FEBRUARY 17 • 2022 | 51

The cast from 
The Marvelous 
Mrs. Maisel

rial (politics and/or sex). 
Obvi-ously, the very attrac-
tive Rachel Brosnahan 
(Mrs. Maisel) can’t make 
fun of her looks, and Mrs. 
Maisel did “edgy” stuff the 
very first time she took the 
stage.
If I had to pick a realistic 
“avatar” for Maisel, it would 
be Elaine May, now 89. 
Her “nice” looks and quick 
comic mind made all her 
male comedian colleagues 
fall in love with her. She 
never made fun of herself. 
More to the point: with 
her stand-up partner, Mike 
Nichols, May wrote and 
performed (1959-62) hip 
material that was a clear 
“content forerunner” of 
edgy shows like Saturday 
Night Live (SNL). Mrs. 
Maisel’s “real forerunners” 
are May and the women in 
the original SNL cast (Jane 
Curtin, Laraine Newman
and Gilda Radner). These 
four women definitively 
proved that women could 
be funny and edgy. (Check 
out May/Nichols videos on 
YouTube.). 

PANDEMIC THRILLER 
AND MORE
Kimi, an original HBO 
film, began streaming on 
Feb. 10. Zoe Kravitz, 33, 
stars as Angela, an agora-
phobic tech worker who 
works at home during the 
height of the COVID-19 
pandemic. She discov-
ers evidence of a violent 
crime while reviewing a 
data stream, but her dis-
covery is ignored by her 
company. She realizes she 
may have to go outside to 
contact people who will 
take her seriously. (Next 
month, look for Kravitz 
as Catwoman in the new 
Batman movie series 
“re-boot”, entitled The 
Batman.)

Lincoln’s Dilemma is a 
four-part documentary that 
will be released in its entire-
ty on Apple TV+ on Feb. 18. 
It follows Lincoln’s complex 
journey to end slavery and 
his evolving views about the 
status of African Americans. 
The story is told by a panel 
of distinguished historians, 
educators and journalists. 
Emmy-nominated actors 
Bill Camp and Jeffrey 
Wright provide the voices 
of Frederick Douglass and 
Lincoln, respectively. 
The documentary 
was directed by Barak 
Goodman, 57. Over the last 
20 years, he has directed 
and/or produced 34 docu-
mentaries and has won two 
Emmys. Many of his films 
first aired on the PBS series 
The American Experience.
His wife, Rachel Dretzin, 
55, has also produced and/
or directed many docu-
mentaries, including 14 PBS 
Frontline documentaries. 
Her mother is Joanna 
Merlin, 90, a busy character 
actress. She is the last living 
“credited” actor or actress 
in The Ten Commandments
(1956).
Uncharted opened 
in theaters on Feb. 11. 
Tom Holland (the new-
est Spiderman) and Mark 
Wahlberg co-star as part-
ners who fend off bad 
guys as they go after a 
long-sunken Spanish trea-
sure ship.
The film was direct-
ed by Ruben Fleischer, 
47. He directed the two 
Zombieland films. They 
were critical and box-of-
fice smashes. His other 
films got so/so reviews. I 
have to note that I think 
of deli meats when I hear 
his name. Fleischer means 
butcher in Yiddish and, you 
know, a Rueben is a famous 
deli sandwich. 

MARCH 5

2:00PM & 7:30PM

MARCH 3 & 4

7:30PM

All Aboard!

NICELY THEATRE GROUP PRESENTS

FOR TICKET INFO VISIT:
www.nicelytheatre.org

THE BERMAN CENTER
FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS

WEST BLOOMFIELD, MI

ANYTHING GOES IS PRESENTED BY ARRANGEMENT WITH CONCORD THEATRICALS ON BEHALF OF
TAMS-WITMARK LLC WWW.CONCORDTHEATRICALS.COM

MUSIC AND LYRICS BY COLE PORTER
ORIGINAL BOOK BY P.G. WODEHOUSE & GUY BOLTON
AND HOWARD LINDSAY & RUSSEL CROUSE
NEW BOOK BY TIMOTHY CROUSE & JOHN WEIDMAN

OR CALL 248.406.6677