without an understanding about the complex history of the region. I loved the minimal set, which features a large grand piano as a focal point with small groupings of furniture and sliding walls. This arrangement, and the clever use of darkness, allows for a seamless transition between the timelines. I also loved the the LED lights which outline the rectangular ceiling because they become the flag of France during the recitation of the prayer which gives the play its name. I can't say that I enjoyed this because it is really intense (and three hours long) but it is brilliant and I highly recommend it. There are only two performances left today at 2:00 and 7:30 (go here for tickets).