Doubt (Broadway) (2024)

I've been to many Broadway shows, but this has never happened before. Liev Schreiber came out on stage in his priest garb and started his opening monologue. He got about a minute in and then paused. He repeated his last line, and it looked like he might've forgotten the lines. He then apologized to the audience and walked off stage. The house lights came up and we waited for ten minutes before the announcer said they were bringing in an understudy because Schreiber was ill. The play ended up starting 45 minutes late, fortunately it's only 90 minutes. The understudy Chris McGarry played Father Flynn in the original Broadway run. He knows the role, and has played in many John Patrick Shanley plays. And he was very good but I bought these tickets to see Liev Schreiber and Tyne Daly, neither of whom we ended up seeing. Tyne Daly. Tyne Daly had to withdraw from the production for health reasons before they even opened. I thought Amy Ryan was anyways good as Sister Aloysius but she is some 20 years younger than Tyne Daly, so probably plays the role very differently. Zoe Kazan is perfectly cast as the naive younger nun.

Doubt is an excellent play. I thought the movie, also directed by Shanley, was fabulous. And the stageplay has the same tensions and intensity. It's very tightly written, no wasted scenes, just four actors, just a few settings, a couple interiors and one exterior. What I think is really interesting about this play written in 2004 is that it takes place in the 1960s. In the 60s, we might see the play a certain way, but today we bring to it added context about the Catholic Church and its well-known sex abuse problem. The teaching artists kept saying it's a show about uncertainty but I disagree. Because of what we know about Catholic priests, we assume that Sister Aloysius is right. She has no doubts and neither do we about Father Flynn. The most tragic scene is the one with Mrs. Muller, who knows it too. But as a black woman in the 60s in the Bronx, she has other problems to worry about. She has to overlook it because she has no other choice. The scene hits harder if we think that she knows. Come the final scene, when Sister Aloysius says she has doubts, she's not talking about Father Flynn, she's talking about her faith. A play about a nun and a priest called Doubt must be referring to a crisis of faith. And yes, the absurdity of the Catholic Church is enough to shake a nun's faith.

There was an artist talkback after the show with the set designer David Rockwell--who apparently also has a career as an architect of high-end restaurants. I thought the set was fantastic.
 

The Wire (2002-8)

David Simon landmark series holds up in the waning years of the Golden era of television. The technology may be outdated by now, but the drama is timeless. Simon pioneered bingeable television (along with the Sopranos, I suppose), plotting a mystery to unfold over the course of a whole season. And today in the streaming era, every TV show worth its salt has an overarching plot. Some may criticize him for being slow, but it's a methodical slow burn that allows for deep characterization of even secondary characters. We come to know not just the cops, not just the head honcho drug dealers but even the street level kids (a very young Michael B Jordan). His sense of realism comes through in his unknown actors, character actors, non-actors, and many real Baltimoreans. The show is about characters who are trapped by the institutions (a set of rules) that plague the city.

The Wire is Simon's love letter to Baltimore. It may not always seem that way given all the crime and corruption he highlights but indeed it is. No city has ever gotten such a thorough treatment on TV, exposing its underbelly. He doesn't do it out of malice or hatred but he genuinely believes that it can do better. Despite the specificity, it could have been about any city because in general terms it is about the decline of the American city. Other cities also have drug problems, docks, corrupt city government, schools, and print media. He would give post-Katrina New Orleans a similar treatment in Treme, but Simon has a personal connection to Baltimore. He (and writer Ed Burns) have first hand experience about the things they write (the Baltimore Police and the Baltimore Sun).

Seasons 3 and 4 are the strongest. Simon's analysis on the flaws in our education system is brilliant. I thought season 2 at the docks was kind of weak while watching it but in retrospect it was also very good. There are so many characters and by the end I felt like we got satisfactory closure on each one. It was kind of weird that McNulty doesn't feature much in season 4, but honestly, it's all the better without him. His twisted story line in season 5 is probably the weakest, most cynical (most ironic).

Bridge of Spies (2015)

This is not just an espionage thriller, but a political thriller.  It does a great job of explaining the complex political theater of Eastern Europe during the Cold War as well as the complex American justice system.  We have the Coen brothers to thank for the easy-to-follow screenplay, which is saying something considering the infamous U2 incident is quite complicated.  Steven Spielberg glorifies American values with soapbox speeches by the fantastic all-American Tom Hanks. As the idealistic and principled lawyer defending a Soviet spy, James Donovan upholds the Constitution by mounting a valiant defense in the face of public scrutiny taking his case all the way up to the Supreme Court. The spy is Mark Rylance who does not get much screen time, but plays a calm man ready to face whatever fate may come to him.  The production design is also praiseworthy.  It paints a gloomy picture of the ruinous East Berlin at the height of the Cold War as the Berlin Wall is being erected.  The music was not composed by John Williams, the first Spielberg movie that has not featured his frequent collaborator since 1985's The Color Purple. 

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014)

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu composes a masterpiece in his innovative satire on show business.  The most impressive aspect of Birdman is the illusion of one smooth, massive continuous take.   This is a combination of excellent cinematography by Oscar-winner Emmanuel Lubezki and some visual effects tricks.  It emulates a stage play, much like the one being staged in the movie.  The way scenes change in the movie very much resemble a play as do the monologues. The setting inside one of Broadway's great theaters is a labyrinth that the crew must have navigated expertly to get its shots.  I always pay special attention to lighting in "plays",  which is done in the movie such that the light from one set doesn't pollute the others nearby despite the continuous take.

I love the life-imitates-art-imitates-life concept of the film, casting former Batman, Michael Keaton to play a version of himself, not an easy thing to do.  Keaton leads a superb cast.  They all deliver their quirky jokes in this dry, fast-paced way that keeps the movie flowing with the camera.  It is also moved along by the innovative score, made up solely of drum solos and classical interludes.  My favorite is the always good Edward Norton, who, in one scene, gives a masterclass in acting to Keaton.  Emma Stone also deserves to be singled out, playing a recovering drug addict.  All 3 actors are serious Oscar contenders.