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 Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping Andy Samberg slays as Conner the Bieberian. 30 WTHE WASHINGTON POST | GOINGOUTGUIDE.COM | JUNE eeken3, 2016 d

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admit 1  Me Before You A tearjerker that looks good on paper, but comes up dry on-screen. WAPO.ST/MEBEFOREYOU TONIGHT!! Turn it up  WAPO.ST/TEENAGE2 Learn the big names Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows They’re back in fighting trim. and key dates of the summer concert season. Page 17

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NIGHTLIFE $20 DINER MOVIES Up and down Coastal Highway, Brightwood Park’s Straw Stick “Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping” raw bars, breweries and music enliven Brick packs deliciousness into is the comedy equivalent of the beach scene. 6 its deli sandwiches. 12 a snow cone in the sun. 30 Searching Film brings the painful private life of Hillary Clinton’s closest aide into focus for Bobbie Gentry

BY NEELY TUCKER

It’s the third of June. Some- where in Mississippi, it’s another sleepy, dusty delta day. Since the summer of 1967, when the South- ern gothic ballad “Ode to Billie Joe,” set on this day in that place, first hit the airwaves, the song has captivated American pop culture in a way few ever have. Written and sung by an un- known young woman from Mis- sissippi named Bobbie Gentry, it was an eerie, minor-key mystery about an unnamed young woman and her family sitting around a farm dinner table discussing, in elliptical terms, the suicide of Billie Joe McAllister. It sold tens of millions of cop- ies. It knocked the Beatles off the top of the charts. It spawned a 1976 movie. It made Gentry a hot Vegas star. She kicked around with Elvis and Tom Jones and briefly married casino magnate Bill Harrah. The song’s iconic success also helped launch one of the most enduring riddles in pop: Whatev- er happened to Bobbie Gentry? She had a few minor hits after “Ode,” appeared on ’70s enter- tainment shows and then went kapoof in the 1980s. No appear- ances. No pictures. No interviews. Over time, she became regard- ed as the J.D. Salinger of pop music. She made Harper Lee look chatty. She went full Garbo. GENTRY CONTINUED ON C2

DANCE REVIEW ‘Juliet and WASHINGTON POST PHOTO ILLUSTRATION; PHOTO BY KATHY WILLENS/ASSOCIATED PRESS Romeo,’ in our world

BY KAREN TUMULTY Abedin’s own marriage follows the patterns of BY SARAH L. KAUFMAN her boss’s, raising many of the same questions. About 15 minutes into a newly released Was it love or ambition that made her stay with There are few tragedies more Huma documentary about her husband’s train wreck a self-destructive politician who betrayed her haunting than the death of inno- of a campaign for New York City mayor, Huma again and again? Is her torment a testament to cents, as Shakespeare, Euripides Abedin reflects on the awkward improbability her character, or evidence that something is and the daily news remind us. of it all. lacking in her judgment? One of the best known of these “Those of you who know me are probably “Weiner” premiered in January at the Sun- tragedies gains new power Abedin, surprised to see me standing up here. I’m dance Film Festival, opened in the top 10 through a moving and boldly usually back of the room, far away from the markets on May 27, and will spread to screens original treatment. “Juliet and microphone as possible,” she tells an audience across the country in coming weeks. The ex- Romeo” is Swedish choreogra- of well-heeled women in a swanky Manhattan congressman has said he gave filmmakers Josh pher Mats Ek’s version of the apartment where she has come to raise money Kriegman, a former staffer, and Elyse Steinberg ill-fated lovers’ tale, told in a way facing for Anthony Weiner’s mayoral bid. access in hopes that people might get a fuller that honors its Renaissance Abedin, of course, is the famously private picture of him. But at this point, the person source while tying it directly to aide de camp, confidante and surrogate daugh- everyone wants to see is his wife. today’s world. The Royal Swedish ter to Hillary Clinton. She is Clinton’s couture- The timing of the film’s release is hardly Ballet gave this 2013 work its clad palace guard. ideal, coming at a moment when Clinton ap- North American premiere on Danger It was astonishing for Abedin to have al- pears poised to become the first woman to win Wednesday at the Kennedy Cen- lowed such a film as “Weiner” to be made at all a major party’s presidential nomination. Abed- ter Opera House. — much less to put a high-definition, close-up in comes off as the oldest stereotype in politics: Ek’s ballet has little in common lens to the most humiliating chapter of her life. the suffering, ornamental spouse. with those heavily draped and New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner, The filmmakers go into the Weiners’ home, Off-screen, however, Abedin has become a chandeliered productions of the left, listens as his wife, Huma Abedin, addresses eavesdrop on their arguments, capture awk- key figure in many of the controversies that Shakespeare story that most bal- a news conference on July 23, 2013, the day the ward moments of silence and exasperation. have swirled around Clinton. letgoers know. Ek’s characters story broke that Weiner had been sexting explicit They open windows on a strained partnership She has been interviewed by the Federal look pretty much like us, in their photos under the alias “Carlos Danger.” that is being held together but appears a long Bureau of Investigation in connection with its slacks, skirts and ponytails. There way from healing. probe into Clinton’s use of a private email ac- are no pointe shoes. The teenage Especially striking are the ways in which ABEDIN CONTINUED ON C6 boys behave like teenage boys, goofing around and punching each other. It is always night here. The set has a stripped-down look, with a DANCE CONTINUED ON C2 Thanks, guys: Going to see the all-female ‘Ghostbusters’ is now a political act

BY ANN HORNADAY

The idea of an all-female “Ghostbusters” should have been no big deal. Ever eager to profitably repurpose their corporate properties, movie studios are constantly on the hunt for past projects to resurrect, capitalizing on nostalgic baby boomers and Gen Xers and, just maybe, enlisting a young generation of fans to support CRITIC’S a new franchise. NOTEBOOK When it comes to a potentially lucrative reboot, “Ghostbusters” — the beloved, albeit far from perfect, 1984 act- ion-comedy starring Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Bill Murray and Ernie Hudson — checked every box. The prospect was made all the more enticing when it was announced that this one would feature an all-female HOPPER STONE/SONY PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT cast, including Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy and COLUMBIA PICTURES/ALAMY From left: Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon, Kristen Wiig and “Saturday Night Live” stars Kate McKinnon and Leslie From left: Harold Ramis, Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray and Ernie Leslie Jones star in this year’s remake of “Ghostbusters.” NOTEBOOK CONTINUED ON C6 Hudson star in the iconic original “Ghostbusters,” from 1984. C2 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST . FRIDAY, JUNE 3, 2016 The Reliable Source

Helena Andrews-Dyer and Emily Heil

‘Real Housewives of Potomac’ A Georgetown mansion star Katie Rost’s relationship where Jackie Kennedy lived status? Well, it’s complicated. is available for $10 million

When last we saw Katie Rost, “the ball and For sale: one Georgetown mansion with a gala” character on Bravo’s “The Real pedigree — the circa 1794 home where Jackie Housewives of Potomac,” she was lamenting Kennedy briefly moved her family in 1963 her broken engagement to financier Andrew after her husband’s assassination. Subsequent Martin on the reality show’s reunion special. buyers included New Republic publisher (and According to Rost, who had given Martin back onetime KGB spy) Michael Straight, who sold the princess-cut diamond meant to cement it to colorful socialite Yolande Betbeze Fox, their love just one day before the reunion who lived there until her death this year. show’s taping, the engagement was definitely Price tag: a mere $10 million, according to “off.” Georgetown blogger Carol Joynt, who first Instagram, of course, told a different tale. wrote about the private sale. (Doesn’t it always?) Since Rost last graced your Because the property is what’s known as a small screen, she’s published social media post- “pocket sale,” or an off-market listing, there’s its of herself wearing her “beautiful ring from no gallery of photos for lookie-loos to gawk at. Andrew.” Yet Martin himself has gone But Joynt describes the manse at 3017 N St. conspicuously missing from the socialite’s feed. NW, which is being sold by Fox’s heirs, as a bit Meanwhile, Rost, who is filming Season 2 of of a fixer-upper. The buyer will no doubt be “Potomac,” can be seen with her three kids and paying for the prestigious address — and for her mom and, most recently, making the the home’s history. social rounds with a handsome young man she Kennedy picked the brick home as identifies as Robert Stafford. Don’t get too CLIFF OWEN/ASSOCIATED PRESS her post-White House residence but excited, though. According to Rost, he’s her Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, left, and Sonia Sotomayor discuss the Supremes’ dining traditions. decamped to Manhattan after less than a cousin. year, apparently less than enchanted by the When reached by phone, Rost had no attention from rubbernecking tourists comment on Oh, they’ll do justice to a good meal (perhaps a cautionary tale for the Obamas, Stafford except to who are on the hunt for their next Beltway say that he most address?). Straight bought it and later lived likely won’t be on he scales of justice might foodie) Antonin Scalia, who favorite foods. At the pal’s there with his second wife, Nina Auchincloss the show. not be the only ones traditionally led the justices in suggestion of Chinese, Sotomayor Steers, who coincidentally was Jackie Rost’s mother, getting a workout at the serenades of “Happy Birthday.” worked out an Asian-influenced Kennedy’s stepsister as well as the half-sister Rynthia, a vice highest court in the land. “We are missing our chorus menu (tricky because retiring of writer Gore Vidal. In the 1970s, Fox — a president at Geico TAt a Smithsonian-led discussion leader, because most of us can’t justice John Paul Stevens didn’t former Miss America whose eclectic résumé since 1994 and on Wednesday night about the carry a tune,” she said. like the Far East cuisine). A also included stints as an off-Broadway apparently her Supreme Court’s food culture, During regular lunches, Sonia puzzled Kagan later asked producer and a civil-rights activist — daughter’s two justices revealed that the Sotomayor said, justices don’t Sotomayor about the meal’s purchased the property. unofficial spokes- institution’s civility is fed by a discuss cases — or get into heavy theme. It turned out that Kagan, woman, also veritable buffet of shared meals, political debate — mostly, she in fact, didn’t like Chinese — her reached out to from casual lunches to elaborate said, they talk about the books friend did. emphasize that her dinners. they’re reading, museum exhibits It’s no surprise that the nine nephew was not a Here’s how birthday lunches go they’ve seen, and funny family rely on shared meals to maintain public figure when the court is in session, per stories. comity: In the court’s early years, —repeating that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: And then there are the dinners the justices lived together in a line some “The chief brings in wine and we — each justice is greeted into the boardinghouse and took most of four times to make toast the birthday boy or girl,” she nine-member club with a their meals together. Ginsburg her point. Um, said during the talk at the welcome meal, and is feted on noted that once that tradition okay, we get Museum of American History on retirement. ended, so, too, did the court’s it. Palling around the current and historical role of When it came time for her to practice of issuing only one with a close cousin food at the court. Ginsburg also plan one for the arriving Elena opinion per case. “When the after a tough revealed another reason she is Kagan, Sotomayor did her boardinghouse style MARVIN JOSEPH/THE WASHINGTON POST TOMMY GARCIA/BRAVO breakup makes mourning the death earlier this homework, calling a friend of the disappeared,” she said, “dissent Former first lady Jackie Kennedy once lived Katie Rost. sense. year of her fellow justice (and junior justice’s to determine her began to appear.” in the house at 3017 N St. in Georgetown.

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1970s. Further, the music studio After Gentry had shaved a couple of years off Prince’s cause of death: Accidental overdose of a potent opioid her actual birthday. Gentry’s family didn’t talk, and made a splash she had cut off nearly all her BY MICHAEL TARM some parts of the country. It also plane, and first responders gave Howard Kornfeld, a California friends in the music business. AND AMY FORLITI has legitimate medical uses. More him a shot of Narcan, an antidote addiction specialist, was asked by GENTRY FROM C1 When reporters reached out than 700 fentanyl-related over- used in suspected opioid overdos- Prince’s representatives on through intermediaries, there minneapolis — Prince died of an dose deaths were reported to the es. April 20 to help the singer. It’s most often reported that was never a reply. accidental overdose of the power- Drug Enforcement Administra- The autopsy was conducted the Kornfeld sent his son Andrew she is living in seclusion in Los “I think it’s simpler than it ful painkiller fentanyl, autopsy re- tion in late 2013 and 2014. day after Prince’s body was found. on a red-eye flight that night, and Angeles, as if she has morphed seems,” Murtha said. “She appar- sults released Thursday show. The findings confirm suspicions At least two doctors’ names Andrew was among the people into a Southern-fried Norma Des- ently didn’t like the music busi- The 57-year-old singer was that opioids played a role in the have come up in the death investi- who found Prince’s unresponsive mond holed up in a creepy man- ness, went on to other businesses found dead April 21 at his Minne- musician’s death. After he died, au- gation being conducted by the body the next morning, according sion on Sunset Boulevard. and never missed the spotlight.” apolis-area estate. thorities began reviewing whether Carver County Sheriff’s Office, the to Kornfeld’s attorney, William That isn’t true. According to a one-page report an overdose was to blame and U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minne- Mauzy. And Gentry spoke to a reporter, Hot on the trail released by the Midwest Medical whether he had been prescribed sota and the Drug Enforcement Prince’s death came two weeks for this story, apparently for the Stafford and Gentry had a very Examiner’s Office, Prince admin- drugs in the preceding weeks. Administration. after he canceled concerts in At- first time in three decades. We small wedding in 1978, but they istered the drug himself, but the Prince’s death came less than a Michael Todd Schulenberg, a lanta, saying he wasn’t feeling caution you not to get too excited did allow a reporter from the date he took it was unknown. The week after his plane made an family practitioner, treated Prince well. He played a pair of makeup about that. It’s one sentence. Memphis Commercial Appeal to office said it has completed its emergency stop in Moline, Ill., for twice in the weeks before his death shows April 14 in that city, and Could be two. attend the ceremony on their 120- death investigation and had no medical treatment as he was re- and told investigators he pre- then came the emergency landing Then she hung up. acre horse farm in Somerville, further comment. turning from an Atlanta concert. scribed medications for the singer. in Moline. He was scheduled to about 45 miles east of the city. Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid, The Associated Press and other The medications were not speci- perform two shows in St. Louis but An open secret “It’s wonderful to stand on your 50 times more potent than heroin, media reported, based on anony- fied in a search warrant for the canceled them shortly before his All Southerners come home, own land, where you plan to live that’s partly responsible for a re- mous sources, that the superstar Minnesota hospital that employed death. even if it’s in a pine box, Truman and raise a cent surge in overdose deaths in was found unconscious on the Schulenberg at the time. — Associated Press Capote once opined. family,” That is what the 70-something Stafford is Gentry has done, hidden in plain quoted as sight, known perhaps to a few saying at the friends and neighbors, but no- time. body who ever blabs. Today, Royal Swedish Ballet makes beauty, tragedy real “I think, to some, it’s an open computer da- secret,” says Tara Murtha, author tabases clear- DANCE FROM C1 less responses to the music, in the of “Ode to Billie Joe,” a 2015 book ly show that way they link arms and take com- that’s by far the most thorough perhaps the smoky, shadowy stage and forbid- fort in being together. biography of Gentry’s public ca- ASSOCIATED PRESS nation’s most ding walls that bring to mind The giddy beauty of young love reer. In it, Murtha cites reports reclusive pop cities under siege. This could be is Ek’s high achievement here, but from Savannah papers that a Bob- Bobbie Gentry star lives in modern-day Syria or Iraq, or a so is the ugliness of hatred, which bie Gentry lived in the Georgia in 1969. an 8,000- U.S. town in crisis. The Capulets Ek depicts with equal inventive- city in the late 1990s but had since square-foot patrol their turf on Segways, with ness and immediacy. moved. house with a great pool not all the rigid bearing that we instant- It’s easy, therefore, to link this In an interview, she said she that far from the old homestead. ly recognize as policelike. ballet with what’s going on in knew where Gentry now lives but Real estate agents confirmed it. The music is not the familiar today’s world. Age-old frictions had not printed it. She never So, yesterday, I found myself Prokofiev, but Tchaikovsky. In a and factions continue to tear spoke to Gentry but said she had looking at a phone number on my previous conversation, Ek told loved ones apart: The same day sent letters through intermediar- computer screen for several sec- me he found that Tchaikovsky that “Juliet and Romeo” opened ies that were never answered. onds. No reporter, to the best of evoked young love beautifully, at the Kennedy Center, this news- The short answer to one of my knowledge, has spoken to though there wasn’t much in the paper’s front page told the story pop’s great mysteries: Gentry in decades. way of true violence and aggres- of an Israeli woman fatally knifed Bobbie Gentry lives about a I punched the numbers. sion in his music. Ek needed the in her kitchen by a teenage Pales- two-hour drive from the site of the After a few rings, a pleasant violence, too, but love was most tinian boy. Both her family and Tallahatchie Bridge that made her woman’s voice said: “Hello.” important. He chose his excerpts his spoke poignantly of their so famous, in a gated community, I introduced myself and my well, and they were splendidly grief, confusion and loneliness in in a very nice house that cost newspaper. I said I was looking performed by the Opera House the aftermath. about $1.5 million. Her neighbors, for the person whose name ap- Orchestra. That Ek’s ballet seems to antici- some locals and some real estate pears on the property owner’s Ek took his flip-flopped title GERT WEIGELT pate, respond to and add more agents know who she is, although record. from an early short story, “Giu- Mariko Kida and Anthony Lomuljo as Juliet and Romeo. layers to such heartbreaking vio- it’s not clear which of her many There was a dead pause of lietta e Romeo,” which was prob- lence speaks to his masterful possible names she goes by. several seconds. My fingers ably one of Shakespeare’s sources. command. How acutely he com- We’ll be a little more specific in clenched open and closed. Having given his heroine top bill- long gray hair in a thick braid, she short while to feel engaged by Ek’s municates something real in the a minute. “There’s no one here by that ing, he also gave her moxie and is also a vigorous and deeply unique physical expression: the make-believe world of the stage. First: How can someone once name,” she said, finally. strength. Again and again it is musical member of the cast, long, stretched-out lunges, the In fact, his art draws us in not so famous vanish so completely? I apologized and started to Juliet who takes the most decisive matching the bounding Mercutio blown-back torsos and moments by making us believe, but by A complicated family history, a read back the number, to make action and who stands up to her and Benvolio, for instance, step when everyone rolls on the floor. making us feel. By expressing the stage name, a couple of marriages sure I had dialed it correctly, and parents. In this austere world, for step. Her presence highlight- It is Ek’s genius, however, that yearning, resistance, helpless- and a false birth date on her she hung up. Mariko Kida’s Juliet is the lone ed one of the many glories of this his weighted, earthy, unusual ness — and the hopefulness — of official PR material helped. But there isn’t really any doubt. bright spot. We first see her wear- company and this production: moves arouse vivid emotions. love. Hope is Ek’s coda, as it was Gentry’s name at birth, in Mis- I talked, for about 13 seconds, ing yellow, hopping about like a Not everyone looks alike. There When Mercutio, Benvolio and Shakespeare’s, and as it must be sissippi, was Roberta Lee Street- to Bobbie Gentry. puppy and teasing her Nurse. are dancers of varying ages, sizes Anthony Lomuljo’s sweet Romeo ours, too. er. But her parents divorced when Some mysteries can be solved. Ana Laguna, the extraordinari- (Jerome Marchand’s Mercutio are messing around, you ache for [email protected] she was young, and she lived with What Billie Joe and his girlfriend ly expressive dancer who is Ek’s towers over Jokuto Kodam’s Ben- them. Especially the big, tattooed her grandparents. She moved to threw off the Tallahatchie Bridge? longtime muse (and wife), gave volio) and backgrounds, with Mercutio, who roughly pushes The Royal Swedish Ballet performs L.A. to be with her mom and soon No. That can’t. the role of the Nurse a grounded some more trained in ballet, oth- the other two away, yet also “Juliet and Romeo,” by Mats Ek, in adopted the “Bobbie Gentry” [email protected] moral force. Throughout the bal- ers in modern dance. yearns for their company. An un- the Kennedy Center Opera House stage name. She divorced Harrah, let she is a witness to the key It takes time to adjust our ears nameable change is in the air — through Saturday. Tickets: $29-$129. then married and divorced coun- moments, often peering from the when we’re at a Shakespeare play, we see how the boys sense it, in 202-467-4600 or kennedy- try singer Jim Stafford in the late Alice Crites contributed to this report. shadows. In her 60s, with her and in the same way, it may take a their intentionally awkward, art- center.org.