On this week’s ‘Not My Job’ segment of the NPR quiz show Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!, the guest contestant is Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.  Her conversation with host Peter Sagal is a total, enthusiastic and even surprising joy – though they don’t talk about the law (albeit do touch on the Supreme Court), but mostly discuss her great love of theater and her (then) upcoming walk-on appearance in the Broadway musical “& Juliet.”  But the highlight may be when she talks about being in a college production at Yale of the musical “Little Shop of Horrors” with panelist Mo Rocca.  Followed by a story about doing a scene in acting class there with Matt Damon.  It’s all wonderful.
 
This is the full Wait, Wait… broadcast, but you can jump directly to the “Not My Job” segment, it starts around the 18:15 mark.

​At the time, I was a little sorry that the poster had as many years as "16."  Little did I know how paltry that number would be.

A couple of fun tidbits about that first production in 1952.  One of the actors in the play was Richard Attenborough, who of course went on to great fame as an actor (in such movies as The Great Escape and Jurassic Park), but even greater fame as a director, winning an Oscar for Gandhi.

And also, when Agatha Christie signed a contract to give away the movie rights, it was under the condition that no movie of it would be made until after the play closed.  That was 72 years ago.  So far...

This is SO wonderful – for the brilliance of the idea, the cleverness of how it builds, the participants they got (all of them major actors who’ve played Hamlet in the West End), and finally being able to payoff the joke with a great punchline and a huge surprise.  It’s from eight years ago, and I’m not exactly sure what it was for, but it seems like perhaps a benefit for the Royal Shakespeare Company, or a TV special called “Shakespeare Live.” 

I wish I could find the full sketch, but the BBC hasn't posted it yet, despite many commenters begging for it).  However, I’ll keep looking  -- and I do have a bonus video below -- but this suffices nicely, and a joy to have, with the writer who came up with the idea, Gregory Doran, explaining how it all came together.

I wish the freeze frame doesn't give away the joke at the end, but that's how it goes.  I'll just note that it's not the full joke, since what's specifically said is the final punch line.

Back on November 11, 2016, I wrote an article here about a world premiere play I saw in Culver City called Vicuña by Jon Robin Baitz.  It was probably the strangest experience I've had seeing a play.

What made it so other-worldly?  Well, first, the play was a political satire about, as I wrote at the time, "a blustering real estate tycoon and reality TV star who—to everyone’s surprise—becomes a major party’s nominee for President."  And second, look at the date.  I'd seen the play the night before -- which was only two days after the 2016 presidential election when Trump was elected to the White House.

The play was very funny -- though there was almost no laughter in the theater.  It was eerie.  I should add, too, that it was not a comedy, and takes a dark turn in the second act, making the evening all the more chilling.  I don't explain why in the article, not wanting to give anything away.  But since enough time has passed, I'll include a brief mention of it all at the end of this piece for those interested.

I thought it was timely to repeat the original article about the play.  For the longest time, Trump's win killed the show's future life.  The comedy and satire were too raw.  However, it finally did get a production in Washington, D.C. -- to deserved good reviews.  I don't know about productions since then, but enough time has passed that it would be very effective today.  In fact, it film adaptation would be timely for one of the streaming services.  And it would be inexpensive to make, since the set locations are very limited.

So, here's that original piece.  Written three days after Trump was elected, seen the night before, two days after.  A wonderful political satire, where no one in the theater was laughing.  As I said, I'll update the play's plot a bit after the photo at the end.

And here's the very brief update about the plot which I left out of the original telling of the story.

I left it out, in part because I didn't want to give away any of the plot.  But also in part because it was just the fictional story of the play.  Not real life.

So, for people who do want to know the update --

Though what happened onstage was merely a fictional plot, with the passage of time, it turned out to be eerily prescient.  Because the "dark turn" I reference is that this buffoonish political candidate in the first act turns out, in the second act, to have a deeply racist side that grows from there and manifests itself in a fascist vision of arrests and deportations.

The audience wasn't laughing out of concern from knowing the future, but only because of what had just happened in the immediate present.  Yet, given that we were all only reacting to the election two days before, consider what I wrote above, that one of the characters in the play is sent on a mission to get the joke candidate to drop out of the race before destroying the party, and possibly the country.

What Jon Robin Baitz wrote was funny, rich and deep -- and went into totally fictional areas that I suspect he wishes today he was only imagining.  

Last year, a one-man show played in Los Angeles, called Alex Edelman:  Just for Us.  It got raves reviews, and friends who saw it said it was great.  I'd heard of it -- it began off-Broadway, and then transferred to Broadway, again to rave reviews.  But I didn't see it.  For several reasons, most notably because I'm still not going to the theater as much as before the pandemic.

I was sorry I didn't go -- but thrilled when I saw that HBO recorded the show, and is airing it now.  And for my taste, it was as terrific as its reputation. 

It’s very funny, but it’s not a comedy act.  Rather, it’s a long, true story (with him playing many characters) about the night he decided to go to a meeting of neo-Nazis in New York City, but with a great many, long diversions into him talking about his life growing up in a very Ashkenazi Jewish household, anti-Semitism and more.
 
I had heard Alex Edelman interviewed at length on the Naked Lunch podcast which I'd posted here, and he was funny and interesting.  So, I was very glad when I saw HBO had recorded the show.  (What I didn't realize until I tracked down the podcast, is that he briefly appeared on another of the Naked Lunch podcast.  That was the one with guest Hannah Einbinder, who starred in the excellent HBO Max series Hacks.  She and Edelman were dating at the time (and may still be, as far as I know -- or not), and host Phil Rosenthal called him up during the interview.)
 
The Just for Us special is available On Demand, and HBO will be airing it again.  At the moment, I counted 10 airings ahead. It runs about 85 minutes.
 
If you do decide to watch, my only recommendation is that Edelman talks very fast (which he actually addresses, having ADHD), so I put on close captions so I could check if I missed a laugh.  It’s not necessary, but it definitely helped.

If you're interested, whether before watching the special to help decide if you want to watch, or afterwards if you enjoyed the special, here's the link for hour-long interview he did for the Naked Lunch podcast.
 
This is the minute-long trailer, which will give you a very brief idea of the show, though it’s much more diverse and textured than this.

In 1995, Jacques D’Amboise received the Kennedy Center Honor.  D’Amboise was a ballet dancer and choreographer, and I suspect is not extremely well-known today.  But then most ballet dancers aren’t as well-known as movie stars and singers even at their height. 

But I post this for two reasons – but one above all.  It’s because the first number of the tribute is a superbly choreographed and fun dance to the tune of Cole Porter’s “Let’s Misbehave”.  Oddly, the video cuts out Walter Cronkite’s introduction of the performers, which is a huge shame, since the two of them are his children, Charlotte and Christopher D’Amboise.  Christopher has had a successful career as a dancer, choreographer and director, and Charlotte is a highly-accomplished dancer and actress who’s received two Tony nominations on Broadway.  (In fact, I’ve posted a glorious video of her in the Kennedy Center Honors tribute to Mary Martin, where she recreated the number she was then-performing in the revue Bob Fosse’s Broadway, superbly singing and soaring in “I’m Flying” from Peter Pan.)  The two siblings are absolutely great in the number, but the best part is whenever the camera cuts back to their father -- with the biggest beaming smile you can imagine.  Let me put it this way, I don’t particularly like dancing…and I absolutely love this.  It’s great.  And it’s topped by the glow from the father watching them honor him.  Very nice as this full video is, this number and that reaction alone are the reason I’m posting this.
 
But I do also like the finale number in the segment – which is a lot of fun for a reason you’ll discover – but I specifically like it, too, because it’s sung by a performer I like a great deal, Judy Kuhn.

Okay, as a bonus, here's the performance I referred to above, the re-creation of the “I’m Flying” number from Peter Pan with Charlotte D'Amboise.  Notable for me is that they do the full number, which includes my favorite part, the great (and rarely seen) Flying Ballet at the end, which I dearly love.  And you'll note the reaction from the audience here -- and these are all sophisticate adults in tuxedos and ball gowns, not a child in sight.  And above all that, as great as Charlotte D'Amboise is here -- can you imagine the pressure (and joy) of her performing this in front of Mary Martin?!  

UPDATE:  And something I never noticed before, for all the many times I've watched this, but did finally after having posted this:  at the very end, a moment before the video cuts off, you'll see applauding her and joyously beaming in the audience, a man at the 5:17 mark wearing glasses -- her father, Jacques D'Amboise.