Review: ‘Come Back to the 5 & Dime' musical a clarion call for trans resilience
As Joanne, who her friends last knew as Joe, responds to a snide comment from a peer dismissing her new name, Shakina delivers a thunderous rebuke that showcases her vocal power while compellingly reframing her character's identity not as a choice but as a necessity.
It's a show-stopping moment — one of many in the musical adaptation that made its world premiere on Saturday, June 21 at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts in conjunction with TheaterWorks Silicon Valley and Broadway & Beyond Theatricals.
Directed by Giovanna Sardelli, with a book by Ashley Robinson and music by Dan Gillespie Sells (of U.K. pop band the Feeling), the production complements the occasionally playful, often profound lyrics penned by show star Shakina. It's a mighty accomplishment for the artist and television actress,best known for her role in the sitcom 'Difficult People,' who has spent more than a decade developing a musical from Ed Graczyk's 1976 cult-classic play and subsequent 1982 film of the same name, both directed by the legendary Robert Altman.
In this reimagining, monologues are swapped for musical numbers as the Disciples of Jimmy Dean — a group of high school friends bonded through their shared love of actor James Dean and their near-mythic obsession of his brief, ill-fated stop in their small Texas hometown to film his final movie, 1956's 'Giant' — reunite at the local Woolworth's 20 years later. The gathering quickly sparks a series of timely revelations about gender, motherhood and queer identity.
Headlined by Shakina's memorable turn as a woman who comes home after leaving as a boy, 'Come Back to the 5 & Dime' marks the second standout theatrical work to emerge from a former cast member of Hulu's cult comedy 'Difficult People.' It follows fellow alum Cole Escola's staggering success with the Tony Award-winning 'Oh, Mary!,' the hit Broadway show he created and starred in. Now, Shakina delivers her own contribution to the stage: a bold reimagining of Graczyk's original script, infused with a renewed focus on transgender identity and a soundtrack more than worthy of a cast recording. The result is a production that feels both destined for and deserving of similar Broadway acclaim.
The supporting cast is just as strong. Lauren Marcus brings tender strength to the role of Mona, a woman who defines herself by a fling she claims she had with James Dean and the son she says resulted from their fleeting encounter. Stephanie Gibson's Sissy stakes her identity on her foul mouth and busty chest, while Hayley Lovegren's Stella Mae lights up the stage as a firecracker full of Texas sass.
Ellie Van Amerongen (Joe/Jimmy Dean), Ashley Cowl (Edna Louise) and Judith Miller (Loretta) round out a cast that shines from top to bottom. Each is given ample opportunity to command the stage, thanks to a dynamite book that doles out intrigue and introspection at a steady pace. One especially poignant moment comes when Joanne delivers the line 'rough edges, by design, reflect a wider range of light' during a tender duet set in the store's bathroom, which underscores the show's quiet defiance amid ongoing battles in America over the rights of trans people to use restrooms that align with their gender identity.
All the while, Nina Ball's gorgeous scenic design ensures that the worn-down 5 & Dime never feels visually stagnant, even as it serves as the production's sole setting. Late in the story, she introduces a clever bit of stagecraft that transports the Disciples back to a formative high school talent show, adding an unexpected layer of dynamism to the space.
But perhaps what's most powerful in 'Come Back to the Five & Dime' is how Joanne's transition is treated not as a centerpiece of the drama, but as one integral piece in a messier picture. While we'd all like to look as cool as the late James Dean in the black-and-white photos that crowd the walls of the group's old hangout, the alternative — however frightening it may often be — is simply to keep living as our truest selves.
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Time Magazine
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Ari Aster Breaks Down the Ambiguous Ending of Eddington
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Joe, who has asthma, strongly opposes the implementation of mask mandates that Mayor Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal) is keen to enforce. Furious over the perceived infringement on his and his neighbors' freedom, Joe decides on a whim to challenge Ted in the upcoming election. Things escalate completely out of control from there. 'The film is about a bunch of people who care about the world and know that something is wrong,' says Aster, who wrote and directed Eddington, of its take on that recent era's brewing distrust. 'They feel very clearly that something is wrong, but they're all living in different realities, and they disagree about what that thing is that's wrong.' While the townspeople debate the building of a giant new data center which will bring jobs and industry but drain natural resources, its citizens confront the conflict between police and Black Lives Matter protestors, anger and frustration over masks, and the rampant conspiracy theories increasingly finding a foothold among citizens living much of their lives on the internet. We sat down with Aster to discuss the film's explosive ending and what he's trying to say through all the violence, twists, and 11th-hour gags. Everything falls apart for Joe While Joe's campaign for mayor gains steam, things at home are crumbling. Louise is furious that he entered the race without discussing it with her, but when he makes a video claiming that Ted is a sexual predator who took advantage of Louise when she was underage, things take a turn for the worse. Louise makes a video in response stating that Joe's claims are utterly false, leading Joe's credibility to falter. She leaves Joe for Vernon (Austin Butler), a cult leader whose belief in a powerful ring of pedophiles Louise hops on board with. After a heated public interaction with Ted, who brutally slaps Joe (in an altercation set ironically to Katy Perry's 'Firework'), Joe is left completely defeated. He does the unthinkable, killing both Ted and their son in their home at long range from the desert, sniper style. Joe then sprays 'No Justice, No Peace' on Ted's wall, attempting to pin the murders on Antifa, which has been gaining attention via viral videos. When a police officer from the nearby Pueblo tribe (William Belleau) gets involved with the investigation, citing sovereignty over the land from which the bullets were fired, and quickly becomes suspicious of Joe, the sheriff begins to spiral. Suddenly, in the middle of the night, a group of masked extremists descends, luring Joe to the outskirts of town where they plan to wreak havoc. They detonate explosives that kill one of Joe's fellow police officers and severely wounds the other, Michael (Micheal Ward), who has been hoping he might fill Joe's shoes if Joe wins the election, while also being pressured to join the BLM protests as one of the town's small number of Black residents. Joe finds himself in a firefight for his life on the streets of Eddington, arming himself at a gun shop and dodging bullets through the empty town in a lengthy Western-style shootout. Multiple interpretations of who the shooters might be Eddington is a movie of screens. They dictate the way the people of Eddington live, as real to them as the world outside. Characters are constantly on their phones or computers, scrolling social media, watching YouTube, and going down various rabbit holes about government conspiracies, mask-wearing, and whatever else reinforces their worldviews. 'Every character is paranoid, and they're all very certain of what they feel is happening,' says Aster. That sense of paranoia infects every frame of Eddington. And just as characters are consumed by their screens, 'the film becomes possessed by the worldview of these characters,' Aster says. But once the pivotal shootout happens, screens are almost nowhere to be found. The sudden disappearance is almost enough to make you think Joe is undergoing some horrifying COVID-induced fever dream. Aster confirmed that shifting from omnipresent electronic devices to none at all was purposeful. 'In the climactic sequence, there's no longer any need for screens. They've done their job,' he says, suggesting that paranoia has well and truly taken over in Eddington. Joe finds himself roaming Eddington, shooting at anyone and everyone attacking him, including not-so-accidentally killing the Pueblo officer who found evidence to connect Joe to Ted's murder. Shots cut through the air, and bullets hail from every direction as Joe tries to stay alive. 'You have those anonymous shooters emerging from the dark,' says Aster. 'That feels like an interesting metaphor for how the internet tends to work. It grants us anonymity in a way that I think does not bring out our better selves.' It's telling that Aster uses the word 'anonymous,' despite an earlier scene clearly establishing men geared up and donning Antifa insignia coming into Eddington via plane. 'The film is meant to function as something of a Rorschach test. That is the moment at which the film either announces itself as satire, or announces itself as a way that's really getting at what's happening—more conspiracy-minded people,' says Aster. Just because Eddington presents the shooters as Antifa doesn't mean that's necessarily who they are. 'Everything that's there would tell us that those people are Antifa, whether that means that they're being sent in by the GOP to make it look like Antifa is dangerous, or whether you're on the other side and you believe that George Soros is sending them in.' But Aster won't say which he believes it to be: 'It felt important and maybe a little impish to leave that to the viewer,' he says. A third alternative beyond an assault secretly organized by the left or right? Perhaps the killers have been hired by the powers that want to build the data center in Eddington. The data center is on the periphery of the film, but it's clear that very wealthy and powerful people are invested in the development of the center, and a town already engulfed in a national media circus is hardly a suitable place for its installation. Is all the violence and division just a distraction from the real problem? Perhaps they posed as Antifa and brought violence to the town to destabilize it so they could come into that power vacuum, offering jobs and stability, just what a torn-up Eddington would desperately need. The unlikely rise of Brian and Dawn The brutal shootout ends thanks to Brian (Cameron Mann), a teenager who has been an active member of the Black Lives Matter protests, though only to impress a girl he likes. Brian guns down an assailant, but not before the latter stabs Joe in the head. The moment is captured on film (bringing screens back to Eddington), and we flash forward one year. The video has gone viral on TikTok, leading the opportunistic Brian to become a sudden icon of the right wing. That includes a hilarious moment where Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene herself demands that Brian receive a Congressional Medal of Honor. Aster says that Kyle Rittenhouse served as the model for Brian's sudden rise. 'Brian is a very interesting and important character in the film, because he is somebody who's not ideologically driven. He's a normal kid looking for community and wants a girlfriend. He joins the left-wing movement for pretty disingenuous reasons. In the end, he'll go where he's wanted. It's a consequence of this hyper-individualistic society that we live in,' says Aster. After the shootout, Joe is left braindead and in a wheelchair. He's technically serving as mayor, but his conspiracy-pilled mother-in-law, Dawn, has taken over, marking her new role with some fancier pantsuits. The town celebrates the opening of the data center. Joe has accomplished his mission to bring the town together, and got everything he wanted—except the love of his life, who left him for Vernon and is now pregnant with his child. But he's left virtually functionless, forced to live out the rest of his days without any agency. His nurse is sleeping with his mother-in-law, and they all share a bed. 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We begin with the promise of it coming, and we end with it being achieved. There's a way of looking at the film and saying all of those stories and all of these characters are now just training data. The movie itself is training data,' Aster says. The ending of Eddington remains wide open to interpretation, but that's how Aster sees it. 'It's a movie that's about a bunch of people navigating a crisis while another crisis incubates,' Aster says. That other crisis is the surging of AI. 'AI, at this point, seems too big to fail. It feels like we're in an arms race. The people who are warning us about this are the ones who are ushering it in, and they think that that is relieving them of responsibility. I think the dominant feeling of this moment is one of powerlessness and dread.' Aster knows that's bleak, but he doesn't see Eddington as nihilistic. "I think there's hope in the fact that the film is a period piece,' Aster says. 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Yahoo
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‘Big Bang Theory' Star Slams Trump Administration For ‘Criminal' Move Against LGBTQ+ Youth
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