THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Friday, November 8, 2019 |A
THAT’S A PLUS| By Matt Gaffney
TheWSJDailyCrossword|Edited by Mike Shenk
1234 56789 10111213
14 15 16
17 18 19
20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27
28 29
30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37
38 39 40 41 42 43
44 45 46 47 48 49
50 51 52
53 54 55 56 57 58
59 60 61
62 63 64 65 66
67 68 69
70 71 72The answer to
this week’s contest
crossword isa
common four-letter
word.
Across
1 Site with a
“How to Sell”
section
5 “Star Wars”
droid, familiarly
10 Cuban kiss
14 Star-studded
event
15 Beach bashes
16 Subject with
micro and macro
classes
17 They support
many towersPrevious Puzzle’s Solution19 Particular
positions
20 Creator of
hydroelectricity
21 506, in letters
22 Dark, poetically
24 It may include
Facebook shares
28 Plea from the
imperiled
29 Most of Canada
and Russia
30 Lose your cool
33 Editor’s “remove”
34 Manipulate
38 Introspective
music genre
39 Charlemagne’s
domain: Abbr.
41 Like 143 Brewed drink
44 Oysters are a
good source of it
46 What a raised
hand may mean
48 Caravan stop
50 Sweetbreads, e.g.
52 Tote
53 Do more than
just heckle
59 Organism that
needs oxygen
60 Put into practice
61 Fish in the
morning, often
62 Many a central
European
63 Backdrop for a tie
67 Toy with a string
68 Swine’s whines69 On any occasion
70 Mystic
71 “I beg to differ!”
72 Oft-
photographed
feature in the
Southwest
Down
1 “Zoinks!”
2 Greet or warn
verbally, as one
sheep might
another
3 Memorable
mission
4 Food often
candied
5 Berra in 1951 and
Betts in 2018, e.g.
6 Miami-born
senator
7 ___ kwon do
8 Pronoun for two
9 Became inflexible
10 Noisy revolution
11 Intestinal
bacterium
12 Path’s start
13 “I’ll take care of
that”
18 “How’m I doin’?”
speaker
23 Campfire piece
25 Show with
Elisabeth Shue
26 Hwy.
27 Hawk’s weapon
30 Candy from
Austria31 “You’re going to
regret this!”
retort
32 Start for fiction
33 Evening drink
35 Part of UNLV
36 His career record
was 56-
37 “Naturally!”
40 Took artistic
inspiration from
42 Dumps water on
45 Be enamored
with, as a baby
47 Space bar
neighbor
49 IRS worker
51 Electronic key
holder
52 To a smaller
degree
53 Call into question
54 Wax eloquent
55 Ear covers
56 Energetic
57 Second Family of
the 1990s
58 Bonus feature
59 Seeks
information from
64 2011 movie set in
Brazil
65 Above-the-
shoulders doc
66 Sewn edges
Email your answer—in the subject line—[email protected]
by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time Sunday, Nov. 10. A solver selected at random
will win a WSJ mug. Last week’s winner: Kathy Webb, Cincinnati, OH.
Complete contest rules atWSJ.com/Puzzles. (No purchase necessary.
Void where prohibited. U.S. residents 18 and over only.)ALOT BACH ABHOR
MOP E A C R E L OEWE
OVERTRAIN LOLLS
REDSEA SNI P LET
ENC PATR IOTS
RAW SKYE I ONA
ARESO ORBS EGAD
TEATRAY N I TRATE
SAR I SOSA AT IME
SNOB P I ES NOD
BEATR I CE ATT
LAW AGUA REWRAP
ASIAN SKITRAILS
ZEROG PUSH IDEA
EDENS SPRY NESTPUZZLE
CONTESTWeather
Shown are today’s noon positions of weather systems and precipitation. Temperature bands are highs for the day.City Hi LoW Hi LoW City Hi Lo W Hi Lo WToday Tomorrow Today TomorrowCity Hi LoW Hi LoWAnchorage 45 34 pc 40 35 pc
Atlanta 56 35 pc 56 37 s
Austin 54 38 r 69 45 s
Baltimore 47 24 pc 48 33 s
Boise 61 34 s 60 39 pc
Boston 4127pc 4234s
Burlington 34 21 sf 39 31 pc
Charlotte 53 26 pc 54 32 s
Chicago 33 24 pc 45 32 pc
Cleveland 38 24 sf 44 34 pc
Dallas 52 36 pc 65 46 s
Denver 64 41 s 70 35 s
Detroit 38 25 s 42 34 pc
Honolulu 86 70 pc 86 71 pc
Houston 53 40 c 65 48 s
Indianapolis 36 21 pc 45 35 pc
Kansas City 46 32 pc 63 38 s
Las Vegas 78 51 s 77 51 s
Little Rock 47 28 pc 57 40 s
Los Angeles 86 60 s 87 58 s
Miami 88 73 pc 83 73 t
Milwaukee 32 24 pc 43 31 pc
Minneapolis 35 28 c 43 28 pc
Nashville 46 24 s 57 37 s
New Orleans 60 47 r 64 50 s
New York City 40 29 pc 42 37 s
Oklahoma City 51 35 pc 63 44 sOmaha 48 32 pc 63 33 s
Orlando 82 65 pc 76 61 sh
Philadelphia 43 25 pc 44 35 pc
Phoenix 88 60 pc 87 63 pc
Pittsburgh 37 22 sf 43 33 pc
Portland, Maine 38 21 c 40 28 pc
Portland, Ore. 64 41 pc 59 47 c
Sacramento 80 44 s 80 44 s
St. Louis 38 27 pc 57 44 s
Salt Lake City 63 36 s 62 38 s
San Francisco 68 49 pc 67 49 s
Santa Fe 62 28 s 64 29 s
Seattle 60 48 pc 57 50 r
Sioux Falls 47 30 pc 52 28 pc
Wash., D.C. 47 29 pc 48 37 sAmsterdam 49 38 c 49 37 pc
Athens 74 58 c 72 62 pc
Baghdad 84 54 s 84 56 s
Bangkok 91 72 c 89 71 pc
Beijing 61 34 pc 60 45 c
Berlin 49 44 pc 46 35 r
Brussels 49 37 c 47 35 pc
Buenos Aires 74 63 pc 71 60 c
Dubai 92 75 pc 91 76 s
Dublin 46 35 pc 46 35 r
Edinburgh 43 28 pc 43 30 rFrankfurt 49 37 c 47 34 pc
Geneva 46 37 sh 47 35 sh
Havana 86 68 pc 84 69 pc
Hong Kong 82 68 pc 79 68 s
Istanbul 73 60 s 71 59 s
Jakarta 93 74 s 94 76 t
Jerusalem 75 58 c 75 59 s
Johannesburg 87 58 pc 80 58 pc
London 47 35 sh 45 37 r
Madrid 54 35 pc 55 41 pc
Manila 89 80 pc 90 79 pc
Melbourne 57 43 t 56 51 c
Mexico City 72 52 pc 72 50 pc
Milan 53 42 r 56 42 c
Moscow 39 34 c 39 37 c
Mumbai 88 76 pc 89 77 pc
Paris 49 39 c 49 40 pc
Rio de Janeiro 82 73 r 84 76 c
Riyadh 94 69 pc 94 69 pc
Rome 65 52 r 62 48 sh
San Juan 88 77 pc 88 76 pc
Seoul 57 34 pc 60 38 pc
Shanghai 66 49 pc 67 52 pc
Singapore 86 78 pc 89 77 c
Sydney 86 53 s 67 57 pc
Taipei City 75 66 r 75 64 c
Tokyo 63 51 s 62 52 pc
Toronto 3524sf 3934c
Vancouver 52 44 c 51 44 r
Warsaw 5043pc 5838sh
Zurich 41 37 sh 45 31 shToday TomorrowU.S. Forecasts
International
City Hi Lo W Hi Lo Ws...sunny; pc... partly cloudy; c...cloudy; sh...showers;
t...t’storms; r...rain; sf...snow flurries; sn...snow; i...ice
Today TomorrowWarmColdStationaryShowersRainT-stormsSnowFlurriesIce<
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CityEl Paso DallasBillingsPortlandMiamiSan FranciscoSacramentoOrlandoAtlantaNew OrleansHoustonSan Diego PhoenixLos AngelesLas
VegasSeattleBoiseDenverMpls./St. PaulSt. LouisChicagoWashington D.C.BostonCharlestonMilwaukee HartfordWichitaIndianapolisClevelandBuffaloAustinHelena
BismarckAlbuquerqueOmahaOklahoma CitySan AntonioDes MoinesSioux FallsJacksonBirminghamCheyenne PhiladelphiaRenoSanta FeColorado
SpringsPierreRichmond
RaleighTucsonAlbanyTopekaColumbiaAugustaFt. WorthEugeneSpringfieldMobileTorontoOttawa MontrealWinnipegVancouver CalgaryEdmonton80s70s
50s40s30s20s10s0s90s80s80s70s70s70s60s60s60s50s50s
40s40s40s40s 40s30s20s10s60sTHEATER REVIEW| TERRY TEACHOUT
‘Tina’: Another Jukebox
Musical Rolls on
The River of Broadway
New York
YET ANOTHERnew jukebox bio-
musical, “Tina: The Tina Turner
Musical,” has opened on Broad-
way, and it’s not awful, not even
close. In fact, some parts of the
show, in which Adrienne Warren
impersonates the washed-up R&B
singer who dumped Ike, her
wife-beating spouse (Daniel J.
Watts), and transformed herself
into a glitzed-up rocker at the
venerable age of 45, are genu-
inely entertaining. Nevertheless,
I’m afraid—very, very afraid—
that “Tina” will be a hit.
If you find it odd, even inap-
propriate, for a critic to openly
root against a new show, let me
explain myself. The jukebox bio-
musical, in which the smoothed-
over story of a pop star’s life is
turned into the plot of a musical
whose score consists of that star’s
hit records, is an uncreative bas-
tard genre that has done much
damage to Broadway. The rising
popularity of jukebox shows is
choking the life out of the tradi-
tional musical in much the same
way that the success of comic-
book franchise movies, as Martin
Scorsese has recently complained,
has all but killed off the adult-
friendly films that used to domi-
nate America’s multiplexes. Every
time a jukebox show rings the
box-office gong and moves into a
New York theater for a long, prof-
itable run, it becomes that much
harder for a better show with new
songs and a fresh plot to carve
out a place on Broadway. Why
should a theatrical producer bet
on a necessarily risky musical like,say, “The Band’s Visit” or “Hade-
stown” when she could be backing
“Beautiful: The Carole King Musi-
cal” instead?
As I said, “Tina” isn’t awful.
Ms. Warren is a leggy, big-voiced
knockout who sounds a lot like
Ms. Turner in full cry, and the
production, which originated in
London and is directed by Eng-
land’s Phyllida Lloyd, is satisfy-
ingly slick. Katori Hall, a first-
class playwright who is chiefly
responsible for the book, has
bucked the odds by slipping in a
couple of formula-free scenes, in-
cluding one in which Phil Spec-
tor (Steven Booth), who pro-
duced Ms. Turner’s 1966 record
of “River Deep—Mountain High,”
shows how a talented record
producer can help a gifted per-
former give of her best in front
of a microphone. But the score,
“Proud Mary” and “What’s Love
Got to Do With It” excepted, is
almost entirely forgettable, while
the plot is as over-familiar as a
Quarter Pounder. Factor in the
“sets,” in which obtrusively busy
use is made of digital rear pro-
jections, and you’ll start to feel
as if you’re watching a stageful
of Disney-style animatronic ro-
bots put on a show. I don’t know
about you, but that’s not whyI
go to Broadway.Tina: The Tina Turner Musical
Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, 205 W.
46th St. ($99-$169), 212-575-Mr. Teachout, the Journal’s
drama critic. Write to him at
[email protected].Adrienne Warren, center, as Tina Turner and Daniel J. Watts, right, as IkeMANUEL HARLAN
AMAZON STUDIOS (2)LIFE & ARTS
FILM REVIEW| JOE MORGENSTERN
‘Honey Boy’: Exorcising
His Daddy Dearest
THE CONCEPTmight sound dubi-
ous at best. An exceptionally gifted
actor known for behaving badly
off-screen writes a film about him-
self as therapy, then plays his fa-
ther as a man who betrayed his
love and blighted his young life.
That’s what Shia LaBeouf has done
in “Honey Boy,” but the movie
sweeps away all doubts. It’s superb
in every respect.
Mr. LaBeouf’s fictional counter-
part, Otis, portrayed in his early
20s by Lucas Hedges, calls himself
“an egomaniac with an inferiority
complex,” and therapy plays a part
in the story, as it did in real life.
(After a therapist in a rehab facility
ordered Mr. LaBeouf to write about
his childhood, the assignment took
the form of—what else?—a script.)
The film is not a product of vanity,
though, or of self-helping self-ab-
sorption that shuts others out. It is
a powerful, tough-minded enter-
tainment that welcomes us in and
tells us a story we haven’t seen be-
fore. (The director, Alma Har’el, has
a background in documentaries.
This is her feature debut, and
clearly the beginning of a bright
new chapter in her career.)
The narrative structure is sim-
ple, although intricately stylish—
sometimes overly so—in execution:
an interweaving of the hero’s pres-
ent, which is spiraling out of con-
trol, with his tormented life as a
boy of 12, or thereabouts, when he
is played phenomenally well by
Noah Jupe. Young Otis lives with
his father, James, in a squalid mo-
tel in the San Fernando Valley, and
the source of the boy’s torment is
on constant display—his father’s
seething rage, which frequently
boils over into psychic or physical
violence. James is, to put it lessclinically, a whacked-out brute.
Once a rodeo clown and now a
precariously sober alcoholic, as
well as a convicted felon, the fa-
ther occupies a singular place in
the life of his son, who is already a
working actor with a considerable
income, just as Mr. LaBeouf was at
his age. In theory James serves as
the boy’s protector. (We never see
Otis’s mother, though they see and
evidently care about one another.)
In fact James is a lowlife infantile
parasite, working for his son as a
paid chaperone and dramatic
coach. A compulsive disciplinarian
and a monstrous stage father, he
makes the kid’s life a steady-state
hell of fear and anxiety—and of
yearning for fatherly love that’s
buried too deep to be exhumed.
Seen from a different perspec-
tive James is Daddy Dearest, a
memorably original character, and
Mr. LaBeouf is brilliant in the role,
which he wrote with a mercurialmix of menace and humor. (“I’m
growin’, son,” James says at one
point. “I see it,” Otis replies, eager
to believe it. “No,” the incorrigible
father explains, “I’m growin’ grass
on the side of the freeway.”) Other
fine performances include Byron
Bowers as Percy, one of the adult
Otis’s fellow patients in rehab;
Laura San Giacomo as Dr. Moreno,
the facility’s relentless therapist;
and the recording artist FKA
Twigs as a shy girl known as Shy
Girl, a teenage prostitute who lives
in young Otis’s motel and becomes
his tender friend. (The production
was designed by JC Molina, and
photographed by Natasha Braier.)
Before and after everything
else, “Honey Boy”—James’s nick-
name for his son—is a movie
worth seeing for its distinctive
qualities, but it must also have
been worth doing for its therapeu-
tic effect. Filming well is the best
revenge.Top, Noah Jupe; above, Mr. LaBeouf as his own father