‘Soup Nazi' actor dips ladle for victims of Vancouver festival attack
Thomas, who is best known for his guest role as a strict soup seller on the sitcom 'Seinfeld,' says he'll be serving at the Greens And Beans Deli in New Westminster, B.C., on Sunday.
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Winnipeg Free Press
10 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Bent but not broken
'My story is of broken men, each of whom, at one time, had to transform their legacy and in doing so transform themselves and the inheritance of those to come.' So begins Michael Thomas in the opening lines of The Broken King, his powerful memoir that breaks and heals hearts simultaneously. It's a blunt but beautiful treatise on fatherhood, addiction, intergenerational trauma, mental illness, police brutality and being Black in America. Ben Russell photo Michael Thomas burst onto the literary scene in 2007 with Man Gone Down, a searing novel about an African-American man trying to reunite with his white wife and their three children. Thomas boasts an impressive background, with roles in theatre, hospitality and writing, and now as a professor at New York's Hunter College. He burst onto the literary scene in 2007 with Man Gone Down, a searing novel about an African-American man trying to reunite with his white wife and their three children. Retroactively described by Thomas as a 'suicide note,' it's a semi-autobiographical story about the hopelessness of trying to achieve the American dream as a Black man. In The Broken King, Thomas goes further, telling his history through five interlocking narratives exploring his complex relationships with himself and four of the men around him. Thomas's brother David moves in and out of Thomas's life, caught up in money-making schemes that often leave Thomas and his wife to bail him out. Thomas's father, a voracious reader, philosopher and Boston Red Sox fan, endows Thomas with a love of learning and sports, yet abandons Thomas both emotionally and, later, physically. Determined to do better by his children than his own father, Thomas dedicates as much time as he can to them, but finds himself struggling to meet their needs when his own childhood scars are unhealed. 'I often feel that because I have not completely freed myself from what my father bequeathed me, I will always endanger my son,' Thomas writes of his relationship with his oldest child. Thomas links the segments with his overarching story of self-doubt, artistic development and struggles with mental health. After he finally achieves success with the publication of Man Gone Down, the pressure and undiagnosed depression overwhelm him, leading to what he terms his 'madness.' This is no summer beach read; Thomas spares readers from none of the pain he has experienced. He bluntly states the complexities and often brutalities of living as a racial minority, especially one married to a white woman of a well-meaning but often misfiring family. Thomas notes that his white family members always gave his oldest son 'politically correct toys, games, and books' that they thought 'melanin appropriate,' while being unequipped to actually understand racial identity: '(T)he white people who wanted to claim him as their own hadn't any means or methods to protect him in the world in which they were trying to indoctrinate him,' he recalls. The Broken King While the narrative focuses on Thomas's relationships with key men in his life, the women in his life, especially his wife and sister, appear as powerful sources of strength and support. Even his volatile mother inspires him, with Thomas recognizing that while her own unresolved trauma held her back as a mother, 'she still fed us and loved us with as much of herself as she could offer.' The most brutal scenes — assaults by strangers and, frequently, police and security guards and the like — take place mostly off the page, and Thomas keeps the focus on the effect they had on him. Readers may be reminded of the work of pivotal African-American author James Baldwin, who explored many of the same topics (and whom Thomas references frequently as an inspiration). The Broken King richly pulls references from writers such as Shakespeare, Mark Twain, W.E.B. DuBois, Charles Dickens, W.H. Auden, Frederick Douglass and T.S. Eliot, whose poem Little Gidding gives Thomas his book's title. Meanwhile, Thomas's command of language brings to mind the work of American novelist Vladimir Nabokov — someone else Thomas cites as a writing influence. Like Nabokov's controversial 1955 novel Lolita, Thomas's gorgeous, lush prose overlays a dark subject. But despite that darkness, Thomas infuses his memoir with a powerful, beautiful hope, noting, 'I've come to believe that the effort to make something beautiful — and only the most sincere effort, unaffected by potential outcome, material gain or loss — is the only thing that can prevent us from falling into darkness.' Kathryne Cardwell is a Winnipeg writer.
Edmonton Journal
4 days ago
- Edmonton Journal
Fringe Review: The Last Perfect Game: The Jerry Stephenson Story
Article content Article content Stage 38, Plaza Bowling, 10418 118 Ave NW Article content It's March 22, 1963 — the night a local legend was made in the basement of a humble bowling alley on 118 Avenue. It's easy to feel transported, since the venue, still a popular destination for a certain demographic, features all the original fixtures from 1959. This includes the leaderboard, with a name that stands alone along the bottom: Jerry Stephenson, who rolled the first and last perfect game at Plaza Bowling. The star of the evening. Article content Article content Article content The theatrical use of the bowling alley's lights was impressive, and the actors did well to manage a lack of backstage in the venue. David Widder-Varhegyi, feels perfect in the role of Jerry. He harnesses a certain Albertan charisma, and coincidentally has a very Seinfeld-esque wild-eyed stare as the pressure builds to complete his perfect game. Article content One component that felt unnecessary was the show's flipping between the present day, when another couple is bowling on a date, and that evening in 1963. I guess the modern couple is meant to represent us, the audience, and to show how bowlers still marvel at Jerry's perfect game. But for me, it took me out of the most interesting part of the story, and I could have done without it.
Winnipeg Free Press
4 days ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Richard Thomas dons wig and mustache to play icon Mark Twain in one-man play touring the US
NEW YORK (AP) — Richard Thomas has not one but two big shoes to fill when he goes out on the road this summer in a celebrated one-man show. The Emmy Award winner and Tony Award nominee is portraying the great American writer Mark Twain in a play written and performed for decades by the late Hal Holbrook. Thomas immediately accepted the offer to star in the 90-minute 'Mark Twain Tonight!' that tours more than a dozen states this summer and fall before wondering what he'd gotten himself into. 'I walked down to the street and I said, 'Are you crazy? What are you out of your mind?'' he says, laughing. 'I had to grapple with who's the bigger fool — the man who says, 'Yes, I'll do it' or the man that says, 'No, I won't'?' Holbrook portrayed the popular novelist and humorist for more than a half century starting in 1954, making over 2,300 performances to a collective audience of more than 2 million. He and Thomas were fond of each other and would see each other's work. The show mixes Twain's speeches and passages from his books and letters to offer a multidimensional look at an American icon, who toured the U.S. with appearances. 'I'm going to feel very much like I'm not only following in Hal's footsteps, but in Twain's as well,' says Thomas, who began his career as John-Boy Walton on TV's 'The Waltons' and became a Broadway mainstay. Thomas jokes that Holbrook had 50 years to settle into the role and he has only a year or so. 'I have the advantage on him that he started when he was 30 and he was pretending to be an old man. I'm 74 so I'm right there. That's the one area where I'm up on him.' 'It's time for Twain' The new tour kicks off this week in Hartford, Connecticut — appropriately enough, one of the places Twain lived — and then goes to Maryland, Iowa, Arkansas, North Carolina, Kansas, Tennessee, New York, New Jersey, Utah, California, Arizona, Alabama, Utah and Florida by Christmastime. Then in 2026 — the 60th anniversary of the Broadway premiere — it goes to Texas, Colorado, Wisconsin and Ohio. 'It's time for Twain, you know? I mean, it's always time for Twain, always. He's always relevant because he's utterly and completely us, with warts and all,' says Thomas. The actor will travel with a stage manager and a trunk with his costumes, but all the other elements will be sourced locally by the venues — like desks and chairs, giving each show local touches. 'There's something about doing a show for people in their own community, in their theater that they support, that they raise money for. They're not coming to you as tourists. You're coming to them.' Thomas has done a one-man show before — 'A Distant Country Called Youth' using Tennessee Williams letters — but that allowed him to read from the script on stage. Here he has no such help. 'One of the keys is to balance the light and the shadow, how funny, how outrageous, the polemic and the darkness and the light. You want that balanced beautifully,' he says. Twain represents America Other actors — notably Val Kilmer and Jerry Hardin — have devised one-man shows about the creator of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, who still manages to fascinate. A new biography of Twain by Ron Chernow came out this year, which Thomas is churning through. Thomas sees Twain as representing America perfectly: 'He just lets it all hang out there. He's mean-spirited; he's generous. He's bigoted; he is progressive. He hates money; he wants to be the richest man in America. All of these fabulous contradictions are on display.' Thomas has lately become a road rat, touring in 'Twelve Angry Men' from 2006-08, 'The Humans' in 2018 and starring as Atticus Finch in Aaron Sorkin's adaptation of 'To Kill a Mockingbird' from 2022-24. Orin Wolf, CEO of tour producer NETworks Presentations, got to watch Thomas on the road in 'To Kill a Mockingbird' and says having him step into Twain will strengthen the theater community across the country Weekly A weekly look at what's happening in Winnipeg's arts and entertainment scene. 'It's so rare nowadays to have a true star of the road,' Wolf says, calling Thomas 'a breed of actor and artist that they rarely make anymore.' 'I'm delighted to be supporting him and delighted that he's chosen to do this because I think this is something he could also take on for hopefully many years,' he adds. After Twain, Thomas will next be seen on Broadway this spring opposite Renée Elise Goldsberry and Marylouise Burke in David Lindsay-Abaire's new comedy, 'The Balusters.' But first there's the eloquence and wry humor in a show about Twain that reveals he was often a frustrated optimist when it came to America. 'I think it reflects right now a lot of our frustration with how things are going,' says Thomas. 'Will things ever be better and can things ever better? Or are we just doomed to just be this species that is going to constantly eat its own tail and are we ever going to move forward?'
