The New York Times - 06.08.2019

TUESDAY, AUGUST 6, 2019 C1

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NEWS CRITICISM

2 THEATER REVIEW

Stalked by a shadow in

‘Native Son.’ BY ALEXIS SOLOSKI

4 EXHIBITIONS

In a spy show, is there a shoe

phone, too? BY FARAH NAYERI

5 MUSIC

Welcome guests

energize the Mostly

Mozart Festival.

BY ANTHONY TOMMASINI

Maybe it was the ridiculously detailed penis

doodles that hooked me.

There’s a scene in “Superbad” in which

Seth (Jonah Hill, in his breakout role) ad-

mits to his best friend, Evan (Michael

Cera), that when he was younger, he had an

obsessive habit of drawing penises every-

where. In flashback, a classmate discovers

one of those pictures and tells the principal

— and Seth is forced to see a therapist, for-

bidden from eating phallic-shaped foods.

“You know how many foods are shaped

like [expletive]?” Seth asks. “The best

kinds.”

Or it could have been the uber-nerdy Fo-

gell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) showing

off his fake ID card, and a flabbergasted

Seth and Evan dissing his choice to go by

the singular name McLovin. “What, are you

trying to be an Irish R&B singer?” Evan

groans.

Whatever it was, after I saw “Superbad”

in the summer of 2007, when I was 19, it

promptly became a favorite of mine. I

bought the two-disc “unrated” special edi-

tion DVD. I quoted the movie in casual con-

versation. (“Samesies!” “I’m going to be

there, for sure. Full throttle. ‘Charlie’s An-

gels 2.’ ”) At a time when Facebook was little

more than a bulletin board on which to de-

claratively pin the facets of your person-

ality through the groups you joined and the

pages you liked, “Superbad” earned its

place on my profile.

Every now and then I would return to the

movie, and it would be (mostly) like old

times. At some point I was troubled by the

casual, unchecked homophobia peppered

throughout the dialogue, an unfortunately

TONY CENICOLA/THE NEW YORK TIMES

FORGET ABOUT THE MUTANTSat the multi-

plex. The most compelling action hero this

summer is wallowing in carnage in Central

Park, mowing down multitudes with noth-

ing but a naked sword and a whole lot of tes-

tosterone.

Did I just call him a hero? Perhaps that

isn’t quite the word — or if it is, we need to

rethink what it signifies. As incarnated (and

incarnadined) by a fabulous Jonathan

Cake, the title character of Shakespeare’s

“Coriolanus,” which opened on Monday in a

fire-breathing production at the Delacorte

Theater, isn’t anyone you would want your

children to emulate.

True, he saves the city of Rome from pil-

laging invaders, almost single-handedly.

And he’s a committed family man who is es-

pecially loyal to his mother. Of course, given

that Mom (the dominating Volumnia,

played by the mighty Kate Burton) is the

only person around who matches him in

fierceness, he’d better be.

BEN BRANTLEY THEATER REVIEW

Oh, the Smell of Blood in the Morning

SARA KRULWICH/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Trying to find the cracks in the

macho facade of Shakespeare’s

strangest tragic hero.

Jonathan Cake in the title role of “Coriolanus,” in a fierce and

fire-breathing production at the Delacorte Theater.

Coriolanus

Delacorte Theater

CONTINUED ON PAGE C2

An ongoing series.

Yesterday’s pop culture,

reconsidered today.

‘Superbad’ & Me

By AISHA HARRIS

A DVD of the 2007

movie “Superbad,”

starring Jonah Hill

and Michael Cera.

CONTINUED ON PAGE C6

The raunchy coming-of-age film

still (mostly) holds up. But I may

have loved it for the wrong reason.

EVERY YEAR IN NEW ORLEANSthere’s a
Stella and Stanley shouting contest. Con-
testants vie to rival Marlon Brando’s bellow
as Stanley Kowalski pining for his wife in “A
Streetcar Named Desire”: “STELLAAAA!”
The year after Hurricane Katrina flooded
the city and the federal response was pitiful,
the winner howled: “FEMA!”
Sarah M. Broom fits this anecdote into
her forceful, rolling and many-chambered
new memoir, “The Yellow House.” It’s one
I’d heard before, but Broom makes it stick.
Her memoir isn’t just a Katrina story — it
has a lot more on its mind. But the storm
and the way it scattered her large family
across America give this book both its
grease and its gravitas.
Broom, who was born in 1979, is the
youngest of 12 children. Her father, Simon,
worked in maintenance for NASA in New
Orleans and played the banjo and trombone
in a jazz band. The family lived way out in
New Orleans East, seven miles from the
city’s celebrated French Quarter. Broom
suggests that New Orleans East, with its
junkyards and trailer parks and flagrant
prostitution, was a place the rest of the city

DWIGHT GARNER BOOKS OF THE TIMES

A Home Full

Of Character(s)

A shotgun house and Hurricane Katrina.

The Yellow House

By Sarah M. Broom

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