Larchmont Chronicle
MAY 2025
SECTION ONE
Root ng for four L t n s ust l e us’ to sur Karen Zacharias’ Just Like Us, an adaptation of journalist Helen Thorpe’s 2011 nonfiction book of the same name, plays at LATC to May 18 (213-489-0994; latinotheaterco.org). The Latino Theater Company’s West Coast premiere of the play focuses on four Latina high school girls growing up in Denver—Yadira, Clara, Elissa, and especially Marisela, who just wants to have fun— and a chance for a better life. They get excellent grades, love dancing and ranchera music and want to go to college. They are, in many ways, interchangeable, except that two girls have American citizenship and two do not. And therein lies the play’s rub. Reporter Helen Thorpe, herself an Irish immigrant,
but married at the time to then mayor of Denver (and now Colorado senator) John Hickenlooper, wants to do a “column” on the girls’ lives. Over five years, the column becomes the book that tries to analyze the immigration issue through their stories. Elyse Mirto plays Thorpe in one of the most grounded and nuanced performances we’ve had in L.A. Thorpe weighs the dangers of journalists becoming the story and the morality of her privileged position as “white savior.” Zacharias’ adaptation rightly takes the story away from her at the end, giving it back to the girls, now women, who have gone through college, romance and pregnancy. The play is remarkably even-handed, but never
A memory of Gene Hackman By Gene Czap The year was 1990. I was hitting golf balls at the Studio City Golf Course and noticed a guy in the stall next to me. He was having major problems, flailing away; the golf ball wasn’t co-operating. Laboring, sweating, swinging out of his shoes, the shots were barely getting off the ground. Making matters worse, two of his friends were sitting on a bench behind him laughing, joking and having fun at his expense. I took a closer look at his reddened face. It was familiar. It was Gene Hackman. Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle from “The French Connection” (1971). Hackman hacking on a golf range. Now I became more fascinated. Studying his motion, I could see one glaring error he was doing and decided to tell him about it. “Want a little tip?” I asked. He looked up with that hardscrabble, menacing stare. The fierce glare softened into a look that said, “OK, I’m listening.” I had studied method acting in New York in the ’70s and Gene Hackman was the antihero. He didn’t care about the fluff that went with the job. He was like a blacksmith who learned how to act. So the door squeaked open. I leaned in and gave him the tip. “Keep all your weight on your back foot.” He grunted a little as I
demonstrated the move. Then he turned around and addressed the golf ball. Very slowly, deliberately, he planted his back foot, grinding it into the astroturf. Then he swung. The ball soared into the air, flying out into the range, a little tail on it, before landing and rolling to a stop. A perfect shot. He turned and stared at me with a look of bewildered astonishment. It was his form of acknowledgement, the best you were going to get. His friends were standing and cheering while Gene’s eyes never left mine. An actor learning something without saying a word. Golf is a very hard game. The hardest thing about it is that you don’t see yourself swinging the club. A golf tip has to be practiced and repeated over and over, thousands of times, before it’s ingrained. But somehow, in that millisecond of time, it worked instantly. Maybe the gods were smiling. I don’t remember much more about that day. Maybe we talked a little. I never saw Gene again. But I will never forget that look on his face. And I bet he never forgot that golf shot either. Gene Czap is an actor, writer of golf books, and Los Angeles resident who says, “Larchmont is the number one place to live.”
The ter Re e by Louis Fantasia didactic. A mother laments the death of her son killed by a drunk driver. A Denver policeman is shot by an undocumented immigrant. Cheap labor takes jobs away from U.S. citizens. Scant resources are spent on people who don’t belong here.
13
e n thr e
But we see the girls— brilliantly played by Newt Arlandiz, Noelle Franco, Valerie Rose Vega and Blanca Isabella. We feel, hope and root for them to get scholarships, find jobs and please Lord, not get deported over a broken tail-light traffic stop. The rest of the ensemble is first-rate, rotating through roles as parents, teachers, boyfriends, politicians, caseworkers and professors.
Fidel Gomez’s direction is Broadway quality, as is the production, which takes us through the evolution of these girls to women who learn to come out of the shadows and be not afraid. That’s the play’s major challenge for all of us: “What are we afraid of?” Its corollary, “What does it mean to be an ‘American’ today?” should give us pause for reflection. Be not afraid.
What we’re watching; what you should, too A.R. Johnstone Mobland: Tom Hardy is one of those actors who can steal a scene just by being in it. But in this gritty crime family, he has some competition. Pierce Brosnan is superb as a genteel, psychotic patriarch showing a side of him that we haven’t seen much before. Helen Mirren is Brosnan’s wife and female force. She has a look in her eye that would make you shudder, which shows where the true power lies. Anson Boon is the grandson from hell who knows the power his family wields in the underworld. Guy Ritchie does a great job of toning down his frenetic style to allow us to ease into this world. Watch it on Paramount+. The Residence: Netflix and Shonda Rhimes’ original and stylized content (think Downton Abbey in the White House, but more clip and comic). In this comedy / whodunit, Uzo Aduba, as Detective Cordelia
Cupp investigates a murder at the White House. There are so many rich performances it’s hard not to mention everyone. The series was created by Paul William Davies, and it looks like we might see more from Cupp. Adolescence: The intensity of this show starts about five minutes in and does not let up. Filmed in uncut single takes, it feels like you are in the room going through this nightmare with the family. If you have kids, all four episodes will have you wondering how much you don’t know as a parent and will make you want to give your child a hug. Director Philip Barantini elicits raw and honest performances from Stephen Graham, the co-creator and fictional father Eddie; Owen Cooper, in his debut, playing Jamie Miller; and the entire cast. Taking on subjects that are both hard to watch but necessary to know, the mini-
series gives a peek into the manosphere, bullying, online perils and views on gender roles. On Netflix. The Last of Us: The second season premiered April 13, and Pedro Pascal continues his role as a father figure to Bella Ramsey, who plays Ellie. Max has succeeded in taking the extremely popular video game and making it into must-watch television. Although COVID-19 seems to have created a rise in dystopian dramas that predict the end of civilized civilization, The Last of Us puts us in the middle of the action and has us questioning how we would react if dropped into the same torturous world. Just how far would you go to survive? American Primeval: Need more American West stories? In another excellent miniseries from Netflix, Mark L. Smith, Peter Berg and Eric Newman follow mother and (Please turn to Page 16)