Harrison is moving into the big leagues, in terms of both info and pattern-mixing. Photograph by Nicole Wilder for ABC.
Well. With just one episode left in season two, we finally find out who the mole is—and I can honestly say I did not see that coming. Then again, that’s because the mole turned out to be a character I thought was killed off in season one, so maybe I haven’t been paying close enough attention. To the recap!
After FLOTUS’s announcement last week that El Prez had been stamping his presidential seal on another woman’s envelope, Cyrus is desperately trying to do damage control. He holds a press conference in which all he says, over and over, that the state of El Prez’s marriage is a “private matter.” He’s filled El Prez and Olivia in on the situation, and once they actually get out of bed, she’s in fixer mode, but El Prez tells her to stand down. “I made a decision, and I will deal with it,” he says. He wants to handle everything on his own, and she seems charmed by his forcefulness, and they’re both as giddy as adolescents. It’s kind of cute.
Mellie, meanwhile, is interviewing a fixer of her own, a creepy guy who looks like a less attractive Tom Cruise. He asks her for total honesty, but she tells him she’s going to do whatever is in her best interest—which includes keeping the name of El Prez’s mistress to herself for the time being.
Cyrus goes nuclear on Ira Glass Lite for doing the interview with FLOTUS, and James is all, How many scoops of the century do you want me to give up? “This was my big break,” he says, and Cyrus laughs in his face and calls him naive. He brutally says that FLOTUS got IGL that job to hurt both him and El Prez, and James is too stupid to understand that. He leaves IGL alone, eyes full of tears. Divorce him, IGL!
Olivia gets back to HQ, where the Dream Team are still trying to figure out who the mole is. Olivia first goes to her safe to make sure the memory card from the Cytron voting machine is still inside, and Abby finally admits to Jerk Jeremy that she stole it, to which he’s like, Duh. They think the mole is VP Sally for, like, one minute, but then hacked into her computer and saw someone logged on looking at Albatross files while she was doing a televised press conference, so they know it’s not her. JJ, who announces he’s part of the team now, keeps making cracks about how the President “banged someone,” and everyone else has awkward face. Harrison tries to convince Olivia she needs to let him take care of her. “You’re not the fixer here—you’re the problem,” he says. Instead, Olivia, who’s weirdly calm and happy, just tells him to focus on the mole investigation.
Next up on the list of things giving Cyrus a hernia: El Prez’s announcement that he is not going to seek another term (which at this point seems like a pretty good idea). Cyrus appeals to him, and when that doesn’t work he tries Olivia. He meets her in their favorite park and tells her if VP Sally (who pops up briefly to misquote the bible and verbally spar with Cyrus) gets her claws into the Republican party their rights will be impinged upon. “If I really thought this is what he wanted, I would fight to the death to give it to him,” he says. But Il Papa is unmoved. As she leaves, Ballard’s creepy boss comes up. Turns out Ballard’s whole mission was to get between El Prez and Olivia, and now his boss wants Cyrus to show El Prez the tape of Olivia and Ballard having kitchen sex. He also wants Cyrus to have no further contact with Charlie, whom he says used be one of his guys.
A curtain by Alexander Schervashidze after Pablo Picasso from “The Blue Train.” Image courtesy of the National Gallery of Art.
There are a wealth of contradictions underpinning the National Gallery’s extravagant new show, “Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, 1909-1929: When Art Danced With Music.” The show explores the incomparable legacy of Serge Diaghilev, a pioneer of the avant-garde and a man who shaped the way ballet would evolve throughout the 20th century but who also freely described himself as one “with a complete absence of talent.” This is a show focused on Diaghilev, but there is very little of him in it, given that he didn’t dance or sketch costumes or choreograph ballets or compose music. A sense of him emerges only fleetingly, as a mustache-twirling impresario curating art in a thoroughly fascinating way.
Another contradiction: Despite the nomenclature, the Ballets Russes never performed in Russia. Before 1909, when the troupe was formed, Diaghilev (who was independently wealthy) had worked as an art critic and curator and had produced concerts and operas in St. Petersburg and in Paris, where the first Ballets Russes production was staged. His choreographer was Michel Fokine; his principal dancers included Vasily Nijinsky and Anna Pavlova. For the next 20 years, the company traveled around the world, presenting more than half of its productions in Britain and collaborating with talents as diverse as Igor Stravinsky and Coco Chanel. It is impossible to imagine modern dance being the same without it.
“Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes” is a reimagining of an exhibition that ran at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum in 2010, and while the Washington exhibition has more of a visual art bent to it than the British show, it’s still an unexpectedly broad undertaking for the National Gallery. The institution literally raised its roof in order to display two key items: a backdrop painted by Natalia Goncharova for a 1926 production of The Firebird, and a curtain designed by Picasso in 1924 for The Blue Train, both of which are more than 30 feet tall. Although the two items are imposing, visually, they feel curiously flat taken out of context. Like cubism, the show deconstructs ballet down to its composite parts and presents them as individual masterpieces, when by their very nature they were designed to play as part of an ensemble.
The same goes for the costumes, which seem to make up the majority of items on display. Most are extraordinary, both in their construction and their heritage, but to see them displayed on mannequins is only a small part of the story. The exhibition includes video footage of modern reconstructions of Ballets Russes performances featuring companies such as the Joffrey Ballet and the New York City Ballet, but the two-dimensional projections don’t quite evoke the sense of ferocious energy and sweat that live dance does. The heaviness and intensity of the early Ballets Russes costumes in particular provoke a hundred practical questions about their nature in performance that remain unanswered. As works of art, the costumes pale in comparison to their elegantly rendered designs, including the gorgeous drawings and watercolors by Alexandre Benois and Léon Bakst.
It’s probably safe to assume that if Oprah Winfrey, the high priestess of all media, is abandoning her 15-year-long movie role hiatus (we’re not counting you, Bee Movie) to appear in a film, then said film is going to be a big deal. Lee Daniels, the director who snagged an Oscar nomination for 2009’s Precious, is the man behind The Butler, an upcoming biopic based on the life of a White House butler who served eight different presidents during his tenure.
If The Butler merely starred Forest Whitaker (an Academy Award winner for The Last King of Scotland) as Cecil Gaines and Winfrey as his wife, Gloria, buzz would be sufficiently clamorous, but the film also features the kind of all-star cast usually reserved for Steven Spielberg biopics. Robin Williams plays Dwight D. Eisenhower, Liev Schrieber portrays Lyndon B. Johnson, and John Cusack tackles Richard Nixon, while James Marsden plays JFK and Minka Kelly his wife, Jackie Kennedy. Alan Rickman also stars as Ronald Reagan, with Jane Fonda playing Nancy. Rounding out the ensemble cast are Terrence Howard, Vanessa Redgrave, Melissa Leo, Cuba Gooding Jr., Alex Pettyfer, Mariah Carey, and Lenny Kravitz, the last two of whom also appeared in Precious.
The Butler is scheduled for an October release (just in time for Oscar season, we note), but the first trailer has just been released, and you can watch it below. Who makes the best President? Let us know in the comments.
Try some of Hemingway’s favorite drinks at the Kennedy Center on Thursday. Image via Shutterstock.
Thursday, May 9
BURLESQUE: Apparently nerd burlesque is now a thing—first came last week’s Joss Whedon-themed show, and now Bier Baron brings you Star Wars vs. Star Trek burlesque. The show tries to settle once and for all: Who’s hotter, slave Leia or Captain Kirk? $10 online or $12 at the door. 7:30 PM.
DRINK: Ernest Hemingway is one of history’s most celebrated drinkers, and took his craft to Pamplona, Paris, and, of course, Cuba. The Kennedy Center takes you around the world in couple of sips as a tie-in with the Washington Ballet’s performance of The Sun Also Rises. You’ll get to try the Jack Rose, martinis, mojitos, and a few other craft cocktails stirred up by Philip Greene of the Museum of the American Cocktail. Tickets ($55) are available online. 9 PM.
Friday, May 10
ART: Sculptor Noah Williams takes those bottle caps, seashells, and knickknacks you throw away and turns them into beautiful art. Check out his exhibit, “One Man’s Trash,” is at the Art League through June 3.* Free.
COMEDY: You’ve probably been to a few standup comedy shows, but do you know what goes through a comedian’s head while you’re laughing (or not) at them? At “You, Me, Them, Everybody Presents,” five local comedians will perform and then sit down for interviews about the process afterward. Maybe you’ll think twice before you heckle them next time. Tickets ($10) are available online. 8 PM.
DANCE: Black Cat hosts Freak Me Friday, which gives you a chance to let off all the steam you’ve accumulated—or at least get sweaty instead of drenched in the rain we’ve had this week. Deejays Carrie Nation and Dianamatic spin funk, dance, rap, and whatever else it takes to get you moving. $5. 10 PM.
Ashley Ivey, Emma Crane Jaster, Jim Jorgensen, Joel David Santner, and Manu Kumasi in Gilgamesh. Photograph by Brittany Diliberto.
Constellation Theatre’s Gilgamesh is visually and aurally arresting. The lithe and seductive movements of the Woman of Red Sashes. The clickety-clack of the Scorpion Man and Woman’s talons. An impressive, jumping bull with glowing eyes and acrobatic movements, courtesy of the two men it takes to man the costume.
The company, guided by the sure hand of Allison Arkell Stockman, has been developing an interesting little niche for itself, taking on fantastical, often epic tales and bringing them to life with color, music, and movement. Before Gilgamesh came The Green Bird and The Ramayana, both works in a similar vein. A huge factor in the company’s success is the one-man orchestra of Tom Teasley, whose multi-instrument, world-music stylings provide a living score to the stories’ proceedings. Gilgamesh is no exception; here, Teasley’s music heightens tension and keeps the production moving at a satisfying pace, as the title character travels the world and beyond fighting gods and searching for a loyal friend.
At first, the hero of the Mesopotamian epic isn’t the most sympathetic of characters. The half-god king Gilgamesh (Joel David Santner) is busy deflowering virgins and governing harshly when the tale opens—Santner gives him an oblivious arrogance. But when Enkidu (Andreu Honeycutt), a worthy adversary, shows up in his kingdom, the leader is humbled in the best way possible, embracing his rival and pairing up with him to take on the world’s challenges, even if they’re foolhardy quests. Santner ably embodies this transition, transforming the character into a strong and sympathetic leader by the end.
Photograph via Northfoto/Shutterstock.
What does 50 and Counting refer to? Not the number of groupies immortalized in song by Mick Jagger or the number of known hallucinogens ingested by Keith Richards during the ’80s. It’s actually the name of the current Rolling Stones North American tour (celebrating the band’s five decades of playing together), which kicked off in Los Angeles May 3 and will wrap up here in Washington June 24 at the Verizon Center before the Stones head back to the UK.
Tickets for the DC show go on sale Monday, May 13, via the band’s website or Ticketmaster, with a Citibank presale beginning Friday, May 10. One thousand $85 tickets will be available for different sections of the arena. For more information about the current tour, visit the Stones’ website.
You can now own the same brand of stockings as Daisy Buchanan—for $75 to $110. Image via Warner Brothers Pictures.
Remember when you used to be able to just go to a movie? Back in the halcyon days when sodas weren’t the size of a small car (and didn’t have the same price tag), actors took on roles for sums smaller than the GDP of Romania, and the first you heard about the new Star Trek movie was when you read a review of it in Variety (sigh, print media)?
Well, those days are long gone, and since we’re unable to avoid the hype for Baz Luhrmann’s new Great Gatsby adaptation, we might as well break down the five most ridiculous promotional tie-ins with the movie, which comes out this week. What’s that you mutter about a Washington connection? Well, F. Scott Fitzgerald is buried in Rockville, so there’s that.
5) The Great Gatsby Video Game: All right, so this one isn’t strictly a movie tie-in (although it’s gone all sorts of viral this week as anticipation about seeing Leonardo DiCaprio wearing a pocket square builds to a pitch only bats can hear). But this one, at Slate, is, and it’s frustrating and silly. JUST LET ME ROW TO THE AMERICAN DREAM, DAMMIT.
4) The hosiery: There are literally TENS of occasions where I’ve been watching a film only to stop and wonder where the stars got their pantyhose (The Rocky Horror Picture Show springs immediately to mind). Luckily, with The Great Gatsby, if you love the stockings that Carey et al. are wearing, you can purchase them for the bargain price of $75 to $110 from Fogal.
3): The official tie-in book: Random House Australia is so proud of the fact that it gets to publish the “official film tie-in version” of The Great Gatsby that it sent out a press release about it. Hey, Random House? You know this was a book FIRST, right? You know this isn’t like the time someone novelized The Sixth Sense? The Penguin cover of The Great Gatsby is perfect, so if you’re the kind of person who’d rather buy an issue with Isla Fisher pouting on it, then good luck to you. Just don’t come crying to me when you find out there’s no character named Beyoncé.
Image by Lacey Terrell for HBO.
One thing Veep has excelled at this season is timeliness, from its North Korea plot points to its Rain Man/Nate Silver-esque numbers guys. In last night’s episode, “The Vic Allen Dinner,” Selina went to a charitable dinner not entirely unlike last week’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner where there were no awkward celebrity appearances but attendees were expected to do enormously uncomfortable things to entertain the crowd. Initially she was going to sing a song written by Mike and Dan, but after Kent ruined her week she targeted him instead with a catchy ditty called “50 Ways to Win in Denver.” So it wasn’t quite Obama singing Al Green, but we’ll give her points for trying.
Winners
Reddit and Tumblr: “Take these meaningless syllables with you and just get out!” screeches Selina at Jonah after the team analyzes Selina’s new viral online presence as a meme. The flattering situation room picture was scrapped because POTUS thought he looked jowly, so now the world thinks Selina stares at her BlackBerry during very important hostage rescue missions, or at the crucifixion of Christ, or at the 2004 tsunami, but on the plus side, it’s very Texts from Hillary.
Observational skills: Dan may be a lot of things (and a douchebag is one of them), but he doesn’t miss a trick, noticing Sue’s high neckline, flats, and Corner Bakery coffee cup and deducing she’s been to one of the K Street lobbying shops on a job interview. Sue is faintly terrifying this season, so good luck to whoever decides to lure her away.
Parenting: “Who the hell was religious as a teenager? Smoke some weed, for chrissakes.”
Beatboxing: Chung is back, and he’s surprisingly good at beatboxing, or as Selina puts it, “just spitting.”
DC Coast/Gary: You know what happens to most executive branch staffers who hate their low-paid jobs? Nothing. No one takes them out to lunch, no one offers them a raise, and no one gifts them a new man bag with hundreds of inside pockets to store their boss’s eye drops and Tampax. They just keep going to work every day and stifle their misery with cheap vodka and Lexapro. So you win, Gary—and so do you, DC Coast, for getting free advertising.
Like bikes and Daft Punk? Check out Wednesday’s Robot Ride. Photograph via Flickr user zcopley.
Monday, May 6
STORYTELLING: Four storytellers take the mike at Science Club’s brand new series, Perfect Liars Club. The catch? One of the stories is completely made up. See if you can spot the one with his or her pants on fire. And if you can pass a polygraph with no sweat, sign up to tell a story of your own. $5. 7 PM.
Tuesday, May 7
COMEDY: Clarendon’s Iota Club & Cafe brought you the 9, an every-once-in-a-while concert series featuring nine short sets from nine different singer/songwriters. Now it’s hoping the same formula works with standup comedy. Each of nine touring and local comics will do two quick sets, perfect for those of you with ADD. $10. 8 PM.
Wednesday, May 8
BIKE: People are freaking out (with good reason) about the upcoming Daft Punk album. If that’s your scene, meet up at Dupont Circle for the Robot Ride, a night of two-wheeled mischief themed for the electronic music duo. You and more than 300 other people will go on a four-ish-mile bike ride through the city as a deejay gets pulled around in a pedicab blasting Daft Punk. Things end up at the Brixton, where you can ditch your wheels and start dancing. Free. 7:30 PM.
Thursday, May 9
GATSBY: After months of waiting, Baz Luhrmann’s take on The Great Gatsby is finally ready for public consumption. Before you check out a midnight screening, don your best Roaring Twenties outfit and head to Bethesda Blues & Jazz Supper Club to check out Doc Scantlin and his band play swing and cabaret in celebration of the movie’s release. Tickets ($20) are available online. 8 PM.
Know of something cool going on around town? E-mail Jason Koebler at jasontpkoebler@gmail.com, or find him on Twitter.
Emily Donahoe as Brooke Wyeth and Helen Carey as Polly Wyeth in Other Desert Cities. Photograph by Scott Suchman.
The toxic stew of long-buried family secrets, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, barbed endearments, and bourbon that festers in Jon Robin Baitz’s Other Desert Cities—currently having its local premiere at Arena Stage—is the kind of grim but enthralling mix that makes for gut-punching theater, in which the “indentured servitude of having a family” is put under a microscopic lens. As Arundhati Roy once put it, the trouble with families is that, “like invidious doctors, they [know] just where it hurts.”
