![LOVER BOΥ](https://cdn.magzter.com/1422886351/1690786281/articles/Le3BZp0ej1690796579429/LOVER-BO.jpg)
“Orpheus Descending,” a great big louche mess of a play by Tennessee Williams, from 1957—revived at Theatre for a New Audience’s Polonsky Shakespeare Center, directed by Erica Schmidt—kicks into gear when a good-looking kid called Valentine Xavier (Pico Alexander) slinks into the Torrance Mercantile Store, in a small town in Mississippi. I say “called,” not “named,” because he seems like the type of guy who’s had to shed his given name like a skin, and maybe a handful of others after that, continually improvising. Self-created and just turned thirty, he’s decked out in a snakeskin jacket, carrying a much loved acoustic guitar.
Val’s an odd guy, shrouded in put-on mystery and spouting high-flown, lyrical talk.
In search of a job, he produces a reference letter that’s off-puttingly candid: his former employer at an auto-repair shop says that he is “a peculiar talker and that is the reason I got to let him go.” As for himself, Val offers, “Well, they say that a woman can burn a man down. But I can burn down a woman.”
Denne historien er fra August 07, 2023-utgaven av The New Yorker.
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Denne historien er fra August 07, 2023-utgaven av The New Yorker.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
![AFFINITY COMEDY](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1818953/rhePbzrBE1725346676714/AFFINITY-COMEDY.jpg)
AFFINITY COMEDY
The state of the Netflix standup special.
![DUTY DANCING](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1818953/mBHv-s86k1725346189651/DUTY-DANCING.jpg)
DUTY DANCING
How Seamus Heaney wrote his way through a war.
![DESPERATELY SEEKING](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1818953/VFJUuon9W1725345753179/DESPERATELY-SEEKING.jpg)
DESPERATELY SEEKING
The supreme contradictions of Simone Weil.
![WILD THING](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1818953/OOQtLvwec1725345236474/WILD-THING.jpg)
WILD THING
MJ Lenderman resists the smoothing, neutering effects of technology.
![LUCK OF THE DRAW](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1818953/eHXndt8j-1725345541630/LUCK-OF-THE-DRAW.jpg)
LUCK OF THE DRAW
Nate Silver argues that poker can help us game our uncertain world.
![GREEN SLEEVES](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1818953/qM6hp79mg1725344749314/GREEN-SLEEVES.jpg)
GREEN SLEEVES
“What I want to know,” the woman said to the therapist, “is why the voices always say mean, terrible things.
![DRUG OF CHOICE](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1818953/4g3NsKO7n1725344270057/DRUG-OF-CHOICE.jpg)
DRUG OF CHOICE
AI. is transforming the way medicines are made.
![EVERY OBITUARY'S FIRST PARAGRAPH](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1818953/Z3M8k9OIE1725342212053/EVERY-OBITUARYS-FIRST-PARAGRAPH.jpg)
EVERY OBITUARY'S FIRST PARAGRAPH
Alfred T. Alfred, whose invention of the plastic fastener that affixes tags to clothing upended the tag industry and made him one of America’s youngest multimillionaires—until he lost his plastic fastener fortune in a 1993 game of badminton, as depicted in the Lifetime original movie “Bad Minton”— died on Saturday. He was eighty-one.
![BE HER GUEST](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1818953/syEVBIwza1725343487772/BE-HER-GUEST.jpg)
BE HER GUEST
The plush ambience of Ina Garten's good fortune.
![SPREADING THE WEALTH](https://reseuro.magzter.com/100x125/articles/8859/1818953/-lFB2aFbG1725341701778/SPREADING-THE-WEALTH.jpg)
SPREADING THE WEALTH
Why a young heiress asked fifty strangers to redistribute her fortune.