Last Week's New Yorker Review: 🌱 The Weekend Special (April 28)
The Weekend Special
Pieces are given up to three Boyles (for fiction), Harrimans (for essays), or Parkers (for random picks). As with restaurant stars, even one Boyle, Harriman, or Parker indicates a generally positive review.
🌱 Fiction
“Tortoiseshell” by Domenico Starnone. One Boyle. mind, miserable, mistranslation. Successful as an intellectual puzzle about translation and writing; less successful as a character study. The speaker’s doomed moralism – he views the compulsion to lie as an “evil” within him – is a bit tedious; the long story about the cave is so mundane one wonders less why the narrator lies and more why he thinks himself at all unique in his travails. But the puzzle around Trevisani’s inaccurate translation of Hemingway, how it provided a “secret excuse” – a justification for the narrator’s lying – is compelling, especially for the way it metafictionally mirrors the translated text we are reading. What has been included, what has been left out? What is a majolica cat, what is a German Donald Duck?
🌱 Weekend Essay
“Mistaking Mary Magdalene” by Eliza Griswold. One Harriman. wisdom, willingness, wife. Magdalene is a mirror; each of these subjects, past and present, sees what they want in her. (Maybe that’s the case with any religious figure.) It’s not uninteresting, though I didn’t get much out of the bits exploring Griswold’s father; they don’t feel related. More compelling is the story of Elizabeth Schrader Polczer, a combination theologian/historian; Griswold puzzles out the line between those roles. It’s interesting to see how women were first written out of Christianity, but it will take more than scholarship to root misogyny out now.
🌱 Random Pick
“The Strawberry Girls” by Anne Hull. No Parkers. dresses, dirt, dent. A tribute to a vanishing Central Florida that mostly makes one think – good thing that’s over with! While I mostly leave it out of my biography, I spent most of my childhood outside Orlando, so I’m familiar with the mix of religiosity, overdevelopment, Spanish moss, and grinning casual bigotry that defines the area. I don’t have any nostalgia or even enthusiasm for it, though I suppose it’s better than the aggrieved delusional fascism that’s replacing it. The young women who comprise the court seem essentially regular; when they deal with aggressively misogynist talk radio, one starts to think that maybe this more friendly media coverage still isn’t the best thing for them. If the Strawberry Girl project is essentially white supremacist – as Hull notes, there was one single Black finalist in the entire history of the award – it’s the kind of decentralized white supremacy that’s impossible to prove. I guess that means it’s charming?
🌱 Something Extra
I’ve been seeing so much Broadway lately, I figure I should say what I’d nominate for the Tony awards if I ran the zoo. Now – I haven’t seen everything; 10/14 musicals, 5/14 plays, 3/7 musical revivals, 3/7 play revivals. I’ll probably fill in a few of those gaps between now and the end of the month, and if anything proves revelatory I’ll make updates. As of now:
Best Musical:
Definitely –
A Wonderful World (I think I liked this show more than literally anyone not on the production team, but these are my picks, dammit!)
Maybe Happy Ending
Operation Mincemeat
Probably –
Dead Outlaw
Buena Vista Social Club
Just missed –
Death Becomes Her
[Haven’t seen Boop or Old Friends or Curves or Just in Time. Hated everything else not listed. Except Tammy Faye, which was so fake camp it became real camp.]
Best Play:
Definitely –
Oh Mary (Seen off-broadway.)
Cult of Love
Probably –
English (Seen off-broadway.)
[Haven’t seen Purpose or John Proctor, both likely to get nods; I plan to. Maybe the Snook if I can get a cheap ticket. Will skip the Clooney and probably Stranger Things.]
Best Musical Revival:
Definitely–
Gypsy
Once Upon A Mattress
[Haven’t seen Floyd Collins or Pirates yet; probably gonna skip Last Five Years]
Best Play Revival:
Sure! –
Eureka Day
Sure… –
Yellow Face
[Not seeing Glengarry or Othello for obvious rea$ons. Missed R+J and Home.]
Best Actress (Musical):
Definitely –
AUDRA (Gypsy)
Jennifer Simard (Death Becomes Her)
Sutton Foster (Once Upon A Mattress)
Helen Shen (Maybe Happy Ending)
Narrowly –
Natasha Hodgson (Operation Mincemeat)
Just missed –
Megan Hilty (Death Becomes Her)
[Scherzinger and Menzel, meanwhile, are in an embarrass-themselves-off.]
Best Actor (Musical)
Definitely –
James Monroe Inglehart (A Wonderful World)
Darren Criss (Maybe Happy Ending)
Sure! –
Jeb Brown (Dead Outlaw)
Andrew Durand (Dead Outlaw)
David Cumming (Operation Mincemeat)
[A few performances in things I haven’t seen that could easily displace people here. Jordan, Groff, Hyde Pierce. Tom Francis, meanwhile, was possibly worse than Scherzinger.]
Best Actress (Play)
???
[Laura Donnelly was not good. Sydney Lemmon was just okay. Haven’t seen any of the other performances.]
Best Actor (Play)
Definitely –
Cole Escola (Oh Mary)
Why not? –
Peter Friedman (Job)
At Least He Was Making Choices –
Jim Parsons (Our Town)
[I hope at least one of the Othellans gets snubbed.]
Best Featured Actress (Musical)
Definitely –
Jordan Tyson (Gypsy) [This is my #1 rooting interest across the nominations. She does remarkable things with that part.]
Probably –
Joy Woods (Gypsy)
I Saw The Understudy But I Think She’s Likely Good –
Natalie Venetia Belcon (Buena Vista Social Club)
Ana Gasteyer (Once Upon a Mattress)
At Least She Was Making Choices –
Michelle Williams (Death Becomes Her)
[Lesli Margherita is the weakest part of Gypsy. Julia Knitel is the weakest part of Dead Outlaw. Kristine Nielsen is the Jar Jar Binks of Smash.]
Best Featured Actor (Musical)
Definitely –
Jak Malone (Operation Mincemeat)
Danny Burstein (Gypsy)
I Don’t Think They’re Even Campaigning Him But He Was My Favorite Part –
Ken Marks (Dead Outlaw)
Probably –
Christian Borle (Tammy Faye)
Thom Sesma (Dead Outlaw)
On The Cusp –
Marcus Choi (Maybe Happy Ending)
Julio Monge (Buena Vista Social Club)
[Plenty of decent performances to pick from here. Wouldn’t be mad with Sieber or Urie, for instance.]
Best Featured Actress (Play)
Definitely –
Bianca Leigh (Oh Mary)
I Don’t Think They’re Even Campaigning Her But She Was My Favorite Part –Â
Rebecca Henderson (Cult of Love)
Probably –
Marjan Neshat (English)
Tala Ashe (English)
Pooya Mohseni (English)
Mare Winningham (Cult of Love)
[Hecht did fine too. All the Hills performances were pretty bad but Leanne Best was worst.]
Best Featured Actor (Play)
Definitely –
Conrad Ricamora (Oh Mary)
James Scully (Oh Mary)
Probably –
Zachary Quinto (Cult of Love)
Bill Irwin (Eureka Day)
Could Do Worse –
Francis Jue (Yellow Face)
Any of the other Cult of Love performances
Thomas Middleditch (Eureka Day)
[I’m just rooting for as little Glengarry as possible.]
Rest of the categories I’ll do up to five in order of preference with a sixth alternate, if there are enough choices I think have substantial merit.
Best Director (Musical)
Maybe Happy Ending
Dead Outlaw
A Wonderful World
Operation Mincemeat
Death Becomes Her
[Buena Vista Social Club]
Best Director (Play)
Oh Mary!
Cult of Love
English
Best Original Score
Maybe Happy Ending
Operation Mincemeat
(gap)
Death Becomes Her
Dead Outlaw
Best Musical Book
Maybe Happy Ending
Dead Outlaw
A Wonderful World
Operation Mincemeat
Death Becomes Her
[Buena Vista Social Club]
I don’t love that this is the same list in the same order as Best Director, but it is, so it is.
Best Choreography
Buena Vista Social Club (with a bullet)
A Wonderful World
Gypsy
Death Becomes Her
Operation Mincemeat
Best Orchestrations
Buena Vista Social Club
Dead Outlaw
A Wonderful World
Maybe Happy Ending
Gypsy
Best Scenic Design in a Musical
Maybe Happy Ending
Dead Outlaw
Death Becomes Her
Smash
A Wonderful World
Best Costume Design in a Musical
Operation Mincemeat
Death Becomes Her
Buena Vista Social Club
Once Upon a Mattress
Swept Away
Best Lighting Design in a Musical
Maybe Happy Ending
Sunset Blvd
Death Becomes Her
Buena Vista Social Club
Dead Outlaw
Best Sound Design of a Musical
A Wonderful World
Dead Outlaw
Maybe Happy Ending
Swept Away
Gypsy
Best Scenic Design in a Play
Oh, Mary!
Cult of Love
Eureka Day
Best Costume Design in a Play
Oh, Mary!
Best Lighting Design in a Play
Cult of Love
English
Yellow Face
Oh, Mary!
Our Town
Best Sound Design of a Play
Cult of Love
Our Town
Sunday Song: