Miss Rose: A Cabaret Play The Marigny Opera House (this performance relocated to the New Marigny Theatre) When we arrive, we are given two programs, “One that the company made and one that Miss Rose made.” The latter is a primitive-looking single sheet, headed ‘The Tarrytown Care Center Presents: Rose’s Turn’. This is the cabaret within the play, a ‘turn’ of songs and stories performed by the character of Rose Williams. In real life, Rose was the sister of Tom ‘Tennessee’ Williams, who was institutionalized for her entire life after a failed lobotomy. Reportedly a real-life inspiration to Mr Williams (certainly for some of his most famous characters - e.g. Laura Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie), in this world, she is an entertainer, just looking to express herself and put on a show for her baby brother’s birthday, despite her circumstances. It’s a simple but immersive set, and we ourselves play the part of an audience (her fellow patients?) that don’t show up, but are imagined. A sad table of refreshments languishes expectantly in the corner. A pianist (music director Audrey Smith) accompanies the songs, and a nurse (assistant director Alston Brown) conducts, directs and sometimes participates in the skits. Set over a series of visits, the opening has an agitated Tennessee seemingly there just to get away from production woes on his new play. She makes fun of him, playfully calling him ‘Idaho’, and attempting to both delight and goad him with family memories and shared experiences that veer between wholesome and traumatic. This is a pattern that repeats itself, the siblings often caught in cycles of euphoric reminiscing and raw confrontation. Rebecca Gibel plays Rose with a fierce dexterity and charisma, flitting between ebullient dramatics and erratic psychosis. Songs are played for laughs as well as sympathies, scenes and games from their childhoods evoke joy and trauma in equal measure. Gibel has a wonderful voice and timing, which might not ring completely true, but the cabaret itself can’t be too amateurish or it would be a challenge to sit through. In short: she and the direction strike a great balance and Gibel is impressively fearless and completely entertaining. Leicester Landon plays Tennessee/Tom with a louche touch, at once coy and outrageous, with many a bon mot, served awash with sultry, southern allure. Landon’s physicality, sometimes brooding, sometimes camp, but always dynamic, is a very strong aspect of his acting. He carries a comically surreal scene equating creative and literal constipation with hilarious aplomb, and rolls with the verbal jabs that he and Rose - like most brothers and sisters - use to lift and belittle each other with equal effect. The visits bounce between elation and despair, Rose wrestling with her social and romantic solitude is as visceral as Tom confronting his sexuality in an unforgiving time (one that sadly has unwelcome modern-day relevance). The play presents the discrete sessions as one continuous play in Rose’s mind, meaning that the coherence is never lost, though a couple of very minor trims would make for a leaner, more punchy last half hour in this layman’s opinion. Writer-directors Kenny Prestininzi and Christopher Winslow have a debut that they can be very proud of, though. Gibel and Landon have an engaging chemistry, and the framing is a compelling way into the exploration of this complicated, but fundamentally loving relationship. Kudos also to Audrey Smith and Alston Brown, who help finesse the world on stage with their musical and theatrical flourishes. With any luck, this production will return for next year’s Tennessee Williams New Orleans Literary Festival - I’ll definitely be there to see it again if that happens. More reviews See upcoming shows at the Marigny Opera House GET YOUR ROCKS OFF: ASTEROID CITY
Every time a new Wes Anderson movie comes out, I take to Twitter and say, “I see Wes Anderson has made his film again.” It’s very funny every single time, and the post often gets up to three likes. Anyway, Wes Anderson has made his film again, and if you like Wes Anderson films, boy are you in for a treat. If you don’t, then boy are you in for a bad time. But cool your jets - perhaps you’re like me, someone who kind of likes Wes Anderson films, but thought that his last one, The French Dispatch, had jumped the whimsical shark and had taken Mr Anderson’s film making to its logical, pastel-drenched conclusion. You might, if this is you, like Asteroid City; Mr Anderson seems to be pulling back from the brink of his own stylization. All the tropes are there: the comforting color palate, the endless list of A-list stars (notably Bill Murray-free this time), the love of analogue artifacts and affectation and steampunk-adjacent exploration, the snippy dialogue, etc. However, whereas in The French Dispatch it felt at times that the style was leading the substance, here the story takes to the foreground, and it’s all the more enjoyable for it. There’s an implied sense of artifice in most Wes Anderson films, but here the whole movie is presented as a staged production, making the artifice overt from the start. Brian Cranston plays ‘the announcer’ and leads us through the post-modern scenes of the writer (Ed Norton) not only creating the play that is 'Asteroid City', but also conversing with the cast (mainly Jason Schwarzman, Scarlet Johanson and Tom Hanks) as they prepare scenes. The world of ‘Asteroid City’ is self contained and coherent, but the leads walk backstage and peel back the layers, and we’re invited to look into the play’s innards. The plot of the play - delivered in typical Andersonian fashion - is that a group of young science geniuses have gathered in a small desert town to receive awards for innovation. While there, the assembled crowds witness an extraterrestrial event and are subsequently held captive by the military. In a charming, whimsical way, of course. Jason Schwarzman’s character also has to tell his kids that their mother (also the daughter of Tom Hanks’s character) has died. Annnnnd…that’s about it, with some very funny supporting roles from Steve Carell, Hope Davis and Tilda Swinton. The future-retro aesthetics of a post-war jet age are employed with humor and much less worthiness than The French Dispatch, and it’s a return to the more innocent, playful vibes of Moonrise Kingdom. Make no mistake, I was prepared to be annoyed by this film, but the deceit is just charming enough for it to work, and its compact running time and budget make for welcome creative restraints. I feel like Wes Anderson decided to dial things back, and Asteroid City is all the better for it. In the meantime, I see I’ve made the tweet about Wes Anderson making his film again again. Only this time, I’m not mad about it. (PO) Chekov's Fun: Vanya & Sonia & Masha and Spike
Review by Ameila Parenteau Rounding out its first season, new-to-the-scene Crescent City Stage presents Vanya & Sonia & Masha and Spike by Christopher Durang, a belly-laugh comedy that centers on the narcissistic despair of its three titular siblings: Vanya (Doug Spearman), Sonia (Jana Mestecky), and Masha (Lorene Chesley). Yes, they’re named after Chekhov characters, and the script is littered with easter eggs for theater buffs, but even those with no knowledge of Chekhov’s oeuvre will find this 2.5-hour escapade wildly entertaining. Michael A. Newcomer’s scenic design furnishes a sumptuous bohemian-meets-mid-century-modern living room in the siblings’ family home in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where the entirety of the action takes place. Vanya and Sonia live listlessly in this house they inherited after their parents died, while Masha foots the bill for their languorous lifestyle as a world-famous movie star. The play begins with 'Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf'-level bickering between Vanya and Sonia, revealing Sonia pines for Vanya, and she was adopted. The pair have spent the past 15 years taking care of their aging parents and find themselves purposeless without them. The tone veers from heightened poetic realism as Vanya and Sonia retread the tedium of their matinal rituals, to theatrically absurd with the entrance of their housekeeper Cassandra (Donyae Asante) and her daily prophecy of doom. The comedy ramps up as Masha breezes in with her significantly younger boytoy, Spike (Cody Evans), who can’t keep his shirt on for the life of him. Speaking of shirts, Tiffani Sheriff’s costume design adeptly emphasizes each character’s idiosyncrasy, from glamorous Masha to fastidious Vanya. Act one builds to a costume party at the neighbor’s house, with the threat of Chekhovian tragedy descending on the farcical fun, as Masha is threatening to sell the family home, thereby evicting Vanya and Sonia (as Cassandra had warned). Act two showcases the cast’s comedic and dramatic chops, including Sonia and Masha’s pity party dressed as princesses on the couch, competing for Vanya’s sympathy, and fawning neighbor Nina (Yvette Bourgeois) trawling her depths to embody a molecule in the performance of Vanya’s climate apocalypse play-within-a-play. Liam Gardner’s lighting design provides the perfect backdrop to brilliant, wild Cassandra’s prophetic outbursts, and Amara Skinner’s sound design supplies a fun soundtrack to accompany the characters’ mood swings. An unusual climax comes in the form of a Boomer humor nostalgia tour monologue from Vanya, berating Spike for his lack of appreciation for how things were: “The past was idiotic, but I miss parts of it. […] Though it was extremely boring, it was something we shared.” Durang can’t help but deliver a happy ending, and Vanya & Sonia & Masha give Spike the boot and accept a new appreciation of their uncertain middle age. Neither idiotic nor boring, this Chekhov in the twenty-first century spin-off is an American response to Russian existentialism, full of hubris and humor. Vanya & Sonia & Masha and Spike runs through June 30. Tickets and more information available here. Review by Amelia Parenteau
A warm, chatty audience assembled to take in PearlDamour’s Ocean Filibuster at the CAC, furthered warmed by the locally-cast ensemble of “activists” walking up and down the aisles with clipboards, asking us to sign their petition if we “stood with the ocean.” Originally commissioned in 2016 by the American Repertory Theater in partnership with the Harvard University Center for the Environment, Ocean Filibuster attempts the impossible: letting the vast, unknowable Ocean speak for itself. The audience was seated facing a stark white stage, with a “Global Federation - Humans on Earth” seal projected upstage and Sorkin-esque music on loop. As the show begins, we learn we’re attending a special session of the Global Senate. “Mr. Majority” (Jennifer Kidwell) presents his “End of Ocean Bill” to “put the ocean out of its misery” by draining vast parts of it, thus creating more land and a smaller, condensed set of “seven seas” to cut our losses and continue sustaining human life on this planet for the foreseeable future. This speech is underscored by Evan Spigelman patriotically clashing cymbals, ever the comedic genius. Then the anthropomorphized Ocean (also played by Kidwell) appears in a gown made of plastic bags to filibuster the bill. The Ocean goes on to regale the audience with a myriad of original songs, composed by Sxip Shirey, scientific facts, imaginings, and objections to the notion that humans (ourselves made of 60% water) could survive without it. Kidwell is magnificent, deftly transitioning between characters, wryly interacting with the audience, and singing their heart out. As the Ocean contains multitudes, the ensemble periodically returns, dressed in diaphanous robes and coral-like headpieces, to amplify songs with their chorus of voices. The design for this show is outrageously good, from glorious costumes by Olivera Gajic to otherworldly projections by Stivo Arnoczy and Tal Yarden, and immaculate sound design by Andrew Lynch and Sxip Shirey. At intermission, the audience is invited into the lobby to interact with several stations: activism resources to be gleaned through QR codes, a couple underwater dance parties, a sand art display of the composite ingredients of humans and oceans, and AR depictions of ocean life available via iPads. Part two begins with Kidwell luxuriously draped over the Senate desk for some coy hilarity, followed by more songs, the end of the filibuster, inevitable manipulation by Mr. Majority, and a dreamscape of what ifs — envisioning if humans remembered we are, in fact, a part of the global ecosystem, rather than extractive parasites draining the planet for all it’s worth. The activists return for a final chorus, a whale song sung in the round (literally around the audience), and then we all trickled off into the night. The creators’ key word was “wonder,” as the Ocean sings: “Isn’t it enough that I am beautiful? Just stand back, and wonder.” Confronted with the enormity of the climate crisis, no work of theater can offer tidy resolution. Instead, Ocean Filibuster asks its audience to be willing to be immersed in experience, open to feelings as well as facts. I, for one, was happy to swim around in that world, for a while. Ocean Filibuster has ended its run but check out upcoming events at the CAC here. MORE REVIEWS MORE CULTURE Review by Amelia Parenteau To open its 30th season, the New Orleans Shakespeare Festival at Tulane presents Twelfth Night, directed by AJ Allegra. Allegra’s version of Twelfth Night is placed in 1950s Italy, as evidenced by the set’s colorful two-story façades and town square with a faux marble fountain laced with climbing ivy, designed by Joan Long. The audience sits surrounding 3 sides of the stage, and with actors entering and exiting from 4 different access points, feels enmeshed in the comings and goings of this charming Illyria. Whose Italy we’re inhabiting varies from character to character. Tia René Williams brings a strong Strega Nona vibe (and accent) to the town square, while Mike Harkins and Keith Claverie as Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek, respectively, lean more Sopranos. Allegra’s direction keeps a tight pace, which serves the comedic timing of the many pranks and plots unspooling throughout this story, while also allowing for moments of stillness for the audience to soak up the lyrical acoustic music composed by Ainsley Matich, performed live by Rich Dally III, Noah Hazzard, and Steven Rose. One particularly delightful piece of staging was the 3 Stooges-esque trio of Sir Toby Belch, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, and Fabian (Noah Hazzard) spying on Malvolio (Graham Burk) through three shuttered doors on the upstairs balcony as he reads the faux love letter intended to humiliate him. Similarly, the dramatic irony at the end of the play is almost unbearable as the characters fail to understand there are siblings afoot rather than just one rascal Cesario, deliciously exacerbated by staggered staging, keeping Viola just out of Sebastian’s eyeline. While the word play and “sword” play and poor Malvolio in his yellow stockings, cross-gartered, still hold their charm some 420 years after Twelfth Night was written, Viola’s cross-dressing for survival made me yearn for an unabashedly queer telling of this story. Instead of telling him/her “Cesario, come/ For so you shall be, while you are a man./ But when in other habits you are seen, Orsino’s mistress, and his fancy’s queen,” what if, in the final moments, Orsino was proud to be seen in public with his male-passing lover? As always, Kacie Thomassie’s costumes dazzle, particularly the mourning ensemble and whoops-I’m-in-love floral number worn impeccably by Brittany N. Williams. Mandi Wood’s lighting design and Mike Harkins’ sound design rounded out the Mediterranean world, and achieved a hilarious climax with a warm, rose-colored spotlight on the door to Olivia’s chambers while Italian opera swelled and Sebastian and Olivia enjoyed each other’s company, if you will. Twelfth Night runs through June 24, 2023. Tickets and more information available here. ALL REVIEWS MORE CULTURE Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird
The Saenger Theater Aaron Sorkin (best known for writing The West Wing) adapted of Harper Lee's classic 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird, opening on Broadway in 2018. Directed by Bartlett Sher, the play is set in Alabama in 1934, focusing on steely-but-fair lawyer Atticus Finch, representing a young Black man who has been falsely accused of sexual assault. The story is told from the perspective of its young protagonists, Scout, Jem, and Dill. Melanie Moore and Justin Mark are suitably youthful and exuberant as the Finch siblings, with Steven Lee Johnson's Dill bringing some balancing comedic moments. Sorkin takes a few risks with the adaptation, choosing to focus on Atticus (the excellent Richard Thomas) and playing up his dignity and morality as a small town lawyer under pressure from his largely racist community. Thomas plays especially well against Jacqueline Williams, the housekeeper Calpurnia, who has a notable depth and stands up to Atticus when necessary. She has a memorable line when told about the stuff that doesn't kill us making us stronger: "But what about the stuff that kills us?" The play addresses dark subject matter, including the machinations of the KKK and the implied sexual abuse in a local family, something that the film version shied away from. Period-appropriate slurs are difficult to hear in the modern day, but certainly conjure up the viciousness of the situation. Arianna Gayle Stucki plays the difficult part of Mayella Ewell, the teenager who accuses Tom Robinson. Robinson is expertly portrayed by Glenn Fleary, and contributes memorably to the incredibly evocative courtroom scene. It’s a large and adept cast, including Mary Badham, who appeared in the 1962 film adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird as Scout (earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress). She effectively retired from acting shortly after the release and has done very few roles, making her theater debut here as the bigoted Mrs. Henry Dubose. A piece of Hollywood history live on stage, then, and a sometimes chilling but hopefully optimistic story ensues, to which Sorkin has brought his customary rigor. It's received wisdom that to understand folk, you need to walk a mile in their shoes. One of the themes revealed in To Kill A Mockingbird is that good people like Robinson already do this, so to create a just world, the trick is to make bad folk do this as well. To Kill A Mockingbird runs at The Saenger Theater through June 4th. Tickets and show info here. A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Review by Amelia Parenteau The NOLA Project’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by Brittany N. Williams, is a romp, and this tight 2-hour production flies in the face of anyone who alleges The Bard’s works are boring. Incidentally, this production marks a full circle moment for The NOLA Project, having performed A Midsummer Night’s Dream as their first sculpture garden production, back in 2011. As I settled into my picnic blanket with my fellow “groundlings” at the New Orleans Museum of Art’s Besthoff Sculpture Garden, I was struck by both the honey-colored sun cloaking the Spanish moss in the live oak trees on stage, and the multigenerational audience surrounding me. Not to mention the Backstreet Boys crooning from the sound system. Just as the audience trickled into the garden, the characters gradually entered the stage in the round, garbed in early aughts summer chic, greeting each other, preparing the space for the storytelling about to unfold. It felt as though we’d all been invited back in time, not just to the pre-cell phone, pre-social media era of 2002, when this production was set, but to a medieval village fair. Or perhaps the city of Athens, Greece, and its surrounding woods… Like a dream, this play has subplots galore and intentionally blurs the lines between fact and fiction, particularly as the fairies delight in interfering with the mortals’ realities. This includes the play within a play, Pyramus and Thisbe, whose plot bears a striking resemblance to Romeo and Juliet, played farcically in this context. As a traditional comedy, the story ends in marriage, not only of Theseus and Hippolyta, but also the pairs of lovers who have finally aligned their desires: Hermia and Lysander, and Demetrius and Helena. For a story as layered and complicated as A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Williams’ direction and the ensemble cast’s fabulous performances render the story truly accessible. To enhance the feeling of communal experience, the actors’ sotto voce commentary underscoring the primary action or dialogue added a realistic and often quite humorous touch. J’aiLa Price as Helena was the perfect fiery foil to Alexandria Miles’ sugar sweet Hermia (until the tables were turned, of course). In one spectacular moment of worlds colliding, Titania, the fairy queen exquisitely played by Monica R. Harris, references the moon and points to it, and all the characters on stage gaze up adoringly, causing the audience to also turn around and behold: the real moon! A glowing crescent, slipping in and out of clouds. This production truly had something for everyone: malaprops, innuendo, fairies on stilts, Eminem, theater magic (like when Puck, the fairy king’s henchman, seemingly illuminates the canopy of string lights by tossing an orb of light into the sky), impassioned soliloquies, bumbling fools, magic potions, lovers’ quarrels, fart jokes. Kaci Thomassie and Bridget Ann Boyle’s costume and prop design were outstanding, including delightful details such as the lion’s mane made of yellow rubber gloves in the play within a play. Emblematic of the entire production’s fantastical melding of the absurd with the everyday, “these things do thus please me that befall preposterously,” to quote a certain woodland sprite. See the NOLA projects upcoming productions here. Heaven deadly sins: Closer To Heaven
Review by Paul Oswell I once saw a touring Broadway production of Kinky Boots, a musical set in the factories of a provincial English town. Nothing in the musical references England (geographically or linguistically), though, and so the artistic decision to have the entire cast perform in strikingly bad British accents baffled me. Closer To Heaven is set in London, but with its script full of flats and birds and wankers, there’s nowhere to hide, and it would sound much stranger in American accents. Thankfully, this cast of UNO students do a better job than the Kinky Boots professionals, and likely only my fine-tuned British ear picked up on a few minor wobbles. With music by pop veterans the Pet Shop Boys and book by collaborator Jonathan Harvey, Closer To Heaven is a disco drama, framed by a London nightclub and populated by a sea of lost souls. Innocent Shell (Adrienne Simmons) arrives in the big city to meet aging raver and club manager Vic (Aaron Brewer), her estranged gay father. Wide-eyed barman Straight Dave (Mason Willis) is trying to make his way as a pop star and club host Billie Trix (Laurel Tannehill) is a chaotic, Teutonic diva dining out on past glories and narcotics. The plot strands (Shell and Vic fight, Dave falls in love but is sexually confused, Dave vies with a mercenary pop mogul) take place in variously seedy corners - the club, back offices, bedrooms, saunas. The world building is drug and sex fuelled, though I wish slightly more of it had evolved on the dance floor, as the chorus numbers with their more intricate choreography are where the lights shone most brightly for me. Adrienne Simmons and Laurel Tannehill stand out, the former with notably elevated dance moves and a note-perfect accent, the latter with spectacularly dramatic psychedelic breakdowns and rants, peppered with touching moments of maternal clarity. Mason Willis’ driven but naive ingénu is impulsive and charismatic, and there’s good energy between him, Shell, and Jose J Figueroa as Mile End Lee, the cheeky yet tragic neighborhood drug runner. I very much enjoyed (perhaps not ‘enjoyed’? You know what I mean) the Weinsteinian creepiness of Bob Saunders (Max Corcoran), an odious music industry boss, wielding predatory power from under a bath towel. Payton Wright as sidekick Flynn is also a treat, with some of the night’s best camp quips and a hilarious ketamine-tinged diatribe. Aaron Brewer handles Vic's redemption arc with graceful aplomb. The songs (not Pet Shop Boys singles, sadly, but numbers written for this musical) edge towards balladry rather than bangers, although second-half opener It’s Just My Little Tribute To Caligula, Darling! is a fun, hi-octane romp. The ambience is more atmospheric dinge and low-lit gratification than shiny, glitter-strewn dancefloors. Kudos to L Kalo Gow’s direction, and the lighting and set design for believable, near-seamless flits between shady city corners. The world feels aesthetically and emotionally consistent, and the dangers, inspiration, hedonism and tragedies of young love, queerness and urban life are creatively delivered. Shout out to the chorus, who danced and sang with entertaining gusto, and pathos when called for. There are some bravely-undertaken explicit scenes, and as they’re played for truth rather than titillation, it’s kind of an unsure, exploratory eroticism. It’s not an easy ask for young actors to perform love scenes in front of a live audience, but there’s an impressive honesty to it - sincere credit to Adrienne Simmons, Mason Willis and Jose J Figueroa for navigating these with artistic integrity. It’s a tricky show to pull off, what with the accents and the material and the choreography, but I left uplifted, and there’s a poignant celebration of queer legends as a finale. Come with an open mind, and you’ll surely get the most out of this show’s big heart. Closer To Heaven runs at the Robert E. Nims Theatre on UNO’s campus through May 6th. More info and tickets. Little Beau Creep
Review: Beau Is Afraid If you don’t already suffer from anxiety going into this movie, you may want to prepare for an immersive experience. In this epic cinematic fever dream, Ari Aster (Hereditary, Midsommar) answers the question, what if Uncut Gems was remade by Charlie Kauffman but instead of an Ethiopian opal, it’s your mother’s judgment? The first hour is stress porn at its most visceral. Beau (Joaquin Phoenix) is a psychologically-delicate loser living in squalor in an unnamed city. In this movie, though, he doesn’t become Joker, he instead attempts to visit his remote but domineering mother. Increasingly horrifying developments prevent this from happening. Beau lives in an urban hellscape with dangers - many imagined but some perhaps real - that are at his throat as soon as he opens his front door. Set upon from the start by a tidal wave of anxiety and Cronenbergian levels of psycho-physical violence, Beau’s only solace lies in his drug-administering therapist. Even at rest, he is tortured by memories of his mother, which swing between overly-affectionate and abusive. Escaping from the incredibly choreographed unhinged venality and street terror propels us into Beau’s voyage, much of which experiences passively, tossed along on an unpredictable stream of random circumstance and hallucination. Aster’s own tropes are present from these early scenes, his fascination with decapitation, devils hanging from ceilings and people jumping off ledges all touched on. They appear in various guises throughout Beau’s odyssey - the foreshadowing tapestry in the opening of Midsommar is replaced by a video tape that seems to predict an inescapable future. People as puppets or painted models or characters in a play - another of Aster’s fixations - is another theme. Beau lands in a suburban sanctuary that becomes more sinister by the day, and then escapes to a dreamlike woodland camp, before arriving at his mother’s house for a final reckoning. The plot is really a series of increasingly surreal, horrific tableaux, each with their own stakes. What if swallowing pills without water killed you? What if you left your apartment door open and unattended in a feral neighborhood? What if every single feeling of safety that you ever felt was an illusion? It’s a series of rug pulls, with the added feeling that mother is watching at all times. The cast is a parade of national treasures: Nathan Lane, Parker Posey, Amy Ryan, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Richard Kind and Patti LuPone. There are also some gasp-inducing cameos that I won’t spoil. Phoenix delivers his exasperating milquetoast of a man with impressive discipline, and in flashbacks Armen Nahapetian is excellent as young Beau, as is Zoe Lister-Jones as his mother. Kylie Rogers also stands out as the suburban couple’s chaotically unhinged teen daughter. It’s all here. Comedy, body horror, animation, post-modern framings, Black Mirror-esque weirdness and relentless Freudian symbolism. At three hours long, it might be a stretch for some, but the pacing, cast and sheer variety of Aster’s cinematic toolbox were compelling. You might not love all of it, but you can’t help but admire the ambition. (PO) Beau Is Afraid is playing at the Prytania Theater Canal Place and across the city. To the Bat Cage!
Review: Renfield If I have any complaints about this high-octane gore fest, it’s that it could have used more Nicolas Cage. I mean, that’s my complaint with almost all movies, but here especially. We’ll get to his performance, but the upshot is an absurd vampiric romp that slashes its bloodthirsty way through New Orleans, seen through the eyes of young Renfield (a foppish Nicholas Hoult). Dracula (Cage) is living in the abandoned Charity Hospital after centuries of adventures with his familiar, Renfield. We’re shown some very satisfying black and white flashbacks, Cage doing his best Bela Lugosi in the flickering footage. Times are hard, though, and fighting the church’s vampire hunters has taken its toll. Dracula needs fresh victims, and in his weakened state, it’s down to Renfield to supply them. Our boy is experiencing a kind of class consciousness, though, relating the exploitative relationship he has, and slowly coming to the conclusion that Dracula is kind of abusive. Inspired by a support group for toxic relationship survivors and the goriest meet cute ever with a local cop Rebecca Quincy (played by Awkwafina), Renfield moves out of the derelict hospital, determined to make his own way in the world. The subplot is a chaotic mix of police corruption within the “PDNO”, as an organized crime group flexes its muscles. The crime family is fronted by a manic son (the hilarious Ben Schwarz), doing his mother’s bidding (Shohreh Aghdashloo as the hard-nosed matriarch). Renfield tries to escape Dracula’s clutches as he also helps Quincy and pursues self-improvement in the group. Dracula is a tenacious boss, though, and chases Renfield down. It’s here that Cage excels, delivering a wonderfully camp portrayal, mixed with sinister undercurrents of bullying. He obviously relishes every word, and every flamboyant body movement. There are a couple of large fight scenes, each doused with such cartoonish amounts of blood and carnage that it’s hard to be squeamish about. People are beaten to death with another person’s limbs, heads and legs are detached and fly through the air, and it feels like the director (Chris McKay) is just seeing what he can get away with. The effects are great, Cage becoming a smoke cloud or a colony of bats as he terrorizes just about everyone. There are some good local jokes, it being set in New Orleans and being a great addition to the canon of NOLA media post-lockdown [see our feature on that here]. Renfield and Quincy escape a fight and need to meet to regroup and one of them yells, "Meet me at Cafe du Monde!", you know, WHERE THE LOCALS MEET. Quincy also delivers a good bit about the Sysyphian task of sobriety traffic stops in a city that has drive-through daiquiri stores. Is the movie ridiculous? Yes. Is the plot, even within its own universe, completely goofy? Hell yes. Would I almost immediately see it again because it was a fun time? Absolutely. I wish Dracula had a few more dramatic flourishes, but hey, I’ll stick my neck out for Renfield. (PO) New New Orleans Media! (feature) |
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