Created by Zoe Kazan and based on John Steinbeck’s novel, this epic television miniseries (Netflix) is rife with Biblical allegories, particularly Cain and Abel. But “Eden” is grander in its ambitions, touching on the concepts of good vs evil, father vs son, guilt vs forgiveness. It’s a Greek tragedy transposed to the wilds of 19th-century California.

The story opens in post-Civil-War Connecticut where veteran Cyrus Trask (Tracy Letts) lives with his two sons, Adam (Christopher Abbot) and Charles (Mike Feist). Once they become of age, Cyrus decides Adam should join the army like he did, and Charles should stay home and mind the farm.

Once he enlists, Adam finds army life loathsome but reenlists to defy his father’s offer of a government job. (Charles remains behind and nurses a grudge.) When the brothers reunite after their father’s death, they are confronted by the unexpected arrival of Cathy (Florence Pugh), a young woman who shows up battered and unconscious on their doorstep.

Adam nurses Cathy back to health and the two develop a relationship of sorts which eventually leads to marriage and a decision to move to California. It’s rather a one-sided decision, as Cathy wants neither California nor the marriage. This portends disaster and sure enough once in the Golden State, Cathy abandons her husband and children and turns to prostitution.

Abbott is brilliant as Adam, the non-flashy son who plays by the rules but never seems to win in life. Pugh is even more of a revelation as Cathy: a cold-hearted Lilith whose ambition and fierce demand for independence eradicate any trace of maternal instinct or domesticity.

As the abandoned husband Adam has checked out both mentally and emotionally, he leaves the rearing of his twin sons in loco parentis to Lee (the fabulous Hoon Lee), the Hebrew-quoting Chinese house-manager and cook. Through him we get to know Adam’s “good” son Aron (Joe Anders),who is favored by his father, and Adam’s “bad” son Caleb (movie-star handsome Joseph Zada). When the sons learn the truth about their mother and confront her years later, the tension in the room is unbearable.

“Eden’s” supporting cast is also superb, and kudos to co-directors Garth Davis and Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre who appear to have brought out the best in everybody. The actors include Martha Plimpton as Faye, the owner of the local brothel, and Ciarán Hinds as William Hamilton, an Irish neighbor who helps talk sense into the grief-stricken Adam. The finale is cathartic and if you find yourself emotionally drained at this point, you wouldn’t be the only one.

In short “East of Eden” gets everything right—including, last but not least, the score by Laura Karpman and cinematography by Stuart Dryburgh and Sam Chaplin (show was filmed mostly in New Zealand.) Bravo to all and get ready for an Emmy sweep.

Like this review? Follow me at “What Does Aug Think?” at acsntn.substack.com. Thank you!

The plot: Ruth Stoops (Laura Dern), a glue-sniffing homeless young woman, is pregnant with her fifth out-of-wedlock child. The local judge informs her she will be sent to jail if she does not abort it asap.

This becomes a cause celebre for the anti-abortion crowd led by the fanatical Norm Stormy (Kurtwood Smith) and his wife Gail (Mary Kay Place.) They call in their troops—the “Baby Savers”— and go so far as to offer Ruth $10,000 if she doesn’t go through with it. Ruth, who doesn’t have two pennies to rub together, is ready to take the dough.

Not to be outwitted, the pro-choice crowd led by Diane (Swoosie Kurtz) wants to up the ante with an even higher offer. This places Ruth in crisis mode. “It’s my body. Can’t I make my own decision?” she wails. What she does do is something you never see coming.

In the hands of anyone else, this would’ve been anything but a dramedy. But “Citizen” demonstrates Payne’s gift for lampooning both sides of a (still) controversial issue. It’s based on a real-life situation in South Dakota circa 1990 when a pregnant woman also struggling with addiction was offered $15,000 by anti-abortion activists (“the Lambs of Christ”) to carry her pregnancy to term.

“Citizen” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 1996. It charmed the critics, wowed the audiences and from then on, there was no stopping Alexander Payne. See his first great film at Film Forum—the first of many.

Like this review? Follow me at “What Does Aug Think?” at acsntn.substack.com. Thank you!

The latest iteration of “Rope” (at Theatre at St Clements) takes its cues from that film as well as from Patrick Hamilton’s original 1929 play—which in turn was based on the real-life Leopold and Loeb murder case of 1924. This time, the playwright Gordon Greenberg has changed the relationship between the students from subtly gay to explicitly so.

The setting is a post-WWII cocktail party in a swanky Manhattan apartment, rich with bourbon, scotch and bon mots. The hosts are Garrett Stern (Cameron Monahan) and Nate Singer (Corey Fogelmanis) who are roommates at Princeton and maybe something more.

Garrett, the more psychotic of the two, is trying to assure guilt-ridden Nate that their crime will never be discovered. The fact that the victim is the son of one of the guests —and that the corpse has been stashed inside a large chest upon which cocktails are being served—makes the situation even creepier.

Among the guests is Garrett’s and Nate’s college professor Rupert Cadell (Jason Butler Harner). It becomes clear that his interest in Garrett is not purely academic. Calmly holding court on the sofa, he smells a rat and is threatening to expose the two murderers.

Of the cast the most compelling actor is Monaghan who plays Garrett as well as Harner as the professor.

While this is hardly razzle-dazzle Broadway, “Rope” represents off-Broadway at its best and for that we can grade it on a curve. Dean’s List? How about a Gentleman’s A-minus? Directed by Scott Elliott. (The New Group).

Like this review? Follow me at “What Does Aug Think?” at acsntn.substack.com. Thank you!

The result, alas, needs serious medical attention.

Irwin is arguably the world’s greatest living clown, so any play which requires him to sit in a chair and do nothing but complain about his maladies is just wrong. To be fair, he does get up frequently to give himself enemas—which earns him cheap laughs in the bargain.

Argan is so obsessed with following doctors’ “regimens” he cannot even remember what’s wrong with him (it changes from day to day.) But what he is certain about is the need to marry his daughter Angelique (Ava Lalezarzadeh) to the son of his doctor, Monsieur Pagon (Brooks Ashmanskas). Pagon’s son Thomas (Hiram Delgado) is a fool with a Prince valiant haircut and a vocabulary of nonsensical Latin phrases.

Horrified, Angelique pleads to marry handsome young Cleante (Daniel Croix Henderson) instead. Her greedy stepmother Beline (Crystal A. Dickinson) would rather pack her off to a convent and keep Argan’s fortune for herself.

The play becomes much funnier and less slapstick when Argan’s brother Beralde (Dylan Baker) enters stage left and tells the hypochondriac to pull himself together and stop whining. The feisty maid Toinette (Rachel Bloom) could not agree more.

Filled with jokes that don’t land, the production feels like an overextended skit. It does not fulfill the promise of the opening scene: a masked figure stands on an empty stage, holding a staff; and summoning other masked performers, wearing the black robes and white ruffs of commedia d’arte, drawing symbolic red ribbons from his body.

“I mean, do people actually laugh when they pay their good money and go to those plays of his?” says Argan, in a swipe at the play’s own author, Molière. If it’s funny, yes. Slapstick, pas de tout. Through November 22nd.

Like this review? Follow me at “What Does Aug Think?” at acsntn.substack.com. Thank you!

Fascinated by what he’d heard, Sorkin began drafting the story on cocktail napkins between serving drinks. He changed a few details, whipped it all together into a play and in 1989, “A Few Good Men” premiered on Broadway. In 1992, the play was made into a movie starring Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson.

The recent revival at Lincoln Center theater demonstrates that a good story can retain all of its magic nearly 40 years later.

A good deal of the credit goes to the cast, starting with Bradley Whitford. Perhaps best known for playing Alison Janney’s husband on “The Diplomat,” Whitford brings his booming voice and menacing presence to Colonel Nathan Jessup, the mad-dog commanding officer who’d prefer to live by the Marine code of “duty honor and country” than follow the rule of law.

In the Tom Cruise defense-attorney role of Lt Daniel Caffe is Tom Blyth, making a spectacular Broadway debut. A lackadaisical good-ol-boy with little courtroom experience, he puts his big-boy pants on and becomes properly outraged at the idea of sending two innocent PFCs to jail to save the butt of a superior officer.

Rounding out the cast is Nick Blaemire (“Russian Space Dogs”) as Lieutenant Weinberg, Kaffe’s snarky sidekick, and Krysta Rodriguez as Lieutenant Galloway, a firebrand lawyer (character is based on Sorkin’s sister) who gets no respect from her male colleagues.

Granted, the play itself is rather standard courtroom drama. But director Michael Arden has managed to make a 1980s play sing 40 years later, and bring a liberal New York City audience to its feet in the bargain.

Bravo to LCT-and to Sorkin who as we all know has made a career far beyond mixing cocktails.

Like this review? Follow me at “What Does Aug Think?” at acsntn.substack.com. Thank you!

This season, someone’s on a tear to vaporize any and all agents and staff (current and former) of Slough House. Who’s behind it isn’t clear but the executioners, “Jim” and “Jane” (Kyle Soller and MyAnna Buring) are the meanest, most sinister-looking couple to walk the earth since Boris Badenov and Natasha from “Rocky and Bullwinkle.”

There’s also something fishy going on with Diana Taverner (Kristen Scott Thomas), who has been promoted to First Desk (aka British for “head of”) at MI5. Inconceivably, she’s given an interview to Damien Cantor (Harry Lloyd), a right-of-center media overlord, on a situation that may compromise her integrity and the UK’s security.

Lots of the usual shoot-em-ups, how-did-they-do-that cliffhangers, and an observation: if bumbling hero-agent River Cartwright (Jack Lowden) suffers any more stabbings or gunshot wounds, he’ll need surgery.

Fortunately Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman), the slovenly boss of Slough House, is still very much alive and wholly intact, hurling wisecracks and breaking wind at every opportunity. If that isn’t enough comic relief for you, the writers have added young Reece Nesmith (Lenny Rush), a potty-mouthed dwarf who’s witnessed the killing of his father by River’s bio father Frank Harkness (Hugo Weaving), a contract killer.

And about that ending in episode 6: cry me a River? Have you hit the road, Jack (Lowden?)That’s all I’m going to say. Let’s find out the answer on Season 7 of “Horses.” And yes it’s hereby confirmed there will be another season.

Like this review? Follow me at “What Does Aug Think?” at acsntn.substack.com. Thank you!

Sebastian (Guitarricadelafuente)—yes that’s his name—the town’s mild-mannered bugler escapes death but is unfortunately captured by the rebels and thrown into the back of a truck. The musician claims he’s “one of them” (he’s actually apolitical) but winds up in a hospital where he’s handed a rifle and told to mind a wounded Republican prisoner of war, Rafael Rodríguez Rapún (Miguel Bernerdau)

Roll back tape six years earlier, when Carlos (Milo Quicew), an effete young gentleman from Granada, is “blackballed” for membership in a private club because of his suspected homosexuality.

Flash forward to scenario #3 circa 2017 when Alberto (Carlos Gonzale) a history grad student in Madrid receives notice that he’s inherited something valuable from his grandfather who’s just died. Hint: it isn’t money.

How these three stories tie together isn’t clear at first in “La Bola Negra” (Spanish for “blackballed”) but once you do understand you can better appreciate the huge achievement of the film’s co-directors/writers Javier Anbrossi and Javier Calvo, collectively (and affectionately) known in Spain as “Los Javis.”

The segment in the hospital between the bugler and the soldier comes from a play “La Piedra Oscura,” which told the real-love story between Rafael Rapún and the poet Federico Garcia-Lorca.

“Bola Negra” has something for everyone: a Spanish Civil War story for political junkies like me; and a love story that deserves the name “El Brokeback Mountain” for its romantic intensity. It explicitly associates Lorca with the love that dare not speak its name, insisting that the poet’s sexuality is as key to his legacy as any other aspect of his life.

The cast is uniformly superb (and mostly unknown to me). It includes sad-eyed Guitarricadelafuente (a ringer for Adrien Brody) as the bugler; and Miguel Bernardeau, who’s drop-dead gorgeous as the Republican soldier. Women also have important roles in this gay-centric film particularly Penelope Cruz as a bawdy naughty wartime entertainer, and Glenn Close who learned Spanish (perhaps phonetically) for her role as a Lorca scholar.

FWIW, “La Bola Negro” received the longest standing ovation of any entry at Cannes this past May. It also recently won top prize at the Toronto Film Festival, and is a strong contender for best foreign film at next year’s Academy Awards.

Toward the end of “Bola Negra,” the movie flashes back to 1936 and the budding romance between Rafael Rapun and Garcia-Lorca (played by Alberto Cortes who is also the film’s co-screenwriter). “Why do you write a play like this?” Rafael asks. “So people like us won’t have to go through what we did,” responds Lorca.

Currently at New York’s Paris Theatre, “La Bola Negra” will begin streaming on Netflix in December. In Spanish with English subtitles. Vaya con Dios.

Like this review? Follow me at “What Does Aug Think?” at acsntn.substack.com. Thank you!

In 1971, this film shocked the Holy See, mainstream critics and moviegoers of all persuasions. The protagonist, Father Granier (Oliver Reed), a priest in 17th-century France, oversees an order of Ursuline nuns in southwestern France. Because of his striking good looks the sisters make up sins to confess to have an excuse to meet with him.

Granier’s ardent fans include the hunchbacked Sister Jeanne (Vanessa Redgrave), so driven by lust she imagines she’s had sexual congress with him. When she can’t have him, the nun accuses him of witchcraft.

The film, for us OK Boomers, is best remembered for its swinging, arguably over-the-top scenes of nudity and ‘60s-style debauchery. Underlying that silliness was a deeper political battle between Granier and the French throne, represented here by Cardinal Richelieu (Christopher Logue) and Louis XIII (Graham Armitage). Granier makes their enemies list due to his support for the independence of the Protestant-friendly fortified city of Loudon, where the movie is set.

Grandier’s heresy trial is presented with all the goriness one may imagine of Abu Ghareb. “Do you love the church?” asks Baron de Laubardemont (Dudley Sutton) as mad-eyed hipster Witchfinder Father Barre (Michael Gothard) drives another wedge between his mangled legs. “Not today,” grunts Grandier.

“The Devils” has never been readily available in the U.S, at least not in its full form, until now. Get your freak on and get to Film Forum, especially if you’re into exaggerated, Ken-Russell-style madness. And be prepared to giggle.

Like this review? Follow me at “What Does Aug Think?” at acsntn.substack.com. Thank you!

I was warned not to read any reviews of “Digger,” the new Tom Cruise movie beforehand, so I could judge it with complete objectivity.

WelI…I followed said warnings to a tee and I can objectively say that “Digger” is a Stinker.

The film, directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, is the story of Digger Rockwell (Tom Cruise), a bloviating, pot-bellied Texas oil tycoon who ignores warnings from climate scientists to stop drilling in the Arctic. When an explosion at his Greenland operation triggers a methane leak and causes a massive 400-mile ice shelf to break off and drift toward northern Europe, he stops bloviating and starts paying attention.

As a first step, Digger calls in Ganesh, his chief security officer (Riz Ahmed) and demands the whole truth and nothing but. When he gets the bad news, Digger steps boldly into a huge rotunda filled with angry EU members and promptly blames himself and his company for the incident (ridiculously, he praises environmentalism while doing so).

However—and this is where it gets interesting—Digger actually spins the story to make himself the savior of the crisis instead of the cause. He then invites his coterie of satraps to accompany him on a plane to “nuke” the iceberg before it floods all of Europe.

These include the US president played by a rubbery-faced John Goodman. He’s looking to pass the blame to anyone who will take it off him (China, Russia), and he’s more preoccupied with his escalating rectal cancer than with mitigating the iceberg damage.

There’s nothing wrong with the message of climate change (although it’s only been made a hundred times earlier and two hundred times more compellingly). But the famous plot twist which I didn’t see coming triviliazes whatever good points the film was intending to make.

And Cruise’s performance? His overacting and cartoonish delivery are off-putting even for a satire. What was the director’s intention here? Make the actor verbalize any given idea at the loudest possible pitch, so it will carry greater importance?

No NYT article about weak box office has to tell me why this $125 million misfire is a flop. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk. - Angry Aug.

Like this review? Follow me at “What Does Aug Think?” at acsntn.substack.com. Thank you!

No wonder my expectations were so high for “Good Time Charlie” (Public Theatre), his new memory play, which he is calling a tribute to his gay mentor, his Uncle Charlie (Jonathan Raviv), a mild-mannered dentist.

Regrettably what has emerged is a long, somewhat draggy play (with the occasional ha-ha) providing no more than a superficial look at what makes Uncle Charlie so special and an unsatisfying look into what makes Ryan run.

“Good Time Charlie” spans three decades, beginning in 1998, when six-year-old Ryan gets his family, including Charlie’s mom, Joan (Artemis Pebdani), and lesbian aunt, Janice (Beth Malone), to assist in reenacting the TV movie Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical “Cinderella.”

Ryan’s Uncle Charlie, we learn, has a similar affinity for theatre. As a college freshman at Case Western Reserve, he announces to his conservative parents that he doesn’t just want to watch plays but be in them, too. They give that idea the kibosh and insist he continue pursuing dentistry (being the dutiful son, he does.)

Within a year, however, Charlie puts his foot down and announces he’s gay. Every few years afterwards, his parents nervously ask him, “Are you going to change?” to which he answers with an emphatic “NO.”

One night, young Charlie visits a gay bar in Cleveland and meets Lou (Tim Bagley) a film professor 21 years his senior. They fall in love and through Lou, Charlie meets Sheldon (Michael Cristofer), a highly opinionated older gay man who runs the local independent film theatre. Sheldon’s initial frostiness toward the youth melts into fatherly adoration.

The contrast between Charlie’s and Ryan’s coming-of-gay-age is significant: while the uncle had a difficult time coming out in the 1980s, Ryan has a somewhat easier experience, although not with a few speed bumps of his own telling his parents. To their credit, they support him by helping him pick out a man-purse at Nordstrom Rack.

When Ryan takes the stage all by himself, he’s funny AF; every one of his bitch-nifties has the audience convulsed with laughter. One of the best lines is his frank admission that what we are watching has more narrative than plot. Bingo.

Unfortunately Ryan’s character has an annoying habit of interrupting the flow of what is about to become an emotional scene with a sarcastic remark, essentially killing the vibe. Not a good idea.

The play’s most fully developed character is Sheldon the film professor, and Cristofer’s acting chops surpass those of the younger generation mightily. This proves useful in the second act, when Sheldon has a stroke and must start using a walker like Ryan, and Ryan discovers his own hesitation and discomfort with another’s disability.

At one point in the festivities, Ryan semi-jokingly says, “I apologize for polluting the earth with yet another gay male play. But I am a gay man, so I will probably keep writing gay male plays.” As someone who’s seen dozens of such plays for over 40 years, this may not rank with the best. But Ryan’s only 34. So keep on keeping on, amigo.

Like this review? Follow me at “What Does Aug Think?” at acsntn.substack.com. Thank you!

True, all incels may not be surfing the Internet from their parents’ basement. But what may be true is that the members of this closed community are fiercely loyal to one another, exchanging obscure racist, misogynistic and homophobic terms for which they never need to apologize.

In “Degenerates,” Else Went’s provocative new dramedy at Playwrights Horizon, the title itself is an incel term for those who are politically left-leaning—not a desirable quality for this crowd. The two protagonists, Miller (Zachary Desmond) and Target (Christipher Dylan White) regularly participate in audio-only Discord chats with other lonely incels who spew language and express viewpoints about women and politics that would be in perfect synch with those of the Tate Brothers.

For instance, Miller is irate that left-wing women blame male virgins for the incels’ inability to have relationships. “You just say things so clearly,” agrees Kemp (Tyler Nowell Felix) whom we first encounter via his telephone call to a suicide prevention hotline.

The play’s central conflict arises when Target (who earns big bucks as a “cam-boy” cross-dressing and tantalizing straight men via the Internet) proposes that he/she/they/them and Miller meet in person and “hang out.” The shocking events that follow demonstrate what happens when incels abandon their shut-in lives for the real world.

Never less than weirdly entertaining, “Degenerates” wouldn’t be nearly as effective without Desmond and White as the leads. White in particular imbues Target with an ethereal, sexual ambiguity that is a strong counterpart to Desmond’s Miller—a hard-edged angry loser whose half-baked conspiracy theories reveal his ignorance and self-hatred.

The other roles (e.g., Target’s sister, and the suicide helpline operator, both of which are played by Olivia Rose Barresi) are mostly virtual. We encounter them through audio playbacks of their encounters with Target, and their disembodied voices only add to the overall creepiness.

Using ugly, violent language and then asking theatergoers to find compassion for these people is a difficult ask but “Degenerates,” as unapologetic and in-your-face as they come, succeeds brilliantly. The playwright’s point? Incels are out there. And they’re far more dangerous than sporting a Pepe the Frog symbol. Directed by Emma Ross Went (the playwright’s wife) “Degenerates” has been extended to November 1st at Playwrights.

Like this review? Follow me at “What Does Aug Think?” at acsntn.substack.com. Thank you!

The grouchiest of fellows under the best of circumstances, Joe blows a gasket. Not only did he forget all about the dinner but he neglected to buy the wine. And the guests are due in ten minutes.

As if this weren’t bad enough Joe has had a longstanding bone to pick with the upstairs neighbors: the woman’s orgasms are so loud they’re keeping him awake night. To his wife’s horror he plans to bring the subject up as soon as they arrive.

Actually, not long after Hawk, an ex-firefighter (Edward Norton) and his partner Pina (a blonde Penelope Cruz) do show up and smoke a few joints, the guests themselves bring up the moaning and groaning. Turns out they are, ahem, swingers who thinks their downstairs neighbors are perfect candidates for their next orgy. Pina explains they’ve swung with as many as 10 partners at one time.

Goodness gracious! Gobsmacked but curious, Joe and Angela, after some hemming and hawing, sort of agree to go along. The events that follow, which will not be disclosed here, demonstrate Rogen’s genius for physical comedy and his serious acting chops. He’s entirely relatable as the klutz who’s used to being rejected, and now has become so miserable that his once gaga wife doesn’t really want him anymore.

But “The Invite” isn’t all sex and drugs and rock and roll. The movie also makes some serious and somewhat uncomfortable points about relationships, especially about how they can live or wither away. These are mostly voiced by Pina who happens to be a sex therapist. She believes among other things that it’s not conflict but cruelty that will take a relationship apart. Both are in abundance here.

Directed by Wilde from a screenplay by Will McCormack and Rashida Jones, “The Invite” is based on Cesc Gay’s Spanish film “Sentimental,” which is in turn based on Gay’s stage play. It’s a rom-com that’s not very romantic, nor is it entirely comic but the film deserves your serious attention all the same.

Like this review? Follow me at “What Does Aug Think?” at acsntn.substack.com. Thank you!

Chase Robertson is a 14-year-old top-ranked American player on the junior tennis circuit. After he shows promise domestically, his dad, a prominent international businessman decides the kid should go to an academy in Beijing and practice with the national junior tennis team there. Still depressed over the untimely death of his elder brother, and afraid to push back against his bullying father, Chase reluctantly agrees.

Once he arrives in the PRC, Chase faces a mixed bag: he enjoys all the perquisites of a rich American expat lifestyle—as well as its disadvantages. He is not allowed to go anywhere without an accompaniment. When he travels by car the journey can take anywhere from 2 1/2 hours to forever because of the traffic.

Most of all he finds playing tennis in Chinese to be a drag. His fellow 14- and 15-year-old players are mostly from peasant backgrounds who understand little English, face grueling practice sessions and have no other options in life but to play tennis. If they flub this opportunity through injury or lack of talent, it’s back to the collective in the provinces.

Fortunately, Chase meets a kindred soul—Bowen, a tall, lanky tennis prodigy who speaks fairly good English and who calls America “the beautiful country.” He has the chops to make it big in the tennis world beyond China but is thwarted at every opportunity by his female coach Madame Jiang, a bitter, ex-volleyball player who is inexplicably out to get him.

Chase tries to help out his friend, particularly after he suffers a shoulder industry but quick medical attention is unheard of in China (this is mid-2000s). And Chase’s business-driven father is unwilling to upset the (Chinese) apple cart.

After a year in China, Chase returns home, eventually plays tennis at Yale and soon all is hunky-dory. But he can never forgets his buddy Bowen back in China who will never be quite so lucky.

Thornton who now works at AC Milan said he wrote the book in 2014 to try and explain his unusual take on this opportunity. Yes, talent and luck will take you far in any sports but having a pushy, rich father who’s got your back can’t hurt.

Niall Ferguson calls this debut novel “addictive readable.” Aces to that.

Like this review? Follow me at “What Does Aug Think?” at acsntn.substack.com.Thank you!

The setting is the fictional Hudson Valley-esque town of Griffin during the months preceding the November election. The candidates: Chip Riley, the fifty-something, salt-of-the-earth long-time resident vs Paul Banks, a thirty-something gay man who moved to Griffin from the city with his older husband, Stan, just last year.

But the fault lines between the two candidates are not always so clear-cut. Chip’s wife Diane is a real-estate agent who’s supported the family by selling distressed properties to “Duffels,” the local term for the gay weekenders. She also has a past record of opposing same-sex marriage. Their son Will who’s just come out is enamored of the gay lifestyle, especially what he sees when he caters Paul’s R-rated pool parties. He lies to them about his family and pretends to be just another Banks voter.

Shaffer who is gay has a genius at capturing the mean-girls, eye-rolling mentality of these 40-something city slickers as well as the small-town attitudes of upstaters.

May the better candidate win. But who would that be? You decide. As for “Town and Country” itself, I vote yes.

Like this review? Follow me at “What Does Aug Think?” @ acsntn.substack.com. Thank you!

Writer-director Simon Stone has updated Chekhov’s age-old story of an aristocratic Russian family descending into ruin, into a modern-day tale of a family-run Korean business barely treading water in Seoul circa 2026.

As the play opens, the company’s top brass (a matriarch, her clown-like brother and their cousin, living together in a Modernist glass house), receive a visit from their neighbor Hwang Doo-Sik (Park Hae-soo) a worldly young tech mogul. Turns out this fellow is none other than the son of the family’s former limo driver. He seems genial enough but warns of the company’s impending financial disaster.

Meanwhile, personal relationships are fraying within the family. Song Do-Young, the widowed matriarch (Jeon Do-yeon) has had a long rocky relationship with her two daughters, Kang Hae-Na (Lee Ji-hey), educated at Princeton and NYU; and Kang Hyun-sook (Moon Choi), her adopted daughter who has never felt the love in the room from Mom. The family’s emo-boy guitar-playing chauffeur, Shin Ye-bin (Lee Se-jun) and his buddy Lee “Benjamin” Joo-Dong (Lee Ju-won), the matriarch’s personal secretary, are duking it out for the affections of Jung Doo-Na (Park Hee-jung) the bubbly and rather mouthy young housemaid.

Finally, Byun Dong-Lim (Nam Yun-ho), the former tutor of the matriarch’s late son and now an eternal student, serves as the play’s conscience, delivering idealistic words of wisdom which he hopes will rub off on the business-driven interloper Doo-Sik.

Perhaps best known to US audiences as the star of “Squid Games”, Park as Doo-sik has a magnetic stage presence matched only by Jeon Do-yeon’s as the matriarch, a woman so dissipated she is hitting on her daughter’s BF. The Korean script (translated into English by Yi Dan-bi and flashed on monitors) is crisp and rapid-fire, although depending on where you’re sitting, the Armory’s sight lines create a strangely bifocal effect; your eyes slip back and forth uncomfortably between the action on stage and the supertitles above it.

Although written in 1904, “Orchard” is very relevant when seen in a modern-day context. “Chaebols” as they are known, were, and still are, massive Korean conglomerates controlled by wealthy dynasties. However, they have recently been rocked by challenges; the 1997 Asian financial crisis for instance resulted in roughly half of the top 30 chaebols failing or restructuring.

This adaptation by Simon Stone, which premiered in Seoul, has had subsequent runs in Busan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia before arriving here. While such unusual productions may not be everyone’s cup of soju, the play will have its defenders, primarily for the deftness of its all-Korean cast and superb stagecraft. Through September 26. #kahmsahmida

Like this review? Follow me at “What Does Aug Think?” at acsntn.substack.com. Thank you!

The quest of Eddie, Duke of Halstead (Theo James) to expand his underground marijuana empire is the perfect gateway to one of the most engaging, wickedly smart second seasons in years.

The Duke is a former armyman who has inherited his family’s seat, a 15,000-acre estate with a secret marijuana operation started by his late father. This soon leads to a “business relationship” with the snarky Susie Glass (Kaya Scodelario). She’s the hard-as-nails daughter of Bobby Glass (Rat Winstone), a gruff mob boss. Bobby happens to be incarcerated but has somehow arranged for very liberal visiting privileges.

As S2 begins, we follow the Duke’s aggressive efforts to become a member of the House of Lords so he can help pass a law decriminalizing mariniana. The Duke and Susie are all for it: Boss Bobby is not, oddly.

The Duke also wants to shore up his connections across international waters, so he finds himself working with Italian drug lord Marco Morretti (Sergio Castellitti). This allows writer-director Guy Ritchie to shift the action to lavish estates along Lake Maggiore—and introduce Bella (Benedetta Porcaroli), Morretti’s niece who is Bond-Girl beautiful.

The good-guy-turned-bad boy scenario works well for Theo James, quite possibly the next James Bond. It’s also a marvelous opportunity for director Guy Ritchie, who specializes in black comedy; this one has all the usual dead bodies, brutal shootouts, and torture scenes. But fear not: all the episodes are well written and many are very funny. Susie Glass’s remarks in particular rival the bon mots of Maggie Smith’s Dowager Countess in “Downton Abbey.”

The impeccably dressed support cast helps make S2 a jolly good show. These characters include Geoff (Vinnie Jones), the estate’s gamekeeper whose marksmanship comes in quite handy; Eddie’s wacko brother Freddy (Daniel Inge) and Freddy’s otherworldly guru Gospel John (Pearce Quigley); and the gay, totally corruptible Lord Hawthorne (Hugh Bonneville from “Downton Abbey.”)

A crime series doubling as a comedy. Only Guy Ritchie can get away with it. Try the first few episodes of “The Gentlemen S2” and you won’t be able to get away from it. Grazie mille.

Like this review? Follow me at “What Does Aug Think?” at acsntn.substack.com. Thank you!

But what do we know of Thomas Cromwell, his enigmatic chief minster? Hilary Mantel tackles this fascinating behind-the-scenes creature in “Wolf Hall,” (2009) the first of three historic-fiction novels about the reign of Henry, the power-hungry monarch and Thomas, his equally power-hungry Svengali/Rasputin/Roy Cohn.

In 1500, the teenage Thomas runs away from home—and his abusive father. First serving in the French army, then honing his business skills in Italy, he returns to England in the 1520s, marries and raises a family, and becomes the right-hand man of the controversial and persnickety Cardinal Thomas Woolsey.

Unfortunately in 1529 Cromwell seems to be backing the wrong horse. Woolsey falls afoul of the King because he will not arrange an annulment of HRH’s marriage to Queen Catherine of Aragon, a Catholic. Thereupon, everything the Cardinal owns is repossessed and given to Henry’s saucy half-French mistress, Anne Boleyn, once a lady-in-waiting and now a queen-in-waiting.

Being the quintessential political animal, Cromwell begins negotiating Woosley’s fate with the King. But to no avail; once Thomas meets Anne and sees the King’s fierce loyalty to her he switches sides and becomes the trusted advisor to HT8.

Cromwell supports Anne’s ascent to Queen, hoping he will rise along with her. Secure in her position after seven years of machinating, Anne marries Henry and the two consummate their relationship, much to the horror of the populace and the Pope (whom Henry sneeringly refers to as “The Bishop of Rome.”). Henry has the pregnant Queen crowned in a ceremony that Cromwell perfectly organizes. Thus the Church of England is born (and soon afterwards Baby Elizabeth who will someday become Queen Elizabeth I).

While Cromwell may not be as famous as any of the Tudors, he is no stranger to history nerds like me. In Robert Bolt’s 1960 play “A Man for All Seasons” Cromwell is portrayed as calculating and unprincipled while Thomas More, the man he tried to save, as honorable and saintly. Mantel’s novel switches things around but this rewrite is hardly a history tome: the story is highly readable and occasionally funny.

FWIW the book’s title comes from the name of the family estate of the Seymours, home of Henry’s third wife Jane Seymour. “Wulfhall in Wiltshirel” alludes to the old Latin saying Homo homini lupus (”Man is wolf to man”), reminding us of Cromwell’s lupine nature. Clever, this Ms. Mantel—sadly, she died in 2020.

Fair warning: “Wolf Hall” is 600 pages long and has heaps of characters and plot turns. Parts 2 and 3 of this tale which takes us through the final six years of the King’s and Thomas’ alliance adds about 1,300 pages more. Prefer the idea of catching the whole story on the Netflix series starring Mark Rylance and Claire Foy? Sounds like a good Plan B. That would be B—as in Boleyn.

Like this review? Follow me at “What Does Aug Think?” at acsntn.substack.com. Thank you!

Based on the 2023 autofiction horror novel by Bret Easton Ellis, it’s the story of super-rich teens who are traumatized by an unidentified serial killer known as “The Trawler” in Los Angeles circa 1981.

The teenage Bret (played by Igby Rigney) and his five friends attend the Buckley School (Ellis’ actual alma mater). They spend most of their free time (which they seem to have a lot of) tooling around in convertibles through the wealthy precincts of 310, snorting coke and listening to catchy early 80s New Wave tunes.

This idyllic and rather boring existence is interrupted by the arrival of Robert Mallory (Homer Gere, son of Richard), a dashing but mysterious import from Chicago who instantly attracts Bret’s closeted gay lust.

Robert’s appearance coincides with the murders and disappearances which leads Bret to suspect the new guy may be the killer.

Each of our six main characters seems to be concealing a secret—whether it’s Bret’s sexuality, or the nascent porn career of young Ryan (Daniel Dale), or Robert’s alleged murder of his mother. Speaking of parents, there isn’t much adult supervision of these reprobates with the exception of Terry (Wes Bentley), the father of Bret’s bottle-blonde Gf Debbie (Hayes Warner). A creepy name-dropping Hollywood dweeb, Terry is willing to shop Bret’s screenplay through the ranks as long as the young man puts out for him.

The best way to enjoy this nine-episode series is to think of it as a more upscale, darker version of the mindless shows of the past 60 years (eg “Gidget” or “Beverly Hills 90210”). There’s a dance-off competition (right out of “Hairspray”) and the campaign to become the homecoming king and queen. Also entertaining to watch are the scions of current Hollywood and fashion royalty- besides Homer Gere, Kaia Gerber who plays Bret’s classmate Susan is the daughter of supermodel Cindy Crawford.

If you’re looking to quench your thirst for some serious prestige television, look elsewhere. But if you do like “The Shards” you’re in luck—the set up is perfect for Season 2. Cowabunga.

Like this review? Follow me at “What Does Aug Think?” at acsntn.substack.com. Thank you!

Upon arriving, Tony promptly gets into trouble with the chef of the local greasy spoon (Antonio Benderas) who gives him the heave-ho. Luckily, the chef has a change of heart and allows Tony to bunk in his cottage—in exchange for working as a dishwasher in the restaurant. There he meets the foul-mouthed, coke-sniffing kitchen staff, including the womanizing sociopath Sal (an unforgettable Leo Woodall). Tony digs the camaraderie but proves totally hopeless in the kitchen: he tries his hand at opening an oyster and promptly cuts his wrist.

The chef takes him into his confidence one night and speaks of his storied past as a chef working in some of the world’s most renowned Michelin-started restaurants. Meanwhile, Tony seems to finally find his stride but another mishap occurs and he is soon out of a job. Or is he?

Anthony Bourdain became a beloved bad-boy figure in the cooking world; he was also a superb writer, raconteur and adventure traveler. This movie creates a past that is simply untrue: he didn’t go to Provincetown to win Nancy. He didn’t work at just one restaurant. There was no Sal, and the actual Tony Bourdain was not the innocent the film makes him seem.

Even more regretfully, Sessa lacks the spark we associate with the great Bourdain nor can the film communicate the reason for his lifelong passion for food. The rest of the cast comes off much better. Woodall (“White Lotus” and “One Day”) is spectacular as Sal, the foul-mouthed thug. So is doe-eyed Jones who is a ringer for the young Linda Ronstadt. And of course no one has aged as superbly as Banderas.

“Tony” in short is full of baloney. They should have called the film Kitchen Inconsequential. To paraphrase another cooking show, No, Chef.

Like this review? Follow me at “What Does Aug Think?” at acsntn.substack.com. Thank you!

The setting is the fictional beach resort of Torre Domizi, circa 1955. Teenager Marisa Balestreri, pregnant and abandoned by her faithless BF, is press-ganged into marriage with the “capable, honest, polite” Stelvio Ansaldo, who delivers bread to her family’s groceries. She miscarries, but the two go through with the wedding anyway, and eventually have a child of their own, Betta.

Marisa’s sister Emma marries—to a billionaire textile entrepreneur— and gives birth to a daughter Miriam. The two cousins Emma and Miriam become friends and spend summers at the Ansaldo beach house.

One summer night, the flirtatious Betta invites Miriam to join her at one of the wild bonfire parties on the beach. But the evening doesn’t end well. The girls are raped and suffocated and their bodies are left on the beach. Betta dies. Miriam miraculously escapes.

A rainstorm washes away all traces of blood. Townspeople rush to the beach when Betta’s body is discovered, trampling evidence. The small-town police chief has no experience handling such a grisly crime.

The murder tears a hole in both families’ lives. Berta’s parents are grief-stricken. Miriam, consumed with guilt, denies being on the beach at the time and her haughty grandmother won’t let the local carabanieri question her.

She eventually meets Leo De Maria, a tenderhearted drug dealer. Their love story — and Leo’s quest for vengeance on Miriam’s and Betta’s behalf — propel the rest of the novel.

While it’s not quite in the league of “False Witness” the non-fiction tale based on the Captain Jeffrey Mcdonald case (#iykyk or Google it), the tale is still gripping and very Italian—complete with inter-generational conflict, gossipy neighbors, Roman Catholic guilt, even a gay brother and a trans sister. All this melodrama needs is a libretto by Lucas Guadagnino and an engagement at the Metropolitan Opera House.

So get “All That is Left in Life,” the best-selling summer book you’ve been waiting for since summer began. 59 million Italians can’t be wrong. English translation by Antonella Lettiere. Ciao.

Like this review? Follow me at “What Does Aug Think?” at acsntn.substack.com. Thank you!