C2 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.SATURDAY, DECEMBER 25 , 2021
Answers to the elves Christmas puzzle
The locations of the 100 elves and Santa on our cover illustration are shown below.Adapted from an
online discussion.Dear Carolyn: My
daughter is 9
months old. Her
name is one that
has many
common
nicknames (think
“Elizabeth”). My husband and I
prefer the full name, but we
recognized that when you give a
child a name like this, nicknames
tend to creep in at some point.
We both agreed we were okay
with that.
My Dad has started
affectionately calling her a name
that arose from the noise she
makes when they play this game
where they make silly sounds at
one another. The name is along
the lines of “little bird.”
My husband HATES it. He says
all relatives should be supporting
our desire to call her by her full
name, and he worries she may
get confused.
I see no evidence that she is
confused. She knows she is
“Elizabeth.” She knows it is funny
when her grandfather calls her
“little bird.” My husband says
since he is my dad, I have to
intervene.
I don’t want to intervene. This
is a sweet little thing they do
together. I don’t understand why
my husband wants to ruin it, and
he can’t articulate any problem
with it beyond the worry that she
will end up with some kind of
name confusion. Help!
— Don’t UnderstandDon’t Understand: What the
what.
Think of how many names and
tones a dog will respond to.
I would like to find some way
to validate your husband’s
concern, but I am at a loss to
conjure even one. All I see is a
weak argument for standing in
the way of a strong bond with
Grandpa.
I wish he’d asked me this so I
could urge him to release his
need for control, unless he wants
to be miserable and contrary
throughout your daughter’s
childhood. Every strong
preference he doesn’t control is a
new way to get disappointed.
I’m sorry that doesn’t help you
much. But the only answer for
you is to hold your ground on the
nickname and gently explore the
real source of his anxiety.
Because, wow. Remind your
husband kindly and often that
Grandpa is making a real
connection, and it’s your job as
parents not to get in the way.
Readers’ thoughts:
l It’s worth remembering that
the name is his daughter’s — not
his.
l I made up my own name,
and refused to be called anything
else for a year or two. It became
my parents’ favorite nickname
for me, and a family memory weall treasured. Not sure what’s
going on here, maybe
competition with the father-in-
law? But don’t take away a ritual
that the daughter loves now, and
may remember always.
l My brother was a surgery
resident when his first child was
born. That meant he was hardly
home and when he was, he was
half-asleep or fully asleep. He
was very jealous when I bonded
with her so quickly. She would
look for me in a room for the first
few years of her life. Maybe your
husband is having a hard time or
doesn’t have time to
appropriately bond with the
baby, and seeing your dad have a
great bond with her is bringing
up feelings of jealousy. I
encourage you to see if there is
something else there with your
husband — not bonding, having
an issue with your dad, or
wanting more time with his baby.
l Stop hallucinating
problems, husband. Go fix some
real ones.
l If your dad’s nickname for
your daughter is “Little Pig Butt”
or “Little Horse Face,” your
husband isn’t wrong.Write to Carolyn Hax at
[email protected]. Get her
column delivered to your inbox each
morning at wapo.st/gethax. Join the discussion live at noon
Fridays at washingtonpost.com/live-
chats.Little nickname causes a big problem
Carolyn
Hax
NICK GALIFIANAKIS FOR THE WASHINGTON POSTmedical necessity. They suggest
the sight of Psaki answering press
questions via video hookup might
play badly with the public and
undermine the administration’s
assurances that it has the situa-
tion under control.
In a statement, Psaki said the
White House has followed the
guidance of health experts who
have said its current protocols are
effective. She added: “We don’t
think it sends the right message
to the country or the world to
close the briefing room or pause
in-person briefings.”
Thursday’s in-person briefing
at the White House was sparsely
attended, possibly reflecting both
the approach of the Christmas
holiday and Portnoy’s memo urg-
ing reporters to avoid the briefing
room.
Psaki greeted reporters byWHITE HOUSE FROM C1 quipping that “only the bold and
the brave” were covering the
briefing.
As a fallback strategy, the
WHCA is considering capping the
number of reporters permitted
into the briefing room at 14 to
ensure greater social distancing.
The group doesn’t control who
can enter the grounds or the
building, but it is in charge of
assigning seats in the briefing
room and allocating the adjacent
workspace.
Last year, before the wide-
spread availability of coronavirus
vaccines, the organization estab-
lished a rotation among news
organizations, limiting briefings
to just 14 reporters.
Psaki appeared to favor this
approach, saying, “we are open to
considering a request to go back
to the smaller-sized briefings.”
But such limits are voluntary
and impossible to enforce. Presi-dent Donald Trump ignored the
14-person limit last year and in-
vited writers from outlets that
were loyal to him, such as One
America News, the Epoch Times
and Gateway Pundit.
The wrangling between the
WHCA and Psaki comes in the
same week that Biden came into
contact with a staffer who later
tested positive for the virus. Psaki
told reporters that the unnamed
staffer had spent approximately
30 minutes near Biden on Air
Force One. Biden subsequently
took a test that came back nega-
tive, the White House said on
Wednesday.
“We are committed to doing
everything we can to keep the
press corps, our staff and of
course the president safe while
also ensuring the media has ac-
cess to the briefing room,” Psaki
said in her statement.
[email protected]Politics and protocols in press room
“Is There Still Sex in the City?” All
these recent events were attribut-
able to breakthrough coronavirus
cases showing up in tests of casts
and crews — sometimes a single
result or two, other times in wider
exposures.
New Yorkers are now such
seasoned coronavirus fighters —
having suffered terribly in the
first devastating outbreaks in the
spring of 2020 — that the dread
and fear are more tempered this
time. The streets during this first
Christmas of the mostly vaccinat-
ed are far more crowded with
visitors than at the desolate end
of 2020, when Times Square
looked like a scene from a dysto-
pian movie. (It will also look a bit
different from the past for the
New Year’s Eve ball drop; Mayor
Bill de Blasio announced Thurs-
day that crowds, reduced from
the usual 58,000 to 15,000, will
have to be vaccinated and
masked.) The city’s requirements
for proof of immunization in res-
taurants and entertainment ven-
ues seem to have had some salu-
tary effect: On Wednesday, for
instance, as omicron cases multi-
plied, some 13 Broadway produc-
tions had to scrub plans for their
evening shows. But at 18 others,
the show went on.
This on-again, off-again phe-
nomenon, precipitated by day-of
positive test results of production
members, forcing last-minute
cancellations, has not been a
boon to theatergoers’ confidence.
That monarch of the holiday sea-
son, “The Lion King,” was forced
to shutter until the day after
Christmas, and both “Come From
Away” and “Moulin Rouge!” had
to send their masked audiences
home on recent nights after they
had been seated. Privately, some
producers acknowledge that the
NOTEBOOK FROM C1 psychological impact is depress-
ing demand and that other shows
— some on the boards longer than
“Jagged Little Pill,” which opened
a year ago — are on what might be
deemed an unofficial endangered
list. Late Thursday, two more
shows, “Waitress” and “Thoughts
of a Colored Man,” announced
they were closing immediately.
But which shows and which
companies are in the most seri-
ous trouble is impossible to ascer-
tain from the information that
the industry provides through its
collective communications or-
gan, the Broadway League. Be-
fore the pandemic shutdown that
commenced in March 2020, the
league published a weekly tabula-
tion of gross revenue and attend-
ance statistics for each show run-
ning in one of Broadway’s 41
theaters. After shows started
coming back — beginning with
“Springsteen on Broadway” on
June 26 of this year and revving
up with the return of “Hamilton,”
“The Lion King,” “Wicked” and
others in September — the prac-
tice ceased. Presumably the con-
cern among commercial and non-
profit producers and theater
owners was that the early num-
bers would look anemic. And this
is a business that thrives on an
illusion of full houses and glow-
ing reviews — even when neither
is the case.
Several weeks ago, the league
began publicly circulating weekly
data for Broadway’s collective
take; the numbers reveal only
that lumped together, Broadway
has been filling 80 to 85 percent
of its seats, and the average ticket
price is about $120. This selective
information release does little to
quell anxieties, and resentment
toward the Broadway establish-
ment is often triggered. This
week, league president Charlotte
St. Martin ignited a social media
firestorm when she told the Hol-
lywood Reporter that some can-
cellations could be due to under-
studies who “aren’t as efficient in
delivering the role as the lead is.”
The reality, of course, is that
understudies are a vital back-
bone, making possible perform-
ances that otherwise would not
go on; some productions have
even hired additional understud-
ies and standbys because of the
pandemic. St. Martin quickly is-
sued an apology.
There’s also frustration with
gloom-and-doom forecasts.
“BROADWAY TRIUMPHS!!!!
Why don’t we see that headline?”
Harvey Fierstein tweeted on
Tuesday. “No Broadway show has
been a super-spreader! We are all
vaccinated & tested almost daily.
If someone’s positive, they isolate.
Audiences r vaccinated & wear
masks. BROADWAY IS DOING
THIS RIGHT!!!!!”
The sense that theater in the
United States has been compara-
tively judicious and sensible is
underscored by the ongoing cha-
os in the London theater world,
as I found during an October
visit. Until a recent return to
stricter mandates, the lax proto-
cols there had been haphazard to
the point of reckless, and the
show cancellations far more
ubiquitous.
The industry here is still wait-
ing to see the longer-term effects
of the omicron variant on the
vaccinated, the population on
which Broadway is counting. As
one of the triple-vaxxed, I have
been to dozens and dozens of
shows, in New York, Washington
and elsewhere over the past sev-
eral months, and have felt safe
among my masked seatmates.
Only in the past week, with the
reports of breakthrough cases
multiplying, did I feel a bit of
trepidation about sitting in aA new variant and Christmas miracle
theater.
But I ended up going. Because
there was a show I wanted to see,
and the greatest of all fears in
theater land is the fear of missing
out. So to off-Broadway’s Atlantic
Theater Company I went for
“Kimberly Akimbo” — a show
that had to cancel its two prior
performances for covid safety
reasons. And I am so, so, so glad I
did.
It felt like a Christmas miracle,
having worry evaporate in the
heady air of the funniest and
most moving experience of my
entire return to theatergoing. (A
third of the seats were empty in
the 199-seat theater for Tuesday’s
performance.) Pulitzer winner
David Lindsay-Abaire (“Rabbit
Hole”) has written the book and
lyrics for this sensational two-actmusical based on his play of the
same title, about a teen with a
genetic disease that ages her four
times faster than normal. Com-
poser Jeanine Tesori, of “Caro-
line, or Change” and “Fun Home”
fame, contributes touching and
witty melodies to Abaire’s words,
as if the inspiration was pumped
from a single heart.
Kindness laps up against pain
poignantly in this story, anchored
by Victoria Clark’s impeccably
wise and funny turn as Kimberly,
a girl who looks, well, of an age
but acts like one decades younger.
The jeans and jumpers that cos-
tume designer Sarah Laux smart-
ly lays out for Clark situate us
perfectly in the late 1990s high
school world of suburban New
Jersey that Lindsay-Abaire con-
jures. And, as smashingly direct-ed by Jessica Stone, the cast of
nine unspools this choke-back-
the-tears tale without a scintilla
of schmaltz.
Among the delights: Bonnie
Milligan as Kimberly’s hilariously
larcenous aunt; Justin Cooley, a
find as a puzzle-loving nerd who
sees the life, not the lines, in
Kimberly’s face; and Steven Boy-
er and Alli Mauzey as the parents
Kimberly got and not the ones she
needed. Courtesy of the writers
and a portrayal by Clark so capti-
vating, physically and vocally, the
musical seems to speak directly
to our moment, when time in the
company of others feels particu-
larly precious. It beseeches us to
seize the day — a practice one
wishes on theaters and theatergo-
ers everywhere.
[email protected]AHRON R. FOSTER
Olivia Elease Hardy plays Delia in “Kimberly Akimbo,” a funny, moving show playing off-Broadway.S0129-3x1.75Retropolis
Stories of the past, rediscovered.
washingtonpost.com/retropolis