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Boston Globe
14 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Gamm Theatre offers a transcendent telling of Tony Kushner's ‘Angels in America: Part One'
The story revolves around his diagnosis and illness, but Prior's life serves as a launching pad for weighty discussions about liberalism, conservatism, and race relations during the Reagan years. And there is no shortage of philosophizing about how the past shapes the present. The play also finds parallels between Judaism and homosexuality, reminding us about how swiftly a fearful and divided nation marginalizes, stigmatizes, and ostracizes 'others.' Get Globe Rhode Island Food Club A weekly newsletter about food and dining in Rhode Island, by Globe Rhode Island reporter Alexa Gagosz. Enter Email Sign Up It is no wonder that the play is long — seven-and-a-half-hours in total — and told over two separate performances: 'Part One: Millennium Approaches,' which runs through June 15, and 'Part Two: Perestroika,' which runs from Sept. 25 to Oct. 12. Both are directed by Brian McEleney, who knows his way around this work having played the pivotal role of Prior Walter in Trinity Repertory Company's acclaimed 1996 production. Advertisement What is brilliant about this audaciously ambitious work is that it is at once imaginative and unpretentious, uncompromising and affable, and hard to watch but impossible to look away. What is particularly maddening is Kushner's constant intertwining of diatribes with dialogue, reality with drug- and disease-induced fantasy, and horror with humor. Advertisement Also, most actors play multiple roles to demonstrate the elasticity of gender, social and cultural identities, as well as the implicitly theatrical nature of this work. And as our nation once again gravitates toward ignorance and intolerance regarding LGBTQ+ communities, this play is — as Hilton Als duly noted — necessary. Director McEleney and his designers fully embrace the necessary nature of this work by having it drive the show's production values. The permanent set that dominates the Gamm Theatre stage, courtesy of Patrick Lynch, resembles the kind of filthy public restrooms in New York City's Central Park that hosted clandestine homosexual encounters in the mid-1980s, complete with sterile gray tiling tagged with profane graffiti and hate speech. The introduction of simple furnishings — in line with the playwright's call for a 'pared-down style of presentation' to make the show an 'actor-driven event' — serve to establish the various locations in which this three-act play takes place, but with the reminder of the illicitly and risk of homosexuality always in the background. These scene-changing chairs and tables are brought onto and off of the stage while the previous scene is still taking place, which accentuates the intersecting lives of characters who have been touched by AIDS or by those infected by it. These include Prior's politically committed but not personally disconnected lover, Louis Ironson (Ben Steinfeld, whose powerful depiction of this guilt-ridden man is masterful); Roy Cohn, a toxic, high-profile prosecuting attorney and powerbroker who refuses to admit he is gay (a mesmerizing Tony Estrella); a closeted Mormon legal clerk (a superb Jeff Church, whose stiff posture and tailored suit (courtesy of designer David T. Howard) attempts but cannot contain this character's abundance of internal conflict); his emotionally unstable and Valium-addicted wife (Gabrielle McCauley, whose ability to phase in and out of her character's drug-induced revelations and humorous delusions (courtesy of lighting designer Jeff Adelberg) is dazzling); and an ex-drag queen named Belize (an always intriguing Rodney Witherspoon II). Advertisement Some of the best and most truthful acting moments occur on the periphery of these scenes, as characters linger before leaving the stage. There we find McCauley's Harper paralyzed and in tears, Church's Joe lost in his personal pain, and Regen's Prior and Steinfeld's Louis reflecting on their respective futures. Even after the play's opening scene, in which a eulogy of an old woman is presented, the incredible Phyllis Kay as Rabbi Isidor Chemelwitz stands frozen for a moment, overwhelmed by her own words. Just when you think that the acting on the Gamm Theatre stage could not get any better than that recently on display in ' A sign by the theater box office offers a warning about the play's profanity, brief nudity, and disturbing subject matter. Missing is mention of how 'Angels in America' is a cautionary tale that has come to fruition, which may very well be why this play's production is a late add to the already completed 2024/2025 season. Advertisement ANGELS IN AMERICA: PART ONE Play by Tony Kushner. Directed by Brian McEleney. At the Gamm Theatre, 1245 Jefferson Blvd., Warwick, R.I. Runs through June 15. Tickets $70-$80, plus fees. 401-723-4266, Bob Abelman is an award-winning theater critic who formerly wrote for the Austin Chronicle. Connect with him .
Boston Globe
3 days ago
- Politics
- Boston Globe
I love America. Now it stands to lose a generation of people like me.
The Trump administration's attack on Harvard is a clear warning to all current and future international students in the United States. Cities across the country will lose an annual influx of bright young people, Boston more than many. This is particularly depressing for foreigners who love and admire America. People like me. Advertisement America stands to lose more than tuition at its universities. International students contribute more than $ Get The Gavel A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Enter Email Sign Up Equally important, America's university system was an ace in the hole in terms of international diplomacy. It could attract the best and the brightest from across the globe and turn them into friends or future citizens. Comparatively few students considered going to China to pursue their dreams. But many will now avoid the uncertainty that now comes with studying in the United States. Advertisement My love for America started early. I went to kindergarten here while my dad attended Duke University on a student visa. I loved the Power Rangers and chasing a ball with a swarm of kids playing soccer. The first book I read aloud was the 1961 American children's classic ' My admiration deepened as an undergraduate at Princeton University. The conservative legal scholar I became a staunch defender of the country. Although I'm aware of its many contradictions, I am quick to mention America's contributions to the world. In the 18th century, the immortal prose of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution heralded the modern rebirth of democratic government around the globe. The next three centuries loosed a torrent of world-changing inventions that drew on research from many countries and became supercharged in the US. All of these come from America. Many come directly from its universities. Advertisement America's genius seems to stem from a culture of trying new things, along with the political and economic institutions that allow them to scale. In Denmark we are slower to celebrate individual achievement. In the emblematic fairy tale, written by the Danish author Hans Christian Andersen in 1843, an I was wrapping up the semester at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government when the news broke. My classmates and I trembled. Would we graduate? We risked losing everything we had worked for. Many prospective international students will now look at America and decide it is not worth the risk. Not when the government could yank their university's ability to host international students on a whim. Not when the government could revoke their visas Scholarship funders will also think twice. A Any university could be next. I remain hopeful that America will return to the veneration for knowledge and democratic institutions for which it has long been admired on the global stage. But today those ideals are tinder for an out-of-control bonfire. The country's ability to attract talent will be diminished for years, if not decades. Advertisement America remains a shining city on a hill. But only because it has set itself on fire.
Wales Online
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Wales Online
TV presenter says Strictly was 'worse than childbirth'
TV presenter says Strictly was 'worse than childbirth' Angela Scanlon has insisted that she would rather give birth without pain relief "ten times over" than experience the pain of the "raw, bleeding blisters" she suffered on Strictly Come Dancing (Image: PA ) TV presenter Angela Scanlon has frankly admitted that her stint on Strictly Come Dancing was a tougher experience than going through childbirth. The 41-year-old presenter, who is a mother to daughters Ruby, seven, and Marnie, three, with entrepreneur Roy Horgan, would opt to go through giving birth without pain relief "ten times over" instead of enduring the "raw, bleeding blisters" that plagued her during her time on the popular BBC Saturday evening dance show in 2023. In conversation with reality TV personality Vicky Pattison, 37, on their 'Get a Grip' podcast, Angela, host of shows like Your Home Made Perfect, revealed: "I've had two children without pain relief and would do that ten times over in a day than have raw, bleeding blisters. "You have to put the goddamn shoes on and do a Viennese waltz - my heels have never had so much action. "You put a plaster on and, because you're sweating like a donkey, it falls off. You put socks on with your ballroom shoe, and you're still rub-a-dubbing. "You're raw." On the radio and on the dance floor, Angela, embraced by listeners on Virgin Radio UK, faced tough competition alongside professional dance partner, Carlos Gu, as they landed in sixth place on Strictly Come Dancing. For the latest TV and showbiz gossip sign up to our newsletter . Angela Scanlon took part in the 2023 series of Strictly Come Dancing (Image: BANG Showbiz ) Their Cha-cha-cha to Gloria Gaynor's hit 'I Will Survive' didn't charm judges Craig Revel Horwood, 60, Motsi Mabuse, 44, Shirley Ballas, 64, and Anton Du Beke, 58. The duo found themselves battling it out in a dance-off against Layton Williams, 30, known for his role in the BBC series Bad Education, and his professional partner Nikita Kuzmin, 27. Reflecting on the tense moments under the red lights during Strictly Come Dancing, Angela Scanlon described the experience as "hell on Earth" while speaking to Caroline Hirons on the 'Glad We Had This Chat' podcast in 2024. She expressed her disbelief at the practice, saying: "Under the lights? "Hell on Earth. I don't know how they're still allowed to do it. Honestly, it's absolute torture." Angela went on to discuss their leaderboard position: "And the thing about it is, we were never, or we were very rarely, like up there on the leaderboard - twice maybe. "So you can sometimes have like a little bit of a breather because I think.." She also touched upon the uncertainty of the voting system: "I don't fully understand how the marking works but you know, if you're right up there, it's very unlikely that the public voted, no matter how bad it is, is enough to get you out." Finally, she highlighted the precariousness of not being at the top: "If you're skirting around the middle, it's a danger zone. "The level of competition was insane so it was never comfortable." Article continues below
Boston Globe
6 days ago
- Health
- Boston Globe
NIH cuts have doomed my research in Bangladesh — but US citizens will pay too
For more than 15 years, I have conducted studies in Bangladesh, a country that has extremely high levels of arsenic in its drinking water supply — meaning the population is routinely exposed to a lot of arsenic. My collaborators are pediatric neurologists like me, as well as neurosurgeons, medics, nurses, and community health workers, all professionals dedicated to understanding how arsenic affects the neurological development of children. Get The Gavel A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Enter Email Sign Up We have received generous support from US taxpayers through their investments in the NIH. When I submit a grant application, the NIH asks me to justify why taxpayer dollars are being spent outside the country. It is easy for me to provide this justification. Arsenic affects many areas of the United States, including here in New England. But the widespread high levels of arsenic in Bangladesh, and the much larger number of people exposed to it, make conducting studies there more efficient and less expensive. Our studies have led to changes in Bangladesh's health policy, including recommendations to establish dietary standards for folate, a vitamin that counters the toxic effects of arsenic. This work also has helped us develop solutions that are relevant to US families, such as setting regulations for acceptable levels of arsenic in public water systems. Advertisement There are many examples of research conducted abroad that benefit people in the United States. Oral rehydration therapy, the standard treatment for childhood diarrhea, was developed by scientists in India and Bangladesh who worked with US partners funded by the US government. Collaborations with researchers in Colombia led to the identification of a rare genetic variant associated with a delay in dementia onset; this finding provides potential targets for therapies for Alzheimer's disease. Advertisement NIH-funded studies in Africa led to the development of self-collection swabs for cervical cancer screening. And just this month, the Food and Drug Administration Our recent experiences with COVID-19, Zika, and Ebola confirm that there are no borders to infectious diseases and that global scientific cooperation can lead to faster and more effective responses to them. To address climate change, an even greater health threat, research with foreign collaborators aids knowledge-sharing and innovation. Earlier this year, I participated in a simulation of a heat emergency in Arizona that was conducted by a research team who drew lessons from their work in western India — which taught them more about how extreme temperatures affect human physiology. It hasn't always been necessary to invoke US health interests to justify scientific research abroad. In 2003, the global HIV/AIDS epidemic led to the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS relief (PEPFAR). Over the past 20 years, PEPFAR, together with NIH funding, has expanded what we know about HIV/AIDS and turned what was once a death sentence into a manageable condition for millions worldwide. Advertisement The NIH states that the motivation for its new policy is 'to improve the tracking of federal dollars and the security of the US biomedical research enterprise.' These are goals that no one can argue with. In 2023, the NIH began requiring foreign collaborators to provide copies to their US partners of all lab notebooks, all data, and all other documentation that is produced as part of research projects. In my own program, this has meant more frequent site visits to Bangladesh, a transition to electronic record-keeping, and more detailed monitoring of expenses and receipts. It must be possible to further strengthen these efforts to provide oversight without stopping the collaborations altogether. I submitted an application to the NIH in November 2024, just days before the presidential election, that had the words 'global partnerships' in the title. It has not yet been reviewed. When I wrote those words, I believed they would be viewed as a strength of the proposal. That is no longer the case. But I am not deterred. Like many in my position, I am looking elsewhere — foundations, philanthropy, industry, other countries — for new sources of funding. If the United States will not lead the world in scientific research, I hope others will step up. So if you're a foundation or industry leader reading this and you're interested, I have a research grant proposal ready for you.
Boston Globe
7 days ago
- Politics
- Boston Globe
I experienced what's wrong with Harvard, but I'm rooting for it over Trump
Advertisement I'm from rural central Maine, and I graduated from Harvard in 2021. I felt deeply out of place for much of my time at Harvard, both socially and politically. In other words: I have seen what is rotten in higher education. I'll tell you about it. And I'll tell you why I still firmly believe that there should be no top-down control of university policy by the federal government. Get The Gavel A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Enter Email Sign Up From a barnyard to Harvard Yard I spent my childhood running around a barnyard. My grandparents are dairy farmers, so home smells like silage and manure. There was the dead cow pile, out behind the last barn, where the turkey vultures circled. There was the manure pit, scary and forbidden. I'd seen a cow's body dragged out of it once, my parents' way of warning me of what would happen if I went too close to its edge. There was the calving barn, where I watched calves slide, slick and black, from their mothers into a tangle on the floor. Advertisement I went to a public consolidated school — eight small towns' worth of kids. One of my middle school classmates had a persistent round wound on her arm. It was the size and shape of a cigarette butt. Another was always hungry. I brought him an extra peanut butter sandwich every day for years. A third was caught fingering a girl under the table in the sixth grade. By the eighth grade, he had dropped out of school and was dealing drugs. In high school, classmates flew Confederate flags off the back of their pickup trucks, right next to their gun racks. My high school had a little bit of everything else, too, save racial diversity. There was the occasional liberal, there were a few high achievers, and there were some rich kids, relatively speaking. I worked really hard and I got really lucky. 'You have a good head on your shoulders,' read the note my grandparents wrote me when I told them I'd gotten into Harvard. 'Keep thinking for yourself.' I'm sure I rolled my eyes. I was a typical 17-year-old. Self-righteous, arrogant, chafing at the edges of her small town. It was 2016. I was ready to get out of central Maine and go somewhere I'd fit in. But by the end of my first day at Harvard, instead of basking in the glow of my accomplishment and building new friendships with brilliant peers and frolicking through the historic campus like I'd imagined, I was holed up in a decidedly unglamorous public bathroom, crying. Everybody else seemed to know one another and where things were, what to do, how to dress, how to act. Advertisement The rest of my freshman year didn't go much better. Everybody else had done amazing stuff — interned for senators, started a nonprofit, published scientific research — while I had just been 'well rounded.' Everybody else had friends, while I had none. There was a particular clique of private school kids in my freshman writing class that I followed like a TV show. They were so cool. So shiny. They became a 'blocking group.' Translation: They roomed together after freshman year, codifying their cliques. The boys were 'punching' final clubs. Translation: They were rushing Harvard's version of fraternities. The girls were going to final club parties. I wanted so badly to be a part of what they had. A personal reckoning After move-out at the end of my first year, I cleaned dorms, a disgusting but high-paying week-long gig. Students leave a lot of stuff behind: TVs, jackets, unopened boxes of condoms (hope springs eternal!). I stood there in my rubber gloves and grubby sweatpants, vacuum backpack digging into my shoulders, and marveled at all the private school flags pinned up over beds. Choate. Groton. Phillips Exeter. Then I worked the reunions. There was a day care for the kids of alumni, who wore tiny tie-dyed Harvard T-shirts. There was a pipeline to Harvard, I thought, and I had not been in it. Bitterly, I pulled myself further out. That summer, I returned to Maine and became a whitewater rafting guide. I got the tannest I'd ever been. I let my accent thicken. I started saying 'f—in'' about every third word. Advertisement I believed I didn't fit in at Harvard because I wasn't rich and/or a legacy and/or a private school grad. My issue, I thought, was social. But over time, I began to realize it was also political. I started telling this joke: 'I thought I was far left until I got to Harvard. And then I realized — Mom, Dad? I think I'm a Republican.' When I was a junior, COVID brought my alienation into stark relief. In Cambridge, I was screamed at for pulling down my mask while out for a run along the Charles. At home in Maine, mask-wearing was a sign of weakness — as turn signals appear to be to Massachusetts drivers. Lockdowns in rural America felt bizarre and unnecessary, and they ran counter to Maine's libertarian-leaning ethos. It was the first time my politics had come into direct conflict with the politics of my peers. I took refuge in journalism, writing a But as time passed, I realized my social and political alienation were one and the same. Here's a moment that clarified this for me: In recalling the day after Trump won his first term as president, a friend said, 'We had a half day at school, and in the morning, everybody just sat together and cried.' I looked at him, baffled. Most of my high school classmates' parents had voted for Trump, so the air at my high school following his win was neutral to celebratory. But other people took the day off? Like, in mourning? I remember telling my parents the story and laughing so hard I was nearly in tears. 'Is that not,' I said to them, 'the most private school, San Francisco thing you've ever heard?' Advertisement I understood why folks had voted for Donald Trump. I was frustrated by COVID lockdowns. I was able to summon arguments against gun control. Why was I so outnumbered at Harvard? My perspective did not make sense to my classmates, because most of them had no concept of where or how I had grown up. Just 10 percent of I could stop here, say that rural America is outnumbered and outgunned at Harvard. That I was outnumbered and outgunned. This 'us against them' narrative, the one I read between the lines of that note my grandparents wrote to me, is tempting — and it's the one the Trump administration is selling. But it's neither true nor useful. Advertisement For one thing, Harvard is no longer a homogenous hive mind of young, monied white men. It is, genuinely, diverse. My roommate was from Iran. My best friend was a Black man from rural Pennsylvania. As a white rural (read: redneck) middle-class American woman, I was more of an outsider than some, less of an outsider than others. For another, it's not clear who Harvard's political insiders are. Sure, voices on the far left tend to be louder. But they've also been In other words, when the Trump administration demands 'viewpoint diversity' and decries the 'woke' culture at Harvard, it either misunderstands the reality at the school or is intentionally flattening the narrative in a bid to achieve its own goals. I still believe in Harvard The latter seems likely. Which brings me to the most important point, and the reason I am so proud my alma mater has held its ground against the Trump administration: Even if Harvard were simply a bastion of far-leftism, which it is not, were the Trump administration to enforce 'viewpoint diversity' at Harvard, it would simply be replacing one political monoculture with another. The administration does not hope to foster real debate and intellectual exchange. It intends to establish the dominance of Trump-style Republican values at Harvard and other elite institutions. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. And — worse — the new boss is operating under a Yes, some things are 'rotten' within elite university culture. But there is enormous potential, too. A bunch of bright, driven, different kids can — and do! — have thoughtful, productive discourse. As frustrated as I was by my time at Harvard, it broadened my perspective, helped me understand myself and the world, and made me a more empathetic person. But making that productive discourse more common is a problem for Harvard and its student body to tackle. I hear they're pretty smart. I think they can do it.
