Podcasts

Woman Around Town’s Editor Charlene Giannetti and writers for the website talk with the women and men making news in New York, Washington, D.C., and other cities around the world. Thanks to Ian Herman for his wonderful piano introduction.

Marti Sichel

Tears and Terms of Endearment 

11/28/2016

When the movie Terms of Endearment came out in theaters in 1983, it was by all measures an incredibly successful film. Based on the book by Larry McMurtry and with ascreenplay by James L. Brooks, it featured a who’s who of award-winning actors, including Shirley MacLaine, Debra Winger, and Jack Nicholson. Now the story comes to a new home, 59E59 Theaters, for its first U.S. stage production.

Adapted for the stagve by Dan Gordon, Terms of Endearment tells the story of sweet Texas rose Emma, her critical and tough-as-nails mother, Aurora, and the men who lift them up and let them down.

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Molly Ringwald

The stage cast is full of familiar faces, headed up by the striking Molly Ringwald, the John Hughes muse who personified 80s teen culture in films like The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles. Here she puts on a hilariously snobbish New England accent and steely persona to become a woman who is at turns domineering, flirtatious, and sympathetic in the grief for all she has lost.

At first she seems completely unlikeable, almost to the point of being abusive in her criticism toward Emma, but at the story goes on and the years pass, she comes into focus as a woman who loves deeply but is also bridled by her expectations. The problem with being so critical about frivolous things is that when real criticism is deserved it doesn’t land with the impact it requires. It’s a complex role and Ringwald does it proud. But she doesn’t do it alone.

Jeb Brown plays the astronaut, Garrett, and he makes an instant impression on both the audience and Aurora. He’s an utter cad, always chasing after younger women and the next good time, but he’s also undeniably charming. His footloose and fancy-free philosophy couldn’t be more at odds with Aurora’s staid dignity. For every joke he cracks, no matter how flirtatious or fact-based, she has a reason to be doubtful. Yet when the two get together, doubt turns to delight. Between Brown’s charisma, Ringwald’s gravitas and their chemistry together, this is a production not to be missed.

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Hannah Dunne

Hannah Dunne, a familiar face to Mozart in the Jungle viewers, takes on the role of Aurora’s beleaguered daughter, Emma. Where Aurora wears silk, Emma opts for flannel. She hitches her post to Flap—a nickname Aurora cannot abide—a dismissive boy who becomes a dishonorable man, but that doesn’t stop them from having three kids together, kids that Emma cares for nearly singlehandedly while Flap is off gallivanting inappropriately with his university students.

The problem with Dunne’s Emma being so unflappable and willing to go without is that the performance requires a kind of subtlety that doesn’t quite come out—at least not farther back in the audience. She seems uniformly sweet, uniformly forgiving, even when she and her children have been done wrong. As for Flap, played by Denver Milord, there is little to recommend him. In the beginning, he comes off as a bit sexist and certainly inconsiderate, but things just get more unforgivable as time goes on.

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Jeb Brown and John C. Vennema

Director Michael Parva, who has worked with playwright Dan Gordon before, and set designer David L. Arsenault, have worked together to craft a graceful, flowing, nearly seamless production. However, for those who have never seen the 1983 film, the mother–daughter relationship is the entire story. You can sense Emma’s discontent with Flap, but not really get the full idea of just how much of a snake he really is. You can hear that Emma’s son Tommy’s anger at his mother is deep and hot, but not feel how terribly it stings.

Unfortunately, due to space and time constraints, there are some really powerful moments in the film that simply don’t happen in this version. It’s a disappointment, but not enough to keep from recommending this production, which can still make inspire laughs and move people to tears—as it did most of the audience judging by the sound of sniffles that filled the room. Jessica DiGiovanni as Patsy and the Nurse and John C. Vennema as Doctor Maise round out the cast, both of them lending depth and humor to their smaller but important parts. Vennema in particular plays things to full humorous effect.

Photos by Carol Rosegg
Top photo: Molly Ringwald and Hannah Dunne

Terms of Endearment
Directed by Michael Parva
Adapted by Dan Gordon
59E59 Theaters
Through December 11, 201

His Name is Gideon and You Don’t Want to Miss Him

11/23/2016

This is the time of year when many people take a moment to contemplate the things in life for which they are thankful. It may be a difficult thing for many people to do right now, what with the surplus of hate and fear that has heretofore barely been kept at bay now rearing its many ugly heads. The world seems a little darker than it was only a few weeks ago. That’s why here and now I’m thankful for Gideon Irving. His ever-evolving show, My Name is Gideon: I’m Probably Going to Die Eventually (now in its ninth version of the same first show) is a balm for what ails the psyche. There is magic in his work, and I don’t just mean the playing cards.

We are lucky to have people like Gideon, artists with big, wide-open hearts who can offer a respite from the dull ache of everyday life. He speaks sweetly and appears almost shy as he encourages his audience to follow him into a place warmed with fairy lights, folk songs, fresh-baked cookies, and surprises to delight and astonish. The feeling he exudes is one joyful whimsy, and the small dashes of Dadaist (non)sensibilities sprinkled liberally throughout surprise and delight. Just walking into the theater is an experience.

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Nearly every square inch of the Rattlestick Playwrights  Theater has been covered in mementos and props culled from Gideon’s life and previous performances. This is quite an achievement in stage design, especially considering that the stage was doubled in depth just for this show. it’s a treat for the eyes and as full of surprises as the performance itself. The attention to detail is remarkable.

Coming to his show is, as he said he hopes, like coming into his home. Gideon welcomes everyone on the stage afterward for a chat and to take a closer look at what he has going on, though I can’t really tell you much of what’s there because it would ruin the surprise. But know there are literally hundreds of interesting things to see and a handful of lovely projects you can sign up to be a part of.

As a performer, Gideon is unassuming but obviously insanely creative. He and his production team have created a lovely, intricate, wholly safe space for people to come and experience something different and quietly wonderful. He’s a talented songwriter, too, and his music is the kind that uplifts and helps you forget what you left behind on the outside. It was a breath of fresh air, a respite from the sadness and anger that some of us are feeling now like a constant ringing in the ears.

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For two hours, and more if you come early to check out the décor and stay afterward to talk, there is a chance for peace and calm. He’s also subtly brilliant at inspiration and motivation. Take, for instance, how he talks about his next planned project, for which he’s only just working out the details. It seems like an extraordinary goal, but he breaks it down in a way that makes it seem like just a matter of preparation and taking the first step.

There isn’t much I can say to describe what happens in the show—again, even if it wasn’t requested I wouldn’t tell you for fear of ruining the surprise—but I can say that it was something I will remember for a long time to come. Take a chance on this unknown. You won’t regret it.

Photos by Maria Baranova

My Name Is Gideon: I’m Probably Going To Die, Eventually
Rattlestick Playwrights Theater
224 Waverly Place
Limited run through December 11, 2016
Tuesdays – Saturday’s at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday’s at 3 p.m., exceptions are December 3rd and 10th at 7 p.m.  Dark nights are November 30 and December 7.
Tickets can be purchased by visiting Ovation Tix  or calling (866) 811- 4111.

Doubling-Down on Discrimination at The Flea

11/01/2016

The Flea Theatre has been, in my experience, a home to interesting, thought-provoking, high-quality work that challenges and creates in ways that other theaters simply don’t. Even if I didn’t necessarily like what I saw, there was always something to admire about every one of their shows. Until now. A.R. Gurney’s new plays, Ajax and Squash, the last shows to appear at The Flea’s White Street address, are a one-two punch of bigotry and disappointment.

Each play is an hour long, and both hours dragged on as I sat cringing in my seat. In Ajax, a disruptive student is humored by the adjunct professor, who allows him to undermine her authority, flout class policy, and flirt incessantly. The student somehow writes a play in a matter of days, if not hours, addressing Homer’s Ajax as an American soldier with PTSD after fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. He pleads and finally persuades the adjunct, a wannabe actress, to play his lover.

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 Rachel Lin

This is the point at which she literally lets down her hair out of a bun and ceases wearing glasses. It’s neither subtle nor creative. The student’s play is acclaimed, but it’s not good enough for him, so he changes the Greek to Jews and the Trojans to Palestinians. Then Jewish moneymen and university directors pull the funding as well as pulling strings to make sure it never gets performed again.

It’s trite, it’s predictable, it’s full of cliché’ and it has elements straight out of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. This is a terrible show, and it’s difficult to say if the hackneyed script or the anti-Semitism was more offensive.

The second show, Squash, again deals with a professor of ancient Greek literature. It opens in a locker room after he has finished playing the titular game and a male student approaches. The professor gets naked in front of the student, who has come with the excuse of handing in a paper early, but admits that really he just wanted to ogle the muscular teacher. And somehow this is the beginning of a friendship?

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Rodney Richardson and Dan Amboyer

The professor continues to talk to the student, who invites him out for dinner and drinks at a local bar. The professor tries to keep the talk professional, but is obviously uncomfortable and still continues the relationship. The student asks him to come back to his place. The professor has a wife and kids at home, so of course not. But then he starts questioning and feels open to experimenting—at this point his wife has taken the kids and gone to her mother’s house—but apparently this student who was so out and proud is no longer gay because…he’s met a woman.

Once again, the writing was full of clichés and types rather than fleshed-out characters. The only plot element that couldn’t be seen from a mile away was the gay student’s change to hetero-normalcy because…seriously? All it takes for a gay man to go straight is the love of the right woman?

Though the staging and costumes for Squash were fabulously 1970s fleek, the script was again fraught with stereotypes, misguided ideas, and stale dialogue. I look forward to see what The Flea has planned for its new space, but if it’s anything like this I will mourn for what was.

Photos by Joan Marcus

Top photo: Ben Lorenz and Olivia Jampol

For Kids and Completists, Doctor Who: The American Adventures

10/24/2016

Spaceships, alien plots, clueless humans and one mysterious man in black: These are the things that we expect when we hear the name Doctor Who, and that’s what we get in six small bites in the new book Doctor Who: The American Adventure. This is not the first Doctor Who book, nor will it be the last, but this is one that would probably be best appreciated by the Doctor’s younger fans or those who simply must have all they can get of the Time Lord. For the uninitiated, some history.

More than a decade ago the classic British TV show Doctor Who rebooted after a hiatus of nearly two decades. Whereas the series was a cultural phenomenon in the UK, sending generations of children to hide behind sofas and watch with one eye closed, the show had been largely unknown in the United States. Prior to the new series, the old series played on some PBS outlets throughout the 1970s and ‘80s. Other than an only moderately successful film in the 1990s, the franchise was, for the most part, a thing of the past.

That all changed in 2003 when the BBC decided to regenerate the series, which gained massive popularity thanks to showrunner Russell T. Davies’ innovative new premises, a tall, dark and handsome ninth Doctor, played by Christopher Eccleston, and spunky new companion played by popular UK singer Billie Piper.

Though Eccleston only stayed on for one series, his replacement, David Tennant, cemented the new incarnation’s place in pop culture. Fans in the United States found ways of watching for three series before the show was finally picked up by the SyFy Channel, and now it’s broadcast simultaneously in the UK and in the US on BBC America. We are now on the twelfth Doctor — or thirteenth depending on who you ask — and the show is even more popular stateside than in its home country. Thus it makes sense that the newest Who publication tells a handful of short stories about The Doctor solving problems in the contiguous 48.

There are six new stories in this new children’s collection, three from the Doctor’s perspective and three from the POV of the human witnesses. The witness stories come first in the collection, but they’re not a great start. The stories are quite basic, short, and without the kind of emotional depth that keeps viewers hooked. In order to make it easy enough for kids to understand, I suppose, the stories lack the kind of unfolding thought processes that make the show so enjoyable. In short, they contain a character we love but don’t really capture what it is about that character that makes us love them.

dr-whoThis first trio of shorts take place in the 1800s and very early 1900s in places that could amuse younger readers or get them to ask questions about the Oregon Trail or Gold Rush prospecting. Sadly, there is no companion role, which is how the show connects emotionally with its audience. The humans in these stories aren’t too involved. They accept what’s happening without an intermediate to grease the psychological wheels or make the Doctor see things from the human perspective. They are simple, being as they’re written for kids, but oftentimes kids can be more perceptive and deep-thinking than we give them credit for. It’s entirely possible they could do with a little more than what The America Adventures has on offer.

In the second trio the Doctor is the main character, meaning they’re a little more inline with what we could expect from the franchise. In these we do get the Doctor’s perspective, get to understand Why he’s doing what he’s doing, even if we don’t ever get to understand the How of it. These stories still lack in the emotional side, but they’re certainly enough story to appeal to those youngsters who may be a little too young for the show but want to know what’s up with that show their older siblings or parents are watching.

The book isn’t a beginner’s guide because there are some things a reader needs to know in advance, like the fact that the Doctor has two hearts and only makes it to all of these different places and times thanks to his (surprisingly underrepresented) TARDIS time machine/space ship. That’s something that the aforementioned parents or siblings would do well to explain to young readers. For adults, The American Adventures isn’t essential reading, but for the young and curious it will be a fun diversion and excursion into the wide and wild universe of Doctor Who.

Doctor Who: The American Adventure
By Justin Richards

Cold, Melancholy, Entrancing: The Second Winter

10/12/2016

Like the pitiful bird trapped in barbed wire in the opening page, so too are the characters in Craig Larsen’s The Second Winter inextricably bound by forces they do not understand and over which they have no control. It is a cold and brutal tale — inspired by real people and events — that captures the desperation and urgency of survival in 1942 Europe, as well as the incredibly dangerous divide between the haves and have-nots. It crosses time and space to follow a woman who briefly reunites with family in a recently divided Berlin in order to take possession of only half-understood family secrets.

The story begins with Polina, a beautiful young half-Jewish girl from Krakow who finds her world utterly changed one dark moment. Without sanctuary or safety even among what family remains to her, she attempts to flee to a better life but ends up falling right into the wolves’ den. From that point she ceases to be a person, really. She ceases even to have an identity beyond what is given to her by the men who control her. Like so many millions she is lost to history, and like so many others all that remains is her name on the back of a photograph.

Larsen also found inspiration in Guy de Maupassant’s The Necklace, and here too there is a piece of jewelry that, like Polina, passes from hand to hand without care for its past or its future. Those it enthralls, who want to possess it and jealously guard it, find nothing they expect from it.

While Polina is a catalyst within the story, much of it revolves around Frederik, a once-wealthy son of an aristocratic family who, due to his boorish, sometimes psychopathic tendencies, has been rejected by his family. He works as a farmhand to another wealthy family, along with his son, Oskar, and daughter, Amalia. To make ends meet, Frederik works with the Danish underground smuggling Jews and other “undesirables” out of Denmark.

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This is by no means an altruistic decision; he’s in it for the money and has very little regard for the lives he’s moving around. One cold night he discovers among one family’s possessions a veritable treasure trove of jewelry, including the aforementioned necklace and decides to relieve them of their precious cargo. The theft sets off a sequence of events that make him question everything in his life he has ever valued and everyone he has ever abused and discarded.

Larsen’s language isn’t complicated, but the story is full of fleshed-out, emotionally complex characters and scenes that evoke a range of emotions. He excels at capturing tone and building tension; once you’re into the main plot it’s hard to put the book down. You can practically see the dirt from the sty on Frederik’s clothes, feel the cold driving nails into Oskar’s hands, feel the hot anguish Amalia suffers at the hands of the family’s wealthy landlady as well as in her own home. It’s a time that’s so emotionally charged, but this perspective is different from so many that we see.

It certainly isn’t light reading, but it is worthwhile reading. Sometimes readers keep turning pages to escape into a different world. This is the kind of read that leads you into a place of empathy. This isn’t to say that every unlikeable character has a redeeming feature, but those who may seem beyond understanding and undeserving of compassion are the ones who, as can happen in real life, be the ones most in need of it.

The non-chronological order may confuse at first, but it all works itself out once a few critical puzzle pieces slip into place. The only place it falls short is that it ends with questions unanswered and fates unknown. But then, these wouldn’t be the only lives to end that way that winter.

The Second Winter
Craig Larsen

These Golden Girls Never Lose Their Luster 

10/08/2016

It bodes well for an evening’s theater when the audience spontaneously bursts into song, not once, but twice before the show even begins. But that’s what happened at Shady Pines Entertainment’s That Golden Girls Show! The crowd came ready to be entertained and they were unquestionably satisfied. The puppet parody — though arguably more of an homage with all the care that was clearly put into it — takes everything beloved about the classic ‘80s comedy and packs it into 90 witty minutes of sarcasm-laden shenanigans.

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For the uninitiated: Sexpot Blanche owns a house in Miami that she shares with three housemates — dim-bulb Midwesterner Rose, tall and husky-voiced Dorothy, and Dorothy’s spunky Sicilian mother, Sophia. They’re an oddly matched group but somehow they manage to work out all of their diverse problems with friendly ribbing and a never-ending supply of cheesecake. For the purposes of this production, we also meet Dorothy’s no-good, two-timing, sleazy ex-husband, Stan, who has suddenly come into a small fortune but with a slightly problematic caveat.

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That Golden Girls Show! is split into a series of vignettes, much like the sections between commercial breaks — complete with incidental music —that follow all of the characters through their disparate storylines. There’s a lot going on, but creator Jonathan Rockefeller has done a marvelous job of keeping it all cohesive and easy to follow, as well as pitch-perfect. It’s also brilliant how he has managed to keep every character’s “voice” intact; they would be instantly recognizable even if we couldn’t see Joel Gennari’s beautifully designed and constructed puppet stand-ins or the fabulously recreated sets courtesy of David Goldstein.

Actor Michael LaMasa was completely delightful in the role of Dorothy. He utterly captured her posture and vocal cadence, as did Emmanualle Zeesman in the role of the wisecracking Sophia. Cat Greenfield’s Blanche got the best over-the-low-cut-top “costume changes” as well as the most overtly physical gags, and Arlee Chadwick as Rose got the silliest alliterative lines (a complex discussion about vaguely Nordic-named appliances and delicacies was impressively free of tied tongues), but the Dorothy/Sophia dynamic really stood out among the group.

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In a Playbill letter to the audience, Rockefeller muses that there’s no way to “truly do justice to the four wonderful performers who played the characters on the show,” but he did a fabulous job of it. The puppets are great in that they can go a little more “out there” than people could, but it’s a credit to the original creators that they made such lovable, timeless, inspiring (in their own way) characters that the team behind this show had such great material to work with. Their hearts were true, they gave us pals to cherish, and I’m confident that if you’re a fan of the original you’ll love what That Golden Girls Show! has to offer.

Photos by Russ Rowland

Top photo: Arlee Chadwick as Rose, Michael LaMasa as Dorothy Emmanuelle, Zeesman as Sophia and Cat Greenfield as Blanche

That Golden Girls Show!
Playing at the DR2  Theatre
103 E. 15th Street
Through December 11, 2016

Occupation: Dragonslayer Has Heart, Lacks Polish

09/17/2016

If there’s one sure-fire way to reinvigorate a stalled conversation, it’s bringing up something about 9/11. Like the Kennedy assassination in the 60s, everyone who was old enough to remember knows exactly where they were and what they were doing that day. For many of us it’s still as clear in our minds as if it were yesterday, and the stories are vivid and full of emotion. This is why I had high hopes going into the new Isle of Shoals production, Occupation: Dragonslayer, a musical that takes place in a small diner in the Financial District on Christmas Eve, 2002. That’s also when the musical was first presented to an audience, though not in the form it takes today.

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Steve Walsh and Cecilia Vaicels

Conceived and created by Bryan Williams (music, lyrics, co-author) and Lance Hewitt (co-author) shortly after the 2001 attack, the musical focuses on a disparate group of lonely souls trying to scrape by — some financially, others emotionally — after a year of trying to come to grips with the loss, the devastation, and the arduous process of picking up the pieces. The diner is soon to be demolished and so this evening is something of a last hurrah for the regulars as the staff contemplates what the future holds. When a stranger with a memory blank walks in the door dressed like Santa, he sparks off conversation with each person in the room, bringing gifts out of his Santa sack for every one and listening as they share their stories about what the holiday means to them and what it’s been like since that day when so many lost so much.

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Cait Kelly

The story behind the musical is one of personal loss harnessed for the sake of catharsis. Director Stephen Ryan was a rescue and recovery worker at “The Pile.” He lost friends and colleagues who had run into the towers to rescue civilians before the buildings came down. Writing Occupation: Dragonslayer was a way to pay homage not only to the people who lived, worked and died there, but also to try to remind people of the feeling that settled over the city in the months following 9/11. “New York was indeed a kinder, gentler place…what we actually began to notice was how many of our fellow New Yorkers were in need of just a friendly word. And we began to connect.”

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Theodore Errig, Ruby Spryte Balsamo, and Benjamin Errig

There are some really great voices in the cast, including Cait Kelly as Jenny, Kimberly Bello as Mara, Steffen Whorton as Chris the Dragonslayer and Steve Walsh, who received surprisingly little stage time considering the quality of his contributions as both Gil the haunted construction worker on the Pile and Duffy the churlish firefighter only in it for the government pension. The three kids who appear — Ruby Spryte Balsamo, Benjamin Erring, and Theodore Errig — are incredibly delightful and harmonious as three cheeky siblings forced to go caroling with their somewhat military-minded, tramping-for-Jesus mother.

Unfortunately, due to a lack of microphones or a misbalanced sound board, a lot of those voices had to fight to be heard. Not all succeeded. Perhaps that’s why the production never seemed to entirely come together. The characters are all familiar: the line cook who dreams of opening a great restaurant, the poor little rich girl, the serial bachelorette, the waitress who dreams of the stage, the eccentric older lady in tattered furs. It’s a lot of cast, and though the production is a full two hours long, it feels like running through a list of archetypes checking off those present rather than watching one or two really develop as characters. The overall effect was to make the story seem drawn-out and without focus.

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Steffen Whorton, Kimberly Bello, and John Mervini 

Similarly, among the abundant musical numbers were several that didn’t feel like they helped move the story along at all. Again, this could be chalked up to being unable to hear all of the words, but they simply didn’t land with any kind of emotional force. Those that did, however, did so well. In particular, the songs “Absence,” “The Girl in the Mirror,” “The Pile,” and “Learn to Say Goodbye” felt true and the singers emoted powerfully in their moments. Likewise, the songs that brought the entire cast onstage simultaneously contained just the kind of classic spirit-lifting Broadway harmonies that bring the applause. Where the story really faltered was when the supernatural element kicks in toward the end. By making that turn, certain elements just didn’t make sense. Certain inconsistencies became apparent and the characters’ issues may have been better dealt with on a more uniformly corporeal plane.

It’s clear that a lot of love went into putting this production together, from inception to performance, but it just misses the mark. It can be stiff at times, the characters somewhat generic, and the fact that it takes place in 2002 in the Financial District is mostly irrelevant. Yet for what it is, a labor of love by those who were there, it says a lot about what they experienced and how, even 15 years later, the memories of those we lost can haunt us.

Top photo: L to R: Steffen Whorton and John Mervini
Photos by Maria Baranova

High Marks for Miss Stevens

09/16/2016

If you are among those who have seen their teenage years come and go you know that growing up, like breaking up, is hard to do. In a way they’re akin; maturing is breaking away from what you once were in order to become what you need to be to survive the rest of your life. And because this is such a profound experience — usually comprising many little disappointments, tragedies, and heartbreaks as much as victories and revelations big and small — it’s fertile ground for good storytelling. Such is the case with Miss Stevens, a road trip movie about growing up.

Acclaimed stage actress Lily Rabe is the titular character, Rachel Stevens, the unwitting chaperone to a trio of teenage dramatists — Billy (Timothée Chalamet), Margot (Lili Reinhart) and Sam (Anthony Quintal) — en route to a statewide acting competition. At the onset all of them fit neatly into pretty standard stereotypes: the goodie-two-shoes drama queen, the dark and brooding artist, the sassy gay minority friend. Over the course of the film, however, as they make awkward conversation in their very un-school-like atmosphere, all four of them experience awkward self-realizations, a sure sign maturing is taking place.

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Anthony Quintal and Lili Reinhart

Clichés wouldn’t be cliché if they hadn’t earned the designation. Screenwriters Jordan Horowitz and Julia Hart play with one that’s surprisingly common despite being so highly taboo. In the immortal words of David Lee Roth, Billy is “hot for teacher.” It isn’t made explicit and it doesn’t need to be, though it’s certainly alluded to in conversation between Stevens and another chaperone, Walter, played by Rob Huebel. Walter is cheeky and flirtatious and oddly the more “grown up” of the two. He seems to not have a care in the world, but that’s because he has already made a decision about how to be (emotionally detached) so he doesn’t have to get involved and doesn’t have to think about it. He’s kind of a jerk, but he knows it and he owns it, which is why his character is actually really great. He’s kind of the anti-Stevens — immature on the outside but with his life secretly figured out.

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Lily Rabe and Rob Huebel

As Stevens, Rabe does an excellent job of playing every interaction between the two of them with ambivalence and hesitation. Not every student crushes on a teacher, enough do to make it a trope. In this case it makes the scenes between Rabe and Chalamet very realistically uncomfortable. Billy is tall, brooding and clearly intelligent, which gives him an air of maturity that his baby face belies. She’s wound tight with concern, and rightfully so. Whenever he starts to send out feelers she shoots them down. When she does finally break down, it isn’t how you might expect. But in that moment she changes from a struggling, heartsick kid to a woman who has been hurt and emerged stronger for it. She also understands that Billy is just a kid who’s trying hard but in the wrong way to become an adult. It’s as if seeing how not to do it, she figures out how it’s supposed to be done.

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 Timothee Chalamet and Lily Rabe

This is also a lovely directorial debut for Julia Hart. She makes interesting directorial choices, like keeping her main character in soft focus or lingering on one face to catch its reactions rather than always showing who’s speaking. These kinds of techniques get us inside the minds of her characters, right where she wants us. Economical choices like those, like subtle uses of light and shadow, are what separate Miss Stevens from other films in the genre. Much like the cliché, this is the kind of formula film that proves the formula’s worth. It doesn’t get precious or rely on popular music cues to explain emotions; it’s all there on the characters’ faces.

Miss Stevens is the perfect kind of movie for dissection by classes filled with kids just like the kids in the movie. It neatly demonstrates how to write characters who reveal their true natures by their choice of monologue, how to present symbolism and foreshadowing, and how to evolve a character in the span of a scant 90 minutes. If the whole thing wraps up tidily in the end, it’s easy to feel like the characters earned that ending.

Miss Stevens opens September 16, 2016.

Photo credit: The Orchard
Top photo: From left to right, Timothee Chalamet, Lily Rabe, Anthony Quintal and Lili Reinhart.

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