The Culture

THEATER

Clowning Around

Dance icon Mikhail Baryshnikov and film star Willem Dafoe make for an unexpected comedy odd couple in The Old Woman, at New York’s Brooklyn Academy of Music. Directed by experimental-theater artist Robert Wilson, this adaptation of absurdist stories by Russian writer Daniil Kharms finds its stars singing, dancing and cracking wise about such topics as the mysterious appearance of an elderly woman’s corpse. Despite looking nearly identical (and unrecognizable) in vaudeville-meets-Kabuki makeup, Baryshnikov (right) and Dafoe cycle through a number of characters in a colorful production that’s at times conceptually confusing but always visually striking.

MOVIES

Drive-By Boozing

After losing her job, her car and her marriage, the title character of Tammy (Melissa McCarthy) takes a much needed vacation and embarks on a soul-searching, hijinks-filled road trip with her alcoholic grandmother, played by Susan Sarandon (right). Hit the road with them July 2.

MUSIC

Brits With Hits

After teaming up for this year’s Someday World, ambient-music pioneer Brian Eno and Karl Hyde, front man of U.K. techno duo Underworld, couldn’t wait to make another record–so they didn’t. Their second joint effort, High Life (out July 1), drops several weeks after their first.

TELEVISION

Lonely Hearts

Based on Tom Perrotta’s best-selling novel of the same name, HBO drama The Leftovers stars Justin Theroux as a police officer in a small town that, three years later, is still trying to process the rapture-like disappearance of 2% of its population. Join the mourning on June 29.

‘IF YOU HAVE ACCEPTANCE FOR EVERYTHING, YOU’RE IN A POSITION OF MAXIMUM FREEDOM.’

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THE WEEK

ROBIN THICKE TRIES TO “GET HER BACK”