May Binges Part 2: The Studio, The Royals, Etoile, Your Friends & Neighbors

Are you back for more binges? I've got plenty of recommendations, let's go!

The Studio: Every week, I would desperately await the next installment of this show, and every week, it never disappointed. Created by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, this is a show about what happens when Matt Remick (Rogen) becomes the head of a major film studio in LA and had to now start making uncomfortable decisions between making the artistic cinema that he loves or a big commercial blockbuster about the Kool-Aid Man. Hey, no one said capitalism was easy.

Every episode is a standout in its own unique way, and each one features a murderer's row of cameos. Martin Scorsese shows up in the first episode and gets to do some acting; it's kind of amazing. My personal favorite is probably Episode 2 which is entirely filmed like a one-shot and is about how Sarah Polley is trying to film a one-shot for a movie that Matt keeps interrupting, and it's all so meta and silly and glorious. This is a marvelous show for people who love movies but also love to mock studio executives. The cast is incredible, featuring powerhouse performances from Kathryn Hahn, Catherine O'Hara, Ike Barinholtz, and Chase Sui Wonders, and now you can just binge it all in one big gulp. How lucky are you?!

The Royals: Created by Rangita and Ishita Pritish Nandy, this show is a Bollywood extravaganza that is way too over-the-top and inane. I ate it up with a big ol' spoon. 

Ishaan Khatter stars as Aviraj "Fizzy" Singh, a young prince who has been modelling and avoiding his family in India, but has to return when his father dies, only to discover that he has been named his father's heir instead of his older brother, "Diggy" (Vihaan Samat). Turns out the estate is massively in debt, so the family decides to strike a deal with a company that wants to turn their palace into a hotel where ordinary folks get to live alongside the royal family and get a taste of that royal life. The company's CEO is a feisty and ambitious woman named Sophia Kanmani Shekhar (Bhumi Pednekar) and of course, she and Fizzy butt heads and hate each other at first, only to end up in a tempestuous romance after. As you can well imagine, there are lots of side plots and complications. and all of it is a soapy, dramatic, silly, spectacular delight. Set in Rajasthan, the production design is elaborate and gorgeous, and the actors are fully committed to the silliness, so what more could you ask for? It's not high art, but it is total entertainment.

Etoile: If high art is what you seek, Daniel and Amy Sherman-Palladino have you covered with this show. The premise is that two struggling ballet companies in New York and Paris decide to swap some of their dancers and staff for a year as a stunt to boost ticket sales and generate some buzz. Luke Kirby plays Jack McMillan, who runs the New York Metropolitan Ballet Theater, while Charlotte Gainsbourg play Genevieve Lavigne, the artistic director of Le Ballet National. Lou de Laage also stars as Cheyenne, the etoile, aka prima ballerina of Le Ballet National, who Jack snags for New York. She is highly temperamental and opinionated, but the pain of dealing with her volatile personality is worth it when you watch her perform on stage.

There are many side characters, romantic entanglements, complications, and digressions about art. All accompanied with that trademark Sherman-Palladino dialogue that we know well from Gilmore Girls,  The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, etc. I have been to the ballet at Lincoln Center many times so it's also wonderful to get a peek behind-the-scenes, with many of the actual dancers from the New York City Ballet being featured throughout this show. The production design is impeccable, the acting is off the charts, and the choreography is sublime. I absolutely luxuriated in all eight episodes of this show, and the second season cannot come soon enough.

Your Friends & Neighbors: Created by Jonathan Tropper, this show stars Jon Hamm as Andrew "Coop" Cooper, a man whose life is falling apart in every possible way. He got divorced after he found his wife sleeping with his best friend, and then he subsequently got fired from his high-powered hedge fund job. He and his family were accustomed to a certain lifestyle, and Coop is now scrambling to keep up with the payments for all the bougie things that have becomes necessities, like private school, tennis lessons, and country club memberships. One day, he realizes that because he and his friends all live in a gated community, everyone is very lax about security, and he could probably make a lot of money if he selectively stole from his friends. These people just stash priceless heirlooms in random drawers and forget about them, so no one will even realize they've been robbed. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, you guessed it, a lot goes wrong. Ultimately, this is a show about how money can't buy happiness, and the many ways in which people who try to keep up with Jones's will remain in a never-ending spiral of debt and unhappiness. Coop partners with a local housekeeper, Elena (Aimee Carrero), and the episodes where we get to learn more about her life and the stark contrast it makes to that of her employers are always great to ground this show and make it clear who the real villains are. The cast, featuring stalwarts like Amanda Peet and Olivia Munn, is fantastic, and the overall plot is compelling and kept me invested through all nine episodes. It was well-paced for a weekly offering, but might be too bloated for a binge, so I do recommend you savor this one over a period of time, doling it out to yourself like a little treat when you need a dash of mystery and intrigue. Or just want to mock some rich people.

Firebird & Afterite: Balletic Brilliance

I have lived in New York for 16 years. Which means that I always imagine I will have the chance to do "New York-y" things, so then procrastinate and never do. Which is why I had never seen a ballet until yesterday, when my friend Candice and I headed off to the Metropolitan Opera to indulge in the American Ballet Theatre's production of Igor Stravinsky's The Firebird, with ballerina extraordinaire Misty Copeland as the Firebird. Yeah, my introduction to the ballet was certainly as spectacular as possible.

The story of The Firebird is fairly simple. Ivan (Herman Cornejo in the performance I saw) is searching for his lost love in a creepily enchanted forest. He happens upon a flock of mythical firebirds and chases one down (Misty Copeland) - she escapes but leaves behind a feather that will summon her when he is in trouble. He then finds a group of enchanted maidens, but cannot tell if his lady love (Skylar Brandt) is among them as they are all under a spell by the evil sorcerer Kaschei (Duncan Lyle). What follows is your classic battle between good and evil, and the Firebird comes to the rescue to help Ivan kill Kaschei, break the spell, and reunite with his love.

I don't know where to begin. I was so moved by this performance that I was rather appalled I had waited this long to see a ballet. While the orchestra (conducted by Charles Barker) were phenomenal, I will confess that I did not pay as much attention to the music as I expected because I was too captivated by the dancing. The grace and beauty of ballet is something I thought I understood, but it turns out watching Black Swan is insufficient to capture the power of a live performance. The choreography by Alexei Ratmansky was stunning. Combined with the costumes by Galina Solovyeva, you almost don't even need the summary of the story I provided above, because the dancers were able to capture every nuance of this tale perfectly through their movements and the feathers ruffling on their costumes. The fiery red of the Firebirds was in beautiful contrast to the green tutus sported by the pirouetting maidens, while the sorcerer's black and green swirly cape was in stark contrast to Ivan's innocent white suit.

The dancing maidens were both beautiful and funny - initially, as they are all under a spell and running around the stage following each other with exceedingly silly movements accompanied by a very amusing interlude in the music, you feel like chuckling. Skylar Brandt was magnificent as Ivan's lost love, capturing the silliness, and then moving into haunting loveliness when she meets Ivan and is drawn to him. When Duncan Lyle shows up on stage as the evil Kaschei, things take a dramatic turn, and as he controls the maidens with his invisible puppet strings, it is a sight to behold.

All of which brings me to Misty Copeland. The Firebird is her signature role, and having witnessed this performance, I have no doubts as to why. The costume was perfect, a red leotard with feathers on her head and back that let you watch her execute her dance with grace and precision, with just the right amount of fluttering feathers to make you fully believe she's about to take flight from the stage. The little hops and steps as she turns, the way she bobs her head, it was so bird-like, I was in utter awe. And of course, as she claimed the stage in jumps and pirouettes and all manner of other ballet moves that I lack the vocabulary to describe, I fully understood why she is a dancer who is celebrated across the world. There were moments when I genuinely wanted to weep and cheer, and when the entire performance was over, I felt stunned, like I had witnessed a miracle.

Following intermission, there was a very different ballet, Afterite, which had premiered on Monday. Years ago, when I was unemployed, I took an online course on classical music, and wrote my final paper on Igor Stravinsky. Part of that paper was about The Rite of Spring, a ballet that premiered in Paris in 1913 with choreography by the famed Vaslav Nijinsky, that incited a riot because it was so unexpected and unconventional and led to the composer and choreographer fleeing the theater. Well now, choreographer Wayne McGregor has created Afterite, a creepy and compelling ballet set to The Rite of Spring, with a dystopian story about the last colony of humankind. I'll confess, Candice and I (and the ladies sitting next to us) were a bit perplexed about what exactly the story was, but the choreography and music were exemplary and managed to creep us out. It was eerie, and frightening, and quite the turn from the fairytale of The Firebird, and this time, I paid attention to the music and found it utterly bewitching and bizarre when accompanied by the machinations on stage.

Firebird and Afterite are only playing at the Metropolitan Opera House through May 26. If you're in New York, I cannot urge you enough to buy a ticket and witness these thrilling ballets firsthand. But even if you don't live here, I cannot urge you enough to buy a ticket to see a ballet performance wherever you can find one. Perhaps, like me, you were laboring under the impression that this is a high-class inaccessible art form. However, it turns out, as long as you're a human being, you will find yourself transformed by the athletic grace, power, and beauty of these dancers, the ability of classical music to weave a story as it seeps into your bones, and for the choreography and costumes to come together in perfect harmony to tell a story that transcends language and time.