A revival in need of some reviving, Creative Cauldron's refresh of the company's 2015 The Turn of the Screw: The Musical puts an abundance of talent onstage with only lackluster returns to show for the effort.
The ambience for Matt Conner and Stephen Gregory Smith's adaptation of Henry James' 1898 Gothic horror novella feels appropriately spooky, but the performance energy seems to be moving in many disparate directions. (Smith wrote the lyrics and libretto and Conner, who directs, composed the score.)
Akin to an attic full of secrets, with boxes and shelves hidden beneath white sheets, Margie Jervis' ghostly-white set fills the stage of Creative Cauldron's voluminous new black box. And Lynn Joslin's expressive lighting does well to distinguish shades of darkness within the monotone milieu.
Nguyen Huong Giang, a transgender Vietnamese reality TV star, has been chosen to represent Vietnam at the 2025 Miss Universe pageant, becoming the country's first transgender contestant. Miss Universe Vietnam confirmed the historic selection in an Instagram post.
"The Miss Universe Vietnam Organization has made a special decision: to handpick an outstanding representative, someone who embodies feminine beauty, intelligence, confidence, resilience, and above all, a strong heart that never stops striving," the Instagram caption reads.
"David Lynch would be so happy about this," says mehro, seated on an ornate scarlet couch, his slender, black-shirted frame flanked by lush, red curtains. "It all looks very Lynchian."
They're at SIR -- Studio Instrument Rentals -- in Los Angeles, taking a Zoom break for this cover interview. And they couldn't be nicer -- or more enigmatic.
It's impossible to tell if mehro's coyness is deliberate or simply part of his nature during our hour-long conversation. The deflections -- always polite, almost disarmingly so -- make personal questions more of a challenge than I expected.
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