EXHILARATING’’

WAR: ERIN BAIANO
Den of
Thieves
Ellen Barkin
and Finn
Cole star
in TNT’s
“Animal
Kingdom.”
CREDITS: Filmed
in California
by John Wells
Prods• and
Warner Horizon
Television for
TNT. Executive
producers,
John Wells,
Jonathan Lisco,
Etan Frankel,
Christopher
Chulack, Liz
Watts, Andrew
Stearn, David
Michod; director,
Wells; writer,
Lisco; camera,
Danny Moder;
production
designer, Nina
Ruscio; editor,
Jeffrey M• Werner;
music, Alex and
Sam; costume
designer, Lyn
Elizabeth Paolo;
casting, John
Frank Levey,
Melanie Burgess.
60 MIN.
CAST: Ellen
Barkin, Scott
Speedman,
Shawn Hatosy,
Jake Weary, Ben
Robson, Finn Cole,
Daniella Alonso,
Molly Gordon
ties, Smurf never quite becomes the loveto-hate-her
character she needs to be, in
part because some of the worst things
she does make it easy to write her off as
a garden-variety sociopath. The viewer
doesn’t have to like Smurf for the show
to work, but her more odious actions are
not counterbalanced by the kind of shading
that would make her power plays
worth watching over the long term.
Scott Speedman acquits himself
well as Barry “Baz” Blackwell, an adopted
son who is saddled with two underdeveloped
romantic relationships. He
tries to keep the family peace, which is
no easy task. Shawn Hatosy is impressive
as Andrew “Pope” Cody, whose unsettling
intensity hints at deeper psychological
problems, but Pope’s character doesn’t
really go anywhere.
The focus in the early episodes is
on Joshua “J” Cody (Finn Cole), Smurf’s
estranged grandson, who is reunited with
the clan early in the pilot. Cole is a likable
enough actor, but Joshua proves to
be a somewhat bland and underwhelming
entry point into the Codys’ world.
The Codys may be bold risk-takers,
but the territory this show explores —
aggression, rule-breaking, and criminal
conspiracies within a dysfunctional family
— has been thoroughly mined by
decades of films and TV shows. Like the
recent cable dramas “Vinyl” and “Feed the
Beast,” this TNT series just doesn’t have
many fresh things to say about crime,
unconventional clans, and the limits of
traditionally defined masculinity.
“Animal Kingdom” wants to jolt the
viewer with bursts of intensity, but in
the end, it feels like a relic from cable
TV’s semi-recent past. It’s certainly more
challenging than TNT’s last few batches
of procedurals, but it’s unlikely to be a
game-changer.
THEATER REVIEW /
OFF BROADWAY
BY MARILYN STASIO
War
Theater: Claire Tow / Lincoln Center;
112 seats; $30 top
Playwright: Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
Starring: Charlayne Woodard, Michele Shay,
Chris Myers, Rachel Nicks
Coming after “Gloria” and
his 2014 Obie-winning “An
Octoroon” — both brimming
with ideas — playwright
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ new
work, “War,” is a bit of a buzzkill. The
play has something potentially interesting
to say about language as a means
of defining our common humanity and
asserting our individual identity. But in
its current over-thought, overwrought,
and overwritten state, the idea is stalled
in the format of a strained domestic
drama about an unremarkable and yet
unbearable family.
How could a lovely person like
Roberta (Charlayne Woodard) have such
awful children? Having suffered a debilitating
stroke, Roberta lies intubated and
comatose in a hospital bed. But her lifeforce
— the animated spirit played by
the very personable Woodard — is very
much alive and searching for the words
(and the identity) she’s lost.
Roberta was at the zoo with her German
half-sister, Elfriede (Michele Shay,
the soul of goodness), standing in front of
the gorilla cages when she had her stroke.
This goes to explain the simian shapes
(and animalistic hooting and grunting)
on the stage, where a nice balance of
realism and surrealism is achieved by
Mimi Lien (sets) and Matt Frey (lighting).
Aside from Roberta — played by
Woodard with a guileless, unworldly air
— the other characters are all realistically
drawn and performed under director
Lileana Blain-Cruz’s eagle-eyed direction.
Roberta’s selfish son, Tate, gets no
love from Chris Myers (“An Octoroon”).
Daughter Joanne (Rachel Nicks, injecting
a bit of heart into this chilly character) is
more sympathetic, if not likable. At least
she has the self-knowledge to note that,
“I can’t even tell sometimes if I know
what a family without fighting even
looks like.”
In secondary roles, Lance Coadie
Williams doubles as a kind nurse and
a remarkably realistic alpha gorilla.
Elfriede’s hot-headed son, Tobias, is such
a brute he nearly confounds the actor
who plays him, Austin Durant. But the
playwright has given Tobias a hard-hitting
soliloquy about the terrible pressure
of caring for a sick parent, and Durant
delivers it with unnerving emotion.
Although he loses sight of the subject
in the heat of the domestic drama,
Jacobs-Jenkins seemed to have been onto
something about language — how it
defines us, elevates us, makes us special
— and how the loss of language robs us
of our humanity and our very identity.
CREDITS: A Lincoln
Center Theater
presentation of a
Steinberg New Works
Program production
of a play in two
acts, commissioned
by Yale Repertory
Company, by
Branden Jacobs-
Jenkins. Directed
by Lileana Blain-
Cruz. Sets, Mimi Lien;
costumes, Montana
Blanco; lighting, Matt
Frey; sound, Bray
Poor; production
stage manager,
Paul Smithyman.
Opened June 6,
2016. Reviewed June
4. Running time: 2
HOURS, 30 MIN.
CAST: Charlayne
Woodard, Michele
Shay, Chris Myers,
Rachel Nicks, Austin
Durant, Reggie
Gowland, Lance
Coadie Williams
A Loss For
Words
Charlayne
Woodward
(left) stars
in “War.”
JUNE 14, 2016 VARIETY.COM
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