woman

PHOENIX — Camdyn Glover used to be a quiet conservative. She worried what her teachers would think or if she would lose friends over her convictions. But she said something changed when Charlie Kirk was assassinated in September, and she started crying in her classroom at Indiana University while other students cheered and clapped.

“We can’t be silenced,” Glover decided.

Now she’s visiting Phoenix with her parents and brothers for this year’s Turning Point USA conference, the first to take place since Kirk’s death. Although the organization became a political phenomenon with its masculine appeals to college men, it’s also been expanding outreach to young women like Glover. The shift is poised to accelerate now that Turning Point is led by Erika Kirk, Charlie’s widow, who has embraced her new role at the helm of a conservative juggernaut with chapters across the country.

If successful, the organization that helped return President Trump to the White House could narrow a gender divide that has been a persistent challenge for Republicans. Turning Point offers a blend of traditional values, such as encouraging women to prioritize marriage over careers, and health trends pushed by online influencers.

Glover, 18, said discovering Turning Point in high school gave her an appreciation for dialogue when she felt like an outcast for her beliefs, such as being anti-abortion. At her first conference, she feels like she’s found a political and cultural home for herself.

“They want to promote a strong independent woman who does hold these values and can go stand up for herself,” she said. “But it’s also OK to do it in heels, put some makeup on, wear a dress.”

‘If Erika can do it, I can do it’

One of Glover’s classmates, Stella Ross, said she stumbled upon Charlie Kirk on TikTok in the months before the last presidential election.

She already felt like her perspectives were being treated differently on campus and thought she was receiving unfairly low grades in her political science classes. A devout Catholic, Ross said she was inspired by how Charlie Kirk wasn’t afraid to weave his evangelical faith into his political arguments.

She also noticed how many women posted comments of appreciation on Erika Kirk’s videos, and she joined Indiana University’s Turning Point chapter in the same month that Trump won his comeback campaign.

“I was like, wow, if Erika can do it, I can do it,” Ross said.

Ross has career aspirations of her own — she interns with Indiana’s Republican Party and aspires to be a press secretary for a governor or president. But she hopes to have flexibility in her job to be fully present with her children and believes that a traditional nuclear structure — man, woman and their children — is “God’s plan.”

When she thinks of Erika Kirk, “it’s really cool to see that she can live out that balance and it makes me feel like that could be a more realistic future for me because I’m seeing it firsthand.”

A new messenger

Erika Kirk often appeared alongside with her husband at Turning Point events. A former beauty pageant winner who has worked as a model, actress and casting director, she also founded a Christian clothing line and a ministry that teaches about the Bible.

In a recent interview with The New York Times, she said she had fully bought into “boss babe” culture before Charlie showed her a “healthier” perspective on life. Now she leads the multimillion-dollar organization, which she said at a memorial for her husband would be made “10 times greater through the power of his memory.”

The political gap between young men and women has been growing for years, according to a recent Gallup analysis. Not only have women under 30 become more likely to identify as ideologically liberal, they’ve also embraced liberal views on issues such as abortion, the environment and gun laws.

The schism was clearly apparent in the last presidential election, where 57% of male voters under 30 supported Trump, compared to only 41% of women under 30, according to AP VoteCast.

Turning Point has been working to change that, hosting events like the Young Women’s Leadership Summit and urging attendees to embrace traditional family values and gender roles.

Charlie Kirk said earlier this year that if a young woman’s priority is to find a husband, she should go to college for a “MRS degree.” Matthew Boedy, a professor of rhetoric at University of North Georgia, said Erika Kirk could be a more effective messenger because she was focused on her career before meeting her husband.

“I do think her story resonates more because she tried it out and can tell them it is not for them,” he said.

Some conservative women are turned off by this approach. Raquel Debono, an influencer who lives in New York City, described the event as a “Stepford wives conference,” featuring women in pink floral dresses.

She said Turning Point’s emphasis on being traditional wives “leaves out a lot of women who work,” she said, “and I think they’re going to lose all those voters, honestly, in the next election cycle if they keep it up.”

Debono founded her own organization, Make America Hot Again, where she throws parties intended to make voters feel welcomed into the conservative movement and allow them to get to know people who share their politics.

‘Big time’ growth for some chapters

Aubree Hudson had been president of Turning Point’s chapter at Brigham Young University for only two weeks when she visited nearby Utah Valley University for an event with Charlie Kirk.

She said she was standing only about six feet away when he was fatally shot. She ran to find her husband, who was at the back of the crowd, and they fled to her car.

Hudson, 22, is from a rural farm town in southwestern Colorado. Her conservative convictions are rooted in her family’s faith and patriotism. A copy of the U.S. Constitution hangs in her parents’ home, and her father taught her to value God, family and country, in that order. Her mother stayed at home, telling her children that “you guys are my career.”

Since Kirk’s assassination, Hudson said the number of people — particularly women — getting involved with the organization jumped “big time.”

Emma Paskett, 18, is one of them. She was planning to attend the Utah Valley University event after one of her classes, but Kirk was shot before she made it there.

Although she wasn’t very familiar with Turning Point before that point, Paskett said she started watching videos of Kirk later that night.

Paskett considers Erika Kirk to be a “one in a million” role model, and her role as a leader was a driving factor in signing up.

“That’s exactly what I want to be like,” she said.

Govindarao writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux contributed to this report from Washington.

Emma Groves, 35, from Belfast, was refused entry to Switzerland and detained at Zurich airport after making an easy mistake when packing

A woman was turned away from her holiday destination and held in custody after making one crucial error while travelling. Emma Groves, 35, from Belfast, made her way to Dublin Airport for a four-night break in Zurich, Switzerland on December 1 this year.

The pair dropped off their luggage and completed check-in before passing through security without any problems. Emma had reserved the Aer Lingus flight approximately three weeks earlier after spotting a hotel she fancied visiting on TikTok.

However, it wasn’t until the duo reached border control in Zurich that they discovered Emma had made a grave blunder which left her devastated. Following the loss of her passport several weeks beforehand, Emma had requested a replacement document, which arrived at her home.

Yet after discovering her original passport, she failed to destroy it and stored it in a drawer alongside her moisturisers and fake tan products.

Emma explained: “I had grabbed it [passport] the night before and give my passport to my boyfriend, he minds them because I do lose everything. Only the night before I thought ‘my goodness am I going to be able to travel, the gold has completely faded off’ this which is strange for it being a new passport. It was in a drawer with all my moisturisers and fake tans. So I did think it’s probably just rubbed off.”

Upon reaching the Swiss border, Emma discovered her passport had been flagged as cancelled. She recalled: “He just said ‘do you have another one’ and then it kind of clicked. The border police came and got me and my boyfriend.

“We went into this room and said we realised what had happened. I said I’ve got a new one but I’ve grabbed the old one so he said because it had been cancelled it was an invalid document.”

Emma was informed she would need to be flown back to Dublin before she could re-enter the country using her valid passport. Her boyfriend chose to remain in the country and await Emma’s return.

Emma found herself placed in a “weird” airport hotel, which she likened to a “mini prison”, containing roughly 20 beds separated by curtains.

She explained: “They put me in an airport hotel and I was in there for about three or four hours, but it was just like a room with a lot of beds in it separated by curtains. I just sat and watched Stranger Things get me through.

“It was scary enough in the hotel because there were a lot of people in there, and there kind of wasn’t really any security or even a locked door. It was a weird room.

“[In Dublin] we used a machine to drop off the luggage, but then we did have to go over to a desk to leave them, and she checked the passport and stuff. The passports were scanned so you’d think they would pick up if it was cancelled.

“Border security in Switzerland said I shouldn’t have been able to get that far. It wasn’t until like 6pm that they told me I’d be getting on the flight at 8pm.”

It’s understood that Aer Lingus verifies that a presented passport corresponds to the passenger’s identity and remains valid. In instances where a passport has been cancelled but remains in date, the discrepancy would be spotted upon entry to another country.

Emma was then accompanied around the airport by a chaperone before being boarded onto the aircraft first, as her passport had been seized. She was given a set of documents which stated she was denied entry and had her passport confiscated.

Upon her return to Dublin, her mother met her with her replacement passport, allowing her to purchase fresh flights to Zurich, which she described as an “expense she didn’t need”.

Emma explained: “When I flew over, I actually initially wasn’t going to bring the forms back, but my mum was like ‘just take them’, so I flew out fine but when I got to the Swiss border again the border control lady was like ‘oh this doesn’t make sense it says you’ve already been here but you haven’t left’.’I give her the forms and she was like ‘oh okay that kind of explains it’ and I got through.”

Emma was informed by border officials that she would face no future travel difficulties due to it being an honest mistake. A representative from Aer Lingus stated: “Passengers travelling with Aer Lingus are responsible for ensuring they have all relevant travel documentation and compliance with relevant laws and regulations of the countries they are flying to, from, or transiting through. Passports used for travel must be valid and in date. If a travel document is not valid for travel, passengers may be refused entry when they reach their planned destination, as was the case in this instance.”

Director Paul Feig has proved himself to be the preeminent purveyor of the finest high-camp trash one can find at the movie theater these days — and that’s a compliment. If he’s serving up the trash, then call me a raccoon, because I’m ready to dive in.

Feig’s special sauce when it comes to these soapy, female-driven thrillers like “A Simple Favor” and now “The Housemaid,” adapted by Rebecca Sonnenshine from a “BookTok” sensation by Freida McFadden, is clearly his comedy background. The filmmaker understands exactly the tone to deploy here; you can feel his knowing winks and nudges to the audience with every loaded glance, stray graze or wandering camera movement. It’s as if he’s saying to us and all the tipsy ladies in the audience: Check this out — LOL, right? LOL indeed, Mr. Feig.

“The Housemaid” is an erotic crime thriller that deploys silly sexual stereotypes and fantasies like the naughty maid and then flips them on their head. In the opening scene, the drably dressed, bespectacled Millie (Sydney Sweeney) interviews for a live-in maid position with the warm and friendly wife and mother Nina Winchester (Amanda Seyfried) in her gorgeously appointed Long Island mansion designed by her wealthy husband, Andrew (Brandon Sklenar of “Drop”).

But all is not what it seems, for applicant and employer. Both are hiding dark secrets but Nina hires Millie nevertheless. Millie, without any other options, gratefully accepts.

When Millie moves into the maid’s quarters in the attic, she discovers that the Winchester home isn’t as picture-perfect as it seemed. Little things are off: She can’t open her window, the groundskeeper, Enzo (Michele Morrone), glowers at her constantly, items go missing and CeCe (Indiana Elle), Nina’s daughter, is exceedingly cold.

Then there are the big things that are off, like Nina’s wild mood swings and the vicious gossip about her mental health among the other Stepford wives of the area. Millie realizes she’s in over her head with Mrs. Winchester, but her saving grace is the warm and handsome Mr. Winchester. Is that where this is going? Of course it is, we all groan together, happily.

“The Housemaid” is like “Gaslight” meets “Jane Eyre,” with a dash of “Rebecca,” and all the various roles are lightly scrambled, infused with a much sexier, nastier streak than any of those mannered mindbenders. Feig stylishly waltzes us through this steamy, twisty mystery with ease, but not necessarily sophistication — this is the kind of frothy entertainment that you can still enjoyably comprehend after a glass or two (which in fact might enhance the experience).

But it doesn’t fly without an actor of Seyfried’s caliber, who can summon unpredictable mayhem from her fingertips. Nor would it function without Sweeney, who works best in a register somewhere between ditzy blond and tough little scrapper. Both actors exude an element of the unhinged that simmers right below the doe-eyed blond surface and we know we should be a little (or a lot) afraid of these women. The film also doesn’t make sense without a heartthrob like Sklenar, since we need to fall in lust with his gorgeous exterior and intoxicatingly cuddly aura for this all to eventually make sense.

There’s not much more to say without giving it all away, so prepare to titter, gasp, scream and cheer for this juicy slice of indulgent women’s entertainment. Go on, you deserve a little treat this holiday season.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.

Steph Sarah recalls a time in Venice Beach’s mythical skateboarding history — long before the sandy expanse on Ocean Front Walk became the world-famous skate park, a concrete playground where pro skaters are born.

“It was all boys,” says Sarah, a 36-year-old Venice Beach native who learned to skate at age 12. “If you did come across another girl skating, they were your competition, because there wasn’t even enough room for one girl to skate, let alone multiple girls.”

The group welcomes all skill levels and jokes that they’re the “world’s okay-est skaters.” (Gabriella Angotti-Jones / For The Times)

On this Thursday night, that is distant history. As fog rolls in over the Venice Pier, Sarah skates alongside dozens of women on the coastal path. They belt out the lyrics to “Hey Jude” as singer Chloe Kat serenades them with a guitar in hand. Curious fishermen eye them, their fishing lines cast into the black ocean. But they pay no attention. Twirling under the moonlight, the women resemble a witch’s coven — their spells are good vibes, California weather and the boards beneath their feet.

Since its inception in 2018, GrlSwirl has been a leading force in creating a more inclusive skateboarding culture in Venice Beach — and across the world. The Venice Beach-based organization fosters community among female skateboarders. Twice a month, the group hosts nighttime “group skates” for women and community members. The event has exploded on social media, often attracting over 100 participants on warm summer nights.

“You get to witness what it’s like for people to break all the rules and show up fully as themselves,” Lucy Osinski, one of the co-founders of GrlSwirl, says of the group skates. “The weirder, the sillier, the more authentic, the better.”

Participants dodge a parking barrier gate during a nighttime group skate.

(Gabriella Angotti-Jones / For The Times)

Growing up in the world of professional ballet with its restrictive body standards and intense discipline, Osinski found newfound freedom in skateboarding. “I went from feeling so fragile and weak to so powerful,” she says. “It made me feel like I belonged and liberated in a way I had never experienced before.”

But when she moved to Venice Beach in 2017, skateboarding as a woman invited hostile attention. “Every time I would skate, people would catcall us or yell at us to do a kickflip,” she says. (“Do a kickflip” is considered a skateboarding taunt.) “I started chasing down any girl I saw on a skateboard. I made a text chain. I called it GrlSwirl.”

Osinski began posting about group skates on Instagram, where GrlSwirl gained traction. “The next week, 20 girls showed up just from word of mouth, and then the next week 40, and then the next 60, and then we had over 100 girls.” Soon, the group’s reputation attracted brand sponsorships and inquiries about starting chapters in new cities.

Today, the organization also doubles as a nonprofit that teaches underprivileged communities to skate worldwide, including surf-skate retreats that empower women and girls. Osinski explains that GrlSwirl has hosted skateboarding clinics from refugee camps in Tijuana to the first-ever women’s skate jam in the Navajo Nation. GrlSwirl has an international following with chapters in more than seven cities and an online community spanning 80 countries.

Lindsey Klucik, left, dances with friends to Christmas songs at the Venice Pier during a GrlSwirl group skate.

(Gabriella Angotti-Jones / For The Times)

Lucy Osinski rolls in with a skateboarding move.

(Gabriella Angotti-Jones / For The Times)

“Everything we’ve done from Day 1 is to make spaces and find ways to build community through skateboarding,” says Osinski. “People want to be in a village, but they don’t know how to be a villager. GrlSwirl is the village.”

The popularity of the bimonthly group skates has even attracted out-of-towners curious about the event. Osinski says the event has drawn tourists from Japan, Russia and more. Traveling from Salzburg, Austria, Karoline Bauer joined the skate with her partner while on vacation after following them on Instagram. “We were just looking for some community. We don’t have that back home,” Bauer says.

The group skate welcomes skateboarders of all skill levels. As a motto, the group jokes that they’re the “world’s okay-est skaters.” “We’re not looking for people to be shredding like crazy,” says Naomi Fulta, a team rider for GrlSwirl. “We have people who come here who literally have never stepped on a skateboard, to people who’ve been skating their whole lives.”

Yuka Okamura has been attending GrlSwirl’s group skates with her 10-year-old daughter for over five years. To her surprise, Okamura began learning to skateboard when her daughter started taking lessons. “I had no idea that I would start something new after I had a child. It’s amazing to share the joy and the experience with her,” she explains.

Yaya Ogun, a GrlSwirl team rider, poses with the group.

(Gabriella Angotti-Jones / For The Times)

For Yaya Ogun, one of the team riders, group skates are an opportunity to build community and make friends. Skateboarding naturally lends itself to community, she explains. Ogun attended her first GrlSwirl event alone and now rides as a sponsored skater. “You have to go someplace physical, you’re gonna meet people, you’re gonna make friends,” she says.

Ogun is a self-proclaimed pandemic skater. “There’s a huge wave of us who started either during or after the pandemic,” she says. “I grew up wanting to skate, but I just never had the time. And then all of a sudden, I had a lot of time,” she says with a laugh.

As a transplant from Texas, Ogun was drawn to GrlSwirl because the organization is anchored in the local community, which has experienced rent hikes and the closure of local institutions in recent years. “This is a special place, and it’s changing a lot,” laments Ogun. “We want to respect it and raise it up and not change anything.”

Osinski credits GrlSwirl’s success to its birthplace, Venice Beach, a place that celebrates uniqueness and community. Venice is a mecca for skateboarding, home to the Z-boys who revolutionized the sport in the 1970s and the subject of the documentary “Dogtown and Z-Boys.”

GrlSwirl aims to inspire people to “come together through the simple act of trying something new.”

(Gabriella Angotti-Jones/For The Times)

“Venice is a place of creation. You don’t have to look like a Venice skater to be a Venice skater. It’s about growing up and giving back,” Osinski says.

The girls skate into the evening, the sunset casting an orange light onto their smiling faces. Ogun declares her contempt for longboards — not to mention penny skateboards, which she says are a death trap. In the distance, waves carry surfers to the shore after their last surf of the day. As darkness falls on Venice Beach, the promise of something new swells.

No, our Women in Film issue doesn’t exclusively feature women — Noah Baumbach and Brendan Fraser feature in our Dec. 16 edition as well — but it does shine a particular spotlight on their extraordinary contribution to the year in film.

As performers and production designers, writers, directors and more, the women included here helped fashion deeply felt stories of parenthood, friendship, grief and betrayal, and that’s just for starters. Read on for more highlights from this week’s Envelope.

The Envelope Actresses Roundtable

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

This year’s Oscar Actresses Roundtable was full of laughter, sparked by everything from Gwyneth Paltrow’s impression of mother Blythe Danner to Sydney Sweeney’s tales from inside the ring on “Christy.” But when it comes to self-determination, this year’s participants — who also included Emily Blunt, Elle Fanning, Jennifer Lopez and Tessa Thompson — are dead serious.

As performers, producers and businesswomen, the sextet told moderator Lorraine Ali, the boxes that Hollywood and the broader culture seek to put them in need not apply. And realizing that is its own liberation. As Lopez put it, “I don’t ever feel like there’s somebody who can say to me, ‘No, you can’t.’”

‘Hamnet’s’ last-minute miracle

(Evelyn Freja / For The Times))

Since the moment I first saw “Hamnet,” I’ve been raving to everyone I know about its climactic sequence, set inside the Globe Theatre during a performance of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” (Well, if you can call it “raving” when you preface your recommendation with the sentence, “I sobbed through the last 45 minutes.”) As it turns out, though, the process of making the film’s final act was as miraculous as the finished product.

“There were only four days left of shooting on ‘Hamnet’ when Chloé Zhao realized she didn’t have an ending,” Emily Zemler begins this week’s digital cover story, which features Zhao, actors Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal and Joe Alwyn and production designer Fiona Crombie. What they created from that point, combining kismet, creative inspiration and grueling preparation, will buoy your belief in the power of art. “It was like a tsunami,” Buckley tells Zemler. “I’ll never forget it.”

A Is for Animal Wrangler

When I first read Helen Macdonald’s transporting “H Is for Hawk,” which combines memoir, nature writing and literary criticism, I can’t say I closed the book wondering when we’d get a film adaptation. Little did I know that director Philippa Lowthorpe, star Claire Foy and a pair of married bird handlers would provide such a thorough answer to my skepticism.

As Lisa Rosen writes in her story on the marriage of art and goshawk in “H Is For Hawk,” that meant shaping the production around the notoriously wary birds of prey, including its lead performance. “It wasn’t like having another actor who had another agenda or actions or a perspective that they wanted to get across in the scene,” Foy told Rosen of her extensive screen time alone with the five goshawks who stood in for Helen’s. “I was along for the ride with these animals.”

More stories from our Dec. 16 issue

A woman was left bitterly jealous after she noticed that children can do one thing on flights that adults cannot, and she said it means they’re practically in first class

Flying as an adult is usually a pretty cramped experience, of course, unless you’re lucky enough to be sitting in first class getting fed delicious food and wine until you reach your destination. However, the average person is not in that privileged position and is actually more likely to be in the middle seat, trying to navigate whether their seatmates will be kind enough to let them have the armrests on either side.

However, one woman pointed out that every time young children fly with a family member, they’re practically “in first class”, joking that they don’t understand “how good they’ve got it”.

TikToker @elkekahler videoed herself on the flight, looking shocked, as she flipped the camera around to show young children lying down in a seat, using luggage as a pillow so they were as comfortable as possible.

They were covered in blankets and fast asleep – a far cry from the experience of most adults, who know how tricky it is to get some shut-eye in the air.

She flipped the camera back onto herself as she looked mortified, and jealous the youngsters were able to lie down and sleep.

Over the top of the video, she hilariously played the song ‘Glamorous’ by Fergie, which contains the lyrics “we’re flying first class, up in the sky, poppin’ champagne, livin’ my life in the fast lane”.

It’s safe to say that these kids were definitely living their best lives when they were able to sleep properly and land in a whole new country without any stress.

Someone in the comments joked that they needed a “tutorial” on how to do that because they wanted to try it for themselves, but if an adult attempted it, their feet would likely be hanging far off their seat and being constantly knocked by the trolley service.

“They’re gonna hate it when they get older and have to sit on aeroplanes normally,” one woman pointed out.

“I’m 19 and still do this,” a woman shared, saying that they were “short enough” to get away with it. But imagine giving it a go only to realise you were too tall? You’d likely be feeling pretty embarrassed.

“My mum prepared the same for my sister and me when I was younger. I can confirm that it’s the comfiest ever,” a TikTok user boasted.

A flight attendant shared: “I used to operate this type of aircraft for Emirates, and we would always have to tell them not to do this because of safety.”

Referring to the blankets, she added: “There is a high risk that you’re not allowed to bring these onto the plane.”

Although it looks like you could make something similar out of a suitcase and a pillow, it’s not confirmed what they actually did.

A woman has shared how an ‘entitled’ plane passenger tried to ban her from reclining her seat on a plane – and it has sparked a debate on whether it should or shouldn’t be allowed

A woman has slammed an ‘entitled’ plane passenger who tried to ban her from reclining her seat during a flight. She explained how she simply wanted to relax on the flight, knowing she could end up with back pain otherwise, and decided to recline her seat back to help with this.

However, the 5ft 2ins woman sitting behind her had a thing or two to say after she reclined her chair soon after take-off. She said on Reddit: “I tried to recline my seat and it popped back upright. I tried again and realised the lady behind me was shoving my seat forward.

“I tried again and she yelled at me that I couldn’t recline my seat. I was very shaken up by the interaction, so I just stayed upright for like 10 minutes until I could see a flight attendant nearby.

“I was able to quickly recline and have my chair click into place so she couldn’t shove it forward.”

It was at this point that the woman raised her voice at her, causing everyone on the plane to turn their attention to the pair.

She said: “I told her everyone on the whole plane gets to recline their seat. She said I was reclining too far back, though…

“I told her my seat was in the same position as the person sitting in front of me and kind of held my hands up at her through the little gap between the seats, and then sat back. She didn’t try to talk to me again.”

Sharing her regret, she says she wishes she’d called over a flight attendant to deal with the situation rather than facing the woman directly.

She added: “The whole thing made me so uncomfortable. Even the tall guy whose knees were jammed into the seat in front of him was getting involved, telling her she needed to calm down.”

Commenting on her post, one user said: “It’s such a doomed situation all around. Some people you are literally crushing their legs, and it’s horrifically uncomfortable to sit fully upright if you nod off. Airplane hell.”

Another user added: “I was shocked on a German train when I noticed the recline function in the seat worked by sliding the seat forward… this allowed the person to recline all they wanted, but into their own space.

“I still have no idea why this doesn’t exist in airplanes, as it would fix the problem once and for all. Want to recline? Sure… into your own space!”

A third user said: “As a tall person with long legs, it’s not that I don’t want them to recline, it’s that there is physically no room for the chair to come back any farther.

“Usually, I am flying domestically, and the options for buying a seat with more legroom don’t exist on many of the flights.”

Film fans like to lament: They don’t make them like they used to, specifically the kind of wry, life-affirming dramedies that director James L. Brooks perfected back in the 1980s and ’90s like “Terms of Endearment,” “Broadcast News” and “As Good as It Gets.” Movies of that tone and character are rare these days, so it’s worth noting when a new one comes along. But with Brooks’ latest, the deeply strange “Ella McCay,” he doesn’t make them like he used to either.

“Ella McCay” is a portrait of a lady on fire, from stress. The quirky, twitchy Ella (Emma Mackey, horrifically bewigged) is the youngest lieutenant governor in her unnamed state, an awkward policy wonk serving under her mentor, Gov. Bill Moore (Albert Brooks). When he’s tapped for the Cabinet, Ella gets the promotion that she craves, sworn in as the youngest female governor of her state, even as her family life descends into chaos. But Ella’s family life has always been chaotic, as we see in flashbacks to her teenage years, wherein our narrator describes how Ella experiences seeing other happy families — as a stab in the heart.

Our narrator is Estelle (Julie Kavner, best known as the voice of Marge Simpson), Ella’s secretary, who explains that she’s biased, claiming “I’m nuts about her.” The year, by the way, is 2008, “when we could still talk to each other.” So Brooks sets this political film in the recent past, giving a wide berth to the third rail that is MAGA. But by shrinking away from political hot buttons, he renders the whole gambit frustratingly vague and meaningless. Ella lives in the “state,” she runs afoul of the “party,” but skirting these details feels too timid. It’s clear that Ella’s politics are liberal, as she champions a bill designed to support parents and kids in early childhood (she tears up over “tooth tutors”). But why play coy with the specifics?

All Ella wants to do is run her policy meetings, but the men in her life keep getting in the way. First there’s her dad (Woody Harrelson), an inveterate philanderer who would like to make amends — in order to please his new girlfriend. Then there’s Ella’s agoraphobic brother (Spike Fearn), over whom she frets (the less said about his bizarrely tacked-on romantic entanglement with an ex-girlfriend played by Ayo Edebiri, the better). Then there’s her husband (Jack Lowden), a seemingly nice if cocky guy who suddenly starts to love the warmth of the spotlight as Ella ascends.

Again and again, Ella runs in circles trying to put out fires with these men without ever getting to her meetings or doing the job she claims she loves so much (and when she finally does get to her meeting, it’s a flop). The entire movie is about how men are always getting in the way of women’s work, but it’s not entirely clear that Brooks knows this is what his film is about, as Ella happily embarks on pointless side quests with her dad and brother and becomes embroiled in the tamest political sex scandal of all time. The real scandal here is why she entertains any of these losers at all.

It never feels like Brooks has a grasp on the material, which careens aimlessly through Ella’s harried day-to-day in a handsomely bland, serviceable style. The thread about Ella’s childhood trauma resulting from her parents’ messy relationship is lost — and was never that convincing to begin with. She has an unconventional family but her aunt Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis), who helped raise her, is a fierce protector and confidant. Their relationship is fun to watch, so why bother with all these men and their inane storylines? The only worthy one in Ella’s life is her designated security detail (Kumail Nanjiani). In another movie, they’d have a romance, some sexual tension or at least a heartfelt and wise conversation. Here, his character is denied any chance of that.

As we move from broken home to political scandal to another broken home, Ella finally realizes that a woman’s place is not in the capital, but rather in the nonprofit sector (not that she has much choice in the matter). What, exactly, is Brooks trying to say? We spend two hours watching men mess things up for Ella and then she just accepts it and moves on? Even if that message weren’t profoundly weird, dramatically it falls flat, despite Estelle trying to tie it up with a positive final message: “The opposite of trauma is hope.” Whatever that means. It’s apt that this closing phrase makes as much sense as the rest of the movie, which is to say, very little.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.

The press has often labeled Mon Laferte a “femme fatale” — a seductive woman who inflicts distress upon her love interests.

Nearly two decades into her singing career, the Chilean singer-songwriter has learned to embrace the old-fashioned trope of the wizened seductress in “Femme Fatale,” her ninth studio album, which she released in October.

“I came to the conclusion that there’s a perception of me as a woman who is really liberated — that’s why it’s dangerous. [She’s] a person who is sure of herself and that generates a lot of insecurity in other people,” said Laferte in a Zoom call, just after she attended the 2025 Fashion Awards with designer Willy Chavarria in London. (“I went to Camden and took a photo next to [Amy Winehouse’s] statue,” she noted, citing inspiration in the late R&B star.)

Laferte reckons with her dangerous womanhood on “Femme Fatale:” a compilation of jazzy, cabaret pop ballads, elevated by the roaring theatrical vocals she made famous in such past hits as “Tu Falta de Querer” and “Mi Buen Amor.” Prior to releasing the album, Laferte notably starred as Sally Bowles in a Mexico City production of the famous American musical “Cabaret.” It was a crash course on theater — which heavily influenced Laferte’s now most penetrating record to date.

Each song in “Femme Fatale” feels like a descent into a speakeasy. It tells stories of loves past — which at times feel nauseating for the 42-year-old singer, born Norma Monserrat Bustamante Laferte in Viña del Mar, Chile.

Among them is “Otra Noche de Llorar,” in which she mourns an unrequited love; then there’s “El Gran Señor,” in which she scorns a cowardly abuser of women. The record climaxes with “1:30,” a briskly improvised tune, in which Laferte balances stories of abuse, self-pleasuring and fake orgasms with historical themes — like the global industrial revolution, as well as Pinochet’s Caravan of Death in 1973.

“The song is really political and everything is my own story,” said Laferte, who admits that even she finds her song difficult to listen to. “The last part is the hardest — where I talk about a conquest — to the point where I can’t listen to that song. It’s really uncomfortable. It’s hard to talk about something so shamelessly.”

“Femme Fatale” is a deeply personal journey that leads to Laferte making peace with her past. The record concludes with the lively orchestral number “Vida Normal,” in which she grapples with the revelation that she’s turning into her mother — especially after giving birth to her first child in 2022 with husband Joel Orta, guitarist for Mexican band Celofán.

“It was a really honest way of saying that, after everything, I just want a normal life,” said the five-time Latin Grammy winner.

But before the Chilean femme fatale can settle into a vida normal, she will first embark on the 2026 Femme Fatale tour, which includes dates in Latin America and later the United States. Laferte’s first stop will be in her hometown of Viña del Mar for the International Song Festival. “It’s like returning home,” she said.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Mon Laferte is a five-time Latin Grammy winner.

(Mayra Ortiz)

You were just in London for the Fashion Awards with Willy Chavarria, who was nominated for designer of the year. How was that experience?
I came as a guest of Willy’s. We had dinner and saw a lot of super fashionable people, many artists with their super cool looks. Fashion has always been interesting to me ever since I was a little girl, outside of singing, dancing and playing the guitar. I liked to draw women and their outfits, dresses, things like that… Perhaps that’s where my dreams began to be a designer. Aesthetically in my last album, “Autopoiética,” it was all baroque — I was a bit like Marie Antoinette, I wore large dresses in my shows. This time in “Femme Fatale,” [the style is] bohemian, with sequins and makeup running.

“Femme Fatale” is intense and sexy. Why did you decide to go with that phrase for the album title?
 ”Femme fatale has a bit of a negative weight to it. You think of a scornful woman that always brings misfortune and does evil things. And it’s a name that the press has given me: La Femme Fatale Chilena.

And I liked it. I like this title because I like to play with the concepts of a dangerous woman. I like that it’s dramatic, because I like music that is theatrical and dark. It doesn’t mean that I am that woman who is secure and free — I have been in various moments in my life, not all the time. But I like that people label me in that way.

How would you describe the musical style?
I wanted to take [the album] into the world of jazz so that it could sound nocturnal, so it could sound melancholic. In the last couple of years I’ve been listening to a lot of jazz, so why not make an album that I like to listen to? When I was a little girl, I listened to jazz in my home because of my mom, but I felt like it was boring. Later when I was in my teens I was like: “This is elevator music.”

But as I kept growing, I got rid of that prejudice. When I began to listen to jazz without any judgment, I began to find poetry and a lot of madness as well. I think it’s the improvisation aspect; you have to be very daring to enter the void, because your improv is coming and it’s to the death. That’s something that I’m passionate about. I think it’s demented and poetic at the same time.

This fall you were in a production of the musical “Cabaret” in Mexico City. How was that experience and did it inspire your music for “Femme Fatale”?
Yes! I feel like they complemented each other. I feel that my role as Sally Bowles in the theater fed that universe of “Femme Fatale.” There’s a song in the album, “Vida Normal,” that is a song that could go in a musical and that was the intention. My experience with theater was wonderful and I had a lot of fun and learned a lot in the intensive process.

I wanted to talk about the song, “Vida Normal.” You hint at becoming more like your mother and living a normal life, which feels a bit at odds with the “Femme Fatale” theme. Was that intentional?
Totally. Because the first song, “Femme Fatale,” describes me up to the present: I always bring chaos, I always destroy what I love, I’m an expert in self-sabotage. But I have been letting those things go with time, thankfully. With the songs in “Femme Fatale” I went deeper into my past, in order to kill that persona.

[“Vida Normal”] is really honest and represents me in the present. I look in the mirror and I don’t recognize myself when I’m barefaced or before getting in the shower — my body changed, especially after motherhood. It’s true that I see my mother’s face and it’s hard to recognize that. I’m getting old. I’m at that age where I don’t recognize myself as either young, or old, in my 40s. It appeared beautiful to close that album that way. It was a really honest way of saying that after everything, I just want a normal life.

One song that caught my attention was the jazz song “1:30.” You talk about fantasies that women don’t often talk about. What was the thought process behind this song?
I think those have been the hardest lyrics I’ve ever written. I touch on a lot of microtopics — masturbation, fake orgasms — I think many of us have gone through that. I talk about abuse, sexual abuse, the Caravan of Death that occurred during the dictatorship of Pinochet in Chile. The song is really political and everything is my own story. The last part is the hardest, where I talk about a conquest, to the point where I can’t listen to that song. It’s really uncomfortable. It’s hard to talk about something so shamelessly.

I talked with my musicians and told them that I wanted this to be fast, almost desperate, almost like the bass being the protagonist so that it gives you a sense of urgency, like [we’re] fleeing in a way. We played together like 8 times and I liked that take.

The album also features Natalia Lafourcade and Silvana Estrada on “My One and Only Love.” What was it like to work with these different voices that are often compared to each other?
As all three of us sang, I realized that we are so different, each our own universe. I guess we relate to being singer-songwriters but we are distinct universes. I think that [comparison] has to do with us being women; there’s so many male-led bands that one can say are similar too.

We’re all good friends. I’ve known Natalia for many years now and we love each other and they’re all talented women. All three voices sound very beautiful together and I love harmonizing. It was precious to sing together in a song that I find to be the most beautiful in the album. It’s sweet and honest. It talks about the difficulties between partners — and it describes me and my husband. At the end of the day we love each other and continue to be present.

Anti-incumbent fever. The Year of the Woman. Coattails and skirt-tails. Yes, the pundits are in a lather with prognostications of a blitzkrieg this year against the powers-that-be in American politics. But will this sortie swoop down on Orange County’s long-entrenched state Legislators?

Don’t count on it, say the region’s Republican hierarchy. They insist the hefty contingent of GOP incumbents in Orange County is just too powerful. Even some leaders of the second-fiddle Democrats, who hold only one state elected office in Orange County, say privately that they don’t expect to make much headway against the GOP.

But such behind-the-scenes sentiments haven’t stopped most Democratic challengers–as well as Libertarians and other third-party candidates–from mounting spirited grass-roots campaigns and espousing the optimistic view that in this wacky political season, anything could happen.

These Democrats suggest they could benefit by hitching a ride on the coattails or skirt hems of their party’s candidates at the top of the ticket. Some of the challengers also predict the Democrat’s surge in voter registration, which saw the party begin to close the GOP’s huge lead, may signal the beginnings of change in the political climate of Orange County.

The Democrats also predict that the electorate’s grumpy feelings about the Legislature–fueled by the nationally embarrassing budget stalemate over the summer–will spark an anti-incumbent wildfire that could hurt GOP candidates in Orange County.

“I think this is the year,” enthused Jim Toledano, an Irvine attorney running against longtime Assemblyman Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach) in the 70th District, where Republicans outnumber Democrats nearly 2 to 1. “I get a feeling voters will be picking and choosing this year. And an awful lot of them will be going anti-incumbent.”

Republican officials just aren’t buying it. They admit that anti-incumbency could shave a few points off the usual electoral landslides their candidates enjoy, but say the GOP isn’t taking any chances. The Republicans, after all, still enjoy a hefty edge in fund raising and party registration in nearly all the districts.

“We don’t see any upsets, but this is not a good year to be resting on your laurels,” said Greg Haskin, Orange County’s Republican executive director. “Most of our Republican incumbents are taking it very seriously and working hard to get reelected.”

A look at Orange County’s races for the Assembly:

67th Assembly District

Assemblywoman Doris Allen (R-Cypress) had to engage in a tumultuous primary campaign to defeat colleagues Tom Mays (R-Huntington Beach) and Nolan Frizzelle (R-Fountain Valley) after redistricting put all three in this coastal Orange County district anchored by Huntington Beach.

Although the five-term assemblywoman heads toward election day with a 51.5% to 35.4% registration advantage for the GOP, Democrat challenger Ken LeBlanc is bullish on his chances.

“I’m doing everything I can to position myself for lightning to strike,” LeBlanc said. He is tapping into the 700 volunteers working out of the Democratic Party’s west Orange County office. LeBlanc also notes that much of the newly reapportioned district is new to Allen. In the meantime, LeBlanc has tried to characterize himself as a maverick, “not your usual liberal Democrat.”

LeBlanc also makes a fuss over money funneled to Allen during the primary by education and labor groups that have traditionally supported Democrats. It has prompted an unusual charge: LeBlanc, the Democrat, has tried to tie Allen to powerful Democratic Assembly Speaker Willie Brown.

“Doris made a deal with Willie obviously,” LeBlanc contends. “If Doris wants to sell herself to the highest bidder, she can do that.”

Allen bristles at such accusations, saying Brown had nothing to do with the contributions, which she contends were sparked by her support of education.

“There was never a deal with Willie, never a discussion,” she said. “In fact, Willie was mad that they were putting money into a Republican district.” Allen also said LeBlanc “hurts himself worse than he helps himself” by making such charges.

She hopes to return to Sacramento and work on finding “a balance between the economy and environment.” Her big effort in recent years has been to outlaw the use of gill nets by commercial fishermen.

Libertarian Brian Schar, an aerospace engineer, says meaningful budget reform needs to start with public schools and supports the proposed voucher system allowing parents to more easily send their children to private schools. Like other Libertarians, he wants to cut taxes and regulations to help improve the state’s business climate.

68th Assembly District

Curt Pringle, Orange County’s former assemblyman, is back.

After one term in the Legislature, Pringle was defeated by Democrat Tom Umberg in an unruly 1990 race. Reapportionment shifted Pringle into a new district, and here he is again in the 68th.

His Democratic opponent, Linda Kay Rigney, is running a campaign long on hustle and short on cash. Nonetheless, Rigney sees signs of hope. The central county district–anchored by Garden Grove, Westminster and Anaheim–isn’t nearly as lopsided as some (it’s 46.2% Republican and 42.2% Democratic). With no other candidate in the race, Rigney hopes the 11% who aren’t followers of the major parties will vote for her.

Moreover, she thinks the area’s residents, irked by the lingering recession, will be ready to revolt against the GOP hierarchy. She also expects to gain votes in this political “Year of the Woman” and perhaps even ride the hems of Feinstein and Boxer.

A longtime Democratic activist and school instructional aide, Rigney hopes to take “drastic measures” to spur the economy by streamlining the regulatory process and reforming workers compensation.

Pringle, 33, has mostly focused on his desire to work at reducing the size of government. Like other Republicans, he wants to roll back regulations to “bring the economy out of the doldrums.”

He also wants to overhaul the worker’s compensation system to outlaw stress disability claims and make cuts “in every area of the budget.” Noting that many politicians “shy away” from talking about cuts in education, Pringle stressed that the problem isn’t a lack of money but a bloated education bureaucracy.

69th Assembly District

With a Democrat majority, this district is an anomaly in the GOP bastion of Orange County. Assemblyman Tom Umberg (D-Garden Grove) enjoys a 54% to 36% registration edge over the Republicans.

But local Republicans would like nothing better than to unseat Umberg, and they feel they’ve got just the candidate to do it–Jo Ellen Allen, a conservative former associate professor of political science and champion of “traditional family values.”

Both sides are armed for war. Allen has raised about $200,000 so far, while Umberg has amassed $300,000. There’s even been a few early skirmishes.

Allen has made a point to regularly blast Umberg for his vote in 1990 to retain Willie Brown as speaker of the Assembly, a post the San Francisco Democrat has held for a dozen years to the ever-increasing irritation of frustrated Republican politicos.

Umberg’s campaign, meanwhile, has been quietly making a fuss over Allen’s role for the past decade as president of the California chapter of Eagle Forum, a conservative group headed by Phyllis Schlafly, the right-wing national celebrity most prominent for her stand against the proposed equal rights amendment and other feminist causes.

David Keller, the Libertarian candidate, wants to privatize the public school system and many other government services. He also would work to abolish the South Coast Air Quality Management District as well as agencies such as the Iceberg Lettuce Commission and the state Arts Council. Keller favors a flat-rate personal income tax for the state and wants to reduce sales taxes. He also wants to legalize drugs, saying that “the drug war is diverting police and court resources from real crime, serious crime.”

70th Assembly District

Like other Republican incumbents, Assemblyman Gil Ferguson enjoys a decided registration advantage (56.1% GOP to 29.7% Democratic), but challenger Jim Toledano remains confident.

Toledano and his volunteers have been walking precincts for more than two months. He has also raised more than $50,000 and figures he will capture GOP voters who supported Costa Mesa Mayor Mary Hornbuckle, who gave Ferguson a rough fight in the Republican primary.

He contends the state has “systematically shortchanged education,” turning a “first-rate education system into one that hasn’t done the job.” Business, in turn, has suffered because of a dearth of well-educated workers, he said.

The Democrat is also talking tough.

“Gil Ferguson has an extreme right-wing ideological agenda that he pushes at every opportunity,” Toledano said. “He is focused on winning ideological points on the right and not in dealing with problems.”

Ferguson scoffs at Toledano’s critique. Although the challenger insists he would vote to oust Democrat Willie Brown as speaker of the Assembly, Ferguson isn’t buying it.

“He’s a typical Democrat opponent,” Ferguson said. “They distort your record and say bad things about you. But they never tell the constituents that they’re going to go up to Sacramento and join Willie Brown.”

Ferguson said he’s happy to run on his record, noting that he worked to get an independent Caltrans district office in Orange County and served on a blue-ribbon task force that successfully pushed a highway funding measure that fueled the current freeway building binge.

Libertarian Scott Bieser, meanwhile, is running as a protest candidate to give voters who are “fed up with Republicans and Democrats” another choice. He wants to cut government by about 80%, comparing politicians’ thirst for tax dollars to “a person addicted to a drug.”

71st Assembly District

Assemblyman Mickey Conroy (R-Santa Ana) has a bigger registration advantage than any Republican in the state (58% to 29.2% for the Democrats). But he’s not taking chances in this unpredictable political year.

Conroy is running on his record–he managed to get 24 bills signed into law since he won a special election for the seat last year. They’ve included a domestic violence bill, a law making it a crime to deface veterans’ memorials and legislation repealing the tax on white canes for the blind.

His Democratic opponent, Bea Foster, hopes to parlay her many years of activism in community politics into votes. She helped push through Orange County’s TINCUP campaign finance reform measure, was active in the unsuccessful effort to incorporate north Tustin and helped block plans for extension of the Garden Grove Freeway into the Tustin hills.

Foster wants to see the state’s health care system improved and boost funding for education, saying “one of our gold mines is going down the drain.” She also wants to push for retraining of aerospace workers and others out of jobs because of the economy.

72nd Assembly District

Like many other heavily Republican districts, this race could turn into a coronation for powerful Assemblyman Ross Johnson. The former Assembly minority party leader enjoys a 55.6% to 37.7% registration advantage over the Democrats in his district. Moreover, Democratic challenger Paul Garza Jr. is running a low-key campaign.

Johnson hopes to fundamentally restructure state government, cutting regulations and spending fewer tax dollars. He wants to rework the welfare system, shifting the emphasis to helping people become “fully functioning, productive members of society.”

Garza, a public affairs consultant and former Orange County Democratic Party executive director, supports abortion rights, wants to see the state’s health care system revamped to improve care for all and wants the welfare system reformed to provide education and vocational skills.

Libertarian Geoffrey Braun favors school vouchers, wants the state’s workers’ compensation system revamped and backs campaign finance reform, saying that big political contributions are undermining the ability of government to truly serve the people.

73rd Assembly District

Up until a few weeks ago, this race appeared headed toward a historic intraparty showdown. But then Republican nominee Bill Morrow and the opponent he defeated in the primary, Laguna Niguel Councilwoman Patricia C. Bates, made up and held a peace powwow with GOP officials.

Democrat Lee Walker isn’t holding back the punches, calling Morrow an “ultra-conservative, right-wing Christian” who is “out of the mainstream of Republicanism.”

Walker, a college professor who has modeled himself as the “education candidate,” also has blasted Morrow for raising more than $275,000 in contributions, much of the money from powerful Sacramento politicians and political action committees. “I could call him Mr. Pac-Man because he’s got so many PACs giving him money,” Walker said.

Morrow counters that “people who contribute to my campaign do so because they know I stand for certain principles that are consistent with their own beliefs” and stressed that he has received many small-dollar contributions from the general public.

Characters stepping out of their plays to address an audience is hardly a new phenomenon. Playwrights have been breaking the fourth wall ever since that invisible barrier separating the actors from the audience was raised.

Sophocles, of course, didn’t need Oedipus to chat directly with the audience. He had a chorus to provide running commentary. Shakespeare, whose theatrical sensibility was informed as much by Renaissance and Classical poetry as by those pageant wagons boisterously bringing miracle plays directly into the lives of townsfolk, had no compunction about a character slipping out of the frame to help audience members arrange their imagination. He even enlists Rosalind in ”As You Like It” and Prospero in “The Tempest” to bid their audiences farewell.

The fourth wall, encoded in the architecture of the proscenium stage, fosters the illusion that audiences are eavesdropping on a cordoned off reality. As the modern theater embraced realism, plays were carefully designed not to wrench their auditors from their waking dream. Maintaining a semblance of truth, as Samuel Taylor Coleridge pointed out in the context of poetry, was necessary to procure “that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith.”

“Willing” is a key word. Art invites complicity, and in the theater, audiences are in on the game. As Samuel Johnson sagely points out in his “Preface to Shakespeare,” “The truth is, that the spectators are always in their senses, and know from the first act to the last, that the stage is only a stage, and that the players are only players.”

How could it be otherwise? As Johnson reminds us, “If we thought murders and treasons real, they would please no more.”

In the Neoclassical era, playwrights were exhorted to observe the unities (of time and place, in particular) to facilitate an audience’s belief. But modern playwrights, particularly those who see their roles as storytellers, have resisted such superficial strictures.

The memory play, perfected by Tennessee Williams in “The Glass Menagerie,” asks the protagonist to serve also as narrator, setting the scene, reflecting on the action and fast-forwarding the story at will. Irish dramatist Brian Friel, a born raconteur, was a master of this use of direct address, writing monologues for his main characters that not only launched his tale but engulfed his audience in the right lyrical mood.

These writers create an environment in which characters can enter or exit the main storyline as if from a magic door. Audiences are cognizant of this portal, but they are encouraged to forget its existence when the drama ramps up, thereby allowing them to have their cake and eat it too.

A friend of mine hates when a character goes rogue and starts chatting up the audience. “Why are you talking to me?” she mumbles in faux outrage. “I paid to watch you talk to each other.”

Perhaps she considers it a dramatic cheat, as though the writer were copping out of the hard work of dramatization. But I have the opposite reaction. I find that playwrights are often at their liveliest when writing in a presentational mood. What they sacrifice in illusionist power, they gain in freedom.

In “Love! Valour! Compassion!,” Terrence McNally, a master of direct address, intensifies the emotional climax of his play by having his characters step forward and explain how and when they will die. This poignant comedy, about a group of gay male friends spending summer holidays together during the height of the AIDS epidemic, gathered the audience in a communal huddle of collective grief while urging survivors — everyone in attendance — to keep the faith.

In times of emergency, it’s natural to want to draw the public’s attention to the shared moment. The theater affords a space — one of the few left in our digitalized world — for this kind of reflective gathering.

Breaking the fourth wall is a tried-and-true method of calling an audience to attention. But a new breed of dramatist, writing in an age of overlapping calamities — environmental, political, economic, technological and moral — is retooling an old playwriting device to do more than inject urgency and immediacy in the theatrical experience.

Characters are not just stepping out of the dramatic frame — they are blurring the line between art and life. Performers are dropping their masks, or at the very least shuffling them, to force us to think harder about what we’re all doing in the theater as the world around us burns.

Kristolyn Lloyd, from left, Irene Sofia Lucio, Betsy Aidem and Audrey Corsa in the Broadway production of “Liberation” by Bess Wohl, directed by Whitney White.

(Little Fang)

Bess Wohl’s “Liberation,” one of the best plays of the year, is having its Broadway premiere this season at the James Earl Jones Theatre under the direction of Whitney White (who matches her fine ensemble job with “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding”). The play, an imaginative account of a group of women banding together in a gymnasium during the early days of the women’s rights movement, begins with a performer checking in on us.

“Hi. Is everyone — is everyone good? Comfortable? Snacks unwrapped? Hello. Hi. Welcome.”

Lizzie, the author’s surrogate (luminously played by Susannah Flood), greets us with the skittish confidence that will turn out to be one of the character’s most charming qualities. She apologizes that theatergoers have had to lock their phones in Yondr pouches. (Cameras are off-limits in a production that has some nudity.) But she immediately confronts the question on everybody’s mind: How long is the play?

Honestly, it’s not even your fault, it’s like, this is the modern condition — not to sound grandiose, ‘this is the modern condition,’ but honestly — it’s like, you decide to come, you get dressed up — Well all right, you didn’t get dressed up — but you put on clothes, thank you for that. You put on clothes. You make your way through whatever you went through — the subway, the traffic, the hellscape that is Times Square — you finally get here, and then you hope that the entire experience will be as short as humanly possible.

Theatergoers seem thrilled that after all the effort they made to be there, they’re not being ignored as usual. But Wohl isn’t pandering to them. She’s connecting to them in the present before ushering them into the past.

Her project, as Lizzie explains in her introduction, is memory — memories belonging to her mother (who recently died) and to her mother’s friends, who set out to change the world. Blazing a trail for women’s equality, they help transform society, even if incompletely. A momentous accomplishment, but then why Lizzie asks, “Why does it feel somehow like it’s all slipping away? And how do we get it back?”

The play rewinds to the 1970s, to a local rec center in Ohio, where a few pioneering women with little in common, beyond the everyday sexism that has hemmed in their lives, form a consciousness-raising group. Lizzie’s mother, also named Lizzie (and also played by Flood) is the ringleader, but a tentative one — as apologetically undeterred as her daughter.

Wohl is writing a personal history that is not her own. She sets up her play to make clear that this theatrical re-creation is her attempt to understand what happened in those meetings of unlikely revolutionaries. She provides space for the women to object to her version of events and to challenge her interpretation of motives.

In one scene, in which Lizzie is about to meet the man who will become her husband, Lizzie the daughter and de facto author interrupts the play to enlist another actor (Kayla Davion, superb) to play her mother. Young Lizzie is understandably squeamish to enact a love scene with the man who will turn out to be her father.

The playfulness of Wohl’s style, while at times informal to the point of desultory, treats the past as an autonomous reality. The playwright can only engage her mother’s history from her position in the present. She can imagine, she can theorize, she can try to do justice. But she isn’t permitted to subjugate her characters to advance her own agenda, no matter how well-intentioned. The personal is political, as the feminist rallying cry has it, and Wohl has taken pains never to lose sight of this insight when imagining the complexities of the lives of others.

John McCrea, left, and Mihir Kumar in “Prince Faggot.”

(Marc J. Franklin)

“Prince Faggot,” by Jordan Tannahill, is built on the reaction to an effete photo of Prince George of Cambridge at the age of 4 that went viral. The play, originally produced by Playwrights Horizons and Soho Rep, is at off-Broadway’s Studio Seaview through Dec. 13. It imagines a queer life for William and Kate’s pride and joy as this young royal defiantly and decadently comes of age.

It’s a daring premise, full of presumption and not really defensible from the standpoint of a real-life boy who doesn’t deserve to be made the object of a sexual fantasia. But Tannahill doesn’t evade these tricky moral questions.

Performer 1 (Keshav Moodliar on the night I attended), who plays both the playwright’s surrogate and George’s future lover, debates the issues with the company. One by one, the queer and trans cast members share fictionalized personal stories, harking back to childhood moments before any declaration of identity was possible.

A thought experiment is under way in this seductively febrile production directed by Shayok Misha Chowdhury (whose play “Public Obscenities” was a 2024 Pulitzer Prize finalist). How might the lives of the characters (and by extension all our lives) be different if heterosexuality weren’t the default assumption?

Intellectual license granted, the company is allowed to run riot in a performance work that maintains a Brechtian distance between actor and role. A playwright’s note in the script clarifies that “with the exception of Performer 4’s final monologue” (which was “inspired by a rehearsal hall interview with actress N’yomi Allure Stewart”), the rest of the play, “including the direct address monologues, is fictional, written by the playwright, and any resemblance to real events is purely coincidental.”

The audience can’t help but be conscious of the daredevil performers impersonating these royal celebrities, intimate friends and overzealous handlers, exposing their bodies, if not their own biographies, in a work that realizes in performance Picasso’s assertion of art being “the lie that enables us to realize the truth.”

Gail Bean and Biko Eisen-Martin in “Table 17.”

(Jeff Lorch)

“Table 17,” Doug Lyons’ meta-theatrical rom-com, which ended its run at the Geffen Playhouse on Sunday, has its character routinely check in with the audience as Jada (Gail Bean) and Dallas (Biko Eisen-Martin) review what led to their breakup. The location for this amorous autopsy is a fashionable restaurant in which the host/pinch-hit server (gamely incarnated by Michael Rishawn) functions as the show’s bitchy chorus.

Lyons has the characters directly engage the audience in a production directed by Zhailon Levingston that incorporated the energy of British pantomime. Theatergoers were encouraged to express their feelings in a comedy that pays homage, as the playwright notes in his script, to such popular Black films as “Love & Basketball,” “Poetic Justice” and “Love Jones.”

The direct address monologues, Lyons stresses, should have “a stand-up comedy feel to them. In these moments the audience is no longer a spectator, but an active participant in the story.”

“Table 17” is more modest in its ambition than either “Liberation” or “Prince Faggot.” It mostly wants to divert. But there was something bracing about the circuitry it created with an audience. Theater wasn’t being imposed onto a paying public. It was instead a shared endeavor, mutually manufactured in yet another instance of a play letting down its guard to reach new levels of aliveness.