Entertainment
Shakespeare's 'The Tempest' illuminates an existential truth revealed by the Los Angeles fires
The sprawling geography of Los Angeles is hard to envision for those who live outside the region. Friends and family members in New York, gripped by apocalyptic images of the fires in 24/7 news reports, have had difficulty accepting that I live far enough away from the hills and the coast to be relatively safe.
“Still OK?” is the text I’ve been answering daily. “Yes, I’m still safe,” I reply, which is truer than I’m still OK, for how can anyone be OK knowing that just a few miles away, people are grieving the loss of their homes, belongings and communities?
The Beverly Hills Flats has become my default home, and it’s here where I’ve been getting reports on the devastating fires. The smoke has been insidious yet manageable with a mask. Facebook posts from acquaintances and former colleagues who have been evacuated or lost homes have brought the situation nearer to me, but it’s hard to imagine the scale of such suffering when you haven’t experienced the destruction firsthand.
Shakespeare helps me envisage the unimaginable, and a speech from “The Tempest” has been running through my mind since images of charred sections of Pacific Palisades and Altadena started circulating. In Act 4, Prospero, the former Duke of Milan who has been exiled to a desert island with daughter Miranda, and his magic book, interrupts his revenge scheme to conjure a supernatural theatrical pageant in honor of the engagement of Miranda and Ferdinand, the son of the king of Naples.
The masque, performed by gentle spirits, enchants the betrothed. But Prospero is jolted into an awareness that Caliban and his confederates are plotting “a foul conspiracy” against his life, and he abruptly ends the show.
“Our revels now are ended,” he tells a dismayed-looking Ferdinand. “These our actors/(As I foretold you) were all spirits, and/Are melted into air, into thin air.”
The lines that Prospero speaks next have been echoing in me with the persistence of an earworm as I have tried to mentally put myself in the place of fellow Angelenos whose homes and neighborhoods have suddenly been erased.
“And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-cappped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And like this insubstantial pageant faded
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.”
Shakespeare was accustomed to making the stage a metaphor for life. “All the world’s a stage,/ and all the men and women merely players,” Jaques declares in “As You Like It,” and his melancholy set piece reflects a standard Elizabethan trope that Shakespeare as a man of the theater couldn’t resist.
But in “The Tempest,” Shakespeare takes this proposition a step further, directly equating the ephemeral conjurations of the theater with the transient reality of the audience. Metaphor become actual. The world offstage is no different from the world onstage, no matter the differences in duration. Impermanence is the common denominator.
Those gorgeous palaces and solemn temples, along with the planet itself and all who inhabit it, shall one day disappear and leave not a rack (or “wisp of cloud,” as “The Riverside Shakespeare” defines the word) behind. Prospero’s mind is understandably vexed, but the losses he’s already endured have sharpened his vision.
“We are such stuff as dreams are made on” is a Shakespearean maxim emblazoned on T-shirts and trotted out in high school yearbooks, but the greeting card sentiment can stand only if the line isn’t quoted in full. The notion of our little lives surrounded by sleep is too death-haunted for Hallmark. But those whose lives have been upended by the fires can attest to the truth of what Shakespeare is describing.
A home is first and foremost a shelter designed to protect from the vicissitudes of nature. We are reminded of this basic function when there’s been a failure during a natural disaster. But the spiritual and symbolic aspects of where we live are as vital as the practical protections these lodgings afford.
A home is, after all, a private stage set, imbued with meaning by those who live there. And a neighborhood is made up of a collection of homes, businesses and civic trusts that extend the private imaginings of individuals to the broader community.
These dwellings and districts are indeed compounded of dreams, and all of us know how destabilizing it can be when we move and box up these hopes and fantasies. I moved five times in my first nine years in L.A., and each move brought intimations of mortality that were more unsettling than the physical work of setting up a new home.
As a renter, I don’t perhaps have the same sense of rootedness that those who have invested a portion of their life savings into home ownership. But a recent dispatch on the Los Angeles fires by the Irish writer Colm Tóibín in the London Review of Books helped me understand more personally how the fires jeopardize not only real estate but also identities.
Writing from Highland Park, Tóibín concludes his report with a sad anecdote on the library of iconoclastic writer Gary Indiana that arrived in Los Angeles from New York on Jan. 7. The books were ultimately headed to an artist residence in Altadena.
If the collection “— the signed editions, the rare art books, the weird books, the books Gary treasured — had come a day later, there would have been no address to deliver them to, so they would have been saved. But on that Tuesday, unfortunately, there was still an address.”
Last year, I inherited a library of books from theater critic Gordon Rogoff, a colleague of Indiana’s at the Village Voice. The welcome addition of my mentor’s library compelled me to add more shelves to my already book-crammed apartment.
If I lost my furniture, clothes and apartment, I’d obviously be thrown into a state of emergency. But if I lost my books, I wouldn’t know who I was. It’s how I’ve defined myself as an adult making my way in the world.
The grief of those bearing witness to the fires is more than sympathy. We’ve all been given a shocking lesson in the “baseless fabric of this vision” we call reality but which Prospero recognizes is no more solid than a dream.
Shakespeare, however, doesn’t leave his audience in despair. The play ends with an epilogue in which the protagonist addresses the audience directly, a not uncommon practice in Shakespearean comedy. But in this late romance, as Shakespeare critic Anne Barton has pointed out, Prospero remains in character, courteously asking the audience for release from the island so that he can return to his dukedom.
By the grace of the audience, the play can continue offstage. The material world may be vulnerable to disaster. But our lives are the product of imagination, and that is a zone no inferno can touch.
Entertainment
Zoe Saldaña becomes the highest-grossing actor of all time
After another impressively profitable weekend in theaters, James Cameron’s “Avatar: Fire and Ash” helped crown its star Zoe Saldaña the queen of the box office.
The third “Avatar” movie boasted $21.3 million in North American sales last week, bringing it to a global total of $1.23 billion. With those impressive stats, Saldaña officially surpassed Scarlett Johansson as the highest-grossing actor of all time.
The Oscar winner has grossed more than $15.47 billion at the international box office, according to box office tracking website the Numbers. Johansson only recently gained the title after surpassing her “Avengers” co-star Samuel L. Jackson with the release of last summer’s “Jurassic World Rebirth.”
What helped buoy Saldaña to the top is the fact that the 47-year-old actor stars in the three highest-grossing films of all time: 2009’s “Avatar” ($2.9 billion), 2019’s “Avengers: Endgame” ($2.8 billion) and 2022’s “Avatar: The Way of Water” ($2.3 billion).
Saldaña is also the only actor to appear in four movies that brought in over $2 billion worldwide. (2018’s “Avengers: Infinity War” grossed $2.05 billion.)
Last year proved that Saldaña’s talent exceeded the realm of popcorn movies when she nabbed her first Academy Award for her supporting role in the controversial musical “Emilia Pérez.” Her win marked the first time an actor with Dominican roots had won an Oscar.
“I am a proud child of immigrant parents, with dreams and dignity and hardworking hands,” she said through tears while accepting the award for supporting actress. “And I am the first American of Dominican origin to accept an Academy Award, and I know I will not be the last.”
Saldaña cemented her Oscar win while side-stepping criticisms of the film — namely regarding its portrayals of Mexicans and transgender people — as well as the scandal that surrounded “Emilia Pérez” co-star Karla Sofía Gascón, when her offensive tweets with anti-Muslim, anti-diversity and racist language resurfaced.
Movie Reviews
Vaa Vaathiyaar Movie Review: A fond, funky & fun throwback to old-school masala films
Vaa Vaathiyaar Movie Synopsis: Even as he keeps up an appearance of following in the footsteps MGR in front of his grandfather, a die-hard fan of the legend, Ramu is actually a corrupt cop, who’s helping in a mission to nab activists exposing the government. What happens when an incident triggers the Vaathiyaar in him? Vaa Vaathiyaar Movie Review: In his interviews about the film, director Nalan Kumarasamy repeatedly stressed on the fact that he planned Vaa Vaathiyaar as an attempt at recreating the old-school masala film in his own style. And that’s exactly what he delivers with his film. The simplicity of the MGR film formula meets the new-age-y plot device of Maaveeran in this fond, fun, funky throwback to the masala films of an earlier era. The film does take a while to get going with the beats of the initial set-up coming across as little too familiar. The narrative rhythm, too, is slightly off, with far too many songs popping up at frequent intervals. Though, it helps that Santhosh Narayanan’s songs are short and groovy. And the composer delivers a score that superbly elevates the emotional moments. But once we get into the main conflict, things perk up. An anonymous group of hacker-activists exposes a shootout plot by power broker Periasamy (Sathyaraj) and the chief minister (Nizhalgal Ravi) at a Sterlite-like protest. The government decides to nab them before they can cause further damage to a 142 million euro business deal. How does Ramu – a corrupt cop, who is keeping up a facade of being a do-gooder for the sake of his grandfather (Rajkiran, who has become the default casting choice for such well-meaning boomer roles), a die-hard MGR fan – gets involved in this and where does the OG Vaathiyaar figures in this scheme of things?Vaa Vaathiyaar shows that in this age of hyper-masculine action – and even romantic – films, it’s still possible to make a rousing commercial entertainer with a star without relying on guns and gratuitous bloodshed. The film’s action set-pieces have the hero taking on dozens of henchmen (and cops, too!), but it’s all done in swashbuckling MGR style. And in Karthi, it has an actor who is brave enough to take on a risky role, given the stature in which MGR is held by the Tamil people. Rather than merely mimicking him, which would have ended up as a spoof, the actor wonderfully captures the spirit of the legend’s onscreen image and creates moments that are genuinely heartfelt. Credit should also go to Nalan for finding the right pitch at which the actor should play these portions. While there are quite a few throwbacks to iconic MGR scenes, the filmmaker even succeeds in his modern take on the iconic song, Raajavin Paarvai Raaniyin Pakkam.The film would have been even better with a stronger villain. The film initially builds up Periyasamy to be ruthless and powerful, and with someone of Sathyaraj’s calibre playing this role, we expect more only to be deceived in the end. There’s also some build up to Nivas, a rival cop, who’s keen on nailing Ramu, but this arc, which could have added tension, is left incomplete after a while.That said, Nalan’s bold move to call back to MGR’s real-life hospitalisation and resurgence in the climax leaves the film on an emotional high.
Entertainment
Audience for Golden Globe Awards telecast drops 7% from last year
The Sunday telecast of the 83rd Golden Globe Awards on CBS suffered a ratings setback with an audience decline of 7% compared with last year’s show.
Nielsen data showed the live event, hosted by comic Nikki Glaser at the Beverly Hilton, averaged 8.66 million viewers. The big winners of the night included “One Battle After Another” and “Hamnet” on the feature film side. Medical drama “The Pitt” and comedy series “Hacks,” both from HBO Max, were the big TV winners.
The data, which include livestreaming, mark the second straight audience decline for the Golden Globe Awards, which scored 9.2 million viewers in 2025. That edition dropped slightly from its bounce-back year of 2024, when the program delivered 9.4 million viewers — a 50% lift over its final year on NBC.
Like all awards shows, the Golden Globes no longer deliver the kind of ratings that once made it one of the most-watched programs of the year. The show has suffered from the changing habits of viewers, many of whom have turned to social media for trophy-show clips.
The Golden Globe Awards also had to come back from a scandal over the lack of diversity in the membership of the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn., which operated the event for decades. A Los Angeles Times investigation brought attention and raised concerns about its ethics and financial practices in 2021.
The 83rd Golden Globe Awards may have been hurt by some production elements that did not go over well based on the harsh response from viewers posting on social media.
Marc Malkin, senior culture and events editor for Variety, was paired with “Entertainment Tonight” co-host Kevin Frazier to provide running chatter off-camera during the long and winding trip to the stage for winners seated in the crowded hotel ballroom. They were not well received.
“Do you think Golden Globes commentators Marc Malkin and Kevin Frazier are going to go home tonight utterly haunted for the rest of their days over the mind-numbing inanities they uttered all night?” wrote film critic Dustin Putman.
A post from another viewer compared Malkin’s commentary to “your mom talking about who she just ran into at the supermarket.”
Viewers were also put off by on-screen graphics featuring data from the prediction market app Polymarket showing the win probability of the nominees ahead of their categories. “Just push me in front of a bus at this point,” sports podcaster Bobby Wagner wrote on X.
The Golden Globe Awards presented the data as part of a partnership deal with Polymarket, which gives users the opportunity to bet on the outcomes of events in sports, culture, politics and other areas. The deal included an advertising buy on the broadcast.
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