The New York Times - USA (2020-08-01)

SATURDAY, AUGUST 1, 2020 C1

Y

NEWS CRITICISM

3 ART

A Picasso mural is removed

in Oslo. BY THOMAS ROGERS

4 FILM REVIEW

An immigrant’s tale in

São Paulo. BY LOVIA GYARKYE

2 THEATER REVIEW

Sci-fi vortexes and a

causal loop paradox,

all in a closet.

BY JESSE GREEN

When the writer-director Lynn Shelton died

in May, it was a devastating loss to film, to

moviegoers who knew her for intimate low-

budget features like “Humpday” and “Your

Sister’s Sister” and to TV audiences start-

ing to discover her work as a director on se-

ries like “GLOW” and “The Morning Show.”

On Tuesday, she received a posthumous

Emmy directing nomination for the Hulu

limited series “Little Fires Everywhere.”

Shelton, 54, left behind family, friends and

frequent collaborators who included Marc

Maron, the comic, actor and host of the long-

running “WTF” podcast. Shelton had di-

rected Maron in her 2019 film, “Sword of

Trust,” his stand-up specials “Too Real”

(2017) and “End Times Fun” (2020) and his

IFC series, “Maron,” among other shows.

They had also been romantically involved

for about a year, after a lengthy and some-

times awkward courtship that began when

Shelton appeared as a guest on “WTF” in

2015.

Maron, 56, has not had much opportunity

to mourn Shelton privately. As a comedian

and podcaster, he is known for his blunt and

relentlessly confessional approach, and he

has embraced the notion of candor even in

his suffering. In the midst of the coro-

navirus pandemic, Maron said, it was im-

MARC MARON

Tuned In, Too Briefly,

To a ‘Unique Frequency’

Marc Maron reflects on his relationship with Lynn Shelton, who died in May.

The director Lynn

Shelton and the

comedian Marc Maron

in Ireland last year.

They worked together

and fell in love.

By DAVE ITZKOFF

CONTINUED ON PAGE C6

Turquoise carpets covered the marble floor,
with its geometric designs. White drapes
concealed the mosaic of the Virgin and
Christ. Scaffolding obscured crosses and
other Christian symbols.
Footage broadcast around the world last
week captured some of these striking
changes to Hagia Sophia, the Byzantine ca-
thedral in Istanbul, which served as a

mosque under Ottoman rule before becom-

ing a museum in 1934. On the orders of Pres-

ident Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, it is

once again being used as a mosque.

But for a group of scholars, scientists and

musicians, Hagia Sophia’s rededication as a

Muslim place of worship threatens to cloak

a less tangible treasure: its sound. Bissera

Pentcheva, an art historian at Stanford Uni-

versity and an expert in the field of acoustic

The Hagia Sophia in Istanbul was reopened for worship for the first time in 86 years.

NEVZAT YILDIRIM/ANADOLU AGENCY, VIA GETTY IMAGES

A Studio Helps Produce

Hagia Sophia’s Sound

By CORINNA da FONSECA-WOLLHEIM

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PROVINCETOWN, MASS. — Varla Jean Mer-

man has a good arm, and when she threw

her hairpiece into the swimming pool the

other evening at the end of an increasingly

frenzied number in her cabaret show, it

landed on the surface just right. Then it

floated there, inert and disheveled.

“Everyone loves a wig in a pool,” Varla

said, like a breathy midcentury hostess re-

assuring her guests. “It looks like an Irish

setter’s in there, taking a nap.”

The pool deck of the Crown & Anchor, a

hotel and nightlife complex known for its

drag shows, is not where Varla — or Jeffery

Roberson, the performer who plays her —

had planned to spend the season, in front of

an audience on folding chairs. Under a light-

ing truss framed by tall trees in full leaf, the

stage there is a new addition: an impro-

vised attempt to salvage this coronavirus

summer by moving at least some entertain-

ment outdoors.

This artsy, eccentric beach town on the

tip of Cape Cod — long-ago stomping

ground of Tennessee Williams and Eugene

O’Neill; longtime safe harbor for queer folk

Varla Jean Merman, portrayed by Jeffery Roberson, performing at

the pool deck of the Crown & Anchor in Provincetown, Mass.

M. SCOTT BRAUER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Poolside,

The Show

Goes On

A gay haven known for its

nightlife adapts to coronavirus.

By LAURA COLLINS-HUGHES

CONTINUED ON PAGE C5