Wallace-Wells: I’m going to make a somewhat more provincial recommendation, which is for a play that’s on in New York, which is called “What We Did Before Our Moth Days” by the playwright Wallace Shawn, who’s one of my favorite writers. He’s known to most Americans as the Vizzini character from “The Princess Bride,” as an actor. He was also in “Clueless.” I have little kids, and he seems to be the voice in, like, half of the kids’ shows on television. He was also the son of the legendary New Yorker editor William Shawn, and has had a fascinating downtown theater life. He writes a lot and talks a lot about his political awakening.
This new play is much more personal, and it is really about his childhood, which is to say growing up with a famous New York father, who was having a public affair and navigating all of the interpersonal complexities of that dynamic. I found it absolutely mesmerizing, pummeling, and I would extremely, highly recommend it, as I would everything that Wally has done.
Cottle: OK. David French.
French: I’m going with a comedy, Michelle, that’s a lot of fun. It’s called “Rooster” on HBO. And it’s Steve Carell, and he is a not-that-recently divorced writer, who is kind of coerced into becoming a visiting professor at a small college, where his daughter teaches. And it is really well done, and it does something that very few shows set on a college campus can achieve, which is to make the students not annoying. Because a lot of these college shows, all the students are just jammed into a box. You’ve got your frat guys, you’ve got your super woke student — they’re these one-dimensional figures, right?
Well, you’ve got your very political students, you’ve got your frat types, your partying type, but they’re richer, more complex human beings and more interesting to watch. And Steve Carell’s fantastic. The actress playing his daughter — I haven’t seen her in too many things — she’s really, really, really good. So, I highly recommend “Rooster,” on HBO. Really good.
Cottle: That’s on my list. I’ve been meaning to watch that.
So, I’m going with a book. Tana French is out with the last installment of what is known as the Cal Hooper trilogy. So, French writes these crime novels set in Ireland, and the last three of them have been set in this tiny little town, I think it’s Ardnakelty.