If you ask me what is the funniest show I have seen all summer, it is Don Lemon and Chris Cuomo at Purist Magazine’s Connect 4 Ideas Festival. The CNN commentators, brothers in arms, told how they got to where they are, even as Cuomo was wrapping up a week of scandal involving an Italian-American putdown turned violent. Without recounting the experience, let us just say, the media star did not shirk the subject, hit it straight on, as he and Lemon went through their bona fides through the lens of loved ones shown onstage behind them in photographs, from the bittersweet loss of Lemon’s sister Lisa to Cuomo’s dad Mario. This deft taming of the elephant in the room at Guild Hall took place in the company of family and friends, and in something unusual in the media, with the support of another kind of bond through CNN.
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Come out of the dark: Ugo Rondinone’s work at Guild Hall lifts us in radiant shots of sunlight. In the two large gallery spaces the walls are bare, lit by fluorescen fixtures. You might be mistaken to think you are in Walmart under this austere light, but the effect on the art is, well, looking in full sun, stunning. In one gallery, a series of graphic yet shimmering circles in gold and yellow are juxtaposed with Guild Hall’s regal space. In another gallery, large hoops made of twigs work as frames, and the few hung on the wall with nails suggest Christ’s crown of thorns, a beatific sight. In a third gallery, hung shingle style, are hundreds of children’s drawings of the sun, some in blazing color. Everywhere at Guild Hall, the suggestion of hope offers a glimpse of a better future. -
Back in 2002, the one and only time I attended the Cannes Film Festival, I was at dinner with D. A. Pennebaker, his wife and film partner Chris Hegedus, and my friend Roger Friedman who had made a film with the documentary team called Only the Strong Survive, an important historical exploration of R&B and soul music that was premiering at the festival. I was attending as a journalist, but Pennebaker knew I was a scholar of the beat generation literati, and as he did with every subject you
could mention, he had a story to tell.On this occasion, he recounted his having talked to Kerouac about doing a film of On the Road, that is, Kerouac asked him to do it, just as he imagined Marlon Brando starring. Penny, as he is known, was going to start the film with the character of Dean, the legendary “son of a Denver wino” stealing cars, maneuvering them around a parking lot. It was Penny who gave me a new window into the subject I thought, after having written several books on Kerouac, I knew very well: how the newly created highway system in America promoted the fantasy of fast car escapes from the restrictions of society: Huck Finn’s raft supplanted by the automobile. The film never left their machinations.
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Even before its third show of the season opened this weekend, Bay Street’s revival of the 1946 musical Annie Get Your Gun was extended. The demand was that great, for Irving Berlin’s classic songbook score, and Dorothy Fields’ clever lyrics for such standards: “There’s No Business Like Show Business,” “Doin’ What Comes Natur’lly,” and many more, in a show that on the surface is a show within shows, featuring lead characters who are competitors and who, natch, fall in love. That winning formula cannot be beat: Bay Street’s first-rate production does it proud!Set against a backdrop of rolling hills with fine musicians nestled in, the play is funny, charming; every song, dance and scene rises above the noise of our current events. When Annie and her love-at-first-sight beau/ foe Frank Butler sing, “They Say It’s Wonderful” in Act 1, I was melting in my seat. A leitmotif for Act 2, their romance holds sway, much because of the talents of the two leads, Matthew Saldivar as Frank Butler and especially Alexandra Socha as Annie Oakley. A coming of age story too, this is her show.
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In Sagaponack, the house Richard Zoglin shared with his late wife Charla Krupp sits nestled on wooded grounds: immaculate, swimming pool, antique adorned, just the way she, a style editor for Glamour and In Style Magazine, left it. By contrast, the subject of Zoglin’s new book, Elvis in Vegas: How the King Reinvented the Las Vegas Show, which tells “The King’s” story in transforming Las Vegas entertainment, is as much about the place itself in all its tawdry madness: a culmination of Zoglin’s work in his last two books, Comedy at the Edge: How Stand-Up in the ‘70’s Changed America, and Hope: Entertainer of the Century, taken together, his books form a trilogy in the history of American entertainment, well researched and themselves well, highly entertaining. -
Many who grew up watching 60 Minutes regularly will find Avi Belkin’s documentary, Mike Wallace is Here, a trip down memory lane. And still, this fresh look at a premiere television show, and career we thought we knew, offers many surprises. Wallace worked his charm and good looks on commercials, and other odd acting jobs. When he first came on board for this great show, known for superb reporting, his colleagues thought he would not be rigorous enough. He proved them wrong. And at a recent special screening at the Whitby Hotel, with 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Croft attending, as well as a stellar group of documentarians, Barbara Kopple, Karen Goodman, Katherina Otto-Bernstein, the consensus was, here was a serious journalist, and an impressive, entertaining look at an esteemed part of American culture by an Israeli filmmaker. -
Two white sculptures stood grandly erect on a corridor of green, stately gentlemen greeting guests for the annual summer benefit at LongHouse Reserve in East Hampton. In plaster over burlap, the work by the artist/ filmmaker/ sculptor Julian Schnabel fit the earthy yet well-groomed site, a home to art by Yoko Ono and Buckminster Fuller. Schnabel was to be honored that evening, along with fashion designer Donna Karan. At cocktails, Schnabel’s family, his wife Louise Kugelberg, and sons Vito, Cy, and Olmo Schnabel circled Julian as Hal Willner, Zac Posen, Laurie Anderson, and Benjamin-Sainte Clementine gathered and kibitzed before the celebration. Laurie would perform that evening, and Julian brought Ben to perform too, at a dinner hosted by Jack Lenor Larsen. Ralph Gibson, Florence Fabricant, Fern Mallis, and many others wore rose for the occasion, themed la vie en rose. -
Oh for the days when “Trigger” was simply the name of Roy Rogers’ horse. In Safe Space, a new play by Alan Fox and under Jack O’Brien’s deft direction, in its final performances at Bay Street Theater, “trigger” is that plucked from the headlines buzzword for inciting a sensitivity—any psychological, cultural, relevant sore spot– it is safe to say, that boggles the imagination. You just want to scream, “get over it,” as Jenny, an Asian American student at the fictive Alman College, in the name of a student activist group, tries to get a black instructor fired for giving an assignment that, in her trigger-speak, justifies slavery. Huh? -
Two decades ago, the legendary Allman Brothers Band swept through the Hamptons landing at Montauk’s Deep Hollow Ranch for an unforgettable outdoor concert, the audience poised on haystacks when the crowd wasn’t whooping it up to the great music. It was huge! On Saturday night, their kids, led by Devon Allman and Duane Betts, showed off their talents at Guild Hall. The genes don’t lie. Yes, the concert was part of Guild Hall’s popular guitar series; the rockers gave that big concert feeling inside the intimate East Hampton arts venue, where dancing in the aisles for the “Eat a Peach” classic, “Blue Skies” was irrepressible.And the thrill of Nashville-based JD Simo joining them for “Purple Rain!” His trio opened the set, bringing down the house with “Mind Trouble,” and his cover of Joe Cocker’s “[High With] A Little Help From My Friends:” “What would you do if I sang out of tune?” he crooned. Trust me, he doesn’t.
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A “live documentary” by the filmmaking team Sam Green and Joe Bini, A Thousand Thoughts is a true celebration of collaboration in media ("live documentary") and joyful art-making. At Guild Hall this week, in a production with the Hamptons International Film Festival, Sam Green narrated the Kronos Quartet history in a film, in the presence of the string quartet, performing on violins, viola, cello, and for one selection, water-filled glassware. That’s the live part. The players, David Harrington, John Sherba, Hank Dutt, and Sunny Yang, accompany themselves and the many artists who have worked with them, including Allen Ginsberg, Philip Glass, and Laurie Anderson, present on this dynamic night. -
Just before his death in 1997, Allen Ginsberg wrote to President Bill Clinton advising him that just in case he was going to name an American poet laureate, this would be a good time to honor him. As we know, that never happened. But look around: Allen, over 20 years after his death, is everywhere. In Martin Scorsese’s documentary of Bob Dylan’s tour, Rolling Thunder Revue on Netflix, the poet is named “The Oracle at Delphi,” giving him some classic, other-worldly stature. Seated Buddha-style he lends a religious benediction to a rock and roll tour that features Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Patti Smith, Sam Shepard, Anne Waldman, Ronnie Blakely, and others. Dylan’s great music is of course the star, but Allen exercises his chops. A highlight of the tour that starts in 1975 is a visit to fellow poet Jack Kerouac’s grave, near his birth home in Lowell, Massachusetts. Only recently dead since 1969, Kerouac may have enjoyed Ginsberg and Dylan cavorting and reciting from “Mexico City Blues” and otherwise paying homage to the dead beat. -
Sylvia Miles passed away today at 94. She always said she would not leave this earth without her academy award but sad, to report, that she did. A two-time nominee for just minutes of screen time in Midnight Cowboy (1969) and Farewell My Lovely (1975), Sylvia was a New York actress who would not relocate to Hollywood for greater fame and fortune, or better roles. Just last month MoMA featured the work of Abel Ferrara: in his Go Go Tales (2007), Sylvia Miles wears a Chanelesque jacket, as she performed opposite Burt Young, landlords to a downtown dance club run by Willem Dafoe. The movie ends with her sweet rendition of “Bed, Bath, and Beyond,” because the big store was going to replace the edgy pole dancing venue. Ah, gentrification. Sylvia made much of that jacket and the way it defined her character. I am so happy that she urged me to the screening, so I could see her in action from a bygone time, even if only in a movie. She wanted me to report any press to her, in the event that attention was paid. -
Designing Women in its 20th Year: The Look of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Game of Thrones, 60 Minutes
Photo: Regina WeinreichThe makeup, hair people and costumers behind the scenes rarely get their due attention, but for 20 years, New York Women in Film and Television, has been celebrating them. While women are under represented in media, and often paid less than men doing the same jobs, makeup artists, hair stylists, and costume designers enjoy a distinct parity, even if they are not as publicly visible. As comedian Zainab Johnson, host of last evening’s star-studded event at the Directors Guild Theater pointed out, “Women can do anything.” Everyone in this room could laugh at how banal that sounded.
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Not so long ago, having dinner with a friend at Café Un Deux Trois, a stone’s throw from the Belasco Theater where Network was doing brisk business, I could see the actor Tony Goldwyn on the street walking pensively. We waved and he waved back. Having not yet seen the show, I did not know that in a minute he would be in a fierce embrace with co-star Tatiana Maslany and that the audience for Network was watching too, thanks to some inventive camera work. The show’s star Bryan Cranston was already dubbed this year’s Best Actor in a Drama, word of mouth, and I was determined to see Network before its closing. Suddenly it was the last week of the show and somehow I snagged the very last ticket for the last week’s Wednesday matinee. -
Open Roads, an annual festival of new Italian cinema, kicked off this week at Film at Lincoln Center with a screening of Piranhas, directed by Claudio Giovannesi. Introducing his film, Giovannesi recalled having begun the script two years ago in New York, when he met with the novelist Roberto Saviano, the famed author of Gomorrah, about Neapolitan mobsters; their script for Piranhas won the Silver Bear in Berlin. -
A bed sits center stage at the Broadhurst Theater, in a Hell’s Kitchen apartment from the 1980’s. As Terrence McNally’s Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune opens, Michael Shannon as Johnny and Audra McDonald, Frankie, make passionate love. From the grunts and groans, it’s pretty good sex we are witnessing, and when Johnny turns over, applause breaks out at the sight of his bare rump. Bodies are not all that’s naked in this intimate two-hander: as these co-workers in a diner have this night together, they talk and peel back histories of hurt. -
As the Tony Awards draw near, it is worth noting, at Bay Street Theater, in one very funny scene of a new play, The Prompter, an actress makes her Best Actress acceptance speech without thanking the very person most responsible for her award, her prompter. In her return to theater after a 20 year hiatus, Irene Young (the marvelous Tovah Feldshuh) simply cannot remember her lines and requires the services of Wade Wade Dooley, co-star and writer) to whisper through an ear piece the entirety of the work she is performing down to her stage movements. As narrated by the charming and talented Wade, Irene’s thank-yous are the source of angst. He knows how crucial he is to her performance, and by gosh, he deserves it. Besides, his mother is watching. -
Photo: David AndrakoMost women are loath to tell their age. Not Mary Wilson, the former Supreme now holding court at the Café Carlyle. When you see her, as you absolutely must, you will understand why 75 is a point of pride. Sassy and smart, sublime and simply gorgeous, she commands the stage, singing songs you know. When she forgets the lyrics to the 1966 hit, “My World is Empty Without You,” she’ll tell you, I was too busy doing my “oohs, ahs, and baby babies” behind Diana Ross (also 75, by the way) to actually say those words. And the audience, eating it up, helps her out, even as she segues into “Fever.” We are all backups for the night.
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Fashion designer Halston was a presence in Montauk in the heady 1970’s, renting from Andy Warhol on an oceanfront property east of town. One of the joys of Frederic Tcheng’s documentary Halston, produced by Roland Ballester, is seeing Halston at leisure with family seaside. Like Warhol’s estate, co-owned by filmmaker Paul Morrissey, Halston eventually went corporate, taking his Bergdorf Goodman pedigree to the masses in an ill-advised deal with J.C. Penney. For Halson’s A-list career, this was the beginning of a down journey. Yes, all of that is explained in the film, in the cocaine fueled, wild parties seen in archival footage. Using interviews with Pat Cleveland and Joel Schumacher, Halston’s unique moment in fashion is illuminated. His models, known as the Halstonettes, worshipped him. Looking movie star elegant, hair slicked back, impeccably groomed, he was in his heart, a Midwesterner, and wished most of all to re-establish his American roots. -
Advice for graduating seniors is de rigueur at commencement. Rocker/ poet/ memoirist Patti Smith had much to advise the School of Visual Arts graduating class last week, having composed her speech the day before in a dentist’s chair. Resist the temptation toward materialism, was one thought, as were words from William S. Burroughs: Keep your name clean, when she asked the Naked Lunch author for his wisdom. Mainly she said, follow your vision without compromise. -
Selma director Ava DuVernay’s epic mini-series, When They See Us, to stream on Netflix, about a sensational case of racism and ill-justice reaching back to the late 1980’s, premiered at the Apollo Theater this week. Remember “wilding,” and five black teenagers convicted of a brutal rape of a jogger in Central Park, and their later exoneration? This is that story. Back in the day, the focus was on the hideous violence of the crime, and the young white woman, the victim, left to die. The media went berserk over “wilding,” teens looking to rob and beat innocent people, just for fun. Behind all of this was a seriously beaten woman who became a cause celebre, and some police officials trying to make their name. Today, in the #metoo era, and a time when a glaring light shines on the plight of blacks murdered by authorities, the case plays very differently. And that could be reason enough to tune in to this four-part series, but that’s not all. Especially when you know where it’s going, When They See Us is riveting, a must-see event. -
Luxury bags are thrown onto plush couches in Susan Gutfreund’s sitting room overlooking Central Park: mostly Chanels and a random Hermes. They reserve seats for the fashion show marking the annual “Collaborating for a Cure Ladies Lunch” to benefit the Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation. This year designer Dennis Basso, who surely dressed many women in the room over the years with his sable coats, mink shrugs, and three quarter length ermine jackets, attended to oversee his models. On a cold May midday, a fur would have been nice, and unobjectionable in these environs, even if politically incorrect everywhere else. A ban on trading in fur may even be made law with heavy penalties. But that was not the point. The point is cancer, and it is still killing us. -
Tattoo sporting white supremacists make skin crawl, almost as much as the violence perpetrated in the name of hate. Expanded from an Academy Award winning short, Guy Nattiv’s Skin, a feature at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival, stars a scary Jamie Bell, in over his head with a homeland terrorist “family.” Dad is Bill Camp, mom Shareen, a woman so smooth as she recruits new warriors into their hate group, offering sandwiches and hugs to runaways, you can see why Bryon could be so gulled, until he meets a family offering the dream of a “normal” life. Still, with his facial tats, he could never pass. And besides, they’d never let him leave. -
Portraying his beloved Shakespeare at last, Kenneth Branagh, both director and star, imagines the bard’s life in his final years. “He was after all a man,” proclaimed Branagh, introducing his new film, All is True, to a Broadway elite at the SAG-AFTRA Foundation: The Robin Willians Center for an intimate premiere. The film’s idea: after the famous Globe theater burned down, Shakespeare returned to his birth home, Stratford-on-Avon, to his wife Anne Hathaway (Judi Dench), and children. There, he does what any man would do, damage control to redeem himself for his long absence, talk about his legacy with the Earl of Southampton (Ian McKellen), and garden. This is known: both his daughters were engaged in scandals, and his son died mysteriously. Women were unschooled, and any impropriety would lead to a witch-hunt. There is enough drama, and family dysfunction, in other words, to enliven the creative chops of screenwriter Ben Elton for this gorgeously made period piece! -
The sound of typewriter clicks permeates “Camp: Notes on Fashion” the Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute’s extravaganza exhibition, relieved only by a recording of Judy Garland singing “Over the Rainbow,” from The Wizard of Oz. The MET gala, its yearly benefit this week, may only exist as a distraction from all that the “Camp” show shows, with un-wearable art on celebrities devised to do and outdo the “camp” theme, dressing up itself as camp. But the exhibition, taken from Susan Sontag, the twentieth century diva of cultural dialogues, is a cerebral tour de force.
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