Luaine Lee | Tribune News Service

PBS will strike a blow to the idea that America is hopelessly divided when it presents its annual National Memorial Day Concert on Sunday.

The 90-minute show, which starts 8 p.m. (ET), features an abundance of top stars honoring those who have sacrificed their lives for their country.

Reporting for duty will be “Breaking Bad” star Bryan Cranston; two-time Oscar nominee Cynthia Erivo; country music stars Gary LeVox and Jamey Johnson; actors Jena Malone, BD Wong, Mary McCormack of “West Wing”; and Patina Miller, as well as the National Symphony Orchestra.

Unabashed patriots Joe Mantegna and Gary Sinise will return as co-hosts of the special, which is broadcast from the nation’s capital.

This marks Mantegna’s 20th year as host of the event and the concert’s 35th anniversary. The star of “Criminal Minds: Evolution,” which returns to Paramount+ June 6, says it was the late actor Charles Durning who first approached him to emcee the special.

“I was like anybody else I just thought of Memorial Day weekend as a three-day weekend,” says Mantegna. “Well, all I can say is that weekend changed my life because it just brought into focus how important that holiday is.

“On Sunday, the night of that performance, when I walked on that stage, there were 300,000 people watching — so you’re talking Woodstock. In front of you is all this mass of humanity and the Capitol building with flags flying. The next thing are these huge movie screens and they’re showing films from 9/11. Behind me, the Washington Philharmonic is playing Mozart’s requiem. And I have to – for about 10 minutes – read the words of four New York firemen who lost their sons in the World Trade Center,” he recalls.

“And they’re sitting in the front row. Next to them is Colin Powell and the Joint Chiefs of Staff and hundreds of thousands of people. And I’ve been an actor for over 40 years, but I’d never done anything like that. It took all I had to get through it because I realized this is not an acting job. This is not a fictional story I’m talking about on these screens, these planes are flying into the buildings and people died. So when I got through it, I walked off the stage. I literally was weak in the knees. I had to sit down. I thought anything that can move me that much, there’s something to this. And getting to know some of those firemen. To this day I’m in contact with some of them. It made me realize this is an important thing.”

Though he never served himself, many members of Mantegna’s family were part of the armed forces. “I have a lot of military in my family but luckily they all came back,” he says. “So I never had that thing of going to the cemetery to lay a wreath over Uncle Willie. There actually is an Uncle Willie who was a World War II vet. And his three brothers, plus my wife’s father, plus my dad’s father. The only reason my dad wasn’t there was he was in the hospital during the entire war with tuberculosis.

“So I had a lot of military in my family. But I got lucky. Then I realized the ones who weren’t so lucky. It all came into focus. So at the end of the day, I realized I’d do this again if they want me to. Of course, they asked me back the next year and I did that. And Ossie Davis was the host that year and he was wonderful, just an incredible human being. He passed before the third year,” recalls Mantegna.

“When Ossie passed, they asked me if I’d host. I was flattered. This was a monumental job. So I did it. I asked my friend Gary Sinise if he’d like to come in with his band and perform. I knew Gary would react exactly the same way I did. And he did. He was so blown away by the whole weekend. He said, ‘I’ll do this as long as you want me to.’”

PBS will present its 35th annual National Memorial Day Concert on Sunday at 8 p.m. (ET). The event will feature Bryan Cranston, Jena Malone, BD Wong, Mary McCormack and Jamey Johnson in the salute to those who have given their lives for this country. (Handout/PBS/TNS)

Among the specials will be Bryan Cranston’s tribute to those who performed in the field and at home during World War II’s raging battles both in the Pacific and in Europe.

Jena Malone will honor the generation that served in Iraq and Afghanistan and returned with crippling injuries. One of those is Marine Corps veteran and amputee Kirstie Ennis, who inspires others with her spirit and optimism in encouraging veterans to seek help when they need it.

BD Wong will commemorate the Gold Star families – those who’ve lost loved ones in service. Featured is Vietnam veteran Allen Hoe, whose two sons served in the military, one of whom was killed in Iraq.

A fan favorite is the Salute to Services introducing the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Service Color teams. Also participating are the musical members from The U.S. Army Herald Trumpets, The U.S. Army Chorus, The Soldiers’ Chorus of the U.S. Army Field Band, The U.S. Navy Band Sea Chanters, The U.S. Air Force Singing Sergeants, and the Armed Forces Color Guard provided by the Military District of Washington, D.C.

The concert will also be streaming on http://www.pbs.org/national-memorial-day-concert and on YouTube and available as Video on Demand, Sunday to June 9.

Irish actress costars in ‘IF”

The partially animated movie “IF” opened in theaters Friday. It’s the work of John Krasinski (who would have thought the laid-back Jim from “The Office” would turn into a film tycoon?). The show is about a girl who can see people’s imaginary friends.

Among the glittering cast is the Irish actress Fiona Shaw, who plays Grandmother. Shaw, so memorable in “Killing Eve,” is one of those actresses they hire for everything because she can literally play everything.

She tells me that she thinks that her Irish people are great storytellers and inveterate liars. “I’ve had a fair amount of stories told to me when you’re expecting to be paid or a contract to be done or a promise to be kept. ‘Oh, yes, well the thing was, the dog ran off with it.’ Is it (this ability) something to do with the fact that if you take everything away from people it’ll heighten what they have got? And the Irish were not allowed wealth and weren’t allowed opportunity or language, to speak their own language, and they weren’t allowed religion. But of course, nobody could stop them talking,” she smiles.

“They’re not a sober race. There’s something about the English tradition of argument that of course became diplomacy and gave the English great strength,” she says.

So you have lines like ‘To be or not to be, that is the question,’ and you go on discussing that … line. The Irish would never write or speak like that. They’d say, ‘To be or not to be, one way or the other.’ They’ll invert something and stop it before it has meaning. But in doing that, they make a sort of mini- bomb, an explosion of wit. Whereas the English will genuinely try and structure their thought. The English are descended from the Romans, and it’s dialectic. The Irish are full of confusions but not thesis and antithesis; they’re full of opposites. They love nonsense. Except for ‘Alice in Wonderland,’ the English are otherwise a very reasonable race.”

Trio packs up for ‘Summer Camp’

That tectonic trio Kathy Bates, Diane Keaton and Alfre Woodard costar in the effervescent seasonal romp “Summer Camp,” opening in theaters May 31. Three friends who have not seen each other since childhood reunite at a summer camp to watch the sparks fly.

Bates, who will be filling the size 10s of the old “Matlock” detective series this fall on CBS, says, “I was born late to my mom and dad. And when I wanted to go off to New York and be in the theater, I think it was tough for them at first, but they gave me the money to go and were really supportive of it afterward. After I did my first play, they said, ‘Are you ready to come home now? Haven’t you gotten it out of your system?’ ‘No, I’m just getting going.’ But I think they were very pleased.”

She says she had trouble establishing herself as an actress. “I was discouraged the first few years in New York because it’s tough getting known, and it’s tough finding ways to practice your craft. And I wasn’t sure what being an actor did for society. It took me a while to realized that one could make a contribution through theater and film.”

Bates certainly has made a contribution through her memorable roles in “Misery,” “Primary Colors” and “Titanic.”

From Aaron Burr to pastor in ‘Purlie’

Leslie Odom Jr. heads the cast of Ossie Davis’ play “Purlie Victorious,” being resurrected by PBS for television on “Great Performances” Friday. The show is about a pastor who’s determined to win back his church from a plantation owner. “This is a play that hadn’t been done commercially for 62 years, a comedy,” says Odem.

“We invited people into the room, small audiences … into our rehearsal process to really get that feedback,” says the star who played Aaron Burr in “Hamilton.”

“We didn’t want to be surprised by New York audiences. And I had had that experience with ‘Hamilton.’ By the time we made it (“Hamilton”) to Broadway, I had done hundreds of performances off-Broadway and in development.

“And so we brought that to this (project). And we had small performances, so we knew that this writing — really at the end of day, it is about the writing. We knew that the writing still crackled, the writing still surprised, it still sang. … I could feel it, I could feel it every night,” he says.

“I could feel it from those early performances. My training has taught me how to feel that thing. And this play, this Ossie Davis American classic, this gem of the American theater still worked, and it worked well.”

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(Luaine Lee is a California-based correspondent who covers entertainment for Tribune News Service.)

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