Project Hail Mary (c) Amazon MGM Studios
Film: Project Hail Mary
In Cinemas
Even if you didn’t know that the new Ryan Gosling astronaut film, Project Hail Mary, was based on a book by the same author who wrote The Martian, it would become clear soon enough. Like Matt Damon’s botanist character, Mark Watney, stuck on Mars trying to survive on his own, Gosling’s Ryland Grace is a molecular biologist working as a high school science teacher who finds himself alone on a spaceship called the Hail Mary in a different solar system. And like Watney, Grace has to science the crap out his situation. It turns out that our sun is slowly dying, as are most suns in the Milky Way, except the one Grace is there to research to see why it’s immune to the solar disease. Directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller have envisioned a beautiful and engaging screen adaptation, but it would not be as successful without a charismatic lead, with Gosling finally getting to shed the wordless loner persona of his characters in Drive and The Place Beyond the Pines to become the relatable charmer that was hinted at in The Nice Guys and La La Land. This is also not Gosling’s first time in space either, as he played Neil Armstrong in the underrated First Man. But here, Gosling’s is so relatable and charming as Grace that the audience I was with at an IMAX 70mm screening was on his side from the beginning. When Grace has to do a spacewalk for the first time, the doors open, the score (excellent, by Daniel Pemberton) and sound effects disappear, and it was only then that I realized how quiet the theater was: no popcorn eating, no talking, no texting. That’s how invested we all were in this poor man’s hopeless situation.
Project Hail Mary (c) Amazon MGM Studios
Like the 2015 film, The Martian, the solo scientist story is mixed with a subplot populated with more characters, and this one has Sandra Hüller (Anatomy of a Fall) as Eva Stratt, the person in charge of the mission, mostly seen in flashbacks, to the events that lead Grace to where he is at the start of the film. Grace also finds himself not alone in space, but I will not spoil that part of the film, although the trailers and promotional material do. At over two-and-a-half hours, this enjoyable yarn has more endings than The Lord of the Rings, which may be where screenwriter Drew Goddard has exorcised a lot of the novel’s nearly 500 pages and extraneous storylines. Grieg Fraser’s cinematography is a wonder and should be seen on the biggest screen possible, with special effects that enhance the story and not overwhelm it. Certain to be the first big box-office hit of 2026, the film is certainly more of a Project Slam Dunk.
Burnout Paradise (c) Austin Ruffer
Theater: Burnout Paradise
At Astor Place Theatre
Audience participation. Just a hint of it gives me dread, ever since I was made to stand and hold a baby doll at the play Mankind. This is happening a lot this season, from having the audience sing in Night Side Songs at Lincoln Center to Daniel Radcliffe bringing audience members on stage in Every Brilliant Thing on Broadway. But this pales in comparison to Burnout Paradise, an import show from the Australian troupe known as Pony Cam, playing at the Astor Place Theatre, the birthplace of another indescribable hit, The Blue Man Group, that ran for 33 years. If any of the original cast of Claire Bird, Ava Campbell, William Strom, Dominic Weintraub and Hugo Williams are still doing this show in 2059, maybe a mental wellness check will be in order. How to explain this show? Remember the OK GO video for their song “Here It Goes Again” in which they created a one-shot choreography with four treadmills? That seems to be the jumping-off point for the creators here as there are indeed four treadmills on stage, with a topic assigned to each one: Admin, Performance, Leisure and Survival. In fifteen-minute increments, with Campbell being the referee, the other four have a chance to complete each task while trying to get the highest score on their respective machines.
Burnout Paradise (c) Austin Ruffer
There’s only one really showy challenge, and that’s Leisure, as there is a blackboard filled with chores including yoga, haircut and basketball, which the actor has to do all while on the treadmill. The next interesting one is Survival, and that’s because the person has to cook a meal while running. The other two treadmills seem like there could have been more clever ideas: for Performance, each actor performs something from their past, whether it’s Shakespeare or old dance recital, and for Admin, the collective four has to finish an arts application for Pony Cam. The big twist here is the audience participation, and for young New Yorkers with perhaps a few cocktails in them, they are all willing to help each of the performers, mostly the Leisure treadmill, helping in all those chores, with some being rather cringy as running is not conducive to some of activities (cutting the runner’s hair comes to mind). It is also hard for some audience members to join in the fun as the Astor Place Theatre is small and has a mezzanine so most of the audience (except for the ones on the aisles) have a hard time getting to the stage. Still, there’s unique fun to be had at each performance. Who would have known that the night I went, there would be an audience member whose job is to write grants for the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts? And I’m sure when understudies Chin Lin and Carl Bryant are on, the dynamic would change again. With a show like this, there are always smiles and laughs throughout, but by the fourth shift change, it became a bit played out. Still, Burnout Paradise is a unique theatrical experience, and your enjoyment level will depend on your willingness to be part of the show.
Bughouse (c) Carol Rosegg
Theater: Bughouse
At Vineyard Theatre
Bughouse has such pedigree with Pulitizer Prize-winning playwright Beth Henley, visionary director Martha Clarke and veteran downtown (and occasionally Joni Mitchell) performer John Kelly, it is surprising that it is Neil Patel’s set design, with a major assist from John Narun’s projection design of Ruth Lingford’s animation, that stayed with me the most. Maybe the problem is this one-man play surrounds a real-life, but not well-known artist and author Henry Darger. A Brazilian man who lived most of his life in Chicago, Darger was a janitor in a hospital, and it was only after his death at 81 in 1973 were his books and drawings found. His most substantial work is the sci-fi novel In the Realms of the Unreal (it runs over 15 thousand pages), which contains themes deeply rooted in his psyche: Christianity and the death of children in war. Henley adapts Darger’s own journal writing for the basis of her play, which takes place on one stormy night in a rundown apartment in the later years of his life. Patel’s haunted house set floods Darger with memories, placing clever animations projected on windows, mirrors and other unique surfaces. He seems to be most haunted by his character Annie Aronburg, a young child based on a real-life murder. Kelly does not lean into histrionics here, yet still gives us the pain and trauma of a man who has always been seen as a loner, especially after he was placed as a youngster in the Illinois Asylum for Feeble-Minded Children. Since I knew nothing about Darger before I saw the play, I kept thinking his guilt might have come from being sexually abused as a kid or was an abuser himself. Whatever might have actually transpired in his life, neither topic makes an appearance. What Henley seems to be focused on is how an artist, no matter how tortured, finds escape in his art. Clarke, who is known for elaborate productions like The Garden of Earthly Delights and Belle Epoque, keeps things claustrophobic, making the cluttered apartment an apt metaphor for this overworked and tormented mind. After Darger’s death and when his art was being evaluated, one historian, according to Wikipedia, called him "the single most important example of American outsider art in existence.” While “Bughouse” may feel oblique and impenetrable, the creators certainly captured that essence brilliantly.
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