roxie

Far be it from me to tell anyone how to direct their career, but can I just say how glad I am to learn that Jason Bateman, who spent four seasons in the darkness of “Ozark,” is making a comedy again. (A “dark comedy,” but still.) That’s not the series he’s starring in at the moment for Netflix, however, but something called “DTF St. Louis,” for HBO, from “Patriot” creator Steve Conrad, which isn’t arriving until next year. Fingers crossed, we’ll all be around to see it.

In the eight-episode miniseries “Black Rabbit,” which premieres Thursday, Bateman and Jude Law play brothers Vince and Jake Friedkin, respectively, who long before the story begins were partners in a rock band, the Black Rabbits — successful enough that Vince is recognized in a bar (but not so successful that the fans can remember his name, or the name of the band). More recently, they had been partners in a far downtown Manhattan restaurant, also called Black Rabbit, though Vince’s level of current participation is muddy. (At one time, he ran the upstairs bar.) It isn’t a comedy, in spite of Vince’s Michael Bluth-like habit of dropping ironic quips into stressful situations.

The setting brings to mind “The Bear” — which is a comedy — as does its young genius chef, Roxie (Amaka Okafor); the New York Times is planning a review and New York magazine is putting her on the cover. We see that the restaurant, which has a VIP floor upstairs for horrible rich jerks, is a hit because the place is packed, and because there’s a lot of shouting in the barely pictured kitchen, but food, barely shown or talked about, is not really on the menu here. Jake is more interested in property and expansion — he has an inside track to lease the Pool Room, a real-life space in New York’s fabled Four Seasons Hotel, and he wants Roxie to run the kitchen and Estelle (Cleopatra Coleman), who is in a relationship with his old friend Wes (Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù) — now a mega successful musician, a co-owner of the Black Rabbit and a jealous guy — to design it. From camera angles and cutting, it’s clear that Vince and Estelle are attracted to one another, but as Law and Coleman have no particular chemistry, it feels more stated than felt. But it’s important.

Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù as Wes, a co-owner of the Black Rabbit, and Amaka Okafor as Roxie, the head chef.

(Netflix)

Vince, meanwhile, is living out west, looking like he’s ready to audition for a late-life Dennis Wilson biopic and trying to sell some valuable old coins. When he’s set up and robbed in his car, he winds up running over one of the thieves — twice. Whether by writerly intention or inattention, this will be no more of an emotional issue for Vince than it will have anything to do with the rest of the story, apart from sending him back to NYC, where he is $140,000 in the hole over gambling debts. Whenever he’s not in actual danger (which is a lot of the time), he’s weirdly happy-go-lucky.

Jake has a well-to-do ex-wife, Val (Dagmara Dominczyk), who seems nice, and a son, Hunter (Michael Cash), taking dancing lessons. They all get along fine, though Jake battles that most common of TV paternal ailments, Busy Dad Syndrome. (He does better than most.) Vince has an adult daughter, tattoo artist Gen (Odessa Young), who is not especially glad to see him back in town. Their safety will become a chip in the series’ central business, which sets Vince, and ultimately Jake, against vaguely defined mobster Joe Mancuso (Oscar-winning deaf actor Troy Kotsur, from the film “CODA,” in one of the series’ more layered performances); his sweaty idiot caricature of a wannabe tough guy son, Junior (Forrest Weber); and Junior’s less-than-efficient minder, Babbitt (Chris Coy), who is occasionally sort of likable, albeit one feels bad for sort of liking him. In the small world these characters inhabit, Mancuso was close to the brothers’ dysfunctional family back in Coney Island. But business is business.

Like most every streaming drama nowadays, “Black Rabbit” opens with a flash forward to a more exciting part of the story — here, a robbery and shooting at a crowded party — before dialing back to a calmer chronological beginning. This lets the viewer know that, though there is going to be exposition for a while, things will get crazy eventually. And they very much do, including sexual assault, murder and bad management.

Junior (Forrest Weber), Babbitt (Chris Coy) and Vince (Jason Bateman), who owes them lots of money.

(Netflix)

Jake, chasing his Pool Room dream, has his own money troubles, and the brothers’ needs will clash as one scheme after another to set things right goes wrong and their relationship rockets between heated arguments and brotherly reminiscence. It’s too easy to stop listening to the arguments, which tend to go long and not lead anywhere, but there is some relief (and nice writing) as regards the reminiscence. Still, though later episodes will reveal an early event that might explain something about Vince, it’s not enough to make one care especially what happens to them, except to worry which innocent bystanders, including the Black Rabbit staff, will be hit by shrapnel when things go boom.

A large secondary and sometimes confusing cast comes in and out to propel and complicate matters, but it’s really all about the brothers. As Vince, Bateman — who also directed the first two episodes, efficiently, with “Ozark” co-star Laura Linney helming the second two — leavens an exasperating character with his innate likability. He’s a fine actor, but he’s also Jason Bateman, America’s sweetheart. By contrast, as the tense, excitable Jake, Law doesn’t generate much warmth, or make you believe he’s actually capable of opening a high-class midtown restaurant. (The funky but chic Black Rabbit was Vince’s vision.) That may be the idea, of course. And he does love his brother.

There are only so many ways this story can go, and it does indeed go to one of them, though it’s so likely by the time we get there that it doesn’t deliver much of an emotional charge. An epilogical montage, in a complete tonal turnaround, plays like an homage to the opening of Woody Allen’s “Manhattan,” cut to Rodgers and Hart’s “I’ll Take Manhattan”; its only purpose seems to be to make you less bad than you might have otherwise felt. (Hey, Katz’s Delicatessen!) So … thanks?

Meanwhile — “DTF St. Louis!” See you next year! Knock wood.

In “Am I Roxie?,” a world premiere one-woman-show at the Geffen Playhouse, Roxana Ortega, a working actress and alum of the Groundlings Theatre’s Sunday Company, revisits the period in her life when she was the caregiver for her mother, whose memory was unraveling.

When Ortega’s father died of a sudden heart attack outside the post office, she was unprepared for the consequences. He had been protecting the family from her mother’s decline.

An immigrant from Peru who had relinquished her dreams of acting to raise a family, Carmen had a special bond with Ortega. When little Roxana was growing up in Fullerton, her mother would improvise operas while fixing breakfast. Together, they dreamed theatrical dreams.

Carmen has many sisters — “Picture the Housewives of Beverly Hills, but in Canoga Park” — but none were able to take her in. Ortega’s siblings, married with children, were similarly unable.

Not having kids of her own deprived Ortega of the one excuse her family would have recognized. Yet she still wanted to have kids, though not before she found the right husband and made some headway in a career marked by small triumphs, such as booking commercials and webisodes. Was she really going to put her life on hold for a few years?

Finding a painful compromise, she decides to move her mother to an assisted-living facility near her in L.A. Taking this step requires her to go to war with her “inner Latina critic,” who reminds her of the code of her blood: “We take care of our own.” She adds an expletive to the end of this pronouncement, but no emphasis is needed for a daughter who has already indicted herself for selfishness, the one unpardonable sin for a Latina.

“Am I Roxie?,” performed by Ortega with unflagging ebullience in an athletic-wear jumpsuit designed for comfort rather than style, brings to the exhausting, guilt-inducing grind of eldercare her own cultural spin. The subject is relatable, as lifespans have extended while health insurance only seems to contract. Ortega is an agreeable guide through the thicket of problems, such as choosing between senior facilities that resemble “sad Marriotts” or “sad La Quinta Inns.”

The show is more of a personal essay composed for the stage than a deeply imagined performance work. Ortega’s approach is friendly and wryly conversational. She’s bearing witness to a human dilemma our culture would prefer to keep under wraps, but Ortega might just as easily be doing an audio essay or podcast. The one character who comes vividly to life is her own.

There’s a rich tradition of performance artists bringing difficult personal stories to public light. “Am I Roxie?” seems disconnected from the work of Lisa Kron, Deb Margolin and Marga Gomez. Soloists who can populate the stage with uncurtailed ambition.

Thematically, “Am I Roxie?” is structured around the “Circle of Life” song from “The Lion King.” Ortega knows this reference is corny, but it’s also inescapably apt. The person who gave her life now needs her help as she nears the end.

Roxana Ortega in “Am I Roxie?” at Geffen Playhouse.

(Jeff Lorch)

Birth and death weigh heavy on Ortega’s mind, as she ponders her own lifespan, the diminishing window for motherhood and the confused and sometimes angry helplessness of Carmen, who comes to believe that her daughter is her sister. Eventually, Carmen will wonder if she herself is Roxie, an existential dilemma that Ortega refuses to understand as a mere symptom of Alzheimer’s disease.

She’s reluctant at the start to name her mother’s condition. How can she reduce a loved one to a medical diagnosis? Even at Carmen’s most exasperating, she could still surprise Ortega with a simple, poignant question: “How are you doing in your life, Roxie?”

Ortega begins to understand that, though her mother has been transformed, she can still connect with her if she accepts her as she is. By speaking to her mother in the nonsense language she falls into and by playing games of pretend as if they were back in her childhood home, Ortega reaches her mother, if only for fleeting moments.

The production, directed by Bernardo Cubría, seems to have adopted a medical oath of first doing no harm. A set piece is every now and again mechanically (and somewhat quizzically) moved in or out, and there are projections offering illustrations of Fullerton and Ortega’s mental health adventure scaling the peak of Mt. Kilimanjaro.

But “Am I Roxie?” doesn’t depend on scenic frills. Ortega is the show — not just her story but her rapport with the theatergoers, with whom she confides as if to old friends. She shares her fears that she might have occasionally failed her mother, but this confession is just another example of her generous humanity.

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How does one care for their aging parent without losing sight of their own identity?

The first thing Roxana Ortega will say is: “We have to not abandon ourselves.”

The L.A.-born Latina actress outlines the deeply emotional process of caring for an aging parent in her first play, “Am I Roxie?,” which premieres Sept. 11 and kicks off the Geffen Playhouse’s 2025-26 season.

The production will remain through Oct. 5 at the Gil Cates Theater and is directed by Bernardo Cubría, (“Crabs in a Bucket” and “The Play You Want”).

Ortega’s one-woman show was inspired by her mother, Carmen, whose memory is in decline due to Alzheimer’s disease. Bounded by her commitment to being the perfect Latina daughter, Ortega illustrates how she stepped up to provide caregiving duties, while trying to sustain her acting career — even if it was just a Jimmy Dean breakfast sandwich commercial.

“This show to me is about how to not abandon ourselves in a time of such great darkness,” says Ortega through a video call.

Onstage, Ortega masterfully transforms her solo act into an ensemble performance, through her many quirky accents and mannerisms alone; her characters range from her three Peruvian tías to an imaginary cholo critic and a perky, silicone-bloated nurse.

Capturing a broad emotional spectrum, from joy to grief, it is clear that Ortega — a former troupe member of the Groundlings Sunday Company — showcases a lifetime of skills on the Westwood stage.

“Everything just merged as I was trying to write about what was happening,” says Ortega. “I was also leaving sketch comedy [group] the Groundlings, so I was finding my own voice. All those things merged to birth this, a perfect combination of so many desires and dreams I’ve had.”

With over 80 acting credits to her name, the multi-hyphenate artist is best known for voicing the melodramatic Frida Casagrande from Nickelodeon’s Emmy-winning show “The Casagrandes,” an animated sitcom about a family living in the fictional Great Lakes City. Other notable credits include Netflix’s “Grand-Daddy Day Care” and “Santa Clarita Diet,” Warner Bros.‘ “Miss Congeniality 2” as well as the popular Fox series “New Girl.”

Audiences should buckle up — preferably with tissues at the ready — for a roller coaster of emotions, as they witness Ortega relinquish control over an unchangeable fate, while holding compassion for her mother and herself in “Am I Roxie?”

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Your one-woman show, “Am I Roxie?,” explores your personal journey as a caretaker for your aging parent, but it also focuses on your artistic aspirations. Can you walk me through your decision to make this the subject of your next project?

I’ve always wanted to turn my personal material into art; most artists do feel that way. I had been doing it for quite a while in sketch comedy, [by] taking characters like my tías, who I find to be so hysterical, and trying to put them into things. So I knew somewhere in the back of my brain — or in the middle — that I wanted to do a show about my family. I watched Ruben Santiago-Hudson’s “Lackawanna Blues,” so I always wanted to do that.

This play approaches heavy topics with humor. How did you strike that balance?

I think that’s just the way my brain works. I think a lot of comedians are this way; we’re always looking for laughs and maybe that’s how we survive ’cause we are very sensitive people — I’m very sensitive and very intense, so laughter is that levity.

Through the development process, we did have some discussions about certain moments. Do we want people to laugh when I’m in the chaise longue texting, “Is [my mom] still alive?” We had more “Shark Tank” sounds running through that and then changed it.

Caregiving is obviously a huge endeavor for Latinos — Latina women, more specifically. How do you make sense of the idea of care now?

I [think of] abandonment. There’s something so primal when somebody is aging and you can tell, “This person was in charge of me; they’re so vulnerable; now they need me. Oh my god, I can’t abandon them, right?” You feel like, “I don’t want to be abandoned, so I don’t want to abandon them.” It really shocked me how strong that urge was and I think we also have to not abandon ourselves. We absolutely cannot.

If you go into the caregiving world, they talk about care like: “Here’s your pills, here’s the food and we have some music coming in.” Maybe if you’re lucky, there’s bingo — but my mom wouldn’t play bingo! Are you f— kidding me? Care should be individualized. It should address the spirit.

Guilt creeps up in this play disguised as your inner Latina critic every time you do something that feels selfish in light of your mom’s situation. What relationship do you have with your inner critic now?

I definitely feel like I’ve gone through a journey from fear to love with the task of caregiving and even in relation to myself; I learned to love myself more, which is part of caring for yourself.

In this process of putting [my story] out there, of just being so gentle with myself and saying, “No matter what happens, no matter how it’s received, I’m not going to put my identity on the line.” There will be no beating myself up. There will be no, “Now you’re terrible because this, this, this …” It’s always a practice. Life is too short for us to feel bad.

There’s no benefit to suffering, and most of our suffering we do to ourselves through that critic by giving it power. And in our culture, sometimes it’s glorified.

You’re an overachiever, a Berkeley grad and former Groundlings member. But in “Am I Roxie?,” you balance the urgency of achieving your goals with the grief of losing a parent who is still alive. How did it feel to not give up on your dreams?

I felt like a terrible daughter. It’s hard. There’s a point in the show when I leave my mom and she says, “Don’t leave me here,” and I leave her and go to an audition. That’s a hard moment and I can tell that the audience is like, “How could you do that?” It feels vulnerable to show that I did that. But then, how does a mother leave their child at kindergarten? How can you find the balance where you are nurturing yourself and nurturing somebody else?

It was hard. I would beat myself up a lot and cry about feeling so terrible. And then go the next day to absolve myself. The more [my mom] found other relationships with a caregiver, the more I felt like, “Okay, she’s safe.”

Motherhood is also at the core of your story — not just with your mother, but as you explore your own fertility journey. How did your concept of motherhood change after caring for your mother?

What I didn’t explicitly say in the play is that I am a mother. I mothered my mother. Now, not everyone who is a mother by having a baby is necessarily a “mothering mother.” Something that this disease taught me is what these words really mean. What is it to be a sister? What is it to be a mother? What I learned in caring for my mom is that I am a mother, because I was able to nurture on such a deep level. Even when all the signs showed that she’s not there anymore. A mother knows her baby. She was my baby at the end.

After our fertility journey, 10 years of trying, me birthing this piece of art was me mothering my creativity into existence.

 You don’t mention Alzheimer’s by name until that very end. Why?

Part of it was accepting the journey and being able to say the diagnosis. Sometimes there’s an avoidance around Alzheimer’s. Nobody wants to say the word or talk about the disease ’cause it’s sad. So I wanted to make it a moment when I actually said it so that we can see the weight of it. Hopefully viewers will leave the theater being able to speak about it and to know it in an intimate way. Naming it is so important, so we can take the sting and discomfort off.

There are tender moments onstage where you let out tears. What is it like to relive those real-life moments on stage every night?

It is so difficult, more difficult than I thought it would be. My mom is onstage with me when I walk out there. I take her hand and I put her in that little opera chair next to me and we are together. Saying goodbye to her every night is hard.