Naomi Fry: Okay guys, we are gonna play one of our favorite games today. Vinson Cunningham: Oh man. Naomi Fry: The game is diva or non diva. Vinson Cunningham: We play it all the time. Naomi Fry: We play it all the time. My friends, Vinson and Michael, are we ready? Michael Schulman: I'm so ready. Naomi Fry: Okay. Susan Sontag. Michael Schulman: Ooh, diva. Diva. Naomi Fry: Okay. Norman Mailer. Um, Vinson Cunningham: he, it's not, it's too dark. Right? It's too dark. Right. Okay. So, no. Yeah. Naomi Fry: She's just an Michael Schulman: asshole. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah, Naomi Fry: right. Okay. Not a diva, but merely an asshole. Okay. Uh, how about Eustace Tilly, the New Yorker's very own Eustace Tilly? Vinson Cunningham: I think Tilly is a more of a dandy. Michael Schulman: A bit of a dandy Vinson Cunningham: than a diva. Michael Schulman: Yeah. He's too self-contained. I haven't seen any, any drama from him. Okay. He keeps it tight. You know, Vinson Cunningham: there's no gossip about Eustace. Naomi Fry: Um, Elon Musk Michael Schulman: again, asshole. More than diva. Naomi Fry: Interesting, interesting. Vinson Cunningham: He doesn't seem, part of what it means to be a diva is that you at least are having fun, and I don't think that Elon Musk is having fun. Naomi Fry: Interesting. Mm-hmm. Except perhaps when he is deep in a K hole, reportedly as That's right. He has been reportedly, um, Whitney Houston? Michael Schulman: Diva Vinson Cunningham: Diva Naomi Fry: Diva. How about a hungry toddler? Good enough for you Vinson. Vinson Cunningham: A hungry toddler is a diva because it has the transcendent talent of cuteness that that keeps you coming back despite their actions. Naomi Fry: okay. Very good. Vinson Cunningham: What do you think, Michael, Michael Schulman: Is this toddler serving? You know, is this toddler mother? I don't know this toddler. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah, the toddler is mother is Naomi Fry: toddler. Is the toddler mother. Are you mother, Vinson Cunningham: would you let this toddler step on your neck? Et cetera. This is Critics at Large, a podcast from The New Yorker. I'm Vinson Cunningham. Naomi Fry: And I'm Naomi Fry. Each week on this show, we make sense of what's happening in the culture right now and how we got here. And this week we are missing our wonderful co-host Alex Schwartz. She is on vacation. What an absolute diva. However, we are joined by our very first guest critic. Drum roll, please. It's Michael Schulman. Woo. Welcome to Critics at Large. Michael. Hi guys. Hi. How are you doing? I'm good. Michael Schulman: I am hot. Naomi Fry: It's sweltering on the East coast, my friends. Michael Schulman: It's sweltering. Naomi Fry: So Michael Schulman, our wonderful colleague. Uh, he is a critic, he is a reporter. He is known for his absolutely fascinating, funny scintillating profiles of show business figures. You might remember his, uh, wonderful profile of Succession’s Jeremy Strong. Only a couple years ago, he has also written two books. He's written, uh, Her Again about Meryl Streep. His second book was Oscar Wars, A History of the Oscars, um, that came out in 2023. He has most recently been in the news, let's say, for his profile of Broadway Diva or Non Diva. Patti LuPone, and, uh, I can think of no one more. Perfect. To talk to us today about the topic, which you might guess, uh, we are going to discuss, which is Divas. Divas. Why divas? How divas now? Michael Schulman: So thrilled to be here. So ready to talk divas with you guys. Vinson Cunningham: Oh my God, Michael, by the way, listeners, if you've not heard our episode about the politics of the Oscar race from a couple of months back, Michael was. Our guest on that show. Naomi Fry: Exactly. So maybe we're gonna be talking obviously more at length about your most recent profile of Patti LuPone, but maybe just a teaser for our listeners, like something that didn't make it into the piece but stayed seared in your memory. Maybe a favorite detail about spending time with Patti that might kind of clarify to us or character. Michael Schulman: Oh gosh. I mean, I put absolutely all the best stuff in the piece. Um, but I mean the, the sort of, the moment to me that I is sort of frozen in time in my mind 'cause it's when I knew, oh my gosh, this profile is. Is is cooking is when she brought me to the Rangers game. Mm-hmm. She called me up, she said, what are you doing tomorrow? I got us tickets for the New York Rangers versus the Toronto Maple Leaf. Puck drop is at seven o'clock. Um, so we're sitting in Madison Square Garden, terrifying. And these amazing VIP seats and she starts screaming at the players. Take it off boys. I wanna see naked hockey. Naomi Fry: No Michael Schulman: full frontal. Full Naomi Fry: frontal was my not full frontal, full might been my favorite part. I'm sitting next Michael Schulman: to Patti LuPone thinking finally I get the appeal of team sports that has eluded me my entire life. You just have to show up with a Broadway diva and have her scream things at the players. Naomi Fry: Oh my God. We can all learn from that. There's so much to learn. Um, but you know, I mean, one of the things this anecdote brings to the fore is how blunt Patti LuPone is. Right. And how like her bravado kind of is, is just like absolutely. Stunning. And in this profile, Michael, she is. Very honest. Like she really, the, the term no filter might have been invented for this woman. And some of the comments she made to you in the profile sparked a pretty intense backlash. Right? Um, and so I. We're here today to talk about Patti LuPone, but also the figure of the kind of divisive, blunt, outspoken diva more broadly, and we're gonna trace the term from the opera to the internet and try to figure out where diva's. Fit if they do it all into the current cultural landscape. And so as we embark on this very timely exploration, um, the question I have for all of us is what are we looking for in our divas today? So that's today on critics at Large, the Diva at a Crossroads. ________________ Okay, so let's start with Patti LuPone, the woman, the legend. Um, Vinson, I mean, obviously we all read the profile. Yeah. When it came out. Um, what was your favorite detail in a piece that is replete. Absolutely teeming, Vinson Cunningham: teeming with details, Naomi Fry: with juicy detail. Vinson Cunningham: First of all, reading this piece is not unlike talking to Michael Schulman, in which, in that no sentence, no phrase is wasted. everything has its right place. It's just a cannon ball, a machine gun of details, funny things. So I, I mean, it just like, if you want to know what it's like to hang out with Michael, just let this piece speak to you, right. Um, the, thanks Michael Schulman: Vinson. That's so nice. Vinson Cunningham: I mean, we already talked about my actual favorite detail, uh, which is the hockey stuff. As a sports fan, I just, there's nothing more glamorous than going, um, to a big sporting event and making a scene. But my next favorite thing, uh, was something that I wanna talk about more later, but it's. Patti LuPone’s love for sherry throughout the profile. This is one of the, oh, at the sherry, the big thematic aspects of the profile. She's looking for sherry, it's her favorite, uh, sort of refreshment. and she can't find it anywhere in New York. It's one of these classic things of like the diva being a person out of time. She's asking for Sherry at the restaurant. She's asking for Sherry at Madison Square Garden. She can't get it until Michael Schulman himself shows up to her house in the last scene of the piece bearing as he says, a bottle of Sherry for her, um, Michael Schulman: which was expensed to the New Yorker. By the way, Vinson Cunningham: did the New Yorker pay for Patti LuPone Sherry? Michael Schulman: It sure did. Vinson Cunningham: That's so good. Wow. Michael, before we even, you know, get into the meat of this great profile, I love if you could just set up a bit about who Patti LuPone is and, uh, how she fulfills some of these diva qualifications that we're gonna get into. Michael Schulman: Well, Patti is one of the, uh, greatest living Broadway. Musical performers. She's famous for her belt, her big belt th”at could, you know, reaches the rafters and blows the roof off. And she's, she's famous for playing these sort of iron women, uh, characters in Broadway history. Like Ava Perone in Evita, which made her overnight famous in 1979, and she won her first Tony Award for the part CLIP: Don’t Cry for Me Argentina all the way through. Uh, mama Rose in Gypsy. Uh. Which the sort of mother of all stage mothers, uh, for which she won her second Tony in 2008. CLIP: Rose’s Turn Um, she has an incredible, uh, voice, but also just this life force on stage that makes her extremely compelling to watch as well as a, a sort of reputation for being tempestuous and demanding and picking fights with people and, uh, being just incredibly. Uh, blunt and no holds barred in her opinions on everything from the traffic in Times Square to, uh, you know, Madonna playing the role of Evita in the movie she called Madonna. A movie killer. You know, that's the kind of stuff that she will say in public. Naomi Fry: It's interesting how she kind of holds on to this image of struggle, even though, you know, she's obviously has had great success and this leads us to kind of the. Controversy that has emerged from your article. Michael, where towards the end in a kind of kicker. Um, you quote LuPone saying a couple of pretty controversial things. Vinson Cunningham: Does Michael maybe wanna, Naomi Fry: Michael, do you want set the, do you wanna tell us, set the scene Vinson Cunningham: for us? Do Naomi Fry: you wanna tell us what happened with the Hell's Kitchen controversy? Michael Schulman: Right. So, okay. So last fall, uh, Patti and Mia Farrow, were doing this two woman play. The roommate at one theater, that theater shared their its backstage wall with another theater, which is where Hell's Kitchen, the Alicia Keys musical was playing, uh, and is still playing. And the problem was that, uh, some of the sound from Hell's Kitchen would bleed into the roommate theater. Which, uh, the actors could hear, and Patti said the audience could hear it as well. Um, so she, uh, tried to get the, uh, house management to do something about it. It wasn't, it wasn't getting fixed. So, uh, her stage manager's suggestion, she, uh, went to the head of the Schubert organization, which owns the theaters and. He did something about it. The problem was solved at Hell's Kitchen. Patti sent a bouquet and a thank you note to the crew at Hell's Kitchen. Um, and it seemed to be all resolved. But then Kecia Lewis, uh, an actress who's in Hell's Kitchen and one of Tony for her role took to Instagram and made a video addressed directly to Patti from one veteran to another. Uh, saying that this had been, uh, racially microaggressive and bullying because she had labeled a black show loud. Now, at the time, Patti didn't respond at all, um, which was probably a wise choice, but then I asked her about it when we were at her apartment and she kind of went off on Kecia Lewis, so Right, the setup as, Vinson Cunningham: as all that was happening. And you know, she's going on, you've given her her sherry, she's like now in full grievance mode. Because I mean, this is like Good Morning America. Huge. At this point. Did you know as you were being told these things, wow, that I cannot believe we're here now. Michael Schulman: I think the thing that made me feel, oh, this is going to be big like a story, is when she brought Audra McDonald into it. 'cause Audra obviously a multi multi Tony award-winning Broadway star. She's won more Tony's than any other performer. Right. So she had, uh, given some emojis supporting Kecia Lewis' video at the time. Uh, some, some clappy emojis and some, hearts. I believe when I asked Patti about this, um, she said, yeah, and I thought she should know better. That's typical of Audra. She's not a friend. Did she do her like that? And then I asked her about if she had seen Audra. As Rose in Gypsy currently a, a role that of course Patti played and won a Tony for herself. She, I swear this really happened. Patti stared at me a cold stare for 15 seconds and then turned her head toward her window, looked at Central Park and said, what a beautiful day. Naomi Fry: Oh my God, Michael Schulman: this absolute shade. Um, and that is the moment where I thought, okay. Yeah. What's happening in your mind? Yeah, this is something, I mean, uh, for people, certainly people who follow Broadway and know these two kind of living legends, the idea that they are somehow on the outs and Patti did allude to a kind of longstanding falling out that they've had, they used to perform. All the time together in like the two thousands. They were in a bunch of shows, concerts. So the idea that they have, there's been a rift between them mm-hmm. Was instantly to my ears, like. Kind of a, a scoop, you know. Um, what's interesting is that she had spent the entire time that we were together kind of shit, talking left and right. I mean, she, she called Kevin Kline, her, her boyfriend in their Julliard days, a Lothario. She called Glenn Close a bitch. And to me it was just, it was an unusual target almost. Mm-hmm. Um, because one thing about Audra McDonald is that throughout her career. Of three decades on Broadway, she has held herself as a, a, a sort of unimpeachable person. Vinson Cunningham: Like class is the word often used. She's so classy. Which is like an absolutely opposite from the, the, the diva thing, right? Naomi Fry: Right. Taking the high road. Michael Schulman: Always, always. Vinson Cunningham: What did you make of. The reaction we saw, uh, Gayle King asking Audra McDonald about this, uh, very publicly in the media, and It ended, of course, with Patti LuPone issuing an apology. Um, well Naomi Fry: there was also an open letter, right? Yeah. Vinson Cunningham: There was an open, there was so, I mean so much sturm and drang that Naomi Fry: called to disinvite LuPone from the Tony's signed by hundreds of Broadway professionals, right? Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. So what did you make of all that? Michael Schulman: I mean, for, for me it was like a roller coaster of a week, but in a way I had, I've been there before, like, you know, Jeremy Strong that first week or or two. It came out and I knew that. Uh, you know, the, the Patti Audra stuff would make news sort of in the Broadway realm, but what I didn't see happening was, uh, that it would become such a cause, you know, and obviously a lot of black theater fans and, and people in the Broadway community were quite offended by it. Um, and how Patti had talked about these two specifically black veteran performers by. Diminishing them, diminishing their, their achievements. Um, I think there was also a kind of backlash to that backlash in certain quarters. People who went back and said, well, you know, she had every right to complain about the noise. Naomi Fry: Mm-hmm. Um. Michael Schulman: You know, people were, had all sorts of reactions. Naomi Fry: I think one thing I'm really curious about too, and that we can talk about a little bit more in a bit is how much of these divas so-called comes from their talent and how much from their bad behavior or sort of outspokenness, what do you think, Michael? Michael Schulman: In a way they go hand in hand. Yeah. Like there, there are, you know, they have to be talented. You can't be a talentless diva. Mm-hmm. You know, you have to have Yeah. Some kind of other worldly mm-hmm. Gift that you bring. Usually it's singing. Mm-hmm. Um, and Patti certainly has this, she has these, as she puts it, lungs of, steel. Naomi Fry: Mm-hmm. Michael Schulman: That are, have not quit, you know, she's 76 and she can still blow the roof off the joint. Naomi Fry: Yeah. Michael Schulman: When she belts. Um, I think the bad behavior, or at least a kind of personal. Messiness. Mm-hmm. Is I think part of the diva persona. Naomi Fry: Mm-hmm. Michael Schulman: Patti's version of it is a kind of rage that I think very much informs a lot of her performances. Mm-hmm. I mean, if you saw her, her rose and gypsy, you know, this is a woman who is just coming at you like a bullet train and she's not gonna stop. But I also think there's an element of vulnerability to the diva. You know, often we see people who like. Unlucky in love the way, you know, Judy Garland, uh, was, or Liza Minnelli, or people who sort of had tragic ends like, you know, Whitney Houston. Sure. Um, I don't think Patti has come to a tragic end. She's, you know, in a way she's sort of had this incredible third act in her career ever since Gypsy, she's been like, you know. On girls and then just like that. Mm-hmm. You know, a an Ari Aster movie and she's got this kind of, uh, later in life cool factor. Naomi Fry: Yeah, Michael Schulman: but certainly her feuds and her ranting and outspokenness has been part of her legend and part of what people love about her. I mean, if you saw her in the recent, uh, company revival, that image of her sort of sitting with a vodka stinger and kind of making catty remarks about everyone she sees in the form of Sondheim's song, the Ladies Who Lunch. Yeah. That part arose from Elaine Stretch's actual personality and Patti's very much the inheritor of that. Naomi Fry: In a minute, we attempt a definitive taxonomy of Divahood. This is critics of Large from the New Yorker. Don't go away. :: MIDROLL 1 :: So we've been talking about Patti LuPone, and you know, Patti LuPone is a particularly fascinating character in and of herself, but. I think it can really provide us, uh, a window into the broader issue of the diva, the Broadway diva, but just the diva in culture in general. And so I want us to attempt to figure out together what exactly makes a diva. So maybe just to start with here, can we go back to the origin of the word, which is, of course it comes from the opera. Um. Can one of you maybe, Vinson, can you tell us a little bit about the Opera Diva? Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. I think the, the, the original idea, and you can hear it in the etymology of the word diva, divine, someone who is bestowed usually in the operatic context, a soprano who can sing incredibly high notes and sustain them for long times. Someone who is bestowed with an other worldly gift who is like a channel. Between the audience and the divine, someone who represents the extremities. Of human capacity, somebody who can do something crucially that you cannot and almost cannot even imagine yourself doing someone who's like, not just the best singer, but someone who can sort of stretch the possibilities of what you think singing. Even is. Naomi Fry: Right. Right. And, and of course, I think one of the first names, if not the first name that comes to mind when we talk about the Opera Diva or the, the singer Diva is Maria Callas, right? Yeah. The famous legendary mid-century opera singer. CLIP: Maria Callas Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. And so there's so many things about, um, Callas that I think are interesting. Number one. Fulfills this criterion of being an incredible deliverer of songs. Someone who, um, inspired this is the maybe the second criterion inspired, incredible fandom. People waiting, you know, on street corners, around blocks, waiting as to get in not only to hear her sing, but to kind of touch the hem of her garment. She was also kind of larger than life. Both physically and in the actual contours of her life. This is someone who, Naomi Fry: are you calling her fat? No, I'm, I'm kidding. Vinson Cunningham: She, she, she, she famously was, yeah. And, um, her attempts to lose weight were, part of the narratives would be in the tabloids. Of course, there are people who said, oh, she lost weight and therefore she lost some of the, you know, vibrance of her voice or whatever. Yeah. But it goes to the sherry with Patti LuPone to me, because the diva is someone who is. Like a sensualist someone. Absolutely. Someone who loves the world and loves to eat and loves to have sex. She had a very famous affair with Aristotle Onassis, uh, did Maria Callas. Yeah. So the someone who takes in life and is. A vessel not only for artistic joy, but like just for fun, who is kind of speeding through the world at a breakneck pace. Naomi Fry: That's so true. Um, Maria Vinson Cunningham: Callas is like, is, is fulfills all of that for me when we talk diva. Naomi Fry: Totally. I mean the, the kind of, the risk taking behavior that comes from a love of Sensualism. Uh, uh, I mean, I'm thinking about like Liz Taylor. For instance, you know, married eight times that Right. Loses and gains weight like 17,000 times over the course of her lifetime. You know, pills and drink and food and, and all of that. And of course, incandescent talent. Um, that's right. Yeah. Michael, what is your, when you think about Callas, I mean, do you think, was she our first diva as you consider it? Michael Schulman: Well, I feel like if Alex were here, and since I'm her stand-in I'll say she'd probably want us to go back to antiquity in these figures, like Naomi Fry: absolutely, you know, Michael Schulman: Cleopatra and Hera and like absolutely even, you know, in Homer, like, oh, goddess Sing of the Rage of Achilles or whatever. And you know, Medea and you know, Greek tragedy creates these larger than life. Female characters like Medea in a way that I think a 19th century opera or turn of this and turn of the century opera, you know, famously, like Tosca, for instance mm-hmm. Is herself a, a, an opera singer, a larger than life, messy, tragic, uh, hyper jealous and emotional, uh, diva who is played by, you know, divas like Maria Callas. And when that happens, there's a kind of diva on diva. Energy. Naomi Fry: Mm-hmm. Michael Schulman: Um, I think with Callas, you know, of course you have to start, as Vinson said, with her talent. There's this wonderful 1995 New Yorker piece by Will Crutchfield about Callas. And there was a line I loved in every role on practically every page, there were phrases that Callas was able to trace with a calligrapher's pen where audiences had become accustomed to a carpenter's pencil. But then there was also this side of her that, um, was temperamental and she became unreliable and had to, you know, sever ties with all these opera houses because she was canceling performances. And then the, the tabloids would ding her 'cause they'd see her, you know, canceling a performance and then going out partying in Milan, or being on Ari Onassis’s yacht. there's also her appearance, you know, famously that you think of the eye makeup and this sort of like flowing black hair and her sort of like very Grecian face that just had this had like Patti LuPone’s look Naomi Fry: much like LuPone, the the prominent Roman nose. Michael Schulman: Yes, exactly. And then she had this sort of glamorous, huge, but also tragic personal life where she left her husband for Ari Onassis, this, you know, dashing jet setting, um, you know, magnate. And then he dumps her for. Jackie Kennedy of all people. Yeah. So she's kind of like Tosca. She, uh, you know, she sort of loses her her great love. Um, and her voice is also vulnerable, you know? Um, part of what this, uh, Will, Crutchfield piece goes into is how you know, she really had like. 10 good years in the fifties. And then her, her famous Soprano started to deteriorate to the point where she, it was almost a public embarrassment for her to, to sing by the, by the sixties and seventies. And she, she essentially ended her opera career. But I think that that vulnerability in her voice almost makes her more of a object of fascination and mm-hmm. Certainly like gay worship, I mean, you think about that with. Judy Garland, for instance, you know, if you listened to her famous Carnegie Hall concert from 1961, she also has these sort of, these cracks in her voice and the sense that, this amazing gift of hers is also, this instrument is also very fragile. Naomi Fry: Right, because it's, it kind of bears the wounds of a life hard lived. Right? The point being the diva is not a regular person. It's peaks and valleys with the diva. Right. Um, and you know, we've kind of been dancing around this question, but maybe we should get down to brass tacks. What do we think makes a diva and are there different types of divas? Vinson Cunningham: Yeah, I think so. What's so good about, um, Michael's Patti LuPone piece you know, her complex and, uh, vulnerable psychology. Mm-hmm. Um, the divas, somebody with a lot of backstory. Naomi Fry: Oh, I love that. Even Vinson Cunningham: before they reach the height of their diva dom and have all the money to throw at the true kind of like sybaritic pleasures or whatever. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Even before that, they have Patti LuPone, uh, talks in, in Michael's piece about. Her maternal grandfather being mysteriously murdered, perhaps with help from the grandmother. And there's, there's floorboards that help them hide whiskey because there's bootlegging going on. You know, just people who from it seems that their talent almost coincides with an early understanding of the dark side of life. Naomi Fry: Oh, I love that. Vinson Cunningham: Lupone talks about her, her childhood neighborhood as having a dark underbelly. Mm-hmm. You know, someone who, whose talent. Conveys, uh, a sort of preternatural understanding of the like. Many sidedness of life. Naomi Fry: Yeah. Vinson Cunningham: No, diva comes from a, a, a totally uncomplex happy home. Mm-hmm. Would you, would you agree with that? Naomi Fry: I think so. I think so for sure. I don't know why my mind goes to this, but it immediately goes to Lindsay Lohan. Oh boy. Oh, fair enough. You know, a preternaturally talented child actor also from Long Island. Mm-hmm. Also a complicated family life. Michael Schulman: And by the way, she played Elizabeth Taylor in Liz and Dick. The TV movie. Don't forget. Naomi Fry: That's very true. Michael Schulman: Another diva playing a diva. Naomi Fry:Another diva on Diva. Michael Schulman: It's a triple diva. 'cause I think in that movie, uh, Liz Taylor is. Playing Cleopatra in Naomi Fry: Cleopatra? Yes. Because it's, it's about her and Burton. Yeah. Wow. Um, Vinson Cunningham: Matruyoshka Doll of Divadom. Naomi Fry: Yes! And then there is also the kind of back and forth with the media, with the press mm-hmm. With the fans where the complicated story that the Diva brings with her from her past and kind of. Potentially makes her act out, uh mm-hmm. In her life and in her art for better or worse. Yeah. Then gets kind of like recycled into, press furors, let's say, like these kind of like reactions, public reactions, yeah. To these occurrences, these events in the diva's life, and which then in turn of course influences the diva. Herself. Right. And so it, it's this kind of like recursive cycle. Michael Schulman: It's interesting then you say that because of course Patti in the profile says, I have been punished all my life and sees herself as a kind of a, a victim. Um, yeah. But of course, in the course of the profile says stuff that got her punished once again. So she's kind of like creating drama as she is Yeah. Is complaining that she always. Right is the victim of it. Um, yeah, I mean, I think what's interesting is that from Patti's perspective, she would say that she is someone who, who is of a stature and of a certain amount of talent, which I would not question where she, um, she knows what she's worth. And the problem in her mind from her perspective is that people keep getting in the way of letting her do what she does best. You know, she had this line that she said to me, I know what I bring to a production. I know I'm box office. Don't nickel and dime me before I get on stage. Don't treat me like a piece of shit, because at this point, if you don't value me, why am I there? And I think that's a very powerful idea that, you know, if you are someone who has this incredible voice or this incredible whatever it is, if you're Elizabeth Taylor, um, you know, if you are Maria Callas, you should be treated like a queen. You should be treated like a star. Yeah. And if people aren't doing that for you and making it easy from your perspective, the problem isn't you. It's them, but also interestingly, Patti objects, we should say, to the term diva. Um, and in fact, you know, we have a clip from Morning Joe from 2010 where she really laid out what she thought a diva was and why it. Should have stayed in the opera world and doesn't apply to her. CLIP: Patti LuPone on Morning Joe Vinson Cunningham: The first thing that that clip illuminates it shows how good Michael Schulman's Patti voice is there. There's some, there's some, some deep resonances in, in Michael's commitment to that, to, to, you know, when you read from the piece, it's pretty good. But go ahead, please. Michael Schulman: Well, I just love that she's basically turning it around and saying, well, Mika Brzezinski, like, you're actually a, a highly respected, highly paid, you know, television journalist. You shouldn't be called a diva. You're, you know, you deserve. To be respected. And that also gets to the kind of misogynistic side of the term, which, you know, basically when you call someone a diva, maybe it's like a female CEO or something, you're, um, labeling behavior that if a man did it would be celebrated as, you know, risk taking or whatever, or shooting from the hip, or like working from their, from your gut. you know, there's a kind of behavior that we allow powerful men to get away with, that if it's a woman, you slap the label diva on them and suddenly it's a personal foible of theirs and they're just acting inappropriately. They're Naomi Fry: difficult. Yeah, they're difficult. Difficult. I guess one last question that I wanna ask you before we break is like. Can we say that we like divas? Is that like too simple of a question for this kind of figure? Michael Schulman: Worship is the word worship Naomi Fry: worship mother. Michael Schulman: you don't have to like them, you gotta worship them. Vinson Cunningham: Well, you mentioned this, uh, earlier when you're talking about Callas, but I think it is one of the. Key characteristics, Michael, which is like, um, not only fandom and worship, but often it has been accompanied with the idea of this is a woman who is feted specifically by gay male fans. Mm. Yeah. That this is, this is part of the architecture of. Of the diva, and maybe this has to do with a a, you know, Patti LuPone kind of diagnoses this, even while she doesn't call herself a diva, she does address the question of why gay men like her. And it's like we share a struggle. It's like someone who acts like this despite having gone through something. Maybe something structural. Michael Schulman: Happy Pride everyone. Vinson Cunningham: Happy Pride. Michael Schulman: Happy to be here. Yeah. There was a piece in The Atlantic in 2015 by Logan Scherer. About Ryan Murphy and how he uses, uh, the figures of divas in his work. Um, he had a line that I liked. The queer infatuation with Broken women isn't so much shadenfreude as it is a complicated mixture of identification and dis-identification at once, a shared struggle and a well earned condescension. The femininity that humiliates these divas is after all the same femininity. Mainstream culture often associates with gay men. I thought that was a really good way to put it. Mm-hmm. Like for me, I felt like this was pre-conscious for me. Like, here's a story. Um, when I was a little kid, I was absolutely. Obsessed with Miss Piggy. She was my first diva. That's Vinson Cunningham: such a good one. Michael Schulman: And when I was in college or so, it was working up to my parents. We were sitting at the dinner table and my mom said something like, you are so obsessed with Miss Piggy. You wanted to be Miss Piggy. And my dad said, well. Actually, he was in love with Miss Piggy and my mom goes, no, no, no, no. He, he wanted to be Miss Piggy and I Naomi Fry: Wait, have you were, were you out then, Michael? Michael Schulman: This was right before I came out to, Naomi Fry: and that is why I came out, Vinson Cunningham: lemme clear this up, Michael Schulman: but I feel like that they kind of are both right. Like I was in love with Miss Piggy and in some sense wanted to be her. She had this a larger than life. Tempestuous femininity that is so alluring. And yet, of course, you know, like many of the other people we've talked about, people and pigs, you know, she was, she had a, she has a messy love life. You know, Kermit just doesn't seem to be able to give her what, what she wants. She's constantly hungering for more fame, more stage time, and if she doesn't get what she wants, she will Hiyah! Kick you in the face. Vinson Cunningham: Wow. Miss Piggy as ur-diva for Michael Schulman is more lore than I can even stand. Naomi Fry: I know. Remember, remember her with Joan Rivers at the makeup counter at Bloomingdale's in Muppets Take Manhattan. Michael Schulman: Of course. A powder puff for you and a powder puff for me. Naomi Fry: Exactly. Ugh. So beautiful. We've worshiped our divas for centuries, but in our era of therapy-speak and careful language. Is there still a place for her? that's in a minute on critics at large. :: MIDROLL 2 :: Okay. You guys, we've been talking about the figure of the diva, and we've been talking about Michael Schulman's profile of Patti LuPone, and I want to go back for a second and read a selection from LuPone’s apology after. Uh, the profile came out and there was all of this backlash to what she said about Kecia Lewis and about Audra McDonald. And so the apology that appeared on Patti LuPone's Instagram opened with what I think are the telling words. For as long as I've worked in the theater, I've spoken my mind and never apologized. That is changing today. I'm deeply sorry for the words I used during the New Yorker interview, particularly about Kecia Lewis, which were demeaning and disrespectful, and then she says, I made a mistake. I take full responsibility for it, and I'm committed to making this right. Our entire theater community deserves better. Okay. Michael, what were your thoughts when LuPone came out with this apology? I mean, you have made Miss LuPone. Apologize. Someone who, as she says in her apology, has never apologized in her life. At least not publicly, right? Michael Schulman: Yeah. Where's my Tony Award? Naomi Fry: Right? Michael Schulman: What did I think of it? Yeah, I mean. First of all, I thought it was well done, you know? Mm-hmm. I, I have no idea if she put pen to paper herself or hired a crisis PR person or how it got written. But it certainly in that opening line kind of nodded to her reputation and I thought that helped. 'cause it made it seem authentic. And I, other than that, you know, I, it seemed like it would have to happen. That she would have to apologize. Yeah. And um, so I thought that she would. Um, right. And I hope that she would, because I, I thought it had to be resolved in, you know, for, for the world in some way. Right. Right. By her saying something. Naomi Fry: Right. But it also suggests to me a real shift, not just specifically in LuPone’s ability to apologize or not apo, you know, kind of her own, uh, personal preference for how to act, but more generally. Does this signal kind of like a change in that there's no room anymore for kind of old school diva behavior? Right? Like the ultimate diva is, is suddenly saying, oh. Okay. Like this, this is not right. You know, I divaed too hard or, or whatever, however you wanna call it. And if that is indeed the case, like is that a good thing? Like are we sorry that divas, I guess can't with impunity say whatever they want? Or is this like, as you say, for the world to move on, an apology needed to happen? Vinson Cunningham: well, it's interesting because I think maybe this question is a microcosm of a larger. I don't know, idea that the diva embodied. Mm. Which is even outside of the figure, the specific figure of the diva, I think for a long time, uh, the idea was a person of incandescent talent is necessarily. A person apart, you have to tolerate a little bit more from them because again, whatever damage that leads to or accompanies their talent, whatever, uh, neurosis that, that fuels their ambition is part of the package. They're a vulnerable instrument. Uh, they're like a little Stradivarius violin, and, and therefore you have to allow them something different. Allowances have to be made. This goes to Michael's point about. This person knowing their worth, and therefore mm-hmm. I should be treated a certain way. Naomi Fry: Mm-hmm. Um, Vinson Cunningham: so if that's the idea, maybe we now have a totally different idea of what an artist is, period. And I think that is true. Okay. That most of us, uh, maybe it's because of, our, you know. Increased access to these people through various media or whatever. Yeah. It's like, oh, I I want this person to be just that talented, but I also want to imagine that I could be their friend. Naomi Fry: The relatability factor. Vinson Cunningham: That's right. And Patti LuPone is like not trying to, part of not apologizing is like, I don't want you to imagine that you could be my friend. That's not the point of me. Um, and I think we kind of expect this, oh, I want them to be somebody that I would see around. My neighborhood or something, and then I want them to go up on stage and be otherworldly. Naomi Fry: Mm-hmm. Vinson Cunningham: Um, they don't need to be otherworldly elsewhere, although, 'cause I don't like that. Mm-hmm. Um, I, I do think that spells. A kind of change. Yeah. Michael, what's your read on Michael Schulman: that? Yeah, I mean, I would say that the, the, the divas that are real crossroads because, um, Naomi Fry: the diva at a crossroads, a special report from the New Yorker. Michael Schulman: What's gonna happen to Tosca? She should see the HR department. Yeah. And get her act in line. No. 'cause we do have the, you know, I think. Like Me Too, for instance, has given us all a higher awareness of sort of proper behavior in the workplace, even if it's a creative workplace. Mm-hmm. Right? Mm-hmm. However, I don't think we'll ever stop being drawn to larger than life characters living. Messy larger than life, personal lives. Mm-hmm. I think we do want that in a sense, although when I think of the current crop of Pop divas, many of them are much more disciplined in their public personas than the divas of the past. You know, when you think about like Beyonce and Yeah. Lady Gaga. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah, Michael Schulman: Taylor Swift. Like, you know, they, they have love lives. Naomi Fry: Is Taylor Swift a diva? That's such an interesting, see, I don't even think she is right. She isn't. She's so disciplined. I don't think she is. I think that discipline, you know what you're saying, I think is so true, Michael, the kind of like new version of these figures who are kind of like really extremely insanely talented and yet operate. As machines in some sense, right? It's like pumping out the songs, performing flawlessly. obviously Taylor Swift is incomparably successful, you know, and extremely talented, and worshiped by millions and millions of people. And yet maybe the kind of like. Discipline crosses over at some point into being like not a diva anymore, you know? Michael Schulman: Yeah. And at the same time, you have someone like, like Nicki Minaj. Mm-hmm. Who is, you know, one of the sort of pop divas who is constantly in feuds and being messy, like taking her beef to mm-hmm. Social media. And I think she's alternately worshiped and defended and also. Penalized for it, you know? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So, I don't know, like I do think there is a line that people can cross, but it's, it's constantly shifting. Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. Yeah. It does seem like, you know, Taylor Swift has maybe built her. Career and personality around this thing that I'm saying that we, that people want now, which is she's got a total idea of her art, which seems to be very much under control. And then she invites you into her life, even through her lyrics. She's inviting you into her life. I'm just a girl and like her interaction with her fans is, is on this level of, you not gonna know me, but I'll, I'll get as close to that as we can get. Me and you. Yeah. And I'll remind you like sort of as an archetype of many other people. That, you know? Mm-hmm. Whereas Beyonce, it seems like there's a form of, um, the diva that I is maybe coming more into the fore is, well, um, I'm not gonna be always in the New York Post about my, you know, various feats and the parties I throw and who I'm dating. In fact, the new coin of the realm would be like rarity. Total control. Naomi Fry: Mm. Vinson Cunningham: You never see me. You don't even know what restaurants I go to. Mm. You've never seen the faces of several of my children and I'll put out the documentary that shows me kind of, not berating, but like scolding my dancers that they're not ready, you know, when the, her Coachella documentary getting ready for that. Yeah. Big performance. It's like the divadom becomes perfectionist control, which she, she'll show you that side of herself. I want this to be perfect. I want this to be perfect. I want this to be perfect, but it will never seem. That I slipped out of control. Naomi Fry: Yeah. Vinson Cunningham: You know, Naomi Fry: I think the hunger for mess and the hunger for diva-like behavior mm-hmm. Remains, and I think we might seek it. In kind of something like the Ryan Murphy universe that we've mentioned, whether, uh, fictional figures, you know, American Horror Story or like Kim Kardashian playing some like lawyer in, in like Ryan Murphy's upcoming show about kind of like an all woman law firm. It can also be just historical characters, you know, like Michael Schulman: Bette Davison, Joan Crawford, which he made a Yes. Naomi Fry: The Feud, you know, his series about? Yeah. His feud series. Um. These figures that we can observe maybe more safely, right? kind of adaptations of a diva rather than actual, like real life diva. Another thing I'm thinking about is reality television. You know, all of these figures of larger than life, women tearing each other's hair out, you know, and living their lives out loud in public, of course, they don't have the incandescent, uh. Talents that a Callas had, but they do have the mess, right? And the fact that they are willing to put it all out for us, the viewing audience on screen at all times seems to me to maybe quell some of that hunger, possibly that we feel for kind of like diva drama. Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's. I do think of the diva as somebody who we, on some level, you know, we are, it's our attraction to that messiness, like as you say. Right? Yeah. But what we love about it is the transcendence. Mm-hmm. Our, uh, colleague and editor, David Remnick, wrote a piece about Aretha Franklin, um, a couple of years back in 2016. And it talks about all kinds of eccentricities. Like Aretha only accepts cash and she puts it in her handbag, and sometimes she takes that handbag out on stage with her because she never wants to take her eye off the money, whatever. She never, uh, flies. She only takes tour buses on and on and on and on. But, um, at the end of the piece, which I just love, a musician now passed a great musician, Billy Preston says this about Aretha. He says like, I don't care what they say about Aretha. She can be hiding out in her house in Detroit for years. She can go decades without taking a plane or flying off to Europe. She can cancel half her gigs, infuriate every producer and promoter in the country. She can sing all kinds of jive ass songs that are beneath her, on and on and on and on and on. But he says, on any given night, when that lady sits down at the piano and gets her body and soul all over some righteous song, she'll scare the shit outta you and you'll know. You'll swear that she's still the best fucking singer this fucked up country has ever produced. Naomi Fry: Ugh, what a quote, Vinson Cunningham: it's like not only is it somebody that you're like, okay, to accept the bad from, but it's somebody. Who gives you something in the form of real art that makes you willing to forgive other things. Like it has to be that. It has to be a constant relationship of nourishment from artist to audience. Michael, thank you so much for coming, man. Naomi Fry: Thank you, you were the best Michael Schulman: This has been so fun! I - can I just say, first of all, Naomi, thank you for doing such a lovely hosting job today, but I think now you should. Throw down your microphone and storm out of the studio, that's enough because you're worth it. Naomi Fry: This has been Critics at Large. This week's episode was produced by Michele O'Brien. Alex Barasch is our consulting editor. Our executive producer is Steven Valentino. Conde Nast's Head of Global Audio is Chris Bannon. Alexis Cuadrado composed our theme music and we had engineering help today from James Yost with mixing by Mike Kutchman. You can find every episode of Critics at large at Newyorker.com/critics.