The COVID-19 pandemic, politics and the pressing social issues of our deeply divided times are front and center in “Coastal Elites,” an incisive collection of darkly comic monologues premiering on Sept. 12 on HBO. Written by Paul Rudnick (“In & Out”) and directed by Jay Roach (“Bombshell,” “Game Change”), the special stars Bette Midler, Daniel Levy, Sarah Paulson, Issa Rae and Kaitlyn Dever and was shot in quarantine under social distancing guidelines.
Midler plays New York Jewish liberal Miriam Nessler, who winds up in police custody when her pent-up hatred of the president boils over in a confrontation with a Donald Trump supporter. “I identified very, very strongly with this character,” Midler said at a Zoom press conference for the show with the cast and creators. “I felt almost as if Paul had written it for me, because he knows how nuts I am on the subject of the current inhabitants of the White House. For me, it was cathartic. Unfortunately, not cathartic enough because I’m still in a state of rage and anxiety.”
Playing an actor by the name of Mark Hesterman, Levy teleconferences with his therapist about the mixed feelings he has over playing an openly gay superhero. “There was such a fine line between his experiences and my own, having walked into many a casting session being told to kind of ‘up the gay,’ if you will,” Levy said. “It was really significant for me to sort of go through that as an actor, because it was having to mine my own experiences in order to sort of bring them into his.”
In the other pieces, YouTuber Paulson interrupts her meditation podcast to express her incredulity about her family’s MAGA support and denial of COVID-19 and climate change; Rae’s well-connected character tells a friend about their boarding school classmate Ivanka Trump’s scheme to use her to bolster her credibility with Black voters; and Dever, as a young nurse, paints a devastating portrait of life and death in the COVID-19 unit.
Originally conceived as a stage play pre-pandemic, “Coastal Elites” was reworked to include both the coronavirus and the Black Lives Matter movement.
“Usually there is such a long time span between the time you write something and film it and then have it out in the world,” Rudnick said. “In this, we were always in the moment, so it was a weird sort of gift.”
Unlike Midler, who had done a monologue before in Broadway’s “I’ll Eat You Last,” Levy was new to the form, high school theater notwithstanding. “It was a huge, exciting challenge,” he said. “The monologues were so interesting and revelatory. …things that were so surprising, and funny and heartbreaking.”
Filming the actors in isolation with a skeleton crew, “forced us into a more intimate kind of connection to the actors, and more of a predicament where all the actors share their failed coping strategies as they talk about how they’re dealing with being stuck at home in a quarantine,” Roach said. “I think the audience will empathize even more than they would have if it was on stage.”
For Midler, the process “was all very strange, but it was kind of wonderful, too.
They followed every single protocol, and everybody was great. They kept their distance. They came in two days before, did everything they had to do. They left it pristine. I’m so paranoid, because I’m so old, you know? I feel like anything can happen to me; even if I go to the post box I’m in trouble. So, I really felt that I was in superb hands. Every question that I had was answered and I got a free COVID test out of it, so it was win-win all around.”
Midler, who is nominated for her ninth Emmy Award for her role as Hadassah Gold in “The Politician” (she’s won three), said she’s “very gratified for the nomination” but “can’t even wrap my head around the idea” of the virtual awards ceremony that’s planned for Sept. 20. She’ll next appear as Bella Abzug in the Gloria Steinem biopic “The Glorias,” premiering on Amazon Prime Sept. 30, and star opposite Sharon Stone in “The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife” and team up with Diane Keaton and Goldie Hawn in “Family Jewels.”
Levy has four Emmy nods, for writing, directing, producing and playing David Rose in the final season of “Schitt’s Creek.” The show is up for a total of 15 awards, including one for his father and co-star Eugene Levy. “As a showrunner, to have so many members of the team recognized was the gift,” Levy said. “That was the big thing for us. My dad is saying we might just put a tent up in our backyard in Toronto and have some people over, be six feet apart and share a toast or something.”
His next role is in the comedy “Happiest Season,” due out in November.
No sequel to “Coastal Elites” yet exists, but not because Rudnick lacks inspiration. “We are so few days away from an election and the world remains in such tumult, chaos and craziness that there will always be more to write about,” he said. “I’m terrified of what will happen next. Who knows when we’ll be able to go back to school or back to work? But I hope that, should there ever be a second [installment], we would not all be in little boxes. We’re all so used to reacting at such a great distance and with such care that it’s going to feel like a trip to Mars if you’re suddenly in the room with everybody else. It will be an adventure.”
“Coastal Elites” premieres on Sept. 12 on HBO.
