Sugar Sammy, Fluent in Funny
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KLMNO SATURDAYSt, MARCH 9, 2019y . WASHINGTONPOST.COM/STYLEle EZ SU C Actor Jussie Smollett is This multilingual Canadian comedian can properly offend people in France and Canada. indicted on Now, he wants to find out whether America can take a joke. 16 counts BY SONIA RAO A Cook County, Ill., grand jury has indicted “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett on 16 felony counts for allegedly lying about a hate-crime attack, according to multiple re- ports. The indictment, returned Thursday, comes two weeks after prosecutors charged Smollett with felony disorderly conduct for filing a false police report. Smollett, who is black and openly gay, told Chicago police in late January that he had been attacked by two people who yelled racial and homophobic slurs, hit him, poured a chemical substance on him and wrapped a rope around his neck. He also said at least one of the attackers had yelled, “This is MAGA country,” referring to President Trump’s campaign slogan. The incident at- tracted a great deal of attention as celebrities and advocacy organi- zations expressed their support on social media, and Smollett said on “Good Morning America” in mid-February that he was “for- ever changed” by the incident. But skepticism about Smollett’s account grew as police continued to investigate, questioning two “persons of interest” who turned out to be brothers of Nigerian descent who had previously worked on Fox’s “Empire.” Within days of the “Good Morning Ameri- ca” interview, police announced that the trajectory of the criminal investigation had shifted, and that Smollett was being treated as a suspect. Smollett was arrested Feb. 21, and prosecutors alleged he had paid the two men, Abimbola “Abel” Osundairo and Olabinjo “Ola” Osundairo, to help him BILL O'LEARY/THE WASHINGTON POST stage the attack. They said Abel Sugar Sammy, in town for a show at the Birchmere, about whom French GQ wrote, “The funniest man in France is québécois.” Osundairo and Smollett were close when they worked together on the set of “Empire,” where Abel was a stand-in for a love interest of Smollett’s character, Jamal Lyon, and Ola was an extra. Prosecutors also alleged that Smollett told the Sugar Sammy, brothers what to say and provided them with a $100 bill to cover supplies, including rope, ski masks and red hats that resemble fluent in funny the MAGA sort. Chicago police said at a Feb. 21 media briefing that Smollett BY ELAHE IZADI faked the attack because he was “dissatisfied with his salary” on Comedian Sugar Sammy is trying to describe how he can move to a new country and figure the Fox drama. Executive pro- ducers said in a statement issued out enough of the local quirks to poke fun at them. ¶ “The French will say, ‘How do you know the next day that Smollett’s char- us so well?’ ” he says in an interview in Washington. “I’m like, ‘Because I’ve watched you, I acter would be removed from the current season’s final two epi- have listened to you. I’ve been, I’ve been . ” and he pauses. The Montreal-born comedian sodes. performs in four languages, and currently he cannot summon the English word for what he “Jussie adamantly maintains his innocence even if law enforce- wants to express. “That’s the only drawback of being bilingual: Sometimes you’ve got to look ment has robbed him of that pre- for the word if it comes to you in French first.” He thinks aloud — victim? suffer? — then sumption,” Mark Geragos, an at- ¶ torney for Smollett, said in a state- resorts to his iPhone before it finally comes to him: “Subjected!” ¶ “I have observed, I’ve ment Friday. listened and I have been subjected to you for the last two years,” he continues. “So that creates Smollett was released on $100,000 bail. The Cook County something that’s not going to go unnoticed.” SEE SAMMY ON C2 State’s Attorney’s Office has not returned The Washington Post’s request for comment on the 16- count indictment. [email protected] TV REVIEW MUSIC REVIEW The end is near — but first, sex! Country’s best voice, singing groaners BY HANK STUEVER BY CHRIS RICHARDS acoustic guitars, synthesizers and electronic percussion. If The modern manners of sexual First things first, Maren Mor- pop-influenced country bugs fluidity get a rigorous workout in ris has the best voice of any you, try thinking of her music as filmmaker Gregg Araki’s series country singer working today — country-influenced pop. Then “Now Apocalypse,” premiering a way of melodic air-walking that ask yourself if there’s any differ- Sunday on Starz. makes the “country” part of that ence, or if that difference mat- It’s a half-hour mash-up of assertion feel more debatable ters. millennial relationship shenani- than the “best” part. She knows Unfortunately, Morris does lit- gans interrupted by the sugges- how everybody sings in Nash- tle to help us transcend these tion that the world will soon be ville, but she also knows how riddles with “A Song for Every- overrun by libidinous lizard mon- everybody sings everywhere else thing,” her ode to the power of sters who find humans good, — which makes her phrasing feel song — more specifically, the giving and game. At least, that’s so worldly, so wise. Listen to her songs of Coldplay, Katy Perry, what I gather from the five epi- jump in and out of her lyrics and James Taylor and the Boss. sodes (out of 10) made available you’ll hear a sophistication that “What’s your time machine? Is it for review. feels like something metaphysi- Springsteen or ‘Teenage Weird as it wants to be (and cal. Dream’?” she asks at the outset. therefore tonally inconsistent), But the words, the words, the “What’s your takes-you-back? the show is what you might get if KATRINA MARCINOWSKI/STARZ words. On her second album, Your first falling-in-love sound- a sex columnist were forced to Kelli Berglund and Avan Jogia in Gregg Araki’s “Now Apocalypse,” “Girl,” they really gunk things up, JAMIE NELSON track?” She’s trying to convince write the screenplay for a cheap a new Starz series that likes to swim in the shallow end of the pool. no matter how Morris tries to Maren Morris wastes her us that music is vast and varie- sci-fi flick. Or maybe it’s the sort sing her way through, over or amazing breath on platitudes gated, but the song itself has the of thing John Waters would be that looked beyond tortured com- bit anything, and the world al- around them. It feels almost on her new album, “Girl.” cloying, one-size-fits-all snug- making if he were young again. ing-out dramas and instead pre- ways seems on the verge of end- criminal when a singer this ex- ness of a Target commercial. At 59, Araki’s no spring chick- sented sex-positive stories about ing. pressive describes her own still worth debating whether this (Which is strange, considering en, but he does stick to the vision characters who don’t necessarily Avan Jogia stars as Ulysses, an heightened emotional state as high-def music qualifies as coun- “The Middle” — her excellent he set out with in the 1990s, when stick to their places on the orien- unmotivated but gorgeous young “the feels” — which occurs tragi- try? As a vocalist, Morris takes 2018 megahit with EDM pro- his provocative indie films (“The tation spectrum. man in Los Angeles, who fills his cally and repeatedly on a song of her Nashville inheritance — vow- ducer Zedd — triggered the kind Living End”; “The Doom Genera- “Now Apocalypse” is, in a way, days with existential shiftless- that very title. Epic voice, basic els that curve parallel to a twang; of mass-endorphin-avalanche tion”) were hailed as examples of the fuller expression of the Araki ness and sex (or the pursuit of it), lyrics, rough scene. legible, unambiguous lyrics — that every Target commercial a “new queer cinema” movement ideal, where everyone is a little SEE TV REVIEW ON C2 On to the “country” part. Is it and sets them to tunes built with SEE MORRIS ON C4 C2 EZ RE K THE WASHINGTON POST . SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 2019 THEATER REVIEW A morning ‘Silent’: Swept away by a broken man’s stream of consciousness after? Nah. BY NELSON PRESSLEY digression. Yet the kaleidoscopic picture of the man’s shattered life TV REVIEW FROM C1 Washington theater doesn’t — especially his relationship see a lot of solo turns with the with his deceased gay brother — while his nights, when not also bravura force that Pat Kinevane grows brilliantly clear. You pick occupied by sex, are filled with brings to his Olivier Award-win- up the key facts by degrees; that dreams of disturbingly prescient ning “Silent.” The Irish actor core story about the brother, images. “I do s--- sometimes and I spellbinds in all kinds of ways grim and cruel, has repercus- really don’t know why,” Ulysses during his dark tale of a home- sions that, in this man’s tortured tells the viewer, in narration. “To less man ravaged by grief, spin- mind, never settle down. avoid boredom, I guess? To feel ning rich tales with his sonorous For all its demanding twists alive?” The emptiness of that voice and practically dancing and flamboyance, “Silent” never self-characterization is classic through the silent films his char- feels like an actor’s showcase. Araki, where alienation is a de- acter imagines.