Obama Responds to Petitions Calling for Stricter Gun Control: VIDEO

Preseident Obama posted a video to YouTube today regarding the White House "We the People" petition calling for stricter gun control laws, telling petitioners, "We hear you."

Watch, AFTER THE JUMP...

In related news, the White House website held a moment of silence today for victims of the Newtown shooting by going blank.

John Kerry to be Named as Secretary of State Nominee Today

The widely expected nomination of Senator John Kerry for Secretary of State is happening this afternoon, the NYT reports:

President Obama plans to nominate Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts as secretary of state, a senior administration official said, succeeding Hillary Rodham Clinton and putting in place the first member of his second-term national security team...

...The decision by Mr. Obama, expected to be announced early Friday afternoon, comes at a time when Mrs. Clinton has been recovering from a concussion suffered earlier this month. Mrs. Clinton, who has long said she would leave the post after Mr. Obama’s first term, is not expected to attend the announcement.

Amy Herzog’s ‘The Great God Pan’ Opens Off-Broadway: REVIEW

BY NAVEEN KUMAR

The latest in Playwrights Horizons’ solid line-up of new plays this season, Amy Herzog’s drama The Great God Pan opened on Tuesday with its sights set on an ambitious array of hot-button issues.

Primarily an exploration in memory and childhood trauma (namely sexual abuse), the play also touches upon broader issues of mental health, eating disorder, and reproductive rights—with  honorable mentions going out to healthcare reform, wartime injustice, and the admirable struggles of small-business owning.

Set in a gentrified Brooklyn neighborhood and liberal New Jersey college town, from its outset Herzog’s drama plays on the tension of revealing a dark underbelly of sexual deviation from underneath a façade of polished well-to-do American life. The whole company delivers grounded and honest performances from a script that sometimes bites off more than can be meaningfully explored and digested in under ninety minutes.

In its opening scene, two very different thirty-something men face each other across a table. Keith Nobbs (Lombardi, Dog Sees God…) is Frank, piercings and tattoos peeking out from underneath his tailored punk clothing. As Jamie, Jeremy Strong (The Coward, Our House) is clean-cut, affluent and buttoned up. Frank is gay and a confessed victim of sexual abuse, reaching out to childhood friends who might be able to help build a case against his father.

The story unfolds as Jamie tries to remember whether he too may have been molested, and grapples with the potential consequences of uncovering unwanted truths. Mounting pressure to start a family with his longtime girlfriend Paige (Sarah Goldberg), a dancer turned nutritionist, further sharpens the play's focus on Jamie’s psycho-sexual disposition. Strong’s performance as a man suddenly afloat and unanchored in his own mind is both tireless and aptly cerebral.

Stage favorites Becky Ann Baker (Good People, All My Sons) and Peter Friedman (Uncle Vanya, Ragtime) play Jamie’s liberal-darling parents, confronted with the painful possibility of having overlooked their worst nightmare. Only Jamie and Frank’s babysitter Polly (an endearing Joyce Van Patten) is spared the same dilemma, as her faculty for memory fades with age and dementia.

Director Carolyn Cantor’s production takes a conceptual approach to the material, with mostly two-character scenes staged around Mark Wendland’s shape-shifting Rubik’s Cube set printed to resemble  a northeastern forest, though perhaps meant to suggest amorphous vestiges of lost memory. The set, though accommodating and dynamic, restricts the play’s action to a narrow front portion of the stage in an already intimate space.

Packing this much into a brief drama requires a kind of short-hand that can sometimes lead to characters that resonate like stereotypes. Though Herzog’s play doesn’t always appear exempt from this danger, a remarkable cast of performers prevents the possibility. 

(photos: joan marcus)

You can follow Naveen Kumar on Twitter @Mr_NaveenKumar.

Eric Cantor's 'Plan B' Walk of Shame: VIDEO

As one YouTube commenter notes: "Six 'no's' in 19 seconds. They really are The Party of No."

Enjoy.

Watch, AFTER THE JUMP...

Ben Affleck Responds to Rumors He'll Run for the Senate: VIDEO

His words say 'no' but his chuckle says 'yeah, I'm totally thinking about it.'

Watch (from an interview to air this Sunday), AFTER THE JUMP...

Michelle Obama Writes Open Letter to Newtown, Connecticut

Michelle Obama has published an open letter in the Hartford Courant responding to the tragedy in Newtown.

Says the First Lady, in part:

As a mother of two young daughters, my heart aches for you and your families. Like so many Americans, I wish there were something — anything — I could do or say to ease your anguish.

But I know that I cannot begin to imagine the depths of your grief. I know that for many of you, the pain you are enduring right now seems unbearable; and many of you may be asking yourselves, how can we go on — as families and as a community?

But I also know that we have already begun to see the answer to that question in the countless acts of courage, kindness and love here in Newtown and across America.

Over the past week, I have been awed and inspired by Newtown's heroes: the first responders who risked their lives at a moment's notice; the educators whose devotion to their students shone brightest in one of our nation's darkest hours; the children who comforted each other despite their fear; the families coming together to support each other as they grieve.

And I am so proud of the outpouring of love and support that has come from every corner of America: from first responders from neighboring cities rushing to help however they could; from people in Cleveland and Charlotte and Juneau and so many other communities joining together to honor Newtown with their thoughts and prayers; and in living rooms and houses of worship and the halls of our government, where we are beginning to have those difficult conversations about how we can build a safer, more peaceful tomorrow for all our children.

Read the full letter HERE.