Reviews

Remembering heroes who defied Hitler to save Jewish lives

By Richard Ades

When Schindler’s List was released in 1993, viewers probably saw its hero as one of a kind. German businessman Oskar Schindler may have stuck his neck out to help Jews survive the Holocaust during World War II, but it was assumed few others were willing to do the same.

That assumption was wrong, according to the new documentary This Ordinary Thing. Written and directed by Nick Davis, the film tells the stories of dozens of people who risked Nazi wrath to come to the aid of their Jewish friends and neighbors.

As we learn, those people were spread across multiple countries that fell under Hitler’s domination, including Germany itself, France, the Netherlands, Poland, Hungary, Ukraine, Belgium and Yugoslavia.

Davis tells these heroes’ stories in more or less their own words, based on accounts of their ordeals that were recorded in the late 1980s. Excerpts from those accounts are delivered off-camera by top-tier actors—F. Murray Abraham, Ellen Burstyn, Jeremy Iron and Helen Mirren, just to name a few—and illustrated by archival scenes of wartime life.

These are startling tales of courage and compassion, involving people who refused to say “no” when asked to hide or otherwise aid fellow countrymen who happened to be Jewish. Doing so was clearly the right thing to do, but it was also the dangerous thing to do. In a few cases, they were found out but managed to avoid imprisonment or worse with the help of bribes involving money, alcohol or even sex.

The fact that these good Samaritans have received so little attention over the years makes This Ordinary Thing even more of a can’t-miss film. However, some viewers might wish Davis had given us the chance to get better acquainted with his subjects.

With a running time of just over an hour and a format that continually skips from person to person and country to country, there is little opportunity for individuals’ personalities to emerge. And it doesn’t help that we don’t hear the actual individuals, but rather actors who are clearly playing roles.  

A woman and a trio of children display the stars of David that Nazis forced them to wear to reveal their Jewish identities. (Photo courtesy of Series of Dreams)

Some viewers might also be distracted by the film’s visuals, which combine actual wartime film footage with occasional re-enacted scenes, leading to the question: How much of what we’re seeing is real?

Possibly adding to the confusion, much of the archival footage is in color. Davis has said he went out of his way to find color footage, since we usually see World War II depicted in black-and-white images that make the era seem divorced from our everyday reality.

And, of course, what we’re seeing is not that divorced from our everyday reality. Though the doc doesn’t spell out the connection, it’s hard not to see parallels between Hitler’s occupied Europe and Trump’s America.

Substitute “immigrants” for “Jews,” and “ICE” for the “SS” and “Brownshirts,” and you end up with another society in which members of a minority group are being demonized and rounded up in ways that ignore their civil rights, let alone common decency.

Despite this unavoidable comparison, the film’s predominant message is a positive one: In the face of official threats and societal pressure, a surprising number of non-Jews were willing to risk everything to help save fellow citizens who were being persecuted.

Just how many of these heroes were there? It’s impossible to know, the film states, but as of 2023, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center had honored 28,217 people as “Righteous Among the Nations” for helping to save Jewish lives during World War II.

It’s a number that’s both inspiring—because of the courage and humanity it represents—and depressing—because it’s not higher.

Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)

This Ordinary Thing will be available through major VOD outlets beginning June 12.

Circus skills on full display in touring musical

Jacob (Zachery Keller, right) meets with the circus’s owner, August (Connor Sullivan), and star performer, Marlena (Helen Krushinski), in the touring production of Water for Elephants. (Photo by Matt Murphy for MurphyMade)

By Richard Ades

Running away to join the circus generally isn’t the best way to deal with your problems. But sometimes it’s the only way available to you.

That’s the situation faced by Jacob Jankowski in Water for Elephants, a touring musical now playing at Columbus’s Ohio Theatre.

We first meet Jankowski as an old man (Robert Tully) reminiscing about his past, but the show then thrusts us into that past, when a young Jacob (Zachery Keller) hitches a ride on a circus train and is offered work after he reveals he was trained as a veterinarian.

Because the Great Depression is in full force, and because Jacob has no other prospects, he reluctantly accepts the job. He then tries to make the best of what turns out to be a bad situation, complicated by a dictatorial and sadistic boss, August (Connor Sullivan). The job’s only perk is that Jacob gets to meet the show’s beautiful star performer, Marlena (Helen Krushinski), who, unfortunately, turns out to be August’s wife.

In an odd way, one gets the feeling that the show’s cast and crew are in much the same boat as their protagonist: They’re in the difficult situation of putting on a flawed piece of work, but they’re trying to make the best of it.

Namely, they’re amping things up with Lion King-worthy puppetry, gorgeous scenery and lighting (designed by Takeshi Kata and Bradley King, respectively), and especially with gasp-inspiring acrobatics and other injury-defying acts that would be at home under any big top.

With a book by Rick Elice and music and lyrics by the Pigpen Theatre Co., Water for Elephants opened on Broadway in March 2024 under the direction of Jessica Stone. It garnered eight Tony nominations, winning none, and closed that December.

The current touring production, directed by Ryan Emmons, was launched last fall and is scheduled to close in August. It has a lot going for it, including two wonderful lead performances.

As Jacob, Keller reveals the best male voice I’ve heard in a long time, pulling a surprising amount of beauty and emotion out of his solos. As Marlena, Krushinski also sings beautifully, and at one point she even performs one of the acrobatic feats that play such a big part in the production.

When Jacob and Marlena’s budding romance begins to blossom (I’m not giving anything away here—it’s pictured right on the program cover!), Keller and Krushinski do what they can to sell it. But the script just doesn’t give them much to work with.

Perhaps the show’s most affecting moment involves Marlena’s ailing horse, Silver Star, imaginatively represented by a puppet head and a lithe man hanging from a sash. But other moments that should be moving or shocking or otherwise noteworthy seldom reach their full potential.

As for the music, it offers pleasant, Americana-flavored accompaniment to the dancers and acrobats’ leaping, swinging and twirling, and talented singers like Keller occasionally make it soar. But none of it is really memorable.

So don’t go to Water for Elephants expecting to have a sublime theatrical experience. Instead, go expecting to see hard-working performers doing their best to recreate the thrills of a circus, with a little drama and romance thrown in for good measure.

Head to the theater in that frame of mind, and you won’t be disappointed.

Water for Elephants runs through June 14 at the Ohio Theatre, 39 E. State St., Columbus. Showtimes are 7:30 p.m. through Friday, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, and 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes (including intermission). For ticket information, visit columbus.broadway.com. For information on future tour stops, visit waterforelephantsmusical.com.

Decades later, gutsy newshound still refuses to compromise

By Richard Ades

The past year has been a scary one for Americans who believe in freedom of the press. Faced with an autocratic president who works to stifle his critics with a combination of favors, threats, lawsuits and every other means at his disposal, one media company after another has been willing to compromise its integrity.

That’s what makes Steal This Story, Please! such an refreshing experience. Co-directed by Tia Lessin and Carl Deal (2008’s Trouble the Water), the documentary introduces us to Amy Goodman, a radio/TV journalist who absolutely refuses to compromise her own integrity.

Indeed, integrity seems to be baked into her character along with courage, stubbornness and—surprisingly for someone who takes her work so seriously—a sense of humor. All of these qualities come out in the doc, as they do in the 30-year-old news program Goodman founded and co-hosts, Democracy Now!

Lessin and Deal’s film, briskly edited by Mona Davis, thrusts Goodman’s gutsy style of reporting in our faces right from the get-go. The first scene shows her waylaying a Trump official and following him through crowded hallways and up and down stairs as he tries to avoid her barrage of tough questions.

It’s only after giving us this glimpse of Goodman in action that the film backtracks long enough to explain how she got into journalism in the first place. As a girl, Goodman recalls, she was involved in putting out a family “newspaper” that regularly fomented arguments with adult relatives such as her grandfather, an Orthodox rabbi.

But what finally pushed her into journalism, she explains with a twinkle in her eye, was her obsession with The Phil Donahue Show. As a young adult, she was so impressed by the popular talk show’s willingness to address controversial topics that she was determined to become involved. She bombarded staff members with inquiries but only succeeded in securing an invitation to attend an episode focusing on people like her: the unemployed.

That, Goodman concludes, made her realize she needed to find a job. So she did, becoming news director of the Pacifica radio station WBAI in New York City, a position that eventually led to the creation of Democracy Now!

Amy Goodman covers a protest of the Standing Rock oil pipeline in 2016. (Photo courtesy of Reed Brody)

Throughout her career, the documentary reveals, Goodman has been unafraid to tackle tough, controversial stories. At times, those stories placed her in danger of arrest or much worse.

A prime example was her coverage of Indonesia’s long genocidal campaign against East Timor, a military effort carried out with weapons provided by the U.S. Goodman and colleague Allan Naim were reporting on a 1991 demonstration protesting the carnage when Indonesian soldiers attacked, resulting in hundreds of deaths.

Goodman and Naim also were beaten by the soldiers, but their ordeal paid off when their footage of the massacre was picked up by mainstream media. The result was that U.S. viewers got their first look at a tragedy that had been going on for years, helping to inspire an international protest that led to Timorese independence.

For Goodman, the incident underscored the importance of exposing atrocities done in America’s name. For viewers of the documentary, it also helps to explain the flick’s title, Steal This Story, Please! Rather than being upset when other media use her footage, Goodman is thrilled that more people are being exposed to the truths she’s trying to uncover.

After watching the film, it becomes obvious that Goodman’s devotion to reporting the truth, as she sees it, sets her apart from journalists who are satisfied with merely providing “balance”: in other words, reporting both sides of an issue, whether or not each side is equally valid. And it certainly sets her apart from media outlets that increasingly dilute their coverage to curry favor with an authoritarian president who’s willing and able to reward his friends and punish his critics.

For fans of the First Amendment—or for anyone who just wants to meet a devoted, courageous person who might help to restore their faith in humanity—Steal This Story, Please! is a must-see.

Rating: 4½ stars (out of 5)

Steal This Story, Please! is showing in select theaters and is scheduled to expand to additional outlets (including Columbus’s Gateway Film Center on May 15) in the coming weeks. For more information on Democracy Now!, visit democracynow.org.

Intrepid prosecutor targets injustice in Stalinist Russia

By Richard Ades

There was a time when Americans could watch political dramas like Two Prosecutors—set during the Stalinist purges of 1930s Russia—without feeling like we’re foreseeing our own future.

Since the film was written and directed by Ukraine’s Sergei Loznitsa (who adapted the story from a novel by Georgy Demidov), the obvious assumption is that it’s meant as a metaphor for Putin’s Russia. But given the prevalence of authoritarianism around the world and in our own backyard, that’s not necessarily the case.

Loznitsa himself has said the film has wider significance. “None of the existing societies, no matter how advanced and democratic, are immune to authoritarianism and dictatorship,” he told an interviewer. “This is why I believe that the great purges of 1930s still need to be studied and reflected upon.”

In the film, those purges are seen through the eyes of a young district prosecutor named Kornyev (Aleksandr Kuznetsov). Only three months into his job, he stumbles onto the realization that justice is being thwarted in the local prison.

And “stumbles” is the correct verb, as the truth would have been trapped inside the prison walls forever if an inmate hadn’t written a note asking for legal help, and if another inmate hadn’t somehow smuggled it out.

So Kornyev arrives at the prison and demands to see the original inmate, only to encounter delays and fabricated reasons why he should come back in the distant future. But he persists and eventually is ushered into the solitary cell of Stepniak (Alexander Filippenko), a political prisoner with a shocking accusation.

Stepniak claims he and hundreds of others have been arrested on false charges and tortured in the hopes that they’ll “confess.” Since local authorities may be implicated, the prisoner says, Kornyev must travel to Moscow and tell Stalin.

A young prosecutor (Aleksandr Kuznetsov) investigates claims of government-sponsored injustice in Two Prosecutors.

As a dedicated lawyer and idealistic Bolshevik, Kornyev then commits himself to a quest that we viewers, with the benefit of historical hindsight, know must fail. To some, that is the film’s fatal dramatic flaw—a flaw exacerbated by the slow pace with which it proceeds toward its inevitable conclusion.

But director Loznitsa isn’t trying to create a potboiler. Rather, he’s focused on recreating a reality in which a monster like Stalin could get away with imprisoning and murdering millions who supported the very political movement that brought him to power.

Actors Kuznetsov, Filippenko and the rest of a uniformly strong cast do their part. (Filippenko, in fact, does his part twice, as he also plays a talkative disabled veteran.)

Just as important are cinematographer Oleg Mutu and production designers Jurij Grigorovič and Aldis Meinerts, who fashion a gray, Kafkaesque world composed of narrow hallways, decrepit staircases and countless locked gates and doors.

Taken together, their efforts manufacture such a convincing world of authoritarian oppression that viewers might well imagine they live there—as, unfortunately, many of us do.

Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)

Two Prosecutors can be seen in select theaters, with openings planned April 3 in Columbus and several other cities. It expands to additional markets in upcoming weeks, including Nashville (April 10), Minneapolis (April 20) and Cleveland (April 23).

Search for daughter leads father, son into peril

By Richard Ades

Of the five films up for an international Oscar, Sirat is by far the most unsettling.

I say that without fear of contradiction, even though I have yet to see most of its competitors. Watching Spain’s nominee is simply the kind of nerve-wracking experience that few films can match.

French-born director/co-writer Oliver Laxe begins his tale as a massive rave is getting underway in the middle of the Moroccan desert. After arriving in trucks and other weather-beaten vehicles, hardcore enthusiasts begin dancing ecstatically to bass-heavy beats that echo against rocky canyon walls.

It’s into this scene that a middle-aged Spaniard named Luis (Sergi Lopez) arrives with his young son, Esteban (Bruno Nunez Arjona). Passing out fliers with pictures of his grown daughter, Luis explains that she’s disappeared to join the raver lifestyle, and he thinks she might be here.

As it turns out, no one has seen her, but Luis learns she could be at an upcoming rave happening far to the south in Mauritania. Then comes an unexpected complication followed by a fateful decision.

Ravers do their thing in an early scene from Sirat.

Soldiers arrive and order all Europeans to leave the country due to a developing military conflict. When a few ravers revolt by instead heading south toward their next gathering, Luis decides to follow, thus sending him and his son on a journey into a hellish landscape filled with dangers both natural and manmade.

“Hellish,” by the way, is an appropriate adjective, according to words that flash on the screen at the film’s beginning. Referring to Islamic beliefs concerning the path souls must follow in the afterlife, they explain that the Sirat bridge connects heaven and hell and is “narrower than a strand of hair and sharper than a sword.”

Translation: Salvation is hard to come by.

Luis (Sergi Lopez, right) with some of his newfound raver friends

For those of a spiritual bent, this offers one way to view the nightmarish trip Luis, Esteban and their adopted raver friends take as they head across the desert and over treacherous mountain roads—all the while hearing news reports of military actions that threaten to escalate into World War III.

For those of a more political bent, the trip might be seen as the emotional approximation of what it’s like to live in a world that increasingly seems at the mercy of leaders who have no compunction about starting wars and killing innocents to serve their own purposes.

However you interpret the characters’ tribulations, you can’t help but be moved by them thanks to director Laxe and collaborators such as cinematographer Mauro Herce and composer Kangding Ray, as well as a convincing cast consisting largely of gifted amateurs.

Sirat, in other words, is one painful ride.

Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)

Sirat (rated R) can be seen at select theaters, including the Gateway Film Center in Columbus, and is scheduled to expand nationwide beginning March 6.

Girl risks her life to bake a cake for Saddam

Baneen Ahmad Nayyef plays Lamia, an Iraqi girl who faces a daunting task in The President’s Cake.

By Richard Ades

Five films have received Oscar noms in the international category, including the French-sponsored Iranian drama It Was Just an Accident and the apparent front-runner, Brazil’s The Secret Agent.

Not on the final list is Iraq’s nominee for the honor—though it’s hard to say why, because the film is a gem.

The President’s Cake, written and directed by Hasan Hadi, is the alternately sad, funny and nail-biting story of Lamia, a 9-year-old girl who receives an unwanted honor: Thanks to a classroom lottery, she’s one of many citizens from across the country who are chosen to bake birthday cakes in honor of dictatorial leader Saddam Hussein.

What makes this task so difficult is that the tale is set in 1990, when Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait has made it the target of military attacks and economic sanctions. As a result, day-to-day survival is hard enough, and finding necessary ingredients such as flour and sugar is nearly impossible.

Lamia (Baneen Ahmad Nayyef) seldom goes anywhere without her pet rooster, Hindi.

Portrayed with a combination of pluck and vulnerability by Baneen Ahmad Nayyef, Lamia is already living on the edge—literally, as her home is located in the swampy Mesopotamian Marshes. Apparently parentless, the child shares a tiny home with her diabetic grandmother, Bibi (Waheed Thabet Khreibat), and a rooster named Hindi. Beyond the pet bird, her only friend seems to be Saeed (Sajad Mohamad Qasem), a neighbor with a reputation for getting into trouble.

When Lamia tells Bibi about her cake-making assignment, the grandmother insists that she skip classes the next day so they can take a trip to the city. Lamia assumes the purpose is to find the proper ingredients, but it turns out Bibi has something else in mind. Knowing her health is failing, the elderly woman plans to leave Lamia with a friend who’s better able to take care of her.

Unfortunately, Lamia mistakes her grandmother’s concern for anger, and she grabs her pet rooster and escapes into the streets of Baghdad. Knowing her friend Saeed had also planned to be in the city that day, she meets up with him and enlists his help as she proceeds to search for the elusive cake ingredients.

The result is a perilous journey that could be described as Dickensian (as in Charles) or Chaplinesque (as in Charlie). Nearly everyone they meet tries to ignore, cheat or even harm them, forcing them to rely on each other and on their own ingenuity. A fine cast, led by the talented youngsters playing Lamia and Saeed, makes it a gripping experience.

Like the aforementioned It Was Just an Accident, Hadi’s debut film portrays a country distorted by authoritarian politics. Hussein’s insistence on total devotion can be seen in the chants of allegiance Lamia and her classmates are forced to repeat every day, and in the countless images of him that can be seen displayed on Baghdad streets.

Lamia (Baneen Ahmad Nayyef, right) searches for cake ingredients with her friend, Saeed (Sajad Mohammad Qasem).

The film also shows how ordinary Iraqis are hurt by the world’s responses to Hussein’s aggression, including military attacks and sanctions that keep necessary food and medicine out of their hands. It’s a reminder that even well-intentioned actions can have unintended consequences, though it somewhat dilutes Hadi’s political message.

Maybe this helps to explain why the film didn’t score an Oscar nom even though it has so much to offer. Besides an absorbing story, its portrayal of a country under the control of a leader who demands constant obedience and adoration is a chilling vision of where the awards’ host country could well be headed.

Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)

The President’s Cake opened Feb. 6 in New York and Los Angeles and will open wide on Feb. 27.

Blacks, Jews unite in fight to liberate amusement park

By Richard Ades

PBS has just launched Black and Jewish America, a four-week miniseries that examines the political and historical ties between African Americans and Jewish Americans.

For those who want to examine the topic further, a new documentary directed by Ilana Trachtman is a good place to start. Ain’t No Back to a Merry-Go-Round tells the fascinating story of a 1960 protest that unexpectedly created cross-cultural ties.

The protest centered on Glen Echo Amusement Park, which once served as a recreation destination for families in the Washington, D.C. area. Offering rides, snacks and a giant pool, it had everything parents needed to keep their kids entertained on hot summer days.

The only problem: You had to be White to enter. Children from local Black neighborhoods could only watch the fun from outside the gates.

The situation eventually prompted students from nearby Howard University to do something about it. However, it took them awhile to get to that point, according to Dion Diamond, one of two Howard alumni interviewed for Trachtman’s film.

During the 1950s, Diamond recalls, most students of the historically Black university were comfortably middle-class and refused to acknowledge that segregation affected them. That didn’t begin to change, he says, until Southern activists launched a sit-in campaign aimed at integrating Woolworth’s lunch counters.

Picketers urge families not to patronize the segregated Glen Echo Amusement Park in a scene from Ain’t No Back to a Merry-Go-Round.

Inspired by the action, Howard students formed their own civil rights organization, the Nonviolent Action Group, or NAG. Then, after the sit-in achieved success by forcing most Woolworth’s stores to integrate, the group began looking for a new issue to tackle.

They soon found one in their own backyard: Glen Echo.

Thus it was that NAG announced its decision to begin picketing the amusement park on June 30, 1960—only to learn that the issue had already been adopted by residents of Bannockburn, a progressive and largely Jewish neighborhood in nearby Bethesda, Maryland.

Through interviews with Diamond, fellow Howard alum Hank Thomas and then-Bannockburn residents Helene Wilson Ageloff and Esther Delaplain, the documentary explains what happened next.

The Howard students at first had mixed feelings about their new allies, and they were uneasy about the fact that their picket lines were predominantly White. But as the summer wore on, a spirit of camaraderie developed among the students, the Bannockburn volunteers and local Black residents who joined the struggle.

This was fortunate because they faced a difficult battle, which the documentary depicts with the help of vintage footage. Not only did the park’s owners refuse to capitulate, but the picketers were bombarded with racist and antisemitic insults—and even threats—from counter-protesters, including some who wore swastikas.

Trachtman’s documentary reports the protest’s eventual outcome, but it doesn’t stop there. It also reveals the action’s long-term effects on its participants, several of whom went on to engage in other civil rights efforts such as the Freedom Rides.

Toward the end of the film, Howard alumnus Thomas is shown telling a group of students one important fact he learned from the protests: that American Jews have been some of African Americans’ most important allies.

That’s a good jumping-off place for tackling PBS’s Black and Jewish America, which examines the long and sometimes difficult relationship between two groups bonded by their familiarity with historic discrimination.

Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)

Ain’t No Back to a Merry-Go-Round can be seen in select theaters and will make its Columbus, Ohio, debut at 2 p.m. Feb. 15 at the Gateway Film Center. For a list of other screenings, visit aintnoback.com/screenings/.

 Black and Jewish America: An Interwoven History, hosted by Henry Louis Gates Jr., airs at 9 p.m. Tuesdays on WOSU-TV in Columbus. Check local listings for times in other areas.

Musical goes from OK to great when the DeLorean reaches 88

Marty (Lucas Hallauer) realizes his inventor friend’s DeLorean really is a time machine. (photo by McLeod9 Creative)

By Richard Ades

One thing you can say about Back to the Future: The Musical: It sure knows how to stick the landing.

Thanks to stagecraft wizardry—including a time-traveling DeLorean that may be the most impressive prop since Miss Saigon’s helicopter—the show recreates the finale of its cinematic forebear with breathtaking results.

How it gets to that finale is not always as impressive, however. When the show stays faithful to the plot and spirit of Robert Zemeckis’s 1985 classic, it’s on solid ground. When it adds superfluous production numbers with dancers who seem to appear out of nowhere, it’s just wasting everyone’s time.

For those who haven’t seen the original film, Back to the Future was a sci-fi tale with both humor and heart. Set in 1985, it was about a teenager named Marty who travels 30 years into the past and accidentally prevents his future parents from hooking up, thus creating a reality in which he was never born.

Brilliantly filmed and perfectly cast, the flick starred Michael J. Fox as Marty and Christopher Lloyd as Doc Brown, eccentric inventor of the teen’s four-wheeled time portal. It also starred Lea Thompson and Crispin Glover as Marty’s future parents, Lorraine and George, whose high school romance is thwarted when Lorraine inconveniently falls in love with the stranger who just happens to be her future son.

Goldie (Cartreze Tucker) and the company perform “Gotta Start Somewhere.” (photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)

Directed by John Rando, the touring version of Back to the Future also benefits from a well-chosen cast. The first clue is that Marty is played by Lucas Hallauer, who sings and bounds around the stage with Michael Fox-like skill and energy. As Doc Brown, David Josefsberg is suitably quirky even though he doesn’t quite attain Lloyd’s level of hilarious eccentricity.

Speaking of eccentric, no one can match Glover’s odd take on the self-doubting George, but Anthony J. Gasbarre III (filling in for Mike Bindeman) did an admirable job on opening night. As smitten teenager Lorraine, Zan Berube is lovable and displays a strong singing voice.

Other top cast members include Sophia Yacap as Marty’s girlfriend, Jennifer; and Nathaniel Hackmann as Biff, the town bully who makes George’s life miserable in both 1955 and 1985. Almost stealing the show, Cartreze Tucker gives a powerhouse performance as Goldie Wilson, a restaurant worker who dreams of going into politics.

In fact, Tucker’s exuberance made “Gotta Start Somewhere” one of the few production numbers that got an enthusiastic reaction from the opening night audience. At the other end of the appreciation scale was the Act II opener, “21st Century,” which went all out on futuristic costumes and dance steps but earned only polite applause.  

Biff (Nathaniel Hackmann, center) and friends (Zachery Bigelow, left, and Fisher Lane Stewart) perform “Teach Him a Lesson.” (photo by Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade)

Truthfully, the original songs by Alan Silverstri and Glen Ballard are often tuneful, and Chris Bailey’s choreography is full of high-kicking, acrobatic energy. When they serve the plot or help to define the atmosphere in which the story unfolds, they’re not bad. Maybe the problem is that they too often seem like unnecessary distractions.

On the other hand, the story is perfectly served by Tim Hatley’s gorgeous scenic design and by all the lighting, video, sound and “illusion” designers who helped to create the explosive scene in which Marty attempts to return to his own reality with the help of a speeding DeLorean and a well-timed bolt of lightning.

It was exciting enough when it took place on the silver screen. Seeing it recreated on the Ohio Theatre stage just takes that excitement to a whole new level.

Broadway in Columbus will present Back to the Future: The Musical through Jan. 11 at the Ohio Theatre, 39 E. State St., Columbus. Showtimes are 7:30 p.m. through Friday, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday. Running time: 2 hours, 40 minutes (including intermission). For more information, visit columbus.broadway.com. For information about upcoming tour stops, visit backtothefuturemusical.com/northamerica/.

Staged film adaptation goes heavy on spectacle

Cast members show off some of the high-flying choreography that won Some Like It Hot one of its four Tony Awards on Broadway.

By Richard Ades

“Well, nobody’s perfect.” It’s ironic that one of the most famous last lines in the history of cinema belongs to a film that’s pretty much perfect.

Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot stars Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon as Depression-era musicians Joe and Jerry, who are being chased by gangsters because they accidentally witnessed a mob execution. Disguising themselves as women, they join an “all-girl band,” where their attempts to fit in are complicated by Joe’s attraction to the lead singer and Jerry’s acquisition of an admirer who refuses to take “no” for an answer.

It’s always risky trying to adapt a work as universally loved and admired as Wilder’s 1959 comedy, so it’s not surprising that the stage version of Some Like It Hot fails to achieve the original’s perfection. What’s disappointing is that it could have been a lot better.

With a book by Matthew Lopez and Amber Ruffin, and songs by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, the musical opened on Broadway in late 2022 and closed just over a year later. Despite the relatively short run, the show garnered a slew of Tony nominations and won four. Besides best actor in a musical, it took home awards for costume design, choreography and orchestrations.

These wins point to some of the show’s strong points, which are also evident in the touring production that opened Tuesday at Columbus’s Ohio Theatre.

Director/choreographer Casey Nicholaw imbues the many song-and-dance numbers with high kicks and precision tapping, all backed by Charlie Rosen and Bryan Carter’s brassy, jazzy orchestrations. Meanwhile, Gregg Barnes outfits the characters in imaginative period costumes. Combined with Scott Pask’s gorgeous set designs, it all adds up to a colorful spectacle.

In a way, that’s part of the reason the show falls short of the film that inspired it. Far from a spectacle, Wilder’s classic was the comic but heartfelt tale of two men who disguise themselves to stay alive and find their lives altered as a result. Not only do they learn what it’s like to be a woman in a man’s world, but one of them finds that living as a woman is strangely fulfilling.

In the touring show, Matt Loehr and Tavis Kordell star as buddies Joe and Jerry, respectively, who don dresses and disguise themselves as Josephine and Daphne. Both get plenty of opportunities to show off their dancing and singing skills, but they have fewer chances to define their evolving characters. And Jerry, in particular, evolves a lot, becoming increasingly comfortable in the guise of the invented Daphne. (Like the Tony-winning actor who played Jerry on Broadway, Kordell identifies as nonbinary.)

As Sugar, the band’s lead singer, Leandra Ellis-Gaston displays fairly decent pipes but was sometimes overpowered by the band on opening night. In fact, several singers faced the same problem, pointing to the possibility that the sound balance was in need of tweaking. A related problem is that the lyrics were often hard to make out, weakening songs that weren’t that memorable to begin with.

One singer who managed to come through loud and clear on Tuesday was DeQuina Moore, who gives a powerhouse performance as band leader Sweet Sue. Filling out the leading cast members, Edward Juvier is a hoot as Osgood, the millionaire who takes a liking to Daphne.

Of the two acts, the second comes closer to the spirit of the movie, slowing down enough to allow Loehr, Kordell and Ellis-Gaston to flesh out their characters. However, it ends with a seemingly endless slapstick number that involves chases and slamming doors and would have been more at home in a bedroom farce.

Moral: If you’re going to adapt a classic movie for the stage, it helps if you understand just what made the movie great.

Broadway in Columbus will present Some Like It Hot through Nov. 23 at the Ohio Theatre, 39 E. State St., Columbus. Showtimes are 7:30 p.m. through Friday, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, and 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday. Running time: 2 hours, 45 minutes (including intermission). For ticket information, visit columbus.broadway.com. For information on future tour stops, visit somelikeithotmusical.com.

Reimagining the making of a classic

Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg (Aubry Dullin and Zoey Deutch) act out a scene from Breathless in Nouvelle Vague, a dramatization of the making of the 1960 film. (Photos by Jean-Louis Fernandez/courtesy of Netflix)

By Richard Ades

Nouvelle Vague may be the most affectionate love letter to moviemaking since Francois Truffaut’s Day for Night (1973).

Directed by Richard Linklater, the new film reimagines the making of Breathless, the 1960 classic that established critic-turned-director Jean-Luc Godard as a star of the influential movement known as the French New Wave.

If you’re a devoted cinephile, it’s likely you’re already salivating. And make no mistake: Linklater made this film with you in mind.

Not only is it shot in the style of Breathless, with a handheld camera and black-and-white photography, but it announces the name of each historic participant—from the director and stars to the lowliest of crew members—as soon as he or she appears on the screen. Linklater assumes you’ll want to know.

But what if you’re not a cinephile? In that case, chances are you’ll be a bit less enthralled, but the flick still has much to offer thanks to a charming cast and a witty script that both reveres and pokes fun at Godard and his eccentric approach to moviemaking.

We first meet Godard (Guillaume Marbeck) as a critic who wears shades even in darkened theaters and who complains that he hasn’t fulfilled his dream of making his first movie by the age of 25. Urged on by fellow critics, and encouraged by their belief that the only authentic way to make cinema is on the cheap, he takes on a film based on a real-life criminal who’s charged with killing a cop.

Jean-Luc Godard (Guillaume Marbeck, left) takes a break with his leading man, Jean-Paul Belmondo (Aubry Dullin).

Godard quickly hires the then-unknown Jean-Paul Belmondo (Aubry Dullin) to play the protagonist, but he has more trouble casting the crook’s American girlfriend. Aiming high because he thinks it will boost the film’s box office potential, he begins a campaign to land rising star Jean Seberg (Zoey Deutch).

Seberg is reluctant but eventually agrees because the film treatment was co-authored by Truffaut (Adrien Rouyard), another critic-turned-director who’s already made a name for himself. Once shooting starts, however, she begins to think she made a mistake.

For one thing, Godard has no script, preferring to rely on last-minute inspiration. For another, he’s not afraid to suspend shooting if that inspiration doesn’t show up on time.

Jean-Paul Belmondo (Aubry Dullin) takes to the street for a climactic scene while cinematographer Raoul Coutard (Matthieu Penchinat) and director Jean-Luc Godard (Guillaume Marbeck) follow in an open-top Citroen.

After Godard threatens the production’s bare-bones budget by repeatedly sending his cast and crew home early, not only Seberg but producer Georges de Beauregard (Bruno Dreyfurst) becomes worried. Beauregard repeatedly lowers the boom, but Godard refuses to change his unconventional ways.

There’s no suspense over the outcome, of course. We know going in that Breathless will become a groundbreaking success and Godard will go on to enjoy a decades-long career. The only question is just how he will accomplish this unlikely feat.

With a sense of history leavened by a sense of humor, Linklater answers that question in a way that should leave cinephiles fascinated and everyone else pleasantly entertained. 

Rating: 4½ stars (out of 5)

Nouvelle Vague (rated R) can be seen at select theaters and is available on Netflix beginning Nov. 14.