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Miami Herald
12 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Miami Herald
Review: ‘Step By Step' at Actors' Playhouse climbs comedic emotional mountains
Three friends take off on a two-day mountain trek in a play that resembles a buddy road trip movie. The reason for their adventure? To travel the same path that their friend Rebeca, who passed away, loved so much. They are there in solidarity and as a tribute. But the climb up is not without its challenges. Not one of them is a seasoned hiker. Each one carries baggage – more emotional than what they have stuffed in their backpacks. In 90 minutes, Monica (Anna Lise Jensen), Sophie (Elizabeth Price) and Paula (Kareema Khouri), will reveal obsessions, fears, and neuroses, ponder the meaning of life and death, their jobs and marriage, and come clean about their feelings for one another. There are variations of Peter Quilter's play 'Step By Step,' now at Actors' Playhouse through Aug. 10, playing throughout the world in different languages. At the Coral Gables theater, this is the U.S. premiere of a version that had its world premiere in Barcelona as 'Paso a Paso' in 2022. It went on to be performed in Norway, Bulgaria, Croatia, Finland and toured the Netherlands in 2024. If the U.K. playwright's name doesn't ring a bell, two of his more than a dozen plays will. The most acclaimed was 'End of the Rainbow' a musical drama about the final months of Judy Garland's life, which garnered Renee Zellweger the Oscar for the movie version in 2019. Then there was 'Glorious!' about the world's worst opera singer, Florence Foster Jenkins, which became the subject of a film starring Meryl Streep. Quilter's plays usually deal with women and grief, loss, growing older and have an arc that helps his characters gain a perspective that emboldens them to start anew. 'Step By Step' started as a man's journey called 'The Hill' where Sam, Daniel and Tony join for a climb in a memorial to their friend Gareth. It first opened in Prague in 2020. But during the pandemic, Quilter took 'The Hill' and turned it into a female three hander. Monica, while the daftest of the three, is the most well-rounded character in the comedy and the one that gets the most laughs. Her biggest concern is marrying Graham while her friends – she even does it a few times – keep referring to him as her former love Gary, who ran off with her cousin. Freudian slips abound. It's Monica's final week of freedom before her marriage, something she's hoping the clean mountain air will make her realize that she can 'settle down and stop the endless pursuit of sexual conquest.' She doesn't seem to believe it and she's hardly convincing. Jensen milks the comic lines for all they're worth and a scene where she collapses on a tent that is graffitied with all the men she's had liaisons with inside, like notches on a bedpost, is perfectly over-the-top dramatic. Sophie, the self-proclaimed White Lesbian in the group, can't get over a break-up with her ex. At the opening of the play, she's packed and repacked her backpack. She's neurotic and having what her friend Paula calls one of her 'spectrum' moments to which Sophie replies: 'Everybody's on the spectrum. I'm just on it a little bit extra.' Her neuroses rage in full force when, out of the blue, her fear of clowns haunts her in the middle of the night on the campsite. Price, who's a frequent fixture on South Florida stages, manages Sophie with just enough anxiety and compulsion to not have her become an overbearing neurotic caricature. Khouri, who was so enthralling in Actors' Playhouse's 'Caroline or Change' last season, stretches her comic chops here as Paula. When she realizes they've just hiked up one side of a mountain while a café and car on the other side could have produced the result just as easily, it's one of the most well-crafted comical deliveries in the show. Unfortunately, the author saddles the character with a joke about two prostitutes that seems left over from his man-comedy 'The Hill' but Khouri tackles the challenge with gusto and moves on. While the 90-minute, no intermission format is enough time for the actual journey, what it doesn't allow for is a backstory. It's unclear how the trio met although there is a brief mention of becoming friends in college, How their friendship has endured is never explored. The loss of Rebeca isn't written in depth enough to anchor the theme of the play. The author suggests music choices while Actors' Playhouse's production tosses in some of their own in between scenes– the requisite 'You've Got a Friend in Me' and 'Get By With A Little Help From My Friends,' and the addition of an arrangement of Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah.' These breaks add to director David Arisco's smart pacing of the show along with his attention to the emotional rollercoaster he's made sure the ensemble conveys. The trio excels as an ensemble all the while defining their individual characters. Brandon M. Newton's set is serviceable with different ramps for the actors to ascend and descend depending on entrances and exits. But the unrealistic depiction of a mountain trail creates a dissonance for the suspension of disbelief that we are accompanying these characters on a real journey. The back screen provides more reality with projections of the sky and clouds and nighttime scenes. Also having scene changes by stagehands, which could have easily been performed by the actors, contributes to the interruption of a seamless flow of buying into the reality. Eric Nelson's lighting is bright in all the right places and dark in others and ensures the audience can see what's happening on stage. His use of warm lighting reflects the comfort and closeness of the characters and the reason for their journey. Where it could have helped, especially since the stage setting conflicts with the reality, was to be stronger in its indication of time of day – early sunrise, mid-afternoon, dusk. Reidar Sorensen's sound design produced the natural woodsy occurrences – birds and nature ambience. Sam Sigler was responsible for set dressing and props design, the graffitied tent and other camping utensils. Ellis Tillman's costumes helped define each character: Monica's Lulelemon-esque form-fitting ensemble, Sophie's sensible and meant-for-hiking boots, and Paula's heavy on comfort choices. Like s'mores at a campfire, 'Step By Step' is a satisfying treat with indulgent, messy characters and something a little sweet for the inevitable end to summer. If you go: WHAT: U.S. premiere of 'Step By Step' by Peter Quilter WHERE: Actors' Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre, 280 Miracle Mile, Coral Gables WHEN: 8 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday; Matinees, 2 p.m., Wednesday, 3 p.m. Sunday through Aug. 10. Check website for pre-show specials. COST: $50, $60, and $70, weekdays; $65, $75 and $85, weekends. INFORMATION: 305-444-9293 or is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don't miss a story at
Daily Mirror
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Netflix is still streaming all of The Hunting Wives star's ‘musical masterpieces'
The Hunting Wives on Netflix already has fans demanding a second season, but unfortunately it's not made it to the UK just yet There's good news for Netflix users jealous of US fans who have just got their hands on the most scandalous new murder mystery drama of the year. The Hunting Wives stars Brittany Snow as Sophie O'Neil, a former journalist who moves to rural Texas with her husband and their young son. Sophie soon strikes up a close relationship with Margo Banks (played by Malin Akerman), the alluring wife of her husband's new boss, oil tycoon Jed Banks (Dermot Mulroney). However, she bites off more than she can chew when she becomes indoctrinated into Margo's exclusive group of MAGA-supporting hunting friends, who all have a secret or two to hide. When the body of a teenage girl is found in one of their favourite hunting spots, Sophie's life begins to spiral out of control. This must-watch series is already causing waves in the USA after releasing this Monday (21st July), with the hope it will soon arrive to UK streamers. Until then, fans can stream several hit films with The Hunting Wives' lead star on Netflix. All three films in the Pitch Perfect series, which stars Snow alongside Anna Kendrick and Rebel Wilson, are available on Netflix in the UK. Also on the streamer is one of her breakout films, the 2007 musical Hairspray. Pitch Perfect is often considered a modern teen classic, and is the ideal campy, easy-going movie to throw on if you can't wait to see Snow step up her game in her scandalous new thriller. One five-star Google review said: 'This masterpiece of a movie that stars one of my favorite singers (and actresses), has always been a favorite of mine. 'From the hilarious delivery of jokes to the amazing singing from the ENTIRE cast, this is absolutely one of my comfort movies. Watch Stranger Things on Netflix for free with Sky This article contains affiliate links, we will receive a commission on any sales we generate from it. Learn more from £15 Sky Get the deal here Product Description 'I mean, really -- there are so many perfect comedy lines throughout the movie, with a lovable cast to play the lovable characters (Rebel Wilson playing Fat Amy HAS to be my favorite <3). HIGHLY RECOMMEND WATCHING THIS FILM.' 'Pitch Perfect is one of my FAVORITE movies, I fell off of my sofa not even half way through the movie. It is HILARIOUS!!!' someone else raved. And a third enthusiast wrote: 'This movie is an all-time favorite for my kids and hubby. We have a blast watching this every night, LOL!! It has the best messages and the singing is a hit!' Fans also agree Hairspray is equally deserving of classic status, with one user writing: 'I love this movie so much. The message is to love everyone for who they are no matter what shape and size or what they look like. 'This movie is so inspiring and anyone can learn from it whether it be to love themselves for who they are or to love people who are different.' If that's still not enough, Brittany Snow's Netflix Original romantic comedy with Gina Rodriguez, Someone Great, is also not going anywhere. Pitch Perfect 1-3 and Hairspray are available to stream on Netflix.
Time Magazine
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Time Magazine
'The Hunting Wives' Is a Bonkers, Bisexual Culture-War Soap
If the word wife is in the title, expect suds. This is a cardinal rule of television, established by Desperate Housewives, cemented by the Real Housewives, and perpetuated by the many scripted and unscripted series those ravenously consumed foremothers begat: The Good Wife, Sister Wives, Basketball Wives, Mob Wives, The Ex-Wife, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. But really, wife titles have been shorthand for scandalous fun since the 14th century, when Chaucer made 'The Wife of Bath's Tale' the raunchiest of his Canterbury Tales. As the backstory of its eponymous five-time widow suggests, the ur-wife is a character with carnal experience, sexually empowered and financially secure but also subject to a man's rule. Hence the steam—and the scheming. You'd think 600-plus years and successive waves of feminism would have put paid to this archetype… and yet, though sexual candor predominates, the patriarchy persists. And so the diabolical minds behind summer TV have managed to dream up what might be the wildest, silliest, and soapiest wife show ever made—which, I know, is saying a lot. Adapted from May Cobb's novel, Netflix's The Hunting Wives has it all: kidnapped teens, age-gap affairs, buried secrets, crooked clergy, swinging politicians, shadowy stalkers, ravenous bisexuals, substances galore, a murder. And that's just in the three episodes provided for review. It's also about the Trump-era culture wars. Even if you cringe a bit at its crassness (as I did), you kind of have to admire it (as I also do) for always doing the most. Wife-show junkies, meet your new addiction. The Hunting Wives begins with a pretty basic soap opera premise: Sophie O'Neil (Brittany Snow) has just moved from Boston—sorry, Cambridge, where the show keeps reminding us Harvard is—to small-town Texas for her husband Graham's (Evan Jonigkeit) new job. A former political PR pro and generic East Coast Liberal, Sophie is now the full-time mom to a young son (Emmett Moss). So you can guess how she feels when she finds herself at a rollicking NRA fundraiser on the vast estate of Graham's new employer, the super-rich oilman and aspiring Republican governor Jed Banks (a smug Dermot Mulroney). There she encounters Jed's beguiling wife, Margo (Malin Akerman), who initiates Sophie into her circle of glamorous, snarky, hard-drinking, gun-toting, red-voting wives. Fish out of water, meet queen bee. But there's a twist to this upstart-vs.-diva plot. Sophie first lays eyes on Margo in one of the mansion's bathrooms, which Margo is scouring for a maxi pad. When her guest doesn't have one either, Margo strips down, shoves some paper towels in her lacy underwear, and asks Sophie (who's dressed in long-sleeved black number a dismayed Graham labeled 'Soviet') to zip up her slinky green gown. Then Sophie shares her Xanax stash with Margo; they clink pills, champagne-flute style, and exchange meaningful glances. Occurring less than five minutes into the premiere, this scene gives us our first inkling that these two women might be more likely to make out with each other than to feud for supremacy within their clique—which is also to say it's our first indication that The Hunting Wives is to soap operas what Secretary is to rom-coms. Margo is the horny, imperious sun that Maple Brook, TX revolves around, and Akerman both smolders in the role and seems to be having a ton of fun with it. We learn early on that Margo and Jed have extensive extramarital sex lives. But don't call it an open marriage! As Margo explains to Sophie: 'Open marriages are for liberals. We just keep it simple. I don't sleep with other men, and when Jed and I see a girl we like, we go for it.' (Not that she always adheres to those rules. Something else she tells Sophie: 'I believe in doing whatever the f-ck I want.') One girl Margo likes more than Jed might prefer is her skeet-shooting buddy Callie (Jaime Ray Newman), who immediately senses a rival in Sophie. For her part, Sophie is bored without her job and chafing within her marriage to a man who, despite his Harvard-polished manners, can be judgmental and controlling. Both women are running away from shameful pasts. The question of whether Margo and Jed's unconventional arrangement would hurt his campaign arises early, and the way the series handles it is emblematic of The Hunting Wives' perceptive take on the new right. This constituency, Jed points out, doesn't care about the (hetero)sexual transgressions of its macho leaders: 'They don't want a Boy Scout. They want a man.' If Donald Trump can get re-elected President after being held liable for sexual abuse, who in Texas is going to blink at the consensual nonmonogamy of a Republican gubernatorial candidate? Yet Margo rightly worries about double standards around gender and sexuality that guarantee she'll face scrutiny if it comes out that she, too, is sleeping with other women. From Graham's surveillance of Sophie to the do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do debauchery of Margo's friends, who regularly get wasted at honkytonk girls nights but wouldn't miss a Sunday at church, the show gets that hypocrisy is a bipartisan phenomenon. It's enough to make you forgive all the glib political references, from Marjorie Taylor Greene to 'deplorables.' Once in a while, there's even a painfully keen zinger. 'There are no clinics left to bomb—thanks to us,' one character brags. All of the above would've been more than enough to fuel a season of salacious froth, but the series' maximalism extends to more than just Margo's sex life. (Before we move off the latter topic, though, let me just say: There are two separate scenes within the first three episodes where someone stumbles upon a couple in flagrante and one of the lovers meets that person's gaze with a saucy smirk. Both involve Margo.) As is obligatory on TV these days, there is a murder mystery; early episodes are framed by flash-forwards to a blonde woman, her face obscured so it's impossible to tell which of multiple blonde characters she is, fighting for her life in the nighttime woods. The kidnapping of a teen girl months earlier lingers in the background. The local megachurch is its own whole thing, with Shondaland stalwart Katie Lowes giving a delightfully overbearing performance as Jill, a preacher's wife and Margo sidekick who's plotting to profit off of her husband's influence. Jill's teenage son Brad (George Ferrier) is just as calculating, if not nearly as savvy, pressuring his pious girlfriend Abby (Madison Wolfe) for a repeat of their prom-night hookup while pursuing other partners. The church's guitar-wielding youth minister, Pastor Pete (played by the late Paul Teal), senses friction within the relationship but has ulterior motives of his own. Abby's mother, Starr, a frumpy, low-income outcast in a sea of McMansion-dwelling trophy wives, is played by This Is Us alum Chrissy Metz, one of the show's top-billed actors. So it's curious to see her get so little screen time in the first few episodes. The Hunting Wives is too much, in ways both delectable and exhausting. Executive producer and showrunner Rebecca Cutter risks running out of steam in the back half of the season, let alone in a second. But for now, at least, its sheer exuberance keeps all the try-hard naughtiness from feeling excessively self-satisfied. (The gnawing guilt viewers of certain political persuasions might feel at reveling in lightly satirized MAGA nihilism as its real-life fallout reverberates around the globe is another story.) The Wife of Bath would surely recognize an heir in Margo—and, I think, approve.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
What's on TV this week—The Hunting Wives and Washington Black
Welcome to What's On, our weekly roundup of notable shows. Here is what's happening on TV from Sunday, July 20 to Saturday, July 26. All times are Eastern. The biggies (Netflix, Monday, 3:01 a.m.) Soapy drama The Hunting Wives centers on the liberal Sophie (Brittany Snow), who moves to a deep-red town in East Texas and becomes fast friends (and maybe more) with a wealthy socialite (played by Malin Akerman). When someone drops dead, Sophie and her new clique are identified as the top suspects. Check out The A.V. Club's review of the show on Monday. (Hulu, Wednesday, 12:01 a.m.) In this historical-fantasy saga, 11-year-old George 'Wash' Black (Eddie Karanja) flees from the Barbados sugar plantation he was born on to go on globe-trotting adventure. As an adult, Wash (Ernest Kingsley Jr.) settles into a Nova Scotia community and befriends its leader. Sterling K. Brown, Tom Ellis, Shaunette Wilson, and Edward Bluemel co-star. The A.V. Club's review publishes Monday. Also airing (Hulu, Tuesday, 12:01 a.m.) This six-part British series follows a police officer (portrayed by Jing Lusi) who gets caught up in a global conspiracy while escorting a murder suspect (played by Richard Armitage) on a flight to Beijing. (BritBox, Thursday, 3:01 a.m.) BritBox's slate expands with Code Of Silence, in which a team of detectives rope in the deaf Alison (Rose Ayling-Ellis) to lip-read in the hopes of thwarting a jewelry heist. The series, which already aired in the U.K., has been renewed for a second season. Can't miss recaps (FXX, Wednesday, 10 p.m.) Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (Paramount+, Thursday, 3 a.m) (HBO Max, Thursday, 9 p.m) Arriving now (Apple TV+, Wednesday, 12:01 a.m., season four premiere) (Comedy Central, Wednesday, 10-11 p.m., season premieres) Ending soon (Apple TV+, Wednesday, 12:01 a.m., season one finale) (Netflix, Wednesday, 3:01 a.m., season one finale) (Netflix, Thursday, 3:01 a.m., series finale) More from A.V. Club The first openly gay baseball player also invented the high five Whisper Of The Heart left a lo-fi legacy unique to Studio Ghibli John Oliver calls Colbert cancellation "terrible news for the world of comedy" Solve the daily Crossword
Los Angeles Times
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
‘The Hunting Wives' is a Texas-set murder mystery replete with guns
In 'The Hunting Wives,' a brightly configured murder mystery cum cartoon sex opera premiering Monday on Netflix, Brittany Snow plays Sophie O'Neil, newly arrived from Boston with husband Graham (Evan Jonigkeit) and prop young son to fictional Maple Brook, Texas, a rich people's town somewhere in the vicinity of Dallas. Graham is an architect, seemingly — at one point he will say, 'Soph, you gotta check out this joinery,' which, in the three episodes out for review, is as specific as that will get — who has come to work for rich person Jed Banks (Dermot Mulroney) to build 'the new Banks HQ.' What will happen in there is not said. The O'Neils step into this world by way of a fundraiser at which Banks, who wants to be governor, is making a speech in support of the National Rifle Assn., highlighting the need for guns for 'good people' to fend off 'all sorts of evil sumbitches' and the 'personas malos keep pouring in every day' across the border. This is as much of a platform as he will bother to have; plotwise, the point is that running for office may expose his swinging private life to public scrutiny. Over the course of the party, we meet the major players: Jill (Katie Lowes) is married to Rev. Clint (Jason Davis), who runs the local megachurch; her son Brad (George Ferrier) — who would be named Brad — is an unpleasant slab of basketball-playing meat who is seeing, which is to say, trying to sleep with Abby (Madison Wolfe), a nice girl from the wrong side of the tracks. (Jill is against the relationship; Abby's mother, Starr, played by Chrissy Metz, has her own reservations.) Callie (Jaime Ray Newman), second among the eponymous wives, is married to Sheriff Jonny (Branton Box); I'm not sure whether Jonny is his first or last name, but this does seem the kind of place where the sheriff would be known by his first. Supplementary wives Monae (Joyce Glenn) and Taylor (Alexandria DeBerry) are just there to make up the numbers. Most important is Margo Banks (Malin Akerman), whom Sophie encounters in a bathroom where she has gone to take a Xanax for her social anxiety, and who, within seconds and not for the last time, is casually topless. Margo has no social anxiety. She seizes on Sophie as fresh blood, or from some genuine connection, or because she recognizes in the newcomer the sort of person who needs a person like her, someone Margo can productively dominate to their mutual advantage. Margo immediately declares they'll be besties — creating a rift with Callie, the current occupant of that role, who, radiating jealousy at every pore, is determined to get between them. Sophie, Graham seems proud to announce, was once 'a bit of a wild child … a party girl' who became a career woman — a political PR operative — and, for the last seven years, a full-time mother. He has a lightly controlling, 'for your own good' manner, keeping her from drinking or driving — there'll be a reason for that, you'll have guessed — but before long, she will drink, and she will drive. 'Two rules,' says Margo, getting her behind the wheel. 'Trust me and do everything I say.' Drafted into Margo's world, Sophie is soon shooting skeet, and then, having bought her own guns, wild boar. I cite again the Chekhov dictum to the effect that a gun in the first act ought to go off in the second, but there are so many about here, and our attention so significantly drawn to them, it would be a shock if some didn't fire — the only questions being which and when and whose, pointed at what or whom. Developed by Rebecca Perry Cutter ('Hightown') from May Cobb's 2021 novel of the same name, the series offers a light dusting of political references — 'deplorables,' Marjorie Taylor Greene, no abortion clinics 'left to bomb,' negative mentions of feminism and liberals — that might as easily been left off in light of the insular fantasyland within which 'The Hunting Wives' operates. (Did J.R. Ewing ever express a political opinion?) Given the context — liberal Northerners camped among conservative Southerners — one might have expected a 'Stepford Wives' scenario, but this is something different. Within, or exploiting, their sociocultural limits ('We don't work, we wife,' says Monae proudly), the women party heartily while the men, even when nominally powerful, come across as comparatively bland, uninteresting and distracted. Graham, who is very nice, can seem positively dim; 'Take my wife, please,' he'll happily joke when Margo rides up on a jet ski to spirit Sophie away from a family day at the lake. The characters are types, but the actors fill them out well, and the dynamic between Margo and Sophie really is … dynamic. Margo is intriguing because she's hard to figure. Like Sophie, she has a hidden past — when a mysterious figure at the local roadhouse (Jullian Dulce Vida) calls her Mandy, it makes her atypically nervous because, obviously, she was once called Mandy. She lies to her husband; she's having sex with Brad, which just seems like bad taste. But there's something authentic and genuine about Margo magnified by Akerman's entrancing performance. Margo is a temptress, the devil on Sophie's shoulder — but maybe the angel too. Lest we forget, there's a murder, which opens the show in a flash forward; the series catches up with it by the end of Episode 3. (It brings in Karen Rodriguez as Det. Salazar, which promises good things.) There's also a briefly mentioned missing girl, which will certainly tie in somehow. But with only three episodes out of eight seen, it's impossible to say where it's all going — unless you've read the book, I suppose, but even then, you never know. What's clear is that there'll be more secrets to reveal, with skeletons tumbling out of every closet. And these are big houses, with plenty of storage.
