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MONDAY, APRIL 25 , 2022. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/STYLE EZ RE K C

Scenes from a s pectacle

Johnny Depp’s fans travel from all over to get a seat for his defamation trial against ex-wife Amber Heard

BY PETER MARKS

“Dear Bob,” begins a typewritten letter

from Neil Simon to Bob Hope, in which

Simon diplomatically and hilariously

turns down Hope’s request to perform

with Bing Crosby in his comedy, “The

Sunshine Boys.”

“If the audience would believe that Bob

and Bing could portray two old Jews, then

John Wayne should have been in ‘The Boys

in the Band,’ ” Simon wrote. Still, the

playwright did leave one possibility on the

table: “If in the event you wish to convert

and go through what would now be a

painful circumcision,” he added, “I would

certainly reconsider.”

This gem of a correspondence — the

year it was written not yet pinned down —

is now quite literally a national treasure. It

is among 7,700 manuscripts, letters and

other material that Simon’s widow, Elaine

Joyce, has donated to the Library of Con-

gress. The major acquisition will be for-

mally announced Monday night at the

SEE SIMON ON C9

Neil Simon’s

laughs join

stacks at LOC

Unlike The Washington
Post, whose last three top
editors came from other
news organizations —
the Wall Street Journal,
the Boston Globe and the
Associated Press — the
New York Times
traditionally chooses the
newsroom leader from within.
That meant it was likely I would
know its next top editor since I had
served as the paper’s public editor, or
ombudswoman, from 2012 to 2016. I
have been hoping, for some time, that
Joe Kahn would get the nod, as he did
last week. I know him to be a
thoughtful, smart and accomplished
newsman and a person of judgment
and integrity.
Just as important, he has a quality
that can make all the difference in
whether he rises to the challenge of this
hinge moment in U.S. and world
history: He’s open to criticism.
SEE SULLIVAN ON C4

Kahn could be

the leader the

Times needs

Margaret
Sullivan

CRAIG HUDSON FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

ABOVE: People wait outside the Fairfax County Courthouse last week to watch Johnny Depp’s defamation trial against his ex-wife Amber Heard. Observers line up well before sunrise to procure

one of the 100 brightly colored spectator wristbands that are available starting at 7 a.m. BELOW: Both Depp and Heard have appeared in the courtroom every day.

BY INKOO KANG

The first two episodes of HBO’s new

police drama, “We Own This City,” intro-

duce a dead man riddled with bullets in

an alley and a drug lord whose wares seem

to be leaving behind a trail of bodies, but

the real mystery is something else alto-

gether. The miniseries takes its title from

a declaration uttered not by criminals but

by a Baltimore cop, Wayne Jenkins (Jon

Bernthal), who rises through the ranks

while planting drugs, committing assault,

stealing from lawbreakers and ordinary

citizens alike — and showing his fellow

officers how to get away with it all. The big

question isn’t what he did but why his

superiors considered him their “golden

boy” and turned a blind eye to his mis-

deeds for nearly a decade and a half.

Adapted by David Simon and George

Pelecanos from former Baltimore Sun

reporter Justin Fenton’s nonfiction book,

“We Own This City” is a spiritual sequel to

“The Wire,” exposing and deploring the

institutional rot that renders reform just

about impossible. Freddie Gray’s name is

invoked early and often, though less as a

victim of police brutality than a temporal

marker after which law enforcement dug

in its heels even harder against reform

while residents grew ever more suspi-

cious of them. In the opening scene, Jen-

kins stands at a lectern, discouraging

other officers from using excessive force

— and in the next one threatens to beat

someone up with a baseball bat. Accord-

ing to the show, the only real achievement

of the political energy around police in

SEE TV REVIEW ON C9

TV REVIEW

‘We Own This City’: An u neven ‘Wire’ companion

PAUL SCHIRALDI/HBO

Jon Bernthal as Baltimore officer Wayne Jenkins in HBO’s “We Own This City.”

OPERA REVIEW

“Lucia di Lammermoor” gets a modern

update, landing somewhere between

performance and reality, at the Met. C4

BOOK WORLD

Dolen Perkins-Valdez centers her deeply

researched and nuanced novel on a

Black nurse in 1970s Alabama. C5

CAROLYN HAX

She has successfully cut ties with her

abusive father. But should her young

son have any relationship with him? C6

KIDSPOST

Want to help scientists? Kids can

photograph plant and animal species in

their area to aid a research program. C10

BY EMILY YAHR

By the time the alpacas arrive outside the Fairfax County

Courthouse, it’s not really that surprising. Andrea Diaz of

Lorton is a Johnny Depp fan who has been watching his

defamation trial against his ex-wife Amber Heard, and

thinks it’s “really messed up.” She started a business during

the coronavirus pandemic where she brings alpacas to

kids’ houses to raise their spirits, and wants to do the same

for Depp.

“I thought the alpacas might brighten his day,” Diaz says

last Monday, not long before Depp first takes the stand. She

acknowledges the Pirates of the Caribbean star — who

enters and exits the courthouse each day through a gated

back entrance — may not actually see Dolce and Inti, the

emotional support alpacas who are gamely posing for

photos with passersby. “But I figured I would just give it a

shot.”

The scene outside the Depp-Heard trial, entering its

third week on Monday, has transformed the Fairfax County

court complex from a place where Northern Virginia

residents contest parking tickets to the stage for one of the

biggest celebrity court cases in recent memory. The area

has seen its share of high-profile cases, but a trial involving

one of the world’s most famous movie stars has brought

with it a slight whiff of the surreal.

“Read the news,” one sheriff’s deputy mumbles as the

umpteenth observer walks by the “John C. Depp, II v.

Amber Laura Heard” sign outside the courtroom and

wonders out loud why in the world Johnny Depp is in

Fairfax.

Depp, 58, is suing Heard, 36, for $50 million for

defamation over an opinion piece she wrote in The

Washington Post in 2018 saying she had become a public

figure representing domestic abuse. Though she did not

name Depp, she had filed for divorce and a restraining

order against him two years prior, alleging he physically

assaulted her. Depp has denied all claims of abuse and said

the op-ed caused irreparable damage to his career. After

his lawyer said Heard’s allegations were a hoax, Heard

countersued him for $100 million for defamation.

The actor’s lawyers filed the suit in Virginia because The

Post, which is not a defendant in this case, houses its

printing press and online server in Fairfax County.

Depp and Heard appear in the courtroom every day, not

JIM WATSON/POOL/ASSOCIATED PRESS SEE TRIAL ON C3