As guests filed into the room for a special screening of The Seagull at Lincoln Center, Patti Smith was enthusiastic for Chekhov, and Christopher Walken nodded hello to guests that included John Cameron Mitchell, Lena Hall, Ben Shenkman, Patricia Bosworth and A. M. Holmes. Stephen Karam who adapted the classic for director Michael Mayer brought Jayne Houdyshell. Playwright of The Humans, Karam had not yet seen The Seagull with an audience, and seemed thrilled: everyone laughed in the right places. The Seagull is, of course, a tragedy.
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- Documentaries: Jocelyn Wildenstein The Lion Queen/ Tovah: How Jewish is It?
- Hamptons Journal: John Waters at Guild Hall: “Gay is not Enough” / “Cagney” at Bay Street/ “Signs” at the Bridgehampton Museum Tractor Barn
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The specialness of the Carlyle Hotel, as landmark and cultural shrine to old New York, cannot be overestimated. So says a documentary film, Always at the Carlyle, directed by Matthew Miele and executive produced by the Carlyle’s own Jennifer Cooke, that premiered this week at the Paris Theater, itself an old New York cultural shrine. With many patrons such as Anthony Bourdain and George Clooney (they know a thing or two about hotels) extolling the hotel’s virtues, and Jon Hamm’s gentle critique of its prices–$10, 000 for one of the suites—yikes, and homages to legendary guests like Jacqueline Kennedy, and the scandals of a secret tunnel Marilyn Monroe is said to have used to enter for a tryst with John F. Kennedy—more yikes! -
Beloved Broadway and television star Linda Lavin plays the Café Carlyle as if she is the most gracious host, inviting guests into her living room for an intimate soiree. One of those guests on the night we attended was Hal Prince who directed her in Candide, a reminder that though she’s known more for dramatic roles, and comedy, she can sing. As chanteuse for her Café Carlyle debut she is warm, charming, providing a distinct comfort zone of classic tunes. Age-less in sparkling blue, she wants to know, “I look pretty good, don’t I?” as if she needed to ask! -
To say the latest MET Costume Institute exhibition, “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination,” is up there, as gorgeous, generous, and sumptuous as these yearly shows get, is to flirt with the ethereal. The Catholic imagination, as His Eminence Timothy Michael Cardinal Dolan, Archbishop of New York, stated in his remarks at the MET’s Temple of Dendur, where divine cookies and coffee approached the sacrament, is testament to Christ’s art. The church is about truth, good, and beauty in praise of God, he said. One part Vatican, and another Versace, with gem-stones and jewels, capes threaded in gold juxtaposed with modest peplum monk-styled couture and almost no skin-revealing gowns and wedding dresses, the fashion inspired by Catholicism is a revelation. -
Helen Mirren Honored at the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Gala: Sashaying from Wild Child to Dame
“F-U-C-K,” Helen Mirren let out a primal scream from the stage of Alice Tully Hall, receiving her Film Society of Lincoln Center Chaplin Award from Jeremy Irons. “I just had to get that out of my system,” Mirren started the long version of her career history beginning with acting as the Virgin Mary at age 6. Well known for bawdy humor, she’s also known to have played the Queen “more times than RuPaul,” quipped speaker Robert DiNiro, who also noted, see what happens when you have weak immigrant laws. Isn’t it great that this award was given to both Charlie Chaplin and Helen Mirren, he went on, before launching into a commentary on the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner: seeing her look mildly hurt, he almost for a moment thought Sarah Sanders was human. And so a night dedicated to great acting over decades took a turn into the immediate and timely. -
What is presidential? This week at the Tribeca Film Festival, a special screening featured part one of four of the Netflix series, Bobby Kennedy for President, marking the 50th anniversary of his 83-day presidential run. Filmmaker Dawn Porter deftly intercut archival footage with key interviews, with John Lewis, for example, William vanden Heuvel, and D. A. Pennebaker in this first segment, focusing particularly on Robert Kennedy’s history with racism, that pernicious American disease that simply does not go away. The film forces a reevaluation of this Kennedy brother, what might have been had he not been murdered and gone on to serve in our government’s highest position, and how the dignity of this man reflects upon the man in that office today.
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The movie Diane happens to be about a woman of a certain age, played to perfection by Mary Kay Place, in one of the most compelling performances of the year. Diane happens to be based on writer/director Kent Jones’ mother, dealing with friends and family around her in dramatic circumstance or dying, and a son (Jake Lacy) struggling with drug addiction in rural Massachusetts, where, by the way, a good deal of Bible thumping serves as a threat. -
Planet Earth was the star of the Sarasota Film Festival’s closing night film, Rory Kennedy’s Above and Beyond: NASA’s Journey to Tomorrow, just in time for Earth Day. Following up on an aspirational speech given by her uncle, President John F. Kennedy, about going to the moon at Rice University, Kennedy’s documentary tells the history of NASA from the ‘60’s to the present, how space, the planets, and the universe, have been explored and what scientists have learned about the Earth. David Bowie may sing his query, Is there life on Mars? And the answer is still looking for signs. For sure, the Earth is vulnerable. Global warming is irrefutable. Following the screening, a panel featuring Kennedy, Mark Bailey, her husband and the film’s producer, and scientist Dr. Ellen Stofan answered questions about the possibilities of life beyond our planet, and the excitement of continued exploration. What about space tourism? -
Introducing her song, “Popular,” on her opening night at the Café Carlyle, Megan Hilty quipped, ““Wicked” is about a beautiful blond who helps others.” Tweaking the theme of the popular Broadway musical, making her Glinda the star, was a glimpse into the humor and charm Hilty brings to her intimate supper club act. At the Café Carlyle, it would be odd to have an evening of musical theater from Megan Hilty without this signature number, this being her fourth time at the Carlyle, she says proudly, “and I’m not pregnant.” She studied opera, she tells us, and learned she loved musical theater. Revealing the demands of the genre for a soprano, she goes low for the tune “Alto’s Lament,” obsessed with the songwriters Zina Goldrich and Marcy Heisler, and warning everyone, this would be a weird, eclectic set. -
At lunch at the Rainbow Room recently, Priscilla Presley joined a panel of Elvis experts, journalists and filmmakers to illuminate "The King's" rags to riches career. Certainly an American original, Elvis Presley was a dreamboat to teens when he first began to sing, swiveling his hips on the Ed Sullivan Show. Of course they famously photographed him from the waist up for television’s primetime viewing. But on stage, that was something else. Music aficionados knew his sources, gospel, country, and rhythm and blues, idioms of the South. While many thought his moves brazen, no one contested his musicianship. Priscilla Presley, keeper of the flame who has worked well to maintain his legacy in the public eye, wants everyone to know he was a “Searcher,” the theme of the new two-part HBO documentary about him, that she hopes will force a reappraisal of his art. -
Playwright Edward Albee wrote many plays and won the Pulitzer Prize for three of them. When I asked him about these honors, he replied, “You never know why you get them, and why you didn’t.” Anyone who sees Three Tall Women from 1994, now elegantly revived at the Golden Theater, will understand why this three-hander did. Much has been made of the actress Glenda Jackson in the formidable role of “A,” and Laurie Metcalf in the bridge role of “B,” and Alison Pill as the 26-year-old “C.” Line up the Tony Awards now. Albee’s words, both abstract and specific circle around an emblematic woman’s history, her wiles, excesses, entitlements, and deprivations. Deeply funny, just hear “A” recounting how her husband appeared naked to her with a diamond bracelet hanging on his stiff “pee pee” aimed at her face. “I just couldn’t do that,” she cries proclaiming herself a “good girl,” astonished that she is revealing this intimacy. “Oh keep the bracelet,” she remembers him saying, as the audience howls. -
“In our 20th year, we have more films than ever,” Mark Famiglio, Chairman and President of the Sarasota Film Festival said in a phone interview about the two-week event now underway until April 22. While many beautiful locations world over can boast of a film festival, SFF is often noted as a well-kept secret for its intimacy, and inspired audiences, reflecting the community’s commitment to the arts. This year Sarasota is especially popular for the new boutique hotels gracing the city’s downtown, and a new building space designated for the festival. “We were at the epicenter of financial collapse in 2008,” Famiglio exclaimed. “We recovered. Today we are well programmed, well conceived and FUN. Maybe we will last another 20 years.” -
“I have a vagina,” Padma Lakshmi announced, calling female genitalia by as many names as she could muster including the “c” word. The food network impresario was accepting the KARMA award for her work as founder of the Endometriosis Foundation of America, and revealing years of pain and bleeding with no relief because the condition—and many women suffer it—had not yet been diagnosed. By the time this year’s Variety’s Power of Women M. C.Samantha Bee hit the podium, noting that this jam packed Cipriani Wall Street was Mike Pence’s idea of hell, I had been treated to one Bellini and a hand massage by Z’nea in a pop up spa for SheaMoisture in a corner of the spacious former bank. Feeling no pain, I found out SheaMoisture, a premiere sponsor of this yearly luncheon presented by Lifetime, not only smoothed out every gnarl on my hands, this is a company that sends 10% of its profits to African women.Yes, there were big names featured at this luncheon from Emily Blunt to Tamron Hall, who was awarded the Commerce Impact Award by SheaMoisture, to Tina Fey. With its high-octane focus on promoting reading and education for girls, the safety, nourishment, and education of children, and yes, “me too,” this was no ordinary event. Each speaker was an inspiration for empowering others. U. S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand made opening remarks assuring everyone, time’s up. Viola Davis introduced Tarana Burke who explained how this was the next chapter of the women’s movement, that after the violence of sexual assault, survivors need to be heard and believed and to keep going. Billie Jean King is giving her $100,000, she said tearing up. “If you are ready to help, I have two words for you, ‘me too.’” -
The revival of Rodger’s and Hammerstein’s classic Carousel at the Imperial Theater is a vivid a reminder of what the Broadway musical can do, simply good storytelling in song and dance. Old school and fresh, Carousel has you in its grip from the moment you see an ornate canopy descend and umbrella into the carny top of a ride, a-spin for the dazzling romance that unfolds. A girl, Julie Jordan meets a boy, Billy Bigelow and the rest is the pure pull of irresistible, young love and consequent tragedy. While we all remember the songs “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” and “If I Loved You,” with Renee Fleming, Jessie Mueller, and exceptionally gifted voices from Lindsay Mendez and Alexander Gemignani, you are reminded of this works’ operatic soul. It’s gorgeous, but most exceptionally for Joshua Henry as Billy, intense, damaged, and lost. During intermission you could hear murmurs of comparison with Paul Robeson; this actor has it all, and can he dance! -
At the Paula Cooper Gallery for MATA’s 20th birthday celebration, Mexican percussionist Diego Espinosa faced the challenge of performing a 1967 work by Philip Glass, with the world-class composer seated several feet away. Instrument: an ordinary caterer’s foldup table. Soon in the cathedral style space, the sound of rhythmic scratching rose to the skylights. The piece, “1 x 1,” had been created on a kitchen table, Espinosa explained later, and he memorized the notes, applying them freely. Crouching down, he added the metal of the table’s spindly legs to the act, improvising on every surface. If a definition of “new music” were needed to kick off MATA’s week of experimental music concerts, this opening performance illuminates. -
Everyone who loved the 2004 movie on which the new Broadway musical Mean Girls is based will be queuing up at the August Wilson Theater where Barbie pink reigns supreme. While you can never be sure about adaptations, you can count on Tina Fey’s witty words to lift even the most sophomoric subject to pure comic gold. It’s not just that this is high school, duh, the drive to dominate is understood in terms of jungle hierarchies. The class queen bee, Regina George (Taylor Louderman) is “apex predator,” determining all that matters in the cafeteria and fragile egos of her peers, especially the two girls, eh, attending maids in mega heels and mini skirts (Ashley Park and standout Kate Rockwell). In comes the new girl, Cady Heron (Erika Henningsen), a transfer from the wilds of Africa, whip smart and eager to fit in. She learns, just play by the rules: never wear a tank top two days in a row. -
“This is a family story,” described John Krasinski at the premiere of his latest directorial effort, A Quiet Place. But isn’t this a horror movie? Krasinski stars alongside his life partner, as he refers to his wife Emily Blunt for this fresh take on a classic nail biter, featuring a family’s attempt at survival in a creaky house set in a world invaded by creatures sensitive to noise. “How far would you go to protect your family?” Krasinski asked the rapt crowd.Casting Millicent Simmonds, the star of last year’s Wonderstruck is simply brilliant. A young actress from Utah, Simmonds is deaf, and the film’s family, her parents, and brother must sign with her. That is the near soundless world of this tight movie, in which Blunt’s character is challenged to give birth, alone in a bathtub, without making a single squawk. The audience becomes attuned to all aspects of the filmmaking, the cinematography (from Charlotte Bruus Christensen who worked with Blunt on Girl on the Train), and Marco Beltrami’s music for example. This is what innovative filmmaking is all about. Play with sound, and all senses are heightened.
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1985, the year in which the 3 parts of Millennium Approaches, Part 1 of Angels in America is set, everyone is having fears and anxieties about the year 2000 like everyone is perched on the edge of a cliff waiting to fall off. Just as in the ‘90’s when Tony Kushner’s masterpiece was first staged, now at the Neil Simon Theater in a luminous production under the direction of Marianne Elliott, the characters experience dreamlike visions: Prior Walter hallucinates ancestors of the same name. He has mysterious lesions, as does Roy Cohn, the infamous McCarthy era lawyer visited by the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg. Harper Pitt on a Valium low suffers visions of falling into a black hole. Her husband Joe prowls the parks in search of what? Along the way, the talk is of earth, Reagan, and race. The end of the world is coming. You know because the great book rises from the stage’s floor and bursts into flames. Yes, paranoia plagued us in 1985, and in 1993, when Angles was staged in New York, only now we know more about how our nightmares turn out. I am not yet over the delicious discomfort of this spectacle that is Angels in America. -
When Billy Crudup played opposite Natalie Portman in the movie Jackie, as a reporter interviewing Jackie Kennedy in the aftermath of her husband’s assassination, you saw the actor as he looks in most of his films, a handsome Clark Kent type. The extraordinary feat of Harry Clarke, his one-man show at the Minetta Lane Theater, is the ease with which we lose the actor for Harry Clarke, the inner extrovert of his character Philip Brugglestein. Talk about identity fluidity. -
“I love you,” Judy Collins, a vision in white from mane to silvery toe, shouted out to Clive Davis, and to everyone present at the Café Carlyle for opening night of her enchanting show. She calls the evening “A Love Letter to Sondheim,” but her range of feeling, and vocals, encompasses all, even in her finale, “Send in the Clowns,” which she introduces with a most subtle political jab, “we know where the clowns really are.”Her own composition, “Maria,” a nod to West Side Story, reminds her, “This land was made by dreamers.” Of course her career spans lots of political moments, as she knew Dylan, Stephen Stills, and Leonard Cohen. When she sings his “Suzanne,” her crystalline voice fills the room, and out pour memories of his coming to her with material because he knew she could sell a song: “What can I tell you about Leonard Cohen?” Her friend brought him to her, saying, “His poetry is obscure. He’s never going to go anywhere.” But, says Judy, he was the smartest one. He died the morning of the election.
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For his run at the Café Carlyle this week, John Pizzarelli focuses on one of his inspirations, Nat King Cole, who would be 99. On guitar and vocals, John fronts an outstanding band of jazz musicians: Mike Karn on bass, Konrad Paszkudski on piano and “the sheriff” Andy Watson on drums for standards including “Paper Moon,” “Sweet Lorraine,” and “Straighten Up and Fly Right.” Yes, regulars wanted to know, where is Jessica? Well John’s wife and partner in music Jessica Molaskey was taking the night off. And how is Bucky? John’s father doesn’t make the rounds any more. Still, Bucky Pizzarelli is often the star of the lore and anecdotes by which this erudite and schmoozy performer laces together his not-to-be-missed show. -
At the Metropolitan Museum this week it was easy to forget that Wes Anderson’s brilliant new movie, Isle of Dogs, is animated. Oracle, a pint-sized pug, announces snow is on the way, and she was right. New York was bracing for another blizzard, its fourth of the season. That’s a tall blond woman, you think looking at the adorable Oracle situated as all the dogs are, on a junk heap; she’s voiced by Tilda Swinton. She and co-stars including Anderson regulars Jason Schwartzman who also worked on the script, Bill Murray, Bob Balaban, Greta Gerwig, Frances McDormand, and a young find, Koyu Rankin, who plays the lead boy, all joined the incredible art team for the movie’s grand premiere to create this Japanese themed confection of imperiled canines in stop-motion animation. -
Brrr! It’s been so cold in New York, the tropical island in the new musical, Escape to Margaritaville at the Marquis Theater, is a vision of welcoming palm trees asway in a warm breeze. Who wouldn’t want to veg in Paradise, drink in hand, with hunks all around? But early on in this entertaining show of Jimmy Buffett’s greatest hits, you feel the grind for those who make it their life, dropouts like Tully (Paul Alexander Nolan) and his sidekick Brick (Eric Petersen), and Marley (Rema Webb) who owns the rundown resort where the guys serenade on guitar and tend bar, respectively. Serving the never ending ferry loads of vacationers sporting wide brim straw hats, Hawaiian shirts, and sandals, Tully for one has island fatigue when we meet him. Well, you know what they say about nirvana, it’s so boring. That is, until, and you can guess, a smart and snappy workaholic scientist named Rachel (Alison Luff) arrives with her best pal Tammy (Lisa Howard) who’s set for, not a fling but a flirt, on the eve of her wedding to the wrong guy. -
At the Brooklyn Museum, “David Bowie is . . .” draws huge crowds, as it should. Dense with history, art, and music, the exhibition, a transplant from Europe where I first saw it in Berlin, is essential viewing. My memory piece from January 2016, written on the occasion of Bowie’s unexpected death, seems especially appropriate:
I was a huge Bowie fan back in the day, which made it strange that I did not recognize him when I met him backstage at The Bottom Line during a Steve Reich and his 18 Musicians concert. This light haired, well-groomed guy stood there in an argyle vest and pegged pants. Maybe I was clueless because he wasn’t wearing lipstick or glitter. The preppie guy and I talked about the lizard on top of the Lone Star Café at 13th Street and 5th Avenue very near home for me in the West Village. As we chatted, a room full of people leaned in. I could feel the heat of their bodies and curiosity. What were we talking about, rapt and oblivious to them? -
Back in the day, Rose Styron, the writer and wife of William Styron, recounted the story of an American delegation of authors visiting Rio, among them her friend the playwright Arthur Miller. Local headlines focused on Miller, the husband of Marilyn Monroe. In this rich documentary of her father, Rebecca Miller addresses the matter of her father’s second and most famous wife, but told John Guare in a post-screening conversation at MoMA, this was really not discussed in their family life, except for the random anecdote. The daughter of Miller and his third wife, photographer Inge Morath, Rebecca Miller interviewed her father for the last 25 years of his life—he died in 2002– with Ellen Kuras filming, and then was in post-production for another eight, to make Arthur Miller: Writer, to air on HBO next week.
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