Disco Balls and Roller Skates, at Xanadu
In the lushly pleasurable Bobby Darin bio-musical “Just in Time,” by Warren Leight and Isaac Oliver, the director Alex Timbers ensconces his sweet-voiced star Jonathan Groff in a gleaming night club, an eternally perfect Copacabana for poor, doomed Darin, the crooner who died in 1973, at only thirty-seven. Other phantoms visit, including Darin’s early girlfriend Connie Francis (Gracie Lawrence), but all lovers fade in the face of larger losses. Groff dazzles us with joyful firework bursts: “Splish Splash,” “Mack the Knife,” and, most plaintively, the chanson “Beyond the Sea.” Groff has waited to play Darin, and, it appears, we’ve been waiting, too—in several beautiful moments, the two singers seem to call to each other across a very wide sea indeed.—H.S. (Circle in the Square; open run.)
Movies
The band Pavement, which had a powerful run in the nineteen-nineties, is the subject of “Pavements,” a delightfully bewildering cinematic jambalaya, directed by Alex Ross Perry, that both satisfies and mocks the conventions of rock movies. It’s partially a documentary that ransacks archival footage and adds new interviews to recount the band’s career, breakup, and recent reunion. It’s also a riotous trilogy of Pavement-centered art projects created for the movie—a jukebox musical called “Slanted! Enchanted!,” a museum show of memorabilia, and a tongue-in-cheek bio-pic, “Range Life.” As edited by Robert Greene, the multiple strands overlap and intertwine in a hectic variety of split-screen effects; the giddy mosaic nonetheless teems with the band’s music, which is, of course, the point.—Richard Brody (Film Forum; opens May 2.)
For more: read Holden Seidlitz on spending time with Perry as he workshopped the “Slanted! Enchanted!” musical.
Indie Pop
In the twenty-tens, having already sung backup for artists such as Harry Styles, Sheryl Crow, and Joni Mitchell, the indie-pop group Lucius emerged as its own rapturous creative force. A four-piece band featuring dual lead vocalists, the bass-synth player Jess Wolfe and the keyboardist Holly Laessig, its charms were self-evident across the breakthrough record “Good Grief,” from 2016—the music is prickly and luminous, with a funk-forward energy. The 2022 LP “Second Nature,” created after shelving a conceptual record in the shadow of COVID, leaned into euphoric, disco-laced grooves in search of sanctuary. The band’s new self-titled album reaches the pinnacle of a vibrant, harmonic enterprise.—Sheldon Pearce (Irving Plaza; May 15.)
Pick Three
Hannah Goldfield on New York City-born cookbooks.
1. The explosively creative Cantonese-American menu at Bonnie’s, in Williamsburg, put Calvin Eng on the map as a chef with a powerful point of view. His début cookbook, “Salt Sugar MSG,” co-written with his partner, Phoebe Melnick, makes it clear that he has a lot more to say. A lovely, lyrical essay about weekends at his grandparents’ apartment, in Manhattan’s Chinatown, introduces thrilling recipes for the home cook: an astonishingly satisfying Cantonese minestrone with ginger, fish sauce, and cilantro in addition to parmesan and cannellini beans; buttery oyster-sauce noodles; crispy five-spice chicken thighs strewn with Pringles, the way he remembers eating banquet-style squab as a kid.
Illustration by Lilly Hedley
2. Way uptown, in the Bronx, another New York City kid, Paola Velez, found her “happy place” in her local bodega, connecting with her Afro-Latina heritage through Dominican and Puerto Rican pastries. Her first book, “Bodega Bakes,” showcases her playful, personal, and often tantalizingly tropical spins on traditional recipes. She packs sugar cookies with diced guava and queso fresco, and turns the classic black-and-white cookie into passion-fruit half-moons. Why wouldn’t you make a tarte tatin with plantains, or put tamarind in your pecan pie?
3. The chef Jeremy Salamon grew up in Florida, but Brooklyn is where he opened his restaurant Agi’s Counter, named for his Hungarian-Jewish grandmother, who fled Budapest for New York in 1956. His cookbook “Second Generation” is a tribute to both Agi and his Nana Arlene, who was born and raised in the Bronx. It features deeply researched interpretations of historical Hungarian dishes, such as meggyleves (sour-cherry soup) and chicken paprikash, and spins on Jewish-American classics, like his confit-tuna melt on caraway Pullman.
P.S. Good stuff on the internet:
