KLMNO

Arts&Style

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 13 , 2022. SECTION E EZ EE

Sharing more Indigenous

perspectives and knowledge E7

MOVIES: Stars of romantic films share their picks E12

BOOKS: Unsparing essays about Whitney Houston E14

ALYSON ALIANO FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

Adlon isn’t fazed

by u ncertainty

Creator, director and

star of ‘Better Things’

prepares for show’s end

BY GEOFF EDGERS

P

amela Adlon has never been

cocky. That’s what happens

when you spend decades as

a bit player or an animated boy or

get fired from “The Facts of Life”

and then, when you finally get a

chance to create your dream

show, it almost falls apart. If

you’re Adlon, the creator, director

and star of FX’s “Better Things,”

you never get so comfortable that

you forget to end each season as if

it were your last.

Which puts her in a good posi-

tion now, because the 10-episode

fifth season of “Better Things,”

premiering Feb. 28, will be the

show’s finale. Adlon, 55, seems

prepared, philosophical even.

And yet, depending on what day

or time it is, she’s either thrilled,

panicked, relieved or sad.

“I’m not overjoyed my show’s

ending,” says Adlon by Zoom from

her kitchen in Los Angeles, where

she’s about to pop a pot roast in

the oven after a day of editing at

the office. “But I don’t want to sit

in sadness. I have to look for the

light and keep going.”

This is very Sam Fox.

Her character in “Better

Things” is so much — single

mother, struggling actress, ob-

server, agitator, nurturer,

punchline machine — but Sam’s

magic gift is in the oof moment. It

is when something has gone

wrong and, rather than explode,

she lets her knees buckle,

breathes in and exhales that oof

quietly but audibly. Then she

keeps going. And the oof can

come at any time: when her agent

delivers a crushing career setback

or when she accidentally catches

her teenage daughter in bed with

a strange boy.

SEE ADLON ON E10

Actor, writer, director and

producer Pamela Adlon in Los

Angeles earlier this month.

BY SARAH L. KAUFMAN

Christopher Wheeldon knows

more than a little about the preci-

sion and perfectionism that drove

Michael Jackson into his swift,

twisting spins and his backward-

gliding moonwalk.

One of the world’s eminent bal-

let choreographers, Wheeldon has

a strong appreciation for Jackson’s

impeccable control as a dancer.

But when he began working on the

dances in “MJ” — the kaleidoscop-

ic Broadway musical about the

King of Pop, which Wheeldon di-

rected and choreographed — he

had to face facts.

“I don’t have a popping tech-

nique,” Wheeldon said in a recent

interview from New York. “I’m not

a hip-hop dancer.”

The musical takes place during

Jackson’s preparations for his

1992 “Dangerous” world tour, and

focuses tightly on his creative

process, excluding the most dis-

turbing aspects of his personal life

that dogged the singer, who died

in 2009 at age 50. (The timeline of

“MJ,” created under an arrange-

ment with the Jackson estate,

stops short of the eruption of child

molestation allegations that sur-

faced in 1993, and eventually led to

lawsuits and a criminal trial.)

“MJ” is mostly set in a rehearsal

studio, where Jackson — por-

trayed with rubbery finesse by

Myles Frost — works on his songs

and the ghosts of his past, sur-

rounded by an extraordinary en-

semble of spectacularly buff danc-

ers. The dancing is the show’s

crowning achievement; Washing-

ton Post theater critic Peter Marks

hailed “MJ” as “a riveting, adrena-

SEE WHEELDON ON E4

Bringing Michael Jackson’s dancing back to life

F or B roadway’s ‘MJ,’ director Christopher Wheeldon b uilt a new vision of the King of Pop’s artistry

MATTHEW MURPHY

The Broadway musical “MJ” takes place during Michael Jackson’s

preparations for his 1992 “Dangerous” world tour.

INSIDE