6 THENEWYORKER,SEPTEMBER21, 2020
ILLUSTRATION BY GABRIEL HOLLINGTON
The new HBO Max original documentary “Class Action Park,” directed
by Chris Charles Scott and Seth Porges, follows the sordid history of
Action Park, in Vernon, New Jersey. The brainchild of an eccentric former
penny-stock trader named Gene Mulvihill, the water park, which opened
in 1978, boasted dicey thrills with barely any oversight. Mulvihill designed
many of the rides himself, or augmented them to be more treacherous; some
former members of the staff, which was almost entirely made up of teen-
agers, describe, in shocking detail, how very little they did to keep people from
getting hurt. John Hodgman narrates, detailing the menacing attractions,
such as the Tarzan Swing (a rope swing over a deep, ice-cold swimming hole
that led to near-constant injuries) and the Roaring Rapids, an inner-tube
ride featuring a steep curve that dislocated limbs and broke noses. The final
act takes a darker turn, exploring several deaths at the park. (It closed in
1996.) Scott and Porges don’t seem to know quite how to square this sorrow
with the silly popcorn nostalgia that comes before it; it’s a tragic coda to a
story about how corruption can lead to devastating outcomes.—Rachel SymeONTELEVISION
1
PODCASTS
The Promise
This podcast, reported and hosted by Meribah
Knight for Nashville Public Radio, explores,
with a keen ear for character and detail, life amid
economic inequality in swiftly gentrifying East
Nashville. The stellar first season focussed on
the redevelopment of a public-housing complex;
the new season studies de-facto segregation in
schools and the people trying to challenge it,
with historical context that includes clips from
a John F. Kennedy speech and interviews about
a forty-three-year segregation case that ended
in a Pyrrhic victory. The show’s greatest asset
is Knight’s vivid on-the-ground scene-setting,
especially in schools—the sounds of bustling
energy, teachers’ devotion, and kids making
strides. In the COVID era, it’s practically a tear-
jerker, as is the joyful shouting of one bright,
irrepressible kid running through the housing
complex, telling everybody to come see his re-
port card.—Sarah LarsonThis Sounds Serious
Enjoyable fiction-based podcast narratives, to
some discerning ears, are all too rare, as are
good satirical podcasts—neither genre tends
to err on the side of subtlety. So “This Sounds
Serious,” from Castbox and the Vancouver
production company Kelly & Kelly, is an espe-
cially welcome delight. The smart, measured
narration, by the actor Carly Pope—as Gwen
Radford, a podcaster obsessed with 911 calls—
hints at mocking podcast conventions but
improves upon that of many “real” podcasts;
the jokes arise from sharply observed details
about human behavior and pop culture. It’s all
so thoughtfully executed that, when the first
season premièred, in 2018, some listeners mis-
took it for true crime, even though it was about
a weatherman murdered in his waterbed. The
new season, the series’ third, explores a mystery
surrounding a Hollywood con man, beginningoutdoors, in the apple orchards on the sprawling
grounds of PS21, in Chatham, New York.—B.S.
Emily Johnson
Socrates Sculpture Park lies on the shore of
Long Island, across from the Upper East Side.
It’s a little treasure, with expansive views and
an ever-changing sculpture display—a lovely
backdrop for an outdoor performance. On
Sept. 16 at 6 (the rain date is the following
day), the Alaska-born indigenous dancer and
choreographer Emily Johnson performs a solo
there. Her stage is a multicolored ziggurat—a
tiered structure reminiscent of Mesopotamian
architecture—by the sculptor Jeffrey Gibson.
The ziggurat is titled “Because Once You
Enter My House It Becomes Our House,”
and was designed specifically for this purpose.
The performance is closed to the public but
will be streamed live on the park’s Facebook
page.—Marina Harss (facebook.com/socratess
culpturepark)
Live @ Home / Studio 5
The passing down of dance memory is a unique
aspect of the profession of dance. A ballerina
who has danced a role hundreds of times, or
who worked with a choreographer directly, gets
into a studio with someone who is new to that
role, sharing details of execution and secrets
of interpretation. In this series, that process
happens via Zoom, but it’s no less exciting.
Tiler Peck, one of New York City Ballet’s most
musical dancers, will perform excerpts from
Jerome Robbins’s “Dances at a Gathering”
and discuss them with Stephanie Saland, who
worked extensively with Robbins in the seven-
ties and eighties. The dance discussed here is
the “green” solo, which depicts an independent
spirit who seems to remember earlier, grander
days. The conversation, led by the former Times
dance critic Alastair Macaulay, promises to
be lively. It will be streamed on City Center’s
YouTube page through Sept. 22, starting on
Sept. 16 at 5.—M.H. (nycitycenter.org/studio5)1
TELEVISION
I May Destroy You
In this mesmerizing twelve-episode series for
HBO and BBC One, written and co-directed
by the aggressively free-minded Michaela Coel,
Arabella (Coel), a young East London writer
avoiding a deadline, parties late into the night,
and then experiences a temporal blackness:
she bolts awake, a gash on her forehead. The
next day, a reel of horrible action colonizes her
brain—a man, sweating and panting, thrusting
in a bathroom stall. It will be a while before she
can acknowledge that the image is a memory.
Arabella has improvised a family in her mates
Kwame (Paapa Essiedu), a gay aerobics instruc-
tor with a Grindr addiction, and Terry (Weruche
Opia), an aspiring actress. Essiedu and Opia are
understated and frequently superb, and Coel
channels her enormous energy into a standout
performance. She exerts a kinetic control over
the story’s many threads and characters—es-
pecially the calm Kwame, who is also a victim
of sexual assault. Violation is the omnipresent,
cultural weather. The show is “triggering,” as all
good art can be, because it sounds and feels and
moves the way we do.—Doreen St. Félix