1776 (Broadway)

Roundabout's revival of 1776 recasts America's founding fathers as female and non-binary. This might perhaps be more shocking in a pre-Hamilton era but nowadays the founding fathers are whoever you want to be. Maybe they thought they were capitalizing on Hamilton's success but people love Hamilton because it's good, not for some vague fandom for the American Revolution. The protagonist is John Adams, who is decidedly less interesting than Alexander Hamilton. His main characterization is that he was annoying and disliked. He is strongly pro-independence. And he does not compromise.

The play is pretty boring to be honest. There aren't that many songs. There are long stretches of debate that are completely without music. It really makes you appreciate Cabinet Battle. And the music that does exist is mostly forgettable, and kind of irrelevant. What is that Egg song? I expected bigger for the opener or the Act I finale, or indeed the Act II finale.

The plot is pretty empty. In the first act, they clearly do not have the votes for independence. We're never really told how they convince everyone to come around by the end. There is a discussion about slavery, which doesn't really answer why the southern states become amenable to independence. The delegates to the Constitutional Convention had it pretty good because of slavery. They complain about taxes and mistreatment by the crown, but they have it comparatively good if you consider the way Britain treated its other colonies and certainly if you consider how the colonists were treating their slaves. The fact of the matter is that those who opposed independence were pretty satisfied with the status quo. It's the reason they ignore George Washington's entreaties for military support. We don't really get a sense of why they opposed independence nor what convinces them to change their mind.

Westworld (2016-22)

Westworld was supposed to be HBO's successor to Game of Thrones in terms of epic fantasy and expense and violence and nudity. And it had a promising start. Season 1 was top notch TV. It delivered on the spectacle and the mind-blowing twists. And it had a philosophical bent to it. There were some really beautiful, poignant episodes--I specifically remember Akechata's Season 2 episode 8 titled Kiksuya. Season 2 was actually quite good in retrospect with its biblical scope, but I didn't see that until the end. While watching season 2, I found it to be kind of a drag. Seasons 3 and 4 did absolutely nothing for me. They were so complicated and boring. How did they lose the magic of Season 1? It became a totally different show. Once they left the park and entered "reality" it became too convoluted. And it's not like season 1 was even easy to follow. I'm glad they finally pulled the plug because I had felt obligated to slog through the last two seasons.

Camp Siegfried (Second Stage) (2022)

We got free tickets to Camp Siegfried through Culture Card. I probably wouldn't have paid money to see this. It's only 90 minutes without intermission but it felt longer. It's about two teenagers at a pro-Nazi camp on Long Island in 1938. It's a love story. And that kind of obscures the whole Nazi thing. I thought it would be a lot more explicitly anti-Nazi than it was. The setting isn't really all that important to the main plot, but as an audience member it's impossible to look past. Just start with the description of the play in the playbill...it doesn't even mention the Nazi sympathies. It implicitly condones it by not explicitly condemning it. And it's pretty boring overall.

The best part by far is the set. It felt like being outside. There isn't quite a stage, it's a hill built into the theater. And there are branches hanging from the ceiling to simulate trees. There is one mesmerizing scene in which they construct a platform in the side of the hill with planks and mallets. They they use the platform in a few different ways. But later in the play the reveal another platform on the left side of the stage, which comes down like a murphy bed and acts as a pier/dock. The lighting is maybe too good that the darkness put me to sleep. I kind of dozed off after the platform scene. The seats in the theater were nice leather.

The Little Drummer Girl (2018)

I usually find John le Carre's spy thrillers to be slow and boring. But honestly I thought The Little Drummer Girl was a brilliant slow burn. It was intense and legitimately thrilling. It's a tight six episodes. The Mossad don't mess around. They recruit an English actress to go undercover and infiltrate a Palestinian group plotting terrorist attacks in Europe. What's especially interesting about that is that she's an actress playing a part. Of course, that's all undercover work, but it's not usually framed as acting. Usually, the spy has certain sympathies but we're never quite sure where her sympathies lie. She waivers because she's an actress first. In the Mossad agents too, Gadi acknowledges that they may not be the good guys. That's a devastating admission for a spy. 

Park Chan-wook's production is ravishing. The colors, the composition and the camera movement are distinctive Park.  After watching Decision to Leave, I wanted more Park and I'm glad to have finally checked this one off the list. I hadn't realized what a great starry cast he had but was pleasantly surprised. The undercover actress is played by a never better Florence Pugh. She is good in everything. Her handler is played by Alexander Skarsgard. He too plays a part, her target. It allows her to rehearse and learn her character. It reminds me of In the Mood for Love because as they role play, they too begin to fall in love. They blur the line between acting and reality. Michael Shannon plays the leader of the Mossad team and he is fantastic.