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Off-Broadway Musical Review—“Girl, Interrupted” at the Public Theater

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Monday, 29 June 2026 02:21; Written by Kevin Filipski

Girl, Interrupted

Music and lyrics by Aimee Mann

Book by Martyna Majok, based on the book by Susanna Kaysen

Choreography by Sonya Tayeh; directed by Jo Bonney

Performances through July 12, 2026

Public Theater, New York, NY

publictheater.org

Juliana Canfield and the cast of Girl, Interrupted (photo: Joan Marcus)

Susanna Kaysen’s 1993 memoir Girl, Interrupted—an unflinchingly honest account of her time in a Massachusetts psychiatric hospital in the 1960s—was first turned into a 1999 film, directed by James Mangold, notable for its two central performances: Wynona Ryder as Susanna and Angelina Jolie, who won an Oscar for the showy role of Lisa, one of Susanna’s fellow patients.

The new stage adaptation, a world-premiere production at the Public Theater—which has introduced new musicals for decades, from Hair, A Chorus Line and Hamilton to the more recent Suffs and Hell’s Kitchen, all of which went to Broadway—has an equally impressive pedigree.

The book is by playwright Martyna Majok, whose incisive drama Queens was done off-Broadway earlier this season; the show is staged by Jo Bonney, one of our most inventive directors; and the music and lyrics are by Aimee Mann, a master of intimately ironic songs about miscommunication and broken relationships, from her 1985 debut with ‘Til Tuesday through her decades-long solo career.

But Mann’s songs—which made their debut on her stunning 2021 album, Queens of the Summer Hotel—are almost too confessional for the stage, even a small off-Broadway one. What sounds so achingly poignant on Mann’s album loses that poignance when sung by different characters, despite nearly identically restrained and small-scale accompaniment by acoustic guitar, bass, violin and piano.

When Susanna (a restrained but powerful Juliana Canfield) sings “At the Frick Museum,” a deceptively intricate song that manages to encompass Vermeer—one of whose paintings at the Frick gives the memoir and the show their title—and male predation, her vocal is harrowingly understated, but lost is Mann’s world-wearily forthright voice.

The same goes for most of the other songs, especially when they’re performed by more than one character. Another problem is that Mann does not write showstoppers; this works on Queens of the Summer Hotel, where the accumulation of her soulful, incident-filled songs grabs the heart. Yet onstage, though beautifully crafted and orchestrated by Todd Almond, the piling up of these same songs is far less memorable.

Majok’s lively book captures sympathetic snapshots of these misunderstood (and misdiagnosed) women, while Bonney’s precise direction helps smooth over the unavoidably episodic nature of the material. She also effectively uses the conceit of performers playing instruments onstage.

Alongside the always authentic Canfield is a captivating cast, although such a forceful singer as Emily Skinner is unfortunately relegated to a small role as one of the hospital’s doctors.

MET Orchestra Close Out Two Nights of Shows at Carnegie Hall

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Thursday, 25 June 2026 13:57; Written by Jack Angstreich

The Met Orchestra with Yannick Nezet Seguin and Joyce DiDonato. Photo by Jennifer Taylor.

At the wonderful Stern Auditorium, on the night of Thursday, June 18th, I had the immense pleasure of attending a magnificent concert—the second of two a week apart—presented by Carnegie Hall, featuring the marvelous MET Orchestra under the outstanding direction of Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

The event started very strongly with a sterling account of the late Kaija Saariaho’s powerful Lumière et pesanteur, from 2009. In a note on the piece, the composer has commented thus:

Lumière et pesanteur is a gift for Esa-Pekka Salonen, inspired by his performance of my La Passion de Simone in Los Angeles, January 2009. This piece is an arrangement based on the eighth station of the Passion, which I know that he especially likes.

About La Passion de Simone, annotator Noémie Chemali says that:

this multimedia oratorio, created in collaboration with Lebanese-French writer Amin Maalouf and stage director Peter Sellars, premiered in 2006 at the New Crowned Hope Festival in Vienna. Written in the passion play tradition, it makes a loose allusion to Baroque oratorio, which historically depicts the suffering of Jesus. This work, instead, explores the life and spiritual journey of the iconic French philosopher and mystic Simone Weil (1909-43). Scored for orchestra, solo soprano, and electronics, it was subsequently performed by fellow Finn, conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, who inspired the orchestral arrangement known as Lumière et pesanteur.

In another program note, Nicholas Swett reported that “Saariaho came upon Weil's writings as a teenager.” The composer described how

the Finnish translation of her book Gravity and Grace was one of the few things I packed into my suitcase when I travelled to Germany in 1981 to continue my studies in composition. … The combination of Weil's severe asceticism and her passionate quest for truth has appealed to me ever since I first read her thoughts.

About Weil, in a 2021 interview Saariaho said:

I never totally understood what she is saying, but I am still trying. And I don't agree with her thoughts, but they force me to create my own opinions and they are very contemporary.

In Weil’s 1947 book, La pesanteur et la grâce, she wrote: “Two powers hold sway over the universe: light and gravity.”

The fabulous mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato then entered the stage for a superb—if maybe slightly underpowered—performance of Gustav Mahler’s extraordinary, five Rückert-Lieder, completed in 1902. About the now underrated poet, Friedrich Rückert, whose work provides the basis for them as well as the composer’s Kindertotenlieder and which was famously set by Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms, the composer told Anton Webern:

This is lyric poetry from the source. All else is lyric poetry of a derivative sort.

Annotator Harry Haskell explains that, “Unlike the Kindertotenlieder, the Rückert-Lieder were not conceived as an organic cycle.”

The second half of the evening’s program was at least equally memorable, consisting of an engrossing reading of Mahler’s incredibleSymphony No. 4 in G Major, which attained its final form in 1910. According to Haskell, “Mahler considered his new work ‘basically different’ from its three predecessors.” The composer wrote to his fiancée, Alma Schindler:

My Fourth will be very strange to you. It is all humorous, ‘naïve,’ etc.; it represents the part of my life that is still the hardest for you to accept and which in the future only extremely few will comprehend.

Haskell adds that Mahler “confided to a friend” that the symphony “depicted a cosmic gaiety emanating ‘from another sphere, and hence terrifying for humans: Only a child can understand and explain it, and a child does explain it in the end: a child who, if only at the chrysalis stage, already belongs to this superior world.’” The composer later commented “that humor of this type (as distinct from wit or good humor) is frequently not recognized even by the best of audiences.”

The initial movement opens charmingly—if maybe deceptively—and for much of it remains so, but it is punctuated by moments of almost aching lyricism and the music exhibits greater turbulence as it unfolds, although this eventually subsides before an abrupt, emphatic finish. The second movement is more playful with uncanny, almost sinister aspects and has an especially unconventional structure and considerable forward momentum for much of its length—it too ends suddenly, if relatively softly.

The ensuing, predominantly tranquil, slow movement—marked Poco adagio—has some of the celestial qualities of the celebrated Adagietto from Mahler’s Fifth Symphony—which was famously employed by Luchino Visconti in his Death in Venice—but there are some dramatic, even portentous measures before it becomes quite cheerful and then recovers its serenity; it closes very quietly. (The composer stated that the movement signifies that “no harm was meant after all.”)

Mahler originally intended the last movement—a song set to the poem “Das himmlische Leben” from the influential 19th-century anthology, Des Knaben Wunderhorn—as the finale to his Third Symphony, and instructed that it “be sung with childlike, cheerful expression; entirely without parody.” It is buoyant, enchanting, often jubilant, with dynamic interludes, concluding irenically. (It was gloriously interpreted here by DiDonato.)

An enthusiastic ovation elicited an incredible encore from the mezzo-soprano and the ensemble: the "Urlicht" movement from Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 in C Minor, the "Resurrection."

June '26 Digital Week III

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Wednesday, 24 June 2026 14:56; Written by Kevin Filipski

In-Theater Release of the Week

Disclosure Day

(Universal)

In Steven Spielberg’s latest extravaganza, bits of Close Encounters, E.T. and Minority Report—among others—are put in a blender and chopped up into a surprisingly sloppy mess in David Koepp’s script about a whistleblower and a Kansas City weatherwoman who are threatening to tell the public about alien encounters that a quasi-government agency is murderously trying to keep quiet. The stakes seem less urgent than how it is overdramatized here, and the characters act so stupidly at times that it’s often laughable.

Still, Spielberg remains a master at orchestrating everything from car chases to the quiet and tense moments, so even John Williams’ recycled-sounding score and the broad acting of a cast led by Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Colman Domingo and Colin Firth don’t fatally damage what is admittedly second-tier Spielberg, which has arresting images in spades—even the shamelessly manipulative final shot.

Streaming Release of the Week

Easy Girl

(Omnibus Entertainment)

German writer-director Hille Norden fearlessly explores the fascinating and carefree Nore, who’s seemingly in a different acquaintance’s bed each night, showing how her sexuality has shaped her very existence.

There are many intense and difficult to watch sequences of consensual and abusive sex, often seen through the eyes of Nore’s younger self, as Nora and her closest (only?) friend Jonna watch past episodes of her life play out. Luna Jordan’s Jonna is subtly enacted, but it’s Dana Herfuth’s ferociousness as Nore—in an emotionally and physically naked portrayal—that reverberates in a frank film that has no easy answers to weighty moral questions.

4K/UHD Releases of the Week

Eraser

(Warner Brothers)

In this 1996 by-the-numbers Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle—he’s a U.S. marshal in the federal witness protection program who protects a high-value witness—director Charles Russell stages a couple of amusing action sequences: one in the alligator enclosure in the Central Park Zoo and another in midair as a parachuting Arnold does battle with an oncoming airplane.

Also helpful is the supporting cast, including James Coburn, James Caan and Vanessa Williams, whose lively presence makes this forgettable flick somewhat entertaining. There’s an excellent UHD transfer; extras include featurettes containing new interviews with Russell and Williams but not the star.

Scream 4

(Lionsgate)

For the third sequel (released in 2011) in the Scream franchise—there have been three more as of this writing—creator-writer Kevin Williamson and director Wes Craven returned, along with the leads from earlier incarnations, Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox and David Arquette, for more Ghostface murders in the anything but bucolic town of Woodsboro.

Too bad that the twists and turns are obvious and eye-rolling, as usual, especially in the ludicrously conceived character played by Emma Roberts. The 4K transfer is impressive; extras include a commentary with Craven and cast members, deleted/extended scenes with commentary, a making-of featurette and a gag reel.

Blu-ray Release of the Week

Mozart—Così fan tutte

(C Major)

Mozart’s classic comic opera (the English title is Women Are Like That) introduces two couples and puts the females through their paces to see if they will cheat on their partners, and in Barrie Kosky’s clever 2024 Vienna State Opera staging, they are rehearsing for a film directed by Don Alfonso, with the maid Despina as a stagehand.

Although the conceit doesn’t entirely work, it’s sung and acted persuasively by Federica Lombardi (Fiordiligi), Emily D’Angelo (Dorabella), Filipe Manu (Ferrando), Peter Kellner (Guglielmo), Kate Lindsey (Despina) and Christopher Maltman (Don Alfonso). Philippe Jordan deftly conducts the state opera orchestra. The hi-def video and audio are first-rate; too bad there are no contextualizing extras like a Kosky interview.

DVD Release of the Week

The Most Precious of Cargoes

(Distrib Films US)

Michel Hazanavicius won best picture and best director Oscars for his charming but slight 2011 paean to silent movies, The Artist, while most of his other films have rarely been seen hereabouts. His latest, an ambitious animated feature about the Holocaust based on an admired novel by French author Jean-Claude Grumberg (who cowrote the script), is another example of the French director’s interesting but lightweight filmmaking.

There’s an admirably restrained visualization of the concentration camps, but sentimentality outweighs any nuance in this story of a woodcutter’s wife who rescues and raises a baby girl thrown from the train to Auschwitz by her doomed father. The usually dependable Alexander Desplat’s score is far from his best, but Hazanavicius did get legendary actor Jean-Louis Trintignant to record the narration before his death in 2022.

CD Release of the Week

Weinberg—String Quartets, Volume 6

(Chandos)

Russian composer Mieczysław Weinberg (1919-96) sadly never witnessed the renaissance of his strikingly original music that began after his shattering Holocaust opera The Passenger started being performed worldwide; since then, dozens of CDs of his varied orchestral and chamber music have been recorded. His 17 string quartets make up a formidable body of work on their own, and this final volume in a terrific series of discs recorded by the gifted Arcadia Quartet showcases the middle and late periods of his career.

Included are the impassioned 10th quartet (1964); the expansive 12th (1969-70), with its gorgeously unusual Moderato final movement; and the 17th (1986)—Weinberg’s final quartet—which is among his most compact and musically eloquent. Rounding out the CD are a couple of attractive early miniatures.

MET Orchestra & Bruckner at Carnegie Hall

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Wednesday, 24 June 2026 13:44; Written by Jack Angstreich

Met music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin leading the Met Orchestra at Carnegie Hall on June 11, 2026. Photo: Evan Zimmerman / Met Opera

At the wonderful Stern Auditorium, on the night of Thursday, June 11th, I had the privilege to attend a rewarding concert—the first of two on consecutive weeks presented by Carnegie Hall—featuring the exceptional musicians of the MET Orchestra, under the admirable direction of Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

The event consisted of a memorable reading of the Robert Haas edition of Anton Bruckner’s monumental and awesome Symphony No. 8 in C Minor. In a letter to Emil Kauffmann, the great composer Hugo Wolf commented on the work’s premiere thus:

This Symphony is the creation of a Titan, and in spiritual vastness, fertility of ideas, and grandeur even surpasses his other symphonies. Notwithstanding the usual Cassandra prophecies of woe, even from those in the know, its success was almost without precedent. It was the absolute victory of light over darkness, and the storm of applause at the end of each movement was like some elemental manifestation of Nature. In short, even a Roman Emperor could not have wished for a more superb triumph.

The impressive if unwieldy, initial, Allegro moderato movement begins solemnly, almost ominously, but a more lyrical contrasting theme is soon introduced, as well as passages of near-hysterical intensity and more purely noble statements—indeed, the effect of the movement is somewhat kaleidoscopic and it closes very softly. The repeating main body of the ensuing Scherzo—also marked Allegro moderato—has a playful quality replete with dance-like rhythms and a powerful, forward momentum but also with a more subdued, central section; the slower, exquisite, sunny Trio is graceful and serene with a quasi-bucolic character and at moments sounds almost Mahlerian—it finishes affirmatively.

The most elevated component of the score—and also possibly the most transparently beautiful—is to be found in the expansive Adagio that follows—its ethos is not so much elegiac but celestial rather, but with Wagnerian echoes and it builds to a brief but soaring climax and ends very quietly. The complex Finale opens with dazzling fanfares but these quickly accede to music in a more contemplative, even tentative mode, as well as some more dramatic measures; it concludes exultantly.

The artists deservedly received a standing ovation.

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